"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!" CHAPTER XXVII POKETOWN IN A NEW DRESS