Yet she had been very careful to say nothing in her letters regarding her help toward paying for the operation that had aided Lottie Drugg to see again. Janice Day had never hoped “to have her cake and eat it, too.”
Through supper that evening she watched Marty closely. He began to notice her observation and wriggled under it. No other word could just express his fidgeting.
“Do keep still, Marty,” begged his mother. “Can’t you be quiet in your chair long enough to eat a meal of victuals?”
“Well! what’s Janice looking at me like that for?” grumbled the boy. “I ain’t a penny peep-show; am I, now?”
“Nobody would give a penny to look at you,” said his father tartly. “You’re like an eel.”
“Marty!” exclaimed Janice suddenly, “when was it you wrote last to my father? I forget.”
“It was right after Christmas, wasn’t it, sonny?” suggested his mother, “when you thanked Mr. Broxton Day for the present of the gold piece?”
“Aw, I wrote him since then,” said Marty cheerfully. “You know, he sent me a rattlesnake skin for a band to my hat.”
“That was in May,” Janice said quickly. “Did you thank him for that, too?”
“Yep,” returned the boy.