How Janice Day Won Part 26

"I'll find something to do, I fancy. But whether or no, it shall not be said of me that I was afraid to face this business. I won't run away from it."

Janice squeezed his hand privately in approval. She had been afraid that he might wish to flee. And who could blame him? During this week of trial, however, Nelson Haley had recovered his self-control, and had deliberately made up his mind to the manly course.

Nevertheless, he did not appear in his accustomed place in church on the morrow. It was not possible for him to walk boldly up the church aisle among the people who doubted his honesty, or would sneer at him, either openly or behind his back. And it was known all over the town by church time that Sunday that he had been arrested, bailed, and had asked the school committee for a vacation of indefinite length and without pay, and that this had been granted.

Miss Pearly Breeze and her contingent of trends were not happy for long. The School Committee knew that a return to old methods in school matters would never satisfy Polktown again.

They telegraphed the State Superintendent of Schools and a proper and capable subst.i.tute for Mr. Haley was expected to arrive on Monday.

It was on Monday morning, too, that Nelson's partisans and the enemy came to open warfare. That is, the junior portion of the community began belligerent action.

Janice was rather belated that morning in starting for Middletown in the Kremlin car. Marty jumped on the running board with his school books in a strap, to ride down the hill to the corner of School Street.

Just as they came in sight of Polktown's handsome brick schoolhouse, there was Nelson Haley briskly approaching.

He had given up his key to the committee on Sat.u.r.day night; but there were books and private papers in his desk that he desired to remove before his successor arrived. The front door was locked and he had to wait for Benny Thread to hobble up from the bas.e.m.e.nt to open it.

This delay brought every woman on the block to her front windows. Some peeped from behind the blinds; some boldly came out on their "stoops"

to eye the unfortunate schoolmaster askance. A group of boys were gathered on the corner within plain earshot of the schoolmaster. As Janice turned the car carefully into School Street Sim Howell, one of these young loungers, uttered a loud bray.

"What d'ye s'pose he's after now?" he then demanded of n.o.body in particular, but loud enough for all the neighbors to hear. "S'pose he thinks there's any more money in there ter steal?"

"Stop, Janice!" yelped Marty. "I knew I'd got ter do it. That feller's been spoilin' for it for a week! Lemme down, I say!"

He did not wait for his cousin to obey his command. Before she could stop the car he took a flying leap from the running-board of the automobile. His books flew one way, his cap another; and with a wild shout of rage, Marty fell upon Sim Howell!

CHAPTER XVII

THE OPENING OF THE CAMPAIGN

Janice ran the car on for half a block before she stopped. She looked back. She had never approved of fisticuffs--and Marty was p.r.o.ne to such disgraceful activities. Nevertheless, when she saw Sim Howell's blood-besmeared countenance, his wide-open mouth, his clumsy fists pawing the air almost blindly, something primal--instinctive--made her heart leap in her bosom.

She delighted in Marty's clean blows, in his quick "duck" and "side-step;" and when her cousin's freckled fist impinged upon the fatuous countenance of Sim Howell, Janice Day uttered an unholy gasp of delight.

She saw Nelson striding to separate the combatants. She hoped he would not be harsh with Marty.

Then, seeing the neighbors gathering, she pressed the starter b.u.t.ton and the Kremlin glided on again. The tall young schoolmaster was between the two boys, holding each off at arm's length, when Janice wheeled around the far corner and gave a last glance at the field of combat.

"I am getting to be a wicked, wicked girl!" she accused herself, when she was well out of town and wheeling cheerfully over the Lower Road toward Middletown. "I have just longed to see that Simeon Howell properly punished ever since I caught him that day mocking Jim Narnay.

And _that_ arises from the influence of Lem Parraday's bar. Oh, dear me! _I_ am affected by the general epidemic, I believe.

"If the Inn did not sell liquor, in all human probability, Narnay would not have been drunk that day; at least, not where I could see him. And so Sim and those other young rascals would not have chased and mocked him. I would not have felt so angry with Sim--Dear me! everything dovetails together, Nelson's trouble and all. I wonder if, after all, the selling of liquor at the Inn isn't at the bottom of Nelson's trouble.

"It sounds foolish--or at least, far-fetched. But it may be so.

Perhaps the person who stole those coins was inspired to do the wicked deed because he was under the influence of liquor. And, of course, the Lake View Inn was the nearest place where liquor was to be bought.

"Dear me! Am I foolish? Who knows?" Janice concluded, with a sigh.

The thought of Sim Howell mocking Jim Narnay reminded her of the latter's unfortunate family. She had been only once to the little cottage near Pine Cove since Narnay had gone into the woods with Trimmins and Jack Besmith.

Nor had she been able to see Dr. Poole, amid her mult.i.tudinous duties, and ask him how the nameless little baby was getting on; although she had at once left a note at the doctor's office asking him to call and see the child at her expense.

The peril threatening her father and the peril threatening Nelson Haley filled Janice Day's mind and heart so full that other interests had been rather lost sight of during the past eventful week.

She had not seen Frank Bowman since the time they had separated on the street corner by the drug store, late Sat.u.r.day night, when she had taken Hopewell Drugg home.

Bowman was with his railroad construction gang not far off the Lower Middletown Road. But Janice had been going to and from school by the Upper Road, past Elder Concannon's place, because it was dryer.

This morning, however, Frank heard her car coming, and he appeared, plunging through the jungle, shouting to her to stop. He could scarcely make a mistake in hailing the car, for Janice's automobile was almost the only one that ran on this road. By summer time, however, the boarding house people and Lem Parraday hoped that automobiles in Polktown would be, in the words of Walky Dexter, "as thick as fleas on a yaller hound."

Janice saw Frank Bowman coming, if she did not hear him call, and slowed down. He strode cras.h.i.+ngly down the hillside in his high boots, corduroys, and canvas jacket, his face flushed with exercise and, of course, broadly smiling. Janice liked the civil engineer immensely.

He lacked Nelson Haley's solid character and thoughtfulness; but he always had a fund of enthusiasm on tap.

"How goes the battle, Janice?" was his cheery call, as he leaped down into the roadway and thrust out a gloved hand to grasp hers.

"I guess, by now, Simmy Howell has learned a thing or two," she declared, her mind on the scrimmage she had just seen.

"What?" demanded Bowman, wonderingly.

At that Janice burst into a laugh. "Oh! I am a perfect heathen. I suppose you did not mean Marty's battle with his schoolmate. But that was in my mind."

"What's Marty fighting about now?" asked the civil engineer, with a puzzled smile. "And are you interested in such sparring encounters?"

"I was in this one," confessed Janice. Then she told him of the occurrence--and its cause, of course.

"Well, I declare!" said Frank Bowman, happily. "For once I fully approve of Marty."

"Do you? Well, to tell the truth, so do I!" gasped Janice, laughing again. "But I know it is wicked."

"Guess the whole Day family feels friendly toward Nelson," declared the engineer. "I hear Mr. Day went on Nelson's bond Sat.u.r.day night."

"Yes, indeed. Dear Uncle Jason! He's slow, but he's dependable."

"Well, I am glad Nelson Haley has some friends," Bowman said quickly.

"But I didn't stop you to say just this."

"No?"

"No," said the civil engineer. "When I asked you, 'How goes the battle?' I was thinking of something you said the other night when we were rounding up that disgraceful old reprobate, Hopewell Drugg," and he laughed.

"Oh, poor Hopewell! Isn't it a shame the way they talk about him?"

"It certainly is," agreed Frank Bowman. "But whether Hopewell Drugg is finally injured in character by Lem Parraday's bar or not, enough other people are being injured. You said you'd do anything to see it closed."

"I would," cried Janice. "At least, anything I could do."