Janice Day found the weeks sliding by more quickly after this.
Although school soon closed, she had begun to find so many interests in
Poketown that she could now write dear Daddy in Mexico quite cheerful
letters.

She had "kept at" Hopewell Drugg until his store was the main topic of conversation all over town. The man himself was even "spruced up" a bit, and he met the curious people who put themselves out to see his rejuvenated store with such a pleasant and businesslike air, that many new customers were attracted to come again.

Neatly printed announcements had been scattered about Poketown, signed by Hopewell Drugg, and making a bid for a share of the general trade. His windows remained attractively dressed. He displayed new stock and up-to-the-minute articles. The drummers who came to Poketown began to pay more attention to this store on the side street.

But Janice Day believed, that, like charity, reformation should begin at home. The old Day house was slowly revolutionized that summer. Commencing with the cleaning up of the yard and the mending of the pump, Janice inspired further improvements. Marty and she spent each Saturday morning in the dooryard and garden, while Mr. Day mended the front porch flooring, where the minister had met with his accident, and reshingled the roof.

The boles of the fruit and shade trees about the house were whitewashed, and the palings of the fence renewed. Somehow a pair of new hinges were found for the gate. The sidewalk was raked, all the weeds cut away from the fence-line, and the sod between the path and the gutter trimmed and its edges cut evenly.

When Marty actually whitewashed the fence, Mr. Day admitted that it was such an improvement he wished he could go on and paint the house. "But, by mighty!" he drawled, "it's been so long since 'twas painted, it 'ud soak up an awful sight of oil."

Other people along Hillside Avenue began to take notice of the improvement about the old Day house. Mr. Dickerson built a new front fence, getting it on a line with the Days' barrier. Others trimmed hedges and trees, put the lawn mower to their grass, bolstered up sagging fences, and rehung gates. Hillside Avenue, up its whole length, began to look less neglected.

Janice had a fondness for the little inlet, with its background of tall firs, where she had first met little Lottie Drugg, and she often walked down there. So she became pretty well acquainted with "Mr. Selectman" Cross Moore. But as yet she did not get as far out on the Middletown Lower Road as the house where the Hammett Twins lived.

One day she found a long lumber-reach dropping new posts and rails along the length of the deep ditch into which the twins' pony had come so near to backing the little old ladies on that memorable day when Janice had first met them.

"Hi tunket!" ejaculated Mr. Moore, grinning in a most friendly way at Janice, "I hope you'll be satisfied now. You've jest about hounded me into havin' this fence put up again."

"Why, Mr. Moore! I never said a thing to you about it," cried the girl.

"No. But I see ye ev'ry time you go by, and I'm so reminded of the 'tarnal fence that I remember it o' nights. If somebody should fall inter the ditch, ye know. And then— Well, I've found out you've made little Lottie Drugg promise not to come down this way 'niess somebody's with her. 'Fraid she'll fall in here, too, I s'pose——"

"Well, she might," said Janice, firmly.

"She won't have no chance," growled Mr. Moore, but with twinkling eyes in spite of his gruffness. "Hi tunket! I'll build a railing along here that'll hold up an elephunt."

This day Janice had set forth for a long jaunt into the country. She took the turn where the Hammett Twins and their pony had first come into her sight, and kept walking on the Middletown Lower Road for a long way. It overlooked the lake, Janice had been told, for most of the distance to the larger town.

She passed several farmhouses but did not reach the Hammett place; instead she rested upon a rustic bridge where a swift, brawling brook came down from the hills to tumble into the lake. Then, as she was going on, a quick "put, put, put" sounded from along the road she had been traveling.

"It's a motorcycle," thought Janice. "I didn't know anybody owned one around Poketown."

Turning the bend in the road the 'cycle flashed into view, along with a whisp of dust. A young man rode the machine—a young man who looked entirely different from the youths of Poketown. Janice looked at him with interest as he flashed past. She thought he was going so fast that he would never notice her curiosity.

He was muscularly built, with a round head set firmly upon a solid neck, from which his shirt was turned well away, thus displaying the cords of his throat to advantage. He was well bronzed by the sun, and the heavy crop of hair, on which he wore a visorless round cap, was crisp and of a dull gold color. He really was a good-looking young man, and in his knickerbockers and golf stockings Janice thought he seemed very "citified" indeed.

"He's a college boy, I am sure," decided the girl, with interest, watching the rider out of sight. "I couldn't see his eyes behind those dust glasses; but I believe there was a dimple in his cheek. If his face was washed, I don't doubt but what he'd be good-looking," and she laughed. "Why! here's Walky Dexter!"

The red-faced driver of the "party wagon" drew in Josephus and his mate, with a flourish.

"Wal, now! I am beat," he ejaculated, his little eyes twinkling.
"Can't be I've found a lost Day?"

"No, indeed, Mr. Dexter," she told him. "I was thinking I'd walk to the Hammetts'; but it's turned so hot and dusty——"

"And the Hammett gals live two good mile ahead o' ye."

"Oh! as far as that?"

"Surest thing ye know. Better hop in an' jog along back 'ith me," said
Walkworthy Dexter, cordially.

"Can I, Mr. Dexter?"

"You air jest as welcome as the flowers in May," he assured her. "Whoa, Josephus. Stand still, Kate! My sakes! but the flies bite the critters this morning, an' no mistake."

Janice "hopped in," and Mr. Dexter clucked to the willing horses.

"I jest been takin' a party of our young folks over to Middletown to take examinations for entrance to the Academy," proclaimed Walky. "An' that remin's me," added he. "Did yer see that feller go by on one o' them gasoline bikes?"

"On the motorcycle?"

"Ya-as."

"I saw him," admitted Janice.

"Know him?"

"Of course not. He doesn't belong in Poketown, I'm sure."

"Mebbe he will," said Walky, his eyes twinkling with fun again.

Janice looked at him, puzzled.

"Ain't you heard?" he questioned. "'Rill Scattergood's resigned and the school committee is lookin' for a new teacher. That feller's got the bee in his bonnet, they told me at Middletown."

"The school-teaching bee?" laughed the girl.

"Yep. He'd been for his certif'cate. He's been writin' to the
Poketown committee."

"But—but he isn't much more than a boy himself, is he?"

"They tell me he's been through college. Must be a smart youngster for, as you say, he's nothin' but a kid."

"I didn't say that!" cried Janice, in some little panic, for she knew
Dexter's proneness to gossip. "Don't you dare say I did!"

He chuckled. "Wa-al, ye meant it. Come now—didn't ye? An' he is a mighty young feller ter be teachin' school. 'Specially with sech big girls an' boys in it. He'll have ter fight the boys, it's likely, an' I shouldn't wonder if the big gals set their caps for him."

"I'm afraid you're a very reckless talker, Mr. Dexter," sighed Janice. Then her hazel eyes brightened suddenly, and she added, "They ought to call you 'Talky' Dexter, instead of 'Walky', I believe."

"'Talkworthy Dexter', eh?" he grinned.

"I'm not sure that you do always talk worthy," she told him, shaking a serious head. "You're very apt to say things to 'stir folks all up,' as my Aunt says. Oh, yes, you do! You know you do, Mr. Dexter."

"Wal, I declare!" chuckled the man, but with a queer little side glance at the serious face of the girl. "Think I'm a trouble-breeder, do ye?"

"You just ask yourself that, sir," said Janice, firmly. "You know you're just delighted if you can say something to start things going, as you call it. And it isn't worthy of you——"

"Whether I'm 'Talkworthy', or 'Walkworthy', eh?" he broke in, laughing.

"Oh, I didn't mean any offence!" exclaimed Janice, much disturbed now to think that she had criticised the man just as he was in the habit of criticising everybody else.

"I snum! mebbe you're right," grunted Walky Dexter. "And I reckon talkin' don't do much good after all. Now, look at Cross Moore. I been at him a year an' more to fix that rail fence along the ditch by his house. 'Tain't done no good. But, by jinks! somebody else got at him," added Walky, slyly, "an' I see this mornin' Cross was gittin' the rails and new posts there. He was right on the job."

Janice's cheeks grew rosy. "Why!" she cried, "I never said a word to him about it."

"No; but somehow he got the idee from you. He told me so," and Walky chuckled.

"I think Mr. Moore likes to joke—the same as you do, Mr. Dexter," said
Janice, quietly.

"Ahem! You sartainly have got some of us goin'," said the driver, whimsically. "Look at Jase Day! I never did think nothin' less'n Gabriel's trump would start Jase. But yest'day I'm jiggered if I didn't see him mendin' his pasture fence. And the old Day house looks like another place—that's right. How d'you do it?"

"I—I don't just know what you mean," stammered Janice, feeling very uncomfortable.

He looked at her with his eyes screwed up again. "D'you know what they said about yer uncle las' year? He come down to Jefferson's store with a basket of pertaters. All the big ones was on top and the little ones at the bottom. Huh! He ain't the only one that 'deacons' a basket of pertaters," and Walky chuckled.

"But the boys said 'twas easy to see how come Jase's pertaters that-a way. 'Twas 'cause it took him so 'tarnal long to dig a basket, that the pertaters grew ahead of him in the row—that's right! When he begun they was little, but by the time he got a basket full they'd growed a lot," and the gossip guffawed his delight at the story.

"But he's sure gettin' 'round some spryer this year. An' I snum! there's Marty, too. He's workin' in his mother's garden reg'lar. I seen him. 'Fore you came, Miss Janice, if Marty was diggin' in the garden an' found a worm, he thought he was goin' fishin' and got him a bait can and a pole, an' set right off for the lake—that's right!" and Walky shook all over, and grew so red in the face over his joke that Janice was really afraid he was becoming apoplectic.

But something in the middle of the road, as they made another corner, stopped all this fun.

"Hullo!" exclaimed Walky. "That young feller on the gasoline bike has had an accident. Don't it look that way to you?"