Each and every one promised to do his part and to work with a will to improve the little village of Elmwood; and, with Mr. Ashley's advice, they planned their work for the summer.
First of all, they decided, the streets must be cleaned. That alone would require a good deal of time.
Then some one proposed raking the yards for three or four poor women. "They can't afford to hire it done. Couldn't we do it for them?" he asked.
"Good work!" responded Mr. Ashley. "Then, boys, see if you can't get permission to tear down and remove some old fences. Their owners would probably make no objection to your doing it, and it would be a great improvement to the village."
There were two triangles of land between cross streets. Here the boys planned to plant cannas and other bulbs, and to keep the grass neatly mowed around the beds.
"We might set out some vines to clamber over the telephone poles," one boy suggested.
"Some of us must go about and get the people to give money to buy waste-barrels," said Archie Hazen. "We must never allow paper, banana and orange peels, or anything of that kind on the streets."
"Better still, we must never throw them there ourselves," added Harold Merrill.
"Those of us who drive cows must look out that they do not feed beside the road," said Leon Messenger; "and we might get our fathers to trim up the trees."
"We must be sure to see some of the town officers about having no more rubbish dumped over the river-bank," said another.