Janice Day, the Young Homemaker Part 3

"For goodness' sake!" gasped Janice. "What girl do you wish to snub, Stella?"

"There you go with your nasty insinuations!" exclaimed Stella, whiningly. "I don't want to snub anybody. But some people are impossible!"

"Meaning me?" Janice asked with twinkling eyes.

"Of course not. Why will you so misunderstand me? I wouldn't snub you, Janice Day. I am speaking of Amy Carringford."

"Oh! It is Amy you wish to snub, is it?" Janice said, with a change of tone.

Even Stella noted the change. She seized Janice's arm.

"Now, don't! You made me say that. I don't really want to snub her. I don't want to hurt her feelings. But, of course, I can't have those pauper children at my party--Amy and Gummy. 'Gummy!'

What a frightful name! And his pants are patched at the knees.

They wouldn't--either of them--have a decent thing to wear, of course."

Janice said nothing for a long minute. Stella's blue eyes, which were actually more staring than pretty, began to cloud ominously.

Instinctively she sensed that Janice was not with her in this.

"Amy Carringford is a nice girl, I think," Janice Day said mildly. "And perhaps she has a party dress, Stella."

"There you go! Always standing up for anything mean or common,"

stormed Stella. "I might have known you wouldn't help me."

"Why did you ask me then?" Janice inquired with some rising spirit.

"Because you're always so sharp about things; and you can help me if you want to."

Stella Latham was certainly much more frankly spoken than politic. Janice Day excused her schoolmate to a degree. She usually found excuses for every one but herself.

"I was only trying to help you," Janice said slowly. you haven't really anything against Amy, have you?"

"She's a pauper--a regular pauper."

"Why, that's not so," interrupted Janice. "A pauper must be one who is supported at the public expense. We had that word only the other day in our lesson, you know, Stella. And Amy Carringford--or her folks-- aren't like that."

"n.o.body knows what or who they are. They've only just come here and from goodness knows where. And they live in that little tumble-down house in Mullen Lane, and--"

"Oh, dear me, Stella!" interrupted Janice, with a sudden laugh.

"That list of crimes will never send anybody to jail. You are awfully critical. Amy has awfully pretty manners, and just wonderful hair. She sings and dances well, too. And Gummy--'Gumswith' is his full name--"

"'Gumswith!' Fancy!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the farmers critical

daughter.

"Yes, isn't it awful?" returned Janice. "Anybody would be sorry for a boy with such a name. And he hasn't even a middle one they can call him by. You know it isn't his fault, Stella, that he has such a horrid name."

"No, I don't suppose it is. But--"

"And Amy is so nice. She is just about my size, Stella, and if you promise never to tell--"

"What is it? A secret?" eagerly demanded Stella, as Janice hesitated.

"Yes. Or it will be a secret if you promise."

"Cross my heart, Janice," declared Stella, who loved secrets.

"Well--now," said Janice Day, most seriously, "if you invite Amy, and she can't come because she hasn't any party dress, I'll lend her one of mine that was made for me just before my mother died.

I am wearing only black and white. I've outgrown those new dresses that were made for me then, I guess. And Amy is just a weeny bit smaller than I am."

"But Janice Day! you--you're helping Amy Carringford. You're not helping me at all!"

"Why, yes I am helping you," said Janice warmly. "At least, I am trying to. If you will invite Amy with the rest of us girls, I'll see that she has a party dress. I should think that was helping you a whole lot, Stella Latham. You said you didn't want to hurt her feelings."

The car reached the schoolhouse. Janice was out of it like a flash with her schoolbooks and lunch. The bell was tolling.

"Now, isn't that just like Janice Day?" grumbled Stella, following her from the automobile. "She is a sly little thing!"

Mr. Broxton Day felt much more troubled than Janice possibly could feel about the disappearance of the treasure-box and the keepsakes it contained. Intrinsically, the value of the articles that she named was not very great, although nothing could replace the diary or the miniature of his dead wife. But as he had intimated to Janice over the telephone there was something else.

There was that lost with the so-called treasure-box that meant more to him than the mementoes his daughter had known about.

During this lonely year that had pa.s.sed since his wife's death, Mr. Day's experiences with domestic help had been disheartening as well as varied.

Olga Cedarstrom had been with them two months. She had come rather better recommended than some of her predecessors. Instead of obtaining her services through an agency, Mr. Day had found her in "Pickletown," as the hamlet at the pickle works was called.

There Olga, recently arrived in Greensboro, had been living with friends. Mr. Day went over there first of all to search for the girl.

But her whilom friends knew nothing about Olga since the previous evening. They did not know that she contemplated leaving Mr.

Day. And she had not appeared at Pickletown after she had departed from eight hundred and forty-five Knight Street that morning.

Mr. Day did not wish to put the police on the trail of the absent Olga. In the first place there was no real evidence that the Swedish girl had stolen the box of mementoes.

If she had taken them at all, she must have done so just to pique Janice, not understanding how really valuable the contents of the box were. If possible, Mr. Day wished to recover the lost box without the publicity of going to the police, both for Olga's sake and for his own.

And then as Janice had told him, the taxicab driver had been in the house. He had gone upstairs to the storeroom for Olga's trunk--to the very room in which Janice had last seen the treasure-box.

It might be that the driver was the person guilty of taking the box. Olga might know nothing about it. Yet her disappearance without informing her friends of her intention to leave Greensboro looked suspicious.

Mr. Day had to search further. He had two other persons to discover. One was Olga's "fella"; the other was the Swedish taxicab driver.

From people who knew Olga around the pickle factories it was easy to learn that Olga's friend was a hard working and estimable young man named Willie Sangreen. Just at this time Willie was away from home. They could tell Mr. Day nothing about Willie's absence either at his boarding-house, or where he was employed.

But in both instances they were sure Willie would be back.

In hunting for the Swedish taxicab driver Mr. Day had even less good fortune. There were two taxicab companies in Greensboro and less than a dozen independent owners of cabs. Before noon he had learned, beyond peradventure, that there was not a cab driver in town of Swedish nationality.

He presumed that the cab must have come from out of town. Where it had come from, and where it had gone with Olga, and Olga's trunk, and, possibly, with the treasure-box, seemed a mystery insolvable.

If Olga or the cab driver had stolen the box of heirlooms it seemed that all trace of their whereabouts had been skillfully covered.