Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1911-04-12
ruth CAMERON ON
HOUSE CLEANING
Helpful Suggestions at This
Season

tIliluh.
Quite so. But I mention 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
housekeeping this year, is to be also
a season of housekeeping and simpli-
fcation.
The desire to accumulate simply for
the sake of accumulation is one Ct
the Oldest and most unreasoning Of
human passions, The child who boards
the red candy box and the half dozen
seashells, beautiful once as they
sparkle in thir proper setting, the
wet sea sand, but hopelessly ugly now
and the hundred and one little treas
ures quite as valueless and useless
and quite as precious; the Indian,
who treasures his bits of colorai
glass; the miser who gloats over his
hidden gold; and the housewife who
solemnly takes out and cleans and
puts back each year a lot of truck that
she does not really want and Will
never use, are all slaves of this same
primeyal Questionable mania for ac-
emulation.
To discriminate, to know what TO
keep and what to discard, to have
the wisdom and courage to simplify
ones existence by getting rid of all
the truck one is keeping simply be-
cause one does not quite like to throw
it away-that is the mark of the wo-
man who has developed somewhat be-
yond the primeval
There are so many departments Of
the average household where simpli-
fication 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 KEEP,
not for any sentimental or literary
worth, but merely because it seems
too bad to throw them right away
Go through that desk with relentless
hand, tying up any letters that you
have any real reason for keeping and
consigning the others to the fire, and
see 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 collec-
tor or do not happen to know any
one who is-will seem a problem 10
you because it seems too bad to burn
them up. Don't do that Mine go to
La dear old lady who delights in for
waIding them to the missionaries 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 con-
tain little trickles 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 boz
tie half full of some dark colored
liquid whose reason for being there
you have quite forgotten. You pre-
tend to thing that perhaps you will
use some OF these again but really
you know you will never
And then there are the closets and
wardrobes and chests where your IN
used clothes are stored. Your eIimin-
alton here surely ought to be most rig
id, because you owe it to two people
to yourself, whose life these unneces-
sary things are clogging, and to some
body else who has need of them.
There are those boots that didn
quite fit you and that you have hoard
ed for two years hoping some day to
get the courage to wear them. Y5u
never will. You know it now. And
they might mean so much to that
somebody else.
There's that brown serve dress that
you laid aside because you never liked
and solaced your conscience by pre-
tending that some day you will have
it made over You know you never
will and somebody's hands are out
stretched waiting to receive it from
you
The responsibility for keeping these
things-that by right of eminent do
main belong to the somebodies who
need them-truly | do not see how
any one dare assume it.
These are just a few gentle sugges-
tons, The specific simplfacations
which your household needs only yol
can know. But if you bravely carry
out this policy through the whole
house l promise that you shall be
more satisfied with your spring clean
ing than you have ever been before.
RUTH CAMERON.