r for her day's labors, and
washing well done requires the light of day. Set the breakfast hour
ahead half an hour and so gain a little extra time. Foresight and
extra planning on Saturday will provide certain left-overs from
Sunday's meals which can be quickly and easily transformed into
Monday's luncheon. Dinner, too, should be a simple meal, but don't add
to the other trials of the day cold comfort at meal time. A
smoking-hot dinner has a certain heartening influence to which we are
all more or less susceptible. The doors leading from the room in which
the washing is done must be kept closed to exclude the steamy odor from
the rest of the house, and the maid allowed to proceed with her work
without interruption. By eleven o'clock she will probably have reached
a point where she can stop to prepare luncheon. If the family is very
small, she can frequently do not only the washing but considerable of
the ironing as well on Monday, but that is crowding things a little too
much. After the washing is accomplished the line should be drawn at
what _must_ be done, and nothing which is not absolutely necessary put
into the few remaining hours of the day, for the maid's back and arms
have had quite enough exercise for the time being. If a laundress is
employed, the cleaning of the kitchen floor and the laundry and the
ironing should be about accomplished by night, unless it seems best to
have her clean and do other extra work after the washing is finished.
If the housewife is her own laundress, she must acquire the gentle art
of letting things go on the hard days, for she cannot possibly be
laundress, maid, and house-mother all in one, and her health and
well-being are of prime importance.

TUESDAY

The washing being done on Monday, it naturally follows that Mrs. Grundy
irons on Tuesday, after the regular routine work has been dispatched.
The first thought is the fire, if the ironing is done by a coal range.
After breakfast is prepared the fire box should be filled with coal to
the top of the lining, and draughts opened, to be closed as soon as the
surface coal begins to burn red, the top of the stove brushed off, and
the irons set on to heat. This is a good place to sandwich in a little
baking, before the fire becomes too hot for cakes or delicate pastry.
If the maid feels that she must devote this time to the preparation of
vegetables, or to other work which is liable to interfere with her work
later on, madam