human
Max Penfield will act as secretary, and we shall expect the minutes done in the most approved University style. Archie Bradly, will you please state the object of the meeting?
gpt
Fo' de lan's sake, no! ejaculated Archie, sitting up and shutting his knife.
human
That's the very thing I came to find out!
gpt
Very well, said Polly, twinkling.
human
Then, of course, you will pay close attention. It will do you more good than carving Andover on the benches. There's not much space left on them, now, and it's still early in the season. Catherine, will you tell us the object of the meeting? Ouch!
gpt
You all know, already, began Catherine,
human
What's 'it'?
gpt
Why, the library. The Boat Club is going to see that Winsted has a public library.
human
Turn into Carnegies?
gpt
Not exactly. We haven't got our own dock built yet, and I don't think we are in a position to endow libraries. But I mean we can work and talk--
human
Talking's work, complained Archie.
gpt
That's redundancy.
human
It is, when you keep interrupting, cried Bertha Davis.
gpt
Go on, Catherine. Don't mind him. Just how can we work?
human
Well, the room will have to be cleaned thoroughly, and we girls can do most of that if the boys will help a little. And there will have to be some plain shelves put up for the books.
gpt
Me for the carpenter job! cried a long-legged youth who had lain thus far in the shade of his own hat, in entire silence and apparent unconsciousness.
human
It's just what I want to cure my brain fever.
gpt
Overstudy? Or overwork reading postals last week?
human
It's more likely fatty degeneration of the brain, if it's Bert Wyman that has it, said an emphatic voice, and a spruce energetic maiden joined the group.
gpt
I just got in on the 10:10, and Mother said you were all over here. What's before the house?
human
Nothing. We're all on the house,
gpt
Very well, she said, when Polly finished.
human
If it is in order, I move you, Madam President, that we proceed to clean the library at once.
gpt
O, Dorcas, not to-day!
human
Why not to-day? asked Dorcas briskly.
gpt
How you-all can loaf around the way you do is more than I can comprehend. Dot, your hair is coming down.