Janice Day at Poketown Part 20

"If my digestion holds out, Miss Day," whispered the young man to Janice, "I'm going to do fine with Mrs. Beasely. Good old creature!

But she may kill me with kindness. I don't see how I am going to be able to do full justice to her three meals a day."

"I hope you will like it as well in school as you do at your boarding-place," ventured Janice, timidly.

"Oh, the school? That's going to be pie," laughed Haley. "You know about how it's been run, don't you?"

"I--I attended for more than a month last spring," admitted the girl.

"Then you know very well," said the young man, smiling broadly, "that it won't be half a trick to satisfy the committee. They don't expect much. 'Just let things run along easy-like'; that will please them.

If I can keep the boys straight and teach the youngsters a little, that will be about all the committee expects. Elder Concannon admitted that much to me. You see, the whole committee are opposed to what they term 'new-fangled notions.'"

"But there is some sentiment in town for an improvement in the school,"

declared Janice. "Don't you know that? Many people would like to see the children taught more, and the school more up-to-date."

"Oh, well," and Haley laughed and shrugged his shoulders. "The committee seem to be in power, and-- Well, Miss Day, you can be sure that I know which side my bread is b.u.t.tered on," he concluded, lightly.

Janice liked this bright, laughing young man very much. But she was sorry he had no more serious interest in his position than this conversation showed.

Then there suddenly came a time when Janice Day's own interest in Poketown and Poketown people--in everything and everybody about her--seriously waned. Daddy had not written for a fortnight. When the letter finally came it had been delayed, and was not postmarked as usual. Daddy only hinted at one of the belligerent armies being nearer to the mines, and that most of his men had deserted.

There was trouble--serious trouble, or Daddy would not have kept his daughter in suspense. Janice watched the mails, eagle-eyed. She wrote letter after letter herself, begging him to keep her informed,--begging him to come away from that hateful Mexico altogether.

"Broxton's no business to be 'way down there at all," growled Uncle Jason, who was worried, too, and hadn't the tact to keep his feelings secret from the girl. "Why, Walky Dexter tells me they are shootin'

white folks down there jest like we'd shoot squirrels in these parts."

"Oh, Jason!" gasped Aunt 'Mira. "It can't be as bad as that!"

"Wuss. They jest shot a rancher who was a Britisher, an', they say there'll be war about it. I dunno. Does look as though our Government ought ter do somethin' to protect Americans as well as Britishers.

But, hi tunket! Broxton hadn't ought ter gone down there--no, sir-ree!"

This sort of talk did not help Janice. She drooped about the house and often crept off by herself into the woods and fields and brooded over Daddy's peril. School had begun, and Marty went with several of the bigger boys that had hung around Pringle's harness shop and the Inn stables.

"That Nelse Haley is all right," the boy confided to his cousin.

"We're going to have two baseball teams next year. He says so. Then we kin have matched games. But now he's goin' to send for what he calls a 'pigskin' and he's a-goin' to teach us football. Guess you've heard of that, eh?"

"Oh, yes," said Janice. "It's a great game, Marty. But what about school? Is he teaching you anything?"

Marty grinned. "Enough, I guess. Things goin' along easy-like. He don't kill us with work, that's one thing. Old Elder Concannon's been up once and sat an' listened to the cla.s.ses. He seems satisfied."

Janice did not lose sight of Hopewell Drugg and little Lottie. The store was now doing a fairly good business; but the man admitted that the profits rolled up but slowly, and it would be a long time before he could take his little daughter to Boston.

These fall days Janice was frequently with Miss 'Rill. The little maiden lady seemed to understand better than most people just how Janice was troubled by her father's absence, his silence, and his peril. Besides, when old Mrs. Scattergood did not know, many were the times that 'Rill and Janice went to Hopewell Drugg's and "tidied up"

the cottage for him. 'Rill would not go without Janice, and they usually stole in by the side door without saying a word to the storekeeper. He was grateful for their aid, and little Lottie was benefited by their ministrations.

Then another letter came from Broxton Day. He admitted that the two armies were very near--one between him and communication with his friends over the Rio Grande--and that operations at the mine had completely ceased. Yet he felt it his duty to remain, even though the property was "between two fires," as it were.

Ere this Janice had sent off for an up-to-date map of northern Mexico and the Texan border. She and Marty and Mr. Day had pored over it evenings and had now marked the very spot in the hills where the mine was located. The girl subscribed for a New York newspaper, too, and that came in the evening mail. So they followed the movements of the Federal and the Const.i.tutionalist armies as closely as possible from the news reports, and Janice read about each battle with deeper and deeper anxiety.

Had her uncle and aunt been wise they would have interfered in this occupation, or at least, they would not have encouraged it. Janice lost her cheerfulness and her rosy cheeks. Aunt 'Mira declared she drooped "like a sick chicken."

"Ye mustn't pay so much 'tention to them papers," she complained. "I never did think much o' N'York daily papers, nohow. They don't have 'nuff stories in 'em."

But it was her own money Janice spent for the papers. Whenever Daddy had written he had usually enclosed in his envelope a bank note of small denomination for Janice. The bank in Greensboro sent the board money regularly to Uncle Jason (and Aunt 'Mira got it for her own personal use, as she declared she would), but Janice always had a little in her pocket.

Had she been well supplied with cash about this time the girl would have been tempted to run away and take the train for Mexico herself.

It did seem to her, when the weeks went by without a letter reaching her from her father, as though he must be wounded, and suffering, and needing her!

But she did not have sufficient money to pay her fare such a long distance.

Aunt 'Mira was a poor comforter. Yet she fortunately aided in giving Janice something else to think about just then. The girl had helped "spruce up" Aunt 'Mira long since, so that they could go to church together on Sundays. But now the good lady was in the throes of making herself a silk dress for best--a black silk. It was the thing she had longed for most, and now she could satisfy the craving for clothes that had so obsessed her.

Aunt 'Mira loved finery. Janice had to use her influence to the utmost to keep the good lady from committing the sin of getting this wonderful dress too "fancy." Left to herself, Mrs. Day would have loaded it with bead tr.i.m.m.i.n.g and cut-steel ornaments. At first she even wanted it cut "minaret" fas.h.i.+on, which would have, in the end, made the poor lady look a good deal like an overgrown ballet dancer!

Janice had been glad to go to church. Always, before coming to Poketown, the girl had held a vital interest in church and church work.

But here she found there was really nothing for the young people to do.

They had no society, and aside from the Sunday School, a very cut-and-dried session usually, there was no special interest for the young.

Mr. Middler, the pastor, was a mild-voiced, softly stepping man, evidently fearing to give offense. Although he had been in the pastorate for several years, he seemed to have very little influence in the community. Elder Concannon and several other older members controlled the church and its policies utterly; and they frowned on any innovation.

One Sabbath, old Elder Concannon--a grizzled, heavy-eyebrowed man, with a beak-like nose and flas.h.i.+ng black eyes--preached, and he thundered out the "Law" to his hearers as a man might use a goad on a refractory team of oxen. Mr. Middler was a faint echo of the old Elder on most occasions. He seemed afraid of taking his text from the New Testament.

It was Law, not Love, that was preached at the Poketown Union Church; and although the dissertations may have been satisfactory to the older members, they did not attract the young people to service, or feed them when they _did_ come!

Janice often wondered if the loud "Amens!" of Elder Concannon, down in the corner, were worth as much to poor little Mr. Middler as would have been a measure of vital interest shown in the church and its work by some of the young people of the community.

There was a Ladies Sewing Circle. There is always a Ladies Sewing Circle! But, somehow, the making up of barrels of cast-off clothing for unfortunate missionaries in the West, or up in Canada, or the sewing together of innumerable ill-cut garments, which must, of course, be "misfits" for the unknown infants for whom they were intended,--all this never could seem sufficient to "feed the spirit," to Janice Day's mind.

Once or twice she went with Aunt 'Mira (who was proud of her new clothes and would occasionally go about to show them, now) to the sewing society meeting. But there were few other young girls there, and the gossip was not seasoned to her taste.

One day came a letter from Daddy's friend and business a.s.sociate in Juarez. For three weeks Janice had not received a word from her father. The man in Juarez wrote:

"DEAR MISS JANICE:--

"Communication is quite shut off from the district in which your father's property lies. From such spies as have been able to get to me, I learn that a disastrous battle has been fought near the place and that the Const.i.tutionalists have swept everything before them. They have overrun that part of Chihuahua and, that being the case, foreigners are not likely to be well treated or their property conserved.

"I write this because I think it my duty to do so. You should be warned that the very worst that can happen must be expected. I have not heard directly from Mr. Day for a fortnight, and then but a brief message came. He was then well and free, but spoke of being probably obliged to desert his post, after all.

"Just what has become of him I cannot guess. I have put the matter in the hands of the consul here, the State Department has already been telegraphed, and an inquiry will be made. But Americans are disappearing most mysteriously every week in Mexico, and I cannot hold out any hope for Mr. Day. He may get word through to you by some other route than this; if so, will you wire me at once?

"Sincerely yours,

"JAMES W. BUCHANAN."

CHAPTER XV

NEW BEGINNINGS