Janice Day

"That Buchanan evidently knows the John Makepiece who is telling this yarn," observed the telegraph operator, "and he doesn't have much confidence in him."

"Oh, dear!" murmured the girl. "Maybe it's even worse than Makepiece reported."

"Hardly," broke in Nelson Haley, quickly. "He intimated that your father was surely dead. But this friend of yours at Juarez says any news at all is good news."

"Keep your heart up, Miss," urged the telegraph operator. "And do tell me a little something about yourself, so that I can satisfy these insistent newspapers."

"Oh, dear, me! I don't want to get into the newspapers," cried Janice, really disturbed by this possibility.

"But folks will be awfully interested in reading about you, Miss Day," urged the man; "and the newspapers are going to do more than anybody else for you and your father in this trouble. You may make sure of that."

But it was because of the operator's personal kindness that Janice submitted to the "interview." Nelson Haley entered into the spirit of the affair and wrote down Janice's personal history to date, just as briefly and clearly as the girl gave it under the operator's questioning. Young Haley added a few notes of his own, which he explained in the operator's ear before the latter tapped out his message to New York.

It was only when Janice saw the paper a few days later that she realized what, between them, the school-teacher and the telegraph operator had done. There, spread broadcast by the types, was the story of how Janice had come to Poketown alone, a brief picture of her loneliness without her father, something of the free reading-room Janice had been the means of establishing, and a description of the flight down the lake on the Fly-by-Night on Christmas morning, that she might gain further particulars of her father's fate.

It was the sort of human-interest story that newspaper readers enjoy; but Janice was almost ashamed to appear in public for several days thereafter!

However, this is ahead of our story.

The wait for further messages from the border was not so tedious, because of these incidents. By and by an answer came from the American consular agent at Cida, relayed from Juarez by Mr. Buchanan. The agent stated his doubt of the entire truth of John Makepiece's story. The man was notoriously a reckless character. It was believed that he himself had served with the Constitutionalist army in Mexico some months. Since appearing in Cida and telling his story to the Associated Press man, he had become intoxicated and was still in that state, so could not be interviewed for further particulars.

A posse had started for Granadas the day before, to see what was the condition of affairs around the mining property of which Mr. Day had had charge. It was a fact that the guerrilla, Raphele, had overrun that district and had controlled it for some months; but his command was now scattered, and the more peacefully-inclined inhabitants of Granadas were stealing back to their homes.

"Have requested consular agent at Cida to wire you direct to Popham Landing, report of returning posse now overdue," was how Mr. Buchanan concluded the message.

"And that report may be along any time, now," declared the operator, encouragingly. "You people haven't got to start back up the lake yet awhile?"

"We'll stay as long as Miss Day wants to," said Nelson Haley, quickly.

"Sure we'll stay," cried Marty. "Miss Maltby told me to come back by and by, and finish that mince pie I couldn't manage at dinner time. There ain't no hurry to get back to Poketown, is there?"

Janice and Nelson were much amused by this frank statement of the boy; but the girl was only too glad to have the others bear out her own desire to remain within reach of the telegraph wires for a while longer. Mr. Buchanan's messages had eased her heart greatly.

Janice cried a little by herself—the first tears she had shed since the night before. But even Marty respected them and did not make fun of his cousin.

"Everybody is so good to me!" she cried again, when she had wiped her eyes and could smile at Marty and Nelson Haley. "And I believe it's all coming out right. This long day is going to be a real Christmas Day, after all!"

CHAPTER XX

THE TROUBLE WITH NELSON HALEY

From that time on Janice refused longer to be in what she called "the dumps." It was not her way to mope about; usually she cheered other people and did not herself stand in need of cheering.

She made the operator go home to his family to spend Christmas afternoon. When his call came Marty was to run over after him. This kept the trio of friends from Poketown close to the railroad station all the afternoon; but the interval was spent quite pleasantly.

Mrs. Maltby and her daughter came over, through the snow, to visit a while with Janice—and to bring Marty the pie!—and several other villagers dropped in. News of Janice's reason for being at Popham Landing had been spread abroad, and the people who came were more than curious—they were sympathetic.

The pastor of one of the churches, who was well acquainted with Mr. Middler, left his own family for half an hour and came to the station to ask if he could do anything of practical use for Janice. Had it been wise the trio from Poketown could have accepted half a dozen invitations for supper and evening entertainment.

"People are so good!" Janice cried again to Haley and Marty. "I never realized that mere strangers could be so very, very nice to one."

"Huh!" grunted Marty. "Ain't you always nice to folks—an' doing something for 'em? How do you like it yourself?" which remark made Janice and Nelson Haley laugh very heartily.

So, after all, it was a real Christmas, as Janice said. It was an odd one, perhaps, but there were some very enjoyable things about it. For instance, Janice and the young school-teacher got far better acquainted than they had ever been before—and Janice had always liked Nelson Haley.

In this present situation, Nelson stood out well. He was generous, sympathetic, and helpful. The fact that he was inclined to pursue the way of least resistance, and considered it right to "let well enough alone," did not impress one so deeply at the present moment.

Janice learned that the young man had neither father nor mother, and that his nearest relative was an old aunt who had supplied the money for his college tuition—at least, such money as he had not been able to earn himself. Nelson Haley, however, desired to be self-supporting, and he felt that he had accepted all the assistance he should from the old aunt, whose patrimony was not large.

"Old Aunty Peckham is just as good as she can be," he confided to Janice; "but I realize now—have realized for some years, in fact—that if she had not had me to worry about, she could have enjoyed many more good things in life than she has. So I told her I'd come to the end of accepting money from her whenever my own purse got low.

"I'll teach school in Poketown a couple of years and save enough to take up law; or perhaps I'll get a chance in some small college. Only, to teach in a real college means work," and he laughed.

"But—but don't you like to work?" queried Janice, doubtfully.

"Now, Janice! who really likes work?" demanded the young man, lightly. "If we can get through the world without much effort, why not take it easily?"

"That is not my idea of what we are put in the world for—just to drift along with the current."

"Oh, dear, me! what a very strenuous person you are," said the young man, still teasingly. "And—I am afraid—you'd be a most uncomfortable person to have around all the time. Though that doesn't sound gallant, I admit."

Janice laughed. "I tell you what it is," she observed, not at all shaken by the young man's remark, "I shouldn't want to feel that there wasn't something in life to get by going after it."

"'By going after it?'" repeated the young man, in some puzzlement.

"Yes. You say I'd be an uncomfortable comrade. And I expect you're right. Especially for a downright lazy person."

"Oh, oh!" he cried. "That was a hard hit."

"You're not really lazy, you know," she pursued, coolly. "You only haven't been 'woke up' yet."

"I believe that's worse than your former statement," he cried, rather ruefully now. "I suppose I do drift with the current."

"Well!"

"What kind of a fellow do you expect to marry, Janice?" he asked, with a twinkle in his eye.

"Why, I'll tell you," said the girl, practically and without a shadow of false modesty. "I expect a man to prove himself good for something in the world before he even asks me to marry him."

"Goodness me! he must be a millionaire, or president, or something like that?" chuckled Nelson.

"Nothing at all so great," she returned, with some heat. "I don't care if he's right down poor, if only he has been successful in accomplishing some really hard thing—something that shows the metal he's made of. No namby-pamby young man for me. No, sir! They can keep away," and Janice ended her rather serious speech with a laugh and a toss of her head.

"I shall bear your strictures in mind, Miss Day," declared Haley, with mock gravity. "I see very plainly what you mean. The young St. George who wears your colors must have slain his dragon."

"At least," Janice returned, softly, "he must have shown his willingness to kill the horrid thing."

The short winter day was already drawing to a close when the telegraph sounder began to call the station. Marty ran out at once and brought back the operator. He was quickly in communication with one of the great New York papers and found that it was over the paper's private wire that first authentic news from the Granadas district had arrived in the East.

The posse from Cida had found everything peaceful about the mines. The guerrilla leader, Raphele, had decamped. There had been an execution on the day John Makepiece had fled from the place; but the victims were some unfortunate Indians. The bandit had not dared kill the remaining American prisoner.

Mr. Broxton Day had managed to get into a shaft of the mine and there had lain hidden until Raphele, and his gang, had departed. Now he had gathered some of his old employees, and armed them with rifles hidden all these months in the mine, and the property was once more under Mr. Day's control and properly guarded.

Through the posse, Mr. Day made a statement to the newspapers, and to his friends and fellow-stockholders of the mine, in the States. To Janice, too, he sent a brief message of love and good cheer, stating that letters to her were already in the mail.

The relief Janice felt is not to be easily shown. To be positive, after these hours of uncertainty—and after the long weeks of worriment that had gone before—that dear Daddy was really alive and well, seemed too good to be true.

"Oh, do you suppose it can be so?" she cried, again and again, clinging to Nelson Haley's arm.

"Of course it is! Pluck up your courage, Janice," he assured her, while Marty sniveled:

"Aw, say, Janice! Doncher give way, now. Uncle Brocky is all right an' it would be dead foolish ter cry over it, when you kep' up your pluck so, before."

"Well! to please you both!" choked Janice, trying to swallow the sobs. "But—but——Come on! let's go home. Just think how worried Aunt 'Mira will be."

So they shook hands with the telegraph operator and Janice thanked him heartily. There were several other friendly folk of the neighborhood in the waiting-room when the three friends came out of the office, and the happy girl thanked them, too, for their sympathy.

It was quite dark when they got out into the cold again. The wind had shifted a point or two since morning, but it was still in their favor. Although the sun had set, the way up the lake was clearly defined. The stars began to twinkle, and after the Fly-by-Night was gotten under way the course seemed plain enough before them.

Now Janice enjoyed the sail. She was no longer afraid, and her heart beat happily. The ice boat made good its name on the trip to Poketown, and Nelson Haley brought the craft to land beside the steamboat dock in season for a late supper.

There was a crowd down at the lake's edge to see them come in. News of their trip to the Landing, and the reason for it, had been well circulated about town; and when Marty shouted to some of his boy friends that "Uncle Brocky was found—and he warn't dead, neither!" the crowd started to cheer.

The cheers were for Janice—and she realized it. The folks were glad of her father's safety because they loved her.

"People are so kind to me—they are so kind to me!" she cried again, and then she did burst into tears, much to Marty's disgust.

CHAPTER XXI

A STIR OF NEW LIFE IN POKETOWN

After that strange Christmas Day Janice saw a good deal more of Nelson Haley than she had before. The teacher was several years her senior, of course; but he seemed to find more than a little pleasure in her society.

On Janice's side, she often told herself that Nelson was a real nice young man—but he could be so much more attractive, if he would! When the girl sometimes timidly took him to task for his plain lack of interest in the school he taught, he only laughed lightly.

Nelson Haley suited the committeemen perfectly. He made no startling innovations; he followed the set rules of the old-fashioned methods of teaching; and (to quote Elder Concannon) he was a Latin scholar! Why the old gentleman should consider that accomplishment of such moment, when no pupil in the Poketown school ever arrived even to a Latin declension, was a mystery to Janice.

Even Miss 'Rill had better appreciated the fact that Poketown needed a more advanced system of education, and a better school building as well. And there were other people in the town that had hoped for a new order of things when this young man, fresh from college, was once established in his position.

They waited, it seemed, in vain. Nelson Haley was content to jog along in the rut long since trodden out for the ungraded country school.

It was not long after the Christmas holidays, however, when there began to be serious talk again in the town over the inconvenience in locality and the unsanitary condition of the present schoolhouse. Every winter the same cry had been raised—for ten years! Elder Concannon declared loudly, in the post office one day, that if the school had been good enough for the fathers of the community, and for the grandfathers as well, it should be good enough for the present generation of scholars. Truly, an unanswerable argument, it would seem!

Yet there was now a stir of new life in Poketown. There was a spirit abroad among the people that had never before been detected. Walky Dexter hit it off characteristically when he said:

"Hi tunket! does seem as though that air reading-room's startin' up has put the sperit of unrest in ter this here village. People never took much int'rest in books and noospapers before in Poketown. Look at 'em, now. I snum! they buzz around that readin'-room for chances to read the papers like bees around a honey-pot.

"An' that ain't all—no, sir! 'Most ev'rybody seems ter be discontented—that's right! Even folks that git their 'three squares' a day and what they want to wear, ain't satisfied with things as they is, no more. I dunno what we're all comin' to. 'Lectric street lights, and macadamized roads, and all sech things, I s'pose," and Walky chuckled over his flight of imagination.

"Wal, I dunno," said the druggist, argumentatively, "I'm free ter confess for one that a different system of street lightin' wouldn't hurt Poketown one mite. This here havin' a lot of ile lamps, that ain't lighted at all if the almanac says the moon ought ter shine, is a nuisance. Sometimes the moon acts right contrary!"

"My soul an' body!" gasped Walky. "You say that to Elder Concannon, and Mr. Cross Moore, and ol' Bill Jones! They say taxes is high 'nuff as they be."

"And school tax, too, I s'pose?" demanded another idler in the drug store.

"Wal," said Walky, "I b'lieve we could give the little shavers a better chance to l'arn their A, B, C's. And that old schoolhouse can't be het on re'l cold days. And it's as onhandy as it can be——"

"I believe you're goin' in for these new-fangled notions, too, Walky," declared the druggist.

"Guess I be, on the school question, anyway. My woman says she sha'n't let our Helen go ter school again this winter, for she's got one cold right on top of another las' year. It's a plumb shame."

It was from talks such as these in the village stores that the fire of public demand for a new school building—if not for a new system of education—finally burst into open flame.

Usually, when there was a public meeting, the basement of the Union Church—"the old vestry", as it was called—was used. But although Mr. Middler had timidly expressed himself as in favor of a new school building, he did not have the courage to offer the use of the vestry room.

Therefore the reading-room next to the drug store was one evening crowded with earnest supporters of the belief that it was time Poketown built a new structure for the training of her youth.

Janice saw to it that Uncle Jason went. Indeed, with Janice on one side and Marty on the other, Mr. Day could scarcely escape, for his son and his niece accompanied him to the place of meeting.

Not that the young folks went in, for there wasn't room. It seemed that the people who favored a change in the old town's affairs were pretty numerous, and there was not a dissenting voice in the meeting. It was decided to have a special town meeting called to vote, if possible, an appropriation for the building of a new schoolhouse.

This first meeting was only a beginning. It served merely to solidify that public opinion which was in favor of the improvement. At once opposition raised its head, and during the fortnight preceding the town meeting, argument, pro and con, was hotter than at election time.

Janice was deeply interested in the project, although she had, during these first weeks of the New Year, more important thoughts to fill her heart and mind. Daddy was writing to her regularly. The mine buildings were being re-erected. The old force had come back to work, and for the first time since Broxton Day had arrived in Mexico, the outlook for getting out ore and making regular "cleanups" was bright. But trouble down there was not yet at an end, and that worried her greatly.

The story of her father's captivity in the hands of the brigand, Raphele, had been made of light moment in Mr. Day's letters that immediately followed his escape; but Janice understood enough about it to know that God had been very good to her. Some other American mining men and ranchers in Granadas had not escaped with their lives and property from Raphele and his ilk.

Daddy sent a photograph, too; but that was not until he had recovered some from his hiding out in the mine without much to eat. Although he was haggard and bewhiskered, his eyes had that look in them that Janice so clearly remembered. When she awoke and lit her lamp in the early morning, there he was looking at her from the bureau; and when she retired she kissed the picture in lieu of having his real presence to bid good-night.

Those gray eyes of Broxton Day reminded her always of his oft-spoken motto: "Do something!" He seemed to be saying that to Janice from his photograph; therefore the girl was not likely to lose her interest in such a momentous affair as the new schoolhouse.

There was another interest that held Janice's mind and sympathy. This was the condition of poor little Lottie Drugg. As she had been quite blind when Janice first met her, now her hearing had departed entirely. She could seldom now distinguish the notes of her father's violin as he played to her. She would sit on the store counter and put her hand often on Hopewell's bow-hand as he dragged the more or less harmonious sounds out of the wood and strings. Otherwise she could not know that he was playing at all!

Nelson Haley had been touched by the case of the storekeeper's little girl, and had discussed the matter with Janice. Nelson had even written to a Boston specialist who treated the eyes, and who had been very successful in such cases as Lottie's. The fee the surgeon demanded was from five hundred to a thousand dollars for an operation. And poor Hopewell Drugg, although he strained every effort, had succeeded in saving less than two hundred dollars during all these months!

Nevertheless, Janice would not let the storekeeper lose heart. "It will come in time, Mr. Drugg," she told him, cheerfully. "And Lottie will be able to go to that wonderful school, too, where she will be taught many things."

For if the child could once obtain her sight, lip-reading would be possible for her, and through that the little girl might gradually become as well educated as any one, and have a fair chance for happiness in the world after all!

Although Nelson Haley was touched by Lottie's sad condition, and by anything else going on about him that had the personal note in it, Janice thought the Poketown school-teacher showed very little public spirit.

She began to realize that his overseeing of the reading-room and library was inspired by his wish to please her instead of his actual interest in the institution. This was very complimentary, but it did not satisfy Janice Day at all.

She was not interested in Nelson Haley in a way to crave the attentions that he had begun to show her. Indeed, she did not really appreciate his attitude, for there was nothing silly in Janice's character. She was still a happy, hearty girl; and if she had romantic dreams of the future, they were nothing but dreams as yet!

She had the same interest in Nelson that she had in her cousin Marty. It troubled her that the young man did not seem to have any serious interest in life. Just as long as he tutored his classes through their recitations in a manner satisfactory to the school committee, he seemed quite careless of anything else about the school. He admitted this, in his laughing way, to the girl, when she broached the subject of the fight for a new school.

"But it's your job!" exclaimed Janice. "You more than anybody else ought to be interested in having the boys and girls of Poketown get a decent schoolhouse."

"And suppose old Elder Concannon and the rest of the committee get after me with a sharp stick?" queried Nelson.

"I should think you, a collegian and an educated man, would be only too eager to help in such a movement as this," Janice cried. "Oh, Nelson! don't you know that the people who are waking up in this town need your help?"

"My goodness me! how serious you are about it," he returned, teasingly. "Of course, if you insist, I'll risk my job with the committee and come out flat-footed for the new schoolhouse and reform."

"I don't wish you to do anything at all for me," returned Janice, rather tartly. "If your own conscience doesn't tell you what course to pursue, pray remain neutral—as you are. But I am disappointed in you."

"There is feminine logic for you!" laughed the young man. "With one breath you tell me to follow the dictates of my own conscience, and then you show me plainly just how much you will despise me if I go against your side of the controversy."

"You are mistaken," Janice said, with some little heat. "I do not personally care what you do, only as your action reflects upon your own character."

"Now, dear me!" he sighed, still amused at her earnestness, "I thought if I came out strongly at the town meeting for the new school, you would award me the palm."

"My goodness me!" exclaimed the exasperated girl. "Somebody ought to award you a palm—and right on the ear! You're as big a tease as Marty," and she refused to discuss the school project with him any further.

CHAPTER XXII

AT THE SUGAR CAMP

Nelson Haley was, however, at the town meeting and spoke in favor of the new school building. Janice had a full report of it afterward from Marty, who squeezed in at the back with several of the other boys and drank in the long and tedious wrangle between the partisans in the school matter.

"And, by jinks!" the boy proclaimed, "lemme tell you, Janice, it looked like the vote was goin' ag'in us till Mr. Haley began to talk. I thought he didn't have much interest in the thing. Nobody thought he did. I heard some of the old fellers cacklin' that 'teacher didn't favor the idee none.'

"But, say! When he got up to talk, he showed 'em. He was sitting alongside of Elder Concannon himself, and the Elder had made a mighty strong speech against increasin' taxes and burdenin' the town for years and years with a school debt.

"But, talk about argument! Mr. Haley sailed inter them old fossils, and made the fur fly, you bet!"

"Oh, Marty! Fur fly from fossils?" chuckled Janice.

"That does sound like a teaser, don't it?" responded her cousin, with a grin. "Just the same, Mr. Haley made 'em all sit up and take notice. He didn't only speak for the schoolhouse, and new methods of teaching, and a graded school; but he took up Elder Concannon's arguments and shot 'em full of holes.

"You ought to have seen the old gentleman's face when Mr. Haley proved that a better-taught generation of scholars would possess an increased earning power and so be better able to take up and pay the school bonds than the present taxpayers.

"Say! the folks cheered! When Mr. Haley sat down, the question was put and the vote went through with a rush. But Elder Concannon and Old Bill Jones, and Mr. Cross Moore, and some of the others, were as mad as they could be."

"Mad at Mr. Haley?" queried Janice, with sudden anxiety.

"You bet! But they can't take the school away from him till the end of the year, as long as he doesn't neglect his work. So Dad says, and he knows."

Janice was worried. She knew that Nelson Haley had hoped to teach the Poketown school at least two years, so as to get what he called "a stake" for law-school studies. And there were not many ungraded schools in the state that paid as well as Poketown's; for it was a large school.

The furor occasioned by the special town meeting, and the fight for the new school, passed over. A site for the school was secured just off of High Street near the center of the town—a much handier situation for all concerned. The ground would be broken for the cellar as soon as the frost had gone.

The committee appointed at the town meeting to have charge of the building of the school were all in favor of it. There were three of them,—Mr. Massey, the druggist, the proprietor of the Lake View Inn, and Dr. Poole, one of the two medical practitioners in the town. These three were instructed to appoint two others to act with them, and as these two appointees need not be taxpayers, one of them was Nelson Haley, who acted as secretary.

When Janice heard of this, she was delighted. She had not seen the teacher more than to say "how-de-do" since their rather warm discussion before the date of the town meeting. Now she put herself in the way of meeting him where they might have a tête-à-tête.

There were not many social affairs in Poketown for young people. Janice had attended one or two of the parties where boys and girls mingled indiscriminately and played "kissing games," then she refused all such invitations. She was not old enough to expect to be bidden to the few social gatherings held by the more lively class of people in the town.

The church did little outside of the ladies' sewing circle to promote social intercourse in the congregation. So, although the school-teacher might have been invited to a dozen evening entertainments during that winter, Janice did not chance to meet him where they could have a "good, long talk" until the Hammett Twins gave their annual Sugar Camp party.

The two little old ladies, whom Janice had met so soon after coming to Poketown, had become staunch friends of the girl. She had been at their home on the Middletown road several times—twice to remain over night, for both Miss Blossom and Miss Pussy enjoyed having young people about them.

They were an odd little couple, but kindly withal, and loved children desperately, as many spinster ladies do. They had never married because of the illness for many years of both their father and their mother. Besides, the twins had never wished to be separated.

Now, at something over sixty years of age, they owned a fine farm and the most productive sugar-maple orchard in that part of the state. At sugaring time each year they invited all the young folk Walky Dexter could pack into his party wagon, to the camp not far from their house; and, as maple-sugar making was a new industry to Janice, she was not a little eager when she received her invitation from the two old ladies.

The "sugaring" was on a Saturday, and the party met at the schoolhouse. Some of the larger girls who had treated Janice so unpleasantly when she first visited the school were yet pupils; but they were much more friendly with the girl from Greensboro than at first. They might have been a wee bit jealous of her, however; for Nelson Haley would never treat them other than as a teacher should treat his scholars, whereas he paid marked attention to Janice whenever he was in her society.

Once he had asked permission to call upon her; but Janice had only laughed and told him that her aunt would be pleased to have him come, of course. She was not at all sure that she liked Mr. Nelson Haley well enough to allow him to confine his attentions to her! Young as she was, Janice had serious ideas about such matters.

However, she was glad to have him to talk to again on this occasion.

"I've never had a chance to tell you how proud of you I was when they told me what you did at the town meeting," Janice whispered, as they sat side by side in the party wagon.

Nelson grinned at her cheerfully. "The old Elder scarcely speaks to me," he said. "He's even forgotten that I can turn a Latin phrase as they used to when he went to the university."

"Oh, that is too bad! But don't you feel that you did right?"

"I'll tell you better when it comes time to engage a teacher for next year."

"Oh, dear! Maybe they'll put in a new school committee at the July school meeting. They ought to."

"The Elder and his comrades in crime have been in office for eight or ten years, I understand. They are fairly glued there, and it will take a good deal to oust them. You see, they have nothing to do with the building of the new school."

"But if that school is finished and ready for occupancy next fall, you ought to be at the head of it. It won't be fair to put you out," Janice said, with gravity.

"We'll hope for the best," and Nelson Haley laughed as usual. "But if I lose my job and have to beg my bread from door to door, I hope you will remember, Janice, that I told you so."

"You are perfectly ridiculous," declared the girl. "Aren't you ever serious two minutes at a time?"

"Pooh! what's the good of being 'solemncholly'? Take things as they come—that's my motto."

Still, Janice believed that the young man was really becoming more deeply interested in the Poketown school and its problems that he was willing to admit, even to her. She had heard that the Middletown architect who was planning the school had consulted Nelson Haley several times upon important points, and that the teacher was the most active of all the five special committeemen.

They reached the sugar camp before the middle of the forenoon, although the roads at that season were very heavy. Winter had by no means departed, although a raucous-voiced jay or two had come up from the swamp and scoured the open wood as though already in search of spring quarters.

The Hammett sugar camp consisted of an open shed in which to boil the sap and an old cabin—perhaps one of the first built in these New Hampshire grants—in which dinner was to be cooked and eaten. Miss Blossom Hammett was already busy over the pots, and pans, and bake oven in the cabin; while her sister, the thin Miss Pussy, overseered the sap-boiling operations.

It was a regular "bee", for beside the twins' hired hands, there were several of their neighbors, and the visitors from Poketown were expected to make themselves useful, too, the boys and Nelson Haley especially.

Janice joined the sap gatherers, for she was strong and liked exercise. They carried buckets to collect the sap that had already run into the shiny two-quart cups which were used to collect it.

First an incision was made through the bark and into the wood of the tree. Into this incision was thrust a whittled plug that had a shallow gutter cut in its upper side, and notches from which the bail of the two-quart cup hung. Into the cup the sap dripped rapidly—especially about midday, when the sun was warmest.

They tapped only about a quarter of the grove belonging to the old ladies, for that numbered as many trees as could be handled at once. Pail after pail of the thin sap was brought in and emptied into one of the two big cauldrons, under which a steady fire of hickory and beech was kept burning. Later the fire was started under the second pot, while the contents of the first one was allowed to simmer down until the sugar would "spin", when dipped up on the wooden ladle and dropped into a bowl of cold water.

The old ladies supplied a hearty and substantial dinner for the young folks to put away before the sugar was boiled enough to spin. After that, the visitors gathered about the sugar troughs like flies about molasses. The Hammett Twins were not niggard souls by any manner of means; but they kept warning the girls and boys all the afternoon to "save room for supper."

In truth, the supper down at the old Hammett farmhouse, after the work of the day was over, was the principal event. It grew cold towards night, and that sharpened the young folks' appetites. The sap ceased running before sunset, so they trooped down from the camp, the little old ladies riding in their phaeton behind Ginger. Walky Dexter was going to drive out to the Hammett place after supper to pick up his load of young people.

But Walky was late—very late indeed. After supper the majority of the young folk, both those from Poketown and in the near neighborhood, began to play forfeit games; so Janice and Nelson Haley slipped away, bidding the kind old ladies good-night, and set out to walk home.

The distance was under five miles; there was a good path all the way despite the mud in the driveway, and there was a glorious moon. The wind had died down and, although the night air was keen, it was a perfect hour for walking.

CHAPTER XXIII

"DO YOU MEAN THAT?"

"It was right along here—at the bridge, you know—I saw you the first time, Janice," said the teacher, when they had covered some two miles of the way. "Do you remember?"

"I didn't suppose you would," laughed Janice, blushing a little. "And I stared at you because you were the first citified-looking person I had seen since coming to Poketown."

He laughed. "Did I look as bad as all that? I was going fast, I know, but I could see that you were a mighty pretty girl."

"Why! That's a story!" exclaimed Janice, seriously, and looking at the young man in astonishment. "You know that isn't so. I'm not pretty."

"Goodness me! am I not to have my way in anything?" demanded Nelson Haley, in mock anger. "If I think you're pretty I can say so, I hope?"

"No, sir. Such ridiculous statements are forbidden. I shall think your eyes need treating almost as badly as do poor little Lottie's. Dear me, whatever are we going to do about that child?"

"If either of us were rich it would be an easy question to answer."

"True enough. I know what I'd do. And I believe you'd be a very generous young man, indeed—as long as being generous did not entail any particular work on your part."

"Oh—now—I call that unfair!" he complained. "We can't all be like you, Janice. I believe you lay awake nights thinking up nice things to do for folks——"

"There you go again—making fun of me," she said, shaking a gloved finger at him. "I don't claim to be a bit more unselfish than the next one. But I'm not lazy."

"Thanks! I suppose I am?"

"There you go—picking one up so quick," Janice repeated. "I do think, however, that you just don't care, a good deal of the time. If things only go on smoothly——"

"That's what I told you Christmas Day," he said, quickly.

"And isn't it so?"

"Well—it used to be," he admitted, shaking his head ruefully. "But I'm not sure but that, since you've got me going——"

"Me?" exclaimed Janice. "What have I got to do with it?"

"Now, there's no use your saying that you don't know why I took up that matter of the new school last month," said Nelson Haley, seriously. "You spoke just as though you were ashamed of me when we talked about it, and I began to wonder if I wasn't a fit subject for heart-searching inquiry," and the teacher burst into laughter again.

But Janice felt that he was more serious than usual, and she hastened to say: "I should really feel proud to know that any word of mine suggested your present course, Mr. Nelson Haley. Why! what a fine thing that would be."

"What a fine thing what would be?" he demanded.

"To think that I could really influence an educated and clever young man like you to do something very much worth while in the world. Nelson, you are flattering me."

"Honest to goodness—it's so," he said, looking at her with a rather wry smile. "And I'm not at all sure that I thank you for it."

"Why not?"

"See what you've got me into?" he complained. "I've got a whole bunch of extra work because of the school building, and in the end the old Elder and his friends may discharge me!"

"But you've brought about the building of a new school, and Poketown ought always to thank you."

"Likely. And they'll build a monument to me to stand at the head of High Street, eh?" and he laughed.

"I do not care," said Janice, seriously, and looking up at him with pride. "I shall thank you. And I shall never forget that you said it was my little influence that made you do it."

"Your little influence——"

But she hastened to add: "It's a really great thing for me to think of. And how proud and glad I'll be by and by—years and years from now, I mean—when you accomplish some great thing and I can think that it was because of what I said that you first began to use your influence for good among these people——"

Her voice broke a little and she halted. She feared she had gone too far and that perhaps Nelson Haley would misunderstand her. But he was only silent for a moment. Then, turning to her and grasping her hands firmly, he said:

"Do you mean that, Janice?"

"Yes. I mean just that," she said, rather flutteringly. "Oh! here comes a wagon. It must be Walky."

"Never mind Walky," said Nelson, firmly. "I want to tell you that I sha'n't forget what you've said. If there really is a nice girl like you feeling proud of me, I'm going to do just my very best to retain her good opinion. You see if I don't!"

They were in the shadow as Walky drove by and he did not see them. After that Janice and the teacher hurried on so as not to be overtaken by the noisy party of young folks before they reached the village.

As they came up the hill toward Hopewell Drugg's store they saw a dim light in the storekeeper's back room, and the wailing notes of his violin reached their ears.

"Hopewell is grinding out his usual classic," chuckled Nelson Haley. "I hear him at it morning, noon, and night. Seems to me 'Silver Threads Among the Gold' is kind of passé."

"Hush!" said Janice. "There is somebody standing at the side gate, listening. You see, sir, everybody doesn't have the same opinion of poor Mr. Drugg's music——"

"My goodness!" ejaculated Nelson, under his breath. "It's Miss Scattergood, I do believe!"

The timid little spinster could not escape. They had come upon her so quietly.

"Oh! is it you, Janice dear?" she said, in a startled voice.

"And Mr. Haley. We are walking home from the Hammetts' sugaring."

"Well! I'm glad it ain't anybody else," said Miss 'Rill frankly. "But I do run around here sometimes of an evening, when mother's busy or asleep, just to listen to that old song. Mr. Drugg plays it with so much feelin'—don't you think so, Mr. Haley? And then—I was always very fond of that song."

They left her at the corner of High Street, and the flurried little woman hurried home.

"I do believe there is a romance there," whispered the teacher, when Miss 'Rill was out of earshot.

"So there is. Didn't you know that—years and years ago—she and Mr. Drugg were engaged?" cried Janice. "Why, yes, they were. But why they did not marry, and why he married the girl he did, and why Miss 'Rill kept on teaching school and never would look at any other man, is all a mystery."

"Romance!" commented Nelson, with a little laugh, yet looking down upon Janice with serious eyes. "The night is full of it—don't you think so, Janice?"

"No, no!" she laughed up at him. "It's only the moonlight," and a little later he left her at the old Day house with a casual handshake.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE SCHOOL DEDICATION

Thereafter there was a somewhat different tone to the friendship between Janice and the school-teacher. They were confidential. They both assumed that the other was interested in the matters dear to each. It was a comradery that had no silly side to it. Nelson Haley was a young man working his way up the first rungs of the ladder of life; Janice was his good friend and staunch partisan.

As neither was possessed of brother or sister, they adopted each other in that stead.

The winter fled away at last and Spring came over the mountain range and down to the lakeside, scattering flowers and grasses as she passed. Although Janice had enjoyed some of the fun and frolic of the New England winter, she was perfectly delighted to see the season change.

It had been late spring when she reached Poketown the year before. Now she saw the season open, and her first trips over the hillsides and through the wood lot where the snow still lay in sheltered places, searching for the earliest flowers, were days of delight for the girl.

The Shower Bath was released from its icy fetters, and the little mountain stream poured over the lip of granite with a burst of sound like laughter. She visited The Overlook, too; but she did not need to view the landscape o'er to enable her to understand why God did not immediately answer her prayers for her father.

Great news from the mine in Mexico:

"We haven't made much money yet, it is true," Mr. Day wrote about this time. "But things are going right. The armies—both of them—are now far away and if they leave us in peace for a few months, your Daddy will make so much money that you can have the desire of your heart, my dear."

And the "desire of her heart" just then was—and had been for months—a little automobile in which she might ride over the roads about Poketown. There wasn't a good horse and carriage obtainable in the town; and Janice found the time hanging heavily upon her hands.

"If I just had a car!" she would often say, until Marty got to teasing her about it, and Nelson Haley, whenever he saw her, usually asked very sober questions about her car—if she'd had much tire trouble on her last trip, and so forth!

"You can all just laugh at me," Janice declared. "I know Daddy will send the money some time. And then, if you are not very good, and very polite, you sha'n't ride with me at all."

Aunt 'Mira was so inspired by her niece's talk of an automobile that she studied the mail-order catalogues diligently, and finally sent off for a coat and veil, together with an approved automobile mask, to be worn when she went motoring through the country with Janice!

The spring passed and summer came. The cellar walls of the new schoolhouse were laid, and then the framework went up, and finally the handsome edifice was finished upon the outside. Really, Poketown was fairly startled by the appearance of the new building. Some of the very people who had been opposed to the thing were won over by its appearance.

"Hi tunket!" exclaimed Mr. Cross Moore, "barrin' the taxes we'll haf ter pay for the next ten year, I could be glad ter see sech a handsome house in the town. An' they tell me 'at teacher has had more ter do with the plannin' of the school than the architect himself. Too bad Mr. Haley ain't goin' ter be here no longer than this term. He'd ought ter have the bossin' of the new school."

"Who says he won't?" snapped Walky Dexter, who heard the selectman's statement.

"You ax the Elder—or old Bill Jones," chortled Moore.

"Come now! what do you mean by that?" demanded Mr. Massey, in whose store the conversation took place.

"Ax 'em," said Mr. Moore again. "They've got it fixed up to fire Mr. Haley at the end of this term."

"Nothin' like bein' warned in time," said Walky Dexter. "Them old shagbarks ain't been e-lected themselves for next year, yet. They air takin' too blamed much for granted, that's what's the matter with them. July school meetin' is purty near; but mebbe we kin put a spoke in their wheel."

Forthwith Walkworthy Dexter began to earn his right to the nickname Janice had once given him. He became "Talky" Dexter, and he talked to some purpose. When the school meeting was held in July there was the most astonishing overturn that had been seen in Poketown for years. An entirely new committee was elected to govern school affairs, and all were men in favor of new methods.

Before this, the school had closed and Nelson Haley had gone to Maine to work in a hotel during the summer. The last half of the school year had been much different from the young man's fall term. Although he gave the boys all the instruction in baseball he had promised, and otherwise had kept up their interest in the school, he had begun to lay out the work differently for the pupils and really try to increase the value of his instruction. Whether he was to be fortunate enough to head the new school in the fall, or not, he began to train the pupils to more modern methods. Whoever took hold of the new school would find the scholars somewhat prepared for the graded system.

Poketown was actually shocked! The good old Elder and his mates had so long governed school matters just as they pleased that many of the people could not realize that a new day had dawned—in school affairs, at least.

Elder Concannon was doomed to see more of his influence wane during this summer. Heretofore he had managed to keep out of the church anything like a young people's society, in spite of Mr. Middler's desire to the contrary. But there were now several earnest young people in the church membership who were anxious to be set to work to some purpose.

The association was a small one at first. Janice was a member. Soon the influence of the organization began to be felt in more ways than one.

"I can see just how things are going, Brother Middler—I can see plainly," old Elder Concannon declared. "Just as soon as they told me that Day girl was a member of the society I knew what would happen. A new carpet for the aisle and the pulpit chairs upholstered! Ha! And them girls and boys themselves cleaning windows and sweeping and dusting the whole church once a month. Ridiculous! Myron Jones has always suited us as sexton before. Oh! we'll have no peace—no peace at all!"

"But, Elder," timidly suggested the pastor, "such things as the young people have asked to do have been helpful things. And I'm sure if you would attend one of their meetings you would find their spiritual growth commendable—surely commendable."

"Ha!" sniffed the old gentleman, wagging his bristling head. "What do those boys and girls know about religion, and the work of the spirit, and——"

"One thing is sure, Elder," interposed Mr. Middler with more courage than was usual with him, "One thing is sure: if our children have no proper appreciation of such things, it is certainly our fault. We older ones have been remiss in our duty."

This seemed to take the Elder aback. He stared at the younger man for a moment; but as he turned away he muttered:

"It's all nonsense! And it's just as I've said. No peace since that Day girl came to town."

Mr. Middler had the courage of his convictions for once. He said nothing more to rasp the old gentleman's feelings and prejudices; but he backed up the young people in their attempt to freshen up the old church. He mingled with them more than ever he had before; and from that contact with their young and hopeful natures he carried into his pulpit a more joyful outlook upon life. Mr. Middler was growing, along with his young people, and he really preached a sermon now and then in which there wasn't a doctrinal argument!

Not that Janice held a very important position in the young people's society. But she had belonged to one back in Greensboro, in her own beloved church, and she had helped form this Poketown organization. She would not take office in this new society, for all the time she hoped that her father's affairs would change and they might be together again.

There was never a day begun that Janice did not hope that this reunion might be consummated soon; and the desire was a part of her bedside prayer at night. She was no longer lonely, or even homesick, in Poketown. She really loved her relatives, and she knew that they loved her. She had made many friends, and her time was fairly well occupied.

But her longing for Daddy seemed to grow with the lapse of time. She wanted to see him so much that it actually hurt when she allowed herself to think about it!

"Ain't you ever goin' to be still a minute, Janice?" complained her aunt frequently. "You're hoppin' 'round all the time jest like a hen on a hot skillet, I declare for't!"

"Why, Aunt 'Mira," she told the good lady, "I couldn't possibly sit with my hands folded. I'd rather work on the treadmill than do that."

"You wait till you've worked as many years as I have—an' got as leetle for it," said Aunt 'Mira, shaking her head. "You won't be so spry," and with that she buried herself in her story paper again.

There was an improvement, however, even in Aunt 'Mira. She could not leave the "love stories" alone, and if she had a particularly exciting one, she would sit down in her chair in the middle of the kitchen floor and let the breakfast dishes go till noon.

Usually, however, she "slicked up," as she called it, after dinner, instead of spending her time on the sofa, and sometimes she and Janice went calling with their needlework, like the other ladies up and down Hillside Avenue, or had some of the neighbors in to call on them.

Aunt 'Mira had spent some of Janice's board money on the furnishings of the house as well as in silk dresses and automobile veils. There were new curtains at the windows; the sitting-room had a new rag carpet woven by a neighbor; the rather worn boards of the kitchen were covered with brightly-figured linoleum.

Inside and out there were now few "loose ends" about the old Day house. The stair to the upper story was mended, and covered with a bright runner. The premises about the house were kept neat and attractive, and Mr. Day had somehow found the money to paint the house that spring, while the stables and other outbuildings looked much neater than when Janice had first seen them.

She and Marty had taken complete charge of the garden this year, and the girl had inspired her cousin with some of her own love of neatness and order. The rows of vegetables were straight; the weeds were kept out; and they had earlier potatoes and peas for the table than anybody else on Hillside Avenue.

The lane was, by the way, different in appearance from the untidy and crooked street up which Janice had climbed with Uncle Jason that day of her arrival at Poketown. The neighboring homes showed the influence of association with the Day place.

There had been other houses painted on the street that spring. More fences had been reset and straightened. The driveway itself had had some attention from the town. And you couldn't have found a one-hinged gate the entire length of the street!

As for Uncle Jason, he was really carrying on his farming in a businesslike way. Marty was getting to be a big boy now, and he could help more than he once had. Janice had suggested to Uncle Jason that, as he had such good pasture at the upper end of his farm, and as the milk supply of Poketown was but a meager one, it would pay somebody to run a small dairy.

Mr. Day now had three cows that he proposed to winter, and was raising one heifer calf. Such milk as the family did not use themselves the neighbors gladly bought. Mrs. Day was doing better with her hens, too. The wire fencing had been repaired and she gave the biddies more attention; therefore she was being repaid in eggs and chickens for frying. Altogether it could no longer be said that the Day family was shiftless.

Janice received several cheerful and entertaining letters that summer from Nelson Haley. He was clerk of a summer hotel on the Maine shore, and he seemed to be having a good time as well as earning a considerable salary.

When the new school committee of Poketown tendered him an offer of the head mastership of the school (he was to begin with one assistant for the kindergartners), he threw up his clerkship and hastened to a certain summer normal school in central Massachusetts.

Janice was very glad, although his action surprised her, knowing, as she did, how much young Haley needed the money he was earning at the hotel. His tuition at the summer school for a month, and his board there, would eat up a good deal of the money he had saved. He might not be able to enter for his law studies at the end of another school year.

Janice believed, however, that Nelson Haley was "cut out," as the local saying was, for a teacher. He had an easy, interesting manner, which was bound to hold the attention of even the wandering minds among his pupils. She knew by the improvement in Marty that the young man's influence, especially on the boys of Poketown, was for good.

"If he would only make up his mind to work, he might rise high in the profession," she thought. "Some day he might even be president of a college—and wouldn't that be fine?"

But she did not write anything of this nature to the absent Nelson. She treasured in her mind what he had said about working because she was proud of him; and she wisely decided that Nelson Haley was a young man who needed very little encouragement in some ways. Janice was by no means sure that she liked Nelson Haley as he liked her.

So she kept her answers to his letters upon a coolly friendly basis and only showed him, when he returned to Poketown in September in time for the dedication exercises of the school building, how glad she was to see him by the warmth of her greeting.

It was a real gala day in Poketown when the new school building was thrown open for public inspection. In the evening the upper floor of the building (which for the present was to be used as a hall) was crowded by the villagers to hear the "public speaking"; and on this occasion Nelson Haley again covered himself with glory.

He seemed to have gained enthusiasm, as well as a distinct idea of modern school methods, from his brief normal training. He managed to inspire his hearers with hope for a broader and higher education; his hopes for the future of the Poketown school lit responsive fires in the hearts of many of his listeners.

Of course, Elder Concannon did not agree. He was heard to say afterward that he couldn't approve of "no such new-fangled notions," and that he believed the boys and girls of Poketown "better stick to the three R's—reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic!"

However, the opinion of the people in general seemed to be in favor of the new ideas, and they promised to back up Nelson Haley in his work of modernizing the school.

"Of course you'll make it one of the best schools in the state—I know you will, Nelson," declared Janice, when he walked home with her after the exercises.

"If you say so—of course!" replied the young man, with a smile.