"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 git up an' do that ev'ry morning, if ye want to, Janice," he said. "I won't be jealous if ye do." "Ye'd oughter be ashamed, Marty," whined his mother, from the kitchen, "seein' a gal do yer work for ye." "Who made it my work any more'n it's Dad's work?" growled Marty. "And she didn't have ter do it if she didn't want to." Janice did her best to keep to a cheerful tone. "I didn't mind going, Aunty," she said. "And we'll get breakfast so much quicker. I'm hungry." She endeavored to be cheerful and chatty at the breakfast table. But the very air her relatives breathed seemed to feed their spleen. Mr. Day insisted upon Marty's finishing the hoeing of the potatoes, and it took almost a pitched battle to get the boy started. Mrs. Day was inclined, after all, to "take sides" with her son against his father, so the smoke of battle was not entirely dissipated when Marty had flung himself out of the house to attack the weeds.