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HOME AND FLOWERS 



although the high stool ought always to 

 be ready to sit down upon when yegetables 

 are to be prepared or other work done 

 which admits of sitting. It is a great 

 boon to haye tables and sinks at such a 

 height that one is not required to stoop, as 

 in Fig. 1, for the hours of work necessary 

 to be done. It may require some urgent 

 appeals to make the plumber see that 

 ratlier than to put in a sink at the regula- 

 tion height, it should be made to fit the 



FIG. a 



woman who works. There might be an 

 objection to fitting a sink to eyer}^ new 

 maid, but the housewife does not change 

 frequently enough to make it impossible 

 to suit her conyenience. Kitchen stoves 

 are in some cases too low for the average 

 woman to perform her work over them 

 with comfort. 



Along with that tired-from-standing 

 pain in the back, lift the chest high, take 

 a full and deep breath, throw the weight 

 forward upon the balls of the feet, and 

 keep it there, with the chest, hips, and 

 balls of the feet in line. If it is required 



to stoop to reach the work, bend from the 

 hips with the chest up, and 7iot from the 

 waist line with chest sunken. Upon these 

 simple directions depends much of the 

 ease in doing housework. Washing dishes, 

 sweeping, ironing, preparing the meals, or 

 washing clothes may thus be made much 

 easier, if the muscles of the limbs are 

 made to support the body and do the work, 

 than if the strain is brought upon the 

 back. Grace is also secured by this proper 

 poise, and is as becoming to the housewife 

 as to her daughter taking training in 

 school. It does one good to lift up the 

 head, the chest, and let all the organs 

 follow. We become weary and the head 

 drops: with more fatigue the shoulders 

 stoop, the chest becomes depressed, and 

 the organs sag. There is a general letting 

 down of the whole being, and the mind 

 is liable to become depressed at the same 

 time. "Lift up" is a motto which may 

 be used with every well-ordered person, 

 and applied to the body as well as to the 

 mind. 



One of the encumbrances which has 

 fallen to women's lot is to "pick up" after 

 other people = She may as well make the 

 best of it and esteem it her privilege. It 

 may not even in the most approved fashion 

 he found especially conducive to physical 

 welfare, but she may make it far less like 

 drudgery if she will do it in the easiest 

 and most graceful way possible. Bending 

 at the back is perhaps the most common 

 way of picking up articles, as in Fig. 3, 

 but bending at the knees is much more 

 becoming and much less fatiguing. When 

 one bends the back it is often accompanied 

 with a sigh of discomfort, but if one tries 

 bending at the knees and keeps the head 

 and upper part of the body erect, she has 

 some incentive toward thankfulness for 

 those for whom she has' constantly to 

 "pick up" after. 



When a man lifts he uses his arms; 

 when a woman lifts she uses her back; 

 when a man saws wood he uses his arms; 

 when a woman rubs clothes, as in Fig. 4, 

 she uses her back. Yet it is as easy to use 



