There is not much that can be done when the wash water is muddy. Fill as many receptacles with it as possible, the night before the washing day and in the morning pour the water off, disturbing the settlings as little as possible. Its muddy colour will remain unchanged, but it will contain less actual mud.
If one makes the mistake of getting clothes too blue, it will save time eventually to rinse and dry them again. For several washings are sometimes not sufficient to remove colour which has been ironed in.
In freezing weather, it is a good plan to have a short length of line on which small pieces can be pinned in the house. Line and clothes may then be carried out and put up at the same time, and can be brought in together when the pieces are dry.
Clothes frozen to the lines are easily torn unless they are carefully removed. Therefore wrap up well before going out to do this work, that you may not be in a hurry. Also put on heavy gloves or mittens and crush the frozen corners of the clothes hard in your hand before trying to detach them from the line.
A scorch will sometimes disappear if it is sponged gently with a wet cloth. To hang the scorched garment in strong sunshine is also a good remedy. Dip a serious scorch in soapsuds or borax and water before hanging it in the sun, if, however, the texture of the material is injured, the misfortune can only be remedied with a darn or a patch.
Sometimes starch will stick and coat the irons. In such a case, it is an assistance to sponge the starched pieces all over lightly with cold water and a clean cloth, and to scrape the irons thoroughly and rub them with beeswax. If, after this, the starch is still unmanageable, rinse the clothes in clear water, and if they are then too limp stiffen them with cold starch. This really takes no more time and strength than struggling to iron sticky clothes; it also prevents garments from being torn, which is an invariable part of the vexation and anxiety occasioned by starch which sticks.
A sentence containing two words like vexation and anxiety may not be allowed to end a chapter. I will put here, instead, that well-worn reproach of housework, that it is ephemeral--work done merely to meet passing necessities. For this reproach is a great source of contentment in the work. Most thankfully I can remind myself that things over which I could cry with weariness to-night will not exist to-morrow; most thankfully I realize that this day's work is only one of hundreds like it, and in all those days, even I can learn to do the work acceptably.