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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/32312-8.txt b/32312-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..80887fc --- /dev/null +++ b/32312-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8890 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Janice Day, by Helen Beecher Long + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Janice Day + +Author: Helen Beecher Long + +Illustrator: Walter S. Rogers + +Release Date: May 10, 2010 [EBook #32312] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JANICE DAY *** + + + + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Josephine Paolucci +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +www.pgdp.net. + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: The quick eye of Janice Day caught sight of this row of +nondescripts. (See page 15.)] + +JANICE DAY + +BY + +HELEN BEECHER LONG + +ILLUSTRATED BY + +WALTER S. ROGERS + + +GROSSET & DUNLAP +PUBLISHERS :-: NEW YORK + +COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY + +SULLY AND KLEINTEICH + +All rights reserved + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER PAGE + +I. A NEW-FASHIONED GIRL 1 + +II. POKETOWN 10 + +III. "IT JEST RATTLES" 22 + +IV. FIRST IMPRESSIONS 32 + +V. 'RILL SCATTERGOOD AND HER SCHOOL 43 + +VI. AN AFTERNOON OF ADVENTURE 56 + +VII. THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LOST THE ECHO 64 + +VIII. A BIT OF ROMANCE 73 + +IX. TEA, AND A TALK WITH DADDY 84 + +X. BEGINNING WITH A BEDSTEAD 96 + +XI. A RAINY DAY 109 + +XII. ON THE ROAD WITH WALKY DEXTER 122 + +XIII. NELSON HALEY 131 + +XIV. A TIME OF TRIAL 139 + +XV. NEW BEGINNINGS 149 + +XVI. "SHOWING" THE ELDER 159 + +XVII. CHRISTMAS NEWS 173 + +XVIII. "THE FLY-BY-NIGHT" 184 + +XIX. CHRISTMAS, AFTER ALL! 197 + +XX. THE TROUBLE WITH NELSON HALEY 210 + +XXI. A STIR OF NEW LIFE IN POKETOWN 217 + +XXII. AT THE SUGAR CAMP 226 + +XXIII. "DO YOU MEAN THAT?" 235 + +XXIV. THE SCHOOL DEDICATION 241 + +XXV. THROUGH THE SECOND WINTER 253 + +XXVI. JUST HOW IT ALL BEGAN 262 + +XXVII. POKETOWN IN A NEW DRESS 271 + +XXVIII. NO ODOR OF GASOLINE! 280 + +XXIX. JANICE DAY'S FIRST LOVE LETTER 290 + +XXX. WHAT THE ECHO MIGHT HAVE HEARD 302 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +The quick eye of Janice Day caught sight + of this row of nondescripts. (See page 15.) _Frontispiece_ + + FACING PAGE + +The old violin wailed out the tune haltingly 72 + +God's world _did_ look bigger and greater from + The Overlook. (See page 155.) 154 + +She just _had_ to raise her eyes and look into his + earnest ones. (See page 307.) 306 + + + + +JANICE DAY + + + + +CHAPTER I + +A NEW-FASHIONED GIRL + + +"Well! this is certainly a relief from the stuffy old cars," said Janice +Day, as she reached the upper deck of the lake steamer, dropped her +suitcase, and drew in her first full breath of the pure air. + +"What a beautiful lake!" she went on. "And how big! Why--I had no idea! +I wonder how far Poketown is from here?" + +The ancient sidewheel steamer was small and there were few passengers on +the upper deck, forward. Janice secured a campstool and sat down near +the rail to look off over the water. + +The officious man in the blue cap on the dock had shouted "All aboard!" +the moment the passengers left the cars of the little narrow-gauge +railroad, on which the girl had been riding for more than two hours; but +it was some minutes before the wheezy old steamer got under way. + +Janice was interested in everything she saw--even in the clumsy warping +off of the _Constance Colfax_, when her hawsers were finally released. + +"Goodness me!" thought the girl, chuckling, "what a ridiculous old tub +it is! How different everything East here is from Greensboro. There! +we're really off!" + +The water hissed and splashed, as the wheels of the steamer began to +turn rheumatically. The walking-beam heaved up and down with many a +painful creak. + +"Why! _that_ place is real pretty--when you look at it from the lake," +murmured Janice, looking back at the little landing. "I wonder if +Poketown will be like it?" + +She looked about her, half tempted to ask a question of somebody. There +was but a single passenger near her--a little, old lady in an +old-fashioned black mantilla with jet trimming, and wearing black lace +half-mitts and a little bonnet that had been so long out of date that it +was almost in the mode again. + +She was seated with her back against the cabin house, and when the +steamer rolled a little the ball of knitting-cotton, which she had taken +out of her deep, bead-bespangled bag, bounced out of her lap and rolled +across the deck almost to the feet of Janice. + +Up the girl jumped and secured the runaway ball, winding the cotton as +she approached the old lady, who peered up at her, her head on one side +and her eyes sparkling, like an inquisitive bird. + +"Thank ye, child," she said, briskly. "I ain't as spry as I use ter be, +an' ye done me a favor. I guess I don't know ye, do I?" + +"I don't believe you do, Ma'am," agreed Janice, smiling, and although +she could not be called "pretty" in the sense in which the term is +usually written, when Janice smiled her determined, and rather +intellectual face became very attractive. + +"You don't belong in these parts?" pursued the old lady. + +"Oh, no, Ma'am. I come from Greensboro," and the girl named the middle +western state in which her home was situated. + +"Do tell! You come a long distance, don't ye?" exclaimed her +fellow-passenger. "You're one of these new-fashioned gals that travel +alone, an' all that sort o' thing, ain't ye? I reckon your folks has got +plenty of confidence in ye." + +Janice laughed again, and drew her campstool to the old lady's side. + +"I was never fifty miles away from home before," she confessed, "and I +never was away from my father over night until I started East two days +ago." + +"Then ye ain't got no mother, child?" + +"Mother died when I was a very little girl. Father has been everything +to me--just everything!" and for a moment the bright, young face +clouded and the hazel eyes swam in unshed tears. But she turned quickly +so that her new acquaintance might not see them. + +"Where are you goin', my dear?" asked the old lady, more softly. + +"To Poketown. And oh! I _do_ hope it will be a nice, lively place, for +maybe I'll have to remain there a long time--months and months!" + +"For the land's sake!" exclaimed the old lady, nodding her head briskly +over the knitting needles. "So be I goin' to Poketown." + +"Are you, really?" ejaculated Janice Day, clasping her hands eagerly, +and turning to her new acquaintance. "Isn't that nice! Then you can tell +me just what Poketown is like. I've got to stay there with my uncle +while father is in Mexico----" + +"Who's your uncle, child?" demanded the old lady, quickly. "And who's +your father?" + +Janice naturally answered the last question first, for her heart was +full of her father and her separation from him. "Mr. Broxton Day is my +father, and he used to live in Poketown. But he came away from there a +long, long time ago." + +"Yes? I knowed there was Days in Poketown; but I ain't been there myself +for goin' on twelve year. I lived there a year, or so, arter my man +died, with my darter. She's teached the Poketown school for twenty +year." + +"Oh!" cried Janice. "Then you can't really tell me what Poketown is +like--now?" + +"Why, it's quite a town, I b'lieve," said the old lady. "'Rill writes me +thet the _ho_-tel's jest been painted, and there's a new blacksmith shop +built. You goin' to school there--What did you say your name was?" + +"Janice Day. I don't know whether I shall go to school while I am in +Poketown, or not. If there are a whole lot of nice girls--and a few nice +boys--who go to your daughter's school, I shall certainly want to go, +too," continued Janice, smiling again at the little old lady. + +"Wal, 'Rill Scattergood's teached long enough, _I_ tell her," declared +the other. "I'm goin' to Poketown now more'n half to git her to give up +at the end o' this term. With what she's laid by, and what I've got +left, we could live mighty comfertable together. Who's your uncle, +child?" pursued Mrs. Scattergood, who had not lost sight of her main +inquiry. + +"Mr. Jason Day. He's my father's half brother." + +"Ya-as. I didn't know them Days very well when I lived there. How long +did you say you was goin' to stay in Poketown?" + +"I don't know, Ma'am," said Janice, sadly. "Father didn't know how long +he'd be in Mexico----" + +"Good Land o' Goshen!" ejaculated Mrs. Scattergood, suddenly, "ain't +that where there's fightin' goin' on right now?" + +"Yes'm. That's why he couldn't take me with him," confessed Janice, +eager to talk with a sympathetic listener. "You see, I guess 'most all +the money we've got is invested in some mine down there. The fighting +came near the mine, and the superintendent ran away and left +everything." + +"Goodness! why wouldn't he?" exclaimed the old lady, knitting faster +than ever in her excitement. + +"But then that made it so my father had to go down there and 'tend to +things," explained Janice. + +"What! right in the middle of the war? Good Land o' Goshen!" + +"There wasn't anybody else _to_ go," said Janice, sadly. "The +stockholders might lose all they put into it. And our money, too. Why! +we had to rent our house furnished. That's why I am coming East to Uncle +Jason's while father is away." + +"Too bad! too bad!" returned the old lady, shaking her head. + +"But you see," Janice hastened to say, with pride, "my father is that +kind of a man. The other folks expected him to take hold of the business +and straighten it out. He--he's always doing such things, you know." + +"I see," agreed Mrs. Scattergood. "He's one o' these 'up an' comin' sort +o' men. And you're his darter!" and she cackled a little, shrill laugh. +"I kin see _that_. You're one o' these new-fashioned gals, all right." + +"I hope I'm like Daddy," said Janice, quietly. "Everybody loves +Daddy--everybody depends on him to go ahead and _do_ things. I hope +Uncle Jason will be like him." + +With the light breeze fluttering the little crinkles of hair between her +hat and her brow, and an expression of bright expectancy upon her face, +Janice was worth looking at a second time. So Mrs. Scattergood thought, +as she glanced up now and again from her knitting. + +"Poketown--Poketown," the girl murmured to herself, trying to spy out +the land ahead as the _Constance Colfax_ floundered on. "Oh! I hope +Daddy's remembrance of it is all wrong now. I hope it will belie its +name." + +"What's that, child?" put in the sharp voice of her neighbor. + +"Why--why--if it _is_ poky I know I shall just die of homesickness for +Greensboro," confessed Janice. "How could the early settlers of these +'New Hampshire Grants' ever _dare_ give such a homely name to a +village?" + +"Pshaw!" ejaculated Mrs. Scattergood. "What's a name? Prob'bly some man +named Poke settled there fust. Or pokeberries grew mighty common there. +People weren't so fanciful about names in them days. Why! my son-in-law +lives right now in a place in York State called 'Skunk's Hollow' and +the city folks that's movin' in there is tryin' to git the post office +to change the name to 'Posy Bloom.' No 'countin' for tastes in names. My +poor mother called _me_ Mahala Ann--an' me too leetle to fight back. But +I made up my mind when I was a mighty leetle gal that if ever I had a +baby I'd call it sumthin' pretty. An' I done the right thing by all my +children. + +"Now here's 'Rill," pursued Mrs. Scattergood, waxing communicative. "Her +full name's Amarilla--Amarilla Scattergood. Don't you think that's purty +yourself, now?" + +Janice politely agreed. But she quickly swung the conversation back to +Poketown. + +"I suppose, if mills had been built there, or the summer boarders had +discovered Poketown, its name would have been changed, too. And you +haven't been up there for twelve years?" + +"No, child. But that ain't long. Ain't much happens in twelve years back +East here." + +Janice sighed again; but suddenly she jumped from her stool excitedly, +crying: "Oh! what place is _that_?" + +She pointed far ahead. Around a rocky headland the view of a pleasant +cove had just opened. The green and blue-ribbed hills rose behind the +cove; the water lay sparkling in it. There was a vividly white church +with a heaven-pointing spire right among the big green trees. + +A brown ribbon of main thoroughfare wound up from the wharf, but was +soon lost under the shade of the great trees that interlaced their +branches above it--branches which were now lush with the late spring +growth of leaves. Here and there a cottage, or larger dwelling, +appeared, most of them originally white like the church, but many shabby +from the action of wind and weather. + +Over all, the warm sun spread a mantle. In the distance this bright +mantle softened the rigid lines of the old-fashioned houses, and of the +ledges and buttresses of the hills themselves. + +Old Mrs. Scattergood stood up, too, looking through her steel-bowed +glasses. + +"I declare for't!" she said, "that's Poketown itself! That's the spire +of the Union Church you see. We'll git there in an hour." + +Janice did not sit down again just then, nor did she reply. She rested +both trimly-gloved hands on the rail and gazed upon the scene. + +"Why, it's beautiful!" she breathed at last "And _that_ is Poketown!" + + + + +CHAPTER II + +POKETOWN + + +Some ancient dwellings have the dignity of "homestead" resting upon them +like a benediction; others are aureoled by the name of "manor." The +original Day in Poketown had built a shingled, gable-ended cottage upon +the side-hill which had now, for numberless years, been called "the old +Day house"--nothing more. + +"Jason! You Jase! I'd give a cent if you'd mend this pump," complained +Mrs. Almira Day. "Go git me a pail of water from Mis' Dickerson's and +ask how's her rhoumatism this mawnin'. Come on, now! I can't wash the +breakfas' dishes till I hev some water." + +The grizzled, lanky man who had been sitting comfortably on a bench in +the sun, sucking on a corncob pipe and gazing off across the lake, never +even turned his head as he asked: + +"Where's Marty?" + +"The goodness only knows! Ye know he ain't never here when ye want him." + +"Why didn't ye tell him about the water at breakfas' time?" + +"Would _that_ have done any good?" demanded Mrs. Day, with some scorn. +"Ye know Marty's got too big to take orders from his marm. He don't do +nothin' but hang about Josiah Pringle's harness shop all day." + +"I told him to hoe them 'taters," said Mr. Day, thoughtfully. + +"Well, he don't seem ter take orders from his dad, neither. Don't know +what that boy's comin' to," and a whine crept into Mrs. Day's voice. "He +can't git along with 'Rill Scattergood, so he won't go to school. His +fingers is gettin' all stained yaller from suthin'--d'you 'xpect it's +them cigarettes, Jase?" + +Her husband was rising slowly to his feet. "Gimme the pail," he grunted, +without replying to her last question. "I'll git the water for ye this +onc't. But that's Marty's job an' he's got to l'arn it, too!" + +"Here, Jase! take two pails," urged Mrs. Day. "An' I wish you _would_ +git Pringle to cut ye a new pump-leather." + +But Mr. Day ignored the second pail. "I don't feel right peart to-day," +he said, shambling off down the path. "And there's a deal of heft to a +pail of water--uphill, too. An' by-me-by I got ter go down to the dock, +I s'pose, when the boat comes in, to meet Broxton's gal. I 'xpect +_she'll_ be a great nuisance, 'Mira." + +"I'll stand her bein' some nuisance if you give me the twenty dollars a +month your brother wrote that he'd send for her board and keep," snapped +Mrs. Day. "You understand, Jase. That money's comin' to _me_, or I don't +scrub and slave for no relation of yourn. Remember that!" + +Jason shuffled on as though he had not heard her. That was the most +exasperating trait of this lazy man--so his wife thought; he was too +lazy to quarrel. + +He went out at the gate, which hung by one hinge to the gatepost, into +the untidy back lane upon which one end of his rocky little farm +abutted. Had he glanced back at the premises he would have seen a +weed-grown, untidy yard surrounding the old house, with decrepit stables +and other outbuildings in the rear, a garden which was almost a jungle +now, although in the earlier spring it had given much promise of a +summer harvest of vegetables. Poorly tilled fields behind the front +premises terraced up the timber-capped hill. + +Jason Day always "calkerlated ter farm it" each year, and he started in +good season, too. The soil was rich and most of his small fields were +warm and early; but somehow his plans always fell through before the +season was far advanced. So neither the farm nor the immediate premises +of the old Day house were attractive. + +The house itself looked like a withered and gnarly apple left hanging +upon the tree from the year before. In its forlorn nakedness it actually +cried out for a coat of paint. Each individual shingle was curled and +cracked. Only the superior workmanship of a former time kept the Day +roof tight and defended the family from storms. + +Some hours later the _Constance Colfax_ came into view around a distant +point in the lake shore. Mr. Day had camped upon the identical bench +again and was still sucking at the stem of his corncob pipe. + +"Wal," he groaned, "I 'xpect I've got to go down to meet that gal of +Broxton's. And the sun's mighty hot this mawnin'." + +"You wouldn't feel it so, if ye hadn't been too 'tarnal lazy to change +yer seat," sniffed his wife. "Now, you mind, Jase! That board money +comes to me, or you can take Broxton's gal to the _ho_-tel." + +Mr. Day shambled out of the front gate without making reply. + +"Drat the man!" muttered his wife. "If I could jes' git a rise out o' +him onc't----" + +It was not far to the dock. Indeed, Poketown was so compactly built on +the steep hillside that there was scarcely a house within its borders +from which a boy could not have tossed a pebble into the waters of the +cove. Jason strolled along in the shade, passing the time of day with +such neighbors as were equally disengaged, and spreading the news of his +niece's expected arrival. + +As he passed along the lane which later debouched upon the main +thoroughfare of Poketown, it was evident to the most casual glance that +the old Day house was not the only dwelling far along in a state of +decay. Poketown was full of such. + +On the street leading directly to the dock there were several +well-cared-for estates--some of them wedged in between blocks of +two-story frame buildings, the first floors of which were occupied by +stores of various kinds. The post office had a building to itself. The +Lake View Inn was not unattractive, its side piazza overlooking the cove +and the lake spread beyond. + +But the rutty, dusty road showed that it had been rutty and muddy in the +earlier spring. The flagstones of the sidewalks were broken, and the +walks themselves ill kept. The gutters were overgrown with grass and +weeds. Before the shops the undefended tree trunks were gnawed into +grotesque patterns by the farmers' hungry beasts. Hardware was at a +premium in Poketown, for a dozen gates along the line were hung with +leather hinges, and bits of rope had taken the places of the original +latches. + +From the water, however, even on closer view, the hillside village made +a pretty picture. Near the wharf it was not so romantic, as Janice Day +realized, when the coughing, wheezy steamboat came close in. + +There were decrepit boats drawn up on the narrow beach; there were +several decaying shacks bordering on the dock itself; and along the +stringpiece of the wharf roosted a row of "humans" that were the +opposite of ornamental. The quick eye of Janice Day caught sight of this +row of nondescripts. + +"Goodness me, Mrs. Scattergood!" she exclaimed, turning to the old lady +who had been in receipt of her confidences. "Is the almshouse near +Poketown?" + +"There's a poorfarm, child; but there ain't nobody on it but a few old +folks an' some orphans. We ain't poor here--not pauper poor. But, +goodness me! you mean them men a-settin' there? Why, they ain't +poor--no, no, child. I don't suppose there's a man there that don't own +his own house. There's Mel Parraday, who owns the _ho_-tel; and Lem +Pinney that owns stock in this very steamboat comp'ny; and Walkworthy +Dexter--Walky's done expressin' and stage-drivin' since before my 'Rill +come here to Poketown to teach." + +"But--but they look so ragged and unshaven," gasped Janice. + +"Pshaw! they ain't proud, I reckon," cackled the old lady, gathering up +her knitting and dropping it into the beaded bag, which she shut with a +snap. + +"But isn't there anybody proud _of_ them?" queried Janice. "Haven't they +mothers--or wives--or sisters?" + +The old lady stared at her. Then she made a sudden clicking in her +throat that might have been a chuckle. "I declare for't, child!" she +ejaculated. "I dunno as many of us in these parts _air_ proud of our men +folks." + +Just then the steamboat's bow bumped the wharf. The jar scarcely seemed +to awaken the languid line of Poketownites ranged along the other side. +The only busy person in sight was the employee of the steamboat company +who caught the loop of the hawser thrown him, and dropped it over a +pile. The rest of the men just raised their heads and stared, chewing +reflectively on either tobacco or straws, until the plank was dropped +and the deckhands began trundling the freight and baggage ashore. + +There were two or three commercial drummers beside Mrs. Scattergood and +Janice, who disembarked on this dock. Mrs. Scattergood bade the girl +from the West a brisk good-bye and went directly up the dock, evidently +expecting nobody to meet her at this time of day. A lanky man, with +grizzled brows and untrimmed beard, got up slowly from the stringpiece +of the wharf and slouched forward to meet Janice Day. + +"I reckon you be Broxton's gal, eh?" he queried, his eyes twinkling not +unkindly. "Ye sort er favor him--an' he favored his mother in more ways +than one. You're Janice Day?" + +"Oh, yes indeed! And you're my Uncle Jason?" cried the girl, impulsively +seizing Mr. Day's hand. There was nothing about this man that at all +reminded Janice of her father; yet the thought of their really being so +closely related to each other was comforting. "I'm so glad to see you," +she continued. "I hope you'll like me, Uncle Jason--and I hope Aunt +Almira will like me. And there is a cousin, too, isn't there--a boy? +Dear me! I've been looking forward to meeting you all ever since I left +Greensboro, and been wondering what sort of people you would be." + +"Wal," drawled Uncle Jason, rather staggered by the way Janice "ran on," +"we reckon on makin' ye comferble. Looks like we'd have ye with us some +spell, too. Broxton writ me that he didn't know how long he'd be +gone--down there in Mexico." + +"No. Poor Daddy couldn't tell. The business must be 'tended to, I +s'pose----" + +"Right crazy of him to go there," grunted Uncle Jason. "May git shot any +minute. Ain't _no_ money wuth that, I don't believe." + +This rather tactless speech made the girl suddenly look grave; but it +did not quench her vivacity. She was staring about the dock, interested +in everything she saw, when Uncle Jason drawled: + +"I s'pose ye got a trunk, Janice?" + +"Oh, yes. Here is the check," and she began to skirmish in her purse. + +"Wal! there ain't no hurry. Marty'll come down by-me-by with the +wheelbarrer and git it for ye." + +"But my goodness!" exclaimed the girl from Greensboro. "I haven't +anything fit to put on in this bag; everything got rumpled so aboard the +train. I'll want to change just as soon as I get to the house, Uncle." + +"Wal!" Uncle Jason was staggered. He had given up thinking quickly years +before. This was an emergency that floored him. + +"Why! isn't that the expressman there? And can't he take my trunk right +up to the house?" continued the girl. + +"Ya-as; that's Walky Dexter," admitted Mr. Day. + +A stout, red-faced man was backing a raw-boned nag in front of a farm +wagon, down upon the wharf and toward a little heap of baggage that had +been run ashore from the lower deck of the _Constance Colfax_. Janice, +still lugging her suitcase, shot up the dock toward the expressman, +leaving Jason, slack-jawed and well-nigh breathless. + +"Jefers-pelters! What a flyaway critter she is!" the man muttered. "I +don't see whatever we're a-goin' to do with _her_." + +Meanwhile Janice got Mr. Dexter's attention immediately. "There's my +trunk right there, Mr. Dexter," she cried. "And here's the check. You +see it--the brown trunk with the brass corners?" + +"I see it, Miss. All right. I'll git it up to Jason's some time this +arternoon." + +"Oh, Mr. Dexter!" she cried, shaking her head at him, but smiling, too. +"That will not do at all! I want to unpack it at once. I need some of +the things in it, for I've been traveling two days. Can't you take it on +your first load?" + +"Wa-al--I might," confessed Dexter, looking her over with a quizzical +smile. "But us'ally the Days ain't in no hurry." + +"Then this is one Day who _is_ in a hurry," she said, briefly. "What is +your charge for delivering the trunk, sir?" + +"Oh--'bout a quarter, Miss. And gimme that suitcase, too. 'Twon't cost +ye no more, and I'll git 'em there before Jason and you reach the house. +Poketown is a purty slow old place, Miss," the man added, with a wink +and a chuckle, "but I kin see the _days_ are going to move faster, now +you have arove in town. Don't you fear; your trunk'll be there--'nless +Josephus, here, busts a leg!" + +Quite stunned, Uncle Jason had not moved from his tracks. "Now we're all +right, sir," said the girl, cheerily, taking his arm and by her very +touch seeming to galvanize a little life into his scarecrow figure. +"Shall we go home?" + +"Eh? Wal! Ef ye say so, Janice," replied Mr. Day, weakly. + +They started up the main street of Poketown, Janice accommodating her +step to that of her uncle. Mr. Day was not one given to idle chatter; +but the girl did not notice his silence in her interest in all she saw. + +It was a beautiful, shady way, with the hill not too steep for comfort. +And some of the dwellings set in the midst of their terraced old lawns, +were so beautiful! It was the beauty of age, however; there did not seem +to be a single _new_ thing in Poketown. + +Even the scant display of goods in the shop windows had lain there until +they were dust-covered, sun-burned, and flyspecked. The signs over the +store doors were tarnished. + +They came to the lane that led up the hill away from High Street, and on +which Uncle Jason said he lived. An almost illegible sign at the corner +announced it to be "Hillside Avenue." There were not two fences abutting +upon the lane that were set in line, while the sidewalks were narrow or +broad, according to the taste of the several owners of property along +the way. + +The beautiful old trees were everywhere, however; only some of them +needed trimming badly, and many overhung the roofs, their dripping +branches having rotted the shingles and given life to great patches of +green moss. There was a sogginess to the grass-grown yards that seemed +unhealthful. There were several, picturesque, old wells, with massive +sweeps and oaken buckets--quaint breeders of typhoid germs--which showed +that the physicians of Poketown had not properly educated their patients +to modern sanitary ideas. + +Altogether the village in which her father had been born and bred was a +dead-and-alive, do-nothing place, and its beauty, for Janice Day, faded +before she was halfway up the hill to her uncle's house. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +"IT JEST RATTLES" + + +Almira Day was a good-hearted woman. It was not in her to treat her +husband's niece otherwise than kindly, despite her threat to the +contrary when Jason left the old Day house to meet Janice at the +steamboat dock. + +She stood smiling in the doorway--a large, pink, lymphatic woman, as +shapeless as a half-filled meal-sack with a string tied around its +middle, quite as untidy as her husband in dress, but with clean skin and +a wholesome look. + +Her calico dress was faded and, in places, strained to the +bursting-point, showing that it was "store-bought" and had never been +fitted to Mrs. Day's bulbous figure. She wore a pair of men's slippers +very much down at the heel, and pink stockings with a gaping hole in the +seam at the back of one, which Janice very plainly saw as her aunt +preceded her upstairs to the room the visitor was to occupy. + +"I hope ye won't mind how things look," drawled Aunt 'Mira. "We ain't +as up-an'-comin' as some, I do suppose. But nothin' ain't gone well with +Jason late years, an' he's got some mis'ry that he can't git rid of, +so's he can't work stiddy. Look out for this nex' ter the top step. The +tread's broke an' I been expectin' ter be throwed from top to bottom of +these stairs for weeks." + +"Can't Uncle Jason fix it?" asked Janice, stepping over the broken +tread. + +"Wal, he ain't exactly got 'round to it yet," confessed her aunt. +"There! I do hope you like your room, Niece Janice. There's a pretty +outlook from the winder." + +True enough, the window overlooked the hillside and the lake. Only, had +the panes been washed one could have viewed the landscape and the water +so much better! + +The room itself was the shabbiest bedchamber Janice Day had ever seen. +The carpet on the floor had, generations before, been one of those +flowery axminsters that country people used to buy for their "poller." +Then they would pull all the shades down and shut the room tightly, for +otherwise the pink roses faded completely out of the design. + +This old carpet had long since been through _that_ stage of existence, +however, and was now worn to the warp in spots, its design being visible +only because of the ingrained grime which years of trampling had brought +to it. + +The paper on the walls was faded and stained. Empty places where +pictures had hung for years, showed in contrast to the more faded barren +districts. A framed copy of the Declaration of Independence ornamented +the space above the mantel. Hanging above the bed's head were those two +famous chromos of "Good-Morning" and "Good-Night." A moth-eaten worsted +motto and cross, "The Rock of Ages," hung above the little bureau glass. +There was, too, a torn and faded slipper for matches, and a tall glass +lamp that, for some reason, reminded Janice of a skeleton. She could +never look at that lamp thereafter without expecting the oil tank to +become a grinning skull with a tall fool's cap (the chimney) on it, and +its thin body to sprout bony arms and legs. + +The furniture was decrepit and ill matched. Janice could have overlooked +the shaky chair, the toppling bureau, and the scratched washstand; but +the bed with only three legs, and a soap-box under the fourth corner, +_did_ bring a question to the guest's lips: + +"Where is the other leg, Aunty?" + +"Now, I declare for't!" exclaimed Mrs. Day. "That _is_ too bad! The +leg's up on the closet shelf here. Jase was calkerlatin' to put it on +again, but he ain't never got 'round to it. But the box'll hold yer. It +only rattles," she added, as Janice tried the security of the bedstead. + +That expression, "it only rattles," the girl from Greensboro was +destined to hear unnumbered times in her uncle's home. It was typical of +the old Day house and its inmates. Unless a repair absolutely _must_ be +made, Uncle Jason would not take a tool in his hand. + +As for her Cousin Martin ("Marty" everybody called the gangling, +grinning, idle ne'er-do-well of fourteen), Janice was inclined to be +utterly hopeless about him from the start. If he was a specimen of the +Poketown boys, she told herself, she had no desire to meet any of them. + +"What do you do with yourself all day long, Marty, if you don't go to +school?" she asked her cousin, at the dinner table. + +"Oh, I hang around--like everybody else. Ain't nothin' doin' in +Poketown." + +"I should think it would be more fun to go to school." + +"Not ter 'Rill Scattergood," rejoined the boy, in haste. "That old maid +dunno enough to teach a cow." + +Janice might have thought a cow much more difficult to teach than a boy; +only she looked again into Marty's face, which plainly advertised the +vacancy of his mind, and thought better of the speech that had risen to +her lips. + +"Marty won't go to school no more," her aunt complained, whiningly. +"'Rill Scattergood ain't got no way with him. Th' committee's been +talkin' about gittin' another teacher for years; but 'Rill's sorter +_sot_ there, she's had the place so long." + +"There's more than a month of school yet--before the summer +vacation--isn't there?" queried Janice. + +"Oh, yes," sighed Mrs. Day. + +"I'd love to go and get acquainted with the girls," the guest said, +brightly. "Wouldn't you go with me some afternoon and introduce me to +the teacher, Marty?" + +"_Me?_ Ter 'Rill Scattergood? Naw!" declared the amazed Marty. "I sh'd +say not!" + +"Why, Marty!" exclaimed his mother. "That ain't perlite." + +"Who said 'twas?" returned her hopeful son, shortly. "I ain't tryin' ter +be perlite ter no _girl_. And I ain't goin' ter 'Rill Scattergood's +school--never, no more!" + +"Young man," commanded his father, angrily, "you hold that tongue o' +yourn. And you be perlite to your cousin, or I'll dance the dust out o' +your jacket with a hick'ry sprout, big as ye be." + +Janice hastened to change the subject and tune the conversation to a +more pleasant key. + +"It is so pretty all over this hillside," she said. "Around Greensboro +the country is flat. I think the hills are much more beautiful. And the +lake is just _dear_." + +"Ya-as," sighed her aunt. "Artis' folks come here an' paint this lake. I +reckon it's purty; but ye sort er git used ter it after a while." + +It was evidently hard for Aunt 'Mira to enthuse over anything. Marty +volunteered: + +"We got a waterfall on our place. Folks call it the Shower Bath. Guess a +girl would think 'twas pretty." + +"Oh! I'd love to see that," declared Janice, quickly. + +"I'll show it to you after dinner," said Marty, of a sudden surprisingly +friendly. + +"You'll hoe them 'taters after dinner," cried his father, sharply. +"That's what _you'll_ do." + +"Huh!" growled the sullen youth. "Yer said I was to be perlite, an' when +I start in ter be, you spring them old pertaters on a feller. Huh!" + +"Aw, now, Jason," interposed his mother. "Can't Marty show his cousin +over the farm and hoe the 'taters afterward?" + +"No, he can't!" denied Master Marty, quickly. "I ain't goin' ter work +double for nobody. Now, that's flat!" + +"Oh, we can go to the Shower Bath some other time," suggested Janice, +apprehensive of starting another family squabble. "I don't know as I'd +be able to hoe potatoes; but maybe there are other things I can do in +the garden. I always had a big flower garden at home." + +"Huh!" grunted Marty. "Flowers are only a nuisance." + +"I s'pose you could weed some," sighed Aunt 'Mira. "It hurts me so to +stoop." + +"She'd better pick 'tater bugs," said Marty, grinning. "They've begun to +come, I reckon. Hard-shells, anyway." + +Janice could not resist shivering at this suggestion. She did not love +insects any better than do most girls. But she took Marty's suggestion +in good part. + +"You wait," she said. "Maybe I can do that, too. I'll weed a little, +anyway. Have you a large farm, Uncle Jason?" + +"It's big enough, Janice," grumbled Jason. "Does seem as though--most +years--it's too big for us to manage. If Marty, here, warn't so +triflin'----" + +"I don't see no medals on _you_ for workin' hard," whispered the boy, +loud enough for Janice to hear. + +"This was a right good farm, onc't," said Aunt 'Mira. "B'fore Jason got +his mis'ry we use ter have good crops. That's when we was fust married." + +"But that's what broke my health all down," interposed Uncle Jason. +"Don't pay a man to work so hard when he's young. He has ter suffer for +it in the end." + +"Huh!" grunted Marty. "If it wasn't good for _you_ to work so hard when +you was young, what about _me_?" + +"You git along out o' here an' start on them 'taters!" commanded Mr. +Day, angrily. + +Marty slid out, muttering under his breath. Janice jumped up from the +table, saying cheerfully: "I'll help you with the dishes, Aunty. Let's +clear off." + +Her uncle had risen and was feeling for his corncob pipe on the ledge +above the door. Mrs. Day looked a bit startled when she saw Janice begin +briskly to collect the soiled dishes. + +"I dunno, Janice," she hesitated. "I gin'rally feel right po'ly after +dinner, and I'm use ter takin' forty winks." + +Janice did not wonder that her aunt felt "right po'ly." She had eaten +more pork, potatoes, spring cabbage and fresh bread than would have +served a hearty man. + +"Let's get rid of the dishes first, Aunty," said Janice, cheerfully "You +can get your nap afterward." + +"Wa-al," agreed Mrs. Day, slowly rising. "I dunno's there's water enough +to more'n give 'em a lick and a promise. Marty! Oh, you Marty! Come, go +for a pail of water, will ye? That's a good boy." + +"Now, ye know well enough," snarled Jason's voice just outside the +door, "that that boy ain't in earshot now." + +"Oh, _I_ can get a pail of water from the pump, Aunty," said Janice, +briskly starting for the porch. + +"But that pump ain't goin'," declared Mrs. Day. "An' no knowin' when +'twill be goin'. We have ter lug all our water from Dickerson's." + +"Oh, gimme the bucket!" snapped Uncle Jason, putting his great, hairy +hand inside the door and snatching the water-pail from the shelf. +"Wimmen-folks is allus a-clatterin' about suthin'!" + +Janice had never imagined people just like these relatives of hers. She +was both ashamed and amused,--ashamed of their ill-breeding and amused +by their useless bickering. + +"Wa-al," said her aunt, yawning and lowering herself upon the kitchen +couch, the springs of which squeaked complainingly under her weight, +"Wa-al, 'tain't scurcely wuth doin' the dishes _now_. Jason'll stop and +gab 'ith some one. It takes him ferever an' a day ter git a pail o' +water. You go on about your play, Niece Janice. I'll git 'em done erlone +somehow, by-me-by." + +Mrs. Day closed her eyes while she was still speaking. She was evidently +glad to relax into her old custom again. + +Janice took down her aunt's sunbonnet from the nail by the side door and +went out. Amusement had given place in the girl's mind to something +like actual shrinking from these relatives and their ways. The porch +boards gave under even her weight. Some of them were broken. The steps +were decrepit, too. The pump handle was tied down, she found, when she +put a tentative hand upon it. + +"'It jest rattles,'" quoted Janice; but no laugh followed the sigh which +was likewise her involuntary comment upon the situation. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +FIRST IMPRESSIONS + + +There was a long, well-shaded yard behind the house, bordered on the +upper hand by the palings of the garden fence. Had this fence not been +so overgrown by vines, wandering hens could have gone in and out of the +garden at pleasure. + +Robins were whisking in and out of the tops of the trees, quarreling +over the first of the cherry crop. Janice heard Marty's hoe and she +opened the garden gate. About half of this good-sized patch was given +over to the "'tater" crop; the remainder of the garden seemed--to the +casual glance--merely a wilderness of weeds. There may have been rows of +vegetable seeds planted there in the beginning; but now it was a perfect +mat of green things that have no commercial value--to say the least. + +Marty was about halfway down the first row of potatoes. He was cleaning +the row pretty well, and the weeds were wilting in the sun; but the rows +were as crooked as a snake's path. + +"Hullo!" said the boy, willing to stop and lean on the hoe handle. +"Don't you want to help?" + +"I don't believe I could hoe, Marty," said Janice, doubtfully. + +"If you'd been a boy cousin, I wouldn't have minded," grunted Marty. "He +and me could have had some fun." + +"Don't you think _I_ can be any fun?" demanded Janice, rather amused by +the frankness of the youth. + +"Never saw a gal that was," responded Marty. "Always in the way. Marm +says I got to be perlite to 'em----" + +"And is that such a cross?" + +"Don't know anything about no cross," growled Marty; "but a boy cousin +that I could lick would ha' been a whole lot more to my mind." + +"Oh, Marty! we're not going to quarrel." + +"I dunno whether we are or not," returned the pessimistic youth. "Wait +till there's only one piece o' pie left at dinner some day. You'll have +ter have it. Marm'll say so. But if you was a boy--an' I could lick +ye--ye wouldn't dare take it. D'ye see?" + +"I'm not so awfully fond of pie," admitted Janice. "And I wouldn't let a +piece stand in the way of our being good friends." + +"Oh, well; we'll see," said Marty, grudgingly. "But ye can't hoe, ye +say?" + +"I don't believe so. I'd cut off more potato plants than weeds, maybe. +Can't you cultivate your potatoes with a horse cultivator? I see the +farmers doing that around Greensboro. It's lots quicker." + +"Oh, we got a horse-hoe," said Marty, without interest. "But it got +broke an' Dad ain't fixed it yet. B'sides, ye couldn't use it 'twixt +these rows. They're too crooked. But then--as the feller said--there's +more plants in a crooked row." + +"What's all that?" demanded Janice, waving a hand toward the other half +of the garden. + +"Weeds--mostly. Right there's carrots. Marm always _will_ plant carrots +ev'ry spring; but they git lost so easy in the weeds." + +"_I_ know carrots," cried Janice, brightly. "Let me weed 'em," and she +dropped on her knees at the beginning of the rows. + +"Help yourself!" returned Marty, plying the hoe. "But it looks to me as +though them carrots had just about fainted." + +It looked so to Janice, too, when she managed to find the tender little +plants which, coming up thickly enough in the row, now looked as livid +as though grown in a cellar. The rank weeds were keeping all the sun and +air from them. + +"I can find them, just the same," she confided to Marty, when he came +back up the next row. "And I'd better thin them, too, as I go along, +hadn't I?" + +"Help yourself," repeated the boy. "But pickin' 'tater bugs wouldn't be +as bad as _that_, to my mind." + + "'Every one to his fancy, + And me to my Nancy.' + +as the old woman said when she kissed her cow," quoted Janice, laughing. +"You can have the bugs, Marty." + +"Somebody'll have to git 'em pretty soon, or the bugs'll have the +'taters," declared her cousin. "Say! you'd ought to have somethin' +besides your fingers ter scratch around them plants." + +"Yes, and a pair of old gloves, Marty," agreed Janice, ruefully. + +"Huh! Ain't that a girl all over? Allus have ter be waited on. I wisht +you'd been a boy cousin--I jest _do_! Then we'd git these 'taters done +'fore night." + +"And how about getting the carrots weeded, Marty?" she returned, +laughing at him. + +Marty grunted. But when he finished the second row he threw down his hoe +and disappeared through the garden gate. Janice wondered if he had +deserted her--and the potatoes--for the afternoon; but by and by he +returned, bringing a little three-fingered hand-weeder, and tossed on +the ground beside her a pair of old kid gloves--evidently his mother's. + +"Oh, thank you, Marty!" cried Janice. "I don't mind working, but I hated +to tear my fingers all to pieces." + +"Huh!" grunted Marty. "Ain't that jest like a girl?" + +Grudgingly, however, as his interest in Janice was shown, the girl +appreciated the fact that Marty was warming toward her. Intermittently, +as he plodded up and down the potato rows, they conversed and became +better acquainted. + +"Daddy has a friend who owns a farm outside of Greensboro, and I loved +to go out there," Janice ventured. "I always said I'd love to live on a +farm." + +"Huh!" came Marty's usual explosive grunt. "You'll git mighty tired of +livin' on _this_ one--I bet you!" + +"Why should I? You've got horses, and cows, and chickens, and--and all +that--haven't you?" + +"Well, we've got a pair of nags that you can plow with. But they ain't +fit for driving. Jim Courteval, who lives up the road a piece, now +_he's_ got some hossflesh wuth owning. But our old crowbaits ain't +nothing." + +"Don't you love to take care of them--and brush them--and all that?" +cried the girl, eagerly. + +"Not much I don't! I reckon if old Sam and Lightfoot felt a currycomb +once more they'd have a fit. And you ought to see our cow! Gee! Dad +tried to trade her the other day for a stack of fodder, and the man +wouldn't have her. He'll have ter trade her off 'sight unseen' if he +ever gits rid of her. Ye see, we never _do_ raise feed enough, an' she +certainly come through the winter in bad shape; an' our paster fence is +down in places so we can't let her get the grass." + +"Why, the poor creature!" murmured Janice. "Why don't you mend the +fence, Marty, so the cow can feed in the pasture?" + +"Me? Huh! I guess not," snarled Marty, starting down the potato row +again. "Let the old man do it." + +It was not long after this that Marty got tired of hoeing and threw down +the implement altogether, to seek the shadow of the cherry tree in the +fence corner. + +"Why don't ye quit?" he asked Janice. "You're getting all hot and mucky. +And for what? Them things will only have ter be weeded again." + +Janice laughed. "I'll keep them clean as far as I can go. I won't let a +lot of old weeds beat _me_." + +"Huh! what's the odds?" + +"Why, Marty!" she cried. "Don't you like to see 'a good task well +done?'" + +"Ya-as,--by somebody else," grinned that young hopeful. "Come on an' sit +down, Janice." + +"Haven't got time," laughed his cousin. + +"Pshaw! 'Time was made for slaves'--that's what Walky Dexter says. Say! +let's go up to see the Shower Bath." + +"How about the potatoes?" + +"Shucks! I've done a good stint, ain't I? Dad can't expect me to work +all the time. An' I bet he ain't doin' a livin' thing himself but +settin' down talkin' somewhere." + +Janice, though shaking her head silently, thought this was more than +likely to be true. And Marty would not leave her in peace; so she was +willing to desert the carrot patch. But she had cleaned up quite a piece +of the bed and was proud of it. + +Marty sauntered along by her side as they passed through the barnyard +and paddock. It was plain that what Marty had said about currying the +horses was quite true. The beasts' winter coats still clung to them in +rags. And the poor cow! + +A couple of lean shoats squealed in a pen. + +"What makes them so noisy, Marty?" asked his cousin. + +"I guess they're thirsty. Always squealin' about sumthin'--hogs is. More +nuisance than they're worth." + +"But--I s'pose if _you_ wanted water, you'd squeal?" suggested Janice. + +"Huh! smart, ain't ye?" growled Marty. "I'd go down ter Dickerson's an' +git a drink. So'll them shoats if Dad don't mend that pen pretty soon." + +It was no use to suggest that Marty might make the needed repairs; so +Janice made no further comment. The trail of shiftlessness was over +everything. Fences were down, doors flapped on single hinges, roofs were +caved in, heaps of rubbish lay in corners, here and there broken and +rusted farm implements stood where they had last been used. Neglect and +Decay had marked the Day farm for their own. + +The fields were plowed for corn and partly worked up with the harrow. +But nothing further had been done for several days past, and already the +weeds were sprouting. + +Most of the fences were of stone; but the pasture fence was of three +strands of wire, and with a hammer and staples a good deal might have +been done for it in a few brisk hours. + +"Aw, what's the use?" demanded Marty. "It'd only be down again in a +little while." + +"But the poor cow----" + +"Shucks! She's gone dry long ago. An' I'm glad of it, for Dad made me +milk her." + +The climb through the pasture and the woodlot above it, however, was +pleasant, and when Janice heard the falling water she was delighted. +This was so different from the prairie country to which she was used +that she must needs express her appreciation of its loveliness again and +again. + +"Oh, yes," grunted Marty. "But these rocky old farms are mighty hard to +work. I bet I picked up a million dornicks out o' that upper cornfield +las' month. An' ye plow jest as many out o' the ground ev'ry year. Mebbe +the scenery's pretty upon these here hills; but ye can't _eat_ scenery, +and the crops are mighty poor." + +Over the lip of a smoothly-worn ledge the water sprayed into a granite +basin. The dimpling pool might have been knee-deep, and was as cold as +ice. + +"It's like that the hottest day in August," said Marty. "But it's lots +more fun to go swimmin' in the lake." + +It was late afternoon when they came down the hillside to the old Day +house once more. Mr. Day was puttering around the stables. + +"Ye didn't finish them 'taters, Marty," he complained. + +"Oh, I'll do 'em to-morrer," said the boy. "It most broke my back +a'ready. And did ye see all the carrots we got weeded?" + +"Uh-huh," observed his father. "Lots _you_ had to do with weedin' the +carrots, Marty," he added, sarcastically. + +When Janice went into the house the dinner dishes were still piled in +the sink; yet Aunt 'Mira was already getting supper. She was still +shuffling around the kitchen in her list slippers and the old calico +dress. + +"I declare for't!" she complained. "Seems ter me I never find time to +clean myself up for an afternoon like other women folks does. There's +allus so much ter do in this house. Does seem the beatenes'! An' there +ain't nobody nowheres likes nice clo'es better than I do, Niece Janice. +I use ter dress pretty nifty, if I do say it. But that was a long time +ago, a long time ago. + +"No. Never mind 'em now. I'll wash the hull kit an' bilin' of 'em up +after supper. No use in takin' two bites to a cherry," she added, +referring to the dishes in the sink. + +Janice climbed the stairs to her room, carefully stepping over the +broken tread. There was water in her pitcher, and she made her simple +toilet, putting on a fresh frock. Then she sat down in the rocker by the +window. Every time she swung to and fro the loose rocker clicked and +rattled. + +The red light that heralded the departure of the sun behind the wooded +hills across the lake seemed to make the room and its mismated +furnishings uglier than before. The girl turned her back upon it with +almost a sob, and gazed out upon the terraced hillside and the lake, the +latter already darkening. The shadows on the farther shore were heavy, +but here and there a point of sudden light showed a farmhouse. + +A belated bird, winging its way homeward, called shrilly. The breeze +sobbed in the nearby treetops, and then died suddenly. + +Such a lonely, homesick feeling possessed Janice Day as she had never +imagined before! She was away off here in the East, while Daddy's train +was still flying westward with him, down towards that war-ruffled +Mexico. And she was obliged to stay here--in this ugly old house--with +these shiftless people---- + +"Oh, dear Daddy! I wish you could be here right now," the girl half +sobbed. "I wish you could see this place--and the folks here! I know +what _you'd_ say, Daddy; I know just what you'd say about it all!" + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +'RILL SCATTERGOOD AND HER SCHOOL. + + +With the elasticity of Youth, however, Janice opened her eyes the +following morning on a new world. Certainly the outlook from her window +was glorious; therefore her faith in life itself--and in Poketown and +her relatives--was renewed as she gazed out upon the beautiful picture +fresh-painted by the fingers of Dawn. + +All out-of-doors beckoned Janice. She hurriedly made her toilet, crept +down the squeaking stairs, and softly let herself out, for nobody else +was astir about the old Day house. + +The promise of the morning from the window was kept in full. Janice +could not walk sedately--she fairly skipped. Out of the sagging gate and +up the winding lane she went, her feet twinkling over the dew-wet sod, a +song on her lips, her eyes as bright as the stars which Dawn had +smothered when she tiptoed over the eastern hills. + +And then at a corner of a cross-lane above her uncle's house, Janice +came upon the only other person in Poketown astir as early as +herself--Walkworthy Dexter, who led Josephus, the heavy harness clanking +about the horse's ribs. + +"Ah-ha! I see there's a new _day_," chuckled Mr. Dexter, his pale blue +eyes twinkling. "And how do you find your Uncle Jase? Not what you'd +call a fidgety man, eh? He ain't never stirred up about nothing, Jase +Day ain't. What d'ye think?" + +Janice didn't know just what _to_ think--or, to say, either. + +"Find Jase jest a mite leisurely, don't ye?" pursued the gossipy Dexter. +"I bet a cooky he ain't much like the folks where you come from?" + +"I couldn't give an opinion so soon," said Janice, shyly, not sure that +she liked this fat man any more for the scorn in which he held his +neighbors. + +"There speaks the true Day--slow but sure," laughed Dexter, and went his +way without further comment, leading the bony Josephus. + +But the morning was quite spoiled for Janice. She wondered if her +uncle's townsfolks all held Walkworthy Dexter's opinion of the Day +family? It hurt her pride to be classed with people who were so +shiftless that they were a byword in the community. + +She went back to the house when she saw the smoke curling out of the +chimney below her. Aunt 'Mira was shuffling around the kitchen in slow +preparation for the morning meal. Mr. Day was pounding on the stairs +with a stick of stove-wood, in an endeavor to awaken Marty. + +"That boy sleeps like the dead," he complained. "Marty! Marty!" he +shouted up the stairs, "your marm is waitin' for you to git her a pail +of water." + +Then he started for the stable to feed the stock, without waiting to see +if his young hopeful was coming down, or not. + +"I declare for't!" Aunt 'Mira sighed; "I'm allus bein' put back for +water. I _do_ wish Jason would mend that pump." + +Janice took the empty pail quietly and departed for the neighbor's +premises. It was an old-fashioned sweep-and-bucket well at the +Dickerson's, but Janice managed it. The pail of water was heavy, +however, and she had to change hands several times on her way up the +hill. Marty came yawning to the door just as his cousin appeared. + +He grinned. "You kin git up an' do that ev'ry morning, if ye want to, +Janice," he said. "I won't be jealous if ye do." + +"Ye'd oughter be ashamed, Marty," whined his mother, from the kitchen, +"seein' a gal do yer work for ye." + +"Who made it my work any more'n it's Dad's work?" growled Marty. "And +she didn't have ter do it if she didn't want to." + +Janice did her best to keep to a cheerful tone. "I didn't mind going, +Aunty," she said. "And we'll get breakfast so much quicker. I'm hungry." + +She endeavored to be cheerful and chatty at the breakfast table. But the +very air her relatives breathed seemed to feed their spleen. Mr. Day +insisted upon Marty's finishing the hoeing of the potatoes, and it took +almost a pitched battle to get the boy started. + +Mrs. Day was inclined, after all, to "take sides" with her son against +his father, so the smoke of battle was not entirely dissipated when +Marty had flung himself out of the house to attack the weeds. + +"Ef you'd do a few things yourself when they'd oughter be done, p'r'aps +the boy'd take example of ye," said Mrs. Day, bitterly. + +Her husband reached for his pipe--that never-failing comforter--and made +no reply. + +"Ev'rythin' about the house is goin' to rack an' ruin," pursued the +lady, slopping a little water into the dishpan. "No woman never had to +put up with all _I_ hafter put up with--not even Job's wife! There! all +the water's gone ag'in. I do wish you'd mend that pump, Jason." + +But Jason had departed, and only a faint smell of tobacco smoke trailed +him across the yard. + +Janice tried to help her aunt--and that was not difficult. Almira Day +was no rigid disciplinarian when it came to housekeeping. By her own +confession she frequently satisfied her housewifely conscience by giving +things "a lick and a promise." And anybody who would help her could make +beds and "rid up" as best pleased themselves. Aunt 'Mira was no +housekeeping tyrant--by no means! Consequently she did not interfere +with anything her niece did about the house. + +The upstairs work was done and the sitting room brushed and set to +rights much earlier than was the Day custom. When Janice had done this +she came back to the kitchen, to find her aunt sitting in a creaky +rocker in the middle of the unswept floor and with the dishes only half +washed, deep in a cheap weekly story paper. + +"Why! how smart you be, child! All done? Wa-al, ye see, I gotter wait +for Jason, or Marty, to git me a pail o' water. They ain't neither of +'em been down to the house yit--an' I might's well rest now as any +time." + +It was this way all day long. Aunt Almira was never properly through her +work. Things were always "in a clutter." She did not find time from +morning till night (to hear her tell it) to "clean herself up like other +wimmen." + +Janice helped in the garden again; but Marty was grumpy, and as soon as +the last row of potatoes was hoed he disappeared until supper time. +Uncle Jason was marking a field for corn planting. A harness strap broke +and he was an hour fixing it, while old Lightfoot dragged the rickety +marker into the fence corner and patiently cropped the weeds. Later a +neighbor leaned on the fence, and Uncle Jason gossiped for another hour. + +The girl saw that none of the neighboring housewives came to call on +Aunt 'Mira. In the afternoon she saw several of them exchanging calls up +and down the lane; but they were in fresh print dresses and carried +their needlework, or the like, in their hands, while Aunt 'Mira was +still "down at the heel" and in her faded calico. + +Janice was getting very lonely and homesick. Every hour made the +separation from her father seem harder to bear. And she had scarcely +spoken to a soul save the Days and Walky Dexter since her arrival in +Poketown. Friday noon came, and at dinner Janice desperately broached +the subject of 'Rill Scattergood's school again. + +"I'd love to visit it," she said. "Maybe I'd get acquainted with some of +the girls. I might even attend for the remainder of the term." + +"Huh!" scoffed Marty. "That old maid can't teach ye nothin'." + +"But it would be something to _do_," exclaimed Janice, with vigor. + +"My goodness me, child!" drawled Aunt Almira. "Can't you be content to +jest let things go along easy?" + +"Yer must want sumthin' ter do mighty bad, ter want ter go ter 'Rill +Scattergood's school," was again Marty's scornful comment. + +"Just the same I'm going," declared Janice. "It's not far, is it?" + +"Right up at the edge of town," said her uncle. "They built it there +ter git the young'uns out o' the way. Hard on some of 'em in bad +weather, it's sech a long walk. Some o' these here flighty folks has +been talkin' up a new buildin' an' a new teacher; but taxes is high +enough as they be, _I_ tell 'em!" + +"'Rill Scattergood ain't no sort er teacher," said Mrs. Day. "She didn't +have no sort er control over Marty." + +"Huh!" grunted that young man, "she couldn't teach nothin' ter +nobody--that ol' maid." + +"But 'most of the girls and boys of Poketown go to school to her, don't +they?" asked Janice. + +"Them whose folks can't send 'em to the Middleboro Academy," admitted +her aunt. + +"Then I'm going up to get acquainted after dinner," announced Janice. +"I--I had so many friends in Greensboro--so many, many girls at +school--and some of the boys were real nice--and the teachers--and other +folks. Oh, dear! I expect it's Daddy I miss most of all, and if I don't +pretty soon find something to _do_--something to take a real interest +in--I'll never be able to stand having him 'way down there in Mexico and +me up here, not knowing what's happening to him!" + +The girl's voice broke and the tears stood in her eyes. Her earnestness +made even Marty silent for the moment. Aunt Almira leaned over and +patted her hand. + +"You go on to the school, if ye think ye got to. I'd go with ye an' +introduce ye ter 'Rill Scattergood if I didn't have so much to do. It +does seem as though I allus was behindhand with my work." + +A little later, when Janice, in her neat summer frock and beribboned +shade-hat, passed down Hillside Avenue, she was conscious of a good many +people staring at her--more now than when she had come up the hill with +her uncle several days before. + +Here and there some attempts had been made to grow flowers in the yards, +or to keep neat borders and rake the walks. But for the most part +Hillside Avenue displayed a forlorn nakedness to the eye that made +Janice more than ever homesick for Greensboro. + +The schoolbell had ceased ringing before she turned into High Street and +began to ascend the hill again, so there were no young folks in sight. + +Higher up the main street of Poketown there were few stores, but the +dwellings were no more attractive. Nobody seemed to take any pride in +this naturally beautiful old town. + +Janice realized that she was a mark for all idle eyes. Strangers were +not plentiful in Poketown. + +She came at length in sight of the school. It was set in the middle of a +square, ugly, unfenced yard, without a tree before it or a blooming bush +or vine against its dull red walls. The sun beat upon it hotly, and it +did seem as though the builders must have intended to make school as +hateful as possible to the girls and boys who attended. + +The windows and doors were open, and a hum came from within like that of +a swarming hive of bees. Janice went quietly to the nearest door, +mounted the steps, and looked in. + +She had by chance come to the girls' entrance. The scholars' backs were +toward her and Janice could look her fill without being observed. + +There was a small class reciting before the teacher's desk--droning away +in a sleepy fashion. The older scholars, sitting in the rear of the +room, were mainly busy about their own private affairs; few seemed to be +conning their lessons. + +Several girls were busily braiding the plaits of the girls in front of +them. Two, with very red faces and sparkling eyes, were undeniably +quarreling, and whispering bitter denunciations of each other, to the +amusement of their immediate neighbors. One girl had a bag of candy +which she was circulating among her particular friends. Another had +raised the covers of her geography like a screen, and was busily engaged +in writing a letter behind it, on robin's-egg-blue paper. + +At the far end of the room the teacher, Miss Scattergood, sat at her +flat-topped desk. "That old maid," as Marty had called her, was not at +all the sort of a person--in appearance, at least--that Janice expected +her to be. Somehow, a spinster lady who had taught school--and such a +school as Poketown's--for twenty years, should have fitted the +well-known specifications of the old-time "New England schoolmarm." But +Amarilla Scattergood did not. + +She was a little, light-haired, pink-cheeked lady, with more than a few +claims to personal attractiveness yet left. She had her mother's +birdlike tilt to her head when she spoke, her eyes were still bright, +and her complexion good. + +These facts were visible to Janice even from the doorway. + +When she knocked lightly upon the door-frame, Miss Scattergood looked up +and saw her. A little hush fell upon the school, too, and Janice was +aware that both girls and boys were turning about in their seats to look +at her. + +"Come in," said Miss Scattergood. "Scholars, attention! Eyes forward!" + +She might as well have spoken to the wind that breathed at the open +window and fluttered the papers upon her desk. The older scholars paid +the little school-mistress no attention whatsoever. + +Janice felt some little confusion in passing down the aisle, knowing +herself to be the center of all eyes. Miss Scattergood dismissed the +class before her briefly, and offered Janice a chair on the platform. + +"I guess you're Jason Day's niece," said the teacher, pleasantly, +taking her visitor's hand. "Mother was telling me about you." + +"Yes, Miss Scattergood," Janice replied. "I am Janice Day, and when you +have time I'd love to have you examine me and see where I belong in your +school." + +"You--you are too far advanced for our school," said the little teacher, +with some hesitation and a flush that was almost painful. "Especially if +you came from a place where the schools are graded as in the city." + +"Greensboro has good schools," Janice said. "I was in my junior year at +high." + +"Oh, dear me!" Miss Scattergood cried, hastily. "We don't have any such +system here, of course. The committee doesn't demand it of me. I have to +teach the little folks as well as the big. We go as far as our books +go--that is all." + +She placed several text-books before Janice. It was plain that she was +not a little afraid of her visitor, for Janice was much different from +the staring, "pig-tailed" misses occupying the back seats of the +Poketown school. + +Janice was hungry for young companionship, and she liked little Miss +Scattergood, despite the uncontradicted fact that "she didn't have no +way with her." + +While she conned the text-books the school-mistress had placed before +her, Janice watched proceedings with interest. She had never even heard +of an ungraded country school before, much less seen one. The older +pupils, both girls and boys, seemed to be a law unto themselves; Miss +Scattergood had little control over them. + +The teacher called another class of younger scholars. This class +practically took all of her attention and she did not observe the four +boys who carried on a warfare with "snappers" and "spitballs" in the +back seats; of the predatory campaign of the lanky, white-haired youth +who slid from seat to seat of the smaller boys, capturing tops, marbles, +and other small possessions dear to childish hearts, threatening by +gesture and writhing lips a "slaughter of the innocents" if one of them +dared "tell teacher." + +Few of the older boys were studying, and none of the bigger girls. The +latter were too much interested in Janice. Looking them over, there was +not one of these Poketown girls to whom Janice felt herself attracted. +Some of them giggled as they caught her eye; others whispered together +with the visitor as the evident subject of their secret observations; +and one girl, seeing that Janice was looking at her, actually stuck out +her tongue--a pink flag of scorn and defiance! + +Janice believed that in English, history and mathematics she might +improve by reciting with Miss Scattergood's classes, and she told the +little teacher so. + +"You'll be welcome, I'm sure," said the school-mistress, nervously. "Are +you coming Monday? That's nice," and she shook hands with her as the +visitor arose. + +Janice passed down the girls' aisle again, trying to pick out at least +one of the occupants of the old-fashioned benches who would look as +though she might be chummy and nice; but there was not one. + +"Dear me--dear me!" murmured Janice, when she was outside and stood a +moment to look back at the ugly, red schoolhouse. "It--'it jest +rattles'--_that's_ what it does; like everything about Uncle Jason's, +and like everything about the whole town. That school swings on one +hinge like the gates on Hillside Avenue. + +"Oh, dear me! Poketown is just dreadful--it's dreadful!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +AN AFTERNOON OF ADVENTURE + + +The late spring air, however, was delicious. The trees rustled +pleasantly. The bees hummed and the birds twittered, and altogether +there were a hundred things to charm Janice into extending her walk. +Down at the foot of a side street a bit of water gleamed like a huge +turquoise. There seemed to be no dwellings at the foot of this street, +and Janice, with the whole afternoon before her, felt the tingle of +exploration in her blood. + +Just off High Street was another store. It was in a low-roofed building +shouldering upon the highway, with a two-story cottage attachment at the +back. Two huge trees overshadowed the place and lent a deep, cool shade +to the shaky porch; but the trees made the store appear very gloomy +within. + +Of all the shops Janice had observed in Poketown it seemed that this +little store was the most neglected and woeful looking. Its two show +windows were a lacework of dust and flyspecks. In the upper corners were +ragged spider webs; and in one web lay a gorged spider, too well fed to +pounce on the blue-bottle fly buzzing in the toils within easy pouncing +distance! Only glimpses of a higgledy-piggledy of assorted wares were to +be caught behind the panes. Across the front of the building was a faded +sign reading: + + HOPEWELL DRUGG + GROCERIES AND DRY GOODS + +Nothing about the shop itself would have held Janice Day's attention +even for a moment; but from within (the front door stood ajar) came the +wailing notes of a violin, the uncertain bow of the performer seeking +out the notes of "Silver Threads Among the Gold." + +Yet, with all its uncertainty, the fiddler's touch groped for the beauty +and pathos of the chords: + + "Darling, I am growing old, + Silver threads among the gold." + +Janice heard the haunting sweetness of the tune all the way down the +shaded lane and she wondered who the player might be. + +There was a deep, grass-grown ditch on one side--evidently an open drain +to carry the overflow of water from High Street. As the drain deepened +toward the bottom of the hill, posts had been set and rails laid on top +of them to defend vehicles from pitching into the ditch in the dark. But +many of the rails had now rotted and fallen to the sod, or the nails had +rusted and drawn out, leaving the barrier "jest rattling." + +From a side road there suddenly trotted a piebald pony, drawing a low, +basket phaeton, in which sat two prim, little, old ladies, a fat one and +a lean one. Despite the difference in their avoirdupois the two old +ladies showed themselves to be what they were--sisters. + +The thin one was driving the piebald pony. "Gidap, Ginger!" she +announced, flapping the reins. + +She had better have refrained from waking up Ginger just at that moment. +A fickle breath of wind pounced upon an outspread newspaper lying on the +grass, fluttered it for a moment, and then, getting fairly under the +printed sheet, heaved it into the air. + +Ginger caught a glimpse of the fluttering paper. He halted suddenly, +with all four feet braced and ears forward, fairly snorting his +surprise. As the paper began flopping across the road, he began to back. +The whites of his eyes showed plainly and he snorted again. The +wind-shaken paper utterly dissipated the pony's corn-fed complacency. + +"Oh! Oh! Gidap!" shrieked the thin old lady. + +"He--he's backin' us into the ditch, Pussy," cried her sister. + +"I--I can't help it, Blossom," gasped the driver of the frightened pony. + +The phaeton really was getting perilously near the edge of the +undefended ditch, when Janice ran out beside the pony's head, clutched +at his bridle, and halted him in his mad career. The paper dropped into +the ditch and lay still, and the pony began to nuzzle Janice's hand. + +"Isn't he just cunning!" gasped the girl, turning to look at the two +little old ladies. + +From a nearby house appeared a lath-like man, who strode out to the +road, grinning broadly. + +"Hi tunket! Ye did come purty nigh backin' into the ditch _that_ time, +gals," he cackled. "All right now, ain't ye? That there leetle gal is +some spry. Ginger ain't shown so much sperit since b'fore Adam!" + +"Now, I tell ye, Mr. Cross Moore," declared the driver of the pony, +sharply, "we came very near having a serious accident. And all because +these rails aren't repaired. You're one of the _se_-lect-men and you'd +oughter have sense enough to repair that railin'. Wait till somebody +drives plump into the ditch and the town has a big damage bill to pay." + +"Aw, now, there ain't many folks drives this way," defended Mr. Cross +Moore. + +"There's enough. And think o' Hopewell Drugg's Lottie. She's always +running up and down this lane. Somebody's goin' to pitch head-fust inter +that ditch yet, Cross Moore, an' then you'll be sorry." + +She was a very vigorous-speaking old lady, that was sure. The sister by +her side was of much milder temperament, and she was thanking Janice +very sweetly while the other scolded Selectman Moore. + +"We thank you very much, my dear. You are much braver than _I_ am, for +I'm free to confess I'm afraid of all cattle," said the plump old lady, +in a somewhat shaken voice. "Who are you, my dear? I don't remember +seeing you before." + +"I am Janice Day, Ma'am." + +"Day? You belong here in Poketown? There's Days live on Hillside +Avenue." + +"Yes, Ma'am," confessed Janice. "Mr. Jason Day is my uncle. But I am +Broxton Day's daughter." + +"Why, do tell!" cried the plump little old lady, who had pink cheeks and +the very warmest of warm smiles, as she looked into the girl's hazel +eyes. "See here, Pussy," she cried to her sister. "Do you know who this +little girl turns out to be? She's Brocky Day's girl. Surely you +remember Brocky Day?" + +But "Pussy" was still haranguing the town selectman upon his crimes of +omission and could not give her attention to Janice. + +"Anyhow, dear, won't you come and see us? Pussy's disturbed a mite now; +but she'll love to have you come, too. We live just a little way out o' +town--anybody can tell you where the Hammett Twins live," said this +full-blown "Blossom." "Yes. My sister an' I are twins. And we're fond of +young folks and like to have 'em 'round us. There! Ginger's all right, +Pussy. We can drive on." + +"You'd oughter fix them rails, Cross Moore," repeated the lean sister, +as the old pony started placidly up the hill again. + +Mr. Moore languidly squinted along the staggering barrier. "Wa-al--I +reckon I will--one o' these days," he said. + +He grinned in a friendly way at Janice as she started on. "Them Hammett +gals is reg'lar fuss-bugets," he observed. "But they're nice folks. So +you're Broxton Day's gal? I heard you'd arove. How do you like +Poketown?" + +"I don't know it well enough to say yet, Mr. Moore," returned Janice, +bashfully, as she went down the hill. + +There were no more houses, but great, sweeping-limbed willow trees +shaded the lower range of the hill. She came out, quite suddenly, upon a +little open lawn which edged the lake itself. Here an old dock stuck +its ugly length out into the water--a dock the timbers of which were +blackened as though by a fire, and the floor-boards of which had mostly +been removed. There was but a narrow path out to the end of the wharf. + +Between the wharf and the opposite side of this little bay was a piece +of perfectly smooth water; the softly breathing wind did not ruffle the +bay at all. The long arm of the shore that was thrust out into the lake +was heavily wooded. Rows of dark, almost black, northern spruce stood +shouldering each other on that farther shore, making a perfect wall of +verdure. Their deep shadow was already beginning to creep across the +water toward the old wharf. + +"What a quiet spot!" exclaimed Janice, aloud. + +"'Iet spot!'" breathed the echo from the opposite shore. + +"Why! it's an echo!" cried the startled Janice. + +"'An echo!'" repeated the sprite, in instant imitation of her tone. + +It was then that Janice saw the little girl upon the old wharf. At first +she seemed just a blotch of color upon the old burned timbers. Then the +startled visitor realized that the gaily-hued frock, and sash, and +bonnet, garbed a little girl of perhaps eight or nine years. + +Janice could not see her face. When she rose up from where she had been +sitting and went along the shaking stringpiece of the dock, her back +was still toward the shore. + +Yet her gait--the groping of one hand before her--all the uncertainty +and questioning of her attitude--shot the spectator through with alarm. +The child was blind! More than this, her unguided feet were leading her +directly to the abrupt end of the half ruined wharf! + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LOST THE ECHO + + +Shocked by the discovery of the child's misfortune, Janice scarcely +appreciated at first the peril that menaced the blind girl. It was a +mystery how her unguided feet had brought her so far along the +wharf-beam without catastrophe. But there--just ahead--was the end of +the half-ruined framework. A few more steps and the groping feet would +be over the water. + +With a sudden, stifled cry, Janice darted forward. At that moment the +child halted; but she gave no sign that she was aware of Janice Day's +presence. The child faced the not far-distant line of thickly-ranked +spruce upon the opposite shore of the little inlet, and from her parted +lips there issued a strange, wailing cry: + +"He-a! he-a! he-a!" she repeated, three times; and back into her face +was flung the mocking laughter of the echo. + +Janice had stopped again--held spellbound by wonder and curiosity. The +little girl stood in a listening attitude. + +"He-a! he-a! he-a!" she cried again. + +The obedient echo repeated the cry; but did the blind girl hear it? She +seemed still to be listening. Janice crept on along the broken wharf, +her hand outstretched, her heart beating in her throat. + +The child ventured another step, and, indeed, she stamped upon the beam. +"He-a! he-a! he-a!" she wailed again--a thin, shrill, unchildlike sound +that made Janice shudder. + +The cry was almost one of anger, surely that stamping of her foot +denoted vexation. Janice could see the profile of the child's face, a +sweet, wistful countenance. Her lips moved once more and, in a thin, +flat voice, she murmured over and over again: "I have lost it! I have +lost it!" + +Janice spoke, her own voice shaking: "My dear! do you know it is +dangerous here?" + +Her hand reached to clutch the child's arm if she was startled. A little +misstep would send the blind girl over the edge of the wharf. But it was +Janice who was startled! + +The child gave her not the least attention--she did not hear. Blind and +deaf, and alone upon the shaking, broken timbers of this old wharf! + +She raised her wailing cry again, and then listened for the echo that +she could no longer hear. The older girl's hand was stayed. She dared +not seize the child, for they were both in a precarious place and if the +little one was frightened and tried to wrench away from her, Janice +feared that they might both fall into the lake. + +But the girl from Greensboro thought quickly; and this was an emergency +when quick thought was needed. She remembered having read that blind +people are very susceptible to any vibration or jar. She herself stamped +upon the old wharf-beam, and instantly the child turned toward her. + +"Who is it?" asked the little girl, in a flat, keyless tone. + +"You don't know me, my dear," Janice said, instinctively; then, +remembering the blind eyes as well as the deaf ears, she drew quite +close to the child and gently took her hand. + +The child responded and touched Janice lightly, gropingly. The latter +could see her eyes now--deep, violet eyes, the appearance of which +belied the fact that the light had gone from them. They were neither +dull-looking nor with a film drawn over them. It was very hard indeed to +believe that the little girl was sightless. + +She was flaxen-haired, pink-cheeked, and not too slender. Yet Janice +could not say that she was pretty. Indeed the impression the afflicted +child made upon one was quite the reverse. + +The little hand crept up Janice's arm to her shoulder, touched her hair +and neck lightly, and then the slender fingers passed over the older +girl's face. She did this swiftly, while Janice took her other hand and +with a soft, urgent pressure tried to draw her along. + +But although she seemed so sweet and amenable, Janice did not breathe +freely until they were both off the old wharf. Then she demanded, +quickly: + +"Do they let you come here alone? Where do you live?" + +The little girl did not answer; of course she did not hear. She was +still looking back toward the tall wall of spruce across the inlet, from +which the sharp echo was flung. + +"He-a! he-a! he-a!" she wailed again, and the echo sent back the cry; +but the little girl shook her head. + +"I have lost it! And I don't hear what _you_ say--do I? You can speak, +can't you?" + +Janice squeezed her hand quickly, and the child seemed to accept it as +an affirmative reply. + +"But, you see, I don't hear you," she continued, in that strange, flat +voice. Janice suddenly realized that hearing had much to do with the use +of the vocal cords. It is because we can hear ourselves speak that we +attune our voices to pleasant sounds. This unfortunate child had no +appreciation of the tones that issued from her lips. + +"I used to hear," said the afflicted one. "And I could see, too. Oh, +yes! I haven't forgotten how things look. You know, I'm Lottie Drugg. I +can find my way about. But--but I've lost the echo. I used to hear +_that_ always. I'd run down there to the wharf and shout to the echo, +and it would answer me. But now I've lost it." + +Janice squeezed the little hand again. She found herself weeping, and +yet the child did not complain. But it was plainly an effort for her to +speak. Like most victims of complete deafness, it would not be long +before she would be speechless, too. She "mouthed" her words in a +pitiful way. + +Blind--deaf--approaching dumbness! The thought made Janice suddenly +seize the child in her arms and hug her, tight. + +"Do you love me?" questioned Lottie Drugg, returning the embrace. "I +wish I could hear you. But I can't hear father any more--nor his fiddle; +only when he makes it quiver. Then I know it's crying. Did you know a +fiddle could cry? You come home with me. Father will play the fiddle for +you, and _you_ can hear it." + +Janice did not know how to reply. There was so much she wished to say to +this poor little thing! But her quick mind jumped to the conclusion that +the child belonged to the person whom she had heard playing the violin +as she came down from High Street--the unknown musician in the store +above the door of which was the faded sign of "Hopewell Drugg." + +She squeezed the little girl's hand again and it seemed to suffice. + +"I know the way. My feet are in the path now," said little Lottie, +scuffling her slipper-shod feet about on the narrow footpath. "Yes! I +know the way now. The sun is behind us. Come," and she put forth her +hand, caught Janice's again, and urged her along the bank of the lake to +the foot of the lane down which the girl from Greensboro had wandered. + +Up the hill they went, Janice marveling that Lottie could be so +confident of the way. She seldom hesitated, and Janice allowed herself +to be led. Mr. Cross Moore was still smoking his pipe out in front of +his house. + +"I calkerlate that child's goin' to be drowned-ed some day," he said +calmly, to Janice. "Jest a marcy that she ain't done it afore now. An' +Hopewell--Huh! him sittin' up there fiddlin'----" + +It seemed to Janice as though a spirit of criticism had entered into all +the Poketownites. There was Walky Dexter scoffing at her Uncle Jason; +and here was Selectman Moore criticising the father of little Lottie. +Yet neither critic, as far as Janice could see, set much of an example +for his townsmen to follow! + +Lottie, with her hand in the bigger girl's, tripped along the walk as +confidently as though she had her eyesight. She was an affectionate +little thing, and she "snuggled" closely to Janice, occasionally +touching her new friend's face and lips with her free hand. + +"I guess I love you," she said, in her strange, little, flat voice. "You +come in and see father. We are most there. Here is Mis' Robbins' gate. I +used to see her flowers. Her yard's full of them, isn't it?" + +"Oh, yes!" replied Janice, fighting her inclination to burst into tears. +"Oh, yes, dear! beautiful flowers." She pressed the hand tightly. + +"I can smell 'em," said the child, snuffing with her nose like a dog. +"And now here is the shade of our big trees. It's darker and cooler +under these trees than anywhere else on the street. Isn't it?" + +Janice agreed by pressing her hand again, and little Lottie +laughed--such a shrill, eyrie little laugh! They were before the +gloomy-looking store of Hopewell Drugg. The wailing of the fiddle +floated out upon the warm afternoon air. + +The blind girl tripped up the steps of the porch and in at the open +door. "Silver Threads Among the Gold" came to a sharp conclusion. + +"Merciful goodness!" croaked a frightened voice. "I thought you was +asleep in your bed, Lottie." + +Janice had followed the little girl to the doorway. She saw but dimly +the store itself and the shelves of dusty merchandise. From the back +room where he had been sitting with his violin, a gray, thin, +dusty-looking man came quickly and seized Lottie in his arms. + +"Child! child! how you frighten me!" he murmured. Then he looked over +the little girl's head and blinked through his spectacles at Janice in +the doorway. + +"I'm certainly obliged to ye," he said. "She--she gets away from the +house and I don't know it. I--I can't watch her all the time and she +ain't got no mother, Miss. I certainly am obliged to ye for bringing her +home." + +"She was down on the old wharf at the foot of the street, trying to wake +the echo from the woods across the inlet," said Janice, gravely. + +The gray man hugged his daughter tightly, and his eyes blinked like an +owl's in strong daylight, as he peered through his spectacles at Janice. +"She--she loved to go there--always," he murmured. "I go with her +Sundays--and when the store is closed. But she is so quick--in a flash +she is out of my sight." + +"Can--can nothing be done for her?" questioned Janice, in a whisper. + +"She cannot hear you--now," said Hopewell Drugg, gloomily, shaking his +head. "And the doctors here tell me she is almost sure to be dumb, too. +If I could only get her to Boston! There's a school for such as her, +there, and specialists, and all. But it would cost a pile of money." + +"You play the fiddle, father," commanded little Lottie. "And make it +quiver--make it cry, father! Then _I_ can hear it." + +He set her down carefully, still shaking his head. Her strange little +voice kept repeating: "Play for her, father! Play for her, father!" + +Hopewell Drugg picked up the violin and bow from the end of the counter. +He leaned against the counter and tucked the violin under his chin. +There was only a brown light in the dusky store, and the dust danced in +the single band of sunlight that searched out a knot hole in the wall of +the back room--the shed between the store proper and the cottage in the +rear. + + "Darling, I am growing old, + Silver threads among the gold----" + +The old violin wailed out the tune haltingly. The deaf and blind child +caught the tremulo of the final notes, and she danced up and down and +clapped her little hands. + +"I can hear that! I can hear that!" she muttered, her lips writhing to +form the sounds. + +Janice felt the tears suddenly blinding her. "I'll come back and see you +again--indeed I will!" she said, brokenly, and hugging and kissing +little Lottie impetuously, she released her and ran out of the ugly, +dark little store. + +It is doubtful if Hopewell Drugg even heard her. The violin was still +wailing away, while he searched out slowly the minor notes of the old, +old song. + +[Illustration: The old violin wailed out the tune haltingly.] + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +A BIT OF ROMANCE + + +"Hopewell Drugg? Ya-as," drawled Aunt Almira. "He keeps store +'crosstown. He's had bad luck, Hopewell has. His wife's dead--she didn't +live long after Lottie was born; and Lottie--poor child!--must be eight +or nine year old." + +"Poor little thing!" sighed Janice, who had come home to find her aunt +just beginning her desultory preparations for supper, and had turned in +to help. "It is so pitiful to see and hear her. Does she live all alone +there with her father?" + +"I reckon Hopewell don't do business enough so's he could hire a +housekeeper. They tell me he an' the child live in a reg'lar mess! Ain't +fittin' for a man to keep house by hisself, nohow; and of course Lottie +can't do much of nothing." + +"Is he an old man?" queried Janice. "I couldn't see his face very well." + +"Lawsy! he ain't what you'd call old--no," said Aunt 'Mira. "Now, let me +see; he married 'Cinda Stone when he warn't yit thirty. There was some +talk of him an' 'Rill Scattergood bein' sweet on each other onc't; but +that was twenty year ago, I do b'lieve. + +"Howsomever, if there _was_ anythin' betwixt Hopewell and 'Rill, I +reckon her mother broke up the match. Mis' Scattergood never had no use +for them Druggs. She said they was dreamers and never did amount to +nothin'. Mis' Scattergood's allus been re'l masterful." + +Janice nodded. She could imagine that the birdlike old lady she had met +on the boat could be quite assertive if she so chose. + +"Anyhow," said Aunt 'Mira, reflectively, "Hopewell stopped shinin' about +'Rill all of a sudden. That was the time Mis' Scattergood was widdered +an' come over here from Middletown to live with 'Rill. + +"I declare for't! 'Rill warn't sech an old maid then. She was right +purty, if she _had_ been teachin' school some time. Th' young men use +ter buzz around her in them days. + +"But when she broke off with Hopewell, she broke off with all. Hopewell +was spleeny about it--ya-as, indeed, he was. He soon took up with +'Cinda--jest as though 'twas out o' spite. Anyhow, 'fore any of us +knowed it, they'd gone over to Middletown an' got married. + +"'Cinda Stone was a right weakly sort o' critter. Of course Hopewell was +good to her," pursued Aunt 'Mira. "Hopewell Drugg is as mild as +dishwater, anyhow. He'd be perlite to a stray cat." + +Janice was interested--she could not help being. Miss Scattergood, it +seemed to her, was a pathetic figure; and the girl from Greensboro was +just at an age to appreciate a bit of romance. The gray, dusty man in +the dark, little store, playing his fiddle to the child that could only +hear the quivering minor tones of it, held a place in Janice's thought, +too. + +"What do you do Saturday mornings, Marty?" asked the visitor, at the +breakfast table. Janice had already been to the Shower Bath and back, +and the thrill of the early day was in her veins. Only a wolfish +appetite had driven her indoors when she smelled the pork frying. + +Marty was just lounging to his seat,--he was almost always late to +breakfast,--and he shut off a mighty yawn to reply to his cousin: + +"Jest as near like I please as kin be." + +"Saturday afternoon, where I came from, is sort of a holiday; but +Saturday morning everybody tries to make things nice about the yard--fix +flower-beds, rake the yard, make the paths nice, and all that." + +"Huh!" grunted Marty. "That's work." + +"No, it isn't. It's fun," declared Janice, brightly. + +"What's the good?" demanded the boy. + +"Why, the folks in Greensboro vie with each other to see who shall have +the best-looking yard. Your mother hasn't many flowers----" + +"Them dratted hens scratch up all the flowers I plant," sighed Aunt +'Mira. "I give up all hopes of havin' posies till Jason mends the +henyard fence." + +"Now you say yourself the hens only lay when they're rangin' around, +'Mira," observed Uncle Jason, mildly. + +"Ya-as. They lay," admitted Aunt 'Mira. "But I don't git more'n ha'f of +what they lay. They steal their nests so. Ol' Speckle brought off a +brood only yesterday. I'd been wonderin' where that hen was layin' for a +month." + +"But, anyway, we can rake the yard and trim the edges of the walk," +Janice said to Marty. + +"Ya-as, we kin," admitted Marty, grinning. "But will we?" + +Janice, however, never lost her temper with this hobbledehoy cousin. +Marty could be coaxed, if not driven. After breakfast she urged him out +to the shed, and they overhauled the conglomeration of rusted and +decrepit hand tools, which had been gathered by Uncle Jason during forty +years of desultory farming. + +"Here're three rakes," said Marty. "All of 'em have lost teeth, an'--Hi +tunket! that one's got a broken handle." + +"But there are two which are usable," laughed Janice. "Come on, Marty. +Let's rake the front yard all over. You know it will please your +mother. And then you can tote the rubbish away in the wheelbarrow while +I trim the edges of the front walk." + +"Huh! we don't never use that front walk. Nobody ever comes to our front +door," said Marty. + +"And there's a nice wide porch there to sit on pleasant evenings, too," +cried Janice. + +"Huh!" came Marty's famous snort of derision. "The roof leaks like a +sieve and the floor boards is rotted. Las' time the parson came to call +he broke through the floor an' come near sprainin' his ankle." + +"But I thought Uncle Jason was a carpenter, too?" murmured Janice, +hesitatingly. + +"Well! didn't ye know that carpenters' roofs are always leakin' an' that +shoemakers' wives go barefoot?" chuckled Marty. "Dad says he'll git +'round to these chores sometime. Huh!" + +Nevertheless, Marty set to work with his cousin, and that Saturday +morning the premises about the old Day house saw such a cleaning up as +had not happened within the memory of the oldest inhabitant along +Hillside Avenue. There was a good sod of grass under the rubbish. The +lawn had been laid down years and years before, and the grass was rooted +well and the mould was rich and deep. All the old place wanted was a +"chance," for it to become very pretty and homelike. + +Marty, however, declared himself "worked to a frazzle" and he +disappeared immediately after the noon meal, for fear Janice would find +something more for him to do. + +"Wal, child, it does look nice," admitted Aunt Almira, coming to view +the front yard. "And you _do_ have a way with Marty." + +"Just the same," giggled Janice, "he doesn't like girls." + +"Sho, child! he doesn't know _what_ he likes--a boy like him," returned +her aunt. + +Sunday was a rainy day, and Janice felt her spirits falling again. It +really rained too hard at church time for her to venture out; but she +saw that her relatives seldom put themselves out to attend church, +anyway. Walky Dexter appeared in an oilskin-covered cart, drawn by +Josephus (who actually looked water-soaked and dripped from every +angle), delivering the Sunday papers, which came up from the city. The +family gave up most of their time all day to the gaudy magazine +supplements and the so-called "funny sections" which were a part of +these sheets. + +Janice finally retired to her depressing bedroom and wrote a long letter +to her father which she tried to make cheerful, but into which crept a +note of loneliness and disappointment. It wasn't just like talking to +Daddy himself; but it seemed to help some. + +It enabled her, too, to write shorter letters to friends back in +Greensboro and she managed to hide from them much of her homesickness. +She could write of the beauty of Poketown itself; for it was beautiful. +It was only the people who were so--well! so _different_. + +Janice welcomed Monday morning. Although she had nearly completed her +junior year at the Greensboro High School, and knew that she would not +gain much help from Miss Scattergood, the girl loved study and she hoped +that the Poketown girls would prove to be better companions than they +had appeared when she had visited the school. + +So she started for the old red schoolhouse in quite a cheerful frame of +mind, in spite of Marty's prophecy that "she'd soon git sick o' that old +maid." It was not Miss Scattergood that Janice had reason to be "sick +of!" The stranger in Poketown had to admit before the day was over that +she had never in her life dreamed of such ill-bred girls as some of +these who occupied the back seats in 'Rill Scattergood's school. + +They had no respect for the little school-teacher, and had Miss +Scattergood taken note of all their follies she must have been in a +pitched battle with her older pupils all the time. Some of these +ill-behaved girls were older than Janice by many months; and they +plainly did not come to school to study or to learn. They passed notes +back and forth to some of the older boys all day long; when Miss +Scattergood called on them to recite, if they did not feel just like +it, they refused to obey; and of course their example was bad for the +smaller children. + +Janice had determined to join such classes as were anywhere near her +grade in her old school. But when she arose to accompany one class to +the line in front of the teacher's desk, the girls who had started +giggled and ran back to their seats, leaving the new pupil standing +alone, with blazing cheeks, before Miss Scattergood. They would not +recite with her. At recess when Miss Scattergood tried to introduce +Janice to some of the girls, there were but a few who met her in a +ladylike manner. + +They seemed to think Janice must be stuck up and proud because she had +come from another town. One girl--Sally Black--tripped forward in a most +affected style, gave Janice a "high handshake," saying "How-do! chawmed +ter meet yuh, doncher know!" and the other girls went off into gales of +laughter as though Sally was really excruciatingly funny. + +Janice was hurt, but she tried not to show it. Miss Scattergood was very +much annoyed, and her eyes sparkled behind her glasses, as she said, +sharply: + +"I really did hope you girls could be polite and kind to a stranger who +comes to your school. I am ashamed of you!" + +"Don't let it bother you, Scatty," returned the impudent Sally. "We +don't want anything to do with your pet," and she tossed her head, +looked scornfully at Janice, and walked away with her abettors. + +"I never did take ter them Blacks," declared Aunt Almira, when Janice +related to her the unpleasant experience she had suffered at school, on +her return that afternoon. "And Sally's mother, who was a Garrity, came +of right common stock. + +"Ye see, child," added Mrs. Day, with a sigh, "I expect ye won't find +many of the children that go ter that school much ter your likin'. 'Rill +Scattergood ain't got no way with her, as I sez before; an' folks that +can afford it have got in the habit o' sendin' their young'uns over to +Middletown School. Walky Dexter takes 'em in a party waggin, and brings +'em back at night." + +"But there must be some nice girls in Poketown!" cried Janice. + +"Ya-as--I guess there be. But wait till I kin git around an' interduce +ye to 'em." + +This promise, however, offered Janice Day but sorry comfort. If she +waited for Aunt Almira to take her about she certainly _would_ die of +homesickness! + +But she refused to be driven out of the Poketown School by the +unkindness and discourtesy of the larger girls. Her unpopularity, +however, made her respond the more quickly to 'Rill Scattergood's +advances. + +The school-teacher showed plainly that she appreciated Janice's +friendliness. Janice brought her luncheon and ate it with the teacher. +They walked down High Street together after school, and on Friday the +pretty little school-mistress invited the new girl home for tea. + +"Mother wants to see you again. Mother's took quite a fancy to you, +Janice--and that's a fact," said Miss 'Rill. + +"Of course, we're only boarding; but Mrs. Beasely--she's a widow +lady--makes it very homey for us. If mother stays we're going to +housekeeping ourselves. And I believe I _shall_ give up teaching school. +I'm really tired of it." + +Janice gladly accepted the invitation, and she bribed one of the +youngsters with a nickel to run around to Hillside Avenue and tell Aunt +Almira where she was. + +Miss 'Rill's boarding place was on the same side street where was +located Hopewell Drugg's store. Janice had thought often of poor little +Lottie and her father during this week; but as they neared the store and +she heard the wailing notes of the man's violin again, she felt a little +diffident about broaching the subject of the storekeeper and his child +to the school-mistress. It was Miss Scattergood herself who opened the +matter. + +She half halted and held up her hand for silence, as she listened to +"Silver Threads Among the Gold." + +"That's a dreadful pretty tune, I think," she said. "It used to be awful +pop'lar when--when I came here to Poketown to teach school." + +"Mr. Drugg likes it, I guess," said Janice, lightly. "I've heard him +play it before." + +"Have you?" queried Miss 'Rill, with that little birdlike tilt of her +head. "So you know Mr. Drugg--and poor little Lottie?" + +"I've met them both--once," admitted the girl. + +"Ah! then you know how little Lottie is to be pitied?" + +"And isn't he to be pitied, too?" Janice could not help but ask. + +Miss 'Rill blushed--such a becoming blush as it was, too! She answered +honestly: "I think so. Poor Hopewell! And I think he plays the fiddle +real sweet, too. + +"But don't say anything before mother about him. Mr. Drugg's never been +one of ma's favorites," added the teacher, earnestly. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +TEA, AND A TALK WITH DADDY + + +As it chanced, it was old Mrs. Scattergood herself who broached the +forbidden topic, almost as soon as Miss 'Rill and Janice were in the +house. + +"What do you suppose that great gump, Hopewell Drugg, let his young'un +do to-day, 'Rill? I was tellin' Miz' Beasely that it did seem to be +_one_ mistake that Providence must ha' made, ter let that Drugg an' +'Cinda Stone have a gal baby--'specially if 'Cinda was goin' ter up and +die like she done and leave the young'un to his care. Seems a shame, +too." + +"Why, mother! That doesn't sound a bit reverent," objected Miss 'Rill, +softly. "Nor kind." + +"Pshaw!" snorted the old lady. "You allus was silly as a goose about +that Drugg. Sech shiftlessness I never did see. There the young'un was, +out in a white dress an' white kid shoes this mornin'--her best, +Sunday-go-ter-meetin' clo'es, I'll be bound!--sittin' on the aidge o' +that gutter over there, makin' a mud dam! Lucky yesterday's rain has +run off now, or she'd be out there yet, paddlin' in the water." + +"I don't s'pose Hopewell knew of it," said the younger woman, timidly. +"The poor little thing can dress herself, blind as she is. It's quite +wonderful how she gets about." + +"She ain't got no business to be out of his sight," grumbled Mrs. +Scattergood. + +Miss 'Rill sighed and shook her head, looking at Janice with a little +nod of understanding. She changed the subject of talk quickly. The old +lady began at once on Janice, "pumping" her as to her interests in +Poketown, how she liked her relatives, and all. Then Mrs. Beasely, a +very tall, angular figure in severe black, appeared at the sitting-room +door and invited them in to supper. + +Mrs. Beasely was a famous cook and housekeeper. She was a very grim +lady, it seemed to Janice, and the enlarged crayon portrait of Mr. +Beasely, its frame draped with crape, which glared down upon the +groaning table in the dining-room, almost took the girl's appetite away. + +Fortunately, however, the widow insisted upon facing the portrait of her +departed husband, and Janice was back to him, so she recovered her +appetite. And Mrs. Beasely's "tea", or "supper" as old-fashioned folks +called the meal, was worthy of a hearty appetite. + +Among old-fashioned New England housekeepers a "skimpy" +table--especially when a visitor is present--is an unpardonable sin. +There was hot bread and cold bread, sour-milk griddle cakes, each of a +delicious golden brown with crisp edges, buttered, sugared, and stacked +in tempting piles; sliced cold ham and corned beef; a hot dish of smoked +beef and scrambled eggs; two kinds of jelly, and three kinds of +preserves; plain and frosted cake, and last of all the inevitable pie +and cheese. + +With all this banquet Mrs. Beasely dared raise a moist eye to the grim +crayon of the departed, and observe: + +"I don't know what poor Charles would say to such a smeachin' supper, if +he was alive. Oh, me! it does seem as though I didn't have no heart for +cookery no more since he ain't here ter sample my work. A man's a gre't +spur to a woman in her housekeepin'." + +"Good Land o' Goshen!" ejaculated the outspoken Mrs. Scattergood. "I +count 'em a gre't nuisance. If a body didn't have no men folks to 'tend +to she could live on bread an' tea--if she so liked. + +"Not but what I 'preciate a good lay-out of vittles like this o' yourn, +Miz' Beasely. But thank the good Lord! I ain't been the slave to no +man's appetite for goin' on fourteen year. An' that's about all men air, +come ter think on it--a pair of muddy boots an' an unquenchable +appetite!" + +Mrs. Beasely looked horrified, shaking her widow's cap. "Poor Charles +wasn't nothin' like that," she declared, softly. + +"An' I don't s'pose a worse husband ever lived in Poketown," whispered +the pessimistic old lady, when the widow had gone out of the room for +something. "He's been dead ten year, ain't he, 'Rill?" + +"About that, mother," admitted the school-teacher. + +"An' I expect ev'ry year she makes more of a saint of him. I declare +for't! sech wimmen oughter be made to marry ag'in. Nothin' but a second +one will cure 'em of their fust!" + +Mainly Janice and her friend, the little school-teacher, were engaged in +their own particular conversation. The girl spent a very pleasant hour +after tea, too, and started home just as dusk was dropping over the +hillside town. + +There was a light in Hopewell Drugg's store. He never seemed to have +customers--or so it appeared to Janice. She hesitated a moment to peer +into the gloomy place--more a mausoleum than a store!--and saw Hopewell +leaning against the counter, while Lottie, in her pink sash and white +dress, and the kid boots, sat upon it and leaned against her father +while he scraped out some weird minor chords upon the fiddle. + +Marty had come down the lane to the corner of High Street to meet +Janice. Of course, he wouldn't admit that he had done so; but he +happened to be right there when his cousin put in an appearance. There +were no street lights on Hillside Avenue, and Janice was glad of his +company. + +"Huh! ain't yer gittin' pop'lar?" croaked the boy, grinning at her. "An' +goin' ter 'Rill Scattergood's ter supper. Ye must ha' had a fine time--I +don't think!" + +"Of course I had a nice time," laughed Janice. + +"With that old maid," scoffed Marty. + +"Say, Marty, would you go to school again if they had a different +teacher?" queried Janice. + +"'Course I would!" returned the boy, stoutly. + +"Maybe next Fall they'll have another one. Miss Scattergood talks of +giving up teaching." + +"I should think she would!" exploded Marty. "But she won't. You'll see. +She'll be teachin' Poketown school when she has ter go on crutches." + +The next day, after Janice had inveigled Marty into spending most of his +forenoon in the yard and garden (and the latter was beginning to look +quite like a real garden by now), the girl went shopping. Most of the +stores were "general" stores, and she did not believe there was much +choice between them. Only she had an interest in Hopewell Drugg; so she +proceeded to his dark little shop. + +Lottie sat upon a box nursing a rag doll, in the sunlight that came in +at the side door. She was crooning to herself a weird little song, and +rocking back and forth upon the box. Mr. Drugg seemed to be out. + +Janice walked the length of the store very quietly, and the child did +not apprehend her approach. But when she stepped upon one of the boards +of the back-room floor, little Lottie felt the vibration and looked up, +directly at Janice, with her pretty, sightless eyes. + +"Papa Drugg be right back; Papa Drugg be right back," she said, forming +the phrase with evident difficulty. + +Janice went close to her and laid a hand upon Lottie's shoulder. The +little girl caught at it quickly, ran her slim fingers up her arm to her +shoulder and so, jumping up from the box, felt of Janice's face, too. +The latter stooped and kissed her. + +"I know you--I know you," murmured the child. "You came home from the +lake with me. I was trying to find my echo. Did _you_ find it?" + +Janice squeezed her hand, and she seemed to understand the affirmative. + +"Then it's really _there_?" she sighed. "It's only _me_ that's lost it. +Well--well--Do you think I can ever find it again?" + +Janice squeezed the hand firmly, and she put into that affirmative all +the confidence which could possibly be thus expressed. She did not +believe it to be wrong to raise hope of again hearing in the poor +child's heart. + +Mr. Drugg came in from the back, wiping his hands and forearms of soapy +water. He had evidently been engaged in some household task. Upon closer +acquaintance he was improved, so Janice thought. He possessed the long, +thin, New England features; but there was a certain calm in their +expression that was attractive. His gray eyes were brooding, and there +were many crow's-feet about them; nevertheless, they were kindly eyes +with a greater measure of intelligence in them than Janice had expected +to find. + +It proved that Hopewell had a considerable stock upon his dusty shelves; +but how he managed to find anything that a customer called for was a +mystery to Janice. She selected the few notions that she needed; and as +she did so she just _ached_ to get hold of that stock of dry goods and +straighten it out. + +And the dust--and the flyspecks--and the jumble of useless scraps among +the newer stock! The interior of that old store was certainly a +heart-breaking sight. Two side windows that might have given light and +air to the place were fairly banked up with merchandise. And when had +either of the show windows been properly "dressed"? + +However, Mr. Drugg was an attentive salesman and he really knew his +stock very well. It mystified Janice to see how quickly he could find +the article wanted in that conglomeration. + +She remained a while to play with Lottie. Drugg came to look fondly at +the little girl putting her rag-baby to sleep in a soap-box crib. + +"She's just about ruined that dress and them shoes, I shouldn't wonder," +mused the storekeeper. "But I forgot to put out her everyday clo'es +where she could find them yesterday morning. There's so much to do all +the time. Well!" He drew the violin and bow toward him and sighed. No +other customer came into the store. Drugg tucked the fiddle under his +chin and began to scrape away. + +Lottie jumped up and clapped her little hands when he struck a chord +that vibrated upon her nerves. There she stood, with her little, +up-raised face flooded by the spring sunshine, which entered through the +side doorway, a gleam of pleasure passing over her features when she +felt the vibration of the minor notes. They were deeply engaged, those +two--the father with his playing, the child in striving to catch the +tones. + +Janice gathered up her few small purchases and stole out of the old +store. + +It was more than a week later when Marty came home to supper one night +and grinned broadly at his cousin. + +"What d'ye s'pose I've got for you, Janice?" he asked. + +His cousin flashed him a single comprehending look, and then her face +went white. + +"Daddy!" she gasped. "A letter from Daddy?" + +"Aw, shucks! ain't there nothin' else you want?" the boy returned, +teasingly. + +"Not so much as a talk with Daddy," she declared, breathlessly. "And +that's almost what a letter will be. Dear Marty! If you've got a letter +from him do, _do_ let me have it!" + +"Don't you torment Janice now, Marty," cried his mother. "I hope he is +all right, Janice. Is it writ in his own hand, Marty?" + +"I dunno," said the plaguesome boy, looking at the address covertly. "It +is postmarked 'Juarez'." + +"Oh, yes! oh, yes!" cried Janice. "He would send it down there to be +mailed. So he said. Mail service up in Chihuahua is so uncertain. Oh, +Marty! p-l-e-a-s-e!" + +"You give her that, Marty!" commanded Mr. Day. + +Janice snatched the letter when the boy held it out to her; but she +flashed Marty a "Thanks, awfully!" as she ran out of the room and +upstairs. Supper? What did she care for supper? In the red light of the +sunset she sat by the window in her room and read Mr. Broxton Day's +loving letter. + +It _was_ almost like seeing and talking with Daddy! Those firm, flowing +lines of black ink, displaying character and firmness and decision, +looked just like Daddy himself! Janice kissed the open page +ecstatically, and then began to read: + + "DEAR DAUGHTER: + + "The several thousand miles that separate us seem very short + indeed when I sit down to write my little Janice. I can see + her standing right before me in this barren, corrugated-iron + shack--which would have been burned the last time a bunch of + the Constitutionalists swept through these hills, only iron + will not burn. If a party of Federal troops come along they + may try to destroy our plant, too. Just at the present time + the foreigner, and his property, are in no great favor with + either party of belligerents. The cry is 'Mexico for the + Mexicans'--and one can scarcely blame them. But although I + have seen a little fighting at a distance, and plenty of the + marks of battle along the railroad line as I came up here, I + do not think I am as yet in any great danger. + + "Therefore, my dear, do not worry too much about your + father's situation. At the very moment you are worrying he + may be eating supper, or hobnobbing with a party of very + courteous and hospitable ranch owners, or fishing in a + neighboring brook where the trout are as hungry as shoats at + feeding time, or otherwise enjoying himself. + + "And so, now, to you and your letter which reached me by + one of my messengers from Juarez, by whom I shall send this + reply. Yes, I knew you would find yourself among a people as + strange to you as though they were inhabitants of another + planet. Relatives though they are, they are so much + different from our friends in and about Greensboro, that I + can understand their being a perfect shock to you. + + "I was afraid Jason and Almira lived a sort of shiftless, + hopeless, get-along-the-best-way-you-can life. When I left + Poketown twenty-five years ago I thought it had creeping + paralysis! It must be worse by this time. + + "But _you_ keep alive, Janice, my dear. Keep kicking--like + the frog in the milk-can. _Do something._ Don't let the + poison of laziness develop in _your_ blood. If they're in a + slack way there at Jason's, help 'em out of it. Be your + Daddy's own girl. Don't shirk a plain duty. _Do something + yourself, and make others do something, too!_" + +There was much in Mr. Broxton Day's letter beside this; there were +intimate little things that Janice would have shown to nobody; but +downstairs she read aloud all Daddy's jolly little comments upon the +country and the people he saw; and about his eating beans so frequently +that he dreamed he had turned into a gigantic Boston bean-pot that was +always full of steaming baked beans. "They are called 'frijoles'," he +wrote; "but a bean by any other name is just the same!" + +The paragraphs that impressed Janice most, however, as repeated above, +she likewise kept to herself. Daddy had expected she would find Poketown +just what it was. Yet he expected something of her--something that +should make a change in her relatives, and in Poketown itself. + +He expected Janice to _do something_. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +BEGINNING WITH A BEDSTEAD + + +Janice got up and took her usual before-breakfast run the next morning. +The Days remained the last family to rise in the neighborhood. The smoke +from the broken kitchen chimney crawled heavenward long after the fires +in other kitchen-stoves had burned down to hot coals. + +So when the girl got back to the house, Aunt 'Mira had scarcely begun +getting the meal. Janice rummaged about in the tool-shed for some +minutes before she went upstairs to her room again. Marty crawled down, +yawning, and started for the usual morning pail of water from the +neighbor's well. Mr. Day was smoking on the bench outside of the kitchen +door. The pork began to hiss in the pan. + +Suddenly, from upstairs, came a noisy pounding. Nail after nail was +being driven with confidence and dispatch. + +"For the land's sake!" gasped Aunt 'Mira, looking up from the stove, a +strip of pork hanging from her up-raised fork. + +Uncle Jason took his pipe from his lips and screwed his neck around so +as to look in at the door. + +"What d'you reckon that gal's up to?" he demanded. + +Marty came back from the Dickerson's at almost a lope. "What in +'tarnation is Janice doin' up in her room?" he queried, slopping the +water as he put the pail hurriedly upon the shelf. + +"I haven't the least idea what it can be," said Mrs. Day, almost aghast. + +"By jinks!" exclaimed the slangy boy. "I wanter see. By jinks! she +socked that nail home--she did!" + +The whole house rang with the vigor of Janice's blows. Marty started up +the stairs in a hurry, and Mr. Day followed him. Mrs. Day came to the +foot of the stairs with the piece of pork still dangling from her fork. + +Marty reached his cousin's door and banged it open without as much as +saying "By your leave." + +"Hullo! What you doin'?" demanded the boy. + +"Can't you _see_?" returned Janice, coolly. "I got sick of being rocked +to sleep every night on that old soap-box. I'll wager, Marty, that this +leg will stay put when I get through with it." + +"Wal! of all things!" grunted Mr. Day, with his head poked in at the +open door. + +"What's Janice doing?" demanded his wife, too heavy to mount the stairs +easily. + +Uncle Jason turned about and descended the flight without replying to +his wife; but at her reiterated cry Marty explained. + +"Ain't that gal a good 'un?" said the boy. "She's gone and put on the +old leg to that bedstead. That's been broke off ever since you cleaned +house last Fall, Maw." + +"Oh! Well! Is that it?" repeated Mrs. Day. Then, when she and her +husband were alone in the kitchen, before the young folk came down, she +said, pointing the fork at him: "I declare for't! I'd feel ashamed if I +was you, Jason Day." + +"What for?" demanded her husband, scowling. + +"Lettin' Broxton's gal do that. You could ha' tacked on that leg forty +times if you could once. Ain't that true?" + +But Mr. Day refused to quarrel. He took a long drink from the pail of +fresh water Marty had brought. Then he said, tentatively: + +"Breakfast most ready, Almiry? I'm right sharp-set." + +When Janice and Marty came down they were not talking of the bedstead at +all. But Aunt 'Mira was rather gloomy all through the meal, and looked +accusingly at her husband every time she heaped his plate with pork, and +cakes, and "white gravey." + +Mr. Day quite ignored these looks. He was even chatty--for him--with +Janice. It was a school day, and Janice hurried to put on her hat and +get her school bag, into which she slipped the luncheon that her aunt +very kindly put up for her. Aunt 'Mira had really begun to "put herself +out" for her niece, and the luncheon was always tasty and nicely +arranged. + +"Wait for me, Marty!" she cried, as her cousin was sliding out of the +door in his usual attempt to get away unobserved, and so not be called +back for any unexpected chores. + +"Aw, come on! A gal's always behind--like a cow's tail!" growled the +chivalrous Marty. "What you want?" + +Janice gave him a quarter of a dollar secretly. "Now, you get that pump +leather and you bring it home this noon. Just put it on the table by +your father's plate," she commanded. "You going to do it for me?" + +"Sure," grinned Marty. "And I'll see that he don't lose it, nuther. I +know Dad. He'll need more than _that_ suggestion to git him started on +that old pump." + +"We'll try," sighed Janice; and then Marty ran on ahead of her to +overtake one of his boy friends. He would have been ashamed to be caught +walking with his girl cousin by daylight, and on the public streets of +Poketown! + +After school that day, when Janice arrived again at the old Day house, +the first thing she heard was her aunt's complaining voice begging Marty +to go down to Dickerson's for a bucket of water. + +"What's the matter with Dad?" demanded the boy. "Didn't I bring him that +pump leather? Huh!" + +"Mebbe your father will git around to fixin' the pump staff, and he kin +make that in ten minutes. I believe he's got a stick for't out in the +workshop now, he won't be driv'." + +"Janice wasted her good money, then," said Marty, with fine disgust. +"All else it needs is a pump staff, and he kin make that in ten minutes. +I believe he's got a stick for't out in the workshop--had it there for +months." + +"Now, you git erlong with that pail, Marty," commanded his mother, "and +don't stand there a-criticisin' of your elders." + +Janice hid behind the great lilac bush until Marty had gone grumblingly +down the hill. Then she heard some loud language from the barnyard and +knew that her uncle had come in from the fields. After a little +hesitation she made straight for the barn. + +"Uncle Jason! won't you please mend the pump? Mr. Pringle has cut you a +good pump leather." + +"Goodness me, Janice! I'm druv to death. All this young corn to +cultivate, an' not a soul to help me. Other boys like Marty air some +good; but I can't trust him in the field with a hoss." + +"But you don't work in the field all day long, Uncle," pleaded Janice. + +"Seems to me I don't have a minute to call my own," declared the farmer. +To hear him talk one would think he was the busiest man in Poketown! + +"I expect you are pretty busy," agreed the girl, nodding; "but I can +tell you how to find time to mend that pump." + +"How's that?" he asked, curiously. + +"Get up when I do. We can mend it before the others come down. Will you +do it to-morrow morning, Uncle?" + +"Wa-al! I dunno----" + +"Say you will, Uncle Jason!" cried Janice. "We'll surprise 'em--Aunty +and Marty. They needn't never know till it's done." + +"I got ter find a new pump shaft----" + +"Marty says you've got one put away in the workshop." + +"Why--er--so I have, come to think on't." + +"Then it won't take long. Let's do it, Uncle--that's a dear!" + +The man looked around dumbly; he hunted in his rather slow mind for some +excuse--some reason for withdrawing from the venture that Janice +proposed. + +"I--I dunno as I would wake up----" + +"I'll wake you. I'll come to your door and scratch on the panel like a +mouse gnawing. Aunt 'Mira will never hear." + +"No. She sleeps like the dead," admitted Uncle Jason. "Only the dead +don't snore." + +"Will you do it?" + +"Oh, well! I'll see how I feel in the morning," half promised Uncle +Jason, and with this Janice had to be content. She did not, however, +lose heart. She was determined to stir the sluggish waters in and about +the old Day house, if such a thing could be done! + +Uncle Jason was rather sombre that evening, and even Marty did not feel +equal to stirring the quiet waters of the family pool. Janice stole away +early to bed. Aunt Almira was always the last person in the household to +retire. Long after the rest of them were asleep she remained swinging in +her creaky rocker, close to the lamp, her eyes glued to one of the cheap +story papers upon which her romance-loving soul had fed for years. + +There was not a cloud at dawn. When Janice rubbed her eyes and looked +out of her wide open window the sun was almost ready to pop above the +hills. The birds were twittering--tuning up, as it were, for their +opening chorus of the day. + +This was the day on which Janice determined the Day family should turn +over a new leaf! + +She doused her face with cool water from her pitcher, and then +scrambled into her clothes and tidied her hair. She tiptoed to the door +of the bedchamber occupied by her uncle and aunt. At her first tap on +the panel Uncle Jason grunted. + +"Well! I hear ye," he said, in no joyful tone. + +Janice really giggled, as she listened outside of the door. She was +determined to have Uncle Jason up, and she waited, still scratching on +the door panel until she heard him give an angry grunt, and then land +with both feet on the straw matting. Then she scurried back to her own +room and quickly finished dressing. + +She was downstairs ahead of him, and quickly opened the doors and +windows to the damp, sweet morning air. The cleaning up she and Marty +had given the yard had made the premises really pleasant to look at. +Flowers were springing along the borders of the path, and vines were +creeping up the string trellis by the back door. The apple trees were +covering the lawn with their last late shower of flower petals. + +How the birds rioted in the tops of the trees! Singing, scolding, +mating, they were really the jolliest chorus one ever listened to. The +girl ran out into the yard and fairly danced up and down, she felt so +_good_! Much of her homesickness had fled since she had received Daddy's +letter. + +She heard Uncle Jason heavily descending the stairs, his shoes in his +hand. Janice broke off a great branch of lilacs, shook off the dew, and +buried her face in the fragrant blossoms. Then, when Uncle Jason came +yawning into the kitchen, closing the stair door behind him, she rushed +in, with beaming face, bade him "Good-morning!" and put the lilac branch +directly under his nose. + +"Just smell 'em, Uncle! Smell 'em deep--before you say a word," she +commanded. + +He had come down with a full-grown grouch upon him--that was plainly to +be seen. But when he had taken in a great draught of the sweet odor of +the flowers, and found his niece with her lips puckered, and standing on +tiptoe to kiss him on his unshaven cheek, he somehow forgot the grouch. + +"Them's mighty purty! mighty purty!" he agreed, and while he pulled on +his congress gaiters, Janice arranged the blossoms in a jar of water and +set them in the middle of the breakfast table. Aunt 'Mira kept the table +set all the time. The red and white tablecloth was renewed only once a +week, and the jar of flowers served to hide the unsightly spot where +Marty had spilled the gravy the day before. + +"Come on and let's see what the matter is with the pump," urged Janice, +in fear lest he should get away from her, for already Mr. Day's fingers +were searching along the ledge above the door for his pipe. + +"Wa-al--ya-as--we might as well, I s'pose. I'll make 'Mira's fire later. +It's 'tarnal early, child." + +"Sun's up," declared Janice. "Hurry, Uncle!" + +He shuffled off to get his tools and the piece of oak he had laid aside +for a pump staff so long ago. Janice tried to untie the pump handle, +and, not succeeding, ran in for the carving knife and managed to saw the +rope in two. + +"I got ter take off a piece of tin in the roof of the porch--see it up +yonder? Then I kin pull out the broken staff and put in a new one," said +her uncle, coming back rather promptly for him. "These here wooden pumps +is a nuisance; but the wimmen folks all like 'em 'cause they're easier +to _pump_. Now! I bet that ladder won't hold my weight." + +He searched the old, rough, homemade ladder out of the weeds by the +boundary fence. It was built of two pieces of fence rail with rungs of +laths,--a rough and unsightly affair; and two or three of the rungs +_were_ cracked. + +"It'll hold _me_," cried Janice. "You let me try, Uncle Jason. Let me +have the screwdriver. I can lift the tacks and pull off the tin. You +see." + +She mounted the ladder in a hurry and crept upon the roof of the porch. +Uncle Jason started the nut at the handle, and soon removed that so that +the staff could be pulled out. The sheet of tin had covered a hole in +the shingles right above the pump. In a minute the cracked staff, with +the worn leather valve, was out of the pump entirely, and Uncle Jason +carried it out to the workshop where he could labor upon it with greater +ease. Janice slid down the ladder, found the little three-fingered +weeder, and went to work upon the rich mould around the roots of the +vines--the sweet peas and morning glories that would soon be blooming in +abundance. + +Before Aunt 'Mira and Marty were up, the pump was working in fine style. +Uncle Jason had taken an abundance of water out to the cattle. Usually +the drinking trough was filled but once a day, and that about noon. Now +the poor horses and the neglected cow could have plenty of water. + +And so could the household. Aunt 'Mira need no longer give things "a +lick and a promise," as she so frequently expressed it. When she came +down it was to a humming fire, a steaming kettle, and a brimming pail on +the shelf. + +"I declare for't, Janice!" she exclaimed. "What you done now?" + +"Nothing, Aunty--save to put a pretty bunch of lilacs on the table for +you." + +"An' them lilacs is always fragrant," agreed the lady. "Who went for the +water? Is Marty up?" + +"Marty wouldn't lose his beauty sleep," laughed Janice. + +"For the mercy's sake!" gasped Aunt 'Mira. "The pump bench is wet. I +declare for't! Jason never fixed that pump, did he?" + +"Just try it, Aunty!" cried the delighted Janice. "See how easy it +works! And the more it's pumped the better the water will be. It's not +quite clear yet, you know. Moss _will_ grow in the pipe." + +"Janice, you're a wonder! You kin do more with your uncle than his own +fam'bly can, an' that's a fact!" + +"I hope you don't mind, Aunty?" she whispered, coming over to the large +lady and hugging her. "You know, after all, it's for you he did it." + +"Wal, it does lighten my labor, that's a fact," admitted Aunt 'Mira. "He +use ter do a-many things for me, years ago. Oh, yes! Your Uncle Jason +warn't allus like he is now. But we got kinder in a rut I 'xpec'. An' I +ain't young and good-lookin' like I use ter be, an' that makes a +diff'rence with a man." + +"_I_ think you're very pleasant to look at, Aunt 'Mira," declared the +girl, warmly. "And I don't believe Uncle Jason ever saw a girl he liked +to look at so well as you. Of course not!" + +"But I be gittin' old," sighed the poor woman. "An' I ain't got a decent +gown to put on no more. An' I'm _fat_." + +Janice still hugged her. "We'll just overhaul your wardrobe, you and I, +Aunty, and I believe we can find something that can be fixed over to +look nice. You'd ought to wear pretty gowns--of course you had. Let's +surprise Uncle Jason by dressing you up. Why, he hasn't seen you dressed +up since--since I've been here." + +"Longer'n that, child--much longer'n that," admitted Aunt 'Mira, +shamefacedly. "P'r'aps _'tis_ my fault. Anyway, I'm glad about the +pump," and she kissed her niece heartily. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +A RAINY DAY + + +Janice had learned that there were at least two senses left to Hopewell +Drugg's unfortunate child that connected her with the world as it is, +and with her fellow creatures. As she gradually had lost her sight and +hearing, and, consequently, speech was more and more difficult for her, +Lottie's sense of touch and of smell were being sharpened. + +Her olfactory nerves were almost as keen as a dog's. How she loved the +scent of flowers! She named many of the blossoms in the gardens about +just by the odor wafted to her upon the air. And she was really a pretty +sight, sitting upon the shady porch of her father's store, sorting and +making into bouquets the flowers that neighbors gave her. + +The old-fashioned shrubs and flowers in the Day yard were in bloom now +in abundance, and one morning before school Janice carried to little +Lottie a huge armful of odorous blossoms. It was a "dripping" morning. +As yet it had not rained hard; but just as Janice turned off High +Street toward the store, the heavens opened and the rain fell in +torrents. + +She ran laughing to the porch of the Drugg's store. For once the man was +at the front, and he welcomed her with his polite, storekeeper's smile, +and the natural courtesy which was usual with him. Janice remembered how +the carping Mrs. Scattergood had declared that Hopewell Drugg would be +"polite to a stray cat!" + +"You must not go farther in this rain, Miss Janice," he said. "Do come +in. Miss 'Rill went along to school half an hour ago--or she never would +have gotten there without a wetting. Are these for little Lottie? How +kind of you!" + +"She's a dear, and she loves flowers so," replied Janice, brightly. "I +_will_ come in out of the rain, if you don't mind, Mr. Drugg." + +"Yes. The roof of the porch leaks a little. I--I ought to fix that," +said the storekeeper, feebly. + +He followed his visitor in, and as his fiddle lay on the counter near at +hand, he took it up. He was playing softly an old, old tune, when Janice +came back through the passage from the house. She had found Lottie in +the kitchen, and had left her, delighted with the posies, sitting at the +table to make them up into bouquets. + +The rain was pouring down with no promise of a let-up, and Janice did +not have even an umbrella. She took off her coat and hung her hat to +dry on the back of a chair. + +"I shall have to be company for a while, I expect, Mr. Drugg," she said, +laughing. + +"You are more than welcome, Miss Janice," returned the storekeeper, as +he put down his instrument again. "Is the child all right?" + +"She will be busy there for an hour, I think," declared Janice. + +"I--I am afraid I shall scarcely know how to entertain you, Miss," said +Drugg, hesitatingly. "We have little company. I--I have a few books----" + +"Oh, my, Mr. Drugg! you mustn't think of entertaining me," cried the +girl, cheerfully. "You have your own work to do--and customers to +serve----" + +"Not many in this rain," he told her, smiling faintly. + +"Why, no--I suppose not. But don't you have orders to put up? I supposed +a storekeeper was a very busy man." + +"I am not that kind of a storekeeper, I am afraid," returned Hopewell +Drugg, shaking his head. "I have few customers now. Only a handful of +people come in during the day. You see, I am on the side street here. We +owned this property--mother and I. Mother was bedridden. I thought it +would be easier to keep store and wait on her back in the house there, +than to do most things; so I got into this line. It--it barely makes us +a living," and he sighed. + +"But you _do_ have some business?" + +"Oh, yes. Old customers who know my stock is always first-class come to +me regularly,--especially out-of-town people. Saturdays I manage to have +quite some trade, like the Hammett Twins, and the farmers. I can't +complain." + +"You never liked the business, then?" asked Janice, shrewdly. + +"No. Not that it isn't as good as most livelihoods. We all must work. +And I never could do the thing I _loved_ to do. Not with mother +bedridden." + +"And that thing was?" asked Janice. + +He touched the violin on the counter softly. "I had just music enough in +me to be mad for it," he said, and his gray face suddenly colored +faintly, for it evidently cost him something to speak so frankly. +"Mother did not approve--exactly. You see, my father was a music +teacher, and he never--well--'made good', as the term is now. So mother +did not approve. This was father's violin--fiddle 'most folks call it. +But it is very mellow and sweet--if I had only been taught properly to +play it. You see, father died before I was born." + +Out of these few sentences, spoken so gently, Janice swiftly built, in +her quick mind, the whole story of the man. His had been a life of +repression--perhaps of sacrifice! The soul of music in the man had never +been able to burst its chrysalis. + +"Mother died after I was of age. It seemed too late then for me to get +into any other business," Hopewell Drugg went on to say, evenly. "You +know, Miss, one gets into a rut. I was in a rut then. And we hadn't any +too much money left. It was quite necessary that I do something to keep +the pot a-boiling. There wasn't enough money left for music lessons, and +all that. + +"And then----" + +He stopped. A queer look came over his face, and somehow the alert girl +beside him knew what he was thinking of. 'Rill Scattergood was in his +mind. He must have thought a great deal of the little school-mistress at +one time--before he had married that other girl. Aunt Almira had said he +had married 'Cinda Stone "out of spite!" Was it so? + +"Well," sighed the storekeeper, finally coming back from his reverie as +though all the time he had been talking to Janice. "It turned out this +way for me, you see. And here's Lottie. Poor little Lottie! I wish the +store _did_ pay me better. Perhaps something could be done for the child +at the school in Boston. They have specialists there----" + +"But, Mr. Drugg! why don't you _try_?" gasped Janice, quite shaken by +all she had heard and _felt_. + +"Try what, Miss?" he asked, curiously. + +"Why don't you try to make business better? Can't you improve it?" + +"How, Miss?" + +"Oh, dear me! You don't want _me_ to tell you how, do you?" cried +Janice, "I--I am afraid it would sound impudent." + +"I couldn't imagine your being that, Miss Janice," he said, in his slow +way, looking down at her with a smile that somehow sweetened his gray, +lean face mightily. + +"But why not put out some effort to attract trade here?" + +"To this little, dark, old shop?" asked Drugg, in wonder. "Impossible!" + +"Don't use that word!" the girl commanded, with vigor. "How do you know +it is impossible?" + +"People prefer the big shops on High Street." + +"There's not much choice between them and yours, I believe," declared +Janice. + +"They're handier." + +"You've got your own neighborhood. You used to have customers." + +"Oh, yes. But that's when the store was new." + +"Make it new again," cried Janice, feeling a good deal as though she +would like to shake this hopeless man. Hopewell, indeed! His name surely +did not fit him in the least. Wasn't old Mrs. Scattergood almost right +when she called him "a gump"? At least, if "gump" meant a spineless +creature? + +Drugg was looking languidly about the store in the dim, brown light. +Outside the rain still fell heavily. Occasionally the clouds would +lighten for a moment as they frequently do in the hills; but the rain +was still behind them and _would_ burst through. + +"Come, Mr. Drugg," said Janice, more softly. "Let me show you what I +mean. You can't really expect folks to come here and trade when they can +scarcely see through the windows----" + +"Yes, yes," he murmured. "I _had_ ought to clean up a bit." + +"More than that!" she cried. "You want to have a regular +overhauling--take account of stock, and all that--know what you've +got--arrange your goods attractively--get rid of the flies--put on fresh +paint----" + +He was looking at her with wide-open eyes. "My soul!" he breathed. +"How'd I ever git around to doin' all _that_?" + +"You love little Lottie, don't you?" Janice demanded, with sudden +cruelty. "I should think you'd be willing to do something for her!" + +"What do you mean?" and a little snap, which delighted Janice, suddenly +came into Drugg's tone. + +"Just what I say, Mr. Drugg. You _speak_ as though you loved her." + +"And who says I don't?" + +"Your actions." + +"My actions? What do you mean by that?" and the man flushed more deeply +than before. + +"I mean if you truly loved her, and longed to get her to Boston and to +the surgeons, and the school there, it seems to me you'd be willing to +work hard to that end." + +"You show me--" he began, wrathfully, but she interrupted with: + +"Now, wait! Let me have my way for an hour here, will you? I want you to +go back to Lottie and do up the housework; I see your breakfast dishes +are still unwashed. Leave me alone here and let me do as I like for an +hour." + +"You mean to clean up?" he asked, gazing about the store hopelessly. + +"Something like that. It rains so hard I can't get to school. I'll visit +with you, Mr. Drugg," said Janice smiling and her voice cheerful again. +"And instead of helping about the housework, I'll help in the store. +_Do_ let me, sir!" + +"Why--yes--I don't mind. I guess you mean right enough, Miss Janice. But +you don't understand----" + +"Give me an hour," she cried. + +"Why, yes, Miss," he said, in his old, gentle, polite way. "If you want +to mess about I won't mind. Come in and I'll give you a big long apron +that will cover your frock all over. It--it's dreadful dusty in here." + +Janice would not be discouraged. She smiled cheerfully at him, found +brush, pan, broom, pail, and cloths, and with some hot water and +soap-powder went back to the store. The rain continued to fall heavily. +There was no likelihood of her being disturbed at her work. + +She chose the more littered of the two show windows and almost threw +everything out of it in her hurry. Then she swept down the cobwebs and +dead flies, and brushed away all the dust. It was no small task to scrub +the panes of glass clean, and all the woodwork; but Janice knew how to +work. The old black Mammy who had kept house for her and Daddy so many +years had taught the girl domestic tasks, and had taught her well. + +Within an hour the work was done. More light came through the panes of +that window than usually ventured in upon a sunshiny day! + +The balance of the task was a pleasure. Her bright eyes had noted the +newer goods upon Mr. Drugg's shelves. She selected samples of the more +recent canned goods--those of which the labels on the cans were fresh +and bright. She arranged these with package goods--breakfast foods, and +the like--so as to make a goodly display. She found colored tissue +papers, too, and she brightened the window shelf with these. She +festooned the flyspecked, T-arm light bracket in the window, and +carried twisted strings of the pink and green paper to the four corners +of the window shelf from the bottom of this bracket. + +She went out upon the porch at last to look in at the display. From the +outside the window was pretty and bright--it was like the windows she +was used to seeing in the Greensboro stores. + +"One thing about it," she declared, with confidence. "There's nothing +like this in the whole of Poketown. There isn't another store window +that looks so fresh and--yes!--dainty." + +Then she went inside to Mr. Drugg. He was listlessly brushing up the +cottage kitchen. Lottie had fallen asleep on the wide bench beyond the +cookstove, a great bunch of posies hugged against her stained pinafore. + +"Come in and see, sir," said Janice, beckoning the gray man into the +store. Drugg came with shuffling steps and lack-lustre eyes. He seemed +to be considering in his mind something that had nothing whatsoever to +do with what she had called him for. + +"Do you re'lly suppose, Miss Janice," he murmured, "that I could +increase trade here? I need money--God knows!--for little Lottie. If I +could get her to Boston---- + +"Good gracious, Miss! what you been doing here?" he suddenly gasped. + +"Isn't that some better?" demanded Janice, chuckling. "Astonished, +aren't you, Mr. Drugg? Don't you believe if both windows were like that, +and the whole store cleaned up, folks would sit up and take notice?" + +"I--I believe you," admitted the shopkeeper, still staring. + +"And wouldn't it pay?" + +"I--I don't know. It might." + +"Isn't it worth trying?" demanded Janice, cheerily. "Now, please, I want +you to do as I say--and you must let me have my own way to-day here. +I've brought my lunch, and it's too late to go to school now, even if it +_does_ stop raining. You'll let me, won't you?" + +"I--I--I don't know just what you want me to do--or what _you_ want to +do," stammered Hopewell Drugg, still staring at the transformed window. + +"I want you to turn in and help me put your whole store to rights," she +declared. "You don't understand, Mr. Drugg. I believe you can attract +trade here if you will have things nice, and bright, and tidy. You carry +a good stock of wares; and you are not any more behind the times than +other Poketown merchants. Why not be _ahead of them all_?" + +"Me?" breathed Drugg, in increasing wonder. + +"And why not _you_? You've got as good a chance as any. Just get to work +and _make_ trade. Think of little Lottie. If your business can be +increased and you can make money, think of what you can do for her!" + +Drugg suddenly straightened his stooped shoulders and held up his head. +"Just you show me what you want me to do," he said, with unexpected +fire. + +"Grand!" cried the excited Janice. "I can set you to work in a minute. +First thing of all, you fix your screen doors; let's keep the fly family +out of the store--and we'll kill those already in here. You commence on +the screens, Mr. Drugg, while I tackle that other window." + +About the time school was usually out, Janice removed her apron and the +other marks of her toil, and put on her hat and coat. As she said, they +had made a good beginning. Better still, Hopewell Drugg seemed quite +inspired. + +"You have done me a world of good, Miss Janice," he declared. "And +already the shop looks a hundred per cent better." + +"I should hope so," said Janice, vigorously. "And you keep right on with +the good work, Mr. Drugg. I'll come in and dress your windows every +week. And when you've torn those shelves away from the side windows and +let the light and air in here, and done your painting as you promised, +I'll come and arrange your wares on the shelves. + +"Then you get out a little good advertising, and remind folks that +Hopewell Drugg is still in Poketown and doing business. Oh! there are a +dozen things I want you to do! But I won't tell you about all of them +now," and Janice laughed as she picked up her bag and ran out. + +The rain had ceased. The sun was breaking through the clouds, promising +a beautiful evening. Janice almost ran into 'Rill Scattergood on the +sidewalk. + +"Why, Janice dear!" cried the little school-mistress. "I missed you +to-day." Then her eyes turned toward the store. "Is--is anything the +matter? Nothing's happened to little Lottie?" + +"Not a thing," replied the girl, cheerfully. + +"Nor--nor to Mr. Drugg? I don't hear him playing," said Miss 'Rill. + +"And I hope you _won't_ hear him playing so much for a while," laughed +Janice. "The fiddle and the bow have been laid away on the shelf for a +while, I hope." + +"But I really _do_ think Mr. Drugg plays very nicely," murmured the +little schoolmistress, not at all understanding what Janice meant. But +the girl ran on, smiling mysteriously. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +ON THE ROAD WITH WALKY DEXTER + + +Janice Day found the weeks sliding by more quickly after this. Although +school soon closed, she had begun to find so many interests in Poketown +that she could now write dear Daddy in Mexico quite cheerful letters. + +She had "kept at" Hopewell Drugg until his store was the main topic of +conversation all over town. The man himself was even "spruced up" a bit, +and he met the curious people who put themselves out to see his +rejuvenated store with such a pleasant and businesslike air, that many +new customers were attracted to come again. + +Neatly printed announcements had been scattered about Poketown, signed +by Hopewell Drugg, and making a bid for a share of the general trade. +His windows remained attractively dressed. He displayed new stock and +up-to-the-minute articles. The drummers who came to Poketown began to +pay more attention to this store on the side street. + +But Janice Day believed, that, like charity, reformation should begin at +home. The old Day house was slowly revolutionized that summer. +Commencing with the cleaning up of the yard and the mending of the pump, +Janice inspired further improvements. Marty and she spent each Saturday +morning in the dooryard and garden, while Mr. Day mended the front porch +flooring, where the minister had met with his accident, and reshingled +the roof. + +The boles of the fruit and shade trees about the house were whitewashed, +and the palings of the fence renewed. Somehow a pair of new hinges were +found for the gate. The sidewalk was raked, all the weeds cut away from +the fence-line, and the sod between the path and the gutter trimmed and +its edges cut evenly. + +When Marty actually whitewashed the fence, Mr. Day admitted that it was +such an improvement he wished he could go on and paint the house. "But, +by mighty!" he drawled, "it's been so long since 'twas painted, it 'ud +soak up an awful sight of oil." + +Other people along Hillside Avenue began to take notice of the +improvement about the old Day house. Mr. Dickerson built a new front +fence, getting it on a line with the Days' barrier. Others trimmed +hedges and trees, put the lawn mower to their grass, bolstered up +sagging fences, and rehung gates. Hillside Avenue, up its whole length, +began to look less neglected. + +Janice had a fondness for the little inlet, with its background of tall +firs, where she had first met little Lottie Drugg, and she often walked +down there. So she became pretty well acquainted with "Mr. Selectman" +Cross Moore. But as yet she did not get as far out on the Middletown +Lower Road as the house where the Hammett Twins lived. + +One day she found a long lumber-reach dropping new posts and rails along +the length of the deep ditch into which the twins' pony had come so near +to backing the little old ladies on that memorable day when Janice had +first met them. + +"Hi tunket!" ejaculated Mr. Moore, grinning in a most friendly way at +Janice, "I hope you'll be satisfied now. You've jest about hounded me +into havin' this fence put up again." + +"Why, Mr. Moore! I never said a thing to you about it," cried the girl. + +"No. But I see ye ev'ry time you go by, and I'm so reminded of the +'tarnal fence that I remember it o' nights. If somebody _should_ fall +inter the ditch, ye know. And then--Well, I've found out you've made +little Lottie Drugg promise not to come down this way 'nless somebody's +with her. 'Fraid _she'll_ fall in here, too, I s'pose----" + +"Well, she might," said Janice, firmly. + +"She won't have no chance," growled Mr. Moore, but with twinkling eyes +in spite of his gruffness. "Hi tunket! I'll build a railing along here +that'll hold up an elephunt." + +This day Janice had set forth for a long jaunt into the country. She +took the turn where the Hammett Twins and their pony had first come into +her sight, and kept walking on the Middletown Lower Road for a long way. +It overlooked the lake, Janice had been told, for most of the distance +to the larger town. + +She passed several farmhouses but did not reach the Hammett place; +instead she rested upon a rustic bridge where a swift, brawling brook +came down from the hills to tumble into the lake. Then, as she was going +on, a quick "put, put, put" sounded from along the road she had been +traveling. + +"It's a motorcycle," thought Janice. "I didn't know anybody owned one +around Poketown." + +Turning the bend in the road the 'cycle flashed into view, along with a +whisp of dust. A young man rode the machine--a young man who looked +entirely different from the youths of Poketown. Janice looked at him +with interest as he flashed past. She thought he was going so fast that +he would never notice her curiosity. + +He was muscularly built, with a round head set firmly upon a solid neck, +from which his shirt was turned well away, thus displaying the cords of +his throat to advantage. He was well bronzed by the sun, and the heavy +crop of hair, on which he wore a visorless round cap, was crisp and of +a dull gold color. He really _was_ a good-looking young man, and in his +knickerbockers and golf stockings Janice thought he seemed very +"citified" indeed. + +"He's a college boy, I am sure," decided the girl, with interest, +watching the rider out of sight. "I couldn't see his eyes behind those +dust glasses; but I believe there was a dimple in his cheek. If his face +was washed, I don't doubt but what he'd be good-looking," and she +laughed. "Why! here's Walky Dexter!" + +The red-faced driver of the "party wagon" drew in Josephus and his mate, +with a flourish. + +"Wal, now! I _am_ beat," he ejaculated, his little eyes twinkling. +"Can't be I've found a _lost_ Day?" + +"No, indeed, Mr. Dexter," she told him. "I _was_ thinking I'd walk to +the Hammetts'; but it's turned so hot and dusty----" + +"And the Hammett gals live two good mile ahead o' ye." + +"Oh! as far as that?" + +"Surest thing ye know. Better hop in an' jog along back 'ith me," said +Walkworthy Dexter, cordially. + +"Can I, Mr. Dexter?" + +"You air jest as welcome as the flowers in May," he assured her. "Whoa, +Josephus. Stand still, Kate! My sakes! but the flies bite the critters +this morning, an' no mistake." + +Janice "hopped in," and Mr. Dexter clucked to the willing horses. + +"I jest been takin' a party of our young folks over to Middletown to +take examinations for entrance to the Academy," proclaimed Walky. "An' +that remin's me," added he. "Did yer see that feller go by on one o' +them gasoline bikes?" + +"On the motorcycle?" + +"Ya-as." + +"I saw him," admitted Janice. + +"Know him?" + +"Of course not. He doesn't belong in Poketown, I'm sure." + +"Mebbe he will," said Walky, his eyes twinkling with fun again. + +Janice looked at him, puzzled. + +"Ain't you heard?" he questioned. "'Rill Scattergood's resigned and the +school committee is lookin' for a new teacher. _That_ feller's got the +bee in his bonnet, they told me at Middletown." + +"The school-teaching bee?" laughed the girl. + +"Yep. He'd been for his certif'cate. He's been writin' to the Poketown +committee." + +"But--but he isn't much more than a boy himself, is he?" + +"They tell me he's been through college. Must be a smart youngster for, +as you say, he's nothin' but a kid." + +"I didn't say that!" cried Janice, in some little panic, for she knew +Dexter's proneness to gossip. "Don't you dare say I did!" + +He chuckled. "Wa-al, ye meant it. Come now--didn't ye? An' he _is_ a +mighty young feller ter be teachin' school. 'Specially with sech big +girls an' boys in it. He'll have ter fight the boys, it's likely, an' I +shouldn't wonder if the big gals set their caps for him." + +"I'm afraid you're a very reckless talker, Mr. Dexter," sighed Janice. +Then her hazel eyes brightened suddenly, and she added, "They ought to +call you 'Talky' Dexter, instead of 'Walky', I believe." + +"'Talkworthy Dexter', eh?" he grinned. + +"I'm not sure that you _do_ always _talk worthy_," she told him, shaking +a serious head. "You're very apt to say things to 'stir folks all up,' +as my Aunt says. Oh, yes, you do! You know you do, Mr. Dexter." + +"Wal, I declare!" chuckled the man, but with a queer little side glance +at the serious face of the girl. "Think I'm a trouble-breeder, do ye?" + +"You just ask yourself that, sir," said Janice, firmly. "You know you're +just delighted if you can say something to 'start things going,' as you +call it. And it isn't worthy of you----" + +"Whether I'm 'Talkworthy', or 'Walkworthy', eh?" he broke in, laughing. + +"Oh, I didn't mean any offence!" exclaimed Janice, much disturbed now +to think that she had criticised the man just as he was in the habit of +criticising everybody else. + +"I snum! mebbe you're right," grunted Walky Dexter. "And I reckon +talkin' don't do much good after all. Now, look at Cross Moore. I been +at him a year an' more to fix that rail fence along the ditch by his +house. 'Tain't done no good. But, by jinks! somebody else got at him," +added Walky, slyly, "an' I see this mornin' Cross was gittin' the rails +and new posts there. He was right on the job." + +Janice's cheeks grew rosy. "Why!" she cried, "I never said a word to him +about it." + +"No; but somehow he got the idee from you. He told me so," and Walky +chuckled. + +"I think Mr. Moore likes to joke--the same as you do, Mr. Dexter," said +Janice, quietly. + +"Ahem! You sartainly have got some of us goin'," said the driver, +whimsically. "Look at Jase Day! I never _did_ think nothin' less'n +Gabriel's trump would start Jase. But yest'day I'm jiggered if I didn't +see him mendin' his pasture fence. And the old Day house looks like +another place--that's right. How d'you do it?" + +"I--I don't just know what you mean," stammered Janice, feeling very +uncomfortable. + +He looked at her with his eyes screwed up again. "D'you know what they +said about yer uncle las' year? He come down to Jefferson's store with +a basket of pertaters. All the big ones was on top and the little ones +at the bottom. Huh! _He_ ain't the only one that 'deacons' a basket of +pertaters," and Walky chuckled. + +"But the boys said 'twas easy to see how come Jase's pertaters that-a +way. 'Twas 'cause it took him so 'tarnal long to dig a basket, that the +pertaters grew ahead of him in the row--that's right! When he begun they +was little, but by the time he got a basket full they'd growed a lot," +and the gossip guffawed his delight at the story. + +"But he's sure gettin' 'round some spryer this year. An' I snum! there's +Marty, too. He's workin' in his mother's garden reg'lar. I seen him. +'Fore you came, Miss Janice, if Marty was diggin' in the garden an' +found a worm, he thought he was goin' fishin' and got him a bait can and +a pole, an' set right off for the lake--that's right!" and Walky shook +all over, and grew so red in the face over his joke that Janice was +really afraid he was becoming apoplectic. + +But something in the middle of the road, as they made another corner, +stopped all this fun. + +"Hullo!" exclaimed Walky. "That young feller on the gasoline bike has +had an accident. Don't it look that way to you?" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +NELSON HALEY + + +The team drew to a halt without any command, and directly beside the +young man, who was working diligently over the overturned motorcycle. +His repair kit was spread out at the roadside, and the cause of the +trouble was self-evident, it would seem. But Walky was a true Yankee and +had to ask questions. + +"Had a puncture, Mister?" he drawled, as the young man looked up, saw +Janice on the seat beside the driver, and flushed a little. + +"Oh, no!" returned the victim of the accident, with some asperity. "I'm +just changing the air in these tires. The other air was worn out, you +know." + +For a moment Walky's eyes bulged, and Janice giggled loudly. Then Mr. +Dexter saw the point of the joke. He slapped his leg and laughed +uproariously. + +"You'll do! By jinks! you surely will _do_," he declared. "I reckon you +air smart enough, young feller, ter teach the Poketown school. An' +that's what they say you're in these parts for?" + +"I am here to see the school committee about the position," said the +young fellow. "Are you one of the committee?" + +"Me? No--I should say not!" gasped Walky. "Old Bill Jones, an' 'Squire +Abe Connett, and Elder Concannon air the committee." + +"Oh!" returned the youth, quite coolly. "I didn't know but you were one +of the number, and that I was already being put through my examination." + +But Walky Dexter was not easily feazed. He just blinked twice over this +snub and pursued the conversation: + +"They tell me you've been ter college?" + +"My! my!" exclaimed the young man, "_they_ tell you a good deal, don't +they? Is it just a habit folks have, or have the Poketown selectmen +passed an ordinance that you are to be the recipient of all personal +information?" + +Janice was still amused, although she thought the young man was rather +hard upon the town gossip. But Walky thought the observation over, and +seemed finally to realize that the motorcyclist was making sport of him. + +"Aw, well," he said, grinning broadly, "if you air tender about your +pussonal record, I'll say no more about it. But I allus b'lieve in goin' +right ter headquarters when I want ter know anything. Saves makin' +mistakes. If you air ashamed of your criminal past, Mister, why, that's +all right--we won't say no more about it." + +At this the young fellow stood up, put his hands upon his hips, and +burst into a hearty shout of laughter. Janice had to join in, while +Walky Dexter grinned, knowing he had made a good point. + +"You certainly had me there, old timer!" declared the youth at last. +"Now providing you will be as frank, and do the honors as well, I'll +introduce myself as Nelson Haley. I hail from Springfield. I have spent +four years in the scholastic halls of Williamstown. I hope to go to law +school, but meanwhile must earn a part of the where-with-all. Therefore, +I am attacking the citadel of the Poketown School." + +"Oh! That's the why-for of it, eh?" crowed Walky. "Much obleeged. I'll +know what to say now when anybody asks me." + +"I hope so," returned Nelson Haley, with some sarcasm. "But fair +exchange, Mister. You might tell me who I have the honor of speaking +to--and, especially, you might introduce me to the lady?" + +"Oh! Eh?" and Walky looked at the blushing Janice, questioningly. The +girl smiled, however, and the driver cleared his throat and gravely made +the introduction. "And I'm Walky Dexter," he concluded. "If you git the +Poketown school you'll come ter know me quite well, I shouldn't wonder." + +"That is something to look forward to, I am sure," declared Nelson +Haley, drily. Then he turned to Janice, and asked: + +"Will you be one of my pupils, if I have the good fortune to get the +school, Miss Day?" + +"I--I am afraid not. I do not really belong in Poketown," Janice +explained. "And the ungraded school could not aid me much." + +"No, I suppose not," returned the young man. "Well! I hope I see you +again, Miss Day." + +Walky clucked to the horses and they jogged on, leaving Nelson Haley to +finish his repairs. Walky chuckled, and said to Janice: + +"He's quite a flip young feller. He is young to tackle the Poketown +school. An' 'twill be an objection, I shouldn't wonder. Ye see, they +couldn't find that fault with 'Rill Scattergood." + +"But I venture to say that they did when she first came to Poketown to +teach," cried Janice. + +"Oh, say! I sh'd say they did," agreed Walky, with a retrospective +rolling of his head. "An' she was a purty young gal, then, too. There +was more on us than Hopewell Drugg arter 'Rill in them days--yes, +sir-ree!" + +Janice was curious, and she yielded to the temptation of asking the town +gossip a question: + +"Why--why didn't Miss 'Rill marry Hopewell, then?" + +"The goodness only knows why they fell out, Miss Janice," declared +Walky. "We none of us ever made out. I 'spect it was the old woman done +it--ol' Miz' Scattergood. She didn't take kindly to Hopewell. And +then--Well, 'Cinda Stone was lef' all alone, an' she lived right back o' +Drugg's store, an' her father had owed Drugg a power of money 'fore he +died--a big store bill, ye see. Hopewell Drugg is as soft as butter; +mebbe he loved 'Cinda Stone; anyhow he merried her after he'd got the +mitten from Amarilla. Huh! ye can't never tell the whys and wherefores +of sech things--not re'lly." + +A presidential election would have made little more stir in Poketown +than the coming there of this young man who looked for the position of +school-teacher. Marty brought home word at night to the old Day house +that Mr. Haley had put up at the Lake View Inn; that he had let two of +the older boys try out his motorcycle; that he could pitch a ball that +"Dunk" Peters couldn't hit, even though "Dunk" had played one season +with the Fitchburg team. Likewise, that Mr. Haley was to go before the +school committee that evening. And after supper Marty hastened down town +again to learn how the examination of the young collegian "came out." + +"I do hope," sighed Aunt 'Mira, "that this young man gits the school. +Mebbe Marty will like him, an' go again. I won't say but that the boy's +a good deal better'n he was; he's changed since you've come, Janice. But +he'd oughter git more schoolin'--so he had." + +"I met Mr. Haley," said her niece, quietly. "He seems like quite a nice +young man; and, if he has any interest in his work, he ought to give a +good many of the Poketown boys a better start." + +For Marty Day was not the only young loafer in the town. There was +always a group of half-grown boys hanging about Josiah Pringle's harness +shop, or the sheds of the Lake View Inn. + +In Greensboro there had been a good library and reading-room, and the +Young Men's Christian Association boys and young men had a chance +_there_. Janice knew that her father's influence had helped open these +club-like places for the boys, and so had kept them off the streets. +There wasn't a thing in Poketown for boys to do or a place to go to, +save the stores where the older men lounged. Sometimes, her aunt told +her, men brought jugs of hard cider to the Inn tables, and the boys got +to drinking the stuff. + +"Now, if this Nelson Haley is any sort of a fellow, and he gets the +school," murmured Janice to herself, "he may do something." + +Marty brought home the latest report from the committee meeting before +they went to bed. Mr. Haley seemed to have made a good impression upon +the three old dry-as-dust committeemen, especially on old Elder +Concannon, the superannuated minister who had lived in Poketown for +fifty years, although he had not preached at the Union Church, saving on +special occasion, for two decades. + +"The Elder says he thinks this Haley'll do," said Marty, with a grin. "I +heard him tell Walky Dexter so. He knows some Latin, Haley does," added +the boy. "What's Latin, Janice?" + +"Nothing that will help him in the least to teach the Poketown School," +declared his cousin, rather sharply for her. "Isn't that ridiculous! +What can that old minister be thinking of?" + +"The Elder's great on what he calls 'the classics,'" said Mr. Day, with +a chuckle. "He reads the Bible in the 'riginal, as he calls it. He allus +said 'Rill Scattergood didn't know enough to teach school." + +"I don't believe that Poketown really needs a teacher who reads Hebrew +and can translate a Latin verse. That is, those studies will not help +Mr. Haley much in your school," Janice replied. + +"Wal," said Marty, "I'll go when school opens and give him a whirl. +Maybe he'll teach me how to fling that drop curve." + +"Now!" whined Aunt 'Mira, when Marty had stumped up to bed. "What good +is it goin' ter do that boy ter go ter school an' learn baseball, I want +ter know?" + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +A TIME OF TRIAL + + +Janice met Nelson Haley a couple of days later in Hopewell Drugg's +store. The matter had been decided ere then; Haley had obtained the +school and had quickly established himself in a boarding-place, as the +school would open the next week. + +'Rill Scattergood and her mother had already gone to housekeeping in +three nice rooms just around the corner on High Street, and Mr. Haley +had the good fortune to be "taken in" by Mrs. Beasely. The gaunt old +widow was plainly delighted once more to have "a man to do for." + +"If my digestion holds out, Miss Day," whispered the young man to +Janice, "I'm going to do fine with Mrs. Beasely. Good old creature! But +she may kill me with kindness. I don't see how I am going to be able to +do full justice to her three meals a day." + +"I hope you will like it as well in school as you do at your +boarding-place," ventured Janice, timidly. + +"Oh, the school? That's going to be pie," laughed Haley. "You know about +how it's been run, don't you?" + +"I--I attended for more than a month last spring," admitted the girl. + +"Then you know very well," said the young man, smiling broadly, "that it +won't be half a trick to satisfy the committee. They don't expect much. +'Just let things run along easy-like'; that will please them. If I can +keep the boys straight and teach the youngsters a little, that will be +about all the committee expects. Elder Concannon admitted that much to +me. You see, the whole committee are opposed to what they term +'new-fangled notions.'" + +"But there is some sentiment in town for an improvement in the school," +declared Janice. "Don't you know that? Many people would like to see the +children taught more, and the school more up-to-date." + +"Oh, well," and Haley laughed and shrugged his shoulders. "The committee +seem to be in power, and--Well, Miss Day, you can be sure that I know +which side my bread is buttered on," he concluded, lightly. + +Janice liked this bright, laughing young man very much. But she was +sorry he had no more serious interest in his position than this +conversation showed. + +Then there suddenly came a time when Janice Day's own interest in +Poketown and Poketown people--in everything and everybody about +her--seriously waned. Daddy had not written for a fortnight. When the +letter finally came it had been delayed, and was not postmarked as +usual. Daddy only hinted at one of the belligerent armies being nearer +to the mines, and that most of his men had deserted. + +There was trouble--serious trouble, or Daddy would not have kept his +daughter in suspense. Janice watched the mails, eagle-eyed. She wrote +letter after letter herself, begging him to keep her informed,--begging +him to come away from that hateful Mexico altogether. + +"Broxton's no business to be 'way down there at all," growled Uncle +Jason, who was worried, too, and hadn't the tact to keep his feelings +secret from the girl. "Why, Walky Dexter tells me they are shootin' +white folks down there jest like we'd shoot squirrels in these parts." + +"Oh, Jason!" gasped Aunt 'Mira. "It can't be as bad as that!" + +"Wuss. They jest shot a rancher who was a Britisher, an' they say +there'll be war about it. I dunno. Does look as though our Government +ought ter do somethin' to protect Americans as well as Britishers. But, +hi tunket! Broxton hadn't ought ter gone down there--no, sir-ree!" + +This sort of talk did not help Janice. She drooped about the house and +often crept off by herself into the woods and fields and brooded over +Daddy's peril. School had begun, and Marty went with several of the +bigger boys that had hung around Pringle's harness shop and the Inn +stables. + +"That Nelse Haley is all right," the boy confided to his cousin. "We're +going to have two baseball teams next year. He says so. Then we kin have +matched games. But now he's goin' to send for what he calls a 'pigskin' +and he's a-goin' to teach us football. Guess you've heard of that, eh?" + +"Oh, yes," said Janice. "It's a great game, Marty. But what about +school? Is he teaching you anything?" + +Marty grinned. "Enough, I guess. Things goin' along easy-like. He don't +kill us with work, that's one thing. Old Elder Concannon's been up once +and sat an' listened to the classes. He seems satisfied." + +Janice did not lose sight of Hopewell Drugg and little Lottie. The store +was now doing a fairly good business; but the man admitted that the +profits rolled up but slowly, and it would be a long time before he +could take his little daughter to Boston. + +These fall days Janice was frequently with Miss 'Rill. The little maiden +lady seemed to understand better than most people just how Janice was +troubled by her father's absence, his silence, and his peril. Besides, +when old Mrs. Scattergood did not know, many were the times that 'Rill +and Janice went to Hopewell Drugg's and "tidied up" the cottage for him. +'Rill would not go without Janice, and they usually stole in by the side +door without saying a word to the storekeeper. He was grateful for their +aid, and little Lottie was benefited by their ministrations. + +Then another letter came from Broxton Day. He admitted that the two +armies were very near--one between him and communication with his +friends over the Rio Grande--and that operations at the mine had +completely ceased. Yet he felt it his duty to remain, even though the +property was "between two fires," as it were. + +Ere this Janice had sent off for an up-to-date map of northern Mexico +and the Texan border. She and Marty and Mr. Day had pored over it +evenings and had now marked the very spot in the hills where the mine +was located. The girl subscribed for a New York newspaper, too, and that +came in the evening mail. So they followed the movements of the Federal +and the Constitutionalist armies as closely as possible from the news +reports, and Janice read about each battle with deeper and deeper +anxiety. + +Had her uncle and aunt been wise they would have interfered in this +occupation, or at least, they would not have encouraged it. Janice lost +her cheerfulness and her rosy cheeks. Aunt 'Mira declared she drooped +"like a sick chicken." + +"Ye mustn't pay so much 'tention to them papers," she complained. "I +never did think much o' N'York daily papers, nohow. They don't have +'nuff stories in 'em." + +But it was her own money Janice spent for the papers. Whenever Daddy had +written he had usually enclosed in his envelope a bank note of small +denomination for Janice. The bank in Greensboro sent the board money +regularly to Uncle Jason (and Aunt 'Mira got it for her own personal +use, as she declared she would), but Janice always had a little in her +pocket. + +Had she been well supplied with cash about this time the girl would have +been tempted to run away and take the train for Mexico herself. It did +seem to her, when the weeks went by without a letter reaching her from +her father, as though he must be wounded, and suffering, and needing +her! + +But she did not have sufficient money to pay her fare such a long +distance. + +Aunt 'Mira was a poor comforter. Yet she fortunately aided in giving +Janice something else to think about just then. The girl had helped +"spruce up" Aunt 'Mira long since, so that they could go to church +together on Sundays. But now the good lady was in the throes of making +herself a silk dress for best--a black silk. It was the thing she had +longed for most, and now she could satisfy the craving for clothes that +had so obsessed her. + +Aunt 'Mira loved finery. Janice had to use her influence to the utmost +to keep the good lady from committing the sin of getting this wonderful +dress too "fancy." Left to herself, Mrs. Day would have loaded it with +bead trimming and cut-steel ornaments. At first she even wanted it cut +"minaret" fashion, which would have, in the end, made the poor lady look +a good deal like an overgrown ballet dancer! + +Janice had been glad to go to church. Always, before coming to Poketown, +the girl had held a vital interest in church and church work. But here +she found there was really nothing for the young people to do. They had +no society, and aside from the Sunday School, a very cut-and-dried +session usually, there was no special interest for the young. + +Mr. Middler, the pastor, was a mild-voiced, softly stepping man, +evidently fearing to give offense. Although he had been in the pastorate +for several years, he seemed to have very little influence in the +community. Elder Concannon and several other older members controlled +the church and its policies utterly; and they frowned on any innovation. + +One Sabbath, old Elder Concannon--a grizzled, heavy-eyebrowed man, with +a beak-like nose and flashing black eyes--preached, and he thundered +out the "Law" to his hearers as a man might use a goad on a refractory +team of oxen. Mr. Middler was a faint echo of the old Elder on most +occasions. He seemed afraid of taking his text from the New Testament. +It was Law, not Love, that was preached at the Poketown Union Church; +and although the dissertations may have been satisfactory to the older +members, they did not attract the young people to service, or feed them +when they _did_ come! + +Janice often wondered if the loud "Amens!" of Elder Concannon, down in +the corner, were worth as much to poor little Mr. Middler as would have +been a measure of vital interest shown in the church and its work by +some of the young people of the community. + +There was a Ladies Sewing Circle. There is always a Ladies Sewing +Circle! But, somehow, the making up of barrels of cast-off clothing for +unfortunate missionaries in the West, or up in Canada, or the sewing +together of innumerable ill-cut garments, which must, of course, be +"misfits" for the unknown infants for whom they were intended,--all this +never could seem sufficient to "feed the spirit," to Janice Day's mind. + +Once or twice she went with Aunt 'Mira (who was proud of her new clothes +and would occasionally go about to show them, now) to the sewing +society meeting. But there were few other young girls there, and the +gossip was not seasoned to her taste. + +One day came a letter from Daddy's friend and business associate in +Juarez. For three weeks Janice had not received a word from her father. +The man in Juarez wrote: + + + "DEAR MISS JANICE:-- + + "Communication is quite shut off from the district in which + your father's property lies. From such spies as have been + able to get to me, I learn that a disastrous battle has been + fought near the place and that the Constitutionalists have + swept everything before them. They have overrun that part of + Chihuahua and, that being the case, foreigners are not + likely to be well treated or their property conserved. + + "I write this because I think it my duty to do so. You + should be warned that the very worst that can happen must be + expected. I have not heard directly from Mr. Day for a + fortnight, and then but a brief message came. He was then + well and free, but spoke of being probably obliged to desert + his post, after all. + + "Just what has become of him I cannot guess. I have put the + matter in the hands of the consul here, the State Department + has already been telegraphed, and an inquiry will be made. + But Americans are disappearing most mysteriously every week + in Mexico, and I cannot hold out any hope for Mr. Day. He + may get word through to you by some other route than this; + if so, will you wire me at once? + + "Sincerely yours, + + "JAMES W. BUCHANAN." + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +NEW BEGINNINGS + + +The very worst of it was, there was nothing Janice could do! She must +wait, and to contemplate that passive state, almost drove her mad! + +Day after day passed without bringing any further news. She read the +papers just as eagerly as before; but the center of military activity in +Mexico had suddenly shifted to an entirely different part of the +country. There was absolutely no news in the papers from the district +where the mine was situated. + +Mr. Buchanan wrote once again, but even more briefly. He was a busy man, +and had done all that he could. If he heard from, or of, Mr. Day he +would telegraph Janice at once, and if _she_ heard she was to let him +know by the same means. + +That was the way the matter stood. It seemed as though the State +Department could, or would, do nothing. Mr. Day, like other citizens of +the United States, had been warned of the danger he was in while he +remained in a country torn by civil strife. The consequences were upon +his own head. + +The folks who knew about Janice's trouble tried to be good to her. Walky +Dexter drove around to invite the girl to go with him whenever he had a +job that took him out of town with the spring wagon. Janice loved to jog +over the hilly roads, and she saw a good bit of the country with Dexter. + +"I'd love to own just a little automobile that I could run myself," she +said once. + +"Why don't you borry Nelse Haley's gasoline bike?" demanded Walky, with +a grin. "Or, mebbe he'll put a back-saddle on fer yer. I've seen 'em +ride double at Middletown." + +"I don't like motorcycles. I want a wide seat and more comfort," said +Janice. "Daddy said that, perhaps, if things went well with him down +there in Mexico, I could have an auto runabout," and she sighed. + +"Now, Miss Janice!" exclaimed the man, "don't you take on none. Mr. +Broxton Day'll come out all right. I remember him as a boy, and he was +jest as much diff'rent from Jason as chalk is from cheese! Yes, +sir-ree!" + +This implied a compliment for her father, Janice knew, so she was +pleased. Walky Dexter meant well. + +Little Miss Scattergood was Janice's greatest comfort during this time +of trial. She did not discuss the girl's trouble, but she showed her +sympathy in other ways. Old Mrs. Scattergood always wanted to discuss +the horrors of the Mexican War, whenever she caught sight of Janice, +which was not pleasant. So Miss 'Rill and Janice arranged to meet more +often at Hopewell Drugg's, and little Lottie received better care those +days than ever before. + +Miss 'Rill was not a bad seamstress, and the two friends began to make +Lottie little frocks; and, as Hopewell only had to supply the material +out of the store, Lottie was more prettily dressed--and for less +money--than previously. + +As Janice and the ex-schoolmistress sat sewing in the big Drugg kitchen, +Hopewell would often linger in the shed room with his violin, when there +were no customers, and play the few pieces he had, in all these years, +managed to "pick out" upon his father's old instrument. "Silver Threads +Among the Gold" was the favorite--especially with Lottie. She would +dance and clap her hands when she felt the vibration of certain minor +chords, and come running to the visitors and attract their attention to +the sounds that she could "hear." + +"He-a! he-a! he-a!" she shouted in that shrill toneless voice of hers. + +Janice noticed that she talked less than formerly. Gradually the power +of speech was going from her because of disuse. It is almost always so +with the very young who are deprived of hearing. + +Such a pitiful, pitiful case! Sometimes Janice could not think of little +Lottie without weeping. It seemed so awful that merely a matter of +money--a few hundred dollars--should keep this child from obtaining the +surgical help and the training that might aid her to become a happy, +normal girl. + +It was from Mr. Middler--rather, through a certain conversation with the +minister--that Janice received the greatest help during these weeks when +her father's fate remained uncertain. + +She could not spend all her time at Hopewell Drugg's, or with Walky +Dexter, or even about the old Day house. Autumn had come, and the +mornings were frosty. The woods were aflame with the sapless leaves. Ice +skimmed the quiet pools before the late-rising sun kissed them. + +Janice had sometimes met the minister when she tramped over the +hillside--and especially up toward the Shower Bath in Jason Day's wood +lot. One glowing, warm October afternoon the girl and the gentle little +parson met on the cow path through Mr. Day's upper pasture. + +"Ah, my dear!" he said, shaking hands. "Where are you bound for?" + +"I don't know whether I had better tell you, or not, sir," she returned, +smiling, yet with some gravity. "You see, I was going to get comfort." + +"Comfort?" + +"Yes, sir. You see, sometimes I get to thinking of--of Daddy so much +that the whole world seems just made up of _my_ trouble!" said Janice, +with a sob. "Do you know what I mean, sir? Just as though me and my +troubles were the most important things in existence--the _only_ things, +in fact." + +"Ah--yes. I see--I see," whispered Mr. Middler, patting her shoulder, +but looking away from her tear-streaked face. "We are all that +way--sometimes, Janice. All that way." + +"And then I go somewhere to get out of myself,--to--to get comfort." + +"I see." + +"And so I am going now to the place I call The Overlook. It's a great +rock up yonder. I scramble up on top of it, and from that place I can +see so much of the world that, by and by, I begin to realize just how +small I really am, and how small, in comparison, my troubles must be in +the whole great scheme of things. I begin to understand, then," she +added, softly, "that God has so much to 'tend to in the Universe that He +can't give me first chance _always_. I've got to wait my turn." + +"Oh, but my dear!" murmured the doctrinarian. "I wouldn't limit the +power of the Almighty--even in my thoughts." + +"No-o. But--but God does just seem more _human_ and close to me if I +think of Him as very busy--yet thoughtful and kind for us all. +Just--just like my Daddy, only on a bigger scale, Mr. Middler." + +The minister looked at her gravely for a moment and then took her hand +again. "Suppose you show me that place of comfort?" he suggested, +quietly. + +They went on together through the pasture and up into the wood lot. They +came out upon an unexpected opening in the wood, at the beginning of a +great gash in the hillside. At the center of this opening was a huge +boulder, surrounded by hazelnut bushes, to which the brown leaves still +clung. + +"You can climb up easily from the back. Let me show you," said Janice, +who had by now got control of her tears, and was more like her smiling, +cheerful self. + +She ran up the incline, sure-footed as a goat; but at the more difficult +place she gave the minister her hand. He was much more breathless than +she when they stood together upon the overhanging rock. + +Below them was the steep, wooded hillside, and the broken pastures and +scattered houses north of Poketown, along the shore of the lake. This +spot was on the promontory that flanked the bay upon one side. From this +point it seemed that all of the great lake, with both its near and +distant shores, lay spread at their feet! + +[Illustration: God's world _did_ look bigger and greater from The +Overlook. (See page 155.)] + +In the northwest frowned the half-ruined fortress, so heroic a landmark +of pre-Revolutionary times. Nearer lay the wooded, rocky isle where a +celebrated Indian chief had made his last stand against the encroaching +whites. Yonder was the spot where certain of those bold pioneers and +fighters, the Green Mountain Boys, embarked under their famous leaders, +Allen and Warner, upon an expedition that historians will never cease to +write of. + +It was a noble, as well as a beautiful, view. God's world _did_ look +bigger and greater from The Overlook. Sitting by her side, the minister +held the girl's hand, and listened to her artless expressions. She told +him quite frankly what all this view meant to her,--how it helped and +soothed her worried spirit, brought comfort to her grieving heart. Here +were many square miles of God's Footstool under her gaze; and there were +many, many thousands of other spots like this between her and the +Mexican mountains in which her father was held a prisoner. And God had +the same care over one bit of landscape as he did over another! + +"Then," she said, softly, in conclusion, "then I just seem to grasp the +idea of God's _bigness_--and how much He has to do. I won't complain. +I'll wait. And meanwhile I'll do, if I can, what Daddy told me to." + +"What is that, Janice?" asked the minister, still gazing out over the +vast outlook himself. + +"I must _do something_,--keep to work, you know. Try and make things +better. You know: 'Each in his small corner.' And there's so much to be +done in Poketown!" + +"So much--in Poketown?" ejaculated the minister, suddenly brought out of +his reverie. + +"Yes, sir." + +"But I thought Poketown was a particularly satisfactory place. There +really is very little to do here. We have a very clean political +government, remarkably so. Of course, that fact would not so much +interest you, Janice. But the life of the church is very +spiritual--very. We have no saloons; we seldom have an arrest----" + +"Oh, I never thought of those things," admitted Janice. "There isn't +really anything for young people to do in the Poketown Church, I know. +But outside----" + +"And what can be done outside?" asked the minister, and perhaps he +winced a little at the confidence in Janice's voice when she spoke of +the church system which kept the young people at a distance. + +"Why, you know, there are the boys. Boys like Marty--my cousin. He goes +to school now, it's true; but he's down town just as much as ever at +night. And there's no good place for the boys to go--to congregate, I +mean." + +"Humph! I thought once of opening the church basement to them," murmured +Mr. Middler. "But--but there was opposition. Some thought the boys might +take advantage of our good nature and be ill-behaved." + +"So they continue to hang around the hotel sheds and the stores," +pursued Janice, thoughtfully, without meaning to be critical. "Boys +_will_ get together in a club, or gang. Daddy used to say they were +naturally gregarious, like some birds." + +"Yes," said the minister, slowly. + +"They ought to have a nice, warm, well-lighted room where they could go, +and play games, and read,--with a circulating library attached. Of +course, a gymnasium would be too much to even _dream_ of, at first! Why! +wouldn't that be fine? And isn't it practical? _Do_ say it is!" + +"I do not know whether it is practicable or not, Janice," said the +minister, slowly, yet smiling at her. "But the thought is inspired. You +shall have all the help I can give you. It _ought_ to be in the +church----" + +"No. That would scare the boys away," interposed Janice, with finality. + +"Why, my dear? You speak as though the church was a bogey!" + +"Well--but--dear Mr. Middler! Just ask the boys themselves. How many of +them love to go to church--even to Sunday School? I mean the boys that +hang about the village stores at night." + +"It is so--it is so," he admitted, with a sigh. + +From this sprang the idea of the Poketown Free Library. It was of slow +growth, and there is much more to be said about it; but Janice found her +personal troubles much easier to bear when she began trying to interest +the people of Poketown in the reading-room idea. + +And didn't Mr. Middler bear something of his own away from that visit to +The Overlook--something that glowed in his heart? He preached quite a +different kind of a sermon that next Sunday, and the text was one of the +most helpful and _living_ in all the New Testament. + +Some of the older members of his congregation shook their heads over it. +It was not "strong meat," they said; there was nothing to argue about! +But a dozen troubled, needy members who heard the sermon, felt new hope +in their hearts, and they got through the following week--trials and +all!--much easier than usual. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +"SHOWING" THE ELDER + + +No millionaire library-giver had found Poketown on the map. Or else, the +hard-headed and tight-fisted voters of that Green Mountain community +were too sharp to allow anybody to foist upon them a granite mausoleum, +the upkeep of which would mainly advertise the name of the donor. + +The Union Sunday School had a library; but its list of volumes was open +to the same objections as are raised to many other institutions of its +kind. Nor was a circulating library so much needed in Poketown as a +reading and recreation room for the youth of the village. + +Aside from her brief talk with Mr. Middler, Janice Day advised with no +adult at first as to how the establishment of the needed institution +should be brought about. + +The girl had studied Marty, if she had had little opportunity of +becoming acquainted with other specimens of the genus _boy_. She knew +they were as bridle-shy as wild colts. + +The idea of the club-room for reading and games must seem to come from +the boys themselves. It must appear that they accepted adult aid +perforce, but with the distinct understanding that the room was _theirs_ +and that there was not to be too much oversight or control by the +supporting members of the institution. + +The scheme was not at all original with Janice. The nucleus of many a +successful free library and village club has been a similar idea. + +"Marty, why don't you and your chums have a place of your own where you +can read and play checkers these cold nights? I hear Josiah Pringle has +chased you out of his shop again." + +"Ya-as--mean old hunks!" + +"But didn't somebody spoil a whole nest of whips for him by pouring +liquid glue over the snappers?" + +"Well! that was only one feller. An' Pringle put us all out," complained +the boy, but grinning, too. + +"You wouldn't have let that boy do such a thing in your own +club-room--now, would you?" + +"Huh! how'd we ever git a club-room, Janice? We had Poley Haskin's +father's barn one't; but when we tried to heat it with a three-legged +cookstove, Poley's old man put us out in a hurry." + +"Oh, I mean a real _nice_ place," said the wily Janice. "Not a place to +smoke those nasty cigarettes in, and carry on; but a real reading-room, +with books, and papers, and games, and all that." + +"Oh, that would be fine! But where'd we get that kind of a place in +Poketown?" queried Marty. + +That was the start of it. + +There was an empty store on High Street next to the drug store. It was a +big room which could be easily heated by a pot stove and a few lengths +of stovepipe. It was owned by the drug-store man, and had been empty a +long time. He asked six dollars a month rent for it. + +It was just about this time that Janice learned she possessed powers of +persuasive eloquence. The druggist was the first person she "tackled" in +her campaign. + +"It's a secret, Mr. Massey," she told him; "but some of the boys want a +reading-room, and some of the rest of us are anxious to help them get +it. Only it mustn't be talked of at first, or it will be all spoiled. +You know how 'fraid boys are that there is going to be a trap set for +them." + +"Ain't that so?" chuckled the druggist. + +"And we want your empty room next door." + +"Wa-al--I dunno!" returned the man, finding the matter suddenly serious, +when it was brought so close home to him. + +"Of course, we expect to pay for it. Only we'd like to have you cut the +rent in two for the first three months," said Janice, quickly. + +"Say! that might be all right," the druggist observed, more briskly. +"But I don't know about all these harum-scarums collecting around this +corner. I have been glad heretofore that they have hung around +Pringle's, or Joe Henderson's, or the hotel, instead of up here. They've +been up to all sorts of mischief." + +"If they don't behave reasonably they'll lose the reading-room. Of +course that will be understood," said Janice. + +"You can't trust some of 'em," growled the druggist. "Never!" + +"We'll make those who want the reading-room make the mischievous ones +behave," laughed Janice. + +"Well," agreed the druggist, "we'll try it. Three dollars a month for +three months; then six dollars. I can afford no more." + +"So much for so much!" whispered Janice, when she came away from the +store. "At least, it's a beginning." + +But it was a very small beginning, as she soon began to realize. She had +no money to give toward the project herself, and it was very hard to beg +from some people, even for a good cause. + +There was needed at least one long table and two small ones, as well as +some sort of a desk for whoever had charge of the room; and shelves for +the books, and lamps, and a stove, and chairs, beside curtains at the +windows. These simple furnishings would do to begin with. But how to +get any, or all, of these was the problem. + +Janice went to several people able to help in the project, before she +said anything more to Marty. Some of these people encouraged her; some +shook their heads pessimistically over the idea. + +She wished Elder Concannon to agree to pay the rent of the room for the +first three months. It would be but nine dollars, and the old gentleman +could easily do it. Since closing his pastorate of the Union Church, +years before, Mr. Concannon had become (for Poketown) a rich man. He had +invested a small legacy received about that time in abandoned marble +quarries and sugar-maple orchards. Both quarries and orchards had taken +on a new lease of life, and had enriched the shrewd old minister. + +But Elder Concannon let go of a dollar no more easily now than when he +had been dependent upon a four-hundred-dollar salary and a donation +party twice a year. + +It was not altogether parsimony that made the old gentleman "hem and +haw" over Janice Day's proposal. Naturally, an innovation of any kind +would have made him shy, but especially one calculated to yield any +pleasure to the boys of Poketown. + +"I don't dispute but you may mean all right, Miss Day," he said, shaking +his bristling head at her. "But there's no good in those young +scamps--no good at all. You would waste your time trying to benefit +them. They would turn your reading-room into a bear garden." + +"You do not _know_ that, sir," said Janice, boldly. "Let us try them." + +"You are very young, Miss Day," said the Elder, stiffly. "You should +yield more easily to the opinions of your elders." + +"Why?" demanded the girl, quickly, but smiling. "We young ones have got +to learn through our own experiences, haven't we? When _you_ were young, +sir, you had to learn at first hand--isn't that so? You would not accept +the opinions of the older men as infallible. Now, did you, sir?" + +The Elder was a bit staggered; but he was honest. + +"Ahem!" he said. "For that very reason I desire to have you accept my +advice, young lady. It will save you much trouble and heartache. These +boys need a stronger hand than yours----" + +"Oh, my goodness!" gasped Janice. "_I_ wouldn't undertake to have +anything to do with governing them--no, indeed! I thought of speaking to +Mr. Haley--if I could interest him in the project--and get him to keep +an eye on the reading-room at night. But the boys will have to +understand that they can only have the benefits of the place as long as +they are on their good behavior." + +"Ahem!" coughed the Elder again. "Mr. Haley is a very bright young +man--an especially good Latin scholar. But I fancy he finds the boys +quite enough to handle during the daytime, without having the care of +them at night. And--to be frank--I do not approve of the idea at all." + +"Then--then you positively will not help us?" asked Janice, +disappointedly. + +"You have not proved your case--to _my_ mind--Miss Day," said the old +gentleman, sternly. "It is not a feasible plan that you suggest. The +young rascals would make the place a regular nuisance. They would be +worse than they already are--and that is saying a good deal." + +"I am sorry you think that, sir," returned Janice, quietly. "I think +better of them than you do. I believe the boys will appreciate such a +place and--if I can find enough people to help--I hope to see the +reading-room established." + +"I disapprove, Miss--I disapprove!" declared Elder Concannon, almost +angrily, for he was not used to being crossed, especially in any +semi-public matter like this. "You will find, too, that my opinion is +the right one. Good-day, Miss. I am sorry to find one so young +impervious to the advice of her elders." + +"I'll just _show_ him! That's what I'll do--I'll _show_ him!" was the +determination of the girl from Greensboro. "And I don't believe Poketown +boys are much worse than any other boys--if they only have half a +chance." + +Fortunately all those to whom Janice went in her secret canvass were not +like the opinionated old minister. Several subscribed money, and +insisted upon paying their subscription over to her at once so that she +might have a "working fund." Janice set aside three dollars for the +first month's rent of the store and with the remainder purchased a +second-hand table, some plain kitchen chairs, and some lumber. She began +to use this subscribed money with some little trepidation, for--suppose +her scheme fell through, after all? + +She got her uncle to agree to the needed carpenter's work; a painter +gave her a brush and sufficient wood-stain to freshen up all the +woodwork of the store. Miss 'Rill came and helped her clean the place +and kalsomine the walls and ceiling. A storekeeper gave her enough +enameled oilcloth to cover neatly the long table. Hopewell Drugg +furnished bracket lamps, and gave her the benefit of the wholesale +discount on a hanging lamp and reflector to light the reading-table. + +Walky Dexter did what carting was needed. Janice and her aunt made the +curtains themselves, and they put them up so as to keep out the prying +eyes of all Poketown, for the community now began to wonder what was +going on in the empty room next the drug store. As Walky had been bound +to secrecy, too, the curious had no means of learning what was going on. +It was just as though the printing office of a thriving town newspaper +had burned down and there was no means of disseminating the news. This +was the effect of the muzzle on Walky Dexter! + +It was at this point that Janice took Marty, and through him, the other +boys, into the scheme. + +"What would you boys each pay in dues to keep up a nice reading-room +such as we talked about, Marty?" she asked her cousin. + +"Aw, say!" grunted Marty. "Let's talk about the treasure chest we've +found in our back yard. _That_ sounds more sensible." + +"Wouldn't you be glad of such a place?" laughed Janice. + +"Say! would a duck swim?" growled the boy, thinking that she was teasing +him. "Bring on your old reading-room, and we'll show ye." + +That very afternoon she and Miss 'Rill had given the last touches to the +room. It was as neat as a pin; the lamps were all filled and the +chimneys polished. It was only a bare room, it was true; but there were +possibilities in it, Janice was sure, that would appeal to Marty. She +put on her hat and held her coat out for him to help her into. + +"I'm going down town with you to-night, Marty," she said, smiling. "I've +got something to show you." + +"Huh! What's it all about?" + +"You come along and see," she told him. "It's just the finest thing that +ever happened--and you'll say so, too, I know." + +But she refused to explain further until they turned up High Street and +stopped at the dark and long-empty shop beside the drug store. + +"Oh, gee! In Massey's store?" gasped Marty, when his cousin fitted a key +to the lock. + +"Come in and shut the door. Now stand right where you are while I light +the lamp," commanded Janice. + +She lit the hanging lamp over the table. The soft glow of it was soon +flung down upon the dull brown cloth. Marty stared around with mouth +agape. + +His father had built a sort of counter at one end, with a desk and +shelves behind it. Of course, there was not a book, or paper, in the +place as yet--nor a game. But Marty needed no explanation. + +"Janice Day! did you do all this?" he demanded, with a gasp. + +"Of course not, goosey! Lots of people helped. And they're going to help +more--if you boys show yourselves appreciative." + +"What's that 'appreciative' mean?" demanded Marty, suspiciously. + +"No fights here; no games that are so boisterous as to disturb those who +want to read. Just gentlemanly behavior while you are in the room. +That's all, besides a small tax each month to help toward the upkeep of +the room. What do you say, Marty?" + +"You done this!" declared the boy, with sudden heat. "Don't say you +didn't, for that'll be a lie. I never saw a girl like you, Janice!" + +"Why--why--Don't you like it?" queried Janice, disturbed. + +"Of course I do! It's bully! It's great!" exclaimed Marty. "Lemme show +it to the boys. They'll be crazy about it. And if they don't behave +it'll be because they're too big for me to lick," concluded Marty, +nodding his head emphatically. + +Janice burst out laughing at this, and pressed the key into his hand. +"Until we get organized properly, you will take charge of the room, +won't you, Marty?" + +"Sure I will." + +"You'll need a stove; I think I can get that for you in a day or two. +And lots of folks have promised books. I've written to friends in +Greensboro for books, too. And several people who take magazines and +papers regularly have promised to hand them over to the reading-room +just as soon as they have read them. And you boys can bring your +checkers, and dominoes, and other games, from home, eh?" + +Marty was scarcely listening; but he was looking at her with more +seriousness than his plain face usually betrayed. + +"Janice, you're almost as good as a boy yourself!" he declared. "I'm not +sorry a bit that you came to Poketown." + +Janice only laughed at him again; yet the boy's awkward earnestness +warmed her heart. + +The girl was finding in these busy days the truest balm for her own +worriments. Nothing more was heard of Mr. Broxton Day; yet Janice felt +less need of running alone into the woods and fields to find that +comfort about which she had told the minister. + +Besides, it soon grew too cold for frequent jaunts afield. The small +streams and pools were icebound. Then, over the fir-covered heights, +sifted the first snow of winter, and Poketown seemed suddenly tucked +under a coverlet of white. + +The reading-room was an established fact. An association to support it +was formed, divided into active and honorary members. The boys, as +active members, themselves contributed twenty-five cents per month each, +towards its support. Tables for games were set up. A goodly number of +books appeared on the shelves. From Greensboro a huge packing-case of +half-worn books was sent; Janice's friends at home had responded +liberally. + +Files of daily and weekly papers were established and magazines of the +more popular kind were subscribed for. Nelson Haley gave several +evenings each week to work as librarian, and to keep a general +oversight of the boys. To tell the truth, he did this more because +Janice asked him to than from personal interest in the institution; but +he did it. + +Slowly the more pessimistic of the townspeople began to show interest in +the reading-room. Mr. Middler openly expressed his approval of the +institution. Mr. Massey, the druggist, reported that the boys behaved +themselves "beyond belief!" + +At length, even old Elder Concannon appeared unexpectedly in the +reading-room one night to see what was going on. He came to criticise +and remained to play a game of "draughts," as he called them, with Marty +Day himself! + +"Them young scalawags, Elder," declared Massey, when the old gentleman +dropped into the drug store afterward. "Them young scalawags are +certainly surprising _me_. They behaved themselves more like human +bein's than I ever knowed 'em to before. An' it's a nice, neat, warm +room, too, ain't it, now?" + +"Ahem! It appears to be," admitted Elder Concannon, and not so +grudgingly as might have been expected. "But where's that young girl who +had so much to do with it at first--where's that Day girl?" + +"Why, pshaw, Elder! _she_ don't have nothing to do with the +reading-room," and the druggist's eyes twinkled. "Don't you know that +she only _starts_ things in this town? She sets folks up in the business +of 'doing for themselves'. Then she goes along about her own business. + +"What's _that_? Well, I dunno. I'm wonderin' myself just where she'll +break out next!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +CHRISTMAS NEWS + + +It bade fair to be an old-fashioned northern New England winter. Janice +Day had never seen anything like this in the prairie country from which +she had come. + +There three or four big storms, the traces of which soon melted, had +been considered a "hard" winter. Here in Poketown the hillside was made +white before Thanksgiving, and then one snow after another sifted down +upon the mountains. Tree branches in the forest broke under the weight +of snow. Sometimes she lay awake in the night and heard the frost burst +great trees as though a stick of dynamite had been set off inside them. + +The lake ice became so thick that the steamboat could no longer make her +trips. Walky Dexter became mail carrier and brought the mail from +Middletown every other day. + +Janice found the time not at all tedious in its flight. There really was +so much to do! + +As for real _fun_--winter sports had been little more than a name to the +girl from the Middle West before this winter. The boys had got their +bob-sleds out before Thanksgiving. Toboggans were not popular in +Poketown, for the coasting-places were too rough. At first Janice was +really afraid to join the hilarious parties of boys and girls on some of +the slides. + +Marty, however, owned a big sled, and she did not want her cousin to +lose his good opinion of her. He had declared that she was almost as +good as a boy, and Janice successfully hid from him her fear of the +sport that really is a royal one. + +A favorite slide of the Poketown young people was from the head of the +street on which Hopewell Drugg's store was located, down the hill, past +the decayed dock on which Janice had first seen little Lottie Drugg, and +on across the frozen inlet to the wooded point in which Lottie declared +the echo dwelt. + +When the whole lake froze solidly, the course of the sleds was continued +across its level surface as far as the momentum from the hill would +carry the bobs. There was skating here, too; and many were the moonlight +nights on which a regular carnival was held at the foot of these hilly +streets. + +Walky Dexter owned a great sledge, too, and when he attached two span of +horses to this, and the roads were even half broken, he could drive +parties of Poketown young people all over the county, on moonlight +sleigh-rides. Janice was invited to go on several of these, and she did +so. Her heart was not always attuned to the hilarity of her companions; +but she did not allow herself to become morose, or sad, in public. + +Yet the gnawing worriment about her father was in her mind continually. +It was an effort for her to be lively and cheerful when the fate of Mr. +Broxton Day was so uncertain. + +Her more thoughtful comrades realized the girl's secret feelings. She +was treated with more consideration by the rough boys who were Marty's +mates, than were the other girls. + +"Say, that Janice girl is all right!" one rough fellow said to Marty +Day. "I see her scouring the papers in the readin'-room the other night, +and she was lookin' for some news of her father, of course." + +"I reckon so," Marty answered. "We don't know nothing about what's +become of him. They stand 'em up against a wall down there in Mexico and +shoot 'em just for fun--so Walky Dexter says. Dad says he never expects +to hear of Uncle Brocky alive ag'in." + +"And yet that girl keeps up her pluck! She's all right," declared the +other. "Gee! suppose she should come smack upon the story of her +father's death some night there in the readin'-room? Wouldn't that be +tough?" + +From this conversation sprang the idea of a sort of Brotherhood of +Defense (in lieu of a better title) among the boys who used the +reading-room whose existence Janice Day's initiative had established. +Whoever got the papers from the mail and spread them on the file in the +reading-room, first examined the columns carefully for any mention of +the execution of prisoners by either belligerent party in Mexico; +especially was the news searched for any mention of the lost Mr. Day. + +Sometimes, when the news story suggested one of these horrible +executions, the whole paper was "lost in the mail." At least, when it +was inquired for, that was the stock reply. The boys made sure that +Janice should never see such blood-chilling accounts of Mexican +activities. + +It drew toward Christmas. Janice had another sorrow, of which she never +said a word. Her spending money was nearly gone. She saw the bottom of +her narrow purse just as the season of giving approached! + +There were so many things she wanted to do for all her friends, both in +Poketown and back at Greensboro. Some few little things she had made, +for her fingers were both nimble and dexterous. But "homemade" presents +would not do for Uncle Jason, Aunt 'Mira, Marty, and a dozen other +people towards whom she felt kindly. + +She had begun to worry, too, about what would finally happen to her if +her father never came back! How long would the bank continue to pay her +board to Uncle Jason? And how was she to get clothes, and other +necessary things? + +In the midst of these mental tribulations came a letter from the +Greensboro bank, addressed to Janice herself. In it was the cashier's +check for twenty-five dollars, and a brief note from the official +himself, stating that Mr. Day, before ever he had separated from his +daughter, had looked forward to her Christmas shopping and instructed +the bank to send on the fifteenth of December this sum for her personal +use. + +"Dear, dear Daddy! He forgot nothing," sobbed Janice, when she read this +note, and kissed the check which seemed to have come warm from her +father's hand. "Whatever shall I do all through my life long without +him, if he never comes back?" + +Christmas Eve came. The clouds had been gathering above the higher peaks +of the Green Mountains all day, and, as evening dropped, the snow began +falling. + +Janice and Marty went down town together after supper. Even Poketown +showed some special light and life at this season. Dusty store windows +were rejuvenated; candles, and trees, and tinsel, and wreathes blossomed +all along High Street. Janice was proud to know that the brightest +windows, and the most tastefully dressed, were Hopewell Drugg's. And in +the middle of the biggest window of Drugg's store was a beautiful wax +doll, which she and Miss 'Rill had themselves dressed. On Christmas +morning that doll was to be found by Lottie Drugg, fast asleep with its +head on the blind child's own pillow! + +Janice had to run around just to take a last peek at the window and the +doll, while Marty went to the post office for the evening mail. Papers +and magazines were due in that mail for the reading-room; and, despite +the fact that the snow was falling more heavily every minute, there +would be some of the "regulars" in the reading-room, glad to see the +papers. + +Janice had turned her own subscription for the New York daily over to +the reading-room association; and when she wanted to read the New York +paper herself, she went to the files to look at it. Weeks had passed now +since there had been anything printed about that district in Chihuahua +where her father's mine was located. + +Coming back, down the hill from Drugg's, Janice saw that Marty had not +gone at once into the reading-room and lit the lamps. Her cousin was +standing in the light of the drug-store window, a bundle of papers and +magazines under his arm, and one paper spread before his eyes. He seemed +to be reading eagerly. + +"Hey, Marty! come on in and read! It's awful cold out here!" she shouted +to him, shaking the latch of the reading-room door with her mittened +hand. + +Marty, roused, looked up guiltily, and thrust the quickly folded paper +into the breast of his jacket. "Aw, I'm comin'," he said. + +But when he came to open the door Janice noticed that he seemed to +fumble the key greatly, and he kept his face turned from her gaze. + +"What's the matter, Marty?" she asked, lightly. + +"Matter? Ain't nothin' the matter," grunted the boy. + +"Why, Marty! you're crying!" gasped Janice, suddenly. + +"Ain't neither!" growled the boy, wiping his rough coat sleeve across +his eyes. "Snow's blowed in 'em." + +"That's more than snow, Marty," was Janice's confident remark. + +"Huh!" snorted Marty. "Girls allus know so much!" + +He seemed to have suddenly acquired "a grouch." So Janice went cheerily +about the room, singing softly to herself, and lighting the lamps. +Nobody else had arrived, for it was still early in the evening. + +Marty stole softly to the stove. The fire had been banked, and the room +was quite chilly. He rattled the dampers, opened them, and then, with a +side glance at his cousin, pulled the paper from within the breast of +his jacket and thrust it in upon the black coals before he closed the +stove door. + +"Where's the New York paper, Marty?" Janice was asking, as she arranged +the Montpelier and the Albany papers on their files. + +"Didn't come," grunted Marty, and picked up the empty coal hod. "I got +to git some coal," he added, and dashed outside into the snow. + +Instantly the girl hastened across the room. She jerked the stove door +open. There lay the folded paper, just beginning to brown in the heat of +the generating gas. She snatched it from the fire and, hearing the outer +door opened again, thrust the paper inside her blouse. + +It wasn't Marty, but was one of the other boys. She did not understand +why her cousin should have told her an untruth about the New York paper. +But she did not want an open rupture with him here and now--and before +other people. + +"I'm going right home," she said to Marty, when he came back with the +replenished coal hod. "It's snowing real hard." + +"Sure. There won't be many of the fellows around to-night, anyway. Peter +here will stay all evening and lock up--if Mr. Haley don't come. Won't +you, Pete?" + +"Sure," was the reply. + +"Then I'll go along with you," declared Marty, who wasn't half as +ashamed to escort a girl on the street nowadays as he had been a few +months before. + +Now, Janice had intended running over to Hopewell Drugg's store and +looking at the paper Marty had tried to destroy. She did not for a +moment suspect what was in it, or why her cousin had told her a +falsehood about it. But she saw she would have to defer the examination +of the news-sheet. + +"All right. Come along, Marty," she agreed, with assumed carelessness. + +The boy was very moody. He stole glances at her only when he thought she +was not looking. Never had Janice seen the hobbledehoy act so strangely! + +They plowed through the increasing snow up Hillside Avenue, and the snow +fell so rapidly that the girl was really glad she had come home. She +entered first, Marty staying out on the porch a long time, stamping and +scraping his boots. + +When he came in he still had nothing to say. He pulled his seat to the +far side of the glowing stove and sat there, hands in his pockets and +chin on his breast. + +"What's the matter with you, Marty?" shrilled Mrs. Day. "You ain't sick, +be ye?" + +"Nop," growled her son. + +That was about all they could get out of him--monosyllables--until +Janice retired to her own room. The girl was so anxious to get upstairs +and look at that paper she had recovered from the reading-room fire, +that she went early. When she had bidden the others good night and +mounted to her room, however, she did something she had never done +before. She unlatched her door again softly and tiptoed out to the +landing at the top of the stairs, to listen. + +Marty had suddenly come to life. She heard his voice, low and tense, +dominating the other voices in the kitchen. She could not hear a word he +said, but suddenly Aunt 'Mira broke out with: "Oh! my soul and body, +Marty! It ain't so--don't _say_ it's so!" + +"Be still, 'Mira," commanded Uncle Jason's quaking voice. "Let the boy +tell it." + +She heard nothing more but the murmur of her cousin's voice and her +aunt's soft crying. Janice stole back into her cold room. She shook +terribly, but not with the chill of the frosty air. + +Her trembling fingers found a match and ignited the wick of the skeleton +lamp. She had, ere this, manufactured a pretty paper shade for it, and +this threw the stronger radiance of the light upon a round spot on the +bureau. She drew out the scorched paper and unfolded it in that light. + +She did not have to search long. The article she feared to see was upon +the first page of the paper. The black headlines were so plain that she +scanned them at a single glance: + + THE BANDIT, RAPHELE, AT WORK + + A Fugitive's Story of the Christmas-Week Execution in + Granadas District + + TWO AMERICANS DRAW LOTS FOR LIFE + + John Makepiece Tells His Story in Cida; His Fellow-Prisoner, + Broxton Day, Fills One of Raphele's "Christmas Graves" + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +"THE FLY-BY-NIGHT" + + +Janice Day could never have told how long she sat there, elbows on the +bureau, eyes glued to those black lines on the newspaper page. The heat +of the tall oil lamp almost scorched her face; but her back was +freezing. There was never anything invented--not even a cold storage +plant--as cold as the ordinary New England farmhouse bedchamber! + +But the girl felt neither the lamp's heat, nor the deadly chill of the +room. For a long time she could not even read beyond the mere headlines +of the article telegraphed from Cida. + +This seemed to be conclusive. It was the end of all hope for Janice--or, +so she then believed. There seemed not a single chance that her father +could have escaped. No news had been good news, after all. This story in +the paper was all too evil--all too certainly evil! + +By and by she managed to concentrate her numbed mind upon the story +itself. There is no need to repeat it here in full; when Janice had +read it twice she could not easily forget its most unimportant phrase. + +The man, John Makepiece, with Broxton Day, of Granadas district, had +been held "incommunicado" for months by the bandit, Raphele. This leader +had fought with his _commando_ for the Constitutionalists at the battle +of Granadas; but he was really an outlaw and cutthroat, and many of his +followers were brigands like him. + +The prisoners had been held for ransom. Several of the Mexican captives +of Raphele had managed to pay their way out of the villain's clutches; +but both Americans refused to apply to their friends for ransom. Indeed, +they did not trust to Raphele's protestations, believing that if any +money at all for their release was forthcoming, it would only whet the +villain's cupidity and cause Raphele to make larger demands. + +Raphele feared now to remain longer in that part of Chihuahua. His +unlawful acts had called down upon his head the serious strictures of +the Constitutionalist leaders. They were about to abolish his command. + +In his rage and bloodthirstiness he had declared his intention of either +destroying his remaining prisoners, or sending them to their homes +crippled. But the two Americans he treated differently. With fiendish +delight in seeing those two brave men suffer, he had commanded them to +cast lots to see which should be escorted beyond the lines, while the +other was marched to the edge of an open grave, there to find a sure and +sudden end under the rain of bullets from a "firing squad." + +John Makepiece had drawn the long straw. There was no help for it. He +rode away on a sorry nag that was given him, and from a distant height +saw the other American marched out to the place of burial, and even +waited to see the puff of smoke from the guns as the soldiers fired at +the doomed man. + +The details were horrible. The effect upon Janice was a most unhappy +one. For more than an hour she sat there before her bureau in the cold +room, her gaze fastened upon the story in the newspaper. + +Then the family came up to bed. Aunt 'Mira saw the light under the +girl's door. + +"Janice! Janice!" she whispered. "Whatever is the matter with you?" + +Aunt 'Mira had been crying and her voice was still husky. When she +pushed open the door a little way and saw the girl, she gasped out in +alarm. + +"Oh, my dear!" sobbed Aunt 'Mira. "_Do you know?_" + +Janice could not then speak. She pointed to the paper, and when Aunt +'Mira folded her in her arms, the girl burst into tears--tears that +relieved her overcharged heart. + +"You run down an' open up the drafts of that stove again, Jason," +exclaimed the fleshy lady, for once taking command of affairs. "This +child's got a chill. She's got ter have suthin' hot, or she'll be sick +on our hands--poor dear! She's been a-settin' here readin' all that +stuff Marty told us was in the paper--I do believe. Ain't that so, +child?" + +Janice, sobbing on her broad bosom, intimated that it was a fact. + +"That boy ain't no good. He didn't burn up the paper at all. She got +holt on it," declared Uncle Jason, quite angry. + +"Oh, it wasn't--wasn't Marty's fault," sobbed Janice. "And I had to +know! I had to know!" + +They got her downstairs, and Mrs. Day sent "the men folks" to bed. She +insisted upon putting Janice's feet into a mustard-water bath, and made +her swallow fully a pint of steaming hot "composition." Two hours later +Janice was able to go to bed, and, because she hoped against hope, and +was determined not to believe the story until it was thoroughly +confirmed, she fell immediately into a dreamless sleep. + +When she awoke on Christmas morning, it was with a full and clear +knowledge of what had happened, and a pang of desolation and grief such +as had swept over her the night before. But she set herself to hope as +long as she could, and to suppress any untoward exhibition of her sorrow +and pain, while she made every effort to find out the truth about her +father. + +The family was very gentle with the heartsick girl. Even Marty showed by +his manner that he sympathized with her. And she could not forget that +he had tried his very best to keep the knowledge of the awful crime from +her. + +Janice brought down with her to the breakfast table the little presents +which she had prepared for her uncle, and aunt, and cousin. There were +no boisterous "Merry Christmases" in the old Day house that morning; +even Uncle Jason wiped his eyes after saying grace at the breakfast +table. + +After all, Janice was the most self-controlled of the four. She said, +midway of the meal: + +"I cannot believe all of that dreadful story in the paper. I want to +know more of the particulars." + +"Oh, hush! hush!" begged her aunt. "I read it. It's too horrible! I +wouldn't want to know any more, child." + +"But I must _know_ more--if there's more to be known. I believe I can +telegraph to Cida. At least, Mr. Buchanan at Juarez may know something +more about this man's story. I wish there was either telegraph, or +telephone, in Poketown." + +"Gee, Janice!" exclaimed Marty. "Nobody could git over to Middletown +to-day. Not even Walky Dexter. The wind blowed great guns last night, +and the roads are full of drifts." + +"But it doesn't look so from my window," said his cousin. + +"Pshaw! all you can see is the lake. Snow blowed right across the ice, +an' never scarcely touched it. But there's heaps and heaps in the road. +Say! we got ter dig out Hillside Avenue--ain't we, Dad?" + +"A lot of snow fell in the night--that's a fact," admitted Uncle Jason. + +"But I see somebody coming up the street now," cried Janice, jumping up +eagerly from the table. + +It was Walky Dexter, plowing his way through the drifts in hip boots. + +"This is sure a white Christmas!" he bawled from the gate. "I got +suthin' for you, Janice. Hi tunket! can't git through this here gate, so +I'll climb over it. Wal, Janice, a Merry Christmas to ye!" he added, as +he stumped up upon the porch, and handed her a little package from Miss +'Rill. + +"I am afraid not a very merry one, Walky," said the girl, shaking his +mittened hand. "Come inside by the fire. Uncle Jason, where is that +paper? I want Mr. Dexter to read it." + +"Oh, dear, me!" murmured Walky, when he saw the heading of the Mexican +telegraph despatch. Then, with his fur cap cocked over one ear, and his +boots steaming on the stove hearth, he read the story through. "Oh, +dear, me!" he said again. + +"I want you to try to get me to Middletown, Walky," Janice said, with a +little catch in her voice. "Right away." + +"Mercy on us, child! a day like this?" gasped her aunt. + +"Why, the storm's over," said Janice, firmly. "And I must send some +telegrams and get answers. Oh, I must! I must!" + +"Hoity-toity, Miss Janice!" broke in Walky. "'Must' is a hard driver, I +know. But I tell ye, we couldn't win through the drif's. Why, I been as +slow as a toad funeral gettin' up here from High Street. The ox teams +won't be out breakin' the paths before noon, and they won't get out of +town before to-morrer, that's sure, Miss." + +"Oh, my dear!" cried her aunt, again. "You mustn't think of doing such a +thing. Wait." + +"I _can't_ wait," declared Janice, with pallid face and trembling lip, +but her hazel eyes dry and hard. "I tell you I must know _more_." + +"I can't take ye to Middletown, Janice. Not till the roads is broke," +Walky said, firmly, shaking his head. + +"Hi! here comes somebody else up the road," shouted Marty, from outside. + +Janice ran, hoping to see a team. It was only a single figure struggling +through the snow. + +"By jinks!" exclaimed Marty. "It's the teacher." + +"It _is_ Mr. Haley," murmured Janice. + +The young collegian, well dressed for winter weather, waved his hand +when he saw them, and struggled on. He carried a long parcel and when he +went through the more than waist-high drifts he held this high above his +head. + +"Hi, there!" yelled Marty, waving his mittened hands. "Ain't you lost +over here, Mr. Haley?" + +"I see somebody has been before me," laughed Nelson Haley, following +Walky Dexter's tracks over the fence and up to the cleared porch. "How +do you do, Miss Janice? A very happy Christmas to you!" + +"Thank you for your good wish, Mr. Haley," she replied, soberly. "But it +is not going to be a very glad Christmas for me, I fear. Oh! is it for +_me_?" for he had thrust the long pasteboard box into her arms. + +"If you will accept them, Miss Janice," returned the young man, with a +bow. + +"Open it, Janice!" exclaimed Marty. "Let's see." + +"I--I----" + +"Lemme do it for you," cried Marty, the curious. + +He broke the string, yanked off the paper, and Janice herself lifted the +cover. A great breath of spicy odor rushed out at her from the box. + +"Oh! Mr. Haley! Cut flowers! _Hothouse flowers!_ Wherever did you get +them?" cried Janice, drawing aside the tissue paper and burying her face +in the fragrant, dewy blossoms. + +"Aw--flowers! Huh!" grunted Marty, in disappointment. + +"I am glad you like them so," said Nelson Haley. "Marty, I didn't bring +them to _you_. But here is something that will please you better, I +know," and he put into the boy's hand a combination pocketknife that +would have delighted any out-of-door youth. "Only you must give me a +penny for it. I don't believe in giving sharp-edged presents to friends. +It cuts friendship, they say," and the collegian laughed. + +"Golly! that's a dandy!" acknowledged Marty. "Here's your cent. Thanks! +See what Mr. Haley gimme, Maw!" and he rushed into the house to display +his treasure. + +Haley and Janice were left alone in a sheltered corner of the porch. + +"Oh, Mr. Haley," the girl repeated. "How lovely they are! And how kind +of you to get them for me! How did you ever secure such fresh cut +flowers 'way up here? Nobody has a hothouse in Poketown." + +"They come from Colonel Van Dyne's place at the Landing." + +"'Way down there!" exclaimed Janice, in wonder. "Why, it's farther than +Middletown. That's where I took the boat to get here?" + +"I guess so, Miss Janice." + +"But--but the boats aren't running," she cried, in amazement. "And +these flowers are so fresh." + +"_My_ boat is running," and Haley laughed. "I brought them up for you +yesterday afternoon. Got in just before it began to snow hard." + +"Mr. Haley! The lake is frozen solidly!" + +"Sure," he laughed. "But my boat sails on the ice. Didn't you hear that +I had built the _Fly-by-Night_? It's an ice boat--and it's a dandy! I +hope to take you out in it----" + +"An ice boat?" cried Janice. "Oh! you can--you shall! You can take me to +the Landing. There is a telegraph office there, isn't there?" + +"Why--why----Yes! At the railroad station," the young man admitted, +rather amazed. + +Janice stepped up to him, with the pasteboard box of flowers in her +arms, and her eyes shining in expectation. + +"Oh, Mr. Haley! You _must_ take me down there. Won't you?" + +Marty ran out again, and heard what she said. "Where you goin'?" he +demanded. "Mr. Haley can't ice boat you to Middletown." + +"To the Landing," begged Janice. + +"By jinks! so he can," shouted the boy. "Lemme go, too, Mr. Haley. +You'll want somebody to 'tend sheet on the _Fly-by-Night_." + +"But I do not understand?" queried the teacher, staring from one to the +other of the excited pair. + +"You--you tell him, Marty!" said Janice, turning toward the door. "I +must put these beautiful flowers in water. Come in, Mr. Haley, and get +warm." + +But the teacher remained out there on the windswept porch while he +listened to what Marty had to tell. The girl's trouble struck home to +the generous-hearted young man. He was moved deeply for her--especially +upon a day like this when, in the nature of things, all persons should +be joyous and glad. + +"I will take you to the Landing, if the breeze holds fair," he declared +and he pooh-poohed Mrs. Day's fears that there was any danger in sailing +the ice boat. He had come up from the Landing himself the night before +in an hour and a half. + +"What a dreadful, dreadful way to spend Christmas Day!" moaned Aunt +'Mira, as she helped Janice to dress. "Something's likely to happen to +that ice boat. I've seen 'em racing on the lake. Them folks jest take +their lives in their han's--that's right!" + +"I'll make the boys take care," Janice promised. + +Aunt 'Mira saw them go with fear and trembling, and immediately +ensconced herself in the window of Janice's room, with a shawl around +her shoulders, to watch the flight of the ice boat after it got under +way down at the dock. + +Janice, and the teacher and Marty had fairly to wade to the shore of the +lake. The drifts were very deep on land; but, as Marty said, the wind +had swept the ice almost bare. Here and there a ridge of snow had formed +upon the glistening surface; but Mr. Haley made light of these +obstructions. + +"The _Fly-by-Night_ will just go humming through those, Miss Janice. +Don't you fear," he said. + +There were few people abroad in High Street, for it was not yet +mid-forenoon. Most who were out were busily engaged shoveling paths. The +three young folks got down to the dock, and Haley and Marty turned up +the heavy body of the ice boat and swept the snow off. + +There was a good deal of a drift of snow right along the edge of the +lake; but they pushed the ice boat out beyond this windrow, with +Janice's help, and then stepped the mast and bent on the heavy sail. It +was a cross-T boat, with a short nose and a single sail. The steersman +had a box in the rear and in this there was room for Janice to ride, +too. The sheet-tender likewise ballasted the boat by lying out on one or +the other end of the crosspiece. + +There was a keen wind, not exactly fair for the trip down the lake; yet +their sheet filled nicely on the longer tack, and the _Fly-by-Night_ +swept out from the Poketown dock at a very satisfactory speed. + +"We'll hit the Landing in two hours, at the longest, Miss Janice," +declared Nelson Haley. "Keep your head down. This wind cuts like +needles. Too bad you haven't a mask of some kind." + +He was wearing his motorcycle goggles, while Marty had one of those +plush caps, that pull down all around one's face so that nothing but the +eyes peer out, and was doing very well. + +As the ice yacht gathered speed, Janice found that she could not face +the wind. Nor could she look ahead, for the sun was shining boldly now, +and the glare of it on the ice was all but blinding. + +The timbers of the boat groaned and shook. The runners whined over the +ice with an ever-increasing note. Ice-dust rose in a thin cloud from the +sharp shoes, and the sunlight, in which the dust danced, flecked the +mist with dazzling, rainbow colors. + +When the ice boat came about, it was with a leap and bound that seemed +almost to capsize the craft. Janice had never traveled so fast +before--or so she believed. It fairly took her breath, and she clung to +the hand-holds with all her strength. + +"Hi, Janice!" yelled Marty, grinning from ear to ear. "How d'ye like it? +Gittin' scaret?" + +She had to shake her head negatively and smile. But to tell the truth +there was an awful sinking in her heart, and when one runner went +suddenly over a hummock and tipped the ice boat, she could scarcely keep +from voicing her alarm. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +CHRISTMAS, AFTER ALL! + + +Janice Day possessed more self-control than most girls of her age. She +would not, even when her heart was sick with apprehension because of the +story in the newspaper, give her cousin the opportunity of saying that +she showed the white feather. + +She lay close to the beam of the ice boat, clung to the hand-holds, and +made no outcry as the craft flew off upon the other tack. Had the wind +been directly astern, the course of the _Fly-by-Night_ would have been +smoother. It was the terrific bounding, and the groaning of the timbers +while the boom swung over and the canvas slatted, that really frightened +the girl. + +It seemed as though the mast must be wrenched out of the boat by the +force of the high wind filling the canvas. And the shrieking of the +runners! Janice realized that the passage of an ice boat made as much +noise as the flight of a fast train. + +She could scarcely distinguish what Nelson Haley shouted at her, and he +was so near, too. He pointed ahead. She stooped to look under the boom +and saw a great windrow of snow--a huge drift more than six feet +high--not half a mile away. + +This drift stretched, it seemed, from side to side of the lake. They +could not see what lay beyond it. Janice expected the others would drop +the sail and bring the ice boat to a halt. Some roughness in the ice, or +perhaps a narrow opening, had caught the first driven flakes of snow +here the night before. The snow had gathered rapidly when once a streak +of it lay across the lake. Deeper and deeper the drift had grown until +tons of the white crystals had been heaped here in what looked to Janice +to be an impassable barrier. + +"Oh! Oh!" she shrieked. "Won't you stop?" + +Nelson Haley smiled grimly and shook his head. Marty uttered a shriek of +exultation as the ice boat bore down upon the drift. _He_ was quite +speed-mad. + +"Hang on! hang on!" commanded Nelson Haley. + +Another moment and the frightened Janice saw the bow of the boat +rise--as it seemed--straight into the air. Amid the groaning of timbers +and the shrieking of the wind, the _Fly-by-Night_ shot up the steep +slant of the drift and over its crest! + +The cry Janice tried to utter was frozen in her throat. She saw the ice +ahead and below them. Like a great bird--or a huge batfish leaping from +the sea--the ice boat shot out on a long curve from the summit of the +hard-packed snowdrift. + +The shock of its return to the ice was terrific. Janice felt sure the +boat must be racked to bits. + +But the _Fly-by-Night_ was strongly built. With the momentum secured by +its leap from the drift, it skated over the ice for a mile or more, with +scarcely a thimbleful of wind in its sail, yet traveling like a fast +express. + +Then it answered the helm again, the wind filled the sail, and they bore +down upon the Landing on a direct tack. + +"Gee! Ain't it great?" cried Marty, as Nelson Haley signaled him to drop +the sail. "Don't that beat any traveling you ever done, Janice?" + +Janice faintly admitted that it did; but neither the boy nor Nelson +Haley realized what a trial the trip had been to the girl. Janice was +too proud to show the fear she felt; but she could scarcely stand when +the _Fly-by-Night_ finally stopped with its nose to the shore, just +beyond the steamboat dock. + +Popham Landing was scarcely larger than Poketown; only there were +canning factories here, and the terminus of the narrow-gauge railroad on +which Janice had finished her rail journey from Greensboro the spring +before. So it was a livelier place than the village in which the girl +had been living for eight months. + +Colonel Van Dyne, owner of one of the canning factories, had a fine home +on the heights overlooking the lake. It was with the colonel's gardener +and superintendent that Nelson Haley had an acquaintance, and through +that acquaintanceship had obtained the cut flowers from the colonel's +greenhouse. + +When the three had hurried up the half-cleared landing to the railroad +station, Janice fairly staggering between her two companions, the office +was closed and nobody was about the railroad premises. It was a holiday, +and no more trains were expected at the Landing until night. + +Janice all but broke down at this added bad turn of affairs. To come all +this distance only to be balked! + +"It's jest blamed _mean_!" sputtered Marty. "Telegraph shops ain't got +no right to shut up--in the daytime, too." + +"It's not a Western Union wire," explained Nelson. "The railroad only +takes ordinary messages as a matter of convenience. But wait! That +door's open and there's a fire in the waiting-room, you see. Just +because this card says the agent and operator won't be here till five +o'clock doesn't mean that he's gone out of town. Besides, I'll see my +friend, Jim Watrous." + +This was the gardener and general factotum at Colonel Van Dyne's. The +Poketown school-teacher hurried away, and left Janice and Marty sitting +together in the railroad station. + +"He'll find some way--don't you fear, Janice," said the boy, with much +more sympathy than he had ever shown before. Janice squeezed his hand +and hid her own face. She could not forget how Marty had tried the +evening before to hide the knowledge of her father's fate from her. +_This_ was a much different Marty than the boy she had first met at the +old Day house on her arrival at Poketown. + +In half an hour Nelson Haley was back with the operator and agent. The +gardener at Colonel Van Dyne's knew the man personally. The story in the +newspaper, and an explanation of who Janice was, did the rest. + +"There isn't any better day than Christmas, I reckon," said the +telegraph operator, when he shook hands with the girl and she tried to +thank him in advance for the trouble he was taking on her behalf, "to do +a helpful deed. And I want to help you, Miss Day, if I can. Write your +messages and I will put them through as rapidly as possible. I shall +have plenty of time to go home for dinner between the sending of your +telegrams, and the receiving of the answers. Now, don't worry at all +about it." + +"Oh, dear!" half sobbed the girl. "Everybody is _so_ good to me." + +"Not a bit more than you deserve, I am sure," laughed the operator. +"Now, Miss, if you are ready, I am." + +Janice knew just what she wished to say. If she had not written the +messages she was anxious to send, she had already formulated them in her +mind. It was but a few minutes' work to write both--one to Mr. Buchanan +at Juarez, and the other addressed to the man, John Makepiece, who +claimed to have been a fellow-prisoner with Mr. Broxton Day. + +When the messages were sent, all they could do was to wait. Janice had +expected that she and Marty and Mr. Haley would have to camp in the +waiting-room of the station during the long interval, and the girl was +very sorry that, because of her, her friends would have to forego any +holiday dinner. + +While Janice was engaged, Nelson Haley had been off on an excursion of +his own. He came tramping back into the station just as the operator +closed his key and told Janice that there was nothing to do now but +wait. + +"And I'm afraid it will be an awfully tedious time for you, Marty," said +the girl. "I'm sorry. Aunt 'Mira was going to have _such_ a nice dinner +for you, too!" + +"Huh! I guess I won't starve," growled the boy. "Mebbe we can find some +sandwiches somewhere--and a cup of coffee. By jinks! flyin' down the +lake like we did, _did_ make me sharp-set." + +"If you're hungry, then, Marty," broke in Nelson Haley, "we'll all go to +dinner. It's just about ready by now, I reckon." + +"Aw! don't fool a feller," said Marty, ruefully. + +The school-teacher laughed at him. "I'm not fooling," he said. "I was +quite sure Miss Janice would be hungry enough to eat, too; so I found a +kind woman who is willing to share her dinner with us. Come on! She and +her daughter are all alone. The storm has kept their friends from coming +to eat with them, so we're in luck." + +The three had quite a delightful dinner at the Widow Maltby's. Nelson +had told her and her daughter something about Janice's trouble, and the +good creatures did everything they could to make it agreeable for the +girl. + +As for Marty, the "lay-out," as he expressed it, was all that heart +could desire--a boy's heart, at least! There was turkey, with dressing, +and cranberries, and the usual vegetables, with pie and cake galore, and +a pocketful of nuts to top off with. + +Janice was afraid that the dinner would cost Nelson a great deal of +money, until she saw him fairly press upon the good widow a two-dollar +bill for their entertainment! + +"And I ain't right sure that I'd ought to take anything at all," the +widow declared. "An' at sech a time, too! We'd never been able to eat +all o' them vittles, Em and I, an' we're thankful to have somebody come +along and help us. An' it sure has perked us up right smart." + +Nelson had been very gay at the dinner, and had kept the widow and her +daughter in good humor. But with Janice, as they walked back to the +station (Marty had gone off on some matter of his own), the young man +was very serious. + +"I sincerely hope, Janice, that you will hear better news from your +father or his friends on the border than the newspaper gave last night. +The trains are snowbound, and no morning papers have reached the Landing +yet, so nobody here knows more than we do about the matter. Don't set +your heart too strongly upon hearing better news--that's all." + +"I do not need that warning," Janice told him, with a sigh. "But I felt +as though I should quite go all to pieces if I had to sit still and just +_wait_. I had to _do something_. I can't tell you how thankful I am to +you for your trouble in bringing me down here." + +"Trouble?" cried Nelson Haley. "You know it is a pleasure, Janice," and +just then they reached the railroad station and found the operator at +his telegraph key again. + +"I was just going to hunt you up, Miss Day," he cried, beckoning her +into the office. "Do you know, young lady, that you have suddenly become +a person of considerable importance?" and he laughed again. + +"_Me?_" cried Janice, in amazement. + +"You are the tea party--yes, ma'am! You are an object of public +interest. Two New York papers have sent to me for five-hundred word +interviews with you----" + +"My goodness me!" gasped Janice. "How dreadful! What does it mean?" + +"Your father's case has been taken up by the big papers all over the +country. It may be made a cause for American intervention. That is the +talk. The newspapers are interested, and the truth about your father is +likely to be known very quickly. All the special correspondents down +there on the border have been set to work----Ah! and here is something +from your man at Juarez." + +The telegrapher had caught the relay number of the despatch then coming +over the wire, and knew that it was from Juarez. "Hello!" he chuckled, +when the sounder ceased. "Your man is certainly some brief--and to the +point." + +He scratched off a copy of the message and put it into Janice's eager +hand. The girl read it out loud: + + "J. M. always a story-teller. Have telegraphed consular + agent at Cida for later particulars. I consider any news of + B. D. good news. + JAMES W. BUCHANAN." + +"That Buchanan evidently knows the John Makepiece who is telling this +yarn," observed the telegraph operator, "and he doesn't have much +confidence in him." + +"Oh, dear!" murmured the girl. "Maybe it's even worse than Makepiece +reported." + +"Hardly," broke in Nelson Haley, quickly. "He intimated that your father +was surely dead. But this friend of yours at Juarez says any news at all +is good news." + +"Keep your heart up, Miss," urged the telegraph operator. "And do tell +me a little something about yourself, so that I can satisfy these +insistent newspapers." + +"Oh, dear, me! I don't want to get into the newspapers," cried Janice, +really disturbed by this possibility. + +"But folks will be awfully interested in reading about you, Miss Day," +urged the man; "and the newspapers are going to do more than anybody +else for you and your father in this trouble. You may make sure of +_that_." + +But it was because of the operator's personal kindness that Janice +submitted to the "interview." Nelson Haley entered into the spirit of +the affair and wrote down Janice's personal history to date, just as +briefly and clearly as the girl gave it under the operator's +questioning. Young Haley added a few notes of his own, which he +explained in the operator's ear before the latter tapped out his message +to New York. + +It was only when Janice saw the paper a few days later that she realized +what, between them, the school-teacher and the telegraph operator had +done. There, spread broadcast by the types, was the story of how Janice +had come to Poketown alone, a brief picture of her loneliness without +her father, something of the free reading-room Janice had been the means +of establishing, and a description of the flight down the lake on the +_Fly-by-Night_ on Christmas morning, that she might gain further +particulars of her father's fate. + +It was the sort of human-interest story that newspaper readers enjoy; +but Janice was almost ashamed to appear in public for several days +thereafter! + +However, this is ahead of our story. + +The wait for further messages from the border was not so tedious, +because of these incidents. By and by an answer came from the American +consular agent at Cida, relayed from Juarez by Mr. Buchanan. The agent +stated his doubt of the entire truth of John Makepiece's story. The man +was notoriously a reckless character. It was believed that he himself +had served with the Constitutionalist army in Mexico some months. Since +appearing in Cida and telling his story to the Associated Press man, he +had become intoxicated and was still in that state, so could not be +interviewed for further particulars. + +A posse had started for Granadas the day before, to see what was the +condition of affairs around the mining property of which Mr. Day had had +charge. It was a fact that the guerrilla, Raphele, had overrun that +district and had controlled it for some months; but his command was now +scattered, and the more peacefully-inclined inhabitants of Granadas were +stealing back to their homes. + +"Have requested consular agent at Cida to wire you direct to Popham +Landing, report of returning posse now overdue," was how Mr. Buchanan +concluded the message. + +"And that report may be along any time, now," declared the operator, +encouragingly. "You people haven't got to start back up the lake yet +awhile?" + +"We'll stay as long as Miss Day wants to," said Nelson Haley, quickly. + +"Sure we'll stay," cried Marty. "Miss Maltby told me to come back by and +by, and finish that mince pie I couldn't manage at dinner time. There +ain't no hurry to get back to Poketown, is there?" + +Janice and Nelson were much amused by this frank statement of the boy; +but the girl was only too glad to have the others bear out her own +desire to remain within reach of the telegraph wires for a while longer. +Mr. Buchanan's messages had eased her heart greatly. + +Janice cried a little by herself--the first tears she had shed since the +night before. But even Marty respected them and did not make fun of his +cousin. + +"Everybody is so good to me!" she cried again, when she had wiped her +eyes and could smile at Marty and Nelson Haley. "And I believe it's all +coming out right. This long day is going to be a _real_ Christmas Day, +after all!" + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE TROUBLE WITH NELSON HALEY + + +From that time on Janice refused longer to be in what she called "the +dumps." It was not her way to mope about; usually she cheered other +people and did not herself stand in need of cheering. + +She made the operator go home to his family to spend Christmas +afternoon. When his call came Marty was to run over after him. This kept +the trio of friends from Poketown close to the railroad station all the +afternoon; but the interval was spent quite pleasantly. + +Mrs. Maltby and her daughter came over, through the snow, to visit a +while with Janice--and to bring Marty the pie!--and several other +villagers dropped in. News of Janice's reason for being at Popham +Landing had been spread abroad, and the people who came were more than +curious--they were sympathetic. + +The pastor of one of the churches, who was well acquainted with Mr. +Middler, left his own family for half an hour and came to the station to +ask if he could do anything of practical use for Janice. Had it been +wise the trio from Poketown could have accepted half a dozen invitations +for supper and evening entertainment. + +"People _are_ so good!" Janice cried again to Haley and Marty. "I never +realized that mere strangers could be so very, very nice to one." + +"Huh!" grunted Marty. "Ain't _you_ always nice to folks--an' doing +something for 'em? How do you like it yourself?" which remark made +Janice and Nelson Haley laugh very heartily. + +So, after all, it _was_ a real Christmas, as Janice said. It was an odd +one, perhaps, but there were some very enjoyable things about it. For +instance, Janice and the young school-teacher got far better acquainted +than they had ever been before--and Janice had always liked Nelson +Haley. + +In this present situation, Nelson stood out well. He was generous, +sympathetic, and helpful. The fact that he was inclined to pursue the +way of least resistance, and considered it right to "let well enough +alone," did not impress one so deeply at the present moment. + +Janice learned that the young man had neither father nor mother, and +that his nearest relative was an old aunt who had supplied the money for +his college tuition--at least, such money as he had not been able to +earn himself. Nelson Haley, however, desired to be self-supporting, and +he felt that he had accepted all the assistance he should from the old +aunt, whose patrimony was not large. + +"Old Aunty Peckham is just as good as she can be," he confided to +Janice; "but I realize now--have realized for some years, in fact--that +if she had not had me to worry about, she could have enjoyed many more +good things in life than she has. So I told her I'd come to the end of +accepting money from her whenever my own purse got low. + +"I'll teach school in Poketown a couple of years and save enough to take +up law; or perhaps I'll get a chance in some small college. Only, to +teach in a real college means _work_," and he laughed. + +"But--but don't you like to work?" queried Janice, doubtfully. + +"Now, Janice! who really _likes_ work?" demanded the young man, lightly. +"If we can get through the world without much effort, why not take it +easily?" + +"That is not _my_ idea of what we are put in the world for--just to +drift along with the current." + +"Oh, dear, me! what a very strenuous person you are," said the young +man, still teasingly. "And--I am afraid--you'd be a most uncomfortable +person to have around all the time. Though that doesn't sound gallant, I +admit." + +Janice laughed. "I tell you what it is," she observed, not at all shaken +by the young man's remark, "I shouldn't want to feel that there wasn't +something in life to get by going after it." + +"'By going after it?'" repeated the young man, in some puzzlement. + +"Yes. You say I'd be an uncomfortable comrade. And I expect you're +right. Especially for a downright _lazy_ person." + +"Oh, oh!" he cried. "That was a hard hit." + +"You're not really lazy, you know," she pursued, coolly. "You only +haven't been 'woke up' yet." + +"I believe that's worse than your former statement," he cried, rather +ruefully now. "I suppose I _do_ drift with the current." + +"Well!" + +"What kind of a fellow do you expect to marry, Janice?" he asked, with a +twinkle in his eye. + +"Why, I'll tell you," said the girl, practically and without a shadow of +false modesty. "I expect a man to prove himself good for something in +the world before he even _asks_ me to marry him." + +"Goodness me! he must be a millionaire, or president, or something like +that?" chuckled Nelson. + +"Nothing at all so great," she returned, with some heat. "I don't care +if he's right down _poor_, if only he has been successful in +accomplishing some really hard thing--something that shows the metal +he's made of. No namby-pamby young man for me. No, sir! They can keep +away," and Janice ended her rather serious speech with a laugh and a +toss of her head. + +"I shall bear your strictures in mind, Miss Day," declared Haley, with +mock gravity. "I see very plainly what you mean. The young St. George +who wears your colors must have slain his dragon." + +"At least," Janice returned, softly, "he must have shown his willingness +to kill the horrid thing." + +The short winter day was already drawing to a close when the telegraph +sounder began to call the station. Marty ran out at once and brought +back the operator. He was quickly in communication with one of the great +New York papers and found that it was over the paper's private wire that +first authentic news from the Granadas district had arrived in the East. + +The posse from Cida had found everything peaceful about the mines. The +guerrilla leader, Raphele, had decamped. There had been an execution on +the day John Makepiece had fled from the place; but the victims were +some unfortunate Indians. The bandit had not dared kill the remaining +American prisoner. + +Mr. Broxton Day had managed to get into a shaft of the mine and there +had lain hidden until Raphele, and his gang, had departed. Now he had +gathered some of his old employees, and armed them with rifles hidden +all these months in the mine, and the property was once more under Mr. +Day's control and properly guarded. + +Through the posse, Mr. Day made a statement to the newspapers, and to +his friends and fellow-stockholders of the mine, in the States. To +Janice, too, he sent a brief message of love and good cheer, stating +that letters to her were already in the mail. + +The relief Janice felt is not to be easily shown. To be positive, after +these hours of uncertainty--and after the long weeks of worriment that +had gone before--that dear Daddy was really alive and well, seemed too +good to be true. + +"Oh, do you suppose it _can_ be so?" she cried, again and again, +clinging to Nelson Haley's arm. + +"Of course it is! Pluck up your courage, Janice," he assured her, while +Marty sniveled: + +"Aw, say, Janice! Doncher give way, now. Uncle Brocky is all right an' +it would be dead foolish ter cry over it, when you kep' up your pluck +so, before." + +"Well! to please you both!" choked Janice, trying to swallow the sobs. +"But--but----Come on! let's go home. Just think how worried Aunt 'Mira +will be." + +So they shook hands with the telegraph operator and Janice thanked him +heartily. There were several other friendly folk of the neighborhood in +the waiting-room when the three friends came out of the office, and the +happy girl thanked them, too, for their sympathy. + +It was quite dark when they got out into the cold again. The wind had +shifted a point or two since morning, but it was still in their favor. +Although the sun had set, the way up the lake was clearly defined. The +stars began to twinkle, and after the _Fly-by-Night_ was gotten under +way the course seemed plain enough before them. + +Now Janice enjoyed the sail. She was no longer afraid, and her heart +beat happily. The ice boat made good its name on the trip to Poketown, +and Nelson Haley brought the craft to land beside the steamboat dock in +season for a late supper. + +There was a crowd down at the lake's edge to see them come in. News of +their trip to the Landing, and the reason for it, had been well +circulated about town; and when Marty shouted to some of his boy friends +that "Uncle Brocky was found--and he warn't dead, neither!" the crowd +started to cheer. + +The cheers were for Janice--and she realized it. The folks were glad of +her father's safety because they loved her. + +"People are so kind to me--they are so kind to me!" she cried again, and +then she _did_ burst into tears, much to Marty's disgust. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +A STIR OF NEW LIFE IN POKETOWN + + +After that strange Christmas Day Janice saw a good deal more of Nelson +Haley than she had before. The teacher was several years her senior, of +course; but he seemed to find more than a little pleasure in her +society. + +On Janice's side, she often told herself that Nelson was a real nice +young man--but he could be so much more attractive, if he would! When +the girl sometimes timidly took him to task for his plain lack of +interest in the school he taught, he only laughed lightly. + +Nelson Haley suited the committeemen perfectly. He made no startling +innovations; he followed the set rules of the old-fashioned methods of +teaching; and (to quote Elder Concannon) he was a Latin scholar! Why the +old gentleman should consider that accomplishment of such moment, when +no pupil in the Poketown school ever arrived even to a Latin declension, +was a mystery to Janice. + +Even Miss 'Rill had better appreciated the fact that Poketown needed a +more advanced system of education, and a better school building as well. +And there were other people in the town that had hoped for a new order +of things when this young man, fresh from college, was once established +in his position. + +They waited, it seemed, in vain. Nelson Haley was content to jog along +in the rut long since trodden out for the ungraded country school. + +It was not long after the Christmas holidays, however, when there began +to be serious talk again in the town over the inconvenience in locality +and the unsanitary condition of the present schoolhouse. Every winter +the same cry had been raised--for ten years! Elder Concannon declared +loudly, in the post office one day, that if the school had been good +enough for the fathers of the community, and for the grandfathers as +well, it should be good enough for the present generation of scholars. +Truly, an unanswerable argument, it would seem! + +Yet there was now a stir of new life in Poketown. There was a spirit +abroad among the people that had never before been detected. Walky +Dexter hit it off characteristically when he said: + +"Hi tunket! does seem as though that air reading-room's startin' up has +put the sperit of unrest in ter this here village. People never took +much int'rest in books and noospapers before in Poketown. Look at 'em, +now. I snum! they buzz around that readin'-room for chances to read the +papers like bees around a honey-pot. + +"An' that ain't all--no, sir! 'Most ev'rybody seems ter be +discontented--that's right! Even folks that git their 'three squares' a +day and what they want to wear, ain't satisfied with things as they is, +no more. I dunno what we're all comin' to. 'Lectric street lights, and +macadamized roads, and all sech things, I s'pose," and Walky chuckled +over his flight of imagination. + +"Wal, I dunno," said the druggist, argumentatively, "I'm free ter +confess for one that a different system of street lightin' wouldn't hurt +Poketown one mite. This here havin' a lot of ile lamps, that ain't +lighted at all if the almanac says the moon ought ter shine, is a +nuisance. Sometimes the moon acts right contrary!" + +"My soul an' body!" gasped Walky. "You say that to Elder Concannon, and +Mr. Cross Moore, and ol' Bill Jones! They say taxes is high 'nuff as +they be." + +"And school tax, too, I s'pose?" demanded another idler in the drug +store. + +"Wal," said Walky, "I b'lieve we _could_ give the little shavers a +better chance to l'arn their A, B, C's. And that old schoolhouse can't +be het on re'l cold days. And it's as onhandy as it can be----" + +"I believe you're goin' in for these new-fangled notions, too, Walky," +declared the druggist. + +"Guess I be, on the school question, anyway. My woman says she sha'n't +let our Helen go ter school again this winter, for she's got one cold +right on top of another las' year. It's a plumb shame." + +It was from talks such as these in the village stores that the fire of +public demand for a new school building--if not for a new system of +education--finally burst into open flame. + +Usually, when there was a public meeting, the basement of the Union +Church--"the old vestry", as it was called--was used. But although Mr. +Middler had timidly expressed himself as in favor of a new school +building, he did not have the courage to offer the use of the vestry +room. + +Therefore the reading-room next to the drug store was one evening +crowded with earnest supporters of the belief that it was time Poketown +built a new structure for the training of her youth. + +Janice saw to it that Uncle Jason went. Indeed, with Janice on one side +and Marty on the other, Mr. Day could scarcely escape, for his son and +his niece accompanied him to the place of meeting. + +Not that the young folks went in, for there wasn't room. It seemed that +the people who favored a change in the old town's affairs were pretty +numerous, and there was not a dissenting voice in the meeting. It was +decided to have a special town meeting called to vote, if possible, an +appropriation for the building of a new schoolhouse. + +This first meeting was only a beginning. It served merely to solidify +that public opinion which was in favor of the improvement. At once +opposition raised its head, and during the fortnight preceding the town +meeting, argument, _pro_ and _con_, was hotter than at election time. + +Janice was deeply interested in the project, although she had, during +these first weeks of the New Year, more important thoughts to fill her +heart and mind. Daddy was writing to her regularly. The mine buildings +were being re-erected. The old force had come back to work, and for the +first time since Broxton Day had arrived in Mexico, the outlook for +getting out ore and making regular "cleanups" was bright. But trouble +down there was not yet at an end, and that worried her greatly. + +The story of her father's captivity in the hands of the brigand, +Raphele, had been made of light moment in Mr. Day's letters that +immediately followed his escape; but Janice understood enough about it +to know that God had been very good to her. Some other American mining +men and ranchers in Granadas had not escaped with their lives and +property from Raphele and his ilk. + +Daddy sent a photograph, too; but that was not until he had recovered +some from his hiding out in the mine without much to eat. Although he +was haggard and bewhiskered, his eyes had that look in them that Janice +so clearly remembered. When she awoke and lit her lamp in the early +morning, there he was looking at her from the bureau; and when she +retired she kissed the picture in lieu of having his real presence to +bid good-night. + +Those gray eyes of Broxton Day reminded her always of his oft-spoken +motto: "Do something!" He seemed to be saying that to Janice from his +photograph; therefore the girl was not likely to lose her interest in +such a momentous affair as the new schoolhouse. + +There was another interest that held Janice's mind and sympathy. This +was the condition of poor little Lottie Drugg. As she had been quite +blind when Janice first met her, now her hearing had departed entirely. +She could seldom now distinguish the notes of her father's violin as he +played to her. She would sit on the store counter and put her hand often +on Hopewell's bow-hand as he dragged the more or less harmonious sounds +out of the wood and strings. Otherwise she could not know that he was +playing at all! + +Nelson Haley had been touched by the case of the storekeeper's little +girl, and had discussed the matter with Janice. Nelson had even written +to a Boston specialist who treated the eyes, and who had been very +successful in such cases as Lottie's. The fee the surgeon demanded was +from five hundred to a thousand dollars for an operation. And poor +Hopewell Drugg, although he strained every effort, had succeeded in +saving less than two hundred dollars during all these months! + +Nevertheless, Janice would not let the storekeeper lose heart. "It will +come in time, Mr. Drugg," she told him, cheerfully. "And Lottie will be +able to go to that wonderful school, too, where she will be taught many +things." + +For if the child could once obtain her sight, lip-reading would be +possible for her, and through that the little girl might gradually +become as well educated as any one, and have a fair chance for happiness +in the world after all! + +Although Nelson Haley was touched by Lottie's sad condition, and by +anything else going on about him that had the personal note in it, +Janice thought the Poketown school-teacher showed very little public +spirit. + +She began to realize that his overseeing of the reading-room and library +was inspired by his wish to please _her_ instead of his actual interest +in the institution. This was very complimentary, but it did not satisfy +Janice Day at all. + +She was not interested in Nelson Haley in a way to crave the attentions +that he had begun to show her. Indeed, she did not really appreciate his +attitude, for there was nothing silly in Janice's character. She was +still a happy, hearty _girl_; and if she had romantic dreams of the +future, they were nothing but dreams as yet! + +She had the same interest in Nelson that she had in her cousin Marty. It +troubled her that the young man did not seem to have any serious +interest in life. Just as long as he tutored his classes through their +recitations in a manner satisfactory to the school committee, he seemed +quite careless of anything else about the school. He admitted this, in +his laughing way, to the girl, when she broached the subject of the +fight for a new school. + +"But it's your _job_!" exclaimed Janice. "You more than anybody else +ought to be interested in having the boys and girls of Poketown get a +decent schoolhouse." + +"And suppose old Elder Concannon and the rest of the committee get after +me with a sharp stick?" queried Nelson. + +"I should think _you_, a collegian and an educated man, would be only +too eager to help in such a movement as this," Janice cried. "Oh, +Nelson! don't you know that the people who are waking up in this town +need your help?" + +"My goodness me! how serious you are about it," he returned, teasingly. +"Of course, if you insist, I'll risk my job with the committee and come +out flat-footed for the new schoolhouse and reform." + +"I don't wish you to do anything at all for _me_," returned Janice, +rather tartly. "If your own conscience doesn't tell you what course to +pursue, pray remain neutral--as you are. But I am disappointed in you." + +"There is feminine logic for you!" laughed the young man. "With one +breath you tell me to follow the dictates of my own conscience, and then +you show me plainly just how much you will despise me if I go against +your side of the controversy." + +"You are mistaken," Janice said, with some little heat. "I do not +personally care what you do, only as your action reflects upon your own +character." + +"Now, dear me!" he sighed, still amused at her earnestness, "I thought +if I came out strongly at the town meeting for the new school, you would +award me the palm." + +"My goodness me!" exclaimed the exasperated girl. "Somebody ought to +award you a palm--and right on the ear! You're as big a tease as Marty," +and she refused to discuss the school project with him any further. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +AT THE SUGAR CAMP + + +Nelson Haley was, however, at the town meeting and spoke in favor of the +new school building. Janice had a full report of it afterward from +Marty, who squeezed in at the back with several of the other boys and +drank in the long and tedious wrangle between the partisans in the +school matter. + +"And, by jinks!" the boy proclaimed, "lemme tell you, Janice, it looked +like the vote was goin' ag'in us till Mr. Haley began to talk. I thought +he didn't have much interest in the thing. Nobody thought he did. I +heard some of the old fellers cacklin' that 'teacher didn't favor the +idee none.' + +"But, say! When he got up to talk, he showed 'em. He was sitting +alongside of Elder Concannon himself, and the Elder had made a mighty +strong speech against increasin' taxes and burdenin' the town for years +and years with a school debt. + +"But, talk about argument! Mr. Haley sailed inter them old fossils, and +made the fur fly, you bet!" + +"Oh, Marty! Fur fly from fossils?" chuckled Janice. + +"That _does_ sound like a teaser, don't it?" responded her cousin, with +a grin. "Just the same, Mr. Haley made 'em all sit up and take notice. +He didn't only speak for the schoolhouse, and new methods of teaching, +and a graded school; but he took up Elder Concannon's arguments and shot +'em full of holes. + +"You ought to have seen the old gentleman's face when Mr. Haley proved +that a better-taught generation of scholars would possess an increased +earning power and so be better able to take up and pay the school bonds +than the present taxpayers. + +"Say! the folks cheered! When Mr. Haley sat down, the question was put +and the vote went through with a rush. But Elder Concannon and Old Bill +Jones, and Mr. Cross Moore, and some of the others, were as mad as they +could be." + +"Mad at Mr. Haley?" queried Janice, with sudden anxiety. + +"You bet! But they can't take the school away from him till the end of +the year, as long as he doesn't neglect his work. So Dad says, and he +knows." + +Janice was worried. She knew that Nelson Haley had hoped to teach the +Poketown school at least two years, so as to get what he called "a +stake" for law-school studies. And there were not many ungraded schools +in the state that paid as well as Poketown's; for it was a large school. + +The furor occasioned by the special town meeting, and the fight for the +new school, passed over. A site for the school was secured just off of +High Street near the center of the town--a much handier situation for +all concerned. The ground would be broken for the cellar as soon as the +frost had gone. + +The committee appointed at the town meeting to have charge of the +building of the school were all in favor of it. There were three of +them,--Mr. Massey, the druggist, the proprietor of the Lake View Inn, +and Dr. Poole, one of the two medical practitioners in the town. These +three were instructed to appoint two others to act with them, and as +these two appointees need not be taxpayers, one of them was Nelson +Haley, who acted as secretary. + +When Janice heard of this, she was delighted. She had not seen the +teacher more than to say "how-de-do" since their rather warm discussion +before the date of the town meeting. Now she put herself in the way of +meeting him where they might have a tête-à-tête. + +There were not many social affairs in Poketown for young people. Janice +had attended one or two of the parties where boys and girls mingled +indiscriminately and played "kissing games," then she refused all such +invitations. She was not old enough to expect to be bidden to the few +social gatherings held by the more lively class of people in the town. + +The church did little outside of the ladies' sewing circle to promote +social intercourse in the congregation. So, although the school-teacher +might have been invited to a dozen evening entertainments during that +winter, Janice did not chance to meet him where they could have a "good, +long talk" until the Hammett Twins gave their annual Sugar Camp party. + +The two little old ladies, whom Janice had met so soon after coming to +Poketown, had become staunch friends of the girl. She had been at their +home on the Middletown road several times--twice to remain over night, +for both Miss Blossom and Miss Pussy enjoyed having young people about +them. + +They were an odd little couple, but kindly withal, and loved children +desperately, as many spinster ladies do. They had never married because +of the illness for many years of both their father and their mother. +Besides, the twins had never wished to be separated. + +Now, at something over sixty years of age, they owned a fine farm and +the most productive sugar-maple orchard in that part of the state. At +sugaring time each year they invited all the young folk Walky Dexter +could pack into his party wagon, to the camp not far from their house; +and, as maple-sugar making was a new industry to Janice, she was not a +little eager when she received her invitation from the two old ladies. + +The "sugaring" was on a Saturday, and the party met at the schoolhouse. +Some of the larger girls who had treated Janice so unpleasantly when she +first visited the school were yet pupils; but they were much more +friendly with the girl from Greensboro than at first. They might have +been a wee bit jealous of her, however; for Nelson Haley would never +treat them other than as a teacher should treat his scholars, whereas he +paid marked attention to Janice whenever he was in her society. + +Once he had asked permission to call upon her; but Janice had only +laughed and told him that her aunt would be pleased to have him come, of +course. She was not at all sure that she liked Mr. Nelson Haley well +enough to allow him to confine his attentions to her! Young as she was, +Janice had serious ideas about such matters. + +However, she was glad to have him to talk to again on this occasion. + +"I've never had a chance to tell you how proud of you I was when they +told me what you did at the town meeting," Janice whispered, as they sat +side by side in the party wagon. + +Nelson grinned at her cheerfully. "The old Elder scarcely speaks to me," +he said. "He's even forgotten that I can turn a Latin phrase as they +used to when he went to the university." + +"Oh, that is too bad! But don't you feel that you did right?" + +"I'll tell you better when it comes time to engage a teacher for next +year." + +"Oh, dear! Maybe they'll put in a new school committee at the July +school meeting. They ought to." + +"The Elder and his comrades in crime have been in office for eight or +ten years, I understand. They are fairly glued there, and it will take a +good deal to oust them. You see, they have nothing to do with the +building of the new school." + +"But if that school is finished and ready for occupancy next fall, you +ought to be at the head of it. It won't be fair to put you out," Janice +said, with gravity. + +"We'll hope for the best," and Nelson Haley laughed as usual. "But if I +lose my job and have to beg my bread from door to door, I hope you will +remember, Janice, that I told you so." + +"You are perfectly ridiculous," declared the girl. "Aren't you ever +serious two minutes at a time?" + +"Pooh! what's the good of being 'solemncholly'? Take things as they +come--that's _my_ motto." + +Still, Janice believed that the young man was really becoming more +deeply interested in the Poketown school and its problems that he was +willing to admit, even to her. She had heard that the Middletown +architect who was planning the school had consulted Nelson Haley +several times upon important points, and that the teacher was the most +active of all the five special committeemen. + +They reached the sugar camp before the middle of the forenoon, although +the roads at that season were very heavy. Winter had by no means +departed, although a raucous-voiced jay or two had come up from the +swamp and scoured the open wood as though already in search of spring +quarters. + +The Hammett sugar camp consisted of an open shed in which to boil the +sap and an old cabin--perhaps one of the first built in these New +Hampshire grants--in which dinner was to be cooked and eaten. Miss +Blossom Hammett was already busy over the pots, and pans, and bake oven +in the cabin; while her sister, the thin Miss Pussy, overseered the +sap-boiling operations. + +It was a regular "bee", for beside the twins' hired hands, there were +several of their neighbors, and the visitors from Poketown were expected +to make themselves useful, too, the boys and Nelson Haley especially. + +Janice joined the sap gatherers, for she was strong and liked exercise. +They carried buckets to collect the sap that had already run into the +shiny two-quart cups which were used to collect it. + +First an incision was made through the bark and into the wood of the +tree. Into this incision was thrust a whittled plug that had a shallow +gutter cut in its upper side, and notches from which the bail of the +two-quart cup hung. Into the cup the sap dripped rapidly--especially +about midday, when the sun was warmest. + +They tapped only about a quarter of the grove belonging to the old +ladies, for that numbered as many trees as could be handled at once. +Pail after pail of the thin sap was brought in and emptied into one of +the two big cauldrons, under which a steady fire of hickory and beech +was kept burning. Later the fire was started under the second pot, while +the contents of the first one was allowed to simmer down until the sugar +would "spin", when dipped up on the wooden ladle and dropped into a bowl +of cold water. + +The old ladies supplied a hearty and substantial dinner for the young +folks to put away before the sugar was boiled enough to spin. After +that, the visitors gathered about the sugar troughs like flies about +molasses. The Hammett Twins were not niggard souls by any manner of +means; but they kept warning the girls and boys all the afternoon to +"save room for supper." + +In truth, the supper down at the old Hammett farmhouse, after the work +of the day was over, was the principal event. It grew cold towards +night, and that sharpened the young folks' appetites. The sap ceased +running before sunset, so they trooped down from the camp, the little +old ladies riding in their phaeton behind Ginger. Walky Dexter was going +to drive out to the Hammett place after supper to pick up his load of +young people. + +But Walky was late--very late indeed. After supper the majority of the +young folk, both those from Poketown and in the near neighborhood, began +to play forfeit games; so Janice and Nelson Haley slipped away, bidding +the kind old ladies good-night, and set out to walk home. + +The distance was under five miles; there was a good path all the way +despite the mud in the driveway, and there was a glorious moon. The wind +had died down and, although the night air was keen, it was a perfect +hour for walking. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +"DO YOU MEAN THAT?" + + +"It was right along here--at the bridge, you know--I saw you the first +time, Janice," said the teacher, when they had covered some two miles of +the way. "Do you remember?" + +"I didn't suppose _you_ would," laughed Janice, blushing a little. "And +I stared at you because you were the first citified-looking person I had +seen since coming to Poketown." + +He laughed. "Did I look as bad as all that? I was going fast, I know, +but I could see that you were a mighty pretty girl." + +"Why! That's a story!" exclaimed Janice, seriously, and looking at the +young man in astonishment. "You know that isn't so. I'm _not_ pretty." + +"Goodness me! am I not to have my way in _anything_?" demanded Nelson +Haley, in mock anger. "If I think you're pretty I can say so, I hope?" + +"No, sir. Such ridiculous statements are forbidden. I shall think your +eyes need treating almost as badly as do poor little Lottie's. Dear me, +whatever are we going to do about that child?" + +"If either of us were rich it would be an easy question to answer." + +"True enough. I know what _I'd_ do. And I believe you'd be a very +generous young man, indeed--as long as being generous did not entail any +particular work on your part." + +"Oh--now--I call that unfair!" he complained. "We can't all be like you, +Janice. I believe you lay awake nights thinking up nice things to do for +folks----" + +"There you go again--making fun of me," she said, shaking a gloved +finger at him. "I don't claim to be a bit more unselfish than the next +one. But I'm not lazy." + +"Thanks! I suppose I am?" + +"There you go--picking one up so quick," Janice repeated. "I _do_ think, +however, that you just don't care, a good deal of the time. If things +only go on smoothly----" + +"That's what I told you Christmas Day," he said, quickly. + +"And isn't it so?" + +"Well--it used to be," he admitted, shaking his head ruefully. "But I'm +not sure but that, since you've got me going----" + +"_Me?_" exclaimed Janice. "What have _I_ got to do with it?" + +"Now, there's no use your saying that you don't know _why_ I took up +that matter of the new school last month," said Nelson Haley, seriously. +"You spoke just as though you were ashamed of me when we talked about +it, and I began to wonder if I wasn't a fit subject for heart-searching +inquiry," and the teacher burst into laughter again. + +But Janice felt that he was more serious than usual, and she hastened to +say: "I should really feel proud to know that any word of _mine_ +suggested your present course, Mr. Nelson Haley. Why! what a fine thing +that would be." + +"What a fine thing _what_ would be?" he demanded. + +"To think that I could really influence an educated and clever young man +like you to do something very much worth while in the world. Nelson, you +are flattering me." + +"Honest to goodness--it's so," he said, looking at her with a rather wry +smile. "And I'm not at all sure that I thank you for it." + +"Why not?" + +"See what you've got me into?" he complained. "I've got a whole bunch of +extra work because of the school building, and in the end the old Elder +and his friends may discharge me!" + +"But you've brought about the building of a new school, and Poketown +ought always to thank you." + +"Likely. And they'll build a monument to me to stand at the head of +High Street, eh?" and he laughed. + +"I do not care," said Janice, seriously, and looking up at him with +pride. "_I_ shall thank you. And I shall never forget that you said it +was _my_ little influence that made you do it." + +"Your _little_ influence----" + +But she hastened to add: "It's a really great thing for me to think of. +And how proud and glad I'll be by and by--years and years from now, I +mean--when you accomplish some great thing and I can think that it was +because of what _I_ said that you first began to use your influence for +good among these people----" + +Her voice broke a little and she halted. She feared she had gone too far +and that perhaps Nelson Haley would misunderstand her. But he was only +silent for a moment. Then, turning to her and grasping her hands firmly, +he said: + +"Do you mean that, Janice?" + +"Yes. I mean just that," she said, rather flutteringly. "Oh! here comes +a wagon. It must be Walky." + +"Never mind Walky," said Nelson, firmly. "I want to tell you that I +sha'n't forget what you've said. If there really is a nice girl like you +feeling proud of me, I'm going to do just my very best to retain her +good opinion. You see if I don't!" + +They were in the shadow as Walky drove by and he did not see them. +After that Janice and the teacher hurried on so as not to be overtaken +by the noisy party of young folks before they reached the village. + +As they came up the hill toward Hopewell Drugg's store they saw a dim +light in the storekeeper's back room, and the wailing notes of his +violin reached their ears. + +"Hopewell is grinding out his usual classic," chuckled Nelson Haley. "I +hear him at it morning, noon, and night. Seems to me 'Silver Threads +Among the Gold' is kind of _passé_." + +"Hush!" said Janice. "There is somebody standing at the side gate, +listening. You see, sir, everybody doesn't have the same opinion of poor +Mr. Drugg's music----" + +"My goodness!" ejaculated Nelson, under his breath. "It's Miss +Scattergood, I do believe!" + +The timid little spinster could not escape. They had come upon her so +quietly. + +"Oh! is it you, Janice dear?" she said, in a startled voice. + +"And Mr. Haley. We are walking home from the Hammetts' sugaring." + +"Well! I'm glad it ain't anybody else," said Miss 'Rill frankly. "But I +_do_ run around here sometimes of an evening, when mother's busy or +asleep, just to listen to that old song. Mr. Drugg plays it with so much +feelin'--don't you think so, Mr. Haley? And then--I was always very +fond of that song." + +They left her at the corner of High Street, and the flurried little +woman hurried home. + +"I do believe there is a romance there," whispered the teacher, when +Miss 'Rill was out of earshot. + +"So there is. Didn't you know that--years and years ago--she and Mr. +Drugg were engaged?" cried Janice. "Why, yes, they were. But why they +did not marry, and why he married the girl he did, and why Miss 'Rill +kept on teaching school and never would look at any other man, is all a +mystery." + +"Romance!" commented Nelson, with a little laugh, yet looking down upon +Janice with serious eyes. "The night is full of it--don't you think so, +Janice?" + +"No, no!" she laughed up at him. "It's only the moonlight," and a little +later he left her at the old Day house with a casual handshake. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE SCHOOL DEDICATION + + +Thereafter there was a somewhat different tone to the friendship between +Janice and the school-teacher. They were confidential. They both assumed +that the other was interested in the matters dear to each. It was a +comradery that had no silly side to it. Nelson Haley was a young man +working his way up the first rungs of the ladder of life; Janice was his +good friend and staunch partisan. + +As neither was possessed of brother or sister, they adopted each other +in that stead. + +The winter fled away at last and Spring came over the mountain range and +down to the lakeside, scattering flowers and grasses as she passed. +Although Janice had enjoyed some of the fun and frolic of the New +England winter, she was perfectly delighted to see the season change. + +It had been late spring when she reached Poketown the year before. Now +she saw the season open, and her first trips over the hillsides and +through the wood lot where the snow still lay in sheltered places, +searching for the earliest flowers, were days of delight for the girl. + +The Shower Bath was released from its icy fetters, and the little +mountain stream poured over the lip of granite with a burst of sound +like laughter. She visited The Overlook, too; but she did not need to +view the landscape o'er to enable her to understand why God did not +immediately answer her prayers for her father. + +Great news from the mine in Mexico: + +"We haven't made much money yet, it is true," Mr. Day wrote about this +time. "But things are going right. The armies--both of them--are now far +away and if they leave us in peace for a few months, your Daddy will +make so much money that you can have the desire of your heart, my dear." + +And the "desire of her heart" just then was--and had been for months--a +little automobile in which she might ride over the roads about Poketown. +There wasn't a good horse and carriage obtainable in the town; and +Janice found the time hanging heavily upon her hands. + +"If I just had a car!" she would often say, until Marty got to teasing +her about it, and Nelson Haley, whenever he saw her, usually asked very +sober questions about her car--if she'd had much tire trouble on her +last trip, and so forth! + +"You can all just laugh at me," Janice declared. "I know Daddy will send +the money some time. And then, if you are not _very_ good, and _very_ +polite, you sha'n't ride with me at all." + +Aunt 'Mira was so inspired by her niece's talk of an automobile that she +studied the mail-order catalogues diligently, and finally sent off for a +coat and veil, together with an approved automobile mask, to be worn +when she went motoring through the country with Janice! + +The spring passed and summer came. The cellar walls of the new +schoolhouse were laid, and then the framework went up, and finally the +handsome edifice was finished upon the outside. Really, Poketown was +fairly startled by the appearance of the new building. Some of the very +people who had been opposed to the thing were won over by its +appearance. + +"Hi tunket!" exclaimed Mr. Cross Moore, "barrin' the taxes we'll haf ter +pay for the next ten year, I could be glad ter see sech a handsome house +in the town. An' they tell me 'at teacher has had more ter do with the +plannin' of the school than the architect himself. Too bad Mr. Haley +ain't goin' ter be here no longer than this term. He'd ought ter have +the bossin' of the new school." + +"Who says he won't?" snapped Walky Dexter, who heard the selectman's +statement. + +"You ax the Elder--or old Bill Jones," chortled Moore. + +"Come now! what do you mean by that?" demanded Mr. Massey, in whose +store the conversation took place. + +"Ax 'em," said Mr. Moore again. "They've got it fixed up to fire Mr. +Haley at the end of this term." + +"Nothin' like bein' warned in time," said Walky Dexter. "Them old +shagbarks ain't been e-lected themselves for next year, yet. They air +takin' too blamed much for granted, that's what's the matter with them. +July school meetin' is purty near; but mebbe we kin put a spoke in their +wheel." + +Forthwith Walkworthy Dexter began to earn his right to the nickname +Janice had once given him. He became "Talky" Dexter, and he talked to +some purpose. When the school meeting was held in July there was the +most astonishing overturn that had been seen in Poketown for years. An +entirely new committee was elected to govern school affairs, and all +were men in favor of new methods. + +Before this, the school had closed and Nelson Haley had gone to Maine to +work in a hotel during the summer. The last half of the school year had +been much different from the young man's fall term. Although he gave the +boys all the instruction in baseball he had promised, and otherwise had +kept up their interest in the school, he had begun to lay out the work +differently for the pupils and really try to increase the value of his +instruction. Whether he was to be fortunate enough to head the new +school in the fall, or not, he began to train the pupils to more modern +methods. Whoever took hold of the new school would find the scholars +somewhat prepared for the graded system. + +Poketown was actually shocked! The good old Elder and his mates had so +long governed school matters just as they pleased that many of the +people could not realize that a new day had dawned--in school affairs, +at least. + +Elder Concannon was doomed to see more of his influence wane during this +summer. Heretofore he had managed to keep out of the church anything +like a young people's society, in spite of Mr. Middler's desire to the +contrary. But there were now several earnest young people in the church +membership who were anxious to be set to work to some purpose. + +The association was a small one at first. Janice was a member. Soon the +influence of the organization began to be felt in more ways than one. + +"I can see just how things are going, Brother Middler--I can see +plainly," old Elder Concannon declared. "Just as soon as they told me +that Day girl was a member of the society I knew what would happen. A +new carpet for the aisle and the pulpit chairs upholstered! Ha! And them +girls and boys themselves cleaning windows and sweeping and dusting the +whole church once a month. Ridiculous! Myron Jones has always suited us +as sexton before. Oh! we'll have no peace--no peace at all!" + +"But, Elder," timidly suggested the pastor, "such things as the young +people have asked to do have been helpful things. And I'm sure if you +would attend one of their meetings you would find their spiritual +growth commendable--surely commendable." + +"Ha!" sniffed the old gentleman, wagging his bristling head. "What do +those boys and girls know about religion, and the work of the spirit, +and----" + +"One thing is sure, Elder," interposed Mr. Middler with more courage +than was usual with him, "One thing is sure: if our children have no +proper appreciation of such things, it is certainly _our_ fault. We +older ones have been remiss in our duty." + +This seemed to take the Elder aback. He stared at the younger man for a +moment; but as he turned away he muttered: + +"It's all nonsense! And it's just as I've said. No peace since that Day +girl came to town." + +Mr. Middler had the courage of his convictions for once. He said nothing +more to rasp the old gentleman's feelings and prejudices; but he backed +up the young people in their attempt to freshen up the old church. He +mingled with them more than ever he had before; and from that contact +with their young and hopeful natures he carried into his pulpit a more +joyful outlook upon life. Mr. Middler was growing, along with his young +people, and he really preached a sermon now and then in which there +wasn't a doctrinal argument! + +Not that Janice held a very important position in the young people's +society. But she had belonged to one back in Greensboro, in her own +beloved church, and she had helped form this Poketown organization. She +would not take office in this new society, for all the time she hoped +that her father's affairs would change and they might be together again. + +There was never a day begun that Janice did not hope that this reunion +might be consummated soon; and the desire was a part of her bedside +prayer at night. She was no longer lonely, or even homesick, in +Poketown. She really loved her relatives, and she knew that they loved +her. She had made many friends, and her time was fairly well occupied. + +But her longing for Daddy seemed to grow with the lapse of time. She +wanted to see him so much that it actually _hurt_ when she allowed +herself to think about it! + +"Ain't you ever goin' to be still a minute, Janice?" complained her aunt +frequently. "You're hoppin' 'round all the time jest like a hen on a hot +skillet, I declare for't!" + +"Why, Aunt 'Mira," she told the good lady, "I couldn't possibly sit with +my hands folded. I'd rather work on the treadmill than do _that_." + +"You wait till you've worked as many years as I have--an' got as leetle +for it," said Aunt 'Mira, shaking her head. "You won't be so spry," and +with that she buried herself in her story paper again. + +There was an improvement, however, even in Aunt 'Mira. She could not +leave the "love stories" alone, and if she had a particularly exciting +one, she would sit down in her chair in the middle of the kitchen floor +and let the breakfast dishes go till noon. + +Usually, however, she "slicked up," as she called it, after dinner, +instead of spending her time on the sofa, and sometimes she and Janice +went calling with their needlework, like the other ladies up and down +Hillside Avenue, or had some of the neighbors in to call on them. + +Aunt 'Mira had spent some of Janice's board money on the furnishings of +the house as well as in silk dresses and automobile veils. There were +new curtains at the windows; the sitting-room had a new rag carpet woven +by a neighbor; the rather worn boards of the kitchen were covered with +brightly-figured linoleum. + +Inside and out there were now few "loose ends" about the old Day house. +The stair to the upper story was mended, and covered with a bright +runner. The premises about the house were kept neat and attractive, and +Mr. Day had somehow found the money to paint the house that spring, +while the stables and other outbuildings looked much neater than when +Janice had first seen them. + +She and Marty had taken complete charge of the garden this year, and the +girl had inspired her cousin with some of her own love of neatness and +order. The rows of vegetables were straight; the weeds were kept out; +and they had earlier potatoes and peas for the table than anybody else +on Hillside Avenue. + +The lane was, by the way, different in appearance from the untidy and +crooked street up which Janice had climbed with Uncle Jason that day of +her arrival at Poketown. The neighboring homes showed the influence of +association with the Day place. + +There had been other houses painted on the street that spring. More +fences had been reset and straightened. The driveway itself had had some +attention from the town. And you couldn't have found a one-hinged gate +the entire length of the street! + +As for Uncle Jason, he was really carrying on his farming in a +businesslike way. Marty was getting to be a big boy now, and he could +help more than he once had. Janice had suggested to Uncle Jason that, as +he had such good pasture at the upper end of his farm, and as the milk +supply of Poketown was but a meager one, it would pay somebody to run a +small dairy. + +Mr. Day now had three cows that he proposed to winter, and was raising +one heifer calf. Such milk as the family did not use themselves the +neighbors gladly bought. Mrs. Day was doing better with her hens, too. +The wire fencing had been repaired and she gave the biddies more +attention; therefore she was being repaid in eggs and chickens for +frying. Altogether it could no longer be said that the Day family was +shiftless. + +Janice received several cheerful and entertaining letters that summer +from Nelson Haley. He was clerk of a summer hotel on the Maine shore, +and he seemed to be having a good time as well as earning a considerable +salary. + +When the new school committee of Poketown tendered him an offer of the +head mastership of the school (he was to begin with one assistant for +the kindergartners), he threw up his clerkship and hastened to a certain +summer normal school in central Massachusetts. + +Janice was very glad, although his action surprised her, knowing, as she +did, how much young Haley needed the money he was earning at the hotel. +His tuition at the summer school for a month, and his board there, would +eat up a good deal of the money he had saved. He might not be able to +enter for his law studies at the end of another school year. + +Janice believed, however, that Nelson Haley was "cut out," as the local +saying was, for a teacher. He had an easy, interesting manner, which was +bound to hold the attention of even the wandering minds among his +pupils. She knew by the improvement in Marty that the young man's +influence, especially on the boys of Poketown, was for good. + +"If he would only make up his mind to _work_, he might rise high in the +profession," she thought. "Some day he might even be president of a +college--and wouldn't that be fine?" + +But she did not write anything of this nature to the absent Nelson. She +treasured in her mind what he had said about working because _she_ was +proud of him; and she wisely decided that Nelson Haley was a young man +who needed very little encouragement in some ways. Janice was by no +means sure that she liked Nelson Haley as he liked her. + +So she kept her answers to his letters upon a coolly friendly basis and +only showed him, when he returned to Poketown in September in time for +the dedication exercises of the school building, how glad she was to see +him by the warmth of her greeting. + +It was a real gala day in Poketown when the new school building was +thrown open for public inspection. In the evening the upper floor of the +building (which for the present was to be used as a hall) was crowded by +the villagers to hear the "public speaking"; and on this occasion Nelson +Haley again covered himself with glory. + +He seemed to have gained enthusiasm, as well as a distinct idea of +modern school methods, from his brief normal training. He managed to +inspire his hearers with hope for a broader and higher education; his +hopes for the future of the Poketown school lit responsive fires in the +hearts of many of his listeners. + +Of course, Elder Concannon did not agree. He was heard to say afterward +that he couldn't approve of "no such new-fangled notions," and that he +believed the boys and girls of Poketown "better stick to the three +R's--reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic!" + +However, the opinion of the people in general seemed to be in favor of +the new ideas, and they promised to back up Nelson Haley in his work of +modernizing the school. + +"Of course you'll make it one of the best schools in the state--I know +you will, Nelson," declared Janice, when he walked home with her after +the exercises. + +"If _you_ say so--of course!" replied the young man, with a smile. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THROUGH THE SECOND WINTER + + +During the summer, matters at the reading-room and library had been +allowed to drift along to a great extent. Marty and one of his +particular chums had kept the reading-room open evenings during Mr. +Haley's absence; but now Janice knew that the school-teacher would have +his hands quite full without giving any time to the reading-room. + +She set about making a second campaign for the advancement of the +institution and the broadening of its work. She found five girls beside +herself willing to keep the reading-room open one afternoon a week, and +to exchange books for the members of the library association. The +institution had proved its value in the community and Janice privately +went to several people who were well able to help, and collected a fund +for the payment of a regular librarian in the evening. + +One of the boys who had shown most advancement during the spring in +school work was glad to earn a small wage as librarian and caretaker of +the reading-room evenings. An effort was made, too, to increase the +number of volumes in the library so as to obtain a share of the State +Library Appropriation for the next year. + +Janice was not alone interested in the reading-room's affairs. There was +the matter of a new piano for the Sunday-school room. The instrument in +use had been a second-hand one when the Sunday School obtained it; and +it was forever out of tune. + +"However can you expect the children to sing in unison, and sing well, +Mr. Scribner," Janice said to the Sunday-school superintendent, "when +there isn't an octave in harmony on the old piano? Come on! let's see +what we can do about getting a brand-new, first-class instrument?" + +"Oh, my dear girl! Impossible! quite impossible!" declared the +superintendent, who was a bald, hopeless little man, who kept books for +the biggest store in town, and was imbued with the prevailing Poketown +spirit of "letting well enough alone." + +"How do you know it is impossible till you try?" demanded the girl, +laughing. "How much would you give, yourself, toward a new instrument?" + +Mr. Scribner winked hard, swallowed, and burst out with: "Ten dollars! +Yes, ma'am! I'd go without a new winter overcoat for the sake of having +a decent piano." + +"That's a beginning," Janice said, gravely, seizing paper and pad. "And +I can spare five. Now, don't you see, if we can interest everybody else +in town proportionately, we'd have enough to buy _two_ pianos, let alone +one. + +"But let us start the subscription papers with our own offerings. You +take one, and I'll take the other. You can ask everybody who comes into +the store, and I'll go out into the highways and hedges and see what I +can gather." + +Janice interested the young people's society in the project, too; and +her own enthusiasm, plus that of the other young folks, brought the +thing about. At the usual Sunday-school entertainment on Christmas night +the new piano was used for the first time, and Mrs. Ebbie Stewart, who +played it, fairly cried into her score book, she was so glad. + +"I was _so_ sick of pounding on that old tin-panny thing!" she sobbed. +"A real piano seems too good to be true." + +The old Town Hall standing at the head of High Street--just where the +street forked to become two country highways--had a fine stick of spruce +in front of it for a flagpole; but on holidays the flag that was raised +(if the janitor didn't forget it) was tattered like a battle-banner, +and, in addition, was of the vintage of a score of years before. Our +flag has changed some during the last two decades as to the number of +stars and their arrangement on the azure field. + +Of a sudden people began to notice the need of a new flag. Who mentioned +it first? Why, that Day girl! + +And she kept right on mentioning it until some people began to see that +it was really a disgrace to Poketown--and almost an insult to the flag +itself--to raise such a tattered banner. A grand silk flag, with new +halyards and all, was finally obtained, the Congressman of the district +having been interested in the affair. And on Washington's Birthday the +Congressman himself visited the village and made an address when the +flag was raised for the first time. + +Gradually, other improvements and changes had taken place in Poketown. +There was the steamboat dock. It had been falling to pieces for years. +It had originally been built by the town; but the various storekeepers +were most benefited by the wharf, for their freight came by water for +more than half of the year. + +Walky Dexter started the subscription among the merchants for the dock +repairs. He subscribed a fair sum himself, too, for he was the principal +teamster in Poketown. + +"But who d'you s'pose started Walky?" demanded Mr. Cross Moore, +shrewdly. "Trace it all back to one 'live wire'--that's what! If that +Day gal didn't put the idee into Walky's head for a new dock, I'll eat +my hat!" + +And nobody asked Mr. Moore to try that gastronomic feat. + +The selectman, himself, seemed to get into line during that winter. He +stopped sneering at Walky Dexter and for some inexplicable reason he +began agitating for better health ordinances. + +There was an unreasonable warm spell in February; people in Poketown had +always had open garbage piles during the winter. From this cause, Dr. +Poole, the Health Officer, declared, a diphtheria epidemic started which +caused several deaths and necessitated the closing of a part of the +school for four weeks. + +Cross Moore put through a garbage-collection ordinance and a certain +farmer out of town was glad of the chance to make a daily collection, +the year around, for the value of the garbage and the small bonus the +town allowed him. If the truth were known Mr. Moore's ordinance was +copied almost word for word from the printed pamphlet of ordinances in +force in a certain town of the Middle West called Greensboro. Now, how +did the selectman obtain that pamphlet, do you suppose? + +Yet Poketown, as a whole, looked about as forlorn and unsightly as it +had when Janice Day first saw it. The improvement was not general. The +malady--general neglect--had only been treated in spots. + +There were still stores with their windows heaped with flyspecked +goods. The horses still gnawed the boles of the shade trees along High +Street. The flagstone sidewalks were still broken and the gutters +unsightly. High street itself was rutted and muddy all through the early +spring, after the snow had gone. + +A few of the merchants patterned after Hopewell Drugg, brightened up +their stores, and exposed only fresh goods for sale. But these few +changes only made the general run of Poketown institutions appear more +slovenly. The contrast was that of a new pair of shoes, or a glossy hat, +on a ragged beggar! + +With Janice on one side to spur him, and Miss 'Rill's unbounded faith in +him on the other hand, how _could_ Hopewell Drugg fall back into the old +aimless existence which had cursed him when first Janice had taken an +interest in his little Lottie, his store, and himself? + +But, of course, Hopewell could not _make_ trade. He had gained his full +share of the Poketown patronage, and held all his old customers. But the +profits of the business accumulated slowly. As this second winter drew +to a close the storekeeper confessed to Janice that he had only saved a +little over three hundred dollars altogether towards the betterment of +Lottie's condition. + +Janice began secretly to complain. Her heart bled for the child, shut +away in the dark and silence. If only Daddy would grow suddenly very +wealthy out of the mine! Or if some fairy godmother would come to little +Lottie's help! + +The person who seemed nearest like a fairy godmother to the child was +Miss 'Rill. She spent a great deal of her spare time with the +storekeeper's daughter. Sometimes she went to Mr. Drugg's cottage alone; +but oftener she had Lottie around to the rooms she occupied with her +mother on High Street. + +"I declare for't, 'Rill," sputtered old Mrs. Scattergood, one day when +Janice happened to be present, "you'll have the hull town talkin' abeout +you. You're in an' aout of Hopewell Drugg's jest as though you belonged +there." + +"I'm surely doing no harm, mother," said the little spinster, mildly. +"Everyone knows how this poor child needs somebody's care." + +"Wal! let the 'somebody' be somebody else," snapped the old lady. "I +sh'd think you'd be ashamed." + +"Ashamed of what, mother?" asked Miss 'Rill, with more spirit than she +usually displayed. + +"You know well enough what I mean. Folks will say you're flingin' +yourself at Hopewell Drugg's head. An' after all these years, too. +I----" + +"Mother!" exclaimed her daughter, in a low voice, but earnestly. "Don't +you think you did harm enough long, long ago, without beginning on that +tack now?" + +"There! that's the thanks one gets when one keeps a gal from makin' a +perfect _fule_ of herself," cried the old lady, bridling. "S'pose you'd +been jest a drudge for Hopewell all these years, Amarilla Scattergood?" + +"I might not have been a drudge," said Miss 'Rill, softly, flushing over +her needlework. "At least my life--and his--would have been different." + +"Ye don't know how lucky you be," snapped her mother. "And this is all +the thanks I git for tellin' Hopewell Drugg that he'd brought his pigs +to the wrong market." + +"At least," said the spinster, with a sigh, "he will never worry you on +that score again, mother--he nor any other man. When a woman gets near +to forty, with more silver than gold in her hair, and the best of her +useless life is behind her, she need expect no change in her estate, +that's sure." + +"Ye might be a good deal wuss off," sniffed her mother. + +"Perhaps that is so," agreed Miss 'Rill, with a sudden hard little +laugh. "But don't you take pattern by me, Janice, no matter what folks +tell you. Mrs. Beasely is better off than I am. She has the memory of +doing for somebody whom she loved and who loved her. While I----Well, +I'm just an old maid, and when you say that about a woman, you say the +worst!" + +"Why, the idee!" exclaimed her mother, with wrath. "I call that flyin' +right in the face of Providence." + +"I don't believe that God ever had old maids in the original scheme of +things." + +"Humph! didn't He?" snapped Mrs. Scattergood. "Then why is there so many +more women than men in the world? Will you please tell me _that_, +Amarilla?" and this unanswerable argument closed what Janice realized +was not the first discussion of the unpleasant topic, between the +ex-schoolteacher and her sharp-tongued mother. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +JUST HOW IT ALL BEGAN + + +It was one of those soft, irresponsible days of April. The heavens +clouded up and wept like a naughty child upon the least pretext; yet +between the showers the sun warmed the glad earth, and coaxed the +catkins into bloom, and even expanded the first buds of the huge lilac +bush at the corner of the Day house. + +This was a special occasion; one could easily guess that from the bustle +manifest about the place. Aunt 'Mira and Janice had been busy since +light. Mrs. Day was not in the habit of "givin' things a lick and a +promise" nowadays when she cleaned house. No, indeed! They gave the +house a "thorough riddin' up," and were scarcely through at dinner-time. + +Then they hurried the dinner dishes out of the way, drove Marty and his +father out of the house and hurried to change into fresh frocks; for +company was expected. + +The ladies' sewing circle of the Union Church was to meet with Mrs. +Day. These meetings of late had become more like social gatherings than +formerly. The afternoon session was better attended; then came a hearty +supper to which the ladies' husbands, brothers, or sweethearts were +invited; and everything wound up with a social evening. + +Aunt 'Mira and Janice had made many extra preparations for the occasion +in the line of cooked food; there were two gallon pots of beans in the +oven cooking slowly; and every lady, as she arrived, handed to Janice +some parcel or package containing cooked food for the supper. + +The girl was busy looking after these donations when once the members of +the sewing circle began to arrive; and Aunt 'Mira's pantry had never +before been so stacked with food. Marty stole in to gaze at the goodies, +and whispered: + +"Hi tunket! Just you go away for half an hour, Janice, and lemme be +here. I could do something to that tuck right now." + +"And so soon after dinner?" cried his cousin. "I wonder if boys _are_ +hollow all the way down to their heels, as they say they are?" + +"It ain't that," grinned Marty. "But a feller runs so many chances in +this world of going hungry, that he ought ter fill up while he can. You +just turn your back for a while and I'll show you, Janice." + +But his cousin turned the key in the pantry door and slipped it into her +pocket for safety. "We'll have no larks like _that_, Master Marty," she +declared. + +Mrs. Scattergood and 'Rill were among the first to arrive; and then came +Mrs. Middler, the minister's wife. Mrs. Beasely was there, and Walky +Dexter's wife, and the druggist's sister, who kept house for him; and +Mrs. Poole, the doctor's wife; and Mrs. Marvin Petrie, who had married +children living in Boston and always spent her winters with them, and +had just come back to Poketown again for the season. + +Many of the ladies of Poketown never thought of making up their spring +frocks, or having Mrs. Link, the milliner, trim their Easter bonnets, +until Mrs. Marvin Petrie came from Boston. She was supposed to bring +with her the newest ideas for female apparel, and her taste and advice +was sought on all sides when the ladies sat down to their sewing in the +big sitting-room of the old Day house. + +Mrs. Marvin Petrie, however, was one of those persons who seem never to +absorb any helpful ideas. Her forte was mostly criticism. She could see +the faults of her home town, and her home people, in comparison with the +Hub; but she had never, thus far, led in any benefit to Poketown. + +"You can't none of you understand how glad I am to git to my daughter +Mabel's in the winter; and then how glad I am to shake the mud of +Boston off my gaiters when it comes spring," declared the traveled lady, +who had a shrill voice of great "carrying" quality. When Mrs. Marvin +Petrie was talking there was little other conversation at the sewing +circle. Her comments upon people she had met and things she had seen, +were in the line of a monologue. + +"I do sartainly grow tired of Poketown when it comes fall, and things is +dead, and the wind gets cold, and all. I'm sartain sure glad to git shet +of it!" she pursued on this particular afternoon. "And then the first +sight of Boston--and the mud--and the Common and Public Library,--and +the shops, and all, make me feel like I was livin' again. + +"Mabel says to me: 'How kin you live, Maw, most all the year in +Poketown! Why, I was so glad to git away from it, that I'd walk the +streets and beg before I'd go back to it again!' An' she would; Mabel's +lively yet, if she has been married ten years and got three children. + +"But by this time o' year--arter bein' three months or more in the +hurly-burly of Boston, I'm _de_-lighted to git into the country. Ye see, +city folks keep dancin' about so. They're always on the go. They ain't +no rest for a body." + +"But you ain't got ter go because other folks dooes, Miz' Petrie," +suggested old lady Scattergood. "Now, when I go ter see my son-in-law at +Skunk's Holler, I jest sit down an' fold my hands, an' _rest_." + +"Skunk's Holler!" murmured one of the other women. "To hear Miz' +Scattergood talk, one 'ud think she was traveled, too. An' she ain't +never been out o' sight o' this lake, I do believe." + +"If ye don't go yourself, you feel's though you had," said Mrs. Petrie, +with good nature. "So much bustle around you--yes. An' so I tell my +daughters. I git enough of it b'fore spring begins." + +"But," said the minister's wife, timidly, "after all, there isn't so +much difference between Poketown and Boston, excepting that Boston is so +very much bigger. People are about the same everywhere. And one house is +like another, only one's bigger----" + +"Now, that's right foolish talk, Miz' Middler!" exclaimed the lady so +recently from the Hub. "The people's just as different as chalk is from +cheese; and there ain't a church in Boston--and there's hundreds of +'em--that don't make our Union Church look silly." + +"But, Miz' Petrie," cried one inquiring body. "Just what is it that +makes Boston so different from Poketown? After all, folks is folks--and +houses is houses--and streets is streets. Ain't that so?" + +"Wa-al!" The traveled lady was stumped for a moment. Then she burst out +with: "There! I'll tell ye. It's 'cause there's some order in the city; +ev'rything here is haphazard. Course, there's poor sections--reg'lar +_slums_, as they call 'em--in Boston. But the poor, dirty buildings and +the poor, dirty streets, are in sort of a bunch together. They're in +spots; they ain't dribbled all through the town, mixed up with fine +houses, and elegant squares, and boulevards. Nope. Cities know how to +hide their poor spots in some ways. Boston puts its best foot forward, +as the sayin' is. + +"But take it right here in Poketown. Now, ain't the good and the bad all +shoveled together? Take Colonel Pa'tridge's fine house on High Street, +stuck in right between Miner's meat shop and old Bill Jones' drygoods +an' groceries--an' I don't know which is the commonest lookin' of the +two." + +"There you air right, Miz' Petrie," agreed the Widow Beasely. "Miner's +got so dirty--around his shop I mean--that I hate to buy a piece of meat +there." + +"But the other butcher ain't much better," cried another troubled +housewife. "And the flies!" + +"Oh, the awful flies!" chorused several. + +"Them critters is a pest, an' that's a fac'," declared Mrs. Scattergood. +"Talk abeout the plagues o' Egypt----" + +"But Miz' Petrie was tellin' us how Boston was different----" + +"My soul and body!" gasped Mrs. Beasely. "I reckon she's told us +enough. It's a fac'. Poketown is all cluttered up--what ain't right down +filthy. An' I don't see as there's anything can be done abeout it." + +"Why--Mrs. Beasely--do you believe there is anything so bad that it +can't be helped?" queried Janice, slowly and thoughtfully. It was the +first time her voice had been heard amid the general clatter, since she +had come to sit down. Her nimble fingers were just as busy as any other +ten in the room; but her tongue had been idle. + +"They say it's never too late to mend," quote 'Rill Scattergood; "but I +am afraid that Mr. Miner, and Mr. Jones, and some of the rest of the +storekeepers are too old to mend--or be mended!" + +"Ain't you right, now, Amarilla!" sniffed her mother. + +"'Tain't only the storekeepers," declared Mrs. Petrie, taking up the +tale again. "How many of us--us housekeepers, I mean--insist upon having +things as clean as they should be right around our own back doors?" + +"Wa-al," groaned Aunt 'Mira, "it takes suthin' like an airthquake to +start some of the men-folks----" + +"Why wait for _them_?" interposed the demure Janice again, knowing that +her aunt would not object if she interrupted her. "Can't we do something +ourselves?" + +"I'd like to know what you'd _do_?" exclaimed the helpless Mrs. Middler. + +"Why, we could have a regular 'Clean-Up Day' in Poketown, same as they +do in other places." + +"Good Land o' Goshen!" ejaculated Mrs. Scattergood. "What's _that_, I'd +like to know, Janice Day? You _do_ have the greatest idees! I never +heard of no 'Clean-Up Day' in Skunk's Holler." + +"Perhaps they didn't need any there," laughed Janice, for she was used +to the old lady's sharp tongue and did not mind it. + +"Seems to me I--I've heard of such things," said Mrs. Petrie, rather +feebly. She did not wish to be left behind in anything novel. + +"Why, a 'Clean-Up Day'," explained Janice, "is justly exactly what it +_is_. Everybody cleans up--yard, cellar, attic, streets, and all. You +get out all your old rubbish, of whatsoever kind, and get it ready to be +carted away; and the town pays for the stuff's being removed to some +place where it can be burned or buried." + +"My soul and body!" ejaculated Aunt 'Mira. "Jest the same as though the +town was cleanin' house." + +"That's it--exactly," said Janice, nodding. "And all at the same time, +so that the whole town can be made neat at once." + +"Now," declared Mrs. Petrie, giving her decided and unqualified +approval, "I call that a right sensible idea. I'm for that scheme, +hammer and tongs! This here Day girl, that I ain't never had the +pleasure of meetin' before, has sartainly got a head on her. I vote we +do it!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +POKETOWN IN A NEW DRESS + + +That is just how it all began. If you had asked any of those sewing +circle ladies about it, they would have said--"to a man!"--that Mrs. +Marvin Petrie suggested Poketown's "Clean-Up Day." And they would have +been honest in their belief. + +For Janice Day was no strident-voiced reformer. What she did toward the +work of giving Poketown a new spring dress, was done so quietly that +only those who knew her well, and had watched her since she had come to +Poketown, realized that she had exerted more influence than a girl of +her age was supposed to be entitled to! + +It was Janice who spoke with Mr. Cross Moore that very night, after the +women had loudly discussed the new idea with their husbands and other +male relatives at the supper table. Mr. Moore was to put the ordinance +through at the next meeting of the Board of Selectmen, covering the date +of the Clean-Up Day, and the amount of money to be appropriated for the +removal of rubbish by hired teams. + +"Put a paragraph into the motion, Mr. Moore, making it a fifty-dollar +fine for any taxpayer, or tenant, who puts rubbish out on the curb on +any other day save the two mentioned in the main ordinance," Janice +whispered to the selectman; "otherwise you will set a bad precedent with +your Clean-Up Day, instead of doing lasting good." + +"Now, ain't that gal got brains?" Moore wanted to know of Walky Dexter. +"Huh! Mary Ann can't tell me that the Widder Petrie started this idea. +It was that Day gal, as sure as aigs is aigs!" and Walky nodded a solemn +agreement. + +There was more to it, however, than the giving notice to the people of +Poketown that they had a chance to get rid of the collection of rubbish +every family finds in cellar, shed, and yard in the spring. People in +general had to be stirred up about it. Clean-Up Day was so far ahead +that the apostles of neatness and order--those who were thoroughly +imbued with the spirit of the thing and realized Poketown's need--had +time to preach to most of the delinquents. + +There were cards printed, too, announcing the date of Clean-Up Day and +its purposes, and these were hung in every store and other public place. +Janice urged the young people's society of the church into the work of +getting the storekeepers to promise to clean up back rooms, cellars, +sheds, and the awful yards behind their ancient shops. + +There were a few--like Mr. Bill Jones--who at first refused to fall in +with the plans of those who had at heart the welfare of the old town. +Mr. Jones had been particularly "sore" ever since he had been ousted +from the school committee the year before. Now he declared he wouldn't +"be driv" by no "passel of wimmen" into changing the order of affairs in +the gloomy old store where he had made a good living for so many years. + +But Bill Jones reckoned without the new spirit that was gradually taking +hold upon Poketown people. One of his ungracious statements, when his +store was well filled with customers, brought about the retort pointed +from none less that Mrs. Marvin Petrie herself. + +"Well, Bill Jones," declared that plain-spoken old lady, "we wimmen have +made up our minds to clean out the flies, an' all other dirt, if we can. +Poketown is unsanitary--so Dr. Poole says--and we know it's always been +slovenly. There ain't a place, I'll be bound, in the whole town, that +needs cleaning up more'n this, your store!" + +"I ain't no dirtier than anybody else!" roared Jones, very red-faced. + +"But you aim to be. So you say. When other folks all about you are goin' +to clean up, you say you won't be driv' to it. Wa-al! I'll tell you +what's going to happen to you, Bill Jones: We wimmen air goin' to trade +at stores that are decently clean. Anyway, they're cleaner than this +hovel of your'n. Don't expect me in it ag'in till I see a change." + +Mrs. Marvin Petrie marched out of the shop without buying. Several other +ladies followed her and distributed their patronage among the other +shops. Old Bill hung out for a few days, "breathing threatenings and +slaughter." Then the steady decrease in his custom was too much for the +old man's pocketbook. He began to bleed _there_. So he signified his +intention of falling in with the new movement. + +There were householders, too, who had to be urged to join in the general +clean-up of Poketown. Dr. Poole wrote a brief pamphlet upon the +house-fly and the dangers of that pest, and this was printed and +scattered broadcast about the town. To the amazement of a good many of +the older members, like Elder Concannon, Mr. Middler read this short +treatise from the pulpit and urged his hearers to screen their pantries, +at least, to "swat the fly" with vigor, and to remove barns and stables +so far away from the dwellings that it would be, at least, a longer trip +for Mr. Fly from the barnyard to the dining-table and back again! + +The Board of Selectmen, stirred by Mr. Cross Moore and others, cleaned +the gutters of High Street and used the scraper on the drive itself +fully two months earlier than usual. Sidewalks were rebuilt, and many +painted tree boxes appeared along the main street to save the remainder +of the tree trunks from the teeth of crib-biting horses. + +Before most of the shops--the general stores particularly--were +hitch-rails. Many of these were renewed; some even painted. Store +fronts, too, were treated to a coat or two of paint. Show windows were +cleaned and almost every store redressed its display of goods. + +Trees were trimmed, and some of the tottering ones cut down entirely. +There were still plenty of shade trees on the steep High Street. + +It was Janice who urged Hopewell Drugg to refurbish his store--painting +it inside and out, rebuilding the porch, and erecting a long hitch-rail +to attract farmers' trade. + +"Of course you cannot afford it, Mr. Drugg," said the girl. "That is, it +seems as though every dollar you spend is putting Lottie back. But +'nothing ventured, nothing gained.' You must throw out sprats to catch +herring. To get together the money that specialist demands to treat +Lottie's eyes, you must endeavor to increase your trade. Make the store +just as attractive as possible. That's business, I believe. Daddy would +say so, I am sure." + +Hopewell allowed himself to be convinced. There was not a store in town +as attractive as Drugg's, after Clean-Up Day. The whole of Poketown, +indeed, was in a new dress. The trees were just budding out nicely, +there was a breath of lilac in the air, and the lawns were raked clean +and showed a velvety, green sheen that was delightful to the eye. + +The old Town Hall had been repainted. Had it not been for the opposition +of Elder Concannon, the young folks would have collected money for the +repainting of the Union Church. However, they cleaned everything around +it--yard and all--till it was as spick and span as it could be. And the +burial ground in the rear of the church was made beautiful, too. The +edges of the paths were trimmed, the paths themselves raked, and all the +tottering headstones were set up straight. + +Gates were rehung and fences straightened all over town. A smell of +fresh paint rivaled the scent of the bursting lilac blooms. Never had +Poketown been so busy. + +The cleaning-up process went on inside the houses as well as out. Of +course, among pure-blooded New English housewives, such as the majority +of Poketown matrons were, there were few drones. They prided themselves +on their housekeeping. + +Earlier than usual the carpets went out on the lines, the curtains at +chamber and sitting-room windows were renewed, there was a smell of soap +and water in every entry, as one pushed the door open, and altogether +Poketown was generally turned out of doors, aired, dusted, and brought +back again into thoroughly clean rooms. + +The old Day house had its "ridding up," too. Janice gave her aunt +considerable help; but Mrs. Day was not the slovenly housekeeper she had +been when first the girl had come to Poketown. Even Uncle Jason kept +himself more neatly than ever before. And he went to the barber's at +frequent intervals. + +Janice once went down to the dock to see the _Constance Colfax_ come in. +There was the usual crowd of loafers waiting for the boat--all perched +along the stringpiece of the wharf. + +"But I declare!" thought Janice, her eyes dancing, "somebody certainly +_has_ 'slicked 'em up,' as Mrs. Scattergood would say. Whoever would +believe it! Walky has got a new shirt on--and straw cuffs, too--and a +necktie! My goodness me! And the hotel keeper really looks as though his +wife cared a little about his appearance. And Ben Hutchins wears whole +boots now, and has washed his face, and had a shave. + +"I must admit they don't look so much like a delegation from the +poorfarm as they did the day. I came in on the _Constance Colfax_. There +has been a change in Poketown--there most certainly _has_ been a +change!" and the girl laughed delightedly. + +It was marked everywhere. It even seemed to Janice as though people whom +she met on the street stepped quicker than they once had! + +Janice knew she had given her own folks--Uncle Jason, and Aunt 'Mira, +and Cousin Marty--a push or two in the right direction. She had helped +Hopewell Drugg, too; and maybe she had instigated the waking up of +several other people. But not for a moment did she realize--healthy, +thoughtless girl that she was--how much Poketown owed to her on Clean-Up +Day. + +That was one great occasion in the old town. Although the selectmen had +allowed two days in which the farmers' wagons were to cart away the +rubbish for the householders, the removal men had hard work to fill +their contract. + +Some curbs were piled shoulder high with boxes of ashes, old bedsprings, +broken furniture, decayed mattresses, yard rakings, unsightly pots and +pans hidden away for decades in mouldy cellars--débris of so many kinds +that it would be impossible to catalogue it! + +For two days, also, hundreds of rubbish fires burned, and the taint of +the smoke seemed to saturate every part of Poketown. Janice declared +that all the food on the supper table at the Day house seemed to have +been "slightly scorched." + +"By jinks!" declared Marty, gobbling his supper with an appetite that +never seemed to lag. "I bet I burned three wagon-loads of stuff 'sides +what I set outside on the street for 'em to take away. No use talkin', +Dad, you got ter build a new pen and yard for the shoats." + +"Whuffor?" demanded his father, eyeing him slowly. + +"'Cause the old boards and rails was so rotten that I jest burned 'em +up," declared his son. "You know folks could see it from the street, an' +it looked untidy." + +"Wa-al," drawled Uncle Jason, with only half a sigh. + +Janice could scarcely keep from clapping her hands, this so delighted +her. She compared this with some of the conversation at the Day table +soon after the time she had arrived in Poketown! + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +"NO ODOR OF GASOLINE!" + + +During the winter now passed, Janice had watched the progress of the new +school under Nelson Haley's administration with growing confidence in +that young man. Nelson was advancing, as well as his pupils and the +school discipline. Educators from other towns in the state--even in +neighboring states--had come to visit Poketown's school. + +Janice could not help having a thrill of pride when she learned of these +visitations and the appreciation shown by other educators of Nelson +Haley's work. She did not so often see the young man in a situation +where they could talk these wonders over; for Nelson was very, very busy +and gave both his days and evenings to the work he had set for himself +the fall before. + +The girl might no longer honestly complain of Nelson's lack of purpose. +He had "struck his gait" it seemed; it was as though he had suddenly +seen a mark before him and was pressing onward to that goal at top +speed. + +When he and Janice met as they did, of course, at church and +occasionally at evening parties, the teacher and the girl were the very +best of friends But tête-à-têtes were barred. Was it by Janice herself? +Or had Nelson deliberately changed his attitude toward her? + +Sometimes she tried to unravel this mystery; but then, before she had +gone far in her ruminations, she began to wonder if she _wanted_ Nelson +to change toward her? That question frightened her, and she would at +once refuse to face the situation at all! + +Once Nelson told her that a small college in middle Massachusetts +offered a line of work that he believed he would like to take up--if he +was "doomed to the profession of teaching, after all." + +"And does the doom seem so very terrible?" she asked him, laughingly. + +"I admit that I can _do_ things with the scholars," he said, gravely. "I +have just begun to realize it. It seems easy for me to make them +understand. But the profession doesn't give one the freedom that the law +does, for instance." + +Janice had made no further comment, nor did Nelson advance anything more +regarding the work offered by the college in question. + +She had her own intense interests, now and then. Clean-Up Day was past +but its effect in Poketown was ineradicable. Janice was satisfied that +there were enough people finally awake in the town to surely, if slowly, +revolutionize the place. + +How could one householder drop back into the old, shiftless, careless +manner of living when his neighbors' places on either hand were so trim? +The carelessly-kept shop showed up a hundred per cent. worse than it had +before Clean-Up Day. Even old Bill Jones kept in some trim, and the meat +markets began to rival each other in cleanliness. + +The taxpayers began to speak with pride of Poketown. When they visited +Middletown, or other villages that had previously looked down on the +hillside hamlet above the lake, they were apt to say: + +"Just come over and see our town. What? You ain't been in Poketown in +two years? No wonder you don't know what you're talking about! Why, we +put it all over you fellows here for clean streets, and shops, and +nice-lookin' lawns and all that--and our school!" + +Poketownites were proud of the reading-room, too, although Mr. Massey's +store was becoming a cramped place for it now. The shelves devoted to +the circulating library were well crowded. The state appropriation had +been spent carefully, and the new, well-bound books looked "mighty +handsome" when visitors came into the place. + +But the original intention for the place had never been lost sight of. +It had been made for the boys and young men of Poketown. They had fully +appreciated it, and, Elder Concannon's prophecy to the contrary +notwithstanding, the reading-room was never the scene of disorderly +conduct. + +Janice hoped the day would come when the reading-room association should +have a building of its own,--not an expensive, ornate structure for +which the taxpayers would be burdened, and the upkeep of which would +keep the association poor for years; but a snug, warm, cheerful place +which would actually be a club for the boys, and offer all the other +benefits of a free library. + +She knew already just where the building ought to stand. There was a +certain empty lot on High Street which would give a library a prominent +site. This lot was owned by old Elder Concannon. + +"There've been miracles happened here in Poketown during the last year +or so; if I have patience and wait to strike when the iron's hot, maybe +_that_ miracle will come to pass," Janice told herself. + +Elder Concannon had already begun to treat Janice in a much more +friendly way than he had at one time. She believed that secretly he was +interested in the library and reading-room. Sometimes he spent an hour +or so there of an evening--especially if one of the boys would play +checkers with him. + +"He's an old nuisance," growled Marty to his cousin, on one occasion. +"He keeps some of the fellers out; they see him in there, with his +grizzly old head and flapping cape-coat, and they stay out till he goes +home. And, by jinks! I'm gittin' tired of being the goat and playin' +draughts with him." + +"Marty," she said to him, with some solemnity, "if you saw that through +the Elder's coming there and your entertaining him a bit, the +institution would in the end be vastly benefited, wouldn't you be _glad_ +to play the goat?" + +Marty's eyes snapped at her. He drew a long breath, and exclaimed: "Hi +tunket! You don't mean that you've got the old Elder 'on the string' for +us, Janice?" + +"It's very rude of you to talk that way," said Janice, smiling. "I don't +know what you mean by having the dear old gentleman 'on a string.' But I +tell you in secret, Marty, that I _do_ hope he will be so much +interested in the reading-room and library that some day he will give +the association something very much worth while. He can afford it, for +he hasn't chick nor child in the world." + +"Ye don't mean it?" gasped Marty. + +"But I _do_ mean it. Why not? Do you suppose the old gentleman comes +into the reading-room without being interested in it?" + +"Say!" drawled her cousin. "I'll be the goat all right, all right!" + +Janice was indeed cultivating the old Elder's acquaintance. She would +not have done it to benefit herself in any way; but to help the +library---- + +"You young folks need a balance wheel," Elder Concannon once said to +Janice. "Youthful enthusiasm is all very well; but where's your +balance?" + +"Then why don't you come in with us and supply the balance?" she +rejoined, briskly. "Goodness knows, Elder, we'd be glad to have you!" + +Then came a red-letter day for Janice Day. She had almost lost hope of +getting her "heart's desire"--the little motor car that Daddy had spoken +of. Although his letters had been particularly cheerful of late, he had +said nothing more about his promise. + +Marty brought her home a thick letter from the post office and gave it +to her at the dinner table. When she eagerly slit the flap of the +envelope and pulled out the contents, there was flirted out upon the +tablecloth a queer-looking certificate. + +"Hullo! what's this?" demanded Marty, with all the impudence of a boy. + +"Put that down, Marty," commanded his mother. + +"By jinks! What's this in the corner?" he yelled. "A thousand dollars? +_A thousand dollars!_ Janice Day! you're as rich as cream!" + +"Hi tunket, boy!" ejaculated his father. "Le's see that? It can't be!" + +"It is!" shrieked Janice, jumping up and dancing around the room. "It's +for my gasoline runabout! I'm going to have it--I certainly _am_! +Hurray! hurray!" and she kissed her aunt heartily and then danced +another war dance with Marty around the table. + +"Wal, I snum!" exclaimed Uncle Jason, still staring at the bit of paper, +which was a Wells-Fargo express check for the sum named. + +Janice could scarcely eat any dinner, she was so excited. What was mere +eating to the possession of this check and the knowledge that all was +going well once more with dear Daddy? Her most particular friends must +share the joy with her. + +She hurried into her jacket and hat, and ran across town to see Miss +'Rill; for, after all, the little spinster was her dearest and closest +friend in Poketown. + +But was this Miss 'Rill--this frantic, wild-eyed creature, hatless and +with her hair flying, who came running down High Street just as Janice +reached the corner of the street on which Hopewell Drugg's store was +situated? _Could_ it be 'Rill Scattergood? + +"Oh, Janice! Janice! have you heard about it? They just sent for me," +gasped the little spinster lady. + +"What do you mean, 'Rill? _Who_ sent for you?" Janice demanded. + +"It's poor little Lottie!" cried the other, dragging Janice along with +her. "She's fallen. I've been expecting it. She moves so quickly, you +know, in spite of her blindness. And now she's fallen into the +cellar----" + +"Whose cellar? Oh! is she very, very badly hurt?" cried Janice, equally +anxious. + +"Hopewell had the trap door open. She came running into the shop and +went straight down on her poor little head! Oh! she's all cut and +bruised----" + +Miss 'Rill could say no more. Nor did Janice need to ask, for they were +at the store and pushing through the little group of helpless but +sympathizing neighbors. Dr. Poole was already there. They had Lottie in +bed, all bandaged and white. + +"Just a bad cut over the forehead--right across the crown," Dr. Poole +assured the waiting neighbors. "She's had a bad shock, but she's in no +particular danger. Only----" + +He looked at Janice and shook his head. Then he whispered to her: "It's +a terrible shame Hopewell can't send the poor little thing to a +specialist and have her eyes fixed up. My soul and body, girl! If I'd +only been able to go in for surgery myself--If I'd only learned to use +the knife!" and he groaned, shook his head, did this old-school family +practitioner, and departed. + +Janice did not remain long. Miss 'Rill would sit by the child for the +remainder of the afternoon; and even her mother was anxious to help and +promised to come over and stay all night at Hopewell's. + +"I ain't got nothin' ag'in the poor child, that's sure," Mrs. +Scattergood told Janice. "It's only Hopewell that's so triflin'--he an' +his fiddle. Jest like his father before him!" + +But the storekeeper's fiddle was silent a good deal of the time now; +only when Miss 'Rill or Janice urged him did the man take up the +instrument that had once been so much his comfort--and little Lottie's +delight. + +But now, on this sorrowful afternoon, Janice went back slowly toward +home with a very serious mind indeed. On the way she met Nelson Haley +coming from school. + +"Congratulations--and then some!" he cried, shaking hands with Janice. + +"Whatever are you talking about?" she asked, puzzled. + +"Marty has been telling everybody the great and good news!" he said, +staring at her. "Why! what makes you so solemn? Do you mean to say that +you can't decide what kind of an auto to buy, and that is what has +soured our Janice's usually sweet disposition?" + +"Oh, Nelson!" gasped the girl, suddenly clinging to his arm, for she +really felt a weakness in her knees. + +"Hold on! hold on! bear up! What's the matter?" + +"I forgot about poor Daddy's check. Of course--that's the way out." + +"What's the way out?" he demanded. + +"Haven't you heard about poor little Lottie?" + +"What's happened to her?" he asked, anxiously. + +She told him swiftly. Then stopped. He demanded: + +"What's that got to do with the auto, Janice?" + +"Don't you see it has _everything_ to do with it, Nelson?" she returned, +gravely. "Of course, I could not buy a car when Lottie needs some of my +money so much. She shall start for Boston just as soon as she is well +enough to go--and of course Miss 'Rill will go with her. Hopewell cannot +leave the store. Lottie shall go to the specialist, Nelson." + +For a minute the school-teacher was silent. He looked at the girl's +shining, earnest face in a way she had never noticed before. But at last +he only smiled a little queerly, and said: + +"Why--Well, Janice Day, there's no odor of gasoline about _that_!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +JANICE DAY'S FIRST LOVE LETTER + + +In a week, although little Lottie's head was still bandaged, she was +driven over to Middletown with Miss 'Rill, Walky Dexter being the +driver, of course, and took a train for Boston. + +Before the day of departure Janice Day had a good deal to contend with. +It _did_ seem too bad that one could not spend one's own money without +everybody trying to talk one out of it! + +Not every one, however! Nelson Haley never said a word to discourage the +girl's generosity. But, beginning with Hopewell Drugg himself, almost +everybody else had something to say against it. + +"I can never in this world pay you back, Miss Janice," said the +storekeeper, faintly, after the girl had told him her plans fully. + +"Who wants you to? I am giving it to Lottie," Janice declared. "Would +you refuse to let her take it from me, when it means a new life to +Lottie? You can't be so cruel!" + +"Had you _ought_ to do it, dear Janice?" asked Miss 'Rill, herself. "It +seems too much for one person to do----" + +"You're going to pay your own expenses, aren't you?" demanded Janice. +"Why should you do _that_? Just because you love Lottie, isn't it?" + +"Ye-es," admitted the other, but with a little blush. + +"Well, let _me_ show some love for her, too." + +"Good Land o' Goshen!" cried old Mrs. Scattergood. "Somebody ought to +take and shake you, Janice Day! I don't see what your folks can be +thinking of. All that money just thrown away--for like enough the man +can't help the poor little thing at all. It is wicked!" + +"We sha'n't pay for the operation if it is not successful. That is the +agreement Dr. Sharpless always makes," said Janice, firmly. "But, oh! I +hope he _is_ successful, and that the money will do him a lot of good." + +"I declare for't! you are the strangest child!" muttered Mrs. +Scattergood. "I thought you was one o' these new-fashioned gals when I +first seen ye--all for excitement, and fashions, and things like that. +I've been wonderfully mistaken in you, Janice Day." + +Oddly enough the old lady made small objection to her daughter's going +to Boston with the child. "Anyhow," she grumbled to Janice, "she won't +be runnin' into Hopewell's all the time if she ain't here." + +"There will be no need of _that_, mother, if little Lottie is away," +Miss 'Rill said, gently. + +At home----Ah! that is where Janice had the greatest opposition to meet. + +"I declare to goodness!" snarled Marty Day. "If you ain't the very +craziest girl there ever was, Janice! Givin' all that good money away! +And goin' without that buzz-wagon you've been talking about so long!" + +"Well, I've only been _talking_ about it, Marty," laughed Janice. "I +couldn't really believe it was coming true----" + +"And it ain't come true, it seems," snapped her cousin. + +"No-o. Not exactly. But I had the surprise of getting Daddy's check, and +it was just _dear_ of him to send me such a lot of money." + +"What do you suppose Broxton will say, girl, when he learns how you've +frittered that thousand dollars away?" demanded Uncle Jason, sternly. + +"He'll never say a word--in objection," she cried. "You can read right +here in his letter how I am to use the money in just any way I +please--and no questions asked!" + +"But you've talked so much about your automobile, deary," said Aunt +'Mira, faintly. "Ain't you most disappointed to death, child?" + +"Oh, no, Aunty," returned Janice, cheerfully. "You know, I could be just +awfully selfish, _in my mind!_ But when it came to running about the +country in an automobile, with poor Lottie blind and helpless because of +my selfishness----No, no! I could not have done it." + +"I don't suppose you could, child," sighed the large lady, shaking her +head. "But whatever am I goin' to do with that auto coat and them veils +I bought? They don't seem jest the thing to wear out, jogging behind old +Sam and Lightfoot." + +However, Mr. Day had a chance to trade the two old farm horses off that +spring for a handsome pair of sorrels. They were good work horses as +well as drivers. An old double-seated buckboard which had been under one +of the Day sheds for a decade, was hauled out and repaired, painted and +varnished, new cushions made, and on occasion the family went to drive +about the country. + +"For it does seem," Mrs. Day, with wondering satisfaction, more than +once declared, "it does seem as though your Pa, Marty, has a whole lot +more time to gad abeout now than he use ter--yet we're gettin' along +better. I don't understand it." + +"Huh!" grunted Marty. "See all the work _I_ do. Don't ye s'pose that +counts none?" + +Janice merely smiled quietly as she heard this conversation. Uncle Jason +was up and out to work now by daybreak, like other farmers. He smoked +his after-dinner pipe by the back door; but it was only one pipe. He +often declared that "his wimmen folk" made such a bustle inside the +kitchen after dinner that he couldn't even think. He just _had_ to go +back to work "to get shet of 'em." + +The bacilli of _work_ had taken hold of the Day family. Uncle Jason had +begun to take pride in his fields and in his crops. Nobody in all +Poketown, or thereabout, had such a garden as the Days this spring. +Janice and Mrs. Day attended to it after it was planted. Mr. Day had +bought a man-weight hoe and seeding machine, and the garden mould was so +fine and free from filth that the "women folks" could use the machine +with ease. + +Yes, the Jason Days were more prosperous than ever before. And all their +prosperity did not arise from that twenty dollars a month that came +regularly for Janice's board. + +"Sometimes I feel downright ashamed to take that money, Jason," Aunt +'Mira admitted to her spouse. "Janice is sech a help to me. She is jest +like a darter. I shall hate to ever haf ter give her up. And some day +soon, now, Broxton will be comin' home." + +"Wal, don't ye worry. If Broxton is makin' money like he says he +is--so's he kin give that gal a thousand dollars to throw to the birdies +like she's done--why should we worry? I ain't sayin' but what she's been +a lot of help to us." + +"In more ways than one," whispered his wife. + +"Right, by jinks!" admitted the farmer. + +"Look what this old place looked like when she come!" + +"She sartainly has stirred us all up." + +"An' look at Marty!" + +"I got to give her credit," admitted Mr. Day. "She's made a man of +Marty. Done more for him than the school done." + +"But it was her started him to goin' to school ag'in." + +"So I tell ye," agreed Mr. Day again. "Janice is at the bottom of +everything good that's happened in Poketown for two years. I dunno as +people realize it; but I'm proud of her!" + +"Then, I tell you what, Jason. I'm going to save the board money for +her," declared Aunt 'Mira, with a little catch in her breath. "You won't +mind? Marty'll have the place an' all you kin save, when we are gone; +but that dear little thing----Givin' her money to that blind child, and +all----" + +Mrs. Day broke down and "sniveled." At least, that is what her husband +would have called it under some circumstances, and crying did not +beautify Mrs. Day's fat face. But for some reason the old man came close +to her and put his arms about her bulbous shoulders. + +"There, there, 'Mira! don't you cry about it. You sartainly have got a +good heart. An' I won't say nothin' agin' your savin' for the gal. +Mebbe she'll need your savin's, too. Broxton Day is too free-handed, +and he'll have his ups and downs again, p'r'aps. Anyhow, whatever you +say is right, _is_ right, 'Mira," and he kissed her suddenly in a shamed +faced sort of way, and then hurried out. + +The good woman sat there in her kitchen, with shining eyes, blushing +like a girl. She touched tenderly her wet cheek where her husband had +laid his lips. + +"He--he wouldn't ha' done that two year ago, I don't believe!" she +murmured. + +She picked up the ever-present story paper; but her mind was not attuned +to imaginary romance that morning. And there were the breakfast dishes +waiting---- + +She went about her work briskly, and singing. Somehow it seemed as +though _real_ romance had come into the old Day house, and into Aunt +'Mira's life! + +The weeks rolled on toward summer. A fortnight after little Lottie and +Miss 'Rill had gone to Boston a letter came from the specialist to +Hopewell Drugg. The operation on the child's eyes had been performed +almost as soon as she had arrived at the sanitarium; now he could +announce that it was successful. Lottie could see and, barring some +accident, would be a bright-eyed girl and woman. + +Already, the doctor urged, she was fit to go into the school for the +deaf and dumb in which such wonderful miracles were achieved for the +afflicted. The good surgeon, learning from Miss 'Rill the circumstances +of the child's being brought to him, had subscribed two hundred dollars +toward Lottie's tuition and board in the school for the deaf and dumb. + +It was joyful news for both Hopewell and Janice. That evening the +storekeeper got out his violin and played his old tunes over and +over--especially "Silver Threads Among the Gold." + +"But it sounds more like a hymn of praise to-night," Nelson Haley +whispered in Janice's ear, as they sat on the front porch of the little +shop and listened to the violin. + +A week later the little spinster came home. Her visit in Boston seemed +to have done her a world of good. She brought a great trunk packed full +of things to wear, or goods to be made up into pretty dresses and the +like. + +"I declare for't!" ejaculated her mother. "Looks like you had been +buyin' your trossoo--an' old maid like you, too!" + +But Miss 'Rill was unruffled, and parried her mother's suspicion. + +When the lake boat, the _Constance Colfax_, began to run on her summer +schedule after Decoration Day, many more summer tourists than usual got +off the boat at Poketown to look about. The dock was so neat, and the +surroundings of the landing so attractive, that these visitors were led +to go further up into the town. + +There was the pleasant, rambling, old Lake View Inn, freshened with +paint that spring, and with a green grass plot before it, and wide, +screened verandas. + +"Why, it's only its name that is against it!" cried the wondering +tourists. "It's not _poky_ at all." + +These remarks, repeated as they were, made the merchants of the village +stop and think. Ere this a board of trade had been formed, and the +welfare of the town was eagerly discussed at the meetings of the board. +Mr. Massey, the druggist, who was active, of course, got another idea +from Janice. + +He began to delve into the past history of Poketown. He learned how and +when it had been settled--and by whom. People had mostly forgotten (if +they ever had known) the true history of the town. + +A pioneer named Cyrus Polk had first built his cabin on the heights +overlooking this little bay. He had been the first smith in this region, +too, and gradually around "Polk's Smithy" had been reared the nucleus of +the present town. + +Through the years the silent "l" in the original settler's name had been +lost entirely. But the post office agreed to put it back into the name, +and a big signboard was painted and set up at the dock: + + "POLKTOWN." + +"It sartain sure looks a hull lot diff'rent, even if ye _do_ pernounce +it the same," admitted Walky Dexter. + +So much was happening these balmy June days! The school year--the first +in the new schoolhouse--was going to end in a blaze of glory for Nelson +Haley, Janice was sure. Elder Concannon had promised in writing to give +his lot upon High Street for the site of a library building, whenever +the association should have subscribed twelve hundred dollars toward the +building itself. + +Then came the first love letter that Janice Day had ever received! Such +a letter was it that she treasures it yet and will always do so. It was +one that she could proudly show to anybody she chose, without betraying +that intimacy that the ordinary love letter is supposed to contain. + +News had come regularly to Hopewell Drugg from the teachers at the +school where little Lottie had taken up her abode. Because the child was +naturally so bright, and because of the fact that before she lost her +eyesight she had learned the alphabet and some primary studies, and had +not forgotten it all, Lottie was making marvelous progress the teachers +declared. + +A much-bethumbed envelope, addressed in crooked "printed" characters to +"Mis Janis Day, Pokton," enclosed in a teacher's letter to the +store-keeper, was the cover of Janice's love letter. Inside, the child +said: + + "Dear Janis, jus' to think, I can see reel good, and my + techur what I luv says maybe I will heer reel good bymeby. + + "Deer Janis, I no I cante spel good yet, and my ritin aint + strate on the paper. But I want you shud be the firs to get + leter from me I luv yu so. + + "Deer Janis, you got me the muney for the docker. And he was + soo good himself, he never hardly hurt me a tall. + + "Deer Janis, I luv yu mos of all, cos if yu hadn ben yu I + wudn never seen no moar. An it was so dark all times. Thats + wy I feld down cellar. An now I am goin to heer they say. + + "Deer Janis, see if my echo is thar. Yu no my echo--that is + the way techur says to spell it. If my echo is waitn tell it + I am comin' to heer it again. + + "And I luv you lots and lots, deer Janis. I will show you + how much when I com home to father and Pokton. no moar at + prasens, from your little Lottie." + +Janice read the pitiful little scrawl through the first time on the +store porch. Then, tear-blinded, she started down the hill toward the +old wharf at the inlet where she had first seen Hopewell Drugg's +unfortunate child. + +She was halfway down the hill before she heard a quick step behind her +and knew, without turning, that it was Nelson Haley. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +WHAT THE ECHO MIGHT HAVE HEARD + + +"What's your hurry, Janice?" demanded the young teacher, coming to her +side, smiling. Then he saw her wet lashes and exclaimed: "My dear girl! +you are crying?" + +"Not--not now," said Janice, shaking her head and her voice catching a +little as she spoke. + +"Tell me what is the matter?" begged Nelson. "Who's hurt you?" + +"They're not those sort of tears, Nelson!" she cried, with a quivering +little smile. "Oh, I ought to be just the very happiest girl alive!" + +"And in tears?" + +"Tears of joy, I tell you," she declared. + +"Not weeping over the lost motor car, then?" + +"Oh, my goodness! No! How could one be so foolish with such a dear, dear +letter as I've got here. A regular _love_ letter, Nelson Haley!" + +The young man's face changed suddenly. It looked very grim, and he +caught at her hand which held little Lottie's letter. + +"What's that?" he demanded, so gruffly that Janice was quite astonished. + +"Why, Nelson Haley! What's the matter?" she asked, looking at him with +wide-open eyes. + +"Who's been writing to you, Janice?" he asked, huskily. + +"I will show it to you. It is too, too dear!" exclaimed the girl, again +half sobbing. "Read it!" + +The teacher spread out the crumpled page. The look of relief that came +into his face when he saw Lottie's straggling pen-tracks was not at all +understood by Janice. + +He read the child's letter appreciatively. She saw the tears flood into +his own eyes as he gently folded the letter and handed it back. + +"Why, Janice," he said, at last. "What's a motor car to _that_?" + +"That's what I say," she cried, and laughed. "Come on! let's tell it to +Lottie's echo. We'll see if it is still lurking in the dark old spruce +trees over yonder on the point." + +She darted ahead of him and reached the ruined wharf where Lottie had +stood when first Janice had seen her. In imitation of the child she +raised her voice in that weird cry: + +"He-a! he-a! he-a!" + +Back came the imitation, shot out of the wood by the nymph: + +"'E-a! 'e-a! 'e-a!" + +"Ha, ha!" laughed the girl. "There's Lottie's echo." + +"'A!" laughed the echo. "'Ere's Lottie's echo!" + +Nelson, flushed and breathing rather heavily, reached the old dock. + +"What a girl you are, Janice!" he said. + +"And what a very, very old person you are getting to be, Nelson Haley," +she told him. "Principal of the Polktown School! I saw your article in +the State School Register. Theories! You write just as though you know +what you were writing about." + +"Oh--well," he said, rather taken aback by her joking. + +"And it wasn't much more than a year ago that you turned up your nose at +the profession of teaching." + +"Aw--now!" he said, pleadingly. + +"And _you_ were the young man who wanted to get through life without +hard work--or, so you said." + +"Don't you know that it is only the fool who doesn't change his +opinion--and change it frequently, too?" he bantered back at her. + +"You must have changed a whole lot, Nelson Haley," she declared, with +sudden gravity. "Don't--don't you feel awfully _funny_ inside? It's a +terrible shock, I should think, for one to turn right square +around----" + +"I don't feel humorous--not a little bit," he interposed, seriously. "I +have been working toward an end. I expect my reward." + +"Oh, Nelson! The college? Are they really going to invite you to go +there to teach?" + +"That isn't the reward I mean," he said, shaking his head. + +"For pity's sake! something bigger than _that_? My!" Janice cried, all +dimpling again, "but you _are_ a person with great expectations, aren't +you?" + +"I certainly am," he said, bowing gravely. "I have a great goal in view. +Let me tell you----" + +But suddenly she jumped up and walked along the edge of the inlet away +from the dock. "Oh, do come along, Nelson. We don't want to sit there +all day." + +Nelson, flushed and only half rose. Then he settled back again and said, +with some doggedness: + +"I've got something to tell you myself. This is a good place to talk." + +"Why, how serious!" + +"It is serious business--for me," declared the young man. + +"And you're a trifle ungallant," she accused, looking at him from under +lowered lashes. + +"This is no time for gallantry. This is _business_." + +"What business?" she asked, tentatively approaching. + +"The business of living. The business of finding out what's going to +happen to me--to _us_." + +"My goodness!" murmured Janice. "You talk almost like a soothsayer." + +"Come and hear what the astrologer has to say," urged Nelson, yet +without his customary lightness of speech and look. He was still very +serious. + +"I don't know," she said, slowly, hesitating in her approach. "I am +almost afraid of you in this mood. Daddy says when a young man begins to +act like he was really seriously grappling with life, look out for him!" + +"Your father is right. I am not to be trifled with, Miss Janice Day." + +"Why, Nelson! is something really wrong?" she asked him, and came a step +nearer. + +"As far as my future is concerned," said he, quietly, "it seems to be +quite all right." + +"Then the college----?" + +"I have a letter, too," he said, pulling it out of his pocket. + +This bait brought her to him. He thrust the letter into her hand, but he +held onto that hand, too, and she could not easily pull away from him. + +"What--what is it, Nelson?" she asked, looking at him for only a moment, +and then dropping her gaze before his intense look. + +"I've had a committee come to see me and look over my work at the +Polktown School." + +[Illustration: She just _had_ to raise her eyes and look into his +earnest ones. (See page 307.)] + +"Oh, Nelson!" + +"Now the secretary of the college faculty writes me the nicest kind of a +letter. I've made good with them, Janice." + +"I--I'm so glad!" she murmured, eyes still down, and trying ever so +faintly to wriggle her hand out of his. + +Suddenly Nelson Haley caught her other hand, too. He held them firmly +and--for some reason--she just _had_ to raise her eyes and look straight +into his earnest ones. + +"I've made good with them, Janice!" he cried--he almost shouted it. "But +that's nothing--just nothing! The big thing with me now--the reward I +want--is to hear you say that I've won out with you. Is it so, +Janice--have I won out with _you_?" + +The long lashes screened the hazel eyes again. She looked on the one +hand and on the other. There really seemed no escape, this greatly +metamorphosed Nelson Haley was _so_ insistent. + +So she raised her lashes again and looked straight into his eyes. What +she whispered the echo might have heard; and she nodded her head +quickly, several times. + + * * * * * + +They came up through the grassy lane in the gloaming. Mrs. Beasely would +be waiting supper for her boarder; but Nelson scouted the idea that he +should not see Janice home first. + +Lights had begun to twinkle in the sitting-rooms of the various houses +along the street. But there was a moon. Indeed, that was the excuse they +had for remaining so late on the shore of the inlet. They had stopped to +see it rise. + +Through the thick trees the moonlight searched out the side porch of +Hopewell Drugg's store. The plaintive notes of the storekeeper's violin +breathed tenderly out upon the evening air: + + "Darling, I am growing old-- + Silver threads among the gold" + +sighed Janice, happily. "And that is Miss 'Rill beside him there on the +porch--don't you see her?" + +"I see," said Nelson. "Mrs. Beasely is helping 'Rill make her wedding +gown. Little Lottie is going to have a new mamma." + +"And--and Hopewell's been playing that old song to her all these years!" +murmured Janice. "They are just as happy----" + +"Aren't they!" agreed Nelson, with a thrill in his voice. "I hope that +when we're as old as they are, we'll be as happy, too. Do you +suppose----" + +Nobody but Janice heard the rest of his question--not even the echo! + + THE END + + + + +CHARMING BOOKS FOR GIRLS + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list + + +_WHEN PATTY WENT TO COLLEGE_, By Jean Webster. + +Illustrated by C. D. Williams. + +One of the best stories of life in a girl's college that has ever been +written. It is bright, whimsical and entertaining, lifelike, laughable +and thoroughly human. + + +_JUST PATTY_, By Jean Webster. + +Illustrated by C. M. Relyea. + +Patty is full of the joy of living, fun-loving, given to ingenious +mischief for its own sake, with a disregard for pretty convention which +is an unfailing source of joy to her fellows. + + +_THE POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL_, By Eleanor Gates. + +With four full page illustrations. + +This story relates the experience of one of those unfortunate children +whose early days are passed in the companionship of a governess, seldom +seeing either parent, and famishing for natural love and tenderness. A +charming play as dramatized by the author. + + +_REBECCA OF SUNNYBROOK FARM_, By Kate Douglas Wiggin. + +One of the most beautiful studies of childhood--Rebecca's artistic, +unusual and quaintly charming qualities stand out midst a circle of +austere New Englanders. The stage version is making a phenomenal +dramatic record. + + +_NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA_, By Kate Douglas Wiggin. + +Illustrated by F. C. Yohn. + +Additional episodes in the girlhood of this delightful heroine that +carry Rebecca through various stages to her eighteenth birthday. + + +_REBECCA MARY_, By Annie Hamilton Donnell. + +Illustrated by Elizabeth Shippen Green. + +This author possesses the rare gift of portraying all the grotesque +little joys and sorrows and scruples of this very small girl with a +pathos that is peculiarly genuine and appealing. + + +_EMMY LOU_: Her Book and Heart, By George Madden Martin. + +Illustrated by Charles Louis Hinton. + +Emmy Lou is irresistibly lovable, because she is so absolutely real. She +is just a bewitchingly innocent, hugable little maid. The book is +wonderfully human. + +_Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_ + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK + + + + +GROSSET & DUNLAP'S DRAMATIZED NOVELS + +THE KIND THAT ARE MAKING THEATRICAL HISTORY + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list + + +_WITHIN THE LAW._ By Bayard Veiller & Marvin Dana. + +Illustrated by Wm. Charles Cooke. + +This is a novelization of the immensely successful play which ran for +two years in New York and Chicago. + +The plot of this powerful novel is of a young woman's revenge directed +against her employer who allowed her to be sent to prison for three +years on a charge of theft, of which she was innocent. + + +_WHAT HAPPENED TO MARY._ By Robert Carlton Brown. + +Illustrated with scenes from the play. + +This is a narrative of a young and innocent country girl who is suddenly +thrown into the very heart of New York, "the land of her dreams," where +she is exposed to all sorts of temptations and dangers. + +The story of Mary is being told in moving pictures and played in +theatres all over the world. + + +_THE RETURN OF PETER GRIMM._ By David Belasco. + +Illustrated by John Rae. + +This is a novelization of the popular play in which David Warfield, as +Old Peter Grimm, scored such a remarkable success. + +The story is spectacular and extremely pathetic but withal, powerful, +both as a book and as a play. + + +_THE GARDEN OF ALLAH._ By Robert Hichens. + +This novel is an intense, glowing epic of the great desert, sunlit +barbaric, with its marvelous atmosphere of vastness and loneliness. + +It is a book of rapturous beauty, vivid in word painting. The play has +been staged with magnificent cast and gorgeous properties. + + +_BEN HUR._ A Tale of the Christ. By General Lew Wallace. + +The whole world has placed this famous Religious-Historical Romance on a +height of pre-eminence which no other novel of its time has reached. The +clashing of rivalry and the deepest human passions, the perfect +reproduction of brilliant Roman life, and the tense, fierce atmosphere +of the arena have kept their deep fascination. A tremendous dramatic +success. + + +_BOUGHT AND PAID FOR._ By George Broadhurst and Arthur Hornblow. +Illustrated with scenes from the play. + +A stupendous arraignment of modern marriage which has created an +interest on the stage that is almost unparalleled. The scenes are laid +in New York, and deal with conditions among both the rich and poor. + +The interest of the story turns on the day-by-day developments which +show the young wife the price she has paid. + +_Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_ + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK + + + + +STORIES OF RARE CHARM BY GENE STRATTON-PORTER + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset and Dunlap's list. + + +[Illustration] + +_THE HARVESTER._ + +Illustrated by W. L. Jacobs + +"The Harvester," David Langston, is a man of the woods and fields, who +draws his living from the prodigal hand of Mother Nature herself. If the +book had nothing in it but the splendid figure of this man, with his +sure grip on life, his superb optimism, and his almost miraculous +knowledge of nature secrets, it would be notable. But when the Girl +comes to his "Medicine Woods," and the Harvester's whole sound, healthy, +large outdoor being realizes that this is the highest point of life +which has come to him--there begins a romance, troubled and interrupted, +yet of the rarest idyllic quality. + + +_FRECKLES._ Decorations by E. Stetson Crawford + +Freckles is a nameless waif when the tale opens, but the way in which he +takes hold of life; the nature friendships he forms in the great +Limberlost Swamp; the manner in which everyone who meets him succumbs to +the charm of his engaging personality; and his love-story with "The +Angel" are full of real sentiment. + + +_A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST._ + +Illustrated by Wladyslaw T. Brenda. + +The story of a girl of the Michigan woods; a buoyant, lovable type of +the self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and kindness +towards all things; her hope is never dimmed. And by the sheer beauty of +her soul, and the purity of her vision, she wins from barren and +unpromising surroundings those rewards of high courage. + +It is an inspiring story of a life worth while and the rich beauties of +the out-of-doors are strewn through all its pages. + + +_AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW._ + +Illustrations in colors by Oliver Kemp. Design and decorations by Ralph +Fletcher Seymour. + +The scene of this charming, idyllic love story is laid in Central +Indiana. The story is one of devoted friendship, and tender +self-sacrificing love; the friendship that gives freely without return, +and the love that seeks first the happiness of the object. The novel is +brimful of the most beautiful word painting of nature, and its pathos +and tender sentiment will endear it to all. + +_Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_ + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK + + + + +ZANE GREY'S NOVELS + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + + +_THE LIGHT OF WESTERN STARS_ + +Colored frontispiece by W. Herbert Dunton. + +Most of the action of this story takes place near the turbulent Mexican +border of the present day. A New York society girl buys a ranch which +becomes the center of frontier warfare. Her loyal cowboys defend her +property from bandits, and her superintendent rescues her when she is +captured by them. A surprising climax brings the story to a delightful +close. + + +_DESERT GOLD_ + +Illustrated by Douglas Duer. + +Another fascinating story of the Mexican border. Two men, lost in the +desert, discover gold when, overcome by weakness, they can go no +farther. The rest of the story describes the recent uprising along the +border, and ends with the finding of the gold which the two prospectors +had willed to the girl who is the story's heroine. + + +_RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE_ + +Illustrated by Douglas Duer. + +A picturesque romance of Utah of some forty years ago when Mormon +authority ruled. In the persecution of Jane Withersteen, a rich ranch +owner, we are permitted to see the methods employed by the invisible +hand of the Mormon Church to break her will. + + +_THE LAST OF THE PLAINSMEN_ + +Illustrated with photograph reproductions. + +This is the record of a trip which the author took with Buffalo Jones, +known as the preserver of the American bison, across the Arizona desert +and of a hunt in "that wonderful country of yellow crags, deep cañons +and giant pines." It is a fascinating story. + + +_THE HERITAGE OF THE DESERT_ + +Jacket in color. Frontispiece. + +This big human drama is played in the Painted Desert. A lovely girl, who +has been reared among Mormons, learns to love a young New Englander. The +Mormon religion, however, demands that the girl shall become the second +wife of one of the Mormons-- + +Well, that's the problem of this sensational, big selling story. + + +_BETTY ZANE_ + +Illustrated by Louis F. Grant. + +This story tells of the bravery and heroism of Betty, the beautiful +young sister of old Colonel Zane, one of the bravest pioneers. Life +along the frontier, attacks by Indians, Betty's heroic defense of the +beleaguered garrison at Wheeling, the burning of the Fort, and Betty's +final race for life, make up this never-to-be-forgotten story. + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Janice Day, by Helen Beecher Long + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JANICE DAY *** + +***** This file should be named 32312-8.txt or 32312-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/3/1/32312/ + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Josephine Paolucci +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +www.pgdp.net. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Janice Day + +Author: Helen Beecher Long + +Illustrator: Walter S. Rogers + +Release Date: May 10, 2010 [EBook #32312] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JANICE DAY *** + + + + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Josephine Paolucci +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +www.pgdp.net. + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<p><a name="front" id="front"></a></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 428px;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="428" height="650" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 414px;"> +<img src="images/fig002.jpg" width="414" height="650" alt="The quick eye of Janice Day caught sight of this row of +nondescripts. (See page 15.)" title="" /> +<span class="caption">The quick eye of Janice Day caught sight of this row of +nondescripts. (See page 15.)</span> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>JANICE DAY</h2> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>HELEN BEECHER LONG</h2> + +<h4>ILLUSTRATED BY</h4> + +<h2>WALTER S. ROGERS</h2> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 167px;"> +<img src="images/titlepage.jpg" width="167" height="175" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +GROSSET & DUNLAP<br /> +PUBLISHERS :-: NEW YORK<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Copyright</span>, 1914, <span class="smcap">by</span><br /> +<br /> +SULLY AND KLEINTEICH<br /> +<br /> +All rights reserved<br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<p> +CHAPTER <span class="tocnum">PAGE</span><br /> +<br /> +I. <span class="smcap">A New-Fashioned Girl</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_1'>1</a></span><br /> +<br /> +II. <span class="smcap">Poketown</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_10'>10</a></span><br /> +<br /> +III. "<span class="smcap">It Jest Rattles</span>" <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_22'>22</a></span><br /> +<br /> +IV. <span class="smcap">First Impressions</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_32'>32</a></span><br /> +<br /> +V. <span class="smcap">'Rill Scattergood and Her School</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_43'>43</a></span><br /> +<br /> +VI. <span class="smcap">An Afternoon of Adventure</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_56'>56</a></span><br /> +<br /> +VII. <span class="smcap">The Little Girl Who Lost the Echo</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_64'>64</a></span><br /> +<br /> +VIII. <span class="smcap">A Bit of Romance</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_73'>73</a></span><br /> +<br /> +IX. <span class="smcap">Tea, and a Talk with Daddy</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_84'>84</a></span><br /> +<br /> +X. <span class="smcap">Beginning with a Bedstead</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_96'>96</a></span><br /> +<br /> +XI. <span class="smcap">A Rainy Day</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_109'>109</a></span><br /> +<br /> +XII. <span class="smcap">On the Road with Walky Dexter</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_122'>122</a></span><br /> +<br /> +XIII. <span class="smcap">Nelson Haley</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_131'>131</a></span><br /> +<br /> +XIV. <span class="smcap">A Time of Trial</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_139'>139</a></span><br /> +<br /> +XV. <span class="smcap">New Beginnings</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_149'>149</a></span><br /> +<br /> +XVI. <span class="smcap">"Showing" the Elder</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_159'>159</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span>XVII. <span class="smcap">Christmas News</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_173'>173</a></span><br /> +<br /> +XVIII. "<span class="smcap">The Fly-By-Night</span>" <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_184'>184</a></span><br /> +<br /> +XIX. <span class="smcap">Christmas, After All!</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_197'>197</a></span><br /> +<br /> +XX. <span class="smcap">The Trouble with Nelson Haley</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_210'>210</a></span><br /> +<br /> +XXI. <span class="smcap">A Stir of New Life in Poketown</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_217'>217</a></span><br /> +<br /> +XXII. <span class="smcap">At the Sugar Camp</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_226'>226</a></span><br /> +<br /> +XXIII. "<span class="smcap">Do You Mean That?</span>" <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_235'>235</a></span><br /> +<br /> +XXIV. <span class="smcap">The School Dedication</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_241'>241</a></span><br /> +<br /> +XXV. <span class="smcap">Through the Second Winter</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_253'>253</a></span><br /> +<br /> +XXVI. <span class="smcap">Just How It All Began</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_262'>262</a></span><br /> +<br /> +XXVII. <span class="smcap">Poketown in a New Dress</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_271'>271</a></span><br /> +<br /> +XXVIII. <span class="smcap">No Odor of Gasoline!</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_280'>280</a></span><br /> +<br /> +XXIX. <span class="smcap">Janice Day's First Love Letter</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_290'>290</a></span><br /> +<br /> +XXX. <span class="smcap">What the Echo Might Have Heard</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_302'>302</a></span><br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></p> +<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + + +<p> +The quick eye of Janice Day caught sight of this row of nondescripts. (See page 15.) <span class="tocnum"><i><a href="#front">Frontispiece</a></i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span class="tocnum">FACING PAGE</span><br /> +<br /> +The old violin wailed out the tune haltingly <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_72'>72</a></span><br /> +<br /> +God's world <i>did</i> look bigger and greater from The Overlook. (See page 155.) <span class="tocnum"><a href="#Page_154">154</a></span><br /> +<br /> +She just <i>had</i> to raise her eyes and look into his earnest ones. (See page 307.) <span class="tocnum"><a href="#Page_306">306</a></span><br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> +<h2>JANICE DAY</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>A NEW-FASHIONED GIRL</h3> + + +<p>"Well! this is certainly a relief from the stuffy old cars," said Janice +Day, as she reached the upper deck of the lake steamer, dropped her +suitcase, and drew in her first full breath of the pure air.</p> + +<p>"What a beautiful lake!" she went on. "And how big! Why—I had no idea! +I wonder how far Poketown is from here?"</p> + +<p>The ancient sidewheel steamer was small and there were few passengers on +the upper deck, forward. Janice secured a campstool and sat down near +the rail to look off over the water.</p> + +<p>The officious man in the blue cap on the dock had shouted "All aboard!" +the moment the passengers left the cars of the little narrow-gauge +railroad, on which the girl had been riding for more than two hours; but +it was some minutes before the wheezy old steamer got under way.</p> + +<p>Janice was interested in everything she saw—even<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> in the clumsy warping +off of the <i>Constance Colfax</i>, when her hawsers were finally released.</p> + +<p>"Goodness me!" thought the girl, chuckling, "what a ridiculous old tub +it is! How different everything East here is from Greensboro. There! +we're really off!"</p> + +<p>The water hissed and splashed, as the wheels of the steamer began to +turn rheumatically. The walking-beam heaved up and down with many a +painful creak.</p> + +<p>"Why! <i>that</i> place is real pretty—when you look at it from the lake," +murmured Janice, looking back at the little landing. "I wonder if +Poketown will be like it?"</p> + +<p>She looked about her, half tempted to ask a question of somebody. There +was but a single passenger near her—a little, old lady in an +old-fashioned black mantilla with jet trimming, and wearing black lace +half-mitts and a little bonnet that had been so long out of date that it +was almost in the mode again.</p> + +<p>She was seated with her back against the cabin house, and when the +steamer rolled a little the ball of knitting-cotton, which she had taken +out of her deep, bead-bespangled bag, bounced out of her lap and rolled +across the deck almost to the feet of Janice.</p> + +<p>Up the girl jumped and secured the runaway ball, winding the cotton as +she approached the old lady,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> who peered up at her, her head on one side +and her eyes sparkling, like an inquisitive bird.</p> + +<p>"Thank ye, child," she said, briskly. "I ain't as spry as I use ter be, +an' ye done me a favor. I guess I don't know ye, do I?"</p> + +<p>"I don't believe you do, Ma'am," agreed Janice, smiling, and although +she could not be called "pretty" in the sense in which the term is +usually written, when Janice smiled her determined, and rather +intellectual face became very attractive.</p> + +<p>"You don't belong in these parts?" pursued the old lady.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, Ma'am. I come from Greensboro," and the girl named the middle +western state in which her home was situated.</p> + +<p>"Do tell! You come a long distance, don't ye?" exclaimed her +fellow-passenger. "You're one of these new-fashioned gals that travel +alone, an' all that sort o' thing, ain't ye? I reckon your folks has got +plenty of confidence in ye."</p> + +<p>Janice laughed again, and drew her campstool to the old lady's side.</p> + +<p>"I was never fifty miles away from home before," she confessed, "and I +never was away from my father over night until I started East two days +ago."</p> + +<p>"Then ye ain't got no mother, child?"</p> + +<p>"Mother died when I was a very little girl. Father has been everything +to me—just everything!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> and for a moment the bright, young face +clouded and the hazel eyes swam in unshed tears. But she turned quickly +so that her new acquaintance might not see them.</p> + +<p>"Where are you goin', my dear?" asked the old lady, more softly.</p> + +<p>"To Poketown. And oh! I <i>do</i> hope it will be a nice, lively place, for +maybe I'll have to remain there a long time—months and months!"</p> + +<p>"For the land's sake!" exclaimed the old lady, nodding her head briskly +over the knitting needles. "So be I goin' to Poketown."</p> + +<p>"Are you, really?" ejaculated Janice Day, clasping her hands eagerly, +and turning to her new acquaintance. "Isn't that nice! Then you can tell +me just what Poketown is like. I've got to stay there with my uncle +while father is in Mexico——"</p> + +<p>"Who's your uncle, child?" demanded the old lady, quickly. "And who's +your father?"</p> + +<p>Janice naturally answered the last question first, for her heart was +full of her father and her separation from him. "Mr. Broxton Day is my +father, and he used to live in Poketown. But he came away from there a +long, long time ago."</p> + +<p>"Yes? I knowed there was Days in Poketown; but I ain't been there myself +for goin' on twelve year. I lived there a year, or so, arter my man +died, with my darter. She's teached the Poketown school for twenty +year."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh!" cried Janice. "Then you can't really tell me what Poketown is +like—now?"</p> + +<p>"Why, it's quite a town, I b'lieve," said the old lady. "'Rill writes me +thet the <i>ho</i>-tel's jest been painted, and there's a new blacksmith shop +built. You goin' to school there—What did you say your name was?"</p> + +<p>"Janice Day. I don't know whether I shall go to school while I am in +Poketown, or not. If there are a whole lot of nice girls—and a few nice +boys—who go to your daughter's school, I shall certainly want to go, +too," continued Janice, smiling again at the little old lady.</p> + +<p>"Wal, 'Rill Scattergood's teached long enough, <i>I</i> tell her," declared +the other. "I'm goin' to Poketown now more'n half to git her to give up +at the end o' this term. With what she's laid by, and what I've got +left, we could live mighty comfertable together. Who's your uncle, +child?" pursued Mrs. Scattergood, who had not lost sight of her main +inquiry.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Jason Day. He's my father's half brother."</p> + +<p>"Ya-as. I didn't know them Days very well when I lived there. How long +did you say you was goin' to stay in Poketown?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, Ma'am," said Janice, sadly. "Father didn't know how long +he'd be in Mexico——"</p> + +<p>"Good Land o' Goshen!" ejaculated Mrs. Scattergood,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> suddenly, "ain't +that where there's fightin' goin' on right now?"</p> + +<p>"Yes'm. That's why he couldn't take me with him," confessed Janice, +eager to talk with a sympathetic listener. "You see, I guess 'most all +the money we've got is invested in some mine down there. The fighting +came near the mine, and the superintendent ran away and left +everything."</p> + +<p>"Goodness! why wouldn't he?" exclaimed the old lady, knitting faster +than ever in her excitement.</p> + +<p>"But then that made it so my father had to go down there and 'tend to +things," explained Janice.</p> + +<p>"What! right in the middle of the war? Good Land o' Goshen!"</p> + +<p>"There wasn't anybody else <i>to</i> go," said Janice, sadly. "The +stockholders might lose all they put into it. And our money, too. Why! +we had to rent our house furnished. That's why I am coming East to Uncle +Jason's while father is away."</p> + +<p>"Too bad! too bad!" returned the old lady, shaking her head.</p> + +<p>"But you see," Janice hastened to say, with pride, "my father is that +kind of a man. The other folks expected him to take hold of the business +and straighten it out. He—he's always doing such things, you know."</p> + +<p>"I see," agreed Mrs. Scattergood. "He's one o' these 'up an' comin' sort +o' men. And you're his darter!" and she cackled a little, shrill laugh.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> +"I kin see <i>that</i>. You're one o' these new-fashioned gals, all right."</p> + +<p>"I hope I'm like Daddy," said Janice, quietly. "Everybody loves +Daddy—everybody depends on him to go ahead and <i>do</i> things. I hope +Uncle Jason will be like him."</p> + +<p>With the light breeze fluttering the little crinkles of hair between her +hat and her brow, and an expression of bright expectancy upon her face, +Janice was worth looking at a second time. So Mrs. Scattergood thought, +as she glanced up now and again from her knitting.</p> + +<p>"Poketown—Poketown," the girl murmured to herself, trying to spy out +the land ahead as the <i>Constance Colfax</i> floundered on. "Oh! I hope +Daddy's remembrance of it is all wrong now. I hope it will belie its +name."</p> + +<p>"What's that, child?" put in the sharp voice of her neighbor.</p> + +<p>"Why—why—if it <i>is</i> poky I know I shall just die of homesickness for +Greensboro," confessed Janice. "How could the early settlers of these +'New Hampshire Grants' ever <i>dare</i> give such a homely name to a +village?"</p> + +<p>"Pshaw!" ejaculated Mrs. Scattergood. "What's a name? Prob'bly some man +named Poke settled there fust. Or pokeberries grew mighty common there. +People weren't so fanciful about names in them days. Why! my son-in-law +lives<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> right now in a place in York State called 'Skunk's Hollow' and +the city folks that's movin' in there is tryin' to git the post office +to change the name to 'Posy Bloom.' No 'countin' for tastes in names. My +poor mother called <i>me</i> Mahala Ann—an' me too leetle to fight back. But +I made up my mind when I was a mighty leetle gal that if ever I had a +baby I'd call it sumthin' pretty. An' I done the right thing by all my +children.</p> + +<p>"Now here's 'Rill," pursued Mrs. Scattergood, waxing communicative. "Her +full name's Amarilla—Amarilla Scattergood. Don't you think that's purty +yourself, now?"</p> + +<p>Janice politely agreed. But she quickly swung the conversation back to +Poketown.</p> + +<p>"I suppose, if mills had been built there, or the summer boarders had +discovered Poketown, its name would have been changed, too. And you +haven't been up there for twelve years?"</p> + +<p>"No, child. But that ain't long. Ain't much happens in twelve years back +East here."</p> + +<p>Janice sighed again; but suddenly she jumped from her stool excitedly, +crying: "Oh! what place is <i>that</i>?"</p> + +<p>She pointed far ahead. Around a rocky headland the view of a pleasant +cove had just opened. The green and blue-ribbed hills rose behind the +cove; the water lay sparkling in it. There was a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> vividly white church +with a heaven-pointing spire right among the big green trees.</p> + +<p>A brown ribbon of main thoroughfare wound up from the wharf, but was +soon lost under the shade of the great trees that interlaced their +branches above it—branches which were now lush with the late spring +growth of leaves. Here and there a cottage, or larger dwelling, +appeared, most of them originally white like the church, but many shabby +from the action of wind and weather.</p> + +<p>Over all, the warm sun spread a mantle. In the distance this bright +mantle softened the rigid lines of the old-fashioned houses, and of the +ledges and buttresses of the hills themselves.</p> + +<p>Old Mrs. Scattergood stood up, too, looking through her steel-bowed +glasses.</p> + +<p>"I declare for't!" she said, "that's Poketown itself! That's the spire +of the Union Church you see. We'll git there in an hour."</p> + +<p>Janice did not sit down again just then, nor did she reply. She rested +both trimly-gloved hands on the rail and gazed upon the scene.</p> + +<p>"Why, it's beautiful!" she breathed at last "And <i>that</i> is Poketown!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>POKETOWN</h3> + + +<p>Some ancient dwellings have the dignity of "homestead" resting upon them +like a benediction; others are aureoled by the name of "manor." The +original Day in Poketown had built a shingled, gable-ended cottage upon +the side-hill which had now, for numberless years, been called "the old +Day house"—nothing more.</p> + +<p>"Jason! You Jase! I'd give a cent if you'd mend this pump," complained +Mrs. Almira Day. "Go git me a pail of water from Mis' Dickerson's and +ask how's her rhoumatism this mawnin'. Come on, now! I can't wash the +breakfas' dishes till I hev some water."</p> + +<p>The grizzled, lanky man who had been sitting comfortably on a bench in +the sun, sucking on a corncob pipe and gazing off across the lake, never +even turned his head as he asked:</p> + +<p>"Where's Marty?"</p> + +<p>"The goodness only knows! Ye know he ain't never here when ye want him."</p> + +<p>"Why didn't ye tell him about the water at breakfas' time?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Would <i>that</i> have done any good?" demanded Mrs. Day, with some scorn. +"Ye know Marty's got too big to take orders from his marm. He don't do +nothin' but hang about Josiah Pringle's harness shop all day."</p> + +<p>"I told him to hoe them 'taters," said Mr. Day, thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>"Well, he don't seem ter take orders from his dad, neither. Don't know +what that boy's comin' to," and a whine crept into Mrs. Day's voice. "He +can't git along with 'Rill Scattergood, so he won't go to school. His +fingers is gettin' all stained yaller from suthin'—d'you 'xpect it's +them cigarettes, Jase?"</p> + +<p>Her husband was rising slowly to his feet. "Gimme the pail," he grunted, +without replying to her last question. "I'll git the water for ye this +onc't. But that's Marty's job an' he's got to l'arn it, too!"</p> + +<p>"Here, Jase! take two pails," urged Mrs. Day. "An' I wish you <i>would</i> +git Pringle to cut ye a new pump-leather."</p> + +<p>But Mr. Day ignored the second pail. "I don't feel right peart to-day," +he said, shambling off down the path. "And there's a deal of heft to a +pail of water—uphill, too. An' by-me-by I got ter go down to the dock, +I s'pose, when the boat comes in, to meet Broxton's gal. I 'xpect +<i>she'll</i> be a great nuisance, 'Mira."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I'll stand her bein' some nuisance if you give me the twenty dollars a +month your brother wrote that he'd send for her board and keep," snapped +Mrs. Day. "You understand, Jase. That money's comin' to <i>me</i>, or I don't +scrub and slave for no relation of yourn. Remember that!"</p> + +<p>Jason shuffled on as though he had not heard her. That was the most +exasperating trait of this lazy man—so his wife thought; he was too +lazy to quarrel.</p> + +<p>He went out at the gate, which hung by one hinge to the gatepost, into +the untidy back lane upon which one end of his rocky little farm +abutted. Had he glanced back at the premises he would have seen a +weed-grown, untidy yard surrounding the old house, with decrepit stables +and other outbuildings in the rear, a garden which was almost a jungle +now, although in the earlier spring it had given much promise of a +summer harvest of vegetables. Poorly tilled fields behind the front +premises terraced up the timber-capped hill.</p> + +<p>Jason Day always "calkerlated ter farm it" each year, and he started in +good season, too. The soil was rich and most of his small fields were +warm and early; but somehow his plans always fell through before the +season was far advanced. So neither the farm nor the immediate premises +of the old Day house were attractive.</p> + +<p>The house itself looked like a withered and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> gnarly apple left hanging +upon the tree from the year before. In its forlorn nakedness it actually +cried out for a coat of paint. Each individual shingle was curled and +cracked. Only the superior workmanship of a former time kept the Day +roof tight and defended the family from storms.</p> + +<p>Some hours later the <i>Constance Colfax</i> came into view around a distant +point in the lake shore. Mr. Day had camped upon the identical bench +again and was still sucking at the stem of his corncob pipe.</p> + +<p>"Wal," he groaned, "I 'xpect I've got to go down to meet that gal of +Broxton's. And the sun's mighty hot this mawnin'."</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't feel it so, if ye hadn't been too 'tarnal lazy to change +yer seat," sniffed his wife. "Now, you mind, Jase! That board money +comes to me, or you can take Broxton's gal to the <i>ho</i>-tel."</p> + +<p>Mr. Day shambled out of the front gate without making reply.</p> + +<p>"Drat the man!" muttered his wife. "If I could jes' git a rise out o' +him onc't——"</p> + +<p>It was not far to the dock. Indeed, Poketown was so compactly built on +the steep hillside that there was scarcely a house within its borders +from which a boy could not have tossed a pebble into the waters of the +cove. Jason strolled along in the shade, passing the time of day with +such neighbors as were equally disengaged, and spreading the news of his +niece's expected arrival.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p> + +<p>As he passed along the lane which later debouched upon the main +thoroughfare of Poketown, it was evident to the most casual glance that +the old Day house was not the only dwelling far along in a state of +decay. Poketown was full of such.</p> + +<p>On the street leading directly to the dock there were several +well-cared-for estates—some of them wedged in between blocks of +two-story frame buildings, the first floors of which were occupied by +stores of various kinds. The post office had a building to itself. The +Lake View Inn was not unattractive, its side piazza overlooking the cove +and the lake spread beyond.</p> + +<p>But the rutty, dusty road showed that it had been rutty and muddy in the +earlier spring. The flagstones of the sidewalks were broken, and the +walks themselves ill kept. The gutters were overgrown with grass and +weeds. Before the shops the undefended tree trunks were gnawed into +grotesque patterns by the farmers' hungry beasts. Hardware was at a +premium in Poketown, for a dozen gates along the line were hung with +leather hinges, and bits of rope had taken the places of the original +latches.</p> + +<p>From the water, however, even on closer view, the hillside village made +a pretty picture. Near the wharf it was not so romantic, as Janice Day +realized, when the coughing, wheezy steamboat came close in.</p> + +<p>There were decrepit boats drawn up on the narrow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> beach; there were +several decaying shacks bordering on the dock itself; and along the +stringpiece of the wharf roosted a row of "humans" that were the +opposite of ornamental. The quick eye of Janice Day caught sight of this +row of nondescripts.</p> + +<p>"Goodness me, Mrs. Scattergood!" she exclaimed, turning to the old lady +who had been in receipt of her confidences. "Is the almshouse near +Poketown?"</p> + +<p>"There's a poorfarm, child; but there ain't nobody on it but a few old +folks an' some orphans. We ain't poor here—not pauper poor. But, +goodness me! you mean them men a-settin' there? Why, they ain't +poor—no, no, child. I don't suppose there's a man there that don't own +his own house. There's Mel Parraday, who owns the <i>ho</i>-tel; and Lem +Pinney that owns stock in this very steamboat comp'ny; and Walkworthy +Dexter—Walky's done expressin' and stage-drivin' since before my 'Rill +come here to Poketown to teach."</p> + +<p>"But—but they look so ragged and unshaven," gasped Janice.</p> + +<p>"Pshaw! they ain't proud, I reckon," cackled the old lady, gathering up +her knitting and dropping it into the beaded bag, which she shut with a +snap.</p> + +<p>"But isn't there anybody proud <i>of</i> them?" queried Janice. "Haven't they +mothers—or wives—or sisters?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p> + +<p>The old lady stared at her. Then she made a sudden clicking in her +throat that might have been a chuckle. "I declare for't, child!" she +ejaculated. "I dunno as many of us in these parts <i>air</i> proud of our men +folks."</p> + +<p>Just then the steamboat's bow bumped the wharf. The jar scarcely seemed +to awaken the languid line of Poketownites ranged along the other side. +The only busy person in sight was the employee of the steamboat company +who caught the loop of the hawser thrown him, and dropped it over a +pile. The rest of the men just raised their heads and stared, chewing +reflectively on either tobacco or straws, until the plank was dropped +and the deckhands began trundling the freight and baggage ashore.</p> + +<p>There were two or three commercial drummers beside Mrs. Scattergood and +Janice, who disembarked on this dock. Mrs. Scattergood bade the girl +from the West a brisk good-bye and went directly up the dock, evidently +expecting nobody to meet her at this time of day. A lanky man, with +grizzled brows and untrimmed beard, got up slowly from the stringpiece +of the wharf and slouched forward to meet Janice Day.</p> + +<p>"I reckon you be Broxton's gal, eh?" he queried, his eyes twinkling not +unkindly. "Ye sort er favor him—an' he favored his mother in more ways +than one. You're Janice Day?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, yes indeed! And you're my Uncle Jason?" cried the girl, impulsively +seizing Mr. Day's hand. There was nothing about this man that at all +reminded Janice of her father; yet the thought of their really being so +closely related to each other was comforting. "I'm so glad to see you," +she continued. "I hope you'll like me, Uncle Jason—and I hope Aunt +Almira will like me. And there is a cousin, too, isn't there—a boy? +Dear me! I've been looking forward to meeting you all ever since I left +Greensboro, and been wondering what sort of people you would be."</p> + +<p>"Wal," drawled Uncle Jason, rather staggered by the way Janice "ran on," +"we reckon on makin' ye comferble. Looks like we'd have ye with us some +spell, too. Broxton writ me that he didn't know how long he'd be +gone—down there in Mexico."</p> + +<p>"No. Poor Daddy couldn't tell. The business must be 'tended to, I +s'pose——"</p> + +<p>"Right crazy of him to go there," grunted Uncle Jason. "May git shot any +minute. Ain't <i>no</i> money wuth that, I don't believe."</p> + +<p>This rather tactless speech made the girl suddenly look grave; but it +did not quench her vivacity. She was staring about the dock, interested +in everything she saw, when Uncle Jason drawled:</p> + +<p>"I s'pose ye got a trunk, Janice?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, yes. Here is the check," and she began to skirmish in her purse.</p> + +<p>"Wal! there ain't no hurry. Marty'll come down by-me-by with the +wheelbarrer and git it for ye."</p> + +<p>"But my goodness!" exclaimed the girl from Greensboro. "I haven't +anything fit to put on in this bag; everything got rumpled so aboard the +train. I'll want to change just as soon as I get to the house, Uncle."</p> + +<p>"Wal!" Uncle Jason was staggered. He had given up thinking quickly years +before. This was an emergency that floored him.</p> + +<p>"Why! isn't that the expressman there? And can't he take my trunk right +up to the house?" continued the girl.</p> + +<p>"Ya-as; that's Walky Dexter," admitted Mr. Day.</p> + +<p>A stout, red-faced man was backing a raw-boned nag in front of a farm +wagon, down upon the wharf and toward a little heap of baggage that had +been run ashore from the lower deck of the <i>Constance Colfax</i>. Janice, +still lugging her suitcase, shot up the dock toward the expressman, +leaving Jason, slack-jawed and well-nigh breathless.</p> + +<p>"Jefers-pelters! What a flyaway critter she is!" the man muttered. "I +don't see whatever we're a-goin' to do with <i>her</i>."</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Janice got Mr. Dexter's attention immediately. "There's my +trunk right there, Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> Dexter," she cried. "And here's the check. You +see it—the brown trunk with the brass corners?"</p> + +<p>"I see it, Miss. All right. I'll git it up to Jason's some time this +arternoon."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Dexter!" she cried, shaking her head at him, but smiling, too. +"That will not do at all! I want to unpack it at once. I need some of +the things in it, for I've been traveling two days. Can't you take it on +your first load?"</p> + +<p>"Wa-al—I might," confessed Dexter, looking her over with a quizzical +smile. "But us'ally the Days ain't in no hurry."</p> + +<p>"Then this is one Day who <i>is</i> in a hurry," she said, briefly. "What is +your charge for delivering the trunk, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—'bout a quarter, Miss. And gimme that suitcase, too. 'Twon't cost +ye no more, and I'll git 'em there before Jason and you reach the house. +Poketown is a purty slow old place, Miss," the man added, with a wink +and a chuckle, "but I kin see the <i>days</i> are going to move faster, now +you have arove in town. Don't you fear; your trunk'll be there—'nless +Josephus, here, busts a leg!"</p> + +<p>Quite stunned, Uncle Jason had not moved from his tracks. "Now we're all +right, sir," said the girl, cheerily, taking his arm and by her very +touch seeming to galvanize a little life into his scarecrow figure. +"Shall we go home?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Eh? Wal! Ef ye say so, Janice," replied Mr. Day, weakly.</p> + +<p>They started up the main street of Poketown, Janice accommodating her +step to that of her uncle. Mr. Day was not one given to idle chatter; +but the girl did not notice his silence in her interest in all she saw.</p> + +<p>It was a beautiful, shady way, with the hill not too steep for comfort. +And some of the dwellings set in the midst of their terraced old lawns, +were so beautiful! It was the beauty of age, however; there did not seem +to be a single <i>new</i> thing in Poketown.</p> + +<p>Even the scant display of goods in the shop windows had lain there until +they were dust-covered, sun-burned, and flyspecked. The signs over the +store doors were tarnished.</p> + +<p>They came to the lane that led up the hill away from High Street, and on +which Uncle Jason said he lived. An almost illegible sign at the corner +announced it to be "Hillside Avenue." There were not two fences abutting +upon the lane that were set in line, while the sidewalks were narrow or +broad, according to the taste of the several owners of property along +the way.</p> + +<p>The beautiful old trees were everywhere, however; only some of them +needed trimming badly, and many overhung the roofs, their dripping +branches having rotted the shingles and given life to great patches of +green moss. There was a sogginess<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> to the grass-grown yards that seemed +unhealthful. There were several, picturesque, old wells, with massive +sweeps and oaken buckets—quaint breeders of typhoid germs—which showed +that the physicians of Poketown had not properly educated their patients +to modern sanitary ideas.</p> + +<p>Altogether the village in which her father had been born and bred was a +dead-and-alive, do-nothing place, and its beauty, for Janice Day, faded +before she was halfway up the hill to her uncle's house.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>"IT JEST RATTLES"</h3> + + +<p>Almira Day was a good-hearted woman. It was not in her to treat her +husband's niece otherwise than kindly, despite her threat to the +contrary when Jason left the old Day house to meet Janice at the +steamboat dock.</p> + +<p>She stood smiling in the doorway—a large, pink, lymphatic woman, as +shapeless as a half-filled meal-sack with a string tied around its +middle, quite as untidy as her husband in dress, but with clean skin and +a wholesome look.</p> + +<p>Her calico dress was faded and, in places, strained to the +bursting-point, showing that it was "store-bought" and had never been +fitted to Mrs. Day's bulbous figure. She wore a pair of men's slippers +very much down at the heel, and pink stockings with a gaping hole in the +seam at the back of one, which Janice very plainly saw as her aunt +preceded her upstairs to the room the visitor was to occupy.</p> + +<p>"I hope ye won't mind how things look,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> drawled Aunt 'Mira. "We ain't +as up-an'-comin' as some, I do suppose. But nothin' ain't gone well with +Jason late years, an' he's got some mis'ry that he can't git rid of, +so's he can't work stiddy. Look out for this nex' ter the top step. The +tread's broke an' I been expectin' ter be throwed from top to bottom of +these stairs for weeks."</p> + +<p>"Can't Uncle Jason fix it?" asked Janice, stepping over the broken +tread.</p> + +<p>"Wal, he ain't exactly got 'round to it yet," confessed her aunt. +"There! I do hope you like your room, Niece Janice. There's a pretty +outlook from the winder."</p> + +<p>True enough, the window overlooked the hillside and the lake. Only, had +the panes been washed one could have viewed the landscape and the water +so much better!</p> + +<p>The room itself was the shabbiest bedchamber Janice Day had ever seen. +The carpet on the floor had, generations before, been one of those +flowery axminsters that country people used to buy for their "poller." +Then they would pull all the shades down and shut the room tightly, for +otherwise the pink roses faded completely out of the design.</p> + +<p>This old carpet had long since been through <i>that</i> stage of existence, +however, and was now worn to the warp in spots, its design being visible +only because of the ingrained grime which years of trampling had brought +to it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span></p> + +<p>The paper on the walls was faded and stained. Empty places where +pictures had hung for years, showed in contrast to the more faded barren +districts. A framed copy of the Declaration of Independence ornamented +the space above the mantel. Hanging above the bed's head were those two +famous chromos of "Good-Morning" and "Good-Night." A moth-eaten worsted +motto and cross, "The Rock of Ages," hung above the little bureau glass. +There was, too, a torn and faded slipper for matches, and a tall glass +lamp that, for some reason, reminded Janice of a skeleton. She could +never look at that lamp thereafter without expecting the oil tank to +become a grinning skull with a tall fool's cap (the chimney) on it, and +its thin body to sprout bony arms and legs.</p> + +<p>The furniture was decrepit and ill matched. Janice could have overlooked +the shaky chair, the toppling bureau, and the scratched washstand; but +the bed with only three legs, and a soap-box under the fourth corner, +<i>did</i> bring a question to the guest's lips:</p> + +<p>"Where is the other leg, Aunty?"</p> + +<p>"Now, I declare for't!" exclaimed Mrs. Day. "That <i>is</i> too bad! The +leg's up on the closet shelf here. Jase was calkerlatin' to put it on +again, but he ain't never got 'round to it. But the box'll hold yer. It +only rattles," she added, as Janice tried the security of the bedstead.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> + +<p>That expression, "it only rattles," the girl from Greensboro was +destined to hear unnumbered times in her uncle's home. It was typical of +the old Day house and its inmates. Unless a repair absolutely <i>must</i> be +made, Uncle Jason would not take a tool in his hand.</p> + +<p>As for her Cousin Martin ("Marty" everybody called the gangling, +grinning, idle ne'er-do-well of fourteen), Janice was inclined to be +utterly hopeless about him from the start. If he was a specimen of the +Poketown boys, she told herself, she had no desire to meet any of them.</p> + +<p>"What do you do with yourself all day long, Marty, if you don't go to +school?" she asked her cousin, at the dinner table.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I hang around—like everybody else. Ain't nothin' doin' in +Poketown."</p> + +<p>"I should think it would be more fun to go to school."</p> + +<p>"Not ter 'Rill Scattergood," rejoined the boy, in haste. "That old maid +dunno enough to teach a cow."</p> + +<p>Janice might have thought a cow much more difficult to teach than a boy; +only she looked again into Marty's face, which plainly advertised the +vacancy of his mind, and thought better of the speech that had risen to +her lips.</p> + +<p>"Marty won't go to school no more," her aunt complained, whiningly. +"'Rill Scattergood ain't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> got no way with him. Th' committee's been +talkin' about gittin' another teacher for years; but 'Rill's sorter +<i>sot</i> there, she's had the place so long."</p> + +<p>"There's more than a month of school yet—before the summer +vacation—isn't there?" queried Janice.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," sighed Mrs. Day.</p> + +<p>"I'd love to go and get acquainted with the girls," the guest said, +brightly. "Wouldn't you go with me some afternoon and introduce me to +the teacher, Marty?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Me?</i> Ter 'Rill Scattergood? Naw!" declared the amazed Marty. "I sh'd +say not!"</p> + +<p>"Why, Marty!" exclaimed his mother. "That ain't perlite."</p> + +<p>"Who said 'twas?" returned her hopeful son, shortly. "I ain't tryin' ter +be perlite ter no <i>girl</i>. And I ain't goin' ter 'Rill Scattergood's +school—never, no more!"</p> + +<p>"Young man," commanded his father, angrily, "you hold that tongue o' +yourn. And you be perlite to your cousin, or I'll dance the dust out o' +your jacket with a hick'ry sprout, big as ye be."</p> + +<p>Janice hastened to change the subject and tune the conversation to a +more pleasant key.</p> + +<p>"It is so pretty all over this hillside," she said. "Around Greensboro +the country is flat. I think the hills are much more beautiful. And the +lake is just <i>dear</i>."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Ya-as," sighed her aunt. "Artis' folks come here an' paint this lake. I +reckon it's purty; but ye sort er git used ter it after a while."</p> + +<p>It was evidently hard for Aunt 'Mira to enthuse over anything. Marty +volunteered:</p> + +<p>"We got a waterfall on our place. Folks call it the Shower Bath. Guess a +girl would think 'twas pretty."</p> + +<p>"Oh! I'd love to see that," declared Janice, quickly.</p> + +<p>"I'll show it to you after dinner," said Marty, of a sudden surprisingly +friendly.</p> + +<p>"You'll hoe them 'taters after dinner," cried his father, sharply. +"That's what <i>you'll</i> do."</p> + +<p>"Huh!" growled the sullen youth. "Yer said I was to be perlite, an' when +I start in ter be, you spring them old pertaters on a feller. Huh!"</p> + +<p>"Aw, now, Jason," interposed his mother. "Can't Marty show his cousin +over the farm and hoe the 'taters afterward?"</p> + +<p>"No, he can't!" denied Master Marty, quickly. "I ain't goin' ter work +double for nobody. Now, that's flat!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, we can go to the Shower Bath some other time," suggested Janice, +apprehensive of starting another family squabble. "I don't know as I'd +be able to hoe potatoes; but maybe there are other things I can do in +the garden. I always had a big flower garden at home."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Huh!" grunted Marty. "Flowers are only a nuisance."</p> + +<p>"I s'pose you could weed some," sighed Aunt 'Mira. "It hurts me so to +stoop."</p> + +<p>"She'd better pick 'tater bugs," said Marty, grinning. "They've begun to +come, I reckon. Hard-shells, anyway."</p> + +<p>Janice could not resist shivering at this suggestion. She did not love +insects any better than do most girls. But she took Marty's suggestion +in good part.</p> + +<p>"You wait," she said. "Maybe I can do that, too. I'll weed a little, +anyway. Have you a large farm, Uncle Jason?"</p> + +<p>"It's big enough, Janice," grumbled Jason. "Does seem as though—most +years—it's too big for us to manage. If Marty, here, warn't so +triflin'——"</p> + +<p>"I don't see no medals on <i>you</i> for workin' hard," whispered the boy, +loud enough for Janice to hear.</p> + +<p>"This was a right good farm, onc't," said Aunt 'Mira. "B'fore Jason got +his mis'ry we use ter have good crops. That's when we was fust married."</p> + +<p>"But that's what broke my health all down," interposed Uncle Jason. +"Don't pay a man to work so hard when he's young. He has ter suffer for +it in the end."</p> + +<p>"Huh!" grunted Marty. "If it wasn't good for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> <i>you</i> to work so hard when +you was young, what about <i>me</i>?"</p> + +<p>"You git along out o' here an' start on them 'taters!" commanded Mr. +Day, angrily.</p> + +<p>Marty slid out, muttering under his breath. Janice jumped up from the +table, saying cheerfully: "I'll help you with the dishes, Aunty. Let's +clear off."</p> + +<p>Her uncle had risen and was feeling for his corncob pipe on the ledge +above the door. Mrs. Day looked a bit startled when she saw Janice begin +briskly to collect the soiled dishes.</p> + +<p>"I dunno, Janice," she hesitated. "I gin'rally feel right po'ly after +dinner, and I'm use ter takin' forty winks."</p> + +<p>Janice did not wonder that her aunt felt "right po'ly." She had eaten +more pork, potatoes, spring cabbage and fresh bread than would have +served a hearty man.</p> + +<p>"Let's get rid of the dishes first, Aunty," said Janice, cheerfully "You +can get your nap afterward."</p> + +<p>"Wa-al," agreed Mrs. Day, slowly rising. "I dunno's there's water enough +to more'n give 'em a lick and a promise. Marty! Oh, you Marty! Come, go +for a pail of water, will ye? That's a good boy."</p> + +<p>"Now, ye know well enough," snarled Jason's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> voice just outside the +door, "that that boy ain't in earshot now."</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>I</i> can get a pail of water from the pump, Aunty," said Janice, +briskly starting for the porch.</p> + +<p>"But that pump ain't goin'," declared Mrs. Day. "An' no knowin' when +'twill be goin'. We have ter lug all our water from Dickerson's."</p> + +<p>"Oh, gimme the bucket!" snapped Uncle Jason, putting his great, hairy +hand inside the door and snatching the water-pail from the shelf. +"Wimmen-folks is allus a-clatterin' about suthin'!"</p> + +<p>Janice had never imagined people just like these relatives of hers. She +was both ashamed and amused,—ashamed of their ill-breeding and amused +by their useless bickering.</p> + +<p>"Wa-al," said her aunt, yawning and lowering herself upon the kitchen +couch, the springs of which squeaked complainingly under her weight, +"Wa-al, 'tain't scurcely wuth doin' the dishes <i>now</i>. Jason'll stop and +gab 'ith some one. It takes him ferever an' a day ter git a pail o' +water. You go on about your play, Niece Janice. I'll git 'em done erlone +somehow, by-me-by."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Day closed her eyes while she was still speaking. She was evidently +glad to relax into her old custom again.</p> + +<p>Janice took down her aunt's sunbonnet from the nail by the side door and +went out. Amusement had given place in the girl's mind to something +like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> actual shrinking from these relatives and their ways. The porch +boards gave under even her weight. Some of them were broken. The steps +were decrepit, too. The pump handle was tied down, she found, when she +put a tentative hand upon it.</p> + +<p>"'It jest rattles,'" quoted Janice; but no laugh followed the sigh which +was likewise her involuntary comment upon the situation.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>FIRST IMPRESSIONS</h3> + + +<p>There was a long, well-shaded yard behind the house, bordered on the +upper hand by the palings of the garden fence. Had this fence not been +so overgrown by vines, wandering hens could have gone in and out of the +garden at pleasure.</p> + +<p>Robins were whisking in and out of the tops of the trees, quarreling +over the first of the cherry crop. Janice heard Marty's hoe and she +opened the garden gate. About half of this good-sized patch was given +over to the "'tater" crop; the remainder of the garden seemed—to the +casual glance—merely a wilderness of weeds. There may have been rows of +vegetable seeds planted there in the beginning; but now it was a perfect +mat of green things that have no commercial value—to say the least.</p> + +<p>Marty was about halfway down the first row of potatoes. He was cleaning +the row pretty well, and the weeds were wilting in the sun; but the rows +were as crooked as a snake's path.</p> + +<p>"Hullo!" said the boy, willing to stop and lean on the hoe handle. +"Don't you want to help?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I don't believe I could hoe, Marty," said Janice, doubtfully.</p> + +<p>"If you'd been a boy cousin, I wouldn't have minded," grunted Marty. "He +and me could have had some fun."</p> + +<p>"Don't you think <i>I</i> can be any fun?" demanded Janice, rather amused by +the frankness of the youth.</p> + +<p>"Never saw a gal that was," responded Marty. "Always in the way. Marm +says I got to be perlite to 'em——"</p> + +<p>"And is that such a cross?"</p> + +<p>"Don't know anything about no cross," growled Marty; "but a boy cousin +that I could lick would ha' been a whole lot more to my mind."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Marty! we're not going to quarrel."</p> + +<p>"I dunno whether we are or not," returned the pessimistic youth. "Wait +till there's only one piece o' pie left at dinner some day. You'll have +ter have it. Marm'll say so. But if you was a boy—an' I could lick +ye—ye wouldn't dare take it. D'ye see?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not so awfully fond of pie," admitted Janice. "And I wouldn't let a +piece stand in the way of our being good friends."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well; we'll see," said Marty, grudgingly. "But ye can't hoe, ye +say?"</p> + +<p>"I don't believe so. I'd cut off more potato plants than weeds, maybe. +Can't you cultivate your potatoes with a horse cultivator? I see the +farmers doing that around Greensboro. It's lots quicker."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, we got a horse-hoe," said Marty, without interest. "But it got +broke an' Dad ain't fixed it yet. B'sides, ye couldn't use it 'twixt +these rows. They're too crooked. But then—as the feller said—there's +more plants in a crooked row."</p> + +<p>"What's all that?" demanded Janice, waving a hand toward the other half +of the garden.</p> + +<p>"Weeds—mostly. Right there's carrots. Marm always <i>will</i> plant carrots +ev'ry spring; but they git lost so easy in the weeds."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> know carrots," cried Janice, brightly. "Let me weed 'em," and she +dropped on her knees at the beginning of the rows.</p> + +<p>"Help yourself!" returned Marty, plying the hoe. "But it looks to me as +though them carrots had just about fainted."</p> + +<p>It looked so to Janice, too, when she managed to find the tender little +plants which, coming up thickly enough in the row, now looked as livid +as though grown in a cellar. The rank weeds were keeping all the sun and +air from them.</p> + +<p>"I can find them, just the same," she confided to Marty, when he came +back up the next row. "And I'd better thin them, too, as I go along, +hadn't I?"</p> + +<p>"Help yourself," repeated the boy. "But pickin' 'tater bugs wouldn't be +as bad as <i>that</i>, to my mind."</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Every one to his fancy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And me to my Nancy.'<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></div></div> + +<p>as the old woman said when she kissed her cow," quoted Janice, laughing. +"You can have the bugs, Marty."</p> + +<p>"Somebody'll have to git 'em pretty soon, or the bugs'll have the +'taters," declared her cousin. "Say! you'd ought to have somethin' +besides your fingers ter scratch around them plants."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and a pair of old gloves, Marty," agreed Janice, ruefully.</p> + +<p>"Huh! Ain't that a girl all over? Allus have ter be waited on. I wisht +you'd been a boy cousin—I jest <i>do</i>! Then we'd git these 'taters done +'fore night."</p> + +<p>"And how about getting the carrots weeded, Marty?" she returned, +laughing at him.</p> + +<p>Marty grunted. But when he finished the second row he threw down his hoe +and disappeared through the garden gate. Janice wondered if he had +deserted her—and the potatoes—for the afternoon; but by and by he +returned, bringing a little three-fingered hand-weeder, and tossed on +the ground beside her a pair of old kid gloves—evidently his mother's.</p> + +<p>"Oh, thank you, Marty!" cried Janice. "I don't mind working, but I hated +to tear my fingers all to pieces."</p> + +<p>"Huh!" grunted Marty. "Ain't that jest like a girl?"</p> + +<p>Grudgingly, however, as his interest in Janice was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> shown, the girl +appreciated the fact that Marty was warming toward her. Intermittently, +as he plodded up and down the potato rows, they conversed and became +better acquainted.</p> + +<p>"Daddy has a friend who owns a farm outside of Greensboro, and I loved +to go out there," Janice ventured. "I always said I'd love to live on a +farm."</p> + +<p>"Huh!" came Marty's usual explosive grunt. "You'll git mighty tired of +livin' on <i>this</i> one—I bet you!"</p> + +<p>"Why should I? You've got horses, and cows, and chickens, and—and all +that—haven't you?"</p> + +<p>"Well, we've got a pair of nags that you can plow with. But they ain't +fit for driving. Jim Courteval, who lives up the road a piece, now +<i>he's</i> got some hossflesh wuth owning. But our old crowbaits ain't +nothing."</p> + +<p>"Don't you love to take care of them—and brush them—and all that?" +cried the girl, eagerly.</p> + +<p>"Not much I don't! I reckon if old Sam and Lightfoot felt a currycomb +once more they'd have a fit. And you ought to see our cow! Gee! Dad +tried to trade her the other day for a stack of fodder, and the man +wouldn't have her. He'll have ter trade her off 'sight unseen' if he +ever gits rid of her. Ye see, we never <i>do</i> raise feed enough, an' she +certainly come through the winter in bad shape; an'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> our paster fence is +down in places so we can't let her get the grass."</p> + +<p>"Why, the poor creature!" murmured Janice. "Why don't you mend the +fence, Marty, so the cow can feed in the pasture?"</p> + +<p>"Me? Huh! I guess not," snarled Marty, starting down the potato row +again. "Let the old man do it."</p> + +<p>It was not long after this that Marty got tired of hoeing and threw down +the implement altogether, to seek the shadow of the cherry tree in the +fence corner.</p> + +<p>"Why don't ye quit?" he asked Janice. "You're getting all hot and mucky. +And for what? Them things will only have ter be weeded again."</p> + +<p>Janice laughed. "I'll keep them clean as far as I can go. I won't let a +lot of old weeds beat <i>me</i>."</p> + +<p>"Huh! what's the odds?"</p> + +<p>"Why, Marty!" she cried. "Don't you like to see 'a good task well +done?'"</p> + +<p>"Ya-as,—by somebody else," grinned that young hopeful. "Come on an' sit +down, Janice."</p> + +<p>"Haven't got time," laughed his cousin.</p> + +<p>"Pshaw! 'Time was made for slaves'—that's what Walky Dexter says. Say! +let's go up to see the Shower Bath."</p> + +<p>"How about the potatoes?"</p> + +<p>"Shucks! I've done a good stint, ain't I? Dad can't expect me to work +all the time. An' I bet he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> ain't doin' a livin' thing himself but +settin' down talkin' somewhere."</p> + +<p>Janice, though shaking her head silently, thought this was more than +likely to be true. And Marty would not leave her in peace; so she was +willing to desert the carrot patch. But she had cleaned up quite a piece +of the bed and was proud of it.</p> + +<p>Marty sauntered along by her side as they passed through the barnyard +and paddock. It was plain that what Marty had said about currying the +horses was quite true. The beasts' winter coats still clung to them in +rags. And the poor cow!</p> + +<p>A couple of lean shoats squealed in a pen.</p> + +<p>"What makes them so noisy, Marty?" asked his cousin.</p> + +<p>"I guess they're thirsty. Always squealin' about sumthin'—hogs is. More +nuisance than they're worth."</p> + +<p>"But—I s'pose if <i>you</i> wanted water, you'd squeal?" suggested Janice.</p> + +<p>"Huh! smart, ain't ye?" growled Marty. "I'd go down ter Dickerson's an' +git a drink. So'll them shoats if Dad don't mend that pen pretty soon."</p> + +<p>It was no use to suggest that Marty might make the needed repairs; so +Janice made no further comment. The trail of shiftlessness was over +everything. Fences were down, doors flapped on single hinges, roofs were +caved in, heaps of rubbish lay in corners, here and there broken and +rusted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> farm implements stood where they had last been used. Neglect and +Decay had marked the Day farm for their own.</p> + +<p>The fields were plowed for corn and partly worked up with the harrow. +But nothing further had been done for several days past, and already the +weeds were sprouting.</p> + +<p>Most of the fences were of stone; but the pasture fence was of three +strands of wire, and with a hammer and staples a good deal might have +been done for it in a few brisk hours.</p> + +<p>"Aw, what's the use?" demanded Marty. "It'd only be down again in a +little while."</p> + +<p>"But the poor cow——"</p> + +<p>"Shucks! She's gone dry long ago. An' I'm glad of it, for Dad made me +milk her."</p> + +<p>The climb through the pasture and the woodlot above it, however, was +pleasant, and when Janice heard the falling water she was delighted. +This was so different from the prairie country to which she was used +that she must needs express her appreciation of its loveliness again and +again.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," grunted Marty. "But these rocky old farms are mighty hard to +work. I bet I picked up a million dornicks out o' that upper cornfield +las' month. An' ye plow jest as many out o' the ground ev'ry year. Mebbe +the scenery's pretty upon these here hills; but ye can't <i>eat</i> scenery, +and the crops are mighty poor."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p> + +<p>Over the lip of a smoothly-worn ledge the water sprayed into a granite +basin. The dimpling pool might have been knee-deep, and was as cold as +ice.</p> + +<p>"It's like that the hottest day in August," said Marty. "But it's lots +more fun to go swimmin' in the lake."</p> + +<p>It was late afternoon when they came down the hillside to the old Day +house once more. Mr. Day was puttering around the stables.</p> + +<p>"Ye didn't finish them 'taters, Marty," he complained.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'll do 'em to-morrer," said the boy. "It most broke my back +a'ready. And did ye see all the carrots we got weeded?"</p> + +<p>"Uh-huh," observed his father. "Lots <i>you</i> had to do with weedin' the +carrots, Marty," he added, sarcastically.</p> + +<p>When Janice went into the house the dinner dishes were still piled in +the sink; yet Aunt 'Mira was already getting supper. She was still +shuffling around the kitchen in her list slippers and the old calico +dress.</p> + +<p>"I declare for't!" she complained. "Seems ter me I never find time to +clean myself up for an afternoon like other women folks does. There's +allus so much ter do in this house. Does seem the beatenes'! An' there +ain't nobody nowheres likes nice clo'es better than I do, Niece Janice. +I use ter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> dress pretty nifty, if I do say it. But that was a long time +ago, a long time ago.</p> + +<p>"No. Never mind 'em now. I'll wash the hull kit an' bilin' of 'em up +after supper. No use in takin' two bites to a cherry," she added, +referring to the dishes in the sink.</p> + +<p>Janice climbed the stairs to her room, carefully stepping over the +broken tread. There was water in her pitcher, and she made her simple +toilet, putting on a fresh frock. Then she sat down in the rocker by the +window. Every time she swung to and fro the loose rocker clicked and +rattled.</p> + +<p>The red light that heralded the departure of the sun behind the wooded +hills across the lake seemed to make the room and its mismated +furnishings uglier than before. The girl turned her back upon it with +almost a sob, and gazed out upon the terraced hillside and the lake, the +latter already darkening. The shadows on the farther shore were heavy, +but here and there a point of sudden light showed a farmhouse.</p> + +<p>A belated bird, winging its way homeward, called shrilly. The breeze +sobbed in the nearby treetops, and then died suddenly.</p> + +<p>Such a lonely, homesick feeling possessed Janice Day as she had never +imagined before! She was away off here in the East, while Daddy's train +was still flying westward with him, down towards that war-ruffled +Mexico. And she was obliged to stay<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> here—in this ugly old house—with +these shiftless people——</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear Daddy! I wish you could be here right now," the girl half +sobbed. "I wish you could see this place—and the folks here! I know +what <i>you'd</i> say, Daddy; I know just what you'd say about it all!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<h3>'RILL SCATTERGOOD AND HER SCHOOL.</h3> + + +<p>With the elasticity of Youth, however, Janice opened her eyes the +following morning on a new world. Certainly the outlook from her window +was glorious; therefore her faith in life itself—and in Poketown and +her relatives—was renewed as she gazed out upon the beautiful picture +fresh-painted by the fingers of Dawn.</p> + +<p>All out-of-doors beckoned Janice. She hurriedly made her toilet, crept +down the squeaking stairs, and softly let herself out, for nobody else +was astir about the old Day house.</p> + +<p>The promise of the morning from the window was kept in full. Janice +could not walk sedately—she fairly skipped. Out of the sagging gate and +up the winding lane she went, her feet twinkling over the dew-wet sod, a +song on her lips, her eyes as bright as the stars which Dawn had +smothered when she tiptoed over the eastern hills.</p> + +<p>And then at a corner of a cross-lane above her uncle's house, Janice +came upon the only other person in Poketown astir as early as +herself—Walkworthy Dexter, who led Josephus, the heavy harness clanking +about the horse's ribs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Ah-ha! I see there's a new <i>day</i>," chuckled Mr. Dexter, his pale blue +eyes twinkling. "And how do you find your Uncle Jase? Not what you'd +call a fidgety man, eh? He ain't never stirred up about nothing, Jase +Day ain't. What d'ye think?"</p> + +<p>Janice didn't know just what <i>to</i> think—or, to say, either.</p> + +<p>"Find Jase jest a mite leisurely, don't ye?" pursued the gossipy Dexter. +"I bet a cooky he ain't much like the folks where you come from?"</p> + +<p>"I couldn't give an opinion so soon," said Janice, shyly, not sure that +she liked this fat man any more for the scorn in which he held his +neighbors.</p> + +<p>"There speaks the true Day—slow but sure," laughed Dexter, and went his +way without further comment, leading the bony Josephus.</p> + +<p>But the morning was quite spoiled for Janice. She wondered if her +uncle's townsfolks all held Walkworthy Dexter's opinion of the Day +family? It hurt her pride to be classed with people who were so +shiftless that they were a byword in the community.</p> + +<p>She went back to the house when she saw the smoke curling out of the +chimney below her. Aunt 'Mira was shuffling around the kitchen in slow +preparation for the morning meal. Mr. Day was pounding on the stairs +with a stick of stove-wood, in an endeavor to awaken Marty.</p> + +<p>"That boy sleeps like the dead," he complained.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> "Marty! Marty!" he +shouted up the stairs, "your marm is waitin' for you to git her a pail +of water."</p> + +<p>Then he started for the stable to feed the stock, without waiting to see +if his young hopeful was coming down, or not.</p> + +<p>"I declare for't!" Aunt 'Mira sighed; "I'm allus bein' put back for +water. I <i>do</i> wish Jason would mend that pump."</p> + +<p>Janice took the empty pail quietly and departed for the neighbor's +premises. It was an old-fashioned sweep-and-bucket well at the +Dickerson's, but Janice managed it. The pail of water was heavy, +however, and she had to change hands several times on her way up the +hill. Marty came yawning to the door just as his cousin appeared.</p> + +<p>He grinned. "You kin git up an' do that ev'ry morning, if ye want to, +Janice," he said. "I won't be jealous if ye do."</p> + +<p>"Ye'd oughter be ashamed, Marty," whined his mother, from the kitchen, +"seein' a gal do yer work for ye."</p> + +<p>"Who made it my work any more'n it's Dad's work?" growled Marty. "And +she didn't have ter do it if she didn't want to."</p> + +<p>Janice did her best to keep to a cheerful tone. "I didn't mind going, +Aunty," she said. "And we'll get breakfast so much quicker. I'm hungry."</p> + +<p>She endeavored to be cheerful and chatty at the breakfast table. But the +very air her relatives<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> breathed seemed to feed their spleen. Mr. Day +insisted upon Marty's finishing the hoeing of the potatoes, and it took +almost a pitched battle to get the boy started.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Day was inclined, after all, to "take sides" with her son against +his father, so the smoke of battle was not entirely dissipated when +Marty had flung himself out of the house to attack the weeds.</p> + +<p>"Ef you'd do a few things yourself when they'd oughter be done, p'r'aps +the boy'd take example of ye," said Mrs. Day, bitterly.</p> + +<p>Her husband reached for his pipe—that never-failing comforter—and made +no reply.</p> + +<p>"Ev'rythin' about the house is goin' to rack an' ruin," pursued the +lady, slopping a little water into the dishpan. "No woman never had to +put up with all <i>I</i> hafter put up with—not even Job's wife! There! all +the water's gone ag'in. I do wish you'd mend that pump, Jason."</p> + +<p>But Jason had departed, and only a faint smell of tobacco smoke trailed +him across the yard.</p> + +<p>Janice tried to help her aunt—and that was not difficult. Almira Day +was no rigid disciplinarian when it came to housekeeping. By her own +confession she frequently satisfied her housewifely conscience by giving +things "a lick and a promise." And anybody who would help her could make +beds and "rid up" as best pleased themselves. Aunt 'Mira was no +housekeeping tyrant—by no means!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> Consequently she did not interfere +with anything her niece did about the house.</p> + +<p>The upstairs work was done and the sitting room brushed and set to +rights much earlier than was the Day custom. When Janice had done this +she came back to the kitchen, to find her aunt sitting in a creaky +rocker in the middle of the unswept floor and with the dishes only half +washed, deep in a cheap weekly story paper.</p> + +<p>"Why! how smart you be, child! All done? Wa-al, ye see, I gotter wait +for Jason, or Marty, to git me a pail o' water. They ain't neither of +'em been down to the house yit—an' I might's well rest now as any +time."</p> + +<p>It was this way all day long. Aunt Almira was never properly through her +work. Things were always "in a clutter." She did not find time from +morning till night (to hear her tell it) to "clean herself up like other +wimmen."</p> + +<p>Janice helped in the garden again; but Marty was grumpy, and as soon as +the last row of potatoes was hoed he disappeared until supper time. +Uncle Jason was marking a field for corn planting. A harness strap broke +and he was an hour fixing it, while old Lightfoot dragged the rickety +marker into the fence corner and patiently cropped the weeds. Later a +neighbor leaned on the fence, and Uncle Jason gossiped for another hour.</p> + +<p>The girl saw that none of the neighboring<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> housewives came to call on +Aunt 'Mira. In the afternoon she saw several of them exchanging calls up +and down the lane; but they were in fresh print dresses and carried +their needlework, or the like, in their hands, while Aunt 'Mira was +still "down at the heel" and in her faded calico.</p> + +<p>Janice was getting very lonely and homesick. Every hour made the +separation from her father seem harder to bear. And she had scarcely +spoken to a soul save the Days and Walky Dexter since her arrival in +Poketown. Friday noon came, and at dinner Janice desperately broached +the subject of 'Rill Scattergood's school again.</p> + +<p>"I'd love to visit it," she said. "Maybe I'd get acquainted with some of +the girls. I might even attend for the remainder of the term."</p> + +<p>"Huh!" scoffed Marty. "That old maid can't teach ye nothin'."</p> + +<p>"But it would be something to <i>do</i>," exclaimed Janice, with vigor.</p> + +<p>"My goodness me, child!" drawled Aunt Almira. "Can't you be content to +jest let things go along easy?"</p> + +<p>"Yer must want sumthin' ter do mighty bad, ter want ter go ter 'Rill +Scattergood's school," was again Marty's scornful comment.</p> + +<p>"Just the same I'm going," declared Janice. "It's not far, is it?"</p> + +<p>"Right up at the edge of town," said her uncle.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> "They built it there +ter git the young'uns out o' the way. Hard on some of 'em in bad +weather, it's sech a long walk. Some o' these here flighty folks has +been talkin' up a new buildin' an' a new teacher; but taxes is high +enough as they be, <i>I</i> tell 'em!"</p> + +<p>"'Rill Scattergood ain't no sort er teacher," said Mrs. Day. "She didn't +have no sort er control over Marty."</p> + +<p>"Huh!" grunted that young man, "she couldn't teach nothin' ter +nobody—that ol' maid."</p> + +<p>"But 'most of the girls and boys of Poketown go to school to her, don't +they?" asked Janice.</p> + +<p>"Them whose folks can't send 'em to the Middleboro Academy," admitted +her aunt.</p> + +<p>"Then I'm going up to get acquainted after dinner," announced Janice. +"I—I had so many friends in Greensboro—so many, many girls at +school—and some of the boys were real nice—and the teachers—and other +folks. Oh, dear! I expect it's Daddy I miss most of all, and if I don't +pretty soon find something to <i>do</i>—something to take a real interest +in—I'll never be able to stand having him 'way down there in Mexico and +me up here, not knowing what's happening to him!"</p> + +<p>The girl's voice broke and the tears stood in her eyes. Her earnestness +made even Marty silent for the moment. Aunt Almira leaned over and +patted her hand.</p> + +<p>"You go on to the school, if ye think ye got<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> to. I'd go with ye an' +introduce ye ter 'Rill Scattergood if I didn't have so much to do. It +does seem as though I allus was behindhand with my work."</p> + +<p>A little later, when Janice, in her neat summer frock and beribboned +shade-hat, passed down Hillside Avenue, she was conscious of a good many +people staring at her—more now than when she had come up the hill with +her uncle several days before.</p> + +<p>Here and there some attempts had been made to grow flowers in the yards, +or to keep neat borders and rake the walks. But for the most part +Hillside Avenue displayed a forlorn nakedness to the eye that made +Janice more than ever homesick for Greensboro.</p> + +<p>The schoolbell had ceased ringing before she turned into High Street and +began to ascend the hill again, so there were no young folks in sight.</p> + +<p>Higher up the main street of Poketown there were few stores, but the +dwellings were no more attractive. Nobody seemed to take any pride in +this naturally beautiful old town.</p> + +<p>Janice realized that she was a mark for all idle eyes. Strangers were +not plentiful in Poketown.</p> + +<p>She came at length in sight of the school. It was set in the middle of a +square, ugly, unfenced yard, without a tree before it or a blooming bush +or vine against its dull red walls. The sun beat upon it hotly, and it +did seem as though the builders must<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> have intended to make school as +hateful as possible to the girls and boys who attended.</p> + +<p>The windows and doors were open, and a hum came from within like that of +a swarming hive of bees. Janice went quietly to the nearest door, +mounted the steps, and looked in.</p> + +<p>She had by chance come to the girls' entrance. The scholars' backs were +toward her and Janice could look her fill without being observed.</p> + +<p>There was a small class reciting before the teacher's desk—droning away +in a sleepy fashion. The older scholars, sitting in the rear of the +room, were mainly busy about their own private affairs; few seemed to be +conning their lessons.</p> + +<p>Several girls were busily braiding the plaits of the girls in front of +them. Two, with very red faces and sparkling eyes, were undeniably +quarreling, and whispering bitter denunciations of each other, to the +amusement of their immediate neighbors. One girl had a bag of candy +which she was circulating among her particular friends. Another had +raised the covers of her geography like a screen, and was busily engaged +in writing a letter behind it, on robin's-egg-blue paper.</p> + +<p>At the far end of the room the teacher, Miss Scattergood, sat at her +flat-topped desk. "That old maid," as Marty had called her, was not at +all the sort of a person—in appearance, at least—that Janice expected +her to be. Somehow, a spinster<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> lady who had taught school—and such a +school as Poketown's—for twenty years, should have fitted the +well-known specifications of the old-time "New England schoolmarm." But +Amarilla Scattergood did not.</p> + +<p>She was a little, light-haired, pink-cheeked lady, with more than a few +claims to personal attractiveness yet left. She had her mother's +birdlike tilt to her head when she spoke, her eyes were still bright, +and her complexion good.</p> + +<p>These facts were visible to Janice even from the doorway.</p> + +<p>When she knocked lightly upon the door-frame, Miss Scattergood looked up +and saw her. A little hush fell upon the school, too, and Janice was +aware that both girls and boys were turning about in their seats to look +at her.</p> + +<p>"Come in," said Miss Scattergood. "Scholars, attention! Eyes forward!"</p> + +<p>She might as well have spoken to the wind that breathed at the open +window and fluttered the papers upon her desk. The older scholars paid +the little school-mistress no attention whatsoever.</p> + +<p>Janice felt some little confusion in passing down the aisle, knowing +herself to be the center of all eyes. Miss Scattergood dismissed the +class before her briefly, and offered Janice a chair on the platform.</p> + +<p>"I guess you're Jason Day's niece," said the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> teacher, pleasantly, +taking her visitor's hand. "Mother was telling me about you."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Miss Scattergood," Janice replied. "I am Janice Day, and when you +have time I'd love to have you examine me and see where I belong in your +school."</p> + +<p>"You—you are too far advanced for our school," said the little teacher, +with some hesitation and a flush that was almost painful. "Especially if +you came from a place where the schools are graded as in the city."</p> + +<p>"Greensboro has good schools," Janice said. "I was in my junior year at +high."</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear me!" Miss Scattergood cried, hastily. "We don't have any such +system here, of course. The committee doesn't demand it of me. I have to +teach the little folks as well as the big. We go as far as our books +go—that is all."</p> + +<p>She placed several text-books before Janice. It was plain that she was +not a little afraid of her visitor, for Janice was much different from +the staring, "pig-tailed" misses occupying the back seats of the +Poketown school.</p> + +<p>Janice was hungry for young companionship, and she liked little Miss +Scattergood, despite the uncontradicted fact that "she didn't have no +way with her."</p> + +<p>While she conned the text-books the school-mistress had placed before +her, Janice watched proceedings<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> with interest. She had never even heard +of an ungraded country school before, much less seen one. The older +pupils, both girls and boys, seemed to be a law unto themselves; Miss +Scattergood had little control over them.</p> + +<p>The teacher called another class of younger scholars. This class +practically took all of her attention and she did not observe the four +boys who carried on a warfare with "snappers" and "spitballs" in the +back seats; of the predatory campaign of the lanky, white-haired youth +who slid from seat to seat of the smaller boys, capturing tops, marbles, +and other small possessions dear to childish hearts, threatening by +gesture and writhing lips a "slaughter of the innocents" if one of them +dared "tell teacher."</p> + +<p>Few of the older boys were studying, and none of the bigger girls. The +latter were too much interested in Janice. Looking them over, there was +not one of these Poketown girls to whom Janice felt herself attracted. +Some of them giggled as they caught her eye; others whispered together +with the visitor as the evident subject of their secret observations; +and one girl, seeing that Janice was looking at her, actually stuck out +her tongue—a pink flag of scorn and defiance!</p> + +<p>Janice believed that in English, history and mathematics she might +improve by reciting with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> Miss Scattergood's classes, and she told the +little teacher so.</p> + +<p>"You'll be welcome, I'm sure," said the school-mistress, nervously. "Are +you coming Monday? That's nice," and she shook hands with her as the +visitor arose.</p> + +<p>Janice passed down the girls' aisle again, trying to pick out at least +one of the occupants of the old-fashioned benches who would look as +though she might be chummy and nice; but there was not one.</p> + +<p>"Dear me—dear me!" murmured Janice, when she was outside and stood a +moment to look back at the ugly, red schoolhouse. "It—'it jest +rattles'—<i>that's</i> what it does; like everything about Uncle Jason's, +and like everything about the whole town. That school swings on one +hinge like the gates on Hillside Avenue.</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear me! Poketown is just dreadful—it's dreadful!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>AN AFTERNOON OF ADVENTURE</h3> + + +<p>The late spring air, however, was delicious. The trees rustled +pleasantly. The bees hummed and the birds twittered, and altogether +there were a hundred things to charm Janice into extending her walk. +Down at the foot of a side street a bit of water gleamed like a huge +turquoise. There seemed to be no dwellings at the foot of this street, +and Janice, with the whole afternoon before her, felt the tingle of +exploration in her blood.</p> + +<p>Just off High Street was another store. It was in a low-roofed building +shouldering upon the highway, with a two-story cottage attachment at the +back. Two huge trees overshadowed the place and lent a deep, cool shade +to the shaky porch; but the trees made the store appear very gloomy +within.</p> + +<p>Of all the shops Janice had observed in Poketown it seemed that this +little store was the most neglected and woeful looking. Its two show +windows were a lacework of dust and flyspecks. In the upper corners were +ragged spider webs; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> in one web lay a gorged spider, too well fed to +pounce on the blue-bottle fly buzzing in the toils within easy pouncing +distance! Only glimpses of a higgledy-piggledy of assorted wares were to +be caught behind the panes. Across the front of the building was a faded +sign reading:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">HOPEWELL DRUGG<br /></span> +<span class="i0">GROCERIES AND DRY GOODS<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Nothing about the shop itself would have held Janice Day's attention +even for a moment; but from within (the front door stood ajar) came the +wailing notes of a violin, the uncertain bow of the performer seeking +out the notes of "Silver Threads Among the Gold."</p> + +<p>Yet, with all its uncertainty, the fiddler's touch groped for the beauty +and pathos of the chords:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Darling, I am growing old,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Silver threads among the gold."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Janice heard the haunting sweetness of the tune all the way down the +shaded lane and she wondered who the player might be.</p> + +<p>There was a deep, grass-grown ditch on one side—evidently an open drain +to carry the overflow of water from High Street. As the drain deepened +toward the bottom of the hill, posts had been set and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> rails laid on top +of them to defend vehicles from pitching into the ditch in the dark. But +many of the rails had now rotted and fallen to the sod, or the nails had +rusted and drawn out, leaving the barrier "jest rattling."</p> + +<p>From a side road there suddenly trotted a piebald pony, drawing a low, +basket phaeton, in which sat two prim, little, old ladies, a fat one and +a lean one. Despite the difference in their avoirdupois the two old +ladies showed themselves to be what they were—sisters.</p> + +<p>The thin one was driving the piebald pony. "Gidap, Ginger!" she +announced, flapping the reins.</p> + +<p>She had better have refrained from waking up Ginger just at that moment. +A fickle breath of wind pounced upon an outspread newspaper lying on the +grass, fluttered it for a moment, and then, getting fairly under the +printed sheet, heaved it into the air.</p> + +<p>Ginger caught a glimpse of the fluttering paper. He halted suddenly, +with all four feet braced and ears forward, fairly snorting his +surprise. As the paper began flopping across the road, he began to back. +The whites of his eyes showed plainly and he snorted again. The +wind-shaken paper utterly dissipated the pony's corn-fed complacency.</p> + +<p>"Oh! Oh! Gidap!" shrieked the thin old lady.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p> + +<p>"He—he's backin' us into the ditch, Pussy," cried her sister.</p> + +<p>"I—I can't help it, Blossom," gasped the driver of the frightened pony.</p> + +<p>The phaeton really was getting perilously near the edge of the +undefended ditch, when Janice ran out beside the pony's head, clutched +at his bridle, and halted him in his mad career. The paper dropped into +the ditch and lay still, and the pony began to nuzzle Janice's hand.</p> + +<p>"Isn't he just cunning!" gasped the girl, turning to look at the two +little old ladies.</p> + +<p>From a nearby house appeared a lath-like man, who strode out to the +road, grinning broadly.</p> + +<p>"Hi tunket! Ye did come purty nigh backin' into the ditch <i>that</i> time, +gals," he cackled. "All right now, ain't ye? That there leetle gal is +some spry. Ginger ain't shown so much sperit since b'fore Adam!"</p> + +<p>"Now, I tell ye, Mr. Cross Moore," declared the driver of the pony, +sharply, "we came very near having a serious accident. And all because +these rails aren't repaired. You're one of the <i>se</i>-lect-men and you'd +oughter have sense enough to repair that railin'. Wait till somebody +drives plump into the ditch and the town has a big damage bill to pay."</p> + +<p>"Aw, now, there ain't many folks drives this way," defended Mr. Cross +Moore.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p> + +<p>"There's enough. And think o' Hopewell Drugg's Lottie. She's always +running up and down this lane. Somebody's goin' to pitch head-fust inter +that ditch yet, Cross Moore, an' then you'll be sorry."</p> + +<p>She was a very vigorous-speaking old lady, that was sure. The sister by +her side was of much milder temperament, and she was thanking Janice +very sweetly while the other scolded Selectman Moore.</p> + +<p>"We thank you very much, my dear. You are much braver than <i>I</i> am, for +I'm free to confess I'm afraid of all cattle," said the plump old lady, +in a somewhat shaken voice. "Who are you, my dear? I don't remember +seeing you before."</p> + +<p>"I am Janice Day, Ma'am."</p> + +<p>"Day? You belong here in Poketown? There's Days live on Hillside +Avenue."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Ma'am," confessed Janice. "Mr. Jason Day is my uncle. But I am +Broxton Day's daughter."</p> + +<p>"Why, do tell!" cried the plump little old lady, who had pink cheeks and +the very warmest of warm smiles, as she looked into the girl's hazel +eyes. "See here, Pussy," she cried to her sister. "Do you know who this +little girl turns out to be? She's Brocky Day's girl. Surely you +remember Brocky Day?"</p> + +<p>But "Pussy" was still haranguing the town selectman<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> upon his crimes of +omission and could not give her attention to Janice.</p> + +<p>"Anyhow, dear, won't you come and see us? Pussy's disturbed a mite now; +but she'll love to have you come, too. We live just a little way out o' +town—anybody can tell you where the Hammett Twins live," said this +full-blown "Blossom." "Yes. My sister an' I are twins. And we're fond of +young folks and like to have 'em 'round us. There! Ginger's all right, +Pussy. We can drive on."</p> + +<p>"You'd oughter fix them rails, Cross Moore," repeated the lean sister, +as the old pony started placidly up the hill again.</p> + +<p>Mr. Moore languidly squinted along the staggering barrier. "Wa-al—I +reckon I will—one o' these days," he said.</p> + +<p>He grinned in a friendly way at Janice as she started on. "Them Hammett +gals is reg'lar fuss-bugets," he observed. "But they're nice folks. So +you're Broxton Day's gal? I heard you'd arove. How do you like +Poketown?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know it well enough to say yet, Mr. Moore," returned Janice, +bashfully, as she went down the hill.</p> + +<p>There were no more houses, but great, sweeping-limbed willow trees +shaded the lower range of the hill. She came out, quite suddenly, upon a +little open lawn which edged the lake itself. Here an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> old dock stuck +its ugly length out into the water—a dock the timbers of which were +blackened as though by a fire, and the floor-boards of which had mostly +been removed. There was but a narrow path out to the end of the wharf.</p> + +<p>Between the wharf and the opposite side of this little bay was a piece +of perfectly smooth water; the softly breathing wind did not ruffle the +bay at all. The long arm of the shore that was thrust out into the lake +was heavily wooded. Rows of dark, almost black, northern spruce stood +shouldering each other on that farther shore, making a perfect wall of +verdure. Their deep shadow was already beginning to creep across the +water toward the old wharf.</p> + +<p>"What a quiet spot!" exclaimed Janice, aloud.</p> + +<p>"'Iet spot!'" breathed the echo from the opposite shore.</p> + +<p>"Why! it's an echo!" cried the startled Janice.</p> + +<p>"'An echo!'" repeated the sprite, in instant imitation of her tone.</p> + +<p>It was then that Janice saw the little girl upon the old wharf. At first +she seemed just a blotch of color upon the old burned timbers. Then the +startled visitor realized that the gaily-hued frock, and sash, and +bonnet, garbed a little girl of perhaps eight or nine years.</p> + +<p>Janice could not see her face. When she rose up from where she had been +sitting and went along<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> the shaking stringpiece of the dock, her back +was still toward the shore.</p> + +<p>Yet her gait—the groping of one hand before her—all the uncertainty +and questioning of her attitude—shot the spectator through with alarm. +The child was blind! More than this, her unguided feet were leading her +directly to the abrupt end of the half ruined wharf!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LOST THE ECHO</h3> + + +<p>Shocked by the discovery of the child's misfortune, Janice scarcely +appreciated at first the peril that menaced the blind girl. It was a +mystery how her unguided feet had brought her so far along the +wharf-beam without catastrophe. But there—just ahead—was the end of +the half-ruined framework. A few more steps and the groping feet would +be over the water.</p> + +<p>With a sudden, stifled cry, Janice darted forward. At that moment the +child halted; but she gave no sign that she was aware of Janice Day's +presence. The child faced the not far-distant line of thickly-ranked +spruce upon the opposite shore of the little inlet, and from her parted +lips there issued a strange, wailing cry:</p> + +<p>"He-a! he-a! he-a!" she repeated, three times; and back into her face +was flung the mocking laughter of the echo.</p> + +<p>Janice had stopped again—held spellbound by wonder and curiosity. The +little girl stood in a listening attitude.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p> + +<p>"He-a! he-a! he-a!" she cried again.</p> + +<p>The obedient echo repeated the cry; but did the blind girl hear it? She +seemed still to be listening. Janice crept on along the broken wharf, +her hand outstretched, her heart beating in her throat.</p> + +<p>The child ventured another step, and, indeed, she stamped upon the beam. +"He-a! he-a! he-a!" she wailed again—a thin, shrill, unchildlike sound +that made Janice shudder.</p> + +<p>The cry was almost one of anger, surely that stamping of her foot +denoted vexation. Janice could see the profile of the child's face, a +sweet, wistful countenance. Her lips moved once more and, in a thin, +flat voice, she murmured over and over again: "I have lost it! I have +lost it!"</p> + +<p>Janice spoke, her own voice shaking: "My dear! do you know it is +dangerous here?"</p> + +<p>Her hand reached to clutch the child's arm if she was startled. A little +misstep would send the blind girl over the edge of the wharf. But it was +Janice who was startled!</p> + +<p>The child gave her not the least attention—she did not hear. Blind and +deaf, and alone upon the shaking, broken timbers of this old wharf!</p> + +<p>She raised her wailing cry again, and then listened for the echo that +she could no longer hear. The older girl's hand was stayed. She dared +not seize the child, for they were both in a precarious place and if the +little one was frightened and tried<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> to wrench away from her, Janice +feared that they might both fall into the lake.</p> + +<p>But the girl from Greensboro thought quickly; and this was an emergency +when quick thought was needed. She remembered having read that blind +people are very susceptible to any vibration or jar. She herself stamped +upon the old wharf-beam, and instantly the child turned toward her.</p> + +<p>"Who is it?" asked the little girl, in a flat, keyless tone.</p> + +<p>"You don't know me, my dear," Janice said, instinctively; then, +remembering the blind eyes as well as the deaf ears, she drew quite +close to the child and gently took her hand.</p> + +<p>The child responded and touched Janice lightly, gropingly. The latter +could see her eyes now—deep, violet eyes, the appearance of which +belied the fact that the light had gone from them. They were neither +dull-looking nor with a film drawn over them. It was very hard indeed to +believe that the little girl was sightless.</p> + +<p>She was flaxen-haired, pink-cheeked, and not too slender. Yet Janice +could not say that she was pretty. Indeed the impression the afflicted +child made upon one was quite the reverse.</p> + +<p>The little hand crept up Janice's arm to her shoulder, touched her hair +and neck lightly, and then the slender fingers passed over the older +girl's face. She did this swiftly, while Janice took her other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> hand and +with a soft, urgent pressure tried to draw her along.</p> + +<p>But although she seemed so sweet and amenable, Janice did not breathe +freely until they were both off the old wharf. Then she demanded, +quickly:</p> + +<p>"Do they let you come here alone? Where do you live?"</p> + +<p>The little girl did not answer; of course she did not hear. She was +still looking back toward the tall wall of spruce across the inlet, from +which the sharp echo was flung.</p> + +<p>"He-a! he-a! he-a!" she wailed again, and the echo sent back the cry; +but the little girl shook her head.</p> + +<p>"I have lost it! And I don't hear what <i>you</i> say—do I? You can speak, +can't you?"</p> + +<p>Janice squeezed her hand quickly, and the child seemed to accept it as +an affirmative reply.</p> + +<p>"But, you see, I don't hear you," she continued, in that strange, flat +voice. Janice suddenly realized that hearing had much to do with the use +of the vocal cords. It is because we can hear ourselves speak that we +attune our voices to pleasant sounds. This unfortunate child had no +appreciation of the tones that issued from her lips.</p> + +<p>"I used to hear," said the afflicted one. "And I could see, too. Oh, +yes! I haven't forgotten how things look. You know, I'm Lottie Drugg. I +can find my way about. But—but I've lost the echo.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> I used to hear +<i>that</i> always. I'd run down there to the wharf and shout to the echo, +and it would answer me. But now I've lost it."</p> + +<p>Janice squeezed the little hand again. She found herself weeping, and +yet the child did not complain. But it was plainly an effort for her to +speak. Like most victims of complete deafness, it would not be long +before she would be speechless, too. She "mouthed" her words in a +pitiful way.</p> + +<p>Blind—deaf—approaching dumbness! The thought made Janice suddenly +seize the child in her arms and hug her, tight.</p> + +<p>"Do you love me?" questioned Lottie Drugg, returning the embrace. "I +wish I could hear you. But I can't hear father any more—nor his fiddle; +only when he makes it quiver. Then I know it's crying. Did you know a +fiddle could cry? You come home with me. Father will play the fiddle for +you, and <i>you</i> can hear it."</p> + +<p>Janice did not know how to reply. There was so much she wished to say to +this poor little thing! But her quick mind jumped to the conclusion that +the child belonged to the person whom she had heard playing the violin +as she came down from High Street—the unknown musician in the store +above the door of which was the faded sign of "Hopewell Drugg."</p> + +<p>She squeezed the little girl's hand again and it seemed to suffice.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I know the way. My feet are in the path now," said little Lottie, +scuffling her slipper-shod feet about on the narrow footpath. "Yes! I +know the way now. The sun is behind us. Come," and she put forth her +hand, caught Janice's again, and urged her along the bank of the lake to +the foot of the lane down which the girl from Greensboro had wandered.</p> + +<p>Up the hill they went, Janice marveling that Lottie could be so +confident of the way. She seldom hesitated, and Janice allowed herself +to be led. Mr. Cross Moore was still smoking his pipe out in front of +his house.</p> + +<p>"I calkerlate that child's goin' to be drowned-ed some day," he said +calmly, to Janice. "Jest a marcy that she ain't done it afore now. An' +Hopewell—Huh! him sittin' up there fiddlin'——"</p> + +<p>It seemed to Janice as though a spirit of criticism had entered into all +the Poketownites. There was Walky Dexter scoffing at her Uncle Jason; +and here was Selectman Moore criticising the father of little Lottie. +Yet neither critic, as far as Janice could see, set much of an example +for his townsmen to follow!</p> + +<p>Lottie, with her hand in the bigger girl's, tripped along the walk as +confidently as though she had her eyesight. She was an affectionate +little thing, and she "snuggled" closely to Janice, occasionally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> +touching her new friend's face and lips with her free hand.</p> + +<p>"I guess I love you," she said, in her strange, little, flat voice. "You +come in and see father. We are most there. Here is Mis' Robbins' gate. I +used to see her flowers. Her yard's full of them, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes!" replied Janice, fighting her inclination to burst into tears. +"Oh, yes, dear! beautiful flowers." She pressed the hand tightly.</p> + +<p>"I can smell 'em," said the child, snuffing with her nose like a dog. +"And now here is the shade of our big trees. It's darker and cooler +under these trees than anywhere else on the street. Isn't it?"</p> + +<p>Janice agreed by pressing her hand again, and little Lottie +laughed—such a shrill, eyrie little laugh! They were before the +gloomy-looking store of Hopewell Drugg. The wailing of the fiddle +floated out upon the warm afternoon air.</p> + +<p>The blind girl tripped up the steps of the porch and in at the open +door. "Silver Threads Among the Gold" came to a sharp conclusion.</p> + +<p>"Merciful goodness!" croaked a frightened voice. "I thought you was +asleep in your bed, Lottie."</p> + +<p>Janice had followed the little girl to the doorway. She saw but dimly +the store itself and the shelves of dusty merchandise. From the back +room where he had been sitting with his violin, a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> gray, thin, +dusty-looking man came quickly and seized Lottie in his arms.</p> + +<p>"Child! child! how you frighten me!" he murmured. Then he looked over +the little girl's head and blinked through his spectacles at Janice in +the doorway.</p> + +<p>"I'm certainly obliged to ye," he said. "She—she gets away from the +house and I don't know it. I—I can't watch her all the time and she +ain't got no mother, Miss. I certainly am obliged to ye for bringing her +home."</p> + +<p>"She was down on the old wharf at the foot of the street, trying to wake +the echo from the woods across the inlet," said Janice, gravely.</p> + +<p>The gray man hugged his daughter tightly, and his eyes blinked like an +owl's in strong daylight, as he peered through his spectacles at Janice. +"She—she loved to go there—always," he murmured. "I go with her +Sundays—and when the store is closed. But she is so quick—in a flash +she is out of my sight."</p> + +<p>"Can—can nothing be done for her?" questioned Janice, in a whisper.</p> + +<p>"She cannot hear you—now," said Hopewell Drugg, gloomily, shaking his +head. "And the doctors here tell me she is almost sure to be dumb, too. +If I could only get her to Boston! There's a school for such as her, +there, and specialists, and all. But it would cost a pile of money."</p> + +<p>"You play the fiddle, father," commanded little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> Lottie. "And make it +quiver—make it cry, father! Then <i>I</i> can hear it."</p> + +<p>He set her down carefully, still shaking his head. Her strange little +voice kept repeating: "Play for her, father! Play for her, father!"</p> + +<p>Hopewell Drugg picked up the violin and bow from the end of the counter. +He leaned against the counter and tucked the violin under his chin. +There was only a brown light in the dusky store, and the dust danced in +the single band of sunlight that searched out a knot hole in the wall of +the back room—the shed between the store proper and the cottage in the +rear.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Darling, I am growing old,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Silver threads among the gold——"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The old violin wailed out the tune haltingly. The deaf and blind child +caught the tremulo of the final notes, and she danced up and down and +clapped her little hands.</p> + +<p>"I can hear that! I can hear that!" she muttered, her lips writhing to +form the sounds.</p> + +<p>Janice felt the tears suddenly blinding her. "I'll come back and see you +again—indeed I will!" she said, brokenly, and hugging and kissing +little Lottie impetuously, she released her and ran out of the ugly, +dark little store.</p> + +<p>It is doubtful if Hopewell Drugg even heard her. The violin was still +wailing away, while he searched out slowly the minor notes of the old, +old song.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 413px;"> +<img src="images/fig81.jpg" width="413" height="650" alt="The old violin wailed out the tune haltingly." title="" /> +<span class="caption">The old violin wailed out the tune haltingly.</span> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>A BIT OF ROMANCE</h3> + + +<p>"Hopewell Drugg? Ya-as," drawled Aunt Almira. "He keeps store +'crosstown. He's had bad luck, Hopewell has. His wife's dead—she didn't +live long after Lottie was born; and Lottie—poor child!—must be eight +or nine year old."</p> + +<p>"Poor little thing!" sighed Janice, who had come home to find her aunt +just beginning her desultory preparations for supper, and had turned in +to help. "It is so pitiful to see and hear her. Does she live all alone +there with her father?"</p> + +<p>"I reckon Hopewell don't do business enough so's he could hire a +housekeeper. They tell me he an' the child live in a reg'lar mess! Ain't +fittin' for a man to keep house by hisself, nohow; and of course Lottie +can't do much of nothing."</p> + +<p>"Is he an old man?" queried Janice. "I couldn't see his face very well."</p> + +<p>"Lawsy! he ain't what you'd call old—no," said Aunt 'Mira. "Now, let me +see; he married 'Cinda Stone when he warn't yit thirty. There was some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> +talk of him an' 'Rill Scattergood bein' sweet on each other onc't; but +that was twenty year ago, I do b'lieve.</p> + +<p>"Howsomever, if there <i>was</i> anythin' betwixt Hopewell and 'Rill, I +reckon her mother broke up the match. Mis' Scattergood never had no use +for them Druggs. She said they was dreamers and never did amount to +nothin'. Mis' Scattergood's allus been re'l masterful."</p> + +<p>Janice nodded. She could imagine that the birdlike old lady she had met +on the boat could be quite assertive if she so chose.</p> + +<p>"Anyhow," said Aunt 'Mira, reflectively, "Hopewell stopped shinin' about +'Rill all of a sudden. That was the time Mis' Scattergood was widdered +an' come over here from Middletown to live with 'Rill.</p> + +<p>"I declare for't! 'Rill warn't sech an old maid then. She was right +purty, if she <i>had</i> been teachin' school some time. Th' young men use +ter buzz around her in them days.</p> + +<p>"But when she broke off with Hopewell, she broke off with all. Hopewell +was spleeny about it—ya-as, indeed, he was. He soon took up with +'Cinda—jest as though 'twas out o' spite. Anyhow, 'fore any of us +knowed it, they'd gone over to Middletown an' got married.</p> + +<p>"'Cinda Stone was a right weakly sort o' critter. Of course Hopewell was +good to her," pursued<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> Aunt 'Mira. "Hopewell Drugg is as mild as +dishwater, anyhow. He'd be perlite to a stray cat."</p> + +<p>Janice was interested—she could not help being. Miss Scattergood, it +seemed to her, was a pathetic figure; and the girl from Greensboro was +just at an age to appreciate a bit of romance. The gray, dusty man in +the dark, little store, playing his fiddle to the child that could only +hear the quivering minor tones of it, held a place in Janice's thought, +too.</p> + +<p>"What do you do Saturday mornings, Marty?" asked the visitor, at the +breakfast table. Janice had already been to the Shower Bath and back, +and the thrill of the early day was in her veins. Only a wolfish +appetite had driven her indoors when she smelled the pork frying.</p> + +<p>Marty was just lounging to his seat,—he was almost always late to +breakfast,—and he shut off a mighty yawn to reply to his cousin:</p> + +<p>"Jest as near like I please as kin be."</p> + +<p>"Saturday afternoon, where I came from, is sort of a holiday; but +Saturday morning everybody tries to make things nice about the yard—fix +flower-beds, rake the yard, make the paths nice, and all that."</p> + +<p>"Huh!" grunted Marty. "That's work."</p> + +<p>"No, it isn't. It's fun," declared Janice, brightly.</p> + +<p>"What's the good?" demanded the boy.</p> + +<p>"Why, the folks in Greensboro vie with each<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> other to see who shall have +the best-looking yard. Your mother hasn't many flowers——"</p> + +<p>"Them dratted hens scratch up all the flowers I plant," sighed Aunt +'Mira. "I give up all hopes of havin' posies till Jason mends the +henyard fence."</p> + +<p>"Now you say yourself the hens only lay when they're rangin' around, +'Mira," observed Uncle Jason, mildly.</p> + +<p>"Ya-as. They lay," admitted Aunt 'Mira. "But I don't git more'n ha'f of +what they lay. They steal their nests so. Ol' Speckle brought off a +brood only yesterday. I'd been wonderin' where that hen was layin' for a +month."</p> + +<p>"But, anyway, we can rake the yard and trim the edges of the walk," +Janice said to Marty.</p> + +<p>"Ya-as, we kin," admitted Marty, grinning. "But will we?"</p> + +<p>Janice, however, never lost her temper with this hobbledehoy cousin. +Marty could be coaxed, if not driven. After breakfast she urged him out +to the shed, and they overhauled the conglomeration of rusted and +decrepit hand tools, which had been gathered by Uncle Jason during forty +years of desultory farming.</p> + +<p>"Here're three rakes," said Marty. "All of 'em have lost teeth, an'—Hi +tunket! that one's got a broken handle."</p> + +<p>"But there are two which are usable," laughed Janice. "Come on, Marty. +Let's rake the front<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> yard all over. You know it will please your +mother. And then you can tote the rubbish away in the wheelbarrow while +I trim the edges of the front walk."</p> + +<p>"Huh! we don't never use that front walk. Nobody ever comes to our front +door," said Marty.</p> + +<p>"And there's a nice wide porch there to sit on pleasant evenings, too," +cried Janice.</p> + +<p>"Huh!" came Marty's famous snort of derision. "The roof leaks like a +sieve and the floor boards is rotted. Las' time the parson came to call +he broke through the floor an' come near sprainin' his ankle."</p> + +<p>"But I thought Uncle Jason was a carpenter, too?" murmured Janice, +hesitatingly.</p> + +<p>"Well! didn't ye know that carpenters' roofs are always leakin' an' that +shoemakers' wives go barefoot?" chuckled Marty. "Dad says he'll git +'round to these chores sometime. Huh!"</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, Marty set to work with his cousin, and that Saturday +morning the premises about the old Day house saw such a cleaning up as +had not happened within the memory of the oldest inhabitant along +Hillside Avenue. There was a good sod of grass under the rubbish. The +lawn had been laid down years and years before, and the grass was rooted +well and the mould was rich and deep. All the old place wanted was a +"chance," for it to become very pretty and homelike.</p> + +<p>Marty, however, declared himself "worked to a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> frazzle" and he +disappeared immediately after the noon meal, for fear Janice would find +something more for him to do.</p> + +<p>"Wal, child, it does look nice," admitted Aunt Almira, coming to view +the front yard. "And you <i>do</i> have a way with Marty."</p> + +<p>"Just the same," giggled Janice, "he doesn't like girls."</p> + +<p>"Sho, child! he doesn't know <i>what</i> he likes—a boy like him," returned +her aunt.</p> + +<p>Sunday was a rainy day, and Janice felt her spirits falling again. It +really rained too hard at church time for her to venture out; but she +saw that her relatives seldom put themselves out to attend church, +anyway. Walky Dexter appeared in an oilskin-covered cart, drawn by +Josephus (who actually looked water-soaked and dripped from every +angle), delivering the Sunday papers, which came up from the city. The +family gave up most of their time all day to the gaudy magazine +supplements and the so-called "funny sections" which were a part of +these sheets.</p> + +<p>Janice finally retired to her depressing bedroom and wrote a long letter +to her father which she tried to make cheerful, but into which crept a +note of loneliness and disappointment. It wasn't just like talking to +Daddy himself; but it seemed to help some.</p> + +<p>It enabled her, too, to write shorter letters to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> friends back in +Greensboro and she managed to hide from them much of her homesickness. +She could write of the beauty of Poketown itself; for it was beautiful. +It was only the people who were so—well! so <i>different</i>.</p> + +<p>Janice welcomed Monday morning. Although she had nearly completed her +junior year at the Greensboro High School, and knew that she would not +gain much help from Miss Scattergood, the girl loved study and she hoped +that the Poketown girls would prove to be better companions than they +had appeared when she had visited the school.</p> + +<p>So she started for the old red schoolhouse in quite a cheerful frame of +mind, in spite of Marty's prophecy that "she'd soon git sick o' that old +maid." It was not Miss Scattergood that Janice had reason to be "sick +of!" The stranger in Poketown had to admit before the day was over that +she had never in her life dreamed of such ill-bred girls as some of +these who occupied the back seats in 'Rill Scattergood's school.</p> + +<p>They had no respect for the little school-teacher, and had Miss +Scattergood taken note of all their follies she must have been in a +pitched battle with her older pupils all the time. Some of these +ill-behaved girls were older than Janice by many months; and they +plainly did not come to school to study or to learn. They passed notes +back and forth to some of the older boys all day long; when Miss +Scattergood<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> called on them to recite, if they did not feel just like +it, they refused to obey; and of course their example was bad for the +smaller children.</p> + +<p>Janice had determined to join such classes as were anywhere near her +grade in her old school. But when she arose to accompany one class to +the line in front of the teacher's desk, the girls who had started +giggled and ran back to their seats, leaving the new pupil standing +alone, with blazing cheeks, before Miss Scattergood. They would not +recite with her. At recess when Miss Scattergood tried to introduce +Janice to some of the girls, there were but a few who met her in a +ladylike manner.</p> + +<p>They seemed to think Janice must be stuck up and proud because she had +come from another town. One girl—Sally Black—tripped forward in a most +affected style, gave Janice a "high handshake," saying "How-do! chawmed +ter meet yuh, doncher know!" and the other girls went off into gales of +laughter as though Sally was really excruciatingly funny.</p> + +<p>Janice was hurt, but she tried not to show it. Miss Scattergood was very +much annoyed, and her eyes sparkled behind her glasses, as she said, +sharply:</p> + +<p>"I really did hope you girls could be polite and kind to a stranger who +comes to your school. I am ashamed of you!"</p> + +<p>"Don't let it bother you, Scatty," returned the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> impudent Sally. "We +don't want anything to do with your pet," and she tossed her head, +looked scornfully at Janice, and walked away with her abettors.</p> + +<p>"I never did take ter them Blacks," declared Aunt Almira, when Janice +related to her the unpleasant experience she had suffered at school, on +her return that afternoon. "And Sally's mother, who was a Garrity, came +of right common stock.</p> + +<p>"Ye see, child," added Mrs. Day, with a sigh, "I expect ye won't find +many of the children that go ter that school much ter your likin'. 'Rill +Scattergood ain't got no way with her, as I sez before; an' folks that +can afford it have got in the habit o' sendin' their young'uns over to +Middletown School. Walky Dexter takes 'em in a party waggin, and brings +'em back at night."</p> + +<p>"But there must be some nice girls in Poketown!" cried Janice.</p> + +<p>"Ya-as—I guess there be. But wait till I kin git around an' interduce +ye to 'em."</p> + +<p>This promise, however, offered Janice Day but sorry comfort. If she +waited for Aunt Almira to take her about she certainly <i>would</i> die of +homesickness!</p> + +<p>But she refused to be driven out of the Poketown School by the +unkindness and discourtesy of the larger girls. Her unpopularity, +however, made her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> respond the more quickly to 'Rill Scattergood's +advances.</p> + +<p>The school-teacher showed plainly that she appreciated Janice's +friendliness. Janice brought her luncheon and ate it with the teacher. +They walked down High Street together after school, and on Friday the +pretty little school-mistress invited the new girl home for tea.</p> + +<p>"Mother wants to see you again. Mother's took quite a fancy to you, +Janice—and that's a fact," said Miss 'Rill.</p> + +<p>"Of course, we're only boarding; but Mrs. Beasely—she's a widow +lady—makes it very homey for us. If mother stays we're going to +housekeeping ourselves. And I believe I <i>shall</i> give up teaching school. +I'm really tired of it."</p> + +<p>Janice gladly accepted the invitation, and she bribed one of the +youngsters with a nickel to run around to Hillside Avenue and tell Aunt +Almira where she was.</p> + +<p>Miss 'Rill's boarding place was on the same side street where was +located Hopewell Drugg's store. Janice had thought often of poor little +Lottie and her father during this week; but as they neared the store and +she heard the wailing notes of the man's violin again, she felt a little +diffident about broaching the subject of the storekeeper and his child +to the school-mistress. It was Miss Scattergood herself who opened the +matter.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p> + +<p>She half halted and held up her hand for silence, as she listened to +"Silver Threads Among the Gold."</p> + +<p>"That's a dreadful pretty tune, I think," she said. "It used to be awful +pop'lar when—when I came here to Poketown to teach school."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Drugg likes it, I guess," said Janice, lightly. "I've heard him +play it before."</p> + +<p>"Have you?" queried Miss 'Rill, with that little birdlike tilt of her +head. "So you know Mr. Drugg—and poor little Lottie?"</p> + +<p>"I've met them both—once," admitted the girl.</p> + +<p>"Ah! then you know how little Lottie is to be pitied?"</p> + +<p>"And isn't he to be pitied, too?" Janice could not help but ask.</p> + +<p>Miss 'Rill blushed—such a becoming blush as it was, too! She answered +honestly: "I think so. Poor Hopewell! And I think he plays the fiddle +real sweet, too.</p> + +<p>"But don't say anything before mother about him. Mr. Drugg's never been +one of ma's favorites," added the teacher, earnestly.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2> + +<h3>TEA, AND A TALK WITH DADDY</h3> + + +<p>As it chanced, it was old Mrs. Scattergood herself who broached the +forbidden topic, almost as soon as Miss 'Rill and Janice were in the +house.</p> + +<p>"What do you suppose that great gump, Hopewell Drugg, let his young'un +do to-day, 'Rill? I was tellin' Miz' Beasely that it did seem to be +<i>one</i> mistake that Providence must ha' made, ter let that Drugg an' +'Cinda Stone have a gal baby—'specially if 'Cinda was goin' ter up and +die like she done and leave the young'un to his care. Seems a shame, +too."</p> + +<p>"Why, mother! That doesn't sound a bit reverent," objected Miss 'Rill, +softly. "Nor kind."</p> + +<p>"Pshaw!" snorted the old lady. "You allus was silly as a goose about +that Drugg. Sech shiftlessness I never did see. There the young'un was, +out in a white dress an' white kid shoes this mornin'—her best, +Sunday-go-ter-meetin' clo'es, I'll be bound!—sittin' on the aidge o' +that gutter over there, makin' a mud dam! Lucky yesterday's rain has +run<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> off now, or she'd be out there yet, paddlin' in the water."</p> + +<p>"I don't s'pose Hopewell knew of it," said the younger woman, timidly. +"The poor little thing can dress herself, blind as she is. It's quite +wonderful how she gets about."</p> + +<p>"She ain't got no business to be out of his sight," grumbled Mrs. +Scattergood.</p> + +<p>Miss 'Rill sighed and shook her head, looking at Janice with a little +nod of understanding. She changed the subject of talk quickly. The old +lady began at once on Janice, "pumping" her as to her interests in +Poketown, how she liked her relatives, and all. Then Mrs. Beasely, a +very tall, angular figure in severe black, appeared at the sitting-room +door and invited them in to supper.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Beasely was a famous cook and housekeeper. She was a very grim +lady, it seemed to Janice, and the enlarged crayon portrait of Mr. +Beasely, its frame draped with crape, which glared down upon the +groaning table in the dining-room, almost took the girl's appetite away.</p> + +<p>Fortunately, however, the widow insisted upon facing the portrait of her +departed husband, and Janice was back to him, so she recovered her +appetite. And Mrs. Beasely's "tea", or "supper" as old-fashioned folks +called the meal, was worthy of a hearty appetite.</p> + +<p>Among old-fashioned New England housekeepers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> a "skimpy" +table—especially when a visitor is present—is an unpardonable sin. +There was hot bread and cold bread, sour-milk griddle cakes, each of a +delicious golden brown with crisp edges, buttered, sugared, and stacked +in tempting piles; sliced cold ham and corned beef; a hot dish of smoked +beef and scrambled eggs; two kinds of jelly, and three kinds of +preserves; plain and frosted cake, and last of all the inevitable pie +and cheese.</p> + +<p>With all this banquet Mrs. Beasely dared raise a moist eye to the grim +crayon of the departed, and observe:</p> + +<p>"I don't know what poor Charles would say to such a smeachin' supper, if +he was alive. Oh, me! it does seem as though I didn't have no heart for +cookery no more since he ain't here ter sample my work. A man's a gre't +spur to a woman in her housekeepin'."</p> + +<p>"Good Land o' Goshen!" ejaculated the outspoken Mrs. Scattergood. "I +count 'em a gre't nuisance. If a body didn't have no men folks to 'tend +to she could live on bread an' tea—if she so liked.</p> + +<p>"Not but what I 'preciate a good lay-out of vittles like this o' yourn, +Miz' Beasely. But thank the good Lord! I ain't been the slave to no +man's appetite for goin' on fourteen year. An' that's about all men air, +come ter think on it—a pair of muddy boots an' an unquenchable +appetite!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Beasely looked horrified, shaking her widow's cap. "Poor Charles +wasn't nothin' like that," she declared, softly.</p> + +<p>"An' I don't s'pose a worse husband ever lived in Poketown," whispered +the pessimistic old lady, when the widow had gone out of the room for +something. "He's been dead ten year, ain't he, 'Rill?"</p> + +<p>"About that, mother," admitted the school-teacher.</p> + +<p>"An' I expect ev'ry year she makes more of a saint of him. I declare +for't! sech wimmen oughter be made to marry ag'in. Nothin' but a second +one will cure 'em of their fust!"</p> + +<p>Mainly Janice and her friend, the little school-teacher, were engaged in +their own particular conversation. The girl spent a very pleasant hour +after tea, too, and started home just as dusk was dropping over the +hillside town.</p> + +<p>There was a light in Hopewell Drugg's store. He never seemed to have +customers—or so it appeared to Janice. She hesitated a moment to peer +into the gloomy place—more a mausoleum than a store!—and saw Hopewell +leaning against the counter, while Lottie, in her pink sash and white +dress, and the kid boots, sat upon it and leaned against her father +while he scraped out some weird minor chords upon the fiddle.</p> + +<p>Marty had come down the lane to the corner of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> High Street to meet +Janice. Of course, he wouldn't admit that he had done so; but he +happened to be right there when his cousin put in an appearance. There +were no street lights on Hillside Avenue, and Janice was glad of his +company.</p> + +<p>"Huh! ain't yer gittin' pop'lar?" croaked the boy, grinning at her. "An' +goin' ter 'Rill Scattergood's ter supper. Ye must ha' had a fine time—I +don't think!"</p> + +<p>"Of course I had a nice time," laughed Janice.</p> + +<p>"With that old maid," scoffed Marty.</p> + +<p>"Say, Marty, would you go to school again if they had a different +teacher?" queried Janice.</p> + +<p>"'Course I would!" returned the boy, stoutly.</p> + +<p>"Maybe next Fall they'll have another one. Miss Scattergood talks of +giving up teaching."</p> + +<p>"I should think she would!" exploded Marty. "But she won't. You'll see. +She'll be teachin' Poketown school when she has ter go on crutches."</p> + +<p>The next day, after Janice had inveigled Marty into spending most of his +forenoon in the yard and garden (and the latter was beginning to look +quite like a real garden by now), the girl went shopping. Most of the +stores were "general" stores, and she did not believe there was much +choice between them. Only she had an interest in Hopewell Drugg; so she +proceeded to his dark little shop.</p> + +<p>Lottie sat upon a box nursing a rag doll, in the sunlight that came in +at the side door. She was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> crooning to herself a weird little song, and +rocking back and forth upon the box. Mr. Drugg seemed to be out.</p> + +<p>Janice walked the length of the store very quietly, and the child did +not apprehend her approach. But when she stepped upon one of the boards +of the back-room floor, little Lottie felt the vibration and looked up, +directly at Janice, with her pretty, sightless eyes.</p> + +<p>"Papa Drugg be right back; Papa Drugg be right back," she said, forming +the phrase with evident difficulty.</p> + +<p>Janice went close to her and laid a hand upon Lottie's shoulder. The +little girl caught at it quickly, ran her slim fingers up her arm to her +shoulder and so, jumping up from the box, felt of Janice's face, too. +The latter stooped and kissed her.</p> + +<p>"I know you—I know you," murmured the child. "You came home from the +lake with me. I was trying to find my echo. Did <i>you</i> find it?"</p> + +<p>Janice squeezed her hand, and she seemed to understand the affirmative.</p> + +<p>"Then it's really <i>there</i>?" she sighed. "It's only <i>me</i> that's lost it. +Well—well—Do you think I can ever find it again?"</p> + +<p>Janice squeezed the hand firmly, and she put into that affirmative all +the confidence which could possibly be thus expressed. She did not +believe it to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> be wrong to raise hope of again hearing in the poor +child's heart.</p> + +<p>Mr. Drugg came in from the back, wiping his hands and forearms of soapy +water. He had evidently been engaged in some household task. Upon closer +acquaintance he was improved, so Janice thought. He possessed the long, +thin, New England features; but there was a certain calm in their +expression that was attractive. His gray eyes were brooding, and there +were many crow's-feet about them; nevertheless, they were kindly eyes +with a greater measure of intelligence in them than Janice had expected +to find.</p> + +<p>It proved that Hopewell had a considerable stock upon his dusty shelves; +but how he managed to find anything that a customer called for was a +mystery to Janice. She selected the few notions that she needed; and as +she did so she just <i>ached</i> to get hold of that stock of dry goods and +straighten it out.</p> + +<p>And the dust—and the flyspecks—and the jumble of useless scraps among +the newer stock! The interior of that old store was certainly a +heart-breaking sight. Two side windows that might have given light and +air to the place were fairly banked up with merchandise. And when had +either of the show windows been properly "dressed"?</p> + +<p>However, Mr. Drugg was an attentive salesman and he really knew his +stock very well. It mystified<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> Janice to see how quickly he could find +the article wanted in that conglomeration.</p> + +<p>She remained a while to play with Lottie. Drugg came to look fondly at +the little girl putting her rag-baby to sleep in a soap-box crib.</p> + +<p>"She's just about ruined that dress and them shoes, I shouldn't wonder," +mused the storekeeper. "But I forgot to put out her everyday clo'es +where she could find them yesterday morning. There's so much to do all +the time. Well!" He drew the violin and bow toward him and sighed. No +other customer came into the store. Drugg tucked the fiddle under his +chin and began to scrape away.</p> + +<p>Lottie jumped up and clapped her little hands when he struck a chord +that vibrated upon her nerves. There she stood, with her little, +up-raised face flooded by the spring sunshine, which entered through the +side doorway, a gleam of pleasure passing over her features when she +felt the vibration of the minor notes. They were deeply engaged, those +two—the father with his playing, the child in striving to catch the +tones.</p> + +<p>Janice gathered up her few small purchases and stole out of the old +store.</p> + +<p>It was more than a week later when Marty came home to supper one night +and grinned broadly at his cousin.</p> + +<p>"What d'ye s'pose I've got for you, Janice?" he asked.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p> + +<p>His cousin flashed him a single comprehending look, and then her face +went white.</p> + +<p>"Daddy!" she gasped. "A letter from Daddy?"</p> + +<p>"Aw, shucks! ain't there nothin' else you want?" the boy returned, +teasingly.</p> + +<p>"Not so much as a talk with Daddy," she declared, breathlessly. "And +that's almost what a letter will be. Dear Marty! If you've got a letter +from him do, <i>do</i> let me have it!"</p> + +<p>"Don't you torment Janice now, Marty," cried his mother. "I hope he is +all right, Janice. Is it writ in his own hand, Marty?"</p> + +<p>"I dunno," said the plaguesome boy, looking at the address covertly. "It +is postmarked 'Juarez'."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes! oh, yes!" cried Janice. "He would send it down there to be +mailed. So he said. Mail service up in Chihuahua is so uncertain. Oh, +Marty! p-l-e-a-s-e!"</p> + +<p>"You give her that, Marty!" commanded Mr. Day.</p> + +<p>Janice snatched the letter when the boy held it out to her; but she +flashed Marty a "Thanks, awfully!" as she ran out of the room and +upstairs. Supper? What did she care for supper? In the red light of the +sunset she sat by the window in her room and read Mr. Broxton Day's +loving letter.</p> + +<p>It <i>was</i> almost like seeing and talking with Daddy! Those firm, flowing +lines of black ink, displaying<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> character and firmness and decision, +looked just like Daddy himself! Janice kissed the open page +ecstatically, and then began to read:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Daughter</span>:</p> + +<p>"The several thousand miles that separate us seem very short +indeed when I sit down to write my little Janice. I can see +her standing right before me in this barren, corrugated-iron +shack—which would have been burned the last time a bunch of +the Constitutionalists swept through these hills, only iron +will not burn. If a party of Federal troops come along they +may try to destroy our plant, too. Just at the present time +the foreigner, and his property, are in no great favor with +either party of belligerents. The cry is 'Mexico for the +Mexicans'—and one can scarcely blame them. But although I +have seen a little fighting at a distance, and plenty of the +marks of battle along the railroad line as I came up here, I +do not think I am as yet in any great danger.</p> + +<p>"Therefore, my dear, do not worry too much about your +father's situation. At the very moment you are worrying he +may be eating supper, or hobnobbing with a party of very +courteous and hospitable ranch owners, or fishing in a +neighboring brook where the trout are as hungry as shoats at +feeding time, or otherwise enjoying himself.</p> + +<p>"And so, now, to you and your letter which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> reached me by +one of my messengers from Juarez, by whom I shall send this +reply. Yes, I knew you would find yourself among a people as +strange to you as though they were inhabitants of another +planet. Relatives though they are, they are so much +different from our friends in and about Greensboro, that I +can understand their being a perfect shock to you.</p> + +<p>"I was afraid Jason and Almira lived a sort of shiftless, +hopeless, get-along-the-best-way-you-can life. When I left +Poketown twenty-five years ago I thought it had creeping +paralysis! It must be worse by this time.</p> + +<p>"But <i>you</i> keep alive, Janice, my dear. Keep kicking—like +the frog in the milk-can. <i>Do something.</i> Don't let the +poison of laziness develop in <i>your</i> blood. If they're in a +slack way there at Jason's, help 'em out of it. Be your +Daddy's own girl. Don't shirk a plain duty. <i>Do something +yourself, and make others do something, too!</i>"</p></div> + +<p>There was much in Mr. Broxton Day's letter beside this; there were +intimate little things that Janice would have shown to nobody; but +downstairs she read aloud all Daddy's jolly little comments upon the +country and the people he saw; and about his eating beans so frequently +that he dreamed he had turned into a gigantic Boston bean-pot that was +always full of steaming baked beans. "They<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> are called 'frijoles'," he +wrote; "but a bean by any other name is just the same!"</p> + +<p>The paragraphs that impressed Janice most, however, as repeated above, +she likewise kept to herself. Daddy had expected she would find Poketown +just what it was. Yet he expected something of her—something that +should make a change in her relatives, and in Poketown itself.</p> + +<p>He expected Janice to <i>do something</i>.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h3>BEGINNING WITH A BEDSTEAD</h3> + + +<p>Janice got up and took her usual before-breakfast run the next morning. +The Days remained the last family to rise in the neighborhood. The smoke +from the broken kitchen chimney crawled heavenward long after the fires +in other kitchen-stoves had burned down to hot coals.</p> + +<p>So when the girl got back to the house, Aunt 'Mira had scarcely begun +getting the meal. Janice rummaged about in the tool-shed for some +minutes before she went upstairs to her room again. Marty crawled down, +yawning, and started for the usual morning pail of water from the +neighbor's well. Mr. Day was smoking on the bench outside of the kitchen +door. The pork began to hiss in the pan.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, from upstairs, came a noisy pounding. Nail after nail was +being driven with confidence and dispatch.</p> + +<p>"For the land's sake!" gasped Aunt 'Mira, looking up from the stove, a +strip of pork hanging from her up-raised fork.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p> + +<p>Uncle Jason took his pipe from his lips and screwed his neck around so +as to look in at the door.</p> + +<p>"What d'you reckon that gal's up to?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>Marty came back from the Dickerson's at almost a lope. "What in +'tarnation is Janice doin' up in her room?" he queried, slopping the +water as he put the pail hurriedly upon the shelf.</p> + +<p>"I haven't the least idea what it can be," said Mrs. Day, almost aghast.</p> + +<p>"By jinks!" exclaimed the slangy boy. "I wanter see. By jinks! she +socked that nail home—she did!"</p> + +<p>The whole house rang with the vigor of Janice's blows. Marty started up +the stairs in a hurry, and Mr. Day followed him. Mrs. Day came to the +foot of the stairs with the piece of pork still dangling from her fork.</p> + +<p>Marty reached his cousin's door and banged it open without as much as +saying "By your leave."</p> + +<p>"Hullo! What you doin'?" demanded the boy.</p> + +<p>"Can't you <i>see</i>?" returned Janice, coolly. "I got sick of being rocked +to sleep every night on that old soap-box. I'll wager, Marty, that this +leg will stay put when I get through with it."</p> + +<p>"Wal! of all things!" grunted Mr. Day, with his head poked in at the +open door.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What's Janice doing?" demanded his wife, too heavy to mount the stairs +easily.</p> + +<p>Uncle Jason turned about and descended the flight without replying to +his wife; but at her reiterated cry Marty explained.</p> + +<p>"Ain't that gal a good 'un?" said the boy. "She's gone and put on the +old leg to that bedstead. That's been broke off ever since you cleaned +house last Fall, Maw."</p> + +<p>"Oh! Well! Is that it?" repeated Mrs. Day. Then, when she and her +husband were alone in the kitchen, before the young folk came down, she +said, pointing the fork at him: "I declare for't! I'd feel ashamed if I +was you, Jason Day."</p> + +<p>"What for?" demanded her husband, scowling.</p> + +<p>"Lettin' Broxton's gal do that. You could ha' tacked on that leg forty +times if you could once. Ain't that true?"</p> + +<p>But Mr. Day refused to quarrel. He took a long drink from the pail of +fresh water Marty had brought. Then he said, tentatively:</p> + +<p>"Breakfast most ready, Almiry? I'm right sharp-set."</p> + +<p>When Janice and Marty came down they were not talking of the bedstead at +all. But Aunt 'Mira was rather gloomy all through the meal, and looked +accusingly at her husband every time she heaped his plate with pork, and +cakes, and "white gravey."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mr. Day quite ignored these looks. He was even chatty—for him—with +Janice. It was a school day, and Janice hurried to put on her hat and +get her school bag, into which she slipped the luncheon that her aunt +very kindly put up for her. Aunt 'Mira had really begun to "put herself +out" for her niece, and the luncheon was always tasty and nicely +arranged.</p> + +<p>"Wait for me, Marty!" she cried, as her cousin was sliding out of the +door in his usual attempt to get away unobserved, and so not be called +back for any unexpected chores.</p> + +<p>"Aw, come on! A gal's always behind—like a cow's tail!" growled the +chivalrous Marty. "What you want?"</p> + +<p>Janice gave him a quarter of a dollar secretly. "Now, you get that pump +leather and you bring it home this noon. Just put it on the table by +your father's plate," she commanded. "You going to do it for me?"</p> + +<p>"Sure," grinned Marty. "And I'll see that he don't lose it, nuther. I +know Dad. He'll need more than <i>that</i> suggestion to git him started on +that old pump."</p> + +<p>"We'll try," sighed Janice; and then Marty ran on ahead of her to +overtake one of his boy friends. He would have been ashamed to be caught +walking with his girl cousin by daylight, and on the public streets of +Poketown!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p> + +<p>After school that day, when Janice arrived again at the old Day house, +the first thing she heard was her aunt's complaining voice begging Marty +to go down to Dickerson's for a bucket of water.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with Dad?" demanded the boy. "Didn't I bring him that +pump leather? Huh!"</p> + +<p>"Mebbe your father will git around to fixin' the pump staff, and he kin +make that in ten minutes. I believe he's got a stick for't out in the +workshop now, he won't be driv'."</p> + +<p>"Janice wasted her good money, then," said Marty, with fine disgust. +"All else it needs is a pump staff, and he kin make that in ten minutes. +I believe he's got a stick for't out in the workshop—had it there for +months."</p> + +<p>"Now, you git erlong with that pail, Marty," commanded his mother, "and +don't stand there a-criticisin' of your elders."</p> + +<p>Janice hid behind the great lilac bush until Marty had gone grumblingly +down the hill. Then she heard some loud language from the barnyard and +knew that her uncle had come in from the fields. After a little +hesitation she made straight for the barn.</p> + +<p>"Uncle Jason! won't you please mend the pump? Mr. Pringle has cut you a +good pump leather."</p> + +<p>"Goodness me, Janice! I'm druv to death. All this young corn to +cultivate, an' not a soul to help<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> me. Other boys like Marty air some +good; but I can't trust him in the field with a hoss."</p> + +<p>"But you don't work in the field all day long, Uncle," pleaded Janice.</p> + +<p>"Seems to me I don't have a minute to call my own," declared the farmer. +To hear him talk one would think he was the busiest man in Poketown!</p> + +<p>"I expect you are pretty busy," agreed the girl, nodding; "but I can +tell you how to find time to mend that pump."</p> + +<p>"How's that?" he asked, curiously.</p> + +<p>"Get up when I do. We can mend it before the others come down. Will you +do it to-morrow morning, Uncle?"</p> + +<p>"Wa-al! I dunno——"</p> + +<p>"Say you will, Uncle Jason!" cried Janice. "We'll surprise 'em—Aunty +and Marty. They needn't never know till it's done."</p> + +<p>"I got ter find a new pump shaft——"</p> + +<p>"Marty says you've got one put away in the workshop."</p> + +<p>"Why—er—so I have, come to think on't."</p> + +<p>"Then it won't take long. Let's do it, Uncle—that's a dear!"</p> + +<p>The man looked around dumbly; he hunted in his rather slow mind for some +excuse—some reason for withdrawing from the venture that Janice +proposed.</p> + +<p>"I—I dunno as I would wake up——"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I'll wake you. I'll come to your door and scratch on the panel like a +mouse gnawing. Aunt 'Mira will never hear."</p> + +<p>"No. She sleeps like the dead," admitted Uncle Jason. "Only the dead +don't snore."</p> + +<p>"Will you do it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, well! I'll see how I feel in the morning," half promised Uncle +Jason, and with this Janice had to be content. She did not, however, +lose heart. She was determined to stir the sluggish waters in and about +the old Day house, if such a thing could be done!</p> + +<p>Uncle Jason was rather sombre that evening, and even Marty did not feel +equal to stirring the quiet waters of the family pool. Janice stole away +early to bed. Aunt Almira was always the last person in the household to +retire. Long after the rest of them were asleep she remained swinging in +her creaky rocker, close to the lamp, her eyes glued to one of the cheap +story papers upon which her romance-loving soul had fed for years.</p> + +<p>There was not a cloud at dawn. When Janice rubbed her eyes and looked +out of her wide open window the sun was almost ready to pop above the +hills. The birds were twittering—tuning up, as it were, for their +opening chorus of the day.</p> + +<p>This was the day on which Janice determined the Day family should turn +over a new leaf!</p> + +<p>She doused her face with cool water from her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> pitcher, and then +scrambled into her clothes and tidied her hair. She tiptoed to the door +of the bedchamber occupied by her uncle and aunt. At her first tap on +the panel Uncle Jason grunted.</p> + +<p>"Well! I hear ye," he said, in no joyful tone.</p> + +<p>Janice really giggled, as she listened outside of the door. She was +determined to have Uncle Jason up, and she waited, still scratching on +the door panel until she heard him give an angry grunt, and then land +with both feet on the straw matting. Then she scurried back to her own +room and quickly finished dressing.</p> + +<p>She was downstairs ahead of him, and quickly opened the doors and +windows to the damp, sweet morning air. The cleaning up she and Marty +had given the yard had made the premises really pleasant to look at. +Flowers were springing along the borders of the path, and vines were +creeping up the string trellis by the back door. The apple trees were +covering the lawn with their last late shower of flower petals.</p> + +<p>How the birds rioted in the tops of the trees! Singing, scolding, +mating, they were really the jolliest chorus one ever listened to. The +girl ran out into the yard and fairly danced up and down, she felt so +<i>good</i>! Much of her homesickness had fled since she had received Daddy's +letter.</p> + +<p>She heard Uncle Jason heavily descending the stairs, his shoes in his +hand. Janice broke off a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> great branch of lilacs, shook off the dew, and +buried her face in the fragrant blossoms. Then, when Uncle Jason came +yawning into the kitchen, closing the stair door behind him, she rushed +in, with beaming face, bade him "Good-morning!" and put the lilac branch +directly under his nose.</p> + +<p>"Just smell 'em, Uncle! Smell 'em deep—before you say a word," she +commanded.</p> + +<p>He had come down with a full-grown grouch upon him—that was plainly to +be seen. But when he had taken in a great draught of the sweet odor of +the flowers, and found his niece with her lips puckered, and standing on +tiptoe to kiss him on his unshaven cheek, he somehow forgot the grouch.</p> + +<p>"Them's mighty purty! mighty purty!" he agreed, and while he pulled on +his congress gaiters, Janice arranged the blossoms in a jar of water and +set them in the middle of the breakfast table. Aunt 'Mira kept the table +set all the time. The red and white tablecloth was renewed only once a +week, and the jar of flowers served to hide the unsightly spot where +Marty had spilled the gravy the day before.</p> + +<p>"Come on and let's see what the matter is with the pump," urged Janice, +in fear lest he should get away from her, for already Mr. Day's fingers +were searching along the ledge above the door for his pipe.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Wa-al—ya-as—we might as well, I s'pose. I'll make 'Mira's fire later. +It's 'tarnal early, child."</p> + +<p>"Sun's up," declared Janice. "Hurry, Uncle!"</p> + +<p>He shuffled off to get his tools and the piece of oak he had laid aside +for a pump staff so long ago. Janice tried to untie the pump handle, +and, not succeeding, ran in for the carving knife and managed to saw the +rope in two.</p> + +<p>"I got ter take off a piece of tin in the roof of the porch—see it up +yonder? Then I kin pull out the broken staff and put in a new one," said +her uncle, coming back rather promptly for him. "These here wooden pumps +is a nuisance; but the wimmen folks all like 'em 'cause they're easier +to <i>pump</i>. Now! I bet that ladder won't hold my weight."</p> + +<p>He searched the old, rough, homemade ladder out of the weeds by the +boundary fence. It was built of two pieces of fence rail with rungs of +laths,—a rough and unsightly affair; and two or three of the rungs +<i>were</i> cracked.</p> + +<p>"It'll hold <i>me</i>," cried Janice. "You let me try, Uncle Jason. Let me +have the screwdriver. I can lift the tacks and pull off the tin. You +see."</p> + +<p>She mounted the ladder in a hurry and crept upon the roof of the porch. +Uncle Jason started the nut at the handle, and soon removed that so that +the staff could be pulled out. The sheet of tin had covered a hole in +the shingles right above the pump.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> In a minute the cracked staff, with +the worn leather valve, was out of the pump entirely, and Uncle Jason +carried it out to the workshop where he could labor upon it with greater +ease. Janice slid down the ladder, found the little three-fingered +weeder, and went to work upon the rich mould around the roots of the +vines—the sweet peas and morning glories that would soon be blooming in +abundance.</p> + +<p>Before Aunt 'Mira and Marty were up, the pump was working in fine style. +Uncle Jason had taken an abundance of water out to the cattle. Usually +the drinking trough was filled but once a day, and that about noon. Now +the poor horses and the neglected cow could have plenty of water.</p> + +<p>And so could the household. Aunt 'Mira need no longer give things "a +lick and a promise," as she so frequently expressed it. When she came +down it was to a humming fire, a steaming kettle, and a brimming pail on +the shelf.</p> + +<p>"I declare for't, Janice!" she exclaimed. "What you done now?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing, Aunty—save to put a pretty bunch of lilacs on the table for +you."</p> + +<p>"An' them lilacs is always fragrant," agreed the lady. "Who went for the +water? Is Marty up?"</p> + +<p>"Marty wouldn't lose his beauty sleep," laughed Janice.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p> + +<p>"For the mercy's sake!" gasped Aunt 'Mira. "The pump bench is wet. I +declare for't! Jason never fixed that pump, did he?"</p> + +<p>"Just try it, Aunty!" cried the delighted Janice. "See how easy it +works! And the more it's pumped the better the water will be. It's not +quite clear yet, you know. Moss <i>will</i> grow in the pipe."</p> + +<p>"Janice, you're a wonder! You kin do more with your uncle than his own +fam'bly can, an' that's a fact!"</p> + +<p>"I hope you don't mind, Aunty?" she whispered, coming over to the large +lady and hugging her. "You know, after all, it's for you he did it."</p> + +<p>"Wal, it does lighten my labor, that's a fact," admitted Aunt 'Mira. "He +use ter do a-many things for me, years ago. Oh, yes! Your Uncle Jason +warn't allus like he is now. But we got kinder in a rut I 'xpec'. An' I +ain't young and good-lookin' like I use ter be, an' that makes a +diff'rence with a man."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> think you're very pleasant to look at, Aunt 'Mira," declared the +girl, warmly. "And I don't believe Uncle Jason ever saw a girl he liked +to look at so well as you. Of course not!"</p> + +<p>"But I be gittin' old," sighed the poor woman. "An' I ain't got a decent +gown to put on no more. An' I'm <i>fat</i>."</p> + +<p>Janice still hugged her. "We'll just overhaul<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> your wardrobe, you and I, +Aunty, and I believe we can find something that can be fixed over to +look nice. You'd ought to wear pretty gowns—of course you had. Let's +surprise Uncle Jason by dressing you up. Why, he hasn't seen you dressed +up since—since I've been here."</p> + +<p>"Longer'n that, child—much longer'n that," admitted Aunt 'Mira, +shamefacedly. "P'r'aps <i>'tis</i> my fault. Anyway, I'm glad about the +pump," and she kissed her niece heartily.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h3>A RAINY DAY</h3> + + +<p>Janice had learned that there were at least two senses left to Hopewell +Drugg's unfortunate child that connected her with the world as it is, +and with her fellow creatures. As she gradually had lost her sight and +hearing, and, consequently, speech was more and more difficult for her, +Lottie's sense of touch and of smell were being sharpened.</p> + +<p>Her olfactory nerves were almost as keen as a dog's. How she loved the +scent of flowers! She named many of the blossoms in the gardens about +just by the odor wafted to her upon the air. And she was really a pretty +sight, sitting upon the shady porch of her father's store, sorting and +making into bouquets the flowers that neighbors gave her.</p> + +<p>The old-fashioned shrubs and flowers in the Day yard were in bloom now +in abundance, and one morning before school Janice carried to little +Lottie a huge armful of odorous blossoms. It was a "dripping" morning. +As yet it had not rained<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> hard; but just as Janice turned off High +Street toward the store, the heavens opened and the rain fell in +torrents.</p> + +<p>She ran laughing to the porch of the Drugg's store. For once the man was +at the front, and he welcomed her with his polite, storekeeper's smile, +and the natural courtesy which was usual with him. Janice remembered how +the carping Mrs. Scattergood had declared that Hopewell Drugg would be +"polite to a stray cat!"</p> + +<p>"You must not go farther in this rain, Miss Janice," he said. "Do come +in. Miss 'Rill went along to school half an hour ago—or she never would +have gotten there without a wetting. Are these for little Lottie? How +kind of you!"</p> + +<p>"She's a dear, and she loves flowers so," replied Janice, brightly. "I +<i>will</i> come in out of the rain, if you don't mind, Mr. Drugg."</p> + +<p>"Yes. The roof of the porch leaks a little. I—I ought to fix that," +said the storekeeper, feebly.</p> + +<p>He followed his visitor in, and as his fiddle lay on the counter near at +hand, he took it up. He was playing softly an old, old tune, when Janice +came back through the passage from the house. She had found Lottie in +the kitchen, and had left her, delighted with the posies, sitting at the +table to make them up into bouquets.</p> + +<p>The rain was pouring down with no promise of a let-up, and Janice did +not have even an umbrella.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> She took off her coat and hung her hat to +dry on the back of a chair.</p> + +<p>"I shall have to be company for a while, I expect, Mr. Drugg," she said, +laughing.</p> + +<p>"You are more than welcome, Miss Janice," returned the storekeeper, as +he put down his instrument again. "Is the child all right?"</p> + +<p>"She will be busy there for an hour, I think," declared Janice.</p> + +<p>"I—I am afraid I shall scarcely know how to entertain you, Miss," said +Drugg, hesitatingly. "We have little company. I—I have a few books——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, my, Mr. Drugg! you mustn't think of entertaining me," cried the +girl, cheerfully. "You have your own work to do—and customers to +serve——"</p> + +<p>"Not many in this rain," he told her, smiling faintly.</p> + +<p>"Why, no—I suppose not. But don't you have orders to put up? I supposed +a storekeeper was a very busy man."</p> + +<p>"I am not that kind of a storekeeper, I am afraid," returned Hopewell +Drugg, shaking his head. "I have few customers now. Only a handful of +people come in during the day. You see, I am on the side street here. We +owned this property—mother and I. Mother was bedridden. I thought it +would be easier to keep store and wait on her back<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> in the house there, +than to do most things; so I got into this line. It—it barely makes us +a living," and he sighed.</p> + +<p>"But you <i>do</i> have some business?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes. Old customers who know my stock is always first-class come to +me regularly,—especially out-of-town people. Saturdays I manage to have +quite some trade, like the Hammett Twins, and the farmers. I can't +complain."</p> + +<p>"You never liked the business, then?" asked Janice, shrewdly.</p> + +<p>"No. Not that it isn't as good as most livelihoods. We all must work. +And I never could do the thing I <i>loved</i> to do. Not with mother +bedridden."</p> + +<p>"And that thing was?" asked Janice.</p> + +<p>He touched the violin on the counter softly. "I had just music enough in +me to be mad for it," he said, and his gray face suddenly colored +faintly, for it evidently cost him something to speak so frankly. +"Mother did not approve—exactly. You see, my father was a music +teacher, and he never—well—'made good', as the term is now. So mother +did not approve. This was father's violin—fiddle 'most folks call it. +But it is very mellow and sweet—if I had only been taught properly to +play it. You see, father died before I was born."</p> + +<p>Out of these few sentences, spoken so gently, Janice swiftly built, in +her quick mind, the whole<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> story of the man. His had been a life of +repression—perhaps of sacrifice! The soul of music in the man had never +been able to burst its chrysalis.</p> + +<p>"Mother died after I was of age. It seemed too late then for me to get +into any other business," Hopewell Drugg went on to say, evenly. "You +know, Miss, one gets into a rut. I was in a rut then. And we hadn't any +too much money left. It was quite necessary that I do something to keep +the pot a-boiling. There wasn't enough money left for music lessons, and +all that.</p> + +<p>"And then——"</p> + +<p>He stopped. A queer look came over his face, and somehow the alert girl +beside him knew what he was thinking of. 'Rill Scattergood was in his +mind. He must have thought a great deal of the little school-mistress at +one time—before he had married that other girl. Aunt Almira had said he +had married 'Cinda Stone "out of spite!" Was it so?</p> + +<p>"Well," sighed the storekeeper, finally coming back from his reverie as +though all the time he had been talking to Janice. "It turned out this +way for me, you see. And here's Lottie. Poor little Lottie! I wish the +store <i>did</i> pay me better. Perhaps something could be done for the child +at the school in Boston. They have specialists there——"</p> + +<p>"But, Mr. Drugg! why don't you <i>try</i>?" gasped Janice, quite shaken by +all she had heard and <i>felt</i>.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Try what, Miss?" he asked, curiously.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you try to make business better? Can't you improve it?"</p> + +<p>"How, Miss?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear me! You don't want <i>me</i> to tell you how, do you?" cried +Janice, "I—I am afraid it would sound impudent."</p> + +<p>"I couldn't imagine your being that, Miss Janice," he said, in his slow +way, looking down at her with a smile that somehow sweetened his gray, +lean face mightily.</p> + +<p>"But why not put out some effort to attract trade here?"</p> + +<p>"To this little, dark, old shop?" asked Drugg, in wonder. "Impossible!"</p> + +<p>"Don't use that word!" the girl commanded, with vigor. "How do you know +it is impossible?"</p> + +<p>"People prefer the big shops on High Street."</p> + +<p>"There's not much choice between them and yours, I believe," declared +Janice.</p> + +<p>"They're handier."</p> + +<p>"You've got your own neighborhood. You used to have customers."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes. But that's when the store was new."</p> + +<p>"Make it new again," cried Janice, feeling a good deal as though she +would like to shake this hopeless man. Hopewell, indeed! His name surely +did not fit him in the least. Wasn't old Mrs. Scattergood<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> almost right +when she called him "a gump"? At least, if "gump" meant a spineless +creature?</p> + +<p>Drugg was looking languidly about the store in the dim, brown light. +Outside the rain still fell heavily. Occasionally the clouds would +lighten for a moment as they frequently do in the hills; but the rain +was still behind them and <i>would</i> burst through.</p> + +<p>"Come, Mr. Drugg," said Janice, more softly. "Let me show you what I +mean. You can't really expect folks to come here and trade when they can +scarcely see through the windows——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes," he murmured. "I <i>had</i> ought to clean up a bit."</p> + +<p>"More than that!" she cried. "You want to have a regular +overhauling—take account of stock, and all that—know what you've +got—arrange your goods attractively—get rid of the flies—put on fresh +paint——"</p> + +<p>He was looking at her with wide-open eyes. "My soul!" he breathed. +"How'd I ever git around to doin' all <i>that</i>?"</p> + +<p>"You love little Lottie, don't you?" Janice demanded, with sudden +cruelty. "I should think you'd be willing to do something for her!"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" and a little snap, which delighted Janice, suddenly +came into Drugg's tone.</p> + +<p>"Just what I say, Mr. Drugg. You <i>speak</i> as though you loved her."</p> + +<p>"And who says I don't?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Your actions."</p> + +<p>"My actions? What do you mean by that?" and the man flushed more deeply +than before.</p> + +<p>"I mean if you truly loved her, and longed to get her to Boston and to +the surgeons, and the school there, it seems to me you'd be willing to +work hard to that end."</p> + +<p>"You show me—" he began, wrathfully, but she interrupted with:</p> + +<p>"Now, wait! Let me have my way for an hour here, will you? I want you to +go back to Lottie and do up the housework; I see your breakfast dishes +are still unwashed. Leave me alone here and let me do as I like for an +hour."</p> + +<p>"You mean to clean up?" he asked, gazing about the store hopelessly.</p> + +<p>"Something like that. It rains so hard I can't get to school. I'll visit +with you, Mr. Drugg," said Janice smiling and her voice cheerful again. +"And instead of helping about the housework, I'll help in the store. +<i>Do</i> let me, sir!"</p> + +<p>"Why—yes—I don't mind. I guess you mean right enough, Miss Janice. But +you don't understand——"</p> + +<p>"Give me an hour," she cried.</p> + +<p>"Why, yes, Miss," he said, in his old, gentle, polite way. "If you want +to mess about I won't mind. Come in and I'll give you a big long apron<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> +that will cover your frock all over. It—it's dreadful dusty in here."</p> + +<p>Janice would not be discouraged. She smiled cheerfully at him, found +brush, pan, broom, pail, and cloths, and with some hot water and +soap-powder went back to the store. The rain continued to fall heavily. +There was no likelihood of her being disturbed at her work.</p> + +<p>She chose the more littered of the two show windows and almost threw +everything out of it in her hurry. Then she swept down the cobwebs and +dead flies, and brushed away all the dust. It was no small task to scrub +the panes of glass clean, and all the woodwork; but Janice knew how to +work. The old black Mammy who had kept house for her and Daddy so many +years had taught the girl domestic tasks, and had taught her well.</p> + +<p>Within an hour the work was done. More light came through the panes of +that window than usually ventured in upon a sunshiny day!</p> + +<p>The balance of the task was a pleasure. Her bright eyes had noted the +newer goods upon Mr. Drugg's shelves. She selected samples of the more +recent canned goods—those of which the labels on the cans were fresh +and bright. She arranged these with package goods—breakfast foods, and +the like—so as to make a goodly display. She found colored tissue +papers, too, and she brightened the window shelf with these. She +festooned the flyspecked,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> T-arm light bracket in the window, and +carried twisted strings of the pink and green paper to the four corners +of the window shelf from the bottom of this bracket.</p> + +<p>She went out upon the porch at last to look in at the display. From the +outside the window was pretty and bright—it was like the windows she +was used to seeing in the Greensboro stores.</p> + +<p>"One thing about it," she declared, with confidence. "There's nothing +like this in the whole of Poketown. There isn't another store window +that looks so fresh and—yes!—dainty."</p> + +<p>Then she went inside to Mr. Drugg. He was listlessly brushing up the +cottage kitchen. Lottie had fallen asleep on the wide bench beyond the +cookstove, a great bunch of posies hugged against her stained pinafore.</p> + +<p>"Come in and see, sir," said Janice, beckoning the gray man into the +store. Drugg came with shuffling steps and lack-lustre eyes. He seemed +to be considering in his mind something that had nothing whatsoever to +do with what she had called him for.</p> + +<p>"Do you re'lly suppose, Miss Janice," he murmured, "that I could +increase trade here? I need money—God knows!—for little Lottie. If I +could get her to Boston——</p> + +<p>"Good gracious, Miss! what you been doing here?" he suddenly gasped.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Isn't that some better?" demanded Janice, chuckling. "Astonished, +aren't you, Mr. Drugg? Don't you believe if both windows were like that, +and the whole store cleaned up, folks would sit up and take notice?"</p> + +<p>"I—I believe you," admitted the shopkeeper, still staring.</p> + +<p>"And wouldn't it pay?"</p> + +<p>"I—I don't know. It might."</p> + +<p>"Isn't it worth trying?" demanded Janice, cheerily. "Now, please, I want +you to do as I say—and you must let me have my own way to-day here. +I've brought my lunch, and it's too late to go to school now, even if it +<i>does</i> stop raining. You'll let me, won't you?"</p> + +<p>"I—I—I don't know just what you want me to do—or what <i>you</i> want to +do," stammered Hopewell Drugg, still staring at the transformed window.</p> + +<p>"I want you to turn in and help me put your whole store to rights," she +declared. "You don't understand, Mr. Drugg. I believe you can attract +trade here if you will have things nice, and bright, and tidy. You carry +a good stock of wares; and you are not any more behind the times than +other Poketown merchants. Why not be <i>ahead of them all</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Me?" breathed Drugg, in increasing wonder.</p> + +<p>"And why not <i>you</i>? You've got as good a chance as any. Just get to work +and <i>make</i> trade. Think<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> of little Lottie. If your business can be +increased and you can make money, think of what you can do for her!"</p> + +<p>Drugg suddenly straightened his stooped shoulders and held up his head. +"Just you show me what you want me to do," he said, with unexpected +fire.</p> + +<p>"Grand!" cried the excited Janice. "I can set you to work in a minute. +First thing of all, you fix your screen doors; let's keep the fly family +out of the store—and we'll kill those already in here. You commence on +the screens, Mr. Drugg, while I tackle that other window."</p> + +<p>About the time school was usually out, Janice removed her apron and the +other marks of her toil, and put on her hat and coat. As she said, they +had made a good beginning. Better still, Hopewell Drugg seemed quite +inspired.</p> + +<p>"You have done me a world of good, Miss Janice," he declared. "And +already the shop looks a hundred per cent better."</p> + +<p>"I should hope so," said Janice, vigorously. "And you keep right on with +the good work, Mr. Drugg. I'll come in and dress your windows every +week. And when you've torn those shelves away from the side windows and +let the light and air in here, and done your painting as you promised, +I'll come and arrange your wares on the shelves.</p> + +<p>"Then you get out a little good advertising, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> remind folks that +Hopewell Drugg is still in Poketown and doing business. Oh! there are a +dozen things I want you to do! But I won't tell you about all of them +now," and Janice laughed as she picked up her bag and ran out.</p> + +<p>The rain had ceased. The sun was breaking through the clouds, promising +a beautiful evening. Janice almost ran into 'Rill Scattergood on the +sidewalk.</p> + +<p>"Why, Janice dear!" cried the little school-mistress. "I missed you +to-day." Then her eyes turned toward the store. "Is—is anything the +matter? Nothing's happened to little Lottie?"</p> + +<p>"Not a thing," replied the girl, cheerfully.</p> + +<p>"Nor—nor to Mr. Drugg? I don't hear him playing," said Miss 'Rill.</p> + +<p>"And I hope you <i>won't</i> hear him playing so much for a while," laughed +Janice. "The fiddle and the bow have been laid away on the shelf for a +while, I hope."</p> + +<p>"But I really <i>do</i> think Mr. Drugg plays very nicely," murmured the +little schoolmistress, not at all understanding what Janice meant. But +the girl ran on, smiling mysteriously.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<h3>ON THE ROAD WITH WALKY DEXTER</h3> + + +<p>Janice Day found the weeks sliding by more quickly after this. Although +school soon closed, she had begun to find so many interests in Poketown +that she could now write dear Daddy in Mexico quite cheerful letters.</p> + +<p>She had "kept at" Hopewell Drugg until his store was the main topic of +conversation all over town. The man himself was even "spruced up" a bit, +and he met the curious people who put themselves out to see his +rejuvenated store with such a pleasant and businesslike air, that many +new customers were attracted to come again.</p> + +<p>Neatly printed announcements had been scattered about Poketown, signed +by Hopewell Drugg, and making a bid for a share of the general trade. +His windows remained attractively dressed. He displayed new stock and +up-to-the-minute articles. The drummers who came to Poketown began to +pay more attention to this store on the side street.</p> + +<p>But Janice Day believed, that, like charity, reformation should begin at +home. The old Day<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> house was slowly revolutionized that summer. +Commencing with the cleaning up of the yard and the mending of the pump, +Janice inspired further improvements. Marty and she spent each Saturday +morning in the dooryard and garden, while Mr. Day mended the front porch +flooring, where the minister had met with his accident, and reshingled +the roof.</p> + +<p>The boles of the fruit and shade trees about the house were whitewashed, +and the palings of the fence renewed. Somehow a pair of new hinges were +found for the gate. The sidewalk was raked, all the weeds cut away from +the fence-line, and the sod between the path and the gutter trimmed and +its edges cut evenly.</p> + +<p>When Marty actually whitewashed the fence, Mr. Day admitted that it was +such an improvement he wished he could go on and paint the house. "But, +by mighty!" he drawled, "it's been so long since 'twas painted, it 'ud +soak up an awful sight of oil."</p> + +<p>Other people along Hillside Avenue began to take notice of the +improvement about the old Day house. Mr. Dickerson built a new front +fence, getting it on a line with the Days' barrier. Others trimmed +hedges and trees, put the lawn mower to their grass, bolstered up +sagging fences, and rehung gates. Hillside Avenue, up its whole length, +began to look less neglected.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p> + +<p>Janice had a fondness for the little inlet, with its background of tall +firs, where she had first met little Lottie Drugg, and she often walked +down there. So she became pretty well acquainted with "Mr. Selectman" +Cross Moore. But as yet she did not get as far out on the Middletown +Lower Road as the house where the Hammett Twins lived.</p> + +<p>One day she found a long lumber-reach dropping new posts and rails along +the length of the deep ditch into which the twins' pony had come so near +to backing the little old ladies on that memorable day when Janice had +first met them.</p> + +<p>"Hi tunket!" ejaculated Mr. Moore, grinning in a most friendly way at +Janice, "I hope you'll be satisfied now. You've jest about hounded me +into havin' this fence put up again."</p> + +<p>"Why, Mr. Moore! I never said a thing to you about it," cried the girl.</p> + +<p>"No. But I see ye ev'ry time you go by, and I'm so reminded of the +'tarnal fence that I remember it o' nights. If somebody <i>should</i> fall +inter the ditch, ye know. And then—Well, I've found out you've made +little Lottie Drugg promise not to come down this way 'nless somebody's +with her. 'Fraid <i>she'll</i> fall in here, too, I s'pose——"</p> + +<p>"Well, she might," said Janice, firmly.</p> + +<p>"She won't have no chance," growled Mr. Moore, but with twinkling eyes +in spite of his gruffness.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> "Hi tunket! I'll build a railing along here +that'll hold up an elephunt."</p> + +<p>This day Janice had set forth for a long jaunt into the country. She +took the turn where the Hammett Twins and their pony had first come into +her sight, and kept walking on the Middletown Lower Road for a long way. +It overlooked the lake, Janice had been told, for most of the distance +to the larger town.</p> + +<p>She passed several farmhouses but did not reach the Hammett place; +instead she rested upon a rustic bridge where a swift, brawling brook +came down from the hills to tumble into the lake. Then, as she was going +on, a quick "put, put, put" sounded from along the road she had been +traveling.</p> + +<p>"It's a motorcycle," thought Janice. "I didn't know anybody owned one +around Poketown."</p> + +<p>Turning the bend in the road the 'cycle flashed into view, along with a +whisp of dust. A young man rode the machine—a young man who looked +entirely different from the youths of Poketown. Janice looked at him +with interest as he flashed past. She thought he was going so fast that +he would never notice her curiosity.</p> + +<p>He was muscularly built, with a round head set firmly upon a solid neck, +from which his shirt was turned well away, thus displaying the cords of +his throat to advantage. He was well bronzed by the sun, and the heavy +crop of hair, on which he wore<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> a visorless round cap, was crisp and of +a dull gold color. He really <i>was</i> a good-looking young man, and in his +knickerbockers and golf stockings Janice thought he seemed very +"citified" indeed.</p> + +<p>"He's a college boy, I am sure," decided the girl, with interest, +watching the rider out of sight. "I couldn't see his eyes behind those +dust glasses; but I believe there was a dimple in his cheek. If his face +was washed, I don't doubt but what he'd be good-looking," and she +laughed. "Why! here's Walky Dexter!"</p> + +<p>The red-faced driver of the "party wagon" drew in Josephus and his mate, +with a flourish.</p> + +<p>"Wal, now! I <i>am</i> beat," he ejaculated, his little eyes twinkling. +"Can't be I've found a <i>lost</i> Day?"</p> + +<p>"No, indeed, Mr. Dexter," she told him. "I <i>was</i> thinking I'd walk to +the Hammetts'; but it's turned so hot and dusty——"</p> + +<p>"And the Hammett gals live two good mile ahead o' ye."</p> + +<p>"Oh! as far as that?"</p> + +<p>"Surest thing ye know. Better hop in an' jog along back 'ith me," said +Walkworthy Dexter, cordially.</p> + +<p>"Can I, Mr. Dexter?"</p> + +<p>"You air jest as welcome as the flowers in May," he assured her. "Whoa, +Josephus. Stand still, Kate! My sakes! but the flies bite the critters +this morning, an' no mistake."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p> + +<p>Janice "hopped in," and Mr. Dexter clucked to the willing horses.</p> + +<p>"I jest been takin' a party of our young folks over to Middletown to +take examinations for entrance to the Academy," proclaimed Walky. "An' +that remin's me," added he. "Did yer see that feller go by on one o' +them gasoline bikes?"</p> + +<p>"On the motorcycle?"</p> + +<p>"Ya-as."</p> + +<p>"I saw him," admitted Janice.</p> + +<p>"Know him?"</p> + +<p>"Of course not. He doesn't belong in Poketown, I'm sure."</p> + +<p>"Mebbe he will," said Walky, his eyes twinkling with fun again.</p> + +<p>Janice looked at him, puzzled.</p> + +<p>"Ain't you heard?" he questioned. "'Rill Scattergood's resigned and the +school committee is lookin' for a new teacher. <i>That</i> feller's got the +bee in his bonnet, they told me at Middletown."</p> + +<p>"The school-teaching bee?" laughed the girl.</p> + +<p>"Yep. He'd been for his certif'cate. He's been writin' to the Poketown +committee."</p> + +<p>"But—but he isn't much more than a boy himself, is he?"</p> + +<p>"They tell me he's been through college. Must be a smart youngster for, +as you say, he's nothin' but a kid."</p> + +<p>"I didn't say that!" cried Janice, in some little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> panic, for she knew +Dexter's proneness to gossip. "Don't you dare say I did!"</p> + +<p>He chuckled. "Wa-al, ye meant it. Come now—didn't ye? An' he <i>is</i> a +mighty young feller ter be teachin' school. 'Specially with sech big +girls an' boys in it. He'll have ter fight the boys, it's likely, an' I +shouldn't wonder if the big gals set their caps for him."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid you're a very reckless talker, Mr. Dexter," sighed Janice. +Then her hazel eyes brightened suddenly, and she added, "They ought to +call you 'Talky' Dexter, instead of 'Walky', I believe."</p> + +<p>"'Talkworthy Dexter', eh?" he grinned.</p> + +<p>"I'm not sure that you <i>do</i> always <i>talk worthy</i>," she told him, shaking +a serious head. "You're very apt to say things to 'stir folks all up,' +as my Aunt says. Oh, yes, you do! You know you do, Mr. Dexter."</p> + +<p>"Wal, I declare!" chuckled the man, but with a queer little side glance +at the serious face of the girl. "Think I'm a trouble-breeder, do ye?"</p> + +<p>"You just ask yourself that, sir," said Janice, firmly. "You know you're +just delighted if you can say something to 'start things going,' as you +call it. And it isn't worthy of you——"</p> + +<p>"Whether I'm 'Talkworthy', or 'Walkworthy', eh?" he broke in, laughing.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I didn't mean any offence!" exclaimed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> Janice, much disturbed now +to think that she had criticised the man just as he was in the habit of +criticising everybody else.</p> + +<p>"I snum! mebbe you're right," grunted Walky Dexter. "And I reckon +talkin' don't do much good after all. Now, look at Cross Moore. I been +at him a year an' more to fix that rail fence along the ditch by his +house. 'Tain't done no good. But, by jinks! somebody else got at him," +added Walky, slyly, "an' I see this mornin' Cross was gittin' the rails +and new posts there. He was right on the job."</p> + +<p>Janice's cheeks grew rosy. "Why!" she cried, "I never said a word to him +about it."</p> + +<p>"No; but somehow he got the idee from you. He told me so," and Walky +chuckled.</p> + +<p>"I think Mr. Moore likes to joke—the same as you do, Mr. Dexter," said +Janice, quietly.</p> + +<p>"Ahem! You sartainly have got some of us goin'," said the driver, +whimsically. "Look at Jase Day! I never <i>did</i> think nothin' less'n +Gabriel's trump would start Jase. But yest'day I'm jiggered if I didn't +see him mendin' his pasture fence. And the old Day house looks like +another place—that's right. How d'you do it?"</p> + +<p>"I—I don't just know what you mean," stammered Janice, feeling very +uncomfortable.</p> + +<p>He looked at her with his eyes screwed up again. "D'you know what they +said about yer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> uncle las' year? He come down to Jefferson's store with +a basket of pertaters. All the big ones was on top and the little ones +at the bottom. Huh! <i>He</i> ain't the only one that 'deacons' a basket of +pertaters," and Walky chuckled.</p> + +<p>"But the boys said 'twas easy to see how come Jase's pertaters that-a +way. 'Twas 'cause it took him so 'tarnal long to dig a basket, that the +pertaters grew ahead of him in the row—that's right! When he begun they +was little, but by the time he got a basket full they'd growed a lot," +and the gossip guffawed his delight at the story.</p> + +<p>"But he's sure gettin' 'round some spryer this year. An' I snum! there's +Marty, too. He's workin' in his mother's garden reg'lar. I seen him. +'Fore you came, Miss Janice, if Marty was diggin' in the garden an' +found a worm, he thought he was goin' fishin' and got him a bait can and +a pole, an' set right off for the lake—that's right!" and Walky shook +all over, and grew so red in the face over his joke that Janice was +really afraid he was becoming apoplectic.</p> + +<p>But something in the middle of the road, as they made another corner, +stopped all this fun.</p> + +<p>"Hullo!" exclaimed Walky. "That young feller on the gasoline bike has +had an accident. Don't it look that way to you?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<h3>NELSON HALEY</h3> + + +<p>The team drew to a halt without any command, and directly beside the +young man, who was working diligently over the overturned motorcycle. +His repair kit was spread out at the roadside, and the cause of the +trouble was self-evident, it would seem. But Walky was a true Yankee and +had to ask questions.</p> + +<p>"Had a puncture, Mister?" he drawled, as the young man looked up, saw +Janice on the seat beside the driver, and flushed a little.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no!" returned the victim of the accident, with some asperity. "I'm +just changing the air in these tires. The other air was worn out, you +know."</p> + +<p>For a moment Walky's eyes bulged, and Janice giggled loudly. Then Mr. +Dexter saw the point of the joke. He slapped his leg and laughed +uproariously.</p> + +<p>"You'll do! By jinks! you surely will <i>do</i>," he declared. "I reckon you +air smart enough,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> young feller, ter teach the Poketown school. An' +that's what they say you're in these parts for?"</p> + +<p>"I am here to see the school committee about the position," said the +young fellow. "Are you one of the committee?"</p> + +<p>"Me? No—I should say not!" gasped Walky. "Old Bill Jones, an' 'Squire +Abe Connett, and Elder Concannon air the committee."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" returned the youth, quite coolly. "I didn't know but you were one +of the number, and that I was already being put through my examination."</p> + +<p>But Walky Dexter was not easily feazed. He just blinked twice over this +snub and pursued the conversation:</p> + +<p>"They tell me you've been ter college?"</p> + +<p>"My! my!" exclaimed the young man, "<i>they</i> tell you a good deal, don't +they? Is it just a habit folks have, or have the Poketown selectmen +passed an ordinance that you are to be the recipient of all personal +information?"</p> + +<p>Janice was still amused, although she thought the young man was rather +hard upon the town gossip. But Walky thought the observation over, and +seemed finally to realize that the motorcyclist was making sport of him.</p> + +<p>"Aw, well," he said, grinning broadly, "if you air tender about your +pussonal record, I'll say no more about it. But I allus b'lieve in goin' +right<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> ter headquarters when I want ter know anything. Saves makin' +mistakes. If you air ashamed of your criminal past, Mister, why, that's +all right—we won't say no more about it."</p> + +<p>At this the young fellow stood up, put his hands upon his hips, and +burst into a hearty shout of laughter. Janice had to join in, while +Walky Dexter grinned, knowing he had made a good point.</p> + +<p>"You certainly had me there, old timer!" declared the youth at last. +"Now providing you will be as frank, and do the honors as well, I'll +introduce myself as Nelson Haley. I hail from Springfield. I have spent +four years in the scholastic halls of Williamstown. I hope to go to law +school, but meanwhile must earn a part of the where-with-all. Therefore, +I am attacking the citadel of the Poketown School."</p> + +<p>"Oh! That's the why-for of it, eh?" crowed Walky. "Much obleeged. I'll +know what to say now when anybody asks me."</p> + +<p>"I hope so," returned Nelson Haley, with some sarcasm. "But fair +exchange, Mister. You might tell me who I have the honor of speaking +to—and, especially, you might introduce me to the lady?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! Eh?" and Walky looked at the blushing Janice, questioningly. The +girl smiled, however, and the driver cleared his throat and gravely made +the introduction. "And I'm Walky Dexter," he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> concluded. "If you git the +Poketown school you'll come ter know me quite well, I shouldn't wonder."</p> + +<p>"That is something to look forward to, I am sure," declared Nelson +Haley, drily. Then he turned to Janice, and asked:</p> + +<p>"Will you be one of my pupils, if I have the good fortune to get the +school, Miss Day?"</p> + +<p>"I—I am afraid not. I do not really belong in Poketown," Janice +explained. "And the ungraded school could not aid me much."</p> + +<p>"No, I suppose not," returned the young man. "Well! I hope I see you +again, Miss Day."</p> + +<p>Walky clucked to the horses and they jogged on, leaving Nelson Haley to +finish his repairs. Walky chuckled, and said to Janice:</p> + +<p>"He's quite a flip young feller. He is young to tackle the Poketown +school. An' 'twill be an objection, I shouldn't wonder. Ye see, they +couldn't find that fault with 'Rill Scattergood."</p> + +<p>"But I venture to say that they did when she first came to Poketown to +teach," cried Janice.</p> + +<p>"Oh, say! I sh'd say they did," agreed Walky, with a retrospective +rolling of his head. "An' she was a purty young gal, then, too. There +was more on us than Hopewell Drugg arter 'Rill in them days—yes, +sir-ree!"</p> + +<p>Janice was curious, and she yielded to the temptation of asking the town +gossip a question:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Why—why didn't Miss 'Rill marry Hopewell, then?"</p> + +<p>"The goodness only knows why they fell out, Miss Janice," declared +Walky. "We none of us ever made out. I 'spect it was the old woman done +it—ol' Miz' Scattergood. She didn't take kindly to Hopewell. And +then—Well, 'Cinda Stone was lef' all alone, an' she lived right back o' +Drugg's store, an' her father had owed Drugg a power of money 'fore he +died—a big store bill, ye see. Hopewell Drugg is as soft as butter; +mebbe he loved 'Cinda Stone; anyhow he merried her after he'd got the +mitten from Amarilla. Huh! ye can't never tell the whys and wherefores +of sech things—not re'lly."</p> + +<p>A presidential election would have made little more stir in Poketown +than the coming there of this young man who looked for the position of +school-teacher. Marty brought home word at night to the old Day house +that Mr. Haley had put up at the Lake View Inn; that he had let two of +the older boys try out his motorcycle; that he could pitch a ball that +"Dunk" Peters couldn't hit, even though "Dunk" had played one season +with the Fitchburg team. Likewise, that Mr. Haley was to go before the +school committee that evening. And after supper Marty hastened down town +again to learn how the examination of the young collegian "came out."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I do hope," sighed Aunt 'Mira, "that this young man gits the school. +Mebbe Marty will like him, an' go again. I won't say but that the boy's +a good deal better'n he was; he's changed since you've come, Janice. But +he'd oughter git more schoolin'—so he had."</p> + +<p>"I met Mr. Haley," said her niece, quietly. "He seems like quite a nice +young man; and, if he has any interest in his work, he ought to give a +good many of the Poketown boys a better start."</p> + +<p>For Marty Day was not the only young loafer in the town. There was +always a group of half-grown boys hanging about Josiah Pringle's harness +shop, or the sheds of the Lake View Inn.</p> + +<p>In Greensboro there had been a good library and reading-room, and the +Young Men's Christian Association boys and young men had a chance +<i>there</i>. Janice knew that her father's influence had helped open these +club-like places for the boys, and so had kept them off the streets. +There wasn't a thing in Poketown for boys to do or a place to go to, +save the stores where the older men lounged. Sometimes, her aunt told +her, men brought jugs of hard cider to the Inn tables, and the boys got +to drinking the stuff.</p> + +<p>"Now, if this Nelson Haley is any sort of a fellow, and he gets the +school," murmured Janice to herself, "he may do something."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p> + +<p>Marty brought home the latest report from the committee meeting before +they went to bed. Mr. Haley seemed to have made a good impression upon +the three old dry-as-dust committeemen, especially on old Elder +Concannon, the superannuated minister who had lived in Poketown for +fifty years, although he had not preached at the Union Church, saving on +special occasion, for two decades.</p> + +<p>"The Elder says he thinks this Haley'll do," said Marty, with a grin. "I +heard him tell Walky Dexter so. He knows some Latin, Haley does," added +the boy. "What's Latin, Janice?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing that will help him in the least to teach the Poketown School," +declared his cousin, rather sharply for her. "Isn't that ridiculous! +What can that old minister be thinking of?"</p> + +<p>"The Elder's great on what he calls 'the classics,'" said Mr. Day, with +a chuckle. "He reads the Bible in the 'riginal, as he calls it. He allus +said 'Rill Scattergood didn't know enough to teach school."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe that Poketown really needs a teacher who reads Hebrew +and can translate a Latin verse. That is, those studies will not help +Mr. Haley much in your school," Janice replied.</p> + +<p>"Wal," said Marty, "I'll go when school opens and give him a whirl. +Maybe he'll teach me how to fling that drop curve."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Now!" whined Aunt 'Mira, when Marty had stumped up to bed. "What good +is it goin' ter do that boy ter go ter school an' learn baseball, I want +ter know?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<h3>A TIME OF TRIAL</h3> + + +<p>Janice met Nelson Haley a couple of days later in Hopewell Drugg's +store. The matter had been decided ere then; Haley had obtained the +school and had quickly established himself in a boarding-place, as the +school would open the next week.</p> + +<p>'Rill Scattergood and her mother had already gone to housekeeping in +three nice rooms just around the corner on High Street, and Mr. Haley +had the good fortune to be "taken in" by Mrs. Beasely. The gaunt old +widow was plainly delighted once more to have "a man to do for."</p> + +<p>"If my digestion holds out, Miss Day," whispered the young man to +Janice, "I'm going to do fine with Mrs. Beasely. Good old creature! But +she may kill me with kindness. I don't see how I am going to be able to +do full justice to her three meals a day."</p> + +<p>"I hope you will like it as well in school as you do at your +boarding-place," ventured Janice, timidly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, the school? That's going to be pie," laughed Haley. "You know about +how it's been run, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"I—I attended for more than a month last spring," admitted the girl.</p> + +<p>"Then you know very well," said the young man, smiling broadly, "that it +won't be half a trick to satisfy the committee. They don't expect much. +'Just let things run along easy-like'; that will please them. If I can +keep the boys straight and teach the youngsters a little, that will be +about all the committee expects. Elder Concannon admitted that much to +me. You see, the whole committee are opposed to what they term +'new-fangled notions.'"</p> + +<p>"But there is some sentiment in town for an improvement in the school," +declared Janice. "Don't you know that? Many people would like to see the +children taught more, and the school more up-to-date."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well," and Haley laughed and shrugged his shoulders. "The committee +seem to be in power, and—Well, Miss Day, you can be sure that I know +which side my bread is buttered on," he concluded, lightly.</p> + +<p>Janice liked this bright, laughing young man very much. But she was +sorry he had no more serious interest in his position than this +conversation showed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p> + +<p>Then there suddenly came a time when Janice Day's own interest in +Poketown and Poketown people—in everything and everybody about +her—seriously waned. Daddy had not written for a fortnight. When the +letter finally came it had been delayed, and was not postmarked as +usual. Daddy only hinted at one of the belligerent armies being nearer +to the mines, and that most of his men had deserted.</p> + +<p>There was trouble—serious trouble, or Daddy would not have kept his +daughter in suspense. Janice watched the mails, eagle-eyed. She wrote +letter after letter herself, begging him to keep her informed,—begging +him to come away from that hateful Mexico altogether.</p> + +<p>"Broxton's no business to be 'way down there at all," growled Uncle +Jason, who was worried, too, and hadn't the tact to keep his feelings +secret from the girl. "Why, Walky Dexter tells me they are shootin' +white folks down there jest like we'd shoot squirrels in these parts."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Jason!" gasped Aunt 'Mira. "It can't be as bad as that!"</p> + +<p>"Wuss. They jest shot a rancher who was a Britisher, an' they say +there'll be war about it. I dunno. Does look as though our Government +ought ter do somethin' to protect Americans as well as Britishers. But, +hi tunket! Broxton hadn't ought ter gone down there—no, sir-ree!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p> + +<p>This sort of talk did not help Janice. She drooped about the house and +often crept off by herself into the woods and fields and brooded over +Daddy's peril. School had begun, and Marty went with several of the +bigger boys that had hung around Pringle's harness shop and the Inn +stables.</p> + +<p>"That Nelse Haley is all right," the boy confided to his cousin. "We're +going to have two baseball teams next year. He says so. Then we kin have +matched games. But now he's goin' to send for what he calls a 'pigskin' +and he's a-goin' to teach us football. Guess you've heard of that, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," said Janice. "It's a great game, Marty. But what about +school? Is he teaching you anything?"</p> + +<p>Marty grinned. "Enough, I guess. Things goin' along easy-like. He don't +kill us with work, that's one thing. Old Elder Concannon's been up once +and sat an' listened to the classes. He seems satisfied."</p> + +<p>Janice did not lose sight of Hopewell Drugg and little Lottie. The store +was now doing a fairly good business; but the man admitted that the +profits rolled up but slowly, and it would be a long time before he +could take his little daughter to Boston.</p> + +<p>These fall days Janice was frequently with Miss 'Rill. The little maiden +lady seemed to understand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> better than most people just how Janice was +troubled by her father's absence, his silence, and his peril. Besides, +when old Mrs. Scattergood did not know, many were the times that 'Rill +and Janice went to Hopewell Drugg's and "tidied up" the cottage for him. +'Rill would not go without Janice, and they usually stole in by the side +door without saying a word to the storekeeper. He was grateful for their +aid, and little Lottie was benefited by their ministrations.</p> + +<p>Then another letter came from Broxton Day. He admitted that the two +armies were very near—one between him and communication with his +friends over the Rio Grande—and that operations at the mine had +completely ceased. Yet he felt it his duty to remain, even though the +property was "between two fires," as it were.</p> + +<p>Ere this Janice had sent off for an up-to-date map of northern Mexico +and the Texan border. She and Marty and Mr. Day had pored over it +evenings and had now marked the very spot in the hills where the mine +was located. The girl subscribed for a New York newspaper, too, and that +came in the evening mail. So they followed the movements of the Federal +and the Constitutionalist armies as closely as possible from the news +reports, and Janice read about each battle with deeper and deeper +anxiety.</p> + +<p>Had her uncle and aunt been wise they would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> have interfered in this +occupation, or at least, they would not have encouraged it. Janice lost +her cheerfulness and her rosy cheeks. Aunt 'Mira declared she drooped +"like a sick chicken."</p> + +<p>"Ye mustn't pay so much 'tention to them papers," she complained. "I +never did think much o' N'York daily papers, nohow. They don't have +'nuff stories in 'em."</p> + +<p>But it was her own money Janice spent for the papers. Whenever Daddy had +written he had usually enclosed in his envelope a bank note of small +denomination for Janice. The bank in Greensboro sent the board money +regularly to Uncle Jason (and Aunt 'Mira got it for her own personal +use, as she declared she would), but Janice always had a little in her +pocket.</p> + +<p>Had she been well supplied with cash about this time the girl would have +been tempted to run away and take the train for Mexico herself. It did +seem to her, when the weeks went by without a letter reaching her from +her father, as though he must be wounded, and suffering, and needing +her!</p> + +<p>But she did not have sufficient money to pay her fare such a long +distance.</p> + +<p>Aunt 'Mira was a poor comforter. Yet she fortunately aided in giving +Janice something else to think about just then. The girl had helped +"spruce up" Aunt 'Mira long since, so that they could go to church +together on Sundays. But now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> the good lady was in the throes of making +herself a silk dress for best—a black silk. It was the thing she had +longed for most, and now she could satisfy the craving for clothes that +had so obsessed her.</p> + +<p>Aunt 'Mira loved finery. Janice had to use her influence to the utmost +to keep the good lady from committing the sin of getting this wonderful +dress too "fancy." Left to herself, Mrs. Day would have loaded it with +bead trimming and cut-steel ornaments. At first she even wanted it cut +"minaret" fashion, which would have, in the end, made the poor lady look +a good deal like an overgrown ballet dancer!</p> + +<p>Janice had been glad to go to church. Always, before coming to Poketown, +the girl had held a vital interest in church and church work. But here +she found there was really nothing for the young people to do. They had +no society, and aside from the Sunday School, a very cut-and-dried +session usually, there was no special interest for the young.</p> + +<p>Mr. Middler, the pastor, was a mild-voiced, softly stepping man, +evidently fearing to give offense. Although he had been in the pastorate +for several years, he seemed to have very little influence in the +community. Elder Concannon and several other older members controlled +the church and its policies utterly; and they frowned on any innovation.</p> + +<p>One Sabbath, old Elder Concannon—a grizzled, heavy-eyebrowed man, with +a beak-like nose and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> flashing black eyes—preached, and he thundered +out the "Law" to his hearers as a man might use a goad on a refractory +team of oxen. Mr. Middler was a faint echo of the old Elder on most +occasions. He seemed afraid of taking his text from the New Testament. +It was Law, not Love, that was preached at the Poketown Union Church; +and although the dissertations may have been satisfactory to the older +members, they did not attract the young people to service, or feed them +when they <i>did</i> come!</p> + +<p>Janice often wondered if the loud "Amens!" of Elder Concannon, down in +the corner, were worth as much to poor little Mr. Middler as would have +been a measure of vital interest shown in the church and its work by +some of the young people of the community.</p> + +<p>There was a Ladies Sewing Circle. There is always a Ladies Sewing +Circle! But, somehow, the making up of barrels of cast-off clothing for +unfortunate missionaries in the West, or up in Canada, or the sewing +together of innumerable ill-cut garments, which must, of course, be +"misfits" for the unknown infants for whom they were intended,—all this +never could seem sufficient to "feed the spirit," to Janice Day's mind.</p> + +<p>Once or twice she went with Aunt 'Mira (who was proud of her new clothes +and would occasionally go about to show them, now) to the sewing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> +society meeting. But there were few other young girls there, and the +gossip was not seasoned to her taste.</p> + +<p>One day came a letter from Daddy's friend and business associate in +Juarez. For three weeks Janice had not received a word from her father. +The man in Juarez wrote:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p> +"<span class="smcap">Dear Miss Janice</span>:—</p> + +<p>"Communication is quite shut off from the district in which +your father's property lies. From such spies as have been +able to get to me, I learn that a disastrous battle has been +fought near the place and that the Constitutionalists have +swept everything before them. They have overrun that part of +Chihuahua and, that being the case, foreigners are not +likely to be well treated or their property conserved.</p> + +<p>"I write this because I think it my duty to do so. You +should be warned that the very worst that can happen must be +expected. I have not heard directly from Mr. Day for a +fortnight, and then but a brief message came. He was then +well and free, but spoke of being probably obliged to desert +his post, after all.</p> + +<p>"Just what has become of him I cannot guess. I have put the +matter in the hands of the consul here, the State Department +has already been telegraphed, and an inquiry will be made. +But Americans<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> are disappearing most mysteriously every week +in Mexico, and I cannot hold out any hope for Mr. Day. He +may get word through to you by some other route than this; +if so, will you wire me at once?</p> + + +<p class="right">"Sincerely yours,<br /> + +"<span class="smcap">James W. Buchanan</span>."</p> + +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2> + +<h3>NEW BEGINNINGS</h3> + + +<p>The very worst of it was, there was nothing Janice could do! She must +wait, and to contemplate that passive state, almost drove her mad!</p> + +<p>Day after day passed without bringing any further news. She read the +papers just as eagerly as before; but the center of military activity in +Mexico had suddenly shifted to an entirely different part of the +country. There was absolutely no news in the papers from the district +where the mine was situated.</p> + +<p>Mr. Buchanan wrote once again, but even more briefly. He was a busy man, +and had done all that he could. If he heard from, or of, Mr. Day he +would telegraph Janice at once, and if <i>she</i> heard she was to let him +know by the same means.</p> + +<p>That was the way the matter stood. It seemed as though the State +Department could, or would, do nothing. Mr. Day, like other citizens of +the United States, had been warned of the danger he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> was in while he +remained in a country torn by civil strife. The consequences were upon +his own head.</p> + +<p>The folks who knew about Janice's trouble tried to be good to her. Walky +Dexter drove around to invite the girl to go with him whenever he had a +job that took him out of town with the spring wagon. Janice loved to jog +over the hilly roads, and she saw a good bit of the country with Dexter.</p> + +<p>"I'd love to own just a little automobile that I could run myself," she +said once.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you borry Nelse Haley's gasoline bike?" demanded Walky, with +a grin. "Or, mebbe he'll put a back-saddle on fer yer. I've seen 'em +ride double at Middletown."</p> + +<p>"I don't like motorcycles. I want a wide seat and more comfort," said +Janice. "Daddy said that, perhaps, if things went well with him down +there in Mexico, I could have an auto runabout," and she sighed.</p> + +<p>"Now, Miss Janice!" exclaimed the man, "don't you take on none. Mr. +Broxton Day'll come out all right. I remember him as a boy, and he was +jest as much diff'rent from Jason as chalk is from cheese! Yes, +sir-ree!"</p> + +<p>This implied a compliment for her father, Janice knew, so she was +pleased. Walky Dexter meant well.</p> + +<p>Little Miss Scattergood was Janice's greatest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> comfort during this time +of trial. She did not discuss the girl's trouble, but she showed her +sympathy in other ways. Old Mrs. Scattergood always wanted to discuss +the horrors of the Mexican War, whenever she caught sight of Janice, +which was not pleasant. So Miss 'Rill and Janice arranged to meet more +often at Hopewell Drugg's, and little Lottie received better care those +days than ever before.</p> + +<p>Miss 'Rill was not a bad seamstress, and the two friends began to make +Lottie little frocks; and, as Hopewell only had to supply the material +out of the store, Lottie was more prettily dressed—and for less +money—than previously.</p> + +<p>As Janice and the ex-schoolmistress sat sewing in the big Drugg kitchen, +Hopewell would often linger in the shed room with his violin, when there +were no customers, and play the few pieces he had, in all these years, +managed to "pick out" upon his father's old instrument. "Silver Threads +Among the Gold" was the favorite—especially with Lottie. She would +dance and clap her hands when she felt the vibration of certain minor +chords, and come running to the visitors and attract their attention to +the sounds that she could "hear."</p> + +<p>"He-a! he-a! he-a!" she shouted in that shrill toneless voice of hers.</p> + +<p>Janice noticed that she talked less than formerly. Gradually the power +of speech was going from her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> because of disuse. It is almost always so +with the very young who are deprived of hearing.</p> + +<p>Such a pitiful, pitiful case! Sometimes Janice could not think of little +Lottie without weeping. It seemed so awful that merely a matter of +money—a few hundred dollars—should keep this child from obtaining the +surgical help and the training that might aid her to become a happy, +normal girl.</p> + +<p>It was from Mr. Middler—rather, through a certain conversation with the +minister—that Janice received the greatest help during these weeks when +her father's fate remained uncertain.</p> + +<p>She could not spend all her time at Hopewell Drugg's, or with Walky +Dexter, or even about the old Day house. Autumn had come, and the +mornings were frosty. The woods were aflame with the sapless leaves. Ice +skimmed the quiet pools before the late-rising sun kissed them.</p> + +<p>Janice had sometimes met the minister when she tramped over the +hillside—and especially up toward the Shower Bath in Jason Day's wood +lot. One glowing, warm October afternoon the girl and the gentle little +parson met on the cow path through Mr. Day's upper pasture.</p> + +<p>"Ah, my dear!" he said, shaking hands. "Where are you bound for?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know whether I had better tell you, or not, sir," she returned, +smiling, yet with some gravity. "You see, I was going to get comfort."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Comfort?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir. You see, sometimes I get to thinking of—of Daddy so much +that the whole world seems just made up of <i>my</i> trouble!" said Janice, +with a sob. "Do you know what I mean, sir? Just as though me and my +troubles were the most important things in existence—the <i>only</i> things, +in fact."</p> + +<p>"Ah—yes. I see—I see," whispered Mr. Middler, patting her shoulder, +but looking away from her tear-streaked face. "We are all that +way—sometimes, Janice. All that way."</p> + +<p>"And then I go somewhere to get out of myself,—to—to get comfort."</p> + +<p>"I see."</p> + +<p>"And so I am going now to the place I call The Overlook. It's a great +rock up yonder. I scramble up on top of it, and from that place I can +see so much of the world that, by and by, I begin to realize just how +small I really am, and how small, in comparison, my troubles must be in +the whole great scheme of things. I begin to understand, then," she +added, softly, "that God has so much to 'tend to in the Universe that He +can't give me first chance <i>always</i>. I've got to wait my turn."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but my dear!" murmured the doctrinarian. "I wouldn't limit the +power of the Almighty—even in my thoughts."</p> + +<p>"No-o. But—but God does just seem more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> <i>human</i> and close to me if I +think of Him as very busy—yet thoughtful and kind for us all. +Just—just like my Daddy, only on a bigger scale, Mr. Middler."</p> + +<p>The minister looked at her gravely for a moment and then took her hand +again. "Suppose you show me that place of comfort?" he suggested, +quietly.</p> + +<p>They went on together through the pasture and up into the wood lot. They +came out upon an unexpected opening in the wood, at the beginning of a +great gash in the hillside. At the center of this opening was a huge +boulder, surrounded by hazelnut bushes, to which the brown leaves still +clung.</p> + +<p>"You can climb up easily from the back. Let me show you," said Janice, +who had by now got control of her tears, and was more like her smiling, +cheerful self.</p> + +<p>She ran up the incline, sure-footed as a goat; but at the more difficult +place she gave the minister her hand. He was much more breathless than +she when they stood together upon the overhanging rock.</p> + +<p>Below them was the steep, wooded hillside, and the broken pastures and +scattered houses north of Poketown, along the shore of the lake. This +spot was on the promontory that flanked the bay upon one side. From this +point it seemed that all of the great lake, with both its near and +distant shores, lay spread at their feet!</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 419px;"> +<img src="images/fig165.jpg" width="419" height="650" alt="God's world did look bigger and greater from The +Overlook. (See page 155.)" title="" /> +<span class="caption">God's world <i>did</i> look bigger and greater from The +Overlook. (See page 155.)</span> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p> + +<p>In the northwest frowned the half-ruined fortress, so heroic a landmark +of pre-Revolutionary times. Nearer lay the wooded, rocky isle where a +celebrated Indian chief had made his last stand against the encroaching +whites. Yonder was the spot where certain of those bold pioneers and +fighters, the Green Mountain Boys, embarked under their famous leaders, +Allen and Warner, upon an expedition that historians will never cease to +write of.</p> + +<p>It was a noble, as well as a beautiful, view. God's world <i>did</i> look +bigger and greater from The Overlook. Sitting by her side, the minister +held the girl's hand, and listened to her artless expressions. She told +him quite frankly what all this view meant to her,—how it helped and +soothed her worried spirit, brought comfort to her grieving heart. Here +were many square miles of God's Footstool under her gaze; and there were +many, many thousands of other spots like this between her and the +Mexican mountains in which her father was held a prisoner. And God had +the same care over one bit of landscape as he did over another!</p> + +<p>"Then," she said, softly, in conclusion, "then I just seem to grasp the +idea of God's <i>bigness</i>—and how much He has to do. I won't complain. +I'll<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> wait. And meanwhile I'll do, if I can, what Daddy told me to."</p> + +<p>"What is that, Janice?" asked the minister, still gazing out over the +vast outlook himself.</p> + +<p>"I must <i>do something</i>,—keep to work, you know. Try and make things +better. You know: 'Each in his small corner.' And there's so much to be +done in Poketown!"</p> + +<p>"So much—in Poketown?" ejaculated the minister, suddenly brought out of +his reverie.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"But I thought Poketown was a particularly satisfactory place. There +really is very little to do here. We have a very clean political +government, remarkably so. Of course, that fact would not so much +interest you, Janice. But the life of the church is very +spiritual—very. We have no saloons; we seldom have an arrest——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I never thought of those things," admitted Janice. "There isn't +really anything for young people to do in the Poketown Church, I know. +But outside——"</p> + +<p>"And what can be done outside?" asked the minister, and perhaps he +winced a little at the confidence in Janice's voice when she spoke of +the church system which kept the young people at a distance.</p> + +<p>"Why, you know, there are the boys. Boys like Marty—my cousin. He goes +to school now, it's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> true; but he's down town just as much as ever at +night. And there's no good place for the boys to go—to congregate, I +mean."</p> + +<p>"Humph! I thought once of opening the church basement to them," murmured +Mr. Middler. "But—but there was opposition. Some thought the boys might +take advantage of our good nature and be ill-behaved."</p> + +<p>"So they continue to hang around the hotel sheds and the stores," +pursued Janice, thoughtfully, without meaning to be critical. "Boys +<i>will</i> get together in a club, or gang. Daddy used to say they were +naturally gregarious, like some birds."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the minister, slowly.</p> + +<p>"They ought to have a nice, warm, well-lighted room where they could go, +and play games, and read,—with a circulating library attached. Of +course, a gymnasium would be too much to even <i>dream</i> of, at first! Why! +wouldn't that be fine? And isn't it practical? <i>Do</i> say it is!"</p> + +<p>"I do not know whether it is practicable or not, Janice," said the +minister, slowly, yet smiling at her. "But the thought is inspired. You +shall have all the help I can give you. It <i>ought</i> to be in the +church——"</p> + +<p>"No. That would scare the boys away," interposed Janice, with finality.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Why, my dear? You speak as though the church was a bogey!"</p> + +<p>"Well—but—dear Mr. Middler! Just ask the boys themselves. How many of +them love to go to church—even to Sunday School? I mean the boys that +hang about the village stores at night."</p> + +<p>"It is so—it is so," he admitted, with a sigh.</p> + +<p>From this sprang the idea of the Poketown Free Library. It was of slow +growth, and there is much more to be said about it; but Janice found her +personal troubles much easier to bear when she began trying to interest +the people of Poketown in the reading-room idea.</p> + +<p>And didn't Mr. Middler bear something of his own away from that visit to +The Overlook—something that glowed in his heart? He preached quite a +different kind of a sermon that next Sunday, and the text was one of the +most helpful and <i>living</i> in all the New Testament.</p> + +<p>Some of the older members of his congregation shook their heads over it. +It was not "strong meat," they said; there was nothing to argue about! +But a dozen troubled, needy members who heard the sermon, felt new hope +in their hearts, and they got through the following week—trials and +all!—much easier than usual.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + +<h3>"SHOWING" THE ELDER</h3> + + +<p>No millionaire library-giver had found Poketown on the map. Or else, the +hard-headed and tight-fisted voters of that Green Mountain community +were too sharp to allow anybody to foist upon them a granite mausoleum, +the upkeep of which would mainly advertise the name of the donor.</p> + +<p>The Union Sunday School had a library; but its list of volumes was open +to the same objections as are raised to many other institutions of its +kind. Nor was a circulating library so much needed in Poketown as a +reading and recreation room for the youth of the village.</p> + +<p>Aside from her brief talk with Mr. Middler, Janice Day advised with no +adult at first as to how the establishment of the needed institution +should be brought about.</p> + +<p>The girl had studied Marty, if she had had little opportunity of +becoming acquainted with other specimens of the genus <i>boy</i>. She knew +they were as bridle-shy as wild colts.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p> + +<p>The idea of the club-room for reading and games must seem to come from +the boys themselves. It must appear that they accepted adult aid +perforce, but with the distinct understanding that the room was <i>theirs</i> +and that there was not to be too much oversight or control by the +supporting members of the institution.</p> + +<p>The scheme was not at all original with Janice. The nucleus of many a +successful free library and village club has been a similar idea.</p> + +<p>"Marty, why don't you and your chums have a place of your own where you +can read and play checkers these cold nights? I hear Josiah Pringle has +chased you out of his shop again."</p> + +<p>"Ya-as—mean old hunks!"</p> + +<p>"But didn't somebody spoil a whole nest of whips for him by pouring +liquid glue over the snappers?"</p> + +<p>"Well! that was only one feller. An' Pringle put us all out," complained +the boy, but grinning, too.</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't have let that boy do such a thing in your own +club-room—now, would you?"</p> + +<p>"Huh! how'd we ever git a club-room, Janice? We had Poley Haskin's +father's barn one't; but when we tried to heat it with a three-legged +cookstove, Poley's old man put us out in a hurry."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I mean a real <i>nice</i> place," said the wily Janice. "Not a place to +smoke those nasty cigarettes in, and carry on; but a real reading-room,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> +with books, and papers, and games, and all that."</p> + +<p>"Oh, that would be fine! But where'd we get that kind of a place in +Poketown?" queried Marty.</p> + +<p>That was the start of it.</p> + +<p>There was an empty store on High Street next to the drug store. It was a +big room which could be easily heated by a pot stove and a few lengths +of stovepipe. It was owned by the drug-store man, and had been empty a +long time. He asked six dollars a month rent for it.</p> + +<p>It was just about this time that Janice learned she possessed powers of +persuasive eloquence. The druggist was the first person she "tackled" in +her campaign.</p> + +<p>"It's a secret, Mr. Massey," she told him; "but some of the boys want a +reading-room, and some of the rest of us are anxious to help them get +it. Only it mustn't be talked of at first, or it will be all spoiled. +You know how 'fraid boys are that there is going to be a trap set for +them."</p> + +<p>"Ain't that so?" chuckled the druggist.</p> + +<p>"And we want your empty room next door."</p> + +<p>"Wa-al—I dunno!" returned the man, finding the matter suddenly serious, +when it was brought so close home to him.</p> + +<p>"Of course, we expect to pay for it. Only we'd like to have you cut the +rent in two for the first three months," said Janice, quickly.</p> + +<p>"Say! that might be all right," the druggist observed,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> more briskly. +"But I don't know about all these harum-scarums collecting around this +corner. I have been glad heretofore that they have hung around +Pringle's, or Joe Henderson's, or the hotel, instead of up here. They've +been up to all sorts of mischief."</p> + +<p>"If they don't behave reasonably they'll lose the reading-room. Of +course that will be understood," said Janice.</p> + +<p>"You can't trust some of 'em," growled the druggist. "Never!"</p> + +<p>"We'll make those who want the reading-room make the mischievous ones +behave," laughed Janice.</p> + +<p>"Well," agreed the druggist, "we'll try it. Three dollars a month for +three months; then six dollars. I can afford no more."</p> + +<p>"So much for so much!" whispered Janice, when she came away from the +store. "At least, it's a beginning."</p> + +<p>But it was a very small beginning, as she soon began to realize. She had +no money to give toward the project herself, and it was very hard to beg +from some people, even for a good cause.</p> + +<p>There was needed at least one long table and two small ones, as well as +some sort of a desk for whoever had charge of the room; and shelves for +the books, and lamps, and a stove, and chairs, beside curtains at the +windows. These simple furnishings<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> would do to begin with. But how to +get any, or all, of these was the problem.</p> + +<p>Janice went to several people able to help in the project, before she +said anything more to Marty. Some of these people encouraged her; some +shook their heads pessimistically over the idea.</p> + +<p>She wished Elder Concannon to agree to pay the rent of the room for the +first three months. It would be but nine dollars, and the old gentleman +could easily do it. Since closing his pastorate of the Union Church, +years before, Mr. Concannon had become (for Poketown) a rich man. He had +invested a small legacy received about that time in abandoned marble +quarries and sugar-maple orchards. Both quarries and orchards had taken +on a new lease of life, and had enriched the shrewd old minister.</p> + +<p>But Elder Concannon let go of a dollar no more easily now than when he +had been dependent upon a four-hundred-dollar salary and a donation +party twice a year.</p> + +<p>It was not altogether parsimony that made the old gentleman "hem and +haw" over Janice Day's proposal. Naturally, an innovation of any kind +would have made him shy, but especially one calculated to yield any +pleasure to the boys of Poketown.</p> + +<p>"I don't dispute but you may mean all right, Miss Day," he said, shaking +his bristling head at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> her. "But there's no good in those young +scamps—no good at all. You would waste your time trying to benefit +them. They would turn your reading-room into a bear garden."</p> + +<p>"You do not <i>know</i> that, sir," said Janice, boldly. "Let us try them."</p> + +<p>"You are very young, Miss Day," said the Elder, stiffly. "You should +yield more easily to the opinions of your elders."</p> + +<p>"Why?" demanded the girl, quickly, but smiling. "We young ones have got +to learn through our own experiences, haven't we? When <i>you</i> were young, +sir, you had to learn at first hand—isn't that so? You would not accept +the opinions of the older men as infallible. Now, did you, sir?"</p> + +<p>The Elder was a bit staggered; but he was honest.</p> + +<p>"Ahem!" he said. "For that very reason I desire to have you accept my +advice, young lady. It will save you much trouble and heartache. These +boys need a stronger hand than yours——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, my goodness!" gasped Janice. "<i>I</i> wouldn't undertake to have +anything to do with governing them—no, indeed! I thought of speaking to +Mr. Haley—if I could interest him in the project—and get him to keep +an eye on the reading-room at night. But the boys will have to +understand that they can only have the benefits of the place as long as +they are on their good behavior."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Ahem!" coughed the Elder again. "Mr. Haley is a very bright young +man—an especially good Latin scholar. But I fancy he finds the boys +quite enough to handle during the daytime, without having the care of +them at night. And—to be frank—I do not approve of the idea at all."</p> + +<p>"Then—then you positively will not help us?" asked Janice, +disappointedly.</p> + +<p>"You have not proved your case—to <i>my</i> mind—Miss Day," said the old +gentleman, sternly. "It is not a feasible plan that you suggest. The +young rascals would make the place a regular nuisance. They would be +worse than they already are—and that is saying a good deal."</p> + +<p>"I am sorry you think that, sir," returned Janice, quietly. "I think +better of them than you do. I believe the boys will appreciate such a +place and—if I can find enough people to help—I hope to see the +reading-room established."</p> + +<p>"I disapprove, Miss—I disapprove!" declared Elder Concannon, almost +angrily, for he was not used to being crossed, especially in any +semi-public matter like this. "You will find, too, that my opinion is +the right one. Good-day, Miss. I am sorry to find one so young +impervious to the advice of her elders."</p> + +<p>"I'll just <i>show</i> him! That's what I'll do—I'll <i>show</i> him!" was the +determination of the girl from Greensboro. "And I don't believe Poketown +boys<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> are much worse than any other boys—if they only have half a +chance."</p> + +<p>Fortunately all those to whom Janice went in her secret canvass were not +like the opinionated old minister. Several subscribed money, and +insisted upon paying their subscription over to her at once so that she +might have a "working fund." Janice set aside three dollars for the +first month's rent of the store and with the remainder purchased a +second-hand table, some plain kitchen chairs, and some lumber. She began +to use this subscribed money with some little trepidation, for—suppose +her scheme fell through, after all?</p> + +<p>She got her uncle to agree to the needed carpenter's work; a painter +gave her a brush and sufficient wood-stain to freshen up all the +woodwork of the store. Miss 'Rill came and helped her clean the place +and kalsomine the walls and ceiling. A storekeeper gave her enough +enameled oilcloth to cover neatly the long table. Hopewell Drugg +furnished bracket lamps, and gave her the benefit of the wholesale +discount on a hanging lamp and reflector to light the reading-table.</p> + +<p>Walky Dexter did what carting was needed. Janice and her aunt made the +curtains themselves, and they put them up so as to keep out the prying +eyes of all Poketown, for the community now began to wonder what was +going on in the empty room next the drug store. As Walky had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> bound +to secrecy, too, the curious had no means of learning what was going on. +It was just as though the printing office of a thriving town newspaper +had burned down and there was no means of disseminating the news. This +was the effect of the muzzle on Walky Dexter!</p> + +<p>It was at this point that Janice took Marty, and through him, the other +boys, into the scheme.</p> + +<p>"What would you boys each pay in dues to keep up a nice reading-room +such as we talked about, Marty?" she asked her cousin.</p> + +<p>"Aw, say!" grunted Marty. "Let's talk about the treasure chest we've +found in our back yard. <i>That</i> sounds more sensible."</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't you be glad of such a place?" laughed Janice.</p> + +<p>"Say! would a duck swim?" growled the boy, thinking that she was teasing +him. "Bring on your old reading-room, and we'll show ye."</p> + +<p>That very afternoon she and Miss 'Rill had given the last touches to the +room. It was as neat as a pin; the lamps were all filled and the +chimneys polished. It was only a bare room, it was true; but there were +possibilities in it, Janice was sure, that would appeal to Marty. She +put on her hat and held her coat out for him to help her into.</p> + +<p>"I'm going down town with you to-night, Marty," she said, smiling. "I've +got something to show you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Huh! What's it all about?"</p> + +<p>"You come along and see," she told him. "It's just the finest thing that +ever happened—and you'll say so, too, I know."</p> + +<p>But she refused to explain further until they turned up High Street and +stopped at the dark and long-empty shop beside the drug store.</p> + +<p>"Oh, gee! In Massey's store?" gasped Marty, when his cousin fitted a key +to the lock.</p> + +<p>"Come in and shut the door. Now stand right where you are while I light +the lamp," commanded Janice.</p> + +<p>She lit the hanging lamp over the table. The soft glow of it was soon +flung down upon the dull brown cloth. Marty stared around with mouth +agape.</p> + +<p>His father had built a sort of counter at one end, with a desk and +shelves behind it. Of course, there was not a book, or paper, in the +place as yet—nor a game. But Marty needed no explanation.</p> + +<p>"Janice Day! did you do all this?" he demanded, with a gasp.</p> + +<p>"Of course not, goosey! Lots of people helped. And they're going to help +more—if you boys show yourselves appreciative."</p> + +<p>"What's that 'appreciative' mean?" demanded Marty, suspiciously.</p> + +<p>"No fights here; no games that are so boisterous as to disturb those who +want to read. Just gentlemanly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> behavior while you are in the room. +That's all, besides a small tax each month to help toward the upkeep of +the room. What do you say, Marty?"</p> + +<p>"You done this!" declared the boy, with sudden heat. "Don't say you +didn't, for that'll be a lie. I never saw a girl like you, Janice!"</p> + +<p>"Why—why—Don't you like it?" queried Janice, disturbed.</p> + +<p>"Of course I do! It's bully! It's great!" exclaimed Marty. "Lemme show +it to the boys. They'll be crazy about it. And if they don't behave +it'll be because they're too big for me to lick," concluded Marty, +nodding his head emphatically.</p> + +<p>Janice burst out laughing at this, and pressed the key into his hand. +"Until we get organized properly, you will take charge of the room, +won't you, Marty?"</p> + +<p>"Sure I will."</p> + +<p>"You'll need a stove; I think I can get that for you in a day or two. +And lots of folks have promised books. I've written to friends in +Greensboro for books, too. And several people who take magazines and +papers regularly have promised to hand them over to the reading-room +just as soon as they have read them. And you boys can bring your +checkers, and dominoes, and other games, from home, eh?"</p> + +<p>Marty was scarcely listening; but he was looking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> at her with more +seriousness than his plain face usually betrayed.</p> + +<p>"Janice, you're almost as good as a boy yourself!" he declared. "I'm not +sorry a bit that you came to Poketown."</p> + +<p>Janice only laughed at him again; yet the boy's awkward earnestness +warmed her heart.</p> + +<p>The girl was finding in these busy days the truest balm for her own +worriments. Nothing more was heard of Mr. Broxton Day; yet Janice felt +less need of running alone into the woods and fields to find that +comfort about which she had told the minister.</p> + +<p>Besides, it soon grew too cold for frequent jaunts afield. The small +streams and pools were icebound. Then, over the fir-covered heights, +sifted the first snow of winter, and Poketown seemed suddenly tucked +under a coverlet of white.</p> + +<p>The reading-room was an established fact. An association to support it +was formed, divided into active and honorary members. The boys, as +active members, themselves contributed twenty-five cents per month each, +towards its support. Tables for games were set up. A goodly number of +books appeared on the shelves. From Greensboro a huge packing-case of +half-worn books was sent; Janice's friends at home had responded +liberally.</p> + +<p>Files of daily and weekly papers were established and magazines of the +more popular kind were subscribed for. Nelson Haley gave several +evenings<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> each week to work as librarian, and to keep a general +oversight of the boys. To tell the truth, he did this more because +Janice asked him to than from personal interest in the institution; but +he did it.</p> + +<p>Slowly the more pessimistic of the townspeople began to show interest in +the reading-room. Mr. Middler openly expressed his approval of the +institution. Mr. Massey, the druggist, reported that the boys behaved +themselves "beyond belief!"</p> + +<p>At length, even old Elder Concannon appeared unexpectedly in the +reading-room one night to see what was going on. He came to criticise +and remained to play a game of "draughts," as he called them, with Marty +Day himself!</p> + +<p>"Them young scalawags, Elder," declared Massey, when the old gentleman +dropped into the drug store afterward. "Them young scalawags are +certainly surprising <i>me</i>. They behaved themselves more like human +bein's than I ever knowed 'em to before. An' it's a nice, neat, warm +room, too, ain't it, now?"</p> + +<p>"Ahem! It appears to be," admitted Elder Concannon, and not so +grudgingly as might have been expected. "But where's that young girl who +had so much to do with it at first—where's that Day girl?"</p> + +<p>"Why, pshaw, Elder! <i>she</i> don't have nothing to do with the +reading-room," and the druggist's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> eyes twinkled. "Don't you know that +she only <i>starts</i> things in this town? She sets folks up in the business +of 'doing for themselves'. Then she goes along about her own business.</p> + +<p>"What's <i>that</i>? Well, I dunno. I'm wonderin' myself just where she'll +break out next!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + +<h3>CHRISTMAS NEWS</h3> + + +<p>It bade fair to be an old-fashioned northern New England winter. Janice +Day had never seen anything like this in the prairie country from which +she had come.</p> + +<p>There three or four big storms, the traces of which soon melted, had +been considered a "hard" winter. Here in Poketown the hillside was made +white before Thanksgiving, and then one snow after another sifted down +upon the mountains. Tree branches in the forest broke under the weight +of snow. Sometimes she lay awake in the night and heard the frost burst +great trees as though a stick of dynamite had been set off inside them.</p> + +<p>The lake ice became so thick that the steamboat could no longer make her +trips. Walky Dexter became mail carrier and brought the mail from +Middletown every other day.</p> + +<p>Janice found the time not at all tedious in its flight. There really was +so much to do!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p> + +<p>As for real <i>fun</i>—winter sports had been little more than a name to the +girl from the Middle West before this winter. The boys had got their +bob-sleds out before Thanksgiving. Toboggans were not popular in +Poketown, for the coasting-places were too rough. At first Janice was +really afraid to join the hilarious parties of boys and girls on some of +the slides.</p> + +<p>Marty, however, owned a big sled, and she did not want her cousin to +lose his good opinion of her. He had declared that she was almost as +good as a boy, and Janice successfully hid from him her fear of the +sport that really is a royal one.</p> + +<p>A favorite slide of the Poketown young people was from the head of the +street on which Hopewell Drugg's store was located, down the hill, past +the decayed dock on which Janice had first seen little Lottie Drugg, and +on across the frozen inlet to the wooded point in which Lottie declared +the echo dwelt.</p> + +<p>When the whole lake froze solidly, the course of the sleds was continued +across its level surface as far as the momentum from the hill would +carry the bobs. There was skating here, too; and many were the moonlight +nights on which a regular carnival was held at the foot of these hilly +streets.</p> + +<p>Walky Dexter owned a great sledge, too, and when he attached two span of +horses to this, and the roads were even half broken, he could drive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> +parties of Poketown young people all over the county, on moonlight +sleigh-rides. Janice was invited to go on several of these, and she did +so. Her heart was not always attuned to the hilarity of her companions; +but she did not allow herself to become morose, or sad, in public.</p> + +<p>Yet the gnawing worriment about her father was in her mind continually. +It was an effort for her to be lively and cheerful when the fate of Mr. +Broxton Day was so uncertain.</p> + +<p>Her more thoughtful comrades realized the girl's secret feelings. She +was treated with more consideration by the rough boys who were Marty's +mates, than were the other girls.</p> + +<p>"Say, that Janice girl is all right!" one rough fellow said to Marty +Day. "I see her scouring the papers in the readin'-room the other night, +and she was lookin' for some news of her father, of course."</p> + +<p>"I reckon so," Marty answered. "We don't know nothing about what's +become of him. They stand 'em up against a wall down there in Mexico and +shoot 'em just for fun—so Walky Dexter says. Dad says he never expects +to hear of Uncle Brocky alive ag'in."</p> + +<p>"And yet that girl keeps up her pluck! She's all right," declared the +other. "Gee! suppose she should come smack upon the story of her +father's death some night there in the readin'-room? Wouldn't that be +tough?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span></p> + +<p>From this conversation sprang the idea of a sort of Brotherhood of +Defense (in lieu of a better title) among the boys who used the +reading-room whose existence Janice Day's initiative had established. +Whoever got the papers from the mail and spread them on the file in the +reading-room, first examined the columns carefully for any mention of +the execution of prisoners by either belligerent party in Mexico; +especially was the news searched for any mention of the lost Mr. Day.</p> + +<p>Sometimes, when the news story suggested one of these horrible +executions, the whole paper was "lost in the mail." At least, when it +was inquired for, that was the stock reply. The boys made sure that +Janice should never see such blood-chilling accounts of Mexican +activities.</p> + +<p>It drew toward Christmas. Janice had another sorrow, of which she never +said a word. Her spending money was nearly gone. She saw the bottom of +her narrow purse just as the season of giving approached!</p> + +<p>There were so many things she wanted to do for all her friends, both in +Poketown and back at Greensboro. Some few little things she had made, +for her fingers were both nimble and dexterous. But "homemade" presents +would not do for Uncle Jason, Aunt 'Mira, Marty, and a dozen other +people towards whom she felt kindly.</p> + +<p>She had begun to worry, too, about what would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> finally happen to her if +her father never came back! How long would the bank continue to pay her +board to Uncle Jason? And how was she to get clothes, and other +necessary things?</p> + +<p>In the midst of these mental tribulations came a letter from the +Greensboro bank, addressed to Janice herself. In it was the cashier's +check for twenty-five dollars, and a brief note from the official +himself, stating that Mr. Day, before ever he had separated from his +daughter, had looked forward to her Christmas shopping and instructed +the bank to send on the fifteenth of December this sum for her personal +use.</p> + +<p>"Dear, dear Daddy! He forgot nothing," sobbed Janice, when she read this +note, and kissed the check which seemed to have come warm from her +father's hand. "Whatever shall I do all through my life long without +him, if he never comes back?"</p> + +<p>Christmas Eve came. The clouds had been gathering above the higher peaks +of the Green Mountains all day, and, as evening dropped, the snow began +falling.</p> + +<p>Janice and Marty went down town together after supper. Even Poketown +showed some special light and life at this season. Dusty store windows +were rejuvenated; candles, and trees, and tinsel, and wreathes blossomed +all along High Street. Janice was proud to know that the brightest +windows, and the most tastefully dressed, were Hopewell Drugg's.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> And in +the middle of the biggest window of Drugg's store was a beautiful wax +doll, which she and Miss 'Rill had themselves dressed. On Christmas +morning that doll was to be found by Lottie Drugg, fast asleep with its +head on the blind child's own pillow!</p> + +<p>Janice had to run around just to take a last peek at the window and the +doll, while Marty went to the post office for the evening mail. Papers +and magazines were due in that mail for the reading-room; and, despite +the fact that the snow was falling more heavily every minute, there +would be some of the "regulars" in the reading-room, glad to see the +papers.</p> + +<p>Janice had turned her own subscription for the New York daily over to +the reading-room association; and when she wanted to read the New York +paper herself, she went to the files to look at it. Weeks had passed now +since there had been anything printed about that district in Chihuahua +where her father's mine was located.</p> + +<p>Coming back, down the hill from Drugg's, Janice saw that Marty had not +gone at once into the reading-room and lit the lamps. Her cousin was +standing in the light of the drug-store window, a bundle of papers and +magazines under his arm, and one paper spread before his eyes. He seemed +to be reading eagerly.</p> + +<p>"Hey, Marty! come on in and read! It's awful cold out here!" she shouted +to him, shaking the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> latch of the reading-room door with her mittened +hand.</p> + +<p>Marty, roused, looked up guiltily, and thrust the quickly folded paper +into the breast of his jacket. "Aw, I'm comin'," he said.</p> + +<p>But when he came to open the door Janice noticed that he seemed to +fumble the key greatly, and he kept his face turned from her gaze.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter, Marty?" she asked, lightly.</p> + +<p>"Matter? Ain't nothin' the matter," grunted the boy.</p> + +<p>"Why, Marty! you're crying!" gasped Janice, suddenly.</p> + +<p>"Ain't neither!" growled the boy, wiping his rough coat sleeve across +his eyes. "Snow's blowed in 'em."</p> + +<p>"That's more than snow, Marty," was Janice's confident remark.</p> + +<p>"Huh!" snorted Marty. "Girls allus know so much!"</p> + +<p>He seemed to have suddenly acquired "a grouch." So Janice went cheerily +about the room, singing softly to herself, and lighting the lamps. +Nobody else had arrived, for it was still early in the evening.</p> + +<p>Marty stole softly to the stove. The fire had been banked, and the room +was quite chilly. He rattled the dampers, opened them, and then, with a +side glance at his cousin, pulled the paper from within the breast of +his jacket and thrust it in upon the black coals before he closed the +stove door.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Where's the New York paper, Marty?" Janice was asking, as she arranged +the Montpelier and the Albany papers on their files.</p> + +<p>"Didn't come," grunted Marty, and picked up the empty coal hod. "I got +to git some coal," he added, and dashed outside into the snow.</p> + +<p>Instantly the girl hastened across the room. She jerked the stove door +open. There lay the folded paper, just beginning to brown in the heat of +the generating gas. She snatched it from the fire and, hearing the outer +door opened again, thrust the paper inside her blouse.</p> + +<p>It wasn't Marty, but was one of the other boys. She did not understand +why her cousin should have told her an untruth about the New York paper. +But she did not want an open rupture with him here and now—and before +other people.</p> + +<p>"I'm going right home," she said to Marty, when he came back with the +replenished coal hod. "It's snowing real hard."</p> + +<p>"Sure. There won't be many of the fellows around to-night, anyway. Peter +here will stay all evening and lock up—if Mr. Haley don't come. Won't +you, Pete?"</p> + +<p>"Sure," was the reply.</p> + +<p>"Then I'll go along with you," declared Marty, who wasn't half as +ashamed to escort a girl on the street nowadays as he had been a few +months before.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p> + +<p>Now, Janice had intended running over to Hopewell Drugg's store and +looking at the paper Marty had tried to destroy. She did not for a +moment suspect what was in it, or why her cousin had told her a +falsehood about it. But she saw she would have to defer the examination +of the news-sheet.</p> + +<p>"All right. Come along, Marty," she agreed, with assumed carelessness.</p> + +<p>The boy was very moody. He stole glances at her only when he thought she +was not looking. Never had Janice seen the hobbledehoy act so strangely!</p> + +<p>They plowed through the increasing snow up Hillside Avenue, and the snow +fell so rapidly that the girl was really glad she had come home. She +entered first, Marty staying out on the porch a long time, stamping and +scraping his boots.</p> + +<p>When he came in he still had nothing to say. He pulled his seat to the +far side of the glowing stove and sat there, hands in his pockets and +chin on his breast.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with you, Marty?" shrilled Mrs. Day. "You ain't sick, +be ye?"</p> + +<p>"Nop," growled her son.</p> + +<p>That was about all they could get out of him—monosyllables—until +Janice retired to her own room. The girl was so anxious to get upstairs +and look at that paper she had recovered from the reading-room fire, +that she went early. When she had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> bidden the others good night and +mounted to her room, however, she did something she had never done +before. She unlatched her door again softly and tiptoed out to the +landing at the top of the stairs, to listen.</p> + +<p>Marty had suddenly come to life. She heard his voice, low and tense, +dominating the other voices in the kitchen. She could not hear a word he +said, but suddenly Aunt 'Mira broke out with: "Oh! my soul and body, +Marty! It ain't so—don't <i>say</i> it's so!"</p> + +<p>"Be still, 'Mira," commanded Uncle Jason's quaking voice. "Let the boy +tell it."</p> + +<p>She heard nothing more but the murmur of her cousin's voice and her +aunt's soft crying. Janice stole back into her cold room. She shook +terribly, but not with the chill of the frosty air.</p> + +<p>Her trembling fingers found a match and ignited the wick of the skeleton +lamp. She had, ere this, manufactured a pretty paper shade for it, and +this threw the stronger radiance of the light upon a round spot on the +bureau. She drew out the scorched paper and unfolded it in that light.</p> + +<p>She did not have to search long. The article she feared to see was upon +the first page of the paper. The black headlines were so plain that she +scanned them at a single glance:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center">THE BANDIT, RAPHELE, AT WORK</p> + +<p>A Fugitive's Story of the Christmas-Week Execution in +Granadas District</p> + +<p class="center">TWO AMERICANS DRAW LOTS FOR LIFE</p> + +<p>John Makepiece Tells His Story in Cida; His Fellow-Prisoner, +Broxton Day, Fills One of Raphele's "Christmas Graves"</p></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + +<h3>"THE FLY-BY-NIGHT"</h3> + + +<p>Janice Day could never have told how long she sat there, elbows on the +bureau, eyes glued to those black lines on the newspaper page. The heat +of the tall oil lamp almost scorched her face; but her back was +freezing. There was never anything invented—not even a cold storage +plant—as cold as the ordinary New England farmhouse bedchamber!</p> + +<p>But the girl felt neither the lamp's heat, nor the deadly chill of the +room. For a long time she could not even read beyond the mere headlines +of the article telegraphed from Cida.</p> + +<p>This seemed to be conclusive. It was the end of all hope for Janice—or, +so she then believed. There seemed not a single chance that her father +could have escaped. No news had been good news, after all. This story in +the paper was all too evil—all too certainly evil!</p> + +<p>By and by she managed to concentrate her numbed mind upon the story +itself. There is no need to repeat it here in full; when Janice had +read<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> it twice she could not easily forget its most unimportant phrase.</p> + +<p>The man, John Makepiece, with Broxton Day, of Granadas district, had +been held "incommunicado" for months by the bandit, Raphele. This leader +had fought with his <i>commando</i> for the Constitutionalists at the battle +of Granadas; but he was really an outlaw and cutthroat, and many of his +followers were brigands like him.</p> + +<p>The prisoners had been held for ransom. Several of the Mexican captives +of Raphele had managed to pay their way out of the villain's clutches; +but both Americans refused to apply to their friends for ransom. Indeed, +they did not trust to Raphele's protestations, believing that if any +money at all for their release was forthcoming, it would only whet the +villain's cupidity and cause Raphele to make larger demands.</p> + +<p>Raphele feared now to remain longer in that part of Chihuahua. His +unlawful acts had called down upon his head the serious strictures of +the Constitutionalist leaders. They were about to abolish his command.</p> + +<p>In his rage and bloodthirstiness he had declared his intention of either +destroying his remaining prisoners, or sending them to their homes +crippled. But the two Americans he treated differently. With fiendish +delight in seeing those two brave men suffer, he had commanded them to +cast lots to see<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> which should be escorted beyond the lines, while the +other was marched to the edge of an open grave, there to find a sure and +sudden end under the rain of bullets from a "firing squad."</p> + +<p>John Makepiece had drawn the long straw. There was no help for it. He +rode away on a sorry nag that was given him, and from a distant height +saw the other American marched out to the place of burial, and even +waited to see the puff of smoke from the guns as the soldiers fired at +the doomed man.</p> + +<p>The details were horrible. The effect upon Janice was a most unhappy +one. For more than an hour she sat there before her bureau in the cold +room, her gaze fastened upon the story in the newspaper.</p> + +<p>Then the family came up to bed. Aunt 'Mira saw the light under the +girl's door.</p> + +<p>"Janice! Janice!" she whispered. "Whatever is the matter with you?"</p> + +<p>Aunt 'Mira had been crying and her voice was still husky. When she +pushed open the door a little way and saw the girl, she gasped out in +alarm.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear!" sobbed Aunt 'Mira. "<i>Do you know?</i>"</p> + +<p>Janice could not then speak. She pointed to the paper, and when Aunt +'Mira folded her in her arms, the girl burst into tears—tears that +relieved her overcharged heart.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You run down an' open up the drafts of that stove again, Jason," +exclaimed the fleshy lady, for once taking command of affairs. "This +child's got a chill. She's got ter have suthin' hot, or she'll be sick +on our hands—poor dear! She's been a-settin' here readin' all that +stuff Marty told us was in the paper—I do believe. Ain't that so, +child?"</p> + +<p>Janice, sobbing on her broad bosom, intimated that it was a fact.</p> + +<p>"That boy ain't no good. He didn't burn up the paper at all. She got +holt on it," declared Uncle Jason, quite angry.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it wasn't—wasn't Marty's fault," sobbed Janice. "And I had to +know! I had to know!"</p> + +<p>They got her downstairs, and Mrs. Day sent "the men folks" to bed. She +insisted upon putting Janice's feet into a mustard-water bath, and made +her swallow fully a pint of steaming hot "composition." Two hours later +Janice was able to go to bed, and, because she hoped against hope, and +was determined not to believe the story until it was thoroughly +confirmed, she fell immediately into a dreamless sleep.</p> + +<p>When she awoke on Christmas morning, it was with a full and clear +knowledge of what had happened, and a pang of desolation and grief such +as had swept over her the night before. But she set herself to hope as +long as she could, and to suppress any untoward exhibition of her sorrow +and pain,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> while she made every effort to find out the truth about her +father.</p> + +<p>The family was very gentle with the heartsick girl. Even Marty showed by +his manner that he sympathized with her. And she could not forget that +he had tried his very best to keep the knowledge of the awful crime from +her.</p> + +<p>Janice brought down with her to the breakfast table the little presents +which she had prepared for her uncle, and aunt, and cousin. There were +no boisterous "Merry Christmases" in the old Day house that morning; +even Uncle Jason wiped his eyes after saying grace at the breakfast +table.</p> + +<p>After all, Janice was the most self-controlled of the four. She said, +midway of the meal:</p> + +<p>"I cannot believe all of that dreadful story in the paper. I want to +know more of the particulars."</p> + +<p>"Oh, hush! hush!" begged her aunt. "I read it. It's too horrible! I +wouldn't want to know any more, child."</p> + +<p>"But I must <i>know</i> more—if there's more to be known. I believe I can +telegraph to Cida. At least, Mr. Buchanan at Juarez may know something +more about this man's story. I wish there was either telegraph, or +telephone, in Poketown."</p> + +<p>"Gee, Janice!" exclaimed Marty. "Nobody could git over to Middletown +to-day. Not even Walky Dexter. The wind blowed great guns last night, +and the roads are full of drifts."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But it doesn't look so from my window," said his cousin.</p> + +<p>"Pshaw! all you can see is the lake. Snow blowed right across the ice, +an' never scarcely touched it. But there's heaps and heaps in the road. +Say! we got ter dig out Hillside Avenue—ain't we, Dad?"</p> + +<p>"A lot of snow fell in the night—that's a fact," admitted Uncle Jason.</p> + +<p>"But I see somebody coming up the street now," cried Janice, jumping up +eagerly from the table.</p> + +<p>It was Walky Dexter, plowing his way through the drifts in hip boots.</p> + +<p>"This is sure a white Christmas!" he bawled from the gate. "I got +suthin' for you, Janice. Hi tunket! can't git through this here gate, so +I'll climb over it. Wal, Janice, a Merry Christmas to ye!" he added, as +he stumped up upon the porch, and handed her a little package from Miss +'Rill.</p> + +<p>"I am afraid not a very merry one, Walky," said the girl, shaking his +mittened hand. "Come inside by the fire. Uncle Jason, where is that +paper? I want Mr. Dexter to read it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear, me!" murmured Walky, when he saw the heading of the Mexican +telegraph despatch. Then, with his fur cap cocked over one ear, and his +boots steaming on the stove hearth, he read the story through. "Oh, +dear, me!" he said again.</p> + +<p>"I want you to try to get me to Middletown,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> Walky," Janice said, with a +little catch in her voice. "Right away."</p> + +<p>"Mercy on us, child! a day like this?" gasped her aunt.</p> + +<p>"Why, the storm's over," said Janice, firmly. "And I must send some +telegrams and get answers. Oh, I must! I must!"</p> + +<p>"Hoity-toity, Miss Janice!" broke in Walky. "'Must' is a hard driver, I +know. But I tell ye, we couldn't win through the drif's. Why, I been as +slow as a toad funeral gettin' up here from High Street. The ox teams +won't be out breakin' the paths before noon, and they won't get out of +town before to-morrer, that's sure, Miss."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear!" cried her aunt, again. "You mustn't think of doing such a +thing. Wait."</p> + +<p>"I <i>can't</i> wait," declared Janice, with pallid face and trembling lip, +but her hazel eyes dry and hard. "I tell you I must know <i>more</i>."</p> + +<p>"I can't take ye to Middletown, Janice. Not till the roads is broke," +Walky said, firmly, shaking his head.</p> + +<p>"Hi! here comes somebody else up the road," shouted Marty, from outside.</p> + +<p>Janice ran, hoping to see a team. It was only a single figure struggling +through the snow.</p> + +<p>"By jinks!" exclaimed Marty. "It's the teacher."</p> + +<p>"It <i>is</i> Mr. Haley," murmured Janice.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span></p> + +<p>The young collegian, well dressed for winter weather, waved his hand +when he saw them, and struggled on. He carried a long parcel and when he +went through the more than waist-high drifts he held this high above his +head.</p> + +<p>"Hi, there!" yelled Marty, waving his mittened hands. "Ain't you lost +over here, Mr. Haley?"</p> + +<p>"I see somebody has been before me," laughed Nelson Haley, following +Walky Dexter's tracks over the fence and up to the cleared porch. "How +do you do, Miss Janice? A very happy Christmas to you!"</p> + +<p>"Thank you for your good wish, Mr. Haley," she replied, soberly. "But it +is not going to be a very glad Christmas for me, I fear. Oh! is it for +<i>me</i>?" for he had thrust the long pasteboard box into her arms.</p> + +<p>"If you will accept them, Miss Janice," returned the young man, with a +bow.</p> + +<p>"Open it, Janice!" exclaimed Marty. "Let's see."</p> + +<p>"I—I——"</p> + +<p>"Lemme do it for you," cried Marty, the curious.</p> + +<p>He broke the string, yanked off the paper, and Janice herself lifted the +cover. A great breath of spicy odor rushed out at her from the box.</p> + +<p>"Oh! Mr. Haley! Cut flowers! <i>Hothouse flowers!</i> Wherever did you get +them?" cried Janice, drawing aside the tissue paper and burying her face +in the fragrant, dewy blossoms.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Aw—flowers! Huh!" grunted Marty, in disappointment.</p> + +<p>"I am glad you like them so," said Nelson Haley. "Marty, I didn't bring +them to <i>you</i>. But here is something that will please you better, I +know," and he put into the boy's hand a combination pocketknife that +would have delighted any out-of-door youth. "Only you must give me a +penny for it. I don't believe in giving sharp-edged presents to friends. +It cuts friendship, they say," and the collegian laughed.</p> + +<p>"Golly! that's a dandy!" acknowledged Marty. "Here's your cent. Thanks! +See what Mr. Haley gimme, Maw!" and he rushed into the house to display +his treasure.</p> + +<p>Haley and Janice were left alone in a sheltered corner of the porch.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Haley," the girl repeated. "How lovely they are! And how kind +of you to get them for me! How did you ever secure such fresh cut +flowers 'way up here? Nobody has a hothouse in Poketown."</p> + +<p>"They come from Colonel Van Dyne's place at the Landing."</p> + +<p>"'Way down there!" exclaimed Janice, in wonder. "Why, it's farther than +Middletown. That's where I took the boat to get here?"</p> + +<p>"I guess so, Miss Janice."</p> + +<p>"But—but the boats aren't running," she cried,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> in amazement. "And +these flowers are so fresh."</p> + +<p>"<i>My</i> boat is running," and Haley laughed. "I brought them up for you +yesterday afternoon. Got in just before it began to snow hard."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Haley! The lake is frozen solidly!"</p> + +<p>"Sure," he laughed. "But my boat sails on the ice. Didn't you hear that +I had built the <i>Fly-by-Night</i>? It's an ice boat—and it's a dandy! I +hope to take you out in it——"</p> + +<p>"An ice boat?" cried Janice. "Oh! you can—you shall! You can take me to +the Landing. There is a telegraph office there, isn't there?"</p> + +<p>"Why—why——Yes! At the railroad station," the young man admitted, +rather amazed.</p> + +<p>Janice stepped up to him, with the pasteboard box of flowers in her +arms, and her eyes shining in expectation.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Haley! You <i>must</i> take me down there. Won't you?"</p> + +<p>Marty ran out again, and heard what she said. "Where you goin'?" he +demanded. "Mr. Haley can't ice boat you to Middletown."</p> + +<p>"To the Landing," begged Janice.</p> + +<p>"By jinks! so he can," shouted the boy. "Lemme go, too, Mr. Haley. +You'll want somebody to 'tend sheet on the <i>Fly-by-Night</i>."</p> + +<p>"But I do not understand?" queried the teacher, staring from one to the +other of the excited pair.</p> + +<p>"You—you tell him, Marty!" said Janice, turning<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> toward the door. "I +must put these beautiful flowers in water. Come in, Mr. Haley, and get +warm."</p> + +<p>But the teacher remained out there on the windswept porch while he +listened to what Marty had to tell. The girl's trouble struck home to +the generous-hearted young man. He was moved deeply for her—especially +upon a day like this when, in the nature of things, all persons should +be joyous and glad.</p> + +<p>"I will take you to the Landing, if the breeze holds fair," he declared +and he pooh-poohed Mrs. Day's fears that there was any danger in sailing +the ice boat. He had come up from the Landing himself the night before +in an hour and a half.</p> + +<p>"What a dreadful, dreadful way to spend Christmas Day!" moaned Aunt +'Mira, as she helped Janice to dress. "Something's likely to happen to +that ice boat. I've seen 'em racing on the lake. Them folks jest take +their lives in their han's—that's right!"</p> + +<p>"I'll make the boys take care," Janice promised.</p> + +<p>Aunt 'Mira saw them go with fear and trembling, and immediately +ensconced herself in the window of Janice's room, with a shawl around +her shoulders, to watch the flight of the ice boat after it got under +way down at the dock.</p> + +<p>Janice, and the teacher and Marty had fairly to wade to the shore of the +lake. The drifts were very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> deep on land; but, as Marty said, the wind +had swept the ice almost bare. Here and there a ridge of snow had formed +upon the glistening surface; but Mr. Haley made light of these +obstructions.</p> + +<p>"The <i>Fly-by-Night</i> will just go humming through those, Miss Janice. +Don't you fear," he said.</p> + +<p>There were few people abroad in High Street, for it was not yet +mid-forenoon. Most who were out were busily engaged shoveling paths. The +three young folks got down to the dock, and Haley and Marty turned up +the heavy body of the ice boat and swept the snow off.</p> + +<p>There was a good deal of a drift of snow right along the edge of the +lake; but they pushed the ice boat out beyond this windrow, with +Janice's help, and then stepped the mast and bent on the heavy sail. It +was a cross-T boat, with a short nose and a single sail. The steersman +had a box in the rear and in this there was room for Janice to ride, +too. The sheet-tender likewise ballasted the boat by lying out on one or +the other end of the crosspiece.</p> + +<p>There was a keen wind, not exactly fair for the trip down the lake; yet +their sheet filled nicely on the longer tack, and the <i>Fly-by-Night</i> +swept out from the Poketown dock at a very satisfactory speed.</p> + +<p>"We'll hit the Landing in two hours, at the longest, Miss Janice," +declared Nelson Haley. "Keep your head down. This wind cuts like +needles.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> Too bad you haven't a mask of some kind."</p> + +<p>He was wearing his motorcycle goggles, while Marty had one of those +plush caps, that pull down all around one's face so that nothing but the +eyes peer out, and was doing very well.</p> + +<p>As the ice yacht gathered speed, Janice found that she could not face +the wind. Nor could she look ahead, for the sun was shining boldly now, +and the glare of it on the ice was all but blinding.</p> + +<p>The timbers of the boat groaned and shook. The runners whined over the +ice with an ever-increasing note. Ice-dust rose in a thin cloud from the +sharp shoes, and the sunlight, in which the dust danced, flecked the +mist with dazzling, rainbow colors.</p> + +<p>When the ice boat came about, it was with a leap and bound that seemed +almost to capsize the craft. Janice had never traveled so fast +before—or so she believed. It fairly took her breath, and she clung to +the hand-holds with all her strength.</p> + +<p>"Hi, Janice!" yelled Marty, grinning from ear to ear. "How d'ye like it? +Gittin' scaret?"</p> + +<p>She had to shake her head negatively and smile. But to tell the truth +there was an awful sinking in her heart, and when one runner went +suddenly over a hummock and tipped the ice boat, she could scarcely keep +from voicing her alarm.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + +<h3>CHRISTMAS, AFTER ALL!</h3> + + +<p>Janice Day possessed more self-control than most girls of her age. She +would not, even when her heart was sick with apprehension because of the +story in the newspaper, give her cousin the opportunity of saying that +she showed the white feather.</p> + +<p>She lay close to the beam of the ice boat, clung to the hand-holds, and +made no outcry as the craft flew off upon the other tack. Had the wind +been directly astern, the course of the <i>Fly-by-Night</i> would have been +smoother. It was the terrific bounding, and the groaning of the timbers +while the boom swung over and the canvas slatted, that really frightened +the girl.</p> + +<p>It seemed as though the mast must be wrenched out of the boat by the +force of the high wind filling the canvas. And the shrieking of the +runners! Janice realized that the passage of an ice boat made as much +noise as the flight of a fast train.</p> + +<p>She could scarcely distinguish what Nelson Haley shouted at her, and he +was so near, too. He pointed ahead. She stooped to look under the boom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> +and saw a great windrow of snow—a huge drift more than six feet +high—not half a mile away.</p> + +<p>This drift stretched, it seemed, from side to side of the lake. They +could not see what lay beyond it. Janice expected the others would drop +the sail and bring the ice boat to a halt. Some roughness in the ice, or +perhaps a narrow opening, had caught the first driven flakes of snow +here the night before. The snow had gathered rapidly when once a streak +of it lay across the lake. Deeper and deeper the drift had grown until +tons of the white crystals had been heaped here in what looked to Janice +to be an impassable barrier.</p> + +<p>"Oh! Oh!" she shrieked. "Won't you stop?"</p> + +<p>Nelson Haley smiled grimly and shook his head. Marty uttered a shriek of +exultation as the ice boat bore down upon the drift. <i>He</i> was quite +speed-mad.</p> + +<p>"Hang on! hang on!" commanded Nelson Haley.</p> + +<p>Another moment and the frightened Janice saw the bow of the boat +rise—as it seemed—straight into the air. Amid the groaning of timbers +and the shrieking of the wind, the <i>Fly-by-Night</i> shot up the steep +slant of the drift and over its crest!</p> + +<p>The cry Janice tried to utter was frozen in her throat. She saw the ice +ahead and below them. Like a great bird—or a huge batfish leaping from +the sea—the ice boat shot out on a long curve from the summit of the +hard-packed snowdrift.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></p> + +<p>The shock of its return to the ice was terrific. Janice felt sure the +boat must be racked to bits.</p> + +<p>But the <i>Fly-by-Night</i> was strongly built. With the momentum secured by +its leap from the drift, it skated over the ice for a mile or more, with +scarcely a thimbleful of wind in its sail, yet traveling like a fast +express.</p> + +<p>Then it answered the helm again, the wind filled the sail, and they bore +down upon the Landing on a direct tack.</p> + +<p>"Gee! Ain't it great?" cried Marty, as Nelson Haley signaled him to drop +the sail. "Don't that beat any traveling you ever done, Janice?"</p> + +<p>Janice faintly admitted that it did; but neither the boy nor Nelson +Haley realized what a trial the trip had been to the girl. Janice was +too proud to show the fear she felt; but she could scarcely stand when +the <i>Fly-by-Night</i> finally stopped with its nose to the shore, just +beyond the steamboat dock.</p> + +<p>Popham Landing was scarcely larger than Poketown; only there were +canning factories here, and the terminus of the narrow-gauge railroad on +which Janice had finished her rail journey from Greensboro the spring +before. So it was a livelier place than the village in which the girl +had been living for eight months.</p> + +<p>Colonel Van Dyne, owner of one of the canning factories, had a fine home +on the heights overlooking the lake. It was with the colonel's gardener<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> +and superintendent that Nelson Haley had an acquaintance, and through +that acquaintanceship had obtained the cut flowers from the colonel's +greenhouse.</p> + +<p>When the three had hurried up the half-cleared landing to the railroad +station, Janice fairly staggering between her two companions, the office +was closed and nobody was about the railroad premises. It was a holiday, +and no more trains were expected at the Landing until night.</p> + +<p>Janice all but broke down at this added bad turn of affairs. To come all +this distance only to be balked!</p> + +<p>"It's jest blamed <i>mean</i>!" sputtered Marty. "Telegraph shops ain't got +no right to shut up—in the daytime, too."</p> + +<p>"It's not a Western Union wire," explained Nelson. "The railroad only +takes ordinary messages as a matter of convenience. But wait! That +door's open and there's a fire in the waiting-room, you see. Just +because this card says the agent and operator won't be here till five +o'clock doesn't mean that he's gone out of town. Besides, I'll see my +friend, Jim Watrous."</p> + +<p>This was the gardener and general factotum at Colonel Van Dyne's. The +Poketown school-teacher hurried away, and left Janice and Marty sitting +together in the railroad station.</p> + +<p>"He'll find some way—don't you fear, Janice,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> said the boy, with much +more sympathy than he had ever shown before. Janice squeezed his hand +and hid her own face. She could not forget how Marty had tried the +evening before to hide the knowledge of her father's fate from her. +<i>This</i> was a much different Marty than the boy she had first met at the +old Day house on her arrival at Poketown.</p> + +<p>In half an hour Nelson Haley was back with the operator and agent. The +gardener at Colonel Van Dyne's knew the man personally. The story in the +newspaper, and an explanation of who Janice was, did the rest.</p> + +<p>"There isn't any better day than Christmas, I reckon," said the +telegraph operator, when he shook hands with the girl and she tried to +thank him in advance for the trouble he was taking on her behalf, "to do +a helpful deed. And I want to help you, Miss Day, if I can. Write your +messages and I will put them through as rapidly as possible. I shall +have plenty of time to go home for dinner between the sending of your +telegrams, and the receiving of the answers. Now, don't worry at all +about it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear!" half sobbed the girl. "Everybody is <i>so</i> good to me."</p> + +<p>"Not a bit more than you deserve, I am sure," laughed the operator. +"Now, Miss, if you are ready, I am."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p> + +<p>Janice knew just what she wished to say. If she had not written the +messages she was anxious to send, she had already formulated them in her +mind. It was but a few minutes' work to write both—one to Mr. Buchanan +at Juarez, and the other addressed to the man, John Makepiece, who +claimed to have been a fellow-prisoner with Mr. Broxton Day.</p> + +<p>When the messages were sent, all they could do was to wait. Janice had +expected that she and Marty and Mr. Haley would have to camp in the +waiting-room of the station during the long interval, and the girl was +very sorry that, because of her, her friends would have to forego any +holiday dinner.</p> + +<p>While Janice was engaged, Nelson Haley had been off on an excursion of +his own. He came tramping back into the station just as the operator +closed his key and told Janice that there was nothing to do now but +wait.</p> + +<p>"And I'm afraid it will be an awfully tedious time for you, Marty," said +the girl. "I'm sorry. Aunt 'Mira was going to have <i>such</i> a nice dinner +for you, too!"</p> + +<p>"Huh! I guess I won't starve," growled the boy. "Mebbe we can find some +sandwiches somewhere—and a cup of coffee. By jinks! flyin' down the +lake like we did, <i>did</i> make me sharp-set."</p> + +<p>"If you're hungry, then, Marty," broke in Nelson Haley, "we'll all go to +dinner. It's just about ready by now, I reckon."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Aw! don't fool a feller," said Marty, ruefully.</p> + +<p>The school-teacher laughed at him. "I'm not fooling," he said. "I was +quite sure Miss Janice would be hungry enough to eat, too; so I found a +kind woman who is willing to share her dinner with us. Come on! She and +her daughter are all alone. The storm has kept their friends from coming +to eat with them, so we're in luck."</p> + +<p>The three had quite a delightful dinner at the Widow Maltby's. Nelson +had told her and her daughter something about Janice's trouble, and the +good creatures did everything they could to make it agreeable for the +girl.</p> + +<p>As for Marty, the "lay-out," as he expressed it, was all that heart +could desire—a boy's heart, at least! There was turkey, with dressing, +and cranberries, and the usual vegetables, with pie and cake galore, and +a pocketful of nuts to top off with.</p> + +<p>Janice was afraid that the dinner would cost Nelson a great deal of +money, until she saw him fairly press upon the good widow a two-dollar +bill for their entertainment!</p> + +<p>"And I ain't right sure that I'd ought to take anything at all," the +widow declared. "An' at sech a time, too! We'd never been able to eat +all o' them vittles, Em and I, an' we're thankful to have somebody come +along and help us. An' it sure has perked us up right smart."</p> + +<p>Nelson had been very gay at the dinner, and had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> kept the widow and her +daughter in good humor. But with Janice, as they walked back to the +station (Marty had gone off on some matter of his own), the young man +was very serious.</p> + +<p>"I sincerely hope, Janice, that you will hear better news from your +father or his friends on the border than the newspaper gave last night. +The trains are snowbound, and no morning papers have reached the Landing +yet, so nobody here knows more than we do about the matter. Don't set +your heart too strongly upon hearing better news—that's all."</p> + +<p>"I do not need that warning," Janice told him, with a sigh. "But I felt +as though I should quite go all to pieces if I had to sit still and just +<i>wait</i>. I had to <i>do something</i>. I can't tell you how thankful I am to +you for your trouble in bringing me down here."</p> + +<p>"Trouble?" cried Nelson Haley. "You know it is a pleasure, Janice," and +just then they reached the railroad station and found the operator at +his telegraph key again.</p> + +<p>"I was just going to hunt you up, Miss Day," he cried, beckoning her +into the office. "Do you know, young lady, that you have suddenly become +a person of considerable importance?" and he laughed again.</p> + +<p>"<i>Me?</i>" cried Janice, in amazement.</p> + +<p>"You are the tea party—yes, ma'am! You are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> an object of public +interest. Two New York papers have sent to me for five-hundred word +interviews with you——"</p> + +<p>"My goodness me!" gasped Janice. "How dreadful! What does it mean?"</p> + +<p>"Your father's case has been taken up by the big papers all over the +country. It may be made a cause for American intervention. That is the +talk. The newspapers are interested, and the truth about your father is +likely to be known very quickly. All the special correspondents down +there on the border have been set to work——Ah! and here is something +from your man at Juarez."</p> + +<p>The telegrapher had caught the relay number of the despatch then coming +over the wire, and knew that it was from Juarez. "Hello!" he chuckled, +when the sounder ceased. "Your man is certainly some brief—and to the +point."</p> + +<p>He scratched off a copy of the message and put it into Janice's eager +hand. The girl read it out loud:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"J. M. always a story-teller. Have telegraphed consular +agent at Cida for later particulars. I consider any news of +B. D. good news.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">James W. Buchanan.</span>"</p> +</div> + +<p>"That Buchanan evidently knows the John Makepiece who is telling this +yarn," observed the telegraph<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> operator, "and he doesn't have much +confidence in him."</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear!" murmured the girl. "Maybe it's even worse than Makepiece +reported."</p> + +<p>"Hardly," broke in Nelson Haley, quickly. "He intimated that your father +was surely dead. But this friend of yours at Juarez says any news at all +is good news."</p> + +<p>"Keep your heart up, Miss," urged the telegraph operator. "And do tell +me a little something about yourself, so that I can satisfy these +insistent newspapers."</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear, me! I don't want to get into the newspapers," cried Janice, +really disturbed by this possibility.</p> + +<p>"But folks will be awfully interested in reading about you, Miss Day," +urged the man; "and the newspapers are going to do more than anybody +else for you and your father in this trouble. You may make sure of +<i>that</i>."</p> + +<p>But it was because of the operator's personal kindness that Janice +submitted to the "interview." Nelson Haley entered into the spirit of +the affair and wrote down Janice's personal history to date, just as +briefly and clearly as the girl gave it under the operator's +questioning. Young Haley added a few notes of his own, which he +explained in the operator's ear before the latter tapped out his message +to New York.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was only when Janice saw the paper a few days later that she realized +what, between them, the school-teacher and the telegraph operator had +done. There, spread broadcast by the types, was the story of how Janice +had come to Poketown alone, a brief picture of her loneliness without +her father, something of the free reading-room Janice had been the means +of establishing, and a description of the flight down the lake on the +<i>Fly-by-Night</i> on Christmas morning, that she might gain further +particulars of her father's fate.</p> + +<p>It was the sort of human-interest story that newspaper readers enjoy; +but Janice was almost ashamed to appear in public for several days +thereafter!</p> + +<p>However, this is ahead of our story.</p> + +<p>The wait for further messages from the border was not so tedious, +because of these incidents. By and by an answer came from the American +consular agent at Cida, relayed from Juarez by Mr. Buchanan. The agent +stated his doubt of the entire truth of John Makepiece's story. The man +was notoriously a reckless character. It was believed that he himself +had served with the Constitutionalist army in Mexico some months. Since +appearing in Cida and telling his story to the Associated Press man, he +had become intoxicated and was still in that state, so could not be +interviewed for further particulars.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p> + +<p>A posse had started for Granadas the day before, to see what was the +condition of affairs around the mining property of which Mr. Day had had +charge. It was a fact that the guerrilla, Raphele, had overrun that +district and had controlled it for some months; but his command was now +scattered, and the more peacefully-inclined inhabitants of Granadas were +stealing back to their homes.</p> + +<p>"Have requested consular agent at Cida to wire you direct to Popham +Landing, report of returning posse now overdue," was how Mr. Buchanan +concluded the message.</p> + +<p>"And that report may be along any time, now," declared the operator, +encouragingly. "You people haven't got to start back up the lake yet +awhile?"</p> + +<p>"We'll stay as long as Miss Day wants to," said Nelson Haley, quickly.</p> + +<p>"Sure we'll stay," cried Marty. "Miss Maltby told me to come back by and +by, and finish that mince pie I couldn't manage at dinner time. There +ain't no hurry to get back to Poketown, is there?"</p> + +<p>Janice and Nelson were much amused by this frank statement of the boy; +but the girl was only too glad to have the others bear out her own +desire to remain within reach of the telegraph wires for a while longer. +Mr. Buchanan's messages had eased her heart greatly.</p> + +<p>Janice cried a little by herself—the first tears she had shed since the +night before. But even Marty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> respected them and did not make fun of his +cousin.</p> + +<p>"Everybody is so good to me!" she cried again, when she had wiped her +eyes and could smile at Marty and Nelson Haley. "And I believe it's all +coming out right. This long day is going to be a <i>real</i> Christmas Day, +after all!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2> + +<h3>THE TROUBLE WITH NELSON HALEY</h3> + + +<p>From that time on Janice refused longer to be in what she called "the +dumps." It was not her way to mope about; usually she cheered other +people and did not herself stand in need of cheering.</p> + +<p>She made the operator go home to his family to spend Christmas +afternoon. When his call came Marty was to run over after him. This kept +the trio of friends from Poketown close to the railroad station all the +afternoon; but the interval was spent quite pleasantly.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Maltby and her daughter came over, through the snow, to visit a +while with Janice—and to bring Marty the pie!—and several other +villagers dropped in. News of Janice's reason for being at Popham +Landing had been spread abroad, and the people who came were more than +curious—they were sympathetic.</p> + +<p>The pastor of one of the churches, who was well acquainted with Mr. +Middler, left his own family for half an hour and came to the station to +ask if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> he could do anything of practical use for Janice. Had it been +wise the trio from Poketown could have accepted half a dozen invitations +for supper and evening entertainment.</p> + +<p>"People <i>are</i> so good!" Janice cried again to Haley and Marty. "I never +realized that mere strangers could be so very, very nice to one."</p> + +<p>"Huh!" grunted Marty. "Ain't <i>you</i> always nice to folks—an' doing +something for 'em? How do you like it yourself?" which remark made +Janice and Nelson Haley laugh very heartily.</p> + +<p>So, after all, it <i>was</i> a real Christmas, as Janice said. It was an odd +one, perhaps, but there were some very enjoyable things about it. For +instance, Janice and the young school-teacher got far better acquainted +than they had ever been before—and Janice had always liked Nelson +Haley.</p> + +<p>In this present situation, Nelson stood out well. He was generous, +sympathetic, and helpful. The fact that he was inclined to pursue the +way of least resistance, and considered it right to "let well enough +alone," did not impress one so deeply at the present moment.</p> + +<p>Janice learned that the young man had neither father nor mother, and +that his nearest relative was an old aunt who had supplied the money for +his college tuition—at least, such money as he had not been able to +earn himself. Nelson Haley, however, desired to be self-supporting, and +he felt that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> he had accepted all the assistance he should from the old +aunt, whose patrimony was not large.</p> + +<p>"Old Aunty Peckham is just as good as she can be," he confided to +Janice; "but I realize now—have realized for some years, in fact—that +if she had not had me to worry about, she could have enjoyed many more +good things in life than she has. So I told her I'd come to the end of +accepting money from her whenever my own purse got low.</p> + +<p>"I'll teach school in Poketown a couple of years and save enough to take +up law; or perhaps I'll get a chance in some small college. Only, to +teach in a real college means <i>work</i>," and he laughed.</p> + +<p>"But—but don't you like to work?" queried Janice, doubtfully.</p> + +<p>"Now, Janice! who really <i>likes</i> work?" demanded the young man, lightly. +"If we can get through the world without much effort, why not take it +easily?"</p> + +<p>"That is not <i>my</i> idea of what we are put in the world for—just to +drift along with the current."</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear, me! what a very strenuous person you are," said the young +man, still teasingly. "And—I am afraid—you'd be a most uncomfortable +person to have around all the time. Though that doesn't sound gallant, I +admit."</p> + +<p>Janice laughed. "I tell you what it is," she observed, not at all shaken +by the young man's remark, "I shouldn't want to feel that there wasn't +something in life to get by going after it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p> + +<p>"'By going after it?'" repeated the young man, in some puzzlement.</p> + +<p>"Yes. You say I'd be an uncomfortable comrade. And I expect you're +right. Especially for a downright <i>lazy</i> person."</p> + +<p>"Oh, oh!" he cried. "That was a hard hit."</p> + +<p>"You're not really lazy, you know," she pursued, coolly. "You only +haven't been 'woke up' yet."</p> + +<p>"I believe that's worse than your former statement," he cried, rather +ruefully now. "I suppose I <i>do</i> drift with the current."</p> + +<p>"Well!"</p> + +<p>"What kind of a fellow do you expect to marry, Janice?" he asked, with a +twinkle in his eye.</p> + +<p>"Why, I'll tell you," said the girl, practically and without a shadow of +false modesty. "I expect a man to prove himself good for something in +the world before he even <i>asks</i> me to marry him."</p> + +<p>"Goodness me! he must be a millionaire, or president, or something like +that?" chuckled Nelson.</p> + +<p>"Nothing at all so great," she returned, with some heat. "I don't care +if he's right down <i>poor</i>, if only he has been successful in +accomplishing some really hard thing—something that shows the metal +he's made of. No namby-pamby young man for me. No, sir! They can keep +away," and Janice ended her rather serious speech with a laugh and a +toss of her head.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I shall bear your strictures in mind, Miss Day," declared Haley, with +mock gravity. "I see very plainly what you mean. The young St. George +who wears your colors must have slain his dragon."</p> + +<p>"At least," Janice returned, softly, "he must have shown his willingness +to kill the horrid thing."</p> + +<p>The short winter day was already drawing to a close when the telegraph +sounder began to call the station. Marty ran out at once and brought +back the operator. He was quickly in communication with one of the great +New York papers and found that it was over the paper's private wire that +first authentic news from the Granadas district had arrived in the East.</p> + +<p>The posse from Cida had found everything peaceful about the mines. The +guerrilla leader, Raphele, had decamped. There had been an execution on +the day John Makepiece had fled from the place; but the victims were +some unfortunate Indians. The bandit had not dared kill the remaining +American prisoner.</p> + +<p>Mr. Broxton Day had managed to get into a shaft of the mine and there +had lain hidden until Raphele, and his gang, had departed. Now he had +gathered some of his old employees, and armed them with rifles hidden +all these months in the mine, and the property was once more under Mr. +Day's control and properly guarded.</p> + +<p>Through the posse, Mr. Day made a statement<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> to the newspapers, and to +his friends and fellow-stockholders of the mine, in the States. To +Janice, too, he sent a brief message of love and good cheer, stating +that letters to her were already in the mail.</p> + +<p>The relief Janice felt is not to be easily shown. To be positive, after +these hours of uncertainty—and after the long weeks of worriment that +had gone before—that dear Daddy was really alive and well, seemed too +good to be true.</p> + +<p>"Oh, do you suppose it <i>can</i> be so?" she cried, again and again, +clinging to Nelson Haley's arm.</p> + +<p>"Of course it is! Pluck up your courage, Janice," he assured her, while +Marty sniveled:</p> + +<p>"Aw, say, Janice! Doncher give way, now. Uncle Brocky is all right an' +it would be dead foolish ter cry over it, when you kep' up your pluck +so, before."</p> + +<p>"Well! to please you both!" choked Janice, trying to swallow the sobs. +"But—but——Come on! let's go home. Just think how worried Aunt 'Mira +will be."</p> + +<p>So they shook hands with the telegraph operator and Janice thanked him +heartily. There were several other friendly folk of the neighborhood in +the waiting-room when the three friends came out of the office, and the +happy girl thanked them, too, for their sympathy.</p> + +<p>It was quite dark when they got out into the cold again. The wind had +shifted a point or two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> since morning, but it was still in their favor. +Although the sun had set, the way up the lake was clearly defined. The +stars began to twinkle, and after the <i>Fly-by-Night</i> was gotten under +way the course seemed plain enough before them.</p> + +<p>Now Janice enjoyed the sail. She was no longer afraid, and her heart +beat happily. The ice boat made good its name on the trip to Poketown, +and Nelson Haley brought the craft to land beside the steamboat dock in +season for a late supper.</p> + +<p>There was a crowd down at the lake's edge to see them come in. News of +their trip to the Landing, and the reason for it, had been well +circulated about town; and when Marty shouted to some of his boy friends +that "Uncle Brocky was found—and he warn't dead, neither!" the crowd +started to cheer.</p> + +<p>The cheers were for Janice—and she realized it. The folks were glad of +her father's safety because they loved her.</p> + +<p>"People are so kind to me—they are so kind to me!" she cried again, and +then she <i>did</i> burst into tears, much to Marty's disgust.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + +<h3>A STIR OF NEW LIFE IN POKETOWN</h3> + + +<p>After that strange Christmas Day Janice saw a good deal more of Nelson +Haley than she had before. The teacher was several years her senior, of +course; but he seemed to find more than a little pleasure in her +society.</p> + +<p>On Janice's side, she often told herself that Nelson was a real nice +young man—but he could be so much more attractive, if he would! When +the girl sometimes timidly took him to task for his plain lack of +interest in the school he taught, he only laughed lightly.</p> + +<p>Nelson Haley suited the committeemen perfectly. He made no startling +innovations; he followed the set rules of the old-fashioned methods of +teaching; and (to quote Elder Concannon) he was a Latin scholar! Why the +old gentleman should consider that accomplishment of such moment, when +no pupil in the Poketown school ever arrived even to a Latin declension, +was a mystery to Janice.</p> + +<p>Even Miss 'Rill had better appreciated the fact<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> that Poketown needed a +more advanced system of education, and a better school building as well. +And there were other people in the town that had hoped for a new order +of things when this young man, fresh from college, was once established +in his position.</p> + +<p>They waited, it seemed, in vain. Nelson Haley was content to jog along +in the rut long since trodden out for the ungraded country school.</p> + +<p>It was not long after the Christmas holidays, however, when there began +to be serious talk again in the town over the inconvenience in locality +and the unsanitary condition of the present schoolhouse. Every winter +the same cry had been raised—for ten years! Elder Concannon declared +loudly, in the post office one day, that if the school had been good +enough for the fathers of the community, and for the grandfathers as +well, it should be good enough for the present generation of scholars. +Truly, an unanswerable argument, it would seem!</p> + +<p>Yet there was now a stir of new life in Poketown. There was a spirit +abroad among the people that had never before been detected. Walky +Dexter hit it off characteristically when he said:</p> + +<p>"Hi tunket! does seem as though that air reading-room's startin' up has +put the sperit of unrest in ter this here village. People never took +much int'rest in books and noospapers before in Poketown. Look at 'em, +now. I snum! they buzz<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> around that readin'-room for chances to read the +papers like bees around a honey-pot.</p> + +<p>"An' that ain't all—no, sir! 'Most ev'rybody seems ter be +discontented—that's right! Even folks that git their 'three squares' a +day and what they want to wear, ain't satisfied with things as they is, +no more. I dunno what we're all comin' to. 'Lectric street lights, and +macadamized roads, and all sech things, I s'pose," and Walky chuckled +over his flight of imagination.</p> + +<p>"Wal, I dunno," said the druggist, argumentatively, "I'm free ter +confess for one that a different system of street lightin' wouldn't hurt +Poketown one mite. This here havin' a lot of ile lamps, that ain't +lighted at all if the almanac says the moon ought ter shine, is a +nuisance. Sometimes the moon acts right contrary!"</p> + +<p>"My soul an' body!" gasped Walky. "You say that to Elder Concannon, and +Mr. Cross Moore, and ol' Bill Jones! They say taxes is high 'nuff as +they be."</p> + +<p>"And school tax, too, I s'pose?" demanded another idler in the drug +store.</p> + +<p>"Wal," said Walky, "I b'lieve we <i>could</i> give the little shavers a +better chance to l'arn their A, B, C's. And that old schoolhouse can't +be het on re'l cold days. And it's as onhandy as it can be——"</p> + +<p>"I believe you're goin' in for these new-fangled notions, too, Walky," +declared the druggist.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Guess I be, on the school question, anyway. My woman says she sha'n't +let our Helen go ter school again this winter, for she's got one cold +right on top of another las' year. It's a plumb shame."</p> + +<p>It was from talks such as these in the village stores that the fire of +public demand for a new school building—if not for a new system of +education—finally burst into open flame.</p> + +<p>Usually, when there was a public meeting, the basement of the Union +Church—"the old vestry", as it was called—was used. But although Mr. +Middler had timidly expressed himself as in favor of a new school +building, he did not have the courage to offer the use of the vestry +room.</p> + +<p>Therefore the reading-room next to the drug store was one evening +crowded with earnest supporters of the belief that it was time Poketown +built a new structure for the training of her youth.</p> + +<p>Janice saw to it that Uncle Jason went. Indeed, with Janice on one side +and Marty on the other, Mr. Day could scarcely escape, for his son and +his niece accompanied him to the place of meeting.</p> + +<p>Not that the young folks went in, for there wasn't room. It seemed that +the people who favored a change in the old town's affairs were pretty +numerous, and there was not a dissenting voice in the meeting. It was +decided to have a special town meeting called to vote, if possible, an +appropriation for the building of a new schoolhouse.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span></p> + +<p>This first meeting was only a beginning. It served merely to solidify +that public opinion which was in favor of the improvement. At once +opposition raised its head, and during the fortnight preceding the town +meeting, argument, <i>pro</i> and <i>con</i>, was hotter than at election time.</p> + +<p>Janice was deeply interested in the project, although she had, during +these first weeks of the New Year, more important thoughts to fill her +heart and mind. Daddy was writing to her regularly. The mine buildings +were being re-erected. The old force had come back to work, and for the +first time since Broxton Day had arrived in Mexico, the outlook for +getting out ore and making regular "cleanups" was bright. But trouble +down there was not yet at an end, and that worried her greatly.</p> + +<p>The story of her father's captivity in the hands of the brigand, +Raphele, had been made of light moment in Mr. Day's letters that +immediately followed his escape; but Janice understood enough about it +to know that God had been very good to her. Some other American mining +men and ranchers in Granadas had not escaped with their lives and +property from Raphele and his ilk.</p> + +<p>Daddy sent a photograph, too; but that was not until he had recovered +some from his hiding out in the mine without much to eat. Although he +was haggard and bewhiskered, his eyes had that look in them that Janice +so clearly remembered. When she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> awoke and lit her lamp in the early +morning, there he was looking at her from the bureau; and when she +retired she kissed the picture in lieu of having his real presence to +bid good-night.</p> + +<p>Those gray eyes of Broxton Day reminded her always of his oft-spoken +motto: "Do something!" He seemed to be saying that to Janice from his +photograph; therefore the girl was not likely to lose her interest in +such a momentous affair as the new schoolhouse.</p> + +<p>There was another interest that held Janice's mind and sympathy. This +was the condition of poor little Lottie Drugg. As she had been quite +blind when Janice first met her, now her hearing had departed entirely. +She could seldom now distinguish the notes of her father's violin as he +played to her. She would sit on the store counter and put her hand often +on Hopewell's bow-hand as he dragged the more or less harmonious sounds +out of the wood and strings. Otherwise she could not know that he was +playing at all!</p> + +<p>Nelson Haley had been touched by the case of the storekeeper's little +girl, and had discussed the matter with Janice. Nelson had even written +to a Boston specialist who treated the eyes, and who had been very +successful in such cases as Lottie's. The fee the surgeon demanded was +from five hundred to a thousand dollars for an operation. And poor +Hopewell Drugg, although he strained every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> effort, had succeeded in +saving less than two hundred dollars during all these months!</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, Janice would not let the storekeeper lose heart. "It will +come in time, Mr. Drugg," she told him, cheerfully. "And Lottie will be +able to go to that wonderful school, too, where she will be taught many +things."</p> + +<p>For if the child could once obtain her sight, lip-reading would be +possible for her, and through that the little girl might gradually +become as well educated as any one, and have a fair chance for happiness +in the world after all!</p> + +<p>Although Nelson Haley was touched by Lottie's sad condition, and by +anything else going on about him that had the personal note in it, +Janice thought the Poketown school-teacher showed very little public +spirit.</p> + +<p>She began to realize that his overseeing of the reading-room and library +was inspired by his wish to please <i>her</i> instead of his actual interest +in the institution. This was very complimentary, but it did not satisfy +Janice Day at all.</p> + +<p>She was not interested in Nelson Haley in a way to crave the attentions +that he had begun to show her. Indeed, she did not really appreciate his +attitude, for there was nothing silly in Janice's character. She was +still a happy, hearty <i>girl</i>; and if she had romantic dreams of the +future, they were nothing but dreams as yet!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span></p> + +<p>She had the same interest in Nelson that she had in her cousin Marty. It +troubled her that the young man did not seem to have any serious +interest in life. Just as long as he tutored his classes through their +recitations in a manner satisfactory to the school committee, he seemed +quite careless of anything else about the school. He admitted this, in +his laughing way, to the girl, when she broached the subject of the +fight for a new school.</p> + +<p>"But it's your <i>job</i>!" exclaimed Janice. "You more than anybody else +ought to be interested in having the boys and girls of Poketown get a +decent schoolhouse."</p> + +<p>"And suppose old Elder Concannon and the rest of the committee get after +me with a sharp stick?" queried Nelson.</p> + +<p>"I should think <i>you</i>, a collegian and an educated man, would be only +too eager to help in such a movement as this," Janice cried. "Oh, +Nelson! don't you know that the people who are waking up in this town +need your help?"</p> + +<p>"My goodness me! how serious you are about it," he returned, teasingly. +"Of course, if you insist, I'll risk my job with the committee and come +out flat-footed for the new schoolhouse and reform."</p> + +<p>"I don't wish you to do anything at all for <i>me</i>," returned Janice, +rather tartly. "If your own conscience doesn't tell you what course to +pursue,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> pray remain neutral—as you are. But I am disappointed in you."</p> + +<p>"There is feminine logic for you!" laughed the young man. "With one +breath you tell me to follow the dictates of my own conscience, and then +you show me plainly just how much you will despise me if I go against +your side of the controversy."</p> + +<p>"You are mistaken," Janice said, with some little heat. "I do not +personally care what you do, only as your action reflects upon your own +character."</p> + +<p>"Now, dear me!" he sighed, still amused at her earnestness, "I thought +if I came out strongly at the town meeting for the new school, you would +award me the palm."</p> + +<p>"My goodness me!" exclaimed the exasperated girl. "Somebody ought to +award you a palm—and right on the ear! You're as big a tease as Marty," +and she refused to discuss the school project with him any further.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + +<h3>AT THE SUGAR CAMP</h3> + + +<p>Nelson Haley was, however, at the town meeting and spoke in favor of the +new school building. Janice had a full report of it afterward from +Marty, who squeezed in at the back with several of the other boys and +drank in the long and tedious wrangle between the partisans in the +school matter.</p> + +<p>"And, by jinks!" the boy proclaimed, "lemme tell you, Janice, it looked +like the vote was goin' ag'in us till Mr. Haley began to talk. I thought +he didn't have much interest in the thing. Nobody thought he did. I +heard some of the old fellers cacklin' that 'teacher didn't favor the +idee none.'</p> + +<p>"But, say! When he got up to talk, he showed 'em. He was sitting +alongside of Elder Concannon himself, and the Elder had made a mighty +strong speech against increasin' taxes and burdenin' the town for years +and years with a school debt.</p> + +<p>"But, talk about argument! Mr. Haley sailed inter them old fossils, and +made the fur fly, you bet!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, Marty! Fur fly from fossils?" chuckled Janice.</p> + +<p>"That <i>does</i> sound like a teaser, don't it?" responded her cousin, with +a grin. "Just the same, Mr. Haley made 'em all sit up and take notice. +He didn't only speak for the schoolhouse, and new methods of teaching, +and a graded school; but he took up Elder Concannon's arguments and shot +'em full of holes.</p> + +<p>"You ought to have seen the old gentleman's face when Mr. Haley proved +that a better-taught generation of scholars would possess an increased +earning power and so be better able to take up and pay the school bonds +than the present taxpayers.</p> + +<p>"Say! the folks cheered! When Mr. Haley sat down, the question was put +and the vote went through with a rush. But Elder Concannon and Old Bill +Jones, and Mr. Cross Moore, and some of the others, were as mad as they +could be."</p> + +<p>"Mad at Mr. Haley?" queried Janice, with sudden anxiety.</p> + +<p>"You bet! But they can't take the school away from him till the end of +the year, as long as he doesn't neglect his work. So Dad says, and he +knows."</p> + +<p>Janice was worried. She knew that Nelson Haley had hoped to teach the +Poketown school at least two years, so as to get what he called "a +stake" for law-school studies. And there were not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> many ungraded schools +in the state that paid as well as Poketown's; for it was a large school.</p> + +<p>The furor occasioned by the special town meeting, and the fight for the +new school, passed over. A site for the school was secured just off of +High Street near the center of the town—a much handier situation for +all concerned. The ground would be broken for the cellar as soon as the +frost had gone.</p> + +<p>The committee appointed at the town meeting to have charge of the +building of the school were all in favor of it. There were three of +them,—Mr. Massey, the druggist, the proprietor of the Lake View Inn, +and Dr. Poole, one of the two medical practitioners in the town. These +three were instructed to appoint two others to act with them, and as +these two appointees need not be taxpayers, one of them was Nelson +Haley, who acted as secretary.</p> + +<p>When Janice heard of this, she was delighted. She had not seen the +teacher more than to say "how-de-do" since their rather warm discussion +before the date of the town meeting. Now she put herself in the way of +meeting him where they might have a tête-à-tête.</p> + +<p>There were not many social affairs in Poketown for young people. Janice +had attended one or two of the parties where boys and girls mingled +indiscriminately and played "kissing games," then she refused all such +invitations. She was not old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> enough to expect to be bidden to the few +social gatherings held by the more lively class of people in the town.</p> + +<p>The church did little outside of the ladies' sewing circle to promote +social intercourse in the congregation. So, although the school-teacher +might have been invited to a dozen evening entertainments during that +winter, Janice did not chance to meet him where they could have a "good, +long talk" until the Hammett Twins gave their annual Sugar Camp party.</p> + +<p>The two little old ladies, whom Janice had met so soon after coming to +Poketown, had become staunch friends of the girl. She had been at their +home on the Middletown road several times—twice to remain over night, +for both Miss Blossom and Miss Pussy enjoyed having young people about +them.</p> + +<p>They were an odd little couple, but kindly withal, and loved children +desperately, as many spinster ladies do. They had never married because +of the illness for many years of both their father and their mother. +Besides, the twins had never wished to be separated.</p> + +<p>Now, at something over sixty years of age, they owned a fine farm and +the most productive sugar-maple orchard in that part of the state. At +sugaring time each year they invited all the young folk Walky Dexter +could pack into his party wagon, to the camp not far from their house; +and, as maple-sugar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> making was a new industry to Janice, she was not a +little eager when she received her invitation from the two old ladies.</p> + +<p>The "sugaring" was on a Saturday, and the party met at the schoolhouse. +Some of the larger girls who had treated Janice so unpleasantly when she +first visited the school were yet pupils; but they were much more +friendly with the girl from Greensboro than at first. They might have +been a wee bit jealous of her, however; for Nelson Haley would never +treat them other than as a teacher should treat his scholars, whereas he +paid marked attention to Janice whenever he was in her society.</p> + +<p>Once he had asked permission to call upon her; but Janice had only +laughed and told him that her aunt would be pleased to have him come, of +course. She was not at all sure that she liked Mr. Nelson Haley well +enough to allow him to confine his attentions to her! Young as she was, +Janice had serious ideas about such matters.</p> + +<p>However, she was glad to have him to talk to again on this occasion.</p> + +<p>"I've never had a chance to tell you how proud of you I was when they +told me what you did at the town meeting," Janice whispered, as they sat +side by side in the party wagon.</p> + +<p>Nelson grinned at her cheerfully. "The old Elder scarcely speaks to me," +he said. "He's even forgotten that I can turn a Latin phrase as they +used to when he went to the university."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, that is too bad! But don't you feel that you did right?"</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you better when it comes time to engage a teacher for next +year."</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear! Maybe they'll put in a new school committee at the July +school meeting. They ought to."</p> + +<p>"The Elder and his comrades in crime have been in office for eight or +ten years, I understand. They are fairly glued there, and it will take a +good deal to oust them. You see, they have nothing to do with the +building of the new school."</p> + +<p>"But if that school is finished and ready for occupancy next fall, you +ought to be at the head of it. It won't be fair to put you out," Janice +said, with gravity.</p> + +<p>"We'll hope for the best," and Nelson Haley laughed as usual. "But if I +lose my job and have to beg my bread from door to door, I hope you will +remember, Janice, that I told you so."</p> + +<p>"You are perfectly ridiculous," declared the girl. "Aren't you ever +serious two minutes at a time?"</p> + +<p>"Pooh! what's the good of being 'solemncholly'? Take things as they +come—that's <i>my</i> motto."</p> + +<p>Still, Janice believed that the young man was really becoming more +deeply interested in the Poketown school and its problems that he was +willing to admit, even to her. She had heard that the Middletown +architect who was planning the school had consulted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> Nelson Haley +several times upon important points, and that the teacher was the most +active of all the five special committeemen.</p> + +<p>They reached the sugar camp before the middle of the forenoon, although +the roads at that season were very heavy. Winter had by no means +departed, although a raucous-voiced jay or two had come up from the +swamp and scoured the open wood as though already in search of spring +quarters.</p> + +<p>The Hammett sugar camp consisted of an open shed in which to boil the +sap and an old cabin—perhaps one of the first built in these New +Hampshire grants—in which dinner was to be cooked and eaten. Miss +Blossom Hammett was already busy over the pots, and pans, and bake oven +in the cabin; while her sister, the thin Miss Pussy, overseered the +sap-boiling operations.</p> + +<p>It was a regular "bee", for beside the twins' hired hands, there were +several of their neighbors, and the visitors from Poketown were expected +to make themselves useful, too, the boys and Nelson Haley especially.</p> + +<p>Janice joined the sap gatherers, for she was strong and liked exercise. +They carried buckets to collect the sap that had already run into the +shiny two-quart cups which were used to collect it.</p> + +<p>First an incision was made through the bark and into the wood of the +tree. Into this incision was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> thrust a whittled plug that had a shallow +gutter cut in its upper side, and notches from which the bail of the +two-quart cup hung. Into the cup the sap dripped rapidly—especially +about midday, when the sun was warmest.</p> + +<p>They tapped only about a quarter of the grove belonging to the old +ladies, for that numbered as many trees as could be handled at once. +Pail after pail of the thin sap was brought in and emptied into one of +the two big cauldrons, under which a steady fire of hickory and beech +was kept burning. Later the fire was started under the second pot, while +the contents of the first one was allowed to simmer down until the sugar +would "spin", when dipped up on the wooden ladle and dropped into a bowl +of cold water.</p> + +<p>The old ladies supplied a hearty and substantial dinner for the young +folks to put away before the sugar was boiled enough to spin. After +that, the visitors gathered about the sugar troughs like flies about +molasses. The Hammett Twins were not niggard souls by any manner of +means; but they kept warning the girls and boys all the afternoon to +"save room for supper."</p> + +<p>In truth, the supper down at the old Hammett farmhouse, after the work +of the day was over, was the principal event. It grew cold towards +night, and that sharpened the young folks' appetites. The sap ceased +running before sunset, so they trooped<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> down from the camp, the little +old ladies riding in their phaeton behind Ginger. Walky Dexter was going +to drive out to the Hammett place after supper to pick up his load of +young people.</p> + +<p>But Walky was late—very late indeed. After supper the majority of the +young folk, both those from Poketown and in the near neighborhood, began +to play forfeit games; so Janice and Nelson Haley slipped away, bidding +the kind old ladies good-night, and set out to walk home.</p> + +<p>The distance was under five miles; there was a good path all the way +despite the mud in the driveway, and there was a glorious moon. The wind +had died down and, although the night air was keen, it was a perfect +hour for walking.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + +<h3>"DO YOU MEAN THAT?"</h3> + + +<p>"It was right along here—at the bridge, you know—I saw you the first +time, Janice," said the teacher, when they had covered some two miles of +the way. "Do you remember?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't suppose <i>you</i> would," laughed Janice, blushing a little. "And +I stared at you because you were the first citified-looking person I had +seen since coming to Poketown."</p> + +<p>He laughed. "Did I look as bad as all that? I was going fast, I know, +but I could see that you were a mighty pretty girl."</p> + +<p>"Why! That's a story!" exclaimed Janice, seriously, and looking at the +young man in astonishment. "You know that isn't so. I'm <i>not</i> pretty."</p> + +<p>"Goodness me! am I not to have my way in <i>anything</i>?" demanded Nelson +Haley, in mock anger. "If I think you're pretty I can say so, I hope?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir. Such ridiculous statements are forbidden. I shall think your +eyes need treating almost as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> badly as do poor little Lottie's. Dear me, +whatever are we going to do about that child?"</p> + +<p>"If either of us were rich it would be an easy question to answer."</p> + +<p>"True enough. I know what <i>I'd</i> do. And I believe you'd be a very +generous young man, indeed—as long as being generous did not entail any +particular work on your part."</p> + +<p>"Oh—now—I call that unfair!" he complained. "We can't all be like you, +Janice. I believe you lay awake nights thinking up nice things to do for +folks——"</p> + +<p>"There you go again—making fun of me," she said, shaking a gloved +finger at him. "I don't claim to be a bit more unselfish than the next +one. But I'm not lazy."</p> + +<p>"Thanks! I suppose I am?"</p> + +<p>"There you go—picking one up so quick," Janice repeated. "I <i>do</i> think, +however, that you just don't care, a good deal of the time. If things +only go on smoothly——"</p> + +<p>"That's what I told you Christmas Day," he said, quickly.</p> + +<p>"And isn't it so?"</p> + +<p>"Well—it used to be," he admitted, shaking his head ruefully. "But I'm +not sure but that, since you've got me going——"</p> + +<p>"<i>Me?</i>" exclaimed Janice. "What have <i>I</i> got to do with it?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Now, there's no use your saying that you don't know <i>why</i> I took up +that matter of the new school last month," said Nelson Haley, seriously. +"You spoke just as though you were ashamed of me when we talked about +it, and I began to wonder if I wasn't a fit subject for heart-searching +inquiry," and the teacher burst into laughter again.</p> + +<p>But Janice felt that he was more serious than usual, and she hastened to +say: "I should really feel proud to know that any word of <i>mine</i> +suggested your present course, Mr. Nelson Haley. Why! what a fine thing +that would be."</p> + +<p>"What a fine thing <i>what</i> would be?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"To think that I could really influence an educated and clever young man +like you to do something very much worth while in the world. Nelson, you +are flattering me."</p> + +<p>"Honest to goodness—it's so," he said, looking at her with a rather wry +smile. "And I'm not at all sure that I thank you for it."</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"See what you've got me into?" he complained. "I've got a whole bunch of +extra work because of the school building, and in the end the old Elder +and his friends may discharge me!"</p> + +<p>"But you've brought about the building of a new school, and Poketown +ought always to thank you."</p> + +<p>"Likely. And they'll build a monument to me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> to stand at the head of +High Street, eh?" and he laughed.</p> + +<p>"I do not care," said Janice, seriously, and looking up at him with +pride. "<i>I</i> shall thank you. And I shall never forget that you said it +was <i>my</i> little influence that made you do it."</p> + +<p>"Your <i>little</i> influence——"</p> + +<p>But she hastened to add: "It's a really great thing for me to think of. +And how proud and glad I'll be by and by—years and years from now, I +mean—when you accomplish some great thing and I can think that it was +because of what <i>I</i> said that you first began to use your influence for +good among these people——"</p> + +<p>Her voice broke a little and she halted. She feared she had gone too far +and that perhaps Nelson Haley would misunderstand her. But he was only +silent for a moment. Then, turning to her and grasping her hands firmly, +he said:</p> + +<p>"Do you mean that, Janice?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I mean just that," she said, rather flutteringly. "Oh! here comes +a wagon. It must be Walky."</p> + +<p>"Never mind Walky," said Nelson, firmly. "I want to tell you that I +sha'n't forget what you've said. If there really is a nice girl like you +feeling proud of me, I'm going to do just my very best to retain her +good opinion. You see if I don't!"</p> + +<p>They were in the shadow as Walky drove by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> and he did not see them. +After that Janice and the teacher hurried on so as not to be overtaken +by the noisy party of young folks before they reached the village.</p> + +<p>As they came up the hill toward Hopewell Drugg's store they saw a dim +light in the storekeeper's back room, and the wailing notes of his +violin reached their ears.</p> + +<p>"Hopewell is grinding out his usual classic," chuckled Nelson Haley. "I +hear him at it morning, noon, and night. Seems to me 'Silver Threads +Among the Gold' is kind of <i>passé</i>."</p> + +<p>"Hush!" said Janice. "There is somebody standing at the side gate, +listening. You see, sir, everybody doesn't have the same opinion of poor +Mr. Drugg's music——"</p> + +<p>"My goodness!" ejaculated Nelson, under his breath. "It's Miss +Scattergood, I do believe!"</p> + +<p>The timid little spinster could not escape. They had come upon her so +quietly.</p> + +<p>"Oh! is it you, Janice dear?" she said, in a startled voice.</p> + +<p>"And Mr. Haley. We are walking home from the Hammetts' sugaring."</p> + +<p>"Well! I'm glad it ain't anybody else," said Miss 'Rill frankly. "But I +<i>do</i> run around here sometimes of an evening, when mother's busy or +asleep, just to listen to that old song. Mr. Drugg plays it with so much +feelin'—don't you think so, Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> Haley? And then—I was always very +fond of that song."</p> + +<p>They left her at the corner of High Street, and the flurried little +woman hurried home.</p> + +<p>"I do believe there is a romance there," whispered the teacher, when +Miss 'Rill was out of earshot.</p> + +<p>"So there is. Didn't you know that—years and years ago—she and Mr. +Drugg were engaged?" cried Janice. "Why, yes, they were. But why they +did not marry, and why he married the girl he did, and why Miss 'Rill +kept on teaching school and never would look at any other man, is all a +mystery."</p> + +<p>"Romance!" commented Nelson, with a little laugh, yet looking down upon +Janice with serious eyes. "The night is full of it—don't you think so, +Janice?"</p> + +<p>"No, no!" she laughed up at him. "It's only the moonlight," and a little +later he left her at the old Day house with a casual handshake.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + +<h3>THE SCHOOL DEDICATION</h3> + + +<p>Thereafter there was a somewhat different tone to the friendship between +Janice and the school-teacher. They were confidential. They both assumed +that the other was interested in the matters dear to each. It was a +comradery that had no silly side to it. Nelson Haley was a young man +working his way up the first rungs of the ladder of life; Janice was his +good friend and staunch partisan.</p> + +<p>As neither was possessed of brother or sister, they adopted each other +in that stead.</p> + +<p>The winter fled away at last and Spring came over the mountain range and +down to the lakeside, scattering flowers and grasses as she passed. +Although Janice had enjoyed some of the fun and frolic of the New +England winter, she was perfectly delighted to see the season change.</p> + +<p>It had been late spring when she reached Poketown the year before. Now +she saw the season open, and her first trips over the hillsides and +through the wood lot where the snow still lay in sheltered places, +searching for the earliest flowers, were days of delight for the girl.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p> + +<p>The Shower Bath was released from its icy fetters, and the little +mountain stream poured over the lip of granite with a burst of sound +like laughter. She visited The Overlook, too; but she did not need to +view the landscape o'er to enable her to understand why God did not +immediately answer her prayers for her father.</p> + +<p>Great news from the mine in Mexico:</p> + +<p>"We haven't made much money yet, it is true," Mr. Day wrote about this +time. "But things are going right. The armies—both of them—are now far +away and if they leave us in peace for a few months, your Daddy will +make so much money that you can have the desire of your heart, my dear."</p> + +<p>And the "desire of her heart" just then was—and had been for months—a +little automobile in which she might ride over the roads about Poketown. +There wasn't a good horse and carriage obtainable in the town; and +Janice found the time hanging heavily upon her hands.</p> + +<p>"If I just had a car!" she would often say, until Marty got to teasing +her about it, and Nelson Haley, whenever he saw her, usually asked very +sober questions about her car—if she'd had much tire trouble on her +last trip, and so forth!</p> + +<p>"You can all just laugh at me," Janice declared. "I know Daddy will send +the money some time. And then, if you are not <i>very</i> good, and <i>very</i> +polite, you sha'n't ride with me at all."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span></p> + +<p>Aunt 'Mira was so inspired by her niece's talk of an automobile that she +studied the mail-order catalogues diligently, and finally sent off for a +coat and veil, together with an approved automobile mask, to be worn +when she went motoring through the country with Janice!</p> + +<p>The spring passed and summer came. The cellar walls of the new +schoolhouse were laid, and then the framework went up, and finally the +handsome edifice was finished upon the outside. Really, Poketown was +fairly startled by the appearance of the new building. Some of the very +people who had been opposed to the thing were won over by its +appearance.</p> + +<p>"Hi tunket!" exclaimed Mr. Cross Moore, "barrin' the taxes we'll haf ter +pay for the next ten year, I could be glad ter see sech a handsome house +in the town. An' they tell me 'at teacher has had more ter do with the +plannin' of the school than the architect himself. Too bad Mr. Haley +ain't goin' ter be here no longer than this term. He'd ought ter have +the bossin' of the new school."</p> + +<p>"Who says he won't?" snapped Walky Dexter, who heard the selectman's +statement.</p> + +<p>"You ax the Elder—or old Bill Jones," chortled Moore.</p> + +<p>"Come now! what do you mean by that?" demanded Mr. Massey, in whose +store the conversation took place.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Ax 'em," said Mr. Moore again. "They've got it fixed up to fire Mr. +Haley at the end of this term."</p> + +<p>"Nothin' like bein' warned in time," said Walky Dexter. "Them old +shagbarks ain't been e-lected themselves for next year, yet. They air +takin' too blamed much for granted, that's what's the matter with them. +July school meetin' is purty near; but mebbe we kin put a spoke in their +wheel."</p> + +<p>Forthwith Walkworthy Dexter began to earn his right to the nickname +Janice had once given him. He became "Talky" Dexter, and he talked to +some purpose. When the school meeting was held in July there was the +most astonishing overturn that had been seen in Poketown for years. An +entirely new committee was elected to govern school affairs, and all +were men in favor of new methods.</p> + +<p>Before this, the school had closed and Nelson Haley had gone to Maine to +work in a hotel during the summer. The last half of the school year had +been much different from the young man's fall term. Although he gave the +boys all the instruction in baseball he had promised, and otherwise had +kept up their interest in the school, he had begun to lay out the work +differently for the pupils and really try to increase the value of his +instruction. Whether he was to be fortunate enough to head the new +school in the fall, or not, he began to train the pupils to more modern +methods. Whoever took hold of the new school would find the scholars +somewhat prepared for the graded system.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span></p> + +<p>Poketown was actually shocked! The good old Elder and his mates had so +long governed school matters just as they pleased that many of the +people could not realize that a new day had dawned—in school affairs, +at least.</p> + +<p>Elder Concannon was doomed to see more of his influence wane during this +summer. Heretofore he had managed to keep out of the church anything +like a young people's society, in spite of Mr. Middler's desire to the +contrary. But there were now several earnest young people in the church +membership who were anxious to be set to work to some purpose.</p> + +<p>The association was a small one at first. Janice was a member. Soon the +influence of the organization began to be felt in more ways than one.</p> + +<p>"I can see just how things are going, Brother Middler—I can see +plainly," old Elder Concannon declared. "Just as soon as they told me +that Day girl was a member of the society I knew what would happen. A +new carpet for the aisle and the pulpit chairs upholstered! Ha! And them +girls and boys themselves cleaning windows and sweeping and dusting the +whole church once a month. Ridiculous! Myron Jones has always suited us +as sexton before. Oh! we'll have no peace—no peace at all!"</p> + +<p>"But, Elder," timidly suggested the pastor, "such things as the young +people have asked to do have been helpful things. And I'm sure if you +would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> attend one of their meetings you would find their spiritual +growth commendable—surely commendable."</p> + +<p>"Ha!" sniffed the old gentleman, wagging his bristling head. "What do +those boys and girls know about religion, and the work of the spirit, +and——"</p> + +<p>"One thing is sure, Elder," interposed Mr. Middler with more courage +than was usual with him, "One thing is sure: if our children have no +proper appreciation of such things, it is certainly <i>our</i> fault. We +older ones have been remiss in our duty."</p> + +<p>This seemed to take the Elder aback. He stared at the younger man for a +moment; but as he turned away he muttered:</p> + +<p>"It's all nonsense! And it's just as I've said. No peace since that Day +girl came to town."</p> + +<p>Mr. Middler had the courage of his convictions for once. He said nothing +more to rasp the old gentleman's feelings and prejudices; but he backed +up the young people in their attempt to freshen up the old church. He +mingled with them more than ever he had before; and from that contact +with their young and hopeful natures he carried into his pulpit a more +joyful outlook upon life. Mr. Middler was growing, along with his young +people, and he really preached a sermon now and then in which there +wasn't a doctrinal argument!</p> + +<p>Not that Janice held a very important position in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> the young people's +society. But she had belonged to one back in Greensboro, in her own +beloved church, and she had helped form this Poketown organization. She +would not take office in this new society, for all the time she hoped +that her father's affairs would change and they might be together again.</p> + +<p>There was never a day begun that Janice did not hope that this reunion +might be consummated soon; and the desire was a part of her bedside +prayer at night. She was no longer lonely, or even homesick, in +Poketown. She really loved her relatives, and she knew that they loved +her. She had made many friends, and her time was fairly well occupied.</p> + +<p>But her longing for Daddy seemed to grow with the lapse of time. She +wanted to see him so much that it actually <i>hurt</i> when she allowed +herself to think about it!</p> + +<p>"Ain't you ever goin' to be still a minute, Janice?" complained her aunt +frequently. "You're hoppin' 'round all the time jest like a hen on a hot +skillet, I declare for't!"</p> + +<p>"Why, Aunt 'Mira," she told the good lady, "I couldn't possibly sit with +my hands folded. I'd rather work on the treadmill than do <i>that</i>."</p> + +<p>"You wait till you've worked as many years as I have—an' got as leetle +for it," said Aunt 'Mira, shaking her head. "You won't be so spry," and +with that she buried herself in her story paper again.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p> + +<p>There was an improvement, however, even in Aunt 'Mira. She could not +leave the "love stories" alone, and if she had a particularly exciting +one, she would sit down in her chair in the middle of the kitchen floor +and let the breakfast dishes go till noon.</p> + +<p>Usually, however, she "slicked up," as she called it, after dinner, +instead of spending her time on the sofa, and sometimes she and Janice +went calling with their needlework, like the other ladies up and down +Hillside Avenue, or had some of the neighbors in to call on them.</p> + +<p>Aunt 'Mira had spent some of Janice's board money on the furnishings of +the house as well as in silk dresses and automobile veils. There were +new curtains at the windows; the sitting-room had a new rag carpet woven +by a neighbor; the rather worn boards of the kitchen were covered with +brightly-figured linoleum.</p> + +<p>Inside and out there were now few "loose ends" about the old Day house. +The stair to the upper story was mended, and covered with a bright +runner. The premises about the house were kept neat and attractive, and +Mr. Day had somehow found the money to paint the house that spring, +while the stables and other outbuildings looked much neater than when +Janice had first seen them.</p> + +<p>She and Marty had taken complete charge of the garden this year, and the +girl had inspired her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> cousin with some of her own love of neatness and +order. The rows of vegetables were straight; the weeds were kept out; +and they had earlier potatoes and peas for the table than anybody else +on Hillside Avenue.</p> + +<p>The lane was, by the way, different in appearance from the untidy and +crooked street up which Janice had climbed with Uncle Jason that day of +her arrival at Poketown. The neighboring homes showed the influence of +association with the Day place.</p> + +<p>There had been other houses painted on the street that spring. More +fences had been reset and straightened. The driveway itself had had some +attention from the town. And you couldn't have found a one-hinged gate +the entire length of the street!</p> + +<p>As for Uncle Jason, he was really carrying on his farming in a +businesslike way. Marty was getting to be a big boy now, and he could +help more than he once had. Janice had suggested to Uncle Jason that, as +he had such good pasture at the upper end of his farm, and as the milk +supply of Poketown was but a meager one, it would pay somebody to run a +small dairy.</p> + +<p>Mr. Day now had three cows that he proposed to winter, and was raising +one heifer calf. Such milk as the family did not use themselves the +neighbors gladly bought. Mrs. Day was doing better with her hens, too. +The wire fencing had been repaired and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> she gave the biddies more +attention; therefore she was being repaid in eggs and chickens for +frying. Altogether it could no longer be said that the Day family was +shiftless.</p> + +<p>Janice received several cheerful and entertaining letters that summer +from Nelson Haley. He was clerk of a summer hotel on the Maine shore, +and he seemed to be having a good time as well as earning a considerable +salary.</p> + +<p>When the new school committee of Poketown tendered him an offer of the +head mastership of the school (he was to begin with one assistant for +the kindergartners), he threw up his clerkship and hastened to a certain +summer normal school in central Massachusetts.</p> + +<p>Janice was very glad, although his action surprised her, knowing, as she +did, how much young Haley needed the money he was earning at the hotel. +His tuition at the summer school for a month, and his board there, would +eat up a good deal of the money he had saved. He might not be able to +enter for his law studies at the end of another school year.</p> + +<p>Janice believed, however, that Nelson Haley was "cut out," as the local +saying was, for a teacher. He had an easy, interesting manner, which was +bound to hold the attention of even the wandering minds among his +pupils. She knew by the improvement in Marty that the young man's +influence, especially<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> on the boys of Poketown, was for good.</p> + +<p>"If he would only make up his mind to <i>work</i>, he might rise high in the +profession," she thought. "Some day he might even be president of a +college—and wouldn't that be fine?"</p> + +<p>But she did not write anything of this nature to the absent Nelson. She +treasured in her mind what he had said about working because <i>she</i> was +proud of him; and she wisely decided that Nelson Haley was a young man +who needed very little encouragement in some ways. Janice was by no +means sure that she liked Nelson Haley as he liked her.</p> + +<p>So she kept her answers to his letters upon a coolly friendly basis and +only showed him, when he returned to Poketown in September in time for +the dedication exercises of the school building, how glad she was to see +him by the warmth of her greeting.</p> + +<p>It was a real gala day in Poketown when the new school building was +thrown open for public inspection. In the evening the upper floor of the +building (which for the present was to be used as a hall) was crowded by +the villagers to hear the "public speaking"; and on this occasion Nelson +Haley again covered himself with glory.</p> + +<p>He seemed to have gained enthusiasm, as well as a distinct idea of +modern school methods, from his brief normal training. He managed to +inspire his hearers with hope for a broader and higher education;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> his +hopes for the future of the Poketown school lit responsive fires in the +hearts of many of his listeners.</p> + +<p>Of course, Elder Concannon did not agree. He was heard to say afterward +that he couldn't approve of "no such new-fangled notions," and that he +believed the boys and girls of Poketown "better stick to the three +R's—reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic!"</p> + +<p>However, the opinion of the people in general seemed to be in favor of +the new ideas, and they promised to back up Nelson Haley in his work of +modernizing the school.</p> + +<p>"Of course you'll make it one of the best schools in the state—I know +you will, Nelson," declared Janice, when he walked home with her after +the exercises.</p> + +<p>"If <i>you</i> say so—of course!" replied the young man, with a smile.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2> + +<h3>THROUGH THE SECOND WINTER</h3> + + +<p>During the summer, matters at the reading-room and library had been +allowed to drift along to a great extent. Marty and one of his +particular chums had kept the reading-room open evenings during Mr. +Haley's absence; but now Janice knew that the school-teacher would have +his hands quite full without giving any time to the reading-room.</p> + +<p>She set about making a second campaign for the advancement of the +institution and the broadening of its work. She found five girls beside +herself willing to keep the reading-room open one afternoon a week, and +to exchange books for the members of the library association. The +institution had proved its value in the community and Janice privately +went to several people who were well able to help, and collected a fund +for the payment of a regular librarian in the evening.</p> + +<p>One of the boys who had shown most advancement during the spring in +school work was glad to earn a small wage as librarian and caretaker of +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> reading-room evenings. An effort was made, too, to increase the +number of volumes in the library so as to obtain a share of the State +Library Appropriation for the next year.</p> + +<p>Janice was not alone interested in the reading-room's affairs. There was +the matter of a new piano for the Sunday-school room. The instrument in +use had been a second-hand one when the Sunday School obtained it; and +it was forever out of tune.</p> + +<p>"However can you expect the children to sing in unison, and sing well, +Mr. Scribner," Janice said to the Sunday-school superintendent, "when +there isn't an octave in harmony on the old piano? Come on! let's see +what we can do about getting a brand-new, first-class instrument?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear girl! Impossible! quite impossible!" declared the +superintendent, who was a bald, hopeless little man, who kept books for +the biggest store in town, and was imbued with the prevailing Poketown +spirit of "letting well enough alone."</p> + +<p>"How do you know it is impossible till you try?" demanded the girl, +laughing. "How much would you give, yourself, toward a new instrument?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Scribner winked hard, swallowed, and burst out with: "Ten dollars! +Yes, ma'am! I'd go without a new winter overcoat for the sake of having +a decent piano."</p> + +<p>"That's a beginning," Janice said, gravely, seizing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> paper and pad. "And +I can spare five. Now, don't you see, if we can interest everybody else +in town proportionately, we'd have enough to buy <i>two</i> pianos, let alone +one.</p> + +<p>"But let us start the subscription papers with our own offerings. You +take one, and I'll take the other. You can ask everybody who comes into +the store, and I'll go out into the highways and hedges and see what I +can gather."</p> + +<p>Janice interested the young people's society in the project, too; and +her own enthusiasm, plus that of the other young folks, brought the +thing about. At the usual Sunday-school entertainment on Christmas night +the new piano was used for the first time, and Mrs. Ebbie Stewart, who +played it, fairly cried into her score book, she was so glad.</p> + +<p>"I was <i>so</i> sick of pounding on that old tin-panny thing!" she sobbed. +"A real piano seems too good to be true."</p> + +<p>The old Town Hall standing at the head of High Street—just where the +street forked to become two country highways—had a fine stick of spruce +in front of it for a flagpole; but on holidays the flag that was raised +(if the janitor didn't forget it) was tattered like a battle-banner, +and, in addition, was of the vintage of a score of years before. Our +flag has changed some during the last two decades as to the number of +stars and their arrangement on the azure field.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span></p> + +<p>Of a sudden people began to notice the need of a new flag. Who mentioned +it first? Why, that Day girl!</p> + +<p>And she kept right on mentioning it until some people began to see that +it was really a disgrace to Poketown—and almost an insult to the flag +itself—to raise such a tattered banner. A grand silk flag, with new +halyards and all, was finally obtained, the Congressman of the district +having been interested in the affair. And on Washington's Birthday the +Congressman himself visited the village and made an address when the +flag was raised for the first time.</p> + +<p>Gradually, other improvements and changes had taken place in Poketown. +There was the steamboat dock. It had been falling to pieces for years. +It had originally been built by the town; but the various storekeepers +were most benefited by the wharf, for their freight came by water for +more than half of the year.</p> + +<p>Walky Dexter started the subscription among the merchants for the dock +repairs. He subscribed a fair sum himself, too, for he was the principal +teamster in Poketown.</p> + +<p>"But who d'you s'pose started Walky?" demanded Mr. Cross Moore, +shrewdly. "Trace it all back to one 'live wire'—that's what! If that +Day gal didn't put the idee into Walky's head for a new dock, I'll eat +my hat!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p> + +<p>And nobody asked Mr. Moore to try that gastronomic feat.</p> + +<p>The selectman, himself, seemed to get into line during that winter. He +stopped sneering at Walky Dexter and for some inexplicable reason he +began agitating for better health ordinances.</p> + +<p>There was an unreasonable warm spell in February; people in Poketown had +always had open garbage piles during the winter. From this cause, Dr. +Poole, the Health Officer, declared, a diphtheria epidemic started which +caused several deaths and necessitated the closing of a part of the +school for four weeks.</p> + +<p>Cross Moore put through a garbage-collection ordinance and a certain +farmer out of town was glad of the chance to make a daily collection, +the year around, for the value of the garbage and the small bonus the +town allowed him. If the truth were known Mr. Moore's ordinance was +copied almost word for word from the printed pamphlet of ordinances in +force in a certain town of the Middle West called Greensboro. Now, how +did the selectman obtain that pamphlet, do you suppose?</p> + +<p>Yet Poketown, as a whole, looked about as forlorn and unsightly as it +had when Janice Day first saw it. The improvement was not general. The +malady—general neglect—had only been treated in spots.</p> + +<p>There were still stores with their windows heaped<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> with flyspecked +goods. The horses still gnawed the boles of the shade trees along High +Street. The flagstone sidewalks were still broken and the gutters +unsightly. High street itself was rutted and muddy all through the early +spring, after the snow had gone.</p> + +<p>A few of the merchants patterned after Hopewell Drugg, brightened up +their stores, and exposed only fresh goods for sale. But these few +changes only made the general run of Poketown institutions appear more +slovenly. The contrast was that of a new pair of shoes, or a glossy hat, +on a ragged beggar!</p> + +<p>With Janice on one side to spur him, and Miss 'Rill's unbounded faith in +him on the other hand, how <i>could</i> Hopewell Drugg fall back into the old +aimless existence which had cursed him when first Janice had taken an +interest in his little Lottie, his store, and himself?</p> + +<p>But, of course, Hopewell could not <i>make</i> trade. He had gained his full +share of the Poketown patronage, and held all his old customers. But the +profits of the business accumulated slowly. As this second winter drew +to a close the storekeeper confessed to Janice that he had only saved a +little over three hundred dollars altogether towards the betterment of +Lottie's condition.</p> + +<p>Janice began secretly to complain. Her heart bled for the child, shut +away in the dark and silence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> If only Daddy would grow suddenly very +wealthy out of the mine! Or if some fairy godmother would come to little +Lottie's help!</p> + +<p>The person who seemed nearest like a fairy godmother to the child was +Miss 'Rill. She spent a great deal of her spare time with the +storekeeper's daughter. Sometimes she went to Mr. Drugg's cottage alone; +but oftener she had Lottie around to the rooms she occupied with her +mother on High Street.</p> + +<p>"I declare for't, 'Rill," sputtered old Mrs. Scattergood, one day when +Janice happened to be present, "you'll have the hull town talkin' abeout +you. You're in an' aout of Hopewell Drugg's jest as though you belonged +there."</p> + +<p>"I'm surely doing no harm, mother," said the little spinster, mildly. +"Everyone knows how this poor child needs somebody's care."</p> + +<p>"Wal! let the 'somebody' be somebody else," snapped the old lady. "I +sh'd think you'd be ashamed."</p> + +<p>"Ashamed of what, mother?" asked Miss 'Rill, with more spirit than she +usually displayed.</p> + +<p>"You know well enough what I mean. Folks will say you're flingin' +yourself at Hopewell Drugg's head. An' after all these years, too. +I——"</p> + +<p>"Mother!" exclaimed her daughter, in a low voice, but earnestly. "Don't +you think you did harm enough long, long ago, without beginning on that +tack now?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span></p> + +<p>"There! that's the thanks one gets when one keeps a gal from makin' a +perfect <i>fule</i> of herself," cried the old lady, bridling. "S'pose you'd +been jest a drudge for Hopewell all these years, Amarilla Scattergood?"</p> + +<p>"I might not have been a drudge," said Miss 'Rill, softly, flushing over +her needlework. "At least my life—and his—would have been different."</p> + +<p>"Ye don't know how lucky you be," snapped her mother. "And this is all +the thanks I git for tellin' Hopewell Drugg that he'd brought his pigs +to the wrong market."</p> + +<p>"At least," said the spinster, with a sigh, "he will never worry you on +that score again, mother—he nor any other man. When a woman gets near +to forty, with more silver than gold in her hair, and the best of her +useless life is behind her, she need expect no change in her estate, +that's sure."</p> + +<p>"Ye might be a good deal wuss off," sniffed her mother.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps that is so," agreed Miss 'Rill, with a sudden hard little +laugh. "But don't you take pattern by me, Janice, no matter what folks +tell you. Mrs. Beasely is better off than I am. She has the memory of +doing for somebody whom she loved and who loved her. While I——Well, +I'm just an old maid, and when you say that about a woman, you say the +worst!"</p> + +<p>"Why, the idee!" exclaimed her mother, with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> wrath. "I call that flyin' +right in the face of Providence."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe that God ever had old maids in the original scheme of +things."</p> + +<p>"Humph! didn't He?" snapped Mrs. Scattergood. "Then why is there so many +more women than men in the world? Will you please tell me <i>that</i>, +Amarilla?" and this unanswerable argument closed what Janice realized +was not the first discussion of the unpleasant topic, between the +ex-schoolteacher and her sharp-tongued mother.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> + +<h3>JUST HOW IT ALL BEGAN</h3> + + +<p>It was one of those soft, irresponsible days of April. The heavens +clouded up and wept like a naughty child upon the least pretext; yet +between the showers the sun warmed the glad earth, and coaxed the +catkins into bloom, and even expanded the first buds of the huge lilac +bush at the corner of the Day house.</p> + +<p>This was a special occasion; one could easily guess that from the bustle +manifest about the place. Aunt 'Mira and Janice had been busy since +light. Mrs. Day was not in the habit of "givin' things a lick and a +promise" nowadays when she cleaned house. No, indeed! They gave the +house a "thorough riddin' up," and were scarcely through at dinner-time.</p> + +<p>Then they hurried the dinner dishes out of the way, drove Marty and his +father out of the house and hurried to change into fresh frocks; for +company was expected.</p> + +<p>The ladies' sewing circle of the Union Church<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> was to meet with Mrs. +Day. These meetings of late had become more like social gatherings than +formerly. The afternoon session was better attended; then came a hearty +supper to which the ladies' husbands, brothers, or sweethearts were +invited; and everything wound up with a social evening.</p> + +<p>Aunt 'Mira and Janice had made many extra preparations for the occasion +in the line of cooked food; there were two gallon pots of beans in the +oven cooking slowly; and every lady, as she arrived, handed to Janice +some parcel or package containing cooked food for the supper.</p> + +<p>The girl was busy looking after these donations when once the members of +the sewing circle began to arrive; and Aunt 'Mira's pantry had never +before been so stacked with food. Marty stole in to gaze at the goodies, +and whispered:</p> + +<p>"Hi tunket! Just you go away for half an hour, Janice, and lemme be +here. I could do something to that tuck right now."</p> + +<p>"And so soon after dinner?" cried his cousin. "I wonder if boys <i>are</i> +hollow all the way down to their heels, as they say they are?"</p> + +<p>"It ain't that," grinned Marty. "But a feller runs so many chances in +this world of going hungry, that he ought ter fill up while he can. You +just turn your back for a while and I'll show you, Janice."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p> + +<p>But his cousin turned the key in the pantry door and slipped it into her +pocket for safety. "We'll have no larks like <i>that</i>, Master Marty," she +declared.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Scattergood and 'Rill were among the first to arrive; and then came +Mrs. Middler, the minister's wife. Mrs. Beasely was there, and Walky +Dexter's wife, and the druggist's sister, who kept house for him; and +Mrs. Poole, the doctor's wife; and Mrs. Marvin Petrie, who had married +children living in Boston and always spent her winters with them, and +had just come back to Poketown again for the season.</p> + +<p>Many of the ladies of Poketown never thought of making up their spring +frocks, or having Mrs. Link, the milliner, trim their Easter bonnets, +until Mrs. Marvin Petrie came from Boston. She was supposed to bring +with her the newest ideas for female apparel, and her taste and advice +was sought on all sides when the ladies sat down to their sewing in the +big sitting-room of the old Day house.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Marvin Petrie, however, was one of those persons who seem never to +absorb any helpful ideas. Her forte was mostly criticism. She could see +the faults of her home town, and her home people, in comparison with the +Hub; but she had never, thus far, led in any benefit to Poketown.</p> + +<p>"You can't none of you understand how glad I am to git to my daughter +Mabel's in the winter;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> and then how glad I am to shake the mud of +Boston off my gaiters when it comes spring," declared the traveled lady, +who had a shrill voice of great "carrying" quality. When Mrs. Marvin +Petrie was talking there was little other conversation at the sewing +circle. Her comments upon people she had met and things she had seen, +were in the line of a monologue.</p> + +<p>"I do sartainly grow tired of Poketown when it comes fall, and things is +dead, and the wind gets cold, and all. I'm sartain sure glad to git shet +of it!" she pursued on this particular afternoon. "And then the first +sight of Boston—and the mud—and the Common and Public Library,—and +the shops, and all, make me feel like I was livin' again.</p> + +<p>"Mabel says to me: 'How kin you live, Maw, most all the year in +Poketown! Why, I was so glad to git away from it, that I'd walk the +streets and beg before I'd go back to it again!' An' she would; Mabel's +lively yet, if she has been married ten years and got three children.</p> + +<p>"But by this time o' year—arter bein' three months or more in the +hurly-burly of Boston, I'm <i>de</i>-lighted to git into the country. Ye see, +city folks keep dancin' about so. They're always on the go. They ain't +no rest for a body."</p> + +<p>"But you ain't got ter go because other folks dooes, Miz' Petrie," +suggested old lady Scattergood. "Now, when I go ter see my son-in-law at +Skunk's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> Holler, I jest sit down an' fold my hands, an' <i>rest</i>."</p> + +<p>"Skunk's Holler!" murmured one of the other women. "To hear Miz' +Scattergood talk, one 'ud think she was traveled, too. An' she ain't +never been out o' sight o' this lake, I do believe."</p> + +<p>"If ye don't go yourself, you feel's though you had," said Mrs. Petrie, +with good nature. "So much bustle around you—yes. An' so I tell my +daughters. I git enough of it b'fore spring begins."</p> + +<p>"But," said the minister's wife, timidly, "after all, there isn't so +much difference between Poketown and Boston, excepting that Boston is so +very much bigger. People are about the same everywhere. And one house is +like another, only one's bigger——"</p> + +<p>"Now, that's right foolish talk, Miz' Middler!" exclaimed the lady so +recently from the Hub. "The people's just as different as chalk is from +cheese; and there ain't a church in Boston—and there's hundreds of +'em—that don't make our Union Church look silly."</p> + +<p>"But, Miz' Petrie," cried one inquiring body. "Just what is it that +makes Boston so different from Poketown? After all, folks is folks—and +houses is houses—and streets is streets. Ain't that so?"</p> + +<p>"Wa-al!" The traveled lady was stumped for a moment. Then she burst out +with: "There!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> I'll tell ye. It's 'cause there's some order in the city; +ev'rything here is haphazard. Course, there's poor sections—reg'lar +<i>slums</i>, as they call 'em—in Boston. But the poor, dirty buildings and +the poor, dirty streets, are in sort of a bunch together. They're in +spots; they ain't dribbled all through the town, mixed up with fine +houses, and elegant squares, and boulevards. Nope. Cities know how to +hide their poor spots in some ways. Boston puts its best foot forward, +as the sayin' is.</p> + +<p>"But take it right here in Poketown. Now, ain't the good and the bad all +shoveled together? Take Colonel Pa'tridge's fine house on High Street, +stuck in right between Miner's meat shop and old Bill Jones' drygoods +an' groceries—an' I don't know which is the commonest lookin' of the +two."</p> + +<p>"There you air right, Miz' Petrie," agreed the Widow Beasely. "Miner's +got so dirty—around his shop I mean—that I hate to buy a piece of meat +there."</p> + +<p>"But the other butcher ain't much better," cried another troubled +housewife. "And the flies!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, the awful flies!" chorused several.</p> + +<p>"Them critters is a pest, an' that's a fac'," declared Mrs. Scattergood. +"Talk abeout the plagues o' Egypt——"</p> + +<p>"But Miz' Petrie was tellin' us how Boston was different——"</p> + +<p>"My soul and body!" gasped Mrs. Beasely.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> "I reckon she's told us +enough. It's a fac'. Poketown is all cluttered up—what ain't right down +filthy. An' I don't see as there's anything can be done abeout it."</p> + +<p>"Why—Mrs. Beasely—do you believe there is anything so bad that it +can't be helped?" queried Janice, slowly and thoughtfully. It was the +first time her voice had been heard amid the general clatter, since she +had come to sit down. Her nimble fingers were just as busy as any other +ten in the room; but her tongue had been idle.</p> + +<p>"They say it's never too late to mend," quote 'Rill Scattergood; "but I +am afraid that Mr. Miner, and Mr. Jones, and some of the rest of the +storekeepers are too old to mend—or be mended!"</p> + +<p>"Ain't you right, now, Amarilla!" sniffed her mother.</p> + +<p>"'Tain't only the storekeepers," declared Mrs. Petrie, taking up the +tale again. "How many of us—us housekeepers, I mean—insist upon having +things as clean as they should be right around our own back doors?"</p> + +<p>"Wa-al," groaned Aunt 'Mira, "it takes suthin' like an airthquake to +start some of the men-folks——"</p> + +<p>"Why wait for <i>them</i>?" interposed the demure Janice again, knowing that +her aunt would not object if she interrupted her. "Can't we do something +ourselves?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I'd like to know what you'd <i>do</i>?" exclaimed the helpless Mrs. Middler.</p> + +<p>"Why, we could have a regular 'Clean-Up Day' in Poketown, same as they +do in other places."</p> + +<p>"Good Land o' Goshen!" ejaculated Mrs. Scattergood. "What's <i>that</i>, I'd +like to know, Janice Day? You <i>do</i> have the greatest idees! I never +heard of no 'Clean-Up Day' in Skunk's Holler."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps they didn't need any there," laughed Janice, for she was used +to the old lady's sharp tongue and did not mind it.</p> + +<p>"Seems to me I—I've heard of such things," said Mrs. Petrie, rather +feebly. She did not wish to be left behind in anything novel.</p> + +<p>"Why, a 'Clean-Up Day'," explained Janice, "is justly exactly what it +<i>is</i>. Everybody cleans up—yard, cellar, attic, streets, and all. You +get out all your old rubbish, of whatsoever kind, and get it ready to be +carted away; and the town pays for the stuff's being removed to some +place where it can be burned or buried."</p> + +<p>"My soul and body!" ejaculated Aunt 'Mira. "Jest the same as though the +town was cleanin' house."</p> + +<p>"That's it—exactly," said Janice, nodding. "And all at the same time, +so that the whole town can be made neat at once."</p> + +<p>"Now," declared Mrs. Petrie, giving her decided<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> and unqualified +approval, "I call that a right sensible idea. I'm for that scheme, +hammer and tongs! This here Day girl, that I ain't never had the +pleasure of meetin' before, has sartainly got a head on her. I vote we +do it!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> + +<h3>POKETOWN IN A NEW DRESS</h3> + + +<p>That is just how it all began. If you had asked any of those sewing +circle ladies about it, they would have said—"to a man!"—that Mrs. +Marvin Petrie suggested Poketown's "Clean-Up Day." And they would have +been honest in their belief.</p> + +<p>For Janice Day was no strident-voiced reformer. What she did toward the +work of giving Poketown a new spring dress, was done so quietly that +only those who knew her well, and had watched her since she had come to +Poketown, realized that she had exerted more influence than a girl of +her age was supposed to be entitled to!</p> + +<p>It was Janice who spoke with Mr. Cross Moore that very night, after the +women had loudly discussed the new idea with their husbands and other +male relatives at the supper table. Mr. Moore was to put the ordinance +through at the next meeting of the Board of Selectmen, covering the date +of the Clean-Up Day, and the amount of money to be appropriated for the +removal of rubbish by hired teams.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Put a paragraph into the motion, Mr. Moore, making it a fifty-dollar +fine for any taxpayer, or tenant, who puts rubbish out on the curb on +any other day save the two mentioned in the main ordinance," Janice +whispered to the selectman; "otherwise you will set a bad precedent with +your Clean-Up Day, instead of doing lasting good."</p> + +<p>"Now, ain't that gal got brains?" Moore wanted to know of Walky Dexter. +"Huh! Mary Ann can't tell me that the Widder Petrie started this idea. +It was that Day gal, as sure as aigs is aigs!" and Walky nodded a solemn +agreement.</p> + +<p>There was more to it, however, than the giving notice to the people of +Poketown that they had a chance to get rid of the collection of rubbish +every family finds in cellar, shed, and yard in the spring. People in +general had to be stirred up about it. Clean-Up Day was so far ahead +that the apostles of neatness and order—those who were thoroughly +imbued with the spirit of the thing and realized Poketown's need—had +time to preach to most of the delinquents.</p> + +<p>There were cards printed, too, announcing the date of Clean-Up Day and +its purposes, and these were hung in every store and other public place. +Janice urged the young people's society of the church into the work of +getting the storekeepers to promise to clean up back rooms, cellars, +sheds, and the awful yards behind their ancient shops.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span></p> + +<p>There were a few—like Mr. Bill Jones—who at first refused to fall in +with the plans of those who had at heart the welfare of the old town. +Mr. Jones had been particularly "sore" ever since he had been ousted +from the school committee the year before. Now he declared he wouldn't +"be driv" by no "passel of wimmen" into changing the order of affairs in +the gloomy old store where he had made a good living for so many years.</p> + +<p>But Bill Jones reckoned without the new spirit that was gradually taking +hold upon Poketown people. One of his ungracious statements, when his +store was well filled with customers, brought about the retort pointed +from none less that Mrs. Marvin Petrie herself.</p> + +<p>"Well, Bill Jones," declared that plain-spoken old lady, "we wimmen have +made up our minds to clean out the flies, an' all other dirt, if we can. +Poketown is unsanitary—so Dr. Poole says—and we know it's always been +slovenly. There ain't a place, I'll be bound, in the whole town, that +needs cleaning up more'n this, your store!"</p> + +<p>"I ain't no dirtier than anybody else!" roared Jones, very red-faced.</p> + +<p>"But you aim to be. So you say. When other folks all about you are goin' +to clean up, you say you won't be driv' to it. Wa-al! I'll tell you +what's going to happen to you, Bill Jones: We wimmen air goin' to trade +at stores that are decently clean.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> Anyway, they're cleaner than this +hovel of your'n. Don't expect me in it ag'in till I see a change."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Marvin Petrie marched out of the shop without buying. Several other +ladies followed her and distributed their patronage among the other +shops. Old Bill hung out for a few days, "breathing threatenings and +slaughter." Then the steady decrease in his custom was too much for the +old man's pocketbook. He began to bleed <i>there</i>. So he signified his +intention of falling in with the new movement.</p> + +<p>There were householders, too, who had to be urged to join in the general +clean-up of Poketown. Dr. Poole wrote a brief pamphlet upon the +house-fly and the dangers of that pest, and this was printed and +scattered broadcast about the town. To the amazement of a good many of +the older members, like Elder Concannon, Mr. Middler read this short +treatise from the pulpit and urged his hearers to screen their pantries, +at least, to "swat the fly" with vigor, and to remove barns and stables +so far away from the dwellings that it would be, at least, a longer trip +for Mr. Fly from the barnyard to the dining-table and back again!</p> + +<p>The Board of Selectmen, stirred by Mr. Cross Moore and others, cleaned +the gutters of High Street and used the scraper on the drive itself +fully two months earlier than usual. Sidewalks were rebuilt, and many +painted tree boxes appeared<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> along the main street to save the remainder +of the tree trunks from the teeth of crib-biting horses.</p> + +<p>Before most of the shops—the general stores particularly—were +hitch-rails. Many of these were renewed; some even painted. Store +fronts, too, were treated to a coat or two of paint. Show windows were +cleaned and almost every store redressed its display of goods.</p> + +<p>Trees were trimmed, and some of the tottering ones cut down entirely. +There were still plenty of shade trees on the steep High Street.</p> + +<p>It was Janice who urged Hopewell Drugg to refurbish his store—painting +it inside and out, rebuilding the porch, and erecting a long hitch-rail +to attract farmers' trade.</p> + +<p>"Of course you cannot afford it, Mr. Drugg," said the girl. "That is, it +seems as though every dollar you spend is putting Lottie back. But +'nothing ventured, nothing gained.' You must throw out sprats to catch +herring. To get together the money that specialist demands to treat +Lottie's eyes, you must endeavor to increase your trade. Make the store +just as attractive as possible. That's business, I believe. Daddy would +say so, I am sure."</p> + +<p>Hopewell allowed himself to be convinced. There was not a store in town +as attractive as Drugg's, after Clean-Up Day. The whole of Poketown, +indeed, was in a new dress. The trees were just budding<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> out nicely, +there was a breath of lilac in the air, and the lawns were raked clean +and showed a velvety, green sheen that was delightful to the eye.</p> + +<p>The old Town Hall had been repainted. Had it not been for the opposition +of Elder Concannon, the young folks would have collected money for the +repainting of the Union Church. However, they cleaned everything around +it—yard and all—till it was as spick and span as it could be. And the +burial ground in the rear of the church was made beautiful, too. The +edges of the paths were trimmed, the paths themselves raked, and all the +tottering headstones were set up straight.</p> + +<p>Gates were rehung and fences straightened all over town. A smell of +fresh paint rivaled the scent of the bursting lilac blooms. Never had +Poketown been so busy.</p> + +<p>The cleaning-up process went on inside the houses as well as out. Of +course, among pure-blooded New English housewives, such as the majority +of Poketown matrons were, there were few drones. They prided themselves +on their housekeeping.</p> + +<p>Earlier than usual the carpets went out on the lines, the curtains at +chamber and sitting-room windows were renewed, there was a smell of soap +and water in every entry, as one pushed the door open, and altogether +Poketown was generally turned out of doors, aired, dusted, and brought +back again into thoroughly clean rooms.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></p> + +<p>The old Day house had its "ridding up," too. Janice gave her aunt +considerable help; but Mrs. Day was not the slovenly housekeeper she had +been when first the girl had come to Poketown. Even Uncle Jason kept +himself more neatly than ever before. And he went to the barber's at +frequent intervals.</p> + +<p>Janice once went down to the dock to see the <i>Constance Colfax</i> come in. +There was the usual crowd of loafers waiting for the boat—all perched +along the stringpiece of the wharf.</p> + +<p>"But I declare!" thought Janice, her eyes dancing, "somebody certainly +<i>has</i> 'slicked 'em up,' as Mrs. Scattergood would say. Whoever would +believe it! Walky has got a new shirt on—and straw cuffs, too—and a +necktie! My goodness me! And the hotel keeper really looks as though his +wife cared a little about his appearance. And Ben Hutchins wears whole +boots now, and has washed his face, and had a shave.</p> + +<p>"I must admit they don't look so much like a delegation from the +poorfarm as they did the day. I came in on the <i>Constance Colfax</i>. There +has been a change in Poketown—there most certainly <i>has</i> been a +change!" and the girl laughed delightedly.</p> + +<p>It was marked everywhere. It even seemed to Janice as though people whom +she met on the street stepped quicker than they once had!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span></p> + +<p>Janice knew she had given her own folks—Uncle Jason, and Aunt 'Mira, +and Cousin Marty—a push or two in the right direction. She had helped +Hopewell Drugg, too; and maybe she had instigated the waking up of +several other people. But not for a moment did she realize—healthy, +thoughtless girl that she was—how much Poketown owed to her on Clean-Up +Day.</p> + +<p>That was one great occasion in the old town. Although the selectmen had +allowed two days in which the farmers' wagons were to cart away the +rubbish for the householders, the removal men had hard work to fill +their contract.</p> + +<p>Some curbs were piled shoulder high with boxes of ashes, old bedsprings, +broken furniture, decayed mattresses, yard rakings, unsightly pots and +pans hidden away for decades in mouldy cellars—débris of so many kinds +that it would be impossible to catalogue it!</p> + +<p>For two days, also, hundreds of rubbish fires burned, and the taint of +the smoke seemed to saturate every part of Poketown. Janice declared +that all the food on the supper table at the Day house seemed to have +been "slightly scorched."</p> + +<p>"By jinks!" declared Marty, gobbling his supper with an appetite that +never seemed to lag. "I bet I burned three wagon-loads of stuff 'sides +what I set outside on the street for 'em to take away.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> No use talkin', +Dad, you got ter build a new pen and yard for the shoats."</p> + +<p>"Whuffor?" demanded his father, eyeing him slowly.</p> + +<p>"'Cause the old boards and rails was so rotten that I jest burned 'em +up," declared his son. "You know folks could see it from the street, an' +it looked untidy."</p> + +<p>"Wa-al," drawled Uncle Jason, with only half a sigh.</p> + +<p>Janice could scarcely keep from clapping her hands, this so delighted +her. She compared this with some of the conversation at the Day table +soon after the time she had arrived in Poketown!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> + +<h3>"NO ODOR OF GASOLINE!"</h3> + + +<p>During the winter now passed, Janice had watched the progress of the new +school under Nelson Haley's administration with growing confidence in +that young man. Nelson was advancing, as well as his pupils and the +school discipline. Educators from other towns in the state—even in +neighboring states—had come to visit Poketown's school.</p> + +<p>Janice could not help having a thrill of pride when she learned of these +visitations and the appreciation shown by other educators of Nelson +Haley's work. She did not so often see the young man in a situation +where they could talk these wonders over; for Nelson was very, very busy +and gave both his days and evenings to the work he had set for himself +the fall before.</p> + +<p>The girl might no longer honestly complain of Nelson's lack of purpose. +He had "struck his gait" it seemed; it was as though he had suddenly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> +seen a mark before him and was pressing onward to that goal at top +speed.</p> + +<p>When he and Janice met as they did, of course, at church and +occasionally at evening parties, the teacher and the girl were the very +best of friends But tête-à-têtes were barred. Was it by Janice herself? +Or had Nelson deliberately changed his attitude toward her?</p> + +<p>Sometimes she tried to unravel this mystery; but then, before she had +gone far in her ruminations, she began to wonder if she <i>wanted</i> Nelson +to change toward her? That question frightened her, and she would at +once refuse to face the situation at all!</p> + +<p>Once Nelson told her that a small college in middle Massachusetts +offered a line of work that he believed he would like to take up—if he +was "doomed to the profession of teaching, after all."</p> + +<p>"And does the doom seem so very terrible?" she asked him, laughingly.</p> + +<p>"I admit that I can <i>do</i> things with the scholars," he said, gravely. "I +have just begun to realize it. It seems easy for me to make them +understand. But the profession doesn't give one the freedom that the law +does, for instance."</p> + +<p>Janice had made no further comment, nor did Nelson advance anything more +regarding the work offered by the college in question.</p> + +<p>She had her own intense interests, now and then.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> Clean-Up Day was past +but its effect in Poketown was ineradicable. Janice was satisfied that +there were enough people finally awake in the town to surely, if slowly, +revolutionize the place.</p> + +<p>How could one householder drop back into the old, shiftless, careless +manner of living when his neighbors' places on either hand were so trim? +The carelessly-kept shop showed up a hundred per cent. worse than it had +before Clean-Up Day. Even old Bill Jones kept in some trim, and the meat +markets began to rival each other in cleanliness.</p> + +<p>The taxpayers began to speak with pride of Poketown. When they visited +Middletown, or other villages that had previously looked down on the +hillside hamlet above the lake, they were apt to say:</p> + +<p>"Just come over and see our town. What? You ain't been in Poketown in +two years? No wonder you don't know what you're talking about! Why, we +put it all over you fellows here for clean streets, and shops, and +nice-lookin' lawns and all that—and our school!"</p> + +<p>Poketownites were proud of the reading-room, too, although Mr. Massey's +store was becoming a cramped place for it now. The shelves devoted to +the circulating library were well crowded. The state appropriation had +been spent carefully, and the new, well-bound books looked "mighty +handsome" when visitors came into the place.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span></p> + +<p>But the original intention for the place had never been lost sight of. +It had been made for the boys and young men of Poketown. They had fully +appreciated it, and, Elder Concannon's prophecy to the contrary +notwithstanding, the reading-room was never the scene of disorderly +conduct.</p> + +<p>Janice hoped the day would come when the reading-room association should +have a building of its own,—not an expensive, ornate structure for +which the taxpayers would be burdened, and the upkeep of which would +keep the association poor for years; but a snug, warm, cheerful place +which would actually be a club for the boys, and offer all the other +benefits of a free library.</p> + +<p>She knew already just where the building ought to stand. There was a +certain empty lot on High Street which would give a library a prominent +site. This lot was owned by old Elder Concannon.</p> + +<p>"There've been miracles happened here in Poketown during the last year +or so; if I have patience and wait to strike when the iron's hot, maybe +<i>that</i> miracle will come to pass," Janice told herself.</p> + +<p>Elder Concannon had already begun to treat Janice in a much more +friendly way than he had at one time. She believed that secretly he was +interested in the library and reading-room. Sometimes he spent an hour +or so there of an evening—especially if one of the boys would play +checkers with him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></p> + +<p>"He's an old nuisance," growled Marty to his cousin, on one occasion. +"He keeps some of the fellers out; they see him in there, with his +grizzly old head and flapping cape-coat, and they stay out till he goes +home. And, by jinks! I'm gittin' tired of being the goat and playin' +draughts with him."</p> + +<p>"Marty," she said to him, with some solemnity, "if you saw that through +the Elder's coming there and your entertaining him a bit, the +institution would in the end be vastly benefited, wouldn't you be <i>glad</i> +to play the goat?"</p> + +<p>Marty's eyes snapped at her. He drew a long breath, and exclaimed: "Hi +tunket! You don't mean that you've got the old Elder 'on the string' for +us, Janice?"</p> + +<p>"It's very rude of you to talk that way," said Janice, smiling. "I don't +know what you mean by having the dear old gentleman 'on a string.' But I +tell you in secret, Marty, that I <i>do</i> hope he will be so much +interested in the reading-room and library that some day he will give +the association something very much worth while. He can afford it, for +he hasn't chick nor child in the world."</p> + +<p>"Ye don't mean it?" gasped Marty.</p> + +<p>"But I <i>do</i> mean it. Why not? Do you suppose the old gentleman comes +into the reading-room without being interested in it?"</p> + +<p>"Say!" drawled her cousin. "I'll be the goat all right, all right!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span></p> + +<p>Janice was indeed cultivating the old Elder's acquaintance. She would +not have done it to benefit herself in any way; but to help the +library——</p> + +<p>"You young folks need a balance wheel," Elder Concannon once said to +Janice. "Youthful enthusiasm is all very well; but where's your +balance?"</p> + +<p>"Then why don't you come in with us and supply the balance?" she +rejoined, briskly. "Goodness knows, Elder, we'd be glad to have you!"</p> + +<p>Then came a red-letter day for Janice Day. She had almost lost hope of +getting her "heart's desire"—the little motor car that Daddy had spoken +of. Although his letters had been particularly cheerful of late, he had +said nothing more about his promise.</p> + +<p>Marty brought her home a thick letter from the post office and gave it +to her at the dinner table. When she eagerly slit the flap of the +envelope and pulled out the contents, there was flirted out upon the +tablecloth a queer-looking certificate.</p> + +<p>"Hullo! what's this?" demanded Marty, with all the impudence of a boy.</p> + +<p>"Put that down, Marty," commanded his mother.</p> + +<p>"By jinks! What's this in the corner?" he yelled. "A thousand dollars? +<i>A thousand dollars!</i> Janice Day! you're as rich as cream!"</p> + +<p>"Hi tunket, boy!" ejaculated his father. "Le's see that? It can't be!"</p> + +<p>"It is!" shrieked Janice, jumping up and dancing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> around the room. "It's +for my gasoline runabout! I'm going to have it—I certainly <i>am</i>! +Hurray! hurray!" and she kissed her aunt heartily and then danced +another war dance with Marty around the table.</p> + +<p>"Wal, I snum!" exclaimed Uncle Jason, still staring at the bit of paper, +which was a Wells-Fargo express check for the sum named.</p> + +<p>Janice could scarcely eat any dinner, she was so excited. What was mere +eating to the possession of this check and the knowledge that all was +going well once more with dear Daddy? Her most particular friends must +share the joy with her.</p> + +<p>She hurried into her jacket and hat, and ran across town to see Miss +'Rill; for, after all, the little spinster was her dearest and closest +friend in Poketown.</p> + +<p>But was this Miss 'Rill—this frantic, wild-eyed creature, hatless and +with her hair flying, who came running down High Street just as Janice +reached the corner of the street on which Hopewell Drugg's store was +situated? <i>Could</i> it be 'Rill Scattergood?</p> + +<p>"Oh, Janice! Janice! have you heard about it? They just sent for me," +gasped the little spinster lady.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean, 'Rill? <i>Who</i> sent for you?" Janice demanded.</p> + +<p>"It's poor little Lottie!" cried the other, dragging Janice along with +her. "She's fallen. I've<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> been expecting it. She moves so quickly, you +know, in spite of her blindness. And now she's fallen into the +cellar——"</p> + +<p>"Whose cellar? Oh! is she very, very badly hurt?" cried Janice, equally +anxious.</p> + +<p>"Hopewell had the trap door open. She came running into the shop and +went straight down on her poor little head! Oh! she's all cut and +bruised——"</p> + +<p>Miss 'Rill could say no more. Nor did Janice need to ask, for they were +at the store and pushing through the little group of helpless but +sympathizing neighbors. Dr. Poole was already there. They had Lottie in +bed, all bandaged and white.</p> + +<p>"Just a bad cut over the forehead—right across the crown," Dr. Poole +assured the waiting neighbors. "She's had a bad shock, but she's in no +particular danger. Only——"</p> + +<p>He looked at Janice and shook his head. Then he whispered to her: "It's +a terrible shame Hopewell can't send the poor little thing to a +specialist and have her eyes fixed up. My soul and body, girl! If I'd +only been able to go in for surgery myself—If I'd only learned to use +the knife!" and he groaned, shook his head, did this old-school family +practitioner, and departed.</p> + +<p>Janice did not remain long. Miss 'Rill would sit by the child for the +remainder of the afternoon;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> and even her mother was anxious to help and +promised to come over and stay all night at Hopewell's.</p> + +<p>"I ain't got nothin' ag'in the poor child, that's sure," Mrs. +Scattergood told Janice. "It's only Hopewell that's so triflin'—he an' +his fiddle. Jest like his father before him!"</p> + +<p>But the storekeeper's fiddle was silent a good deal of the time now; +only when Miss 'Rill or Janice urged him did the man take up the +instrument that had once been so much his comfort—and little Lottie's +delight.</p> + +<p>But now, on this sorrowful afternoon, Janice went back slowly toward +home with a very serious mind indeed. On the way she met Nelson Haley +coming from school.</p> + +<p>"Congratulations—and then some!" he cried, shaking hands with Janice.</p> + +<p>"Whatever are you talking about?" she asked, puzzled.</p> + +<p>"Marty has been telling everybody the great and good news!" he said, +staring at her. "Why! what makes you so solemn? Do you mean to say that +you can't decide what kind of an auto to buy, and that is what has +soured our Janice's usually sweet disposition?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Nelson!" gasped the girl, suddenly clinging to his arm, for she +really felt a weakness in her knees.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Hold on! hold on! bear up! What's the matter?"</p> + +<p>"I forgot about poor Daddy's check. Of course—that's the way out."</p> + +<p>"What's the way out?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"Haven't you heard about poor little Lottie?"</p> + +<p>"What's happened to her?" he asked, anxiously.</p> + +<p>She told him swiftly. Then stopped. He demanded:</p> + +<p>"What's that got to do with the auto, Janice?"</p> + +<p>"Don't you see it has <i>everything</i> to do with it, Nelson?" she returned, +gravely. "Of course, I could not buy a car when Lottie needs some of my +money so much. She shall start for Boston just as soon as she is well +enough to go—and of course Miss 'Rill will go with her. Hopewell cannot +leave the store. Lottie shall go to the specialist, Nelson."</p> + +<p>For a minute the school-teacher was silent. He looked at the girl's +shining, earnest face in a way she had never noticed before. But at last +he only smiled a little queerly, and said:</p> + +<p>"Why—Well, Janice Day, there's no odor of gasoline about <i>that</i>!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIX</h2> + +<h3>JANICE DAY'S FIRST LOVE LETTER</h3> + + +<p>In a week, although little Lottie's head was still bandaged, she was +driven over to Middletown with Miss 'Rill, Walky Dexter being the +driver, of course, and took a train for Boston.</p> + +<p>Before the day of departure Janice Day had a good deal to contend with. +It <i>did</i> seem too bad that one could not spend one's own money without +everybody trying to talk one out of it!</p> + +<p>Not every one, however! Nelson Haley never said a word to discourage the +girl's generosity. But, beginning with Hopewell Drugg himself, almost +everybody else had something to say against it.</p> + +<p>"I can never in this world pay you back, Miss Janice," said the +storekeeper, faintly, after the girl had told him her plans fully.</p> + +<p>"Who wants you to? I am giving it to Lottie," Janice declared. "Would +you refuse to let her take it from me, when it means a new life to +Lottie? You can't be so cruel!"</p> + +<p>"Had you <i>ought</i> to do it, dear Janice?" asked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> Miss 'Rill, herself. "It +seems too much for one person to do——"</p> + +<p>"You're going to pay your own expenses, aren't you?" demanded Janice. +"Why should you do <i>that</i>? Just because you love Lottie, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Ye-es," admitted the other, but with a little blush.</p> + +<p>"Well, let <i>me</i> show some love for her, too."</p> + +<p>"Good Land o' Goshen!" cried old Mrs. Scattergood. "Somebody ought to +take and shake you, Janice Day! I don't see what your folks can be +thinking of. All that money just thrown away—for like enough the man +can't help the poor little thing at all. It is wicked!"</p> + +<p>"We sha'n't pay for the operation if it is not successful. That is the +agreement Dr. Sharpless always makes," said Janice, firmly. "But, oh! I +hope he <i>is</i> successful, and that the money will do him a lot of good."</p> + +<p>"I declare for't! you are the strangest child!" muttered Mrs. +Scattergood. "I thought you was one o' these new-fashioned gals when I +first seen ye—all for excitement, and fashions, and things like that. +I've been wonderfully mistaken in you, Janice Day."</p> + +<p>Oddly enough the old lady made small objection to her daughter's going +to Boston with the child. "Anyhow," she grumbled to Janice, "she won't +be runnin' into Hopewell's all the time if she ain't here."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span></p> + +<p>"There will be no need of <i>that</i>, mother, if little Lottie is away," +Miss 'Rill said, gently.</p> + +<p>At home——Ah! that is where Janice had the greatest opposition to meet.</p> + +<p>"I declare to goodness!" snarled Marty Day. "If you ain't the very +craziest girl there ever was, Janice! Givin' all that good money away! +And goin' without that buzz-wagon you've been talking about so long!"</p> + +<p>"Well, I've only been <i>talking</i> about it, Marty," laughed Janice. "I +couldn't really believe it was coming true——"</p> + +<p>"And it ain't come true, it seems," snapped her cousin.</p> + +<p>"No-o. Not exactly. But I had the surprise of getting Daddy's check, and +it was just <i>dear</i> of him to send me such a lot of money."</p> + +<p>"What do you suppose Broxton will say, girl, when he learns how you've +frittered that thousand dollars away?" demanded Uncle Jason, sternly.</p> + +<p>"He'll never say a word—in objection," she cried. "You can read right +here in his letter how I am to use the money in just any way I +please—and no questions asked!"</p> + +<p>"But you've talked so much about your automobile, deary," said Aunt +'Mira, faintly. "Ain't you most disappointed to death, child?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, Aunty," returned Janice, cheerfully. "You know, I could be just +awfully selfish, <i>in my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> mind!</i> But when it came to running about the +country in an automobile, with poor Lottie blind and helpless because of +my selfishness——No, no! I could not have done it."</p> + +<p>"I don't suppose you could, child," sighed the large lady, shaking her +head. "But whatever am I goin' to do with that auto coat and them veils +I bought? They don't seem jest the thing to wear out, jogging behind old +Sam and Lightfoot."</p> + +<p>However, Mr. Day had a chance to trade the two old farm horses off that +spring for a handsome pair of sorrels. They were good work horses as +well as drivers. An old double-seated buckboard which had been under one +of the Day sheds for a decade, was hauled out and repaired, painted and +varnished, new cushions made, and on occasion the family went to drive +about the country.</p> + +<p>"For it does seem," Mrs. Day, with wondering satisfaction, more than +once declared, "it does seem as though your Pa, Marty, has a whole lot +more time to gad abeout now than he use ter—yet we're gettin' along +better. I don't understand it."</p> + +<p>"Huh!" grunted Marty. "See all the work <i>I</i> do. Don't ye s'pose that +counts none?"</p> + +<p>Janice merely smiled quietly as she heard this conversation. Uncle Jason +was up and out to work now by daybreak, like other farmers. He smoked +his after-dinner pipe by the back door; but it was only one pipe. He +often declared that "his wimmen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> folk" made such a bustle inside the +kitchen after dinner that he couldn't even think. He just <i>had</i> to go +back to work "to get shet of 'em."</p> + +<p>The bacilli of <i>work</i> had taken hold of the Day family. Uncle Jason had +begun to take pride in his fields and in his crops. Nobody in all +Poketown, or thereabout, had such a garden as the Days this spring. +Janice and Mrs. Day attended to it after it was planted. Mr. Day had +bought a man-weight hoe and seeding machine, and the garden mould was so +fine and free from filth that the "women folks" could use the machine +with ease.</p> + +<p>Yes, the Jason Days were more prosperous than ever before. And all their +prosperity did not arise from that twenty dollars a month that came +regularly for Janice's board.</p> + +<p>"Sometimes I feel downright ashamed to take that money, Jason," Aunt +'Mira admitted to her spouse. "Janice is sech a help to me. She is jest +like a darter. I shall hate to ever haf ter give her up. And some day +soon, now, Broxton will be comin' home."</p> + +<p>"Wal, don't ye worry. If Broxton is makin' money like he says he +is—so's he kin give that gal a thousand dollars to throw to the birdies +like she's done—why should we worry? I ain't sayin' but what she's been +a lot of help to us."</p> + +<p>"In more ways than one," whispered his wife.</p> + +<p>"Right, by jinks!" admitted the farmer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Look what this old place looked like when she come!"</p> + +<p>"She sartainly has stirred us all up."</p> + +<p>"An' look at Marty!"</p> + +<p>"I got to give her credit," admitted Mr. Day. "She's made a man of +Marty. Done more for him than the school done."</p> + +<p>"But it was her started him to goin' to school ag'in."</p> + +<p>"So I tell ye," agreed Mr. Day again. "Janice is at the bottom of +everything good that's happened in Poketown for two years. I dunno as +people realize it; but I'm proud of her!"</p> + +<p>"Then, I tell you what, Jason. I'm going to save the board money for +her," declared Aunt 'Mira, with a little catch in her breath. "You won't +mind? Marty'll have the place an' all you kin save, when we are gone; +but that dear little thing——Givin' her money to that blind child, and +all——"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Day broke down and "sniveled." At least, that is what her husband +would have called it under some circumstances, and crying did not +beautify Mrs. Day's fat face. But for some reason the old man came close +to her and put his arms about her bulbous shoulders.</p> + +<p>"There, there, 'Mira! don't you cry about it. You sartainly have got a +good heart. An' I won't say nothin' agin' your savin' for the gal. +Mebbe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> she'll need your savin's, too. Broxton Day is too free-handed, +and he'll have his ups and downs again, p'r'aps. Anyhow, whatever you +say is right, <i>is</i> right, 'Mira," and he kissed her suddenly in a shamed +faced sort of way, and then hurried out.</p> + +<p>The good woman sat there in her kitchen, with shining eyes, blushing +like a girl. She touched tenderly her wet cheek where her husband had +laid his lips.</p> + +<p>"He—he wouldn't ha' done that two year ago, I don't believe!" she +murmured.</p> + +<p>She picked up the ever-present story paper; but her mind was not attuned +to imaginary romance that morning. And there were the breakfast dishes +waiting——</p> + +<p>She went about her work briskly, and singing. Somehow it seemed as +though <i>real</i> romance had come into the old Day house, and into Aunt +'Mira's life!</p> + +<p>The weeks rolled on toward summer. A fortnight after little Lottie and +Miss 'Rill had gone to Boston a letter came from the specialist to +Hopewell Drugg. The operation on the child's eyes had been performed +almost as soon as she had arrived at the sanitarium; now he could +announce that it was successful. Lottie could see and, barring some +accident, would be a bright-eyed girl and woman.</p> + +<p>Already, the doctor urged, she was fit to go into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> the school for the +deaf and dumb in which such wonderful miracles were achieved for the +afflicted. The good surgeon, learning from Miss 'Rill the circumstances +of the child's being brought to him, had subscribed two hundred dollars +toward Lottie's tuition and board in the school for the deaf and dumb.</p> + +<p>It was joyful news for both Hopewell and Janice. That evening the +storekeeper got out his violin and played his old tunes over and +over—especially "Silver Threads Among the Gold."</p> + +<p>"But it sounds more like a hymn of praise to-night," Nelson Haley +whispered in Janice's ear, as they sat on the front porch of the little +shop and listened to the violin.</p> + +<p>A week later the little spinster came home. Her visit in Boston seemed +to have done her a world of good. She brought a great trunk packed full +of things to wear, or goods to be made up into pretty dresses and the +like.</p> + +<p>"I declare for't!" ejaculated her mother. "Looks like you had been +buyin' your trossoo—an' old maid like you, too!"</p> + +<p>But Miss 'Rill was unruffled, and parried her mother's suspicion.</p> + +<p>When the lake boat, the <i>Constance Colfax</i>, began to run on her summer +schedule after Decoration Day, many more summer tourists than usual got +off the boat at Poketown to look about. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> dock was so neat, and the +surroundings of the landing so attractive, that these visitors were led +to go further up into the town.</p> + +<p>There was the pleasant, rambling, old Lake View Inn, freshened with +paint that spring, and with a green grass plot before it, and wide, +screened verandas.</p> + +<p>"Why, it's only its name that is against it!" cried the wondering +tourists. "It's not <i>poky</i> at all."</p> + +<p>These remarks, repeated as they were, made the merchants of the village +stop and think. Ere this a board of trade had been formed, and the +welfare of the town was eagerly discussed at the meetings of the board. +Mr. Massey, the druggist, who was active, of course, got another idea +from Janice.</p> + +<p>He began to delve into the past history of Poketown. He learned how and +when it had been settled—and by whom. People had mostly forgotten (if +they ever had known) the true history of the town.</p> + +<p>A pioneer named Cyrus Polk had first built his cabin on the heights +overlooking this little bay. He had been the first smith in this region, +too, and gradually around "Polk's Smithy" had been reared the nucleus of +the present town.</p> + +<p>Through the years the silent "l" in the original settler's name had been +lost entirely. But the post office agreed to put it back into the name, +and a big<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> signboard was painted and set up at the dock:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"POLKTOWN."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"It sartain sure looks a hull lot diff'rent, even if ye <i>do</i> pernounce +it the same," admitted Walky Dexter.</p> + +<p>So much was happening these balmy June days! The school year—the first +in the new schoolhouse—was going to end in a blaze of glory for Nelson +Haley, Janice was sure. Elder Concannon had promised in writing to give +his lot upon High Street for the site of a library building, whenever +the association should have subscribed twelve hundred dollars toward the +building itself.</p> + +<p>Then came the first love letter that Janice Day had ever received! Such +a letter was it that she treasures it yet and will always do so. It was +one that she could proudly show to anybody she chose, without betraying +that intimacy that the ordinary love letter is supposed to contain.</p> + +<p>News had come regularly to Hopewell Drugg from the teachers at the +school where little Lottie had taken up her abode. Because the child was +naturally so bright, and because of the fact that before she lost her +eyesight she had learned the alphabet and some primary studies, and had +not forgotten it all, Lottie was making marvelous progress the teachers +declared.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span></p> + +<p>A much-bethumbed envelope, addressed in crooked "printed" characters to +"Mis Janis Day, Pokton," enclosed in a teacher's letter to the +store-keeper, was the cover of Janice's love letter. Inside, the child +said:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Dear Janis, jus' to think, I can see reel good, and my +techur what I luv says maybe I will heer reel good bymeby.</p> + +<p>"Deer Janis, I no I cante spel good yet, and my ritin aint +strate on the paper. But I want you shud be the firs to get +leter from me I luv yu so.</p> + +<p>"Deer Janis, you got me the muney for the docker. And he was +soo good himself, he never hardly hurt me a tall.</p> + +<p>"Deer Janis, I luv yu mos of all, cos if yu hadn ben yu I +wudn never seen no moar. An it was so dark all times. Thats +wy I feld down cellar. An now I am goin to heer they say.</p> + +<p>"Deer Janis, see if my echo is thar. Yu no my echo—that is +the way techur says to spell it. If my echo is waitn tell it +I am comin' to heer it again.</p> + +<p>"And I luv you lots and lots, deer Janis. I will show you +how much when I com home to father and Pokton. no moar at +prasens, from your little Lottie."</p></div> + +<p>Janice read the pitiful little scrawl through the first time on the +store porch. Then, tear-blinded, she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> started down the hill toward the +old wharf at the inlet where she had first seen Hopewell Drugg's +unfortunate child.</p> + +<p>She was halfway down the hill before she heard a quick step behind her +and knew, without turning, that it was Nelson Haley.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXX</h2> + +<h3>WHAT THE ECHO MIGHT HAVE HEARD</h3> + + +<p>"What's your hurry, Janice?" demanded the young teacher, coming to her +side, smiling. Then he saw her wet lashes and exclaimed: "My dear girl! +you are crying?"</p> + +<p>"Not—not now," said Janice, shaking her head and her voice catching a +little as she spoke.</p> + +<p>"Tell me what is the matter?" begged Nelson. "Who's hurt you?"</p> + +<p>"They're not those sort of tears, Nelson!" she cried, with a quivering +little smile. "Oh, I ought to be just the very happiest girl alive!"</p> + +<p>"And in tears?"</p> + +<p>"Tears of joy, I tell you," she declared.</p> + +<p>"Not weeping over the lost motor car, then?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, my goodness! No! How could one be so foolish with such a dear, dear +letter as I've got here. A regular <i>love</i> letter, Nelson Haley!"</p> + +<p>The young man's face changed suddenly. It looked very grim, and he +caught at her hand which held little Lottie's letter.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What's that?" he demanded, so gruffly that Janice was quite astonished.</p> + +<p>"Why, Nelson Haley! What's the matter?" she asked, looking at him with +wide-open eyes.</p> + +<p>"Who's been writing to you, Janice?" he asked, huskily.</p> + +<p>"I will show it to you. It is too, too dear!" exclaimed the girl, again +half sobbing. "Read it!"</p> + +<p>The teacher spread out the crumpled page. The look of relief that came +into his face when he saw Lottie's straggling pen-tracks was not at all +understood by Janice.</p> + +<p>He read the child's letter appreciatively. She saw the tears flood into +his own eyes as he gently folded the letter and handed it back.</p> + +<p>"Why, Janice," he said, at last. "What's a motor car to <i>that</i>?"</p> + +<p>"That's what I say," she cried, and laughed. "Come on! let's tell it to +Lottie's echo. We'll see if it is still lurking in the dark old spruce +trees over yonder on the point."</p> + +<p>She darted ahead of him and reached the ruined wharf where Lottie had +stood when first Janice had seen her. In imitation of the child she +raised her voice in that weird cry:</p> + +<p>"He-a! he-a! he-a!"</p> + +<p>Back came the imitation, shot out of the wood by the nymph:</p> + +<p>"'E-a! 'e-a! 'e-a!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Ha, ha!" laughed the girl. "There's Lottie's echo."</p> + +<p>"'A!" laughed the echo. "'Ere's Lottie's echo!"</p> + +<p>Nelson, flushed and breathing rather heavily, reached the old dock.</p> + +<p>"What a girl you are, Janice!" he said.</p> + +<p>"And what a very, very old person you are getting to be, Nelson Haley," +she told him. "Principal of the Polktown School! I saw your article in +the State School Register. Theories! You write just as though you know +what you were writing about."</p> + +<p>"Oh—well," he said, rather taken aback by her joking.</p> + +<p>"And it wasn't much more than a year ago that you turned up your nose at +the profession of teaching."</p> + +<p>"Aw—now!" he said, pleadingly.</p> + +<p>"And <i>you</i> were the young man who wanted to get through life without +hard work—or, so you said."</p> + +<p>"Don't you know that it is only the fool who doesn't change his +opinion—and change it frequently, too?" he bantered back at her.</p> + +<p>"You must have changed a whole lot, Nelson Haley," she declared, with +sudden gravity. "Don't—don't you feel awfully <i>funny</i> inside? It's a +terrible shock, I should think, for one to turn right square +around——"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I don't feel humorous—not a little bit," he interposed, seriously. "I +have been working toward an end. I expect my reward."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Nelson! The college? Are they really going to invite you to go +there to teach?"</p> + +<p>"That isn't the reward I mean," he said, shaking his head.</p> + +<p>"For pity's sake! something bigger than <i>that</i>? My!" Janice cried, all +dimpling again, "but you <i>are</i> a person with great expectations, aren't +you?"</p> + +<p>"I certainly am," he said, bowing gravely. "I have a great goal in view. +Let me tell you——"</p> + +<p>But suddenly she jumped up and walked along the edge of the inlet away +from the dock. "Oh, do come along, Nelson. We don't want to sit there +all day."</p> + +<p>Nelson, flushed and only half rose. Then he settled back again and said, +with some doggedness:</p> + +<p>"I've got something to tell you myself. This is a good place to talk."</p> + +<p>"Why, how serious!"</p> + +<p>"It is serious business—for me," declared the young man.</p> + +<p>"And you're a trifle ungallant," she accused, looking at him from under +lowered lashes.</p> + +<p>"This is no time for gallantry. This is <i>business</i>."</p> + +<p>"What business?" she asked, tentatively approaching.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The business of living. The business of finding out what's going to +happen to me—to <i>us</i>."</p> + +<p>"My goodness!" murmured Janice. "You talk almost like a soothsayer."</p> + +<p>"Come and hear what the astrologer has to say," urged Nelson, yet +without his customary lightness of speech and look. He was still very +serious.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," she said, slowly, hesitating in her approach. "I am +almost afraid of you in this mood. Daddy says when a young man begins to +act like he was really seriously grappling with life, look out for him!"</p> + +<p>"Your father is right. I am not to be trifled with, Miss Janice Day."</p> + +<p>"Why, Nelson! is something really wrong?" she asked him, and came a step +nearer.</p> + +<p>"As far as my future is concerned," said he, quietly, "it seems to be +quite all right."</p> + +<p>"Then the college——?"</p> + +<p>"I have a letter, too," he said, pulling it out of his pocket.</p> + +<p>This bait brought her to him. He thrust the letter into her hand, but he +held onto that hand, too, and she could not easily pull away from him.</p> + +<p>"What—what is it, Nelson?" she asked, looking at him for only a moment, +and then dropping her gaze before his intense look.</p> + +<p>"I've had a committee come to see me and look over my work at the +Polktown School."</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 414px;"> +<img src="images/fig319.jpg" width="414" height="650" alt="She just had to raise her eyes and look into his +earnest ones. (See page 307.)" title="" /> +<span class="caption">She just <i>had</i> to raise her eyes and look into his +earnest ones. (See page 307.)</span> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, Nelson!"</p> + +<p>"Now the secretary of the college faculty writes me the nicest kind of a +letter. I've made good with them, Janice."</p> + +<p>"I—I'm so glad!" she murmured, eyes still down, and trying ever so +faintly to wriggle her hand out of his.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Nelson Haley caught her other hand, too. He held them firmly +and—for some reason—she just <i>had</i> to raise her eyes and look straight +into his earnest ones.</p> + +<p>"I've made good with them, Janice!" he cried—he almost shouted it. "But +that's nothing—just nothing! The big thing with me now—the reward I +want—is to hear you say that I've won out with you. Is it so, +Janice—have I won out with <i>you</i>?"</p> + +<p>The long lashes screened the hazel eyes again. She looked on the one +hand and on the other. There really seemed no escape, this greatly +metamorphosed Nelson Haley was <i>so</i> insistent.</p> + +<p>So she raised her lashes again and looked straight into his eyes. What +she whispered the echo might have heard; and she nodded her head +quickly, several times.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>They came up through the grassy lane in the gloaming. Mrs. Beasely would +be waiting supper for her boarder; but Nelson scouted the idea that he +should not see Janice home first.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span></p> + +<p>Lights had begun to twinkle in the sitting-rooms of the various houses +along the street. But there was a moon. Indeed, that was the excuse they +had for remaining so late on the shore of the inlet. They had stopped to +see it rise.</p> + +<p>Through the thick trees the moonlight searched out the side porch of +Hopewell Drugg's store. The plaintive notes of the storekeeper's violin +breathed tenderly out upon the evening air:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Darling, I am growing old—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Silver threads among the gold"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>sighed Janice, happily. "And that is Miss 'Rill beside him there on the +porch—don't you see her?"</p> + +<p>"I see," said Nelson. "Mrs. Beasely is helping 'Rill make her wedding +gown. Little Lottie is going to have a new mamma."</p> + +<p>"And—and Hopewell's been playing that old song to her all these years!" +murmured Janice. "They are just as happy——"</p> + +<p>"Aren't they!" agreed Nelson, with a thrill in his voice. "I hope that +when we're as old as they are, we'll be as happy, too. Do you +suppose——"</p> + +<p>Nobody but Janice heard the rest of his question—not even the echo!</p> + +<h4>THE END</h4> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<h2>CHARMING BOOKS FOR GIRLS</h2> + +<h4>May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list</h4> + + +<p><i>WHEN PATTY WENT TO COLLEGE</i>, By Jean Webster.</p> + +<p>Illustrated by C. D. Williams.</p> + +<p>One of the best stories of life in a girl's college that has ever been +written. It is bright, whimsical and entertaining, lifelike, laughable +and thoroughly human.</p> + + +<p><i>JUST PATTY</i>, By Jean Webster.</p> + +<p>Illustrated by C. M. Relyea.</p> + +<p>Patty is full of the joy of living, fun-loving, given to ingenious +mischief for its own sake, with a disregard for pretty convention which +is an unfailing source of joy to her fellows.</p> + + +<p><i>THE POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL</i>, By Eleanor Gates.</p> + +<p>With four full page illustrations.</p> + +<p>This story relates the experience of one of those unfortunate children +whose early days are passed in the companionship of a governess, seldom +seeing either parent, and famishing for natural love and tenderness. A +charming play as dramatized by the author.</p> + + +<p><i>REBECCA OF SUNNYBROOK FARM</i>, By Kate Douglas Wiggin.</p> + +<p>One of the most beautiful studies of childhood—Rebecca's artistic, +unusual and quaintly charming qualities stand out midst a circle of +austere New Englanders. The stage version is making a phenomenal +dramatic record.</p> + + +<p><i>NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA</i>, By Kate Douglas Wiggin.</p> + +<p>Illustrated by F. C. 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The play has +been staged with magnificent cast and gorgeous properties.</p> + + +<p><i>BEN HUR.</i> A Tale of the Christ. By General Lew Wallace.</p> + +<p>The whole world has placed this famous Religious-Historical Romance on a +height of pre-eminence which no other novel of its time has reached. The +clashing of rivalry and the deepest human passions, the perfect +reproduction of brilliant Roman life, and the tense, fierce atmosphere +of the arena have kept their deep fascination. A tremendous dramatic +success.</p> + + +<p><i>BOUGHT AND PAID FOR.</i> By George Broadhurst and Arthur Hornblow. +Illustrated with scenes from the play.</p> + +<p>A stupendous arraignment of modern marriage which has created an +interest on the stage that is almost unparalleled. The scenes are laid +in New York, and deal with conditions among both the rich and poor.</p> + +<p>The interest of the story turns on the day-by-day developments which +show the young wife the price she has paid.</p> + +<p><i>Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction</i></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York</span></p> + + +<h3>STORIES OF RARE CHARM BY GENE STRATTON-PORTER</h3> + +<h4>May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset and Dunlap's list.</h4> + + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 132px;"> +<img src="images/ifg325.jpg" width="132" height="175" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p><i>THE HARVESTER.</i></p> + +<p>Illustrated by W. L. Jacobs</p> + +<p>"The Harvester," David Langston, is a man of the woods and fields, who +draws his living from the prodigal hand of Mother Nature herself. If the +book had nothing in it but the splendid figure of this man, with his +sure grip on life, his superb optimism, and his almost miraculous +knowledge of nature secrets, it would be notable. But when the Girl +comes to his "Medicine Woods," and the Harvester's whole sound, healthy, +large outdoor being realizes that this is the highest point of life +which has come to him—there begins a romance, troubled and interrupted, +yet of the rarest idyllic quality.</p> + + +<p><i>FRECKLES.</i> Decorations by E. Stetson Crawford</p> + +<p>Freckles is a nameless waif when the tale opens, but the way in which he +takes hold of life; the nature friendships he forms in the great +Limberlost Swamp; the manner in which everyone who meets him succumbs to +the charm of his engaging personality; and his love-story with "The +Angel" are full of real sentiment.</p> + + +<p><i>A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST.</i></p> + +<p>Illustrated by Wladyslaw T. Brenda.</p> + +<p>The story of a girl of the Michigan woods; a buoyant, lovable type of +the self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and kindness +towards all things; her hope is never dimmed. And by the sheer beauty of +her soul, and the purity of her vision, she wins from barren and +unpromising surroundings those rewards of high courage.</p> + +<p>It is an inspiring story of a life worth while and the rich beauties of +the out-of-doors are strewn through all its pages.</p> + + +<p><i>AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW.</i></p> + +<p>Illustrations in colors by Oliver Kemp. Design and decorations by Ralph +Fletcher Seymour.</p> + +<p>The scene of this charming, idyllic love story is laid in Central +Indiana. The story is one of devoted friendship, and tender +self-sacrificing love; the friendship that gives freely without return, +and the love that seeks first the happiness of the object. The novel is +brimful of the most beautiful word painting of nature, and its pathos +and tender sentiment will endear it to all.</p> + +<p><i>Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction</i></p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Grosset & Dunlap, 526 >West 26th St., New York</span></h4> + + +<h2>ZANE GREY'S NOVELS</h2> + +<h3>May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.</h3> + + +<p><i>THE LIGHT OF WESTERN STARS</i></p> + +<p>Colored frontispiece by W. Herbert Dunton.</p> + +<p>Most of the action of this story takes place near the turbulent Mexican +border of the present day. A New York society girl buys a ranch which +becomes the center of frontier warfare. Her loyal cowboys defend her +property from bandits, and her superintendent rescues her when she is +captured by them. A surprising climax brings the story to a delightful +close.</p> + + +<p><i>DESERT GOLD</i></p> + +<p>Illustrated by Douglas Duer.</p> + +<p>Another fascinating story of the Mexican border. Two men, lost in the +desert, discover gold when, overcome by weakness, they can go no +farther. The rest of the story describes the recent uprising along the +border, and ends with the finding of the gold which the two prospectors +had willed to the girl who is the story's heroine.</p> + + +<p><i>RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE</i></p> + +<p>Illustrated by Douglas Duer.</p> + +<p>A picturesque romance of Utah of some forty years ago when Mormon +authority ruled. In the persecution of Jane Withersteen, a rich ranch +owner, we are permitted to see the methods employed by the invisible +hand of the Mormon Church to break her will.</p> + + +<p><i>THE LAST OF THE PLAINSMEN</i></p> + +<p>Illustrated with photograph reproductions.</p> + +<p>This is the record of a trip which the author took with Buffalo Jones, +known as the preserver of the American bison, across the Arizona desert +and of a hunt in "that wonderful country of yellow crags, deep cañons +and giant pines." It is a fascinating story.</p> + + +<p><i>THE HERITAGE OF THE DESERT</i></p> + +<p>Jacket in color. Frontispiece.</p> + +<p>This big human drama is played in the Painted Desert. A lovely girl, who +has been reared among Mormons, learns to love a young New Englander. The +Mormon religion, however, demands that the girl shall become the second +wife of one of the Mormons—</p> + +<p>Well, that's the problem of this sensational, big selling story.</p> + + +<p><i>BETTY ZANE</i></p> + +<p>Illustrated by Louis F. Grant.</p> + +<p>This story tells of the bravery and heroism of Betty, the beautiful +young sister of old Colonel Zane, one of the bravest pioneers. Life +along the frontier, attacks by Indians, Betty's heroic defense of the +beleaguered garrison at Wheeling, the burning of the Fort, and Betty's +final race for life, make up this never-to-be-forgotten story.</p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York</span></h4> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Janice Day, by Helen Beecher Long + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JANICE DAY *** + +***** This file should be named 32312-h.htm or 32312-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/3/1/32312/ + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Josephine Paolucci +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +www.pgdp.net. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Janice Day + +Author: Helen Beecher Long + +Illustrator: Walter S. Rogers + +Release Date: May 10, 2010 [EBook #32312] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JANICE DAY *** + + + + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Josephine Paolucci +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +www.pgdp.net. + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: The quick eye of Janice Day caught sight of this row of +nondescripts. (See page 15.)] + +JANICE DAY + +BY + +HELEN BEECHER LONG + +ILLUSTRATED BY + +WALTER S. ROGERS + + +GROSSET & DUNLAP +PUBLISHERS :-: NEW YORK + +COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY + +SULLY AND KLEINTEICH + +All rights reserved + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER PAGE + +I. A NEW-FASHIONED GIRL 1 + +II. POKETOWN 10 + +III. "IT JEST RATTLES" 22 + +IV. FIRST IMPRESSIONS 32 + +V. 'RILL SCATTERGOOD AND HER SCHOOL 43 + +VI. AN AFTERNOON OF ADVENTURE 56 + +VII. THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LOST THE ECHO 64 + +VIII. A BIT OF ROMANCE 73 + +IX. TEA, AND A TALK WITH DADDY 84 + +X. BEGINNING WITH A BEDSTEAD 96 + +XI. A RAINY DAY 109 + +XII. ON THE ROAD WITH WALKY DEXTER 122 + +XIII. NELSON HALEY 131 + +XIV. A TIME OF TRIAL 139 + +XV. NEW BEGINNINGS 149 + +XVI. "SHOWING" THE ELDER 159 + +XVII. CHRISTMAS NEWS 173 + +XVIII. "THE FLY-BY-NIGHT" 184 + +XIX. CHRISTMAS, AFTER ALL! 197 + +XX. THE TROUBLE WITH NELSON HALEY 210 + +XXI. A STIR OF NEW LIFE IN POKETOWN 217 + +XXII. AT THE SUGAR CAMP 226 + +XXIII. "DO YOU MEAN THAT?" 235 + +XXIV. THE SCHOOL DEDICATION 241 + +XXV. THROUGH THE SECOND WINTER 253 + +XXVI. JUST HOW IT ALL BEGAN 262 + +XXVII. POKETOWN IN A NEW DRESS 271 + +XXVIII. NO ODOR OF GASOLINE! 280 + +XXIX. JANICE DAY'S FIRST LOVE LETTER 290 + +XXX. WHAT THE ECHO MIGHT HAVE HEARD 302 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +The quick eye of Janice Day caught sight + of this row of nondescripts. (See page 15.) _Frontispiece_ + + FACING PAGE + +The old violin wailed out the tune haltingly 72 + +God's world _did_ look bigger and greater from + The Overlook. (See page 155.) 154 + +She just _had_ to raise her eyes and look into his + earnest ones. (See page 307.) 306 + + + + +JANICE DAY + + + + +CHAPTER I + +A NEW-FASHIONED GIRL + + +"Well! this is certainly a relief from the stuffy old cars," said Janice +Day, as she reached the upper deck of the lake steamer, dropped her +suitcase, and drew in her first full breath of the pure air. + +"What a beautiful lake!" she went on. "And how big! Why--I had no idea! +I wonder how far Poketown is from here?" + +The ancient sidewheel steamer was small and there were few passengers on +the upper deck, forward. Janice secured a campstool and sat down near +the rail to look off over the water. + +The officious man in the blue cap on the dock had shouted "All aboard!" +the moment the passengers left the cars of the little narrow-gauge +railroad, on which the girl had been riding for more than two hours; but +it was some minutes before the wheezy old steamer got under way. + +Janice was interested in everything she saw--even in the clumsy warping +off of the _Constance Colfax_, when her hawsers were finally released. + +"Goodness me!" thought the girl, chuckling, "what a ridiculous old tub +it is! How different everything East here is from Greensboro. There! +we're really off!" + +The water hissed and splashed, as the wheels of the steamer began to +turn rheumatically. The walking-beam heaved up and down with many a +painful creak. + +"Why! _that_ place is real pretty--when you look at it from the lake," +murmured Janice, looking back at the little landing. "I wonder if +Poketown will be like it?" + +She looked about her, half tempted to ask a question of somebody. There +was but a single passenger near her--a little, old lady in an +old-fashioned black mantilla with jet trimming, and wearing black lace +half-mitts and a little bonnet that had been so long out of date that it +was almost in the mode again. + +She was seated with her back against the cabin house, and when the +steamer rolled a little the ball of knitting-cotton, which she had taken +out of her deep, bead-bespangled bag, bounced out of her lap and rolled +across the deck almost to the feet of Janice. + +Up the girl jumped and secured the runaway ball, winding the cotton as +she approached the old lady, who peered up at her, her head on one side +and her eyes sparkling, like an inquisitive bird. + +"Thank ye, child," she said, briskly. "I ain't as spry as I use ter be, +an' ye done me a favor. I guess I don't know ye, do I?" + +"I don't believe you do, Ma'am," agreed Janice, smiling, and although +she could not be called "pretty" in the sense in which the term is +usually written, when Janice smiled her determined, and rather +intellectual face became very attractive. + +"You don't belong in these parts?" pursued the old lady. + +"Oh, no, Ma'am. I come from Greensboro," and the girl named the middle +western state in which her home was situated. + +"Do tell! You come a long distance, don't ye?" exclaimed her +fellow-passenger. "You're one of these new-fashioned gals that travel +alone, an' all that sort o' thing, ain't ye? I reckon your folks has got +plenty of confidence in ye." + +Janice laughed again, and drew her campstool to the old lady's side. + +"I was never fifty miles away from home before," she confessed, "and I +never was away from my father over night until I started East two days +ago." + +"Then ye ain't got no mother, child?" + +"Mother died when I was a very little girl. Father has been everything +to me--just everything!" and for a moment the bright, young face +clouded and the hazel eyes swam in unshed tears. But she turned quickly +so that her new acquaintance might not see them. + +"Where are you goin', my dear?" asked the old lady, more softly. + +"To Poketown. And oh! I _do_ hope it will be a nice, lively place, for +maybe I'll have to remain there a long time--months and months!" + +"For the land's sake!" exclaimed the old lady, nodding her head briskly +over the knitting needles. "So be I goin' to Poketown." + +"Are you, really?" ejaculated Janice Day, clasping her hands eagerly, +and turning to her new acquaintance. "Isn't that nice! Then you can tell +me just what Poketown is like. I've got to stay there with my uncle +while father is in Mexico----" + +"Who's your uncle, child?" demanded the old lady, quickly. "And who's +your father?" + +Janice naturally answered the last question first, for her heart was +full of her father and her separation from him. "Mr. Broxton Day is my +father, and he used to live in Poketown. But he came away from there a +long, long time ago." + +"Yes? I knowed there was Days in Poketown; but I ain't been there myself +for goin' on twelve year. I lived there a year, or so, arter my man +died, with my darter. She's teached the Poketown school for twenty +year." + +"Oh!" cried Janice. "Then you can't really tell me what Poketown is +like--now?" + +"Why, it's quite a town, I b'lieve," said the old lady. "'Rill writes me +thet the _ho_-tel's jest been painted, and there's a new blacksmith shop +built. You goin' to school there--What did you say your name was?" + +"Janice Day. I don't know whether I shall go to school while I am in +Poketown, or not. If there are a whole lot of nice girls--and a few nice +boys--who go to your daughter's school, I shall certainly want to go, +too," continued Janice, smiling again at the little old lady. + +"Wal, 'Rill Scattergood's teached long enough, _I_ tell her," declared +the other. "I'm goin' to Poketown now more'n half to git her to give up +at the end o' this term. With what she's laid by, and what I've got +left, we could live mighty comfertable together. Who's your uncle, +child?" pursued Mrs. Scattergood, who had not lost sight of her main +inquiry. + +"Mr. Jason Day. He's my father's half brother." + +"Ya-as. I didn't know them Days very well when I lived there. How long +did you say you was goin' to stay in Poketown?" + +"I don't know, Ma'am," said Janice, sadly. "Father didn't know how long +he'd be in Mexico----" + +"Good Land o' Goshen!" ejaculated Mrs. Scattergood, suddenly, "ain't +that where there's fightin' goin' on right now?" + +"Yes'm. That's why he couldn't take me with him," confessed Janice, +eager to talk with a sympathetic listener. "You see, I guess 'most all +the money we've got is invested in some mine down there. The fighting +came near the mine, and the superintendent ran away and left +everything." + +"Goodness! why wouldn't he?" exclaimed the old lady, knitting faster +than ever in her excitement. + +"But then that made it so my father had to go down there and 'tend to +things," explained Janice. + +"What! right in the middle of the war? Good Land o' Goshen!" + +"There wasn't anybody else _to_ go," said Janice, sadly. "The +stockholders might lose all they put into it. And our money, too. Why! +we had to rent our house furnished. That's why I am coming East to Uncle +Jason's while father is away." + +"Too bad! too bad!" returned the old lady, shaking her head. + +"But you see," Janice hastened to say, with pride, "my father is that +kind of a man. The other folks expected him to take hold of the business +and straighten it out. He--he's always doing such things, you know." + +"I see," agreed Mrs. Scattergood. "He's one o' these 'up an' comin' sort +o' men. And you're his darter!" and she cackled a little, shrill laugh. +"I kin see _that_. You're one o' these new-fashioned gals, all right." + +"I hope I'm like Daddy," said Janice, quietly. "Everybody loves +Daddy--everybody depends on him to go ahead and _do_ things. I hope +Uncle Jason will be like him." + +With the light breeze fluttering the little crinkles of hair between her +hat and her brow, and an expression of bright expectancy upon her face, +Janice was worth looking at a second time. So Mrs. Scattergood thought, +as she glanced up now and again from her knitting. + +"Poketown--Poketown," the girl murmured to herself, trying to spy out +the land ahead as the _Constance Colfax_ floundered on. "Oh! I hope +Daddy's remembrance of it is all wrong now. I hope it will belie its +name." + +"What's that, child?" put in the sharp voice of her neighbor. + +"Why--why--if it _is_ poky I know I shall just die of homesickness for +Greensboro," confessed Janice. "How could the early settlers of these +'New Hampshire Grants' ever _dare_ give such a homely name to a +village?" + +"Pshaw!" ejaculated Mrs. Scattergood. "What's a name? Prob'bly some man +named Poke settled there fust. Or pokeberries grew mighty common there. +People weren't so fanciful about names in them days. Why! my son-in-law +lives right now in a place in York State called 'Skunk's Hollow' and +the city folks that's movin' in there is tryin' to git the post office +to change the name to 'Posy Bloom.' No 'countin' for tastes in names. My +poor mother called _me_ Mahala Ann--an' me too leetle to fight back. But +I made up my mind when I was a mighty leetle gal that if ever I had a +baby I'd call it sumthin' pretty. An' I done the right thing by all my +children. + +"Now here's 'Rill," pursued Mrs. Scattergood, waxing communicative. "Her +full name's Amarilla--Amarilla Scattergood. Don't you think that's purty +yourself, now?" + +Janice politely agreed. But she quickly swung the conversation back to +Poketown. + +"I suppose, if mills had been built there, or the summer boarders had +discovered Poketown, its name would have been changed, too. And you +haven't been up there for twelve years?" + +"No, child. But that ain't long. Ain't much happens in twelve years back +East here." + +Janice sighed again; but suddenly she jumped from her stool excitedly, +crying: "Oh! what place is _that_?" + +She pointed far ahead. Around a rocky headland the view of a pleasant +cove had just opened. The green and blue-ribbed hills rose behind the +cove; the water lay sparkling in it. There was a vividly white church +with a heaven-pointing spire right among the big green trees. + +A brown ribbon of main thoroughfare wound up from the wharf, but was +soon lost under the shade of the great trees that interlaced their +branches above it--branches which were now lush with the late spring +growth of leaves. Here and there a cottage, or larger dwelling, +appeared, most of them originally white like the church, but many shabby +from the action of wind and weather. + +Over all, the warm sun spread a mantle. In the distance this bright +mantle softened the rigid lines of the old-fashioned houses, and of the +ledges and buttresses of the hills themselves. + +Old Mrs. Scattergood stood up, too, looking through her steel-bowed +glasses. + +"I declare for't!" she said, "that's Poketown itself! That's the spire +of the Union Church you see. We'll git there in an hour." + +Janice did not sit down again just then, nor did she reply. She rested +both trimly-gloved hands on the rail and gazed upon the scene. + +"Why, it's beautiful!" she breathed at last "And _that_ is Poketown!" + + + + +CHAPTER II + +POKETOWN + + +Some ancient dwellings have the dignity of "homestead" resting upon them +like a benediction; others are aureoled by the name of "manor." The +original Day in Poketown had built a shingled, gable-ended cottage upon +the side-hill which had now, for numberless years, been called "the old +Day house"--nothing more. + +"Jason! You Jase! I'd give a cent if you'd mend this pump," complained +Mrs. Almira Day. "Go git me a pail of water from Mis' Dickerson's and +ask how's her rhoumatism this mawnin'. Come on, now! I can't wash the +breakfas' dishes till I hev some water." + +The grizzled, lanky man who had been sitting comfortably on a bench in +the sun, sucking on a corncob pipe and gazing off across the lake, never +even turned his head as he asked: + +"Where's Marty?" + +"The goodness only knows! Ye know he ain't never here when ye want him." + +"Why didn't ye tell him about the water at breakfas' time?" + +"Would _that_ have done any good?" demanded Mrs. Day, with some scorn. +"Ye know Marty's got too big to take orders from his marm. He don't do +nothin' but hang about Josiah Pringle's harness shop all day." + +"I told him to hoe them 'taters," said Mr. Day, thoughtfully. + +"Well, he don't seem ter take orders from his dad, neither. Don't know +what that boy's comin' to," and a whine crept into Mrs. Day's voice. "He +can't git along with 'Rill Scattergood, so he won't go to school. His +fingers is gettin' all stained yaller from suthin'--d'you 'xpect it's +them cigarettes, Jase?" + +Her husband was rising slowly to his feet. "Gimme the pail," he grunted, +without replying to her last question. "I'll git the water for ye this +onc't. But that's Marty's job an' he's got to l'arn it, too!" + +"Here, Jase! take two pails," urged Mrs. Day. "An' I wish you _would_ +git Pringle to cut ye a new pump-leather." + +But Mr. Day ignored the second pail. "I don't feel right peart to-day," +he said, shambling off down the path. "And there's a deal of heft to a +pail of water--uphill, too. An' by-me-by I got ter go down to the dock, +I s'pose, when the boat comes in, to meet Broxton's gal. I 'xpect +_she'll_ be a great nuisance, 'Mira." + +"I'll stand her bein' some nuisance if you give me the twenty dollars a +month your brother wrote that he'd send for her board and keep," snapped +Mrs. Day. "You understand, Jase. That money's comin' to _me_, or I don't +scrub and slave for no relation of yourn. Remember that!" + +Jason shuffled on as though he had not heard her. That was the most +exasperating trait of this lazy man--so his wife thought; he was too +lazy to quarrel. + +He went out at the gate, which hung by one hinge to the gatepost, into +the untidy back lane upon which one end of his rocky little farm +abutted. Had he glanced back at the premises he would have seen a +weed-grown, untidy yard surrounding the old house, with decrepit stables +and other outbuildings in the rear, a garden which was almost a jungle +now, although in the earlier spring it had given much promise of a +summer harvest of vegetables. Poorly tilled fields behind the front +premises terraced up the timber-capped hill. + +Jason Day always "calkerlated ter farm it" each year, and he started in +good season, too. The soil was rich and most of his small fields were +warm and early; but somehow his plans always fell through before the +season was far advanced. So neither the farm nor the immediate premises +of the old Day house were attractive. + +The house itself looked like a withered and gnarly apple left hanging +upon the tree from the year before. In its forlorn nakedness it actually +cried out for a coat of paint. Each individual shingle was curled and +cracked. Only the superior workmanship of a former time kept the Day +roof tight and defended the family from storms. + +Some hours later the _Constance Colfax_ came into view around a distant +point in the lake shore. Mr. Day had camped upon the identical bench +again and was still sucking at the stem of his corncob pipe. + +"Wal," he groaned, "I 'xpect I've got to go down to meet that gal of +Broxton's. And the sun's mighty hot this mawnin'." + +"You wouldn't feel it so, if ye hadn't been too 'tarnal lazy to change +yer seat," sniffed his wife. "Now, you mind, Jase! That board money +comes to me, or you can take Broxton's gal to the _ho_-tel." + +Mr. Day shambled out of the front gate without making reply. + +"Drat the man!" muttered his wife. "If I could jes' git a rise out o' +him onc't----" + +It was not far to the dock. Indeed, Poketown was so compactly built on +the steep hillside that there was scarcely a house within its borders +from which a boy could not have tossed a pebble into the waters of the +cove. Jason strolled along in the shade, passing the time of day with +such neighbors as were equally disengaged, and spreading the news of his +niece's expected arrival. + +As he passed along the lane which later debouched upon the main +thoroughfare of Poketown, it was evident to the most casual glance that +the old Day house was not the only dwelling far along in a state of +decay. Poketown was full of such. + +On the street leading directly to the dock there were several +well-cared-for estates--some of them wedged in between blocks of +two-story frame buildings, the first floors of which were occupied by +stores of various kinds. The post office had a building to itself. The +Lake View Inn was not unattractive, its side piazza overlooking the cove +and the lake spread beyond. + +But the rutty, dusty road showed that it had been rutty and muddy in the +earlier spring. The flagstones of the sidewalks were broken, and the +walks themselves ill kept. The gutters were overgrown with grass and +weeds. Before the shops the undefended tree trunks were gnawed into +grotesque patterns by the farmers' hungry beasts. Hardware was at a +premium in Poketown, for a dozen gates along the line were hung with +leather hinges, and bits of rope had taken the places of the original +latches. + +From the water, however, even on closer view, the hillside village made +a pretty picture. Near the wharf it was not so romantic, as Janice Day +realized, when the coughing, wheezy steamboat came close in. + +There were decrepit boats drawn up on the narrow beach; there were +several decaying shacks bordering on the dock itself; and along the +stringpiece of the wharf roosted a row of "humans" that were the +opposite of ornamental. The quick eye of Janice Day caught sight of this +row of nondescripts. + +"Goodness me, Mrs. Scattergood!" she exclaimed, turning to the old lady +who had been in receipt of her confidences. "Is the almshouse near +Poketown?" + +"There's a poorfarm, child; but there ain't nobody on it but a few old +folks an' some orphans. We ain't poor here--not pauper poor. But, +goodness me! you mean them men a-settin' there? Why, they ain't +poor--no, no, child. I don't suppose there's a man there that don't own +his own house. There's Mel Parraday, who owns the _ho_-tel; and Lem +Pinney that owns stock in this very steamboat comp'ny; and Walkworthy +Dexter--Walky's done expressin' and stage-drivin' since before my 'Rill +come here to Poketown to teach." + +"But--but they look so ragged and unshaven," gasped Janice. + +"Pshaw! they ain't proud, I reckon," cackled the old lady, gathering up +her knitting and dropping it into the beaded bag, which she shut with a +snap. + +"But isn't there anybody proud _of_ them?" queried Janice. "Haven't they +mothers--or wives--or sisters?" + +The old lady stared at her. Then she made a sudden clicking in her +throat that might have been a chuckle. "I declare for't, child!" she +ejaculated. "I dunno as many of us in these parts _air_ proud of our men +folks." + +Just then the steamboat's bow bumped the wharf. The jar scarcely seemed +to awaken the languid line of Poketownites ranged along the other side. +The only busy person in sight was the employee of the steamboat company +who caught the loop of the hawser thrown him, and dropped it over a +pile. The rest of the men just raised their heads and stared, chewing +reflectively on either tobacco or straws, until the plank was dropped +and the deckhands began trundling the freight and baggage ashore. + +There were two or three commercial drummers beside Mrs. Scattergood and +Janice, who disembarked on this dock. Mrs. Scattergood bade the girl +from the West a brisk good-bye and went directly up the dock, evidently +expecting nobody to meet her at this time of day. A lanky man, with +grizzled brows and untrimmed beard, got up slowly from the stringpiece +of the wharf and slouched forward to meet Janice Day. + +"I reckon you be Broxton's gal, eh?" he queried, his eyes twinkling not +unkindly. "Ye sort er favor him--an' he favored his mother in more ways +than one. You're Janice Day?" + +"Oh, yes indeed! And you're my Uncle Jason?" cried the girl, impulsively +seizing Mr. Day's hand. There was nothing about this man that at all +reminded Janice of her father; yet the thought of their really being so +closely related to each other was comforting. "I'm so glad to see you," +she continued. "I hope you'll like me, Uncle Jason--and I hope Aunt +Almira will like me. And there is a cousin, too, isn't there--a boy? +Dear me! I've been looking forward to meeting you all ever since I left +Greensboro, and been wondering what sort of people you would be." + +"Wal," drawled Uncle Jason, rather staggered by the way Janice "ran on," +"we reckon on makin' ye comferble. Looks like we'd have ye with us some +spell, too. Broxton writ me that he didn't know how long he'd be +gone--down there in Mexico." + +"No. Poor Daddy couldn't tell. The business must be 'tended to, I +s'pose----" + +"Right crazy of him to go there," grunted Uncle Jason. "May git shot any +minute. Ain't _no_ money wuth that, I don't believe." + +This rather tactless speech made the girl suddenly look grave; but it +did not quench her vivacity. She was staring about the dock, interested +in everything she saw, when Uncle Jason drawled: + +"I s'pose ye got a trunk, Janice?" + +"Oh, yes. Here is the check," and she began to skirmish in her purse. + +"Wal! there ain't no hurry. Marty'll come down by-me-by with the +wheelbarrer and git it for ye." + +"But my goodness!" exclaimed the girl from Greensboro. "I haven't +anything fit to put on in this bag; everything got rumpled so aboard the +train. I'll want to change just as soon as I get to the house, Uncle." + +"Wal!" Uncle Jason was staggered. He had given up thinking quickly years +before. This was an emergency that floored him. + +"Why! isn't that the expressman there? And can't he take my trunk right +up to the house?" continued the girl. + +"Ya-as; that's Walky Dexter," admitted Mr. Day. + +A stout, red-faced man was backing a raw-boned nag in front of a farm +wagon, down upon the wharf and toward a little heap of baggage that had +been run ashore from the lower deck of the _Constance Colfax_. Janice, +still lugging her suitcase, shot up the dock toward the expressman, +leaving Jason, slack-jawed and well-nigh breathless. + +"Jefers-pelters! What a flyaway critter she is!" the man muttered. "I +don't see whatever we're a-goin' to do with _her_." + +Meanwhile Janice got Mr. Dexter's attention immediately. "There's my +trunk right there, Mr. Dexter," she cried. "And here's the check. You +see it--the brown trunk with the brass corners?" + +"I see it, Miss. All right. I'll git it up to Jason's some time this +arternoon." + +"Oh, Mr. Dexter!" she cried, shaking her head at him, but smiling, too. +"That will not do at all! I want to unpack it at once. I need some of +the things in it, for I've been traveling two days. Can't you take it on +your first load?" + +"Wa-al--I might," confessed Dexter, looking her over with a quizzical +smile. "But us'ally the Days ain't in no hurry." + +"Then this is one Day who _is_ in a hurry," she said, briefly. "What is +your charge for delivering the trunk, sir?" + +"Oh--'bout a quarter, Miss. And gimme that suitcase, too. 'Twon't cost +ye no more, and I'll git 'em there before Jason and you reach the house. +Poketown is a purty slow old place, Miss," the man added, with a wink +and a chuckle, "but I kin see the _days_ are going to move faster, now +you have arove in town. Don't you fear; your trunk'll be there--'nless +Josephus, here, busts a leg!" + +Quite stunned, Uncle Jason had not moved from his tracks. "Now we're all +right, sir," said the girl, cheerily, taking his arm and by her very +touch seeming to galvanize a little life into his scarecrow figure. +"Shall we go home?" + +"Eh? Wal! Ef ye say so, Janice," replied Mr. Day, weakly. + +They started up the main street of Poketown, Janice accommodating her +step to that of her uncle. Mr. Day was not one given to idle chatter; +but the girl did not notice his silence in her interest in all she saw. + +It was a beautiful, shady way, with the hill not too steep for comfort. +And some of the dwellings set in the midst of their terraced old lawns, +were so beautiful! It was the beauty of age, however; there did not seem +to be a single _new_ thing in Poketown. + +Even the scant display of goods in the shop windows had lain there until +they were dust-covered, sun-burned, and flyspecked. The signs over the +store doors were tarnished. + +They came to the lane that led up the hill away from High Street, and on +which Uncle Jason said he lived. An almost illegible sign at the corner +announced it to be "Hillside Avenue." There were not two fences abutting +upon the lane that were set in line, while the sidewalks were narrow or +broad, according to the taste of the several owners of property along +the way. + +The beautiful old trees were everywhere, however; only some of them +needed trimming badly, and many overhung the roofs, their dripping +branches having rotted the shingles and given life to great patches of +green moss. There was a sogginess to the grass-grown yards that seemed +unhealthful. There were several, picturesque, old wells, with massive +sweeps and oaken buckets--quaint breeders of typhoid germs--which showed +that the physicians of Poketown had not properly educated their patients +to modern sanitary ideas. + +Altogether the village in which her father had been born and bred was a +dead-and-alive, do-nothing place, and its beauty, for Janice Day, faded +before she was halfway up the hill to her uncle's house. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +"IT JEST RATTLES" + + +Almira Day was a good-hearted woman. It was not in her to treat her +husband's niece otherwise than kindly, despite her threat to the +contrary when Jason left the old Day house to meet Janice at the +steamboat dock. + +She stood smiling in the doorway--a large, pink, lymphatic woman, as +shapeless as a half-filled meal-sack with a string tied around its +middle, quite as untidy as her husband in dress, but with clean skin and +a wholesome look. + +Her calico dress was faded and, in places, strained to the +bursting-point, showing that it was "store-bought" and had never been +fitted to Mrs. Day's bulbous figure. She wore a pair of men's slippers +very much down at the heel, and pink stockings with a gaping hole in the +seam at the back of one, which Janice very plainly saw as her aunt +preceded her upstairs to the room the visitor was to occupy. + +"I hope ye won't mind how things look," drawled Aunt 'Mira. "We ain't +as up-an'-comin' as some, I do suppose. But nothin' ain't gone well with +Jason late years, an' he's got some mis'ry that he can't git rid of, +so's he can't work stiddy. Look out for this nex' ter the top step. The +tread's broke an' I been expectin' ter be throwed from top to bottom of +these stairs for weeks." + +"Can't Uncle Jason fix it?" asked Janice, stepping over the broken +tread. + +"Wal, he ain't exactly got 'round to it yet," confessed her aunt. +"There! I do hope you like your room, Niece Janice. There's a pretty +outlook from the winder." + +True enough, the window overlooked the hillside and the lake. Only, had +the panes been washed one could have viewed the landscape and the water +so much better! + +The room itself was the shabbiest bedchamber Janice Day had ever seen. +The carpet on the floor had, generations before, been one of those +flowery axminsters that country people used to buy for their "poller." +Then they would pull all the shades down and shut the room tightly, for +otherwise the pink roses faded completely out of the design. + +This old carpet had long since been through _that_ stage of existence, +however, and was now worn to the warp in spots, its design being visible +only because of the ingrained grime which years of trampling had brought +to it. + +The paper on the walls was faded and stained. Empty places where +pictures had hung for years, showed in contrast to the more faded barren +districts. A framed copy of the Declaration of Independence ornamented +the space above the mantel. Hanging above the bed's head were those two +famous chromos of "Good-Morning" and "Good-Night." A moth-eaten worsted +motto and cross, "The Rock of Ages," hung above the little bureau glass. +There was, too, a torn and faded slipper for matches, and a tall glass +lamp that, for some reason, reminded Janice of a skeleton. She could +never look at that lamp thereafter without expecting the oil tank to +become a grinning skull with a tall fool's cap (the chimney) on it, and +its thin body to sprout bony arms and legs. + +The furniture was decrepit and ill matched. Janice could have overlooked +the shaky chair, the toppling bureau, and the scratched washstand; but +the bed with only three legs, and a soap-box under the fourth corner, +_did_ bring a question to the guest's lips: + +"Where is the other leg, Aunty?" + +"Now, I declare for't!" exclaimed Mrs. Day. "That _is_ too bad! The +leg's up on the closet shelf here. Jase was calkerlatin' to put it on +again, but he ain't never got 'round to it. But the box'll hold yer. It +only rattles," she added, as Janice tried the security of the bedstead. + +That expression, "it only rattles," the girl from Greensboro was +destined to hear unnumbered times in her uncle's home. It was typical of +the old Day house and its inmates. Unless a repair absolutely _must_ be +made, Uncle Jason would not take a tool in his hand. + +As for her Cousin Martin ("Marty" everybody called the gangling, +grinning, idle ne'er-do-well of fourteen), Janice was inclined to be +utterly hopeless about him from the start. If he was a specimen of the +Poketown boys, she told herself, she had no desire to meet any of them. + +"What do you do with yourself all day long, Marty, if you don't go to +school?" she asked her cousin, at the dinner table. + +"Oh, I hang around--like everybody else. Ain't nothin' doin' in +Poketown." + +"I should think it would be more fun to go to school." + +"Not ter 'Rill Scattergood," rejoined the boy, in haste. "That old maid +dunno enough to teach a cow." + +Janice might have thought a cow much more difficult to teach than a boy; +only she looked again into Marty's face, which plainly advertised the +vacancy of his mind, and thought better of the speech that had risen to +her lips. + +"Marty won't go to school no more," her aunt complained, whiningly. +"'Rill Scattergood ain't got no way with him. Th' committee's been +talkin' about gittin' another teacher for years; but 'Rill's sorter +_sot_ there, she's had the place so long." + +"There's more than a month of school yet--before the summer +vacation--isn't there?" queried Janice. + +"Oh, yes," sighed Mrs. Day. + +"I'd love to go and get acquainted with the girls," the guest said, +brightly. "Wouldn't you go with me some afternoon and introduce me to +the teacher, Marty?" + +"_Me?_ Ter 'Rill Scattergood? Naw!" declared the amazed Marty. "I sh'd +say not!" + +"Why, Marty!" exclaimed his mother. "That ain't perlite." + +"Who said 'twas?" returned her hopeful son, shortly. "I ain't tryin' ter +be perlite ter no _girl_. And I ain't goin' ter 'Rill Scattergood's +school--never, no more!" + +"Young man," commanded his father, angrily, "you hold that tongue o' +yourn. And you be perlite to your cousin, or I'll dance the dust out o' +your jacket with a hick'ry sprout, big as ye be." + +Janice hastened to change the subject and tune the conversation to a +more pleasant key. + +"It is so pretty all over this hillside," she said. "Around Greensboro +the country is flat. I think the hills are much more beautiful. And the +lake is just _dear_." + +"Ya-as," sighed her aunt. "Artis' folks come here an' paint this lake. I +reckon it's purty; but ye sort er git used ter it after a while." + +It was evidently hard for Aunt 'Mira to enthuse over anything. Marty +volunteered: + +"We got a waterfall on our place. Folks call it the Shower Bath. Guess a +girl would think 'twas pretty." + +"Oh! I'd love to see that," declared Janice, quickly. + +"I'll show it to you after dinner," said Marty, of a sudden surprisingly +friendly. + +"You'll hoe them 'taters after dinner," cried his father, sharply. +"That's what _you'll_ do." + +"Huh!" growled the sullen youth. "Yer said I was to be perlite, an' when +I start in ter be, you spring them old pertaters on a feller. Huh!" + +"Aw, now, Jason," interposed his mother. "Can't Marty show his cousin +over the farm and hoe the 'taters afterward?" + +"No, he can't!" denied Master Marty, quickly. "I ain't goin' ter work +double for nobody. Now, that's flat!" + +"Oh, we can go to the Shower Bath some other time," suggested Janice, +apprehensive of starting another family squabble. "I don't know as I'd +be able to hoe potatoes; but maybe there are other things I can do in +the garden. I always had a big flower garden at home." + +"Huh!" grunted Marty. "Flowers are only a nuisance." + +"I s'pose you could weed some," sighed Aunt 'Mira. "It hurts me so to +stoop." + +"She'd better pick 'tater bugs," said Marty, grinning. "They've begun to +come, I reckon. Hard-shells, anyway." + +Janice could not resist shivering at this suggestion. She did not love +insects any better than do most girls. But she took Marty's suggestion +in good part. + +"You wait," she said. "Maybe I can do that, too. I'll weed a little, +anyway. Have you a large farm, Uncle Jason?" + +"It's big enough, Janice," grumbled Jason. "Does seem as though--most +years--it's too big for us to manage. If Marty, here, warn't so +triflin'----" + +"I don't see no medals on _you_ for workin' hard," whispered the boy, +loud enough for Janice to hear. + +"This was a right good farm, onc't," said Aunt 'Mira. "B'fore Jason got +his mis'ry we use ter have good crops. That's when we was fust married." + +"But that's what broke my health all down," interposed Uncle Jason. +"Don't pay a man to work so hard when he's young. He has ter suffer for +it in the end." + +"Huh!" grunted Marty. "If it wasn't good for _you_ to work so hard when +you was young, what about _me_?" + +"You git along out o' here an' start on them 'taters!" commanded Mr. +Day, angrily. + +Marty slid out, muttering under his breath. Janice jumped up from the +table, saying cheerfully: "I'll help you with the dishes, Aunty. Let's +clear off." + +Her uncle had risen and was feeling for his corncob pipe on the ledge +above the door. Mrs. Day looked a bit startled when she saw Janice begin +briskly to collect the soiled dishes. + +"I dunno, Janice," she hesitated. "I gin'rally feel right po'ly after +dinner, and I'm use ter takin' forty winks." + +Janice did not wonder that her aunt felt "right po'ly." She had eaten +more pork, potatoes, spring cabbage and fresh bread than would have +served a hearty man. + +"Let's get rid of the dishes first, Aunty," said Janice, cheerfully "You +can get your nap afterward." + +"Wa-al," agreed Mrs. Day, slowly rising. "I dunno's there's water enough +to more'n give 'em a lick and a promise. Marty! Oh, you Marty! Come, go +for a pail of water, will ye? That's a good boy." + +"Now, ye know well enough," snarled Jason's voice just outside the +door, "that that boy ain't in earshot now." + +"Oh, _I_ can get a pail of water from the pump, Aunty," said Janice, +briskly starting for the porch. + +"But that pump ain't goin'," declared Mrs. Day. "An' no knowin' when +'twill be goin'. We have ter lug all our water from Dickerson's." + +"Oh, gimme the bucket!" snapped Uncle Jason, putting his great, hairy +hand inside the door and snatching the water-pail from the shelf. +"Wimmen-folks is allus a-clatterin' about suthin'!" + +Janice had never imagined people just like these relatives of hers. She +was both ashamed and amused,--ashamed of their ill-breeding and amused +by their useless bickering. + +"Wa-al," said her aunt, yawning and lowering herself upon the kitchen +couch, the springs of which squeaked complainingly under her weight, +"Wa-al, 'tain't scurcely wuth doin' the dishes _now_. Jason'll stop and +gab 'ith some one. It takes him ferever an' a day ter git a pail o' +water. You go on about your play, Niece Janice. I'll git 'em done erlone +somehow, by-me-by." + +Mrs. Day closed her eyes while she was still speaking. She was evidently +glad to relax into her old custom again. + +Janice took down her aunt's sunbonnet from the nail by the side door and +went out. Amusement had given place in the girl's mind to something +like actual shrinking from these relatives and their ways. The porch +boards gave under even her weight. Some of them were broken. The steps +were decrepit, too. The pump handle was tied down, she found, when she +put a tentative hand upon it. + +"'It jest rattles,'" quoted Janice; but no laugh followed the sigh which +was likewise her involuntary comment upon the situation. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +FIRST IMPRESSIONS + + +There was a long, well-shaded yard behind the house, bordered on the +upper hand by the palings of the garden fence. Had this fence not been +so overgrown by vines, wandering hens could have gone in and out of the +garden at pleasure. + +Robins were whisking in and out of the tops of the trees, quarreling +over the first of the cherry crop. Janice heard Marty's hoe and she +opened the garden gate. About half of this good-sized patch was given +over to the "'tater" crop; the remainder of the garden seemed--to the +casual glance--merely a wilderness of weeds. There may have been rows of +vegetable seeds planted there in the beginning; but now it was a perfect +mat of green things that have no commercial value--to say the least. + +Marty was about halfway down the first row of potatoes. He was cleaning +the row pretty well, and the weeds were wilting in the sun; but the rows +were as crooked as a snake's path. + +"Hullo!" said the boy, willing to stop and lean on the hoe handle. +"Don't you want to help?" + +"I don't believe I could hoe, Marty," said Janice, doubtfully. + +"If you'd been a boy cousin, I wouldn't have minded," grunted Marty. "He +and me could have had some fun." + +"Don't you think _I_ can be any fun?" demanded Janice, rather amused by +the frankness of the youth. + +"Never saw a gal that was," responded Marty. "Always in the way. Marm +says I got to be perlite to 'em----" + +"And is that such a cross?" + +"Don't know anything about no cross," growled Marty; "but a boy cousin +that I could lick would ha' been a whole lot more to my mind." + +"Oh, Marty! we're not going to quarrel." + +"I dunno whether we are or not," returned the pessimistic youth. "Wait +till there's only one piece o' pie left at dinner some day. You'll have +ter have it. Marm'll say so. But if you was a boy--an' I could lick +ye--ye wouldn't dare take it. D'ye see?" + +"I'm not so awfully fond of pie," admitted Janice. "And I wouldn't let a +piece stand in the way of our being good friends." + +"Oh, well; we'll see," said Marty, grudgingly. "But ye can't hoe, ye +say?" + +"I don't believe so. I'd cut off more potato plants than weeds, maybe. +Can't you cultivate your potatoes with a horse cultivator? I see the +farmers doing that around Greensboro. It's lots quicker." + +"Oh, we got a horse-hoe," said Marty, without interest. "But it got +broke an' Dad ain't fixed it yet. B'sides, ye couldn't use it 'twixt +these rows. They're too crooked. But then--as the feller said--there's +more plants in a crooked row." + +"What's all that?" demanded Janice, waving a hand toward the other half +of the garden. + +"Weeds--mostly. Right there's carrots. Marm always _will_ plant carrots +ev'ry spring; but they git lost so easy in the weeds." + +"_I_ know carrots," cried Janice, brightly. "Let me weed 'em," and she +dropped on her knees at the beginning of the rows. + +"Help yourself!" returned Marty, plying the hoe. "But it looks to me as +though them carrots had just about fainted." + +It looked so to Janice, too, when she managed to find the tender little +plants which, coming up thickly enough in the row, now looked as livid +as though grown in a cellar. The rank weeds were keeping all the sun and +air from them. + +"I can find them, just the same," she confided to Marty, when he came +back up the next row. "And I'd better thin them, too, as I go along, +hadn't I?" + +"Help yourself," repeated the boy. "But pickin' 'tater bugs wouldn't be +as bad as _that_, to my mind." + + "'Every one to his fancy, + And me to my Nancy.' + +as the old woman said when she kissed her cow," quoted Janice, laughing. +"You can have the bugs, Marty." + +"Somebody'll have to git 'em pretty soon, or the bugs'll have the +'taters," declared her cousin. "Say! you'd ought to have somethin' +besides your fingers ter scratch around them plants." + +"Yes, and a pair of old gloves, Marty," agreed Janice, ruefully. + +"Huh! Ain't that a girl all over? Allus have ter be waited on. I wisht +you'd been a boy cousin--I jest _do_! Then we'd git these 'taters done +'fore night." + +"And how about getting the carrots weeded, Marty?" she returned, +laughing at him. + +Marty grunted. But when he finished the second row he threw down his hoe +and disappeared through the garden gate. Janice wondered if he had +deserted her--and the potatoes--for the afternoon; but by and by he +returned, bringing a little three-fingered hand-weeder, and tossed on +the ground beside her a pair of old kid gloves--evidently his mother's. + +"Oh, thank you, Marty!" cried Janice. "I don't mind working, but I hated +to tear my fingers all to pieces." + +"Huh!" grunted Marty. "Ain't that jest like a girl?" + +Grudgingly, however, as his interest in Janice was shown, the girl +appreciated the fact that Marty was warming toward her. Intermittently, +as he plodded up and down the potato rows, they conversed and became +better acquainted. + +"Daddy has a friend who owns a farm outside of Greensboro, and I loved +to go out there," Janice ventured. "I always said I'd love to live on a +farm." + +"Huh!" came Marty's usual explosive grunt. "You'll git mighty tired of +livin' on _this_ one--I bet you!" + +"Why should I? You've got horses, and cows, and chickens, and--and all +that--haven't you?" + +"Well, we've got a pair of nags that you can plow with. But they ain't +fit for driving. Jim Courteval, who lives up the road a piece, now +_he's_ got some hossflesh wuth owning. But our old crowbaits ain't +nothing." + +"Don't you love to take care of them--and brush them--and all that?" +cried the girl, eagerly. + +"Not much I don't! I reckon if old Sam and Lightfoot felt a currycomb +once more they'd have a fit. And you ought to see our cow! Gee! Dad +tried to trade her the other day for a stack of fodder, and the man +wouldn't have her. He'll have ter trade her off 'sight unseen' if he +ever gits rid of her. Ye see, we never _do_ raise feed enough, an' she +certainly come through the winter in bad shape; an' our paster fence is +down in places so we can't let her get the grass." + +"Why, the poor creature!" murmured Janice. "Why don't you mend the +fence, Marty, so the cow can feed in the pasture?" + +"Me? Huh! I guess not," snarled Marty, starting down the potato row +again. "Let the old man do it." + +It was not long after this that Marty got tired of hoeing and threw down +the implement altogether, to seek the shadow of the cherry tree in the +fence corner. + +"Why don't ye quit?" he asked Janice. "You're getting all hot and mucky. +And for what? Them things will only have ter be weeded again." + +Janice laughed. "I'll keep them clean as far as I can go. I won't let a +lot of old weeds beat _me_." + +"Huh! what's the odds?" + +"Why, Marty!" she cried. "Don't you like to see 'a good task well +done?'" + +"Ya-as,--by somebody else," grinned that young hopeful. "Come on an' sit +down, Janice." + +"Haven't got time," laughed his cousin. + +"Pshaw! 'Time was made for slaves'--that's what Walky Dexter says. Say! +let's go up to see the Shower Bath." + +"How about the potatoes?" + +"Shucks! I've done a good stint, ain't I? Dad can't expect me to work +all the time. An' I bet he ain't doin' a livin' thing himself but +settin' down talkin' somewhere." + +Janice, though shaking her head silently, thought this was more than +likely to be true. And Marty would not leave her in peace; so she was +willing to desert the carrot patch. But she had cleaned up quite a piece +of the bed and was proud of it. + +Marty sauntered along by her side as they passed through the barnyard +and paddock. It was plain that what Marty had said about currying the +horses was quite true. The beasts' winter coats still clung to them in +rags. And the poor cow! + +A couple of lean shoats squealed in a pen. + +"What makes them so noisy, Marty?" asked his cousin. + +"I guess they're thirsty. Always squealin' about sumthin'--hogs is. More +nuisance than they're worth." + +"But--I s'pose if _you_ wanted water, you'd squeal?" suggested Janice. + +"Huh! smart, ain't ye?" growled Marty. "I'd go down ter Dickerson's an' +git a drink. So'll them shoats if Dad don't mend that pen pretty soon." + +It was no use to suggest that Marty might make the needed repairs; so +Janice made no further comment. The trail of shiftlessness was over +everything. Fences were down, doors flapped on single hinges, roofs were +caved in, heaps of rubbish lay in corners, here and there broken and +rusted farm implements stood where they had last been used. Neglect and +Decay had marked the Day farm for their own. + +The fields were plowed for corn and partly worked up with the harrow. +But nothing further had been done for several days past, and already the +weeds were sprouting. + +Most of the fences were of stone; but the pasture fence was of three +strands of wire, and with a hammer and staples a good deal might have +been done for it in a few brisk hours. + +"Aw, what's the use?" demanded Marty. "It'd only be down again in a +little while." + +"But the poor cow----" + +"Shucks! She's gone dry long ago. An' I'm glad of it, for Dad made me +milk her." + +The climb through the pasture and the woodlot above it, however, was +pleasant, and when Janice heard the falling water she was delighted. +This was so different from the prairie country to which she was used +that she must needs express her appreciation of its loveliness again and +again. + +"Oh, yes," grunted Marty. "But these rocky old farms are mighty hard to +work. I bet I picked up a million dornicks out o' that upper cornfield +las' month. An' ye plow jest as many out o' the ground ev'ry year. Mebbe +the scenery's pretty upon these here hills; but ye can't _eat_ scenery, +and the crops are mighty poor." + +Over the lip of a smoothly-worn ledge the water sprayed into a granite +basin. The dimpling pool might have been knee-deep, and was as cold as +ice. + +"It's like that the hottest day in August," said Marty. "But it's lots +more fun to go swimmin' in the lake." + +It was late afternoon when they came down the hillside to the old Day +house once more. Mr. Day was puttering around the stables. + +"Ye didn't finish them 'taters, Marty," he complained. + +"Oh, I'll do 'em to-morrer," said the boy. "It most broke my back +a'ready. And did ye see all the carrots we got weeded?" + +"Uh-huh," observed his father. "Lots _you_ had to do with weedin' the +carrots, Marty," he added, sarcastically. + +When Janice went into the house the dinner dishes were still piled in +the sink; yet Aunt 'Mira was already getting supper. She was still +shuffling around the kitchen in her list slippers and the old calico +dress. + +"I declare for't!" she complained. "Seems ter me I never find time to +clean myself up for an afternoon like other women folks does. There's +allus so much ter do in this house. Does seem the beatenes'! An' there +ain't nobody nowheres likes nice clo'es better than I do, Niece Janice. +I use ter dress pretty nifty, if I do say it. But that was a long time +ago, a long time ago. + +"No. Never mind 'em now. I'll wash the hull kit an' bilin' of 'em up +after supper. No use in takin' two bites to a cherry," she added, +referring to the dishes in the sink. + +Janice climbed the stairs to her room, carefully stepping over the +broken tread. There was water in her pitcher, and she made her simple +toilet, putting on a fresh frock. Then she sat down in the rocker by the +window. Every time she swung to and fro the loose rocker clicked and +rattled. + +The red light that heralded the departure of the sun behind the wooded +hills across the lake seemed to make the room and its mismated +furnishings uglier than before. The girl turned her back upon it with +almost a sob, and gazed out upon the terraced hillside and the lake, the +latter already darkening. The shadows on the farther shore were heavy, +but here and there a point of sudden light showed a farmhouse. + +A belated bird, winging its way homeward, called shrilly. The breeze +sobbed in the nearby treetops, and then died suddenly. + +Such a lonely, homesick feeling possessed Janice Day as she had never +imagined before! She was away off here in the East, while Daddy's train +was still flying westward with him, down towards that war-ruffled +Mexico. And she was obliged to stay here--in this ugly old house--with +these shiftless people---- + +"Oh, dear Daddy! I wish you could be here right now," the girl half +sobbed. "I wish you could see this place--and the folks here! I know +what _you'd_ say, Daddy; I know just what you'd say about it all!" + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +'RILL SCATTERGOOD AND HER SCHOOL. + + +With the elasticity of Youth, however, Janice opened her eyes the +following morning on a new world. Certainly the outlook from her window +was glorious; therefore her faith in life itself--and in Poketown and +her relatives--was renewed as she gazed out upon the beautiful picture +fresh-painted by the fingers of Dawn. + +All out-of-doors beckoned Janice. She hurriedly made her toilet, crept +down the squeaking stairs, and softly let herself out, for nobody else +was astir about the old Day house. + +The promise of the morning from the window was kept in full. Janice +could not walk sedately--she fairly skipped. Out of the sagging gate and +up the winding lane she went, her feet twinkling over the dew-wet sod, a +song on her lips, her eyes as bright as the stars which Dawn had +smothered when she tiptoed over the eastern hills. + +And then at a corner of a cross-lane above her uncle's house, Janice +came upon the only other person in Poketown astir as early as +herself--Walkworthy Dexter, who led Josephus, the heavy harness clanking +about the horse's ribs. + +"Ah-ha! I see there's a new _day_," chuckled Mr. Dexter, his pale blue +eyes twinkling. "And how do you find your Uncle Jase? Not what you'd +call a fidgety man, eh? He ain't never stirred up about nothing, Jase +Day ain't. What d'ye think?" + +Janice didn't know just what _to_ think--or, to say, either. + +"Find Jase jest a mite leisurely, don't ye?" pursued the gossipy Dexter. +"I bet a cooky he ain't much like the folks where you come from?" + +"I couldn't give an opinion so soon," said Janice, shyly, not sure that +she liked this fat man any more for the scorn in which he held his +neighbors. + +"There speaks the true Day--slow but sure," laughed Dexter, and went his +way without further comment, leading the bony Josephus. + +But the morning was quite spoiled for Janice. She wondered if her +uncle's townsfolks all held Walkworthy Dexter's opinion of the Day +family? It hurt her pride to be classed with people who were so +shiftless that they were a byword in the community. + +She went back to the house when she saw the smoke curling out of the +chimney below her. Aunt 'Mira was shuffling around the kitchen in slow +preparation for the morning meal. Mr. Day was pounding on the stairs +with a stick of stove-wood, in an endeavor to awaken Marty. + +"That boy sleeps like the dead," he complained. "Marty! Marty!" he +shouted up the stairs, "your marm is waitin' for you to git her a pail +of water." + +Then he started for the stable to feed the stock, without waiting to see +if his young hopeful was coming down, or not. + +"I declare for't!" Aunt 'Mira sighed; "I'm allus bein' put back for +water. I _do_ wish Jason would mend that pump." + +Janice took the empty pail quietly and departed for the neighbor's +premises. It was an old-fashioned sweep-and-bucket well at the +Dickerson's, but Janice managed it. The pail of water was heavy, +however, and she had to change hands several times on her way up the +hill. Marty came yawning to the door just as his cousin appeared. + +He grinned. "You kin git up an' do that ev'ry morning, if ye want to, +Janice," he said. "I won't be jealous if ye do." + +"Ye'd oughter be ashamed, Marty," whined his mother, from the kitchen, +"seein' a gal do yer work for ye." + +"Who made it my work any more'n it's Dad's work?" growled Marty. "And +she didn't have ter do it if she didn't want to." + +Janice did her best to keep to a cheerful tone. "I didn't mind going, +Aunty," she said. "And we'll get breakfast so much quicker. I'm hungry." + +She endeavored to be cheerful and chatty at the breakfast table. But the +very air her relatives breathed seemed to feed their spleen. Mr. Day +insisted upon Marty's finishing the hoeing of the potatoes, and it took +almost a pitched battle to get the boy started. + +Mrs. Day was inclined, after all, to "take sides" with her son against +his father, so the smoke of battle was not entirely dissipated when +Marty had flung himself out of the house to attack the weeds. + +"Ef you'd do a few things yourself when they'd oughter be done, p'r'aps +the boy'd take example of ye," said Mrs. Day, bitterly. + +Her husband reached for his pipe--that never-failing comforter--and made +no reply. + +"Ev'rythin' about the house is goin' to rack an' ruin," pursued the +lady, slopping a little water into the dishpan. "No woman never had to +put up with all _I_ hafter put up with--not even Job's wife! There! all +the water's gone ag'in. I do wish you'd mend that pump, Jason." + +But Jason had departed, and only a faint smell of tobacco smoke trailed +him across the yard. + +Janice tried to help her aunt--and that was not difficult. Almira Day +was no rigid disciplinarian when it came to housekeeping. By her own +confession she frequently satisfied her housewifely conscience by giving +things "a lick and a promise." And anybody who would help her could make +beds and "rid up" as best pleased themselves. Aunt 'Mira was no +housekeeping tyrant--by no means! Consequently she did not interfere +with anything her niece did about the house. + +The upstairs work was done and the sitting room brushed and set to +rights much earlier than was the Day custom. When Janice had done this +she came back to the kitchen, to find her aunt sitting in a creaky +rocker in the middle of the unswept floor and with the dishes only half +washed, deep in a cheap weekly story paper. + +"Why! how smart you be, child! All done? Wa-al, ye see, I gotter wait +for Jason, or Marty, to git me a pail o' water. They ain't neither of +'em been down to the house yit--an' I might's well rest now as any +time." + +It was this way all day long. Aunt Almira was never properly through her +work. Things were always "in a clutter." She did not find time from +morning till night (to hear her tell it) to "clean herself up like other +wimmen." + +Janice helped in the garden again; but Marty was grumpy, and as soon as +the last row of potatoes was hoed he disappeared until supper time. +Uncle Jason was marking a field for corn planting. A harness strap broke +and he was an hour fixing it, while old Lightfoot dragged the rickety +marker into the fence corner and patiently cropped the weeds. Later a +neighbor leaned on the fence, and Uncle Jason gossiped for another hour. + +The girl saw that none of the neighboring housewives came to call on +Aunt 'Mira. In the afternoon she saw several of them exchanging calls up +and down the lane; but they were in fresh print dresses and carried +their needlework, or the like, in their hands, while Aunt 'Mira was +still "down at the heel" and in her faded calico. + +Janice was getting very lonely and homesick. Every hour made the +separation from her father seem harder to bear. And she had scarcely +spoken to a soul save the Days and Walky Dexter since her arrival in +Poketown. Friday noon came, and at dinner Janice desperately broached +the subject of 'Rill Scattergood's school again. + +"I'd love to visit it," she said. "Maybe I'd get acquainted with some of +the girls. I might even attend for the remainder of the term." + +"Huh!" scoffed Marty. "That old maid can't teach ye nothin'." + +"But it would be something to _do_," exclaimed Janice, with vigor. + +"My goodness me, child!" drawled Aunt Almira. "Can't you be content to +jest let things go along easy?" + +"Yer must want sumthin' ter do mighty bad, ter want ter go ter 'Rill +Scattergood's school," was again Marty's scornful comment. + +"Just the same I'm going," declared Janice. "It's not far, is it?" + +"Right up at the edge of town," said her uncle. "They built it there +ter git the young'uns out o' the way. Hard on some of 'em in bad +weather, it's sech a long walk. Some o' these here flighty folks has +been talkin' up a new buildin' an' a new teacher; but taxes is high +enough as they be, _I_ tell 'em!" + +"'Rill Scattergood ain't no sort er teacher," said Mrs. Day. "She didn't +have no sort er control over Marty." + +"Huh!" grunted that young man, "she couldn't teach nothin' ter +nobody--that ol' maid." + +"But 'most of the girls and boys of Poketown go to school to her, don't +they?" asked Janice. + +"Them whose folks can't send 'em to the Middleboro Academy," admitted +her aunt. + +"Then I'm going up to get acquainted after dinner," announced Janice. +"I--I had so many friends in Greensboro--so many, many girls at +school--and some of the boys were real nice--and the teachers--and other +folks. Oh, dear! I expect it's Daddy I miss most of all, and if I don't +pretty soon find something to _do_--something to take a real interest +in--I'll never be able to stand having him 'way down there in Mexico and +me up here, not knowing what's happening to him!" + +The girl's voice broke and the tears stood in her eyes. Her earnestness +made even Marty silent for the moment. Aunt Almira leaned over and +patted her hand. + +"You go on to the school, if ye think ye got to. I'd go with ye an' +introduce ye ter 'Rill Scattergood if I didn't have so much to do. It +does seem as though I allus was behindhand with my work." + +A little later, when Janice, in her neat summer frock and beribboned +shade-hat, passed down Hillside Avenue, she was conscious of a good many +people staring at her--more now than when she had come up the hill with +her uncle several days before. + +Here and there some attempts had been made to grow flowers in the yards, +or to keep neat borders and rake the walks. But for the most part +Hillside Avenue displayed a forlorn nakedness to the eye that made +Janice more than ever homesick for Greensboro. + +The schoolbell had ceased ringing before she turned into High Street and +began to ascend the hill again, so there were no young folks in sight. + +Higher up the main street of Poketown there were few stores, but the +dwellings were no more attractive. Nobody seemed to take any pride in +this naturally beautiful old town. + +Janice realized that she was a mark for all idle eyes. Strangers were +not plentiful in Poketown. + +She came at length in sight of the school. It was set in the middle of a +square, ugly, unfenced yard, without a tree before it or a blooming bush +or vine against its dull red walls. The sun beat upon it hotly, and it +did seem as though the builders must have intended to make school as +hateful as possible to the girls and boys who attended. + +The windows and doors were open, and a hum came from within like that of +a swarming hive of bees. Janice went quietly to the nearest door, +mounted the steps, and looked in. + +She had by chance come to the girls' entrance. The scholars' backs were +toward her and Janice could look her fill without being observed. + +There was a small class reciting before the teacher's desk--droning away +in a sleepy fashion. The older scholars, sitting in the rear of the +room, were mainly busy about their own private affairs; few seemed to be +conning their lessons. + +Several girls were busily braiding the plaits of the girls in front of +them. Two, with very red faces and sparkling eyes, were undeniably +quarreling, and whispering bitter denunciations of each other, to the +amusement of their immediate neighbors. One girl had a bag of candy +which she was circulating among her particular friends. Another had +raised the covers of her geography like a screen, and was busily engaged +in writing a letter behind it, on robin's-egg-blue paper. + +At the far end of the room the teacher, Miss Scattergood, sat at her +flat-topped desk. "That old maid," as Marty had called her, was not at +all the sort of a person--in appearance, at least--that Janice expected +her to be. Somehow, a spinster lady who had taught school--and such a +school as Poketown's--for twenty years, should have fitted the +well-known specifications of the old-time "New England schoolmarm." But +Amarilla Scattergood did not. + +She was a little, light-haired, pink-cheeked lady, with more than a few +claims to personal attractiveness yet left. She had her mother's +birdlike tilt to her head when she spoke, her eyes were still bright, +and her complexion good. + +These facts were visible to Janice even from the doorway. + +When she knocked lightly upon the door-frame, Miss Scattergood looked up +and saw her. A little hush fell upon the school, too, and Janice was +aware that both girls and boys were turning about in their seats to look +at her. + +"Come in," said Miss Scattergood. "Scholars, attention! Eyes forward!" + +She might as well have spoken to the wind that breathed at the open +window and fluttered the papers upon her desk. The older scholars paid +the little school-mistress no attention whatsoever. + +Janice felt some little confusion in passing down the aisle, knowing +herself to be the center of all eyes. Miss Scattergood dismissed the +class before her briefly, and offered Janice a chair on the platform. + +"I guess you're Jason Day's niece," said the teacher, pleasantly, +taking her visitor's hand. "Mother was telling me about you." + +"Yes, Miss Scattergood," Janice replied. "I am Janice Day, and when you +have time I'd love to have you examine me and see where I belong in your +school." + +"You--you are too far advanced for our school," said the little teacher, +with some hesitation and a flush that was almost painful. "Especially if +you came from a place where the schools are graded as in the city." + +"Greensboro has good schools," Janice said. "I was in my junior year at +high." + +"Oh, dear me!" Miss Scattergood cried, hastily. "We don't have any such +system here, of course. The committee doesn't demand it of me. I have to +teach the little folks as well as the big. We go as far as our books +go--that is all." + +She placed several text-books before Janice. It was plain that she was +not a little afraid of her visitor, for Janice was much different from +the staring, "pig-tailed" misses occupying the back seats of the +Poketown school. + +Janice was hungry for young companionship, and she liked little Miss +Scattergood, despite the uncontradicted fact that "she didn't have no +way with her." + +While she conned the text-books the school-mistress had placed before +her, Janice watched proceedings with interest. She had never even heard +of an ungraded country school before, much less seen one. The older +pupils, both girls and boys, seemed to be a law unto themselves; Miss +Scattergood had little control over them. + +The teacher called another class of younger scholars. This class +practically took all of her attention and she did not observe the four +boys who carried on a warfare with "snappers" and "spitballs" in the +back seats; of the predatory campaign of the lanky, white-haired youth +who slid from seat to seat of the smaller boys, capturing tops, marbles, +and other small possessions dear to childish hearts, threatening by +gesture and writhing lips a "slaughter of the innocents" if one of them +dared "tell teacher." + +Few of the older boys were studying, and none of the bigger girls. The +latter were too much interested in Janice. Looking them over, there was +not one of these Poketown girls to whom Janice felt herself attracted. +Some of them giggled as they caught her eye; others whispered together +with the visitor as the evident subject of their secret observations; +and one girl, seeing that Janice was looking at her, actually stuck out +her tongue--a pink flag of scorn and defiance! + +Janice believed that in English, history and mathematics she might +improve by reciting with Miss Scattergood's classes, and she told the +little teacher so. + +"You'll be welcome, I'm sure," said the school-mistress, nervously. "Are +you coming Monday? That's nice," and she shook hands with her as the +visitor arose. + +Janice passed down the girls' aisle again, trying to pick out at least +one of the occupants of the old-fashioned benches who would look as +though she might be chummy and nice; but there was not one. + +"Dear me--dear me!" murmured Janice, when she was outside and stood a +moment to look back at the ugly, red schoolhouse. "It--'it jest +rattles'--_that's_ what it does; like everything about Uncle Jason's, +and like everything about the whole town. That school swings on one +hinge like the gates on Hillside Avenue. + +"Oh, dear me! Poketown is just dreadful--it's dreadful!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +AN AFTERNOON OF ADVENTURE + + +The late spring air, however, was delicious. The trees rustled +pleasantly. The bees hummed and the birds twittered, and altogether +there were a hundred things to charm Janice into extending her walk. +Down at the foot of a side street a bit of water gleamed like a huge +turquoise. There seemed to be no dwellings at the foot of this street, +and Janice, with the whole afternoon before her, felt the tingle of +exploration in her blood. + +Just off High Street was another store. It was in a low-roofed building +shouldering upon the highway, with a two-story cottage attachment at the +back. Two huge trees overshadowed the place and lent a deep, cool shade +to the shaky porch; but the trees made the store appear very gloomy +within. + +Of all the shops Janice had observed in Poketown it seemed that this +little store was the most neglected and woeful looking. Its two show +windows were a lacework of dust and flyspecks. In the upper corners were +ragged spider webs; and in one web lay a gorged spider, too well fed to +pounce on the blue-bottle fly buzzing in the toils within easy pouncing +distance! Only glimpses of a higgledy-piggledy of assorted wares were to +be caught behind the panes. Across the front of the building was a faded +sign reading: + + HOPEWELL DRUGG + GROCERIES AND DRY GOODS + +Nothing about the shop itself would have held Janice Day's attention +even for a moment; but from within (the front door stood ajar) came the +wailing notes of a violin, the uncertain bow of the performer seeking +out the notes of "Silver Threads Among the Gold." + +Yet, with all its uncertainty, the fiddler's touch groped for the beauty +and pathos of the chords: + + "Darling, I am growing old, + Silver threads among the gold." + +Janice heard the haunting sweetness of the tune all the way down the +shaded lane and she wondered who the player might be. + +There was a deep, grass-grown ditch on one side--evidently an open drain +to carry the overflow of water from High Street. As the drain deepened +toward the bottom of the hill, posts had been set and rails laid on top +of them to defend vehicles from pitching into the ditch in the dark. But +many of the rails had now rotted and fallen to the sod, or the nails had +rusted and drawn out, leaving the barrier "jest rattling." + +From a side road there suddenly trotted a piebald pony, drawing a low, +basket phaeton, in which sat two prim, little, old ladies, a fat one and +a lean one. Despite the difference in their avoirdupois the two old +ladies showed themselves to be what they were--sisters. + +The thin one was driving the piebald pony. "Gidap, Ginger!" she +announced, flapping the reins. + +She had better have refrained from waking up Ginger just at that moment. +A fickle breath of wind pounced upon an outspread newspaper lying on the +grass, fluttered it for a moment, and then, getting fairly under the +printed sheet, heaved it into the air. + +Ginger caught a glimpse of the fluttering paper. He halted suddenly, +with all four feet braced and ears forward, fairly snorting his +surprise. As the paper began flopping across the road, he began to back. +The whites of his eyes showed plainly and he snorted again. The +wind-shaken paper utterly dissipated the pony's corn-fed complacency. + +"Oh! Oh! Gidap!" shrieked the thin old lady. + +"He--he's backin' us into the ditch, Pussy," cried her sister. + +"I--I can't help it, Blossom," gasped the driver of the frightened pony. + +The phaeton really was getting perilously near the edge of the +undefended ditch, when Janice ran out beside the pony's head, clutched +at his bridle, and halted him in his mad career. The paper dropped into +the ditch and lay still, and the pony began to nuzzle Janice's hand. + +"Isn't he just cunning!" gasped the girl, turning to look at the two +little old ladies. + +From a nearby house appeared a lath-like man, who strode out to the +road, grinning broadly. + +"Hi tunket! Ye did come purty nigh backin' into the ditch _that_ time, +gals," he cackled. "All right now, ain't ye? That there leetle gal is +some spry. Ginger ain't shown so much sperit since b'fore Adam!" + +"Now, I tell ye, Mr. Cross Moore," declared the driver of the pony, +sharply, "we came very near having a serious accident. And all because +these rails aren't repaired. You're one of the _se_-lect-men and you'd +oughter have sense enough to repair that railin'. Wait till somebody +drives plump into the ditch and the town has a big damage bill to pay." + +"Aw, now, there ain't many folks drives this way," defended Mr. Cross +Moore. + +"There's enough. And think o' Hopewell Drugg's Lottie. She's always +running up and down this lane. Somebody's goin' to pitch head-fust inter +that ditch yet, Cross Moore, an' then you'll be sorry." + +She was a very vigorous-speaking old lady, that was sure. The sister by +her side was of much milder temperament, and she was thanking Janice +very sweetly while the other scolded Selectman Moore. + +"We thank you very much, my dear. You are much braver than _I_ am, for +I'm free to confess I'm afraid of all cattle," said the plump old lady, +in a somewhat shaken voice. "Who are you, my dear? I don't remember +seeing you before." + +"I am Janice Day, Ma'am." + +"Day? You belong here in Poketown? There's Days live on Hillside +Avenue." + +"Yes, Ma'am," confessed Janice. "Mr. Jason Day is my uncle. But I am +Broxton Day's daughter." + +"Why, do tell!" cried the plump little old lady, who had pink cheeks and +the very warmest of warm smiles, as she looked into the girl's hazel +eyes. "See here, Pussy," she cried to her sister. "Do you know who this +little girl turns out to be? She's Brocky Day's girl. Surely you +remember Brocky Day?" + +But "Pussy" was still haranguing the town selectman upon his crimes of +omission and could not give her attention to Janice. + +"Anyhow, dear, won't you come and see us? Pussy's disturbed a mite now; +but she'll love to have you come, too. We live just a little way out o' +town--anybody can tell you where the Hammett Twins live," said this +full-blown "Blossom." "Yes. My sister an' I are twins. And we're fond of +young folks and like to have 'em 'round us. There! Ginger's all right, +Pussy. We can drive on." + +"You'd oughter fix them rails, Cross Moore," repeated the lean sister, +as the old pony started placidly up the hill again. + +Mr. Moore languidly squinted along the staggering barrier. "Wa-al--I +reckon I will--one o' these days," he said. + +He grinned in a friendly way at Janice as she started on. "Them Hammett +gals is reg'lar fuss-bugets," he observed. "But they're nice folks. So +you're Broxton Day's gal? I heard you'd arove. How do you like +Poketown?" + +"I don't know it well enough to say yet, Mr. Moore," returned Janice, +bashfully, as she went down the hill. + +There were no more houses, but great, sweeping-limbed willow trees +shaded the lower range of the hill. She came out, quite suddenly, upon a +little open lawn which edged the lake itself. Here an old dock stuck +its ugly length out into the water--a dock the timbers of which were +blackened as though by a fire, and the floor-boards of which had mostly +been removed. There was but a narrow path out to the end of the wharf. + +Between the wharf and the opposite side of this little bay was a piece +of perfectly smooth water; the softly breathing wind did not ruffle the +bay at all. The long arm of the shore that was thrust out into the lake +was heavily wooded. Rows of dark, almost black, northern spruce stood +shouldering each other on that farther shore, making a perfect wall of +verdure. Their deep shadow was already beginning to creep across the +water toward the old wharf. + +"What a quiet spot!" exclaimed Janice, aloud. + +"'Iet spot!'" breathed the echo from the opposite shore. + +"Why! it's an echo!" cried the startled Janice. + +"'An echo!'" repeated the sprite, in instant imitation of her tone. + +It was then that Janice saw the little girl upon the old wharf. At first +she seemed just a blotch of color upon the old burned timbers. Then the +startled visitor realized that the gaily-hued frock, and sash, and +bonnet, garbed a little girl of perhaps eight or nine years. + +Janice could not see her face. When she rose up from where she had been +sitting and went along the shaking stringpiece of the dock, her back +was still toward the shore. + +Yet her gait--the groping of one hand before her--all the uncertainty +and questioning of her attitude--shot the spectator through with alarm. +The child was blind! More than this, her unguided feet were leading her +directly to the abrupt end of the half ruined wharf! + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LOST THE ECHO + + +Shocked by the discovery of the child's misfortune, Janice scarcely +appreciated at first the peril that menaced the blind girl. It was a +mystery how her unguided feet had brought her so far along the +wharf-beam without catastrophe. But there--just ahead--was the end of +the half-ruined framework. A few more steps and the groping feet would +be over the water. + +With a sudden, stifled cry, Janice darted forward. At that moment the +child halted; but she gave no sign that she was aware of Janice Day's +presence. The child faced the not far-distant line of thickly-ranked +spruce upon the opposite shore of the little inlet, and from her parted +lips there issued a strange, wailing cry: + +"He-a! he-a! he-a!" she repeated, three times; and back into her face +was flung the mocking laughter of the echo. + +Janice had stopped again--held spellbound by wonder and curiosity. The +little girl stood in a listening attitude. + +"He-a! he-a! he-a!" she cried again. + +The obedient echo repeated the cry; but did the blind girl hear it? She +seemed still to be listening. Janice crept on along the broken wharf, +her hand outstretched, her heart beating in her throat. + +The child ventured another step, and, indeed, she stamped upon the beam. +"He-a! he-a! he-a!" she wailed again--a thin, shrill, unchildlike sound +that made Janice shudder. + +The cry was almost one of anger, surely that stamping of her foot +denoted vexation. Janice could see the profile of the child's face, a +sweet, wistful countenance. Her lips moved once more and, in a thin, +flat voice, she murmured over and over again: "I have lost it! I have +lost it!" + +Janice spoke, her own voice shaking: "My dear! do you know it is +dangerous here?" + +Her hand reached to clutch the child's arm if she was startled. A little +misstep would send the blind girl over the edge of the wharf. But it was +Janice who was startled! + +The child gave her not the least attention--she did not hear. Blind and +deaf, and alone upon the shaking, broken timbers of this old wharf! + +She raised her wailing cry again, and then listened for the echo that +she could no longer hear. The older girl's hand was stayed. She dared +not seize the child, for they were both in a precarious place and if the +little one was frightened and tried to wrench away from her, Janice +feared that they might both fall into the lake. + +But the girl from Greensboro thought quickly; and this was an emergency +when quick thought was needed. She remembered having read that blind +people are very susceptible to any vibration or jar. She herself stamped +upon the old wharf-beam, and instantly the child turned toward her. + +"Who is it?" asked the little girl, in a flat, keyless tone. + +"You don't know me, my dear," Janice said, instinctively; then, +remembering the blind eyes as well as the deaf ears, she drew quite +close to the child and gently took her hand. + +The child responded and touched Janice lightly, gropingly. The latter +could see her eyes now--deep, violet eyes, the appearance of which +belied the fact that the light had gone from them. They were neither +dull-looking nor with a film drawn over them. It was very hard indeed to +believe that the little girl was sightless. + +She was flaxen-haired, pink-cheeked, and not too slender. Yet Janice +could not say that she was pretty. Indeed the impression the afflicted +child made upon one was quite the reverse. + +The little hand crept up Janice's arm to her shoulder, touched her hair +and neck lightly, and then the slender fingers passed over the older +girl's face. She did this swiftly, while Janice took her other hand and +with a soft, urgent pressure tried to draw her along. + +But although she seemed so sweet and amenable, Janice did not breathe +freely until they were both off the old wharf. Then she demanded, +quickly: + +"Do they let you come here alone? Where do you live?" + +The little girl did not answer; of course she did not hear. She was +still looking back toward the tall wall of spruce across the inlet, from +which the sharp echo was flung. + +"He-a! he-a! he-a!" she wailed again, and the echo sent back the cry; +but the little girl shook her head. + +"I have lost it! And I don't hear what _you_ say--do I? You can speak, +can't you?" + +Janice squeezed her hand quickly, and the child seemed to accept it as +an affirmative reply. + +"But, you see, I don't hear you," she continued, in that strange, flat +voice. Janice suddenly realized that hearing had much to do with the use +of the vocal cords. It is because we can hear ourselves speak that we +attune our voices to pleasant sounds. This unfortunate child had no +appreciation of the tones that issued from her lips. + +"I used to hear," said the afflicted one. "And I could see, too. Oh, +yes! I haven't forgotten how things look. You know, I'm Lottie Drugg. I +can find my way about. But--but I've lost the echo. I used to hear +_that_ always. I'd run down there to the wharf and shout to the echo, +and it would answer me. But now I've lost it." + +Janice squeezed the little hand again. She found herself weeping, and +yet the child did not complain. But it was plainly an effort for her to +speak. Like most victims of complete deafness, it would not be long +before she would be speechless, too. She "mouthed" her words in a +pitiful way. + +Blind--deaf--approaching dumbness! The thought made Janice suddenly +seize the child in her arms and hug her, tight. + +"Do you love me?" questioned Lottie Drugg, returning the embrace. "I +wish I could hear you. But I can't hear father any more--nor his fiddle; +only when he makes it quiver. Then I know it's crying. Did you know a +fiddle could cry? You come home with me. Father will play the fiddle for +you, and _you_ can hear it." + +Janice did not know how to reply. There was so much she wished to say to +this poor little thing! But her quick mind jumped to the conclusion that +the child belonged to the person whom she had heard playing the violin +as she came down from High Street--the unknown musician in the store +above the door of which was the faded sign of "Hopewell Drugg." + +She squeezed the little girl's hand again and it seemed to suffice. + +"I know the way. My feet are in the path now," said little Lottie, +scuffling her slipper-shod feet about on the narrow footpath. "Yes! I +know the way now. The sun is behind us. Come," and she put forth her +hand, caught Janice's again, and urged her along the bank of the lake to +the foot of the lane down which the girl from Greensboro had wandered. + +Up the hill they went, Janice marveling that Lottie could be so +confident of the way. She seldom hesitated, and Janice allowed herself +to be led. Mr. Cross Moore was still smoking his pipe out in front of +his house. + +"I calkerlate that child's goin' to be drowned-ed some day," he said +calmly, to Janice. "Jest a marcy that she ain't done it afore now. An' +Hopewell--Huh! him sittin' up there fiddlin'----" + +It seemed to Janice as though a spirit of criticism had entered into all +the Poketownites. There was Walky Dexter scoffing at her Uncle Jason; +and here was Selectman Moore criticising the father of little Lottie. +Yet neither critic, as far as Janice could see, set much of an example +for his townsmen to follow! + +Lottie, with her hand in the bigger girl's, tripped along the walk as +confidently as though she had her eyesight. She was an affectionate +little thing, and she "snuggled" closely to Janice, occasionally +touching her new friend's face and lips with her free hand. + +"I guess I love you," she said, in her strange, little, flat voice. "You +come in and see father. We are most there. Here is Mis' Robbins' gate. I +used to see her flowers. Her yard's full of them, isn't it?" + +"Oh, yes!" replied Janice, fighting her inclination to burst into tears. +"Oh, yes, dear! beautiful flowers." She pressed the hand tightly. + +"I can smell 'em," said the child, snuffing with her nose like a dog. +"And now here is the shade of our big trees. It's darker and cooler +under these trees than anywhere else on the street. Isn't it?" + +Janice agreed by pressing her hand again, and little Lottie +laughed--such a shrill, eyrie little laugh! They were before the +gloomy-looking store of Hopewell Drugg. The wailing of the fiddle +floated out upon the warm afternoon air. + +The blind girl tripped up the steps of the porch and in at the open +door. "Silver Threads Among the Gold" came to a sharp conclusion. + +"Merciful goodness!" croaked a frightened voice. "I thought you was +asleep in your bed, Lottie." + +Janice had followed the little girl to the doorway. She saw but dimly +the store itself and the shelves of dusty merchandise. From the back +room where he had been sitting with his violin, a gray, thin, +dusty-looking man came quickly and seized Lottie in his arms. + +"Child! child! how you frighten me!" he murmured. Then he looked over +the little girl's head and blinked through his spectacles at Janice in +the doorway. + +"I'm certainly obliged to ye," he said. "She--she gets away from the +house and I don't know it. I--I can't watch her all the time and she +ain't got no mother, Miss. I certainly am obliged to ye for bringing her +home." + +"She was down on the old wharf at the foot of the street, trying to wake +the echo from the woods across the inlet," said Janice, gravely. + +The gray man hugged his daughter tightly, and his eyes blinked like an +owl's in strong daylight, as he peered through his spectacles at Janice. +"She--she loved to go there--always," he murmured. "I go with her +Sundays--and when the store is closed. But she is so quick--in a flash +she is out of my sight." + +"Can--can nothing be done for her?" questioned Janice, in a whisper. + +"She cannot hear you--now," said Hopewell Drugg, gloomily, shaking his +head. "And the doctors here tell me she is almost sure to be dumb, too. +If I could only get her to Boston! There's a school for such as her, +there, and specialists, and all. But it would cost a pile of money." + +"You play the fiddle, father," commanded little Lottie. "And make it +quiver--make it cry, father! Then _I_ can hear it." + +He set her down carefully, still shaking his head. Her strange little +voice kept repeating: "Play for her, father! Play for her, father!" + +Hopewell Drugg picked up the violin and bow from the end of the counter. +He leaned against the counter and tucked the violin under his chin. +There was only a brown light in the dusky store, and the dust danced in +the single band of sunlight that searched out a knot hole in the wall of +the back room--the shed between the store proper and the cottage in the +rear. + + "Darling, I am growing old, + Silver threads among the gold----" + +The old violin wailed out the tune haltingly. The deaf and blind child +caught the tremulo of the final notes, and she danced up and down and +clapped her little hands. + +"I can hear that! I can hear that!" she muttered, her lips writhing to +form the sounds. + +Janice felt the tears suddenly blinding her. "I'll come back and see you +again--indeed I will!" she said, brokenly, and hugging and kissing +little Lottie impetuously, she released her and ran out of the ugly, +dark little store. + +It is doubtful if Hopewell Drugg even heard her. The violin was still +wailing away, while he searched out slowly the minor notes of the old, +old song. + +[Illustration: The old violin wailed out the tune haltingly.] + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +A BIT OF ROMANCE + + +"Hopewell Drugg? Ya-as," drawled Aunt Almira. "He keeps store +'crosstown. He's had bad luck, Hopewell has. His wife's dead--she didn't +live long after Lottie was born; and Lottie--poor child!--must be eight +or nine year old." + +"Poor little thing!" sighed Janice, who had come home to find her aunt +just beginning her desultory preparations for supper, and had turned in +to help. "It is so pitiful to see and hear her. Does she live all alone +there with her father?" + +"I reckon Hopewell don't do business enough so's he could hire a +housekeeper. They tell me he an' the child live in a reg'lar mess! Ain't +fittin' for a man to keep house by hisself, nohow; and of course Lottie +can't do much of nothing." + +"Is he an old man?" queried Janice. "I couldn't see his face very well." + +"Lawsy! he ain't what you'd call old--no," said Aunt 'Mira. "Now, let me +see; he married 'Cinda Stone when he warn't yit thirty. There was some +talk of him an' 'Rill Scattergood bein' sweet on each other onc't; but +that was twenty year ago, I do b'lieve. + +"Howsomever, if there _was_ anythin' betwixt Hopewell and 'Rill, I +reckon her mother broke up the match. Mis' Scattergood never had no use +for them Druggs. She said they was dreamers and never did amount to +nothin'. Mis' Scattergood's allus been re'l masterful." + +Janice nodded. She could imagine that the birdlike old lady she had met +on the boat could be quite assertive if she so chose. + +"Anyhow," said Aunt 'Mira, reflectively, "Hopewell stopped shinin' about +'Rill all of a sudden. That was the time Mis' Scattergood was widdered +an' come over here from Middletown to live with 'Rill. + +"I declare for't! 'Rill warn't sech an old maid then. She was right +purty, if she _had_ been teachin' school some time. Th' young men use +ter buzz around her in them days. + +"But when she broke off with Hopewell, she broke off with all. Hopewell +was spleeny about it--ya-as, indeed, he was. He soon took up with +'Cinda--jest as though 'twas out o' spite. Anyhow, 'fore any of us +knowed it, they'd gone over to Middletown an' got married. + +"'Cinda Stone was a right weakly sort o' critter. Of course Hopewell was +good to her," pursued Aunt 'Mira. "Hopewell Drugg is as mild as +dishwater, anyhow. He'd be perlite to a stray cat." + +Janice was interested--she could not help being. Miss Scattergood, it +seemed to her, was a pathetic figure; and the girl from Greensboro was +just at an age to appreciate a bit of romance. The gray, dusty man in +the dark, little store, playing his fiddle to the child that could only +hear the quivering minor tones of it, held a place in Janice's thought, +too. + +"What do you do Saturday mornings, Marty?" asked the visitor, at the +breakfast table. Janice had already been to the Shower Bath and back, +and the thrill of the early day was in her veins. Only a wolfish +appetite had driven her indoors when she smelled the pork frying. + +Marty was just lounging to his seat,--he was almost always late to +breakfast,--and he shut off a mighty yawn to reply to his cousin: + +"Jest as near like I please as kin be." + +"Saturday afternoon, where I came from, is sort of a holiday; but +Saturday morning everybody tries to make things nice about the yard--fix +flower-beds, rake the yard, make the paths nice, and all that." + +"Huh!" grunted Marty. "That's work." + +"No, it isn't. It's fun," declared Janice, brightly. + +"What's the good?" demanded the boy. + +"Why, the folks in Greensboro vie with each other to see who shall have +the best-looking yard. Your mother hasn't many flowers----" + +"Them dratted hens scratch up all the flowers I plant," sighed Aunt +'Mira. "I give up all hopes of havin' posies till Jason mends the +henyard fence." + +"Now you say yourself the hens only lay when they're rangin' around, +'Mira," observed Uncle Jason, mildly. + +"Ya-as. They lay," admitted Aunt 'Mira. "But I don't git more'n ha'f of +what they lay. They steal their nests so. Ol' Speckle brought off a +brood only yesterday. I'd been wonderin' where that hen was layin' for a +month." + +"But, anyway, we can rake the yard and trim the edges of the walk," +Janice said to Marty. + +"Ya-as, we kin," admitted Marty, grinning. "But will we?" + +Janice, however, never lost her temper with this hobbledehoy cousin. +Marty could be coaxed, if not driven. After breakfast she urged him out +to the shed, and they overhauled the conglomeration of rusted and +decrepit hand tools, which had been gathered by Uncle Jason during forty +years of desultory farming. + +"Here're three rakes," said Marty. "All of 'em have lost teeth, an'--Hi +tunket! that one's got a broken handle." + +"But there are two which are usable," laughed Janice. "Come on, Marty. +Let's rake the front yard all over. You know it will please your +mother. And then you can tote the rubbish away in the wheelbarrow while +I trim the edges of the front walk." + +"Huh! we don't never use that front walk. Nobody ever comes to our front +door," said Marty. + +"And there's a nice wide porch there to sit on pleasant evenings, too," +cried Janice. + +"Huh!" came Marty's famous snort of derision. "The roof leaks like a +sieve and the floor boards is rotted. Las' time the parson came to call +he broke through the floor an' come near sprainin' his ankle." + +"But I thought Uncle Jason was a carpenter, too?" murmured Janice, +hesitatingly. + +"Well! didn't ye know that carpenters' roofs are always leakin' an' that +shoemakers' wives go barefoot?" chuckled Marty. "Dad says he'll git +'round to these chores sometime. Huh!" + +Nevertheless, Marty set to work with his cousin, and that Saturday +morning the premises about the old Day house saw such a cleaning up as +had not happened within the memory of the oldest inhabitant along +Hillside Avenue. There was a good sod of grass under the rubbish. The +lawn had been laid down years and years before, and the grass was rooted +well and the mould was rich and deep. All the old place wanted was a +"chance," for it to become very pretty and homelike. + +Marty, however, declared himself "worked to a frazzle" and he +disappeared immediately after the noon meal, for fear Janice would find +something more for him to do. + +"Wal, child, it does look nice," admitted Aunt Almira, coming to view +the front yard. "And you _do_ have a way with Marty." + +"Just the same," giggled Janice, "he doesn't like girls." + +"Sho, child! he doesn't know _what_ he likes--a boy like him," returned +her aunt. + +Sunday was a rainy day, and Janice felt her spirits falling again. It +really rained too hard at church time for her to venture out; but she +saw that her relatives seldom put themselves out to attend church, +anyway. Walky Dexter appeared in an oilskin-covered cart, drawn by +Josephus (who actually looked water-soaked and dripped from every +angle), delivering the Sunday papers, which came up from the city. The +family gave up most of their time all day to the gaudy magazine +supplements and the so-called "funny sections" which were a part of +these sheets. + +Janice finally retired to her depressing bedroom and wrote a long letter +to her father which she tried to make cheerful, but into which crept a +note of loneliness and disappointment. It wasn't just like talking to +Daddy himself; but it seemed to help some. + +It enabled her, too, to write shorter letters to friends back in +Greensboro and she managed to hide from them much of her homesickness. +She could write of the beauty of Poketown itself; for it was beautiful. +It was only the people who were so--well! so _different_. + +Janice welcomed Monday morning. Although she had nearly completed her +junior year at the Greensboro High School, and knew that she would not +gain much help from Miss Scattergood, the girl loved study and she hoped +that the Poketown girls would prove to be better companions than they +had appeared when she had visited the school. + +So she started for the old red schoolhouse in quite a cheerful frame of +mind, in spite of Marty's prophecy that "she'd soon git sick o' that old +maid." It was not Miss Scattergood that Janice had reason to be "sick +of!" The stranger in Poketown had to admit before the day was over that +she had never in her life dreamed of such ill-bred girls as some of +these who occupied the back seats in 'Rill Scattergood's school. + +They had no respect for the little school-teacher, and had Miss +Scattergood taken note of all their follies she must have been in a +pitched battle with her older pupils all the time. Some of these +ill-behaved girls were older than Janice by many months; and they +plainly did not come to school to study or to learn. They passed notes +back and forth to some of the older boys all day long; when Miss +Scattergood called on them to recite, if they did not feel just like +it, they refused to obey; and of course their example was bad for the +smaller children. + +Janice had determined to join such classes as were anywhere near her +grade in her old school. But when she arose to accompany one class to +the line in front of the teacher's desk, the girls who had started +giggled and ran back to their seats, leaving the new pupil standing +alone, with blazing cheeks, before Miss Scattergood. They would not +recite with her. At recess when Miss Scattergood tried to introduce +Janice to some of the girls, there were but a few who met her in a +ladylike manner. + +They seemed to think Janice must be stuck up and proud because she had +come from another town. One girl--Sally Black--tripped forward in a most +affected style, gave Janice a "high handshake," saying "How-do! chawmed +ter meet yuh, doncher know!" and the other girls went off into gales of +laughter as though Sally was really excruciatingly funny. + +Janice was hurt, but she tried not to show it. Miss Scattergood was very +much annoyed, and her eyes sparkled behind her glasses, as she said, +sharply: + +"I really did hope you girls could be polite and kind to a stranger who +comes to your school. I am ashamed of you!" + +"Don't let it bother you, Scatty," returned the impudent Sally. "We +don't want anything to do with your pet," and she tossed her head, +looked scornfully at Janice, and walked away with her abettors. + +"I never did take ter them Blacks," declared Aunt Almira, when Janice +related to her the unpleasant experience she had suffered at school, on +her return that afternoon. "And Sally's mother, who was a Garrity, came +of right common stock. + +"Ye see, child," added Mrs. Day, with a sigh, "I expect ye won't find +many of the children that go ter that school much ter your likin'. 'Rill +Scattergood ain't got no way with her, as I sez before; an' folks that +can afford it have got in the habit o' sendin' their young'uns over to +Middletown School. Walky Dexter takes 'em in a party waggin, and brings +'em back at night." + +"But there must be some nice girls in Poketown!" cried Janice. + +"Ya-as--I guess there be. But wait till I kin git around an' interduce +ye to 'em." + +This promise, however, offered Janice Day but sorry comfort. If she +waited for Aunt Almira to take her about she certainly _would_ die of +homesickness! + +But she refused to be driven out of the Poketown School by the +unkindness and discourtesy of the larger girls. Her unpopularity, +however, made her respond the more quickly to 'Rill Scattergood's +advances. + +The school-teacher showed plainly that she appreciated Janice's +friendliness. Janice brought her luncheon and ate it with the teacher. +They walked down High Street together after school, and on Friday the +pretty little school-mistress invited the new girl home for tea. + +"Mother wants to see you again. Mother's took quite a fancy to you, +Janice--and that's a fact," said Miss 'Rill. + +"Of course, we're only boarding; but Mrs. Beasely--she's a widow +lady--makes it very homey for us. If mother stays we're going to +housekeeping ourselves. And I believe I _shall_ give up teaching school. +I'm really tired of it." + +Janice gladly accepted the invitation, and she bribed one of the +youngsters with a nickel to run around to Hillside Avenue and tell Aunt +Almira where she was. + +Miss 'Rill's boarding place was on the same side street where was +located Hopewell Drugg's store. Janice had thought often of poor little +Lottie and her father during this week; but as they neared the store and +she heard the wailing notes of the man's violin again, she felt a little +diffident about broaching the subject of the storekeeper and his child +to the school-mistress. It was Miss Scattergood herself who opened the +matter. + +She half halted and held up her hand for silence, as she listened to +"Silver Threads Among the Gold." + +"That's a dreadful pretty tune, I think," she said. "It used to be awful +pop'lar when--when I came here to Poketown to teach school." + +"Mr. Drugg likes it, I guess," said Janice, lightly. "I've heard him +play it before." + +"Have you?" queried Miss 'Rill, with that little birdlike tilt of her +head. "So you know Mr. Drugg--and poor little Lottie?" + +"I've met them both--once," admitted the girl. + +"Ah! then you know how little Lottie is to be pitied?" + +"And isn't he to be pitied, too?" Janice could not help but ask. + +Miss 'Rill blushed--such a becoming blush as it was, too! She answered +honestly: "I think so. Poor Hopewell! And I think he plays the fiddle +real sweet, too. + +"But don't say anything before mother about him. Mr. Drugg's never been +one of ma's favorites," added the teacher, earnestly. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +TEA, AND A TALK WITH DADDY + + +As it chanced, it was old Mrs. Scattergood herself who broached the +forbidden topic, almost as soon as Miss 'Rill and Janice were in the +house. + +"What do you suppose that great gump, Hopewell Drugg, let his young'un +do to-day, 'Rill? I was tellin' Miz' Beasely that it did seem to be +_one_ mistake that Providence must ha' made, ter let that Drugg an' +'Cinda Stone have a gal baby--'specially if 'Cinda was goin' ter up and +die like she done and leave the young'un to his care. Seems a shame, +too." + +"Why, mother! That doesn't sound a bit reverent," objected Miss 'Rill, +softly. "Nor kind." + +"Pshaw!" snorted the old lady. "You allus was silly as a goose about +that Drugg. Sech shiftlessness I never did see. There the young'un was, +out in a white dress an' white kid shoes this mornin'--her best, +Sunday-go-ter-meetin' clo'es, I'll be bound!--sittin' on the aidge o' +that gutter over there, makin' a mud dam! Lucky yesterday's rain has +run off now, or she'd be out there yet, paddlin' in the water." + +"I don't s'pose Hopewell knew of it," said the younger woman, timidly. +"The poor little thing can dress herself, blind as she is. It's quite +wonderful how she gets about." + +"She ain't got no business to be out of his sight," grumbled Mrs. +Scattergood. + +Miss 'Rill sighed and shook her head, looking at Janice with a little +nod of understanding. She changed the subject of talk quickly. The old +lady began at once on Janice, "pumping" her as to her interests in +Poketown, how she liked her relatives, and all. Then Mrs. Beasely, a +very tall, angular figure in severe black, appeared at the sitting-room +door and invited them in to supper. + +Mrs. Beasely was a famous cook and housekeeper. She was a very grim +lady, it seemed to Janice, and the enlarged crayon portrait of Mr. +Beasely, its frame draped with crape, which glared down upon the +groaning table in the dining-room, almost took the girl's appetite away. + +Fortunately, however, the widow insisted upon facing the portrait of her +departed husband, and Janice was back to him, so she recovered her +appetite. And Mrs. Beasely's "tea", or "supper" as old-fashioned folks +called the meal, was worthy of a hearty appetite. + +Among old-fashioned New England housekeepers a "skimpy" +table--especially when a visitor is present--is an unpardonable sin. +There was hot bread and cold bread, sour-milk griddle cakes, each of a +delicious golden brown with crisp edges, buttered, sugared, and stacked +in tempting piles; sliced cold ham and corned beef; a hot dish of smoked +beef and scrambled eggs; two kinds of jelly, and three kinds of +preserves; plain and frosted cake, and last of all the inevitable pie +and cheese. + +With all this banquet Mrs. Beasely dared raise a moist eye to the grim +crayon of the departed, and observe: + +"I don't know what poor Charles would say to such a smeachin' supper, if +he was alive. Oh, me! it does seem as though I didn't have no heart for +cookery no more since he ain't here ter sample my work. A man's a gre't +spur to a woman in her housekeepin'." + +"Good Land o' Goshen!" ejaculated the outspoken Mrs. Scattergood. "I +count 'em a gre't nuisance. If a body didn't have no men folks to 'tend +to she could live on bread an' tea--if she so liked. + +"Not but what I 'preciate a good lay-out of vittles like this o' yourn, +Miz' Beasely. But thank the good Lord! I ain't been the slave to no +man's appetite for goin' on fourteen year. An' that's about all men air, +come ter think on it--a pair of muddy boots an' an unquenchable +appetite!" + +Mrs. Beasely looked horrified, shaking her widow's cap. "Poor Charles +wasn't nothin' like that," she declared, softly. + +"An' I don't s'pose a worse husband ever lived in Poketown," whispered +the pessimistic old lady, when the widow had gone out of the room for +something. "He's been dead ten year, ain't he, 'Rill?" + +"About that, mother," admitted the school-teacher. + +"An' I expect ev'ry year she makes more of a saint of him. I declare +for't! sech wimmen oughter be made to marry ag'in. Nothin' but a second +one will cure 'em of their fust!" + +Mainly Janice and her friend, the little school-teacher, were engaged in +their own particular conversation. The girl spent a very pleasant hour +after tea, too, and started home just as dusk was dropping over the +hillside town. + +There was a light in Hopewell Drugg's store. He never seemed to have +customers--or so it appeared to Janice. She hesitated a moment to peer +into the gloomy place--more a mausoleum than a store!--and saw Hopewell +leaning against the counter, while Lottie, in her pink sash and white +dress, and the kid boots, sat upon it and leaned against her father +while he scraped out some weird minor chords upon the fiddle. + +Marty had come down the lane to the corner of High Street to meet +Janice. Of course, he wouldn't admit that he had done so; but he +happened to be right there when his cousin put in an appearance. There +were no street lights on Hillside Avenue, and Janice was glad of his +company. + +"Huh! ain't yer gittin' pop'lar?" croaked the boy, grinning at her. "An' +goin' ter 'Rill Scattergood's ter supper. Ye must ha' had a fine time--I +don't think!" + +"Of course I had a nice time," laughed Janice. + +"With that old maid," scoffed Marty. + +"Say, Marty, would you go to school again if they had a different +teacher?" queried Janice. + +"'Course I would!" returned the boy, stoutly. + +"Maybe next Fall they'll have another one. Miss Scattergood talks of +giving up teaching." + +"I should think she would!" exploded Marty. "But she won't. You'll see. +She'll be teachin' Poketown school when she has ter go on crutches." + +The next day, after Janice had inveigled Marty into spending most of his +forenoon in the yard and garden (and the latter was beginning to look +quite like a real garden by now), the girl went shopping. Most of the +stores were "general" stores, and she did not believe there was much +choice between them. Only she had an interest in Hopewell Drugg; so she +proceeded to his dark little shop. + +Lottie sat upon a box nursing a rag doll, in the sunlight that came in +at the side door. She was crooning to herself a weird little song, and +rocking back and forth upon the box. Mr. Drugg seemed to be out. + +Janice walked the length of the store very quietly, and the child did +not apprehend her approach. But when she stepped upon one of the boards +of the back-room floor, little Lottie felt the vibration and looked up, +directly at Janice, with her pretty, sightless eyes. + +"Papa Drugg be right back; Papa Drugg be right back," she said, forming +the phrase with evident difficulty. + +Janice went close to her and laid a hand upon Lottie's shoulder. The +little girl caught at it quickly, ran her slim fingers up her arm to her +shoulder and so, jumping up from the box, felt of Janice's face, too. +The latter stooped and kissed her. + +"I know you--I know you," murmured the child. "You came home from the +lake with me. I was trying to find my echo. Did _you_ find it?" + +Janice squeezed her hand, and she seemed to understand the affirmative. + +"Then it's really _there_?" she sighed. "It's only _me_ that's lost it. +Well--well--Do you think I can ever find it again?" + +Janice squeezed the hand firmly, and she put into that affirmative all +the confidence which could possibly be thus expressed. She did not +believe it to be wrong to raise hope of again hearing in the poor +child's heart. + +Mr. Drugg came in from the back, wiping his hands and forearms of soapy +water. He had evidently been engaged in some household task. Upon closer +acquaintance he was improved, so Janice thought. He possessed the long, +thin, New England features; but there was a certain calm in their +expression that was attractive. His gray eyes were brooding, and there +were many crow's-feet about them; nevertheless, they were kindly eyes +with a greater measure of intelligence in them than Janice had expected +to find. + +It proved that Hopewell had a considerable stock upon his dusty shelves; +but how he managed to find anything that a customer called for was a +mystery to Janice. She selected the few notions that she needed; and as +she did so she just _ached_ to get hold of that stock of dry goods and +straighten it out. + +And the dust--and the flyspecks--and the jumble of useless scraps among +the newer stock! The interior of that old store was certainly a +heart-breaking sight. Two side windows that might have given light and +air to the place were fairly banked up with merchandise. And when had +either of the show windows been properly "dressed"? + +However, Mr. Drugg was an attentive salesman and he really knew his +stock very well. It mystified Janice to see how quickly he could find +the article wanted in that conglomeration. + +She remained a while to play with Lottie. Drugg came to look fondly at +the little girl putting her rag-baby to sleep in a soap-box crib. + +"She's just about ruined that dress and them shoes, I shouldn't wonder," +mused the storekeeper. "But I forgot to put out her everyday clo'es +where she could find them yesterday morning. There's so much to do all +the time. Well!" He drew the violin and bow toward him and sighed. No +other customer came into the store. Drugg tucked the fiddle under his +chin and began to scrape away. + +Lottie jumped up and clapped her little hands when he struck a chord +that vibrated upon her nerves. There she stood, with her little, +up-raised face flooded by the spring sunshine, which entered through the +side doorway, a gleam of pleasure passing over her features when she +felt the vibration of the minor notes. They were deeply engaged, those +two--the father with his playing, the child in striving to catch the +tones. + +Janice gathered up her few small purchases and stole out of the old +store. + +It was more than a week later when Marty came home to supper one night +and grinned broadly at his cousin. + +"What d'ye s'pose I've got for you, Janice?" he asked. + +His cousin flashed him a single comprehending look, and then her face +went white. + +"Daddy!" she gasped. "A letter from Daddy?" + +"Aw, shucks! ain't there nothin' else you want?" the boy returned, +teasingly. + +"Not so much as a talk with Daddy," she declared, breathlessly. "And +that's almost what a letter will be. Dear Marty! If you've got a letter +from him do, _do_ let me have it!" + +"Don't you torment Janice now, Marty," cried his mother. "I hope he is +all right, Janice. Is it writ in his own hand, Marty?" + +"I dunno," said the plaguesome boy, looking at the address covertly. "It +is postmarked 'Juarez'." + +"Oh, yes! oh, yes!" cried Janice. "He would send it down there to be +mailed. So he said. Mail service up in Chihuahua is so uncertain. Oh, +Marty! p-l-e-a-s-e!" + +"You give her that, Marty!" commanded Mr. Day. + +Janice snatched the letter when the boy held it out to her; but she +flashed Marty a "Thanks, awfully!" as she ran out of the room and +upstairs. Supper? What did she care for supper? In the red light of the +sunset she sat by the window in her room and read Mr. Broxton Day's +loving letter. + +It _was_ almost like seeing and talking with Daddy! Those firm, flowing +lines of black ink, displaying character and firmness and decision, +looked just like Daddy himself! Janice kissed the open page +ecstatically, and then began to read: + + "DEAR DAUGHTER: + + "The several thousand miles that separate us seem very short + indeed when I sit down to write my little Janice. I can see + her standing right before me in this barren, corrugated-iron + shack--which would have been burned the last time a bunch of + the Constitutionalists swept through these hills, only iron + will not burn. If a party of Federal troops come along they + may try to destroy our plant, too. Just at the present time + the foreigner, and his property, are in no great favor with + either party of belligerents. The cry is 'Mexico for the + Mexicans'--and one can scarcely blame them. But although I + have seen a little fighting at a distance, and plenty of the + marks of battle along the railroad line as I came up here, I + do not think I am as yet in any great danger. + + "Therefore, my dear, do not worry too much about your + father's situation. At the very moment you are worrying he + may be eating supper, or hobnobbing with a party of very + courteous and hospitable ranch owners, or fishing in a + neighboring brook where the trout are as hungry as shoats at + feeding time, or otherwise enjoying himself. + + "And so, now, to you and your letter which reached me by + one of my messengers from Juarez, by whom I shall send this + reply. Yes, I knew you would find yourself among a people as + strange to you as though they were inhabitants of another + planet. Relatives though they are, they are so much + different from our friends in and about Greensboro, that I + can understand their being a perfect shock to you. + + "I was afraid Jason and Almira lived a sort of shiftless, + hopeless, get-along-the-best-way-you-can life. When I left + Poketown twenty-five years ago I thought it had creeping + paralysis! It must be worse by this time. + + "But _you_ keep alive, Janice, my dear. Keep kicking--like + the frog in the milk-can. _Do something._ Don't let the + poison of laziness develop in _your_ blood. If they're in a + slack way there at Jason's, help 'em out of it. Be your + Daddy's own girl. Don't shirk a plain duty. _Do something + yourself, and make others do something, too!_" + +There was much in Mr. Broxton Day's letter beside this; there were +intimate little things that Janice would have shown to nobody; but +downstairs she read aloud all Daddy's jolly little comments upon the +country and the people he saw; and about his eating beans so frequently +that he dreamed he had turned into a gigantic Boston bean-pot that was +always full of steaming baked beans. "They are called 'frijoles'," he +wrote; "but a bean by any other name is just the same!" + +The paragraphs that impressed Janice most, however, as repeated above, +she likewise kept to herself. Daddy had expected she would find Poketown +just what it was. Yet he expected something of her--something that +should make a change in her relatives, and in Poketown itself. + +He expected Janice to _do something_. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +BEGINNING WITH A BEDSTEAD + + +Janice got up and took her usual before-breakfast run the next morning. +The Days remained the last family to rise in the neighborhood. The smoke +from the broken kitchen chimney crawled heavenward long after the fires +in other kitchen-stoves had burned down to hot coals. + +So when the girl got back to the house, Aunt 'Mira had scarcely begun +getting the meal. Janice rummaged about in the tool-shed for some +minutes before she went upstairs to her room again. Marty crawled down, +yawning, and started for the usual morning pail of water from the +neighbor's well. Mr. Day was smoking on the bench outside of the kitchen +door. The pork began to hiss in the pan. + +Suddenly, from upstairs, came a noisy pounding. Nail after nail was +being driven with confidence and dispatch. + +"For the land's sake!" gasped Aunt 'Mira, looking up from the stove, a +strip of pork hanging from her up-raised fork. + +Uncle Jason took his pipe from his lips and screwed his neck around so +as to look in at the door. + +"What d'you reckon that gal's up to?" he demanded. + +Marty came back from the Dickerson's at almost a lope. "What in +'tarnation is Janice doin' up in her room?" he queried, slopping the +water as he put the pail hurriedly upon the shelf. + +"I haven't the least idea what it can be," said Mrs. Day, almost aghast. + +"By jinks!" exclaimed the slangy boy. "I wanter see. By jinks! she +socked that nail home--she did!" + +The whole house rang with the vigor of Janice's blows. Marty started up +the stairs in a hurry, and Mr. Day followed him. Mrs. Day came to the +foot of the stairs with the piece of pork still dangling from her fork. + +Marty reached his cousin's door and banged it open without as much as +saying "By your leave." + +"Hullo! What you doin'?" demanded the boy. + +"Can't you _see_?" returned Janice, coolly. "I got sick of being rocked +to sleep every night on that old soap-box. I'll wager, Marty, that this +leg will stay put when I get through with it." + +"Wal! of all things!" grunted Mr. Day, with his head poked in at the +open door. + +"What's Janice doing?" demanded his wife, too heavy to mount the stairs +easily. + +Uncle Jason turned about and descended the flight without replying to +his wife; but at her reiterated cry Marty explained. + +"Ain't that gal a good 'un?" said the boy. "She's gone and put on the +old leg to that bedstead. That's been broke off ever since you cleaned +house last Fall, Maw." + +"Oh! Well! Is that it?" repeated Mrs. Day. Then, when she and her +husband were alone in the kitchen, before the young folk came down, she +said, pointing the fork at him: "I declare for't! I'd feel ashamed if I +was you, Jason Day." + +"What for?" demanded her husband, scowling. + +"Lettin' Broxton's gal do that. You could ha' tacked on that leg forty +times if you could once. Ain't that true?" + +But Mr. Day refused to quarrel. He took a long drink from the pail of +fresh water Marty had brought. Then he said, tentatively: + +"Breakfast most ready, Almiry? I'm right sharp-set." + +When Janice and Marty came down they were not talking of the bedstead at +all. But Aunt 'Mira was rather gloomy all through the meal, and looked +accusingly at her husband every time she heaped his plate with pork, and +cakes, and "white gravey." + +Mr. Day quite ignored these looks. He was even chatty--for him--with +Janice. It was a school day, and Janice hurried to put on her hat and +get her school bag, into which she slipped the luncheon that her aunt +very kindly put up for her. Aunt 'Mira had really begun to "put herself +out" for her niece, and the luncheon was always tasty and nicely +arranged. + +"Wait for me, Marty!" she cried, as her cousin was sliding out of the +door in his usual attempt to get away unobserved, and so not be called +back for any unexpected chores. + +"Aw, come on! A gal's always behind--like a cow's tail!" growled the +chivalrous Marty. "What you want?" + +Janice gave him a quarter of a dollar secretly. "Now, you get that pump +leather and you bring it home this noon. Just put it on the table by +your father's plate," she commanded. "You going to do it for me?" + +"Sure," grinned Marty. "And I'll see that he don't lose it, nuther. I +know Dad. He'll need more than _that_ suggestion to git him started on +that old pump." + +"We'll try," sighed Janice; and then Marty ran on ahead of her to +overtake one of his boy friends. He would have been ashamed to be caught +walking with his girl cousin by daylight, and on the public streets of +Poketown! + +After school that day, when Janice arrived again at the old Day house, +the first thing she heard was her aunt's complaining voice begging Marty +to go down to Dickerson's for a bucket of water. + +"What's the matter with Dad?" demanded the boy. "Didn't I bring him that +pump leather? Huh!" + +"Mebbe your father will git around to fixin' the pump staff, and he kin +make that in ten minutes. I believe he's got a stick for't out in the +workshop now, he won't be driv'." + +"Janice wasted her good money, then," said Marty, with fine disgust. +"All else it needs is a pump staff, and he kin make that in ten minutes. +I believe he's got a stick for't out in the workshop--had it there for +months." + +"Now, you git erlong with that pail, Marty," commanded his mother, "and +don't stand there a-criticisin' of your elders." + +Janice hid behind the great lilac bush until Marty had gone grumblingly +down the hill. Then she heard some loud language from the barnyard and +knew that her uncle had come in from the fields. After a little +hesitation she made straight for the barn. + +"Uncle Jason! won't you please mend the pump? Mr. Pringle has cut you a +good pump leather." + +"Goodness me, Janice! I'm druv to death. All this young corn to +cultivate, an' not a soul to help me. Other boys like Marty air some +good; but I can't trust him in the field with a hoss." + +"But you don't work in the field all day long, Uncle," pleaded Janice. + +"Seems to me I don't have a minute to call my own," declared the farmer. +To hear him talk one would think he was the busiest man in Poketown! + +"I expect you are pretty busy," agreed the girl, nodding; "but I can +tell you how to find time to mend that pump." + +"How's that?" he asked, curiously. + +"Get up when I do. We can mend it before the others come down. Will you +do it to-morrow morning, Uncle?" + +"Wa-al! I dunno----" + +"Say you will, Uncle Jason!" cried Janice. "We'll surprise 'em--Aunty +and Marty. They needn't never know till it's done." + +"I got ter find a new pump shaft----" + +"Marty says you've got one put away in the workshop." + +"Why--er--so I have, come to think on't." + +"Then it won't take long. Let's do it, Uncle--that's a dear!" + +The man looked around dumbly; he hunted in his rather slow mind for some +excuse--some reason for withdrawing from the venture that Janice +proposed. + +"I--I dunno as I would wake up----" + +"I'll wake you. I'll come to your door and scratch on the panel like a +mouse gnawing. Aunt 'Mira will never hear." + +"No. She sleeps like the dead," admitted Uncle Jason. "Only the dead +don't snore." + +"Will you do it?" + +"Oh, well! I'll see how I feel in the morning," half promised Uncle +Jason, and with this Janice had to be content. She did not, however, +lose heart. She was determined to stir the sluggish waters in and about +the old Day house, if such a thing could be done! + +Uncle Jason was rather sombre that evening, and even Marty did not feel +equal to stirring the quiet waters of the family pool. Janice stole away +early to bed. Aunt Almira was always the last person in the household to +retire. Long after the rest of them were asleep she remained swinging in +her creaky rocker, close to the lamp, her eyes glued to one of the cheap +story papers upon which her romance-loving soul had fed for years. + +There was not a cloud at dawn. When Janice rubbed her eyes and looked +out of her wide open window the sun was almost ready to pop above the +hills. The birds were twittering--tuning up, as it were, for their +opening chorus of the day. + +This was the day on which Janice determined the Day family should turn +over a new leaf! + +She doused her face with cool water from her pitcher, and then +scrambled into her clothes and tidied her hair. She tiptoed to the door +of the bedchamber occupied by her uncle and aunt. At her first tap on +the panel Uncle Jason grunted. + +"Well! I hear ye," he said, in no joyful tone. + +Janice really giggled, as she listened outside of the door. She was +determined to have Uncle Jason up, and she waited, still scratching on +the door panel until she heard him give an angry grunt, and then land +with both feet on the straw matting. Then she scurried back to her own +room and quickly finished dressing. + +She was downstairs ahead of him, and quickly opened the doors and +windows to the damp, sweet morning air. The cleaning up she and Marty +had given the yard had made the premises really pleasant to look at. +Flowers were springing along the borders of the path, and vines were +creeping up the string trellis by the back door. The apple trees were +covering the lawn with their last late shower of flower petals. + +How the birds rioted in the tops of the trees! Singing, scolding, +mating, they were really the jolliest chorus one ever listened to. The +girl ran out into the yard and fairly danced up and down, she felt so +_good_! Much of her homesickness had fled since she had received Daddy's +letter. + +She heard Uncle Jason heavily descending the stairs, his shoes in his +hand. Janice broke off a great branch of lilacs, shook off the dew, and +buried her face in the fragrant blossoms. Then, when Uncle Jason came +yawning into the kitchen, closing the stair door behind him, she rushed +in, with beaming face, bade him "Good-morning!" and put the lilac branch +directly under his nose. + +"Just smell 'em, Uncle! Smell 'em deep--before you say a word," she +commanded. + +He had come down with a full-grown grouch upon him--that was plainly to +be seen. But when he had taken in a great draught of the sweet odor of +the flowers, and found his niece with her lips puckered, and standing on +tiptoe to kiss him on his unshaven cheek, he somehow forgot the grouch. + +"Them's mighty purty! mighty purty!" he agreed, and while he pulled on +his congress gaiters, Janice arranged the blossoms in a jar of water and +set them in the middle of the breakfast table. Aunt 'Mira kept the table +set all the time. The red and white tablecloth was renewed only once a +week, and the jar of flowers served to hide the unsightly spot where +Marty had spilled the gravy the day before. + +"Come on and let's see what the matter is with the pump," urged Janice, +in fear lest he should get away from her, for already Mr. Day's fingers +were searching along the ledge above the door for his pipe. + +"Wa-al--ya-as--we might as well, I s'pose. I'll make 'Mira's fire later. +It's 'tarnal early, child." + +"Sun's up," declared Janice. "Hurry, Uncle!" + +He shuffled off to get his tools and the piece of oak he had laid aside +for a pump staff so long ago. Janice tried to untie the pump handle, +and, not succeeding, ran in for the carving knife and managed to saw the +rope in two. + +"I got ter take off a piece of tin in the roof of the porch--see it up +yonder? Then I kin pull out the broken staff and put in a new one," said +her uncle, coming back rather promptly for him. "These here wooden pumps +is a nuisance; but the wimmen folks all like 'em 'cause they're easier +to _pump_. Now! I bet that ladder won't hold my weight." + +He searched the old, rough, homemade ladder out of the weeds by the +boundary fence. It was built of two pieces of fence rail with rungs of +laths,--a rough and unsightly affair; and two or three of the rungs +_were_ cracked. + +"It'll hold _me_," cried Janice. "You let me try, Uncle Jason. Let me +have the screwdriver. I can lift the tacks and pull off the tin. You +see." + +She mounted the ladder in a hurry and crept upon the roof of the porch. +Uncle Jason started the nut at the handle, and soon removed that so that +the staff could be pulled out. The sheet of tin had covered a hole in +the shingles right above the pump. In a minute the cracked staff, with +the worn leather valve, was out of the pump entirely, and Uncle Jason +carried it out to the workshop where he could labor upon it with greater +ease. Janice slid down the ladder, found the little three-fingered +weeder, and went to work upon the rich mould around the roots of the +vines--the sweet peas and morning glories that would soon be blooming in +abundance. + +Before Aunt 'Mira and Marty were up, the pump was working in fine style. +Uncle Jason had taken an abundance of water out to the cattle. Usually +the drinking trough was filled but once a day, and that about noon. Now +the poor horses and the neglected cow could have plenty of water. + +And so could the household. Aunt 'Mira need no longer give things "a +lick and a promise," as she so frequently expressed it. When she came +down it was to a humming fire, a steaming kettle, and a brimming pail on +the shelf. + +"I declare for't, Janice!" she exclaimed. "What you done now?" + +"Nothing, Aunty--save to put a pretty bunch of lilacs on the table for +you." + +"An' them lilacs is always fragrant," agreed the lady. "Who went for the +water? Is Marty up?" + +"Marty wouldn't lose his beauty sleep," laughed Janice. + +"For the mercy's sake!" gasped Aunt 'Mira. "The pump bench is wet. I +declare for't! Jason never fixed that pump, did he?" + +"Just try it, Aunty!" cried the delighted Janice. "See how easy it +works! And the more it's pumped the better the water will be. It's not +quite clear yet, you know. Moss _will_ grow in the pipe." + +"Janice, you're a wonder! You kin do more with your uncle than his own +fam'bly can, an' that's a fact!" + +"I hope you don't mind, Aunty?" she whispered, coming over to the large +lady and hugging her. "You know, after all, it's for you he did it." + +"Wal, it does lighten my labor, that's a fact," admitted Aunt 'Mira. "He +use ter do a-many things for me, years ago. Oh, yes! Your Uncle Jason +warn't allus like he is now. But we got kinder in a rut I 'xpec'. An' I +ain't young and good-lookin' like I use ter be, an' that makes a +diff'rence with a man." + +"_I_ think you're very pleasant to look at, Aunt 'Mira," declared the +girl, warmly. "And I don't believe Uncle Jason ever saw a girl he liked +to look at so well as you. Of course not!" + +"But I be gittin' old," sighed the poor woman. "An' I ain't got a decent +gown to put on no more. An' I'm _fat_." + +Janice still hugged her. "We'll just overhaul your wardrobe, you and I, +Aunty, and I believe we can find something that can be fixed over to +look nice. You'd ought to wear pretty gowns--of course you had. Let's +surprise Uncle Jason by dressing you up. Why, he hasn't seen you dressed +up since--since I've been here." + +"Longer'n that, child--much longer'n that," admitted Aunt 'Mira, +shamefacedly. "P'r'aps _'tis_ my fault. Anyway, I'm glad about the +pump," and she kissed her niece heartily. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +A RAINY DAY + + +Janice had learned that there were at least two senses left to Hopewell +Drugg's unfortunate child that connected her with the world as it is, +and with her fellow creatures. As she gradually had lost her sight and +hearing, and, consequently, speech was more and more difficult for her, +Lottie's sense of touch and of smell were being sharpened. + +Her olfactory nerves were almost as keen as a dog's. How she loved the +scent of flowers! She named many of the blossoms in the gardens about +just by the odor wafted to her upon the air. And she was really a pretty +sight, sitting upon the shady porch of her father's store, sorting and +making into bouquets the flowers that neighbors gave her. + +The old-fashioned shrubs and flowers in the Day yard were in bloom now +in abundance, and one morning before school Janice carried to little +Lottie a huge armful of odorous blossoms. It was a "dripping" morning. +As yet it had not rained hard; but just as Janice turned off High +Street toward the store, the heavens opened and the rain fell in +torrents. + +She ran laughing to the porch of the Drugg's store. For once the man was +at the front, and he welcomed her with his polite, storekeeper's smile, +and the natural courtesy which was usual with him. Janice remembered how +the carping Mrs. Scattergood had declared that Hopewell Drugg would be +"polite to a stray cat!" + +"You must not go farther in this rain, Miss Janice," he said. "Do come +in. Miss 'Rill went along to school half an hour ago--or she never would +have gotten there without a wetting. Are these for little Lottie? How +kind of you!" + +"She's a dear, and she loves flowers so," replied Janice, brightly. "I +_will_ come in out of the rain, if you don't mind, Mr. Drugg." + +"Yes. The roof of the porch leaks a little. I--I ought to fix that," +said the storekeeper, feebly. + +He followed his visitor in, and as his fiddle lay on the counter near at +hand, he took it up. He was playing softly an old, old tune, when Janice +came back through the passage from the house. She had found Lottie in +the kitchen, and had left her, delighted with the posies, sitting at the +table to make them up into bouquets. + +The rain was pouring down with no promise of a let-up, and Janice did +not have even an umbrella. She took off her coat and hung her hat to +dry on the back of a chair. + +"I shall have to be company for a while, I expect, Mr. Drugg," she said, +laughing. + +"You are more than welcome, Miss Janice," returned the storekeeper, as +he put down his instrument again. "Is the child all right?" + +"She will be busy there for an hour, I think," declared Janice. + +"I--I am afraid I shall scarcely know how to entertain you, Miss," said +Drugg, hesitatingly. "We have little company. I--I have a few books----" + +"Oh, my, Mr. Drugg! you mustn't think of entertaining me," cried the +girl, cheerfully. "You have your own work to do--and customers to +serve----" + +"Not many in this rain," he told her, smiling faintly. + +"Why, no--I suppose not. But don't you have orders to put up? I supposed +a storekeeper was a very busy man." + +"I am not that kind of a storekeeper, I am afraid," returned Hopewell +Drugg, shaking his head. "I have few customers now. Only a handful of +people come in during the day. You see, I am on the side street here. We +owned this property--mother and I. Mother was bedridden. I thought it +would be easier to keep store and wait on her back in the house there, +than to do most things; so I got into this line. It--it barely makes us +a living," and he sighed. + +"But you _do_ have some business?" + +"Oh, yes. Old customers who know my stock is always first-class come to +me regularly,--especially out-of-town people. Saturdays I manage to have +quite some trade, like the Hammett Twins, and the farmers. I can't +complain." + +"You never liked the business, then?" asked Janice, shrewdly. + +"No. Not that it isn't as good as most livelihoods. We all must work. +And I never could do the thing I _loved_ to do. Not with mother +bedridden." + +"And that thing was?" asked Janice. + +He touched the violin on the counter softly. "I had just music enough in +me to be mad for it," he said, and his gray face suddenly colored +faintly, for it evidently cost him something to speak so frankly. +"Mother did not approve--exactly. You see, my father was a music +teacher, and he never--well--'made good', as the term is now. So mother +did not approve. This was father's violin--fiddle 'most folks call it. +But it is very mellow and sweet--if I had only been taught properly to +play it. You see, father died before I was born." + +Out of these few sentences, spoken so gently, Janice swiftly built, in +her quick mind, the whole story of the man. His had been a life of +repression--perhaps of sacrifice! The soul of music in the man had never +been able to burst its chrysalis. + +"Mother died after I was of age. It seemed too late then for me to get +into any other business," Hopewell Drugg went on to say, evenly. "You +know, Miss, one gets into a rut. I was in a rut then. And we hadn't any +too much money left. It was quite necessary that I do something to keep +the pot a-boiling. There wasn't enough money left for music lessons, and +all that. + +"And then----" + +He stopped. A queer look came over his face, and somehow the alert girl +beside him knew what he was thinking of. 'Rill Scattergood was in his +mind. He must have thought a great deal of the little school-mistress at +one time--before he had married that other girl. Aunt Almira had said he +had married 'Cinda Stone "out of spite!" Was it so? + +"Well," sighed the storekeeper, finally coming back from his reverie as +though all the time he had been talking to Janice. "It turned out this +way for me, you see. And here's Lottie. Poor little Lottie! I wish the +store _did_ pay me better. Perhaps something could be done for the child +at the school in Boston. They have specialists there----" + +"But, Mr. Drugg! why don't you _try_?" gasped Janice, quite shaken by +all she had heard and _felt_. + +"Try what, Miss?" he asked, curiously. + +"Why don't you try to make business better? Can't you improve it?" + +"How, Miss?" + +"Oh, dear me! You don't want _me_ to tell you how, do you?" cried +Janice, "I--I am afraid it would sound impudent." + +"I couldn't imagine your being that, Miss Janice," he said, in his slow +way, looking down at her with a smile that somehow sweetened his gray, +lean face mightily. + +"But why not put out some effort to attract trade here?" + +"To this little, dark, old shop?" asked Drugg, in wonder. "Impossible!" + +"Don't use that word!" the girl commanded, with vigor. "How do you know +it is impossible?" + +"People prefer the big shops on High Street." + +"There's not much choice between them and yours, I believe," declared +Janice. + +"They're handier." + +"You've got your own neighborhood. You used to have customers." + +"Oh, yes. But that's when the store was new." + +"Make it new again," cried Janice, feeling a good deal as though she +would like to shake this hopeless man. Hopewell, indeed! His name surely +did not fit him in the least. Wasn't old Mrs. Scattergood almost right +when she called him "a gump"? At least, if "gump" meant a spineless +creature? + +Drugg was looking languidly about the store in the dim, brown light. +Outside the rain still fell heavily. Occasionally the clouds would +lighten for a moment as they frequently do in the hills; but the rain +was still behind them and _would_ burst through. + +"Come, Mr. Drugg," said Janice, more softly. "Let me show you what I +mean. You can't really expect folks to come here and trade when they can +scarcely see through the windows----" + +"Yes, yes," he murmured. "I _had_ ought to clean up a bit." + +"More than that!" she cried. "You want to have a regular +overhauling--take account of stock, and all that--know what you've +got--arrange your goods attractively--get rid of the flies--put on fresh +paint----" + +He was looking at her with wide-open eyes. "My soul!" he breathed. +"How'd I ever git around to doin' all _that_?" + +"You love little Lottie, don't you?" Janice demanded, with sudden +cruelty. "I should think you'd be willing to do something for her!" + +"What do you mean?" and a little snap, which delighted Janice, suddenly +came into Drugg's tone. + +"Just what I say, Mr. Drugg. You _speak_ as though you loved her." + +"And who says I don't?" + +"Your actions." + +"My actions? What do you mean by that?" and the man flushed more deeply +than before. + +"I mean if you truly loved her, and longed to get her to Boston and to +the surgeons, and the school there, it seems to me you'd be willing to +work hard to that end." + +"You show me--" he began, wrathfully, but she interrupted with: + +"Now, wait! Let me have my way for an hour here, will you? I want you to +go back to Lottie and do up the housework; I see your breakfast dishes +are still unwashed. Leave me alone here and let me do as I like for an +hour." + +"You mean to clean up?" he asked, gazing about the store hopelessly. + +"Something like that. It rains so hard I can't get to school. I'll visit +with you, Mr. Drugg," said Janice smiling and her voice cheerful again. +"And instead of helping about the housework, I'll help in the store. +_Do_ let me, sir!" + +"Why--yes--I don't mind. I guess you mean right enough, Miss Janice. But +you don't understand----" + +"Give me an hour," she cried. + +"Why, yes, Miss," he said, in his old, gentle, polite way. "If you want +to mess about I won't mind. Come in and I'll give you a big long apron +that will cover your frock all over. It--it's dreadful dusty in here." + +Janice would not be discouraged. She smiled cheerfully at him, found +brush, pan, broom, pail, and cloths, and with some hot water and +soap-powder went back to the store. The rain continued to fall heavily. +There was no likelihood of her being disturbed at her work. + +She chose the more littered of the two show windows and almost threw +everything out of it in her hurry. Then she swept down the cobwebs and +dead flies, and brushed away all the dust. It was no small task to scrub +the panes of glass clean, and all the woodwork; but Janice knew how to +work. The old black Mammy who had kept house for her and Daddy so many +years had taught the girl domestic tasks, and had taught her well. + +Within an hour the work was done. More light came through the panes of +that window than usually ventured in upon a sunshiny day! + +The balance of the task was a pleasure. Her bright eyes had noted the +newer goods upon Mr. Drugg's shelves. She selected samples of the more +recent canned goods--those of which the labels on the cans were fresh +and bright. She arranged these with package goods--breakfast foods, and +the like--so as to make a goodly display. She found colored tissue +papers, too, and she brightened the window shelf with these. She +festooned the flyspecked, T-arm light bracket in the window, and +carried twisted strings of the pink and green paper to the four corners +of the window shelf from the bottom of this bracket. + +She went out upon the porch at last to look in at the display. From the +outside the window was pretty and bright--it was like the windows she +was used to seeing in the Greensboro stores. + +"One thing about it," she declared, with confidence. "There's nothing +like this in the whole of Poketown. There isn't another store window +that looks so fresh and--yes!--dainty." + +Then she went inside to Mr. Drugg. He was listlessly brushing up the +cottage kitchen. Lottie had fallen asleep on the wide bench beyond the +cookstove, a great bunch of posies hugged against her stained pinafore. + +"Come in and see, sir," said Janice, beckoning the gray man into the +store. Drugg came with shuffling steps and lack-lustre eyes. He seemed +to be considering in his mind something that had nothing whatsoever to +do with what she had called him for. + +"Do you re'lly suppose, Miss Janice," he murmured, "that I could +increase trade here? I need money--God knows!--for little Lottie. If I +could get her to Boston---- + +"Good gracious, Miss! what you been doing here?" he suddenly gasped. + +"Isn't that some better?" demanded Janice, chuckling. "Astonished, +aren't you, Mr. Drugg? Don't you believe if both windows were like that, +and the whole store cleaned up, folks would sit up and take notice?" + +"I--I believe you," admitted the shopkeeper, still staring. + +"And wouldn't it pay?" + +"I--I don't know. It might." + +"Isn't it worth trying?" demanded Janice, cheerily. "Now, please, I want +you to do as I say--and you must let me have my own way to-day here. +I've brought my lunch, and it's too late to go to school now, even if it +_does_ stop raining. You'll let me, won't you?" + +"I--I--I don't know just what you want me to do--or what _you_ want to +do," stammered Hopewell Drugg, still staring at the transformed window. + +"I want you to turn in and help me put your whole store to rights," she +declared. "You don't understand, Mr. Drugg. I believe you can attract +trade here if you will have things nice, and bright, and tidy. You carry +a good stock of wares; and you are not any more behind the times than +other Poketown merchants. Why not be _ahead of them all_?" + +"Me?" breathed Drugg, in increasing wonder. + +"And why not _you_? You've got as good a chance as any. Just get to work +and _make_ trade. Think of little Lottie. If your business can be +increased and you can make money, think of what you can do for her!" + +Drugg suddenly straightened his stooped shoulders and held up his head. +"Just you show me what you want me to do," he said, with unexpected +fire. + +"Grand!" cried the excited Janice. "I can set you to work in a minute. +First thing of all, you fix your screen doors; let's keep the fly family +out of the store--and we'll kill those already in here. You commence on +the screens, Mr. Drugg, while I tackle that other window." + +About the time school was usually out, Janice removed her apron and the +other marks of her toil, and put on her hat and coat. As she said, they +had made a good beginning. Better still, Hopewell Drugg seemed quite +inspired. + +"You have done me a world of good, Miss Janice," he declared. "And +already the shop looks a hundred per cent better." + +"I should hope so," said Janice, vigorously. "And you keep right on with +the good work, Mr. Drugg. I'll come in and dress your windows every +week. And when you've torn those shelves away from the side windows and +let the light and air in here, and done your painting as you promised, +I'll come and arrange your wares on the shelves. + +"Then you get out a little good advertising, and remind folks that +Hopewell Drugg is still in Poketown and doing business. Oh! there are a +dozen things I want you to do! But I won't tell you about all of them +now," and Janice laughed as she picked up her bag and ran out. + +The rain had ceased. The sun was breaking through the clouds, promising +a beautiful evening. Janice almost ran into 'Rill Scattergood on the +sidewalk. + +"Why, Janice dear!" cried the little school-mistress. "I missed you +to-day." Then her eyes turned toward the store. "Is--is anything the +matter? Nothing's happened to little Lottie?" + +"Not a thing," replied the girl, cheerfully. + +"Nor--nor to Mr. Drugg? I don't hear him playing," said Miss 'Rill. + +"And I hope you _won't_ hear him playing so much for a while," laughed +Janice. "The fiddle and the bow have been laid away on the shelf for a +while, I hope." + +"But I really _do_ think Mr. Drugg plays very nicely," murmured the +little schoolmistress, not at all understanding what Janice meant. But +the girl ran on, smiling mysteriously. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +ON THE ROAD WITH WALKY DEXTER + + +Janice Day found the weeks sliding by more quickly after this. Although +school soon closed, she had begun to find so many interests in Poketown +that she could now write dear Daddy in Mexico quite cheerful letters. + +She had "kept at" Hopewell Drugg until his store was the main topic of +conversation all over town. The man himself was even "spruced up" a bit, +and he met the curious people who put themselves out to see his +rejuvenated store with such a pleasant and businesslike air, that many +new customers were attracted to come again. + +Neatly printed announcements had been scattered about Poketown, signed +by Hopewell Drugg, and making a bid for a share of the general trade. +His windows remained attractively dressed. He displayed new stock and +up-to-the-minute articles. The drummers who came to Poketown began to +pay more attention to this store on the side street. + +But Janice Day believed, that, like charity, reformation should begin at +home. The old Day house was slowly revolutionized that summer. +Commencing with the cleaning up of the yard and the mending of the pump, +Janice inspired further improvements. Marty and she spent each Saturday +morning in the dooryard and garden, while Mr. Day mended the front porch +flooring, where the minister had met with his accident, and reshingled +the roof. + +The boles of the fruit and shade trees about the house were whitewashed, +and the palings of the fence renewed. Somehow a pair of new hinges were +found for the gate. The sidewalk was raked, all the weeds cut away from +the fence-line, and the sod between the path and the gutter trimmed and +its edges cut evenly. + +When Marty actually whitewashed the fence, Mr. Day admitted that it was +such an improvement he wished he could go on and paint the house. "But, +by mighty!" he drawled, "it's been so long since 'twas painted, it 'ud +soak up an awful sight of oil." + +Other people along Hillside Avenue began to take notice of the +improvement about the old Day house. Mr. Dickerson built a new front +fence, getting it on a line with the Days' barrier. Others trimmed +hedges and trees, put the lawn mower to their grass, bolstered up +sagging fences, and rehung gates. Hillside Avenue, up its whole length, +began to look less neglected. + +Janice had a fondness for the little inlet, with its background of tall +firs, where she had first met little Lottie Drugg, and she often walked +down there. So she became pretty well acquainted with "Mr. Selectman" +Cross Moore. But as yet she did not get as far out on the Middletown +Lower Road as the house where the Hammett Twins lived. + +One day she found a long lumber-reach dropping new posts and rails along +the length of the deep ditch into which the twins' pony had come so near +to backing the little old ladies on that memorable day when Janice had +first met them. + +"Hi tunket!" ejaculated Mr. Moore, grinning in a most friendly way at +Janice, "I hope you'll be satisfied now. You've jest about hounded me +into havin' this fence put up again." + +"Why, Mr. Moore! I never said a thing to you about it," cried the girl. + +"No. But I see ye ev'ry time you go by, and I'm so reminded of the +'tarnal fence that I remember it o' nights. If somebody _should_ fall +inter the ditch, ye know. And then--Well, I've found out you've made +little Lottie Drugg promise not to come down this way 'nless somebody's +with her. 'Fraid _she'll_ fall in here, too, I s'pose----" + +"Well, she might," said Janice, firmly. + +"She won't have no chance," growled Mr. Moore, but with twinkling eyes +in spite of his gruffness. "Hi tunket! I'll build a railing along here +that'll hold up an elephunt." + +This day Janice had set forth for a long jaunt into the country. She +took the turn where the Hammett Twins and their pony had first come into +her sight, and kept walking on the Middletown Lower Road for a long way. +It overlooked the lake, Janice had been told, for most of the distance +to the larger town. + +She passed several farmhouses but did not reach the Hammett place; +instead she rested upon a rustic bridge where a swift, brawling brook +came down from the hills to tumble into the lake. Then, as she was going +on, a quick "put, put, put" sounded from along the road she had been +traveling. + +"It's a motorcycle," thought Janice. "I didn't know anybody owned one +around Poketown." + +Turning the bend in the road the 'cycle flashed into view, along with a +whisp of dust. A young man rode the machine--a young man who looked +entirely different from the youths of Poketown. Janice looked at him +with interest as he flashed past. She thought he was going so fast that +he would never notice her curiosity. + +He was muscularly built, with a round head set firmly upon a solid neck, +from which his shirt was turned well away, thus displaying the cords of +his throat to advantage. He was well bronzed by the sun, and the heavy +crop of hair, on which he wore a visorless round cap, was crisp and of +a dull gold color. He really _was_ a good-looking young man, and in his +knickerbockers and golf stockings Janice thought he seemed very +"citified" indeed. + +"He's a college boy, I am sure," decided the girl, with interest, +watching the rider out of sight. "I couldn't see his eyes behind those +dust glasses; but I believe there was a dimple in his cheek. If his face +was washed, I don't doubt but what he'd be good-looking," and she +laughed. "Why! here's Walky Dexter!" + +The red-faced driver of the "party wagon" drew in Josephus and his mate, +with a flourish. + +"Wal, now! I _am_ beat," he ejaculated, his little eyes twinkling. +"Can't be I've found a _lost_ Day?" + +"No, indeed, Mr. Dexter," she told him. "I _was_ thinking I'd walk to +the Hammetts'; but it's turned so hot and dusty----" + +"And the Hammett gals live two good mile ahead o' ye." + +"Oh! as far as that?" + +"Surest thing ye know. Better hop in an' jog along back 'ith me," said +Walkworthy Dexter, cordially. + +"Can I, Mr. Dexter?" + +"You air jest as welcome as the flowers in May," he assured her. "Whoa, +Josephus. Stand still, Kate! My sakes! but the flies bite the critters +this morning, an' no mistake." + +Janice "hopped in," and Mr. Dexter clucked to the willing horses. + +"I jest been takin' a party of our young folks over to Middletown to +take examinations for entrance to the Academy," proclaimed Walky. "An' +that remin's me," added he. "Did yer see that feller go by on one o' +them gasoline bikes?" + +"On the motorcycle?" + +"Ya-as." + +"I saw him," admitted Janice. + +"Know him?" + +"Of course not. He doesn't belong in Poketown, I'm sure." + +"Mebbe he will," said Walky, his eyes twinkling with fun again. + +Janice looked at him, puzzled. + +"Ain't you heard?" he questioned. "'Rill Scattergood's resigned and the +school committee is lookin' for a new teacher. _That_ feller's got the +bee in his bonnet, they told me at Middletown." + +"The school-teaching bee?" laughed the girl. + +"Yep. He'd been for his certif'cate. He's been writin' to the Poketown +committee." + +"But--but he isn't much more than a boy himself, is he?" + +"They tell me he's been through college. Must be a smart youngster for, +as you say, he's nothin' but a kid." + +"I didn't say that!" cried Janice, in some little panic, for she knew +Dexter's proneness to gossip. "Don't you dare say I did!" + +He chuckled. "Wa-al, ye meant it. Come now--didn't ye? An' he _is_ a +mighty young feller ter be teachin' school. 'Specially with sech big +girls an' boys in it. He'll have ter fight the boys, it's likely, an' I +shouldn't wonder if the big gals set their caps for him." + +"I'm afraid you're a very reckless talker, Mr. Dexter," sighed Janice. +Then her hazel eyes brightened suddenly, and she added, "They ought to +call you 'Talky' Dexter, instead of 'Walky', I believe." + +"'Talkworthy Dexter', eh?" he grinned. + +"I'm not sure that you _do_ always _talk worthy_," she told him, shaking +a serious head. "You're very apt to say things to 'stir folks all up,' +as my Aunt says. Oh, yes, you do! You know you do, Mr. Dexter." + +"Wal, I declare!" chuckled the man, but with a queer little side glance +at the serious face of the girl. "Think I'm a trouble-breeder, do ye?" + +"You just ask yourself that, sir," said Janice, firmly. "You know you're +just delighted if you can say something to 'start things going,' as you +call it. And it isn't worthy of you----" + +"Whether I'm 'Talkworthy', or 'Walkworthy', eh?" he broke in, laughing. + +"Oh, I didn't mean any offence!" exclaimed Janice, much disturbed now +to think that she had criticised the man just as he was in the habit of +criticising everybody else. + +"I snum! mebbe you're right," grunted Walky Dexter. "And I reckon +talkin' don't do much good after all. Now, look at Cross Moore. I been +at him a year an' more to fix that rail fence along the ditch by his +house. 'Tain't done no good. But, by jinks! somebody else got at him," +added Walky, slyly, "an' I see this mornin' Cross was gittin' the rails +and new posts there. He was right on the job." + +Janice's cheeks grew rosy. "Why!" she cried, "I never said a word to him +about it." + +"No; but somehow he got the idee from you. He told me so," and Walky +chuckled. + +"I think Mr. Moore likes to joke--the same as you do, Mr. Dexter," said +Janice, quietly. + +"Ahem! You sartainly have got some of us goin'," said the driver, +whimsically. "Look at Jase Day! I never _did_ think nothin' less'n +Gabriel's trump would start Jase. But yest'day I'm jiggered if I didn't +see him mendin' his pasture fence. And the old Day house looks like +another place--that's right. How d'you do it?" + +"I--I don't just know what you mean," stammered Janice, feeling very +uncomfortable. + +He looked at her with his eyes screwed up again. "D'you know what they +said about yer uncle las' year? He come down to Jefferson's store with +a basket of pertaters. All the big ones was on top and the little ones +at the bottom. Huh! _He_ ain't the only one that 'deacons' a basket of +pertaters," and Walky chuckled. + +"But the boys said 'twas easy to see how come Jase's pertaters that-a +way. 'Twas 'cause it took him so 'tarnal long to dig a basket, that the +pertaters grew ahead of him in the row--that's right! When he begun they +was little, but by the time he got a basket full they'd growed a lot," +and the gossip guffawed his delight at the story. + +"But he's sure gettin' 'round some spryer this year. An' I snum! there's +Marty, too. He's workin' in his mother's garden reg'lar. I seen him. +'Fore you came, Miss Janice, if Marty was diggin' in the garden an' +found a worm, he thought he was goin' fishin' and got him a bait can and +a pole, an' set right off for the lake--that's right!" and Walky shook +all over, and grew so red in the face over his joke that Janice was +really afraid he was becoming apoplectic. + +But something in the middle of the road, as they made another corner, +stopped all this fun. + +"Hullo!" exclaimed Walky. "That young feller on the gasoline bike has +had an accident. Don't it look that way to you?" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +NELSON HALEY + + +The team drew to a halt without any command, and directly beside the +young man, who was working diligently over the overturned motorcycle. +His repair kit was spread out at the roadside, and the cause of the +trouble was self-evident, it would seem. But Walky was a true Yankee and +had to ask questions. + +"Had a puncture, Mister?" he drawled, as the young man looked up, saw +Janice on the seat beside the driver, and flushed a little. + +"Oh, no!" returned the victim of the accident, with some asperity. "I'm +just changing the air in these tires. The other air was worn out, you +know." + +For a moment Walky's eyes bulged, and Janice giggled loudly. Then Mr. +Dexter saw the point of the joke. He slapped his leg and laughed +uproariously. + +"You'll do! By jinks! you surely will _do_," he declared. "I reckon you +air smart enough, young feller, ter teach the Poketown school. An' +that's what they say you're in these parts for?" + +"I am here to see the school committee about the position," said the +young fellow. "Are you one of the committee?" + +"Me? No--I should say not!" gasped Walky. "Old Bill Jones, an' 'Squire +Abe Connett, and Elder Concannon air the committee." + +"Oh!" returned the youth, quite coolly. "I didn't know but you were one +of the number, and that I was already being put through my examination." + +But Walky Dexter was not easily feazed. He just blinked twice over this +snub and pursued the conversation: + +"They tell me you've been ter college?" + +"My! my!" exclaimed the young man, "_they_ tell you a good deal, don't +they? Is it just a habit folks have, or have the Poketown selectmen +passed an ordinance that you are to be the recipient of all personal +information?" + +Janice was still amused, although she thought the young man was rather +hard upon the town gossip. But Walky thought the observation over, and +seemed finally to realize that the motorcyclist was making sport of him. + +"Aw, well," he said, grinning broadly, "if you air tender about your +pussonal record, I'll say no more about it. But I allus b'lieve in goin' +right ter headquarters when I want ter know anything. Saves makin' +mistakes. If you air ashamed of your criminal past, Mister, why, that's +all right--we won't say no more about it." + +At this the young fellow stood up, put his hands upon his hips, and +burst into a hearty shout of laughter. Janice had to join in, while +Walky Dexter grinned, knowing he had made a good point. + +"You certainly had me there, old timer!" declared the youth at last. +"Now providing you will be as frank, and do the honors as well, I'll +introduce myself as Nelson Haley. I hail from Springfield. I have spent +four years in the scholastic halls of Williamstown. I hope to go to law +school, but meanwhile must earn a part of the where-with-all. Therefore, +I am attacking the citadel of the Poketown School." + +"Oh! That's the why-for of it, eh?" crowed Walky. "Much obleeged. I'll +know what to say now when anybody asks me." + +"I hope so," returned Nelson Haley, with some sarcasm. "But fair +exchange, Mister. You might tell me who I have the honor of speaking +to--and, especially, you might introduce me to the lady?" + +"Oh! Eh?" and Walky looked at the blushing Janice, questioningly. The +girl smiled, however, and the driver cleared his throat and gravely made +the introduction. "And I'm Walky Dexter," he concluded. "If you git the +Poketown school you'll come ter know me quite well, I shouldn't wonder." + +"That is something to look forward to, I am sure," declared Nelson +Haley, drily. Then he turned to Janice, and asked: + +"Will you be one of my pupils, if I have the good fortune to get the +school, Miss Day?" + +"I--I am afraid not. I do not really belong in Poketown," Janice +explained. "And the ungraded school could not aid me much." + +"No, I suppose not," returned the young man. "Well! I hope I see you +again, Miss Day." + +Walky clucked to the horses and they jogged on, leaving Nelson Haley to +finish his repairs. Walky chuckled, and said to Janice: + +"He's quite a flip young feller. He is young to tackle the Poketown +school. An' 'twill be an objection, I shouldn't wonder. Ye see, they +couldn't find that fault with 'Rill Scattergood." + +"But I venture to say that they did when she first came to Poketown to +teach," cried Janice. + +"Oh, say! I sh'd say they did," agreed Walky, with a retrospective +rolling of his head. "An' she was a purty young gal, then, too. There +was more on us than Hopewell Drugg arter 'Rill in them days--yes, +sir-ree!" + +Janice was curious, and she yielded to the temptation of asking the town +gossip a question: + +"Why--why didn't Miss 'Rill marry Hopewell, then?" + +"The goodness only knows why they fell out, Miss Janice," declared +Walky. "We none of us ever made out. I 'spect it was the old woman done +it--ol' Miz' Scattergood. She didn't take kindly to Hopewell. And +then--Well, 'Cinda Stone was lef' all alone, an' she lived right back o' +Drugg's store, an' her father had owed Drugg a power of money 'fore he +died--a big store bill, ye see. Hopewell Drugg is as soft as butter; +mebbe he loved 'Cinda Stone; anyhow he merried her after he'd got the +mitten from Amarilla. Huh! ye can't never tell the whys and wherefores +of sech things--not re'lly." + +A presidential election would have made little more stir in Poketown +than the coming there of this young man who looked for the position of +school-teacher. Marty brought home word at night to the old Day house +that Mr. Haley had put up at the Lake View Inn; that he had let two of +the older boys try out his motorcycle; that he could pitch a ball that +"Dunk" Peters couldn't hit, even though "Dunk" had played one season +with the Fitchburg team. Likewise, that Mr. Haley was to go before the +school committee that evening. And after supper Marty hastened down town +again to learn how the examination of the young collegian "came out." + +"I do hope," sighed Aunt 'Mira, "that this young man gits the school. +Mebbe Marty will like him, an' go again. I won't say but that the boy's +a good deal better'n he was; he's changed since you've come, Janice. But +he'd oughter git more schoolin'--so he had." + +"I met Mr. Haley," said her niece, quietly. "He seems like quite a nice +young man; and, if he has any interest in his work, he ought to give a +good many of the Poketown boys a better start." + +For Marty Day was not the only young loafer in the town. There was +always a group of half-grown boys hanging about Josiah Pringle's harness +shop, or the sheds of the Lake View Inn. + +In Greensboro there had been a good library and reading-room, and the +Young Men's Christian Association boys and young men had a chance +_there_. Janice knew that her father's influence had helped open these +club-like places for the boys, and so had kept them off the streets. +There wasn't a thing in Poketown for boys to do or a place to go to, +save the stores where the older men lounged. Sometimes, her aunt told +her, men brought jugs of hard cider to the Inn tables, and the boys got +to drinking the stuff. + +"Now, if this Nelson Haley is any sort of a fellow, and he gets the +school," murmured Janice to herself, "he may do something." + +Marty brought home the latest report from the committee meeting before +they went to bed. Mr. Haley seemed to have made a good impression upon +the three old dry-as-dust committeemen, especially on old Elder +Concannon, the superannuated minister who had lived in Poketown for +fifty years, although he had not preached at the Union Church, saving on +special occasion, for two decades. + +"The Elder says he thinks this Haley'll do," said Marty, with a grin. "I +heard him tell Walky Dexter so. He knows some Latin, Haley does," added +the boy. "What's Latin, Janice?" + +"Nothing that will help him in the least to teach the Poketown School," +declared his cousin, rather sharply for her. "Isn't that ridiculous! +What can that old minister be thinking of?" + +"The Elder's great on what he calls 'the classics,'" said Mr. Day, with +a chuckle. "He reads the Bible in the 'riginal, as he calls it. He allus +said 'Rill Scattergood didn't know enough to teach school." + +"I don't believe that Poketown really needs a teacher who reads Hebrew +and can translate a Latin verse. That is, those studies will not help +Mr. Haley much in your school," Janice replied. + +"Wal," said Marty, "I'll go when school opens and give him a whirl. +Maybe he'll teach me how to fling that drop curve." + +"Now!" whined Aunt 'Mira, when Marty had stumped up to bed. "What good +is it goin' ter do that boy ter go ter school an' learn baseball, I want +ter know?" + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +A TIME OF TRIAL + + +Janice met Nelson Haley a couple of days later in Hopewell Drugg's +store. The matter had been decided ere then; Haley had obtained the +school and had quickly established himself in a boarding-place, as the +school would open the next week. + +'Rill Scattergood and her mother had already gone to housekeeping in +three nice rooms just around the corner on High Street, and Mr. Haley +had the good fortune to be "taken in" by Mrs. Beasely. The gaunt old +widow was plainly delighted once more to have "a man to do for." + +"If my digestion holds out, Miss Day," whispered the young man to +Janice, "I'm going to do fine with Mrs. Beasely. Good old creature! But +she may kill me with kindness. I don't see how I am going to be able to +do full justice to her three meals a day." + +"I hope you will like it as well in school as you do at your +boarding-place," ventured Janice, timidly. + +"Oh, the school? That's going to be pie," laughed Haley. "You know about +how it's been run, don't you?" + +"I--I attended for more than a month last spring," admitted the girl. + +"Then you know very well," said the young man, smiling broadly, "that it +won't be half a trick to satisfy the committee. They don't expect much. +'Just let things run along easy-like'; that will please them. If I can +keep the boys straight and teach the youngsters a little, that will be +about all the committee expects. Elder Concannon admitted that much to +me. You see, the whole committee are opposed to what they term +'new-fangled notions.'" + +"But there is some sentiment in town for an improvement in the school," +declared Janice. "Don't you know that? Many people would like to see the +children taught more, and the school more up-to-date." + +"Oh, well," and Haley laughed and shrugged his shoulders. "The committee +seem to be in power, and--Well, Miss Day, you can be sure that I know +which side my bread is buttered on," he concluded, lightly. + +Janice liked this bright, laughing young man very much. But she was +sorry he had no more serious interest in his position than this +conversation showed. + +Then there suddenly came a time when Janice Day's own interest in +Poketown and Poketown people--in everything and everybody about +her--seriously waned. Daddy had not written for a fortnight. When the +letter finally came it had been delayed, and was not postmarked as +usual. Daddy only hinted at one of the belligerent armies being nearer +to the mines, and that most of his men had deserted. + +There was trouble--serious trouble, or Daddy would not have kept his +daughter in suspense. Janice watched the mails, eagle-eyed. She wrote +letter after letter herself, begging him to keep her informed,--begging +him to come away from that hateful Mexico altogether. + +"Broxton's no business to be 'way down there at all," growled Uncle +Jason, who was worried, too, and hadn't the tact to keep his feelings +secret from the girl. "Why, Walky Dexter tells me they are shootin' +white folks down there jest like we'd shoot squirrels in these parts." + +"Oh, Jason!" gasped Aunt 'Mira. "It can't be as bad as that!" + +"Wuss. They jest shot a rancher who was a Britisher, an' they say +there'll be war about it. I dunno. Does look as though our Government +ought ter do somethin' to protect Americans as well as Britishers. But, +hi tunket! Broxton hadn't ought ter gone down there--no, sir-ree!" + +This sort of talk did not help Janice. She drooped about the house and +often crept off by herself into the woods and fields and brooded over +Daddy's peril. School had begun, and Marty went with several of the +bigger boys that had hung around Pringle's harness shop and the Inn +stables. + +"That Nelse Haley is all right," the boy confided to his cousin. "We're +going to have two baseball teams next year. He says so. Then we kin have +matched games. But now he's goin' to send for what he calls a 'pigskin' +and he's a-goin' to teach us football. Guess you've heard of that, eh?" + +"Oh, yes," said Janice. "It's a great game, Marty. But what about +school? Is he teaching you anything?" + +Marty grinned. "Enough, I guess. Things goin' along easy-like. He don't +kill us with work, that's one thing. Old Elder Concannon's been up once +and sat an' listened to the classes. He seems satisfied." + +Janice did not lose sight of Hopewell Drugg and little Lottie. The store +was now doing a fairly good business; but the man admitted that the +profits rolled up but slowly, and it would be a long time before he +could take his little daughter to Boston. + +These fall days Janice was frequently with Miss 'Rill. The little maiden +lady seemed to understand better than most people just how Janice was +troubled by her father's absence, his silence, and his peril. Besides, +when old Mrs. Scattergood did not know, many were the times that 'Rill +and Janice went to Hopewell Drugg's and "tidied up" the cottage for him. +'Rill would not go without Janice, and they usually stole in by the side +door without saying a word to the storekeeper. He was grateful for their +aid, and little Lottie was benefited by their ministrations. + +Then another letter came from Broxton Day. He admitted that the two +armies were very near--one between him and communication with his +friends over the Rio Grande--and that operations at the mine had +completely ceased. Yet he felt it his duty to remain, even though the +property was "between two fires," as it were. + +Ere this Janice had sent off for an up-to-date map of northern Mexico +and the Texan border. She and Marty and Mr. Day had pored over it +evenings and had now marked the very spot in the hills where the mine +was located. The girl subscribed for a New York newspaper, too, and that +came in the evening mail. So they followed the movements of the Federal +and the Constitutionalist armies as closely as possible from the news +reports, and Janice read about each battle with deeper and deeper +anxiety. + +Had her uncle and aunt been wise they would have interfered in this +occupation, or at least, they would not have encouraged it. Janice lost +her cheerfulness and her rosy cheeks. Aunt 'Mira declared she drooped +"like a sick chicken." + +"Ye mustn't pay so much 'tention to them papers," she complained. "I +never did think much o' N'York daily papers, nohow. They don't have +'nuff stories in 'em." + +But it was her own money Janice spent for the papers. Whenever Daddy had +written he had usually enclosed in his envelope a bank note of small +denomination for Janice. The bank in Greensboro sent the board money +regularly to Uncle Jason (and Aunt 'Mira got it for her own personal +use, as she declared she would), but Janice always had a little in her +pocket. + +Had she been well supplied with cash about this time the girl would have +been tempted to run away and take the train for Mexico herself. It did +seem to her, when the weeks went by without a letter reaching her from +her father, as though he must be wounded, and suffering, and needing +her! + +But she did not have sufficient money to pay her fare such a long +distance. + +Aunt 'Mira was a poor comforter. Yet she fortunately aided in giving +Janice something else to think about just then. The girl had helped +"spruce up" Aunt 'Mira long since, so that they could go to church +together on Sundays. But now the good lady was in the throes of making +herself a silk dress for best--a black silk. It was the thing she had +longed for most, and now she could satisfy the craving for clothes that +had so obsessed her. + +Aunt 'Mira loved finery. Janice had to use her influence to the utmost +to keep the good lady from committing the sin of getting this wonderful +dress too "fancy." Left to herself, Mrs. Day would have loaded it with +bead trimming and cut-steel ornaments. At first she even wanted it cut +"minaret" fashion, which would have, in the end, made the poor lady look +a good deal like an overgrown ballet dancer! + +Janice had been glad to go to church. Always, before coming to Poketown, +the girl had held a vital interest in church and church work. But here +she found there was really nothing for the young people to do. They had +no society, and aside from the Sunday School, a very cut-and-dried +session usually, there was no special interest for the young. + +Mr. Middler, the pastor, was a mild-voiced, softly stepping man, +evidently fearing to give offense. Although he had been in the pastorate +for several years, he seemed to have very little influence in the +community. Elder Concannon and several other older members controlled +the church and its policies utterly; and they frowned on any innovation. + +One Sabbath, old Elder Concannon--a grizzled, heavy-eyebrowed man, with +a beak-like nose and flashing black eyes--preached, and he thundered +out the "Law" to his hearers as a man might use a goad on a refractory +team of oxen. Mr. Middler was a faint echo of the old Elder on most +occasions. He seemed afraid of taking his text from the New Testament. +It was Law, not Love, that was preached at the Poketown Union Church; +and although the dissertations may have been satisfactory to the older +members, they did not attract the young people to service, or feed them +when they _did_ come! + +Janice often wondered if the loud "Amens!" of Elder Concannon, down in +the corner, were worth as much to poor little Mr. Middler as would have +been a measure of vital interest shown in the church and its work by +some of the young people of the community. + +There was a Ladies Sewing Circle. There is always a Ladies Sewing +Circle! But, somehow, the making up of barrels of cast-off clothing for +unfortunate missionaries in the West, or up in Canada, or the sewing +together of innumerable ill-cut garments, which must, of course, be +"misfits" for the unknown infants for whom they were intended,--all this +never could seem sufficient to "feed the spirit," to Janice Day's mind. + +Once or twice she went with Aunt 'Mira (who was proud of her new clothes +and would occasionally go about to show them, now) to the sewing +society meeting. But there were few other young girls there, and the +gossip was not seasoned to her taste. + +One day came a letter from Daddy's friend and business associate in +Juarez. For three weeks Janice had not received a word from her father. +The man in Juarez wrote: + + + "DEAR MISS JANICE:-- + + "Communication is quite shut off from the district in which + your father's property lies. From such spies as have been + able to get to me, I learn that a disastrous battle has been + fought near the place and that the Constitutionalists have + swept everything before them. They have overrun that part of + Chihuahua and, that being the case, foreigners are not + likely to be well treated or their property conserved. + + "I write this because I think it my duty to do so. You + should be warned that the very worst that can happen must be + expected. I have not heard directly from Mr. Day for a + fortnight, and then but a brief message came. He was then + well and free, but spoke of being probably obliged to desert + his post, after all. + + "Just what has become of him I cannot guess. I have put the + matter in the hands of the consul here, the State Department + has already been telegraphed, and an inquiry will be made. + But Americans are disappearing most mysteriously every week + in Mexico, and I cannot hold out any hope for Mr. Day. He + may get word through to you by some other route than this; + if so, will you wire me at once? + + "Sincerely yours, + + "JAMES W. BUCHANAN." + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +NEW BEGINNINGS + + +The very worst of it was, there was nothing Janice could do! She must +wait, and to contemplate that passive state, almost drove her mad! + +Day after day passed without bringing any further news. She read the +papers just as eagerly as before; but the center of military activity in +Mexico had suddenly shifted to an entirely different part of the +country. There was absolutely no news in the papers from the district +where the mine was situated. + +Mr. Buchanan wrote once again, but even more briefly. He was a busy man, +and had done all that he could. If he heard from, or of, Mr. Day he +would telegraph Janice at once, and if _she_ heard she was to let him +know by the same means. + +That was the way the matter stood. It seemed as though the State +Department could, or would, do nothing. Mr. Day, like other citizens of +the United States, had been warned of the danger he was in while he +remained in a country torn by civil strife. The consequences were upon +his own head. + +The folks who knew about Janice's trouble tried to be good to her. Walky +Dexter drove around to invite the girl to go with him whenever he had a +job that took him out of town with the spring wagon. Janice loved to jog +over the hilly roads, and she saw a good bit of the country with Dexter. + +"I'd love to own just a little automobile that I could run myself," she +said once. + +"Why don't you borry Nelse Haley's gasoline bike?" demanded Walky, with +a grin. "Or, mebbe he'll put a back-saddle on fer yer. I've seen 'em +ride double at Middletown." + +"I don't like motorcycles. I want a wide seat and more comfort," said +Janice. "Daddy said that, perhaps, if things went well with him down +there in Mexico, I could have an auto runabout," and she sighed. + +"Now, Miss Janice!" exclaimed the man, "don't you take on none. Mr. +Broxton Day'll come out all right. I remember him as a boy, and he was +jest as much diff'rent from Jason as chalk is from cheese! Yes, +sir-ree!" + +This implied a compliment for her father, Janice knew, so she was +pleased. Walky Dexter meant well. + +Little Miss Scattergood was Janice's greatest comfort during this time +of trial. She did not discuss the girl's trouble, but she showed her +sympathy in other ways. Old Mrs. Scattergood always wanted to discuss +the horrors of the Mexican War, whenever she caught sight of Janice, +which was not pleasant. So Miss 'Rill and Janice arranged to meet more +often at Hopewell Drugg's, and little Lottie received better care those +days than ever before. + +Miss 'Rill was not a bad seamstress, and the two friends began to make +Lottie little frocks; and, as Hopewell only had to supply the material +out of the store, Lottie was more prettily dressed--and for less +money--than previously. + +As Janice and the ex-schoolmistress sat sewing in the big Drugg kitchen, +Hopewell would often linger in the shed room with his violin, when there +were no customers, and play the few pieces he had, in all these years, +managed to "pick out" upon his father's old instrument. "Silver Threads +Among the Gold" was the favorite--especially with Lottie. She would +dance and clap her hands when she felt the vibration of certain minor +chords, and come running to the visitors and attract their attention to +the sounds that she could "hear." + +"He-a! he-a! he-a!" she shouted in that shrill toneless voice of hers. + +Janice noticed that she talked less than formerly. Gradually the power +of speech was going from her because of disuse. It is almost always so +with the very young who are deprived of hearing. + +Such a pitiful, pitiful case! Sometimes Janice could not think of little +Lottie without weeping. It seemed so awful that merely a matter of +money--a few hundred dollars--should keep this child from obtaining the +surgical help and the training that might aid her to become a happy, +normal girl. + +It was from Mr. Middler--rather, through a certain conversation with the +minister--that Janice received the greatest help during these weeks when +her father's fate remained uncertain. + +She could not spend all her time at Hopewell Drugg's, or with Walky +Dexter, or even about the old Day house. Autumn had come, and the +mornings were frosty. The woods were aflame with the sapless leaves. Ice +skimmed the quiet pools before the late-rising sun kissed them. + +Janice had sometimes met the minister when she tramped over the +hillside--and especially up toward the Shower Bath in Jason Day's wood +lot. One glowing, warm October afternoon the girl and the gentle little +parson met on the cow path through Mr. Day's upper pasture. + +"Ah, my dear!" he said, shaking hands. "Where are you bound for?" + +"I don't know whether I had better tell you, or not, sir," she returned, +smiling, yet with some gravity. "You see, I was going to get comfort." + +"Comfort?" + +"Yes, sir. You see, sometimes I get to thinking of--of Daddy so much +that the whole world seems just made up of _my_ trouble!" said Janice, +with a sob. "Do you know what I mean, sir? Just as though me and my +troubles were the most important things in existence--the _only_ things, +in fact." + +"Ah--yes. I see--I see," whispered Mr. Middler, patting her shoulder, +but looking away from her tear-streaked face. "We are all that +way--sometimes, Janice. All that way." + +"And then I go somewhere to get out of myself,--to--to get comfort." + +"I see." + +"And so I am going now to the place I call The Overlook. It's a great +rock up yonder. I scramble up on top of it, and from that place I can +see so much of the world that, by and by, I begin to realize just how +small I really am, and how small, in comparison, my troubles must be in +the whole great scheme of things. I begin to understand, then," she +added, softly, "that God has so much to 'tend to in the Universe that He +can't give me first chance _always_. I've got to wait my turn." + +"Oh, but my dear!" murmured the doctrinarian. "I wouldn't limit the +power of the Almighty--even in my thoughts." + +"No-o. But--but God does just seem more _human_ and close to me if I +think of Him as very busy--yet thoughtful and kind for us all. +Just--just like my Daddy, only on a bigger scale, Mr. Middler." + +The minister looked at her gravely for a moment and then took her hand +again. "Suppose you show me that place of comfort?" he suggested, +quietly. + +They went on together through the pasture and up into the wood lot. They +came out upon an unexpected opening in the wood, at the beginning of a +great gash in the hillside. At the center of this opening was a huge +boulder, surrounded by hazelnut bushes, to which the brown leaves still +clung. + +"You can climb up easily from the back. Let me show you," said Janice, +who had by now got control of her tears, and was more like her smiling, +cheerful self. + +She ran up the incline, sure-footed as a goat; but at the more difficult +place she gave the minister her hand. He was much more breathless than +she when they stood together upon the overhanging rock. + +Below them was the steep, wooded hillside, and the broken pastures and +scattered houses north of Poketown, along the shore of the lake. This +spot was on the promontory that flanked the bay upon one side. From this +point it seemed that all of the great lake, with both its near and +distant shores, lay spread at their feet! + +[Illustration: God's world _did_ look bigger and greater from The +Overlook. (See page 155.)] + +In the northwest frowned the half-ruined fortress, so heroic a landmark +of pre-Revolutionary times. Nearer lay the wooded, rocky isle where a +celebrated Indian chief had made his last stand against the encroaching +whites. Yonder was the spot where certain of those bold pioneers and +fighters, the Green Mountain Boys, embarked under their famous leaders, +Allen and Warner, upon an expedition that historians will never cease to +write of. + +It was a noble, as well as a beautiful, view. God's world _did_ look +bigger and greater from The Overlook. Sitting by her side, the minister +held the girl's hand, and listened to her artless expressions. She told +him quite frankly what all this view meant to her,--how it helped and +soothed her worried spirit, brought comfort to her grieving heart. Here +were many square miles of God's Footstool under her gaze; and there were +many, many thousands of other spots like this between her and the +Mexican mountains in which her father was held a prisoner. And God had +the same care over one bit of landscape as he did over another! + +"Then," she said, softly, in conclusion, "then I just seem to grasp the +idea of God's _bigness_--and how much He has to do. I won't complain. +I'll wait. And meanwhile I'll do, if I can, what Daddy told me to." + +"What is that, Janice?" asked the minister, still gazing out over the +vast outlook himself. + +"I must _do something_,--keep to work, you know. Try and make things +better. You know: 'Each in his small corner.' And there's so much to be +done in Poketown!" + +"So much--in Poketown?" ejaculated the minister, suddenly brought out of +his reverie. + +"Yes, sir." + +"But I thought Poketown was a particularly satisfactory place. There +really is very little to do here. We have a very clean political +government, remarkably so. Of course, that fact would not so much +interest you, Janice. But the life of the church is very +spiritual--very. We have no saloons; we seldom have an arrest----" + +"Oh, I never thought of those things," admitted Janice. "There isn't +really anything for young people to do in the Poketown Church, I know. +But outside----" + +"And what can be done outside?" asked the minister, and perhaps he +winced a little at the confidence in Janice's voice when she spoke of +the church system which kept the young people at a distance. + +"Why, you know, there are the boys. Boys like Marty--my cousin. He goes +to school now, it's true; but he's down town just as much as ever at +night. And there's no good place for the boys to go--to congregate, I +mean." + +"Humph! I thought once of opening the church basement to them," murmured +Mr. Middler. "But--but there was opposition. Some thought the boys might +take advantage of our good nature and be ill-behaved." + +"So they continue to hang around the hotel sheds and the stores," +pursued Janice, thoughtfully, without meaning to be critical. "Boys +_will_ get together in a club, or gang. Daddy used to say they were +naturally gregarious, like some birds." + +"Yes," said the minister, slowly. + +"They ought to have a nice, warm, well-lighted room where they could go, +and play games, and read,--with a circulating library attached. Of +course, a gymnasium would be too much to even _dream_ of, at first! Why! +wouldn't that be fine? And isn't it practical? _Do_ say it is!" + +"I do not know whether it is practicable or not, Janice," said the +minister, slowly, yet smiling at her. "But the thought is inspired. You +shall have all the help I can give you. It _ought_ to be in the +church----" + +"No. That would scare the boys away," interposed Janice, with finality. + +"Why, my dear? You speak as though the church was a bogey!" + +"Well--but--dear Mr. Middler! Just ask the boys themselves. How many of +them love to go to church--even to Sunday School? I mean the boys that +hang about the village stores at night." + +"It is so--it is so," he admitted, with a sigh. + +From this sprang the idea of the Poketown Free Library. It was of slow +growth, and there is much more to be said about it; but Janice found her +personal troubles much easier to bear when she began trying to interest +the people of Poketown in the reading-room idea. + +And didn't Mr. Middler bear something of his own away from that visit to +The Overlook--something that glowed in his heart? He preached quite a +different kind of a sermon that next Sunday, and the text was one of the +most helpful and _living_ in all the New Testament. + +Some of the older members of his congregation shook their heads over it. +It was not "strong meat," they said; there was nothing to argue about! +But a dozen troubled, needy members who heard the sermon, felt new hope +in their hearts, and they got through the following week--trials and +all!--much easier than usual. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +"SHOWING" THE ELDER + + +No millionaire library-giver had found Poketown on the map. Or else, the +hard-headed and tight-fisted voters of that Green Mountain community +were too sharp to allow anybody to foist upon them a granite mausoleum, +the upkeep of which would mainly advertise the name of the donor. + +The Union Sunday School had a library; but its list of volumes was open +to the same objections as are raised to many other institutions of its +kind. Nor was a circulating library so much needed in Poketown as a +reading and recreation room for the youth of the village. + +Aside from her brief talk with Mr. Middler, Janice Day advised with no +adult at first as to how the establishment of the needed institution +should be brought about. + +The girl had studied Marty, if she had had little opportunity of +becoming acquainted with other specimens of the genus _boy_. She knew +they were as bridle-shy as wild colts. + +The idea of the club-room for reading and games must seem to come from +the boys themselves. It must appear that they accepted adult aid +perforce, but with the distinct understanding that the room was _theirs_ +and that there was not to be too much oversight or control by the +supporting members of the institution. + +The scheme was not at all original with Janice. The nucleus of many a +successful free library and village club has been a similar idea. + +"Marty, why don't you and your chums have a place of your own where you +can read and play checkers these cold nights? I hear Josiah Pringle has +chased you out of his shop again." + +"Ya-as--mean old hunks!" + +"But didn't somebody spoil a whole nest of whips for him by pouring +liquid glue over the snappers?" + +"Well! that was only one feller. An' Pringle put us all out," complained +the boy, but grinning, too. + +"You wouldn't have let that boy do such a thing in your own +club-room--now, would you?" + +"Huh! how'd we ever git a club-room, Janice? We had Poley Haskin's +father's barn one't; but when we tried to heat it with a three-legged +cookstove, Poley's old man put us out in a hurry." + +"Oh, I mean a real _nice_ place," said the wily Janice. "Not a place to +smoke those nasty cigarettes in, and carry on; but a real reading-room, +with books, and papers, and games, and all that." + +"Oh, that would be fine! But where'd we get that kind of a place in +Poketown?" queried Marty. + +That was the start of it. + +There was an empty store on High Street next to the drug store. It was a +big room which could be easily heated by a pot stove and a few lengths +of stovepipe. It was owned by the drug-store man, and had been empty a +long time. He asked six dollars a month rent for it. + +It was just about this time that Janice learned she possessed powers of +persuasive eloquence. The druggist was the first person she "tackled" in +her campaign. + +"It's a secret, Mr. Massey," she told him; "but some of the boys want a +reading-room, and some of the rest of us are anxious to help them get +it. Only it mustn't be talked of at first, or it will be all spoiled. +You know how 'fraid boys are that there is going to be a trap set for +them." + +"Ain't that so?" chuckled the druggist. + +"And we want your empty room next door." + +"Wa-al--I dunno!" returned the man, finding the matter suddenly serious, +when it was brought so close home to him. + +"Of course, we expect to pay for it. Only we'd like to have you cut the +rent in two for the first three months," said Janice, quickly. + +"Say! that might be all right," the druggist observed, more briskly. +"But I don't know about all these harum-scarums collecting around this +corner. I have been glad heretofore that they have hung around +Pringle's, or Joe Henderson's, or the hotel, instead of up here. They've +been up to all sorts of mischief." + +"If they don't behave reasonably they'll lose the reading-room. Of +course that will be understood," said Janice. + +"You can't trust some of 'em," growled the druggist. "Never!" + +"We'll make those who want the reading-room make the mischievous ones +behave," laughed Janice. + +"Well," agreed the druggist, "we'll try it. Three dollars a month for +three months; then six dollars. I can afford no more." + +"So much for so much!" whispered Janice, when she came away from the +store. "At least, it's a beginning." + +But it was a very small beginning, as she soon began to realize. She had +no money to give toward the project herself, and it was very hard to beg +from some people, even for a good cause. + +There was needed at least one long table and two small ones, as well as +some sort of a desk for whoever had charge of the room; and shelves for +the books, and lamps, and a stove, and chairs, beside curtains at the +windows. These simple furnishings would do to begin with. But how to +get any, or all, of these was the problem. + +Janice went to several people able to help in the project, before she +said anything more to Marty. Some of these people encouraged her; some +shook their heads pessimistically over the idea. + +She wished Elder Concannon to agree to pay the rent of the room for the +first three months. It would be but nine dollars, and the old gentleman +could easily do it. Since closing his pastorate of the Union Church, +years before, Mr. Concannon had become (for Poketown) a rich man. He had +invested a small legacy received about that time in abandoned marble +quarries and sugar-maple orchards. Both quarries and orchards had taken +on a new lease of life, and had enriched the shrewd old minister. + +But Elder Concannon let go of a dollar no more easily now than when he +had been dependent upon a four-hundred-dollar salary and a donation +party twice a year. + +It was not altogether parsimony that made the old gentleman "hem and +haw" over Janice Day's proposal. Naturally, an innovation of any kind +would have made him shy, but especially one calculated to yield any +pleasure to the boys of Poketown. + +"I don't dispute but you may mean all right, Miss Day," he said, shaking +his bristling head at her. "But there's no good in those young +scamps--no good at all. You would waste your time trying to benefit +them. They would turn your reading-room into a bear garden." + +"You do not _know_ that, sir," said Janice, boldly. "Let us try them." + +"You are very young, Miss Day," said the Elder, stiffly. "You should +yield more easily to the opinions of your elders." + +"Why?" demanded the girl, quickly, but smiling. "We young ones have got +to learn through our own experiences, haven't we? When _you_ were young, +sir, you had to learn at first hand--isn't that so? You would not accept +the opinions of the older men as infallible. Now, did you, sir?" + +The Elder was a bit staggered; but he was honest. + +"Ahem!" he said. "For that very reason I desire to have you accept my +advice, young lady. It will save you much trouble and heartache. These +boys need a stronger hand than yours----" + +"Oh, my goodness!" gasped Janice. "_I_ wouldn't undertake to have +anything to do with governing them--no, indeed! I thought of speaking to +Mr. Haley--if I could interest him in the project--and get him to keep +an eye on the reading-room at night. But the boys will have to +understand that they can only have the benefits of the place as long as +they are on their good behavior." + +"Ahem!" coughed the Elder again. "Mr. Haley is a very bright young +man--an especially good Latin scholar. But I fancy he finds the boys +quite enough to handle during the daytime, without having the care of +them at night. And--to be frank--I do not approve of the idea at all." + +"Then--then you positively will not help us?" asked Janice, +disappointedly. + +"You have not proved your case--to _my_ mind--Miss Day," said the old +gentleman, sternly. "It is not a feasible plan that you suggest. The +young rascals would make the place a regular nuisance. They would be +worse than they already are--and that is saying a good deal." + +"I am sorry you think that, sir," returned Janice, quietly. "I think +better of them than you do. I believe the boys will appreciate such a +place and--if I can find enough people to help--I hope to see the +reading-room established." + +"I disapprove, Miss--I disapprove!" declared Elder Concannon, almost +angrily, for he was not used to being crossed, especially in any +semi-public matter like this. "You will find, too, that my opinion is +the right one. Good-day, Miss. I am sorry to find one so young +impervious to the advice of her elders." + +"I'll just _show_ him! That's what I'll do--I'll _show_ him!" was the +determination of the girl from Greensboro. "And I don't believe Poketown +boys are much worse than any other boys--if they only have half a +chance." + +Fortunately all those to whom Janice went in her secret canvass were not +like the opinionated old minister. Several subscribed money, and +insisted upon paying their subscription over to her at once so that she +might have a "working fund." Janice set aside three dollars for the +first month's rent of the store and with the remainder purchased a +second-hand table, some plain kitchen chairs, and some lumber. She began +to use this subscribed money with some little trepidation, for--suppose +her scheme fell through, after all? + +She got her uncle to agree to the needed carpenter's work; a painter +gave her a brush and sufficient wood-stain to freshen up all the +woodwork of the store. Miss 'Rill came and helped her clean the place +and kalsomine the walls and ceiling. A storekeeper gave her enough +enameled oilcloth to cover neatly the long table. Hopewell Drugg +furnished bracket lamps, and gave her the benefit of the wholesale +discount on a hanging lamp and reflector to light the reading-table. + +Walky Dexter did what carting was needed. Janice and her aunt made the +curtains themselves, and they put them up so as to keep out the prying +eyes of all Poketown, for the community now began to wonder what was +going on in the empty room next the drug store. As Walky had been bound +to secrecy, too, the curious had no means of learning what was going on. +It was just as though the printing office of a thriving town newspaper +had burned down and there was no means of disseminating the news. This +was the effect of the muzzle on Walky Dexter! + +It was at this point that Janice took Marty, and through him, the other +boys, into the scheme. + +"What would you boys each pay in dues to keep up a nice reading-room +such as we talked about, Marty?" she asked her cousin. + +"Aw, say!" grunted Marty. "Let's talk about the treasure chest we've +found in our back yard. _That_ sounds more sensible." + +"Wouldn't you be glad of such a place?" laughed Janice. + +"Say! would a duck swim?" growled the boy, thinking that she was teasing +him. "Bring on your old reading-room, and we'll show ye." + +That very afternoon she and Miss 'Rill had given the last touches to the +room. It was as neat as a pin; the lamps were all filled and the +chimneys polished. It was only a bare room, it was true; but there were +possibilities in it, Janice was sure, that would appeal to Marty. She +put on her hat and held her coat out for him to help her into. + +"I'm going down town with you to-night, Marty," she said, smiling. "I've +got something to show you." + +"Huh! What's it all about?" + +"You come along and see," she told him. "It's just the finest thing that +ever happened--and you'll say so, too, I know." + +But she refused to explain further until they turned up High Street and +stopped at the dark and long-empty shop beside the drug store. + +"Oh, gee! In Massey's store?" gasped Marty, when his cousin fitted a key +to the lock. + +"Come in and shut the door. Now stand right where you are while I light +the lamp," commanded Janice. + +She lit the hanging lamp over the table. The soft glow of it was soon +flung down upon the dull brown cloth. Marty stared around with mouth +agape. + +His father had built a sort of counter at one end, with a desk and +shelves behind it. Of course, there was not a book, or paper, in the +place as yet--nor a game. But Marty needed no explanation. + +"Janice Day! did you do all this?" he demanded, with a gasp. + +"Of course not, goosey! Lots of people helped. And they're going to help +more--if you boys show yourselves appreciative." + +"What's that 'appreciative' mean?" demanded Marty, suspiciously. + +"No fights here; no games that are so boisterous as to disturb those who +want to read. Just gentlemanly behavior while you are in the room. +That's all, besides a small tax each month to help toward the upkeep of +the room. What do you say, Marty?" + +"You done this!" declared the boy, with sudden heat. "Don't say you +didn't, for that'll be a lie. I never saw a girl like you, Janice!" + +"Why--why--Don't you like it?" queried Janice, disturbed. + +"Of course I do! It's bully! It's great!" exclaimed Marty. "Lemme show +it to the boys. They'll be crazy about it. And if they don't behave +it'll be because they're too big for me to lick," concluded Marty, +nodding his head emphatically. + +Janice burst out laughing at this, and pressed the key into his hand. +"Until we get organized properly, you will take charge of the room, +won't you, Marty?" + +"Sure I will." + +"You'll need a stove; I think I can get that for you in a day or two. +And lots of folks have promised books. I've written to friends in +Greensboro for books, too. And several people who take magazines and +papers regularly have promised to hand them over to the reading-room +just as soon as they have read them. And you boys can bring your +checkers, and dominoes, and other games, from home, eh?" + +Marty was scarcely listening; but he was looking at her with more +seriousness than his plain face usually betrayed. + +"Janice, you're almost as good as a boy yourself!" he declared. "I'm not +sorry a bit that you came to Poketown." + +Janice only laughed at him again; yet the boy's awkward earnestness +warmed her heart. + +The girl was finding in these busy days the truest balm for her own +worriments. Nothing more was heard of Mr. Broxton Day; yet Janice felt +less need of running alone into the woods and fields to find that +comfort about which she had told the minister. + +Besides, it soon grew too cold for frequent jaunts afield. The small +streams and pools were icebound. Then, over the fir-covered heights, +sifted the first snow of winter, and Poketown seemed suddenly tucked +under a coverlet of white. + +The reading-room was an established fact. An association to support it +was formed, divided into active and honorary members. The boys, as +active members, themselves contributed twenty-five cents per month each, +towards its support. Tables for games were set up. A goodly number of +books appeared on the shelves. From Greensboro a huge packing-case of +half-worn books was sent; Janice's friends at home had responded +liberally. + +Files of daily and weekly papers were established and magazines of the +more popular kind were subscribed for. Nelson Haley gave several +evenings each week to work as librarian, and to keep a general +oversight of the boys. To tell the truth, he did this more because +Janice asked him to than from personal interest in the institution; but +he did it. + +Slowly the more pessimistic of the townspeople began to show interest in +the reading-room. Mr. Middler openly expressed his approval of the +institution. Mr. Massey, the druggist, reported that the boys behaved +themselves "beyond belief!" + +At length, even old Elder Concannon appeared unexpectedly in the +reading-room one night to see what was going on. He came to criticise +and remained to play a game of "draughts," as he called them, with Marty +Day himself! + +"Them young scalawags, Elder," declared Massey, when the old gentleman +dropped into the drug store afterward. "Them young scalawags are +certainly surprising _me_. They behaved themselves more like human +bein's than I ever knowed 'em to before. An' it's a nice, neat, warm +room, too, ain't it, now?" + +"Ahem! It appears to be," admitted Elder Concannon, and not so +grudgingly as might have been expected. "But where's that young girl who +had so much to do with it at first--where's that Day girl?" + +"Why, pshaw, Elder! _she_ don't have nothing to do with the +reading-room," and the druggist's eyes twinkled. "Don't you know that +she only _starts_ things in this town? She sets folks up in the business +of 'doing for themselves'. Then she goes along about her own business. + +"What's _that_? Well, I dunno. I'm wonderin' myself just where she'll +break out next!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +CHRISTMAS NEWS + + +It bade fair to be an old-fashioned northern New England winter. Janice +Day had never seen anything like this in the prairie country from which +she had come. + +There three or four big storms, the traces of which soon melted, had +been considered a "hard" winter. Here in Poketown the hillside was made +white before Thanksgiving, and then one snow after another sifted down +upon the mountains. Tree branches in the forest broke under the weight +of snow. Sometimes she lay awake in the night and heard the frost burst +great trees as though a stick of dynamite had been set off inside them. + +The lake ice became so thick that the steamboat could no longer make her +trips. Walky Dexter became mail carrier and brought the mail from +Middletown every other day. + +Janice found the time not at all tedious in its flight. There really was +so much to do! + +As for real _fun_--winter sports had been little more than a name to the +girl from the Middle West before this winter. The boys had got their +bob-sleds out before Thanksgiving. Toboggans were not popular in +Poketown, for the coasting-places were too rough. At first Janice was +really afraid to join the hilarious parties of boys and girls on some of +the slides. + +Marty, however, owned a big sled, and she did not want her cousin to +lose his good opinion of her. He had declared that she was almost as +good as a boy, and Janice successfully hid from him her fear of the +sport that really is a royal one. + +A favorite slide of the Poketown young people was from the head of the +street on which Hopewell Drugg's store was located, down the hill, past +the decayed dock on which Janice had first seen little Lottie Drugg, and +on across the frozen inlet to the wooded point in which Lottie declared +the echo dwelt. + +When the whole lake froze solidly, the course of the sleds was continued +across its level surface as far as the momentum from the hill would +carry the bobs. There was skating here, too; and many were the moonlight +nights on which a regular carnival was held at the foot of these hilly +streets. + +Walky Dexter owned a great sledge, too, and when he attached two span of +horses to this, and the roads were even half broken, he could drive +parties of Poketown young people all over the county, on moonlight +sleigh-rides. Janice was invited to go on several of these, and she did +so. Her heart was not always attuned to the hilarity of her companions; +but she did not allow herself to become morose, or sad, in public. + +Yet the gnawing worriment about her father was in her mind continually. +It was an effort for her to be lively and cheerful when the fate of Mr. +Broxton Day was so uncertain. + +Her more thoughtful comrades realized the girl's secret feelings. She +was treated with more consideration by the rough boys who were Marty's +mates, than were the other girls. + +"Say, that Janice girl is all right!" one rough fellow said to Marty +Day. "I see her scouring the papers in the readin'-room the other night, +and she was lookin' for some news of her father, of course." + +"I reckon so," Marty answered. "We don't know nothing about what's +become of him. They stand 'em up against a wall down there in Mexico and +shoot 'em just for fun--so Walky Dexter says. Dad says he never expects +to hear of Uncle Brocky alive ag'in." + +"And yet that girl keeps up her pluck! She's all right," declared the +other. "Gee! suppose she should come smack upon the story of her +father's death some night there in the readin'-room? Wouldn't that be +tough?" + +From this conversation sprang the idea of a sort of Brotherhood of +Defense (in lieu of a better title) among the boys who used the +reading-room whose existence Janice Day's initiative had established. +Whoever got the papers from the mail and spread them on the file in the +reading-room, first examined the columns carefully for any mention of +the execution of prisoners by either belligerent party in Mexico; +especially was the news searched for any mention of the lost Mr. Day. + +Sometimes, when the news story suggested one of these horrible +executions, the whole paper was "lost in the mail." At least, when it +was inquired for, that was the stock reply. The boys made sure that +Janice should never see such blood-chilling accounts of Mexican +activities. + +It drew toward Christmas. Janice had another sorrow, of which she never +said a word. Her spending money was nearly gone. She saw the bottom of +her narrow purse just as the season of giving approached! + +There were so many things she wanted to do for all her friends, both in +Poketown and back at Greensboro. Some few little things she had made, +for her fingers were both nimble and dexterous. But "homemade" presents +would not do for Uncle Jason, Aunt 'Mira, Marty, and a dozen other +people towards whom she felt kindly. + +She had begun to worry, too, about what would finally happen to her if +her father never came back! How long would the bank continue to pay her +board to Uncle Jason? And how was she to get clothes, and other +necessary things? + +In the midst of these mental tribulations came a letter from the +Greensboro bank, addressed to Janice herself. In it was the cashier's +check for twenty-five dollars, and a brief note from the official +himself, stating that Mr. Day, before ever he had separated from his +daughter, had looked forward to her Christmas shopping and instructed +the bank to send on the fifteenth of December this sum for her personal +use. + +"Dear, dear Daddy! He forgot nothing," sobbed Janice, when she read this +note, and kissed the check which seemed to have come warm from her +father's hand. "Whatever shall I do all through my life long without +him, if he never comes back?" + +Christmas Eve came. The clouds had been gathering above the higher peaks +of the Green Mountains all day, and, as evening dropped, the snow began +falling. + +Janice and Marty went down town together after supper. Even Poketown +showed some special light and life at this season. Dusty store windows +were rejuvenated; candles, and trees, and tinsel, and wreathes blossomed +all along High Street. Janice was proud to know that the brightest +windows, and the most tastefully dressed, were Hopewell Drugg's. And in +the middle of the biggest window of Drugg's store was a beautiful wax +doll, which she and Miss 'Rill had themselves dressed. On Christmas +morning that doll was to be found by Lottie Drugg, fast asleep with its +head on the blind child's own pillow! + +Janice had to run around just to take a last peek at the window and the +doll, while Marty went to the post office for the evening mail. Papers +and magazines were due in that mail for the reading-room; and, despite +the fact that the snow was falling more heavily every minute, there +would be some of the "regulars" in the reading-room, glad to see the +papers. + +Janice had turned her own subscription for the New York daily over to +the reading-room association; and when she wanted to read the New York +paper herself, she went to the files to look at it. Weeks had passed now +since there had been anything printed about that district in Chihuahua +where her father's mine was located. + +Coming back, down the hill from Drugg's, Janice saw that Marty had not +gone at once into the reading-room and lit the lamps. Her cousin was +standing in the light of the drug-store window, a bundle of papers and +magazines under his arm, and one paper spread before his eyes. He seemed +to be reading eagerly. + +"Hey, Marty! come on in and read! It's awful cold out here!" she shouted +to him, shaking the latch of the reading-room door with her mittened +hand. + +Marty, roused, looked up guiltily, and thrust the quickly folded paper +into the breast of his jacket. "Aw, I'm comin'," he said. + +But when he came to open the door Janice noticed that he seemed to +fumble the key greatly, and he kept his face turned from her gaze. + +"What's the matter, Marty?" she asked, lightly. + +"Matter? Ain't nothin' the matter," grunted the boy. + +"Why, Marty! you're crying!" gasped Janice, suddenly. + +"Ain't neither!" growled the boy, wiping his rough coat sleeve across +his eyes. "Snow's blowed in 'em." + +"That's more than snow, Marty," was Janice's confident remark. + +"Huh!" snorted Marty. "Girls allus know so much!" + +He seemed to have suddenly acquired "a grouch." So Janice went cheerily +about the room, singing softly to herself, and lighting the lamps. +Nobody else had arrived, for it was still early in the evening. + +Marty stole softly to the stove. The fire had been banked, and the room +was quite chilly. He rattled the dampers, opened them, and then, with a +side glance at his cousin, pulled the paper from within the breast of +his jacket and thrust it in upon the black coals before he closed the +stove door. + +"Where's the New York paper, Marty?" Janice was asking, as she arranged +the Montpelier and the Albany papers on their files. + +"Didn't come," grunted Marty, and picked up the empty coal hod. "I got +to git some coal," he added, and dashed outside into the snow. + +Instantly the girl hastened across the room. She jerked the stove door +open. There lay the folded paper, just beginning to brown in the heat of +the generating gas. She snatched it from the fire and, hearing the outer +door opened again, thrust the paper inside her blouse. + +It wasn't Marty, but was one of the other boys. She did not understand +why her cousin should have told her an untruth about the New York paper. +But she did not want an open rupture with him here and now--and before +other people. + +"I'm going right home," she said to Marty, when he came back with the +replenished coal hod. "It's snowing real hard." + +"Sure. There won't be many of the fellows around to-night, anyway. Peter +here will stay all evening and lock up--if Mr. Haley don't come. Won't +you, Pete?" + +"Sure," was the reply. + +"Then I'll go along with you," declared Marty, who wasn't half as +ashamed to escort a girl on the street nowadays as he had been a few +months before. + +Now, Janice had intended running over to Hopewell Drugg's store and +looking at the paper Marty had tried to destroy. She did not for a +moment suspect what was in it, or why her cousin had told her a +falsehood about it. But she saw she would have to defer the examination +of the news-sheet. + +"All right. Come along, Marty," she agreed, with assumed carelessness. + +The boy was very moody. He stole glances at her only when he thought she +was not looking. Never had Janice seen the hobbledehoy act so strangely! + +They plowed through the increasing snow up Hillside Avenue, and the snow +fell so rapidly that the girl was really glad she had come home. She +entered first, Marty staying out on the porch a long time, stamping and +scraping his boots. + +When he came in he still had nothing to say. He pulled his seat to the +far side of the glowing stove and sat there, hands in his pockets and +chin on his breast. + +"What's the matter with you, Marty?" shrilled Mrs. Day. "You ain't sick, +be ye?" + +"Nop," growled her son. + +That was about all they could get out of him--monosyllables--until +Janice retired to her own room. The girl was so anxious to get upstairs +and look at that paper she had recovered from the reading-room fire, +that she went early. When she had bidden the others good night and +mounted to her room, however, she did something she had never done +before. She unlatched her door again softly and tiptoed out to the +landing at the top of the stairs, to listen. + +Marty had suddenly come to life. She heard his voice, low and tense, +dominating the other voices in the kitchen. She could not hear a word he +said, but suddenly Aunt 'Mira broke out with: "Oh! my soul and body, +Marty! It ain't so--don't _say_ it's so!" + +"Be still, 'Mira," commanded Uncle Jason's quaking voice. "Let the boy +tell it." + +She heard nothing more but the murmur of her cousin's voice and her +aunt's soft crying. Janice stole back into her cold room. She shook +terribly, but not with the chill of the frosty air. + +Her trembling fingers found a match and ignited the wick of the skeleton +lamp. She had, ere this, manufactured a pretty paper shade for it, and +this threw the stronger radiance of the light upon a round spot on the +bureau. She drew out the scorched paper and unfolded it in that light. + +She did not have to search long. The article she feared to see was upon +the first page of the paper. The black headlines were so plain that she +scanned them at a single glance: + + THE BANDIT, RAPHELE, AT WORK + + A Fugitive's Story of the Christmas-Week Execution in + Granadas District + + TWO AMERICANS DRAW LOTS FOR LIFE + + John Makepiece Tells His Story in Cida; His Fellow-Prisoner, + Broxton Day, Fills One of Raphele's "Christmas Graves" + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +"THE FLY-BY-NIGHT" + + +Janice Day could never have told how long she sat there, elbows on the +bureau, eyes glued to those black lines on the newspaper page. The heat +of the tall oil lamp almost scorched her face; but her back was +freezing. There was never anything invented--not even a cold storage +plant--as cold as the ordinary New England farmhouse bedchamber! + +But the girl felt neither the lamp's heat, nor the deadly chill of the +room. For a long time she could not even read beyond the mere headlines +of the article telegraphed from Cida. + +This seemed to be conclusive. It was the end of all hope for Janice--or, +so she then believed. There seemed not a single chance that her father +could have escaped. No news had been good news, after all. This story in +the paper was all too evil--all too certainly evil! + +By and by she managed to concentrate her numbed mind upon the story +itself. There is no need to repeat it here in full; when Janice had +read it twice she could not easily forget its most unimportant phrase. + +The man, John Makepiece, with Broxton Day, of Granadas district, had +been held "incommunicado" for months by the bandit, Raphele. This leader +had fought with his _commando_ for the Constitutionalists at the battle +of Granadas; but he was really an outlaw and cutthroat, and many of his +followers were brigands like him. + +The prisoners had been held for ransom. Several of the Mexican captives +of Raphele had managed to pay their way out of the villain's clutches; +but both Americans refused to apply to their friends for ransom. Indeed, +they did not trust to Raphele's protestations, believing that if any +money at all for their release was forthcoming, it would only whet the +villain's cupidity and cause Raphele to make larger demands. + +Raphele feared now to remain longer in that part of Chihuahua. His +unlawful acts had called down upon his head the serious strictures of +the Constitutionalist leaders. They were about to abolish his command. + +In his rage and bloodthirstiness he had declared his intention of either +destroying his remaining prisoners, or sending them to their homes +crippled. But the two Americans he treated differently. With fiendish +delight in seeing those two brave men suffer, he had commanded them to +cast lots to see which should be escorted beyond the lines, while the +other was marched to the edge of an open grave, there to find a sure and +sudden end under the rain of bullets from a "firing squad." + +John Makepiece had drawn the long straw. There was no help for it. He +rode away on a sorry nag that was given him, and from a distant height +saw the other American marched out to the place of burial, and even +waited to see the puff of smoke from the guns as the soldiers fired at +the doomed man. + +The details were horrible. The effect upon Janice was a most unhappy +one. For more than an hour she sat there before her bureau in the cold +room, her gaze fastened upon the story in the newspaper. + +Then the family came up to bed. Aunt 'Mira saw the light under the +girl's door. + +"Janice! Janice!" she whispered. "Whatever is the matter with you?" + +Aunt 'Mira had been crying and her voice was still husky. When she +pushed open the door a little way and saw the girl, she gasped out in +alarm. + +"Oh, my dear!" sobbed Aunt 'Mira. "_Do you know?_" + +Janice could not then speak. She pointed to the paper, and when Aunt +'Mira folded her in her arms, the girl burst into tears--tears that +relieved her overcharged heart. + +"You run down an' open up the drafts of that stove again, Jason," +exclaimed the fleshy lady, for once taking command of affairs. "This +child's got a chill. She's got ter have suthin' hot, or she'll be sick +on our hands--poor dear! She's been a-settin' here readin' all that +stuff Marty told us was in the paper--I do believe. Ain't that so, +child?" + +Janice, sobbing on her broad bosom, intimated that it was a fact. + +"That boy ain't no good. He didn't burn up the paper at all. She got +holt on it," declared Uncle Jason, quite angry. + +"Oh, it wasn't--wasn't Marty's fault," sobbed Janice. "And I had to +know! I had to know!" + +They got her downstairs, and Mrs. Day sent "the men folks" to bed. She +insisted upon putting Janice's feet into a mustard-water bath, and made +her swallow fully a pint of steaming hot "composition." Two hours later +Janice was able to go to bed, and, because she hoped against hope, and +was determined not to believe the story until it was thoroughly +confirmed, she fell immediately into a dreamless sleep. + +When she awoke on Christmas morning, it was with a full and clear +knowledge of what had happened, and a pang of desolation and grief such +as had swept over her the night before. But she set herself to hope as +long as she could, and to suppress any untoward exhibition of her sorrow +and pain, while she made every effort to find out the truth about her +father. + +The family was very gentle with the heartsick girl. Even Marty showed by +his manner that he sympathized with her. And she could not forget that +he had tried his very best to keep the knowledge of the awful crime from +her. + +Janice brought down with her to the breakfast table the little presents +which she had prepared for her uncle, and aunt, and cousin. There were +no boisterous "Merry Christmases" in the old Day house that morning; +even Uncle Jason wiped his eyes after saying grace at the breakfast +table. + +After all, Janice was the most self-controlled of the four. She said, +midway of the meal: + +"I cannot believe all of that dreadful story in the paper. I want to +know more of the particulars." + +"Oh, hush! hush!" begged her aunt. "I read it. It's too horrible! I +wouldn't want to know any more, child." + +"But I must _know_ more--if there's more to be known. I believe I can +telegraph to Cida. At least, Mr. Buchanan at Juarez may know something +more about this man's story. I wish there was either telegraph, or +telephone, in Poketown." + +"Gee, Janice!" exclaimed Marty. "Nobody could git over to Middletown +to-day. Not even Walky Dexter. The wind blowed great guns last night, +and the roads are full of drifts." + +"But it doesn't look so from my window," said his cousin. + +"Pshaw! all you can see is the lake. Snow blowed right across the ice, +an' never scarcely touched it. But there's heaps and heaps in the road. +Say! we got ter dig out Hillside Avenue--ain't we, Dad?" + +"A lot of snow fell in the night--that's a fact," admitted Uncle Jason. + +"But I see somebody coming up the street now," cried Janice, jumping up +eagerly from the table. + +It was Walky Dexter, plowing his way through the drifts in hip boots. + +"This is sure a white Christmas!" he bawled from the gate. "I got +suthin' for you, Janice. Hi tunket! can't git through this here gate, so +I'll climb over it. Wal, Janice, a Merry Christmas to ye!" he added, as +he stumped up upon the porch, and handed her a little package from Miss +'Rill. + +"I am afraid not a very merry one, Walky," said the girl, shaking his +mittened hand. "Come inside by the fire. Uncle Jason, where is that +paper? I want Mr. Dexter to read it." + +"Oh, dear, me!" murmured Walky, when he saw the heading of the Mexican +telegraph despatch. Then, with his fur cap cocked over one ear, and his +boots steaming on the stove hearth, he read the story through. "Oh, +dear, me!" he said again. + +"I want you to try to get me to Middletown, Walky," Janice said, with a +little catch in her voice. "Right away." + +"Mercy on us, child! a day like this?" gasped her aunt. + +"Why, the storm's over," said Janice, firmly. "And I must send some +telegrams and get answers. Oh, I must! I must!" + +"Hoity-toity, Miss Janice!" broke in Walky. "'Must' is a hard driver, I +know. But I tell ye, we couldn't win through the drif's. Why, I been as +slow as a toad funeral gettin' up here from High Street. The ox teams +won't be out breakin' the paths before noon, and they won't get out of +town before to-morrer, that's sure, Miss." + +"Oh, my dear!" cried her aunt, again. "You mustn't think of doing such a +thing. Wait." + +"I _can't_ wait," declared Janice, with pallid face and trembling lip, +but her hazel eyes dry and hard. "I tell you I must know _more_." + +"I can't take ye to Middletown, Janice. Not till the roads is broke," +Walky said, firmly, shaking his head. + +"Hi! here comes somebody else up the road," shouted Marty, from outside. + +Janice ran, hoping to see a team. It was only a single figure struggling +through the snow. + +"By jinks!" exclaimed Marty. "It's the teacher." + +"It _is_ Mr. Haley," murmured Janice. + +The young collegian, well dressed for winter weather, waved his hand +when he saw them, and struggled on. He carried a long parcel and when he +went through the more than waist-high drifts he held this high above his +head. + +"Hi, there!" yelled Marty, waving his mittened hands. "Ain't you lost +over here, Mr. Haley?" + +"I see somebody has been before me," laughed Nelson Haley, following +Walky Dexter's tracks over the fence and up to the cleared porch. "How +do you do, Miss Janice? A very happy Christmas to you!" + +"Thank you for your good wish, Mr. Haley," she replied, soberly. "But it +is not going to be a very glad Christmas for me, I fear. Oh! is it for +_me_?" for he had thrust the long pasteboard box into her arms. + +"If you will accept them, Miss Janice," returned the young man, with a +bow. + +"Open it, Janice!" exclaimed Marty. "Let's see." + +"I--I----" + +"Lemme do it for you," cried Marty, the curious. + +He broke the string, yanked off the paper, and Janice herself lifted the +cover. A great breath of spicy odor rushed out at her from the box. + +"Oh! Mr. Haley! Cut flowers! _Hothouse flowers!_ Wherever did you get +them?" cried Janice, drawing aside the tissue paper and burying her face +in the fragrant, dewy blossoms. + +"Aw--flowers! Huh!" grunted Marty, in disappointment. + +"I am glad you like them so," said Nelson Haley. "Marty, I didn't bring +them to _you_. But here is something that will please you better, I +know," and he put into the boy's hand a combination pocketknife that +would have delighted any out-of-door youth. "Only you must give me a +penny for it. I don't believe in giving sharp-edged presents to friends. +It cuts friendship, they say," and the collegian laughed. + +"Golly! that's a dandy!" acknowledged Marty. "Here's your cent. Thanks! +See what Mr. Haley gimme, Maw!" and he rushed into the house to display +his treasure. + +Haley and Janice were left alone in a sheltered corner of the porch. + +"Oh, Mr. Haley," the girl repeated. "How lovely they are! And how kind +of you to get them for me! How did you ever secure such fresh cut +flowers 'way up here? Nobody has a hothouse in Poketown." + +"They come from Colonel Van Dyne's place at the Landing." + +"'Way down there!" exclaimed Janice, in wonder. "Why, it's farther than +Middletown. That's where I took the boat to get here?" + +"I guess so, Miss Janice." + +"But--but the boats aren't running," she cried, in amazement. "And +these flowers are so fresh." + +"_My_ boat is running," and Haley laughed. "I brought them up for you +yesterday afternoon. Got in just before it began to snow hard." + +"Mr. Haley! The lake is frozen solidly!" + +"Sure," he laughed. "But my boat sails on the ice. Didn't you hear that +I had built the _Fly-by-Night_? It's an ice boat--and it's a dandy! I +hope to take you out in it----" + +"An ice boat?" cried Janice. "Oh! you can--you shall! You can take me to +the Landing. There is a telegraph office there, isn't there?" + +"Why--why----Yes! At the railroad station," the young man admitted, +rather amazed. + +Janice stepped up to him, with the pasteboard box of flowers in her +arms, and her eyes shining in expectation. + +"Oh, Mr. Haley! You _must_ take me down there. Won't you?" + +Marty ran out again, and heard what she said. "Where you goin'?" he +demanded. "Mr. Haley can't ice boat you to Middletown." + +"To the Landing," begged Janice. + +"By jinks! so he can," shouted the boy. "Lemme go, too, Mr. Haley. +You'll want somebody to 'tend sheet on the _Fly-by-Night_." + +"But I do not understand?" queried the teacher, staring from one to the +other of the excited pair. + +"You--you tell him, Marty!" said Janice, turning toward the door. "I +must put these beautiful flowers in water. Come in, Mr. Haley, and get +warm." + +But the teacher remained out there on the windswept porch while he +listened to what Marty had to tell. The girl's trouble struck home to +the generous-hearted young man. He was moved deeply for her--especially +upon a day like this when, in the nature of things, all persons should +be joyous and glad. + +"I will take you to the Landing, if the breeze holds fair," he declared +and he pooh-poohed Mrs. Day's fears that there was any danger in sailing +the ice boat. He had come up from the Landing himself the night before +in an hour and a half. + +"What a dreadful, dreadful way to spend Christmas Day!" moaned Aunt +'Mira, as she helped Janice to dress. "Something's likely to happen to +that ice boat. I've seen 'em racing on the lake. Them folks jest take +their lives in their han's--that's right!" + +"I'll make the boys take care," Janice promised. + +Aunt 'Mira saw them go with fear and trembling, and immediately +ensconced herself in the window of Janice's room, with a shawl around +her shoulders, to watch the flight of the ice boat after it got under +way down at the dock. + +Janice, and the teacher and Marty had fairly to wade to the shore of the +lake. The drifts were very deep on land; but, as Marty said, the wind +had swept the ice almost bare. Here and there a ridge of snow had formed +upon the glistening surface; but Mr. Haley made light of these +obstructions. + +"The _Fly-by-Night_ will just go humming through those, Miss Janice. +Don't you fear," he said. + +There were few people abroad in High Street, for it was not yet +mid-forenoon. Most who were out were busily engaged shoveling paths. The +three young folks got down to the dock, and Haley and Marty turned up +the heavy body of the ice boat and swept the snow off. + +There was a good deal of a drift of snow right along the edge of the +lake; but they pushed the ice boat out beyond this windrow, with +Janice's help, and then stepped the mast and bent on the heavy sail. It +was a cross-T boat, with a short nose and a single sail. The steersman +had a box in the rear and in this there was room for Janice to ride, +too. The sheet-tender likewise ballasted the boat by lying out on one or +the other end of the crosspiece. + +There was a keen wind, not exactly fair for the trip down the lake; yet +their sheet filled nicely on the longer tack, and the _Fly-by-Night_ +swept out from the Poketown dock at a very satisfactory speed. + +"We'll hit the Landing in two hours, at the longest, Miss Janice," +declared Nelson Haley. "Keep your head down. This wind cuts like +needles. Too bad you haven't a mask of some kind." + +He was wearing his motorcycle goggles, while Marty had one of those +plush caps, that pull down all around one's face so that nothing but the +eyes peer out, and was doing very well. + +As the ice yacht gathered speed, Janice found that she could not face +the wind. Nor could she look ahead, for the sun was shining boldly now, +and the glare of it on the ice was all but blinding. + +The timbers of the boat groaned and shook. The runners whined over the +ice with an ever-increasing note. Ice-dust rose in a thin cloud from the +sharp shoes, and the sunlight, in which the dust danced, flecked the +mist with dazzling, rainbow colors. + +When the ice boat came about, it was with a leap and bound that seemed +almost to capsize the craft. Janice had never traveled so fast +before--or so she believed. It fairly took her breath, and she clung to +the hand-holds with all her strength. + +"Hi, Janice!" yelled Marty, grinning from ear to ear. "How d'ye like it? +Gittin' scaret?" + +She had to shake her head negatively and smile. But to tell the truth +there was an awful sinking in her heart, and when one runner went +suddenly over a hummock and tipped the ice boat, she could scarcely keep +from voicing her alarm. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +CHRISTMAS, AFTER ALL! + + +Janice Day possessed more self-control than most girls of her age. She +would not, even when her heart was sick with apprehension because of the +story in the newspaper, give her cousin the opportunity of saying that +she showed the white feather. + +She lay close to the beam of the ice boat, clung to the hand-holds, and +made no outcry as the craft flew off upon the other tack. Had the wind +been directly astern, the course of the _Fly-by-Night_ would have been +smoother. It was the terrific bounding, and the groaning of the timbers +while the boom swung over and the canvas slatted, that really frightened +the girl. + +It seemed as though the mast must be wrenched out of the boat by the +force of the high wind filling the canvas. And the shrieking of the +runners! Janice realized that the passage of an ice boat made as much +noise as the flight of a fast train. + +She could scarcely distinguish what Nelson Haley shouted at her, and he +was so near, too. He pointed ahead. She stooped to look under the boom +and saw a great windrow of snow--a huge drift more than six feet +high--not half a mile away. + +This drift stretched, it seemed, from side to side of the lake. They +could not see what lay beyond it. Janice expected the others would drop +the sail and bring the ice boat to a halt. Some roughness in the ice, or +perhaps a narrow opening, had caught the first driven flakes of snow +here the night before. The snow had gathered rapidly when once a streak +of it lay across the lake. Deeper and deeper the drift had grown until +tons of the white crystals had been heaped here in what looked to Janice +to be an impassable barrier. + +"Oh! Oh!" she shrieked. "Won't you stop?" + +Nelson Haley smiled grimly and shook his head. Marty uttered a shriek of +exultation as the ice boat bore down upon the drift. _He_ was quite +speed-mad. + +"Hang on! hang on!" commanded Nelson Haley. + +Another moment and the frightened Janice saw the bow of the boat +rise--as it seemed--straight into the air. Amid the groaning of timbers +and the shrieking of the wind, the _Fly-by-Night_ shot up the steep +slant of the drift and over its crest! + +The cry Janice tried to utter was frozen in her throat. She saw the ice +ahead and below them. Like a great bird--or a huge batfish leaping from +the sea--the ice boat shot out on a long curve from the summit of the +hard-packed snowdrift. + +The shock of its return to the ice was terrific. Janice felt sure the +boat must be racked to bits. + +But the _Fly-by-Night_ was strongly built. With the momentum secured by +its leap from the drift, it skated over the ice for a mile or more, with +scarcely a thimbleful of wind in its sail, yet traveling like a fast +express. + +Then it answered the helm again, the wind filled the sail, and they bore +down upon the Landing on a direct tack. + +"Gee! Ain't it great?" cried Marty, as Nelson Haley signaled him to drop +the sail. "Don't that beat any traveling you ever done, Janice?" + +Janice faintly admitted that it did; but neither the boy nor Nelson +Haley realized what a trial the trip had been to the girl. Janice was +too proud to show the fear she felt; but she could scarcely stand when +the _Fly-by-Night_ finally stopped with its nose to the shore, just +beyond the steamboat dock. + +Popham Landing was scarcely larger than Poketown; only there were +canning factories here, and the terminus of the narrow-gauge railroad on +which Janice had finished her rail journey from Greensboro the spring +before. So it was a livelier place than the village in which the girl +had been living for eight months. + +Colonel Van Dyne, owner of one of the canning factories, had a fine home +on the heights overlooking the lake. It was with the colonel's gardener +and superintendent that Nelson Haley had an acquaintance, and through +that acquaintanceship had obtained the cut flowers from the colonel's +greenhouse. + +When the three had hurried up the half-cleared landing to the railroad +station, Janice fairly staggering between her two companions, the office +was closed and nobody was about the railroad premises. It was a holiday, +and no more trains were expected at the Landing until night. + +Janice all but broke down at this added bad turn of affairs. To come all +this distance only to be balked! + +"It's jest blamed _mean_!" sputtered Marty. "Telegraph shops ain't got +no right to shut up--in the daytime, too." + +"It's not a Western Union wire," explained Nelson. "The railroad only +takes ordinary messages as a matter of convenience. But wait! That +door's open and there's a fire in the waiting-room, you see. Just +because this card says the agent and operator won't be here till five +o'clock doesn't mean that he's gone out of town. Besides, I'll see my +friend, Jim Watrous." + +This was the gardener and general factotum at Colonel Van Dyne's. The +Poketown school-teacher hurried away, and left Janice and Marty sitting +together in the railroad station. + +"He'll find some way--don't you fear, Janice," said the boy, with much +more sympathy than he had ever shown before. Janice squeezed his hand +and hid her own face. She could not forget how Marty had tried the +evening before to hide the knowledge of her father's fate from her. +_This_ was a much different Marty than the boy she had first met at the +old Day house on her arrival at Poketown. + +In half an hour Nelson Haley was back with the operator and agent. The +gardener at Colonel Van Dyne's knew the man personally. The story in the +newspaper, and an explanation of who Janice was, did the rest. + +"There isn't any better day than Christmas, I reckon," said the +telegraph operator, when he shook hands with the girl and she tried to +thank him in advance for the trouble he was taking on her behalf, "to do +a helpful deed. And I want to help you, Miss Day, if I can. Write your +messages and I will put them through as rapidly as possible. I shall +have plenty of time to go home for dinner between the sending of your +telegrams, and the receiving of the answers. Now, don't worry at all +about it." + +"Oh, dear!" half sobbed the girl. "Everybody is _so_ good to me." + +"Not a bit more than you deserve, I am sure," laughed the operator. +"Now, Miss, if you are ready, I am." + +Janice knew just what she wished to say. If she had not written the +messages she was anxious to send, she had already formulated them in her +mind. It was but a few minutes' work to write both--one to Mr. Buchanan +at Juarez, and the other addressed to the man, John Makepiece, who +claimed to have been a fellow-prisoner with Mr. Broxton Day. + +When the messages were sent, all they could do was to wait. Janice had +expected that she and Marty and Mr. Haley would have to camp in the +waiting-room of the station during the long interval, and the girl was +very sorry that, because of her, her friends would have to forego any +holiday dinner. + +While Janice was engaged, Nelson Haley had been off on an excursion of +his own. He came tramping back into the station just as the operator +closed his key and told Janice that there was nothing to do now but +wait. + +"And I'm afraid it will be an awfully tedious time for you, Marty," said +the girl. "I'm sorry. Aunt 'Mira was going to have _such_ a nice dinner +for you, too!" + +"Huh! I guess I won't starve," growled the boy. "Mebbe we can find some +sandwiches somewhere--and a cup of coffee. By jinks! flyin' down the +lake like we did, _did_ make me sharp-set." + +"If you're hungry, then, Marty," broke in Nelson Haley, "we'll all go to +dinner. It's just about ready by now, I reckon." + +"Aw! don't fool a feller," said Marty, ruefully. + +The school-teacher laughed at him. "I'm not fooling," he said. "I was +quite sure Miss Janice would be hungry enough to eat, too; so I found a +kind woman who is willing to share her dinner with us. Come on! She and +her daughter are all alone. The storm has kept their friends from coming +to eat with them, so we're in luck." + +The three had quite a delightful dinner at the Widow Maltby's. Nelson +had told her and her daughter something about Janice's trouble, and the +good creatures did everything they could to make it agreeable for the +girl. + +As for Marty, the "lay-out," as he expressed it, was all that heart +could desire--a boy's heart, at least! There was turkey, with dressing, +and cranberries, and the usual vegetables, with pie and cake galore, and +a pocketful of nuts to top off with. + +Janice was afraid that the dinner would cost Nelson a great deal of +money, until she saw him fairly press upon the good widow a two-dollar +bill for their entertainment! + +"And I ain't right sure that I'd ought to take anything at all," the +widow declared. "An' at sech a time, too! We'd never been able to eat +all o' them vittles, Em and I, an' we're thankful to have somebody come +along and help us. An' it sure has perked us up right smart." + +Nelson had been very gay at the dinner, and had kept the widow and her +daughter in good humor. But with Janice, as they walked back to the +station (Marty had gone off on some matter of his own), the young man +was very serious. + +"I sincerely hope, Janice, that you will hear better news from your +father or his friends on the border than the newspaper gave last night. +The trains are snowbound, and no morning papers have reached the Landing +yet, so nobody here knows more than we do about the matter. Don't set +your heart too strongly upon hearing better news--that's all." + +"I do not need that warning," Janice told him, with a sigh. "But I felt +as though I should quite go all to pieces if I had to sit still and just +_wait_. I had to _do something_. I can't tell you how thankful I am to +you for your trouble in bringing me down here." + +"Trouble?" cried Nelson Haley. "You know it is a pleasure, Janice," and +just then they reached the railroad station and found the operator at +his telegraph key again. + +"I was just going to hunt you up, Miss Day," he cried, beckoning her +into the office. "Do you know, young lady, that you have suddenly become +a person of considerable importance?" and he laughed again. + +"_Me?_" cried Janice, in amazement. + +"You are the tea party--yes, ma'am! You are an object of public +interest. Two New York papers have sent to me for five-hundred word +interviews with you----" + +"My goodness me!" gasped Janice. "How dreadful! What does it mean?" + +"Your father's case has been taken up by the big papers all over the +country. It may be made a cause for American intervention. That is the +talk. The newspapers are interested, and the truth about your father is +likely to be known very quickly. All the special correspondents down +there on the border have been set to work----Ah! and here is something +from your man at Juarez." + +The telegrapher had caught the relay number of the despatch then coming +over the wire, and knew that it was from Juarez. "Hello!" he chuckled, +when the sounder ceased. "Your man is certainly some brief--and to the +point." + +He scratched off a copy of the message and put it into Janice's eager +hand. The girl read it out loud: + + "J. M. always a story-teller. Have telegraphed consular + agent at Cida for later particulars. I consider any news of + B. D. good news. + JAMES W. BUCHANAN." + +"That Buchanan evidently knows the John Makepiece who is telling this +yarn," observed the telegraph operator, "and he doesn't have much +confidence in him." + +"Oh, dear!" murmured the girl. "Maybe it's even worse than Makepiece +reported." + +"Hardly," broke in Nelson Haley, quickly. "He intimated that your father +was surely dead. But this friend of yours at Juarez says any news at all +is good news." + +"Keep your heart up, Miss," urged the telegraph operator. "And do tell +me a little something about yourself, so that I can satisfy these +insistent newspapers." + +"Oh, dear, me! I don't want to get into the newspapers," cried Janice, +really disturbed by this possibility. + +"But folks will be awfully interested in reading about you, Miss Day," +urged the man; "and the newspapers are going to do more than anybody +else for you and your father in this trouble. You may make sure of +_that_." + +But it was because of the operator's personal kindness that Janice +submitted to the "interview." Nelson Haley entered into the spirit of +the affair and wrote down Janice's personal history to date, just as +briefly and clearly as the girl gave it under the operator's +questioning. Young Haley added a few notes of his own, which he +explained in the operator's ear before the latter tapped out his message +to New York. + +It was only when Janice saw the paper a few days later that she realized +what, between them, the school-teacher and the telegraph operator had +done. There, spread broadcast by the types, was the story of how Janice +had come to Poketown alone, a brief picture of her loneliness without +her father, something of the free reading-room Janice had been the means +of establishing, and a description of the flight down the lake on the +_Fly-by-Night_ on Christmas morning, that she might gain further +particulars of her father's fate. + +It was the sort of human-interest story that newspaper readers enjoy; +but Janice was almost ashamed to appear in public for several days +thereafter! + +However, this is ahead of our story. + +The wait for further messages from the border was not so tedious, +because of these incidents. By and by an answer came from the American +consular agent at Cida, relayed from Juarez by Mr. Buchanan. The agent +stated his doubt of the entire truth of John Makepiece's story. The man +was notoriously a reckless character. It was believed that he himself +had served with the Constitutionalist army in Mexico some months. Since +appearing in Cida and telling his story to the Associated Press man, he +had become intoxicated and was still in that state, so could not be +interviewed for further particulars. + +A posse had started for Granadas the day before, to see what was the +condition of affairs around the mining property of which Mr. Day had had +charge. It was a fact that the guerrilla, Raphele, had overrun that +district and had controlled it for some months; but his command was now +scattered, and the more peacefully-inclined inhabitants of Granadas were +stealing back to their homes. + +"Have requested consular agent at Cida to wire you direct to Popham +Landing, report of returning posse now overdue," was how Mr. Buchanan +concluded the message. + +"And that report may be along any time, now," declared the operator, +encouragingly. "You people haven't got to start back up the lake yet +awhile?" + +"We'll stay as long as Miss Day wants to," said Nelson Haley, quickly. + +"Sure we'll stay," cried Marty. "Miss Maltby told me to come back by and +by, and finish that mince pie I couldn't manage at dinner time. There +ain't no hurry to get back to Poketown, is there?" + +Janice and Nelson were much amused by this frank statement of the boy; +but the girl was only too glad to have the others bear out her own +desire to remain within reach of the telegraph wires for a while longer. +Mr. Buchanan's messages had eased her heart greatly. + +Janice cried a little by herself--the first tears she had shed since the +night before. But even Marty respected them and did not make fun of his +cousin. + +"Everybody is so good to me!" she cried again, when she had wiped her +eyes and could smile at Marty and Nelson Haley. "And I believe it's all +coming out right. This long day is going to be a _real_ Christmas Day, +after all!" + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE TROUBLE WITH NELSON HALEY + + +From that time on Janice refused longer to be in what she called "the +dumps." It was not her way to mope about; usually she cheered other +people and did not herself stand in need of cheering. + +She made the operator go home to his family to spend Christmas +afternoon. When his call came Marty was to run over after him. This kept +the trio of friends from Poketown close to the railroad station all the +afternoon; but the interval was spent quite pleasantly. + +Mrs. Maltby and her daughter came over, through the snow, to visit a +while with Janice--and to bring Marty the pie!--and several other +villagers dropped in. News of Janice's reason for being at Popham +Landing had been spread abroad, and the people who came were more than +curious--they were sympathetic. + +The pastor of one of the churches, who was well acquainted with Mr. +Middler, left his own family for half an hour and came to the station to +ask if he could do anything of practical use for Janice. Had it been +wise the trio from Poketown could have accepted half a dozen invitations +for supper and evening entertainment. + +"People _are_ so good!" Janice cried again to Haley and Marty. "I never +realized that mere strangers could be so very, very nice to one." + +"Huh!" grunted Marty. "Ain't _you_ always nice to folks--an' doing +something for 'em? How do you like it yourself?" which remark made +Janice and Nelson Haley laugh very heartily. + +So, after all, it _was_ a real Christmas, as Janice said. It was an odd +one, perhaps, but there were some very enjoyable things about it. For +instance, Janice and the young school-teacher got far better acquainted +than they had ever been before--and Janice had always liked Nelson +Haley. + +In this present situation, Nelson stood out well. He was generous, +sympathetic, and helpful. The fact that he was inclined to pursue the +way of least resistance, and considered it right to "let well enough +alone," did not impress one so deeply at the present moment. + +Janice learned that the young man had neither father nor mother, and +that his nearest relative was an old aunt who had supplied the money for +his college tuition--at least, such money as he had not been able to +earn himself. Nelson Haley, however, desired to be self-supporting, and +he felt that he had accepted all the assistance he should from the old +aunt, whose patrimony was not large. + +"Old Aunty Peckham is just as good as she can be," he confided to +Janice; "but I realize now--have realized for some years, in fact--that +if she had not had me to worry about, she could have enjoyed many more +good things in life than she has. So I told her I'd come to the end of +accepting money from her whenever my own purse got low. + +"I'll teach school in Poketown a couple of years and save enough to take +up law; or perhaps I'll get a chance in some small college. Only, to +teach in a real college means _work_," and he laughed. + +"But--but don't you like to work?" queried Janice, doubtfully. + +"Now, Janice! who really _likes_ work?" demanded the young man, lightly. +"If we can get through the world without much effort, why not take it +easily?" + +"That is not _my_ idea of what we are put in the world for--just to +drift along with the current." + +"Oh, dear, me! what a very strenuous person you are," said the young +man, still teasingly. "And--I am afraid--you'd be a most uncomfortable +person to have around all the time. Though that doesn't sound gallant, I +admit." + +Janice laughed. "I tell you what it is," she observed, not at all shaken +by the young man's remark, "I shouldn't want to feel that there wasn't +something in life to get by going after it." + +"'By going after it?'" repeated the young man, in some puzzlement. + +"Yes. You say I'd be an uncomfortable comrade. And I expect you're +right. Especially for a downright _lazy_ person." + +"Oh, oh!" he cried. "That was a hard hit." + +"You're not really lazy, you know," she pursued, coolly. "You only +haven't been 'woke up' yet." + +"I believe that's worse than your former statement," he cried, rather +ruefully now. "I suppose I _do_ drift with the current." + +"Well!" + +"What kind of a fellow do you expect to marry, Janice?" he asked, with a +twinkle in his eye. + +"Why, I'll tell you," said the girl, practically and without a shadow of +false modesty. "I expect a man to prove himself good for something in +the world before he even _asks_ me to marry him." + +"Goodness me! he must be a millionaire, or president, or something like +that?" chuckled Nelson. + +"Nothing at all so great," she returned, with some heat. "I don't care +if he's right down _poor_, if only he has been successful in +accomplishing some really hard thing--something that shows the metal +he's made of. No namby-pamby young man for me. No, sir! They can keep +away," and Janice ended her rather serious speech with a laugh and a +toss of her head. + +"I shall bear your strictures in mind, Miss Day," declared Haley, with +mock gravity. "I see very plainly what you mean. The young St. George +who wears your colors must have slain his dragon." + +"At least," Janice returned, softly, "he must have shown his willingness +to kill the horrid thing." + +The short winter day was already drawing to a close when the telegraph +sounder began to call the station. Marty ran out at once and brought +back the operator. He was quickly in communication with one of the great +New York papers and found that it was over the paper's private wire that +first authentic news from the Granadas district had arrived in the East. + +The posse from Cida had found everything peaceful about the mines. The +guerrilla leader, Raphele, had decamped. There had been an execution on +the day John Makepiece had fled from the place; but the victims were +some unfortunate Indians. The bandit had not dared kill the remaining +American prisoner. + +Mr. Broxton Day had managed to get into a shaft of the mine and there +had lain hidden until Raphele, and his gang, had departed. Now he had +gathered some of his old employees, and armed them with rifles hidden +all these months in the mine, and the property was once more under Mr. +Day's control and properly guarded. + +Through the posse, Mr. Day made a statement to the newspapers, and to +his friends and fellow-stockholders of the mine, in the States. To +Janice, too, he sent a brief message of love and good cheer, stating +that letters to her were already in the mail. + +The relief Janice felt is not to be easily shown. To be positive, after +these hours of uncertainty--and after the long weeks of worriment that +had gone before--that dear Daddy was really alive and well, seemed too +good to be true. + +"Oh, do you suppose it _can_ be so?" she cried, again and again, +clinging to Nelson Haley's arm. + +"Of course it is! Pluck up your courage, Janice," he assured her, while +Marty sniveled: + +"Aw, say, Janice! Doncher give way, now. Uncle Brocky is all right an' +it would be dead foolish ter cry over it, when you kep' up your pluck +so, before." + +"Well! to please you both!" choked Janice, trying to swallow the sobs. +"But--but----Come on! let's go home. Just think how worried Aunt 'Mira +will be." + +So they shook hands with the telegraph operator and Janice thanked him +heartily. There were several other friendly folk of the neighborhood in +the waiting-room when the three friends came out of the office, and the +happy girl thanked them, too, for their sympathy. + +It was quite dark when they got out into the cold again. The wind had +shifted a point or two since morning, but it was still in their favor. +Although the sun had set, the way up the lake was clearly defined. The +stars began to twinkle, and after the _Fly-by-Night_ was gotten under +way the course seemed plain enough before them. + +Now Janice enjoyed the sail. She was no longer afraid, and her heart +beat happily. The ice boat made good its name on the trip to Poketown, +and Nelson Haley brought the craft to land beside the steamboat dock in +season for a late supper. + +There was a crowd down at the lake's edge to see them come in. News of +their trip to the Landing, and the reason for it, had been well +circulated about town; and when Marty shouted to some of his boy friends +that "Uncle Brocky was found--and he warn't dead, neither!" the crowd +started to cheer. + +The cheers were for Janice--and she realized it. The folks were glad of +her father's safety because they loved her. + +"People are so kind to me--they are so kind to me!" she cried again, and +then she _did_ burst into tears, much to Marty's disgust. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +A STIR OF NEW LIFE IN POKETOWN + + +After that strange Christmas Day Janice saw a good deal more of Nelson +Haley than she had before. The teacher was several years her senior, of +course; but he seemed to find more than a little pleasure in her +society. + +On Janice's side, she often told herself that Nelson was a real nice +young man--but he could be so much more attractive, if he would! When +the girl sometimes timidly took him to task for his plain lack of +interest in the school he taught, he only laughed lightly. + +Nelson Haley suited the committeemen perfectly. He made no startling +innovations; he followed the set rules of the old-fashioned methods of +teaching; and (to quote Elder Concannon) he was a Latin scholar! Why the +old gentleman should consider that accomplishment of such moment, when +no pupil in the Poketown school ever arrived even to a Latin declension, +was a mystery to Janice. + +Even Miss 'Rill had better appreciated the fact that Poketown needed a +more advanced system of education, and a better school building as well. +And there were other people in the town that had hoped for a new order +of things when this young man, fresh from college, was once established +in his position. + +They waited, it seemed, in vain. Nelson Haley was content to jog along +in the rut long since trodden out for the ungraded country school. + +It was not long after the Christmas holidays, however, when there began +to be serious talk again in the town over the inconvenience in locality +and the unsanitary condition of the present schoolhouse. Every winter +the same cry had been raised--for ten years! Elder Concannon declared +loudly, in the post office one day, that if the school had been good +enough for the fathers of the community, and for the grandfathers as +well, it should be good enough for the present generation of scholars. +Truly, an unanswerable argument, it would seem! + +Yet there was now a stir of new life in Poketown. There was a spirit +abroad among the people that had never before been detected. Walky +Dexter hit it off characteristically when he said: + +"Hi tunket! does seem as though that air reading-room's startin' up has +put the sperit of unrest in ter this here village. People never took +much int'rest in books and noospapers before in Poketown. Look at 'em, +now. I snum! they buzz around that readin'-room for chances to read the +papers like bees around a honey-pot. + +"An' that ain't all--no, sir! 'Most ev'rybody seems ter be +discontented--that's right! Even folks that git their 'three squares' a +day and what they want to wear, ain't satisfied with things as they is, +no more. I dunno what we're all comin' to. 'Lectric street lights, and +macadamized roads, and all sech things, I s'pose," and Walky chuckled +over his flight of imagination. + +"Wal, I dunno," said the druggist, argumentatively, "I'm free ter +confess for one that a different system of street lightin' wouldn't hurt +Poketown one mite. This here havin' a lot of ile lamps, that ain't +lighted at all if the almanac says the moon ought ter shine, is a +nuisance. Sometimes the moon acts right contrary!" + +"My soul an' body!" gasped Walky. "You say that to Elder Concannon, and +Mr. Cross Moore, and ol' Bill Jones! They say taxes is high 'nuff as +they be." + +"And school tax, too, I s'pose?" demanded another idler in the drug +store. + +"Wal," said Walky, "I b'lieve we _could_ give the little shavers a +better chance to l'arn their A, B, C's. And that old schoolhouse can't +be het on re'l cold days. And it's as onhandy as it can be----" + +"I believe you're goin' in for these new-fangled notions, too, Walky," +declared the druggist. + +"Guess I be, on the school question, anyway. My woman says she sha'n't +let our Helen go ter school again this winter, for she's got one cold +right on top of another las' year. It's a plumb shame." + +It was from talks such as these in the village stores that the fire of +public demand for a new school building--if not for a new system of +education--finally burst into open flame. + +Usually, when there was a public meeting, the basement of the Union +Church--"the old vestry", as it was called--was used. But although Mr. +Middler had timidly expressed himself as in favor of a new school +building, he did not have the courage to offer the use of the vestry +room. + +Therefore the reading-room next to the drug store was one evening +crowded with earnest supporters of the belief that it was time Poketown +built a new structure for the training of her youth. + +Janice saw to it that Uncle Jason went. Indeed, with Janice on one side +and Marty on the other, Mr. Day could scarcely escape, for his son and +his niece accompanied him to the place of meeting. + +Not that the young folks went in, for there wasn't room. It seemed that +the people who favored a change in the old town's affairs were pretty +numerous, and there was not a dissenting voice in the meeting. It was +decided to have a special town meeting called to vote, if possible, an +appropriation for the building of a new schoolhouse. + +This first meeting was only a beginning. It served merely to solidify +that public opinion which was in favor of the improvement. At once +opposition raised its head, and during the fortnight preceding the town +meeting, argument, _pro_ and _con_, was hotter than at election time. + +Janice was deeply interested in the project, although she had, during +these first weeks of the New Year, more important thoughts to fill her +heart and mind. Daddy was writing to her regularly. The mine buildings +were being re-erected. The old force had come back to work, and for the +first time since Broxton Day had arrived in Mexico, the outlook for +getting out ore and making regular "cleanups" was bright. But trouble +down there was not yet at an end, and that worried her greatly. + +The story of her father's captivity in the hands of the brigand, +Raphele, had been made of light moment in Mr. Day's letters that +immediately followed his escape; but Janice understood enough about it +to know that God had been very good to her. Some other American mining +men and ranchers in Granadas had not escaped with their lives and +property from Raphele and his ilk. + +Daddy sent a photograph, too; but that was not until he had recovered +some from his hiding out in the mine without much to eat. Although he +was haggard and bewhiskered, his eyes had that look in them that Janice +so clearly remembered. When she awoke and lit her lamp in the early +morning, there he was looking at her from the bureau; and when she +retired she kissed the picture in lieu of having his real presence to +bid good-night. + +Those gray eyes of Broxton Day reminded her always of his oft-spoken +motto: "Do something!" He seemed to be saying that to Janice from his +photograph; therefore the girl was not likely to lose her interest in +such a momentous affair as the new schoolhouse. + +There was another interest that held Janice's mind and sympathy. This +was the condition of poor little Lottie Drugg. As she had been quite +blind when Janice first met her, now her hearing had departed entirely. +She could seldom now distinguish the notes of her father's violin as he +played to her. She would sit on the store counter and put her hand often +on Hopewell's bow-hand as he dragged the more or less harmonious sounds +out of the wood and strings. Otherwise she could not know that he was +playing at all! + +Nelson Haley had been touched by the case of the storekeeper's little +girl, and had discussed the matter with Janice. Nelson had even written +to a Boston specialist who treated the eyes, and who had been very +successful in such cases as Lottie's. The fee the surgeon demanded was +from five hundred to a thousand dollars for an operation. And poor +Hopewell Drugg, although he strained every effort, had succeeded in +saving less than two hundred dollars during all these months! + +Nevertheless, Janice would not let the storekeeper lose heart. "It will +come in time, Mr. Drugg," she told him, cheerfully. "And Lottie will be +able to go to that wonderful school, too, where she will be taught many +things." + +For if the child could once obtain her sight, lip-reading would be +possible for her, and through that the little girl might gradually +become as well educated as any one, and have a fair chance for happiness +in the world after all! + +Although Nelson Haley was touched by Lottie's sad condition, and by +anything else going on about him that had the personal note in it, +Janice thought the Poketown school-teacher showed very little public +spirit. + +She began to realize that his overseeing of the reading-room and library +was inspired by his wish to please _her_ instead of his actual interest +in the institution. This was very complimentary, but it did not satisfy +Janice Day at all. + +She was not interested in Nelson Haley in a way to crave the attentions +that he had begun to show her. Indeed, she did not really appreciate his +attitude, for there was nothing silly in Janice's character. She was +still a happy, hearty _girl_; and if she had romantic dreams of the +future, they were nothing but dreams as yet! + +She had the same interest in Nelson that she had in her cousin Marty. It +troubled her that the young man did not seem to have any serious +interest in life. Just as long as he tutored his classes through their +recitations in a manner satisfactory to the school committee, he seemed +quite careless of anything else about the school. He admitted this, in +his laughing way, to the girl, when she broached the subject of the +fight for a new school. + +"But it's your _job_!" exclaimed Janice. "You more than anybody else +ought to be interested in having the boys and girls of Poketown get a +decent schoolhouse." + +"And suppose old Elder Concannon and the rest of the committee get after +me with a sharp stick?" queried Nelson. + +"I should think _you_, a collegian and an educated man, would be only +too eager to help in such a movement as this," Janice cried. "Oh, +Nelson! don't you know that the people who are waking up in this town +need your help?" + +"My goodness me! how serious you are about it," he returned, teasingly. +"Of course, if you insist, I'll risk my job with the committee and come +out flat-footed for the new schoolhouse and reform." + +"I don't wish you to do anything at all for _me_," returned Janice, +rather tartly. "If your own conscience doesn't tell you what course to +pursue, pray remain neutral--as you are. But I am disappointed in you." + +"There is feminine logic for you!" laughed the young man. "With one +breath you tell me to follow the dictates of my own conscience, and then +you show me plainly just how much you will despise me if I go against +your side of the controversy." + +"You are mistaken," Janice said, with some little heat. "I do not +personally care what you do, only as your action reflects upon your own +character." + +"Now, dear me!" he sighed, still amused at her earnestness, "I thought +if I came out strongly at the town meeting for the new school, you would +award me the palm." + +"My goodness me!" exclaimed the exasperated girl. "Somebody ought to +award you a palm--and right on the ear! You're as big a tease as Marty," +and she refused to discuss the school project with him any further. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +AT THE SUGAR CAMP + + +Nelson Haley was, however, at the town meeting and spoke in favor of the +new school building. Janice had a full report of it afterward from +Marty, who squeezed in at the back with several of the other boys and +drank in the long and tedious wrangle between the partisans in the +school matter. + +"And, by jinks!" the boy proclaimed, "lemme tell you, Janice, it looked +like the vote was goin' ag'in us till Mr. Haley began to talk. I thought +he didn't have much interest in the thing. Nobody thought he did. I +heard some of the old fellers cacklin' that 'teacher didn't favor the +idee none.' + +"But, say! When he got up to talk, he showed 'em. He was sitting +alongside of Elder Concannon himself, and the Elder had made a mighty +strong speech against increasin' taxes and burdenin' the town for years +and years with a school debt. + +"But, talk about argument! Mr. Haley sailed inter them old fossils, and +made the fur fly, you bet!" + +"Oh, Marty! Fur fly from fossils?" chuckled Janice. + +"That _does_ sound like a teaser, don't it?" responded her cousin, with +a grin. "Just the same, Mr. Haley made 'em all sit up and take notice. +He didn't only speak for the schoolhouse, and new methods of teaching, +and a graded school; but he took up Elder Concannon's arguments and shot +'em full of holes. + +"You ought to have seen the old gentleman's face when Mr. Haley proved +that a better-taught generation of scholars would possess an increased +earning power and so be better able to take up and pay the school bonds +than the present taxpayers. + +"Say! the folks cheered! When Mr. Haley sat down, the question was put +and the vote went through with a rush. But Elder Concannon and Old Bill +Jones, and Mr. Cross Moore, and some of the others, were as mad as they +could be." + +"Mad at Mr. Haley?" queried Janice, with sudden anxiety. + +"You bet! But they can't take the school away from him till the end of +the year, as long as he doesn't neglect his work. So Dad says, and he +knows." + +Janice was worried. She knew that Nelson Haley had hoped to teach the +Poketown school at least two years, so as to get what he called "a +stake" for law-school studies. And there were not many ungraded schools +in the state that paid as well as Poketown's; for it was a large school. + +The furor occasioned by the special town meeting, and the fight for the +new school, passed over. A site for the school was secured just off of +High Street near the center of the town--a much handier situation for +all concerned. The ground would be broken for the cellar as soon as the +frost had gone. + +The committee appointed at the town meeting to have charge of the +building of the school were all in favor of it. There were three of +them,--Mr. Massey, the druggist, the proprietor of the Lake View Inn, +and Dr. Poole, one of the two medical practitioners in the town. These +three were instructed to appoint two others to act with them, and as +these two appointees need not be taxpayers, one of them was Nelson +Haley, who acted as secretary. + +When Janice heard of this, she was delighted. She had not seen the +teacher more than to say "how-de-do" since their rather warm discussion +before the date of the town meeting. Now she put herself in the way of +meeting him where they might have a tete-a-tete. + +There were not many social affairs in Poketown for young people. Janice +had attended one or two of the parties where boys and girls mingled +indiscriminately and played "kissing games," then she refused all such +invitations. She was not old enough to expect to be bidden to the few +social gatherings held by the more lively class of people in the town. + +The church did little outside of the ladies' sewing circle to promote +social intercourse in the congregation. So, although the school-teacher +might have been invited to a dozen evening entertainments during that +winter, Janice did not chance to meet him where they could have a "good, +long talk" until the Hammett Twins gave their annual Sugar Camp party. + +The two little old ladies, whom Janice had met so soon after coming to +Poketown, had become staunch friends of the girl. She had been at their +home on the Middletown road several times--twice to remain over night, +for both Miss Blossom and Miss Pussy enjoyed having young people about +them. + +They were an odd little couple, but kindly withal, and loved children +desperately, as many spinster ladies do. They had never married because +of the illness for many years of both their father and their mother. +Besides, the twins had never wished to be separated. + +Now, at something over sixty years of age, they owned a fine farm and +the most productive sugar-maple orchard in that part of the state. At +sugaring time each year they invited all the young folk Walky Dexter +could pack into his party wagon, to the camp not far from their house; +and, as maple-sugar making was a new industry to Janice, she was not a +little eager when she received her invitation from the two old ladies. + +The "sugaring" was on a Saturday, and the party met at the schoolhouse. +Some of the larger girls who had treated Janice so unpleasantly when she +first visited the school were yet pupils; but they were much more +friendly with the girl from Greensboro than at first. They might have +been a wee bit jealous of her, however; for Nelson Haley would never +treat them other than as a teacher should treat his scholars, whereas he +paid marked attention to Janice whenever he was in her society. + +Once he had asked permission to call upon her; but Janice had only +laughed and told him that her aunt would be pleased to have him come, of +course. She was not at all sure that she liked Mr. Nelson Haley well +enough to allow him to confine his attentions to her! Young as she was, +Janice had serious ideas about such matters. + +However, she was glad to have him to talk to again on this occasion. + +"I've never had a chance to tell you how proud of you I was when they +told me what you did at the town meeting," Janice whispered, as they sat +side by side in the party wagon. + +Nelson grinned at her cheerfully. "The old Elder scarcely speaks to me," +he said. "He's even forgotten that I can turn a Latin phrase as they +used to when he went to the university." + +"Oh, that is too bad! But don't you feel that you did right?" + +"I'll tell you better when it comes time to engage a teacher for next +year." + +"Oh, dear! Maybe they'll put in a new school committee at the July +school meeting. They ought to." + +"The Elder and his comrades in crime have been in office for eight or +ten years, I understand. They are fairly glued there, and it will take a +good deal to oust them. You see, they have nothing to do with the +building of the new school." + +"But if that school is finished and ready for occupancy next fall, you +ought to be at the head of it. It won't be fair to put you out," Janice +said, with gravity. + +"We'll hope for the best," and Nelson Haley laughed as usual. "But if I +lose my job and have to beg my bread from door to door, I hope you will +remember, Janice, that I told you so." + +"You are perfectly ridiculous," declared the girl. "Aren't you ever +serious two minutes at a time?" + +"Pooh! what's the good of being 'solemncholly'? Take things as they +come--that's _my_ motto." + +Still, Janice believed that the young man was really becoming more +deeply interested in the Poketown school and its problems that he was +willing to admit, even to her. She had heard that the Middletown +architect who was planning the school had consulted Nelson Haley +several times upon important points, and that the teacher was the most +active of all the five special committeemen. + +They reached the sugar camp before the middle of the forenoon, although +the roads at that season were very heavy. Winter had by no means +departed, although a raucous-voiced jay or two had come up from the +swamp and scoured the open wood as though already in search of spring +quarters. + +The Hammett sugar camp consisted of an open shed in which to boil the +sap and an old cabin--perhaps one of the first built in these New +Hampshire grants--in which dinner was to be cooked and eaten. Miss +Blossom Hammett was already busy over the pots, and pans, and bake oven +in the cabin; while her sister, the thin Miss Pussy, overseered the +sap-boiling operations. + +It was a regular "bee", for beside the twins' hired hands, there were +several of their neighbors, and the visitors from Poketown were expected +to make themselves useful, too, the boys and Nelson Haley especially. + +Janice joined the sap gatherers, for she was strong and liked exercise. +They carried buckets to collect the sap that had already run into the +shiny two-quart cups which were used to collect it. + +First an incision was made through the bark and into the wood of the +tree. Into this incision was thrust a whittled plug that had a shallow +gutter cut in its upper side, and notches from which the bail of the +two-quart cup hung. Into the cup the sap dripped rapidly--especially +about midday, when the sun was warmest. + +They tapped only about a quarter of the grove belonging to the old +ladies, for that numbered as many trees as could be handled at once. +Pail after pail of the thin sap was brought in and emptied into one of +the two big cauldrons, under which a steady fire of hickory and beech +was kept burning. Later the fire was started under the second pot, while +the contents of the first one was allowed to simmer down until the sugar +would "spin", when dipped up on the wooden ladle and dropped into a bowl +of cold water. + +The old ladies supplied a hearty and substantial dinner for the young +folks to put away before the sugar was boiled enough to spin. After +that, the visitors gathered about the sugar troughs like flies about +molasses. The Hammett Twins were not niggard souls by any manner of +means; but they kept warning the girls and boys all the afternoon to +"save room for supper." + +In truth, the supper down at the old Hammett farmhouse, after the work +of the day was over, was the principal event. It grew cold towards +night, and that sharpened the young folks' appetites. The sap ceased +running before sunset, so they trooped down from the camp, the little +old ladies riding in their phaeton behind Ginger. Walky Dexter was going +to drive out to the Hammett place after supper to pick up his load of +young people. + +But Walky was late--very late indeed. After supper the majority of the +young folk, both those from Poketown and in the near neighborhood, began +to play forfeit games; so Janice and Nelson Haley slipped away, bidding +the kind old ladies good-night, and set out to walk home. + +The distance was under five miles; there was a good path all the way +despite the mud in the driveway, and there was a glorious moon. The wind +had died down and, although the night air was keen, it was a perfect +hour for walking. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +"DO YOU MEAN THAT?" + + +"It was right along here--at the bridge, you know--I saw you the first +time, Janice," said the teacher, when they had covered some two miles of +the way. "Do you remember?" + +"I didn't suppose _you_ would," laughed Janice, blushing a little. "And +I stared at you because you were the first citified-looking person I had +seen since coming to Poketown." + +He laughed. "Did I look as bad as all that? I was going fast, I know, +but I could see that you were a mighty pretty girl." + +"Why! That's a story!" exclaimed Janice, seriously, and looking at the +young man in astonishment. "You know that isn't so. I'm _not_ pretty." + +"Goodness me! am I not to have my way in _anything_?" demanded Nelson +Haley, in mock anger. "If I think you're pretty I can say so, I hope?" + +"No, sir. Such ridiculous statements are forbidden. I shall think your +eyes need treating almost as badly as do poor little Lottie's. Dear me, +whatever are we going to do about that child?" + +"If either of us were rich it would be an easy question to answer." + +"True enough. I know what _I'd_ do. And I believe you'd be a very +generous young man, indeed--as long as being generous did not entail any +particular work on your part." + +"Oh--now--I call that unfair!" he complained. "We can't all be like you, +Janice. I believe you lay awake nights thinking up nice things to do for +folks----" + +"There you go again--making fun of me," she said, shaking a gloved +finger at him. "I don't claim to be a bit more unselfish than the next +one. But I'm not lazy." + +"Thanks! I suppose I am?" + +"There you go--picking one up so quick," Janice repeated. "I _do_ think, +however, that you just don't care, a good deal of the time. If things +only go on smoothly----" + +"That's what I told you Christmas Day," he said, quickly. + +"And isn't it so?" + +"Well--it used to be," he admitted, shaking his head ruefully. "But I'm +not sure but that, since you've got me going----" + +"_Me?_" exclaimed Janice. "What have _I_ got to do with it?" + +"Now, there's no use your saying that you don't know _why_ I took up +that matter of the new school last month," said Nelson Haley, seriously. +"You spoke just as though you were ashamed of me when we talked about +it, and I began to wonder if I wasn't a fit subject for heart-searching +inquiry," and the teacher burst into laughter again. + +But Janice felt that he was more serious than usual, and she hastened to +say: "I should really feel proud to know that any word of _mine_ +suggested your present course, Mr. Nelson Haley. Why! what a fine thing +that would be." + +"What a fine thing _what_ would be?" he demanded. + +"To think that I could really influence an educated and clever young man +like you to do something very much worth while in the world. Nelson, you +are flattering me." + +"Honest to goodness--it's so," he said, looking at her with a rather wry +smile. "And I'm not at all sure that I thank you for it." + +"Why not?" + +"See what you've got me into?" he complained. "I've got a whole bunch of +extra work because of the school building, and in the end the old Elder +and his friends may discharge me!" + +"But you've brought about the building of a new school, and Poketown +ought always to thank you." + +"Likely. And they'll build a monument to me to stand at the head of +High Street, eh?" and he laughed. + +"I do not care," said Janice, seriously, and looking up at him with +pride. "_I_ shall thank you. And I shall never forget that you said it +was _my_ little influence that made you do it." + +"Your _little_ influence----" + +But she hastened to add: "It's a really great thing for me to think of. +And how proud and glad I'll be by and by--years and years from now, I +mean--when you accomplish some great thing and I can think that it was +because of what _I_ said that you first began to use your influence for +good among these people----" + +Her voice broke a little and she halted. She feared she had gone too far +and that perhaps Nelson Haley would misunderstand her. But he was only +silent for a moment. Then, turning to her and grasping her hands firmly, +he said: + +"Do you mean that, Janice?" + +"Yes. I mean just that," she said, rather flutteringly. "Oh! here comes +a wagon. It must be Walky." + +"Never mind Walky," said Nelson, firmly. "I want to tell you that I +sha'n't forget what you've said. If there really is a nice girl like you +feeling proud of me, I'm going to do just my very best to retain her +good opinion. You see if I don't!" + +They were in the shadow as Walky drove by and he did not see them. +After that Janice and the teacher hurried on so as not to be overtaken +by the noisy party of young folks before they reached the village. + +As they came up the hill toward Hopewell Drugg's store they saw a dim +light in the storekeeper's back room, and the wailing notes of his +violin reached their ears. + +"Hopewell is grinding out his usual classic," chuckled Nelson Haley. "I +hear him at it morning, noon, and night. Seems to me 'Silver Threads +Among the Gold' is kind of _passe_." + +"Hush!" said Janice. "There is somebody standing at the side gate, +listening. You see, sir, everybody doesn't have the same opinion of poor +Mr. Drugg's music----" + +"My goodness!" ejaculated Nelson, under his breath. "It's Miss +Scattergood, I do believe!" + +The timid little spinster could not escape. They had come upon her so +quietly. + +"Oh! is it you, Janice dear?" she said, in a startled voice. + +"And Mr. Haley. We are walking home from the Hammetts' sugaring." + +"Well! I'm glad it ain't anybody else," said Miss 'Rill frankly. "But I +_do_ run around here sometimes of an evening, when mother's busy or +asleep, just to listen to that old song. Mr. Drugg plays it with so much +feelin'--don't you think so, Mr. Haley? And then--I was always very +fond of that song." + +They left her at the corner of High Street, and the flurried little +woman hurried home. + +"I do believe there is a romance there," whispered the teacher, when +Miss 'Rill was out of earshot. + +"So there is. Didn't you know that--years and years ago--she and Mr. +Drugg were engaged?" cried Janice. "Why, yes, they were. But why they +did not marry, and why he married the girl he did, and why Miss 'Rill +kept on teaching school and never would look at any other man, is all a +mystery." + +"Romance!" commented Nelson, with a little laugh, yet looking down upon +Janice with serious eyes. "The night is full of it--don't you think so, +Janice?" + +"No, no!" she laughed up at him. "It's only the moonlight," and a little +later he left her at the old Day house with a casual handshake. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE SCHOOL DEDICATION + + +Thereafter there was a somewhat different tone to the friendship between +Janice and the school-teacher. They were confidential. They both assumed +that the other was interested in the matters dear to each. It was a +comradery that had no silly side to it. Nelson Haley was a young man +working his way up the first rungs of the ladder of life; Janice was his +good friend and staunch partisan. + +As neither was possessed of brother or sister, they adopted each other +in that stead. + +The winter fled away at last and Spring came over the mountain range and +down to the lakeside, scattering flowers and grasses as she passed. +Although Janice had enjoyed some of the fun and frolic of the New +England winter, she was perfectly delighted to see the season change. + +It had been late spring when she reached Poketown the year before. Now +she saw the season open, and her first trips over the hillsides and +through the wood lot where the snow still lay in sheltered places, +searching for the earliest flowers, were days of delight for the girl. + +The Shower Bath was released from its icy fetters, and the little +mountain stream poured over the lip of granite with a burst of sound +like laughter. She visited The Overlook, too; but she did not need to +view the landscape o'er to enable her to understand why God did not +immediately answer her prayers for her father. + +Great news from the mine in Mexico: + +"We haven't made much money yet, it is true," Mr. Day wrote about this +time. "But things are going right. The armies--both of them--are now far +away and if they leave us in peace for a few months, your Daddy will +make so much money that you can have the desire of your heart, my dear." + +And the "desire of her heart" just then was--and had been for months--a +little automobile in which she might ride over the roads about Poketown. +There wasn't a good horse and carriage obtainable in the town; and +Janice found the time hanging heavily upon her hands. + +"If I just had a car!" she would often say, until Marty got to teasing +her about it, and Nelson Haley, whenever he saw her, usually asked very +sober questions about her car--if she'd had much tire trouble on her +last trip, and so forth! + +"You can all just laugh at me," Janice declared. "I know Daddy will send +the money some time. And then, if you are not _very_ good, and _very_ +polite, you sha'n't ride with me at all." + +Aunt 'Mira was so inspired by her niece's talk of an automobile that she +studied the mail-order catalogues diligently, and finally sent off for a +coat and veil, together with an approved automobile mask, to be worn +when she went motoring through the country with Janice! + +The spring passed and summer came. The cellar walls of the new +schoolhouse were laid, and then the framework went up, and finally the +handsome edifice was finished upon the outside. Really, Poketown was +fairly startled by the appearance of the new building. Some of the very +people who had been opposed to the thing were won over by its +appearance. + +"Hi tunket!" exclaimed Mr. Cross Moore, "barrin' the taxes we'll haf ter +pay for the next ten year, I could be glad ter see sech a handsome house +in the town. An' they tell me 'at teacher has had more ter do with the +plannin' of the school than the architect himself. Too bad Mr. Haley +ain't goin' ter be here no longer than this term. He'd ought ter have +the bossin' of the new school." + +"Who says he won't?" snapped Walky Dexter, who heard the selectman's +statement. + +"You ax the Elder--or old Bill Jones," chortled Moore. + +"Come now! what do you mean by that?" demanded Mr. Massey, in whose +store the conversation took place. + +"Ax 'em," said Mr. Moore again. "They've got it fixed up to fire Mr. +Haley at the end of this term." + +"Nothin' like bein' warned in time," said Walky Dexter. "Them old +shagbarks ain't been e-lected themselves for next year, yet. They air +takin' too blamed much for granted, that's what's the matter with them. +July school meetin' is purty near; but mebbe we kin put a spoke in their +wheel." + +Forthwith Walkworthy Dexter began to earn his right to the nickname +Janice had once given him. He became "Talky" Dexter, and he talked to +some purpose. When the school meeting was held in July there was the +most astonishing overturn that had been seen in Poketown for years. An +entirely new committee was elected to govern school affairs, and all +were men in favor of new methods. + +Before this, the school had closed and Nelson Haley had gone to Maine to +work in a hotel during the summer. The last half of the school year had +been much different from the young man's fall term. Although he gave the +boys all the instruction in baseball he had promised, and otherwise had +kept up their interest in the school, he had begun to lay out the work +differently for the pupils and really try to increase the value of his +instruction. Whether he was to be fortunate enough to head the new +school in the fall, or not, he began to train the pupils to more modern +methods. Whoever took hold of the new school would find the scholars +somewhat prepared for the graded system. + +Poketown was actually shocked! The good old Elder and his mates had so +long governed school matters just as they pleased that many of the +people could not realize that a new day had dawned--in school affairs, +at least. + +Elder Concannon was doomed to see more of his influence wane during this +summer. Heretofore he had managed to keep out of the church anything +like a young people's society, in spite of Mr. Middler's desire to the +contrary. But there were now several earnest young people in the church +membership who were anxious to be set to work to some purpose. + +The association was a small one at first. Janice was a member. Soon the +influence of the organization began to be felt in more ways than one. + +"I can see just how things are going, Brother Middler--I can see +plainly," old Elder Concannon declared. "Just as soon as they told me +that Day girl was a member of the society I knew what would happen. A +new carpet for the aisle and the pulpit chairs upholstered! Ha! And them +girls and boys themselves cleaning windows and sweeping and dusting the +whole church once a month. Ridiculous! Myron Jones has always suited us +as sexton before. Oh! we'll have no peace--no peace at all!" + +"But, Elder," timidly suggested the pastor, "such things as the young +people have asked to do have been helpful things. And I'm sure if you +would attend one of their meetings you would find their spiritual +growth commendable--surely commendable." + +"Ha!" sniffed the old gentleman, wagging his bristling head. "What do +those boys and girls know about religion, and the work of the spirit, +and----" + +"One thing is sure, Elder," interposed Mr. Middler with more courage +than was usual with him, "One thing is sure: if our children have no +proper appreciation of such things, it is certainly _our_ fault. We +older ones have been remiss in our duty." + +This seemed to take the Elder aback. He stared at the younger man for a +moment; but as he turned away he muttered: + +"It's all nonsense! And it's just as I've said. No peace since that Day +girl came to town." + +Mr. Middler had the courage of his convictions for once. He said nothing +more to rasp the old gentleman's feelings and prejudices; but he backed +up the young people in their attempt to freshen up the old church. He +mingled with them more than ever he had before; and from that contact +with their young and hopeful natures he carried into his pulpit a more +joyful outlook upon life. Mr. Middler was growing, along with his young +people, and he really preached a sermon now and then in which there +wasn't a doctrinal argument! + +Not that Janice held a very important position in the young people's +society. But she had belonged to one back in Greensboro, in her own +beloved church, and she had helped form this Poketown organization. She +would not take office in this new society, for all the time she hoped +that her father's affairs would change and they might be together again. + +There was never a day begun that Janice did not hope that this reunion +might be consummated soon; and the desire was a part of her bedside +prayer at night. She was no longer lonely, or even homesick, in +Poketown. She really loved her relatives, and she knew that they loved +her. She had made many friends, and her time was fairly well occupied. + +But her longing for Daddy seemed to grow with the lapse of time. She +wanted to see him so much that it actually _hurt_ when she allowed +herself to think about it! + +"Ain't you ever goin' to be still a minute, Janice?" complained her aunt +frequently. "You're hoppin' 'round all the time jest like a hen on a hot +skillet, I declare for't!" + +"Why, Aunt 'Mira," she told the good lady, "I couldn't possibly sit with +my hands folded. I'd rather work on the treadmill than do _that_." + +"You wait till you've worked as many years as I have--an' got as leetle +for it," said Aunt 'Mira, shaking her head. "You won't be so spry," and +with that she buried herself in her story paper again. + +There was an improvement, however, even in Aunt 'Mira. She could not +leave the "love stories" alone, and if she had a particularly exciting +one, she would sit down in her chair in the middle of the kitchen floor +and let the breakfast dishes go till noon. + +Usually, however, she "slicked up," as she called it, after dinner, +instead of spending her time on the sofa, and sometimes she and Janice +went calling with their needlework, like the other ladies up and down +Hillside Avenue, or had some of the neighbors in to call on them. + +Aunt 'Mira had spent some of Janice's board money on the furnishings of +the house as well as in silk dresses and automobile veils. There were +new curtains at the windows; the sitting-room had a new rag carpet woven +by a neighbor; the rather worn boards of the kitchen were covered with +brightly-figured linoleum. + +Inside and out there were now few "loose ends" about the old Day house. +The stair to the upper story was mended, and covered with a bright +runner. The premises about the house were kept neat and attractive, and +Mr. Day had somehow found the money to paint the house that spring, +while the stables and other outbuildings looked much neater than when +Janice had first seen them. + +She and Marty had taken complete charge of the garden this year, and the +girl had inspired her cousin with some of her own love of neatness and +order. The rows of vegetables were straight; the weeds were kept out; +and they had earlier potatoes and peas for the table than anybody else +on Hillside Avenue. + +The lane was, by the way, different in appearance from the untidy and +crooked street up which Janice had climbed with Uncle Jason that day of +her arrival at Poketown. The neighboring homes showed the influence of +association with the Day place. + +There had been other houses painted on the street that spring. More +fences had been reset and straightened. The driveway itself had had some +attention from the town. And you couldn't have found a one-hinged gate +the entire length of the street! + +As for Uncle Jason, he was really carrying on his farming in a +businesslike way. Marty was getting to be a big boy now, and he could +help more than he once had. Janice had suggested to Uncle Jason that, as +he had such good pasture at the upper end of his farm, and as the milk +supply of Poketown was but a meager one, it would pay somebody to run a +small dairy. + +Mr. Day now had three cows that he proposed to winter, and was raising +one heifer calf. Such milk as the family did not use themselves the +neighbors gladly bought. Mrs. Day was doing better with her hens, too. +The wire fencing had been repaired and she gave the biddies more +attention; therefore she was being repaid in eggs and chickens for +frying. Altogether it could no longer be said that the Day family was +shiftless. + +Janice received several cheerful and entertaining letters that summer +from Nelson Haley. He was clerk of a summer hotel on the Maine shore, +and he seemed to be having a good time as well as earning a considerable +salary. + +When the new school committee of Poketown tendered him an offer of the +head mastership of the school (he was to begin with one assistant for +the kindergartners), he threw up his clerkship and hastened to a certain +summer normal school in central Massachusetts. + +Janice was very glad, although his action surprised her, knowing, as she +did, how much young Haley needed the money he was earning at the hotel. +His tuition at the summer school for a month, and his board there, would +eat up a good deal of the money he had saved. He might not be able to +enter for his law studies at the end of another school year. + +Janice believed, however, that Nelson Haley was "cut out," as the local +saying was, for a teacher. He had an easy, interesting manner, which was +bound to hold the attention of even the wandering minds among his +pupils. She knew by the improvement in Marty that the young man's +influence, especially on the boys of Poketown, was for good. + +"If he would only make up his mind to _work_, he might rise high in the +profession," she thought. "Some day he might even be president of a +college--and wouldn't that be fine?" + +But she did not write anything of this nature to the absent Nelson. She +treasured in her mind what he had said about working because _she_ was +proud of him; and she wisely decided that Nelson Haley was a young man +who needed very little encouragement in some ways. Janice was by no +means sure that she liked Nelson Haley as he liked her. + +So she kept her answers to his letters upon a coolly friendly basis and +only showed him, when he returned to Poketown in September in time for +the dedication exercises of the school building, how glad she was to see +him by the warmth of her greeting. + +It was a real gala day in Poketown when the new school building was +thrown open for public inspection. In the evening the upper floor of the +building (which for the present was to be used as a hall) was crowded by +the villagers to hear the "public speaking"; and on this occasion Nelson +Haley again covered himself with glory. + +He seemed to have gained enthusiasm, as well as a distinct idea of +modern school methods, from his brief normal training. He managed to +inspire his hearers with hope for a broader and higher education; his +hopes for the future of the Poketown school lit responsive fires in the +hearts of many of his listeners. + +Of course, Elder Concannon did not agree. He was heard to say afterward +that he couldn't approve of "no such new-fangled notions," and that he +believed the boys and girls of Poketown "better stick to the three +R's--reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic!" + +However, the opinion of the people in general seemed to be in favor of +the new ideas, and they promised to back up Nelson Haley in his work of +modernizing the school. + +"Of course you'll make it one of the best schools in the state--I know +you will, Nelson," declared Janice, when he walked home with her after +the exercises. + +"If _you_ say so--of course!" replied the young man, with a smile. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THROUGH THE SECOND WINTER + + +During the summer, matters at the reading-room and library had been +allowed to drift along to a great extent. Marty and one of his +particular chums had kept the reading-room open evenings during Mr. +Haley's absence; but now Janice knew that the school-teacher would have +his hands quite full without giving any time to the reading-room. + +She set about making a second campaign for the advancement of the +institution and the broadening of its work. She found five girls beside +herself willing to keep the reading-room open one afternoon a week, and +to exchange books for the members of the library association. The +institution had proved its value in the community and Janice privately +went to several people who were well able to help, and collected a fund +for the payment of a regular librarian in the evening. + +One of the boys who had shown most advancement during the spring in +school work was glad to earn a small wage as librarian and caretaker of +the reading-room evenings. An effort was made, too, to increase the +number of volumes in the library so as to obtain a share of the State +Library Appropriation for the next year. + +Janice was not alone interested in the reading-room's affairs. There was +the matter of a new piano for the Sunday-school room. The instrument in +use had been a second-hand one when the Sunday School obtained it; and +it was forever out of tune. + +"However can you expect the children to sing in unison, and sing well, +Mr. Scribner," Janice said to the Sunday-school superintendent, "when +there isn't an octave in harmony on the old piano? Come on! let's see +what we can do about getting a brand-new, first-class instrument?" + +"Oh, my dear girl! Impossible! quite impossible!" declared the +superintendent, who was a bald, hopeless little man, who kept books for +the biggest store in town, and was imbued with the prevailing Poketown +spirit of "letting well enough alone." + +"How do you know it is impossible till you try?" demanded the girl, +laughing. "How much would you give, yourself, toward a new instrument?" + +Mr. Scribner winked hard, swallowed, and burst out with: "Ten dollars! +Yes, ma'am! I'd go without a new winter overcoat for the sake of having +a decent piano." + +"That's a beginning," Janice said, gravely, seizing paper and pad. "And +I can spare five. Now, don't you see, if we can interest everybody else +in town proportionately, we'd have enough to buy _two_ pianos, let alone +one. + +"But let us start the subscription papers with our own offerings. You +take one, and I'll take the other. You can ask everybody who comes into +the store, and I'll go out into the highways and hedges and see what I +can gather." + +Janice interested the young people's society in the project, too; and +her own enthusiasm, plus that of the other young folks, brought the +thing about. At the usual Sunday-school entertainment on Christmas night +the new piano was used for the first time, and Mrs. Ebbie Stewart, who +played it, fairly cried into her score book, she was so glad. + +"I was _so_ sick of pounding on that old tin-panny thing!" she sobbed. +"A real piano seems too good to be true." + +The old Town Hall standing at the head of High Street--just where the +street forked to become two country highways--had a fine stick of spruce +in front of it for a flagpole; but on holidays the flag that was raised +(if the janitor didn't forget it) was tattered like a battle-banner, +and, in addition, was of the vintage of a score of years before. Our +flag has changed some during the last two decades as to the number of +stars and their arrangement on the azure field. + +Of a sudden people began to notice the need of a new flag. Who mentioned +it first? Why, that Day girl! + +And she kept right on mentioning it until some people began to see that +it was really a disgrace to Poketown--and almost an insult to the flag +itself--to raise such a tattered banner. A grand silk flag, with new +halyards and all, was finally obtained, the Congressman of the district +having been interested in the affair. And on Washington's Birthday the +Congressman himself visited the village and made an address when the +flag was raised for the first time. + +Gradually, other improvements and changes had taken place in Poketown. +There was the steamboat dock. It had been falling to pieces for years. +It had originally been built by the town; but the various storekeepers +were most benefited by the wharf, for their freight came by water for +more than half of the year. + +Walky Dexter started the subscription among the merchants for the dock +repairs. He subscribed a fair sum himself, too, for he was the principal +teamster in Poketown. + +"But who d'you s'pose started Walky?" demanded Mr. Cross Moore, +shrewdly. "Trace it all back to one 'live wire'--that's what! If that +Day gal didn't put the idee into Walky's head for a new dock, I'll eat +my hat!" + +And nobody asked Mr. Moore to try that gastronomic feat. + +The selectman, himself, seemed to get into line during that winter. He +stopped sneering at Walky Dexter and for some inexplicable reason he +began agitating for better health ordinances. + +There was an unreasonable warm spell in February; people in Poketown had +always had open garbage piles during the winter. From this cause, Dr. +Poole, the Health Officer, declared, a diphtheria epidemic started which +caused several deaths and necessitated the closing of a part of the +school for four weeks. + +Cross Moore put through a garbage-collection ordinance and a certain +farmer out of town was glad of the chance to make a daily collection, +the year around, for the value of the garbage and the small bonus the +town allowed him. If the truth were known Mr. Moore's ordinance was +copied almost word for word from the printed pamphlet of ordinances in +force in a certain town of the Middle West called Greensboro. Now, how +did the selectman obtain that pamphlet, do you suppose? + +Yet Poketown, as a whole, looked about as forlorn and unsightly as it +had when Janice Day first saw it. The improvement was not general. The +malady--general neglect--had only been treated in spots. + +There were still stores with their windows heaped with flyspecked +goods. The horses still gnawed the boles of the shade trees along High +Street. The flagstone sidewalks were still broken and the gutters +unsightly. High street itself was rutted and muddy all through the early +spring, after the snow had gone. + +A few of the merchants patterned after Hopewell Drugg, brightened up +their stores, and exposed only fresh goods for sale. But these few +changes only made the general run of Poketown institutions appear more +slovenly. The contrast was that of a new pair of shoes, or a glossy hat, +on a ragged beggar! + +With Janice on one side to spur him, and Miss 'Rill's unbounded faith in +him on the other hand, how _could_ Hopewell Drugg fall back into the old +aimless existence which had cursed him when first Janice had taken an +interest in his little Lottie, his store, and himself? + +But, of course, Hopewell could not _make_ trade. He had gained his full +share of the Poketown patronage, and held all his old customers. But the +profits of the business accumulated slowly. As this second winter drew +to a close the storekeeper confessed to Janice that he had only saved a +little over three hundred dollars altogether towards the betterment of +Lottie's condition. + +Janice began secretly to complain. Her heart bled for the child, shut +away in the dark and silence. If only Daddy would grow suddenly very +wealthy out of the mine! Or if some fairy godmother would come to little +Lottie's help! + +The person who seemed nearest like a fairy godmother to the child was +Miss 'Rill. She spent a great deal of her spare time with the +storekeeper's daughter. Sometimes she went to Mr. Drugg's cottage alone; +but oftener she had Lottie around to the rooms she occupied with her +mother on High Street. + +"I declare for't, 'Rill," sputtered old Mrs. Scattergood, one day when +Janice happened to be present, "you'll have the hull town talkin' abeout +you. You're in an' aout of Hopewell Drugg's jest as though you belonged +there." + +"I'm surely doing no harm, mother," said the little spinster, mildly. +"Everyone knows how this poor child needs somebody's care." + +"Wal! let the 'somebody' be somebody else," snapped the old lady. "I +sh'd think you'd be ashamed." + +"Ashamed of what, mother?" asked Miss 'Rill, with more spirit than she +usually displayed. + +"You know well enough what I mean. Folks will say you're flingin' +yourself at Hopewell Drugg's head. An' after all these years, too. +I----" + +"Mother!" exclaimed her daughter, in a low voice, but earnestly. "Don't +you think you did harm enough long, long ago, without beginning on that +tack now?" + +"There! that's the thanks one gets when one keeps a gal from makin' a +perfect _fule_ of herself," cried the old lady, bridling. "S'pose you'd +been jest a drudge for Hopewell all these years, Amarilla Scattergood?" + +"I might not have been a drudge," said Miss 'Rill, softly, flushing over +her needlework. "At least my life--and his--would have been different." + +"Ye don't know how lucky you be," snapped her mother. "And this is all +the thanks I git for tellin' Hopewell Drugg that he'd brought his pigs +to the wrong market." + +"At least," said the spinster, with a sigh, "he will never worry you on +that score again, mother--he nor any other man. When a woman gets near +to forty, with more silver than gold in her hair, and the best of her +useless life is behind her, she need expect no change in her estate, +that's sure." + +"Ye might be a good deal wuss off," sniffed her mother. + +"Perhaps that is so," agreed Miss 'Rill, with a sudden hard little +laugh. "But don't you take pattern by me, Janice, no matter what folks +tell you. Mrs. Beasely is better off than I am. She has the memory of +doing for somebody whom she loved and who loved her. While I----Well, +I'm just an old maid, and when you say that about a woman, you say the +worst!" + +"Why, the idee!" exclaimed her mother, with wrath. "I call that flyin' +right in the face of Providence." + +"I don't believe that God ever had old maids in the original scheme of +things." + +"Humph! didn't He?" snapped Mrs. Scattergood. "Then why is there so many +more women than men in the world? Will you please tell me _that_, +Amarilla?" and this unanswerable argument closed what Janice realized +was not the first discussion of the unpleasant topic, between the +ex-schoolteacher and her sharp-tongued mother. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +JUST HOW IT ALL BEGAN + + +It was one of those soft, irresponsible days of April. The heavens +clouded up and wept like a naughty child upon the least pretext; yet +between the showers the sun warmed the glad earth, and coaxed the +catkins into bloom, and even expanded the first buds of the huge lilac +bush at the corner of the Day house. + +This was a special occasion; one could easily guess that from the bustle +manifest about the place. Aunt 'Mira and Janice had been busy since +light. Mrs. Day was not in the habit of "givin' things a lick and a +promise" nowadays when she cleaned house. No, indeed! They gave the +house a "thorough riddin' up," and were scarcely through at dinner-time. + +Then they hurried the dinner dishes out of the way, drove Marty and his +father out of the house and hurried to change into fresh frocks; for +company was expected. + +The ladies' sewing circle of the Union Church was to meet with Mrs. +Day. These meetings of late had become more like social gatherings than +formerly. The afternoon session was better attended; then came a hearty +supper to which the ladies' husbands, brothers, or sweethearts were +invited; and everything wound up with a social evening. + +Aunt 'Mira and Janice had made many extra preparations for the occasion +in the line of cooked food; there were two gallon pots of beans in the +oven cooking slowly; and every lady, as she arrived, handed to Janice +some parcel or package containing cooked food for the supper. + +The girl was busy looking after these donations when once the members of +the sewing circle began to arrive; and Aunt 'Mira's pantry had never +before been so stacked with food. Marty stole in to gaze at the goodies, +and whispered: + +"Hi tunket! Just you go away for half an hour, Janice, and lemme be +here. I could do something to that tuck right now." + +"And so soon after dinner?" cried his cousin. "I wonder if boys _are_ +hollow all the way down to their heels, as they say they are?" + +"It ain't that," grinned Marty. "But a feller runs so many chances in +this world of going hungry, that he ought ter fill up while he can. You +just turn your back for a while and I'll show you, Janice." + +But his cousin turned the key in the pantry door and slipped it into her +pocket for safety. "We'll have no larks like _that_, Master Marty," she +declared. + +Mrs. Scattergood and 'Rill were among the first to arrive; and then came +Mrs. Middler, the minister's wife. Mrs. Beasely was there, and Walky +Dexter's wife, and the druggist's sister, who kept house for him; and +Mrs. Poole, the doctor's wife; and Mrs. Marvin Petrie, who had married +children living in Boston and always spent her winters with them, and +had just come back to Poketown again for the season. + +Many of the ladies of Poketown never thought of making up their spring +frocks, or having Mrs. Link, the milliner, trim their Easter bonnets, +until Mrs. Marvin Petrie came from Boston. She was supposed to bring +with her the newest ideas for female apparel, and her taste and advice +was sought on all sides when the ladies sat down to their sewing in the +big sitting-room of the old Day house. + +Mrs. Marvin Petrie, however, was one of those persons who seem never to +absorb any helpful ideas. Her forte was mostly criticism. She could see +the faults of her home town, and her home people, in comparison with the +Hub; but she had never, thus far, led in any benefit to Poketown. + +"You can't none of you understand how glad I am to git to my daughter +Mabel's in the winter; and then how glad I am to shake the mud of +Boston off my gaiters when it comes spring," declared the traveled lady, +who had a shrill voice of great "carrying" quality. When Mrs. Marvin +Petrie was talking there was little other conversation at the sewing +circle. Her comments upon people she had met and things she had seen, +were in the line of a monologue. + +"I do sartainly grow tired of Poketown when it comes fall, and things is +dead, and the wind gets cold, and all. I'm sartain sure glad to git shet +of it!" she pursued on this particular afternoon. "And then the first +sight of Boston--and the mud--and the Common and Public Library,--and +the shops, and all, make me feel like I was livin' again. + +"Mabel says to me: 'How kin you live, Maw, most all the year in +Poketown! Why, I was so glad to git away from it, that I'd walk the +streets and beg before I'd go back to it again!' An' she would; Mabel's +lively yet, if she has been married ten years and got three children. + +"But by this time o' year--arter bein' three months or more in the +hurly-burly of Boston, I'm _de_-lighted to git into the country. Ye see, +city folks keep dancin' about so. They're always on the go. They ain't +no rest for a body." + +"But you ain't got ter go because other folks dooes, Miz' Petrie," +suggested old lady Scattergood. "Now, when I go ter see my son-in-law at +Skunk's Holler, I jest sit down an' fold my hands, an' _rest_." + +"Skunk's Holler!" murmured one of the other women. "To hear Miz' +Scattergood talk, one 'ud think she was traveled, too. An' she ain't +never been out o' sight o' this lake, I do believe." + +"If ye don't go yourself, you feel's though you had," said Mrs. Petrie, +with good nature. "So much bustle around you--yes. An' so I tell my +daughters. I git enough of it b'fore spring begins." + +"But," said the minister's wife, timidly, "after all, there isn't so +much difference between Poketown and Boston, excepting that Boston is so +very much bigger. People are about the same everywhere. And one house is +like another, only one's bigger----" + +"Now, that's right foolish talk, Miz' Middler!" exclaimed the lady so +recently from the Hub. "The people's just as different as chalk is from +cheese; and there ain't a church in Boston--and there's hundreds of +'em--that don't make our Union Church look silly." + +"But, Miz' Petrie," cried one inquiring body. "Just what is it that +makes Boston so different from Poketown? After all, folks is folks--and +houses is houses--and streets is streets. Ain't that so?" + +"Wa-al!" The traveled lady was stumped for a moment. Then she burst out +with: "There! I'll tell ye. It's 'cause there's some order in the city; +ev'rything here is haphazard. Course, there's poor sections--reg'lar +_slums_, as they call 'em--in Boston. But the poor, dirty buildings and +the poor, dirty streets, are in sort of a bunch together. They're in +spots; they ain't dribbled all through the town, mixed up with fine +houses, and elegant squares, and boulevards. Nope. Cities know how to +hide their poor spots in some ways. Boston puts its best foot forward, +as the sayin' is. + +"But take it right here in Poketown. Now, ain't the good and the bad all +shoveled together? Take Colonel Pa'tridge's fine house on High Street, +stuck in right between Miner's meat shop and old Bill Jones' drygoods +an' groceries--an' I don't know which is the commonest lookin' of the +two." + +"There you air right, Miz' Petrie," agreed the Widow Beasely. "Miner's +got so dirty--around his shop I mean--that I hate to buy a piece of meat +there." + +"But the other butcher ain't much better," cried another troubled +housewife. "And the flies!" + +"Oh, the awful flies!" chorused several. + +"Them critters is a pest, an' that's a fac'," declared Mrs. Scattergood. +"Talk abeout the plagues o' Egypt----" + +"But Miz' Petrie was tellin' us how Boston was different----" + +"My soul and body!" gasped Mrs. Beasely. "I reckon she's told us +enough. It's a fac'. Poketown is all cluttered up--what ain't right down +filthy. An' I don't see as there's anything can be done abeout it." + +"Why--Mrs. Beasely--do you believe there is anything so bad that it +can't be helped?" queried Janice, slowly and thoughtfully. It was the +first time her voice had been heard amid the general clatter, since she +had come to sit down. Her nimble fingers were just as busy as any other +ten in the room; but her tongue had been idle. + +"They say it's never too late to mend," quote 'Rill Scattergood; "but I +am afraid that Mr. Miner, and Mr. Jones, and some of the rest of the +storekeepers are too old to mend--or be mended!" + +"Ain't you right, now, Amarilla!" sniffed her mother. + +"'Tain't only the storekeepers," declared Mrs. Petrie, taking up the +tale again. "How many of us--us housekeepers, I mean--insist upon having +things as clean as they should be right around our own back doors?" + +"Wa-al," groaned Aunt 'Mira, "it takes suthin' like an airthquake to +start some of the men-folks----" + +"Why wait for _them_?" interposed the demure Janice again, knowing that +her aunt would not object if she interrupted her. "Can't we do something +ourselves?" + +"I'd like to know what you'd _do_?" exclaimed the helpless Mrs. Middler. + +"Why, we could have a regular 'Clean-Up Day' in Poketown, same as they +do in other places." + +"Good Land o' Goshen!" ejaculated Mrs. Scattergood. "What's _that_, I'd +like to know, Janice Day? You _do_ have the greatest idees! I never +heard of no 'Clean-Up Day' in Skunk's Holler." + +"Perhaps they didn't need any there," laughed Janice, for she was used +to the old lady's sharp tongue and did not mind it. + +"Seems to me I--I've heard of such things," said Mrs. Petrie, rather +feebly. She did not wish to be left behind in anything novel. + +"Why, a 'Clean-Up Day'," explained Janice, "is justly exactly what it +_is_. Everybody cleans up--yard, cellar, attic, streets, and all. You +get out all your old rubbish, of whatsoever kind, and get it ready to be +carted away; and the town pays for the stuff's being removed to some +place where it can be burned or buried." + +"My soul and body!" ejaculated Aunt 'Mira. "Jest the same as though the +town was cleanin' house." + +"That's it--exactly," said Janice, nodding. "And all at the same time, +so that the whole town can be made neat at once." + +"Now," declared Mrs. Petrie, giving her decided and unqualified +approval, "I call that a right sensible idea. I'm for that scheme, +hammer and tongs! This here Day girl, that I ain't never had the +pleasure of meetin' before, has sartainly got a head on her. I vote we +do it!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +POKETOWN IN A NEW DRESS + + +That is just how it all began. If you had asked any of those sewing +circle ladies about it, they would have said--"to a man!"--that Mrs. +Marvin Petrie suggested Poketown's "Clean-Up Day." And they would have +been honest in their belief. + +For Janice Day was no strident-voiced reformer. What she did toward the +work of giving Poketown a new spring dress, was done so quietly that +only those who knew her well, and had watched her since she had come to +Poketown, realized that she had exerted more influence than a girl of +her age was supposed to be entitled to! + +It was Janice who spoke with Mr. Cross Moore that very night, after the +women had loudly discussed the new idea with their husbands and other +male relatives at the supper table. Mr. Moore was to put the ordinance +through at the next meeting of the Board of Selectmen, covering the date +of the Clean-Up Day, and the amount of money to be appropriated for the +removal of rubbish by hired teams. + +"Put a paragraph into the motion, Mr. Moore, making it a fifty-dollar +fine for any taxpayer, or tenant, who puts rubbish out on the curb on +any other day save the two mentioned in the main ordinance," Janice +whispered to the selectman; "otherwise you will set a bad precedent with +your Clean-Up Day, instead of doing lasting good." + +"Now, ain't that gal got brains?" Moore wanted to know of Walky Dexter. +"Huh! Mary Ann can't tell me that the Widder Petrie started this idea. +It was that Day gal, as sure as aigs is aigs!" and Walky nodded a solemn +agreement. + +There was more to it, however, than the giving notice to the people of +Poketown that they had a chance to get rid of the collection of rubbish +every family finds in cellar, shed, and yard in the spring. People in +general had to be stirred up about it. Clean-Up Day was so far ahead +that the apostles of neatness and order--those who were thoroughly +imbued with the spirit of the thing and realized Poketown's need--had +time to preach to most of the delinquents. + +There were cards printed, too, announcing the date of Clean-Up Day and +its purposes, and these were hung in every store and other public place. +Janice urged the young people's society of the church into the work of +getting the storekeepers to promise to clean up back rooms, cellars, +sheds, and the awful yards behind their ancient shops. + +There were a few--like Mr. Bill Jones--who at first refused to fall in +with the plans of those who had at heart the welfare of the old town. +Mr. Jones had been particularly "sore" ever since he had been ousted +from the school committee the year before. Now he declared he wouldn't +"be driv" by no "passel of wimmen" into changing the order of affairs in +the gloomy old store where he had made a good living for so many years. + +But Bill Jones reckoned without the new spirit that was gradually taking +hold upon Poketown people. One of his ungracious statements, when his +store was well filled with customers, brought about the retort pointed +from none less that Mrs. Marvin Petrie herself. + +"Well, Bill Jones," declared that plain-spoken old lady, "we wimmen have +made up our minds to clean out the flies, an' all other dirt, if we can. +Poketown is unsanitary--so Dr. Poole says--and we know it's always been +slovenly. There ain't a place, I'll be bound, in the whole town, that +needs cleaning up more'n this, your store!" + +"I ain't no dirtier than anybody else!" roared Jones, very red-faced. + +"But you aim to be. So you say. When other folks all about you are goin' +to clean up, you say you won't be driv' to it. Wa-al! I'll tell you +what's going to happen to you, Bill Jones: We wimmen air goin' to trade +at stores that are decently clean. Anyway, they're cleaner than this +hovel of your'n. Don't expect me in it ag'in till I see a change." + +Mrs. Marvin Petrie marched out of the shop without buying. Several other +ladies followed her and distributed their patronage among the other +shops. Old Bill hung out for a few days, "breathing threatenings and +slaughter." Then the steady decrease in his custom was too much for the +old man's pocketbook. He began to bleed _there_. So he signified his +intention of falling in with the new movement. + +There were householders, too, who had to be urged to join in the general +clean-up of Poketown. Dr. Poole wrote a brief pamphlet upon the +house-fly and the dangers of that pest, and this was printed and +scattered broadcast about the town. To the amazement of a good many of +the older members, like Elder Concannon, Mr. Middler read this short +treatise from the pulpit and urged his hearers to screen their pantries, +at least, to "swat the fly" with vigor, and to remove barns and stables +so far away from the dwellings that it would be, at least, a longer trip +for Mr. Fly from the barnyard to the dining-table and back again! + +The Board of Selectmen, stirred by Mr. Cross Moore and others, cleaned +the gutters of High Street and used the scraper on the drive itself +fully two months earlier than usual. Sidewalks were rebuilt, and many +painted tree boxes appeared along the main street to save the remainder +of the tree trunks from the teeth of crib-biting horses. + +Before most of the shops--the general stores particularly--were +hitch-rails. Many of these were renewed; some even painted. Store +fronts, too, were treated to a coat or two of paint. Show windows were +cleaned and almost every store redressed its display of goods. + +Trees were trimmed, and some of the tottering ones cut down entirely. +There were still plenty of shade trees on the steep High Street. + +It was Janice who urged Hopewell Drugg to refurbish his store--painting +it inside and out, rebuilding the porch, and erecting a long hitch-rail +to attract farmers' trade. + +"Of course you cannot afford it, Mr. Drugg," said the girl. "That is, it +seems as though every dollar you spend is putting Lottie back. But +'nothing ventured, nothing gained.' You must throw out sprats to catch +herring. To get together the money that specialist demands to treat +Lottie's eyes, you must endeavor to increase your trade. Make the store +just as attractive as possible. That's business, I believe. Daddy would +say so, I am sure." + +Hopewell allowed himself to be convinced. There was not a store in town +as attractive as Drugg's, after Clean-Up Day. The whole of Poketown, +indeed, was in a new dress. The trees were just budding out nicely, +there was a breath of lilac in the air, and the lawns were raked clean +and showed a velvety, green sheen that was delightful to the eye. + +The old Town Hall had been repainted. Had it not been for the opposition +of Elder Concannon, the young folks would have collected money for the +repainting of the Union Church. However, they cleaned everything around +it--yard and all--till it was as spick and span as it could be. And the +burial ground in the rear of the church was made beautiful, too. The +edges of the paths were trimmed, the paths themselves raked, and all the +tottering headstones were set up straight. + +Gates were rehung and fences straightened all over town. A smell of +fresh paint rivaled the scent of the bursting lilac blooms. Never had +Poketown been so busy. + +The cleaning-up process went on inside the houses as well as out. Of +course, among pure-blooded New English housewives, such as the majority +of Poketown matrons were, there were few drones. They prided themselves +on their housekeeping. + +Earlier than usual the carpets went out on the lines, the curtains at +chamber and sitting-room windows were renewed, there was a smell of soap +and water in every entry, as one pushed the door open, and altogether +Poketown was generally turned out of doors, aired, dusted, and brought +back again into thoroughly clean rooms. + +The old Day house had its "ridding up," too. Janice gave her aunt +considerable help; but Mrs. Day was not the slovenly housekeeper she had +been when first the girl had come to Poketown. Even Uncle Jason kept +himself more neatly than ever before. And he went to the barber's at +frequent intervals. + +Janice once went down to the dock to see the _Constance Colfax_ come in. +There was the usual crowd of loafers waiting for the boat--all perched +along the stringpiece of the wharf. + +"But I declare!" thought Janice, her eyes dancing, "somebody certainly +_has_ 'slicked 'em up,' as Mrs. Scattergood would say. Whoever would +believe it! Walky has got a new shirt on--and straw cuffs, too--and a +necktie! My goodness me! And the hotel keeper really looks as though his +wife cared a little about his appearance. And Ben Hutchins wears whole +boots now, and has washed his face, and had a shave. + +"I must admit they don't look so much like a delegation from the +poorfarm as they did the day. I came in on the _Constance Colfax_. There +has been a change in Poketown--there most certainly _has_ been a +change!" and the girl laughed delightedly. + +It was marked everywhere. It even seemed to Janice as though people whom +she met on the street stepped quicker than they once had! + +Janice knew she had given her own folks--Uncle Jason, and Aunt 'Mira, +and Cousin Marty--a push or two in the right direction. She had helped +Hopewell Drugg, too; and maybe she had instigated the waking up of +several other people. But not for a moment did she realize--healthy, +thoughtless girl that she was--how much Poketown owed to her on Clean-Up +Day. + +That was one great occasion in the old town. Although the selectmen had +allowed two days in which the farmers' wagons were to cart away the +rubbish for the householders, the removal men had hard work to fill +their contract. + +Some curbs were piled shoulder high with boxes of ashes, old bedsprings, +broken furniture, decayed mattresses, yard rakings, unsightly pots and +pans hidden away for decades in mouldy cellars--debris of so many kinds +that it would be impossible to catalogue it! + +For two days, also, hundreds of rubbish fires burned, and the taint of +the smoke seemed to saturate every part of Poketown. Janice declared +that all the food on the supper table at the Day house seemed to have +been "slightly scorched." + +"By jinks!" declared Marty, gobbling his supper with an appetite that +never seemed to lag. "I bet I burned three wagon-loads of stuff 'sides +what I set outside on the street for 'em to take away. No use talkin', +Dad, you got ter build a new pen and yard for the shoats." + +"Whuffor?" demanded his father, eyeing him slowly. + +"'Cause the old boards and rails was so rotten that I jest burned 'em +up," declared his son. "You know folks could see it from the street, an' +it looked untidy." + +"Wa-al," drawled Uncle Jason, with only half a sigh. + +Janice could scarcely keep from clapping her hands, this so delighted +her. She compared this with some of the conversation at the Day table +soon after the time she had arrived in Poketown! + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +"NO ODOR OF GASOLINE!" + + +During the winter now passed, Janice had watched the progress of the new +school under Nelson Haley's administration with growing confidence in +that young man. Nelson was advancing, as well as his pupils and the +school discipline. Educators from other towns in the state--even in +neighboring states--had come to visit Poketown's school. + +Janice could not help having a thrill of pride when she learned of these +visitations and the appreciation shown by other educators of Nelson +Haley's work. She did not so often see the young man in a situation +where they could talk these wonders over; for Nelson was very, very busy +and gave both his days and evenings to the work he had set for himself +the fall before. + +The girl might no longer honestly complain of Nelson's lack of purpose. +He had "struck his gait" it seemed; it was as though he had suddenly +seen a mark before him and was pressing onward to that goal at top +speed. + +When he and Janice met as they did, of course, at church and +occasionally at evening parties, the teacher and the girl were the very +best of friends But tete-a-tetes were barred. Was it by Janice herself? +Or had Nelson deliberately changed his attitude toward her? + +Sometimes she tried to unravel this mystery; but then, before she had +gone far in her ruminations, she began to wonder if she _wanted_ Nelson +to change toward her? That question frightened her, and she would at +once refuse to face the situation at all! + +Once Nelson told her that a small college in middle Massachusetts +offered a line of work that he believed he would like to take up--if he +was "doomed to the profession of teaching, after all." + +"And does the doom seem so very terrible?" she asked him, laughingly. + +"I admit that I can _do_ things with the scholars," he said, gravely. "I +have just begun to realize it. It seems easy for me to make them +understand. But the profession doesn't give one the freedom that the law +does, for instance." + +Janice had made no further comment, nor did Nelson advance anything more +regarding the work offered by the college in question. + +She had her own intense interests, now and then. Clean-Up Day was past +but its effect in Poketown was ineradicable. Janice was satisfied that +there were enough people finally awake in the town to surely, if slowly, +revolutionize the place. + +How could one householder drop back into the old, shiftless, careless +manner of living when his neighbors' places on either hand were so trim? +The carelessly-kept shop showed up a hundred per cent. worse than it had +before Clean-Up Day. Even old Bill Jones kept in some trim, and the meat +markets began to rival each other in cleanliness. + +The taxpayers began to speak with pride of Poketown. When they visited +Middletown, or other villages that had previously looked down on the +hillside hamlet above the lake, they were apt to say: + +"Just come over and see our town. What? You ain't been in Poketown in +two years? No wonder you don't know what you're talking about! Why, we +put it all over you fellows here for clean streets, and shops, and +nice-lookin' lawns and all that--and our school!" + +Poketownites were proud of the reading-room, too, although Mr. Massey's +store was becoming a cramped place for it now. The shelves devoted to +the circulating library were well crowded. The state appropriation had +been spent carefully, and the new, well-bound books looked "mighty +handsome" when visitors came into the place. + +But the original intention for the place had never been lost sight of. +It had been made for the boys and young men of Poketown. They had fully +appreciated it, and, Elder Concannon's prophecy to the contrary +notwithstanding, the reading-room was never the scene of disorderly +conduct. + +Janice hoped the day would come when the reading-room association should +have a building of its own,--not an expensive, ornate structure for +which the taxpayers would be burdened, and the upkeep of which would +keep the association poor for years; but a snug, warm, cheerful place +which would actually be a club for the boys, and offer all the other +benefits of a free library. + +She knew already just where the building ought to stand. There was a +certain empty lot on High Street which would give a library a prominent +site. This lot was owned by old Elder Concannon. + +"There've been miracles happened here in Poketown during the last year +or so; if I have patience and wait to strike when the iron's hot, maybe +_that_ miracle will come to pass," Janice told herself. + +Elder Concannon had already begun to treat Janice in a much more +friendly way than he had at one time. She believed that secretly he was +interested in the library and reading-room. Sometimes he spent an hour +or so there of an evening--especially if one of the boys would play +checkers with him. + +"He's an old nuisance," growled Marty to his cousin, on one occasion. +"He keeps some of the fellers out; they see him in there, with his +grizzly old head and flapping cape-coat, and they stay out till he goes +home. And, by jinks! I'm gittin' tired of being the goat and playin' +draughts with him." + +"Marty," she said to him, with some solemnity, "if you saw that through +the Elder's coming there and your entertaining him a bit, the +institution would in the end be vastly benefited, wouldn't you be _glad_ +to play the goat?" + +Marty's eyes snapped at her. He drew a long breath, and exclaimed: "Hi +tunket! You don't mean that you've got the old Elder 'on the string' for +us, Janice?" + +"It's very rude of you to talk that way," said Janice, smiling. "I don't +know what you mean by having the dear old gentleman 'on a string.' But I +tell you in secret, Marty, that I _do_ hope he will be so much +interested in the reading-room and library that some day he will give +the association something very much worth while. He can afford it, for +he hasn't chick nor child in the world." + +"Ye don't mean it?" gasped Marty. + +"But I _do_ mean it. Why not? Do you suppose the old gentleman comes +into the reading-room without being interested in it?" + +"Say!" drawled her cousin. "I'll be the goat all right, all right!" + +Janice was indeed cultivating the old Elder's acquaintance. She would +not have done it to benefit herself in any way; but to help the +library---- + +"You young folks need a balance wheel," Elder Concannon once said to +Janice. "Youthful enthusiasm is all very well; but where's your +balance?" + +"Then why don't you come in with us and supply the balance?" she +rejoined, briskly. "Goodness knows, Elder, we'd be glad to have you!" + +Then came a red-letter day for Janice Day. She had almost lost hope of +getting her "heart's desire"--the little motor car that Daddy had spoken +of. Although his letters had been particularly cheerful of late, he had +said nothing more about his promise. + +Marty brought her home a thick letter from the post office and gave it +to her at the dinner table. When she eagerly slit the flap of the +envelope and pulled out the contents, there was flirted out upon the +tablecloth a queer-looking certificate. + +"Hullo! what's this?" demanded Marty, with all the impudence of a boy. + +"Put that down, Marty," commanded his mother. + +"By jinks! What's this in the corner?" he yelled. "A thousand dollars? +_A thousand dollars!_ Janice Day! you're as rich as cream!" + +"Hi tunket, boy!" ejaculated his father. "Le's see that? It can't be!" + +"It is!" shrieked Janice, jumping up and dancing around the room. "It's +for my gasoline runabout! I'm going to have it--I certainly _am_! +Hurray! hurray!" and she kissed her aunt heartily and then danced +another war dance with Marty around the table. + +"Wal, I snum!" exclaimed Uncle Jason, still staring at the bit of paper, +which was a Wells-Fargo express check for the sum named. + +Janice could scarcely eat any dinner, she was so excited. What was mere +eating to the possession of this check and the knowledge that all was +going well once more with dear Daddy? Her most particular friends must +share the joy with her. + +She hurried into her jacket and hat, and ran across town to see Miss +'Rill; for, after all, the little spinster was her dearest and closest +friend in Poketown. + +But was this Miss 'Rill--this frantic, wild-eyed creature, hatless and +with her hair flying, who came running down High Street just as Janice +reached the corner of the street on which Hopewell Drugg's store was +situated? _Could_ it be 'Rill Scattergood? + +"Oh, Janice! Janice! have you heard about it? They just sent for me," +gasped the little spinster lady. + +"What do you mean, 'Rill? _Who_ sent for you?" Janice demanded. + +"It's poor little Lottie!" cried the other, dragging Janice along with +her. "She's fallen. I've been expecting it. She moves so quickly, you +know, in spite of her blindness. And now she's fallen into the +cellar----" + +"Whose cellar? Oh! is she very, very badly hurt?" cried Janice, equally +anxious. + +"Hopewell had the trap door open. She came running into the shop and +went straight down on her poor little head! Oh! she's all cut and +bruised----" + +Miss 'Rill could say no more. Nor did Janice need to ask, for they were +at the store and pushing through the little group of helpless but +sympathizing neighbors. Dr. Poole was already there. They had Lottie in +bed, all bandaged and white. + +"Just a bad cut over the forehead--right across the crown," Dr. Poole +assured the waiting neighbors. "She's had a bad shock, but she's in no +particular danger. Only----" + +He looked at Janice and shook his head. Then he whispered to her: "It's +a terrible shame Hopewell can't send the poor little thing to a +specialist and have her eyes fixed up. My soul and body, girl! If I'd +only been able to go in for surgery myself--If I'd only learned to use +the knife!" and he groaned, shook his head, did this old-school family +practitioner, and departed. + +Janice did not remain long. Miss 'Rill would sit by the child for the +remainder of the afternoon; and even her mother was anxious to help and +promised to come over and stay all night at Hopewell's. + +"I ain't got nothin' ag'in the poor child, that's sure," Mrs. +Scattergood told Janice. "It's only Hopewell that's so triflin'--he an' +his fiddle. Jest like his father before him!" + +But the storekeeper's fiddle was silent a good deal of the time now; +only when Miss 'Rill or Janice urged him did the man take up the +instrument that had once been so much his comfort--and little Lottie's +delight. + +But now, on this sorrowful afternoon, Janice went back slowly toward +home with a very serious mind indeed. On the way she met Nelson Haley +coming from school. + +"Congratulations--and then some!" he cried, shaking hands with Janice. + +"Whatever are you talking about?" she asked, puzzled. + +"Marty has been telling everybody the great and good news!" he said, +staring at her. "Why! what makes you so solemn? Do you mean to say that +you can't decide what kind of an auto to buy, and that is what has +soured our Janice's usually sweet disposition?" + +"Oh, Nelson!" gasped the girl, suddenly clinging to his arm, for she +really felt a weakness in her knees. + +"Hold on! hold on! bear up! What's the matter?" + +"I forgot about poor Daddy's check. Of course--that's the way out." + +"What's the way out?" he demanded. + +"Haven't you heard about poor little Lottie?" + +"What's happened to her?" he asked, anxiously. + +She told him swiftly. Then stopped. He demanded: + +"What's that got to do with the auto, Janice?" + +"Don't you see it has _everything_ to do with it, Nelson?" she returned, +gravely. "Of course, I could not buy a car when Lottie needs some of my +money so much. She shall start for Boston just as soon as she is well +enough to go--and of course Miss 'Rill will go with her. Hopewell cannot +leave the store. Lottie shall go to the specialist, Nelson." + +For a minute the school-teacher was silent. He looked at the girl's +shining, earnest face in a way she had never noticed before. But at last +he only smiled a little queerly, and said: + +"Why--Well, Janice Day, there's no odor of gasoline about _that_!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +JANICE DAY'S FIRST LOVE LETTER + + +In a week, although little Lottie's head was still bandaged, she was +driven over to Middletown with Miss 'Rill, Walky Dexter being the +driver, of course, and took a train for Boston. + +Before the day of departure Janice Day had a good deal to contend with. +It _did_ seem too bad that one could not spend one's own money without +everybody trying to talk one out of it! + +Not every one, however! Nelson Haley never said a word to discourage the +girl's generosity. But, beginning with Hopewell Drugg himself, almost +everybody else had something to say against it. + +"I can never in this world pay you back, Miss Janice," said the +storekeeper, faintly, after the girl had told him her plans fully. + +"Who wants you to? I am giving it to Lottie," Janice declared. "Would +you refuse to let her take it from me, when it means a new life to +Lottie? You can't be so cruel!" + +"Had you _ought_ to do it, dear Janice?" asked Miss 'Rill, herself. "It +seems too much for one person to do----" + +"You're going to pay your own expenses, aren't you?" demanded Janice. +"Why should you do _that_? Just because you love Lottie, isn't it?" + +"Ye-es," admitted the other, but with a little blush. + +"Well, let _me_ show some love for her, too." + +"Good Land o' Goshen!" cried old Mrs. Scattergood. "Somebody ought to +take and shake you, Janice Day! I don't see what your folks can be +thinking of. All that money just thrown away--for like enough the man +can't help the poor little thing at all. It is wicked!" + +"We sha'n't pay for the operation if it is not successful. That is the +agreement Dr. Sharpless always makes," said Janice, firmly. "But, oh! I +hope he _is_ successful, and that the money will do him a lot of good." + +"I declare for't! you are the strangest child!" muttered Mrs. +Scattergood. "I thought you was one o' these new-fashioned gals when I +first seen ye--all for excitement, and fashions, and things like that. +I've been wonderfully mistaken in you, Janice Day." + +Oddly enough the old lady made small objection to her daughter's going +to Boston with the child. "Anyhow," she grumbled to Janice, "she won't +be runnin' into Hopewell's all the time if she ain't here." + +"There will be no need of _that_, mother, if little Lottie is away," +Miss 'Rill said, gently. + +At home----Ah! that is where Janice had the greatest opposition to meet. + +"I declare to goodness!" snarled Marty Day. "If you ain't the very +craziest girl there ever was, Janice! Givin' all that good money away! +And goin' without that buzz-wagon you've been talking about so long!" + +"Well, I've only been _talking_ about it, Marty," laughed Janice. "I +couldn't really believe it was coming true----" + +"And it ain't come true, it seems," snapped her cousin. + +"No-o. Not exactly. But I had the surprise of getting Daddy's check, and +it was just _dear_ of him to send me such a lot of money." + +"What do you suppose Broxton will say, girl, when he learns how you've +frittered that thousand dollars away?" demanded Uncle Jason, sternly. + +"He'll never say a word--in objection," she cried. "You can read right +here in his letter how I am to use the money in just any way I +please--and no questions asked!" + +"But you've talked so much about your automobile, deary," said Aunt +'Mira, faintly. "Ain't you most disappointed to death, child?" + +"Oh, no, Aunty," returned Janice, cheerfully. "You know, I could be just +awfully selfish, _in my mind!_ But when it came to running about the +country in an automobile, with poor Lottie blind and helpless because of +my selfishness----No, no! I could not have done it." + +"I don't suppose you could, child," sighed the large lady, shaking her +head. "But whatever am I goin' to do with that auto coat and them veils +I bought? They don't seem jest the thing to wear out, jogging behind old +Sam and Lightfoot." + +However, Mr. Day had a chance to trade the two old farm horses off that +spring for a handsome pair of sorrels. They were good work horses as +well as drivers. An old double-seated buckboard which had been under one +of the Day sheds for a decade, was hauled out and repaired, painted and +varnished, new cushions made, and on occasion the family went to drive +about the country. + +"For it does seem," Mrs. Day, with wondering satisfaction, more than +once declared, "it does seem as though your Pa, Marty, has a whole lot +more time to gad abeout now than he use ter--yet we're gettin' along +better. I don't understand it." + +"Huh!" grunted Marty. "See all the work _I_ do. Don't ye s'pose that +counts none?" + +Janice merely smiled quietly as she heard this conversation. Uncle Jason +was up and out to work now by daybreak, like other farmers. He smoked +his after-dinner pipe by the back door; but it was only one pipe. He +often declared that "his wimmen folk" made such a bustle inside the +kitchen after dinner that he couldn't even think. He just _had_ to go +back to work "to get shet of 'em." + +The bacilli of _work_ had taken hold of the Day family. Uncle Jason had +begun to take pride in his fields and in his crops. Nobody in all +Poketown, or thereabout, had such a garden as the Days this spring. +Janice and Mrs. Day attended to it after it was planted. Mr. Day had +bought a man-weight hoe and seeding machine, and the garden mould was so +fine and free from filth that the "women folks" could use the machine +with ease. + +Yes, the Jason Days were more prosperous than ever before. And all their +prosperity did not arise from that twenty dollars a month that came +regularly for Janice's board. + +"Sometimes I feel downright ashamed to take that money, Jason," Aunt +'Mira admitted to her spouse. "Janice is sech a help to me. She is jest +like a darter. I shall hate to ever haf ter give her up. And some day +soon, now, Broxton will be comin' home." + +"Wal, don't ye worry. If Broxton is makin' money like he says he +is--so's he kin give that gal a thousand dollars to throw to the birdies +like she's done--why should we worry? I ain't sayin' but what she's been +a lot of help to us." + +"In more ways than one," whispered his wife. + +"Right, by jinks!" admitted the farmer. + +"Look what this old place looked like when she come!" + +"She sartainly has stirred us all up." + +"An' look at Marty!" + +"I got to give her credit," admitted Mr. Day. "She's made a man of +Marty. Done more for him than the school done." + +"But it was her started him to goin' to school ag'in." + +"So I tell ye," agreed Mr. Day again. "Janice is at the bottom of +everything good that's happened in Poketown for two years. I dunno as +people realize it; but I'm proud of her!" + +"Then, I tell you what, Jason. I'm going to save the board money for +her," declared Aunt 'Mira, with a little catch in her breath. "You won't +mind? Marty'll have the place an' all you kin save, when we are gone; +but that dear little thing----Givin' her money to that blind child, and +all----" + +Mrs. Day broke down and "sniveled." At least, that is what her husband +would have called it under some circumstances, and crying did not +beautify Mrs. Day's fat face. But for some reason the old man came close +to her and put his arms about her bulbous shoulders. + +"There, there, 'Mira! don't you cry about it. You sartainly have got a +good heart. An' I won't say nothin' agin' your savin' for the gal. +Mebbe she'll need your savin's, too. Broxton Day is too free-handed, +and he'll have his ups and downs again, p'r'aps. Anyhow, whatever you +say is right, _is_ right, 'Mira," and he kissed her suddenly in a shamed +faced sort of way, and then hurried out. + +The good woman sat there in her kitchen, with shining eyes, blushing +like a girl. She touched tenderly her wet cheek where her husband had +laid his lips. + +"He--he wouldn't ha' done that two year ago, I don't believe!" she +murmured. + +She picked up the ever-present story paper; but her mind was not attuned +to imaginary romance that morning. And there were the breakfast dishes +waiting---- + +She went about her work briskly, and singing. Somehow it seemed as +though _real_ romance had come into the old Day house, and into Aunt +'Mira's life! + +The weeks rolled on toward summer. A fortnight after little Lottie and +Miss 'Rill had gone to Boston a letter came from the specialist to +Hopewell Drugg. The operation on the child's eyes had been performed +almost as soon as she had arrived at the sanitarium; now he could +announce that it was successful. Lottie could see and, barring some +accident, would be a bright-eyed girl and woman. + +Already, the doctor urged, she was fit to go into the school for the +deaf and dumb in which such wonderful miracles were achieved for the +afflicted. The good surgeon, learning from Miss 'Rill the circumstances +of the child's being brought to him, had subscribed two hundred dollars +toward Lottie's tuition and board in the school for the deaf and dumb. + +It was joyful news for both Hopewell and Janice. That evening the +storekeeper got out his violin and played his old tunes over and +over--especially "Silver Threads Among the Gold." + +"But it sounds more like a hymn of praise to-night," Nelson Haley +whispered in Janice's ear, as they sat on the front porch of the little +shop and listened to the violin. + +A week later the little spinster came home. Her visit in Boston seemed +to have done her a world of good. She brought a great trunk packed full +of things to wear, or goods to be made up into pretty dresses and the +like. + +"I declare for't!" ejaculated her mother. "Looks like you had been +buyin' your trossoo--an' old maid like you, too!" + +But Miss 'Rill was unruffled, and parried her mother's suspicion. + +When the lake boat, the _Constance Colfax_, began to run on her summer +schedule after Decoration Day, many more summer tourists than usual got +off the boat at Poketown to look about. The dock was so neat, and the +surroundings of the landing so attractive, that these visitors were led +to go further up into the town. + +There was the pleasant, rambling, old Lake View Inn, freshened with +paint that spring, and with a green grass plot before it, and wide, +screened verandas. + +"Why, it's only its name that is against it!" cried the wondering +tourists. "It's not _poky_ at all." + +These remarks, repeated as they were, made the merchants of the village +stop and think. Ere this a board of trade had been formed, and the +welfare of the town was eagerly discussed at the meetings of the board. +Mr. Massey, the druggist, who was active, of course, got another idea +from Janice. + +He began to delve into the past history of Poketown. He learned how and +when it had been settled--and by whom. People had mostly forgotten (if +they ever had known) the true history of the town. + +A pioneer named Cyrus Polk had first built his cabin on the heights +overlooking this little bay. He had been the first smith in this region, +too, and gradually around "Polk's Smithy" had been reared the nucleus of +the present town. + +Through the years the silent "l" in the original settler's name had been +lost entirely. But the post office agreed to put it back into the name, +and a big signboard was painted and set up at the dock: + + "POLKTOWN." + +"It sartain sure looks a hull lot diff'rent, even if ye _do_ pernounce +it the same," admitted Walky Dexter. + +So much was happening these balmy June days! The school year--the first +in the new schoolhouse--was going to end in a blaze of glory for Nelson +Haley, Janice was sure. Elder Concannon had promised in writing to give +his lot upon High Street for the site of a library building, whenever +the association should have subscribed twelve hundred dollars toward the +building itself. + +Then came the first love letter that Janice Day had ever received! Such +a letter was it that she treasures it yet and will always do so. It was +one that she could proudly show to anybody she chose, without betraying +that intimacy that the ordinary love letter is supposed to contain. + +News had come regularly to Hopewell Drugg from the teachers at the +school where little Lottie had taken up her abode. Because the child was +naturally so bright, and because of the fact that before she lost her +eyesight she had learned the alphabet and some primary studies, and had +not forgotten it all, Lottie was making marvelous progress the teachers +declared. + +A much-bethumbed envelope, addressed in crooked "printed" characters to +"Mis Janis Day, Pokton," enclosed in a teacher's letter to the +store-keeper, was the cover of Janice's love letter. Inside, the child +said: + + "Dear Janis, jus' to think, I can see reel good, and my + techur what I luv says maybe I will heer reel good bymeby. + + "Deer Janis, I no I cante spel good yet, and my ritin aint + strate on the paper. But I want you shud be the firs to get + leter from me I luv yu so. + + "Deer Janis, you got me the muney for the docker. And he was + soo good himself, he never hardly hurt me a tall. + + "Deer Janis, I luv yu mos of all, cos if yu hadn ben yu I + wudn never seen no moar. An it was so dark all times. Thats + wy I feld down cellar. An now I am goin to heer they say. + + "Deer Janis, see if my echo is thar. Yu no my echo--that is + the way techur says to spell it. If my echo is waitn tell it + I am comin' to heer it again. + + "And I luv you lots and lots, deer Janis. I will show you + how much when I com home to father and Pokton. no moar at + prasens, from your little Lottie." + +Janice read the pitiful little scrawl through the first time on the +store porch. Then, tear-blinded, she started down the hill toward the +old wharf at the inlet where she had first seen Hopewell Drugg's +unfortunate child. + +She was halfway down the hill before she heard a quick step behind her +and knew, without turning, that it was Nelson Haley. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +WHAT THE ECHO MIGHT HAVE HEARD + + +"What's your hurry, Janice?" demanded the young teacher, coming to her +side, smiling. Then he saw her wet lashes and exclaimed: "My dear girl! +you are crying?" + +"Not--not now," said Janice, shaking her head and her voice catching a +little as she spoke. + +"Tell me what is the matter?" begged Nelson. "Who's hurt you?" + +"They're not those sort of tears, Nelson!" she cried, with a quivering +little smile. "Oh, I ought to be just the very happiest girl alive!" + +"And in tears?" + +"Tears of joy, I tell you," she declared. + +"Not weeping over the lost motor car, then?" + +"Oh, my goodness! No! How could one be so foolish with such a dear, dear +letter as I've got here. A regular _love_ letter, Nelson Haley!" + +The young man's face changed suddenly. It looked very grim, and he +caught at her hand which held little Lottie's letter. + +"What's that?" he demanded, so gruffly that Janice was quite astonished. + +"Why, Nelson Haley! What's the matter?" she asked, looking at him with +wide-open eyes. + +"Who's been writing to you, Janice?" he asked, huskily. + +"I will show it to you. It is too, too dear!" exclaimed the girl, again +half sobbing. "Read it!" + +The teacher spread out the crumpled page. The look of relief that came +into his face when he saw Lottie's straggling pen-tracks was not at all +understood by Janice. + +He read the child's letter appreciatively. She saw the tears flood into +his own eyes as he gently folded the letter and handed it back. + +"Why, Janice," he said, at last. "What's a motor car to _that_?" + +"That's what I say," she cried, and laughed. "Come on! let's tell it to +Lottie's echo. We'll see if it is still lurking in the dark old spruce +trees over yonder on the point." + +She darted ahead of him and reached the ruined wharf where Lottie had +stood when first Janice had seen her. In imitation of the child she +raised her voice in that weird cry: + +"He-a! he-a! he-a!" + +Back came the imitation, shot out of the wood by the nymph: + +"'E-a! 'e-a! 'e-a!" + +"Ha, ha!" laughed the girl. "There's Lottie's echo." + +"'A!" laughed the echo. "'Ere's Lottie's echo!" + +Nelson, flushed and breathing rather heavily, reached the old dock. + +"What a girl you are, Janice!" he said. + +"And what a very, very old person you are getting to be, Nelson Haley," +she told him. "Principal of the Polktown School! I saw your article in +the State School Register. Theories! You write just as though you know +what you were writing about." + +"Oh--well," he said, rather taken aback by her joking. + +"And it wasn't much more than a year ago that you turned up your nose at +the profession of teaching." + +"Aw--now!" he said, pleadingly. + +"And _you_ were the young man who wanted to get through life without +hard work--or, so you said." + +"Don't you know that it is only the fool who doesn't change his +opinion--and change it frequently, too?" he bantered back at her. + +"You must have changed a whole lot, Nelson Haley," she declared, with +sudden gravity. "Don't--don't you feel awfully _funny_ inside? It's a +terrible shock, I should think, for one to turn right square +around----" + +"I don't feel humorous--not a little bit," he interposed, seriously. "I +have been working toward an end. I expect my reward." + +"Oh, Nelson! The college? Are they really going to invite you to go +there to teach?" + +"That isn't the reward I mean," he said, shaking his head. + +"For pity's sake! something bigger than _that_? My!" Janice cried, all +dimpling again, "but you _are_ a person with great expectations, aren't +you?" + +"I certainly am," he said, bowing gravely. "I have a great goal in view. +Let me tell you----" + +But suddenly she jumped up and walked along the edge of the inlet away +from the dock. "Oh, do come along, Nelson. We don't want to sit there +all day." + +Nelson, flushed and only half rose. Then he settled back again and said, +with some doggedness: + +"I've got something to tell you myself. This is a good place to talk." + +"Why, how serious!" + +"It is serious business--for me," declared the young man. + +"And you're a trifle ungallant," she accused, looking at him from under +lowered lashes. + +"This is no time for gallantry. This is _business_." + +"What business?" she asked, tentatively approaching. + +"The business of living. The business of finding out what's going to +happen to me--to _us_." + +"My goodness!" murmured Janice. "You talk almost like a soothsayer." + +"Come and hear what the astrologer has to say," urged Nelson, yet +without his customary lightness of speech and look. He was still very +serious. + +"I don't know," she said, slowly, hesitating in her approach. "I am +almost afraid of you in this mood. Daddy says when a young man begins to +act like he was really seriously grappling with life, look out for him!" + +"Your father is right. I am not to be trifled with, Miss Janice Day." + +"Why, Nelson! is something really wrong?" she asked him, and came a step +nearer. + +"As far as my future is concerned," said he, quietly, "it seems to be +quite all right." + +"Then the college----?" + +"I have a letter, too," he said, pulling it out of his pocket. + +This bait brought her to him. He thrust the letter into her hand, but he +held onto that hand, too, and she could not easily pull away from him. + +"What--what is it, Nelson?" she asked, looking at him for only a moment, +and then dropping her gaze before his intense look. + +"I've had a committee come to see me and look over my work at the +Polktown School." + +[Illustration: She just _had_ to raise her eyes and look into his +earnest ones. (See page 307.)] + +"Oh, Nelson!" + +"Now the secretary of the college faculty writes me the nicest kind of a +letter. I've made good with them, Janice." + +"I--I'm so glad!" she murmured, eyes still down, and trying ever so +faintly to wriggle her hand out of his. + +Suddenly Nelson Haley caught her other hand, too. He held them firmly +and--for some reason--she just _had_ to raise her eyes and look straight +into his earnest ones. + +"I've made good with them, Janice!" he cried--he almost shouted it. "But +that's nothing--just nothing! The big thing with me now--the reward I +want--is to hear you say that I've won out with you. Is it so, +Janice--have I won out with _you_?" + +The long lashes screened the hazel eyes again. She looked on the one +hand and on the other. There really seemed no escape, this greatly +metamorphosed Nelson Haley was _so_ insistent. + +So she raised her lashes again and looked straight into his eyes. What +she whispered the echo might have heard; and she nodded her head +quickly, several times. + + * * * * * + +They came up through the grassy lane in the gloaming. Mrs. Beasely would +be waiting supper for her boarder; but Nelson scouted the idea that he +should not see Janice home first. + +Lights had begun to twinkle in the sitting-rooms of the various houses +along the street. But there was a moon. Indeed, that was the excuse they +had for remaining so late on the shore of the inlet. They had stopped to +see it rise. + +Through the thick trees the moonlight searched out the side porch of +Hopewell Drugg's store. The plaintive notes of the storekeeper's violin +breathed tenderly out upon the evening air: + + "Darling, I am growing old-- + Silver threads among the gold" + +sighed Janice, happily. "And that is Miss 'Rill beside him there on the +porch--don't you see her?" + +"I see," said Nelson. "Mrs. Beasely is helping 'Rill make her wedding +gown. Little Lottie is going to have a new mamma." + +"And--and Hopewell's been playing that old song to her all these years!" +murmured Janice. "They are just as happy----" + +"Aren't they!" agreed Nelson, with a thrill in his voice. "I hope that +when we're as old as they are, we'll be as happy, too. Do you +suppose----" + +Nobody but Janice heard the rest of his question--not even the echo! + + THE END + + + + +CHARMING BOOKS FOR GIRLS + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list + + +_WHEN PATTY WENT TO COLLEGE_, By Jean Webster. + +Illustrated by C. D. Williams. + +One of the best stories of life in a girl's college that has ever been +written. It is bright, whimsical and entertaining, lifelike, laughable +and thoroughly human. + + +_JUST PATTY_, By Jean Webster. + +Illustrated by C. M. Relyea. + +Patty is full of the joy of living, fun-loving, given to ingenious +mischief for its own sake, with a disregard for pretty convention which +is an unfailing source of joy to her fellows. + + +_THE POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL_, By Eleanor Gates. + +With four full page illustrations. + +This story relates the experience of one of those unfortunate children +whose early days are passed in the companionship of a governess, seldom +seeing either parent, and famishing for natural love and tenderness. 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Stetson Crawford + +Freckles is a nameless waif when the tale opens, but the way in which he +takes hold of life; the nature friendships he forms in the great +Limberlost Swamp; the manner in which everyone who meets him succumbs to +the charm of his engaging personality; and his love-story with "The +Angel" are full of real sentiment. + + +_A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST._ + +Illustrated by Wladyslaw T. Brenda. + +The story of a girl of the Michigan woods; a buoyant, lovable type of +the self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and kindness +towards all things; her hope is never dimmed. And by the sheer beauty of +her soul, and the purity of her vision, she wins from barren and +unpromising surroundings those rewards of high courage. + +It is an inspiring story of a life worth while and the rich beauties of +the out-of-doors are strewn through all its pages. + + +_AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW._ + +Illustrations in colors by Oliver Kemp. Design and decorations by Ralph +Fletcher Seymour. + +The scene of this charming, idyllic love story is laid in Central +Indiana. The story is one of devoted friendship, and tender +self-sacrificing love; the friendship that gives freely without return, +and the love that seeks first the happiness of the object. The novel is +brimful of the most beautiful word painting of nature, and its pathos +and tender sentiment will endear it to all. + +_Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_ + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK + + + + +ZANE GREY'S NOVELS + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + + +_THE LIGHT OF WESTERN STARS_ + +Colored frontispiece by W. Herbert Dunton. + +Most of the action of this story takes place near the turbulent Mexican +border of the present day. A New York society girl buys a ranch which +becomes the center of frontier warfare. Her loyal cowboys defend her +property from bandits, and her superintendent rescues her when she is +captured by them. A surprising climax brings the story to a delightful +close. + + +_DESERT GOLD_ + +Illustrated by Douglas Duer. + +Another fascinating story of the Mexican border. Two men, lost in the +desert, discover gold when, overcome by weakness, they can go no +farther. The rest of the story describes the recent uprising along the +border, and ends with the finding of the gold which the two prospectors +had willed to the girl who is the story's heroine. + + +_RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE_ + +Illustrated by Douglas Duer. + +A picturesque romance of Utah of some forty years ago when Mormon +authority ruled. 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Grant. + +This story tells of the bravery and heroism of Betty, the beautiful +young sister of old Colonel Zane, one of the bravest pioneers. 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