Jacqueline went in. Here were no nickel faucets and no porcelain bath, but just a stationary tub of shiny zinc, which drained into a pipe that led out of doors. A square, unglazed window, high in the wall, admitted the light from the kitchen, and the heat.
“Oh, what a funny bath!” cried Jacqueline.
“’Tisn’t much like what you’re used to in the city,” said Aunt Martha, as she bustled in with a kettle of steaming water. “But I tell you it seems like Heaven not to have to lug water both ways. I guess if them that say ‘cleanliness is next to godliness’ had had to winter it once in New England with four young ones, they’d have said cleanliness was next thing to martyrdom.”
Two kettles full of hot water went into the tub, and a bucket of cold water that Jacqueline pumped.
“By Saturday night I guess you can do for yourself, same as Neil,” Aunt Martha told her approvingly.
Last of all, into the zinc tub one-third full of warm water, went Jacqueline, and soaped and splashed and chuckled and enjoyed herself. A funny bath, indeed! If she had to do it all her life, horrible! But just for two or three days—why, it was a lark.
It was not such a lark though, scrubbing that zinc tub afterward, with a rag and warm water and “Clean-o.” She hadn’t thought of doing it, till Aunt Martha came in and pointed out that cleaning the tub after you used it had something to do with the Golden Rule.
“I know you won’t need to be told twice,” said Aunt Martha.
“I guess I won’t be here to be told twice,” Jacqueline thought resentfully as she scrubbed.
She came out of the washroom, glowing and glowering, in Caroline’s nightgown and faded kimono and worn bedshoes.