Page:Carolyn Wells - Patty Fairfield.djvu/120

 Patty joked with her, and told her funny stories, but at most she received only a faint smile in response, and sometimes a blank stare.

She wrote to her father: "Ruth is the queerest girl I ever saw, and I believe she is all out of proportion. She studies so hard that she has crowded all the fun out of herself. You know 'all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,' and I verily believe Ruth is the dullest girl in the world."

But Ruth almost always won the prizes offered at school, and was accounted the best of Miss Goodman's pupils.

Patty liked the school, and she liked Miss Goodman, the principal, but the hours, from nine to one, seemed very long to her, and she would often get restless and mischievous.

One day she thought she would clean her ink well. Ruth shared her desk, and as the ink well was intended for the use of both, it was a good-sized one, and chanced to be full of ink.

So Patty must needs find something to hold the ink while she washed the inkstand. Not having anything appropriate, she made a cornucopia of a sheet of stiff writing-paper.