as though your Pa, Marty, has a whole lot
more time to gad abeout now than he use ter--yet we're gettin' along
better. I don't understand it."

"Huh!" grunted Marty. "See all the work _I_ do. Don't ye s'pose that
counts none?"

Janice merely smiled quietly as she heard this conversation. Uncle
Jason was up and out to work now by daybreak, like other farmers. He
smoked his after-dinner pipe by the back door; but it was only one
pipe. He often declared that "his wimmen folk" made such a bustle
inside the kitchen after dinner that he couldn't even think. He just
_had_ to go back to work "to get shet of 'em."

The bacilli of _work_ had taken hold of the Day family. Uncle Jason
had begun to take pride in his fields and in his crops. Nobody in all
Poketown, or thereabout, had such a garden as the Days this spring.
Janice and Mrs. Day attended to it after it was planted. Mr. Day had
bought a man-weight hoe and seeding machine, and the garden mould was
so fine and free from filth that the "women folks" could use the
machine with ease.

Yes, the Jason Days were more prosperous than ever before. And all
their prosperity did not arise from that twenty dollars a month that
came regularly for Janice's board.

"Sometimes I feel downright ashamed to take that money, Jason," Aunt
'Mira admitted to her spouse. "Janice is sech a help to me. She is
jest like a darter. I shall hate to ever haf ter give her up. And
some day soon, now, Broxton will be comin' home."

"Wal, don't ye worry. If Broxton is makin' money like he says he
is--so's he kin give that gal a thousand dollars to throw to the
birdies like she's done--why should we worry? I ain't sayin' but what
she's been a lot of help to us."

"In more ways than one," whispered his wife.

"Right, by jinks!" admitted the farmer.

"Look what this old place looked like when she come!"

"She sartainly has stirred us all up."

"An' look at Marty!"

"I got to give her credit," admitted Mr. Day. "She's made a man of
Marty. Done more for him than the school done."

"But it was her started him to goin' to school ag'in."

"So I tell ye," agreed Mr. Day again. "Janice is at the bottom of
ev'rything good that's happened in Poketown for two years. I dunno as
people realize it; but I'm proud of her!"

"Then, I tell you what, Jason. I'm going to save the board money for
her," declared Aunt 'Mira, with a little catch in her breath. "You
won't mind? Marty'll have