g heavily upon her hands.

"If I just had a car!" she would often say, until Marty got to teasing
her about it, and Nelson Haley, whenever he saw her, usually asked very
sober questions about her car--if she'd had much tire trouble on her
last trip, and so forth!

"You can all just laugh at me," Janice declared. "I know Daddy will
send the money some time. And then, if you are not _very_ good, and
_very_ polite, you sha'n't ride with me at all."

Aunt 'Mira was so inspired by her niece's talk of an automobile that
she studied the mail-order catalogues diligently, and finally sent off
for a coat and veil, together with an approved automobile mask, to be
worn when she went motoring through the country with Janice!

The spring passed and summer came. The cellar walls of the new
schoolhouse were laid, and then the framework went up, and finally the
handsome edifice was finished upon the outside. Really, Poketown was
fairly startled by the appearance of the new building. Some of the
very people who had been opposed to the thing were won over by its
appearance.

"Hi tunket!" exclaimed Mr. Cross Moore, "barrin' the taxes we'll haf
ter pay for the next ten year, I could be glad ter see sech a handsome
house in the town. An' they tell me 'at teacher has had more ter do
with the plannin' of the school than the architect himself. Too bad
Mr. Haley ain't goin' ter be here no longer than this term. He'd ought
ter have the bossin' of the new school."

"Who says he won't?" snapped Walky Dexter, who heard the selectman's
statement.

"You ax the Elder--or old Bill Jones," chortled Moore.

"Come now! what do you mean by that?" demanded Mr. Massey, in whose
store the conversation took place.

"Ax 'em," said Mr. Moore again. "They've got it fixed up to fire Mr.
Haley at the end of this term."

"Nothin' like bein' warned in time," said Walky Dexter. "Them old
shagbarks ain't been _e_-lected themselves for next year, yet. They
air takin' too blamed much for granted, that's what's the matter with
them. July school meetin' is purty near; but mebbe we kin put a spoke
in their wheel."

Forthwith Walkworthy Dexter began to earn his right to the nickname
Janice had once given him. He became "Talky" Dexter, and he talked to
some purpose. When the school meeting was held in July there was the
most astonishing overturn that had been seen in Poketown for years. An
entirely new committee was elected to govern school affairs