arranged 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.

[Illustration: The laundry.]

LAUNDRY REQUISITES

The home laundry must be well ventilated and lighted, and in the
basement if possible, for obvious reasons, the chief being the relief
thus afforded to the otherwise congested kitchen and overburdened
kitchen stove, while at the same time one other menace to health--the
steam generated by the washing and drying--is removed from the main
part of the house. It is highly essential that the laundry be properly
and completely equipped for the work of washing, boiling, drying, and
ironing. Stationary tubs are much to be desired, those porcelain-lined
being more sanitary than either soapstone, which has a tendency to
absorb grease, or wood, which absorbs the uncleanness from the soiled
linen. It is especially necessary that the tubs be as impervious as
possible when the linen is soaked overnight. If tubs are to be bought,
the paper ones have a decided advantage over the more well-known cedar
ones in being much lighter and consequently more easily handled, with
only a slight difference in price. It seems so well worth while to
minimize the strain of heavy lifting when