How Janice Day Won | Page 3

'bout distracted," Sophie pursued, shaking her
tangled head. "That's the only dime she had."
"Never mind," gasped Janice, feeling the tears very near to the surface.
"I'll let you have the dime you need. Is--is your papa always like that?"
"Oh, no! Oh, no! He works in the woods sometimes. But since the
tavern's been open he's been drinkin' more. Ma says she hopes it'll burn
down," added Sophie, with perfect seriousness.
Suddenly Janice felt that she could echo that desire herself. Ethically
two wrongs do not make a right; but it is human nature to see the direct
way to the end and wish for it, not always regarding ethical
considerations. Janice became at that moment converted to the cause of
making Polktown a dry spot again on the State map.
"My dear!" she said, with her arm about the tangle-haired little Sophie,
"I am sorry for--for your father. Maybe we can all help him to stop
drinking. I--I hope he doesn't abuse you."
"He's awful good when he's sober," repeated the little thing, wistfully.
"But he ain't been sober much lately."
"How many are there of you, Sophie?"

"There's ma and me and Johnny and Eddie and the baby. We ain't
named the baby. Ma says she ain't sure we'll raise her and 'twould be no
use namin' her if she ain't going to be raised, would it?"
"No-o--perhaps not," admitted Janice, rather startled by this philosophy.
"Don't you have the doctor for her?"
"Once. But it costs money. And ma's so busy she can't drag clean up
the hill to Doc Poole's office very often. And then--well, there ain't
been much money since pop come out of the woods this Spring."
Her old-fashioned talk gave Janice a pretty clear insight into the
condition of affairs at the Narnay house. She asked the child where she
lived and learned the locality (down near the shore of Pine Cove) and
how to get to it. She made a mental note of this for a future visit to the
place.
"Here's another dime, Sophie," she said, finding the cleanest spot on the
little girl's cheek to kiss. "Your father's out of sight now, and you can
run along to the store and get the meal."
"You're a good 'un, Miss," declared Sophie, nodding. "Come and see
the baby. She's awful pretty, but ma says she's rickety. Good-bye."
The little girl was away like the wind, her broken shoes clattering over
the flagstones. Janice looked after her and sighed. There seemed a
sudden weight pressing upon her mind. The sunshine was dimmed; the
sweet odors of Spring lost their spice in her nostrils. Instead of strolling
down to the dock as she had intended, she turned about and, with
lagging step, took her homeward way.
The sight of this child's trouble, the thought of Narnay's weakness and
what it meant to his unfortunate family, brought to mind with crushing
force Janice's own trouble. And this personal trouble was from afar.
Amid the kaleidoscopic changes in Mexican affairs, Janice's father had
been laboring for three years and more to hold together the mining
properties conceded to him and his fellow-stockholders by the

administration of Porfirio Diaz. In the battle-ridden State of Chihuahua
Mr. Broxton Day was held a virtual prisoner, by first one warring
faction and then another.
At one time, being friendly with a certain chief of the belligerents, Mr.
Day had taken out ore and had had the mine in good running condition.
Some money had flowed into the coffers of the mining company.
Janice benefited in a way during this season of plenty.
Now, of late, the Yaquis had swept down from the mountains, Mr.
Day's laborers had run away, and his own life was placed in peril again.
He wrote little about his troubles to his daughter, living so far away in
the Vermont village, but his bare mention of conditions was sufficient
to spur Janice's imagination. She was anxious in the extreme.
"If Daddy would only come home on a visit as he had expected to this
Spring!" was the longing thought now in her mind. "Oh, dear me! What
matter if the season does change? It won't bring him back to me. I'd--I'd
sell my darling car and take the money and run away to him if I dared!"
This was a desperate thought indeed, for the Kremlin automobile her
father had bought Janice the year before remained the apple of her eye.
That very morning Marty had rolled it out of the garage he and his
father had built for it, and started to overhaul it for his cousin. Marty
had become something of a mechanic since the arrival of the Kremlin
at the Day place.
The roads were fast drying up, and Marty promised that the