o 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

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 int