Wash Day

Washday at our house was always on Monday unless canceled by rain, in which case it happened the next available day. Washday itself dawned with vigor. Mama was up earlier than usual and expected the whole family to follow.

I pull the sheet and blanket up over my head and enjoy the cool breeze coming in the large open window.

"Get up from there, girls," Mama calls from the kitchen.

Awake, but with my eyes still closed, I realize with dread that it is washday. Peeking out of one eye in the direction of the open window and noting the cool breeze, I try to make myself believe that it is going to rain. I pull up the covers a little tighter and drift off to sleep. Sounds from the kitchen drift in and out of my dreams. Mama's steps have a quickened beat this morning. I'm just not in tune with them.

"Out of there, girls, we've got work to do."

Why does Mama sound so close? Suddenly I know. With one sudden jerk, I'm lying on the featherbed ticking, the top and bottom sheets are on their way to the wash pot and I'm wadded up in a knot under my gown.

"I need that gown too," she says, "Get dressed and eat your breakfast. I need you to scrub a few clothes for me."

Certain pieces of the laundry had to be scrubbed before being placed in the wash pot.That could be anything that was especially soiled. Dish rags, and work clothes topped the list. The scrub board was a very effective piece of equipment. It worked very effectively to humble the proud young trainee in laundry. It's appearance was innocent enough. It is a board with legs long enough to reach the bottom of the wash tub. The top is a cornice of sorts that rests against the operators stomach and holds a bar of soap. The working surface, however, is rough, ribbed metal, designed to force out dirt if used properly. If it is not used correctly, it can ruin a young girl's nuckles in a manner of minutes and a hole in the garment as well. This fact alone will speed up the learning process.

The tub for this first step in the laundry process was placed on the back porch. This placed the scrub board just the right height for an adult standing on the ground. I stood on a bucket. Mama added hot boiling water to the half tub of cold water. A bar of P&Gj soap completed the supplies needed and the washday began.

The soiled garment was pulled from the warm soapy water, up over the scrub board, generously soothed with P&G soap, flipped to the soaped side down and gently rubbed, gathering the garment in your hands as you rubbed up and down the ribbed board. This was a slow gentle scrub without too much pressure to the garment to avoid rubbing al hole in it. Continue rubbing and gathering to the end of the garment, then flip the garment and repeat the process. Scrubbing done, the piece was then wrung out by hand and ready for the steaming wash pot.

The black wash pots stood behind the scrubbing board. Mama often used two. She had mountains of laundry to do. A fire was built under them from scraps of wood. The wood smoke driffed through the air. Soon the water in the wash pots was bubbling. Mama boiled all the clothes ten or fifteen minutes depending on how dirty they were. Sunday clothes and school clothes alone escaped the scalding. A long stick, most often the handle of a worn out broom, was used to lift the steaming clothes into a tub. Mama would call one of us to help carry the tub to the wonderfully cool shade of the mulberry tree where the washing began in earnest.

Mama scrubbed the clothes again when needed, and rinsed them twice. Only then were they ready to be hung on the line. All this time she was keeping a watchful eye on the steaming wash pots. Snowy white sheets were first. These were too big to be trusted to children. Mama couldn't risk them being dropped on the sandy soil beneath the clothes line. Mama hang these out with remarkable speed.

When the older girls were at home, Bobbie and I were free to play around the bench holding the wash tubs under that big mulberry tree. Hanging in the dense shade of the mulberry tree was a wonderful swing. It was a long rope with both ends tied to a large branch in the tree. Someone had fashioned a seat from a piece of wood. The rope cut into the sides.

"Ah, at last! My turn in the swing." First I pull back as far as the rope will let me, then I lift my feet and swing forward. On each return, I give a push with my bare feet, getting higher and higher. Then I stretch, pulling back on the rope to get as far back as I can. Then I push forward with my bottom as hard as I can, flinging my bare dusty feet forward, stretching and stretching for the stark white sheets hanging on the line in front of me.

"Betty! Don't touch your dirty feet to the sheets!" Mama warns.

"It's my turn," Bobbie yells.

Only then do I relax and let the swing carry me back and forth and the breeze cools my face and blows the hair that has escaped the single long braid down my back.

As the day progresses, the lines are filled with fresh clean clothes. The work clothes and rags are hanging on the garden fence. The fire is dying under the wash pots. Ashes and half-burned sticks remain. The water in the pots still steams, but is cloudy and brown. One by one the tubs of water are emptied. Some on flower beds, others in the pig lot. Finally one wash tub is carried to the back porch. Mama's apron and dress are wet and she looks tired but pleased.

"Betty, go pump a fresh bucket of water," Mama calls as she reaches for the mop. "Now be sure to pump it off good," she says.

Mama mops the kitchen from the tub of wash water, then with a broom she lifts the water from the tub and scrubs the porch. By now I have returned with the bucket of cool fresh water. Mama lifts a dipper of water from the bucket and drinks it all.


"Ah, that's good," she says and she is on her way to the front porch to rest a bit before she starts supper.

Pre-wash Day

Washday at the house on the hill was always on Monday unless canceled by rain, in which case it happened the very next available day. It was preceded by certain almost ritualistic preparations; water was pumped, beds changed, clothes sorted, and Daddy tricked into changing clothes. To Daddy, changing clothes was an inconvenience and an unnecessary nuisance. Mama always put his clean clothes out on Sunday morning and took his dirty ones to the closet in the back room.

The back room played an important part in the lives of folks when I was growing up. It took the place of utility rooms, guest rooms and closets. It most often served as a bedroom for those needing less privacy, and more often the latest out of Mama and Daddy's room. It also served as a repository for the dirty clothes, canned goods, rags and broken things. The dirty clothes were in baskets or on the floor in the make shift closet in a corner of the back room.

The closet was a corner in the back room. In the summer time the outside door and the door leading to the kitchen opened back to make a triangular closet. A flimsy sheet hung on a string from one door facing to the other hiding the dirty clothes and the slop jar in the winter. The closet itself was a favorite place for kids. It would have made a perfect hiding place had it not been the only place to hide. It did, however, serve as an occasional place of solitude until you were discovered.

The evening before wash day, Mama would pull a cane bottom chair into the back room from the kitchen, throw the sheet concealing the closet over its string, and take her seat. She leaned forward with her elbows on her knees, and began a task she thoroughly enjoyed, sorting the clothes. She did this just before going to bed the night before wash day.

Sorting the clothes was a job much too important to be trusted to amateures. Mama sorted the clothes by color and importance. School clothes were important. Work clothes were not. The clothes were sorted and washed in this order; whites, colors, towels, work clothes and rags. But this was not a simple task. Washday was an all day thing. When I refer to whites, I mean all three loads of them, sheets, underwear, white blouses and shirts. The colors were the dresses, the everyday clothes, the boy's shirts and pants, and then Mama's aprons. The work clothes were washed next and last of all, the rags.

Towels had not been a problem until one of the married kids gave Mama some. Until then we had always used the skirts of dresses whose waist had worn out. These easily fit into the everyday colors. Real towels presented a problem for Mama. The lint lingered in the water and clung to the rest of the wash.

Bobbie and I filled huge tubs with water the afternoon before washday. This meant endless trips from the pump to the washtubs already in place on the bench under the mulberry trees at the west end of the house. After the tubs were filled, we filled the black wash pots sittin;g on an incline directly in front of the back door. I'm sure the wash pots were positioned so that Mama could keep a watchful eye from the kitchen. The pump and the black pots were in the blazing summer sun. Between them a path of burning sand toughened the bare feet of the young carriers.

The wash pot was a large cast iron black pot with short legs. This was a very valuable container. Its primary use was to heat water for laundry. However, it was also used for making soap, rendering lard, frying fish and other tasks that were best done outdoors. A fire could be built under its round belly.

How wonderful are the predawn hours on the farm. The rooster is the first to summon the new day. A distant crowing lightens my sleep and I lie there expecting the rooster from the henhouse to answer. He doesn't disappoint me. Soon there is a chorus of neighboring roosters punctuated by the resident rooster. This was music to my ears. The long sultry night had become cool, almost too cool. I pull the sheet and blanket up under my chin even over my head and drink in the cool, damp morning air. I can hear Mama in the kitchen. Soon the smell of bacon and coffee drifts in. I can hear their quiet voices as she cooks and Daddy drinks his coffee. All is well with the world.