"It looks as though we had come upon a fool's errand," said Mr.
Day, coming back to the car and his daughter. "Mrs. Johnson says
that girl was not named Cedarstrom, and that she has already gone
away."
"Do you suppose it is the truth, Daddy?" asked the anxious
Janice.
"Well, it is probably the truth. All Olgas are not named
'Cedarstrom,' of course. And I fancy the girl was frightened
because of the broken cutglass dish and escaped early this
morning."
"Why? Would Mrs. Latham try to make her pay for it?"
"Perhaps. At least, this mysterious Olga thought she would be
made to pay for the dish. Or perhaps she feared arrest.
Sometimes these foreigners are very ignorant regarding our laws.
She might easily have been frightened away."
"But if she is our Olga--"
"This woman here is stubborn. She will probably tell us nothing
more about her friend. And she said flatly that the name was not
Cedarstrom."
"Oh, dear!" sighed Janice, "it is too, too bad."
"It is too bad that the trail seems lost. I will try to see Mr.
Johnson himself. We will make sure that the girl was not the one
we are after. But, you see, we are inquiring for Olga for a
reason that is likely to frighten her and her friends. I think
some of those people over in Pickletown might tell me more than
they do about Olga and that Willie Sangreen."
"It is just too bad!" half sobbed Janice. "I hoped we should
find the treasure-box this time."
"Have patience. Rome was not built in a day," said her father.
"We're not building Rome," the girl retorted, but trying to smile
again. "I guess even that was an easier job than finding a lost
Swedish girl." "Don't
worry, honey."
"But I can't help worrying," said Janice, sobbing again.
"You are overwrought, my dear. Don't let your mind run upon
unpleasant things. That treasure-box.
"
"Will never be found, Daddy!" cried his little daughter. "I am
sure! And if it isn't found I don't --don't--know--what
I--shall--do."
He put his arm about her and hugged Janice tight against his
side. "Don't lose hope so easily. And see here! Here is
something new I forgot to tell you."
"What is it, Daddy?" she asked, as he began to search an inner
pocket of his coat.
"A letter. From your Aunt Almira. Just listen to it."
"Oh, Daddy! From Aunt Almira in--in Poketown?"
"Yes. My half-brother's wife--and a good soul she
is."
He drew the letter from its envelope and unfolded it. He began to
read the epistle with a smile wreathing his lips, for Aunt
Almira's communication was unintentionally funny:
"'Dear Brocky:
"'Jase won't never get around to writing you, far as I see, so I
had better do so before you get the suspicion that we are all
dead. We might as well be and buried, too, here in Poketown--for
it is right next door to a cemetery for deadness, I do believe.
You know what it was when you was lucky enough to get out of it
twenty years ago. Well, it is worse now. There has been nothing
new in Poketown since you went away, excepting the town pump's
been painted once.
"That time you came to see us with Laura, when Janice was a
little girl--"
"Why, Daddy!" interrupted Janice, her eyes round with wonder, "I
don't remember Poketown at all."
"You were too little to recall that visit. I have only been back
there once since you and your dear mother and I visited Jase and
Almira." Then he went on, reading aloud:
"'You remember the house needed painting and the front gate hung
by one hinge. Well, it still needs painting and that one hinge
has give up the ghost now. So you see, there hasn't been many
changes. You're the only Day, I guess, that ever had any "get up
and get" to them.
"'But my heart has been full of thoughts of you since we heard of
poor Laura's death. We often speak of you and wonder how you and
that little girl get on all stark alone. I know how I should
feel if Jase and Marty was left as you and Janice be.'"
"Oh," gasped Janice, "she'd be dead!"
"Well," mused her father, "Almira, living in such a dead place as
Poketown, evidently considers that she knows about how she would
feel in her grave."
"Is it such an awful place, Daddy?" Janice asked seriously.
"What do you mean?" he inquired, in surprise. "Oh, Poketown, I
mean, of course.
"It is a lovely place. But it must be confessed that it is a
good deal behind the times. It is not as bad as Aunt 'Mira makes
it out to be, I guess. Only, the old Day house has pretty well
gone to rack and ruin."
"Well. Let's hear the rest," urged Janice.
"'Jase says to be mighty careful if you should have to go down to
that Mexico place. He reads in his Ledger that sometimes there
is shooting down there and that the Mexicaners don't care who
they shoot.'"
"Oh, Daddy!" cried Janice, "you don't mean you are going to
Mexico?"
"I wrote them when I thought it might be necessary," he
confessed.
"And you would send me East if you went? Oh, Daddy, please!"
"Well, my dear, that seemed the wisest thing to do."
"Oh, Daddy!"
"Don't worry now. We have engaged a new superintendent at the
mines, and I guess things will go on all right. Listen to what
your Aunt 'Mira says:
"'Of course, if you have to go down there on business, you send
Janice right to us. I'm speaking for Jase as well as myself. We
ain't rich, of course; but there's enough to fill another mouth
yet awhile, so don't be bashful.
"'Hoping this finds you and Janice in health, it leaving us all
the same, I will close,
"'Your, sister-in-law and Janice's aunt, "'ALMIRA DAY.'"
"I hope you won't have to go, and that I won't have to go,
Daddy!" exclaimed the girl anxiously.
"She's a good soul--Almira. She'd do her best by you."
"I don't want anybody to do their best by me--only you, Daddy."
"But you see, my dear, I couldn't leave you alone at home here.
Certainly not with a woman like Mrs. Watkins."
"We-ell!"
"Why, she would be imposing upon you all the time. No, indeed.
I feel that she is not the woman for our house, after all."
"Oh, dear, Daddy! isn't it funny how many people there are in the
world who don't just fit?"
"Right you are, my dear," he agreed, laughing again. "'Round pegs
in square holes.' The woods are full of them."
"That Mrs. Watkins never should have gone out to work.'
"I guess not."
"And people like Mrs. Carringford have got their own families and
their own troubles. So we can't get them."
"What put Amy's mother in your mind?"
"I wish you could see their house, Daddy."
"I have," he said, rather grimly. "And it is sight!"
"Not inside! Oh, not at all, Daddy!" she cried. "It is as neat
as wax. Mrs. Carringford is just a love of a housekeeper. I
wish you could see how neat everything is kept," and she sighed.
The automobile soon brought them to the house at Eight Hundred
and Forty-five Knight Street. Mr. Day had become serious again
as they came in sight of the cottage in which so much of a
disturbing nature had happened of late.
For a few days, it was true, Broxton Day had hoped the new
housekeeper would prove an efficient and trustworthy employee,
but what he had seen on coming unexpectedly home this Saturday
noon, had caused doubt to rise in his mind.
Experience had taught him that domestic servants are the most
independent of laborers. To dare call one to account--especially
one like Mrs. Watkins--was to court disaster.
He had felt this to be the case at the time, yet he was unwilling
to see Janice made a drudge of by the too ladylike Mrs. Watkins.
If the kitchen floor had to be scrubbed, and the houseworker
would not scrub it, he would do it himself!
In this mood he entered his home. All was quiet. There was
nobody in the living room or dining room. On the table in the
latter room were the dirty dishes and the remains of Mrs.
Watkins' lunch.
"Oh! where is she?" gasped Janice, following her father through
the rooms.
Mr. Day led the way to the kitchen. The pail stood where Janice
had left it, the scrubbing brush beside it. The fire in the
range had gone out.
With a smothered cry Janice darted upstairs. In a moment her
voice reached his expectant ear:
"Oh, Daddy, she's gone!" she cried.