Janice Day, the Young Homemaker Part 29

The bear came down upon his forepaws, still whining. They could see, then, the chain by which a very dark man, with little gold rings in his ears, held the animal in leash. The trainer smiled very broadly while Pietro snuffed curiously at the soles of Miss Peckham's shoes.

And Miss Peckham kicked the harmless Pietro on the nose.

CHAPTER XVIII. ALL IN THE DAY'S WORK

The huge brown bear whined again and seemed grieved that his innocent attentions should be so ungratefully received. The hysterical Miss Peckham kicked again and Pietro backed away and left s.p.a.ce for his suavely smiling master in the doorway of the Day's kitchen.

"I--I wash my hands of you!" moaned the prostrate spinster.

"What--How did you come to bring that bear into my yard?"

demanded Mr. Day, finally recovering his voice.

"Boy tella me you give Pietro supper," said the man with the very engaging smile. "Bread-b.u.t.ter. Pietro lika heem."

"That Arlo Weeks Junior!" cried Janice suddenly. "Oh, Daddy, there he is outside."

There was a loud explosion of laughter back of the bear and his trainer, on the dark porch, and then the clatter of running feet.

Junior's proclivity for practical jokes was too well known for the Days to doubt his connivance in this most surprising happening.

"No maka troub', Signore," whined the Italian master of the bear in about the same tone Bruin himself had begged.

Mr. Day was helping the overwrought Miss Peckham to her feet.

"Of all things!" he muttered, "Take her out the other way, Janice--do."

"I wash my hands of you!" repeated the spinster, scarcely aware yet of what had happened. Then she suddenly descried the bear again. She shrieked in a most ear-piercing tone:

"There it is! I know Janice Day did that! Don't talk

to me! She's the plague of the neighborhood. No wonder Sophrony couldn't stand it here. Bringing bears into the house!"

"Oh! Oh, Miss Peckham! I never!" cried Janice.

"Don't deny it. You--you horrid child!" declared the spinster; and repeating again that she "washed her hands" of them all, she ran out of the house by the other door and quickly disappeared in the direction of her own cottage.

"Well, I never!" exclaimed Mr. Day, falling into a chair. Then he burst into uproarious laughter.

The Italian, who had been about to withdraw, and was tugging on the bear's chain, began to smile again. He foresaw leniency when the master of the house could laugh like this.

Janice gave way to merriment, too. It was funny. Much as she was sorry for Miss Peckham's fright, the situation altogether was one to amuse her.

Pietro waddled into the kitchen and sat up like a dog to beg. A bear is a foolish looking beast at best, unless it becomes ill-tempered; and this big brown thing, so his smiling master said, "had the heart of a child."

"And the stomach of an ostrich!" declared Janice, after almost every cold sc.r.a.p in the house had followed several slices of "bread-b.u.t.ter" down Pietro's cavernous maw.

The old fellow was as good-natured as he could be. After the feast he went through his little repertoire of tricks with little urging.

He "played soldier" and went through his own particular manual of arms with his master's stick as a gun. He "played dead," but with his little pig-like eyes twinkling all the time.

Finally he danced with his master, and with such abandon, if not grace, that the dishes rattled on the shelves in the kitchen cupboard.

"There, that will do. He's paid for his supper. Next thing he'll have the house down about our ears," declared Mr. Broxton Day.

"Grazias, Signore; grazias, Signora," said the bear trainer, over and over again, and bowing deeply as he jerked Pietro by the chain toward the door.

His eyes, his teeth, and the little gold rings in his ears, all twinkled together. Janice thought he was a very polite man.

"And I hope he is always kind to Pietro," she said, when the foreigner and his strange pet were gone. "But, Daddy! Don't we have the greatest happenings in our house?"

"Right you are, my dear. An aristocratic lady has left us flat; the neighborhood censor has washed her hands of us; and we have entertained a highly educated bear, all in a single day. As you might say, all these astonis.h.i.+ng happenings are 'all in the Days'

work.' The Days certainly do entertain the most astonis.h.i.+ng adventures."

"Oh, my! Don't we?" giggled his daughter.

"And now, if Pietro the bear has left us anything in the house to eat, let us have supper, Janice. I expect that hereafter Miss Peckham's opinion of us will be too acrimonious for speech."

"Oh, she never did like me much," sighed Janice. "And now Arlo Junior has made it worse again. Just think! The bear on top of the cats--"

"Scarcely that, my dear," laughed her father. "But if she really believes you introduced that bear for the praise of scaring her, her poor Sam's getting hurt over here will be a small incident compared with this ursine hold-up. The neighbors are going to hear about this, I feel sure."

Nor was he mistaken on that point. Before forty-eight

hours had elapsed it was noised around the neighborhood that "that very ladylike person, Mrs. Watkins" had been obliged to leave the Days and had returned to Marietteville, because of the treatment accorded her in "that house, which she had entered only as a favor."

It was told that Janice had invited a tramp with a dancing bear into the house and that "no lady who deemed herself such" could endure rudeness of that character. Somehow, the neighborhood censor did not figure in the story of the dancing bear; perhaps she feared to be ridiculed.

But Janice told Mrs. Carringford all about it. That good woman had serious troubles of her own; but she was not so selfish that she could not sympathize with Janice.

"I do wish I could do something to help you and your father, my dear," said the woman. "When people have as nice a house as you have Amy has told me all about it --it does seem too bad that it can't be kept as a home should be kept."

"Like yours, Mrs. Carringford," said Janice.

"My dear," sighed Mrs. Carringford, "I don't know how long we'll have our home, poor as it is. We owe a lot of money on it. I am afraid I did wrong in trying to buy this place," and she shook her head sadly.

Janice did not feel like asking the friendly woman pointblank what she meant; but Amy afterward explained.

"You see, Janice, Mr. Abel Strout, of Napsburg, owned this house.

It was he who advised mother strongly to

buy a home with father's insurance money. We didn't know how much it cost to keep up a house after you get possession of it.

"Mr. Strout took part of our money in payment and mother gave a mortgage to him for the balance of the price. And that mortgage is troubling mother greatly."

"I guess mortgages are bad things," Janice observed, with a wise nod of her head.

"They are when poor folks have 'em, anyway. You see, mother held back some money to live on. But taxes and repairs and a.s.sessments have to come out of that, as well as the interest on the mortgage that comes due half-yearly. And that isn't all."