Helen Beecher Long

“ Clean-Up Day was past but its effect in Poketown was ineradicable. Janice was satisfied that there were enough people finally awake in the town to surely, if slowly, revolutionize the place.
How could one householder drop back into the old, shiftless, careless manner of living when his neighbors' places on either hand were so trim? The carelessly-kept shop showed up a hundred per cent. worse than it had before Clean-Up Day. Even old Bill Jones kept in some trim, and the meat markets began to rival each other in cleanliness.
The taxpayers began to speak with pride of Poketown. ”

“ They would turn your reading-room into a bear garden."
"You do not know that, sir," said Janice, boldly. "Let us try them."
"You are very young, Miss Day," said the Elder, stiffly. "You should yield more easily to the opinions of your elders."
"Why?" demanded the girl, quickly, but smiling. "We young ones have got to learn through our own experiences, haven't we? When you were young, sir, you had to learn at first hand—isn't that so? You would not accept the opinions of the older men as infallible. ”

“ She sleeps like the dead," admitted Uncle Jason. "Only the dead don't snore."
"Will you do it?"
"Oh, well! I'll see how I feel in the morning," half promised Uncle Jason, and with this Janice had to be content. She did not, however, lose heart. She was determined to stir the sluggish waters in and about the old Day house, if such a thing could be done!
Uncle Jason was rather sombre that evening, and even Marty did not feel equal to stirring the quiet waters of the family pool. Janice stole away early to bed. Aunt Almira was always the last person in the household to retire. ”

“ The scholars' backs were toward her and Janice could look her fill without being observed.
There was a small class reciting before the teacher's desk—droning away in a sleepy fashion. The older scholars, sitting in the rear of the room, were mainly busy about their own private affairs; few seemed to be conning their lessons.
Several girls were busily braiding the plaits of the girls in front of them. Two, with very red faces and sparkling eyes, were undeniably quarreling, and whispering bitter denunciations of each other, to the amusement of their immediate neighbors. ”

“ So I told her I'd come to the end of accepting money from her whenever my own purse got low.
"I'll teach school in Poketown a couple of years and save enough to take up law; or perhaps I'll get a chance in some small college. Only, to teach in a real college means work," and he laughed.
"But—but don't you like to work?" queried Janice, doubtfully.
"Now, Janice! who really likes work?" demanded the young man, lightly. "If we can get through the world without much effort, why not take it easily?"
"That is not my idea of what we are put in the world for—just to drift along with the current." ”

“ Her strange little voice kept repeating: "Play for her, father! Play for her, father!"
Hopewell Drugg picked up the violin and bow from the end of the counter. He leaned against the counter and tucked the violin under his chin. There was only a brown light in the dusky store, and the dust danced in the single band of sunlight that searched out a knot hole in the wall of the back room—the shed between the store proper and the cottage in the rear.
"Darling, I am growing old,
Silver threads among the gold——"
The old violin wailed out the tune haltingly. ”

“ 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?" ”

“ From the outside the window was pretty and bright—it was like the windows she was used to seeing in the Greensboro stores.
"One thing about it," she declared, with confidence. "There's nothing like this in the whole of Poketown. There isn't another store window that looks so fresh and—yes!—dainty."
Then she went inside to Mr. Drugg. He was listlessly brushing up the cottage kitchen. Lottie had fallen asleep on the wide bench beyond the cookstove, a great bunch of posies hugged against her stained pinafore.
"Come in and see, sir," said Janice, beckoning the gray man into the store. ”

“ It bade fair to be an old-fashioned northern New England winter. Janice Day had never seen anything like this in the prairie country from which she had come.
There three or four big storms, the traces of which soon melted, had been considered a "hard" winter. Here in Poketown the hillside was made white before Thanksgiving, and then one snow after another sifted down upon the mountains. Tree branches in the forest broke under the weight of snow. Sometimes she lay awake in the night and heard the frost burst great trees as though a stick of dynamite had been set off inside them. ”

“ She passed several farmhouses but did not reach the Hammett place; instead she rested upon a rustic bridge where a swift, brawling brook came down from the hills to tumble into the lake. Then, as she was going on, a quick "put, put, put" sounded from along the road she had been traveling.
"It's a motorcycle," thought Janice. "I didn't know anybody owned one around Poketown."
Turning the bend in the road the 'cycle flashed into view, along with a whisp of dust. A young man rode the machine—a young man who looked entirely different from the youths of Poketown. ”

“ You don't want me to tell you how, do you?" cried Janice, "I—I am afraid it would sound impudent."
"I couldn't imagine your being that, Miss Janice," he said, in his slow way, looking down at her with a smile that somehow sweetened his gray, lean face mightily.
"But why not put out some effort to attract trade here?"
"To this little, dark, old shop?" asked Drugg, in wonder. "Impossible!"
"Don't use that word!" the girl commanded, with vigor. "How do you know it is impossible?"
"People prefer the big shops on High Street." ”

“ When a woman gets near to forty, with more silver than gold in her hair, and the best of her useless life is behind her, she need expect no change in her estate, that's sure."
"Ye might be a good deal wuss off," sniffed her mother.
"Perhaps that is so," agreed Miss 'Rill, with a sudden hard little laugh. "But don't you take pattern by me, Janice, no matter what folks tell you. Mrs. Beasely is better off than I am. She has the memory of doing for somebody whom she loved and who loved her. While I——Well, I'm just an old maid, and when you say that about a woman, you say the worst!" ”

“ He was even chatty—for him—with Janice. It was a school day, and Janice hurried to put on her hat and get her school bag, into which she slipped the luncheon that her aunt very kindly put up for her. Aunt 'Mira had really begun to "put herself out" for her niece, and the luncheon was always tasty and nicely arranged.
"Wait for me, Marty!" she cried, as her cousin was sliding out of the door in his usual attempt to get away unobserved, and so not be called back for any unexpected chores.
"Aw, come on! A gal's always behind—like a cow's tail!" growled the chivalrous Marty. "What you want?" ”

“ Drugg," said Janice, more softly. "Let me show you what I mean. You can't really expect folks to come here and trade when they can scarcely see through the windows——"
"Yes, yes," he murmured. "I had ought to clean up a bit."
"More than that!" she cried. "You want to have a regular overhauling—take account of stock, and all that—know what you've got—arrange your goods attractively—get rid of the flies—put on fresh paint——"
He was looking at her with wide-open eyes. "My soul!" he breathed. "How'd I ever git around to doin' all that?"
"You love little Lottie, don't you?" ”

“ It was Janice who urged Hopewell Drugg to refurbish his store—painting it inside and out, rebuilding the porch, and erecting a long hitch-rail to attract farmers' trade.
"Of course you cannot afford it, Mr. Drugg," said the girl. "That is, it seems as though every dollar you spend is putting Lottie back. But 'nothing ventured, nothing gained.' You must throw out sprats to catch herring. To get together the money that specialist demands to treat Lottie's eyes, you must endeavor to increase your trade. Make the store just as attractive as possible. That's business, I believe. ”

“ People are about the same everywhere. And one house is like another, only one's bigger——"
"Now, that's right foolish talk, Miz' Middler!" exclaimed the lady so recently from the Hub. "The people's just as different as chalk is from cheese; and there ain't a church in Boston—and there's hundreds of 'em—that don't make our Union Church look silly."
"But, Miz' Petrie," cried one inquiring body. "Just what is it that makes Boston so different from Poketown? After all, folks is folks—and houses is houses—and streets is streets. ”

“ Janice ventured. "I always said I'd love to live on a farm."
"Huh!" came Marty's usual explosive grunt. "You'll git mighty tired of livin' on this one—I bet you!"
"Why should I? You've got horses, and cows, and chickens, and—and all that—haven't you?"
"Well, we've got a pair of nags that you can plow with. But they ain't fit for driving. Jim Courteval, who lives up the road a piece, now he's got some hossflesh wuth owning. But our old crowbaits ain't nothing."
"Don't you love to take care of them—and brush them—and all that?" cried the girl, eagerly. ”

“ It troubled her that the young man did not seem to have any serious interest in life. Just as long as he tutored his classes through their recitations in a manner satisfactory to the school committee, he seemed quite careless of anything else about the school. He admitted this, in his laughing way, to the girl, when she broached the subject of the fight for a new school.
"But it's your job!" exclaimed Janice. "You more than anybody else ought to be interested in having the boys and girls of Poketown get a decent schoolhouse." ”

“ The several thousand miles that separate us seem very short indeed when I sit down to write my little Janice. I can see her standing right before me in this barren, corrugated-iron shack—which would have been burned the last time a bunch of the Constitutionalists swept through these hills, only iron will not burn. If a party of Federal troops come along they may try to destroy our plant, too. Just at the present time the foreigner, and his property, are in no great favor with either party of belligerents. The cry is 'Mexico for the Mexicans'—and one can scarcely blame them. ”

“ When I left Poketown twenty-five years ago I thought it had creeping paralysis! It must be worse by this time.
"But you keep alive, Janice, my dear. Keep kicking—like the frog in the milk-can. Do something. Don't let the poison of laziness develop in your blood. If they're in a slack way there at Jason's, help 'em out of it. Be your Daddy's own girl. Don't shirk a plain duty. Do something yourself, and make others do something, too!"
There was much in Mr. Broxton Day's letter beside this; there were intimate little things that Janice would have shown to nobody ”

“ She would not, even when her heart was sick with apprehension because of the story in the newspaper, give her cousin the opportunity of saying that she showed the white feather.
She lay close to the beam of the ice boat, clung to the hand-holds, and made no outcry as the craft flew off upon the other tack. Had the wind been directly astern, the course of the Fly-by-Night would have been smoother. It was the terrific bounding, and the groaning of the timbers while the boom swung over and the canvas slatted, that really frightened the girl. ”

“ They've been up to all sorts of mischief."
"If they don't behave reasonably they'll lose the reading-room. Of course that will be understood," said Janice.
"You can't trust some of 'em," growled the druggist. "Never!"
"We'll make those who want the reading-room make the mischievous ones behave," laughed Janice.
"Well," agreed the druggist, "we'll try it. Three dollars a month for three months; then six dollars. I can afford no more."
"So much for so much!" whispered Janice, when she came away from the store. "At least, it's a beginning." ”

“ Janice cried, all dimpling again, "but you are a person with great expectations, aren't you?"
"I certainly am," he said, bowing gravely. "I have a great goal in view. Let me tell you——"
But suddenly she jumped up and walked along the edge of the inlet away from the dock. "Oh, do come along, Nelson. We don't want to sit there all day." ”

“ I don't believe in giving sharp-edged presents to friends. It cuts friendship, they say," and the collegian laughed.
"Golly! that's a dandy!" acknowledged Marty. "Here's your cent. Thanks! See what Mr. Haley gimme, Maw!" and he rushed into the house to display his treasure.
Haley and Janice were left alone in a sheltered corner of the porch.
"Oh, Mr. Haley," the girl repeated. "How lovely they are! And how kind of you to get them for me! How did you ever secure such fresh cut flowers 'way up here? Nobody has a hothouse in Poketown."
"They come from Colonel Van Dyne's place at the Landing." ”

“ Janice said, with gravity.
"We'll hope for the best," and Nelson Haley laughed as usual. "But if I lose my job and have to beg my bread from door to door, I hope you will remember, Janice, that I told you so."
"You are perfectly ridiculous," declared the girl. "Aren't you ever serious two minutes at a time?"
"Pooh! what's the good of being 'solemncholly'? Take things as they come—that's my motto."
Still, Janice believed that the young man was really becoming more deeply interested in the Poketown school and its problems that he was willing to admit, even to her. ”

“ You see, my father was a music teacher, and he never—well—'made good', as the term is now. So mother did not approve. This was father's violin—fiddle 'most folks call it. But it is very mellow and sweet—if I had only been taught properly to play it. You see, father died before I was born."
Out of these few sentences, spoken so gently, Janice swiftly built, in her quick mind, the whole [Pg 113] story of the man. His had been a life of repression—perhaps of sacrifice! The soul of music in the man had never been able to burst its chrysalis. ”