Janice Day, the Young Homemaker Part 38

"No," said Mr. Day, "put me on the couch in the living room. Fix it, Janice."

At this Janice awoke from her apathy. She rushed in ahead and fixed the pillows on the couch, and got a warm cover to put over him.

"I'm to be laid up some weeks," Mr. Day said courageously. "I don't want to be put upstairs where I don't know a thing about what's going on in the house. I'll stay downstairs."

"That couch ought to be made up like a bed for you, Mr. Day,"

said the cheerful man, as Janice dropped down the back which made it into a bed-lounge.

"Do that later," said Mr. Day. "Here! Where's Mrs. Weeks?"

Janice ran to call her. Miss Peckham was descending the stairs, her nose in the air. She seemed offended that she could not rule the proceedings.

"Mrs. Weeks," said Janice to the woman from across the street, "will you come in? Father wants to speak to you."

"I--I don't know as my legs will carry me," sighed Mrs. Weeks.

"Have they put him to bed? Has he got his clo'es off?"

"He just wishes to speak to you," explained Janice. "Right in here."

She led the way into the living room. Miss Peckham was still "sniffing" in the doorway. The two ambulance men were preparing to depart.

"When Arlo Weeks comes home from business, tell him I want to see him," said Mr. Day to the woman. "He'll help me off with my clothes and get me into bed here. I shall be all right."

He spoke quite cheerfully now, and even Janice was recovering her self-possession.

"Oh, well, I'll telI him," murmured Mrs. Weeks. "I'm sick o'

shock, myself. But we have to sacrifice when our neighbors needs us. Yes, Mr. Day, I'll send Arlo over."

She trailed out after the two men. Mrs. Peckham sniffed after her, too.

"Well," the spinster said, "I can make him some broth. He'll need nouris.h.i.+ng victuals. And he ain't been gettin' anything of late, I guess, but what that child's messed up."

She departed kitchenward. Janice and daddy looked at each other hopelessly. Then together, and in chorus, they murmured:

"But I thought she had washed her hands of us!"

"I don't want broth," grumbled Broxton Day, after a minute. "I want my dinner. What have you got that's good, Janice?"

"Stew--lamb stew. Nice," she groaned. "And plenty of vegetables like you like."

"'Like you like' is almost as good as the stew will be," chuckled her father faintly. "We must get that woman out of the house, Janice. She will be an Old Man of the Sea."

"No, no!" giggled the girl. "An 'Old Maid of the Sea,' you mean."

"Maybe I do. But how to get rid of her--"

"I know! Wait!" Janice dashed out of the room and out of the house. A crowd of children was still at the gate.

"Arlo Junior!" she called into the dusk, "Come here! I want you."

"You want my pa. He ain't home yet," said Junior, drawing near slowly.

"I want you to do an errand for me," said Janice hastily. "Come here--close. I'll tell you. Your mother won't mind."

"All right," said Junior, offering an attentive ear.

"You know where Gummy Carringford lives?"

"Course I do."

"Well, you run there, and see his mother; and you tell her--"

Janice in whispers told the boy just what to say to Mrs.

Carringford, and he repeated it before he darted off on the errand. Arlo Junior was a great boy to play tricks, but he would not play them at such a time as this.

Janice went back to her father's side and left Miss Peckham, whom she heard moving about the kitchen, strictly alone. Daddy told her all about the accident.

It seemed, when he came down the stairs from the Chamber of Commerce, where he had gone on an errand, a scrubwoman had left a cake of soap on the next to the top step."

"Of course, it was just my luck to find it for her," said Broxton Day, with rather a grim laugh. "Maybe she wanted that soap. But I did not. I kicked right up, Janice, and it is a wonder I did not break my back as well as my leg."

"Oh, Daddy!"

"I landed so hard at the bottom of the flight that I was unconscious for a few minutes. Luckily Dr. Bowles, the surgeon, has offices in that very building. They picked me up and carried me to him and he fixed up the leg. It will be as good as new, he says, after a while."

"Oh, dear, Daddy! you might have been killed," cried Janice, suddenly sobbing.

"Well, it's all over now--but the shouting," muttered Mr. Day, his face suddenly contorted with pain. "Don't fuss, my dear.

This is something that can be mended, I am sure. Don't give way to tears."

"Oh, but, Daddy! I know! I know!" sobbed the girl, hiding her face in his shoulder. "But something did happen--and I--I wished for it!"

"Wished for me to break my leg?" gasped daddy.

"Oh, no! Oh, no! But I wished something would happen so that I would not have to go to live at Poketown this summer.

And--now--something--has--happened."

"Quite true, my dear," said Mr. Day, after a moment's silence.

"You got your wish. But as usual, you did not get it just as you wished it. Still, the very blackest cloud has its silver lining."

Janice could not imagine a silver lining to this cloud --not just at that moment. She only realized that daddy was suffering from an accident that it did seem her wish had brought to him. It was a very serious and disturbing thought for the girl

Janice did not want to go out into the kitchen to see what Miss Peckham was about. She had left the tender breast and shoulder of lamb for the stew simmering on the back of the stove, and the vegetables were all ready to put in it. What the spinster would do toward making broth Janice did not know. And daddy did not want broth.

Just now, however, the girl felt too much disturbed to entertain an argument with Miss Martha Peckham. Things would have to go on as they would, until--

Suddenly Janice heard voices in the kitchen-- Miss Peckham's high-pitched voice and another. Janice saw that her father was quiet and did not notice, so she got up from his side and stole to the kitchen door to listen.