Six Girls and the Tea Room — Reading Companion

She had been indeed their "Noah" who had saved them from destruction, and Happie ran after her at her hint of regret in leaving them, precipitating herself upon her in such wise that it was evident she had lost every bit of her former fear of her name donor. It was lucky that the little hall was but three feet wide, for Miss Keren staggered under the onslaught, though she kissed Happie's glowing cheek as heartily as the girl kissed her pale one.

"I know how the animals felt when they saw Noah walking off, dearest Auntie Keren!" she cried. "They felt like bleating, and as if Shem and Ham and Japhet, and all their wives couldn't console them if Noah hadn't promised to come often to see that they were fed, and to pat their heads and let them lick his hand! You dearest of Auntie Kerens!"

"I hope the original Noah didn't have the bear as spokesman for the rest of the animals!" gasped Miss Keren. "Happie, you are smothering me. There, my dear, let me go! I hear Bob whistling up the stairs, and Laura begging him to go slower. Gretta owns the Ark now. Go and hug her!"

Pretty Margery came out of a room farther down the hall and opened the door to let Miss Keren out and to let in Bob, the one Scollard boy, and Laura, the third girl. She kissed Miss Keren with her gentle, sweet manner, conveying silently her sense of the blessed difference between the circumstances of their return to the flat which Happie had dubbed "the Patty-Pans" and those under which they had closed that front door behind them in the spring to go to Crestville, and her realization that the Scollards owed this betterment to Miss Keren.

Bob and Laura came in with arms filled with packages, most of which had to be carried so perfectly right side up that Laura's face was one pucker of solicitude.

Penny--Penelope, the baby,--had been vainly trying to unfasten the cords holding down the cover of Jeunesse Dorée's basket, stimulated by his imploring mews. Polly had been conducting Gretta through the flat, which struck the girl, for the first time entering a domicile other than the Crestville farmhouses, as a sort of miracle for which previous descriptions had not prepared her mind.

"No wonder Happie called it 'the Patty-Pans,'" said Gretta, as they arrived at the parlor window through a series of telescopic rooms. "It goes on, one room after another, just for all the world like such sheets of baking tins! And are there many like this in this one house?"

Polly felt delightfully experienced, at ten, beside tall Gretta of fifteen, who did not know flats.

"There are two on each floor, and this house is six stories high; this is the fourth floor, east. The Gordons--Ralph and Snigs, you know,--are just across from us, fourth floor, west. That makes twelve flats in one house," she explained carefully. "I guess they're all rented; they generally are in December, like this. They're the nicest flats for this rent mamma saw. You have to have ref'runces to get in, and mamma wouldn't like to leave us alone all day when she's gone to take charge of foreign letters for that firm down in town 'less we were in a house where they were strict about ref'runces." Polly--Mary, but no one called her that,--was a most reliable, painstaking, plump little person, and she intended to go on enlightening Gretta as to the peculiarities of flats, when there came a horrible sound of ripping, tearing, pounding, thumping, that made Gretta jump half way across the little room and then lean against the wall holding both hands to her throat, her pretty face utterly stripped of its rich color, her big eyes bigger and darker than ever as she panted: "Wh-what's that?"

Polly dropped into the nearest chair and laughed so hard that for a minute she could not speak. Before she caught her breath Happie came in and joined in Polly's mirth as she saw Gretta's face and heard the frightful racket which was keeping on as loud as ever.