Patty's Success Part 25

"But if you'd try me," said Patty, quite unconscious that her tone was pleading. "Just give me a day's trial, and if I don't make good, you needn't pay me anything."

Miss O'Flynn was more puzzled than ever. Insistent though Patty was, it didn't seem to her the insistence of a poor girl wanting to earn her bread; it was more like the determination of a wilful child to attain its desire.

So, moved rather by curiosity to see how it would turn out, than a belief in Patty's ability, she said, coldly:

"I will do as you ask. You may go to the workroom for to-day; but on the understanding that unless you show unusual skill or apt.i.tude to learn, you are not to be paid anything, nor are you to come to-morrow."

"All right," said Patty, smiling jubilantly at having received her opportunity, at least.

Miss O'Flynn took her to a workroom, where several girls were busily engaged in various sorts of millinery work.

"Sit here, Miss Fairfield," and Miss O'Flynn indicated a chair at one end of a long table. "You may line this hat."

Then she gave Patty an elaborate velvet hat, trimmed with feathers, and materials for sewing. She also gave her white silk for the lining of the hat, and a piece stamped with gilt letters, which Patty knew must be placed inside the crown.

It all seemed easy,--too easy, in fact, for Patty aspired to making velvet rosettes, and placing ostrich plumes.

But she knew she was being tested, and she set to work at her task with energy.

Though she had never lined a hat before, she knew in a general way how it should be done, and she tried to go about it with an air of experience.

The other girls at the table cast furtive glances at her.

Though they were not rude, they showed that air of hostile criticism, so often shown by habitues to a newcomer, though based on nothing but prejudiced curiosity.

But as Patty began to cut the lining, she saw involuntary smiles spring to their faces. She knew that she must be cutting it wrongly, but it seemed to her the only way to cut it, so she went on.

The girls began to nudge each other, and to smile more openly, and, to her own chagrin, Patty felt her cheeks growing red with embarra.s.sment.

She was tempted to speak pleasantly to them, and ask what her mistake was, but a strange notion of honesty forbade this.

She had said at home that she believed it would be possible for her to earn her living without special instruction, and it seemed to her, that if she now asked for advice it would be like getting special training, though in a small degree.

So she went calmly on with her work; cut and fitted the hat lining, and carefully sewed it in the hat.

Remembering that the st.i.tch she used on her "white work" had been criticised as too long, she now was careful to take very short st.i.tches, and she used her utmost endeavour to make her work neat and dainty.

Miss O'Flynn pa.s.sed her chair two or three times while the work was in progress, but she made no comment of any sort.

It was perhaps eleven o'clock when Patty completed the task. Next time Miss O'Flynn came by her she handed her the hat with an unmistakable air of triumph.

"I've done it," Patty thought to herself, exultantly. "I've lined that hat, and, if I do say it that shouldn't, it's done perfectly; neat, smooth, and correct in every particular."

While Patty was indulging in these self-congratulatory thoughts, Miss O'Flynn took the hat from her hand. She gave it a quick glance, then she looked at Patty.

Had Patty looked more meek, had she seemed to await Miss O'Flynn's opinion of her work, the result might have been different.

But Patty's expression was so plainly that of a conquering hero, she showed so palpably her pride in her own achievement, that Miss O'Flynn's eyes narrowed, and her face hardened. Without a word to Patty, she handed the hat to a sad-eyed young woman at another table, and said:

"Line this hat, Miss Harrigan."

"Yes, ma'am," said the girl; and even as Patty watched her, she began to snip deftly at Patty's small, careful st.i.tches, and in a few moments the lining was out, and the girl was shaping and cutting a new one, with a quick, sure touch, and with not so much as a glance in Patty's direction.

The other girls,--the ones at Patty's table,--looked horrified, but they did not look openly at Patty. Furtively, they darted glances at her from beneath half-closed lids, and then as furtively glanced at each other.

It all struck Patty humorously. To have her careful work discarded and snipped out, to be replaced by "skilled labour," seemed so funny that she wanted to laugh aloud.

But she was also deeply chagrined at her failure, and so it was an uncertain att.i.tude of mind that showed upon her face as Miss O'Flynn again approached her.

Without making any reference to the work she had already done, Miss O'Flynn gave Patty a hat frame and some thick, soft satin.

"Cover the frame neatly, Miss Fairfield," was all she said, and walked away.

Patty understood.

It was her own independent and a.s.sured att.i.tude that had led Miss O'Flynn to pursue this course. She didn't for a moment think that all beginners were treated like this. But she had asked to be given a fair trial--and she was getting it.

Moreover, she half suspected that Miss O'Flynn knew she was not really under the necessity of earning her own living.

Though wearing her plainest clothes, all the details of her costume betokened an affluence that couldn't be concealed.

Astute Patty began to think that Miss O'Flynn saw through her, and that she was cleverly getting even with her.

However, she took the hat frame and the satin, and set to work in thorough earnest. Though not poor, she could not have tried any harder to succeed had she been in direst want.

But as to her work, she was very much at sea.

She knew she had to get the satin on to the frame, without crease or wrinkle. She knew exactly how it ought to look when done, for she had a hat of that sort herself, and the material covered the foundation as creaselessly as paint.

"I'm sure it only needs gumption," thought Patty, hopefully. "Here's my real chance to prove that it doesn't need a series of lessons to get some satin smoothly on a crinoline frame. If I do it neatly, she won't ask some other girl to do it over."

Paying no attention to the covert glances of her companions, Patty set to work. She cut carefully, she fitted neatly; she pinned and she basted; she smoothed and she patted; and finally she sewed, with tiny, close st.i.tches, placed evenly and with great precision.

So absorbed did she become in her task that she failed to notice the departure of the others at noon. Alone she sat there at the table, snipping, sewing, pinning, and patting the somewhat refractory satin.

It was almost one o'clock when she finished, and looked up suddenly to see Miss O'Flynn standing watching her.

"Why are you doing this?" she said to Patty, as she took the hat from the girl's hands.

Patty sat up, all at once, conscious of great pain in the back of her neck, from her continued cramped position at work.

"Because I want to earn money," replied Patty, not pertly, but in a tone of obstinate intent. "Is it done right?"

Miss O'Flynn looked at Patty, with an air of kindliness and willingness to help her.

"Tell me all about it," she said.

But Patty was in no mood for confidences, and with a shade of hauteur in her manner, she said again: "Is it done right? Does it suit you?"