"Mrs. Downing, you are a darling," exclaimed Lois, as we saw a platter of delicate sandwiches, and another of crisp ginger cookies, with a great pitcher of milk. "We didn't know that we were hungry; but now that I think about it, I, for one, am certain that I could not have lived much longer without something to supply the waste of my failing cellular tissue."
"I think," replied Mrs. Downing, "that we would often feel much better for stopping in our day's work to take a little rest. I often pause in the middle of my morning's work and lie down for a half-hour, or I send to the kitchen and have a glass of hot milk brought me, with a crust or a cracker. You girls would not wish to lie down, but you would often find that you felt much fresher if you just stopped and rested, or put on your jackets and hats and ran away for a breath of out-door air. You would come back to your work like new beings."
"Just as we did in school after recess," said Marjorie.
"Precisely. Change of employment is the best tonic."
Our luncheon over, and our rooms swept, rugs shaken, stairs and passages thoroughly brushed and wiped, we polished the windows with cloths dipped in ammonia water and wrung out, and followed them by a dry rubbing with soft linen cloths. Then it was time to restore the furniture to its place, and bring out the ornaments again from their seclusion.
Now we saw what an advantage we had gained in having prepared these before we began the campaign. In a very little while the work was done and the house settled, and so spotless and speckless we felt sure it would keep clean for weeks.
Mother's way is to use a patent sweeper daily in rooms which are occupied for sewing and other work, and she says that she does not find it necessary to give her rooms more than a light sweeping oftener than once in six weeks. Of course it would be different if we had a large family.
Paint should be wiped, door-knobs polished, and a touch of the duster given to everything on these sweeping days.
The Clover Leaves voted that feather-dusters, as a rule, were a delusion. One often sees a girl, who looks very complacent as she flirts a feather-duster over a parlor, displacing the dust so that it may settle somewhere else. All dusted articles should be wiped off, and the dust itself gotten rid of, by taking it out of the house, and leaving it no chance to get back on that day at least.
When I reached home in time for our one o'clock dinner, I found Great-aunt Jessamine and grandmamma both waiting for me, and the former, who was a jolly little old lady, was quite delighted over the Bloomdale girls and their housekeeping.