Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 June 1886 — Bill Nye on House-Cleaning. [ARTICLE]

Bill Nye on House-Cleaning.

It is now the season of the year when we begin to spruce up around our premises and put on the airs of spring. A few welltimed remarks upon matters of g.eneral interest to housekeepers, coming from one who understands fully what he is talking about, may be beneficial. If they are received in the proper spirit my object will have been attained. All I care for is to furnish all the information I can and do all the good I can. Life is made up of these little acts of kindness, and to be well informed, and then to bo able to spread that information around all over the couutry iu such a way as to ameliorate the condition of our race, is a most fortuunte thing for the possessor, and a great boon to those who may be the recipients of that information. A good, durable whitewash may be made by slacking pure lime with salt and a light solution of water. Mix while cold, and stir gently while boiling, so that it will not burn on. Let it stand ten minutes and then carefully skim it. If it does not settle readily drop in the yelk of an egg. Do not put glue in your whitewash in order to make it stick. It is a great mistake to unite glue or baking powder with whitewash that is to be used on the walls or ceiling of a parlor. A gallon of milk will improve a large quantity of whitewash, but the cream may be taken off before the milk is used. To apply whitewash on a ceiling is not a difli-

cult process, and many people pay a professional when they might do it equally well themselves. Take a whitewash brush of about the medium height and dip it in the liquid preparation. Next carefully remove the surplus by gently pressing the brush against the side of the pari. You can then stand on the piano and apply the solution to the ceiling, a little at 'a time. If you do this, however, do not forget and step forward into the works of the piano, or set the pail on the strings while you are at work. After you have been at work for a few moments, and got your sleeves well filled with whitewash, you may empty them back into the pail, thus saving the surplus, which otherwise might be wasted. Care should be used in spattering oil paintings and bric-a-brac on the walls. Some oil paintings look better spattered with whitewash, while others do not. For this reason a keen discrimination is necessary, and ever}- man may not succeed with the brush. Whitewash may be removed from the eye by the judicious use of muriatic acid, which cuts the lime and purifies the eye itself, removing any animal substance also that may have fallen into the socket, including the eye itself. Maple sugar may be made by squeezing the juice out of the maple tree and boiling it down to about the consistency of the spring poem. The maple flavor is not injurious to the taste, and does not interfere with the popularity of this justly celebrated dope for the hot pancake. Much maple syrup and sugar grow in Vermont, and I have often wondered what becomes of this healthful beverage. Why maple syrup, made from the juice of the maple tree, should not find its way into the channels of trade is more than I can understand. A cheap and tasty window curtain may be made of the finest batiste, cut the proper length, and then decorated with painted flowers. Most any lady can readily paint these flowers in any design, or at least a great many seem to think they can. The flowers may be any variety which fancy may dictate, such as corn flowers, daisies, pond lilies, or forget-me-nots, and, if they do not look just right, they may be erased while still green by boiling the curtains in a solution of benzine and tuipentine, say two parts of the former to ninety-eight of tho latter. A design to which my attention has been recently called consists of a unique, improvised flower, composed by a youngTady who is destined to make her mark some day, unless some one interferes. She has already made her mark in several places, in fact, but these flowers certainly deserve something more than a mere passing notice. They are not copied from the monotonous and tedious uniformity so much affected in nature, but they stand out by themselves and attract the attention at once, because of their bold originality. Instead of copying nature, and thus becoming tiresome, she has constructed a flower that is a cross between a rose cancer and a ginger cooky. It grows on a perpendicular stem that looks like a dark-green hat-rack with buds on it, that remind the enraptured spectator of an aggravated felon on a dark red thumb, just peeping out of a pale green, weather-beaten bandage. Nothing so bold in conception or so utterly free from conventionality has come within my range of observation for years. The inflammatory condition of the blossom itself, the bold and mathematically perpendicular poise of the stem, and the early stages of eruption visible in the complexion of the bud, challenge the admiration of the philanthropist and the Board of Health. It stands out as n work of art, alone and safe from imitation. It certainly has never been successfully imitated by nature, and Ido not think it ever will be. While nature loves to give us freaks now and then, I may safely say that she will never furnish us with a flower like this, a flower that look,? as though it had been nailed on the parent stem with shingle-nails, while the foliage, it would seem, was cut out of sheetiron and riveted to the curtain by the hand of a master. It is one of those mock-eyed, fragile blossoms of the vale that you could successfully use iu beating out a man’s brains.