shut his book and rising from the table. "That's always the way," he added. "Try to touch you for a cent and you'd think you was losing a patch of your hide."

"Oh, Marty!" gasped Janice. "Don't!"

"It's your father's way," croaked Aunt 'Mira, rocking violently. "Tech him in the pocketbook an' ye tech him on the raw."

"By mighty!" ejaculated Mr. Day, crumpling his paper into a ball and throwing it on the floor. "If ever a man was so pestered——"

"They don't mean it, Uncle Jason! They don't mean it," cried Janice, almost in tears. "They don't understand. But something must be the matter—something is troubling you——"

"Well, why don't he tell then?" shrilled Mrs. Day. "If he's hidin' something——"

Her husband rose up and turned to glare at both her and his son. His face was apoplectic; his lips twitched. Janice had never seen him moved in this way before and even Aunt 'Mira looked startled.

"I am hidin' somethin'," the man said harshly. "I been hidin' it for weeks. I'll tell ye all what 'tis now. Ye'd know it soon enough anyway."

"Well, I vum!" murmured Aunt 'Mira. "Is he goin' ter finally tell it?"

"Get it off your chest, Dad," Marty said carelessly. "You'll feel better."

There was no sympathy expressed for him except in Janice Day's countenance. The man wet his lips, hesitated, and finally burst out with:

"I had an int'rest in Tom Hotchkiss' store. Ye all knowed that; but ye didn't know how much. I went on his notes—all of 'em. For nigh twelve thousand dollars. More'n I got in the world. More'n this place is wuth—an' the stock—everything! All I got in the world is gone if Tom Hotchkiss ain't an honest man, and it looks as though he'd run away and didn't intend to come back!"

CHAPTER III
MARTY SPEAKS OUT

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 her tongue. Aunt 'Mira's fat face was as blank as a wall. Marty finally recovered breath enough to expel:

"Whew! Hi tunket! That's what was behind his red vest, was it? Has he really stung you, Dad?"

"But, Jase Day!" at last burst out Aunt 'Mira, "ye air jest a-scarin' us for nothin'. Of course you can levy on his goods."

"They're not paid for," Uncle Jason interrupted. "That's what Aaron found out for me. Tom got a line of credit I didn't know nothin' about. The jobbers and wholesalers have first call. There are no outstandin' accounts owin' the store; Tom did a spot cash business."

"But what did he do with the money he got on the notes you indorsed, Uncle Jason?" cried Janice.

"That's what I don't know," Mr. Day replied, sitting down heavily again and resting his head in both hands. "He's gone—and it's gone. That's all I know. I found out to-day he hasn't got ten dollars to his account at the bank. The bank holds most of his notes, and of course they are goin' to come down on me as the notes fall due."

Mr. Day groaned very miserably. Salt tears stung Janice's eyelids.

"Cricky, Dad! can they take everything that belongs to us?" asked Marty, awestruck.

Mr. Day nodded. "Ev'ry endurin' thing. On an indorsement of a note even a man's tools and his household goods ain't exempt."

"Oh, Uncle!" cried Janice in pity.

"Well, then, Jase Day," gasped his wife, regaining her usual volubility, "what have I allus told ye? If ye'd put the homestead in my name they couldn't get that away from ye. It's what I allus wanted ye to do. And I ain't even got dower right in it, as I'd oughter have. Ye don't 'pear to have the sense ye was born with. Write your name on another man's note—an' for sech a feller as Tom Hotchkiss—when ye didn't know nothin' about him."

"I went to school with his father. Old Caleb Hotchkiss and me was chums," defended Uncle Jason weakly. "I allus thought Tom had it in him to make good."

"Oh, he's done good, it 'pears," snapped Aunt 'Mira. "He's done you good an' brown. Ye wouldn't tell me nothin' about it, 'cept ye'd invested a little money in the store when 'twas first opened. That's what ye said."

"And it was the truth," groaned Uncle Jason. "It was later I indorsed the notes."

"Serves you right for not takin' your lawful wife into your confidence," stormed Aunt 'Mira in mingled wrath and tears. "And now what's to become of us I'd like to know? Ev'rything we got taken from us! Kin they really do that, Jase?"

The man nodded his head miserably.

"Well, all I gotter say is that it's mighty hard on me," complained Mrs. Day. "If you was fool enough to trust a scalawag like Tom Hotchkiss——"

"It wasn't two weeks ago you was speakin' so well of him," interrupted her husband, stung to the retort discourteous. "You said he was the smartest man in Polktown and if I'd been ha'f the man he was at his age I'd ha' made a fortune."

Marty suddenly laughed, high and shrilly. "Surely! surely!" he exploded. "You could easy make a fortune the same way Tom Hotchkiss done—by stealin' it from others."

"Well——" began his mother, when to Janice's, as well as his parents', vast surprise, her cousin suddenly dominated the occasion.

"You keep still, Ma! You've said enough. Dad didn't go for to do it, did he? He wasn't aimin' to lose his money and make us poor, was he? D'you think he did it a-purpose?"

"Well—no, Marty," admitted Mrs. Day, "I don't think he did. But——"

"Nuff said, then," declared the youngest of the Day clan briskly. "What's done's done. No use bawlin' over spilt sody-water," and he grinned more or less cheerfully. "What good did the money dad had in the bank ever do us? Not a bit! It might as well have been burnt up. We can hire this house to live in just as well's though we owned it, can't we? And not have to worry about taxes and repairs neither."

"Why, Marty!" murmured Janice, amazed by this outburst, yet somewhat impressed by the sounding sense of it.

"Hi tunket!" exploded her cousin, expanding as he looked around on his surprised relatives. "What does it matter, anyway? Ain't I here, Ma? Have you forgot I'm alive, Dad? Can't I go to work and earn money enough to support this family if I haf to? I—guess—yes! Why!" pursued the excited Marty, "I can go to work next week at Jobbin's sawmill an' earn my dollar-seventy-five a day. Sure I can! Or I bet I could get a job in some store. Or on the Constance Colfax—they pay deckhands a dollar-fifty. And there's the railroad goin' to open up.

"Pshaw! there's nothin' to it," declared the boy. "What if dad has got the rheumatism? I can work an' we won't starve."

"Marty!" cried Janice, running around the table and putting both arms about his neck. "You dear boy—you're a man!"

"Huh!" grunted Marty half strangled. "Who said I wasn't?"

"He's a good, dear child," sobbed his mother. "D'you hear him, Jase Day?"

"Yes," said Mr. Day brokenly. "I dunno but it's wuth while losin' ev'rything ye own to l'arn that ye got a boy like him."

Marty was suddenly smitten with a great wave of confusion. His enthusiasm had carried him out of himself. "Aw, well," he mumbled, "I was just tellin' you. You needn't worry. I can get a job."

"And I'll sell my car, Uncle," Janice said gayly. "That'll help some. And my board money. That comes regularly, thank goodness!

"Of course," she pursued, "as Marty says, we can hire the house to live in if