While repairs are going on, bring down all the woolen garments, blankets, furs, or pieces of carpeting that have been stored away for the summer. Take them out on the grass-plat under your clothes-line, before removing the wrappers, for the preparation in which they have been put away is not very pleasant to the smell, particularly if it is Poole’s powder, which we think the safest as well as the most disagreeable. If it is a windy day, hang all on the clothes-line for a good snapping before you attempt to brush them, and most of the powder will blow off. After an hour or two in sun and wind, brush them well with a nice whisk-broom, and, when done, the garments and blankets may be put in their proper places and the pieces of carpeting sewed up in bagging or canvas or put into a spare trunk. They will need no more powder till spring, if carefully stored and occasionally aired through the winter.
The coal, of course, you had put into the cellar last spring, as it is usually cheaper about May than in the fall. The ashes and soot having been removed, the flues, furnace, and grates all in order, the house should now be swept from the attic to the cellar. Ingrain and three-ply carpets ought to be taken up every year, unless in rooms but little used, and after being well shaken or taken to the carpet-shaking mill, they should be laid out of the way till the room from which they were taken is cleaned. Brussels, Wiltons, Axministers, and all the heavier carpets should not be raised oftener than every three years. Very little dust sifts through such fabrics, and careful sweeping and the use of a good “carpet-sweeper” will preserve them from all harm. In sweeping, preparatory to cleaning, it is well to draw the tacks in the corners and turn such heavy carpets back, so that with a whisk-broom any dirt that may have settled there can be easily removed. It is but little work, and the corners can be readily tacked down again.
When the sweeping is all done, a most thorough dusting is the next operation, so that wood-work, walls, and gas-brackets may be free from loose dirt before water is used. The paint is much easier cleaned after this than if the dust were allowed to remain and be washed off. Some recommend the latter to save time. We think it wastes time.
The walls should be dusted with a long-handled feather duster, then with a clean dry cloth pinned smoothly over a clean broom; wipe them down evenly, beginning at the top and passing in a straight line, “by a thread” as a seamstress would say, to the bottom, changing the cloth as it becomes soiled. Next remove all chimneys and shades from the chandeliers and gas-burners; wash clean, dry and polish with a soft linen towel, and then with chamois-skin, and put them into a closet till the room is cleaned. Now with a cloth, wrung from weak, hot suds, wipe off the brackets and chandeliers, and rub dry with chamois-skin. Draw a coarse linen thread, double, through the opening in the tip of all the gas-burners to remove any dust that may have settled in them while unused. This done, if you have two or three hands at work, the cleaning may be so divided as to be done quite expeditiously; let one wash the windows while another cleans the paint. The windows, if long unused, need to be well washed in warm suds, into which a little spirits of ammonia have been poured,—two teaspoonfuls to half a bucket of suds; then well rinsed in clear water, wiped dry, and polished with chamois-skin. This same proportion of suds and ammonia will also clean paint very easily, and without injury to the hands. It is good for cleaning marble slabs and mantles. The plated door-handles, bell-pulls, etc., come next in order for cleaning; and here, if a piece of oil-cloth is cut to slip over each, so that the walls may not be tarnished, the hot suds and ammonia will prove very effective. A piece of old carpet or drugget should be laid down as you clean windows, paint, or plated ware, if the carpet is down, and moved from one spot to another as you go on.
Now all is ready to put the last touch to the room. Wring a clean cloth from some warm, clear water, in which a little alum or salt has been dissolved, and wipe hard each breadth of the carpet, rubbing straight down the nap. Wring out the cloth often, to rinse off all the dust, and change the water if it looks very dingy. This brings up the nap and gives a new and fresh look to carpets of all kinds; only be sure that the cloth is not so wet as to drip. Leave the windows open when the carpet is finished, and shut the doors till it is thoroughly dried before bringing in what furniture was moved out to clean the room.
XXX.
FASHIONABLE DRESS.
WE are often asked why we do not speak out plainly, in the way of counsel and reproof, about the absurdities of fashionable dress, now so apparent? What good would it do? Almost every paper has spoken plainly, or hinted—the worst kind of speaking, however unmistakable—on this subject, and what is the result? Week by week the fashion-plates are increasingly monstrous, until at last we are uncertain whether it is a bona fide fashion plate we are looking at or “Punch” and “The Budget of Fun.” Neither could take greater liberties or more atrociously caricature “the human form divine.” And, what would be very amusing if the weakness did not excite so much pity, those who urge us to contribute our mite toward a reform, a more Christian mode of dress, are themselves marvellous structures,—a pile, composed of frizzed, braided, curled, and puffed hair, under which a small, delicate face appears; a dress fringed, flounced, puffed, and trailing, with hoops and panniers protruding like a dromedary’s hump; and all this miserable deformity borne about on high heels and the tips of the toes, the discomfort and pain of such unnatural locomotion accepted and endured because it is the fashion. Yet these fair inquirers appeared wholly unconscious that their own disfigurement was a stronger appeal for aid than any words could have been.
Why not begin this reform in your own dress? Brush your hair smoothly, and give us the satisfaction of once more seeing what the head is, as God made it; take off yards of silk, lace, and fringe, and show us your natural, graceful figure. You who move in what is called fashionable society can do more by such independence than all that can be written. Try one season, and mark the change you would effect. “O, we couldn’t think of such a thing! ‘As well be out of the world as out of fashion,’ you know. It would make us so very conspicuous by our singularity. We think it would not be modest to take such a stand. No one person can effect the change: it must be simultaneous.”
Ah, had all reformers reasoned so, what would now be the condition of the civilized world! But Fashion is a tyrant; and we fear volumes written on the evils which she brings will do little good until women have learned to defy her. A few in every age have done valiantly in their attempts to dethrone her, but she changes so often, and so abruptly and entirely, it is difficult to keep track of her. As far back as we can search, the whirligig of fashion has been in perpetual motion, unceasing in its changes. The advice and admonition of age and experience have little influence towards checking this long-established tyranny. The old look sadly upon the vagaries of the young; but if they glance back to their own early days, would they not recall equal absurdities in the fashions of that period, or on a moment’s reflection, perhaps, even the dress and style to which they still pertinaciously adhere may be liable to the same criticism?
We vividly remember the look of dissatisfaction on our grandmother’s face (a dear little woman, nearly eighty years old), whose keen black eyes flashed ominously as we came before her for inspection, dressed for our first party. We stood, at fourteen, a full head the taller, but were abashed at the dignified air of authority with which she descanted on the ridiculousness of our attire. A very narrow skirt, with a few gathers in the back, three small pleats on each side,—it took but six or seven yards then for a dress,—a full waist, with a narrow band round the neck like a baby’s slip, and the belt almost under the arms; a large lace “Vandyke,” or cape, over the shoulders; the hair combed high on the top of the head and tightly tied, and the length twisted into a knot or bow, and kept in place by a big tortoise-shell comb, the top of it full three inches high and six or seven inches round; and this placed back of the hair. Our first high-topped comb! What a wonderful work of art it was in our eyes! And the dress—our first silk—of changeable hues, like the silks which are now coming again into fashion,—how stylish it did look! We thought every one must recognize its elegance. Yet here was this “little grandma,” whose judgment, next to our mother’s, was infallible, looking with disdain upon it, and turning our whole outfit into ridicule! It was heartbreaking! And for our first party! Fourteen was very young to go to parties in those days, but, being tall for our age, we were invited by mistake we presume. At the present time young ladies of three and four send out and receive their cards, and with gloves and fans, frizzled hair, and flounced dresses, mimic the affectation and absurdities of their elders. We have no sweet, simple childhood any longer.