The Manitowoc tribune. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1866-1878, 1875-07-29
CLEANING THE CLOSET.

| I don't mean the one where your best
clothes are hung, or your worst ones,
| either, or the one where you keep the
shovel and tongs, and the coal scuttle
| but the closet that has shelves from top
| to bottom, and opens off the family room
the receptacle for things you "don't
want to put away just now,' and which
are forgotten forever after. You don't
want the hired girl around-she offers
| too much advice-sC she has holiday,
and goes to see her sister. You don't
want the children at home-they ask so
many questions, and tease to build
houses of the books and boxes, so they
are packed off to school, None but
yourself and John; and such a lovely
day and You are going to clean the
closet, and have Elephant pie for din
ner-the first one Of the season-and
John is to tinker about the garden and
lawn, just within hearing.
The things on the lower shelf look toll
crafty familiar; there are redingote pat
terms, and polonaise patterns, partly
worn slippers to be mended ''some
time;" there is sheet music, scissors
with the rivet gone, piece-work, patches,
pills, a paper of melon seeds, for which
you ransacked the house only the day
before, a gilt vase with the ear off-the
piece inside IS going to be stuck on
''some time;" there's a sleeveless jacket
done up in wad-it was cut after a
borrowed pattern and didn't fit, and was
put here to await n plaster Paris toy man.
or grasshopper sufferer; here's curl
ing iron, "checkered game of life, " old
magazines, belt, box of dominoes, a
book of receipts, a scrap book, atreatise
on the cut worm, a portfolio of pressed
leaves, a bottle of hair oil, broken doll,
| etc., etc., it would be easier to make a
list of the things not there. You get
| them built up III a seml-circle around
you, and suddenly remember it takes
hot water to wash shelves; you "step
! down and out" and stir the fire in the
kitchen, and put more water in the res
ervoir
The interest increases as you advance
| upward with your investigations. You
| find box of letters, invitations and the
| like, that you haven't gone through IN
an age, some of them reaching back into
your schoolgirl days. Way down in
the bottom is an old ambrotype of your
self, when you were sweet, silly seven
! teen. White null dress. low in the
neck, and pink coral beads-dear, dear |!
and you see old ssNo 25," and the col
| lege chums come swarming around you,
| and you drift back into the past and
study your French lessons-here it is;
page 40, paragraph l0-''C boulonger,
at il der pain ct du fromageI and you
recall how that bread and cheese ques-
ton always made you hurry in class; you
remember that morning at chapel exer-
cises when Will borrowed your book and
| wrote that exquisite little note while
Prof Ripp was lengthening his prayer:
here are the very pansies he slipped in
when he handed it back, SO you should
| be sure and open it at the light place-a
pinch of purplish dust that was pansies
once-why hasn't it ever lost out OF scat
! tered
Here is Nell Treats autograph on
tinted paper-brimston tint-done by
the master magician, Time, himself.
What dainty little hand, with such
unique fourishes Nell was music
teacher, and sad firt She Tilted
| Charlie Prince just as she had a dozen
| others. He went to the old world for a
term of years, and Nell, she kept on
teaching; then, when she was dying of
consumption, she forgot her pride and
sent for him. He sailed in the City of
| Boston.
''Marier, Marierl where's the dinner
That train at two, you know" Slowly
you wake up to closet-cleaning and din
ner. The kitchen fire Is dead; in fact it
never burned minute after you left it..
Hurry, worry, fuss and fret! with John S
head poking into the door at frequent
intervals to watch the progress of things.
1 had rather be watched by a hungry
hyena than by man who wants his din
ner in time to make the train. You put
sugar and nice lot of water into youl
pie-plant but forget the flour for thick
ening and the juice runs out of the oven,
across the kitchen-foor and out on to
the doorstep. Somehow the under crust
| gets wringing wet, and resembles q
piece of unbleached cotton drill. John
bolts down the vegetables, and refuses
the ''first of the season" because he has
MT time. It's dreadfully warm, and you
feel heavy-headed and drowsy-lidded,
but here is this kitchen muss, and there
is that Sierra Nevada range of buds in
the next room, and-but you can finish
the picture from experience or imagina-
ton, only don't dare to purse up your
lips and pretend you havn't one in youl
| house.-HudsO71 Gazette.