Patty's Suitors

CHAPTER XIII

SISTER BEE

One afternoon Patty and Marie Homer were coming home from a concert.

Patty had grown very fond of Marie. They were congenial in many ways, and especially so in their love of music, and often went together to concerts or recitals.

It was late in March, but as spring had come early the afternoon was warm and Marie proposed, as the two girls got into the Homer limousine, that they go for a ride through the park.

"A short one, then," said Patty, "for I must be home fairly early!"

"Then don't let's go in the park," said Marie, "let's go to my house, instead. For I want you to meet Bee. She's just home for her Easter vacation."

"I can only stay a minute; but I will go. I do want to see Bee. How long will she be at home?"

"More than a fortnight. She has quite a holiday. Oh, there'll be gay doings while Bee's at home. She keeps the house lively with her pranks, and if she and Kit get started they're sure to raise mischief."

"How old is Beatrice?"

"She's just seventeen, but sometimes she acts like a kiddy of twelve. Mother says she doesn't know what to do with her, the child is so full of capers."

As the two girls entered the Homer apartment, Beatrice Homer ran to meet them.

"Oh, you're Patty Fairfield! I KNOW you are! Aren't you the loveliest thing ever! You look like a bisque ornament to set on a mantel-piece. Are you real?"

She poked her finger in Patty's dimpled cheek, but she was so roguish and playful, that Patty could not feel annoyed with her.

"Let me look at you," Patty said, holding her off, "and see what YOU'RE like. Why, you're a gipsy, an elfin sprite, a witch of the woods! You have no business to be named Beatrice."

"I know it," said Bee, dancing around on her toes. "But my nickname isn't so bad for me, is it?" And she waved her arms and hovered around Patty, making a buzzing noise like a real bee.

"Don't sting me!" cried Patty.

"Oh, I don't sting my friends! I'm a honey-bee. A dear, little, busy, buzzy honey-bee!" And she kept on dancing around and buzzing till Patty put out her hand as if to brush her away.

"Buzz away, Bee, but get a little farther off,—you drive me distracted."

"That's the way she always acts," said Marie, with a sigh; "we can't do anything with her! It's a pity she was ever nicknamed Bee, for, when she begins buzzing, she's a regular nuisance."

"Sometimes I'm a drone," Bee announced, and with that she began a droning sound that was worse than the buzzing, and kept it up till it set their nerves on edge.

"Oh, Bee, dear!" Marie begged of her, "WON'T you stop that and be nice?"

Bee's only answer was a long humming drone.

Patty looked at the girl kindly. "I want to like you," she said, "and I think it's unkind of you not to let me do it."

Bee stopped her droning and considered a moment. Then she smiled, and when her elfin face broke into laughter, she was a pretty picture, indeed.

"I DO want you to like me," she said, impulsively, grasping Patty's hands; "and I will be good. You know I'm like the little girl,—the curly girlie, you know,—when she was good she was awful drefful good, and when she was bad she was horrid."

"I'm sure you couldn't be horrid," and Patty smiled at her, "but all the same I don't believe you can be very, VERY good."

"Oh, yes, I can; the goodest thing you ever saw! Now watch me," and sure enough during the rest of Patty's stay, Beatrice was as charming and delightful a companion as any one you'd wish to see. She was bubbling over with fun and merriment, but she refrained from teasing, and Patty took a decided liking to her.

"I'll make a party for you, Bee," she said. "What kind would you like?"

"Not a stiff, stuck-up party. I hate 'em. Can't it be a woodsy kind of a thing?"

"A ramble through the park?"

"More woodsy than that. The park is almost like the city."

"Well, a picnic to Bronx Park, then, or Van Cortlandt."

"That sounds better. But I'll come to any party you make,—I know it will be lovely. Oh, I'll tell you, Patty, what I'd like best. To go on one of your Saturday afternoon jinks; with the queer, poor people, you know."

"They're not queer and they're not always very poor," returned Patty, seriously; "I'm afraid you'd tease them or make fun of them."

"Honest Injun, I wouldn't! Please let me go, and I'll be heavenly nice to them. They'll simply adore me! Please, pretty Patty!"

"Of course I will, since you've promised to be nice to them."

"Oh, you lovely Patty! Don't you sometimes get tired of being so pink and white?"

"Of course I do. I wish I could be brown and dark-eyed like you."

"You'd soon wish yourself back again. Can't you combine the woodsy party and the Happy Chaps, or whatever you call them?"

"I think we can," smiled Patty, who had already planned a Saturday afternoon picnic, and would be glad to include Bee.

"But Bee has to learn to behave properly at formal parties," said Marie. "I'm going to give a luncheon for her, while she's at home, and it's going to be entirely grown-up and conventional."

"Don't want it!" and Bee scowled darkly.

"That doesn't matter. Mother says we must have it, and that you must behave properly. You have to learn these things, you know."

"Oh, Bee will do just exactly right, I know," said Patty, as she rose to go. "If she doesn't, we can't let her come to the picnic. When is the luncheon, Marie?"

"We haven't quite decided yet, but I must send out the invitations in a day or two."

Patty went home, thinking about this sister of Marie's.

"She's an awfully attractive little piece," she said to Nan, later, "but you never can tell what she's going to do next. I think if she had the right training, she'd be a lovely girl, but Mrs. Homer and Marie spoil her with indulgence and then suddenly scold her for her unconventionality. Perhaps the school she's attending will bring her out all right, but she's a funny combination of naughty child and charming girl. She would stop at nothing, and I don't wonder that they say when she and Kit Cameron get together, look out for breakers."

A few days later, Patty received an invitation to Marie's luncheon for her sister.

It was formally written, and the date set was Tuesday, April the eighth, at half-past one. Patty noted the day on her engagement calendar, and thought no more about it at the time. But a day or two later it suddenly occurred to her that she had heard that Beatrice was to return to school on the seventh of April.

"I must be mistaken about her going back," Patty thought, remembering the luncheon on the eighth, and then, lest she herself might be mistaken in the date, she looked at the invitation again. It read "the eighth," and though Marie's handwriting was scrawly and not very legible, the figure eight was large and plain.

"She ought to have spelled it out," said Patty, who was punctilious in such matters.

"Yes," agreed Nan, "it's those little details that count so much among society people."

"Well, the Homers are dears, but they lack just that little something that makes people know when to spell their figures and when not to. I think it's horrid when people spell a date in ordinary correspondence. But an invitation is another thing. But I say, Nan,—Jiminetty crickets!"

"I'm not sure that date-spelling people ought to refer to those crickets," said Nan, lifting her eyebrows.

"Well, Jerusalem crickets, then! and every kind of crickets in the ornithology or whatever they belong in. But, Nan, I've discovered something!"

"What, Miss Columbus?"

"Oh, I'm a Sherlock Holmes! I'm Mr. D. Tective! What DO you think?"

"If you really want to know, I think you're crazy! jumping around like a wild Indian, and you a this season's debutante!"

"Rubbish! most debutantes are wild Indians at times. But, Nan, I've discovered their secret! Hah! the vilyuns! but they shall be foiled! foiled!! FOILED!!!"

Patty raged up and down the room, melodramatically clutching at her hair and staring at Nan with her blue eyes. "It is a deep-laid plot, but it shall be foiled by Patricia Sherlock,—the only lady detective in captivity!"

"Patty, do behave yourself! What is the matter with you? You act like a lunatic!"

"I'll tell you, Nan, honey," and Patty suddenly sat down on the couch, among a pile of pillows. "But first read that invitation and see if you see anything unusual or suspicious about it."

"I can hardly read it; for this writing looks like that on the obelisk,—or at least it's nearly as unintelligible. But it seems to say that Mrs. Robert Homer requests the pleasure of your company at luncheon on Tuesday, April the eighth, at half-past one o'clock. Nothing criminal about that, is there?"

"Is there! There is, indeed! Nan, you're the dearest, sweetest, loveliest lady in the whole world, but you can't see a hole through a ladder. So I'll tell you. The date of that party is really April the FIRST. I mean, Marie wrote April the first! And if you'll observe, somebody else has put a twisty line around that ONE and made it into an EIGHT! Why, it's as plain as day!"

"It certainly is, Patty," and Nan looked at the girl in astonishment and admiration. "How did you ever happen to notice it?"

"Why, it just jumped out at me. See, a different pen was used. The line is thicker. And nobody would make an EIGHT that way. They'd make it all with one pen mark. And this is a straight up-and-down ONE, and that rest of it was put on later. And, anyway, Nan, if there were any doubt, don't you see it isn't TH after it as it ought to be for the eight, it's ST?"

"You can't tell which it is in this crazy handwriting," and Nan scrutinised the page.

"Yes, you can," and Patty stared at it. "You wouldn't notice the difference, if you weren't looking for it, but it IS ST. I see it all, Nan! You know Bee didn't want this luncheon, and to get out of it, she changed that date before the invitations were sent! And you see, by the eighth, she'll be back in school!"

"Are both dates Tuesday?" said Nan, thinking.

"Yes, of course, they are. Isn't it clever? Oh, Bee never got this up all by herself,—that Kit helped her."

"But, Patty, then nobody will go on the first, and the Homers will be all prepared—"

"That's just what Bee wants! One of her practical jokes! Oh, Nan, I do detest practical jokes."

"So do I! I think they're ill-bred."

"But the Homers don't think that, and Kit Cameron doesn't, either. We've discussed that matter lots of times, and we never agree. And, besides, Nan," and Patty had a new inspiration, "don't you see, this party was planned for the first of April, and Bee and Kit will call this thing an April Fool joke, and therefore entirely permissible. April Fool's Day is their Happy Hunting Ground. But I'm going to foil this thing, and don't you forget it! Seems to me it would be a pretty good joke if I'd turn the tables on those two smarties."

"How can you, Patty?"

"I haven't quite thought it out yet, but I have an idea."

"But, Patty, wait a minute. Perhaps they only changed the date on yours,—just to fool you, you know."

"Good gracious, Nan! perhaps that's so! How did you come to think of it? But I'll soon find out."

Patty flew to the telephone, and in a short time learned that both Mona and Elise were invited for the eighth, and she concluded that the plotters had changed the date on all the invitations.

Next she called up Marie, and without letting her know why, asked for a list of the luncheon guests.

Marie told her at once, without asking why she wanted to know.

There were nine beside the Homers, and Patty was acquainted with them all.

She called them up each in turn on the telephone, and explained carefully that a mistake had been made in the invitations, and she hoped they would come on the first instead of the eighth.

Fortunately, all of them were able to do this, and Patty enjoined each one to say nothing about this change of date, until they should arrive at the party.

To a few of her more intimate friends,—Mona, Elise, and

Christine,—she told the whole story, and they fell in with her plans.

And so it came about, that on the first of April preparations were going blithely forward in the Homer apartment, for Bee's elaborate luncheon.