my hip," said a farmer's wife in my hearing.

But try now the humblest of household duties, one that passes for just
nothing at all; try dusting. "Take a cloth, and brush the dust
off,"--stated in this general way, how easy a process it seems! The
particular interpretation, is that you move, wipe, and replace every
article in the room, from the piano down to the tiniest ornament; that
you "take a cloth," and go over every inch of accessible surface,
including panelling, mop-boards, window frames and sashes,
looking-glass-frames, picture-frames and cords, gas or lamp fixtures;
reaching up, tiptoeing, climbing, stooping, kneeling, taking care that
not even in the remotest corner shall appear one inch of undusted
surface which any slippered individual, leaning back in his arm-chair,
can spy out.

These are only a few examples; but a little observation and an
exceedingly little experience will show the curious inquirer that
there is scarcely one of the apparently simple household operations
which cannot be resolved and re-resolved into minute component parts.
Thus dusting, which seems at first to consist of simply a few brushes
with a cloth or bunch of feathers, when analyzed once, is found to
imply the careful wiping of every article in the room, and of all the
woodwork; analyzed again, it implies following the marks of the
cabinet-maker's tools in every bit of carving and grooving; analyzed
again, introducing a pointed stick under the cloth in turning corners.
In fact, the investigator of household duties must do as does a
distinguished scientist in analyzing matter,--"continue the process of
dividing as long as the parts can be discerned," and then "prolong the
vision backward across the boundary of experimental evidence." And, if
brave enough to attempt to count them, he must bear in mind that what