How Janice Day Won | Page 5

way. But some of these fellers that crook their elbows certainly do
funny stunts when they've had a few!"
"Marty Day!" cried Janice, clasping her hands, "I didn't notice it before.
But you even talk differently from the way you used to. Since the bar at
the Inn has been open I believe you boys have got hold of an entirely
new brand of slang."
"Huh?" said Marty.
"Why, it is awful! I had been thinking that Mr. Parraday's license only
made a difference to himself and poor Marm Parraday and his
customers. But that is not so. Everybody in Polktown is affected by the
change. I am going to talk to Mr. Meddlar about it, or to Elder
Concannon. Something ought to be done."
"Hi tunket! There ye go!" chuckled Marty. "More do something
business. You'd better begin with Walky."
"Begin what with Walky?"

"Your temperance campaign, if that's what you mean," said the boy,
more soberly.
"Not Walky Dexter!" exclaimed Janice, amazed. "You don't mean the
liquor selling has done him harm?"
"Well," Marty said slowly, "Walky takes a drink now and then.
Sometimes the drummers he hauls trunks and sample-cases for give
him a drink. As long as he couldn't get it in town, Walky never
bothered with the stuff much. But he was a little elevated Saturday
night--that's right."
"Oh!" gasped Janice, for the town expressman was one of her oldest
friends in Polktown, and a man in whom she took a deep interest.
A slow grin dawned again on Marty's freckled countenance. "Ye ought
to hear him when he's had a drink or two. You called him 'Talkworthy'
Dexter; and he sure is some talky when he's been imbibing."
"Oh, Marty, that's dreadful!" and Janice sighed. "It's just wicked!
Polktown's been a sleepy place, but it's never been wicked before."
Her cousin looked at her admiringly. "Hi jinks, Janice! I bet you got it
in your mind to stir things up again. I can see it in your eyes. You give
Polktown its first clean-up day, and you've shook up the dry bones in
general all over the shop. There's going to be something doing, I reckon,
that'll make 'em all set up and take notice."
"You talk as though I were one of these awful female reformers the
funny papers tell about," Janice said, with a little laugh. "You see
nothing in my eyes, Marty, unless it's tears for poor little Sophie
Narnay."
The cousins arrived at the old Day house and entered the grass-grown
yard. It was an old-fashioned, homely place, a rambling farmhouse up
to which the village had climbed. There was plenty of shade, lush grass
beneath the trees, with crocuses and other Spring flowers peeping from
the beds about the front porch, and sweet peas already breaking the soil

at the side porch and pump-bench.
A smiling, cushiony woman met Janice at the door, while Marty went
whistling barnward, having the chores to do. Aunt 'Mira nowadays
usually had a smile for everybody, but for Janice always.
"Your uncle's home, Janice," she said, "and he brought the mail."
"Oh!" cried the girl, with a quick intake of breath. "A letter from
daddy?"
"Wal--I dunno," said the fleshy woman. "I reckon it must be. Yet it
don't look just like Brocky Day's hand of write. See--here 'tis. It's from
Mexico, anyway."
The girl seized the letter with a gasp. "It--it's the same stationery he
uses," she said, with a note of thankfulness. "I--I guess it's all right. I'll
run right up and read it."
She flew upstairs to her little room--her room that looked out upon the
beautiful lake. She could never bring herself to read over a letter from
her father first in the presence of the rest of the family. She sat down
without removing her hat and gloves, pulled a tiny hairpin from the
wavy lock above her ear and slit the thin, rice-paper envelope. Two
enclosures were shaken out into her lap.
CHAPTER II
"TALKY" DEXTER, INDEED!
The moments of suspense were hard to bear. There was always a
fluttering at Janice's heart when she received a letter from her father.
She always dreamed of him as a mariner skirting the coasts of
Uncertainty. There was no telling, as Aunt 'Mira often said, what was
going to happen to Broxton Day next.
First of all, on this occasion, the young girl saw that the most important
enclosure was the usual fat letter addressed to her in daddy's hand.

With it was a thin, oblong card, on which, in minute and very exact
script, was written this flowery note:
"With respect I, whom you know not, venture to address you humbly,
and in view of the situation of your honorable father, the Señor B Day,
beg to make known to you