There were
new curtains at the windows; the sitting-room had a new rag carpet woven
by a neighbor; the rather worn boards of the kitchen were covered with
brightly-figured linoleum.

Inside and out there were now few "loose ends" about the old Day house.
The stair to the upper story was mended, and covered with a bright
runner. The premises about the house were kept neat and attractive, and
Mr. Day had somehow found the money to paint the house that spring,
while the stables and other outbuildings looked much neater than when
Janice had first seen them.

She and Marty had taken complete charge of the garden this year, and the
girl had inspired her cousin with some of her own love of neatness and
order. The rows of vegetables were straight; the weeds were kept out;
and they had earlier potatoes and peas for the table than anybody else
on Hillside Avenue.

The lane was, by the way, different in appearance from the untidy and
crooked street up which Janice had climbed with Uncle Jason that day of
her arrival at Poketown. The neighboring homes showed the influence of
association with the Day place.

There had been other houses painted on the street that spring. More
fences had been reset and straightened. The driveway itself had had some
attention from the town. And you couldn't have found a one-hinged gate
the entire length of the street!

As for Uncle Jason, he was really carrying on his farming in a
businesslike way. Marty was getting to be a big boy now, and he could
help more than he once had. Janice had suggested to Uncle Jason that, as
he had such good pasture at the upper end of his farm, and as the milk
supply of Poketown was but a meager one, it would pay somebody to run a
small dairy.

Mr. Day now had three cows that he proposed to winter, and was raising
one heifer calf. Such milk as the family did not use themselves the
neighbors gladly bought. Mrs. Day was doing better with her hens, too.
The wire fencing had been repaired and she gave the biddies more
attention; therefore she was being repaid in eggs and chickens for
frying. Altogether it could no longer be said that the Day family was
shiftless.

Janice received several cheerful and entertaining letters that summer
from Nelson Haley. He was clerk of a summer hotel on the Maine shore,
and he seemed to be having a good time as well as earning a considerable
salary.

When the new school committee of Poketown tendered him an offer of the
head master