Nelson Haley was, however, at the town meeting and spoke in favor of the new school building. Janice had a full report of it afterward from Marty, who squeezed in at the back with several of the other boys and drank in the long and tedious wrangle between the partisans in the school matter.
"And, by jinks!" the boy proclaimed, "lemme tell you, Janice, it looked like the vote was goin' ag'in us till Mr. Haley began to talk. I thought he didn't have much interest in the thing. Nobody thought he did. I heard some of the old fellers cacklin' that 'teacher didn't favor the idee none.'
"But, say! When he got up to talk, he showed 'em. He was sitting alongside of Elder Concannon himself, and the Elder had made a mighty strong speech against increasin' taxes and burdenin' the town for years and years with a school debt.
"But, talk about argument! Mr. Haley sailed inter them old fossils, and made the fur fly, you bet!"
"Oh, Marty! Fur fly from fossils?" chuckled Janice.
"That does sound like a teaser, don't it?" responded her cousin, with a grin. "Just the same, Mr. Haley made 'em all sit up and take notice. He didn't only speak for the schoolhouse, and new methods of teaching, and a graded school; but he took up Elder Concannon's arguments and shot 'em full of holes.
"You ought to have seen the old gentleman's face when Mr. Haley proved that a better-taught generation of scholars would possess an increased earning power and so be better able to take up and pay the school bonds than the present taxpayers.
"Say! the folks cheered! When Mr. Haley sat down, the question was put and the vote went through with a rush. But Elder Concannon and Old Bill Jones, and Mr. Cross Moore, and some of the others, were as mad as they could be."
"Mad at Mr. Haley?" queried Janice, with sudden anxiety.
"You bet! But they can't take the school away from him till the end of the year, as long as he doesn't neglect his work. So Dad says, and he knows."