_ CHAPTER XXVIII. GUMMY COMES INTO HIS OWN
Janice bade her new acquaintance good-bye with some difficulty. The woman by the roadside did love to talk. But when the girl was well rested she went on.
She remembered very clearly the way she and daddy had come to the little Johnson cottage in the automobile. So she knew she could find her way back. One thing she did not take into consideration, however; that was, that an automobile gets over the ground a great deal faster than one can walk.
An hour later, past mid-afternoon, dusty and footsore, she was still marching towards Greensboro along a very pleasant, but a very wearisome, road. She heard the rumble of wheels behind her, but she was too tired to turn to look.
Motor car after motor car had passed her while she was trudging along in the dust, and not one driver stopped to offer her a lift.
But a friendly voice now hailed her as a horse was drawn down to a walk. It reached Janice Day's ear like an angelic whisper:
"Don't you want to ride, Miss?"
She wheeled about with almost a scream of joy. "Gummy Carringford!"
"Jicksy! Is that you, Janice?" gasped the boy. "I'd never know it, you're so smothered in dust. What are you doing away out here? Get in--do!"
He offered her a hand and pulled her up to the high step into the front of the covered wagon. She almost fell to the seat.
"You are the best boy!" she gasped.
"Ain't I? They can't get along without me at my house. What under the sun are you wandering around for away out here?"
She told him in broken sentences, and he sympathized with her because of her disappointment.
"I could have told you the Johnsons had gone, if you'd asked me. But I did not suppose you were interested in them any more," he said.
"And daddy, being out of the bank, did not know that Mr. Johnson had withdrawn his account and sailed for Europe. Oh, dear me, it is so exasperating! Everything about that Olga, and connected with her, is so mysterious."
"I wonder if I couldn't find out something about her in Pickletown?" suggested Gummy.
"Daddy has been there often, I believe," she said doubtfully.
"But not of late."
"Why, no, I suppose not. He's been tied to the house with a 'glass leg,'" cried Janice laughing a little.
"You know I deliver orders over there twice a week for Mr. Harriman. A lot of those people can't even talk English. We've a Swede for a clerk in the store. They write down what they want for me, and he puts up the orders.
"But I know a lot of them to talk to--especially the boys that work in the pickle factories I'll begin by asking them," said Gummy, with eagerness, for he wanted to help.
"That will be nice of you, Gummy," Janice said. "You never do know when we might come across some news of her."
"And you say you think she's married?"
"It may be so. To Willie Sangreen. At least, she was going with a man by that name when she worked for us."
"Don't know any Sangreens over at Pickletown," said Gummy, shaking his head. "And of course I haven't seen your Olga."
"That is so, Gummy. But if the girl at Johnson's that night was really Olga Cedarstrom, you'd know her again, wouldn't you?"
"Guess I would if I saw her," declared the boy. "No fear about that. I'll keep my eyes open, Janice."
With this promise he chirruped to the horse, that jogged along without paying very much attention to Gummy. He knew the road better than the boy did, for he had been over it many more times.
"Do you suppose that lawyer that came to see my mother will cheat us out of our home, Janice?" asked the boy suddenly, showing where his thoughts were anchored.
"Not if it can be helped, Gummy," returned the girl sympathetically. "I know daddy's friend, Mr. Payne, will do all he can for her."
"He hasn't sent any word to her, or anything," sighed Gummy. "We just don't know what to do."
"All you can do is to sit tight and hold on, I guess," Janice said. "That is what daddy says he does when things look stormy for him."
"But, you see, it means so much to us," said the boy, shaking his head. "Jicksy! And me with such a miserable old name!"
"Why, Gummy!"
"How'd you like to be called Zerubbabelbubble, or something like that?" he demanded. "Nice enough for you. 'Janice'! That's a fancy name. But 'Gumswith'! Jicksy!"
"Why, Gummy!" exclaimed the girl again, didn't know you hated it so."
"I do. I don't talk about it. I know Pa gave it to me because he thought a heap of his half brother. And Uncle John Gumswith was a nice man, I guess. He set my father up in business in the first place, when he was married."
"Oh, is that so, Gummy?'
"Yes! Don't kick about the old name before Momsy. You see, I guess Uncle John wanted them to name a boy after him; and maybe they thought if they did so it might do me some good sometime."
"Oh, Gummy! That your uncle would give you money because you were named after him?"
"Yes," said Gummy, nodding. "I don't know. But--"
"And your uncle's never been heard from? You never saw him, even?"
"Nor he me," grinned Gummy. "He went off to Australia and never wrote. He was always traveling around the world, Pa said; and he never did write. Just walked in on his folks without announcing he was coming." "A regular wanderer," said Janice.
"And now, jicksy!" exclaimed Gummy, vigorously, "how I'd like to have him walk in on us now."
"Oh, Gummy" she said eagerly, catching the drift of his desire. "With his pockets full of money!"
The boy nodded vigorously. "You see, Janice, it would be worth while being called 'Gumswith' then, sure enough."
Janice could not blame Gummy Carringford feeling as he did. He really should have something to pay him for being called by such an atrocious name! And Janice herself would be glad to have rich relative walk into the Day house and present daddy--with an automobile, for instance.
They came in sight of the house at Eight Hundred and Forty-five Knight Street just as the very kind of automobile Janice would have loved to own was drawing up before the front door--a handsome, great, big touring car, big enough for her to have taken most of her friends out riding in at once.
"Oh, who is that?" she cried.
"Man. Don't know him," said Gummy, cheerfully, as the single occupant of the tonneau stepped out of the car and entered the gate.
He was a well-dressed man, of more than middle age, and Janice's heart began to beat faster. It did seem as though something must be about to happen.
Daddy was on the porch and she could see him greet the gentleman without rising. The stranger took a seat at Mr. Day's request. And if Janice had been near enough to have heard the first words that passed between them, she would have suffered a great drop in the temperature of her excitement.
"How's the leg, Broxton?" asked the visitor.
"Coming on, Randolph. What's the news?"
"Well, yes, I have news," said the lawyer, nodding.
"I know it. Or you would not have found time to get up into this part of the town. Well, what can you tell Mrs. Carringford?"
"Nothing much about that Mullen Lane property, I fear, that she will want to hear."
"Too bad, too bad," said Broxton Day. "I am sorry for her. She is a hard working woman--and proud. No chance of helping her?"
"I can settle the case for five hundred dollars. I cannot connect Abel Strout with this shake-down--for that is what it is. The woman up in Michigan never heard of her great-uncle's property down here till this little Schrimpe told her. But we can't connect him with Strout. Strout's skirts are clear. And this Schrimpe had a perfect legal right to drum up trade. He's that kind of lawyer," said Mr. Payne, with disgust.
"Five hundred dollars--and she will still owe Abel Strout a thousand on the mortgage," sighed Mr. Day.
"Yes. But I suppose, in time, the property will be worth it."
"It's worth it now," said Mr. Day. "That is what is the matter with Strout. But Mrs. Carringford hasn't the money to spare. And at the present time nobody would put a second mortgage on the property."
"I suppose the woman up in Michigan gets about twenty-five--maybe fifty--dollars out of it. That would settle any quitclaim of this character. Half a dozen other heirs were bought off at the time; but she was overlooked. The rest of the five hundred Mrs. Carringford can raise it--will be split between Schrimpe and his principal."
"There are some mighty mean people in this world," said Broxton Day, grimly.
"You've said it," agreed the lawyer. "Now, maybe I'd better see Mrs. Carringford. I understand she is here?"
"Yes."
"Do you know much about her?"
"I know she is a fine woman. They came here from Napsburg after the husband died--"
"Alexander Carringford, wasn't he?" asked Mr. Payne, taking some papers from his pocket.
"I believe so."
"They came originally from Cleveland?"
"Maybe."
"A correspondent of mine in Cleveland has written me about a family of Carringfords, and I shouldn't be surprised if these were the same people. If they are--"
"What's all the mystery, Payne?" asked Broxton Day, with sudden interest, for he saw that the lawyer meant more than he had said.
"If this is Alexander Carringford's widow, I don't know but my news is in two pieces."
"Meaning?"
"Bad news, and good news. Let's call the woman."
At that moment Janice, who had gone into the house through the back way, appeared at the open door.
"This is my little housekeeper, Randolph," said Broxton Day, smiling proudly upon his daughter. "Janice, this is Mr. Payne."
The girl came forward without timidity, but without boldness, and accepted the visitor's hand.
"Is Mrs. Carringford out there?" asked Janice's father.
"Yes, Daddy. And Gummy."
"'Gummy'!" ejaculated the lawyer. "What's that? A game, or something to eat?"
Janice's dear laughter rang out with daddy's bass tones. "Oh, no, sir," she said. "Gummy is 'Gumswith Carringford.'"
"My soul!" ejaculated the lawyer, getting up quickly from his chair, "it is the right family. Come inside. Let's see Mrs. Carringford somewhere where we can talk without the neighbors seeing and hearing everything."
For he had noticed the bowed blinds of Miss Peckham's cottage only a few yards from the end of the porch.
"Tell her to come into the living room, Janice," said Mr. Day, rising slowly and reaching for his crutches. But it was evident that he understood the lawyer's excitement no more than Janice did.
The girl ran back to the kitchen and urged Mrs. Carringford to come in. "And Gummy, too," she said. "Maybe he wants you. It is Mr. Payne, and he is daddy's lawyer."
"It's about the home, Gummy!" ejaculated Mrs. Carringford.
"Oh, I hope he'll tell us how to beat out that Abel Strout!"
"Maybe it's to say that Mr. Strout can take our home," faltered Mrs. Carringford.
"Come on, Momsy!" said her big boy. "I'm not afraid. If worse comes to worst, it won't be so long before I can support you and the kids, anyway."
Now Janice thought that was a very nice speech and she remembered to tell daddy about it afterward.
They went into the living room and Mr. Day introduced Mrs. Carringford to his companion. The latter looked hard at Gummy.
"What is your name, boy?" he asked rather sternly.
"Carringford, too, sir," said Gummy, politely.
"The whole of it!" commanded the lawyer.
"Er--Gumswith Carringford," said the boy, with flashing eye but cheeks that would turn red.
"Indeed?" returned the lawyer, staring oddly at Gummy. "You are something of a boy, I take it." Then he wheeled to confront Mrs. Carringford.
"I am told," Mr. Payne said, "that your husband was Alexander Carringford, of Cleveland?"
The woman was somewhat surprised, but said that that statement was correct. She could not see, during the next few minutes' cross-examination, what these questions had to do with that little cottage in Mullen Lane, and whether her family was to be turned out of it or not.
After even his legal suspicion was satisfied as to Mrs. Carringford's identity, Mr. Payne said, again looking at Gummy:
"Did you and your husband name this boy after a certain relative named John Gumswith. Mrs. Carringford?"
"My husband's elder brother. Yes, sir. Gumswith is named after his Uncle John."
"Humph! I should consider it something of a punishment if I were the boy," muttered the lawyer. Then he asked:
"Have you heard from this relative--this John Gumswith--recently?"
"No, sir. Not for fifteen years," said Mrs. Carringford, her face suddenly paling.
"Do you know where he is?"
"I only know that he started for Australia fifteen years ago."
"Sit down, Mrs. Carringford," said Mr. Day softly. "I assure you this is nothing to worry about."
I--should--say--not," agreed the lawyer. "Quite the opposite. And the boy need not look so scared, either. If he can stand that name he carries around with him--"
"Boy!" exclaimed Mr. Payne, "what would you say if somebody gave you two thousand pounds?"
"Er--what, sir?" gasped Gummy. "Two thousand pounds of what? Must be an elephant! That's a ton."
How Mr. Payne did laugh at that! But neither Gummy nor Janice saw anything funny in his speech. Mrs. Carringford was watching the lawyer's face, and she said nothing.
"I mean two thousand pounds in money. That is something like ten thousand dollars. How about it?" asked Mr. Payne again.
"Me?" exploded Gummy.
"Yes. Because your name is 'Gumswith Carringford.' Isn't it worth it?" chuckled the lawyer.
Gummy looked all around, paling and flushing by turn. Then he grinned widely and looked at Janice.
"Jicksy!" he murmured, "the old name is worth something, after all, isn't it?" _