VI HON DISH RAG VS. THE HON. CHINA
VI HON. DISH RAG VS. THE HON. CHINA
To Editor Woman’s Page who can serve Truth to homes in cups & saucers.
Hon. Dear Sir:
As nearly ago as last Wedsday I was connected to home of Mrs Jas Jones, Peru, Ind., where I am now not. My departure I shall relate.
Though refined in her appearances, this Hon. Mrs Jones is known by the dishes she keeps.
This Jones home are a continuous China closet entirely filled with it. Bloated blue bowls set in shelves amidst cups which look like History had drunk out of them. Stingy-size coffee cup to be taken after dinner are there to any extent. In presidential cabinets of mahogonish appearance she got considerable cut-up glasswear which make flashes resembling diamonds in show-case.
“Togo,” she say so, “because you are intellectual Japanese, I are sure you can take care of my dishes.”
“Japan are elegant chaperone for China,” I absorb with chivalry.
“All my cubboards is filled with dear associates,” she acknowledge. “Yonderly plates is real Japanese curios what Aunt Martha bought while travelling abroad in Chicago. Yonderly cups was handed down to me by Mr Ancestor.”
“2 of them was handed down pretty hard,” I say so, because handles was knock off.
“Crack and bump are considered antique,” she dib, while showing me 65 soup platters containing photo of Massacheussets to show how they was once property of Henry Clay.
All them dishes look at me with prides, like I should be ashamed of my cheapness.
“Togo,” deploy Hon. Mrs Jas Jones, as soonly as I was surprised as much as I could, “dishes like mine must not be washed brutally. They must be dishpanned like invalids.”
“I shall be trained nurse to them so much as possible,” I collapse. “Should I need toilet soap to wash such fineness?”
“Intellect are more important than soaps,” she explan. “Only once did I have a servant lady with sifficient intellect to wash my dishes, but she would not remain. She are now in Colorado running for Congress.”
“How shall I do it to make scientific dish-wash?” I ask to know.
She tell me this following recipe:
1st—Take one dishpan of good family, mix him with 3½ qrts. water of angry hotness until Hon. Dishpan seem quite tender.
2nd—Take one Soap of medium ripeness and mix him until he sud. Egg beater can be used if willing.
3rd—Dish-wash are now ready for it. Best Dishes to wash are them what has been smudged by foods.
4th—Drop Hon. Dish into delicious warmth of water. He will drown, but you must not pity him until he arrive entirely clean by soap.
5th—Hon. Dish will now expect warm shower bath.
6th—Wipe him until fatigued.
7th—Hon. Dish are now ready to eat another meal.
“Most delicate tool to be used in dish-wash,” Mrs Jones tell with voice, “are Hon. Dishrag. He must never be neglect. He must be kep in healthful condition of athlete by continual care. He must be always clean like white gloves, so Hon. Mikerobes will not walk on him. Otherwise he will be full of feverish diseases which he will give my Dishes to pass on to us.
“To keep dishrag clean are more important duty of home life than bakery or piano lesson. You unstand this?”
“Distinctually!” I report. “But tell me this reply. What should I do if Hon. Dishrag should axidentally throw himself down on floor where dust is?”
“Oh!!” This from her. “Never—no, never at all must Dishrag be permitted to behave like that by dropping to Floor. No!! Several 1000s of person is murdered each annual year by Dishrags what has thusly flopped and caught mikerobe. O Togo, you promus me one Thing?”
“I promus.”
“Promus you never permit Dishrag to flop to Floor whatever earthquake happen?”
I promus reverendly by lifting my knuckles. So she permit me to wash her dishes.
Things happens when they shouldn’t. This is what make newspapers and other novels so pleasant to read. And so it was with me.
For 2 week times I work for this Mrs Jas Jones without any crisis arriving. She were so deliciously stingy of her Mrs Washington pitcher, cups & glasswear that she use 10c. store dishes of flat-iron thickness for daily use when her Husband & other folks she did not respect was home. So I needs not think of scientific dish-wash during them happy days. Yet I worry about Hon. Dishrag continuously, because I was afraid he might strike some germs. How could I keep him clean while washing plates with him?
So I wash plates with my rude hands and hung Hon. Dishrag to clean peg where he would not get soil. Hon. Mrs seem entirely pleasant when she see the trained-nurse appearance of that Hon. Rag. I feel sure I should last there until old age.
But one afternoon was different, Mr Editor, because Mr & Mrs Budhammer, grandfather, dog, 2 Aunts and assorted children arrive up for lunching. Add to this Mr & Mrs Jas Jones and you have considerable dish-wash for poor Togo. And what did Hon. Mrs Jones do? She arrange on table all her important dishwear for fashionable appearance. Andrew Jackson butter-platter was there; Wm Shakespeare pattern plates with golden dots; Mr Ancestor’s glasswear in cut-up shapes of aggrevated beauty—every scarce China you could imagine was set there for folks to eat so I could wash it.
Them guests was very hospitable to Mr & Mrs Jas Jones. They say them plates was so beautiful they make the food taste better than it was. They make happy conversations while Aunt Elizabeth tell about her husband who died from Rheumatism on the brains. Everybody speak of subject he like most. Hon. Mrs Jones tell mean things she could say to neighbours and Mr Budhammer describe how happy he was before marriage. Thus do social interchange make joyful friendship!
After slight coffee was drunk all rose up and eloped forthly to verandah where all could smoke amidst fancy work and tell gossip anecdotes.
But I was not invited to this. It was now my important time for dish-wash when I should show all the science of my soul with that valuable China & other cups.
I take all fashionable Ancestor dishes from table and pile to kitchen. I was deliciously skilful like a bricklayer as I stacked cup on plate etc., until I got one nice crockery mountain 6¼ feet high with Mrs Martha Washington pitcher standing top-tip of 16 glasses looking beautiful like History monument. It are remarkable how many dishes can pile on each other without falling off.
I cooked some hot water by boiling it. Then I obtain Hon. Dishpan & satisfy him full of hot water, adding soap until it seem comfortable. Nextly I remove Hon. Dishrag from window where he enjoy sunshine by looking into garden. With reverent fingers, so I should not mix mikerobes with him, I flop him to Dishpan. Then I splunge my hands into that sud and stir continuously.
Mr Editor, did you ever stand with your fingers in warm dishwater thinking Thoughts. Such kind hotness surrounds your wrists that you feel poetical and disengaged. I am not suprised that so many servant ladies is such sweet singers while dish-washing. Their souls cannot remain hardened while their fingers is soaking in such pleasant soap sud.
Suddenly, while thusly I stood, great confusion came to my brain. I remember what Hon. Mrs told me about keeping Hon. Dishrag away from dirt. Then I look to that pile of Dishes. Some of them, though rare & expensive, was all disarranged by colours of food and blackberry pie. No! I could not enrage my sweet Boss Lady by touching sacred rag to that!
So I lift Hon. Dishrag from soap-water, ring him out with loving care and begin shake him so no rude germs would remain from contact with sud. I make 2 complete shakes and was starting Shake No 3—when O! Hon. Dishrag escape from my finger and start flopping to floor! Terrors! This must not happen!! How raged Hon. Mrs would be if this respected rag should catch some dust against her stric orders!
With immediate quickness I make extreme grab sidewards, snatching rapidly like cats catching grasshopper. I got him—between thumbs and elbows I caught that escaping Rag, but in thusly behaving—whop! My physique collapsed against entire dish-pile and following climax happened:
SMASHES!!!!
With noise peculiar to a crockery store falling off an Alp all that expensive China & glasswear elapse to floor and mix itself into broken hash like a battlefields after cannon shoots it. You could not tell cups from plates in that crackery of crockery.
“O murder from ignorant Japanese!” holla Hon. Mrs Jas Jones & Company making inrush to kitchen. “Alive sakes, you have dropped my entire home!”
And yet I smiled.
“Why you laugh like hickory Indian when all I have is broke?” she otter.
“Mrs Madam,” I corrode brave like frozen Napoleon, “I acknowledge the brokerage which I made amidst Hon. Dishes. Yet you needs not worry. I have saved your Dishrag.”
Human nature are very doggish, Mr. Editor. Though I prove to that Lady how heroic I was she kill all my answers with her replies while Hon. Mr Jones toss me forth from that jobs. With rabid hat I bid farewell without saying so. I are just another hero walking in homeless direction because of shipwreck.
Hoping you are the same
Yours truly
Hashimura Togo.