"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 fly-specked, 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 raid, 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 schoolmistress. "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 'niess 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 later-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 hazel-nut 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!
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——"