How Janice Day Won | Page 2

traveling men might visit the town in a
week and put up at the Inn, there had been through this Winter a
considerable stream of visitors. And it was expected that the Inn, as
well as every house that took boarders in the town, would be well
patronized during the coming Summer.
To Janice Day the Winter had been lovely. She had been very busy.
Well had she fulfilled her own tenet of "Do Something." In service she

found continued joy. Janice loved Polktown, and almost everybody in
Polktown loved her.
At least, everybody knew her, and when these young rascals trailing the
drunken man spied the accusing countenance of Janice they fell back in
confusion. She was thankful her cousin Marty was not one of them; yet
several, she knew, belonged to the boys' club, the establishment of
which had led to the opening of Polktown's library and free
reading-room. However, the boys pursued Tim Narnay no farther. They
slunk back into the lane, and finally, with shrill whoops and laughter,
disappeared. The besotted man stood wavering on the curbstone,
undecided, it seemed, upon his future course.
Janice would have passed on. The appearance of the fellow merely
shocked and disgusted her. Her experience of drunkenness and with
drinking people, had been very slight indeed. Gossip's tongue was busy
with the fact that several weak or reckless men now hung about the
Lake View Inn more than was good for them; and Janice saw herself
that some boys had taken to loafing here. But nobody in whom she was
vitally interested seemed in danger of acquiring the habit of using
liquor just because Lem Parraday sold it.
The ladies of the sewing society of the Union Church missed "Marm"
Parraday's brown face and vigorous tongue. It was said that she
strongly disapproved of the change at the Inn, but Lem had overruled
her for once.
"And, poor woman!" thought Janice now, "if she has to see such sights
as this about the Inn, I don't wonder that she is ashamed."
The train of her thought was broken at the moment, and her footsteps
stayed. Running across the street came a tiny girl, on whose bare head
the Spring sunshine set a crown of gold. Such a wealth of tangled,
golden hair Janice had never before seen, and the flowerlike face
beneath it would have been very winsome indeed had it been clean.
She was a neglected-looking little creature; her patched clothing needed
repatching, her face and hands were begrimed, and----

"Goodness only knows when there was ever a comb in that hair!"
sighed Janice. "I would dearly love to clean her up and put something
decent to wear upon her, and----"
She did not finish her wish because of an unexpected happening. The
little girl came so blithely across the street only to run directly into the
wavering figure of the intoxicated Jim Narnay. She screamed as Narnay
seized her by one thin arm.
"What ye got there?" he demanded, hoarsely, trying to catch the other
tiny, clenched fist.
"Oh! don't do it! don't do it!" begged the child, trying her best to slip
away from his rough grasp.
"Ye got money, ye little sneak!" snarled the man, and he forced the
girl's hand open with a quick wrench and seized the dime she held.
He flung her aside as though she had been a wisp of straw, and she
would have fallen had not Janice caught her. Indignantly the older girl
faced the drunken ruffian.
"You wicked man! How can you? Give her back that money at once!
Why, you--you ought to be arrested!"
"Aw, g'wan!" growled the fellow. "It's my money."
He stumbled back into the lane again--without doubt making for the
rear door of the Inn barroom from which he had just come. The child
was sobbing.
"Wait!" exclaimed Janice, both eager and angry now. "Don't cry. I'll get
your ten cents back. I'll go right in and tell Mr. Parraday and he'll make
him give it up. At any rate he won't give him a drink for it."
The child caught Janice's skirt with one grimy hand. "Don't--don't do
that, Miss," she said, soberly.
"Why not?"

"'Twon't do no good. Pop's all right when he's sober, and he'll be sorry
for this. I oughter kep' my eyes open. Ma told me to. I could easy ha'
dodged him if I'd been thinkin'. But--but that's all ma had in the house
and she needed the meal."
"He--he is your father?" gasped Janice.
"Oh, yes. I'm Sophie Narnay. That's pop. And he's all right when he's
sober," repeated the child.
Janice Day's indignation evaporated. Now she could feel only
sympathy for the little creature that was forced to acknowledge such a
man for a parent.
"Ma's goin' to be near