CHAPTER VII

THE LAUNDRY

What visions of dampness and disorder, of air malodorous with steam and
soap, of meals delayed and hurriedly prepared, of tempers ruffled and
the domestic machinery all disarranged and the discomforts of home
prominently in the foreground, are called forth by that magic
word--washday! And yet, maligned though it be, it really is the day of
all the week the best; for does it not minister more than any one other
to our comfort and self-respect and general well-being? It may be
"blue Monday" or blue Tuesday or blue any-other-day, but we very soon
come out of the azure when it is achieved and we find ourselves
entering upon another week's enjoyment of that virtue which is akin to
godliness. In the brief interim of upheaval we may possibly wish we
could hark back to the days of the "forty-niner," who solved his
individual problem of personal cleanliness by simply dropping his
soiled clothing into a boiling spring, where it was turned and churned
and twisted and finally flung out, a clean and purified testimonial to
Mother Nature's ability as a laundress. Or perhaps the pretty pastoral
of the peasant girl knee deep in the brook, rubbing her household linen
on the stones, hath even greater charms. But the trouble is that we
are neither "forty-niners" nor peasants, but just plain, latter-day
housekeepers with a laundry problem to face, and finding that it, like
most other problems, is best solved by attacking it boldly,
systematically, and according to certain fixed rules.