This Department is conducted in the interest of Girls and Young Women, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question on the subject so far as possible. Correspondents should address Editor.
Going to the country? City girls think as much of their summers among green fields as country girls do of coming to town, and one can say no more than that.
School is over, and the lessons done with for the present, and now you may enjoy the sense of freedom from rules, which is one of the really charming things in a vacation. If I were you, though, I would not spend all the summer weeks without learning something, either about Nature and her wonders, or else about housekeeping and sewing.
At Aunty's in the mountains help is hard to get, and Aunty and her daughters make their own beds, and do much of the housework outside of the kitchen. Do you know how to make a bed? It looks very easy, yet there is an art in doing it well.
In the first place you must thoroughly air your bed every day. Pull the bed-clothes apart, set the mattress on end, if it is in two pieces so that you can manage it, and open the windows widely. Leave bed and bedding this way, exposed to air and sunlight, for at least an hour. Then spread your under sheet smoothly on the mattress, tucking it well in at the top. Similarly tuck the upper sheet in with great care at the bottom of the bed, so that it will not work loose and leave the feet of a restless sleeper exposed. Be sure in laying on your blankets that the open end of them is at the top of the bed. A person often requires a second thickness of blanket before morning, and can arrange it as she wishes if the closed end of the blanket is at the bottom of the bed.
Now comes your dainty upper spread, to be folded up and laid aside at night, your bolster, and your pillows. I would enjoy sleeping in a bed made by one of my girls if she followed these directions.
Of course you are going to begin making your Christmas presents this summer. The beautiful centre-pieces, doilies, and other bits of embroidery which you intend to send here and there to dear friends must be planned for and finished, from the first careful stitch to the last, during your summer leisure. A set of towels or handkerchiefs with a monogram in the corner of each will delight mamma, and Arthur will be very much pleased if his sister makes a cover for his mantel or his chiffonier. It will be well to select your materials and take them in your trunk, and then set apart a definite part of each day for your work.
Some of you belong to the Needle-work Guild, and are pledged to send a certain number of finished garments to the headquarters of the society in the autumn. You must make these little garments, slips, petticoats, aprons, or whatever they may be, with the utmost nicety. Let only loving, careful stitches go into your work for the poor.