Some folks is so clean they cause considerable untidiness everywheres they go. Such was Hon. Mrs August Moon of Salem, Mass, who is another of my bosses gone by. This lady got a house containing mahogany chairs which was brought over by Hon. Pilgrim Fathers when they was running ferryboat Cauliflower between Salem and Grand Rapids, Mich. She revere her furniture and all her other ancestors. Each day she require me to stroke her mahogany lovingly with furniture polish.
This Hon. Lady are very superstitious about dirt. She think it are not clean to have around. She imagine dust, soot & mildew enter her house like a burgler and Togo must be a policeman to arrest it when it gets inside.
“Togo,” she say, while I am enslaving myself amidst dishwater in kitchen, “I just heard a mouse making footprints in attic. Rosh up with mop, please, and remove his muddy tracks.”
I do so.
“Togo,” she requesh nextly, “six autumn leaves has fell on the walk befront of the house. Gather them in your apron and burn them thoroughly in kitchen stove, taking care that no ashes escape.”
I do so.
“Togo,” she hypothecate, “I can observe two fly-tracks running over portrait of my ancestor, Gov. Beelzebub Biggs. Kindly to wash his face carefully with cast-steel soap and don’t offend his dignitary.”
This also I accomplish compressing the insurgent feeling that arise continuously in my elbows.
“The early bird obtains worms,” she say cheerly when I arise at 4.32 a. m. for scrubb with sudds.
“At such time as this I prefer sleep to worms,” are smart reply I make.