How Janice Day Won | Page 7

"Ain't been an eperdemic o' smallpox broke out, has there?"
"Teachers' meeting," said Marty. "The Superintendent of Schools came
over and they say we're going to have fortnightly lectures on Friday
afternoons--mebbe illustrated ones. Crackey! it don't matter what they
have," declared this careless boy, "as long as 'tain't lessons."

"Lectures?" repeated Walky. "Do tell! What sort of lectures?"
"I heard Mr. Haley say the first one would proberbly be illustrated by a
collection of rare coins some rich feller's lent the State School Board.
He says the coins are worth thousands of dollars."
"Lectures on coins?" cackled Walky. "I could give ye a lecture on ev'ry
dollar me and Josephus ever airned! Haw! haw! haw!"
Walky rolled in his chair in delight at his own wit. Uncle Jason was
watching him with some curiosity as he filled and lit his pipe.
"Walky," he drawled, "what was the very hardest dollar you ever airned?
It strikes me that you allus have picked the softest jobs, arter all."
"Me? Soft jobs?" demanded Walkworthy, with some indignation. "Ye
oughter try liftin' some o' them drummers' sample-cases that I hatter
wrastle with. Wal!" Then his face began to broaden and his eyes to
twinkle. "Arter all, it was a soft job that I airned my hardest dollar by,
for a fac'."
"Let's have it, Walky," urged Marty. "Get it out of your system. You'll
feel better for it."
"Why, ter tell the truth," grinned Walky, "it was a soft job, for I carried
five pounds of feathers in a bolster twelve miles to old Miz' Kittridge
one Winter day when I was a boy. I got a dollar for it and come as nigh
bein' froze ter death as ever a boy did and save his bacon."
"Do tell us about it, Walky," said Janice, who was wiping the supper
dishes for her aunt.
"I should say it was a soft job--five pounds of feathers!" burst out
Marty.
"How fur did you haf to travel, Walky?" asked Aunt 'Mira.
"Twelve mile over the snow and ice, me without snowshoes and it
thirty below zero. Yes, sir!" went on Walky, beginning to stuff the

tobacco into his own pipe from Mr. Day's proffered sack. "That was
some job! Miz Bob Kittridge, the old lady's darter-in-law, give me the
dollar and the job; and I done it.
"The old lady lived over behind this here very mountain, all alone on
the Kittridge farm. The tracks was jest natcherly blowed over and hid
under more snow than ye ever see in a Winter nowadays. I believe
there was five foot on a level in the woods.
"There'd been a rain; then she'd froze up ag'in," pursued Walky. "It put
a crust on the snow, but I had no idee it had made the ice rotten. And
with Mr. Mercury creepin' down to thirty below--jefers-pelters! I'd no
idee Mink Creek had open air-holes in it. I ain't never understood it to
this day.
"Wal, sir! ye know where Mink Creek crosses the road to Kittridge's,
Jason?"
Mr. Day nodded. "I know the place, Walky," he agreed.
"That's where it happened," said Walky Dexter, nodding his head many
times. "I was crossin' the stream, thinkin' nothin' could happen, and
'twas jest at sunup. I'd come six mile, and was jest ha'f way to the farm.
I kerried that piller-case over my shoulder, and slung from the other
shoulder was a gun, and I had a hatchet in my belt.
"Jefers-pelters! All of a suddint I slumped down, right through the
snow-crust, and douced up ter my middle inter the coldest water I ever
felt I did, for a fac'!
"I sprung out o' that right pert, ye kin believe; and then the next step I
went down ker-chug! ag'in--this time up ter my armpits."
"Crackey!" exclaimed Marty. "That was some slip. What did you do?"
"I got out o' that hole purty careful, now I tell ye; but I left my cap
floatin' on the open pool o' water," the expressman said. "Why, I was a
cake of ice in two minutes--and six miles from anywhere, whichever

way I turned."
"Oh, Walky!" ejaculated Janice, interested. "What ever did you do?"
"Wal, I had either to keep on or go back. Didn't much matter which.
And in them days I hated ter gin up when I'd started a thing. But I had
ter git that cap first of all. I couldn't afford ter lose it nohow. And
another thing, I'd a froze my ears if I hadn't got it.
"So I goes back to the bank of the crick and cut me a pole. Then I
fished out the cap, wrung it out as good as I could, and clapped it on
my head. Before I'd clumb the crick bank ag'in that