for it, the second time
because she brought the wrong one. The very best broom, used only on the
freshest carpets, had a red tape tied around the handle, so it would not
get mixed with the one used in the dining-room, or the rest of the
house.

Bridget helped carry out the rugs and put them over the clothes-line,
and Margaret gently struck them with the wicker beater till all the dust
was out. She knew she would injure them if she pounded as hard as she
wanted to, so she was very careful to hit them softly, but to do it so
often that they were clean when she was done. She laid them on the back
porch, and brushed them with the whisk-broom afterward until they were
like new; then they were folded and left in a corner of the dining-room,
ready to go down when the halls were done.

Her mother told her to go to the very top of the house and shut the
doors of the rooms all the way down that no dust could get in. Then they
moved the table and chair and umbrella jar out of the hall, and carried
the coats and hats to the closet, and shut them up. The upper hall was
very dark with all the doors closed which usually lighted it, so the gas
was lit, that the corners might be easily seen. Beginning at the top of
the house Margaret swept down the halls and stairs all the way, using
her long-handled brush and taking a little whisk-broom, which was also
soft for the corners and the stairs, putting the dust into the pan as
she went along, especially on the stairs.

Her mother wanted her to let Bridget wipe off the wood with oil, but
Margaret begged to be allowed to do at least one floor and the lower
stairs, so she would know just how to do it in her very own house, when
she had one! She put on a large, strong pair of gloves, put a little oil
in the dish from the bottle, dipped in her flannel cloth, and was going
to begin when her mother stopped her. "Wring out the cloth," she said;
"you are not going to wash the floor, only to wipe it." Then she went
away until this part of the work was done, so she might not step on the
wood while it was wet, and perhaps spoil the whole floor.

The work was not very pleasant, perhaps, and the oil did not smell very
nice, but it was interesting to do something new, and Margaret did not
mind it at all. She wiped up one floor and one flight of stairs, and
then wiped also the baseboard around the floor and the balustrades of
the stairs, and when she was done it all looked so fresh and nice she
wished