Janice dropped the mixing spoon and the dishcloth and ran out
upon the side porch, and from thence down the steps and the walk
to the gate. Her heart beat so that she could scarcely get her
breath.
The white uniformed men were drawing the stretcher out of the
ambulance, and Janice, horrified and all but breathless, suddenly
saw her father sitting up on the stretcher.
"Don't be scared, Janice. Be a brave girl," he cried. "It is
only my leg."
"But--but what have they done to your leg, Daddy?" she cried,
wringing her hands.
One of the uniformed men laughed. It was a cheerful laugh, and
he was a jolly looking man. But Janice thought it was very easy
indeed for him to laugh.
"It isn't his leg--or any of his relations" she thought.
"I tell you what they have done to him," he said, taking hold of
both handles at the foot of the stretcher. "They have just set a
compound fracture below the knee and put it into splints. Your
daddy is going to have a glass leg for some time to come, and you
must take good care of it. Where shall we carry him?"
While he spoke and the other man was taking hold of the other
handles of the stretcher, Mr. Day lay down again. He did not
groan, but he was very white. He gave Janice's hand a strong
grip, however, when she got to him.
"Pluck up your courage, dear," he said. "This is no killing
matter."
But now neighbors began to hurry to them. Children, of course,
for Knight Street was well supplied with them. But Mrs. Arlo
Weeks and Mrs. Peckinpaw came from across the street, while Miss
Peckham appeared from her cottage.
"Dear me! Was he picked up that way?" asked Mrs. Weeks, in her
high, strident tone. "My Arlo had a fit once--"
"Tain't a fit," said Mrs. Peckinpaw, who was a very old woman and
who never spoke to Miss Peckham because of some neighborhood
squabble which had happened so long before that neither of them
remembered what it was about.
"Tain't a fit," she said acidly; "for then they foam at the
mouth, or drool. I never knew he had anything the matter with
him, chronic."
The jolly looking man laughed. Miss Peckham on the other side of
the stretcher, and without looking at the other women, asked:
"Oughtn't he be took to the hospital? There's nobody here to
take care of him but that fly-away young one."
"I won't have him taken to a hospital!" cried Janice stormily.
"You bring him right into the house--"
"Well, 'tain't fittin'," said Miss Peckham decidedly.
"I guess both Mr. Day and his daughter know what they want," said
the cheerful looking man, decidedly. "He wanted to be brought
home. Now, my little lady, where shall we put him? All ready,
Bill?"
"All ready," said Bill, who had the handles at the head of the
stretcher.
"But what's the matter with him?" demanded Mrs. Peckinpaw again.
"Is it ketchin'?"
"He has a compound fracture of the tibia," declared the cheerful
man.
"Oh! My mercy!" ejaculated Mrs. Peckinpaw, shrinking away from
the stretcher. "I--I didn't kmow Mr. Day drank!"
She had evidently heard alcoholism called by so many queer
sounding terms that anything she not understand she set down to
that dread trouble. But Miss Peckham had run ahead into the
house.
"Take him right up to his bedroom," she said commandingly to the
men with the stretcher.
"Well, if that woman's goin' to take hold, they don't need me,"
said Mrs. Peckinpaw, snappishly, and she retained her stand upon
the strictly neutral ground of the sidewalk.
Mrs. Arlo Weeks was "all of a quiver," as she herself said. She
followed the men as far as the steps and there sank to a seat.
"My, my! I feel just like fainting," she murmured.
Meanwhile the two uniformed men were carrying Mr. Day into the
house.
"Right up here!" cried Miss Peckham from the stairway.
"No," said Mr. Day, "put me on the couch in the living room. Fix
it, Janice."
At this Janice awoke from her apathy. She rushed in ahead and
fixed the pillows on the couch, and got a warm cover to put over
him.
"I'm to be laid up some weeks," Mr. Day said courageously. "I
don't want to be put upstairs where I don't know a thing about
what's going on in the house. I'll stay downstairs."
"That couch ought to be made up like a bed for you, Mr. Day,"
said the cheerful man, as Janice dropped down the back which made
it into a bed-lounge.
"Do that later," said Mr. Day. "Here! Where's Mrs. Weeks?"
Janice ran to call her. Miss Peckham was descending the stairs,
her nose in the air. She seemed offended that she could not rule
the proceedings.
"Mrs. Weeks," said Janice to the woman from across the street,
"will you come in? Father wants to speak to you."
"I--I don't know as my legs will carry me," sighed Mrs. Weeks.
"Have they put him to bed? Has he got his clo'es off?"
"He just wishes to speak to you," explained Janice. "Right in
here."
She led the way into the living room. Miss Peckham was still
"sniffing" in the doorway. The two ambulance men were preparing
to depart.
"When Arlo Weeks comes home from business, tell him I want to see
him," said Mr. Day to the woman. "He'll help me off with my
clothes and get me into bed here. I shall be all right."
He spoke quite cheerfully now, and even Janice was recovering her
self-possession.
"Oh, well, I'll telI him," murmured Mrs. Weeks. "I'm sick o'
shock, myself. But we have to sacrifice when our neighbors needs
us. Yes, Mr. Day, I'll send Arlo over."
She trailed out after the two men. Mrs. Peckham sniffed after
her, too.
"Well," the spinster said, "I can make him some broth. He'll need
nourishing victuals. And he ain't been gettin' anything of late,
I guess, but what that child's messed up."
She departed kitchenward. Janice and daddy looked at each other
hopelessly. Then together, and in chorus, they murmured:
"But I thought she had washed her hands of us!"
"I don't want broth," grumbled Broxton Day, after a minute. "I
want my dinner. What have you got that's good, Janice?"
"Stew--lamb stew. Nice," she groaned. "And plenty of vegetables
like you like."
"'Like you like' is almost as good as the stew will be," chuckled
her father faintly. "We must get that woman out of the house,
Janice. She will be an Old Man of the Sea."
"No, no!" giggled the girl. "An 'Old Maid of the Sea,' you
mean."
"Maybe I do. But how to get rid of her--"
"I know! Wait!" Janice dashed out of the room and out of the
house. A crowd of children was still at the gate.
"Arlo Junior!" she called into the dusk, "Come here! I want you."
"You want my pa. He ain't home yet," said Junior, drawing near
slowly.
"I want you to do an errand for me," said Janice hastily. "Come
here--close. I'll tell you. Your mother won't mind."
"All right," said Junior, offering an attentive ear.
"You know where Gummy Carringford lives?"
"Course I do."
"Well, you run there, and see his mother; and you tell her--"
Janice in whispers told the boy just what to say to Mrs.
Carringford, and he repeated it before he darted off on the
errand. Arlo Junior was a great boy to play tricks, but he would
not play them at such a time as this.
Janice went back to her father's side and left Miss Peckham, whom
she heard moving about the kitchen, strictly alone. Daddy told
her all about the accident.
It seemed, when he came down the stairs from the Chamber of
Commerce, where he had gone on an errand, a scrubwoman had left a
cake of soap on the next to the top step."
"Of course, it was just my luck to find it for her," said Broxton
Day, with rather a grim laugh. "Maybe she wanted that soap. But
I did not. I kicked right up, Janice, and it is a wonder I did
not break my back as well as my leg."
"Oh, Daddy!"
"I landed so hard at the bottom of the flight that I was
unconscious for a few minutes. Luckily Dr. Bowles, the surgeon,
has offices in that very building. They picked me up and carried
me to him and he fixed up the leg. It will be as good as new, he
says, after a while."
"Oh, dear, Daddy! you might have been killed," cried Janice,
suddenly sobbing.
"Well, it's all over now--but the shouting," muttered Mr. Day,
his face suddenly contorted with pain. "Don't fuss, my dear.
This is something that can be mended, I am sure. Don't give way
to tears."
"Oh, but, Daddy! I know! I know!" sobbed the girl, hiding her
face in his shoulder. "But something did happen--and I--I wished
for it!"
"Wished for me to break my leg?" gasped daddy.
"Oh, no! Oh, no! But I wished something would happen so that I
would not have to go to live at Poketown this summer.
And--now--something--has--happened."
"Quite true, my dear," said Mr. Day, after a moment's silence.
"You got your wish. But as usual, you did not get it just as you
wished it. Still, the very blackest cloud has its silver
lining."
Janice could not imagine a silver lining to this cloud --not just
at that moment. She only realized that daddy was suffering from
an accident that it did seem her wish had brought to him. It was
a very serious and disturbing thought for the girl
Janice did not want to go out into the kitchen to see what Miss
Peckham was about. She had left the tender breast and shoulder
of lamb for the stew simmering on the back of the stove, and the
vegetables were all ready to put in it. What the spinster would
do toward making broth Janice did not know. And daddy did not
want broth.
Just now, however, the girl felt too much disturbed to entertain
an argument with Miss Martha Peckham. Things would have to go on
as they would, until--
Suddenly Janice heard voices in the kitchen-- Miss Peckham's
high-pitched voice and another. Janice saw that her father was
quiet and did not notice, so she got up from his side and stole
to the kitchen door to listen.
"Well, ma'am? exclaimed Miss Peckham, don't see as it's any more
of your business than 'tis mine. I'm makin' this gruel--"
"And I will finish preparing the dinner, if you do not mind, Miss
Peckham," said the soft voice Mrs. Carringford. "I see that
Janice has it almost ready. Do you think, Miss Peckham, that a
man with a broken leg needs gruel?"
"Well, I couldn't find nothing to make broth out of--"
"Or broth?" pursued Mrs. Carringford. "I know Mr. Day's
appetite, and I do not believe that broken leg
has made it any the less hearty."
"Seems to me you know a good deal!" snapped Miss Peckham.
"Specially about this kitchen."
"You know, I have been working here for some time," Mrs.
Carringford said. "Thank you, Miss Peckham. You need not stay.
If there is anything we need you for, I will let you know.
Good-night."
The spinster banged out at the kitchen door without even coming
into the front part of the house.
"Not even to 'wash her hands of us' again!" giggled Janice, who
ran out into the kitchen with a cry of joy.
"Oh, Mrs. Carringford!" she said, throwing her arms about the
woman's neck, "have you really come to stay?"
"I guess I shall have to, my dear. Daytimes, anyway," said Amy's
mother, kissing her. "You'd soon go to rack and ruin here with
the neighbors coming in and littering everything up. Yes, tell
your father I will accept the offer he made me. And now, we'll
have dinner just as soon as possible. How is he?"
"He says he is all right," gasped Janice, catching her breath.
"And he says there is always a silver lining to the very blackest
cloud. Now I know he's right. You are the silver lining to this
cloud, Mrs. Carringford--you really, truly are!"