Helpful for Spring Days.
By M. H.
If the housekeeper wants to keep her family in good health during the spring and summer months, she must look well to all the corners of the pantry, cellar, and outbuildings, and see that all decaying vegetables or fruits are cleared away and rubbish disposed of before the warm days of summer. There should be a judicious use of disinfectants. There is nothing better than lime to use in damp, moldy places, such as the cellar, and around garbage pails. After cleaning the floors where carpets are used, fill the cracks and corners with spirits of turpentine, carbolic acid, or something else that is sure death to moths. Wash the window-glass with warm water to which a little kerosene oil has been added, without using soap, and wash outside blinds with clear water and a whisk-broom; rinse well, and stand in the shade to dry. Your lace and muslin curtains will require very little rubbing if they are put to soak over night in warm soft water to which a small cup of kerosene oil has been added; then in the morning wash them thru a strong pearline suds, and they will require no boiling unless they have been allowed to become very soiled and yellow, and they will be beautifully white and clean. In cleaning the kitchen sink, or where foul water is emptied, copperas dissolved in boiling water is a very cheap and effective deodorizer, one and one-half pounds of copperas dissolved in one gallon of water is about right. If furniture is soiled and fly-specked, it can be made to look almost like new by washing a small portion at a time with warm suds, using a soft cloth, then use another soft, clean cloth, dipped in clear, cold water, to rinse off with, then a brisk rubbing with a soft piece of chamois will dry the wood and restore the high polish without marring the surface, but the washing, rinsing and drying must be done as quickly as possible. M. H.