_ CHAPTER XXIV. "WHERE THERE'S SMOKE THERE'S FIRE."
If it had not been for Mrs. Carringford's presence in the house, this experience certainly would have been a very hard one for Janice Day. For although the trials of housekeeping had been serious for the young girl, they were not all that had so vexed her and weighted her mind with sorrow.
But her father's injury shocked her out of the mental rut which she had been following. She had to wait on him, hand and foot; and it gave her so many new thoughts and new things to do, that for a time at least Janice Day's old troubles were pretty much sloughed away.
They had managed to make Mr. Day comfortable on the living-room couch, and it was easier to care for him there than it would have been were he in his bedroom. Besides, he very much objected to "being invalided to the upper story" while he was tied down with a broken leg.
Mr. Arlo Weeks came in night and morning to help turn the injured man, and remake his bed. Mr. Weeks was, after all, a good neighbor; he was more helpful than anybody else who came to the Day house, save Mrs. Carringford.
The surgeon came now and then to restrap the broken leg. Some of Mr. Day's business associates called to see how he was getting on. The injured man was not hard to take care of. He could read, propped up on the couch, and although he suffered considerable pain he did not allow Janice to discover that he was uncomfortable.
But at first he did net sleep well at night, and he had some fever. Mrs. Carringford was careful in his diet; and she never seemed to contradict him or to thwart his wishes. She had a way with her that Janice could but admire and pattern after.
The girl saw that even daddy was not quite his very sensible self when he was an invalid. He had to be humored at times; and they did all that was possible to keep him from fretting.
Broxton Day had been a very active man. Business affairs of which he had sole charge were bound to go wrong when he could not wield power as he was wont. And these things all bothered him when the nagging pain of the broken leg increased, as it sometimes did, at night.
"Oh, what should I have done without you, Mrs. Carringford?" breathed Janice, often taking comfort in the kindly woman's arms for a momentary hug. I do think Amy and Gummy and the little ones are awfully nice not to make any more objection than they do to your being up here."
"Oh, they quarrel enough with me about it at times," laughed Mrs. Carringford. "But I tell them if it was not here, it would have to be somewhere else. I have got to work, my dear. I can see that plainly. Every day the appetites of my little family increase and their needs grow. The rate at which Kate and Edna May and Syd wear out shoes-- Well!"
"Let them go barefooted," giggled Janice. "I know they are teasing you all the time about it"
"No!" cried Mrs. Carringford, with warmth. "I know we live in Mullen Lane and it is not always possible for me to dress my children as nicely as I wish; but they shall not run barefoot like the little hoodlums that live about us. And Syd bothers me to death about it."
But Janice could only laugh a bit at this. She herself sometimes ran barefooted around the house and yard, though she was growing too big for that now, and she did not blame the little Carringfords for wanting to do so.
At any rate, she was very, very grateful to Mrs. Carringford for stepping into the breach at this time and helping them--and grateful to Amy and Gummy, as well.
Amy was a smart little housewife, and she had a gentle but firm way with the smaller children that kept them well in hand when their mother was out of the way.
Gummy, driving Mr. Harriman's delivery wagon, was at the Day house once or twice a day to see his mother, and of course Mrs. Carringford was always at home by seven or eight o'clock at night. The Days had set forward their dinner hour while Mr. Day was held in the house.
Janice would not sleep upstairs herself at first, while her father so often needed her. She made up a bed on another couch that was drawn in from the dining room, and slept there. Often in the night daddy grew restless and was thankful for a glass of fresh water or for some other small comfort.
There was one night Janice knew she should never forget, no matter to what age she lived. It was soon after her father was brought home "an invalid," as he laughingly called it. He had been in much pain all day, and Janice new it well enough, although he smothered his groans when she was within hearing.
But he could not smother his mutterings at night. Toward dark he grew feverish and very restless. And when one has a "glass leg," as the ambulance man had called it and cannot twist and toss to relieve that restless feeling, one's situation is, indeed, pitiful.
Janice put out the living-room light early. The light only made the night flying insects buzz and blunder at the window screens. And how is it that moth millers will get into the most closely screened house? This was a vexing mystery to Janice.
After it was dark and the insects went to buzz elsewhere daddy dropped to sleep. Janice had been upstairs to remove her clothing, and had come down again with a thin negligee over her nightgown.
She listened to her father's uneven breathing and to his restless murmurs. Before creeping into her own cot across the room, she went softly to daddy's side and knelt on the floor. His face was flushed and his thick hair wet with perspiration. The barber had not been to shave him for two days, and Janice just knew the "prickles" on his face must feed very uncomfortable.
His head rolled from side to side upon the pillow. She wished she could do something to relieve him. She did not want to wake him up; but if she could only lave his face and hands with cool water--
Suddenly his mutterings became intelligible. Janice was held there on her knees--absorbed and almost breathless.
"Laura!"
The name was uttered so passionately--so reverently --that Janice found the tears spring unbidden to her eyes. Daddy had spoken her dead mother's name in his sleep. Indeed, it seemed as though he called to the loved one who had gone from them never to return.
"Laura!"
"Daddy!" breathed the girl. "It's me, not mamma! I-- I'm all that's left to you!"
He seemed, even in his sleep, to have heard Janice's murmured words.
"All that was left to me," Broxton Day sighed, repeating, as Janice thought, what she had said. Or did he repeat Janice's words? "Your dear thoughts-- and gone! gone! If I could only find them again. The box--Olga." His mutterings trailed off into unrecognizable delirium. He muttered, and his inflamed face moved from side to side upon the pillow. He did not know her at all this heartsick, sobbing little daughter!
For Janice could understand at last what went on in his poor, troubled brain. He was dreaming of the packet of letters--the letters that were so precious to Broxton Day. In the secret compartment of the lost treasure-box. In the fever of the man's brain nothing else seemed so important to him as his lost wife's letters!
Of course, all of Janice Day's school friends did not go away from Greensboro for the summer vacation; or, if they did go away for a little visit, they were soon back again.
And when the girls heard that Janice's father had broken his leg and that Janice was tied to the house with him, they began to come to see her, and inquire about daddy, and cheer her up.
None of them realized that, with Mrs. Carringford at the head of housekeeping affairs, Janice had not felt so free and cheerful for some months as she did at this time.
Daddy soon grew better, and he began to sleep peacefully at night. The surgeon, Dr. Bowles, who came occasionally, said the bones were knitting all right. Mr. Weeks and Janice even got the patient up into a wheel chair which had an arrangement that made it possible for the broken leg to rest stiffly before daddy, and he could wheel himself out on the front
porch.
There was just the one thing to trouble the girl; that was the mystery of the lost treasure-box and the secret sorrow she felt because she had been careless with it. Without her carelessness, she told herself, Olga Cedarstrom would never have taken it out of the house --if that was really how the keepsakes had come to disappear.
It was Bertha Warring who chanced, when she first came to see Janice after her return from an exciting trip to Chicago, to mention that girl, Olga. At least she spoke of the "Olga" who had been at the Latham house and had broken Mrs. Lantham's glass dish the night of Stella's party.
"I meant to speak to you about what Stella said, Bertha remarked, "before I went away. But we went in such a hurry. You know, Stella can be awfully mean."
"Why, she's not always nice," admitted Janice whose opinion of the farmer's daughter had changed a good deal during the past few months.
"I must say you let Stella down easy when you say that," laughed Bertha.
"Oh, she gets mad, and says mean things. But I don't think--"
"Now, stop it, Janice Day!" exclaimed the other girl "You know very wall that Stella is just as mean as a girl can be. See how she spoke of Amy Carringford. And Amy is an awfully nice girl."
"Yes, Amy is nice," admitted Janice, happily.
"Well, now, look here," said Bertha, earnestly. "Stella said something you did not hear once about that Swedish girl."
"Oh, I guess I am not particularly interested in that girl," Janice said slowly. "My father asked the Johnsons about her. You know that girl was staying with them at the time of the party. She ran away, I guess, because she was afraid Mrs. Latham would make trouble about the broken dish. But the Johnsons said her name was not Cedarstrom."
"Mercy, what a name!" laughed Bertha. "Just the same, there is something about that girl that Stella knows, and that she said you would give a good deal to know."
"Why, I can't imagine--"
"That's just it," said Bertha, quickly. "It sounded so mysterious. I ought to have told you about it there and then. But you know how jumbled up everything was, just the last days of school."
"That is so," admitted the puzzled Janice.
"But, you know, Stella and I went away on the same train together."
"No! Did you?"
"Yes. She changed cars before we got to Chicago; but she sat in the chair car with me for a long way. And I pumped her about what she meant when she spoke the way she did regarding that Swede."
"Yes?"
"Why, she giggled, and made fun, and wouldn't say anything much at first. But I hammered at her," said Bertha, "until I got her mad. You know Stella loses her temper and then--well, it's all off!" and Bertha laughed gaily.
"Oh, Bert!" admonished Janice warmly, "I don't think we ought to get her mad."
"Oh, she'll get glad again," said Bertha carelessly. "Don't worry about Stella, Miss Fussbudget."
Janice laughed then, herself. She did not mind Bertha Warring's sharp tongue.
"Well, as I was saying, I got her finally to say something more about that Olga. And what do you suppose she did say?"
"I could not guess," said the wondering Janice.
"Why, that it was very true her name was not Cedarstrom now. That is just the way she said it before she got up and flounced out of the car." "Oh, Bert!" gasped Janice.
"Do you see? I was some minutes catching on to it," Bertha said, rather slangily. "But you see, I guess. That girl had been known as 'Olga Cedarstrom' at some time or other, you mark my word. And Stella found it out and would not tell you."
"Then she must be married. Of course her name is not Cedarstrom now," murmured Janice.
"Oh! Is that it? I didn't know but she was a real crook," said Bertha, "and had what they call an 'alias.'"
"No-o, I don't believe so. The last daddy learned about her over at Pickletown, some of the Swedish people there thought she must have gone off to get married. She was going with a young man who works in one of the pickle factories. His name is Willie Sangreen."
"And what's become of him?" asked the interested Bertha.
"He went away, too."
"They ran off and got married! Of course!" cried the romance-loving Bertha. "And that Stella Latham found it out and wouldn't tell you. Maybe your father-- Oh! but he can't go looking for them now that he has a broken leg, can he?"
"I am afraid not. We'll have to wait. But do you really suppose, Bert, that Stella is sure of what she says? Perhaps she doesn't really know for sure about that Olga."
"Where there's so much smoke there must be some fire," Bertha said, with a laugh, as Janice walked out to the front gate with her. "I guess Stella knows-- Oh, Janice! Talking about smoke," cried Bertha suddenly, looking back at the Day house and up at the roof, "what is all that smoke coming out of your kitchen chimney?"
Her startled friend looked in the direction indicated. Out of the chimney-mouth, and between the bricks, poured a vomit of black smoke. Then, as the girls looked, red flames darted out with the smoke-- spouting four or five feet into the air above the top of the chimney. _