How Janice Day Won Part 24

She returned to the Day house early on Sunday morning, and her un.o.bservant aunt did not notice the marks the young girl's sleepless night had left upon her countenance. Aunt 'Mira was too greatly distracted just then about a new gown she, with the help of Mrs. John-Ed.

Hutchins, had made and was to wear for the first time on this occasion.

"That is, if I kin ever git the pesky thing ter set straight over my hips. Do come here an' see what's the matter with it, Janice," Aunt 'Mira begged, in a great to-do over the frock. "What do you make of it?"

"It doesn't fit very smoothly--that is true," Janice said gently. "I--I am afraid, Aunt 'Mira, that it draws so because you are not drawn in just the same as you were when the dress was fitted by Mrs. John-Ed."

"My soul and body!" gasped the heavy lady, in desperation. "I knowed it!

I felt it in my bones that she'd got me pulled in too tight."

Janice finally got the good woman into proper shape to fit the new frock, rather than the new frock to fitting her, and started off with Aunt 'Mira to church, leaving Mr. Day and Marty to follow.

Janice looked hopefully for Nelson. She really believed that he would change his determination at the last moment and appear at church. But he did not. Nor did anybody see him outside the Beaseley cottage all day.

It was a very unhappy Sunday for Janice.

The whole town was abuzz with excitement. There were two usually inoffensive persons "on the dissecting table," as Walky Dexter called it--Nelson and Hopewell Drugg. Much had already been said about the missing coin collection and Nelson Haley's connection with it; so the second topic of conversation rather overshadowed the schoolmaster's trouble. It was being repeated all about town that Hopewell Drugg had been taken home from the dance at the Lake View Inn "roaring drunk."

Monday morning saw Nelson put to the test. Some of the boys gathered on the corner of High Street near the teacher's lodging, whispering together and waiting for his appearance. It was said by some that Mr. Haley would not appear; that he "didn't dare show his head outside the door."

About quarter past eight that morning there were many more people on the main street of the lakeside village than were usually visible at such an hour. Especially was there a large number of women, and it was notorious that on that particular Monday more housewives were late with their weekly wash than ever before in the annals of Polktown.

"Jefers-pelters!" muttered Walky Dexter, as he urged Josephus into High Street on his first trip downtown. "What's got ev'rybody? Circus in town? If so, it must ha' slipped my mind."

"Yep," said Ma.s.sey, the druggist, at his front door, and whom the expressman had hailed. "And here comes the procession."

From up the hill came a troop of boys--most of them belonging in the upper cla.s.s of the school. Marty was one of them, and in their midst walked the young schoolmaster!

"I snum!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Walky. "I guess that feller ain't got no friends--oh, no!" and he chuckled.

The druggist scowled. "Boy foolishness. That don't mean nothing."

"He, he, he! It don't, hey?" drawled Walky, chirping to Josephus to start him. "Wal--mebbe not. But if I was you, and had plate gla.s.s winders like you've got, an' no insurance on 'em, I wouldn't let that crowd of young rapscallions hear my opinion of Mr. Haley."

Indeed, Marty and his friends had gone much further than pa.s.sing resolutions. Nelson was their friend and chum as well as their teacher.

He coached their baseball and football teams, and was the only instructor in gymnastics they had. The streak of loyalty in the average boy is the biggest and best thing about him.

Nelson often joined the crowd on the way to the only level lot in town where games could be played; and this seemed like one of those Sat.u.r.day occasions, only the boys carried their books instead of masks and bats.

Their chorus of "Hullo, Mr. Haley!" "Morning, Mr. Haley!" and the like, as he reached the corner, almost broke down the determination the young man had gathered to show a calm exterior to the Polktown inhabitants.

More than a few other well-wishers took pains to bow to the schoolmaster or to speak to him. And then, there was Janice, flying by in her car on her way to Middletown to school, pa.s.sing him with a cheery wave of her gloved hand and he realized that she had driven this way in the car on purpose to meet him.

Indeed, the young man came near to being quite as overwhelmed by this reception as he might have been had he met frowning or suspicious faces.

But he got to the school, and the School Committee remained under cover--for the time being.

Janice, coming back from Middletown in the afternoon, stopped at the post-office and got the mail. In it was a letter which she knew must be from her father, although the outer envelope was addressed in the same precise, clerkly hand which she a.s.sociated with the mysterious Juan Dicampa.

No introductory missive from the flowery Juan was inside, however; and her father's letter began as follows:

"Dear daughter:--

"I am under the necessity of putting on your young shoulders more responsibility than I think you should bear. But I find that of a sudden I am confined to an output of one letter a month, and that one to you.

As I write in English, and these about me read (if they are able to read at all) nothing but Spanish, I have some chance of getting information and instructions to my partners in Ohio, by this means, and by this means only.

"First of all, I will a.s.sure you, dear child, that my health is quite, quite good. There is nothing the matter with me save that I am a 'guest of the State,' as they pompously call it, and I cannot safely work the mining property. I am not going to dig ore for the benefit of either the Federal forces or the Const.i.tutionalists.

"I shall stay to watch the property, however, and meanwhile the Zapatist chief in power here watches me. He takes pleasure in nagging and interfering with me in every possible way; so issues this last decree limiting the number of letters to one a month.

"He would do more, but he dare not. I happen to be on friendly terms with a chief who is this fellow's superior. If the chief in charge here should harm me and my friend should feel so inclined, he might ride up here, and stand my enemy up against an adobe wall. The fellow knows it--and is aware of my friend's rather uncertain temper. That temper, my dear Janice, known to all who have ever heard of Juan Dicampa, and his abundant health, is the wall between me and a possibly sudden and very unpleasant end."

There was a great deal more to the letter, but at first Janice could not go on with it for surprise. The clerkly writer with the abundance of flowery phrases, Juan Dicampa was, then, a Mexican chieftain--perhaps a half-breed Yaqui murderer! The thought rather startled Janice. Yet she was thankful to remember how warmly the man had written of her father.

Much of what followed in her father's letter she had to transmit to the bank officials and others of his business a.s.sociates in her old home town. But the important thing, it seemed all the time to Janice, was Juan Dicampa.

She thought about him a great deal during the next few days. Mostly she thought about his health, and the chances of his being shot in some battle down there in Mexico.

She began to read even more than heretofore of the Mexican situation in the daily papers. She began to look for mention of Dicampa, and tried to learn what manner of leader he was among his people.

If Juan Dicampa should be removed what, then, would happen to Broxton Day?

CHAPTER XVI

ONE MATTER COMES TO A HEAD

That was a black week for Janice as well as for the young schoolmaster.

She could barely keep her mind upon her studies at the seminary.

Nelson Haley's salvation was the attention he was forced to give to his cla.s.ses in the Polktown school.

One or another of the four committeemen who had const.i.tuted themselves his enemies, were hovering about Nelson all the time. He felt himself to be continually watched and suspected.

Mr. Middler, who had been away on an exchange over Sunday, returned to find his parish split all but in two by the accusation against Nelson Haley. Mr. Middler was the fifth member of the School Committee, and both sides in the controversy clamored for him to take a hand in the case.

"Gentlemen," he said to his four brother committeemen in Ma.s.sey's back room, "I have not a doubt in my mind that you are all honestly convinced that Mr. Haley has stolen the coins. Otherwise you would not have made a matter public that was quite sure to ruin the young man's reputation."

The four committeemen writhed under this thrust, and the minister went on:

"On the other hand, I have no doubt in my mind that Mr. Haley is just as innocent as I am of the robbery."

"Ye say that 'cause you air a clergyman," said Cross Moore bluntly.

"It's your business to be allus seeing the good side of folks, whether they've got a good side, or not."

The minister flushed. "I thank G.o.d I can see the good side of my fellow men," he said quickly. "I can even see your good side, Mr.

Moore, when you are willing to uncover it. You do not show it now, when you persecute this young man----"

"'Persecute'? We oughter prosecute," flashed forth Cross Moore. "The fellow's as guilty as can be. n.o.body else could have done it."