More than three years and a half! Can you imagine what such separation means to two people who love each other?
We read much, and hear much, about the strength of "mother-love." It is the most holy expression of the Creative Instinct—none doubt it.
Yet there is an emotion even deeper and wider than the affection of the mother for the child she has borne. Because through all these eras of advancing civilization man, the father, has shouldered the responsibility of caring for and protecting both the mother and the child.
Not enough thought is given to this. Father-love is often greater, more self-sacrificing, more noble than that given the offspring by the maternal parent. In this the mother follows instinct; she shares it with the female of all species.
When the child must depend upon the father for all—deprived of maternal parentage as was this girl, Janice Day—there is a bond between father and child that no other mortal tie can equal.
Never had this man gone to his couch at nightwithout a thought of the daughter he had left in the North—growing from a child to womanhood out of his sight. Nor had Janice Day with all her manifold interests forgotten for one single day her father and his lonely existence in Mexico.
Janice went into her father's arms and clung to him without speech—not intelligible speech at least. Yet there were words wrenched from both of them—little intimate words of passionate endearment like nothing Marty Day had ever heard before. Marty, steeled by the New England belief that the giving away to emotion, especially that of affection, was almost indecent, actually blushed for his relatives. Finally he drawled:
"Hi tunket! Give a feller a chance, will you, Janice? What d'you think, that I came clear down into Mexico here to play a dummy hand?"
"You're Marty!" cried Mr. Day, putting out his hand to his nephew.
"Surest thing you know," agreed Marty. "Dad and ma send their best regards."
At that Janice went off into a gale of laughter that was almost hysterical. Her cousin gazed upon her in mild surprise.
"Why, Janice!" he said. "You know they are always hounding me about my manners. What's wrong withthat?"
Both father and daughter laughed at this and Marty grinned slowly. Anyway, matters had gotaltogether too serious for the boy and he wanted somebody to laugh so that he could successfully gulp down his own deeper emotion.
The Madam came forward. She had to be introduced, and the tall, haggard man with his arm in a sling and his shoulder swathed in bandages very plainly impressed favorably the wife of Señor General De Soto Palo.
"Ach, my dear!" she confided to Janice later, "he is such a romantic-looking man! Now, to tell you the truth, as much as I adore the general, me, I could wish him the more distingué looking—ees eet not?"
Of course daddy was a splendid-looking man! Thin and haggard as he was, Janice thought nobody as interesting in appearance as daddy—not even Nelson!
She left it to Marty to relate in particular what had happened to them since they had left Polktown. And it lost nothing in the telling—trust Marty!
"It looks to me as though you two have had quite an adventurous career," Mr. Broxton Day said with twinkling eyes.
He had sat down in the sun, for he was still very weak. His own brief tale, Marty thought, savored of "the real thing."
Mr. Day had been treacherously attacked and shot, and had lain unattended for twenty-four hours at the mouth of the main shaft of the mine. He hadlost much blood at this time and was now scarcely able to travel. Yet during all the time the rebels had hemmed them in he had planned the defense of the mine buildings and held his handful of guards to their task.
"I can't put you up decently, Janice," he said. "You see, they've wrecked my quarters," and he gestured toward the building that had served him as office and living rooms before the battle.
"Oh, but, Daddy, we're not going to stay!" she cried. "I want to take you away from here just as soon as you can go. Do you suppose you could travel in Madam's car?"
Her father looked ruefully about at the havoc wrought by the enemy.
"Well," he sighed. "It will take months, I suppose, to put things to rights again. And this will be the third time we have had to do it. I suppose my head foreman could do most of it alone——"
"Why!" cried Janice, "he'll just have to! Daddy, you're going home with me to Polktown to stay till you are well and strong again. I wish we could start now."
Had Mr. Day suspected what the next few hours would bring forth they would have started immediately for San Cristoval—even had they walked. General Palo's victory, however, seemed so complete that the Americans did not suspect any menace of peril from a new quarter.
They took dinner with the general and "Madam," as Janice continued to call the woman, in the Pullman car that had been made over into a more or less luxurious "home" for the commander and his wife. There was a kitchen and a cook in it; and to Marty's unfeigned delight there were no beans on the bill-of-fare.
"Hi tunket!" he exploded when they came away from the Pullman coach to take possession of one of the sheds that Mr. Day's men had made habitable for the time being. "I don't know but these greasers would be more'n half human if they'd live on something besidesfrijoles. That little general is a nice little feller."
"Easy, nephew," advised his uncle, much amused after all by the boy's nonchalance and assumption of maturity. "Say nothing or do nothing to belittle a Mexican's dignity. They have a saying in their own tongue that means, 'If thou lose thy dignity thou hast lost that which thou wilt never find again.'
"The secret of half the trouble we Americans have in Mexico is in our failure to acknowledge this national trait. The poorest and most miserable peon often has in his heart a pride equal to that of a newly-made millionaire," and Mr. Broxton Day laughed.
"If you treat them cavalierly and as though they were beneath you, they may laugh. They are humble enough to their masters; ages of oppression have taught them sycophancy. But in their hearts isbitter hate—and it flames out in these uprisings.Thenthey revenge themselves and, being profoundly ignorant, they seek that revenge from innocent and guilty alike."
This could not be said to interest Marty greatly. As soon as they were in the house he sought the couch prepared for him. But Janice and her father sat talking for half the night.
There was much for them to talk about. Until recently, of course, their letters to each other had fully and freely related personal happenings; but there were many intimate affairs to be discussed by Broxton Day and his grown-up daughter. For so she seemed to him. His little Janice had blossomed into womanhood. Yet she had not grown away from him; she was nearer and dearer.
"You can understand things now that you might not have appreciated three years or so ago," said her father. "Oh! I admit it was somewhat of a shock to me when I first saw you to-day—you are so tall and so much the woman, my dear. Your photographs haven't done you justice. I see you are quite the grown woman. Yet you had to run away to escape Jason's opposition to your plans? Good soul!" and he chuckled.
She laughed, then sighed. "Yes. I could not bear actually to defy him."
"Ah! And this young man you've told me so much about in your letters? What about Nelson?"her father asked, scrutinizing her countenance keenly.
Janice could not altogether hide her feeling that, somehow, Nelson had failed her. The loyal girl found herself in the position of an apologist. She could not really explain why he had not come with her to Mexico.
"He—he did not believe I meant to come," she confessed.
"You told him?" asked her father.
"Yes. I told him I should."
"My dear," said Mr. Day thoughtfully, "the young man cannot know you very well, after all."
Janice sighed. "Ithoughthe did," she observed. "I've been so busy—so anxious—about you and all, Daddy—that I have not thought much about Nelson until now. I realize it would have been very difficult—indeed impossible—for him to have left his school in the middle of the term to come with me. But he did not believe I meant what I said. That—that is where it hurts, Daddy."
"Well! well!" murmured Broxton Day. "You're not like other girls, Janice. I can see that. And I imagine, for that very reason, you have picked out a young man for yourself that is quite your opposite. I have an idea Nelson Haley is a very common type of youth," and his eyes twinkled.
"Oh, but he isn't, Daddy! Not at all!" shecried, quick to defend. "He is quite remarkable. Why—listen——"
And then there poured out of the girl's heart all the story of her acquaintanceship with Nelson from the first time she had met him with his motorcycle on the old lower Middletown road.
Did Mr. Broxton Day listen patiently? Imagine it! He was hearing from the lips of this lovely girl-woman, whom he had seen last as a child, all the tale of her romance; the sweetest, most endearing tale a daughter can possibly narrate to a sympathetic and understanding father. He saw, too, with her eyes those better qualities of the young schoolmaster that did not, perhaps, appear on the surface—the deeper moods and passions of his being that responded to the spur of the girl's own character. Broxton Day realized that Janice's influence must mean much to Nelson Haley; yet that the young man had in him that which made it quite worth while for Janice to hold him in the strong regard she did.
They talked of other matters that night, too—these two long separated comrades. Uncle Jason's difficulties came in for their share of attention. Mr. Day now for the first time learned of Jason Day's trouble, for Janice's letter telling about it had failed to reach the Alderdice Mine.
In his present crippled state Broxton Day was quite willing to go back to Polktown with his daughter for the winter. And for his brother's sake he would have gone in any case.
During his working of the mine since coming to Mexico, Broxton Day had accumulated considerable money which he had immediately re-invested in securities in the North.
"No more carrying of all the eggs in one basket, my dear," he said to Janice. "I have enough elsewhere to help Jase out. So don't worry aboutthatany more."
They might have talked all night; only Janice knew her father, in his present weakened state, should have rest. She insisted that he roll up in his blanket, as Marty had done hours before. When his regular breathing assured her Mr. Day was asleep, the girl stole to his side and tucked the blanket about his shoulders with maternal care.
"Dear Daddy!" she whispered, stooping to press her soft lips to his wind-beaten cheek.
As she did so a sound outside startled her. Then came a cry and several rifle shots, followed by the clatter of arms and the quick, staccato orders of the officers calling the men to "fall in."
Janice went quickly to the door, opened it, and stepped out. Already the night was old. The footsteps of Dawn were on the eastern hills. On the mesa, however, the encroaching forest made the shadows black. She could barely see the "headquarters" train of General Palo.
A man stumbled by and Janice caught at his arm. It was one of her father's men who had remained to guard the mine.
"What is it? What has happened?" she asked, without betraying all the fear she felt.
She knew that more than half of the government troops had followed the retreating rebels into the hills and had not returned to the military base. The present confusion of the soldiers that remained portended something desperate she knew.
"A night attack?" she asked.
"It may be, señorita," whispered the man. "A person has just been brought in—captured by our pickets."
"Oh!"
"AnAmericano, señorita. He say Dario Gomez,that bandit unhung, señorita, is about to attack. He has gathered a gre't force and will attack General De Soto Palo.Sí! sí!"
"Dario Gomez?" repeated Janice. "Why, I——Who is this American who has been captured?"
"A deserter. A prisoner. I know not.Quién sabe?"
"But what does he look like?" insisted Janice.
"Oh, señorita! He is a fat man and wears a red vest across his stomach—so," and the man gestured.
"Tom Hotchkiss!" murmured Janice.
"I come back to warn Señor B-Day if there be need," promised the guard and was gone.
Janice heard a horse charging past her from the direction of the general's car. In the dim light she thought she recognized the young aide-de-camp who had been so much in evidence the day before. He rode off into the north, away from the mine, and Janice believed he had gone to recall that part of the government troops now absent.
Did General Palo consider the promised attack of the banditti serious? When Janice had been in Dario Gomez's company he had had but forty followers!
She re-entered the shed and closed the door. Her father and Marty were sleeping quietly. Should she arouse them?
The girl was already becoming used to war'salarms. She determined to watch alone. By no possibility could she have closed her eyes now in slumber.
While her father and Marty slept peacefully, Janice Day sat by a dim and rather smoky lantern and watched. Confused sounds of marching and countermarching soldiery reached her ears; but from a distance.
Suddenly the uproar increased—then more rifle shots in the distance. Her father roused up, half asleep yet.
"What's that?" he demanded.
A sharp rap came upon the door. Janice arose hastily.
"Lie down, father," she said reassuringly. "I will go."
"The Señor General De Soto Palo order you all to the train. We make stand there, señorita," said the man who had knocked. "The bandits are at hand."
"What's that?" demanded Mr. Day again, wide awake.
Marty rolled off his couch and appeared in the light of the smoky lantern, the snub-nosed revolver in his hand. "Hey! I'm in this!" he croaked, but half awake. "What's doing?"
Swiftly Janice told them what little she had learned while she crammed things into her bag. The man at the door urged haste.
"That Gomez—he is near," sputtered the messenger.
"Why, we know that feller," Marty drawled. "I don't think he'd do anything to us, would he, Janice?"
"Never trust appearances with these Mexican banditti," said Mr. Day gravely. "I've shared the contents of his tobacco pouch with one and then had him try to cut my throat the next day. They are light-hearted, light-fingered and—lightest of all in their morals. I wonder that you two got away from Gomez as you did."
"And Tom Hotchkiss got away from him, too, did he?" growled Marty. "Well, that's too bad."
"Come, señor!" urged the messenger in the doorway.
They hurried to the headquarters car. It was growing lighter in the east. The rifle fire on the southern edge of the mesa was becoming sharper. General De Soto Palo had not led his troops in person against the attack of the banditti. Indeed, it was evident that he had been aroused from his peaceful slumbers at the beginning of the excitement; even now he had not removed his nightcap. He was not half so fierce-appearing in this headgear as he had been in his plumed hat.
But Tom Hotchkiss, cowering in a corner, seemed to think that the general was quite fierce enough.
"You want to remember I'm an American," hewas saying whiningly. "Something's got to be done for me. I can't be treated this way, you know."
"Señor B-Day!" exploded the little general. "Do you know this man?"
"Day!"
Tom Hotchkiss almost shrieked it and would have sprung forward to peer into Mr. Broxton Day's face had not two of the barefooted soldiers held him back by the ungentle means of their bayonets.
"Yes. It is Thomas Hotchkiss," Mr. Day said, eyeing the fat man without favor.
"You're Brocky Day!" exclaimed the prisoner with sudden relief. "Well, you tell these fellers——"
The general raised his hand for silence. The soldiers suddenly pinned Mr. Hotchkiss into his corner with points that evidently hurt.
"Ouch!"
"You know this man, Señor Day?"
"Yes, General."
"Is he to be trusted to speak the truth?"
"Never," said Mr. Day firmly, "unless the truth serves him better than lying."
"Ah!"
"I understand he claims to have escaped from Gomez?"
"Sí, señor."
"It may be so," said Mr. Day. "My daughter and nephew say they were in Gomez's power daybefore yesterday and they have reason to believe that this Hotchkiss was captured by the bandit."
"And how strong was Gomez's party when the señorita saw eet?"
"Forty!"
"Ah! But this man say he have thousands of troops—that an attack in force is intended on the mesa."
"It sounds as though there was some fighting going on out there," admitted Mr. Day. "But it may just be my own troops wasting ammunition. They have plenty—and are like children."
Mr. Day gave Tom Hotchkiss a long and penetrating stare.
"I'm free to confess,mi general," he said finally, "I don't know whether to believe this fellow or not. He's a criminal, wanted by the American officers. That is sure. It has always been my opinion that if a man is crooked in one environment he is very apt to be so in another."
Before the doughty little commander could make reply the rattle of rifle shots increased. It grew nearer. Janice clung to her father's arm.
The door of the office-car was flung open and the Madam suddenly appeared. She wore a wonderfully figured satin boudoir gown and a cap to match; and she was plainly very much frightened.
"General! General!" she cried. "The cook has left! Is there really danger?"
General De Soto Palo muttered something in Spanish that was probably not polite. His wife saw and recognized Janice.
"Oh, my dear!" she cried. "We are the only two females here! Return with me. I see the general is disturbed. Come, my dear. We are such goot friends—yes?"
Before Janice could reply there sounded the sharpplopof a bullet and a hole appeared in the window-pane directly above the general's desk. The bits of shattered glass showered over the little man in the nightcap; but he did not move or show any alarm.
Tom Hotchkiss squealed and tried to lie down in his corner. The two barefoot soldiers prodded him to a standing posture again.
This had been a baggage car in its day, and the windows were few and high. The impact of other bullets in the wooden walls was plainly heard. The rifle fire was advancing and it was not all ammunition wasted by the government troops.
"My angel," said the general softly, "take the señorita into the other car. Lie down below the level of the window sills—both. That will be safer."
Madam seized Janice's hand and drew her out through the vestibule. Mr. Day made a motion to Marty.
"Just go along and see that nothing happens to them, my boy," he said.
The Pullman car was fitted with thin steel shutters over the plate-glass windows and they had been closed the night before; but evidently General De Soto Palo did not altogether trust these shutters to keep out stray bullets.
The sharp ping of the lead as it sunk in the woodwork or the more resonant ring of those bullets glancing from the shutters became more and more frequent. The explosion of the guns sounded nearer. It was plain that the government troops were retreating from the southern edge of the mesa where the attack had opened. Dario Gomez and his followers seemed to be pressing on.
"Well, Marty, you wanted to see a battle," his cousin said to the boy. "Are you satisfied now?"
"Huh! I'm not seein' this one, am I?" he challenged. "Hi! what's that?" he added briskly.
The distant shriek of a steam whistle came faintly to her ears. Janice and the general's wife looked at each other. Marty drawled:
"Sounds like the oldConstance Colfaxcomin' into the dock, don't it, Janice? But I reckon they don't have steamboats up in these hills, do they?"
The long call of the whistle through the hills was smothered in another and nearer burst of firearms. The rattle of bullets against the half-armored side of the Pullman told their own story and told it unmistakably. The bandits were coming in force; the troops under General Palo's subordinates were not standing up to the enemy at all!
The three in the Pullman heard the doughty little general charging out of the other car to take personal leadership of the defending forces, and Janice believed her father, wounded though he was, had gone with him.
Marty had shot through the corridor of the car and the open compartments to the rear. There he clawed open the door and stepped out upon the observation platform.
Again he had heard that cheerful, raucous whistle.
"Hi tunket!" he said to Janice who followed. "If that don't sound like a steamboat——"
"Or a steam train?"
"But those rails were torn up outside San Cristoval."
"They could be spiked to the sleepers again," the girl said quickly.
"Cricky! who's coming, then?" the excited boy demanded. "Friends or foes?"
"Oh, dear me!" sighed Janice. "Everybody seems to be fighting everybody else down here. Suppose we are in the middle of a great battle, Marty Day?"
"Hi tunket! It'll be something to tell about when we get back to Polktown."
"Ifwe get back," she shuddered.
"Shucks! of course we will. Though I'd like to stay here and get that mine to working again. I wonder if Uncle Brocky would let me?"
"Marty Day! You're the most awful-talking boy I ever heard. Oh!"
Another volley of rifle shots drowned her voice. They crouched together by the open door of the car and heard the bullets sing past.
"What shall we do if there are really more of the enemy coming?" murmured Janice, after the immediate shower of lead was over.
"Holler'Viva Méjico!' and let it go at that," grinned Marty. "That goes big with all of 'em."
It was no laughing matter nevertheless, and Marty did not feel half so cheerful as he appeared. But the boy felt it incumbent upon him to keep up the spirits of his cousin.
The sun was coming up, yet the shadows still laydeep upon the mesa. Peering out of the doorway of the car Janice and Marty could see the shifting ranks of the government troops. They retired after each volley. How near, or how many the bandits numbered, the anxious spectators had no means of judging.
That most of the rifle balls went high was, however, a fact. They pattered on the sides of the cars, some of them above the windows; and there seemed to be few casualties.
"It getsme!" murmured Marty.
Then the whistle sounded again—unmistakably that of a locomotive. It was approaching steadily. There was a steep grade up the front of the mesa and they could distinguish the panting of the locomotive exhaust as it essayed this rise.
"It's coming!" Janice gasped.
Nobody seemed to notice the approach of the strange locomotive but themselves. The desultory firing about them went on. The officers commanding the government troops seemed to know but one order—that to "fire by platoons and fall back." It was true that the woods covered the position of the enemy and hid their number as well.
On this side of the plateau there was no place for the maneuvering of horses. The ground was too rough. But why the general did not sweep the wood with his machine guns, or shell it with his howitzers, seemed a mystery. It was not until afterward that the Americans learned there had been other treachery besides that of Tom Hotchkiss. Every big gun had been put out of commission before Dario Gomez's attack.
In the growing light there was now to be distinguished the flash of rifles at the edge of the wood. Word was passed that the bandits were about to charge.
At this flank of the line the officer in command thought more of his own safety and that of his men than aught else. At his order the troops suddenly shiftedto the other side of the car!
"Hi tunket!" yelled Marty. "This is where we get off! Lie down, Janice, for we are going to be between two fires."
The sun's jolly red face appeared over the hills and suddenly revealed the battle picture clearly. The morning mists and rifle smoke were dissipated, and at almost the same moment the forefront of the whistling locomotive poked out of the forest. There were several slat cars attached to the great engine. Marty stood up again in the doorway of the Pullman and yelled. He saw that the cattle cars bristled with rifles and were gay with red and green uniforms.
"Oh! who are they?" cried Janice, directly behind her cousin.
"They're government troops, all right all right! Reinforcements for Miz' Madam, I declare. Noother soldiers in Mexico could afford real uniforms," Marty shouted.
They beheld the uniformed soldiery pile out of the cars and heard them cheer. One figure in civilian dress was running ahead and came to the observation platform of the Pullman first.
"Viva Méjico!" yelled Marty, glaring at this individual as though he saw an apparition.
"You young whipper-snapper!" exclaimed the apparition. "Where's Janice?"
"Nelson!"
"Oh, then," grumbled Marty, "yousee the same thing I do, do you?"
Janice darted past her cousin and stretched her arms out to the schoolmaster. As he leaped up the steps to meet her the troops reinforcing General De Soto Palo began to deploy across the mesa and the firing of the bandits from the wood suddenly ceased.
"Do tell!" murmured Marty, staring at the schoolmaster and his cousin. "Gone to a clinch, have they? Huh! I guess it's time to go home."
It was some moments before Janice realized that her father was standing by, a smoking revolver in his left hand and a rather grim smile upon his lips.
"You might introduce me, my dear," he said mildly. "This, I presume, is Nelson?"
"Mr. Day!" cried the schoolmaster, who seemed much brisker and more assertive than had been hiswont at home, "I am delighted to see you looking so well. I feared——"
"Evidently," Mr. Day said dryly. "Was itfearthat brought you down here into Mexico, Mr. Haley?"
"Yes, sir. Fear for Janice's safety," the young man replied with a direct look. "It was for her I came."
"Ah? Well, we'll talk of that later," Broxton Day returned.
There was no time then for further personalities. Madam appeared, still indishabille, to meet the schoolmaster, and the general, too, strutted forward.
The bandits had made off; these reinforcements had been sent to obey his, General De Soto Palo's, orders; his campaign must now be successful against all the rebels in this part of Chihuahua. But he would beg his good friend, Señor B-Day, and the young Señor Haley, to add to their party in retreat to the Border the so-br-r-rave wife of his bosom, Señora Palo! There was, too, a certain locked chest——
It was decided before breakfast, the frightened cook having returned, that the Pullman car should be coupled to the second locomotive and be pulled back to San Cristoval. There it might be attached to some train going to El Paso, for the railroad was open again to the Border, the government troops patrolling all that part of Chihuahua.
It was at breakfast that Nelson related in sequence his own adventures, after hearing of all that had happened to Janice and Marty. And Nelson boldly held Janice's hand—under the table—neglecting to eat while he told his moving tale.
He had had no means of learning when and where Janice and Marty crossed the Rio Grande, if at all, until he reached El Paso. Then a long telegram reached him from Frank Bowman, repeating Marty's message sent to Jason Day from Fort Hancock, and including the information of the presence of Tom Hotchkiss at the Border.
At El Paso Nelson had learned the railroad was open once more and that a government force was assigned to join General Palo's division at the mines beyond San Cristoval. Therefore, believing to get to Mr. Broxton Day and rescue him from further peril was the more important, Nelson had postponed looking for Janice and Marty, but had used such influence as he could muster to obtain permission to join the reinforcements going up into the hills.
"I did not know where this dear girl was—in the body," said Nelson, with a proud look at Janice; "but I knew where her heart was. It would be with her father up here in the hills and I knew I could do nothing to win her gratitude more surely than by coming immediately to the Alderdice Mine."
"Nelson! how well you know me, after all!" Janice murmured.
There was much haste in getting ready for the departure. The general declared over and over again that the front was no place for his dear wife, after all. He had made a mistake in allowing her to come on from New York. It would be a long time yet before the district would be a settled place. But in time—— And there was the chest of valuable—er—papers, and the like!
"Most of them do it," Mr. Broxton Day said reflectively to his little party. "Just as soon as these 'liberators' acquire a little power they acquire treasure of a lasting quality. And this treasure they cache outside of Mexico. It is a sign of thrift; the laying up of something against the proverbial rainy day. And these rainy days in Mexico sometimes suggest the deluge."
There was another small matter that puzzled the general.
"He isAmericano, señor," he said to Mr. Day. "He of the red vest. I know not for sure whether he was sent to rouse panic among my troops or no. He succeeded in doing so and Dario Gomez might have plundered the camp with his handful of men.
"If he were one of my own people I would have him shot without compunction. If you would decide, señor——"
"Let me talk to him, General," said Broxton Day quietly.
His talk with the man who had swindled his brother resulted in Tom Hotchkiss gladly joining the party bound for the Border. What they might do to him in the United States would be nothing so bad as an adobe wall and a file of riflemen!
"Now, Judge B-Day!" whispered Janice in her father's ear, "pass judgment likewise on another culprit."
"Who, Daughter?"
"What do you think of Nelson now that you have seen him and know what he has done?"
"My dear," said "Judge B-Day," smiling at her tenderly, "caution was never yet a fault to my mind—and Nelson possesses it. It may go well with your impulsiveness. After all, I think your Nelson is a good deal of a man."
This dialogue was between Janice and her father. Marty was still eyeing the cringing Tom Hotchkiss.
"The water's all squeezed out o'thatsponge," sniffed Marty. "He'll never fill out that red vest of his again—not proper. And won't dad take on a new lease of life when he hears about it—hi tunket!"
The rear room of Massey's drugstore, behind the prescription counter, was the usual meeting place of the Polktown schoolboard. There was, it is true, a well furnished board-room in the new school building; but habit was strong in the community and as long as the bespectacled druggist held a vote in school matters the important business of the board would be done here.
The day Nelson Haley had left them in the lurch and they had to scurry about to obtain the services of a substitute principal for the Polktown school, the board gathered after supper at Massey's in a very serious mood. There was considerable indignation expressed at the young schoolmaster's course. Even Mr. Middler looked gravely admonitory when he spoke of Nelson. Massey sputtered a good deal over it.
"That jest about fixes him withme," he said. "Leavin' us in a hole this way to go traipsin' off to the Mexican Border after that gal and Marty Day. He'd better hunt a new job when he comes back."
"Let us not be hasty," Mr. Middler said, but half agreeing.
It was Cross Moore who took up the matter from an entirely different point of view. He was usually a man of few words and he was not voluble now; but what he said drew the surprised and instant attention of everyone.
"Did it ever occur to you," he drawled, "that mebbe we owe Nelson Haley something?"
"Owe him? No, we don't," snapped Massey, the treasurer. "I gave him his check up to the fifteenth day of December only two days ago."
"Something money can't pay for," pursued the unruffled selectman. "You know, we were pretty hard on him all last summer. About them lost gold coins, I mean."
"Well! we gave him his job back, didn't we?" asked Crawford.
"True, true," the minister joined in.
"Well, what ye goin' to do about his runnin' off an' leavin us in this fix?" bristled Massey, glaring about at his fellow committeemen.
"I move you, Mr. Chairman," said Cross Moore quietly, "that we give Mr. Haley a vacation—with pay."
"Oh, by ginger!" gasped the excited druggist. "For how long, I sh'd admire to know?"
"Till he returns with Janice Day," said Cross Moore.
"I—I second the motion," stammered the minister.
And this decision—finally passed without a dissenting voice—made no more stir in the community than did several occurrences during the days that immediately followed.
Polktown was indeed stirred to its depths. Nelson's hasty departure to "bring back Janice and that Day boy," as it was said, was but one of these surprising happenings.
Something happened at Hopewell Drugg's that excited all the women in the neighborhood.
"Jefers-pelters!" was Walky Dexter's comment. "They run together like a flock o' hens when the rooster finds the wheat-stack. Sich a catouse ye neverdidhear! Ye'd think, ter listen to 'em, there'd never been a baby born in this town since Adam was a small child—er-haw! haw! haw! I dunno what they would ha' done, I'm sure, if it had been twins."
Uncle Jason came very near to being a deserted husband for a week. Aunt 'Mira seemed determined to live at Hopewell Drugg's. He finally plodded across town and entered the store on the side street with determination in his soul and fire in his eye. The store chanced to be empty, but from the rear room came the wailing notes of Hopewell's violin. Yet there was a sweetness to the tones of the instrument, too, even to Jason Day. Uncle Jason haltedand his weather-beaten face lost its hardness and the light of battle died out of his eyes.
"'Rock-a-bye, baby! on the tree-top,'"
wailed the old tune. Uncle Jason tiptoed to the doorway. Hopewell, with the instrument cuddled under his chin, was picking out the old song, but falteringly.
"And there's jestgloryin his face," muttered Uncle Jason.
"Oh, Mr. Day!" exclaimed the storekeeper, awakening suddenly and laying down his violin with tenderness. "Did—did you want something?"
"Wal, Iwasbent on gittin' my wife. But I reckon I might's well lend her to ye a leetle longer, an' be neighborly. How's the boy?"
"They tell me, Mr. Day, that he's a wonderful child," Hopewell said seriously.
"I bet ye!" chuckled Uncle Jason. "They all be. Wal, as I can't have Almiry, ye might's well give me a loaf of bread. Gosh! boughten bread's dry stuff!—an' some o' that there quick-made puddin' ye jest hafter add water to.
"Somehow," continued Mr. Day, "I can't get along very well withoutsomedessert. Been useter it so many years, ye know. And them doughnuts Almiry left me seemed jest to melt away like an Aperl snowstorm."
"You better wait a little, Mr. Day," said the storekeeper, smiling. "I heard your wife tell mine that she thought everything would be all right now, and she was fixin' to go home."
"Thanks be!" exclaimed Mr. Day devoutly.
"You been in deep trouble yourself, Mr. Day," said Hopewell.
"Yep. But I see the clouds liftin'," Uncle Jason said, licking his lips and leaning both hands on the counter. "Them bank folks sartainly was right arter me. Houndin' the court to order me sold up—they did so!
"But when that telegram come from my son down there on the Border about Tom Hotchkiss"—Jason Day said "my son," oh, so proudly!—"I showed it to the judge an' he granted stay of per-ceedin's.
"'Course, we ain't heard nothin' more from Marty and Janice. But I reckon they air busy a-rescuin' of Broxton Day. Whenthat'sdone we'll l'arn all about Tom Hotchkiss.
"Did you say my wife would be ready to go hum soon?"
"Yes. You see," said Hopewell cheerfully, "Grandma Scattergood is going to stay with us now."
Uncle Jason was no more startled by this announcement than he would have been had he looked into the sitting room behind the store just then andseen the birdlike little old woman sitting close beside the cradle which she was rocking with an industrious foot.
Mrs. Day was putting on her bonnet before the looking-glass and trying the strings in a neat bow-knot between two of her chins. In a cushioned chair, well wrapped from any possible draught, sat 'Rill, the roses gone from her cheeks but with a wonderful light in her eyes.
Mrs. Scattergood was leaning forward to scrutinize the baby in the cradle. His eyes were wide open and he was staring quite as earnestly at Mrs. Scattergood. Suddenly he screwed up his tiny face into whatmighthave been a smile.
"For the Good Land o' Goshen!" gasped Mrs. Scattergood.
She turned suddenly and beckoned to little Lottie, who stood beside Mrs. Drugg's chair.
"Lottie, come here," she commanded.
The little girl went to her and stood looking down into the cradle, too. Mrs. Scattergood put an arm about her and drew her down closer, looking first into the baby's face and then into the luminous violet eyes of Lottie.
"For the Good Land o' Goshen!" she repeated. "Do you know, 'Rill, the blessed baby's got eyes jest like Lottie? An' I believe his nose is goin' to be like hers, too.
"Fancy! He favors Hopewell's side of the fam'bly a whole lot more than he does ourn. Wal! I allus have said that the Druggses was well-favored."
"There could be nothing more to add to my happiness if my boy should look like his father," her daughter said softly.
"I never hope to live to see the Millennium," remarked Aunt 'Mira as she went back across town with Mr. Day. "I had a great-aunt that was a Millerite and give away all her things an' climbed up on to the house roof expectin' the end of the world an' to be caught up into Glory—only she fell off the roof an' broke her hip an' the world didn't come to an end anyway.
"Howsomever, I consider I've seen what 'most matches the Millennium."
"What's that?" demanded her puzzled spouse.
"Miz' Scattergood a-huggin' little Lottie on the one hand an' cooin' to that baby in the cradle on t'other. Does beat all what fools babies make of us women," and she laughed, though she wiped the tears away.
"Don't you mean angels, 'stead o' fools?" asked Uncle Jason.
It was true that Frank Bowman was very busy about this time. The last spike was driven to affix the rails of the V. C. branch road to Polktown and he was working like a Trojan to make all ready for the regular running of trains to and from the mainline. But there were people in Polktown who never would forgive him for suppressing certain telegrams that reached him from the Southwest about this time.