So the empty pail was filled with various articles that would be needed for the house-cleaning, and Jessie was directed to send for blacklead to clean the grate, as well as soap and soda.
"And what about your dinner? You and Polly will want some dinner."
"Oh, mother sends to the cookshop, or else we have steak."
"Well, when she goes out to one shop, she might go to the other and bring what you want. Another day I will show you how to make a nice stew; but we must get the saucepans cleaned first," added Mrs. Brown.
While she had been talking she had been cutting up vegetables and adding them to the contents of a saucepan on the hob.
"Is that stew?" asked Jessie, sniffing the savoury odour when Mrs. Brown stirred the contents.
"Yes, that is stew; it will cook itself if I make up the fire, so that I can come back with you for another hour and show you how to set about your work."
They went back, and Mrs. Brown swept walls and ceilings of both kitchen and bedroom, for both were festooned with dirt and cobwebs. Jessie was eager to set about scrubbing the floor, but Mrs. Brown insisted that the grate must be cleaned and the floor swept first. At last Jessie brought her pail, but her mother could not hear the sound of the scrubbing-brush, as it made her head so much worse. A good deal of dirt, however, could be removed by careful washing, and the windows cleaned; a clean curtain put up made it look quite a different place, and for once it smelled fresh and clean.
Then Mrs. Brown showed the girls how to make barley-water, after scouring out the cleanest of the saucepans for the purpose. Polly was busy the whole morning washing up the dirty crockery, and Mrs. Brown returned in the afternoon to direct the cleaning of cupboards and dresser, that these might all be put away before the scrubbing of the floor began.
They could not tell whether the patient upstairs approved of all this turning out. Sometimes Jessie and sometimes Mrs. Brown went up with milk or barley-water, but she made no comment on what was going on after the scrubbing in her own bedroom was given up.