_Sense of Justice:_ No.

_Self-confidence:_ But if I can't influence some woman's vote I may as
well drown myself.

_Reason:_ Some men have no influence over anybody. _They_ won't stand
for taxation without representation.

The Poor Boy (as a whole) gives up with reluctance the idea of a
government of the ladies, by the ladies, and for the ladies.

_Wish to Do the Next Best Thing:_ Let it be a government by
commission--a commission of three. A man and a woman--and--

_Touch of Genius:_ The children must be represented. They shall elect a
child.

_Sense of the Ridiculous:_ Upon a platform of "Baseball in the
streets--longer vacations, and more of them."

_Reason:_ The child must not be related to the other members of the
commission. We are against affairs of state being influenced by a
slipper.

_Sense of Decency, Good Form, Breeding, etc.:_ Candidates shall not vote
for themselves; nor stump the valley proclaiming at the top of their
lungs that they alone can keep the country from going to the dogs.

_Fondness for an Occasional Glass of Champagne:_ How about liquor?

_Self-control:_ If _everybody_ else will do without it, _I_ will.

_Human Nature:_ We must encourage early marriages.

_Ego:_ Of course, you exempt yourself.

_Whole System of Nerves and Circulation:_ I do not!

_Fastidiousness:_ She must be so and so and so (but he only succeeded in
conjuring up a vague shadow of a girl).

Beginning like this (or something like it), deliberately, and thinking
up things as he went along, the Poor Boy's imagination suddenly stepped
in and took such a terrific grip of the situation that little by little
the idea of a model settlement became as real as the most vivid and
logical dream.

The valley was under three feet of snow. There was four feet of snow
upon the surrounding hills and mountains, but already the engineers,
headed by the Poor Boy, had been at work, and the masons and the
carpenters. And many miles of ditches had been dug, and dams built, and
a powerhouse, and roads (always among trees--so that the natural beauty
of the valley was not so much as scratched), and already the village was
complete, with its white houses and white school (with its longer
holidays and more of them), its white library with the long lovely
colonnade, commission house facing it, gardens in front of every
dwelling, and pairs of lovers strolling by Placid Brook.

Furthermore the village was full of people already, a