erly cleaned with a grass
broom dipped in cold water and just swished about over it, and, by going
down on my knees with a scrubbing brush and hot water and soap, and
giving a practical demonstration of how a floor should be washed, had
started her away to clean it, and judged that I might safely leave her,
to attend to the other household duties in the kitchen. I must tell you
that the day previously I had given her a practical lesson in
black-leading a stove by doing it myself while she looked on. Well,
after an hour in the kitchen I returned to see how she was getting on,
when I found to my great pleasure that not content with scrubbing the
floor, she had also attacked the stove with hot water, soap, and
scrubbing brush, with the result that my hard work of the previous day
was all undone and the whole room well sprinkled with black specks and
the stove a mass of rust. Two weeks of similar experiences finished our
acquaintance, and she gave place to No. 6. After I had spent three weeks
teaching No. 6 cooking, she quietly informed me that she was leaving at
the end of the week to take up a place as cook in Rosario, as she now
knew enough cooking for the position; so I had not only wasted all my
time in teaching her, but had paid her into the bargain for learning
enough to leave me.

The next servant, No. 7, Alexandrina, was, I think, the worst. She was a
Spaniard from Barcelona. She was an awful individual, and would insist
on wearing clothes of so light and scanty a nature that she was not
decent to have about the house; also, whenever we happened to have a
joke of any sort to laugh over at meals, she used immediately to come in
from the kitchen to see what was going on, and I had the greatest
difficulty to get her to return to the kitchen. I had to get rid of her,
because her moral reputation was anything but good, and two days in the
week she refused to get out of bed, and told me to do my own dirty work,
as she was ill; so at the end of two weeks she had to go. No. 8, Maria,
was a girl direct from the sierras, and was very stupid and silly, and
did not a single thing. One day I was buying vegetables, and she asked
me why I wanted to buy roots, and when I told her they were to eat, she
said even poor people could afford to buy meat, and she would not eat
them. One day I took this girl out with me to do some shopping, and
called on some people who had a piano. It was twilight, and someone was
playing the piano, and