The cellar proved to be rather chilly, but they stayed long enough to
learn a good many things about it. There were two rooms, one for the
coal and wood, and one for vegetables and preserved fruit and such
things. All these, Margaret was told, must be looked after. The fuel
room should have several bins, one for kitchen coal, one for furnace
coal, and one low one for wood; it was untidy to leave any of these
lying in heaps on the floor. The vegetables had to be constantly looked
over for fear any should decay, and so bring sickness to the family, who
might never know why it came. The preserves must be examined, lest any
begin to leak, and the whole place must be kept cool and dry by having a
window open a little at the top, with a good bolt or a few nails to keep
any one from opening it from the outside. The windows did not need to be
washed quite as often as those up-stairs, but they should never be left
grimy and dirty. "A good housekeeper always keeps watch of her cellar,"
said the grandmother. "She sees that the air is fresh, the floor clean,
the walls free from cobwebs, and that no rubbish is allowed to
accumulate. The wood and coal must not get too low in the bins; the
grocer's boxes must be kept chopped into kindling, and, most important
of all, every cellar should have a good coat of whitewash every spring
to make it all sweet and clean."

Margaret said she thought she knew this part of her lesson now, and that
cellars were not so very interesting.

"Well, suppose we take the attic next," grandmother said, smiling; "that
is, if you are really certain you can keep your own cellar clean and
nice when you have one." Margaret promised to try.

The attic was a nice, dusky room, with some old furniture, trunks, and
boxes, rolls of carpet, and bags of pieces. It had a dry, comfortable
sort of smell in the air. "I like attics," said Margaret. "I mean to
have a great big one some day, all full of interesting things, like the
girls in story-books."

"The more things in your attic the more trouble you will have to be a
good housekeeper," said her grandmother. "Let us sit down on this sofa
for our lesson, and suppose that was really your own attic. What would
you do to put it in order and keep it so!"

"Well," said Margaret, thoughtfully, "I'd move everything out and sweep
it; then I'd brush off the walls and wash the windows; then I'd arrange
things--and then it would be done."

"Oh, no!" her grandmother replied. "Th