MARTY SPEAKS OUT
The silence of misunderstanding, almost of unbelief, fell upon the
little group in the Day sitting room, shocked as it was by Uncle Jason's
declaration. Janice could not find her tongue. Aunt 'Mira's fat face was
as blank as a wall. Marty finally recovered breath enough to expel:
"Whew! Hi tunket! _That's_ what was behind his red vest, was it? Has he
really stung you, Dad?"
"But, Jase Day!" at last burst out Aunt 'Mira, "ye air jest a-scarin' us
for nothin'. Of course you can levy on his goods."
"They're not paid for," Uncle Jason interrupted. "That's what Aaron
found out for me. Tom got a line of credit I didn't know nothin' about.
The jobbers and wholesalers have first call. There are no outstandin'
accounts owin' the store; Tom did a spot cash business."
"But what did he do with the money he got on the notes you indorsed,
Uncle Jason?" cried Janice.
"That's what I don't know," Mr. Day replied, sitting down heavily again
and resting his head in both hands. "He's gone--and _it's_ gone. That's
all I know. I found out to-day he hasn't got ten dollars to his account
at the bank. The bank holds most of his notes, and of course they are
goin' to come down on me as the notes fall due."
Mr. Day groaned very miserably. Salt tears stung Janice's eyelids.
"Cricky, Dad! can they take everything that belongs to us?" asked Marty,
awestruck.
Mr. Day nodded. "Ev'ry endurin' thing. On an indorsement of a note even
a man's tools and his household goods ain't exempt."
"Oh, Uncle!" cried Janice in pity.
"Well, then, Jase Day," gasped his wife, regaining her usual volubility,
"what have I allus told ye? If ye'd put the homestead in my name they
couldn't get that away from ye. It's what I allus wanted ye to do. And I
ain't even got dower right in it, as I'd oughter have. Ye don't 'pear to
have the sense ye was born with. Write your name on another man's
note--an' for sech a feller as Tom Hotchkiss--when ye didn't know
nothin' about him."
"I went to school with his father. Old Caleb Hotchkiss and me was
chums," defended Uncle Jason weakly. "I allus thought Tom had it in him
to make good."
"Oh, he's done good, it 'pears," snapped Aunt 'Mira. "He's done _you_
good an' brown. Ye wouldn't tell me nothin' about it, 'cept ye'd
invested a little money in the store when 'twas first opened. That's
what ye _said_."
"And it was the truth," groaned Uncle Jason. "It was later I indorsed
the notes."
"Serves you right for not takin' your lawful wife into your confidence,"
stormed Aunt 'Mira in mingled wrath and tears. "And now what's to become
of us I'd like to know? Ev'rything we got taken from us! Kin they really
do that, Jase?"
The man nodded his head miserably.
"Well, all I gotter say is that it's mighty hard on _me_," complained
Mrs. Day. "If you was fool enough to trust a scalawag like Tom
Hotchkiss----"
"It wasn't two weeks ago you was speakin' so well of him," interrupted
her husband, stung to the retort discourteous. "You said he was the
smartest man in Polktown and if I'd been ha'f the man he was at his age
I'd ha' made a fortune."
Marty suddenly laughed, high and shrilly. "Surely! surely!" he exploded.
"You could easy make a fortune the same way Tom Hotchkiss done--by
stealin' it from others."
"Well----" began his mother, when to Janice's, as well as his parents',
vast surprise, her cousin suddenly dominated the occasion.
"You keep still, Ma! You've said enough. Dad didn't go for to do it, did
he? He wasn't aimin' to lose his money and make us poor, was he? D'you
think he did it a-purpose?"
"Well--no, Marty," admitted Mrs. Day, "I don't think he did. But----"
"Nuff said, then," declared the youngest of the Day clan briskly.
"What's done's done. No use bawlin' over spilt sody-water," and he
grinned more or less cheerfully. "What good did the money dad had in the
bank ever do us? Not a bit! It might as well have been burnt up. We can
hire this house to live in just as well's though we owned it, can't we?
And not have to worry about taxes and repairs neither."
"Why, Marty!" murmured Janice, amazed by this outburst, yet somewhat
impressed by the sounding sense of it.
"Hi tunket!" exploded her cousin, expanding as he looked around on his
surprised relatives. "What does it matter, anyway? Ain't I here, Ma?
Have you forgot I'm alive, Dad? Can't I go to work and earn money enough
to support this family if I haf to? I--guess--yes! Why!" pursued the
excited Marty, "I can go to work next week at Jobbin's sawmill an' earn
my dollar-seventy-five a day. Sure I can! Or I bet I could get a job in
some store. Or on the _Constance Colfax_--they pay deckhands a
dollar-fifty. And there's the railroad goin' to open up.
"Pshaw! there's nothin' to it," declared the boy. "What if dad has got
the rheumatism? _I_ can work an' we won't starve."
"Marty!" cried Janice, running around the table and putting both arms
about his neck. "You dear boy--_you're a man_!"
"Huh!" grunted Marty half strangled. "Who said I wasn't?"
"He's a good, dear child," sobbed his mother. "D'you hear him, Jase
Day?"
"Yes," said Mr. Day brokenly. "I dunno but it's wuth while losin'
ev'rything ye own to l'arn that ye got a boy like him."
Marty was suddenly smitten with a great wave of confusion. His
enthusiasm had carried him out of himself. "Aw, well," he mumbled, "I
was just tellin' you. You needn't worry. I can get a job."
"And I'll sell my car, Uncle," Janice said gayly. "That'll help some.
And my board money. That comes regularly, thank goodness!
"Of course," she pursued, "as Marty says, we can hire the house to live
in if you have to lose the dear old place. We'll be all right."
"'Tain't that. I can work yet," groaned Uncle Jase. "It's losin' all
we've saved."
"Well! whose fault is that?" demanded his wife; but Janice stopped her.
"Now, Auntie, Marty's said the last word on _that_ topic. Let us not
waste our time in recrimination. We must get a new outlook on life, that
is all."
"But all I gotter say----"
"You've said it, Ma, already," put in Marty. "Don't spread it on
thicker. Dad ain't likely to forget it. You don't have to keep reminding
him of it."
It was hard on the woman, this shutting off her speech. As with many
shallow-minded folk, speech was Aunt 'Mira's safety valve. Afterward,
when Uncle Jason had gone down town "to see about it" and Marty had
accompanied him (the first time in all probability since he was a child
the boy had ever willingly accompanied his father anywhere) the pent-up
torrent of Aunt 'Mira's feelings burst upon Janice's head.
She put away her books with a sigh. The morrow was a school holiday,
anyway. "Aunt 'Mira," she said softly, "don't you suppose Uncle Jason
feels this thing keenly? Don't you think his very soul must be
embittered because he has made this mistake?"
"Mistake!" repeated the fretful woman. "Needn't ha' been no mistake. If
he'd asked me----"
"You would have been no wiser than he, Aunt 'Mira," Janice interrupted
with confidence. "I know you. I remember how you had this Mr. Hotchkiss
to tea here one night some months ago, and how pleasant he seemed. I
expect that must have been when Uncle Jason was about to indorse his
notes and he wanted your opinion of the man."
"Goodness, Janice! do you suppose so?" gasped Aunt 'Mira.
"Yes, I do. You know how uncle is--he doesn't talk much, but he thinks a
lot of your opinion. And I know he must feel worse over losing your
confidence than over losing the money."
"Why, he ain't lost my confidence!" cried her aunt. "I know he never
meant to do it."
"Then tell him so when he comes home, dear," Janice whispered with her
arms about her aunt's neck. "Don't be harsh to him at a time when he
needs all the sympathy we can give him."
Aunt Almira cried a little, then wiped her eyes and kissed her niece.
"You're a great comfort, Janice. What we should do without you I dunno.
An' I guess ye air right. We women only hafter suffer for a man's fool
tricks. But the man has to suffer and make good for 'em, too. Poor
Jase!"