Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1890-01-29
BOARDING OLD THINGS.
The Poetry and Prose of Garrett, Sewing
Room and Closet.

The Poetry and Prose of Garrett, Sewing
Room and Closet.
Women in the main, are not natural
spendthrifts, and economy is COM
mendable thing, but there is a point at
which it, like forbearance, ceases to be
a virtue I allude now to the practice
of letting odds and ends accumulate, of
boarding nondescript articles of no pres
ent value, with the notion that they
will some time be Of use. Such articles
become veritable skeletonsin the closets
of many home. Bonnets of a fashion
of years agone have musty smell; the
piles of newspapers are sticky with age;
hoop-skirts of times past grin sardon-
ically, and shoes are green with the
mold that is the concomitant of leather
long unused.
The rule, keep thing seven years,
and if no use be yet found for it keep it
seven more, is one that is more hon
ored in the breach than in the observ-
ance." From it has come the thriftless
sight of collection of dust-harboring,
so disease-engenderin rubbish of
no seeming earthly use, that
makes one of properly consti-
tuted tendencies instinctively long
for either a bonfire or a spade.
What, 1 should like to know, is the wis
dom in keeping the broken parasol or
umbrella longer if not fixed within a
year. Yet the dilapidated lot is often
increased. Why not, at once, sell the
old iron to the .iron-monger, and break
up the cracked pitcher and noseless tea
pot into eagerly-appropriated bits (of
graveD for the chickens? Bury out of
sight the old tin cans for which there is
no apparent need, knowing their cheap
ness if any should be wanted in the I'M
certain future for flower-pot or for foot
stool, and burn in the friendly depths of
the kitchen fire the rimless hat, the
wornout shoe, and the rag-bag that was
filled last year but for which the rag
man never came.
Fire is in more than one way the
housekeeper's blessing. Besides it's USE
fulness for cooking and heating pur-
poses it may hide forever the object
that is an eye-sore, OF which would
become such by long keeping, giving us
in it's place handful of ashes with
which to enrich our flower border or
fertilize our orchard plat. The scrap of
cloth and bits of paper and string that
litter the floor and, swept out, disfgure
the door-yard, may help, to better adj
vantage, in kindling the next fire; and
many an unsightly thing about the
premises can be picked up from time to
time, and it's burning serve double
purpose, namely: the provision of more
fuel, and tidily-kept surroundings.
Cloths of every description are so use-
full to the housekeeper that every part
of almost any garment can be speedily
utilized, and the long saving of laid-aside
clothing becomes folly. While the
thousand and one uses for waste-paper
that housewives know precludes any
necessity of stacks of stale newspapers.
Bureau-drawers and pattern recep-
tacles ought to be ''riddled OUT occa-
sionally, and, by the same token, ones
letters and papers and pigeon-holes.
And however niggardly one may once
have been it can come to be, by the
higher order of worth and neatness, a
peculiar satisfaction to put every bulk
and particle, no longer valuable, quite
out of the way.
The young housekeeper should be
prudent and not wasteful, but there is
occasion to guard against the opinion
too often considered virtue = that
every thing is too good to throw away"
Even an inaniplate articles day of use.
fitness may be ended, when it's keeping
becomes burden. / have often thought
that the poetry OF the garnet exists only
in the room cleaned on an average but
once a year, the spiders webs are toe
numerous, the spinning wheel too dusty
and the hair-covered trunk too apt to
contain monse's nest to make it place
of delight O. the contents Of g. healthy
inspiration. Emma r. Valentine. in
Good Housekeeping