The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1884-10-15
Gbe firesioe.
Fluff.

8 Dirt / can bear. 1t is positive, un-
mistakable, and excites my combatiye-
ness so thoroughly that there is absolute
joy in attacking it. But fluff Insidi-
Gus, all-pervading, unconquerable fluff
What is its origin? Has it destiny,
or was it created only to drive house
keepers to Distraction Everything has
a double not alone man, but his sub
jects in the vegetable and mineral
kingdom as well. Fluff is the ghost of
murdered dirt. ! know it. / have
swept and busted and polished and shut
up my spare bedroom, and two days
afterward found fluff rampant under
everything. 1t dematerializes. Six feet
square of Consciousness, rolling into
wad you may hold between your thumb
and finger; but it is a visible presence,
a harnt in every house, and I'm
tired of fighting it.' 1t was " summer
boarders " who sat on the broad piazza
facing Mansfield Mountain, and who
had fallen into a quiet talk on house
keeping problems. Not the COMPARE
son of servants and the small kitchen
gossip supposed to form the staple of
conversation for the average woman
The summer boarder is occasionally
rational being, reporters and papers to
the contrary Notwithstanding, and the
three who sat with books and work
both dropped, as they watched the
play of light and shadow on the noun
tain side as the piling drifts of cloud
fled before the summer wind, were
women who let living come before
housekeeping and brought every energy
to bear on simplifying the problem of
daily work. "I'm coming to the con-
dition of the unhappy woman in Eliza
Turner's A Housekeeper's Tragedy"
said the first speaker:
There's too much of worriment goes to bonnet
There's too much of ironing goes to a shirt;
There's nothing that pays for the time you waste
There's nothing that lasts but trouble and dirt
with grease and with grim from corner to center,
Forever at war and forever alert,
spend my whole life in a struggle with dirt
" l DON'T said calm voice from the
third Shaker chair. 81 let great deal
of it go.' " You'll" chorused the other
two. g Your house is the neatest one
in the block. l see fluff everywhere,
but never with you" You see less
with me than in some houses, 1 know;
but it rises up all the same" "Well,
| know our grandmothers never had
such times" Bother our grandmoth-
ersl'' returned the first speaker, irrev-
erently. "Of course they didn't. They
lived chiefly in their big kitchens, and
half the house was Theoretically sealed.
They had no furnaces to carry dust into
every crack and corner, and when they
I bod +ha,. al
stay so. How do you manage it, Mary?"
"By never sweeping oftener than once
a month, except in places so much used
that it becomes absolutely necessary,
and by wiping carpets or mating with
damp cloth. Fluff is the lint of car
pets and beds, meeting with dust enough
as it is formed, to give it some consist
ence, and dust pervades everything so
that it rises under every football. l
have found that to wipe the carpet with
damp wooden cloth, usually wrung out
of warm water in which few drops of
ammonia have been put, not only bright
ems the carpet, but removes dust so per-
| fectly that there is no material left to
form fluff. 1t must not be wet cloth,
and there is where the ordinary servant
will give you most trouble, for their
theory of wiping is.to have thing wet.
Pick up loose threads or bits; brush up
| if there are footmarks or aggressive
dirt, and then wipe. 1t does not take
half the time of what is known as a
thorough sweeping. There is far less
dust on the furniture, and keeping
clean is made easier in every way. Even
ii you do the work yourself and such
event comes to all of us now and then,
it is an easier form of labor, or at any
rate no harder. and much more speedy.
A good carpet-sweeper for rooms most
in use and the damp cloth system will
rout your enemy more etfectually than
anything | ever tried. Here endeth
| the first lesson Z" Half the time saved
is the strongest inducement for trying
| it, sighed the first speaker. - | fight
for more time as furiously as | do
against fluff, and the one is as elusive
as the other. Some of these days l sup
pose | shall find out what not to do, and
come to great peace and self-posses-
SION" The talk drifted on, a warm
discussion of Mrs. Carlyle's methods
lasting till dinner time; but the one
factwe need had developed itself in the
hint as to fluff, and long experience has
proved the wisdom of the suggestion,
though, even with this method, the
modern hOusekeeper must face it now
and then, and learn to accept it as the
cleanest form of inevitable dirt.-Helen
|