"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.