aces on either hand were so trim?
The carelessly-kept shop showed up a hundred per cent. worse than it had
before Clean-Up Day. Even old Bill Jones kept in some trim, and the meat
markets began to rival each other in cleanliness.

The taxpayers began to speak with pride of Poketown. When they visited
Middletown, or other villages that had previously looked down on the
hillside hamlet above the lake, they were apt to say:

"Just come over and see our town. What? You ain't been in Poketown in
two years? No wonder you don't know what you're talking about! Why, we
put it all over you fellows here for clean streets, and shops, and
nice-lookin' lawns and all that--and our school!"

Poketownites were proud of the reading-room, too, although Mr. Massey's
store was becoming a cramped place for it now. The shelves devoted to
the circulating library were well crowded. The state appropriation had
been spent carefully, and the new, well-bound books looked "mighty
handsome" when visitors came into the place.

But the original intention for the place had never been lost sight of.
It had been made for the boys and young men of Poketown. They had fully
appreciated it, and, Elder Concannon's prophecy to the contrary
notwithstanding, the reading-room was never the scene of disorderly
conduct.

Janice hoped the day would come when the reading-room association should
have a building of its own,--not an expensive, ornate structure for
which the taxpayers would be burdened, and the upkeep of which would
keep the association poor for years; but a snug, warm, cheerful place
which would actually be a club for the boys, and offer all the other
benefits of a free library.

She knew already just where the building ought to stand. There was a
certain empty lot on High Street which would give a library a prominent
site. This lot was owned by old Elder Concannon.

"There've been miracles happened here in Poketown during the last year
or so; if I have patience and wait to strike when the iron's hot, maybe
_that_ miracle will come to pass," Janice told herself.

Elder Concannon had already begun to treat Janice in a much more
friendly way than he had at one time. She believed that secretly he was
interested in the library and reading-room. Sometimes he spent an hour
or so there of an evening--especially if one of the boys would play
checkers with him.

"He's an old nuisance," growled Marty to his cousin, on one occasion.
"He keeps some of the