Janice Day at Poketown

by Helen Beecher Long

Janice was worried. She knew that Nelson Haley had hoped to teach the Poketown school at least two years, so as to get what he called "a stake" for law-school studies. And there were not many ungraded schools in the state that paid as well as Poketown's; for it was a large school.

The furor occasioned by the special town meeting, and the fight for the new school, passed over. A site for the school was secured just off of High Street near the center of the town—a much handier situation for all concerned. The ground would be broken for the cellar as soon as the frost had gone.

The committee appointed at the town meeting to have charge of the building of the school were all in favor of it. There were three of them,—Mr. Massey, the druggist, the proprietor of the Lake View Inn, and Dr. Poole, one of the two medical practitioners in the town. These three were instructed to appoint two others to act with them, and as these two appointees need not be tax-payers, one of them was Nelson Haley, who acted as secretary.

When Janice heard of this, she was delighted. She had not seen the teacher more than to say "how-de-do" since their rather warm discussion before the date of the town meeting. Now she put herself in the way of meeting him where they might have a tête-à-tête.

There were not many social affairs in Poketown for young people. Janice had attended one or two of the parties where boys and girls mingled indiscriminately and played "kissing games," then she refused all such invitations. She was not old enough to expect to be bidden to the few social gatherings held by the more lively class of people in the town.

The church did little outside of the ladies' sewing circle to promote social intercourse in the congregation. So, although the school-teacher might have been invited to a dozen evening entertainments during that winter, Janice did not chance to meet him where they could have a "good, long talk" until the Hammett Twins gave their annual Sugar Camp party.

The two little old ladies, whom Janice had met so soon after coming to Poketown, had become staunch friends of the girl. She had been at their home on the Middletown road several times—twice to remain over night, for both Miss Blossom and Miss Pussy enjoyed having young people about them.

They were an odd little couple, but kindly withal, and loved children desperately, as many spinster ladies do. They had never married because of the illness for many years of both their father and their mother. Besides, the twins had never wished to be separated.

Now, at something over sixty years of age, they owned a fine farm and the most productive sugar-maple orchard in that part of the state. At sugaring time each year they invited all the young folk Walky Dexter could pack into his party wagon, to the camp not far from their house; and, as maple-sugar making was a new industry to Janice, she was not a little eager when she received her invitation from the two old ladies.

The "sugaring" was on a Saturday, and the party met at the schoolhouse. Some of the larger girls who had treated Janice so unpleasantly when she first visited the school were yet pupils; but they were much more friendly with the girl from Greensboro than at first. They might have been a wee bit jealous of her, however; for Nelson Haley would never treat them other than as a teacher should treat his scholars, whereas he paid marked attention to Janice whenever he was in her society.