"Well, ma'am? exclaimed Miss Peckham, don't see as it's any more of your business than 'tis mine. I'm makin' this gruel--"

"And I will finish preparing the dinner, if you do not mind, Miss Peckham," said the soft voice Mrs. Carringford. "I see that Janice has it almost ready. Do you think, Miss Peckham, that a man with a broken leg needs gruel?"

"Well, I couldn't find nothing to make broth out of--"

"Or broth?" pursued Mrs. Carringford. "I know Mr. Day's appet.i.te, and I do not believe that broken leg

has made it any the less hearty."

"Seems to me you know a good deal!" snapped Miss Peckham.

"Specially about this kitchen."

"You know, I have been working here for some time," Mrs.

Carringford said. "Thank you, Miss Peckham. You need not stay.

If there is anything we need you for, I will let you know.

Good-night."

The spinster banged out at the kitchen door without even coming into the front part of the house.

"Not even to 'wash her hands of us' again!" giggled Janice, who ran out into the kitchen with a cry of joy.

"Oh, Mrs. Carringford!" she said, throwing her arms about the woman's neck, "have you really come to stay?"

"I guess I shall have to, my dear. Daytimes, anyway," said Amy's mother, kissing her. "You'd soon go to rack and ruin here with the neighbors coming in and littering everything up. Yes, tell your father I will accept the offer he made me. And now, we'll have dinner just as soon as possible. How is he?"

"He says he is all right," gasped Janice, catching her breath.

"And he says there is always a silver lining to the very blackest cloud. Now I know he's right. You are the silver lining to this cloud, Mrs. Carringford--you really, truly are!"

CHAPTER XXIV. "WHERE THERE'S SMOKE THERE'S FIRE."

If it had not been for Mrs. Carringford's presence in the house, this experience certainly would have been a very hard one for Janice Day. For although the trials of housekeeping had been serious for the young girl, they were not all that had so vexed her and weighted her mind with sorrow.

But her father's injury shocked her out of the mental rut which she had been following. She had to wait on him, hand and foot; and it gave her so many new thoughts and new things to do, that for a time at least Janice Day's old troubles were pretty much sloughed away.

They had managed to make Mr. Day comfortable on the living-room couch, and it was easier to care for him there than it would have been were he in his bedroom. Besides, he very much objected to "being invalided to the upper story" while he was tied down with a broken leg.

Mr. Arlo Weeks came in night and morning to help turn the injured man, and remake his bed. Mr. Weeks was, after all, a good neighbor; he was more helpful than anybody else who came to the Day house, save Mrs. Carringford.

The surgeon came now and then to restrap the broken leg. Some of Mr. Day's business a.s.sociates called to see how he was getting on. The injured man was not hard to take care of. He could read, propped up on the couch, and although he suffered considerable pain he did not allow Janice to discover that he was uncomfortable.

But at first he did net sleep well at night, and he had some fever. Mrs. Carringford was careful in his diet; and she never seemed to contradict him or to thwart his wishes. She had a way with her that Janice could but admire and pattern after.

The girl saw that even daddy was not quite his very sensible self when he was an invalid. He had to be humored at times; and they did all that was possible to keep him from fretting.

Broxton Day had been a very active man. Business affairs of which he had sole charge were bound to go wrong when he could not wield power as he was wont. And these things all bothered him when the nagging pain of the broken leg increased, as it sometimes did, at night.

"Oh, what should I have done without you, Mrs. Carringford?"

breathed Janice, often taking comfort in the kindly woman's arms for a momentary hug. I do think Amy and Gummy and the little ones are awfully nice not to make any more objection than they do to your being up here."

"Oh, they quarrel enough with me about it at times," laughed Mrs.

Carringford. "But I tell them if it was not here, it would have to be somewhere else. I have got to work, my dear. I can see that plainly. Every day the appet.i.tes of my little family increase and their needs grow. The rate at which Kate and Edna May and Syd wear out shoes-- Well!"

"Let them go barefooted," giggled Janice. "I know they are teasing you all the time about it"

"No!" cried Mrs. Carringford, with warmth. "I know we live in Mullen Lane and it is not always possible for me to dress my children as nicely as I wish; but they shall not run barefoot like the little hoodlums that live about us. And Syd bothers me to death about it."

But Janice could only laugh a bit at this. She herself sometimes ran barefooted around the house and yard, though she was growing too big for that now, and she did not blame the little Carringfords for wanting to do so.

At any rate, she was very, very grateful to Mrs. Carringford for stepping into the breach at this time and helping them--and grateful to Amy and Gummy, as well.

Amy was a smart little housewife, and she had a gentle but firm way with the smaller children that kept them well in hand when their mother was out of the way.

Gummy, driving Mr. Harriman's delivery wagon, was at the Day house once or twice a day to see his mother, and of course Mrs.

Carringford was always at home by seven or eight o'clock at night. The Days had set forward their dinner hour while Mr. Day was held in the house.

Janice would not sleep upstairs herself at first, while her father so often needed her. She made up a bed on another couch that was drawn in from the dining room, and slept there. Often in the night daddy grew restless and was thankful for a gla.s.s of fresh water or for some other small comfort.

There was one night Janice knew she should never forget, no matter to what age she lived. It was soon after her father was brought home "an invalid," as he laughingly called it. He had been in much pain all day, and Janice new it well enough, although he smothered his groans when she was within hearing.

But he could not smother his mutterings at night. Toward dark he grew feverish and very restless. And when one has a "gla.s.s leg,"

as the ambulance man had called it and cannot twist and toss to relieve that restless feeling, one's situation is, indeed, pitiful.

Janice put out the living-room light early. The light only made the night flying insects buzz and blunder at the window screens.

And how is it that moth millers will get into the most closely screened house? This was a vexing mystery to Janice.

After it was dark and the insects went to buzz elsewhere daddy dropped to sleep. Janice had been upstairs to remove her clothing, and had come down again with a thin negligee over her nightgown.

She listened to her father's uneven breathing and to his restless murmurs. Before creeping into her own cot across the room, she went softly to daddy's side and knelt on the floor. His face was flushed and his thick hair wet with perspiration. The barber had not been to shave him for two days, and Janice just knew the "p.r.i.c.kles" on his face must feed very uncomfortable.

His head rolled from side to side upon the pillow. She wished she could do something to relieve him. She did not want to wake him up; but if she could only lave his face and hands with cool water--

Suddenly his mutterings became intelligible. Janice was held there on her knees--absorbed and almost breathless.

"Laura!"

The name was uttered so pa.s.sionately--so reverently --that Janice found the tears spring unbidden to her eyes. Daddy had spoken her dead mother's name in his sleep. Indeed, it seemed as though he called to the loved one who had gone from them never to return.

"Laura!"

"Daddy!" breathed the girl. "It's me, not mamma! I-- I'm all that's left to you!"

He seemed, even in his sleep, to have heard Janice's murmured words.

"All that was left to me," Broxton Day sighed, repeating, as Janice thought, what she had said. Or did he repeat Janice's words? "Your dear thoughts-- and gone! gone! If I could only find them again. The box--Olga." His mutterings trailed off into unrecognizable delirium. He muttered, and his inflamed face moved from side to side upon the pillow. He did not know her at all this heartsick, sobbing little daughter!

For Janice could understand at last what went on in his poor, troubled brain. He was dreaming of the packet of letters--the letters that were so precious to Broxton Day. In the secret compartment of the lost treasure-box. In the fever of the man's brain nothing else seemed so important to him as his lost wife's letters!