Janice Day at Poketown Part 28

Janice faintly admitted that it did; but neither the boy nor Nelson Haley realized what a trial the trip had been to the girl. Janice was too proud to show the fear she felt; but she could scarcely stand when the _Fly-by-Night_ finally stopped with its nose to the sh.o.r.e, just beyond the steamboat dock.

Popham Landing was scarcely larger than Poketown; only there were canning factories here, and the terminus of the narrow-gauge railroad on which Janice had finished her rail journey from Greensboro the spring before. So it was a livelier place than the village in which the girl had been living for eight months.

Colonel Van Dyne, owner of one of the canning factories, had a fine home on the heights overlooking the lake. It was with the colonel's gardener and superintendent that Nelson Haley had an acquaintance, and through that acquaintances.h.i.+p had obtained the cut flowers from the colonel's greenhouse.

When the three had hurried up the half-cleared landing to the railroad station, Janice fairly staggering between her two companions, the office was closed and n.o.body was about the railroad premises. It was a holiday, and no more trains were expected at the Landing until night.

Janice all but broke down at this added bad turn of affairs. To come all this distance only to be balked!

"It's jest blamed _mean_!" sputtered Marty. "Telegraph shops ain't got no right to shut up--in the daytime, too."

"It's not a Western Union wire," explained Nelson. "The railroad only takes ordinary messages as a matter of convenience. But wait! That door's open and there's a fire in the waiting-room, you see. Just because this card says the agent and operator won't be here till five o'clock doesn't mean that he's gone out of town. Besides, I'll see my friend, Jim Watrous."

This was the gardener and general factotum at Colonel Van Dyne's. The Poketown school-teacher hurried away, and left Janice and Marty sitting together in the railroad station.

"He'll find some way--don't you fear, Janice," said the boy, with much more sympathy than he had ever shown before. Janice squeezed his hand and hid her own face. She could not forget how Marty had tried the evening before to hide the knowledge of her father's fate from her.

This was a much different Marty than the boy she had first met at the old Day house on her arrival at Poketown.

In half an hour Nelson Haley was back with the operator and agent. The gardener at Colonel Van Dyne's knew the man personally. The story in the newspaper, and an explanation of who Janice was, did the rest.

"There isn't any better day than Christmas, I reckon," said the telegraph operator, when he shook hands with the girl and she tried to thank him in advance for the trouble he was taking on her behalf, "to do a helpful deed. And I want to help you, Miss Day, if I can. Write your messages and I will put them through as rapidly as possible. I shall have plenty of time to go home for dinner between the sending of your telegrams, and the receiving of the answers. Now, don't worry at all about it."

"Oh, dear!" half sobbed the girl. "Everybody is _so_ good to me."

"Not a bit more than you deserve, I am sure," laughed the operator.

"Now, Miss, if you are ready, I am."

Janice knew just what she wished to say. If she had not written the messages she was anxious to send, she had already formulated them in her mind. It was but a few minutes' work to write both--one to Mr.

Buchanan at Juarez, and the other addressed to the man, John Makepiece, who claimed to have been a fellow-prisoner with Mr. Broxton Day.

When the messages were sent, all they could do was to wait. Janice had expected that she and Marty and Mr. Haley would have to camp in the waiting-room of the station during the long interval, and the girl was very sorry that, because of her, her friends would have to forego any holiday dinner.

While Janice was engaged, Nelson Haley had been off on an excursion of his own. He came tramping back into the station just as the operator closed his key and told Janice that there was nothing to do now but wait.

"And I'm afraid it will be an awfully tedious time for you, Marty,"

said the girl. "I'm sorry. Aunt 'Mira was going to have _such_ a nice dinner for you, too!"

"Huh! I guess I won't starve," growled the boy. "Mebbe we can find some sandwiches somewhere--and a cup of coffee. By jinks! flyin' down the lake like we did, _did_ make me sharp-set."

"If you're hungry, then, Marty," broke in Nelson Haley, "we'll all go to dinner. It's just about ready by now, I reckon."

"Aw! don't fool a feller," said Marty, ruefully.

The school-teacher laughed at him. "I'm not fooling," he said. "I was quite sure Miss Janice would be hungry enough to eat, too; so I found a kind woman who is willing to share her dinner with us. Come on! She and her daughter are all alone. The storm has kept their friends from coming to eat with them, so we're in luck."

The three had quite a delightful dinner at the Widow Maltby's. Nelson had told her and her daughter something about Janice's trouble, and the good creatures did everything they could to make it agreeable for the girl.

As for Marty, the "lay-out," as he expressed it, was all that heart could desire--a boy's heart, at least! There was turkey, with dressing, and cranberries, and the usual vegetables, with pie and cake galore, and a pocketful of nuts to top off with.

Janice was afraid that the dinner would cost Nelson a great deal of money, until she saw him fairly press upon the good widow a two-dollar bill for their entertainment!

"And I ain't right sure that I'd ought to take anything at all," the widow declared. "An' at sech a time, too! We'd never been able to eat all o' them vittles, Em and I, an' we're thankful to have somebody come along and help us. An' it sure has perked us up right smart."

Nelson had been very gay at the dinner, and had kept the widow and her daughter in good humor. But with Janice, as they walked back to the station (Marty had gone off on some matter of his own), the young man was very serious.

"I sincerely hope, Janice, that you will hear better news from your father or his friends on the border than the newspaper gave last night.

The trains are s...o...b..und, and no morning papers have reached the Landing yet, so n.o.body here knows more than we do about the matter.

Don't set your heart too strongly upon hearing better news--that's all."

"I do not need that warning," Janice told him, with a sigh. "But I felt as though I should quite go all to pieces if I had to sit still and just wait. I had to _do something_. I can't tell you how thankful I am to you for your trouble in bringing me down here."

"Trouble?" cried Nelson Haley. "You know it is a pleasure, Janice,"

and just then they reached the railroad station and found the operator at his telegraph key again.

"I was just going to hunt you up, Miss Day," he cried, beckoning her into the office. "Do you know, young lady, that you have suddenly become a person of considerable importance?" and he laughed again.

"_Me?_" cried Janice, in amazement.

"You are the tea party--yes, ma'am! You are an object of public interest. Two New York papers have sent to me for five-hundred word interviews with you----"

"My goodness me!" gasped Janice. "How dreadful! What does it mean?"

"Your father's case has been taken up by the big papers all over the country. It may be made a cause for American intervention. That is the talk. The newspapers are interested, and the truth about your father is likely to be known very quickly. All the special correspondents down there on the border have been set to work----Ah!

and here is something from your man at Juarez."

The telegrapher had caught the relay number of the despatch then coming over the wire, and knew that it was from Juarez. "h.e.l.lo!" he chuckled, when the sounder ceased. "Your man is certainly some brief--and to the point."

He scratched off a copy of the message and put it into Janice's eager hand. The girl read it out loud:

"J. M. always a story-teller. Have telegraphed consular agent at Cida for later particulars. I consider any news of B. D. good news.

"JAMES W. BUCHANAN."

"That Buchanan evidently knows the John Makepiece who is telling this yarn," observed the telegraph operator, "and he doesn't have much confidence in him."

"Oh, dear!" murmured the girl. "Maybe it's even worse than Makepiece reported."

"Hardly," broke in Nelson Haley, quickly. "He intimated that your father was surely dead. But this friend of yours at Juarez says any news at all is good news."

"Keep your heart up, Miss," urged the telegraph operator. "And do tell me a little something about yourself, so that I can satisfy these insistent newspapers."

"Oh, dear, me! I don't want to get into the newspapers," cried Janice, really disturbed by this possibility.

"But folks will be awfully interested in reading about you, Miss Day,"

urged the man; "and the newspapers are going to do more than anybody else for you and your father in this trouble. You may make sure of _that_."