THE SCHOOL DEDICATION
Thereafter there was a somewhat different tone to the friendship between
Janice and the school-teacher. They were confidential. They both assumed
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 grasses as she passed.
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 God 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 passed 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. Massey, 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
shagbarks 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 association 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 sexton 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
association with the Day place.
There had been other houses painted on the street that spring. More
fences had been reset and straightened. The driveway itself had had some
attention from the town. And you couldn't have found a one-hinged gate
the entire length of the street!
As for Uncle Jason, he was really carrying on his farming in a
businesslike way. Marty was getting to be a big boy now, and he could
help more than he once had. Janice had suggested to Uncle Jason that, as
he had such good pasture at the upper end of his farm, and as the milk
supply of Poketown was but a meager one, it would pay somebody to run a
small dairy.
Mr. Day now had three cows that he proposed to winter, and was raising
one heifer calf. Such milk as the family did not use themselves the
neighbors gladly bought. Mrs. Day was doing better with her hens, too.
The wire fencing had been repaired and she gave the biddies more
attention; therefore she was being repaid in eggs and chickens for
frying. Altogether it could no longer be said that the Day family was
shiftless.
Janice received several cheerful and entertaining letters that summer
from Nelson Haley. He was clerk of a summer hotel on the Maine shore,
and he seemed to be having a good time as well as earning a considerable
salary.
When the new school committee of Poketown tendered him an offer of the
head mastership of the school (he was to begin with one assistant for
the kindergartners), he threw up his clerkship and hastened to a certain
summer normal school in central Massachusetts.
Janice was very glad, although his action surprised her, knowing, as she
did, how much young Haley needed the money he was earning at the hotel.
His tuition at the summer school for a month, and his board there, would
eat up a good deal of the money he had saved. He might not be able to
enter for his law studies at the end of another school year.
Janice believed, however, that Nelson Haley was "cut out," as the local
saying was, for a teacher. He had an easy, interesting manner, which was
bound to hold the attention of even the wandering minds among his
pupils. She knew by the improvement in Marty that the young man's
influence, especially on the boys of Poketown, was for good.
"If he would only make up his mind to _work_, he might rise high in the
profession," she thought. "Some day he might even be president of a
college--and wouldn't that be fine?"
But she did not write anything of this nature to the absent Nelson. She
treasured in her mind what he had said about working because _she_ was
proud of him; and she wisely decided that Nelson Haley was a young man
who needed very little encouragement in some ways. Janice was by no
means sure that she liked Nelson Haley as he liked her.
So she kept her answers to his letters upon a coolly friendly basis and
only showed him, when he returned to Poketown in September in time for
the dedication exercises of the school building, how glad she was to see
him by the warmth of her greeting.
It was a real gala day in Poketown when the new school building was
thrown open for public inspection. In the evening the upper floor of the
building (which for the present was to be used as a hall) was crowded by
the villagers to hear the "public speaking"; and on this occasion Nelson
Haley again covered himself with glory.
He seemed to have gained enthusiasm, as well as a distinct idea of
modern school methods, from his brief normal training. He managed to
inspire his hearers with hope for a broader and higher education; his
hopes for the future of the Poketown school lit responsive fires in the
hearts of many of his listeners.
Of course, Elder Concannon did not agree. He was heard to say afterward
that he couldn't approve of "no such new-fangled notions," and that he
believed the boys and girls of Poketown "better stick to the three
R's--reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic!"
However, the opinion of the people in general seemed to be in favor of
the new ideas, and they promised to back up Nelson Haley in his work of
modernizing the school.
"Of course you'll make it one of the best schools in the state--I know
you will, Nelson," declared Janice, when he walked home with her after
the exercises.
"If _you_ say so--of course!" replied the young man, with a smile.