"What has happened to Janice?" demanded Nelson, his voice changing.
"It's her dad—it's Uncle Brocky!" gasped Marty. "It's in to-day's New York paper. I just happened to see it as they was putting it on the file. I got it here," and the boy drew the folded newspaper from his pocket.
"Come over to the garage," said Nelson Haley, seizing the boy by the wrist. "Is it unlocked?"
"Yes," gulped Marty.
"I can read it in the light of the side lamp of the car," said the schoolmaster.
His own voice was shaken. He knew that something very serious must have occurred or Marty Day would not act in this manner.
They hurried across the yard and Marty unbarred the garage door. Nobody in Polktown thought of locking any outbuilding, save possibly the corn-crib or the smoke-house.
Marty closed the door tightly before Nelson scratched a match and fumbled for the latch of the kerosene side lamp of Janice's automobile. In the yellow radiance of this he unfolded the newspaper Marty had seized at the public library. The schoolmaster looked at once at the extreme right-hand column of the front page of the paper—the column in which the Mexican news was usually displayed. A sub-heading caught his eye almost instantly:
MORE AMERICANS BUTCHERED
A great revolt had again broken out against the de facto government. It was spreading, the report said, hourly. In the Companos District the wires had been cut, but it was known that there had been much bloodshed there. Several of the former insurrecto leaders who had recently gone over to the existing party in power at Mexico City, were reported assassinated, among them Juan Dicampa.
"And he was Mr. Day's friend—he served him well during the last uprising in that district!" Nelson ejaculated.
"That ain't the worst. Read on," breathed Marty.
"Great heavens! can it be possible?" whispered Nelson.
"The mines in the Companos District have all been seized by the insurrectos. The peons working them have been forced into the ranks of the revolutionists. Not an American has escaped from the district and several are known to have been killed. At the Alderdice Mine, fourteen miles north of San Cristoval, it is said the superintendent, B. Day, has been wounded and is held prisoner."
"The mines in the Companos District have all been seized by the insurrectos. The peons working them have been forced into the ranks of the revolutionists. Not an American has escaped from the district and several are known to have been killed. At the Alderdice Mine, fourteen miles north of San Cristoval, it is said the superintendent, B. Day, has been wounded and is held prisoner."
"Wh—what do you know aboutthat?" stuttered Marty. "Uncle Brocky's hurt and they won't let him go."
"Hush!" commanded Nelson.
"Aw—there's nobody to hear," choked the boy. "And how can we keep it from Janice?"
"We must!" exclaimed Nelson.
"Say, Nelson Haley! You got to be mighty smart to keep Janice from finding out every little thing. You know that. And she's always looking for something to happen to Uncle Brocky."
"We can do it. Wemustdo it," responded the schoolmaster.
Marty was round-eyed and unbelieving. "Say! you don't know Janice yet," he repeated with assurance. "She's a mighty smart girl—the smartest girl in the whole of Polktown. Aw—well, you ought to know."
"I don't know how we are to do it—yet," the schoolmaster agreed. "We'll justhaveto. When people have to do a thing, Marty,they do it nine times out of ten!"
"Hi tunket!" gasped the boy. "You tell me my part and I'll help all right."
"Come on, then. Stroll in naturally. Make believe there is something up—some joke that we are going to keep Janice out of——"
"Joke!" groaned Marty.
"I tell you," commanded Nelson hotly, "we've got to keep this from her. Her father wounded—think of it!"
"Ain't I thinking of it?" put in the boy. "UncleBrocky—that I never did see since I was a kid too small to remember him."
"Pull yourself together, old man," said the schoolmaster with his arm over the boy's shoulder.
Nelson's trust in him did much to enable Marty to brace up. He gulped down his sobs and drew his jacket sleeve across his eyes. "You just tell me what to do," he choked.
"I don't know myself yet. I'll keep this paper. I'll leave it to you to divert the New York paper from the library. You can do that, for the postmaster will give you the library mail if you're there on time for it."
"I'll be there," Marty declared.
"We'll tell Walky——"
"Oh—Jehoshophat!" gasped Marty. "Heleaks like a sieve. Might's well tell the town crier as tell Walky."
"We'll mend his leak," the schoolmaster said grimly. "Walky loves Janice. We'll easily shut his mouth. Perhaps we can warn other people so that no word will be let drop. I can learn, I suppose, who takes this paper."
"Oh, hookey!" groaned Marty suddenly. "The hull town'll know it next Thursday if they don't before."
"Why so?"
"That is the day the MiddletownCouriercomes out. They had a big piece in it about Uncle Brockybefore. They'll grab this story like a hungry dog does a bone. It'snews."
"You have a head on your shoulders, boy," admitted Nelson Haley, and all but groaned himself. He would not give way to despair. "I'll think about that. I'll find some way of keeping theCourierout of town."
"And Janice riding right over there to school four days a week," suggested Marty.
"I never thought of that," muttered Nelson.
"'Most everybody takes theCourierhere in Polktown. An', oh gee! there's dad'sLedger. She might get hold of that."
"If you can't stopthatcoming to the house you're no good," declared Nelson.
"Oh, I'll stop it. Dad'll have a fit though. He swears by theLedger. But ma don't care for nothin' but theFireside Favorite, and there won't be any Mexican news inthat."
"We must be on the watch to keep every line of communication closed—to keep Janice ignorant of this at least until the facts are better known. Perhaps they will be disproved. I'll write to-night to Washington. And you get me the name of that friend of Mr. Broxton Day's down there on the Border who communicated with Janice once before when it looked as though your uncle was lost. Remember?"
"Sure!" agreed Marty.
"I'll tell Walky to-night. You find a chance to speak to your father and mother. Be sure Janice doesn't hear you."
"Some job!"
"Well, it'sourjob. Understand?" Nelson said earnestly.
"I'm with you, Mr. Haley," the boy responded, quite recovered from his first disturbance of mind. "You can bank on me."
"Great boy!" Nelson said, patting him on the shoulder again. "Janice has done so much—so much for the town, so much for us all! We should be able to do something to secure her peace of mind, Marty."
"Hi tunket! I believe you, Mr. Haley."
"Then, come on! It may prove to be a false alarm as before. We'll save her all the anxiety possible."
"Sure we will!" agreed the boy again with emphasis.
They re-entered the house; Marty was even able to call up a giggle and winked broadly at Nelson as he hung up his hat and looked up the parchesi board and the rest of the outfit for that popular game.
"What's a-goin' on now 'twixt you two boys?" asked Aunt Almira comfortably, for she looked upon Nelson, when he came to the house, as she would had he been Marty's brother. "D'ye know what's up, Janice?"
"I haven't an idea," her niece said happily. "I fancy Marty has a joke on somebody."
"'Joke!'" repeated her cousin in such an unconsciously tragic tone that the schoolmaster hastened to say:
"He thinks he is going to beat Walky playing parchesi. Come on, Walky. Show him you have all your wits about you."
"I'm dumbed if I don't!" declared Mr. Dexter, laying aside his pipe to cool. "Who else is a-goin' to play?"
"Not I," said Janice. "Christmas is coming and preparedness is my motto."
"I want ma to play then," Marty said. "She an' I'll play partners and I bet we beat Mr. Haley and Walky out o' their boots."
"Sakes alive, child! you don't want me to play, do ye?" chuckled Aunt 'Mira. "Your father says I ain't got head enough for any game—an' I guess he's right."
"I'll risk ye," said her son, and they really had a very hilarious game while Janice sewed placidly and Uncle Jason looked on, forgetting for the time some of the burden on his mind.
"I'll go along with you, Walky," the schoolmaster said when the game broke up and it was time for the callers to go. "I can cut through your back lots to High Street and reach Mrs. Beaseley's quite as easily as by the other route."
"Proud to hev ye," said Walky. "Good-night, folks. That 'pears to be a funny lookin' necktie you're knitting for Mr. Haley, Janice."
"It's not a necktie and it's not for Nelson," Janice replied, flushing a little and quickly hiding the fleecy article on which she had been working.
"Oh well," chuckled Walky, "I don't 'spect we've got airy right to have eyes in our heads even as long before Christmas as this time. Good-night, everybody."
He went out. Nelson, although he lingered to say something in a low tone to Janice, was right behind the expressman. He went up Hillside Avenue with Walky talking to him seriously.
Marty became woefully nervous when the family was left alone. He went to the water pail half a dozen times. He put out the cat; then let her in again it seemed just for the purpose of shooing her out once more.
Janice, quite unconscious of her cousin's disturbance of mind, finally put away her work and took up her candle.
"Good-night, all!" she said, yawning openly. She kissed her uncle's cheek, and Aunt 'Mira returned with warmth the caress with which she was favored. "Night, Marty."
"Huh!" the boy said huskily, "am I a stepchild? Don't I ever get kissed no more?"
"Why, Marty Day!" cried Janice, laughing. "Agreat big boy like you! I thought you abhorred such 'girlie' ways."
"Sometimes I do," he said, approaching her boldly. "But to-night——"
He seized her like a young bear and kissed her fiercely. "You're—you're a mighty nice girl, Janice, if youareonly my cousin," he said, averting his eyes.
She laughed and patted his cheek lightly. Then carrying the lighted candle she went up to bed with a parting nod and smile to her uncle and aunt.
Marty stood close to the stair door and listened at the crack till he was sure she had entered her own room and closed her door. His mother asked wonderingly:
"What ever is the matter o' you, Marty Day? I never see your beat."
"Sh!" the boy said, his face suddenly displaying all the fear and anxiety he had been hiding.
His father took his bedtime pipe from his lips and stared. "What ever is it's got you?" he asked.
The boy leaned over the table. Like conspirators, with their heads close together, the three talked in whispers. After Aunt Almira's first involuntary cry of horror, which she smothered at once, their voices never reached a key that could have made them audible ten feet away.
Meanwhile the schoolmaster and Walky Dexter were in close consultation. Nelson had made nomistake when he took the expressman into the plot. Walky was by nature a chatterer and a gossip, but he would have cut off his right hand rather than hurt Janice Day. While Janice made ready for bed plans were forming to hide from her as long as possible—until the newspaper story could be verified at least—that which had come over the telegraph wires from Mexico.
The girl was less troubled by fears for her father's safety than she had been for a long time. It was of Uncle Jason's trouble she thought. And she was quite sure her father would be able to help his brother considerably in straightening out the difficulty that confronted Jason Day.
It had been figured out just what it would cost to renew the notes and pay interest on them, if the bank would allow Mr. Day to do that. Over seven hundred dollars per year! An enormous sum for Uncle Jason to contemplate—while the principal would hang over him like a threatening cloud. The interest money alone was more than he could easily earn over and above the family's living expenses.
He had got into the toils of the cunning Hotchkiss through lending the storekeeper a small sum at eight per cent, in the beginning and being paid promptly. The bank carried the notes for six per cent, of course.
The morrow was Sunday. Janice went her usual calm way. People seemed rather nicer to her thanusual, but their attitude did not arouse her suspicions in the least. At church there seemed to be more groups than usual both before and after service who whispered together. Mr. Middler, the pastor, who loved Janice as he might his own daughter, added a warmer pressure to his handclasp. Mrs. Middler kissed her several times, and Janice thought with some surprise that the affectionate woman had been crying. Elder Concannon, that stern and bewhiskered patriarch who had once looked upon Janice Day and her ideas as the very leaven of unrighteousness in the community, strode over to the girl and rested his hands upon her shoulders to make her look up at him.
"Ha!" he said. "Just as brave as ever, are you? You're not fearing the future, my girl?"
"How can I when the past has been so lovely?" she asked him soberly.
"Ha!" and he wagged his head. "Sothat'sthe way the past has seemed to you, eh?"
He said no more; but Janice wondered what the matter was with Elder Concannon. He was so seldom demonstrative.
Nelson Haley was not at church that Sunday. He was seen to ride away with Walky Dexter early in the morning and they took the lower Middletown road. When they returned late in the afternoon they assured each other that they had accomplished much.
They had prepared the way for Janice when she should go to the seminary on Monday—and more. It seemed to Janice that week as though the girls had never before been so nice to her. One of the instructors kept her in the office it was true when she arrived on Monday, over a really trivial matter, while the principal was addressing the student body; but the subject of the principal's address did not interest Janice, she learned later, she being only a day pupil. In fact she was merely taking a postgraduate course in certain studies.
Nor did she imagine that the editor of the MiddletownCourierwent to his office that Monday morning and "killed" a two-column news feature he had planned for the front page, as well as aneditorial and a certain "intimate note" of neighborhood gossip under the heading of "Polktown Activities."
Nelson Haley was not omnipotent. He could not reach everybody or foretell all combinations of events that might reveal to Janice her father's peril. But he had done his best.The Weekly Courierwould not mention Mexican matters in its Thursday's issue. Meanwhile Nelson, with Uncle Jason and Mr. Middler, the pastor of the Polktown Union Church, as a self-appointed committee, endeavored to get the truth from the Border regarding the uprising in the Companos District and particularly the facts of the situation at the Alderdice Mine.
Janice Day's cheerfulness was almost uncanny. She had determined to be cheerful and optimistic about the Day homestead because she knew that her uncle and aunt were so cast down. She was not at all surprised therefore by their frequently solemn countenances and their whispering in corners together.
When she found Aunt 'Mira in tears she comforted her, believing that it was because of her husband's troubles that the woman wept. That Marty should wear a cloud of gloom most of the time merely proved how deeply the boy had been stirred by his father's trouble.
If Uncle Jason was distrait was it any wonder? His lawyer could give him little comfort, Janiceunderstood, regarding the settlement of the absconding storekeeper's notes. A search for assets was being made; but it looked as though Tom Hotchkiss had intended to be dishonest from the start and had laid all his plans accordingly and with judgment worthy of a better cause.
Already attempts were being made to find the absent storekeeper. It was suspected that he had gone to Canada. If he remained there it might be possible to lay hands upon him, for his act constituted a felony and he could be extradited.
"Wherever he's gone," said Uncle Jason gloomily, "he's gone fast and he's gone fur. No doubt o' that. And 'nless he lost the money in speculation or the like, he's probably hid it wherewecan't find it. It looks like we wouldn't be able to lay our han's on him before the first note goes to protest."
Being so sure of her father's good judgment, his willingness and his ability to help Uncle Jason, Janice Day's heart was still free from any deeper care as the days went by. As she had told Elder Concannon, the past had been so lovely to her, why should she fear the future?
Marty had been urged to remain at school for the present; but the boy was in earnest when he said he was willing and ready to do his share toward the support of the family. Indeed, he obtained a place in Partlett's store to work on the books and writeout statements every day after school and until late on Saturday evenings. This saved his self-respect, as he felt, and was not a bad thing for him at all. He was to give his mother the four dollars a week Mr. Partlett promised him.
A letter from Broxton Day (the last Janice was destined to receive from her father for a long time, did she but know it) arrived early in the week following the inception of the conspiracy for Janice's peace of mind. It was a cheerful, jolly letter and the girl had it tucked in the bosom of her blouse when she halted her car on the way back from Middletown on Wednesday afternoon before Hopewell Drugg's store.
When Janice opened the store door the place was empty; but from the rear came the quavering notes of a violin. Being drawn from the wailing strings was a new harmony—new, that is, for Hopewell Drugg. He was fond of the old tunes; but for the most part his musical tastes ran to cheerful ballads or love songs.
Janice, tiptoeing quietly across the shop floor, listened with a rather wistful little smile upon her lips. Like a big bee Hopewell Drugg was humming the words of the song so popular forty years ago when sung by a certain silver-voiced singer:
"'Rock-a-bye, baby, on the tree top,When the wind blows the cradle will rock.If the bough breaks the cradle will fall;Down will come cradle, baby and all!Then, it's rock-a-bye, rock-a-bye, mother is near;And it's rock-a-bye, rock-a-bye, nothing to fear.If the bough breaks the cradle will fall;Down will come cradle, baby and all!'"
"Oh, Mr. Drugg!" murmured Janice, coming into the back room where the bespectacled storekeeper was playing. "That is so pretty! And the time and rhythm are just perfect, aren't they?"
"How-do, Miss Janice?" he said, reddening almost boyishly. "Thank you."
"Is Miss 'Rill inside?" Janice asked, for it was difficult to remember to call the storekeeper's wife by any name but that to which she had responded for so many years while she taught the Polktown ungraded school.
"You'll find her there," said Hopewell with a gesture of his bow. "Go right in—do."
Janice ran across the open porch and into the sitting room. The light-haired and pink-cheeked little woman, who sat sewing by the table, looked up with lips parted for a startled cry. The tiny garment with which she had been busily and so happily engaged was covered flutteringly by her apron while a faint flush dyed her cheeks.
"Oh! is it you, Janice dear?" she said and in a relieved tone.
"'Tis I, honey," cried the girl, running around back of her. She stooped and kissed the flushed cheek—oh! so tenderly—dropping into 'Rill's lap a little parcel.
"What is it? Forme?" queried the storekeeper's wife, twitching briskly at the knotted string of Janice's parcel. "You are always bringing me some gift, dear girl."
"But—but this isn't exactly for you," Janice said with some hesitation.
"No?" She unwrapped the tissue covering. Then: "Oh, Janice! how sweet!" She held up the little fleecy cap of Janice's own knitting before her eyes in which the tears trembled. "And bootees, too! You darling!"
Janice sat down and they talked happily.
Since 'Rill Scattergood and Hopewell Drugg had married, their life together—save for a few weeks—had been very happy. And now a greater and holier happiness was on the way to them. Sharing the secret was one of the sweetest experiences that had ever come into Janice Day's life.
"I must put these away," 'Rill said, smiling. "Little Lottie will soon be home from school."
"No, work away," Janice said, rising. "I promised Lottie a ride in my car. I'll meet herbefore she comes in. I suppose she is as inquisitive as a magpie?"
"Just about," was the response. "The dear child!"
It was as Janice descended the broad store steps that little Lottie appeared. And not so little now. Her father declared she was "growing like a weed."
She caught sight of Janice and ran, delighted, toward her, shouting a greeting:
"Oh, Janice Day! My Janice Day! May I ride with you?"
She had great, violet eyes and a mane of hair that was now becoming tawny—darkening as she grew older. Her vivid face and dancing feet made Lottie seem a fairylike little person, a veritable ray of sunshine, in Hopewell Drugg's dim old store.
During the long time in which she had suffered blindness and when her hearing and speech both threatened to leave the child, Lottie had flitted about almost uncannily. Even now she retained the habit of shutting her eyes and "seeing" with the tips of her fingers—that more than natural sense that is vouchsafed those who are blind.
"See my new coat! Isn't it pretty and blue? Papa sent to Boston for it. And see my pretty blue beads? Mamma 'Rill gave them to me. Aren't they lovely?" crowed Lottie.
Mrs. Scattergood came along the flagstone walk in season to hear this.
"Oh, yes! Oh, yes!" she sniffed. "All very fine, I dessay. Fine feathers make fine birds, I've heard."
"And do ugly feathers make ugly birds?" asked Lottie wonderingly.
"Never you mind! never you mind!" said the tart old woman, going up the store steps. "Yournose will soon be out o' joint, young lady."
Lottie felt her pretty nose and looked at Janice seriously.
"Do—do you s'pose it will?" she queried.
"Do I suppose what will?" the older girl asked, preparing to start the car.
"My nose."
"What about your nose?"
"Will it be put out of joint? It doesn't feel so."
Janice wanted to laugh. Then she felt like crying a little. But finally she became angry with the ill-natured Mrs. Scattergood. The latter had ever been a carping critic of the Drugg household—particularly since her daughter had married her old-time sweetheart quite against Mrs. Scattergood's wishes.
"Don't worry about your pretty nose, Lottie," Janice said rather gruffly. "Nothing she can say will put it out of joint."
"Let's go down to the cove, Janice Day, and call on my echo," Lottie said eagerly. "Do you know, I haven't been there for ever so long. My echo must be awfully lonely with nobody to shout to him any more."
"If you like," the older girl said smilingly, "we will go there first."
"Oh, yes!"
Janice turned the car skillfully in the narrow street. She could even safely wave her hand to Mrs. Beaseley who looked from her sitting room window across the street, where Nelson Haley boarded.
There were other people who waved to Janice, or who spoke to her, as the car rolled down the hill. Here was Mr. Cross Moore wheeling his invalid wife in her chair around and around the smooth, graveled walks of their garden. Janice stopped her car and shut off the engine here.
"Good-day, Mrs. Moore. How are you feeling this lovely weather?" Janice asked.
"Ha! fooling away your time same's usual, areyou?" snapped the invalid, disapproval written large on her querulous features.
"She's feeling pretty well, for her," Mr. Moore said placidly. "But we hate to see winter coming. Then she can't get out of doors so much."
"I wish you would let me take you out in the car sometimes, Mrs. Moore," Janice said, smiling. "You could see the country while it is so beautiful."
"Huh! risk my neck and bones bein' driven about in one o' them things by a silly girl? Not much!"
"I guess she'd feel safer if I was shoofer," said Cross Moore grimly. "And I've a mind to get one o' them things next year."
"You willnot, Cross Moore!" cried his wife, who made it a practice to oppose every suggestion—verbally, at least.
"Oh, I dunno," said the man cheerfully. "You know I've shoofered you in this here chair for many a year without an accident. I reckon I could graduate to an automobile seat pretty easy."
"Why! it's just as e-asy to learn," Janice said, smiling. "And think how far and how quickly you could go, Mrs. Moore."
"Huh! Why should I wish to go far or quick—me that ain't walked right for ten years? I've got all over sech desires."
"Wait till you have tried it," Janice cried as she touched the self-starter and the engine began to purr again.
"Now, ain't that mighty nice, Mother?" they heard Cross Moore say to the fretful woman. "To go spinning about the old roads around Polktown would do you good."
"Oh, you got more uses for your money, Cross Moore, than flitterin' it away on sech things. If you spent money as careless as them Days does,—look at the hole Jase Day is into right now—you'dbe 'Owin" Moore, 'stead o' Cross Moore."
"Do you know," Lottie said to Janice as they drove on, "I think Miz' Cross Moore would be lots happier if—maybe—she had an echo."
"An echo?"
"Yes," the child said, nodding her head. "Like me. You know,Ishould have been awfully lonesome, and maybe as short-tempered as she is, if I couldn't have talked to my echo."
"Why?" Janice asked curiously, for the philosophy of the little girl interested her.
"Why," Lottie said, still speaking seriously, "my echo was worse off than I was. Yes it was. It couldn't get away from where it was—not even to fly across the cove—unless I told it to. It had to stay right there in the pine woods on Pine Point. But even while I was blind I could find my way about."
"Very true," agreed Janice, likewise serious. "The echo is a poor little prisoner."
"So it is! so it is!" laughed Lottie gayly, forthese queer little imaginings and fancies were part of her very nature. Then she grew grave once more. "You 'member how I went to look for it that time, and it snowed so hard, and Mr. Nelson Haley came to find me? He found me, but I never did find out just where that echo lived. I was 'most afraid it had gone for good, but it was there yet the last time I was down here."
While she was speaking the car ran down to the shore of Pine Cove at a beautiful but rather retired spot with an old fish-house and disused wharf in the foreground and, across the placid pool, the sheltering arm of Pine Point, thickly grown with tall pines. Against the wall of the pine wood Lottie's voice echoed back to her with almost uncanny distinctness as she stood in her old place on the wharf.
"He-a! he-a! he-a!" she shouted shrilly and sweetly; and back to her came the prompt echo:
"'E-a! 'e-a! 'e-a!"
"See! he's there yet," she cried, turning to Janice. "Come up here, Janice, and see if he'll answer you. Mr. Haley says there are echoes everywhere; but I don't believe there is a single one as nice as mine."
Janice came, laughing. "What shall I say to your friend?" she asked.
"Oh! you must not call what I do, of course. You shout somebody's name—somebody you love," the child advised.
Instantly Janice opened her lips and expelled toward the wooded point: "Nelson!"
"'Elson!" shot back the echo.
"Of course," cried Lottie, dancing up and down in her satisfaction. "He knows Mr. Haley. But shout somebody's name he doesn't know."
"Here comes Mr. Thomas Drew's sloop, Lottie," Janice said as the big sailing vessel on which she had several times sailed on fishing excursions shot into the cove before a favoring wind.
"Oh! how pretty!" cried the little girl. "And what a big sail. He's going to drop anchor where he usually does—see!"
The sloop swept majestically between the old wharf and the pine wood where the echo "lived."
"Now, Janice!" urged Lottie, "shout again. Call a name my echo doesn't know."
And Janice, still smiling, cried aloud:
"Daddy! Daddy!"
No repetition of the call came back from the wall of pine wood. Lottie seized her friend's hand almost in fear.
"Oh! he doesn't answer! He doesn't know your father, Janice Day." Then, awestruck, she put a question that stabbed Janice to the quick: "Do—do you suppose anything realbadhas happened to your father 'way down there in Mexico?"
Afterwards, Janice realized that the big sail of the sloop, flattened as it crossed between the wharf andthe distant wood, had caught her voice and held it, echoless. Nevertheless the odd occurrence engendered in her heart a fear of impending peril. She began to worry again about Broxton Day. She counted the days that must elapse before she could possibly hear from her father in reply to the letter she had written about her Uncle Jason's difficulties.
The Day homestead on Hillside Avenue no longer housed a happy and contented family. It grew very difficult for Janice, even, to be cheerful. And Marty positively seemed to have lost his whistle. Janice tried her best to don a sprightly air; but she observed her uncle and aunt and Marty sometimes whispering together and watching her; and this made her feel uncomfortable.
"Daddy" usually wrote his beloved daughter a weekly letter. Sometimes it was delayed a day or so because the ore train was delayed out of Alderdice to San Cristoval. So, when the expected letter did not arrive with the maximum of speed Janice was patient.
"I just won't let that old echo foolishness get on my nerves," she told herself firmly. "I am not superstitious—I won't be!"
It was hard to raise the spirits of the family; but the greater the effort she put forth to that end the more she, herself, was helped. She could not really understand what kept those about her so downhearted. The bank people seemed willing to giveUncle Jason all the leeway possible in settling the affairs of the absconded Tom Hotchkiss. Janice had no idea her relatives were hiding a secret from her, and all of them felt it the very hardest task they had ever undertaken.
Of course, in the general news from Mexico Mr. Day's plight caused little comment in the daily press. Mexican troubles had continued for so long that the American public considered it an old story. Mr. Day was only one of hundreds of courageous Americans who felt as though they must stay by their business in the embattled country, despite Washington's warning to them to get out of the danger zone.
And now, it seemed, Janice's father had paid the toll for heeding his own venturesome spirit. All the information Nelson, Mr. Middler, and Uncle Jason had been able to gather from all sources pointed to the truth of the first report of the situation in the Companos District.
Mr. Day was wounded; and so sorely that his escaping laborers could not take him away from the mine when they were driven forth by the insurrectos. This was the final news Janice's friends had obtained from the Border, and now they did not know what to do next. Successfully keeping the story of her father's peril from the girl was not enough. How to reach and bring Mr. Day out of Mexico was a problem that balked Janice's friends.Indeed, even to communicate with the wounded man was impossible. It was reported that, although San Cristoval had been retaken by the troops of the de facto government of Mexico, the Alderdice and other mines in the Companos District were in the hands of the rebel party.
Janice began to miss Nelson Haley's frequent calls. He had been coming to the Day house several evenings during the week of late; and although he offered the perfectly sound excuse of extra school work, the girl missed him. To tell the truth Nelson shrank from being in Janice's company. He had turned coward! Although he was the first to suggest keeping Mr. Broxton Day's peril secret from his daughter, now Nelson feared all the time that in some way the truth would come to the surface. The conspirators walked upon a volcano that might at any moment break out and overwhelm them. And what would Janice do or say, when this eruption occurred? That query troubled the schoolmaster a great deal.
Naturally of a perfectly frank nature, the situation was bound to irk his mind ceaselessly. Marty and his parents feared a sudden revelation of the truth, too; so that every knock on the kitchen door during an evening gave each of the three a sharp and distinct shock.
One evening Marty heard somebody drive into the yard after supper and he ran hurriedly to open theporch door. He was always expecting to have to head off some person not in the secret who would appear with the news of Mr. Broxton Day's state.
"Who is it, Marty?" shrilled his equally anxious mother at the crack of the door.
"Hi tunket!" ejaculated the boy, "'tlooks like—why, it is! It's Elder Concannon. What's he want here?"
"Never you mind. Go out and hitch his horse in the shelter, and tell him to come right in," ordered Aunt 'Mira. "Dear me! where's your manners, Marty Day?"
"Well,he'ssafe enough," muttered Marty, starting for the shed.
Elder Concannon came in apparently in a cheerful mood. He was not a frequent caller at the Day house; he never had been, indeed. But he liked to play a game of checkers with Janice, whom he considered quite a scientific player for a young person.
"I drove around by Brother Middler's on an errand—church business," explained the elder; "but he wasn't at home. Gone over to Bowling to marry a couple."
"Who air they?" asked Aunt 'Mira, at once interested.
"Every married woman is deeply int'rested in ev'ry other woman's marriage," Uncle Jason declared. "Havin' got one poor man inter captivity she's hopin' all her sisters'll have as good luck. Whoisthe poor feller that's got to do penance for his sins, Elder?"
"I don't see but you are both equally int'rested, Brother Day," chuckled the elder. "It's Sam Holder and Susie Pickberry."
"Another of them Pickberry gals gittin' merried, eh?" ejaculated Aunt 'Mira.
"Well, there are a lot of them to get married," the elder said. "All the Pickberrys had big families."
"And none of 'em much good," growled Uncle Jason.
"That may be," agreed the elder. "It does seem as though 'bout the only command in the Scriptures that any of 'em knew, was that one about 'increase and multiply and fill the earth.' And they are given to marrying young," pursued the elder reflectively. "This Sue is a bouncing big gal; but she's barely sixteen year old."
"Hardly sixteen!" exclaimed Janice.
"Cricky!" was Marty's comment, he having come in after blanketing the elder's colt. "You're getting to be an old maid, Janice, 'cordin' to that. You'd better stir about and look yourself up a husband 'fore they put you on the shelf."
Janice looked into his freckled face reflectively. "I've sometimes thought it was too bad they won't let first cousins marry, Marty," she said.
"They do, Janice, except in a few of the States," observed Elder Concannon, looking at the girl until she blushed as rosily as had Marty.
As the laugh at this subsided, the elder went on:
"Those Pickberrys are intermarried so that they don't know the degrees of cousin any more. Why, this Susie's father and mother was closly related. I remember, for I married them."
"I suppose," put in Aunt 'Mira, "Mr. Middler must make quite a bit out o' his merriage fees. He's been havin' a string of 'em lately."
The elder fairly snorted and his beard seemed to bristle.
"That's the way with all you folks," he said, plain disgust in his tone. "Because a minister don't work with his hands you say he must make his livin' easy. And you calculate him makin' from five to twenty dollars ev'ry time a bridal couple raps on his door. Huh! I've had the groom borrow money of me before he got out o' the house."
Marty giggled. "That girl certain sure got a hot one, then. If he'd got the girl without money, I should think he'd calculated to keep her without money."
Elder Concannon was laughing reflectively.
"Do you remember old Deacon Blodgett, Jason?"
"Huh?" grunted Mr. Day. "Not very well. But I remember his darter—she't taught the school here. I went to school to her myself for a while. And a rightse-vere old maid she was."
"Yes. Beulah Blodgett was severe," agreed the elder, his eyes still twinkling.
"She used to wallop the boys somethin' awful," added Uncle Jason, rubbing his horny palm on his trouser leg and then looking at it as though the sting of Miss Blodgett's ruler had not even at this late day entirely departed from his memory.
"I remember," agreed the elder. "Not many ever got the start of Beulah Blodgett."
"Only Cale Hotchkiss." Uncle Jason halted in his speech and a positive grimace of pain seized upon his features for the moment. "Oh, well! Caleb wasn't like his son turned out to be, ye know," he muttered.
"True enough," said the elder, with sympathy in his tone.
"Speakin' of Cale and Miss Blodgett," Mr. Day hurried to add, "you know Cale was a great feller for rhyming—makin' po'try, you know. Why, he had lots o' pieces printed in the 'Poet's Corner' of the MiddletownCourier. Mostly about folks that had died, you know.
"Howsomever, Cale got cotched once in school writin' po'try. Miss Blodgett come up behind him, looked over his shoulder, and had him out 'on the line' purty prompt. She told him school was no place for sech as that. She had a fierce eye an' a arm like a blacksmith," Uncle Jason continued. "She'd stand on the aidge of her platform and how shewouldbring down her ruler on a feller's hand! Whew!
"Well, this pertic'lar time she says to Cale Hotchkiss: 'You're sech a smartie at makin' up rhymes, make one now b'fore I hit ye. Hold out your hand!' And by ginger!" chuckled Uncle Jason, "he done it."
"What did he say, Dad?" asked Marty, eager for the particulars of any mischief.
"Cale sings out:
"'Here I stand before Miss Blodgett;She's goin' to strike an' I'm goin' to dodge it!'"
The elder joined in the laughter over this old joke quite as heartily as anybody; but he had not forgotten his own story that had been side-tracked by Uncle Jason's reminiscence.
"Her father, Deacon Hiram Blodgett, was my senior deacon when I first came to Polktown Church," Elder Concannon said. "He was a good man and a just. But like most folks outside the ministry he depreciated the work performed by the pastor of a church like this one at Polktown, considering that 'he made his money easy.'
"I—I had a growing family then, and increasing expenses," said the elder, with a little flutter in his voice that was something Janice had never heard before, and she looked at him with amazement. Elder Concannon was not at all given to timidity; but there seemed right here a hesitation in his manner and in his voice.
"Well, anyhow," he began again, "I thought I needed an increase in my salary of a hundred dollars a year and I talked to Deacon Blodgett about it. He hemmed and hawed. He hated to give upchurch money just as he hated to give up his own, if he could save it.
"He put up the same claim as Mrs. Day did just now, regarding marriage fees. I allow I had more marriages to perform and traveled farther and got less for them than any minister who ever came into these mountains," and the elder smiled grimly. "However, the deacon got quite warm about it.
"'I tell you,' he says to me, 'even if they don't amount but to two dollars a ceremony, you've made this year over and above your salary agreed upon, the hundred dollars you claim to need.'
"It made me angry. It r'iled me in a most worldly way, I do allow," sighed the elder. "I guess the old Adam was roused in me. I had this Jim Pickberry and 'Mandy Whipple to marry that very night and I knew about what sort of folks they were.
"'Deacon Blodgett,' I said, 'will you give me two dollars for my next marriage fee?'
"'Surely I will,' says he, for he was always on the lookout for a shrewd bargain.
"'Then you'd better drive me over to Bowling to-night to the wedding and I'll give you whatever I get—sight unseen.' He agreed," chuckled the elder, "never thinking that I didn't have a horse and would have had to pay a dollar for the hire of one to get to my appointment.
"Folks don't live so poor now in this neighborhood—not even the Pickberrys. The house we went to was mostly log cabin, built back in Revolutionary times, with newer additions built on from time to time to accommodate a growing family.
"Jim Pickberry was a great, raw-boned, black-haired, and bearded giant of a man, and he was more than half drunk before he stood up with the girl. He wore his work clothes—all he had, it's probable—flannel shirt, shoddy trousers, and high boots. He did take off his hat. And 'Mandy was in a clean gingham; but she was barefooted, it being warm weather.
"There was a crowd there—they oozed out into the yard and looked in through the big room windows where I married the couple, hard and fast. When the ceremony was over and everybody had kissed the bride, Jim took me aside.
"I knew what was coming," said the elder, his eyes twinkling again. "I had already had experience enough to know the symptoms.
"'Parson,' Jim said to me, 'I'm awful much obliged to you for coming 'way over here and splicin' me and 'Mandy. It's mighty nice of ye. I expect it's sort o' customary to pay ye somethin' for your trouble?'
"'Yes,' I said. '"The servant is worthy of his hire," Jim.'
"He hemmed and hawed a bit and finally he blurts out: 'Parson! I ain't got airy a penny. Yeknow how 'tis—the licker an' the stuff to eat cleaned me out. But I got a mighty likely litter of pups out in the barn. Come out and take your pick, will you?'
"'No; let Deacon Blodgett do that,' I told him. 'He wants a dog,' and I collected my two dollars from the sorest man who ever passed the contribution plate," concluded the elder amid the hilarity of his listeners.
The caller indicated a desire to speak with Uncle Jason in private before he departed, and the two men went out of doors to unblanket the colt and discuss the subject the elder had come to talk about.
Later Janice learned that the old gentleman had come for the express purpose of offering Mr. Day financial assistance in straightening out the tangle of Tom Hotchkiss' affairs. Elder Concannon would take up the first note of a thousand dollars, which was almost due, and would accept Uncle Jason's signature for the debt without security. It was a friendly thing and the show of kindness on the elder's part delighted Janice as much as it surprised her relatives.
On this evening, however, and while Uncle Jason was at the stable with Elder Concannon, Janice and Marty had something else to think about. It was Marty who spied the flitting figure down by the lane gate as he looked out of the kitchen door after the departing elder and Uncle Jason.
"Hi tunket!" he drawled. "What's that, I want to know? 'Tisn't a dog—nor a calf. Something's got strayed, sure enough, and don't know whether to venture in here or not."
"What is it, Marty?" Janice asked idly, following him to the door.
The boy grabbed his cap without replying and ran toward the gate. When Janice came out upon the porch the figure had disappeared behind the hole of one of the great trees down by the fence. Marty's coming frightened it out of the shadow in a moment and they saw it going up the road.
"Hey, there! Stop!" Marty called. "It's only me—Marty Day. I won't hurt you."
He could run twice as fast as his quarry, and in a minute had the shaking, weeping figure by the arm.
"Hi tunket!" he gasped. "Lottie Drugg! What you doin' over here?"
"Oh! oh! oh!" sobbed the girl. "I want Janice. Take me to my Janice Day. Oh! do, Marty!"
"Sure," he told her. "There! there! don't cry no more. Were you lost? What brought you here, Lottie?"
"I—I can't tell you," she wailed. "I'll tell my Janice—I'll tell her."
"Come on, then," said Marty huskily. "Janice is just yonder. Don't you see her on the porch?"
He led the sobbing child into the yard of the Dayhouse and Janice, hearing them coming, ran out to learn what it meant.
"Lottie!" she cried, amazed.
Lottie Drugg ran into the bigger girl's arms. "Oh, Janice! My Janice Day!" she sobbed. "You'lltake me in, won't you? You'll let me live with you?You love me just the same, don't you?"
"Goodness! What's the matter with the child?" gasped Janice.
"You got me," her cousin said gruffly. "I dunno what it's all about."
"Does your father know where you are, Lottie? Or Mamma 'Rill?"
Lottie's weeping became more abandoned.
"They don't care nothing more about me. They're not going to want me any more pretty soon. No, they're not! If—if you won't—won't have me, Janice Day, I sha'n't have a—a place in this—this world to go to."
"What do you suppose is the matter with Lottie?" murmured Marty. "Is she sick or something?"
Suddenly Janice Day suspected the truth. She hugged little Lottie all the tighter, saying in reply to her cousin:
"Don't bother her now, Marty. She isn't sick, I'm sure. She'll be all right in a little while. She's come over here to spend the night with me, haven't you, Lottie?"
"Ye—yes! If you'll k-k-keep me."
"Sure we'll keep you," said Marty gruffly. He was much moved by the little girl's tears. "You stop her from gulpin' that way, Janice. She'll—she'll swallow her palate!"
"She's in no danger, Marty," the older girl said. "She's just sobbing."
Lottie's tempestuous sobs began to subside. Janice led her toward the kitchen door, whispering: "Is there anything the matter with papa or Mamma 'Rill? Tell me, Lottie."
"Just that they ain't going to want me any more," repeated Lottie.
"Has Mrs. Scattergood been talking to you?" whispered Janice.
The visitor nodded emphatically but said nothing more. Janice turned to Marty, and the boy wondered why she looked so angry. He had not done anything out of the way, he was sure.
"Run right across town to the store, Marty, and tell Mr. Drugg and his wife where she is. Tell them she is going to stay all night with me. But don't tell them anything else."
"Huh?" queried Marty.
"Not a thing. Just that she came here to stay all night with me and I didn't want them to be worried. That's enough."
"Oh!" grunted Marty. "I see," and he started out of the yard immediately, while Janice led the more-quietly-sobbing Lottie into the house.
"Dear sakes alive!" exploded Aunt 'Mira, "what ever is Lottie Drugg doin' 'way over here at this time o' night? Anythin' wrong with 'Rill?"
"Not a thing," Janice said cheerfully. "Lottie wanted to stay all night with me and she is a little late getting here. Now hush, honey! don't cry any more. You are here now and you'll be all right, you know."
"Why, do tell!" said wondering Aunt 'Mira. "What's she cryin' for? Didn't she know thatlittle gals was as welcome here as the flowers in spring? Come, give Miz' Day a kiss, sweetheart. I'm sartain sure glad to see ye."
Lottie began to feel better and swallowed her sobs—if not her palate—very quickly. She was of some importance inthishouse, at least. She sat down and took off her tam-o'-shanter and unbuttoned the new blue coat of which she had been so proud only a few days before. But she was no longer wearing "Mamma 'Rill's" present—the string of blue beads.
"It's airly yet," said Mrs. Day. "When's your usual bedtime, Lottie? We can all have a game of parchesi or somethin'. Can't we, Janice?"
"I don't go to bed much before half-past nine. Sometimes I'm let to stay up later," Lottie said.
"And your eyes are as bright as buttons now," said Aunt 'Mira comfortably. "Jest wipe the tears out of 'em."
"That is right, Lottie. Marty will soon be back and we'll play games," Janice agreed.
Lottie removed her coat and began to feel decidedly better. Marty came in after a while, red in the face and short of breath, but cheerfully a-grin again. He gave a bundle to Janice and winked at her as he said:
"All right. I ran all the way. They say she can stay. Whew!"
"It's my nightie," whispered Lottie, pointing tothe bundle. "And my toothbrush and clean stockings, and things."
"Some day you'll bust something, runnin' so," said Mrs. Day to Marty. "Where are all those picture puzzles and toy-games? You want to amuse Lottie now she's here."
Nothing loath, the boy rummaged out a wealth of amusement-producing inventions and Lottie forgot her sorrow for the time being. Mr. Day came in, and, being instructed by Janice in the kitchen, made no comment upon Lottie Drugg's presence.
The visitor sat close beside Marty and if, at any time, she did not play to the best advantage, he corrected her privately. As for Mr. and Mrs. Day they looked on and smiled. Who could help smiling at little Lottie Drugg?
Janice was glad that her visitor's mind was coaxed away from her troubles before bedtime. By that time Lottie was chattering like a squirrel and she bade the family good-night happily.
After the two girls had said their prayers and got into bed, the visitor suddenly seized Janice tightly around the neck and sobbed a little with her face pressed close against the bigger girl's shoulder.
"Oh, Janice Day! I nevercango home to papa and Mamma 'Rill. What shall I do?"
"Don't worry about that, honey," Janice told her soothingly. "You can stay here, you know, if you wish to."
"Oh, yes! I love you. Mr. and Mrs. Day are awfully nice to me. And Marty is just thebestboy. But—but it isn't going to be like home," she wailed.
"Well then, dear, why don't you wish to go home any more?" asked her friend soberly.
"They—they don't want me. They—they ain't going to want me at all."
"Who says so?"
"I—I know they don't. Why, Janice Day! they've asked God for another little girl—a baby girl—to come and stay with them. Mrs. Scattergood says so. That's what she meant by saying my nose was going to be put out of joint. She told me so. I asked her," confessed Lottie.
"Oh, my dear!" sighed Janice.
It was difficult to seek to relieve Lottie's mind regarding the wonderful thing that was coming to pass in the Drugg household, without saying what might be unkind, but true, about Mrs. Scattergood. Just at this moment Janice felt that she could have shaken the acid-tempered old woman with the greatest satisfaction!
"Did you ask Papa Drugg or Mamma 'Rill about it?" Janice queried of the little girl.
"Oh, no."
"Then how do youknowthey don't want you any more?"
"Why—of course they don't. Or they wu—wu—wouldn'taskfor another little girl," sobbed Lottie.
"Perhaps the baby will be a little boy, honey. When folks ask God for a baby He sends what He thinks is best for them to have. And wouldn't you justloveto have a little baby brother to love and play with and help take care of? Now, wouldn't you?"
"Oh, Janice Day!"
"Just think! You'd always have somebody to play with at home and you wouldn't be lonely any more. You wouldn't even mind if your echo went away," suggested Janice. "Think of it! When he grows bigger——"
"He'll be like Marty!" gasped Lottie, clutching at her friend more vigorously.
"That is, if itisa boy. But if it is a dear little girl, she'll be lots of company for you," Janice pursued. "Think how nice it would be to have a sister. I've always wished I had one. She can play keep house with you, and play dolls, and you both can dress up and be real grown-up ladies, and——"
A long, contented sigh from little Lottie. She began to breathe regularly, with only now and then a sob in her voice. She was asleep.
Janice, however, did not sleep at once. With the soft, warm body of the innocent child in her arms she lay a long time pondering these things.
How unkind of Mrs. Scattergood to let the barbof her bitter tongue sting Lottie's gentle heart! How wrong and unwise 'Rill's mother was about most things!
Because she selfishly desired her daughter to be at her beck and call, Mrs. Scattergood had opposed her marriage to Hopewell Drugg. So, at every turn, where the sour old creature could do so, she sowed thorns in the path of her daughter and Hopewell.
"She makes herself unhappy, and all about her, as well. She succeeded in embittering poor 'Rill's life for several weeks with her untrue gossip about Mr. Drugg's drinking. Now, when she should be her daughter's greatest stay and comfort, she deliberately tries to set poor little Lottie against her own mamma and father. It is dreadful," Janice decided. "It must be stopped.I've got to do something about it!"
So, when she finally dropped to sleep it was with this decision firm in her mind. She awoke with it, too, and after leaving Lottie at the schoolhouse, Janice drove her car around by Mrs. Scattergood's little dwelling at the crown of the High Street hill.
The birdlike little old woman was out in her front yard swathing her rosebushes in straw and mulching their roots against the harder frosts of winter which were already due. She waved a gloved hand to the young girl who stepped out from behind the steering wheel of her car and entered the creaking gate.
"Here ye be, Janice Day, jest as bright as a new penny," said Mrs. Scattergood. "I wanter know if that young'un of Hopewell Drugg's was over to your house last night."
"Yes, she was, Mrs. Scattergood," Janice gravely replied. "She remained all night with me."
"Huh, I don't approve of sech didoes. My young'uns was allus in the house by dark—and stayed in till mornin'. 'Rill came traipsin' over here after eight o'clock to see if I'd seen her."
"Lottie was all right," said Janice. "I sent Marty over to tell 'Rill not to worry."
"The young'un ain't more'n ha'f witted. I allus have said so."
"She is just as bright as any other child of her age—brighter than some," affirmed Janice warmly. "She is more sensitive than most. Therefore we should be careful what we say to her."
"Ha! what d'ye mean, Janice Day?" asked the old woman, eyeing her caller suspiciously and belligerently.
Janice told her. She spoke warmly and with flashing eyes that held Mrs. Scattergood silent for the nonce. She had never seen Janice display any appearance of wrath before, and if her pet cat had suddenly turned in her lap and spit at her and scratched her, Mrs. Scattergood would have been no more surprised.
"Hoity-toity, young lady!" she finally said."Do you think this is pretty talk to me that's old enough to be your grandmother?"
"That is just why I am saying it to you, Mrs. Scattergood," Janice responded firmly. "Youarelittle Lottie's grandmother——"
"No, I ain't!" snapped the woman, her face very grim. "Nor I ain't likely to adopt any young one of Hope Drugg's and Cindy Stone's. I—should—say—not!"
"And is that the attitude you propose to assume when the little stranger comes? You cannot deny your relationship then."
"Oh! Well! Ahem! That's quite another matter," said Mrs. Scattergood crossly.
"Just now, when dear 'Rill needs all the kindness that can be shown her—by everybody—why can't you forget your"—"spite" she desired to say, but did not—"dislike of Hopewell and little Lottie? Be friends with them. Why! this arrival should make you all one happy family together."
Mrs. Scattergood snorted—literally. "Ha! Sech a great to-do about nothin'," she ejaculated.
"Oh, no, Mrs. Scattergood. It's not about nothing. It's the greatest thing that can happen. It is the most beautiful thing in the world to 'Rill. I know she feels that way."
"Poor critter! She's almost as big a fule as that young'un, Lottie," muttered the woman.
"Doesn't she need your love and comfort all themore, then?" suggested Janice softly. "Think of it, Mrs. Scattergood."
"I'll tell ye what Idothink, Janice Day," snapped the other, not at all pacified. "I think you'd be in better business if you found something else to do, 'stead o' comin' here to tellmewhat's my duty."
"Oh, now, Mrs. Scattergood, don't be angry with me. I know you'll be sorry later if you do not show the love that 'Rill has the right to expect from you at this time. Don't make trouble for her."
"Humph!" ejaculated the old woman, scowling at her. "A body might think you had trouble enough of your own so't you could afford to mind your own business."
Janice flushed, for the criticism stung. She had, however, determined not to take offense at anything Mrs. Scattergood might say. Nothing but the girl's deep sense of the necessity for her act had urged her to address 'Rill's mother in this way.
"I haven't any personal trouble just now, Mrs. Scattergood. Of course, Uncle Jason's difficulty worries me a bit. But when daddy hears about it he will help."
"Your father! Broxton Day! Humph!" exploded the old woman, her wrinkled face flushed and her eyes snapping. "I calc'late Broxton Day has gothishands full right now without doin' anythin' for your Uncle Jase."
"Why, what do you mean, Mrs. Scattergood?"
The color washed out of Janice's cheeks instantly, and her lips remained parted in her excitement. Somehow the tart old woman's speech struck deep into the girl's heart.
For several days she had been fighting down the feeling of suspicion and fear that was rising like a tide within her. Daddy's letter was delayed. She had not chanced to see any newspaper but theCourierof late. Why! even Uncle Jason'sLedgerhad not appeared on the sitting room table. She watched the hard old face of the crotchety Mrs. Scattergood in a fascination of growing horror, repeating:
"What do you mean? Has anything happened to daddy? And you know it—and I don't?"
"Well, ye oughter if ye don't," snapped Mrs. Scattergood. "I never did believe in hidin' the trewth from folks. No good comes of it."
"Whatisit? What has happened to my father?" and Janice clutched at her arm.
"Wal, I've gone so fur, I might's well tell ye," the woman said, all of a flutter now. "Somebodyoughter tell ye. Ye was bound to find it out, anyway."
"But what is it?"
"Broxton Day's been shot by them Mexicaners. He's shot, is a prisoner, an' I hear tell he ain't never likely to git out o' that plaguey country alive!"