CHRISTMAS NEWS
It bade fair to be an old-fashioned northern New England winter. Janice
Day had never seen anything like this in the prairie country from which
she had come.
There three or four big storms, the traces of which soon melted, had
been considered a "hard" winter. Here in Poketown the hillside was made
white before Thanksgiving, and then one snow after another sifted down
upon the mountains. Tree branches in the forest broke under the weight
of snow. Sometimes she lay awake in the night and heard the frost burst
great trees as though a stick of dynamite had been set off inside them.
The lake ice became so thick that the steamboat could no longer make her
trips. Walky Dexter became mail carrier and brought the mail from
Middletown every other day.
Janice found the time not at all tedious in its flight. There really was
so much to do!
As for real _fun_--winter sports had been little more than a name to the
girl from the Middle West before this winter. The boys had got their
bob-sleds out before Thanksgiving. Toboggans were not popular in
Poketown, for the coasting-places were too rough. At first Janice was
really afraid to join the hilarious parties of boys and girls on some of
the slides.
Marty, however, owned a big sled, and she did not want her cousin to
lose his good opinion of her. He had declared that she was almost as
good as a boy, and Janice successfully hid from him her fear of the
sport that really is a royal one.
A favorite slide of the Poketown young people was from the head of the
street on which Hopewell Drugg's store was located, down the hill, past
the decayed dock on which Janice had first seen little Lottie Drugg, and
on across the frozen inlet to the wooded point in which Lottie declared
the echo dwelt.
When the whole lake froze solidly, the course of the sleds was continued
across its level surface as far as the momentum from the hill would
carry the bobs. There was skating here, too; and many were the moonlight
nights on which a regular carnival was held at the foot of these hilly
streets.
Walky Dexter owned a great sledge, too, and when he attached two span of
horses to this, and the roads were even half broken, he could drive
parties of Poketown young people all over the county, on moonlight
sleigh-rides. Janice was invited to go on several of these, and she did
so. Her heart was not always attuned to the hilarity of her companions;
but she did not allow herself to become morose, or sad, in public.
Yet the gnawing worriment about her father was in her mind continually.
It was an effort for her to be lively and cheerful when the fate of Mr.
Broxton Day was so uncertain.
Her more thoughtful comrades realized the girl's secret feelings. She
was treated with more consideration by the rough boys who were Marty's
mates, than were the other girls.
"Say, that Janice girl is all right!" one rough fellow said to Marty
Day. "I see her scouring the papers in the readin'-room the other night,
and she was lookin' for some news of her father, of course."
"I reckon so," Marty answered. "We don't know nothing about what's
become of him. They stand 'em up against a wall down there in Mexico and
shoot 'em just for fun--so Walky Dexter says. Dad says he never expects
to hear of Uncle Brocky alive ag'in."
"And yet that girl keeps up her pluck! She's all right," declared the
other. "Gee! suppose she should come smack upon the story of her
father's death some night there in the readin'-room? Wouldn't that be
tough?"
From this conversation sprang the idea of a sort of Brotherhood of
Defense (in lieu of a better title) among the boys who used the
reading-room whose existence Janice Day's initiative had established.
Whoever got the papers from the mail and spread them on the file in the
reading-room, first examined the columns carefully for any mention of
the execution of prisoners by either belligerent party in Mexico;
especially was the news searched for any mention of the lost Mr. Day.
Sometimes, when the news story suggested one of these horrible
executions, the whole paper was "lost in the mail." At least, when it
was inquired for, that was the stock reply. The boys made sure that
Janice should never see such blood-chilling accounts of Mexican
activities.
It drew toward Christmas. Janice had another sorrow, of which she never
said a word. Her spending money was nearly gone. She saw the bottom of
her narrow purse just as the season of giving approached!
There were so many things she wanted to do for all her friends, both in
Poketown and back at Greensboro. Some few little things she had made,
for her fingers were both nimble and dexterous. But "homemade" presents
would not do for Uncle Jason, Aunt 'Mira, Marty, and a dozen other
people towards whom she felt kindly.
She had begun to worry, too, about what would finally happen to her if
her father never came back! How long would the bank continue to pay her
board to Uncle Jason? And how was she to get clothes, and other
necessary things?
In the midst of these mental tribulations came a letter from the
Greensboro bank, addressed to Janice herself. In it was the cashier's
check for twenty-five dollars, and a brief note from the official
himself, stating that Mr. Day, before ever he had separated from his
daughter, had looked forward to her Christmas shopping and instructed
the bank to send on the fifteenth of December this sum for her personal
use.
"Dear, dear Daddy! He forgot nothing," sobbed Janice, when she read this
note, and kissed the check which seemed to have come warm from her
father's hand. "Whatever shall I do all through my life long without
him, if he never comes back?"
Christmas Eve came. The clouds had been gathering above the higher peaks
of the Green Mountains all day, and, as evening dropped, the snow began
falling.
Janice and Marty went down town together after supper. Even Poketown
showed some special light and life at this season. Dusty store windows
were rejuvenated; candles, and trees, and tinsel, and wreathes blossomed
all along High Street. Janice was proud to know that the brightest
windows, and the most tastefully dressed, were Hopewell Drugg's. And in
the middle of the biggest window of Drugg's store was a beautiful wax
doll, which she and Miss 'Rill had themselves dressed. On Christmas
morning that doll was to be found by Lottie Drugg, fast asleep with its
head on the blind child's own pillow!
Janice had to run around just to take a last peek at the window and the
doll, while Marty went to the post office for the evening mail. Papers
and magazines were due in that mail for the reading-room; and, despite
the fact that the snow was falling more heavily every minute, there
would be some of the "regulars" in the reading-room, glad to see the
papers.
Janice had turned her own subscription for the New York daily over to
the reading-room association; and when she wanted to read the New York
paper herself, she went to the files to look at it. Weeks had passed now
since there had been anything printed about that district in Chihuahua
where her father's mine was located.
Coming back, down the hill from Drugg's, Janice saw that Marty had not
gone at once into the reading-room and lit the lamps. Her cousin was
standing in the light of the drug-store window, a bundle of papers and
magazines under his arm, and one paper spread before his eyes. He seemed
to be reading eagerly.
"Hey, Marty! come on in and read! It's awful cold out here!" she shouted
to him, shaking the latch of the reading-room door with her mittened
hand.
Marty, roused, looked up guiltily, and thrust the quickly folded paper
into the breast of his jacket. "Aw, I'm comin'," he said.
But when he came to open the door Janice noticed that he seemed to
fumble the key greatly, and he kept his face turned from her gaze.
"What's the matter, Marty?" she asked, lightly.
"Matter? Ain't nothin' the matter," grunted the boy.
"Why, Marty! you're crying!" gasped Janice, suddenly.
"Ain't neither!" growled the boy, wiping his rough coat sleeve across
his eyes. "Snow's blowed in 'em."
"That's more than snow, Marty," was Janice's confident remark.
"Huh!" snorted Marty. "Girls allus know so much!"
He seemed to have suddenly acquired "a grouch." So Janice went cheerily
about the room, singing softly to herself, and lighting the lamps.
Nobody else had arrived, for it was still early in the evening.
Marty stole softly to the stove. The fire had been banked, and the room
was quite chilly. He rattled the dampers, opened them, and then, with a
side glance at his cousin, pulled the paper from within the breast of
his jacket and thrust it in upon the black coals before he closed the
stove door.
"Where's the New York paper, Marty?" Janice was asking, as she arranged
the Montpelier and the Albany papers on their files.
"Didn't come," grunted Marty, and picked up the empty coal hod. "I got
to git some coal," he added, and dashed outside into the snow.
Instantly the girl hastened across the room. She jerked the stove door
open. There lay the folded paper, just beginning to brown in the heat of
the generating gas. She snatched it from the fire and, hearing the outer
door opened again, thrust the paper inside her blouse.
It wasn't Marty, but was one of the other boys. She did not understand
why her cousin should have told her an untruth about the New York paper.
But she did not want an open rupture with him here and now--and before
other people.
"I'm going right home," she said to Marty, when he came back with the
replenished coal hod. "It's snowing real hard."
"Sure. There won't be many of the fellows around to-night, anyway. Peter
here will stay all evening and lock up--if Mr. Haley don't come. Won't
you, Pete?"
"Sure," was the reply.
"Then I'll go along with you," declared Marty, who wasn't half as
ashamed to escort a girl on the street nowadays as he had been a few
months before.
Now, Janice had intended running over to Hopewell Drugg's store and
looking at the paper Marty had tried to destroy. She did not for a
moment suspect what was in it, or why her cousin had told her a
falsehood about it. But she saw she would have to defer the examination
of the news-sheet.
"All right. Come along, Marty," she agreed, with assumed carelessness.
The boy was very moody. He stole glances at her only when he thought she
was not looking. Never had Janice seen the hobbledehoy act so strangely!
They plowed through the increasing snow up Hillside Avenue, and the snow
fell so rapidly that the girl was really glad she had come home. She
entered first, Marty staying out on the porch a long time, stamping and
scraping his boots.
When he came in he still had nothing to say. He pulled his seat to the
far side of the glowing stove and sat there, hands in his pockets and
chin on his breast.
"What's the matter with you, Marty?" shrilled Mrs. Day. "You ain't sick,
be ye?"
"Nop," growled her son.
That was about all they could get out of him--monosyllables--until
Janice retired to her own room. The girl was so anxious to get upstairs
and look at that paper she had recovered from the reading-room fire,
that she went early. When she had bidden the others good night and
mounted to her room, however, she did something she had never done
before. She unlatched her door again softly and tiptoed out to the
landing at the top of the stairs, to listen.
Marty had suddenly come to life. She heard his voice, low and tense,
dominating the other voices in the kitchen. She could not hear a word he
said, but suddenly Aunt 'Mira broke out with: "Oh! my soul and body,
Marty! It ain't so--don't _say_ it's so!"
"Be still, 'Mira," commanded Uncle Jason's quaking voice. "Let the boy
tell it."
She heard nothing more but the murmur of her cousin's voice and her
aunt's soft crying. Janice stole back into her cold room. She shook
terribly, but not with the chill of the frosty air.
Her trembling fingers found a match and ignited the wick of the skeleton
lamp. She had, ere this, manufactured a pretty paper shade for it, and
this threw the stronger radiance of the light upon a round spot on the
bureau. She drew out the scorched paper and unfolded it in that light.
She did not have to search long. The article she feared to see was upon
the first page of the paper. The black headlines were so plain that she
scanned them at a single glance:
THE BANDIT, RAPHELE, AT WORK
A Fugitive's Story of the Christmas-Week Execution in
Granadas District
TWO AMERICANS DRAW LOTS FOR LIFE
John Makepiece Tells His Story in Cida; His Fellow-Prisoner,
Broxton Day, Fills One of Raphele's "Christmas Graves"