How Janice Day Won Part 42

"Sort o'," replied Walky, calmly. "Here's your health, Joe. I thought you had that fiddle sold before you went to Hopewell arter it?"

"To tell ye the truth, Walky----"

"Don't do it if it hurts ye, Joe. Haw! haw!"

The barkeeper made a wry face and continued:

"That feller I got it for, only put up a part of the price. I thought he was a square sport; but he ain't. When he got a squint at the old fiddle while Hopewell was down here playing for the dance, he was just crazy to buy it. Any old price, he said! After I got it," proceeded Joe, ruefully, "he tries to tell me it ain't worth even what I paid for it."

"Wal--'tain't, is it?" said Walky, bluntly.

"If it's worth a hundred it's worth a hundred and fifty," said the barkeeper doggedly.

"Ya-as--_if_," murmured the expressman.

"However, n.o.body's going to get it for any less--believe me! Least of all that Fontaine. I hate these Kanucks, anyway. I know _him_. He's trying to jew me down," said Joe, angrily.

"Wal, you take it to the city," advised Walky. "You kin make yer spec on it there, ye say."

There was a storm cloud drifting across Old Ti as the expressman climbed to his wagon seat and drove away from the Inn. It had been a very hot day and was now late afternoon--just the hour for a summer tempest.

The tiny waves lapped the loose s.h.i.+ngle along the lake sh.o.r.e. There was the hot smell of over-cured gra.s.s on the uplands. The flower beds along the hilly street which Janice Day mounted after a visit to the Narnays, were quite scorched now.

This street brought Janice out by the Lake View Inn. She, too, saw the threatening cloud and hastened her steps. Sharp lightnings flickered along its lower edge, lacing it with pale blue and saffron. The mutter of the thunder in the distance was like a heavy cannonade.

"Maybe it sounded so years and years ago when the British and French fought over there," Janice thought. "How these hills must have echoed to the roll of the guns! And when Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys discharged the guns in a salvo of thanksgiving over Old Ti's capture--Oh! is that you, Nelson? How you startled me."

For the young schoolmaster had come up the hill behind her at a breathless gait. "We've got to hurry," he said. "That's going to be what Marty would call a 'humdinger' of a storm, Janice."

"Dear me! I didn't know you were in town," she said happily.

"We got the last of the hay in this morning," said the bronzed young fellow, smiling. "I helped mow away and the elder was kind enough to say that I had done well and could have the rest of the day to myself.

I fancy the shrewd old fellow knew it was about to rain," and he laughed.

"And how came you down this way?" Janice asked.

"Followed your trail," laughed Nelson. I went in to Mrs. Beaseley's of course. "And then at Drugg's I learned you had gone down to see Jim Narnay's folks. But I didn't catch you there. Goodness, Janice, but they are a miserable lot! I shouldn't think you could bear to go there."

"Oh, Nelson, the poor little baby--it is so sick and it cheers Mrs.

Narnay up a little if I call on her. Besides, Sophie and the little boys are just as cunning as they can be. I can't help sympathizing with them."

"Do save some of your sympathy for other folks, Janice," said Nelson, rather ruefully. "You ought to have seen the blisters I had on my hands the first week or two I was a farmer."

"Oh, Nelson! That's too bad," she cried, with solicitude.

"Too late!" he returned, laughing. "They are callouses now--marks of honest toil. Whew! see that dust-cloud!"

The wind had ruffled the lake in a wide strip, right across to the eastern sh.o.r.e. Whitecaps were dancing upon the surface and the waves ran a long way up the beach. The wind, rus.h.i.+ng ahead of the rain-cloud, caught up the dust in the streets and advanced across the town.

Janice hid her face against the sleeve of her light frock. Nelson led her by the hand as the choking cloud pa.s.sed over. Then the rain, in fitful gusts at first, pelted them so sharply that the girl cried out.

"Oh, Nelson, it's like hail!" she gasped.

A vivid flash of lightning cleaved the cloud; the thunder-peal drowned the schoolmaster's reply. But Janice felt herself fairly caught up in his arms and he mounted some steps quickly. A voice shouted:

"Bring her right this way, school teacher! Right in here!"

It was Lem Parraday's voice. They had mounted the side porch of the Inn and when Janice opened her eyes she was in the barroom. The proprietor of the Inn slammed to the door against the thunderous rush of the breaking storm. The rain dashed in torrents against the house.

The blue flashes of electricity streaked the windows constantly, while the roll and roar of the thunder almost deafened those in the darkened barroom.

Joe Bodley was behind the bar briskly serving customers. He nodded familiarly to Janice, and said:

"Bad storm, Miss. Glad to see you. You ain't entirely a stranger here, eh?"

"Shut up, Joe!" commanded Mr. Parraday, as Janice flushed and the schoolmaster took a threatening step toward the bar.

"Oh, all right, Boss," giggled the barkeeper. "What's yours, Mister?"

he asked Nelson Haley.

A remarkable clap of thunder drowned Nelson's reply. Perhaps it was as well. And as the heavy roll of the report died away, they heard a series of shrieks somewhere in the upper part of the house.

"What in good gracious is the matter now?" gasped Lem Parraday, hastening out of the barroom.

Again a blinding flash of light lit up the room for an instant. It played upon the fat features of Joe Bodley--pallidly upon the faces of his customers. Some of them had shrunk away from the bar; some were ashamed to be seen there by Janice and the schoolmaster.

The thunder discharged another rolling report, shaking the house in its wrath. The rain beat down in torrents. Janice and Nelson could not leave the place while the storm was at its height, and for the moment, neither thought of going into the dining room.

Again and again the lightning flashed and the thunder broke above the tavern. It was almost as though the fury of the tempest was centered at the Lake View Inn. Janice, frankly clinging to Nelson's hand, cowered when the tempest rose to these extreme heights.

Echoing another peal of thunder once again a scream from within the house startled the girl. "Oh, Nelson! what's that?"

"Gee! I believe Marm Parraday's on the rampage," exclaimed Joe Bodley, with a silly smile on his face.

The door from the hall flew open. In the dusky opening the woman's lean and masculine form looked wondrous tall; her hollow eyes burned with unnatural fire; her thin and trembling lips writhed pitifully.

With her coming another awful flash and crash illumined the room and shook the roof tree of the Inn.

"It's come! it's come!" she said, advancing into the-room. Her face shone in the pallid, flickering light of the intermittent flashes, and the loafers at the bar shrank away from her advance.

"I told ye how 'twould be, Lem Parraday!" cried the tavern keeper's wife. "This is the end! This is the end!"

Another stroke of thunder rocked the house. Marm Parraday fell on her knees in the sawdust and raised her clasped hands wildly. The act loosened her stringy gray hair and it fell down upon her shoulders. A wilder looking creature Janice Day had never imagined.

"Almighty Father!" burst from the quivering lips of the poor woman.

"Almighty Father, help us!"

"She's prayin'!" gasped a trembling voice back in the shrinking crowd.

"Help us and save us!" groaned the woman, her face and clasped hands uplifted. "We hear Thy awful voice. We see the flash of Thy anger.