It took several days for Janice to understand thoroughly just
what it meant to have Mammy Blanche in the house. Of course,
Mrs. Carringford had been perfectly capable; yet she felt that
she must ask Janice or Mr. Day once in a while about things.
Not Mammy Blanche! She knew what to do, and how to do it, and
just what "the white folks" wanted. She remembered just as
perfectly how Mr. Day liked things on the table, and what he was
fond of, and even how he wanted his bed made, as though she had
only been absent from the house a week instead of ten years.
"Why, bress your heart, honey," she said to Janice, "Ah come into
dis here house when it was fust built. Ah cleaned it wid mah own
han's. Ah put up de fust curtains at de windahs. Ah knowed
where everything was in dem days. "But Ah spec' now you's had so
many no-count folks in de house fixin' fo' you dat Ah can't find
a bressed thing. Dars's dat old walnut wardrobe up in de
sto'room. It come from de Avion place, it did. Ah bet de
cobwebs ain't been swep' off de top o' dat wardrobe since yo'
poor mamma died." "It was too tall for Mrs. Carringford or me to
reach it," admitted Janice.
"Well, Ah's gwine to give dis place one fine over-haulin; come
dis fall," went on Mammy Blanche. "Ah'll fix dem cobwebs."
It proved to be unnecessary for Janice to worry about the
housekeeping in any particular. But she had not lost another
worry, and in spite of all the wonderful things that had
happened, and the interesting matters that were continually
cropping up, the lost treasure-box containing the mementoes of
her mother was continually fretting her mind.
The opening of school was drawing near, and Janice began to take
exciting little "peeps" between the covers of textbooks. She
loved study, and daddy had been insistent this summer that she
should let lessons strictly alone.
She had plenty of time to sit in the kitchen while Mammy Blanche
was at work there, listening to wonderful tales of her mother's
childhood, and of the "doin's" on the Avion plantation on the
other shore of the Ohio River.
"All gone now, chile," sighed Mammy Blanche. "Somebody else
livin' in the Avion home."
But better than all, Janice, the homemaker learned many new and
interesting things about housekeeping. Mammy Blanche had a
"sleight," as she called it, in doing housework, and Janice might
well copy her methods.
Amy came often to see her, of course; and Gummy was at the house
almost every day with orders from the store. One Saturday
morning, while Janice was sweeping the porch, she saw Gummy
driving toward the house almost as madly as he had the day the
chimney caught fire.
"Why, Gummy!" she cried, running out to meet him as he drew up
the horse at the curb, "what is the matter?"
"You'd never guess!" shouted the boy. "What do you suppose? I
just saw that pickle-girl in Olga-town."
"What? gasped Janice.
"I--I mean I've seen that Pickletown in Olga--Oh, jicksy!. Do
you know what I mean, Janice Day?"
"Yes! Yes!" she cried. "You've seen Olga."
"Then jump right in here and I'll drive you to her," said the
boy, without running the risk of another lapsus linguae.
Without waiting even for a hat, and throwing her broom back over
the fence, Janice scrambled in. But when Gummy started the horse
she said to him:
"Don't think you are driving in a chariot race. You'll kill Mr.
Harriman's poor old nag. Drive slower, Gummy. She won't get
away, will she?"
"No. I think she's been living in that house some time. But I
never go there for orders, and I never happened to see her
before."
"Where is it?"
"Away down by the canal," said Gummy.
"Oh! Then it is a long way off."
"Yes."
"What will Mr. Harriman say?"
"There are not many orders this morning. And this is important,
Janice."
"I guess it is," agreed the girl, her face pale but her eyes
sparkling with excitement.
They did not say much after that until they came in sight of the
house by the canal. Oh, if it should be Olga! Janice began to
tremble. Should she have gone to daddy first about it?
But daddy was still on crutches and was not fit to come out in
this delivery wagon, that was sure.
What should she say to Olga if it were she? Ought she to stop
and ask a policeman to go with them to the house? And yet it was
a fact that she absolutely did not know for sure whether Olga had
taken the treasure-box or not.
Suddenly she uttered a little exclamation. Gummy glanced ahead,
too.
"Yes," he said, "that's the woman. That's the one I saw that
night at Stella Latham's.
"It--it is Olga Cedarstrom," murmured Janice. Gummy drew the old
horse to a stop. Janice leaped down. The Swedish woman turned
and looked into Janice's blazing countenance. Her own dull face
lit up and she actually smiled.
"Vell!" she exclaimed, "iss it Janice Day? I bane glad to see
you. Iss your fader well?"
"Oh, Olga!" gasped Janice.
"Huh? What iss it the matter?"
"We have looked everywhere for you!"
"For me? Why for me? I don't vork no more. I keep house for my
hoosban'," and Olga smiled broadly.
"You--you are married to Mr. Sangreen?" asked Janice doubtfully.
"I bane married right avay when I left you. We go to his
folks--dey leev up in Michigan. He try vork dere and I coom back
on a veesit to Yon Yonson's wife. He vork for Misder Latham."
"Yes, I know!" cried Janice, anxiously.
"Now Willie bane coom back to his old yob at de pickle vorks.
And how is you? You look fine."
"Oh, Olga, we have been dreadfully worried. When-- when you went
away from our house did you see a little box--like a jewel box?
I left it on your trunk in the storeroom."
"On my troonk?" repeated the woman. "Where it stood in de
storeroom?"
"Oh, yes!" cried Janice clasping her hands.
It had suddenly impressed her that beyond any doubt, Olga was not
a thief. Whatever had happened to the treasure-box, Olga did not
knowingly have it in her possession.
"I remember de leetle box. Yes! You t'ink I take it?"
"We haven't been able to find it since you left, Olga," cried
Janice.
"Huh! I saw it. But--Here! This boy will drive us back mit him
to your house?"
"Oh, yes, Olga!" cried Janice, with a glance at Gummy, who
nodded.
"I'll go mit you," said the woman, and immediately she climbed to
the high seat." Janice followed her. Gummy turned the horse
about and away they went on the return journey.
On the way Janice thought it best to say nothing more about the
lost treasure-box; but she told Olga of how she had tried to
trace her through the Johnsons.
"My bad look!" cried Olga. "I break a dish by that Latham
woman's house and she vant me to pay for it. Huh! People ought
not to use such spensive dishes. Me, I use common chinnyware in
my house."
When they arrived at the house on Knight Street, Olga jumped
briskly down and followed Janice inside. Gummy called after them
that he would wait. He was so excited and interested himself
that he could not leave until the mystery was cleared up;
"Ve go oop to dot storeroom," declared Olga and proceeded to do
so, with Janice trembling and hoping beside her.
Once in the room the woman seized a strong chair, climbed upon
it, and, being tall herself, she could reach over the carved
strip of woodwork on the front of the wardrobe to the space that
lay behind. In a moment she brought something forth covered with
dust and cobwebs that caused Janice to utter a shriek of delight.
"That iss it, yes?" said Olga. "I be mad mit you dot morning I
leaf here. The box was on my troonk and when Willie come up the
stairs for it, I grab de box and pitch it up hyar. I don't know
you vant it, Janice-- and your fader."
"Well," sighed Broxton Day, when he heard the good news and had
the treasure-box in his hands, "'All's well that ends well.' But
what a peck of trouble that Swedish girl made us!"
"No, no I" exclaimed Janice warmly. "I did it. It was my fault.
I was the careless one, or the box would not have been where she
could see it. But I am awfully glad, Daddy, that Olga proved not
to be a thief."
Daddy showed her the tiny spring in the bottom of the box which,
when released, enabled him to lift up the thin partition. He
removed the thin packet of letters, and put them in a leather
case, placing the case into the wall safe.
"I know where they are now, my dear. Do what you will with the
other keepsakes and the treasure-box itself. I cannot tell you
how glad I am to get these letters back."
But Janice thought she did know something about that.
"That Mexican mine business is not likely to cause us any more
trouble until spring, anyway," said daddy one night at dinner.
"Oh, Daddy! then won't you have to go down there?" Janice cried.
"Not likely. Fact is, there is a big fight on in the mining
country, and the mines have got to shut down. But the government
promises us that we shall be able to open up again next spring.
We might as well sit tight and hold on, as I tell them. I'm
sorry that so much of our funds are tied up in the business,
however. Politics below the Rio Grande are 'mighty onsartain,' as
Brother Jase would say."
"Now that Mammy Blanche is here with us, I would not have to go
to Poketown, even if you did go to Mexico, Daddy. Would I?"
"M-mm! Well, that's hard telling," he replied, with twinkling
eyes. "Let's not cross that bridge till we come to it."
So Janice saw nothing but a cheerful vista before her --with
school coming soon, pleasure in study, plenty of fun between
times, and such a fortunate state of affairs at Eight Hundred and
Forty-five Knight Street that she did not have to worry about
daddy's comfort or her own at all.
Mrs. Carringford had had no easy time of it with the shyster
lawyer and the others who were making trouble for her over her
property. But in the end her own lawyer triumphed; and then the
mortgage on the place was cleared off, much to the satisfaction
of both the Carringfords and the Days.
"It does seem," said Janice with an ecstatic sigh, to Amy
Carringford one day when both girls had their sewing on the
porch, "that everything always does turn out for the best for us
Days."
"Humph!" returned Amy, threading her needle, "I guess they
wouldn't turn out so 'right' if you and your father didn't do
something to turn 'em out."
And, perhaps, that was so, too.