r. It shut people up in houses, shut their
mouths, their purses, their laughter. It made life grim and rather
gray. Fanny loved sunshine and open sunny roads. She tried to do her
duty in winter as well as in summer but when the weather drops to ten
or twenty below the sunniest of natures is bound to feel it.

But this winter Green Valley women were so stirred and roused that they
thought of other things beside the price of coal and sugar and yarn.
The short winter days fairly flew. The Civic League was young but
already it was laying out an ambitious spring programme. No mere man
was a member but all the men had to do was to show a little attention
to Fanny Foster to know what was going on.

"We're going to set up a drinking fountain in the business square,"
Fanny explained. "The men of this town have the hotel but the horses
never did have a decent trough of clean water. And we're going to have
a little low place fixed so's the dogs can get a drink too. This is to
prevent hydrophobia.

"We've already started the boys to building bird houses so's to have
them ready to put up the first thing in the spring. There'll be less
killing of song birds with sling-shots, though of course there's never
been much of that done in Green Valley.

"Then that crossing at West End is going to be attended to. There's
been enough rubbers lost in that mudhole to about fill it, so it won't
take much to fill it up. We're going to have a little bridge built
over that ditch on Lane Avenue so's we women don't dislocate our joints
jumping over it. But first the ditch is going to be deepened and
cleaned so's it won't smell so unhealthy. When that's done the ladies
aim to plant wild flowers along it, careless like, to make it look as
if God had made it instead of lazy men.

"We're going to suggest that all buildings in the business section put
out window boxes. We'll furnish the flowers. It will give a
distinctive note of beauty to the town." Fanny was carefully quoting
Mrs. Brownlee.

"Billy Evans' wife promised to see to it that Billy painted the livery
barn and there's a delegation of ladies appointed to wait on Mert
Hagley and see if we can't get him to mend his sheds. They're so
lopsided and rickety that Mrs. Brownlee says they're an eyesore and a
menace to public safety.

"There's another delegation that's going to ask the saloon keeper to
keep the basement door shut when the trains come in so's to keep that
beery a