"No?" asked Janice, interested.

"Now it seems that Mr. Strout only wrote that mortgage

for a year and he can do what he calls 'call it in' a month from now. Of course, mother can't pay the mortgage; it is hard enough to pay the interest on it. And so Mr. Strout says he will just take the house back and we--we'll lose our money, and all,"

finished Amy with almost a sob.

"Why, I think that is too mean for anything!" cried her friend.

"Can't he be stopped?"

"I don't know how. And I guess mother doesn't. He says he would accept a payment on the princ.i.p.al--that's the mortgage, you know. But mother doesn't dare give up any more of our money. There is n.o.body earning any but Gummy. And how far do you suppose his three dollars a week goes in buying food for all us children, for instance?"

Janice had no answer for this; but she determined to tell daddy the particulars of Mrs. Carringford's trouble. Besides, she had in her mind, and had had for a long time, a desire to bring her father and Amy's mother together. She wanted them to know each other, and for a very definite reason.

CHAPTER XIX. A FLARE-UP

At school the first of that week there was little talked about, of course, save the glories of Stella's party. No girl in the grammar grade had ever celebrated her birthday with such magnificence. The commendation she heard on all sides made Stella very proud.

Because so many of the girls tried to show her their appreciation of the nice time they had had at the Latham farm, Stella began to feel quite puffed up. She considered herself to be the most important person in her grade, at least, if not in the whole school.

It was a privilege to be taken up by the Latham car after school and set down at one's door; and Stella distributed such favors with no lack of shrewdness. She meant such rides to bring her popularity. Janice had often been the recipient of these kindnesses, and as she had told her father, it did delight her to ride in an automobile.

But since she had become so friendly with Amy Carringford, Janice had frequently walked home with her, or Amy had accompanied her to the Day house after school.

Stella was shallow enough when it came to displaying her own friendship for another girl; but suddenly it struck the farmer's daughter that a girl who had once been much in her company was showing a preference for somebody else.

"That Janice Day is sly," she muttered to herself, pa.s.sing Janice and Amy as they wended their chattering way homeward. "She thinks I don't notice what she's doing. I'll give it to her to-morrow, see if I don't!"

This threat she proceeded to put into practice. And it came most unexpectedly both to Janice and Amy.

Janice, of course, was perfectly innocent and quite unsuspicious of any attack, and Amy did not dream that Stella did not like her. Had not the farmer's daughter invited Amy to her party? In fact Amy was liked by almost everybody, teachers and pupils included.

In arithmetic Stella always was dull, and on this particular morning she was more than ordinarily careless in recitation.

Miss Marble gave her a sharp word and propounded the same question to Amy Carringford. The latter returned the correct answer, and then gave the red-faced Stella a deprecatory smile.

"Don't you grin at me, you pauper!" hissed Stella, and so loudly that several of the girls near by heard her words.

Even Miss Marble took notice of Stella's speech, although she could not overhear what she said.

"No communicating during recitations, Stella," she said sharply.

Amy had paled to her very lips and the tears sprang to her eyes.

Janice was too far away to understand; but she was interested--she could not fail to be.

None who heard the unkind remark of Stella Latham but felt sorry that one of their mates should be so rude and ungracious.

"Of course, we all know Amy Carringford is poor--just as poor as poverty," one of them said at recess. "But that is no reason for telling her so!"

This girl was quite energetic in saying this--and more--to the offending Stella.

"Just because you ride in an automobile, and your father owns a farm, you need not think that you are better than anybody else in our cla.s.s--for you're not, Stella Latham! Amy Carringford is every whit as good as you are."

"Is that so?" snapped Stella. "She's a poverty stricken thing.

She hasn't got a decent thing to wear--"

"What nonsense, Stella," drawled another and older girl, shrugging her shoulders. "I noticed particularly the other night. Amy had as pretty a frock on as anybody at your party."

"Yes! And where did she get it?" flared out Stella.

"Her mother made it, I fancy," said the same girl, laughing.

"That dress was given her by Janice Day. Amy couldn't have come to my party otherwise--so now! You just ask Janice if what I say isn't so," cried Stella, stamping her foot.

"I don't believe it," said the first speaker shortly.

"So I'm a story-teller, am I?" almost shrieked Stella. "You just ask Janice."

Just then Janice strolled into the room where the girls were gathered at this lunch hour. Amy, of course, had run home for her lunch--and run home in tears, Janice knew. The latter knew that Stella was the cause of Amy's trouble, but up to this point she had not discovered the exact reason for the flare-up.

"You think I don't tell the truth," pursued Stella, in a loud and angry voice. "I suppose you'll believe what Janice Day says.

You just ask her who gave that nasty Amy Carringford the dress she wore to my party."

Janice stopped stock still for a moment. Her schoolmate's statement was like a blow in the face. Mean of disposition as she knew Stella Latham to be, she had not thought the girl would tell the secret of Amy's pretty dress.

After the ban of silence Janice had put upon the farmer's daughter, and the latter's promise to obey that mandate and tell n.o.body about the pink and white frock, this deliberate breaking of Stella's word astounded Janice Day. Her face flushed, then paled, and she looked as though she were the person guilty of the outrage, rather than Stella.

"What nonsense!" exclaimed the older girl, but looking at Janice curiously. "Why put it on Janice, Stella? You are saying something you do not know anything about."

"Oh! I don't?" exclaimed the farmer's daughter. "You just ask Janice, I tell you."

"Do your own asking," said another. "Janice doesn't look very pleasant," and she laughed.

"You tell 'em!" commanded Stella, starting toward Janice threateningly. "Didn't you give Amy that dress so she could come to my party? Didn't you?"

Janice had begun to recover her confidence--and her good sense, too. She could not deny the accusation; but she determined to put Stella before her fellow schoolmates in just the right light.

"I do not know that it is a crime for one girl to help another,"

Janice said quietly, and still very pale. "If I did what Stella claims I did, it was nothing shameful I am sure--either for Amy or for me."

"Of course it wasn't!" murmured one of the other girls.

"Bully for you, Janice!" said another, in commendation.

"It really was only our business--Amy's and mine. But Stella knew about it. In fact, Stella came to me about Amy in the first place. She wanted to invite Amy and she feared--so she said--that Amy would not have a party dress. I undertook to find her one, and hard enough time I had getting Amy and her mother to agree to use the dress.

"But that," said Janice scornfully, "is a purely personal matter between them and me. I want to ask you girls, though, what you think of a person who, after having given her word to keep the matter a secret, deliberately taunts Amy with the fact that she took the dress from me? That is what I want to know."