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When I set a table for comp'ny I pile on a hull lot, 'n' I find it kind o' discourages 'em.... Mis' Southwick's hevin' a reg'lar brash o' house-cleanin'. She's too p'ison neat for any earthly use, that woman is. She's fixed clam-shell borders roun' all her garding beds, an' got enough left for a pile in one corner, where she's goin' to set her oleander kag.
Some won't roll down; why, I've undressed in the dark before now, since one of 'em suddenly started rollin' up on me before I'd got into bed, and scared the wits out of me. She'll be askin' me to let her give the furnace a sponge bath next. I believe she'd use tooth-powder on the inside of a boiled egg, if she only knew how. This house-cleanin' racket is all dum nonsense, anyhow." "Why Jonathan!
He'd pick off a log here an' there an' send it afloat, an' dig out them that hed got ketched in the rocks, and tidy up the banks jest like spring house-cleanin'. If he'd hed any kind of a boss, an' hed be'n trained on the Kennebec, he'd 'a' made a turrible smart driver, Steve would." "He'll be drownded, that's what'll become o' him," prophesied Mrs.
He'd pick off a log here an' there an' send it afloat, an' dig out them that hed got ketched in the rocks, and tidy up the banks jest like spring house-cleanin'. If he'd hed any kind of a boss, an' hed be'n trained on the Kennebec, he'd 'a' made a turrible smart driver, Steve would." "He'll be drownded, that's what'll become o' him," prophesied Mrs.
"I got a few words to say to them early-bird sailors that's house-cleanin' the decks," says I. "I'm goin' to ask you to stay in the boat, Mr. Ellins, and look worried. The rest can go aboard. Captain Killam might rout out the chef and get action on an early breakfast." "Ay, ay, Captain Torchy," says Old Hickory. "Here we are, with a smiling reception committee to greet us, as usual."
Lathrop, with a start that collapsed at once into a groan; "must I lay " "Gran'ma Mullins says," pursued Susan, "'t the reason she knows so much about it all is 't she had a cousin with a broken leg once. It wa'n't no cow 's kicked him, jus' he was give to meditatin', 'n' while meditatin' durin' house-cleanin' he stepped down the wrong side o' the step-ladder.
His mouth watered at the thought of the finny beauties sputtering in the frying-pan. He noted, as he approached the house, that there was no smoke coming from the chimney. This only disturbed him in connection with the matter of supper. When he entered the gate he observed further that the window-shades had been taken down. "'Spec' de ole 'oman's been house-cleanin'," he said to himself.
There's the spring house-cleanin' and the fall house-cleanin' to be seen to, and the things to be put away from the moths; and then the gettin' ready for the association and all the ministers' meetin's; and the makin' the soap and the candles, and settin' the hens and turkeys, watchin' the calves, and seein' after the hired men and the garden; and there that 'are blessed man jist sets there at home as serene, and has nobody 'round but that 'are gal, and don't even know how things must be a runnin' to waste!
"Well, I be hanged if I can stand this sort of thing much longer. Mary, she's the deuce and all, when she once gets started house-cleanin'." "Oh dear," Mrs. Betty sympathized. "It's a bother, isnt it? But it doesn't take so long, and it will soon be over, won't it?" "Well, I don't know as to that," replied Jonathan disconsolately.
Maxwell, but I dasn't: if I didn't camp out and eat her cold victuals she'd laid out for me, it'd spoil the pleasure of house-cleanin' for her. 'Taint as though it was done with when she's finished, neither. After it's all over, and things are set to rights, they're all wrong. Some shades won't roll up.
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