a'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, and all
were men in favor of new methods.

Before this, the school had closed and Nelson Haley had gone to Maine to
work in a hotel during the summer. The last half of the school year had
been much different from the young man's fall term. Although he gave the
boys all the instruction in baseball he had promised, and otherwise had
kept up their interest in the school, he had begun to lay out the work
differently for the pupils and rea