| OCR Text |
Show THE OLD-TIME BATH, SATURDAY NIGHT IMMERSION A TIME OF HORROR. Middle-Aged Business Man Contrasts the Luxury of the Present Day With the Life In Small Western Town Twenty-five Years Ago. "Lnst night," said tho comfortable-looking comfortable-looking man with tho 48-lnch watBt-band, watBt-band, "I 'stood by,' as tho sailors say, Yhllo tho wifo bestowed a scrubbing upon my 7-yonrold youngster. Nothing Noth-ing remarkable about that, is thero? But it set mo to thinking nbout how much bettor tho kids of to-day havo ft than they did when I was a lad my- RClf. "Ho looked mighty comfortable, thnt boy did, and ho Just lay thero in the tub nnd let his mother swab and molly-coddlo hlra with nil tho Insou-clnnco Insou-clnnco Jn life. When tho donning wns over ho stood up nnd lot tho tepid water from tho shower run over him, tfnd then ho stepped out of tho tub onto a bath rug, and his mother gavo him n brisk drying with n Turkish towel. Then bIio anointed hlni with Florida water, rigged him out In a fresh night shirt, nnd tucked htm Into bfd. "I know, when I wns his age, this Saturday night bathing game was always al-ways In storo for me, and I used to look forward to It with a kind of a feeling of despair. But I'd dodgo tho tao Job as long as possible, nnd I'd nlt for my good mother to appear at the back goto and summon mo homo Hlong toward 8 or 9 o'clock of tho Saturday Sat-urday night. By that tlmo sho'd hnvo ho supper dishes all washed up and tbo pans in tho kitchen all a-sblning for Sunday, and tho old wash tub, with tho wooden handles sticking up abovo tho brim, would bo out In tho tulddlo of .the kitchen floor. " 'Got tho water, son,' she'd say to mo, nnd then tho Job was on. It wn9 a little western town where thero wero no water works, but tho well was right out In tho back yard. That well always al-ways seemed about a mile and a halt deep to mo when I was drawing up tho water for tho Saturday night scrubbing. Then my brother and I would begin to raco to sco which could peel his duds off first, and get tho first bath. Tho reason why wo both wanted to get tho first bath wasn't, of course, on nccount of any love for tho bathing, but becauso it was so much fun for the one who hnd got through with tho horrible Job first to stand around nice nnd dry nnd warm, and make faces at the one who was Just beginning to undergo the misery. "Well, when I was tho 'first undressed' un-dressed' I'd skato over to tbo old grcen-palntcd wash tub and feel o' tho water with ono of my hands nnd feel sad with myself. B-r-r-r-r! but wasn't that well witter cold, though. I'd stand thero and look into tho depths of tho tub, shivering, until my mother made her appearance in the kitchen with her paraphernalia. " 'Now, get in thero, you boy,' my good mother 'ud say, nnd I'd stick ono fcot in, swearing in my hcarf all tho time thnt at tho first chance I was go ing to run away to be a sailor or something some-thing and then my mother would exert ex-ert a sudden pressure on my shoulders should-ers and down I'd korflummox In that icy water. I wouldn't bo through gasping gasp-ing and trying to got my breath beforo she'd begin on my upper superstructure superstruc-ture with a piece o" red flannel for a washrag and half n bar of common Valler soap that had edges on It as sharp as a knife. "Mother was protty muscular In thoso days, and the way she'd begin to gouge and boro with that red flannel flan-nel washrag and that soap was suro a caution to locusts. And when she wasn't busy with tho hand holding the washrag she'd Always let tho durned cold thing hang, dripping, down my back. Such a awabberlnol Talk about your military scrubblngs and things like that, I'll bet they'ro not ono, two, three with tho washtub Ewlms that that over faithful, self-reliant, self-reliant, strong-armed mother of mine put mo through whon I was at the tadger stage of life. I can smell that yallcr bar of r,onp yet it smelt like 'rozzum' not iln, y'understand, but 'rozzum.' "Mnybo I wasn't always glad when she began to rinse mo off by dipping a tin wush-basln Into tho tub and pouring the water on my head. The diylug-off process didn't amount to much, but you can wngor your galluses that it wasn't done with any turkish towel. Fact Is, thero'd often bo a shyness of tiny kind of n regulnr towel on those otnslons, so that I've seen my mother hunt around for nn old pillow case or a remnant of some mysterious mys-terious cottony garracnUfor tho dry-Ing-ofC pari of tho Job, -And I guess maybe I didn't breathe a sigh of deep contontment and roller when, nftor flipping into one o' those old-fush-loncd. fiuzyiwuzzy canton flannel union night garindnto for young una, I got Iritd the old feather bed, with the apple tree Just outside tho window and know th.it the next, bath was a vholo week In the distance." Washington Wash-ington Post. |
