Janice Day at Poketown Part 5

"I can find them, just the same," she confided to Marty, when he came back up the next row. "And I'd better thin them, too, as I go along, hadn't I?"

"Help yourself," repeated the boy. "But pickin' 'tater bugs wouldn't be as bad as _that_, to my mind."

"'Every one to his fancy, And me to my Nancy.'

as the old woman said when she kissed her cow," quoted Janice, laughing. "You can have the bugs, Marty."

"Somebody'll have to git 'em, pretty soon, or the bugs'll have the 'taters," declared her cousin. "Say! you'd ought to have somethin'

besides your fingers ter scratch around them plants."

"Yes, and a pair of old gloves, Marty," agreed Janice, ruefully.

"Huh! Ain't that a girl all over? Allus have ter be waited on. I wisht you'd been a boy cousin--I jest _do_! Then we'd git these 'taters done 'fore night."

"And how about getting the carrots weeded, Marty?" she returned, laughing at him.

Marty grunted. But when he finished the second row he threw down his hoe and disappeared through the garden gate. Janice wondered if he had deserted her--and the potatoes--for the afternoon; but by and by he returned, bringing a little three-fingered hand-weeder, and tossed on the ground beside her a pair of old kid gloves--evidently his mother's.

"Oh, thank you, Marty!" cried Janice. "I don't mind working, but I hated to tear my fingers all to pieces."

"Huh!" grunted Marty. "Ain't that jest like a girl?"

Grudgingly, however, as his interest in Janice was shown, the girl appreciated the fact that Marty was warming toward her.

Intermittently, as he plodded up and down the potato rows, they conversed and became better acquainted.

"Daddy has a friend who owns a farm outside of Greensboro, and I loved to go out there," Janice ventured. "I always said I'd love to live on a farm."

"Huh!" came Marty's usual explosive grunt. "You'll git mighty tired of livin' on _this_ one--I bet you!"

"Why should I? You've got horses, and cows, and chickens, and--and all that--haven't you?"

"Well, we've got a pair of nags that you can plow with. But they ain't fit for driving. Jim Courteval, who lives up the road a piece, now _he's_ got some hossflesh wuth owning. But our old crowbaits ain't nothing."

"Don't you love to take care of them--and brush them--and all that?"

cried the girl, eagerly.

"Not much I don't! I reckon if old Sam and Lightfoot felt a currycomb once more they'd have a fit. And you ought to see our cow! Gee! Dad tried to trade her the other day for a stack of fodder, and the man wouldn't have her. He'll have ter trade her off 'sight unseen' if he ever gits rid of her. Ye see, we never _do_ raise feed enough, an' she certainly come through the winter in bad shape; an' our paster fence is down in places so we can't let her get the gra.s.s."

"Why, the poor creature!" murmured Janice. "Why don't you mend the fence, Marty, so the cow can feed in the pasture?"

"Me? Huh! I guess not," snarled Marty, starting down the potato row again. "Let the old man do it."

It was not long after this that Marty got tired of hoeing and threw down the implement altogether, to seek the shadow of the cherry tree in the fence corner.

"Why don't ye quit?" he asked Janice. "You're getting all hot and mucky. And for what? Them things will only have ter be weeded again."

Janice laughed. "I'll keep them clean as far as I can go. I won't let a lot of old weeds beat _me_."

"Huh! what's the odds?"

"Why, Marty!" she cried. "Don't you like to see 'a good task well done?'"

"Ya-as,--by somebody else," grinned that young hopeful. "Come on an'

sit down, Janice."

"Haven't got time," laughed his cousin

"Pshaw! 'Time was made for slaves'--that's what Walky Dexter says.

Say! let's go up to see the Shower Bath."

"How about the potatoes?"

"Shucks! I've done a good stint, ain't I? Dad can't expect me to work all the time. An' I bet he ain't doin' a livin' thing himself but settin' down talkin' somewhere."

Janice, though shaking her head silently, thought this was more than likely to be true. And Marty would not leave her in peace; so she was willing to desert the carrot patch. But she had cleaned up quite a piece of the bed and was proud of it.

Marty sauntered along by her side as they pa.s.sed through the barnyard and paddock. It was plain that what Marty had said about currying the horses was quite true. The beasts' winter coats still clung to them in rags. And the poor cow!

A couple of lean shoats squealed in a pen.

"What makes them so noisy, Marty?" asked his cousin.

"I guess they're thirsty. Always squealin' about sumthin'--hogs is.

More nuisance than they're worth."

"But--I s'pose if _you_ wanted water, you'd squeal?" suggested Janice.

"Huh! smart, ain't ye?" growled Marty. "I'd go down ter d.i.c.kerson's an' git a drink. So'll them shoats if Dad don't mend that pen pretty soon."

It was no use to suggest that Marty might make the needed repairs; so Janice made no further comment. The trail of shiftlessness was over everything. Fences were down, doors flapped on single hinges, roofs were caved in, heaps of rubbish lay in corners, here and there broken and rusted farm implements stood where they had last been used.

Neglect and Decay had marked the Day farm for their own.

The fields were plowed for corn and partly worked up with the harrow.

But nothing further had been done for several days past, and already the weeds were sprouting.

Most of the fences were of stone; but the pasture fence was of three strands of wire, and with a hammer and staples a good deal might have been done for it in a few brisk hours.

"Aw, what's the use?" demanded Marty. "It'd only be down again in a little while."

"But the poor cow----"

"Shucks! She's gone dry long ago. An' I'm glad of it, for Dad made me milk her."

The climb through the pasture and the woodlot above it, however, was pleasant, and when Janice heard the falling water she was delighted.

This was so different from the prairie country to which she was used that she must needs express her appreciation of its loveliness again and again.

"Oh, yes," grunted Marty. "But these rocky old farms are mighty hard to work. I bet I picked up a million dornicks out o' that upper cornfield las' month. An' ye plow jest as many out o' the ground ev'ry year. Mebbe the scenery's pretty upon these here hills; but ye can't _eat_ scenery, and the crops are mighty poor."