Miss Peckham waved her hand to dismiss her young neighbor. "And if 'twas me," she said complacently to her companion, "first thing I'd do would be to cure that young one of calling her father 'daddy.' That's silly."
Even this remark did not forewarn Janice of what was coming. "I just believe," she thought, going on her way, "that that faded-out little woman is a book agent and will want to sell daddy a set of books he'll never in this world read."
But in getting dinner and tidying up the dining room and living room, Janice forgot all about Mrs. Sophronia Watkins. Janice was working very hard these days— much harder than any girl of her age should work. The evening before she had fallen asleep over her studies, and to-day her recitations had not been quite up to the mark.
The lack of system in the housekeeping made everything harder for her, too. It was all right for daddy to help wash the dinner dishes, and even to blacken the range and the gas stove as he did on this evening, but there were dozens of things going wrong every day in the house which neither Janice nor her father could help.
There were the provision bills. Janice knew very well that the butcher took advantage of her ignorance. She was always in a hurry in the morning, running to school; and she could not stop to see meat weighed, or vegetables properly picked out and measured.
At Mr. Harriman's, the grocer's, it was not so bad. There were certain articles of established standard that she knew her mother had always ordered; but in the matter of butter and cheese and eggs, she realized that she often ordered the best, and got second or third quality and first-quality prices.
Had she been able to spend the time marketing she would have conserved some of daddy's money and things would have been much better on the table. Yet, with the kind of houseworkers they had had, much of the good food that was bought was spoiled in the cooking.
Daddy sometimes said: "The Lord sends the food, but the cooks don't all come from heaven, that is sure, Janice."
He was vigorously polishing the cookstove on this Wednesday evening and they were cheerfully talking and joking, when the sound of bootheels on the side porch announced the coming of visitors.
"Oh, dear me! who can that be?" whispered Janice.