Janie

“ He will understand, our Jerry?"
And Janie had smiled—rather a terrible small smile.
"Oh, yes," she told him. "He will understand. It is the word that he is waiting for, you see."
"I see." But there had been a grave wonder in his voice.
"Would it——" she had framed the words as carefully as though it were a strange tongue that she was speaking—"would it be possible to buy his machine? He wouldn't want any one else to fly it."
"Little Janie, never fear. The man does not live who shall fly poor
Peg again. ”

“ Poor Honor! It was a bitter disappointment. She had counted so much on representing Dick Turpin that to have to forgo the part seemed little short of a tragedy.
"I can't do a highwayman in nothing but a pair of corked moustaches!" she exclaimed dolefully.
"It is a pity," sympathized Janie, "but of course it can't be helped. If we're very quick we shall just have time to think of something else. Could you manage a fairy, with the bangles and the wreath and a white petticoat?" ”

“ I must be more careful of Janie. She is not strong enough to endure much emotion; and she loves me so tenderly, that the least suspicion of unkindness on my part upsets her.
Well, this is the first shadow of a disagreement that we have ever had; may it be the last! That it has occurred on the subject of Margaret Anstruther, is not likely to increase my predilection in favour of that young lady. ”

“ To-night Honor walked upstairs with unwonted staidness and gravity. She went quietly into her cubicle and drew the curtain, and answered so briefly when her room-mate spoke to her that the latter was almost offended.
"Perhaps she's only tired though," thought Janie charitably. "This hot weather is enough to wear anybody out. ”

“ I know the sort of woman, Janie; you’ve described her to me often enough. The less said about her beauty the better.’
‘But she’s not a bit like that,’ said dear little Janie, almost ready to cry at my description of her cousin. ‘Lionne is very graceful and exceedingly handsome; every one says so. Indeed, Robert dear, you are quite mistaken.’
‘She won’t be handsome to me,’ I answered, appeasing her with a kiss, ‘since she must be so different from yourself, Janie. Nothing will go down with me, darling, except it be golden hair and a [70] marble skin ”

“ But Janie wouldn’t laugh; she is too really unhappy about the state of things.
June 25th.—Matters remained in statu quo until to-day; but the thaw has come at last, and, as it should do, from the female side. The horses were brought round this morning, as usual, to eat their ‘gram’ in front of the house; and the Arab, having enjoyed two days’ rest and a thorough grooming, looked in such good condition, that Janie was eager in her entreaties that her cousin should take her first ride on him this evening, and form an opinion of her new acquisition. ”

“ It was at a bridge party that Janie Valentine first met Maurice, and encountered that experience so curious to us all when a person whose printed mind we have intimately known for years looks at us with the shuttered eyes of a stranger. Mrs. Page's party was one of those afternoon gatherings, followed by dancing, which are so common in the Fijis, where somewhat puffed and sallow women in the brightest and thinnest of frocks sit about at small tables under the palms, with fans to keep the flies of! ”

“ Janie sees the change, of course, and is wretched about it. She keeps turning her wistful glances from one to the other, as if to entreat us to make it up and be friends; but when she appeals to me in private, I tell her that it is the fault of her cousin, who is the [94] one to make the first advances towards reconciliation, as I have not the slightest idea in what I have offended; and when she talks in her turn to Lionne, I believe she hears pretty much the same argument. ”

“ She had a cheery, piping voice and a way of repeating, "well, well, well," as though everything on earth was an exciting surprise.
"Won't your young man come in, too. Sit right over here by the fire! I told sister Janie that I'd light a few sticks of wood to keep it cheery. It got so dark-like. I'll set the kettle over and have a cup of tea in the shake of a dog's tail. When it storms in these parts it does storm, dearie! How wet you are!" She fussed over the fire and over her kettle and over Nancy's wet blouse. "Now, Janie, isn't it nice to have folks come here out of the storm?" ”

“ My poor little Janie has not been well during this month: the heat has been unusually trying, and she lies on her sofa half the day, suffering from nervous headaches, and a general disinclination to get up and do anything. In this emergency her cousin has been invaluable; she is constantly by her side, [111] reading to her, writing her letters, or amusing her with quiet conversation; indeed, I may say we share the duty, for, of course, I like to wait on Janie ”

“ To be obliged to study lessons and play games at specified hours, all within a certain limited area, seemed an utter contrast to the freedom in which she had hitherto revelled; and she would long for a scamper with Bute and Barney, her two terriers, or a sail with her father down the creek and out into the Atlantic. She would pour enthusiastic descriptions of her home into Janie's ears, until the latter felt she knew Kilmore Castle and its demesne, and the little fishing village, with its peat smoke and its warm-hearted peasants ”

“ Janie again went with her, a woolly-headed lassie with velvet skin, and eyes that were always ready to laugh. She was beginning now to think that it would be a fine thing to be a white girl. One night, in a house in Glasgow when she was being bathed, she took the sponge and began to scrub the soles of her feet, which were whiter than the rest of her body. "Why are you doing that, Janie?" she was asked. "Oh, because the white place is getting bigger, and if I scrub perhaps I'll be all white some day!" ”

“ I followed him. Halfway across the field we met the owner of the voice. She was a pleasant-looking lass, not exactly pretty—not the sort of girl one turns to look at in a crowd—yet, having seen her, it was agreeable to continue looking at her. St. Leonard introduced me to her as his eldest daughter, Janie, and explained to her that behind the study door, if only she would take the trouble to look, she would find a time-table—
“According to which,” replied Miss Janie, with a smile, “you ought at the present moment to be in the rick-yard, which is just where I want you.” ”

“ Another time she was watching some women who were imprisoned within a stockade and were going to be killed, and as she could not leave the place Janie handed her cups of tea through the fence. Suddenly a tornado came on and flooded the Mission House and soaked all the clothes. Ma herself was wet to the skin. To add to her trouble Janie came and said, "Ma, we have no milk, and the baby is crying for some."
"Well, Janie, I'll just have to trot to Creek [Pg 100] Town for it. I'll get some dry clothes too. Put the baby in a basket." ”

“ Janie was too crushed by utter misery to mind this extra straw. She retired thankfully to the pavilion as soon as she was allowed, feeling that missed catches or schoolmates' scoldings were of small importance in the present state of general misfortune.
"If I could only find out who took the sovereign!" she thought. "Honor certainly did not, so somebody else must have. Who? That's the question. I wish I were an amateur detective, like the clever people one reads about in magazines. They just get a clue, and find it all out so easily, while the police are on quite a wrong tack. ”

“ Andy quivered.
"A lodging, sir, is yours and welcome," Janie replied, motioning the stranger toward a chair and closing the door after him. "I ever keep a bed in readiness these troubled times. We are loyal to the cause, and I would serve where I may. I have a son, sir, as you have heard, but, alas! not one who can be of service. He is a cripple. ”

“ Janie was sixteen years old, but she looked as though she might be only thirteen as she sat on the front seat of the little schoolhouse far up on the mountainside of Kentucky. Her black hair was plastered tightly to her head. Her calico dress was much too long and the sleeves were much too short. Mother had made it long so that she might wear it for several years, while the sleeves were short so that she might have no excuse for not getting her hands in the dish water. ”

“ Janie clung to the oars like mad and as the turtle hit the floor boards her feet flew up in the air, and one leg was perched safely at either rail of the boat. Davey was goggle-eyed and Bill was the first to recover his speech. He clapped Janie on the shoulder:
“Relax skipper. You can put your feet down59 now. He won’t bite you. He’s helpless as long as he’s flat on his back.” ”

“ Then they began to cringe and salaam before me, as they attempted to repeat the story which had so alarmed my wife. But I would not permit them to do so, but ordered them all out of the room, and turned my attention towards soothing Janie’s fears.
‘You must not be a child, my dear Janie,’ I said, as I replaced her on the sofa, and arranged her pillows for her. ‘These natives are always full of their stupid ghost-stories; but you know better surely than to believe such folly. ”

“ Yet the fishmonger's errand-boy—Orson Baines, by your leave, and captain of his soul—loved her as not even Antony loved Cleopatra.
Janie met him every other Sunday as near three o'clock as she could get away. The Sunday boarding-house luncheon included soup on its menu, which meant more plates to wash up than usual. They met under the third lamp-post on the left-hand side going towards the British Museum.
Once a fortnight, from 8 p.m. till 10 p.m., Janie tasted the penultimate triumph of womanhood. She was courted. Poor Janie! ”

“ Janie and I've lived here all our lives. Not many folks come 'long this road, but we don't get lonesome—not a bit! There's always something to do. Folks just gets lonesome and miserable when they're idle, I always tell Janie. A little more cake, Mister——"
"Peter," laughed Nancy. "Well, I shall remember this storm because it's given us such a jolly half-hour, as well as a drenching! ”

“ Honor had never dreamt of offering any help or assistance to anyone in sickness. The idea was quite new to her, and that Janie evidently expected her to be her mother's companion and right hand surprised her. She had already met with many astonishments at St. Chad's, where most of the views of life seemed different from her old standards. She scarcely liked to confess that she was of so little use at home, and hastily turned the conversation back to her brother Dermot. ”

“ They are full to the brim with such idle tales. You should refuse to hear them, and send them about their business.’
‘Oh but, Robert, can’t we go away from this house? I never could bear those graves, and now I shall be more frightened of them than ever.’
‘Janie, I thought you were more of a woman,’ I said reproachfully. ‘Where could we go to? You know that all the [128] houses in Mushin-Bunda are occupied;’ to which fact poor Janie assented with a deep sigh. ”

“ Meanwhile Janie Iver was behaving as a pattern daughter, cherishing her mother and father and making home sweet, exercising, in fact, that prudent economy of wilfulness which preserves it for one great decisive struggle, and scorns to fritter it away on the details of daily life. Girls have adopted these tactics from the earliest days (so it is recorded or may be presumed) , and wary are the parents who are not hoodwinked by them or, even if they perceive, are altogether unsoftened. Janie was very saintly at Fairholme ”

“ For there, on the blue water, was something which looked like a great bird with its wings outspread, only it was far bigger than any bird, and as it skimmed over the water she saw men moving [199] upon it. Can you guess what it was? It was a splendid ship; but as Janie had never seen one before, except in pictures, she was much puzzled. “What makes it fly so fast?” she wondered, and for an answer the wind blew her along the beach, through a garden, and almost into a little white cottage, where a woman was standing with a baby in her arms. ”

“ It's not tall enough for Effie Lawson, nor fat enough for Claudia Hammond-Smith. Can it possibly be Adeline? Why, girls, by all that's wonderful and marvellous, it's Janie Henderson!"
Janie's appearance among the trained runners in the Atalanta race was indeed sufficient to cause the most unbounded astonishment. Her general dislike of active exercise was proverbial. It was well known that she only played games under the strictest compulsion, and throughout her school course she had earned the not unmerited reputation of a "slacker". ”

“ Cary, when I get across we can surely meet sometimes, can’t we? Correspondents have more freedom of movement than other men, I’m sure.”
“We’ll try it, anyhow. Janie—I want you to know how I just plain worship you for sticking by and pulling me out of the ditch the way you have—you and Bob Black, and the Doctor. Words can’t say it—but maybe actions can. I’m taking you three with me—and leaving behind a girl who doesn’t know whether she wants me or not. Best thing to do—eh?”
Well, he was excited, strung to a high tension, eager to be off—it could be read in his every word and look. ”

“ Janie's conscience, however, required her to be scrupulously fair. She could not bear to take an advantage, even of one who must be shielding herself at the expense of another.
"We'll give her a chance," she decided emphatically.
The next step evidently was to search for Flossie. She was not in the garden, but after a diligent quest through the house they eventually found her in her own cubicle, engaged in the meritorious occupation of tidying her drawers. It was an unpleasant task for the two girls to voice their suspicions, but one that nevertheless had to be done. ”