CHAPTER V

THE CARE OF THE BEDROOMS

When it was the turn of the Pretty Aunt to give her lesson in housekeeping, she said she should begin at daybreak, so Margaret was not surprised to hear her knock at the door early in the morning, almost before she was dressed.

She helped the little girl take the clothes off the bed, one at a time, and put them on two chairs near the windows, being careful not to let the blankets get on the floor. She beat the pillows well, and turned the mattress up over the foot of the bed so the air could get underneath it. The white spread she kept by itself, and had Margaret help fold it up in its creases. "Nothing wrinkles more easily," she told Margaret, "and a wrinkled spread spoils the look of neatness a bed ought to have when it is made. If you have a heavy Marseilles spread, do not sleep under it; fold it at night and put it away, and use only the blankets, because it is not good for any one to sleep under such a weight. Now hang up your night-dress, and put away your slippers and bath-wrapper. I am delighted to see that you have no dress or petticoats lying around this morning from last night. Too many girls do not hang them up at once when they take them off, but leave them over a chair, and put them away in the morning, perhaps creased with lying. It is much better to put them away as you take them off. Open your windows, next, top and bottom, and set the closet door open, too, and then we will go to breakfast."

"Why do I open the closet door?" asked Margaret, laughing at the idea.

"Because your closet needs airing just as much as your room does; more, indeed, because its door has been shut all night, while the fresh air has been blowing into the room through the open windows. If you did not air it every day, it would soon have a close, shut-up odor, and perhaps your dresses would have it, too, which would certainly not be nice at all. It has to have fresh air to keep it sweet. Now we will shut the door of your room as we go, for the cold wind would chill the halls, and besides, the sight of a disordered bedroom is not attractive."

After breakfast Margaret went up-stairs and shut the windows of her room, and a little later, when it was warm, she and her aunt put on fresh white aprons and went in and began to put it to rights.

One stood on each side of the bed and turned the mattress from head to foot; the next day, Margaret was told, it must be turned from side to side as well as over, to keep it always in good shape. If this was not done constantly there would soon be a hollow place in the middle, which would never come out, and the mattress would be spoiled. They laid over it the nice white pad which kept it looking always new and clean, and then the lower sheet, the wide hem at the top and the narrow one at the bottom, the seams toward the mattress, and tucked it smoothly in at the sides.

"Some people are careless about these little things," said the aunt as they worked. "They think it does not matter if there is a hollow in the mattress, or whether they have a cover for it or not. They mix the top and bottom sheets, and never know which is which; but you are going to do things the right way, which is always the easiest in the end."

They laid the upper sheet on with the wide hem at the top, as before, but with the seam up instead of down. Margaret wondered at this, but was told that this way made the two smooth sides of the sheets come next to the one who slept between them, and at the same time made the upper sheet turn over at the top with the seam underneath.

When the blankets went on, the Pretty Aunt said she was thankful to notice that Margaret's mother always cut hers in two.

"What for?" asked the little girl.

"Well," was the reply, "double blankets are difficult to handle. They are really one long blanket folded together, and one-half sometimes slips and gets wrinkled, and is hard to get into place. Then, half-blankets are more easily aired than whole ones, and more easily washed, also. And if one is too warm in the night, and wishes to throw off half of the clothes, it can be done without pulling the bed to pieces. It is simple enough to cut a pair in two and bind the edges with ribbon so the colors will match, and it well pays for the small trouble."

"I sometimes wish I had a nice, fat comfortable instead of two blankets," said Margaret. "I know a girl who has such a hot one, all made of cotton and cheesecloth."

"They are not nearly as healthful as blankets, my dear, nor so easily kept clean. People who own them would hate to have to tell how seldom they are washed, because they are so heavy to handle that it is put off month after month, and season after season. A pretty little silkolene coverlet to lay on the foot of the bed, such as you have, or a small eiderdown puff, is very nice, but blankets are the things to sleep under. Now let us put the white spread on."

"But, auntie," objected Margaret, "you haven't tucked anything in! Just see, not the sides nor the bottom! I don't like to have my feet out all night; I like to be tucked in all nice and warm. Shan't we tuck in everything as we go along? That's the way Bridget does when she makes my bed."

Her aunt laughed. "Just wait!" she said. Then she put on the white spread, and smoothed it nicely all over, and told Margaret to stand opposite to her at the side of the bed near the foot, and do as she did.

First she turned the spread back, just as though it was at the top instead of the bottom; then she turned back one blanket; then the other; then the upper sheet, and next the lower one, leaving the mattress and pad showing. They raised the mattress, and putting their hands under all the folded back clothes at once, they put them under the end of it smoothly, pushing them well back; then they tucked in the sides. "There," said the aunt, nodding her pretty head at her little niece, "I'd like to see you pull those clothes out at night, as you do when Bridget makes your bed! If you tuck things in one by one sometimes they will come out, but if you tuck them in as we have done they are sure to stay. Now for the top."

She turned over the spread, blankets, and sheet, and laid them flat on the spread, and then turned them under themselves, making a smooth, rather narrow fold, close up to the place the pillows were going to stand.

"If the sheet was mussed I would not do this," she explained. "Then I would just lay all the clothes back under the pillows; but when the sheet is fresh it looks nice this way. Beat up the pillows, smooth them out, and stand them up evenly. Remember, if you have a white spread with a fringe on it and a muslin valance around the bed, the spread is not tucked in at all, but after the bed is finished and tucked in all around, it is laid on and left hanging over sides and foot.

"If, instead of a spread, you have a figured cover, or one made of lace or muslin, you do not use any spread, but put that on over the blankets during the day and take it off at night. A roll covered with the same stuff is used with such a bed cover, and at night this, too, is put away and the pillows brought out from the cupboard and put on when the bed is opened. The bed in the guest-room is like that; you know it has a pretty cover and a roll. But whatever you have, it is always nice to have the bed opened for one at night, the clothes folded smoothly back, the spread laid away and the pillows put down flat, so all one has to do is to slip in."

"I know," Margaret replied. "It makes you feel sleepy to see a bed like that."

"Now let us take the wash-stand," her aunt went on, after she had passed her hands all over the bed as though she were ironing it, leaving it as smooth as a nice white table. "Get the cloths from the bathroom, a clean white one, you know, and a clean colored one; and the soap."

She showed Margaret how to wash everything out neatly, beginning with the tooth-brush mug and soap-dish, and she was told to look carefully and see if they were both clean in the bottom, "because probably they are not," she said. The wash-bowl was washed with soap, especially where there was a greasy streak around it, and the pitcher was filled, and wiped where the water dripped down the front. The dark cloth was used on the rest of the china; it was better to have two cloths of different colors, her aunt explained, to avoid mixing them.

After the stand was finished, and the top wiped off with the white cloth, the cloths were both washed out in the bathroom and put away, with the soap. The towels were folded in the creases they had been ironed in, and pulled into shape and rehung; the wash-cloth was wrung dry and shaken out before it was hung up on the rack. The cake of soap had been washed off in the bowl when that was washed, and it was now put back in the clean dish. "Whatever you forget, Margaret, never forget to wash off the soap!" her aunt warned her.

There seemed a good deal to do to make the room nice even after the bed and wash-stand were done, for the closet was opened and everything taken out and put on chairs around the room, and then put back. The dresses had to be hung up by the loops on the skirt, and the waists which matched hung each on the same hook with its own skirt by the loops at the sleeves. The petticoats had to go by themselves in a separate part of the closet, and the shoes were all put in pairs in the bag on the door, instead of being left on the floor in piles. Margaret did not like to do these things, but she had to admit that she could dress faster in the morning when she knew just where everything was, and when she could find mates to her shoes in just half a second, instead of having to take a minute or more to hunt them in the corners of the closet on the floor.

Arranging the bureau was still worse than making the closet tidy. All the drawers were emptied out, and everything sorted in heaps and put away. Some pretty boxes without covers were brought from her aunt's bureau and put in Margaret's upper drawer, one for gloves, one for handkerchiefs, one for ribbons, so that everything should be where it belonged, yet as soon as the drawer was opened one could see where everything was. Underclothes were made into neat piles, and arranged in the drawers below, one sort of thing in one pile and another in another, and the stockings laid in a nice row, mates together, folded and tucked in, ready to go on.

The top of the bureau had many pretty silver ornaments, but they were dull and shabby, and Margaret had to get the silver polish and a bit of chamois and make them shine before they could go on the fresh bureau-cover the aunt put on, and she was given a bit of velvety stuff to tuck in a corner of a drawer, ready to use every day or two, so they would not grow dull again.

When all else was done they brushed up the floor, dusted everything thoroughly, straightened the pictures on the wall and the window-shades, and set the chairs where they would look best. Then Margaret sat down to rest, and her aunt finished the lesson in this way:

"A lady," she began, "no matter whether she is grown up or not, always keeps her bedroom in beautiful order, fresh and dainty, especially the places which do not show, like bureau drawers! Her closet has plenty of hooks, and her gowns are kept together, each on one. Her hats are in their boxes on the shelves, her shoes in their bag. Her bureau is orderly, the silver clean and shining. Her hair-brush is washed at least once a week, to keep it white and fresh, and the comb is never allowed to have bits of hair in it, but is as clean as the brush. Her wash-stand is always perfectly clean and tidy, and nothing is ever left about in the room. Most important of all, the air of her room is always fresh and sweet, because the window is left open at night and often opened during the day for a time. Now this has been a good long lesson to-day--it's almost noon; but if you have learned it, you have not wasted a minute of even this nice bright Saturday. There's a prize offered by this teacher for perfect lessons. Keep your room in order for a month, and see what you'll find on your bureau then!"

"Oh, what?" cried Margaret, running after her Pretty Aunt as she went out into the hall.

"Wait and see!" was all she would say, but Margaret decided to keep the room beautifully tidy for the prize, just the same.