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THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK
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MARION HARLAND
THE
Housekeeper’s Week

BY

MARION HARLAND

AUTHOR OF
COMPLETE COOK BOOK AND EVERYDAY ETIQUETTE

ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY

MARY TAYLOR

ee de
WITH FRONTISPIECE-PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR’: | ne ae

(

INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright 1908
The Bobbs-Merrill Company

August

Ce
7 ee
7S

PRESS OF
BRAUNWORTH & CO.
BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS
BROOKLYN, -N. Y.
CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
HER HOUSE IN ORDER

PAGE

General lack of preparation for the business of housekeeping.
The value of planned housekeeping. Subjects upon which the
housekeeper should be informed: (1) Household expenditure or
the proper division of income. (2) The culinary department.
(3) How to keep a house and its furnishings clean and in order.
Effect upon family life of attractive environment. The week as
typifying the unit of work in relation to the house

CHAPTER II
MONDAY: WASH-DAY

Set tubs. Wringer. Putting clothes in soak. Taking owt
stains before washing and the use of detersives. How to wash
flannels. Treatment of ginghams, calicoes, colored cottons and
linens

"CHAPTER III
MoNDAY (Continued): STARCHING AND BLUING

The use of bluing. Getting clothes ready to hang out. Proper
way to make starch.- Dipping the pieces. Care of the line, and
of clothes-pins. Drying colored clothes. Sprinkling and folding
for ironing-day ee we fo) tt fo te Tet

CHAPTER IV
monpay (Continued): DEVICES FOR MAKING WASHING RASY

Value of borax and kerosene. Javelle water and a recipe for
making. Recipe for soap powder. Home-made bluing. Starch
that will not stick to the irons. Scraps of soap and their use.
Paraffin as a cleansing agent. A gasoline emulsion for washing

1

10

21

30
CONTENTS

CHAPTER V
MONDAY (Continued): WOOLENS, COLORED COTTONS AND LINENS

PAGE

Cold water process for flannels. Recipe for washing and dry-
ing blankets. Prevention of shrinkage in flannels. Care of
woolen stockings. Preparations for cleaning colored cottons and
limens. Setting the color . . . . . . + «© © © «© «

CHAPTER VI
Mmonpay (Concluded): SILKS, BLACK, COLORED AND WHITE
The old black silk and its renovation. Washing fast-colored
silks, Treatment of wash silk. To wash white and colored rib-

bons. To clean a dark-colored woolen skirt. Soap-bark as a
cleanser. Domestic cleaning versus professional cleaning

CHAPTER VII
TUESDAY : IRONING-DAY
Assisting the maid on ironing-day. Table for ironing sheets
and table-cloths. Covering for ironing table and board. Trivet
on which to set iron. Devices for keeping irons clean and free
from rust. Sorting the clothes. Jroned and unironed sheets.
Disposal of clothes from the laundry . .......

CHAPTER VIII
WEDNESDAY: BAKING-DAY
The home-made loaf vs. “ bakers’ bread.” Old-fashioned yeast-

making. Compressed yeast. A recipe for hop yeast. For potato
yeast. Home-made yeast cakes . 2. . . 2 «© «© 2 ow

CHAPTER IX
WEDNESDAY (Concluded) : BREAD-MAKING

The way to test flour. To overcome faulty seasoning in flour.
Ingredients and method of making potato sponge bread. The
kneading board. Preparing oven. Treatment of loaves when
taken from the oven. Directions for making milk bread. Some
rules for quick breads. When to use baking soda... .

ii

52

63

74

84
CONTENTS

CHAPTER X
THURSDAY : DETERSIVES

PAGE

Stains and detersives generally considered. To remove ink
spots. Taking out rust stains. Removing spots from linen.
Method with coffee, tea and fruit stams. Heroic treatment for
fruit stains. Mildew and iron mold. How to treat axle-grease
stains and spots made by paint, tar, pitch, sticky fly-paper. How
to treat “a scorch.” Perspiration staims . . . ....

CHAPTER XI

THURSDAY (Continued): ON CLEANSING NON-WASHABLE
ARTICLES OF DRESS
The use of gasoline. Benzine and its uses, Dry cleaning.
On cleaning lamb’s wool and white fur, linen and lace, embroidered
handkerchiefs, cravats, scarfs, centerpieces and fine doilies. To
clean velvet and corduroy, also felt hats. How to clean furs at
home. Various ways of cleaning gloves and slippers . . .

CHAPTER XII
THURSDAY (Concluded): ODDS AND ENDS OF RENOVATING

To clean white and light-colored leather. To prevent low shces
blistering the heel, To clean various kinds of hats. Soot marks
and their remedy. Egg stains. To clean a feather boa and os-
trich plumes. Renovating feather pillows. Cleaning chiffon, To
remove the shine from cloth and silk. Restoring éeru laces. To
set colors. Cleaning jet passementerie and jewelry with stones
in it. Taking varnish out of cloth . . . .....s

CHAPTER. XIII
FRIDAY: HOUSEHOLD PESTS, VERMIN

Nature of moths, and general directions for keeping them
out of the house. How to get rid of silver-moths and buffalo
beetles. What to do with a moth-infected rug. To remove moths
from furniture. Moths in carpet. To get rid of fleas. For
ants, red and black. Book-worms . .. .

lil

96

114

128

. 146
CONTENTS

CHAPTER XIV
FRIDAY (Concluded): OTHER HOUSEHOLD PESTS
PAGE
Roaches and water-bugs. The common kitchen species. The
water-bug or croton-bug. How to get rid of these. Mosquitoes
and how to guard against them. Rules for keeping flies out of
the house, and away from horses. How to rid the house of rats
and mice. Invasions of caterpillars, aphidew, rose beetles. How
to kill vermin in the hair. How to fight bedbugs . . . . 162

CHAPTER XV
SATURDAY: FLOORS, WALLS AND THEIR COVERINGS

Care of carpets. Advice as to buying floor coverings. To
keep light-weight rugs from turning at the corners. To dry-
clean rugs. To wash oriental rugs. How to sweep a carpet.
Use of carpet-sweeper. To restore color to carpet. For serub-
bing a earpet. When and where to use matting. Linoleum and
oil-cloth. Wooden floors. How to keep them clean, polished,
varnished or waxed. To remove paint stains from a floor. To
remove spots on kalsomine. To clean wall paper. To remove
paper from wall. A recipe for government whitewash. Burlap
as a wall covering and how to clean it . . . .. =. . +. 182

CHAPTER XVI
SATURDAY (Continued): WINDOWS AND FURNITURE

Care of windows and mirrors. How to clean polished furni-
ture. To get rid of white spots on furniture. Home-made fur-
niture polish, How to make varnish stay smooth. How to wax
tables. How to clean oil paintings and gilt frames. How to
regild. How to care for mattresses. Care of feather pillows.

To wash down duvets and comfortables. Care of brass bedstead
and lacquered goods. Care of enameled bed . . . . . . 208

CHAPTER XVII
SATURDAY (Continued): VARIOUS HOUSEHOLD FURNISHINGS

Situation of bath-room. How to keep pipes clean and free.
To clean the bath-tub, bowl, ete. To clean marble. To clean

iv
CONTENTS

CHAPTER XVII, Continued
: PAGE
sponges. Polish for faucets and other bath-room trimmings.

Something about soap. How to clean alabaster, mother-of-pearl,
marble and plaster figures, glass globes, bottles and candlesticks.
To clean a sewing-machine. Care of the piano. Book shelves
and how to care for them. Care of the kitchen sink. Care of
the range. Of stove-pipes. Home-made stove-polish. To clean
zine, Care of kitchen utensils, Odds and ends of kitchen lore 228

CHAPTER XVIII
SATURDAY (Concluded): SILVER, CHINA AND GLASS

How to keep silver clean without the weekly polishing. Bright-
ening dull silver. To prevent silver tarnish. Care of brasses.
How to wash china and glass. Lamp chimneys. To loosen a
glass stopper. bo Bo Bo Boe ee Ge a Sw we a 2D

CHAPTER XIX
EVERY DAY IN THE WEEK

Kternal vigilance the price of good housekeeping. Success
without worry. Varying conditions of labor in various families.
' Type-written chart of daily and weekly duties. A good daily
program of work. How to dust. Laying the table. When to
use table-cloth. When to use table mats. Elementary rules for
serving at dimmer. . 2. 1. 1. 1 ee ee ew ee 262

CHAPTER XX

ANY DAY IN THE WEEK: MARKETING AND BUYING THE
WINTER SUPPLIES

Buying ahead. Selection of meat. Cheap and expensive cuts.
Filling the store-closet for the winter months. Groceries and
department stores. Care of green vegetables. Buying milk, but-
ter and eggs. Buying the every-day china . . . . . . . 275

WV
CONTENTS

CHAPTER XXI
SEWING AND “MENDING DAY

PAGE

A regular mending day a necessity. The sewing room. One to
make ready. Character and quality of implements necessary for
sewing. How to thread a needle. Darning. Patching. Ripping

CHAPTER XXII
ACCORDING TO THE SEASON

Why house-cleaning is easier than it used to be. House-cleaning
once a year. Why the autumn is better than the spring for the
annual cleaning. Where to begin the task. Program for the
work. Order in which a bedroom should be cleaned. Housekeep-
ing in summer. How to make a house ready for closing. Sum-
mer vacation housekeeping. Rules for canning fruit . . . .

CHAPTER XXIIT
THE TEMPLE OF THE BODY

Sacredness of the body. Rules for its care. Act of breath-
ing and breathing exercises. Helpful gymnastics for daily prac-
tice. The bath. How to increase one’s height. Proper conditions
of the sleeping room. Proper amount of sleep. Remedies for
insomnia, for nightmare and snoring. Making over the tired and
nervous woman . . . 2 2. 1 we 6 ew ew ew we le

CHAPTER XXIV
DOMESTIC MATERIA MEDICA
Dangers of the home medicine chest. The study of diet. Spe-
cifie curative properties in foods. Of fruits. Of vegetables,
Meats and their health values. Mastication of food. Effect upon

the system of eating eggs. Dyspepsia and its causes. Some
serviceable simples . . . © «© © «© «© © «© «© © @ «

CHAPTER XXV
DOMESTIC SURGERY AND COGNATE MATTERS

Burns and sealds. Formula for rendering clothing and curtains
fire-proof. Frost bites. Snake and other poisonous bites. How

vi

289

301

312

331
CONTENTS

CHAPTER XXV, Continued

PAGE
to care for a crushed finger or toe. Sprains. For a choked child.

For sunburn. For earache. Care of the eyes and of the feet.
For poisons of the skin. Specifics in management of wasp, bee
and hornet stings. A cure for hives. For prickly heat. Warts
and their treatment. To prevent vomiting after the use of ether
or chloroform. . 2. 2. 6 2 6 6 ee we we ew we SOL

CHAPTER XXVI
THE CARE OF THE SICK

Why girls should be taught rudimentary principles of nursing.
Kind of room best suited to an invalid. Necessary furnishings.
Light. Fresh air. Manner of ventilation. Cleaning the sick-
room. Flowers in the sick-room. Extra blankets. The hot-
water bag. Changing sheets while the patient is in the bed.
Visitors in the sick-room. Value of cheerfulness in the care of
theSICK so ee a ee RE ce TO

CHAPTER XXVII
AFTERMATH : MISCELLANEOUS HINTS

Additional matter in reference to cooking, putting up fruit, care
of metals, of textiles, of glassware. Rules for sweeping and
dusting, for dyeing, for transferring prints or photographs. Care
of plants. Simple remedies to be used in the sick-rom . . . 382
THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK
THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

CHAPTER I

HER HOUSE IN ORDER

That there is a distinct body of knowledge to be
mastered before housekeeping can be understood in-
telligently is appreciable only by the minority of
American housekeepers. Many of us begin house-
keeping handicapped by a lack of knowledge and by
a lack of experience in the practical side of the busi-
ness. To most of us the duties involved in the ex-
periment of housekeeping assume at first a chaotic
and unsystematized shape. Hach day arrives with
its tangle of fresh and seemingly unrelated perplexi-
ties to be solved from hour to hour. That which
might give dignity and interest to the business,—a
plan for the day, the week, the year,—is absent. Oc-
casionally one meets a young woman entering upon
the task of housekeeping, which is, after all is said
and done, a woman’s business and profession par
excellence, with a mind trained to some conception of
the issues involved and with enough practical know-
ledge to ‘‘do’’ for herself and family if necessary or
to train the domestic or domestics who fall to her lot.

1

eS
2 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

In America this is rarer, much rarer, than in
France or Germany where the part played by the
woman in the marriage partnership and in the mak-
ing of home is better understood and defined.

It is said that it takes three generations to make
a gentleman. Perhaps it takes as many to make the
best of housekeepers. The young woman who begins
housekeeping with a body of seasoned and systema-
tized knowledge inherited from her mother and
grandmother is lucky. Where this should be the rule,
it is the exception, and that, not always because the
mother and grandmother have not had the knowledge
to impart but often in America because such know-
ledge is not held of sufficient importance to be handed.
on. A mother hopes that her daughter may be richer
than she and may therefore escape household cares;
and in consequence the daughter goes untrained to a
test which, whether she be rich or poor, demands
thoughtful preparation. If this untrained young
housekeeper has servants she is at their mercy and
must depend upon them for the knowledge which
should be her special province; if she has none she
must take the long hard road to experience.

The ‘‘willing worker,’’ however, always sees light
in the end. And there comes a day to every diligent
“‘householdress’’ when the old saw, ‘‘Order is
Heaven’s first law,’’ becomes luminous with mean-
ing.

The value of planned housekeeping in time be-
comes apparent to every earnest worker in the field.
HER HOUSE IN ORDER 3

Early training, of course, hastens the day, hastens
especially the recognition of housekeeping as a busi-
ness, or even, if one goes deeply into the study and
practice of it, a profession containing several im-
portant divisions governed by general laws. When
one begins to look at housekeeping in this light a new
dignity is given to it. Hven drudgery when viewed
in its relation to the larger purpose of the scheme is
lightened, is robbed somewhat of its terrors. _

Upon the ability of a woman to administer wisely
the affairs of the house depends the health of her
family and more often than not the financial pros-
perity of her husband; and as soon as she recognizes
the fact that her end of the business is as important
as his and demands as constant and methodical atten-
tion, so much the better.

There are three general heads under which the
business of housekeeping may be classified and upon
which the woman of the house should be informed.
The first branch covers the economic field, the ex-
penditure and proper division of income. The sec-
ond deals with the culinary department and the third
concerns the business of keeping the house clean and
habitable.

Many books have been written on the subject of
household expenditure, and a careful study of the
subject is advisable for any woman who expects to
master it. It is sufficient to say here that the main
object of such study is to arrive at a reasonable divi-
sion of one’s income, at a correct distribution of the
4 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

money available among the various home interests.
In the care of a moderate income one can not be
capricious or fanciful in the matter of expenditure
without subsequent regret. Yet capricious, fanciful
and uneven one is apt to be if one considers only the
outlay of the hour without regard to its relative im-
portance. Each housekeeper should make a list of
the objects for which money is to be expended and
should come to some conclusion as to the proportion-
ate amount to be spent on each.

Some of these objects, such as food and shelter,
bear a rather constant relation to the moderate in-
come. Others vary according to taste. Ina late book
by Bertha M. Terrill called Household Manage-
ment, the different divisions into which family ex-
penditure may fall are thus denoted: Rent or its
equivalent paid for shelter; Operating Expenses,
such as fuel, light, wages and repair; Food; Clothes;
Higher Life. ‘‘The latter includes all that ministers
to mental and moral well-being, as education, travel,
amusements, charities, savings and insurance.”’

The thought bestowed at the beginning of each
year upon some sensible plan for the division of one’s
money will repay a thousand times the labor neces-
sary in formulating it and can not fail to bring a cer-
tain amount of symmetry into the home life.

The keeping of accounts is a logical sequence of a
proper division of income. There is no teacher in
the matter of expenditure like the figures in the case.
The unsupported feminine memory is very untrust-
HER HOUSE IN ORDER 5

worthy when it comes to computing how the money
goes or has gone; and only an itemized list with ex-
penditure noted at the time of purchase is likely to
convince a woman of the channels into which her
money has dripped away. An account-book kept
faithfully for one year will serve excellently well as
a guide and sometimes as a warning for the next
year. Keeping accounts is an integral part of plan-
ned housekeeping.

If the financial welfare of the family depends
largely upon skilful management of this first branch
of domestic science, it is equally true that the phys-
ical welfare of the family depends upon the wise
ordering of the second or culinary department.
Without good food, a wise selection and combination
of foods, health is impossible. One must not only
know how different sorts of foods should be cooked,
one must know what foods combine happily for pal-
ate and health in a single meal. If one knew the
definition of all the words in the dictionary and did
not know how to combine the words into sentences,
said knowledge would be of little use. And likewise
if one could repeat all Mrs. Rorer’s good recipes
backward and make good every recipe on the stove
or in the oven, this would not be enough. One must
know something about the chemistry of cooking,
about the effect of foods upon the human system be-
fore one is in a position to keep John and the chil-
dren clear of dyspepsia.

Perhaps the study of cooking is the most interest-
6 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

ing of the three branches of study necessary to a
comprehension of the housekeeper’s task. After one
gets over the first bumps in the road, the acquisition
of knowledge, both practical and theoretical, is rapid
and one advances into a more and more fascinating
country. Any one who thinks the study of cooking
dull has gone but a little way along the path of that
particular kind of learning. There is variety in it.
There is room for the assertion of personal prefer-
ence and all within the bounds of orderly manage-
ment. The literature on the subject both as regards
the chemical value of food and the art of cooking is
immense. No woman who “‘sets up to be a real, for-
sure-enough housekeeper’? should be without a shelf
full of good authorities on the subject. It is a proof
of the limited and slighting way in which we look
upon this branch of learning that we always say ‘‘the
cook-book”’ as if there were only one and that enough,
We do not say ‘“‘the novel book.’’ We mention po-
litely the name and the author in connection. We
should do as well by the culinary art as by the art of
fiction. And when it comes to the matter merely of
reading for pleasure, there are times when the inter-
ested housekeeper will choose a cook-book for her
diversion rather than the most exciting novel. A
cook-book can create romantic and delightful pic-
tures for its readers as well as the novel and these
pictures are always susceptible of proof while those
of the novel are not.

The third class of duties about which it behooves
HER HOUSE IN ORDER 7

the housekeeper to be informed concerns the keeping
of one’s house, its furnishings and the clothes one
wears, clean, in order and in repair. This branch of
housekeeping carries with it a great deal of drudgery
which must be constantly renewed. Yet this drudg-
ery can be lightened by knowledge of the best meth-
ods of doing the work and by an orderly and
methodical arrangement of tasks. The effect upon
family life of proper management in this department
is as marked as the effect of the proper apportion-
ment of money or of skilled direction in the culinary
department. If the first two make for financial pros-
perity and physical well-being, the last, if not under-
taken with too great fussiness and an unwholesome?
attention to detail, makes for a state of mind en-
abling one both to work and to play with vigor and
success. There is nothing like a well-ordered house
to put one in tune with the world. The aspect of
such a place where day by day thoughtful care adds
to its attraction, its comfort and individuality, be-
comes to the lover of home as dear as a loved familiar
face and imparts much the same sense of rest and
peace.

It is with the routine necessary to bring about this
happy relation between people and the house they
live in that this book has to do. The details are
homely enough. To classify these, to organize the
knowledge necessary for the proper keeping of a
house, to put it in its most available form has been
the aim of the author. Following this idea the week
8 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

has been taken as typifying the unit of work in its
relation to the house. Nearly all the tasks necessary
for the ordering of the home may be comprised in
the weekly routine. If the housekeeper is a very
modern one indeed and does her housekeeping with
such nicety and method that the old-fashioned house-
cleaning is never necessary, then all the duties of
keeping the house in order may be comprised within
the bounds of a week.

The kind of matter contained in this book is often
pushed off into a corner at the end of a cook-book or
distributed through a volume devoted to the general
topic of housekeeping. It has long been the author’s
belief that the directions for keeping a house clean
and habitable and the recipes for preparations to be
used in that effort are as deserving of a separate vol-
ume as the recipes and directions for cooking; and
that classification and organization of this kind of
knowledge should be made for the benefit of the
housekeeper. The material used in this volume is the
result of a lifetime of observation and of practical
effort in the matter of housekeeping. The division
of the tasks, according to the day of the week, is per-
haps somewhat arbitrary. There is room for discus-
sion as to whether it is the best order. The author
can say only that it is the order which best recom-
mends itself to her.

When to the housekeeper the duties of each day
assume a distinct identity, the battle of managing
the work is pretty well fought out. When Monday
PSVCRRTI EOP a Fd

14a ;

 
HER HOUSE IN ORDER 9

no longer looks like Tuesday and Friday has a face
and ways of her own, it means that logic of a kind is
making its way in the housekeeper’s brain. If the
author succeeds in her aim of clearing up to some
extent the subject in hand, and of lightening the
labor involved in the important branch of domestic
science under discussion, she will feel well repaid.
CHAPTER II

MONDAY

WASH-DAY

When I was thirty years younger than I am now,
yet believed that I knew thirty times more than I
shall ever learn, I had the hardihood to write and to
print a rodomontade I shall copy here in part.

The copying and the reading are a part of the
wholesome penance maturity pays for even partial
possession of the sins of presumptuous youth :—

“By what human ordinance or Divine intimation
it was first appointed unto womankind to lay hold
of the log of the week by the heaviest and most
knobby end, I never expect to know.

“Tt is—and it has been from time immemorial,
and it will be until the end of this rolling old globe
of ours—the law of thrifty housewives that eyes,
anointed by the blessed sleep of Sunday night, shall
be unsealed by cock-crow to smart and water in the
smoke of boiling suds; that hands, lately folded in
prayer and crossed in sacred decency through the
hallowed hours, shall rub and redden and roughen
over the bleached ridges of wooden wash-boards, or
the luckless laborer lose temper and cuticle against
the treacherous grooves of metal ‘patents;’ that,

10
MONDAY 11

what with lifting boilers and tubs, and wringing and
starching and hanging out and folding down, the
priestess of that unblessed day in the calendar shall
be, by Monday night, separated from Sunday quiet
and Sunday thoughts by an abyss of unsavory odors
and sweltering heats; by such backaches, and head- .
aches, and armaches, and legaches, that the recollec-
tion of the holy season is a dream of doubtful dis-
tinctness, and the hope of a return is frightfully
counterbalanced by the reflection that—as Tommy
Snooks sighed to Betsey Brooks—

“* “To-morrow will be Monday!’ ’’

There was a good deal of this jeremiad, and at the
time the picture was not overdrawn. We had not
learned to prattle of Realism thirty years ago, yet
the word has sober meaning when applied to a
sketch from the laundry-life of that generation. It
is the fault of the housemother of the twentieth cen-
tury if she knows, by personal experience, hardships
such as are depicted here.

To begin with her ‘‘stage setting’’—she is poor in-
deed if she have not a laundry separate from her
nominal kitchen. It may be a mere closet in size,
perhaps nothing better than a shed in a lean-to. If
she be a flat-dweller, one corner of her pocket-edition
of a kitchen is fitted up with set-tubs, each with fau-
cet and waste-pipe. The toil of pouring in water
heated by the kettleful over the fire; the lifting of
clumsy tubs of dirty suds; the carrying of these
12 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

across the room to the sink; sometimes to throw the
fouled water into an outdoor drain,—all that her
grandmother and her ‘‘hired help’’ designated aptly
as the ‘‘heft’’ of wash-day work—are obsolete im-
positions upon the women of the family. Our grand-
dames accepted them with the pious resignation that
stood with them for philosophy. Silent endurance
of the inevitable was part of their religion and the
daily practice of the same.

There was, then, deep spiritual significance in the
unwritten, but none the less arbitrary law which set
Monday’s toil so close to Sabbatical rest. Our
woman who lent a hand with the weekly wash—often
doing it all, unassisted—needed a sojourn in the
Land of Beulah before she waded through the soapy
surges that must be passed on the morrow.

The modern housewife of moderate means may
not have a washing-machine. To tell the truth, she
is a trifle wary of this labor-saver. She has heard
of patents that are said to be not unwieldy, or liable
to get out of order, but she knows of more which
have been an expensive delusion and a snare. A
wringer is a necessity of life. No self-respecting
maid of any known nationality or creed, would stay
in a house where a wringer is not kept. It saves the
muscles of arms and half the burden of the crucial
day. As we shall see, by-and-by, ingenious women
and compassionate men have invented compounds
that reduce to a merciful minimum the rubbing and
scrubbing necessary to dislodge dirt and eradicate
MONDAY 13

grease and stains from household linens and ‘‘body-
clothing.’’ Detersives, warranted not to rot the
threads, or stir colors, are advertised hourly. A fair
percentage of them are safe and worthy of the laun-
dress’ grateful confidence. She is a canny house-
keeper who makes a practical study of domestic
chemistry, and having proved what home-made de-
tersives are trustworthy and safe, turns a deaf ear
to the patent agent, charm he never so wisely.

Granting all we have said of modern mitigations
of the white woman’s burden, par eminence, the
truth stands, and can not be softened out of sight,
that the bane of the American housemother’s profes-
sional life is washing and ironing. She names it
first among household duties; it is a bugbear in en-
gaging a new servant; her ideal of a peaceful, care-
free existence is to be able, conscientiously, to ‘‘put
out the family wash.’? When she must put her own
hand (literally) to the work, the duty is nothing less
than an affliction.

Many weary women, in surveying the ruin wrought
by a single meal upon snowy napery, and the dire
results of one afternoon’s outing upon the dainty
summer frocks of their girls, the shirts and trousers
of their boys, are ready, in bitterness of spirit, to
take up, in behalf of the recently laundered gar-
ments and fine linen, the doleful plaint of the hour-
old baby’s epitaph—

“‘Since I am so soon done for,
I wonder what I was begun for! ’’
14 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

A wit (and presumably a householder) of the
eighteenth century declared that wash-day was in-
stituted in commemoration of the day on which Job
first saw the light, of which the sorely afflicted man
of Uz said, ‘‘Let it perish! let darkness and the
shadow of death stain it! let it not be joined unto the
days of the year!’’ A latter-day writer has indulged
in gloomy statistics as to the proportion of human
life spent in cleansing the house, clothing and per-
son, in fouling which the remaining time has been
employed—or wasted ?

Cur more optimistic, because more sensible house-
wife does not squander time and lower her spirit-
level in bemoaning the inexorable fact that clothes
will get dirty, and, when dirty, must be cleansed.
She brings to the tasks that fall to the accursed day
cheerful philosophy and such knowledge of the best
methods of doing the work as will achieve satisfac-
tory results with the least expenditure of time and
nervous forces.

Let us come now to practical talk concerning some
of these ways and means.

If our laundress be far-sighted, she will forecast
the morrow’s duties so far as to put the ‘‘clothes”’
(all-embracing term) in soak overnight. In one
household I wot of, where all needless work is
avoided on the day of rest, the bulk of this pre-
paratory task is done on Saturday night, leaving the
body-linen, exchanged for clean on Sunday morn-
MONDAY 15

ing, to be added to the soaking clothes on the evening
of that day.

The tubs should be perfectly clean. Even station-
ary tubs, with closely fitting lids, will gather dust
and need to be wiped with a wet, then with a clean
cloth, before they are half-filled with soft tepid
water, and made ready for the soiled articles. Sort
these, in preparing for the soaking. Put table- and
bed-linen in separate tubs; keep soiled undergar-
ments apart from both.

You will save yourself much subsequent worry if
you ‘‘treat’’ stains before washing. A chapter—
perhaps more than one—will deal, at length and in
detail, with various stains and the best ways of dis-
posing of them. I offer here a few general rules:

Fruit, ink, coffee, chocolate, and tea stains may be
wet with Javelle water, or with a weak infusion of
chloride of lime, Leave the soiled places in this for
five minutes, then rinse in pure, tepid water. Never
omit the rinsing. Neglect of this precaution is al-
most sure to weaken the threads of the fabric by the
continued action of the acid.

Rub chalk upon grease spots, and butter upon
stains made by machine oil, or axle-grease, washing
out the butter.a half-hour later with warm suds.

When all are ready, put into the tubs and see that
they are well covered, as I have directed, with tepid
—never hot—water. If the water be hard, stir a
handful of pure borax into each large tub.
16 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

On the morrow, draw off the soaking water; wring
each piece hard; return each kind to its respective
and emptied tub, and wash in warm suds, made with
plenty of really good, ripe soap. ‘‘Green’’ soap—
that is, newly made—is injurious to clothing and to
hands. It eats into both with the virulence of a cor-
rosive acid. Unless the water be soft, add borax
again. It is harmless, mellows the water, and tends
to whiten the clothes.

Abjure washing soda and all its works in the laun-
dry. The ordinary garden variety of laundress is so
addicted to it that, if it be denied by her employers,
she will smuggle surreptitious parcels of the drastic
stuff into the laundry, and add it secretly, at her
own expense, and at the sorer expense of the mis-
tress’ property. The owner of the maltreated fabric
seldom suspects the crime until she finds it eaten into
tiny holes, as if peppered with bird-shot.

There are other laundresses’ allies and household-
ers’ foes which have a like effect. Some are patented
and widely advertised. They save the washer-
woman’s muscles, rasp the sensibilities and deplete
the purse of her employer. Borax is safe and effi-
cient. One pound (powdered) will soften forty gal-
lons of water.

When the clothes are clean at last—the soiled
places rubbed out, and all of uniform whiteness—
rinse in clean hot water, and put into a boiler half-
filled with tepid water, to which you have added
shredded soap and a tablespoonful of kerosene, stir-
MONDAY 17

red in well before the clothes go in. Never forget
that boiling water ‘“‘sets’”’ dirt, and that dirt will
make the contents of your boiler hopelessly dingy.
Do not crowd so many clothes into the boiler that
the water will not cover them well, and that in heat-
ing it can not bubble freely between the several arti-
cles. Boil gently for an hour; lift out the wet linen
with a wooden clothes-stick on to a wooden tray, or
into a clean tub; again half-fill the boiler, and put in
a second supply of clothes.

Wash your table-linen first, and, as in soaking, do
not mix it with bed- or body-linen. Be scrupulously
particular in this separation, even after both kinds
seem to be clean.

Now comes the final rinsing. Have ready an
abundance of clean, warm water, souse each article
several times, shake hard, twist with a pair of strong
hands, and put through the wringer. If there are
buttons upon any garment turn them inside, with a
fold or two over them, that they may not be broken
or torn off in the wringer.

Much of the ‘‘good color’’ of a washing depends
upon the wringing. Clothes should never drip when
hung on the line. They dry more evenly and quickly,
and are much whiter if every drop of water that can
come away be wrung out before they are pronounced
ready for the lines, than if hung up, streaming with
water.

A few leading points as to the management of flan-
nels and colored fabrics belong to this chapter.

-_
18 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

‘“‘Many women of many minds’’ would be an ap-
propriate motto with which to introduce the question
of the temperature of the water in which flannels
are to be washed. Says one prime authority upon
Household Economics:

‘‘Flannels and hosiery should be washed in tepid,
soft water—never in hot, and never in cold.”’

Yet veteran housewives persist in extolling the
merits of cold water as a means of cleansing woolens,
and of keeping them soft. ‘‘When you have tried
this method of washing woolen goods you will never
be satisfied with any other,’’ writes a grandmother,
who prides herself upon ‘‘not being too old to learn
anything that is worth knowing.’’

In my own laundry flannels have, usually, been
washed in lukewarm water, squeezed, and not wring
out, shaken free of water, dried quickly and ironed
on the wrong side while damp. To be frank, I have
not been invariably satisfied with this method. The
phrase ‘‘lukewarm water’’ leaves too much to the
discretion of the individual. What would be several
degrees above tepid to the delicate cuticle of the mis-
tress, is cold to the toil-hardened hands of her maid.
“Why not test the temperature with the thermome-
ter?’’ cries our college-bred girl.

I reply—and my sister housekeeper will sustain
me in the assertion—that there are many things
which look well in housewifely manuals, and which
are the soul of reason and common sense, that lapse
MONDAY 19

into a dead letter in the rush and routine of worka-
day life. Were there a thermometer to every square
inch of laundry wall, our average hireling, whose
own the woolens are not, would not take the pains to
consult one.

Return we to our flannels. Not long ago, I put a
particularly pretty dressing-sack into the family
wash. The material is soft flannel, the design lilac
flowers and leaves upon a white ground. A scalloped
edge of lilac silk finishes sleeves and cuffs. Having
just had a talk with one of the aforesaid honorables,
I was moved to an experiment. The favorite gar-
ment was laid in cold salt-and-water for an hour to
set the color, dried in the shade, and ironed through
a thin damp cloth. The laundress, obedient to
orders, albeit she ‘‘had never heard of the like be-
fore,’’ was loud in praise of the result. The color
held fast, the white ground remains clean and clear.
The flannel is as soft as when new. I am not pre-
pared to claim that this plan would be successful
with flannels that have been already washed in the
old way.

Certain I am that hot water shrinks flannels. Hot
irons carry on the evil work. To prevent shrinkage,
stretch each garment often while it is drying. Not
once or twice, but one dozen times, pulling out
sleeves and body and skirt to their full width, and
letting the length take care of itself. Here, again,
what may be called ‘‘the laundress of commerce’’
20 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

fails in her duty, and her employer pays the penalty
of her shortcomings.

In winter, it may be necessary, on three Mondays
out of four, to dry flannels indoors. Freezing shrinks
woolen stuffs almost as badly as do overheated water
and hissing hot irons.

Colored cottons and linens should be laid in cold
salt-and-water, mixed with a little pulverized alum,
and left there for an hour, at least, before they are
washed. Then, wring out the brine, and rinse in
clear cold water. Next, wash, at once, in tepid suds,
unless you prefer to use soap-bark or bran-water.
This last is excellent for colored ginghams, lawns,
and linens which require starch.

Boil two quarts of wheat bran in six quarts of
water for half an hour; let it cool, and strain through
cheese-cloth, pressing hard to get all the mucilagi-
nous matter. Add cold water if it should seem too
thick. After rinsing the brine out of your ginghams,
calicoes, etc., wash them in this, using neither soap
nor starch.

Each of the topies touched upon in this—the open-
ing chapter of our week—will be treated more at
length as our subject opens and develops into more
importance.
CHAPTER III

MONDAY (Continued)

3 STARCHING AND BLUING

‘A thousand and one times have I been tempted to
wish that the bluing bag or ball or bottle had never
made its way into the laundry.

‘‘Bluing,’’ whatever may be the medium that puts
it into the hands of the slovenly, unskilful or lazy
laundress, is to her what the feather duster is to the
happy-go-lucky chambermaid. In the deft fingers
of the conscientious washerwoman, bag, or ball, or
bottle has its important uses. Like the ticklish in-
gredient in Sydney Smith’s celebrated recipe for
salad-dressing, of which he enjoins—

“Tet garlic’s atoms lurk within the bowl,
And, unsuspected, animate the whole;”’

like the teaspoonful of sugar in tomato soup, or the
faintest conceivable suspicion of asafetida in catsup,
—the influence of bluing should be subtle, yet po-
tent. We should miss it, at a glance, if it were ab-
sent. It should never be seen.

An over-blued article betrays gross ignorance, or
more culpable carelessness, always and everywhere.
The shiftless creature who uses bluing to hide dirt,

21
22 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

is short-sighted as well as indolent. The spots she
failed to rub out darken with the dye, and are also
‘‘set’’? by it into indelibleness. When blue streaks
appear in linen which has been well washed, they are
due to improper mixing, or the things thus mottled
were hung upon the line while dripping wet. The
trickling streams dry into stripes.

Another precaution should not be omitted: if you
will shake the clothes as they come out of the
wringer, and pull each piece as straight as if you
were getting it ready for the ironing-board, you will
effect a great saving of time and strength upon iron-
ing-day, and lessen the chances of the aforesaid
streaks.

In the use of bluing, in mixing soda in the dough
you mean to form into biscuits, or blend with cake-
batter, muffins, soufflés, and cream soups, in adding
the prescribed ‘‘dash’’ of cayenne to sauce, or may-
onnaise,—the housemother and her helpers should
have ‘‘a light hand.’’ Beat the coloring matter into
the starch as you would fold the stiffened white-of-
egg into a soufflé, and then strain it through clean
cheese-cloth to get rid of possible lumps and specks.

To make your starch, wet two tablespoonfuls of
crushed starch to a thin paste with two cupfuls of
cold water, and when it is thoroughly dissolved, pour
upon the paste a pint and a cupful of boiling water
to which has been added a generous pinch of salt.
The salt will prevent the clothes from getting sour
and musty in hot weather. We do not need to be re-
MONDAY 23

minded how often we have been sickened by the pe-
culiar acid odor arising from garments brought in
from the laundry in ‘‘muggy’’ summer days, and
which no amount of airing and fumigation will dis-
pel. Set the starch, when mixed, over the fire in a
double boiler, and cook for one minute after the
water in the outer vessel boils, stirring all the time.
Should it be too stiff, beat in boiling water gradually
until you have the proper consistency.

Another good recipe for making starch differs in
a few respects from the foregoing, and may be even
better in the opinion of some of our housewives:

Dissolve as much starch as you think you will need
in cold water until it is of the consistency of rich
eream. Pour slowly upon this water from a boiling
kettle, stirring fast and steadily, until it is smooth
throughout. Now, add more boiling water, and stir
until it is of the right consistency. Give it a min-
ute’s final boil, remove from the fire, and whip in a
bit of paraffin the size of a walnut. Bluing should
also be added while the mixture is hot.

Dip the pieces to be starched into the warm com-
pound, shake off superfluous paste, and clap each
part of the article under treatment smartly between
the hands, to insure even distribution of the stiffen-
ing matter throughout the fabric.

Our granddames made much of this clapping pro-
cess in the clear-starching for which they were fa-
mous. They ‘‘did up”’ their own laces with their
high-bred fingers, by some magic of manipulation,
24 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

lost to their descendants, leaving each thread clear
and consistent, and the whole a miracle of sheer
snowiness. A venerable gentlewoman once told me
with justifiable pride, that in her day ‘‘ladies clapped
muslins as they pulled candy—with the tips of their
fingers.’’? Also, that ‘‘much practice was required
to bring the art to perfection.’’ I should think so,
indeed!

See to it that the clothes-lines are taut and clean.

Discouraging manuals of housewifery,—written,
for the most part, by women who have never set foot
in a laundry, unless it were to tiptoe through it on a
wash-day, skirts and noses uplifted,—lay down, as
an imperative rule, that lines shall be taken down
every week, as soon as the wash is drawn from them,
and put aside in a clean, dry closet until they are
needed for the next week’s work. It is well, as a
matter of neatness and economy, that this should be
done. It is also possible—barely—that some of the
practical housewives into whose hands this book may
fall, have been so blessed among women as to have
hired laundresses who would obey the rule. A vast
majority of us have, long ago, made up sorrowful
minds to the truth—one among many of the same
brand—that in domestic life, ‘‘must’’ and ‘‘can’’ are
not interchangeable terms. In other words, that, if
one would remain alive and sane, one must not con-
found what one thinks one would do were one in one’s
employee’s place, and what the latter functionary
may be induced to consider as her own duty. To take
MONDAY 25

down the clothes-lines every week is, in her sight, an
uncovenanted mercy, and as such, not to be counted
upon, except by the most exacting of nominai mis-
tresses. She is a wise woman who does not make a
point of a non-essential; who, since she can not get
her clothes-lines taken down and in every Monday
afternoon, winks at the omission, and contents her-
self with the knowledge that they are kept clean
where they are. Upon this she may insist with a
fair degree of confidence in the fulfilment of her hope
that it will be done. Even a haphazard laundress
weighs the trouble of wiping the lines before putting
out the week’s wash against the chance that she may
have to give the things a second scrub, and decides
in favor of what will cause her less work.

Tn her disinclination to follow the counsel of man-
ual and mistress, she has more excuse than one sup-
poses at first survey of the case. To stretch and
fasten ropes and rustless wires properly requires a
man’s height and a man’s strength, and these are not
always available at the right season in the best-regu-
lated families. The next best thing is to make the
stationary lines scrupulously clean. Before putting
out the washing, go over the line with a soft white
cloth, wiping it hard and all along the length, espe-
cially near the posts and poles. Should the cloth
show much soil from soot and dust, get a fresh piece,
and repeat the operation.

Do not be niggardly with clothes-pins. They are
cheap. You may reasonably insist that they shall be
26 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

collected at the close of the day, and put into a bag
or basket, to be kept clean and dry when not in use.
I have seen white linen spotted at regular intervals
where the pins had clamped it, making a second soak-
ing and a bleaching necessary.

Happy the woman who has an open, sunny space
in which to stretch her clothes-line! Thrice blesséd
is she who has in addition to this, a bit of clean turf
whereupon stained, or ‘‘dingied’’ articles may be
‘spread for bleaching!

Always dry colored clothes in the shade, and with
the wrong side outward. Disregard of this simple
precaution brings many a dainty fabric to grief.
When one reflects that to expose dampened cotton
or woolen, silk or linen garments to the sun and air
is a common bleaching process, one wonders at see-
ing delicate shades one would retain uninjured, if
possible, subjected deliberately to these influences,
for the lack of a little common sense and ordinary
prudence. Freezing fades no less than heat. Avoid
both.

Do not leave the clothes upon the lines longer than
you can help after they are dried. They collect dust,
and get stiff and harsh, and, if the day be windy, are
strained in seam and thread, and often whipped into
ribbons. A high wind is particularly to be feared
when linen sheets and table-cloths are on the line.
Serious damage is imminent when one sees these valu-
ables flapping in the gale, like the sails of a storm-
tossed vessel. Manage to hang sheets and the larger
MONDAY 27

pieces of napery in a sheltered corner, and bring
them in as soon as they are dry. Follow the same
rule with all starched articles. They become limp if
the air is damp, and crack and split in a high wind.
Freezing takes out the starch, or, if sudden and
severe, makes shirt-bosoms and skirts as brittle as
paper, so that they tear at a touch, and stick to the
frozen lines.

Says a shrewd housekeeper, whose advice I have
found to be uniformly sound in other matters: ‘‘If
you must hang your wash out-of-doors in freezing
weather, stir a handful of salt into the last rinsing
water. The clothes may then be got upon the lines
before they stiffen with frost and there is less dan-
ger of their sticking to the line. This applies to
laundry work done on bitter winter days.”’

‘When you can do it without over-fatigue or inter-
ference with other duties, dampen down the clean
and dried clothes overnight, and fold ready for iron-
ing next day. They are far more easily handled if
this be done soon after they are brought into the
house than if they are left, rough-dry and in a dis-
orderly heap, for eight or ten hours. In taking them
from the line, lay them, one by one, within a clothes-
basket lined with a clean cloth, folding each piece
loosely as you lay it in place. Don’t heap them pell-
mell, upon one another, as the manner of some is,
without regard to quality, kind, or economy of space.
A just sense of order should prevail throughout each
stage of the work.
28 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

Having ready in the laundry a large table spread
with a clean cover, lift one piece at a time from the
basket, spread out to its full size, and sprinkle with
a clean whisk-broom—never, by any chance, used for
anything else—dipped in warm water. Some nota-
ble housewives affirm that the sprinkling should be
done with really hot water,—that the clothes are
more pliable, and the dampness more equally dif-
fused if this be done than when merely warm water
is used. As you sprinkle, press out folds and wrin-
kles with the open palm of a firm hand, and pull
hems, sleeves and seams straight. These details, that
seem of minor consequence to the inconsiderate and
inexperienced, lighten the work of the morrow more
than the novice is willing to believe. |

It is one of the time-worn and stock criticisms
launched by men against women that they ‘‘make
work so hard as to wear themselves out before it is
half done.’’ Dispassionate survey of laundry pro-
cesses, as usually conducted, gives point and color to
the slur. Do you recollect the charming picture
given in Mrs. Whitney’s delightful story—We Girls
—of Barbara Holabird, as she dampened the clean
household wash in the basement laundry, rolling each
piece up hard, and thumping the rolls with her
doubled fist, while she chanted her improvised rhymes
to a tune of her own making, serenely unconscious
that her boy-lover was looking at and listening to her,
from the yard above, and falling more and more
deeply in love each moment ?
MONDAY 29

Read the book—the very prettiest story of co-
operative housekeeping which even that beloved and
lamented priestess of our domestic life ever wrote—
and learn that there is poetry as well as hardship in
the three hundred common days of our American

housemother’s year, and that Job’s birthday comes in
for a fair share.
CHAPTER IV

MONDAY (Continued)

DEVICES FOR MAKING WASHING EASY

This is what they all claim to do! Without affect-
ing to deny that laundry duties are the heaviest that
fall to the lot of the woman who does her own house-
work, her sister-woman and, occasionally, a man and
a brother, set clever wits to work to lessen the weight
of the burden at some point of pressure. It is worth
the philanthropist’s while to slip a pad under a gall-
ing band here, or to let a buckle out there.

If he be accounted worthy of the disciple’s name
and reward who

‘‘TLessens, by a feather’s weight,
The mass of human woe—’’

he, or she should have abundant honor who comes to
the rescue of the sorely beset toiler in the reek and
steam of tub and boiler.

The formulas given in this chapter as illustrations
of the practical operation of this helpful spirit, are,
to the best of my knowledge and belief, trustworthy.
They are vouched for by responsible persons—intelli-
gent, honest, and solicitous to share with others what

30
MONDAY 31

has been of service to themselves—workers along the
same lines with laundress and housewife.

I lead off with a recipe which commends itself with
especial force to me, believing as I do that borax
and kerosene deserve to be called ‘‘the housemother’s
twin blessings.’’ J have instinctive confidence in an
emulsion combining these in judicious proportions.

At least one dozen housewives have justified this
trust by earnest praise of the preparation, after trial
of it in their own homes. One writes: ‘‘I would
not try to do my washing without it. It does away
with two-thirds of the rubbing.”’

KEROSENE EMULSION (1)

Shave half of a cake of Ivory soap fine with a
sharp knife. Add to it a quart of warm water and
two tablespoonfuls of powdered borax. Set over the
fire, and simmer until the soap is dissolved. Lift
from the range and stir into the mixture a coffee-cup-
ful of kerosene. Bottle, cork closely and set away
for use. It requires no further preparation.

Put the clothes in soak overnight in hot water,
adding the emulsion,—all of it. Do not put your
hands into the hot water, but stir the clothes into the
mixture with the clothes-stick, until all are thor-
oughly saturated. Cover the tubs in which they are
soaked and leave until you are ready to begin wash-
ing next day. You will find that the dirt is loosened,
the materials made pliable, and partially bleached,
where bleaching is desirable.
32 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

KEROSENE EMULSION (2)

Shave a bar of old white soap quite fine, and dis-
solve it in two quarts of hot water, stirring until it
is a thick suds. Beat smooth, and add a large table-
spoonful of borax wet up with cold water. Next,
put in two great spoonfuls of kerosene, and, after
stirring for a minute to make the ‘‘emulsion,’’ pour
in quickly two tablespoonfuls of household ammonia.
Bottle and cork, while you turn the clothes soaked
overnight into your washboiler half full of hot water.
Churn them up well with the clothes-stick, add
the emulsion, and boil for half an hour. Take out,
then rinse twice, first in hot water, then in lukewarm,
and wring.

One box of concentrated lye

Two ounces of best borax, powdered
One ounce of salts of tartar

Two ounces of lump ammonia

Two gallons of boiling water

Put the mixture into a stone jug; shake violently
for a whole minute, keeping a tight cork in all the
while, and set away for use. Half a cupful of this
fluid will suffice for a large boiler of clothes. Keep
the jug closely corked, and it will be good as long as
it lasts.

No housekeeper can afford to be without Javelle
water, if she makes a business of taking out fruit,
and ink, and divers other stains that white goods are
heir to—no matter how vigilant the mother may be,
MONDAY 33

and although children may be preternaturally care-
ful of frocks and pinafores. It is a ready reckoner
of the damage done by such mishaps, and if properly
applied, will not injure delicate materials.

This useful compound is sold by druggists, but it
is not difficult to make it at home, and the domestic
product is much less expensive than the manufac-
tured article.

A small teacupful of Javelle water, added to a
boiler of water, will assist materially in keeping the
clothes white, and will not act disastrously upon fine
threads.

HOME-MADE JAVELLE WATER

Into a large stone or porcelain-lined pot put two
pounds of baking-soda, and pour over it two quarts
of hot water—not boiling. Stir with a wooden spoon
until the soda has dissolved, and add half a pound
of chloride of lime. Set the pot in a wide pan of
warm water, and let it stand, covered, on the range
until the mixture is quite hot. Take it off then, and
let it cool, keeping it covered all the while. When
cold, draw off the clear liquid carefully, strain
through cheese-cloth and bottle. Cork closely, never
leaving the stopper out for a moment longer than
necessary.

The cloudy residuum left in the pot may be bot-
tled for clearing kitchen sinks of grease, as it is a
powerful alkali.

For a good soap-powder we are indebted to an emi-
34 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

nent chemist who has generously supplied me with
other much-needed information in the preparation
of this work. I give the formula in his own words:

SOAP-POWDER

The finely powdered commercial article is usually
a pulverized soap, containing about forty per cent.
sal-soda. It may be made as follows: Dissolve five
pounds of sal-soda in about half a gallon of boiling
water, and put into this ten pounds of finely shaved
laundry soap—ripe and good. Melt slowly on the
back of the range. Don’t boil it!

When nearly melted stir until it is a homogeneous,
thick mass. Ladle this into a clean tin or enameled
pot, wider at top than bottom. Then let it cool.
When chilled and solid, cut around the edges with a
thin, sharp knife, and dump the cake on a clean piece
of cloth. Divide the cake into thin strips; spread on
paper, and let them dry naturally, without artificial
heat. When air-dry, the strips are brittle and may
be rubbed between the hands into a coarse powder.

However, the soap may also be cut into larger
pieces, and used like any soap in laundry when it has
been well dried. It contains more alkali (sal-soda)
than ordinary soap, hence cleanses more quickly.

Smaller quantities may be made, and, to the ingre-
dients given herewith, there may be added, before
cooling, a cupful of benzine, skimming it for laundry
purposes. Keep covered, and in a dark place.
MONDAY 385

A HOME-MADE BLUING

“‘Warranted,’’ says the lively donor, ‘‘sound and
kind.”’ We take it, trustfully, upon her word.

To one ounce of Chinese, or of Prussian blue
(either will do), add a quart of soft water. Put it
into a bottle and shake well and often for three days
after mixing it. After this, do not shake it at all.
If any of it is precipitated because not dissolved,
you may refill the bottle after using all that is clear.

If you can not get the pulverized blue, ask the
druggist to crush it for you. Unless the Chinese or
Prussian blue be pure, your compound will be a
failure. It will precipitate, and spot the clothes. If
it is all right and not adulterated, it is a matter of
great economy to use this preparation. It will not
hurt the finest fabric. The quantity here given has
been known to last a family of six people a year, and
the cost is trifling when compared with that of any
patent bluing.

But—ask your druggist to warrant the blue! He
will, probably—and then you will be grateful for the
recipe.

STARCH THAT WILL NOT STICK TO THE IRONS

Two ounces of best spermaceti
Two ounces of gum arabic
Two ounces of powdered borax
One ounce of glycerine

One quart of water
36 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

Make the starch in the usual way; stir in one table-
spoonful of the mixture, and thin with hot water, un-
til fit for use.

This is as good an opportunity as I shall have to
say to my fellow-housewife that scraps of soap
should never be thrown away, no matter how small,
—either in laundry, or bath-room. Least of all
should they be allowed to soak their shortened lives
away in the bottom of a wash-tub. When they are
too small to be handled with ease, they should be
collected carefully and put aside in a covered box
until there are enough to warrant the busy house-
mother in making them into a jelly. This is done
by leaving them in warm water for a couple of hours
to soften. Then, put them into a saucepan with the
water in which they were soaked. There should be
just enough to cover them. Boil gently until you
have a clear jelly. Dissolve for each cupful of this,
‘a teaspoonful of refined borax, in a little warm water,
and whip into the soap jelly. Bring again to the
boil, and pour into a jar to cool.

This, diluted with warm water—rainwater, fil-
tered, when you can get it—makes a lovely lather for
washing such woolen goods as would thicken and
“full up,’? if soap were applied directly upon
them.

Toilet soaps should be kept by themselves, and
made, by the addition of boric talcum, into a scented
jelly for the bath-room.
MONDAY 37

PARAFFIN AS A CLEANSING AGENT

Housewives who profess to have given paraffin a
fair trial in the laundry, are so loud in praise of it
that to pass it over lightly would be to fly in the face
of the evidence of many witnesses. I offer a recipe
the excellence of which is vouched for by several
who have used it for years.

The clothes must be soaked overnight in the usual
way. In the morning wring them out, and shake
free of superfluous water.

Into a boiler half full of hot soft water, cut a half-
bar of white soap and a bit of paraffin a little less
than two inches square. Fill the boiler three-quar-
ters full with pieces of fine clothing—those about
which you are most particular—and boil for thirty
minutes. Remove the clothes, lay them in hot rins-
ing water and fill the boiler with the second-best
things, having thrown out the soiled water and put
in a fresh supply of water, soap and paraffin. This
done, boil half an hour, and take the clothes out.
The contents of the boiler are not to be thrown away
this time. There will be enough soap and paraffin
for the third boiling of towels and coarse pieces.

Rub all soiled spots lightly on the wash-board, us-
ing no more soap. The dirt will have been loosened
by the process, and be ready to fall out of itself.
After passing through two rinsing waters and blu-

ing, hang out to dry.
38 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

In winter, if the flannels are washed in the water
left from the first washing of fine white clothes, then
rinsed in warm water, softened with a little borax,
they will be nice and soft.

The soapy water from the boiler is good for clean-
ing floors, sinks, ete., if used while warm. The
boiler should be emptied before it cools, or the paraf-
fin will form a rim as a high-water mark, which noth-
ing but kerosene will remove.

The next washing-compound upon our list is en-
thusiastically commended by good judges of laundry
work. It has, evidently, the elements of stccess,
so far as ingredients go. I precede it by a serious
warning to those who are not familiar with the char-
acter of gasoline. This valuable agent in many va-
rieties of domestic arts is perfectly safe in careful
hands. -Nobody can take liberties with it. Keep it
away from artificial light of every kind, and it is
absolutely manageable. It resents the approach of
fire in any form. ‘Yet I am assured by authentic at-
testants that the mixture of which I am about to
speak may be boiled after it has been cooled, and, as
it were, seasoned by the air, without the least risk of
explosion.

A GASOLINE EMULSION FOR WASHING

Shave a bar of old white soap fine into a pot hold-
ing about two gallons. Stir into it two quarts of
boiling water; set over the fire and bring to a boil,
stirring often to facilitate dissolution, When you
MONDAY 39

have a sort of jellied cream, remove from the fire to
a fireless room, or, better still, to the outer air. The
back porch is a safe place. While the soap jelly is
still hot pour into it, gradually, a half-pint of gaso-
line. It will effervesce furiously, filling the kettle.
Cover with a tight lid and let it alone for fifteen
minutes.

Have at hand the weekly wash that has been
soaked overnight, then wrung nearly dry and sorted
into tubs, ready for the laundress and the rubbing.
Make a suds with plenty of hot water and a pint of
the emulsion; rub in the usual way, or put into the
washing-machine if you have one; rinse in warm
water, and the articles are ready for the line. As I
have said, it may even be boiled without danger of
explosion, but this is seldom necessary, so well does
the cleanser do its part.

It softens hard water and dislodges dirt and whit-
ens linen. Colored clothes may be washed with this
emulsion without fading them.

A GOOD WASHING FLUID

Dissolve in two gallons of boiling water one can of
potash, or of a patent lye you have tried and proved
to be good. Add to the mixture a half-cup of house-
hold ammonia, and as much powdered borax. Take
from the fire, cover closely, and when it is blood-
warm, put it into bottles with tight rubber corks.

On wash-day, have ready a boiler of scalding
water into which you have stirred a half-bar of ripe
40 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

soap. (A half-bar here means a piece two inches
square.) Adda small teacupful of the fluid to this
boilerful, and set on the stove. Your clothes should
have been soaked overnight, and the soiled places
rubbed with soap. Put them into the boiler, and
keep up a hard boil for twenty minutes. The clothes
should then be turned into the tubs. They will need
very little rubbing, but must be put through two rins-
ing waters.
CHAPTER V

MONDAY (Continuedy

WOOLENS, COLORED COTTONS AND LINENS

Reference was made in our first chapter to the
‘cold-water process’’ for woolen materials, includ-
ing that bugbear of the thrifty manager—blankets.
An earnest advocate of the somewhat startling inno-
vation upon grandmotherly customs, writes:

“Tt is the only way for washing woolens if you
would have them beautifully soft and clean—soft as
when new, although nearly worn out. My experience
dates back some nine years, when a neighbor and my-
self washed blankets on the same day, the blankets
being exactly alike, bought at the same place and at
the same time. Hers were soft and pliable, while
mine had that harsh feeling every one knows for
herself, and shudders to think of.

‘“‘T asked my friend the reason of the difference
and she said— Having had experience in my girlhood
in the woolen factories of Scotland, I simply soaked
my blankets in cold water.’

“Of course I had used warm—and behold the re-
sult. Since that day even our woolen stockings are
treated in this way.

41
42 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

‘‘One need not always use the cold water. Tepid
may do as well for old woolens. I am told that it
does. But when they are new, before washing them
at all, I soak them in pure cold water for at least
half-an-hour, or until the flannel will make a fine
lather when soap is rubbed on. Afterward, I wash
them just as I would wash any other garment. My
baby’s nightgowns—made of white gauze flannel—
when treated in this manner, are a joy to behold and
to handle.

‘‘Tt is useless to try the ‘cold water process’ after
the article has been once put into warm water, for
then the grease is ‘set’ and your woolen has a harsh
texture. The children’s fine white flannels, having
been invariably treated to the ‘cold water cure,’ when
new, are afterward washed in the same way as their
muslins—but not boiled, of course. Then they are
thrown into the cold bluing water, hung out in freez-
ing weather, or in sunshine, and never disappoint me.

“There is a lot of virtue in cold water!’’

From this pleasant letter we gather that cold water
is but an initiatory stage, designed to take the wool-
oil out of the fabric. This done, the rest of the
operation does not differ materially from the meth-
ods practised in other laundries.

I have taken great pains to get a consensus of opin-
ion from divers trustworthy sources upon this im-
portant branch of household labor, and culled from
a mass of correspondence what seems to me helpful
and practical information for the willing learner.
MONDAY 43

In response to my inquiry, a wide-awake Western
woman says:

“Will I tell you how I manage to have my blankets
look well as long as one thread holds to another?
With a ‘heart-and-a-half!’ as we say out here.

“Tf the blankets are very much soiled, shave two
bars of wool soap into a granite saucepan; cover with
soft warm water and set on the range to melt. Have
in a great pot plenty of warm (not hot) water. Air,
beat and brush the blankets well to get rid of all the
fluff and dust. Put into a large tub three big pail-
fuls of warm water. There should be ten or twelve
gallons of it. Add a cupful of household ammonia,
before stirring in the melted soap. Mix all well to-
gether with the clothes-stick, and put in the blankets.
Do not rub them on the wash-board, but souse them
under, and shake them about vigorously, then squeeze
them between your hands until you see that the dirt
is out. If, when you lift them to the light, they look
grimy, make a second suds like the first, and repeat
the sousing, shaking and turning until you are satis-
fied. Put through the wringer, if your hands are
not strong enough to press all the wet out of them.
They should not drip when hung on the line. It is
well to add a little ammonia to the clear water in
which they are rinsed before they are wrung out.

‘Hang them lengthwise on the lines, using plenty
of clothes-pins. Make sure that a blanket is taut on
the line, but do not strain the edges. Dry in the
shade. While they are still damp go all over each
44 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

with a clean, new wire brush. An ‘electric’ hair.
brush is good for this purpose. Brush with the nap;
never against it.

“This process may seem tedious, but experience
has proved to me that there is no short cut to excel-
lence in the washing of blankets.”’

A serious trouble with housewives and laundresses
who have the management of flannels is the tendency
of woolen fabrics to shrink in the wash. All-wool
garments are so liable to this infirmity that many a
clever economist insists on buying flannel that has a
liberal admixture of cotton in it. It will not ‘‘full
up’’ in tlie water and in the wearing. She, who is
able to indulge herself and her family in the use of
“‘natent’’ underwear at a cost of fifteen and twenty
dollars a garment, is wise if she adds to the expense
of the luxury by sending them every week to a pro-
fessional cleaner, unless her home laundress be unus-
ually skilful, and amenable to reason. It is a com-
mon complaint with our housemother that servants,
competent and docile in other respects, can not, or
will not wash flannels in such a way as not to make
them smaller and tighter each week, until they are,
perforce, thrown aside when but half-worn.

In an earlier chapter, I have expressed my indi-
vidual opinion to the effect that hot water shrinks
woolen goods of every kind. Yet I am constrained
by a sense of justice, and by respect for an esteemed
correspondent, to give for what it may be worth,
a brief note on this head, that tells another story.
MONDAY 45

‘““My husband is a bit ‘pernicketty,’ as our old-
fashioned people say, in the matter of flannels. He
will have none but the best all-wool underwear and
negligée shirts. His summer suits are of the same,
and it goes without saying that they are an apple
of discord in the laundry. To keep the peace below
stairs—and, I might add, to keep my poor John out
of the poor house—I wash the aforementioned gar-
ments with my own hands, and he never suspects
it! Every Monday morning, as soon as he is safely
off to his office, I shut myself up in the bath-room
with his outer and inner flannels, and then and there
address myself seriously to the self-imposed task.
I run the water in the tub until it is as hot as I can
bear my hand in; plunge the precious articles into
the steaming flood, soap them well all over—using
none but old, white soap, kept in the store-room for
this sacred purpose alone—and rub them on the
wash-board, until every part has been rubbed and
soaped. I have my own clandestine wringer, and
I put them through it, then rush them through two
clean, hot, rinsing waters, wring out the wet with
my hands, and hang the cleansed valuables in the
back yard. This last part of the process is all that
I intrust to any hands save my very own, and I su-
perintend this, to make sure they have the right ex-
posure. When the flannels are half dry, they are
hung in the sunny sitting-room, near an open win-
dow, and I stretch them faithfully every ten minutes.
: The success of the process depends largely upon
46 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

the rapidity with which each stage is conducted. It
is a ‘rush order’ throughout.

‘“ “Tots of trouble?’ I don’t deny it, but my good-
man wears his all-wools in gladness and singleness of
heart, and there are no failures in the laundry be-
cause nobody there would think the garments (or the
wearer thereof) ‘worth all that fuss.’ I differ from
the powers-that-would-be-if-they-could in this, as in
other views. And I really take deep if secret satis-
faction in the fact that each of these garments is
worn with perfect comfort as long as the threads
hold together. Furthermore, they outlast by months
flannels washed in the ordinary way, and look well
to the end.

“As for the waste of time at which my fashion-
able acquaintances would cavil if they suspected the
‘degrading’ trutb—I don’t play ‘Bridge’ and can,
therefore, afford an hour a week spent thus. May I
add a line of caution to other flannel~washers?
Never put them (the flannels, not the washerwomen)
into water in which cottons or linens have been
washed, no matter how clean it may seem. There is
always fine lint afloat in it that will be taken up by
the flannels, making them hard and inclined to
shrink.”

HOW TO KEEP WOOLEN STOCKINGS FROM SHRINKING
IN THE WASH

Wash in the usual way, and while still damp,
stretch upon wooden frames, cut to exactly the size
MONDAY 47

of each stocking or sock—or, to speak with absolute
correctness—a trifle larger. These may be bought at
some shops, but a better plan for the mother of mod-
erate means, is to get a thin smooth board—such as
cotton fabrics are rolled on when put up for sale—
and have her forms made at home. Lay one of each
pair of hose smoothly on the board, attach it to the
soft wood with pins, and pencil the outline on it
very carefully, making it, as I have said, a very
little larger than the stocking. Next, bore six holes
in each to hasten the drying. The pattern may be
cut through the board by any one who has a jack-
knife and a steady hand. The boards may be had
for the asking at any village store. It is, therefore,
not a serious undertaking to provide a form for each
member of the family who wears woolen hose.
Boys’ winter stockings, worn with knickerbockers,
being stout and often coarse, thicken—as dismayed
mothers complain—until they are stiff as boards,
while the baby’s knitted socks become all too small
for him long before he has outgrown them. One pair
of wooden forms for each will prolong the useful-
ness of the foot-gear and save the mother much an-
noyance.

Woolens that have been badly shrunken in the
wash may be improved, if not entirely restored to
their former size, by the following ‘process:

If you have not soap jelly on hand, dissolve shav-
ings of white soap in enough boiling water to melt
them, and when the ‘‘jelly”’ is cold and firm, stir into
48 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

a tubful of cold water. The size of the tub depends
upon the number of clothes to be washed. If the
flannels are soiled, add a little household ammonia
just before they go into the water. Wash them as
quickly as possible, using no more soap, pass them
through the wringer, rinse in two cold waters, and
wring dry with a few dexterous twists of a pair of
strong hands. Dry in the shade, and quickly,
stretching them every ten minutes.

If these directions be obeyed to the letter, the ill-
used garments will be soft and flexible when dry.

TO CLEAN A CHAMOIS VEST

Make a good warm suds of well-ripened white soap
—add a tablespoonful of olive oil to a gallon of the
suds, and wash as you would fine, all-wool flannel.
Rinse in warm water and stretch on a form—a firm
pillow, if you have no other. If, when you have
dried it in the shade, there remain harsh places in
the vest, rub them soft between the hands. If there
be a lining take it out before washing.

COLORED COTTONS

If you have colored muslins, calicoes or ginghams
to wash, mix a tablespoonful of ox-gall in each gallon
of cold water, and leave the articles in this for two
hours.

Or—make a strong brine of fine salt and cold
water, and soak the colored cotton in it before wash-

ing quickly and drying it—always with the wrong
MONDAY 49

side out—in the shade. Colored things fade more
in the drying than in the tub.

If, by inexcusable carelessness, the garment should
get into the boiler and go through the boiling process
with the white clothes, there are five-hundred chances
against one that it will be irretrievably faded when
it comes out. If the colors are not perfectly fast
there are, likewise, as many chances in favor of in-
jury to the rest of the contents of the caldron. A
second boil in water liberally dashed with lemon-
juice, or chloride of lime, may bleach the unwelcome
tinge out of the white things. If anything will re-
store lost color, it is a dip in household ammonia,
slightly diluted. The odds are against you, still you
may make the attempt.

Moral: Set your colors before they go into the
water, and keep colored and white things as far sep-
arate as the limits of your laundry will allow. Let
them typify the Jews and the Samaritans on one day
of the week. >

A tablespoonful of powdered alum dissolved in
boiling water is a potent addition to the briny bath
in which the ginghams, etc., should lie for two hours,
or more, as a preparation for the tub. Repeat the
‘‘setting’’ every time the colored article is washed.
A common blunder is to imagine that, once set, it
needs no further treatment. A mistake, equally
common and as disastrous, is to take for granted the
paid washerwoman’s obedience to the injunction
never to omit the preliminary stage. Should her em-
50 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

ployer think it too much trouble to give personal at-
tention to a matter that will consume, perhaps ten
minutes, all told, of her morning, the hireling will
reckon the salt-and-alum soaking as ‘‘notional,’’ and
give it the go-by.

I seek to impress these homely items in the toil and
moil of Monday upon the mind and the housewifely
conscience of my reader, because I know that colored
cottons and linens may be kept bright and comely
as long as they retain integrity of texture, if any one
will but observe these simple and absurdly easy pre-
cautions. Also, that there is nothing in the salt and
alum which can rot the finest threads.

The colors set, you may, if you wish to starch the
cottons or linens, make a gallon of boiled starch in
the usual way, and strain half of it into a tubful of
soft warm—not hot—water. It must be more than
lukewarm, yet not too hot for you to bear your hand
init with comfort. Rub lightly and rapidly. Never
let colored goods lie for one minute in the washing,
or rinsing water, after they are once clean. Dilute
the reserved half of the starch with warm water and
use it in rinsing. Hang in the shade and dry.

Or—and this is perhaps a better method to pursue
with delicate tints and sheer, fine fabrics:

Boil two quarts of clean wheat-bran in eight quarts
of water for an hour, never fast, but steadily all the
time. Turn out, and as soon as it is moderately cool,
before it stiffens, strain through double cheese-cloth,
pressing hard to get all the starch. If it is too thick,
MONDAY, 51

add cold water until it is of the consistency of thin
starch. (Wash your lawn, dimity, or gingham in this,
using neither soap nor starch. The bran-water is
both cleansing and stiffening. ‘A variation of this
mode of doing up thin stuffs when black or dark blue,
gray, or green—indeed when the color is so dark that
the ordinary starch will impart a whitish look, is
this:

Put into a clean white muslin or cheese-cloth bag,
a pint of wheat-bran; and lay it in as much boiling
water as will suffice for each skirt or waist. Cover
the vessel in which the bag lies, and set at the side
of the range where it will keep hot, but not simmer,
for one hour. Then squeeze and knead the bag hard
in the water, and above it, untif no more liquid will
exude from it. Stir a tablespoonful of borax into
the water. (Wash the article you wish to clean in
this preparation while it is quite warm, having, first,
reserved a cupful for the rinsing water. This must
be thinner than that in which the main washing was
done. Shake, and clap several times between the
hands. When nearly dry, iron on the wrong side
over a double thickness of flannel.
CHAPTER VI
MoNnDAY (Concludedy.

SILKS, BLACK, COLORED AND WHITE

‘A black silk gown which has long seen service and
is hopelessly shiny on the right side and defaced by
smears and stains and yet retains its integrity of
warp and woof, is too good to throw away. No
dressmaker would deign to renovate the old soldier,
yet you feel that there is work in it for months to
come. None of us women require to be told that the
wardrobe which does not include a seasoned veteran
in the shape of a three-quarters-worn black silk,
lacks that which no new gown can supply.

If you, the veteran’s fond proprietor, will reduce
it to something like a decent show of capabilities,
there are still abroad in the land seamstresses who
have, they tell you proudly, ‘‘worked with a dress-
maker’’? and are not above making over what the
profession would condemn as a derelict. Provided,
always, they are not expected to rip and clean. That
depth of ignominy you must avoid by doing the work
with your own hands.

Ripping is an art. Unless you have, by rare good

52
MONDAY 53

luck, some humble-minded pensioner, too old-fash-
ioned to resent the task proposed, and conscientious
enough to bring to it the deftness learned in an
earlier day—trust nobody but yourself to dissect the
veteran. May I suggest as an alleviation of the hard-
ship of the undertaking, that you set about it on
some stormy evening when John has the time and
the will to beguile the work of weariness by reading
aloud while the keen scissors are plied ?

In such circumstances, you will have patience to
rip seams carefully, clipping each stitch, and resist-
ing the disposition to tear down a whole breadth at
one pull.

When the breadths and sections of waist and
sleeves are separated, brush out the dust, and wipe
both sides of the silk with a bit of soft flannel.
Spread, breadth by breadth, upon a sheet doubled
upon a large table, and sponge what is hereafter to be
the wrong side, with warm (not scalding) water in
which peeled potatoes have been boiled into meali-
ness. Strain the water through a cotton bag before
using it. While the silk is yet damp fold it smoothly
and. lay between folds of an old linen sheet until you
are ready to iron it. It should be damp still when
ironed on what was the right, and is to be the wrong
side, leaving the other free from the gloss of the
iron. Hang by the edges to dry, using plenty of
clothes-pins. If there are grease spots on the silk,
sponge freely with household ammonia before iron-
ing.
54 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

TO WASH FAST-COLORED SILKS

Having ripped the garment apart, make sure that
the color will hold by washing a small sample of the
goods in cold water with borax soap. If the origi-
nal color does not stand the test, it is quite possible
that it may fade agreeably, as it were, into a shade
that is not displeasing to your eye, thus promising
you a new gown.

Wipe the silk on both sides with soft flannel.
Have ready in a tub three gallons of warm suds
made with old white Castile soap. Stir into this rap-
idly a quart of household ammonia, put in the silk
and wash it as you would a pocket-handkerchief,
breadth by breadth; rinse all in clear, tepid water,
shaking and squeezing, but not putting through the
wringer. Roll four or five thicknesses of soft linen
or cotton about a round stick—an old broom-handle
will do. It should be perfectly smooth. Wind the
breadths of damp silk on this, keeping each straight
and taut. The silk should be about half-dry. When
all are on, wrap the roll in dry linen and leave it
alone for at least an hour. Finally, iron on the
wrong side with an iron that is not hot enough to
fade it.

Silks that are badly soiled may be made to look
fresh and crisp by following these directions. They
must not lie in the water one minute longer than suf-
fices for a rapid souse and rub, or the color will not
be clear.
MONDAY, 55

WASH-SILK WAISTS AND CHILDREN’S FROCKS

The pretty wash-silks affected by young girls for
shirt-waists and by mothers for children’s party
frocks, must be carefully handled in the laundry, or
they are not worth making up. They may be washed
without ripping if the right means are used.

If the garment be greasy from perspiration, or
other causes, soak it for an hour in tepid water in
which a little borax has been dissolved. See that the
pail or tub in which you are to wash it is perfectly
free from soil and grease. Delicate fabrics are
sometimes ruined by carelessness in this respect. It
is not enough that the tub was washed when set away
after the last using. Scald and wipe it out now,
with a clean, dry cloth. Make a lather of soft water
and ‘‘ripe’’ Ivory soap. (Wash the waist quickly and
faithfully in this. Do not use any soap in the pro-
cess. If the suds are properly made you will need
none. Pass from the suds into a rinsing-water, just
lukewarm, and from this into a second. If the mate-
rial be white or pale-blue, add a very little liquid blu--
ing to the second rinsing-bath. The rinse must be ©
thorough, as if any soap is left in the silk, it will
yellow it. It may be advisable to have three waters
to make all sure. In which case the dash of bluing
should go into the last.

The rinsing done, shake, and press out the wet by
hand, wrapping the garment in a soft towel, and
squeezing it through this to absorb the moisture.
56 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

Iron while still so wet that the steam rises freely.
Lay a piece of fine, thin muslin, or linen, between
the silk and the iron. The latter must not be so hot
as to risk streaking the moist silk by uneven drying.
Press hard and steadily as you iron. When the silk
is smoothed to your liking, take a fresh iron, rub it
with especial pains and press the now perfectly dried
garment on the wrong side, running the iron over it
lightly and swiftly, without the muslin covering.

One mother who does up her girls’ waists and
gowns herself, gets a firm, but slight gloss by the ad-
dition of a teaspoonful of dissolved glue to the third
rinsing water.

She lays stress upon the necessity of ironing before
the silk is nearly dry, maintaining that the silk will
never look well if suffered to dry before the heavy,
hot iron presses it.

TO WASH WHITE AND COLORED RIBBONS

Pin the ribbon upon a board about which you have
tacked a clean white cloth. Scrub the ribbon from '
end to end with a bit of white flannel wet with cold
water to which you have added a little household am-
monia. Having treated one side faithfully, draw out
the pins, turn the ribbon and scrub the other side
as thoroughly with a fresh piece of flannel. If the
ribbon be very dirty, change the water three or four
times. Dry upon the board in the sun, having wiped
the ribbon repeatedly with a dry cloth until you can
get no more moisture out of it.
MONDAY 57

White ribbons may be bleached, in drying, by
Sponging them with peroxide of hydrogen. Leave
in the sun on the board until dry. Take from the
board, cover with two thicknesses of an old cam-
bric handkerchief, and press hard with a moderately
hot iron through the cambric.

A variation of the foregoing method is especially
recommended for white ribbons and the faintly tinted
taffeta and lutestring ribbons used for lingerie and
which, being worn constantly, and coming into con-
tact with the skin, must be washed often.

Keep on hand a jar of soap-jelly made by boiling
down scraps of fine toilet soap, saved for this pur-
pose as they become too small to be used in the bath.
Never throw away a bit, no matter how minute. The
riper, the better.

‘Wet your ribbons in cold water and lay them on a
flat surface. The marble slab of an old-fashioned
table, or bureau, made perfectly clean and free from
dust, is an excellent place for the operation. Dip a
clean, rather firm, but not harsh tooth-brush into the
jelly, then into cold water, and scrub the ribbons
lengthwise until they are clean. Keep them smooth
by holding one end down hard, while you work to-
ward the other. Rinse three times in cold water,
changing the water each time. The last water should
be perfectly clear. Dip the ribbons up and down, in
rinsing, holding one end, and handling as little as
possible. While they are yet dripping wet, wind
upon a smooth, clean bottle, taking care not to wrin-
58 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

kle the ribbon, and set in an airy window, out of the
sun, to dry. Always dry silken stuffs in the shade.
The sun draws them into wrinkles.

Trim the frayed ends diagonally to prevent ravel-
ling.

In ironing lay a very fine piece of muslin or linen
between the ribbon and the iron which should be but
moderately warm, as I have directed in the preceding
recipe.

TO CLEAN A BLACK, OR DARK-COLORED WOOLEN SKIRT

Other gowns may be more costly, and most of them
are handsomer. None fulfils the end of its creation
more faithfully than the ‘‘ rainy-day skirt.”’ It was
never smart, perhaps, but it is all wool, holds its
color and abides in strength when fancy fabrics go
to the wall—+.e. the rag-bag, or rag-picker.

If the man who saves his fellow (and sometimes
his inferior) from ruin, be a benefactor, the sturdy
garment whose mission it is to stand between better,
because richer, raiment and needless wear and tear,
should be accounted respectable, and renovated duti-
fully when shabby in the service.

If it be mud-stained at the bottom—and it is in-
variably, albeit of walking length—falsely so-called
—hbrush out all the loose dirt. May I remind you to
do this in the open air? Our sidewalks are the
chosen breeding-grounds of bacteria of the most ma-
levolent type, and you have never considered it worth
while to hold up the old short skirt. Beat and brush

 

 
MONDAY 59

it out-of-doors, shaking steadily against the wind as
long as the dust flies.

Lay it, then, upon a table, and scrub the mud stains
left above the hem with a freshly cut raw potato.
This, by the way, will remove such spots and streaks
from black silk when nothing else will. Next, spread
and straighten each breadth, and sponge faithfully
with stale beer. If you can get what is listed as
‘‘malt vinegar,’’ it is even better. Use it lavishly,
and when one side has had full justice done to it, be
as faithful with the other. Lastly, go all over the
right side with a sponge dripping with alcohol.
Hang in the air, but not in the sun, until almost dry,
supporting by the belt and not sparing clothes-pins.
Take it down, and iron on the wrong side through a
damp cloth.

SOAP-BARK AS A CLEANSER

The best way of using it is to enclose it in small
bags, or pads, each containing a couple of handfuls
of the bark. Make several of these, keeping one for
white flannels, cloths, etc., one for colored, one for
black. The pads should be made of cheese-cloth.

Spread the article to be cleaned upon a table cov- |
ered with a clean white cloth. Have under your
hand a bowl of tepid water in which you have stirred
a tablespoonful of household ammonia. Dip your
pad in this and hold there until soaked through.
Wash the soiled gown or coat or trousers, with the
wet pad, rubbing gently upon the spots. Then, with
60 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

a piece of dry flannel, or other woolen stuff, rub the
whole surface dry, changing the cloth as it gets wet.

If the washing and wiping be done well, you will
be amazed at the dirt that comes away, and the re-
newed look of the thing treated. Boys’ cloth trous-
ers, men’s every-day coats, girls’ school frocks of
serge, ‘‘mother’s’’ working-day gown of black de-
laine, or merino, may be cleaned at home, with
wonderfully little labor, and no expense beyond the
purchase of ten cents’ worth of soap-bark.

I lay much stress upon the department of domestic
cleaning of materials not classed as washable, because
the prices charged by professional cleaners are
cruelly heavy to people of moderate means. It is a
time-worn adage that the best thing is the cheapest
in the long run. In subscribing to the truth of the
platitude, I add a proviso:—The best thing must be
cared for as befits its value, or it is not cheap. Dirt
is a costly condition in any circumstances. The lack
of personal cleanliness invites disease and doctor’s
bills. The soaping, rubbing, boiling, rinsing and
wringing needed to bring a badly soiled garment
back to decency, tell upon its integrity more than a
year of careful wear. It does pay to buy a good
thing to begin with. It pays far better to use it
without abusing it, when once bought. It pays well,
and always, to get the good thing clean when legiti-
mate wear has soiled it. For really excellent fabrics
—like the best quality of human virtue—do not go to
pieces in the wash.
MONDAY 61

Lay it down as an axiom that nearly every all-
wool, pure silk, real linen and round-threaded stuffs
of whatever kind—will wash if they are handled ju-
diciously. I had my lesson in the direction of this
home truth, over forty years ago. I had worn a fine
white, all-wool grenadine for several months. It
was as good as it was pretty, and I grieved when it
finally became so begrimed with town smoke and
country dust as to be no longer presentable, even for
rainy-day-at-home wear. I handed it over, with a lot
of other past worthies, to my gardener’s wife who
had a genius for making over castaways in the cloth-
ing line for her little brood.. Ina few days she came
to me with a matter that weighed upon her tender
conscience. Upon her arm she bore the discarded
gown—so spick-and-span that I could not believe the
evidence of my eyes. I had apologized for offering it
to her, saying that nothing could be done with it, but
she might dye and utilize it for carpet-rags.

‘‘Seeing it was such nice material and knowing
that real good stuff always washes well, I just put it
into the tub, washed it careful, and ironed it while it
was damp—and will you look at it? And so, feeling
sure you would not have thrown it away if you had
guessed what could be made of it, I didn’t think it
was right for me to keep it,’”’—was the conclusion of
the honest soul.

Of course I would not revoke the gift, and the les-
son was rubbed into my memory by the sight of the
renovated grenadine made up for the present owner’s
62 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

eldest girl’s best gown, worn to church, Sunday after
Sunday, all that summer.

Moral: When a garment is too dirty for your use,
try to get it clean before deciding that its period of
usefulness in your service is at an end.
CHAPTER VII

TUESDAY,

TRONING-DAY

If ever the crisp order of the officer-in-command,
“Clear decks for action!’’ should be issued and
obeyed on the domestic frigate, it is on ironing-day.
If your kitchen be, also, the laundry, the injunction,
‘ Stow close!’’ is added.

Arrange culinary operations so as to have as little
cooking done as is consistent with family comfort
while ironing-table and clothes-horse occupy the cen-
ter of the stage. A fretful hiss of fat in the direc-
tion of a flat-iron, or a drip of gravy athwart a
freshly laundered garment, is a disaster. Pots and
saucepans crowd the top of the range when you re-
quire all the available space for the irons. Meat and
bread are likely to burn in the overheated ovens un-
less they are watched closely, and nobody has time to
watch the baking on ironing-day. These solicitudes
are not fussiness. It is true economy of time and
nervous forces to devote the greater part of one day
to the serious task of getting what Yankee house-
wives used to call, ‘‘the brunt of the ironing”’ out of
the way of other and lighter duties. And, since this
branch of domestic service, when begun, must pro-

63
64 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

ceed ‘‘without haste, without rest’’ toward comple-
tion, it behooves all who are to lend a hand in the
task to plan cannily for each step in a way where not
one may be skipped.

An oblong table on which sheets and table-cloths
may be spread at half-length, is a ‘“‘must have’’ to
the trained laundress. The regulation ironing-
board, supported at each end by stout legs attached
to the board, and folding under it when not in use—
or by the more primitive method of resting the board
on the backs of two chairs—is all-sufficient for
smaller articles, but as a foundation upon which
heavy bed- and table-linen are to be manipulated it
is a clumsy contrivance. Even when a clean sheet,
kept for the purpose, is spread on the floor to keep
the trailing folds from the dust, the necessity of fre-
quent shiftings of counterpane or table-cloth to bring
every part of it under the iron in its turn, adds sen-
sibly to the labor of her who wields it.

Table, and ironing- and bosom-boards must be
covered with folds of flannel, or with an old blanket,
in order to secure the degree of elastic firmness
requisite to produce the soft glossiness pleasant to
the housewifely eye. The jar upon the worker’s
joints and muscles is much less for the slight yield-
ing of the woolly substratum. Over this tack
smoothly a stout cotton sheet made fast to the under-
side of the board. This covering must be invariably
clean. Damp cloths and hot iron will betray any
stain or dust by transferring it to the article under
TUESDAY 65

treatment. A scorch is a stain—a fact lost sight of
by many a laundress who does not renew the ‘‘iron-
ing-sheet”’ until it is dropping to ‘pieces under the
vigor of her polishing strokes, and as sere as a No-
vember oak-leaf. Then she wonders that her clothes
are ‘‘dingied’’ in spite of her painstaking.

Have at the laundress’ right hand a trivet, or ring,
on which to set the iron in the intervals between
active operations, and beneath it a square of asbestos.

If you can not get asbestos, use a flat stone. A
homely but efficient appliance for setting the iron on,
and likewise for cleaning it is a piece of unpainted
wire netting, such as is sold for window-screens,
folded into a square of five or six thicknesses. It
keeps irons free from rust if they be rubbed briskly
on it now and then, and holds the heat for them.

Within easy reach of the worker lay a block of
folded wrapping paper on which to wipe the iron and
to test its heat, and with the paper a cloth for re-
moving dust and chance flakes of soot from the
handle and top. A bit of beeswax or spermaceti, or,
best of all, paraffin, should lie in a saucer near by.
It imparts gloss to the iron but it should be used
sparingly. An asbestos holder is an excellent thing,
but any thick square, made of folds of flannel, Can-
ton flannel, bed-ticking, calico—anything which will
play the part of a non-conductor of the heat of the

iron to the hand—will answer the purpose of the
average laundress. The chief advantage of asbestos
over the substances named is that a single fold laid
66 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

between two pieces of woolen or cotton stuff, will
protect the hand, and be less clumsy than a multi-
plicity of thicknesses.

Should the irons be rough from disuse or damp-
ness, rub them on a smooth board, on which has been
strewed table salt. If they are in regular use and
kept in a dry place when not employed, they will
need no more friction than will be given by the wire
netting spoken of just now.

In preparing the clothes—dried and dampened
and folded—for the ironing table, sort them intelli-
gently, laying each kind in the order in which it is
to be ironed. There is no surer token of inexperi-
ence or slovenliness than when a laundress pulls out
the contents of her clothes-basket, helter-skelter, to
get at some articles left in the bottom which she
would like to ‘‘do”’ first, or drags out whatever comes
to hand and by whatever corner, tumbling all the rest
into a damp, disorderly pile. In folding down yes-
terday’s wash, she should have laid it in the order
in which she is to attack it to-day.

Begin with a couple of pillow-cases or towels—
plain ironing—to make sure that your apparatus is
in good running order; then take the fine, starched
clothes, while day and energies are at their freshest.
If there are embroideries, pull every scallop and
point into shape. If they are too dry to be pliable,
dampen with a sponge dipped into a bowl of warm
water. This is another reachable accessory essential
to the ironing-day outfit. When the embroidery is
TUESDAY 67

quite ready for the iron, press steadily and hard on
the wrong side, bearing your weight full upon the
implement. Iron steadily and not fast. It is not
imperatively necessary that you should thump! The
rhythmic bump! bump! bump! rising from the scene
of operations from morn to dewy eve of ironing-day
reminds the well-read mistress of muffled drums

‘‘Beating funeral marches to the grave.’’

I can answer for one who has harkened to the
lugubrious boom until nerves and patience gave way.
I have in mind one strenuous and well-meaning laun-
dress, who, in six months, battered the mortar and
lath wall against which she chose to set her table,
until it looked like the track left by a cannon-ball
upon the outer fortifications of a besieged town.

As you iron (without thumping!) table- and bed-
linen, handkerchiefs and towels, fold, and press the
folds into sharp, clean, straight creases, They will
look neater and keep fresh longer for this final touch.
When they have received it and are satisfactory in
your sight, lay the smaller articles aside in neat piles.
Hang the larger upon the clothes-horse to dry per-
fectly and to get the full benefit of the air. Do this,
with eare not to wrinkle them, and handle as gin-
gerly when the hour comes for taking down the
sweet, thoroughly dried clothes, and ranging them
in orderly array in the hampers or trays in which the
harvest of your two days’ toil is to be carried to the
garner of linen-press and bureau-drawers.
68 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

I have known of households in the South where it
was the pretty custom to drop a bit of orris-root tied
in a cloth, into the boiler with the handkerchiefs,
body-clothes and pillow-cases. It imparted what the
French call a ‘‘soup¢on,’’ and we try to express by
our translation of the word into a ‘‘suspicion,’’ of
violet breath, faint, yet unmistakable and exquisite.
It is so subtly suggestive as to make the lavender-
scented sheets of our foremothers almost vulgar by
comparison. A dainty conceit, as I have said, and
stories of the elder days, when people took time to
be ‘‘esthetic,’? as we phrase it now—make loving
mention of lavender and dried rose-leaves lurking
among the folds of linen sheets, fine as cobwebs. The
big chests in which the flaxen treasures were hoarded
from one generation to another, were redolent of
these and of Spanish cedar linings. In our prosaic
age we hold that clean linen should have no scent but
that of its own ineffable purity. We contend, too,
that it should be kept well-aired. There are icono-
clasts who hint that the nameless odor, reminiscent
of East Indian spices, and native rose-petals and
gray lavender-blooms, and auld lang syne generally,
that brought a lump to the returned wanderer’s
throat, and poetry to his tongue—was largely com-
pounded of must and dead air. So we make a point,
and a sharp one, of admitting the winds of heaven
freely to our linen-closets, and when we can afford
the space, make the closet a windowed room. In the
interests of modern sanitation, we write it down as a
TUESDAY 69

rule without exception that linen (I use the word in
the generic sense) that has a smell when it is put
away as clean, is unwholesome. It was washed im-
properly, or the taint of cold cookery clings to it, or
it was imperfectly ventilated before it was consigned
to the clothes-basket as a graduate from the laundry.

Returning to our ironing-table, let me say a word
of my own judgment as to sheets, linen and cotton.
Certain latter-day writers on physiology, hygiene
and cognate themes, deprecate ironing them except
at the hems. One authority, too eminent to be lightly
questioned, asks boldly and baldly:

‘¢Why iron them at all? Fold them in the middle,
then across again; lay on the table and smooth with
your hand as you fold. Finally, press the hems with
a hot iron and hang the sheets up to air. Can’t you
see the sanitary wisdom of all this? The air circu-
lates freely between the meshes that are not crushed
flat. You will sleep more healthfully between un-
ironed bed-clothes.’’

Our Eminent Authority may be in the right, and [I
may be an unsanitary, unprogressive Sybarite,
wedded to ideals which advanced thinkers and doers
have long ago cast to the moles and bats. For, I will
have my sheets ironed all over and faithfully. ‘‘Same
as a pocket-handkercher!’”’ as I overheard a char-
woman say who was hired to assist the laundress.

Consulting Mrs. Parsons McPherson’s capital lit-
tle manual, Ethics of Household Economy (which
should have a place in every housemother’s library),
70 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

I note that even she discourages the ‘‘waste of time,
strength and fuel’’ involved in the ironing of sheets.
Yet she adds: ‘‘If they are for your spare bed, then
iron the whole surface.’’

Catching at this goodly straw, I elect to regard my
especial and well-beloved couch—my friend and com-
forter—as a spare bed. In my stubborn old-fash-
ionedness, I rest better and maintain my self-respect
more surely despite ‘‘crushed meshes,’’ when I ‘‘lay
me down to sleep’’ between sheets that have been
thoroughly aired and retain the smoothness and crisp
creases made by the swift passage of a hot iron
throughout their length and breadth.

“Tf I were Queen of France,
Or, what’s better, Pope of Rome,—’’

I should have my sheets renewed daily, always sleep-
ing within fair, fresh linen in summer, cambric in
winter, ironed all over, and on both sides. The
crushed meshes may be non-sanitary. Hence, they
may be naughty. They are nice!

Tf you would keep the irons in perfect order, wash
them when the last bit of work is disposed of for the
day, wiping them dry, and set them away in a dry
closet where they will gather neither dampness nor
grime during their rest time. If any moisture clings
to them from the washing, it will tell the tale of neg-
lect the first time they are used. It is prudent to
leave them on the range for a few minutes after wip-
ing them, to make assurance sure.
TUESDAY, a

Wind an old sheet around the ironing boards and
put aside where you will not stumble over them and
where they will not get dirty for the rest of the week.
The precaution will save annoying delay and extra
work the following Tuesday.

If the weather has been clear and fine, and the
laundry is airy, the clothes may be taken up-stairs
on the evening of the day in which they were ironed.
If you have no room except the kitchen to do your
laundry work in, and there is no hall or disused room
in some other part of the house where the things may
be aired overnight, do not leave them down-stairs to
absorb the smells of cooking dnd greasy dish-water.
We are all of us unpleasantly familiar with what we
have never found a better name for than ‘‘the kitchen
smell.’? It means cold fried grease, the reek of hot
suds in which soiled pots and pans have been
cleansed, and a ‘‘blend’’ of cooked vegetables, tea,
coffee, hot sweets, and in summer fruit parings and
cores. No need to proceed with the loathsome
analysis! Clothes, washed to the last degree of pu-
rity, and sterilized from all possible bacterial in-
fluences by hot irons, if allowed to hang in the
“‘blend’’ for five, eight, or ten hours, during which
time windows and doors are closed for the night,—
become hopelessly interpenetrated with the abomina-
tion, and retain it.

I have been sickened by it in church, my chance
neighbor in the next pew exhaling it in whiffs, the
French scent (at two dollars a bottle) with which
72 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

she drenched her handkerchief that morning, could
not ‘‘down.’’ I have been put to sleep in sheets,
beautifully ironed (on both sides!). which gave out
the vile reek, as they were warmed by the heat of
my body. I have, times without number, recognized
the indescribable and as unmistakable effluvia in
glossy napkins unfolded at private, and at hotel
tables.

No matter how strait your cottage or apartment,
don’t, if you can help it, leave your newly-ironed
clothes, bed-linen and napery to air overnight in a
close kitchen. The finer the material the more sus-
ceptible is it to the deadly taint. Even ‘‘crushed
meshes”’ are not immune.

Keep a large square of mosquito-netting to throw
over the laden clothes-horse, draping it so loosely as
to permit a free passage of air, while it protects the
articles under it from flies and dust.

In transferring the clothes to the basket that is to
take them to their several destinations, consider the
convenience of her who is to unpack and put them |
away. In common with hundreds of other house-
mothers, I have, throughout my domestic life, kept
up the habit of doing this with my own hands, sort-
ing and inspecting with critical eyes, assigning to
each room and shelf and closet and drawer its right-
ful supply of clean ‘‘things.’’ I speak from experi-
ence, therefore, in touching upon the need that each
article of a kind shall be laid with others of the like
class. A jumble of handkerchiefs, stockings, skirts,
 
TUESDAY 73

towels and bureau-scarfs is a grievance to the meth-
odical sorter. When table-linen is added. to the
‘‘mix,’’ it approximates indecency.

In folding sheets, contrive, whether they are for
double or single beds, to have them, when put up, of
uniform shape and apparent size. They fit more
evenly upon the shelves where they should be laid
with the closed folds outward, the open edges toward
the wall. The difference in the general appearance
of a linen-closet where this rule is observed and one
in which towels and sheets are piled on the shelves,
without regard to it, is so marked as to call for no
special comment.
CHAPTER VIII

WEDNESDAY

BAKING-DAY

“The Home-made Loaf’’ stands with so many of
us as a symbol of the wholesome good cheer belovéd
in our childhood’s days that we are disposed to class
the phrase with traditional open fireplaces, dough-
nuts, ‘‘such as mother used to make,’’ and other rem-
iniscences of ‘‘the days that are no more.’’ In fact,
it is a family stand-by that should never go out of
fashion in town and in country.

One feature of our pressing, headlong, breathless,
national life is that fewer households depend upon
home-cookery with every year that rushes by. The
rage for contract work and specialties has crept, like
blood-poison, into every department of domestic
service. What Douglas Jerrold stigmatized as ‘‘the
Greatest Plague of Life,’’ in driving thousands of
families into hotels and boarding-houses, has per-
verted their taste for home-made bread, cakes and
puddings. Vienna rolls and long sticks of crusty
French bread represent the staff of life upon which
our ancestors leaned much of their weight. Confec-
tioners’ pastry, flaky and translucent with lard and
(alleged) butter has superseded the puff-paste our

74
WEDNESDAY 75

mothers compounded with their own dainty hands,
never intrusting the delicate art to hirelings, no mat-
ter how capable. Real pound cake is now almost an
article of virtue, and sponge cake no longer melts in
the mouth of the enchanted eater.

In saying that our domestics—of whom a witty
woman says that they and their employers’ evil case
were foretold two thousand years ago, inasmuch as
they grow poorer every year and we have them al-
ways with us—are responsible for the decline and
fall of home-bakery, I speak by the card. Forty
years ago, the first question put by the prospective
mistress to the candidate for the place of cook in her
kitchen was, ‘‘Are you a good baker ?’’

The term covered all manner of breads, biscuits,
muffins and griddle-cakes, family pie-crust (the mis-
tress, as I have observed, making the finer pastries
herself), plain cakes, custards and puddings. No
bread was bought unless the cupboard were emptied
by sudden calamity. Baker’s bread was sawdust and
starch to the palate accustomed to honest loaf and
biscuit. Baker’s cake was voted by old and young
“¢ tolerable, and not to be endured.’’ Baker’s pies
were inadmissible to any well-ordered table.

While it is true that bakeries have kept pace with
the growing demands for their products, and that
these last have improved in quality no less than in
quantity, the advance does not justify the scorn with
which the cook-lady of the twentieth century repels
the modest suggestion slid by the candidate for the
76 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

honor of the cook-lady’s residence under her roof,
between the queries with which the candidate is
plied,—‘‘Can you make bread ?”’

To one such meek suggestion an especially lofty
personage retorted:

‘An’ I take lave to say as yez is the only leddy as
has iver asked me to do it? The quality all takes
their bread from the Frinch partisserers.”? (Pre- '
sumably patisseries.)

This is an extreme case, perhaps, but housewives
will support my assertion that the percentage of
‘‘competent cooks’? who can make sweet, wholesome
bread is so small, and the unwillingness to do home
baking so general among our servants as to forecast
the probability that in another decade no self-re-
specting cook-lady will condescend to practise the ob-
solete art.

Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney (Heaven rest her sweet and
noble soul!) predicted, a quarter-century ago, that
the time is near when wives and daughters who per-
sist in living in homes and not in hostelries, must do
their own housework.

I have daily evidence that there are still in these
United States at least seventy times seven thousand
women who have not bowed the knee to the Baal of
folly and fashion, nor kissed him with their lips.
‘When home and home-comfort become idle words in
our country, they will have left the world.

The inference of all this is plain. If we and our
Jgohns abhor the shortened sawdust and sweetened
WEDNESDAY TF
starches of the ‘‘partisserers,’’ and are determined
to feed our households with food convenient for
growing children and hard-working adults, and our
imported cook-lady will not demean herself to the ex-
tent of making bread, we must do it ourselves.

In the pages that are to follow this disquisition, I
shall try to show that baking is not menial labor,
when rightly performed. We have illustrious pre-
cedent for ranking it among the more dignified
branches of housewifery. Jane Carlyle was born a
gentlewoman. She may have been a bit of a shrew
after years of invalidism and Carlyleism had worn
her nerves to tatters. But she had good blood in her
veins, and common sense in her pretty head, and ‘she
was a worthy companion in intellect for the most dis-
tinguished author of his day. He would live in a
farm-house, secluded from town and society, because
the sight of visitors and the noise of the streets dis-
tracted his thoughts from his writing. His wife—
well-born and delicately reared—had to do the cook-
ing for a dyspeptic husband, including what she, at
first, railed at as a degradation—the mixing, raising
and baking of the loaves, brown and white, that made
up, with oatmeal porridge, the staple of her lord’s
diet.

When, on winter nights, the dough rose slowly, she
sat up with it, as she would with a sick child. In one
of these dreary vigils, she had a revelation. She was
as well-read in certain lines as the great scholar to
whom she was bound, and she had not to explain her
78 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

meaning when she wrote to him of her revelation, the
next morning.

‘“‘After all, in the sight of the higher Powers, what
is the mighty difference between a statue of Perseus
and a loaf of bread, so that each be the thing that
one’s hand has found to do? The man’s determined
will, his patience, his energy, his resource, were the
really admirable things of which his statue of Per-
seus were the mere chance expression. If he had
been a woman living at Craigenputtock, with a dys-
peptic husband, sixteen miles from a baker, all these
same qualities would have come out more fully in a
good loaf of bread.’’

It would seem to be a far cry from the Italian
sculptor, sleepless and wan with anxiety, awaiting
the action of the furnace fire upon the bronze that
was to win for him immortal renown, and the tired
cook in the Scottish kitchen, who could not go to bed
until the dough in the kneading-trough had doubled
the original bulk. But the sharp-witted reader of
the classic anecdote took the flight in fancy, and drew
comfort from the inspiration.

Of Emily Bronté’s soul Swinburne says,—

“Tt knew no fellow for might,
Passion, vehemence, grief,
Daring,—since Byron died.’’

Not the least interesting spot in the old Yorkshire
Parsonage where the wonderful sisters wrought and
suffered and died, is the corner of the quaint kitchen
WEDNESDAY 79

where Emily was wont to stand on baking-day,
kneading the dough with strong deft hands, her
shapely arms bared to the elbow, her eyes fixed, in
the intervals of the task, upon the German book
propped against the wall ‘‘out of reach of flour-dust
or spatter of yeast.’’ She did all the baking of the
family that had a dyspeptic father as its head.

Her learned preceptor in the Continental school in
which she studied music and foreign languages, be-
coming proficient in everything to which she bent her
mind, said: ‘‘She is too great for a woman. She
should have been a man—a great navigator.’’ One
biographer writes: ‘‘Her reason was powerful, and
in grasp sublime; her turn for logical demonstration
was phenomenal.’’

Her humble neighbors in that hamlet on the York-
shire moors knew her but as the ‘‘ Parson’s daughter
who made the best bread in Haworth.’’ I have
talked with them and heard their commendation of
her housewifery, particularly of her beautiful darn-
ing and her ‘‘main good luck in baking.’’

I recalled it all when a woman sneered, the other
day, at my talk of bringing housework up to our
level, instead of letting it pull us down to a lower
plane.

Now for the details of one of the most important
branches of our housemother’s profession :

The fundamental principle of every species of the
genus bread—the informing and vivifying life of
loaf, biscuit or muffin—is that which makes it rise!
80 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

Dear old stories of the Scottish peasantry make fre-
quent mention of ‘‘barm.’’ Our American fore-
mothers held yeast-making to be an essential branch
of housewifely art. It was a domestic calamity when
the weekly brew failed, and not an uncommon occur-
rence for a messenger to be sent to a neighbor a mile
away, for a cupful of lively yeast as a ‘‘starter’’ of
the new supply for the luckless cook.

Compressed yeast, patented by a wealthy corpo-
rate body and sold in every township, has changed
all that. Sometimes the yeast-cake is fresh. Some-
times it is stale. In the latter case the cook has no
redress. In the depths of my housewifely conscience
I have grave doubts as to the quality of the patented
yeast-cake when compared with the creamy spume
that rushed into sight when ‘‘mother’s’’ yeast jug
was uncorked. I have misgivings that the bread is
not so sweet and tender as in the day that antedated
telephone, trolleys and baking-powders.

Right sure I am that if I lived in the country the
year round, and did my own baking, I should not sink
into dependence upon the green dog-cart that drops
the yeast-cake at the kitchen door twice a week. I
should make my own yeast, as I did thirty years
agone. I thought it no hardship then. You, my very
much younger pupil, whose righteous soul is sore
vexed by the shortcomings of patent ‘‘raisers,’’ will
win peace of mind and certainty of right results
which will more than compensate for the labor, if
you will make your own yeast. In the fond hope of
WEDNESDAY 81

persuading you into this step, I append to this famil-
iar talk, directions for preparing old-fashioned, hon-
est home-made ‘‘barm,’’-Anglicé—yeast.

HOP YEAST

Peel six potatoes of fair size, taking care to have
the skins as thin as possible, as much of the starch of
the potato lies nearest the outside covering. Tie a
large cupful of good fresh hops in a bit of cheese-
cloth, and put with the potatoes into a pot containing
two quarts of cold water. Cover, and boil until the
potatoes break to the heart. Lift them with a skim-
mer, leaving the hop-bag in the water, and the water
on the fire. Mash the hot potatoes in a bowl, and
work into them four tablespoonfuls of flour and two
of granulated sugar. Moisten this paste with the
boiling hot tea, from the pot, stirring to a smooth
batter. When you have used up the tea, squeeze the
bag hard into the batter to get out all the strength of
the hops. Let the mixture get lukewarm, add four
tablespoonfuls of lively yeast, or if this be your first
barm-making, a yeast-cake, dissolved in warm water.
Strain the batter through a colander to free it from
possible lumps, and turn into an open bowl to
‘“work.’’ Throw a piece of mosquito netting over it
to exclude the dust, and set in a moderately warm
place until next day. In warm weather six hours will
be sufficient for fermentation and quiescence. When
it no longer casts up bubbles to the surface, put into
glass jars, fit on the tops and store in the refriger-
82 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

ator, the cellar, or the ice-house. It is well to use
pint jars, as they should be opened as seldom as is
practicable. When you are ready to mix bread, take
out the quantity you need, close the jar and return
immediately to the ice or the cellar. Never bring the
jar into the warm kitchen. This yeast will keep good
for a fortnight in summer, for a month in winter, if
kept closely corked, or covered with air-tight tops.

POTATO YEAST

The taste and odor of hops are so disagreeable to
some persons that they can detect—or imagine that
they can—the flavor in bread raised with hop, other-
wise called ‘‘brewer’s yeast.’’ For the benefit of
such, and because the substitute is like rich cream in
appearance, pleasing to the eye and making beauti-
fully white bread—also for the use of housewives
who can not get hops at call—I offer this variation
upon the original “‘barm.”’

Pare six fine mealy potatoes. (Old and waxy pota-
toes do not make good yeast.) Put over the fire in
two quarts of cold water and boil to breaking. Strain
them out without stirring, and return the water to
the fire. Mash the potatoes fine, with four table-
spoonfuls of flour and two of sugar. In doing this,
add the boiling water from the pot, gradually until
all is used. When the batter is lukewarm, stir in a
cupful of lively yeast, set aside in an open vessel to
work, and throw a square of netting over it to keep
out dust and insects. When it ceases to bubble, put
WEDNESDAY 83

the yeast into small jars, cover and keep in a cool
place.
HOME-MADE YEAST CAKES

Pare and slice eight fine mealy potatoes, and put
into two quarts of cold water with a cupful of fresh
hops tied in a cheese-cloth bag. Boil forty-five min-
utes after the bubble begins. Take out the hop bag,
straining and squeezing it hard to get out all the
strength. Pour the hop-tea and the potatoes into a
bowl through a colander, rubbing the potatoes well
until all have passed the holes. Set back on the fire
and stir into the mixture two cups of flour wet up
with cold water. Take from the fire, and cool to
blood warmth, after beating smooth. Add two great
spoonfuls of lively yeast, throw a bit of netting over
the open bowl and let it rise. It should quadruple
the original bulk. Now, knead into the paste a cup-
ful of white Indian meal; roll out into a sheet a quar-
ter-inch thick, and cut into round cakes. Dry in
the hot sun in summer, in an open oven in winter.
They must be dried—not baked. To cook them
would vitiate their vitality. It is a good plan to put
them into a cooling oven at bedtime, and leave them
there until morning. When quite dry, put into a
muslin bag and hang them in a cool, dry place.

If properly made and thoroughly dried, they keep
for a month without losing strength.

Use as you would patent yeast cakes. ‘A cake the
size of an ordinary tumbler will make two loaves.
Soak soft in lukewarm water, stir in a mere pinch
of soda, and work into the dough.
CHAPTER IX
WEDNESDAY (Concluded)

BREAD-MAKING

Before entering upon the actual process of mak-
ing the loaf, have all materials in readiness. The
work should proceed by regular stages, with no need-
less delays. _

In no way does the unmethodical housewife ad-
vertise indifferent ‘‘management’’ more plainly than
by neglect of the simple rule: Have your tools and
stuff laid to your hand before you begin the work
laid out for you. The’ woman who has to make
a separate journey to cupboard, pantry, refrigerator
or cellar for each ingredient, wonders why she finds
cookery so much more exhausting than her neigh-
bors do. Such an one complained to me that she had
to wash her hands four times while she was making
one cake:

“You know you just can’t bear to take hold of a
door-knob, or turn a key with sticky, floury hands.”’

If I bethought myself that she would not have
been obliged to touch knob or key, had sugar, eggs,

84
WEDNESDAY, 85

flour, milk and spices been collected and ‘‘in beau-
teous order ranged’’ on the table beside her, flanked
by egg-beater, bowls and spoon—I kept my counsel
to myself. Nobody thanks her friendliest friend for
gratuitous advice. It was none of my business if
she washed her hands forty-four times in an hour,
and was so tired by the time the cake was in the oven
that she had to lie down for the rest of the forenoon.

Next in importance to yeast among the tools and
stuffs for bread-making is flour. Of course, none
but the best quality should be used for the loaf. Ex-
perienced bakers will assure you that, while it is pos-
sible to make fairly good biscuits and very good
griddle-cakes of the second best brand, the attempt
to manufacture risen bread of it would be time, labor
and materials thrown away. The general principle
is sound. When you can procure the best family
flour, and afford to pay the market price for it, get
it, by all means. Now and then this is not feasible.
Or, as sometimes happens, the ‘‘best’’ belies the
name.

Test it by taking up a handful and squeezing it
hard. If it retains the impress of palm and fingers,
and has, moreover, the feeling of powdered chalk,
or lime, when rubbed between thumb and finger, or
if it has any odor whatever—it is not fine ‘‘family
flour.’? If you can not exchange it, you may im-
prove it to a degree that will make it tolerable.

One of the faults of flour which should have been
excellent, having been ground from ripe, sound, well-
a

86 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

dried wheat, is that it was not thoroughly seasoned
when it was packed in the barrel. It was barreled
in damp weather, or so soon after grinding that what
some call ‘‘the mineral heat,’’ was not quite out of it.
To overcome this disadvantage, transfer from bag
or barrel, to another receptacle. Take out several
quarts at a time, sift it and pour into a box or into’
two barrels, letting it lie lightly, to correct the effect
of tight packing while it was damp. If you have
but a small quantity on hand, sift it twice and set it
in the open oven for twenty minutes, or thereabouts,
stirring and tossing it frequently while the drying
is going on. Some good cooks give every baking the
benefit of this process, insisting that it makes good
flour better, and corrects indifferent. The flour
should be cooled before it is mixed into dough.

POTATO SPONGE BREAD

‘Allow four potatoes of fair size to a baking which
will require three quarts of flour. Boil and mash
them while hot, working into the pasty mass a, table-
spoonful of butter and as much white sugar. Thin
with three cupfuls of warm (not hot) water; strain
through a fine colander to get out the lumps, and
add, a handful at a time, a pint of dry, sifted flour.
Now, put in the yeast—half a cupful if it be liquid,
or half a cake of compressed yeast. The cake should
have been dissolved in a little lukewarm water.
Beat the mixture for three or four minutes—hard!
I hope you have a bread pan or bowl with a perfor-
WEDNESDAY 87

ated top. If not, throw a clean, light towel over
the sponge bowl, and set in a rather warm place,
where there will be no violent change of temperature
during the eight hours in winter, the six hours in
summer needed to raise it.

If all be well with the sponge, you will see, when
the cover is lifted, a rough, porous mass which justi-
fies its name. It should have trebled, perhaps
quadrupled the original bulk, and, when. handled,
should break into tender ropes. Should the gas es-
caping from the crevices made by the hand, have an
acrid or sour odor, dissolve half a teaspoonful of
soda in warm water, and beat it thoroughly into the
sponge. If the beating be superficial, you will have
streaked bread—a sure sign of slovenly baking.

Sift two quarts and a pint of dry flour into a
bread-tray or a big bowl. It must be clean and dry.
If you use a wooden tray, scald and sun after each
using. If a metal bowl, do the same. Hollow out
the center, leaving a deep pit. Pour the sponge
into this, and work the flour down into it with a
wooden spoon. When the spoon can no longer man-
age it, wash your hands in cold water, wipe them
dry and begin kneading. See to it, at this juncture,
that the dough is soft and pliable. It should fall
from the fingers when lifted, in graceful streamers,
instead of in clumsy gouts. In a word, mix the
dough as soft as it can be handled. To get the full
benefit of the sponge which is the life of the bread,
rinse out the bowl in which it was raised, with warm
88 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

water, and add to the dough. If the dough be of
the proper consistency, you will find it leaving the
sides of the tray of itself as the kneading goes on.
Work it into a ball, and thump it with the double
fists, lustily, aiming every blow at the heart of the
lump, and turning as you strike it. It is fine exer-
cise, and more graceful than swinging dumb-bells.
Don’t be afraid of dealing too vigorously with your
subject. It likes it! and grows in comeliness under
it. In fifteen minutes, if you have dealt justly with
it, you will have an elastic ball that springs back
gaily from each attack. If you thrust a finger into
it, the hole closes instantly.

Make the dough into a round mass; sprinkle flour
in the bottom of the bowl, or tray, and over the
dough; put on the perforated cover, or throw the
cloth over the bowl, and set by for a first rising. In
warm weather the time required for this varies from
three to four hours. In cold weather it may not be
accomplished under six. ‘You must have a knead-
ing-board for the next stage of the fine art. The
board must be absolutely clean, free from signs of
former usage, and guiltless of the rancid smell which
in households I have known seems to be accepted as
a necessity. Bread, at any period of development,
is intensely sensitive to uncleanness of any kind. It
absorbs tastes, odors, dampness and must, with in-
credible rapidity. The kneading-board should be
used for nothing outside of its legitimate purpose.
As soon as the dough is off, it should be scraped
WEDNESDAY 89

clean, scalded, then wiped dry, lastly set in the sun.
If the day be cloudy, leave it upright on a chair
near the fire until it is dried to the heart.

A slab of marble is better for kneading bread than
wood. Nor is the substitute as costly as one might
suppose. In many an attic, or among the rubbish in
the builder’s back-shop, may be found the top of a
table, or washstand, or part of a discarded mantel,
that may be utilized by our housewife. Marble tops
have ‘‘gone out,’’ and such remnants of what our
grandmothers considered elegant plenishing, may be
had for the asking, or the finding. Or, squares of
refuse marble may be bought for a trifle at marble
yards.

The advantage of marble over hard woods is the
superior cleanliness, first, and mainly. It does not
absorb dirt and odors, and is easily cleansed. A
secondary recommendation is the coldness of the
stone. This will be appreciated most highly by the
pastry-maker, but it is a good thing in bread-making
also.

The kneading-table, board or slab is sprinkled with
flour, and the ball of dough is transferred to it. If
the first kneading were a pretty task, the present
business is prettier. Working always from your
body, punch and toss and roll the yielding mass,
now so elastic that it is a joy to handle it. It does
not adhere to well-floured hands, and it grows lighter
and more buoyant with every stroke.

Fifteen minutes of the play suffices, all else being
90 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

propitious. Break off bits of the dough, form into
rolls or into loaves, and arrange in the baking-pans
for the final raising. Grease the pans well before
the loaves go in. Cover with light cloths, and let
the bread rise until it is at least twice as high and
plump as when it went into the pans.

While this is going on, see that your ovens are
getting ready to do their part in the worthy work.
Heat them thoroughly, and so manage the stored heat
that it shall not fail you while the baking is in pro-
gress. There must be coal or wood enough in the
range to last until the bread is ready to be withdrawn
from the oven. To lower the temperature by put-
ting in fresh fuel, would be disastrous. Test the
heat by holding your bare arm in the open oven while
you count twenty-five deliberately, or, by setting a
tin plate containing a little flour at the back of the
oven, and shutting the door. Look at it in five min-
utes. If it has begun to brown delicately, it is safe
to risk your bread to the steady oven’s care.

In ten or twelve minutes more, open the door an
inch or two, and glance at the bread. When it has
filled the pans, cover with clean white or brown pa-
per (never with printed or written sheets) of light
weight. Heavy paper would hinder the rising, and
adhere to the crust. The philosophy of the paper
covering is that the crust, if formed before the bread
has gained its full height, would make the center of
the loaf heavy. Neglect of the simple precaution
accounts for many a streaked and soggy loaf.
 

 
WEDNESDAY 91

Ten or twelve minutes before the bread is taken
from the oven remove the paper to let the crust
brown. A quart loaf will bake in an hour. You
may test it by running a fine clean knitting-needle
into the heart of the loaf.

A little practice will make you familiar with the
humors, the tricks and the manners of your par-
ticular oven. It is not practicable to lay down cast-
iron rules as to the time required to bring bread,
biscuits and cake to the precise point beyond which
scorching and hardening begin, and short of which
lie sogginess, viscidity and general uneatableness.

In drawing the plump, browned loaves from the
oven, turn the pan gently upside down upon a clean
cloth, shaking very slightly, should they adhere at
any point. Prop each on the edge, leaning against
a box or wall at an angle that will allow the air to
pass around them. This will prevent ‘‘sweating.’’
Wait until they are quite cold before you put them
into a bread-box lined with clean cloth. Cover them
with another clean linen towel. Keep these linen
towels for this purpose, and this alone, and wash
them frequently.

Bread is hardly second to milk and cream as an
absorbent. One sour slice will impart acidity to the
rest of the contents of the box. Therefore keep a
second box for the ‘‘heels’’ of loaves, and scraps
that may be utilized in puddings, in breading chops
and ecroquettes, and thickening bisques. Both tins
should be scalded and sunned twice a week.
92 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

MILK BREAD

Directions for making milk bread are given for.
the benefit of the many who persist in the belief en-
gendered by country-bred mothers, that it is sweeter,
moister and more wholesome than bread mixed with
water. That it sours more quickly weighs nothing
against the superior quality of the toothsome loaf.
The novice will do well to try her prentice hand upon
the following formula, as simpler, and, mayhap,
surer in results than the Potato bread.

Scald—without actually boiling—two cups of milk
and stir into it a tablespoonful of butter. While it
is cooling to blood-warmth, sift two quarts of flour
into a mixing bowl, adding, prior to sifting, a tea-
spoonful of white sugar and half as much salt.
When the milk is lukewarm, add a pint of water of
the same temperature, and half a cake of compressed
yeast dissolved in half a cupful of warm water. If
you use liquid yeast, put in four tablespoonfuls.
Pour the mixture into a hollow made in the mid-
dle of the flour, and with a wooden spoon work all
into asmooth dough. This done, turn the mass upon
a kneading-board or marble slab, and knead pa-
tiently and faithfully for ten minutes. It should be
light and elastic, leaving board and hands without
sticking. Set to rise in a bread-bowl, with a per-
forated top. See that it is left in a corner where no
drafts can reach it—and keep the temperature even.
If too warm, the dough will sour. If too cold, it
WEDNESDAY 93

will refuse to rise. Cooks say that bread-dough
‘“‘takes cold as easily as babies.’’ In six hours your
dough should be ready for the second rising. Make
into three or four loaves, knead each portion for
five minutes and put into a greased pan. Cover
with a light cloth, and let all stand for an hour longer.
Bake in a steady oven.

QUICK BREADS

Under this head come biscuits of all denomina-
tions, muffins, griddle-cakes, scones, waffles, buns,
gems, shortcake—the which, if recipes were written
out for all of them, would consume the entire space
alloted for this book and overflow into another vol-
ume. And—be it borne in mind (I, for one, am
tempted to forget it) this is not a book of recipes.

The same general rules are to be observed in the
manufacture of all quick breads.

If baking-powder be used, it should be sifted twice
with the flour before the flour is wet. The salt
should be sifted at the same time. This precaution
insures thorough incorporation of the ingredients.

Baking-soda must not be used in such breads (or
in cake) unless there appear also in the list of ma-
terials, some corresponding acid to act, with the al-
kali, in producing effervescence. Neglect of this
chemical rule is responsible for biscuits mottled with
greenish streaks, familiar to commercial travelers
whose territories include back-country districts, and
for the bitterish taste of a certain type of baker’s
94 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

cake. Sour milk, molasses, lemon, and other fruit-
juices, cream of tartar, and raw and cooked fruits
are some of the agents in common use for the accom-
plishment of that which makes quick breads light.
If in reckoning up your ingredients, you note soda
among them, look for the complemental acid. If it
be wanting from the list, let the recipe alone. The
conditions of lightness are absent, and unmitigated
soda is caustic, unwholesome and unpalatable.

Quick mixing is another essential in making the
class of breads and cakes we are considering. Have
all your materials and tools at hand when you begin
operations. Sift the flour, cream the butter and
sugar, and measure spices; if lemons or oranges, or
dried fruits are to have a part in the composition,
they should be ready to go in before you crack an
ege. After the business is begun it should be ecar-
ried forward, without a break, to completion.

Steady baking is a sine qua non to success. The
oven should be heated to the right temperature, and
held at it from the moment biscuits, muffins or cakes
go in until they are taken out. To add coal while
baking is in actual process, is to invite disaster.

The provident and experienced housemother keeps
on hand a supply of coarse brown or white paper of
suitable size for covering bread and cakes while they
are in baking. By the time batter or dough is fairly
‘‘set’’ so that the paper will not stick to it, cover, and
do not remove until you are sure the cake, biscuit
or muffin is cooked to the core. If obedient to this
WEDNESDAY, 95

rule, you will have neither streaked cake nor burnt
biscuits.

Do not open the oven every few minutes ‘‘to see
how the breads are getting on.’’ When you must
look in to lay the paper over the pans, open the door
just far enough to admit the hand, slip in the cover-
ing and shut up the oven as quickly as possible. Do
this as quietly as you would close the nursery-door
where a nervous baby is sleeping. Some of the more
delicate order of breads and cakes are startled out
of propriety by a heavy tramp upon the kitchen-
floor, or the bang of an outer door. The violent jar
of the oven-door will cause the fall of a soufflé, a
méringue, a batch of “gems,”’ or the hopeless flat-
tening into sullenness of sponge cake.

After the bread or cake goes into the oven, do not
transfer it to another unless it has stiffened into
consistency so pronounced that the change can not
make it sink in the center or droop at the sides. If
it be virtually ‘‘done’’ and needs to be browned in a
brisker oven, you may risk the change of climate.
An immature production is almost sure to come to
grief in the transition.
CHAPTER X

THURSDAY

DETERSIVES

In this chapter little attention will be paid to what
one correspondent classifies as ‘‘honest, every-day
dirt.’ While we live and move and have our daily
being in a world the very air of which is dust-laden,
our clothing, our draperies, our napery and our per-
sons must gather soil and grime. If this were
evitable, laundries would go out of business. Acci-
dental stains and discoloration are another branch
of an important, if disagreeable subject; a branch
that borders upon the tragic.

One lively woman writes:

“‘So numerous have been the spillings, the slop-
pings, the leakages, and the scorchings in my house-
hold of late that I am more accustomed to the réle
of Lady Macbeth than to any other. I go about,
with dreary eyes and distraught mien, rubbing at
real not (alas!) imaginary spots—muttering insane
ejaculations. My husband threatens to have me thus
photographed.”’

To save other women from the like distraction, I
offer, herewith, certain detersives that have been
tried and found faithful, when properly applied.

96
THURSDAY 97

INK SPOTS

On the skin: Authors, editors, bookkeepers—all
classes and conditions of men and women who write
much, should have ever within easy reach, a bottle
of real spirits of hartshorn. Household ammonia is
excellent in its way for cleansing clothing, etc. If
used instantly, it will remove superficial ink stains.
The pure spirits of ammonia acts quickly and effect-
ively.

Keep upon wash-stand or desk a small bottle, with
a glass or rubber stopper, full of spirits of ammonia.
If, in filling a fountain-pen, the fingers are black-
ened, or if the pen leaks, or an ink-stand overflows,
wet a sponge with hartshorn and wash the spot vig-
orously. Rinse at once in clear water. Soap sets
ink and other acid stains. If all traces of the acci-
dent have not disappeared, repeat the ammonia and
the rinsing.

For minor mishaps of this kind, such as an ink-
smear upon the finger, wet the tip of a sulphur match
and rub the smirch until it vanishes. The work is
slower than when ammonia is used, but it is a con-
venient device when the liquid is not at hand.

Hand Sapolio will remove ink from the skin. I
do not recommend the habitual use of this or of other
gritty soaps for the purpose. They abrade and
roughen the cuticle.

For white goods: If your handkerchief be soaked
with ink, throw while it is still damp, into a strong

ste
98 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

solution of spirits of ammonia. Leave it for fifteen
minutes, rinse in clear, cold water and treat it to
another bath in a fresh supply of the solution. Wash
well in this, rinse and lay in the sun to dry.

Lemon-juice for ink spots: Not many weeks ago
the babyest member of our household—perhaps
moved by a hereditary tendency toward ink-slinging
—divided the contents of an ink bottle impartially
between the tiles of the bath-room floor and her white
frock. I was out of the house at the time and knew
nothing of the accident until the ink stain was twen-
ty-four hours old. Turning a deaf ear to lamenta-
tions over the absolute hopelessness of the disaster,
I saturated the ink spots with lemon-juice, rubbed
into them all the salt the juice would hold, and spread
the frock in the hot sun. It lay there all day, kept
moist by hourly applications of lemon-juice. At
night it was put to soak in a tub of soft, clean water.
In the morning it was turned over to the laundress
with directions to wash it in the usual way. When
this was done not a trace of the inky flood was left
upon the muslin. This is but one of many in-
stances which have proved to me the efficacy of a sim-
ple, harmless detersive.

In that last adjective lies one prominent advan-
tage of this and other vegetable acids for extracting
stains of any kind. Javelle water, chlorinated soda,
and indeed, chloride in any form, are unsafe in care-
less, because inexperienced hands. Unless the fabric
under treatment be rinsed thoroughly in clear water
THURSDAY 99

within a few minutes after it is submitted to the
chemical, the latter acts disastrously upon the
threads. In extracting the color, it weakens the
stuff. Oxalic acid—although a vegetable product—
will eat holes in stout linen, cotton or woolen in an
incredibly brief time unless instantly rinsed out. A
bath of an hour in lemon-juice would not weaken the
finest cambric lawn.

Another household detersive which gains in favor
with each trial is Cream of tartar. Dampen the
stains with hot water and rub into them all the cream
of. tartar they will hold. Leave this on for ten min-
utes and hold the injured parts taut under a stream
of boiling water, repeating the process twice. Now,
lay the wet spots in the hottest sunshine five or six
hours, keeping them wet. If the stains remain after
the sunning, soak overnight in pure water and
repeat the cream of tartar treatment next day. I
have never known the process to fail, and I have tried
it upon old and upon fresh ink spots.

Sour milk: Or buttermilk is a harmless, and often
effective agent in the work of removing ink-stains.

Soak the spotted article overnight in lopper milk,
or, if you can get it, very sour buttermilk. Next
day, rinse it twice in clear, soft water, and lay it in
the sun, wetting it hourly with lemon-juice. If the
ink be not entirely gone repeat the process of soak-
ing, rinsing and sunning.

Chlorinated soda: Acts quickly upon ink. A few
drops, poured upon the stain, will make it vanish al-
100 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

most entirely in a few minutes. In five minutes,
rinse well in lukewarm water—using no soap—and
then twice in cold, clear water. Dry in the sun.
Where expeditious measures are imperatively de-
manded it is most valuable.

Salts of lemon: Also acts quickly. The precau-
tionary measure of the double rinsing must not be
neglected for reasons already given.

Oxalic acid: One of the most potent of detersives,
is responsible for more bitter disappointments on the
part of would-be cleaners than any other known to
the average operator. It will take out ink spots, new
and old. There is no doubt on that point. It may,
likewise, be warranted to take out the injured part as
certainly, if not as rapidly, as the scissors could cut
it. Yet careful housemothers assure me that they
have used it for years, without damaging linen, or
cotton white stuffs. The secret of safety lies, I may
be allowed to reiterate, in not leaving the acid in the
material wrought upon long enough to convert a
blessing into a bane.

The crystals may be rubbed into the stain with the
tip of a finger, and boiling water be poured through
the stain and stuff, slowly, for a minute. Rinse,
then, in cold water; rub in more crystals, and repeat
the scalding and the rinsing until the marks have
disappeared, or grown so faint that a few hours of
sunning will efface them entirely. The last rinsing
before exposing the wet surface to the sun should be
repeated four times, each time in fresh water. os
THURSDAY 101

If the solution of oxalic acid be used, wet the stuff
with it and hold the spot taut in the steam of a
hard-boiling kettle. If the stain be small, stretch the
fabric tightly over the mouth of the spout and let the
steam pour through it for three minutes. Rinse
twice; wet again, and hold over the spout. Finally,
rinse four times and commit to the sun—the surest,
and the safest of bleachers.

Chloride of lime: While better known as a
whitener than as an expunger, will extract ink and
other stains successfully, if properly applied. The
following mixture is judicious:

One pound of chloride of lime to four quarts of
water. Shake well together and let it stand twenty-
four hours; then strain through a clean cotton cloth.
‘Add one teaspoonful of acetic acid to one ounce of
the lime-water and apply to the blot. Absorb the
moisture with blotting-paper.

Kerosene and soap: Is a useful combination in
washing, as we have learned through our laundry
talks. A friend, in whose housewifely wisdom I have
implicit faith, contributes a story which I indulge
myself by repeating in her own words:

“JT want to tell you how my laundress removes ink stains,
even when the article spotted has been afterward boiled and
ironed. A dresser scarf having been vainly treated to a milk
bath and everything else I could hear of as remedial, was thrown
away. The laundress begged to be allowed to try her way with
the stains. The scarf was well soaped, rubbing the soap on the
spots as quickly as possible, then put into a clean pan and about
102 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

a half-cupful of kerosene poured on it. Enough cold water
to cover the cloth was added and the pan put at the back of
the kitchen range to heat slowly.’’

It may be necessary to repeat this process, but
eventually the stain is removed.

Sweet milk: Produces desirable results when ap-
plied to wet ink spots. I have removed a big splash
of ink from a velvet carpet by washing it instantly
with skim milk. A cupful at a time was applied with
a sponge saturated to dripping with the milk. As
fast as the cupful was darkened by the squeezings of
the sponge, it was thrown away and a fresh supply
substituted. When no more ink could be sopped up,
the milk remaining white after each immersion of
the sponge, the wet place on the carpet was washed
over and over with clear water, and coated with a
paste of corn-starch. Three days later, the starch
was brushed out, and not a trace of the flood of ink
appeared.

Some weeks afterward, a similar accident befell a
handsome embroidered table-cover. The milk was
brought in within two minutes, and the sponge plied
vigorously upon the apparent ruin. ‘Then the cloth
was lifted, the stained part held taut over a bowl of
clear, lukewarm water and dipped repeatedly in this.
Next, the cover was laid upon a folded sheet, and
wiped of superfluous moisture with a soft towel.
The corn-starch used in the former experiment was
superseded now by boracic talcum. The cover
was laid away out of the dust for two days. ‘When
THURSDAY 103

the powder was brushed out, keen scrutiny was
needed to discover any sign of the catastrophe which
had filled the owner’s soul.with dismay. And this,
although the ground color of the cloth was écru, and
the heavy embroidery of vari-colored silks.

I dwell longer and more emphatically upon this
gentle detersive for the reason that it may be applied
to colored fabrics without injury to the most delicate
tints. Whereas, the majority of the extractors I
have enumerated can be used upon ‘‘white goods’’
alone. They draw out the body color with the ink.

Just one word more in regard to taking out rust
stains. If the garment or article having the rust on
is put into water in which a few teaspoonfuls of
cream of tartar have been stirred, and boiled in it
for a few minutes, the rust will disappear and the
goods be as clear as before it was damaged. Of
course, I suppose the goods to be white. I will not
answer for any color. It matters not whether the
sun shines or not. Your garment is cleaned and no
harm done, as the cream of tartar does not injure
the daintiest fabric.

Rub with tartaric acid while wet to remove spots
from linen, or dip in boiling water, rub with salts
of sorrel and rinse well. To remove ink from cot-
ton, silk or woolen goods, saturate the spot with spir-
its of turpentine and let it remain several hours; then
rub between the hands. It will crumble away with-
out injuring the color or texture of the article.

A housewife of sense and experience, supplies, at
104 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

my request, a corroborative bit of domestic his-
tory:

“The following was used on a pink chambray with excellent
results: Take a glass or cup and hold the goods firmly over
it; wet the spot well with fresh milk, permitting the fluid to
pass through the cloth into the cup; then rub the juice of a
lemon into the cloth, working it well in with the end of the
finger; alternate milk and lemon-juice, and I think the spot
will come out, the color remain and the goods be perfectly whole.
As I say, I used this to take out an ink spot, fully the size
of a dollar, from the sleeves of a pink chambray waist, and
the pink of the goods did not fade in the least. The ink had
not been washed into the cloth, however, but was several days
old when I attempted to take it out. My sister tried it on a
blue lawn, and it was completely successful. The ink came out
and the blue stayed in.”’

Grain alcohol: Will remove ink, also liquid shoe-
polish, if applied promptly. The goods must be lit-
erally ‘‘soused’’ in the fluid, and the latter be poured
through it again and again, then rubbed with a clean
linen cloth.

Butter: If ink spots be rubbed on both sides of
the material with butter, left untouched overnight,
and then washed in the usual way, no trace of them
will remain when the article is dry.

COFFEE, TEA AND FRUIT STAINS

Coffee and fruit stains are easily managed if, as
soon as they are made, the soiled article be held
tightly over a basin of hot water and wet thoroughly,
and boiling water at the same time be poured through
THURSDAY 105

the stain, once and again. The blemish will be
washed away in less time than it takes to tell you how
to do it.

Neither coffee, nor tea stains need be the bugbear
housewives make of them. Both disappear in the
family wash if this be tolerably well conducted.

Glycerin: Coffee stains even where there is cream
in the coffee, may be removed from delicate silk and
woolen fabrics by the aid of pure glycerin. Brush
the glycerin on the spots, then wash them with luke-
warm water and press on the wrong side with a warm
iron. The glycerin absorbs both the coloring matter
and the grease.

Chloroform, alcohol and ammonia: Black coffee
stains and those made by clear strong tea, will yield
to what I rank as the best ‘‘cleanser’’ I have ever
tried. I mean a wash made of equal parts of alcohol,
chloroform (or ether) and the admixture of a table-
spoonful of household ammonia to a quart of the com-
pound. It should leave no mark on the stuff, and
the ammonia has a tendency to restore the color if it
has been changed by the hot liquid. .

Fruit stains may be removed by any of the means
suggested for eradicating ink. The ugliest and most
obstinate of fruit spots are amenable to the some-
what heroic treatments here indicated:

Lay them in hot water, in which a generous hand-
ful of borax has been dissolved. Leave them thus
for ten minutes, then rub and wring, and lay them
damp upon the grass in the hot sun for the rest of
106 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

the day, wetting them every hour with the borax
water. -Rinse them in pure water and hang up for
the night. Next day, cover with lemon-juice and
salt made into a paste, and leave them again in the
sun, wetting every hour with lemon-juice. At night
throw them into a tub of pure water, and leave them
there all night. Do them up with borax soap in the
usual way.

The following process has, once and again, re-
moved ink and peach stains, mildew and iron mold
from my clothing and household linen. It will not
rot the dainty lingerie.

Cover with a paste of salt and lemon-juice and lay
in the sun all day, wetting every hour with the lemon-
juice. At night wash with clean water and hang up.
Next day renew the application. The process is
slow, but sure and safe.

A-weak solution of chloride of lime will remove
stain of peaches or any other fruit stain. Lay the
stained articles in the solution for about three min-
utes, then take out and rinse in cold water. Send
to the wash and the stains will be removed.

Chloride of lime is so caustic in its action upon
delicate fabrics that great caution must be observed
in the use of what is an excellent detersive. In pre-
paring the weak solution here prescribed it is well
to be on the safe side; better that it should be too
weak than so strong as to eat into the threads of the
linen. Prepare the solution, bottle it, test the
strength upon a bit of linen stained for the purpose,
THURSDAY: 107

and keep the mixture closely corked for summer
use.

Javelle water: Is really but a modification of the
foregoing, and is to be managed in the same way.
It is singularly effective in removing the unsightly
yellowish-brown splotches made by peaches and
pears. These are so treacherous and unexpected
that we hold them in especial dislike. Invisible,
when unwary fingers are touched to apron, napkin
or table-cloth, they start into hideousness under the
hands of the horrified laundress, and defy mild meas-
ures that are efficacious in the warfare against ink,
rust, and even mildew.

RUST AND MILDEW

Javelle water will dispose speedily of rust and
mildew. Yet I prefer to subject my fine linen
and muslins, disfigured by iron rust, or the. un-
mistakable tokens of the laundress’ carelessness, to
the gradual influence of lemon and salt and butter-
milk, joined to the operation of bright sunshine and
brisk airs upon hurt and marred things. It takes
more time, but my linens are sounder and whiter
when my favorite agencies have had their way.

AXLE GREASE

‘Axle grease is another peculiarly obnoxious blem-
ish to garments. Next to the trousers of boys who
haunt the carriage-house and ‘‘steal rides’’ upon all
manner of vehicles that have wheels, the silken gowns
108 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

of Mrs. Lofty, who ‘‘never walks, or takes street-
cars,’’ are most liable to this disfigurement.

As with most fabrics brought to be ‘‘treated,’’ the
initial measure is to get rid of the dirt. Sponge the
spots with a mixture of equal parts df alcohol and
ether, confining your operations closely to the injured
portion. Wipe dry with old linen. Now, attack the
grease—for that is what is left. Scrape French
chalk to a powder and rub it well into the grease
spots on the wrong side of the silk. Hang up the
gown and leave it for two days before brushing off
the powder.

PAINT, TAR, PITCH, STICKY FLY-PAPER, ETC.

Benzine will remove paint from delicate fabrics,
even when the spots have dried into the stuff. Ap-
ply freely, leave on for an hour, and renew. Sponge
the blur, left after the paint has peeled off, with pure
alcohol.

For tar and pitch rub the stuff with butter or lard.
Work it well with the tip of the finger, spreading as
little as may be. Leave a thick coating of the grease
over the spot all night. Next day, scrape it off and
the tar or pitch will come with it. Now, sponge with
alcohol and ammonia; rub dry, and should any blem-
ish remain, rub powdered French chalk on the wrong
side.

Soak paint until soft by pressing on the spots a
sponge wet with alcohol. When soft it may be
scraped off. Sponge the blur that remains with the
THURSDAY 109

invaluable mixture of equal parts of ether and alco-
hol.

Equal parts of ammonia and spirits of turpentine
will take paint out of clothing. Saturate the spots
two or three times, and then wash out in soap-suds.

If the article injured be of linen, the butter, lard
or cottolene wil! suffice to remove the tar or other
resinous substance. Rub into the spots thoroughly,
let it alone for three hours, and wash in the usual
way.

A generous supply of butter should be rubbed
thoroughly on ginghams or calicoes or other cotton
goods that have made too close an acquaintance with
fresh paint. If thrown aside till washing or put on
even a week or two after being daubed with paint,
and then washed out just as usual, all traces of paint
will vanish.

Sticky fly-paper—John’s especial abhorrence and
the trap of unwary children—may be washed out
of the father’s summer trousers when he has sat him
down confidingly, evening paper in hand, upon the
broad, cool window-bench where the careful spouse
has hidden a sheet of the ‘‘Tanglefoot,’’ he hates—
secure in the persuasion that he will never happen
upon it there—he may be appeased, I say, and the
pearl-colored integuments be purged of the detesta-
ble compound by sponging with pure alcohol, dashed
liberally with household ammonia. If the mixture
be heated by setting the vessel containing it in boil-
ing water (keeping the inner jar or bottle corked) it
110 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

will act more quickly and be more certain to expunge
the marks.

Alcohol will remove fly-paper stickiness from any
substance. Sponge well with this, then with house-
hold ammonia. {We have had the like mishap in our
home, once and again, and rectified it by this treat-
ment. Once the least of the flock appeared, beam-
ingly, before the horrified mother with a sheet of
fly-paper fast to a mop of sunny curls. Every hair
was caught. To disentangle the hank of gold thread
was a work of time and patience, but alcohol and
ammonia did the work.

I have removed slighter visitations of the ubiqui-
tous ‘‘Tanglefoot’’ from hands and pinafores with
ammonia, alone. ‘After getting it off the skin wash
with bland soap and anoint with frostilla, or cold
cream to prevent chapping. Or should the sticky
surface come in contact with table-linen, woodwork,
clothing, fingers, or in fact anything not intended,
even the family pussy-cat—use simply kerosene!
That will cut it instantly. In the case of clothing,
remove the kerosene with any means known to the
housekeeper.

IODINE

Soak the stain in cold water for half an hour, and
while it is still wet, cover thickly—rubbing in well—
with baking soda, and lay in the sun.

Or: Tf the stain be old and obstinate, wet the spot
with water, rub in crystals of oxalic acid and hold
over the spout of a boiling kettle, letting the steam
THURSDAY, 111

rush through it for five minutes. Rinse and repeat
process. Ammonia, also, will remove iodine stains.

MUD AND GRASS STAINS

The inside of a cut raw potato will remove mud
stains from black silk. ‘Try it upon a small piece of
colored silk. Should it prove ineffectual, use a inix-
ture in equal parts of alcohol and ether, rubbing
down toward the bottom of the skirt—not up.

I have cleaned the bottom of black silk and woolen
skirts thoroughly by rubbing the grayish blurs left
after the mud was beaten out, with a succession of
pieces of raw Irish potatoes. Use the freshly cut in-
side, changing for another piece as one becomes
soiled, and, should marks of the rubbing be left when
the stuff is dry, sponge with alcohol.

In dealing with grass stains, which are a serious
problem in summer with mothers of small children,
and laundresses, competent or otherwise, use the
ordinary black cooking molasses, which is found in
every pantry, rubbing well into the fabric, whether
cotton, linen or woolen, letting it remain a few min-
utes and then washing by the usual process. It will
not injure the most delicate material or color, and the
most obstinate case will yield to the treatment.

If the garment be not washable, cover with thick
black molasses, and leave this on for three days.
Wash off with clear water. Should a spot remain
when dry, sponge with ether and alcohol in equal

parts.
112 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

SCORCH

Scorch from ironing or fire may be taken from
goods by first washing and boiling; then wring from
suds, hang in the sun to dry, or wet in suds (hot or
cold) and dry. Repeat this process until all spots
have been removed.

PERSPIRATION STAINS

I have said times without number, and expect to
repeat the saying innumerable times more, that per-
spiration stains are the most intractable of blemishes.
Combining, as they do, acid and alkali, they resist
treatment which might remove one or the other.
Ammonia would act effectually upon the acid, and is
an exasperation to the salts in the stain. Lemon-
juice, invaluable in mildew and rust spots, adds acid
to acid. The one forlorn hope is that a mixture of
alcohol and ether in equal parts, with a dash of house-
hold ammonia, may do away with the worst features
of the stain. In applying this or any other detersive,
never forget to lay several thicknesses of blotting-
paper (white) under the soiled place to prevent the
formation of the obnoxious ring that is likely to re-
main on the stuff after it is dry.

VASELINE AND OTHER OILS

‘A veteran housekeeper tells this story of experi-
ence with a stubborn grease spot.

' “Some years ago my nurse spilled a quantity of hot vaseline
on a brand-new and rather expensive white bedspread. The
THURSDAY 113

spots soon took on a dark, greasy, unsightly appearance and,
while they did not show immediately after washing, they soon
returned and I thought my spread ruined. She took it to the
laundry, spread it on the floor, poured kerosene oil liberally on
the spots and left it in that condition over night. The follow-
ing day it went through the regular wash, was thoroughly rinsed
and dried in the sun, and not a spot has returned in all these ten
years. I have had numerous occasions to use it since.’

If the oil is kerosene, cover with oatmeal or with
cornmeal, and leave it alone for two days. Then
brush and beat well. If any other oil be spilled,
cover with a stiff paste of fuller’s earth and water.
Leave thus for three days. Repeat if necessary.

The first step in removing fat of any kind from
cloth is to coat the spot with a bland alkali, such as
French chalk. Get at the wrong side of the stuff if
you have to rip a seam in order to do it. Rub the
finely pulverized chalk into the grease and lay the
garment by for four hours. Then cover the chalk
with thick blotting-paper and set a moderately warm
iron upon it. ‘A hot iron will fasten the oil in the
stuff. Slip the paper along as the grease begins to
show through.

Should any trace of the paris be left on the right
side, sponge with pure alcohol. Lay clean blotting-
paper under the cloth as you sponge it to prevent the
formation of a ring when it is dry.
CHAPTER XI
THURSDAY (Continued)

ON CLEANING NON-WASHABLE ARTICLES OF DRESS

Gasoline: its excellence and its peril: Beyond
question, gasoline is the most efficient cleanser we
have in general use, and the least harmful in its ef-
fects upon the substance under treatment. Yet, of
all that I shall recommend to my readers, it is the
very last I should put into careless hands. ‘A collec-
tor of curious statistics estimates that on an average,
one woman or child per day, is killed or seriously in-
jured by gasoline every year, in the United States.
This may, or may not be true. Data of the sensa-
tional type are not minimized by the professional
statistician. Certain it is that casualties arising
from the misuse of this cleansing agent are frequent
enough to discount the intelligence of housewives as
a class.

I dropped a caution on this subject in a former
chapter. I reiterate it with force at the outset of our
consideration of the merits and the uses of gasoline
in renovating articles which can not be safely con-
signed to the wash-tub.

For example—worsted stuffs of all grades may be

114
THURSDAY; 115

washed in gasoline without fear of fading or shrink-
ing.

If you can do this out of doors, it is best to take all
your apparatus into the open air, with no fire or ar-
tificial light near. If, as is more probable, you must
work in the house, shut yourself into the bath-room
and set the window open wide. Lay the breadths—
several at a time—in a basin or bowl or boiler, cover
with gasoline, put a close lid upon the vessel and leave
for half an hour, Lift then, wetting your hands as
little as may be, and shake and souse alternately for
two or three minutes. Donotrub. Hang in the air
to drip and dry, and the work is done. In the bot-
tom of the bowl a heavy deposit of sooty matter
shows how soiled the cloth was and how thorough is
the purification. When all the dirt has settled,
pour off the clear gasoline cautiously and use for the
next supply of clothes. If the cloth be sadly soiled,
throw away the first lot of gasoline and rinse the
articles to be cleansed in a fresh supply. Gasoline
will not remove grease. Therefore, before using the
bath I have described, cover grease spots with a paste
of fuller’s earth or of French chalk, and leave on all
night. Next day cover with blotting paper and
“draw’’ out the oil with a hot iron.

I wish it were possible for me to instil into readers’
minds the simple fact that gasoline will not extract
stains or grease spots. There is no chemical reason
why it should do either of these things. It does take
out “‘plain dirt’’ of any description.
116 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

Benzine is subject to the same objection as gasoline
in the minds of timid housewives. We are horrified
daily by newspaper stories of accidents to life and
limb, caused by the explosion, or ignition of benzine
and naphtha. Unless one has the common sense to
conduct one’s renovations in a room remote from ar-
tificial light of every kind, one should never meddle
with any of the three cleansers, but confine one’s
operations in the cleansing line to soap and water.

As we shall see by and by, benzine cleans gloves
perfectly. It also takes off paint from flexible ma-
terials.

DRY CLEANING

Dry cleaning is an invention of our latter day for
which we can hardly be too grateful. It is neat, it
is safe, and it is harmless to the texture of the arti-
cles treated. The rules for the treatment of woolen
stuffs, light silks and embroidered wash materials
one does not like to wet are substantially the same.

A white Bedford cord gown—partly wool, partly
cotton—was successfully cleansed by following this
formula:

Put into a tub, cover with corn-meal slightly salted
and scrub with this as you would use suds, rubbing
between your hands, and hardest upon soiled spots.
Cover it up in clean meal and leave it there for two
days, throwing a cloth over the tub to keep out dust.
Shake then, and brush with a perfectly clean whisk.

Buckwheat flour may be used instead of the meal.
Indeed, it is preferred by some experienced amateur
THURSDAY. 117

scourers. They say that the finer grain of the buck-
wheat flour is more easily and thoroughly worked be-
tween the threads of fine stuffs, and does not fray
them as the coarse meal does, sometimes.

Small rugs of lamb’s wool or white fur, such as are
used for baby-carriages, may be cleansed, again and
again at home.

Half fill a clean tub with dry corn-meal, and dry-
wash the robe in it as in suds. Rub clear down to
the hide, treating each hair impartially. When this
has been done, throw out the soiled meal; line the tub
with the robe, fur side up, and sift clean meal all
over it, rubbing it well in, until you have buried it
out of sight. Throw a cloth over all, to exclude dust,
and leave thus for two days. Beat and shake out the
meal at the end of that time.

Larger floor rugs, even costly oriental fabrics, are
rid of dust and grime, and the colors are brightened
by a similar process.

Heat coarse Indian meal in the oven in large pans,
when you have mixed with it one-fourth the quantity
of fine salt. When the mixture is quite hot (it must
not scorch) have your rugs close at hand. They
should have been shaken and whipped on the wrong
side, out-of-doors. There will be dirt enough in them
after the beating to warrant more thorough meas-
ures. Scatter the salted meal thickly over the rugs,
rub in well, using a clean broom or a brush; cover to
keep out the dust and leave thus for twenty-four
hours. Sweep, then, with a clean, stiff broom twice—
118 THE HOUSHKEEPER’S WEEK

once against the nap, and the second time with it:
finally, shake and beat to dislodge any lingering rem-
nants of the meal and salt. You will be amazed at
the complexion of the aforesaid ‘‘remnants.’’ The
meal and salt may be used without heating, but you
are more certain to have them perfectly dry, if they
have been in the oven, and the heat helps on the
cleansing process, besides killing any larvae that may .
have skulked out of reach of the broom.

Flour and borax are used with good effect upon
finer materials. The waist of a cream-white cash-
mere gown, adjudged to be hopelessly soiled, was
made entirely presentable by obedience to a formula
given to the incredulous owner by one who had tried
it. I transcribe it from her letter:

Rub into it with a clean complexion brush a mix-
ture of flour, four parts; borax, one part. Do not
miss one thread in the rubbing. Shake lightly to
dislodge the loose powder and rub in a fresh supply.
Leave this on for three days, covering to exclude the
dust. Then shake and beat.

Boracic talcum is a refined variation of the same
cleanser. It is so much more expensive than the
flour and borax that few would care to use it upon
articles calling for basinfuls, much less tubfuls. It
is worth while to resort to it when small and valuable
pieces of lace or linen need attention. To clean a
lace collar—Battenberg, point or Cluny—pin it
firmly to a cloth-covered bosom-board and go all over
it with boracie taleum, or with a mixture of pow-
THURSDAY. 119

dered starch and borax, rubbing it well into the lace
with a tooth- or nail-brush. When you have treated
one side thus, turn the collar and repeat the process
with the other. Cover with powder when you have
done brushing it in, throw a cloth over it to keep out
the dust, and leave it for two days. Then unpin the
collar, shake, lay it on the board, right side down,
and cover with a very damp cloth. Press with a hot
iron through the cloth.

Embroidered handkerchiefs, cravats, scarfs, cen-
terpieces and fine doilies, that inevitably come to
grief if sent to a professional cleaner, may be re-
stored to respectability by skilful manipulation with
boracic talcum. If you can not get it conveniently,
make a substitute that may serve you as well by pow-
dering starch and sifting it four times, with one
ounce of borax to a pound of starch.

Block magnesia: If of the finest quality, may
fitly join the band of household cleansers. Inferior
qualities abrade silks and fray linen threads. They
also rob lustrous fabrics, like silk and satin, of gloss,
making them look dull and ‘‘cottony.’’ A white or!
pale-colored crepon, or point d’esprit gown—waist
and skirt—may be cleaned in this way:

Lay the breadths, smooth and straight, upon a
table covered with a white cloth, pinning each
bréadth in place to prevent it from drawing away,
while you rub into every thread the best quality of
block magnesia. Rub straight, evenly and gently,
until you have gone over every bit of the material.
120 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

Turn the breadths now and treat the wrong side in
the same way. You will find the waist more trouble-
some, but it can be cleaned without taking apart.
Lay the whole gown upon a bed, cover with a thin
cloth, and leave it thus for a week before shaking and
brushing out the powder.

Fine lawns may be treated with magnesia, also
white felt hats. In every instance the magnesia
must be left on the article for some days. There are
chemical agents in the magnesia that need time for
their work.

A silk or pongee parasol, that has not begun to
show the light through the creases, yet is soiled by
wear or accident, may be cleaned at home, if these di-
rections are regarded throughout: Add a teaspoon-
ful of fine, dry salt to two cupfuls of powdered
starch, and with a soft, clean ‘‘complexion brush”’
rub the mixture into the silk on both sides, not miss-
ing a thread, and working with the grain of the silk
all the time. Blow off the loose powder and rub in a
fresh supply. Leave this on for two days before
shaking it out and wiping the whole surface with soft
flannel. The parasol should be opened wide to keep
the silk taut. I have cleaned silk satisfactorily in
this manner, and also with boracic talcum.

To clean velvet: Corduroy, which is a sort of
country cousin of velvet, may be restored without in-
jury to the pile by the dry cleanser last mentioned.
Sift boracic taleum thickly over it. Then ‘‘mas-
sage’’ the corduroy with the tips of resolute fingers
THURSDAY: 121

for at least ten minutes, renewing the powder as it is
worked in. Cover with clean powder and put into a
box with a close cover. Leave it thus for three days
before beating out the powder and brushing well.

Velvets may be cleaned by putting them in gasoline
and brushing with a tooth- or complexion-brush.
Great care should be taken to guard against an ex-
plosion. Gasoline will not take out grease, but vel-
vet coat collars can be cleaned by sponging with tur-
pentine. It will not injure the nap.

I have cleaned badly soiled velvet with a mixture
of equal parts of alcohol and ether, one-third as much
naphtha, and a teaspoonful of ammonia to a pint of
the blended ingredients. Bottle, cork, and shake the
preparation well. Sponge the velvet—always with
the nap. It will look like a sorry affair when dry,
but the next step in the process will bring all right.

Hang the garment in the bath-room and turn on
the hot water until the room is full of steam. Shut
door and windows and leave the garment in the steam
for some hours. When cold and still damp, hang in
the outer air.

To renew velvet: Hold a hot iron upside down;
wring a cloth out of water, lay over the iron, then put
your velvet wrong side next to the wet cloth. While
the steam is passing through it brush on the upper
side with a soft brush. Move the wet cloth as fast as
it dries to continue the rise of steam.

Do not lay finger upon the newly-risen nap until
the velvet is entirely dry. Creased and crushed vel-
122 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

vet may be freshened and smoothed by steaming, and
the method here described is a manifest improvement
upon the old way of holding the defaced garment
over a steaming kettle. The wrinkles left upon
cloths that have been packed away for a long time, or
unskilfully, may be removed in like manner. Turn
on the hot water, and when the room is clouded by
the vapor, turn off the water and shut up the room.
The steam will do the rest. Velvet ribbons which
have become creased can be freshened by holding
them over a pan of boiling water, and brushing up
the nap with a stiff brush. This process removes
wrinkles and makes the velvet look nearly as well as
when new.

Fuller’s earth: Takes the place of magnesia and
talcum in handling neutral-colored articles. A tan
or gray coat, or jacket, soiled and darkened by long
usage, should, first of all, be brushed free of dust as
the initial step to rehabilitation. Then, lay it upon
a large table, and go over every inch of it with pow-
dered fuller’s earth, working it in with a new clean
complexion brush, until not a thread is left wnvisited.
Turn the garment upside down and repeat the work
by rubbing in the powder against the nap or grain.
Shake the coat to dislodge the loose earth, rub in a
second supply, and leave this on for a week, Tt will
eat up the dirt and form a harmless combination with
grease. At the end of the week shake and brush
vigorously.

Tan or gray felt hats may be made almost as good
THURSDAY, 123

as new by rubbing them with fuller’s earth. Pro-
ceed as with the colored cloth, even to the week’s
waiting in a dark box.

To clean felt hats: A black felt hat may be cleaned
with ammonia and warm water, but light hats must
be cleaned with oatmeal, heated and applied with a
brush. A white felt hat is cleaned with equal parts
of powdered pipe-clay and oatmeal. Rub the pow-
der on every part of the hat and then brush
thoroughly. There is nothing better for cleaning
light-colored felt hats which are only slightly soiled
than dry corn-meal rubbed on with a piece of clean
flannel.

TO CLEAN FURS AT HOME
Sealskin and Other Dark Furs

‘With a clean whisk broom wet in alcohol brush the
fur thoroughly until saturated to the hide. Sift
thickly into and over it pulverized fuller’s earth;
cover to keep out dust, and do not touch for two days.
Then brush and beat out the powder. Grime and
soot will come out with it. I have cleaned white furs
in the same way, substituting talcum powder for ful-
ler’s earth.

This plan of cleansing furs, I believe to be my own
device. I made my first experiment upon a set of
white ‘“‘mouffion” belonging to a small lady who
represented the infant element in our household. I
carried muff and tippet into the bath-room and shut
myself in with them, the alcohol bottle and a box of
124 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

taleum (borax). First, I brushed all the dust out of
the furs. Then with a new whisk, never used until
then, and dripping wet with alcohol, I swabbed them
down to the skin. Finally I sifted the boracic tal-
cum under every hair, until the furs could hold no
more. I consigned them, with many a misgiving, to
a big box lined with tissue paper, and put on the lid,
the alcohol being still wet upon the powder. At the
end of three days, I took the moufflon out. As I
shook it into the fresh air the white powder flew in
clouds. Gentle practice with a brush brought out the
rest and revealed white fluffiness beyond my fondest
expectations. The experiment has been repeated
many times, since then, and always to my satisfac-
tion.

Ermine, the prettiest and the most expensive of our
white furs, has the disadvantage of yellowing if laid
away. To avoid this mishap, line the box in which
it is to be secluded during summer with blue tissue
paper, or wrap the ermine in clean muslin made very
blue with laundry bluing (but not starched). Put
a cake of white wax in the box as well.

If the ermine has already yellowed, you may pos-
sibly whiten it by this method:

Beat out the dust and sponge the collar with per-
oxide of hydrogen; lay it in the sun for some hours,
sponging every hour with the peroxide. Then fill
the fur with boracic talcum and shut it up in a box
for a week. If anything will bleach the ermine, this
will,
THURSDAY 125

By the end of the winter the collar and the silk
binding of fur and cloth garments have become so
soiled as to mark the neck or the neck-band of the
wearer’s gown, or the man’s collar. The mark is a
blending of coal dust and perspiration, which re-
peats itself each time the outer garment is worn.

To abate the nuisance, try the detersive mixture
of ether, alcohol and household ammonia. With a
bit of perfectly clean sponge scrub the soiled portions
of the silk, cleansing the sponge after each applica-
tion. This will remove grease and grime. ‘Wipe
dry with old soft linen.

TO CLEAN GLOVES

Benzine: Put on both gloves, pour enough ben-
zine in a bowl to cover the hands and hold them under
the fluid a moment or two, then wash thoroughly as
if using soap and water, rubbing all soiled spots well.
Rub dry with a soft old linen towel, leaving on the
hands until they are perfectly dry. They will look
like new after several cleansings, if the gloves are of
good quality.

Benzine is highly volatile, evaporating quickly.
So, the injunction to keep the gloves upon the hands
until they are dry is not so unreasonable as one might
suppose. Have a book or paper at hand, and read,
using the hands as little as possible, to beguile the
tedium of waiting. When you draw off the gloves,
wrap a clean handkerchief about the fingers that do
the pulling, as a newly cleaned glove is very sensitive
126 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK:

to soil or dust. Hang the gloves up in an open win-
dow to let the odor escape, before laying them away.

The invaluable gasoline cleans gloves as well, to
my way of thinking, as benzine, although the odor
clings to them more persistently, perhaps.

If you do not like to risk this, or naphtha, lay the
gloves at full length on a folded towel and scrub with
a bit of old flannel dipped in skim milk, then rubbed
on the best quality of toilet soap. Wash in this way
every part of the glove. Lay between two clean
towels and put into a drawer for two days. They
will be discolored and stiff, but when drawn on the
hand and arm will recover color and softness at once.

In the cleaning change the flannel as soon as it is
soiled, and wipe the gloves dry before laying them
away between the towels.

We, who are teachers of the rising generation of
housemothers, rejuvenated our light and white
gloves after this fashion in the years when gasoline
was not a domestic commodity, except as a distant
relative of the giddy gas known as camphine and was
‘ burned in the place of whale oil in our lamps. We
had a regular day for washing our gloves with skim
milk and sweet soap, and another for stretching them
back to their normal form and complexion. That
day was usually Thursday. The six, eight or ten
pairs of discolored gloves lay in their cerements un-
til Saturday. We took pride in the skill gained by
our many washings, and had a trick of displaying our
encased hands to one another in church on Sunday,
THURSDAY, 127

without attracting the notice of grave mammas and
uninitiated beaux.

‘We, likewise, cleaned light gloves with white india
rubber, and with stale bread-crumbs, fancying that
they kept clean longer when thus treated than after
they were washed in any other way.

White kid gloves may be cleaned on the hands
with oatmeal and benzine, mixed to a paste. Con-
tinue rubbing until the paste drops off in dry flakes.

Slippers and gloves of white or light kid may be
cleaned by rubbing them with a piece of clean flannel
dipped in a mixture of equal parts of powdered alum
and fuller’s earth. A rub afterwards with fine oat-
meal sometimes improves the looks of the kid.

When black gloves become white at the finger tips,
rub these with a few drops of good black ink mixed
with the.same quantity of sweet oil. Light suedes
may be cleansed with white castile soap boiled in milk
to make suds, rubbing them with flannel, then with
warm water, finally with dry flannel.
CHAPTER XII
THURSDAY (Concluded)

ODDS AND ENDS OF RENOVATING
TO CLEAN LEATHER

Tan leather shoes: Wash a raw potato, cut into
two or three pieces; rub the potato well into the
shoes; be sure not to miss any part or the tan will
show where the potato has missed. Let it dry, then
apply polish twice with a light quick motion, which
will give a finely polished boot or shoe.

If the shoes be hopelessly defaced, yet strong as to
material and seams, they are worth recoloring. This
may be done at home, and satisfactorily if the fol-
lowing directions be obeyed. Provide yourself with
a bottle of gasoline; brush the mud and dust from the
shoes and sponge them with gasoline, rubbing it in
well. It takes the oil out of the surface of the
leather.

To dye, purchase a package of patent dyes—slate.
Make up as per black ink recipe, using half the quan-
tity of water. When made, add one tablespoonful
of alcohol and one teaspoonful of spirits of camphor.
Apply to the shoe after cleaning. Let the first coat
dry. Put on the second and let it dry. Rub off with
a dry cloth; touch up spots not well covered.

128
THURSDAY 129

When dry, polish with a good black paste, and rus-
set leather will not show through in a week, as the
shoemaker’s always does.

A few drops of turpentine on a woolen cloth will
clean tan shoes very well, and a drop or two of orange
or lemon juice will give a brilliant polish to any
leather.

Sweet oil forms a good dressing for patent leather.
Apply it with a small piece of flannel and then polish
the leather with a soft cloth.

If the russet shoes be but slightly soiled, they may
be treated with cut banana. In every case see that
no dirt that can be brushed off is left on the leather
to interfere with the polish. If this precaution be
neglected, dust becomes mire, and clouds whatever
preparation may be used in cleaning.

White and light-colored leather of any kind—may
be renovated, so as to serve another term of useful-
ness, by mixing a good patent dye to the exact shade
you wish to get in a glass or earthenware bowl. Metal
might change the tint, if there be acid in the dye,
as is probable. Apply the dye, as dry as it may be
used to advantage, to the leather, then leave it until
it is perfectly dry and well soaked into the leather,
when the surface may be polished in the usual way.
American leather may be first well washed with a
soaped flannel, rinsed with a soft cloth dipped in
clean water, dried and finished off as above. Bags,
portmanteaux, ete., according to their leather, may
be cleaned in these ways.
130 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

White dancing slippers are easily cleaned with
gasoline.

Wet a piece of perfectly clean flannel with gaso-
line and scour the slippers with it. When dry, wash
with peroxide of hydrogen and dry in the sunshine.

Other shoes: White satin shoes may be easily
cleaned at home. Stuff out the shoe in shape and
rub it gently with a soft cloth dipped in methylated
spirit, repeating until clean. Dry with a clean soft
cloth.

Low shoes when new often blister the heels by
slipping just a little as the wearer walks. To pre-
vent this it is well to rub the inside of the shoe at the
heels with soap before putting them on.

‘A leather valise, battered by many assaults from
baggage-smashers, and disfigured by traces of hotel
and railway cards, may be rendered presentable and
serviceable, so long as hinges and lock are sound.
Go all over it with a damp cloth to get rid of paste-
marks and portable soil. Next, rub vith a cloth wet
with kerosene. Leave the valise or suit-case to dry
in the air, but avoid the sun. The third stage is to
wring out a flannel cloth in neat’s-foot oil. You can
buy it from any harness-maker. Rub the leather
well with this; throw a sheet over it to exclude dust
and leave it thus for several hours to let the oil sink
into the leather. Wipe, and polish with chamois
skin.

To remove an ink spot from leather: Moisten the
spot slightly with water, rub into it powdered crys-
THURSDAY: 131

tals of oxalic acid; wash off in fifteen minutes and re-
peat washing after each application, Lastly, work
in a few drops of neat’s-foot oil.

A chamois-leather vest may be dry-cleaned if not
stained badly with perspiration. Chamois shrinks
so woefully in the hands of the laundress of com-
merce, that the day of consignment to the wash-tub
should be delayed as long as decency will permit.
Pending the evil hour, take it to the bath-room,
spread it upon a table and rub both sides and every
part of the vest with powdered fuller’s earth. Work
in well with a clean complexion brush. Cover with
powder and lay in a closed drawer for a week before
beating and brushing out the ‘‘earth.”’

HATS

A white duck hat: Clean it with a good quality
of magnesia—fine in grain and pure white. Rub it
well into the hat, shut it up in a box and leave it for
a week. Remove the powder with a bit of soft flan-
nel, smoothing it round and round, always in the
same direction and evenly.

Tf not perfectly clean, the hat must be put through
the process a second time.

Straw: To clean gentlemen’s white straw hats,
use one teaspoonful of oxalic acid to a cup of water;
scour with an old toothbrush until all soil has disap-
peared. If you should discolor the black band with
the mixture, dampen it with diluted ammonia water
to restore the color.

.o}
132 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

Leghorn: Brush out the dust with a stiff whisk-
broom, running it around the inside as faithfully as
you brush the outside, having, first, taken out the lin-
ing and removed the band. Clip each stitch, instead
of pulling the thread, and leave no bits sticking to
the straw. These are minor steps in the operation,
but they tell visibly in the result. When the hat is
“broom clean,’’ rub it all over and thoroughly with
damp cornmeal. Let this stand for ten minutes;
then apply dry meal. Rub into every thread, and
leave it on for six hours before brushing out the meal.
If you wish to bleach it, sponge freely with peroxide
of hydrogen and expose to the hot sun.

Panama: Wash the hat all over with lemon juice,
leave it in the sun for six hours; then sponge care-
fully, leaving no part untouched, with peroxide of
hydrogen. Sun again for several hours.

Or: A cup of white cornmeal, soaked in benzine
or gasoline, well rubbed on with a clean, soft cloth,
will clean and leave no stains.

Both Leghorns and Panamas have an ugly fashion
of yellowing before they have lived out half their
days. And, while the peroxide of hydrogen bleaches
quickly, and what may be called plausibly—other
housewives who have tried the two ways of whiten-
ing straw, agree with me in thinking the old method
‘practised by our granddames—whose Leghorns and
‘Naverinos served for their grandchildren—the surer
and more enduring. Some used this formula:

Pulverize stick sulphur and mix it to a paste with
THURSDAY, 133

water. Plaster this thickly on the straw and place
in the sun to dry. ‘When dry, brush the sulphur off,
and the hat will look like new.

Others employed the same agent in a different way.
A tin or iron plate of sulphur was set on the ground
and lighted to a slow flame. When it was fairly
kindled, a barrel open at both ends was carefully
placed over the smoking sulphur. Across the top of
the barrel was laid a stick from which the discolored
hat was suspended by a short cord. A board was
fitted to the head of the barrel so closely that the
fumes of the burning sulphur could not escape. At
the end of half an hour the hat was shifted to a dif-
ferent position that the hot gases might reach every
part of it. More sulphur was lighted if the first sup-
ply was exhausted. The hat was not taken out until
it was cold. A couple of hours in the open air suf-
ficed to dispel the sulphurous odor.

If the hat be but slightly soiled, go over it with a
paste of lemon-juice and table salt, spreading it
thickly and evenly and leave the hat in the sun for
the rest of the day. Next morning brush off the salt,
and wash with strained lemon-juice. Another day’s
sunning should make it as white as ever.

SOOT MARKS

Even in our age of closed chimneys, and steam
heat, there are households sufficiently luxurious and
affluent to indulge in the renaissance of open fire-
places. Now and then, when fires are kept up regu-
134 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

larly in the baronial chimneys, a gust of wind or a
fierce dash of ill-directed rain brings down the ac-
cumulations of a winter’s smoke.

When soot falls upon the carpet or rug, never at-
tempt to sweep it up at once, for the result is sure
to be a disfiguring mark. Cover it thickly with
dried salt, which will enable you to sweep it up clean,
so that not the slightest stain will be left.

EGG STAINS

They should not excite disgust, but they do! The
yellow drip from the breakfast egg, eaten en régle,
from the shell of the ‘‘strictly fresh,’’ a-down John’s
blameless shirt-front, or Mary’s embroidered muslin;
the smear left by Jenny’s spoon on the cloth where
she dropped it—full, of course—‘‘on an accident,’
—are alike odious in the housemother’s eyes. She
can not explain why they should convey an impres-
sion of coarse negligence verging upon vulgarity.
Yet she is distressfully aware of the fact, and so are
we. Moreover, they are not easily sponged out.
The hateful, vulgar yellow clings like the smirch of
scandal to reputation.

Egg stains on linen or on any other cloth should
be soaked in cold water, for hot water sets the stains
and makes them most difficult to remove. The
same rule applies to egg stains on dishes, ete. If the
dishes are placed at once in hot water the egg stains
will harden, but they readily come off in cold water.

The albumen in eggs is made into paste by boiling
THURSDAY 135

water. It dissolves readily in cold. Therefore, if

you try to sponge away the ochreous streak from
non-washable stuff, do it with cold water.

FEATHERS

To clean a feather boa: Shake gently in a draft
for a minute or two, pulling it open through the
length to clear out the dust. Blow hard into it—up-
ward—to dislodge lurking particles. Then wash it
in clear gasoline. Do it out of doors and in the day-
time. Souse it up and down a dozen times; shake
and hang in the air to dry, shaking several times
while it is airing.

Or: Sift finely pulverized fuller’s earth into the
feathers, filling them full with it. Shut up in a box
for two days, shake gently and hang in the wind to
get rid of the powder. Or, you may dip it repeatedly
in gasoline.

Ostrich plumes: May be cleaned in the same way.
To restore them after being exposed to dampness:
hold the plumes or feather boa over a register, or
much better, over the kitchen range. Hold there
and shake as near the heat as possible without
scorching. In a few moments they will fluff up and
be as lively as a ball of down.

After the washing in gasoline and the drying in
the open air, the plume or boa will have a dissipated,
blasé look unbecoming the crisp jauntiness of its
former estate. Hold it at the steaming spout of a
boiling tea-kettle, then over the red-hot plate of the
136 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

range or hang it from the upper grating of a hot
oven until it curls, watching lest it burn. I know a
woman who bakes her plumes periodically.

There are other, and it may be, better ways. One
authority upon the subject sets down positively that
‘‘the whole secret of success in renovating feathers
is starch—raw, not boiled—as the cooked starch
would act like glue. Take three tablespoonfuls of
raw starch to one pint of cold water, into which put
the feathers, after they have been washed and rinsed.
Press in a dry cloth with the hands, squeezing as dry
as possible; then hang in the wind to dry—in a
strong draft, if convenient. When quite dry, shake
well, but not hard. As the starch flies off in a
cloud, every filament will rise, and the plume be as
fluffy as at first. Hang in the steam of a boiling ket-
tle until the plume is saturated. Do not curl near
the stem, as the feather will, then, be too close and
thick. When curling, keep the forefinger of the left
hand parallel with the stem.”’

Or: Make a suds of good white soap; put your
plume in and soak until the dirt is loosened. Repeat
until the last suds are clean. If the plume is white,
rinse in water with a little bluing in it. In washing
begin at the stem and squeeze down to the tip. Dry
as you would anything else—preferably in the sun.
Then lay your feather on a large sheet of paper and
sprinkle thickly with prepared chalk and flour. Put
your hand on the side of the feather and rub down
to the tip, keeping it up until the fibers are loosened.
THURSDAY 137

Shake out well in the air to get rid of the powder,
and curl on a blunt knife. Handle carefully, so as
not to break the plume.

WHITE STUFFS

White all-wool waists: A cream-colored waist
may be cleaned according to rules for which I have
to thank a friend. She says:

‘*T have cleaned three this winter. Two were wool
waistings of different kinds, the other a cream wool
challé. The latter was trimmed with white silk ap-
pliqué, which I did not rip off. My method is sim-
ply to soak the waist to be cleaned in cold water for
a couple of hours, then wash in cold water with any
good white soap, rubbing the soap freely on the waist.
Rinse also in cold water, several times if necessary.
All the waists iron to look exactly like new, and
without shrinking.’’

A second contributor volunteers a dry bleach for
which she vouches, as I guarantee her skill and truth-
fulness:

‘Wash the waist in warm suds, rinse in hot water
and keep it hot while drying, stretching all the time
into shape, and when dry, bleach with sulphur. Get
a large barrel; put a brick in the center of the bot-
tom; then a red-hot stove lid upside down on the
brick. Put sulphur on that. Put a large wire sieve
on top of barrel and put goods or waist, flannel or
white silk, on it. Cover tightly. Leave the gar-
ment loose so the sulphur will reach every part of
1388 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

the goods. When the sulphur is cold, the goods will
be as white as when new.”’

I have to thank a third benefactor for her method
of cleaning chiffon.

To clean white chiffon: ‘Chiffon should be
washed in soap lather by carefully rolling and press-
ing between the hands, then rinsed in clean water
and stiffened in gum water, the same proportion as
for lace—namely, one tablespoonful to a quarter of
a pint of water.

“Roll in a cloth to absorb some of the moisture, but
proceed quickly since it must not be too dry when it
is ironed.

“To iron chiffon, it must be placed on the table
wrong side up and ironed along the selvedge, as iron-
ing across would displace the fibers and destroy the
appearance of the delicate fabric.

“Chiffon ties with a natural crépon crinkle should
not be ironed, but, instead, the ends should be care-
fully pinned out on a table, the tie just stretched
enough to permit of the crinkles falling into their
natural shape.

**When dry fold it without pressing the folds in;
air and put away carefully.”’

‘A delicate and not easy process. Had I less con-
fidence in the woman who assures me she ‘‘has tried
it, and found it true,’’ I should not dare to quote it.
For chiffon has kinks—in more than one sense of the
word—and I have never essayed to cleanse it.
THURSDAY 139

TO TAKE THE OIL OUT OF WOOLEN STUFFS

A lively housemother thus relates, at my request,
the history of a calamity changed by presence of
mind into a pleasing reminiscence:

‘‘Many years ago I had read that rye flour will ab-
sorb any oil ona carpet. An accident spread a pint
of castor-oil on the parlor carpet. This made a
large spot, and I ran to the flour bin only to find rye
flour out. In desperation I took white flour instead.
Then I covered the flour with newspaper, and both
with a rug. I changed the flour as often as the oil
penetrated it and formed cakes, as long as there was
any oil left—rapidly and hard at first, slowly and
light at last. Not a vestige of oil remained, and I
have had several experiences since in removing oil
from carpets and wool clothing—putting fiour above
and below the spot in cloth and placing a slightly
warmed iron over the spot. This is a simple remedy
and one always at hand in the home.”’

TO REMOVE THE “SHINE” FROM CLOTH AND SILK

(1) The shine that shows a serge skirt or jacket
to be no longer new, may easily be removed by spong-
ing the garment with bluing water, such as is used
to launder clothes. While still damp press the goods
under a thin cloth.

(2) To take the ‘‘shine’’ off of clothing: Wring
a woolen cloth out of water; lay over the goods and
140 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

press with a hot iron. Do not press dry. Take
cloth up while steaming.

(3) ‘‘Damprag”’ it by rolling it upon a wet cloth,
the gloss next to the cloth. Leave thus for an hour or
more. ‘Then open upon a table, and hold a very hot
iron just near enough to the moistened ‘‘shine’’ to
bring up the steam, which should do the work unless
the garment be positively threadbare.

(4) To remove the ‘‘shine’’ from John’s coat and
trousers, sponge with hot vimegar. This will
cleanse and freshen them at the same time. Sponge
afterward with ammonia.

(5) Whatever you use, the removal of the ‘‘shine”’
will be temporary. One of the best things I know of
is a bit of very fine emery cloth—you may buy it in
small squares at a druggist’s—rubbed upon the
shiny parts of the cloth. Rub gently. The friction
will remove the gloss for a time. When it reap-
pears, rub again.

(6) Soap-bark is one of the best mediums for the
removal of ‘‘shine’”’ from cloth. Many a suit that
has not begun to be threadbare, is thrown aside as too
shabby for even every-day wear because it has grown
glossy upon the shoulders and the underpart of the
arms. Make a flannel bag, put a handful of soap-
bark into it, and dip into hot water. Use it as a
sponge. Do not wipe the cloth dry.

A black silk that has worn so ‘‘shiny,’’ that it
looks greasy may be cleaned to a ‘‘dull finish’’ by
sponging with a mixture of equal parts of alcohol
THURSDAY 141
and ether. Add a generous tablespoonful of house-
hold ammonia to the mixture before using. It is
yet more effective if set in boiling water half an hour
before it is used. Change the water for more, boil-
ing hot, at the end of fifteen minutes, and do not take
the bottle containing the wash near the fire. The
contents are highly volatile, but should the cork

blow out, there is no danger unless the alcohol is ig-
nited by artificial light.

TO CLEAN A TISSUE OR CREPON VEIL

To clean a tissue, or crépon veil: Souse in gaso-
line (out of doors), shake gently and attach with
many pins to the line in the sun, but not where the
wind will stretch it out of shape. Or, after shaking
out the gasoline, spread smoothly upon a cloth, pin-
ning down at the edges, and leave in the air and
shade to dry.

ECRU LACES

Ecru laces can be kept to their original color by
using yellow ochre, obtainable at any paint store.
It is perfectly harmless to lace or muslin. Mix a
small quantity of this powder with boiling water,
and add to the starch or last-rinsing water; test the
color with a corner of the curtains where the pattern
is heaviest; put all curtains, intended for one room
or window, in at one time, so the color will not vary.
Souse and wring out in the ordinary way. If not
satisfactory the first time put through again.
142 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

Or: Puta little saffron in the rinsing water, mak-
ing sure to wring and shake out the water before
hanging the curtains up to dry. If hung up drip-
ping wet, they will be streaky.

Our grandmothers gave the sallowness of age to
their thread laces by dipping them into weak, clear,
black coffee—strained through a flannel bag. You
can try the same process, if you prefer it to the saf-
fron. In either case test the color first upon a bit
of lace or muslin.

SILK

To clean a muddy black underskirt: Take a brush
and use it vigorously over bad mud spots. Then
scrub over with a piece of old velvet. You will be
surprised at the result. The velvet, without the
brush, is fine to remove the dust that collects on the
silk.

The “‘ring’’ left by sponging silk: If the cleaner
has observed the precaution already insisted upon of
laying a folded piece of blotting-paper under the
silk before touching it with the sponge, the chances
are that there will not be left the round spot which
is as hard to get rid of as the original stain. Alcohol
is of all liquid detersives the least likely to leave the
obnoxious ‘‘ring.’’ If you have used some other
fluid, and the unsightly mark offends your eyes when
the stain has vanished, and the silk is dry, try what
I have found successful in more than one ease.

Stretch the silk taut and scratch very gently with
THURSDAY 143

your finger nail around the edges of the ring, always
from it and evenly until you have blended the dark-
ened portions of the silk with the rest. If done care-
fully this will make the blur nearly, if not quite im-
perceptible. Next time sponge with alcohol and
ether,—in equal parts. If, in cleaning with any li-
quid, you will put a thick, dry pad of cotton under
the stained part of the stuff, there will be little dan-
ger of the ‘‘ring.’’

TO SET COLORS

To set colors in new cotton fabrics dissolve one
ounce of sugar of lead in eight quarts of water, and
soak the articles in it over night.

Or: Lay them in salt water enough to cover them
several inches deep, and leave them there for five
hours. The color will be set, and the dirt will not be
permanent. ‘

Or: Soak for the same time in a strong infusio
of alum. Dissolve the alum in hot water, but let it
get cold before putting in the cotton or linen goods.

STRAYS

To prevent white silk from turning yellow when
not in use: Wrap it in pale blue tissue paper, or in
soft muslin that has been dipped in deep bluing
water, then wrung out, dried and ironed. No starch!
You may also put a cake of pure white wax in the

box.
To take the odor out of stockings that smell of the
144 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

dye, and the armpits of underwear and wash waists:
When they are washed let the last rinsing be in alum
water—about a teaspoonful of powdered alum to one
quart of warm water.

Jet passementerie may be cleaned by rubbing it
with a cloth dipped in equal parts of alcohol and
water. Dry afterward with a clean cloth.

To clean jewelry with stones in it, wash it in warm
suds made with yellow soap and a few drops of sal
volatile. You will find that this makes the ornament
brilliantly clean.

Stains on flannel blankets and light-colored wool-
ens may be removed by an application of glycerin
and raw yolk of egg—equal parts of each well mixed
together. Let this soak in thoroughly, and, when
it has done its work, remove it by washing with soapy
water.

To take chewing-gum from clothing, turn to our
old friend gasoline. The gum will evaporate with
the gasoline if rubbed a little with a cloth wet with
gasoline. Nota trace of the gum willremain. This
is better than scraping.

To take varnish out of cloth: Soak the spots with
a sponge dipped in alcohol, wetting the sponge as
it dries, and covering with a thick cloth to prevent
too rapid evaporation. When the varnish has soft-
ened, scrape off all that will come away, and scrub
off the rest with household ammonia.
~ Alcohol will remove glue: Wet a sponge in this,
lay upon a spot, covered with newspaper, to prevent
THURSDAY 145

evaporation, and leave for half an hour. Then
sponge the softened glue with more alcohol.

Clean leather-bound books with powdered pumice
stone applied with a piece of soft cotton or wool.
Rub until clean.

ORNAMENTS

Cut steel may be polished with powdered pumice
stone, slightly moistened and applied with a soft
brush or cloth.

To clean a steel chain: Put it into a box three-
quarters full of fine emery dust. Close the box and
shake violently up and down and to and fro for sev-
eral minutes. Now and then turn the box upside
down and shake again, to leave no part of the chain
untouched.
CHAPTER XIII

FRIDAY

HOUSEHOLD PESTS, VERMIN

‘‘There is no house howe’er so well defended,”’
that is proof against the incursions of insect invad-
ers of domestic comfort and housemotherly pride.
Each woman who reads these lines can recall without
an effort some humiliating experience that burned
the axiom into her astonished soul.

To this hour, I find it hard to think with Christian
charity of the relative-in-law, who, after spending a
night in the pretty guest-chamber of the first house
we ever owned, asked me placidly, at breakfast, if I
knew that the moths had their habitat in the fretted
cornice bordering the frieze I had thought handsome.
We made much of cornices, and knew little of friezes
then, and I was proud of the elaborate decoration of
my newly-furnished chamber.

“‘T saw them plainly as I lay in bed,’’ continued
the candid speaker, accepting a second cup of coffee,
and asking incidentally, that it might be ‘“‘hotter and
sweeter than the first.’ ‘‘I am blessed with keen
eyes, and I espied a colony of the little rascals hang-
ing, heads downward, in the crannies of the pattern.”’

Inwardly I chafed hotly, and said ugly things to

146
FRIDAY 147

myself as to the chronic propensity of In-laws to say
disagreeable things one’s blood-kindred would keep
to themselves. Outwardly, I smiled slightly and
commented upon the ubiquitousness of moths who,
like Solomon’s representative spider, ‘‘take hold
with their hands, and are in king’s palaces.’

The In-law smiled superior to my feint at careless
ease: ‘‘I thanked my stars my wife was not with
me! The sight of a moth throws her into a panic.
She would be sure that we would carry off eggs or
larve in our clothes.’’

I scorned to inform him that I had personally con-
ducted the spring campaign against creeping things
of all species, and put down woolens for the summer
with my own hands. How was I to think of hunting
for wool-eating moths in the convolutions of a plaster
cornice? As soon as he and his valise were out of
the house, I led a raid upon crannies and convolu-
tions. The ceiling of that room had been swept with
a hair broom at least twice a month during the half-
year of our occupancy of the house we joyed in call-
ing ours. Mounted now upon a step-ladder and
armed with a pointed paint-brush, and woman’s in-
alienable weapon—a hairpin—I hunted and slew un-
til I could find not one more to add to the host of
wriggling larve, and the eggs that promised in-
crease of family within a week. If I could not at
once—or ever—forgive the officious In-law for dis-
covering and proclaiming what I should have pre-
vented, I laid the lesson to heart. To this hour I
148 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

do not comprehend what took the wool-eaters into re-
cesses where there was nothing to feed upon. The les-
son set for me was that they seek out all manner of
unlikely lairs in which to increase and multiply for
the housewife’s confusion and shame of face and
heart.

The same may be said of other and even more ob-
jectionable ‘‘creatures’’ who molest and make afraid
the careful housekeeper and are the slattern’s dis-
grace. There may be reason in the country home
for the popular belief that the presence of nocturnal
prowlers in the bedroom, moths in carpets and cur-
tains, roaches in the kitchen, and red ants in the
pantry—not to mention silver- buffalo- and carpet-
bugs—reflects irretrievable ignominy upon the mis-
tress of the infested premises. <A fair degree of care
should suffice to keep her domain free from the few
who are imported by traveling visitors, or from town
in the trunks of ‘‘hired help.’’ Her urban sister—
unless she lives in a detached house (and not one
family in ten thousand does this)—is subject to the
inroads of predatory bands from neighboring houses
or flats. To the dweller in cities the warfare is prac-
tically ceaseless. It is not enough to drive them
away from her premises. They must be extermi-
nated, root and branch, or the routed forces, ban-
ished, for a time, to territories to the right or left of
the victor, or maybe to the upper or lower floor—re-
turn with whetted appetites as soon as the fumiga-
tion is fairly over.
FRIDAY 149

Merciless dealing is the true wisdom here. I take
this occasion to enter my personal protest against
the weak sentimentality that entrenches itself behind
such puerilities as the assertion that everything alive
has an equal right to live. I take issue with Uncle
Toby who, in releasing the fly that had tickled his
nose pertinaciously, declared that ‘‘there is room in
the world for thee and for me.’? Leigh Hunt calls
Uncle Toby ‘‘the pitier of the devil himself.”” From
my standpoint, the man who could capture the devil
and then let him free to do his will upon other men,
is as cruel as he is weak. Uncle Toby’s liberated fly
flew off to torment somebody else,—perchance to
goad a saint to profanity. It is not true—if Shake-
speare did say it—that

“‘The poor beetle that we tread upon,
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
As when a giant dies.’’

A fly that has just been bereft of both wings, will
fall to work greedily upon a drop of honey set close
to him, his enjoyment of the sweet evidently as lively
as if he had not been maimed. If the beetle were a
cockroach, common humanity demands that he should
be trodden under the housewifely slipper.

If I speak warmly on this subject, it is because I
have witnessed so many exhibitions of misdirected
sympathy and inconsistent compassion. It is not
ten years since I was condemned openly and held up
to public reprobation for advising a woman whose
150 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK >

premises were overrun by a breed of mice too know-
ing to enter the traps set in their sight, ‘‘to catch one,
smear him with tar, and let him go.’’

‘““Mice are cleanly little beasties,’’ I added, ‘‘and
as he runs, he will besmear the sides of his hole and
the walls with tar. His comrades can not abide the
stickiness upon their fur, and will flee as for their
lives.”’ This statement of a fact was branded in
the condemnatory resolutions of the body that ar-
raigned me, as ‘‘flippantly trifling with the suffer-
ings of harmless creatures that had as much right to
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as their
tormentor.’’ The paper then went on to say that, if
the murder of the ‘‘beastie’’ were a domestic and
neighborhood necessity, he should be drowned in
warm water. ‘‘Not hot, but with the chill taken off,
that the shock of immersion may be lessened.”’

Since vermin—including ‘‘rats and mice and such
small deer,’’ are a direct menace to human health
and happiness, they must go! To inflict needless
pain upon anything that God has made, is-a sin.
Therefore, let justice upon the evil doer be done as
swiftly and as effectually as possible. To mutilate
a beetle is wanton cruelty, even though the victim be
cold-blooded and incapable of feeling such suffering
in dying as would attend a cut of a giant’s finger.

Now for the application of our sermon :—

Begin we with moths, classed in Holy Writ with
the corruptions of rust upon human riches. They
are dear lovers of warmth and of darkness, when
FRIDAY 151

joined to warmth. Dusty corners are a delight, and
fleecy folds the acme of luxury. Therefore keep
your rooms well-aired and admit the sunshine lay-
ishly. Sweep the corners and the walls—and ex-
plore the cornices!

IN PUTTING AWAY WOOLENS AND FURS

Beat and brush out all the dust, as the first and
most important step. Where eggs are not, the live
moths can not come. Even with the lowest orders
of creation, there is no such thing as spontaneous
generation. See to it that every thread and hair of
the stuff is visited by the brush. Then, hang it in
the hottest sunshine you can find. Leave it thus for
a day, and when the articles are brought in at even-
ing, put them into a clean trunk or box—or barrels
that have been wiped clean and then swabbed with
camphor. Of all known drugs this is most abhor-
rent to moths and other creeping things.

Next day, take the woolens-and furs into the porch,
if you have one. A bright, airy room with a hard-
wood floor, is the next best place. You should have
abundance of newspapers saved for the occasion.
Printer’s ink is as unwelcome to moths as to bigger
sinners. Lay in between the folds of each article
plenty of camphor balls, or gum camphor. Envelop
it, next, in newspaper, pinned carefully at the open
ends. Finally, sew or pin up the parcel in un-
bleached muslin, or in cheese-cloth, and lay away ina
perfectly dustless chest, box or cask. Never lose
152 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

sight of the cardinal—and the comforting—truth
that, if the air be excluded and there are no un-
guarded cracklets through which the dust may pene-
trate to the contents of the parcel, it is a physical
impossibility for moths to get at them, were the box
not opened in ten months, or ten years.

A notable housewife, who dislikes the smell of
camphor, claims that the use of it is a needless pre-
caution, if the woolens and furs be entirely free from
dust—therefore of eggs and larve—when they are
put away. I have, myself, dispensed with camphor
or any other preservative, and sustained no damage
from the omission.

When you are ready to put away furs and woolens
and want to guard against the depredations of moths,
pack them securely in paper flour sacks, and tie them
up well. Before putting away your muff or furs
for the winter, twirl them by the cords at the ends
so that every hair will Straighten itself. Put them
in their boxes, and paste a strip of paper where the
lid fits on tightly.

Turpentine is a valuable ally in the righteous war.
The odor is clean and wholesome. Sprinkle a little
of the turpentine in the bottom of trunks and draw-
ers, and cover with a fresh newspaper. Also, satu-
rate pieces of soft cloth, and place in the corners,
away from the clothes. In midsummer often open
them up, and tuck in a fresh supply without remov-
ing the articles. Keep a bottle of turpentine in the
wardrobe or closet, and occasionally sprinkle a few
FRIDAY 153

drops around. It is good for furs or feathers or
anything in which these pests live.

Endorsement of the excellence of this means of de-
fense comes from a veteran:

‘“Two years ago, when house-cleaning, I found
many moths in parlor chairs, closets, boxes—almost
everywhere. After thorough dusting and cleaning,
turpentine was applied freely to edges of upholster-
ing, all seams in boxes, bureau drawers and closets,
and no moth has ever been seen here since. Bugs
will not, for years after, go where turpentine has
been applied. Mosquitoes will not trouble you if
you paint the headboard of the bed with it.’’

To keep moths out of upholstered furniture, car-
pets and clothing, heat a flat-iron very hot, place on a
brick or stone in the room, put as much gum camphor
as will lie on under the handle of the iron and close
up the room for a few hours.

SILVER-MOTHS AND BUFFALO-BEETLES

A most pestilent crew! Their field of action is
generally the carpet, the rug (the more costly the
better) and upholstered furniture.

So far as I can judge, they attract one another.
Like Longfellow’s vultures and human woes—

‘‘They gather, gather, descending flockwise—’’

until the poor housemother is distraught beyond
expression. Try this plan of warfare: Stir red
pepper into wood alcohol in the proportion of a table-
1544 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

spoonful to a pint. With a syringe inject the liquid
into every crevice and corner. Turn up the edges
of the carpets and wet them with the mixture. Shut
the rooms up closely for a few hours to allow the al-
cohol to evaporate slowly. It is not likely that a
single treatment will abolish the evil. Persevere,
adding, now and then, a lump of camphor, crushed,
to the pepper.

When you leave home for the summer, drench car-
pets, etc., with gasoline, in which gum camphor has
been dissolved, and close the room thus visited. No
vermin can live under this heroic treatment.

Or: Drench the edges of the carpets and all along
the bottom of the baseboard with gasoline. Shut the
room up tightly for twenty-four hours. Open and
air. Let no artificial light be taken into the room
meanwhile. This will kill any sort of vermin.

For a moth-infested rug: First, take the rug and
have it beaten well from the wrong side. When no
dust remains, spread it to full size in a disused room,
and drench it with gasoline. Roll it up, wrong side
out, to retain the strength of the gasoline, and close
the room for two days. Open in broad daylight, un-
roll and air your rug, and return it to its usual place.
There will be no moths left alive in it.

The gasoline is more effective still if mixed with
camphor or cedar oil. Allow a tablespoonful of
cedar oil to a quart of gasoline, shaking the bottle
hard to mix the ingredients thoroughly. Keep the
bottle closely corked.
FRIDAY 155

FOR FURNITURE

(1) If furniture is infested with moths, remove
the lining beneath the seat and interline with tar
paper.

(2) If the moths have got into the carpet it must
be taken up, thoroughly shaken and pressed with a
flat-iron as hot as it will bear without scorching.
Then liberally sprinkle the floor where it is to lie
with spirits of turpentine, pouring it into any cracks
there may be between the boards.

FLEAS

Pennyroyal, properly used, is sure death to fleas.
If the green herb is in full season, order a bushel or
more of it through a market man, and strew it
thickly in every flea-infested room. Take one room
at a time: cover the floor with pennyroyal, and shut
door and windows, not opening them again for two
days. Then gather up the withered herbs, and burn
them at once. Repeat the process if it is necessary,
which is not likely. If you can not get the green
herb, put oil of pennyroyal into boiling water, and
serub floors and woodwork with it.

Or: Since the fresh pennyroyal is very hard to
obtain in a large city, for a six-room flat take three
pounds of sulphur, wet with alcohol, or three sul-
phur candles. After removing silver and gilt arti-
cles and dainty colors, put the sulphur into an old
pan and set inside of another pan of water. Unlock
156 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WHEK

the windows, so that they may be opened from out-
side, and ignite. Be careful not to inhale the fumes.

From a tropical city where the nimble pests gain
foothold in the beds, eluding the daily quest, and
bobbing up serenely as soon as the weary foreigner
lays him down to sleep, we have a message:

“‘Saturate one corner of a handkerchief with coal
oil, just the least you can, so as not to drip, squeeze
it tightly with the hand; pass it between the sheets
so as to scatter the odor around where the fleas are;
then pin the kerchief on the back part of the night-
robe just below the shoulder. This J do to keep
from smelling the odor of the oil myself.

“The fleas will soon leave the bed and house. I
keep a little cloth saturated and place it so it can not
be smelled by myself. The fleas soon desert the
room.”’

To whatever means you may resort, add this to it.
Lay sheets of ‘‘sticky fly-paper’’ under the bed and
other large articles of furniture, also along the bot-
tom of the baseboard in secluded corners. Do this
at night, since the papers will be unsightly in the
day, and veritable snares for unwary feet. Next
morning, look at them, and if they are not dotted
with black specks, that will never be nimble again,
do not repeat the experiment. Burn paper and fleas
together.

Fleas upon cats and dogs: Upon four ounces of ©
foxglove leaves, pour two quarts of boiling water,
FRIDAY 157

and with this wash the animal. Repeat the opera-
tion three or four times a year.

Or: Wash him well in two gallons of water to
which you have added a cupful of kerosene. Some
hours later wash with strong suds made of tar soap.
Swab him with pure water and comb his hair.

ANTS RED AND BLACK

The words recall another instance of ill-directed
sentimentality. A boy-visitor in a house where I
was also a guest, pursued a big black ant that was
running across the drawing-room floor with a grain
of sugar in his mouth, and was about to set his foot
upon it when his mother arrested him: ‘‘My son!
Let the poor innocent thing go! How often have I
told you never to kill an insect ?’’

Was it mean and spiteful in me when I smiled to
myself to see her shudder at sight of a black ant—
I hoped it was the escaped thief—swimming in the
glass of iced tea passed to her an hour later? The
hostess apologized distressfully, as she exchanged
the glass for another, by saying that ‘‘the wretches
are everywhere, this summer! We are tormented
out of our wits by them in the kitchen and pantries.’’

Even tender-hearted Cowper, in excluding from
his list of friends the man who ‘‘needlessly sets foot
upon a worm,” admits that the intruder upon the
alcove’s beauty and the household’s neatness must
die.
158 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

‘‘A place for everything, and everything in its
place,’’ is the surest route to fulfilment of Heaven’s
first law, Order, and the place for red and black ants
is not upon my table, in my sugar-bowl, or upon
veranda and parlor floor.

Some ways of getting rid of the smaller varieties.
Procure a large sponge, wash it well and press dry,
which will leave the cells quite open; then sprinkle
over it powdered sugar, and place where the ants are
most troublesome. They will soon take up their
abode in the cells. Dip the sponge in hot water,
which will wash them out. Put more sugar on the
trap for a new haul.

(2) Mix five cents’ worth of tartar emetic in an
equal amount of sugar. Make it quite moist with
water, put into small dishes and set on shelves where
ants are troublesome. The ants disappear as mys-
teriously as they came. Keep it out of the reach of
children, as it is poisonous.

(8) Take one-half cake of yeast and dissolve it
in a little water, then add a half-cup of syrup. Set
the mixture around their haunts in the saucers of
flower-pots.

(4) Scatter a few whole cloves on the shelves
where they congregate. They appear not to like
strong spices.

(5) Use borax and red pepper freely. Lay rags
dipped in kerosene in their way and tack sticky fly-
paper to the underside of your shelves.

(6) Wash the inner walls with strong red pepper
tea and rub the outer with turpentine soap, repeat-
ing weekly.

(7) Borax and red pepper; soap, mixed with
cayenne smeared on the edges and at the back of the
shelves.

Let me commend, in particular, the expedient of
smearing the underside of pantry shelves with soap
into which cayenne pepper has been worked. Next
to this I place the sticky fly-paper recommended in
premises infested by fleas. Ants seem to have a spe-
cial antipathy for the odor of the composition coat-
ing the paper. They are often found lying dead in
heaps under the paper, without having attempted to
cross it.

Ants infesting lawns: May be disposed of more
easily. Fill a machine oil-can having a long spout,
with kerosene, into which you have stirred a tea-
spoonful of red pepper. Thrust the tip of the noz-
zle as far into each ant-hill as it will go easily and
inject the peppered oil into the hole. It is sure death
to the depredators. If poured upon the grass it will
blight it. Hence the need of a can and nozzle.

A grateful correspondent will not object to the
insertion here of an extract from her letter:

‘‘T have rid the house of ants by following your
directions. I put carbolic soap into all cracks and
crevices, rubbed it upon door- and window-sills, and
scalded the ant-hills in the garden with boiling
water. The ants dislike the odor of carbolic acid in

this special soap.”
160 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

Since the odor of carbolic soap is unpleasantly
suggestive to some of us, connected, as it is, with hos-
pitals and infectious diseases, I return to the soap
and cayenne. Common laundry soap may be used.
If hard, it may be moistened with pepper tea, until
soft enough to be wrought into a paste with the
powdered cayenne.

BOOK-WORMS

Not the human variety, but a tiny insect that bur-
rows into the bindings of our choicest volumes—
leather, morocco or vellum. Happily for our peace
of mind, they are less numerous by far than ants,
fleas or moths, but when they do get in their fine
work, they show no respect for author or decoration.
The stoutest bindings crumble before their under-
mining.

Clean the bindings thoroughly with a dry cloth,
and dislodge the insects by the librarian’s trick of
striking two volumes together gently and repeatedly.
This shakes out eggs and larve. Had this simple
precaution been practised every fortnight, the mites
would not have been bred in your bindings. When
all the books have been taken from the shelves and
treated in the way I have indicated, dust the shelves
well and go over every part of them with a brush
dipped in olive oil, to which has been added one-
third part of oil of cedar. Wash the underpart of
each shelf, as well as the upper, also the backs, with
this preparation, working it well into the wood.
‘When it is quite dry, put the books back into their
places and shut up the library for a few hours, that
the odor of the cedar may impregnate the bindings.
Repeat the process at the end of two weeks. The
cedar oil will prevent mold, and effectually arrest
the operations of the marauders.
CHAPTER XIV

FRIDAY (Concluded)

OTHER HOUSEHOLD PESTS

ROACHES AND WATER-BUGS

We abbreviate proper and common names in this
hurrying country of ours, and the housewife, curi-
ous to classify the insect Arab who roams kitchen
and bath-rooms of mansion and flat, defiant of rank
and rules—must not consult dictionary and cyclope-
dia in the lead of the alphabet. ‘‘Roach’’ is there
set down as a fish, and divers other things, includ-
ing a style of dressing one’s forelock—never as a
beetle. We are in too great a hurry to get rid of
him to make a scientific study of the nuisance.
Pause we a moment to acquaint ourselves—not with
him—we know too much of his methods and person-
ality to spend time in rehearsing them. It is inter-
esting, nevertheless, to note the faithful description
of this pervasive tormentor of the domestic circle,
given by our naturalists.

“They are nocturnal in their habits and very
troublesome in houses, where they often multiply
with great rapidity, infesting kitchens and pantries
and attacking provisions of all kinds. They have a
very offensive smell.’’ Could the most sorely ha-
rassed housemother, with a fine command of her ver-

162 z
FRIDAY 163

nacular at the service of her temper, sketch our
Pest’s portrait more accurately? To cap the climax
of odiousness, he inflicts upon the memory a ses-
quipedalian title. The common kitchen species is
the Blatta (or Periplaneta) Orientalis. His near
relative, the water-bug, or croton-bug, is known in
scientific circles as Blatta Germanica. He was
brought to our inhospitable shores in the hold of
German vessels. Ever since then, he has been a
stowaway of the vilest type.

Borax comes into deserved prominence in the list
of our helpers in the business of freeing our prem-
ises of native and imported varieties. It is war to
the death with us. There are no reservations for
aborigines; no naturalization laws for the alien. I
have found borax—cheap, clean, and harmless to
Christian creatures—more efficacious than anything
else tried in my kitchen. My German cook pro-
nounced it ‘‘no good’’ after three nights’ experi-
ment. At the end of that week she informed me ex-
ultantly that the “‘big fellows were all gone, and none
but foolish babies came out.’’ In ten days these had
also disappeared. We strew borax thickly over
shelves and blow it into cracks. ‘You may try mix-
ing corn-meal with molasses and red lead into a
paste and setting saucers of this in the roaches’ path.
Or, substitute tartar emetic for the red lead. Both
are highly recommended.

One co-worker, to whom I imparted the history of
my success, offers a substitute in part:
164 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

‘“Mix equal parts of sugar, borax, Paris green and
sulphur. I get fifteen cents’ worth and put it in an
atomizer, such as is used for insect powder, and
sprinkle wherever they may be. I take everything
out of my pantry and put the powder around back
of the shelves. Then I put clean paper back on and
replace things. It has been there now for about six
months. I sprinkle mine at night, and next morn-
ing I clean up the floor and wipe off the walls. It
must stay in the cracks. You won’t miss any roaches
for two or three weeks, but after two or three months
there will be no more, if the powder be properly
used.”’

It is plain that there is no royal road to extermina-
tion. A touch of genius—defined by the great Ital-
ian poet-painter as Eternal Patience—is indispensa-
ble to success.

It has been shown in other cases, that they will
leave if pennyroyal is used in their haunts. A good
way to use it is to wet a cloth in water; then let fall
a few drops of the oil of pennyroyal upon it, and
go over the shelves or other places where they are
troublesome.

A peculiarly tough tribe was blotted from the face
of sink and refrigerator, store-room and meal barrel
by borax mixed with cayenne pepper. It is main-
tained by Southern housekeepers that a strong de-
coction of common poke root, mixed with an equal
quantity of black molasses, boiled to a syrup and
FRIDAY 165

spread upon bread is sure and present death to cock-
roaches. They eat it greedily and die.

A ‘‘Shut-in’’ who has leisure for experiments in
domestic and scientific lines, writes eagerly to me:

“Did you know that putting plaster of Paris and
sugar together would kill all bugs in the pantry?
They get dry and must drink, which kills them after
eating.”’

From the Pacific coast we have the authoritative
order: ‘‘Five cents’ worth of Paris green, one-half
pound of powdered sugar and insect powder puff.
In filling puff use one-third of poison to two-thirds
of sugar, and place it wherever necessary. Ina very
short time the roaches will be no more.”’

A merry young wife wrote joyously to me:

“Vou told me in answer to my jeremiad over
household pests, to try borax, and encouraged me to
think that if the plain borax, used with a free and
flowing hand, did not accomplish the object, one
pound of corn-starch and one-fourth pound of borax
carefully mixed together and laid thickly around
their ‘happy hunting grounds’ would clear out
water-bugs. I tried it. I couldn’t open a door in
the flat but they were dropping down on my head.
T tried it—and, presto, change! In two months not
one could be seen. That was over a year ago, and
none has shown up since. If any more move in I
know just what to do.”

The conclusion of the whole matter would seem
~

166 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

to be that (parodying Beau Brummell’s farewell to
English imitators)—Borax is the Man!

Combined with cloves, with salt, with sugar, with
Paris green, or, best of all, with cayenne pepper,
it is the chosen instrument of destruction in the con-
flict with the Blatta—domestic and foreign.

MOSQUITOES

If there are no nets in your windows and no screens
in outer doors, and you can not rig up a mosquito-net
over your bed, bathe faces and hands in spirits of
camphor, or rub them with oil of pennyroyal or
citronella before you go to bed. You may not like
the odor, but the trifling annoyance is more easily
borne than the irritation of the poison substituted by
the mosquito for the drop of blood drawn from your
body. Scientific men have established beyond dis-
pute the fact that malaria is conveyed into the human
body by the bite of the noisy little insect. He has
two characteristics which should be cited in his favor.
He gives warning of his attack, and he is not a creep-
ing skulker. When he moves, it is on wings. There
is no need to turn over the mattresses, or probe cracks
in the search for him. Apart from these trifling
offsets to total depravity, Uncle Toby himself, ‘‘the
pitier of the devil,’’ would have nothing to say why
sentence of death should not be pronounced upon the
female mosquito. For, although from the force of
habit petrified by the usage of thousands upon thou-
sands of years, we speak of the malaria-carrier as
FRIDAY 167

“the,” it is his spouse who does all the work of their
world. Like the hive-drone, he is a cipher at home
and abroad.

The most effectual guard against the bite of the
now-dreaded insect that I have ever known of, is a
cone-shaped tablet manufactured in Venice and in
general use in Italy. If my memory serves me
aright, it was called Sonni tranquillt (Sleep quietly),
and each box bore the stamp of the maker—Zam-
proni. Our sleeping-rooms were large and lofty,
during three winters passed in Italy—winters that
ran far into the spring—and mosquitoes had both
seasons for their own. Every night, fifteen minutes
before bedtime, we placed a couple of the small pyr-
amids upon a shovel, set fire to them and amused
ourselves by watching the miniature volcanoes as
they ignited, puffed, fizzed, flamed, and threw out
volumes of aromatic smoke oddly disproportioned
to the size of the peak that emitted them. The shovel
was waved gently over the beds, and into the far
corners of the vast chamber, until the eruption
ceased. Then we went to bed, and didn’t so much
as dream of stinging singers. The man who imports
the marvelous cones into America should fill his
pockets, and would deserve a monument at the hands
of grateful countrymen.

Until then, camphor is our surest refuge.

Yet—this hint from a New Jersey woman (who
should be an-authority upon mosquitoes) is a move °
in the right direction:
168 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

“Take a piece of paper rolled around a lead pen-
cil to form a case, and fill this with very dry Pyre-
thrum powder, putting in a little at a time and press-
ing it down with a pencil. This cartridge may be
set in a cup of sand. An hour before going to bed
the room is to be closed and one of these cartridges
burned. Two are required for a large room.’’

Coal oil poured on pools or any concavity contain-
ing stagnant water will effectually stop all mosquito
breeding.

FLIES

Three rules stand out, unchallenged, in the direc-
tions for keeping a house free from this one of
Pharaoh’s Plagues: Cleanliness, Darkness, and
Coolness. Open the windows wide early in the
morning, before sunrise,—as soon after dawn as you
can prevail upon yourself to forgo the last delicious
doze for the sake of a greater and more general good.
Open outer doors, also, and encourage the blessed
breeze, as yet untainted by dust and smoke, to blow
freely through halls and rooms. By eight o’clock
at the latest, the shutters should be closed and the
Venetian doors bowed, or fast shut. Within the
shaded interior all should be spick-and-span as to
dirt, cool in temperature—and silent as far as con-
cerns the teasing buzzing of the ‘‘plagues,’’ as hate-
ful as the hiss of a serpent to the neat housewife.

T read once in a ‘‘Woman’s Corner”’ that the odor
of lavender is so obnoxious to the musca domestica
that a few drops upon a sponge will warn off the
FRIDAY 169

winged trespassers from the table on which it is laid.
In generous faith in the ‘‘Corner,’’ I bought the
lavender, soaked a sponge in it, and set the saucer
containing it on the desk at which I must do a day’s
work with the mercury soaring into the nineties, and
the flies finding their way into the room by secret
paths the human eye could not discover. Looking
up from my paper at the end of ten minutes, to
repel their attentions, I saw two seated luxuriously
upon the sponge, and others crawling over the sau-
cer!

If you do not mind the sight of sick, staggering
and dying flies dropping about table and floor, you
may get rid of hundreds a day by making a syrup
of brown sugar, adding tartar emetic, and setting
saucers filled with it about the room. A syrup of
sugar and water mixed with black pepper, is also
fatal to them. Old-time housekeepers put this pre-
paration in soup-plates and laid brown paper, such
as sugar loaves were put up in for sale, on the sur-
face of the trap. They also set snares for flies in
tumblers three-quarter full of strong suds, on the
tops of which were fitted paper covers—smeared on
the underside with molasses. A hole was cut in the
middle of the cover through which the foolish crea-
tures crawled to destruction in the hot, soapy water.
They were caught by the tumblerful, for window and
door-screens had not as yet been heard of by the
thrifty women.

Cold green tea, made very strong, left to get cold
170 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

on the leaves, strained off, and sweetened inordi-
nately, is as poisonous to flies as to human gossips
(who, by the way, always remind me of the most
objectionable of the Musca tribe—the bluebottle).
Set the syrupy mixture around the room in small
saucers. It acts in a few minutes upon the winged
pests. Human ‘‘tabbies’’ withstand the poison for
years,

Try a tea made of quassia, one pint; brown sugar,
four ounces; ground pepper, two ounces, Mix to-
gether well and put in small shallow dishes. Set
these about your living-rooms.

To keep flies away from horses and other dumb ant-
mals: Pick green walnut leaves (the black wal-
nut) and pour boiling water upon them in quantity
sufficient to make a strong decoction. When cold,
strain, and sponge the horse or dog with it, letting it
dry upon him. Flies will not touch anything thus
treated.

Tea, made in the same way of the green leaves of
the watermelon, will have the effect of preventing
flies from touching whatever is washed with it.

Wild peppermint, and the commoner ‘‘smartweed”’
that disfigures our roadsides, when bruised and
rubbed upon the horse’s hide, and in the ears where
insects are most troublesome to the worried Deaet
will secure him from their attack,

‘When washing windows and floors put a few ace
of paraffin in the water, for this will keep away flies,
moths, and all insects. Flies will not settle on win-
FRIDAY 171

dows that have been washed in water mixed with a
little kerosene.
RATS AND MICE

I recommend, first, a first-class mouser, a cat that
understands her business and has a double eye to it
night and day.

Second—Find the haunts of the ‘‘beasties’’ and
with a bellows blow a pungent mixture of unslaked
lime and red pepper as far into their runways as it
will go.

Third—Catch a rat in a trap, besmear him with
liquid tar and let him go. He will make for his home
and leave tarry tracks wherever he touches the wall
or floor. His brethren will be tarred with the same
fur, and tracks, and flee for their lives.

To prevent mice from coming out of the hole they
have made nail a little piece of board over the hole,
but before doing so put as many tacks in the board as
you can, and have the points on the inside next the
mouse’s nose. As he tries to find his way through, it
hurts him and he keeps away from it.

Sprinkle ‘‘tar camphor’’ about their haunts.
They can not abide the smell of camphor and they de-
test tar. This precaution is especially useful in
drawers and boxes that are seldom opened. The busy
little beasts will gnaw through the sides of wooden
cases of books to get at the leather bindings, of which
they are particularly fond. If the tar camphor be
‘sprinkled freely among the books, they will not touch
the cases.
172 |. THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

CATERPILLARS, APHIDAE, ROSE BEETLES, ETC.

From a Southern correspondent who is a success-
ful horticulturist, I have what he attests is an effec-
tual safeguard against the inroads of the foe that
lays so many of our pleasant places waste in hot, dry
seasons.

‘“Twelve years ago I read of the sulphur cure for
the worm pest in an agricultural paper. I had two
cherry trees of the Glass cherry variety, that could
never be used because of the worms. I followed di-
rections minutely; namely, ‘to bore a hole with a
half-inch bit into the tree, slanting downward to the
heart, at the second run of sap, which is in August,
and fill the hole with powdered sulphur, then plug up
tight.’

“In two weeks from the time I did it the small
caterpillars dropped from the tree in great numbers
and the fruit has been most excellent ever since. The
simple remedies are often the most valuable. I may
add, for those who do not know, that the second run
of sap goes up through the wood, and not as in the
spring, between bark and wood.”’

In my own orchard I have found much relief from
the following application. It should be tried while
the fruit buds are forming, and again before the fruit
is more than half-grown. It may, also, be used upon
ornamental shrubbery, berry vines and climbing
plants.

Make a strong decoction of Paris green in hot
FRIDAY 173

water; let it get cold, stir up well and spray leaves,
branches and trunks with it—abundantly. Repeat
weekly until the worms are destroyed.

For the small green destroyers of rose-trees and
blossoms—known to botanist and entomologist as
“‘aphide,’’ to the average gardener as plant-lice, and
sometimes as ‘‘ant-cows’’—I can recommend treat-
ment that has abated the infliction to a satisfactory
degree in my own garden.

First—Water the earth about the roots of the
afflicted plants with lime solution. Stir into hot
water as much slaked lime as will dissolve in the li-
quid, and cool.

Use this early in the morning before the sun
hatches the eggs, secreted in the ground, into larve.
A semi-weekly soak should, in time, make an end of
the evil broods.

Second—Beat into this same lime-water a pint of
kerosene for each gallon of the lime-water, and con-
tinue to beat until you have an ‘‘emulsion.’’ Apply
to the bushes early in the morning, or late in the even-
ing, using a garden syringe.

Third—Water, while the dew is on the roses, with
tobacco tea, made over night and left to cool and
strengthen until morning.

Fourth—Sift powdered white hellebore over the
bushes while the dew lies thick upon them; Scotch
snuff, applied in like manner, is spoken highly of by
some florists. The plague is sometimes so severe
and pertinacious that all of the methods I have in-
174 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

dicated are needed. Leaves are eaten into lace-
work, and the tender buds of the flowers are riddled
to the heart by the voracious wretches.

A gardener is responsible for this piece of advice:
“Tf plants are infested with insects, cut a potato in
half, scoop out the inside, and place it on the soil un-
der the plants. The insects will gradually assemble
in it.”’

Preventive measures are worth far more than ex-
periments upon the full-grown insect. The lime-
water destroys the coming aphid.

VERMIN IN THE HAIR

With the multiplication of public schools and our
admirable system of compulsory education, bringing
into daily association all classes of society—comes an
attendant evil to which too little care is given by
mothers who have never known of it in their well-
ordered households. In the conduct of a domestic
Syndicate, extending over a term of a dozen years or
so, my thoughts have been directed to the revolting
subject by hundreds of letters from distracted moth-
ers, brought face-to-face, and for the first time in
their decent lives, with the problem of rooting out
vermin from their children’s hair. I use the word
“‘rooting’’ advisedly. The child of ten or twelve
years of age, who has been allowed to brush and comb
her own hair for a year or more, under the supervi-
sion of mother or nurse, having never so much as
heard the name of a parasite always mentioned in
FRIDAY 175

whispers by lips polite (when alluded to at all), is

ignorant of the danger of sitting in classes with mates

whose mothers neglect the simplest details of per-

sonal cleanliness. Before warning of the mischief is

given by irritation of the tortured scalp, the loath-

some squatters are in full possession, and prepared to
defend their rights. The horror of the discovery of ©
the occupation is absolute misery to the parent. In
her eyes, it is disgrace. Shampooing does not clear
out the eggs that stick, like limpets to a rock, upon
the pretty hair, and so close to the scalp that the
comb does not drag them off. Extermination is a
work of time and infinite patience, for the tiny
fiends breed fast and live long.

I see, in imagination, the fastidious reader shut
down the page upon the loathsome topic. I could tell
tales of discoveries made by the parents of children
who attend select private schools, and are never suf-
fered to ride in street-cars, that might mitigate the
shuddering critic’s judgment as to the propriety of
putting this part of my chapter into print.

Imprimis, wash the hair and the scalp thoroughly
with strong suds made of warm water and tar soap.
Add a little ammonia to the suds. Yes! I know it will
take the oil and, consequently, the luster out of the
luxuriant locks of which you are so innocently proud.
The luster may be coaxed back when more harmful
things are disposed of. Wash, comb and brush the
hair well. Then obey this simple prescription.

Tincture of larkspur will certainly destroy vermin
176- THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

in the hair, and make an end of the ‘‘nits’’ or eggs,
that cling to the hair and promise other broods. Be
careful to keep the tincture out of the reach of chil-
dren, as it is a deadly poison, taken internally. Wet
the hair and scalp well at bedtime for a week.

Old countrywomen have been aware of the virtues
of larkspur as a specific for this affliction for many
years. But they made a strong decoction of the blos-
soms and used it as a wash for the hair. The more
potent tincture is a veritable specific, if the use of it
be intelligently and faithfully continued.

BEDBUGS

They may have a dozen aliases, being even more re-
pulsive to the housemotherly mind (if possible) than
the ‘‘creepers’’ just dismissed with a mighty sigh of
relief. The murderer of sleep and the thrifty house-
wife’s chiefest dread—is a ‘‘red rover,’’ a ‘‘nocturnal
creeper,’’ a ‘‘household pirate,’’ a ‘‘B.B.”’ a ‘‘double
B,’’ and so on and so on, until we strike, with a shock
that is a surprise at connecting anything so dignified
with the noxious—Thing! upon the dictionary name.
It is a Cimez lectularius! Henceforward, in dealing
with this objectionable creature as briefly as is com-
patible with the part he plays in cottage, villa, city
flat, hotel, sleeping-car and steamer—let us for the
sake of euphony and peace of imagination, speak
of him as the ‘‘C.L.”’

(1) The cheapest, deadliest preparation to every
kind of insect life, and the one to be found in every
FRIDAY 177

house at any time, is ordinary kerosene, or coal oil.
Get at the C.L. with an atomizer or a feather. Re-
peat the dose every week for three or four weeks, and
the cure will be radical.

(2) Take a cake of white soap or a piece of tallow,
and with a knife scrape as much as is needed; then
add an ounce of powdered corrosive sublimate, mak-
ing asmooth paste. After washing the bedstead with
cold salt water, wipe dry and apply the paste to
every crevice. This will not evaporate or soak into
the wood as liquids do, but will prove a ready and
deadly feast for all partakers.

(3) There is nothing else on earth that will kill
them or destroy their eggs so quickly as gasoline. It
cleans everything it touches, and does not harm the
finest finish of anything. Apply it with a five-cent
brush or a stiff feather. It will run into the smallest
cracks and crevices, and one can easily brush the
dead eggs, dust, ete., from the same.

(4) Spirits of turpentine applied very freely with
a five-cent paint brush to all crevices, edges of base-
boards, window and door casings—anywhere that a
wise C.L. would seek a hiding-place—will call each
and all ‘‘to fold their tents like the Arabs and as si-
lently steal away.’’ If they have already taken lodg-
ings with expectation of board, in furniture, or if
you are moving into a building where they may pos-
sibly have an earlier claim, just paint every bit of
your bedsteads and other furniture without missing
any spot, with brush and turpentine, also upholster-
178 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

ing and mattresses around edges and tufting. This,
after freeing from all dust and dirt.

(5) An ounce, more or less, of formaldehyde, ac-
cording to the size of the room—may be vaporized in
a room. In this case close the doors and windows
and pad them tightly. Do not open the room for
twenty-four hours, when every living thing in it will
have been killed. Formaldehyde will not injure the
most delicate fabric. It comes also in candles—so
called—but the liquid is the cheaper form.

(6) Fifty cents’ worth of quicksilver from the
druggist, beaten together with the whites of four
eggs. It takes about an hour, and it will form a kind
of paste. Buy a small flat brush, such as artists use
(you can buy it at a painter’s for ten cents) and paint
the corners of mattress and springs and all crevices in
the bed and room with the paste.

(7) A good mixture is one ounce of corrosive sub-
limate dissolved in a gallon of gasoline. With a
plant-syringe inject the mixture into every crack of
walls and floors, beds and other furniture. It will
discolor nothing, so you may use it freely upon mat-
tresses, etc. Take one room at a time, and then shut
it up for twenty-four hours. Open in broad day-
light, admitting the air freely and keeping artificial
lights out of the room. Sweep thoroughly and burn
the sweepings at once.

These ‘‘infallible’’ preventives and extirpators
set down here were made over to me by seven of the
best housekeepers of my acquaintance. The moral
FRIDAY 179 |

of the collection is: If the particular breed of C.L.
that makes your life a burden does not yield to one of
the ‘‘sure-and-certains,’’ try another.

Now, may I offer a bit of my personal experience?
The C.L. was imported into my new and dear country
cottage within two months after we took proud pos-
session of it, by a new cook who had come direct from
one of the maids’ boarding-houses that are favorite
breeding-grounds of the abhorrent creeper. As I
learned later, the woman took advantage of our
week’s absence on a visit that summer, to remove her
pillows and herself to our bedchamber during our so-
journ with our friends. A fortnight later, the hor-
rible truth of the C.L.’s occupancy of my bed and the
baseboard of our chamber was revealed. I spare the
reader details touching the condition of Bridget’s
own room on the next floor. We ripped up her mat-
ting and tumbled it out of the window, sending bed-
clothes to keep it company. All were beaten at a safe
distance from the house, then left in the blaze of the
August sunshine for three days. They were turned
every hour and taken in at night. Mattress, bed-
stead and walls were soaked with a mixture of gaso-
line and camphor. Half a pound of gum camphor
was broken into bits and put into a demijohn. The
next morning the demijohn was shaken hard and
long. Then, with a syringe, the liquid was injected
into every crack of the flooring and above the base-
board. A strip of molding running along the junc-
tion of the walls with the ceiling, required and had
180 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

earnest attention. The creatures were ambushed
there in squads. After saturating the mattress and
spraying the bedstead, as I have said, we closed and
locked the door. Nobody entered the room for two
days. Jt was opened and aired at the end of the time
and a new tenant was installed.

For twenty years not a C.L. was seen there. Then
a drunken cook arrived from the city, went to bed
within an hour after she alighted from the train, and
arose at my stern insistence at ten o’clock the follow-
ing day, that she might be sent back to town. She
had slept in her day clothing, and when the chamber-
maid stripped off the sheets to air the bed, she found
thirteen lively specimens of the C. L. clan between
them! The room was treated to another course of
gasoline and camphor, with the same result that at-
tended the former experiment.

Yet housewives wonder ‘‘how upon earth a C.L.
ever finds its way into a decent house!’’

Gloss over his name and nature as we may, he is
a filthy thing! In our day of much travel and indis-
criminate mingling of passengers of all nationalities
and habits of life, the price of exemption from the
crafty and incredibly prolific C.L. is perpetual vigi-
lance. The canny chambermaid pries warily into the
corners and tufts of mattress and pillows daily ; pokes
an inquisitive hat-pin into the crannies of the iron or
brass bedstead tri-weekly, and suns blankets duly in
“‘the good old summer time.’’ It is so much easier to
keep ‘‘them’’ out than to get them out that she does
not grudge the trouble..
CHAPTER XV.

SATURDAY

FLOORS, WALLS AND THEIR COVERINGS

‘When the sun is in the West
Lazy people work the best.’’

Many a housekeeper who has striven conscien-
tiously to keep up with the demands of five working
days, is morbidly inclined to apply this morsel of pro-
verbial philosophy to her hard-driven self with a dif-
ference as to the time of extra labor. It can not be
right—so she reasons—that every Saturday should
be so full of ‘‘must-be-dones’’ from the rising of the
sun until the going down of the same, that she can
hardly catch her breath between them.

“Tf I were a really good manager and wisely sys-
tematic,’’ runs on the self-accusation, ‘‘this would
not happen every week. Things’’—convenient and
all-embracing word!—‘‘would be kept in such order
that Saturday need not be general cleaning-day.’”’

For her comfort be it said that this has been the
experience of every other housewife since the begin-
ning of Time. I dare say that Eve bestowed unusual

181
182 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

care upon the ‘‘happy walks and shades’’—the bow-
ers, that

“‘Touched by her fair tendance, gladlier grew,’’—

on the day preceding the Sabbath. Throughout all
Christendom, the wish prevails that the ‘‘day of rest
and gladness”’ shall not be marred for us by the ghost
of duty unfulfilled. With some of the workers there
is a subconscious desire to sweep and garnish as for
the reception of the Lord of the Sabbath.

The ordinary houseworker has a rooted aversion to
carrying the labors of this week into the next. One
of the ear-marks of the slattern in the eyes of her
fellows is the trick of putting off a little ironing, a
_ little serubbing and half the silver-cleaning until the
more convenient season which, like to-morrow, never
comes. Duties thus postponed, gather weight like
snow-balls. They are as hard to pick up as dropped
stitches and have the same effect in the finished whole.

“A time for everything and everything in its
time,’’ trots smoothly in harness with the age-worn
maxim quoted at the beginning of a former chapter.

In obedience to this, much of the work set down un-
der the head of Saturday, should be done in the ‘‘be-
tweenities’’ of the preceding days. At least two-
thirds of it belongs to the house-cleaning period.
The grouping of the multifarious ways and means
of banishing dirt, and keeping it at bay, is contrived
for the sake of convenience in reference.

Have all your implements handy before you begin
SATURDAY » 2iBS

your cleaning—brooms and brushes, plenty of scrub-
bing- and dust-cloths, broom-bags, soap, turpentine
and chlorides, or caustic soda, for pipes.

In this important task—one that is surpassed in
gravity and in detail by none with which we have
heretofore grappled—begin we with

CARPETS— THE CARE AND THE CLEANSING THEREOF

Carpets—the care and the cleansing thereof: Let
me drop a word of motherly counsel to the young
housekeeper, who recoils in dismay at the prices
asked for velvet, Axminster, and body Brussels, and
who faces the inexorable necessity of covering the
floors of house, or apartment with ‘‘something.’’

Do not have oriental rugs or velvet carpets in your
parlor and cheap, thin ingrains up-stairs. Better
matting for all the rooms—if the floors are of plain
deal—and lay down rugs of serviceable filling in solid
colors, that harmonize with furniture and wall pa-
pers. Buy the filling by the yard; cut it into desired
lengths and fringe out the ends. An excellent qual-
ity may be bought at one dollar a yard, and, being
alike on both sides, it will last twice as long as if it
were not reversible.

One of the thousand-and-one minor annoyances for
which the housemother—no matter how experienced
—is never prepared, is that rugs of single-ply ma-
terial will curl at the corners. She may reverse them
daily as punctiliously as she winds her watch, and by
night they snarl as viciously as a cross dog raises his
184 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

lip at a stranger’s approach. Voluminous essays
have been printed upon the ‘‘total depravity of inani-
mate things.’’ Our veteran housewife can give
points on the subject to the ingenious authors.

To curb the disposition of your ‘‘filling’”’ rugs, tack
a triangular bit of corrugated rubber, about six
inches long, on the sides that make the right angle,
under each corner of the rug. Bore several small
holes in each corner of the rubber and sew through
the holes and carpet. The stitches will be hidden by
the pile of the rug, the short stitches being on that
side. When the rug becomes faded, rip off the rub-
ber, tack it on the other side and reverse the rug.

TO DRY-CLEAN RUGS

Be they cheap or expensive, there is no better way
of dry-cleaning rugs at home than this: .

First, beat the rugs until no more dust flies from
them. Then lay them flat and cover them thickly
with powdered fuller’s earth. Rub it in with a
brush as if you were scouring. Roll up the rugs
upon the powder and leave thus for a week before
brushing and beating.

After doing the weekly sweeping of carpets, take a
dish-pan half full of water, with a cupful of am-
monia in it and sweep the wrong way of the nap with
it. One can not realize the amount of dirt taken up
which otherwise would be ground in. It leaves it
fresh-looking and likewise preserves it.
SATURDAY, 185

TO WASH ORIENTAL RUGS

One woman who rejoices in the possession of one
dozen ‘‘real’’ oriental and antique rugs, testifies,
upon the word of an occidental Christian, that she
never sends her treasures to a professional cleaner. :

“*T clean them at home and fearlessly,’’ she asserts.
‘‘Fearlessly, because I have done it every year for
ten years. I trust nobody else to handle them, the
operation being delicate in certain stages.

‘First, beat them thoroughly on both sides; then
lay them on a flat surface and go over them with pure
soap, warm water and a new scrubbing-brush, scrub-
bing well but not too roughly if they are old. Sponge
off well with several waters, then take a board with
a perfectly smooth, rather fine edge (a piece of pic-
ture molding is good) and scrape them—drawing it
across them until all the water you can squeeze out is
gone. Hang them in the air and dry thoroughly. If
they have fringe put it into the suds, and squeeze out
and it will be of beautiful creamy white.”’

I have made experiments almost as daring with my
own oriental rugs, seven of which have been in active
use in my house for a quarter-century, and which
promise to wear twice aslong. I have sopped up ink
with skim milk, and scoured the milk out with am-
monia; I have taken out grease with a paste of ful-
ler’s earth, and washed out the tracks of muddy boots
with warm suds, and the colors are as firm as when I
186 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

bought the rugs. So I can believe my friend’s ac-
count of her heroic practice with hers.

TO SWEEP BRUSSELS, THREE-PLY AND INGRAIN CAR-
PETS

If you use a broom—and this may be necessary
about once a week, even when the floor is treated to
the sweeper daily—you may scatter tea-leaves, well
squeezed, over the floor before beginning the work.
Or—wet newspapers, tear them into bits, squeeze out
all the water that will come away, and use instead of
the leaves.

Or: if the carpet be very dirty :—Mix in a big
pan coarse cornmeal, three parts—dry salt, one part.
Sift several times to incorporate them thoroughly,
and strew thickly all over the carpet. Rub it in with
a blunt broom, then sweep faithfully, once against
the nap, once with it. You will be horrified—yet
delighted—at the quantity of dirt that will be rolled
up under the vigorous strokes of the broom. If two
sweepings do not get all the meal out, try a third.

If you will substitute dry salt alone, for the meal
and salt, it will freshen the colors, take out the dirt
and kill moths, larve and eggs, should any be in the
wool.

When sweeping a dusty carpet or rug, you may
moisten bran such as you get in the feed-store, with
clear, cold water; work with the hands until all is
moist, and sprinkle over the carpet. Rub it in with
the broom or brush; then sweep it all off. It will
bring out the colors finely without raising any dust.
SATURDAY 187

The broom does its work well, if adroitly plied.
The woman who understands how to work it to ad-
vantage, stands straight, holds the handle firmly, yet
not with a fierce grip that tires her and stiffens the
broom. She sweeps away from her, and if the whole
room is to be swept, works from the corners toward
the center of the floor. In so doing, she does not
lodge dust in spaces the broom has already visited,
but in a compact heap where all of it may be seen and
taken up with the dust-pan and brush. The carpet-
sweeper is a saving of spine, muscles, strength and
time. A good one costs but a couple of dollars or so,
and it will last for years.

Sweep out the corners as usual first; then run the
sweeper all over the carpet. The labor is much less-
ened, the carpet is cleaner than if swept with a
broom, and very little dust is raised, so there is a
saving all around. If rugs are used, a hair broom or
old broom, covered with a cloth, is necessary to re-
move the dust from the floor about them.

Carpets can be cleaned and the color restored by
going over occasionally with a broom dipped into
warm water to which has been added a little turpen-
tine.

Once in ten days wash the carpet broom in hot
soap-suds, shake it well and hang it up where it will
dry quickly. A broom thus treated will last very
much longer than one which is not washed, and it will
clean the carpets much better.

None of the methods in which broom or sweeper is
188 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

used will clean the carpet, unless the implement be
itself clean. Every time the sweeper is used it
should be opened, the fluff, hairs and dust removed
and the box brushed on the inside. The two minutes
spent in the business will be repaid with interest by
the increased efficiency of the sweeper. About once
a month, moisten the brushes of the sweeper with
gasoline in summer, and in winter with household
ammonia. This disinfects the implement, and keeps
it free from parasites that might, else, be scattered
over the carpet.

Brushes of all sorts last longer and do much better
service if they are cared for and kept clean. House-
hold brushes should be washed frequently. A good
solution for this purpose is made by dissolving a
pound of washing soda in a quart of hot water. This
may be bottled and used at any time. When you are
ready to use the solution put a tablespoonful into a
quart of water and wash your brushes in that. A
little soap in addition for the soft brush is a good
thing. Rinse in cold water and dry in the open air.

TO SCRUB A VERY DIRTY CARPET

It was reserved for the brave housemother of to-
day to demonstrate that no carpet—not even nursery
ingrain, or a kitchen rag-carpet—need be thrown
away because it is, apparently, hopelessly soiled. To
leave it as it is would be dangerously unsanitary. It
is whole in woof and stanch in warp. Stiff with ad-
hesive dirt, including grease and stickiness, the sight
SATURDAY. 189

of it is an offense to the neat-handed mistress and a
disgrace to the household. If the colors be tolerably
fast the apparently hapless article may be scrubbed
into comely usefulness.

‘Have it taken up and beaten on both sides with
stout whips that will get out the loose soil, yet not
break the threads. This done, tack it again to the
floor. Have ready two pails of clear hot water. In
one dissolve one bar of good laundry soap, one that
makes a fine lather. If your carpets have many light
shades, use one cup of gasoline to a gallon of suds.
If the carpet be all wool, use a few spoonfuls of am-
monia. With a good stiff serub-brush scrub the car-
pet as you would the floor, but do not soak it. (Wring
your cloth in clean warm water and rinse off the
suds; then wipe as dry as possible with a clean cloth.
If your carpet is not too wet when you get through
the work, it will soon dry if the windows are left
open.

The repeated caution against soaking the carpet
means much. Wipe as fast as you wash, doing a
small space at a time, and changing the cloth with
which the wiping is done before it gets wringing wet.
The oftener you substitute a dry for a damp cloth,
and the more effectually you get the wet out of the
carpet, the sooner and the better the job will be done.
Let no one tread on the carpet until it is perfectly
dry. Do the washing on a hot day when the sun
shines brightly and the wind brings no dust into the

room.
190 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEHEK

A second formula for scrubbing carpets comes
from a practical and a capable housekeeper.

Two bars of white soap, shaved fine; one gallon of
water; four ounces of borax; sixteen ounces of sal-
soda; four ounces of puverized fuller’s earth. Boil
until well mixed; remove from the fire. Add three
gallons of water and a half-pint of alcohol.

Apply the solution to the carpet as directed in the
foregoing recipe.

This formula is especially useful when the carpet
has lain on the floor of dining-room or kitchen, and
is badly spotted with grease. The borax, sal-soda
and fuller’s earth have direct reference to the pre-
ponderance of oily matter in the dirt.

MATTINGS

Mattings are less expensive than carpeting and
cooler—perhaps more healthful—for summer wear.
When buying matting get three or four yards extra
for summer rugs. Cut this into the desired lengths
and finish at the edges by pulling out the straws to
. the depth of about four inches and tying the threads.
These rugs protect the matting as well as heavier
ones, and are easily cleaned and, best of all, there is
no fuzz and nap to wear off and make frequent
Sweeping a necessity.

If you put matting down, be sure the floors are
thoroughly dry before it is laid. Year old matting
gains new life by being wiped up with salt and water.
Do this not oftener than twice in a season, as the
SATURDAY 191

brine has a tendency to rot the straw, if applied fre-
quently. For other cleaning, when it gathers grime,
sprinkle the matting with Indian meal and sweep it
thoroughly, sweeping out the meal and the dirt with
ab

Widths of matting sewed together with a loose
stitch, using carpet thread, make the floor covering
look neater and wear better than when staples are
used to fasten it down. Even tin tacks, double
headed, which are generally preferred to staples, rust
in time, especially after the matting has had several
washings, leaving ugly marks on the straw. Another
advantage in sewing the breadths together is that
dust and refuse do not settle as in the cracks left be-
tween widths of matting put down in the usual way.

Mattings, as well as carpets, should be lifted yearly
in a house which is constantly occupied. The best
mattings are the cheapest, since they are reversible,
as a rule, thus yielding twice as much service as the
poorer and loosely-woven varieties that break into
fuzzy splinters after one summer’s usage.

LINOLEUM AND OIL-CLOTH

Here, again, an article that costs somewhat heavily
at first, looks better and lasts so much longer than
the next best of its kind that it is wise economy to buy
it when one can afford the original outlay. Inlaid
linoleum will show no sign of wear for years, if prop-
erly cared for, the blocks or lozenges being made
separately and set into the fabric like a mosaic. The
192 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

treatment of it is the same as that bestowed upon the
cheaper oil-cloth when laid upon the floor. Neither
of them should be scrubbed. If this course be fol-
lowed the gloss will quickly be worn off. It should
first be carefully washed with a soft brush, to remove
all the dust and fluff, and then wiped with a large soft
cloth wrung out in tepid (not hot) water. If it is
very dirty it may be necessary to use a little soft soap,
but this should be done rarely, and on no account
must soda be used. When it is dry, wipe over with a
cloth or sponge dipped in skim milk. This in winter
will brighten and preserve the colors and give it a
polish. After sponging with the milk dry with a
cloth.

The milk should not be used in warm weather. It
attracts flies, no matter how carefully it is dried. In
winter, the drying must be thorough, as the dust, in
settling upon the dampened oil-cloth, will form a vis-
cid film with the milk. On this account, we never
have our kitchen linoleum sponged with milk while
we are in city quarters. The direful and unescap-
able ‘‘blacks’’ that sift between window-sashes and
keyholes give a dingy complexion to curtains and
floor-coverings, be the housewifely watch never so
vigilant.

Use a soft, fine cloth in wiping oil-cloth and lino-
leum. A coarse, rough piece of osnaburg, or bur-
lap, will, in time, scratch the polished surface and
injure it. Save old crash towels and other linens
for the purpose.
SATURDAY 193

PAINTED FLOORS

Housewives are not agreed as to the use of cold or
of lukewarm water in cleaning paint. There is but
one opinion among experienced cleaners as to the
effect of hot water upon floors and walls coated with
paint, with varnish, or with oil. it softens and dims
paint; takes off varnish, leaving a sticky residuum,
and transforms an oiled floor into a dirty surface that
calls dismally for detersives.

Says one housewife: ‘‘When cleaning paint, use
simple cold water with a sponge or woolen cloth, wip-
ing off with a dry cloth, and you will be surprised to
see how quickly you will have to change the water.
I have used this method for three years and could not
be induced to go back to warm water.”’

On the other hand a woman who has kept house as
long, and as successfully, maintains that warm water
does the work better and in less time. I let her speak
for herself and for her theory:

‘“We have just cleaned our kitchen walls, which are
painted, and are so well pleased with the result that
I would like others to know how we did it. To the
one ordinary scrubbing-pail about two-thirds full of
warm water we added a heaping teaspoonful of bak-
ing soda (saleratus) and washed the walls with a
sponge, rinsed with clear warm water and wiped dry
with a cotton cloth.

“The walls look as fresh and clear as though
freshly painted. The soda does not injure the paint
194 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

in the least and this way is much easier than any I
ever tried before. It is also good for painted wood-
work. I used about a pound of saleratus for our
kitchen walls and woodwork, for I changed the water
quite often—it was so soiled.’’

Number three puts in her oar with a short, strong
stroke:

‘Paint should be cleaned with a sponge and luke-
warm water to which a little ammonia is added.
Wipe dry with a clean cloth.”’

Number four is as laconic:

“Scrub with washing soda and cold water, taking
a small area at a time, and wiping dry before goine
on to the next.’’

After reading these and dozens of other opinions
based upon experience, I am not inclined to alter my
own belief and practice. We wipe up our painted
area and veranda floors with lukewarm water to
which has been addéd a little kerosene. The
warmth of the water keeps the oil thin, and the ker-
osene takes up the dirt after a manner peculiar to it-
self, while it brightens rather than dulls the polish.

PAINTED WALLS

Painted walls may be treated in the same way,
changing the contents of the pail often. You can not
have clean paint if it be washed with muddy water.
Sweep the floor for the like reason before wetting it.
Apropos of sweeping—the integrity of the paint
would be maintained much longer if a hair-broom
SATURDAY. 195

were used instead of the common straw besom. The
latter scratches if plied diligently. For many years
I have had hardwood and painted floors swept with
brooms done up in red or gray flannel petticoats. A
bag of the size required to envelop the broom is
sewed up on three sides and hemmed at the top. Into
this hem a stout tape is run and when the broom is in
the bag, the string is drawn, and tied about the handle
to hold the bag in place. The flannel wears out in
time, but the paint and varnish hold their own, and
coarse red flannel is cheap. Sometimes I have sub-
stituted lead-colored Canton flannel for the flannel,
with the fuzzy side out. It sweeps clean, but when
the fluff wears off the bag is threadbare and compara-
tively useless. Don’t make the mistake of cleaning
paint with sand soap. It scratches the paint; the
other soap will do the work.

OILED AND HARD-WOOD FLOORS

A notable New England housewife (and there are
no more intelligent homemakers the world over than
our New England dames) has generously written
down for our use the story of her experience with a
hard-wood floor of domestic manufacture.

‘¢Tn most households the easiest way to care for the
floors is a problem. For the benefit of any one who
will try my way I gladly give my recipe. While the
expense is something at the start, it is a joy unde-
scribed. Any man handy with nails can lay a floor
over an old one.
196 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

“‘My husband purchased hard pine tongued and
grooved boards, laying them the long way of the
room. Jam the boards together as you nail, to close
the cracks. Be sure to use perfectly dry stock. Use
slim wire nails and ‘blind nail’ securely down.
When all is done, sweep two or three times, and if
there are any spots do not attempt to do any washing,
as water spoils the whole effect of the finish.

‘Now, make a swab of old cloth and go all over the
surface, wetting every part with linseed oil (raw).
Let this stand all night. Repeat the second night.
In a few days go over the whole with common lamp
oil, wiping it off very much as you would with water
if washing. Wipe with a soft cloth.

‘Do this work on a sunny morning, leaving doors
and windows open for several hours. The floor,
without the lamp-oil finish, will show spots, but when
finished in this way no spot can be found, except, of
course, molasses or some sugary mixture which sel-
dom finds its way to the floor. Spots of this kind
can be removed with warm suds.

‘“My husband laid my kitchen floor two years ago,
and it looks as good as the day it was done, and no
hard work either. When we take into consideration
that we have no back hall, and there is a perpetual
grind of sand and dirt, it is wonderful how well our
floor always looks with so little care.’’

It is not every John who can handle a carpenter’s
tools so deftly as our New Englander’s obliging hus-
band. But in every neighborhood there are carpen-
SATURDAY 197

ters who can work by the directions here laid down.
We are under obligations to the housewife for telling
us how to care for the oiled floor after it is laid.

I think she would do well to avail herself of the in-
estimable kerosene in cleaning the oiled boards.
This is the most approved method of treating a floor
that has been oiled, not varnished. Water that is
just blood-warm is mixed with a little kerosene—say
a cupful to a gallon of water. A cloth is wrung out
in this and the floor is wiped with it—neither
scrubbed nor swabbed. Change the water fre-
quently.

‘When oiling floors, use a woolen cloth rather than
a brush. If the oil is thoroughly rubbed in with the
cloth the result will be much more satisfactory than
when put on witha brush. The same is true in stain-
ing floors, and in this case the stain should be rubbed
into the wood with one cloth and then rubbed off with
another.

Grained and varnished imitations of hard wood
are best cleaned by rubbing well with cloths wrung
out in borax soap-suds. Afterward, they should be
rubbed with a flannel barely moistened with kerosene.
Tf there is too much kerosene it will dissolve and blur
the colors.

Tf you would prefer a stained to a painted floor, try
the recipe which follows:

Tf there be traces of the old paint or varnish on
the boards, scrub thoroughly with warm water and
soda to get every bit of it out of the grain of the wood.
198 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

Then go over the floor with borax water. Finally,
wash with clear cold water and let it dry perfectly.
When completely dry, take one gallon of boiled lin-
seed oil, best quality, and two heaping tablespoonfuls
of burnt umber. Heat the oil hot in an iron kettle.
Then stir in the finely powdered umber, and with a
paint-brush apply it as hot as you can. When dry,
the floor does not need scrubbing. A mop wrung out
of warm water will clean it nicely.

The amount of oil and umber given will supply two
coats for a floor fourteen to sixteen feet square. For
one coat take about half the amount. Total cost of
the two coats, about ninety cents.

In my country house I have had the use of hard-
wood floors for thirty-odd years. They are hand-
somer now than when they were laid. Once a year
they are put in perfect order by a painter who under-
stands what we want and how to doit. For the next
six months they have constant and severe wear, with
no protection except the rugs that lie in the most ex-
posed sections of the rooms. They are never washed,
nor is a drop of kerosene allowed to touch them. The
one idea of the housemaid of commerce, when set to
clean a finely polished hard-wood floor, is to fetch the
oil-can. If forbidden to do this violence to the shin-
ing surface, she resorts to the practice I have indi-
cated in the care of oiled floors. Only, she souses the
cloth in the pail and dashes the oily liquid over the
boards with a free and flowing hand.

Curb her zeal—so far short of being according to
 
SATURDAY 199

knowledge—and your own temper (if possible). A
polished hard-wood floor should be dusted and never
scoured. Do not so much as wipe it with a dampened
cloth. The dust is removed with a petticoated broom,
and the corners of the room are investigated with a
soft dry cloth. If there are foot marks which will
not yield to the dry cloth, dampen it very slightly
with cold water, and erase that one spot. Once a
fortnight, have everything taken out of the room and
wipe the floor with dusters made of old silk, or fine
muslin—or best of all—with chamois skins.

If you can not have the services of a competent
painter, try one of these formulas for the requisite
“‘nolish.”’

Melt together in a bowl set in hot water half a pint
of turpentine, two and one-half ounces of powdered
resin, three-quarters of a pound of beeswax. Do not
let these ingredients come in contact with fire while
melting, as they are all inflammable. When melted
apply to the floors with a soft cloth and polish with
a brush.

The second recipe was given to me by the aforesaid
painter who knows his trade and my wants:

A good furniture and floor polish is made by mix-
ing well together two parts of crude linseed oil and
one of turpentine, adding a tablespoonful of salt to
the gallon. Apply with soft flannel; rub in faith-
fully ; throw a cloth over it so as to exclude dust, and
three hours later polish with clean chamois skin.

A housewife, who has made trial of the latter for-
200 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

mula and expresses herself as well pleased therewith
—contributes this note to her testimonial:

‘‘Once a week, after all the dusting is finished, I
wipe my polished stairs and floors with an old cotton
cloth, on which has been poured a very small quantity
of floor oil—just enough to moisten the cloth and
take up the dust. It also helps to restore the gloss,
which kerosene and some other oils remove or deaden.
Remember to use as small a quantity as possible, or
the floor will be oily and sticky; and do the dusting
first, or it will look just as bad as ever when it is fin-
ished. One quart of the oil has lasted me nearly two
years.”’

VARNISHED AND WAXED FLOORS

Good floor varnish, lke outside varnish, never
washes off. Give the floor a couple of coats of good
varnish, and then wax it and keep it rubbed up with
an oily rag. A good oil for rubbing it with may be
made from linseed oil, one pint; turps, and about one
and one-half gill of Japan. Mix them all together,
rub on the floor with a woolen rag and wipe them off
dry. This makes a fine floor and furniture polish,
if you don’t let the the floor go too far before you
use it.

In a good many places where there are varnished
floors the owners keep them waxed when they begin
to look shabby.

Varnished floors are not made to be washed with
soap and water.
SATURDAY. 201

Polish, where a bright surface is desired: Half a
pint of alcohol, half an ounce, each, of resin and shel-
lac powdered. Mix these with the alcohol, then add
half a pint of linseed oil. Shake thoroughly before
using.

A good floor wax: Melt a scant half-pound of
beeswax; set in a pan of hot water; add, gradually,
stirring well, a quart of turpentine, and when mixed,
a half-cupful of ammonia. Cover the saucepan con-
taining it closely, and set the outer vessel of hot water
at the back of the stove to heat for ten minutes. Ap-
ply warm with a piece of flannel, and polish with a
rough cloth.

Paint stains on a floor may be scoured off by soak-
ing them for a short time in benzine or turpentine,
and then rubbing them with emery paper or a little
pulverized pumice stone applied with a damp cloth.

Clean flannel dipped in paraffin oil will satisfac-
torily remove marks on polished or painted wood if
rubbed on for a few minutes. Wipe with a clean
cloth wrung from hot water to remove the odor.

From the care of floors we rise by a natural transi-
tion—to

WALLS

Clean spots on kalsomine with white chalk, blend-
ing the edges with the surrounding surface by rub-
bing gently with a clean, dry sponge. Painted walls
may be washed with lukewarm suds, or cleaned with
a cloth wrung out in kerosene. For hard-finished
walls use dry bread as you would upon a papered sur-
202 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

face, rubbing always in one direction and changing
the bread frequently.

TO CLEAN WALL-PAPER

Papered walls should be freely rubbed with pieces
of stale bread, dirty marks receiving special atten-
tion, and afterward rubbed with a soft cotton duster.

If an entire room is to be cleaned, or if a whole
breadth of paper is badly grimed, and you have not
been far-sighted enough to have laid aside in trunk
or closet an extra roll to match each room, you may
clean the room after this fashion:

Buy five cents’ worth of oil of sassafras, five cents’
worth of glycerin, five cents’ worth of blue-stone;
pour on this two quarts of boiling water; stir in flour,
then knead like bread. Take a piece the size of a cof-
fee-cup, rub the paper by down strokes only; after
each stroke mix or lap the dough before making the
next. Go on in this way until the piece of dough is
soiled all through. Then take another piece and pro-
ceed as before. This is a very valuable recipe.

But a simpler, and often as efficient cleanser is
made of buckwheat dough, mixed stiff with hot water,
without shortening or salt. Knead it until it is luke-
warm, break into handfuls, and use as in the more
elaborate recipe. Do the work with patience and
care, and the result will reward you. If carelessly
performed, you will have a streaked surface.

To remove grease from wall-paper: Rub with
SATURDAY 203

chalk, and leave it on for a day. Then lay blotting
paper upon the chalk, and press a warm iron upon it.
Or, use fuller’s earth in the same way.

Or: Rub the spot over once or twice with a piece
of flannel dampened with alcohol. Do not have the
flannel too wet, or it will blister the paper.

To remove paper from a wall: Since the paperer
will charge you for the time it takes him to strip the
walls and make ready for the new covering, it is an
economical measure to have the surface prepared for
direct operations before he comes. Have at hand
plenty of warm, soft water, and several large
sponges. Sponge a yard or two of the paper until
it is soaked and blistered. Then strip it from its
weakened hold. Proceed thus until the wall is bare.
Wash faithfully with suds of warm water and borax
soap; lastly, rinse and wipe dry. Do this a day or
two before the arrival of the workman who is primed
with charges at the rate of four dollars per day ‘‘for
time.”’

Another way: With a paste brush go over all the
paper to be removed, with paste, missing not one inch,
and the paper will come off in one-tenth of the time
it will with water. The secret lies in the fact that the
paste keeps the paper damp and loosens it completely.

Holes in walls can be stopped with plaster of Paris,
but mix this with vinegar instead of water, or it will
harden so quickly that it will be difficult to manipu-
late.
204 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

WHITEWASH

Whitewash, while out of vogue in the living-rooms,
is always in requisition in cellars and outhouses. It
plays an honorable part in the work of sanitation
everywhere. I offer a recipe which is in high repute
under the title of:

Government whitewash: Slake half a bushel of
lime with boiling water; cover the process to keep in
steam; strain the liquid through a fine sieve or
strainer, and add to it one peck of salt, previously
dissolved in warm water; three pounds of ground
rice, boiled to a thin paste and stirred in while hot;
half a pound of Spanish whiting, and one of glue,
previously dissolved by soaking in cold water, and
then hanging over a slow fire in a small pot hung in
a larger one, filled with water. Add five gallons of
hot water to the mixture, stir well, and let it stand a
few days covered from the dirt. It should be ap-
plied hot, for which purpose it can be kept in a kettle
or portable furnace.

A pint of this wash mixture, if properly applied,
will cover one square yard. Coloring matter may be
added as desired. For cream color add yellow ochre;
for fawn, add, proportionately, four pounds of umber
to one pound of Indian red and one pound of common
lampblack; for common stone color, add, proportion-
ately, four pounds of raw umber to two pounds of
lampblack.

The name is not an empty boast. The whitewash,
SATURDAY 205

thus compounded, is in general use upon Government
buildings.

The painted walls of a bath-room should be washed
with a sponge dipped in common baking soda—then
Sponged again in clear warm water. The painted
walls of a kitchen are harder to wash satisfactorily,
but first use the baking or bicarbonate of soda, after-
ward sponging with soap and water. Soda cleanses
white paint or enamel most satisfactorily.

BURLAPS

As a wall-covering burlap is growing into favor,
particularly for hall and the walls of staircases. It
is objected to by many people on account of the ex-
pense. They do not, however, take this advantage
into consideration: it may be tinted or re-colored
without removing from the walls, either a dull or a
glazed finish being easily put on, making it quite as
good as new. The first cost of burlap exceeds that of
paper of the same general effect, but its wearing
qualities make it less expensive in the end.

All the care it requires is brushing every few days
to rid the threads of dust and ‘‘blacks.’’ If of good
quality it holds the color a long time and may be re-
newed indefinitely as I have remarked.

TILES
In bath-room and hall tiles have superseded lino-
leum in a majority of modern houses of the better
class, and in many apartments suitable for tenants
206 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

of moderate means. They are pretty, easily kept
clean and durable.

If they become spotted wash them over with lemon-
juice and leave for fifteen minutes, then rub them up
with a soft cloth. It is much better never to wash
tiles, but simply rub them over with a damp cloth
and then with skim milk or milk and water. If,
however, they are unglazed and very dirty, dip a
damp flannel in very fine clean sand and clean them
with this, using as little water as possible and then
polish with milk as before.

Tiles in which real fireplaces are set, are liable to
suffer from smoke and soot. Clean them with flannel
wrung out in kerosene, taking the time for the task
when the hearth and chimney are cold. Wash, then,
with milk and wipe with a soft linen.

GILDING

Gilding on chandeliers and curtain-rods will show
the effect of dust, dampness and the presence of flies,
after a few months. Do not make the mistake of
treating them as you would brass or ornaments or
utensils.

Fly marks and general griminess may be removed
from gilding by dipping a small piece of cotton wool
in gin, and with it rubbing the soiled parts gently.
The cotton wool should be squeezed before it is ap-
plied to the gilding, for this must not be made really
wet, and any damp on it should be dried as soon as
the marks have been removed.
SATURDAY 207

Cover grease spots on wood or stone with flour,
starch or powdered chalk, which will absorb the
grease. Cold water thrown on grease as soon as it
is spilled will harden it; the greater part may then
be scraped off.

‘Hot water which has been poured over tea leaves,
allowed to stand half an hour and then strained is
excellent for use in cleaning varnished paint.
CHAPTER XVI
SATURDAY (Continued)
WINDOWS AND FURNITURE

WINDOWS AND MIRRORS

Choose a cloudy day for washing windows, or if
the sun shine, do not wet the windows while the rays
fall on them. Some housewives insist that they
‘‘want to see the dirt if it is there,’’ and after hours
spent in polishing, wonder that the glass is streaked.
The reason is plain. The sun dries the moisture un-
equally before the cloth can take it up.

Add ammonia—a tablespoonful to the gallon—and
twice as much kerosene, to lukewarm water. Stir
well and dip a soft linen or old cotton cloth, or a soft
sponge, into the mixture. With it wash each pane
separately, drying with another cloth and paying
particular attention to the corners. Before
leaving the pane, polish with a wad of news-
paper, rubbed between the hands until all stiff-
ness is taken out of it. Proceed in this way
until the whole window is cleaned. As will be
seen at once, you must clean the upper part
of the window first, or the process will be interfered
with by drippings from above. As a preliminary

208
SATURDAY 209

step, in this as in other cleanings, the loose dust must
be wiped off before the panes are wet. Go over the
glass with a bit of old silk, if you have it, or with a
cheese-cloth duster.

Diamond panes in lattice windows: The modern
villa is almost sure to have a few windows thus filled.
Sometimes they are of colored, sometimes of ground
glass. They are more troublesome to get clean and
to keep clean than plate-glass, because it is a ‘ fin-
ical’’ job.

Stir a little kerosene into tepid water. Rub pieces
of newspaper soft, and soak in this; squeeze each al-
most dry and clean the ‘‘diamonds.’’ Wipe at once
with old linen. With other newspaper, rubbed be-
tween the hands and not wet, polish the glass.

Professional window washers do not wash them at
all. After rubbing off the dust and grime, they cover
the glass with a thin paste of whiting and household
ammonia, leaving it on for an hour or more, then
polishing with old newspapers. Printer’s ink has
something to do with the cleansing qualities of the
paper.

‘Another way: Clean windows with a flannel
dipped in paraffin and polish with a clean duster. It
imparts a fine polish.

To remove paint from glass:..A woolen cloth
dipped in household ammonia will do it almost in-
stantly with a little brisk rubbing. If the paint be
hard and dry—swab with a sponge dipped in alcohol
and turpentine until it cracks and scales off.
210 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

To keep windows free from frost: For this form-
ula I am indebted to a shop-keeper who has made
trial of it when the frost would otherwise have
dimmed his show windows into the similitude of
ground glass.

‘‘Bore a small hole—say one-half inch—in the
framework directly below, and another directly above
the plate glass; if a large or a wide window, two holes
would be expedient both top and bottom. It can be
seen that these holes give free circulation, making
the temperature of the glass more nearly equal in-
side and out. At the same time it does not change
the temperature of the store or room to any appre-
ciable degree. If this is properly done, the show
windows will be perfectly clear.

“Should the above be impracticable for any rea-
son, the following is good: Alcohol rubbed on the
glass at frequent intervals serves a double purpose
by keeping away frost and keeping windows clean.
It may be diluted with water, if the operator so de-
sires.

‘For ‘steam’ or windows blurred with dampness,
place a cigar box of lime immediately under the glass
and it will absorb the dampness.”’

If glycerin be diluted with water and rubbed on
the glass, the frost will not settle upon it.

Mirrors: Yor taking finger marks from looking-
glasses, put a few drops of ammonia on a moist rag
and rub the blurs with it. Mirrors which are fly-
SATURDAY 211

specked should be washed with cold water and then
polished with a chamois dipped in alcohol.

To polish a dim mirror: Mirrors kept in rooms to
which light and air are seldom admitted, contract a
film which is not easily taken off with soap and water.
It is a mistake to suppose that it goes deeper than
the surface of the glass, although the usual methods
of cleansing do not brighten the latter. Keep for
this purpose a piece of sponge, a cloth and a silk
handkerchief, all entirely free from dirt, as the least
grit will scratch the fine surface of the glass. First,
sponge it with a little spirits of wine, or gin and
water, to clean off all spots; then dust over it pow-
dered blue tied in muslin, rub it lightly and quickly
with the cloth, and finish by rubbing with the silk
handkerchief. Be careful not to rub the edges of
the frame.

A home-made re-silver for a mirror: Dampness,
excessive heat, much moving and jostling sometimes
injure the amalgam which makes the value of a mir-
ror. If you are within reach of a professional
framer, gilder and mirror-renewer (the crafts are
frequently combined in one man) and the glass be
large, your wisest plan is to send it to him. Small
glasses may be re-backed at home by one who is deft
of hand, but it is a delicate piece of business.

Pour upon a sheet of tinfoil about three drams of
quicksilver to the square foot of foil. Rub smartly
with a piece of buckskin until the foil becomes bril-
212 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

liant. Lay the glass upon a flat table, face down-
ward; place the foil upon the damaged portion of the
glass; lay a sheet of paper over the foil and place
upon it a block of wood or a piece of marble with a
perfectly flat surface; put upon it sufficient weight
to press it down tightly; let it remain in this position
a few hours. The foil will adhere to the glass.

TO CLEAN POLISHED FURNITURE

‘An upholsterer, in a moment of confidence, let me
into his secret of cleaning a piano which had gath-
ered a purplish mist that obscured the polish in many
places and defied the usual methods of dusting and
rubbing. It looked slight but it was so obstinate that
I called in professional advice. The man was as hon-
est as he was skilful, and I was a good customer. He
asked for a bowl of lukewarm water and white soap,
a sponge and a chamois skin and a soft linen towel.
Then he let me see him work. He mixed a very little
soap—a mere dash—with the water, wrung out the
sponge in it and washed a space about a foot square
on the defaced case. This he wiped quickly with the
chamois skin wrung out hard in the same water.
Finally, he polished it dry with the soft linen, and
went on with the next twelve inches.

‘CA trick of the trade!’’ he explained. ‘‘Generally,
it is done within closed doors. Very simple, you see,
but it must be well done—and quickly.”’

That was thirty years ago. I have cleaned pianos
and other highly polished furniture in that way and
SATURDAY 213

in no other way-ever since. The annoying purplish
film will collect upon the face of new furniture. The
absence of this is one of the hall-marks of the genuine
antique. No matter how excellent the imitation, the
appearance of the faint mauve veil condemns it for
the connoisseur.

Smears, spots and superficial scratches may be ef-
fectively treated with a piece of old flannel wrung out
nearly dry in kerosene.

White spots on furniture, left by hot water, or hot
dishes, or sharp acids, are one of the common blem-
ishes of polished and oiled woods.

Try, first, wood alcohol, rubbing it in well. Should
a whitish mark remain, wet a bit of flannel with a
bit of camphorated oil—just such as you would use
upon your baby’s sore throat—and rub the spot faith-
fully with it until it is absorbed. Then cover the
spots with olive oil, leaving it on all night. In the
morning rub the oil well in. This will remove
scratches and slight indentations. Use asbestos mats
in future under hot dishes and plates. You may buy
them with washable covers, more or less ornamental.

An equal mixture of turpentine and linseed oil
will remove white marks on furniture caused by
water.

Home-made furniture polish: (1) Take a table-
spoonful of sweet oil, the same of turpentine, a gill
of vinegar and the white of one egg. Place in a bot-
tle and shake until thoroughly blended, which will be
in about five minutes. Apply in the usual manner.
214 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

(2) For shiny ‘‘polishing’’ wood furniture, add a
few drops of sweet oil to shellac varnish on ball and
rub over a small space at a time till it ‘‘knacks’’ and
shines. A little experience will show you.

(3) For ‘‘wax finish’’ dissolve thinly shaved par-
affin in rather hot turpentine and polish.

(4) If you want varnish to ‘‘stay’’ smooth, apply
it very thin (thin down with wood alcohol or with
turpentine). Then put the article in a closet, if pos-
sible, or in a warm room without draft, as the more
slowly the varnish dries the longer it will stay smooth.
Then rub down with fine sand or emery paper until
the surface is perfectly smooth. Apply another thin
coat. Dry slowly again. Apply a third coat in the
same way. This is a little more trouble, but thus
you can get almost a piano finish. The best varnish
for furniture is thinned ‘‘marine’’ varnish—or use
bleached shellac varnish, in wood alcohol or grain al-
cohol.

The quartette of ‘‘helps’’ just set down may be
depended upon as trustworthy, since I have them
from an eminent chemist who has been a valiant and
true co-worker with me for years in what I have
been permitted to do for American households. I
can not pass his contributions over to others without
a grateful word.

Wasxed tables: Get a quarter of a pound of bees-
wax (the unbleached will do) and have ready a piece
of carpet a quarter of a yard square, lined with a
piece of cloth and padded. Hold the wax before a
SATURDAY 215

fire, and as it melts coat the cloth well with it, and
while yet warm begin to rub the table briskly. Rub
for a quarter of an hour.

Dining and hall tables were rubbed by the hour
with this compound in the very lang syne. One of
my earliest recollections is of being lulled into a de-
licious morning doze, while the sky was still pink
with the sunrise, by the steady rub! rub! rub! of
the waxed cloth upon oaken floors and mahogany ta-
bles downstairs. The wax did much, but in the opin-
ion of the Virginia housemother, ‘‘elbow-grease’’ did
more.

Clean hard wood with a flannel wet in turpentine
and rub afterward lightly with boiled linseed-oil.
Take off spots with fine sand mixed in oil. Apply it
with a leather and rub with clean leather afterward
to bring back the polish.

So says one who uses solid woods, and no veneer.
Instead of sand I should recommend the use of a
very fine emery cloth for spots that will not readily
yield to the oil.

OIL PAINTINGS AND GILT FRAMES

Again I say, that if the article that needs cleaning
be very valuable, it is better not to try to renovate it
at home. I have seen really handsome oil portraits
irretrievably injured by scrubbing at the hands of a
dirt-hating housemaid. Never brush the painting
with a stiff broom or whisk. Hach application leaves
a tiny scratch, and habitual use of .the brush will
216 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

roughen the surface, destroy the varnish, and dull
the colors.

Oil paintings may be cleaned by rubbing with a
cut raw potato. Rub gently with a circular move-
ment, and sponge off the dirt with tepid water. Dry
with a very soft cloth, or better still, a silk handker-
chief. This method is good for all oil paintings, but
care must be taken not to wet the back of the canvas.

Unless you have had some experience in varnish-
ing do not undertake this part of the restoration
yourself. Let each movement be exceedingly gentle.
If the painting be unequivocably soiled and black-
ened superficially with smoke and dust, content your-
‘self with wiping it off with the damp cloth. The cut
potato will bring away more dirt, and if used cau-
tiously, can do no harm.

If the canvas be not grievously begrimed, wipe it
off with a clean, soft cloth wet with weak suds, drying
it at once. Then dampen the cloth in suds to which
has been added a little kerosene. This process will
get off the dust and grime. If the painting be
valuable, do not meddle further with it. Send it to
a restorer of paintings and have it put in good order.

Like caution must be exercised in treating gilded
frames that have lost luster and are scaling off in
spots. There are patent gilding fluids highly praised
by the makers and venders. I am assured by do-
mestic furniture-tinkers that battered and rusty
gildings may be made to look passable by one or all
of the following applications:
SATURDAY. 217

(1) To clean or brighten gilt frames boil four or
five onions; add sufficient sulphur to give a yellow
color. Strain. Wash with the liquid when cold.

(2) A little gold paint to touch up the worn
patches, and then a washing with a paste made of the
whites of three eggs beaten up with one ounce of bak-
ing soda.

(3) Buy from a paint dealer ten cents’ worth of
dry bronze powder and a like amount of banana oil.
Mix, as you need it, to the consistency of cream. Do
not mix more than you need, as it dries up when left
standing. It is much cheaper and better than the
gilt mixed with benzine bought in bottles.

The amateur gilder should try this, and another
home-made preparation, upon a bit of wood before
applying it to the frame, and learn from experience
the right degree of coloring and consistency.

(4) If the frame be soiled, wipe with a soft cloth
wet with strong onion tea. Should this fail, try a
flannel wrung out in kerosene. If the spot be dark
and deep, have a gilder cover it with gold leaf.

Here is a borrowed suggestion as to making the
nails from which pictures are suspended ‘‘fast in a
sure place.”’

Often in putting up heavy pictures that are hung
from a screw in the wall rather than from the picture
molding, the greatest difficulty is experienced in get-
ting the screw to fasten securely in the plaster. This
is a simple remedy.

The hole made by the screw is enlarged and the
218 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

edges of the plaster are thoroughly moistened with
water. Then the space is filled with plaster of Paris
and the screw pressed into the soft plaster. When
the plaster becomes hardened the screw will be found
to hold very firmly.

LEATHER-COVERED FURNITURE

When but slightly soiled by daily wear, the contact
of weary heads upon the backs, and of childish fingers
on arms and seats, your library furniture may be
cleansed without injury by a simple process, and
without calling in professional aid.

Wring out a flannel cloth in neat’s-foot oil. You
may buy it from any harness-maker. Rub the
leather well with this, throw a sheet over it to ex-
clude dust and leave it thus for several hours to let
the oil sink into the leather. Wipe and polish with
chamois skin.

The formule which succeed this are for badly-
rubbed and faded leather.

(1) Turpentine and beeswax melted to the consist-
ency of thick cream make a fine polish for leather up-
holstered furniture.

(2) To restore the leather covers of chairs to their
original luster, wet the leather first with a little hot
milk. Then, after melting beeswax in hot water,
add to it enough turpentine to give it the consistency
of a thin cream. Put this mixture on the leather
covers and polish them with a soft cloth.

(3) To clean and polish the leather coverings of
SATURDAY; 219

chairs, etc., mix together equal parts of vinegar and
linseed-oil, apply very sparingly with a piece of flan-
nel and polish with a soft cloth. The same treatment
is excellent for French polished furniture, but it
must be remembered that the vinegar and oil mixture
is to be applied sparingly and that ‘‘elbow grease”’ is
to be used generously.

(4) Leather-covered chairs may be cleaned by mix-
ing together half a pound, each, of French chalk and
fuller’s earth, two ounces of powdered starch and
one ounce of yellow ochre. Wet with boiling water
until a thin paste is made and add a tablespoonful of
sweet oil. When it is cold spread on the leather and
let it remain until perfectly dry. Then brush it off,
removing every particle of the mixture, and polish
the leather with melted wax and turpentine, using
four ounces of wax to a gill of turpentine. The
leather may be darkened, if so desired, by adding a
little oil to the wax.

(5) Carefully dust the leather, then wash with
warm water, being particular to remove all soiled
spots and dirt. . |

Wipe dry and then wipe over with a black cloth
dipped into beaten white of egg mixed with its bulk
of warm water.

(6) Flaxseed water is good for cleaning leather
upholstered furniture. Pour half a cupful of boil-
ing water over two tablespoonfuls of flaxseed and
bring to the boiling point. Strain, and when cool
apply with a cloth to the leather.
220 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

MATTRESSES, DOWN DUVETS, ETC.

Not one housewife in fifty is alive to the necessity
of watching over the well-being of the mattresses
which have superseded the unsanitary, clumsy, and
uncomfortable feather beds of our Dutch and Eng-
lish forebears. Necessity—if one would keep the
mattress in good looks and prolong its natural period
of usefulness. I take it for granted that your mat-
tress is in two sections. The object of making it in
this form is two-fold. The wear is equally distrib-
uted, and the mattress is more easily handled by one
pair of arms—and that pair a woman’s. Turn it
over and around daily, and be on the lookout for rips
and breaks. Watch for the working loose of tufts;
—nothing else so tends to get a mattress out of shape
and order as letting this go unheeded. If it is per-
manently neglected, the mattress must soon be made
over.

Beat the mattress lightly with a furniture paddle
once a week, and with a pointed brush get the dust
and fluff out of the tufts.

A housewife who looks well to the ways of her
bedroom and slights no other part of a large house,
advises her not very strong sister to sew with a stout
thread at regular intervals loops of wide tape, dou-
bled, to the bindings of the seams.

She represents that they help with the daily turn-
ing, and add to the lasting qualities as well. Pulling
at the sides of a mattress to get a firm hold may re-
SATURDAY 221

sult in strained ticking and in binding dragged away
from the seams. It is not a steady pull that hurts,
but the false strain caused by taking hold of a surface
which doesn’t yield a hand-hold.

If the mattress be much soiled and is yet too sound
without and within for you to think of going to the
expense of having it made over, clean it at home.

On a clear, hot day scrub the soiled parts with a
stiff brush and hot soap-suds and borax. Scour fast
and hard; then go over it with a dry brush and pow-
dered borax, rubbing it in well. Leave the mattress
to dry in the sun. When quite dry, brush off the
powder.

If spotted during illness by medicine, food or blood,
make a stiff paste of corn-starch and glycerin and
cover the stains with it. Apply a paste of fuller’s
earth to grease spots. Leave both kinds of paste on
for twenty-four hours; brush out the powder; wash
the soiled places with borax soap and renew the paste.

CLEANING FEATHER PILLOWS

‘A German Hausfrau commends this way of han-
dling feather cushions or pillows:

“‘Sew together two sheets of light material. Put
into this bag the contents of one pillow, or enough to
be easily handled in a wash-tub or machine. Have
good, warm soap-suds; then put in your bagged
feathers. Rub and shake as you would any piece of
soiled goods. Wring out first in clear hot water,
#hen in cold; lastly, wring out as dry as possible.
222 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEHEK

Stretch your clothes-line back and forth about eight
inches apart, forming a bridge, where the sun and
wind strike freely. Lay your feather bag over the
line, and during the day keep turning and shaking
now and then. If not dry the first day, take into the
house over night and repeat next day. When almost
dry beat lightly. When dry the feathers will puff up
and fill the bag. In the meantime have your pillow
cases washed, and the feathers are now ready to go
back into them, sweet and. clean.”’

A capable New England woman contributes what
appears at the first reading, strenuous treatment:

‘Feather pillows may be freshened and the feath-
ers be made light by placing them out of doors in a:
clean spot during a hard rain. Let them be thor-
oughly wet and then hang in a warm place to dry.
Spots on the pillow cover may be removed with a
paste of water and fuller’s earth. Another way to
clean the feathers is to place them in a cheese-cloth
bag and wash them in warm, soapy water, followed
by several rinsings in clear water.”’

The best renovator of feathers of which I have any
personal knowledge is the sober, old-fashioned
method of sunning them. Turn them out of the tick
upon a clean sheet spread on the dry grass. If you
have not access to turf, the tin roof of a house is the
next best thing. Do this on a still, hot day, so that
the feathers will not fly about. Stir them up well,
and lay over them a square of light netting. Visit
the feathers hourly while the sunshine lasts, and
SATURDAY, 223

shake and turn them faithfully. The sun and air
will do the rest. Take the feathers in before the dew
falls, bringing the edges of sheet and netting to-
gether intoabag. If you havea vacant room or attic
where they can be spread out at night, the good work
will go on all night. A second day’s sunning will
complete it, if these directions be obeyed. The feath-
ers will be odorless and fluffy.

A musty or rancid odor in a feather pillow is in-
tolerably disagreeable, besides being excessively un-
wholesome. Before you decide to throw the offend-
ing member into the garbage-cart, or upon the
manure heap, try laying it upon the damp ground all
day long for a week, turning it hourly. The sweet,
warm, damp earth is the best of disinfectants.

To wash down duvets and comfortables: It is my
privilege to lay before my readers several well-au-
thenticated ways of washing the duvets without
which no bedroom may be considered well-furnished
in our luxurious age.

(1) To clean a comforter that is not badly soiled,
select a hot, windy day, put up a strong clothes-line
and pin the comforter on single, with clothes-pins
about five inches apart. Prop it up well and then,
without further ceremony, turn the hose on it. The
water, forcing through the cotton, will carry with it
every bit of dust and dirt. When the comforter is
dry, it will be as fluffy and clean as when first made.
Do not wring or squeeze. It is the wringing that
mats the cotton and makes it hard. When mine are
224 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

soiled around the edges, I take a soft brush, warm
water and soap and scrub the edges before giving
the shower-bath. Down puffs and pillows may be
cleaned in the same way.

(2) Make a suds of any good soap and plunge the
down quilt into it fearlessly. It will look wretched
and will probably need plenty of rubbing and several
waters, after which it must be hung in the air—not
in the sun if the colors are delicate—for several days.
It should, of course, be brought in at night and it
will need much shaking and loosening of the down,
which will settle in the corners, but in the end, if
carefully done, it will look just like new.

(3) Down quilts and small feather or down pil-
lows which have become soiled can be washed at home
with very little trouble or expense. First, choose a
good day, for the drying is half the battle, and you
need plenty of sunshine and a gentle wind. Use
lukewarm water and one of the many pure soaps that
are in the market just now and avoid a wash-board.
It will not be of any help and it will certainly pull
your quilt or pillow out of shape. Rub thoroughly
with the soap, squeezing and patting with your hands
as you might fine woolen underwear. Rinse in two
or three clear waters and hang up to dry in the sun-
light. A dash of salt in the water will keep the colors
from fading.

THE FEATHER DUSTER

This implement is only tolerable when new and
downy. After it has been worn down to the stems
SATURDAY 225

and points of the feathers, it does more harm than
it ever did good in its plumiest days. It is always
superficial and pretentious.

' A cloth, with or without a handle, is always prefer-
able to a brush, be the latter ever so soft and fluffy.
The feather duster is the darling of the housemaid
whose own the furniture is not. It is one of her
mistress’ pet aversions, offering, as it does, an indef-
inite series of illustrations of the truth of the old saw,
““What goes up must come down.’’ The dust dis-
lodged by a jaunty flick of the gay feathers is as sure
to settle again, and more thickly than at first, as
sparks to fly upward and snow to fall. The best
duster is a soft cloth, which retains what it wipes up,
and can be washed again and again.

Since Phyllis, ‘‘neat-handed’’ or foul, is a fixture
in the home and is stanch in allegiance to the dust-
dispenser, and Abigail is wedded to her ways, and
the politic mistress will not make a stand upon non-
essentials, no word of mine will do away with the
tawdry implement. Then—keep it clean! It takes
to its heart the invisible germs of disease and the
just-visible eggs of moths and fleas. Then it is hung
in a dark closet, and the pests breed abundantly.
Wash it semi-oceasionally in alcohol and camphor,
and hang it up in the sun and wind to recover curl
and stiffness.

While in the bedroom, we will bestow a few min-
utes upon the care of the brass bedstead, which has

become so popular.
226 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

THE BRASS BEDSTEAD

So few of us cling to the wooden bedstead that the
hints dropped with regard to the proper care of the
ancient and ponderous article in our chapters upon
Household Pests may suffice. The brass, the enam-
eled, or the painted iron bedstead is one of the most
judicious of the hundreds of inventions the nine-
teenth and twentieth centuries have made on the sev-
enteenth and eighteenth.

If it be pure brass, it requires no more care than a
fender, candlestick or fire-dog of the same material.
Dust daily, rubbing off any blurs with a soft old silk
handkerchief, flannel or chamois skin. When it
needs a regular burnishing use old flannel cloths wet
with kerosene and rubbed upon the pomade sold for
this purpose.

Brass beds, chandeliers and lacquered goods may be
improved by putting a little sewing-machine oil on a
soft rag and going over the bed or fixtures. The oil
will remove fly specks and leave a luster. It does not
harm the lacquer. Never use such things as onions,
lemons, benzine, turpentine, gritty soap, acids or lye,
which will remove the lacquer, more or less, pro-
ducing a coat of verdigris if the articles be not
cleaned every day or two after the lacquer is re-
moved.

I add cheerfully to what has gone before, the sane
observations of a sister housemother:

“If metal beds are chosen with an eye to keeping
SATURDAY: 227

bright, and then given just a little care, there is no
necessity for dullness and tarnish. Experts say that
brass ought not to tarnish if it is properly treated in
the first place, and the brass trimmings to white beds
are the first places usually that show wear. Be care-
ful in getting your bed to see if the trimmings (or
the bed itself, if it is all brass) are carefully finished.
If you do not know the signs yourself, ask some one
who does; it may cost a little more than you thought,
but it will be less in the long run. Enameling can
be done (redone, that is) at home with very little
trouble. Enamel paints cost so little that there is no
excuse for letting a, white iron bed get shabby, even
though frequent handlings may have scarred the
enamel here and there. Once in every few weeks an
enameled bed should be gone over with a soapy rag;
it is surprising how much dirt will come off and how
fresh the enamel will look after cleaning.”’

The last injunction for which I can make room
before dismissing the brass bedstead may seem over-
fastidious to the busy woman who has but one maid,
yet who would fain believe that her tasteful furniture
is well kept:

‘‘Never touch the brass without having a cloth be-
tween your hands and the part of the bed that you
have hold of, as the perspiration will tarnish it.
Never hang anything in the line of clothing over it,
as some people do. By taking these precautions you
may keep a brass bed for years, by dusting all parts
of the bed once or twice a week.”’
CHAPTER XVII
SATURDAY (Continued)
VARIOUS HOUSEHOLD FURNISHINGS

THE BATH-ROOM

A stationary wash-stand in a sleeping apartment
is now generally recognized as a menace to health.
All manner of ingenious traps, warranted to let
everything down and not even the lightest of gases
up, were introduced to quiet the qualms of people
who were ‘‘up’’ in germ-literature. "When scientists
and the growing death-rate in luxurious mansions
demonstrated the active superiority of deadly sewer-
gas to plumbing precautions, standing wash-stands
in houses of the rich were ripped out, and each bed-
chamber was provided with a private bath-room.

Unfortunately a mighty majority of our readers—
respectable, and making up the bone, sinew and
brains of our population—can not afford to live in
mansions and allot to each member of the family a
suite of rooms. To the dwellers in city tents, other-
wise ‘‘genteel’’ flats, I sound one sharp, clear note of
warning. Dark living rooms are a menace to health,
always and everywhere. Bath-rooms which are
lighted and ventilated by casements opening into
sleeping apartments (and they may be counted by

228
SATURDAY. 229

the hundreds in our large cities) should be con-
demned and abolished by the Board of Health. No
matter how attractive the apartment may be in other
respects, decline to take it. Air and fumigate as
‘you will, it becomes a tank of sewer-gas, all the more
deadly when nearly, if not quite odorless.

A ‘‘bad smell’? is comparatively harmless. Like
that pink of chivalry, the rattlesnake, it gives fair
warning of approach and peril.

I have in sad memory such a mad mistake made by
the architect of a handsome house owned by a friend
of mine, twenty years ago. The bath-room attached
to the nursery had a hinged window in the division
wall. The two little daughters of the house slept in
the nursery, and on cool nights the nursery was ven-
tilated by means of this casement.

Both children suffered continually from malaria,
although the neighborhood was healthful. One never
recovered from the ‘‘mysterious visitation.”’

You may well ask where were the doctor’s eyes
that he did not denounce the nuisance when called
in to the hapless innocents. I might answer that
they were keeping company with the architect’s com-
mon sense and common humanity, and the maternal
instinct which should have taken the alarm at the
first sight of the quarters in which her children were
to sleep and play.

Fresh air, hot water, and borax are our best weap-
ons against the insidious foe.

There should be plenty of fresh air in your bath-
230 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

recom. Unless the weather is so cold that there is
danger of freezing the pipes, leave the window open,
day and night. Even upon intensely cold days let a
sluice of germ-destroying air rush through the room
several times a day. Once in twenty-four hours at
all seasons, flush the pipes leading from bath-tub and
bowls with scalding water, choosing the time when
it is at the hottest and letting it run for ten minutes.
As soon as it is too warm for you to bear your hand
in it without shrinking, put a handful of borax in
the tub and in each bowl and turn on a full head of
hot water.

Next to kerosene, borax is the housewife’s best ally
in cleansing. It is also antiseptic and medicinal. I
keep three grades of it upon a shelf in my bath-room:
a large tin can of pulverized borax for cleaning por-
celain linings and nickel fittings, and for the ‘‘flush-
ing”’ I have spoken of; a smaller can of boracic acid
(in powder) for sores, fever-blisters and corns;
lastly, a dainty can of perfumed boracic taleum for
chapped hands, ete.

I could not support housewifely existence without
my borax.

Scald the pipes often witha strong solution of
chloride of lime, dashed liberally with red pepper.
Loathsome things are bred in the pipesfrom effete
matter lodged there. When I say ‘“‘seald,’’? I mean
that you should flush the drains, including the supply
and waste pipes, with boiling water for ten minutes
at a time, until your end is gained. Then keep the
SATURDAY. 231

pipes clean by similar means. Three times a week,
when the water is hottest, let it run for ten minutes
in all the pipes.

TO CLEAN BATH-TUB, BOWL, ETC.

A plumber says that stains on porcelain tubs,
wash-stands and sinks are caused by allowing the
surface to be injured. When new, porcelain is as
smooth as a piece of window glass, but if rubbed
with sand soaps, its surface becomes like a piece of
ground glass from which no cleansing agent can take
the stain. He recommends common household am-
monia for cleaning.

In cleaning bath-tubs, wash-bowls and sinks, when
the dirt collects around the sides, a little kerosene
does the work twice as quickly as any. kind of scour-
ene.

Pour the oil into an old dish; take a white soft
cloth, dip in the oil and smear all over the tub. The
stains come off at once. Then wash over thoroughly
with warm suds. It works like a miracle. Uo the
same with the wash-stand and water-closet. If the
bath-room has tiled sides the oil takes all stains off.

To clean an enameled bath take a heaped table-
spoonful of kitchen salt, moisten it with turpentine
and with it scour the bath; then rub with a clean
cloth. Before beginning operations take care that
the bath is perfectly dry.

For marks on enameled tub: Rub with whiting
and lemon-juice applied with a stiff brush. Let the
232 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

paste dry upon the enamel. After an hour scrub it
off with a flannel wet with kerosene.

Five cents’ worth of oxalic acid to a pint of water,
kept on hand, is very useful to drop on a rag and rub
on the dirty marks that the kerosene will not remove.
The same applied with a rag and a stick will remove
bad stains in closets and the inner edges of the marble
wash-stands.

To clean marble: Use no soap. A mixture of
lemon-juice and whiting, spread upon marble, left to
dry for some hours, then washed off with pure water,
will whiten it. Vinegar may be used if you can not
get the lemon.

Fine table salt rubbed in marble will remove a
stain unless the latter be of too long standing.

For iron stains on marble, wet the marks with oil
of vitriol, let it remain fifteen or twenty minutes,
then wash off and rub dry with a soft cloth.

To bleach discolored marble: Make a paste of
whiting and lemon-juice, and cover the marble with
it, leaving it on all day and night. Wash off with
pure water. Never use soap in cleaning marble.
Repeat; leave on again for twenty-four hours, wash
as before, and when dry sponge with peroxide of hy-
drogen.

TO REMOVE RUST FROM NICKEL-PLATING

Cover the rust spots with mutton tallow. Let this
stand for a few days, then rub with finely powdered
SATURDAY 233

rottenstone. Wash off with strong ammonia water
and then clear water.

TO CLEAN SPONGES

When very foul wash them in diluted tartaric acid,
rinsing them afterward in water; it will make them
very soft and white.

POLISH FOR FAUCETS, BATH-ROOM TRIMMINGS, SILVER-
WARE, ETC

Take two common candles and grate them fine;
add one pound of rottenstone powdered and three
pints of benzine. Shake well before using. A few
drops of lemon-grass oil will deodorize it. Apply it
by rubbing on with a rag and wipe dry with a clean
rag.

To keep faucets bright: Polish as bright and
smooth as possible, then varnish with good spar var-
nish. You can wipe them off with a moist cloth,
which process should leave them bright.

Iron rust on marble: Make a paste of wood ashes
and kerosene and rub it well into the rust. Leave it
on for a few hours before scouring it with dry ashes
(sifted fine) and a flannel cloth. This will remove
rust from almost any surface. If you can not get
wood ashes, use whiting.

The escape pipe: A can of lye and the garden hose
will cleanse any drain pipe, no matter what the ob-
structions may be.
234 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

BATH-ROOM SOAPS

Keep soaps meant for cleaning the paint, sink and
other appurtenances of the bath-room distinctly
apart from toilet soap. For the former have none
but that which is of good quality and old.

The older the better. You know that soap was
among the preserved domestic commodities found in
Pompeii. Hard as stone, but lathering freely when
wet! In humble imitation of your notable foremoth-
ers, buy soap by the box six months in advance of
using it, cut it into squares and spread them upon
the attic floor to ripen. It is mellowed by age, losing
caustic properties and giving off by evaporation, the
volatile and useless elements of turpentine. More-
over, in hardening, it lends itself to economic princi-
ples. Bridget-Thekla-Dinah would do violence to
tradition and established usage, if she did not let
the square of soap lie in the bottom of the dish-pan
or wash-tub while she is rubbing the clothes or sous-
ing, swabbing and ‘‘dreening”’ the breakfast, lunch-
eon and dinner ‘‘things.’’ When in draining off the
dish-water, she finds a dab of saponaceous jelly in
the bottom of the vessel, she dumps it in the sink.
Green—that is, new—soap is an extravagance the
thrifty carefully avoid. If for no other reason, the
woman who does her own work should eschew it be-
cause it eats into her own hands—making them sore,
coarse and red. Old soap is bland.

Save all the scraps of soap from kitchen and bath-
SATURDAY; 235

room and wash-basins in bedrooms, in a tin can kept
for them. When nearly full, add enough borax to
make a jelly-like substance, pouring boiling water
over it.

Unless the bits are very minute, shave them fine
with a sharp knife. They jell more easily. If they
remain hard, set the tin in boiling water for half
an hour. Next, strain and squeeze the warm jelly
into an earthenware crock through cheese-cloth.
Cover it to keep out the dust and set upon the bath-
room shelf along with the borax cans.

The shelf in my bath-room is of glass and easily
kept clean. The towel roller is of the same material,
never rusting or mildewing what is hung upon it.

The saponaceous jelly gives forth a goodly smell,
softens and whitens the hands; washes mattings and
scrubs carpets, and is beyond praise in cleaning bath-
room and kitchen utensils, particularly nickel or sil-
ver. Now that porcelain is so common in kitchen
and bath-room, the housewife should learn the sim-
plest method of keeping it free from discoloration
and stains, or for getting rid of these blemishes
when they appear. As it is the custom of nearly all
of us to take bric-A-brac that needs cleansing into the
bath-room for convenience’s sake, some directions
for the task are submitted under this head.

MARBLE STATUETTES

Turn on hot and cold water in tub or basin so as to
have a lukewarm bath for the image. Set it in this,
236 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

and, with a soft brush wash it carefully, cleaning out
carvings and corners. Dash water freely over it
when clean, and set in the air, but not where the sun
will strike it, to dry. Do not touch it with a cloth.
The brush does the heavy work, the shower-bath the
rest. No soap!

PLASTER FIGURES

Dip in cold starch of moderate consistency; set in
the window, but not in the sun, until perfectly dry.
If you leave them all day it will not harm them.
Brush the powder off with a soft, dry cloth or a com-
plexion brush.

MARBLE SLABS

Mix two parts of common soda, one part of pumice
stone and one part of finely powdered salt. Sift the
mixture through a fine sieve and mix it with water,
then rub it well over the marble and the stains will
be removed. Rub the marble with salt and water,
then wash off and wipe dry.

ALABASTER

If alabaster ornaments are merely grimy, washing
with soap and water will clean them; if, however,
they are stained, wash them first and then spread
carefully over them a mixture of whiting and water,
made into a stiff paste. Wash this off after a few
hours.
SATURDAY, 237,

MOTHER-OF-PEARL

Mother-of-pearl may be cleaned easily by washing
it with whiting and cold water. Use neither soap
nor soda.

GLASS GLOBES

Wash them with soap and water to which a little
salts of lemon has been added. The great difficulty
of getting the ground portion of the globe to look
white is that grease, settling in the roughness, is very
hard to remove by soap and water alone, or even by
the help of soda. After the globes have been care-
fully washed in the manner recommended, do not dry
them with a cloth, but, after allowing the water to
run on them for a while, let them drain dry.

GLASS BOTTLES

Glass bottles: To render stained bottles beauti-
fully clean and bright, put in salt and pour in vine-
gar; stand a few hours, then shake.

CANDLESTICKS

To clean candlesticks whether tin or enameled, fill
them with boiling water to clean them. Do not allow
the water to stand any time, but pour it off and then
thoroughly dry the candlestick with a cloth. In this
manner grease and dirt may be removed without
damage to the color or substance of the candlestick.
238 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

TO CLEAN A SEWING-MACHINE

Put the machine close to the register, the radiator,
or the stove, and throw a blanket over it to keep in
the heat. Do this that the caked oil about it may
melt. Then oil it thoroughly with paraffin. Work
it quickly for a few minutes, wipe off all the paraffin
and dirt, treat it to a little more paraffin, wipe it
again and after the application of a very little of the
ordinary lubricating oil it will be ready for use.

THE PIANO

‘A piano not receiving much usage should be kept
open at least an hour each day, excepting on rainy
days, when it should be closed when not in use. Do
not expose to dampness or intense heat or cold, or
to sudden changes of temperature, as all are injuri-
ous to a piano, and rusting of the strings and other
metal parts, sticking of keys, rattling of the action,
becoming out of tune, breaking off of varnish will
be the result. Place the instrument against the inner
wall, if possible, away from a hot stove, open fire or
register. Pianos should be tuned at least three times
a year by a competent tuner.

One of the best-known agents for cleaning and re-
storing the color of the piano keys is alcohol.
Dampen a soft cloth with alcohol and wipe off the
keys, rubbing with the grain. Dry with a soft linen

or flannel cloth. If piano keys are exposed to the
sunlight occasionally they will roe their color much
better.
SATURDAY; 239

If the keys are very yellow, and the alcohol does
not whiten them, wet strips of white Canton flannel
with oxalic acid and lay upon them. Take care that
the flannel is not so wet as to drip upon the wood of
the case. It is well to protect it with a piece of oil-
cloth adjusted below the keyboard.

BOOK-SHELVES

At least twice a year clean your library thoroughly
—oftener if you can make time for the task. Take
every book from your cases, and dust them first in
the librarian’s way, which is by striking one with
another lightly, so that the dust flies out; then dust
them with a cloth.

Scrub the shelves on both sides and in front with
turpentine mixed with hot water, and when dry, paint
them with cedar oil. It will keep the book-weevil
away and impart an agreeable odor to the room.

THE KITCHEN SINK

The sink can not be made sightly by any device. It
is unmistakably and irretrievably ugly. It is, nev-
ertheless, the criterion of the housewife’s or the
cook’s ‘‘management.”’

‘Show me the sink, and I will describe your cook,”
is a homely old saying.

Tf it be littered with tea-leaves and coffee-grounds ;
if it be whisk-clean, save for a greasy gloss on bottom
and sides, while in the far corner the blackened whisk
conceals a disgusting deposit of refuse and coagu-
240 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

lated fats;—you need not inquire verbally as to the
manner of that mistress’ housewifery, or that cook’s
fidelity to the duties of her calling.

An excellent detersive for cleansing and sweeten-
ing a kitchen sink is washing soda. Dissolve a cou-
ple of handfuls in hot water, and when boiling hot,
pour down the drain.

Pour chlorides down pipes, or, perhaps better still,
caustic soda, which cuts the accumulated grease.

Scald the sink every other day, flushing the pipe
with the hot water for ten minutes at a time. Once
a week add to this a strong solution of chloride of
lime.

Keep a sieve hanging above the sink and use it
when anything that contains sediment is poured out.
The grating fixed in the bottom of the sink is too
coarse to keep back the substances which clog the
pipes. The worst of these is, of course, grease, in-
visible to the careless eye when hot, but afterwards
working out the troublesome fruits of neglect. It
coagulates upon the sides of the drain, and if not
“‘cut,’’ becomes as hard and as impervious to water
as wax. Nine-tenths of the disastrous stoppages in
the pipes that flood the kitchen floor with all manner
of uncleanness, and involve the expenses of the
plumber and his as costly assistant (why must a
plumber invariably bring along a helper when one
man could do all the work?), at least nine-tenths, I
say, of the mischief wrought by obstruction and
flooding are the direct results of a collection of grease
SATURDAY. 241

that should never have been thrown into the sink at
all, or if there, should not have been suffered to stif-
fen into a mass.

In consideration of this truth, the reiteration of
the injunction to flush the pipes regularly with caus-
tic alkalis is none too strong. My favorite bath-
room ally, borax, is a useful thing to have in a
kitchen. Add a little to the water when boiling out
enameled saucepans, and it will help to clean them.
If added to the water in which dish-cloths are washed,
it will help to keep them a nice color; and if a hand-
ful be thrown into the sink every night, directly over
the grating and left there until morning, it will tend
to dissuade water-bugs from creeping through the
waste-pipe, and sweeten the first dash of water turned
out of the faucet next day.

By the can of borax should stand the bottle of
household ammonia. Both are cheap. The com-
bined cost of the two would not equal in a year, al-
though used daily, what a plumber and his other man
would charge for three days’ work—‘‘and time.”’

Clean grease or rust from plain iron or galvanized
iron sinks with kerosene and wash with boiling hot
soap-suds.

THE RANGE

Tf the coal or gas range should have rusted during
your summering, or you find that the one, in the
house or flat you have just taken, is red with oxides,
scrub it thoroughly with a strong solution of washing
soda, using an old whisk-broom. Then heat and dry
242 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

well. While your stove is still warm, take a clean
flannel rag, put some olive oil on it (it takes very
little) give the range or stove a good rubbing all
over; then dissolve two teaspoonfuls of baking soda
in half a cup of water, and with a clean, soft rag
apply this to the nickelplate, being careful not to
get it on the stove itself. Rub dry with another
clean, soft cloth.

To the coal range give a good coating of stove
blacking moistened with olive oil, then plenty of elbow
grease and warm rags. If the nickel parts can be
unscrewed, do this before you begin to wash, as they
clean more easily when separated from the stove. It
is not necessary to repeat very often, if it is done
thoroughly once. It keeps your stove from getting
rusty.

If, during the incumbency of your predecessor, the
range or stove has been so culpably misused that it
is incrusted with a hard, black substance, unmistak-
ably oleaginous, try washing it with suds made of
soft water and borax soap, scrubbing with a stiff
brush and scraping with a flat stick. When the crust
has yielded to this treatment, rub sweet-oil into the
surface of the stove, leave it on for twenty-four hours,
wipe with a soft cloth and polish as you would any
dull stove.

HOME-MADE STOVE-POLISHES

The number of patented polishes transcends the
reckoning of the evicted demon who boasted of his
SATURDAY 243

legion. All are warranted to do their work to per-
fection, and a few do it fairly well. I append two
formule for the manufacture of domestic polishes,
neither of which can injure the range.

(1) A quart of soot from the chimney or pipe lead-
ing from a bituminous coal fire; one teaspoonful of
white sugar in a coffee-cup; two tablespoonfuls of
boiling water poured on the sugar. Fill the cup with
vinegar. Wet the soot gradually with the water, as
you would wet flour for drawn butter or other thick-
ening. Mix, first with the sugar, which helps to bind
the mixture, and when you have a paste, add the
vinegar, also gradually, beating smooth as it goes in.

There is much in knowing how to put ingredients
together.

(2) “‘Mix aluminum powder and banana oil.
With a paint-brush paint the whole range excepting
the top with this mixture. It wears splendidly, does
not peel and beats blacking ‘all to pieces.” You
must not mix it too thick. Any painter will tell you
exactly how. Ten cents’ worth of each is sufficient
for a range.”’

Whatever polish you may use, apply it to a cold
stove, having previously brushed off the dust, and
with a cloth slightly dampened, wiped off the loose
dirt. A fine gloss is obtained by adding a teaspoon-
ful of alum to the ordinary black lead.

To keep stovepipes from rusting when not in use:
Clean out the soot, rub them well with sweet-oil and
wrap in newspaper until needed. Then the oil may
244 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WHEK

be rubbed off and a new coat of blacking may be ap-
plied. The papers must be bound in place with stout
cotton cords wound around the pipes so closely as to
exclude the air.

To prevent the choking of stovepipes with soot:
Get from a stove-maker a quantity of zine shavings,
or pieces of zine too small to be useful in his trade.
‘Burn a handful in the range when the fire is hottest.
Smoky chimneys are often cured by this simple ex-
pedient.

‘When the chimney takes fire throw on a handful
of sulphur, or, lacking that, several handfuls of salt.

TO CLEAN ZINC

It is so much the fashion now to cover the tops of
kitchen tables with zine that the owner, or care-taker
of them should know how to clean and to polish them.

Scrub the zine with hot soap-suds until you have
a clean, dull surface. Make a paste of sifted coal
ashes and kerosene; cover the zine with it; let it dry
and polish with old flannel.

A neater method is to dip a piece of flannel in par-
affin and with it rub the zine well, which should then
be washed with hot water and soap to remove the
smell of the oil, and polished with a dry cloth.

A KITCHEN ASH-SIFTER

‘A piece of rather fine wire netting cut to fit the
ash tray under a range will save all sifting of cinders,
as the fine dust alone will drop through it. The net-

a
SATURDAY, 245

ting should be cut slightly larger than the tray, so
that an edge can be turned up all round it to keep it
in place.
FLAT-IRONS

Irons that have been put away sticky should be
well scraped with a thin knife, then rubbed with a
rough cloth, moistened in kerosene.

Keep the irons in a dry place when they are in use
weekly. If you shut up the house for a month or
more, grease them well before putting them away.

GREASY PANS AND KETTLES

Pour a few drops of ammonia into every greasy
roasting pan or greasy cooking dish after half filling
with warm water. A bottle of ammonia should al-
ways be kept near the sink for such uses. Never
allow the pans to stand and dry, for it doubles the
labor of washing, but pour in water and use ammonia,
and the work is half done.

GRANITE WARE

A correspondent, to whom I am glad to render
acknowledgment, thus enlightens us on the subject
of stained and blackened granite ware:

‘“By a happy chance I learned that Javelle water
(directions for making on every can of chloride of
lime) cleans granite ware perfectly and entirely
without effort by simply putting it into the stained
dish and letting it stay until the work is done. The
Javelle water may be used over and over again, as
246 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

long as the strength lasts. It should be kept tightly
covered in a glass or earthenware vessel when not in
use, and will last longer if kept covered so far as pos-
sible when used in cleaning pans, ete. I know
whereof I speak, for this cleaned off a sixteenth of
an inch solid crust of burnt jam (when all scrapings,
scourings, ete., had utterly failed) leaving the dish
as clean as when new. ‘The only drawback is that it
takes off the gloss; but since the stains go with it, it
can be excused.

TO CLEAN COPPER UTENSILS

A kettle so badly corroded that it is blackish green
within and without, may be redeemed without much
trouble by this means:

Heat a pint of vinegar mixed with a large handful
of salt to a boil in the kettle. With a flannel rag
scour the kettle inside and out with the vinegar while
liquor and kettle are hot. It will remove verdigris
and burnish the kettle. This done, scald the vessel
with soda and water.
~ To clean one that is not so given over to the deadly
verdigris—one of the surest poisons known in house-
wifery science—rub it with a cut lemon dipped in
powdered bath-brick. When all stains are removed
wash it in warm, soapy water; then dry and polish it
with powdered bath-brick and a soft cloth. Pow-
dered bath-brick, mixed to a paste with oil, may be
used instead of the lemon.
SATURDAY: 247

TREATMENT FOR TINS AND IRONWARE

Rub the new iron kettle first with lard, heat it
until it smokes, and wash in hot soap-suds. It is
sometimes necessary to make a second treatment.

New tinware treated in the same way will last much
longer, as it prevents rust. However, tinware should
not be heated quite as hot as iron.

An iron kettle that discolors potatoes, etc., which
are cooked in it may be set right thus:

Boil potato peelings in the iron kettle, slowly,
for a few hours—five or six hours will do—then clean
perfectly and grease it thoroughly.

The potato peelings will come out quite black, but
they will gather unto themselves and bear away with
them the noxious elements that caused the trouble.

To remove rust from a kettle: Put into it as much
hay as it will hold; fill it with water and boil it many
hours; if the kettle is not entirely fit for use repeat
the process.

Scale or crust can be prevented in a tea-kettle by
keeping an egg shell or an oyster shell in the kettle.

PEWTER AND BRITANNIA

Some of us have heirlooms of these materials.
Unless taken care of regularly they change to a dull
lead color with bilious shadings—an unlovely sight.
Coat with paste of powdered rottenstone and oil, leav-
ing it on for some hours. Rub it off with soft flannel
248 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

and polish with whiting and household ammonia,
finally with chamois skin.

TINWARE

It will never rust if it be always wiped perfectly
dry before it is set away after it is washed. The
moisture left in the seams and on the sides causes it
to rust. Wash in hot suds, rinse in hot water and
wipe well. If you would ‘‘shine it up”’ a bit—com-
mon soda applied with a moistened newspaper and
rubbed with a dry piece will make it look like new.

To mend leaky tinware: Sprinkle a pinch of fine
resin around the hole, on which lay a lump of solder
the size of a bean; hold it over a lighted lamp for half
a minute and the solder will melt and spread. Set
near the fire, or in the sun, for a few minutes; then
plunge into cold water to insure hardness.

New tins should be filled with cold water, set on
the range and boiled there for some hours. Then let
the water get cold in the saucepan. This will remove
the ‘‘tinny’’ taste for all time.

USEFUL ODDS AND ENDS OF KITCHEN LORE

A cement which will resist the action of hot or cold
water, and which is useful for mending earthenware
and stone jars, stopping cracks and holes in iron
and tin kettles and pans, is made by mixing litharge
and glycerin to the consistency of thick cream or
putty. The article mended must not be used until
the cement has had time to dry. Leave in the sunny
SATURDAY 249

window of a dry room for at least a week before you
put anything into it.

Never fill a lamp quite full, or when it is brought
into a warm room the expansion of the oil will cause
it to overflow.

On the other hand, a kerosene lamp that is burned
night after night, and never filled more than half-
way to the top, sometimes becomes charged with gas
generated by the flame, and explodes.

Ivory knife-handles which have become yellow
from misuse may be whitened by rubbing them gently
with fine sandpaper and then polishing with a clean
piece of chamois skin.

Should this fail to restore the color, wash with
peroxide of hydrogen and lay in the sun for some
hours. Ivory should never he laid or dipped in hot
water. Wash ivory-handled knives in a pitcher, im-
mersing the blades and wiping off the handles.

Wooden bread-boards should be scrubbed with
sand or salt instead of soap, in order to be kept in
good condition. Sun, or set them before the fire
until they are entirely dry. A musty kneading-board
will impart a taste to the dough that is not agreeable
to the educated senses.

Iron saucepans should be kept clean on the outside
as well as inside. To prevent the smoke from stick-
ing, rub the outside of a new saucepan with fat be-
fore placing it on the stove. Wash with hot water
and soda.

Tin and granite iron tea-pots if unused for some
250 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

time, will give an odd flavor to the tea when next
used. This may be prevented by placing a lump of
sugar in the tea-pot before putting it away.

The ‘‘odd flavor’? generally arises from the slow
evaporation of the moisture clinging to the inside of
the pot, and which can not escape from the close ves-
sel. Dry it thoroughly and set, open, near the fire
before the sugar goes in.

Never lay meat directly on the ice. Place it on a
dish or wrap it in paper before putting it in the re-
frigerator. Use for the purpose ‘‘butcher’s paper.’’
To wrap meat in newspaper is to poison it slightly.
Moreover the practise is unclean. The best plan is
to lay the raw meat on a clean dish and put a wire
cover over it.

Wash the bread box out weekly and air it before
placing bread in it again. To air it means that it
should be really in the outer air, and if possible in
the hot sun. Miniature forests of mold flourish
apace in staling bread. Do not carry plantations
over from one baking to another.

If your kitchen has a tiled floor, a little linseed-
oil rubbed on the tiles, followed by polishing, brings
up the colors wonderfully.

If the new refrigerator smell of paint, burn a pan
of charcoal in it by day, and at night set pans of cold
water on the shelves. The lead and oils will settle
in the water. The volatile particles cause the odor.
When precipitated into the water, they can not rise
againinto the air. If your newly painted floor
SATURDAY 251

‘smell to heaven’’ conquer the nuisance by setting
large pails of water in the room overnight. In a
couple of days the smell will be gone.

Dry salt applied with flannel will clean enameled
tubs which have been stained. Wash well afterward.

This applies to stationary tubs in the laundry, but
the process is as effectual if the porcelain or enamel
sink be stained.

If, in cleaning the range, some of the polish gets
upon the nickel fittings and dries there, flannel wet
with ammonia should remove the polish. If not, try
vinegar mixed with kerosene.

A dish of unslaked lime placed in a damp cupboard
will tend to dry it. The lime should be renewed
every day or two, as it loses its power.
CHAPTER XVIII
SATURDAY (Concluded)
SILVER, CHINA AND GLASS

THE CARE OF SILVER

Were I to have the entire charge of my silver, I
should have no polishing days and use no plate pow-
der or pomades. As it is, I try to impress upon my
servants the truth of the old saying that an ounce of
prevention is worth a pound of cure—a ton, in fact.
But when the standpoint of mistress and maid in
household economics is the same, the millennium will
have begun. As a young housekeeper, with an in-
different waitress, I never allowed her to wash china,
glass and silver. I did not have my old fender and
andirons then, and if I had owned them, they would
have been an empty show, since we had not the luxury
of an open wood fire. I did, however, have a pair
of old brass—real brass—candlesticks and a gener-
ous stock of silver. For this I had, as I have said,
no cleaning day. The secret of avoiding this peni-
tential period was simple. Every time it was used
I washed it in hot water, to which a little ammonia
was added, rinsed it in scalding water, wiped it
quickly with a soft linen towel, then rubbed it briskly
with a piece of soft flannel. Silver, treated faith-

252
SATURDAY 253
fully and regularly after this fashion, needs no plate
powder, and will hold its own in weight and form
ten times as long as if subjected to the weekly at-
trition of gritty powders and corrosive acids. If
our grandmothers had known and practised this
plan, they would not have bequeathed to us such
paper-thin teaspoons and loving-cups and tankards,
from which patterns and inscriptions have been
effaced by much rubbing.

The readers of the ever-pleasant ‘‘Rollo Books’’
may recall his recipe for keeping his desk in order
“for ever and ever.’’ It was briefly, never to let it
get out of order. My plan for keeping silver clean,
without the weekly polish, is after the same sort.
Never let it get dull. Make a strong suds of very hot
water and silicon, or other good polishing powder,
adding a tablespoonful of household ammonia.
‘Wash the silver used at each meal in this, rinse in
water as hot as you can bear to touch, and wipe,
quickly, each piece as you draw it from the hot water.
No draining! A rapid rub while the silver is hot,
with old flannel, completes the work.

The suds must be strong, the water must be hot—
not merely warm—the ammonia must be put in last,
and the wiping must be immediate and brisk.

The ‘‘drainer’’ should not be so much as named
among those who wash their own china and silver,
glass and plated ware.

Our heirlooms were not worn thin by legitimate
use. They were outraged weekly by vinegar, whit-
94 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

ing and scrubbings. It is not the daily wearing that
makes linen, cotton and flannel old and ragged, but
the wash-board and wringer. I have called plate
powders ‘‘gritty.”’ Put a pinch of the finest and
most velvety of these under the lens of a microscope
and you will see that it looks like sand. No silver is
proof against it.

A cheap and simple way of brightening dull silver
is to let it lie all night in lopper milk. A brisk wash
next day in hot water is all that is needed after the
milk bath.

To save labor and at the same time to keep the
household silverware bright without constant polish-
ing, camphor is valuable. If a lump of it be placed
on each shelf of the closet or cabinet where the silver
is kept, a thorough cleansing and polishing is seldom
necessary. A lump of camphor the size of an egg
should be kept in the drawer or chest with the small
silver.

To prevent tarnish: When your silver is not in
regular and daily use, and when you would lay it by
. in the plate-chest or safe for weeks or months, there is
no reason why you should expect it to tarnish during
its seclusion.

Have it perfectly clean when you lay it aside. Do
not touch it with the naked hand. Perspiration is an
unholy combination of salts and acids, and no matter
how dry and clean your fingers may seem to you to be,
invisible perspiration is always there—and potent!
Take up spoons and forks and larger pieces of silver-
SATURDAY: 255

ware with a bit of cotton batting, wrap them care-
fully in tissue paper and pack in a chest or box. Put
a bit of gum camphor in the bottom of the box, close
the lid and give yourself no further concern as to
tarnish. It will keep bright for six months, or for
six years. I know, for I have followed the plan for
forty-odd years.

In Virginia, even before the war, gentlewomen al-
ways washed up the supper and breakfast things with
their own hands. Colored servants could not be
trusted to do it.

And very wise housewives they were. Inthe whole
course of my married life I have had but one maid
who washed silver and glass in ‘“‘my way.’’ She came
to me as green as her native bogs in June, and was
trained by myself into one of the best waitresses I
ever had, or ever expect to have. The soil was vir-
gin and good. She lived with me eight years. Then
we went abroad for some years and I lost her.
When I told her once that she washed my valuables
to my liking, she answered naively: ‘‘You see, mem,
I knew no better to begin with, and just did.as I was
tached.”’

BRASS

Brasses can not be washed three times a day, nor
packed down in tissue paper and camphor to keep
away the corruption of rust—alias verdigris—but
they may, and they should be, dusted every day with
a bit of very soft flannel. When you leave home for
206 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

the summer, envelop them in cotton batting, then in
tissue paper, tied on tightly to exclude the air.

To clean brass nothing is more effective than the
old-fashioned plan of rubbing first with a paste made
of powdered bath-brick and paraffin, and then with
dry powdered bath-brick. A mixture of lemon-
juice and powdered chalk used in the same way is
also excellent.

To clean brass ornaments wash them over with
strong ammonia. The fancy parts should be well
scrubbed with a brush dipped in the ammonia,
Rinse in clear water, wipe dry and polish with wash
leather.

Any article of brass, with the exception of Benares
ware, may be cleaned in the following way: Wash
the brass in suds made of equal parts of ammonia
and water with soap. This will remove all dirt from
the article, leave it free from grease and give it a
semi-polish. Then use a good brass polish. If the
brass looks hopelessly tarnished any good powder
that is used for cleaning silver or brass, if moistened
with vinegar and applied vigorously, will remove the
tarnish and leave a bright surface.

Black and green brass should be well washed in hot
soap-suds containing soda, then scoured with paraf-
fin and whiting before any brass polish is used.

Sweet-oil and powdered rottenstone vigorously ap-
plied with a piece of soft flannel will clean brass
ornaments.

To clean a brass bird-cage: Clean with a bit of
SATURDAY 257

flannel wet with kerosene, then rubbed upon the red
pomade used for brasses. Leave it on for half an
hour and polish with a dry, clean flannel or with
chamois skin.

Whiting and sweet-oil mixed to a paste and rubbed
on with a piece of flannel will brighten it. Wipe
with a soft cloth and polish with chamois skin.

HOW TO WASH CHINA AND GLASS

Step the first: sort the ‘‘things!’’ That is the ge-
neric term, borrowed from the vocabulary of the vul-
gar. Discard it! Be specific! Bring your glass to
the front; behind it, arrange the silver, great and
small; next, mass the china, each after its kind. The
plates should already be scraped clean of fragments;
and cups emptied and rinsed. Have ready two dish-
pans, towels galore, a soap-shaker and a long-han-
dled mop.

Draw over your hands and fasten at the wrist, a
pair of gloves two sizes too large for you, from which
you have cut the finger-tips. Pour boiling water
into each pan, churn the water in that on your left to
a foaming suds with the shaker. In this lay the
smaller silver, give it a few sweeps with the mop, fish
it up, transfer to the other—the rinsing pan. Again,
take out one piece at a time, with the mop, and wipe
while still so hot that you could not hold it but for the
towel protecting the finger-tips. Do all this rapidly,
laying each article hot, clean and shining, upon a tray
lined with linen cloth to prevent scratching. The
258 #THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

glass comes next. Although the water is no longer
boiling, roll each glass dexterously in it lest it crack,
dip and swirl over in the rinsing pan, and wipe
quickly. Lastly comes the china in due order—
plates and dishes last. Of course, if you have had
many at table, the supply of water must be renewed,
at least in the first pan. Not a trace of grease must
appear upon the surface of the water. If an oily rim
be left at high-water mark within the pan, profana-
tion has been done to artistic rules. For thus is dish-
washing brought into the realm of the fine arts. It
is thorough, and far more expeditious than the usual
sousing, swabbing and ‘‘dreening’’—to say nothing
of the polishing which is omitted in eight out of ten
kitchens.

A gentlewoman may go through the whole exercise
of clearing off the table from which four people have
dined; washing and wiping the articles used and put-
ting them away, without spotting her dinner-gown.

Will you be tolerant with yet another scrap of per-
sonal experience ?

I have lovely associations connected with the ear-
lier years of my housewifely life. My John used to
read the paper aloud to me while I washed the dinner
china and glass. The children went over their les-
sons to me while I washed the breakfast equipage.
I had a voluminous bib apron which my husband and
boys declared to be more becoming than the gown it
protected. I pinned up my sleeves, and there were
always my gloves to keep my hands white. When
i
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y
if

 
SATURDAY. 259

there was something of special interest in the evening
paper I prolonged operations. Usually, when there
were just ourselves and the one child who was old
enough to sit up to dinner, I finished the last dish and
put away all in the china press in twenty minutes
after I laid hold of the first spoon. This when we
had a four-course dinner, exclusive of coffee.

Bridget-Thekla-Dinah would take one hour to do
the same and it would not be done one-tenth as well.
Yet she may be exceptionally tidy. It used to hurt
me—actually hurt me!—to see how my fragile treas-
ures were handled, after we became so well-to-do that
I could not afford to take care of them myself.

There is a world of difference between drudgery
and the practice of a favorite art. That, I take it,
is the interpretation of the saying, ‘‘the labor we de-
light in physics pain.’’

Have you, dear yoke-fellow, ever visited your
kitchen while your faithful B.-T.-D.—perhaps the
most satisfactory in most respects of any who have
ever governed the lower story—is ‘‘doing up the
dishes?’’ She is one of the neatest of all created
cooks, in the main. Her domain is a pleasing study
in orderliness and judicious arrangement. You are
proud of it and of her, and she knows it.

But—she plunges, and souses, and jumbles, and
swashes her ‘‘things’’ in water in which she can bear
her hand comfortably. Swabs them with a dish-rag!
Then she ‘‘dreens’’ them! ‘‘Drains’’ does not ex-
press the misdemeanor. She says ‘‘dreen’’—and she
260 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

is right. Cups and saucers, plates and dishes—even
glass and silver—are drawn leisurely from the cool-
ing water, which was ‘‘comfortable’’ when the
“‘things’’ went into it, and set up on end, or turned
upside down that the water may stream, and stray
—and streak! at its own will across the smooth sur-
faces. When all are out, she dries them leisurely,
and, I will admit, with a clean towel. With two
towels! the second, warmed at the range, to polish
them.
CUT GLASS

Cut glass is sensitive to sudden changes of temper-
ature. Do not hold the cut glass bowl that has had
ice-cream in it under the hot water faucet. Do not
take a piece of cut glass from a hot room into a cold
one suddenly. Pieces of ice touching the sides of a
punch-bowl] will sometimes cause it to crack. A block
or piece of ice should be firmly anchored in the cen-
ter of the bowl. To temper a cut glass dish before
filling it with ice-cream, punch, etc., pour cold water
into it, then a piece or two of ice, very small pieces.
When the dish has been gradually chilled put the ice-
cream into it.

When cut-glass oil and vinegar cruets become so
discolored inside that shot or fine sand will not
cleanse them, fill the bottle with finely chopped po-
tato skins. Cork tightly and let the bottle stand for
three days, when the skins will ferment. Turn out
and rinse. The bottles will be as bright and clean
as when new.
SATURDAY 261

To clean water bottles mix together half a gill of
vinegar and a handful of salt. Shake well and let
the mixture stand in them for half an hour.

TO CLEAN A GREASY JAR OR AN OIL CRUET

Ordinary means do not suffice sometimes to get the
oil out of a jar or bottle in which it has been kept a
long time. Put a handful of well-sifted wood ashes
in the jar, fill it with water and set it in a pot of cold
water. Bring the water in the outer vessel to a boil
and keep this up for an hour.

Since you may not be able to get wood ashes, sub-
stitute a tablespoonful of household ammonia for
the ashes, fill up with water, screw on the top loosely
and boil in the same way. Wash out with strong
suds and rinse before setting to air in the sunshine.

LAMP CHIMNEYS

When you buy the chimneys, put them into a tin
pail of cold water, set this in a pot of cold water and
place this last upon the range where it will heat very
slowly to a gentle boil. Keep this up for an hour—
never boiling hard—and let it subside and the water
cool gradually. This process ‘‘tempers’’ glass.

TO LOOSEN A GLASS STOPPER

Let fall a few drops of ammonia into the crack
around the stopper. Or tap the stopper sharply, but
not too hard with a clothes-pin or piece of wood.
Or heat the neck of the bottle slightly with hot water
or over the gas.
CHAPTER XIX

EVERY DAY IN THE WEEK

Good and comfortable housekeeping is brought
about only by daily attention to many of its details.
Eternal vigilance is the price of other things than
liberty,—surely it is the price that must be paid for
an orderly and well-kept house. A certain round of
duties must be accomplished every day of the worid
in order to make the work go smoothly, in order to
give that air of well-being to the place in which one
abides that means rest for the mind as well as com-
fort for the body. The giving of this constant, well-
modulated, daily attention to the affairs of the house
makes heavy demands upon the self-control of the
housekeeper. Whether she tends to her own house
or directs service, the strain upon the energies is
heavy. To get in everything that should be done and
yet to retain one’s composure and a mind open to
interests outside of ‘‘business,’’ this is the ideal that
should animate a householdress—and it is a high one.
For even in a household where the daily tasks are
performed as they should be, no comfort abides if
there is constant fussing and fuming, if the mind of
the housekeeper is submerged by her cares instead of
floating on top of them. We all know and tremble

262
EVERY DAY IN THE WEEK 263

before the over-anxious air of the over-anxious house-
keeper. We know afar the vexed and careful look
she bends over meat, chickens and vegetables in the
market, determined as she is on screwing out the best
value for the least money. We shudder as we re-
member the baleful glance she casts upon the dust in
the corner forgotten by the heedless maid. The
woman of the sort referred to keeps house at the
expense of the happiness of her family. She rates
housekeeping higher than she rates herself. From
this awful mistake, we say with all piety, ‘‘Good Lord
deliver us.”’

The multifarious details of the daily work can be
managed with cheerfulness and equanimity. We
may not have attained that height ourselves but we
know it can be done. We all remember some happy,
busy, competent aunt or cousin or friend of the fam-
ily whose house always shone with the polish of good
management and whose family rejoiced no less in
the management than in the good temper accompany-
ing it. We all have in our minds the memory of
some excellent housekeeper who was or will be some-
time deserving of that most delicious epitaph found
in an old English churchyard,—‘‘She was so pleas-
ant.”’

The list of those duties which should be performed
daily comes to about the same thing in the estimation
of most writers on the subject. The order of their
performance is not always the same and can not be
laid down as a law because of varying conditions in
264 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

the various households concerned. In some families
the breakfast is late and little or no household work
can be accomplished before that meal. In others
where breakfast is earlier the maid can practically
have the lower part of the house in order before the
inmates descend to their morning meal. The num-
ber of people in a family, sometimes the architecture
of the house, make a difference as to which household
task may be first disposed of.

It is a good plan for each housekeeper to make out
an order of work for every day, also for the special
tasks of the week, have it type-written and hung in
the maid’s room. Though the array of duties may
seem to her a little startling at first, she will soon
recover from the shock. Such a proceeding saves
her confusion and does away with the endless ex-
planations from the mistress which follow usually
the first month after the installation of a domestic.

The following program is one that the author has
herself found satisfactory for the every-day care of
the house:

1. Care of the Front. This includes sweeping the
pavements in front of and about the house, and
sweeping or scrubbing or mopping the porch if there
be one.

2. Make the fires, air the living-room, dining-room
and hall, setting them to rights if necessary.

3. Prepare the breakfast and set the table.

4. Clear the table, wash the dishes and kitchen
EVERY DAY IN THE WEEK 265

utensils. Put the kitchen, pantry and ice-box in or-
der.

5. Make the beds, put the sleeping-rooms in order,
renovate the bath-room, see to the stairs and balus-
ters.

6. If there are any dishes to be prepared for
luncheon and dinner, prepare them now.

7. Attend to the particular tasks of the day, as, for
instance, cleaning silver on Wednesday, general
down-stairs cleaning on Saturday, etc.

On days when the work is particularly heavy, the
mistress of the house should arrange as far as is in
her power to lighten the usual labors of the maid.

CARE OF THE FRONT

In putting this job first the author has given it a
place not usually awarded to it. Most writers on
household arrangements put off pavements and
porches till the middle of the morning. But the truth
is that this is just one of the places, though one
‘ghould not be weakly yielding, where John and the
boys are to be considered. Most of the niceties of
housekeeping John doesn’t know anything about and,
if truth must be told, cares less. But he does notice
the porch and the walks; and when he starts out to
business in the morning and meets Jones or Smith at
the gate, he likes to have the place looking tidy,
‘‘ready for inspection”’ as the military phrase goes.
So out of deference to John, it pays first to sweep
266 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

the pavements, clean the front steps and the porch
if there be one.

One of the readily discernible signs of a good house-
keeper is the appearance of the front steps. ‘‘By
her front steps shall you know her.’’ So said the
lady from Philadelphia where surely the front steps
are the whitest of any in the world. And it was she
vho advised me to use powdered pumice stone in
cleaning steps of stone or cement.

CARE OF THE DINING-ROOM

Whether the floor is earpeted or of polished
wood it should be brushed each morning and the room
thoroughly dusted. There is no place about the
house, except perhaps the kitchen, where absolute
cleanliness is so desirable as in the dining-room and
no place where such constant and continuous care is
demanded. The dining-room table should be daily
polished with a soft chamois and if once a week, as
the case may be, it is waxed or a drop of oil is rubbed
into its bright surface, so much the better, though
the oil will do little good if it is not administered with
a plentiful supply of ‘‘elbow grease.’’ To keep the
dining-room table bright and shining is one of the
pretty points of housekeeping. With old southern
housekeepers it was almost a passion. To some of
us, who remember back before the days of the war,
the most characteristically recollected attitude of the
old family butler is that in which he stands bent over
EVERY DAY IN THE WEEK 267

the mahogany, chamois in hand, bringing out the
quality of that lovely wood.

DAILY CARE OF THE KITCHEN AND PANTRIES

This requires the orderly disposal of the utensils
used in cooking, the keeping of table or tables clean,
the sinks serubbed and free from grease and the
kitchen floor in order. <A painted or hard-wood floor
is harder to keep clean than a tiled floor, which is
cold, however, or one covered with linoleum. One
must not keep the maid on her knees all the time and
it is well to select a floor which keeps free from spots
if mopped up once a day and serubbed on Saturday.
A painted floor should never be scrubbed but should
be wiped up with a cloth.

Among the minor daily tasks connected with the
kitchen is the putting away of supplies from grocery
and market. I know of nothing that adds more to
the neat appearance of the kitchen than the practise
of sorting these out and putting them away immedi-
ately on their arrival, throwing superfluous bags and
other wrappings into the waste basket which is a
necessary part of the furniture of every kitchen.
And while we are dealing with the kitchen, it is worth
while mentioning a means by which the mistress may
help to simplify the daily work of that department,
Tf she will each morning write out the menu for
luncheon and dinner and hang it in the kitchen, the
business of the kitchen will come up correspondingly.
268 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

I have yet to meet a cook who does not recognize the
help given by this system.

THE DAILY CARE OF BEDROOMS

This should be a small charge upon the maid if
members of the family do their part toward making
the house machinery run smoothly. Hach member
of the family should, in the old-fashioned phrase,
keep her room ‘‘picked up,’’ and the time to perform
that office is largely at night. One’s clothes should
be hung up when taken off and not left lying around
till morning, both on account of the clothes and the
appearance of the room. There is nothing more dis-
couraging than to start the day by opening one’s
eyes on a disorderly room. What is really no task
at night and takes but a few minutes before going
to bed, when added to the duties of the morning,
assumes baleful proportions. If the bedroom is in
order and the bed-clothing turned back, as it should
be when one rises, the work of making up the bed
neatly and of dusting the room will take but a few
minutes.

DUSTING

To keep a house properly and daily dusted requires
time and unless there is more than one maid em-
ployed in the family the mistress must share the
task with the maid. Of course the untrained maid
loves the feather duster which is an abomination to
EVERY DAY IN THE WEEK 269

a cleanly housekeeper. She must be taught to wipe
softly and fairly with a cloth over the surfaces and
in the crevices needing attention. White cheese-
cloth cut in squares and hemmed makes the best
dust-cloths. The maid should be taught that these
as well as the broom cloths must be gathered up and
taken care of when dirty, not thrown into corners.
And while we are on this subject let it be said that
the laundress should be instructed that broom-cloths
and dust-cloths are as much a legitimate part of the
weekly washing as handkerchiefs and underwear.
No house can be kept clean without plenty of these
necessary articles in good condition.

THE EVERY-DAY CARE OF THE BATH-ROOM

Every morning the dirty towels should be taken
off the towel-racks, put to dry if necessary or con-
signed to the clothes hamper and fresh ones put in
their places. The wash-bowls, both tub and fix-
tures, should be wiped clean and dry and the bowl
of the water-closet rubbed with a long brush indis-
pensable for that purpose and to be found at every
good department store. Again as with the bedrooms,
the special daily care given by maid or mistress to
a bath-room is no more important than the care that
should be given by each member of the family. No
one has a right to leave the bath-room in such a con-
dition that it shall be in any way unpleasant or of-
fensive to his successor.
270 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

THE DAILY CARE OF THE REFRIGERATOR

This involves its airing, drying and a proper dis-
position of articles within. It is well to know that
the coldest place in an ice chest is the lowest shelf
of the provision chamber. Here one should keep
meat, bottled milk, drinking water, etc. The only
place free from odors in an ice-chest is the top shelf
under the opening through which cold air descends
from the ice. One can keep butter here or milk in
pans. Green vegetables of the lighter kind, such as
lettuce, cucumbers, celery may be kept in the ice
chamber. Some such system as the one indicated
should be used in the disposition of the foods to be
chilled. The greatest care should be taken to allow
nothing to be overturned in the ice chest, or if such
a catastrophe occurs, to wipe out immediately the
soil. The pan under the ice chest, if there be one,
should be emptied every day. Directions for the
weekly or bi-weekly cleaning of the ice-chest are
given in another part of the book.

THE SINK

Systematic watchfulness is required to keep the
sink sweet and clean. The daily care comprises
washing with hot soap-suds each time after its use
and rinsing with boiling water. Once a day after
this process, turn on the faucets and let a good mea-
sure of cold water fly over the surface and run
through the pipes.
EVERY DAY IN THE WEEK 271

THE KITCHEN STOVE

The stove should be brushed off thoroughly every
day and rubbed with a soft or damp paper. This
will insure cleanliness between the times of the
weekly polishing. This polishing, it may be said,
must be thoroughly done or the pots and pans will
come off soiled or unsightly.

WASHING THE DISHES

It is well to insist with your maid on the right
order for washing the table ware. First the silver
with plenty of soap and hot water; then the glass-
ware well polished after washing with a clean, soft
towel; lastly the dishes which should be first scraped
clean then rinsed off with clear water, then washed
with soapy water and last of all rinsed and dried.
The average maid gets rid of the scrapings and or-
derly arrangement of dishes previous to washing.
It pays to convince her, if that is possible, that the
right method saves time and trouble.

LAYING THE TABLE

One of the tasks which practice should make per-
fect, but often does not, is laying the table. A thing
that is done three times a day, three hundred and six-
ty-five times in the year should be done skilfully, and
yet the awkwardly arranged table is not an infre-
quent occurrence. The following are the conven-
tionally accepted rules and arrangements. A canton
272 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WHEK

flannel or asbestos cover should be provided to lay
under the table-cloth as a protection to the table
when a table-cloth is used. It may be said that the
asbestos covers, now much in vogue, are valuable
additions to the housekeeper’s store, as they abso-
lutely protect the table from burns and can, the best
of them, be rolled up like a flannel cloth. They are
not, however, to be obtained at every department store
but are the property of special dealers.

For breakfast and luncheon the use of table mats
of various sizes is, at the present time, more general
than the use of a table-cloth. When the cloth is
used, as at dinner, it should be laid so that the central
crease strikes the exact center of the table. Place
knives and spoons at the right of the plate, having
the ends of the handles near the edge of the table.
The sharp edge of the knives should be turned toward
the plate, and the inside of the bowls of the spoons
turned up. The forks should be to the left, and in-
side up. The napkins should be on the plate or at
the left hand side with the water glasses a little to
the right and top edge of the plate. At the top of
the plate in the middle the individual salt-cellar
should be placed. If the meal in the case is break-
fast, small butter plates and butter knives may be
added to the furnishings of the table; and the service
for coffee or chocolate or both should be placed be-
fore the mistress of the house.

If the meal in question is dinner, the carving-set
and knife and fork should be placed before the car-
 
EVERY DAY IN THE WEEK 273

ver. The amount of silver on the table will depend
upon the number of courses served.

In case the duties of the house are performed by
one maid, it is well to dispense at breakfast and
luncheon with service beyond the proper disposition
of dishes on the table. This is indeed the English
fashion and gives a pleasant informality to those
meals. But service there should be, and of the right
kind at dinner.

Serving the dinner: The maid should stand
quietly behind the carver while the meat is being
carved. She should take each plate from him and
set it before the person for whom it is intended. She
should then pass the vegetables and condiments if
any. The plates should be removed after each
course, and before the dessert is brought on, every-
thing except the glasses and the flowers should be
removed and the cloth should be cleared of crumbs
by the use of a crumb knife and tray or by the use
of a fresh napkin.

Though there are some differences of opinion on
this point, the generally accepted rule is that the
maid must go to the left side of the person served
when the dish is one from which he helps himself,
thus giving him the free use of his right hand,—to
the right when it is something that she places on the
table. For instance she must go to the right with the
plate served by the carver, to the left with the vege-
table dish from which the diner helps himself. Some
authorities, however, insist that everything shall be
274 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

served from the left except water and other liquids
that can be poured into a glass.

In removing dishes the waitress should never pile
one upon another and should not attempt to take
more than two plates at a time. Perhaps it is un-
necessary in this day and age to say that: the silver
should be placed in the center of the plate, the knife,
fork and spoon side by side and not at varying and
dangerous angles.

The rules given are the elementary ones merely of
table serving. It takes but a short time for a maid
to make a conquest of them and rigid adherence to
them should be insisted upon. There is no one of
the daily round of tasks that contributes more per-
haps to the esthetic happiness of the family than that
of quiet and efficient service at the dinner table.
CHAPTER XX

ANY DAY IN THE WEEK

MARKETING AND BUYING THE WINTER SUPPLIES

Marketing may be a matter of any day in the week.
Certainly it should not be a matter of every day in
the week as it often is with those housekeepers who
take no thought for the morrow and are content with
looking no farther than to-day. For the welfare of
the house, marketing should be done for several days
ahead so that cook and mistress may scheme and plan
for meals without a constant running to the source of
supplies. The leisure gained outweighs the labor in-
volved.

‘‘What sort of a housekeeper is she,’’ asked one
friend of another concerning the new neighbor who
had just moved into the house across the way. ‘‘She
is an always-running-to-the-grocery-housekeeper,”’
was the reply, an answer which carried its meaning
without comment.

THE VALUE OF A WEEKLY MENU

My own experience has led me to feel that a de-
cided help to the weekly marketing lies in making
out a menu a week ahead. One can not always keep

275
276 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

strictly to the scheme Jaid down because one can not
know exactly what may be left over from meal to
meal and how this residue may be best employed.
But, in a general way, one knows; and the plan is
one which results in a nicely varied table and in a
simplification of the matter of buying. A friend of
mine, an excellent housekeeper and one particularly
worthy of that old-fashioned term of approval, ‘‘a
good provider,’’ lays in stores for her house but once
a week and that on Saturday. She has a refrigera-
tor which holds two hundred and fifty pounds of ice
and in this she stores her meat and perishable vege-
tables. ‘‘I go through the agony of buying but once
a week,’? she said gaily to me. ‘‘I do it up
thoroughly then, make out my menu for the week,
hang it in the kitchen, and save myself, by so doing,
a world of trouble and no end of time.’’ For several
reasons my friend’s method does not commend itself
to me. I give it only as an instance of that time-
saving propensity in housekeeping which we of the
profession should cultivate.

MEAT AS AN ARTICLE OF DIET

With most of us, in spite of the vegetarians, the
most important, the most nourishing and strength-
giving item on the bill of fare is meat. Meat three
times a day is generally prejudicial to the health.
Meat twice a day is once too often for many people.
Meat once a day is a necessity for most of us. The
choice of meat is then an important part of market-
ANY DAY IN THE WEEK 277

ing and it is the branch of marketing on which most
women are least well informed.

Any woman who thinks seriously of her business
of housekeeping should make herself acquainted with
the anatomy of the animals from which our meat
supply comes so that she may realize with some
thoroughness the purpose for which the different
parts may be used, the kind of nourishment offered
by each and the proper culinary treatment to which
the different parts should be subjected. Often the
housekeeper’s knowledge of this branch is so slight
that she does not even know how to name or call for
the different parts of the animal in question. The
subject of meats is so comprehensive that only a few
brief notes can be given here for identifying the dif-
ferent cuts, for choice of the most nourishing parts
and for distinguishing between meat which is good
and that which is not.

Beef: Where the body of the animal has had the
least exercise will be found the tenderest portions—
on top of the back, the seven prime ribs, the loin
or porter-house and the thick sirlom. These cuts are
best adapted for roasting or broiling. They are the
most expensive as well as the most tender. Inex-
perienced and extravagant housekeepers fancy, very
foolishly, that the palatable meat of the beef begins
and ends with these. This is not true. Many pieces
which will do for neither of the purposes mentioned
are excellent when subjected to the slower processes
of braizing, stewing and pot-roasting. For people
278 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

of small means the habitual use of steak is not a de-
sirable investment. The poorer cuts do not lend
themselves to broiling and the more expensive cuts
are, except occasionally, an extravagance.

Good beef when first cut will be of a purplish un-
pleasant color or hue, but should quickly turn on ex-
posure to the air to a bright red. It should be firm
and fine grained in texture, and the fat should be of
a pale yellow or light straw color.

Some of the parts of the fore quarter of a beef are
the neck, good for mince meat and force meat, and
sold at an average price of eight cents a pound; the
chuck, a piece behind the neck including the first five
ribs which may be used for pot-roasts, cheap steak or
stewing, selling at about twelve and a half cents a
pound; the ribs, used chiefly for roasts. There is a
decided preference in the rib roast. The first and
second cuts are the best and bring from seventeen
to thirty cents a pound, the third from fifteen to
eighteen cents. The brisket is used largely for
corned meat. The shin is used for soup and sells
usually at not more than five cents a pound. The
fore quarter is, as a whole, coarser than the hind
quarter, and, in consequence, brings a smaller price.

Of the meat in the hind quarter that of the shin is
used for soup. As the meat is of better flavor and
the bone has in it finer marrow than that of the fore
quarter, the soup resulting is of a more excellent
character. From the sirloin are cut the choicest
ANY DAY IN THE WEEK 279

steaks and roasts. First cuts of the sirloin are not
so good as those underneath where the tenderloin be-
gins to appear. Slices from this part bring some-
times forty cents a pound. When the tenderloin is
sold separately for a roast, this part is known as the
fillet. This part is very tender and much in demand.
It is also very expensive, bringing from sixty cents
to one dollar a pound. The economical housekeeper
in buying a fillet will buy the entire loin or section de-
sired to give the right size, at thirty-five cents a
pound, have the parts separated and reserve the part
other than the fillet for steaks and roasts. Hip sir-
loin is the most desirable part of the rump and may
be used for steaks and roasts. Housekeepers gen-
erally should know about the satisfactory cut from
the rump called the aitch bone. This weighs about
six pounds and is to be bought at from seven cents to
twelve cents a pound. There is considerable differ-
ence in the quality of meat provided by the round.
The top round furnishes a fair quality of steak at
from twenty-two to twenty-five cents a pound. The
flank is good for corned meat and sells at from seven
to ten centsapound. In connection with the cheaper
cuts it may be well to state that many of the cheaper
steaks may be made palatable by the process called
‘‘marinating.’’ First, pound the steak lightly, then
cover it with olive oil and lay it in a cold place for
several days. The steak, when broiled, is fine.
Liver should be carefully examined before using to
280 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

see that it is in a healthy condition. If streaked or
spotted, it is diseased.

Mutton and lamb: The nutritious qualities of
mutton are not so well understood in this country as
in England which perhaps accounts for the fact that
it is less frequently used here. Generally speaking
our cooks know less about preparing it than they
Inow about the preparation of beef. Mutton is in
season the year round. 'The leg makes the best roast.
The rib chops are most delicious and are correspond-
ingly expensive. A mutton chop cooked as one can
get it in the simplest inn in England, with hashed
brown potatoes and a good lettuce, makes a luncheon
good enough for any one. Lamb is mutton up to the
age of one year. It is an expensive and delicious
meat.

Pork: Some one has said that it is well to regu-
late the use of pork as we do the use of oysters by
confining it to the months in which the letter ‘“‘R”’
occurs. Of course this rule does not apply to the use
of ham and bacon. Crisp bacon is one of the most
appetizing of breakfast dishes and it is well to have
it regularly, say once a week, on the breakfast bill of
fare. But pork chops and pork roasts are very heat-
ing to the blood and should be used only in autumn
and winter. Small sausages of a good brand are an
excellent breakfast or luncheon dish. One must se-
eure these from a trustworthy butcher. Pork
should always be thoroughly cooked if danger to
health be avoided. In fresh pork the fat should be a
ANY DAY IN THE WEEK 281

pure white and the lean a fresh pink. A yellow color
in salted pork is a bad indication.

Veal: This meat is best in spring and summer.
The meat should be white and should have a tendency
to pink. The leg makes the choicest roast and the
loin an excellent one. The breast is good for stews
and the neck can be used for the same purpose. A
cheap roast can be made from the shoulder when
boned, rolled and stuffed. The ‘‘knuckle’’ is used
for soups. Its highly gelatinous quality is much
valued. The combination of the ‘‘knuckle’’ from
veal and the shin from beef makes the best ‘‘stock’’
known to the author. And while we are on the sub-
ject of soup bones, it is well to say that there is a
choice here as in most things. A beef bone should
be one-third fat and bone, and two-thirds meat. And
its use does not end with the making of soup. The
meat may be used for a hash or stew or even for
croquettes. From thirty cents’ worth of shin a good
housekeeper can get a meat course for three meals
besides her soup.

Fish: Now that the price of beef and mutton has
gone up so considerably it is well to treat with care
the claims of fish as an element of diet. Fish is not
so nutritious as other meats because it has less fat,
but it makes a pleasant and healthful change in the
bill of fare if the conditions are right. The main
condition is, that the fish shall be fresh. Fish dete-
riorates in quality much faster than other meats.
One therefore should be particularly careful in the
282 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

selection of fish brought from a distance. Here per-
sonal inspection should be the rule and not order by
telephone. The meat should be firm, the gills red,
the scales bright and shining, and there should be no
evidence anywhere of discoloration. In general,
white-fleshed fish is apt to be more digestible than
dark-fleshed fish.

The market affords such a variety in fish that a
more lengthy study than can be given here is neces-
sary to a proper discrimination. Briefly, haddock,
cod and bluefish, among the cheaper varieties, may be
recommended for baking. Haddock is also good for
frying and is the best of the three mentioned. Hali-
but and salmon, more expensive varieties, are espe-
cially good for boiling, as is also the delicious red-
snapper.

Each householder must find out for herself con-
cerning the local varieties to be had and the proper
ways of cooking these.

Some indications of good poultry are a soft pliable
breast bone and smooth flesh. The body should be
plump and fat but not fatty. Pin feathers indicate
a young bird. Chickens are esteemed more of a lux-
ury than a matured fowl but the latter, if properly
treated, yields a more satisfactory return to the eco-
nomical housekeeper.

Fruits and vegetables: These healthful articles
of diet should be on the table the year round. Hap-
pily the best of these things come to those who take
them in the order intended by nature and do not at-
ANY DAY IN THE WEEK 283

tempt to force the season. In our huge city markets,
the exchange between different parts of the country
is now so perfected that the securing of exotic and
hot-house vegetables is easily within the range of
possibility at all times of the year if one is willing to
pay the price. Such expenditure usually is only for
the very rich who do not, in the end, profit as much as
those who are content to take these things as they
come. If one has tomatoes in February and straw-
berries in March, one does not give the home-grown
product the greeting it deserves. Many an inexperi-
enced housekeeper wastes her money on far and for-
eign-grown foods when she could furnish her table
much more comfortably and economically from those
supplied by the home market.

ACCORDING TO THE SEASON

To make oneself acquainted with the orderly pro-
gression of fruits and vegetables throughout the year,
make out from experience and statistics a reference
chart designating the season and its length for each
article inscribed thereon. Consultation with the
chart will often define the best possibilities of your
menu—especially of your winter menu. In spring
and summer when new potatoes, asparagus, peas,
beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, follow each other
in quick succession it is easy enough to know what to
buy. But the most of us do not think highly enough
of the good root vegetables which stay with us
through the cold season,—carrots, parsnips, turnips ©
284 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

and beets. In winter we have also cabbage, celery,
onions, brussels sprouts, squash and spinach,—a va-
riety great enough surely with the good canned
things to be bought so cheaply, and needing only the
proper cooking to set forth an acceptable table.

Green vegetables: These should be bought only
when needed as they are easily spoiled and are dif-
ficult to take care of. If it is necessary to keep cel-
ery, asparagus and lettuce a day or two, keep the
roots in shallow water not more than three-quarters
of an inch in depth.

Winter vegetables: These should be well dried be-
fore storing. Apples need a very cold place in order
to keep well. As sweet potatoes spoil easily they
should be bought in small quantities.

BUYING IN QUANTITY

In the old-fashioned housekeeping of America be-
fore flats were invented or apartment houses
dreamed of, when everybody had a store-room above
ground and a cool roomy cellar below, it was possible
to lay in for the winter large stores of things which
the average householder of to-day finds it impossible
to keep. The barrels of apples and potatoes which
used to be the pride of the store-room are now for the
most of us, alas, things of the past and even the flour
barrel does not always furnish forth that place as it
used to do. Indeed, for many of us, the word ‘‘store-
room’’ is an idle one and a store-closet is all we may
claim, Woe to the house, however, which makes no
ANY DAY IN THE WEEK 985

provision outside of the usual marketing for the long
cold months when fresh vegetables and fruits no lon-
ger make plain and easy the path of the marketer.

It is well to have some store of jellies and canned
fruit and pickles on the shelves, though there are
many reasons why it is no longer advisable to put up
the huge quantities of these things that our mothers
and grandmothers did. The drudgery of putting
them up is great and the much larger variety in nu-
tritious foods now on the market makes dependence
upon such supplies less necessary than formerly. It
is now possible to buy good canned fruit and jellies
from the factories though one must know and be sure
of the brand. Perhaps the best of the reasons for
not putting up the quantities of fruit that decked our
mothers’ store-rooms lies in the present price of the
fruit itself. This, which used to be a small item of
expense, has in the last few years of abnormal growth
in food values, swelled to an important figure.

Filling the store-room for winter: If we can not
expect nowadays to find on the store-room shelves as
huge a collection of jams, jellies and pickles as used
to deck them, other things there are with which econ-
omy and thrift, as well as good living, bids us fill up
the extra spaces. In the fall when the first supply
of canned vegetables and fruits, of cereals, of olives,
of tinned fish and meats comes in, pay a visit to your
grocer or to some good department store and buy
with liberality. Twenty per cent. or more can be
saved by buying your winter stores in quantities.
286 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

Most women have a horror of spending any large sum
of money at one time on housekeeping. It needs,
however, only a little study to figure out the gain in
spending a lump sum at the beginning of the winter
season instead of dribbling out a larger sum for the
same output during an appreciable space of time.

The department store: The department store of
to-day offers often excellent bargains in groceries.
The money at their disposal enables them to buy in
large quantities and consequently, at regular inter-
vals, to sell at smaller prices than is possible to the
small dealer. It pays to watch for ‘‘sales’’ when the
old stock is cleared out, in the interest of the new.
If one is familiar with the more excellent brands of
food, one runs small risk of a loss in picking up cer-
tain standard things in this way. In this branch of
marketing as in others, it is only the experienced
buyer who profits.

Store-closet: The store-closet should be dry, well
ventilated and cool. Even when the space in this is
small, as in flats and apartment houses generally,
it pays to keep on hand a month’s supply of certain
necessary articles. Flour, tea, coffee, chocolate,
vinegar, oil, spice, flavoring extracts, soda, baking-
powder, molasses, corn-meal, rice, salt, pepper and
gelatin—with these things every store-closet should
be supplied in a sufficient quantity to keep things
running without frequent replenishing.

In the store-room closet there should be a corner
devoted to household necessities of another sort and
ANY DAY IN THE WEEK 287

these also should be bought in quantities. Let the
bottles of ammonia, the packages of washing powder
and of matches, the cans of stove-polish, the pounds
of candles, the bottles of bluing, the boxes of starch
and soap, have the prestige of owning a shelf all to
themselves from which they may be summoned when
needed.
EGGS
During the winter months eggs rise to a price that
makes it well worth the housekeeper’s while to store
them. If coated with some substance that excludes
the air they remain in good condition for a long time.
One should be careful, however, to cover them with
nothing which will communicate a bad flavor, as the
porous shells are very sensitive to this. A friend of
mine has kept them successfully in small quantities,
eight or nine dozen, by putting them in a jar of lime
water, covering and leaving in a cool place. The
freshness of an egg may be tested by putting it ina
mild solution of salt water. If it sinks it is fresh.
If it stays on top it is stale.

MILK AND BUTTER

One should visit if possible the dairy from which
one buys one’s milk supply and see with one’s own
eyes whether a perfect state of cleanliness obtains.
Impure milk is a frequent source of disease and too
great care can not be taken in choosing the sources
of one’s milk supply. Good milk is a bit yellow in
color. There is much argument as to the relative
288. THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

value of creamery and country butter. The methods
employed in the creameries are usually better than
those employed on farms. Perfect cleanliness is de-
manded in the creamery. But it frequently happens
that the material used on a good farm for the making
of butter is better than that used in the creameries.
If the method of making the butter corresponds, the
dairy or farm butter is then better than the creamery
butter.

CAUTION ABOUT BUYING CHINA FOR EVERY-DAY USE

While on the subject of buying for the house, let
a word be said, inconsequent as it may be, on the sub-
ject of buying the every-day china. Let the house-
keeper indulge her taste as variously as possible in
making out the sets for her company china closet.
But in that china which is to be exposed to the daily
wear and tear, let her choose one pattern and stick
to it,—a pattern which her dealer in this kind has al-
ways on hand or can replenish on short notice. Such
a course is economical and keeps the table harmoni-
ously dressed.
CHAPTER XXI

SEWING AND MENDING DAY

A quarter of a century ago sewing occupied a much
more conspicuous position in the industry of the
household than it does to-day. In this, as in other
branches of work, division of labor has done its holy
and unholy work. While we may deplore the evils
resulting from the handing over of much of our sew-
ing to a class, the abuses consequent upon the sweat-
shop system and other horrors incidental to the
change noticed, still it is true that the average house-
holdress is much benefited by the leisure gained
through the new disposition. Much of the time she
used to spend over the sewing-machine, or needle in
hand, can now be devoted to solving other problems
of the household economy. Even those of us who
scorn the ready-made gown,—and wholesale scorn of
this is very silly,—yet buy many articles ready-made
which we used to toil over in the sewing-room, or
what was almost as bad, spend weary hours with the
seamstress in contriving.

There has been, however, too great a rebound from
what was often feminine slavery to the needle. The
average woman of to-day knows less than she should
of the gentle art of sewing. Even if she does noth-

289
290 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

ing toward the construction of gowns or undergar-
ments, there are still in every house other uses to
which the needle should be put. No house where the
income is a moderate one can be properly carried on
without some attention to the labors of the needle
and it is a strange thing that usually books devoted
to household management give little or no space to
this subject.

“‘T loathe the needle and I never touch one,’’ said
a sprightly young housekeeper to an elegant woman
of the before-the-war period. ‘‘My dear, I pity your
house, your husband and your children,’’ was the
reply. ‘‘I am no devotee of the needle but a day
never passes that I don’t have to put in a stitch some-
where—sew on a button, run up a tear or mend a
slit.’ The old lady was right. Some sewing is nec-
essary to the proper care of garments and the articles
used about a house.

A regular mending and making-over day is as nec-
essary for the smooth and agreeable running of a
house as wash-day or ironing-day. Perhaps it does
not need to come quite so often as these. Once in
every two weeks in a small family may be often
enough to go over clothes and household supplies to
see where stitches are needed, though a week’s time
will in most families develop a surprising number of
demands upon the needle. But whether once a week
or once in two weeks there should be a fixed time for
attention to this important branch of household econ-
omy. The laundry every week sends up garments
SEWING AND MENDING DAY 291

with buttons missing and rents to be repaired. Dress
skirts have a way of needing new braids or velveteens.
Towels and table-linen and bed-linen, to say nothing
of stockings, need to be darned. Often the bags used
for various household purposes must be replaced.
Lastly, supplies of bed-linen, table-linen, tea towels,
dust-cloths and broom cloths frequently need replen-
ishing. The new material must be cut and hemmed.
A regular attention to this department helps much in
keeping the house in proper order.

The writer is familiar with one household where
the regular mending day is regarded by its members
as the most delightful of the family institutions.
The day or afternoon rather is kept as sacredly,
though not so grimly, as the Calvinists kept Sunday.
A large airy room in the top story of the house is used
as the sewing-room and is furnished with every ap-
pliance necessary for furthering the work. On
Wednesday afternoon, the feminine members of the
family, five in number, gather there with the per-
sonal and household mending and sewing. They are
not at home on that afternoon to any but a few inti-
mates who are familiar with the ways of the house;
and no one is allowed to be present, under penalty of
a heavy fine, unless equipped with needle, thimble,
thread and scissors. A small fine is exacted for the
borrowing of these implements and the money thus
stored goes to the sum used for adding to the attrac-
tions of the sewing-room. At five o’clock the maid
comes up with sandwiches, steaming tea and a tea
292 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

service to put a finish to the gaieties of the afternoon.
‘‘T never go to a tea where I have half the fun that
I always have on our ‘making-over and mending
afternoon,’ ’’ said one of the daughters in speaking
of their Wednesdays ‘‘at home.”’

SEWING-ROOM

If possible there should be a sewing-room in each
house, where sewing-machine, the implements neces-
sary for sewing, the mending basket and the ma-
terials to be made up are kept. On the one hand it
is difficult to keep a bedroom or living-room put to
such use in perfect order; on the other, the conven-
ience of a room designed particularly for the purpose
of sewing is greater than that of one which is a sew-
ing-room only by chance. In a sewing-room by in-
tention there should be as much light as possible;
and it should be provided with a locker for materials,
a big basket or two for mending, a table for cut-
ting, the sewing-machine and comfortable chairs.

One to make ready: Wave needles, thread, thim-
bles, scissors and emery at hand before you begin to
sew. It is particularly difficult while sewing to be
jumping up and down for implements beside the in-
convenience frequently of scattering thread and bits
of stuff over the floor. It is a convenience to have
scissors of different sizes, a large pair for cutting
out, a medium size for ripping and buttonhole scis-
sors for that department. Needles should be of the
best-tempered steel. No good work is possible with
SEWING AND MENDING DAY. 293

a poor needle. The papers marked from five to ten
‘contain enough sizes to meet the usual requirements,
five being suitable for darning cotton and ten being
fine enough to use for lawn and cambric. The work-
basket should always contain basting cotton as well
as several spools respectively of fifty and sixty white
cotton, the numbers of cotton most used in ordinary
sewing.

How to thread a needle: It is well to remember
as you thread your needle that old story of Hans
Christian Andersen about the little tailor who had a
beautiful daughter with whom his two apprentices
were in love. They both sought her hand in mar-
riage. The tailor’s edict was that the one who fin-
ished a given amount of work in the shortest time
should have her. She sat by while the work was go-
ing on and threaded the needles for both. To the
one to whom she was indifferent she gave long
threads; to her lover she gave short ones and he won
the girl. Long threads tangle, break and get thin
through use. Only for basting or running a seam
are they advisable. The technical direction given by
teachers of sewing for the length of the thread is the
width of the shoulders, across the body from waist
line to shoulder or from the tip of the fingers to the
elbow.

When one comes near the end of the thread clip it
with the scissors. Do not break it off with your
teeth, both for the sake of the enamel and the neat-
ness of your work.
294 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

DARNING

This branch of repairing is the béte noir of many
an otherwise industrious person. Yet some of the
stitches used are found in embroidery and practice
in them gives a good foundation for that beautiful
art. Many of us can remember some lady of the old
school of whom it might be said truly that her darn-
ing gave an added beauty to the article repaired.
But most of us prefer to admire her rather than to
imitate. Darning, properly defined, is the repairing
of fabric by the insertion of new threads where the
article in question has become thin or worn into a
hole. It differs from patching in that the weak or
broken part is woven back while in patching a piece
of the material is inserted over the fault in the fabric.

There are several varieties of stitch used in darn-
ing. Those most in use are the running stitch, weav-
ing and the diagonal stitch.

For weak, thin and broken places one should use
the running darn, which means the placing close to-
gether on the wrong side a number of parallel lines
of running stitches. It is well to leave small loops
at the end of each row to guard against shrinkage in
washing.

For stockings and woven materials: The term
darning is more often applied to the repair of stock-
ings than to any other of its branches. The method
most practised for this purpose and for the repair of
woven materials generally is that of plain weaving,
 
SEWING AND MENDING DAY 295

placing first a set of stitches vertically along the
hole and then crossing these by others woven in and
out. This should be done from the back or wrong
side of the material. A quick way of darning is to
take the stitches diagonally instead of lengthwise
and crosswise. This does not make so finished an
appearance, as it is not in harmony with the weave
of the material, but it is sometimes more durable
than the more usual method.

The hole in a stocking should be made as symmet-
rical in outline as possible before one begins darn-
ing. If itis very large it is well to throw strands of
thread across the hole to keep it in shape. A very
important rule in darning is that the ends of the darn
should not be even because this throws too great a
strain on one line of loops. If the darning is to last,
let its contour be wavy or diamond-shaped, and let
the darn be not heavier than the texture of the stock-
ing.

Darning woven material: Where woven material
has been torn it may be repaired by weaving back the
broken threads. Very industrious people have been
known to weave back the entire pattern in fine table
damask where a hole has been torn, but the most of
us are satisfied with a plain darn. A plain running
dari. will do for a weak place. The best effect is
given to fine darning by the use of the raveled warp
threads of the same material. Wool may be threaded
by waxing it or twisting a cotton thread with it.
Often a bw stitches will hold together anything not
296 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

destined for the laundry, but where that is in ques-
tion there should be a close grouping of threads.

Kid glove darn: The most satisfying way to
mend a kid glove is to buttonhole the tear or slip
with loops having a little interval between and then
catch these loops together firmly with the thread.
Such a darn will last as long as the glove and if
neatly done is far from unsightly.

PATCHING

This is setting a piece into a garment or other ar-
ticle to take the place of a worn part. When the
hole is too large for darning, the provident house-
keeper must patch. A good general rule is that it is
better to use an old piece of the stuff to be darned
than a new one as the new may tear the fabric be-
sides looking out of place. One should find the cen-
ter of the hole, cut it into proper shape, either square
or oblong. A round patch is seldom advisable.
Then proceed somewhat according to the nature of
the material. If it be coarse and of little value, run-
ning or hemming the right side of the garment to the
patch, overcasting the raw edge on the wrong side, |
may do. If the material is fine, more elaborate
means must be used and dainty embroidery stitch
taken.

For repairing household linen and underdotios:
Cut out the worn part in oblong or square shape,
cut the corners diagonally, turn in small folds‘on the
four sides and hem neatly to the patch insertéd from

/

‘
SEWING AND MENDING DAY 297

the back. Turn the raw edges of the repairing piece
inward and hem or run on the wrong side. The
width of the space between the hole and the outer
edge of the patch should be equidistant all around.

A neat strong patch for heavy material is inserted
from the right side. The edges are not turned in on
the wrong side, but they are overcast or have the
blanket stitch over them. Naturally, therefore,
larger folds than in the hemmed patch must be al-
lowed both on the patch and the garment. Lay the
patch on the garment with the folds, the edges of
which have been overcast, turned inward. Over-
hand the patch to the garment. Turn to the wrong
side, cut the garment as near the overhand stitches
as the depth of the fold on the patch. Now cut
diagonally in the corners toward the stitches, turn
back the edges beyond the patch, overcast and press
with care.

Patch for fine damask: Table-cloths and napkins
need the most delicate patching in order to look well.
A tear or slit in the damask may be remedied by
overcasting both sides, opening the place and weav-
ing ravelings of the damask back and forth over the
torn place. But more arduous methods are needed
for a hole of size. The damask used for mending
should be soft, as stiff material can not be worked in.
After having cut away the worn material in oblong
or square shape, cut a patch exactly the right size
and matching the pattern of the damask, Now place
298 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEHEK

the patch in the hole and draw together with straight
horizontal stitches closely massed or with the old her-
ring bone stitch, the stitches a little distance apart
and made slantingly.

For children’s clothes where they have had hard
wear, circular patches are sometimes used. They
can be stitched in, stretched into shape without nick-
ing the patch, which last is a consideration.

As to a flannel patch: It should be remembered
as this material does not fray that it is not necessary
to turn the edges under. The edges may be carefully
overcast or held down with the herring bone stitch
and thus look neater and less clumsy than if turned
under.

TURNING HEMS FOR TABLE-LINEN

A trick which makes the hemming of table-linen
play rather than work is to make an additional crease
in the linen after the hem has been turned, a crease
turned back exactly at the line where the hem begins.
Then the hemming itself becomes merely the work of
overcasting and can be done much more rapidly and
evenly than by any other method.

HOW TO MEND THE FRAYED HEM OF A PETTICOAT

Take a sharp pair of scissors and cut the hem in
the fold all the way round. Turn the edges inward
from both sides to a depth sufficient to conceal the
worn part and then overcast. This makes a durable,
though not handsome, repair.
SEWING AND MENDING DAY 299

DUST-CLOTHS

Dust-cloths and other cloths for household use. It
goes without saying that a large supply of these ar-
ticles is necessary. But it is not out of the way to
insist that these things should be properly shaped
and hemmed. The maid likes better to handle them
if they are rightly made and they run less danger of
being thrown into the waste box by the laundress.
Indeed it has been the experience of the writer that
the laundress will employ every subterfuge and eva-
sion known to her kind to get out of washing what
she calls ‘‘rags.’” Hem them and at once they as-
sume a dignity not known to her before. Dust-
cloths should be squares of white cheese-cloth with
very narrow hems.

RIPPING

Mending, darning, patching—these humbler
branches of the art of sewing—are the only ones con-
sidered in this chapter as they are the only ones
which have to do with the weekly management and
care of the house. To them, however, might be
added one other industry of the sewing-room which
it pays to cultivate with some regularity and assidu-
ity. This is the habit of ripping up old garments
or half-worn or unsatisfactory ones, taking apart
the trimmings of hats, sorting these and laying them
aside for future use. Ripping should be done care-
fully and in a leisurely manner with the points of
300 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

fine small scissors. The person who snips the thread
at the top of a seam and then tears it the rest of the
way is not apt to find her material when the demand
comes for it in so serviceable a condition as the one
who takes a little more time and bestows more atten-
tion upon the work.
CHAPTER XXII
ACCORDING TO THE SEASON

HOUSE-CLEANING

The old-fashioned way of cleaning house was, at
best, a formidable way, one which struck terror to
the hearts especially of the male members of a family.
There were of old, as there are now, housekeepers
who knew how to manage and those who did not—
housekeepers who did things in a flurry and those
who did them with composure. But notwithstanding
the fact that the natural differences between compe-
tent and incompetent women are still what they used
to be, a difference exists between the spirit in which
people undertake the task now and the spirit of long
ago. The general prevalence nowadays of the pol-
ished floor instead of the dust-attracting carpet has
something to do with this. The general use of light-
ly constructed metal beds and of light-weight mat-
tresses makes the duties of this trying time less ardu-
ous. The manufacture of convenient aids of every
sort for the purpose of cleaning adds yet another
reason for the change indicated, which perhaps owes
most of all to the more general dissemination of
knowledge on the subject—to the books on household
matters where all the facts in the case are classified

301
302 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

and put into an orderly arrangement. ‘What used
to be the special knowledge of the few who gained
everything by the hard road of experience has now
become the property of the many. It is easier to
manage when one has before one instructions how
best and most easily to do so.

The house-cleaning season a necessity for most of
us: There are certain model housekeepers of to-day
who manage so cleverly, who follow method so per-
sistently and punctiliously that such a thing as the
house-cleaning period, the ‘‘week of woe’’ as a friend
of my own dubbed it, is unknown in their households.
But the most of us still find it necessary to set apart a
time of the year when we go into the business of
cleaning and rearranging with a touch more thorough
than the one employed from week to week. To this
period we leave the buying of the new curtains and
tapestries, the refurbishing of our old furniture, the
annual change in the position of the furniture, the
improvements we feel warranted in making from
year to year for the bettering of our houses. And
for the additional tax on our energies, we feel repaid
by the sense of rest in novelty given us by the com-
pleteness and variety of the job.

Spring or fall cleaning: Some housekeepers go
through this ultra business of cleaning twice a year,
in the spring and in the autumn. Others deem once
a year sufficient. If it is done but once, the autumn
is the better time. The house should of course be
clean at all times. But the arrangements for living
ACCORDING TO THE SEASON 303

in winter are much more complicated than those for
summer. As we spend much more time in the house
in winter than in summer, the appearance and com-
fort of the house at that time are matters of greater
import to us. Our new papering, our new curtains
and tapestries, the new bedroom set or dining-room
table,—these are more acceptable in the autumn when
we must be stay-at-homes more or less, when our
friends drop in informally or respond to set invita-
tions. If the house-cleaning is an annual affair let
it be in the autumn with a sub-activity in the spring
which shall mean merely the sensible preparation for
summer housekeeping.

The special tasks involved in house-cleaning have,
the most of them, in some form or other already been
treated in this book. They are, however, scattered,
inserted without reference to the grand ‘‘tearing-
up’’ we call house-cleaning. And the object of this
chapter is rather to put these tasks in relation and to
give general directions than to offer recipes for the
work itself.

Where to begin: It may seem rather pedantic to
say: Begin with a pencil and book—but even ped-
antry has its places and this is one of them. Set
down everything that must be done both in the regu-
lar order of house-cleaning and as regards the spe-
cial improvements you have in mind. Sort out these
duties as far as possible and arrange them so that
they dovetail into one another. You will never be
able to carry out the program exactly as you have set
304 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

it down in black and white. Paper-hangers, cabi-
net-makers, carpenters and ‘‘help by the day’’ will
see that you don’t; but you will come out much bet-
ter with a plan than without one. The amount of
work you can do and can have done will be double.

Practical preparation: All the articles needed for
cleaning should be bought and put in the housekeep-
er’s closet before the cleaning begins. A list of these
includes broom cloths, heavy flannel cloths for rub-
bing, dust-cloths, ordinary brooms, wall brooms, mop
brooms, step-ladder, whisk-broom, rug beater, a rat-
tan mattress beater, dust-pans, tacks, nails, tack-
hammer, ammonia, kerosene, borax, gasoline, furni-
ture polish, pumice-stone, linseed-oil and a long-han-
dled window brush. To have them all together in
some convenient place saves time and running about.

Closets and drawers: My actual work always be-
gins with an overhauling of closets, drawers and pan-
tries. This is work which can be done in a leisurely
fashion at odd times and little at a time. Well done,
it forms an admirable basis for subsequent and more
arduous operations.

The attic: This is my next point of attack. In
the attic, unless great care is taken, is the treasured
hiding-place of Mr. Moth. Old furniture and cloth-
ing not in use offer special facilities for his devastat-
ing progress. The sensible and philanthropic
woman does not allow large accumulations of articles
not in use. The labor of going over these year after
year, sorting and folding and cleaning is heavy.
ACCORDING TO THE SEASON 305

And to keep things which there is slight possibility
of one’s ever needing or using is selfish when the
world is so full of those in need. Years ago it fell
to the lot of the writer to examine a number of
trunks stored away in an attic by an ancient relative
who had just died. Here were to be found the use-
less accumulations of years, muslins yellowed with
age, old silks creased by time till they dropped apart
when lifted out of their resting-places, a vast collec-
tion of gowns, hats, laces, odd pieces of stuff, all of
which in their natural day might have been of some
use to the world, now crumbling to pieces and serv-
ing only as a tax upon the energies of an impatient
relative. The experience was a lesson to the writer
in getting rid of the superfluous. House-cleaning
time is the time to make way with stuff not in actual
use and to benefit, at the same time, one’s poorer
friends.

Rugs: It is well to have all the rugs in the house
cleaned, folded up and laid away early in the game
of house-cleaning and so left till the other work is
over.

The up-stairs: As the dirt, in spite of the great-
est care, filters down from one floor to the next, the
floors should be cleaned in order, beginning with the
top and working on down. On the sleeping floor the
bedrooms should be cleaned first, then the bath or
baths and hallway.

Program for cleaning bedrooms: Take down pic-
tures, curtains and other hangings. Take the bed
306 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

apart, brush it and wash the pieces. Clear the room
of furniture, take the mattress out of doors, beat and
clean this article of furniture. Sweep the carpet or
floor clean and clear of all the loose dirt. Clean the
walls and ceiling by wiping down with a covered
wall-broom or by using one of the preparations now
on the market for such purpose. These prepara-
tions clean the walls beautifully and may be used as
successfully by a well-trained servant as by the man
sent from the shops. Wash the woodwork, floors and
windows. Clean and polish the furniture. Replace
it and other furnishings.

Cleaning the down-stairs: Take the rooms in the
most convenient order, cleaning from the front to the
back, leaving the hall till library, dining-room and
living-room are finished. If the cellar or basement
was not cleaned after the attic had its turn, now is
the time for it. The kitchen comes last on the list.

Itemized order of cleaning: The program for
cleaning recommended in the preceding paragraphs
follows without comment.

1. Make out list of things to be done during the
week with a special reference to necessary repair and
improvements.

2. Collect articles and implements needed in clean-
ing.

3. Clean closets, drawers and pantries.

4, Clean the attic and cellar.

5. Have rugs cleaned, rolled up and put away.

6. Bedrooms, bath-rooms and upper hall.
ACCORDING TO THE SEASON 307

7. Living-room, library, dining-room, lower hall
and stairway.

8. Kitchen.

Housekeeping in summer: For those who do not
indulge in the out-and-out spring cleaning, there is
yet a round of tasks peculiar to the season and neces-
sary in order to make the house comfortable and
habitable for the spring and summer months. These
duties consist largely in putting away the furnishings
we do not need and which serve in the warm weather
no other purpose than that of dust collectors. The
fitness of furnishings has much to do with the ap-
peal made to our sense of beauty by them; and it is
perfectly true that a room which may appear beauti-
fully and appropriately furnished in February will,
with the same furnishings, strike one as stuffy and
oppressive in July. One rule of beauty and com-
fort obtains in winter, another in summer. In the
latter season let us dispense with heavy hangings.
Let us do with the fewest pieces of bric-a-brac and
the minimum quantity of rugs. By the process of
elimination the housekeeper’s work is lightened and
a sense of coolness and comfort diffused through the
house.

Still other methods should be used for making easy
the werk of the house during the summer season.
Cold meats may be used where hot ones have been
necessary. The fruit provided by the market may
take the place of made desserts. With care even the
householder and family who remain within city lim-
308 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

its, during the warm season, may slacken their work
to something like a vacation pace.

CARE OF THE HOUSE IN SUMMER

How to make the house ready for closing: The
first rule is a comprehensive one. Leave everything
as clean as possible. Have your rugs rolled and put
in a safe place after cleaning. Fold or put away cur-
tains and tapestries. Don’t leave anything eatable
where mice can get at it. Wash the kitchen, pantry
and laundry floors with water to which a little car-
bolic acid has been added. The plumbing should be
flushed with carbolic acid water and flushed again
just before you leave with hot sal-soda water. A gal-
lon of water needs a pound of soda. To protect the
house from that deadly danger, sewer gas, pour a few
spoonfuls of sweet-oil into each trap before leaving.
This will prevent the evaporation of the water in the
trap or the breaking of the water-seal supposed to
protect the house usually from the danger of sewer
gas. Camphor-balls strewn along the edges of the
carpet will protect it from moths; so will pieces of
cotton dipped in cedar oil. And after all this is
done, no matter how speckless and dustless is the con-
dition of the house at the time of your departure,
you may rely upon it, by some miraculous means,
known only to himself, Mr. Dust will have forced his
entrance and made terms with the furniture by the
time you return.

Summer vacation housekeeping: Many a _ hus-
ACCORDING TO THE SEASON. 309

band who rents a cottage in the mountain or at the
seashore for Mary and the children during the sum-
mer months, wonders why Mary comes back looking
exactly as tired as when she went away. The reason
is very often Mary’s own fault and is due to her
thick-headed obstinacy in trying to keep up city
housekeeping the whole year round. If the summer
residence, instead of being a villa, as a summer house
should not be, is a clean, comfortable place with, say,
one big living-room, a dining-room, kitchen, plenty
of porch room and the necessary bedrooms, the fol-
lowing rules may convey some idea of how it should
be taken care of without too much labor:

1. Mop porches, living-room and dining-room once
a day.

2. Let each person take care of his own bedroom,
except for the weekly cleaning by the maid.

3. Let every person lend a hand the last thing at
night to clearing up the living-room and leaving it
in order for the morning.

4, Let the cooking be simple and wholesome. Cut
out pastry altogether and have coffee but once a day.

5. Whenever possible, dine out of doors, making
a picnic of the occasion.

6. Let each member of the household, including
guests, do his or her part toward making the house-
keeping wheels go smoothly. There is no reason
why some of the strength gained in rowing, walking
and living out-of-doors should not be put at the serv-
ice of Madam Housekeeper,
310 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

CANNING FRUIT

The special household industry of the summer and
autumn months is that of canning fruit, making
ready the store-closet for the time when the gener-
ous earth no longer yields abundance of fruit and
vegetables. A few simple rules follow concerning
the purchase of fruit, the treatment of cans and jars
and the utensils necessary in cooking.

1. Buy the fruit when finest and juiciest. Do
not wait till it declines in price and quality.

2. In putting up berries, separate the large and
the small, using the first for canning, the second for
making juice.

3. In selecting fruit for jelly, choose that which is
underripe rather than that which is overripe.

4, Buy pint jars in which to can or preserve your
fruit. The fruit is much less likely to be wasted if
put up in pint jars than in larger ones.

5. Before beginning the work of putting up your
fruit have on hand the utensils to do it properly.
These are a good preserving kettle of enameled iron
or still better of aluminum, a wooden spoon to stir
with when necessary, a skimmer, a dipper or ladle
for putting the fruit in jar or can, a pair of scales,
a pair of scissors, a funnel to fit into the mouth of
jar or can, a pint cup to measure with.

6. When canning fruit that must be pared always
use a silver knife for the purpose. A steel knife
gives an ugly acrid flavor to the fruit.
ACCORDING TO THE SEASON 311

7. Sterilize your fruit cans and lids the night be-
fore they are to be used by putting them in a bath of
cold water softened by borax and boiling them for
twenty minutes.

8. In the morning fill the clean cans with water,
put on the rubber and the lid which must be screwed
down tight. Then turn upside down when if there
is a leak it is bound to show.

9. Never use old rings. They are useless but not
too useless to serve you a bad turn.

10. Buy the best granulated sugar for canning and
preserving. A clear syrup is proof of its purity. If
such a syrup does not result from cooking, return to
your grocer.

11. Be careful not to put your hot cans on a cold
surface and not to let a draft of cold air strike
them.

12. Be sure that your can is hot when you intro-
duce into it the hot fruit. Many people wind a hot
damp cloth about the jar. Others put the cans in a
vessel filled with hot water while filling them.
CHAPTER XXIII

THE TEMPLE OF THE BODY

Thus it stands in the grand old Catechism from
which many of us learn all the theology of which we
can boast. If the injunction to devote the First Day
of the week to religious exercises except such por-
tions of it as are given to ‘‘works of necessity and
mercy,’’ smacks, to latter-day saints, of Sabbatarian-
ism, it must be admitted that the qualifying clause
does not lack elasticity.

Beyond peradventure it embraces the intelligent
care of what we should regard reverently as the
“‘temple of the body.’’ Upon the preservation and
upbuilding of this depends the welfare of mind and
soul to an extent that may not be safely ignored.
Health is a sacred duty.

In the practical talk we shall hold together on this
subject, I shall not trench upon the province of
the physician. Drugs are dangerous elements in un-
skilled hands. All the same, Nature, as the laity may
know it, is a vast pharmacopoeia of assuasives and
curatives, and ‘‘Nursing makes for more in the
sick-room than medicines’’ is a proverb that holds
as fast as ‘‘ Prevention is better than Cure.’’ Which

312
THE TEMPLE OF THE BODY. 313

last, being interpreted, means that where just pre-
caution is observed, there will, as a rule, be no need
of cure. cee oo neal
I purpose, then, to group in the pages that yet re-
main to us, a few general rules for the preservation
of sanity in these bodies of ours, and simple direc-
tions for the repair of the same when natural laws
have been broken to the detriment of the sadly under-
valued ‘‘'Temple.”’
Do not smile if we begin with the act of Breathing.
Millions never draw a real, true breath from the
first to the last inspiration. “Hen down to old age”’
they live in half-breaths. When you rise in the
morning set the window of your bath-room open,
place yourself against the wall, and, closing the
mouth, take a deep, slow breath, hold it while you
count seven, thus driving fresh air down to the bot-
tom of your poor, starved lungs. Let out the air
as slowly as you inhaled it—always with the mouth
closed. The mouth was never meant to act as a
part of the breathing apparatus. Do this ten times
before you take the morning tubbing. Manage to do
it eight times during the day, if possible, and again
when you are ready for bed—ten times in all. You
will thus have had one hundred genuine breaths,
such as God intended each one of us to take every
time we go through the form of receiving and expel-
ling His glorious life-giving air with the machinery
He made for that purpose and for that alone.
Hardly a day passes in which I do not hear some-
314 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

body say—carelessly, or regretfully—‘‘I never prac-
tise deep breathing. I suppose it is the thing to do,
but I have never turned my attention to the matter.’’
I should be as much ashamed to own that I had never
bathed my whole body. It is as unclean to retain
effete air—often reeking with malevolent germs—in
corners of the lungs, as not to wash out the creases
of the joints, or between the toes. When you have
refreshed the long-neglected organs with one hun-
dred breaths per diem you will find that you are
forming the habit of right breathing. At length
nothing else will satisfy you. You will hunger and
thirst for pure air, and enough of it. And, up-to-
date, there is—thank Heaven !—no fresh air trust!

If breathing at all be a fad, then is deep breathing
one. I could write pages in praise of it. Its vir-
tues are not confined to the lungs. It assists diges-
tion; it restores proper circulation to the blood; it
clears thebrain and tones up the whole system. And
to think that not one person in five thousand ever
really breathes more than half-way down his lungs!
Deep breathing should be made a compulsory exer-
cise in public schools.

After which preamble I give an extract from a
writer of note who is thoroughly imbued with a sense
of the importance of the duty.

‘‘On arising and the last thing before going to bed,
when you have on your night dress, stand with your
back against the door and fill your lungs, breathing
through the nostrils, with the mouth closed, until the
THE TEMPLE OF THE BODY 316

lungs can hold no more. Retain the breath while
you count four. Expel it through the nose, count-
ing seven. Practise this breathing movement ten
times.

‘‘Next, stand upright, turn out the toes so that the
heels touch. Place your hands on your hips, the
fingers on the diaphragm, the thumbs back—in the
soft part of the back, either side of the spinal column.
Now draw in a deep breath, force the air down, so
that you feel the thumbs pressed out, through the
expansion of the lower back part of the lungs; hold
the breath while counting four, expel counting
seven. Practise this movement six times.

“Third movement: Stand straight, head up,
shoulders thrown back, arms hanging by the side.
Now gradually raise the arms until they are high
above the head. While you are performing this
movement take in a deep breath through the nostrils
until the lungs can hold no more. Retain the breath
while counting four. Now gradually lower the
arms, at the same time slowly expelling the breath,
counting seven. Repeat six times.

‘‘Practise deep breathing constantly. Take deep
inspirations with the mouth closed, retain the breath
a few seconds and exhale through the nostrils. Lay
‘your hand on the abdomen when you take one of
these deep inspirations, and you will see the flatten-
ing effect on the stomach. In a little while you will
breathe correctly, waking and sleeping.”’

From another authority almost as eminent we have
316 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

further confirmation of the wisdom of the advice to
train the lungs in the exercise of the function that
means life and health to the whole system. That the
partial fulfilment of the duty leads to disease and de-
cay, isa reasonable conclusion.

‘‘Draw in the air slowly, easily and fully. When
you have filled your lungs, without straining, hold
your breath in for a few seconds, then slowly and
steadily breathe out through the nose and keep your
lungs empty for a few seconds before another inspi-
ration. The muscles of the body which the will does
not directly control, like the heart and the respira-
tory organs, work rhythmically. Therefore, in
breathing, do not gasp and hurry and change your
pace every minute. To practise the right method,
hold yourself, sitting or standing, in a natural, erect
fashion, with your head raised, throat free and arms
hanging loosely. Do not practise within an hour
after meals and if you get dizzy it is a sign that you
should stop. Mouth-breathing causes the nose to be-
come blocked up through disuse. This has its effect
on the voice. Resonance and intensity are lost be-
cause the sound which should ordinarily pass
through the nose is deadened.’’

The last sentence tempts me to call attention to an
error of every-day speech so universal that we have
ceased to see the absurdity of it. ‘We say this or that
person ‘‘talks through the nose,’’ when we would de-
scribe the peculiar quality of voice attributed by for-
eigners to us as a national characteristic. When, in
THE TEMPLE OF THE BODY 317

fact, the man in question speaks as one might who
holds the nose between thumb and finger, and forces
voice and breath through the throat. As the writer
just quoted remarks—‘The sound which should pass
through_the nose is deadened.’’

How much the failure to breathe properly—that is
through the nose and not the mouth—has to do with
what our transatlantic critics sneer at as ‘‘the na-
tional catarrh,’’ is a matter for scientific inquiry. It
is probably accountable for the untimely relapse of
so many of us into the piping wheeze of old age. So
prevalent is this premature decadence that what is
commented upon as ‘‘a young voice’’ in man or
woman who has passed milestone number fifty, ex-
cites general notice and admiration. Old age is in-
evitable, but why invite it to take early possession
of us?

Supplement the breathing exercises by a simple
set of gentle gymnastics.

’ Take these directly after you have had your les-
son in breathing, leaving the window open all the
time, no matter how cold the weather may be.

Stand perfectly erect, chin level, arms straight at
your sides, and shoulders squared for a full minute
to let the lungs get quiet. Then, swing the arms back
and forth at their full length, bringing them up to the
level of the shoulders with each swing. Do this
twenty times at the first lesson, increasing the num-
ber daily until you swing the arms fifty times every
morning and every night.
318 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

If you like, you may get a pair of light dumb-bells,
by and by. Do not fall into the mistake of swinging
them two or three hundred times. That is labor—
not healthful exercise. After the swing has suppled
the arms, stretch them out straight in front of you
and work the wrists up and down, shutting and clos-
ing the hand as you bend the wrists. Do this ten
times. Next, stretch the arms out widely on a level
with the shoulders, and, holding them stiff and
straight, and the muscles tense, bring the palms
slowly together without relaxing the tension of the
muscles—as if you were pushing against an unseen
obstacle with all your might. Do this, also, ten times,
putting all your strength into it every time. This is
the most useful of the brief list of exercises. It
strengthens lungs, stomach and the whole muscular
system, as you will see if you watch the swelling of
cords under the skin and the growing ruddiness of
the flesh, showing the answer of the blood to the
strain. Now, take three deep, long breaths and stand
erect for thirty seconds. Finally, stoop as low as
you can, bending knees at right angles and the joints
of the thighs in like manner. Rise to an erect pos-
ture, without laying hold of anything to assist you in
regaining the perpendicular. Do this fifteen times.

‘You are now ready for the bath. The whole series
of preparations for what the day may have for the
body to do and to endure has not taken more than
twelve minutes at the most. I have gone through
the regimen daily for a dozen years, and I bring it
THE TEMPLE OF THE BODY 319

all and the rapid bath within fifteen minutes and ac-
count the quarter-hour thus spent as the most valua-
ble investment of the day. It awakens all the organs
to what old-fashioned people call ‘‘a realizing sense
of their duty.’’ It supples the muscles, and stimu-
lates the brain by encouraging the normal circulation
of the blood. One man who adopted the system
twenty years ago, and who has kept it up as a reli-
gious duty until now, tells me—‘‘If I omit it for a
day, I can hear my joints crack the next morning.”’
He is sixty-five, and looks twenty years younger.

A third extract from the printed testimony of
thoughtful students of physical culture as to a daily
duty, will close a homily upon a theme that can
hardly be rated too high in the scale of personal obli-
gation. Our author now is a woman—and to cur
shame be it said—we are much more backward in
recognizing the weight of obligation in this line than
our brothers.

“‘To derive benefit from physical culture is one of
the most difficult things to accomplish. Such a state-
ment sounds discouraging, but the fault is reaily with
women themselves, both business women and women
of leisure. The former are hard pressed for time—
they who most surely need the good of exercise—and
the latter are—well, one might unkindly call it
lazy! There is not the slightest doubt that untold
benefits—in fact, the salvation of a woman’s health—
lie in physical exercise. But it is a long, tedious un-
dertaking and requires no little strength of will to
320 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

carry it out successfully. The woman who persists
faithfully is the one who reaps rich rewards. After
all, when you think of it seriously, fifteen to thirty
minutes in the morning and evening is not a great
deal of time taken from one’s busy day. If more
women would try the exhilarating, strengthening
process of exercise in their rooms, with windows
wide open, there would be far less evil from confine-
ment of business and home duties.”’

Do we reflect aright—do an immense percentage of
us reflect at all—upon the momentous truth that up-
on the health of women depends the bodily sanity of
the generation following? Healthy branches do not
spring from a sickly stock.

THE BATH

Why the believers in cold-water bathing as essen-
tial to cleanliness, to health—and I had nearly said,
to the soul’s salvation—should insist upon the uni-
versal adoption of their creed, is almost as inexpli-
cable as that the dietetic crank should seek to bind
hard-and-fast laws upon the gastronomic consciences _
of his neighbors, without respect for digestive idio-
synerasies. I do not like to think how many useful
lives have been sacrificed to the craze for the ice-cold
bath. Here and there, a physician is brave enough
to tell the man of full habit who has a tendency to
apoplexy, that he takes serious risks whenever he
plunges into a bath so cold that it drives the blood in
THE TEMPLE OF THE BODY 321

a mad rush from the extremities to the brain. Or, he
has too much common sense not to dissuade the ane-
mic woman from the use of the icy shower, succeed-
ing the hot bath, without which ‘‘she could not live
through the day.’’ The only drawback to her appre-
ciation of the beneficial downpour is, as she moans
herself—that she ‘‘can not get ip a reactionary glow
for hours thereafter and her hands and feet never
get warm.”’

Cold water does not cleanse so readily or so
thoroughly as warm. Florence Nightingale told the
nurses in the Crimean hospitals over fifty years ago
that more could be done, in the way of cleansing skin
and wounds, with a quart of hot water than with ten
gallons of cold. (A hard lesson for the British tub-
toper to master!) Warm water opens the pores and
softens the cuticle, allowing sponge or cloth to get out
the clinging dirt, and removing dead skin with accre-
tions of insensible perspiration. Cold water causes
the pores to contract upon whatever they may con-
tain. We have in two sentences the root of the
whole matter. After clearing away what obstructs
skin-action, by the use of warm water and bland old
soap, one may douche the cleansed surface with cold
water, and enjoy even to exhilaration the glow suc-
ceeding the shock and may safely indulge in shower
and glow. In my opinion—and I do not utter this
idly—there are as many bath-loving men, women and
children to whom cold bathing is a positive injury as
322 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

there are those who may use it habitually without
danger to health and life.

Whether the bath be hot, tepid, or cold, follow it
up immediately by a brisk rub with a rough towel.
Unless you are chilled to the bone, such a process
will produce the desired reaction, bringing the blood
to the surface, and making toes and fingers tingle
with warmth.

Profound meaning underlies the ancient adage we
quote often and carelessly —‘‘Cleanliness is next to
godliness.’’ It is not easy for the soul and the intel-
lect to live comfortably in bilious and congested
bodies. Some saints have achieved this. But we
are not—all of us—saints. We need every help we
can press into service in the work of living decent,
Christianly lives.

HOW TO GROW TALLER

Diminutive stature is an inconvenience, sometimes.
It is always a mortification, especially when the short
person is a boy or man. So well is this understood
by physiologists that various devices are recom-
mended by doctors, and sundry systems advertised
by quacks, for overcoming the defect. I have the
pleasure of writing out here brief rules for stimulat-
ing natural growth by simple and harmless means.

If you take simple stretching exercises your height
will increase. Rising on toes, stretching the tips of
the fingers as far toward the ceiling as they will go,
then sweeping the hands over front, touching tips of.
THE TEMPLE OF THE BODY. 323

fingers or palms of hand to floor, keeping both knees
straight, are excellent exercises.

The best time for the ‘‘stretching”’ is just after the
bath in the morning and at night. Stand back
against the wall, and on tiptoe, stretch both arms
straight up to their utmost tension. Stand thus
while you can count ten, let yourself down slowly to
your heels, wait for twenty seconds, and repeat the
stretching process. Do this ten times. Mark each
morning the extreme point to which hands and head
ean attain. In the course of a month you will note
slight, but steady growth. Persevere for months,
practising faithfully twice or three times a day.

I know of one man who gained two inches in stat-
ure in less than a year—and this when he was twenty-
two years of age.

SLEEP AND INSOMNIA

A prime desideratum for the human creature who
would sleep wisely and well, is plenty of fresh air
in the bedroom. One of my worthy coadjutors
writes pertinently and with feeling on this head:

‘“‘Unless a current of fresh air be allowed to cir-
culate in the sleeping apartment the air becomes stale
and stagnant, the sleeper breathing his own breath,
laden with slow but none the less deadly poisons, over
and over again. The atmosphere is often further
contaminated by the escape of coal gas, which, even
though slight, is none the less injurious when inhaled
for eight or nine hours every night. When gas has
324 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

been burned in the room several hours before the oc-
cupant goes to bed, unless the ventilation has been
good, the products of imperfect combustion of coal
gas are present in the air and must be inhaled by the
sleeper to the great detriment of health. It is still
a very common practice to heat rooms and especially
bedrooms by turning on all the gas jets to the full and
closing every aperture that might admit a little fresh
air. An apartment treated in such a manner is no
longer fit to be used as a bedroom, but it makes an
excellent lethal chamber for those who contemplate
a leisurely suicide.’

When, in addition to the noxious influences our
author enumerates, is added stale tobacco smoke from
the pipes or cigars of John senior and junior, who
have filled the adjoining rooms with the incense of
the burnt-offerings to the genius of Home, during the
evening, insanitation grows into abomination. Not
infrequently the junior smokes surreptitiously in his
bedroom, saturating curtains, rugs and bed-clothing
with nicotine perfume. Without a dissentient syl-
lable as to the cigar (if it be a good weed), I do insist —
that every sleeping apartment should be aired through
open windows for at least one hour before bedtime,
and that during that hour nobody shall stay in the
room to add carbonic acid gas to the pure air from
without. For that is what we throw off to mingle
with the air with every breath we exhale. ‘‘Slow, but
deadly poison,’’ as we have just read. If we would
sleep well, we must breathe well, 7.e., normally.
THE TEMPLE OF THE BODY 320

The young need more sleep than their parents and
grandparents require, for they have to collect
strength for growth as well as for waste. This is the
philosophy of the maternal behest—‘‘ Harly hours for
the nursery.’’ Women need more sleep than men—
why, it is not so easy to explain. In reading up on
this point a few days ago I happened upon something
that pleased me too much to be kept to myself.

‘‘The secret of more than one notable instance of
beautiful mothers and grandmothers is acknowledged
to be due directly to the ability to take a quiet little
nap at any time of the day, when a busy afternoon
and a long evening are before them. It really seems,
then, one of the cleverest attainments open to the
eternal feminine—this capacity of capturing forty
winks whenever she pleases.”’

Until I read that paragraph I had never regarded
the ability to ‘‘catch a nap’’ at any convenient place—
and in all sorts of inconvenient places—as a feminine
prerogative. Itis a natural gift with some, perhaps.
It might be acquired by any and every woman. Ten
minutes’ sleep in the dark corner of a ‘‘ Ladies’ Wait-
ing-Room’’ in station, or hotel; a nap on a sofa or in
an easy chair in my own drawing-room between the
lights, when I had dressed for a dinner, and had yet
fifteen minutes before the arrival of the guests or
guest who may be depended upon to be five minutes
ahead of the rest; a delicious doze in a swift railway-
train—these have made me over as good as new,
times without number. I doubt not that they have
326 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

added sensibly to my length of vigorous days. Cul-
tivate the accomplishment, if you have never yet
learned it.

Insomnia is an affliction, let it be the result of
diseased nerves or a natural infirmity. I could filla
volume with proposed remedies for it. I must omit
all but a chosen few.

The friendly chemist to whom I already owe so
many suggestions and helps in the preparation of
my book that I despair of repayment, writes apropos
of applications for remedies for insomnia:

‘*As to insomnia, my own remedy is to withdraw
the blood from my brain by setting my stomach to
work with food to be digested. I simply go to the
cupboard and partake of the eatables there. Then
I quickly lie down. The same deliberate regulation
of the blood-flow I find effective when I awake and
start ‘a-thinking’ in the night, which I often do—a
bad habit, too!

“In severe cases I advise the purchase of a tiny
electric lamp fed from a small storage battery, if the
bedroom has no electric fixtures. Paint the bulb
with asphaltum or with paste, colored black with ink,
except a little spot on it the size of a very small pea.
Fix this bulb above the bed so that in lying down
you have to look at the spot almost backward while
looking upward. ‘This scheme is based on the fact
that in sleeping the eyeballs turn naturally upward
so that only the white is visible. Try that by gently
opening the eyelids of any sleeping person and you
THE TEMPLE OF THE BODY. 327

will see only the white of eyes. This ‘“‘spot look-
ing’’ produces sleep in a short while, in most cases.
“Then, again, don’t eat much before retiring and
drink a glass of hot milk containing a pinch of
bicarbonate of soda. If milk disagrees with you,
use hot lemonade. Many sleepless ones get up and
walk the floor, counting each turn at a certain spot.
This tires the overactive mind quickly. Others
imagine greensward, ever extending, and repeat:
‘A-nice-green-greensward.’ This, too, produces
sleep. Never use narcotics except when the doctor
wills it. When you are once used to them they grad-
ually lose effect and you have to use larger doses all
the time, detrimental to the nerves.”’

A partial repetition of the counsels here offered is
found in a late issue of a medical journal:

“The sound of water dropping slowly and steadily
into a pan occupies and quiets the brain. This is the
principle on which we are told to count sheep going
over a fence, and do any sort of automatic thinking.
One victim cured himself by keeping the eyeballs
looking down. Another kept them rolling in one
direction, repeating, meanwhile, a certain number
or figure. An intellectual exercise should be stopped .
a half hour before bedtime. A glass of milk, instead
of the usual copious drafts of water, taken during
sleeplessness, will often help to overcome it.”’

The simple expedient of keeping a slice of bread
and butter within easy reach to be eaten should sleep
prove coy has won for me many hours of refreshing
328 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

slumber. The mere fact that you can get it, is a
sedative. When eaten it makes the stomach the ally
of the tired brain by drawing the blood away to assist
in the work of digestion.

NIGHTMARE AND SNORING

If you sleep upon your back with your arms above
your head you invite the snoring habit, and, almost as
surely, a nightmare. The position interferes with
the heart action and pumps the blood to the head.
Moreover, it impedes digestion. Nothing but will
power will break you of the trick. Practise what sci-
entists call ‘‘auto suggestion.’’ Resolve nightly on
lying down that you will lie on the right side and keep
your arms down. If you have a room-mate impress
upon that person the friendly duty of awakening you
roughly if the obnoxious position be assumed. An
elastic band worn under the chin to keep the mouth
shut will prevent snoring. No one can snore freely
unless the mouth be open.

A common-sensible physician contributes the an-
nexed preventive of nightmare: ‘‘Nightmare is
generally caused by lying on the back while asleep,
and the pressure of the viscera on two large blood-
vessels situated near the spine and running parallel
therewith. To prevent, tie a large hard knot in a
long towel, or piece of muslin, etc., in the middle,
then fasten the towel around the waist in such a man-
ner as to have the knot over the spine. When the
sleeper happens to turn on her back the hard knot
THE TEMPLE OF THE BODY, 329

will feel so uncomfortable that she will be compelled
to roll over on either side.’’

The assertion—‘‘I can not get to sleep in the day-
time!’’ is usually uttered so positively as to put argu-
ment—much less denial—out of the question. I
meet it, then, with the simple statement as firmly
enunciated—‘‘ But you can rest, if you do not sleep.”’
Utter relaxation of the nerves and muscles, the de-
termination to accept in passive submission Jenny
Wren’s wooing invitation piped from the house-top
—‘‘Come! and be dead!’ are the next best things to
sleep for lulling unrest and lengthening human life.

An author better-qualified than I to instruct you
in the modus operandi of the art, of which she is a
past-mistress, goes thus into the details of the several
stages of the making-over of the tired woman:

‘“‘Tt is very necessary to learn how to rest properly.
Do not insist thai change of occupation is rest: there.
is the greater delusion. To acquire perfect rest, set-
tle yourself in a corner, arrange your feet and arms,
and, indeed, your whole body, until you feel com-
fortable from head to foot.

““Sit in this position for five minutes, motionless.
Don’t move, don’t do anything, but take long, chest-
developing, easy breaths. Whether you close the
eyes or leave them open does not matter. But don’t
move! At the end of five minutes you will feel very
much rested. If it is possible, take these rest treat-
ments two or three times a day. At any rate force
yourself to observe the treatment at least once every
330 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

day. You will be surprised at the amount of good it
will accomplish for you.

“‘The nervous woman who feels inclined to scream
if the door bangs or any one drops a fork, the girl
who is ‘not in the least cross’ (though all her family
think she is) but who ‘can not help being irritable,’
needs ten minutes of absolute relaxation at least once
a day ina quiet, darkened room. She is simply over-
worked and run down—a victim of nerves.

“On nervous days when you feel like flying out of
the window from sheer irritability, stand erect, hands
clasped in front and head bowed, having expelled all
the breath from the lungs. Now slowly lift the head
and shoulders until the head is very erect and inhale
deeply through the nostrils. ‘Chis exercise will, in a
few minutes, cause the nervous feeling to subside,
and, incidentally, is an excellent way of reducing a
double chin.’’
CHAPTER XXIV

DOMESTIC MATERIA MEDICA

‘A domestic medicine chest stocked with drugs is a
dangerous thing. I am disposed sometimes to think
that. familiarity with what is technically known as
‘‘Materia Medica’”’ is a snare to the housemother.
She would better leave the selection and the handling
of drugs, especially those that contain mineral mat-
ter, to apothecary and physician. She is passing
wise in her generation if she makes a careful study of
the properties, values and uses of the contents of
larder and store-room.

It is not enough to say that this meat, that vege-
table, or the other sweet disagrees with one. She
should know why, and what to substitute for the un-
wholesome article. She should know, furthermore,
what course of diet will correct stomachic, nervous
and intestinal disorders; what to eat in hot weather,
and what will supply fuel to the human system in
mid-winter.

The ignorance of nine-tenths of our otherwise in-
telligent housekeepers upon the points I have indi-
cated is appalling to one who has even a tolerable de-
gree of familiarity with the remedial treasures stored

331
332 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

in nature’s pharmacopeeia. It is not practicable in
the limits of a single chapter to do more than hint
sketchily of these treasures. The mother who makes
this branch of medicine a study converts her market-
basket into a dispensary, and constitutes herself the
health officer of the district represented by her house-
hold.

Descending—or rising—to particulars, she will
then know the curative properties of every-day prep-
arations of vegetables and fruits, handled with habit-
ual thoughtlessness and partaken of recklessly by
those for whom she caters. For example, apple
sauce, hominy, indian meal, mush and wheaten grits
are excellent correctives of constipation, and should
not be eaten by adult or child who has a tendency to
laxness of bowels. Rice, boiled plain, or with milk,
or made into gruel or jelly, heals irritated intestines,
and comforts by coating the inflamed lining of the
stomach.

Boiled milk, when taken hot, is a gentle laxative.
When allowed to cool, it binds instead of loosening.
These facts should be better known. Even physi-
cians, in prescribing boiled milk for patients suffer-
ing from ‘“‘summer complaint”’ or similar troubles,
sometimes order boiled milk as a dietary without
specifying the temperature.

The value of celery as a nervine is known to com-
paratively few. The hankering for it frequently
felt by brain workers and ‘‘fidgety’’ women is set
down as a whim, when it is, in fact, an eloquent point-
DOMESTIC MATERIA MEDICA 333

ing of nature to a specific. The same esculent is use-
ful in cases of nervous dyspepsia and rheumatic gout.
It should be fresh and crisp and be eaten freely.

Onions are also an excellent nervine. They should
be boiled in two waters and thoroughly cooked.
For bilious disorders, influenza, insomnia and muddy
complexions, their value as a steady diet can hardly
be overrated. Lettuce is highly recommended for
insomnia. <A. light meal of fresh lettuce, not too
sharply seasoned, and thin brown bread and butter,
eaten just before bedtime, will induce drowsiness
when the doctor’s soothing drafts have no effect.

I have quoted elsewhere and more than once the
title given to spinach by a renowned writer upon
dietetics—‘The Broom of the Human System.’’
Its specific action is upon the blood. It is also a
gentle laxative, and a solvent of biliary calculi, or
gravel. It brightens the skin, as it contains iron,
salts of potassium and other helpful ingredients. I
remark regretfully, in passing, that this invaluable
green vegetable is more frequently maltreated in the
cooking than any other that comes upon our tables.

Tomatoes move the liver, cool the blood, are easily
digested by dyspeptics—in short, are invaluable in
all classes of disorders for which old-fashioned doc-
tors prescribed calomel.

‘Asparagus, properly cooked, is easily digested and
a gentle sudorific, acting upon the skin and inducing
a flow of healthful perspiration.

Rhubarb, or pieplant, should be eaten frequently
334 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

by rheumatic sufferers, since it works directly upon
the blood, cleansing it from the uric acid which pro-
vokes rheumatism.

Lemons are anti-bilious. A southern planter
whose field-laborers and house servants were singu-
larly free, year after year, from malarial fevers
which scourged neighboring plantations, told me
that he laid in lemons by the dozen boxes, dispensing
them every day to his family and employees instead
of administering quinine. A roasted or boiled
lemon, filled while hot with sugar, and eaten still hot,
just before retiring, will induce perspiration, relieve
hoarseness, and often break up an incipient cold.

Cranberries are almost a specific for erysipelas
and for a tendency to scrofula.

Figs are a well-known aperient, eaten fresh, dried
or stewed. ‘They are also recommended for cancer-
ous diseases.

Blackberries are a tonic and an astringent.
Black raspberries and strawberries have a tendency
in many cases to induce constipation, an effect caused
by the seeds, not by the pulp. Mothers, mindful of
this property, should exercise a wise supervision of
their children’s indulgence in small fruits.

Peaches may be called a general regulator of the
internal machinery of the human body. When ripe
and sound, they may be eaten in incredible quanti-
ties by the fruit lover. By a strange and beneficent
double action, they correct constipation and as effec-
tually brace and heal the too-lax intestines.
DOMESTIC MATERIA MEDICA 335

Food chemists rank currants among the most
healthful of foods. They say that ninety-nine per
cent. of the fruit is actual nutriment. It is not only
invaluable as a body-builder, but it is highly recom-
mended as a purifier of the blood,

Fruits contain predigested food elements which do
not clog the system, and are valuable in sustaining
strength. Fruit acids cleanse the stomach and bow-
els and are at the same time valuable as nutritive ele-
ments of diet. They are foods and medicines, or
foods which avert the necessity of medicine.

Fruits of loose texture containing an abundance of
water are the most digestible, while those varieties
which are firm and compact are more difficult of di-
gestion. The nutritive value may be less than that
of vegetables, but the large amount of water, sugar,
salts and organic acids they contain is useful in puri-
fying the blood and also acts favorably upon the se-
eretions of the body. As appetizers and stimulants
they are invaluable and give variety to the diet.

Fruit eaten before breakfast or at the meals helps
to reduce the redness of the nose and otherwise im-
proves the complexion, Care should be taken not to
eat the skin or seeds or any other indigestible portion
of the fruit. It must, of course, be perfectly ripe.

No better name has ever been devised for the fresh
vegetables with which summer is prodigal than that
honored by Scriptural phrase as ‘‘the kindly fruits.
of the earth.”’ ‘‘Kindly,’’ because they satisfy the
craving of the system for assuasive, cooling acids;
336 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

they are fertile in phosphates, generally easily di-
gested, laxative, and, best of all, are antidotes to bile
engendered by summer heats. It will be remem-
bered that the royal author of the most wonderful
love-song ever written says—

‘“As the apple-tree among the trees of the wood’’
(or orchard) ‘‘so is my beloved among the sons. I
delighted’’ (as the marginal reading is) ‘‘and sat
down under his shadow and his fruit was sweet to my
taste.’’

The like proud preéminence among fruits has been
accorded to the King of Fruits by writers of every
age. Chemists and learned dietitians join in the
chorus of praise. We are told in so many words that
apples are the most valuable article of diet that comes
to our tables, containing more phosphates in propor-
tion to their bulk than any other food. <A recent
treatise upon the Apple by an English physician—
a specialist in dietetics—advises us to ‘‘eat uncooked
apples regularly, in moderation, and years will be
added to your life while the evidences of age will be
long in coming.’’

And again—‘Phosphorie acid’? (in which apples
are rich) ‘‘contains the least amount of earth-salts,
and for that reason is probably the nearest approach
to the Elixir of Life known to the scientific world.”’

A brother-scientist ‘‘sees no reason why one who
eats apples daily, ripe and uncooked, should not live
and keep well until one has rounded out a century of
human life.’’
DOMESTIC MATERIA MEDICA — 337

‘An apple a day
Keeps the doctor away,’’

says the old wives’ couplet.

A barrel of sound, ripe apples—when they are
highest in price, costs less than three visits from the
family physician and the bill of three prescriptions at
the corner drug-shop, to say nothing of the wear
and tear of anxiety and nursing upon the mother’s
nerves. It is not a week since I heard a grand-
mother, whose vigor is a marvel to her large circle
of friends, aver that she had not had occasion in fif-
teen years to take an aperient.

‘Why should 1?’’ she replied to the exclamation
that met the assertion. ‘‘I eat an apple every night
of my life, and often five or six during the day.
They are my nervine, and my solace. They are anti-
bilious, anti-scorbutic—in fact anti-all that is evil in
the human system.”’

Some unfortunates can not digest apples—so I am
told. But for a fair percentage of such idiosyncratic
victims in every civilized community, the respectable
druggist would starve, or go out of business.

MEATS

Personally, I am not what is usually known as a
vegetarian. I believe that meat was given man for >
food. When I discourage the use of ‘‘heavy roasts’’
of beef, mutton and pork in summer, I would not shut
out from the table the tender, juicy beefsteak (al-
ways broiled, and never fried), the toothsome lamb
338 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

or mutton chop, and broiled bacon, thin as writing
paper, and just crimped by the fire. Partaken of in
moderation, they are good for the service of man.

A word as to roasts of beef, mutton and hot pork.
Beef is a blood enricher, and with the other meats
named is a heat-producer. These meats contain in
larger quantity than any other foods carbon, and on
this account are valuable for winter use. I need
hardly say that the physique most in peril in the
heated term is that usually known as the ‘‘full-
blooded.”? The tendency of the blood_in plethoric
people is to the cerebral vessels, distending them,
and thus threatening, in excitement or unwonted ex-
ercise, their rupture. Persons with the same phys-
ical habit are more liable to fevers.

Moreover, the fibers of these meats, especially of
pork, are tough and difficult of digestion. The di-
gestive system is relaxed by heat and less capable of
assimilating heavy foods. As housekeepers we read-
ily comprehend this when we recall how difficult it
is to mince meat with a dull blade. Digestion is ac-
complished by the combined action of the gastric
juices and the muscles of the stomach.

I wish I could impress upon my readers the abso-
lute necessity of thorough mastication of food, thus
simplifying the task submitted to the faithful and
too often outraged stomach. In winter the whole
system is braced—keyed up, if you have it—to its
work. In summer—changing the figure—it is below
concert pitch.
DOMESTIC MATERIA MEDICA 339

In summer also, on account of heat, and of inertia
induced thereby, there is a disinclination to the reg-
ular and more energetic exercise which one craves in
the colder months. The effete matter, which is the
residuum of undigested food, remains in the system
instead of being thrown off.

What are we to say as to hot breads, boiled pud-
dings, dumplings and pies? Even under the most
favorable conditions of temperature and bodily vigor
they are slow and difficult of digestion. When the
dog-star is raging, and all the active forces of the
body are below par, the imposition of unnecessary
labor upon the languid digestive organs is down-
right cruelty.

Fish is known as cold-blooded; that is, deficient in
the ‘‘red corpuscles,’’ which have earned for flesh
the term ‘‘hearty foods.’’ Fish also contains whole-
some phosphates, which neutralize in some degree
the effect of fats.

EGGS

A correspondent affirms confidently that ‘‘two eggs
contain more real nourishment than three pounds
of meat. One person would get more nourishment
from a piece of meat the size of his hand than he
would from three pounds of it. The more meat, the
less real good. Of course, one pound of meat does
contain more stimulant (temporarily) than two eggs,
but the eggs ‘build up’ and store energy, while the
meat in a few hours has done its work of temporary
stimulation.”’
340 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

This is an individual opinion. The belief that
eggs are wholesome for everybody is a fallacy which
dietitians have difficulty in dispelling from the pop-
ular mind. At least thirty per cent. of the yolk of
an egg is oil, and the quantity of sulphur in the same
is variously rated at from fifteen to twenty per cent.
The cause of the variation is the difference in the
comparative richness of eggs. Duck-eggs and the
eggs laid by Guinea fowls are richer in fat and more.
heavily charged with sulphur than those of the com-
mon barn-yard fowl. The eggs of certain breeds of
these last also vary in quality.

There is ground for the general idea that a diet of
eggs engenders bile in persons who are predisposed
to biliousness. It is likewise true, as is usually be-
lieved, that soft-boiled eggs are more digestible than
hard. The albumen of the white and the fats of the
yolk are changed by long cooking into a firm mass,
almost as hard for the gastric juices to assimilate
as what is known as ‘‘white oak cheese,’’ made of
compressed and cooked curds. A raw egg is one of
the most digestible of foods. It is not pleasant to
taste, or to the imagination. Hence, it is usually
beaten into an emulsion with milk, and sometimes,
when a stimulant is needed, with wine.

Next to the raw egg in wholesomeness, comes the
“custard egg.’’ To prepare it, lay it in lukewarm
water for a minute to take the chill from the shell.
Then put it into boiling water in a saucepan which
is actually on the fire. As soon as the egg goes into
DOMESTIC MATERIA MEDICA 341

the water, lift the saucepan from the range; envelop
it in a thick warmed cloth, or slip a tea-cozy over it
and let it stand on the table or at the side of the
range where it can not possibly boil, for six or seven
minutes. The contents of the shell will be like cus-
tard in softness—white and yolk having cooked to
equal consistency.

This, to my way of thinking, is the most palatable
form of the boiled egg, as it is certainly the most
digestible.

MILK

Here again, comes in the question of digestive idio-
synecrasy. Some persons, normally healthy, and not
finical in tastes, can not drink what has grown into
favor rapidly of late years under the title of the
“fone perfect food.’’ Milk is said to combine all the
elements of nutrition so harmoniously that non-di-
gestion of it is impossible. Yet it does disagree—
and seriously—with the stomachs of some who would
fain drink it regularly and in quantities. It may be
useful for such to know that people who are made
bilious or otherwise uncomfortable by milk may cor-
rect the trouble by adding a teaspoonful of lime-
water to each tumblerful. It will not affect the taste
of the milk.

When milk disagrees with the baby, making him
fretful, flatulent and colicky, add the lime-water to
his bottle at each feeding. It will also correct the
acidity of stomach that tends to produce ‘‘stomach

rash.’’
342 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

DIETARY FOR RHEUMATISM

A whilom sufferer hands in his brief testimony:

“To those who suffer from rheumatism I would
say that it is not necessary to take any remedy: that
is, I have not found it so. Meat, coffee and sugar
have an excessive quantity of uric acid. The remedy
consists in taking less of them. Meat—once a day,
or three times a week; coffee once a day, etc. One
need not suffer for lack of things to eat. Milk, rice,
eggs and well-cooked vegetables present opportuni-
ties for sustenance and pleasure unhaunted by the
fear of pain to follow.

“‘One may find relief by eliminating from the di-
etary sugar and milk and cream, together in any
form, especially in tea and coffee. Hither may be
taken alone, but not at the same meal. A glass of
pure water an hour before meal time; two meals a
day of good cereal and hot milk, fruit, if wanted; a
generous dinner of meat, vegetables, etc., will cure
an aggravated and painful case of rheumatic trou-
ble, as I can testify.”’

Leave red meats, such as beef, and also dark meat
of poultry, out of your dietary.

There can be no doubt of the truth that diet in the
treatment of rheumatism is three-fourths of the bat-
tle. Avoid red meats—beef especially—sweets and
starchy foods. Eat acid fruits, spinach, tomatoes
and salads freely. Drink a good natural spring sul-
pher water and do not touch spirituous liquors, ale
DOMESTIC MATERIA MEDICA 343

or wine. Wear red flannel next to the skin the year
round—a lighter weight in summer, of course, but
do not lay it off at any season.

Albeit not a physician, I venture to advise in addi-
tion to a judicious dietary, electrical massage, and
‘‘flushing’’ the system with some good natural min-
eral water. Drink at least a quart a day of one pre-
scribed by your doctor. I speak feelingly, having
been restored to health and vigor, years ago, by the
regimen I now indicate. The less medicine you take
the better.

DYSPEPSIA

Dyspepsia has a hundred forms. It is the Proteus
of mortal maladies. It is not practicable to indicate
one-tenth of the phases that make existence a burden
to the dyspeptic, or to suggest remedies except in a
vague and sketchy style. It is the national disease,
and our ‘‘strenuous,’’ breathless life is largely re-
sponsible for the plague.

We are dyspeptics because we do not sufficiently
masticate hard food; we eat too quickly; we drink
too quickly, take too much fluid with our meals; do
hard brain work while eating. We take meals in
snatches while attending to the shop, the children,
etc. We partake largely of hot, greasy foods; drink
stewed tea charged with tannin; we injure the stom-
ach by drinking strong spirits.

Tea, which contains much tannin, is peculiarly un-
wholesome when taken with fresh meat. It is said
not to affect the digestion of salted or smoked meats;
344 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

but that is merely saying that the two last can not be
made worse than they are.

No delicate stomach should be tortured by either.
Salt hardens the fibers and dries up the juices of
meats, and smoke adds creosote to hardness and des-
iccation.

Kiven tender, well-cured hams are rank poison to
stomachs from which the coat has been worn by ex-
cess of acids or overwork. Were I appealed to by
that most wretched of invalids—a confirmed dyspep-
tic—for counsel, common-sense, and therefore un-
professional, I should say, with the depth of pity
that often goes with profound personal ignorance of
the pain one is called upon to assuage—Leave off
drugs, and study your diet carefully. Avoid fats,
fried foods, pastries—hot bread and pies of what-
ever kind; eat plain puddings, custards, ete., in the
way of sweets, and let candies alone. Hat slowly,
and not heartily, but take nourishing meals at regu-
lar hours. Live as much as possible in the open air.
In the summer go into the house only to eat and sleep.
Take regular but gentle exercise, like walking, in the
open air. Have frequent massage and plenty of
sleep. Bathe daily in water to which sea salt has
been added, following this with a brisk rubbing down
with a crash towel. If apples and oranges agree
with you, take them freely and often. Peaches, too,
in season, will be excellent for you. Avoid the skins
of all fruits.

T have had the unhappiness of knowing many dys-
DOMESTIC MATERIA MEDICA = 345

peptics, some of whom were as savage as wild beasts
under the affliction, and some who were thereby
chastened into saints. I have yet to see one who was
cured, or even temporarily helped by medicines.

If I had subjoined to the above list of recommen-
dations a line from an old hymn—

‘And keep a quiet mind,’’—

I should have struck a straight blow at what is the
root of the evil in scores of cases. Eating fast in-
vites dyspepsia, under any circumstances. When the
food is bolted between snatches of excited conversa-
tion upon painful or unpleasant subjects, or, worse
yet, in gloomy silence, filled with somber thoughts
and forebodings that change wholesome victuals to
hot ashes in the stomach—diaphragm and gastric
juices must suffer, although warranted to wear well
and long.

SOME SERVICEABLE SIMPLES

The virtues of dried mullein leaves, smoked in a
clay pipe, as tobacco is used, have long been known to
the gatherers and venders of simples. They soothe
an inflamed throat and relieve to some extent asth-
matic breathing.

It may be used in similar affections—such as bron-
chial colds and coughs, steeped strongly, and sweet-
ened with white sugar, and drank freely. Young
or old plants are good dried in the shade and kept in
clean bags. The medicine must be continued from
346 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

three to six months, according to the nature of the
disease. It is very good for the blood vessels also.
It strengthens and builds up the system, instead of
taking strength. It makes good blood, and takes
inflammation away from the lungs.

A contributor sends in a simple prescription to the
efficacy of which I can bear cheerful testimony:

“‘One of the most efficient remedies for breaking
up a cold during its earliest stage is camphor. When
the eyes begin to water and there is the accompany-
ing tingling of the nose and feeling of chilliness,
place three drops of camphor on a lump of loaf sugar
and place the sugar in the mouth. Repeat this dose
every fifteen minutes until four or five doses have
been taken. At the same time place the feet where
they will become thoroughly warm. This will usu-
ally prove effectual in breaking up a cold, if it is
taken atits very beginning. Fora child but one drop
should be placed upon the sugar, and five or six doses
administered. Another method of taking the cam-
phor, which is sometimes preferred for grown peo-
ple, is to‘put a spoonful of sugar into a cup, add hot
water, and from ten to fifteen drops of camphor.
This makes what it is called a camphor julep.

Camphor may be inhaled with excellent effect in
the incipient stages of a cold in the head. Saturate
a handkerchief and hold it to the nose, breathing
through it for two minutes at a time. Repeat hourly
all day.

Nausea may be lessened and often cured by laying
DOMESTIC MATERIA MEDICA 347

cloths steeped in spirits of camphor upon the pit of
the stomach, renewing as they dry.

Garden mint is a well-known remedy for disor-
dered bowels, especially in children. Bruise sprays
of mint slightly, put into a cup and pour boiling
water over them. Leave until cold; strain without
Squeezing, and set on ice until needed.

Virginia snake-root: The curative properties of
the wild shrub have long been acknowledged by phy-
sicians and housemotherly nurses. A decoction
made by pouring boiling water upon the dried and
shredded roots, allowing it to stand for an hour, then
straining and sweetening abundantly is an excellent
cough medicine. In a late issue of a medical journal
we find mention of other and notable values.

“As a nerve stimulant it acts promptly, and is
much used in depressed or exhausted conditions of
the nervous system, especially in typhoid, typhus,
marsh and puerperal fevers. It is applicable in the
latter stages of diphtheria, smallpox, scarlet fever
and pneumonia. It supports the vital forces and
rids the system of offending matter by producing
perspiration and a determination of blood to the sur-
face. A cold infusion is often employed with good
effect in dyspepsia, croup, throat and kidney com-
plaints. A cold infusion is used for strengthening
purposes and it may be drunk freely. Dose of the
tincture is from half to a full teaspoonful three times
a day.”’

Vegetable tonic and cough medicine: Wormwood,
348 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

licorice, black cherry bark, horehound,—equal parts
of each. To these add two quarts of cold water; let
it simmer all day; strain well and add a pound of loaf
sugar and a pint of best rum. Bottle and take a
wineglassful after each meal.

Dandelion blooms: Puta handful of the blossoms
into a pitcher, pour a pint of boiling water upon
them, and steep, covered, for two hours. Strain off
the tea, sweeten and drink ice-cold. It is good for
disorders of the liver, as betrayed by headache and
‘‘spring fever.’’ It may be taken hot for headache
and nausea.

Olive oil is highly approved by ‘‘the profession”’
as nourishing, easily digested and assuasive. It is a
very gentle aperient, and a flesh-builder, working
wonders with anemic and emaciated children. It is
said to be a nerve-food for their elders.

The oil is taken in doses of a teaspoonful at first,
three times a day. As the stomach becomes accus-
tomed to it, increase the quantity to one tablespoon-
ful taken three times a day. Disguise the taste with
orange juice, or mix it with a few drops of pepper-
mint. Perhaps the oil may not be unpleasant to you
taken pure. Some learn to like it. Get the best
quality.

Parsley root: Scraped, steeped in boiling water,
left to cool, strained, and sweetened slightly if de-
sired—is given with signal success to relieve stran-
gury, partial or total.

Watermelon and pumpkin seeds are an approved
DOMESTIC MATERIA MEDICA — 349

remedy for like affections, especially with children.
The seeds are steeped in boiling water and drunk as
a tea.

Sage leaves made into a tea, and sweetened abun-
dantly with honey are a good gargle for a sore throat.
If, to the decoction be added a little alum while the
mixture is hot enough to dissolve the alum, the effi-
cacy of the gargle is increased.

Strawberry leaves: A decoction of strawberry
leaves allowed to stand until cold, then strained, is
healing to a sore mouth, be the cause a foul stomach,
or what in babies is called ‘‘thrash.’’

Plantain leaves: A poultice of green plantain
leaves, scalded, and macerated into a pulp, is good
for a felon or other sores arising from distempers
of the blood.

Flaxseed ground into meal, or used whole, may be
wrought into one of the most useful poultices known
to doctors and nurses in cases of inflammation of
the throat or lungs. The flaxseed must be mixed
with boiling water and renewed as it begins to cool.

Cold tea is a cooling and healing eye-wash.

Black coffee drunk hot and strong, often relieves
nausea. It is an invaluable antidote to opium poi-
son.

Mustard: A standard antidote to arsenic, bella-
donna and opium, indeed, to any poison that is not
corrosive, is a mixture of ground mustard and water.
It should be drunk freely, and until it acts as an
emetic.
350 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

Raw eggs are likewise convenient and effective an-
tidotes to certam active poisons, notably, corrosive
sublimate. The victim should swallow them in rapid
succession until vomiting is induced. They coat the
inflamed alimentary canal with mucus that checks
the action of the corrosive agent.

Salt and water: A saturated solution of table salt
is a quick emetic. It is well for the housemother to
acquaint herself with the resources of her store-room
to meet emergencies that befall the best kept homes.
She will be amazed at the number of ‘‘ First Aids’’ at
her command.

Olive owl, if swallowed immediately after the
mouth, the throat and the stomach have been excori-
ated by ammonia or cyanide of potassium, taken by
mistake, will hold the evil in check until medical aid
is procured.

Sweet milk and lime-water is soothing to a burned
mouth and throat after an incautious drink of a
scalding fluid.

Green figs are excellent for an obstinate boil.
They are cut open and the pulp mixed in a basin.
The poultice is warmed and spread upon linen, which
is applied to the boil, and left in position for several
hours. It ‘‘draws’’ the boil to a head.

Stale bread and sweet milk: Moisten the crumbs
into a soft paste with the milk, and stir until warm
in a cup set in boiling water. A favorite and most
useful poultice for boils and other ‘‘risings’’ which
must come to a ‘‘head’’ before they can be relieved.
CHAPTER XXV.

DOMESTIC SURGERY AND COGNATE MATTERS

Burns and scalds are, perhaps, the most common,
as they are the most terrifying, of household casual-
ties. In every kitchen, nursery and bath-room,
should be kept labeled remedies for the disaster which
always comes suddenly and is never expected, in
spite of the frequency of previous mishaps of the
same kind.

Linseed-otl and lime-water form one of the best
applications to a burned or scalded surface that cura-
tive science has yet devised. Mix in a bottle two
parts of oil with one part of lime-water, and shake
well before using. The mixture should be kept in a
cool place and corked closely. It will remain sweet
for months.

Castor-oil: An emulsion of castor-oil and water
—three parts of oil and one of water—is also safe
and soothing. I have known the oil to be applied
to a fresh burn, with no admixture, in the surprise
of the alarm, with satisfactory results. This is a
mother’s story of the experiment:

‘‘My baby had the hives, and obeying your pre-

351
302 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

scription, I was rubbing the eruption with castor-oil
when a coal popped out from the wood fire by which
we sat, directly upon the naked baby. It fell full
into the crease between the abdomen and hips—thus
making a double burn. Instinctively I snatched the
bottle at my elbow, and poured some on the blister.
The little fellow was in agony. So was I! The ef-
fect was magical. In the words of the old poem we
read together when you and I were young—

‘‘The babe looked up and sweetly smiled.’’

Henceforward castor-oil has had an honorable place
in our list of ‘Emergency Aids.’ ”’

Baking soda: From another housemother we
have a tale of soda as a ready helper:

‘‘One day after filling a quart jar with grape jelly,
the jar broke, spilling the entire contents on my left
arm, from wrist to elbow. The jar had been heated
thoroughly with hot water first. I at once ran to the
pump and let the water wash the jelly off; then I
covered the entire burn with baking soda, wetting the
bandage after putting it on. The pain was dreadful;
the neighbors thought my arm would be ruined. In-
stead of that it never even blistered, but healed in a
short time without the least scar.

“‘Sometimes for children’s burns I mix the soda
with enough lard to form a salve, as it is easier to
apply when they can not keep still from pain, but I
find just cold water and soda best.”’

T have seen my cooks coat scalds with dry baking-
DOMESTIC SURGERY: 353

“

soda, and obtain relief from the smart in an amaz-
ingly short time.

Dry flour: If the burns be covered thickly and
immediately with dry flour, there is a partial and
grateful cessation of the pain. The philosophical
principle explaining this is, of course, that the air is
excluded from the raw cuticle, and that the contact
of the air is, in itself, poison.

Wood soot and lard is an old-fashioned remedy for
a burn, but one that is singularly efficacious. Soot
and lard are beaten to a paste and spread on a cloth.
Strange to say, they do not leave a black spot as the
skin heals.

Before quitting the subject of burns, I will give
formulas for rendering clothing and curtains fire-
proof, for both of which I am indebted to a friendly
and an accomplished chemist.

(1) ‘‘The following process has been used by a
French chemist: Saturate the textiles in a solution
composed of chloride of ammonium, 8 parts; sodium
hyposulphate, 2.25 parts; sulphate of ammonium, 10
parts; borax, 4.5 parts; water, 75.25 parts. Hang
up to dry without wringing.

(2) ‘Still another formula for fireproof cloth or
any garment or wearing apparel is as follows: Dis-
solve by gentle heat forty parts of boric acid, thirty
parts aluminum sulphate, seventeen parts gum trag-
acanth, nine parts potassium silicate, in 450 parts
of water. Then make another solution of the fol-
lowing constitution: Thirty parts of sodium nitrate,
354 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

seven parts of ammonium borate, seventeen parts of
ammonium phosphate, 400 parts of water. Mix
- both solutions and permit the mixture to subside and
settle. Decant the clear solution, saturate the tex-
tiles with it and hang them up to dry without wring-
ing.”’

f FROST BITES

If frost bites are taken in hand as soon as the in-
jury is received, much unnecessary pain will be saved
in the future. To a pint of kerosene or coal oil add
a pound of gum camphor which has been broken into
small bits. Shake this until dissolved and then add
half a pint of sweet oil. Saturate a soft rag with
the mixture and wrap the injured parts with it. Con-
tinue this treatment for three days. Burns also
may be treated in this way.

SNAKE — AND OTHER POISONOUS BITES

Every mother should know that the first and best
thing to. be done in the case of a bite from dog or cat
or snake is to stop the circulation of the blood back-
ward from the wound by a tight bandage and to
plunge the injured part into warm water. Wash the
wound out freely under the water faucet in the
kitchen sink, or change the water as you cleanse the
hurt, to get rid of the virus. If no water is at hand
suck out the poison. Unless there be an abrasion on
the lips or mouth it will do no harm. Many a life
has been saved by this summary and homely means.
DOMESTIC SURGERY 355

Then apply table salt to the bite, rubbing in all it
will hold. Should the salt turn green after a few
minutes exchange for fresh and continue to do this,
washing the wound out with warm water, dashed
with carbolic acid, after each application, until the
greenish tint passes away.

In the ‘‘rattlesnake region” of Virginia and West
Virginia, the specific for a snake-bite is whisky.
The bitten person is given glass after glass of ‘‘moun-
tain dew’’ until he becomes intoxicated. I suppose
the explanation of the almost invariable success of
the expedient to be that one poison expels the other.
Certain it is that the sufferer awakes from his
drunken sleep well, and has no more trouble from
the wound. I have known too many cases of this
sort which were cured by this homely and heroic
treatment to doubt the wisdom of resorting to the
whisky bottle if child or adult be bitten by a snake.
A bottle of the best whisky I can buy is an invari-
able feature in our country outfit.

A CRUSHED FINGER OR TOE

Should be plunged into water as hot as can possibly
be borne. The application of hot water causes the
nail to expand and soften and the blood pouring out
beneath it has more room to flow; thus the pain is
lessened. The finger should then be wrapped in a
bread-and-water poultice. A jammed finger should
never be neglected, as it may lead to blood-poison.
306 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

A SPRAIN

Get a pound of dried wormwood from the druggist
and steep a handful of it in a pint of scalding vine-
gar, keeping it hot by setting the vessel containing
it in boiling water. Dip linen cloths in it and wrap
the sprained member in them. Change the band-
ages for hotter as they cool. When the vinegar runs
low make a fresh supply of the wormwood decoction.
Keep this up until pain and heat have abated. Then
bind the ankle or wrist with strips of adhesive plas-
ter to keep the injured ligaments in place until they
knit firmly.

Having had a desperately bad sprain treated as I
have directed, and recovered the use of the joint and
muscles within a couple of weeks, it is a pleasant
duty to ‘‘pass on’’ the good news.

A correspondent vouches for this simpler remedy
for a sprain:

‘“‘For a sprain beat together the white of one egg
and a tablespoonful of table salt until you have a
poultice. Apply to the sprained member—right on’
the bare skin—change three times a day, and it will
cure the worst sprained wrist or ankle in ten days,
and no doctor’s bill to pay. I have done it.’’

WHEN A PIN IS SWALLOWED
For the fortieth—I am not sure it is not the fiftieth
time—the coadjutor whom TI long ago dubbed grate-
fully, “‘Our Courteous Consulting Chemist,’’ is ready
DOMESTIC SURGERY 307

with an anecdote that is characteristically humorous
and helpful:

**T have a little friend with a fondness for a diet
of nails and pins. Six times now the frantic mamma
has rushed into my den and six times I have gently
advised her to-‘‘stuff’’ the little kid with an exclusive
diet of mashed potatoes, and no liquid whatever for
about forty-eight hours. Then use plenty of nice
castor-oil—no other laxative will do. The idea is to
surround the sharp object with a soft, innocuous
mass, solidly, until the object has been pushed
through the lower intestines. The doctors always ap-
proved afterward of this. I mention the matter here
for the information of mothers on farms, ranches,
etc., not in quick touch with the usual professional
wisdom.

‘‘Feed the kid in such a case excessive doses of
mashed potato, or sweet potato and nothing else.”’

The most ignorant of us who read the daily pa-
pers is familiar with the word ‘‘encysted’’ from fre-
quent repetition of it in stories of gunshot wounds.
The mother should think of it as the one thing to be
desired when a child has swallowed any hard sub-
stance beyond the reach of her ready finger. If he
can not bring it up, make it comparatively harmless
where it is. If mashed potato is not ready to hand,
make the child eat all the bread he can be induced to
swallow. Corn bread is better for the purpose than
wheat, and brown bread better than white, because

more viscous,
358 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

FOR A CHOKED CHILD

Slap him smartly between the shoulders, and if
the concussion does not bring up the obstruction, pick
him up incontinently by the heels, and holding him in
the air, head downward, shake him hard. If this
does not relieve him, nothing but a surgical operation
will.

SUNBURN

Wring cloths out of water as hot as you can bear
your hand in and hold them to your face, keeping
up the applications—and keeping the water hot—
until the fire seems drawn out of your face. Do
the same to your arms and legs if you have exposed
them too long to the hot sun while bathing. Sun-
burn, contracted at the seashore is especially dis-
tressing when bathers have yielded to the tempta-
tion to frolic in the shallows in bathing costume.
The skin is softened by the water, and the burn takes
the form of a scald. After applying the hot water,
powder the skin thickly with a bland talcum and
leave it on for some hours.

EARACHE

Never be persuaded to put anything, not even
warm water, into the ear except by direction of a
physician.

(1) The best way to relieve earache is to heat an
iron or a brick, wrap it in two or three thicknesses
of flannel and pour warm water and laudanum on
DOMESTIC SURGERY: 359

the top, when steam will at once rise. If the ear is
placed: close to the flannel, the steam will permeate
every part of it. _

Mix a teaspoonful of laudanum in a cupful of
water. ‘Be careful not to take cold while the ear is
warm from the steam. Bind a strip of warmed flan-
nel over it until the flesh has regained normal tem-
perature.

THE EYES

The ancient saw—already and repeatedly quoted
—of the ounce of prevention, was never more pat
than in this connection. We abuse our eyes in so
many ways and with such stupid perversity that it
is a miracle of Providence and mercy we are not a
purblind nation. Oculists who value human happi-
ness more than the repletion of their own pockets,
warn us that electric lights, now illuminating thou-
sands of homes, are pernicious to the eyesight unless
steadied by lamplight or by gas burners. The loop
of electric light is a series of flashes—electric sparks
—as unsteady as brilliant. To study or write ha-
bitually by this alone will, in time, injure the strong-
est eyes ever set in human skull. Tempered and
steadied by the more stable flame of a lamp or the
even glow of gas, it does comparatively little harm.

The eyes should never be used when they are tired
or weak from illness, nor should they be exposed to
intense light at any time. The light should always
fall on the work or book over the left shoulder.

An ingenious writer upon correlation of forces tells
360 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

us that to read, or write, or to employ the eyes in
other ways requiring close application, when one is
fasting, is a strain upon nervous energy equivalent
to lifting a weight of thirty pounds. Whether his
computation be correct or erroneous, it is certain that
the prudent student will not work fasting. If you
read or write before breaking your all-night fast you
will, in time, rue it. Eat enough to keep the blood
away from the brain, leaving it free to do its proper
work.

Whenever the eyes ache from strain of whatever
kind, bathe them frequently and freely in water as
hot as may be comfortably borne. If they smart and
are bloodshot, add a pinch of boric powder to a glass
of hot water and bathe them several times daily with
the wash, abundantly upon mene in the morning and
retiring at night.

If you wear glasses do not let them press upon
the eyes. They will, eventually, flatten the cornea,
heightening the defect you seek to lessen.

Dotted veils have a bad effect on the strongest eyes.
A good wash for eyes when inflamed from cold or
loss of sleep is one ounce of distilled witch-hazel and
one ounce of pure water.

For inflamed eyelids soak a handful of camomile
flowers in one pint of boiling water for five minutes.
Strain and use as a wash, when tepid. Dry on a soft
towel and touch the lids with an ointment made of
one part of oil of birch and nine parts of white vase-
line.
DOMESTIC SURGERY. 361

Fresh parsley, boiled, will often cure inflammation
of the eyes, if they are bathed with it. If the inflam-
mation be very bad, make a poultice of the pulp at
night and renew until the eyes are cured.

THE FEET

Cold feet, as a rule, are due to bad circulation, but
very often are caused by the footwear. Socks, if not
changed frequently and kept clean, are a cause of
coldness. Woolen socks, cork soles inside the boots,
and thick, substantial soled boots will do away, in
many cases, with the trouble.

Bunions: Ihave known the following simple regi-
men to relieve cases of long standing: Soak the foot
night and morning in warm water. Wipe dry and
rub vaseline into the bunion, leaving it to dry on the
foot. Then fit a bunion plaster—a thin one—about
the inflamed part, binding into place with a strip of
adhesive plaster. Adjust the bunion plaster so that
the shoe will not press upon the foot. The pressure
is the cause of the evil. Persevere in the treatment.

Corns: Treat precisely as you would bunions.
The same cause produces both. Our superiors in
civilization for many centuries—the Japanese—have
taught us the use and the safety of the corn file. A’
corn or a bunion should never be cut with a knife or
other sharp instrument. Deaths have been caused
by such imprudence.

A good poultice for corns is one teaspoonful of tar,
one teaspoonful of coarse brown sugar and one tea-
362 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

spoonful of saltpetre. The whole to be warmed to-
gether. Spread it on bits of kid the size of the corn.

Callosities on the feet: A physician sends me the
following:

“Take glacial acetic acid at fifty degrees (not or-
dinary acetic acid) and dilute in the proportion of
three to four parts of acid to one of water. Apply
the mixture with a small sponge fastened on the end
of a stick, nightly, until the callous peels off. As a
skin renovator this mixture is unexcelled. It will
remove a calloused area around the finger nails if
the sponge be handled with the fingers. The fingers
may feel sore for a day or two, but no harm is done
and the sense of touch is improved.’’

A laywoman offers a simpler regimen:

“Tf sufferers from callous spots would rub a few
drops of castor oil on them twice a day for a few
days, I think they would be delighted with the result.
Continued use of the oil will in time effect a complete
cure. My own feet were extremely painful. The
oil was the last remedy I tried, and the only one that
did me any good. It is a little slow but sure.”’

Tired, aching and sore feet: If the feet are tired
and painful with long standing they will feel much
rested if bathed in salt water, and if after washing
salt is rubbed over them it will close the pores and
keep the skin soft. The addition of a teaspoonful of
alum dissolved in a little hot water to the salt bath
will help the cure.
DOMESTIC SURGERY 363

Or—better still—mix twenty drops of carbolic
acid with four ounces of alcohol; pour a little in the
palm of the hand and rub the soles of the feet with
it night and morning.

Alcohol alone will often bring surcease of pain.
An ingrowing nail: A quartet of grateful women
declare that this is a ‘‘sure thing.’’

For ingrowing nails—remove the shoe and stock-
ing; put a piece of paper under the foot; heat a _
spoonful of tallow and pour it in and around the
nail once or twice a day, until relief comes, which
will be in a few days. If you haven’t mutton tallow,
lard will do, or any kind of fat and just as hot as it
can be borne. There are two reasons for trying this
cure—first, because it is simple, and second, because
itisasurecure. The paper under the foot is simply
to keep the grease from the floor.

One of the four adds—‘‘It seems to kill the pain
and tenderness at once, and in a few days the granu-
lations all go, leaving the nail in a position to be
easily pared away. One application helped mine to
such an extent that I no longer live in dread of hav-
ing a heel firmly planted upon them in a crowded
car.”’

Scrape the nail very thin, and make in the center
—just over the ball of the toe—a V-shaped incision.
The nail, in closing this up, will draw away from the
sides of the toe, as it grows, and pull itself into
bounds.
364 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

CHILBLAINS

(1) For chilblains use one teaspoonful of alum to
a little water and bathe the chilblains in that. It
gives instant relief when the terrible itching and in-
flammation set in.

(2) For unbroken chilblains rubbing with damp
salt is one of the best remedies known.

(3) Raw onion rubbed on an annoying chilblain is
very soothing.

Of my own self I can say nothing, I never had a
chilblain, or saw one to my knowledge. Those who
have had, and cured them, lay these remedies to my
hand.

POISONS OF THE SKIN

Of the much-dreaded eczema—otherwise ‘‘the
itch’’—an intelligent woman writes:

(1) ‘‘EKezema is so common and so hard to treat
that many may be helped by my letter. The remedy
is an ointment, the most important ingredient of
which is the rankest weed that grows, commonly
called ‘jimson,’ a perversion of ‘Jamestown weed,’
and can be found from now until frost comes. This
grows in lots where manure has been thrown, is called
poisonous, and no animal will ever eat it.

‘‘Formula:—Buy at the drug store one pound of
pure beeswax, which costs forty-five cents, and a piece
of resin about the size of a hickory-nut. At the
market get two pounds of mutton tallow and try it
out; then go after the weed, Cut the whole plant
DOMESTIC SURGERY 365

near the ground and get as many as one can carry
under an arm, or, say, a dozen stalks. Put the boiler
on the range and clip off all the bunches of leaves,
discarding only the heavy stalks. Pour over the
leaves a quart and a half (no more) of cold water,
cover, and let all boil for thirty minutes. Strain
through a colander into a large stew-pan. Strain the
liquid, of which there should be about a quart,
through a cheese-cloth to take out all sand, ete. Put
back into the stew-pan with the tallow and beeswax
cut into small pieces, and the little piece of resin.
Let all boil for twenty minutes, then pour into a
small bowl and cool.

“The ointment will be on top and will look like
yellow soap. Lift it out of the dish and throw away
the liquid remaining. Cut into pieces and put away.
The relief will be immediate and a cure in two or
three weeks. If the ointment seems too hard it will
soften from the warmth of the band.

““T have made it and it has done more than I hoped
it would. I trust others may find the same relief.
It is good for cuts, burns, bruises and aching feet,
say the good people who told me how to make it.”’

“‘Away Down South in Dixie” the curative prop-
erties of ‘‘jimson’’ (Jamestown) ointment have been
well known since it was named by the earliest settlers
from the marshy peninsula on which it grew in the
days of John Smith and Pocahontas. It was a fa-
vorite remedy with the Indians.

(2) An unpleasant itching of the ears is usually
.366 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

caused by eczema. Those who are subject to this
ailment should eat quantities of fruit, watercress,
dandelion, lettuce, etc. For a local application’ a
weak dilution of carbolic acid is healing and agree-
able, or listerine diluted one-half with water will allay
the fearful irritation of eczema. It is always best
of course, to consult a specialist, since the trouble
may be a serious one that in time will affect the hear-
ing.
(3) Bathe the parts well with warm water, in
which has been dissolved a little boracic acid: dry
thoroughly with a soft towel. Do not irritate the
skin by hard rubbing. Then apply listerine, At
night use wintergreen oil; if possible bind up the
parts with a cloth saturated with the oil.

In the morning this may be washed off, as de-
scribed above. If soap be necessary use the purest
Castile after which powder well with borated taleum
powder. If the disease is deep-seated, repeat the
process more frequently. Perfect cleanliness is the
best remedy for any skin disease. If this does not
prove effectual, consult a physician at once, for ec- °
zema is a very stubborn disease if not treated in the
early stages.

Poison-wy: ‘The first effect of poison-ivy is to
raise watery blisters on that portion of the body
which has been poisoned. In the course of a few
days these blisters dry up or sink in and the painful,
itching eruption commonly dreaded follows. If upon
the appearance of the above-mentioned watery blis-
DOMESTIC SURGERY 367

ters the victim will at once apply a strong solution
of any alkali, by rubbing vigorously into the affected
parts, they will immediately disappear and no further
consequences may be dreaded. This remedy is not
efficacious if the poison is not arrested while in its
first stages of watery blisters.

“The commonest form of alkali that I know of
would be ordinary cooking soda dissolved in either
cold or warm water. This remedy is well known to
most frontiersmen and those whose lives are such as
to expose them frequently to poison-oak.”’

This is one of a dozen suggested remedies spread
out upon my desk. I choose what seems to me the
most judicious. Alkalis, notably soda, are specifics
in the management of wasp, bee and hornet stings,
and the more frequent and less dangerous bite of the
mosquito. It is probable that it might heal mild
eruptions caused by poison-ivy, alias mercury, alias
poison-oak, alias ‘‘three finger.’’ We all know it by
sight, by whatsoever name it may go in any particu-
lar region.

A serviceable simple overlooked in our enumera-
tion of the items composing the Domestic Materia
Medica comes to light in our next prescription:

“‘The bark of sassafras root steeped in water to a
strong tea and used as a wash in case of ivy poison-
ing is considered in our family as the remedy. It
allays the irritation and itching of the skin. It is
good to take a swallow of the tea at the same time, as
sassafras is a blood renovator.”’
368 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

‘As a blood renovator it held high rank in the es-
teem of our forebears. Sassafras tea was drunk by
the quart as a spring medicine, and recommended as
a sudorific for breaking up a cold.

Here is a warranted remedy for ivy poisoning:

One-half ounce of pure crude opium. Dissolve
this in water until the water looks like strong coffee.
Thoroughly wet the poisoned parts with this liquor
once an hour for six hours and once in two or three
hours for the next eighteen hours. This applies to
poison sumac, ivy and oak.

Thirty years ago the ‘‘capable’’ mistress of a New
Jersey farmstead told me of a domestic treatment
of the distressing eruption which I have tried with
complete success in my own family several times.
It has the merit of being easy, cheap and harmless.

Bathe the affected parts often during the day and
bind up at night with sour buttermilk or lopper
milk, into which plenty of salt has been stirred.

A solution of sugar of lead to be obtained from
any druggist, is also good for the eruption. Should
it be severe and general, apply to a doctor for a cool-
ing medicine for the blood as well.

Hwes: The worst cases of hives I have ever
known—and they were very severe and extensive—
were cured by lubrication of the affected parts with
pure castor oil. If the cutaneous irritation were ac-
companied by nausea, showing that the lining of the
stomach was likewise affected, calcined magnesia was
given internally.
DOMESTIC SURGERY 369

Pricily heat: Bathe the eruption freely with skim
milk slightly diluted with water. Do this before re-
tiring at night, and hourly during the day if the
irritation be intense.

Bruised lettuce leaves are cooling and curative to
a fevered or itching skin. Bind upon the affected
parts with old linen bandages.

Warts: Acetic acid, applied properly and per-
sistently, will remove the most tenacious of warts.
This is the proper way: ‘Take the clean end of a
dead match or any small piece of wood and dip it in
the acid. On removing it there will be found about
a drop clinging. Apply, or rather allow this to drop
on the wart, which, being porous, will soon absorb
it. Do this every day to each wart, being careful to
have the hand or any part held perfectly still.

A domestic remedy, to the excellence of which I
can bear witness, is a paste of baking soda and water
applied to the wart and bound in place. Renew as
it dries.

A homely application that is well spoken of is thus
described by a grateful convalescent:

“A sure cure for warts is to touch them every
morning with fasting saliva. An acid in this remedy
kills them without leaving a scar.”’

TO PREVENT VOMITING AFTER THE USE OF ETHER OR
CHLOROFORM

No matter how much or for how long the anes-
thetic has been given, a cloth or absorbent cotton sat-
urated in vinegar and held tight to the nose—patient
inhaling it—will stop this trouble.
CHAPTER XXVI

THE CARE OF THE SICK

‘‘What kind of an education would I give a daugh-
ter if I had one?”’ said a discriminating lawyer of:
my acquaintance in answer to my query. ‘‘I should
send her to Packer’s for a year or two to study do-
mestic training so that she might be a good house-
keeper. On top of that I would have her two years
in a good New York boarding-school that she might
gain something of that indefinably charming thing
called ‘style’ as well as mental development. And
then I believe I’d send her for three or four weeks’
training before her ‘coming-out tea’ to a good trained
nurse in order that she might have the rudiments of
skilful care of the sick.”’

This struck me at the minute as a somewhat mis-
cellaneous hodge-podge of an educational scheme.
Later I thought better of it. And particularly the
last clause engaged my attention. ‘‘Isn’t it decidedly
important,’’ I said to myself, ‘‘that the average girl
should know something of nursing?”’ and I could an-
swer the question only in the affirmative.

Particularly is it necessary when the income of a
family is small that some one in it should know how

370
CARE OF THE SICK 371

to care skilfully, with the least labor and the great-
est return for that labor, for the sick. Trained
nurses, except in cases of serious illness, are, for the
most of us, a luxury. For minor ills we can not af-
ford them and not all of us, even in times of great
distress.

Under the best of circumstances a season of illness
is a trying one. It means mental anxiety; it means
rearrangement of the domestic economy; it means a
thousand unaccustomed steps and unusual activities.
If there is some one in the house acquainted with
even a few of the fundamental rules for taking care
of the sick, for making the routine of the sick-room
more bearable for invalid and care-taker, then it
goes without saying that not only is the recovery of
the loved one exactly that much quicker but the gen-
eral life of the house is helped.

In no branch of home-keeping is an orderly and
systematic arrangement of duties more necessary
than in the sick-room both for the sake of the patient
and to save the strength of the nurse. Unexpected
tasks, of course, will arise but there should be a plan
for the every-day care of invalid and room. To
supply a few of the simpler rules for such care is
the object of this chapter.

THE ROOM

The room chosen for the invalid should be, of
course, the best in the house, as regards light and ven-
tilation. If it is near abath-room many steps will be
372 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

saved. People who are sick for a long time or those
ill with nervous affections, which often means the
same thing, are particularly sensitive to any glaring
or decided effect in the wall-paper. If possible,
choose a room where the coloring is soft or neutral
and the pattern of the paper, if pattern there be, is
vague and indistinct. It is one of the principles of
the Rest Cure system, for which the celebrated Doc-
tor Weir Mitchell is largely responsible, to keep the
walls of a room as far as possible a blank,—free from
pictures and other ornaments that distract or tease
the mind. The character of the illness in question
should, however, determine this point, common sense
being here as elsewhere a mainstay.

Generally speaking the room should be left free
from superfluous furnishings, both on account of the
mental and physical health of the patient and because
absence of the unnecessary means less of care for
the nurse. Dispense with heavy hangings and dra-
peries, the fripperies of the dressing-table, all rugs
but those absolutely necessary for comfort and to
deaden noise.

The bed is the most important item of the neces-
sary furnishings. It should have upon it a firm,
smooth hair mattress. The mattress is the founda-
tion of the invalid’s comfort. If there is a depres-
sion in the one that must be used, fold a blanket
smoothly and put it in the hollow. If every person
occupying a double bed was taught to occupy alter-
nately the two sides of the bed, we should not meet
CARE OF THE SICK 373

so often with what is in two senses depressing hol-
lows in our mattresses.

Position of the bed: The bed should be placed a
little out from the wall so that the air may play all
around it. Itshould not be placed opposite a window
where the light will be directly in the patient’s eyes.
The mattress should be covered with a bed pad, the
lower sheet drawn smoothly and firmly over it. The
upper sheet should be put on more loosely and easily
to give free play to the body of the patient and enough
length should be left at the top to fold down over
the coverings. These should be blankets as they are
much lighter than other coverings and contain more
warmth. The spread should be of a light texture,
not such as to cause extra weight upon the patient.

The screen is part of the necessary furnishing of
every sick-room. It is needed to protect the patient
when the cleaning of the room is going on and to
shield him from draft when the room is being aired.
An emergency screen can be made by pinning a sheet
over a clothes-horse.

Medicine table: A separate table should be used
for medicines, dropper, glasses, ete. This should
have a marble top if possible so that it may be washed
free of stains when necessary. As soon as the
medicine bottle is empty or the physician prescribes
a new drug, rid the table of the superfluous bottle
or box. Too great care can not be taken to keep
the drugs necessary in a sick-room properly sepa-
rated and in order.
374 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WHEK

Light: Among many old-fashioned people there
is an idea that a sick-room should be always dark.
This is false. Sunlight is one of the most healing,
health-giving agents we have and, though care
should be taken not to excite a person by too much
light, or to injure weakened eyes by the same, sun-
light should be administered as the patient can bear
it.

FRESH AIR

Fresh air is of course even more necessary than
sunlight and should be admitted into the room every
day. In winter or when the patient is much weak-
ened by long illness or when the disease is one that is
particularly sensitive to changes of temperature, such
as bronchitis, pneumonia and other diseases of a like
character, great care must be taken when a decided
change of air is made. In such cases it is well to
open a window in an adjoining room, flooding it with
fresh air while the connecting door is closed. Then
put down the windows, wait until the air is somewhat
warm, then open the connecting door for its admis-
sion into the invalid’s room. ,

Generally speaking the ventilation may come from
the patient’s own room. Leave one window or two
facing each other, two or three inches down from the
top. The cold air descends and forces out the warmer
air and yet causes no draft upon the patient. When
the room, night and morning, is given a thorough
airing, wrap the patient in extra blankets, putting
something over the head and place the screen go
CARE OF THE SICK 375

as to shield the bed from a direct current of air.
Having made these preparations throw the window
wide open, your common sense and the weather di-
recting you how long to keep it so.

CLEANING OF THE SICK-ROOM

The sick-room should be cleaned without bustle or
stir. The screen again comes in good play here. If
placed before the patient while the refurbishing of
the room is in progress, he need scarcely sense the
disturbance. If the room has a carpet—which
Heaven forbid!—sweep softly with a dampened
broom; if a wooden floor, use a broom cloth that is
slightly wet. The dusting also should be done with
a slightly dampened cloth.

FLOWERS IN THE SICK-ROOM

Sometimes flowers bring cheer and comfort to the
patient; sometimes they are an unhealthful influence.
When they are, and when they are not for the good
of the patient can be settled only by the individual.
But in no case should they be left in the sick-room!
over night.

INVALID’S REFRIGERATOR

One of the luxuries of a sick-room is the invalid’s
refrigerator where milk, water and other necessaries
of the sick-room may be kept. In default of this,
ice may be wrapped in an old blanket or woolen gar-
ment of any kind and placed in a dish-pan with the
376 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

articles that need cooling about it. Milk and water,
if kept in a sick-room, should be covered, as they are
very sensitive to odor and atmosphere.

SOILED CLOTHING AND EVACUATIONS

A good nurse will lose no time in getting soiled
clothing out of the way and in disposing of evacua-
tions. A satisfactory disinfectant should be always
at hand. Chloride of lime can be recommended.
The vessels used by the patient should be washed out
as soon as possible with soap, hot water and am-
monia.

KEEP THE PATIENT COMFORTABLE

Two nightgowns should be kept in use, one for the
day and one for the night. It is amazing how much
more inclined to slumber a sick person feels with a
change of gown just before the lights are turned low
or out. Plenty of pillows should be on hand and
these of various sizes, ready for use when the patient
eraves a change of position. Pillows should be
turned often to keep them from getting hard and
lumpy to the touch.

Extra blankets: In serious cases always have ex-
tra blankets ready for that change of temperature in
the weather which is sure to come between three and
five o’clock in the morning. Then is the coldest time
of the day or night and it is also the time when the
patient’s vital energies are at their lowest. A pro-
fessional nurse always has her eyes particularly wide
CARE OF THE SICK 377.

open for the comfort and safety of her patient at
that time.

The hot-water bag should always be conveniently
at hand. Its uses are too well known to make any,
inention of them necessary. Suffice it to say that
the use of it can never do any harm and often, in the
case of emergency and where other remedies are not
convenient, does incalculable good.

Changing the sheets while the patient is in the bed:
To one who sees for the first time the professional
nurse’s touch in changing sheets while the patient is
in bed, the accomplishment seems nothing short of
miraculous and, for many succeeding times, it may
have that interest for one which arises out of any
specially skilful piece of work. The writer herself
well remembers in a long spell of typhoid fever the
entertainment afforded her by watching the nurse
perform this part of her duty. The novelty of ob-
serving the performance did not wear off for a long
time and the time of its happening was looked for-
ward to as a bright spot in the, for the most part,
dreary days.

The amateur home nurse should not undertake this
feat without previous practise. She should try it
first with a well person as subject or take some prac-
tical instruction from a nurse. The following direc-
tions for the process are the correct ones, but they
should be supplemented by the skill that comes from
practise. First change the lower sheet. To do this,
roll the patient toward the side of the bed away from
BY

378 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

you. Turn the soiled sheet in smooth folds toward
the center of the bed and close to the patient. Then
spread your clean sheet over the half of the bed thus
prepared for, laying the folds of the other half over
the folds of the soiled sheet. Turn the sick one care-
fully back to his first position, pull out the soiled
sheet and make smooth and firm the clean sheet over
the other half of the bed.

To change the upper sheet, make free the bed-
clothes all about, turning them slightly back from the
foot of the bed but so as not to expose the patient.
Have a blanket and clean sheet ready and place them
upon top of the spread. Then, while you hold these
firmly up to the neck of the patient with one hand,
draw the soiled sheet and other covering out from
beneath with the other hand. Replace the necessary
covers on top of the fresh blanket. If you are skil-
ful in this performance the patient will not be weary
from it.

No wrinkles and no crumbs: Three golden rules
about the care of the bed are perfect cleanliness, no
wrinkles and no crumbs. Invalids, much more than .
well people, are sensitive to any unevennesses, folds
or bumps in the sheet or bed pad. The nurse should
make it her business to keep wrinkles smoothed out
and crumbs brushed off.

The invalid’s dining table: One of the luxuries of
the sick-room is an invalid’s dining table which
stands on a support placed at one end of the table
while the other draws over the bed at a height ex-
CARE OF THE SICK 379

actly convenient to the invalid’s hand. Such a table
not only renders eating more easy and agreeable for
the invalid but it saves the bed from crumbs and the
danger of soil.

Care of har and teeth: Every day the invalid’s
hair should be combed, his teeth washed, his finger-
nails cleaned. Whether a bath should be given every
day will depend upon the nature of the disease. Hs-
pecial care should be given to the teeth during illness
as the medicines used often have a tendency to in-
jure them.

Visitors in the sick-room: In rural districts the
house which contains a sick person is beset by visit-
ors. The patient is supposed to have nothing to do
but to entertain company and the refusal to see a
friend is regarded as an insult. This is humorous as
an illustration of the quirks in the rustic mind, but
it is tragic for the sufferer. Even in towns of some
size people will be found who think that they should
always be permitted to visit the sick-rooms of their
friends. The truth is that, in a case of illness, which
is at all serious, visitors should be the exception, and
no one should feel offended at being excluded from
the sick-room. Such calls as are made should be
short ones. If the nurse sees signs of fatigue in her
patient she should indicate to visitors that the time
for their departure has arrived. They should not
sit on the bed; they should sit where the patient may
see them without effort. They should not talk of dis-
ease and the patient’s symptoms during their stay.
380 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

CARE OF THE PATIENT’S MENTAL AND MORAL COMFORT

The person who has an invalid in charge must al-
ways remember that the state of the mind has much
to do with that of the body and that, as a preliminary
to the care of the body and as a stimulant to its
speedy recovery, everything possible must be done
to keep the temper of the mind calm and equable.
Discussions of illness, except in so far as is necessary
to the proper treatment of the patient, should be ban-
ished from the sick-room. The nurse should sternly
repress her own nervousness and anxiety. One rea-
son that a professional nurse, aside from her skill,
is often more helpful than a home nurse, is that the
feelings of the former, not being engaged to any con-
siderable extent, she bears herself evenly. The first
lesson for the home nurse to learn is self-control, the
kind of cheerfulness that comes from a conquest of
self in the interest of the suffering.

Natural manner in a sick-room: Adopt as far as
possible an easy, matter-of-course air in the sick-
room. Walk lightly but not conspicuously on the
tips of your toes. Speak in a low tone but don’t
whisper. Don’t be frivolous in manner but don’t look
portentous. If possible, let the patient feel that the
every-day affairs and work of the house are going
on regularly and smoothly. There is nothing more
soothing to the mind than the feeling that the estab-
lished order is maintaining itself.

In short let your manner in the sick-room be as
CARE OF THE SICK 381

easy and natural as possible. Physicians know the
value of this. An instance of the value in which it
is held by them occurs to my mind as I write. The
picture rises in my mind of a young girl painfully
agitated over the serious illness of her mother and
frowning upon the professional nurse and the doctor
as they talked cheerfully in a low tone while prepar-
ing the medicines for the patient. I see the old phy-
sician with his keen eyes penetrating the girl’s vexa-
tion and the cause of it. ‘‘We are not disturbing
your mother,’ he said. ‘‘ The sound of natural
every-day conversation is a helpful influence and will
do her good.’ Whether talk is allowed in the sick-
room or no, the rule always holds,—‘‘let your manner
there be easy and natural.”’
CHAPTER XXVII

AFTERMATH

Since the preceding chapters were written such a
goodly aftermath of available and useful items has
sprung up about me that I am constrained to reap
and garner them for the benefit of those I would help.

Were I to call this afterword an ‘‘Appendix’’ no-
body would read it. I prefer to bind up the slender
bundle with sister sheaves and secure for it house-
wifely recognition.

If it be made up of divers sorts of grain, my ex-
cuse is that some of the seeds have been blown into
my meadow by vagrant winds and from unknown
quarters. So long as they are sound and nutritious,
what matter whence they came ?

HOUSEWIFELY HINTS

Women who have not discarded the serviceable’
rag carpet in kitchen and laundry, may be glad to
know that it may be washed on the floor so long as it
is not worn badly in body and surface. And this, al-
though it may be vulgarly and apparently hopelessly
dirty.

Choose a fine, windy day, when John and the boys
are safely off to work and to school, for the opera-

382
AFTERMATH 383

tion. Shave a bar of old white soap into a pail of
hot water, churn it to suds and stir in a cup of gaso-
line. (Have no fire in the room.)

In another pail, close at hand, have plenty of clean
hot water for rinsing. You should be provided with
a new, strong scrubbing brush and an abundance of
clean, soft cloths. When everything is in order,
scrub that carpet as you would a floor, but with less
slopping. Wash a space the width of a breadth and
a foot wide, rinse quickly and wipe as dry as you can
get it before taking the brush in hand for another
scrub. Proceed in this way until you have been over
the whole carpet. Rub the badly soiled parts hard,
applying the suds several times before rinsing.

The floor will be dry in an astonishingly short time,
if you have not been too lavish with the water.

Leave windows and doors open, and let the air and
sunshine do the rest.

To remove stains from blankets: Make a mixture
of equal parts of glycerin and yolk of egg. Spread
it on the stain, leave it for half an hour, then wash
as usual.

To polish brass: A capital preparation for polish-
ing brasses is the red pomade sold for cleaning cop-
per and brass, used with a flannel cloth, previously
wrung out in kerosene. The effect is magical. The
brass rails, rods and other mountings of steamers
and ferry boats are polished with this.

For brass beds no polishing powders nor liquids
should be employed, the brass requiring nothing more
384 THE HOUSHEKEEPER’S WEEK

than a rubbing with a soft rag to keep it looking
bright. After the lacquer is scratched by powders
it will be a task to keep the brass in anything like
good condition. The lacquer is not meant to be
scrubbed, but is intended to protect the brass from
tarnishing through action of the air.

Green brooms: Brooms of green straw do not
wear as well as those of the natural color, so do not
buy them under the impression that they will outlast
others.

When bureau drawers stick in the grooves: Rub
soap over their edges. If that does not remedy the
trouble, use fine sandpaper.

To wash chamois skins: Squeeze the leather in
warm soap-suds—the addition of a little ammonia is
good when the leather is very dirty—repeating the
process if necessary. Rinse in a fresh lather of soap
and water and then hang out to dry. During the
drying process the leather may be rubbed with the
hands and pulled into shape a little. When dry it
will be as soft and as good for cleaning purposes as
ever.

To take fat from soups quickly: A greasy soup is
a culinary abomination. In fact it does not deserve
the name of soup. It is merely badly-made gravy.
Every drop of oil should be removed from the sur-
face before the broth or clear soup is served.

If you discover globules of fat upon the gravy soup
you are to serve to-day, you need not wait to cool it
before removing them. Wring a clean white cloth
AFTERMATH 385

out in iced water and strain the soup. The grease
will coagulate at once and will not go through the
cloth, while the liquid will. Of course, the soup must
not be squeezed in the straining.

All stocks, soup and gravy should be boiled up
each day or they will turn sour.

To keep a burning lamp from smelling or smoking:
A tablespoonful of vinegar put into the oil lamp or
stove that smells or smokes will cause it to burn with
a clear light and prevent it from smoking. If you
boil the wicks of lamps in strong hot vinegar, then
dry them, it will do away with most of the disagree-
able odor.

A sure destroyer of moths—simple and not poison-
ous: Saturate moth-infested stuffed furniture, rugs,
etc., with naphtha. Do this in the open air, and
after several days have elapsed repeat the operation,
as the eggs may not all have been destroyed at the
first trial. Lay over moth-eaten spots in the carpet
several thicknesses of cloth wrung from hot water,
and place hot irons upon the cloths. Allow them to
stand ten or twelve minutes at a time that the steam
may penetrate every part. After this has been done
pour on naphtha.

To keep mice from closed drawers: If camphor be
kept in drawers and cupboards, their contents will
be safe from mice, for they detest the smell.

To restore curdled mayonnaise: If your mayon-
naise curdles in the beating you may save the day by
stirring into it a lump of ice as big as your fist and
386 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

whirling it rapidly through the dressing for thirty
seconds, then taking it out. Go on with your beating
then. Should this not succeed, mix into the mayon-
naise the yolk of a chilled fresh egg.

Mayonnaise should not be beaten with a spoon, but
with horizontal strokes of a fork, or with a revolving
egg-beater.

To clear and purify muddy water: Stir into it
powdered alum. Leave it to settle and in a few hours
it will be fit for use. Drain off the water without
disturbing the dregs. The taste of alum will be
hardly perceptible.

To take grease spots out of wall paper: Pulverize
French chalk, damped lightly, just enough to make
it adhere to the paper; but do not make it wet enough
to run upon the surrounding surface. Leave it on
for a couple of days; cover them with blotting-paper
and hold a warm—not a hot—iron upon the blotter
for two minutes. This should draw out the grease.
If it does not, brush off the chalk and repeat the pro-
cess.

To clean a shell-backed comb or brush from white
marks left by alcohol, or cologne: Try to efface the
white marks with camphorated oil rubbed well in
with soft flannel. Then rub the whole comb with
neat’s foot oil applied in the same way. Leave the
oil on for a day, shutting the comb in a box. Fin-
ally, polish with chamois skin.

Lo renovate black crape: Remove it from the
dress and sponge it with beer or diluted ammonia.
AFTERMATH 387

The former leaves an odor which takes rather longer
to evaporate, but placing it when damp before a brisk
fire facilitates matters.

It may also be renewed by holding it over a pan
of boiling water, evenly, but not so tightly as to
hinder it from falling naturally into the ‘‘erinkles”’
that give it character. Take it by the edges when the
steam has moistened it thoroughly, and hang in the
dry air.

To bleach faded cottons white: The colored frock
or blouse that has been faded in the wash or by the
sun, may be bleached white by boiling in cream of
tartar water. The quantity to be used to make the
garment a pure white is a teaspoonful of the powder
to a quart of water.

Materials that have become faded and discolored
are often restored by packing them away in a dark
closet or chest. Layers of tissue-paper will aid in
the process.

To do away with the dark ring left by cleaning tex-
tiles: When a dark ring is left on the material after
using such cleansing agents to remove a stain, make
a ring all around the outside of the first ring by dip-
ping the finger in chloroform and applying it to the
material; keep rubbing toward the center of the cir-
cle with plenty of chloroform, allowing it to evapo-
rate freely, and the ring will disappear when the spot
is dry.

Sweeping and dusting: If your home is heated by
dry air, a damp cloth should be laid over each regis-
388 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

ter before you begin to sweep. In summer cover the
closed registers with rugs or with wadded squares of
matting to keep the must and smells of the basement
out of the living-rooms.

Brooms dipped for a few minutes in boiling suds
once a week will last much longer than they other-
wise would. They should immediately afterward be
plunged into cold water to stiffen the straw. If salt
be added to the water—a handful to a large pailful—
the straw will be stiff and cleaner than if water alone
be used, and the salt is fatal to the hardiest of vermin
that may lurk in the upper part of the brush.

Emery-cloth and sandpaper as sharpeners and pol-
ishers: A small board to which sandpaper has been
glued flat is good for rubbing flat-irons upon to take
off any roughness. Emery-cloth of different grades
of fineness may be glued to narrow strips of wood for
use in sharpening knives or scissors and putting a
point upon a pencil.

How to clean sponges: Sponges ought to be
washed out first, with household ammonia; then in
water in which a little cream of tartar has been dis-
solved. Finally, rinse in clear cold water.

To keep salt from hardening: During damp
weather salt cellars are apt to be clogged on the inner
side of the holes. By placing a few rice kernels in
each cellar and adding the salt last the delivery is
better.

A teaspoonful of corn-starch mixed well into each
AFTERMATH 389

cupful of salt is a yet surer preventive, the starch
absorbing the dampness.

The care of jelly bags: Dip jelly bags in boiling
water and wring as dry as possible before using, to
save the loss of fruit juice from soaking into the
cloth.

How to wash a sieve: Never wash a sieve with
soap. Soda or ammonia will clean it, with the help
of a clean whisk broom.

To clean flat-irons: Tie a lump of wax in a piece
of cloth, and keep it for the purpose. When the iron
is hot, rub it with the wax, and then scour with a
paper or cloth sprinkled with salt. Wax the iron
again before putting it away, to prevent the forma-
tion of rust.

How to pick game: 'To remove the feathers from
game of any kind dip in boiling water, then wrap in
a thick cloth. The feathers are steamed loose in a
very few minutes and the ‘‘pins”’ will give very little
or no trouble.

Charcoal in the pantry: A dish of charcoal placed
in the pantry will keep articles of food sweet and
wholesome almost as well as ice. Change it once a
week when the weather is warm.

To remove the “‘shine”’ from cloth: For that an-
noying ‘‘shine’’ that will appear on clothing where
the most wear comes, use bluing—common laundry
bluing. Use a tablespoonful of bluing to a half-cup
of water, apply with a soft cloth, then proceed with
390 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

the pressing, and the ‘‘shine” has vanished until
time to press again.

To take rust from steel and iron: Make a paste of
wood ashes and kerosene, and rub it well into the
rust. Leave it on for a few hours before scouring
it with dry ashes (sifted fine) and a flannel cloth.
This will remove rust from almost any surface. If
you can not get wood ashes, which are often difficult
to obtain, use whiting.

To clean rusty steel make a paste of equal quanti-
ties of whiting and brick-dust mixed together with
kerosene. Apply this to the steel with an old cloth,
and afterward polish with soft leather. <A piece of
old velveteen would answer the purpose as well as
leather.

To keep fies from windows: It is said that flies
will not settle on windows that have been washed
with water with which a little kerosene has been
mixed.

To take out fruit stains from linen: Tf the fabric
be soaked in spirits of camphor before wetting, the
stain will be removed unless other detersives have
been used already.

To clean willow furniture: Use salt and water.
Apply with a brush and then rub dry.

Milky glasses: Rinsing them in cold water before
washing them in warm will prevent them from look-
ing smeared. Hot water forms a film with milk and
clouds the glass. It converts egg-smears into a hard
custard that is difficult to wash off. Egg-cups and
AFTERMATH 391

Spoons should always be laid in cold water to soak
before they are plunged into hot.

How to pour griddle-cake batter: It is always
better in making griddle-cakes to pour the batter
from a pitcher, instead of dropping it from a spoon.
There is no dropping or streaking of the raw batter
over range and griddle.

To clean a defaced iron bedstead: It may be im-
proved in appearance, as well as cleaned, by rubbing
with a cloth dipped in kerosene. Remove every
trace of oil by rubbing again with a clean cloth or
leather. Warm the oil slightly.

How to dry an umbrella: Leave a wet umbrella
open to dry so that the silk will not rot or crease. If
it can not be left open, turn it upside down, so that
the moisture will not collect at the ferrule end and so
rot the silk.

By ‘‘upside down” is meant that it must stand
with the ferrule uppermost. The moisture then
trickles harmlessly from the tips of the ribs.

Cane-seated chairs: Scrub with soap and hot
water. Turn the chairs upside down, and make the
cane thoroughly wet. Then dry in the open air.
The effect will not merely be to clean the cane, but
to shrink it, and if the cane be not broken, the seat
will, when dry, be firm and taut.

Again, as with the broom, add a little salt to the
water to prevent the canes from yellowing.

Dried paint on wood and glass: Spread over the
marks a thick paste made of lime and soda mixed with
392 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

water. Leave twenty-four hours, then wash off.

A hint to amateur gardeners: If you are about to
engage in gardening, rub the finger-tips along a cake
of soap, getting it well under each nail. This will
prevent unpleasant material from lodging there.

In potting house plants, in weeding and settling
the earth about roots that have been disturbed by
hoe or rake, this homely precaution is valuable. The
soap not merely prevents the accumulation of soil
under the nails, but helps to cleanse them when the
hands are washed from the grime.

To make leather waterproof: Mix half a pound
of mutton suet, six ounces of beeswax, a quarter of a
pound of resin, and half a pint of boiled linseed-oil.
Melt these ingredients together, and apply while hot.
Boys’ brogans will withstand mud and the rot of
snow-water twice as long if treated every fortnight
in winter with this preparation.

How to make a pine-needle pillow: Clip the pine
branches into small twigs with a pair of sharp shears.
If they are torn off, the resinous juice, which is the
soul of the ‘‘cure,’’ escapes. Spread the twigs on
paper to dry in the air but not in the sunshine or
they will shrivel and the resinous breath be exhaled
before its time. At the end of a week clip the needles
off close to the stem and fill your pillows. I have
cushions that were filled after this manner ten years
ago, which are fragrant still.

To burnish copper: Mix a handful of common
salt with enough vinegar and flour to make a paste.
AFTERMATH 393

After using the paste wash thoroughly and polish
with chamois skin.

To remove tron mold from linen or cotton: Dis-
solve one heaping teaspoonful of oxalic acid in a pint
of boiling water. Then hold the article over a bowl
and pour the water slowly through on spots. Pour
through several times until there are no rust spots
left.

Do not fail to rinse the goods well in clear water
after each application of the acid. Neglect of this
precaution has brought undeserved reproach upon a
potent detersive.

Grass and coffee stains: For grass stains on cot-
ton or woolen goods wash in alcohol.

Wet tea and coffee stains with cold water and
glycerin and let them stand for two or three hours.
Then wash with hard soap and cold water.

Stains on kitchen tables: Oxalic acid dissolved in
hot water and applied to the stained wood of kitchen
tables, or to sinks and boilers, will cleanse the metals
and whiten the wood.

To wash the baby’s flannels: Boil a bar of old
white soap—shaved—in a quart of hot water until it
is a clear liquid. Use about a fourth of the solution
in two or three quarts of water comfortably warm to
the hands. The principle is not that the water need
be only lukewarm, but that each water be the same
temperature. The same suds may be used for all the
little garments, beginning with the shirts, then stock-
ings, then skirts. On no account should a woolen
394 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

garment be rubbed or wrung, as either motion
‘‘niles’’ the fiber and harshens the wool. All that is
necessary is to squeeze gently and souse them in the
suds. Two:suds and three rinse waters are generally
sufficient. Squeeze the garments as dry as may be
after each bath and finally shake well and pull gently.
Dry in the house. When nearly dry press carefully
with a hot iron, which should be tested before putting
on the wool to avoid scorching. If any garment is
too heavy to be squeezed dry enough to hang the
wringer may be used. This treatment is highly suc-
cessful with ‘‘bearskin’’ coats and bonnets. Brush
the fur well instead of ironing.

To remove a “‘smell’’ from clothing: To take the
odor out of stockings that smell of the dye and
the armpits of underwear and wash waists: When
they are washed let the last rinsing be in alum water
—about a teaspoonful of powdered alum to one quart
of warm water.

To take grease out of an embroidered linen center-
piece: So long as the grease is not directly upon the
embroidery all is safe. Rub plenty of powdered*
French chalk on the wrong side of the linen and put
it aside in a box for two days. Then lay thick blot-
ting-paper over the chalk and press with a warm iron.
This draws out the oil. Should any sign of the spot
remain on the right side it is the dust that has settled
in the grease. Puta thick pad of blotting-paper un-
der the spot and sponge with pure alcohol.

To clean amber beads: If you do not care to take
AFTERMATH ~. 395

the beads to a jeweler, rub them with amber oil,
leaving it on for some hours. Then polish with a
soft flannel, wrung out dry in pure olive oil. Lastly,
rub until warm with old silk.

This will excite the latent electricity in the amber
—restoring its spirit, as it were.

Domestic dyeing: To color brown with gum
catechu.

For five pounds of goods take two pounds of gum
catechu, one tablespoonful of alum, six ounces of
bichromate of potash. Dissolve the gum in water
enough to cover the goods. Put the alum in with
the gum. Wet the goods, then put them in the dye
and let them remain two hours over a slow fire, airing
and stirring frequently. Then take them out and
dry partly, make a new dye of the bichromate of
potash with plenty of water in which to dip the goods.
Dip several times; after which rinse well. Iron while
damp. It will give a fast color for wool or cotton.
It has been thoroughly tried.

For coloring cotton rags canary, dissolve ten cents’
worth of sugar of lead in one vessel and ten cents’
worth of bichromate of potash in another. Put a
gallon of water into each. Don’t boil, but use the
dye cold. Dip the cotton into each dye alternately.
This makes a beautiful canary color. To make a
nice green, dip the canary into bluing water.

Sponge for washing paint: Washing paint with
warm water and a large soft sponge will do the work
better and more quickly than a cloth. The sponge
396 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

leaves no lint, and it saves the time you spend wring-
ing out a cloth.

To keep cider sweet: (1) Use only sound apples;
make the cider when the weather is cold enough to
freeze the apples. Expose the cider during freezing
weather and stir it until the whole of it is reduced to
as near the freezing point as possible without freez-
ing. Then barrel it, bung up tightly and place in a
cellar kept nearly down to the freezing point. As
long as it can be kept cold it will not ferment, and as
long as it does not ferment it will remain sweet.

The sweetness of cider may also be preserved by
adding to it sulphite of lime and black mustard-seed
—the sulphur inherent in the mustard acting jointly
with the sulphite as a preservative.

(2) Grind or chop six or eight horseradish roots
fine and put in one barrel of cider as soon after mak-
ing as possible. If kept in a cool place, it will re-
main sweet until spring. What is left makes fine
vinegar. One ounce of wintergreen will also keep it
sweet but most people do not like the flavor.

To transfer a print or photograph: Take the pic- °
ture you wish to transfer; dip a cheap brush into
turpentine and paint the picture with it. A blotter
should be used to avoid streaking the picture. Now
lay the picture face down upon the article to which
you wish to transfer it. Rub the entire surface care-
fully with a smooth instrument. This completes the
operation.

Fleas upon dog or cat: If one whose pet dog or
AFTERMATH 397

cat is troubled with fleas will wet the afflicted one with
camphor diluted with water, one will find that the
fleas have taken leave at once, and no harm is done
to the pet.

Ways of preserving eggs all winter: (1) Put one-
half peck of fresh lime into fifteen gallons of water.
Stir well and let it stand over night. On the fol-
lowing day give it another good stirring and, when
clear, draw the water off. Mix the water with one-
half pound (eight ounces) of common salt and three-
quarters of an ounce of pure cream of tartar. Place
the eggs in this solution to within two inches of the
level of the liquid. Be careful not to crack any.
Cover the vessel with a heavy muslin cloth and put
one inch of lime sediment over the muslin. Putina
cool, dark place and the eggs will keep for nine
months in the same brine.

(2) Allow one pint of lime and one-half pint of
salt to three gallons of water. Put into a large stone
jar and keep in a cool place. Of course, the eggs
have to be perfectly fresh when put into the jar.

(3) Place the casks or buckets in a cool place,
where they are to remain. To one gallon of boiling
water add one pound of water-glass (a solution of
silicate of soda) while hot. The glass dissolves at
once in warm water and no one could tell it had been
added. Let it cool and then put in the eggs whenever
obtainable. Drop them in gently. Mark this:
every egg put in the liquid should be fresh. Water-
glass is a preservative for eggs and not a restorative,
398 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

and no eggs placed in it should be more than a week
old. Finally, all the eggs must be under the liquid,
but so long as they are not exposed they may be as
near the surface as possible.

To keep ants away from refrigerators: Pull the
refrigerator away from the wall, then paint a circle
of kerosene on the floor around each leg of the re-
frigerator. The ants will not cross the circle.

To protect walls in moving furniture: It is diffi-
cult to lift heavy bureaus and bed-steads up-stairs
without grazing the walls. Hang sheets along the
staircase walls so that the paper and paint will not
be soiled or scraped.

To remove lime from the inside of a tea-kettle:
Boil vinegar in your kettle. The acid acting upon
the deposit of alkaline matter inside, will cause it to
disintegrate and crack off. Scrape it out, and in fu-
ture keep an oyster shell in the kettle. The lime will
collect upon it instead of adhering to the sides of the
vessel. Renew the shell weekly.

To keep cut glass from cracking: Cut glass bowls
are often cracked when hot liquids or custards are
poured into them. To prevent such an accident,
place the dish on a wet cloth. Of course, the fruit
must not be boiling hot.

IN THE SICK-ROOM

Cracked ice: Fever patients derive more comfort
from cracked ice when the mouth is dry and hot than
from drafts of water. A bit of ice laid on the ton-
AFTERMATH 399

gue and left to dissolve slowly, trickling down the
parched throat of itself, without the effort of swal-
lowing, is inexpressibly grateful.

Cracked ice should be the instant resort in cases of
hemorrhage from the lungs.

It is especially valuable when one has an inflamed
throat. I have known cases of tonsilitis and incipi-
ent quinsy to be relieved and, indeed, entirely cured
by holding cracked ice in the mouth for hours at a
time. The icy trickle over the inflamed parts is
soothing and healing. Some throat specialists use
no other remedy unless the disease has gained such
force that heroic measures must be resorted to in
order to save life.

It will often arrest nausea, if administered in mi-
nute bits, allowing one to dissolve before the next is
taken into the mouth.

To prevent a mustard-plaster from blistering:
Mix oil or lard with the mustard, working all into a
smooth paste, and letting fall a few drops of oil upon
the surface of the poultice before applying it.

In cases where mustard would perhaps be too se-
vere, a mixture of white of egg and red pepper may
be safely used. It will be found quite as effective as
the mustard, but it will not blister nor leave un-
sightly red blotches even on the tenderest skin. It
can safely be applied at the base of the brain for
headache.

More uses for camphor: A safe and not unpleas-
ant household remedy. If one afflicted with catarrhal
400 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

cold will inhale the odor of spirits of saepHeE for’
two minutes, every hour, drawing long breaths of
the fumes, patiently and ‘perseveringly, keeping the
mouth closed meanwhile, the affection will, in most
cases, be relieved within twenty-four hours.

Three drops of camphor in a teaspoonful of water,
taken every fifteen minutes for an hour, will often
relieve distressing nausea. Camphor is one of the
safest and most convenient of drugs for domestic
use. Flannel, folded and soaked in camphor, then
laid on the pit of the stomach, is a sure alleviative of
colic and nausea.

Tincture of myrrh as a mouth wash: Twenty
drops in four tablespoonfuls of water is an excellent
mouth wash, both healing and cleansing. It is not to
be swallowed.

The duty of washing the mouth after each meal is
neglected by thousands of so-called neat people.
Particles of food left between the teeth yield to the
law of rapid decomposition that goes on with other
“‘left-overs’? in the human body, and infect the
breath, likewise the gastric juices, as the saliva
washes them down the throat.

Baby’s mouth should be washed daily with a small
square of old linen or piece of handkerchief wrapped
around the little finger and dipped into water.
Tongue and gums should be thoroughly cleaned.
Burn the piece of linen as soon as used. This simple
act daily would do much to prevent the ‘‘thrash’’
prevalent with young babies.
AFTERMATH 401

Remedies for’ croup: (1) An acute attack of
croup may sometimes be relieved if a towel or strip
of flannel folded lengthwise and dipped into hot
water, then slightly wrung out, be placed around the
neck of the sufferer and covered so as to retain the
heat.

(2) Apply a poultice made of camphorated oil and
nutmeg. Heat the oil, saturate a piece of old muslin
with it, then grate nutmeg thickly over it, and apply
to the chest while warm. If one poultice does not
cure, apply more.

When applying hot ‘‘stupes’’ (cloths or bandages)
heat them by putting them into the inner vessel of a
double boiler. If no double boiler be at hand, any
covered vessel that can be set firmly within another
will do. Keep the flannels or other stupes moist
by sprinkling a little water on them, as they dry, and
have one on the patient and one in the boiler all the
time. Donot remove from the patient until the other
stupe is ready to go on.

Put a layer of absorbent cotton and a piece of oiled
silk or light rubber tissue over the stupe to keep the
heat in.

‘A cheap disinfectant: Place a common plate over
a kettle in which water is kept boiling, sprinkle a level
tablespoonful of sulphur on the plate and replenish
it every hour. The heat from the boiling water sets
free the sulphur dioxide without the disagreeable
fumes of burning sulphur, and is death to all germs.
It will prevent the disease from spreading to any
402 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

other member of the household. The sulphur is best
sprinkled by using a common pepper can. It should
be kept going all of the first day. After that a
couple of hours twice a day will do.

HOMELY REMEDIES

Do not take cold: Keep a woolen robe and wool-
lined slippers near the bedside to be slipped on when
called up suddenly during the night, and never sleep
in a draft.

Sulphur for rheumatism: Sprinkle powdered sul-
phur between sheet and wadding, covering with thin
cloth, and bind on the affected parts; wear all the
time, renewing occasionally. Sulphur is a great
blood purifier, and when used in this way works
through the pores.

For excessive perspiration: An alleviative for ex-
cessive perspiration under the arms is made by dis-
solving half a teaspoonful of bicarbonate of soda in
a small cupful of water. This lotion mopped on the
parts is sometimes very beneficial.

Sulphur for eczema: Work flower of sulphur into
vaseline. Turn a plate bottom side up and put upon
it about half a spoonful of vaseline; add the sulphur,
a little at a time, and work it into the vaseline with a
broad-bladed knife, until of the right consistency. It
will have the appearance of a bright yellow salve.
Keep in a glass jar with a tight top.

Nose-bleed is often stopped in the old way of apply-
ing cold compresses or a bit of ice done up in a cloth
AFTERMATH 403
at the back of the neck. At the same time insert a
small wad of paper between the upper lip and teeth,
and press the lips firmly down over it.

Prolonged bleeding at the nose: Itmay be checked
by making the patient lie on his back and extend both
arms as far above his head as they will go—flat on
the floor—holding them thus until the bleeding slack-
ens. J have seen profuse hemorrhage from the nose
stopped in this way.

Deodorizers: (1) Put a piece of camphor on a
saucer and lay on it a red-hot shovel. The fumes
from the camphor quickly go off and cause all close-
ness to disappear.

(2) Dried orange peel, burned upon a brazier or
upon hot coals on a shovel, will dispel an evil odor.

(8) A painter taught me thirty years ago that the
danger of ‘‘painter’s cholera’’ may be averted by set-
ting a tub of cold water in a freshly painted room.
Next morning the water is covered with oily particles
containing lead poison.

(4) A few grains of coffee burned on hot coals will
purify the air in a sick-room and drive away any
odor.

‘An antiseptic: Peroxide of hydrogen is a val-
uable antiseptic to have in the house. It makes a
pleasant mouth wash and throat gargle when diluted
and will remove blood stains if used before the stain
is dry.

Danger of checked secretions of the skin: Pastes
and powders that are put on the complexion at night
404 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

constrict the pores and shut in the sebaceous secre-
tions, bringing on the very evils that one is trying
to annihilate. The process suffocates the skin, re-
encouraging the laziness of the glands and pores that
produces blackheads and blotches. i

The eyes: The eyes are benefited by a bath before
retiring. Dust has accumulated along the edges of
the lids and should be removed before going to sleep.
Eyes that are weary from long use may smart and.
grow inflamed. A simple method of relief is to lay
over them a compress wet with cold water. ‘As it is
warmed by contact with the flesh renew it.

To whiten yellowish gray hair: The elderly
woman (or man) whose hair, in graying, has a yellow
tinge, may correct this and obtain a beautifully white
head by the use of a new hair-brush dipped in bluing
water, dried and dipped again, then laid in the air to
get perfectly dry. When one wishes to use it, the
brush should be moistened—not soaked—in clear.
water. If carefully handled, one bluing will last for
some weeks without renewal.

THE CARE OF THE FEET

Soft corns: (1) Use sweet or almond oil on ab-
sorbent cotton placed between the toes.
(2) Use camphor on absorbent cotton in the same
way.
(3) Use bicarbonate of soda—or saleratus—dry.
Put in plentifully between the toes, This alkali
AFTERMATH 405

draws out all the soreness caused by moisture and
acid.

Hard corns: Place over the corn a disk of kid,
chamois or thin, soft felt, with a hole in the center.
Relieve as much pressure as possible. Salicylic acid
and collodion make a good lotion for corns. <An-
other method for removing them—a homely one—is
to soak them in hot water for half an hour and re-
move as much of the corn as possible. Then bind
over it a clove of garlic, previously crushed and
soaked in vinegar. Do this every night for a week.

CARE OF PLANTS

House hyacinths should be planted in November.
Keep them after planting in a dark cupboard in a
moderately warm room. When the sprouts are a
few inches high, bring them by degrees into the light.
The sickly green of the young shoots will soon darken
into a healthy growth. Give them plenty of sunlight,
water twice a week abundantly, and shade them at
night from gaslight. If transported suddenly from
darkness to the full glory of the sunshine, they will
wither. Move them a little nearer the window daily
for a week.

Keeping flowers fresh: Clip the tips of the stalks
before putting them in fresh water, which should be
just off the chill. Always have clean vases. A pinch
of charcoal powder in each vase is a preservative.

Sulphur for plants: Stick plenty of unburned
406 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

matches head first into the soil of plants that begin
to look unhealthy. If there should be anything work-
ing at the roots or anything that is alive that should
not be there, it will exterminate them without the
least injury to the plant.

Calla lily: About the last of May lay it to rest
under the house, where it will dry off. The last week
of August repot it. Put charcoal or bits of broken
bone in the pot; plant the bulb in good, rich soil, first
shaking off all the dry earth; set in a pail of water
and give it a good wetting, Then put it in a dark,
damp place for about ten days, when it should have
a shoot about six inches long. Now give a teaspoon-
ful of castor-oil, wet again and put the plant in a
sunny window, gradually, where there is no gas heat.
Give it a deep saucer and every morning fill this with
boiling water. Once a week give the plant a good
wetting and by the middle of November you will have
blooms.

To destroy cabbage-worms: One large cup of table
salt to one gallon of water will destroy cabbage-
worms and not harm the plant. Pour from a sprink-
ling can.

THE END
INDEX
INDEX

ABSORBENT, rye flour as an,
139
water as an, 250

ABSORPTION, removing grease
from fabric by, 113
removing grease from wood or
stone by, 207

ACCOUNTS, HOUSEHOLD, 4

ACID, acetic, to remove warts,
369
complemental, needed in bread
made with soda, 94
phosphorie, 336
stomach in baby, to correct, 341

ACIDS, fruit, medicinal and nu-
tritive qualities of, 335
vegetable, harmlessness of in ex-
tracting stains, 98

ALABASTER, to clean, 236

ALKALI, commonest form of,
367
sal-soda, in soap powder, 34

ALKALIS, specifies for stings
and bites, 367

ALCOHOL, 110, 142

ALCOHOL AND ETHER, cau-
tion in use of, 141

ALCOHOL STAINS, 386
ALUM, 143
ALUM WATER, 394

AMBER, to clean, 394

AMMONIA, 105, 111
effect on hair of, 175
value in kitchen, 241

ANIMALS, anatomy of, 277

ANTIDOTES, for various poi-
sons, 349, 350

APPLES, medicinal and nutritive
qualities of, 336

APPLIANCES, necessary for
ironing, 64

necessary for washing table-
ware, 257

ANTS, from refrigerator, to keep,
398
infesting lawns, 159
red and black, to rid house of,
157

“ ANT-COWS,” to destroy, 173

ANTISEPTIC, peroxide of hy-
drogen as, 403

APHIDES, methods of destroy-
ing, 173

409
410

ASBESTOS, cover, advantage of
for dinner table, 272
mats of, for table, 213

ASH-SIFTER, for kitchen range,
244

ATTIC, to rid of superfluous ar-
ticles, 304

AXLE GREASE STAINS, 107
BAGS, jelly, care of, 389
BAKING, present neglect of, 74

BATH-ROOM, borax, value of,

in, 230

daily care of, 269

danger from sewer gas in, 229

how to clean enameled tub, 231

how to clean porcelain equip-
ment, 231

faucets, polish for, 233

oxalic acid, use in, 232

shelf and towel-roller, 235

situation of, 229

soaps, 234

to wash painted walls of, 205

ventilation in, 228

BATH-ROOM, care of furnish-
ings in, 228

BATTER, how to pour griddle
cake, 391

BED, best kind of mattress for, :

220
eare of brass, 226
coverings, how to clean, 223

sick, position and arrangement,
372

THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

BEDBUGS, mixture for destruc-

tion of, 178

to destroy with formaldehyde,
178

to destroy with gasoline, 177

to destroy with gasoline and
camphor, 179

to destroy with kerosene, 176

to destroy with paste of cor-
rosive sublimate, 177

to destroy with paste of quick-
silver, 178

to destroy with spirits of tur-
pentine, 177

scientific name of, 176

BEDROOMS, daily care of, 268
order in annual cleaning of, 305

BEDSTEAD, light-weight, ad-
vantage of, 226
iron, to clean, 391

BEEF, facts about, 277-280
medicinal and dietary values of,
338

BENZINE, 116, 125
to remove paint from delicate |
fabrics, 108

BILE, 336

BILIOUS DISORDERS,
334, 337

BILIARY CALCULI, 333
BLACKBERRIES, as tonic, 334

BLANKETS, cold water process
for, 41

333,
INDEX

method of washing, 43
to remove stains from, 383

BLOCK MAGNESIA, use in dry-
cleaning, 119

BLOOD, currants as purifiers of,
335
diseases of the, 333
effect of roast meats upon, 338

BLOOD STAINS, 403

BLOTTING PAPER, use in re-
moving stains, 112

BLUING, precautions in use of,
21
recipe for home-made, 35

BODY, CARE OF, 312
bath, the, 320
bath, cold, some disadvantages
of, 320
bath, hot, 321

bath, value of rubbing after,
322
breathing, advice of eminent

authorities on, 316
breathing exercises, 314
deep breathing, rules for, 313
dumb bells, the use of, 318
exercises for the nervous, 33
eyes, 404 ,
feet, 404
gentle gymnastics, rules for, 317
how to grow taller, 322
how to derive benefits from
physical culture, 319
how to rest properly, 329
insomnia, several remedies for,
826-328

411

mouth, 400

naps, value of, 325

physical culture, time necessary
for, 320

relaxation of nerves, 329

sleep, amount needed, 325

sleep, fresh air an inducement
to, 323

to reduce a double chin, 330

BOOK SHELVES, care of, 160
to clean, 239

BOOK-WORMS, to rid of, 160

BOOKS, to clean, 239
to clean leather-bound, 145

BORACIC TALCUM, excellence
in dry-cleaning, 118
for chapped hands, 230

BORAX, antiseptic, medicinal
and cleansing powers of, 230
use in laundry, 16
use in ridding house of roaches,
163
various uses in kitchen, 241

BORAX AND FLOUR, for dry-
cleaning, 118

BRAN-WATER, recipe for, 20

BRASS, acids and_ substances

hurtful to, 226

bird cage, to clean, 256

black and green, treatment of,
256

daily care of, 255

effect of dampness and dust
upon, 227
412 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

general care of, 226

laying away of, 255

several ways of cleaning, 256
to polish, 383

BREAD, absorbent qualities, 91

BREAD BOWL, proper kind of,
86

BREAD BOX, care of, 91, 250

BREA D-MAKING, complemental
acids needed with soda
breads, 94

dough, kneading the dough, 87-
89

dough, sensitive quality of, 92

kneading sponge, 87

lessons in, 84

milk bread, recipe for, 92

preparation of oven, 90

potato sponge, recipe for, 86

quick breads, recipes for, 93

sourness in sponge, to correct,
87

sweating the loaf, to prevent,
91

yeast, 79

yeast cakes, home-made, recipe
for, 83

yeast, compressed, 80

yeast, hop, recipe for, 81

yeast, potato, recipe for, 82

BREAKFAST TABLE, use of
mats on, 272

BREATHING, 313
advice of an eminent author-
ity on, 316

exercises, 314
through the nose, 313

BROOM CLOTHS, 195

BROOMS, care of, 187, 388
green, inutility of, 384
hair, 194

BRUSHES, care of household,
188

BUFFALO-BEETLES AND
SILVER-MOTHS, to exter-
minate, 153

BURLAPS, 205 ;
BURNS AND SCALDS, 351
BUTTER, where to buy, 288

CAMPHOR, abhorrent to moths,
151
medicinal use of, 346
use in keeping silver bright,
254
various uses in illness, 400

CANCEROUS DISEASES, 334
CARBONIC ACID GAS, 324 .

CARE OF bath-room, 269
bedrooms, 268
body, 312
brooms, 187, 388
dining-room, 266
front, the, 265
house, 7
household furnishings, 181, 208,
228, 252 ,
kitchen and pantries, 267
INDEX

kitchen sink, 240

mirrors, 210

pewter and Britannia, 247
piano, 238

sick, the, 370

silver, 252

teakettle, 398

tiles, 206

CARPET CLEANING, 382

CARPET SWEEPER, value and
eare of, 187

CARPETS, to clean with am-

monia, 184

to renovate, 187

to rid of moths, 155

to serub, 188

treatment of, when
house, 154

weekly sweeping of, 186

CATARRH, relation of, to im-
proper breathing, 317

CATERPILLARS, APHIDES,
ROSE BEETLES, to de-
stroy, 172-174

CEDAR OIL, 160, 161

CELLARS AND OUTHOUSES,
sanitary quality of white-
wash for, 204

CEMENT, for mending kitchen
utensils, recipe, 248

CHAMOIS, skins, to wash, 384
vests, to wash, 48
vests, to dry-clean, 131

closing

413

CHARCOAL, use in pantry, 389

CHEWING-GUM, _ to
from clothing, 144

CHIMNEYS, lamp, to temper,
261
smoky, to cure, 244
‘on fire, to stop, 244

CHINA, for daily use, how to
buy, 288
how to wash, 257, 258
sorting before washing, 257

CHINA, GLASS, SILVER, care
of, 252

CHLORIDE OF LIME, action
upon delicate fabrics, 106
mixture of, 101
solution of, 101
to remove fruit stains with, 106

CIDER, to keep sweet, 396

CLEAN, alabaster, to, 236
amber, to, 394
earpet, to, 382
chiffon, white, to, 138
feathers, to, 135
furniture, to, 212
furs, dark, to, 123
furs, white, to, 123
gilding, to, 206
felt hats, to, 123
gloves, various ways, to, 125
jet, to, 144
leather, to, 128-131
leather-bound books, to, 145
mother-of-pearl, to, 237

remove
414

non-washable articles of dress,
to, 114

paint, to, 395

plaster figures, to, 236

precious stones, to, 144

ribbons, to, 56

sewing-machine, to, 238

silks, black, to, 53

silks, fast-colors, to, 54

Silks, wash-, to, 55

sponges, to, 388

stuffs, white, to, 137

stuffs, dark wool, to, 58

summer hats, to, 131-133

utensils, to, 245-249

velvet, several methods, to,
121

walls, to, 201

wall-paper, to, 202

windows, to, 208

zine, to, 244

CLEANING, dry, 116
house, 301
textiles, to remove. ring left by,
387

CLOTH, to remove wrinkles in,
122

CLOTHES-LINE AND PINS,
care of, 24

CLOTHS, for cleaning, care of,
dust, 269, 299

COAL OIL, use in stopping
imosquito breeding, 168

COFFEE STAINS, 104, 105, 393

THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

COLD WATER PROCESS, for
blankets, 41

COLORED COTTONS, care of
in laundry, 20, 48

COLORS, to set, 143

COMFORTABLES, how to wash,
223

COMPLEXION, to improve, 335
CONSTIPATION, 332, 334, 337
COOKING, value in study of, 5

COPPER, to buimish, 392
to clean, 246

CORROSIVE SUBLIMATE, ree-
ipe for paste of, 177

COTTONS, to bleach faded, 387

CRAPE, black, several methods
of renovating, 386

CROUP, remedies for, 401
CUPBOARDS, damp, to dry, 251

CURRANTS, nutritive quality of,
335

CURTAINS, to restore ecru color
of, 141, 142

DAILY ROUTINE OF HOUSE-
HOLD WORK, 264

DARNING, 294
various stitches in, 294

DEODORIZERS, 403
INDEX 415

DETERSIVES, 96, 240
in laundry, 13
value of milk among, 102

DIGESTION, to promote, 333

DINING-ROOM, daily care of,
266

DINNER, service at table, 273
table, arrangement of, 272

DISHES, appliances for wash-
ing, 257
instructing maid how to wash,
271
preparation for washing, 257

DISINFECTANT, for bad-smell-
ing pillows, 223

DIVISION OF INCOME, 3

DOMESTIC MATERIA MED-
ICA, 331

DOMESTIC REMEDIES, bites,
frost, decoction for curing,
354

bites, poisonous, treatment for,
354

bites, snake, specific for, 355

bites, snake, treatment for, 354

boils, bread poultice for, 350

boils, green fig poultice for,
350

bread poultice, how to make,
350

bunions, cause of and treat-
ment for, 361

burned mouth, milk and lime-
water for, 350

burns and scalds, baking soda
for, 352
353

burns and scalds, emulsion of
eastor oil for, 351

burns and sealds, linseed oil and
lime-water for, 351

burns, paste of wood soot and
lard for, 353

camphor, various uses in illness,
400

callous spots, 362

chilblains, various remedies for,
364

choked child, to treat, 358

cold, camphor for, 346, 400

cold and bronchial cough, mul-
lein tea for, 345 :

cold, sassafras tea for, 368

cold feet, to eure, 361

cold tea as eye-wash, 349

corns, hard, to eure, 405

corns, how to make poultice for,
361

corns, proper and improper
treatment of, 361

corns, soft, to eure, 404

croup, 401

erushed finger or toe, 355

cuts and bruises, ointment for,
365

dandelion tea, recipe for, 348

disinfectant, sulphur as, 401

disordered bowels, use of gar-
den mint for, 347

disordered liver, dandelion tea
for, 348
414

non-washable articles of dress,
to, 114

paint, to, 395

plaster figures, to, 236

precious stones, to, 144

ribbons, to, 56

sewing-machine, to, 238

silks, black, to, 53

silks, fast-colors, to, 54

Silks, wash-, to, 55

sponges, to, 388

stuffs; white, to, 137

stuffs, dark wool, to, 58

summer hats, to, 131-133

utensils, to, 245-249

velvet, several methods, to,
121

walls, to, 201

wall-paper, to, 202

windows, to, 208

zine, to, 244

CLEANING, dry, 116
house, 301
textiles, to remove. ring left by,
387

CLOTH, to remove wrinkles in,
122

CLOTHES-LINE AND PINS,
care of, 24

CLOTHS, for cleaning, care of,
269
dust, 269, 299

COAL OIL, use im stopping
mosquito breeding, 168

COFFEE STAINS, 104, 105, 393

THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

COLD WATER PROCESS, for
blankets, 41

COLORED COTTONS, care of
in laundry, 20, 48

COLORS, to set, 143

COMFORTABLES, how to wash,
223

COMPLEXION, to improve, 335
CONSTIPATION, 332, 334, 337
COOKING, value in study of, 5

COPPER, to buinish, 392
to clean, 246

CORROSIVE SUBLIMATE, ree-
ipe for paste of, 177

COTTONS, to bleach faded, 387

CRAPE, black, several methods
of reviovating; 386

CROUP, rémedies for, 401
CUPBOARDS, damp, to dry, 251

CURRANTS, nutritive quality of,
335

CURTAINS, to restore ecru color
of, 141, 142

DAILY ROUTINE OF HOUSE-
HOLD WORK, 264

DARNING, 294
various stitches in, 294

DEODORIZERS, 403
INDEX 415

DETERSIVES, 96, 240
in laundry, 13
value of milk among, 102

DIGESTION, to promote, 333

DINING-ROOM, daily care of,
266

DINNER, service at table, 273
table, arrangement of, 272

DISHES, appliances for wash-
ing, 257
instructing maid how to wash,
271
preparation for washing, 257

DISINFECTANT, for bad-smell-
ing pillows, 223

DIVISION OF INCOME, 3

DOMESTIC MATERIA MED-
ICA, 331

DOMESTIC REMEDIES, bites,
frost, decoction for curing,
354

bites, poisonous, treatment for,
354

bites, snake, specifie for, 355

bites, snake, treatment for, 354

boils, bread poultice for, 350

boils, green fig poultice for,
350

bread poultice, how to make,
350

bunions, cause of and treat-
ment for, 361

burned mouth, milk gnd_ lime-
water for, 350

burns and scalds, baking soda
for, 352

burns and sealds, dry flour for,
353

burns and scalds, emulsion of
eastor oil for, 351

burns and sealds, linseed oil and
lime-water for, 351

burns, paste of wood soot and
lard for, 353

camphor, various uses in illness,
400

callous spots, 362

chilblains, various remedies for,
364

choked child, to treat, 358

cold, camphor for, 346, 400

cold and bronchial cough, mul-
lein tea for, 345

eold, sassafras tea for, 368

cold feet, to cure, 361

cold tea as eye-wash, 349

corns, hard, to cure, 405

corns, how to make poultice for,
361 :

corns, proper and improper
treatment of, 361

corns, soft, to cure, 404

croup, 401

erushed finger or toe, 355

euts and bruises, ointment for,
365

dandelion tea, recipe for, 348

disinfectant, sulphur as, 401

disordered bowels, use of gar-
den mint for, 347

disordered liver, dandelion tea
for, 348
416 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

earache, use of laudanum in
relieving, 358

eczema, “ jimson ”
for, 364

eczema of the ears, recipe for
local application, 366

eczema, sulphur for, 402

eczema, treatment for, 366

eyelids, inflamed, poultice for,
361

eyelids, inflamed, wash for,
360, 361

eyes, care of the, 359

eyes, bad effect ,of electric light
on, 359

felons and other sores, poultice
of plaintain leaf for, 349

flaxseed poultice, how to make,
349

green fig poultice, how to make,
350

headache, dandelion tea for,
348

hives, several ways of treating,
368, 351

hot-water bandages, 401

ingrowing nail, methods of
treating, 363

inflammation of lungs, flaxseed
poultice for, 349

internal excoriation, 350

“ jimson” weed, curative prop-
erties of, 364

mouth-wash, tincture of myrrh
as, 400

mullein tea, variety of uses, 345

mustard plaster for headache,
399

ointment

mustard plaster, substitute for,
399

mustard plaster, to keep from
blistering, 399

nausea, black coffee for, 349

nausea, camphor for, 346, 400

nausea, cracked ice for, 399

nausea, dandelion tea for, 348

nightmare, to prevent, 328

nose-bleed, to stop, 402

painter’s cholera, for, 403

perspiration, to alleviate, 402

poison ivy, indications of poi-
soning from, 366

poison ivy, sassafras tea to re-
lieve eruptions from, 367

poison ivy, other treatment of
eruptions caused by, 368

poisons, active, raw eggs as an-
tidote to, 350

poisons, non-corrosive, mustard
as antidote to, 349

poisons, opium, black coffee as
antidote to, 349

poultice for corns, how to make,
361

prickly heat, to relieve erup-
tions from, 369

rheumatism, sulphur for, 402

sage tea, how to make, 349

sassafras tea as blood reno-
vator, 368

snoring, to prevent, 328

soda salve, how to make, 352

sore and aching feet, 362

sore mouth, decoction of straw-
berry leaves for, 349
INDEX

sore throat, gargle of sage tea
for, 349

sprain, methods of treating,
356

sprain, wormwood decoction
for, 356

stings, alkali for, 367
strangury, parsley root tea for,
348
strangury, watermelon and
pumpkin seed tea for, 348
sulphur as blood purifier, 402
sunburn, 358
swallowing a pin, 356
thrash, to prevent, 400
tonsilitis and quinsy, 399
vegetable tonic and cough med-
icine, recipe for, 347
Virginia snake-root,
properties of, 347
Virginia snake-root,
prepare, 347
vomiting, to prevent
anesthetic, 369
warts, several cures for, 369

curative
how to

after

DOMESTIC SURGERY AND
COGNATE MATTERS, 351

DOUGH, Ineading the, 87-89
sensitive quality of, 92

DOWN QUILTS, how to wash
224

DRAINS, of bath-room, flushing
the, 230

kitchen sink, cause of stoppage
in, 240

417

DRAIN PIPE, to clean any, 233

DRAWERS, bureau, to
from sticking, 384

DRY-CLEAN,
to, 131
fabrics, 116, 118, 119
parasols of silk and pongee, to,
120
rugs, several methods, to, 117
velvet, to, 120 ,

DRY-CLEANING, 116
DUCK, to clean hats of, 131
DUSTER, feather, care of, 224

DUSTING, a consideration of,
268

DUVETS, down, how to wash,
223

DYE, tan shoes, to, 128
white and light-colored leather,
to, 129
to destroy odor of, 144

DYEING, fabrics, recipes and
directions for, 395

DYSPEPSIA, 333, 343

EARTH, fullers’, recipe for paste
of, 115
fullers’, to clean with, 122

EARTHENWARE, cement for
mending, 248

ECZEMA, nature of disease and
treatment for, 364

keep

chamois leather,
418

EGGS, antidote to active poisons,

350

composition and food values of,
339

how affected by cooking, 340

most healthful way of cooking,
340

nourishment in, 339

raw, digestible quality of, 340

storing for winter, 287

to test, 287

ways of preserving, 397

EGG STAINS, 134

EMETICS, eggs, raw, antidote to
active poison, 350

mustard, antidote to non-cor-
rosive poison, 349
salt and water, 350

ENAMEL OR TIN CANDLE-
STICKS, to clean, 237

ERMINE, to bleach, 124
to prevent yellowing, 124

ERYSIPELAS, specific for, 334

ETHER AND ALCOHOL, cau-
tion in use of, 141

EYES, care of, 359

FABRICS, recipes anc directions
for dyeing, 395
to dry-clean, 116, 119
to remove “shine” from, 139
use of fullers’ earth in cleaning
neutral colored, 122

FAT, from soups, to remove, 384

THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

FEATHERS, pillow, to clean,
221
to clean and renovate, 135

FILLING, use of for rugs, 183

FIREPROOF, to render stuffs,
353
solutions, recipes for, 353

FISH, 281

FLAT-IRONS, care of, 245
to clean, 389
to take roughness from, 388

FLANNELS, eare of, 18, 38
hot-water process for, 45
method of washing baby’s, 393

FLBHAS, to rid animals of, 156,
396
to rid house of, several meth-
ods, 155

FLIES, in house, to prevent, 168,
169
to keep from dumb animals,
170
to keep from windows, 170

FLOORS, cleaning with kerosene,

197

cloths for cleaning, 197

coverings for, 183-193

effect of water upon, 193

formulas for making and ap-
plying polish, 199

formulas for polish producing
bright surface, 201

hardwood, daily care of, 198

&
INDEX

laying and oiling hardwood,
196

how to clean imitation of hard-
wood, 197

how to prepare oil for var-
nished, 200

how to remove old varnish or
paint, 197

kitchen, difficulty in keeping
clean, 267

linoleum, care of, 191

method of making wax for, 201

oiled and hardwood, 195

painted, care of, 193

staining, recipe for, 197°

tiled, use and care of, 205

tiled, to brighten, 250

varnished and waxed, 200

FLOORS, WALLS AND
THEIR COVERINGS, 181

FLOUR, as an absorbent, 139
how to test, 85
to correct effect of tight-pack-
ing in, 86
FLOUR AND BORAX, use in
dry-cleaning, 118

FLOWERS, to freshen cut, 405

FLYPAPER, sticky, stains of,
109

FOOD, digestion of, 338
disposal of in ice-chest, 270
economy in buying, 277, 279,

283, 285
mastication of, 338
remedial values in, 331

419

FORMALDEHYDE, 178

FRAMES, gilt, recipes for clean-
ing and regilding, 217

FRENCH CHALK, recipe for
paste of, 115
use in removing grease spots,
113

FRIDAY, 146-186
FRONT, eare of the, 265

FRUIT, buying according to the

season, 283

cans, how to sterilize, 311

choice of, for jelly, 310

composition of, 335

decrease in home canning of,
285

how to pare, 310

medicinal and nutritive quali-
ties of, 333-337

rules for canning, 310

utensils used in canning, 310

when to buy, for canning, 310

FRUIT STAINS, 104-107, 390

FULLERS’ EARTH, use in
cleaning neutral colored arti-
eles, 122

paste of, for removing grease
stains, 115

FURNISHINGS, care of house-
hold, 181, 208, 228, 252
in bath-room, 228

FURNITURE, brass, care of, 226
cleanser, recipe for, 219
420

cane-seated, to clean, 391

enameled, care of, 227

hardwood, to clean, 215

laequered, care of, 226

leather, to clean and restore,
218

polish, recipes for, 199, 213,
214

polished, to clean, 212

to remove scratches and white
spots from, 213

to rid of moths, 155

upholstered, to keep moths out
of, 153

varnish, to apply, 214

wax for polishing, recipe, 214

wax, to clean and polish, 214

willow, to clean, 390

FURNITURE AND WINDOWS,
eare of, 208

FURS, to clean, 123

FURS AND WOOLENS, putting
away, 151

GALVANIZED IRON,
move rust from, 241

GAME, how to pick, 389

GARDENING,
nails in, 392
calla lily, 406
hyacinths, 405
use of sulphur in, 405

to re-

eare of finger

GAS, coal, contamination of air
by, 323
carbonie acid, 324

THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

range, 241
sewer, 229, 308

GASOLINE, 38

emulsion for washing, recipe,
38

excellence and peril in cleaning
with, 114

method of
with, 115

value in destroying vermin, 154

cleaning clothing

GILDING, to clean, 206
fluids, recipes for, 217

GLASS, cut, caution concerning,

260

eut, to rid eruets of discolora-
tion, 260

cut, to temper, 260

how to wash, 258

to clean globes, 237

to clean water bottle, 261

to remove paint from, 391

GLASS, SILVER, CHINA, care
of, 252

GLASS STOPPER, to loosen,
261 .

GLOVES, paste for cleaning, rec-
ipe, 127
to renovate black kid, 127
various ways of cleaning, 125
GLUE, to remove, 144
GLYCERIN, 105

GOVERNMENT WHITE-
WASH, recipe for, 204
INDEX

GRANITE WARE, to clean, 245
GRASS STAINS, 111, 393

GRAVEL OR BILIARY CAL-
CULI, 333

GREASE, axle, to remove, 107

stains, 394

stains from wallpaper, to re-
move, 386

to cut in pipes of kitchen sink,
240

to remove from pots and ket-
tles, 245

to remove from range, 242

to remove from soups and
gravy, 384
GYMNASTICS, rules for gentle,
317

HAIR, to destroy vermin in, 175
to whiten yellowish gray, 404

HANGING CLOTHES OUT TO
DRY, 26

HARTSHORN, 97

HATS, felt, to clean, 123
summer, to clean, 131-133

HEAT, amount necessary
baking, 90, 94
heat-producing qualities of
meat diet, 338

HOT-WATER PROCESS,
flannels, 45

HOUSE, care of, 7
linen, mending of, 291

for

for

421

order in directing affairs of,
1-9

preparations for closing, 154,
308

HOUSE-CLEANING, 182

articles needed for, 304

attic, 304

bedrooms, order of cleaning,
305

best time for, 302

closets and drawers, 304

down-stairs, order in cleaning,
306

implements necessary for, 182

object of chapter on, 303

old-fashioned method of, 301

rugs, 305

summary of program for, 306

value of program in, 303

where to begin, 303

HOUSE-CLEANING, 301

HOUSEHOLD, accounts, 4

industry, decline of sewing as,
289

management, place of sewing
in, 290

pests, 146, 162

pests, bedbugs, 176

pests, flies, 168

pests, mice and rats, 171

pests, mosquitoes, 166

pests, roaches and water-bugs,
162

work, daily routine of, 264

HOUSEKEEPER, the ideal, 262
the over-anxious, 262
422

HOUSEKEEPING, business of,

classified, 3

in summer, 307-309

price of good, 262

summary of daily program in,
264

value of culinary department
in, 5

value of planned, 2

value of typewritten order of
duties for maid, 264

varying conditions of labor in
various households, 264

“without tears,” 263

INCOME, division of, 3

INFLAMMATION OF STOM-
ACH, 332

INFLUENZA, 333

INK STAINS, 97-104, 106
on leather, to remove, 130

INSECTS, 160, 166, 170, 174
to exterminate, 176

INSOMNIA, 333
and sleep, 323
remedies for, 326

INTESTINAL TROUBLES, 332

IODINE STAINS, 110

IRON, mold from fabries, to re-
move, 106, 393
rust on fabrics, 107
to remove rust from, 390

TRONING, arrangements for, 63
boards, care of, 71

THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

care of clothes after, 71
general directions for, 66
necessary appliances for, 64
sorting clothes for, 66

IRONS, care of, 70, 245
to clean, 389
to clean sticky, 245
to rid of roughness, 388

IRONWAREH, to clean outside of,
249
treatment of, 247

IVORY-HANDLED “KNIVES,
care of, 249

JAVELLE WATER, how to
make, 33
in the laundry, 32
use in cleaning graniteware, 245
use in removing stains, 107

JET PASSEMENTARIE, to
clean, 144

KALSOMINE WALLS, to clean,
201

KEROSENE, 249

death to insect life, 176

emulsion (1), method of mak-
ing and using, 31

emulsion (2), method of mak-
ing and using, 32

emulsion of, for destroying
aphides, 173

stains, 113

use of, in cleaning painted
floor, 194
INDEX

KETTLE, copper, to clean, 246
iron, treatment of, 247

KID GLOVES AND SLIP-
PERS, to clean, 127

KITCHEN, eare of painted walls

in, 205

floor, difficulty in keeping clean,
267

disposal of daily supplies in,
267

lore, odds and ends of, 248

utensils, to clean and care for,
245-249

value of written menu in, 267

KITCHEN AND PANTRIES,
daily care of, 267

KNEADING BREAD, advantage
of marble slab for, 89
proper way of, 87
second, 89

KNIVES, to restore color of
ivory-handled, 249
to sharpen, 388

LACE, to dry-clean with boracic
talcum, 118
to restore ecru, 141

LAMB, 280

LAMP CHIMNEYS, to temper,
261

LAMPS, cause of explosion in,
249
how to fill, 249
to keep from smelling, 385

423

LAMP-WICKS, 385
LARKSPUOR, tincture of, 175

LAUNDRY, blankets, cold-water

process for, 41

blankets, method of washing,
43 ft

bluing, home-made, recipe for,
35

bluing, precaution in use of, 21

boiling the clothes, recipe for
kerosene emulsion (2) to be
used in, 32

borax in, 16

care of clothes after ironing, 71

chamois vests, how to wash, 48

clothes, treatment before wash-
ing, 14, 15, 16

clothes-line and pins, care of,
24

cloths for cleaning, care of in,
269

colored cottons, treatment of,
48

colored cottons and linens, 20

cottons, setting the color in, 49

detersives, 13

devices for making washing
easy, 30

flannels, baby’s, how to wash,
393

flannels, hot-water process for,
45

flannels, how to wash, 18

flannels, to prevent shrinkage
in, 19

flannels, use of borax in wash-
ing, 38
424

gasoline emulsion for washing,
recipe for, 38

general directions for washing,
16

hanging clothes out to dry, 26

injurious effect of green soap
in, 16 .

method of starching delicate-
tinted fabrics, 50

method of starching thin, dark-
colored fabries, 51

orris-root, use in, 68

paraffin in, 37

rinsing, 17

separate, value of, 11

set tubs, 11

silks, treatment of in, 52

soaking the clothes, 14, 15

soaking the clothes, recipe for
kerosene emulsion to be used
in, 31

soap powder, how to make and
use, 34

sorting the clothes, 15

sorting clothes for ironing, 66

sprinkling and folding the
clothes, 27

stains, first treatment of, 15

starching and bluing, 21

starch for colored goods, how
used, 50

starch, method of using, 23

starch, non-adhesive, 35

starch, paraffin in, 23

starch, rules for making, 22

starch, salt in, 22

tub, care of, 15

THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

washing fluid, how to make and
use, 39

washing-machine, 12

wash-silks, treatment of, 55

wool and silk stuff, white, how
to wash, 137

woolens, colored cottons and
linens, 41

woolens, to restore shrunken,
AT

woolen stockings, to prevent
shrinkage in, 46

wringer, 12

LEATHER, chamois, to dry-

clean, 131

patent, to clean, 129

to clean tan shoes of, 128

to clean various articles of, 128-
131

to dye tan shoes of, 128

to remove ink from, 130

valise, to clean, 130

to render, water-proof, 392

white and light-colored, to dye,
129

LEATHER FURNITURE, to

clean and restore, 218

LEGHORN, methods of cleaning,

“132

LEMONS, remedial value of, 334
LIBRARY, 239
LIME, to remove from kettle, 398

water in milk, 341, 350
INDEX 425

LINEN, to remove egg stains
from, 134

LINOLEUM, 191
treatment of, 192

LIVER TROUBLE, 333

LOOSENESS OF BOWELS,
332, 334

LUNCHEON TABLE, use of
mats on, 272

MAGNESIA, 120

MAID, typewritten order of du-
ties for, 264

MALARIA,
bites, 166

MALARIAL FEVER, preventive
of, 334

through mosquito

MARBLE slab, for kneading
bread, 89
to bleach discolored, 232
to clean, 232
to clean statuettes of, 235
to remove stains on, 232, 233

MARKETING, according to the

season, 283

ahead, value of, 275

anatomy of animals, necessity
of studying, 277

apples, 337

at the department store, 286

beef, aitch bone, 279

beef, analysis of hind quarter,
278

beef, best cuts for roasting and
broiling, 277

beef, brisket, use of, 278

beef, expensive cuts of, 277

beef, flank, 279

beef, how to choose soup-bone
of, 281

beef, mistakes of inexperienced
housekeepers in buying, 277

beef, hip sirloin, 279

beef, how to buy fillet of, 279

beef, liver, indications of
disease, 280

beef, parts and uses of fore
quarter, 278

beef, pot-roasts, pieces suitable
for, 278

beef, rib roast, 278

beef, shin, 278

beef, sirloin, 277, 279

beef, tenderloin, 279

beef, tests of good, 278

beef, where to find best soup-
bone, 278

beefsteak, extravagance in use
of, 278

beefsteak, process of marinat-
ing, 279

butter, 288

buying in quantities, 284

disposal of daily supplies, 267

eggs, to store, 287

eggs, to test, 287

filling store-room for winter,
285

fish as an element of diet, 281

fish for baking, 282

fish for boiling, 282
426

fish for frying, 282

fish, tests of good, 282

fruit, 335

fruit and vegetables, 282

household necessities for store
closet, 287

how to save on winter supplies,
285

milk, 287

milk, to test, 287

monthly supplies for store-
closet, 286

mutton, nutritious qualities of,
280

peaches, 334

pork, necessity of thorough
cooking, 280

pork, tests of, 280

pork, when to use, 280

poultry, tests of good, 282

value of fruit and vegetable
chart in, 283

store-closet, list of necessities

for, 287

store-room, filling for winter,
285

veal, choice cuts of, 281

veal, knuckle of, 281

veal, tests of,. 281

vegetables, green, when to buy,
284

vegetables, root, value of, 283

vegetables, winter, care of, 284

weekly menu as aid to, 275

winter, 284

MARKETING AND WINTER
SUPPLIES, 275

THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

MATTING, 183, 190
rugs of, 190

MATTRESSES, care of, 220
to avoid hollows in, 372
to clean, 221

MAYONNAISE, how to beat,
386
to restore curdled, 385

MEAT, as an article of diet, 276
health values of, 337
raw, care of, 250
remedial qualities in, 337-339

MEDICINE, fruit as, 335
MENDING DAY, 290

MENU, daily, value of, 267
weekly, aid in marketing, 275

MICH, use of camphor in getting
rid of, 385
use of tar in getting rid of,
150

MICE AND RATS, methods of
riddance from, 171

MILDEW, to remove, 106, 107,
112

MILK, care in buying, 287
nutritive qualities of, 341
stains on glass, 390
value as detersive, 103

MIRRORS, to clean, 210
to polish, 211
to re-silver, 211
INDEX

MISCELLANEOUS HINTS, 382

MOLASSES, value in removing
stains from delicate fabrics,
111

MONDAY, 10, 21, 30, 41, 52

MOSQUITOES, 166
methods of ridding house of,
167
use of turpentine in getting
rid of, 153

MOTHER-OF-PEARL, to clean,
237

MOTHS, in carpets, to destroy,

155

in furniture, to destroy, 155

in rugs, to destroy, 154

nature of, 150

silver-, to exterminate, 153

to keep from upholstered fur-
niture, 153

turpentine as preventive of, 152

ubiquitous quality of, 147

use of naphtha to destroy, 385

MUDDY COMPLEXIONS, eure
for, 333

MUD STAINS, 111, 142

MUSTARD. PLASTER, substi-
tute for, 399
to keep from blistering, 399

MUTTON, nutritious qualities of,
280

NAPHTHA, 385
danger in using, 116

427

NERVOUS DYSPEPSIA, 333
NERVOUS TROUBLES, 332

NICKEL FITTINGS, to remove
stove polish from, 251

NICKEL PLATE, trimmings of,
to clean, 242

NIGHTMARE AND SNORING,
328

NURSING, importance of know-
ledge about, 370
value of good, 312

OCHRE, yellow, 141

ODDS AND ENDS OF RENO-
VATING, 128

ODOR OF PAINT, to remove
from new refrigerator, 250

ODORS, use of alum water in
removing, 394

OIL, cedar, 239

floor, use in weekly cleaning,
200

lamp, 249

olive, 242

paraffin, 238

sewing-machine, for polishing
brass, 226

sweet, 242, 308

OIL-CLOTH, 191
treatment of, 192

OILING FLOORS, 196
ORRIS-ROOT, use in laundry, 68
428

OSTRICH PLUMES, to clean
and renovate, 135

OUTHOUSES, sanitary quality
of whitewash in, 204

OVEN, preparation of, for bak-
ing, 90
temperature of, for baking, 90,
94

OXALIC ACID, 100, 232
danger to fabric in use of, 99
for ink stain, 100

PADS, for polishing furniture,
how to make, 214

PAINT, how to clean, 395
how to clean varnished, 207
or varnish, to remove from
wood, 197
to remove from wood, 197

PAINTINGS, of oil, to clean,
215

PAINT STAINS, to
from fabric, 108, 109
to remove from wood and glass,
391

PANTRY, use of charcoal in,
389
and kitchen, daily care of, 267

PANAMA, hats of, to clean, 132

PAPER, blotting, as an absorb-
ent, 113
to remove from wall, 203

wall, to remove grease stains
from, 202

remove

THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

PARAFFIN, as a_ cleansing
agent, 37
use in exterminating insects,

170
PARASOLS, to dry-clean, 120

PATCHING, 296-298

PEACHES, medicinal quality of,
334

PENNYROYAL, 155

PEROXIDE OF HYDROGEN,
132, 403

PERSPIRATION, 254
to destroy odor of, 144
to induce, 333

PERSPIRATION STAINS, 55,
112

PEWTER AND BRITANNIA,
care of, 247

PHOSPHORIC ACID, 336

PHYSICAL CULTURE, how to
derive benefit from, 319

PIANO, care of, 238

PILLOWS, feather, how to sun,
222
feather, to clean, 221
feather or down, to wash, 224
pine-needle, how to make, 392
to disinfect, 223
to remove spots from covers of,
222

PIPES, disinfecting, 230
escape, to clean, 233
INDEX

kitchen sink, flushing, 241
stove, to prevent rust on, 243
stove, to prevent soot in, 244
water closet, flushing, 230

PITCH, stains, to remove from
fabrie, 108

PLAN OF DAILY WORK, 264
PLANT-LICE, to destroy, 173

PLANTS, calla lily, care of, 406
hyacinth, care of, 405
to rid of insects, 174
use of sulphur in care of, 405

PLASTER FIGURES, to clean,
236

PLUMBING, disinfecting, 230

drain or escape pipe, to clean,
233

flushing the pipes, 230

grease, cause of stoppage in
kitchen pipes, 240

stationary wash-stand, 228

treatment of, before closing
house, 308

POISONOUS BITES, treatment
for, 354

POISONS, antidotes for various,
349, 350
of the skin, treatment for, 364

POLISH, floor, formulas for,
199, 201

for nickel-plate and silverware,
recipe for, 233

furniture, recipes for, 213

429

silver, injurious effect of, 253

steel ornaments, to, 145

stove, how to apply, 243

stove, recipes for making, 243

stove, to remove from nickel
fittings, 251

PORCELAIN, bowls, sinks, tubs,
to clean, 231
cause of stains on, 231
to clean, 231

PORK, 280
PORTER-HOUSE, 277
POT-ROASTS, 278
POULTRY, tests of good, 282

PRECIOUS STONES, to clean,
144

PUMICE STONE, 266

RANGE, coal, to clean rust and
grease from, 242
‘directions for cleaning, 241
how to make ash-sifter for, 244
nickel-plate trimmings of, to
clean, 242

RATS AND MICH, methods of
riddance from, 171

REDNESS OF THE NOSE, to
reduce, 335

REFRIGERATOR, daily care of,
270
disposal of food in, 270
in sick room, 375
to keep ants from, 398
4380 THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

REGISTERS, dry-air, care of in
sweeping and dusting, 387

REMEDIES, domestic, See Do-
mestic Remedies

REMEDIES IN FOOD, acid
stomach; lime-water in the
milk, 341

apples, opinions of science con-
cerning, 336

apples, value as diet, 336

bile; fruits as antidote for, 336

biliary calculi; spinach a solvent
of, 333

bilious disorders; onions for,
333

bilious troubles, 337

bilious troubles, lemons for, 334

blackberries as tonic, 334

black raspberries and strawber-
ries, medicinal properties of,
334

blood; currants as purifier of
the, 335

cancerous diseases; figs for, 334

complexion; fruit, to improve,
335

constipation; apples for, 337

constipation; apple sauce, hom-
iny, mush, grits, boiled milk
for, 332

constipation; figs for, 334

constipation; olive oil for, 348

digestion, asparagus to pro-
mote, 333

diseases of the blood, spinach
for, 333

diseases of the blood, tomatoes
for, 333

dyspepsia, 343

dyspepsia, dietary for, 344

dyspepsia, foods to avoid in,
343

dyspepsia, tomatoes for, 333

eczema of the ears, dietary for,
365

eggs, composition of, 340

eges, how affected by cooking,
340

eggs, nourishment in, 339

eggs, raw; digestible quality of,
340

eggs, wholesome way of cook-
ing, 340

erysipelas, cranberries as spe-
cific for, 334

fish, health values of, 339

fruit, caution concerning use of,
335

fruit, medicinal and nutritive
qualities of, 335, 336

fruit, value of, for dyspeptics,
344

gravel, spinach a solvent of,
333

inflammation of stomach, rice
for, 332

influenza, onions for, 333

insomnia, lettuce for, 333

insomnia, onions for, 333

intestinal trouble, rice for, 332

liver troubles, tomatoes for, 333

looseness of bowels, blackberries
for, 334
INDEX

malarial fever, lemons prevent-
ive of, 334

meats, caution to full-blooded
concerning use of, 338

meats in summer, difficulty of
digesting, 338

meats in summer, thorough
mastication necessary for,
338

milk, nutritive qualities, 341

milk, lime-water in, 341

muddy complexion, onions as
steady diet for, 333 :

necessary knowledge of, 331

nervous troubles, celery and
onions for, 332

olive oil, various curative prop-
erties in, 348

peaches, double medicinal qual-
ity of, 334

perspiration, asparagus to in-
duce, 333

redness of the nose, fruit for
reducing, 335

rheumatism, dietary for, 342

rheumatism, remedy for, 333

rheumatic gout, 333

scrofula, cranberries to coun-
teract tendency to, 334

simplification of diet in sum-
mer, 339

summer complaint, milk for,
332

spinach, 333

to prolong life by use of ap-
ples, 336

RHEUMATISM, dietary for, 342

431

RHUBARB, effect upon the

blood, 333
RIBBONS, to clean, 56
RINSING, 17
RIPPING, 52, 299

ROACHES, various ways of de-
stroying, 162-166

ROACHES AND WATER-
BUGS, 162

ROAST MEATS, effect upon the
blood of, 338

ROOM, sick, location and ar-
rangement of, 371

ROUTINE of daily household
work, 264

RUST, to remove from galvanized
iron, 241

to remove from iron or tin, 247

RUST STAINS, to remove from
fabrics, 107
to remove from white fabric,
103

RUGS, of filling, serviceable qual-

ity of, 183

of matting, how to make, 190

oriental, to wash, 185

putting away, for houseclean-
ing, 305

to dry-clean, several methods,
117, 184

to prevent corners from curling,
183°

to remove soot from, 133
432

SALT, to prevent hardening of,
388

SATURDAY, 181, 208, 228, 252
SCORCH STAINS, 112
SCROFULA, 334

SEALSKIN, to clean, 123

SERVICE, _ table,
rules of, 273

SETTING THE COLOR IN
COTTON FABRICS, 143
in cottons and linens, 49

SEWER GAS, 228
danger in and preventive of,
229, 308

SEWING, darning, 294

darning damask, 295

darning kid gloves, 296

darning stockings, 294

darning, stitches used in, 294

decline of, as household indus-
try, 289

in household management, place
of, 290

implements necessary for, 292

making ready for, 292

mending day, necessity for reg-
ular, 290

needles, 292

patching, 296

patching, general directions for,
296

patching damask, 297

patching flannel, 298

patching heavy stuffs, 297

elementary

THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

patching household linen and
underelothes, 296

repairing hem of frayed skirts,
298

scissors, variety needed in, 292

turning hem for table linen, 298

SEWING-MACHINE, to clean,
238

SEWING-ROOM, advantage of,
292
furnishing the, 292
ripping, an industry of the, 299

SHEETS, of sick bed, to change,
377
how to fold after ironing, 73

SHINE, from fabrics, several
methods of removing, 139,
389

SHOES, to clean and renovate
various kinds of, 128-130
to prevent blistermg the heel,
130

SICK, CARE OF THE, 370

SICK ROOM, absence of adorn-

ment in, 372

bed, position and arrangement
in, 373

bed, rules for care of, 378

behavior of visitors in, 379

blankets, need for extra, 376

dining table for, 378

directions for changing sheets
while patient is in bed, 377

disinfectant for vessels in, 376
INDEX i 433

disposal of soiled clothing and
evacuations in, 376

drugs in order, keeping, 373

flowers in, 375

healing quality of sunlight in,
374

hot-water bag, 377

how to ventilate, 374

importance of cheerfulness in,
380

importance of fresh air in, 374

importance of knowledge about
nursing, 370

importance of natural manner
in, 380

importance of self-control in,
380

location and arrangement of,
371

medicine table in, 373

necessary attention to invalid’s
hair and teeth, 379

necessary furnishings of, 372

object of chapter on, 371

refrigerator in, 375

screen, why needed in, 373

to clean without injury to pa-
tient, 375

treatment of vessels in, 376

use of cracked ice in, 398

visitors in, 379

walls of, 372

ways of keeping patient com-
fortable, 376

SIEVE, to wash a, 389

SILK, black, to clean, 53
fast-colored, how to wash, 54

from yellowing, to prevent, 143
to remove shine from, 139

to wash, 52

wash-, to clean, 55

SILVER, 252

how to keep clean without pol-
ish, 252

how to wash, 252

injurious treatment of, 253

preparation for laying away,
254

to prevent tarnish on, 254

use of camphor in keeping
bright, 254

SILVER, CHINA AND GLASS,
eare of, 252

SILVER-MOTHS AND BUF-
FALO-BEETLES, to exter-
minate, 153

SIMPLES, serviceable, 345

SINK, galvanized iron, to remove

rust or grease from, 241

kitchen, chloride or caustic soda,
to cut grease in pipes of, 240

kitchen, daily care of, 270

kitchen, daily and weekly care
of, 239

kitchen, flushing, 240

kitchen, flushing pipes of with
caustic alkali, 241

kitchen, solution of washing
soda for cleansing and sweet-
ening, 240

kitchen, use of sieve in cleaning,
240
434

SLEEP AND INSOMNIA, 323

SMARTWEED AND WILD
PEPPERMINT, 170

SNORING AND NIGHTMARE,
to prevent, 328

SOAKING THE CLOTHES,
emulsion to be used in, 31
before washing, 14, 15

SOAP green, injurious effects of,
16
use for scraps of, 36
value of age in, 234

SOAP BARK, as cleanser, 59
to remove shine from fabric,
140

SOAP JELLY, how to make and
use, 36, 235

SOAP POWDER, 34

SODA, baking, use in healing
burns, 352
value in cleaning white paint
and enamel, 205
washing, 240

SOLUTIONS TO RENDER
STUFFS FIRE - PROOF,
recipes for, 353

SOOT, in stove pipe, to prevent,
244

SOOT STAINS, on carpet or rug,
133

THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

SOURNESS IN BREAD-
SPONGE, to correct, 87

SPICES, use in ridding house of
ants, 158

SPINACH, ingredients and reme-
dial values of, 333

SPONGES, to clean, 233, 388

SPRINKLING AND FOLDING
DOWN THE CLOTHES, 27

STAINING FLOORS, cost of
material for, 198
recipes for, 197

STAINS, alcohol or cologne on

shell, 386

axle grease, 107

blood, 403

care necessary in removing, 98

coal dust and perspiration, 125

coffee and cream, 105

coffee, black, 105

coffee, 104

egg, 134

flypaper, sticky, 109

from blankets, to remove, 383

fruit, from linen, to remove,
390

fruit, several methods of re-
moving, 104, 105, 106, 107

grass, 111

grass and coffee, 393

grease, axle, 107

grease, to remove by absorption,
112, 113, 115
INDEX 435

grease from linen, to remove,
394

grease from wall paper, to re-
move, 202, 386

grease from woolen stuff, to re-
move, 139

ink on leather, 130

ink on linen, 103

ink on the skin, 97

ink on white goods, to remove,
97

ink, to remove with butter, 104

ink, to remove with chloride
of lime, 101

ink, to remove with chlorinated
soda, 99

ink, to remove with cream of
tartar, 99

ink, to remove with grain alco-
hol, 104

ink, to remove with hand sa-
polio, 97

ink, to remove with Javelle
waters, 15

ink, to remove with kerosene
and soap, 101

ink, to remove with lemon juice,
98

ink, to remove with milk and
lemon juice, 104

ink, to remove with oxalic acid,
100

ink, to remove with salts of
lemon, 100

ink, to remove with sour milk,
99

ink, to remove with spirits of
ammonia, 97

ink, to remove with spirits of
turpentine, 103

ink, to remove with sweet milk
and corn starch, 102

ink, to remove with sweet milk
and boracie taleum, 102

iodine, 110

iron mold, 106

iron on marble, 232, 233

iron rust on fabrics, 107

mildew, 106, 107, 112

milk or hot-water, on glass, 390

mud, 111, 142

on kitchen tables, to remove,
393

on mattress, to remove, 221

on porcelain and enamel, to re-
move, 251

on porcelain, cause of, 231

on wool, 144

paint, 108, 109

paint on wood, 201

paint on wood and glass, 391,
209

perspiration, 55, 112

perspiration and coal dust, 125

pitch, 108

ring left by sponging, 143

rust, 112

rust, to remove from nickel-
plated, 232

rust, to remove with cream of
tarter, 103

scorch, 112

soot, 133

tar, 108

tea, 104, 105
436

treatment of, before washing,
15

varnish on cloth, to remove, 144

vegetable acids, harmlessness in
extracting, 98

STARCH, method of using, 23
non-adhesive, recipe for, 35
paraffin in, 23
rules for making, 22

salt in, 22
STARCHING AND BLUING, 21
STARCHING COLORED

GOODS, method of, 50

STARCHING DELICATE-
TINTED FABRICS, method
of, 50
thin, dark-colored fabrics, 51

STEEL ORNAMENTS, to pol-
ish, 145

STEEL, to remove rust from,
390

STONEWARE, cement for mend-
ing, 248

STORE-CLOSET, how it should
be kept, 286
necessary articles of food in,
286

STORE-ROOM, the  old-fash-

ioned, 284

STOVE, kitchen, daily care of,
271
polish, how to apply any, 243

THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

polish, recipes for making, 243
to clean rust and grease from,
242

STRAW HATS, white, to clean,
131

SULPHUR, 401, 402
candle, method of using, 155
cure for worm pests, 172

SUMMARY, of daily program in
housekeeping, 264
of program for house-cleaning,
306 ,
of rules for canning fruit, 310
of rules for housekeeping in
summer home, 309

SUMMER COMPLAINT, 332
SUNSHINE, 222

SURGERY, domestic, 351
SWEET OIL, 308

TABLE breakfast, 272
dining, care of, 266
dining, pads for polishing, 214.
dinner, arrangement of, 272
laying the, 271
linen, how to darn, 295
linen, how to pateh, 297
linen, turning hem for, 298
service, how the dishes should

be moved, 274

service, elementary rules of, 273
service, for dinner, 273
service, with one maid, 273
INDEX

service, when it may be dis-
pensed with, 273

to protect, 213

to protect from hot dishes, 272

ware, instructing the maid how
to wash, 271

ware, china, how to wash, 258

ware, order in washing, 257

ware, silver, how to wash, 257

TABLES kitchen, to remove

stains from, 393

recipes for waxing and rubbing,
215

TAR, use in ridding house of
mice, 150

camphor, for keeping away
mice, 171

TAR STAINS, 108
TARTAR EMETIC, 158

TEA, injurious effect of tannin
in, 343
kettle, care of, 398

TEA STAINS, 104, 105

TEMPERATURE OF OVEN
FOR BAKING, 90, 94

TENDERLOIN, 279
THURSDAY, 96, 114, 128
TILES, 205

TIN OR ENAMEL, to clean can-
dlesticks of, 237

TINWARE, care of, 247, 248

437

TOMATOES, as remedy for dis-
ease, 333

TONIC, blackberries as a, 334

TRANSFER PRINT OR PHO-
TOGRAPH, to, 396

TUESDAY, 63

TURPENTINE, 121
inflammable quality of, 199
use in exterminating household
pests, 152

UMBER, 198
UMBRELLA, how to dry, 391

UTENSILS, Britannia, 247

eare of bread-board, 249

copper, to clean, 246

earthenware, to mend, 248

graniteware, to clean, 245

how to wash sieve, 389

iron. and tin, treatment of, 247

ironware, to clean outside of,
249

kitchen, cement for mending,
248

kitchen, to clean, 245

pewter, how to care for, 247

stoneware, to mend, 248

teapots, tin, granite, iron, to
keep sweet, 249

tinware, care of, 248

used in canning fruit, 310

VARNISH, best for furniture,
214
to insure smooth, 214
to remove from wood, 197
438

VARNISH STAINS, on cloth,
144

VEAL, 281

VEGETABLES, remedial quality
in, 332, 333

VEGETABLES AND FRUITS,
according to the season, buy-
ing, 283

VEIL OF TISSUE
CREPON, to clean, 141

VELVET, several methods of
cleaning, 121
to renew, 121
VENTILATION, in _ bath-room,
228
in bedroom, 323
in sick room, 374

VERDIGRIS, poisonous quality
of, 246
to remove, from copper, 246

VERMIN, in the hair, 174-176
mice, 385
to destroy any sort of, 154

VERMIN, HOUSEHOLD
PESTS, 146, 162

VIRGINIA SNAKE-ROOT, cur-
ative properties of, 347

WAITRESS, duties in serving,
273

WALL PAPER, how to make
and use cleaning mixture for,
202

OR

THE HOUSEKEEPER’S WEEK

to clean, 202
to remove grease from, 386

WALLS, burlap as covering for,

205

hard-finished, to clean, 201

kalsomine, cleaning, 201

mixture for cleaning, how to
make and use, 202

painted, care of, 194, 201

to make fast screw in, 217

to protect, in moving furniture,
398

to remove grease from paper
on, 202

to remove paper from, 203

to stop a hole in, 203

whitewash for, 204

to wash painted bath-room, 205

to wash painted kitchen, 205

WALLS, FLOORS AND THEIR
COVERINGS, 181

WASHDAY, See Laundry

WASHING, devices for making
easy, 30
fluid, how to make and use, 39
soda, injurious effect in laundry,
16

WATER, alum, 394

as an absorbent, 250

cement that will resist hot or
cold, 248

effect of hot and cold in bath,
321

Javelle, 245

marks on wood, to remove, 213
INDEX

muddy, to purify, 386
stains on glass, 390
to purify, 386

WATER-BUGS, to get rid of by
borax, 241

WATER-BUGS AND ROACH-
ES, 162

WAX, for floors, method of mak-
ing, 201
for polishing furniture, 214

WEDNESDAY, 74, 84

WEEK, care for every day in,
262
value of menu for the, 275

WHITEWASH, government, rec-
ipe for, 204
government, to color, 204

WILD PEPPERMINT AND
SMARTWEED, 170

WINDOWS, show, to free from
frost, 210
to clean diamond panes in, 209
to keep flies from, 390
when and how to wash, 208, 209

WINDOWS AND FURNITURE,
care of, 208

439

WOOD, to remove marks on, 201
to remove paint from, 391

WOOL, to clean, 137
to remove oil from, 139

WOOLENS, to restore shrunken,
47

WOOLENS, COLORED COT-
TONS AND LINENS, care
in laundry, 41

WOOLENS AND FURS, putting
away, 151

WORK, household, daily routine
of, 264

WORMS, cabbage, to destroy, 406
WRINGER, 12

WRINKLES IN CLOTH, to re-
move, 122

YEAST, 79
cakes, home-made, recipe for,
83
home-made, superiority of, 80
hop, recipe for, 81
potato, recipe for, 82

YELLOW OCHRE, 141
ZINC, to clean, 244