Janice Day, the Young Homemaker

by Helen Beecher Long

"Pretty fine boy. Pretty fine boy," said Mr. Payne.

"He is that," agreed daddy, smiling across at Janice. "He put out the fire our chimney, didn't he Janice?"

So this made them all laugh and they were all right again. There was much to talk over before Mr. Payne went, besides the bad fortune about the Mullen Lane property. And Mrs. Carringford and the Days talked after Gummy had rushed out to drive back to Harriman's store. The dinner was late that night in the Day house.

Indeed, Janice forgot, in all the confusion and excitement, to tell her father where she had been that afternoon, what she had gone for, and how sadly she had been disappointed.

All this wonderful fortune for the Carringfords continued to create so much excitement at the Day house, as well as in the little cottage in Mullen Lane, that for several days Janice scarcely thought about Olga Cedarstrom and the lost treasure-box.

For out of the good luck of the Carringfords, bad fortune for the Days suddenly raised its head. Mrs. Carringford had a good deal of extra work to do, anyway, for she had to go to the lawyer's office and to the court, and interest herself in many things she had known little about before. She was fighting to save her home.

Indeed, Amy declared the Carringford family did not know "whether it was on its head or its heels." Only Gummy. Nothing seemed to disturb Gummy. And he would not give up his place with Mr. Harriman.

"He keeps saying," Amy told Janice, laughing and sobbing together, "that the ten thousand dollars is for the family. He is going to keep on working until school begins, and even then after school and on Saturdays. Really, Janice, he is darling brother."

"I believe you," said Janice wistfully, for of late she had begun to realize that a household of just two people was awfully small.

It became quite shocking when she suddenly understood that Mrs. Carringford must give up looking after the Day household and attend thereafter strictly to her own family. Of course, Mr. Day had seen this from the first; but it came as a shock to his little daughter.