She would continue to do this until snow flew, by which time it was hoped pa.s.senger 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 a.s.suaged; 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!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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!"

CHAPTER III

MARTY SPEAKS OUT

The silence of misunderstanding, almost of unbelief, fell upon the little group in the Day sitting room, shocked as it was by Uncle Jason's declaration. Janice could not find her tongue. Aunt 'Mira's fat face was as blank as a wall. Marty finally recovered breath enough to expel:

"Whew! Hi tunket! _That's_ what was behind his red vest, was it? Has he really stung you, Dad?"

"But, Jase Day!" at last burst out Aunt 'Mira, "ye air jest a-scarin' us for nothin'. Of course you can levy on his goods."

"They're not paid for," Uncle Jason interrupted. "That's what Aaron found out for me. Tom got a line of credit I didn't know nothin' about.

The jobbers and wholesalers have first call. There are no outstandin'

accounts owin' the store; Tom did a spot cash business."

"But what did he do with the money he got on the notes you indorsed, Uncle Jason?" cried Janice.

"That's what I don't know," Mr. Day replied, sitting down heavily again and resting his head in both hands. "He's gone--and _it's_ gone. That's all I know. I found out to-day he hasn't got ten dollars to his account at the bank. The bank holds most of his notes, and of course they are goin' to come down on me as the notes fall due."

Mr. Day groaned very miserably. Salt tears stung Janice's eyelids.

"Cricky, Dad! can they take everything that belongs to us?" asked Marty, awestruck.

Mr. Day nodded. "Ev'ry endurin' thing. On an indors.e.m.e.nt of a note even a man's tools and his household goods ain't exempt."

"Oh, Uncle!" cried Janice in pity.

"Well, then, Jase Day," gasped his wife, regaining her usual volubility, "what have I allus told ye? If ye'd put the homestead in my name they couldn't get that away from ye. It's what I allus wanted ye to do. And I ain't even got dower right in it, as I'd oughter have. Ye don't 'pear to have the sense ye was born with. Write your name on another man's note--an' for sech a feller as Tom Hotchkiss--when ye didn't know nothin' about him."

"I went to school with his father. Old Caleb Hotchkiss and me was chums," defended Uncle Jason weakly. "I allus thought Tom had it in him to make good."

"Oh, he's done good, it 'pears," snapped Aunt 'Mira. "He's done _you_ good an' brown. Ye wouldn't tell me nothin' about it, 'cept ye'd invested a little money in the store when 'twas first opened. That's what ye _said_."

"And it was the truth," groaned Uncle Jason. "It was later I indorsed the notes."

"Serves you right for not takin' your lawful wife into your confidence,"

stormed Aunt 'Mira in mingled wrath and tears. "And now what's to become of us I'd like to know? Ev'rything we got taken from us! Kin they really do that, Jase?"

The man nodded his head miserably.

"Well, all I gotter say is that it's mighty hard on _me_," complained Mrs. Day. "If you was fool enough to trust a scalawag like Tom Hotchkiss----"

"It wasn't two weeks ago you was speakin' so well of him," interrupted her husband, stung to the retort discourteous. "You said he was the smartest man in Polktown and if I'd been ha'f the man he was at his age I'd ha' made a fortune."

Marty suddenly laughed, high and shrilly. "Surely! surely!" he exploded.

"You could easy make a fortune the same way Tom Hotchkiss done--by stealin' it from others."

"Well----" began his mother, when to Janice's, as well as his parents', vast surprise, her cousin suddenly dominated the occasion.

"You keep still, Ma! You've said enough. Dad didn't go for to do it, did he? He wasn't aimin' to lose his money and make us poor, was he? D'you think he did it a-purpose?"