ON THE ROAD WITH WALKY DEXTER
Janice Day found the weeks sliding by more quickly after this.
Although school soon closed, she had begun to find so many interests in
Poketown that she could now write dear Daddy in Mexico quite cheerful
letters.
She had "kept at" Hopewell Drugg until his store was the main topic of
conversation all over town. The man himself was even "spruced up" a
bit, and he met the curious people who put themselves out to see his
rejuvenated store with such a pleasant and businesslike air, that many
new customers were attracted to come again.
Neatly printed announcements had been scattered about Poketown, signed
by Hopewell Drugg, and making a bid for a share of the general trade.
His windows remained attractively dressed. He displayed new stock and
up-to-the-minute articles. The drummers who came to Poketown began to
pay more attention to this store on the side street.
But Janice Day believed, that, like charity, reformation should begin
at home. The old Day house was slowly revolutionized that summer.
Commencing with the cleaning up of the yard and the mending of the
pump, Janice inspired further improvements. Marty and she spent each
Saturday morning in the dooryard and garden, while Mr. Day mended the
front porch flooring, where the minister had met with his accident, and
reshingled the roof.
The boles of the fruit and shade trees about the house were
whitewashed, and the palings of the fence renewed. Somehow a pair of
new hinges were found for the gate. The sidewalk was raked, all the
weeds cut away from the fence-line, and the sod between the path and
the gutter trimmed and its edges cut evenly.
When Marty actually whitewashed the fence, Mr. Day admitted that it was
such an improvement he wished he could go on and paint the house.
"But, by mighty!" he drawled, "it's been so long since 'twas painted,
it 'ud soak up an awful sight of oil."
Other people along Hillside Avenue began to take notice of the
improvement about the old Day house. Mr. Dickerson built a new front
fence, getting it on a line with the Days' barrier. Others trimmed
hedges and trees, put the lawn mower to their grass, bolstered up
sagging fences, and rehung gates. Hillside Avenue, up its whole
length, began to look less neglected.
Janice had a fondness for the little inlet, with its background of tall
firs, where she had first met little Lottie Drugg, and she often walked
down there. So she became pretty well acquainted with "Mr. Selectman"
Cross Moore. But as yet she did not get as far out on the Middletown
Lower Road as the house where the Hammett Twins lived.
One day she found a long lumber-reach dropping new posts and rails
along the length of the deep ditch into which the twins' pony had come
so near to backing the little old ladies on that memorable day when
Janice had first met them.
"Hi tunket!" ejaculated Mr. Moore, grinning in a most friendly way at
Janice, "I hope you'll be satisfied now. You've jest about hounded me
into havin' this fence put up again."
"Why, Mr. Moore! I never said a thing to you about it," cried the girl.
"No. But I see ye ev'ry time you go by, and I'm so reminded of the
'tarnal fence that I remember it o' nights. If somebody _should_ fall
inter the ditch, ye know. And then-- Well, I've found out you've made
little Lottie Drugg promise not to come down this way 'niess somebody's
with her. 'Fraid _she'll_ fall in here, too, I s'pose----"
"Well, she might," said Janice, firmly.
"She won't have no chance," growled Mr. Moore, but with twinkling eyes
in spite of his gruffness. "Hi tunket! I'll build a railing along
here that'll hold up an elephunt."
This day Janice had set forth for a long jaunt into the country. She
took the turn where the Hammett Twins and their pony had first come
into her sight, and kept walking on the Middletown Lower Road for a
long way. It overlooked the lake, Janice had been told, for most of
the distance to the larger town.
She passed several farmhouses but did not reach the Hammett place;
instead she rested upon a rustic bridge where a swift, brawling brook
came down from the hills to tumble into the lake. Then, as she was
going on, a quick "put, put, put" sounded from along the road she had
been traveling.
"It's a motorcycle," thought Janice. "I didn't know anybody owned one
around Poketown."
Turning the bend in the road the 'cycle flashed into view, along with a
whisp of dust. A young man rode the machine--a young man who looked
entirely different from the youths of Poketown. Janice looked at him
with interest as he flashed past. She thought he was going so fast
that he would never notice her curiosity.
He was muscularly built, with a round head set firmly upon a solid
neck, from which his shirt was turned well away, thus displaying the
cords of his throat to advantage. He was well bronzed by the sun, and
the heavy crop of hair, on which he wore a visorless round cap, was
crisp and of a dull gold color. He really _was_ a good-looking young
man, and in his knickerbockers and golf stockings Janice thought he
seemed very "citified" indeed.
"He's a college boy, I am sure," decided the girl, with interest,
watching the rider out of sight. "I couldn't see his eyes behind those
dust glasses; but I believe there was a dimple in his cheek. If his
face was washed, I don't doubt but what he'd be good-looking," and she
laughed. "Why! here's Walky Dexter!"
The red-faced driver of the "party wagon" drew in Josephus and his
mate, with a flourish.
"Wal, now! I _am_ beat," he ejaculated, his little eyes twinkling.
"Can't be I've found a _lost_ Day?"
"No, indeed, Mr. Dexter," she told him. "I _was_ thinking I'd walk to
the Hammetts'; but it's turned so hot and dusty----"
"And the Hammett gals live two good mile ahead o' ye."
"Oh! as far as that?"
"Surest thing ye know. Better hop in an' jog along back 'ith me," said
Walkworthy Dexter, cordially.
"Can I, Mr. Dexter?"
"You air jest as welcome as the flowers in May," he assured her.
"Whoa, Josephus. Stand still, Kate! My sakes! but the flies bite the
critters this morning, an' no mistake."
Janice "hopped in," and Mr. Dexter clucked to the willing horses.
"I jest been takin' a party of our young folks over to Middletown to
take examinations for entrance to the Academy," proclaimed Walky. "An'
that remin's me," added he. "Did yer see that feller go by on one o'
them gasoline bikes?"
"On the motorcycle?"
"Ya-as."
"I saw him," admitted Janice.
"Know him?"
"Of course not. He doesn't belong in Poketown, I'm sure."
"Mebbe he will," said Walky, his eyes twinkling with fun again.
Janice looked at him, puzzled.
"Ain't you heard?" he questioned. "'Rill Scattergood's resigned and
the school committee is lookin' for a new teacher. _That_ feller's got
the bee in his bonnet, they told me at Middletown."
"The school-teaching bee?" laughed the girl.
"Yep. He'd been for his certif'cate. He's been writin' to the
Poketown committee."
"But--but he isn't much more than a boy himself, is he?"
"They tell me he's been through college. Must be a smart youngster
for, as you say, he's nothin' but a kid."
"I didn't say that!" cried Janice, in some little panic, for she knew
Dexter's proneness to gossip. "Don't you dare say I did!"
He chuckled. "Wa-al, ye meant it. Come now--didn't ye? An' he _is_ a
mighty young feller ter be teachin' school. 'Specially with sech big
girls an' boys in it. He'll have ter fight the boys, it's likely, an'
I shouldn't wonder if the big gals set their caps for him."
"I'm afraid you're a very reckless talker, Mr. Dexter," sighed Janice.
Then her hazel eyes brightened suddenly, and she added, "They ought to
call you 'Talky' Dexter, instead of 'Walky', I believe."
"'Talkworthy Dexter', eh?" he grinned.
"I'm not sure that you _do_ always _talk worthy_," she told him,
shaking a serious head. "You're very apt to say things to 'stir folks
all up,' as my Aunt says. Oh, yes, you do! You know you do, Mr.
Dexter."
"Wal, I declare!" chuckled the man, but with a queer little side glance
at the serious face of the girl. "Think I'm a trouble-breeder, do ye?"
"You just ask yourself that, sir," said Janice, firmly. "You know
you're just delighted if you can say something to start things going,
as you call it. And it isn't worthy of you----"
"Whether I'm 'Talkworthy', or 'Walkworthy', eh?" he broke in, laughing.
"Oh, I didn't mean any offence!" exclaimed Janice, much disturbed now
to think that she had criticised the man just as he was in the habit of
criticising everybody else.
"I snum! mebbe you're right," grunted Walky Dexter. "And I reckon
talkin' don't do much good after all. Now, look at Cross Moore. I
been at him a year an' more to fix that rail fence along the ditch by
his house. 'Tain't done no good. But, by jinks! somebody else got at
him," added Walky, slyly, "an' I see this mornin' Cross was gittin' the
rails and new posts there. He was right on the job."
Janice's cheeks grew rosy. "Why!" she cried, "I never said a word to
him about it."
"No; but somehow he got the idee from you. He told me so," and Walky
chuckled.
"I think Mr. Moore likes to joke--the same as you do, Mr. Dexter," said
Janice, quietly.
"Ahem! You sartainly have got some of us goin'," said the driver,
whimsically. "Look at Jase Day! I never _did_ think nothin' less'n
Gabriel's trump would start Jase. But yest'day I'm jiggered if I
didn't see him mendin' his pasture fence. And the old Day house looks
like another place--that's right. How d'you do it?"
"I--I don't just know what you mean," stammered Janice, feeling very
uncomfortable.
He looked at her with his eyes screwed up again. "D'you know what they
said about yer uncle las' year? He come down to Jefferson's store with
a basket of pertaters. All the big ones was on top and the little ones
at the bottom. Huh! _He_ ain't the only one that 'deacons' a basket
of pertaters," and Walky chuckled.
"But the boys said 'twas easy to see how come Jase's pertaters that-a
way. 'Twas 'cause it took him so 'tarnal long to dig a basket, that
the pertaters grew ahead of him in the row--that's right! When he
begun they was little, but by the time he got a basket full they'd
growed a lot," and the gossip guffawed his delight at the story.
"But he's sure gettin' 'round some spryer this year. An' I snum!
there's Marty, too. He's workin' in his mother's garden reg'lar. I
seen him. 'Fore you came, Miss Janice, if Marty was diggin' in the
garden an' found a worm, he thought he was goin' fishin' and got him a
bait can and a pole, an' set right off for the lake--that's right!" and
Walky shook all over, and grew so red in the face over his joke that
Janice was really afraid he was becoming apoplectic.
But something in the middle of the road, as they made another corner,
stopped all this fun.
"Hullo!" exclaimed Walky. "That young feller on the gasoline bike has
had an accident. Don't it look that way to you?"