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.