Indeed, Marty and his friends had gone much further than passing 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 Saturday 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, passing 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 associated 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 assure 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 Constitutionalists.
"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.