How Janice Day Won

Helen Beecher Long

General Books

2010

130 páginas

4h 20m

ISBN-13: 9781153774994

Inglês

Excerpt: ...returned the minister, and walked out before there could be further friction between them; for he liked the hard-headed, shrewd, and none-too-honest politician, as he liked few men in Polktown. If the minister did not distinctly array himself with the partisans of Nelson Haley, he expressed his full belief in his honesty in a public manner. And at Thursday night prayer meeting he incorporated in his petition a request that his parishioners be not given to judging those under suspicion, and that a spirit of charity be spread abroad in the community at just this time. The next day, Walky Dexter said, that charitable spirit the minister had prayed for "got awfully swatted." News spread that on the previous Saturday, only a few hours after the coin collection was missed, Nelson Haley had sent away a post-office money order for two hundred dollars. "That's where a part of the missing money went," was the consensus of public opinion. How this news leaked out from the post-office was a mystery. But when taxed with the accusation Nelson's pride made him acknowledge the fact without hesitation. "Yes; I sent away two hundred dollars. It went to my aunt in Sheffield. I owed it to her. She helped me through college." "Where did I get the money? I saved it from my salary." Categorically, these were his answers. "If that young feller only could be tongue-tied for a few weeks, he might git out o' this mess in some way," Walky Dexter said. "He talks more useless than th' city feller that was a-sparkin' one of our country gals. He talked mighty high-falutin'-lots dif'rent from what the boys she'd been bringed up with talked. "Sez he: 'See haow b-e-a-u-tiful th' stars shine ter-night. An' if th' moon would shed-would shed--' 'Never mind the woodshed, ' sez the gal. 'Go on with yer purty talk.' Haw! haw! haw! "Now, this here Nelson Haley ain't got no more control of his tongue than that feller had. Jefers-pelters! what ye goin' ter do with a feller that tells...