THE CARE OF THE BEDROOMS
When it was the turn of the Pretty Aunt to give her lesson in
housekeeping, she said she should begin at daybreak, so Margaret was not
surprised to hear her knock at the door early in the morning, almost
before she was dressed.
She helped the little girl take the clothes off the bed, one at a time,
and put them on two chairs near the windows, being careful not to let
the blankets get on the floor. She beat the pillows well, and turned the
mattress up over the foot of the bed so the air could get underneath it.
The white spread she kept by itself, and had Margaret help fold it up in
its creases. "Nothing wrinkles more easily," she told Margaret, "and a
wrinkled spread spoils the look of neatness a bed ought to have when it
is made. If you have a heavy Marseilles spread, do not sleep under it;
fold it at night and put it away, and use only the blankets, because it
is not good for any one to sleep under such a weight. Now hang up your
night-dress, and put away your slippers and bath-wrapper. I am delighted
to see that you have no dress or petticoats lying around this morning
from last night. Too many girls do not hang them up at once when they
take them off, but leave them over a chair, and put them away in the
morning, perhaps creased with lying. It is much better to put them away
as you take them off. Open your windows, next, top and bottom, and set
the closet door open, too, and then we will go to breakfast."
"Why do I open the closet door?" asked Margaret, laughing at the idea.
"Because your closet needs airing just as much as your room does; more,
indeed, because its door has been shut all night, while the fresh air
has been blowing into the room through the open windows. If you did not
air it every day, it would soon have a close, shut-up odor, and perhaps
your dresses would have it, too, which would certainly not be nice at
all. It has to have fresh air to keep it sweet. Now we will shut the
door of your room as we go, for the cold wind would chill the halls, and
besides, the sight of a disordered bedroom is not attractive."
After breakfast Margaret went up-stairs and shut the windows of her
room, and a little later, when it was warm, she and her aunt put on
fresh white aprons and went in and began to put it to rights.
One stood on each side of the bed and turned the mattress from head to
foot; the next day, Margaret was told, it must be turned from side to
side as well as over, to keep it always in good shape. If this was not
done constantly there would soon be a hollow place in the middle, which
would never come out, and the mattress would be spoiled. They laid over
it the nice white pad which kept it looking always new and clean, and
then the lower sheet, the wide hem at the top and the narrow one at the
bottom, the seams toward the mattress, and tucked it smoothly in at the
sides.
"Some people are careless about these little things," said the aunt as
they worked. "They think it does not matter if there is a hollow in the
mattress, or whether they have a cover for it or not. They mix the top
and bottom sheets, and never know which is which; but you are going to
do things the right way, which is always the easiest in the end."
They laid the upper sheet on with the wide hem at the top, as before,
but with the seam up instead of down. Margaret wondered at this, but was
told that this way made the two smooth sides of the sheets come next to
the one who slept between them, and at the same time made the upper
sheet turn over at the top with the seam underneath.
When the blankets went on, the Pretty Aunt said she was thankful to
notice that Margaret's mother always cut hers in two.
"What for?" asked the little girl.
"Well," was the reply, "double blankets are difficult to handle. They
are really one long blanket folded together, and one-half sometimes
slips and gets wrinkled, and is hard to get into place. Then,
half-blankets are more easily aired than whole ones, and more easily
washed, also. And if one is too warm in the night, and wishes to throw
off half of the clothes, it can be done without pulling the bed to
pieces. It is simple enough to cut a pair in two and bind the edges with
ribbon so the colors will match, and it well pays for the small
trouble."
"I sometimes wish I had a nice, fat comfortable instead of two
blankets," said Margaret. "I know a girl who has such a hot one, all
made of cotton and cheesecloth."
"They are not nearly as healthful as blankets, my dear, nor so easily
kept clean. People who own them would hate to have to tell how seldom
they are washed, because they are so heavy to handle that it is put off
month after month, and season after season. A pretty little silkolene
coverlet to lay on the foot of the bed, such as you have, or a small
eiderdown puff, is very nice, but blankets are the things to sleep
under. Now let us put the white spread on."
"But, auntie," objected Margaret, "you haven't tucked anything in! Just
see, not the sides nor the bottom! I don't like to have my feet out all
night; I like to be tucked in all nice and warm. Shan't we tuck in
everything as we go along? That's the way Bridget does when she makes my
bed."
Her aunt laughed. "Just wait!" she said. Then she put on the white
spread, and smoothed it nicely all over, and told Margaret to stand
opposite to her at the side of the bed near the foot, and do as she did.
First she turned the spread back, just as though it was at the top
instead of the bottom; then she turned back one blanket; then the
other; then the upper sheet, and next the lower one, leaving the
mattress and pad showing. They raised the mattress, and putting their
hands under all the folded back clothes at once, they put them under the
end of it smoothly, pushing them well back; then they tucked in the
sides. "There," said the aunt, nodding her pretty head at her little
niece, "I'd like to see you pull those clothes out at night, as you do
when Bridget makes your bed! If you tuck things in one by one sometimes
they will come out, but if you tuck them in as we have done they are
sure to stay. Now for the top."
She turned over the spread, blankets, and sheet, and laid them flat on
the spread, and then turned them under themselves, making a smooth,
rather narrow fold, close up to the place the pillows were going to
stand.
"If the sheet was mussed I would not do this," she explained. "Then I
would just lay all the clothes back under the pillows; but when the
sheet is fresh it looks nice this way. Beat up the pillows, smooth them
out, and stand them up evenly. Remember, if you have a white spread with
a fringe on it and a muslin valance around the bed, the spread is not
tucked in at all, but after the bed is finished and tucked in all
around, it is laid on and left hanging over sides and foot.
"If, instead of a spread, you have a figured cover, or one made of lace
or muslin, you do not use any spread, but put that on over the blankets
during the day and take it off at night. A roll covered with the same
stuff is used with such a bed cover, and at night this, too, is put away
and the pillows brought out from the cupboard and put on when the bed is
opened. The bed in the guest-room is like that; you know it has a pretty
cover and a roll. But whatever you have, it is always nice to have the
bed opened for one at night, the clothes folded smoothly back, the
spread laid away and the pillows put down flat, so all one has to do is
to slip in."
"I know," Margaret replied. "It makes you feel sleepy to see a bed like
that."
"Now let us take the wash-stand," her aunt went on, after she had passed
her hands all over the bed as though she were ironing it, leaving it as
smooth as a nice white table. "Get the cloths from the bathroom, a clean
white one, you know, and a clean colored one; and the soap."
She showed Margaret how to wash everything out neatly, beginning with
the tooth-brush mug and soap-dish, and she was told to look carefully
and see if they were both clean in the bottom, "because probably they
are not," she said. The wash-bowl was washed with soap, especially where
there was a greasy streak around it, and the pitcher was filled, and
wiped where the water dripped down the front. The dark cloth was used on
the rest of the china; it was better to have two cloths of different
colors, her aunt explained, to avoid mixing them.
After the stand was finished, and the top wiped off with the white
cloth, the cloths were both washed out in the bathroom and put away,
with the soap. The towels were folded in the creases they had been
ironed in, and pulled into shape and rehung; the wash-cloth was wrung
dry and shaken out before it was hung up on the rack. The cake of soap
had been washed off in the bowl when that was washed, and it was now put
back in the clean dish. "Whatever you forget, Margaret, never forget to
wash off the soap!" her aunt warned her.
There seemed a good deal to do to make the room nice even after the bed
and wash-stand were done, for the closet was opened and everything taken
out and put on chairs around the room, and then put back. The dresses
had to be hung up by the loops on the skirt, and the waists which
matched hung each on the same hook with its own skirt by the loops at
the sleeves. The petticoats had to go by themselves in a separate part
of the closet, and the shoes were all put in pairs in the bag on the
door, instead of being left on the floor in piles. Margaret did not like
to do these things, but she had to admit that she could dress faster in
the morning when she knew just where everything was, and when she could
find mates to her shoes in just half a second, instead of having to take
a minute or more to hunt them in the corners of the closet on the floor.
Arranging the bureau was still worse than making the closet tidy. All
the drawers were emptied out, and everything sorted in heaps and put
away. Some pretty boxes without covers were brought from her aunt's
bureau and put in Margaret's upper drawer, one for gloves, one for
handkerchiefs, one for ribbons, so that everything should be where it
belonged, yet as soon as the drawer was opened one could see where
everything was. Underclothes were made into neat piles, and arranged in
the drawers below, one sort of thing in one pile and another in another,
and the stockings laid in a nice row, mates together, folded and tucked
in, ready to go on.
The top of the bureau had many pretty silver ornaments, but they were
dull and shabby, and Margaret had to get the silver polish and a bit of
chamois and make them shine before they could go on the fresh
bureau-cover the aunt put on, and she was given a bit of velvety stuff
to tuck in a corner of a drawer, ready to use every day or two, so they
would not grow dull again.
When all else was done they brushed up the floor, dusted everything
thoroughly, straightened the pictures on the wall and the window-shades,
and set the chairs where they would look best. Then Margaret sat down to
rest, and her aunt finished the lesson in this way:
"A lady," she began, "no matter whether she is grown up or not, always
keeps her bedroom in beautiful order, fresh and dainty, especially the
places which do not show, like bureau drawers! Her closet has plenty of
hooks, and her gowns are kept together, each on one. Her hats are in
their boxes on the shelves, her shoes in their bag. Her bureau is
orderly, the silver clean and shining. Her hair-brush is washed at least
once a week, to keep it white and fresh, and the comb is never allowed
to have bits of hair in it, but is as clean as the brush. Her wash-stand
is always perfectly clean and tidy, and nothing is ever left about in
the room. Most important of all, the air of her room is always fresh and
sweet, because the window is left open at night and often opened during
the day for a time. Now this has been a good long lesson to-day--it's
almost noon; but if you have learned it, you have not wasted a minute of
even this nice bright Saturday. There's a prize offered by this teacher
for perfect lessons. Keep your room in order for a month, and see what
you'll find on your bureau then!"
"Oh, what?" cried Margaret, running after her Pretty Aunt as she went
out into the hall.
"Wait and see!" was all she would say, but Margaret decided to keep the
room beautifully tidy for the prize, just the same.