Janice Day at Poketown Part 38

The taxpayers began to speak with pride of Poketown. When they visited Middletown, or other villages that had previously looked down on the hillside hamlet above the lake, they were apt to say:

"Just come over and see our town. What? You ain't been in Poketown in two years? No wonder you don't know what you're talking about! Why, we put it all over you fellows here for clean streets, and shops, and nice-lookin' lawns and all that--and our school!"

Poketownites were proud of the reading-room, too, although Mr. Ma.s.sey's store was becoming a cramped place for it now. The shelves devoted to the circulating library were well crowded. The state appropriation had been spent carefully, and the new, well-bound books looked "mighty handsome" when visitors came into the place.

But the original intention for the place had never been lost sight of.

It had been made for the boys and young men of Poketown. They had fully appreciated it, and, Elder Concannon's prophecy to the contrary notwithstanding, the reading-room was never the scene of disorderly conduct.

Janice hoped the day would come when the reading-room a.s.sociation should have a building of its own,--not an expensive, ornate structure for which the taxpayers would be burdened, and the up-keep of which would keep the a.s.sociation poor for years; but a snug, warm, cheerful place which would actually be a club for the boys, and offer all the other benefits of a free library.

She knew already just where the building ought to stand. There was a certain empty lot on High Street which would give a library a prominent site. This lot was owned by old Elder Concannon.

"There've been miracles happened here in Poketown during the last year or so; if I have patience and wait to strike when the iron's hot, maybe _that_ miracle will come to pa.s.s," Janice told herself.

Elder Concannon had already begun to treat Janice in a much more friendly way than he had at one time. She believed that secretly he was interested in the library and reading-room. Sometimes he spent an hour or so there of an evening--especially if one of the boys would play checkers with him.

"He's an old nuisance," growled Marty to his cousin, on one occasion.

"He keeps some of the fellers out; they see him in there, with his grizzly old head and flapping cape-coat, and they stay out till he goes home. And, by jinks! I'm gittin' tired of being the goat and playin'

draughts with him."

"Marty," she said to him, with some solemnity, "if you saw that through the Elder's coming there and your entertaining him a bit, the inst.i.tution would in the end be vastly benefited, wouldn't you be _glad_ to play the goat?"

Marty's eyes snapped at her. He drew a long breath, and exclaimed: "Hi tunket! You don't mean that you've got the old Elder 'on the string'

for us, Janice?"

"It's very rude of you to talk that way," said Janice, smiling. "I don't know what you mean by having the dear old gentleman 'on a string.' But I tell you in secret, Marty, that I _do_ hope he will be so much interested in the reading-room and library that some day he will give the a.s.sociation something very much worth while. He can afford it, for he hasn't chick nor child in the world."

"Ye don't mean it?" gasped Marty.

"But I _do_ mean it. Why not? Do you suppose the old gentleman comes into the reading-room without being interested in it?"

"Say!" drawled her cousin. "I'll be the goat all right, all right!"

Janice was indeed cultivating the old Elder's acquaintance. She would not have done it to benefit herself in any way; but to help the library----

"You young folks need a balance wheel," Elder Concannon once said to Janice. "Youthful enthusiasm is all very well; but where's your balance?"

"Then why don't you come in with us and supply the balance?" she rejoined, briskly. "Goodness knows, Elder, we'd be glad to have you!"

Then came a red-letter day for Janice Day. She had almost lost hope of getting her "heart's desire"--the little motor car that Daddy had spoken of. Although his letters had been particularly cheerful of late, he had said nothing more about his promise.

Marty brought her home a thick letter from the post office and gave it to her at the dinner table. When she eagerly slit the flap of the envelope and pulled out the contents, there was flirted out upon the tablecloth a queer-looking certificate.

"Hullo! what's this?" demanded Marty, with all the impudence of a boy.

"Put that down, Marty," commanded his mother.

"By jinks! What's this in the corner?" he yelled. "A thousand dollars? _A thousand dollars_! Janice Day! you're as rich as cream!"

"Hi tunket, boy!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed his father. "Le's see that? It can't be!"

"It is!" shrieked Janice, jumping up and dancing around the room.

"It's for my gasoline run-about! I'm going to have it--I certainly _am_! Hurray! hurray!" and she kissed her aunt heartily and then danced another war dance with Marty around the table.

"Wal, I snum!" exclaimed Uncle Jason, still staring at the bit of paper, which was a Wells-Fargo express check for the sum named.

Janice could scarcely eat any dinner, she was so excited. What was mere eating to the possession of this check and the knowledge that all was going well once more with dear Daddy? Her most particular friends must share the joy with her.

She hurried into her jacket and hat, and ran across town to see Miss 'Rill; for, after all, the little spinster was her dearest and closest friend in Poketown.

But was this Miss 'Rill--this frantic, wild-eyed creature, hatless and with her hair flying, who came running down High Street just as Janice reached the corner of the street on which Hopewell Drugg's store was situated? _Could_ it be 'Rill Scattergood?

"Oh, Janice! Janice! have you heard about it? They just sent for me,"

gasped the little spinster lady.

"What do you mean, 'Rill? _Who_ sent for you?" Janice demanded.

"It's poor little Lottie!" cried the other, dragging Janice along with her. "She's fallen. I've been expecting it. She moves so quickly, you know, in spite of her blindness. And now she's fallen into the cellar----"

"Whose cellar? Oh! is she very, very badly hurt?" cried Janice, equally anxious.

"Hopewell had the trap door open. She came running into the shop and went straight down on her poor little head! Oh! she's all cut and bruised----"

Miss 'Rill could say no more. Nor did Janice need to ask, for they were at the store and pus.h.i.+ng through the little group of helpless but sympathizing neighbors. Dr. Poole was already there. They had Lottie in bed, all bandaged and white.

"Just a bad cut over the forehead--right across the crown," Dr. Poole a.s.sured the waiting neighbors. "She's had a bad shock, but she's in no particular danger. Only----"

He looked at Janice and shook his head. Then he whispered to her: "It's a terrible shame Hopewell can't send the poor little thing to a specialist and have her eyes fixed up. My soul and body, girl! if I'd only been able to go in for surgery myself--If I'd only learned to use the knife!" and he groaned, shook his head, did this old-school family pract.i.tioner, and departed.

Janice did not remain long. Miss 'Rill would sit by the child for the remainder of the afternoon; and even her mother was anxious to help and promised to come over and stay all night at Hopewell's.

"I ain't got nothin' ag'in the poor child, that's sure," Mrs.

Scattergood told Janice. "It's only Hopewell that's so triflin'--he an' his fiddle. Jest like his father before him!"

But the storekeeper's fiddle was silent a good deal of the time how; only when Miss 'Rill or Janice urged him did the man take up the instrument that had once been so much his comfort--and little Lottie's delight.

But now, on this sorrowful afternoon, Janice went back slowly toward home with a very serious mind indeed. On the way she met Nelson Haley coming from school.

"Congratulations--and then some!" he cried, shaking hands with Janice.

"Whatever are you talking about?" she asked, puzzled.

"Marty has been telling everybody the great and good news!" he said, staring at her. "Why! what makes you so solemn? Do you mean to say that you can't decide what kind of an auto to buy, and that is what has soured our Janice's usually sweet disposition?"

"Oh, Nelson!" gasped the girl, suddenly clinging to his arm, for she really felt a weakness in her knees.

"Hold on! hold on! bear up! What's the matter?"