Janice Day, the Young Homemaker Part 13

smiled again. "Thank you for your interest, Miss Peckham."

He rose again to see her to the door. The spinster might have considered remaining longer and offering further advice; but daddy knew how to get rid of people quickly and cheerfully when their business was over.

"Oh, Daddy! what a dreadful woman she is," sobbed Janice, when he came back into the living-room.

"Not so bad as that," he said, chuckling, and patting her shoulder comfortingly. "It is her way to make much of a little.

You see, she did not want anything for her injured cat, she merely wanted to come in and talk about it."

"But--but, Daddy," confessed Janice, blus.h.i.+ng deeply, "I really did fight Arlo Junior on the street. I boxed his ears."

Mr. Day had great difficulty to keep from laughing, but Janice was too absorbed in her troubles to notice it.

"Well, well! Taking the law into your own hands, were you?"

"Yes, Daddy. I guess it wasn't very ladylike. But I'm not a hoodlum!"

"Why was it that you did not want me to mention Arlo Junior?"

asked Mr. Day curiously.

"Well, you see, I sort of promised him I wouldn't tell about what he did to the cats, if he came in here Sat.u.r.day and helped me clean that back kitchen."

"Ho, ho! I see. Well, perhaps you are quite right to s.h.i.+eld the young scamp under those circ.u.mstances," said her father, with twinkling eyes.

Mr. Day talked to his daughter for a while longer. He asked her about her school work and her school pleasures, about what the girls and boys in her circle of friends were doing. He tried to keep in close touch with the motherless girl's interests, and especially did he not want her to go to bed with sad and troublous thoughts in her mind.

After a cheerful and happy half hour Janice kissed her

father good-night and went to her own room.

Janice did all she could the next morning before going to school to start Delia right in the housework. But the giantess was still sullen and had much to say about "it comin' to a pretty pa.s.s when children boss their elders."

This was an objection that Janice had contended with before. She only said, pleasantly:

"When you have once learned just how we do things here, I sha'n't have to tell you again, Delia. But wherever you go to work, you know, you will have to learn the ways of the house."

"I was doin' housework, I was, when you was in your cradle,"

declared the woman.

"But evidently not doing it just as we like to have it done here," insisted Janice cheerfully. "Now, try to please daddy, Delia. Everything will be all right then."

Delia only sniffed. She "sniffed" in a higher key than Janice had ever heard anybody sniff before. Certainly Mrs. Bridget Burns was not turning out to be as mild creature as Janice had first believed her to be. She could be stubborn.

When she got to school that morning Janice found that there was another disturbing incident in the offing. Amy Carringford squeezed her arm as they hurried in to grammar recitation, and smiled at her. But it was with gravity that she whispered in Janice's ear:

"I guess I shall have to refuse Stella's invitation."

"Oh, you must go!"

"No, I can't go."

"Don't dare say that, Amy!" responded Janice, earnestly. "You haven't told her you aren't coming, have you?"

"No-o."

"Don't you dare!" repeated Janice.

"But--but, I don't see how I can--"

"Wait! I'll tell you after school. Don't say a word to Stella about not going to the party. I tell you, if you don't go, I sha'n't!"

"Oh, Janice!"

There was no time for more whispering. Amy's big luminous eyes were fixed on her friend a good deal through the several recitations they both attended. It was evident she was puzzled.

At lunch hour Amy always ran home, for Mullen Lane-- at least, the end on which she lived--was not far. And, perhaps, she did not care to join the girls who brought nice lunches in pretty baskets. So Janice could not talk with her new friend until school was out.

Janice had determined to make a friend of Amy Carringford. Oh, yes, when Janice Day made up her mind to a thing she usually did it. And she had conceived a great liking for Amy, as well as a deep interest in the whole Carringford family.

"Now, Janice, what did you mean?" Amy asked, as they set off from the schoolhouse with their books. "I just can't go to that party!"

"Daddy says that it is a mistake to say that the word can't is not in the dictionary, for it is--in the newer ones. But I am sure it ought not to be found in the 'bright lexicon of youth'--like 'fail,' you know," and Janice laughed.

"You are just talking," giggled Amy, clinging to Janice's arm.

"I don't know what you mean."

"You are going to know soon, my dear," returned Janice. "Come home with me. Your mother won't mind, will she?"

"No. I'll send word by Gummy."

"My, that sounds almost like swearing--'by Gummy!' exclaimed Janice, her hazel eyes dancing. "And there Gummy goes. Grab him quick. Tell him you'll stay to supper."

"Oh, no! I'll tell him I'll stay till supper," rejoined Amy, as she ran after her brother.

She caught up with Janice within half a block laughing and skipping. Never had Janice seen Amy so light-hearted. Even the thought that she could not go to the party at Stella Latham's house did not serve to make Amy sorrowful for long. And Janice guessed why.

Amy Carringford had been hungry for a close friend. Perhaps Janice was starved, too, for such companions.h.i.+p. At any rate, Amy responded to Janice's friendliness just as a sunflower responds to the orb of the day and turns toward it.

The two girls went on quite merrily toward the Day cottage at Eight Hundred and Forty-five Knight Street. There was plenty to chatter about without even touching on the coming party. Janice had plans about that.

When the two came in sight of the Day house those plans --and almost everything else--went out of Janice's head. There was a high, dusty, empty rubbish cart standing before the side gate of the Day premises; and from the porch a man in the usual khaki uniform of the Highway Department was bringing out a black oilcloth bag which Janice very well remembered.

"Oh, dear me! what can have happened?" Janice cried starting to run. "That is Delia's bag--the very one she brought with her."

She arrived at the gate just as the man came through the opening.

He was a dusty-faced man, with a bristling mustache, and great, overhanging brows. He looked very angry, too.

"Oh, what is the matter?" asked Janice, as the man pitched the oilcloth bag into the cart, and turned back toward the house again.

But he was not regarding at all the girl or her chum who then ran up. He turned to bellow in through the open door: