The testing of Janice Day

Unconscious that Fate was putting her in a very unhappy position with Nelson, Janice was experiencing a number of small adventures on this Saturday afternoon.

She had arranged with Miss ’Rill and her mother to take them to Middletown for some shopping; but they were not, after all, ready to make the trip. It must be put off for another week, and Janice agreed to the change in the arrangements. Having the car with her she did not feel like staying at the Scattergoods’ little home for a call, so drove on up the hill.

There was a little flock of women out in front of Frederica Morgan’s house. Her cousin from Montpelier was dressed for departure, and had her bags piled on the sidewalk in a small pyramid. Frederica’s daughter, Cala, was likewise dressed for a journey.

“What’s the matter?” asked Janice, stopping at the horse-block, and seeing that the whole party was excited over something.

“That plagued Walky Dexter jest sent word that his old Josephus has gone an’ fell lame and he can’t take us to the train. Drat the man!” exclaimed Mrs. Morgan, who was a gaunt-looking, masculine sort of woman. “Mahala here has sent word to her folks to meet her to-night with their carry-all at the Montpelier station, and Cala was goin’ with her on a visit. Now they won’t ever know what’s become of Mahala and Cala till some time Monday. Polktown is sure enough the sawed-off end o’ nothin’! We could all be wiped off the earth here and nobody outside the town would know it for three days.”

Janice had begun to smile as Mrs. Morgan talked. Now she broke in with:

“Let me help you out, please. I have nothing particular to do, and I can take you over to Middletown in ample time for the train.”

“Gracious, Janice! we couldn’t all pile into that ortermobile with our baggage,” gasped Cala, who was a freckled, stringy girl, promising to be just as awkward as her mother.

“Is your mother going?” asked Janice doubtfully.

“She ain’t gotter,” spoke up Frederica promptly. She was a widow, and masterful, and everybody called her by her first name. “I dunno but I’m bridle-shy of them gasoline things, anyway. And I can kiss Mahala and Cala right here jest as well as though I went dean to the Middletown station with ’em.”

So it was quickly arranged. Mahala and Mrs. Morgan’s daughter got into the tonneau, and the various bags and extension boxes were piled in about them and about Janice on the front seat. The car was started slowly, amid a chorus of “good-byes” and Janice took the longer way to Middletown over the mountain. There was plenty of time, it was a lovely afternoon, and the rain the night before had laid the dust.

They passed few other vehicles,—no other automobiles—and experienced no accidents at all during the drive. Janice left the pleased ladies at the station a good half hour before the train was due. Then she drove out to the seminary to speak with the assistant principal about the purchase of some text books. Her work at the school would begin on Wednesday of the next week. Already some of the girls who came from a distance were at the school, and Janice was introduced to two or three.

They seemed pleasant, and Janice was bound to be popular because of her car, if for no other reason. The girls admired the Kremlin and finally climbed in and were driven downtown for an ice-cream “orgie.” It was, therefore, late in the afternoon when Janice left by the Lower Road for Polktown.

“I like those girls—and they are city girls, too,” she thought, as she sped along. “They are not a bit like Annette Bowman. And how prettily they were dressed! Perhaps I do not pay as much attention to my dresses as I ought. Aunt ’Mira may be right. I will buy some new ones,” she determined, for Daddy had sent her a sum of money for deposit in a Middletown bank, and she could check out against this and pay her own personal expenses.

She was very glad, indeed, to find the girls she was to associate with at school so different from Frank Bowman’s sister. And thinking of the civil engineer—there he was right in the road ahead!

His appearance startled Janice. She had heard from Marty that Frank had to take the evening boat for Popham Landing and be away over Sunday on a business matter connected with the building of the railroad bridge. So his presence half way between Middletown and Polktown, less than an hour before the departure of the boat from the Polktown dock, certainly did amaze the girl.

“What has happened?” she demanded shrilly, stopping the car just behind Frank, who was stooping over a bicycle lying in the road.

He jumped up quickly, evidently not having heard the quietly running car.

“Janice Day!” he cried, in joy. “And you are running empty?”

“There isn’t anybody hiding in the tonneau,” she said, laughing. “What has happened?”

“I’ve broken down. I had to run over to Middletown this morning, and I started back right after luncheon. Had plenty of time, I thought. But see that sprocket-wheel! Must have been a fault in it somewhere. I’ve tried to tinker the thing and make it go until I am pretty near mad!”

“Marty says you have to go away to-night?” suggested Janice.

“I’m due to go on the boat; but unless you help me I can’t catch it,” said Frank.

“Put your wheel in the car and hop in yourself, Mr. Bowman,” said Janice briskly. “I’ll get you to the dock, all right.”

She did as she promised, although there were none too many minutes to spare when they came down to the Polktown dock. The councilmen, without any knowledge of what it meant in wear and tear on a motor-car engine, had long since made an ordinance ordering motorists to travel within the town limits at a speed not exceeding eight miles an hour; and Janice really tried to conform to the law.

Janice knew that the town constable had timed her doubtfully on several occasions; but all he had was an old silver watch as big as the nickel star on his bosom, the second hand of which was broken, and before he had the Kremlin’s speed computed, Janice was usually out of sight.

The constable was not in evidence on this occasion as the car came down to the wharf. But Nelson Haley was. Janice did not see the school teacher, and as the Constance Colfax was already blowing her whistle at the dock, Frank had little observation for anybody. He leaped out of the car, lifted down the broken bicycle, left it in Walky Dexter’s care, and then turned to bid Janice good-bye.

“I’m a thousand times obliged to you, Janice Day,” he said, shaking hands with the girl warmly. “You are a friend in need. I do believe that car of yours helps more people than we realize. It is a regular institution—Polktown could not get along without it.”

Janice laughed, and waved her hand to him as he ran to cross the gangplank. The steamer pulled out at once and the girl turned her car carefully upon the dock, and went back up the hill.

It was then that she saw Nelson standing at the corner of the freight shed. She was about to slow down, and she nodded to the school teacher and smiled. Nelson responded very stiffly, and turned away. He did not offer to speak to her, and Janice drove the Kremlin up the hill with a new feeling of despondency.

She could not hope to see the young school teacher very frequently thereafter, for his work began on Monday morning. The Polktown school had increased in membership until Haley had to have two assistants. Pupils remained for higher studies than had been the custom in the old school, and fewer Polktown boys and girls went to the Middletown business college and academy.

Marty, after some sulking, went back to school. The thing that encouraged him most to do this was the fact that Frank Bowman had explained to him the impossibility of his ever being a civil engineer unless he at first secured a good, all-round education.

“It’s goin’ to be powerful lonely about the house with ev’rybody gone, I declare for’t!” sighed Aunt ’Mira. “I should think you’d be satisfied with the book-larnin’ you’d already got, Janice.”

Just the same, she was desirous that Marty should remain in attendance at the town school; and she put up a very attractive basket of luncheon for Janice to take in the car. Janice did not have to start until about eight o’clock to reach the seminary by the time recitations began. Day scholars were not required to report at chapel.

Aunt ’Mira did find the time hang heavy on her hands after her housework was done. One could not read love stories all the time. In fact, the supply of Household Love Letters, and its ilk, ran out. But it was about this time that Polktown was introduced to something entirely new—and by Annette Bowman.

A little dapper man, with black curls and a waxed mustache, appeared at the Lake View Inn. Although Mel Parraday and his wife were glad to see guests come so late in the season, had he not been vouched for by Annette, this stranger would never have received a cordial welcome, to say the least, at Polktown’s single hostelry.

In the beginning, he was a foreigner. Mel “opined” at first that he was a “Canuck,” which was the local appellation for Canadians of French extraction. Polktown people did not welcome any influx of foreigners.

Mr. Bogarti engaged the use of the Odd Fellows’ Hall for the afternoons. Then he sent a boy around with cards announcing that his mission in life was to teach dancing—especially the modern steps. Annette had done good missionary work for Mr. Bogarti. As he was to give much individual attention to his pupils, and the dancing classes were for only three hours in the afternoon, he very quickly had all he wanted to do every day save Sunday.

He took private pupils for his off hours, going to their houses if they so desired.

He was wise enough to invite visitors to his public classes, and Aunt ’Mira was one of several ladies who went to look on. She dared only sit on a bench at first, perspiring enviously as she saw some women quite as old as herself essaying the graceful steps that make up some of the simpler new dances.

At last she was invited to try, she was tempted, she fell! Not literally, luckily for the foundations of the Odd Fellows’ Building. Secretly Aunt ’Mira tried to become a dancer. Years before, when she was a young girl, although always plump, she had been very light on her feet and had enjoyed the old-fashioned square dances. Hope was awakened in Aunt ’Mira’s soul. She greatly wished to go back to the Land of Yesterday; and if youth could be overtaken, as they said, by more or less painful gyrations on the dancing floor, she was determined to do her very utmost to attain the proper movements.

She put none of Janice’s board money in the bank that month. For the extra twenty dollar bill, Mr. Bogarti patiently taught her in private. He was really a lover of his art and he believed faithfully that anyone could, with patience, be taught to dance.

Poor Aunt ’Mira groaned and wept in secret at first. She had carried around a superabundance of flesh for many years; and what it did to her at first to joggle and shake herself upon the polished planks of the Odd Fellows’ floor was, as Marty would have said had he known about it, “a shame!”

Marty was safe at school. Janice was away all day at the seminary. Uncle Jason had taken the contract to build Hiram Bulger’s new barn. And that fall in Polktown there were more women than Aunt ’Mira keeping secrets from their husbands and families.

Early one morning while Marty was at the barn and Janice was making a more lingering toilet than usual in her room, Uncle Jason happened to shuffle in at the kitchen door unexpectedly. The rich odor of frying pork filled the room and was wafted invitingly out of doors. The blue smoke from the huge griddle on which the flapjacks were baking made a halo about Aunt ’Mira’s head.

“I vum, Almiry! Be ye gone clean daft?” gasped her husband, in horror.

Aunt ’Mira had been so earnest in her endeavors that she had not heard his approach. A strip of pork was poised on the fork held in her left hand, while the cake-turner waved aloft in the other; and Aunt ’Mira was counting:

“One, two, dip; one, two, dip; one, two, three, slide.”

She came up, facing Uncle Jason, after a sweeping “sink” that would seem impossible for a lady of her build to accomplish.

“Almiry! what air you doin’?” ejaculated her husband again.

“Dancin’,” said his wife meekly.

“Doin’ what?”

“Dancin’. Them’s some of the new steps.”

“‘Steps’? Them warn’t steps, Almiry.”

“So they call ’em, Jason,” she said, meekly enough. “They say them steps will help ter remove super-floo-ous flesh, and build up tissue.”

“Great Cannibal Islands!” exploded Uncle Jason. “Ye don’t mean ter say ye think that you air made of tissue? That’s too thin—huh!” and he snorted his disgust. “And what’s become of your rheumatism? You was gruntin’ an’ groanin’ here a spell back if ye had to stoop and pick up the poker; and now ye air slinkin’ an’ slidin’ about here like an overgrown eel. I never seen the beat! Have all ye wimmen gone plumb crazy? Don’t, for massy’s sake, let the children see ye—an old woman like you!”

That last finally struck a spark from Aunt ’Mira. She had meekly returned to the turning of the pork and flapjacks; now she exclaimed:

“I ain’t! I ain’t old—nor you ain’t old, Jason Day! That’s jest it—we let our elves sag back an’ feel old! But we oughtn’t to—no, sir! It’s our duty to keep young. Dancing helps do it, and keeps us limber. We’re only in the prime o’ life, you an’ me, Jason. We ain’t no right to act like one foot was in the grave an’ the other all but. No, sir!

“‘Don’t let yourself sag!’ That’s what the dancin’ teacher says. Keep it in mind ter walk straight, an’ hold yer head up; when ye can, take a few steps for exercise.”

“My soul an’ body, Almiry! Stop it! Don’t wiggle that-a-way again,” gasped Uncle Jason, as his good lady executed a few more posturings. “’Tain’t decent! And here’s Marty a-comin’ in with the milk.”