How Janice Day Won Part 33

"What chance had you to oppose Lem Parraday's license?" demanded the girl, sharply.

"Well! I allow that was sprung on us sudden. But Cross Moore was interested in it, too."

"Somebody will always be particularly interested in the granting of the license. I believe with Uncle Jason that it's foolish to give Old Nick a fair show. He does not deserve the honors of war."

More than Elder Concannon did not believe that Polktown could be carried for prohibition in Town Meeting. But election day was months ahead, and if "keeping everlastingly at it" would bring success, Janice was determined that her idea should be adopted.

Mr. Middler's first sermon on temperance was in no uncertain tone.

Indeed, that good man's discourses nowadays were very different from those he had been wont to give the congregation of the Union Church when Janice had first come to Polktown. In the old-fas.h.i.+oned phrase, Mr. Middler had "found liberty."

There was nothing sensational about his sermons. He was a drab man, who still hesitated before uttering any very p.r.o.nounced view upon any subject; but he thought deeply, and even that super-critic, Elder Concannon, had begun to praise the pastor of the Union Church.

To start the movement for prohibition in the largest church in the community was all very well; but Janice and the other earnest workers realized that the movement must be broader than that. A general meeting was arranged in the Town House, the biggest a.s.sembly room in town, and speakers were secured who were really worth hearing. All this went on quite satisfactorily. Indeed, the first temperance rally was a p.r.o.nounced success, and white ribbons became common in Polktown, worn by both young and old.

But Janice's and Nelson Haley's private affairs remained in a most unsatisfactory state indeed.

First of all, there was a long month to wait before Janice could expect to see another letter from daddy. It puzzled her that he was forbidden to write but once in thirty days, by an under lieutenant of the Zapatist chief, Juan Dicampa, who was Mr. Day's friend--or supposed to be, and yet the letters came to her readdressed in Juan Dicampa's hand.

She watched the daily papers, too, for any word printed regarding the chieftain, and perhaps never was a brigand's well-being so heartily prayed for, as was Juan Dicampa's. Janice never forgot that her father said Dicampa stood between him and almost certain death.

Considering Nelson Haley's affairs, that young man was quite impatient because they had come to no head. Nor did it seem that they were likely to soon.

Nelson had secretly objected when Uncle Jason had asked Judge Little to put off for a full week the examination of Nelson in his court. The unfortunate schoolmaster felt that he wanted the thing over and the worst known immediately.

But it seemed that he was neither to be acquitted at once of the crime charged against him, nor was he to be found guilty and punished.

Uncle Jason was right about the turning up of the ten dollar gold piece being a blow to the accusation the School Committee had lodged against Nelson. They could not connect the young schoolmaster with the gold coin.

By Uncle Jason's advice, too, Nelson had put off engaging a lawyer in Middletown to come over to defend the young man in Judge Little's court.

"And well he did wait, too," declared Mr. Day, very much pleased with his own shrewdness. "_That_ would have meant a twenty dollar note.

Now it don't cost Mr. Haley a cent."

"What do you mean, Jase Day?" demanded Aunt Almira, for her husband announced the above at the supper table on Friday evening of that eventful week. "They ain't goin' ter send Mr. Haley to jail without a trial?"

"Hear the woman, will ye?" apostrophized Uncle Jason, with disgust.

"Ain't thet jes' like ye, Almiry--goin' off at ha'f c.o.c.k thet-a-way?

Who said anythin' about Mr. Haley goin' ter jail?"

"Wal----"

"He ain't goin' yet awhile, I reckon," and Mr. Day chuckled. "I told ye them fule committeemen would overreach themselves. They've withdrawn the charge."

"_What_?" chorused the family, in joy and amazement.

"Yessir! that's what they've done. Jedge Little sent word to me an'

give me back my bond. 'Course, we could ha' demanded a hearin' an'

tried ter git a clear discharge. And then ag'in--Wal! I advised Mr.

Haley ter let well enough alone."

"Then they know who is the thief at last?" asked Janice, quaveringly.

"No."

"But they know Mr. Haley never stole them coins!" cried Aunt Almira.

"Wal--ef they do, they don't admit of it," drawled Uncle Jason.

"What in tarnation is it, then, Dad?" demanded Marty.

"Why, they've made sech a to-do over findin' that gold piece in Hope Drugg's possession, that they don't dare go on an' prosercute the schoolmaster--nossir!"

"Bully!" exclaimed the thoughtless Marty. "That's all right, then."

"But--but," objected Janice, with trembling lip, "that doesn't clear Nelson at all!"

"It answers the puppose," proclaimed Uncle Jason. "He ain't under arrest no more, and he don't hafter pay no lawyer's fee."

"Ye-es," admitted his niece, slowly. "But what is poor Nelson to do?

He's still under a cloud, and he can't teach school."

"And believe me!" growled Marty, "that greeny they got to teach in his place don't scu'cely know beans when the bag's untied."

It was true that the four committeemen had considered it wise to withdraw their charge against Nelson Haley. Without any evidence but that of a purely presumptive character, their lawyer had advised this retreat.

Really, it was a sharp trick. It left Nelson worse off, as far as disproving their charge went, than he would have been had they taken the case into court. The charge still lay against the young man in the public mind. He had no opportunity of being legally cleared of suspicion.

The ancient legal supposition that a man is innocent until he is found guilty, is never honored in a New England village. He is guilty unless proved innocent. And how could Nelson prove his innocence? Only by discovering the real thief and proving _him_ guilty.

The shrewd attorney hired by the four committeemen knew very well that he was not prejudicing his clients' case when he advised them to quash the warrant.

But as for the discovery of the rare coin in circulation--one known to belong to the collection stolen from the schoolhouse--that injured the committeemen's cause rather than helped it, it must be confessed.

Joe Bodley frankly admitted having paid over the gold piece to Hopewell Drugg, as a deposit on the fiddle. But he professed not to know how the coin had come into the till at the tavern.

Joe had full charge of the cash-drawer when Mr. Parraday was not present, and he had helped himself to such money as he thought he would need when he went up town to negotiate for the purchase of the fiddle.

He denied emphatically that the man who had engaged him to purchase the fiddle had given him the ten dollar gold piece. Who the purchaser of the fiddle was, however, the barkeeper declined to say.

"That's my business," Joe had said, when questioned on this point.

"Ya-as. I expect to take the fiddle. Hopewell's agreed to sell it to me, fair and square. If I can make a lettle spec on the side, who's business is it but my own?"

When Janice heard the report of this--through Walky Dexter, of course--she was reminded of the black-haired, foreign looking man, who had been so much interested in Hopewell's violin the night she and Frank Bowman had taken the storekeeper home from the dance.

"I wonder if he can be the customer that Joe Bodley speaks of? Oh, dear me!" sighed Janice. "I'm so sorry Hopewell has to sell his violin. And I'm sorry he is going to sell it this way. If that 'foxy looking foreigner,' as Mr. Bowman called him, is the purchaser of the instrument, perhaps it is worth much more than a hundred dollars.

"Lottie _must_ go again and have her eyes examined. Hopewell will take her himself next month--the poor, dear little thing! Oh! if daddy's mine wasn't down there among those hateful Mexicans----

"And I wonder," added the young girl, suddenly, "what one of those real old violins is worth."