THE BREACH WIDENS
“You just wait a minute, Janice,” called out Marty, who did not see the
school teacher. “I’ll run back and find Frank.”
Marty’s voice had great carrying power. Janice dared not look up at
once, for she feared Nelson and Annette were looking down at her, and
she had an unfortunate habit of blushing when she felt the least bit
confused. She heard the girl laugh, and felt that she must be laughing
at her. She did not hear Haley’s voice at all.
The moments sped by, and she could not appear to be engaged with the
mechanism of the Kremlin forever. Marty did not return, and it seemed
to her that he had been gone a very long time. Finally she plucked up
her courage and, knowing that her cheeks were still ablaze, raised her
eyes to the balcony where the city girl and the school teacher sat.
They were not looking in her direction at all, and Nelson seemed so
much interested in what Annette was saying that he had neither eyes nor
ears for anybody else.
Perhaps they could get away from the hotel--she and Marty--without
being seen by the girl and Nelson. She hoped so--yet she felt a pang,
too, that the teacher should seem so much enthralled by Annette’s light
conversation. But Janice had not forgotten that Nelson had gone away
for a fortnight without bidding her good-bye.
It was a peculiar situation. Never in her life had Janice Day
experienced the least jealousy. She had never had a friend before
whom she was not willing to share with everybody else. Perhaps it was
because it was Annette that she was sorry Nelson Haley was acquainted
with her.
She knew that Annette must be a very shallow, foolish girl from what
she had seen of her, as well as from all she had heard. Of course,
Frank, being her brother, had made out as good a case as possible for
her; but even he had admitted qualities of character which would make
her rather repellent to right-thinking people.
And to see Nelson Haley so evidently interested in her inconsequential
chatter, and openly courting the city girl, smote Janice with a desire
to save the school teacher from his own folly, if nothing else.
She wished to get away from the Inn without being seen by either of
them. She was tempted to turn the car and start up the hill without
Marty. She might stop at one of the shops and go in for something, as
an excuse. But just as she had thought up this scheme, she heard the
voices of Marty and Frank. The young civil engineer was coming with the
boy, and Janice was panicstricken.
For the first time since she had been running her car she fumbled and
did the wrong thing. She meant to push the self-starter, and she made
a jab at the horn button instead. The siren tooted a raucous note,
proclaiming to everybody in the neighborhood that Janice was there.
“Dear me, that’s the girl that runs the automobile through the town,”
she heard Annette Bowman proclaim.
“Why, it’s Janice!” responded Haley, and the girl in the auto heard his
chair scrape upon the piazza flooring.
“Oh! do you know her? One of your pupils, I presume?” and the other
girl’s voice suggested raillery. Janice could not hear what Nelson
Haley said in reply. Marty, towing Frank Bowman, appeared from around
the corner.
“Good afternoon, Miss Janice,” said the civil engineer, warmly. “Mart
says you are going for a spin; it’s a lovely day for it.”
“Y-yes; it is,” admitted Janice. She was conscious of the observation
of the two above; but she did not glance up there. If only Frank had
not come out to the car! Then she might have spoken to Nelson, and the
teacher might even have gone with her and Marty for a ride. Janice
realized that there was something wrong between Haley and herself, yet
she did not know how to straighten out the trouble.
Marty was pulling at her sleeve and whispering: “Say, Janice, ask him
to go. He ain’t got a living thing to stop him.”
The suggestion smote the girl sharply with the thought that, in all
probability, the innocent attentions Mr. Frank Bowman had shown her
were the beginning of this estrangement between Nelson and herself. She
desired very much to clear up the misunderstanding that had risen; yet
she could not be ungrateful to the civil engineer who had been so kind
to her.
Driven to it, knowing that the situation was bound to be worse if she
did so, yet unable to see any way out of it, Janice turned and smiled
upon Frank. In those few moments “Daddy’s little daughter” experienced
emotions that would have surprised Daddy had he known about them.
Afterward, when she came to think it over herself, Janice knew that she
would never again feel so care-free and irresponsible as she had before
this hour.
It was one of the situations in life that make for character building.
She wanted Nelson, but she said, calling up a smile as well:
“Won’t you go with us, Mr. Bowman? We shall be back in time for supper.”
“Come along, Frank,” urged Marty, his face aglow with the worship a
boy often feels for a young man older than himself.
Nelson Haley had gone back to his chair. Janice felt it, although she
had not raised her eyes to look at the couple above since Frank and
Marty had appeared.
“We-ell,” said Frank, laughing. “If you think I won’t be in the way?”
“Aw, stop yer foolin’!” crowed Marty. “Hurry up--do! we ain’t got all
day to wait for you!”
“Wait till I get a cap,” said the civil engineer, and turning swiftly
he started up the hotel steps. Then he saw his sister and her companion.
“Oh, here you are, Annette!” he cried. “I’m going to take a little run
with Mart and his cousin. And that reminds me--you must meet Janice
Day. Come down here, Annette.”
He was evidently unacquainted with Nelson, for Janice saw him look at
the school teacher curiously. Annette arose with an amused expression
of countenance as though she were tolerating the requests of a small
boy. Sisters do hold that attitude at times regarding their brothers.
“I should be charmed,” she said, in her drawling way. “This is my
brother, Mr. Haley,” and she introduced the teacher easily. “I had no
idea that this--ahem!--young lady whom I have seen in the motor-car was
your Janice Day.” She arrived at the foot of the steps now and put out
her hand to touch Janice’s gloved one. “Re’lly, I’ve been hearing so
much about you from Frankie that I was quite prepared to find you very
terrible. He seems to think you a remarkable girl.”
Not a word or a glance, not even a flicker of the rather sparce
eyelashes, to show that Annette remembered the meeting on the road to
Middletown! Yet Janice was convinced that the city girl had a very
vivid remembrance of the occasion--was remembering it as she drawled
her long speech, in fact, and that such remembrance pointed her tongue
with venom. There was not two years’ difference in their ages; yet
Annette did her best to make Janice seem a child.
Nelson bowed rather stiffly from the piazza; he did not come down
to the car. Marty waved his hand to him and called out: “Hullo, Mr.
Haley!” Janice could only bow and smile. Oh, yes, she could smile! The
power of repressing her real feelings and of hiding her hurts under a
mantle of pride had come to her in this time of trial.
Frank had shaken hands with Nelson perfunctorily and run on in for
his cap. Now he came back and shoved his sister playfully aside as he
stepped into the car beside Janice.
“Go away, little girl,” he said to Annette, laughing. “You’ll get run
over. We’ll have more time for you some other day. And I want you and
Janice to be good friends--you’ll find lots to like about each other.”
Janice bade Annette good-day pleasantly, and immediately started the
car. Naturally she was busy making the turn and starting up the hill;
but she did not miss Annette’s languid smile and shrug as she returned
to Nelson. A sudden rush of tears half blinded the troubled girl. High
Street grew misty before her, and Marty yelled:
“Look out! you’ll run down ol’ Miz’ Cummings.”
The warning brought Janice to herself. She braced up, cleared her eyes
with a little shake of her head, and began to chat to Frank while
running the car with her usual care. But she could not forget Nelson
Haley.
They went up High Street and turned into the Upper Middletown Road. Not
far beyond the forks a load of hay came into view. The road was wide
enough here for the hay and the automobile to pass; but when the car
came up behind the load, and Janice tooted her horn, the driver paid
not the least attention.
“Now, ain’t that mean of him?” cried Marty. “He hears ye, unless he’s
as deaf as Uncle Abram Moles was, and they say he insisted on his
ear-trumpet bein’ buried with him for fear he wouldn’t hear Gabriel on
Resurrection Morn.”
“Why, Marty! that sounds awfully irreverent,” gasped Janice.
“It’s the truth, jest the same,” returned her cousin, complacently.
“Uncle Abram was drefful deaf and no mistake. They tell about a city
chap who come up here to take board with Uncle Abram’s people and who
tried to be awful perlite to the old codger. One day at dinner the city
chap refused a secon’ helpin’ and old Uncle Abram urged it on him.
“‘No, thanks,’ says the chap, ‘I’ve had sufficient.’
“‘Been a-fishin’?’ says Uncle Abram.
“The city chap shakes his head more emphatic and says: ‘I’ve had
a-plenty.’
“‘Dew tell!’ says Uncle Abram. ‘Caught twenty!’
“At that the other feller gets some mad, and he rips out: ‘Ye old fule!’
“‘Broke yer pole?’ repeats Uncle Abram, quite innercent, and that
closed the discussion.”
“Say!” cried Frank, laughing at Marty’s story. “We don’t want to crawl
on behind this load of hay all the afternoon. What’s the matter with
the fellow?”
“He’s wot they call a road hog,” proclaimed Marty. “Hey, you! get out
of the way, will you?”
Janice tooted the horn again, but with no result. The driver of the
hay wagon evidently had no intention of turning aside an inch from the
middle of the road for the automobile. Of course, when heavily loaded
it is often difficult for a teamster to turn out; but the road rules
demand it and the automobile party was quite within its rights when
Janice signaled for a share of the roadway.
“Wait!” exclaimed Frank. “Isn’t there a wider place in the road right
ahead, in front of Elder Concannon’s?”
“You’re right!” cried Marty. “We’ll fool him there. And crackey! I’d
like to tell him what I think of him when we go by.”
“You be still, Marty,” was his cousin’s threat, “or I’ll not take you
out again. We must not quarrel with the country people, no matter
how mean they may be---- Why, see there! he’s turning right into the
Elder’s barnyard gate.”
“By jinks!” ejaculated Marty, “it was the old Elder himself. No wonder
he wouldn’t turn out for us--he hates these buzz-carts so. You’d
oughter heard him layin’ down the law about ’em in Sunday School class
last Sunday. Your ears ought to have burned, Janice.”
“I’m sorry the old gentleman does not approve of the car,” sighed
Janice. “And we were just getting to be such good friends, too!
Perhaps--perhaps Daddy’s present is going to bring me more trouble than
pleasure, after all.”
But this last she said too low to be heard by her companions. She was
thinking of the widening breach between herself and Nelson Haley.