When Nancy Ware, Jim's pretty teacher, heard that Mr. Edwards had let Jim go to jail, she was hotly indignant. She liked Jim, and laughed a little over him, for she knew he adored her. In her view he was a clumsy, nice boy; awkward and shy, to be sure, but rewarding her friendliness now and then with a really entrancing grin. She liked his imagination, she liked his loyalty, and she liked his dogged resolution. She heard the news at the noon hour on Monday, and after her dinner she hurried at once to the store of Fred Farnsworth. To him she roundly declared that Mr. Edwards was a brute, a view of the man which struck Fred as a bit highly colored. Fred was thirty-one or thirty-two years old, a sensible, humorous fellow, with considerable personal force. He was very proud of the handsome shop over which hung the sign, "Frederick W. Farnsworth, Fine Crockery and Glassware," and still prouder of his engagement to Miss Ware. He was the second grand juryman from Ellmington. "Oh," said he, "Edwards isn't a bad sort of man. He isn't very sociable. I guess he wouldn't take much impudence, even from that boy of his. They say Jim wouldn't own up, and the old man won't do anything for him till he does." "If Jimmie Edwards says he didn't fire that gun, he didn't," said Nancy, positively. "Jimmie isn't the lying kind. I know Mr. Edwards. I ought not to call him a brute, I suppose. But he's one of these obstinate men who will do anything they've made up their minds to do, even if you prove to them that they're wrong, even if it hurts them more than it does any one else. He's just got it into his head that Jimmie ought to confess, and he'd let him go to the gallows before he'd back down." Nancy spoke with animation, her color rose and her eyes grew bright, and Fred looked and listened admiringly. He was skeptical about Jim, but he was struck with the accuracy of the portrait of Edwards. "I guess that's about so," he said. "And when I think of that poor boy shut up in that awful jail, locked into a cell, when he ought to be out-of-doors playing ball and having a good time, it makes my blood boil!" continued Miss Ware. "Now, Fred," she concluded, with pretty decision, "you must stop it." Fred laughed. "Isn't that a pretty large order?" he asked. "Squire Tucker put him there. I guess it's legal." "You can do _something_," said his betrothed. "Go to see Jimmie. See if you can't find out what's the matter. Jimmie likes you, perhaps he'll tell." "I didn't know Jim had any particular partiality for me," said Fred, but he felt kindlier toward the boy in spite of himself. "If you can only find out what really happened, I know we can get him out," averred Miss Ware. "Why don't you go yourself?" said Farnsworth. "I can't,--not till five o'clock. Of course I'm going then!" "That's about four hours off," said Farnsworth. "But I want something done _now_!" exclaimed Nancy. "Oh!" said Fred, humorously. "Will you go?"