A presidential election would have made little more stir in Poketown than the coming there of this young man who looked for the position of school-teacher. Marty brought home word at night to the old Day house that Mr. Haley had put up at the Lake View Inn; that he had let two of the older boys try out his motorcycle; that he could pitch a ball that "Dunk" Peters couldn't hit, even though "Dunk" had played one season with the Fitchburg team. Likewise, that Mr. Haley was to go before the school committee that evening. And after supper Marty hastened down town again to learn how the examination of the young collegian "came out."
"I do hope," sighed Aunt 'Mira, "that this young man gits the school.
Mebbe Marty will like him, an' go again. I won't say but that the
boy's a good deal better'n he was; he's changed since you've come,
Janice. But he'd oughter git more schoolin'—so he had."
"I met Mr. Haley," said her niece, quietly, "He seems like quite a nice young man; and, if he has any interest in his work, he ought to give a good many of the Poketown boys a better start."
For Marty Day was not the only young loafer in the town. There was always a group of half-grown boys hanging about Josiah Pringle's harness shop, or the sheds of the Lake View Inn.
In Greensboro there had been a good library and reading-room, and the Young Men's Christian Association boys and young men had a chance there. Janice knew that her father's influence had helped open these club-like places for the boys, and so had kept them off the streets. There wasn't a thing in Poketown for boys to do or a place to go to, save the stores where the older men lounged. Sometimes, her aunt told her, men brought jugs of hard cider to the Inn tables, and the boys got to drinking the stuff.
"Now, if this Nelson Haley is any sort of a fellow, and he gets the school," murmured Janice to herself, "he may do something."
Marty brought home the latest report from the committee meeting before they went to bed. Mr. Haley seemed to have made a good impression upon the three old dry-as-dust committeemen, especially on old Elder Concannon, the superannuated minister who had lived in Poketown for fifty years, although he had not preached at the Union Church, saving on special occasion, for two decades.
"The Elder says he thinks this Haley'll do," said Marty, with a grin. "I heard him tell Walky Dexter so. He knows some Latin, Haley does," added the boy. "What's Latin, Janice?"
"Nothing that will help him in the least to teach the Poketown School," declared his cousin, rather sharply for her. "Isn't that ridiculous! What can that old minister be thinking of?"
"The Elder's great on what he calls 'the classics,'" said Mr. Day, with a chuckle. "He reads the Bible in the 'riginal, as he calls it. He allus said 'Rill Scattergood didn't know enough to teach school."