"There you air right, Miz' Petrie," agreed the Widow Beasely. "Miner's got so dirty--around his shop I mean--that I hate to buy a piece of meat there."

"But the other butcher ain't much better," cried another troubled housewife. "And the flies!"

"Oh, the awful flies!" chorused several.

"Them critters is a pest, an' that's a fac'," declared Mrs. Scattergood.

"Talk abeout the plagues o' Egypt----"

"But Miz' Petrie was tellin' us how Boston was different----"

"My soul and body!" gasped Mrs. Beasely. "I reckon she's told us enough. It's a fac'. Poketown is all cluttered up--what ain't right down filthy. An' I don't see as there's anything can be done abeout it."

"Why--Mrs. Beasely--do you believe there is anything so bad that it can't be helped?" queried Janice, slowly and thoughtfully. It was the first time her voice had been heard amid the general clatter, since she had come to sit down. Her nimble fingers were just as busy as any other ten in the room; but her tongue had been idle.

"They say it's never too late to mend," quote 'Rill Scattergood; "but I am afraid that Mr. Miner, and Mr. Jones, and some of the rest of the storekeepers are too old to mend--or be mended!"

"Ain't you right, now, Amarilla!" sniffed her mother.

"'Tain't only the storekeepers," declared Mrs. Petrie, taking up the tale again. "How many of us--us housekeepers, I mean--insist upon having things as clean as they should be right around our own back doors?"

"Wa-al," groaned Aunt 'Mira, "it takes suthin' like an airthquake to start some of the men-folks----"

"Why wait for _them_?" interposed the demure Janice again, knowing that her aunt would not object if she interrupted her. "Can't we do something ourselves?"

"I'd like to know what you'd _do_?" exclaimed the helpless Mrs. Middler.

"Why, we could have a regular 'Clean-Up Day' in Poketown, same as they do in other places."

"Good Land o' Goshen!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mrs. Scattergood. "What's _that_, I'd like to know, Janice Day? You _do_ have the greatest idees! I never heard of no 'Clean-Up Day' in Skunk's Holler."

"Perhaps they didn't need any there," laughed Janice, for she was used to the old lady's sharp tongue and did not mind it.

"Seems to me I--I've heard of such things," said Mrs. Petrie, rather feebly. She did not wish to be left behind in anything novel.

"Why, a 'Clean-Up Day'," explained Janice, "is justly exactly what it _is_. Everybody cleans up--yard, cellar, attic, streets, and all. You get out all your old rubbish, of whatsoever kind, and get it ready to be carted away; and the town pays for the stuff's being removed to some place where it can be burned or buried."

"My soul and body!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Aunt 'Mira. "Jest the same as though the town was cleanin' house."

"That's it--exactly," said Janice, nodding. "And all at the same time, so that the whole town can be made neat at once."

"Now," declared Mrs. Petrie, giving her decided and unqualified approval, "I call that a right sensible idea. I'm for that scheme, hammer and tongs! This here Day girl, that I ain't never had the pleasure of meetin' before, has sartainly got a head on her. I vote we do it!"

CHAPTER XXVII

POKETOWN IN A NEW DRESS

That is just how it all began. If you had asked any of those sewing circle ladies about it, they would have said--"to a man!"--that Mrs.

Marvin Petrie suggested Poketown's "Clean-Up Day." And they would have been honest in their belief.

For Janice Day was no strident-voiced reformer. What she did toward the work of giving Poketown a new spring dress, was done so quietly that only those who knew her well, and had watched her since she had come to Poketown, realized that she had exerted more influence than a girl of her age was supposed to be ent.i.tled to!

It was Janice who spoke with Mr. Cross Moore that very night, after the women had loudly discussed the new idea with their husbands and other male relatives at the supper table. Mr. Moore was to put the ordinance through at the next meeting of the Board of Selectmen, covering the date of the Clean-Up Day, and the amount of money to be appropriated for the removal of rubbish by hired teams.

"Put a paragraph into the motion, Mr. Moore, making it a fifty-dollar fine for any taxpayer, or tenant, who puts rubbish out on the curb on any other day save the two mentioned in the main ordinance," Janice whispered to the selectman; "otherwise you will set a bad precedent with your Clean-Up Day, instead of doing lasting good."

"Now, ain't that gal got brains?" Moore wanted to know of Walky Dexter.

"Huh! Mary Ann can't tell me that the Widder Petrie started this idea.

It was that Day gal, as sure as aigs is aigs!" and Walky nodded a solemn agreement.

There was more to it, however, than the giving notice to the people of Poketown that they had a chance to get rid of the collection of rubbish every family finds in cellar, shed, and yard in the spring. People in general had to be stirred up about it. Clean-Up Day was so far ahead that the apostles of neatness and order--those who were thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the thing and realized Poketown's need--had time to preach to most of the delinquents.

There were cards printed, too, announcing the date of Clean-Up Day and its purposes, and these were hung in every store and other public place.

Janice urged the young people's society of the church into the work of getting the storekeepers to promise to clean up back rooms, cellars, sheds, and the awful yards behind their ancient shops.

There were a few--like Mr. Bill Jones--who at first refused to fall in with the plans of those who had at heart the welfare of the old town.

Mr. Jones had been particularly "sore" ever since he had been ousted from the school committee the year before. Now he declared he wouldn't "be driv" by no "pa.s.sel of wimmen" into changing the order of affairs in the gloomy old store where he had made a good living for so many years.

But Bill Jones reckoned without the new spirit that was gradually taking hold upon Poketown people. One of his ungracious statements, when his store was well filled with customers, brought about the retort pointed from none less that Mrs. Marvin Petrie herself.

"Well, Bill Jones," declared that plain-spoken old lady, "we wimmen have made up our minds to clean out the flies, an' all other dirt, if we can.

Poketown is unsanitary--so Dr. Poole says--and we know it's always been slovenly. There ain't a place, I'll be bound, in the whole town, that needs cleaning up more'n this, your store!"

"I ain't no dirtier than anybody else!" roared Jones, very red-faced.

"But you aim to be. So you say. When other folks all about you are goin'

to clean up, you say you won't be driv' to it. Wa-al! I'll tell you what's going to happen to you, Bill Jones: We wimmen air goin' to trade at stores that are decently clean. Anyway, they're cleaner than this hovel of your'n. Don't expect me in it ag'in till I see a change."

Mrs. Marvin Petrie marched out of the shop without buying. Several other ladies followed her and distributed their patronage among the other shops. Old Bill hung out for a few days, "breathing threatenings and slaughter." Then the steady decrease in his custom was too much for the old man's pocketbook. He began to bleed _there_. So he signified his intention of falling in with the new movement.

There were householders, too, who had to be urged to join in the general clean-up of Poketown. Dr. Poole wrote a brief pamphlet upon the house-fly and the dangers of that pest, and this was printed and scattered broadcast about the town. To the amazement of a good many of the older members, like Elder Concannon, Mr. Middler read this short treatise from the pulpit and urged his hearers to screen their pantries, at least, to "swat the fly" with vigor, and to remove barns and stables so far away from the dwellings that it would be, at least, a longer trip for Mr. Fly from the barnyard to the dining-table and back again!

The Board of Selectmen, stirred by Mr. Cross Moore and others, cleaned the gutters of High Street and used the sc.r.a.per on the drive itself fully two months earlier than usual. Sidewalks were rebuilt, and many painted tree boxes appeared along the main street to save the remainder of the tree trunks from the teeth of crib-biting horses.

Before most of the shops--the general stores particularly--were hitch-rails. Many of these were renewed; some even painted. Store fronts, too, were treated to a coat or two of paint. Show windows were cleaned and almost every store redressed its display of goods.

Trees were trimmed, and some of the tottering ones cut down entirely.

There were still plenty of shade trees on the steep High Street.

It was Janice who urged Hopewell Drugg to refurbish his store--painting it inside and out, rebuilding the porch, and erecting a long hitch-rail to attract farmers' trade.

"Of course you cannot afford it, Mr. Drugg," said the girl. "That is, it seems as though every dollar you spend is putting Lottie back. But 'nothing ventured, nothing gained.' You must throw out sprats to catch herring. To get together the money that specialist demands to treat Lottie's eyes, you must endeavor to increase your trade. Make the store just as attractive as possible. That's business, I believe. Daddy would say so, I am sure."

Hopewell allowed himself to be convinced. There was not a store in town as attractive as Drugg's, after Clean-Up Day. The whole of Poketown, indeed, was in a new dress. The trees were just budding out nicely, there was a breath of lilac in the air, and the lawns were raked clean and showed a velvety, green sheen that was delightful to the eye.