Janice Day at Poketown Part 14

Janice gave him a quarter of a dollar secretly. "Now, you get that pump leather and you bring it home this noon. Just put it on the table by your father's plate," she commanded. "You going to do it for me?"

"Sure," grinned Marty. "And I'll see that he don't lose it, nuther. I know Dad. He'll need more than _that_ suggestion to git him started on that old pump."

"We'll try," sighed Janice; and then Marty ran on ahead of her to overtake one of his boy friends. He would have been ashamed to be caught walking with his girl cousin by daylight, and on the public streets of Poketown!

After school that day, when Janice arrived again at the old Day house, the first thing she heard was her aunt's complaining voice begging Marty to go down to d.i.c.kerson's for a bucket of water.

"What's the matter with Dad?" demanded the boy. "Didn't I bring him that pump leather? Huh!"

"Mebbe your father will git around to fixin' the pump staff, and he kin make that in ten minutes. I believe he's got a stick for't out in the workshop now, he won't be driv'."

"Janice wasted her good money, then," said Marty, with fine disgust.

"All else it needs is a pump staff, and he kin make that in ten minutes. I believe he's got a stick for't out in the workshop--had it there for months."

"Now, you git erlong with that pail, Marty," commanded his mother, "and don't stand there a-criticisin' of your elders."

Janice hid behind the great lilac bush until Marty had gone grumblingly down the hill. Then she heard some loud language from the barnyard and knew that her uncle had come in from the fields. After a little hesitation she made straight for the barn.

"Uncle Jason! won't you please mend the pump? Mr. Pringle has cut you a good-pump leather."

"Goodness me, Janice! I'm druv to death. All this young corn to cultivate, an' not a soul to help me. Other boys like Marty air some good; but I can't trust him in the field with a hoss."

"But you don't work in the field all day long, Uncle," pleaded Janice.

"Seems to me I don't have a minute to call my own," declared the farmer. To hear him talk one would think he was the busiest man in Poketown!

"I expect you are pretty busy," agreed the girl, nodding; "but I can tell you how to find time to mend that pump."

"How's that?" he asked, curiously.

"Get up when I do. We can mend it before the others come down. Will you do it to-morrow morning, Uncle?"

"Wa-al! I dunno----"

"Say you will, Uncle Jason!" cried Janice. "We'll surprise 'em--Aunty and Marty. They needn't never know till it's done."

"I got ter find a new pump shaft----"

"Marty says you've got one put away in the workshop."

"Why--er--so I have, come to think on't."

"Then it won't take long. Let's do it, Uncle--that's a dear!"

The man looked around dumbly; he hunted in his rather slow mind for some excuse--some reason for withdrawing from the venture that Janice proposed.

"I--I dunno as I would wake up----"

"I'll wake you. I'll come to your door and scratch on the panel like a mouse gnawing. Aunt 'Mira will never hear."

"No. She sleeps like the dead," admitted Uncle Jason. "Only the dead don't snore."

"Will you do it?"

"Oh, well! I'll see how I feel in the morning," half promised Uncle Jason, and with this Janice had to be content. She did not, however, lose heart. She was determined to stir the sluggish waters in and about the old Day house, if such a thing could be done!

Uncle Jason was rather sombre that evening, and even Marty did not feel equal to stirring the quiet waters of the family pool. Janice stole away early to bed. Aunt Almira was always the last person in the household to retire. Long after the rest of them were asleep she remained swinging in her creaky rocker, close to the lamp, her eyes glued to one of the cheap story papers upon which her romance-loving soul had fed for years.

There was not a cloud at dawn. When Janice rubbed her eyes and looked out of her wide open window the sun was almost ready to pop above the hills. The birds were twittering--tuning up, as it were, for their opening chorus of the day.

This was the day on which Janice determined the Day family should turn over a new leaf!

She doused her face with cool water from her pitcher, and then scrambled into her clothes and tidied her hair. She tiptoed to the door of the bedchamber occupied by her uncle and aunt. At her first tap on the panel Uncle Jason grunted.

"Well! I hear ye," he said, in no joyful tone.

Janice really giggled, as she listened outside of the door. She was determined to have Uncle Jason up, and she waited, still scratching on the door panel until she heard him give an angry grunt, and then land with both feet on the straw matting. Then she scurried back to her own room and quickly finished dressing.

She was downstairs ahead of him, and quickly opened the doors and windows to the damp, sweet morning air. The cleaning up she and Marty had given the yard had made the premises really pleasant to look at.

Flowers were springing along the borders of the path, and vines were creeping up the string trellis by the back door. The apple trees were covering the lawn with their last late shower of flower petals.

How the birds rioted in the tops of the trees! Singing, scolding, mating, they were really the jolliest chorus one ever listened to. The girl ran out into the yard and fairly danced up and down, she felt so _good_! Much of her homesickness had fled since she had received Daddy's letter.

She heard Uncle Jason heavily descending the stairs, his shoes in his hand. Janice broke off a great branch of lilacs, shook off the dew, and buried her face in the fragrant blossoms. Then, when Uncle Jason came yawning into the kitchen, closing the stair door behind him, she rushed in, with beaming face, bade him "Good-morning!" and put the lilac branch directly under his nose.

"Just smell 'em, Uncle! Smell 'em deep--before you say a word," she commanded.

He had come down with a full-grown grouch upon him--that was plainly to be seen. But when he had taken in a great draught of the sweet odor of the flowers, and found his niece with her lips puckered, and standing on tiptoe to kiss him on his unshaven cheek, he somehow forgot the grouch.

"Them's mighty purty! mighty purty!" he agreed, and while he pulled on his congress gaiters, Janice arranged the blossoms in a jar of water and set them in the middle of the breakfast table. Aunt 'Mira kept the table set all the time. The red and white tablecloth was renewed only once a week, and the jar of flowers served to hide the unsightly spot where Marty had spilled the gravy the day before.

"Come on and let's see what the matter is with the pump," urged Janice, in fear lest he should get away from her, for already Mr. Day's fingers were searching along the ledge above the door for his pipe.

"Wa-al--ya-as--we might as well, I s'pose. I'll make 'Mira's fire later. It's 'tarnal early, child."

"Sun's up," declared Janice. "Hurry, Uncle!"

He shuffled off to get his tools and the piece of oak he had laid aside for a pump staff so long ago. Janice tried to untie the pump handle, and, not succeeding, ran in for the carving knife and managed to saw the rope in two.

"I got ter take off a piece of tin in the roof of the porch--see it up yonder? Then I kin pull out the broken staff and put in a new one,"

said her uncle, coming back rather promptly for him. "These here wooden pumps is a nuisance; but the wimmen folks all like 'em 'cause they're easier to _pump_. Now! I bet that ladder won't hold my weight."

He searched the old, rough, homemade ladder out of the weeds by the boundary fence. It was built of two pieces of fence rail with rungs of laths,--a rough and unsightly affair; and two or three of the rungs _were_ cracked.

"It'll hold _me_," cried Janice. "You let me try, Uncle Jason. Let me have the screwdriver. I can lift the tacks and pull off the tin. You see."

She mounted the ladder in a hurry and crept upon the roof of the porch.

Uncle Jason started the nut at the handle, and soon removed that so that the staff could be pulled out. The sheet of tin had covered a hole in the s.h.i.+ngles right above the pump. In a minute the cracked staff, with the worn leather valve, was out of the pump entirely, and Uncle Jason carried it out to the workshop where he could labor upon it with greater ease. Janice slid down the ladder, found the little three-fingered weeder, and went to work upon the rich mould around the roots of the vines--the sweet peas and morning glories that would soon be blooming in abundance.