We Girls: a Home Story

at article in the Atlanti

I wish t

mother?" as

oper

ne of these days, when they come into their luck, you should hear of something greatly to your advantage

ing from a little arm-chair wink, during wh

able wool and her great ivory knitt

usekeeping, ma'a

didn't write articles about it. All the women in a house co-operated-to keep it; and all the neighb

ll whether Mrs. Hobart w

time. But Ruth remembered the conversation. So did Barbara, for a

that would be doing just what the rest do. Everything turns into a poem, or a

f all that is being

they won't have any eggs from their fowls next winter; all their chickens are roosters, and all they'll

at the

could only have a beginning and a middle put to it, it might do. It's just the wind-up, where they have to gi

, tel

t it might be written up to. They could

some litt

ome litt

d a littl

little

pleasant in on

shout at Bar

y mind," she said, meekly. "I knew i

in the family. She illustrated on a small scale what the

t day when Ruth said

interregnums. But in our little house in Z--, with the dark kitchen, and with Barbara and Ruth going to school, and the washi

said, speaking of the "old times." "Grandmother's kit

rk? Whatever room we do that in always is, you know. The look grows. Kitchens are horrid when girls have just gone out of them, and left the dish-towels dirty, and the dish-c

lly-nificent!" cried Barbara, r

aid Rosamond, in a ton

low realities. That's the co-operation. Families are put up assorted, and the home character comes of it. It's Bible-truth, you know; the head and the feet and the eye and the hand, and all that. Let's

or that cellar-kitche

th, "what if we w

n the din

nice

ladies' kitch

d in oak and walnut colors, and varnished brightly,-the ceiling faintly tinted with buff,-the buff holland shades to the windows,-the dresser-closet built out into the room on one side, with its glass up

h began

erything; and we only had the floor scrubbed once, and there never was a slop on the stove, or a teaspoonful of anything spilled.

stove," s

cooking-stove, all polished up, is just a

wn," said Mrs. Holabird,

" said the dete

ooking-stove," sai

just where your

minute wanted; and all the tins and irons begun with new again, and kept clean; and little cocoanut dippers with German silver rims; and things generally contrived as

should give each other Christmas and birthday presents of things; we should have as much pleasure and pride in it as in the

few things freshly, if we are to save the waste

grew and

to tea!" Rosamond said, s

a, "for the people you can't be intimate with, and think how crowsy

ettle down," sai

ry little brook runs till it does that. I

ongs. Every little crystal does that,"

nt Roderick s

couldn't manage with one girl any longer, and so we've

was three weeks before Mrs. Roder

and it was with the serenest composure that Mrs. Holabird received her remark that

eply; which caused the whites of Katty's eyes to

the place, who had come while we had

ent; she came in and tol

e looks good-natured; and she i

a, gravely. "I think-as Protest

"trial" go. That was the end

box and bottle washed; then we left everything below spick and span, so that it almost tempted us to stay even there, and sent for the sheet-iron man, and had the stove taken up stair

with it in the winter. It had a soapstone mantel, with fluted pilasters, and a brown-stone hearth and jambs. Back a little, between these sloping jambs, we had a nice iron fire-board set, with an ornamental collar around the funnel-hole. The stove stood mode

ep iron sink, and a pump came up from the cistern. This closet had double sliding

,-these last polished to the brightness of silver tankards; in one corner stood the flour-barrel, and over it was the sieve; in the cupboards were our porcelain kettles,-we bought two new ones, a little and a big,-the frying-pans, delicately smooth and nice now, out

other divisions. Here we had a great box placed for wood, and a barrel for coal, and another for kindlings; once a week these could be replenished as required, when the man came who "chored" for us. T

h and a comfort to us. Besides, we really did not need half the lumber of a common kitchen closet; a china bowl or plate would no longer be contraband of

d Mrs. Dunikin went home enriched with gifts that were to her like a tin-and-wood

come in from her music-lesson; they lay heaped up like lightly fallen snow, in a broad dish, ready to be browned for chicken dressing o

" said Rosamond, looking around.

keep making clean beginnings, all the way along

" said Rose,

y could have seen mother make a pudding or get a breakfast, that is all. A lady will no more make a jumble or l

that Monday morning-and Monday morning is as good,

bout; the tea-kettle and the tin boiler were filled,-father did that just before he locked up t

d a steaming boiler full of clothes, and had done nearly two of her five hours' work. We should hand her her breakfast on a little tray, when the time came, at the stair-head; and she would bring up her cup and plate again w

uplicate, into the out-room, for Stephen to carry away. Then into the clean grate went a handful of shavings and pitch-pine kindlings, one or two bits of hard wood, and a sprinkle of small, shiny nut-coal. The draughts were put on, and in five minutes the coals wer

ill do to give a girl";-and then the bread-crumbs; and the end of it was, in a white porcelain dish, a light, delicate, savory bread-porridge, to eat daintily with a fork, and be thankful for. The other pan held eggs, broken in upon bits of butter, and sprinkles of pepper and salt; this went on when the coffee-pot-which had got its drink when the milk boiled, and been puffing ever since-was ready to come off; over it stood Barbara with a tin spoon, to toss up and turn until the whole was just curdled with the heat into white

and freshened all the place; and the smell of it, and the bright September air that came in at the three cool west windows, overbore all remembrance of the cooking and reminder of the stove, from which we were seated well away, and befor

brown slippers, also, with bows; she would not verify Rosamond's prophecy that she "would be all points," no

ght cleanse his palette,-we had, in fact, a palette-knife that we kept for this use when we washed our own dishes,-and then set them in piles and groups before mother, on the pembroke-table. Mother sat in her raised arm-chair, a

he iron thing never got to be "horrid," any more than a china bowl. It was only a little heavy, and it was black; but the black did not come off. It is slopping and burning and putting away with a rinse, that makes kettles and spiders untouchable. Besides, mo

ver it, as if we had sat down to wind worsteds; a

d down for. Barbara set away the milk, and skimmed the cream, and brought up and scalded the yesterday's pans the fir

t; and in an hour after breakfast the house was in its beautiful

-man, had killed and picked and drawn them, on Saturday; I do not mean to disguise that we avoided these last processes; we preferred a little foresight of arrangemen

gs were fastened down to their sides, so that they were as round and comfortable as dumplings before she had done with them; and she laid t

e hours; it was only restful change to come down and pu

rner by the parlor windows, and Ruth played a little, and mother took up the Atlantic, and we felt we had a good right to t

phen came in, there was the little dinner of three covers, and a peach-pie of Saturday's making on the side-board, and

"I feel as if we had g

hat makes the kit

hat has to have the gir

ound with the crumb-knife, and did not forget to

and we forgot ther

ur elbows," said mother in a low tone, sm

" said Stephen, quite out lo

and our nice dresses. We always did it with the tea-things. We just put them, neatly piled and ranged in that deep pantry sink; we poured some di

, we girls, of course. But you can'