could make
beds and "rid up" as best pleased themselves. Aunt 'Mira was no
housekeeping tyrant--by no means! Consequently she did not interfere
with anything her niece did about the house.

The upstairs work was done and the sitting room brushed and set to
rights much earlier than was the Day custom. When Janice had done this
she came back to the kitchen, to find her aunt sitting in a creaky
rocker in the middle of the unswept floor and with the dishes only half
washed, deep in a cheap weekly story paper.

"Why! how smart you be, child! All done? Wa-al, ye see, I gotter wait
for Jason, or Marty, to git me a pail o' water. They ain't neither of
'em been down to the house yit--an' I might's well rest now as any
time."

It was this way all day long. Aunt Almira was never properly through her
work. Things were always "in a clutter." She did not find time from
morning till night (to hear her tell it) to "clean herself up like other
wimmen."

Janice helped in the garden again; but Marty was grumpy, and as soon as
the last row of potatoes was hoed he disappeared until supper time.
Uncle Jason was marking a field for corn planting. A harness strap broke
and he was an hour fixing it, while old Lightfoot dragged the rickety
marker into the fence corner and patiently cropped the weeds. Later a
neighbor leaned on the fence, and Uncle Jason gossiped for another hour.

The girl saw that none of the neighboring housewives came to call on
Aunt 'Mira. In the afternoon she saw several of them exchanging calls up
and down the lane; but they were in fresh print dresses and carried
their needlework, or the like, in their hands, while Aunt 'Mira was
still "down at the heel" and in her faded calico.

Janice was getting very lonely and homesick. Every hour made the
separation from her father seem harder to bear. And she had scarcely
spoken to a soul save the Days and Walky Dexter since her arrival in
Poketown. Friday noon came, and at dinner Janice desperately broached
the subject of 'Rill Scattergood's school again.

"I'd love to visit it," she said. "Maybe I'd get acquainted with some of
the girls. I might even attend for the remainder of the term."

"Huh!" scoffed Marty. "That old maid can't teach ye nothin'."

"But it would be something to _do_," exclaimed Janice, with vigor.

"My goodness me, child!" drawled Aunt Almira. "Can't you be content to
jest let things go along easy?"

"Yer must want sumthin' ter do mighty bad, ter