The Mission of Janice Day Part 48

"Nelson! how well you know me, after all!" Janice murmured.

There was much haste in getting ready for the departure. The general declared over and over again that the front was no place for his dear wife, after all. He had made a mistake in allowing her to come on from New York. It would be a long time yet before the district would be a settled place. But in time---- And there was the chest of valuable--er--papers, and the like!

"Most of them do it," Mr. Broxton Day said reflectively to his little party. "Just as soon as these 'liberators' acquire a little power they acquire treasure of a lasting quality. And this treasure they cache outside of Mexico. It is a sign of thrift; the laying up of something against the proverbial rainy day. And these rainy days in Mexico sometimes suggest the deluge."

There was another small matter that puzzled the general.

"He is _Americano_, senor," he said to Mr. Day. "He of the red vest. I know not for sure whether he was sent to rouse panic among my troops or no. He succeeded in doing so and Dario Gomez might have plundered the camp with his handful of men.

"If he were one of my own people I would have him shot without compunction. If you would decide, senor----"

"Let me talk to him, General," said Broxton Day quietly.

His talk with the man who had swindled his brother resulted in Tom Hotchkiss gladly joining the party bound for the Border. What they might do to him in the United States would be nothing so bad as an adobe wall and a file of riflemen!

"Now, Judge B-Day!" whispered Janice in her father's ear, "pa.s.s judgment likewise on another culprit."

"Who, Daughter?"

"What do you think of Nelson now that you have seen him and know what he has done?"

"My dear," said "Judge B-Day," smiling at her tenderly, "caution was never yet a fault to my mind--and Nelson possesses it. It may go well with your impulsiveness. After all, I think your Nelson is a good deal of a man."

This dialogue was between Janice and her father. Marty was still eyeing the cringing Tom Hotchkiss.

"The water's all squeezed out o' _that_ sponge," sniffed Marty. "He'll never fill out that red vest of his again--not proper. And won't dad take on a new lease of life when he hears about it--hi tunket!"

CHAPTER x.x.x

AT HOME

The rear room of Ma.s.sey's drugstore, behind the prescription counter, was the usual meeting place of the Polktown schoolboard. There was, it is true, a well furnished board-room in the new school building; but habit was strong in the community and as long as the bespectacled druggist held a vote in school matters the important business of the board would be done here.

The day Nelson Haley had left them in the lurch and they had to scurry about to obtain the services of a subst.i.tute princ.i.p.al for the Polktown school, the board gathered after supper at Ma.s.sey's in a very serious mood. There was considerable indignation expressed at the young schoolmaster's course. Even Mr. Middler looked gravely admonitory when he spoke of Nelson. Ma.s.sey sputtered a good deal over it.

"That jest about fixes him with _me_," he said. "Leavin' us in a hole this way to go traipsin' off to the Mexican Border after that gal and Marty Day. He'd better hunt a new job when he comes back."

"Let us not be hasty," Mr. Middler said, but half agreeing.

It was Cross Moore who took up the matter from an entirely different point of view. He was usually a man of few words and he was not voluble now; but what he said drew the surprised and instant attention of everyone.

"Did it ever occur to you," he drawled, "that mebbe we owe Nelson Haley something?"

"Owe him? No, we don't," snapped Ma.s.sey, the treasurer. "I gave him his check up to the fifteenth day of December only two days ago."

"Something money can't pay for," pursued the unruffled selectman. "You know, we were pretty hard on him all last summer. About them lost gold coins, I mean."

"Well! we gave him his job back, didn't we?" asked Crawford.

"True, true," the minister joined in.

"Well, what ye goin' to do about his runnin' off an' leavin us in this fix?" bristled Ma.s.sey, glaring about at his fellow committeemen.

"I move you, Mr. Chairman," said Cross Moore quietly, "that we give Mr.

Haley a vacation--with pay."

"Oh, by ginger!" gasped the excited druggist. "For how long, I sh'd admire to know?"

"Till he returns with Janice Day," said Cross Moore.

"I--I second the motion," stammered the minister.

And this decision--finally pa.s.sed without a dissenting voice--made no more stir in the community than did several occurrences during the days that immediately followed.

Polktown was indeed stirred to its depths. Nelson's hasty departure to "bring back Janice and that Day boy," as it was said, was but one of these surprising happenings.

Something happened at Hopewell Drugg's that excited all the women in the neighborhood.

"Jefers-pelters!" was Walky Dexter's comment. "They run together like a flock o' hens when the rooster finds the wheat-stack. Sich a catouse ye never _did_ hear! Ye'd think, ter listen to 'em, there'd never been a baby born in this town since Adam was a small child--er-haw! haw! haw! I dunno what they would ha' done, I'm sure, if it had been twins."

Uncle Jason came very near to being a deserted husband for a week. Aunt 'Mira seemed determined to live at Hopewell Drugg's. He finally plodded across town and entered the store on the side street with determination in his soul and fire in his eye. The store chanced to be empty, but from the rear room came the wailing notes of Hopewell's violin. Yet there was a sweetness to the tones of the instrument, too, even to Jason Day.

Uncle Jason halted and his weather-beaten face lost its hardness and the light of battle died out of his eyes.

"'Rock-a-bye, baby! on the tree-top,'"

wailed the old tune. Uncle Jason tiptoed to the doorway. Hopewell, with the instrument cuddled under his chin, was picking out the old song, but falteringly.

"And there's jest _glory_ in his face," muttered Uncle Jason.

"Oh, Mr. Day!" exclaimed the storekeeper, awakening suddenly and laying down his violin with tenderness. "Did--did you want something?"

"Wal, I _was_ bent on gittin' my wife. But I reckon I might's well lend her to ye a leetle longer, an' be neighborly. How's the boy?"

"They tell me, Mr. Day, that he's a wonderful child," Hopewell said seriously.

"I bet ye!" chuckled Uncle Jason. "They all be. Wal, as I can't have Almiry, ye might's well give me a loaf of bread. Gos.h.!.+ boughten bread's dry stuff!--an' some o' that there quick-made puddin' ye jest hafter add water to.

"Somehow," continued Mr. Day, "I can't get along very well without _some_ dessert. Been useter it so many years, ye know. And them doughnuts Almiry left me seemed jest to melt away like an Aperl snowstorm."

"You better wait a little, Mr. Day," said the storekeeper, smiling. "I heard your wife tell mine that she thought everything would be all right now, and she was fixin' to go home."

"Thanks be!" exclaimed Mr. Day devoutly.

"You been in deep trouble yourself, Mr. Day," said Hopewell.