ed. Out of the sagging gate
and up the winding lane she went, her feet twinkling over the dew-wet
sod, a song on her lips, her eyes as bright as the stars which Dawn had
smothered when she tiptoed over the eastern hills.

And then at a corner of a cross-lane above her uncle's house, Janice
came upon the only other person in Poketown astir as early as
herself--Walkworthy Dexter, who led Josephus, the heavy harness
clanking about the horse's ribs.

"Ah-ha! I see there's a new _day_," chuckled Mr. Dexter, his pale blue
eyes twinkling. "And how do you find your Uncle Jase? Not what you'd
call a fidgety man, eh? He ain't never stirred up about nothing, Jase
Day ain't. What d'ye think?"

Janice didn't know just what to think--or, to say, either.

"Find Jase jest a mite leisurely, don't ye?" pursued the gossipy
Dexter. "I bet a cooky he ain't much like the folks where you come
from?"

"I couldn't give an opinion so soon," said Janice, shyly, not sure that
she liked this fat man any more for the scorn in which he held his
neighbors.

"There speaks the true Day--slow but sure," laughed Dexter, and went
his way without further comment, leading the bony Josephus.

But the morning was quite spoiled for Janice. She wondered if her
uncle's townsfolks all held Walkworthy Dexter's opinion of the Day
family? It hurt her pride to be classed with people who were so
shiftless that they were a byword in the community.

She went back to the house when she saw the smoke curling out of the
chimney below her. Aunt 'Mira was shuffling around the kitchen in slow
preparation for the morning meal. Mr. Day was pounding on the stairs
with a stick of stove-wood, in an endeavor to awaken Marty.

"That boy sleeps like the dead," he complained. "Marty! Marty!" he
shouted up the stairs, "your marm is waitin' for you to git her a pail
of water."

Then he started for the stable to feed the stock, without waiting to
see if his young hopeful was coming down, or not.

"I declare for't!" Aunt 'Mira sighed; "I'm allus bein' put back for
water. I do wish Jason would mend that pump."

Janice took the empty pail quietly and departed for the neighbor's
premises. It was an old-fashioned sweep-and-bucket well at the
Dickerson's, but Janice managed it. The pail of water was heavy,
however, and she had to change hands several times on her way up the
hill. Marty came yawning to the door just as his cousin appeared.

He grinned. "You kin