"What do you think of her, Daddy?" giggled the little girl.
"I certainly did not see her before hiring her. In fact, I did my business over the phone with the manager of the intelligence office. I gathered from him that
she was a woman of middle age, and "settled," whatever that may mean. If it means that she can work and stay settled here— But what a queer looking creature! How does she seem to take hold, Janice? Does she seem intelligent?"
"I haven't made up my mind yet," murmured his little daughter. "She doesn't look as though she knew anything at all. But maybe she does. You said yourself that we couldn't have anybody worse than Olga."
"I don't know about that," he retorted. "I may have to take that back. Sh! Here she comes again."
Aside from the fact that she served cold plates for the roast and vegetables, and hot ones for the salad; that from her great height she was almost certain to spill food on the table before she got a dish set down before them; and that she kept bouncing in and out of the dining room to ask them if they were ready for dessert; she managed to get through the meal without making Mr. Day and Janice any great discomfort.
In the living room, later, when Mr. Day was in his comfortable chair and Janice had her school books spread out upon the table under the reading lamp, the father said softly:
"Well, my dear, it is not the sort of life I hoped we would lead when we built this house. Your dear mother was such a wonderful housekeeper, and could manage so well. I never had a thought or a care about the housekeeping affairs. But now—"
"I know, Daddy," broke in Janice earnestly. "If only I didn't have to go to school!"
"That is something that cannot even be discussed," he rejoined, smiling at her gravely. "As I told you last night, my dear, what your mother and I planned regarding your education must be carried through if possible."
"But college is a long way ahead," said Janice wistfully. "And meanwhile you are not comfortable and the house is going to rack and ruin, just as Miss Peckham says."
"Did the old girl say that?" he wanted to know, with rather a rueful smile on his lips.
"Yes. She was in here the other day and she is so nosey. She was bound to go all through house, although I did not want her to. I know it doesn't look spick and span as it should—"
"That is not your fault, Janice," her father said quickly. "Don't let it worry you. You must stick to your books. And if we can get nobody better than this woman—or Olga—to help, we must expect things to be in rather bad shape about the house.
"I suppose there are good housekeepers for hire—somewhere. They certainly do not seem to be in Greensboro. And, then, I cannot afford to pay a very high wage. You see, my dear, we are not rich."
"No, Daddy," Janice agreed. "I quite know that. But we have enough, and to spare, I am sure."
"So far we have managed to pull along," he said smiling at her quizzically. "And perhaps we shall be even better off in time. I am up to my neck, as the boys say, in an investment in Mexican mines. I was able to get into it before your dear mother died, and she quite approved. Several Greensboro men have invested in the same string of mines and there is ore being got out—ore of good quality.
"But thus far there have been no dividends. Rather, we have had to put in more money for improvements. But when once we get started producing, you and I may have something like riches."
"Oh, won't that be nice, Daddy!" she exclaimed, wide-eyed and red-cheeked in her excitement. "To be really rich!"
"Well, we shall be able to engage somebody better fitted perhaps for the position of housekeeper," sighed Mr. Day, turning to his newspaper again.
"That's all right, Daddy," she said. "But meanwhile I am going to do all I can to make things go smoother. Just as you said last night, it can only be brought about by somebody's doing something. I'll do something, you see if I don't."
She made this declaration cheerfully. But when she closed her books, kissed daddy, and went up to bed, her countenance was overcast with an expression far from cheerful.
Only the evening before she had sat here and looked her treasures over. The diary which mother had kept when she was a little girl—all the innocent little secrets she had written on the pages which Janice so delighted to read!
And the lovely miniature, with mother in the very dress she wore the evening she and Broxton Day were betrothed. Janice knew all about that. Her mother had talked freely of her courtship and of what a splendid young man daddy had appeared to be in her eyes.
Her mother's frequently expressed admiration for the young man who came from New England to win his fortune in the Middle West was doubtless the foundation of Janice Day's unusual fondness for her father.
That by her carelessness she should have brought about the loss of the treasure-box and those things which both she and daddy considered of such personal value, was the thought that weighed most heavily on the girl's heart.
Without turning on her light, she went to the window and looked out into the soft spring darkness! Daddy's letters! Mother's miniature! The treasured old diary that Janice so loved!
Her troubled little heart overflowed. She flung herself down with her face hidden in her arms folded upon the window sill, while ungovernable sobs shook her body.
The loss of the treasure-box was a disaster for, which she could not easily forgive herself.
CHAPTER VI. THE CARRINGFORDS
Janice Day was a friendly little soul; but she was not a girl who made those close friendships that so many girls make during their schooldays. There was no one girl from whom she was almost inseparable.
Janice was just as good friends with Amy Carringford as she was with Stella Latham; only Amy had been attending the grammar school a much shorter time than had the farmer's daughter.
Now circumstances attending Stella's proposed birthday party caused Janice to become much better acquainted with Amy Carringford. In seeking to do something for Stella, Janice was determined to do something for Amy.
The Carringford family had taken up their residence during the winter in Mullen Lane; and it must be confessed that Mullen Lane was not considered an aristocratic part of the town. Of course, poor people have to live where living is cheap; but it was said that Mrs. Carringford, who was a widow, had bought the little cottage—not much better than a hut—in which she and her little family had taken up their dwelling.
Why people like the Carringford, manifestly well bred and intelligent, had chosen Mullen Lane to live in puzzled not only the busybodies, like Miss Peckham, of this part of Greensboro, but amazed other people as well.
Wherever Mrs. Carringford appeared—at church, Or in the neighborhood stores on Knight and Cassandra Streets—people saw that she was a well bred woman, though plainly, even shabbily, dressed.
There were several children besides Amy and the Unfortunately-named Gumswith, and they dressed poorly, too. But even if Gummy's trousers were patched at the knees, as Stella Latham had pointed out, they were patched neatly, and his linen was fresh.
Of course, nobody called on Mrs. Carringford; at least, almost nobody. The rickety little cottage in Mullen Lane did not attract callers by its outward appearance, that was sure. That it was a shelter for a family that had been sorely tried by fate, none of the neighbors knew.
It was Janice Day, when she made a frank attempt to know Amy Carringford better, who began first to learn particulars about the Carringford family. There was not much queer or mysterious about them; merely they were people who failed to advertise their private affairs to the community at large.
Janice had gained Stella Latham's promise that she would not tell the secret of the party dress, if Amy should consent to borrow it, before she sounded Amy as to whether she was going to accept the invitation to
the party or not. According to Stella, who was really very silly about such things, the birthday party was to be a very "dressy" affair. Stella talked about this phase of it in season and out.
First of all, Janice demanded that one of the highly ornate invitations Stella's mother had had printed in the Greensboro Bugle printing office should be sent to Amy. There should be no hedging, Janice determined, after that. Amy was to be asked like the other girls and boys of their grade.
"But if she hasn't got a decent dress?" murmured Stella, when she was mailing the invitation to Amy.
"I told you I'd see that she did have a party dress," Janice said sharply. "I can't agree to find whole trousers for Gummy," and she giggled; "so you needn't invite him if you don't want to. But Amy will be all right."
"Maybe she will be too proud to wear your dress, Janice Day!" exclaimed Stella.
"Then she won't come," rejoined Janice. "But you are not to tell a soul that the dress is mine, if she does wear it."
"We-ell," sighed Stella, somewhat relieved.
The farmer's daughter knew that there would be much comment if she left Amy off the invitation list. She was glad to leave the matter in Janice Day's hands. And she did not remark again, at least, not openly, upon Janice being "so sly."
Without being at all sly, Janice did go about doing something for Amy Carringford with considerable shrewdness. She had never walked home with Amy from school. She did not like the purlieus of Mullen Lane. But this afternoon she attached herself to Amy with all the power of adherence of a mollusk, and they were chattering too fast to stop abruptly when they came to the comer of Knight Street, where usually Janice turned off.
Mullen Lane touched Love Street at its upper end, so Janice could go all the way to the Carringford house without going much out of her way. She went on with Amy, swinging her books; and at first Amy did not seem to notice that Janice was keeping with her right into the muddy, littered lane on which she lived.
"Why, Janice!" said Amy, finally, "you are away out of your way."
"Oh, I can go up the lane to Love Street," returned Janice carelessly, and just as though she were used to doing that.
Amy, who was a pretty, blonde girl, gazed at her companion rather curiously; but Janice was quite calm.
"That is the house where I live," said Amy, in a changed tone, as they came in sight of the cottage.
"Oh, yes," replied Janice.
Aside from the fact that the house needed paint and new window shutters, and a new roof, and new planks for the piazza, and numerous other things, it was not such a bad looking house. Janice noticed something at first glance: it was only things that poor people could not get or that a boy could not tinker that was needed about the Carringford house to make it neat and comfortable.
The fences were on the line, had been braced, and there were no pickets missing. The gates hung true. The walks were neatly kept and there were brilliant flower beds in front, for flower seeds cost little. What the Carringford could do to make the place homelike without spending money, had certainly been done.
"It's an awful place to live," ventured Amy, still gazing sidewise at Janice.
"Oh," said the latter brightly, "you don't mean that! You are all together and are all well."
"Yes, there are a lot of us." And Amy said it with a sigh. "It seems as though there were an awful lot of children, now that father's dead."
"Did you lose your father recently—just as I did my mother?" asked Janice softly.
"Year and a half ago. That is why we came here, There was some insurance money. Somebody persuaded mother to buy a home for us with it. I don't know whether it was good advice or not; but she bought this place because it was cheap. And she could not pay for it all, at that; so I don't know but we're likely to lose the money she put into it, and the old shack, too."
Amy spoke rather bitterly. Janice, with natural tact, thought this was no time to probe deeper into the financial affairs of the Carringfords. She saw Gummy, who was a year older than Amy, in the yard. He had got home from school first, and he stared when he saw Janice.
"Hullo, Gummy!" the latter called to the boy with the patched trousers. "What are you doing there? Are you laying sod for a border to that garden-bed?"
"No. I'm trimming an opera cloak with green ermine," said the boy, but grinning. "What are you doing around here in Dirty-face Lane?"
"Oh, Gummy!" exclaimed Amy.
"What a name to call the street!" objected Janice.
"Well, that's what it is," returned the boy, continuing to pound the sod into place. "Nobody in this street ever washes his face."
"Why Gummy Carringford!" exclaimed his sister again.
"I'm sure Amy washes her face whether you do or not," chuckled
Janice.
"Oh, me!" sniffed the boy, but his eyes still twinkling. "I'm always 'gummy'!"
Janice's laughter was a silver peal that brought three or four younger Carringfords, including the twins, to the side door. They peered out at their sister and the girl with her, but were bashful.
"What a jolly lot of little ones!" sighed Janice. "You know, Amy,
I'm all alone. I haven't any brothers or sisters."
"Don't you want to adopt me?" asked Gummy, who overheard her.
"I certainly would have to change your name," declared Janice.
"No," and he shook his head, his freckled face becoming grave.
"Got to stick to the old name—just like gum sticks."
"Oh, my dear, is that you?" cried Mrs. Carringford, coming to the door, her brown face flushing pink. "And one of your schoolmates?"
She came out on the porch. She had a very pleasant smile, Janice thought, and her brown eyes were as bright as a woodpecker's.
"This is Janice Day. She's in my class, Mother," said Amy, rather hesitatingly, it must be confessed.
"Yes, I know her name," said Mrs. Carringford, and now Janice was near enough to take the hand of Amy's mother. "How do you do, my dear? I have seen you before. I am always glad to meet Amy's school friends."
Had it not been for the warmth of the good woman's greeting Janice would have felt that she was unwelcome at the little cottage on Mullen Lane. Amy seemed to hang back, and not invite her schoolmate into the house.
"Here is something the postman brought you, Amy," her mother went on briskly.
She reached inside the door to a shelf and brought forth an object that Janice recognized. It was the big white envelope containing the invitation to Stella Latham's party.
"Hi! I know what that is," cried Gummy, rising to look at the envelope. "Lots of the fellows got 'em. That Latham girl that lives out on the Dover pike is going to have a party. Crickey! I didn't suppose she would invite us."
"She hasn't invited you I guess," his mother told him. "It is addressed to your sister."
"Oh! I see."
Amy had flushed brightly, and her eyes sparkled. She was tearing open the envelope eagerly.
"Oh!" she sighed, "I didn't expect this. Did you get yours,
Janice?"
"Yes, Stella asked me. But she didn't send out: all the invitations at once," said Janice slowly,
"You'll go of course, won't you?"
"Why—"
Then suddenly Amy's voice stopped. She looked at her mother. The glow went out of her face. She let one of the smaller children take the invitation out of her hand.
"I don't know," she said slowly. "I'll have to see."
"Won't you come in, Janice?" asked Mrs. Carringford, seeking to cover her daughter's embarrassment.
"I will for a minute, thank you," was Janice Day's smiling reply. "You know, I like Amy, Mrs. Carringford, and I have never been to her house before, and she has never been to mine."
Her speech helped to cover her friend's hesitation. Amy tripped in behind Janice and suddenly gave her a hearty squeeze.
"She's an awfully nice girl, Mumsy!" she said to her mother.
Janice laughed. But her bright eyes were taking in much besides the smiling expression on her friends' faces. The Carringford kitchen was like wax. Mrs. Carringford had been washing in one comer of the room, and there was a boiler drying behind the stove. But there was nothing sloppy or sudsy about the room. The woman had whisked off the big apron she had worn when Janice entered, and now the latter saw that her work dress was spotless.
"Oh, dear me!" thought Janice, "how nice it would be if our kitchen—and our whole house—were like this. How delighted Daddy would be."
But there was something else she did not at first see. She had to get acquainted with all the younger Carringfords. She must talk with Mrs. Carringford. Gummy came in after washing his hands and rubbing his shoes clean on the doormat to talk to the caller. Then Amy carried Janice off upstairs to her own tiny room under the eaves.
There was no carpet on the stairs. The matting on the floor of Amy's room was much worn. There was nothing really pretty in the room. Janice suddenly realized that this spelled "poverty."
Yet it was cheerful and speckless, and there were pictures of a kind, and little home-made ornaments and a few books.
The window curtains were of the cheapest, but they were looped back gracefully. There was a workbox and stand that Gummy had made for Amy, for the brother was handy with tools.
Altogether there was something about the room, and about the ugly little house as well, that Janice Day realized she did not have at home. She had had it once; but it was not present now in the Day house. In the Carringford dwelling the magic wand of a true homemaker had touched it all.
The two girls chatted for almost an hour. It was mostly about school matters and their friends and the teachers. Amy talked, too, about friends in Napsburg, where the Carringfords had lived before moving to Greensboro. Janice was adroit in keeping the conversation on rather general topics, and did not allow the question of Stella's party to come to the fore and never once did she speak of what any of the girls would wear on that occasion.
The time to leave came, and then Janice felt she should enter the wedge which would afterwards gain for her the desired end.
"You'll go to Stella's party, won't you?" asked Janice as she prepared to go home.
"Oh, I don't know. I'll see," Amy hurriedly said.
"Of course you will go," Janice declared firmly. "I want you to go with me. I sha'n't feel like going at all if you stay away, Amy."
They kissed each other on the stairway, and then Janice ran home, swinging her books. She thought the Carringford were very pleasant people. But there were several mysteries about them. First of all she wanted to know how Gummy came to have such an awful, awful name!
CHAPTER VII. ARLO JUNIOR AGAIN
Just as Janice was running in at the Love Street gate she was halted by Arlo Junior. Junior kept well out of the way at first, but his tone was confident well as ameliorating.
"Aw, I say, Janice?' he begged, "you ain't mad at me, are you?"
"Why shouldn't I be?" she demanded, her face flushing and the hazel eyes sparking in an indignant way.
"Well, I mean— Well, I hope you ain't," stammered Arlo Junior, unable entirely to smother a grin, and yet plainly anxious to pacify Janice. "You see, Janice, my mother was coming up from downtown and she Saw you whacking me the other day."
"Oh!"
"Yes, she saw you," said Junior, nodding. "So I had to tell her something of what made you do it."
"Indeed?" demanded Janice scornfully. "And what did you tell her?"
"I told her about the cats. Anyway, I told her left your back kitchen door open and that the cats got in there and fought. Oh, Je-mi-ma, how they did fight! didn't they? I heard 'em after I got back into the house that morning," and Junior began to giggle.
"They didn't fight," said Janice shortly. "What you heard was Olga pitching coal at 'em. And then she up and left us. We had to get another girl. And this new girl won't clean up the mess in the back kitchen. That's what you did Arlo Weeks and I've got to clean up that room because of you."
"Oh, Je-mi-ma!" gasped Junior, giggling no more now. "Is that how
Miss Peckham's Sam-cat got hurt?"
"What do you know about that?" demanded Janice quickly.
"Miss Peckham's been all over the neighborhood talking about it. She found the cat with a broken leg. Got a veterinary. Put it in a plaster cast. Did you ever?"
"Well!" murmured Janice.
"I tell you what; don't let's say anything about it," begged
Junior eagerly. "I tell you what I'll do. I'll come over
Saturday and help you clean up all the mess the cats and the girl
made. But don't say a word."
"Well," said Janice again.
"Now you promise, Janice," wheedled Junior. "If my mother learns all about the cat business, there will be a big row. And all I did—really—was to open that back kitchen door and then shut it again after the cats got inside."
"They would never have gone in if you hadn't thrown the catnip in there," declared Janice warmly. "You know that very well, Junior."
"Well, you won't say anything about it, will you, Janice, if I come and clean up the kitchen?"
"Well," said Janice for a third time, "let's see you do it. I 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.