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Instead of fighting or "mauling," they approached the back porch of the Day house as though on pleasure bent. Was that Arlo Junior giggling down there? She put down the treasure-box and tried to open the window. But the sash stuck. She distinctly heard the door below close and footsteps receding from the porch.
More, Arlo Junior, who was the spring of Janice Day's deeper trouble, for if it had not been for that mischievous wight, Olga Cedarstrom could not have run off with the treasure-box! Arlo Junior had black, curly hair like his father. He had snapping brown eyes, too, and was quick and nervous in his movements. He was forever in trouble.
Janice knew that Miss Peckham was a very active member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and if she knew that Arlo Junior had been in any way connected with Sam's injury, she would be all the more bitter toward the young rascal. And really, after all, it was Olga Cedarstrom who had hurt the cat.
"If folks will hire them Swedes, 'tis all they can expect," was her comment. There was a finality to this that was uncanny. Janice became sure, right then and there, that Mrs. Bridget Burns would never clear up the wreck Olga Cedarstrom had made of the back kitchen. The girl wished with all her heart that she had boxed Arlo Junior's ears harder.
That's what you did Arlo Weeks and I've got to clean up that room because of you." "Oh, Je-mi-ma!" gasped Junior, giggling no more now. "Is that how Miss Peckham's Sam-cat got hurt?" "What do you know about that?" demanded Janice quickly. "Miss Peckham's been all over the neighborhood talking about it. She found the cat with a broken leg. Got a veterinary. Put it in a plaster cast. Did you ever?"
In the corners, out of the way of the battlefield, kittens and tabbies were rolling and playing upon the dried twigs and leaves that Janice knew must be catnip that Arlo Junior had flung upon the floor to bait the cats into the kitchen. But the cats in the middle of the room were preparing for the representation of a busy day at Donnebrook Fair. "Them cats!
He's got black and yellow on him, Janice. You've seen him, I know." And suddenly Janice remembered that she had seen him. He had been one of those cats tolled into the back kitchen by Arlo Junior. Worse than all, Sam was the cat Olga Cedarstrom had hurt with a lump of coal. She remembered that he was the last to escape when she opened the kitchen door, dragging his injured leg behind him.
"So Junior came over according to promise?" said her father, interested. "Yes, indeed. And he did work, Daddy! You should have seen him." "The vision of Arlo Weeks, Junior, working really would be worth the price of admission," chuckled Broxton Day. "That isn't the worst of it for Arlo," said Janice gaily. "You see, his helping me clean up that back kitchen got him a bad reputation."
Arlo Bates speaks with enthusiasm of the word "highly" as used in the Gettysburg Speech, and the teacher's work reaches a high point of excellence when it has given to the pupil such a feeling of appreciation as enables him to discover and rejoice in such niceties of literary expression.
The lumps of soft coal Olga Cedarstrom had thrown at the cats had made an awful mess of the place, Janice very well knew. As she turned the corner into Knight Street there was Arlo Weeks, Junior, just ahead of her. Arlo Junior, the cause of the morning's trouble! Arlo Junior, the cause of Olga's leaving the Days in the lurch!
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