The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1888-10-19
HINTS FOR MOTHERS.
Teach the Children of the Household
Care OF Chambers and Clothing.

HINTS fOH MOIh6hSs
Teach the Children of the Household the
Care OF Chambers and Clothing.
"Be sure you shut the closet doors
before you stir the BEDS" was the
charge our mother called after US
when she heard the warped back stairs
creaking under our lettering steps as
We were sent to put in order the
chambers Of the wide old farm house
that was our childhood home. A full
quarter of a century has passed since
then, and We are now trying to teach
our own little girls the wise counsels
we sometimes so unwillingly heard
from our mother. II every house.
keeper would insist that the occupants
Of their sleeping apartments, children.
help, boarders and visitors, should air
their beds and throw open windows
each morning before leaving their
rooms, unless beating storms make
this impracticable, we should have
less ailments of lungs and liver and
nerves in our midst. To breath night
after night unclean, vitiated air is
enough to poison and disease the
soundest lungs and undermine the
strongest constitution created.
Children, unless weakened and I'M
done by unwise cosseting, love pure,
bracing air, and we find it easy to
toss back blankets and quilts after
rising, and to remember to throw open
the windows of their chambers; but it
is not SO easy for an adult, who has
lived and slept in an heated atmos-
phere heavy with impurities till he
shrinks and shivers in currents Of
fresh, breezy air waves, to adopt the
rules or requests of the house.
When housewife has a crew Of
farm-hands or work-people to board,
to make sure of well-ventilated cham
bers it is necessary to go through the
sleeping-rooms each morning as soon
as the help is out, airing beds, closets
and opening windows.
But teach your girls to close all
closet and chamber doors before COM
mencing to make beds and put rooms
in order, else dust and lint will puff
and settle over garments in halls and
needlessly litter Railways and land
ings. May be half their wardrobe is
not neatly hanging in smooth, WELL
shaken folds on their hooks, but is ly.
ing in tumbled heaps on the closet
floor, crushed under shelves along
with backing brushes and latiered-
Tipped shaving mugs, or scattered
about the chamber, rurIpled, dusty,
creased, hopelessly injured with their
slOvenly care.
And other wardrobes than those Of
the men folks quickly grow shabby
because of shiftless caretaking. We
have seen dainty suits, the work Of
painstaking, loving mother hands.
grimed with dust and crumpled with
wear and their last toss and flop on to
chair-back or foot-board, their pretty
ruffies and plaits spoiled with careless
crushing. We have seen elegant
wraps and velvet and lace-trimmed
garments swinging, fright side out"
on a closet hook or on a jagged-headed
rail in the chamber wall, caught at
some point of the rich drapery
when heedlessly flung Woodward, q
muddy gossamer brushing their cling
ing folds, and carefully laid plaits and
delicate ruchings ruined with their
deep crossings and gray siftings Of
dust and lint. Nowhere does slovenli.
ness SO quickly tell of itself as in the
shabby wrinkles and crumpled folds
and drapery of lady's wardrobe.
Our little girls and boys should early
be taught habits of neatness and
method, that they may not be left to
form such undesirable traits of char
acter. 1t is easier for a child of seven
than one of seventeen to learn to take
proper care of her clothing. Our lit
tie daughters of six and seven years
can readily learn to keep their corner
OF mammals closet in the incest order.
With careful and constant example,
and now and then a warm word of ap.
prevail, these little home makers of
the next generation soon take healthy
pride in keeping their dainty dresses
and wraps neatly shaken out, turned
on their Innings, and carefully hung or
folded away from clinging lint and
sitting dust. Give them pretty boxes
for their priced, lace-trimmed aprons
and dainty collars and bonnets; an
deliberately embroidered shoe bag for
the smart little button boots and leg
gipgs, and these little folks soon learn
to delight in keeping their corner Of
mammals wardrobe in neatest order
Eoad HoalccEnoa,,,ln