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 entitled 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 "passel 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 scraper 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.
The old Town Hall had been repainted. Had it not been for the opposition
of Elder Concannon, the young folks would have collected money for the
repainting of the Union Church. However, they cleaned everything around
it--yard and all--till it was as spick and span as it could be. And the
burial ground in the rear of the church was made beautiful, too. The
edges of the paths were trimmed, the paths themselves raked, and all the
tottering headstones were set up straight.
Gates were rehung and fences straightened all over town. A smell of
fresh paint rivaled the scent of the bursting lilac blooms. Never had
Poketown been so busy.
The cleaning-up process went on inside the houses as well as out. Of
course, among pure-blooded New English housewives, such as the majority
of Poketown matrons were, there were few drones. They prided themselves
on their housekeeping.
Earlier than usual the carpets went out on the lines, the curtains at
chamber and sitting-room windows were renewed, there was a smell of soap
and water in every entry, as one pushed the door open, and altogether
Poketown was generally turned out of doors, aired, dusted, and brought
back again into thoroughly clean rooms.
The old Day house had its "ridding up," too. Janice gave her aunt
considerable help; but Mrs. Day was not the slovenly housekeeper she had
been when first the girl had come to Poketown. Even Uncle Jason kept
himself more neatly than ever before. And he went to the barber's at
frequent intervals.
Janice once went down to the dock to see the _Constance Colfax_ come in.
There was the usual crowd of loafers waiting for the boat--all perched
along the stringpiece of the wharf.
"But I declare!" thought Janice, her eyes dancing, "somebody certainly
_has_ 'slicked 'em up,' as Mrs. Scattergood would say. Whoever would
believe it! Walky has got a new shirt on--and straw cuffs, too--and a
necktie! My goodness me! And the hotel keeper really looks as though his
wife cared a little about his appearance. And Ben Hutchins wears whole
boots now, and has washed his face, and had a shave.
"I must admit they don't look so much like a delegation from the
poorfarm as they did the day. I came in on the _Constance Colfax_. There
has been a change in Poketown--there most certainly _has_ been a
change!" and the girl laughed delightedly.
It was marked everywhere. It even seemed to Janice as though people whom
she met on the street stepped quicker than they once had!
Janice knew she had given her own folks--Uncle Jason, and Aunt 'Mira,
and Cousin Marty--a push or two in the right direction. She had helped
Hopewell Drugg, too; and maybe she had instigated the waking up of
several other people. But not for a moment did she realize--healthy,
thoughtless girl that she was--how much Poketown owed to her on Clean-Up
Day.
That was one great occasion in the old town. Although the selectmen had
allowed two days in which the farmers' wagons were to cart away the
rubbish for the householders, the removal men had hard work to fill
their contract.
Some curbs were piled shoulder high with boxes of ashes, old bedsprings,
broken furniture, decayed mattresses, yard rakings, unsightly pots and
pans hidden away for decades in mouldy cellars--debris of so many kinds
that it would be impossible to catalogue it!
For two days, also, hundreds of rubbish fires burned, and the taint of
the smoke seemed to saturate every part of Poketown. Janice declared
that all the food on the supper table at the Day house seemed to have
been "slightly scorched."
"By jinks!" declared Marty, gobbling his supper with an appetite that
never seemed to lag. "I bet I burned three wagon-loads of stuff 'sides
what I set outside on the street for 'em to take away. No use talkin',
Dad, you got ter build a new pen and yard for the shoats."
"Whuffor?" demanded his father, eyeing him slowly.
"'Cause the old boards and rails was so rotten that I jest burned 'em
up," declared his son. "You know folks could see it from the street, an'
it looked untidy."
"Wa-al," drawled Uncle Jason, with only half a sigh.
Janice could scarcely keep from clapping her hands, this so delighted
her. She compared this with some of the conversation at the Day table
soon after the time she had arrived in Poketown!