It was home made soap. Shavings from a large block were soaked in water overnight to make a jelly. It could and did burn the skin, but it also guaranteed a snowy white wash. Now the whites are in the washing machine, the all-important shirts and the girls best petticoats, tea towels, pillow cases, and the tablecloth used when guests came. The machine is chugging and churning, suds are piling up under the lid, blue smoke is spiralling out from under the slightly raised garage door.
Mother goes into the house to attend to some other matter.
It is time to take the laundry out. She lifts the lid. Little Susie, always so eager to help , and to be a part of the ongoing activities, had somehow managed to throw her Sunday dress into the washer. It was her pretty red woolen dress.