The Project Gutenberg eBook, How Janice Day Won, by Helen Beecher Long

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Title: How Janice Day Won

Author: Helen Beecher Long

Release Date: October 27, 2007 [eBook #23208]

Language: English

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW JANICE DAY WON***

E-text prepared by Al Haines

Transcriber's note:

The book's Frontispiece was missing. There were no other illustrations.

HOW JANICE DAY WON

by

HELEN BEECHER LONG

Author of "Janice Day the Young Homemaker,"
  "The Testing of Janice Day,"
  "The Mission of Janice Day," Etc.

Illustrated by Corinne Turner

The Goldsmith Publishing Co.
Cleveland

Copyright, 1917, by
Sully & Kleinteich

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. TROUBLE FROM NEAR AND FAR II. "TALKY" DEXTER, INDEED III. "THE SEVENTH ABOMINATION" IV. A RIFT IN THE HONEYMOON V. "THE BLUEBIRD—FOR HAPPINESS" VI. THE TENTACLES OF THE MONSTER VII. SWEPT ON BY THE CURRENT VIII. REAL TROUBLE IX. HOW NELSON TOOK IT X. HOW POLKTOWN TOOK IT XI. "MEN MUST WORK WHILE WOMEN MUST WEEP" XII. AN UNEXPECTED EMERGENCY XIII. INTO THE LION'S DEN XIV. A DECLARATION OF WAR XV. AND NOW IT IS DISTANT TROUBLE XVI. ONE MATTER COMES TO A HEAD XVII. THE OPENING OF THE CAMPAIGN XVIII. HOPEWELL SELLS HIS VIOLIN XIX. THE GOLD COIN XX. SUSPICIONS XXI. WHAT WAS IN THE PAPER XXII. DEEP WATERS XXIII. JOSEPH US COMES OUT FOR PROHIBITION XXIV. ANOTHER GOLD PIECE XXV. IN DOUBT XXVI. THE TIDE TURNS XXVII. THE TEMPEST XXVIII. THE ENEMY RETREATS XXIX. THE TRUTH AT LAST XXX. MARM PARRADAY DOES HER DUTY

HOW JANICE DAY WON

CHAPTER I

TROUBLE FROM NEAR AND FAR

At the corner of High Street, where the lane led back to the stables of the Lake View Inn, Janice Day stopped suddenly, startled by an eruption of sound from around an elbow of the lane—a volley of voices, cat-calls, and ear-splitting whistles which shattered Polktown's usual afternoon somnolence.

One youthful imitator expelled a laugh like the bleating of a goat:

"Na-ha-ha-ha! Ho! Jim Nar-ha-nay! There's a brick in your hat!"

Another shout of laugher and a second boy exclaimed:

"Look out, old feller! You'll spill it!"

All the voices seemed those of boys; but this was an hour when most of the town lads were supposed to be under the more or less eagle eye of Mr. Nelson Haley, the principal of the Polktown school. Janice attended the Middletown Seminary, and this chanced to be a holiday at that institution. She stood anxiously on the corner now to see if her cousin, Marty, was one of this crowd of noisy fellows.

With stumbling feet, and with the half dozen laughing, mocking boys tailing him, a bewhiskered, rough-looking, shabby man came into sight. His appearance on the pleasant main thoroughfare of the little lakeside town quite spoiled the prospect.

Before, it had been a lovely scene. Young Spring, garbed only in the tender greens of the quickened earth and the swelling buds of maple and lilac, had accompanied Janice Day down Hillside Avenue into High Street from the old Day house where she lived with her Uncle Jason, her Aunt 'Mira, and Marty. All the neighbors had seen Janice and had smiled at her; and those whose eyes were anointed by Romance saw Spring dancing by the young girl's side.

Her eyes sparkled; there was a rose in either cheek; her trim figure in the brown frock, well-built walking shoes of tan, and pretty toque, was an effective bit of life in the picture, the background of which was the sloping street to the steamboat dock and the beautiful, blue, dancing waters of the lake beyond.

An intoxicated man on the streets of Polktown during the three years of Janice Day's sojourn here was almost unknown. There had been no demand for the sale of liquor in the town until Lem Parraday, proprietor of the Lake View Inn, applied to the Town Council for a bar license.

The request had been granted without much opposition. Mr. Cross Moore, President of the Council, held a large mortgage on the Parraday premises, and it was whispered that this fact aided in putting the license through in so quiet a way.

It was agreed that Polktown was growing. The "boom" had started some months before. Already the sparkling waters of the lake were plied by a new Constance Colfax, and the C. V. Railroad was rapidly completing its branch which was to connect Polktown with the Eastern seaboard.

Whereas in the past a half dozen traveling men might visit the town in a week and put up at the Inn, there had been through this Winter a considerable stream of visitors. And it was expected that the Inn, as well as every house that took boarders in the town, would be well patronized during the coming Summer.

To Janice Day the Winter had been lovely. She had been very busy.
Well had she fulfilled her own tenet of "Do Something." In service she
found continued joy. Janice loved Polktown, and almost everybody in
Polktown loved her.

At least, everybody knew her, and when these young rascals trailing the drunken man spied the accusing countenance of Janice they fell back in confusion. She was thankful her cousin Marty was not one of them; yet several, she knew, belonged to the boys' club, the establishment of which had led to the opening of Polktown's library and free reading-room. However, the boys pursued Tim Narnay no farther. They slunk back into the lane, and finally, with shrill whoops and laughter, disappeared. The besotted man stood wavering on the curbstone, undecided, it seemed, upon his future course.

Janice would have passed on. The appearance of the fellow merely shocked and disgusted her. Her experience of drunkenness and with drinking people, had been very slight indeed. Gossip's tongue was busy with the fact that several weak or reckless men now hung about the Lake View Inn more than was good for them; and Janice saw herself that some boys had taken to loafing here. But nobody in whom she was vitally interested seemed in danger of acquiring the habit of using liquor just because Lem Parraday sold it.

The ladies of the sewing society of the Union Church missed "Marm" Parraday's brown face and vigorous tongue. It was said that she strongly disapproved of the change at the Inn, but Lem had overruled her for once.

"And, poor woman!" thought Janice now, "if she has to see such sights as this about the Inn, I don't wonder that she is ashamed."

The train of her thought was broken at the moment, and her footsteps stayed. Running across the street came a tiny girl, on whose bare head the Spring sunshine set a crown of gold. Such a wealth of tangled, golden hair Janice