HOUSECLEANING; CELLAR AND ATTIC
Margaret's Saturday morning lessons were interrupted at this point by
the spring housecleaning. Everybody was so busy taking up and putting
down carpets, hanging curtains and pictures over, putting away winter
clothes and getting out summer ones, that the lessons seemed forgotten.
The grandmother, however, remembered, and one day she took the little
girl around the house while the cleaning was going on, showing her how
the work was done. They found the guest-room had been finished, so they
sat down there and talked.
"Housecleaning is very different nowadays from what it used to be," she
began. "We used to take up all the carpets at once, and keep everything
upset for a week or two, and then get all to rights. Now we take a room
at a time, and so do the whole house gradually and comfortably. Perhaps
the work is divided, and part done in the spring and part in the fall,
to make it still easier. Then we do not take up every carpet every year,
as we did. This guest-room carpet, for one, does not need beating and
cleaning and putting down again, because the room is not used all the
time, and once or twice a year it has a scrubbing with warm water or
turpentine or ammonia after it is swept."
"Yes," said Margaret, "I learned about that in my sweeping lesson."
"When this room was cleaned," her grandmother went on, "the curtains
were taken down, and the pictures wiped off and put into the storeroom.
The furniture was well dusted and put away also, and the bed all taken
apart, the mattress beaten gently, the springs dusted and wiped off; the
bed slats were washed in hot soap and water, and put away, too. Then the
bed itself was taken to pieces and washed in warm soap-suds, because
being white iron they could not hurt it. If it had been a wooden bed it
would have been wiped with a damp cloth. And then, Margaret, what do you
think? a brush dipped in turpentine was put in all the corners of the
bed and the springs, so that if by any chance a little bug should have
crept in there to hide, it would be driven out."
Margaret looked disgusted. "We don't have bugs in our beds," she said,
indignantly. "Nice, clean people never do."
Her grandmother smiled. "Even a very nice, clean person may bring home a
bug from a crowded street-car," she said. "And if it happens to be on a
coat which is thrown on a bed, it may crawl quickly into a corner
without anybody's seeing it, and presently the bed will have half a
dozen bugs in it. Of course a good housekeeper would never let them stay
in a bed a single minute after she finds out they are there, and she
always hunts occasionally, at least as often as every few months, so
that she may be perfectly sure everything is all right. If ever you
think you are perfectly safe, my dear, and do not look to make sure, you
will be the very one to be surprised some day! You must often put the
mattress on a sheet on the floor, and look all along the edge and in the
corners and under the ties. The spring must be painted with turpentine,
especially in the hidden places, and so must the corners of the bed. It
is a good plan to use only metal beds with iron spring frames, for bugs
like wood much better; they seldom stay where there is none. If you ever
find a bug, or the tiny black speck it makes, get the white of an egg
and beat it with a teaspoonful of quicksilver, and paint everything with
it, and you will have no more trouble.
"After the bed is cleaned and taken down, the floor is to be swept twice
over, and the carpet taken away; the paper under it may be swept clean
in the yard. The walls are to be swept down with a soft brush, or a
broom covered with a duster. The closet is to be emptied entirely, the
drawers, shelves, floor, and baseboard washed well, and the closet floor
washed also. The windows must be cleaned and all the woodwork washed in
warm water with a little nice soap, and rinsed well. When all is fresh
and the floor dry, the paper can be laid, the carpet put down, the
furniture wiped again, the bed put together and made, the pictures hung,
and the fresh curtains put up, if they are used in summer, and the room
will be thoroughly done. All rooms are alike in the way they are
cleaned. First do the closets, remember, all the drawers as well as
shelves; then, shutting this up, empty the room, and do walls, floor,
paint, and windows. If there is a matting down, this must be wiped off
with salted water, which freshens it. Now I think we can go down to the
cellar for the next part of the lesson."
The cellar proved to be rather chilly, but they stayed long enough to
learn a good many things about it. There were two rooms, one for the
coal and wood, and one for vegetables and preserved fruit and such
things. All these, Margaret was told, must be looked after. The fuel
room should have several bins, one for kitchen coal, one for furnace
coal, and one low one for wood; it was untidy to leave any of these
lying in heaps on the floor. The vegetables had to be constantly looked
over for fear any should decay, and so bring sickness to the family, who
might never know why it came. The preserves must be examined, lest any
begin to leak, and the whole place must be kept cool and dry by having a
window open a little at the top, with a good bolt or a few nails to keep
any one from opening it from the outside. The windows did not need to be
washed quite as often as those up-stairs, but they should never be left
grimy and dirty. "A good housekeeper always keeps watch of her cellar,"
said the grandmother. "She sees that the air is fresh, the floor clean,
the walls free from cobwebs, and that no rubbish is allowed to
accumulate. The wood and coal must not get too low in the bins; the
grocer's boxes must be kept chopped into kindling, and, most important
of all, every cellar should have a good coat of whitewash every spring
to make it all sweet and clean."
Margaret said she thought she knew this part of her lesson now, and that
cellars were not so very interesting.
"Well, suppose we take the attic next," grandmother said, smiling; "that
is, if you are really certain you can keep your own cellar clean and
nice when you have one." Margaret promised to try.
The attic was a nice, dusky room, with some old furniture, trunks, and
boxes, rolls of carpet, and bags of pieces. It had a dry, comfortable
sort of smell in the air. "I like attics," said Margaret. "I mean to
have a great big one some day, all full of interesting things, like the
girls in story-books."
"The more things in your attic the more trouble you will have to be a
good housekeeper," said her grandmother. "Let us sit down on this sofa
for our lesson, and suppose that was really your own attic. What would
you do to put it in order and keep it so!"
"Well," said Margaret, thoughtfully, "I'd move everything out and sweep
it; then I'd brush off the walls and wash the windows; then I'd arrange
things--and then it would be done."
"Oh, no!" her grandmother replied. "That isn't half. I see you needed
the lesson on the attic, as I thought. Now listen:
"You see it is rather dark up here, and so moths love the place, and if
it was left to them they would eat up all that is in the trunks. The
first thing in cleaning an attic is to empty all the trunks, one at a
time, and look everything over. There are pieces of clothing which may
be used again which have to go outdoors on the line in the sunshine and
be beaten, and furs, especially, require this done frequently. Your
pretty little baby things are in one trunk, and those your mother wishes
to keep always, so she airs them and refolds the dresses so they will
not get discolored streaks by lying always one way; the flannels are
aired, too, and folded in papers with perhaps a bit of camphor or a moth
ball, though these are not as much protection as the constant airing and
shaking is.
"In that large trunk there are some old silk dresses, and such things,
which are also to be kept. Moths do not touch silks, but these, too,
must be taken out and shaken and refolded once in awhile to keep them
from cracking in the places where they have laid. Once a year, at least,
all trunks must be emptied, wiped out, and relined with fresh papers,
the things aired and put back freshly.
"If there are any clothes which are being kept which, after all, are not
needed, it is always best to give them away before they are out of style
or moth-eaten. It is wrong to keep things one does not want when so many
are cold. One always keeps certain things like your mother's
wedding-gown, and some handsome pieces of velvet, too valuable to give
away, and other things which would be of no use to any one else; but
your father's old clothes, and your outgrown dresses, and my heavy
winter coat which I shall not wear again, must all go before they are
half-spoiled by lying.
"You see there are several piece-bags hanging up; those we must go over,
too. We always keep bits of our dresses to patch with, or to use in
re-making them. But sometimes we keep the pieces long after the dress is
gone, when perhaps some one would like them for patchwork, or to make a
pincushion or needle-book out of. The pieces must be sorted often, the
woollen ones put by themselves with moth balls, and the silk and cotton
ones divided, some to keep, and some to give to anybody who needs them
more than we do.
"The roll of old carpet is to go away, too, this time to be made into a
kitchen rug. Carpets must not be left in the attic or they will surely
make a nice home for moth-families. The broken chairs are to go to-day
to be mended, I heard your mother say this morning. Some she will use
again, and the rest she will pass on to somebody who wants chairs and
has not enough. This old sofa, of course, she will keep, because some
day she will have it re-covered; it is a strong, good piece of
furniture, and she knows we can use it.
"The summer clothes are kept in those two large trunks under the window;
in a few days they will go down-stairs, and the winter ones, all shaken
and beaten on the clothes-line till they are fresh and clean, will be
packed away carefully in their places after the trunks have had fresh
paper put in them. Do you know how to put away winter clothes, by the
way?"
Margaret said she did not think she did, so they stopped the lesson for
a minute to put this in.
"After the things are aired well, fold each dress or coat or suit of
clothes up by itself, and pin it snugly in newspapers, which moths do
not like. Tie a strong string around the bundle to lift it by, and paste
a slip of paper on the top, and write on this plainly just what is
inside. If you have anything very nice to put away, such as a
broadcloth suit, put it in a new paste-board box and paste a strip of
paper all around the edge of the cover; use good mucilage, and the moths
cannot possibly get at it. Put furs in paper bags after they are clean,
and hang them from the rafters. Hats and such things may go into boxes,
and you can lay a paper over each box before putting on its cover, to
keep the dust out. Summer clothes do not need so much care; just fold
them neatly and put them in a nice clean trunk, and they will take care
of themselves. Now do you think you know how to keep a cellar and attic
in good order? Suppose you make up a rule to give me."
Margaret thought a moment. "Keep the cellar clean," she said at length,
"and give away the things in the attic."
Her grandmother laughed. "Keep both the cellar and attic clean, and
don't hoard uselessly," she corrected.