e course seemed plain enough before them.

Now Janice enjoyed the sail. She was no longer afraid, and her heart
beat happily. The ice boat made good its name on the trip to Poketown,
and Nelson Haley brought the craft to land beside the steamboat dock in
season for a late supper.

There was a crowd down at the lake's edge to see them come in. News of
their trip to the Landing, and the reason for it, had been well
circulated about town; and when Marty shouted to some of his boy friends
that "Uncle Brocky was found--and he warn't dead, neither!" the crowd
started to cheer.

The cheers were for Janice--and she realized it. The folks were glad of
her father's safety because they loved her.

"People are so kind to me--they are so kind to me!" she cried again, and
then she _did_ burst into tears, much to Marty's disgust.

CHAPTER XXI

A STIR OF NEW LIFE IN POKETOWN

After that strange Christmas Day Janice saw a good deal more of Nelson
Haley than she had before. The teacher was several years her senior, of
course; but he seemed to find more than a little pleasure in her
society.

On Janice's side, she often told herself that Nelson was a real nice
young man--but he could be so much more attractive, if he would! When
the girl sometimes timidly took him to task for his plain lack of
interest in the school he taught, he only laughed lightly.

Nelson Haley suited the committeemen perfectly. He made no startling
innovations; he followed the set rules of the old-fashioned methods of
teaching; and (to quote Elder Concannon) he was a Latin scholar! Why the
old gentleman should consider that accomplishment of such moment, when
no pupil in the Poketown school ever arrived even to a Latin declension,
was a mystery to Janice.

Even Miss 'Rill had better appreciated the fact that Poketown needed a
more advanced system of education, and a better school building as well.
And there were other people in the town that had hoped for a new order
of things when this young man, fresh from college, was once established
in his position.

They waited, it seemed, in vain. Nelson Haley was content to jog along
in the rut long since trodden out for the ungraded country school.

It was not long after the Christmas holidays, however, when there began
to be serious talk again in the town over the inconvenience in locality
and the unsanitary condition of the present schoolhouse. Every winter
the same cry had been raised--for ten years