The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1874-05-28
About Spring House Cleaning.

It 10 an epidemic which attacks all
Well-regulated households twice q year.
The spring visitation is usually the worse
OF the two. It unsettles everything. It
goes to the very marrow Of the situation,
ana makes every member Of the family
h0mestck clean down to the stockings.
Like measles and chicken-pox and court
ing and similar arrangements there is no
cure for II but to 70 through It, and
blessed 10 the man who does not lose his
temper on the way. For while it lasts the
beefsteaks will be tough as sole leather,
and the coffee the poorest substitute for
slOps. Dinner will be late and inedlble
when ready. The cook will be cross, the
children will tease each otheE and tor
ment the maid, the old servant will quit
and leave her mistress in the lurch, the
dog will upset the basket with the best
china and ruin the Get, q halfdozen cous-
ins will drop down from the country to
spend . week, and q few friends will
come In to take quiet tea and have q
delightful sitdown, and the mistress of
the house will be sure to have one Of her
sick headaches or break down from over
doing. Railways happens, too, that when
the east wind blows perfect hurricane
through the house, and every room in it
is Q regular Crowley, Mr.. Smith is sure
10 invite Mr.. Jones to come to lunch, or
take it into his head to have the rheuma-
tism or some other company. Then the
upturn discovers 80 many uncomfortable
facts! The parlor curtains are faded
and must be replaced with new ones.
Three chairs are rickety, and the rose
wood sofa can't possibly be mended, and
the star carpet is thrcadbare, two bed
steads are broken, the gas-pipes are out of
order, the water leaks through the ceiling,
and the last domestic carried off q whole
chestful of her mistress clothes. Every
thing was serene and lovely on Sunday
night, but ON Tuesday morning there is
bedlam, and five hundred dollars to pay
into the bargain.
But the epidemic is inevitable. SAM
tary laws don't reach it. And perhaps,
after all, it IL not 80 bad as the thing it
removes. The civilized senses look on
dirt as the devil, and half the contrivances
of modern life are devised for its removal.
It has remarkable ability to stick. 1t
is subtle as sin and finds its way into the
smallest crevices of our habitations. 1t
uses all our modern conveniences for its
own ends, takes special delight in the
furnace, makes its bed in the velvet car
pet and damask chairs, and claims every
costliest and choicest thing as its special
property. Whoever has these elegant
furnishings must pay the price. We can
not engraft the simplicity of the old time
ON the complex order of the new. Who
ever has carpets must shake them, and
curtains will fade and gilt will wear off,
and china will break. There may be too
much fnssing and fretting about the mat
ter, but the matter itself is wholesome.
Now and then . housewife has cleanli-
ness on the brain, and wears out her
gloves with securing, and scrubs all the
paint off her doors, and keeps the furni-
ture of her parlor standing in such msth.
ematical order that each article looks like
q sentinel and almost seems to ache from
standing in one posture SO long. But
these women are 90 exceptional that they
are studied as curiosities and their houses
are inspected as q sort of cross between
museum and q sepulcher. Use has got
the better of looks. The average Ameri-
can home to-day is place to live in and
make the heart glad, and not place to
look at and clean every six months and
be miserable in all the rest of the year.
N. r Graphic.