The Mission of Janice Day

Now, if there was anything in the whole range of possibilities more unexpected than the appearance of Tom Hotchkiss, the absconding Polktown storekeeper, down in this unlovely B...

"He don't look right and he don't sleep right," complained Aunt Almira Day, swinging to and fro ponderously in one of the porch rockers and fanning herself vigorously with a fol...

"Well," Marty observed, just as though he were awakening from a dream--and an unbelievable one at that--"I s'pose we might's well toddle along into town. You're a wonder, Janice...

The rear room of Massey's drugstore, behind the prescription counter, was the usual meeting place of the Polktown schoolboard. There was, it is true, a well furnished board-room...

Marty Day, who was neither a prophet nor a person of much moment in his native town, was, of all Janice's friends, the only one who really believed the girl would put her desire...

Janice thought at once of her father when this serious trouble for Uncle Jason and the family arose. She said nothing about doing so, but before going to bed that night she wrot...

For the first time since, long before, Janice had accused Nelson Haley of taking his duties non-seriously, the Polktown School Committee was not getting full measure of the youn...

We are prone to judge other people from our inner secret knowledge of self. When we say we think another person would do a certain thing, we usually base our opinion upon what w...

"Don't bother her now, Marty. She isn't sick, I'm sure. She'll be all right in a little while. She's come over here to spend the night with me, haven't you, Lottie?"

Marty closed the door tightly before Nelson scratched a match and fumbled for the latch of the kerosene side lamp of Janice's automobile. In the yellow radiance of this he unfol...

Janice awoke after a very uneasy and depressing night with the phrase "I must go" written so plainly upon the mirror of her mind that it might as well have appeared across the p...

There is scarcely any way of traveling that so eats up the reserve forces of even a perfectly well person as an unaccustomed ride on the rail. No matter how comfortable seats an...

Marty had no desire to have his identity revealed to his cousin in any such belittling manner as this. He had dreamed of Janice getting into some difficulty, and his stepping fo...

Elder Concannon came in apparently in a cheerful mood. He was not a frequent caller at the Day house; he never had been, indeed. But he liked to play a game of checkers with Jan...

The gate clashed open again just as Janice's weakened grasp slipped from Mrs. Scattergood's arm and she staggered away from the excited, panting old woman. The girl would have f...

Janice and Marty, clinging together on the rough platform of Manuel's wagon for fear of falling off, saw very little of the country through which they traveled that evening. Tha...

Yet there is an emotion even deeper and wider than the affection of the mother for the child she has borne. Because through all these eras of advancing civilization man, the fat...

The train arrived at Albany about dusk. Janice, disturbed by the incident of the mysterious lunch, half expected to be met by a telegram ordering her to return to Polktown. Or p...

The long call of the whistle through the hills was smothered in another and nearer burst of firearms. The rattle of bullets against the half-armored side of the Pullman told the...

Carlitos Ortez was one of those snaky-looking, black-haired peons, with a wisp of jetty mustache, who serve as the type of Mexican villains in lurid melodrama--and he had the he...

"Let's go down to the cove, Janice Day, and call on my echo," Lottie said eagerly. "Do you know, I haven't been there for ever so long. My echo must be awfully lonely with nobod...

Marty Day was quite as amazed as his cousin at this meeting, for he, too, recognized the handsome black-eyed woman on the observation platform of the Pullman coach. He found his...

Janice did not see the black-eyed woman who had been so much in her company across the continent again that night; and in the morning she found that the berth under her own had...

They had halted beside a dense patch of chaparral. Carlitos had scarcely thrown his verbal bomb when Tom Hotchkiss slid out of his seat and dived into the thicket beside the nar...

"What's the matter with you? Is it yer digestion again? If you air goin' to get _that_ on ye at your time o' life where'll you be when you're an old man?" demanded Aunt 'Mira. "...

Janice came back from Middletown with several bundles. She had been shopping, she told Aunt 'Mira; but she did not mention the fact that she had drawn her last fifty dollars fro...

The party got under way once more, Carlitos again silent and, Janice thought, Tom Hotchkiss eyeing her and Marty from time to time suspiciously. The fugitive had discovered that...

Nelson Haley was not at church that Sunday. He was seen to ride away with Walky Dexter early in the morning and they took the lower Middletown road. When they returned late in t...

Janice went quickly to the door, opened it, and stepped out. Already the night was old. The footsteps of Dawn were on the eastern hills. On the mesa, however, the encroaching fo...

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 he...