Some of the six wore sunbonnets, the rest plain garden hats; and all wore stout serviceable shoes and stockings.  Never had those six little girls gone to a party before in such unparty-like costumes.

Patricia came dancing to meet them, bareheaded as usual.  “Let’s go down to the barn right off,” she proposed.  “Goodness, how funny you do look!” she giggled.

“So do you,” Nell Hardy retorted; then the seven stood still a moment to survey one another.

“Oh!” Mable Lane cried, “whatever put such an idea into your head, Pat?”

“I—­I happened to think of it, that was all,” Patricia answered vaguely.  “Come on—­we’ll play hide and seek, and no going out of the barn.”

“Are—­are there any horses there?” Susy asked.

Patricia shook her head.  “Not today; Daddy’s got Sam and Dick’s gone to pasture.”

They played hide and seek all over the delightful big dusty old barn; until Patricia, trying to reach goal by a short cut down from the loft, came to an abrupt halt in her descent, caught on a projecting beam.

“Go back!” Ruth Martin advised; but Patricia, wriggling herself free, dropped in a laughing heap on the barn floor.

“But you’ve torn your apron, Pat!” Nell exclaimed.

Patricia glanced up at the bit of blue gingham hanging from a nail in the beam.

“Look’s like this was my busy day,” she observed; “I’ll go put another on.”

“I put it on over the first,” she explained, on her return.  “You see, Aunt Julia said—­I mean, I thought it would be—­fun; and, anyhow, it saved time, it takes a lot of time to unbutton these aprons.  Let’s go down to the brook and wade.”  She glanced at Susy, who was looking rather doubtful.  “Aren’t you allowed to wade in brooks?”

“I—­don’t know,” Susy began, then her mild little face took on a look of sudden resolution, “but I’m going to.”

Patricia smiled in prompt friendliness.  “Mostly, when I’m not sure I just take the chance,” she encouraged.

Sitting on the edge of the brook, the seven took off shoes and stockings.  “It’s the queerest, nicest party,” Bessy Martin declared.

It was a gay little brook, running between a broad, sunny meadow and the old Kirby apple orchard, broad enough in places to make the crossing of it on stepping stones delightfully uncertain, and again narrowing to a mere thread.  To Patricia, it was like some live thing, one of the dearest and most intimate of playmates.

“Let’s play Follow my Leader,” Nell suggested, and they drew lots to see who should be first leader.

It fell to Kitty Hall, next to Susy the quietest of the seven; the lead she set them was a very mild affair, limited to the shallowest and narrowest parts of the brook.

But with Patricia’s turn, matters took a change for the better, or worse, according to the point of view.  Patricia hopped and skipped, and did everything except walk demurely on two feet, out of the safe, pleasant shallows straight for the “pool,” which was quite knee deep at this time of year.