Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 June 1876 — How to Clean House on Scientific Principles. [ARTICLE]

How to Clean House on Scientific Principles.

•The prayers of this corftregation are requested for young Mr. Baringer, wiio lives out on Angular street, lou see Mr. Baringer has only been keeping house about a year, and they took the carpets up yesterday for their flrat general housecleaning. Mrs. Baringer’s mother was there, because she said Olivia was a mere child at such tilings, and she didn’t believe that Aristarchus was much better, and it was better to have some one around who could manage. The young people, however, felt very confident that they had, by numerous consultations and many well-laid plans, reduced house-cleaning to a perfect science, a system that had never yet been attained by any other housekeepers, and they were all impatient to get at work and clean the whole house, from garret to cellar, and have all the pictures back on the walls and carpets nailed down again before dark. They were disgusted at the way other people cleaned house, and Olivia thought it was perfectly wonderful how Aristarchus could have such beautifully lucid and systematic ideas on matters of which most men, and she would say, most women as well, were so deplorably stupid and ignorant.

The stirring notes of the alarm clock dragged Mr. Baringer out of bed at 3:15 a. m., and he thought he felt intolerably sleepy for five o’clock, but he d'dn’t look at the clock until he was dressed, and then he was too mad to swear. He merely woke Mrs. Baringer up to tell her that he’d bet a thousand dollars some lunkheaded sucker had changed the alarm after he set it, and then he flopped down on a lounge to sleep till daylight. He awoke at half past seven o’clock, the hour at which, by their prearranged system and calculations, the two up-stairs bedroom carpets were to have been beaten and ready to put down as soon as the floors were dry. Then the kitchen fire went out twice, and they finally sat down to breakfast at half past eight o’clock, Mrs. Baringer’s mother beguiling the time during thatmatutinal meal by asking Olivia if she minded how she used to be half through her house cleaning by nine o’clock in the morning. But Mr. Baringer bore up very well under it, and immediately after breakfast, he took up the bed-room carpets. It was slow work, jerking the tacks out one at a time. Some times they flew up into his face; some times he pulled the head oft and left the tack in the floor; and when they got to be rather thickly scattered around the room be put his knee down on one occasionally and talked in a fragmentary manner about certain will privileges in connection with housekeeping which Mrs. Baringer couldn’t understand. At last he noticed that by lifting up the edge of the carpet, a gentle pull would bring up half adozen tacks in rapid succession. Happy thought. He rose to his feet, grasped the bound edge of the carpet in both hands, gave a mighty lift and a tremendous pull—k-r-r-r-r-r-t! and when the dust settled a little, Mrs. Baringer and her mother were discovered standing in the door, looking in speechless horror at Mr. Baringer, who stood like an image of despair, holding a carpet with a f ringe in one hand, and a long line of carpet binding in the other. “ How did you do it ?" shrieked Mrs. Baringer.

" How ever did you do it?” echoed Mrs. Baringer’s mother. Then they both said something about the general incapacity of a man, and Mr. Baringer endeavored to explain that in " going across the room for the tack hammer he had caught his foot in the edge of the carpet, with the result as above. And at the conclusion of his explanation, Mrs. Baringer’s mother gave a sniff that blew dust out of the carpet, and there was a general expression of incredulity on the faces of the congregation. It was a long time before they got- the carpets down in the yard, and on the line. Then Mr. Baringer approached and smote the first carpet with a long stick and the next instant he was feeling his way out oj a dense cloud of dust, coughing, sneezing and snorting, and wildly gasping for air. He went around on the other side and as he aimed a terrific swipe at the carpet he struck the clothes-prop, and his nerveless arm stung and tingled to his neck, while his wail was heard down to the city building. Then he got at it again and found that his stick was too light, and he took another one. A few strokes suflieed to convince him that it was too heavy and he tried a lath. That broke in two at the first blow and he tried an apple-switch,

but it was too limber. He finally gave up the idea of beating any more, and palled to-Mrs. —Bar in ger thaUthe. carpet was ready to be shaken, Mrs. Baringer, with her head in an apron, came out. They gathered the carpet, and Mr. Baringer got the start of her and shook a roll clear down to her hands, exploding in a snap and a volcano of dust in her face. Then she dropped the carpet and sneezed and protested. , - “You shook too quick, deary,” she said. “But you said you were ready-, sweety,” replied Air. Baringer. “But you shouldn’t be so rough, lovey,” she protested. “ Well, I have to shake hard to get the dust out, ducky,” he insisted. “ Well, you needn’t be so cross about it, deary.” she said. “Oh, well,” hesaid, “you must expect hard work house-cleaning days, and you mustn’t lose your temper, sweety.” “It isn’t me that gets cross and jerks peoplerarpdnd, lovey,” she said; “it’s you.” ~ *■ “I never jerked y-ou around,” he re'V --. “Why, Aristarchus Baringer!” exclaimed his wife, making very large eyes at him and speaking in .triggs of the greatest amazement; “and maybe you didn’t tear the carpet up stairs,either.”

“ I wish your old carpet was in Halifax,” he said, savagely. “ Pick up tha end, and let’s rjet through with it. This ■is sweet worlWor a dry-gdods salesman, anyhow! Ready?” “No,” she snapped, “I ain’t ready. Now wait. There. Hold on now. Don’t be in such a hurry. Now!” And the next irtatant the carpet was snapped out of her hands, and it did seem as though her fingers had gone with it, while Mr. Baringer, pretending not to know that it had fallen from her fingers, kept-on shaking violently at his end, fill-, ing thetair with dust and grit. At this juncture Mrs. Barifiger’s ; mother, who had been a quiet spectator of the carpetshaking scene, approached and called him to desist. Then she gathered up the vacant end of the “Aristarchus,” she said, kiifdly, but firmly, “ Olivia is not strong enough for such work.” Then she added: “ Have you got a good hold, Aristarchus?” And Mr. Baringer said he had. “Don’t let go, then, Aristarchus Ready.” ' They lifted their arms high in the air, ’ and Mr. Baringer is undecided yet which part of him started first. He walked up the whole length of that carpet on his hands, and then he fell over the edge arid bange'd along the Walk on his hands and knees until he reached the front fence, through which he plunged his head and would have gone on through, but for his shoulder patching against the gate-post. ' The carpets did not go down yesterday, nnd a big Irishman has been engaged to come and welt the fuzz dff them to-mor-Tbw,”3rfrßa?lngef diaVliig pfivateljr and with some asperity informed his wife that he would rather sleep and eatin dirt

up to his eyes, than ever again to sweep, beat or shake the lightest carpet ever trodden by the foot of man.— Burlington __