Margaret looked disgusted. "We don't have bugs in our beds," she said,
indignantly. "Nice, clean people never do."

Her grandmother smiled. "Even a very nice, clean person may bring home a
bug from a crowded street-car," she said. "And if it happens to be on a
coat which is thrown on a bed, it may crawl quickly into a corner
without anybody's seeing it, and presently the bed will have half a
dozen bugs in it. Of course a good housekeeper would never let them stay
in a bed a single minute after she finds out they are there, and she
always hunts occasionally, at least as often as every few months, so
that she may be perfectly sure everything is all right. If ever you
think you are perfectly safe, my dear, and do not look to make sure, you
will be the very one to be surprised some day! You must often put the
mattress on a sheet on the floor, and look all along the edge and in the
corners and under the ties. The spring must be painted with turpentine,
especially in the hidden places, and so must the corners of the bed. It
is a good plan to use only metal beds with iron spring frames, for bugs
like wood much better; they seldom stay where there is none. If you ever
find a bug, or the tiny black speck it makes, get the white of an egg
and beat it with a teaspoonful of quicksilver, and paint everything with
it, and you will have no more trouble.

"After the bed is cleaned and taken down, the floor is to be swept twice
over, and the carpet taken away; the paper under it may be swept clean
in the yard. The walls are to be swept down with a soft brush, or a
broom covered with a duster. The closet is to be emptied entirely, the
drawers, shelves, floor, and baseboard washed well, and the closet floor
washed also. The windows must be cleaned and all the woodwork washed in
warm water with a little nice soap, and rinsed well. When all is fresh
and the floor dry, the paper can be laid, the carpet put down, the
furniture wiped again, the bed put together and made, the pictures hung,
and the fresh curtains put up, if they are used in summer, and the room
will be thoroughly done. All rooms are alike in the way they are
cleaned. First do the closets, remember, all the drawers as well as
shelves; then, shutting this up, empty the room, and do walls, floor,
paint, and windows. If there is a matting down, this must be wiped off
with salted water, which freshens it. Now I think we can go down to the
cellar for the next part of the lesson."