Her face was intelligent, her smile confiding; Janice Day usually made friends easily and kept them long. If she had personal troubles she never flaunted them before the world; but she was ever ready with a sympathetic word or a helping hand for those who needed such comfort.
She was no sluggard. The sun had caught her abed on this morning; but he did not often do so. She was usually the earliest astir in the Day household, and on pleasant mornings often had a run in the woods or fields before breakfast.
Now she shook out her hair, brushed it quickly, did it up in a becoming little “bob” behind for the nonce, then took her “dip” at the chintz-hung washstand, which was the best means for bathing that the old-fashioned house afforded.
In a few minutes she left her room and ran downstairs and out upon the porch as fresh and sweet and clean as any lady from her luxuriously-appointed bathroom. On the porch she almost ran over a short, freckled, red-haired boy who was coming in with a great armful of stove-wood.
“Goodness sakes alive!” cried Janice, her eyes dancing. “You must have been up all night, Marty Day! What is the matter? Toothache? Or is there a circus in town, that you are up so early?”
“Naw—I haven’t been up all night,” drawled her cousin. “I got the start of you for once, didn’t I, Miss Smartie? This is going to be a great day for you, too. I wonder you slept at all,” and the boy chuckled as he staggered into the kitchen with his armful of stove-wood.
“I didn’t sleep well the first part of the night,” confessed Janice, hovering at the kitchen door to talk to him. “I was so eager, Marty, and so curious! What do you suppose is the surprise Daddy said in his last letter he was sending me?”
“Mebbe he’s captured one of those Mexicans—or a wild Indian,” ventured Marty, grinning, “and is sending it to you.”
“What nonsense!”
“Or one o’ them stinging lizards—or a horned toad, such as he was writing to you about,” suggested the fertile-minded youth.