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!"