But a dozen troubled, needy members who heard the sermon, felt
new hope in their hearts, and they got through the following
week--trials and all!--much easier than usual.

CHAPTER XVI

"SHOWING" THE ELDER

No millionaire library-giver had found Poketown on the map. Or else,
the hard-headed and tight-fisted voters of that Green Mountain
community were too sharp to allow anybody to foist upon them a granite
mausoleum, the upkeep of which would mainly advertise the name of the
donor.

The Union Sunday School had a library; but its list of volumes was open
to the same objections as are raised to many other institutions of its
kind. Nor was a circulating library so much needed in Polktown as a
reading and recreation room for the youth of the village.

Aside from her brief talk with Mr. Middler, Janice Day advised with no
adult at first as to how the establishment of the needed institution
should be brought about.

The girl had studied Marty, if she had had little opportunity of
becoming acquainted with other specimens of the genus _boy_. She knew
they were as bridle-shy as wild colts.

The idea of the club-room for reading and games must seem to come from
the boys themselves. It must appear that they accepted adult aid
perforce, but with the distinct understanding that the room was
_theirs_ and that there was not to be too much oversight or control by
the supporting members of the institution.

The scheme was not at all original with Janice. The nucleus of many a
successful free library and village club has been a similar idea.

"Marty, why don't you and your chums have a place of your own where you
can read and play checkers these cold nights? I hear Josiah Pringle
has chased you out of his shop again."

"Ya-as--mean old hunks!"

"But didn't somebody spoil a whole nest of whips for him by pouring
liquid glue over the snappers?"

"Well! that was only one feller. An' Pringle put us all out,"
complained the boy, but grinning, too.

"You wouldn't have let that boy do such a thing in your own
club-room--now, would you?"

"Huh! how'd we ever git a club-room, Janice? We had Poley Haskin's
father's barn onc't; but when we tried to heat it with a three-legged
cook-stove, Poley's old man put us out in a hurry."

"Oh, I mean a real _nice_ place," said the wily Janice. "Not a place
to smoke those nasty cigarettes in, and carry on; but a real
reading-room, with books, and papers, and games, and all tha