CHAPTER XV. THE LOST TRAIL
Mr. Day had not yet gone to bed when the young folks reached thehouse; but Mrs. Watkins had long since retired. The light in theliving room assured Janice that her father awaited her return,and bidding Amy and Gummy good-night at the gate, she ran intothe house in great excitement.
"Oh, Daddy! Daddy! Guess!" she cried to him. "Just think! Shebroke a big cutglass dish, and I'm 'most sure it's Olga--"
"Wait!" exclaimed Mr. Day, putting up both hands. "Mercy, Ipray, my dear. I don't know what you are talking about."
"But you know Olga, Daddy."
"To my sorrow," he groaned, "It can't be that you have found outanything about that Swedish girl? I have been searchingPickletown again this evening."
"Oh, Daddy!" she cried, "maybe Olga is just where you can findher to-morrow. And she did break one of Mrs. Latham's very bestdishes, and--"
"Let us hear all about this in due order," laughed Broxton Day."I can see that you are far too much excited to go promptly tobed. Explain yourself, my dear."
When he had heard it all, he did not appear to be as muchimpressed as Janice expected him to be. It was a small chance,in his opinion, that the girl who had broken Mrs. Latham's dishwas the same Olga who had for two months held sway in the Daykitchen.
"But we will make a pilgrimage to the cottage on the back of theLatham farm," Daddy promised. "If I can get away from the bankearly to-morrow afternoon, we will go. I know the place, andthere is a family of Swedish people living there. Of course, bychance, it might be Olga your friend Gummy followed home."
"Oh, no! It would be providential, Daddy," Janice declared,smiling. "You say yourself that Providence is not chance."
"True," he agreed, with gravity. "If we get back thetreasure-box, with all in it, I shall be very, very thankfulindeed, and shall consider it a Providential happening."
"Daddy, dear!" whispered Janice.
It was at these times, when they spoke of the lost treasures,that Janice was so heart-stricken because of daddy's expressionof countenance. Those letters from her dear, dead mother, whichher father prized so highly, were continually in Broxton Day'smind. She realized it was a loss that time would hardly mend.
"And all my fault! All my fault!" she sobbed when she was alonein her bedroom. "Had I not been so dreadfully careless Olgawould never have got hold of that box when she was mad and runoff with it. And suppose she doesn't think the things in it areworth much? She might throw them away!"
So, despite the good time they had had at Stella Latham's party,Janice went to bed in no happy frame of mind.
Saturday was bound to be a very busy day; and Janice did not wakeup early. Daddy left a note for her on the table saying he wouldbe at home with some kind of a conveyance not long after the bankclosed at one o'clock.
She knew what that meant. They were to ride out to the Johnsonhouse and make inquiries for the girl, Olga. Janice was sorry shehad slept so late, for Mrs. Watkins expected her to do what shetermed "her share" of the work.
"If your pa lets you sit up till all hours, so that you're notfit for anything in the morning, should I be blamed?" complainedthe faded-out lady. "I'm sure I have enough to do every day, andall day. I have got to have some help on Saturdays and that isall there is to it."
Janice knew well enough that the reason the work piled up so uponthe last day of the week was because it was allowed to accumulatethrough the other days. But the kitchen floor did have to bescrubbed. It was a sight!
If the woman would only mop it every other day it would not be sobad; but it seemed to Janice that Mrs. Watkins would just wadethrough dirt to her knees in the kitchen before she would useeither mop or scrubbing brush.
It was true that daddy did not often look into the kitchen, nowthat there was somebody supposedly capable of keeping the room,as well as the rest of the house, in order. And Janice was gladhe did not look around the house much.
Such training as she had enjoyed under her mother's eye had madeJanice thorough. Mrs. Day had been a thoroughly goodhousekeeper.
And she had always kept so well up with her housework that therewere never any difficult jobs left to haunt one, and her houselooked always neat. Nor was she obliged to keep half herprettily furnished rooms shut up to keep them clean!
Janice did all she could on this short Saturday morning. She hadfirst of all to he sure that daddy's room was dusted--every bit.Then there were the halls and stairs to do. After those, theporches must be swept.
"For you know," sighed Mrs. Watkins, "it looks so much better fora child like you to be out sweeping the porch and paths than whatit would me."
Janice could not quite understand this reasoning. But she knewit must be a deal easier for Mrs. Watkins to rock in a chair inthe house than to wield the broom. That went without saying.
She did not think of lunch, although the faded-out lady did notneglect her own. Janice was down on her hands and knees, withscrubbing brush and pail, when the housekeeper carried somesavory dish or other into the dining room.
"I presume since you had your breakfast so late you will not careto eat now," said the woman. To tell the truth, a tear or twodropped into the strong soda water in the pail.
"Though I don't believe salt will help start the grease-spots onthis floor," Janice thought, rubbing her eyes with the wrist ofone hand. "There! I am a regular cry-baby. I said I would dosomething to relieve daddy of bothering about the housework. Andif scrubbing a floor is the best I can do--"
Suddenly a shadow appeared at the door. Janice looked up andsquealed. There was daddy himself--at least an hour and a halftoo early.
"Well, well!" exclaimed Broxton Day, rather sternly, "what isthe meaning of this?"
"Dirt on the floor boards--scrubbing brush--elbow grease,"retorted his daughter, making vigorous explanatory motions."Didn't you ever see a 'scrub lady' before, Daddy?"
"Humph! so there is a Cinderella in the house is there?" he said.
Mrs. Watkins opened the dining-room door. She was swallowing amouthful which seemed to go down hard. Mr. Day's unexpectedappearance disturbed her.
"Oh, Mr. Day," she cried, feebly, "have--have you had yourlunch?"
"I have, Mrs. Watkins," he replied. Then to Janice: "No matterhow much you may like to scrub floors, my dear, you will have toleave this one for Mrs. Watkins to finish. There is a car at thedoor. I have borrowed it for a couple of hours, and you mustmake haste and put on something different and come with me tolook for Olga."
"Well," Janice got up from her knees slowly.
"Hurry," said daddy sternly. And he stood and waited untilJanice went out of the room.
"So you will not have lunch, Mr. Day?" asked Mrs. Watkins coolly.
"No. But there is one thing I will have, Mrs. Watkins," he saidsternly. "I will have you attend to your work, and not put it onJanice, while you remain here!"
"I do not understand you, sir," said the woman, her nose in theair.
"Let me make myself plain then," said Broxton Day. "I will notpay you wages to shift such work as this," pointing to thescrub-pail, "upon my daughter. I want that understood here andnow. I can no longer give you carte blanche at the grocery andprovision store. I will do the marketing myself hereafter. Youwill furnish the lists."
"Sir?" ejaculated Mrs. Watkins haughtily.
"I have kept tabs on the accounts this last week. In no sevendays since I was married have the expenses for the table beenhalf what they have been this week."
"I am not used to a poverty-stricken household, Mr. Day!" sneeredMrs. Watkins.
"But you soon will be," Broxton Day told her grimly, "if I letyou have a free hand in this way. I am not a rich man, and Isoon will be a poor one at this rate."
"I want you to understand, Mr. Day, that no lady can demeanherself."
"Wait a moment," said the man, still grimly. "I did not hire youto be a lady. I hired you to do the housework. I can't have youhere unless you keep your share of the
contract. Please rememberthat, Mrs.Watkins."
He left her abruptly and walked through to the front of thehouse. He saw that at her place on the dining table was theremains of a broiled squab-chicken--a very tasty bit for a hardworking woman like Mrs. Watkins.
"Are you ready, daughter?" he called up the stairway.
"Just a minute or two, Daddy," replied Janice.
She felt that they were in trouble again. All she had tried todo to keep him from knowing just how badly things about the housewere going had been for naught.
But she winked back the tears and "practised a smile" in herlooking glass before she ran down to join daddy on the porch.There was a big touring car out in front. Janice knew itbelonged to the vice-president of the Farmers ad Merchants Bank.
"Oh, what a fine car, Daddy!" she whispered, clinging to hishand. "Let's play it is ours--while we are in it, of course."
"Would you like to have a car my dear?" he asked her, as theysettled themselves in the tonneau, and the driver started themachine.
"Oh!" she cried. "I could just jump out of my skin when I thinkof it! Every time I ride with Stella
Latham I'm just as covetous as I can be. I guess I am realwicked, Daddy."
"I shouldn't be surprised," he returned, smiling. "It would benice to have all the comforts and the luxuries of therich--without their troubles."
"M-mm!" said Janice. "But even their troubles can't be so bad.Not as bad as poor people's troubles."
"Like ours?" he returned, smiling down at her.
"It is a fact that we cannot keep a hired girl. We're not aslucky as the man I heard of who was boasting of having kept acook a whole month. But it seemed that this month his house wasquarantined for scarlet fever."
"Oh, Daddy!" giggled Janice. "Let's get a yellow, or a red, cardfrom the Board of Health, and tack it up outside the door."
"And so keep Mrs. Watkins, whether or no? I am not sure that wecan stand her, my dear."
"We-ell, there are worse," Janice confessed. "And we have hadthem," commented her father rather grimly. "Ah, that's the littlehouse where the Johnsons live!"
"Oh, dear me! If it should be our Olga!"
"We'll know about that pretty soon," said Mr. Day comfortingly."Stop here, Harry."
The car was halted, and Mr. Day jumped out and went up to thehouse. When he knocked a tall, pale woman, with a little baby inher arms, opened the narrow door. It took but a glance to revealher nationality.
"You bane want my hoosban'?" asked the Swedish woman.
"No, Mrs. Johnson," replied Mr. Day. "I came to inquire about ayoung woman that I believe is staying here."
"No vooman here but me," declared the other, shaking her headvigorously.
"What? Haven't you a friend here named Olga?"
"Olga bane gone," declared the woman sullenly.
"Gone away? exclaimed Mr. Day. "Since last evening?"
"She bane gone."
"Are you Mrs. Johnson?" asked the man, earnestly.
"My name bane Yonson--yes," she agreed. "I don't know nottin''bout Olga. She bane gone. She did not mane to break dish,anyway."
"Oh!" exclaimed Mr. Day, remembering what Janice had told himabout the accident at the Latham's the evening before. "We havenot come about the dish. It is for another matter entirely thatwe wish to find Olga."
"I not know where Olga bane go," pursued Mrs. Johnson, shakingher head vigorously.
"She went away this morning, then?"
"Yah. She bane go dis mornin'."
"Is her name Olga Cedarstrom?".
"No! No!" exclaimed Mrs. Johnson, shaking her head vigorously."You not b'know dis Olga. She 'nudder girl."
"Where is your husband?" asked Mr. Day hopelessly. "Perhaps hecan tell me more about her."
"Yon Yonson gone to Dover," declared his wife, suddenly shuttingthe door and leaving Mr. Broxton Day outside on the step.