Patty and Azalea
CHAPTER I
WISTARIA PORCH
"Oh, Little Billee! Come quick, for goodness' sake! The baby's choking!"
Patty was in the sun parlour, her arms full of a fluttering bundle of lace and linen, and her blue eyes wide with dismay at her small daughter's facial contortions.
"Only with laughter," Bill reassured her after a quick glance at the restless infant. "Give her to me."
The baby nestled comfortably in his big, powerful arms, and Patty sat back in her chair and watched them both.
"What a pleasure," she said, complacently, "to be wife and mother to two such fine specimens of humanity! She grows more and more like you every day, Little Billee."
"Well, if this yellow fuzz of a head and this pinky peach of a face is like anybody in the world except Patty Farnsworth, I'll give up! Why, she's the image of you,—except when she makes these grotesque grimaces,—like a Chinese Joss."
"Stop it! You shan't call my baby names! She's a booful-poofle! She's a hunny-bunny! She's her mudder's pressus girly-wirly,—so she wuz!"
"Oh, Patty, that I should live to hear you talk such lingo! I thought you were going to be sensible."
"How can anybody be sensible with a baby like that! Isn't she the very wonderfullest ever! Oh, Billee, look at her angel smile!"
"Angel smile? More like a mountebank's grin! But I'm sure she means well.
And I'll agree she is the most wonderful thing in the world."
Bill tossed the child up and down, and chuckled at her evident appreciation of his efforts for her amusement.
"Be careful of my baby, if you please," and Patty eyed the performance dubiously. "Suppose you drop my child?"
"I hardly think I shall, ma'am. And, incidentally, I suppose she is my child?"
"No; a girl baby is always her mudder's own—only just her very own mudder's own. Give her to me! Let me has my baby,—my ownty-donty baby!"
Farnsworth obediently handed Patty her property, and put another pillow behind her as she sat in the low willow chair. Then he seated himself near, and adoringly watched his two treasures.
It was mid-April and the Farnsworths had been married more than a year. On their return from France, they had looked about for a home, and had at last found a fortunate chance to buy at a bargain a beautiful place up in Westchester County. It was near enough to New York for a quick trip and yet it was almost country.
The small settlement of Arden was largely composed of fine estates and attractive homes. This one which they had taken was broad and extensive, with hundreds of acres in lawns, gardens and woodland. It was called Wistaria Porch, because of an old wistaria vine which had achieved astounding dimensions and whose blooms in the spring and foliage later were the admiration of the whole countryside.
The house itself was modern and of the best Colonial design. Indeed, it was copied in nearly every detail from the finest type of Colonial mansion. Though really too large for such a small family, both Patty and Bill liked spacious rooms and lots of them, so they decided to take it, and shut off such parts as they didn't need. But no rooms were shut off, and they revelled in a great library beside their living-room and drawing-room. They had a cosy breakfast room beside the big dining-room and there were a music room and a billiard room and a den and great hall with a spreading staircase; and the second story was a maze of bedrooms, guest rooms and bathrooms.
It took Patty some days even to learn her way round, and she loved every room, hall and passage. There were fascinating windows, great wide and deep ones, and little oriels and dormers. There were unexpected turns and nooks, and there was,—which brought joy to Patty's heart,—plenty of closet space.
The whole place was of noble proportions and magnificent size, but Patty's home-making talents brought cosiness to the rooms they themselves used and stateliness and beauty to the more formal apartments.
"We must look ahead," she told Billee, "for I expect to spend my whole life here. I don't want to fix a place up just as I like it, and then scoot off and leave it and live somewhere else. And when our daughter begins to have beaux and entertain house parties, we'll need all the room there is."
"You have what Mr. Lucas calls a 'leaping mind,'" Bill remarked. "But I'm ready to confess I like room enough to swing a cat in,—even if I've no intention of swinging poor puss."
And so they set blithely to work to furnish their ancestral halls, as Patty called them, claiming that an ancestral hall had to have a beginning some time, and she was beginning hers now.
Such fun as it was selecting rugs and hangings, furniture and ornaments, books and pictures.
Lots of things they had bought abroad, for Captain Bill had been fortunate in his affairs and had had some leisure time in France and England after the war was over to collect some art treasures.
Also, they didn't try or want to complete the whole house at once. Part of the fun would be in adding bits later on, and if there were no place to put them, there would be no fun in buying things.
Patty was a wise and careful buyer. Only worth-while things were selected, not a miscellaneous collection of trumpery junk. So the result to date was charming furniture and appointments, but space for more when desired.
Little Billee's taste, too, was excellent, and he and Patty nearly always agreed on their choice. But it was a rule that if either disapproved, the thing in question was not bought. Only such as both sanctioned could come into their home.
The house had a wide and hospitable Colonial doorway, with broad fanlight above and columns at either side. Seats, too, flanked the porch, and the carefully trimmed wistaria vine hung gracefully over all. Across both ends of the house ran wide verandahs, with porte cochère, sun parlour, conservatory and tea-porch breaking the monotony.
Patty's own bedroom was an exquisite nest, done up in blue and silver, and her boudoir, opening from it, was a dream of pink and white. Then came the baby's quarters; the day nursery, gay with pictured walls and the sun porch, bright and airy.
For the all-important baby was now two months old, and entitled to consideration as a real member of the family.
Fleurette was her name, only selected after long thought and much discussion. Bill had stood out for Patricia Fairfield Farnsworth, but Patty declared no child of hers should be saddled with such a burden for life! Then Bill declared it must be a diminutive, in some way, of the mother's name, and as he always called Patty his Blossom Girl, the only suggestion worth considering was something that meant Little Flower. And as their stay in France had made the French language seem less foreign than of yore, they finally chose Fleurette,—the Baby Blossom.
Farnsworth was a man of affairs, and had sometimes to go to Washington or other distant cities on business, but not often or for a long stay. And as Patty expressed it, that was a lot better than for him to have to go to New York every day,—as so many men of their acquaintance did.
"I never thought I'd be as happy as this," Patty said, as, still holding her baby, she sat rocking slowly, and gazing alternately at her husband and her child.
"Why not?" Farnsworth inquired, as he lighted a fresh cigar.
"Oh, it's too much for any one mortal! Here I've the biggest husband in the world, and the littlest baby—"
"Oh, come now,—that's no incubator chick!"
"No, she's fully normal size, Nurse says, but she's a tiny mite as yet," and Patty cuddled the mite in an ecstasy of maternal joy.
"I thought friend Nurse wouldn't let you snuggle the kiddy like that."
"She doesn't approve,—but she's still at her lunch and when the cat's away—"
And then the white uniformed nurse appeared, and smiled at pretty Patty as she took the baby from her cuddling arms.
"Come for a ride, Patty Maman?" asked her husband, as they left the little Fleurette's presence.
"No;