Janice Day, the Young Homemaker Part 49

ef dar ain' Mistah Brocky Day on crutches!"

"Blanche! Mammy Blanche!" exclaimed the man with real warmth, as well as wonder, in his tone. "Is it really you?"

"It's mah own brack se'f!" cried the woman, as daddy came hobbling forward to meet her just as though she were the finest company that had ever come to the Day house.

"You couldn't be more welcome if you were a queen, Mammy Blanche," he cried. "You know--?"

He halted, and his own countenance fell. The old woman clung tightly to his hand with both of hers.

"Ah, yes; Ah got yo' letter long, long ago, Mistah Brocky. It nigh broke my heart. Ma lil' Miss Laura! But, glory!" and she turned suddenly to Janice, "here she is ober again!"

"I know it," said Broxton Day, wiping his eyes. "Come in and sit down, Mammy. Janice does not remember you, I suppose. But I remember well enough that we never had any housekeeping troubles when Mammy Blanche was on hand."

"Sho' not! Sho' not," chuckled the old woman. "And Mammy Blanche jest as spry now, an' able to do for you, as she used to be."

"What? Have you come to stay with us awhile, Mammy Blanche?"

asked Broxton Day. "Your brother?"

"Esek is daid. His wife's gone back to her own people. Ah ain't got n.o.body, nor nohin' of mah own in dis here worl' Mistah Brocky, onless dey is under dis here roof. I has come to stay, sah, if you is of a min' to give mah ol' bones house room."

Janice had been breathless. But she had listened, and gradually she had begun to understand. She could remember a good deal that her dear mother had told her about Mammy Blanche. And this was she!

The girl put her hand confidently into that of the black woman's.

She looked up at her father brightly.

"I take it all back, Daddy," she murmured. "I was ungrateful and suspicious of fate, wasn't I? We don't lose."

CHAPTER x.x.x. WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN EXPECTED

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 sh.o.r.e 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 Sat.u.r.day 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 ca.n.a.l," 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 ca.n.a.l. 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?"