Her mother wanted her to let Bridget wipe off the wood with oil, but Margaret begged to be allowed to do at least one floor and the lower stairs, so she would know just how to do it in her very own house, when she had one! She put on a large, strong pair of gloves, put a little oil in the dish from the bottle, dipped in her flannel cloth, and was going to begin when her mother stopped her. "Wring out the cloth," she said; "you are not going to wash the floor, only to wipe it." Then she went away until this part of the work was done, so she might not step on the wood while it was wet, and perhaps spoil the whole floor.
The work was not very pleasant, perhaps, and the oil did not smell very nice, but it was interesting to do something new, and Margaret did not mind it at all. She wiped up one floor and one flight of stairs, and then wiped also the baseboard around the floor and the balustrades of the stairs, and when she was done it all looked so fresh and nice she wished she had done all the halls. However, she put away the oil and cloth and floor-brush, and, setting the front door open to let the air come in and dry the wood and carry away the odor of the oil, she dusted the rest of the halls with her ordinary dust-cloth, wiping the tops of the pictures well, and the hall table and chair, which Bridget helped her put back. They brought in the step-ladder, too, so that Margaret could get to the chandelier and the top of the doors, and wipe these off thoroughly.
The vestibule had been swept and dusted early in the morning, and there was nothing to do outside, but the glass in the front door looked dingy, and Margaret wiped it off with a clean, damp cloth and polished it with the chamois duster and shook out the lace which hung over it, and dusted the edges of the glass and the wood of the door. Then she ran and got the rugs and spread them down, and called her mother to come and see how beautiful the halls looked.
"Beautiful! I should think so, indeed!" her mother exclaimed. "I could not have done the work better myself. What made you think of the glass in the door? I forgot to tell you about that."
"Oh," said Margaret, "I pretended I was a new maid, and that you were showing me all about the work, and first I said to myself, 'Next, Mary Jane, the front door,' and then I was Mary Jane, and did the front door, you see!"
Her mother smiled. "Well, certainly, Mary Jane does her work thoroughly," she said. "I am sure I shall keep her. Now if you are not tired we will do the parlors."
These two rooms took all the rest of the Saturday morning lesson. The window-curtains and portières were pinned up and put into bags, long, loose ones, which kept them off the floor and out of the dust, but did not muss them. They dusted the piano and large sofa and covered them with strong sheets. They wiped off the book-shelves, and tucked newspapers in and out until all the books were entirely covered and protected. They brushed off the cushions of the chairs with a whisk-broom as they had the sofa, and wiped their woodwork, and then carried them into the dining-room; the sofa-pillows were shaken and beaten and put there also. All the ornaments on the tables and mantels, and the lamps, were wiped and put on the dining-room table.
When the rooms were as empty as possible they shut the doors and sprinkled bran on the carpets just as though they were sewing garden seeds, which Margaret thought was great fun.
"Some people use tea-leaves on their carpets," her mother explained, "and as they are damp they do take up the dust nicely; but they will stain delicate colors so, I think it is safer to use bran, which also takes up dust but never hurts any carpet. Now I will show you how to sweep."
Beginning at one side of the room near the wall, she made long, even strokes with the broom, not bearing on too hard, and sweeping toward the centre all the time. "Don't give little jerky dabs at the carpet," she cautioned, "for that is bad for it, and don't sweep from one side to the other, but always toward the middle. But we forgot to open the window."