The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1911-04-10
DON'T HOARD UP
USELESS THINGS
Accommodating Is an Old,
Unreasoning Passion.
Nv RUTH CAMERON.

This Is the season of house cleaning.
Too sef-evident to mention, you think?
Quite so. But I mentioned it only to
introduce a suggestion.
As you take your broom in hand to
move upon the foe, will you not make
Up your mind that the season of house
cleaning this year is to be also a season
OF house cleaning and simplification?
The desire to accumulate simply for
the sake of accumulation is one of the
oldest and most unreasoning of human
passions. The child who boards the red
candy box and the haf-dozen seashells,
beautiful once as they sparkled in their
proper setting, the wet sea sand, but
hopelessly ugly now. and the hundred
and one little treasures quite as value
less and useless and quite as precious;
the Indian who treasures his bits Of
colored glass; the miser who gloats over
his hidden gold, and the housewife who
soIemnIy takes out and cleans and puts
back each Year lot of truck that she
does not really want and will never use.
are all slaves of this same primeval OBJ
session-the mania for accumulation
To discriminate, to know what to keep
and what to throw away, to have the
NlSuOu anu COuIdSt u SIIuplllS OLt
existence by getting rid of all the truck
one is keeping simply because one does
not quite like to throw it away-that is
| the mark of the woman who has de-
veloped somewhat beyond the primeval.
There are SO many departments of the
average household where simplihcation
| could be attempted with good results.
For instance, the writing desk. Ten to
one it is overlooking with letters long
ago read and answered and kept, not for
any sentimental or literary worth. but
merely because it seems too bad to
| throw them right away" Go through
that desk with a relentless hand, tying
up any letters that you have any real
reason for keeping, and consigning the
others to the fire, and sec if you do not
| approve the result.
| And by the way, let me offer a sug-
! gestiOn in regard to the souvenir cards
| whiCh-if you are not a collector or do
| not happen to know any one who is
| will seem problem to you because 1t
| seems too bad to burn them up Don't
do that. Mine go to a dear old lady, who
| delights in forwarding them to the mis-
! sionarieS, who greatly appreciate this new
| kind of picture cards. Doubtless your
! Church Missionary Society will be glad
| of yours.
! Then there is the medicine chest, with
dozens of bottles in it that contain little
! trickIes of medicine that you will never
use again. There's a little of that fever
medicine the doctor gave you when You
! had the grippe, and a few drops of the
! stuff he gave the baby for measles, and
! another bottle half full of some dark
| colored liquid whose reason for being
there you have quite forgotten. You pre-
| tend to think that perhaps you will use
some of these again, but really you know
| you never will.
| And then there are the closets and
| wardrobes and chests where your unused
| clothes are stored Your elimination here
| surely ought to be most rigid, because
YOU owe it to two peOple-to yourself
whose life these unnecessary things are
clogging, and to somebody else who has
| need of them.
There are those boots that didn't quite
| fit YOU and that you have boarded for
| two years, hoping some day to get up
| the courage to wear them. You never
will. You know il now. And they might
| mean so much to that somebody else.
There's that brown serge dress that You
laid aside because you never like II, and
solaced your conscience by pretending
! that some day you will have it made
over. You know you never will, and
somebody's hands are outstretched wait
ing to receive it from you.
The responsibility of keeping these
things-that by right of eminent domain
belong to the somebodiess who need them
truly, I do not see how any one dare
assume it
These are just a few general sugges-
tions. The specific simplifications which
YOUR household needs, only you can
know But if you brayely carry out this
policy through the whole house, prom
Use that you shall be msse satisfied with
your spring cleaning thsnyou have ever
been before.