The Mission of Janice Day Part 4

"Well--no, Marty," admitted Mrs. Day, "I don't think he did. But----"

"Nuff said, then," declared the youngest of the Day clan briskly.

"What's done's done. No use bawlin' over spilt sody-water," and he grinned more or less cheerfully. "What good did the money dad had in the bank ever do us? Not a bit! It might as well have been burnt up. We can hire this house to live in just as well's though we owned it, can't we?

And not have to worry about taxes and repairs neither."

"Why, Marty!" murmured Janice, amazed by this outburst, yet somewhat impressed by the sounding sense of it.

"Hi tunket!" exploded her cousin, expanding as he looked around on his surprised relatives. "What does it matter, anyway? Ain't I here, Ma?

Have you forgot I'm alive, Dad? Can't I go to work and earn money enough to support this family if I haf to? I--guess--yes! Why!" pursued the excited Marty, "I can go to work next week at Jobbin's sawmill an' earn my dollar-seventy-five a day. Sure I can! Or I bet I could get a job in some store. Or on the _Constance Colfax_--they pay deckhands a dollar-fifty. And there's the railroad goin' to open up.

"Pshaw! there's nothin' to it," declared the boy. "What if dad has got the rheumatism? _I_ can work an' we won't starve."

"Marty!" cried Janice, running around the table and putting both arms about his neck. "You dear boy--_you're a man_!"

"Huh!" grunted Marty half strangled. "Who said I wasn't?"

"He's a good, dear child," sobbed his mother. "D'you hear him, Jase Day?"

"Yes," said Mr. Day brokenly. "I dunno but it's wuth while losin'

ev'rything ye own to l'arn that ye got a boy like him."

Marty was suddenly smitten with a great wave of confusion. His enthusiasm had carried him out of himself. "Aw, well," he mumbled, "I was just tellin' you. You needn't worry. I can get a job."

"And I'll sell my car, Uncle," Janice said gayly. "That'll help some.

And my board money. That comes regularly, thank goodness!

"Of course," she pursued, "as Marty says, we can hire the house to live in if you have to lose the dear old place. We'll be all right."

"'Tain't that. I can work yet," groaned Uncle Jase. "It's losin' all we've saved."

"Well! whose fault is that?" demanded his wife; but Janice stopped her.

"Now, Auntie, Marty's said the last word on _that_ topic. Let us not waste our time in recrimination. We must get a new outlook on life, that is all."

"But all I gotter say----"

"You've said it, Ma, already," put in Marty. "Don't spread it on thicker. Dad ain't likely to forget it. You don't have to keep reminding him of it."

It was hard on the woman, this shutting off her speech. As with many shallow-minded folk, speech was Aunt 'Mira's safety valve. Afterward, when Uncle Jason had gone down town "to see about it" and Marty had accompanied him (the first time in all probability since he was a child the boy had ever willingly accompanied his father anywhere) the pent-up torrent of Aunt 'Mira's feelings burst upon Janice's head.

She put away her books with a sigh. The morrow was a school holiday, anyway. "Aunt 'Mira," she said softly, "don't you suppose Uncle Jason feels this thing keenly? Don't you think his very soul must be embittered because he has made this mistake?"

"Mistake!" repeated the fretful woman. "Needn't ha' been no mistake. If he'd asked me----"

"You would have been no wiser than he, Aunt 'Mira," Janice interrupted with confidence. "I know you. I remember how you had this Mr. Hotchkiss to tea here one night some months ago, and how pleasant he seemed. I expect that must have been when Uncle Jason was about to indorse his notes and he wanted your opinion of the man."

"Goodness, Janice! do you suppose so?" gasped Aunt 'Mira.

"Yes, I do. You know how uncle is--he doesn't talk much, but he thinks a lot of your opinion. And I know he must feel worse over losing your confidence than over losing the money."

"Why, he ain't lost my confidence!" cried her aunt. "I know he never meant to do it."

"Then tell him so when he comes home, dear," Janice whispered with her arms about her aunt's neck. "Don't be harsh to him at a time when he needs all the sympathy we can give him."

Aunt Almira cried a little, then wiped her eyes and kissed her niece.

"You're a great comfort, Janice. What we should do without you I dunno.

An' I guess ye air right. We women only hafter suffer for a man's fool tricks. But the man has to suffer and make good for 'em, too. Poor Jase!"

CHAPTER IV

"I TOLD YOU SO"

Janice thought at once of her father when this serious trouble for Uncle Jason and the family arose. She said nothing about doing so, but before going to bed that night she wrote Mr. Broxton Day about his brother's trouble.

Janice's father was considerably younger than his half-brother, had seen a deal more of the world than Jason Day, and had acc.u.mulated a much larger fortune than the plodding Polktown farmer and carpenter ever hoped or expected to possess.

Uncle Jason was inclined to criticize Mr. Broxton Day for "putting all his eggs in one basket," as he had done in investing in mining property in Chihuahua, Mexico. But now it seemed as though Uncle Jason, shrewd as he thought himself, had made a similar mistake. He had backed Tom Hotchkiss beyond the value of all his property, both real and personal.

The investment of Janice's father in the Mexican mine had paid him well until insurrection broke out in the district. The superintendent then in charge of the mine had run away while the workmen had joined the insurrectos.

It was necessary for somebody to go down into the troubled country and "do something," and the duty devolved upon Mr. Broxton Day of all the men financially interested in the mining project. He had hastened to the mine while Janice came to Polktown to live during his absence. Of course, neither supposed this parting was for long. Now more than three years had pa.s.sed, during which time there had been more than one occasion when Mr. Day was in danger of losing his life.

He had managed to hold the property for himself and his business a.s.sociates, however, and had made friends among most of the warring factions fretting Chihuahua. Of late he had been able to hire workmen and get out ore. The profits began to roll in again. Mr. Broxton Day's share of these profits for a month was more than Uncle Jason saw in cash for several years.

"We must help him, Daddy," wrote Janice. "He has been the dearest man--so kind to me, as they all have been; but Uncle Jason particularly.

He is not naturally demonstrative. His actions speak louder than words.

He backed me up, you know, when I was arrested for speeding my car that time. And when Nelson was in trouble over those stolen gold coins Uncle Jason went on his bail bond and hired the lawyer to defend him.

"We must do all we can for him. The next letter I write you, dear Daddy, will contain the full particulars of his difficulties--when the notes come due and their amounts. Meanwhile you can be thinking it over and planning in that perfectly wonderful brain of yours, how best to help Uncle Jason ward off disaster."

This kind att.i.tude toward Uncle Jason in his trouble was not a.s.sumed by many, as Janice had foretold. A man like Jason Day in a community like Polktown was bound to win disapproval from many of his neighbors.

In the first place "those Days" had been looked upon as shiftless and of little account. Janice's activities had done much to change that opinion; but there were yet families in Polktown that did not number Aunt Almira on their calling lists. Moreover, until the recent town meeting when Uncle Jason, under Janice's spur, had been so active in the no license campaign, he had been on the "wrong side" in politics. Uncle Jason was not of the political party that has made Vermont as "rock-bound" as her own Green Mountains.

So, there were many who, when they heard of Mr. Day's difficulties, said it served the "tight-fisted fellow" just right. And many who might better have remembered Uncle Jason's unfailing if somewhat grim neighborly kindness, whispered and smirked as they discussed the story in public. At the best, most of his friends proved to be of the I-told-you-so variety. When it became publicly known that Tom Hotchkiss had absconded with the funds and the door of his "emporium" was shut, there was scarcely a person in Polktown who, it seemed, could not have told Uncle Jason Tom was dishonest.

It was on Sat.u.r.day evening, following a long day of sore worry for Uncle Jason, ending in the certain knowledge that scarcely a dollar's worth of property had been left behind by Hotchkiss to meet his liabilities, that Nelson Haley came over to supper, as he often did on this evening in the week. They were still lingering around the supper table when Walky Dexter came stumping up the porch steps.

"Jefers-pelters! still eatin'?" he cackled. "All the fambly here?