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Show the stove and also filled with water from the hydrant. When the water was hot, a certain amount of lye and ammonia were added to bleach the white clothing and linens as they boiled steadily away. Then every item was lifted with a smooth stick for transferring to a tub, or the washer. The stick was usually an old pitchfork or broom handle. Sorted clothing, tubful by tubful, was turned in the old wooden washer allowing each load a given length of time. Young arms were well suited to perform the back and forth motions (or the later round and round motions) monotonously and endlessly, while grownups lifted and handled the water and clothing from washer to boiler, and tubs. The articles finally went into a large, round, galvanized tub standing on a wooden bench. Each piece was rinsed up and down, over and over and under in the water-entirely by hand. Each article was then fed through a hand-turned wringer made of two large hard-rubber cylinders, in horizontal position, turning in opposite directions while they squeezed water from the cloth. After the squeezing, the items fell into another large, round tub of water in which bluing had been dissolved. From dish towels to bed sheets, each piece was dunked up and down a sufficient number of times to be free of all soap particles. Certain cottons went into a starch bath after that. When all were wrung as dry as possible, each, article was shaken and piled with others in a reed clothesbasket and carried to a clothesline onto which they were clipped with. 108 |