Janice Day at Poketown Part 4

"This was a right good farm, onc't," said Aunt 'Mira. "B'fore Jason got his mis'ry we use ter have good crops. That's when we was fust married."

"But that's what broke my health all down," interposed Uncle Jason.

"Don't pay a man to work so hard when he's young. He has ter suffer for it in the end."

"Huh!" grunted Marty. "If it wasn't good for _you_ to work so hard when you was young, what about _me_?"

"You git along out o' here an' start on them 'taters!" commanded Mr.

Day, angrily.

Marty slid out, muttering under his breath. Janice jumped up from the table, saying cheerfully:

"I'll help you with the dishes, Aunty. Let's clear off."

Her uncle had risen and was feeling for his corncob pipe on the ledge above the door. Mrs. Day looked a bit startled when she saw Janice begin briskly to collect the soiled dishes.

"I dunno, Janice," she hesitated. "I gin'rally feel right po'ly after dinner, and I'm use ter takin' forty winks."

Janice did not wonder that her aunt felt "right po'ly." She had eaten more pork, potatoes, spring cabbage and fresh bread than would have served a hearty man.

"Let's get rid of the dishes first, Aunty," said Janice, cheerfully.

"You can get your nap afterward."

"Wa-al," agreed Mrs. Day, slowly rising. "I dunno's there's water enough to more'n give 'em a lick and a promise. Marty? Oh, you Marty!

Come, go for a pail of water, will ye? That's a good boy."

"Now, ye know well enough," snarled Jason's voice just outside the door, "that that boy ain't in earshot now."

"Oh, _I_ can get a pail of water from the pump, Aunty," said Janice, briskly starting for the porch.

"But that pump ain't 'goin'," declared Mrs. Day. "An' no knowin' when 'twill be goin'. We have ter lug all our water from d.i.c.kerson's."

"Oh, gimme the bucket!" snapped Uncle Jason, putting his great, hairy hand inside the door and s.n.a.t.c.hing the water-pail from the shelf.

"Wimmen-folks is allus a-clatterin about suthin'!"

Janice had never imagined people just like these relatives of hers.

She was both ashamed and amused,--ashamed of their ill-breeding and amused by their useless bickering.

"Wa-al," said her aunt, yawning and lowering herself upon the kitchen couch, the springs of which squeaked complainingly under her weight, "Wa-al, 'tain't scurcely wuth doin' the dishes _now_. Jason'll stop and gab 'ith some one. It takes him ferever an' a day ter git a pail o' water. You go on about your play, Niece Janice. I'll git 'em done erlone somehow, by-me-by."

Mrs. Day closed her eyes while she was still speaking. She was evidently glad to relax into her old custom again.

Janice took down her aunt's sunbonnet from the nail by the side door and went out. Amus.e.m.e.nt had given place in the girl's mind to something like actual shrinking from these relatives and their ways.

The porch boards gave under even her weight. Some of them were broken.

The steps were decrepit, too. The pump handle was tied down, she found, when she put a tentative hand upon it.

"'It jest rattles,'" quoted Janice; but no laugh followed the sigh which was likewise her involuntary comment upon the situation.

CHAPTER IV

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

There was a long, well-shaded yard behind the house, bordered on the upper hand by the palings of the garden fence. Had this fence not been so over-grown by vines, wandering hens could have gone in and out of the garden at pleasure.

Robins were whisking in and out of the tops of the trees, quarreling over the first of the cherry crop. Janice heard Marty's hoe and she opened the garden gate. About half of this good-sized patch was given over to the "'tater" crop; the remainder of the garden seemed--to the casual glance--merely a wilderness of weeds. There may have been rows of vegetable seeds planted there in the beginning; but now it was a perfect mat of green things that have no commercial value--to say the least.

Marty was about halfway down the first row of potatoes. He was cleaning the row pretty well, and the weeds were wilting in the sun; but the rows were as crooked as a snake's path.

"Hullo!" said the boy, willing to stop and lean on the hoe handle.

"Don't you want to help?"

"I don't believe I could hoe, Marty," said Janice, doubtfully.

"If you'd been a boy cousin, I wouldn't have minded," grunted Marty.

"He and me could have had some fun."

"Don't you think _I_ can be any fun?" demanded Janice, rather amused by the frankness of the youth.

"Never saw a gal that was," responded Marty. "Always in the way. Marm says I got to be perlite to 'em----"

"And is that such a cross?"

"Don't know anything about no cross," growled Marty; "but a boy cousin that I could lick would ha' been a whole lot more to my mind."

"Oh, Marty! we're not going to quarrel."

"I dunno whether we are or not," returned the pessimistic youth. "Wait till there's only one piece o' pie left at dinner some day. You'll have ter have it. Marm'll say so. But if you was a boy--an' I could lick ye--ye wouldn't dare take it. D'ye see?"

"I'm not so awfully fond of pie," admitted Janice. "And I wouldn't let a piece stand in the way of our being good friends."

"Oh, well; we'll see," said Marty, grudgingly. "But ye can't hoe, ye say?"

"I don't believe so. I'd cut off more potato plants than weeds, maybe.

Can't you cultivate your potatoes with a horse cultivator? I see the farmers doing that around Greensboro. It's lots quicker."

"Oh, we got a horse-hoe," said Marty, without interest. "But it got broke an' Dad ain't fixed it yet. B'sides, ye couldn't use it 'twixt these rows. They're too crooked. But then--as the feller said--there's more plants in a crooked row."

"What's all that?" demanded Janice, waving a hand toward the other half of the garden.

"Weeds--mostly. Right there's carrots. Marm always _will_ plant carrots ev'ry spring; but they git lost so easy in the weeds."

"_I_ know carrots," cried Janice, brightly. "Let me weed 'em," and she dropped on her knees at the beginning of the rows.

"Help yourself!" returned Marty, plying the hoe. "But it looks to me as though them carrots had just about fainted."

It looked so to Janice, too, when she managed to find the tender little plants which, coming up thickly enough in the row, now looked as livid as though grown in a cellar. The rank weeds were keeping all the sun and air from them.