When Patty Went to College

Jean Webster

• Publisher: Read & Co. Classics
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN:
  9781528786676
• Print ISBN:
  9781528711715

Originally published in 1903, "When Patty Went to College" is Jean Webster's first novel. It is a comical exploration of life in an all-girls college at the turn of the twentieth century that concentrates on Patty Wyatt, an outgoing, lively girl with a distinctly individual character, The book concentrates on her last year at college and the various pranks that she does for the enjoyment of friends and herself. This vintage book will appeal to those who have read and enjoyed other works by this author, and it would make for a worthy addition to any collection. Jean Webster" is the pseudonym of Alice Jane Chandler Webster (1876 – 1916), an American writer who authored many well-known books including "The Wheat Princess" and "Dear Enemy". Her most famous works are often characterised by powerful, likeable young female main characters who experience a maturation and intellectual coming-of-age morally and socially. Including witty humour, snappy dialogue, and social commentary, her works are still read and enjoyed by readers today the world over. Many vintage books such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially-commissioned new biography of the author.

X

"Per l'Italia"

COLLEGE is a more or less selfish place. Everybody is so busy with her own affairs that she has no time to give to her neighbor, unless her neighbor has something to give in return. Olivia Copeland apparently had nothing to give in return. She was quiet and inconspicuous, and it took a second glance to realize that her face was striking and that there was a look in her eyes that other freshmen did not have. By an unfelicitous chance she was placed in the same study with Lady Clara Vere de Vere and Emily Washburn. They thought her foreign and queer, and she thought them crude and boisterous, and after the first week or two of politely trying to get acquainted the effort was dropped on both sides.

The year wore on, and nobody knew, or at least no one paid any attention to the fact, that Olivia Copeland was homesick and unhappy. Her room-mates thought that they had done their duty when they occasionally asked her to play golf or go skating with them (an invitation they were very safe in giving, as she knew how to do neither). Her instructors thought that they had done their duty when they called her up to the desk after class and warned her that her work was not as good as it had been, and that if she wished to pass she must improve in it.

The English class was the only one in which she was not warned; but she had no means of knowing that her themes were handed about among the different instructors and that she was referred to in the department as "that remarkable Miss Copeland." The department had a theory that if they let a girl know she was doing good work she would immediately stop and rest upon her reputation; and Olivia, in consequence, did not discover that she was remarkable. She merely discovered that she was miserable and out of place, and she continued to drip tears of homesickness before a sketch of an Italian villa that hung above her desk.

It was Patty Wyatt who first discovered her. Patty had dropped into the freshmen's room one afternoon on some errand or other (probably to borrow alcohol), and had idly picked up a pile of English themes that were lying on the study table.

"Whose are these? Do you care if I look at them?" she asked.

"No; you can read them if you want to," said Lady Clara. "They're Olivia's, but she won't mind."

Patty carelessly turned the pages, and then, as a title caught her eye, she suddenly looked up with a show of interest. "'The Coral-fishers of Capri'! What on earth does Olivia Copeland know about the coral-fishers of Capri?"

"Oh, she lives somewhere near there—at Sorrento," said Lady Clara, indifferently.

"Olivia Copeland lives at Sorrento!" Patty stared. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I supposed you knew it. Her father's an artist or something of the sort. She's lived in Italy all her life; that's what makes her so queer."

Patty had once spent a sunshiny week in Sorrento herself, and the very memory of it was intoxicating. "Where is she?" she asked excitedly. "I want to talk to her."

"I don't know where she is. Out walking, probably. She goes off walking all by herself, and never speaks to any one, and then when we ask her to do something rational, like golf or basket-ball, she pokes in the house and reads Dante in Italian. Imagine!"

"Why, she must be interesting!" said Patty, in surprise, and she turned back to the themes.

"I think these are splendid!" she exclaimed.

"Sort of queer, I think," said Lady Clara. "But there's one that's rather funny. It was read in class—about a peasant that lost his donkey. I'll find it"; and she rummaged through the pile.

Patty read it soberly, and Lady Clara watched her with a shade of disappointment.

"Don't you think it's pretty good?" she asked.

"Yes; I think it's one of the best things I ever read."

"You never even smiled!"

"My dear child, it isn't funny."

"Isn't funny! Why, the class simply roared over it."

Patty shrugged. "Your appreciation must have gratified Olivia. And here it's February, and I've barely spoken to her."

The next afternoon Patty was strolling home from a recitation, when she spied Olivia Copeland across the campus, headed for Pine Bluff and evidently out for a solitary walk.

"Olivia Copeland, wait a moment," Patty called. "Are you going for a walk? May I come too?" she asked, as she panted up behind.

Olivia assented with evident surprise, and Patty fell into step beside her. "I just found out yesterday that you live in Sorrento, and I wanted to talk to you. I was there myself once, and I think it's the most glorious spot on earth."

Olivia's eyes shone. "Really?" she gasped. "Oh, I'm so glad!" And before she knew it she was telling Patty the story of how she had come to college to please her father, and how she loved Italy and hated America; and what she did not tell about her loneliness and homesickness Patty divined.

She realized that the girl was remarkable, and she determined in the future to take an interest in her and make her like college. But a senior's life is busy and taken up with its own affairs, and for the next week or two Patty saw little of the freshman beyond an occasional chat in the corridors.

One evening she and Priscilla had returned late from a dinner in town, to be confronted by a dark room and an empty match-safe.

"Wait a moment and I'll get some matches," said Patty; and she knocked on a door across the corridor where a freshman liv...

Table of contents

• Jean Webster
• I
• II
• III
• IV
• V
• VI
• VII
• VIII
• IX
• X
• XI
• XII
• XIII
• XIV
• XV