"Many people do not soak clothes over night, and it is not necessary to do so, but I am going to teach you to do it because it is the easiest way. If you are ready, look over the white things first for spots. Coffee, tea, and fruit stains must have boiling water poured through them till they disappear. Rust must be rubbed with lemon juice and salt and laid on a new, shiny tin in the sunshine till the spot disappears; some people use acid, but this is apt to eat the cloth. Blood stains must be soaked in cold water; get the handkerchief you had on your cut finger and put it in this pail. Now wet the white things only, rub on a little soap, and get out every spot; put them in nice rolls, the soapy side turned in, and lay them all in the warm water in these two tubs, clothing in one, and table and bed linen in the other--never put the two together. Do not soak the flannels or they will shrink; nor the colored things, or they will fade; nor the stockings. "The handkerchiefs, well soaped and rubbed and squeezed, go into a pail of water all alone with a tablespoonful of kerosene to kill any germs of cold in the head which may be in one of them, and would spread to all the handkerchiefs. The oil boils out and does not smell after they are ironed. That is all for to-night, but be up bright and early in the morning, for only lazy people hang out their washing at noon." The next day Margaret came into the laundry with her biggest apron and her sleeves rolled up and pinned to her shoulders, ready for work. "Flannels first," she was told. "Draw two tubs of warm water, one just exactly as warm as the other. Put in some nice white soap and make a good suds, and then take it out and put in the flannels; rub and squeeze them with your hands till they are clean, but never rub them on the wash-board, or put any soap directly on them or they will grow hard and stiff; as soon as they are clean, wring them out and rinse them in the second water. The reason why they must be washed and rinsed in the same sort of water is that if they were dropped from cold to hot or hot to cold water they would shrink all up and be spoiled at once. A little ammonia or borax in the rinsing water makes them soft and white. You cannot take too much care in washing flannels, for they are expensive and easily spoiled; think how often your winter undervests are shrunken before they are half-worn, and how once Bridget spoiled a pair of beautiful new blankets she washed for the first time, all because the two waters were not just alike, and because she rubbed soap on them and made them hard and yellow. Now you may wring yours out with your hands and hang them out on the line."