Part 33 (2/2)

Haley ter let well enough alone.”

”Then they know who is the thief at last?” asked Janice, quaveringly.

”No.”

”But they know Mr. Haley never stole them coins!” cried Aunt Almira.

”Wal--ef they do, they don't admit of it,” drawled Uncle Jason.

”What in tarnation is it, then, Dad?” demanded Marty.

”Why, they've made sech a to-do over findin' that gold piece in Hope Drugg's possession, that they don't dare go on an' prosercute the schoolmaster--nossir!”

”Bully!” exclaimed the thoughtless Marty. ”That's all right, then.”

”But--but,” objected Janice, with trembling lip, ”that doesn't clear Nelson at all!”

”It answers the puppose,” proclaimed Uncle Jason. ”He ain't under arrest no more, and he don't hafter pay no lawyer's fee.”

”Ye-es,” admitted his niece, slowly. ”But what is poor Nelson to do?

He's still under a cloud, and he can't teach school.”

”And believe me!” growled Marty, ”that greeny they got to teach in his place don't scu'cely know beans when the bag's untied.”

It was true that the four committeemen had considered it wise to withdraw their charge against Nelson Haley. Without any evidence but that of a purely presumptive character, their lawyer had advised this retreat.

Really, it was a sharp trick. It left Nelson worse off, as far as disproving their charge went, than he would have been had they taken the case into court. The charge still lay against the young man in the public mind. He had no opportunity of being legally cleared of suspicion.

The ancient legal supposition that a man is innocent until he is found guilty, is never honored in a New England village. He is guilty unless proved innocent. And how could Nelson prove his innocence? Only by discovering the real thief and proving _him_ guilty.

The shrewd attorney hired by the four committeemen knew very well that he was not prejudicing his clients' case when he advised them to quash the warrant.

But as for the discovery of the rare coin in circulation--one known to belong to the collection stolen from the schoolhouse--that injured the committeemen's cause rather than helped it, it must be confessed.

Joe Bodley frankly admitted having paid over the gold piece to Hopewell Drugg, as a deposit on the fiddle. But he professed not to know how the coin had come into the till at the tavern.

Joe had full charge of the cash-drawer when Mr. Parraday was not present, and he had helped himself to such money as he thought he would need when he went up town to negotiate for the purchase of the fiddle.

He denied emphatically that the man who had engaged him to purchase the fiddle had given him the ten dollar gold piece. Who the purchaser of the fiddle was, however, the barkeeper declined to say.

”That's my business,” Joe had said, when questioned on this point.

”Ya-as. I expect to take the fiddle. Hopewell's agreed to sell it to me, fair and square. If I can make a lettle spec on the side, who's business is it but my own?”

When Janice heard the report of this--through Walky Dexter, of course--she was reminded of the black-haired, foreign looking man, who had been so much interested in Hopewell's violin the night she and Frank Bowman had taken the storekeeper home from the dance.

”I wonder if he can be the customer that Joe Bodley speaks of? Oh, dear me!” sighed Janice. ”I'm so sorry Hopewell has to sell his violin. And I'm sorry he is going to sell it this way. If that 'foxy looking foreigner,' as Mr. Bowman called him, is the purchaser of the instrument, perhaps it is worth much more than a hundred dollars.

”Lottie _must_ go again and have her eyes examined. Hopewell will take her himself next month--the poor, dear little thing! Oh! if daddy's mine wasn't down there among those hateful Mexicans----

”And I wonder,” added the young girl, suddenly, ”what one of those real old violins is worth.”

<script>