VALLEY

246 RAINBOW VALLEYwouldn't be much fun in you either if you knew youwere disgracing your father and making people talkabout you.'*"Who's been talking about you now?""Everybody so Mary Vance says." And Faithpoured out her troubles to sympathetic Jem. "Yousee," she concluded dolefully, "we've nobody to bringus up. And so we get into scrapes and people thinkwe're bad.""Why don't you bring yourselvesup?" suggestedJem. "I'll tell you what to do. Form a Good-ConductClub and punish yourselves every time you do anythingthat's not right.""That's a good idea," said Faith, struck by it."But," she added doubtfully, "things that don't seema bit of harm to us seem simply dreadful to otherpeople. How can we tell? We can't be botheringfather all the time and he has to be away a lot, anyhow.""You could mostly tell if you stoppedto think athing over before doing it and ask yourselves what thecongregation would say about it," said Jem. "Thetrouble isyou just rush into things and don't thinkthem over at all. Mother says you'reall too impulsive,just as she used to be. The Good-Conduct Club wouldhelp you to think, if you were fair and honest aboutbroke the rules. You'dpunishing yourselves when youhave to punish in some way that really hurt, or itwouldn't do any good."