"It is too bad about young Besmith," Janice said, shaking her head.
"He is only a boy."
"Yep. But a month or so in the woods without drink will do him a heap of good."
That very evening, however, Janice saw Jack Besmith in town. From
Marty she learned that he did not stay long.
"He came in for booze—that's what he come for," said her cousin, in disgust. "He started right back for the woods with a two-gallon demi-john."
"And I thought they had no money up there," Janice reflected. "Can it be that Lem Parraday or his barkeeper would trust them for drink?"
Marty was nursing a lump on his jaw and a cut lip. The morning's battle, had not gone all his way, although he said to Janice with his usual impish grin when she commented upon his battered appearance: "You'd orter see the other feller! If Nelson Haley hadn't got in betwixt us I'd ha' whopped Sim Howell good and proper. I was some excited, I allow. If I hadn't been I needn't never run ag'inst Sim's fist a-tall. He's a clumsy kid, if ever there was one—and I reckon he's got enough of me for a spell. Anyway, he won't get fresh with Mr. Haley again—nor none of the rest of 'em."
"Dear me, Marty! it seems too bad that any of the boys should feel so unkindly toward Mr. Haley, after all he's done for them."
"They're a poor lot—fellers like Sim Howell. Hang around the tavern hoss sheds all the time. Can't git 'em to come up to the Readin' Room with the decent fellers," Marty said belligerently.
Marty had forgotten that—not so long before—he had been a frequenter of the tavern "hoss sheds" himself. That was before Janice had started the Public Library Association and the boys' club.
Janice did not see Nelson that evening, and she wondered what he was doing with his idle time. So the following afternoon she came home by the Lower Road, meaning to call on the schoolmaster. She stopped her car before Hopewell Drugg's store and ran in there first.