"I reckon so," Marty answered. "We don't know nothing about what's become of him. They stand 'em up against a wall down there in Mexico and shoot 'em just for fun—so Walky Dexter says. Dad says he never expects to hear of Uncle Brocky alive ag'in."
"And yet that girl keeps up her pluck! She's all right," declared the other. "Gee! suppose she should come smack upon the story of her father's death some night there in the readin'-room? Wouldn't that be tough?"
From this conversation sprang the idea of a sort of Brotherhood of Defense (in lieu of a better title) among the boys who used the reading-room whose existence Janice Day's initiative had established. Whoever got the papers from the mail and spread them on the file in the reading-room, first examined the columns carefully for any mention of the execution of prisoners by either belligerent party in Mexico; especially was the news searched for any mention of the lost Mr. Day.
Sometimes, when the news story suggested one of these horrible executions, the whole paper was "lost in the mail." At least, when it was inquired for, that was the stock reply. The boys made sure that Janice should never see such blood-chilling accounts of Mexican activities.
It drew toward Christmas. Janice had another sorrow, of which she never said a word. Her spending money was nearly gone. She saw the bottom of her narrow purse just as the season of giving approached!
There were so many things she wanted to do for all her friends, both in Poketown and back at Greensboro. Some few little things she had made, for her fingers were both nimble and dexterous. But "home-made" presents would not do for Uncle Jason, Aunt 'Mira, Marty, and a dozen other people towards whom she felt kindly.
She had begun to worry, too, about what would finally happen to her if her father never came back! How long would the bank continue to pay her board to Uncle Jason? And how was she to get clothes, and other necessary things?
In the midst of these mental tribulations came a letter from the Greensboro bank, addressed to Janice herself. In it was the cashier's check for twenty-five dollars, and a brief note from the official himself, stating that Mr. Day, before ever he had separated from his daughter, had looked forward to her Christmas shopping and instructed the bank to send on the fifteenth of December this sum for her personal use.
"Dear, dear Daddy! He forgot nothing," sobbed Janice, when she read this note, and kissed the check which seemed to have come warm from her father's hand. "Whatever shall I do all through my life long without him, if he never comes back?"
Christmas Eve came. The clouds had been gathering above the higher peaks of the Green Mountains all day, and, as evening dropped, the snow began falling.