"Remember to wash out your refrigerator at least three times a week.
This is very important, indeed; if you forget it somebody in the family
may be very ill. If you have not time to wash it out and still sweep the
parlors, let the parlors go!"

Just as they finished they noticed the garbage pail outside the door and
took a look into it. It was nearly empty, so Margaret got a dipper of
boiling water and a handful of washing-soda and put them in, as her aunt
told her, to keep the pail from getting greasy and sour. "The better the
housekeeper the less she has in her garbage pail, and the cleaner it is
kept," she said, as she put back the cover.

"We have still one pleasant thing and one disagreeable thing to do
before we are done this morning; which would you rather take first?"
asked the aunt.

Margaret said she thought she would keep the pleasant one to finish off
with.

"Then get a newspaper," was the reply, "and spread it over the table,
first of all."

"That's the way most kitchen lessons seem to begin," said Margaret, as
she took one from the paper drawer. "'First get a newspaper.'"

"And very sensible, too," smiled her aunt. "It saves so much work if
everything can be carried away and the table left clean at once. You may
go to the closet and bring the box of things for the lamps while I bring
the large one from the sitting-room."

The box proved to have in it two cloths, one of flannel, and a white one
free from lint; a pair of scissors; a round brush with a wire handle,
and a piece of soap.

The lamp was taken to pieces, filled with kerosene from the can kept in
the cellar-way, and wiped off nicely. The charred wick was rubbed and
trimmed, and the corners rounded a little to keep them from throwing
the flame against the sides of the chimney and breaking it. The glass
chimney was put in a basin of warm water with soap-suds, and washed with
the flannel cloth, rubbed with the round brush, and wiped dry with the
white cloth. Whenever a new wick was put in a lamp, Margaret was told,
the burner should be boiled with washing-soda to free it from clogging
oil, and if a wick ever smelled it was to be cooked a few minutes in
vinegar and dried, and it would then be all right again. When the lamp
was put back they gathered up the things used, and put the newspaper
with the kindling for the kitchen fire.

"Now for the pleasant thing," Margaret said, as she carried away the
oil-can and washed her hands. "I don't thi