Little House on the Ponderosa

Part Seven

By Sara and Valerie

Morning came as usual, too early as everyone thought, and breakfast passed realtively quietly, plans made for the day, and Joe left, reluctantly as usual, for school. Albert was to ride to town with him - a list of errands in his pocket from Ben, and the letter home to mail in his other pocket.

Albert was amazed at how fast the trip to town took riding in the buckboard as opposed to on a horse. Of course, back home, Albert had only ridden to town on a buckboard, and then only for church and other such functions. He wished he could walk to town here too, but the first time he suggested it, the looks he received were so strange that he immediately decided against ever asking again.

Town was soon reached, Joe went into school (or a day of torture as he preferred to call it), and Albert quickly took care of the chores and mailing of the letter home. He then walked around a bit, trying to see if he could find some paper suitable for use in the Braille slate. Luckily he could find something that would do, though not as good as the paper Mary and Adam had given him. Albert purchased a few sheets, and returned to the ranch where he unloaded the purchases and helped Hop Sing to put them away, the other Cartwrights being out on the vast Ponderosa holdings taking care of the never-ending ranch chores.

Being laundry day, Albert started helping a grateful Hop Sing with the task of cleaning all the clothing and linens of the Ponderosa inhabitants. Albert was just grateful that the ranch hands were responsible for their own laundry. He could hardly imagine the amount of work that would entail. Then again, maybe he could. Albert thought back, while stirring the dirty laundry in the tub,

It was Monday at the blind school, laundry day, and Hester Sue was not feeling well. Ma had sent Albert over to give a hand, instead of going to school. Albert had seen Ma do laundry, and even helped her a few times, but the amount the full Ingalls' house created was nothing compared to the amount of laundry generated by a school full of children, each of whom had their own beds. It was times like this that Albert was glad Ma and Pa insisted on the children sharing beds in the loft - times like this and cold nights when any extra warmth was welcomed.

Seeing how ill Hester Sue really looked, Albert had tried to take on as much of the work as his inexperienced ability could, trying to get Hester Sue to sit and rest and just give him directions on what to do. There was so much to know - different soaks for different clothes and different stains; different temperatures of water; different soaps; different ways of washing - he was glad of her vast knowledge in these things, and his admiration of Ma grew tenfold as he worked on the laundry throughout the day.

Hester Sue had insisted on cooking, for which Albert was grateful - he preferred laundry to cooking any day. His abilities to cook alone weren't that great, though he was working on it with Ma at the restaurant and at home when he had a chance. The laundry was more than enough for him.

"Albert - enough rinse, time scrub" Hop Sing brought him out of his memories.

Albert jumped at the sound of Hop Sing's voice, and quickly stopped his rinsing of the sheets and body linen of the lye they had been soaking in since the night before. He helped Hop Sing to transfer the laundry to the next tub which had been filled with room temperature and helped Hop Sing to rub each piece with soap, rubbing the surfaces of the linen against each other to save time and effort. While this rubbing was going on, water was still boiling for the next time it would be needed during the process of laundry day. As soon as each piece was rubbed, and Hop Sing was working on the last one with a particularly stubborn stain, Albert filled the first basin (which had been emptied) with water as hot as he could stand, before filling a copper in which water with one teaspoon of soda for every two gallons of water was poured per Hop Sing's instructions. As the two men were again rubbing each piece until it was thoroughly clean, Albert was back in Walnut Grove, thinking of all of Ma's stain treatments, and wondering if he should share them with Hop Sing:

Fruit spots with cold soap, touching the spot quickly with a feather dipped in chloride of soda and immediately rinsing it.
Putting a few drops of hot water on a fresh ink stain.
Spirits of wine for wax - the only time Ma ever approved of alcohol use in the house.
And the most common one with Grace who was always spilling syrups and preserved fruits - washing the cloth in warm water with a dry cloth, and pressing the spot between two folds of clean linen.
And then there was the one that was in constant use when Albert was just learning to iron and scorching all the linen - there was a paste that he got to be an expert at making - the recipe was burned in his memory forever - boil together a half pint of vinegar, two ounces of Fuller's earth, one ounce of fowl's dung, half an ounce of sap, and the juice of two large onions. When it was a paste, he had to apply the foul smelling mix to the damaged parts and wash it one or two times.
And of course, when he was learning to cook, he had to also learn to remove grease spots from his clothes - moisten with rectified spirits of wine or spirits of hartshorn, gently scrape to remove grease, mositen with a bit more spirits and rub with a piece of clean cloth, moisten with a few more drops , rub with the palm of his hand in the direction of the cloth, and then wash in the laundry. Was he glad when he learned to cook with little splashing and agreed to the embarrassment of wearing an apron - at least Ma had made him one without lace or any frills on it.

Finally, each piece was then rinsed and rung to remove the excess water and put into the copper Albert had previously prepared, and left to boil for one and a half hours.

While the linen was boiling away, Hop Sing started on the colored muslins, cottons and linens while Albert started the preparations for a cold lunch of sandwiches of leftover meat and cheese. Albert was glad to get out of having to wash this round of laundry - he hated the having to wash one item at a time with common yellow soap and rinse it immediately in soft water in which common salt had been dissolved in the proportion of one handful to three or four gallons of water, rung gently, and hung to dry before starting the next item. Hop Sing knew of the harshness of this laundry task, and was glad when Albert finished preparing the sandwiches so Albert could take over the ringing and hanging of the items as Hop Sing finished scrubbing and rinsing it.

"Go make cold water tinged with fig-blue please," Hop Sing directed Albert, as he started the last of this load of laundry. "Linen almost ready for rinse. Also make tub clean hot water for first rinse please."

Albert obeyed, being careful not to get any of the fig-blue on his clothing. Hop Sing put up the last of the clothing to dry, and came to the stove where he carefully removed each item of linen and transferred it to the clean hot water. The two men then bent over the tub and rinsed the cloth of all soap, transferring the pieces as they were done to the tub of bluing. Finally, the items were removed from the bluing, wrung, and hung to dry.

After emptying the used tubs of the dirty water, they refilled a tub with warm water and used more yellow soap to wash the woolen articles, and then rinsed each item in cold water and hung them to dry.

Finally, the greasy cloths, which had been soaking since the night before, in a mixture of half pound of unslaked lime to six quarts of boiled water, were washed with sap and water as hot as the men could stand and rinsed in a second tub of water. Finally, the cloths were put to boil for two hours, and lunch was served to the Cartwright men who came in right on time. After a quick lunch, the dishes were washed, and Albert went out with the Cartwright men to help with the ranch chores while Hop Sing took care of the rinsing of the cloths in cold water after they had boiled for two hours, and cleaning all the laundry tools.

Hop Sing made up a healthy supper for the family, to make up for the skimpy lunch he always served on laundry day. Then he sat down to rest while doing some mending before the Cartwrights returned for supper. That is, after he made up the beds with new linens, put away the laundry tools, and weeded a bit in his little garden plot.

All too soon, in Hop Sing's mind, and way too late for Hoss's stomach, the family returned for supper. After a leisurely supper, the family sat around spending a quiet night at home as there was much work to get done currently on the Ponderosa and all were too tired to do much else. Everyone had an early night, even Hop Sing and Albert. It was Joe's turn to lay the fires to be ready for the morning, and he had to ask for help as it was his first time doing so. Albert kindly guided him in laying the few cinders at the bottom, then a few pieces of paper, followed by eight or ten pieces of dry wook,, then a course of moderate sized pieces of coal, leaving hollow spaces between for air at the centre.

Adam had watched this with interest, as his preferred method was to lay coals on the bottom mixed with a few cinders; then to put on wood and finally another layer of coals topped by paper. At a glance from his father, Adam bit back his ideas though, figuring Albert knew how to lay a fire just as well.

Soon everyone was in bed - one of the last days of an easy bedtime routine. Soon the bedwarmers would be taken out, and fall cleaning would start - one of the reasons everyone was so busy on the ranch now was to make sure they had time later in the week to help Hop Sing with the preparations for winter in the house as well as on the ranch itself.

Morning came quickly, and everyone ate a hurried breakfast at the bequest of Hop Sing, "Eat fast - must start fall cleaning today - winter come soon."

Hoss was quick to agree, "Yeah, animals are getting feisty, must soon be winter."

Joe was happy - the only one looking forward to the extra work, "So I can stay home to help?" he asked slyly.

Before Ben could answer, Hop Sing replied to Joe, "Sure, you stay, you make boot polish, blacking for stoves, make stoves black, remove rust from grates, polish steel, make furniture polish and polish all furniture in house, wash silver, take apart beds, beat feather beds mattresses and linens, clean walls, clean lamps, repair glass and china, clean marble, clean decanters, clean gilt frames, and help with ironing. Much more important than school."

Ben, having heard where Hop Sing was going, decided to let Joe decide. He figured Joe would prefer school to all that work, and he was right. Joe's face was in horror, and he quickly claimed, "No, that's okay, I just remembered I have a ... test today in school - can't miss it. I'll help when I get home," he rushed off to school.

Adam laughed, "I wish he were that eager to get away every day," then, turning to Hop Sing, "Good one."

Hop Sing looked at Adam, "Hop Sing not joke, need get all done today. Must start now. You do boot polish - need make more before do boots of family. Hoss, you do stoves and grates - need make cleaner first. Albert, you know do ironing?" At a nod from Albert, Hop Sing continued, "You do iron and starch. Hop Sing and Mr. Cartwright do beds and carpets." When no one moved, Hop Sing clapped his hands, "Move, move, chop, chop."

Everyone jumped, the Cartwrights used to Hop Sing on these twice yearly cleaning binges, and went to their assigned chores. Adam looked to Albert in the kitchen, "I don't remember how to make boot polish. Do you know?"

Albert thought for a moment. "I have it written down in a book upstairs. I'll go get it, we didn't make it often enough at home to remember it." He went upstairs and quickly returned with the book Ma had made for him of all the cleaning reciepts he would need at home. Tears came to his eyes as he thought of Ma starting housecleaning now, without his help. He quickly wiped them away as he handed the book to Adam.

"It should be in here," he said, and turned to start making the starch - a recipe he knew by heart - he put two tablespoons of starch into a large basin and poured over it a half pint of cold water, mixing it with a wooden spoon until it was smooth. Then, Albert took some of the boiling water from the stove, and poured one quart of it over the starch, stirring it the whole time. Then, he removed it from the fire, strained it into a clean basin and had it ready to use. He dipped the cloth into the hot starch, squeezed it, and dipped the cloth into another basin he had made of cold water, and squeezed the cloth dry again. Then he shook out the cloth, laid it on a clean towel, rolled it up and left it for three or four hours before ironing these clothes.

While Albert was dealing with the starch, Adam was making boot polish - he mixed together, having to ask Albert for the location of the items, four ounces of ivory-black with four ounces of treacle, then adding one ounce of sulphuric acid and stirring before adding two spoonfuls of olive oil and three half pitnts of white vinegar by degrees. Adam had found this reciept to be less work than the other one listed that required boiling together one ounce of pounded galls and one ounce of pounded log wood-chips and three pounds of red French wine until reduced to half quantity and then having to strain it, dissolve a half pound of gum-arabic into the mixture, adding half a pound of pounded lump sugar and one ounce of green copperas, and then finally mixing in three pounds of brandy until smooth. The first reciept had been much easier. Adam took the mixture up to the bedrooms and started on the boots that were available to be polished.

Hoss came wandering in while Adam was finishing up making the boot polish, "That smells awful, hope it ain't lunch," he said, wrinkling his nose.

Adam shook his head, "It's boot polish younger brother, only for use on boots," he said, as he took the polish and a cloth on his way out.

Hoss looked at Albert, "Ya know how ta make grate and stove polish?" he asked hopefully.

THE END

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