kitchen apron and helped.

The house was by no means kept as it had been when Mrs. Day was
alive. For she had been a trained housewife, and she knew how to
make the domestic help do the work properly.

Now there was dust under the furniture and in the corners. Pots
and pans were grimy. Because of the rough methods of cleaning
pursued by Olga, the baseboards of the kitchen were streaked with
a "high-tide" mark of soapy water.

The stove and the gas range were smeared with grease. Scarcely a
cooking utensil but was sticky. The silver went unpolished. The
yolk of egg ("the very stickingest thing there was" Janice
declared,) could be found on the edges of plates and spoons.

And the laundry! The "wet wash," the "flat work" laundry, and
the complete service laundry were all only a little worse than
the attempts of the hired help to wash clothes properly.

Bed and table linen wore out twice as fast as it should, Janice
knew. Nobody would wash and turn socks and stockings as they
should be washed and turned. Fruit stains were never removed.

Either the girls used kerosene in boiling the clothes and the
odor of it clung to them even after they were laid away in the
bureau drawers, or she threw chloride of lime into the water
which ate holes in the various fabrics. Mother used to make
Javelle water to whiten the clothes, but Janice did not know how
it was made, nor had she time to make it.