“And then, at the end of next year, Mr. Chumley will raise it again. He owns more rentable property than any other man on the Hill, and just as soon as he is sure his tenant is settled he begins to put up the rent on him,” observed a fourth girl.
“That is just it,” Mrs. Kerrick responded, slowly. “The society should not pay rent. We should own our own house. We should build. We should raise a goodly sum of money this winter toward the building fund. But we must find some method of interesting everybody in our need.
“A membership in the M. O. R. has always been a reward of merit. Freshmen cannot, of course, be ‘touched’ for the M. O. R., and few sophomores attain that enviable eminence. But by the time a girl has reached her senior year at Central High it is her own fault if she is not a member.
“Therefore, the girls of the younger classes should be interested in the stability of the society, irrespective of whether they are members yet, or not. And naturally, if the girls are interested, they can interest their brothers and their parents.”
“Suppose, Mrs. Kerrick, a girl hasn’t any brothers?” demurely asked a quiet girl in the corner.
“Very well, then, Nellie Agnew!” said the lady, laughing. “You go and interest some other girl’s brother. But we haven’t heard from little Mother Wit,” added Mrs. Kerrick, turning suddenly to a pretty, plump girl, all in brown and with shining hair and eyes, who sat by herself at the far end of the room. “Haven’t you a thing to say, Laura Belding?”
“Won’t it be a little difficult,” asked the girl addressed, diffidently, “to invent anything that will interest everybody in the building fund of the M. O. R.?”
“That’s what we’re all saying, Laura,” said one of the other members of the Board. “Now you invent something!”
“You give me a hard task,” laughed the brown girl. “Of course, all members—both active and graduate—will be interested for their membership’s sake. The problem is, then, in addition, to interest, first, the girls who may be members, and, second, the boys and general public who can never be members of the M. O. R.”
“Logically put, Laura,” urged Mrs. Kerrick. “Then what?”