"Poor man!"

"He--he is changed a great deal, Janice," whispered the bride.

Janice was silent, but held 'Rill's hand in her own comforting clasp.

"Don't think he isn't good to me. He is! He is! He is the sweetest tempered man that ever lived! You know that, yourself. And I thought I was going to make him--oh!--so happy."

"Hush! hush, dear!" murmured Janice, for Mrs. Drugg's eyes had run over and she sobbed aloud. "He loves you just the same. I can see it in the way he looks at you. And why should he not love you?"

"But he has lost his cheerfulness. He worries about Lottie, I know.

There--there is another thing----"

She stopped. She pursued this thread of thought no further. Janice wondered then--and she wondered afterward--if this unexplained anxiety connected Hopewell Drugg with the dances at the Lake View Inn.

CHAPTER V

"THE BLUEBIRD--FOR HAPPINESS"

Could it be possible that Janice Day had alighted from Walky Dexter's old carryall at the little grocery store for still another purpose? It was waning afternoon, yet she did not immediately make her way homeward.

Mrs. Beaseley lived almost across the street from Hopewell Drugg's store, and Nelson Haley, the princ.i.p.al of Polktown's graded school, boarded with the widow. Janice ran in to see her "just for a moment."

Therefore, it could scarcely be counted strange that the young school princ.i.p.al should have caught the girl in Mrs. Beaseley's bright kitchen when he came home with his satchel of books and papers.

"There! I do declare for't!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the widow, who was a rather lugubrious woman living in what she believed to be the remembrance of "her sainted Charles."

"There! I do declare for't! I git to talkin' and I forgit how the time flies. That's what my poor Charles uster say--he had _that_ fault to find with me, poor soul. I couldn't never seem to git the vittles on the table on time when I was young.

"I was mindin' to make you a shortcake for your supper to-night, Mr.

Haley, out o' some o' them peaches I canned last Fall! But it's so late----"

"You needn't hurry supper on my account, Mrs. Beaseley," said Nelson, cheerily, and without removing his gloves. "I find I've to go downtown again on an errand. I'll not be back for an hour."

Janice was smiling merrily at him from the doorway.

Mrs. Beaseley began to bustle about. "That'll give me just time to toss up the shortcake," she proclaimed. "Good-bye, Janice. Come again. Mr. Haley'll like to walk along with you, I know."

Mrs. Beaseley was blind to what most people, in Polktown knew--that Janice and the schoolteacher were the very closest of friends. Only their years--at least, only Janice's youth--precluded an announced engagement between them.

"Wait until I can come home and get a square look at this phenomenal young man whom you have found in Polktown," Daddy had written, and Janice would not dream of going against her father's expressed wish.

Besides, Nelson Haley was a poor young man, with his own way to make in the world. His work in the Polktown school had attracted the attention of the faculty of a college not far away, and he had already been invited to join the teaching staff of that inst.i.tution.

Janice had been the young man's inspiration when he had first come to Polktown, a raw college graduate, bent only on "teaching for a living"

and on earning his salary as easily as possible. Awakened by his desire to stand well in the estimation of the serious-minded girl--eager to "make good" with her--Nelson Haley had put his shoulder to the wheel, and the result was Polktown's fine new graded school, with the young man himself at the head of it.

Nelson was good looking--extremely good looking, indeed. He was light, not dark like Janice, and he was muscular and st.u.r.dy without being at all fleshy. The girl was proud of him--he was always so well-dressed, so gentlemanly, and carried himself with such an a.s.sured air. Daddy was bound to be pleased with a young man like Nelson Haley, once he should see the schoolteacher!

In his companionship now, Janice rather lost sight of the troubles that had come upon her of late. Nelson told her of his school plans as they strolled down High Street.

"And I fancy these lectures and readings the School Committee are arranging will be a good thing," the young man said. "We'll slip a little extra information to the boys and girls of Polktown without their suspecting it."

"Sugar-coated pills?" laughed Janice.

"Yes. The old system of pounding knowledge into the infant cranium isn't in vogue any more."

"Poor things!" murmured Janice Day, from the lofty rung of the scholastic ladder she had attained. "Poor things! I don't blame them for wondering: 'What's the use?' Marty wonders now, old as he is.

There is such a lot to learn in the world!"

They talked of other things, too, and it was the appearance of Jim Narnay weaving a crooked trail across High Street toward the rear of the Inn that brought back to the girl's mind the weight of new trouble that had settled upon it.

"Oh, dear! there's that poor creature," murmured Janice. "And I haven't been to see how his family is."

"Who--Jim Narnay's family?" asked Nelson.

"Yes."

"You'd better keep away from such people, Janice," the young man said urgently.

"Why?"

"You don't want to mix with such folk, my dear," repeated the young man, shaking his head. "What good can it do? The fellow is a drunken rascal and not worth striving to do anything for."

"But his family? The poor little children?" said Janice, softly.

"If you give them money, Jim'll drink it up."

"I believe that," admitted Janice. "So I won't give them money. But I can buy things for them that they need. And the poor little baby is sick. That cunning Sophie told me so."

"Goodness, Janice!" laughed Nelson, yet with some small vexation. "I see there's no use in opposing your charitable instincts. But I really wish you would not get acquainted with every rag-tag and bob-tail in town. First those Trimminses--and now these Narnays!"

Janice laughed at this. "Why, they can't hurt me, Nelson. And perhaps I might do them good."

"You cannot handle charcoal without getting some of the s.m.u.t on your fingers," Nelson declared, dogmatically.

"But they are not charcoal. They are just some of G.o.d's unfortunates,"

added the young girl, gently. "It is not Sophie's fault that her father drinks. And maybe it isn't altogether _his_ fault."

"What arrant nonsense!" exclaimed Nelson, with some exasperation. "It always irritates me when I hear these old topers excused. A man should be able to take a gla.s.s of wine or beer or spirits--or let it alone."

"Yes, indeed, Nelson," agreed Janice, demurely. "He _ought_ to."

The young man glanced sharply into her rather serious countenance. He suspected that she was not agreeing with him, after all, very strongly.

Finally he laughed, and the spark of mischief immediately danced in Janice Day's hazel eyes.

"That is just where the trouble lies, Nelson, with drinking intoxicating things. People should be able to drink or not, as they feel inclined. But alcohol is insidious. Why! you teach that in your own cla.s.ses, Nelson Haley!"