"Dear me, Mr. Bowman," sighed Janice. "I wish everybody thought as you do. Polktown needs reforming."

"What! Again?" cried the young man, laughing suddenly. Then he added: "I expect, if that is so, you will have to start the reform, Miss Janice. And--and you'd better start it with your friend, Hopewell Drugg. Really, they are making a fool of him around the Inn--and he doesn't even know it."

"Oh, Mr. Bowman! what do you mean?" called Janice after him; but the young man had picked up his bag and was marching away, so that he did not hear her question. Before she could start her engine he had turned into a side street.

She ran back up Hillside Avenue in good season for dinner. The potato patch was plowed and Marty had gone downtown on an errand. Janice backed the car into the garage and went upstairs to her room to change her dress for dinner. She was there when Marty came boisterously into the kitchen.

"My goodness! what's the matter with you, Marty Day?" asked his mother shrilly. "What's happened?"

"It's Nelson Haley," the boy said, and Janice heard him plainly, for the door at the foot of the stairs was ajar. "It's awful! They are going to arrest him!"

"What do you mean, Marty Day? Be you crazy?" Mrs. Day demanded.

"What's this? One o' your cheap jokes?" asked the boy's father, who chanced to be in the kitchen, too.

"Guess Nelson Haley don't think it's a joke," said the boy, his voice still shaking. "I just heard all about it. There ain't many folks know it yet----"

"Stop that!" cried his mother. "You tell us plain what Mr. Haley's done."

"Ain't done nothin', of course. But they _say_ he has," Marty stoutly maintained.

"Then what do they accuse him of?" queried Mr. Day.

"They accuse him of stealin'! Hi tunket! ain't that the meanest thing ye ever heard?" cried the boy. "Nelson Haley, stealin'. It gets _me_ for fair!"

"Why--why I can't believe it!" Aunt 'Mira gasped, and she sat down with a thud on one of the kitchen chairs.

"I got it straight," Marty went on to say. "The School Committee's all in a row over it. Ye see, they had the coins----"

"_Who_ had _what_ coins?" cried his mother.

"The School Committee. That collection of gold coins some rich feller lent the State Board of Education for exhibition at the lecture next Friday. They only come over from Middletown last night and Mr. Ma.s.sey locked them in his safe."

"Wal!" murmured Uncle Jason.

"Ma.s.sey brought 'em to the school this morning where the committee held a meeting. I hear the committee left the trays of coins in their room while they went downstairs to see something the matter with the heater.

When they come up the trays had been skinned clean--'for a fac'!"

exclaimed the excited Marty.

"What's that got to do with Mr. Haley?" demanded Uncle Jason, grimly.

"Why--he'd been in the room. I believe he don't deny he was there.

n.o.body else was in the buildin' 'cept the janitor, and he was with Ma.s.sey and the others in the bas.e.m.e.nt.

"Then coins jest disappeared--took wings and flewed away," declared Marty with much earnestness.

"What was they wuth?" asked his father, practically.

"Dunno. A lot of money. Some says two thousand and some says five thousand. Whichever it is, they'll put him under big bail if they arrest him."

"Why, they wouldn't dare!" gasped Mrs. Day.

"Say! Ma.s.sey and them others has got to save their own hides, ain't they?" demanded the suspicious Marty.

"Wal. 'Tain't common sense that any of the School Committee should have stolen the coins," Uncle Jason said slowly. "Mr. Ma.s.sey, and Cross Moore, and Mr. Middler----"

"Mr. Middler warn't there," said Marty, quickly. "He'd gone to Middletown."

"Joe Pellet and Crawford there?" asked Uncle Jason.

"All the committee but the parson," his son admitted.

"And all good men," Uncle Jason said reflectively. "Schoolhouse locked?"

"So they say," Marty declared. "That's what set them on Nelson. Only him and the janitor carry keys to the building."

"Who's the janitor?" asked Uncle Jason.

"Benny Thread. You know, the little crooked-backed feller--lives on Paige Street. And, anyway, there wasn't a chance for him to get at the coins. He was with the committee all the time they was out of the room."

"And are they sure Mr. Haley was in there?" asked Aunt 'Mira.

"He admits it," Marty said gloomily. "I don't know what's going to come of it all----"

"Hush!" said Uncle Jason suddenly. "Shut that door."

But it was too late, Janice had heard all. She came down into the kitchen, pale-faced and with eyes that blazed with indignation. She had not removed her hat.

"Come, Uncle Jason," she said, brokenly. "I want you to go downtown with me. If Nelson is in trouble we must help him."

"Drat that boy!" growled Uncle Jason, scowling at Marty. "He's a reg'lar big mouth! He has to tell ev'rything he knows all over the shop."

CHAPTER VIII

REAL TROUBLE

It seemed to Janice Day as though the drift of trouble, which had set her way with the announcement by her father of his unfortunate situation among the Yaqui Indians, had now risen to an overwhelming height.

'Rill's secret misgivings regarding Hopewell Drugg, little Lottie's peril of blindness, the general tendency of Polktown as a whole to suffer the bad effects of liquor selling at the tavern--all these things had added to Janice's anxiety.

Now, on the crest of the threatening wave, rode this happening to Nelson Haley, an account of which Marty had brought home.

"Come, Uncle Jason," she said again to Mr. Day. "You must come with me. If Nelson is arrested and taken before Justice Little, the justice will listen to _you_. You are a property owner. If they put Nelson under bail----"

"Hold your hosses," interrupted Uncle Jason, yet not unkindly. "Noah didn't build the ark in a day. We'd best go slow about this."