=Precautions against fire.=--So many disastrous fires occur as a result of a careless act that we need to train ourselves in caution. The matches used should be of the safety type. They should be blown out, never shaken, and never thrown into a basket of papers. When matches are used, always have a small fire-proof receptacle in each room. Smokers are often careless in regard to their matches, cigars, and pipes. Be careful in summer to see that a breeze cannot blow some light curtain over a candle or lamp.
If a kettle of fat catches fire, pour on sand, but never water. As a general rule, extinguish a flame by covering it rather than by throwing on water.
If clothing catches on fire, wrap a rug or any large woolen article tightly around the body. To rush into the air is fatal.
If a towel or ap.r.o.n catches fire, roll it up quickly before the blaze spreads. This can be done without injury to the hands.
Small fire extinguishers are not expensive. Most kinds contain a solution of soda and a bottle of sulphuric acid which mix when the extinguisher is inverted, and throw out a stream of water charged with gas from a small hose. This works well just as a fire starts. Extinguishers arranged to throw a stream of carbon tetrachloride are also on the market.
=Repairs.=--Too often in planning the budget, and the daily work, the housekeeper forgets to allow for the constant wear and tear on the house itself, and its furnishings; but to preserve the beauty and usefulness of both the house and furniture, as much thought and time are necessary as for the repair of clothing. In addition to the care and cleaning, there must be a constant attention to small repairs.
_Inspecting and reporting._--Have a series of cards in the card file, or pages in the notebook, where needed repairs may be jotted down. Have a regular time for looking over different parts of the house; and give a brief daily look as you pa.s.s from room to room. Each member of the family should be asked to report whatever goes wrong in his province,--a leaky faucet, a squeaky door, or broken castor, a tear in a curtain, a shade roller that does not work.
For large repairs, like a leak in the water or waste system or shingle on a roof, a trained worker is needed; but for small repairs a special worker from outside is too expensive, and there needs to be a handy person in the house, who can put in a screw, and use a monkey wrench, touch up the paint or varnish, or mend the wall paper. It is pleasant work, and in these days when schools teach so much handicraft, there should be some one in the family glad to do it.
_A repair outfit._--Have a shelf somewhere for the repair "kit." Look at the woodwork of your house, and see what is needed; whether paint, or varnish, an oil mixture or stain, or all of them. Have on hand a small can of each, and bottles of alcohol, turpentine, and glue. Two or three paint brushes of good quality and of different sizes are needed. Keep a bundle of wall paper including pieces of all the patterns on the walls. A box of tools is needed, including a hammer, gimlet, screw driver, monkey wrench, a sharp knife, with boxes of nails and screws of mixed kinds and sizes such as may be found at any hardware store.
EXERCISES
1. What are the reasons for keeping an inventory of household goods?
2. How should winter garments be cared for in summer?
3. Obtain a price list and estimate the cost of an equipment of brooms and cleansing materials.
4. What are the advantages of a vacuum cleaner over a broom?
5. What are the best methods of removing dust? Of cleaning paint and woodwork and gla.s.s?
6. How are metals cleaned?
7. What are the most important points in caring for a bedroom?
8. What is the order of work in a thorough cleaning of a room, and why?
9. How should plumbing be cleaned?
10. Is the old-fashioned order of work the best now--Monday, washing; Tuesday, ironing; Wednesday, mending; Thursday and Friday, cleaning; and Sat.u.r.day, baking?
11. How may all the family help to some extent in household work?
12. Can you plan the best order of work for a day for the home worker who has no help but some one to wash and iron?
13. What are the dangers from different household insects?
14. If a kerosene lamp suddenly blazes up, what should you do?
15. What is the principle involved in putting out a fire?
16. What are some of the simple methods of fire prevention?
17. What simple repairing can be done by members of the family?
CHAPTER XXIII
LAUNDERING AND DRY CLEANSING
"Washing is a necessity, ironing a luxury." This terse sentence expresses very clearly the relative value of the two large divisions of the laundering process. The thorough washing of clothing is a most important branch of household sanitation, upon which the health of the family and of the whole community depends, for disease is communicable by means of soiled garments and those that are imperfectly cleansed in unsanitary houses and possibly in commercial laundries. The ideal city will have many large and spotlessly clean laundries, where skilled labor intelligently directed will insure clothing as clean as it can possibly be made.
There is an aesthetic element in laundering as well, for good washing methods give a tinted white to fabrics that it is a pleasure to see, and ironing makes a smoothness that is pleasant to the touch, and brings out beauty of design, as in damasks and embroideries. There is an economic feature, too, in that poor and rough methods of work in both washing and ironing injure fabrics and shorten their term of usableness.
"Washing Day" has an ill repute that it does not deserve, for laundering is a science and an art that it is a pleasure to practice, if one has skill. Make it one of the household arts which you must carefully study, and you will find it pleasurable as well as necessary.
=Soil in garments.=--The dust and dirt of the street and house that soil our garments contain inorganic particles of earth, lint from textiles, organic matter from animals and human beings, and also bacteria. The material from our bodies consists of particles of skin, skin secretions, and bacteria, which are collected in underwear and bed linen and towels.
Spots of grease and stains may fall upon our outer clothing, and fruit stains affect table linen in particular.
=Cleansing agents.=--Water is the great cleanser, and if it is not available in abundance and used freely, the washing is a failure. All other agents are merely aids to the water or subst.i.tutes for it. In primitive outdoor methods, still largely used in some countries, the flowing water is the only agent, and yet the result is fairly good. We aid the process by the use of soap or washing powders or ammonia.
The air and sun are also purifiers, and clothing should be exposed to their action for drying whenever possible. There is a sweetness in air and sun-dried clothing that no artificial drier seems to give. Probably there takes place some oxidation of impurities present in very small amount and, moreover, any bacteria still clinging to the fabric may be killed by the sun"s rays. Heat is a purifier, oily substances being more readily removed by hot water and soap than by cold; and the boiling temperature of water renders bacteria and organic matter harmless.
Some mechanical action that forces water through the fabric is necessary, and the method of accomplishing this is one of the important problems in laundering. We seek a method that will be thorough, that will not injure the fabric, and that will economize the muscular energy of the worker.
Beating, pounding, and rubbing are the old methods, the use of a machine the new, and that is the best machine that meets all the requirements of the properly conducted washing process as described below.
The _water_ should be soft and clean. Rain water is a perfectly soft water and excellent for laundering if the cistern is kept clean, and free from the dust of the roof. Lake, river, and well water are sometimes soft.
Strainers may be used on the faucets if at any time the water from these sources becomes muddy. (See Chapter V for discussion of soft and hard water.)
Hard water prevents the soap from lathering, and this must be counteracted for laundering. _Temporary hardness_ is removed by boiling. _Permanent hardness_ is not affected by boiling and can be overcome only by the addition of some substance like ammonia, borax, or soda. Only enough of these should be used to allow the soap to do its work, since they may injure fabric and the skin of the worker.
_Soap_ is the most useful of the cleansing agents added to water. It may have been accidentally made in the first place by some housewife who put a greasy pot to soak with a solution of lye made from the ashes of her hearth fire. Heat and alkali break up the fat into two parts, glycerin and a fatty acid. The fatty acid combines with the alkali, giving soap, and the glycerin remains free. Both animal and vegetable fats are used, and different forms of alkali, usually potash or caustic soda, the former for soft, the latter for hard, soap.
In these days soap is much better made in the factory than it can be at home. In the factory the alkali is proportioned by weight, so that as little free alkali is left as possible. Such a soap is called "neutral."
Resin is added, in yellow laundry soaps, and is supposed to aid in forming suds. When there is an excess of resin, as in some cheap soaps, it is hard to rinse out and colors the clothes. Borax is sometimes added to soap, and is useful when the water is hard, but not necessary in soft water. Naphtha or some other petroleum oil in soap increases the cleansing property of soap, by dissolving fatty or greasy impurities.
A _soap solution_ is essential for use in the boiler and in washing machines and is useful for rubbing on spots before washing.
To make soap solution, cut up the soap and dissolve it in hot water, one pound soap to one gallon of water. It should be strong enough to jelly when cool, and may be kept in jars ready to use. Even more convenient are soap chips which come by the barrel, but may be bought at pound rates.
=Bleaching and bluing agents.=--The sun, as it bleaches white fabrics, may be counted in this group. Chemical bleaches are used to whiten clothes, but should not be resorted to unless clothes are yellow from poor washing, as in the end they weaken the fabric. Commercial laundries sometimes use an excess of acid for this purpose. Cream of tartar is a harmless bleach.
Javelle water is another household bleach, chloride of lime being the bleaching substance. This is also a good disinfectant.
_To use cream of tartar._--Dissolve cream of tartar in hot water, 1 teaspoonful to each quart. After the yellowed fabrics have been thoroughly washed and rinsed, lay them overnight in a solution of this strength, rinse, blue, and dry in the morning.
_Javelle water._--1/4 pound chloride of lime, 1 pound sal soda, 2 quarts of cold water. Dissolve the chloride in half the water cold, and the sal soda in the other half boiling. Stir together thoroughly, allow the mixture to stand several hours, pour off the clear water with care, and bottle it. Use a tablespoonful of the solution to a gallon of water, and heat the yellow fabric in this mixture after thorough washing, for half an hour, not allowing the temperature to rise above 100 F. Rinse very thoroughly before bluing and drying.