Janice Day, the Young Homemaker Part 14

"Hi! Come out o' that, Biddy Burns! Ye poor innocent! Sure, with your two little children home cryin' all day alone and me at work, ye should be ashamed of yerself, me gur-rl! If I was the kind of a feyther ye nade, I'd be wearin' a hairbrush out on ye, big and old as ye be. Come out o' that--or will I come in afther ye?"

"Mercy me!" gasped Amy.

"Oh! Oh!" exclaimed Janice, tugging at the man's

sleeve, "what are you doing to Delia?"

"'Delia,' is it? More of her foolishness. She's Biddy Burns, and her husband is dead--lucky man that he is. And I'm her feyther and the grandfeyther of her two babies--Tessie and 'Melia. And if she don't come home this minute with me, I'll put the young ones in a home, so I will!"

Delia, in the flounced dress, and weeping, just then appeared.

She stumbled down the steps and came to the gate, blubbering like a child.

"Sure, he says I've got to go ho-ome," sobbed the giantess.

"'Tis me father--he tells the truth. But I wanted to earn money myself. He never lets me do nothing I want to do!"

"Ye big, foolish gur-rl!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the man gruffly. "Was it workin' for you she was, Miss?"

"Yes," said Janice breathlessly.

"And they had a pianny," sobbed Delia;. "'Twas be-a-utiful!"

"You come home an' play on the washboard--that's the kind of a pianny you nade to play on," grumbled her father. "I'm sorry for ye," he added turning to Janice, "if your folks has to depend on the likes of her to do the work. Sure, it's not right good sinse she's got."

He came behind the giantess suddenly and boosted her with strong arms up to the seat at the front of the wagon. Then he climbed up himself and the turnout rattled away heavily along the street.

Delia's departure was one of the most astounding things that had happened to the Days during the months of their dependence upon itinerant houseworkers.

CHAPTER IX . SHOCKS AND FROCKS

Janice found herself clinging tightly to Amy Carringford's hand and Amy clinging tightly to hers, as the rubbish wagon rattled away with Delia and her grim father perched on the high seat, while the black oilcloth bag rattled around in the otherwise empty body of the cart.

"Oh, Janice!" gasped Amy at last.

"Oh, Amy!" rejoined her friend. "And no dinner for daddy when he comes home!"

Amy could not comment on this catastrophe for the moment, for Miss Peckham (the only neighbor who seemed to have marked the departure of Delia) came swiftly into view. Miss Peckham's blinds were always bowed, and one never knew which blind she was lurking behind.

"Well!" she exclaimed (and Janice thought she said it quite cheerily), "so that one's gone, has she?"

"They--they just seem to come and go," Janice replied, almost in tears. "Oh, dear! Delia wasn't much; but I did hope she would stay a little longer."

"'Much'!" sniffed Miss Peckham. "I should say she wasn't. And she isn't even sensible. I should think even a girl of your age could have seen she was more'n half crazy. Wouldn't expect your father to notice nothing. He's only a man."

"Oh! Really crazy, do you mean?" Amy Carringford burst out.

"She never was more'n half bright, that Biddy Garrity. That was her name before she married Tom Burns. And he died. Blowed up in the powder mill. That was old Garrity who came for her. She ain't got no right to run off and leave her two children and that old man to get along as best they can. But she does it--often. I thought there would be trouble just as soon as I seen her sitting on your steps t'other day."

"Well, I wish we'd known it," sighed Janice. "She-- she did seem sort of funny. But she wasn't much worse than some of the others we've had."

"Humph!" sniffed Miss Peckham, "just what I told your father last night. You need a manager here--somebody to take hold"

"I shall have to take hold now and see about getting dinner for daddy," Janice responded, recovering a measure of her self-confidence. "Come on in, Amy, and watch me work."

"If I come in and help you," said her friend. "I guess you won't have to do it all."

A glance through the lower rooms proved that Delia had done little more toward straightening the house this day than the day before.

"Goodness, mercy me, Janice Day!" exclaimed Amy Carringford.

"I'm awfully glad we don't have to have servants. It must be awful!"

"It just is," sighed Janice. "You never know when you come home from school whether you will find the girl or not. And you're 'most always sure to find that not half the work's been done.

Well, I can get daddy some sort of a dinner myself tonight."

"What are you going to cook? Let me help," said Amy eagerly. "I know how to make lovely rolls--only you have to set the sponge the night before. And Judge Peters's pudding is just luscious!

Only you have to have currants and citron and chopped nuts to go into it."

"We won't have either of those things for dinner, then," said Janice, with a cheerful laugh.

"Well, we don't have them nowadays," sighed Amy. "But we used to."

"I suppose you have had to give up lots of nice things since your father died," rejoined, her friend sympathetically. "But," and she giggled, "Gummy said yesterday he couldn't give up his name."

"The poor boy!" Amy declared, shaking her head. "Give me an ap.r.o.n, Janice. I am going to peel those potatoes and that turnip. Potatoes and turnip mashed together makes a nice dish.

And Gummy can't really give up his name."

"'Gumswith'! It's awful," murmured Janice. "How ever--"

"Well I'll tell you. Poor dear father had a half-brother who was lots older than he. Grandmother Carringford had been married before she married our grandfather, you see. And her first husband's name was Mr. Gumswith. John Gumswith. It's not so bad as a last name, you see."

"No," agreed Janice, her eyes twinkling. "Not when you say it quick."

Amy laughed again, busy peeling the vegetables. And she peeled them thin, Janice noticed. Amy had evidently been taught the fine points of frugal housekeeping.

"So poor Gummy got his name from John Gumswith, Junior. I guess father's half-brother was a queer man. He said he'd never marry, because he was always wandering about the world."

"Like a peddler?" ventured Janice.

"No. But he went to foreign countries. He always expected to earn a lot of money by some stroke of fortune, mother says. But none of us children ever saw him. Before Gummy was born Uncle John Gumswith started off for Australia, and mother and father never heard of him, or from him after that."

"But they named poor Gummy after him," commented Janice, busy with the onion she was chopping to season the hamburger roast, and trying to keep the juice of the onion out of her eyes.

"You see," Amy confessed confidentially, "when father and mother were married Uncle John gave them a little nest egg. You understand? He had some money, and he gave some of it to them.

And then, he was father's only living relative; so they named the first baby 'Gumswith'--so that the family name should not die out you know."

"My goodness!" exclaimed Janice, but whether because of the saddling of Gummy Carringford with such a name, or because of the squirting of onion juice into her left eye, she did not explain at the moment.