CHAPTER XIII ELISE

In order that Patty might get home in time for school on Monday morning, she and Grandma were obliged to take a very early train from Vernondale.

So Marian and Frank went down with them to see them safely on the half-past seven train, and Brownie, the dog, accompanied them.

As usual, Marian was loath to let Patty go, and clung to her until the last minute.

Frank had already established Grandma in the train, and the conductor was about to ring the bell when, at the last minute, Patty jumped on.

The train was almost starting, but the conductor assisted Patty, and she seated herself beside Grandma, quite out of breath from her hasty entrance.

“I just hated to leave Marian,” she said, “for she did seem so sorry to have me go. But I promised to come back here to spend Thanksgiving, or else to have her spend it with me in New York, and that seemed to help matters a little.”

“You’d better have her plan to come to see you,” said Grandma, “for I think your father expects that Nan will be in New York about that time.”

“All right,” said Patty; “I don’t care as long as Marian and I are together. But for goodness’ sake, Grandma, will you look at that!”

Now “that” was nothing more nor less than Brownie, the dog, sitting in the aisle, blinking at them and contentedly wagging his tail.

“How did he get there?” said Grandma, with a bewildered, helpless air.

“I don’t know,” said Patty, laughing, “but there he is, and now the question is, what shall we do with him?”

Brownie seemed intelligently interested in this question, and continued to wag his tail and blink at Patty with an expression on his funny old dog face that was very like a wink.

“Marian will be worried to death,” said Grandma, with an air of consternation.

“Of course she will,” assented Patty, cheerfully, “but that isn’t the worst of it. The thing is, what are we to do with him now? You know they don’t allow dogs on the train.”

“I never thought of that,” said Grandma, helplessly; “will he have to go in the baggage-car?”

“There isn’t any baggage-car on this train. We’ll either have to throw him out of the window or hide him.”

“All right; we’ll hide him,” and Grandma coaxed Brownie to jump up into her lap. Then she pulled her travelling-cloak over him, until he was entirely concealed from view.

But the inquisitive conductor insisted on knowing what had become of the dog that followed these particular ladies on the train.

“He’s here,” exclaimed Grandma, throwing open her cloak and showing the quivering animal.

“He must be put off,” said the conductor, sternly; “we do not want dogs on the train.”

“All right,” said Patty, cheerfully; “neither do we. And the sooner you put him off, and us with him, the better it will be all around. For you see, Grandma,” she went on, “we’ve got to take Brownie back to Vernondale. Marian will have four thousand fits if we don’t, and, besides, we couldn’t possibly take him to The Wilberforce.”

Grandma said nothing; the emergency was too much for her to cope with, and she was glad to depend on Patty’s advice.

So Patty said to the conductor: “Please put us off just as soon as you can, for we have to take this dog back to Vernondale.”

But with the characteristic perversity of conductors, he said, “No stop, Miss, until Elizabeth. You can get off there—all of you.”

This was nearly half way to New York City, but there was no other way out of it, so, as Patty cheerfully remarked to Grandma, they might as well make up their minds to get off at Elizabeth and take Brownie back to Vernondale.

“Of course,” Patty went on, “I shall be late to school, and I’ll lose a mark, and that’ll throw Clementine ahead of me in the count, for we have been just even up to now; but I can’t help it; Marian’s dog must be taken home, and that’s all there is about that.”

Although Grandma Elliott regretted the necessity of Patty’s losing a mark, for she well knew how the child was striving for the grand prize, yet she appreciated and admired the philosophy which made the best of inevitable circumstances, and she agreed with Patty that there was nothing else to do.

So at Elizabeth they got off of the train, and with some difficulty persuaded Brownie to get off, too.

At this station it was necessary to cross under the elevated tracks to take the train in the opposite direction. Brownie, being ignorant of the imperative necessities of travel, objected to this, and it was only after some coaxing that Patty persuaded him to accompany them.

Meantime there was consternation at the Vernondale end of the route. After the seven-thirty train had left the station, Frank and Marian suddenly realised that since they could see Brownie nowhere around he must have gone on the train with Patty.

“What will they do?” queried Marian; “they can’t take him to New York, and I know they won’t abandon him, so of course they’ll turn around and bring him back on the next train.”

“Of course they will,” assented Frank; “but, let me see, the next train back doesn’t leave Elizabeth until eight-ten; now, if I take the seven-forty I can head them off, and they won’t have to come back.”

“That’s a great scheme,” said Marian; “go ahead! and I will wait here until you come back.”

So Frank took the next train, but as it chanced to be behind time, he reached Elizabeth just as the returning train was pulling out of the station, with Patty on board.

Expecting some such complication, Patty stood on the platform, and waved her hand to Frank, whom she saw on the incoming train.

“Brownie’s all right,” she cried, “but we’ll have to go back, now we’re started.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” Frank called back, realising that his journey had been for nought.

So Patty and Grandma and the dog whizzed into the Vernondale station and alighted to find Marian tearful and almost in hysterics.

“I’m so glad to see you,” she said, “and I’m so glad to see Brownie, and Frank has gone to Elizabeth, and Patty, won’t you be late to school, and did you ever know such a performance?”

Brownie flew around like mad, and wagged his tail as if he quite understood that he was the hero of the occasion, and then Patty and Grandma took the next train to New York City, and Marian was careful that Brownie should not accompany them this time.

And so that’s how it happened that Patty was late to school for the first time, and that one mark put Clementine ahead of her in the monthly report.

But, as Patty told her father, she couldn’t help the dog jumping on the train, and Mr. Fairfield agreed that that was quite true.

When Patty finally did reach school that Monday morning she saw that a new pupil had arrived.

This girl, as Patty first noticed her in the Literature Class, was exceedingly pretty, with large dark eyes and curly dark hair, and a general air of daring and self-assurance.

Somehow Patty felt that she didn’t quite approve of her, and yet at the same time she felt fascinated and mysteriously attracted toward the stranger.

It was not until the noon hour that she learned that the new girl’s name was Elise Farrington.

None of the girls seemed inclined to talk to the newcomer, and Patty, with a vivid realisation of her own feelings the first day of her arrival at the Oliphant school, determined to do all she could toward making the new arrival feel at home.

So, at noon-time she went to her and said: “They tell me you are Elise Farrington, and that this is your first day at the Oliphant school. I well remember my first day, and so I want to say to you that if I can do anything for you, or introduce you to anybody that you’d care to know, I shall be very glad to do so.”

Elise looked at Patty gratefully.

“You’re awfully good,” she said, “but truly there’s nobody I had any especial desire to be introduced to, except you. So suppose you introduce yourself.”

Patty laughed. “I’m Patty Fairfield,” she said; “but I’m not especially desirable to know. Let me introduce you to some of the other girls.”

“No,” said Elise, “you’re the one I picked out in the classroom as the only one I thought I should really like. Have you any especial chum?”

“Why, not exactly,” said Patty, smiling; “I’m chums with everybody. But I’ll tell you what: you’re new to-day, and of course you feel a little strange. Now it happens that the girl who usually sits next to me at luncheon isn’t here, so you come and sit by me, and then you’ll get a good start.”

Patty remembered how glad she would have been had someone talked to her like that on the first day of her arrival at the school, and she put Elise in Lorraine’s place, glad that she could so favour her.

During luncheon Patty entertained the new pupil with an account of her funny experience with Brownie that morning, and she found in Elise an appreciative listener to her recital.

At the same time, Patty could not quite make up her mind as to the social status of the new girl.

Elise seemed to be of the wealthy and somewhat supercilious class typified in the Oliphant school by Gertrude Lyons and Maude Carleton.

And yet Elise seemed far more simple and natural than those artificial young women, and Patty concluded that in spite of the fact that she belonged to one of New York’s best-known families she was unostentatious, and in no sense “stuck-up.”

For with all her sophistication and general effect of affluence, Patty seemed to see an undercurrent of dissatisfaction of some sort.

Not that Elise was sad, or low-spirited. Far from it, she was merry, frivolous, and quite inclined to make fun of her fellow-pupils.

“Did you ever see anything so ridiculous as Gertrude Lyons?” she asked of Patty. “She is so airy and conceited, and yet she’s nothing after all.”

Although Patty did not especially like Gertrude, this challenge roused her sense of justice, and she said: “Oh, Gertrude is all right; and I don’t think it is nice to criticise strangers like that.”

“Gertrude’s no stranger to me,” said Elise; “I’ve known her all my life. They live within a block of us, but we never have liked each other. I like you a lot better.”

Although Patty was gratified by this frank appreciation of herself, she didn’t quite understand Elise, for she seemed such a peculiar combination of flattery and cynicism.

After luncheon was over Patty introduced her to the other Grigs. The description of the society and its intents seemed to appeal especially to Elise, and she exclaimed: “Oh, let me join it, let me be a Grig, and we can meet in the Casino and have no end of fun.”

“What Casino?” asked Patty; “what do you mean?”

“Why,” explained Elise, “we have a private Casino of our own, you know. It’s right next door to our house, and connects on every floor.”

“But what is it?” asked Clementine; “I don’t understand.”

“Why, it’s just another house; father bought it, you know, and then fixed it up for us all to have all sorts of fun in. There’s a tennis-court, and a squash-court, and a bowling alley, and all sorts of sports and games. Oh, just come to see it, that’s all, and you’ll understand better than I can tell you.”

“Of course we’ll come,” said Clementine, who was always the pioneer. “When can we come?”

“Why, Thursday is my day,” said Elise; “you see there are five of us children, and we each have the Casino on a given day, and may invite whom we like. In the evenings, my father and mother invite their friends.”

“I think it’s the loveliest scheme I ever heard of,” said Patty; “and I’m sure we’d all love to come on Thursday. But as to making you a Grig, I’m not so sure. Are you always merry?”

“Merry? I should say I am. Why the family say I never stop giggling. Oh, goodness gracious! I’m merry enough; the trouble is to make me serious when occasion really demands it. Why, I’m always at the very topnotch of hilarity.”

“It seems to me,” said Hilda, falling into her presidential attitude, “that we might let Elise be the eighth Grig, until Lorraine is ready to join. And she certainly isn’t, yet.”

“She certainly is not,” said Patty, as she remembered Lorraine’s cross greeting that morning, “and I think your idea is all right.”