NELSON DOES NOT UNDERSTAND
Janice came back from Middletown with several bundles. She had been
shopping, she told Aunt 'Mira; but she did not mention the fact that she
had drawn her last fifty dollars from the bank.
Mr. Cross Moore had been to the bank, too; and the sum of money which he
had drawn out in crisp twenty and fifty dollar bills was pinned securely
to Janice's underwaist.
She merely told the folks that Mr. Moore was going to take his wife out
in the car, for he had already learned to run an automobile, it seemed.
And if the president of the town selectmen could not license himself to
drive a motor car, who could?
Janice's uncle and aunt made no comment; they had other things to think
about. If Marty suspected anything he kept his suspicions to himself.
All of course watched the papers for news of Broxton Day; but Mexican
news seemed very tame indeed. Those Americans who came out of Chihuahua
told dreadful stories; but most of these tales had to be taken with
"more than a grain of salt." Many of these "Americans" owned to
Spanish-Mexican names, and were merely Americans by naturalization--and
that "for business purposes only."
Their tales dealt with the recent uprising in the Companos District; but
nothing new was related about what had happened at the mines north of
San Cristoval. No mention was made in any dispatches regarding Mr.
Broxton Day. Letters to Nelson Haley in reply to his inquiries, both
from Washington and the Border, merely said that matters were in such a
chaotic state in Chihuahua that no facts were available.
It was on the evening of this eventful day--the day she had sold her
car--that Janice went to speak privately with Nelson. Knowing that her
uncle would absolutely forbid her departure for the Border if she told
him she was going, Janice would not open any discussion with him. She
had already written a note to leave for her Uncle Jason and Aunt 'Mira
to read after she was gone. But with Nelson it was different. How could
she go away from Polktown without telling the young schoolmaster she was
going--without sharing with him this secret that now had begun to weigh
so heavily on her mind?
She stopped at Hopewell Drugg's for a minute and found the little family
in almost a holiday spirit--the storekeeper bustling about waiting on
customers, 'Rill at her sewing table, and little Lottie singing over the
supper dishes.
"You did the child a world of good, it seems," the storekeeper's wife
said softly, to her friend. "Since she spent the night with you, Lottie
has been like another girl."
"Don't let her drift away from you again, honey," Janice said, smiling
tenderly on the little woman. "Remember, Lottie must have just as deep
an interest in this wonderful happening as any of you."
"I--I don't know just how to talk to her," 'Rill whispered, flushing a
little.
"You don't have to talk," smiled Janice. "Just _love_ her--that is all
you need do. You _do_ love her, and don't let anybody tell her
differently."
There was a lamp burning in Nelson Haley's study, and Janice tapped
lightly on the window pane, bringing him to the front door. She did not
wish to run the gantlet of Mrs. Beaseley's volubility on this occasion.
"My dear!" said the schoolmaster, drawing her within and seeing her very
serious face. "Nothing new has happened?"
"About daddy?" she sighed. "Nothing that I am aware of. I know nothing,
Nelson. But I feel that I _must_ know very soon. This uncertainty is
killing me!"
"My dear girl," he murmured. "I wish I could help you."
"But you can't," she broke in with energy. "Nobody can. I must help
myself now, for you and the others have done all you could."
"Why, Janice, what more can you do than we have attempted?" he asked
wonderingly. "The moment any news comes over the Border of your father
it will be telegraphed North."
"And do you think I can wait here--inactive, hopeless--for something to
turn up? Why, Nelson! there is nobody down there with any special
interest in daddy. The men who are engaged in the mining enterprise with
him are all in the North here."
"Yes, yes," Nelson cried. "But what can be done? What can _I_ do? What
can any of us do, my dear Janice?"
"I don't know that anybody can do anything--up here. But I mean to go
down there--yes, I do! I am going to find my father, Nelson."
She began to sob hysterically and the schoolmaster patted her hand with
soothing intent. "Of course you can't do that, Janice. A girl like you
could do nothing down there in Mexico."
"How do you know?" she demanded, dashing away her tears and looking up
at him. "I tell you, Nelson, I am going."
He sighed and shook his head. "Of course you can't do that, Janice," he
repeated. "I thought that was all settled last evening."
"It was perhaps settled in your mind; not in mine."
"It would be an unheard-of thing to do. Your uncle and aunt would never
allow it."
"Yes, Nelson, I know that. But I will go just the same," the girl told
him.
He shook his head again and smiled at her. "You have the will to do it,
I don't doubt, Janice. But, really, you couldn't."
Janice opened her lips once more; then she closed them. What was the use
of saying anything further? Even Nelson did not believe she would carry
out her intention.
"Very well, then," she said, rising and making ready for departure.
"I'll say good-bye. You can't see it my way, Nelson; but if it were
_you_ who were wounded and alone down there in Mexico do you suppose any
power on earth would keep me from going to you?"
She slipped away before the full force of her final speech percolated to
the young schoolmaster's brain. He got up to follow her; then he paced
the floor of his study instead.
"Of course, she doesn't really mean it," he finally told himself, and
went back to the correction of the pile of compositions on his table.
It was quite true. Nobody believed she meant it except Mr. Cross Moore.
And the selectman had perhaps a higher opinion of Janice Day's ability
than most people in Polktown. We respect a person who was got the best
of us in any event, and Mr. Moore had reason for considering this young
girl to be the principal person involved in his recent defeat in town
politics.
At another time Janice might have been somewhat piqued by the apparent
fact that nobody believed she could or would start for Mexico. She had
thought her reputation in Polktown for determination and the carrying
out of anything she undertook to be such that her friends would believe
that, when she said a thing, she meant it. She had been a _do something_
girl since first she had come to this Vermont village to live. They
might have been warned by past events of what to expect of Janice Day
when once she had made up her mind.
She had already packed her bag. It made her unhappy to do this secretly
and to sit with the family during the evening without saying a word
regarding her plans.
Walky Dexter looked in for a little while; but he was unable for once to
raise the general temperature of the social spirit. As for Marty, Janice
caught him several times looking at her so strangely that she feared he
suspected something. Walky noted the boy's strange mood, for he finally
drawled:
"Jefers-pelters, Marty! what's ailin' on ye? Ye look like Peleg Swift
did arter he eat the three black crows."
"Huh! that old wheeze!" growled Marty. "He didn't eat no three crows. He
only ate something they said was burned as black as a crow. One o' his
wife's biscuit, I bet."
"He, he! Mebbe you're right," chuckled Walky.
"I reckon on givin' Marty a good dose ef jalap," said his mother. "I was
thinkin' for sev'ral days he was lookin' right peaked."
"There!" fairly yelled Marty to Mr. Dexter. "See what you got me in for?
You are about as much use as the last button on a rattlesnake's tail,
you are!"
But Marty dodged the unwelcome, old-fashioned remedy that night. He
slipped away early--presumably to bed. Janice was not long in going to
her room; but she did not lie down to sleep. When the house was
dead-still, all save the mice in the walls and the solemn ticking of the
hall clock, the girl arose and dressed for departure.
The _Constance Colfax_ made her trip down the lake in the morning,
halting for freight and for any chance passengers at the Polktown dock
at six o'clock. The steamer got into Popham Landing before ten o'clock,
in time for the morning train to Albany.
Janice was ready for departure long before it was time to leave the
house. At this time of year it was quite dark at half-past five. When
she crept out with her bag the frost was crisp under foot.
The steamboat was whistling mournfully for the landing. She saw nobody
astir on Hillside Avenue, but when she reached High Street two drummers
were leaving the Lake View Inn with their sample cases. There seemed
nobody else going to the steamboat dock; Janice drew her veil closer and
hurried on.
Walky Dexter did not make an appearance. She had heard him say the
evening before that all the freight and express matter was already at
the dock and that he could sleep late for once.
Indeed, it seemed as though everything worked in Janice Day's favor.
There was nobody abroad to see her, or to object to her departure.
At home, when the family arose, they would not at first think her
absence from the kitchen strange. Aunt 'Mira would say: "Oh! let her
sleep a while if she will."
Janice could hear the tones of her aunt's voice, and her eyelids stung
suddenly with unbidden tears.
Later they would go to her room to call her and find the note to Uncle
Jason she had left pinned to the cushion on her bureau.