A RIFT IN HER HAPPINESS
As they came down Hillside Avenue, past the cornfields and Walky
Dexter’s outlying barns and sheds, Janice caught sight of a figure
turning out of the gate of the old Day place.
“Oh, there’s Nelson!” ejaculated the girl, before she thought.
“Nelson who?” queried Frank lightly.
“Mr. Haley. He’s principal of the school here in Polktown,” replied
Janice more quietly.
“He’s been calling on you and you weren’t at home, eh?” laughed Frank
Bowman.
“He is often at the house,” Janice thought it necessary to explain.
“Marty is one of his favorite pupils, and my uncle and aunt are quite
fond of Mr. Haley. He is really very popular in Polktown, for in a
short time he has made our new school greatly appreciated.”
“He’s won his spurs, then, has he?” said Frank Bowman, rather
wistfully. “And I have mine to win yet! This job I have obtained with
the V. C. is my first.”
“I should think,” Janice said demurely, “that both you and Mr. Haley
have plenty of time yet to win your spurs. I see no gray hairs in
either your head or his.”
“A hit--a palpable hit!” answered Frank, laughing. “But after a fellow
has spent three or four years at college, he feels old. Youth, however,
is a disease they tell me Time will always cure.”
He would not let Janice drive the car on the steep roads yet, but
brought it safely himself into the Day premises. Mrs. Day insisted upon
Frank’s stopping for a “snack,” as she called it, setting a pitcher of
cool milk and her best pound cake before the visitor.
“I wanted Mr. Haley to stop and have some with you,” said the good
lady, swinging to and fro in the porch rocker, her weight making both
it and the boards of the floor creak, “but he ’peared to be in a hurry.”
“Did he come for anything in particular?” asked Janice, trying to speak
casually.
“Mebbe he was looking for a ride in your new ortermobile,” her Aunt
Almira said placidly. “I’m jest all of a tickle myself, waitin’ for my
first go at it. Mr. Haley asked all about it, and I told him how kind
Mr. Bowman was to show you how to run it.”
Janice felt self-conscious whenever Nelson’s name was mentioned in
company. She had written Daddy all about the school teacher--she never
could have kept such a secret as _that_ from him--and Mr. Broxton Day
had advised her to have no decided understanding with the young man,
save the understanding that they were good friends.
“When I can leave the mine and come to Polktown and meet personally
my little Janice’s friend,” wrote Daddy, “it will be time enough for
us to decide this momentous question of what he is to be to you.
“I think my little Janice is much too young to have more than a
friendly interest in any young man. I hope, however, if Nelson is
worthy of your confidence, that you will be a real friend to him. The
greatest inspiration a young man can have at the outset of his career
is the interest of a good girl.
“You say Nelson has no sister; and you have no brother. Your sisterly
interest in his welfare, and his companionship will benefit you both.
Always keep his respect and admiration; and I hope, my dear, by the
time I can come to you for a visit, you will have learned Nelson’s
character thoroughly.”
Daddy always did write such dear letters! Janice was sure no mother,
even, could be as wise and kindly as her father. She liked Nelson
Haley very much; but Mr. Day’s advice was right in line with her own
feelings. Even an engagement between the school teacher and herself was
only to be thought of as a possibility of the future.
She knew that she had been Nelson’s inspiration since he had come to
Polktown; and she was proud that he had made a success of the new
school. She was glad, too, that he had been called by the board of the
small college, whether he finally accepted the position as instructor
there or not.
Janice wondered if Nelson had come to the house to talk over that very
matter with her on the afternoon she had taken her first lesson in
automobile driving. And after several days, as the school teacher did
not come again, she made an attempt to put herself in his way.
The teacher boarded with Mrs. Beasely, who lived almost opposite
Hopewell Drugg’s general store, on the street leading down to Pine
Cove. Around the corner on High Street Miss ’Rill Scattergood and her
mother lived. Miss ’Rill had taught the Polktown School for years
before Nelson Haley came, and the pretty little old maid and Janice
were very dear friends.
Mrs. Scattergood, a birdlike old lady, with a sharp tongue and
inquisitive mind, met Janice as usual with a question.
“What’s happened to that ortermobile, child? I hear tell you got one,
but you ain’t been on High Street with it yet. What’s the matter--you
ain’t ashamed of it, be you?”
“I don’t think I could be ashamed of any gift from Daddy,” laughed
Janice.
“Mebbe it’s that young man I hear tell is teachin’ you to run the
thing, that you’re ashamed of?” queried the sharp-tongued old lady.
“Now, mother!” begged Miss ’Rill.
But Janice was used to Mrs. Scattergood’s pointed speeches, and she
took no offense.
“I shan’t appear on High Street,” she declared, smiling, “until I can
manage the car perfectly myself.”
“Wa-al! I hear he’s a very likely young man,” said Mrs. Scattergood,
insisting upon making gossip of Frank Bowman’s attentions. “And I
expect Mr. Haley’s nose is out o’ j’int.”
Janice was a little afraid that the homely expression hit off the
situation only too well. She was no coquette. She did not enjoy the
thought that perhaps Nelson Haley was slightly jealous of Mr. Frank
Bowman.
“Hopewell received a letter from little Lottie last night,” whispered
Miss ’Rill. “Want to go ’round and read it?”
Janice nodded brightly. She was always interested in news of her little
protégée. Miss ’Rill put on a fresh apron and prepared to go around to
the store with her. This little lady and Hopewell Drugg were soon to
be married, and their romance had long interested Janice. Miss ’Rill’s
trousseau was a source of great delight to the young girl; Miss ’Rill
was the first bride-to-be of whom she had ever been the confidant.
The store on the side street was a cool and inviting spot. Great
trees shaded it and there was a comfortable porch at the side between
the living-rooms of the widowed Mr. Drugg and the store. Here the
storekeeper was wont to sit and cuddle his fiddle under his chin
while he coaxed from the old strings and mellow wood the tunes of
yesterday--for despite the spick and span condition of Hopewell Drugg’s
store and his up-to-date stock in trade, he was not naturally a
progressive person.
“Hopewell and I are behind the times, I s’pose, Janice,” the little old
maid said to her friend. “We lost fifteen or twenty years of our lives.
I’m not even going to let Miz’ Hutchins make my wedding gown, although
there hasn’t been a wedding in this town for a score of years that
she hasn’t made the bride’s dress. But she’s too fussy, and runs to
new-fangled ideas. Miz’ Beasely is going to help me. She’s a good plain
sewer and has a machine to run the seams on, which is a great help. I
s’pose folks will talk.”
“I’m sure, Miss ’Rill, what you do about your wedding can be nobody’s
business but your own,” Janice hastened to say.
“Well, I’m not so sure of that,” the little lady admitted. “I am a kind
of public character, as you might say, teaching school so many years in
Polktown. And Mr. Drugg, he has kept store and looks forward to keeping
it right along. We can’t afford to antagonize folks. But I’ve my own
ideas about what’s proper for a woman of my age to wear when she does
get married.”
“And when is the wedding going to be?” asked Janice, with interest.
“Not until after little Lottie comes home from Boston,” replied the
little lady. “We want her at our wedding; and the school matron writes
that with her present progress, by late fall she may return for a time,
at least. The dear little thing!”
This conversation brought them to Mr. Drugg’s store. Janice kept a
sharp outlook for Nelson Haley, but did not see him.
It was an hour of the hot summer afternoon when few people were abroad.
It was plain that Hopewell Drugg had no customer just then, for the
strains of his violin came to them as Janice and Miss ’Rill approached
the yard gate. The violinist’s bow wandered over the strings as though
his mind wandered, too, while he played. Whereas, the plaintive strains
of “Silver Threads Among the Gold” had first been borne to their ears,
the callers suddenly realized that Mr. Drugg had trailed off into the
livelier measures of “Jingle bells! Jingle bells! Jingle all the way!”
“For the land’s sake!” said Miss ’Rill, in mild surprise. “That
sleighing song maybe is cooling on a hot day like this, but I never
heard Hopewell play it before.”
Janice laughed aloud. “It must be much more in tune with his feelings,
Miss ’Rill, than any sad melody. Music, they say, is an expression of
the soul’s feelings. Mr. Drugg’s soul is happy now.”
The little old maid flushed very prettily. Then she gave her head a
queer little birdlike toss.
“Music may express the feelings of some souls,” she said drily; “but if
that’s so, I wonder what kind of souls the composers of some of these
new-fangled tunes I hear the boys whistling must have? There’s some of
them that sound as though the composers had neither brains nor soul
that together would be bigger’n a pea, I declare!”
Unlike her mother, Miss ’Rill was not often critical; but she had
become quite earnest in this expression of her opinion and was still
flushed when they came in sight of Hopewell sawing on his fiddle as he
sat on the shaded porch. He broke off guiltily in the middle of
“Oh, what fun it is to ride
In a one-horse open sleigh!”
“Oh, do keep on, Mr. Drugg,” begged Janice. “I wouldn’t have come if
I’d thought it would stop your music.”
“I know you’ve come to read my little Lottie’s letter, Miss Janice,” he
said, in his shy way, and hastened to bring it. Then he picked up the
violin again and fingered the strings lightly and absently as Janice
unfolded the letter from the little girl who had been blind.
“Do play some more, Mr. Drugg,” said the girl. “I love to hear you.”
“I’ll play you an old favorite, then,” said the storekeeper, and smiled
over the fiddle at Miss ’Rill as he drew out of the strings the first
chords of
“Darling, I am growing old--
Silver threads among the gold
Shine upon my brow to-day--
Life is fading fast away.”
And yet, Mr. Hopewell Drugg’s soul did not seem quite in tune with this
touching old melody; for, as Janice excused herself to run over to Mrs.
Beasely’s for a little call, she heard the old violin drift off into
another lively air which had been immensely popular in the younger days
of the storekeeper and Miss ’Rill--“Aunt Dinah’s Quilting Party.” It
was quite evident that Romance had taken Hopewell Drugg by the hand
and was leading him into more sunlit paths.
Janice learned from Mrs. Beasely that Nelson Haley had gone away that
very morning on business, and would not return to Polktown for several
days. She walked home with rather a heavy heart. He had not come to say
good-bye to her.