TEA, AND A TALK WITH DADDY
As it chanced, it was old Mrs. Scattergood herself who broached the
forbidden topic, almost as soon as Miss 'Rill and Janice were in the
house.
"What do you suppose that great gump, Hopewell Drugg, let his young'un
do to-day, 'Rill? I was tellin' Miz' Beasely that it did seem to be
_one_ mistake that Providence must ha' made, ter let that Drugg an'
'Cinda Stone have a gal baby--'specially if 'Cinda was goin' ter up and
die like she done and leave the young'un to his care. Seems a shame,
too."
"Why, mother! That doesn't sound a bit reverent," objected Miss 'Rill,
softly. "Nor kind."
"Pshaw!" snorted the old lady. "You allus was silly as a goose about
that Drugg. Sech shiftlessness I never did see. There the young'un
was, out in a white dress an' white kid shoes this mornin'--her best,
Sunday-go-ter-meetin' clo'es, I'll be bound!--sittin' on the aidge o'
that gutter over there, makin' a mud dam! Lucky yesterday's rain has
run off now, or she'd be out there yet, paddlin' in the water."
"I don't s'pose Hopewell knew of it," said the younger woman, timidly.
"The poor little thing can dress herself, blind as she is. It's quite
wonderful how she gets about."
"She ain't got no business to be out of his sight," grumbled Mrs.
Scattergood.
Miss 'Rill sighed and shook her head, looking at Janice with a little
nod of understanding. She changed the subject of talk quickly. The
old lady began at once on Janice, "pumping" her as to her interests in
Poketown, how she liked her relatives, and all. Then Mrs. Beasely, a
very tall, angular figure in severe black, appeared at the sitting-room
door and invited them in to supper.
Mrs. Beasely was a famous cook and housekeeper. She was a very grim
lady, it seemed to Janice, and the enlarged crayon portrait of Mr.
Beasely, its frame draped with crape, which glared down upon the
groaning table in the dining-room, almost took the girl's appetite away.
Fortunately, however, the widow insisted upon facing the portrait of
her departed husband, and Janice was back to him, so she recovered her
appetite. And Mrs. Beasely's "tea", or "supper" as old-fashioned folks
called the meal, was worthy of a hearty appetite.
Among old-fashioned New England housekeepers a "skimpy"
table--especially when a visitor is present--is an unpardonable sin.
There was hot bread and cold bread, sour-milk griddle cakes, each of a
delicious golden brown with crisp edges, buttered, sugared, and stacked
in tempting piles; sliced cold ham and corned beef; a hot dish of
smoked beef and scrambled eggs; two kinds of jelly, and three kinds of
preserves; plain and frosted cake, and last of all the inevitable pie
and cheese.
With all this banquet Mrs. Beasely dared raise a moist eye to the grim
crayon of the departed, and observe:
"I don't know what poor Charles would say to such a smeachin' supper,
if he was alive. Oh, me! it does seem as though I didn't have no heart
for cookery no more since he ain't here ter sample my work. A man's a
gre't spur to a woman in her housekeepin'."
"Good Land o' Goshen!" ejaculated the outspoken Mrs. Scattergood. "I
count 'em a gre't nuisance. If a body didn't have no men folks to
'tend to she could live on bread an' tea--if she so liked.
"Not but what I 'preciate a good layout of vittles like this o' yourn,
Miz' Beasely. But thank the good Lord! I ain't been the slave to no
man's appetite for goin' on fourteen year. An' that's about all men
air, come ter think on it--a pair of muddy boots an' an unquenchable
appetite!"
Mrs. Beasely looked horrified, shaking her widow's cap. "Poor Charles
wasn't nothin' like that," she declared, softly.
"An' I don't s'pose a worse husband ever lived in Poketown," whispered
the pessimistic old lady, when the widow had gone out of the room for
something. "He's been dead ten year, ain't he, 'Rill?"
"About that, mother," admitted the schoolteacher.
"An' I expect ev'ry year she makes more of a saint of him. I declare
for't! sech wimmen oughter be made to marry ag'in. Nothin' but a
second one will cure 'em of their fust!"
Mainly Janice and her friend, the little schoolteacher, were engaged in
their own particular conversation. The girl spent a very pleasant hour
after tea, too, and started home just as dusk was dropping over the
hillside town.
There was a light in Hopewell Drugg's store. He never seemed to have
customers--or so it appeared to Janice. She hesitated a moment to peer
into the gloomy place--more a mausoleum than a store!--and saw Hopewell
leaning against the counter, while Lottie, in her pink sash and white
dress, and the kid boots, sat upon it and leaned against her father
while he scraped out some weird minor chords upon the fiddle.
Marty had come down the lane to the corner of High Street to meet
Janice. Of course, he wouldn't admit that he had done so; but he
happened to be right there when his cousin put in an appearance. There
were no street lights on Hillside Avenue, and Janice was glad of his
company.
"Huh! ain't yer gittin' pop'lar?" croaked the boy, grinning at her.
"An' goin' ter 'Rill Scattergood's ter supper. Ye must ha' had a fine
time--I don't think!"
"Of course I had a nice time," laughed Janice.
"With that old maid," scoffed Marty.
"Say, Marty, would you go to school again if they had a different
teacher?" queried Janice.
"'Course I would!" returned the boy, stoutly.
"Maybe next Fall they'll have another one. Miss Scattergood talks of
giving up teaching."
"I should think she would!" exploded Marty. "But she won't. You'll
see. She'll be teachin' Poketown school when she has ter go on
crutches."
The next day, after Janice had inveigled Marty into spending most of
his forenoon in the yard and garden (and the latter was beginning to
look quite like a real garden by now), the girl went shopping. Most of
the stores were "general" stores, and she did not believe there was
much choice between them. Only she had an interest in Hopewell Drugg;
so she proceeded to his dark little shop.
Lottie sat upon a box nursing a rag doll, in the sunlight that came in
at the side door. She was crooning to herself a weird little song, and
rocking back and forth upon the box. Mr. Drugg seemed to be out.
Janice walked the length of the store very quietly, and the child did
not apprehend her approach. But when she stepped upon one of the
boards of the back-room floor, little Lottie felt the vibration and
looked up, directly at Janice, with her pretty, sightless eyes.
"Papa Drugg be right back; Papa Drugg be right back," she said, forming
the phrase with evident difficulty.
Janice went close to her and laid a hand upon Lottie's shoulder. The
little girl caught at it quickly, ran her slim fingers up her arm to
her shoulder and so, jumping up from the box, felt of Janice's face,
too. The latter stooped and kissed her.
"I know you--I know you," murmured the child. "You came home from the
lake with me. I was trying to find my echo. Did _you_ find it?"
Janice squeezed her hand, and she seemed to understand the affirmative.
"Then it's really _there_?" she sighed. "It's only _me_ that's lost
it. Well--well--Do you think I can ever find it again?"
Janice squeezed the hand firmly, and she put into that affirmative all
the confidence which could possibly be thus expressed. She did not
believe it to be wrong to raise hope of again hearing in the poor
child's heart.
Mr. Drugg came in from the back, wiping his hands and forearms of soapy
water. He had evidently been engaged in some household task. Upon
closer acquaintance he was improved, so Janice thought. He possessed
the long, thin, New England features; but there was a certain calm in
their expression that was attractive. His gray eyes were brooding, and
there were many crow's-feet about them; nevertheless, they were kindly
eyes with a greater measure of intelligence in them than Janice had
expected to find.
It proved that Hopewell had a considerable stock upon his dusty
shelves; but how he managed to find anything that a customer called for
was a mystery to Janice. She selected the few notions that she needed;
and as she did so she just _ached_ to get hold of that stock of dry
goods and straighten it out.
And the dust--and the fly-specks--and the jumble of useless scraps
among the newer stock! The interior of that old store was certainly a
heart-breaking sight. Two side windows that might have given light and
air to the place were fairly banked up with merchandise. And when had
either of the show windows been properly "dressed"?
However, Mr. Drugg was an attentive salesman and he really knew his
stock very well. It mystified Janice to see how quickly he could find
the article wanted in that conglomeration.
She remained a while to play with Lottie. Drugg came to look fondly at
the little girl putting her rag-baby to sleep in a soap-box crib.
"She's just about ruined that dress and them shoes, I shouldn't
wonder," mused the storekeeper, "But I forgot to put out her everyday
clo'es where she could find them yesterday morning. There's so much to
do all the time. Well!" He drew the violin and bow toward him and
sighed. No other customer came into the store. Drugg tucked the
fiddle under his chin and began to scrape away.
Lottie jumped up and clapped her little hands when he struck a chord
that vibrated upon her nerves. There she stood, with her little,
upraised face flooded by the spring sunshine, which entered through the
side doorway, a gleam of pleasure passing over her features when she
felt the vibration of the minor notes. They were deeply engaged, those
two--the father with his playing, the child in striving to catch the
tones.
Janice gathered up her few small purchases and stole out of the old
store.
It was more than a week later when Marty came home to supper one night
and grinned broadly at his cousin.
"What d'ye s'pose I've got for you, Janice?" he asked.
His cousin flashed him a single comprehending look, and then her face
went white.
"Daddy!" she gasped. "A letter from Daddy?"
"Aw, shucks! ain't there nothin' else you want?" the boy returned,
teasingly.
"Not so much as a talk with Daddy," she declared, breathlessly. "And
that's almost what a letter will be. Dear Marty! If you've got a
letter from him do, do let me have it!"
"Don't you torment Janice now, Marty," cried his mother. "I hope he is
all right, Janice. Is it writ in his own hand, Marty?"
"I dunno," said the plaguesome boy, looking at the address covertly.
"It is postmarked 'Juarez'."
"Oh, yes! oh, yes!" cried Janice. "He would send it down there to be
mailed. So he said. Mail service up in Chihuahua is so uncertain.
Oh, Marty! p-l-e-a-s-e!"
"You give her that, Marty!" commanded Mr. Day.
Janice snatched the letter when the boy held it out to her; but she
flashed Marty a "Thanks, awfully!" as she ran out of the room and
upstairs. Supper? What did she care for supper? In the red light of
the sunset she sat by the window in her room and read Mr. Broxton Day's
loving letter.
It _was_ almost like seeing and talking with Daddy! Those firm,
flowing lines of black ink, displaying character and firmness and
decision, looked just like Daddy himself! Janice kissed the open page
ecstatically, and then began to read:
"DEAR DAUGHTER:
"The several thousand miles that separate us seem very short indeed
when I sit down to write my little Janice. I can see her standing
right before me in this barren, corrugated-iron shack--which would have
been burned the last time a bunch of the Constitutionalists swept
through these hills, only iron will not burn. If a party of Federal
troops come along they may try to destroy our plant, too. Just at the
present time the foreigner, and his property, are in no great favor
with either party of belligerents. The cry is 'Mexico for the
Mexicans'--and one can scarcely blame them. But although I have seen a
little fighting at a distance, and plenty of the marks of battle along
the railroad line as I came up here, I do not think I am as yet in any
great danger.
"Therefore, my dear, do not worry too much about your father's
situation. At the very moment you are worrying he may be eating
supper, or hob-nobbing with a party of very courteous and hospitable
ranch owners, or fishing in a neighboring brook where the trout are as
hungry as shoats at feeding time, or otherwise enjoying himself.
"And so, now, to you and your letter which reached me by one of my
messengers from Juarez, by whom I shall send this reply. Yes, I knew
you would find yourself among a people as strange to you as though they
were inhabitants of another planet. Relatives though they are, they
are so much different from our friends in and about Greensboro, that I
can understand their being a perfect shock to you.
"I was afraid Jason and Almira lived a sort of shiftless, hopeless,
get-along-the-best-way-you-can life. When I left Poketown twenty-five
years ago I thought it had creeping paralysis! It must be worse by
this time.
"But you keep alive, Janice, my dear. Keep kicking--like the frog in
the milk-can. _Do something_. Don't let the poison of laziness
develop in your blood. If they're in a slack way there at Jason's,
help 'em out of it. Be your Daddy's own girl. Don't shirk a plain
duty. _Do something yourself, and make others do something, too!_"
There was much in Mr. Broxton Day's letter beside this; there were
intimate little things that Janice would have shown to nobody; but
downstairs she read aloud all Daddy's jolly little comments upon the
country and the people he saw; and about his eating beans so frequently
that he dreamed he had turned into a gigantic Boston bean-pot that was
always full of steaming baked beans. "They are called 'frijoles'," he
wrote; "but a bean by any other name is just the same!"
The paragraphs that impressed Janice most, however, as repeated above,
she likewise kept to herself. Daddy had expected she would find
Poketown just what it was. Yet he expected something of her--something
that should make a change in her relatives, and in Poketown itself.
He expected Janice to _do something_.