CHAPTER VII
DIFFERING TASTES
A few days before the close of the old year, Patty sat at her desk in thelibrary of Boxley Hall.
She was making lists of good things to be ordered for the feast onNew Year's day; and, as it was her first unaided experience withsuch memoranda, she wore an air of great importance and a deeplypuckered brow.
Mancy, with her arms comfortably akimbo, stood before her young mistressready to suggest, but tactfully chary of advice.
They were not yet living in the new home, but all the furniture was inplace, the furnace fire had been started, and the palms arranged in thelittle conservatory.
So Patty spent most of her time there, and some of the Elliotts wereusually there with her.
But this morning she was alone with Mancy, struggling with theall-important lists.
"I'll make the salad myself," she remarked, as she wrote "olive oil" onher slip of paper.
"Yas'm," answered Mancy, rolling her eyes with an expression of dubiousapproval. "Does yo' know how, missy?"
"Oh, yes," said Patty confidently; "I can make most beautiful saladdressing. Only it does take quite a long time, and I shall have a lot todo Thursday morning. Perhaps I'd better leave it to you this time, Mancy.Can you make it?"
"Laws, yes, honey; and yo'd better leave it to me. Yo'll have enough todo with yo' flowers and fixin's, and dressin' yourself up pretty. I'll'tend to the food."
"Well, all right, Mancy; I wish you would. And, now, just help me withthis list. I'll read it to you, and see if you think of anything thatI've forgotten."
"Yas'm," said Mancy, who was most anxious to help, but who had alreadylearned that Patty was a little inclined to resent unasked advice.
They were deep in the fascinating bewilderments of grocers' andgreengrocers' wares, when Pansy Potts appeared in the doorway.
"Miss Patty," she said, "I've done all the things you told me to do; andI watered the palms, and I've poked around that bunchy rosebush, but I'm'most sure it's going to die; and now, if you please, when can I be letto fix up my own room?"
"Sure enough, Pansy," said Patty; "we must get at that room of yours, andwe'll fix it up as pretty as we can."
"Mine, too," said Mancy; "I wants my room fixed up nice. I fetched a lotof pictures to liven it up some, but I reckon I ain't got no time to put'em up to-day."
"Oh, yes, you have, Mancy," said Patty, rising; "and, anyway, we'll goright up and look at those rooms; then I can tell what we need to getfor them."
"Mine won't need anything," said Pansy, "except what's in it already,and what I've got to put in it myself. I brought my decorations overthis morning."
"Oh, you did?" said Patty. "Well, bring them along, and we'll all goupstairs together."
"I'll get mine, too," said Mancy, shuffling toward the kitchen.
The servants' rooms were in the third story. They had been freshlypapered and neatly and appropriately furnished, though Patty had not, asyet, added any pictures or ornaments.
And, apparently, she would have no occasion to do so; for, as she went upto these rooms, she was immediately followed by their future occupants,each of whom came with her arms full of what looked like the mostworthless rubbish.
"What _is_ all that stuff, Pansy?" exclaimed Patty, as she beheld heryoung waitress fairly staggering under her load.
"They're lovely things, Miss Patty, and I hope you don't mind. This is ahornet's nest, and this is a branch of an apple tree, with a swing-bird'snest on it."
"A branch! It's a big limb,--a bough, I should call it. What _are_ yougoing to do with it?"
"I thought I'd put it on the wall, Miss Patty. It makes the room lookoutdoorsy."
"It does, indeed! Put it up, if you like; but will you have room then toget in yourself?"
"Oh, yes," said Pansy cheerfully; "and I've got a big tub over home thatI want to bring; it has an orange tree planted in it."
"With oranges on?"
"Oh, no, not oranges; indeed, it hasn't any leaves on, but I think maybethey'll come."
"It must be beautiful!" said Patty. "But if it hasn't any leaves on, it'sprobably dead."
"Oh, no, Miss Patty, it isn't dead; and it had leaves a-plenty, but mylittle brother he picked the leaves all off. That's one reason I wantedto come here, so's to get my orange tree away from Jack."
"Well, bring it along," said Patty good-naturedly. "What else are yougoing to have? A grape-vine, I suppose, trained over the headboard ofyour bed."
"No, Miss Patty, I haven't got no grapevine, but I've got awandering-jew-vine in a pot, that I want to set on the mantel."
"All right," said Patty, "bring your wandering-jew, and let him wanderwherever he likes. You'll have to keep your door shut, or he'll wanderout and run downstairs. What's in that bag?"
"Rocks, Miss Patty."
"Rocks? What in the world are you going to do with those?"
"I'm going to make a rockery, ma'am, by the window. They're justbeautiful. Miss Powers has one in her parlour, and I always wanted one,but mother wouldn't let me have it, 'cause she says it clutters."
"But, what is it?" said Patty. "How do you make it?"
"Oh, you just pile the stones up in a heap, and you stick dried grasses,and autumn leaves and things, in them; and, if ever you have any flowers,you know, you stick them in, too."
"I see; it must be very effective; and sometimes I can give you flowersfor it, I'm sure."
"Thank you, Miss Patty; I hope you will. Oh, I'll be so glad to have it;I've been saving these stones for it for years. You see, they'rebeautiful stones."
Pansy Potts was on her knees arranging the stones, many of which werejagged pieces of quartz shining here and there with mica scales, into asymmetrical pile, which somehow had the effect of a Pagan altar.
"Well," said Patty, as she watched her, "I don't think you'll need any ofthe decorations I expected to give you."
"Oh, Miss Patty," said Pansy earnestly, "please don't make me havepictures, and pincushions, and vases, and all those things; I like my ownthings so much better."
"You shall fix your room just as you choose," said Patty kindly; "and ifI can help you in any way, I'll be glad to do so. How are _you_progressing, Mancy?"
Patty stepped across the hall to her cook's room, and found its stoutoccupant rather precariously perched on a chair, tacking up a picture.She had evidently improved her time, for many other pictures were alreadyin place, and, what is unusual in either a public or private art-gallery,the pictures were all exactly alike. They were large, very highlycoloured, unframed, and, in fact, were nothing more or less thanadvertisements of a popular soap. The subject was a broadly-grinning oldcoloured woman, washing clothes, that were already snow-white, in a seaof soapsuds.
"For goodness' sake, Mancy!" exclaimed Patty. "Who said you might drivetacks all over these new walls, and where did you get all those picturesof yourself?"
"They does favour me, don't they, missy?" exclaimed Mancy, beaming withdelight, as she took another tack from her mouth, and pounded it intoplace. "I got 'em from de grocer man, and co'se I has to tack 'em, elsehow would dey stay up?"
"But you have so many of them."
"Laws, chile, only a dozen; youse got mo'n that on the libr'y wall."
"But ours are different; these are all alike."
"Co'se dey's all alike! I des nachelly gets tired of lookin' at differentpitchers. It 'stracts my head."
"I should think these would distract your head. I feel as if I were in akinetoscope."
"Does that mean art-gal'ry?"
"Not exactly; but tell me, Mancy, did you get all these pictures becausethey looked like you? And was the grocer willing to give you so many?"
"Yas'm. But I 'spects I'll hab to confess a little about dat, Miss Patty.You see, I dun tole him I was gwine t' work for yo', and dat's huccome heguv 'em to me."
"That's all right, Mancy. After he gets that long order we made out thismorning, I'm sure he'll feel he was justified in favouring us; but g
etdown out of that chair. In the first place, you'll fall and break yourneck, and if you don't, you'll break the chair. Get down, and I'll tackup the rest of your pictures."
"Thank you, missy, do; and I'll hand you the tacks. There's only sixmore, anyhow. I 'llowed to have three over the mantel, and two over thatwindow, and one behind the door."
"But you can't see it; that door is usually open."
"No'm; but I'll know it's there jes' the same."
"All right; here goes, then," and soon Patty had the rest of the gaudylithographs tacked into their designated places.
"Now, Mancy," she said, as she jumped down from the chair for the lasttime, "you don't want any other pictures, do you? It would interfere withthe artistic unities to introduce any other school."
"Laws 'a' massy, chile; I don't want to go to school! Miss Patty,sometimes you does cert'nly talk like a Choctaw Injun. Leastways, _I_can't understand you."
"It doesn't really matter," said Patty, "and we're even, anyway; for Ican't understand why _you_ want those fearful posters in your room,instead of the nice little pictures I had planned to give you."
"Oh, yes; I knows yo' nice little pictures! with a narrow black ban',jes' about the size ob a sheet of mo'nin' paper! No, thank you, missy,no black-bordered envelopes hanging on my wall! Give me good reds andyallers and blues; the kind you can hear with yo' eyes shut. That is,ef yo' don't mind, missy. Ef yo' does, I'll take 'em all rightslam-bang down."
"No, no, Mancy; it's all right. In your own room I want you to have justexactly what you want, and nothing else. Now, let's go and see howPansy's getting along."
The rockery was completed, and was a most imposing structure. Wheat earsand dried oats were sticking out from between the stones, and pressedautumn leaves added a touch of colour. At the base of the rockery were alarge pink-lined conch-shell and several smaller shells. On the wallswere various branches of different species of vegetation; among others atangle of twigs of the cotton plant, from which depended numerous bolls.
Pansy was struggling with a lot of evergreen boughs, which she was tryingto crowd into a strange-looking receptacle.
"How do you like it, Miss Patty?" she asked, as Patty stood in thedoorway and gazed in.
"I like it very much, for you, Pansy," replied Patty. "If this is thekind of room you want, I'm very glad for you to have it; only, I don'tknow whether to call it 'First Course in Mineralogy,' or 'How to Tell theWild Flowers,'"