won’t promise until the kitchen is cleaned.”
But Arlo Junior went off with a grin on his face. He knew Janice would not tell if he kept his share of the agreement.
Janice was anxious to know how Delia, the new girl, was getting on with the housework. There was a strong smell of scorching vegetables the moment Janice opened the back door. The kitchen was empty, but the pots on the stove foretold the fact that dinner was in preparation at least two hours before it was necessary.
And the vegetables! Janice ran to save them. There was a roaring fire under them; but it was the water that had boiled over, after all. Delia knew nothing, it was evident, about simmering vegetables. Boiling them furiously was her way.
“Oh, dear,” sighed the girl, “I wonder if anything else can happen to the Days! There must be something the matter with me or someone would sometime do something right in this house. Daddy’s dinner will not be fit to eat.
“That book on dietary that I got out of the library and tried to read said that good cooking was most important. I don’t know, for I guess I didn’t understand much of the book–not even of that part I read–but I do know that a well-cooked meal tastes better than a dried-out one. Oh, dear!”
Janice shoved the pots back on the stove, and shut off the drafts so that the fire would die down. She
wondered where Delia could be. She had not seen her outside the house. She ran up the back stairs and looked in the girl’s room before she went to her own.
Delia was not upstairs. Janice could not see that much had been done in the way of housework–at least on the upper floor. Then, suddenly, she discovered where the new girl was.
From the living room came the loud drumming of the player piano. The instrument had not been much in use since the death of Janice’s mother. Somehow it seemed to both Janice and daddy that they did not care to hear the piano that mother played so frequently for them in the evening.
But the instrument was in use now–no mistaking it. There are different ways of playing a mechanical piano. Delia’s way was to get all the noise out of it that was possible.
Janice ran downstairs in some vexation. There was no particular crime in the new girl’s using the instrument, even without asking permission. Yet when there was so much to do about the house and, as she saw plainly, there had been so little done, Janice was vexed enough to give Delia a good talking to.
And then she hesitated with her hand on the knob of the living-room door. If she got Delia angry the woman might leave as abruptly as Olga Cedarstrom had left. It was a thought suggesting tragedy. Janice waited to calm herself while the new girl pumped away on the piano in a perfect anvil chorus.
Janice opened the door. By the number of rolls spread out on the top of the piano it was plain that Delia had played more music than she had done housework. The Garibaldi March came to a noisy conclusion.”
“Oh, my!” sighed Delia, in her squeaky voice, “ain’t that wonderful?”
“I should say it was,” Janice said quickly. “Wonderful, indeed!”
“Oh!” shrieked Delia, flopping around on the bench and glaring at Janice, one hand clutching at her bosom. “You scare’t me.”
“I think you ought to be scared. Your vegetables were boiling over, Delia.”
“Oh, you came in so sudden!” gasped the big woman. “I–I’ve got a weak heart. You oughtn’t to scare me so. I can see mebbe that Swede girl had a hard time here. There is more than cats is the matter. And that woman next door has been around to find out how her cat’s leg come broke.”
If a fluffy little kitten, chasing a ball of yarn, had suddenly turned around and attacked Janice, tooth and nail, the girl would have been no more surprised.
“Why, Delia, I am sorry if I frightened you,” Janice said. “But, you know, this is not your part of the house; and having put on the vegetables, even if it is too early, I should think you would remain in the kitchen and watch the pots.”
The giantess arose and wiped an eye. She sniveled into the corner of her apron.
“Well, I didn’t expect to be bossed by a child,” she squeaked, “when I came to work here. I don’t like it.”
She flounced out of the room, leaving the piano open and the rolls strewn about.
“Oh, dear me! Now I have done it!” groaned Janice Day. “What will Daddy say if I have got Delia mad, and she goes? It is just awful!”
It really did seem to be a tragic situation. Janice shook her head and looked around the room. Everything was just as it had been the night before when they went to bed, save the opened music cabinet and littered piano.
There were daddy’s cigar ashes in the tray; a cup with tea grounds in it as he had left it by his elbow. The smoking stand was not tidied nor the table. There was dust on everything, and a litter of torn papers on the rug.
Why had Delia not cleaned up the room, if she had so much time to play the piano?
“I suppose if I ask her why she did not sweep and dust in here she will tell me that she forgot whether I said to use the blue dustcloth or the pink,” groaned Janice.
One girl they had had actually gave that excuse as
logical when the work was neglected. There was nothing laughable in this situation–nothing at all!
“Oh, if I could only do something myself,” murmured the young girl.
After what had occurred she thought it best to say nothing more to Delia at the time. She hated to bother daddy again; but she wondered what he would do if he had to confront such circumstances at the bank.
“Of course, men’s work is awfully important,” Janice sighed; “but what would daddy do if confronted by these little annoying things that seem to be connected with the housework?”
There were a dozen things Janice would have preferred to do right now. But she could not have daddy come home and see such a looking living-room. She put on apron and cap and went to work immediately to do what Delia should have done earlier in the day.
In an hour or so the room was swept, dusted, and well aired. She had returned the music rolls to the cabinet and closed the piano. She wished there was a key to it so that Delia could not get at it again, for if the new girl was musically inclined Janice foresaw little housework done while she was at school and daddy was at work.
Then Janice ventured into the kitchen. Delia was not there. The vegetables were already cooked and were in the warmer where they would gradually become dried out. Janice had done the marketing on her way to school that morning, and had sent home a steak. The steak was already cooked and was on a platter, likewise in the warming oven. And it was yet an hour to dinner time.
Janice opened the door to the stairway. There was no sound from that part of the house. She went to the back door then, and there was Delia talking earnestly with Miss Peckham over the boundary fence.
The fact smote Janice like a physical blow. She remembered what Arlo Junior had said about the cat. Miss Peckham had found the poor creature and had sent for the veterinary doctor to treat him.
What Janice had already admitted regarding the cat, and what Delia might tell Miss Peckham, would breed trouble just as sure as the world! What should she do?
She might have been unwise enough to have run out and interfered in the back-fence conference. But just then she heard daddy’s key in the front door and she ran to meet him.
“Oh, Daddy! Did you find out anything more about Olga and where she went?” the young girl cried as soon as she saw Broxton Day.
“I guess I have found nothing of importance,” said her father, shaking his head gravely.
“Oh, my dear! Nothing?”
“Nothing that explains where the treasure-box went to, Janice,” he said. “Nor much that explains any other part of the mystery.”
“But the telephone number? Who did she call up?”
“Yes, I found out about that,” he admitted, hanging up his coat and hat. “She called the public booths in the railroad station. There was somebody waiting there to answer her. And who do you suppose it was?”
“I couldn’t guess, Daddy.”
“Willie Sangreen. He is the young man who is checker at the pickle works, and who I told you was Olga’s steady company. He has gone away, and nobody seems to know where.”
“They have gone away together!” cried Janice, in despair.
“She knew where he was going to be at that hour, sure enough; she would probably have called him at the telephone in the railroad station, anyway. And the catastrophe,” he smiled a little, “and Olga’s getting so angry, may have changed their plans completely. Maybe he did meet her somewhere.”
“Oh, Daddy! what kind of a looking man is Willie Sangreen?” cried Janice.
“I really could not tell you.”
“But maybe it was he who drove the taxicab?” suggested the girl.
“That might be worth looking up,” said her father. “And yet, it does not explain,” he added, as they went into the living-room, “why Olga should have stolen the treasure-box. That seems to be the greatest mystery.”
CHAPTER VIII. THEY COME AND GO
“Daddy, do you mind if we have dinner a little early this evening?” Janice asked.
“I have my appetite with me, if that is what you want to know,” said Broxton Day, smiling down upon her.
“Well, Delia has it all ready, I think. Too early, of course.”
“Bring it on!” cried her father jovially. “I can do it justice.”
Janice wondered if he could. Already the food, she knew, was drying up in the warming oven. She hurried out into the kitchen. Delia had not come in from the backyard. Janice shrank from interfering with that back-fence conference; but she could not see daddy’s dinner spoiled.
“Come, Delia!” she called, opening the door. “My father has come home.”
“Oh, my! Is your paw arrived?” asked the giantess; coming lingeringly away from the fence.
Janice saw Miss Peckham’s snappy little eyes viewing her at the kitchen door with no pleasant expression. She felt that something was brewing–something that would not be pleasant. But the spinster retired without speaking to her.
“You have dinner ready very early, Delia,” Janice said, as the big woman lumbered into the kitchen.
“Didn’t you just say your paw had come?” demanded Delia in her squeaky voice.
“Yes. But you have everything ready at five o’clock instead of at six.”
“Oh, yes. I don’t never believe in keepin’ folks waitin’ for their victuals,” said Delia, tossing her head. “You ain’t got any call to be critical–no you ain’t.”
It was of no use! Janice saw that as plainly as she saw anything. This giantess has a dwarf’s brain. As daddy said, when he became particularly “Yankeefied,” “she didn’t know beans!” It would be quite useless to talk to her, or to expect her to remember what she was told to do.
“I will do all I can to hide the rough corners from Daddy,” Janice thought. “I’ll watch Delia before I go to school, and come home from school to straighten her out just as quickly as I can. I just won’t run to him with every little household trouble.”
But it was a wretched dinner. It was so badly cooked that daddy shook his head over it mournfully.
“It is a mystery to me how they manage to boil one potato to mush while another is so hard you can’t stick your fork into it,” he said. “And no seasoning! This steak now–or is it steak?”
“Now, Daddy!” said Janice, half laughing, yet feeling a good deal like crying.
“Well, I wasn’t quite sure,” said her father. “I wonder if these cooks think that meat grows, all seasoned, on ‘the critter’? They must believe that. However, does she do the other work well?”
“I–I don’t know yet,” murmured Janice. “I’ll help her all I can, Daddy, and tell her how, if she’ll let me.”
“Well, maybe we can make something of her,” said Broxton Day, with his hearty and cheerful laugh. “Remember, Olga wanted to boil fresh pork chops for our breakfast when she first came.”
“I do wish we knew where Olga had gone to,” said Janice. “It doesn’t seem as though that girl would deliberately steal. I can’t believe it. And if we don’t get back that treasure-box and what it contains, Daddy, my heart will–just–be–broken.”
“There, there! Don’t give way about it. There is a chance yet of finding Olga–and the box, too,” said her father, trying to comfort his little daughter. “I will not give up the search. Willie Sangreen will of course come back to his job, and he must know what has become of Olga. Those Swedes are very clannish indeed, over there at Pickletown; but some of them bank with us, and I am sure they will be on the lookout for the
girl. Only, of course, I have not told them why I am so anxious to find her.”
They finished dinner, and Delia came in to clear away, with her plump lips pouting and a general air about her of having been much injured. But Mr. Day, now so used to the vagaries of hired help, made no comment.
He and Janice went into the living-room. This, at least, was homelike and clean. He settled into his chair and picked up the paper. Just then there was a ring at the front doorbell.
Janice would have jumped up to answer it; but she heard the giantess going through the hall. There was a voice. Janice recognized it with a start. Then the giantess approached the living-room door, heavy footed, with a clatter of smaller bootheels behind her.
Delia threw open the door as Mr. Day dropped his paper to look up. Her fat face was wreathed in a triumphant smile, and she said:
“It’s the nice lady from nex’ door. I guess she come to see your paw about them cats.”
Mr. Day looked puzzled.
Janice could have screamed as Miss Peckham marched in. Delia apparently intended to stand in the doorway and enjoy whatever there was to enjoy; but as Mr. Day rose from his seat to welcome the neighbor, he said firmly:
“Thank you, Delia. We shall not need you in here at present. You may go.”
The giantess tossed her head and lumbered out of the room, slamming the door behind her with unnecessary violence.
“Good-evening, Miss Peckham,” said the man, offering the spinster a chair. “I don’t know just what Delia meant about cats; but I presume you will explain.”
“Huh!” snapped Miss Peckham, “I guess that girl of yours hasn’t told you about what she done to my Sam. No, indeed! I guess not!”
She was evidently working herself up into a violent state of mind, and Mr. Day, who knew his next door
neighbor very well, hastened to smooth the troubled waters.
“I had not heard anything about cats, Miss Peckham, save the misfortune of a cat convention in our back kitchen yesterday morning. Janice told me about that, of course; but she could scarcely be blamed for it.”
“I don’t know why she shouldn’t be blamed!” ejaculated the angry woman. “And my Sam’s got a broken leg.”
“I am sorry if any of the cats were injured. It was a thoughtless joke of–” he caught Janice’s eye and understood her meaning, “of one of the neighbor’s boys He meant no particular harm, I fancy.”
“You needn’t try an’ lay it on no boy!” exclaimed Miss Peckham. ‘”Twas a girl done it. My Sam–“
“You mean that a girl broke the cat’s leg?” queried Mr. Day, quietly.
“I mean just that. ‘Twas a girl. And that is the girl!” and she pointed an accusing finger at the flushed Janice.
“Oh, I never!” exclaimed the latter under her breath, and shaking her head vigorously.
Mr. Day gave her a smiling look of encouragement.
“I feel sure,” he said, to Miss Peckham, “that if Janice had by chance injured an animal–a cat, or any other–she would have told me. But although it may have been a girl who broke your cat’s leg, it was not Janice.”
“You don’t know anything about it!” cried Miss Peckham angrily. “You don’t know what goes on here all day long while you are gone. I pity you, Mr. Day–I pity you from the bottom of my heart. You ought to have a woman here to manage this girl of yours. That’s what you need!”
“Oh!” gasped Janice, her color receding now. She was very angry.
“Ah! don’t you flout me, Janice Day!” exclaimed the spinster, eyeing Janice malevolently. “I know how bad you act. I don’t live right next door for nothin’. An’ ’tisn’t only at home you act badly, but on the street. Fighting with boys like a hoodlum. Oh, I heard about it!”
“Wait! Wait!” exclaimed Mr. Day, with sternness. “I think you are out of bounds, Miss Peckham. I do not ask you to tell me how to take care of my little daughter. And I am sure I do not believe that you are rightly informed about her actions, even if you do live next door.”
Miss Peckham sniffed harder and tossed her head. “Let us get back to the cats,” he went on quietly. “Have you found that one of your cats has been hurt?”
“His leg’s broke. The doctor said it was a most vicious blow. He’s put it in a cast, and poor Sam is quite wild.”
“But why do you blame Janice?”
“She done it!” exclaimed the spinster nodding her shawled head vigorously. “She ought to be looked after.”
“No, Janice did not hurt the cat,” said Mr. Day with assurance, “unfortunately the cat was hurt on our premises. But it was the girl working for us, not my little girl, who injured your cat.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Miss Peckham sharply. “Not this big thing you’ve got here–the one that let me in?”
“The Swedish girl,” explained Mr. Day. “The cats were shut into our back kitchen, and before Janice could open the door to let them out, Olga, I believe, pelted them with coal.”
“But what did she shut ’em up in the kitchen for?’ demanded Miss Peckham, still pointing and glaring at Janice.
“Oh, I didn’t!” exclaimed the latter, shaking her head vigorously.
“That was not my daughter’s doings,” Mr. Day repeated. “As I tell you, your cat was undoubtedly hurt on our premises. If I can do anything to satisfy you–pay the doctor’s bill, or the like–“
“I don’t want money from you, Broxton Day,” exclaimed
the woman rising. “I didn’t come here for that purpose. I came here to tell you that your house is goin’ to rack and ruin and that your girl needs a strong hand to manage her. That’s what she needs. You ain’t had no proper home here since your wife died.”
“I fear that is only too true, Miss Peckham,” replied Mr. Day.
“If Mrs. Day knew how things was goin’ she’d turn in her grave, I do believe,” went on the neighbor, perhaps not wholly in bitterness.
The man’s face paled. Miss Peckham did not know how much she was adding to the burden of sorrow in the hearts of Broxton Day and his little daughter. Janice was sobbing now, with her face hidden.
“What you need is an intelligent woman to take hold,” went on the neighbor, warming to her subject. “Take this creature you got now. Ugh! Big elephant, and don’t scarcely know enough to come in when it rains, I do believe.”
“The class of people one finds at the agencies is admittedly not of a high order of intelligence,” said Mr. Day softly.
“I should say they weren’t–if them you’ve had is samples,” sniffed Miss Peckham. “Why don’t you get somebody decent?”
“I wish you would tell me how to go about getting a better houseworker,” sighed Mr. Day.
“Get a working housekeeper–one that’s trained and is respectable. Somebody to overlook–“
“But I cannot afford two servants,” the man hastened to submit.
“I ain’t suggesting another servant. Somebody that respects herself too much to be called a servant. Of course it’s hard to find the right party.
“However, some women can do it. And that is the kind you need, Broxton Day. Somebody who will be firm with your girl, here, too.”
“I am afraid,” said Janice’s father quietly, “that the sort of person you speak of is beyond my means; perhaps such a marvel is not in the market at all,” and he
smiled again. “Thank you for your interest, Miss Peckham.”
He rose again to see her to the door. The spinster might have considered remaining longer and offering further advice; but daddy knew how to get rid of people quickly and cheerfully when their business was over.
“Oh, Daddy! what a dreadful woman she is,” sobbed Janice, when he came back into the living-room.
“Not so bad as that,” he said, chuckling, and patting her shoulder comfortingly. “It is her way to make much of a little. You see, she did not want anything for her injured cat, she merely wanted to come in and talk about it.”
“But–but, Daddy,” confessed Janice, blushing deeply, “I really did fight Arlo Junior on the street. I boxed his ears.”
Mr. Day had great difficulty to keep from laughing, but Janice was too absorbed in her troubles to notice it.
“Well, well! Taking the law into your own hands, were you?”
“Yes, Daddy. I guess it wasn’t very ladylike. But I’m not a hoodlum!”
“Why was it that you did not want me to mention Arlo Junior?” asked Mr. Day curiously.
“Well, you see, I sort of promised him I wouldn’t tell about what he did to the cats, if he came in here Saturday and helped me clean that back kitchen.”
“Ho, ho! I see. Well, perhaps you are quite right to shield the young scamp under those circumstances,” said her father, with twinkling eyes.
Mr. Day talked to his daughter for a while longer. He asked her about her school work and her school pleasures, about what the girls and boys in her circle of friends were doing. He tried to keep in close touch with the motherless girl’s interests, and especially did he not want her to go to bed with sad and troublous thoughts in her mind.
After a cheerful and happy half hour Janice kissed her
father good-night and went to her own room.
Janice did all she could the next morning before going to school to start Delia right in the housework. But the giantess was still sullen and had much to say about “it comin’ to a pretty pass when children boss their elders.”
This was an objection that Janice had contended with before. She only said, pleasantly:
“When you have once learned just how we do things here, I sha’n’t have to tell you again, Delia. But wherever you go to work, you know, you will have to learn the ways of the house.”
“I was doin’ housework, I was, when you was in your cradle,” declared the woman.
“But evidently not doing it just as we like to have it done here,” insisted Janice cheerfully. “Now, try to please daddy, Delia. Everything will be all right then.”
Delia only sniffed. She “sniffed” in a higher key than Janice had ever heard anybody sniff before. Certainly Mrs. Bridget Burns was not turning out to be as mild creature as Janice had first believed her to be. She could be stubborn.
When she got to school that morning Janice found that there was another disturbing incident in the offing. Amy Carringford squeezed her arm as they hurried in to grammar recitation, and smiled at her. But it was with gravity that she whispered in Janice’s ear:
“I guess I shall have to refuse Stella’s invitation.”
“Oh, you must go!”
“No, I can’t go.”
“Don’t dare say that, Amy!” responded Janice, earnestly. “You haven’t told her you aren’t coming, have you?”
“No-o.”
“Don’t you dare!” repeated Janice.
“But–but, I don’t see how I can–“
“Wait! I’ll tell you after school. Don’t say a word to Stella about not going to the party. I tell you, if you don’t go, I sha’n’t!”
“Oh, Janice!”
There was no time for more whispering. Amy’s big luminous eyes were fixed on her friend a good deal through the several recitations they both attended. It was evident she was puzzled.
At lunch hour Amy always ran home, for Mullen Lane– at least, the end on which she lived–was not far. And, perhaps, she did not care to join the girls who brought nice lunches in pretty baskets. So Janice could not talk with her new friend until school was out.
Janice had determined to make a friend of Amy Carringford. Oh, yes, when Janice Day made up her mind to a thing she usually did it. And she had conceived a great liking for Amy, as well as a deep interest in the whole Carringford family.
“Now, Janice, what did you mean?” Amy asked, as they set off from the schoolhouse with their books. “I just can’t go to that party!”
“Daddy says that it is a mistake to say that the word can’t is not in the dictionary, for it is–in the newer ones. But I am sure it ought not to be found in the ‘bright lexicon of youth’–like ‘fail,’ you know,” and Janice laughed.
“You are just talking,” giggled Amy, clinging to Janice’s arm. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You are going to know soon, my dear,” returned Janice. “Come home with me. Your mother won’t mind, will she?”
“No. I’ll send word by Gummy.”
“My, that sounds almost like swearing–‘by Gummy!’ exclaimed Janice, her hazel eyes dancing. “And there Gummy goes. Grab him quick. Tell him you’ll stay to supper.”
“Oh, no! I’ll tell him I’ll stay till supper,” rejoined Amy, as she ran after her brother.
She caught up with Janice within half a block laughing and skipping. Never had Janice seen Amy so light-hearted. Even the thought that she could not go to the party at Stella Latham’s house did not serve to make Amy sorrowful for long. And Janice guessed why.
Amy Carringford had been hungry for a close friend. Perhaps Janice was starved, too, for such companionship. At any rate, Amy responded to Janice’s friendliness just as a sunflower responds to the orb of the day and turns toward it.
The two girls went on quite merrily toward the Day cottage at Eight Hundred and Forty-five Knight Street. There was plenty to chatter about without even touching on the coming party. Janice had plans about that.
When the two came in sight of the Day house those plans –and almost everything else–went out of Janice’s head. There was a high, dusty, empty rubbish cart standing before the side gate of the Day premises; and from the porch a man in the usual khaki uniform of the Highway Department was bringing out a black oilcloth bag which Janice very well remembered.
“Oh, dear me! what can have happened?” Janice cried starting to run. “That is Delia’s bag–the very one she brought with her.”
She arrived at the gate just as the man came through the opening. He was a dusty-faced man, with a bristling mustache, and great, overhanging brows. He looked very angry, too.
“Oh, what is the matter?” asked Janice, as the man pitched the oilcloth bag into the cart, and turned back toward the house again.
But he was not regarding at all the girl or her chum who then ran up. He turned to bellow in through the open door:
“Hi! Come out o’ that, Biddy Burns! Ye poor innocent! Sure, with your two little children home cryin’ all day alone and me at work, ye should be ashamed of yerself, me gur-rl! If I was the kind of a feyther ye nade, I’d be wearin’ a hairbrush out on ye, big and old as ye be. Come out o’ that–or will I come in afther ye?”
“Mercy me!” gasped Amy.
“Oh! Oh!” exclaimed Janice, tugging at the man’s
sleeve, “what are you doing to Delia?”
“‘Delia,’ is it? More of her foolishness. She’s Biddy Burns, and her husband is dead–lucky man that he is. And I’m her feyther and the grandfeyther of her two babies–Tessie and ‘Melia. And if she don’t come home this minute with me, I’ll put the young ones in a home, so I will!”
Delia, in the flounced dress, and weeping, just then appeared. She stumbled down the steps and came to the gate, blubbering like a child.
“Sure, he says I’ve got to go ho-ome,” sobbed the giantess. “‘Tis me father–he tells the truth. But I wanted to earn money myself. He never lets me do nothing I want to do!”
“Ye big, foolish gur-rl!” ejaculated the man gruffly. “Was it workin’ for you she was, Miss?”
“Yes,” said Janice breathlessly.
“And they had a pianny,” sobbed Delia;. “‘Twas be-a-utiful!”
“You come home an’ play on the washboard–that’s the kind of a pianny you nade to play on,” grumbled her father. “I’m sorry for ye,” he added turning to Janice, “if your folks has to depend on the likes of her to do the work. Sure, it’s not right good sinse she’s got.”
He came behind the giantess suddenly and boosted her with strong arms up to the seat at the front of the wagon. Then he climbed up himself and the turnout rattled away heavily along the street.
Delia’s departure was one of the most astounding things that had happened to the Days during the months of their dependence upon itinerant houseworkers.
CHAPTER IX . SHOCKS AND FROCKS
Janice found herself clinging tightly to Amy Carringford’s hand and Amy clinging tightly to hers, as the rubbish wagon rattled away with Delia and her grim father perched on the high seat, while the black oilcloth bag rattled around in the otherwise empty body of the cart.
“Oh, Janice!” gasped Amy at last.
“Oh, Amy!” rejoined her friend. “And no dinner for daddy when he comes home!”
Amy could not comment on this catastrophe for the moment, for Miss Peckham (the only neighbor who seemed to have marked the departure of Delia) came swiftly into view. Miss Peckham’s blinds were always bowed, and one never knew which blind she was lurking behind.
“Well!” she exclaimed (and Janice thought she said it quite cheerily), “so that one’s gone, has she?”
“They–they just seem to come and go,” Janice replied, almost in tears. “Oh, dear! Delia wasn’t much; but I did hope she would stay a little longer.”
“‘Much’!” sniffed Miss Peckham. “I should say she wasn’t. And she isn’t even sensible. I should think even a girl of your age could have seen she was more’n half crazy. Wouldn’t expect your father to notice nothing. He’s only a man.”
“Oh! Really crazy, do you mean?” Amy Carringford burst out.
“She never was more’n half bright, that Biddy Garrity. That was her name before she married Tom Burns. And he died. Blowed up in the powder mill. That was old Garrity who came for her. She ain’t got no right to run off and leave her two children and that old man to get along as best they can. But she does it–often. I thought there would be trouble just as soon as I seen her sitting on your steps t’other day.”
“Well, I wish we’d known it,” sighed Janice. “She– she did seem sort of funny. But she wasn’t much worse than some of the others we’ve had.”
“Humph!” sniffed Miss Peckham, “just what I told your father last night. You need a manager here–somebody to take hold”
“I shall have to take hold now and see about getting dinner for daddy,” Janice responded, recovering a measure of her self-confidence. “Come on in, Amy, and watch me work.”
“If I come in and help you,” said her friend. “I guess you won’t have to do it all.”
A glance through the lower rooms proved that Delia had done little more toward straightening the house this day than the day before.
“Goodness, mercy me, Janice Day!” exclaimed Amy Carringford. “I’m awfully glad we don’t have to have servants. It must be awful!”
“It just is,” sighed Janice. “You never know when you come home from school whether you will find the girl or not. And you’re ‘most always sure to find that not half the work’s been done. Well, I can get daddy some sort of a dinner myself tonight.”
“What are you going to cook? Let me help,” said Amy eagerly. “I know how to make lovely rolls–only you have to set the sponge the night before. And Judge Peters’s pudding is just luscious! Only you have to have currants and citron and chopped nuts to go into it.”
“We won’t have either of those things for dinner, then,” said Janice, with a cheerful laugh.
“Well, we don’t have them nowadays,” sighed Amy. “But we used to.”
“I suppose you have had to give up lots of nice things since your father died,” rejoined, her friend sympathetically. “But,” and she giggled, “Gummy said yesterday he couldn’t give up his name.”
“The poor boy!” Amy declared, shaking her head. “Give me an apron, Janice. I am going to peel those potatoes and that turnip. Potatoes and turnip mashed together makes a nice dish. And Gummy can’t really give up his name.”
“‘Gumswith’! It’s awful,” murmured Janice. “How ever–“
“Well I’ll tell you. Poor dear father had a half-brother who was lots older than he. Grandmother Carringford had been married before she married our grandfather, you see. And her first husband’s name was Mr. Gumswith. John Gumswith. It’s not so bad as a last name, you see.”
“No,” agreed Janice, her eyes twinkling. “Not when you say it quick.”
Amy laughed again, busy peeling the vegetables. And she peeled them thin, Janice noticed. Amy had evidently been taught the fine points of frugal housekeeping.
“So poor Gummy got his name from John Gumswith, Junior. I guess father’s half-brother was a queer man. He said he’d never marry, because he was always wandering about the world.”
“Like a peddler?” ventured Janice.
“No. But he went to foreign countries. He always expected to earn a lot of money by some stroke of fortune, mother says. But none of us children ever saw him. Before Gummy was born Uncle John Gumswith started off for Australia, and mother and father never heard of him, or from him after that.”
“But they named poor Gummy after him,” commented Janice, busy with the onion she was chopping to season the hamburger roast, and trying to keep the juice of the onion out of her eyes.
“You see,” Amy confessed confidentially, “when father and mother were married Uncle John gave them a little nest egg. You understand? He had some money, and he gave some of it to them. And then, he was father’s only living relative; so they named the first baby ‘Gumswith’–so that the family name should not die out you know.”
“My goodness!” exclaimed Janice, but whether because of the saddling of Gummy Carringford with such a name, or because of the squirting of onion juice into her left eye, she did not explain at the moment.
“So Gummy is Gummy,” sighed his sister. “Father didn’t name him that just for the money’s sake. Mother says a million dollars wouldn’t really pay for such a name. But father thought a lot of Uncle John Gumswith.
“But when Gummy grows up, he will have to go through life, so he says, signing has name ‘G. Carringford,'” and Amy began to giggle at this thought.
“It is really too bad,” said Janice, but her mind was on another subject just then. “How quick you are, Amy! You know how to do everything, don’t you?”
“No I don’t. But what I know, I know well,” said her friend in her quiet way. “Is your water hot? This turnip wants to go right on, for it take longer to cook than the potatoes.”
“Here you are,” said Janice, seizing the pot and carrying it to the stove. There she poured boiling water over the turnip and set the pot where it would continue to simmer. “It’s too early to put the roast in yet. Come on upstairs, Amy. I know that Delia neither made up my bed nor dusted my room. I did daddy’s before I went to school this morning.”
“Such a nice house!” murmured Amy, as she followed Janice upstairs by the way of the front hall.
“And not half kept,” sighed Janice. “When dear mother was with us–“
She and Amy said no more until Janice’s bedroom was all spick and span again. Janice hugged her friend heartily when at last the pillows were plumped up at the head of the bed.
“You’re a dear!” she said. “You do like me, don’t you, Amy?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then you’ll go to Stella’s party with me, you?’
“Oh, but, Janice, I can’t!”
“There’s that word can’t’ again,” said Janice lightly. “I don’t believe in it–no ma’am! You can go if you want to.”
“I–I haven’t a thing nice enough to wear!” confessed Amy desperately, her face flaming and water standing in her eyes. “As though that was a good reason! Let me show you what I am going to wear.”
But the pretty black and white dress that Janice brought forth from her closet only made Amy shake her head.
“Yes. I know. But it is new–and very nice.”
“I’ve never worn it yet,” confessed Janice.
“And everything I’ve got is as old as the hills,” groaned Amy Carringford.
“Well, look here–and here–and here!” Janice tossed as many frocks upon the bed. “What do you suppose is going to become of those?”
“Oh, Janice! how pretty they are. This pink and white one–“
“M-mm! my mother made them for me,” said Janice, trying to speak bravely. “And now they are too small, anyway. I’ve grown a lot since a year ago.”
“Oh, Janice!”
“So you are going to wear one of them to Stella’s party,” declared Janice confidently. “The pink and white one if you like.”
“Oh, Janice, I can’t. My mother wouldn’t let me.”
“I’m going to make her let you. I’m going to beg her on my knees!” declared Janice, laughing. “Do get into it, Amy, and see if it fits you.
“Wel-l-l!”
It did. There was no doubt but that Amy was just a wee bit smaller than Janice and that the frocks were an almost perfect fit.
“But–but to take a whole new dress from you–a gift! Oh, Janice! I know it isn’t right. Mother will not hear of it”
“Mother’s going to hear of it–and from me,” declared Janice. “To-morrow’s Saturday. After I get all the work done, and Arlo Junior helps me clean that back kitchen, I am going to bring this dress down to your house. I know when she once sees it on you, she won’t have the heart to say ‘No.'”
So, perhaps Janice Day was sly, after all.
CHAPTER X. OTHER PEOPLE’S TROUBLE
Daddy, of course, laughed. If it had not been for his sanguine temperament, and his ability to see the funny side of life, Janice often wondered what they should do.
“They say,” she thought, “that every cloud has a silver lining. But to dear daddy there is something better than silver linings to our clouds. Something to laugh at! I wonder if, after all, being able to see the fun in things isn’t the biggest blessing in the world. I am sure Miss Peckham isn’t happy, and she never sees anything funny at all! But daddy–“
When she told him at dinner time how Delia had departed on the rubbish wagon with her angry father, Broxton Day laughed so that he could scarcely eat.
“But what are we going to do?” cried Janice.
“Don’t be a little Martha, honey, troubled with many things. I would have given a good deal to have seen that departure. ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish,’ is an old saying back in Vermont where I was brought up, Janice. And Delia going in the rubbish wagon seems fitting, doesn’t it?”
“It was funny,” admitted his little daughter. “But what shall we do?”
“Why, try the next applicant,” said Broxton Day easily. “I will look in at the agencies again.”
“I’m afraid that won’t do any good, Daddy,” sighed Janice. “Delia came from the agency, and you see what she was like. And Olga–“
“No,” interrupted Mr. Day, “Olga came direct from Pickletown.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter. There were plenty of others from the agencies, all as bad or worse than Olga and Delia,” and Janice looked much downcast.
“Oh, little daughter, little daughter!” admonished Mr. Day, “don’t give way like that. Some time, out of the lot, we’ll find the right person.”
“Well, maybe,” agreed Janice, cheerful once more. “I guess we’ve already had all the bad ones. Those that are left to come to us must be just ordinary human beings with some good and some sense mixed in with the bad.”
It proved to be a very busy day, indeed, for Janice– that Saturday. But she did not overlook her promise to Amy Carringford. Yet it was mid-afternoon when she started for Mullen Lane with the pink and white party dress in a neat package over her arm.
Janice could not overlook the poverty-stricken appearance of the Carringford cottage. It could not, indeed, be ignored by even the casual glance. But its cleanliness, and everybody’s neatness about the little dwelling, portrayed the fact that here was a family putting its best foot forward. Mrs. Carringford was proud. Janice Day knew that she must be very cautious indeed if she would see Amy adorned with her own finery.
“Dear Mrs. Carringford,” she whispered to her friend’s mother, “I’ve got a surprise for you. I want Amy to come upstairs with me, and by and by, when we call you up, please come and look into her room.”
Amy, according to agreement, had said nothing about the dress to her mother. She was eager, but doubtful just the same.
“I don’t think it is right, Janice,” she declared, over and over. “I don’t see how I can accept the dress from you, when I have nothing to give in return.”
“Oh, that is a very niggardly way to receive,” cried Janice, shaking her head. “If we can’t accept a present save when we can return it–why, daddy says that is the most selfish thought in the world.”
“Selfish!”
“For sure! We are too selfish to allow other people to enjoy giving. Don’t you see? It’s fun to give.”
“But it is not fun to be the object charity,” complained Amy, with some sullenness.
“Why, my dear,” exclaimed Janice Day, “you are not always going to be poor. Of course not. Some day you will be lots better off. Gummy will grow up and go to work, and then you will all be well off. And, besides, this sort of giving, between friends, isn’t charity.”
“Gummy wishes to go to work now,” sighed Amy. “But mother wants to keep him at school.”
“He might work after school and on Saturdays.”
“Oh, that would be fine! But who would give him such a job? You see, we do not trade much with the storekeepers, and mother isn’t very well known–“
“You wait!” exclaimed Janice. “I believe I know somebody who needs a boy.”
“Oh, I hope you do, Janice.”
Meanwhile Amy was getting into that lovely, dainty dress again.
“You do look too sweet for anything in it,” Janice declared. The latter ran out to the stairs and called to Mrs. Carringford. “Oh, do come up and look! Do, Mrs. Carringford!”
She kept Amy’s bedroom door shut, and held Mrs. Carringford for a moment at the top of the stairs.
“Oh, Mrs. Carringford,” she murmured, “don’t you want to make two girls just awfully happy?”
“Why, my dear child–“
“You know, I have been growing just like a weed this past year. Daddy says so. I have outgrown all the pretty clothes my–my mother made me for last summer, and which of course I could not wear. Amy is just a wee bit smaller than I “
“My dear!”
“Wait!” gasped Janice, almost in tears she was so much in earnest. “Just wait and see her! And I want her to go to the party. And there are stockings, and pumps, and a hat, and everything! Look at her!”
She flung open the bedroom door. Amy stood across the room from them, flushing and paling by turns, and looking really frightened, but, oh! so pretty.
“Why, Amy!” murmured Mrs. Carringford, her own cheeks flushing.
What mother can look at her little daughter when she is charmingly dressed without being proud of her? She turned questioningly to Janice.
“Does your father know about this?”
“Daddy quite approves,” said Janice demurely. “I never could get any wear out of them. You can see that, Mrs. Carringford.
“And if you let Amy wear them, we’ll both be so happy!”
Mrs. Carringford kissed her. “You are a sweet, good child,” she said rather brokenly. “I don’t blame Amy for loving you.”
So it was agreed that Amy should wear the party dress. Janice had errands to do at the store, and she begged for the company of Gummy Carringford to help her carry the things she bought.
“You know, I can’t carry them all, and sometimes Harriman’s delivery doesn’t get around until midnight and we have to get up and take the things in.”
“Come on,” said Gummy, who knew about the dress for his sister, “I’ll carry anything you want.”
But Janice really had another reason for getting Gummy Carringford to Harriman’s store. She maneuvered to get Mr. Harriman himself to wait on her, and when Gummy was out of ear-shot she began to confide in the proprietor.
“Do you see that boy who is with me, Mr. Harriman?” she asked.
“Oh, yes. I’ve seen him before I guess. One of your neighbors?”
“He goes to our school. And he is a very nice boy.”
“What’s his name?”
“His name is ‘G. Carringford’,” Janice told demurely.
“Oh! ‘G?'” queried Mr. Harriman. “Is that all?”
“Well, you know, it isn’t his fault if he has dreadful name,” she said. “And it doesn’t really hurt him. He can work just as hard–and he wants work.”
“I thought you said he went to school?”
“After school and on Saturdays,” she explained. “He doesn’t know you, Mr. Harriman, so I suppose he is bashful about speaking to you. But you know him now, because I introduced G. Carringford. Won’t you try him?”
The outcome of this attempt to help the Carringfords was one of the many things Janice had to confide to daddy that evening. As she told him, she had put little dependence upon the hope of finding another houseworker easily. And that was well, for Mr. Day had found nobody at the agencies. He would not trust engaging a girl again, unseen.
“Perhaps next week will bring us good fortune, my dear,” he said. “How did you get on to-day, all alone? I see the silver has been polished.”
“Only some of it, Daddy. And I have been a busy bee, now I tell you.”
“Bravo, my dear! The busy bee makes the honey.”
“And has a stinger, too,” she replied roguishly. “I guess Arlo Junior thinks so.”
“So Junior came over according to promise?” said her father, interested.
“Yes, indeed. And he did work, Daddy! You should have seen him.”
“The vision of Arlo Weeks, Junior, working really would be worth the price of admission,” chuckled Broxton Day.
“That isn’t the worst of it–for Arlo,” said Janice gaily. “You see, his helping me clean up that back kitchen got him a bad reputation.”
“Why, Janice! How was that?”
“Oh, he did the cleaning very well. As well as it could be done. That soft coal made marks on the walls that never will come off until they are painted again. It’s awful smutchy–that coal.”
“I know,” agreed Broxton Day. “But about Arlo?”
“I’m coming to that,” she said smiling. “You see, Arlo Junior was just about through when his mother come over looking for him. She wanted him to go on an errand. She saw what he had been doing for me, for he had an apron on and the broom in his hand.”
“Caught with the goods, in other words?” chuckled Mr. Day.
“Yes. And we couldn’t tell her why he was helping me. So she said right out:
“‘Why, Arlo Junior! If you can help Janice like this– and you and she were fighting the other day–you can come right home and clean out the woodshed. It needs it.’
“And–and,” laughed Janice, “he had to do it. He worked pretty near all day to-day. And he scowled at me dreadfully this afternoon.”
“He will be playing other tricks on you,” warned her father.
“Well, there will be no Olga to make them worse,” she sighed. “That is one sure thing. Oh, dear, Daddy, I wonder where she is–and the treasure-box! It is too, too hateful for anything!”
“I called up the pickle factory where Willie Sangreen works. They had heard nothing from him. It looks as though Olga and he must have gone away together. Stole a march on all their friends and got married, maybe.”
“But why should she take my treasure-box?” cried Janice. “Oh, Daddy! I can never forgive myself for my carelessness.”
“Don’t worry, child. You could not really be blamed,” he rejoined sadly.
“But that doesn’t bring back mother’s picture and the other things,” murmured the anxious Janice, watching his clouding face.
As always when they were alone, daddy washed the supper dishes and Janice dried them. Daddy with an apron on and his sleeves rolled up, and a paper cap on his head (she made him wear that like a regular “chef”), made a picture that always pleased his daughter.
“I think you would make a very nice cook, Daddy dear? she often told him. “In fact, you seem to fit in almost anywhere. I guess it’s because you are always ready to do something.”
“Flattery! Flattery!” he returned, pinching her cheek.
“But it is so, you know, Daddy. You always know what to do–and you do it.”
“That is what they tell me at the bank,” said Mr. Day, with rather a rueful smile. “This Mexican mine business is developing some troubles, and they want me to go down there and straighten them out.”
“Oh, Daddy!” she cried breathlessly.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “That is what I tell them. I cannot leave you alone.”
“But take me!” she cried, almost dancing up and down.
“Can’t be thought of, Janice. That is a rough country –and you’ve got to stick to school, besides. You know, my dear, we had already decided on that.”
“Yes, I know,” she sighed. “But of course you won’t go away and leave me? We–we’ve never been separated since–since dear mamma died.”
“True, my dear. And we will not contemplate such separation. I have told them at the bank it would be impossible.” It was not of their own troubles that they talked mostly on this evening, however, but of some other people’s troubles. After they were out of the kitchen and settled in the living-room, Janice began to tell him about the Carringfords. “They are just the nicest people you ever saw Daddy. Amy and Gummy are coming over here tomorrow after Sunday School so that you can meet them.”
“‘Gummy’!” ejaculated Mr. Day.
Janice told him all about that boy’s unfortunate name.
“You see,” she explained, “Mrs. Carringford told me herself this afternoon that his Uncle John Gumswith was a very nice man.”
“Seems to me,” said daddy, quite amused, “that doesn’t make the boy’s name any less unfortunate. And have they never even heard of the uncle since he went to Australia?”
“No, sir.”
“Well,” chuckled Mr. Day, “Gummy had better go to the Legislature and get his name changed. That’s a handicap that no boy should have to shoulder.”
“It is awful. And it makes Gummy shy, I think. He wanted to work after school hours and on Saturday. But he didn’t seem to know how to get a job. So I,” Janice proceeded quite in a matter-of-fact way, “got him one.”
“You did!”
“Yes, Daddy. I went to Mr. Harriman, the grocer. You know we trade there. And I know that he can use a boy just as well as not. So I told him about Gummy–“
“Did you tell Harriman his name?” chuckled her father.
“I said he was ‘G. Carringford,'” Janice replied, her eyes twinkling. “But you needn’t laugh. Mr. Harriman did.”
“Did what?”
“Laugh; I really wanted Gummy to take a nom de plume, or whatever it is they call ’em.”
“An alias, I guess it would be, in Gummy’s case,” said her father. “And wouldn’t he?”
“No,” said Janice, shaking her head. “Gummy seems to think that he’s in honor bound to stick up for his name. That is what he says.”
“Amen! Some boy, that!”
“He’s a nice boy,” declared Janice. “You’ll see. And he got the job.”
“Oh, he did! So I see that my Janice is a real ‘do something’ girl.”
“Why, yes, I hadn’t thought of that,” she agreed, all smiles at his praise. “I did do something, didn’t I? Gummy is going to work for Mr. Harriman, and that’ll help them. But it was about Amy and Stella Latham’s party I wanted to tell you”
“Oh, was it, indeed?” her father murmured.
She related the circumstances attached to the coming party and Amy Carringford’s reason for not being able to go.
“And you ought to see Amy in that pink and white dress. She’s just too sweet for anything!”
“All right, daughter. I agree to give your little friend the frock if her mother is willing.”
“I just made Mrs. Carringford agree,” said Janice, bobbing her head earnestly. “They are awfully proud folks.”
“With a proper pride, perhaps.”
“I guess so. They are real nice anyway–even if Gummy does wear patched pants.”
“And does he?” asked daddy, seriously. “Perhaps we had better look through my Wardrobe in his behest.”
“But, Daddy! he can’t wear your clothes. He’d be lost in them,” Janice giggled.
“True. But his mother may know how to cut the garments down and make them over for the boy? You ask her, Janice. I will lay out a couple of suits that I will never be able to wear again.”
And so they forgot their own troubles, for the time being, in seeking to relieve those of some other people.
CHAPTER XI. MRS. WATKINS
Although it was probable that most of the Day’s neighbors felt more or less curiosity, if not interest, in their domestic misfortunes, it was only Miss Peckham who seemed to keep really close observation, in season and out, of all that went on in and about the Day house.
Janice could have wished that the spinster would give more of her attention to her cats and Ambrose, the parrot, and less to neighborhood affairs. For the child knew that not even a peddler came to the door that the sharp-visaged woman behind her bowed blinds did watch to see what Janice did.
“She watches every move I make, Daddy,” complained the girl one day. “I don’t see why she cares who comes to see me. She’s the meanest thing–“
“Now, Janice, dear!”
“I don’t care, Daddy, just this once! Why, this afternoon three of the girls were here, and after they left Miss Peckham called me over to the fence and asked me when the Beemans were going to Canada.
“The Beemans talk of going there before long, but are not certain about it; and Annette told the rest of us girls all about it as a great secret. Miss Peckham
deliberately listened at her window, and then, because she couldn’t hear all we said, she tried to make me tell her the whole story. Now, isn’t that mean?”
“Oh, well, Janice–“
“You wouldn’t listen like that, Daddy Day, and you wouldn’t let me, so there!”
“Maybe not, Janice. But then, you know, we do many things that Miss Peckham does not approve of–many things that she would not think of doing.”
“Now, Daddy, you are joking! You know you are!”
“Maybe so–half way. But then we are responsible for ourselves, and not for Miss Peckham. But I am sorry, daughter, that she troubles you. Perhaps,” he added more lightly, “we shall get things on a more satisfactory basis here before long, and then Miss Peckham will not think it necessary to look after us so much.”
“You know better than that, Daddy Day. Miss Peckham will look after us till we are hundreds of years old,” answered Janice. But now she spoke with a smile on her lips.
The disappointment of the coming and going of Bridget Burns made both father and daughter shrink from trying another houseworker unless she appeared more than ordinarily promising. So for a day or two daddy went personally to the agencies and looked the prospective workers over. His reports to Janice were not hopeful.
“Oh, dear me, Daddy!” Janice sighed, “I do wish I could do it all. Maybe I ought only to go to school part time–“
“No, my dear. We will scrabble along as best we can. You must not neglect the studies.”
“At any rate,” she exclaimed, “it will soon be vacation time. I can do ever so much more in the house then.”
“Nor do I believe that is a good plan,” her father said, shaking his head. “The best thing that could happen to you would be for you to go away for a change. I have a good mind to send you back East. Your Aunt Almira–“
“Oh, Daddy! Never! You don’t mean it?” cried the girl.
“Why, you’ll like your Aunt Almira. Of course, Jase Day is not such an up-and-coming chap as one might wish; but he is a good sort, at that. And there is your cousin, Marty.”
“But I don’t know any of them,” sighed Janice. “And I don’t want to leave you.”
“But if we cannot get any help–“
“I’ll get along. What would you do in this house alone if I went away?” she demanded.
“I’d shut it up and go down to the Laurel House to board.”
“Oh, that’s awful!”
“No. I get my lunch there now. It’s not very bad,” said Broxton Day, smiling.
“I mean it’s awful to think of shutting up our home for the summer. You haven’t got to go away to Mexico, have you, Daddy?” she queried with sudden suspicion.
“Well, my dear, it may be necessary,” he confessed.
“And you’d send me away to Vermont while you were gone?”
“I don’t know what else to do–if the necessity arises. Jase Day is my half-brother–the only living relative I have. Your mother’s people are all scattered. I wouldn’t know what else to do with you, my dear.”
“Mercy!” she sighed, winking back the tears, “it sounds as though I–I were what you call a ‘liability’ in your bank business. Isn’t that it? Why, Daddy! I want to be an ‘asset,’ not a ‘liability.'”
“Bless you, my dear, you are! A great, big asset!” he laughed. “But you must not neglect the necessary preparation for life which your studies give you. Nor must I let you overwork. Have patience–and hope. Perhaps we shall be able to find a really good housekeeper, after all.”
When, on Wednesday afternoons Janice came home from school, she saw Miss Peckham beckoning to her from her front porch, the girl had no suspicion that the maiden lady was about to interfere in her and daddy’s affairs. No, indeed!
“Now I wonder what she wants!” murmured Janice, going reluctantly toward the Peckham house. “And she’s got company, too.”
The spinster was sitting on her porch behind the honeysuckle vines, with her sewing table and the big parrot, Ambrose, chained to his perch beside her. There was, too, a second woman on the porch.
“Good afternoon, Miss Peckham,” Janice said, swinging her books as she came up the walk from Miss Peckham’s gate. “Hello, Polly!”
“Polly wants cracker!” declared the bird, flapping his wings and doing a funny little dance on his perch.
“Be still!” commanded Miss Peckham. With her sharp little black eyes she glanced from Janice to the other woman. “This is the girl,” she said.
Janice, feeling as though she was under some important scrutiny looked at the second woman in curiosity. She found her a not unpleasant looking person. She was much wrinkled, yet her cheeks were rather pink and her lips very vivid. Janice wondered if it was possible that this color was put on by hand.
The woman sat in a rocking chair with her long hands folded idly in her lap. On the hands were white “half mits”–something Janice knew were long out of fashion but which were once considered very stylish indeed.
The woman’s eyes were a shallow brown color–perhaps “faded” would be a better expression. It seemed as though she were too languid even to look with attention at any one or anything.
“This is the girl, Sophrony,” Miss Peckham repeated more sharply.
“Oh, yes,” murmured the strange woman, as though awakened from a brown study. “Yes. Quite a pretty little girl.”
“Pretty is as pretty does,” scoffed Miss Peckham. “At any rate, she’s healthy. Ain’t you, Janice Day?”
“Ah–oh–yes, ma’am!” stammered Janice, “I guess I am.”
“Well, I don’t see the doctor going to your house none,” said Miss Peckham, in her snappy way. “I guess I would ha’ seen him if he’d called.”
“Oh, yes,” agreed Janice, “you would have seen him.”
“Heh?” Miss Peckham stared at the little girl sharply. But she saw that Janice was quite innocent in making her comment. “Well,” said the maiden lady, “this is Mrs. Watkins.”
Considering this an introduction, Janice came forward and offered the faded looking woman her hand. Mrs. Watkins’ own hand reminded Janice of a dead fish, and she was quite as glad to drop it as Mrs. Watkins seemed to be to have it dropped.
“Oh, yes,” said the latter woman, “she is a pretty girl.”
“Mrs. Watkins has come to see me,” explained Miss Peckham. “She an’ I have been friends for years and years. We used to go to school together when we were girls.”
“Oh!” said Janice. But she could think of nothing else to say. She did not understand why she was being taken into Miss Peckham’s confidence.
“Yes, Sophrony Watkins and I–Sophrony Shepley was her maiden name. She married Tom Watkins–and Tom was a shiftless critter, if there ever was one.”
Janice was startled. Miss Peckham seemed to be unnecessarily plain spoken. But the languid Mrs. Watkins made no comment.
“And now Sophrony has come down to doin’ for herself,” went on the neighborhood censor. “I sent for her to come over here. She’s been livin’ in Marietteville. You tell your pa that we’ll come into see him to-night after supper.”
“Oh!” murmured Janice. Then she “remembered her manners,” and said, smiling: “Please do, Miss Peckham. I will tell daddy you are coming.”
Miss Peckham waved her hand to dismiss her young neighbor. “And if ’twas me,” she said complacently to her companion, “first thing I’d do would be to cure that young one of calling her father ‘daddy.’ That’s silly.”
Even this remark did not forewarn Janice of what was coming. “I just believe,” she thought, going on her way, “that that faded-out little woman is a book agent and will want to sell daddy a set of books he’ll never in this world read.”
But in getting dinner and tidying up the dining room and living room, Janice forgot all about Mrs. Sophronia Watkins. Janice was working very hard these days– much harder than any girl of her age should work. The evening before she had fallen asleep over her studies, and to-day her recitations had not been quite up to the mark.
The lack of system in the housekeeping made everything harder for her, too. It was all right for daddy to help wash the dinner dishes, and even to blacken the range and the gas stove as he did on this evening, but there were dozens of things going wrong every day in the house which neither Janice nor her father could help.
There were the provision bills. Janice knew very well that the butcher took advantage of her ignorance. She was always in a hurry in the morning, running to school; and she could not stop to see meat weighed, or vegetables properly picked out and measured.
At Mr. Harriman’s, the grocer’s, it was not so bad. There were certain articles of established standard that she knew her mother had always ordered; but in the matter of butter and cheese and eggs, she realized that she often ordered the best, and got second or third quality and first-quality prices.
Had she been able to spend the time marketing she would have conserved some of daddy’s money and things would have been much better on the table. Yet, with the kind of houseworkers they had had, much of the good food that was bought was spoiled in the cooking.
Daddy sometimes said: “The Lord sends the food, but the cooks don’t all come from heaven, that is sure, Janice.”
He was vigorously polishing the cookstove on this Wednesday evening and they were cheerfully talking and joking, when the sound of bootheels on the side porch announced the coming of visitors.
“Oh, dear me! who can that be?” whispered Janice.
“Save me, My Lady–save me!” cried daddy, appearing to be very much frightened, and dodging behind the stove. “Don’t let the neighbors in until I have got rid of this blacking brush and got on my vest and coat–“
But the caller who now hammered on the door with quick knuckles was no bashful person. Mr. Day had no chance to escape from the kitchen Miss Peckham turned the knob and walked right in.
“Come in, Sophrony,” she said, over her shoulder, to the person who came behind her. “You can see well enough that this man and his gal need somebody to take hold for ’em. Come right in.”
CHAPTER XII. THE FADED-OUT LADY
Janice was not as much surprised–at first as her father was by the appearance of the spinster and Mrs. Watkins. She remembered that Miss Peckham had said she would call this evening, although the girl had not expected her at the back door.
Their neighbor had managed to time her appearance at a rather inopportune moment, and when daddy rose up from behind the stove to confront the two women, in a voluminous apron and with a smutch across his cheek, Janice could not entirely smother her amusement.
“Oh! Oh!” she giggled. “Good evening, Miss Peckham! This–this is Mrs. Watkins, Daddy,” and she directed her father’s attention to the faded-out lady. “Ahem! I am glad to see you, Miss Peckham–and Mrs. Watkins,” Mr. Day said, bowing in that nice way of his that Janice so much admired. Even with a blacking brush in one hand and a can of stove polish in the other, Mr. Broxton Day was very much the gentleman.
“You find us considerably engaged in domestic work,” continued Mr. Day, a smile wreathing his lips and his eyes twinkling. “And if you don’t mind, I’ll finish my job before giving you my full attention. Janice, take
Miss Peckham and her friend into the living room.”
“Oh, no. You needn’t bother,” said Miss Peckham shortly. “Here’s chairs, and we can sit down. It’s interesting to watch a man try to do housework, I’ve no doubt.”
“You said something then, Miss Peckham,” said Mr. Day, cheerfully, and began industriously daubing the stove covers.
“I brought Mrs. Watkins in here to see you, Mr. Day, ’cause I got your welfare and hers at heart,” pursued the spinster.
That sounded rather ominous, and Mr. Day poised the dauber and stared doubtfully from his neighbor to the washed-out looking woman.
“Mrs. Watkins is a widow,” went on Miss Peckham.
Mr. Day made a sympathetic sound with his lips, but fell to polishing now, making the stove covers rattle. Miss Peckham raised her voice a notch. “She’s a widow, and she’s seen trouble.”
“We’re born to it–as the sparks fly upward,” observed Mr. Day, under his breath.
“Mrs. Watkins has come to an age when nobody can say she’s flighty, I sh’d hope,” continued Miss Peckham. “She’s settled. And she’s got to earn her livin’.”
“Now, Marthy!” objected Mrs. Watkins.
“Well, ’tis so, Sophrony, ain’t it?” demanded her friend.
“Oh, of course, expenses are heavy, and it’s desirable that I should–should–well, add to my income. But I’ve come to no great age, Marthy Peckham, I’d have you know!”
“Oh, bosh, Sophrony!” ejaculated Miss Peckham. “Well, as I say, Mr. Day, Mrs. Watkins is a widow, and she needs a settled place.”
“Just what are you trying to get at, Miss Peckham? I don’t understand you,” asked Mr. Day, his face actually getting rather pale.
Neither did Janice understand; but her father looked so funny that the girl giggled again. Miss Peckham gave her a reproving glance.
“I sh’d think you’d understand your need well enough, Broxton Day,” she said sternly. “First of all that gal ought to be learned manners. But that’s incidental, as you might say. What I am tellin’ you is, that here’s your chance to get a housekeeper that’ll amount to something.”
“Oh! Ah! I see!” exclaimed Mr. Day in staccato fashion, and evidently very much relieved. “Mrs. Watkins is looking for a position?”
“Well, she ought to be. But it does take a stick of dynamite to get her goin’, seems to me. Speak up, Sophrony!”
“Why, I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Day,” said the faded-out lady, simpering. “I’ve been considerin’ acceptin’ a position such as you have. Of course, I ain’t used to working out–“
“Oh, fiddlesticks? put in Miss Peckham, “He don’t care nothin’ about that, Sophrony. He can see you ain’t no common servant.”
“Assuredly I can see that, Mrs. Watkins,” said Mr. Day, suavely. “But do you think you would care to accept such a position as I can offer you?”
“I should be pleased to try it,” said Mrs. Watkins, with a sigh. “Of course, it would be a comedown for me–“
“Land’s sake, Sophrony!” ejaculated her friend, “with me to sponsor you, I don’t guess anybody in this neighborhood will undertake to criticize.”
“Wait a moment,” said Mr. Day, and Janice was delighted to see that he was not entirely carried off his feet. “Let us understand each other. I pay so much a month,” naming a fair sum, “and I expect the cooking and all the housework except the heavy washing done by whoever takes the place.”
“Well, now, Mr. Day,” began Mrs. Watkins, “you see, I shouldn’t expect to be treated just like an ordinary servant. Oh, no.”
“That’s what I tell her,” snorted Miss Peckham.
“Folks that have had the off-scourings of the earth, like you have had, Broxton Day, in your kitchen, ain’t used to having lady-help about the house.”
“I hope Janice and I will appreciate Mrs. Watkins’ efforts, if she wishes to try the place,” Mr. Day said, in rather a bewildered tone.
“That gal herself can do a good deal I sh’d think, morning and night. She ain’t helpless,” said Miss Peckham, staring at Janice.
“Janice has her school work to do,” said Mr. Day firmly. “She takes care of her own room and does other little things. But unless Mrs. Watkins wishes to undertake the full responsibility of the housework it would be useless for her to come.”
He was firm on that point. The faded-out lady smiled feebly. “I am always willing to do as far as I can,” she sighed. “The work for three people can’t be so much. I am perfectly willing to try, Mr. Day. I’m sure nothin’ could be fairer than that.”
Daddy and Janice looked at each other for an instant. It flashed through both their minds that the faded-out lady did not sound very encouraging. Later when the two had gone, daddy put away the blacklug tools, saying:
“Well, it will be a new experience, Janice. She is different from anybody we have ever had before.”
“Oh, Daddy! I think she’s funny,” gasped the girl.
He smiled at her broadly, shaking his head. “I presume she does seem funny to you. But at least she is a ladylike person. We must treat her nicely.”
“Why, as though we wouldn’t!” gasped Janice.
“But don’t offend her by showing her you are amused,” warned her father. “That may be hard, for it does strike me that Mrs. Sophronia Watkins is a character, and no mistake.”
“I wouldn’t hurt her feelings for the world,” declared Janice. “But, Daddy, do you suppose it is rouge she has on her face? And does she use a lipstick?”
“For goodness’ sake! Where did you hear about such things?” he laughed.
“Why, of course I know something about most everything,” declared Janice, quite confidently. “And her face doesn’t look just natural.”
“Don’t get too curious, Janice,” he said laughing. “If she can cook and keep the house clean, as far as I am concerned she can paint herself like a Piute chief.”
One shock, however, Mr. Broxton Day was not exactly prepared for. Mrs. Watkins came to the house the next day for a late breakfast–which she got herself, Janice and her father having already cooked their own and eaten it.
“I haven’t been used to getting up very early,” confessed the woman, preening a bit. “But, of course, I shall change my breakfast hour to conform with yours.”
“I hope so,” said Broxton Day, hurrying away to business.
He got the shock mentioned at night when he came to the dinner table. The table was very neatly set; but there were three places. The meal was not elaborate but the food seemed to be cooked all right. Mrs. Watkins brought in the dishes and then sat down with Mr. Day and Janice to eat.
Janice did not look at daddy, but her own face was rather red and she was uncomfortable.
“Your daughter,” said Mrs. Watkins severely, informs me that you have not been in the habit of having anybody at your table at meal time but your two selves. Of course, I could only engage to assist you here with the understanding that I am to be considered one of the family.”
“Why–er–yes; that will be all right,” Janice’s father said, though a bit doubtfully. “It would scarcely do to consider you, Mrs. Watkins, in the same category as the ordinary help Janice and I have had.”
“I am glad you see it that way,” said the faded-out lady. And she was quite colorless at the moment. It was evident that the rouge and lip-stick were used only on important occasions.
“I am glad you see it that way,” she repeated. “I could consider no let-down as a lady, in accepting any position. Manual labor is no shame; but one must be true to one’s upbringing.”
“Quite so, Mrs. Watkins–quite so,” agreed Mr. Day.
“Janice, child,” said the woman quickly, “run out to the kitchen and get the rest of the potatoes. And see if the coffee is ready.”
Her tone rather startled Janice; but she did as she was bade and that without even a glance at daddy.
“I never consider I have had a real dinner,” Mrs. Watkins continued, “unless I have a bit of good cheese with it. I find none in the house, Mr. Day. Indeed,” she added, “your pantry sadly needs stocking up.”
“Why–er–that may be so. We have been living a good deal ‘catch-as-catch-can,'” and he smiled upon her. “Give Janice a list of the things you need, and she will go to Harriman’s for you in the morning.”
“No. I prefer to do my own marketing, always. A child like Janice–thank you Janice, for the potatoes– can scarcely be expected to use judgment in the selection of provisions. You might telephone to the stores where you are in the habit of trading and inform them that I have charge of your household now. They will then expect me.”
“Oh, well! All right,” he said, but doubtfully.
“I have not yet brought my bag from Marthy’s, next door. I will go after it when dinner is over, while Janice clears the table. I will send for my trunk, which is at Marietteville, later.”
“Suit yourself, Mrs. Watkins,” said Mr. Day.
“Have you any choice as to which of the two empty bedrooms I consider mine?” the woman asked, heaping her plate a second time with food.
“What’s that?” asked Mr. Day, rather non-plussed.
“Which chamber shall I sleep in?” she repeated, quite calmly.
“Why–I– Really, Mrs. Watkins, isn’t the small room beyond Janice’s quite sufficient for you?” he asked, a little color coming into his face now.
“Oh, my dear Mr. Day! I could not consider that for a moment. Why, that is the girl’s room–merely a bedroom for the hired help. I could not possibly consider myself in the same class–“
“Except on pay-day, Mrs. Watkins?” asked the man bluntly. “We are glad to have you with us, of course; and we will consider your quite different status in the family, as you demand. But–“
“No, Mr. Day,” Mrs. Watkins said with decision, interrupting him. “I could not contemplate for a moment occupying the girl’s room. Why you might want it again any time.”
“Not while you are with us,” said Mr. Day wonderingly. “I do not think I could afford to have two helpers.”
“It does not matter,” said the faded-out lady stubbornly. “Janice, get the coffee now. It does not matter. I refuse positively to sleep in that little, poked-up room. I prefer my windows opening to the east.”
“But the east room is the one Mrs. Day always used,” said the man, with sudden hoarseness. “I cannot allow you to use that one. The spare chamber on the other side of the hall, if you insist.”
“Very well,” said the woman with a small toss of her head. “Will you have a cup of coffee, Mr. Day?”
“No, Mrs. Watkins. I prefer a cup of tea at dinner time. A New England habit that has clung to me.”
“Indeed? Janice, go and make your father a cup of tea, that’s a good child.”
“Never mind, Janice,” said daddy quickly. “I do not wish it now. And, Mrs. Watkins.”
“Yes, Mr. Day?” simpered the faded-out lady.
“I wish it distinctly understood that Janice is to give her complete attention to her school work between dinner and bedtime, unless she should chance to have more freedom during those hours than is usual. She will assist you as you may have need after school, and even in the morning before she goes to school. But the hours after dinner are for her school work. Do you quite understand me, Mrs. Watkins?”
Mrs. Watkins’ pale, wrinkled face did not color in the least, nor did the washed-out brown eyes change their expression. But there was an added sharpness to the woman’s voice:
“You object to Janice’s giving me a hand with the lighter tasks, Mr. Day?” she queried.
“Not at all. But her education must not be neglected.”
“Ah! I quite understand,” sniffed Mrs. Watkins. “You object to my going out this evening then? But I really must have my bag with my toilet requisites.”
“I have no wish to restrict your use of the evening, as long as your work is done,” said Mr. Day, rising from the table. “Come, Janice, it is time you were at your books.”
He led the way into the living room. Mrs. Watkins gave a violent sniff at their departure. Then she finished her coffee.
CHAPTER XIII. STELLA’S PARTY
It was not going to be altogether pleasant sailing with Mrs Watkins in the house. Broxton Day saw that to be the fact, plainly and almost immediately. Janice had realized it even before her father had occasion to mark Mrs. Watkins’ most prominent characteristic.
She was a person who was determined to take advantage if she could. In the parlance of the section of the country from which Broxton Day hailed, she was one of those persons who “if you give ’em an inch they take an ell.”
From the first she made a strong attempt to carry things with a high hand. Mr. Day was almost sorry he had allowed her to come into the house. Mrs. Watkins did most of the housekeeping from her station in a rocking chair on the porch where she sat, wearing the mitts aforementioned.
Her idea of keeping the house in order was to clean all the rooms that were not absolutely needed, and then close them up tight, draw the shades down and close the blinds, making of each an airless tomb into which Janice was made to feel she must not enter for fear of admitting a speck of dirt.
Most of the work was done on Saturday, when Janice was at home. There was no playtime now for the girl– none at all.
But Janice would not complain. Mrs. Watkins could be very mean and petty, indeed; but to daddy she showed her best side. And as far as he saw, the house was run much better than had been the case of late.