"I say, Janice," he said, grinning, when he came back. "I can solve the mystery, I can."

"What mystery?" asked his cousin, who was flushed now with helping her aunt get breakfast.

"The mystery of the 'early worm' that you saw this mornin'." He brought his hand from behind him and displayed an empty, amber-colored flask on which was a gaudy label announcing its contents to have been whiskey and sold by "_L. Parraday, Polktown._"

"Oh, dear! Is _that_ the trouble with the Besmith boy?" murmured Janice.

"That's how he came to lose his job with Ma.s.sey."

"Poor fellow! He looked dreadful!"

"Oh, he's a bad egg," said her cousin, carelessly.

Janice hurried through breakfast, for the car was to be brought forth to-day. Marty had been fussing over it for almost a week. The wind was drying up the roads and it was possible for Janice to take a spin out into the open country.

Marty's prospects of enjoying the outing, however, were nipped before he could leave the table.

"Throw the chain harness on the colts, Marty," said his father. "The 'tater-patch is dry enough to put the plow in. And I'll want ye to help me."

"Oh--Dad! I got to help Janice get her car out. This ain't no time to plow for 'taters," declared Marty.

"Your mouth'll be open wider'n anybody else's in the house for the 'taters when they're grown," said Uncle Jason, calmly. "You got to do your share toward raisin' 'em."

"Oh, Dad!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the boy again.

"Now, Marty, you stop talkin'!" cried his mother.

"Huh! you wanter make a feller dumb around here, too. S'pose Janice breaks down on the road?" he added, with reviving hope.

"I guess she'll find somebody that knows fully as much about them gasoline buggies as you do, Son," observed Uncle Jason, easily. "You an' me'll tackle the 'tater field."

When his father spoke so positively Marty knew there was no use trying to change him. He frowned, and muttered, and kicked the table leg as he got up, but to no avail.

Janice, later, got into her car and started for a ride. She put the Kremlin right at the hill and it climbed Hillside Avenue with wonderful ease. The engine purred prettily and not a thing went wrong.

"Poor Marty! It's too bad he couldn't go, too," she thought. "I'd gladly share this with somebody."

Nelson, she knew, was busy this forenoon. It took no little of his out-of-school time to prepare the outline for the ensuing week's work.

Besides, on this Sat.u.r.day morning, there was a special meeting of the School Committee, as he had told her the afternoon before. Something to do with the course of lectures before mentioned. And the young princ.i.p.al of Polktown's graded school was very faithful to his duties.

She thought of Mrs. Drugg and little Lottie; but there was trouble at the Drugg home. Somehow, on this bright, sweet-smelling morning, Janice shrank from touching anything unpleasant, or coming into communication with anybody who was not in attune with the day.

She was fated, however, to rub elbows with Trouble wherever she went and whatever she did. She ran the Kremlin past the rear of Walky Dexter's place and saw Walky himself currying Josephus and his mate on the stable floor. The man waved his currycomb at her and grinned. But his well-known grimace did not cheer Janice Day.

"Dear me! Poor Walky is in danger, too," thought the young girl.

"Why! the whole of Polktown is changing. In some form or other that liquor selling at the Inn touches all our lives. I wonder if other people see it as plainly as I do."

She ran up into the Upper Middletown Road, as far out as Elder Concannon's. The old gentleman--once Janice Day's very stern critic, but now her staunch friend--was in the yard when Janice approached in her car. He waved a cordial hand at her and turned away from the man he had been talking with.

"Well, there ye have it, Trimmins," the girl heard the elder say, as her engine stopped. "If you can find a man or two to help you, I'll let you have a team and you can go in there and haul them logs.

There's a market for 'em, and the logs lie jest right for hauling. You and your partner can make a profit, and so can I."

Then he said to Janice: "Good morning, child! You're as fresh to look at as a morning-glory."

She had nodded and smiled at the patriarchal old gentleman; but her eyes were now on the long and lanky looking woodsman who stood by.

"Good day, Mr. Trimmins," she said, when she had returned Elder Concannon's greeting. "Is Mrs. Trimmins well? And my little Virginia and all the rest of them?"

"The fambly's right pert, Miss," Trimmins said.

Janice had a question or two to ask the elder regarding the use of the church vestry for some exercises by the Girl's Guild of which she had been the founder and was still the leading spirit.

"Goodness, yes!" agreed the elder. "Do anything you like, Janice, if you can keep those young ones interested in anything besides dancing and parties. Still, what can ye expect of the young gals when their mothers are given up to folly and dissipation?

"There's Mrs. Marvin Petrie and Mrs. Major Price want to be 'patronesses,' I believe they call themselves, of an a.s.sembly Ball, an'

want to hold the ball at Lem Parraday's hotel. It's bad enough to have them dances; but to have 'em at a place where liquor is sold, is a sin and a shame! I wish Lem Parraday had lost the hotel entirely, before he got a liquor license."

"Oh, Elder! It is dreadful that liquor should be sold in Polktown,"

Janice said, from the seat of the automobile. "I'm just beginning to see it."

"That's what it is," said the elder, st.u.r.dily.

"It's a shame Mr. Parraday was ever allowed to have a license at the Lake View Inn."

"Wal--it does seem too bad," the elder agreed, but with less confidence in his tone.

"I know they say the Inn scarcely paid him and his wife, and he might have had to give it up this Spring," Janice said.

"Ahem! That would have been unfortunate for the mortgagee," slowly observed the old man.

"Mr. Cross Moore?" Janice quickly rejoined. "Well! he could afford to lose a little money if anybody could."

"Tut, tut!" exclaimed the elder, who had a vast respect for money.

"Don't say that, child. n.o.body can afford to lose money."

Janice turned her car about soberly. She saw that the ramification of this liquor selling business was far-reaching, indeed. Elder Concannon spoke only too truly.

Where self-interest was concerned most people would lean toward the side of liquor selling.

"The tentacles of the monster have insinuated themselves into our social and business life, as well as into our homes," she thought.

"Why--why, what can _I_ do about it? Just _me_, a girl all alone."

CHAPTER VII

SWEPT ON BY THE CURRENT