Keep bed linen and towels, piled preferably on shelves, near bedrooms and bathrooms, marked and numbered. Put the clean underneath when they come from the laundry.

Clothing should be kept in an orderly way by each member of the family. Winter clothing and furs should be cleansed for putting away, protected from moths by wrapping in paper, hanging in tar bags, putting in cedar chests, or in trunks with some strong odored substances,—moth balls or cedar oil. Camphor is too expensive. Summer clothing should be washed and put away unstarched and unironed.

Dishes and silver should be carefully arranged in very definite places, and counted often enough to keep account of breakage and loss.

Brooms, brushes, dusters, and cleansing materials should have a place of their own, well ventilated when possible, and all articles put away clean.

Soaps and alkalies.—White and yellow soap, some washing powder, sal soda, caustic soda, household ammonia. Buy these in quantities if you have room to store them, and if they will not be used too lavishly because the supply is large. The soap is not much cheaper by the box, but it hardens with age, and then it wastes less rapidly when used.

Oils and polishes.—Crude oil, kerosene, a mixture of linseed oil, vinegar, and turpentine, one part each, cottonseed oil, alcohol.

Acids.—A solution of oxalic acid marked poison. Vinegar is on hand among kitchen supplies.

Gritty substances.—Rotten stone, whiting, some gritty soap of a kind that does not scratch, a gritty powder, or fine sand for coarse work.

Disinfectant and deodorizers.—A weak solution of carbolic acid marked poison, chloride of lime, or some reliable preparation[26] (though these are rather expensive), rock salt, and coarse common salt.

To clean fabrics.—If you live in a suburb or in the country, brush, shake, and beat articles to be cleaned out of doors, noticing the way of the wind that the dust may not be carried back into the house.

To cleanse a rug, spread it on the grass, rub with a medium stiff brush with white soap solution on the wrong side, turn it over, and rinse with water from the hose; or better still, tack it by two corners to a wooden wall, and then wash with hose. The city dweller must resort to the vacuum cleaner, or rely upon a cleaning establishment. The other alternative is to shake out the dust in the room, remove each article as it is cleaned, let the dust settle, and take it out as well as it can be. One apartment dweller heard this remark rise from the window below her: “Shut the window quick. Those dirty people upstairs are brushing a rug out the window!”

Painted surfaces and woodwork should be wiped off with a soft cloth wrung out of tepid water. A small amount of neutral white soap solution in the water can be used for paint if it is greasy, but alkalies are ruinous.

A highly polished surface (piano) is cleaned by washing with a sponge and tepid water, and rubbing until dry with a wet chamois wrung out of cold water. This method was learned from a piano polisher, and it works excellently. A dry chamois streaks the surface.

The wood of furniture is kept clean by rubbing with a soft dry cloth, but once in a while needs cleaning with crude oil or the mixture of oil, turpentine, and vinegar. Bureau drawers need watching for finger marks.

Glass is best cleaned by rubbing on a mixture of whiting and water. Leave it to dry and rub off with a dry cloth. A fine gritty soap comes for this purpose. Ammonia and water and a soft cloth work well, the success depending upon the final polishing. Very soft tissue paper is satisfactory for polishing.

Marble, porcelain, and enamel need little more than white soap suds, rinsed off and the surface dried. If spotted, use the finest kind of metal soap.

Metals.—Fine silver and plated ware should be kept polished by the daily careful washing, rinsing in hot water. Silver will spot and tarnish. Use whiting and alcohol, let it dry on, and rub off with a clean cloth or chamois.

The silver powders sold at the silversmith’s are very good, but the patent powders and liquids should not be used, as they remove too much of the silver.

Brass and copper are polished with rotten stone and oil. If the metal is spotted, use oxalic acid solution with the rotten stone. After rubbing well, the metal should be washed off in hot soap suds and finished with a dry cloth.

Nickel plate keeps bright if kept clean by daily dry rubbing.

To make the bed.—The amount of airing of the bedclothes depends somewhat upon the weather; bed linen absorbs too much damp if placed by the window on a rainy or foggy day. Pull back the bedclothes and hang them over a chair set front to the foot of the bed, seeing that the bedclothes do not drag on the floor. On a bright, fresh day remove all the clothes and hang them singly near the window. If there is a screen in the room, this is convenient for this purpose. The blankets should be hung out on the line once in a while, and washed twice a year. One important point in the cleanliness of the bed is a pad or thick cloth placed on the mattress under the sheet. The mattress should be sunned and aired often, and beaten or cleaned with the vacuum cleaner.

To make the bed, place the cover on the mattress, lay the under sheet straight, tuck in firmly at top and bottom, and fold the sides under straight, making angles at the corners. Put each piece on separately, turning the upper sheet down over the others. The cover is sometimes placed over all, and a strip to match over the pillows.

Care of the washstand.—This is all important, and cannot be neglected a day, without causing an unpleasant odor. The jars containing slops should be rinsed in cold water, washed out in warm soap suds, dried, and aired. If the ware is china, hot water may crackle the glaze, and then it is impossible to remove odors. Wash and dry all the small articles and wipe out and refill the water pitcher.

Care of the bedroom at night.—Fold back, or remove the covers, and lay the bedclothes partly back. See that drinking water is in the room, and lighting conveniences.

General order for all rooms.—Dust all small articles, place them together and cover them. Dust and clean off furniture and take the lighter pieces from the room. Cover what remains. Clean the textile fabrics in the best way available. Brush the walls, with a special brush, or soft cloth on a broom. Dust and cover pictures. Brush the rugs, or use vacuum cleaner. If the floor is hardwood, brush it with a soft brush, taking long, steady strokes from corner and sides to center. Take up dust in pan, and carry away to burn, or put in dust can at once. Wipe the floor with moist cloth, or with oiled cloth.

If there is a carpet and a broom is to be used, scatter pieces of wet paper over it, moisten the broom, and sweep as directed for brushing, using steady strokes and not allowing the dust to fly. The broom should be washed and dried. If dust flies, allow it time to settle. Dust the surfaces left exposed. Wipe off the woodwork if necessary, remove covers, and replace all articles. To have the room perfectly clean, windows should be washed, but if this is not convenient at the time, or the weather is bad, rub them and dust the sashes. Wash mirrors and the glass of pictures. This means much labor, and some people cannot accomplish it every week; and different rooms should have different cleaning days. But such thorough cleaning occasionally is necessary for keeping all articles in good condition and also for the health of the family.

The old-fashioned yearly house cleaning seems hardly necessary if cleaning is well done through the year, but in both fall and spring some extra freshening may be necessary in the way of thorough cleansing of textiles and furniture. All closets should have everything removed from them and the whole closet cleansed. Drawers should come out, be emptied, washed and aired, and fresh white or brown paper put in all.

Have a tray for holding necessary articles, soft cloth, paper, strong, sharp scissors, lamp chimney brush. When the lamp is to be cleaned, set it upon this tray. Take off all the easily removable parts. Fill the lamp through a funnel, and do not let the kerosene run over. Wipe off the charred wick with paper, and wipe the burner. Wash off the lamp in warm soap suds, wash and polish the chimney and shade, and replace. If you cannot get rid of odor, take the burner apart, boil it in a solution of washing soda, and put in a new wick. Cleaning a lamp is not nearly so disagreeable as many people think it, when it is done with good will. To shirk it means an unpleasant odor in the room and a poor light. Always fill the lamp in the daytime and keep it away from the fire.

Flies breed in dirty stables and mosquitoes in standing water. The stables must be cleaned and kept so, and water drained off or kerosene put upon it. Mosquitoes will breed in water in an empty milk bottle or old tomato can. If flies enter the house, kill them in some way. Wire or net fly killers cost only ten cents, and do good work. If the flies are very numerous, catch them in wire traps, or burn pyrethrum powder in the room. At night when they are on the ceiling, catch them in a glass of hot water and soap, not quite full, by holding the glass under the fly and gently knocking the glass against the ceiling. If the ceiling is high, tack an empty can on the end of an old broom stick and set the glass in that.

Clothing moths are kept out by precautions already mentioned.

If bed bugs appear, go over the bed with great care and examine the bedstead. Wash it off with kerosene, putting this well into the cracks. A single insect may be brought in on the clothing. If they continue to appear, all wall paper should be removed, woodwork varnished or painted. It may be necessary to resort to fumigation, but this should be done by an expert. Croton or water bugs are difficult to destroy, if they are once in a house. No garbage should be left about, to attract them at night. There are powders that drive them away, and another remedy is sulphur paste, which comes for the purpose, and which may be spread on slices of potato. The U. S. Department of Agriculture issues free bulletins on the suppression of household insects.

If a kettle of fat catches fire, pour on sand, but never water. As a general rule, extinguish a flame by covering it rather than by throwing on water.

If clothing catches on fire, wrap a rug or any large woolen article tightly around the body. To rush into the air is fatal.

If a towel or apron catches fire, roll it up quickly before the blaze spreads. This can be done without injury to the hands.

Small fire extinguishers are not expensive. Most kinds contain a solution of soda and a bottle of sulphuric acid which mix when the extinguisher is inverted, and throw out a stream of water charged with gas from a small hose. This works well just as a fire starts. Extinguishers arranged to throw a stream of carbon tetrachloride are also on the market.

Inspecting and reporting.—Have a series of cards in the card file, or pages in the notebook, where needed repairs may be jotted down. Have a regular time for looking over different parts of the house; and give a brief daily look as you pass from room to room. Each member of the family should be asked to report whatever goes wrong in his province,—a leaky faucet, a squeaky door, or broken castor, a tear in a curtain, a shade roller that does not work.

For large repairs, like a leak in the water or waste system or shingle on a roof, a trained worker is needed; but for small repairs a special worker from outside is too expensive, and there needs to be a handy person in the house, who can put in a screw, and use a monkey wrench, touch up the paint or varnish, or mend the wall paper. It is pleasant work, and in these days when schools teach so much handicraft, there should be some one in the family glad to do it.

A repair outfit.—Have a shelf somewhere for the repair “kit.” Look at the woodwork of your house, and see what is needed; whether paint, or varnish, an oil mixture or stain, or all of them. Have on hand a small can of each, and bottles of alcohol, turpentine, and glue. Two or three paint brushes of good quality and of different sizes are needed. Keep a bundle of wall paper including pieces of all the patterns on the walls. A box of tools is needed, including a hammer, gimlet, screw driver, monkey wrench, a sharp knife, with boxes of nails and screws of mixed kinds and sizes such as may be found at any hardware store.