Mistress Pat by L. M. Montgomery Read Free Book Online Page A

Silver Bush got a severe scrutiny, though he knew it not, from Tillytuck’s little black eyes. It delighted him to listen to Pat’s badinage.
    â€œGosh, but she knows how to handle the men!” he exclaimed admiringly one night, when the door closed behind Pat and Milton Taylor. “She’ll make a fine wife for someone. I admit that I admire her deportment, Judy.”
    â€œOh, oh, we all do know how to be handling the men at Silver Bush, Tillytuck,” said Judy loftily.
    For it was “Judy” and “Tillytuck” now. Judy would have none of Josiah and “mister” was too formal to keep up for long. They were excellent friends after a fashion. It seemed to Judy, as to everybody, that Tillytuck must have always been at Silver Bush. It was impossible to believe that it was only six weeks since he had dropped in with his owl and his fiddle and Just Dog. The very cats purred louder when he came into the house. To be sure, Gentleman Tom never quite approved of him. But then Gentleman Tom had always been a reserved, taciturn cat who never really took up with anyone but Judy.
    Tillytuck had his prescriptive corner and chair in the kitchen and he was always slipping in to ask Judy to make a cup of tea for him. The fun of it, to Pat and Cuddles, was that Judy always made it, without a word of complaint. She soon discovered that Tillytuck had a sweet tooth where pies and cake were concerned and when she was in a good humor with him there was usually a triangle of one or a slice of the other waiting for him, to the amusement of the girls who affected to believe that Judy was “sweet” on Tillytuck, much to her scorn. Sometimes she would even sit down on the other side of the stove and drink a cup of tea with him. When she felt compelled to scold him he always soothed her with a compliment.
    â€œSee how I can manage the weemen,” he would whisper complacently to Pat. “Ain’t it the pity I’m not a marrying man?”
    â€œPerhaps you may marry yet,” responded Pat with a grave face, dropping a dot of red jelly like a gleaming ruby in the pale yellow center of her lemon tarts.
    â€œMaybe…when I make up my mind whether I want to take pity on Judy or not,” Tillytuck answered with a wink. “There’s times when I think she’d suit me. She’s fond of talking and I’m fond of listening.”
    Judy ignored nonsense of this kind. She had, so she informed the girl, taken Tillytuck’s measure once and for all.
    She was, however, very bitter because he never went to church. Judy thought all hired men ought to go to church. It was only respectable. If they did not go who knew but that censorious neighbors would claim it was because they were so overworked at Silver Bush during the week that they did not be having the strength to go to church on Sundays. But Tillytuck was adamantine to her arguments.
    â€œI don’t approve of human hymns,” he said firmly. “Nothing should be sung in churches but the psalms of David…with maybe an occasional paraphrase on special occasions. Them’s my principles and I sticks to them. I always sing a psalm before I go to bed and every Sunday morning I read a chapter in my testament.”
    â€œAnd on Waping Willy’s tombstone,” muttered Judy, who for some mysterious reason resented Tillytuck’s habit of going into the graveyard to read the said chapter.
    And then…Christmas was drawing near and Great Preparations were being made. You could hear the capitals in Tillytuck’s voice when he referred to them. They were going to have a real “re-union.” Winnie and Frank would come and Uncle Tom and Aunt Edith and Aunt Barbara from Swallowfield and Aunt Hazel and Uncle Rob Madison and their five children and the Bay Shore Great-aunts if their rheumatism let them. In fact, it was to be what Judy called “a regular tommyshaw” and Pat was brimful of happiness