“Here, Vera, you have more brains than the other girls, help me to move these crates. Polly Burton considered it possible to run a community farm without a farm animal within twenty miles. But then she was not brought up on a small place in Ireland where we kept the pig in the parlor!” And here Miss Patricia’s rich Irish brogue betrayed her cheerfulness for she only gave sway to her Irish pronunciation in moments of excitement.
The next moment, not only with Vera’s but also with Peggy’s and Alice Ashton’s aid, the four women dragged forward a large wooden box with open slats containing a noble collection of fowls, then another of geese and ducks. Finally with extreme caution they engineered the landing of a crate which had been the temporary home of a comfortable American hog and her eugenic family.
“Good gracious, Aunt Patricia, how did you ever manage to acquire such valuable possessions?” Mrs. Burton demanded.
“By ordering them shipped from my own farm in Massachusetts a month or more before we sailed for France and then by forwarding my address to the proper persons after we landed here,” Miss Patricia answered calmly. Ignoring any further assistance, she began opening a box which was filled with grain.
“I presume other things have arrived for me as well, Mary Gilchrist?” Miss Patricia questioned.
Mary nodded and laughed. She looked very fetching in her motor driver’s costume of khaki with the short skirt and trousers and the Norfolk jacket belted in military fashion. On her hair, which had ruddy red brown lights in it, she wore a small military hat deeply dented in the center.
“Goodness gracious, Aunt Patricia, dozens of things!” she replied. “You must have chartered an entire steamer to bring over your gifts to the French nation. Best of all, there are two beautiful cows waiting for you in Soissons at this moment. I could not bring them in the motor, nor did I dare invite them to amble along behind my car. But I have arranged with an old man in the town to escort the cows out to our place tomorrow, or as soon as possible.”
No one did anything but stare at Miss Patricia for the next few seconds.
Whether or not this condition of affairs made her unusually self-conscious, or whatever the reason, finally she rested from her labor of opening boxes to gaze first at Mrs. Burton and then slowly from one girl’s face to the other’s.
“I don’t mean to add to your burdens by asking any one of you to assist me in running my farm,” she began in a tone which might have been considered apologetic had it emanated from any one than Aunt Patricia. “I intend to find an old man to help and to do the rest myself.”