Janice Day, Young Homemaker | Page 7

of the domestic catastrophe impending.
"Well," he said cheerfully, "we couldn't get anybody any worse than Olga, that is sure. I will see what they have at the intelligence office, and I may send a woman up after you get home from school this afternoon. I'll 'phone you first, daughter. I don't have to see Olga, do I? She was paid last night."
No, Janice told him, he need not bother about a servant who was on the point of going. Before it was time for Janice to leave for school, a taxicab appeared, driven by a man of Olga's own nationality. He went upstairs for the girl's trunk.
This he shouldered and carried out to the cab. Olga followed him, wearing the red hat with the green plume which had so amused Janice when the Swedish girl had arrived. She drove away in the cab without even looking back at Janice Day.
The latter had tidied up the kitchen and dining room. The back kitchen would have to remain as it was until later. And Janice felt that she would like to get hold of Arlo Weeks, Junior, and make him clean up that kitchen!
She changed to her school dress, strapped together the books she had studied the night before, put on her hat, and stood a moment in the hall, wondering if all would be right until she should return at three o'clock.
And then for the first time, and suddenly, Janice remembered the treasure-box.
She darted upstairs to her bedroom. How careless of her to have left it there! She knew the simple combination of the wall safe in the living room, and She determined to open the safe and put the box away.
But when she entered her bedroom she found that the treasure-box was not there. Instantly she remembered having taken it with her when she ran into the storeroom to see what Arlo Junior was doing with the cats.
In trying to open the window in the storeroom she had set the box down on a trunk--on Olga's trunk.
Startled, indeed alarmed and shaking, Janice Day went as fast as she could to, the storeroom. Olga's trunk was gone. She did not see the treasure-box anywhere in the room.
She searched the room diligently. She ran from room to room--Olga's, her own, even the other bedrooms. She halted at last in her own room, sobbing and alarmed.
The treasure-box was gone. Olga's trunk had gone. Olga herself had gone.
And the photographs of Grandfather and Grandmother Avion, the old-fashioned jewelry, the diary her mother had kept as a little girl, the miniature Janice thought so much of--all, all the keepsakes her father had entrusted her with the night before, seemed to have gone With Olga and the trunk.
CHAPTER II.
THE HUNT FOR THE TREASURE-BOX
This was a very tragic happening in Janice Day's life. She had never been regardless of important matters; that was why daddy had not even warned her to be careful of the treasure-box.
He assumed that she would consider its precious contents and guard it accordingly. Why! He had not even mentioned it this morning, he had been so confident of her good sense.
And because of Arlo Junior and a bunch of cats she had forgotten all about her mother's miniature and all the other heirlooms in the treasure-box! Her tears were those of anger at herself as well as sorrow because of the disappearance of the heirlooms. Yet at the moment she did not fully appreciate the full weight of the happening.
Janice could not stand and cry about it. She had assured herself that the treasure-box was not where she had left it--was not in the storeroom at all, as far as she could see. Olga certainly had not picked it up and placed it in any of the rooms on this second floor, or anywhere else where it could be easily seen.
Janice could only believe that the Swedish girl, either by intention or in some involuntary way, had carried the treasure-box off with her. Yet it did not seem as though Olga Cedarstrom, bad temper and all, could be a thief! That was an awful thought.
"Maybe she has done it to plague me," Janice thought. "She is awfully mad at me. She thought it was my fault that the cats got into the back kitchen. And now she means to pay me back. She means to return it."
"But where has she gone? And what shall I do?" were the final queries formed in Janice Day's mind.
She must not stand idle. It was nearing school time. Nor could she neglect the matter until she came home from school at three o'clock. If Olga Cedarstrom were really dishonest, she might be getting farther and farther away from Greensboro while Janice remained inactive!
She must do something.
Janice went slowly downstairs. First Of all it was her duty