Janice Day at Poketown | Page 8

sharply. "That's what you'll do."
"Huh!" growled the sullen youth. "Yer said I was to be perlite, an' when I start in ter be, you spring them old pertaters on a feller. Huh!"
"Aw, now, Jason," interposed his mother. "Can't Marty show his cousin over the farm and hoe the 'taters afterward?"
"No, he can't!" denied Master Marty, quickly. "I ain't goin' ter work double for nobody. Now, that's flat!"
"Oh, we can go to the Shower Bath some other time," suggested Janice, apprehensive of starting another family squabble. "I don't know as I'd be able to hoe potatoes; but maybe there are other things I can do in the garden. I always had a big flower garden at home."
"Huh!" grunted Marty. "Flowers are only a nuisance."
"I s'pose you could weed some," sighed Aunt 'Mira. "It hurts me so to stoop."
"She'd better pick 'tater bugs," said Marty, grinning. "They've begun to come, I reckon. Hard-shells, anyway."
Janice could not resist shivering at this suggestion. She did not love insects any better than do most girls. But she took Marty's suggestion in good part.
"You wait," she said. "Maybe I can do that, too. I'll weed a little, anyway. Have you a large farm, Uncle Jason?"
"It's big enough, Janice," grumbled Jason. "Does seem as though--most years--it's too big for us to manage. If Marty, here, warn't so triflin'----"
"I don't see no medals on you for workin' hard," whispered the boy, loud enough for Janice to hear.
"This was a right good farm, onc't," said Aunt 'Mira. "B'fore Jason got his mis'ry we use ter have good crops. That's when we was fust married."
"But that's what broke my health all down," interposed Uncle Jason. "Don't pay a man to work so hard when he's young. He has ter suffer for it in the end."
"Huh!" grunted Marty. "If it wasn't good for you to work so hard when you was young, what about me?"
"You git along out o' here an' start on them 'taters!" commanded Mr. Day, angrily.
Marty slid out, muttering under his breath. Janice jumped up from the table, saying cheerfully:
"I'll help you with the dishes, Aunty. Let's clear off."
Her uncle had risen and was feeling for his corncob pipe on the ledge above the door. Mrs. Day looked a bit startled when she saw Janice begin briskly to collect the soiled dishes.
"I dunno, Janice," she hesitated. "I gin'rally feel right po'ly after dinner, and I'm use ter takin' forty winks."
Janice did not wonder that her aunt felt "right po'ly." She had eaten more pork, potatoes, spring cabbage and fresh bread than would have served a hearty man.
"Let's get rid of the dishes first, Aunty," said Janice, cheerfully. "You can get your nap afterward."
"Wa-al," agreed Mrs. Day, slowly rising. "I dunno's there's water enough to more'n give 'em a lick and a promise. Marty? Oh, you Marty! Come, go for a pail of water, will ye? That's a good boy."
"Now, ye know well enough," snarled Jason's voice just outside the door, "that that boy ain't in earshot now."
"Oh, I can get a pail of water from the pump, Aunty," said Janice, briskly starting for the porch.
"But that pump ain't 'goin'," declared Mrs. Day. "An' no knowin' when 'twill be goin'. We have ter lug all our water from Dickerson's."
"Oh, gimme the bucket!" snapped Uncle Jason, putting his great, hairy hand inside the door and snatching the water-pail from the shelf. "Wimmen-folks is allus a-clatterin about suthin'!"
Janice had never imagined people just like these relatives of hers. She was both ashamed and amused,--ashamed of their ill-breeding and amused by their useless bickering.
"Wa-al," said her aunt, yawning and lowering herself upon the kitchen couch, the springs of which squeaked complainingly under her weight, "Wa-al, 'tain't scurcely wuth doin' the dishes now. Jason'll stop and gab 'ith some one. It takes him ferever an' a day ter git a pail o' water. You go on about your play, Niece Janice. I'll git 'em done erlone somehow, by-me-by."
Mrs. Day closed her eyes while she was still speaking. She was evidently glad to relax into her old custom again.
Janice took down her aunt's sunbonnet from the nail by the side door and went out. Amusement had given place in the girl's mind to something like actual shrinking from these relatives and their ways. The porch boards gave under even her weight. Some of them were broken. The steps were decrepit, too. The pump handle was tied down, she found, when she put a tentative hand upon it.
"'It jest rattles,'" quoted Janice; but no laugh followed the sigh which was likewise her involuntary comment upon the situation.
CHAPTER IV
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
There was a long, well-shaded yard behind the house, bordered on the upper hand by the palings of the garden fence. Had this fence not been so over-grown by vines, wandering hens could have gone in and