Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1901-08-17
WHEN CARPETS ARE BEATEN
HOW TO CLEANSE AND PUT THEM
DOWN AGAIN.
Useful Hints for the Housc-CIeaning
Season, Which Will Soon BE
Here Again.
Written for The Evening Star.

written Inc Evenlng SUIT
just why the average woman is I'M
happy unless at the close of each summer
rugs and carpets receive a thorough
trouncing is one of the mysteries that the
man intellect can never comprehend. Man
knows that woman says that the perform
ance is intended to remove the accumula-
ton of dust and to smite out those noX-
ious germs which in close, warm rooms
during winter might come out of their
prisons and develop, like the genii in the
bottle, into giant agents of evil. When
spring comes, woman is just as anxious to
have the carpets again belabored, giving it
as her opinion that the mud gathered dur
ing winter will combine with the hot
summer sun to disastrously affect the
health of the family Man, who is the
chief victim of this mania for health pres
ervation, curves the germ theory and re-
grets ofttimes that civilization has made it
bad form to cudgel the foolishness out of
feminine heads as he does the dust from
the unoffending carpet.
Woman knows the mind of man, or
thinks she does, and therefore she never
apprises her victim in advance of the fact
that carpets are to be beaten. Man, inno-
cent and unsuspecting, comes home whis-
ting lightsOme refrain to be Frustrated
by an announcement something like this:
John, Mary and l have been taking up
the carpets all day, and we would like you
to go out to the rear this evening and give
them thorough busting You may use
one of your new golf sticks. I'm sure it
will be splendid exercise for YOU
John begins by declaring that he will not
beat carpets, but feminine zeal and femi-
nine guile win, as they have won year after
year John is given a particularly good
dinner-it is customary for the eXecutioner
to feed the victim well before the sacrifice
and, cheered by his meal, energies into
the back yard or the vacant lot, where his
muscle, gained in many summer tourney
upon the golf field, is to be thriftily put
to use.
Says Mrs. John to Mary, her faithful do
nestle:
Instead of paying a man to do that
work | can spend the money it would cost
at MacSticken's next bargain sale. And
besides, it VIII do John lot of good to
exercise in the nice fresh air after his day
of confinement in that close office"
John lifts his arm alOft to smite the car
pet. 1t is a right smart stroke, for he
is conscious that some of the neighbOrs
are looking out Of their windows, and he
wants them to understand that his repu-
taton as a summer golf Samson is well
deserved A whirlwind of dust flares out
of the carpet. which, unless he is agile,
swings back and buffets him in the face
and chest with the force of young bat
tering ram, and he grOvels on the earth,
swallowing huge mouthfuls of the swirling
microbes at every breath. Then he arises
and mauls the carpet until it is wonder
that thread of it is left when he throws
down the beaten.
So absorbed in his work is he that he
does not hear the mutterings of dissatis-
faction that float from the open windows
from which neighbOrs view his labors:
Gradually arise words of Indignation, and
as he bangs cloud after cloud of dust from
the carpet down go the windows with ter
rifle thuds until every neighbor's family
sits in an alright house exchanging I'M
Hot fno 0rin Of
When the last rug has received it's need
of scourging John looks up to the windows,
where the neighbors' little boys are fiat
tening their noses and thanking their stars
that their pas have not the reach and
muscle under prOvocation that little Johnny
Jones carpet-beating parent seems to have.
AS he views those closed windows the
carpet beaten is overcome with mOrtifica-
ton. He has been a source of annoyance
to the folks in the block He wonders what
they think of him. A man is always sensi-
tive on that score when it is question of
carpet beating, and, looking much as If the
spankings had been administered to him
self, he retires hastily into the house,
where woman. now that her object has
been accomplished, is cold, calculating and
unSympathetic.
who cares whether the neighbors like it
or not?" she says. There are three carpets.
l suppose Mary and l can put them down
tomorrow. / must send Johnny for a pa
per of tacks. Oh, don't bother me about
the neighbors. John. What difference does
it make about their windows? The carpets
had to be beaten. You look pretty dusty.
Don't you think you'd better take a bath?'
John goes to soak off the coatings of dust
which his task has accumulated and to
rinse from his mouth with aseptic washes
the taste of the carpets. If you don't be-
lieve that carpets have distinct flavor,
beat one. 1t is a combination of dusty
wool heightened by dyes and grease. No,
the taste of carpet is not nice, and John
may be excused for emitting to say his
PRAYERS as, tired and indignant, he rolls
into bed to be tortured by nightmare of
carpet beatings in which he figures as the
victim.
An expert carpet beaten says the best
way to beat a carpet is to lay it on long
grass and then attack it with reeds. When
one side of the carpet has been thoroughly
pummeed it should be swept off and the
other side drubbed until all the dust mas
been removed from the surface. Then
that side too, should be swept.
Most men are not careful SweeperS, and
it will be well for them to remember that
a carpet should be scarcely touched by the
broom, the handle of the utensil being in
clined and the dust on the carpet rolled
lightly forward. If some wet tea grounds
are laid on the soft side Of the carpet be-
fore sweeping and removed with the dust
they will help to clean it. The broom should
have a long, elastic, greeniSh brush firmly
fastened to the handle. The broom corn
should be free of stalks, which, being brit
tie, will break off and retard the sweeper.