"No, no!" she laughed up at him. "It's only the moonlight," and a little later he left her at the old Day house with a casual handshake.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE SCHOOL DEDICATION

Thereafter there was a somewhat different tone to the friendship between Janice and the school-teacher. They were confidential. They both a.s.sumed that the other was interested in the matters dear to each. It was a comradery that had no silly side to it. Nelson Haley was a young man working his way up the first rungs of the ladder of life; Janice was his good friend and staunch partisan.

As neither was possessed of brother or sister, they adopted each other in that stead.

The winter fled away at last and Spring came over the mountain range and down to the lakeside, scattering flowers and gra.s.ses as she pa.s.sed.

Although Janice had enjoyed some of the fun and frolic of the New England winter, she was perfectly delighted to see the season change.

It had been late spring when she reached Poketown the year before. Now she saw the season open, and her first trips over the hillsides and through the wood lot where the snow still lay in sheltered places, searching for the earliest flowers, were days of delight for the girl.

The Shower Bath was released from its icy fetters, and the little mountain stream poured over the lip of granite with a burst of sound like laughter. She visited The Overlook, too; but she did not need to view the landscape o'er to enable her to understand why G.o.d did not immediately answer her prayers for her father.

Great news from the mine in Mexico:

"We haven't made much money yet, it is true," Mr. Day wrote about this time. "But things are going right. The armies--both of them--are now far away and if they leave us in peace for a few months, your Daddy will make so much money that you can have the desire of your heart, my dear."

And the "desire of her heart" just then was--and had been for months--a little automobile in which she might ride over the roads about Poketown.

There wasn't a good horse and carriage obtainable in the town; and Janice found the time hanging heavily upon her hands.

"If I just had a car!" she would often say, until Marty got to teasing her about it, and Nelson Haley, whenever he saw her, usually asked very sober questions about her car--if she'd had much tire trouble on her last trip, and so forth!

"You can all just laugh at me," Janice declared. "I know Daddy will send the money some time. And then, if you are not _very_ good, and _very_ polite, you sha'n't ride with me at all."

Aunt 'Mira was so inspired by her niece's talk of an automobile that she studied the mail-order catalogues diligently, and finally sent off for a coat and veil, together with an approved automobile mask, to be worn when she went motoring through the country with Janice!

The spring pa.s.sed and summer came. The cellar walls of the new schoolhouse were laid, and then the framework went up, and finally the handsome edifice was finished upon the outside. Really, Poketown was fairly startled by the appearance of the new building. Some of the very people who had been opposed to the thing were won over by its appearance.

"Hi tunket!" exclaimed Mr. Cross Moore, "barrin' the taxes we'll haf ter pay for the next ten year, I could be glad ter see sech a handsome house in the town. An' they tell me 'at teacher has had more ter do with the plannin' of the school than the architect himself. Too bad Mr. Haley ain't goin' ter be here no longer than this term. He'd ought ter have the bossin' of the new school."

"Who says he won't?" snapped Walky Dexter, who heard the selectman's statement.

"You ax the Elder--or old Bill Jones," chortled Moore.

"Come now! what do you mean by that?" demanded Mr. Ma.s.sey, in whose store the conversation took place.

"Ax 'em," said Mr. Moore again. "They've got it fixed up to fire Mr.

Haley at the end of this term."

"Nothin' like bein' warned in time," said Walky Dexter. "Them old s.h.a.gbarks ain't been e-lected themselves for next year, yet. They air takin' too blamed much for granted, that's what's the matter with them.

July school meetin' is purty near; but mebbe we kin put a spoke in their wheel."

Forthwith Walkworthy Dexter began to earn his right to the nickname Janice had once given him. He became "Talky" Dexter, and he talked to some purpose. When the school meeting was held in July there was the most astonishing overturn that had been seen in Poketown for years. An entirely new committee was elected to govern school affairs, and all were men in favor of new methods.

Before this, the school had closed and Nelson Haley had gone to Maine to work in a hotel during the summer. The last half of the school year had been much different from the young man's fall term. Although he gave the boys all the instruction in baseball he had promised, and otherwise had kept up their interest in the school, he had begun to lay out the work differently for the pupils and really try to increase the value of his instruction. Whether he was to be fortunate enough to head the new school in the fall, or not, he began to train the pupils to more modern methods. Whoever took hold of the new school would find the scholars somewhat prepared for the graded system.

Poketown was actually shocked! The good old Elder and his mates had so long governed school matters just as they pleased that many of the people could not realize that a new day had dawned--in school affairs, at least.

Elder Concannon was doomed to see more of his influence wane during this summer. Heretofore he had managed to keep out of the church anything like a young people's society, in spite of Mr. Middler's desire to the contrary. But there were now several earnest young people in the church membership who were anxious to be set to work to some purpose.

The a.s.sociation was a small one at first. Janice was a member. Soon the influence of the organization began to be felt in more ways than one.

"I can see just how things are going, Brother Middler--I can see plainly," old Elder Concannon declared. "Just as soon as they told me that Day girl was a member of the society I knew what would happen. A new carpet for the aisle and the pulpit chairs upholstered! Ha! And them girls and boys themselves cleaning windows and sweeping and dusting the whole church once a month. Ridiculous! Myron Jones has always suited us as s.e.xton before. Oh! we'll have no peace--no peace at all!"

"But, Elder," timidly suggested the pastor, "such things as the young people have asked to do have been helpful things. And I'm sure if you would attend one of their meetings you would find their spiritual growth commendable--surely commendable."

"Ha!" sniffed the old gentleman, wagging his bristling head. "What do those boys and girls know about religion, and the work of the spirit, and----"

"One thing is sure, Elder," interposed Mr. Middler with more courage than was usual with him, "One thing is sure: if our children have no proper appreciation of such things, it is certainly _our_ fault. We older ones have been remiss in our duty."

This seemed to take the Elder aback. He stared at the younger man for a moment; but as he turned away he muttered:

"It's all nonsense! And it's just as I've said. No peace since that Day girl came to town."

Mr. Middler had the courage of his convictions for once. He said nothing more to rasp the old gentleman's feelings and prejudices; but he backed up the young people in their attempt to freshen up the old church. He mingled with them more than ever he had before; and from that contact with their young and hopeful natures he carried into his pulpit a more joyful outlook upon life. Mr. Middler was growing, along with his young people, and he really preached a sermon now and then in which there wasn't a doctrinal argument!

Not that Janice held a very important position in the young people's society. But she had belonged to one back in Greensboro, in her own beloved church, and she had helped form this Poketown organization. She would not take office in this new society, for all the time she hoped that her father's affairs would change and they might be together again.

There was never a day begun that Janice did not hope that this reunion might be consummated soon; and the desire was a part of her bedside prayer at night. She was no longer lonely, or even homesick, in Poketown. She really loved her relatives, and she knew that they loved her. She had made many friends, and her time was fairly well occupied.

But her longing for Daddy seemed to grow with the lapse of time. She wanted to see him so much that it actually _hurt_ when she allowed herself to think about it!

"Ain't you ever goin' to be still a minute, Janice?" complained her aunt frequently. "You're hoppin' 'round all the time jest like a hen on a hot skillet, I declare for't!"

"Why, Aunt 'Mira," she told the good lady, "I couldn't possibly sit with my hands folded. I'd rather work on the treadmill than do _that_."

"You wait till you've worked as many years as I have--an' got as leetle for it," said Aunt 'Mira, shaking her head. "You won't be so spry," and with that she buried herself in her story paper again.

There was an improvement, however, even in Aunt 'Mira. She could not leave the "love stories" alone, and if she had a particularly exciting one, she would sit down in her chair in the middle of the kitchen floor and let the breakfast dishes go till noon.

Usually, however, she "slicked up," as she called it, after dinner, instead of spending her time on the sofa, and sometimes she and Janice went calling with their needlework, like the other ladies up and down Hillside Avenue, or had some of the neighbors in to call on them.

Aunt 'Mira had spent some of Janice's board money on the furnishings of the house as well as in silk dresses and automobile veils. There were new curtains at the windows; the sitting-room had a new rag carpet woven by a neighbor; the rather worn boards of the kitchen were covered with brightly-figured linoleum.

Inside and out there were now few "loose ends" about the old Day house.

The stair to the upper story was mended, and covered with a bright runner. The premises about the house were kept neat and attractive, and Mr. Day had somehow found the money to paint the house that spring, while the stables and other outbuildings looked much neater than when Janice had first seen them.

She and Marty had taken complete charge of the garden this year, and the girl had inspired her cousin with some of her own love of neatness and order. The rows of vegetables were straight; the weeds were kept out; and they had earlier potatoes and peas for the table than anybody else on Hillside Avenue.

The lane was, by the way, different in appearance from the untidy and crooked street up which Janice had climbed with Uncle Jason that day of her arrival at Poketown. The neighboring homes showed the influence of a.s.sociation with the Day place.