Uncle Jason stood suddenly straighter and looked at his niece with clearing visage. His wife shrilled:

"Ye wanter scare ev'rybody out o' their seven senses, Jase Day? What's the matter of you?"

"Nothin'," stammered Mr. Day with dry lips.

"Is it about daddy?" questioned Janice again.

"No, 'tain't nothin' about Brocky," said Uncle Jason more stoutly. "I—I felt bad for a minute."

"What's the matter with you? Is it yer digestion again? If you air goin' to get that on ye at your time o' life where'll you be when you're an old man?" demanded Aunt 'Mira. "My victuals ain't never suited ye none too well——"

"I've et 'em for more'n twenty year, ain't I?" snapped her husband, sitting down heavily in his chair again.

"Under protest, I don't doubt," sighed Aunt 'Mira. "I know I ain't as good a cook as some."

"'The Lord sends the food but the devil sends the cooks,'" quoted Marty in an undertone to his cousin.

"You're good enough," Uncle Jason gruffly stated.

"Oh, no I ain't," was the mournful reply. "I know my risin' bread never did suit ye, Jase Day. And ye said yer mother's pies was fur an' away better'n mine."

"When'd I ever say that?" demanded the man.

"Jest after we was merried," Aunt 'Mira said, wiping her eyes on the corner of her apron.

"Oh, gee!" exploded Marty.

"Twenty year an more ago!" snorted Uncle Jason.

"Why, of course he doesn't think so now," urged Janice, seeking to oil the troubled waters of Aunt 'Mira's soul.

"Of all women!" groaned Mr. Day.

"Oh, no," sighed his wife, who was gradually working herself into a tearful state. "I know I ain't been the helpmeet you expected me to be, Jase Day." Uncle Jason snorted. "I know my failin's"—in a tone that admitted they were very few—"and I long ago seen ye didn't trust me, Jase. I never know nothin' about your business. I never know what ye aim to do till it's done. I never——"

"I snum!" cried Uncle Jase. "What is it ye wanter know? There ain't no satisfyin' you women."

Janice tried to smooth matters again. "I'm sure, Aunt 'Mira, if Uncle Jason doesn't always take you into his confidence about business matters it's only because he wants to save you worry."

"Now you've said something," commented Marty vehemently, while his father looked at the girl gratefully.

"I dunno what she wants ter know," he said.

"Well," Aunt 'Mira put in quickly, showing that she was not at all lacking in shrewdness and that there might be method in her procedure, "what did that Aaron Whelpley want ter see ye for, f'rinstance?"

"Oh! him?" gasped Uncle Jason, flushing dully. "Why—jest nothin' at all! nothin' at all! Came to tell me—ahem!—Tom Hotchkiss hadn't come back yet."

"Why, I told you that, Dad!" ejaculated Marty in surprise.

"Ya-as—so ye did," faltered his father. "But Aaron knowed I wanted to see Tom——"

"What for?" demanded Aunt 'Mira, with an insistence in getting at the meat in the kernel that amazed Janice.

"Why—er—on business," admitted Mr. Day stumblingly.

"There it goes!" broke down Aunt 'Mira, fairly sobbing now. "Jest as soon as I wanter know about anything I should know about, I'm put down an' sat upon. Oh! Oh!"

"Woman! you're crazy!" ejaculated Mr. Day, pushing back his chair hastily and leaving his supper but half eaten.

Janice ran to put her arms about Aunt 'Mira's plump and shaking shoulders, meanwhile motioning her uncle toward the sitting room. Marty, having finished, rose to follow his father.

"There!" sobbed Mrs. Day, "it's jest as I tell ye. He don't relish my victuals. He ain't et supper enough for a sparrow."

"Any sparrow that et what dad did," said Marty as he left the room, "would die of apoplexy! Turn off the water-works, Ma. That won't get you nothin'."

"Men air sech heartless critters," sobbed Aunt 'Mira.

"Why, you sound like Mrs. Scattergood!" declared Janice with a little laugh. "To hear her to-day——"

"Do tell!" exclaimed Mrs. Day briskly and wiping her eyes. "Is Miz' Scattergood home again?"

The cloud was dissipated from the good woman's mind as quickly as it had gathered. She bustled about with Janice, clearing the table and washing the supper dishes. Tears never left their mark upon Aunt Almira's smooth and plump cheeks.

But Janice had her doubts regarding Uncle Jason's peace of mind. Through the open doorway she saw him sitting by the reading lamp with his newspaper. She knew that he looked on the first page only, and from the expression on his face doubted if he saw a word of the print before him. When she had polished the last plate she went in and patted his shoulder. He looked up at her with troubled eyes and the girl stooped and lightly kissed his cheek above the tangle of his beard.

"Of course it is really nothing about daddy?" she whispered.

"Not a-tall! Not a-tall, Niece Janice!" he declared. "It's jest—well—nothin'," and he lapsed into a gloomy silence.

The family life at the Day homestead was very different now from what it had been when Janice first came there to live. Like many people of the town, the Day family had got into a rut. Uncle Jason was frankly shiftless, although he was a good farmer and able to earn a fair wage at carpenter's work if he so desired.

Aunt Almira had grown hopeless and careless, too. Ambition seemed to have fled the Polktown Days completely, and Janice could scarcely realize that they were her father's relatives. Marty had been both a lazy and a saucy boy, associating with idle companions in the evenings and hating school only a degree less than he hated work.

It delighted the girl now to see her cousin at the sitting room table with his books. Marty was still no lover of learning; but he had an aim in view—he desired to become a civil engineer, and he had learned that his present studies were necessary if he were to attain his goal.

Nowadays if Marty went out after supper it was to attend a meeting of the Boys' Club affiliated with the Public Library Association, or to go to "class meeting," which was a part of the social activities of the public school established by Nelson Haley.

Matters having quieted down after the supper-table eruption, Aunt 'Mira got her sewing basket and Janice her text-books. The girl was still attending the seminary at Middletown four days a week. She ran over in her Kremlin car her father had given her and returned each afternoon. She would continue to do this until snow flew, by which time it was hoped passenger trains would be running on the V. C. branch between Middletown and Polktown Landing.

Mrs. Day sighed heavily, just to let her husband know that the storm in her breast was not wholly assuaged; but Janice, busy with her studies, had forgotten all about the family bickering until she was suddenly aroused to the fact that it was now Uncle Jason and Marty who had locked horns.

"No. I sha'n't give you another cent!" Mr. Day said with vigor. "You have too much money to spend as it is."

"Gee, Dad!" groaned his son, "there ain't that much money, is there?"

Mr. Day snorted: "Young spendthrift! When I was your age I never had ten cents a month for spending."

"Huh!" said Marty. "I'm glad I didn't know Gran'dad Day then. He must have been some tightwad."

"I saved my money—put it in the bank," snapped his father, who seemed very fretful indeed on this evening.

"Well, I've got money in the savings bank," sniffed Marty. "I s'pose I can take out some and get those hockey sticks and things I want. We're going to have a regular team this winter, Nelse Haley says, and play Middletown High."

"Ye'll not take a cent out of the bank, d'ye hear me?" said his father, more sharply. "Ye'd never had it there if yer mother hadn't opened the account for you and give ye the book."

"Well, now, Jason," put in Aunt 'Mira, "why shouldn't the boy have a little money to spend? All the other boys do. You air the clostest man——"

"Close? close?" repeated Uncle Jason, his voice rising shrilly. "You think I'm close, do you? Well, lemme tell ye, I'll be closer, and this fambly'll live a sight more economical in the future than it has in the past. We ain't got no money to fool away——"

"Aw, rats!" growled Marty under his breath, slamming shut his book and rising from the table. "That's always the way," he added. "Try to touch you for a cent and you'd think you was losing a patch of your hide."

"Oh, Marty!" gasped Janice. "Don't!"

"It's your father's way," croaked Aunt 'Mira, rocking violently. "Tech him in the pocketbook an' ye tech him on the raw."

"By mighty!" ejaculated Mr. Day, crumpling his paper into a ball and throwing it on the floor. "If ever a man was so pestered——"

"They don't mean it, Uncle Jason! They don't mean it," cried Janice, almost in tears. "They don't understand. But something must be the matter—something is troubling you——"

"Well, why don't he tell then?" shrilled Mrs. Day. "If he's hidin' something——"

Her husband rose up and turned to glare at both her and his son. His face was apoplectic; his lips twitched. Janice had never seen him moved in this way before and even Aunt 'Mira looked startled.

"I am hidin' somethin'," the man said harshly. "I been hidin' it for weeks. I'll tell ye all what 'tis now. Ye'd know it soon enough anyway."

"Well, I vum!" murmured Aunt 'Mira. "Is he goin' ter finally tell it?"

"Get it off your chest, Dad," Marty said carelessly. "You'll feel better."

There was no sympathy expressed for him except in Janice Day's countenance. The man wet his lips, hesitated, and finally burst out with:

"I had an int'rest in Tom Hotchkiss' store. Ye all knowed that; but ye didn't know how much. I went on his notes—all of 'em. For nigh twelve thousand dollars. More'n I got in the world. More'n this place is wuth—an' the stock—everything! All I got in the world is gone if Tom Hotchkiss ain't an honest man, and it looks as though he'd run away and didn't intend to come back!"