The rag-carpet problem has been a source of trouble to many housekeepers, and the subject of much newspaper talk. A correspondent gives an account of his trials as follows:
As sure as Spring-time cometh, just so sure cometh
house-cleaning in all well-regulated families, with its healthful, romantic
delights. Preparatory to this renovating process, many good wives bethink them
how to adorn and beautify the domicil, without calling very loudly on the
family purse, these hard times—well knowing that an attractive home circle
will, in a manner, cure this staying out-late business. A pretty new carpet,
they say, with many bright colors, gives a cheerful appearance to the sitting
room, and, as in-grain costs a pile of money these times, a substitute can be
made in the shape of rag carpets, which, with plenty of bright rags, are very
pretty. It is not much trouble to make them, and if the rags are not
sufficiently bright, it isn’t much trouble to color them, and the entire cost
will be only a trifle.
So thought and argued a lady on Liberty street. Her husband
is particularly fond of bright colors—especially red—and so the carpet of
dazzling hues was at once decided upon, and the work commenced, on a basis of
26 pounds of rags for the required number of yards. The family wardrobe and
rag-bag, including the husband’s last shirt, were exhausted, and two weeks’
steady labor showed a deficit of about ten pounds, and the husband went about
the streets mourning and shirtless. Then another week was spent, overhauling
neighbors’ rag-bags; and when the 26 pounds were secured at last there was an
alarming deficiency in red, “yaller,” green and black.—Woman’s inventive genius
comes to the rescue and demonstrates the fact that red flannel can be bought at
35 cents per yard, good enough for carpet-rags, and the other colors could be
easily made with “jack-oak” bark, log-wood, vitriol, indigo and alum.—Whereupon
the Rev. George Miller was employed as a “jack-oak” expert, and the stock in
trade of the drug stores drawn upon for the other coloring matter, and on the
morning of the next day the coloring process began.
Instead of supper that evening her husband found the wife of
his bosom seated on a pile of rags, her face bearing all the hues of the
rainbow, smiling like Patience on Distress, and pointing to another pile,
which, having been subjected to the bark process, ought to have been “yaller,”
but persisted in being about the color of a sun-burnt bird’s-nest. Then the
alum water was suggested and had the desired effect. The first day’s setting
sun gleamed upon the desired color.
The second day was devoted to the black, and when the shades
of evening were gathering, the lady, happy in the thought of a great deed
accomplished, threw 14 gallons of log-wood and vitriol on the ground, in just
the right place to mingle with 20 feet of water in the well!
The third day dawned clear and bright, and revealed, oh,
horrors! about one-half of the rags which she had over-looked and forgotten to
color! “Jack-oak” bark, Geo. Miller and all the other coloring matters were
again in demand, and procured. The next day saw the work about finished, when
an unfortunate movement of the almost exhausted lady upset the cradle, and
“dumped” that four-months-old baby into about half a barrel of log-wood. He was
fished out and stripped of his best and only change of baby clothes, which were
thrown into the pile of black. The hair that was once red was red no more!
[The husband] engaged in doing a sum in arithmetic. His
figures demonstrate that a rag carpet can be made, with lots of bright colors,
at a cost of $1.52 per yard, including jack-oak, George Miller and other
dye-stuffs, red flannel, shirts, babies, and three days’ work drawing twenty
feet of “pizened” water from the well.
—LEUMAS
[Published in the Oskaloosa
Independent, Saturday, April 24, 1874.]
This story appeared in “Yesteryears” in October 1994.
