The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1896-05-19
Book and NeighbOrhOOd
Suggestions Adopted.
II Took Five Days to Fix Five
Rooms Right.
The Housecleaner Now Recovering
From Nervous Prostration.

on.Whitewashing and then as little ad-
ditional pleasantly went to work and
wrote a second essay in answer to the
first, the second being over a woman's
signature and severly dcnouncing his
own impudence for publishing the first.
Whitewashing in those days meant
nothing more nor less than house clean
ing ana Benjamin's essays are just as pat
for the overhauling season OF 1896 as they
were IN the middle OF the 18th century.
The principle is the same and the
misery Is none the less even il shellac has
been substituted for whltewash, and IL
modern mechanical ingenuity has devised
an extractor to make tack pulling a
source of delight, modern fads have kept
up the average of housecleaning despon-
dency by multiplying several hundred
times the mum ber of knick-knacks that
must be carefully removed, busted and
moved again.
But of all forms and varieties OF the ma
tional spring malady the first attack ex-
perienced by a recently married young
woman is the most violent and in some
respects the most numerous. Ii may be
that she has only been housekeeping two
or three months and that the start was
made in a bran new house with virgin
carpets and furniture fresh from the storei
But that makes no difference. The bac-
terra of cleanliness is no respector of
honeymoons and the epidemic spreads
IL
would make Asiatic cholera blush for its
procrastination.
The yonng woman may be fresh
from boarding school. the
only institution in America
that is exempt from housecleaning, and
know nothing about IL, but her education
goes for nothing, when on some bright
May morning she looks out aud sees mat
tresses and blankets protruding from her
neig boris windows and stacks of house
hold goods adorning her neigh boris yard.
That one glance Is sufficient, she Is FMS
cinated by the revelation of a new Joy
that she had not dreamed of on her we'd
ding day. She, too, will clean house.
and the need thereof cuts no ice. Elec-
trified with the new thought, she seizes
volume of her ''Handy Hints to Young
Wives" and runs her finger down the in
deX to "housecleaning," chapter a, pages
ie to Thirteen sefiAE pages of hints
that shouo not be allowed in the mails.
and yet every one must be acted ppon.
Like all handy hint and daily help ritera-
turc, each chapter starts off with quota
tion, and "cleanliness is next to godli-
ness" Is the chestnut which introduces
chapter 4. That lends the disguise OF
morality to the entire undertaking.
The first paragraph states. that, as the
title of the chapter implies,it is tue house
which Is TO be cleaned, and the first hint
Is that everything movable must he taken
out. Then follows permissive clause to
the effect that one room may be treated
Mt time or the entire house at once.
The giving of that option is brutal,
for there Is absolutely nothing
in the foot notes or appendix to sug-
gest which is tie letter and more trouble
some way. There is nothing 10 do but
consult the neighbors and get q consen-
sus of opinions along the street. The wo-
man next door but two on the same side.
after IL years experience, recommends
the one room at time system end the
woman on the other side, almost directly
opposite prefers the ensemble method.
Both are worthy women ana again there
Is no choice.
Finally the young woman resorts to
the.text book on psychofogy, which she
used the last year at school. Under the
head of cerebral confictions" she finds
that the universal rule of "when in
doubt play trumps" applies in principle
to all matters of mental activity as express
sed by physical manifestation. That
clears up the whole difficulty and the
one-room theory Is adopted with zeai
oil the greater for the delay, and it is IL
O'Clock on the forenoon of the first day.
Ten minutes later the slender legged
music box chair is playing Paradise
Alley" in the back yard, its mechanism
having been set off by the weight of a
29-pound standard rocker. and the fence
top is Immediately decorated by tho kids
OF tho neighborhood looking for the da-
go's monkey. But that is only al incl
dent, not provided for in the Han dy
Hints. and the young woman with sleeves
rolled up and naughty mien re-enters
the house for another load. BY the even
ing OF the first day the last stick OF the
instalment plan parlor furniture is on
the alleged lawn. Everything has been
done according to the book, bat never
haAia l,ap to Ftn II De
too late to clean the vacant room and those
chairs and things must not he left out
till morning. There are premonitory
symptoms of the May storms swooping
down in the night and there is already %
months due on the furniture
"Eandy Hints" and Psychology
are rejected temporarily ann the daily
weather report Is added 10 the litera-
ture OF the occasion. IL says great
deal about the barometer and warns
ship captains to keep away from tho At
lantic coast or else stay in harbor for the
next as honrs,. but there inst a syllable
about house-cleaning and the young
woman wishes she was back at school.
Her recently accepted life partner comes
home in the meantime entirely uncon-
scious OF what the immediate future
holds for him.
He becomes an accomplice after the fact
and lugs the stuff into the kitchen in an
unsatisfactory way, leaving the uphois-
tered articles till the last in order to
catch the first of the shower.
Tnen they eat crackers and last nights
milk, and imagine themselves evicted
tenants IN struggling Ireland. And sho
is glad that she didn't take the advice
OF the woman almost directly opposite,
and he Is glad that there ere only five
rooms In the house
And so It goes for five days. The third
day wa~clothes press cay and the young
woman made audacious by her previous
Efforts departed from the suggestion of
the book TO carry out an original idea.
She put all tho clothes on the lines un-
der the trees, thinking thst they
would air and the sweet scent
OF the ample blossoms would linger In their
folds until next house cleaning time. IL
would have becn a good idea for the book
~ II was useless i'm practice. The festive
canker worms dropped from the apple
blossoms In showers and made their nests
In the tobacco crumbs which bad been
accommodating for years in the pockets of
the pants and the dust OF the street came