Jane Lends A Hand Part 2

This simple observation, which had not yet occurred to anyone, called forth looks of surprise.

"That is quite true!" exclaimed Mr. Lambert.

"But of course!" cried his wife.

"I see the beneficent hand of Providence in this," said Mr. Lambert, who was fond of thinking that Heaven had his domestic affairs very much in mind. "Yes, we must prepare to welcome our nephew. I hope, my dear, that he will not prove difficult to manage. I hope that he is not lacking in a grateful heart."

"Poor child. No father or mother, and so young," murmured Mrs. Lambert, her eyes again filling with tears. "And I never even knew that Franz had a child. I had forgotten even that he had married."

"Yon can put a cot in Carl's room," suggested Mr. Lambert; "I presume that the boy will arrive in a day or two. And now, children, it is a quarter past seven."

Everyone rose from the table, and the day's routine began again in its accustomed groove. Mr. Lambert departed for the warehouse. Elise helped the fat young servant girl to clear away the dishes; Carl went out to bring in wood for the stove; even the twins had their household tasks which had to be finished before they started to school at eight o'clock.

But Jane went off to find her Grandmother. Behind the counter, in the bakeshop, the old woman was sitting, weeping quietly; and the slow tears of age were trickling down her wrinkled, brown face, while she strained her eyes to read the crooked awkward lines of her son's letter.

"He was a good boy," she said, taking Jane's little hand in her gnarled old one. "I understood him, never fear. He was a brave, fine boy-and he always loved his old mother. I know that. Didn't he send me this pretty shawl-"

"But Granny, darling, he may get well. Don't cry, Granny. Don't you cry." She kissed the old woman, and patted her, feeling awed and oppressed by this aged sorrow that she could not share.

After a minute, she quietly left Grandmother Winkler, and in an unusually silent, and subdued mood, went away to help the twins.

CHAPTER II-BUSYBODY JANE

At half past eight, Elise had seen that the two little girls had their books and their packages of sandwiches, and started them off to school, Carl and Jane marching behind.

"Oh, and Janey!" she called, hastening back to the doorway. "Will you remember to give those patterns back to Lily Deacon for me. I'm going to be _so_ busy. Any time this afternoon will do. I put them in your school bag."

"All right," said Jane, and Elise, always busy, always placid and gentle, went back to her work.

"Well, what do _you_ think about it?" Jane asked, presently. She had quite forgotten her recent friction with Carl, for quick tempered as she was, she rarely remembered a quarrel ten minutes after it occurred.

"Think about what?" said Carl, gruffly.

"About Paul's coming, of course. It's awfully sad about Uncle Franz-but it _is_ sort of exciting having a new cousin to stay with us, I think."

"You wouldn't think it so awfully exciting if _you_ had to share your room with someone you never saw in your life," returned Carl, sulkily.

"I don't see why one of the store-rooms couldn't be cleared out for him.

All I know is that I won't stand for it a second if he tries to sling my things around, or scatter his all over the place."

Carl was never very enthusiastic about sharing anything with anyone (though in this instance one might sympathize with his annoyance) and his fussy love of neatness reached a degree that one would far sooner expect to find in a crabbed old maid than in a boy of sixteen years.

Jane did not reply to this indignant objection.

"What do you think he'll be like?" she asked next, scuffling through the piles of ruddy brown leaves that lay thick on the uneven brick walk.

"I think he'll be a big, roistering bully. That's what I think,"

answered Carl savagely; his lips set in a stubborn line, and the lenses of his spectacles glinted so angrily, that Jane decided to drop the subject.

For several minutes they walked along in silence: the twins marching ahead, chattering like little magpies, their yellow pigtails bobbing under their round brown felt hats. Each clutched her spelling book and reader, and her package of sandwiches and cookies; each wore a bright blue dress, a bright red sweater, and a snow white pinafore.

It was fully a mile to the school, but as a rule the brisk young Lamberts walked it in twenty minutes. This morning, however, Jane dawdled shamelessly.

"I don't feel like school to-day a bit," she remarked, looking up through the trees.

"You never do," returned Carl, dryly, "but you've got to go all the same. I bet you don't play hookey again in a hurry."

"H'm?" said Jane, "why not?"

"Why not?" the first really mirthful grin that Carl had shown that day spread slowly over his serious features. "Didn't you catch it hot enough last time? You're such an idiot anyway. If you'd only do your work conscientiously you wouldn't mind school. I'd hate it too if I were as big a dunce as you."

"Oh,-you would, would you, Goody-goody?" retorted Jane with spirit. "I'm not a dunce. I'm the brightest girl in my cla.s.s."

"Whoo-ee!" whooped Carl, staggered by this cool conceit. "Well! If you haven't got cheek!"

"'Tisn't cheek," said Jane, calmly, "I am. I heard Dr. Andrews say so to Miss Trowbridge."

"Well-he must have been talking through his hat, then," observed Carl.

"He was _probably_ talking about someone else."

"No, he wasn't. They were standing outside the school-room door, at lunch-hour, and I was in there, and I heard Dr. Andrews say, 'That little Jane Lambert has brains. She's one of the brightest children-'"

"That's the trouble with you!" broke in Carl, thoroughly exasperated.

"You've got such a swell-head that you won't work at all. And I don't see how anyone could say that you were clever when you get about one problem right out of a dozen."

"I don't see how either," said Jane placidly; "but he did. Oh, look-Miss Clementina has got a new canary!"

There was no event that occurred in Frederickstown which did not excite Jane's interest. She stopped to peer into the front window of a small brick house, where amid a perfect jungle of banana plants and ferns, a brightly gilded cage hung between two much befrilled net curtains.

"Poor old lady, I'm glad she got her bird. He has a black spot on his head just like her old one. I daresay her cat will eat him too. I wonder what she has named him. Her old one was named William." Jane giggled.

"What an idiotic name for a bird!" said Carl. Like his father, he was never amused by anything that seemed to him fantastic. "You'd better hurry up and stop peeking into everyone's window. Come on."

Jane reluctantly obeyed.

"William is a queer name for a bird," she agreed amicably, "but it's no queerer than calling her cat Alfred, and that awful little monkey of hers, Howard. She told me that she named her pets for all her old sweethearts."

"Her old sweethearts!" echoed Carl derisively.

"Yes. She said that she had dozens. And you know what? I believe it's true. Anyhow, she has lots of pictures of beautiful gentlemen, with black moustaches and curly side-whiskers. I've seen the whole collection. She said she never could bear fair men."

"Humph!" said Carl.

"She said that she was dreadfully heartless when she was a girl. An awful flirt. Professor Dodge still calls on her every Sunday afternoon-all dressed up with a flower in his b.u.t.ton-hole, and kid gloves, and a little bouquet wrapped up in wet paper. And she plays the piano for him, and sings 'Alice Ben Bolt' and 'The Mocking Bird' and 'Coming Thro' the Rye.'"