Trials of Carpet-Making

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:

OSKALOOSA, Mar. 31, [18]74.

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.