Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1886-04-15

We plan how we can change the as
pect OF our rooms into something
newer, il not better.
1t is this desire for change, rather
than the desire for cleanliness, that
urges woman most emphatically up
on her house cleaning eer, and
this love of variety-this INCONSISTENCY
If you willis 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. Il it wasn't for
woman's ceaseless energy and restless
persuasion, the world would have long
since settled into a dona este and So
cial rut. Woman's impulses are
quicker than mans. She is to him
what the wind is to the sea; she keeps
him stirred up, and prevents stagna-
ton. The endless changes she brings
about, are as necessary TO the health
and welfare Of the world as the breeze
that fans the leaves, the clouds that
drip on the fields, the rivers that run
TO the sea, and the waves that beat OF
the shore.
I It was this desire for something
new that made Eve taste the apple in
Paradise, and it is this that makes the
modem women desire most nightly
to clean house as soon as the March
sun begins to shine warm upon their
backs; it makes them long to re-paper
walls, to turn old carpets and buy
new ones, to change all the Wintery
arrangements to new order of
things, to get rid Of accumulatlons of
dust, mustiness and diseose, and let
the air into every crack and crevice
in the house. Thep make sly visits
to the garrets, and come down laok-
ing blue and cold in spite Of the
shawls over their heads. There are
traces of dust and cobwebs upon
them that betray them, and the for
5oding world knows that the women's
crusade is about to to begin. The
more t'forehanded" housewives begin
to work slyly along the edges of car
pets with the tack-puller. and pros
pect for moths. once heard an old
gentleman say that in the Spring his
for something she didn't want to
find, and this has grown to be sad
necessity in these days of moth mil
lers and transient servant girls.
] once knew brisk woman who
used to loosen her carpets in the last
of February, 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 ira
dltion in her family that all carpets
should be up and stoves down by the
middle Of March, and unless positive
ly frozen up and showed under, she
| fought it out on that line. She and
her family are long since dead, as
might be expected, sacrificed not by
cleanliness. but by silly pride and
an insane desire to be more "before-
handed" than her neIghbors. have
noticed that these women who are so
forehanded with their house cleaning
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 treasures 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 houses if they kill themselves
and their families in the attempt.
They remind me of that imprudent
young man who attempted to scale the
lAlpine heights. refusing to listen to
sensible advice, and shouting 'Excel-
sior" TO all inviting friends. These
women, amid the snow and biting
winds of lingering winter, will ex-
| pose life and limb, or at least fingers
and thumbs and backs, to get ahead
of their neighbors and get their houses
cleaned first; they go pegging up the
wintry Alps, in lame, rheumatic
but determined procession, waving
their tack-hammers and scrubbing-
brushes, and shouting Excelsior, :"
till they disappear in a cloud of dust.
They pay no attention to good advice,
nor do they heea the roar of the awful
avalanche of dust and dirt and carpets
and stoves and SCOT that they bring
down on their devoted heads, on they
rush, and down from the cold damp
shades of their freless, sunless, par
lors, comes the last faint echo Of their
cries.