s never fit for floors, though often used.
It's my conviction that spruce floor-boards, two inches thick and one
and a half wide, would contrive to curl up at the edges. If you have
good floors, furthermore, you will not feel obliged to cover them at
all times and at all hazards. I remarked that the houses built when
the good time coming comes will not be all alike. I can tell you
another thing about them, though you may not believe it; there will be
no wool carpets on the floors,--no, nor rag ones either. The people
will walk upon planks of fir and boards of cedar, sycamore from the
plains and algum-trees, gopher wood and Georgia pine, inlaid in forms
of wondrous grace. There will be no moth or _dust_ to corrupt and
strangle, neither creaks nor cracks to annoy. It's a question among
theologians whether the millennium will come "all at once and all
o'er," or gradually. I think the millennial floors must be introduced
gradually,--say around the edges,--for I do not suppose you or any one
else in New England will give up the warm-feeling carpets altogether.
And yet one who has seen a carpet of any sort taken and well shaken,
after a six months' service, will hardly expect added health or
comfort from its ministration. If your observation of this semiannual
performance isn't sufficient, and you are curious to know how much
noisome dirt and dust, how much woolly fibre and microscopic animal
life, you respire,--how these poisonous particles fill your lungs with
tubercles, your head with catarrh, and prepare your whole body for an
untimely grave,--you can study medical books at your leisure. They
will all tell the same story, and will justify my supposition that you
will cover the floors with _dirty_ carpets. Doubtless they will be
shaken and "whipped" (they deserve it) two or three times a year, and
swept, maybe, every day. The shaking is very well, but though it seems
neater to sweep them, yet for actual cleanliness of the whole room,
carpet and all, I suppose it would be better at the end of six months
if they were swept--not once! For whatever can be removed from a
carpet by ordinary sweeping is comparatively clean and harmless,--that
which sinks out of sight and remains is unclean and poisonous.

[Illustration: DUST TO DUST.]

There are two ways of lessening the evil without exterminating the
cause. One is to shut the room, never using or opening it, except for
the spring and fall cleaning; the other is to lay the carpe