=To Wash Dishes.= Mixing-bowls, double boilers, and all dishes which for any reason have food clinging to them, should be put to soak in cold water as soon as used. If this has not been done, attend to it before making other arrangements for washing the dishes. See then that the dish-pan or tub, dish-cloths, and sink are perfectly clean; if not, make them so with hot water and soap. Wash the dishes in hot soapy water, not hot water alone, even if they are not greasy, and rinse them in a pan of clear hot water. Take glassware, silver, and china first, then steel knives and forks, granite-ware, kettles, tins, etc. When the dishes are finished, wash thoroughly and dry, or put to dry, both the wiping-towels and the dish-cloths; unless they are white, clean, and sweet when done, boil them in clear soapy water until they become so, changing it frequently if it looks dark. =Sweeping and Dusting.= Sweep slowly and carefully, holding the broom close to the floor, so that the dust shall not be thrown into the air. _Burn the dirt_; never allow it to be thrown into a box or into the coal-hod. Dusting should be done with a damp cloth, wiping up the dust, not brushing it into the air, from which it will settle upon some other object. When you have finished, wash the duster and hang it to dry. Never use a feather duster. With it one simply brushes the dust from one place only to have it settle in another. BILLS OF FARE Mrs. Abel says, in her chapter headed "Bills of Fare": "The following bills of fare are made out for a family of six persons, consisting of a workingman, two women, and three children between the ages of six and fifteen. "The amount of food, and the proportion in which the great food principles are represented, approximate to that which is demanded by standard dietaries for such a family.... "To keep us in health and in working order, we ought to have a certain amount of what is best furnished by meat, eggs, milk, and other animal products, and we must also have fats, as well as what is given us in grains and vegetables." The following bills of fare are made up with this object in view: For a family of six; average price, seventy-eight cents per day, or thirteen cents per person. SATURDAY, MAY _Breakfast._ _Dinner._ _Supper._ Soda-biscuit. Bread Soup. Browned Flour Soup Sugar-syrup. Beef-neck Stew. with Fried Bread. Coffee. Noodles. Toast and Cheese. Cream-of-rice Pudding. The recipe for =Soda-biscuit= will be found on page 242. =Bread Soup.= _Ingredients_, dry bread broken in small bits, water, salt, pepper, onion, and a little fat. Soak the bread in the water for a few minutes. Fry the onion, sliced, in the fat, and add it to the soup, with the salt and pepper. Or, use milk instead of water, and toasted or fried bread. Boil slowly for five minutes to perfectly soften the bread. =Beef-neck stew=, page 186.