THE TENTACLES OF THE MONSTER
The sweet south wind blew that night and helped warm to life the
Winter-chilled breast of Mother Earth. Her pulses leaped, rejuvenated;
the mellowing soil responded; bud and leaf put forth their effort to
reach the sun and air.
At Janice Day's casement the odors of the freshly-turned earth and of
the growing things whispered of the newly begun season. The ruins of
the ancient fortress across the lake to the north still frowned in the
mists of night when Janice left her bed and peered from the open
window, looking westward.
Behind the mountain-top which towered over Polktown it was already
broad day; but the sun would not appear, to gild the frowning fortress,
or to touch the waters of the lake with its magic wand, for yet several
minutes.
As the first red rays of the sun graced the rugged prospect across the
lake, Janice went through the barnyard and climbed the uphill pasture
lane. She was bound for the great "Overlook" rock in the
second-growth, from which spot she never tired of looking out upon the
landscape--and upon life itself.
Janice Day took many of her problems to the Overlook. There, alone
with the wild things of the wood, with nothing but the prospect to
tempt her thoughts, she was wont to decide those momentous questions
that come into every young girl's life.
As she sped up the path past the sheep sheds on this morning, her feet
were suddenly stayed by a most unexpected incident. Janice usually had
the hillside to herself at this hour; but now she saw a dark figure
huddled under the shelter, the open side of which faced her.
"A bear!" thought Janice. Yet there had not been such a creature seen
in the vicinity of Polktown for years, she knew.
She hesitated. The "bear" rolled over, stretched himself, and yawned a
most prodigious yawn.
"Goodness, mercy, me!" murmured Janice Day. "It's a man!"
But it was not. It was a boy. Janice popped down behind a boulder and
watched, for at first she had no idea who he could be. Certainly he
must have been up here in the sheepfold all night; and a person who
would spend a night in the open, on the raw hillside at this time of
year, must have something the matter with him, to be sure.
"Why--why, that's Jack Besmith! He worked for Mr. Massey all Winter.
What is he doing here?" murmured Janice.
She did not rise and expose herself to the fellow's gaze. For one
thing, the ex-drug clerk looked very rough in both dress and person.
His uncombed hair was littered with straw and bits of corn-blades from
the fodder on which he had lain. His clothing was stained. He wore no
linen and the shoes on his feet were broken.
Never in her life had Janice Day seen a more desperate looking young
fellow and she was actually afraid of him. Yet she knew he came of a
respectable family, and that he had a decent lodging in town. What
business had he up here at her uncle's sheepfold?
Janice continued her walk no farther. She remained in hiding until she
saw Jack Besmith stumble out of the sheep pasture and down the hill
behind the Day stables--taking a retired route toward the village.
Coming down into the barnyard once more, Janice met Marty with a
foaming milk pail.
"Hullo, early bird!" he sang out. "Did you catch the worm this
morning?"
Janice shuddered a trifle. "I believe I did, Marty," she confessed.
"At least, I saw some such crawling thing."
"Hi tunket! Not a snake so early in the year?"
"I don't know," and his cousin smiled, yet with gravity.
"Huh?" queried the boy, with curiosity, for he saw that something
unusual had occurred.
Janice gravely told him whom she had seen in the sheepfold. "And,
Marty, I believe he must have been up there all night--sleeping
outdoors such weather as this. What for, do you suppose?"
Marty professed inability to explain; but after he had taken the milk
in to his mother, he slipped away and ran up to the sheep pasture
himself.
"I say, Janice," he said, grinning, when he came back. "I can solve
the mystery, I can."
"What mystery?" asked his cousin, who was flushed now with helping her
aunt get breakfast.
"The mystery of the 'early worm' that you saw this mornin'." He
brought his hand from behind him and displayed an empty, amber-colored
flask on which was a gaudy label announcing its contents to have been
whiskey and sold by "_L. Parraday, Polktown._"
"Oh, dear! Is _that_ the trouble with the Besmith boy?" murmured
Janice.
"That's how he came to lose his job with Massey."
"Poor fellow! He looked dreadful!"
"Oh, he's a bad egg," said her cousin, carelessly.
Janice hurried through breakfast, for the car was to be brought forth
to-day. Marty had been fussing over it for almost a week. The wind
was drying up the roads and it was possible for Janice to take a spin
out into the open country.
Marty's prospects of enjoying the outing, however, were nipped before
he could leave the table.
"Throw the chain harness on the colts, Marty," said his father. "The
'tater-patch is dry enough to put the plow in. And I'll want ye to
help me."
"Oh--Dad! I got to help Janice get her car out. This ain't no time to
plow for 'taters," declared Marty.
"Your mouth'll be open wider'n anybody else's in the house for the
'taters when they're grown," said Uncle Jason, calmly. "You got to do
your share toward raisin' 'em."
"Oh, Dad!" ejaculated the boy again.
"Now, Marty, you stop talkin'!" cried his mother.
"Huh! you wanter make a feller dumb around here, too. S'pose Janice
breaks down on the road?" he added, with reviving hope.
"I guess she'll find somebody that knows fully as much about them
gasoline buggies as you do, Son," observed Uncle Jason, easily. "You
an' me'll tackle the 'tater field."
When his father spoke so positively Marty knew there was no use trying
to change him. He frowned, and muttered, and kicked the table leg as
he got up, but to no avail.
Janice, later, got into her car and started for a ride. She put the
Kremlin right at the hill and it climbed Hillside Avenue with wonderful
ease. The engine purred prettily and not a thing went wrong.
"Poor Marty! It's too bad he couldn't go, too," she thought. "I'd
gladly share this with somebody."
Nelson, she knew, was busy this forenoon. It took no little of his
out-of-school time to prepare the outline for the ensuing week's work.
Besides, on this Saturday morning, there was a special meeting of the
School Committee, as he had told her the afternoon before. Something
to do with the course of lectures before mentioned. And the young
principal of Polktown's graded school was very faithful to his duties.
She thought of Mrs. Drugg and little Lottie; but there was trouble at
the Drugg home. Somehow, on this bright, sweet-smelling morning,
Janice shrank from touching anything unpleasant, or coming into
communication with anybody who was not in attune with the day.
She was fated, however, to rub elbows with Trouble wherever she went
and whatever she did. She ran the Kremlin past the rear of Walky
Dexter's place and saw Walky himself currying Josephus and his mate on
the stable floor. The man waved his currycomb at her and grinned. But
his well-known grimace did not cheer Janice Day.
"Dear me! Poor Walky is in danger, too," thought the young girl.
"Why! the whole of Polktown is changing. In some form or other that
liquor selling at the Inn touches all our lives. I wonder if other
people see it as plainly as I do."
She ran up into the Upper Middletown Road, as far out as Elder
Concannon's. The old gentleman--once Janice Day's very stern critic,
but now her staunch friend--was in the yard when Janice approached in
her car. He waved a cordial hand at her and turned away from the man
he had been talking with.
"Well, there ye have it, Trimmins," the girl heard the elder say, as
her engine stopped. "If you can find a man or two to help you, I'll
let you have a team and you can go in there and haul them logs.
There's a market for 'em, and the logs lie jest right for hauling. You
and your partner can make a profit, and so can I."
Then he said to Janice: "Good morning, child! You're as fresh to look
at as a morning-glory."
She had nodded and smiled at the patriarchal old gentleman; but her
eyes were now on the long and lanky looking woodsman who stood by.
"Good day, Mr. Trimmins," she said, when she had returned Elder
Concannon's greeting. "Is Mrs. Trimmins well? And my little Virginia
and all the rest of them?"
"The fambly's right pert, Miss," Trimmins said.
Janice had a question or two to ask the elder regarding the use of the
church vestry for some exercises by the Girl's Guild of which she had
been the founder and was still the leading spirit.
"Goodness, yes!" agreed the elder. "Do anything you like, Janice, if
you can keep those young ones interested in anything besides dancing
and parties. Still, what can ye expect of the young gals when their
mothers are given up to folly and dissipation?
"There's Mrs. Marvin Petrie and Mrs. Major Price want to be
'patronesses,' I believe they call themselves, of an Assembly Ball, an'
want to hold the ball at Lem Parraday's hotel. It's bad enough to have
them dances; but to have 'em at a place where liquor is sold, is a sin
and a shame! I wish Lem Parraday had lost the hotel entirely, before
he got a liquor license."
"Oh, Elder! It is dreadful that liquor should be sold in Polktown,"
Janice said, from the seat of the automobile. "I'm just beginning to
see it."
"That's what it is," said the elder, sturdily.
"It's a shame Mr. Parraday was ever allowed to have a license at the
Lake View Inn."
"Wal--it does seem too bad," the elder agreed, but with less confidence
in his tone.
"I know they say the Inn scarcely paid him and his wife, and he might
have had to give it up this Spring," Janice said.
"Ahem! That would have been unfortunate for the mortgagee," slowly
observed the old man.
"Mr. Cross Moore?" Janice quickly rejoined. "Well! he could afford to
lose a little money if anybody could."
"Tut, tut!" exclaimed the elder, who had a vast respect for money.
"Don't say that, child. Nobody can afford to lose money."
Janice turned her car about soberly. She saw that the ramification of
this liquor selling business was far-reaching, indeed. Elder Concannon
spoke only too truly.
Where self-interest was concerned most people would lean toward the
side of liquor selling.
"The tentacles of the monster have insinuated themselves into our
social and business life, as well as into our homes," she thought.
"Why--why, what can _I_ do about it? Just _me_, a girl all alone."