The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1875-07-15
Cleaning the Closet.

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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-sO she has
holiday, and goes to see her
sister You don't want the children
a. 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: aud such a
lovely day and you are going to clean
the closet, and have a pie-plant pie 10
dinner-the first one of the seasOn-and
John is to tinker about the garden and
lawn, st within hearing.
The things on the lower shelf look toll
erably familiar; Their are reiingOte pat
terms, and polonaisc patterns, partly worn
slippers to be mended . some time;
there is sheet music, sciSSOrs~wlth the NV
ct gone. piece-wOrk, patches, pills, pa
per of melon seeds, for which you ran
sacked the house only the da before. IA
gilt vase with the ear Of-th' piece inside
is going to be stuck on "sOme time :;
there's a sleeveless jacket-dune up in
wad-it was cut after borrowed pattern
and didn't fit. and was put here to await
plaster Paris toy man, or grasshOpper
sufferer here's curing iron, CHECK
cred game of life, old magazines, a belt.
Il box of dOniinoes. book of receipts, a
scrap book, a treatise on the cut worm, a
portfolio of pressed leaves, bottle of hair
oil hrAl 1n1I Off OF WOnln
easier 10 make a list of the things not
there You get them built up in semi
circle around YOU, and suddenly remem
Der il takes hot water to wash shelves ;
YOU 4" step down and out" and stir the
fire in the XII chen, and put more water III
the reservoir.
The interest increases "a you advance
upward with your Investigations. YOu
find box of letters, invitations and the
like, that Won haven't gone through in an
age, some of them reaching back into your
school girl days. Way down in the bot
tom is an old ambrotype of ourself. VIII n
you were sweet, silly seventeen. White
null dress. low in the neck, and pink coral
beads-dear, dear! and you see Old mo
%" and the college chuns come SWARM
ing around you. aud you drift back into
the past and study your French lessons
here it is: page 40, paragraph 10" {
boulonger, at il der pain ct du frontage! v
and you recall how that bread and cheese
question always made you hungry in
class; YOU remember that morning at
chapel exercises when Will borrowed your
book and wrote that exquisite little note
while Prof Ripp was frightening 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 tight
place-a pinch of purpiis dust that was
pansies once-why hasn't it ever lost out
or scattered?
Here is Nell Treats autograph on tinted
paper-brimstOne tint-dOne by the mas
ter magician, Time, himself. What a
dainty little hand, with such unique flour
ishes. Nell was a music teacher, and a
sad flirt She Tilted Charlie Prince just as
she had dozen others. He went 10 the
old world for term of years, and Nell,
she kept on teaching; then. when she
was dyiag of consumption, she forgot her
pride and sent for him. He sailed in the
City of Boston.
& Marier. Marier! 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 a minute after you left it,.
Hurry, worry, fuss and fret with Johns
head pOking into the door at frequent in
tervals TO watch the progress of things. |
had rather be watched by a hungry hyena
than bv man who wants his dinner in
time to make the train. You put sugar
and nice lot of water into your pie-plant
but forget the flour for thickening and the
Juice runs out of the oven. across the
kirchen-fOOr and out on To the doorstep.
Somehow the under crust gets wrineing
wet, and resembles piece of unbleached
cotton-drill. John bolts down the vegeta-
bles, and refuses the first of the season"
because he hasn't time. It's dreadfully
warm, aud you feel heavy-headed and
drowsy-lidded, but h. re 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 imagination, only don't dare TO purse
up your lips and pretend you havn't one
OF the above mentioned variety works il
your house.-Hudson Gd-stts.