The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1874-03-28
housekeeping.

Ing, to be sure, but we take the liberty Of
making few suggestions about the best way
to do it. Nearly everybody does it the way
we recommend, SO Of course it must be
right.
! In the first place, then-nevcr clean one
room at a time 1t is too much trouble, and
1t doesn't seen AS If SO much is being done
Upset the whole house from attic to cellar
Tear up the carpets-takc down all the cur
tans, and bedseads and stoves, and fling the
whole concern out of doors to air. Nothing
like thoroughly airing things. If itrains, as
most likely it will, and the house should be
chilly without the stoves, let the family fly
round and help clean! That will warm them
up if anything will.
Have soap dishes and plates Of sand in
every room. Leave some pieces OF soap on
the stairs. If anybody falls over them it will
be good lesson-it will teach them to look
before they leap, next time
| Always begin your house,cleaning with
nothing cooked in the house. Dieting once
in while is conducive to health, and If any
OF your family should contract the smallpox
directly afterward the cold tea and hard tack
of house. cleaning will be found to have been
an invaluable preparation of the system tor
the disease. A low diet previous to small
pox sickness prevents pitting.
Have the dining table covered with books,
and vases and brackets, and bedstcad cas-
tiers, and looking glasses, and tlatirons, and
cruckery, and sofa pillows, and jars ofpckles
and lamp shades, and Il thousand other trifies
which have been thrown out of their lcgiti-
mate places Tor the house. cleaning, aud then
you can eat off a flour barrel in the pantry. 1t
will save work, and be so cosy.
| Scold all you want to. A woman has carte
blanche at such time to put her scolding ma
chinery at full speed No man who had not
the heart of Nero would wish her to hold
her peace at this time. Soap suds and scold-
ing invariably go together Who can tell
why?
| When you begin to put things to rights af
the scrubbing your patience will be sorely
tried, Thomas will have to be enlisted to
help put down the carpets ana fix the cur
tains.
| The tacks will all be crooked and some
body must go for new ones. There vii. be
rips in the carpet to sew up. There will be
| signs of moth, and pepper must be called IN
to disgust them. Thomas will sneeze, and
wish the carpets in-some other place. Then
putting down begins. The hammer will
come off from the handle, and you will raise
a blood blister on your hand trying to tasten
it on by the help of a nail and the carving
knife sharpener Thomas will have mud on
the pale lavender roses in the carpet. Men
with muddy boots always step on the highest
colored spots in the carpet.
The bedsteds will all have swelled with
washing, and have to be pounded together.
Two or three casters will be missing After
you have searched for them a couple of hours
you will find one in the jar of ounce pre-.
serves and the other down cellar in the coal
bin. The third one will not turn up before
the next housekeeping revolution takes
place.
The cat and the dog have fled
The canary has sought his very highest
perch, and sits there shrinking into his yell
low feathers, not daring to say-nee! nee
ever so family, until this domestic earthquake
has rumbled itself away.
Corpets are down, curtains up, bcdsteads
got together, beds are made, and the refresh
ing smell of soapsuds is everywhere
Your house is clean. Yes, indeed
You ache in every nerve and sinew. You
feel as if you had been taken apart by black.
smith and put together with red hot darnng
needles in all your joints.
Your hands are bisered, your fingcrnalls
torn down to the quick" you have taken
cold in your head, and treckled your nose
with beating carpets in the sun, but never
mind Your house is cleaned!
And you call Thomas to look around and
see how nice it looks, and he, unfccling
wretch says he don't see but it looks just as
it did before!
Then you go to bed in huff and dream of
striped snakes and yellow boa constructors,
and wake in the morning considerably more
dead than alivc-but your house is cleaned.
Kate Them IN y. J. Weekly