p. 10 | FILLING IN THE CHINKS

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 10, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 37.

FILLING IN THE CHINKS.

“O, I just fill in the chinks.” The girl laughed as she said it, but her mother added quickly:—

“The chinks are everything. You haven’t the slightest idea what a help she is and what a load it lifts from my shoulders, this ‘filling in of the chinks,’ as she calls it.”

The busy woman spoke warmly as she smiled happily at her daughter.

“You see, when she was through school, there didn’t seem to be anything definite for her to do. Her father and I wanted her at home, for a while at least, before she undertook to go out into the world.

“Our one servant does all the heavy work, of course, and I am kept pretty busy with the children, and so she looked around and noticed the little things that should be done to keep a home neat and orderly, and which a servant never does and I have very little time for. The left-overs, I always called them—O, but it is such a comfort to have them done.”

“And what are they?” I asked of the girl, as she sat pulling out the edges of a lace mat and making it look fresh and fluffy.

“O, I don’t know,” she answered. “There are so many of them, and such little things, you know.”

She spoke almost apologetically.

“Let me see. Well, I began in the parlor, of course. All girls do at first. There were some little silver vases that were seldom shined. I kept those bright, and the silver on the afternoon tea-table. You have no idea how much it tarnishes. And the little cups always dusted, and the doilies fresh and clean, and the tidies also. Really, that is a work by itself, and mother used never to have time. Then the picture moulding. The brass hooks that hold the picture cords were never dusted. I kept those clean.

Then in the bedrooms. I look out that there are fresh towels on the bureau and stand, and that the hair receivers are not jammed full.

“It is really too funny the way I found them packed when I first began. And the soap dishes clean and fresh soap when it is needed, and dusters in their bags, and waste-baskets emptied. O, yes, and buttons

sewed on to the shoes. I believe I sew on a half-dozen every day.

“I go over the house daily, in the morning, right after the children are sent to school.

“I begin by picking up the things they have dropped, and putting them in their proper places.

“Then I go into the library, sharpen the pencils that need it; fill the ink-well; see that the pens in the penholders are good, the blotting pad not too old, the waste-basket empty; and then I go through the other rooms, and, if you’ll believe me, I always find something to be done, something aside from the regular work of clearing up, sweeping, or bed-making; these belong to the girl to do.

“You see, I only do the little things that get left for the general cleaning, or are neglected altogether.

“It is very pleasant, and helps—at least mother says that it does.”

“Yes,” said the mother, “and no one else knows what a difference it does make to have those chinks filled.”—Good Housekeeping.