Blue Wednesday
The first Wednesday in every month was a Perfectly Awful Day--a day
to be awaited with dread, endured with courage and forgotten with haste.
Every floor must be spotless, every chair dustless, and every bed without a
wrinkle. Ninety-seven squirming little orphans must be scrubbed and
combed and buttoned into freshly starched ginghams; and all ninety-seven
reminded of their manners, and told to say, `Yes, sir,' `No, sir,' whenever a
Trustee spoke.
It was a distressing time; and poor Jerusha Abbott, being the oldest
orphan, had to bear the brunt of it. But this particular first Wednesday,
like its predecessors, finally dragged itself to a close. Jerusha escaped
from the pantry where she had been making sandwiches for the asylum's
guests, and turned upstairs to accomplish her regular work. Her special
care was room F, where eleven little tots, from four to seven, occupied
eleven little cots set in a row. Jerusha assembled her charges,
straightened their rumpled frocks, wiped their noses, and started them in
an orderly and willing line towards the dining-room to engage themselves
for a blessed half hour with bread and milk and prune pudding.