1887 



GLEANlifGS In bee CULTUliE. 



405 



know that too much hard work kills many farmers' 

 wives. I am not entirely certain about how many 

 deaths are the result from carpet dust, und(!r rea- 

 sonable conditions. At any rate, the latter death 

 would be the more diKnitied. It would sound best, 

 if the truth were told at the funeral, and it does 

 generally leak out around, now, if a man works his 

 wife to death, e\eM if the minister doesn't speak of 

 it. 



Seriously, 1 think this pointof the unhealthfulness 

 of carpets has been carried too far, aeoordin^' to 

 our present knowledge, by some extremists. If 

 the ladies will lake up and clean the carpets, or, 

 rather, sec that the men clean them, when they get 

 so they can nut keep the surface reasonably clean 

 without raising- too much dust, and it they will use 

 a good sweeper instead of a broom, as far as pos- 

 sible—in fact, bring- their good common sense to 

 bear on the matter, I think they may not fear to 

 carpet every room in the house. 



Of course, there are exceptional circumstances. 

 If some member of the family were taken sick 

 with some contagious disease, the carpet should be 

 taken up immecjiately from the sick-room floor. 

 Some breadths might be laid down, or some pieces, 

 to prevent noise in walking, and then be shaken 

 daily. This would give the sick one as pure air as 

 possible, and the pieces could be destroyed wheu 

 the patient got better, thus disposing of any germs 

 of disease that may have found lodgment in the 

 carpet: otherwise, at some future time, when the 

 carpet is taken up, another member of the family 

 might be stricken with the disease. On account of 

 purer air it might be well to have only rugs in all 

 sick-rooms, and a plain whitewashed wall would 

 also be better than a papered one. 



I visited at a home last winter where all the low- 

 er floor was covered with Brussels carpet, kitchen 

 and all. The good wife did her own work, and her 

 husband told me he found she could keep a Brus- 

 sels carpet clean with less dust and sweeping, and 

 he valued his wife more than his money, it is 

 true, that no dust to speak of will go through these 

 carpets; so this is a way to avoid dirt under the 

 carpets. We took up one the other day that had 

 been down nearly four years. An ingrain carpet 

 would have got more under it in four weeks. I 

 think seriously of getting them for dining and 

 sitting rooms, as it will save so much taking up, 

 etc. But I must stop or I shall have the men after 

 me for getting- their -wives' ideas up too high. Nev- 

 er mind; the ladies will defend me with their 

 brooms— no, carpet-sweepers, I mean. That is the 

 only trouble with the sweepers— they are not so 

 bandy to drive out the dog with, or scare the hens 

 off the porch. 



My wife has read this, as she always does all my 

 letters, before they are mailed. She says: "All 

 right; send it along; but remember, I have got a 

 clincher on you whenever I want a carpet cleaned, 

 in the future." Well, I must own 1 had rather 

 preach cleaning carpets than to practice. That is 

 one reason in favor of the Brussels. Perhaps that 

 man I told of was more selfish, after all, than care- 

 ful of his wife. T. B. Terry. 



Hudson, O., May 2'., 1887. 



Well done, old friend. Before I attempt- 

 ed to say a word in reply I just carried tlie 

 proof-sheet over to the house, and sat down 

 by the kitchen stove (even if it is the 2d of 

 June a fire was rather comfortable) and de- 



sired my wife to sit down while I put her 

 through the catechism. Our kitchen and 

 pantry liave har(l-\v<K)d tloors, and we mean 

 to keep the tloois painted, but it has not 

 been done. This mopping business is some- 

 thing that has annoyed me more tlum a lit- 

 tle. While 1 was reading, one of the chil- 

 dren went to get a drink of water, and some 

 water drippe<i across tlie kitchen floor. My 

 wife put after tlie mop, in spite of any thiug 

 I could say, and she wotild not hear me 

 through until slie had mopi)ed iii» the clean 

 water tliat liad lieen dropped on the floor. 

 She did not tell me wliat hurt the clean wa- 

 ter would do, but the women-i'olks liave 

 some leason. Slie says she dislikes mop- 

 ping; but carpets in the kitchen, where 

 there are so many children as we have, get 

 so awful dirty she can not tolerate them. If 

 a hard floor is kept well painted, or soaked 

 with beeswax, the labor of keeping it clean 

 is very much less. I presume our bee-men 

 can ailord beeswax eiiongh to wax the kitch- 

 en floor, if anybody can. So long as the 

 floor is well waxed or painted, grease-spots, 

 or any other thing, do little or no harm ; but 

 since" the paint has got worn off, every spot 

 of grease has to be scrubbed and got out. I 

 can not tell why this is necessary, either. If 

 it Avere my kitchen, I think I should let the 

 grease soak into the wood as deep as it 

 wanted to. I wouldn't have it get no bad 

 that the children would slip down and grease 

 their clothes, but I should be very glad in- 

 deed to have some arrangement devised for 

 saving so much back-breaking work that 

 must all be done by the queen of the home. 

 I suggested Brussels carpets to Mrs. Root, 

 but she asked wiiere the dirt will go to if it 

 does not get through the carpet on to the 

 floor. I told her it would probably stay in 

 the carpet, but she says she would not have 

 that. 



She wants to shake hands with your wife 

 on that " clincher.'' She says if you succeed 

 in getting the men-folks to take hold and 

 even help to clean the carpets, the women 

 of our land will owe you a big vote of thanks. 

 Come to think of it, she did not use those 

 very words, for she does not express herself 

 as strongly as I do ; but I am well enough 

 acquainted with her so I know that is just 

 about what she meant by what she did say. 



In regard to porches, the house we always 

 lived in before we moved into our present 

 one had no porches at all ; but. like yourself, 

 when we built our present home we thought 

 that lots of porches would be nice ; but Mrs. 

 Root says now, that, if she were going to 

 have another house, she would cut the num- 

 ber of porches down to about two instead of 

 four. Why, it seems as if all outdoors, pret- 

 ty nearly, had conspired to make her use all 

 her spare time in scrubbing the porches. 

 Not only the children and the men-folks, 

 but spiders and flies, have put their heads 

 together to see how they could soil the 

 porches most; and then, to cap the climax, 

 the English sparrows discovered the porches 

 were just the place to roost; and when they 

 did not make trouble enough, they com- 

 menced building nests in them. I wonder 

 if we can not have porches made of tile, or 

 something that dirt would slip off from, 



