How Janice Day Won Part 3

"Teachers' meeting," said Marty. "The Superintendent of Schools came over and they say we're going to have fortnightly lectures on Friday afternoons--mebbe ill.u.s.trated ones. Crackey! it don't matter what they have," declared this careless boy, "as long as 'tain't lessons."

"Lectures?" repeated Walky. "Do tell! What sort of lectures?"

"I heard Mr. Haley say the first one would proberbly be ill.u.s.trated by a collection of rare coins some rich feller's lent the State School Board. He says the coins are worth thousands of dollars."

"Lectures on coins?" cackled Walky. "I could give ye a lecture on ev'ry dollar me and Josephus ever airned! Haw! haw! haw!"

Walky rolled in his chair in delight at his own wit. Uncle Jason was watching him with some curiosity as he filled and lit his pipe.

"Walky," he drawled, "what was the very hardest dollar you ever airned?

It strikes me that you allus have picked the softest jobs, arter all."

"Me? Soft jobs?" demanded Walkworthy, with some indignation. "Ye oughter try liftin' some o' them drummers' sample-cases that I hatter wrastle with. Wal!" Then his face began to broaden and his eyes to twinkle. "Arter all, it was a soft job that I airned my hardest dollar by, for a fac'."

"Let's have it, Walky," urged Marty. "Get it out of your system.

You'll feel better for it."

"Why, ter tell the truth," grinned Walky, "it was a soft job, for I carried five pounds of feathers in a bolster twelve miles to old Miz'

Kittridge one Winter day when I was a boy. I got a dollar for it and come as nigh bein' froze ter death as ever a boy did and save his bacon."

"Do tell us about it, Walky," said Janice, who was wiping the supper dishes for her aunt.

"I should say it was a soft job--five pounds of feathers!" burst out Marty.

"How fur did you haf to travel, Walky?" asked Aunt 'Mira.

"Twelve mile over the snow and ice, me without snowshoes and it thirty below zero. Yes, sir!" went on Walky, beginning to stuff the tobacco into his own pipe from Mr. Day's proffered sack. "That was some job!

Miz Bob Kittridge, the old lady's darter-in-law, give me the dollar _and_ the job; and I done it.

"The old lady lived over behind this here very mountain, all alone on the Kittridge farm. The tracks was jest natcherly blowed over and hid under more snow than ye ever see in a Winter nowadays. I believe there was five foot on a level in the woods.

"There'd been a rain; then she'd froze up ag'in," pursued Walky. "It put a crust on the snow, but I had no idee it had made the ice rotten.

And with Mr. Mercury creepin' down to thirty below--jefers-pelters!

I'd no idee Mink Creek had open air-holes in it. I ain't never understood it to this day.

"Wal, sir! ye know where Mink Creek crosses the road to Kittridge's, Jason?"

Mr. Day nodded. "I know the place, Walky," he agreed.

"That's where it happened," said Walky Dexter, nodding his head many times. "I was crossin' the stream, thinkin' nothin' could happen, and 'twas jest at sunup. I'd come six mile, and was jest ha'f way to the farm. I kerried that piller-case over my shoulder, and slung from the other shoulder was a gun, and I had a hatchet in my belt.

"Jefers-pelters! All of a suddint I slumped down, right through the snow-crust, and douced up ter my middle inter the coldest water I ever felt I did, for a fac'!

"I sprung out o' that right pert, ye kin believe; and then the next step I went down ker-chug! ag'in--this time up ter my armpits."

"Crackey!" exclaimed Marty. "That was some slip. What did you do?"

"I got out o' that hole purty careful, now I tell ye; but I left my cap floatin' on the open pool o' water," the expressman said. "Why, I was a cake of ice in two minutes--and six miles from anywhere, whichever way I turned."

"Oh, Walky!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Janice, interested. "What ever did you do?"

"Wal, I had either to keep on or go back. Didn't much matter which.

And in them days I hated ter gin up when I'd started a thing. But I had ter git that cap first of all. I couldn't afford ter lose it nohow. And another thing, I'd a froze my ears if I hadn't got it.

"So I goes back to the bank of the crick and cut me a pole. Then I fished out the cap, wrung it out as good as I could, and clapped it on my head. Before I'd clumb the crick bank ag'in that cap was as stiff as one o' them tin helmets ye read about them knights wearin' in the middle ages--er-haw! haw! haw!

"I had ter laig it then, believe me!" pursued the expressman. "Was cased in ice right from my head ter my heels. Could git erlong jest erbout as graceful as one of these here cigar-store Injuns--er-haw!

haw! haw!

"I dunno how I made it ter Ma'am Kittridge's--but I done it! The old lady seen the plight I was in, and she made me sit down by the kitchen fire just like I was. Wouldn't let me take off a thing.

"She het up some kinder hot tea--like ter burnt all the skin off my tongue and throat, I swow!" pursued Walky. "Must ha' drunk two quarts of it, an' gradually it begun ter thaw me out from the inside. That's how I saved my feet--sure's you air born!

"When I come inter her kitchen I clumped in with feet's big as an elephant's an' no more feelin' in them than as though they'd been boxes and not feet. If I'd peeled off that ice and them boots, the feet would ha' come with 'em. But the old lady knowed what ter do, for a fac'.

"Hardest dollar ever I airned," repeated Walky, shaking his head, "and jest carryin' a mess of goose feathers----

"Hullo! who's this here comin' aboard?"

Janice had run to answer a knock at the side door. Aunt 'Mira came more slowly with the sitting room lamp which she had lighted.

"Well, Janice Day! Air ye all deef here?" exclaimed a high and rather querulous voice.

"Do come in, Mrs. Scattergood," cried the girl.

"I declare, Miz Scattergood," said Aunt 'Mira, with interest, "you here at this time o' night? I am glad to see ye."

"Guess ye air some surprised," said the snappy, birdlike old woman whom Janice ushered into the sitting room. "I only got back from Skunk's Holler, where I been visitin', this very day. And what d'ye s'pose I found when I went into Hopewell Drugg's?"

"Goodness!" said Aunt 'Mira. "They ain't none o' them sick, be they?"

"Sick enough, I guess," exclaimed Mrs. Scattergood, nodding her head vigorously: "Leastways, 'Rill oughter be. I told her so! I was faithful in season, and outer season, warnin' her what would happen if she married that Drugg."

"Oh, Mrs. Scattergood! What has happened?" cried Janice, earnestly.

"What's happened to Hopewell?" added Aunt 'Mira.

"Enough, I should say! He's out carousin' with that fiddle of his'n--down ter Lem Parraday's tavern this very night with some wild gang of fellers, and my 'Rill hum with that child o' his'n. And what d'ye think?" demanded Mrs. Scattergood, still excitedly. "What d'ye think's happened ter that Lottie Drugg?"

"Oh, my, Mrs. Scattergood! What _has_ happened to poor little Lottie?"

Janice cried.

"Why," said 'Rill Drugg's mother, lowering her voice a little and moderating her asperity. "The poor little thing's goin' blind again, I do believe!"

CHAPTER III