Just off High Street was another store. It was in a low-roofed building shouldering upon the highway, with a two-story cottage attachment at the back. Two huge trees overshadowed the place and lent a deep, cool shade to the shaky porch; but the trees made the store appear very gloomy within.

Of all the shops Janice had observed in Poketown it seemed that this little store was the most neglected and woeful looking. Its two show windows were a lacework of dust and flyspecks. In the upper corners were ragged spider webs; and in one web lay a gorged spider, too well fed to pounce on the blue-bottle fly buzzing in the toils within easy pouncing distance! Only glimpses of a higgledy-piggledy of a.s.sorted wares were to be caught behind the panes. Across the front of the building was a faded sign reading:

HOPEWELL DRUGG GROCERIES AND DRY GOODS

Nothing about the shop itself would have held Janice Day's attention even for a moment; but from within (the front door stood ajar) came the wailing notes of a violin, the uncertain bow of the performer seeking out the notes of "Silver Threads Among the Gold."

Yet, with all its uncertainty, the fiddler's touch groped for the beauty and pathos of the chords:

"Darling, I am growing old, Silver threads among the gold."

Janice heard the haunting sweetness of the tune all the way down the shaded lane and she wondered who the player might be.

There was a deep, gra.s.s-grown ditch on one side--evidently an open drain to carry the overflow of water from High Street. As the drain deepened toward the bottom of the hill, posts had been set and rails laid on top of them to defend vehicles from pitching into the ditch in the dark. But many of the rails had now rotted and fallen to the sod, or the nails had rusted and drawn out, leaving the barrier "jest rattling."

From a side road there suddenly trotted a piebald pony, drawing a low, basket phaeton, in which sat two prim, little, old ladies, a fat one and a lean one. Despite the difference in their avoirdupois the two old ladies showed themselves to be what they were--sisters.

The thin one was driving the piebald pony. "Gidap, Ginger!" she announced, flapping the reins.

She had better have refrained from waking up Ginger just at that moment.

A fickle breath of wind pounced upon an outspread newspaper lying on the gra.s.s, fluttered it for a moment, and then, getting fairly under the printed sheet, heaved it into the air.

Ginger caught a glimpse of the fluttering paper. He halted suddenly, with all four feet braced and ears forward, fairly snorting his surprise. As the paper began flopping across the road, he began to back.

The whites of his eyes showed plainly and he snorted again. The wind-shaken paper utterly dissipated the pony's corn-fed complacency.

"Oh! Oh! Gidap!" shrieked the thin old lady.

"He--he's backin' us into the ditch, p.u.s.s.y," cried her sister.

"I--I can't help it, Blossom," gasped the driver of the frightened pony.

The phaeton really was getting perilously near the edge of the undefended ditch, when Janice ran out beside the pony's head, clutched at his bridle, and halted him in his mad career. The paper dropped into the ditch and lay still, and the pony began to nuzzle Janice's hand.

"Isn't he just cunning!" gasped the girl, turning to look at the two little old ladies.

From a nearby house appeared a lath-like man, who strode out to the road, grinning broadly.

"Hi tunket! Ye did come purty nigh backin' into the ditch _that_ time, gals," he cackled. "All right now, ain't ye? That there leetle gal is some spry. Ginger ain't shown so much sperit since b'fore Adam!"

"Now, I tell ye, Mr. Cross Moore," declared the driver of the pony, sharply, "we came very near having a serious accident. And all because these rails aren't repaired. You're one of the _se_-lect-men and you'd oughter have sense enough to repair that railin'. Wait till somebody drives plump into the ditch and the town has a big damage bill to pay."

"Aw, now, there ain't many folks drives this way," defended Mr. Cross Moore.

"There's enough. And think o' Hopewell Drugg's Lottie. She's always running up and down this lane. Somebody's goin' to pitch head-fust inter that ditch yet, Cross Moore, an' then you'll be sorry."

She was a very vigorous-speaking old lady, that was sure. The sister by her side was of much milder temperament, and she was thanking Janice very sweetly while the other scolded Selectman Moore.

"We thank you very much, my dear. You are much braver than _I_ am, for I'm free to confess I'm afraid of all cattle," said the plump old lady, in a somewhat shaken voice. "Who are you, my dear? I don't remember seeing you before."

"I am Janice Day, Ma'am."

"Day? You belong here in Poketown? There's Days live on Hillside Avenue."

"Yes, Ma'am," confessed Janice. "Mr. Jason Day is my uncle. But I am Broxton Day's daughter."

"Why, do tell!" cried the plump little old lady, who had pink cheeks and the very warmest of warm smiles, as she looked into the girl's hazel eyes. "See here, p.u.s.s.y," she cried to her sister. "Do you know who this little girl turns out to be? She's Brocky Day's girl. Surely you remember Brocky Day?"

But "p.u.s.s.y" was still haranguing the town selectman upon his crimes of omission and could not give her attention to Janice.

"Anyhow, dear, won't you come and see us? p.u.s.s.y's disturbed a mite now; but she'll love to have you come, too. We live just a little way out o'

town--anybody can tell you where the Hammett Twins live," said this full-blown "Blossom." "Yes. My sister an' I are twins. And we're fond of young folks and like to have 'em 'round us. There! Ginger's all right, p.u.s.s.y. We can drive on."

"You'd oughter fix them rails, Cross Moore," repeated the lean sister, as the old pony started placidly up the hill again.

Mr. Moore languidly squinted along the staggering barrier. "Wa-al--I reckon I will--one o' these days," he said.

He grinned in a friendly way at Janice as she started on. "Them Hammett gals is reg'lar fuss-bugets," he observed. "But they're nice folks. So you're Broxton Day's gal? I heard you'd arove. How do you like Poketown?"

"I don't know it well enough to say yet, Mr. Moore," returned Janice, bashfully, as she went down the hill.

There were no more houses, but great, sweeping-limbed willow trees shaded the lower range of the hill. She came out, quite suddenly, upon a little open lawn which edged the lake itself. Here an old dock stuck its ugly length out into the water--a dock the timbers of which were blackened as though by a fire, and the floor-boards of which had mostly been removed. There was but a narrow path out to the end of the wharf.

Between the wharf and the opposite side of this little bay was a piece of perfectly smooth water; the softly breathing wind did not ruffle the bay at all. The long arm of the sh.o.r.e that was thrust out into the lake was heavily wooded. Rows of dark, almost black, northern spruce stood shouldering each other on that farther sh.o.r.e, making a perfect wall of verdure. Their deep shadow was already beginning to creep across the water toward the old wharf.

"What a quiet spot!" exclaimed Janice, aloud.

"'Iet spot!'" breathed the echo from the opposite sh.o.r.e.

"Why! it's an echo!" cried the startled Janice.

"'An echo!'" repeated the sprite, in instant imitation of her tone.

It was then that Janice saw the little girl upon the old wharf. At first she seemed just a blotch of color upon the old burned timbers. Then the startled visitor realized that the gaily-hued frock, and sash, and bonnet, garbed a little girl of perhaps eight or nine years.

Janice could not see her face. When she rose up from where she had been sitting and went along the shaking stringpiece of the dock, her back was still toward the sh.o.r.e.

Yet her gait--the groping of one hand before her--all the uncertainty and questioning of her att.i.tude--shot the spectator through with alarm.

The child was blind! More than this, her unguided feet were leading her directly to the abrupt end of the half ruined wharf!

CHAPTER VII

THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LOST THE ECHO

Shocked by the discovery of the child's misfortune, Janice scarcely appreciated at first the peril that menaced the blind girl. It was a mystery how her unguided feet had brought her so far along the wharf-beam without catastrophe. But there--just ahead--was the end of the half-ruined framework. A few more steps and the groping feet would be over the water.