"Oh, Walky!" gasped the girl, startled by the suggestion.
"Wal," drawled the expressman, in continuation, "that ain't no good to us, for nobody had a key to the door but him and Benny Thread."
"I wonder——" murmured Janice; but said no more.
"It's a scanderlous thing," Walky pursued, receiving his book back and preparing to join Josephus at the gate. "Goin' ter split things wide open in Polktown, I reckon. 'Twill be wuss'n a church row 'fore it finishes. Already there's them that says we'd oughter have another teacher in Mr. Haley's place."
"Oh, my!" cried Aunt 'Mira.
"Ain't willin' ter give the young feller a chance't at all, heh?" said
Mr. Day, puffing hard at his pipe. "Wall! we'll see abeout that."
"We'd never have a better teacher, I tell 'em," Walky flung back over his shoulder. "But Mr. Haley's drawin' a good salary and there's them that think it oughter go ter somebody that belongs here in Polktown, not to an outsider like him."
"Hi tunket!" cried Marty, after Walky had gone. "There ye have it. Miss Pearly Breeze, that used ter substi-toot for 'Rill Scattergood, has wanted the school ever since Mr. Haley come. She'd do fine tryin' to be principal of a graded school—I don't think!"
"Oh, don't talk so, I beg of you," Janice said. "Of course Nelson won't lose his school. If he did, under these circumstances, he could never go to Millhampton College to teach. Why! perhaps his career as a teacher would be irrevocably ruined."
"Now, don't ye take on so, Janice," cried Aunt 'Mira, with her arm about the girl. "It won't be like that. It can't be so bad—can it, Jason?"