[CHAPTER XXIII]
CONCLUSION
“Against the whiteness of the wall
Be living verdure seen,—
Sweet summer memories to recall,
And keep your Christmas green.”
ALL through the long hot summer months Miss Billy had been doing what she could for Cherry Street. Now Cherry Street was doing what it could for Miss Billy.
"Grass, is it, she'd be afther loikin' to see, whin she gits up?" said Mr. Hennesy. "Sure an' we're ploughin' good sod undher iv'ry day av our lives,—loads av it. John Thomas, see that ye bring home a wagon load of it 'ach noight, an' O'il be doin' the same."
John Thomas brought the sod, and the street fell to with a will. Dusk fell earlier than in the summer, but there was still time left after the day's labour was over and the supper cleared away. The children dug and raked the hard soil, and the men rolled the velvety sod into strips of green parking bordering the sidewalks, and spread it into green lawns in their own dooryards. The enthusiasm spread like a fever. Aaron Levi's father brought home a can of paint, and began experimentally to turn his shabby brown house into a white house with green blinds. The street beheld, and hurried to do likewise, scarcely waiting for Francis' assurance that every cent of expense should be taken off the rent. Every house was freshly painted,—and because the underlying thought was of Miss Billy, and because they thought she would like it so, they painted uniformly white, with green blinds.
Besides all this, down the middle of the street a score of men, day after day, threw up the rocky soil into long mounds, and at last the sewer pipe that was to connect with every dwelling, was laid, with all Cherry Street looking into the hole, as if it had been the dedication of a church. No more cesspools and typhoid fever for Cherry Street! It had been too near to losing Miss Billy. But Mr. Schultzsky would have made the concession for none other.
The Street Improvement Club, cast at first into the depths of despair at their brave little captain's grave illness, and raised now to heights of enthusiasm by her convalescence, were everywhere! Chewing gum wrappers were voted a nuisance: Paper bags were frowned upon: Banana skins were not to be tolerated: Tomato cans were a crime! Everywhere over the street presided a new goddess,—the Goddess of Cleanliness,—while the girl who had wrought the change lay in the little green room, being slowly nursed back to life.