36 The Bulletin. 



SWEEPING AND DUSTING. 



By Mrs. W. N. HUTT. 



When I was a little girl I used to listen to the story of the woman who 

 swept and sent the dust flying into the air and made her family cough and 

 sneeze. No one could sit and ruminate in comfort because she had to sweep 

 under his chair. In short, every one around her was unhappy because she 

 swept, swept, swept. When she got old she was all bent up from not properly 

 holding the broom, I suppose, and when she died she was turned into a witch 

 and forever after had to sweep the cobwebs off the moon. 



Poor thing ! Perhaps she did not know any better. She did not live in the 

 day and age when it was fashionable to keep eyes open and to get the greatest 

 amount of work with the smallest amount of energy. The new automatic 

 sweeping machines that are being introduced all over the country cannot but 

 be a great saving of strength, backache and germs to many women. As the 

 end of the suction pipe is run over the unclean surface every loose particle of 

 dirt is drawn down the tube, and thus the process of dusting as well as of 

 sweeping is accomplished. The motive power may be hand, electricity, steam, 

 water, or, as on a farm, the gasoline engine that fills the silo. 



However, all of us do not possess these machines, and the problem is for 

 us to find the easiest and best method of doing our work now. I do not want 

 to be fussy, always talking about germs, but for fear there is just one person 

 who does not know what they are, I am going to tell it again. They are tiny 

 forms of life, so small that we need a microscope to see them, and they produce 

 most, of our diseases. Some of that dust that Freddie is breathing in may 

 not hurt him at all, but it may give him diphtheria. There is no sense in 

 taking useless risks. 



When you sweep do so with just as little dust as possible. When "sister" 

 wants to help mother with her own small broom, teach her to hold it so that 

 the particles of dust are not sent flying into space. This is done by partly 

 dragging the broom. Teach her also to stand upright and not bend over, 

 cramping her lungs and straining her back. 



Many good housekeepers sweep the carpet with a damp broom and then 

 go over it with a damp clean cloth. Dry floors, of course, have to be swept 

 with a dry clean broom. If the boards are smooth a cloth bag of any soft 

 white material placed over the broom saves after-dusting and is better. This 

 method should always be used for both carpet and floor in a sick-room, if it is 

 necessary to have a carpet there. The cloth should be dampened to catch any 

 stray germs. 



It might be interesting to tell the children some rainy Sunday about the 

 dust and how it is almost everywhere. If we take dust away from any place 

 It is dark there, because it is on the dust that light travels. Did you never 

 watch a sunbeam in a dark room and see the dancing particles of dust re- 

 vealed there? Before the words "Let there be light" were spoken, it was neces- 

 sary that dust be there, so it has been with us a long time. If balloonists 

 go very high the sky becomes dark and finally almost black, because there is so 

 little dust to scatter the rays of light. 



What we object to is dust in the wrong place. There we call it dirt. If 

 we have to choose between too much dust and too little outdoor air, let us 

 choose the first. Sunlight is the greatest thing we know to kill the harmful 

 in dust, so fling open your blinds, push up your curtains and windows and let 

 God's sunlight in. What do you care for faded carpets? You can buy more, 

 or you can do without them, but you cannot buy back the little life that is 

 once gone. 



Rugs are easier on the housewife and cleaner than carpets. There are 

 many devices to keep the dust from rising — salt, tea leaves, etc. — but perhaps 

 the best is newspapers torn fine and dampened, scattered over the carpet and 

 swept out with the dust. 



