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Crackey! it don't matter what they have," declared this careless boy, "as long as 'tain't lessons." "Lectures?" repeated Walky. "Do tell! What sort of lectures?" "I heard Mr. Haley say the first one would proberbly be illustrated by a collection of rare coins some rich feller's lent the State School Board. He says the coins are worth thousands of dollars." "Lectures on coins?" cackled Walky.
The man waved his currycomb at her and grinned. But his well-known grimace did not cheer Janice Day. "Dear me! Poor Walky is in danger, too," thought the young girl. "Why! the whole of Polktown is changing. In some form or other that liquor selling at the Inn touches all our lives. I wonder if other people see it as plainly as I do."
Scattergood had viewed so recently: "Of course, there isn't a word of truth in it?" "That Hopewell's become a toper and beats his wife?" chuckled Walky. "Wal I reckon not! Maybe Hopewell takes a glass now and then I dunno. I never seen him. But they do say he went home airly from the dance at Lem Parraday's t'other night in a slightly elevated condition. Haw! haw! haw!"
An' Hopewell Huh! him sittin' up there fiddlin' " It seemed to Janice as though a spirit of criticism had entered into all the Poketownites. There was Walky Dexter scoffing at her Uncle Jason; and here was Selectman Moore criticising the father of little Lottie. Yet neither critic, as far as Janice could see, set much of an example for his townsmen to follow!
"Suppose Sim Howell were your boy? How would you feel to know that, at his age, he had been intoxicated?" "Jefers-pelters!" grunted Walky. "I reckon I wouldn't git pigeon-breasted with pride over it nossir!" "Then don't make fun," admonished the girl, severely. "It is an awful, awful thing that the boys of Polktown can even get hold of such stuff to make them so ill."
Moore, making it a fifty-dollar fine for any taxpayer, or tenant, who puts rubbish out on the curb on any other day save the two mentioned in the main ordinance," Janice whispered to the selectman; "otherwise you will set a bad precedent with your Clean-Up Day, instead of doing lasting good." "Now, ain't that gal got brains?" Moore wanted to know of Walky Dexter. "Huh!
And she had scarcely spoken to a soul save the Days and Walky Dexter since her arrival in Poketown. Friday noon came, and at dinner Janice desperately broached the subject of 'Rill Scattergood's school again. "I'd love to visit it," she said. "Maybe I'd get acquainted with some of the girls. I might even attend for the remainder of the term." "Huh!" scoffed Marty.
"I dunno how I made it ter Ma'am Kittridge's but I done it! The old lady seen the plight I was in, and she made me sit down by the kitchen fire just like I was. Wouldn't let me take off a thing. "She het up some kinder hot tea like ter burnt all the skin off my tongue and throat, I swow!" pursued Walky. "Must ha' drunk two quarts of it, an' gradually it begun ter thaw me out from the inside.
The Baby said, "Wanty go walky;" and the hack stopped with a last rattle and jolt. Everyone got its legs kicked or its feet trodden on in the scramble to get out of the carriage that very minute, but no one seemed to mind.
"If that young feller only could be tongue-tied for a few weeks, he might git out o' this mess in some way," Walky Dexter said. "He talks more useless than th' city feller that was a-sparkin' one of our country gals. He talked mighty high-falutin' lots dif'rent from what the boys she'd been bringed up with talked. "Sez he: 'See haow b-e-a-u-tiful th' stars shine ter-night.
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