She was seated with her back against the cabin house, and when the steamer rolled a little the ball of knitting-cotton, which she had taken out of her deep, bead-bespangled bag, bounced out of her lap and rolled across the deck almost to the feet of Janice.
Up the girl jumped and secured the runaway ball, winding the cotton as she approached the old lady, who peered up at her, her head on one side and her eyes sparkling, like an inquisitive bird.
"Thank ye, child," she said, briskly. "I ain't as spry as I use ter be, an' ye done me a favor. I guess I don't know ye, do I?"
"I don't believe you do, Ma'am," agreed Janice, smiling, and although she could not be called "pretty" in the sense in which the term is usually written, when Janice smiled her determined, and rather intellectual face became very attractive.
"You don't belong in these parts?" pursued the old lady.
"Oh, no, Ma'am. I come from Greensboro," and the girl named the middle western state in which her home was situated.
"Do tell! You come a long distance, don't ye?" exclaimed her fellow-passenger. "You're one of these new-fashioned gals that travel alone, an' all that sort o' thing, ain't ye? I reckon your folks has got plenty of confidence in ye."
Janice laughed again, and drew her campstool to the old lady's side.
"I was never fifty miles away from home before," she confessed, "and I never was away from my father over night until I started East two days ago."
"Mother died when I was a very little girl. Father has been everything to me--just everything!" and for a moment the bright, young face clouded and the hazel eyes swam in unshed tears. But she turned quickly so that her new acquaintance might not see them.
"Where are you goin', my dear?" asked the old lady, more softly.
"To Poketown. And oh! I _do_ hope it will be a nice, lively place, for maybe I'll have to remain there a long time--months and months!"
"For the land's sake!" exclaimed the old lady, nodding her head briskly over the knitting needles. "So be I goin' to Poketown."
"Are you, really?" ejaculated Janice Day, clasping her hands eagerly, and turning to her new acquaintance. "Isn't that nice! Then you can tell me just what Poketown is like. I've got to stay there with my uncle while father is in Mexico----"