bed, answers
the same purpose. Nothing is more debilitating, than, in warm weather,
to sleep with a featherbed pressing round the greater part of the body.
Pillows stuffed with papers an inch square, are good for Summer,
especially for young children, whose heads should be kept cool. The
cheapest and best covering of a bed, for Winter, is a _cotton
comforter_, made to contain three or four pounds of cotton, laid in
batts or sheets, between covers tacked together at regular intervals.
They should be three yards square, and less cotton should be put at the
sides that are tucked in. It is better to have two thin comforters, to
each bed, than one thick one; as then the covering can be regulated
according to the weather.

Few domestics will make a bed properly, without much attention from the
mistress of the family. The following directions should be given to
those who do this work.

Open the windows, and lay off the bed-covering, on two chairs, at the
foot of the bed. After the bed is well aired, shake the feathers, from
each corner to the middle; then take up the middle, and shake it well,
and turn the bed over. Then push the feathers in place, making the head
higher than the foot, and the sides even, and as high as the middle
part. Then put on the bolster and the under sheet, so that the wrong
side of the sheet shall go next the bed, and the _marking_ come at the
head, tucking in all around. Then put on the pillows, even, so that the
open ends shall come to the sides of the bed, and then spread on the
upper sheet, so that the wrong side shall be next the blankets, and the
marked end at the head. This arrangement of sheets is to prevent the
part where the feet lie from being reversed, so as to come to the face,
and also to prevent the parts soiled by the body from coming to the
bedtick and blankets. Then put on the other covering, except the outer
one, tucking in all around, and then turn over the upper sheet, at the
head, so as to show a part of the pillows. When the pillow-cases are
clean and smooth, they look best outside of the cover, but not
otherwise. Then draw the hand along the side of the pillows, to make an
even indentation, and then smooth and shape the whole outside. A nice
housekeeper always notices the manner in which a bed is made; and in
some parts of the Country, it is rare to see this work properly
performed.

The writer would here urge every mistress of a family, who keeps more
than one domestic, to