The rear room of Massey's drugstore, behind the prescription counter, was the usual meeting place of the Polktown schoolboard. There was, it is true, a well furnished board-room in the new school building; but habit was strong in the community and as long as the bespectacled druggist held a vote in school matters the important business of the board would be done here.

The day Nelson Haley had left them in the lurch and they had to scurry about to obtain the services of a substitute principal for the Polktown school, the board gathered after supper at Massey's in a very serious mood. There was considerable indignation expressed at the young schoolmaster's course. Even Mr. Middler looked gravely admonitory when he spoke of Nelson. Massey sputtered a good deal over it.

"That jest about fixes him with me," he said. "Leavin' us in a hole this way to go traipsin' off to the Mexican Border after that gal and Marty Day. He'd better hunt a new job when he comes back."

"Let us not be hasty," Mr. Middler said, but half agreeing.

It was Cross Moore who took up the matter from an entirely different point of view. He was usually a man of few words and he was not voluble now; but what he said drew the surprised and instant attention of everyone.

"Did it ever occur to you," he drawled, "that mebbe we owe Nelson Haley something?"

"Owe him? No, we don't," snapped Massey, the treasurer. "I gave him his check up to the fifteenth day of December only two days ago."

"Something money can't pay for," pursued the unruffled selectman. "You know, we were pretty hard on him all last summer. About them lost gold coins, I mean."

"Well! we gave him his job back, didn't we?" asked Crawford.

"True, true," the minister joined in.

"Well, what ye goin' to do about his runnin' off an' leavin us in this fix?" bristled Massey, glaring about at his fellow committeemen.

"I move you, Mr. Chairman," said Cross Moore quietly, "that we give Mr. Haley a vacation—with pay."

"Oh, by ginger!" gasped the excited druggist. "For how long, I sh'd admire to know?"

"Till he returns with Janice Day," said Cross Moore.

"I—I second the motion," stammered the minister.

And this decision—finally passed without a dissenting voice—made no more stir in the community than did several occurrences during the days that immediately followed.

Polktown was indeed stirred to its depths. Nelson's hasty departure to "bring back Janice and that Day boy," as it was said, was but one of these surprising happenings.

Something happened at Hopewell Drugg's that excited all the women in the neighborhood.

"Jefers-pelters!" was Walky Dexter's comment. "They run together like a flock o' hens when the rooster finds the wheat-stack. Sich a catouse ye never did hear! Ye'd think, ter listen to 'em, there'd never been a baby born in this town since Adam was a small child—er-haw! haw! haw! I dunno what they would ha' done, I'm sure, if it had been twins."

Uncle Jason came very near to being a deserted husband for a week. Aunt 'Mira seemed determined to live at Hopewell Drugg's. He finally plodded across town and entered the store on the side street with determination in his soul and fire in his eye. The store chanced to be empty, but from the rear room came the wailing notes of Hopewell's violin. Yet there was a sweetness to the tones of the instrument, too, even to Jason Day. Uncle Jason halted and his weather-beaten face lost its hardness and the light of battle died out of his eyes.

"'Rock-a-bye, baby! on the tree-top,'"

wailed the old tune. Uncle Jason tiptoed to the doorway. Hopewell, with the instrument cuddled under his chin, was picking out the old song, but falteringly.

"And there's jest glory in his face," muttered Uncle Jason.

"Oh, Mr. Day!" exclaimed the storekeeper, awakening suddenly and laying down his violin with tenderness. "Did—did you want something?"

"Wal, I was bent on gittin' my wife. But I reckon I might's well lend her to ye a leetle longer, an' be neighborly. How's the boy?"

"They tell me, Mr. Day, that he's a wonderful child," Hopewell said seriously.

"I bet ye!" chuckled Uncle Jason. "They all be. Wal, as I can't have Almiry, ye might's well give me a loaf of bread. Gosh! boughten bread's dry stuff!—an' some o' that there quick-made puddin' ye jest hafter add water to.

"Somehow," continued Mr. Day, "I can't get along very well without some dessert. Been useter it so many years, ye know. And them doughnuts Almiry left me seemed jest to melt away like an Aperl snowstorm."

"You better wait a little, Mr. Day," said the storekeeper, smiling. "I heard your wife tell mine that she thought everything would be all right now, and she was fixin' to go home."

"Thanks be!" exclaimed Mr. Day devoutly.

"You been in deep trouble yourself, Mr. Day," said Hopewell.

"Yep. But I see the clouds liftin'," Uncle Jason said, licking his lips and leaning both hands on the counter. "Them bank folks sartainly was right arter me. Houndin' the court to order me sold up—they did so!

"But when that telegram come from my son down there on the Border about Tom Hotchkiss"—Jason Day said "my son," oh, so proudly!—"I showed it to the judge an' he granted stay of per-ceedin's.

"'Course, we ain't heard nothin' more from Marty and Janice. But I reckon they air busy a-rescuin' of Broxton Day. When that's done we'll l'arn all about Tom Hotchkiss.

"Did you say my wife would be ready to go hum soon?"

"Yes. You see," said Hopewell cheerfully, "Grandma Scattergood is going to stay with us now."

Uncle Jason was no more startled by this announcement than he would have been had he looked into the sitting room behind the store just then and seen the birdlike little old woman sitting close beside the cradle which she was rocking with an industrious foot.

Mrs. Day was putting on her bonnet before the looking-glass and trying the strings in a neat bow-knot between two of her chins. In a cushioned chair, well wrapped from any possible draught, sat 'Rill, the roses gone from her cheeks but with a wonderful light in her eyes.

Mrs. Scattergood was leaning forward to scrutinize the baby in the cradle. His eyes were wide open and he was staring quite as earnestly at Mrs. Scattergood. Suddenly he screwed up his tiny face into what might have been a smile.

"For the Good Land o' Goshen!" gasped Mrs. Scattergood.

She turned suddenly and beckoned to little Lottie, who stood beside Mrs. Drugg's chair.

"Lottie, come here," she commanded.

The little girl went to her and stood looking down into the cradle, too. Mrs. Scattergood put an arm about her and drew her down closer, looking first into the baby's face and then into the luminous violet eyes of Lottie.

"For the Good Land o' Goshen!" she repeated. "Do you know, 'Rill, the blessed baby's got eyes jest like Lottie? An' I believe his nose is goin' to be like hers, too.

"Fancy! He favors Hopewell's side of the fam'bly a whole lot more than he does ourn. Wal! I allus have said that the Druggses was well-favored."

"There could be nothing more to add to my happiness if my boy should look like his father," her daughter said softly.

"I never hope to live to see the Millennium," remarked Aunt 'Mira as she went back across town with Mr. Day. "I had a great-aunt that was a Millerite and give away all her things an' climbed up on to the house roof expectin' the end of the world an' to be caught up into Glory—only she fell off the roof an' broke her hip an' the world didn't come to an end anyway.

"Howsomever, I consider I've seen what 'most matches the Millennium."

"What's that?" demanded her puzzled spouse.

"Miz' Scattergood a-huggin' little Lottie on the one hand an' cooin' to that baby in the cradle on t'other. Does beat all what fools babies make of us women," and she laughed, though she wiped the tears away.

"Don't you mean angels, 'stead o' fools?" asked Uncle Jason.

It was true that Frank Bowman was very busy about this time. The last spike was driven to affix the rails of the V. C. branch road to Polktown and he was working like a Trojan to make all ready for the regular running of trains to and from the main line. But there were people in Polktown who never would forgive him for suppressing certain telegrams that reached him from the Southwest about this time.

"There ain't no excuse for a man bein' a hawg," Walky Dexter afterward declared. "Frank might ha' intermated what was comin' off when the fust train was due ter pull into Polktown; I sha'n't never feel jest the same towards him again."

Half the town had turned out to welcome the initial train. The stores were trimmed with bunting and many of the residences displayed flags, as though it were the Fourth of July or Memorial Day.

Mr. Middler was scheduled for a speech. He made it, too; but not quite the speech the good minister had intended. For it was his eyes that first identified one of the passengers on the incoming train. Before the locomotive halted Mr. Middler uttered a very robust shout and rushed to the steps of the first passenger car, his hands outstretched.

"Janice! Janice Day!"

A rising murmur went through the crowd; then they cheered. The girl stood smiling on the platform looking out over the crowd, and when they cheered such a fire of pride and delight flashed up in her countenance and sparkled from her hazel eyes as nobody had ever seen before.

"Oh—folks!" she murmured, stretching her hands out to them.

Frank Bowman stood at one side, smiling broadly. "We're not celebrating the opening of the railroad branch," he said to Elder Concannon, "half as much as we are celebrating the home-coming of Janice Day."

Janice went down the steps into Mr. Middler's arms. Directly behind her was a man with his arm in a sling who looked enough like Jason Day—though younger and sprucer—to be identified as Janice's father.

Then came Marty grinning so broadly that, as Walky Dexter declared, it almost engulfed his ears! Lastly came Nelson Haley, walking with his head up and a smile of great confidence on his face.

"Jefers-pelters!" said Walky. "I guess schoolmaster's quite some punkins again in his own estimation. It ain't done him no harm to go down there to Mexico."

There was a great deal of public congratulation and welcome for the party from the Border; but it was that evening, in the broad sitting room of the old Day house on Hillside Avenue, when the excitement of the home-coming had worn off, that the family party began to realize the adventurous weeks that had elapsed were finally all behind them.

The wind soughed eerily in the trees about the house—"working up a storm for Christmas," Uncle Jason prophesied. Marty brought in an armful of knotty chunks and fed the great, air-tight stove.

They gathered around the fire, for supper was over and Aunt 'Mira and Janice had come in from the kitchen. Nelson had managed to secure the chair next to Janice. Mr. Jason Day and his half-brother sat side by side.

"Well," said Marty, blowing a huge sigh, "this ain't much like Mexico."

"I sh'd hope not!" exclaimed his mother, seeking her knitting in the basket on the shelf under the table. "That's a reg'lar heathenish land, I expect."

"It sure is!" agreed her son with fervor. "Why, d'you know what they live on, Ma?"

"I guess you didn't git home fodder down there, Marty," said Mrs. Day, chuckling comfortably. "What do they live on?"

"Beans," said the boy in a sepulchral tone. "An' say! I've busted your bean-pot. Don't you dast give me pork an' beans for a year come next Christmas."

They laughed. It was easy to laugh now—for all the party. Humor did not have to be of a high order to bring the smiles to their lips, for a deep and abiding happiness dwelt in all their hearts.

Mr. Broxton Day looked around the old and well-remembered sitting room. "It looks about the same as it did when I was a boy, Jase," he said.

"Yep. Almiry's kep' things about as when ma was with us."

"Almira is a wonderful woman," said Broxton Day, smiling across at his sister-in-law.

"You be still, Brocky Day," said Aunt 'Mira, bridling.

"Yes," he told her gravely. "For you've kept the spirit of the old home alive here, too."

"She and Janice," said Marty.

"Dunno what we would do without Janice," Aunt 'Mira said, quick to turn the compliment.

"Ain't it so?" echoed Uncle Jason. "And you comin' hum—right back from the grave as ye might say, Broxton—is more'n a delight to us. It's a blessin'. What you tell me about that—that derned Tom Hotchkiss——"

"Don't cuss, Jason—an' you a perfessin' member," urged his wife.

"How you goin' to speak of sech a reptile like him without cussin', I wanter know?" grumbled Uncle Jason.

"Well, he's got his," said Marty briskly. "He had all that money hid away in banks, and was just goin' to lay low till things blew over and then he'd set up housekeepin' in that red vest of his somewhere else, an' live easy. But that vest o' his has sort o' faded, ain't it?"

"Hopewell Drugg's got in some real pretty knitted ones," murmured Aunt 'Mira, picking up a dropped stitch.

Marty gaped in surprise.

"Real pretty what?" demanded her husband sharply.

"Vests. D'ye want one for your Christmas, Jason?"

"Oh, cricky!" ejaculated Marty. "I seen 'em hanging there in his window when I went over this afternoon before supper. Dad, they are fully as gay as Tom Hotchkiss' was."

"I bet you was over there to see Lottie Drugg," said his mother quickly.

"What if I was?" demanded the bold, yet blushing Marty. "I dunno nobody in Polktown I was gladder to see than Lottie, 'nless 'twas you, Ma."

"Ahem!" said Mr. Jason Day. "An' he proberbly won't say that many more times, Almiry. So make the most of it."

"Yes," Janice said softly. "Marty's growing up."

At this the youth grew red in the face and bit his lip. But then he straightened up boldly, as if he were a soldier.

"Huh! speak for yourself, Janice Day. You've grown up, you have! You ought to have seen all those greaser army officers dancin' around after her," and he cast a teasing glance at Nelson.

"You can't bother me, young man," replied the schoolmaster, smiling broadly.

"I guess I'm the only one to be bothered at all by our Janice's growing up," her father said a little seriously. "Just as I have her again I seem next door to losing her."

Janice got up, crossed the room, and kissed him; but her glance was warm for Nelson as she did so.

The muffled tones of the old grandfather's clock in the hall clashed the hour of ten. Uncle Jason reached down The Book from the corner of the mantelpiece and opened it, reading that night the story of the happiness of another family whose brother came back from the grave.

THE END