y as warm as the other. Put in some nice white soap and make a
good suds, and then take it out and put in the flannels; rub and squeeze
them with your hands till they are clean, but never rub them on the
wash-board, or put any soap directly on them or they will grow hard and
stiff; as soon as they are clean, wring them out and rinse them in the
second water. The reason why they must be washed and rinsed in the same
sort of water is that if they were dropped from cold to hot or hot to
cold water they would shrink all up and be spoiled at once. A little
ammonia or borax in the rinsing water makes them soft and white. You
cannot take too much care in washing flannels, for they are expensive
and easily spoiled; think how often your winter undervests are shrunken
before they are half-worn, and how once Bridget spoiled a pair of
beautiful new blankets she washed for the first time, all because the
two waters were not just alike, and because she rubbed soap on them and
made them hard and yellow. Now you may wring yours out with your hands
and hang them out on the line."

When Margaret came in again her grandmother had put the white apron into
the water the flannels had been rinsed in, for its first bath. She said
it was still fresh and warm and soapy and ought not to be wasted. The
first tubful, however, she had thrown away as useless any longer. She
told Margaret to put a little more soap on the apron and gently rub it
on the board, turning it over and over till it was clean; then she
dropped it in the wash-boiler, which her grandmother had filled with
fresh water and put on the fire. The linen was washed in the same way,
rubbing and turning it till it was all fresh, and putting it in the
boiler. The water was allowed to boil up well for a moment, the clothes
pushed down and turned around with a stick as they rose to the top. They
were lifted out with the stick into a tub of fresh, hot water, and
rinsed till all the soap was out, and dropped in a tub of cold water
which had a little blueing in it. Here they were rinsed once more, and
wrung out dry and then put out in the sunshine.

Bridget had hung a low clothes-line for Margaret between two small
trees, so she could easily reach it. The clothes-pins were in one of her
aprons, in a pocket made by turning up the bottom almost half-way to the
belt, so none could fall out. This apron was made of heavy ticking, and
none of the water reached her dress as she carried out the wet th