A SHOCK TO POLKTOWN
Marty Day, who was neither a prophet nor a person of much moment in his
native town, was, of all Janice's friends, the only one who really
believed the girl would put her desire into action.
To tell the truth, even Cross Moore, who had bought Janice's automobile
and who held the original bill of sale of the car, upon the possession
of which he had insisted, scarcely believed the girl would get out of
town without being halted by her uncle.
Nelson Haley did not suppose for a "single solitary moment" that Janice
meant what she said when she bade him good-bye in his study. The next
day he went to school without an idea that Janice was already on her way
to the Border. He missed Marty Day, but did not think there was anything
significant in the boy's absence.
School was over for the day and Nelson was leaving the building, bidding
good-day to Bennie Thread, the janitor, when Walky Dexter drove through
the side street, urging Josephus in a most disgraceful way.
"Git up, there, ye pernicious pest!" Walky shouted to his old horse,
thrashing him with the wornout whip he carried and which never, by any
possibility, could hurt the rawboned animal. "_Gidap!_ Jefers-pelters,
Schoolmaster! is thet you?" he suddenly demanded, seeing Nelson.
Josephus stopped immediately. He well knew Walky's conversational tone.
"Hev ye heard about it?" sputtered the expressman.
"Heard what?" asked Nelson calmly. "Sure you are not overexerting
yourself? Your face is very red, Walky. Perspiration at this time of
year----"
"Oh, you go fish!" exclaimed Walky. "Mr. Haley! I got suthin' ter tell
ye. I kin see well enough ye ain't wise to it."
"Walky," said the young schoolmaster solemnly, "there are really a lot
of things in this life that I am not wise to, as you call it, and I
doubt if I shall ever understand them all."
"Oh! is that so?" retorted Walky Dexter. "Wal, I'll perceed ter wise ye
up to one thing right now. Ain't ye missed Marty to-day?"
"Marty Day?"
"Yep. That's the young scalawag."
"He has been absent from school--yes."
"Oh! he has? D'ye know where he's gone to?"
"Why, no."
"And neither does nobody else," declared the expressman excitedly.
"Unless he's gone off with Janice--an' she never said a thing about
_him_, I understand."
The expressman's word's amazed Nelson quite as much as Walky could have
wished.
"What _are_ you talking about? What do you mean by saying Janice has
gone away?"
"Jefers-pelters!" ejaculated Walky. "Ain't you hearn a thing about it?"
"No."
"Wal then, you better lift a laig an' git up to the ol' Day house,"
Walky observed. "If ye ever seen a stir-about ye'll see one there. I
dunno but ol' Jase'll hev a fit an' step in it. And as for Miz' Day,
she's jest erbout dissolved in tears by now, as the feller said. An',
believe me! if she _does_ dissolve there'll purt' nigh be a deluge on
this hillside, an' no mistake!"
Before he had finished and clucked to the sleeping Josephus, Nelson
Haley had reached the corner of Hillside Avenue and was striding up the
ascent to the Day house. He saw several people come to their front
doors, and he knew they would have hailed him had he given them a
chance. Everybody seemed to be aware of this startling happening but
himself.
He went into the kitchen of the Day house without knocking. His gaze
fell upon the ample Mrs. Day weaving to and fro in her rocking chair,
her apron to her eyes, while Uncle Jason was sitting dejectedly in his
chair upon the other side of the stove, with his dead pipe clutched
fast between his teeth.
"Mr. Haley!" the man exclaimed. "Have a cheer."
"Oh! oh!" sobbed Aunt 'Mira, shaking like a mold of jelly.
"I don't want a chair!" ejaculated Nelson, placing his bag on the
uncleared dining table. "I've just heard of it. What does it mean?"
"She's gone," Uncle Jason said gloomily.
"_They've_ gone," sobbed Aunt 'Mira.
"We dunno _that_--not for sure. We don't know they're gone together.
Janice didn't say a thing about Marty in her letter," and he pointed to
an open letter on the table. "Read it, Mr. Haley," he added.
The schoolmaster seized the note Janice had left on her pin-cushion and
read:
"=Dear Uncle and Aunt=:
"You must not blame me or think too hard of me. I have just _got_ to
go. Daddy needs me. I am sure I can find him. I could not stay idly
in Polktown and wait any longer. I will telegraph you when I reach
the Border. Don't blame me. _I just have to go!_ Love.
=Janice=."
"I might have known it! I might have known it!" muttered the
schoolmaster.
"Ye might have known _what_?" demanded Mr. Day.
"That she meant what she said. She told me last evening she was going,
and I didn't believe her."
"Oh, Mr. Haley!" cried Aunt 'Mira. "And ye didn't tell us in time----"
"In time for what?" exploded her husband. "Hi Guy! I'd like to see _any_
man stop _any_ female when she's sot on doin' a thing."
"But she's gone alone clear down there to Mexico and----"
"Where's Marty?" demanded Nelson.
"Oh! she don't say nothin' about him," sobbed the woman. "His bed ain't
been slep' in, an----"
"If Marty has disappeared, too," the schoolmaster said with decision,
"you can be sure he is with her."
"Do ye believe so?" asked Mr. Day doubtfully. "Seems to me she wouldn't
have encouraged the boy to go off that-a-way."
"Of course not," Nelson agreed. "But I have an idea that, of all of us,
Marty was the wisest. You'll learn he suspected Janice of planning to go
away and he has gone with her, or followed her."
"That boy!" ejaculated his mother.
"If he has----" began Uncle Jason; but Nelson continued:
"I have considerable confidence in Marty. At least, he is a courageous
young rascal. I fancy he has followed Janice, unknown to her, and with
the desire of helping her."
"But he is only a bo-o-oy," wailed his mother again.
"Say!" Uncle Jason said suddenly, "he's a good deal of a man, come to
think on't. I b'lieve you air right, Mr. Haley."
"That does not, however," said Nelson, shaking his head, "change the
fact that Janice, even with such an escort as Marty, should not go down
there. I am greatly worried."
"Wal, don't you think _we_ be?" demanded Uncle Jason.
"Yes. I know how you must feel. But think how _I_ feel, Mr. Day," the
schoolmaster said gently. "I believe I should have thrown up everything
when she told me she was determined to go, and have accompanied her
instead of letting Marty do it."
"I snum!" ejaculated Mr. Day, "don't I feel jest the same way? Janice is
a _do something_ gal, sure enough. We'd oughter knowed she wouldn't sit
quiet to home here when Broxton was in sech trouble."
"But she's only a gal!" repeated his wife.
"She's a diff'rent gal from most," declared Mr. Day.
"And poor Marty! How'd he ever get money enough to go with her?" mourned
the good woman.
"His bankbook's gone," said Mr. Day. "He's proberly took ev'ry cent he
could rake an' scrape. You _would_ give him that bankbook to keep,
Almiry."
"Oh! oh!" sobbed Mrs. Day.
"But--but how did Janice get money enough to take such a long journey?"
asked Nelson hesitatingly.
"Sold her ortermobile," stated Uncle Jason gruffly.
"No!"
"Yes, she did. I been over to Cross Moore's an' put it right up to him.
You know what he is. He'd buy a cripple's wooden laig if he could see
his way ter makin' a profit on it. He got the car at a cheap price, I
calculate, and agreed to say nothing about it till arter Janice had
gone. Oh! I ain't worried about Janice's means. It's what may happen to
her down there."
"She can't get beyond the Border," Nelson declared.
"We don't know. You know how detarmined Janice is. I snum! we'd
_oughter_ know her detarmination now."
"It don't matter. Nothin' don't matter," Mrs. Day groaned. "She's
gone--an' Marty's gone. An' what ever will become of 'em 'way down there
among them murderin' Mexicaners----"
"Well, well, Almiry! They ain't got there yet," put in Mr. Day.
Nelson Haley had never felt so helpless in all his life. Not even when
charged with stealing a collection of gold coins that had been intrusted
to the care of the School Committee, had the young man felt any more
uncertain as to his future course. What should he do? Indeed, what could
he do now that Janice had really departed from Polktown?
Whether it would have been quite the proper thing or not for him to have
accompanied the girl on her long journey, did not now enter into the
situation. Janice was gone and he was here--and he felt himself to be a
rather useless sort of fellow. He now thought very seriously of the last
words Janice had spoken to him the day before:
"If it were _you_ who were wounded and alone down there in Mexico do you
suppose any power on earth would keep me from going to you?"
The schoolmaster's heart thrilled again at the thought. _She meant
it_--of course she did! Janice, he should have known, always meant what
she said.
But now, in the light of her courageous action in leaving alone for the
Border, the memory of her words impressed the young man more deeply. She
would have dared any danger, she intimated, had it been Nelson who she
believed needed her; why should he have doubted for a moment that she
was brave enough to seek her wounded father?
"I'm a selfish, ignorant fool!" Nelson railed in secret. "I do not
deserve to be loved by such a girl. I don't half appreciate her. What a
helpless, ineffectual thing I am! And what now can I do to aid or
encourage her? Nothing! I have lost my chance. _What_ can she think of
me?"
He thus took himself to task that evening in his study. The whole town
rang with the story of Janice's departure and with the belief that Marty
Day had either accompanied his cousin or followed her in a boyish
attempt to assist in her mission.
"She ain't like other gals," Mrs. Beaseley mourned at the supper table.
"_Do_ have another helpin' of col' meat, Mr. Haley--an' try this
pertater salad. It's by a new receipt.
"I count her quite able ter take keer of herself ord'narily, Mr. Haley.
What worries _me_ is her eatin'," added the widow, passing the plate of
hot biscuits to her boarder.
"If folks don't eat right, as my sainted Charles often said, they ain't
got the chance't of a rabbit when anythin' happens 'em. No, sir! _Do_
eat that quarter o' layer cake, Mr. Haley. 'Tis the las' piece an' I do
despise to make a fresh cake while there's any of the old left.
"The eatin' on them trains an' in them railroad stations, they tell me,
is somethin' drefful. I _hope_ you'll make out a supper, Mr. Haley."
Hopewell Drugg, in a worried state of mind, came across the street to
consult Nelson. He did not know what his wife would do or say when she
learned that Janice had left town.
"I sincerely hope Miss Janice will find her father and bring him back to
Polktown soon," the storekeeper said.
"Do you believe she _can_?" asked the schoolmaster, rather startled.
"Why not?" was Hopewell's response. "She has never yet, to my knowledge,
failed in anything she has set out to do."
This statement furnished Nelson with another positive shock. Not for a
moment had he considered that Janice would accomplish what she had set
about doing. It seemed impossible to his mind that a mere girl could get
into Mexico and return again with her wounded father. Yet here was
Hopewell Drugg implicitly believing in her ultimate success!
Mrs. Scattergood buzzed like a very cross bumblebee. She seemed only too
glad that Janice had done something to shock Polktown.
"Wal! what could you expect from a gal that's allus had her own way an'
been allowed to go ahead an' boss things the way Janice Day has? I don't
approve of these new-fashioned gals. What diff'rent could ye expec'?"
"That's a fac'," agreed Marm Parraday, who chanced to be the recipient
of this opinion. "Ye could expec' Janice Day to do _just_ what she
done--an' I tell 'em all so. She ain't no namby-pamby, Susie-Sozzles
sort of a gal--no, ma'am!
"Lem says he doesn't see how she found the pluck to do it. But it didn't
s'prise _me_ none, Miz' Scattergood. A gal that's done what Janice Day
has for, and in, Polktown is jest as able to do things down there in
Mexico."
"Why, haow you talk!" gasped Mrs. Scattergood, finding to her amazement
that the hotel-keeper's wife did not at all agree with her opinion of
Janice. "She's nothin' but a gal. In _aour_ day----"
"Ye-as, I know," admitted Marm Parraday. "When we was gals women's
rights and women's doin's warn't much hearn tell on. Still, Miz'
Scattergood, I wasn't so meek as I know on. But mebbe, women was mostly
chattels--like horses an'--an' chickens. But if that was so, that day's
gone by, thanks be! An' it's gone by in Polktown a deal because of this
same Janice Day. Oh, yes! I know what she's done here, an' all about it.
Mebbe she didn't _know_ she was a-doin' of it. But if Polktown ever
erects a statue to the one person more than another that 'woke it up,
it'll hafter be the figger of jest a gal, with a strapful o' schoolbooks
in one hand, the other hand held out friendly-like, and that queer,
sweetenin' little smile of Janice on its face."
Yes, Janice and what she had done was the single topic of conversation
all over town that night. Those who knew her best did not call her
mission a "silly, child's trick." Oh, no, indeed!
Down the hill below Hopewell Drugg's store and below the widow's home
where Nelson lodged, in the nearest house indeed to Pine Cove on that
street, and to Lottie's echo, Mr. Cross Moore sat with his invalid wife.
The usual orphan from the county asylum who was just then doing penance
for her sins in acting as Mrs. Moore's maid, had gone to bed. The woman
in her wheel-chair watched Mr. Moore from under frowning brows.
"I expect you think, Cross Moore, that you've done a smart
trick--a-buyin' that car so't Janice Day could get out o' town. The
neighbors air all talkin' about it."
"Oh, I wouldn't worry, Mother," the man said quietly. "Janice is all
right. She'll make good. She's quite a smart gal, is Janice."
"Ha!" snapped the invalid. "That may be. I guess it's so. She pulled the
wool over _your_ eyes, I don't doubt. That ol' contraption she sold you
ain't wuth ha'f what ye paid for it, Cross Moore."