"Keeping clean" is the housekeeper's regular business, and "cleaning up" never need stir up the whole house.
For keeping clean, soap and water must always be had. The soap loves to wrestle with grease. The water softens and rinses away both dirt and soap. You will use a scouring soap or powder to clean stained or dirty metal or glass; and you should cover water-closets and other out-of-door places for refuse with clean slaked lime now and then to keep them clean.
Ten Ways of Removing Stains
1. When you have raspberry or blueberry or strawberry stains on your white handkerchief or blouse or skirt, do not be too much disturbed. Hold the stained part firmly over an empty bowl, with the spot well in the centre, and ask some one to pour boiling hot water over the spot and into the bowl. The stains will disappear like magic. Then the wet spot may be dried and pressed with a hot iron, and the damage is repaired.
2. Peach stains are much harder to remove, but they should be treated just as the others were treated. Often several applications of hot water are necessary for these stubborn stains. But you must not lose patience. And you must not use soap. The stain will fade out at last under the hot water.
3. Ink stains are a great bother, especially to the school girl who carries a leaky fountain pen. Do not let them get dry. They will be much harder to remove. Sometimes cold water, applied immediately, will remove the ink, if the spot is rinsed carefully. Use the cold water just as the hot water is used for the peach stain. If that does not remove it try milk. If the milk fails, let the spot soak in sour milk. Sometimes it must soak a day or two; but it will disappear in the end, with rinsing and a little rubbing.
4. Ink stains on a carpet are a serious matter. Let us hope that no Girl Scout will be so unlucky as to upset an ink bottle on a friend's carpet or rug. If she does, she should know the best way to set about removing it. This should be done as quickly as possible before the ink dries, or "sets." Take cotton, or soft tissue paper or blotting paper, and absorb all that has not soaked in. You will see that the "sooner" is the "better" in this case. Try not to increase the size of the spot, for you must keep the ink from spreading. Then dip fresh cotton in milk, and carefully sop the spot. Do not use the cotton when it is inky; that will smear the carpet and spread the stain. Use fresh bits of cotton, dipped in clean milk, until the stain has disappeared. Then rinse with clean water in the same way, and dry with dry cotton.
5. The spots made on silk or woolen by acids may be removed by touching with ammonia or baking soda, dissolved in a little water. The bright yellow spot on a black dress will sometimes run away like lightning when touched by the wet cork of the ammonia bottle.
6. Egg stains on the napkin, or sometimes, unfortunately, on a dress front, must be removed before washing. Use cold water alone. The egg will dissolve and can be rinsed out. Hot water will cook the egg and it will be hard to remove.
7. Liquid shoe blacking is almost worse than ink. It must be treated in the same way, and at once.