Janice Day, the Young Homemaker Part 11

Janice opened the door to the stairway. There was no sound from that part of the house. She went to the back door then, and there was Delia talking earnestly with Miss Peckham over the boundary fence.

The fact smote Janice like a physical blow. She remembered what Arlo Junior had said about the cat. Miss Peckham had found the poor creature and had sent for the veterinary doctor to treat him.

What Janice had already admitted regarding the cat, and what Delia might tell Miss Peckham, would breed trouble just as sure as the world! What should she do?

She might have been unwise enough to have run out and interfered in the back-fence conference. But just then she heard daddy's key in the front door and she ran to meet him.

"Oh, Daddy! Did you find out anything more about Olga and where she went?" the young girl cried as soon as she saw Broxton Day.

"I guess I have found nothing of importance," said her father, shaking his head gravely.

"Oh, my dear! Nothing?"

"Nothing that explains where the treasure-box went to, Janice,"

he said. "Nor much that explains any other part of the mystery."

"But the telephone number? Who did she call up?"

"Yes, I found out about that," he admitted, hanging up his coat and hat. "She called the public booths in the railroad station.

There was somebody waiting there to answer her. And who do you suppose it was?"

"I couldn't guess, Daddy."

"Willie Sangreen. He is the young man who is checker at the pickle works, and who I told you was Olga's steady company. He has gone away, and n.o.body seems to know where."

"They have gone away together!" cried Janice, in despair.

"She knew where he was going to be at that hour, sure enough; she would probably have called him at the telephone in the railroad station, anyway. And the catastrophe," he smiled a little, "and Olga's getting so angry, may have changed their plans completely.

Maybe he did meet her somewhere."

"Oh, Daddy! what kind of a looking man is Willie Sangreen?" cried Janice.

"I really could not tell you."

"But maybe it was he who drove the taxicab?" suggested the girl.

"That might be worth looking up," said her father. "And yet, it does not explain," he added, as they went into the living-room, "why Olga should have stolen the treasure-box. That seems to be the greatest mystery."

CHAPTER VIII. THEY COME AND GO

"Daddy, do you mind if we have dinner a little early this evening?" Janice asked.

"I have my appet.i.te with me, if that is what you want to know,"

said Broxton Day, smiling down upon her.

"Well, Delia has it all ready, I think. Too early, of course."

"Bring it on!" cried her father jovially. "I can do it justice."

Janice wondered if he could. Already the food, she knew, was drying up in the warming oven. She hurried out into the kitchen.

Delia had not come in from the backyard. Janice shrank from interfering with that back-fence conference; but she could not see daddy's dinner spoiled.

"Come, Delia!" she called, opening the door. "My father has come home."

"Oh, my! Is your paw arrived?" asked the giantess; coming lingeringly away from the fence.

Janice saw Miss Peckham's snappy little eyes viewing her at the kitchen door with no pleasant expression. She felt that something was brewing--something that would not be pleasant. But the spinster retired without speaking to her.

"You have dinner ready very early, Delia," Janice said, as the big woman lumbered into the kitchen.

"Didn't you just say your paw had come?" demanded Delia in her squeaky voice.

"Yes. But you have everything ready at five o'clock instead of at six."

"Oh, yes. I don't never believe in keepin' folks waitin' for their victuals," said Delia, tossing her head. "You ain't got any call to be critical--no you ain't."

It was of no use! Janice saw that as plainly as she saw anything. This giantess has a dwarf's brain. As daddy said, when he became particularly "Yankeefied," "she didn't know beans!" It would be quite useless to talk to her, or to expect her to remember what she was told to do.

"I will do all I can to hide the rough corners from Daddy,"

Janice thought. "I'll watch Delia before I go to school, and come home from school to straighten her out just as quickly as I can. I just won't run to him with every little household trouble."

But it was a wretched dinner. It was so badly cooked that daddy shook his head over it mournfully.

"It is a mystery to me how they manage to boil one potato to mush while another is so hard you can't stick your fork into it," he said. "And no seasoning! This steak now--or is it steak?"

"Now, Daddy!" said Janice, half laughing, yet feeling a good deal like crying.

"Well, I wasn't quite sure," said her father. "I wonder if these cooks think that meat grows, all seasoned, on 'the critter'?

They must believe that. However, does she do the other work well?"

"I--I don't know yet," murmured Janice. "I'll help her all I can, Daddy, and tell her how, if she'll let me."

"Well, maybe we can make something of her," said Broxton Day, with his hearty and cheerful laugh. "Remember, Olga wanted to boil fresh pork chops for our breakfast when she first came."

"I do wish we knew where Olga had gone to," said Janice. "It doesn't seem as though that girl would deliberately steal. I can't believe it. And if we don't get back that treasure-box and what it contains, Daddy, my heart will--just--be--broken."

"There, there! Don't give way about it. There is a chance yet of finding Olga--and the box, too," said her father, trying to comfort his little daughter. "I will not give up the search.

Willie Sangreen will of course come back to his job, and he must know what has become of Olga. Those Swedes are very clannish indeed, over there at Pickletown; but some of them bank with us, and I am sure they will be on the lookout for the

girl. Only, of course, I have not told them why I am so anxious to find her."

They finished dinner, and Delia came in to clear away, with her plump lips pouting and a general air about her of having been much injured. But Mr. Day, now so used to the vagaries of hired help, made no comment.

He and Janice went into the living-room. This, at least, was homelike and clean. He settled into his chair and picked up the paper. Just then there was a ring at the front doorbell.

Janice would have jumped up to answer it; but she heard the giantess going through the hall. There was a voice. Janice recognized it with a start. Then the giantess approached the living-room door, heavy footed, with a clatter of smaller bootheels behind her.