“I’m sure I don’t see why the clocks don’t keep the right time,” said Mrs. Barlow. “A man comes every Saturday on purpose to wind and set them all.”
“We fool with them,” confessed Bob. “You see, Patty, we all like to get up late, and we set our clocks back every night, so that we can do it with a good grace.”
“Yes,” said Helen, “and then if we want each other to go anywhere through the day,—on time, you know,—we go around the house, and set all the clocks forward. That’s the only possible way to make anybody hurry up.”
Patty laughed. The whole conversation was so characteristic of the Barlows as she remembered them, and she wondered how they could enjoy living in such a careless way.
But they were an especially happy family, and most hospitable and entertaining. Patty thoroughly enjoyed her afternoon, although they did nothing in particular for her entertainment. But Aunt Grace was very fond of her motherless niece, and the twins just adored Patty.
At five o’clock tea was served, and though the appointments were not at all like Mrs. Allen’s carefully equipped service, yet it was an hour of comfortable enjoyment. Uncle Ted came home, and he was so merry and full of jokes, that he made them all laugh. Two or three casual callers dropped in, and Patty thought again, as she sometimes did, that perhaps she liked her Barlow cousins best of all.
Dinner, not entirely to Patty’s surprise, showed some of the same characteristics as luncheon had done. The salad course was lacking, because the mayonnaise dressing had been upset in the refrigerator; the ice cream was spoiled, because by mistake the freezer had been set in the sun until the ice melted, and the pretty pink pyramid was in a state of soft collapse.
But, as Aunt Grace cheerfully remarked, if it hadn’t been that, it would have been something else, and it didn’t matter much, anyway.
It was this happy philosophy of the Barlow family that charmed Patty so, and it left no room for embarrassment at these minor accidents, either on the part of the family or their guest.
“Now,” said Patty, after dinner, “if necessary, I’m going to set all the clocks forward, for, Helen, I do want you to be ready when Mrs. Allen sends for us. She doesn’t like to be kept waiting, one bit.”