The next morning Patty was the first one at the school-house, and she had nearly finished half the sweeping when Sarah Adams came, so she and Sarah had the half hour play together. Sarah was two years older than Patty, and a very quarrelsome girl, and she and Patty succeeded in quarelling so over the play-house they were building that neither little girl got much enjoyment from the reward of her labor.
As Patty intended to sweep the next morning, and did not want Sarah for a playmate, she lingered after school was dismissed to make arrangements with Aggie Bentley to assist her. They agreed that Aggie was to prevail upon her indulgent mother to allow her to start for school as soon as she ate her breakfast. Patty was to go at the same time, and they would have the sweeping done before Sarah, or any one else, should arrive.
But when the two little girls went into the entry to get their sunbonnets they noticed that the brooms were gone from the corner where they always stood.
“Perhaps they have been carried out of doors,” said Patty, and she looked out on the steps and in various possible and impossible places, but in vain; then she went into the house and told Miss Kelsey that the brooms were gone, and Miss Kelsey helped the little girls search. At last they all gave up. Then the teacher spoke:
“I suspect, Patty, some of the pupils think you have done enough sweeping for a while, and want to give you a rest, so have hidden the brooms. Never mind, you will have many more chances to do the sweeping, and besides you ought not to want all the half hours for yourself.”
But this did not comfort Patty very much; you will see she was rather a selfish little girl, and she did want all the half hours, as well as all other obtainable good things, for herself.
“It is that Sarah Adams who has hid them brooms,” she said to Aggie as they walked home together, “and she has just done it for spite. I wish I could think of some way to get ahead of her, but I can’t.”
“Well, we won’t have to go to school so early,” said Aggie; “you come over to my house and we will have a nice play before the bell rings.”
Before dark, however, Patty had thought of a way to “get ahead” of Sarah Adams. This was simply, to take a broom with her when she went to school the next morning. But a lion in the form of Patty’s mother stood in the way of her getting a broom; Patty knew she would never allow one to be taken away from home; if Patty took one she must take it without permission. Now there were but two brooms in the house; one stood in the kitchen and was in such constant use that Patty knew it would be missed long before she could return it; the other was kept in the hall closet and was used once a week, in sweeping the parlor and “spare room,” and the day before had been the regular sweeping day. This she must take if she took either, altho’ she knew she should not, but she did not allow herself time enough to think about it to be persuaded out of the notion; she took the broom from the closet, and in the gathering darkness carried it to a hiding place between the wood shed and the pig-pen, and then went to bed to be tormented all night with visions of her mother’s best broom:—an old beggar woman stole it away; a black witch mounted it, and rode to the moon, never to return; and lastly, Sarah Adams found it, and knowing Patty intended sweeping with it burned it up before her very eyes. Patty was glad when morning came, and she hurried out to assure herself of the safety of the broom, as soon as she was dressed. When she had eaten her breakfast she started to school with the broom, and stopped for Aggie Bentley. Aggie found an old broom which her mother said she might take. They swept and dusted the room in high glee, and Patty had perched herself upon one of the front desks, and sat kicking her heels in triumph, when Sarah Adams and Hattie Bitner entered with the hidden brooms.
“Needn’t mind sweeping this morning, girls,” said Patty; “and the next time you hide brooms you’d better hide all in Sagetown.”