or there was necessary a constant watching of the web that
effectually prevented any wandering from the business in hand, or any
flashing of looks toward the window-sill where lay the volume of
romance.

If however, a leaf from the daily life of one of our grandmothers were
accessible, it would contain the story not only of the bread-making, but
of the soap-making too. That good grandmother in her brisk and energetic
days would kindle the big fire in the back yard, bring the large kettles
up from the cellar, pack the barrel full of good hard-wood ashes and set
it on its supports, and then pour the water through it to make the lye.
She would then melt up the bones and grease saved from the winter's
supply of pork, and when the grease was tried out she would mix the lye
and the melted grease with as nice an art and with an expertness as much
the product of long experience as is the skill of the artist when he
combines his paints for a masterpiece. "With what do you mix your
paints?" inquired a young sprig of a great artist. "With brains, sir,"
was the answer. So might the housewife of a hundred years ago have said
if she had been asked how she attained her ends in the soap, the
candles, the dyes, the cakes, the baking of the beans--as critical a
piece of business as ever a Parisian chef could attempt--the turning of
the heel in stocking-making, the weaving of the colors in the carpet,
the bleaching to snowy whiteness of the linen and the woolen blankets.
"I mix all these processes with brains--with the results of experience
bought through many decades of experiment by many costly mistakes and
especially by a vivid and unfailing memory of what happened when it was
done in one special way and what happened when it was done in some other
way. By these means I gained the power to do these things and to gain
these successes. It was not so easy as it may seem." Thus might the
ghostly grandmother speak if she could come back and let her voice be
heard and then she would point to the long rows of soap-bars, put away
side by side, white or brown or yellow according to the purity of the
grease that had been used, to become dry and fit for household use for
the next half-year. Meantime the tallow would have been saved out to be
used for dipping the candles or for molding them out in the tin
candle-forms. The cotton cord would be strung through the long tin tubes
and pulled out at the lower end for the wick end; or the strings of
wic