The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1886-05-14
HOUSE-CLEANING.
Spring Days When the Houseleeper Goes
Mad on the Subject of Renovation.

MAJ on the SuDJect OF RenOYat1Ons
The early spring days are the high
carnival of the housekeeper, the domes-
tic Mardi Gras, when all the feminine
world seems to have gone mad on the
subject of cleanliness and renovation.
Then comes the first frantic out-burst Of
work after the winter rest-the first at
tack of spring mania, the symptoms of
which are restless activity, and de.
sire for change and growth. We turn
lightly to thoughts of housekeeping,
flower gardens and spring clothes, and
we pore over seed catalogues, and visit
the paper-hangers and carpet stores.
We go about the house, measuring walls
and ceilings. and floors, computing the
amount of paper and carpet they will
require, and, perhaps, figuring to bring
the cost within the range of a somewhat
limited income. We are intensely tired
of CRATES, and stoves, and registers. and
long for season when we can exist
without smoke, and SCOT, and ashes,
and dry hot furnace air. We plan how
we can change the aspect of our rooms
into something newer, if not better.
1t is this desire for change, rather
than the desire for cleanliness, that ur-
ges woman most emphatically upon her
house-cleaning career, and this love of
variety-this Inconsistency if you will !
is one of the saving graces of the world;
it is the beginning of much of the
growth and reform that has brought the
human race to its present development
If it wasn't for woman's ceaseless ener-
gy and resistless persuasion, the world
would have long since settled into a
domestic and social rut Woman's I'M
pulses are quicker than mans. She is
to him what the wind il to the sea; she
keeps him stirred up, and prevents stag
nation. The endless changes she brings
about, are as necessary 10 health and
welfare of the world us the breeze that
fans the sea, and the waves that beat on
the shore.
1t was this desire for something new
that made Eva taste the apple in Para
disc, and it is this that makes modern
women desire most nightly to clean
house as soon as the March sun begins
to warm up their backs; it makes them
long to re-paper walls, to turn old car.
pets and buy new ones, to change all
the wintry arrangements to new or
uCl VI W SCb liu VI
tons OF dust, mustiness and disease,
and to let the air into every crack and
crevice in the house. They make sly Wis
its to the garrets, and come down look
ing blue and cold in spite of the shawls
over their heads. There are traces of
dust and cobwebs upon them that be-
tray them, and the foreboding world
knows that the women's crusade is
about to begin. The more "forehand-
ed" housewives begin to work slyly
along the edges of carpets with the tack
puller, and prospect for moths. l once
heard an old gentleman say that in the
spring his wife spent most of her time
looking for something she didn't want
to find, and this has grown to be sad
necessity in these days of moth-millers
and transient servant girls.
l once knew brisk woman who used
to loosen her carpets in the last of Feb
ruary, so that she might take advantage
of the first warm day, and whisk them
out before the gaze of an astonished
world. There was a tradition in her
family that all carpets should be up,
and stoves down, by the middle of
March, and unless positively frozen UP
and showed under, she fought it out on
that line. She and her family are long
since dead, rs might be expected, sacri.
feed not by cleanliness, but by q silly
pride and an insane desire to be more
''forehanded" than her ncighbors. l
have noticed that these women who are
so forehanded with their housekeeping
are apt to be forehanded in their deaths
They seem to fancy there is some merit
in thus forcing the season, and they
plunge into the good work with all the
enthusiasm of the ancient martyrs.
laying up coughs, and colds, and treas
ures in heaven. So many women clean
house according to tradition, instead of
common sense. They learned in their
youth that spring begins in March, and
in March they will clean house if they
kill themselves and their families in the
attempt They remind me of that i'm
prudent young man who attempted to
scale the Alpine heights, refusing to lis
ten to sensible advice, and shouting
Excelsior" to all inquiring friends.
These women, amid the snow and bit
ing winds of lingering winter, will
expose life and limb, or at least fingers
and thumbs, and backs, to get ahead OF
their neighbors and have their houses
cleaned first; they go pegging away up
the wintry Alps, in lame, rheumatic,
but determind procession, waving their
tack-hammers and scrubbing-brushes
and shouting Excelsior" till they dis
appear in cloud of dust. They pay no
attention to good advice, nor do they
heed the roar of the awful avalanche of
dust and dirt, and carpet, and stoves,
and SCOT that they bring down on their
devoted heads; on they rush, and down
from the cold, damp shades of fireless,
sunless parlors, comes the last faint
echo of their cries. Elizabeth Cole, IN
Coed ypuseI.eer:.tc