How Janice Day Won

Helen Beecher Long

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• Publié par: arno
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 46
• Langue: English

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The Project Gutenberg eBook, How Janice Day
Won, by Helen Beecher Long
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Title: How Janice Day Won
Author: Helen Beecher Long
Release Date: October 27, 2007 [eBook #23208]
Language: English
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG
EBOOK HOW JANICE DAY WON***
E-text prepared by Al Haines
Transcriber's note:The book's Frontispiece was missing. There
were no other illustrations.
HOW JANICE DAY
WON
by
HELEN BEECHER LONG
Author of "Janice Day the Young Homemaker,"
"The Testing of Janice Day,"
"The Mission of Janice Day," Etc.
Illustrated by Corinne Turner
The Goldsmith Publishing Co.
ClevelandCopyright, 1917, by
Sully & KleinteichCONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. TROUBLE FROM NEAR AND FAR II. "TALKY"
DEXTER, INDEED III. "THE SEVENTH
ABOMINATION" IV. A RIFT IN THE
HONEYMOON V. "THE BLUEBIRD—FOR
HAPPINESS" VI. THE TENTACLES OF THE
MONSTER VII. SWEPT ON BY THE CURRENT
VIII. REAL TROUBLE IX. HOW NELSON TOOK
IT X. HOW POLKTOWN TOOK IT XI. "MEN
MUST WORK WHILE WOMEN MUST WEEP" XII.
AN UNEXPECTED EMERGENCY XIII. INTO THE
LION'S DEN XIV. A DECLARATION OF WAR XV.
AND NOW IT IS DISTANT TROUBLE XVI. ONE
MATTER COMES TO A HEAD XVII. THE
OPENING OF THE CAMPAIGN XVIII.
HOPEWELL SELLS HIS VIOLIN XIX. THE GOLD
COIN XX. SUSPICIONS XXI. WHAT WAS IN THE
PAPER XXII. DEEP WATERS XXIII. JOSEPH US
COMES OUT FOR PROHIBITION XXIV.
ANOTHER GOLD PIECE XXV. IN DOUBT XXVI.
THE TIDE TURNS XXVII. THE TEMPEST XXVIII.
THE ENEMY RETREATS XXIX. THE TRUTH AT
LAST XXX. MARM PARRADAY DOES HER DUTYHOW JANICE DAY WON
CHAPTER I
TROUBLE FROM NEAR AND FAR
At the corner of High Street, where the lane led
back to the stables of the Lake View Inn, Janice
Day stopped suddenly, startled by an eruption of
sound from around an elbow of the lane—a volley
of voices, cat-calls, and ear-splitting whistles which
shattered Polktown's usual afternoon somnolence.
One youthful imitator expelled a laugh like the
bleating of a goat:
"Na-ha-ha-ha! Ho! Jim Nar-ha-nay! There's a brick
in your hat!"
Another shout of laugher and a second boy
exclaimed:
"Look out, old feller! You'll spill it!"
All the voices seemed those of boys; but this was
an hour when most of the town lads were
supposed to be under the more or less eagle eye
of Mr. Nelson Haley, the principal of the Polktown
school. Janice attended the Middletown Seminary,
and this chanced to be a holiday at that institution.
She stood anxiously on the corner now to see ifher cousin, Marty, was one of this crowd of noisy
fellows.
With stumbling feet, and with the half dozen
laughing, mocking boys tailing him, a bewhiskered,
rough-looking, shabby man came into sight. His
appearance on the pleasant main thoroughfare of
the little lakeside town quite spoiled the prospect.
Before, it had been a lovely scene. Young Spring,
garbed only in the tender greens of the quickened
earth and the swelling buds of maple and lilac, had
accompanied Janice Day down Hillside Avenue into
High Street from the old Day house where she
lived with her Uncle Jason, her Aunt 'Mira, and
Marty. All the neighbors had seen Janice and had
smiled at her; and those whose eyes were
anointed by Romance saw Spring dancing by the
young girl's side.
Her eyes sparkled; there was a rose in either
cheek; her trim figure in the brown frock, well-built
walking shoes of tan, and pretty toque, was an
effective bit of life in the picture, the background of
which was the sloping street to the steamboat dock
and the beautiful, blue, dancing waters of the lake
beyond.
An intoxicated man on the streets of Polktown
during the three years of Janice Day's sojourn here
was almost unknown. There had been no demand
for the sale of liquor in the town until Lem
Parraday, proprietor of the Lake View Inn, applied
to the Town Council for a bar license.The request had been granted without much
opposition. Mr. Cross Moore, President of the
Council, held a large mortgage on the Parraday
premises, and it was whispered that this fact aided
in putting the license through in so quiet a way.
It was agreed that Polktown was growing. The
"boom" had started some months before. Already
the sparkling waters of the lake were plied by a
new Constance Colfax, and the C. V. Railroad was
rapidly completing its branch which was to connect
Polktown with the Eastern seaboard.
Whereas in the past a half dozen traveling men
might visit the town in a week and put up at the
Inn, there had been through this Winter a
considerable stream of visitors. And it was
expected that the Inn, as well as every house that
took boarders in the town, would be well patronized
during the coming Summer.
To Janice Day the Winter had been lovely. She had
been very busy.
Well had she fulfilled her own tenet of "Do
Something." In service she
found continued joy. Janice loved Polktown, and
almost everybody in
Polktown loved her.
At least, everybody knew her, and when these
young rascals trailing the drunken man spied the
accusing countenance of Janice they fell back in
confusion. She was thankful her cousin Marty was
not one of them; yet several, she knew, belongedto the boys' club, the establishment of which had
led to the opening of Polktown's library and free
reading-room. However, the boys pursued Tim
Narnay no farther. They slunk back into the lane,
and finally, with shrill whoops and laughter,
disappeared. The besotted man stood wavering on
the curbstone, undecided, it seemed, upon his
future course.
Janice would have passed on. The appearance of
the fellow merely shocked and disgusted her. Her
experience of drunkenness and with drinking
people, had been very slight indeed. Gossip's
tongue was busy with the fact that several weak or
reckless men now hung about the Lake View Inn
more than was good for them; and Janice saw
herself that some boys had taken to loafing here.
But nobody in whom she was vitally interested
seemed in danger of acquiring the habit of using
liquor just because Lem Parraday sold it.
The ladies of the sewing society of the Union
Church missed "Marm" Parraday's brown face and
vigorous tongue. It was said that she strongly
disapproved of the change at the Inn, but Lem had
overruled her for once.
"And, poor woman!" thought Janice now, "if she
has to see such sights as this about the Inn, I don't
wonder that she is ashamed."
The train of her thought was broken at the
moment, and her footsteps stayed. Running across
the street came a tiny girl, on whose bare head theSpring sunshine set a crown of gold. Such a wealth
of tangled, golden hair Janice had never before
seen, and the flowerlike face beneath it would have
been very winsome indeed had it been clean.
She was a neglected-looking little creature; her
patched clothing needed repatching, her face and
hands were begrimed, and——
"Goodness only knows when there was ever a
comb in that hair!" sighed Janice. "I would dearly
love to clean her up and put something decent to
wear upon her, and——"
She did not finish her wish because of an
unexpected happening. The little girl came so
blithely across the street only to run directly into
the wavering figure of the intoxicated Jim Narnay.
She screamed as Narnay seized her by one thin
arm.
"What ye got there?" he demanded, hoarsely,
trying to catch the other tiny, clenched fist.
"Oh! don't do it! don't do it!" begged the child,
trying her best to slip away from his rough grasp.
"Ye got money, ye little sneak!" snarled the man,
and he forced the girl's hand open with a quick
wrench and seized the dime she held.
He flung her aside as though she had been a wisp
of straw, and she would have fallen had not Janice
caught her. Indignantly the older girl faced the
drunken ruffian.