The testing of Janice Day

As they came down Hillside Avenue, past the cornfields and Walky Dexter’s outlying barns and sheds, Janice caught sight of a figure turning out of the gate of the old Day place.

“Oh, there’s Nelson!” ejaculated the girl, before she thought.

“Nelson who?” queried Frank lightly.

“Mr. Haley. He’s principal of the school here in Polktown,” replied Janice more quietly.

“He’s been calling on you and you weren’t at home, eh?” laughed Frank Bowman.

“He is often at the house,” Janice thought it necessary to explain. “Marty is one of his favorite pupils, and my uncle and aunt are quite fond of Mr. Haley. He is really very popular in Polktown, for in a short time he has made our new school greatly appreciated.”

“He’s won his spurs, then, has he?” said Frank Bowman, rather wistfully. “And I have mine to win yet! This job I have obtained with the V. C. is my first.”

“I should think,” Janice said demurely, “that both you and Mr. Haley have plenty of time yet to win your spurs. I see no gray hairs in either your head or his.”

“A hit—a palpable hit!” answered Frank, laughing. “But after a fellow has spent three or four years at college, he feels old. Youth, however, is a disease they tell me Time will always cure.”

He would not let Janice drive the car on the steep roads yet, but brought it safely himself into the Day premises. Mrs. Day insisted upon Frank’s stopping for a “snack,” as she called it, setting a pitcher of cool milk and her best pound cake before the visitor.

“I wanted Mr. Haley to stop and have some with you,” said the good lady, swinging to and fro in the porch rocker, her weight making both it and the boards of the floor creak, “but he ’peared to be in a hurry.”

“Did he come for anything in particular?” asked Janice, trying to speak casually.

“Mebbe he was looking for a ride in your new ortermobile,” her Aunt Almira said placidly. “I’m jest all of a tickle myself, waitin’ for my first go at it. Mr. Haley asked all about it, and I told him how kind Mr. Bowman was to show you how to run it.”

Janice felt self-conscious whenever Nelson’s name was mentioned in company. She had written Daddy all about the school teacher—she never could have kept such a secret as that from him—and Mr. Broxton Day had advised her to have no decided understanding with the young man, save the understanding that they were good friends.

Daddy always did write such dear letters! Janice was sure no mother, even, could be as wise and kindly as her father. She liked Nelson Haley very much; but Mr. Day’s advice was right in line with her own feelings. Even an engagement between the school teacher and herself was only to be thought of as a possibility of the future.

She knew that she had been Nelson’s inspiration since he had come to Polktown; and she was proud that he had made a success of the new school. She was glad, too, that he had been called by the board of the small college, whether he finally accepted the position as instructor there or not.

Janice wondered if Nelson had come to the house to talk over that very matter with her on the afternoon she had taken her first lesson in automobile driving. And after several days, as the school teacher did not come again, she made an attempt to put herself in his way.

The teacher boarded with Mrs. Beasely, who lived almost opposite Hopewell Drugg’s general store, on the street leading down to Pine Cove. Around the corner on High Street Miss ’Rill Scattergood and her mother lived. Miss ’Rill had taught the Polktown School for years before Nelson Haley came, and the pretty little old maid and Janice were very dear friends.

Mrs. Scattergood, a birdlike old lady, with a sharp tongue and inquisitive mind, met Janice as usual with a question.

“What’s happened to that ortermobile, child? I hear tell you got one, but you ain’t been on High Street with it yet. What’s the matter—you ain’t ashamed of it, be you?”

“I don’t think I could be ashamed of any gift from Daddy,” laughed Janice.

“Mebbe it’s that young man I hear tell is teachin’ you to run the thing, that you’re ashamed of?” queried the sharp-tongued old lady.

“Now, mother!” begged Miss ’Rill.

But Janice was used to Mrs. Scattergood’s pointed speeches, and she took no offense.

“I shan’t appear on High Street,” she declared, smiling, “until I can manage the car perfectly myself.”

“Wa-al! I hear he’s a very likely young man,” said Mrs. Scattergood, insisting upon making gossip of Frank Bowman’s attentions. “And I expect Mr. Haley’s nose is out o’ j’int.”

Janice was a little afraid that the homely expression hit off the situation only too well. She was no coquette. She did not enjoy the thought that perhaps Nelson Haley was slightly jealous of Mr. Frank Bowman.

“Hopewell received a letter from little Lottie last night,” whispered Miss ’Rill. “Want to go ’round and read it?”

Janice nodded brightly. She was always interested in news of her little protégée. Miss ’Rill put on a fresh apron and prepared to go around to the store with her. This little lady and Hopewell Drugg were soon to be married, and their romance had long interested Janice. Miss ’Rill’s trousseau was a source of great delight to the young girl; Miss ’Rill was the first bride-to-be of whom she had ever been the confidant.

The store on the side street was a cool and inviting spot. Great trees shaded it and there was a comfortable porch at the side between the living-rooms of the widowed Mr. Drugg and the store. Here the storekeeper was wont to sit and cuddle his fiddle under his chin while he coaxed from the old strings and mellow wood the tunes of yesterday—for despite the spick and span condition of Hopewell Drugg’s store and his up-to-date stock in trade, he was not naturally a progressive person.

“Hopewell and I are behind the times, I s’pose, Janice,” the little old maid said to her friend. “We lost fifteen or twenty years of our lives. I’m not even going to let Miz’ Hutchins make my wedding gown, although there hasn’t been a wedding in this town for a score of years that she hasn’t made the bride’s dress. But she’s too fussy, and runs to new-fangled ideas. Miz’ Beasely is going to help me. She’s a good plain sewer and has a machine to run the seams on, which is a great help. I s’pose folks will talk.”

“I’m sure, Miss ’Rill, what you do about your wedding can be nobody’s business but your own,” Janice hastened to say.

“Well, I’m not so sure of that,” the little lady admitted. “I am a kind of public character, as you might say, teaching school so many years in Polktown. And Mr. Drugg, he has kept store and looks forward to keeping it right along. We can’t afford to antagonize folks. But I’ve my own ideas about what’s proper for a woman of my age to wear when she does get married.”

“And when is the wedding going to be?” asked Janice, with interest.

“Not until after little Lottie comes home from Boston,” replied the little lady. “We want her at our wedding; and the school matron writes that with her present progress, by late fall she may return for a time, at least. The dear little thing!”

This conversation brought them to Mr. Drugg’s store. Janice kept a sharp outlook for Nelson Haley, but did not see him.

It was an hour of the hot summer afternoon when few people were abroad. It was plain that Hopewell Drugg had no customer just then, for the strains of his violin came to them as Janice and Miss ’Rill approached the yard gate. The violinist’s bow wandered over the strings as though his mind wandered, too, while he played. Whereas, the plaintive strains of “Silver Threads Among the Gold” had first been borne to their ears, the callers suddenly realized that Mr. Drugg had trailed off into the livelier measures of “Jingle bells! Jingle bells! Jingle all the way!”

“For the land’s sake!” said Miss ’Rill, in mild surprise. “That sleighing song maybe is cooling on a hot day like this, but I never heard Hopewell play it before.”

Janice laughed aloud. “It must be much more in tune with his feelings, Miss ’Rill, than any sad melody. Music, they say, is an expression of the soul’s feelings. Mr. Drugg’s soul is happy now.”

The little old maid flushed very prettily. Then she gave her head a queer little birdlike toss.

“Music may express the feelings of some souls,” she said drily; “but if that’s so, I wonder what kind of souls the composers of some of these new-fangled tunes I hear the boys whistling must have? There’s some of them that sound as though the composers had neither brains nor soul that together would be bigger’n a pea, I declare!”

Unlike her mother, Miss ’Rill was not often critical; but she had become quite earnest in this expression of her opinion and was still flushed when they came in sight of Hopewell sawing on his fiddle as he sat on the shaded porch. He broke off guiltily in the middle of

“Oh, do keep on, Mr. Drugg,” begged Janice. “I wouldn’t have come if I’d thought it would stop your music.”

“I know you’ve come to read my little Lottie’s letter, Miss Janice,” he said, in his shy way, and hastened to bring it. Then he picked up the violin again and fingered the strings lightly and absently as Janice unfolded the letter from the little girl who had been blind.

“Do play some more, Mr. Drugg,” said the girl. “I love to hear you.”

“I’ll play you an old favorite, then,” said the storekeeper, and smiled over the fiddle at Miss ’Rill as he drew out of the strings the first chords of

And yet, Mr. Hopewell Drugg’s soul did not seem quite in tune with this touching old melody; for, as Janice excused herself to run over to Mrs. Beasely’s for a little call, she heard the old violin drift off into another lively air which had been immensely popular in the younger days of the storekeeper and Miss ’Rill—“Aunt Dinah’s Quilting Party.” It was quite evident that Romance had taken Hopewell Drugg by the hand and was leading him into more sunlit paths.

Janice learned from Mrs. Beasely that Nelson Haley had gone away that very morning on business, and would not return to Polktown for several days. She walked home with rather a heavy heart. He had not come to say good-bye to her.