JUST HOW IT ALL BEGAN
It was one of those soft, irresponsible days of April. The heavens
clouded up and wept like a naughty child upon the least pretext; yet
between the showers the sun warmed the glad earth, and coaxed the
catkins into bloom, and even expanded the first buds of the huge lilac
bush at the corner of the Day house.
This was a special occasion; one could easily guess that from the
bustle manifest about the place. Aunt 'Mira and Janice had been busy
since light. Mrs Day was not in the habit of "givin' things a lick and
a promise" nowadays when she cleaned house. No, indeed! They gave the
house a "thorough riddin' up," and were scarcely through at dinner-time.
Then they hurried the dinner dishes out of the way, drove Marty and his
father out of the house, and hurried to change into fresh frocks; for
company was expected.
The ladies' sewing circle of the Union Church was to meet with Mrs.
Day. These meetings of late had become more like social gatherings
than formerly. The afternoon session was better attended; then came a
hearty supper to which the ladies' husbands, brothers, or sweethearts
were invited; and everything wound up with a social evening.
Aunt 'Mira and Janice had made many extra preparations for the occasion
in the line of cooked food; there were two gallon pots of beans in the
oven cooking slowly; and every lady, as she arrived, handed to Janice
some parcel or package containing cooked food for the supper.
The girl was busy looking after these donations when once the members
of the sewing circle began to arrive; and Aunt 'Mira's pantry had never
before been so stacked with food. Marty stole in to gaze at the
goodies, and whispered:
"Hi tunket! Just you go away for half an hour, Janice, and lemme be
here. I could do something to that tuck right now."
"And so soon after dinner?" cried his cousin. "I wonder if boys _are_
hollow all the way down to their heels, as they say they are?"
"It ain't that," grinned Marty. "But a feller runs so many chances in
this world of going hungry, that he ought ter fill up while he can.
You just turn your back for a while and I'll show you, Janice."
But his cousin turned the key in the pantry door and slipped it into
her pocket for safety. "We'll have no larks like _that_, Master
Marty," she declared.
Mrs. Scattergood and 'Rill were among the first to arrive; and then
came Mrs. Middler, the minister's wife. Mrs. Beasely was there, and
Walky Dexter's wife, and the druggist's sister, who kept house for him;
and Mrs. Poole, the doctor's wife; and Mrs. Marvin Petrie, who had
married children living in Boston and always spent her winters with
them, and had just come back to Poketown again for the season.
Many of the ladies of Poketown never thought of making up their spring
frocks, or having Mrs. Link, the milliner, trim their Easter bonnets,
until Mrs. Marvin Petrie came from Boston. She was supposed to bring
with her the newest ideas for female apparel, and her taste and advice
was sought on all sides when the ladies sat down to their sewing in the
big sitting-room of the old Day house.
Mrs. Marvin Petrie, however, was one of those persons who seem never to
absorb any helpful ideas. Her forte was mostly criticism. She could
see the faults of her home town, and her home people, in comparison
with the Hub; but she had never, thus far, led in any benefit to
Poketown.
"You can't none of you understand how glad I am to git to my daughter
Mabel's in the winter; and then how glad I am to shake the mud of
Boston off my gaiters when it comes spring," declared the traveled
lady, who had a shrill voice of great "carrying" quality. When Mrs.
Marvin Petrie was talking there was little other conversation at the
sewing circle. Her comments upon people she had met and things she had
seen, were in the line of a monologue.
"I do sartainly grow tired of Poketown when it comes fall, and things
is dead, and the wind gets cold, and all. I'm sartain sure glad to git
shet of it!" she pursued on this particular afternoon. "And then the
first sight of Boston--and the mud--and the Common and Public
Library,--and the shops, and all, make me feel like I was livin' again.
"Mabel says to me: 'How kin you live, Maw, most all the year in
Poketown! Why, I was so glad to git away from it, that I'd walk the
streets and beg before I'd go back to it again!' An' she would;
Mabel's lively yet, if she has been married ten years and got three
children.
"But by this time o' year--arter bein' three months or more in the
hurly-burly of Boston, I'm _de_-lighted to git into the country. Ye
see, city folks keep dancin' about so. They're always on the go. They
ain't no rest for a body."
"But you ain't got ter go because other folks dooes, Miz' Petrie,"
suggested old lady Scattergood. "Now, when I go ter see my son-in-law
at Skunk's Holler, I jest sit down an' fold my hands, an' _rest_."
"Skunk's Holler!" murmured one of the other women. "To hear Miz'
Scattergood talk, one 'ud think she was traveled, too. An' she ain't
never been out o' sight o' this lake, I do believe."
"If ye don't go yourself, you feel's though you had," said Mrs. Petrie,
with good nature. "So much bustle around you--yes. An' so I tell my
daughters. I git enough of it b'fore spring begins."
"But," said the minister's wife, timidly, "after all, there isn't so
much difference between Poketown and Boston, excepting that Boston is
so very much bigger. People are about the same everywhere. And one
house is like another, only one's bigger----"
"Now, that's right foolish talk, Miz' Middler!" exclaimed the lady so
recently from the Hub. "The people's just as different as chalk is
from cheese; and there ain't a church in Boston--and there's hundreds
of 'em--that don't make our Union Church look silly."
"But, Miz' Petrie," cried one inquiring body. "Just what is it that
makes Boston so different from Poketown? After all, folks is
folks--and houses is houses--and streets is streets. Ain't that so?"
"Wa-al!" The traveled lady was stumped for a moment. Then she burst
out with: "There! I'll tell ye. It's 'cause there's some order in the
city; ev'rything here is haphazard. Course, there's poor
sections--reg'lar _slums_, as they call 'em--in Boston. But the poor,
dirty buildings and the poor, dirty streets, are in sort of a bunch
together. They're in spots; they ain't dribbled all through the town,
mixed up with fine houses, and elegant squares, and boulevards. Nope.
Cities know how to hide their poor spots in some ways. Boston puts its
best foot forward, as the sayin' is.
"But take it right here in Poketown. Now, ain't the good and the bad
all shoveled together? Take Colonel Pa'tridge's fine house on High
Street, stuck in right between Miner's meat shop and old Bill Jones'
drygoods an' groceries--an' I don't know which is the commonest lookin'
of the two."
"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!" ejaculated 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!" ejaculated 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!"