Motherly talks with young housekeepers / embracing eighty-seven brief articles on topics of home interest, and about five hundred choice receipts for cooking, etc.

by Mrs. H. W. Beecher

Flat-irons should be carefully kept from dampness, which soon rusts them. Leave them standing on the end; they soon spoil if set on the face. If they become rusty, scour with emery till quite smooth, or, if past your skill, send to an emery factory and have them ground smooth. Keep a piece of yellow bees-wax, wrapped in a cloth in the drawer of your ironing-table, to rub the irons on in case they get coated with starch. Have a clean cloth at hand to wipe them on before using, each time you take a fresh one from the stove.

Having our ironing-table, bosom-board, and other implements now all ready, we will attend to the ironing.

A perfectly clean sheet must be spread over the other ironing-sheet before commencing to iron the starched clothes. In ironing a shirt, begin with the binding at the neck; then fold the back in the middle and iron; then iron the sleeves, and wristbands, if there are wristbands on the shirt; fold the sleeve in neat plaits and press them hard after ironing; then iron the plain part of the shirt and the collar, if on the shirt, ironing the bosom last. Iron the bosom and collar on the bosom-board; rub the bosom over lightly with a damp cloth, and iron hard and quickly with a polishing-iron. If you have none, you should get one if possible. They are found at all hardware stores. They are rounded instead of being flat, like other irons, without an edge, and very smooth, so that no mark of the iron is left on the article ironed. This iron is very convenient to use for caps, vests, and many small things.

In ironing a shirt-collar, pass the iron rapidly over the wrong side, then iron the band, lastly the right side of the collar, which should be well polished, and ironed till perfectly dry.

Gentlemen’s linen or duck pants should be ironed on a pants-board, prepared like the soft side of a bosom-board, and as nearly the full length as possible. The pockets must be turned outside before ironing, that they may leave no crease on the pants. Hang pants to air by the straps or the waistbands.

In ironing a skirt, slip the skirt-board through by the round end. Have a clothes-basket or clean sheet on the floor under the skirt-board, so that the skirt may fall on it as you iron.

Have a large piece of mosquito net over the clothes-bars to protect the articles already ironed from flies, dust, etc.

Cake-napkins, doilies, or towels that are fringed, must be well snapped while damp, to leave the fringe smooth and untangled. Some use a fringe-comb. This is very well occasionally, but we think, if often used, it tears the fringe, and soon gives a thin, worn-out, ragged look to the article.

Muslin dresses need to be about as stiff as new muslin, the starch being strained into the last rinsing water. White gum-arabic added to the starch is very nice for muslin dresses; they iron easier, and look newer. Dark muslins must be starched in rice-water or gum-arabic, as common starch leaves white patches over the dark color after ironing. Iron, as far as possible, on the wrong side.

To make good rice-starch, boil a pound of rice in four or five quarts of water; let it boil until perfectly soft, adding boiling water as fast as it boils out, so as to keep up the same quantity of water all the time; stir frequently and break it up as much as possible while boiling. When the rice is as soft as it will boil, pour the whole into a gallon of water and strain through a thick cloth. It is said that eighty drops of elixir of vitriol put into three gallons of clear spring water and one of rice-water, thus prepared, is excellent to set the color. We have never tried it. Ox gall we know is good to fix the color in calico or muslin, as well as to cleanse grease and dirt from woolens. There is nothing better to clean broadcloths, coats, vests, and pants. Get the butcher to fill a bottle with the gall, and put four or five spoonfuls into about three quarts of hot soapsuds, and sponge the garments with it, carefully rubbing every spot. When dirt and spots are removed, sponge in clear hot water, and hang the garment up by seams of the arm-holes of coats and vests, and waistbands of pants, where they will dry quickly. Press on the wrong side when about half dry. Woolen dresses may be cleaned in the same manner.