"You can't trust some of 'em," growled the druggist. "Never!" "We'll make those who want the reading-room make the mischievous ones behave," laughed Janice. "Well," agreed the druggist, "we'll try it. Three dollars a month for three months; then six dollars. I can afford no more." "So much for so much!" whispered Janice, when she came away from the store. "At least, it's a beginning." But it was a very small beginning, as she soon began to realize. She had no money to give toward the project herself, and it was very hard to beg from some people, even for a good cause. There was needed at least one long table and two small ones, as well as some sort of a desk for whoever had charge of the room; and shelves for the books, and lamps, and a stove, and chairs, beside curtains at the windows. These simple furnishings would do to begin with. But how to get any, or all, of these was the problem. Janice went to several people able to help in the project, before she said anything more to Marty. Some of these people encouraged her; some shook their heads pessimistically over the idea. She wished Elder Concannon to agree to pay the rent of the room for the first three months. It would be but nine dollars, and the old gentleman could easily do it. Since closing his pastorate of the Union Church, years before, Mr. Concannon had become (for Poketown) a rich man. He had invested a small legacy received about that time in abandoned marble quarries and sugar-maple orchards. Both quarries and orchards had taken on a new lease of life, and had enriched the shrewd old minister. But Elder Concannon let go of a dollar no more easily now than when he had been dependent upon a four-hundred-dollar salary and a donation party twice a year. It was not altogether parsimony that made the old gentleman "hem and haw" over Janice Day's proposal. Naturally, an innovation of any kind would have made him shy, but especially one calculated to yield any pleasure to the boys of Poketown. "I don't dispute but you may mean all right, Miss Day," he said, shaking his bristling head at her. "But there's no good in those young scamps--no good at all. You would waste your time trying to benefit them. They would turn your reading-room into a bear garden." "You do not _know_ that, sir," said Janice, boldly. "Let us try them." "You are very young, Miss Day," said the Elder, stiffly. "You should yield more easily to the opinions of your elders." "Why?" demanded the girl, quickly, but smiling. "We young ones have got to learn through our own experiences, haven't we? When _you_ were young, sir, you had to learn at first hand--isn't that so? You would not accept the opinions of the older men as infallible. Now, did you, sir?" The Elder was a bit staggered; but he was honest. "Ahem!" he said. "For that very reason I desire to have you accept my advice, young lady. It will save you much trouble and heartache. These boys need a stronger hand than yours----"