Patricia Read Online Free PDF Page A

reciting. I thought it wouldn’t be polite not to speak to him in my own house.”
    â€œPolite!” 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.
    â€œYes, 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.
    â€œFor 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.
    â€œI 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.
    â€œOh, 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!”
    â€œWell, I wish you girls would stay on this upper end of the creek.