The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1911-04-10

red candy box and the half dozen
seaShells, beautiful once as they spark
led in their proper setting, the wet sea
sand. but hopelessly ugly now, and the
hundred and one little treasures quite
as valueless 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 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 primeval obSeSsion-the
mania for accumulation.
To discriminate. to know what to
keep and what to throw away, to have
the wisdom and courage to simplify
ones existence by getting rio 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 developed somewhat beyond
the primeval.
There are so many departments of
the average household where simpli-
fieation 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 .fbecause 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
lwhich-if you are not a collector or do
| not happen to know any one who is
will seem a problem to you because it
seems too bad to burn them up. Don
do that Mine go to a dear old lady
who delights in forwarding them to
| the missionaries, who greatly apprecl-
ate this new kind of picture cards.
Doubtless your Church Missionary So
ciety will be glad of yours.
| Then there is the medicine chest,
with dozens of bottles in it that contain
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 the measles, and another bottle
| half full of some dark colored liquid
whose reason for being there you have
quite forgotten. You pretend 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 un-
used clothes are stored. Your ellmln-
alton here surely ought to be most
frigid. because you owe 1t to two people
Ito yourself, WIOSe nc
essary things are clogSing, and to
somebody else who has need of them
There are those boots that didn
quite fit you and that you have boarded
for two years hoping some day to gel
the courage to wear them. You never
will. You know it now And they
might mean so much to that somebody
else.
There's that brown serge dress that
you laid aside because You never lkeo
and solaoed your conscience by pre-
tending that some day you Will have l.
made over. You know JSu never VIII
land somebody's hands are outstretcheo
waiting to receive it from you.
The responsibility of keeping these
Ithings-that by right of eminent do
main belong to the somebodies who
need them-truly 1 do not see how
anyone dare assume it
These are just few general sugges-
tions The specific sImplihcatlons
which your household needs, only you
can know But if you orayely carry
out this policy through the whole
house 1 promise that you shall be more
satisfied with your spring cleaning
than YOU have ever been before