Charlevoix county herald. (East Jordan, Mich.) 189?-1953, 1914-06-27

walk, the young Frenchman was
talking with evident interest. The
group of onlookers saw Patricia tilt
her charming face to his like saucy
bird and pour out torrent of words
They could not hear what she said
but her companion stood still for a
moment, as if in utter bewilderment
and then broke into a ringing laugh
"She has evidently shocked him, y
said Mrs. Westmoreland, aside to
her son.
She can talk French, however
Can't you see how she is chatting
away to him? All that dumbness on
the piazza must have been a pre-
tence."
He could not have guessed that in
reply to Pernet's conventional re-
mark about his gratitude to the gar
dens, Patty had murmured:
"The father, the mother, the uncle,
the aunt, the son. the daughter, the
father-in-law, the mother-in-law, the
godfather, the godmother, the gar
dener's wife, the maid, the coach
man, the cook, the butler"
At his amaZement she stumbled
into desperate speech, the lenses of
her verbs all wrong, but her plead
ing eyes, trimming with tears, quite
eloquent enough to atone for mis-
takes genders and numbers.
81 don't understand French.
can't speak it. | only know the
grammar exercises we studied at
school. Please help me-"
The way she had translated the
last was by using phrase she re-
called as the cry of an inmate of
burning building:
"A moi! Au secours! Au secoursw
1t was so exaggerated under the
present circumstances that the
French American laughed heartily.
His manner was that of courteous
interrogation, for the situation puz-
zled him. Patty, who could initiate
anybody, stiffened before Pernet's
amused eyes, and in just the pomp-
Gus, nasal accent of her hostess, be-
gan:
"Cold, cloud, rain, shower, snow,
storm, hurricane, ice, fog, frost,
hoar-frost, thunder and lightning"
Ry her pantomime he understood
that she was personating Mrs. West
moreland in displeasure. Suddenly
she took the moon-look of Hugh, and
began to conjugate the verb to love,
in the first person, affirmative voice.
Her manner was lackadaisical as she
timidly drawled out the lenses of
Amer:
81 love, was loving, loved, will
love-"
Then, resuming her own saucy
personality, her eyes sparkling with
mischief, she began to conjugate the
verb over, this time negatively and
emphatically:
Il do not love, ! did not love,
could not love-"
The man grasped the situation
fully, and understood what was the
cause of the GOODNESS between his
hostess and his companion. He was
shaking with laughter-"good Am
erican laughter" thought Patty ap-
provingly-over the situation con-
fided to him and the manner of the
revelation.
He began to talk very slowly,
choosing simple words and substitut-
ing another when she would shake
her head, until she managed to fol-
low him fairly well. But when her
turn came to reply, she stumbled,
fioundered and gave it up. All at
once she recalled the exercises in
her conversational book, which she
had learned almost by heart.
"Who is it that knocks? Is it you,
my dear uncle? | am charmed to
see you. Won't you have that easy
CHAIR" She motioned to the stone
bench, and they seated themselves
upon it. "How is your wife ?" He
made a violent disclaimer, but Patty
persisted mercilessly: Her eyes are
weak, and she has a very bad cold
and coughs continually. You should
stop at the apothecary's and buy her
some lozenges and a plaster"
81 won'tv he declared positively.
LET me stop at the florists and get
YOU some violets instead"
Though "violettes" was the only
word she grasped in the sentence,
that was sufficient for her to per-
ceive his meaning, and she gave a
barely perceptible nod of permission.
"Your accent is so charming" he
continued, that | prefer to listen to
you repeating exercises from a
grammar than 30 hear the speech
that has tortured my ears ever since
l came to America"
"The only word understand
said Patty, sis charming"
But that supplied sufficient en-
enlargement for her to repeat exer-
cises and vocabularies in medley va
riety as she happened to remember
them. The indisposition of his sup
posed wife had recalled one of her
favorite vocabularies. 1t would have
teen impossible for anybody but
Patty to make mere vocabulary so
ridiculous, with pathetically dropped
mouth and eyes from which the Turk
ing laughter was extinguished as she
r"peated
"A pain, a sharp pain, throbbings.
a headache, an illness, fever, fit
of ague, the scarlet fever the small
pox, the whooping-cough, chilblains,
gargle, pill, poultice, blister.