It’s natural to be over optimistic in the first flush of success in a new venture, but in this case there was no reaction. Outside of the financial success the experiment had been for every member of the club, which meant practically every member of the village, our most notable achievement had been in rousing the community spirit. We had all got together in a fashion that distinguished us from our neighboring towns. People from outside began to speak of us residents of Brewster as Brewsterites, which to my mind was significant. If our prize system hadn’t accomplished any more than this it had been worth while. This was just the spirit we wanted as a basis for working out more in detail our pioneer idea. Ruth and I hadn’t forgotten our lesson from the pioneers of Little Italy, that half the secret of earning more money is to save more money, and that to do this means a simpler standard of living. This was one of the things that I had talked over with Holt and Barclay and the committee with the result of a hearty endorsement from Holt, a mild endorsement from Barclay, and an agreement from the committee not to oppose. They all admitted anyway that something must be done to keep interest alive during the long winter months. Now I had no definite plan in mind beyond a vague notion to rouse if possible an interest in the romantic lives of our ancestors--to bring home to those of to-day the possibility of making our own lives just as romantic and independent and venturesome. Whatever we accomplished grew out of talks between Holt, Ruth and myself, but to a still larger degree out of incidents that grew out of the undertaking itself. Our whole enterprise developed from within itself. We planned nothing except along general lines and forced nothing. For example, here is one thing that turned up unexpectedly. Holt came to me one day and said he had run across a moving picture man who was in town with a view to installing a moving picture show. The latter had been to Moulton, who owned the opera house beneath which his store was located, and had tried to make a bargain with him to rent the hall. “Why in thunder don’t we do it ourselves?” was Holt’s question to me. “As a personal business venture?” I asked. “As a business venture for the club,” he answered. “There’s no doubt but what a moving picture show is going to be started here sooner or later. You can’t prevent it. If an outsider conducts the business he carries off the good money of our members, he forces us to buck against a rival interest and he runs any old films he chooses. If we run it ourselves we can make it part of our winter’s amusement, select our films, and turn back into the club treasury everything over running expenses.” “And if we lose?” “We can’t lose. Wouldn’t do any harm to try it anyway, and if we do lose it’s a safe bet it would scare off any outsider from ever trying it.”