Carolyn Wells

Patty's Butterfly Days Carolyn Wells

That night, when Patty was alone in her own room, she threw herself into a rocking chair, and rocked violently, as was her habit, when she had anything to bother her. She lookedabout at the pretty room, furnished with all her dear and cherished belongings."To go away from all this," she thought, "and be mewed up in a little bare room, with a fewsticks of horrid old furniture, and nowhere to put things away decently!"She glanced at her room wardrobes and numerous chiffoniers and dressing-tables."Live in a trunk, I s'pose," she went on to herself; "all my best frocks in a mess of wrinkles, all my best hats smashed to windmills! No broad ocean to look at! Nothing but mountainswith trees all over their sides! Nothing to do but walk up rocky, steep paths to a spring, takea drink of water, and come stumbling down again! In the evenings, dress up, andpromenade eighty thousand feet of veranda, AS ADVERTISED!"Roused to a frenzy by her own self-pity and indignation, Patty got up and stalked about theroom. She flung off her pretty summer frock, and slipped on a blue silk kimono. Then shesat down in front of her dressing-table to brush her hair for the night. She drew out the pins, and great curly masses came tumbling down around her shoulders. Patty's hair was truly golden, and did not turn darker as she grew older. She brushed away slowly, and looked at herself in the mirror. What she saw must havesurprised her, for she dropped her brush in astonishment."Well, Patricia Fairfield!" she exclaimed to her own reflection. "You ought to be ashamed ofyourself! YOU, who are supposed to be of amiable disposition, YOU whom people call'Sunshine, ' because of your good nature, YOU who have every joy and every blessing thatheart can wish, you look like a sour-faced, cross-grained, disgruntled old maid! So therenow! And, Miss, do you want to know what I think of you?" She picked up her hair brush, and shook it at the flushed, angry face in the mirror. "Well, I think you're a monster ofselfishness! You're a dragon of ingratitude! And a griffin of cross-patchedness! Now, Miss, WILL you drop this attitude of injured innocence, and act like a civilised human be