The talk she had had overnight with daddy had perhaps put her in a rather more serious mood than usual. The talk had been all about her mother and the hopes the mother and father had had and the plans they had made for their little girl's future.
To carry through those plans necessitated the proper schooling of Janice Day. She was already in the upper grade of the grammar school. Even if the household affairs were all "at sixes and at sevens," she must stick to her books, for she had ambitions. She was quite sure she wanted to teach when she grew up.
There was another reason that spurred Janice Day to the point of early rising, although daddy had not even hinted that he missed the comfortable, daintily served breakfasts which he used to enjoy when Mrs. Day was alive. It was something he had said about an entirely different matter that started this serious train of thought in the girl's mind.
She had expressed herself as so many of us do when we are in difficulties, or when we see conditions we would like to have changed: "Oh, if things were only different!"
Broxton Day had looked at her with his head held sideways and a quizzical smile in his eyes as well as on his lips.
"Different? Do you want to know how to bring about a change? Do something. Don't just talk, or think, or wonder, or wish, or hope; but do! It is all right to say that good things become a reality because somebody has a good thought. Actually, thinking does not bring things about. It is doing. Do something in the world, my dear. Don't wait for somebody else to set the example, or to lead. Do what you can yourself while you are waiting for a leader. Do something.
"Of course thought must precede action, and, furthermore, must accompany action if action is not to run wild. But in the end thought must become action and we must all of us—little girls, as well as adults—do something if the conditions we do not like are to be changed."
That was really what had got Janice Day out of bed so early on this morning. Poor daddy! He sometimes had most awful meals served to him. And the house was usually in a state of confusion if it was not actually dirty.
Olga had come straight from a peasant cottage in her
country, and her idea of scrubbing the kitchen floor was to dash pails of water over it and then sweep the water out of the back door with a broom.