Read Ebook: Harper's Household Handbook: A guide to easy ways of doing woman's work by McCulloch Williams Martha
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Wherewithal to make of is the first requisite. Here follow some simple tests easily applicable and well worth while. Use upon samples, and buy accordingly. Things over-cheap, it may be said in passing, carry their condemnation in their price. Buying them is extravagance, since they cost as much in time, trouble, and often in money for making up as sound stuffs and make no adequate return in wear.
Hang a similar board on the wall back of the machine, and furnish the nails in it with spools of thread--all sorts the machine may require. Put a hook at bottom for special machine scissors, and hang upon another hook a small, flat, open pocket to hold wisps of absorbent cotton for wiping off oil, a tiny bottle of alcohol for removing spots of it, and a couple of finger stalls and two short bandages to save pricked fingers from making blood spots. A starch bag, very porous, for covering such spots instantly, is also advisable with fine light-colored work.
Tack against the wall over the table a square of denim holding three long pockets, set crosswise, for patterns. Keep patterns folded flat, not rolled. Press smooth before using, and let lie till cool, so they will not curl. Hang a small well-filled pincushion below the pattern pockets, also leaves of flannel filled with basting-needles. Set close by a firm-standing waste basket with a wide mouth. Throw into it all useless clippings as fast as made.
Things with a nap, as broadcloth and corduroy, must not be cut with cloth double from each end. If the goods is double-fold, cutting double is desirable. Otherwise cut so the nap runs the same in each piece. This also applies in case of figured stuffs with a decided up and down. To make a waist or coat pattern smaller lay a crosswise plait from armhole to edge, and cross it with a lengthwise one of equal width. Enlarge a pattern by cutting it across instead of plaiting it and pasting in strips of paper. Alter skirt lengths usually at the bottom; either fold up or allow extra. If too wide, fold down along each edge to keep proportions.
Make fancy yokes, put on the collar, then arrange smoothly on the form, put over the bodice, fit together, and set a thick row of pins where they are to join. If the bodice edge is finished, pin together--if it is to be sewn in, leave it free. An overlapping yoke had better have the bodice cut almost full height, and the surplus cut away after the yoke is put on.
Tack lace to strips of cloth before dyeing and leave on them till washed and pressed. Dyed net had better be partly dried in crumpled heaps after washing, then stiffened and pressed.
Restore ribbon and velvet as already directed. To improve crushed and faded flowers touch the backs of the petals thickly with gum arabic , let dry, then dip in gasolene, lave quickly, and pass on into more gasolene which has had a tube of oil color dissolved in it. Work quickly, moving the flower sprays about so they shall not be blotched nor streaked. Lay on soft paper to dry in airy shade. Big flowers--roses, orchids, poppies--had better be separated before dyeing, then remounted. Touching up the hearts with oil color rubbed smooth in a little poppy oil, using a camel's-hair brush, is a further improvement.
Fine feathers should go to professionals--at least, until their owners learn to color cheap ones. Draggled soft feathers may be colored with gasolene and tube paint, shaking hard while they dry so there shall be no clotting. Strip off when dry, and tie the flues into pompons about lengths of stiff wire with loops in the end. Wind the wire with silk thread or cover with a spiral of tissue paper. Two or three shades of the same color tied thus make a handsome ornament for any school hat.
Clean white and light plumes by sprinkling very lightly with gasolene, then burying a week in corn starch and magnesia. Shake out the powder, beat the plumes steadily but gently against the palm, then comb very gently with a coarse clean comb, and hold in the steam of a kettle. Curl, if you like, by drawing the flues, a few at a time, over the edge of a blunt knife, taking care to draw so steadily there is no breaking.
REMEDYING SPOTS, STAINS, AND TARNISH
Dust greasy walls thickly with powdered chalk or whiting, brush off after a day, and repeat. For a small but staring spot lay chalk thickly between net, hold it flat against the spot, with a very hot iron over it. Commonly this will take up the grease. Chalk or whiting wet with alcohol to a thin paste and left to dry on grease spots, then gently brushed off, will remove grease. But with paper badly spotted it is best to take it off and put on a fresh length.
Machine oil on garments old or new must be taken out with gasolene, else washed in white soap and cold water. If spots are black as well as greasy, lay them face down upon a thick cloth and pour alcohol or gasolene through, not rubbing the spot proper, but sawing it back and forth against the cloth underneath--thus the black is not imbedded in the fabric. Lay thin things spotted face down and dab hard repeatedly with a swab of cotton tied in net and wet with gasolene. Move the spots to clean surfaces, and swab till clean. Lay silk and gauze, especially delicately colored ones, over a layer of calcined magnesia mixed with corn starch, and pour through either grain alcohol or chloroform. Wet very lightly a ring around the spot of unspotted fabric and work from it inward to the spot. This to save annoying circles.
Take grease out of woolens with a flood of gasolene, changing it as it grows dirty. If caked dirt shows afterward, wash with naphtha soap, applying lather to the spot, holding a very hot iron a little way from it for a minute, then washing off with hot water. Instead of the iron you may hold the spot to the spout of a boiling kettle, letting the steam penetrate it. Greasy coat collars and heavy garments blotched with spilled food demand washing in suds besides the washing in gasolene.
For a greasy carpet mix whiting and cornmeal, make hot, sift on thickly, cover with gasolene, and rub hard and quickly until the gasolene evaporates, then sweep very clean and wipe with a damp cloth. If gasolene involves fire risks, leave the powder standing for several days, sweep off, and repeat if the grease is not all gone.
Axle-grease spots or any other partly resinous must be softened with oil, then taken out with gasolene or turpentine. Washing, even boiling, sets them. It is the same with linseed-oil spots. Take them out with turpentine followed by gasolene.
Grimy mud needs to be well wet with kerosene, let stand an hour, then cleaned with either alcohol or gasolene. Gasolene or benzine will also take out spots of tar and asphalt, but they come away quicker and cleaner if first wet with turpentine, then greased on both sides with soft lard, and let stand a while. Dip in the gasolene, soiled side out, and change the gasolene as soon as it looks dark. Bold big stains may demand three changes. After the stain is out spread the fabric smooth and wipe all round the gasolened space with a cloth dipped in more gasolene to prevent circles. Soften oil marks or those from oily dirt by wetting thoroughly with kerosene, washing out later in gasolene as directed for tar. Very fine things can be cleaned with ether or alcohol instead of gasolene, pouring through the spot and rubbing with a wisp of cotton.
Take grease from paper, as books or prints, by laying on thickly powdered borax and calcined magnesia, and keeping warm for several days. Shut books tight upon the powder and put under moderate weight. Or iron over the powder with a very hot iron, shake off, apply fresh, and tie or put under weight. A tender old print, much soiled, should be pasted on a thin cloth and cleaned with a damp, soapy cloth, then, after drying, covered both sides with chalk, left several days, then shaken out and ironed on the wrong side, with the right against a soft clean cloth. Mitigate grease on leather bindings with the chalk pad and hot iron--it is rarely wholly removable. Plain calf admits of gasolene, but for anything else dry-cleaning alone is safe.
Ammonia removes acid discolorations; it also mitigates perspiration marks. Use the spirits, and follow with alcohol and water, dabbed on lightly.
Take stains from wood with oxalic-acid solution . Reduce one-half with boiling water, wet the stain, wipe off with clear, hot water; if stain remains, repeat the acid. Use the acid on white things ink-stained, wetting them first with boiling water and holding the stain in steam or close to a very hot iron for a minute or two after dipping in the acid. Wash out the acid with clear water, as hot as can be borne.
Take ink stains from paper by laying it on a thick cloth, putting on a drop or two of acid, covering with another cloth, and pressing with a hot iron. Remove to a clean, wet cloth, cover, and press again.
Oxalic acid must not be used full strength on silk or woolens. Weaken two-thirds with boiling water, and pour boiling water through the stain after wetting with the acid. Test the color; if the acid destroys it, try either covering the stain with a paste of French chalk and alcohol, letting dry and brushing off, or dropping blazing tallow through from the wrong side, and later removing it with gasolene or chloroform, the same as an ordinary grease mark. The tallow must be left on several days so it may combine with the ink.
Clean toilet silver with oxalic acid of one-third strength, taking care to touch with it nothing but the metal. Wipe with a cloth wrung very dry out of hot water, and polish with a chamois dipped in alcohol and whiting. Wrap a cloth about the bristles in cleaning brush backs, and wipe with old silk after the polishing.
FOOD: CHOOSING AND KEEPING
Set flour barrels a little above the floor, and do not use the same one continuously. Any wooden container may become a harbor for insects. A japanned tin can, emptied and aired monthly, is best for keeping flour, meal, or oatmeal in bulk. All should be kept where it is dry, airy, and free of smells, as all take up taints very readily.
Where ice is hard to get have holes made with a post-hole digger, a foot across and four feet deep. Fit stout wooden tops to them big enough to lap an inch all round. Put a handle on firmly and screw a stout hook in the middle underneath. Suspend things from this hook by a cord or light chain, as a bucket of milk, or butter, a bottle of wine, water, or grape juice, or a bag of fruit. Fresh meat even can be kept several days, of course wrapping it well before hanging it. Rain ruins this form of cold storage, but for camps, summer bungalows, and so on it is a very present help.
A greater one is a dry well either rock-walled or planked up. Have it seven to eight feet deep, wide enough for a ladder, and set shelves around the edge. Or it may be simply dug, covered, and things let down into it at the end of strings. An abandoned well or cistern comes in handy for such use. If deep and dry, whole carcasses as of lambs, sheep, pigs, or deer can be hung and kept safe.
HOUSE PLANTS, WINDOW BOXES, CUT FLOWERS
Plant bulbs their own depth in earth except the finer lilies. Set them only a little way in earth. It is safer to make a little hole in the earth, put in a handful of clean sand, and bed the bulb in the sand. Keep very wet--sand will not rot the bulb surface. Fill up with soil an inch higher, but keep it away from the bulb with a sand blanket, and put a very thin layer of sand on top. Plant ordinary bulbs in succession from September to December, keep damp and dark for some weeks to insure root growth, then bring to light, water, and fertilize, turning every three days to make symmetrical.
Fuchsias, azaleas, lemon verbenas, the spireas, and genesta require much the same care. Fuchsias, as has been said, do not demand full sun. Also they like a moderate temperature. The others thrive in heat and light. So do camellias and gardenias. These, however, are apt to disappoint anybody without a genius for growing things. Rubber trees too big for the plunge bath must have their leaves well wiped with white soapsuds, then with clear water. Tall palms demand the same care. All plants need a moist atmosphere, so keep water on radiators and wet sponges over registers. This is as good for people as for plants.
Many good commercial fertilizers are almost or quite odorless--ammoniated bone meal, for example. There is also a fertilizer in lozenge form which is scentless and wonderfully effective. Dissolve a lozenge in boiling water, let stand all night, then stir well and apply. Give a teacup--the same as of liquid manure--to a ten-inch pot, a tablespoonful to a four-inch one, and half that to a thumb pot. A quart will be none too much for a three-foot window box filled with soft-stemmed plants. They demand more than woody plants. Over-fertilizing is bad--it turns leaves yellow and scants bloom. Plants suffer indigestion the same as people. The remedy for it is to set them in a sink or on a grating and pour hot water through the pot until it runs out clear.
For plant lice spray thickly with strong tobacco water, leave an hour, then bathe, and dust with more tobacco. A little flowers of sulphur mixed in makes the treatment more effectual. Bathe in suds next day, and follow with a clear tepid shower.
Red spider is invisible until it appears as red blotches upon foliage. Water, and still more water, combined with smoking cures it. Shower infested plants heavily every day for a fortnight, smoke with tobacco twice a week, and keep well dusted with either tobacco or pyrethrum powder. Mealy bugs, which are white and woolly, as big as grains of wheat, should have a sulphur dusting after smoking and bathing. All the big scales, which are never very numerous unless plants are fatally neglected, should be hand-picked, then the plant well washed with whale-oil soapsuds dashed with carbolic acid. San Jos? scale, which is almost invisible but feels like fine rough sand upon the under sides of leaves and over stalks, is so deadly and difficult any plant found infested should be burned at once, the pot broken, and the earth soaked with boiling water. Cures for it there are, but too difficult for amateurs, withal somewhat dangerous.
Buy tobacco dust, make tobacco water. Pour a gallon of boiling water upon a pound of tobacco stems, let stand a day, keeping warm, strain and use. Cut the spent stems fine and mix through potting soil. Enough tobacco water to color it mixed in makes a plunge bath more effective against insects. Make smudges thus: put a few slivers of wood or half a dozen matches crossed in a small flat tin, cover with either pyrethrum powder, tobacco dust, cut up stalks, unspent, or flowers of sulphur mixed with fine damp sawdust. Light, see that there is not too much blaze, and set beneath plants. Do not make smudges big enough to give out scalding heat; better two or three small ones if heavy smoke is required.
Red rust and brown scale, the special enemies of palms, need to be washed off with strong carbolic soapsuds and a soft brush before bathing and smoking.
Leaf cuttings are interesting. Tuberous begonias root thus readily. Roses are more difficult. Peg down the leaf on wet sand under glass, make tiny cuts in it, and keep very wet in sunshine. Roots will strike from the cuts after they have calloused.
Summing up, the needs of a house plant are the same as those of a human being--air, light, food, water, cleanliness, and love.
In arranging do not mix nor crowd. Tulips with only their own stalks and leaves are wonderfully decorative, but a single other bloom makes them blotchy. No green save the featheriest asparagus fern should ever go with flowers which have handsome foliage. Lay fern fronds upon the cloth rather than disfigure with them a centerpiece of roses. Tall, stiff stems, as jonquils, narcissi, and lilies, absolutely require tall, slender holders. So do long-stemmed roses, especially the cloth-yard American Beauties. It is vandalism to put anything with them. Carnations bear massing, but the vase should have space about it. Lilies lose immeasurably by crowding. A single handsome tall stalk gives distinction, where three or four imperfect ones huddled would be commonplace.
Half a dozen roses with fine foliage will make a handsome centerpiece thus: put into a low, flat bowl, rather flaring, a woven-wire cake rack nearly the same size. Cut stalks, if long, to six inches. Use the cut-off stems to mat through the woven wire. Cover well with cold water, then arrange the flowers so each will show for itself, thrusting the stems between the wires at the proper angle. A wreath of asparagus fern laid on the cloth outside adds much more to the effect than if the green were twined among the flowers. Lacking a cake rack, flatten a big potato after peeling it, make holes in the upper surface with a wire nail, and anchor the stems in them.
Hanging-holders for trailers should have something inside--wet sand or wire net--to hold their contents stable. If a tall flower pot is set in a niche or corner, arrange a light to fall directly on it, as a fairy lamp or tall candle set upon a bracket. Beware of having too many flowers, and particularly too many sorts. Even blossoms can swear at each other--decoratively.
DISINFECTANTS, INSECTS, INSECTICIDES
Mosquitoes, say the wise men, are a local issue, bred in standing water. Wherefore leave no water standing, not even a rusty canful. Cover rain barrels with screen wire, pour crude kerosene upon ponds and pools. Begin early, before buds swell. Keep it up until frost. Examine cellars, especially barn cellars. Mosquitoes winter in them. Kill all such lingerers with thick smoke--tobacco smoke or from pyrethrum powder or by touching off a little gunpowder on a plate. Concussion makes the mosquitoes drop; sweep up and burn. Concerted action is imperative. If no man liveth or dieth unto himself, how much less so any man's crop of mosquitoes! Screens and smoke from punk sticks, pyrethrum, and dry pennyroyal are the best weapons against attack. Oil of pennyroyal likewise helps. Smear lightly on forehead, hands, and arms before going to sleep. Wilting leaves of the stately castor bean, also tender branches, hung about will drive out mosquitoes.
Fleas harbor in light litter--hay, straw, leaves, most of all shed hair. Flea-bearing animals have each their own species, which fight to the death. There are also sand fleas. Fight with fire, smoke, water, oil of pennyroyal, and fresh black-walnut leaves. Sprinkle kerosene on the litter suspected; sweep up and burn. Oil sand beds likewise, else drench with copperas water. Wet manure heaps with bichloride solution or bisulphide of mercury. Gather walnut leaves in armfuls and crowd them into places unsafe for oil or fire, as under piazzas, bungalow floors, or low sheds. Put them also about rooms where fleas abound, tied in thick bunches, and laid under beds or in closets. Gasolene where safe is a mighty help. Paint floors and baseboard with it, in default of bichloride solution. Painting with turpentine is also fairly effective. Success is impossible, however, unless the flea-fighting extends to animals as well.
Wicker clothes hampers and baskets, also baby carriages, are other strongholds. Scald hampers and baskets with boiling-hot soda water, then paint over with turpentine and a little sweet oil. Use gasolene on the carriages, applying with a thick brush rather than drenching. Repeat twice in succession, wash everything washable, and sun for a week.
Store and protect tailor suits much the same. After cleaning fold the skirt belt in six and fasten with a big safety pin to lower bend of the hanger shank, then slip on its newspaper bag and fasten. Put on the coat, then over all a bigger newspaper bag. Put inside wisps of cotton tied up in net, and wet with oil of cedar. One-piece cloth frocks should be hung the same as long coats, but have the skirts folded upward over a roll of newspapers about midway and pinned or basted to the waist. Store fur coats the same way after cleaning and sunning for several days. Put mothaline bags outside over those of newspaper and sachets of sandalwood in the sleeves. If moths have touched them before storing, lay them for several days on a slat tray in a trunk with a big sponge saturated in gasolene below. Keep the trunk outside and shut tight; gasolene vapor ought to kill the moth eggs. Clean small furs as muffs, tippets, cuffs, sun, sew up tight in old linen, sprinkle well with black-pepper tea, then wrap in newspaper, wipe out their boxes with a cloth dipped in gasolene, put in the wrapped furs, wrap boxes, and slip in paper bags, then fold and paste together the bag ends. If no moth nor egg was inside none will come out.
Fine things, such as camel's-hair shawls, moth-infested should be brushed and sunned, then wrapped in clean linen, over that thick wet towels, over that paper, and laid in a hot oven until the paper scorches. This is equal to superheated steam for moth and egg destruction, but does no harm to the finest fabric. Sew up in linen and store same as small furs. Steam is also sovereign for moths in carpets where it is unsafe to use gasolene or benzine. Cover the infected spots with thick wet towels, letting them lie a good bit over and iron first around the edges, then all over with blazing-hot irons, changing them as they cease to hiss. Repeat at weekly intervals for a month. After ironing go along the edges, wetting the carpet well with bichloride solution. A carpet to be stored should be sprayed with gasolene after cleaning, then folded over double newspapers, and sprayed at each doubling over with black-pepper tea. A long, narrow bag of moth balls in the deepest fold adds something to insect insurance. Store in light and off the floor. A discarded bed spring is fine to lay such things on. Stand rolled rugs on end if not too long, and a little apart.
Where storage space is lacking use a box couch, making sure with bichloride and gasolene that neither moth nor bed bug lurks inside. Use oil of lavender and pine twigs rather than cedar, omit the sealing with paper, but examine now and then; if you discover the enemy do not halt until he is forever and completely yours.
CARE OF PETS
Teach him obedience first of all, keep him clean and comfortable, never forget him, feed regularly, give constant access to clean water, and always sufficient exercise. Otherwise don't keep him; neglect is a refinement of cruelty.
Vary the feeding. Dog biscuit day in and out destroys appetite and thrift. Shift every other day to table scraps, oatmeal porridge, cornmeal mush cooked with broth, or raw meat and bones. Give milk almost every day--not too much. Be sparing of the raw meat; a zest suffices. Tiny house dogs ought to have light breakfasts, with a hearty dinner around two o'clock, and nothing more. Dogs running out need much more food, otherwise they get into mischief. A hearty breakfast and dinner with milk and mush at sundown is not too much. Feed all that will be eaten clean; if food is left, diminish the quantity. Leave nothing but bones where a dog may come back to it. Gnawing solid bones helps strength and spirit. Small bones of game or fowl must be given with discretion; they are crunched and swallowed so greedily the sharp ends may do harm if the stomach is too full of them.
A flea-bearing dog is intolerable. Wash in larkspur water or carbolic soapsuds, and comb while in the bath with a fine-tooth comb. Drain off water and fleas, rinse tub, rinse dog well, dry with coarse soft towels, keep muzzled until fully dry, and away from draughts. When fully dry, part hair and blow in behind the ears and along the spine flowers of sulphur mixed with larkspur powder or pyrethrum powder.
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