Cooking and castle-building

"But, Kate, after you get through with cooking, I don't see what will remain for your girls to learn in the housekeeping department. Every woman of sense knows how to do general housework,— to wash and iron, make beds, sweep, etc." "No, Emeline ; I think very few women know the best ways of doing any of these things. I expect to deliver a lecture, at least once a week, to the girls in the domestic department, on such subjects as — how to make fires, with the special treatment of coal fires ; how to manage draughts and dampers ; how to keep a coal fire at a low ebb, yet ready to be forced to a quick heat in a few minutes ; how to sweep with a common broom without raising a dust ; how to make and use baking and ironing holders ; how to make beds ; and so on, indefinitely. And in this connection let me give you a little story, just in point. One day, when travelling in the West, I fell into conversation with a gentleman who occupied the seat next to mine in the cars. Our talk was rambling and desultory. He, I learned, was President of an Eastern college, who had been spending his vacation in Minnesota. He had a lot of guns and fishing-tackle with him, and had evidently been having a good time. 'What a perfect place,' he said, ' Minnesota is for a summer vacation. The climate is delightful during July and August. How pure and bracing the atmosphere is on the hottest days. And the nights are so delightfully cool, that no one thinks of sleeping without blankets, — double blankets at that.' And here an expression of pain clouded his genial face. After a moment's hesitation, however, he continued : ' I wish something could be done — but I suppose nothing can — to cure chambermaids of a stupid habit they have, which has caused me more serious annoyance during my life, I think, than any other one thing. I've been tempted several times to write a newspaper article upon the subject, and call attention to it as a public and general nuisance, but I have never done so. You may look upon it as a tritie ; but I assure you I found it a very serious matter the other night at a hotel in St. Paul. I had been out tramping all day, and came in very tired. The evening was cool ; and when I crawled under the blankets at bedtime, I had no presentiment of coming evil. But after a sound sleep, I awoke, sweltering in torments, loaded with blankets. Upon a careful examination I discovered I had been sleeping under two heavy blankets in August. I attempted to turn one away, but found they would not be separated. Both would go, or both would stay. It was dark, and I had no matches ; so I tugged, and labored, and toiled ; but my efforts to separate the blankets were ineffectual. Eventually I discovered the cause of failure : the stupid chambermaid had put the open ends of the double blankets at the foot, instead of at the head, of the bed. I tried in vain to turn and right them. They were in coils and twists innumerable, and would not be righted. Finally, I slept, from sheer exhaustion ; and this horrible cold that annoys me so much, is the result. But that night I swore a solemn oath, never, so long as I