"Don't you want to adopt me?" asked Gummy, who overheard her.

"I certainly would have to change your name," declared Janice.

"No," and he shook his head, his freckled face becoming grave.

"Got to stick to the old name--just like gum sticks."

"Oh, my dear, is that you?" cried Mrs. Carringford, coming to the door, her brown face flushing pink. "And one of your schoolmates?"

She came out on the porch. She had a very pleasant smile, Janice thought, and her brown eyes were as bright as a woodp.e.c.k.e.r's.

"This is Janice Day. She's in my cla.s.s, Mother," said Amy, rather hesitatingly, it must be confessed.

"Yes, I know her name," said Mrs. Carringford, and now Janice was near enough to take the hand of Amy's mother. "How do you do, my dear? I have seen you before. I am always glad to meet Amy's school friends."

Had it not been for the warmth of the good woman's greeting Janice would have felt that she was unwelcome at the little cottage on Mullen Lane. Amy seemed to hang back, and not invite her schoolmate into the house.

"Here is something the postman brought you, Amy," her mother went on briskly.

She reached inside the door to a shelf and brought forth an object that Janice recognized. It was the big white envelope containing the invitation to Stella Latham's party.

"Hi! I know what that is," cried Gummy, rising to look at the envelope. "Lots of the fellows got 'em. That Latham girl that lives out on the Dover pike is going to have a party. Crickey!

I didn't suppose she would invite us."

"She hasn't invited you I guess," his mother told him. "It is addressed to your sister."

"Oh! I see."

Amy had flushed brightly, and her eyes sparkled. She was tearing open the envelope eagerly.

"Oh!" she sighed, "I didn't expect this. Did you get yours, Janice?"

"Yes, Stella asked me. But she didn't send out: all the invitations at once," said Janice slowly,

"You'll go of course, won't you?"

"Why--"

Then suddenly Amy's voice stopped. She looked at her mother.

The glow went out of her face. She let one of the smaller children take the invitation out of her hand.

"I don't know," she said slowly. "I'll have to see."

"Won't you come in, Janice?" asked Mrs. Carringford, seeking to cover her daughter's embarra.s.sment.

"I will for a minute, thank you," was Janice Day's smiling reply.

"You know, I like Amy, Mrs. Carringford, and I have never been to her house before, and she has never been to mine."

Her speech helped to cover her friend's hesitation. Amy tripped in behind Janice and suddenly gave her a hearty squeeze.

"She's an awfully nice girl, Mumsy!" she said to her mother.

Janice laughed. But her bright eyes were taking in much besides the smiling expression on her friends' faces. The Carringford kitchen was like wax. Mrs. Carringford had been washing in one comer of the room, and there was a boiler drying behind the stove. But there was nothing sloppy or sudsy about the room.

The woman had whisked off the big ap.r.o.n she had worn when Janice entered, and now the latter saw that her work dress was spotless.

"Oh, dear me!" thought Janice, "how nice it would be if our kitchen--and our whole house--were like this. How delighted Daddy would be."

But there was something else she did not at first see. She had to get acquainted with all the younger Carringfords. She must talk with Mrs. Carringford. Gummy came in after washing his hands and rubbing his shoes clean on the doormat to talk to the caller.

Then Amy carried Janice off upstairs to her own tiny room under the eaves.

There was no carpet on the stairs. The matting on the floor of Amy's room was much worn. There was nothing really pretty in the room. Janice suddenly realized that this spelled "poverty."

Yet it was cheerful and speckless, and there were pictures of a kind, and little home-made ornaments and a few books.

The window curtains were of the cheapest, but they were looped back gracefully. There was a workbox and stand that Gummy had made for Amy, for the brother was handy with tools.

Altogether there was something about the room, and about the ugly little house as well, that Janice Day realized she did not have at home. She had had it once; but it was not present now in the Day house. In the Carringford dwelling the magic wand of a true homemaker had touched it all.

The two girls chatted for almost an hour. It was mostly about school matters and their friends and the teachers. Amy talked, too, about friends in Napsburg, where the Carringfords had lived before moving to Greensboro. Janice was adroit in keeping the conversation on rather general topics, and did not allow the question of Stella's party to come to the fore and never once did she speak of what any of the girls would wear on that occasion.

The time to leave came, and then Janice felt she should enter the wedge which would afterwards gain for her the desired end.

"You'll go to Stella's party, won't you?" asked Janice as she prepared to go home.

"Oh, I don't know. I'll see," Amy hurriedly said.

"Of course you will go," Janice declared firmly. "I want you to go with me. I sha'n't feel like going at all if you stay away, Amy."

They kissed each other on the stairway, and then Janice ran home, swinging her books. She thought the Carringford were very pleasant people. But there were several mysteries about them.

First of all she wanted to know how Gummy came to have such an awful, awful name!

CHAPTER VII. ARLO JUNIOR AGAIN

Just as Janice was running in at the Love Street gate she was halted by Arlo Junior. Junior kept well out of the way at first, but his tone was confident well as ameliorating.

"Aw, I say, Janice?' he begged, "you ain't mad at me, are you?"

"Why shouldn't I be?" she demanded, her face flushing and the hazel eyes sparking in an indignant way.

"Well, I mean-- Well, I hope you ain't," stammered Arlo Junior, unable entirely to smother a grin, and yet plainly anxious to pacify Janice. "You see, Janice, my mother was coming up from downtown and she Saw you whacking me the other day."

"Oh!"

"Yes, she saw you," said Junior, nodding. "So I had to tell her something of what made you do it."

"Indeed?" demanded Janice scornfully. "And what did you tell her?"

"I told her about the cats. Anyway, I told her left your back kitchen door open and that the cats got in there and fought. Oh, Je-mi-ma, how they did fight! didn't they? I heard 'em after I got back into the house that morning," and Junior began to giggle.