“They might if we were nearer. But a motor would get stalled before it could get over here and back again in these drifts. It’s an awful storm, Patty, and the sooner you make up your mind that we can’t go home to-night, the better for all concerned.”
“My mind’s made up, then,” and Patty danced about the room. “I don’t mind a bit! I think it’s a lark. Do you have feather beds, Mrs. Fay?—I mean the kind you climb up to with step-ladders.”
“Land no, child! We ain’t old-fashioned folks, you know. We have springs and mattresses just like you do at home. Well, I’m sorry if your folks are worried, but I’m glad to have you young people stay the night. Maybe this evening, you’ll sing for us some more.”
“We will,” said Philip. “We’ll sing everything we know, and then make up some.”
Once having made up her mind to the inevitable, Patty ceased bothering about it, and proceeded to enjoy herself and to entertain everybody else. She chatted pleasantly with the old lady, she coquetted with Philip, and finally wandered out into the kitchen to make friends with Eliza.
“Let me help you get supper,” she said, for, to tell the truth, the novelty of the situation had passed, and Patty began to feel a little bored.
“Supper ain’t nothin’ to get, miss,” returned Eliza, a rawboned, countrified girl who was shy in the presence of this city lady.
“Well, let me help you, anyway. Mayn’t I set the table?”
“I’m afraid you wouldn’t know where the things was. Here, take this dish and go down cellar for the butter, if so be’s you have to do somethin’. It’s in a kag, underneath the swing-shelf.”
“Swing-shelf?” said Patty, interested—“what is a swing-shelf?”