JANICE DAY'S FIRST LOVE LETTER
In a week, although little Lottie's head was still bandaged, she was
driven over to Middletown with Miss 'Rill, Walky Dexter being the
driver, of course, and took a train for Boston.
Before the day of departure Janice Day had a good deal to contend with.
It _did_ seem too bad that one could not spend one's own money without
everybody trying to talk one out of it!
Not every one, however! Nelson Haley never said a word to discourage
the girl's generosity. But, beginning with Hopewell Drugg himself,
almost everybody else had something to say against it.
"I can never in this world pay you back, Miss Janice," said the
storekeeper, faintly, after the girl had told him her plans fully.
"Who wants you to? I am giving it to Lottie," Janice declared. "Would
you refuse to let her take it from me, when it means a new life to
Lottie? You can't be so cruel!"
"Had you _ought_ to do it, dear Janice?" asked Miss 'Rill, herself.
"It seems too much for one person to do----"
"You're going to pay your own expenses, aren't you?" demanded Janice.
"Why should you do _that_? Just because you love Lottie, isn't it?"
"Ye-es," admitted the other, but with a little blush.
"Well, let _me_ show some love for her, too."
"Good Land o' Goshen!" cried old Mrs. Scattergood. "Somebody ought to
take and shake you, Janice Day! I don't see what your folks can be
thinking of. All that money just thrown away--for like enough the man
can't help the poor little thing at all. It is wicked!"
"We sha'n't pay for the operation if it is not successful. That is the
agreement Dr. Sharpless always makes," said Janice, firmly. "But, oh!
I hope he _is_ successful, and that the money will do him a lot of
good."
"I declare for't! you are the strangest child!" muttered Mrs.
Scattergood. "I thought you was one o' these new-fashioned gals when I
first seen ye--all for excitement, and fashions, and things like that.
I've been wonderfully mistaken in you, Janice Day."
Oddly enough the old lady made small objection to her daughter's going
to Boston with the child. "Anyhow," she grumbled to Janice, "she won't
be runnin' into Hopewell's all the time if she ain't here."
"There will be no need of _that_, mother, if little Lottie is away,"
Miss 'Rill said, gently.
At home----Ah! that is where Janice had the greatest opposition to meet.
"I declare to goodness!" snarled Marty Day. "If you ain't the very
craziest girl there ever was, Janice! Givin' all that good money away!
And goin' without that buzz-wagon you've been talking about so long!"
"Well, I've only been _talking_ about it, Marty," laughed Janice. "I
couldn't really believe it was coming true----"
"And it ain't come true, it seems," snapped her cousin.
"No-o. Not exactly. But I had the surprise of getting Daddy's check,
and it was just _dear_ of him to send me such a lot of money."
"What do you suppose Broxton will say, girl, when he learns how you've
frittered that thousand dollars away?" demanded Uncle Jason, sternly.
"He'll never say a word--in objection," she cried. "You can read right
here in his letter how I am to use the money in just any way I
please--and no questions asked!"
"But you've talked so much about your automobile, deary," said Aunt
'Mira, faintly. "Ain't you most disappointed to death, child?"
"Oh, no, Aunty," returned Janice, cheerfully. "You know, I could be
just awfully selfish, _in my mind_! But when it came to running about
the country in an automobile, with poor Lottie blind and helpless
because of my selfishness----No, no! I could not have done it."
"I don't suppose you could, child," sighed the large lady, shaking her
head. "But whatever am I goin' to do with that auto coat and them
veils I bought? They don't seem jest the thing to wear out, jogging
behind old Sam and Lightfoot."
However, Mr. Day had a chance to trade the two old farm horses off that
spring for a handsome pair of sorrels. They were good work horses as
well as drivers. An old double-seated buckboard which had been under
one of the Day sheds for a decade, was hauled out and repaired, painted
and varnished, new cushions made, and on occasion the family went to
drive about the country.
"For it does seem," Mrs. Day, with wondering satisfaction, more than
once declared, "it does seem as though your Pa, Marty, has a whole lot
more time to gad abeout now than he use ter--yet we're gettin' along
better. I don't understand it."
"Huh!" grunted Marty. "See all the work _I_ do. Don't ye s'pose that
counts none?"
Janice merely smiled quietly as she heard this conversation. Uncle
Jason was up and out to work now by daybreak, like other farmers. He
smoked his after-dinner pipe by the back door; but it was only one
pipe. He often declared that "his wimmen folk" made such a bustle
inside the kitchen after dinner that he couldn't even think. He just
_had_ to go back to work "to get shet of 'em."
The bacilli of _work_ had taken hold of the Day family. Uncle Jason
had begun to take pride in his fields and in his crops. Nobody in all
Poketown, or thereabout, had such a garden as the Days this spring.
Janice and Mrs. Day attended to it after it was planted. Mr. Day had
bought a man-weight hoe and seeding machine, and the garden mould was
so fine and free from filth that the "women folks" could use the
machine with ease.
Yes, the Jason Days were more prosperous than ever before. And all
their prosperity did not arise from that twenty dollars a month that
came regularly for Janice's board.
"Sometimes I feel downright ashamed to take that money, Jason," Aunt
'Mira admitted to her spouse. "Janice is sech a help to me. She is
jest like a darter. I shall hate to ever haf ter give her up. And
some day soon, now, Broxton will be comin' home."
"Wal, don't ye worry. If Broxton is makin' money like he says he
is--so's he kin give that gal a thousand dollars to throw to the
birdies like she's done--why should we worry? I ain't sayin' but what
she's been a lot of help to us."
"In more ways than one," whispered his wife.
"Right, by jinks!" admitted the farmer.
"Look what this old place looked like when she come!"
"She sartainly has stirred us all up."
"An' look at Marty!"
"I got to give her credit," admitted Mr. Day. "She's made a man of
Marty. Done more for him than the school done."
"But it was her started him to goin' to school ag'in."
"So I tell ye," agreed Mr. Day again. "Janice is at the bottom of
ev'rything good that's happened in Poketown for two years. I dunno as
people realize it; but I'm proud of her!"
"Then, I tell you what, Jason. I'm going to save the board money for
her," declared Aunt 'Mira, with a little catch in her breath. "You
won't mind? Marty'll have the place an' all you kin save, when we are
gone; but that dear little thing----Givin' her money to that blind
child, and all----"
Mrs. Day broke down and "sniveled." At least, that is what her husband
would have called it under some circumstances, and crying did not
beautify Mrs. Day's fat face. But for some reason the old man came
close to her and put his arms about her bulbous shoulders.
"There, there, 'Mira! don't you cry about it. You sartainly have got a
good heart. An' I won't say nothin' agin' your savin' for the gal.
Mebbe she'll need your savin's, too. Broxton Day is too free-handed,
and he'll have his ups and downs again, p'r'aps. Anyhow, whatever you
say is right, is right, 'Mira," and he kissed her suddenly in a
shamedfaced sort of way, and then hurried out.
The good woman sat there in her kitchen, with shining eyes, blushing
like a girl. She touched tenderly her wet cheek where her husband had
laid his lips.
"He--he wouldn't ha' done that two year ago, I don't believe!" she
murmured.
She picked up the ever-present story paper; but her mind was not
attuned to imaginary romance that morning. And there were the
breakfast dishes waiting----
She went about her work briskly, and singing. Somehow it seemed as
though _real_ romance had come into the old Day house, and into Aunt
'Mira's life!
The weeks rolled on toward summer. A fortnight after little Lottie and
Miss 'Rill had gone to Boston a letter came from the specialist to
Hopewell Drugg. The operation on the child's eyes had been performed
almost as soon as she had arrived at the sanitarium; now he could
announce that it was successful. Lottie could see and, barring some
accident, would be a bright-eyed girl and woman.
Already, the doctor urged, she was fit to go into the school for the
deaf and dumb in which such wonderful miracles were achieved for the
afflicted. The good surgeon, learning from Miss 'Rill the
circumstances of the child's being brought to him, had subscribed two
hundred dollars toward Lottie's tuition and board in the school for the
deaf and dumb.
It was joyful news for both Hopewell and Janice. That evening the
storekeeper got out his violin and played his old tunes over and
over--especially "Silver Threads Among the Gold."
"But it sounds more like a hymn of praise tonight," Nelson Haley
whispered in Janice's ear, as they sat on the front porch of the little
shop and listened to the violin.
A week later the little spinster came home. Her visit in Boston seemed
to have done her a world of good. She brought a great trunk packed
full of things to wear, or goods to be made up into pretty dresses and
the like.
"I declare for't!" ejaculated her mother. "Looks like you had been
buyin' your trossoo--an' old maid like you, too!"
But Miss 'Rill was unruffled, and parried her mother's suspicion.
When the lake boat, the _Constance Colfax_, began to run on her summer
schedule after Decoration Day, many more summer tourists than usual got
off the boat at Poketown to look about. The dock was so neat, and the
surroundings of the landing so attractive, that these visitors were led
to go further up into the town.
There was the pleasant, rambling, old Lake View Inn, freshened with
paint that spring, and with a green grass plot before it, and wide,
screened verandas.
"Why, it's only its name that is against it!" cried the wondering
tourists. "It's not _poky_ at all."
These remarks, repeated as they were, made the merchants of the village
stop and think. Ere this a board of trade had been formed, and the
welfare of the town was eagerly discussed at the meetings of the board.
Mr. Massey, the druggist, who was active, of course, got another idea
from Janice.
He began to delve into the past history of Poketown. He learned how
and when it had been settled--and by whom. People had mostly forgotten
(if they ever had known) the true history of the town.
A pioneer named Cyrus Polk had first built his cabin on the heights
overlooking this little bay. He had been the first smith in this
region, too, and gradually around "Polk's Smithy" had been reared the
nucleus of the present town.
Through the years the silent "l" in the original settler's name had
been lost entirely. But the post office agreed to put it back into the
name, and a big signboard was painted and set up at the dock.
"POLKTOWN."
"It sartain sure looks a hull lot diff'rent, even if ye _do_ pernounce
it the same," admitted Walky Dexter.
So much was happening these balmy June days! The school year--the
first in the new schoolhouse--was going to end in a blaze of glory for
Nelson Haley, Janice was sure. Elder Concannon had promised in writing
to give his lot upon High Street for the site of a library building,
whenever the association should have subscribed twelve hundred dollars
toward the building itself.
Then came the first love letter that Janice Day had ever received!
Such a letter was it that she treasures it yet and will always do so.
It was one that she could proudly show to anybody she chose, without
betraying that intimacy that the ordinary love letter is supposed to
contain.
News had come regularly to Hopewell Drugg from the teachers at the
school where little Lottie had taken up her abode. Because the child
was naturally so bright, and because of the fact that before she lost
her eyesight she had learned the alphabet and some primary studies, and
had not forgotten it all, Lottie was making marvelous progress the
teachers declared.
A much-bethumbed envelope, addressed in crooked "printed" characters to
"Mis Janis Day, Pokton," enclosed in a teacher's letter to the
storekeeper, was the cover of Janice's love letter. Inside, the child
said:
"Dear Janis, jus' to think, I can see reel good, and my techur what I
luv says maybe I will heer reel good bymeby.
"Deer Janis, I no I cante spel good yet, and my ritin aint strate on
the paper. But I want you shud be the firs to get leter from me I luv
yu so.
"Deer Janis, you got me the muney for the docker. And he was soo good
himself, he never hardly hurt me a tall.
"Deer Janis, I luv yu mos of all, cos if yu hadn ben yu I wudn never
seen no moar. An it was so dark all times. Thats wy I feld down
cellar. An now I am goin to heer they say.
"Deer Janis, see if my echo is thar. Yu no my echo--that is the way
techur says to spell it. If my echo is waitn tell it I am comin' to
heer it again. And I luv you lots and lots, deer Janis. I will show
you how much when I com home to father and Pokton. no moar at prasens,
from your little Lottie."
Janice read the pitiful little scrawl through the first time on the
store porch. Then, tear-blinded, she started down the hill toward the
old wharf at the inlet where she had first seen Hopewell Drugg's
unfortunate child.
She was halfway down the hill before she heard a quick step behind her
and knew, without turning, that it was Nelson Haley.