Janice Day at Poketown | Page 2

two days ago."
"Then ye ain't got no mother, child?"
"Mother died when I was a very little girl. Father has been everything to me--just everything!" and for a moment the bright, young face clouded and the hazel eyes swam in unshed tears. But she turned quickly so that her new acquaintance might not see them.
"Where are you goin', my dear?" asked the old lady, more softly.
"To Poketown. And oh! I do hope it will be a nice, lively place, for maybe I'll have to remain there a long time--months and months!"
"For the land's sake!" exclaimed the old lady, nodding her head briskly over the knitting needles. "So be I goin' to Poketown."
"Are you, really?" ejaculated Janice Day, clasping her hands eagerly, and turning to her new acquaintance. "Isn't that nice! Then you can tell me just what Poketown is like. I've got to stay there with my uncle while father is in Mexico----"
"Who's your uncle, child?" demanded the old lady, quickly. "And who's your father?"
Janice naturally answered the last question first, for her heart was full of her father and her separation from him. "Mr. Broxton Day is my father, and he used to live in Poketown. But he came away from there a long, long time ago."
"Yes? I knowed there was Days in Poketown; but I ain't been there myself for goin' on twelve year. I lived there a year, or so, arter my man died, with my darter. She's teached the Poketown school for twenty year."
"Oh!" cried Janice. "Then you can't really tell me what Poketown is like--now?"
"Why, it's quite a town, I b'lieve," said the old lady. "'Rill writes me thet the ho-tel's jest been painted, and there's a new blacksmith shop built. You goin' to school there-- What did you say your name was?"
"Janice Day. I don't know whether I shall go to school while I am in Poketown, or not. If there are a whole lot of nice girls--and a few nice boys--who go to your daughter's school, I shall certainly want to go, too," continued Janice, smiling again at the little old lady.
"Wal, 'Rill Scattergood's teached long enough, I tell her," declared the other. "I'm goin' to Poketown now more'n half to git her to give up at the end o' this term. With what she's laid by, and what I've got left, we could live mighty comfertable together. Who's your uncle, child?" pursued Mrs. Scattergood, who had not lost sight of her main inquiry.
"Mr. Jason Day. He's my father's half brother."
"Ya-as. I didn't know them Days very well when I lived there. How long did you say you was goin' to stay in Poketown?"
"I don't know, Ma'am," said Janice, sadly. "Father didn't know how long he'd be in Mexico----"
"Good Land o' Goshen!" ejaculated Mrs. Scattergood, suddenly, "ain't that where there's fightin' goin' on right now?"
"Yes'm. That's why he couldn't take me with him," confessed Janice, eager to talk with a sympathetic listener. "You see, I guess 'most all the money we've got is invested in some mine down there. The fighting came near the mine, and the superintendent ran away and left everything."
"Goodness! why wouldn't he?" exclaimed the old lady, knitting faster than ever in her excitement.
"But then that made it so my father had to go down there and 'tend to things," explained Janice.
"What! right in the middle of the war? Good Land o' Goshen!"
"There wasn't anybody else to go," said Janice, sadly. "The stockholders might lose all they put into it. And our money, too. Why! we had to rent our house furnished. That's why I am coming East to Uncle Jason's while father is away."
"Too bad! too bad!" returned the old lady, shaking her head.
"But you see," Janice hastened to say, with pride, "my father is that kind of a man. The other folks expected him to take hold of the business and straighten it out. He--he's always doing such things, you know."
"I see," agreed Mrs. Scattergood. "He's one o' these 'up an' comin' sort o' men. And you're his darter!" and she cackled a little, shrill laugh. "I kin see that. You're one o' these new-fashioned gals, all right."
"I hope I'm like Daddy," said Janice, quietly. "Everybody loves Daddy--everybody depends on him to 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?"