She delighted in Marty's clean blows, in his quick "duck" and "side-step;" and when her cousin's freckled fist impinged upon the fatuous countenance of Sim Howell, Janice Day uttered an unholy gasp of delight.
She saw Nelson striding to separate the combatants. She hoped he would not be harsh with Marty.
Then, seeing the neighbors gathering, she pressed the starter button and the Kremlin glided on again. The tall young schoolmaster was between the two boys, holding each off at arm's length, when Janice wheeled around the far corner and gave a last glance at the field of combat.
"I am getting to be a wicked, wicked girl!" she accused herself, when she was well out of town and wheeling cheerfully over the Lower Road toward Middletown. "I have just longed to see that Simeon Howell properly punished ever since I caught him that day mocking Jim Narnay. And that arises from the influence of Lem Parraday's bar. Oh, dear me! I am affected by the general epidemic, I believe.
"If the Inn did not sell liquor, in all human probability, Narnay would not have been drunk that day; at least, not where I could see him. And so Sim and those other young rascals would not have chased and mocked him. I would not have felt so angry with Sim—Dear me! everything dovetails together, Nelson's trouble and all. I wonder if, after all, the selling of liquor at the Inn isn't at the bottom of Nelson's trouble.
"It sounds foolish—or at least, far-fetched. But it may be so.
Perhaps the person who stole those coins was inspired to do the wicked
deed because he was under the influence of liquor. And, of course, the
Lake View Inn was the nearest place where liquor was to be bought.
"Dear me! Am I foolish? Who knows?" Janice concluded, with a sigh.
The thought of Sim Howell mocking Jim Narnay reminded her of the latter's unfortunate family. She had been only once to the little cottage near Pine Cove since Narnay had gone into the woods with Trimmins and Jack Besmith.
Nor had she been able to see Dr. Poole, amid her multitudinous duties, and ask him how the nameless little baby was getting on; although she had at once left a note at the doctor's office asking him to call and see the child at her expense.
The peril threatening her father and the peril threatening Nelson Haley filled Janice Day's mind and heart so full that other interests had been rather lost sight of during the past eventful week.