“Well,” she said as she breezed into her little daughter’s room, “you certainly are doing credit to your public school training! Coming out into the kitchen and addressing a little hoodlum from the back country with that elegant expression ‘Hello!’ I certainly am ashamed of you, and I shall have to speak to your father about this. Haven’t you learned yet that you mustn’t speak to strange boys? Had you ever seen him before that you dared to address him so informally right before your mother? A young scapegrace with bare feet? I ask you, had you ever seen him before?”
“Oh yes,” said Patricia. “I see him in school, though he’s not in my grade. I only see him once in a great while. But he’s not from the back country, Mother; he’s considered one of the best scholars in his grade.”
“Well, I’m sorry for his grade, then. That speaks well for your school that they allow a barefoot boy to come to school!”
“Oh, he is not barefoot when he comes to school,” protested the child. “He wears nice shoes like any of the boys.”
“And so that’s a specimen of the public school children, is it!” went on Mrs. Prentiss, ignoring her daughter’s explanation. “Well, I certainly shall make your father understand how you are mixing with common people and saying ‘Hello’ to them as if you were a child of the street.”
Patricia’s lip trembled.
“But Mother, Gloria says ‘Hello’ all the time. All the girls do. Even the girls in dancing school, I mean. It’s what they say now. It’s considered what they call smart and up-to-date!”
“Be still, Patricia! Don’t you take to answering back. I suppose you learned that in your precious school, too, where your huckster-playmate learned it. Upon my word, we are coming to a pretty pass, hobnobbing with farm children!”
“Well, but I don’t!” said Patricia earnestly. “I never spoke a word to him before. I just see him in study hour, across the room, and of course he’s seen me and heard my name when I was reciting. I thought it wouldn’t be polite not to speak to him in my own house.”
“Polite!” sniffed the lady furiously. “As if you had to be polite to a little hoodlum like that. Now, Patricia, I want it thoroughly understood that you are not to do that again. If he comes here with honey or fruit, just understand he is a laborer like any of the delivery people from the stores and you have nothing whatever to do with him. If I find you in conversation with him again, I shall have to refuse to buy from him anymore. Do you understand?”
Patricia’s head drooped.
“Yes, Mother,” she said meekly, but she stood for a long moment looking out the window thinking, realizing that this was something she could not understand. She shrank from appearing unfriendly if she should happen to meet John Worth around the house unexpectedly. But she mustn’t ever be around when he was there or she would lose him a chance to sell his wares, and she realized that it was probably important to him to sell them, or he would not be going around trying to dispose of them. How complicated life was growing. So many things she must not do that she couldn’t understand, because they seemed to her things that were really right to do. And they all seemed to center around her darling school and the dear little church where she and her father liked to go. Why was it so? Why couldn’t Mother and Father be alike in their ways of thinking? She sighed deeply, and her mother, passing her door again, heard and looked toward her, annoyed.
“For pity’s sake, don’t stand there mooning about nothing! Get your hat and go on that errand at once! It’s almost an hour since I told you about it. And wash your face! You’ve got tear stains all around your eyes. So ridiculous, weeping because I refused to let you become friendly with a child who is far beneath you. I’m afraid you have low tastes. That’s what it does to be continually in the company of common people! I declare you get more and more difficult! If this keeps on, we may have to move to another suburb. Perhaps then we could select a suitable school and there would be some hope of you growing up with a few decent manners.”
Patricia caught her breath and went swiftly to her wardrobe to get her hat and then depart on the errand. But her heart was sore as she walked along the street, with the sunlight flecking through the young maple leaves from the arching trees above. She felt somehow as if she had been the cause of bringing unpleasantness to the nicest boy in school, and it made her very unhappy. The worst of it was that she couldn’t in any way make up for it. There wasn’t a way of explaining it or apologizing to John Worth without being disloyal to her mother. And Patricia had a very strong feeling of loyalty to her family.
The next winter Patricia was ten. One day when the creek was frozen and the skating wonderful, Patricia had permission to go skating with a group of girls who went to the same dancing school. She was never allowed to go to the creek with her own schoolmates. There had been a grand battle before she even learned to skate, until her father took matters in hand and taught her himself. Then grudgingly the mother consented, provided the companions might be of her choosing.
That day they had gone down to the creek together—Gloria Van Emmons, Katherine MacShane, Sylvia Vane, and Martella Rankin.
“I do hate to have you little girls going down to that horrible creek alone. Seems to me there might be some nice boys to go down with you,” said Patricia’s mother as they started cheerfully off.
The other girls laughed.
“Oh, we don’t want any boys!” they said with a knowing wink and a grin at each other. “Anyway, there’ll be plenty of people around the creek. The skating is swell!”
“Well, I wish you girls would stay on this upper end of the creek. Don’t go down where the whole village is. I hate to have you knocking around with all the loafers of the village!”
Gloria Van Emmons giggled and called rudely from the gate: “Okay, Mrs. Prentiss,” and darted on ahead.
Patricia wondered what her mother would think of such informal address. Most of the girls at the public school would have been more courteous, she thought. But she went on her way, happy to be off skating, though she wasn’t especially fond of these girls.
They were halfway down the hill to the landing, where they intended to sit down and put on their skates, when a large snowball struck Patricia’s shoulder and another knocked her hat off, while a third smashed into the back of her head and made her so dizzy she lost her balance and toppled over in the snow.
“There they are!” cried Gloria with a giggle. “That’s Thorny Bellingham and Terence Gilder with his gang. I knew all the time they were coming, but I didn’t want to tell your mother, because I didn’t know who Thorny would bring with him. And it’s lucky I didn’t. Your mother wouldn’t have stood for Terence. His father keeps the tavern down at the crossroads, but he’s a swell guy; he always brings candy, and he can skate all around anybody else I know. Come on, Pat, be a sport and get up. You don’t want them to think you’re a softy!”
Patricia sat up and looked back angrily. She hated Thorny! She was almost sure he had been the one who had thrown the last snowball. She felt dazed with the sting of it, and large icy fragments of it were sliding down inside her collar and clipping down her back.
The boys came on with a rush. They were approaching from the direction of the Prentiss house. Patricia suspected that her mother must have had something to do with their coming, or at least with their knowing just where to find the girls.
She struggled to her feet and gave her head a little shake, but she did not smile, nor respond to the noisy greeting of the new arrivals. Instead, she stood at one side to let them pass, indignant scorn upon her, her young eyes flashing.
“Hello, Pitty-Patty, what’s eating you?” asked Thorny, leering up into her face. “Want yer face washed, Pitty-Patty?” He stopped and gathered a big handful of snow and rushed down the hill at her as if to carry out his threat.
Patricia in a flash saw what he was about to do and dodged his onslaught so skillfully that Thorny was thrown off his balance and went down the hill, rolling over and over from the unexpected counter
and cutting a long jagged gash on the back of his knuckles on a stone as he fell. It was little more than a deep scratch, but it brought the blood and it was painful. Thorny, with a howl, clasped his injured hand and knew not that he was weeping large splashing, furious tears. When the sting of the pain was more bearable, he lifted his voice in words—choice epithets, the worst he had been able to learn so far in his young life—and applied his maimed hand to his mouth. Sucking furiously, he unfolded himself from the earth and made as if he would come toward her again.
Patricia meanwhile stood her ground, her frightened young chin held steadily, haughtily, though it was all she could do to keep her lips from trembling. She had seen enough of Thorny to know that he would stop at nothing to wreak his vengeance upon her.
After a surprised, swift, admiring glance at her, the little audience took up the fight, this time aimed at Thorny.
“Cry-baby, cry! Cry-baby, cry!” they hailed him, pointing the finger of scorn, albeit ready to run themselves should Thorny recover his poise too soon.
Thorny turned his bleared anger toward them at once.
“Aw, shut up, you fool kids!” he roared. “I’m not crying. That’s just—just—perspiration, that’s all!” he said, mopping off his cheeks with his dirty hands. Then, discovering the red streak, “It’s just sweat and blood!” he shouted. “See there!” He hunted out a grubby handkerchief and mopped it over his hands and face and held it forth all bloody. “See what that little old cat did ta me? She’s a little devil, she is!”
Patricia was surveying him with contempt, and suddenly Thorny caught her glance and writhed in his naughty young heart. He’d get even with her!
He struggled to his feet and dashed down the hill a few steps to Gloria.
“Come on, Glory. I’ll go with you! I ain’t going ta have anything more to do with that little cat. She’s a regular panther-cat, she is. She’s a—a—a—a!” He searched his mind for the right adjective to couple with cat.
“Hellcat!” he shouted, as Patricia turned and walked with stately tread back up the hill.
The girls were greatly impressed. They giggled.
“Oh, Thorny!” Gloria applauded. It sounded very grown-up and sophisticated to her. “Say it again, Thorny! That’ll make her awful mad!” Gloria was ordinarily proud to call herself a friend of Patricia’s, but she couldn’t resist the temptation to get in with handsome twelve-year-old Thorny who had never looked at her before.
“Say it again, Thorny!” she urged eagerly, grasping his none-too-clean hand fervently.
And Thorny said it again, screamed it, several times, standing halfway down the hill looking back at his former dancing partner as she walked across to the path that led up to her father’s house, paying no attention whatever to the epithets that were being flung freely up the hill after her now, amid an admiring audience of her own companions.
Suddenly it grew very still, ominously still down the hill there, but Patricia did not pause, nor waver, nor turn to look. She walked steadily on, swinging her skates by their strap as nonchalantly as if nothing had happened.
Thorny could not have done what happened next if there had not been a worn, beaten path from the top of the hill to the bottom, made by many young feet who had gone that way for the last few days. Quite silently and cautiously, he stole back up that hill after Patricia. Before she was at all aware he was upon her. The little company of admirers who had heard him announce his intention stood below in breathless silence, waiting to see if he could accomplish it.
Deftly, as he reached her side, Thorny leaned forward and snatched the strap of Patricia’s skates from her, almost whirling her from her footing. Then he turned and dashed down the hill.
Patricia did not cry out. Instead, she stood there for an instant and gazed after Thorny, appalled. Those were her new skates, a recent gift from her father, the skates she had so longed for, and this was to have been the first time she had worn them since trying them out in company with her father. And now they were in Thorny’s power, and there was no telling whether she would ever see them again! Or if she did, whether they would not be broken, dulled, spoiled in some way. He was perfectly capable of it, she was sure, and he would stop at nothing to have vengeance on her.
For just that second’s time she surveyed the young hoodlum, and then her firm childish lips set themselves and her eyes flashed fire! That should not happen! Thorny should not spoil her lovely skates!
A quick glance around her showed her a handy weapon. A long branch of an oak tree, broken down and flung by the side of the path. There were dried brown leaves still clinging to its twigs, and particles of ice.
With a quick flashing movement like a bird, she swooped and caught it up, then plunged down the hill after Thorny. Her motion as she went was still like a bird in its flight. Her feet scarcely seemed to touch the ground, so swiftly they went. She seemed to have no fear of losing her footing; it was as if she could not fall because she was skimming over the path so fast. It was just like flying.
Suddenly the little audience below looked up and saw her coming. They all stopped and cried out.
“Look out, Thorny! She’s coming!” breathed the girls in exquisite fright, backing away from her path.
“Beat it, Thorny! Pat’s coming! She’s got a big stick! Beat it! Beat it!”
Thorny dropped the strap he was holding and obeyed. He ran so fast down the hill that, when he reached the bank, he rolled right out on the ice in his haste and had much ado to pick himself up. His adherents scattered widely away from oncoming vengeance, for they all felt they would be more or less involved this time. And it frightened them a little. All of them. For Patricia was a girl whom they respected and admired, even if she did go to the public school. Perhaps that made it still more fearsome to alienate her, because it was rumored that people who went to the public school had all kinds of courage. Besides, Patricia’s father had a strong arm when he was angered. Some of them had experienced it.
By the time Patricia had reached her skates, stopped to recover them, and lifted her head again to look across and up and down the creek, there wasn’t a hide nor hair of one of them. They had utterly vanished.
She looked steadily for two or three minutes to make sure they were not hiding in the bushes nearby, and then she found a comfortable seat on the bank and sat down to change her shoes. After all, she was out with her skates, why not enjoy them? It was not often she got permission.
It gave her satisfaction to reflect that her mother had schemed to get Thorny along with them, and then it had all been his fault that she had been ill-treated. If her mother could just have seen what happened, maybe, maybe she would get over the idea that Thorny was an ideal companion. Perhaps she would tell her mother all about it when she got home. Or would she? Wouldn’t her mother just think her child was prejudiced because Thorny didn’t go to the public school? Well, perhaps she wouldn’t tell her mother, but she would surely tell her father. He would understand why she didn’t like Thorny.
When Patricia had her skates fastened, she stepped cautiously out upon the ice, keeping her eyes out for a possible ambush of enemies. She skated in a wide circle, nonchalantly, trying the ice, her circle widening until she started up the creek. Should she follow them, or take an opposite direction?
Well, she wasn’t sure which way they had gone, they had scattered so quickly. They might have hid in the thick undergrowth and slipped along the bank. They might be anywhere, of course. But she didn’t want them to think she was afraid of them. She was, terribly afraid of Thorny. He was ruthless. But he mustn’t know it or she would be in his power. If he knew she dreaded him, he would torment her all the more.
She circled around to the place from which she had started and picked up her oak branch. She would take that with her, just in case.
So with the branch held in front of her like a hockey stick, she started skating, her body bending gracefully, making strong quick strokes with her skates, and exulting in the ring of steel on ic
e.
There were many marks on the ice of skaters who had been here in the middle of the creek, yet Patricia came upon nobody, and she could not be sure whether her companions of a few minutes before were ahead of her or not, or whether they had climbed the hill out of sight and gone down another way. But she held her head high and skated on.
Off in the distance she could hear far voices, laughter, calling, but as she went on up the stream, they grew more and more dim, until at last she could hear nothing.
She knew that today the village people were having some sort of informal contest on the ice, old and young together, and that all her own school companions would be down the other way. But that was the way her mother had forbidden, and Patricia usually tried to mind her mother.
Then suddenly she heard a voice.
Chapter 4
“I wouldn’t go up that way any farther,” it called. “The ice is weak up there! It isn’t safe.”
“Oh!” said Patricia, curving around to look at the speaker. That was John Worth! She smiled shyly.
And then suddenly she heard an ominous crack.
“Come away from there!” cried the boy sharply. “No, not over there. Here, this way! Hand me the other end of that branch,” he commanded.
Patricia could sense the thinness of the ice beneath her skates, and fear possessed her. But she was a courageous little soul and she trusted John Worth. With one hand outstretched, she held out the branch until the boy could grasp it and pull her to safety. Then she lifted a suddenly white face and frightened eyes.
He grasped her mittened hand in his strong one.
“Let’s go.”
Patricia glided along by his side, her skates ringing with his, in perfect time.
Patricia had never skated this way before, in step with one her own size. Her father was so much taller that he had had to suit his strokes to hers when he was teaching her. And the girls who had been out with her had been so jerky and uncertain in their movements that she had preferred to go alone. But this was like poetry of motion. The boy was just a little taller than herself, and his strength seemed to guide her and bear her along. This was real teamwork. She was breathless with the delight of it, and her face was wreathed in smiles.