Chapter XXI: The Boys’ Library

“Hello! Peg! on your way to the club room?” asked Dick, several evenings later, as he overtook the other on the road about half-past seven.

“Just what I am, Dick,” replied the other, in a joyous fashion. “Tonight our new circulating library is going to be open to members for the first time. You know I was elected chief librarian, though in turn every fellow will have a chance to serve.”

“You’ve been working pretty hard on it, I understand, Peg?” continued Dick.

“I guess I have,” chuckled the other, in a pleased way. “I always put a lot of vim in anything I tackle. My dad says what’s worth doing at all is worth doing well, and I’m bound to keep that rule before me. I’ve hustled to gather up all the books that were offered for a starter.”

“How many have you on the shelves now, Peg?”

“Seventy-seven, and more promised,” explained the young librarian. “Besides, we are going to make out a list of thirty new ones that Mr. Holwell approves, and Leslie’s Uncle Henry says he will foot the bill.”

“That sounds great!” declared Dick; “and I’m glad for one you had that idea come to you. I wonder what Mr. Loft over at the Free Library thinks of this new scheme?”

“I heard that he sniffed some when he first heard of it. But after Mr. Holwell had a heart-to-heart talk with him, Mr. Loft seems to have drawn in his horns. Between you and me I think he’s seeing a new light. Mebbe he’s beginning to be afraid this may be the entering wedge that will lose him his nice job sooner or later.”

“I’d be sorry to hear that,” observed Dick. “Mr. Loft belongs to the Puritan days when a man didn’t dare kiss his wife on a Sunday. He ought to wake up and understand that this is the twentieth century, not the seventeenth.”

“I agree with you there,” said Peg, heartily. “And it may be Mr. Loft will learn something. It’s never too late for that, you know, Dick.”

“Guess you’re right,” admitted the other. “The case of Deacon Nocker proves it. He’s turned over a new leaf, let me tell you. Mrs. Nocker says he’s as kind as anything could be, and that both she and Billy are happy the livelong day.”

The boys reached the building which had been turned over to the Y. M. C. A. as headquarters. It was well lighted up, for like most enterprising towns of its size, Cliffwood boasted of an electric plant, as well as gas-works and a water supply.

A number of boys were in the main room, chatting, and waiting for others to come. Later on they expected to listen to a lecture by a gentleman who had been with Commander Peary in the frozen North, and had a deeply interesting story to tell, illustrated by moving pictures of the ice and snow regions.

“Here’s Peg, our fine librarian!” announced one fellow as the pair entered. “Now we can see what he’s been doing about that new circulating library of the Y. M. C. A. boys of Cliffwood.”

“Yes, get out your key, Peg, and open the door to the little room off here,” begged a second impatient member.

“Just what I mean to do, fellows,” announced Peg, smiling with pleasure. “Now, don’t rub it in too hard if things are not up to the standard. Given a little more time and I promise you it will look better.”

When the door was opened and they trooped in, almost filling the small room that had been handed over to them for the Boys’ Library, they found that several shelves were filled with books. Every one of these volumes had its own jacket made of some smooth, tough brown paper, with the title carefully printed on the back, as well as the name of the author.

On the little desk were several books in which a record could be kept concerning each and every book taken out. Peg had taken advice from older heads--Mr. Holwell among the rest--and nothing was to be left to chance. Peg was always a great hand for system, and enjoyed having an opportunity to put a few pet theories of his into practice.

“You see,” explained the proud librarian, “every book here has been approved by Mr. Holwell, who has made a study of juvenile literature. He knows as well as anything that boys can’t be _forced_ to read books they don’t like; and so he says the only way is to give them books with enough healthful adventure to make them want to read, and with the right kind of uplifting sentiment mixed in to leaven the dough.”

“That’s the ticket,” asserted Clint Babbett, energetically. “If you want to wean boys from reading stories full of blood and thunder you’ve got to give them a substitute that will hold them, and yet not do any harm. Boys are queer animals, my father always says, and not one man in fifty really understands how to handle ’em. And as to women, huh, I reckon none of ’em do, after a boy gets ten years old.”

“I like the way Mr. Holwell explains his theory of handling boys reading,” said Dick. “He likens it to playing doctor, and giving the patient homeopathic sugar coated pills that contain the medicine wanted. It pleases, and does good at the same time.”

“Another thing,” Peg went on to say, proudly, “every one of these volumes is as clean as new, almost. When you take one home with you it’s nice to know it didn’t come last from a house where they had the measles, or the scarlet fever. You see how myself, and a couple of girls who helped me, covered the whole lot.”

“You deserve a bunch of thanks from the boys of the Y. M. C. A., Peg,” said Clint.

“And we will see that he gets it, too,” asserted Dick.

Others coming in just then, the conversation became more general, Peg being constrained to explain his system for keeping track of every book taken out by any member of the Boys’ Club.

“And say,” he told them impressively, “just look over these iron-bound rules we have written here on this wall chart. You’ll see there is no fee asked for taking out a book, but if it’s held over three days there’s a penalty of a cent a day to pay. Also, if any book comes back in a bad condition the one who’s responsible will have to make good.”

“That’s only fair,” remarked Leslie Capes. “Those of us who have given over some of our private books to boost the new Boys’ Library along want to feel that our interest is going to be protected.”

A little while later it chanced that Peg, Dick and Leslie were sitting together, for no books could be taken out until the next meeting night, as the arrangements had not as yet been quite completed.

“I wanted to see you on the sly, Dick, for a minute or two,” remarked Peg, laying a hand affectionately on the sleeve of the other.

“Does that mean for me to skip out?” asked Leslie, quickly.

“Oh! don’t bother about that,” Peg remarked, easily. “It isn’t anything so very secret, and you can hear as well as Dick. You see it’s about that prize Mr. Holwell has offered.”

Of course Dick was immediately deeply interested. He also felt a quiver pass over him as of apprehension, though just why this should be he could hardly have explained if asked.

“Go on and tell us, Peg,” he pleaded.

“In the first place I want you to know I didn’t mean to spy on Nat, because I’m not that kind, and besides, it wasn’t any of my business,” Peg started in to say. “I happened to be sitting on that bench in the school grounds that stands behind the big tree, fixing my shoelace that had broken, when Nat came along with his arm through Dit’s, and what did they do but stand close by me, with Nat reading some new stuff he’d just got up, he said, to add to his farce.”

“Oh!” was what Dick said, though his eyes flashed with interest. “Don’t tell me what it was like, Peg, because somehow it might get me started along the same line. Of course though, you can tell what you thought of it, for I’d like to know.”

“I hate to say it the worst way, Dick.”

“Do you mean that it sounded _good_ to you, then?” asked Dick, bravely.

“I never heard anything funnier than the stuff Nat got off,” replied Peg, with a grin he could not repress.

Dick and Leslie exchanged glances, the one full of encouragement, the other rather dubious. When Dit Hennesy said he thought Nat’s farce was going to “bring the house down” it was bad enough; but then he was Nat’s crony, and might be expected to stand up for the other. Now that Peg, a good friend of Dick’s, added his unqualified approval it looked indeed serious.

“It must have been pretty good stuff then,” said Leslie, grimly; “if it made you double up like that, Peg.”

“It was certainly the greatest thing I ever heard,” confessed Peg. “If that is original with Nat then he’s sure got a heap more in that big head of his than anybody in Cliffwood ever dreamed he had. I’m sorry, Dick, it’s running that way, but I thought it my duty to tell you.”