A BIT OF ROMANCE
"Hopewell Drugg? Ya-as," drawled Aunt Almira. "He keeps store
'crosstown. He's had bad luck, Hopewell has. His wife's dead--she didn't
live long after Lottie was born; and Lottie--poor child!--must be eight
or nine year old."
"Poor little thing!" sighed Janice, who had come home to find her aunt
just beginning her desultory preparations for supper, and had turned in
to help. "It is so pitiful to see and hear her. Does she live all alone
there with her father?"
"I reckon Hopewell don't do business enough so's he could hire a
housekeeper. They tell me he an' the child live in a reg'lar mess! Ain't
fittin' for a man to keep house by hisself, nohow; and of course Lottie
can't do much of nothing."
"Is he an old man?" queried Janice. "I couldn't see his face very well."
"Lawsy! he ain't what you'd call old--no," said Aunt 'Mira. "Now, let me
see; he married 'Cinda Stone when he warn't yit thirty. There was some
talk of him an' 'Rill Scattergood bein' sweet on each other onc't; but
that was twenty year ago, I do b'lieve.
"Howsomever, if there _was_ anythin' betwixt Hopewell and 'Rill, I
reckon her mother broke up the match. Mis' Scattergood never had no use
for them Druggs. She said they was dreamers and never did amount to
nothin'. Mis' Scattergood's allus been re'l masterful."
Janice nodded. She could imagine that the birdlike old lady she had met
on the boat could be quite assertive if she so chose.
"Anyhow," said Aunt 'Mira, reflectively, "Hopewell stopped shinin' about
'Rill all of a sudden. That was the time Mis' Scattergood was widdered
an' come over here from Middletown to live with 'Rill.
"I declare for't! 'Rill warn't sech an old maid then. She was right
purty, if she _had_ been teachin' school some time. Th' young men use
ter buzz around her in them days.
"But when she broke off with Hopewell, she broke off with all. Hopewell
was spleeny about it--ya-as, indeed, he was. He soon took up with
'Cinda--jest as though 'twas out o' spite. Anyhow, 'fore any of us
knowed it, they'd gone over to Middletown an' got married.
"'Cinda Stone was a right weakly sort o' critter. Of course Hopewell was
good to her," pursued Aunt 'Mira. "Hopewell Drugg is as mild as
dishwater, anyhow. He'd be perlite to a stray cat."
Janice was interested--she could not help being. Miss Scattergood, it
seemed to her, was a pathetic figure; and the girl from Greensboro was
just at an age to appreciate a bit of romance. The gray, dusty man in
the dark, little store, playing his fiddle to the child that could only
hear the quivering minor tones of it, held a place in Janice's thought,
too.
"What do you do Saturday mornings, Marty?" asked the visitor, at the
breakfast table. Janice had already been to the Shower Bath and back,
and the thrill of the early day was in her veins. Only a wolfish
appetite had driven her indoors when she smelled the pork frying.
Marty was just lounging to his seat,--he was almost always late to
breakfast,--and he shut off a mighty yawn to reply to his cousin:
"Jest as near like I please as kin be."
"Saturday afternoon, where I came from, is sort of a holiday; but
Saturday morning everybody tries to make things nice about the yard--fix
flower-beds, rake the yard, make the paths nice, and all that."
"Huh!" grunted Marty. "That's work."
"No, it isn't. It's fun," declared Janice, brightly.
"What's the good?" demanded the boy.
"Why, the folks in Greensboro vie with each other to see who shall have
the best-looking yard. Your mother hasn't many flowers----"
"Them dratted hens scratch up all the flowers I plant," sighed Aunt
'Mira. "I give up all hopes of havin' posies till Jason mends the
henyard fence."
"Now you say yourself the hens only lay when they're rangin' around,
'Mira," observed Uncle Jason, mildly.
"Ya-as. They lay," admitted Aunt 'Mira. "But I don't git more'n ha'f of
what they lay. They steal their nests so. Ol' Speckle brought off a
brood only yesterday. I'd been wonderin' where that hen was layin' for a
month."
"But, anyway, we can rake the yard and trim the edges of the walk,"
Janice said to Marty.
"Ya-as, we kin," admitted Marty, grinning. "But will we?"
Janice, however, never lost her temper with this hobbledehoy cousin.
Marty could be coaxed, if not driven. After breakfast she urged him out
to the shed, and they overhauled the conglomeration of rusted and
decrepit hand tools, which had been gathered by Uncle Jason during forty
years of desultory farming.
"Here're three rakes," said Marty. "All of 'em have lost teeth, an'--Hi
tunket! that one's got a broken handle."
"But there are two which are usable," laughed Janice. "Come on, Marty.
Let's rake the front yard all over. You know it will please your
mother. And then you can tote the rubbish away in the wheelbarrow while
I trim the edges of the front walk."
"Huh! we don't never use that front walk. Nobody ever comes to our front
door," said Marty.
"And there's a nice wide porch there to sit on pleasant evenings, too,"
cried Janice.
"Huh!" came Marty's famous snort of derision. "The roof leaks like a
sieve and the floor boards is rotted. Las' time the parson came to call
he broke through the floor an' come near sprainin' his ankle."
"But I thought Uncle Jason was a carpenter, too?" murmured Janice,
hesitatingly.
"Well! didn't ye know that carpenters' roofs are always leakin' an' that
shoemakers' wives go barefoot?" chuckled Marty. "Dad says he'll git
'round to these chores sometime. Huh!"
Nevertheless, Marty set to work with his cousin, and that Saturday
morning the premises about the old Day house saw such a cleaning up as
had not happened within the memory of the oldest inhabitant along
Hillside Avenue. There was a good sod of grass under the rubbish. The
lawn had been laid down years and years before, and the grass was rooted
well and the mould was rich and deep. All the old place wanted was a
"chance," for it to become very pretty and homelike.
Marty, however, declared himself "worked to a frazzle" and he
disappeared immediately after the noon meal, for fear Janice would find
something more for him to do.
"Wal, child, it does look nice," admitted Aunt Almira, coming to view
the front yard. "And you _do_ have a way with Marty."
"Just the same," giggled Janice, "he doesn't like girls."
"Sho, child! he doesn't know _what_ he likes--a boy like him," returned
her aunt.
Sunday was a rainy day, and Janice felt her spirits falling again. It
really rained too hard at church time for her to venture out; but she
saw that her relatives seldom put themselves out to attend church,
anyway. Walky Dexter appeared in an oilskin-covered cart, drawn by
Josephus (who actually looked water-soaked and dripped from every
angle), delivering the Sunday papers, which came up from the city. The
family gave up most of their time all day to the gaudy magazine
supplements and the so-called "funny sections" which were a part of
these sheets.
Janice finally retired to her depressing bedroom and wrote a long letter
to her father which she tried to make cheerful, but into which crept a
note of loneliness and disappointment. It wasn't just like talking to
Daddy himself; but it seemed to help some.
It enabled her, too, to write shorter letters to friends back in
Greensboro and she managed to hide from them much of her homesickness.
She could write of the beauty of Poketown itself; for it was beautiful.
It was only the people who were so--well! so _different_.
Janice welcomed Monday morning. Although she had nearly completed her
junior year at the Greensboro High School, and knew that she would not
gain much help from Miss Scattergood, the girl loved study and she hoped
that the Poketown girls would prove to be better companions than they
had appeared when she had visited the school.
So she started for the old red schoolhouse in quite a cheerful frame of
mind, in spite of Marty's prophecy that "she'd soon git sick o' that old
maid." It was not Miss Scattergood that Janice had reason to be "sick
of!" The stranger in Poketown had to admit before the day was over that
she had never in her life dreamed of such ill-bred girls as some of
these who occupied the back seats in 'Rill Scattergood's school.
They had no respect for the little school-teacher, and had Miss
Scattergood taken note of all their follies she must have been in a
pitched battle with her older pupils all the time. Some of these
ill-behaved girls were older than Janice by many months; and they
plainly did not come to school to study or to learn. They passed notes
back and forth to some of the older boys all day long; when Miss
Scattergood called on them to recite, if they did not feel just like
it, they refused to obey; and of course their example was bad for the
smaller children.
Janice had determined to join such classes as were anywhere near her
grade in her old school. But when she arose to accompany one class to
the line in front of the teacher's desk, the girls who had started
giggled and ran back to their seats, leaving the new pupil standing
alone, with blazing cheeks, before Miss Scattergood. They would not
recite with her. At recess when Miss Scattergood tried to introduce
Janice to some of the girls, there were but a few who met her in a
ladylike manner.
They seemed to think Janice must be stuck up and proud because she had
come from another town. One girl--Sally Black--tripped forward in a most
affected style, gave Janice a "high handshake," saying "How-do! chawmed
ter meet yuh, doncher know!" and the other girls went off into gales of
laughter as though Sally was really excruciatingly funny.
Janice was hurt, but she tried not to show it. Miss Scattergood was very
much annoyed, and her eyes sparkled behind her glasses, as she said,
sharply:
"I really did hope you girls could be polite and kind to a stranger who
comes to your school. I am ashamed of you!"
"Don't let it bother you, Scatty," returned the impudent Sally. "We
don't want anything to do with your pet," and she tossed her head,
looked scornfully at Janice, and walked away with her abettors.
"I never did take ter them Blacks," declared Aunt Almira, when Janice
related to her the unpleasant experience she had suffered at school, on
her return that afternoon. "And Sally's mother, who was a Garrity, came
of right common stock.
"Ye see, child," added Mrs. Day, with a sigh, "I expect ye won't find
many of the children that go ter that school much ter your likin'. 'Rill
Scattergood ain't got no way with her, as I sez before; an' folks that
can afford it have got in the habit o' sendin' their young'uns over to
Middletown School. Walky Dexter takes 'em in a party waggin, and brings
'em back at night."
"But there must be some nice girls in Poketown!" cried Janice.
"Ya-as--I guess there be. But wait till I kin git around an' interduce
ye to 'em."
This promise, however, offered Janice Day but sorry comfort. If she
waited for Aunt Almira to take her about she certainly _would_ die of
homesickness!
But she refused to be driven out of the Poketown School by the
unkindness and discourtesy of the larger girls. Her unpopularity,
however, made her respond the more quickly to 'Rill Scattergood's
advances.
The school-teacher showed plainly that she appreciated Janice's
friendliness. Janice brought her luncheon and ate it with the teacher.
They walked down High Street together after school, and on Friday the
pretty little school-mistress invited the new girl home for tea.
"Mother wants to see you again. Mother's took quite a fancy to you,
Janice--and that's a fact," said Miss 'Rill.
"Of course, we're only boarding; but Mrs. Beasely--she's a widow
lady--makes it very homey for us. If mother stays we're going to
housekeeping ourselves. And I believe I _shall_ give up teaching school.
I'm really tired of it."
Janice gladly accepted the invitation, and she bribed one of the
youngsters with a nickel to run around to Hillside Avenue and tell Aunt
Almira where she was.
Miss 'Rill's boarding place was on the same side street where was
located Hopewell Drugg's store. Janice had thought often of poor little
Lottie and her father during this week; but as they neared the store and
she heard the wailing notes of the man's violin again, she felt a little
diffident about broaching the subject of the storekeeper and his child
to the school-mistress. It was Miss Scattergood herself who opened the
matter.
She half halted and held up her hand for silence, as she listened to
"Silver Threads Among the Gold."
"That's a dreadful pretty tune, I think," she said. "It used to be awful
pop'lar when--when I came here to Poketown to teach school."
"Mr. Drugg likes it, I guess," said Janice, lightly. "I've heard him
play it before."
"Have you?" queried Miss 'Rill, with that little birdlike tilt of her
head. "So you know Mr. Drugg--and poor little Lottie?"
"I've met them both--once," admitted the girl.
"Ah! then you know how little Lottie is to be pitied?"
"And isn't he to be pitied, too?" Janice could not help but ask.
Miss 'Rill blushed--such a becoming blush as it was, too! She answered
honestly: "I think so. Poor Hopewell! And I think he plays the fiddle
real sweet, too.
"But don't say anything before mother about him. Mr. Drugg's never been
one of ma's favorites," added the teacher, earnestly.