Janice Day at Poketown | Page 3

go ahead and do things. I hope
Uncle Jason will be like him."
With the light breeze fluttering the little crinkles of hair between her
hat and her brow, and an expression of bright expectancy upon her face,
Janice was worth looking at a second time. So Mrs. Scattergood
thought, as she glanced up now and again from her knitting.
"Poketown--Poketown," the girl murmured to herself, trying to spy out
the land ahead as the Constance Colfax floundered on. "Oh! I hope
Daddy's remembrance of it is all wrong now. I hope it will belie its
name."
"What's that, child?" put in the sharp voice of her neighbor.
"Why--why--if it is poky I know I shall just die of homesickness for

Greensboro," confessed Janice. "How could the early settlers of these
'New Hampshire Grants' ever dare give such a homely name to a
village?"
"Pshaw!" ejaculated Mrs. Scattergood. "What's a name? Prob'bly some
man named Poke settled there fust. Or pokeberries grew mighty
common there. People weren't so fanciful about names in them days.
Why! my son-in-law lives right now in a place in York State called
'Skunk's Hollow' and the city folks that's movin' in there is tryin' to git
the post office to change the name to 'Posy Bloom.' No 'countin' for
tastes in names. My poor mother called me Mahala Ann--an' me too
leetle to fight back. But I made up my mind when I was a mighty leetle
gal that if ever I had a baby I'd call it sumthin' pretty. An' I done the
right thing by all my children.
"Now here's 'Rill," pursued Mrs. Scattergood, waxing communicative.
"Her full name's Amarilla--Amarilla Scattergood. Don't you think that's
purty yourself, now?"
Janice politely agreed. But she quickly swung the conversation back to
Poketown.
"I suppose, if mills had been built there, or the summer boarders had
discovered Poketown, its name would have been changed, too. And
you haven't been up there for twelve years?"
"No, child. But that ain't long. Ain't much happens in twelve years back
East here."
Janice sighed again; but suddenly she jumped from her stool excitedly,
crying: "Oh! what place is that?"
She pointed far ahead. Around a rocky headland the view of a pleasant
cove had just opened. The green and blue-ribbed hills rose behind the
cove; the water lay sparkling in it. There was a vividly white church
with a heaven-pointing spire right among the big green trees.
A brown ribbon of main thoroughfare wound up from the wharf, but

was soon lost under the shade of the great trees that interlaced their
branches above it--branches which were now lush with the late spring
growth of leaves. Here and there a cottage, or larger dwelling, appeared,
most of them originally white like the church, but many shabby from
the action of wind and weather.
Over all, the warm sun spread a mantle. In the distance this bright
mantle softened the rigid lines of the old-fashioned houses, and of the
ledges and buttresses of the hills themselves.
Old Mrs. Scattergood stood up, too, looking through her steel-bowed
glasses.
"I declare for't!" she said, "that's Poketown itself! That's the spire of the
Union Church you see. We'll git there in an hour."
Janice did not sit down again just then, nor did she reply. She rested
both trimly-gloved hands on the rail and gazed upon the scene.
"Why, it's beautiful!" she breathed at last. "And that is Poketown!"
CHAPTER II
POKE-TOWN
Some ancient dwellings have the dignity of "homestead" resting upon
them like a benediction; others are aureoled by the name of "manor."
The original Day in Poketown had built a shingled, gable-ended cottage
upon the side-hill which had now, for numberless years, been called
"the old Day house"--nothing more.
"Jason! You Jase! I'd give a cent if you'd mend this pump," complained
Mrs. Almira Day. "Go git me a pail of water from Mis' Dickerson's and
ask how's her rheumatism this mawnin'. Come on, now! I can't wash
the breakfas' dishes till I hev some water."
The grizzled, lanky man who had been sitting comfortably on a bench
in the sun, sucking on a corncob pipe and gazing off across the lake,

never even turned his head as he asked:
"Where's Marty?"
"The goodness only knows! Ye know he ain't never here when ye want
him."
"Why didn't ye tell him about the water at breakfas' time?"
"Would that have done any good?" demanded Mrs. Day, with some
scorn. "Ye know Marty's got too big to take orders from his marm. He
don't do nothin' but hang about Josiah Pringle's harness shop all day."
"I told him to hoe them 'taters," said Mr. Day, thoughtfully.
"Well, he don't seem ter take orders from his dad, neither. Don't know
what that boy's comin' to," and