Patterson

“ Patterson is at home?" he uttered with the appropriate inflection, and extended his card. He made this tender to a firm-faced woman of forty in a plain black dress, who came to the door with a half-hemmed towel in her hand.
"I am Mrs. Patterson," she said. She read the card; there was no doubt of her appreciation of his identity. The more picturesque and decorative phases of his character had been presented to her, doubtless, by the docile and transparent Bertie—by letter, possibly. ”

“ Patterson. All were silent. “Students of the Belle Air Academy and citizens generally, I have the honor to announce to you that my friend, Mr. Dogberry, is about to supersede Mr. Sears. We must form a procession and place him in our midst, the post of honor, and then to mine host’s.” So speaking, Mr. Patterson descended, followed by Dogberry and myself. The students gave their candles to the negroes to hold, joined their hands, and danced round Dogberry with the wildest glee, while he received it all in drunken dignity. ”

“ Patterson, your character can stand it, I tell you, but mine can’t.”
“Friend of my soul, this goblet sip,” reiterated Patterson, offering Dogberry the glass.
“Thank you, Mr. Patterson, I would not choose any,” said he.
“You can’t but choose, Dogberry; there is no alternative. Do you remember what the poet beautifully says of the Roman daughter, who sustained her imprisoned father from her own breast?—
‘Drink, drink and live, old man; Heaven’s realm holds no such tide.’
Do you remember it? ”

“ But Mrs. Baxter's ready laugh somewhat rudely dispelled the infection of Patterson's gloom. “I reckon the only spirit was that which you and Spencer consumed,” she said, cheerfully. “I don't wonder you're a little mixed. Like as not you've misunderstood his plans.” Patterson shook his head. “He'll turn up yet, alive and kicking! Like as not, then, Poindexter knows where he is all the time.”
“Impossible! He would have told me,” said Mrs. Tucker, quickly.
Mrs. Baxter looked at Patterson without speaking. Patterson replied by a long lugubrious whistle. ”

“ There were men then, as now, whose motive is the loaves and fishes, willing to gather where they strew not and reap where they have not sown; but Patterson was not one of these. From the time when, but a mere boy living at Windy Nook, he threw himself into the work, with earnestness and energy, until his death, when a comparatively young man, he devoted himself and the best he could give to the establishment of and care for the Union. When it prospered no man was more cheerful, and when dark times came upon it his sorrow was genuine and large. ”

“ The cage was familiar ground to Patterson. Here he had acquired whatever skill he possessed. With Owen behind the plate to explain just what to throw and how to throw it, with no one else at hand to molest or make afraid, he could handle the ball as well as another. His wrist had the master snap that yields sharp curves; his shoulder the sweeping swing that makes speed. [Pg 158] But outside—alas! outside was a strange land in which he feared to trust himself.
"Foolishness!" laughed Owen, when Patterson frankly confided to him these misgivings. "You'll do better outside. ”

“ Suddenly he raised his head, drew back, and thrust his hand into his bosom with a theatrical gesture.
“What's to keep me from killing Poindexter in his tracks?” he said wildly.
“Nothin' but HIS shooting first,” returned Patterson, with dismal practicality. “He's mighty quick, like all them army men. It's about even, I reckon, that he don't get ME first,” he added in an ominous voice.
“No!” returned Tucker, grasping his hand again. “This is not your affair, Patterson; leave him to me when I come back.” ”

“ Inadvertently she could not help comparing him to the chauffeur, whose back rose up before her. To all appearances, he was no more ruffled than if he were driving at a moderate speed through a city street. With a shudder, she realized that Roger Patterson was a coward. In that moment, she felt as though she detested him.
Again a great hill with a perilous cliff road loomed up ominously before them. Roger Patterson noticed it and shuddered.
"This is our last opportunity!" he entreated wildly. "For God's sake, jump!"
"No," she replied coldly. "I am not going to jump." ”

“ Rupert thought for a moment. "There is a girl I love called Ruby Strode. You will probably find her at the Ingenue Theatre, London. Tell her that I understood and appreciated everything she did on my behalf—tell her she was my last thought."
"Right-ho," Patterson replied cheerily. "Now, crawl a few feet away and lie low until you hear me whistle twice. Then make for the stockade on your hands and knees. Each man for himself, remember. It's our only chance." ”

“ Miss Patterson is on the side of the angels, but she makes her way to them through some nasty mire, calling spades spades with a vigour which seems to have prevented her from paying much attention to some beautiful and hopeful things which also have everyday names. ”

“ In udder words, sah, he kin kill er deer but he ain't er good han' to raise co'n. Yes, sah, de nigger ken plow [Pg 212] all roun' de Ingin, an' de Ingin knowin' dis, ginally gins de niggah er good chance."
"You work with Mr. Patterson on shares, don't you?"
"Yes, sah; ha'f o' dis crap 'longs ter me. W'y, fo' I come yare dar wa'n't hardly nuthin' raised on dis place but weeds an' grass. I happened to meet Patterson in Fort Smif one time. He hearn me talk erbout farmin' an' den he made a dead set at me ter come home wid him."
"Are the people throughout this neighborhood very peaceable?" ”

“ Spencer Tucker grasped the pie with one hand and his friend's fingers with the other, and for a few moments was silent from the hurried deglutition of viand and sentiment. “YOU'RE a white man, Patterson, anyway,” he resumed. “I'll take your horse, and put it down in our account, at your own figure. As soon as this cursed thing is blown over, I'll be back here and see you through, you bet. I don't desert my friends, however rough things go with me.” ”

“ Patterson,” continued Poindexter, stepping from his buggy, “you never spoke a truer word in your life. One moment, Mrs. Tucker. Let me send you back in the buggy. Don't mind ME. I can get a fresh horse of the sheriff. I'm quite at home here. I say, Patterson, step a few paces this way, will you? A little further from your wife, please. That'll do. You've got a claim of five thousand dollars against the property, haven't you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that woman just driving away is your one solitary chance of getting a cent of it. If your wife insults her again, that chance is gone. ”

“ Give us ‘Down with the pedagogue Sears.’ Hurrah for old Dogberry—Dogberry forever.”
“No,” cried out others, “a speech from Mr. Patterson—no, from the Pawnee. You’re fineable for not speaking in character.”
Here Prettyman took Mr. Patterson courteously by the hand, and said something to him in a whisper.
“Ah ha!” exclaimed Mr. Patterson, “so shall it be; I like Morris. Come, my good fellow, sing us the song you wrote; come, Dogberry’s star is now in the ascendant. ‘Down with the pedagogue Sears’—let’s have it.” ”

“ Patterson contemptuously, "that she's got anything but what that man of hers—Poindexter—lets her have?" "The sheriff says," retorted Patterson surlily, "that she's notified him that she claims the rancho as a gift from her husband three years ago, and she's in possession now, and was so when the execution was out. It don't make no matter," he added, with gloomy philosophy, "who's got a full hand as long as we ain't got the cards to chip in. I wouldn't 'a' minded it," he continued meditatively, "ef Spence Tucker had dropped a hint to me afore he put out." ”

“ For an instant he would seem to know the person who was speaking to him; then he was away on the winds of delirium.
"His mind is too strong for him not to come out of this all right. It is only a question of time, isn't it?" insisted the father.
"There was a far greater capacity in him for suffering in that hellish fight than there was in Pete Leddy," said Dr. Patterson. "He had sensitiveness to impressions which was born in him, at the same time that a will of steel was born in him—the sensitiveness of the mother, perhaps, and the will of the ancestor. ”

“ Wing tell that man to lie down and sleep," said Miss Harvey, as the young officer's eyes [178] seemed to darken with menace at the sight of a sentry sleeping on guard. "Moreno is securely tied, and both Patterson up there and I here are now his keepers. The señora and her daughter are in the other cave, forbidden to go near him."
Glancing up at the stunted cedar where Patterson stood faithful to his trust, Drummond saw that he was peering steadily southward through the black field-glasses.
"What do you see, Patterson?" he hailed. "Where is Wing? Any of the men coming back?" ”

“ Paston's cheery laugh rang out from the parlor. Truesdale stood in the library before the bookcase, reading the tarnished titles of the few spare volumes, as he shifted his weight from one foot to another, uncertain whether to advance or to retire. Paston knew him for what he was; but Bertie Patterson, he felt sure, would never acknowledge that he could be guilty of any wrong. "Hideous thing to be poetized," thought Truesdale; "but they all do it in one way or another." ”

“ Whatever may have been the real influence of this unfortunate man upon his fellows, it seemed to find expression in a singular unanimity of criticism. Patterson looked at him with a half dismal, half welcoming smile. "Well, you are a h—ll of a fellow, ain't you?"
Spencer Tucker passed his hand through his hair and lifted it from his forehead, with a gesture at once emotional and theatrical. "I am a man with a price on me!" he said bitterly. "Give me up to the sheriff, and you'll get five thousand dollars. ”

“ Senator Patterson is a man who would always keep faith with his aims and convictions. He is sunny and full of wit, and full of faith in the ultimate triumph of good things in general, and is, all in all, one of the most genial and delightful of men—and senators.
It is related that Senator Patterson first dawned upon Denver in its primeval period of 1872, when its municipal affairs were conducted by two prominent—if not eminent—gentlemen, one of whom was the champion gambler, and the other the champion brewer of the metropolis. ”

“ What if, while he was there shilly-shallying at a summer resort, some other fellow was with her in Chicago at that very moment!
"What if"—a ridiculous way to put it. Wasn't it sure in the nature of things, that at that very moment some other man was with her?
He caught the 3:40. He would call on her that very evening and if indeed he didn't declare himself bluntly in so many words—hadn't he heard of numberless women who had been won at first sight!—he would at least intimate to her strongly, unmistakably, that she was the object of his respectful consideration and attention. ”

“ Nobody'll ever use my spine for a ladder again. And as for Roger Patterson, I'll crush him against the wall until the streak of yellow in his nature rubs off on the bricks. You spoke just now of his deal in Bleecker's Infused Steel. The poor fool thinks he has a snowball in his hand when in reality he has a live-hot coal which he will eventually find he cannot handle. ”

“ I overheard Dogberry say.
“No, no,” replied Patterson, “it is your place.”
“Well, then, I’ll tell you at once, Sears, you’re no longer principal of this academy; you’re dished. Mr. Patterson, sir, will tell you so.”
“Mr. Patterson!” exclaimed Sears, now for the first time recognizing, in the semblance of the Indian chief, the distinguished lawyer and statesman. “Sir, I am more than astonished.”
“Sir,” rejoined Patterson, drawing himself up with dignity, “I am a Pawnee brave; more, a red man eloquent or a pale face eloquent, as it pleases me ”

“ The unexpected immersion improved my eyesight wonderfully, and when I got back on the dock I could walk without a light. Patterson thought the whole affair a huge joke. When we reached the Nereus it came my turn to laugh. Naval etiquette requires officers to go up the companion-ladder according to rank—the seniors first. Mr. Patterson, being lowest in grade, was to go up last, and by some means he lost balance and fell out of the boat; when he came to the surface of the water, some of [354] the sailors pulled him into the boat. He was not at all funny when he reached the deck. ”

“ I want a glass myself.” Down went the wine, and, with a smack of his lips, Dogberry handed the glass to Mr. Patterson.
“Capital, ain’t it, eh?”
“Capital,” re-echoed Dogberry. The wine and his supposed honors had aroused the brain of the pedagogue in a manner which seemed to awake him to a new existence. While Mr. Patterson was striking the top from the other bottle, Dogberry handed me the candle which he held—the other he had put in his candlestick, taking out his own when he first drank—and lifting the tumbler, he stood ready. ”

“ The smile slowly faded from Tucker's face, that now looked quite rigid in the moonlight. He put down his glass and walked to the window as Patterson gloomily continued, “But that's nothing to you. You've got ahead of 'em both, and had your revenge by going off with the gal. That's what I said all along. When folks—especially women folks—wondered how you could leave a woman like your wife, and go off with a scallawag like that gal, I allers said they'd find out there was a reason. ”

“ Patterson talk than make a big deal in business. After listening to her arguments I feel some way as though I would be the better able ‘to cast my net on the right side.’”
It was on Susan Oliver’s brother Dorr, then a schoolboy, that Mrs. Eddy made her first demonstration of Mind-science. The lad had a bone felon which kept him awake at night and out of school during the day. Mrs. Patterson had not been to the Phillips house for several days, and when she did go and found the boy in agony walking the floor, she gently and sympathetically questioned him. ”