Jean Webster

When Patty Went to College Jean Webster

APER-WEIGHTS," observed Patty, sucking an injured thumb, "were evidently not made for driving in tacks. I wish I had a hammer." This remark called forth no response, and Patty peered down from the top of the stepladder at her room-mate, who was sitting on the floor dragging sofa-pillows and curtains from a dry-goods box. "Priscilla," she begged, "you aren't doing anything useful. Go down and ask Peters for a hammer." Priscilla rose reluctantly. "I dare say fifty girls have already been after a hammer." "Oh, he has a private one in his back pocket. Borrow that. And, Pris,"-Patty called after her over the transom, -"just tell him to send up a man to take that closet door off its hinges." Patty, in the interval, sat down on the top step and surveyed the chaos beneath her. An Oriental rush chair, very much out at the elbows, several miscellaneous chairs, two desks, a divan, a table, and two dry-goods boxes radiated from the center of the room. The floor, as it showed through the interstices, was covered with a grass-green carpet, while the curtains and hangings were of a not very subdued crimson. "One would scarcely," Patty remarked to the furniture in general, "call it a symphony in color.