Janice heard from Gummy and Amy just how Abel Strout acted and
what he said when he came to see their mother about the renewal
of the mortgage and the payment of the half year's interest.
Gummy was very much excited over it.
"You strought to see that Stout man, anyway--"
"Oh, dear, me, Gummy, there you go again!" gasped Janice, with
laughter, while the boy's sister giggled desperately, too.
"What's the matter now?" he demanded, in some surprise.
"Another lapsus linguae--I looked it up, and that is what they
call it," said Janice.
"Say! Why don't you talk so people can understand you?" Gummy
demanded. "Don't talk Latin to a fellow."
"And you sounded as though you were using 'pig-Latin,'" laughed
Amy. "You said we "strought' to see Mr. 'Stout'."
"Oh! Jicksy! Did I?" exclaimed the boy. I'm always saying one
thing and meaning another, aren't I? Is that a lapsus linguae?
"It is in this case, Gummy. But go on--do."
"Well, Mr. Strout looks just like a piece of that green-speckled
cheese Mr. Hardman has in his showcase --in the face, I mean."
"In the face of the showcase?" giggled Amy.
"Or the face of the cheese?" asked Janice demurely.
"Now, say, you girls go too far," complained Gummy, yet
good-naturedly. "I mean Strout's face. It looks like the
cheese, for he's all speckled. And the cheese is called
Rockyford and tastes funnier than it looks."
"Oh, oh!" cried Janice, "you've got your cheese mixed with melons
this time. It is Rockyford melons and Roquefort cheese."
"Jicksy! They sound pretty near the same," grumbled Gummy.
"Anyhow, that is how Abel Strout looks in the face--speckled.
And he came in, in that yellow dust-coat of his, looking like a
peeled sapling--so long and lean."
"My, what a wealth of description you have at your tongue's end,"
cried Janice, still in a gale of laughter. "A face like
Roquefort cheese with a figure like a peeled sapling. Well!"
"You keep on you girls, and I won't ever get anywhere,"
complained Gummy.
"Go on, Gummy," urged Janice.
"Well, he was just as nasty-mean as he always is. The only time
I ever saw him pleasant was when he was wheedling mother out of
her money before she bought the house. But he started in real
bossy this time."
"I should say he did," agreed Amy, feelingly.
"'Well, Mrs. Carringford,' said Strout, 'I hope you are ready to
take up that mortgage right now, without no hanging back.' He
knew of course that mother didn't have a whole thousand dollars
left--no, sir! He knows all right just what she had in the
beginning, and that we've been living off it for more than a
year," said Gummy.
"So mother told him she could not take up the mortgage. That she
did not dare put any more money into the place --except the
interest and the taxes--until prospects were brighter.
"'Well,' he said--mean old hunks!--'money is dreadful
tight right now, and I don't see how I can let you have
a thousand any longer. 'Tain't in the bill of
agreement.'
"Mother said: 'Mr. Strout, when you sold me the place you said I
could have plenty of time to pay for it. You knew my children
were small and that I could not do much toward paying the
mortgage until they grew bigger and could help.'
"'You got anything like that writ into your contract?' asked Mr.
Strout.
"'It was verbally understood,' said mother.
"'That don't mean nothin' in business,' said Strout. 'I might
tell you the moon was made o' green cheese, but I wouldn't
guarantee it. Talk's one thing; a written guarantee is another.
That mortgage is writ for a year, and the year is up.'
"Oh!" exclaimed Gummy hotly, "I could have hit him for speaking
so mean to my mother."
"I don't blame you," Janice said sympathetically. "But never
mind. Tell the rest."
"Why, all mother could say was what your father told' her to say.
She said: 'You said when you were here several weeks ago that you
would let me pay off some of the principal and let the mortgage
stand.'
"'How much?' he snapped at her--just like a hungry dog
at a bone, you know," continued Gummy.
"'I will spare fifty dollars,' said mother.
"'Fifty fiddlestrings!' shouted Strout. 'Won't hear to it!
Won't listen to it!'
"But already, you see," chuckled Gummy, "mother had pushed the
interest money toward him across the table. He grabbed it. He
couldn't keep his hands off real money, I guess--his own or
anybody else's."
"Oh, Gummy!" murmured Amy.
"Well, didn't he just act so?" cried the boy. "Why, he counted
that interest money just as hungrily! And he folded it and put
it in his wallet."
"You tell it just as it was," sighed Amy. "Of course I do. Well,
mother said: 'You can give me my receipt for that, Mr. Strout, if
you don't mind.' And then he did go off the handle!" chortled
Gummy. "You see, he had tricked himself."
"How was that, Gummy?" Janice asked wonderingly.
"He made mother pay interest on the note six months in advance.
When he accepted that interest he--what do you call it?--Oh! He
tacitly renewed the note, which runs what they call concurrently
with the mortgage. So the mortgage is good for another year."
"Oh! Is that what daddy told your mother to do?" cried Janice.
"Now I understand." exclaimed the delighted
Gummy.
"Oh! Daddy didn't mean it as a trick--"
"Not a tricky trick," explained Gummy volubly. "Of course not.
But mother just let Mr. Strout trick himself. When he saw what
he had done he tried to hand the money back; but mother said:
"'Oh, no, sir!, You can give me the written receipt or not, just
as you please. Both of these children'-- that's Amy and me--'saw
me give you the money and know its purpose. Their testimony is
good in court.
You have refused any payment on the principal of the mortgage;
but you have accepted interest for the ensuing six months. You
have therefore renewed the note for a year, as it is written for
a year.'
"Oh, wasn't Strout mad!" chuckled Gummy.
"And I was proud of mamma," added Amy.
"You bet! Strout said to mother: 'Somebody's been talking to
you--I can see that.'
"'Yes, they have,' she told him. 'And somebody who knows you
very well, Mr. Strout.' Meaning your father, Janice, of course.
"'So you think you will hold on to this shack and make something
on it, do you?' he remarked.
"'At least,' mother answered, 'I hope to keep it for a shelter
for my children and not lose what I have put in it.'
"'Well,' said he, in such a nasty tone! 'You just wait!' And then
he stamped out of the house."
"Oh, but I am afraid of him," sighed Amy. "He spoke so
threateningly."
"Yes, Momsy and Amy think he has something up his sleeve," said
Gummy, carelessly. "But I think Abel Strout is licked, thanks to
Mr. Day."
Janice was very careful to repeat the particulars of this scene
Gummy had so vividly related to her father in the evening.
"Maybe he has something 'up his sleeve,' as Gummy says," Janice
observed. "Can that be possible, do you think, Daddy?"
"Well, it is hard to say. Now that I have gone into this thing
for Mrs. Carringford, I suppose I might go a little deeper. Do
you know if she had the title to that property searched before
she bought it?"
"I'll ask her, Daddy."
"Don't ask in a way to frighten her," advised Mr. Day, on second
thought. "It may be all right. Just ask her who looked up the
title. Tell her I will have the money ready for her to take up
Strout's mortgage when it becomes due next time; but that
meanwhile I shall have to have the title searched if that was not
done before."
"Oh, Daddy! do you believe there could be some--some--"
"Some flaw in it?" asked her father, supplying the word that
Janice had heard but could not remember.
"Yes."
"There might be. This is an old part of Greensboro, and some of
the old titles conflicted."
"But then Mrs. Carringford would not have to lose, would she?
Wouldn't Mr. Strout have to give her back her money?"
"Perhaps not. Not if he could prove that he knew nothing about
the flaw in the title. Or rather, not if Mrs. Carringford could
not prove that Strout did know his title was fraudulent.
Besides, the place might have been sold for taxes some time.
That would invalidate the title in this state, unless the
original owner, or his heirs, who owed the taxes, had
quitclaimed."
"Dear me, Daddy Day? she cried, "it sounds awfully complicated."
"It is, for little girls. But we will see what we shall see,"
which to say the least, was not a very comforting statement.
Janice had found a colored woman who lived at the end of Love
Street to take the washing home each week and who did it very
satisfactorily. But the woman had small children and so could
not go out to work.
Besides, such women as they had hired to come in to work by the
day had been very unsatisfactory. Nobody seemed to take any
interest in the work.
"Why," Janice thought, "we haven't even cleaned house properly
this spring. And here it is June--and school almost closing!"
It was a fact that the last few days of the spring term were at
hand. Janice was so busy that she did not know what to do. When
she went to see Mrs. Carringford to ask her the question Daddy
had told her to put, she broke down and cried, telling Amy's
mother how bad she felt about the house.
"I got down the curtains and put them to soak; but I can't starch
them and put them on the stretcher and hang them again,"
confessed Janice "The house looks so bare! And every inch of
paint needs scrubbing--even in the rooms that Mrs. Watkins shut
up so tight. She did not clean the paint."
"Can't you hire somebody to help you?" asked Mrs. Carringford.
"If you mean can daddy pay for it--he'd be glad to!" cried
Janice. "But I just can't find anybody at all."
"I might come over and help you a couple of days, Janice," said
Mrs. Carringford, doubtfully.
"Oh! Could you?"
"I can't come very early in the morning; but Amy can get supper
for the children, so that I could stay until after your dinner at
night, Janice."
"Mrs. Carringford! if you'll come and help us," gasped Janice, "I
think I'll just cry for joy."
"Don't do that, my dear. Of course, this is only a stop-gap.
But I will try to do what I can for you toward cleaning house and
putting everything to rights again."
And a single day's work made such a difference Daddy came into
the house toward evening without knowing what Janice had arranged
with Mrs. Carringford, and began to "snuff" at once.
"Why, Janice, how clean everything smells!" he cried when the
girl ran to meet him. "What is happening?"
"We are cleaning house. At least, she is."
"'She'? Who?" he cried.
"You'll never guess."
"I--I--Surely none of the neighbors has taken pity on us and come
in to clean?"
"That is exactly what has happened," Janice said. "Mrs.
Carringford, Daddy!"
"Mrs Carringford!" he repeated. "Not come to work for us?"
"Oh, dear! I wish she was going to work for us all the time,"
confessed the girl with a sigh. "But she is going to put us all
straight once more, at least. The children don't want her to go
out to work; but she will do this for us."
"Well, 'small mercies thankfully received; larger ones in
proportion,'" murmured daddy. "The whole house to be cleaned
once more? And without my Janice to be dragging herself to
death?"
"Oh, Daddy!"
"Well, I have been worried, dear," he confessed. "I wrote your
Aunt Almira, half promising that you should go to see them after
school closed."
"Oh, Daddy!" shrieked Janice again. "To Poketown?"
"You won't find it so bad. And you need a rest, I believe. This
old house--"
"Oh! you sha'n't talk so about our beautiful home," gasped
Janice.
"If it is going to be such a burden to you, my dear--"
"It isn't! It isn't " she cried excitedly, and actually stamping
her feet. "You don't mean to shut up our home, Daddy? I won't
hear to it," and she burst into a flood of tears.
Mrs. Carringford came into the living-room, neat, smiling, and
very, very good to look upon, the man thought. It was a blessing
to have a real housekeeper, and homemaker as well, in the house.
"Quite overwrought, Mr. Day," she said putting her arms about the
sobbing Janice. "She works too hard and tries to do too much."
"I know it," he said, shaking his head.
"And, besides," said the good woman, "Janice is growing up. She
is growing too fast, perhaps. And she does need, Mr. Day,
something that no father--no matter how willing and thoughtful he
may be--can give her."
"That is--?" asked the man, paling a little.
"The companionship of a woman, Mr. Day," said Mrs. Carringford.
"She should be more with some woman whom you can trust. Not the
women you have had here to work for you."
Janice had run away to bathe her eyes and make herself tidy.
Broxton Day listened to this woman's advise with a serious
countenance.
"I was just suggesting her going to spend a part of the summer
with her aunt in Vermont. And she doesn't want to," he
explained.
"That would take her a long way from you and from her home. She
loves her home, Mr. Day. Janice is a born homemaker, I believe."
"What can I do, then?" exclaimed the man, at his wit's end.
"Were any people ever situated so unfortunately as Janice and I?"
"There have been thousands like you and your daughter," said Mrs.
Carringford. "Janice will be all right after school closes, for
she will not have so much to do. Let her books rest this summer.
See that she plays instead of works. If you will, let her be a
good deal with other girls."
"I would be willing to have her fill the house with them. Only
that, too, adds to the work."
"Well, we'll see," sighed Mrs. Carringford, preparing to go back
to the kitchen. "She can run over and see my Amy, and Amy can
come here. They are about the same age, and like kittens they
should play more than work. I will gladly do what I can for you,
Mr. Day. You have been very kind to me and mine."
He wanted to tell her that that was not so. That he had really
done nothing, and the favor was on the other side. But she
hurried away to attend to dinner.
And it was a nice dinner that was served at the Day table that
evening. Like the faded-out lady, Mrs.
Carringford sat down to eat with them. But there was a different
air about Mrs. Carringford. She was really a gentlewoman.
Janice recovered her spirits and chattered like a magpie; and Mr.
Day himself found that for the first time in many months, he had
really enjoyed a well-cooked meal and a social meal at his own
table.
Mrs. Carringford came day after day until the entire house was
cleaned. Daddy found a man to clean up the yard, cart away
ashes, smooth the walks and dig over the flowerbeds. The local
florist supplied growing plants for out of doors, and the Day
place bloomed again as it was wont to do when Mrs. Day was alive.
Meanwhile Janice and her mates were just as busy as bees
concluding the spring term at school. There were the final
examinations which were now close at hand. Janice really trembled
over these.
"My sakes, Amy! what if I shouldn't pass? I'm awfully shaky on
physiology, especially."
"Goodness, Janice! you'll pass, of course. Anybody as bright and
quick as you are!"
"It's awfully nice of you to say that. But my recitations have
gone off like anything lately and I really am afraid of these
exams."
Amy tried to comfort her friend, but with little success.
Then there were many outside pleasures, and Janice, in a happier
mood this time, remarked that school really did interfere with
the real business of life--such as the picnics that the beautiful
spring days made so thoroughly pleasurable.
"Dear me, I'd like to go to a picnic every day," she sighed
happily to Amy one Saturday afternoon, after jolly hours spent
with the boys and girls of her circle of closest friends in the
woods, now white with dogwood.
Some of the girls were going away for a part of the summer
vacation. But Janice would not admit that she even contemplated
such a change.
Stella Latham was one of those who expected to migrate. She was
going to some relatives who had a summer place on the shore of
one of the Great Lakes, and she talked a good deal about it.
But she did not talk to Janice. All she said in the latter's
hearing was something that only puzzled and annoyed Daddy's
daughter. "I guess if somebody who thinks she is so smart only
knew what I know about that Swedish girl, Olga, she'd give her
very eyes to have me tell her--so now!"
"I don't even know what she means," confessed Janice, wearily, to
Amy.
"She just means to be mean--that's all!" said the practical Amy.