 After washing the cottons, all had to be washed, then boiled,
rinsed put into blue water and mangled, put into starch and
mangled again. The mangle stood outside the back door and remained exposed to
the elements. I was not personally involved, but vividly remember the piles of
washing. I hated Mondays. It was a ritual. The clothes were rinsed by plunging
them into buckets of water from the well. After scrubbing and rinsing, the
clothes went into the boiler to be boiled and stirred with a big stick like a
witch's broom two feet long, then things got a bit better with washing tongs -
two pieces of wood joined together like metal, so you had a certain amount of
spring, and these, together with the stick, transferred the boiling mass of
clothes back into the Butler's sink to be rinsed.
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