"Oh!" returned the youth, quite coolly. "I didn't know but you were one of the number, and that I was already being put through my examination."

But Walky Dexter was not easily feazed. He just blinked twice over this snub and pursued the conversation:

"They tell me you've been ter college?"

"My! my!" exclaimed the young man, "_they_ tell you a good deal, don't they? Is it just a habit folks have, or have the Poketown selectmen pa.s.sed an ordinance that you are to be the recipient of all personal information?"

Janice was still amused, although she thought the young man was rather hard upon the town gossip. But Walky thought the observation over, and seemed finally to realize that the motorcyclist was making sport of him.

"Aw, well," he said, grinning broadly, "if you air tender about your pussonal record, I'll say no more about it. But I allus b'lieve in goin'

right ter headquarters when I want ter know anything. Saves makin'

mistakes. If you air ashamed of your criminal past, Mister, why, that's all right--we won't say no more about it."

At this the young fellow stood up, put his hands upon his hips, and burst into a hearty shout of laughter. Janice had to join in, while Walky Dexter grinned, knowing he had made a good point.

"You certainly had me there, old timer!" declared the youth at last.

"Now providing you will be as frank, and do the honors as well, I'll introduce myself as Nelson Haley. I hail from Springfield. I have spent four years in the scholastic halls of Williamstown. I hope to go to law school, but meanwhile must earn a part of the where-with-all. Therefore, I am attacking the citadel of the Poketown School."

"Oh! That's the why-for of it, eh?" crowed Walky. "Much obleeged. I'll know what to say now when anybody asks me."

"I hope so," returned Nelson Haley, with some sarcasm. "But fair exchange, Mister. You might tell me who I have the honor of speaking to--and, especially, you might introduce me to the lady?"

"Oh! Eh?" and Walky looked at the blushing Janice, questioningly. The girl smiled, however, and the driver cleared his throat and gravely made the introduction. "And I'm Walky Dexter," he concluded. "If you git the Poketown school you'll come ter know me quite well, I shouldn't wonder."

"That is something to look forward to, I am sure," declared Nelson Haley, drily. Then he turned to Janice, and asked:

"Will you be one of my pupils, if I have the good fortune to get the school, Miss Day?"

"I--I am afraid not. I do not really belong in Poketown," Janice explained. "And the ungraded school could not aid me much."

"No, I suppose not," returned the young man. "Well! I hope I see you again, Miss Day."

Walky clucked to the horses and they jogged on, leaving Nelson Haley to finish his repairs. Walky chuckled, and said to Janice:

"He's quite a flip young feller. He is young to tackle the Poketown school. An' 'twill be an objection, I shouldn't wonder. Ye see, they couldn't find that fault with 'Rill Scattergood."

"But I venture to say that they did when she first came to Poketown to teach," cried Janice.

"Oh, say! I sh'd say they did," agreed Walky, with a retrospective rolling of his head. "An' she was a purty young gal, then, too. There was more on us than Hopewell Drugg arter 'Rill in them days--yes, sir-ree!"

Janice was curious, and she yielded to the temptation of asking the town gossip a question:

"Why--why didn't Miss 'Rill marry Hopewell, then?"

"The goodness only knows why they fell out, Miss Janice," declared Walky. "We none of us ever made out. I 'spect it was the old woman done it--ol' Miz' Scattergood. She didn't take kindly to Hopewell. And then--Well, 'Cinda Stone was lef' all alone, an' she lived right back o'

Drugg's store, an' her father had owed Drugg a power of money 'fore he died--a big store bill, ye see. Hopewell Drugg is as soft as b.u.t.ter; mebbe he loved 'Cinda Stone; anyhow he merried her after he'd got the mitten from Amarilla. Huh! ye can't never tell the whys and wherefores of sech things--not re'lly."

A presidential election would have made little more stir in Poketown than the coming there of this young man who looked for the position of school-teacher. Marty brought home word at night to the old Day house that Mr. Haley had put up at the Lake View Inn; that he had let two of the older boys try out his motorcycle; that he could pitch a ball that "Dunk" Peters couldn't hit, even though "Dunk" had played one season with the Fitchburg team. Likewise, that Mr. Haley was to go before the school committee that evening. And after supper Marty hastened down town again to learn how the examination of the young collegian "came out."

"I do hope," sighed Aunt 'Mira, "that this young man gits the school.

Mebbe Marty will like him, an' go again. I won't say but that the boy's a good deal better'n he was; he's changed since you've come, Janice. But he'd oughter git more schoolin'--so he had."

"I met Mr. Haley," said her niece, quietly. "He seems like quite a nice young man; and, if he has any interest in his work, he ought to give a good many of the Poketown boys a better start."

For Marty Day was not the only young loafer in the town. There was always a group of half-grown boys hanging about Josiah Pringle's harness shop, or the sheds of the Lake View Inn.

In Greensboro there had been a good library and reading-room, and the Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation boys and young men had a chance _there_. Janice knew that her father's influence had helped open these club-like places for the boys, and so had kept them off the streets.

There wasn't a thing in Poketown for boys to do or a place to go to, save the stores where the older men lounged. Sometimes, her aunt told her, men brought jugs of hard cider to the Inn tables, and the boys got to drinking the stuff.

"Now, if this Nelson Haley is any sort of a fellow, and he gets the school," murmured Janice to herself, "he may do something."

Marty brought home the latest report from the committee meeting before they went to bed. Mr. Haley seemed to have made a good impression upon the three old dry-as-dust committeemen, especially on old Elder Concannon, the superannuated minister who had lived in Poketown for fifty years, although he had not preached at the Union Church, saving on special occasion, for two decades.

"The Elder says he thinks this Haley'll do," said Marty, with a grin. "I heard him tell Walky Dexter so. He knows some Latin, Haley does," added the boy. "What's Latin, Janice?"

"Nothing that will help him in the least to teach the Poketown School,"

declared his cousin, rather sharply for her. "Isn't that ridiculous!

What can that old minister be thinking of?"

"The Elder's great on what he calls 'the cla.s.sics,'" said Mr. Day, with a chuckle. "He reads the Bible in the 'riginal, as he calls it. He allus said 'Rill Scattergood didn't know enough to teach school."

"I don't believe that Poketown really needs a teacher who reads Hebrew and can translate a Latin verse. That is, those studies will not help Mr. Haley much in your school," Janice replied.

"Wal," said Marty, "I'll go when school opens and give him a whirl.

Maybe he'll teach me how to fling that drop curve."

"Now!" whined Aunt 'Mira, when Marty had stumped up to bed. "What good is it goin' ter do that boy ter go ter school an' learn baseball, I want ter know?"

CHAPTER XIV

A TIME OF TRIAL

Janice met Nelson Haley a couple of days later in Hopewell Drugg's store. The matter had been decided ere then; Haley had obtained the school and had quickly established himself in a boarding-place, as the school would open the next week.

'Rill Scattergood and her mother had already gone to housekeeping in three nice rooms just around the corner on High Street, and Mr. Haley had the good fortune to be "taken in" by Mrs. Beasely. The gaunt old widow was plainly delighted once more to have "a man to do for."

"If my digestion holds out, Miss Day," whispered the young man to Janice, "I'm going to do fine with Mrs. Beasely. Good old creature! But she may kill me with kindness. I don't see how I am going to be able to do full justice to her three meals a day."

"I hope you will like it as well in school as you do at your boarding-place," ventured Janice, timidly.

"Oh, the school? That's going to be pie," laughed Haley. "You know about how it's been run, don't you?"

"I--I attended for more than a month last spring," admitted the girl.

"Then you know very well," said the young man, smiling broadly, "that it won't be half a trick to satisfy the committee. They don't expect much.