r. I am delighted
to see that you have no dress or petticoats lying around this morning
from last night. Too many girls do not hang them up at once when they
take them off, but leave them over a chair, and put them away in the
morning, perhaps creased with lying. It is much better to put them away
as you take them off. Open your windows, next, top and bottom, and set
the closet door open, too, and then we will go to breakfast."
"Why do I open the closet door?" asked Margaret, laughing at the idea.
"Because your closet needs airing just as much as your room does; more,
indeed, because its door has been shut all night, while the fresh air
has been blowing into the room through the open windows. If you did not
air it every day, it would soon have a close, shut-up odor, and perhaps
your dresses would have it, too, which would certainly not be nice at
all. It has to have fresh air to keep it sweet. Now we will shut the
door of your room as we go, for the cold wind would chill the halls, and
besides, the sight of a disordered bedroom is not attractive."
After breakfast Margaret went up-stairs and shut the windows of her
room, and a little later, when it was warm, she and her aunt put on
fresh white aprons and went in and began to put it to rights.
One stood on each side of the bed and turned the mattress from head to
foot; the next day, Margaret was told, it must be turned from side to
side as well as over, to keep it always in good shape. If this was not
done constantly there would soon be a hollow place in the middle, which
would never come out, and the mattress would be spoiled. They laid over
it the nice white pad which kept it looking always new and clean, and
then the lower sheet, the wide hem at the top and the narrow one at the
bottom, the seams toward the mattress, and tucked it smoothly in at the
sides.
"Some people are careless about these little things," said the aunt as
they worked. "They think it does not matter if there is a hollow in the
mattress, or whether they have a cover for it or not. They mix the top
and bottom sheets, and never know which is which; but you are going to
do things the right way, which is always the easiest in the end."
They laid the upper sheet on with the wide hem at the top, as before,
but with the seam up instead of down. Margaret wondered at this, but was
told that this way made the two smooth sides of the sheets come next to
the one who slept between them, and at the same
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