"
To do Dinah justice, she had, at irregular periods, paroxysms of
reformation and arrangement, which she called "clarin'-up times," when
she would begin with great zeal and turn every drawer and closet wrong
side outward on to the floor or tables, and make the ordinary confusion
sevenfold more confounded. Then she would light her pipe and leisurely
go over her arrangements, looking things over and discoursing upon them;
making all the young fry scour most vigorously on the tin things, and
keeping up for several hours a most energetic state of confusion, which
she would explain to the satisfaction of all inquirers by the remark
that she was a "clarin'-up." "She couldn't hev things a-gwine on so as
they had been, and she was gwine to make these yer young ones keep
better order;" for Dinah herself, somehow, indulged the illusion that
she herself was the soul of order, and it was only the _young uns_, and
the everybody else in the house, that were the cause of anything that
fell short of perfection in this respect. When all the tins were
scoured, and the tables scrubbed snowy white, and everything that could
offend tucked out of sight in holes and corners, Dinah would dress
herself up in a smart dress, clean apron, and high, brilliant Madras
turban, and tell all marauding "young uns" to keep out of the kitchen,
for she was gwine to have things kept nice.
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