HOW NELSON TOOK IT
Something more than mere curiosity drew Janice Day's footsteps toward
the new school building. There were other people drawn in the same
direction; but their interest was not like hers.
Somehow, this newest bit of gossip in Polktown could be better
discussed at the scene of the strange robbery itself. Icivilly Sprague
and Mabel Woods walked there, arm in arm, passing Janice by with side
glances and the tossing of heads.
Icivilly and Mabel had attended Nelson's school the first term after
Miss 'Rill Scattergood gave up teaching; but finding the young
schoolmaster impervious to their charms, they had declared themselves
graduated.
They were not alone among the older girls who found Nelson provokingly
adamant. He did not flirt. Of late it had become quite apparent that
the schoolmaster had eyes only for Janice Day. Of course, that fact
did not gain Nelson friends among girls like Icivilly and Mabel in this
time of trial.
Janice knew that they were whispering about her as she passed; but her
real thought was given to more important matters. Uncle Jason had told
her just how the affair of the robbery stood. There was a mystery--a
deep, deep mystery about it.
In the group about the front gate of the school premises were Jim
Narnay and Trimmins, the woodsmen. Both had been drinking and were
rather hilarious and talkative. At least, Trimmins was so.
"Wish _we'd_ knowed there was all that cash so free and open up here in
the schoolhouse--heh, Jim?" Trimmins said, smiting his brother toper
between the shoulders. "We wouldn't be diggin' out for no swamp to
haul logs."
"You're mighty right, Trimmins! You're mighty right!" agreed the
drunken Narnay. "Gotter leave m' fambly--hate ter do it!" and he
became very lachrymose. "Ter'ble thing, Trimmins, f'r a man ter be
sep'rated from his fambly jest so's ter airn his livin'."
"Right ye air, old feller," agreed the Southerner. "Hullo! here's the
buddy we're waitin' for. How long d'ye s'pose he'll last, loggin?"
Janice saw the ex-drug clerk, Jack Besmith, mounting the hill with a
pack on his back. Rough as the two lumbermen were, Besmith looked the
more dissolute character, despite his youth.
The trio went away together, bound evidently for one of Elder
Concannon's pieces of woodland, over the mountain.
Benny Thread came out of the school building and locked the door
importantly behind him. Several of the curious ones surrounded the
little man and tried to get him into conversation upon the subject of
the robbery.
"No, I can't talk," he said, shaking his head. "I can't, really. The
gentlemen of the School Committee have forbidden me. Why--only think!
It was more by good luck than good management that I wasn't placed in a
position where I could be suspected of the robbery. Lucky I was with
the committeemen every moment of the time they were down cellar. No, I
am not suspected, thanks be! But I must not talk--I must not talk."
It was evident that he wanted to talk and he could be over-urged to
talk if the right pressure was brought to bear. Janice came away,
leaving the eagerly curious pecking at him--the one white blackbird in
the flock.
Uncle Jason had given her some blunt words of encouragement. Janice
felt that she must see Nelson personally and cheer him up, if that were
possible. At least, she must tell him how she--and, indeed, all his
friends--had every confidence in him.
Some people whom she met as she went up High Street looked at her
curiously. Janice held her head at a prouder angle and marched up the
hill toward Mrs. Beaseley's. She ignored these curious glances.
But there was no escaping Mrs. Scattergood. That lover of gossip must
have been sitting behind her blind, peering down High Street, and
waiting for Janice's appearance.
She hurried out of the house, beckoning to the girl eagerly. Janice
could not very well refuse to approach, so she walked on up the hill
beyond the side street on which Mrs. Beaseley's cottage stood, and met
the birdlike little woman at her gate.
"For the good land's sake, Janice Day!" exploded Mrs. Scattergood. "I
was wonderin' if you'd never git up here. Surely, you've heard abeout
this drefful thing, ain't you?"
Janice knew there was no use in evasion with Mrs. Scattergood. She
boldly confessed.
"Yes, Mrs. Scattergood, I have heard about it. And I think Mr. Cross
Moore and those others ought to be ashamed of themselves--letting
people think for a moment that Mr. Haley took those coins."
"Who _did_ take 'em?" asked the woman, eagerly. "Have they found out?"
"Why, nobody but the person who really is the thief knows who stole the
coins; but of course everybody who knows Nelson at all, is sure that it
was not Mr. Haley."
"Wal--they gotter lay it to somebody," Mrs. Scattergood said, rather
doubtfully. "That's the best them useless men could do," she added,
with that birdlike toss of the head that was so familiar to Janice.
"If there'd been a woman around, they'd laid it on to her. Oh! I know
'em all--the hull kit an' bilin' of 'em."
Janice tried to smile at this; but the woman's beadlike eyes seemed to
be boring with their glance right through the girl and this made her
extremely uncomfortable.
"I expect you feel pretty bad, Janice Day," went on Mrs. Scattergood.
"But it's allus the way. You'll find as you grow older that there
ain't much in this world for females, young or old, but trouble."
"Why, Mrs. Scattergood!" cried the girl, and this time she did call up
a merry look. "What have you to trouble you? You have the nicest time
of any person I know--unless it is Mrs. Marvin Petrie. No family to
trouble you; enough to live on comfortably; nothing to do but go
visiting--or stay at home if you'd rather----"
"Tut, tut, tut, child! All is not gold that glitters," was the quick
reply. "I ain't so happy as ye may think. I have my troubles. But,
thanks be! they ain't abeout men. But you've begun yours, I kin see."
"Yes, I am troubled because Mr. Haley is falsely accused," admitted
Janice, stoutly.
"Wal--yes. I expect you air. And if it ain't no worse than you
believe--Wal! I said you was a new-fashioned gal when I fust set eyes
on you that day comin' up from the Landing in the old _Constance
Colfax_; and you be."
"How am I different from other girls?" asked Janice, curiously.
"Wal! Most gals would wait till they was sure the young man wasn't
goin' to be arrested before they ran right off to see him. But mebbe
it's because you ain't got your own mother and father to tell ye
diff'rent."
Janice flushed deeply at this and her eyes sparkled.
"I am sure Aunt 'Mira and Uncle Jason would have told me not to call on
Nelson if they did not believe just as I do--that he is guiltless and
that all his friends should show him at once that they believe in him."
"Hoity-toity! Mebbe so," said the woman, tartly. "Them Days never did
have right good sense--yer uncle an' aunt, I mean. When _I_ was a gal
we wouldn't have been allowed to have so much freedom where the young
fellers was consarned."
Janice was quite used to Mrs. Scattergood's sharp tongue; but it was
hard to bear her strictures on this occasion.
"I hope it is not wrong for me to show my friend that I trust and
believe in him," she said firmly, and nodding good-bye, turned abruptly
away.
Of herself, or of what the neighbors thought of her conduct, Janice Day
thought but little. She went on to Mrs. Beaseley's cottage, solely
anxious on Nelson's account.
She found the widow in tears, for selfishly immured as Mrs. Beaseley
was in her ten-year-old grief over the loss of her "sainted Charles,"
she was a dear, soft-hearted woman and had come to look upon Nelson
Haley almost as her son.
"Oh, Janice Day! what ever are we going to do for him?" was her
greeting, the moment the girl entered the kitchen. "If my poor, dear
Charles were alive I know he would be furiously angry with Mr. Cross
Moore and those other men. Oh! I cannot bear to think of how angry he
would be, for Charles had a very stern temper.
"And Mr. Haley is such a pleasant young man. As I tell 'em all, a
nicer and quieter person never lived in any lone female's house. And
to think of their saying such dreadful things about him! I am sure _I_
never thought of locking anything away from Mr. Haley in this
house--and there's the 'leven sterling silver teaspoons that belonged
to poor, dear Charles' mother, and the gold-lined sugar-basin that was
my Aunt Abby's, and the sugar tongs--although they're bent some.
"Why! Mr. Haley is jest one of the nicest young gentlemen that ever
was. And here he comes home, pale as death, and won't eat no dinner.
Janice, think of it! I allus have said, and I stick to it, that if one
can eat they'll be all right. My sainted Charles," she added, stating
for the thousandth time an uncontrovertible fact, "would be alive to
this day if he had continued to eat his victuals!"
"I'd like to speak to Mr. Haley," Janice said, finally "getting a word
in edgewise."
"Of course. Maybe he'll let you in," said the widow. "He won't me,
but I think he favors you, Janice," she added innocently, shaking her
head with a continued mournful air. "He come right in and said:
'Mother Beaseley, I don't believe I can eat any dinner to-day,' and
then shut and locked his door. I didn't know what had happened till
'Rene Hopper, she that works for Mrs. Cross Moore, run in to borry my
heavy flat-iron, an' she tol' me about the stolen money. Ain't it
_awful_?"
"I--I hope Nelson will let me speak to him, Mrs. Beaseley," stammered
Janice, finding it very difficult now to keep her tears back.
"You go right along the hall and knock at his door," whispered Mrs.
Beaseley, hoarsely. "An' you tell him I've got his dinner down on the
stove-hearth, 'twixt plates, a-keepin' it hot for him."
Janice did as she was bidden as far as knocking at the door of the
front room was concerned. There was no answer at first--not a sound
from within. She rapped a second time.
"I am sorry, Mrs. Beaseley; I could not possibly eat any dinner
to-day," Nelson's voice finally replied.
There was no tremor in the tone of it. Janice knew just how proud the
young man was, and no matter how bitterly he was hurt by this trouble
that had fallen upon him, he would not easily reveal his feelings.
She put her lips close to the crack of the door. "Nelson!" she
whispered. "Nelson!" a little louder.
She heard him spring to his feet and overturn the chair in which he had
been sitting.
"Nelson! it's only me," Janice quavered, the pulse beating painfully in
her throat. "Let me in--do!"
He came across the room slowly. She heard him fumble at the key and
knob. Then the door opened.
"Oh, Nelson!" she repeated, when she saw him in the darkened parlor.
The pallor of his face went to her heart. His hair was disheveled; his
eyes red from weeping. After all, he was just a big boy in trouble,
and with no mother to comfort him.
All the maternal instincts of Janice Day's nature went out to the young
fellow. "Nelson! Nelson!" she cried, under her breath. "You poor,
poor boy! I'm so sorry for you."
"Janice--you----" He stammered, and could not finish the phrase.
She cried, emphatically: "Of course I believe in you, Nelson. We _all_
do! You must not take it so to heart. You will not bear it all alone,
Nelson. Every friend you have in Polktown will help you."
She had come close to him, her hands fluttering upon his breast and her
eyes, sparkling with teardrops, raised to his face.
"Oh, Janice!" he groaned, and swept her into his arms.