"Hi tunket!" exploded her cousin, expanding as he looked around on his surprised relatives. "What does it matter, anyway? Ain't I here, Ma? Have you forgot I'm alive, Dad? Can't I go to work and earn money enough to support this family if I haf to? I—guess—yes! Why!" pursued the excited Marty, "I can go to work next week at Jobbin's sawmill an' earn my dollar-seventy-five a day. Sure I can! Or I bet I could get a job in some store. Or on the Constance Colfax—they pay deckhands a dollar-fifty. And there's the railroad goin' to open up.
"Pshaw! there's nothin' to it," declared the boy. "What if dad has got the rheumatism? I can work an' we won't starve."
"Marty!" cried Janice, running around the table and putting both arms about his neck. "You dear boy—you're a man!"
"Huh!" grunted Marty half strangled. "Who said I wasn't?"
"He's a good, dear child," sobbed his mother. "D'you hear him, Jase Day?"
"Yes," said Mr. Day brokenly. "I dunno but it's wuth while losin' ev'rything ye own to l'arn that ye got a boy like him."
Marty was suddenly smitten with a great wave of confusion. His enthusiasm had carried him out of himself. "Aw, well," he mumbled, "I was just tellin' you. You needn't worry. I can get a job."
"And I'll sell my car, Uncle," Janice said gayly. "That'll help some. And my board money. That comes regularly, thank goodness!
"Of course," she pursued, "as Marty says, we can hire the house to live in if you have to lose the dear old place. We'll be all right."
"'Tain't that. I can work yet," groaned Uncle Jase. "It's losin' all we've saved."