Part 3 (2/2)

We Clover Leaf girls made up our minds that we would learn to be independent. We resolved to know how to do every sort of housework, so that we might a.s.sist our mothers whenever they needed us, and be ready for any emergency as it came along.

Aunt Hetty's daughter-in-law in Boston sent the poor old soul a letter which made her rather uneasy, and grandmamma thought that I might better let her go and pay Sally a visit while mother was away than to wait till her return.

”The fall dressmaking and cleaning will be coming on then,” said grandmother, ”and thee will be busy with school again. So if Hetty takes her vacation now, she will be here to help the dear mother then.”

I agreed to this, for the chance of having the kitchen to myself was very tempting. The club was charmed; they said they would just live at our house and help me with all their might.

”Then you won't have Hetty's moods to worry you,” said Veva, consolingly.

We had a good time. Nevertheless it was a happy day for me when Aunt Hetty, bag and baggage, came home a week sooner than she was expected.

n.o.body was looking for her; but the good old soul, having seen her relations, felt restless, and wanted to get home.

”Somefin done tole me, honey,” she said, ”that Aunt Hetty am wanted hyar, and sure enuf it's so. Yo' pa an' ma off on dey trabbles, and n.o.body but one pore lamb lef' to take car' ob de house an' de ole madam.

I wouldn't hab gone only for dat no-account Sal anyhow.”

I felt like a bird set free from a cage when Aunt Hetty appeared, and she came in the very nick of time, too, for that same day up rolled the stage, and out popped my great-aunt Jessamine (grandmamma's sister) from Philadelphia. The two old ladies had so much to tell one another that they had no need of me. So I went to the Downings', where the club was to hold a meeting, armed with brushes and brooms, taking a practical lesson in sweeping and dusting.

The Downings were without a maid, and we all turned in to help them.

Alice, Nell, and Clem, the older sisters, accepted our offer joyfully, though I think their mother had doubts of the wisdom of setting so many of us loose in her house at once. But Linda Curtis and Jeanie Cartwright found that they were not needed and went home; Veva had a music lesson and was excused; Linda's mamma had taken her off on a jaunt for the day; and Amy could not be spared from home. Only Lois and I were left to help Marjorie, and, on the principle that many hands make light work, we distributed ourselves about the house under the direction of the elder Downing sisters.

Now, girls all, let me give you a hint which may save you lots of time and trouble. If sweeping and dusting are thoroughly done, they do not need to be done so very often. A room once put in perfect order, especially in a country village, where the houses stand like little islands in a sea of green gra.s.s, ought to stay clean a long time.

It is very different in a city, where the dust flies in clouds an hour after a shower, and where the carts and wagons are constantly stirring it up. Give me the sweet, clean country.

Mother's way is to carefully dust and wipe first with a damp and then with a dry cloth all the little articles of bric-a-brac, vases, small pictures, and curios, which we prize because they are pretty, after which she sets them in a closet or drawer quite out of the way. Then, with a soft cloth fastened over the broom, she has the walls wiped down, and with a hair brush which comes for the purpose she removes every speck of dust and cobweb from the cornices and corners. A knitted cover of soft lampwick over a broom is excellent for wiping a dusty or a papered wall.

Next, all curtains which cannot be conveniently taken down are shaken well and pinned up out of the way. Shades are rolled to the top. Every chair and table is dusted, and carried out of the room which is about to be swept. If there are books, they are dusted and removed, or if they are arranged on open shelves, they are first dusted and then carefully covered.

Mother's way is to keep a number of covers of old calico, for the purpose of saving large pieces of furniture, shelves and such things, which cannot be removed from their places on sweeping days.

It is easier, she says, to protect these articles than to remove the dust when it has once lodged in carvings and mouldings.

We girls made a frolic of our dusting, but we did it beautifully too. I suppose you have all noticed what a difference it makes in work whether you go at it cheerfully or go at it as a task that you hate. If you keep thinking how hard it is, and wis.h.i.+ng you had somebody else to do it for you, and fretting and fuming, and pitying yourself, you are sure to have a horrid time. But if you take hold of a thing in earnest and call it fun, you don't get half so tired.

In sweeping take long light strokes, and do not use too heavy a broom.

”Milly,” said Lois, ”do you honestly think sweeping is harder exercise than playing tennis or golf?”

I hesitated. ”I really don't know. One never thinks of hard or easy in any games out of doors; the air is so invigorating, they have a great advantage over house work in that way.”

”Well, for my part,” said Marjorie, ”I like doing work that tells. There is so much satisfaction in seeing the figures in the carpet come out brightly under my broom. Alice, what did you do to make your reception-room so perfectly splendiferous? Girls, look here! You'd think this carpet had just come out of the warehouse.”

”Mother often tells Aunt Hetty,” said I, ”to dip the end of the broom in a pail of water in which she has poured a little ammonia--a teaspoonful to a gallon. The ammonia takes off the dust, and refreshes the colors wonderfully. We couldn't keep house without it,” I finished, rather proudly.

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