I + 

Nautilus was one of the first communities in the country to develop the Weeks habit, now so richly grown that we have Correspondence School Week, Christian Science Week, Osteopathy Week, and Georgia Pine Week. + 

A Week is not merely a week. + 

If an aggressive, wide-awake, live-wire, and go-ahead church or chamber of commerce or charity desires to improve itself, which means to get more money, it calls in those few energetic spirits who run any city, and proclaims a Week. This consists of one month of committee meetings, a hundred columns of praise for the organization in the public prints, and finally a day or two on which athletic persons flatter inappreciative audiences in churches or cinema theaters, and the prettiest girls in town have the pleasure of being allowed to talk to male strangers on the street corners, apropos of giving them extremely undecorative tags in exchange for the smallest sums which those strangers think they must pay if they are to be considered gentlemen. + 

The only variation is the Weeks in which the object is not to acquire money immediately by the sale of tags but by general advertising to get more of it later. + 

Nautilus had held a Pep Week, during which a race of rapidly talking men, formerly book-agents but now called Efficiency Engineers, went about giving advice to shopkeepers on how to get money away from one another more rapidly, and Dr. Almus Pickerbaugh addressed a prayer-meeting on “The Pep of St. Paul, the First Booster.” It had held a Glad-Hand Week, when everybody was supposed to speak to at least three strangers daily, to the end that infuriated elderly traveling salesmen were back-slapped all day long by hearty and powerful unknown persons. There had also been an Old Home Week, a Write to Mother Week, a We Want Your Factory in Nautilus Week, an Eat More Corn Week, a Go to Church Week, a Salvation Army Week, and an Own Your Own Auto Week. + 

Perhaps the bonniest of all was Y. Week, to raise eighty thousand dollars for a new Y.M.C.A. building. + 

On the old building were electric signs, changed daily, announcing “You Must Come Across,” “Young Man Come Along” and “Your Money Creates ’Appiness.” Dr. Pickerbaugh made nineteen addresses in three days, comparing the Y.M.C.A. to the Crusaders, the Apostles, and the expeditions of Dr. Cook⁠—who, he believed, really had discovered the North Pole. Orchid sold three hundred and nineteen Y. tags, seven of them to the same man, who afterward made improper remarks to her. She was rescued by a Y.M.C.A. secretary, who for a considerable time held her hand to calm her. + 

No organization could rival Almus Pickerbaugh in the invention of Weeks. + 

He started in January with a Better Babies Week, and a very good Week it was, but so hotly followed by Banish the Booze Week, Tougher Teeth Week, and Stop the Spitter Week that people who lacked his vigor were heard groaning, “My health is being ruined by all this fretting over health.” + 

During Cleanup Week, Pickerbaugh spread abroad a new lyric of his own composition: + 

Germs come by stealth + 

And ruin health, + 

So listen, pard, + 

Just drop a card + 

To some man who’ll clean up your yard + 

And that will hit the old germs hard. + 

Swat the Fly Week brought him, besides the joy of giving prizes to the children who had slaughtered the most flies, the inspiration for two verses. Posters admonished: + 

Sell your hammer and buy a horn, + 

But hang onto the old flyswatter. + 

If you don’t want disease sneaking into the Home + 

Then to kill the fly you gotter! + 

It chanced that the Fraternal Order of Eagles were holding a state convention at Burlington that week, and Pickerbaugh telegraphed to them: + 

Just mention fly-prevention + 

At the good old Eagles’ convention. + 

This was quoted in ninety-six newspapers, including one in Alaska, and waving the clippings Pickerbaugh explained to Martin, “Now you see the way a fellow can get the truth across, if he goes at it right.” + 

Three Cigars a Day Week, which Pickerbaugh invented in midsummer, was not altogether successful, partly because an injudicious humorist on a local newspaper wanted to know whether Dr. Pickerbaugh really expected all babes in arms to smoke as many as three cigars a day, and partly because the cigar-manufacturers came around to the Department of Health with strong remarks about Common Sense. Nor was there thorough satisfaction in Can the Cat and Doctor the Dog Week. + 

With all his Weeks, Pickerbaugh had time to preside over the Program Committee of the State Convention of Health Officers and Agencies. + 

It was he who wrote the circular letter sent to all members: + 

Brother Males and Shemales: + 

Are you coming to the Health Bee? It will be the livest Hop-to-it that this busy lil ole planet has ever see. And it’s going to be Practical. We’ll kiss out on all these glittering generalities and get messages from men as kin talk, so we can lug a think or two (2) home wid us. + 

Luther Botts, the famous community-sing leader, will be there to put Wim an Wigor neverything into the program. John F. Zeisser, M.A., M.D., nail the rest of the alphabet (part your hair Jack and look cute, the ladies will love you) will unlimber a coupla keynotes. (On your tootsies, fellers, thar she blows!) From time to time, if the brakes hold, we will, or shall in the infinitive, hie oursellufs from wherein we are at to thither, and grab a lunch with Wild Wittles. + 

Do it sound like a good show? It do! Barber, you’re next. Let’s have those cards saying you’re coming. + 

This created much enthusiasm and merriment. Dr. Feesons of Clinton wrote to Pickerbaugh: + 

I figure it was largely due to your snappy come-on letter that we pulled such an attendance and with all modesty I think we may say it was the best health convention ever held in the world. I had to laugh at one old hen, Bostonian or somepun, who was howling that your letter was “undignified”! Can you beat it! I think people as hypercritical and lacking in humor as her should be treated with the dignified contempt they deserve, the damn fool! + 