er seemed to lag. "I bet I burned three wagon-loads of stuff 'sides
what I set outside on the street for 'em to take away. No use talkin',
Dad, you got ter build a new pen and yard for the shoats."

"Whuffor?" demanded his father, eyeing him slowly.

"'Cause the old boards and rails was so rotten that I jest burned 'em
up," declared his son. "You know folks could see it from the street,
an' it looked untidy."

"Wa-al," drawled Uncle Jason, with only half a sigh.

Janice could scarcely keep from clapping her hands, this so delighted
her. She compared this with some of the conversation at the Day table
soon after the time she had arrived in Poketown!

CHAPTER XXVIII

"NO ODOR OF GASOLINE!"

During the winter now passed, Janice had watched the progress of the
new school under Nelson Haley's administration with growing confidence
in that young man. Nelson was advancing as well as his pupils and the
school discipline. Educators from other towns in the state--even in
neighboring states--had come to visit Poketown's school.

Janice could not help having a thrill of pride when she learned of
these visitations and the appreciation shown by other educators of
Nelson Haley's work. She did not so often see the young man in a
situation where they could talk these wonders over; for Nelson was
very, very busy and gave both his days and evenings to the work he had
set for himself the fall before.

The girl might no longer honestly complain of Nelson's lack of purpose.
He had "struck his gait" it seemed; it was as though he had suddenly
seen a mark before him and was pressing onward to that goal at top
speed.

When he and Janice met as they did, of course, at church and
occasionally at evening parties, the teacher and the girl were the very
best of friends. But tete-a-tetes were barred. Was it by Janice
herself? Or had Nelson deliberately changed his attitude toward her?

Sometimes she tried to unravel this mystery; but then, before she had
gone far in her ruminations, she began to wonder if she _wanted_ Nelson
to change toward her? That question frightened her, and she would at
once refuse to face the situation at all!

Once Nelson told her that a small college in middle Massachusetts
offered a line of work that he believed he would like to take up--if he
was "doomed to the profession of teaching, after all."

"And does the doom seem so very terrible?" she asked him, laughingly.

"I admit that I can _d