Although it was probable that most of the Day's neighbors felt
more or less curiosity, if not interest, in their domestic
misfortunes, it was only Miss Peckham who seemed to keep really
close observation, in season and out, of all that went on in and
about the Day house.
Janice could have wished that the spinster would give more of her
attention to her cats and Ambrose, the parrot, and less to
neighborhood affairs. For the child knew that not even a peddler
came to the door that the sharp-visaged woman behind her bowed
blinds did watch to see what Janice did.
"She watches every move I make, Daddy," complained the girl one
day. "I don't see why she cares who comes to see me. She's the
meanest thing--"
"Now, Janice, dear!"
"I don't care, Daddy, just this once! Why, this afternoon three
of the girls were here, and after they left Miss Peckham called
me over to the fence and asked me when the Beemans were going to
Canada.
"The Beemans talk of going there before long, but are not certain
about it; and Annette told the rest of us girls all about it as a
great secret. Miss Peckham
deliberately listened at her window, and then, because she
couldn't hear all we said, she tried to make me tell her the
whole story. Now, isn't that mean?"
"Oh, well, Janice--"
"You wouldn't listen like that, Daddy Day, and you wouldn't let
me, so there!"
"Maybe not, Janice. But then, you know, we do many things that
Miss Peckham does not approve of--many things that she would not
think of doing."
"Now, Daddy, you are joking! You know you are!"
"Maybe so--half way. But then we are responsible for ourselves,
and not for Miss Peckham. But I am sorry, daughter, that she
troubles you. Perhaps," he added more lightly, "we shall get
things on a more satisfactory basis here before long, and then
Miss Peckham will not think it necessary to look after us so
much."
"You know better than that, Daddy Day. Miss Peckham will look
after us till we are hundreds of years old," answered Janice.
But now she spoke with a smile on her lips.
The disappointment of the coming and going of Bridget Burns made
both father and daughter shrink from trying another houseworker
unless she appeared more than ordinarily promising. So for a day
or two daddy went personally to the agencies and looked the
prospective workers over. His reports to Janice were not
hopeful.
"Oh, dear me, Daddy!" Janice sighed, "I do wish I could do it
all. Maybe I ought only to go to school part time--"
"No, my dear. We will scrabble along as best we can. You must
not neglect the studies."
"At any rate," she exclaimed, "it will soon be vacation time. I
can do ever so much more in the house then."
"Nor do I believe that is a good plan," her father said, shaking
his head. "The best thing that could happen to you would be for
you to go away for a change. I have a good mind to send you back
East. Your Aunt Almira--"
"Oh, Daddy! Never! You don't mean it?" cried the girl.
"Why, you'll like your Aunt Almira. Of course, Jase Day is not
such an up-and-coming chap as one might wish; but he is a good
sort, at that. And there is your cousin, Marty."
"But I don't know any of them," sighed Janice. "And I don't want
to leave you."
"But if we cannot get any help--"
"I'll get along. What would you do in this house alone if I went
away?" she demanded.
"I'd shut it up and go down to the Laurel House to board."
"Oh, that's awful!"
"No. I get my lunch there now. It's not very bad," said Broxton
Day, smiling.
"I mean it's awful to think of shutting up our home for the
summer. You haven't got to go away to Mexico, have you, Daddy?"
she queried with sudden suspicion.
"Well, my dear, it may be necessary," he confessed.
"And you'd send me away to Vermont while you were gone?"
"I don't know what else to do--if the necessity arises. Jase Day
is my half-brother--the only living relative I have. Your
mother's people are all scattered. I wouldn't know what else to
do with you, my dear."
"Mercy!" she sighed, winking back the tears, "it sounds as though
I--I were what you call a 'liability' in your bank business.
Isn't that it? Why, Daddy! I want to be an 'asset,' not a
'liability.'"
"Bless you, my dear, you are! A great, big asset!" he laughed.
"But you must not neglect the necessary preparation for life
which your studies give you. Nor must I let you overwork. Have
patience--and hope. Perhaps we shall be able to find a really
good housekeeper, after all."
When, on Wednesday afternoons Janice came home from school, she
saw Miss Peckham beckoning to her from her front porch, the girl
had no suspicion that the maiden lady was about to interfere in
her and daddy's affairs. No, indeed!
"Now I wonder what she wants!" murmured Janice, going reluctantly
toward the Peckham house. "And she's got company, too."
The spinster was sitting on her porch behind the honeysuckle
vines, with her sewing table and the big parrot, Ambrose, chained
to his perch beside her. There was, too, a second woman on the
porch.
"Good afternoon, Miss Peckham," Janice said, swinging her books
as she came up the walk from Miss Peckham's gate. "Hello,
Polly!"
"Polly wants cracker!" declared the bird, flapping his wings and
doing a funny little dance on his perch.
"Be still!" commanded Miss Peckham. With her sharp little black
eyes she glanced from Janice to the other woman. "This is the
girl," she said.
Janice, feeling as though she was under some important scrutiny
looked at the second woman in curiosity. She found her a not
unpleasant looking person. She was much wrinkled, yet her cheeks
were rather pink and her lips very vivid. Janice wondered if it
was possible that this color was put on by hand.
The woman sat in a rocking chair with her long hands folded idly
in her lap. On the hands were white "half mits"--something
Janice knew were long out of fashion but which were once
considered very stylish indeed.
The woman's eyes were a shallow brown color--perhaps "faded"
would be a better expression. It seemed as though she were too
languid even to look with attention at any one or anything.
"This is the girl, Sophrony," Miss Peckham repeated more sharply.
"Oh, yes," murmured the strange woman, as though awakened from a
brown study. "Yes. Quite a pretty little girl."
"Pretty is as pretty does," scoffed Miss Peckham. "At any rate,
she's healthy. Ain't you, Janice Day?"
"Ah--oh--yes, ma'am!" stammered Janice, "I guess I am."
"Well, I don't see the doctor going to your house none," said
Miss Peckham, in her snappy way. "I guess I would ha' seen him
if he'd called."
"Oh, yes," agreed Janice, "you would have seen him."
"Heh?" Miss Peckham stared at the little girl sharply. But she
saw that Janice was quite innocent in making her comment.
"Well," said the maiden lady, "this is Mrs. Watkins."
Considering this an introduction, Janice came forward and offered
the faded looking woman her hand. Mrs. Watkins' own hand
reminded Janice of a dead fish, and she was quite as glad to drop
it as Mrs. Watkins seemed to be to have it dropped.
"Oh, yes," said the latter woman, "she is a pretty girl."
"Mrs. Watkins has come to see me," explained Miss Peckham. "She
an' I have been friends for years and years. We used to go to
school together when we were girls."
"Oh!" said Janice. But she could think of nothing else to say.
She did not understand why she was being taken into Miss
Peckham's confidence.
"Yes, Sophrony Watkins and I--Sophrony Shepley was her maiden
name. She married Tom Watkins--and Tom was a shiftless critter,
if there ever was one."
Janice was startled. Miss Peckham seemed to be unnecessarily
plain spoken. But the languid Mrs. Watkins made no comment.
"And now Sophrony has come down to doin' for herself," went on
the neighborhood censor. "I sent for her to come over here.
She's been livin' in Marietteville. You tell your pa that we'll
come into see him to-night after supper."
"Oh!" murmured Janice. Then she "remembered her manners," and
said, smiling: "Please do, Miss Peckham. I will tell daddy you
are coming."
Miss Peckham waved her hand to dismiss her young neighbor. "And
if 'twas me," she said complacently to her companion, "first
thing I'd do would be to cure that young one of calling her
father 'daddy.' That's silly."
Even this remark did not forewarn Janice of what was coming. "I
just believe," she thought, going on her way, "that that
faded-out little woman is a book agent and will want to sell
daddy a set of books he'll never in this world read."
But in getting dinner and tidying up the dining room and living
room, Janice forgot all about Mrs. Sophronia Watkins. Janice was
working very hard these days-- much harder than any girl of her
age should work. The evening before she had fallen asleep over
her studies, and to-day her recitations had not been quite up to
the mark.
The lack of system in the housekeeping made everything harder for
her, too. It was all right for daddy to help wash the dinner
dishes, and even to blacken the range and the gas stove as he did
on this evening, but there were dozens of things going wrong
every day in the house which neither Janice nor her father could
help.
There were the provision bills. Janice knew very well that the
butcher took advantage of her ignorance. She was always in a
hurry in the morning, running to school; and she could not stop
to see meat weighed, or vegetables properly picked out and
measured.
At Mr. Harriman's, the grocer's, it was not so bad. There were
certain articles of established standard that she knew her mother
had always ordered; but in the matter of butter and cheese and
eggs, she realized that she often ordered the best, and got
second or third quality and first-quality prices.
Had she been able to spend the time marketing she would have
conserved some of daddy's money and things would have been much
better on the table. Yet, with the kind of houseworkers they had
had, much of the good food that was bought was spoiled in the
cooking.
Daddy sometimes said: "The Lord sends the food, but the cooks
don't all come from heaven, that is sure, Janice."
He was vigorously polishing the cookstove on this Wednesday
evening and they were cheerfully talking and joking, when the
sound of bootheels on the side porch announced the coming of
visitors.
"Oh, dear me! who can that be?" whispered Janice.
"Save me, My Lady--save me!" cried daddy, appearing to be very
much frightened, and dodging behind the stove. "Don't let the
neighbors in until I have got rid of this blacking brush and got
on my vest and coat--"
But the caller who now hammered on the door with quick knuckles
was no bashful person. Mr. Day had no chance to escape from the
kitchen Miss Peckham turned the knob and walked right in.
"Come in, Sophrony," she said, over her shoulder, to the person
who came behind her. "You can see well enough that this man and
his gal need somebody to take hold for 'em. Come right in."