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Title: A-B-C of housekeeping
Author: Christine Terhune Herrick
Release date: March 8, 2025 [eBook #75560]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Harper & Brothers, 1915
Credits: Alan, Peter Becker and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A-B-C OF HOUSEKEEPING ***
A-B-C
OF
HOUSEKEEPING
BY
CHRISTINE TERHUNE HERRICK
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK & LONDON
HARPER’S A-B-C SERIES
A-B-C OF HOUSEKEEPING.
By CHRISTINE TERHUNE HERRICK
A-B-C OF ELECTRICITY.
By WILLIAM H. MEADOWCROFT
A-B-C OF GARDENING. By EBEN E. REXFORD
A-B-C OF GOOD FORM. By ANNE SEYMOUR
16mo, Cloth
HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY HARPER & BROTHERS
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
PUBLISHED MAY, 1915
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. CHOOSING A HOME 1
II. FURNISHING THE HOME 13
III. THE TABLE 26
IV. CONCERNING HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 38
V. THE HOUSE IN ORDER 50
VI. HYGIENE AND PLUMBING 63
VII. THE HOME WITHOUT A SERVANT 75
VIII. IN THE LAUNDRY 88
IX. WHEN COMPANY COMES 99
X. THE CHILD IN THE HOUSE 111
A-B-C OF HOUSEKEEPING
I
CHOOSING A HOME
The choice of a home is usually decided by the pocket-book. Other
considerations carry weight, but matters of convenience, preference,
and location are lighter in the scale than the sum one can afford to
pay for a shelter. What proportion this will bear to the rest of the
income must be settled by each one for himself after an estimate of the
other expenses which must be met.
When a whole house is taken and the cost of heating and the charge of
the outer premises, as well as the entire care of the place, have to be
assumed by the tenant, one-fifth or one-sixth of the income is all he
should give for rent. The price of coal, the wage to be paid the person
who is to clean snow from the sidewalk in winter and dirt from it the
rest of the year, look after the furnace and ashes, put out garbage;
the consideration of the services of the one who must sweep front
steps, halls, and stairs; the small repairs every house demands from
time to time, will all have to be added to the sum devoted to rent.
While the tenant and his wife may perform part or all of these duties,
it is only reasonable that they should understand how much they are
saving in actual cash, and comprehend that what they economize in this
respect is the equivalent of what they would pay to the landlord were
they to occupy an apartment in a flat building.
This state of affairs justifies the man who lives in an apartment
in allowing a larger proportion of his income for his rooftree. The
details to which I have referred just now are included in the price
paid for a flat, to say nothing of the reduction of work when all the
living is on one floor, when stairs do not exist for the housekeeper,
and her responsibilities end at her own front door.
The selection of a location is determined by the make-up of the family
and the man’s place and time of business. These considerations must be
taken into account before the house-hunting is begun. Distance from
the center of the town usually means a reduced rent, better air, and
more attractive surroundings. To counterbalance these are the long
journey back and forth, night and morning, the cost of transportation,
inability to come home for the midday meal. As a rule these drawbacks
do not equal the advantages to be gained by a home remote from the
business district.
In order to accomplish the strenuous task of finding a home with the
least outlay of labor and worry--for in any case there will be enough
of both these commodities--as much planning as possible should be done
in advance. The number of rooms necessary should be settled, as well
as the sum which can be paid for rent. The sections of the city which
are suitable should be studied and, if feasible, traversed, so as to
get a general idea of them. Sometimes even a cursory inspection of a
neighborhood decides the would-be tenant against it.
Then, when lists of houses or apartments have been culled from
advertisements and secured from real-estate agents the actual work of
house-hunting is begun. One resolution to be laid down at first and
adhered to positively is not to go over a house or an apartment if the
first glance shows it to be undesirable. When six rooms are the limit
for a flat there is no more sense in inspecting a ten-room apartment
than there is in scanning a house at twelve hundred a year if seven
hundred and fifty is the extreme price that can be paid for rent. Such
examination not only consumes time and strength, but it also provokes
dissatisfaction with smaller and cheaper quarters which may be seen
afterward.
A few essentials must be fixed in the mind, to which any house or flat
should conform. It must be light--not a dim twilight illumination, but,
if possible, sunshine, either direct or reflected--in the living and
sleeping rooms. The kitchen must not be a dark corner, not only because
such work-places affect the health of those who occupy them, but also
because of the additional charge there will be for gas or electricity
burned by day as well as by night.
The matter of heat must next be considered. When a house is taken the
rent is usually higher if there is a first-class heating arrangement
included. Old-fashioned appliances mean lower rent, but they also
require increased work on the part of the tenant or servant and are
often unsatisfactory in the amount of warmth they supply. A good
furnace or steam-heating plant may add to the actual sum of the rent,
but it is generally cheaper in the long run. The quantity of coal
burned by such a plant should be ascertained before concluding to take
the house.
All these questions are eliminated for the man who engages a
steam-heated apartment, but he may change the place and keep the pain.
The comfort of the entire winter depends upon a sufficient amount of
heat, and radiators should be examined and a number of direct inquiries
put so as to make sure that adequate warmth may be secured in bitter
weather. The time when the heat is turned on and off should also be
learned, since it is quite possible to shiver and suffer in September
and May as well as at Christmas-time.
Plumbing is always to be investigated closely, whether in a house or an
apartment. No amount of gilding and marble fittings can compensate for
cheap plumbing and a poor supply of hot water. The dweller in a house
is dependent upon his own kitchen fire for hot water, as a general
thing, but in nearly all apartment-houses the hot water is declared to
be supplied from the cellar. Even in high-priced flats hot water is
not always ready, and queries as to this are to be voiced before the
lease is signed. More than that, care must be taken to make sure that
the plumbing is in perfect repair and is not likely to give way at
inconvenient seasons.
All these details are essential and there are others little less
important. The quantity of closet room, the pantries, the facilities
for washing and drying clothes, the quiet of the house as assured or
banished by the character of the neighbors and other tenants, the
cleanliness of paint and paper, must all be looked after.
No matter what inducements in the way of lowered rent are offered, it
is always a mistake to go into a house which is not absolutely clean.
This does not mean only that it should be swept and scoured before
taking possession of it, but that paint and paper should be refreshed.
The latter is not to be done by pasting fresh paper on over that which
already covers the walls, as is the custom of many decorators--a custom
connived at by landlords because of the saving of expense it implies.
The incoming tenant must insist that the walls shall be scraped clean
before the new paper is hung and that fresh paint shall be used
wherever it is needed. It is hard enough to keep a house spotless
in the best of circumstances, and when one enters a dwelling and
establishes himself in the midst of the dirt of the departed tenants
the task is the most discouraging that can be undertaken.
Moreover, vermin must be banished. This is an easy thing to say, but
hardly a housekeeper of middle age can be found in the length and
breadth of the country who has not had a struggle with the pest in some
form or other. In one home it may have been cockroaches or water-bugs;
in another it may have been black or red ants; in many it has been that
worst and most dreaded of plagues, bedbugs. Sporadic cases of any of
these may be conquered without much difficulty, but when once the enemy
is intrenched in the home it seems almost as if the only way to get rid
of them finally is by burning the house down!
On all considerations, therefore, the house-hunter must make sure that
vermin are not established in the new dwelling. If there is even a
possibility of their presence she must insist upon radical measures
being taken before she will contemplate entering the house. When the
pests have been there and have been driven out it is still wise to
take reasonable precautions against their return. No picture-moldings
should be tolerated in the bedrooms, since these make a lurking-place
for insects. The walls of sleeping-rooms should be painted rather than
papered, and dark cupboards, drawers, etc., should be scoured out,
disinfected, and painted.
I have dwelt upon the need of such care in the bedrooms, but it is no
less essential in the kitchen and pantries. While bedbugs occasionally
get a foothold even here, the usual plague is the roach or Croton-bug.
He is said to be inoffensive and he does not possess the deadly odor of
the _Cimex lectularius_, but apart from the damage he undoubtedly does
in nibbling table-linen and the like, he is an exceedingly unpleasant
housemate. He frequents uncovered garbage-pails, bread and cake boxes
which have been left open, wire safes with imperfectly closing doors,
and the provision compartments of refrigerators; and it does not tend
to improve the appetite to have him pop out of the cereal carton or run
from under the cold roast.
So every precaution should be taken against such creatures as well
as against mice and rats before renting the house. Mice-holes should
be choked up with broken glass and dusted with red pepper; boiling
water should, when possible, be poured down the runways of insects;
borax scattered about their haunts. After that, strict care in the
way of keeping food put away closely, pains to see that no crumbs
or drippings are allowed on the floor or the shelves, and rigorous
cleanliness of every vessel which has been employed in cooking are the
best agencies against the return of the adversaries.
Other points should be looked to about the kitchen. The stove is the
chief consideration after light, cleanliness, and pantry space.
Locality has much to do in determining by what means cooking shall be
done. In the country, where gas is not and wood or coal is burned, a
good range, suitable for either, must be depended upon. Of such ranges
there are many, and there are divers items to be regarded in each
make. The size and fashion of the fuel-box is one. The average kitchen
stove will burn a ton of coal in from five to seven weeks, the time
contingent not only upon the care of the cook, but upon the size of the
range. One should be selected with a maximum of heat for a minimum of
fuel consumption. The range with an upper oven is easier for the cook,
who by its means is spared constant stooping and bending, but some
ranges with the upper oven are said to burn more fuel.
No range or stove should be considered which does not provide adequate
means for heating water. When there is running hot water in the house
a boiler is usually arranged at the side of the stove, but in the
country, where the water must be drawn by a pump or from the well and
put into the reservoir by the pailful, a large enough receptacle must
be furnished to make it possible to have the supply for the day all
poured in at once. In this way the man of the house may attend to this
heavy duty in the morning or at night, so that no woman may have to
strain her back by filling and lifting pails of water during the day.
The coal or wood stove in the country may be supplemented by an oil
or gasolene stove. Of these there is a good variety, each possessing
its own special merits, but they are not to be considered in renting
a house, since they are purchased by the tenant, not supplied by the
landlord.
In every large city, and in many small towns, cookery by gas has
superseded coal and wood almost entirely. The cleanliness and
convenience of gas in cooking, while inferior to those of electricity,
are yet so far ahead of the other means to which we have been
accustomed that the amount of time and trouble the gas saves is
incalculable. The stove is generally owned by the local company, who
install it and keep it in order, but in some places effort is made
by the landlord to charge the tenant for the use of the stove. Common
usage will have to determine the tenant’s course in the matter, but as
a rule the stove is included in the rent and it is worth while for the
man renting the house to make an attempt to secure this concession.
There is a difference in gas-stoves and an up-to-date kind should
be selected, fitted with an upper oven as well as a lower one, and
possessing such features as a low flame for simmering, a plate-warmer,
the latest make of broiler, etc. The inexperienced housekeeper is
frequently imposed upon and the old-fashioned stove is foisted off upon
her. This should be guarded against when the house is rented.
The inside of the house has received principal attention in this
consideration of the rented home. The outer surroundings usually
compel a measure of thought and are obvious enough to force themselves
upon even the uncritical observer. Yet there are a few points worth
emphasizing.
The character of the neighborhood in a country or a small town
generally proclaims itself and the details that must be noticed have
to do with sanitary conditions, the presence or absence of such
nuisances as unsavory factories or businesses, the vicinity of noisy
occupations, the over-close proximity to public schools with the
accompanying racket at certain hours of the day, etc. In the city the
drawbacks may be less self-assertive but no less objectionable. Before
renting a house in a street it is always wise to learn something of the
people who occupy the adjoining dwellings, to make sure that there are
no unpleasing features connected with the section and so insure oneself
against future annoyances.
II
FURNISHING THE HOME
The first details to be regarded in furnishing a house have to do with
the woodwork and walls.
Sometimes the landlord has settled these and the tenant has no choice.
This is especially likely to be the case with the woodwork. If it is a
cheap and unattractive variety of “hardwood,” so called, or is painted
in imitation of hardwood, it is difficult to induce the owner to change
this. When he will consent to paint to please the tenant selection
should be made either of white or of a soft, neutral tint which will
not conflict with any color of furniture. The painting which simulates
the graining of a natural wood is distinctly bad and should never be
tolerated except when it cannot be changed.
The kitchen should be painted throughout, walls as well as woodwork,
and in some good light color, such as buff; this will give the room a
bright, cheery look, and the steam which accumulates on the walls of a
kitchen can be scrubbed off the paint as it cannot be from a kalsomined
or papered wall.
In choosing papers, the tenant should bear in mind that they will have
to be lived with for a long time, and should pick out such as can stand
familiar association without becoming objectionable. Striking patterns
and assertive hues should be avoided. When two or three rooms open
into one another it is well to have them papered alike and thus avoid
the patchy effect produced by several small rooms all with different
wall-coverings. In this day cheap papers which are also pretty and
artistic can easily be found and it is worth while to bestow a good
deal of time and thought upon their choice.
If possible, all painting and papering should be done and the workmen
out of the house before the tenant moves in. This plan permits the
rooms to be cleaned and saves double toil to the housekeeper.
The furniture of the house does not always lie within the tenant’s
power of selection. Few are the homes which are freshly furnished
throughout by a young couple. Almost invariably there are “left-overs”
and “hand-downs” which are presented to the newly married pair,
and they are fortunate indeed if such relics are desirable and not
discarded pieces which no one else wants.
When even a portion of the furniture is to be bought, it should not
be purchased at random. “Sets” of any sort are best avoided. For the
parlor of a modest establishment, wicker and willow articles are far
better than the conspicuous styles which attain a sudden popularity and
then become old-fashioned and out of date. Comfort should be considered
in every item chosen and nothing taken merely because it looks well or
is reasonable in price. While sets are deprecated, a room need not look
like a harlequin collection. A certain uniformity of style and coloring
is to be studied, that the apartment may produce a harmonious effect.
Odd pieces, such as a deep arm-chair, a fancy tea-table, an attractive
set of book-shelves, are entirely suitable and will not strike an
incongruous note in the general surroundings.
Bare floors are more used now than carpets, and rugs may make islands
of safety here and there on the smooth surface. When fine antique rugs
have not been given and cannot be bought, the best choice is from among
the many good varieties of inoffensive native rugs. Or a rug may be
made of a quiet-toned carpet, the breadths sewed together to form a
square of the size desired, and surrounded with a border to match. Good
druggets or art-squares may be found for the dining-room, matting or
bare floors and rugs will serve for the bedrooms, and hall and stairs
are to be covered with the runners which come for these purposes or
with a neat stair carpet in quiet colors and pattern.
The dining-room furniture demands a good deal of deliberation. It
is a mistake to buy it in too great a hurry and so to be laden down
with something one does not really want. The table and sideboard are
usually purchased for a lifetime, and it is better to put up with
makeshifts for a while on the chance of finding something really good
and satisfactory than to buy in a hurry and repent at leisure.
The wood of the dining-room furniture is not so much a matter of choice
in many cases as of necessity. One must buy what one can. Every one
cannot have mahogany or Circassian walnut, and it is a comfort that so
many of the less costly woods are made up into excellent designs. It is
much better to buy a good article of a low-priced material than a cheap
variety of the more expensive woods. Oak, ash, cherry, birch, gumwood
and other native growths may be found in pieces of excellent lines
which will satisfy even an artistic eye. When there is money enough
to get all that is wanted for the dining-room, a serving-table and a
china-closet of some kind may be added to the sideboard, dining-table,
and chairs that rank as essentials.
The requirements of the kitchen will receive more detailed
consideration later on. Among the must-haves are the range, to which
reference has already been made; a good kitchen table, supplied either
with a zinc top or with a shelf to draw out and use as a bread-board; a
refrigerator; a wire meat-safe; liberal pantry room, shelf room, and,
if possible, a kitchen cabinet.
When the bedrooms are to be furnished the same simplicity must be
followed which is recommended for the other apartments. The less
furniture the bedroom contains the better, from a sanitary point of
view. The Biblical inventory of a bed and a table, a stool and a
candlestick, had much to commend it. The bedstead should be of iron
or iron and brass; the dresser, table, etc., of white enamel or some
light-colored wood. The heavy pieces our grandparents took for granted
are fortunately out of vogue in a modest household. A box-couch
may be included in the furnishing of the room, or what is known as
a utility-box for holding shirtwaists and the like, and it is to be
hoped there is either abundant closet room or an extra wardrobe or
clothes-press.
Such are the large and important furnishings of the house. These may be
reduced or increased, simplified or elaborated, in accordance with the
preference and powers of the owners of the dwelling.
Other articles, hardly less essential, have to be considered. Take the
question of draperies, for instance.
Within the past few years the fashion has grown of having two and
sometimes three pairs of curtains for each window--inner hangings of
lace or some similar fabric, outer draperies of rich and heavy goods,
and frequently these will be supplemented by sash-curtains close
against the pane, to say nothing of one or two shades to the window.
This may answer for the woman who is at a loss what to do with her
money and can devise no better use to make of it than a multiplication
of her possessions, but the custom is not one the young housekeeper
need feel it incumbent upon her to follow. One shade of a neutral
tint at each window of her living-rooms, a pair of curtains of some
material which can be readily washed, are all that she requires. For
the principal rooms a good Madras, a pretty scrim, a pleasing though
inexpensive lace (all fabrics which will look well after careful
washing) will meet every necessity and present an attractive appearance.
In the chambers two shades may be demanded by those who wish to have
a dark room for sleeping, but short white curtains of wash-goods, or
sash-curtains, are sufficient here, and something of the same sort,
but possibly a little better in quality, can be procured for the
dining-room. As a rule plain, straight curtains, without ruffles, are
not only more easily laundered, but look better after they are done up
than those pranked out with frills.
When ornaments are to be considered one generally makes the best of
what one has. The newly settled couple may be thankful if they have
not been burdened with pictures and bric-à-brac which not only do not
please their personal taste, but refuse to harmonize with one another
or with anything else. In some cases one can only make the best of
conditions, and after endeavoring to arrange the unwelcome gifts to
the best advantage and scattering them over the house so as to dispel
the curse to as many different quarters as possible, resign oneself to
endurance until such time as the presents can be removed, one at a time.
Those fortunate persons who can buy their own luxuries will recall the
Oriental proverb: “If thou hast but two loaves of bread, sell one and
buy jacinths for the soul!” What form the jacinths may take will be
determined by individual preference. One will find more joy and uplift
in really fine pictures than in anything else; another will concentrate
upon books and magazines; another will turn from both of these and
toward music. It makes little difference which way the window is opened
into the Infinite. The vital point is that such an outlet must be
provided if soul and spirit are to be nourished and grow as well as
body and physical strength.
However much the importance of such plenishing as this may impress
either the man or the woman, the latter would be profoundly lacking
if she did not display a keen interest in other essentials of her new
home. The pictures, the books, the other arts, may rejoice and help
her, but she would be wanting in femininity if she failed to select her
table and bed linen with almost as much thought as she would expend
upon her “jacinths.”
Even with unlimited means, it is not wise to buy more linen than
can be used in a small household. Plenty there should be, but not a
large stock which will lie aside and yellow from lack of service.
Three or four dinner-cloths, each with its accompaniment of a dozen
napkins, will be ample for her average needs, especially if she uses a
centerpiece and doilies on the bare table for breakfast and lunch. In
her purchasing she should avoid the fringed articles; these wear badly
and are difficult to do up well. Fruit-plate doilies to place under
finger-bowls, fish-cloths, centerpieces, tray-cloths, sideboard and
dresser covers, tea and carving cloths, and other ornamental as well as
useful linens will probably be given to her by relatives or friends, or
she may pick them up from time to time as she has need for them or the
chance to purchase them advantageously. As her table-cloths and larger
pieces begin to wear out she can usually cut from them squares which
will serve to lay under hot baked potatoes in the dish, to wrap about
rolls or other hot bread, to use for fish-cloths.
A dozen each of dish and china towels she should have, and the
same number of heavier towels for kitchen use, as well as three
roller-towels. But the napery in this line she should keep under her
own hand, if she has hired service in her kitchen and pantry, and give
the towels out a few at a time in order to save her linen as well as to
inculcate habits of care.
When bed-linen is to be considered, the housekeeper should follow the
same line as that she has laid down in her purchase of table-linen.
The ornamental may be selected as suits her fancy, but there are
certain must-haves in the plainer articles. Six pairs of cotton sheets
are none too many, and pillow-slips to go with them. If she and her
family cherish a weakness for linen pillow-slips, some of these may be
provided in place of so many pairs of the cotton cases. For three beds
three or four spreads should be procured, so as to allow of change, and
these spreads should be of the kind which wash easily and look well
afterward. Mattress-covers are also essential, as are blankets and
extra coverings. Silk or lace counterpanes cannot be reckoned among
must-haves, any more than can like dressings for the bureau, but may be
supplied at will.
At least two or three dozen fine towels must be included in the list
of essentials, half a dozen good firm bath-towels, and wash-cloths at
discretion, as well as a dozen heavier towels for the use of domestics.
Guest-towels, bath-sheets, bath-mats, and the like are luxuries which
may be accumulated after the necessities are attained.
When the housekeeper is filling out her list of household linens and
cottons she must not overlook dusters, floor-cloths, mop-cloths,
dish-cloths, or mops--I hope she uses the latter!--and other similar
requirements. In this advanced day there are new articles in this line
which present themselves constantly and which the housekeeper must
decide for herself to be luxuries or necessities.
For supplying the china-closet a fixed rule is almost impossible. The
best plan is for the housekeeper to make out for herself what her
family will need and then to consult an intelligent clerk in a good
china-shop. Sometimes it is cheaper to buy a whole set of china than
to select from “open stock” the pieces that are absolutely required.
Soup, dinner, dessert plates; plates for lunch and for breakfast,
for afternoon tea, for salad, for entrées; service plates; meat and
vegetable dishes in china or silver, can all be purchased in a charming
variety and at a reasonable price. The same is true of glassware. Many
gifts will fit in well here, and the stock of silver is pretty sure to
be received from the family or friends.
In the kitchen matters are different. Few persons present culinary
plenishing, and it almost always devolves upon the housekeeper to
select it for herself. While she may have developed needs in certain
explicit directions, there are a few rules which can be laid down for
her general guidance, certain articles which it is safe to declare
essentials. Such are the following:
Two 1-quart saucepans
One 2-quart saucepan
One 5-quart saucepan
One 3-quart double boiler
One 2-quart double boiler
Two baking-pans for meat _or_ one plain baking-pan and
one covered roaster
One large frying-pan
One small frying-pan
One colander
One graduated quart measure
One graduated half-pint cup
One meat-broiler
One fish or oyster broiler
Three jelly-cake tins
One large cake-tin
One biscuit-pan
One set muffin-tins
Three bread-tins
Three pie-plates
One 2-quart pitcher
Two jelly-molds
One pudding-mold
One steamer
One teakettle
One teapot
One coffee-pot
Fireless cooker
Chopping bowl and knife
Meat chopper or grinder
Soapstone griddle
Cake-turner
Bread bowl and board
Rolling-pin
Board for cutting meat
Board for cutting bread
Meat-saw
Bread-knife
Bread-box
Cake-box
Butter-paddles
Potato-beetle
Egg-beater
Scales
Lemon-squeezer
Meat-fork
One large crockery mixing-bowl
Two small crockery mixing-bowls
One platter
Two pudding-dishes
Set of skewers
Cheese or vegetable grater
Nutmeg-grater
Vegetable-press
Soup-strainer
Coffee or tea strainer
Coffee-mill
Corkscrew
Pair of scissors
Can-opener
Small vegetable-knives
Mixing-spoons
Flour-dredger
Salt-shaker
Cake-cutters
Split spoon
Skimmer
Ice-pick
Other no less important articles are as follows:
Two dish-pans
A garbage-pail with cover
Sink-brush
Soap-shaker
Wire dish-cloth
Oil-can
Brooms, dust-pans, whisk brooms, carpet-sweeper, etc.
III
THE TABLE
The judicious purchase and use of food is the chief economical
possibility of housekeeping.
The rent is an incompressible item. Every month that immutable charge
presents itself. It cannot be cut down. The only way to reduce it is by
changing the dwelling.
Fuel may be used with a discretion which lessens outlay, but in cold
weather the house must be kept comfortable, even though the coal
bills mount high. When certain repairs are due they have to be made
or the rooms become unbearably shabby. Only in the domain of food is
it feasible to apply a wise judgment in buying, a cultivated skill in
cooking which induces cheap selections to be as savory in taste, as
nutritious in qualities, as those which cost far more.
Such ability in marketing and preparation does not come by nature. It
must be studied and worked for, but it is worth the effort.
At the first glimpse nothing seems simpler than for the young
housekeeper to sally forth to a good market, make her selections, order
them cut off and sent home, and pay for them--or have them charged!
(Usually it is fatally easy to open a charge account!) The same notion
prevails as to buying groceries. If a good shop is chosen, there is
apparently no trouble about the transaction.
Possibly there need be no difficulties if the family purse is so well
filled that a little more or less expenditure is of no real importance.
But few are the homes in which this state of affairs exists and most
of us find it desirable, if not actually essential, to study the
comparative prices of staples in different shops and localities, to
learn if there is an advantage in making some purchases at one shop
and some at another, instead of giving all the family custom to one
merchant.
Earlier reference has been made to the proportion of the income which
is to go for rent. Positive assertions as to how much shall be spent
on the food of the family are far less easy to make, and the degree of
definiteness with which they are uttered is hampered by the constant
changes in the price of food.
Not more than ten years ago a liberal allowance for the food of an
adult was from three dollars to three dollars and a half a week. This
covered only the price of the commodities and did not allow for the
fuel used in preparation, service, etc. To-day this expenditure would
be totally inadequate for the same order of nourishment it would
have included a decade back. At that time a breakfast consisting of
fruit, cereal, bacon, fish or eggs, bread, coffee or tea; a luncheon
comprising a solid dish of meat, fish, eggs, or cheese, one or two
vegetables, or a hot bread, a simple sweet, and tea or cocoa; a dinner
of soup, a meat, two vegetables, a salad, crackers and cheese, or a
good sweet, and coffee--could all have been secured in the family at a
little over three dollars a head, when there were three or more to be
fed. From four and a half to five dollars per capita would be required
at the present time for a similar provision.
The rise in prices may have altered the sums of our estimates; it has
not lessened the necessity for a study of the proportion of the family
means which must go for nutriment. This must be determined by the heads
of the house in conclave. The harder part of the work devolves upon the
woman, who must devise economies and carry them into effect, both in
marketing and in cooking.
The inexperienced housekeeper should try to gain a few lessons in
the best methods of purchasing. Sometimes a brief attendance at a
cooking-school is of aid; or she may be able to join a class for
learning how to market--such classes exist and are most helpful--or she
may gain counsel from some older and more experienced housewife, or by
conning books on these topics. In this day there is no excuse for even
a beginner making the mistakes which have supplied material for many of
the hackneyed jokes at the expense of young matrons.
Important as is the practical and personal lesson in knowing how
to market wisely, much can be gained from manuals on the subject.
Some of these furnish cuts and charts of the various animals, with
descriptions of the portions and of the uses to which each may be put.
Instructions as to the periods of the year when certain articles are
at their best are also supplied. Prices can be learned from the market
reports published in the daily papers and much is to be acquired by
going from one shop to another. After a little the housekeeper will
become acquainted with the appearance of meat and be able to judge for
herself if it looks fresh and good. She can likewise observe how the
shops are kept and in which certain obvious sanitary arrangements are
complied with. She will not need much tuition to inform her that she
should turn aside from shops where the food is not guarded from flies
and dust, where strict cleanliness does not prevail in the salesmen and
the appurtenances, and the objects on sale are not handled with proper
care.
A few points it may be well to emphasize for the benefit of the
beginner. The fat of meat should be white and clean, the lean a clear
red, the joints of poultry must break easily and the skin look smooth
and healthful. When a fowl is yellow, bony, and hairy it is bound to be
old and tough. The gills of fish should be fresh and the eyes bright.
I cannot speak too strongly against the growing habit of marketing by
telephone. Not only is the housekeeper who follows this custom at the
mercy of her marketman, who can put off on her any cut which has been
rejected by the wiser housewives who have come in person to do their
trading; he is subjected to the pleasing temptation to cut off more
than she has ordered or charge her for a heavier piece than he sends
home.
The woman who goes to market gains other advantages beyond those of
seeing for herself the appearance and the size of the piece she orders
and has cut off while she stands by and superintends the process. She
also has offered to her chances for bargains she would never get if she
marketed by telephone. Often there will be a change in the market or in
the weather that will bring down the cost of articles which are usually
high-priced, and the woman who does her own marketing is the one to
benefit by this as well as by suggestions which introduce variety into
her bill of fare.
This same variety is to be studied by the sensible housekeeper, not
only on account of the gratification it gives her to set a pleasing
provision before her family, but also because of the genuine good that
is gained by avoiding a monotony which fails to encourage the appetite.
Moreover, saving is aided by this diversity, since cheap dishes can be
slipped into the commissary without awakening the suspicions of the
eaters that economy is being practised at their expense.
Among the rational details to be observed in buying meat is that of
insisting that all “trimmings” shall be sent home. When a roast of
beef or a breast of lamb or a shoulder of mutton or veal is boned and
rolled, the bones should never be left at the market for the butcher
to sell over again, but sent with the meat that they may be used as a
foundation for soup or gravy stock. The giblets and feet of poultry
should also be demanded. When chops are “Frenched” or a steak cut into
seemliness, none of the scraps should be considered unworthy of saving.
All have their place in the stock-pot or as stew-meat.
Too large a piece of meat should not be bought by the woman with a
small family. Meat merchants have a way of discouraging the purchase of
the smaller roasts on the plea that they dry out in cooking. If they do
it is because the work is not properly done. It is quite possible to
make a small roast toothsome and tender instead of dry and hard if the
housekeeper will cook it in the right way and with due care.
Steak and chops, the frequent resource of the woman with a small
family, are expensive luxuries. She is wise if she learns how to cook
the cheaper cuts in a sufficiently attractive fashion to make her
family contented with these instead of leaving them longing for the
higher-priced portions.
A “run” upon any one kind of food should be avoided as much as having
fixed days for specific viands. Fish on Friday one may take as a matter
of course, but there is no real reason why one should have roast beef
every Sunday or a boiled dinner on Saturday night. I know it is the
plaint of the majority of housewives that it is most difficult to
secure variety in the meat dishes, but this trouble should not exist
in a family where practically all sorts of meat can be eaten. In one
household such as I know, where veal and pork are both taboo, and fish
can be eaten by only one person, the choice is narrowed down a good
deal. Even then, however, with a knowledge of how to prepare savory
stews, minces, hashes, scallops, croquettes, fritters, meat-pies,
stuffed peppers, tomatoes and peppers with a meat filling, as well as
roast, boiled, broiled, braised, and fried meat dishes, there should
be no wail over the trials of the housekeeper in changing her menus
frequently.
No time can be considered wasted which is bestowed on the study of how
to cook cheap meat well. Always it should be recollected that many of
the so-called cheap cuts really contain a greater amount of nutriment
than the choicer selections. As I have said on various occasions, the
housekeeper must be prepared to pay a price for excellence of food,
and if she cannot pay this in hard cash she must supply the equivalent
in careful cookery and wise seasoning. A knowledge of the uses of
curry powder, anchovy, and other condiments in changing and modifying
the tastes of familiar foods, a willingness to give the time to slow
and long cooking which will bring out the best flavor of the meat, an
acquaintance with the manifold ways in which left-overs of food can
be utilized in pleasing combinations, are among the branches which a
housekeeper of small means finds well worth her study.
Reference has been made to the help a fireless cooker is to the woman
who keeps house well. It is a saving of time, fuel, labor, and food
values. By its assistance the housekeeper can prepare her meal hours
ahead of time and go about other pursuits in the calm certainty that
when she is ready for her dinner it will be ready for her, and as
good as if she had simmered over the kitchen fire all the afternoon,
using up her fuel and herself. There are several varieties of these
cookers, all of them on practically the same plan, and it will pay a
woman to look about her to find which kind suits her best. For soups,
stews, cereals, they are unequaled, as for making jams, preserves, or
anything else which demands a long period of deliberate cooking.
Special attention has been given to the purchase of meat, but there is
almost equal judgment to be shown in buying groceries. Here there is a
chance for the inexperienced marketer to be imposed upon. Certain fixed
principles she should follow.
The first of these is that it is, as a rule, unwise to buy in bulk.
That is, there is little gained in a small family by laying in large
supplies at a time. A barrel of flour is likely to be musty and weevily
before it can be used; corn meal in large quantities develops vermin;
so do cereals purchased by a number of packages or pounds at a time.
Care should be taken to select an honest grocer or to know enough of
prices not to be overcharged, and then to order supplies as they are
needed.
Buying in bulk means more than this: it also refers to getting the
“loose” crackers, cereals, and the like, instead of those inclosed
in cartons. The latter is always the better plan, and care should be
taken to select a good variety that is put up by manufacturers whose
names are a guarantee of the excellence of the products. Until one has
investigated the matter one has no idea of how many cheap and poor
materials are foisted off upon a guileless public, bearing the stamp of
unknown makers, with the assurance that they are “just as good” as like
articles put up by well-known houses.
This fiction is especially prevalent about canned goods. When these
are first-class they are admirable, and fortunately there are daily
increasing numbers of fine and trustworthy establishments who can
fruits, vegetables, meat, fish, etc., in conditions which assure the
complete protection of the consumer. Yet there are still in existence
small and unscrupulous concerns whose output is cheap and poor if not
actually dangerous to health, and these should be boycotted by all
housekeepers.
Care should be exercised in buying fresh vegetables and fruits. In
most of our large cities the laws as to protecting these against dust
and dirt are being enforced more vigorously with every year, and here,
too, the housewife can help to bring about a better state of affairs
by insisting upon purchasing only such articles as have been properly
cared for. Vegetables which are to be cooked before eating may not
suffer so much by being exposed to dust, but salads and berries and
other fruits or vegetables which are eaten raw are a menace when they
have been suffered to lie and wilt in a current of air laden with dust
and disease germs.
IV
CONCERNING HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS
One of the first items of business to be considered by a newly married
couple, or a pair who are about to begin housekeeping, is the division
of the income between the husband and wife.
This does not imply that their interests are to be opposed or that they
are to have absolutely separate purses. It does mean that there must be
a clear understanding on both sides of what the expenditure is to be
for certain purposes and that the funds for food, domestic service, and
other strictly housekeeping outlay should be in the hands of the wife.
This point has been much debated and the pros and cons on both sides
exploited. Some men argue that the possession of ready money will
lead the wife to extravagance, that it is far better to have all
articles charged and the bills paid by the husband, that women do
not understand household accounts or bookkeeping. Enough foolish and
shallow women exist to lend a trifling force to this position. But the
general and growing view is that the housekeeper upon whom is laid
the responsibility of purveying for an establishment rises to the
emergency, that she does better work and makes wiser purchases when
she is trusted with an allowance for such expenses, that an exhaustive
knowledge of double-entry bookkeeping is not demanded for simple
domestic accounts, that even the immature and untrained wife gains
knowledge by experience and competence by errors made and corrected.
Certain disbursements seem naturally to devolve upon the man of the
house. That he should pay the rent, defray outside or general repairs,
perhaps meet the coal bill, appears a matter of course. But it is
unquestionably the province of the wife to buy provisions and pay for
them, either in cash or by weekly or monthly accounts. Charges for
work done in the house, the replacement of cooking utensils, household
linen and the like, the bills for gas and electric light, all should be
within her control, to be settled by her as they fall due, after she
has examined them and convinced herself that they are correct.
If other arrangement is made than this, it should be after careful
consideration and unbiased discussion of the advantages and demerits of
the system. As a general thing such a division as that just suggested
proves the best.
Exactly what proportion of the income shall be placed in the hands of
the wife is a matter which must be decided by individual circumstances.
Estimate has already been made as to the allowance to be given to
food, and it can readily be seen that this must be determined by
the character and size of the family as well as by the conditions
surrounding them. The household of a farmer or of one who commands a
garden and dairy can be kept on a much smaller pecuniary expenditure
for actual food than is possible in the home of a dweller in the city,
who must buy and pay for every particle of food which comes into the
house. The sum disbursed may amount to the same thing in the long
run, since the cost of keeping up the garden plot or caring for the
cattle must be met by the man of the house, but he will not need to
give as much cash into his wife’s hands as will be required in other
circumstances.
However the amount may be apportioned, whatever may be the charges
laid upon the wife and those assumed by the husband, the necessity of
strict and accurate household accounts should be insisted upon. I am
not advocating any special system. I have known excellent outlines
of domestic expenses which simply darkened counsel with words for
some housekeepers and rendered the business of following their outlay
confusion worse confounded. Sometimes a woman with little more than a
common-school education and an ordinary working knowledge of arithmetic
can keep her accounts with a conciseness and cleanness many a trained
bookkeeper might envy. If a housekeeper has a system which proves
satisfactory it is a mistake for her to try to change it for one which
may be more scientific but is less useful.
Merely as a suggested guide I would advise the beginner to provide
herself with two books, one small and cheap, to be slipped into the
pocket when going to market, the other larger and of better quality.
In the first one, to which is attached a pencil, is to be set down
every purchase and its cost, as soon as made. The memory should never
be trusted in these matters, but each outlay--no matter how small,
if it be nothing more than a car-fare or a three-cent bunch of
parsley--entered immediately. Then these items are to be transferred
in ink to the larger book as soon as possible after the housekeeper’s
return to the home. It is fatal to accuracy and to really helpful
bookkeeping to let the accounts accumulate before they are written down
and balanced.
Still keeping along the most elementary principles of household
accounts, let me counsel that on the left-hand page be written the
amount of money in hand, while the sums expended and the items for
which they are paid out are set down on the opposite page. The two
pages may be balanced each day or as the bottom of each page is
reached, as best suits the housekeeper. The one immutable rule is that
the sum which the written balance shows ought to be in her purse should
absolutely be there. This may sound like the very primer of household
expenses, but no woman who has ever gone through the anguish of trying
to determine what has become of the stray dime her figures show should
be in her possession, or of discovering how she happens to have a
quarter more than her ciphering proves to belong to her, will ever make
light of the endeavor to square her accounts and her cash balance. Such
struggles are avoided by the consistent practice of noting down each
payment as soon as made.
Possibly the most important decision the young housekeeper has to make
in beginning her domestic bookkeeping is how she shall pay for her
purchases. Shall it be cash or credit? And if the latter, how often
shall bills be paid?
From the standpoint of wise economy it is safe to state that the
strictly cash habit is probably the most economical method to follow.
The old saying of “pay as you go, and if you can’t pay don’t go!” is
put into practical effect. Foolish as it may be, the fact remains
that we all feel a certain reluctance to part with actual cash which
lays a detaining grasp upon us when we might be tempted to “plunge”
if the charge were not to be presented until the end of the week or
month. The housekeeper thinks more than once before she buys the more
expensive cut of meat, the higher-priced fruits or vegetables than her
purse shows she ought to purchase. And there is undoubtedly a comfort
beyond words in the knowledge that no vexing bills are coming in after
the food has been consumed and forgotten. When feasible, there are
countless advantages in paying cash for everything which is brought
into the house and leaving to credit only such items as cannot well be
met except periodically--such as fuel, light, wages, and in some cases
milk and ice.
On the other hand, the charge system has something to its account. It
is much more convenient, in the first place. When one is in a hurry
to finish her marketing and get on to something else the nuisance of
having to wait for change is vexatious. Sometimes the article desired
is not in stock and must be ordered. One hesitates to pay for it before
it is certain that it can be obtained. Again, the telephone marketing
or commanding of groceries, disadvantageous as it is, must sometimes be
followed because of illness or inclement weather, and then the habit
of paying cash is a bother. Moreover, there is little doubt that the
charge customer usually receives a meed of consideration often refused
the cash payer. It is also a genuine inconvenience to pay cash for milk
and for ice and for certain other commodities, such as butter and eggs
supplied by special dealers.
I have not touched upon the possibility that ready money may be
lacking, as is sometimes the case with the man on a salary and still
more with the one who does piecework and is not paid on a fixed day.
Often the need for paying “real money” amounts to a hardship, not
because the purchaser is not solvent, but because his remuneration is
slow in arriving. At such periods the charge account partakes of the
nature of a sheet-anchor. And yet there are strong arguments against it.
Perhaps it is useless to lay stress on the disadvantages of the charge
account, and yet I would feel I was in error if I did not speak a word
of warning against the fatal facility attending on credit arrangements.
It is altogether too easy to have an article charged, forgetting that a
day of reckoning can only be postponed at the best. The housekeeper who
for good and sufficient reasons decides to pay by check periodically
should lay down for herself certain fixed rules.
One of the chief of these is to have short accounts. A grocer’s or a
butcher’s bill should be presented weekly and paid punctually. When
the bill comes in it should be gone over carefully and the items on it
checked up, to be sure, in the first place, that every article charged
has been delivered; in the second place, that the charge set against
it is that which was stated when the purchase was made. It is a common
occurrence to find an increase of from one to five cents on several
entries on a bill. The error may be due to the bookkeeper’s mistake
or to the dealer’s dishonesty. In either event the blunder should be
called to the merchant’s attention and corrected. He will respect the
housekeeper none the less because he learns she is on the alert for
possible discrepancies.
Another principle to be followed is that the marketer should not be
led into making foolish or extravagant purchases because they are to
be charged. In the majority of cases it is a mistake for the small
housekeeper to buy in quantity, since the cash saved by the transaction
is offset by the waste of the material, either by spoiling or because
of extravagant use. Yet when the purchase can be charged it is easy to
yield to the temptation toward what seems at the first glance like an
economy.
Again, the possession of the charge account should not be permitted to
lead the housekeeper into the habit of vicarious marketing--either by
telephone or by messenger or by ordering through an employee of the
concern she patronizes. Other mistakes may also be made, but these are
probably the most frequent and those into which the woman who is not on
her guard against pitfalls in the domestic path is likely to slip.
I have said that it is not feasible to state here a fixed sum to
which the housekeeper must limit her outlay for food. Her best plan
for arriving at an approximate estimate is by a process of averages.
A single day or even a single week cannot furnish a standard any more
than can a single meal. The wisest method is by the aid of strict
system to keep track of her expenditures and then study how the economy
of one time offsets the liberality of another.
To illustrate: when the holiday season is at hand expenses are bound to
increase. The cost of the Thanksgiving or the Christmas turkey and pies
cannot be appreciably reduced. But it is possible to make a science of
economical purchasing and catering--this, too, without stinting the
family or feeding them poorly--so that the burden of high-priced food
may not hopelessly swamp the income.
A like principle may be followed on other occasions. If company must
be entertained, if a family feast must be observed, prudent marketing
and skilful cookery may delude the household into an ignorance of the
fact that money is being saved to carry the housekeeper over the time
of increased bills. Constant thought and consideration are required for
this, but to the lover of housekeeping the occupation after a while
becomes almost like a game in which she pits her wits against the cost
of living and glories when she comes out ahead.
Here is an enterprise in which the habit of going to market for oneself
and the custom of keeping strict account of disbursements both help
the worker. She can pick up at a bargain a cut of meat, a selection
of fish, a choice of vegetables or of fruit, or an occasion in canned
goods which will at once bring down her average and permit her to lay
aside a little toward the next heavy pull upon her purse. This is
especially likely to be the case in the period of preserving, pickling,
and similar pursuits, when often a happy “find” in fruit will help to
lighten the unavoidable weight of conserving of any sort.
The wise student of housekeeping need not let her family recognize the
alternation of a feast and a fast at the table. When they eat a larded
lamb’s liver, they will not suspect an economy; when they rejoice in
filleted sole they will have no idea that the cheapness of flounders is
responsible for their treat, any more than they guess that a delectable
trifle which redeems a rather simple dinner is made from the remains
of stale cake, the left-overs of a couple of jars of jam, and a simple
custard.
Some of the so-called economies do not economize. A bread-pudding which
requires eggs, milk, sugar, butter, and raisins to the value of fifteen
or twenty cents to use up three cents’ worth of stale bread can by no
stretch of the imagination be regarded as a saving. Better make toast
of the bread, save it for stuffing, or dry it and keep it for crumbs
to serve in frying. But there are genuine economies galore, and the
woman who makes a science of them will lay up for herself a series of
agreeable sensations when she balances her housekeeping accounts at the
end of the month.
V
THE HOUSE IN ORDER
Putting the house in order is one thing.
Keeping it in order is quite another.
Once upon a time there was a theory that every house, no matter how
well kept, how frequently swept and scrubbed, must be torn up by
the roots twice a year, for the spring and fall cleaning. At those
dreadful periods mere men fled from before the devastating broom and
scrubbing-brush wielded by the woman of the family. Even when they
stole home in the evening to the slim meal which was all the worn-out
housekeeper could provide, the halls and stairs were likely to be
blocked by pails of suds, by furniture or rolls of carpet _en route_.
To the aged survivors of that epoch the phrase “housecleaning-time” is
still enough to provoke a shudder. I have heard the assertion made that
it lasted at least six weeks, although all seem to be agreed that the
spring visitation was more severe than that of the autumn.
Even in this day and generation there are found certain authorities to
declare that a house cannot be kept so clean that it does not once in
so often require a thorough going-over. In a way there is an element
of truth in their claim. In every home there are nooks and corners not
in constant use, and therefore not regularly cleaned; store-closets,
trunk-rooms, cupboards or drawers reserved for extra bedding, clothing,
furnishings, into whose closed confines dust mysteriously seeps,
wherein moth and other vermin make their breeding-places.
At least once a year--and better, twice in a twelvemonth--these
“glory-holes” should be emptied, the contents looked over, beaten or
dusted, the floors, walls, shelves, etc., wiped off carefully. This is
the time to give away or throw away treasured possessions no longer of
use to their owners and which may be of service elsewhere; to rearrange
such articles as escape banishment; to put aside for the next season
the summer or winter clothing, hangings, and the like which are not
needed at the moment. So long as dirt and dust continue to exist and
to work themselves into the most jealously guarded precincts, so long
must the housekeeper bestow at least a semi-annual inspection on her
reserves and their quarters.
She fails signally to understand her business, however, if she
permits an accumulation of dirt with the comforting conviction that
it will all be removed in the spring and fall clearance. More and
more we understand the importance of purity to health, and with this
comprehension we have grown to perceive that the best method of
retaining high cleanliness is by never allowing the dirt to get the
better of us. A little brushing and sweeping and cleaning here and
there as it is needed, a more attentive treatment once a week, will
keep the house clean without making the labor a burden.
The system which should be the housekeeper’s most valued ally in the
effort after efficiency comes into play here. By the time she is fairly
settled in her new home she should have evolved a routine which, so
far from being an irksome groove, will be rather a track on which the
domestic wheels revolve without undue friction and the consequent wear
and tear.
Take into consideration first the round of the day as it has to do with
keeping the house in order. When the maid or the housekeeper herself
comes down in the morning to start the breakfast, either by making a
fire with wood or coal, or by lighting the oil or gas flame, or turning
the key that sets the electric current to work, she should open the
windows to let in fresh air and the light which reveals the dusty or
the untidy corners.
While the kettle is boiling or the cereal simmering she may have to
set the table, or if this has been done the night before and a light
cloth thrown over it to protect from the dust, the dust-pan and broom
may be called into service or the carpet-sweeper run over the places
which demand attention. The fortunate woman who has a vacuum-cleaner,
either one of the hand variety or the larger style which connects with
the electric current supplying the house, has work simplified and time
saved, as well as strength conserved.
In those homes where an early and rather hasty breakfast is obligatory
for the sake of the commuter or the business man who must get to his
office promptly, or the children who must be off to school, it is
better to have done what superficial tidying was possible the night
before and to let the sweeping and dusting go until after the morning
meal is despatched and the workers on their way. If a system is
followed which obliges the readers of books and newspapers to put them
in their place before going to bed, which insists that toys, tools,
and clothing shall not be left lying about for some one besides the
scatterers to put away the next morning, there need be no confusion
encompassing the breakfast-table. A few moments should have been
snatched for dusting the more conspicuous portions of the dining-room
furniture, and distress of digestion should never be induced by the
presence of dirt or disorder in the surroundings.
When the housekeeper has the home to herself, has disposed of the
details of dish-washing, bed-making, etc., has planned for her
meals and made out the list for her marketing, she should turn her
attention to the removal of the “matter out of place,” as dirt has been
gracefully termed. The living-room will probably require her first
efforts after she has reduced the dining-room to the proper condition
of shining tidiness.
I have referred to the vacuum-cleaner. I wish I could put one into the
hands of every housekeeper! Several kinds are on the market and I carry
no brief for any special make, but I know there is more than one good
variety. The woman of slender means can use one of the hand-machines,
which, while perhaps more tiresome to work than the cleaner run by
electricity, will yet make much less call upon the strength than the
ordinary broom and do the work much more effectively. Not the least of
the advantages of the vacuum-cleaner is a merit it possesses in common
with the ordinary carpet-sweeper--that it does not scatter dust as well
as gather it up.
More than this, the vacuum-cleaner enables the worker to remove the
dust from draperies without taking them down, to clean walls by a less
arduous means than going over them with a cloth-wrapped brush or broom.
Decidedly, one of the best investments a housekeeper can make is a
good vacuum-cleaner; and she will find that it soon pays for itself in
the amount of time and toil it saves. The work it takes a woman hours
to accomplish is done by the vacuum-cleaner in a fraction of the time
she would bestow on cleansing by the old methods, and more than one
housekeeper has found that she saved the wages of an extra helper by
the purchase of a vacuum-cleaner that she could handle herself.
When such a cleaner is out of the question, a substitute for minor
work in this line is a carpet-sweeper. True, it cannot go into corners
and its accomplishment must be supplemented by a dust-pan and broom,
but even so, it saves much stooping and struggle to the housekeeper. A
trustworthy variety should be selected; it should be emptied regularly
and kept in perfect working order. With this there should be provided
what is known as a dustless mop--there are several makes of these--to
use on the bare floors after the rugs have been treated by the sweeper.
As a matter of course everything of this sort, as well as the use of
a broom which raises dust, should be concluded before the housekeeper
attacks the furniture with the brush for the upholstered pieces, a
flannelette or cheese-cloth duster for the hardwood, or one of the
so-called oiled dusters. Of these, too, a good choice is offered at
house-furnishing establishments. While the cleaning goes on the windows
should be open, but not in such a way as to blow the dust, and the
doors into the other part of the house should be kept closed. The old
method, still practised by untrained maids or by housekeepers whose
zeal is in excess of their knowledge, of cleaning two or three rooms at
once and driving the dust from one room to another should be entirely
out of date in these sanitary days.
The same sort of surface-cleaning should be followed throughout the
house, in halls and chambers, as well as in the down-stairs rooms. Even
in the tidiest household dust is likely to gather from day to day, and
if neglected twenty-four hours its presence is unpleasantly conspicuous.
This superficial care answers excellently for part of the time, but it
is not sufficient without a more thorough attack at least once a week.
The housekeeper need not follow the modes of her mother and grandmother
and have the whole house swept from top to bottom on one day of the
week, unless she finds, after study of ways and means, that this
simplifies living for her. A better plan is to have one room or two
done a day, so that the labor is lightened by being spread out through
the week.
The same method should be followed in each room that is to be cleaned.
The smaller ornaments should be wiped and laid away, either in the
bureau drawer or on some large piece of furniture which cannot be
moved but may have its surface and the objects put on it covered with
a sweeping-sheet. Lighter articles, such as chairs and small tables,
should be dusted and then carried from the room. The postponement of
the dusting until they are brought back after the room has been swept
means a fresh scattering of the dust about the clean chamber.
Sweeping-sheets, made of cotton cloth bound with red, that they may not
be confused with the regulation bed-linen, should be at hand to lay
over such large pieces as cannot be removed. The sweeping should be
done from the sides of the room toward the center, recollecting always
to have at least one window opened and all doors closed. When the dust
is all in one compact heap it should be taken up in the dust-pan,
transferred at once to a newspaper, this rolled up tight and put aside
to be carried down to the furnace or the ash-can. After the dust has
settled the walls can be gone over with a cloth or with a broom about
which has been wrapped a duster, or a hair brush with a long handle,
such as comes for this purpose.
The above method can be followed in a room with a carpeted floor or
with a large rug fastened down. When small loose rugs are used they may
be swept first, then rolled up and carried from the room, after which
the bare floor is dusted or wiped off with oil or rubbed with one of
the good waxing preparations which the popularity of the hardwood floor
has brought into the market. In a house supplied with a vacuum-cleaner
the floor and the rugs can both be cleansed without the labor of
carrying out the latter, and the upholstered furniture will not need
the offices of the small brush in removing the dust from folds and
tufts.
Water should not be used on a hardwood floor. It may be wiped off with
a cloth dipped in crude oil and turpentine mingled in equal parts, and
the mixture must be well rubbed in. In default of this, kerosene may
be employed, observing moderation in the quantity of the oil applied.
Too much of any kind of dressing makes an unpleasant odor which lingers
persistently.
It may be said, by the way, that when oilcloth is washed the cloth
should be wrung out nearly dry. If the water gets under the oilcloth
this will rot.
When windows are to be washed the dust and dirt from the frames should
be removed before the glass is touched. If not, the panes will be
streaked. Warm water should be used, and no soap; this would make the
glass cloudy. A little borax or ammonia may be added to the water, and
in cold weather alcohol should be mixed with the water to prevent this
from freezing on the cloth.
In scouring paint the soap or other preparation should be applied on a
flannel or the paint will be scratched. Hardwood finishings, such as
door-posts, window-frames, and the like, should have the same sort of
oiling as is used for the floors.
If the silver which is in daily family service is always washed as
it should be after each meal there is no reason why it should become
dull and dingy and require a weekly scouring. Scalding-hot water is an
essential; the silver should be rinsed off in hot suds, dropped into
the almost boiling clean water, fished out quickly, a piece or two at a
time, and dried immediately. No draining of silver or glass should ever
be allowed, no matter what compromises are permitted in this line with
china and crockery.
Close to the worker’s hand should stand a few helps toward keeping her
silver and glass bright and shining. A bottle of household ammonia
or a box of borax is one of her best aids. Also she should have a
little coarse salt with which to take egg stains from silver, and a
cake or box of good silver polish in case some of the pieces look less
brilliant than they should. A chamois-skin to give a final polish is
also a desideratum. If silver has been laid away and become dull so
that a general scouring is demanded, it is well for the housekeeper
to have one of the patented devices by which silver can be cleansed
by an immersion in a bath of soda and salt contained in an aluminum
pan. Again, there are several good articles of this kind for sale at
reasonable prices.
The daily equipment for dish-washing should consist of two dish-pans
for the housekeeper who does not possess a butler’s-pantry sink with
running water. In one of these pans the silver and china should be
rinsed free of all grease before they are put into the clean hot suds
of the other pan. The glasses should be washed in the clear water
before soap has been added; next come the silver pieces, and these,
like the glasses, should be wiped dry as soon as they are taken out.
The ideal method is to dry the china in the same way, but if it is
perfectly clean when taken from the suds, the pieces ranged in a rack
and boiling water poured over them, they will usually dry evenly and
show no marks or streaks. This method undoubtedly saves much time
and bother. A dish-mop is better for use in washing dishes than a
dish-cloth, since it keeps the hands from the hot water, but should be
scalded after each service and boiled once a day. The towels should be
washed and boiled with equal regularity.
VI
HYGIENE AND PLUMBING
Some of the apparently minor details of housekeeping really possess
more importance than those which seem to bulk larger.
Consider drains, for instance. In this day it is taken for granted that
no one buys or rents a house without being assured that the plumbing
is in perfect order, as well as having been of the best quality in
the beginning. I say that this is taken for granted, and yet I feel I
should modify this statement, recollecting homes in which I have been
a guest where the plumbing is obsolete and neglected to a degree which
would be dangerous with even the most up-to-date fittings. When such
carelessness exists relative to the old-fashioned closed plumbing with
the cheapest and least scientific of traps and stop-cocks, one gains a
rather alarming notion of the hazards to which householders recklessly
subject their families.
Let me state here that the absence of evil odor is no proof that drains
and traps are in excellent order. The deadly sewer-gas is practically
without smell, and persons can be badly poisoned by it with no warning
on the part of their olfactory nerves. There are tests which will
demonstrate the presence of noxious vapors, but these must be made by
sanitary engineers or specialists in this line. Unless the dweller in
any home is positively assured that the drains, plumbing, etc., are in
perfect condition there should be no delay in making such tests and in
proving the good or evil state of the house-fittings.
This is not sufficient, however. The drains must be kept clear, not
only for such a simple hygienic reason as the desire to guard against
disease, but also because a greasy or dirty pipe soon means a choked
pipe, and this in turn brings the inconvenience of a sink which cannot
be used, of a backed-up overflow of waste water, with the possible
accompaniment of injured floor-coverings, walls, and ceilings.
The expert may be required to decide as to the perfection of drains.
The veriest beginner in housekeeping needs little education to know
how to keep them free. In the first place she should see that nothing
is thrown down a waste-pipe but the things it is meant to carry off.
When wads of paper, broken pasteboard boxes, rolls of hair-combings,
and similar refuse are flung into the mouth of even a wide and
generous waste-pipe there is pretty sure to be trouble sooner or
later. When grease and particles of food, tea-leaves, coffee-grounds,
and collections of dust are dumped into a sink, or a corresponding
amount of debris is permitted to try to make its way through the pipe
running from the wash-basin, no one but the person guilty of such gross
carelessness may be to blame, but the whole household is likely to
suffer for the offense.
In view of the fact that most persons are heedless, the housekeeper
should protect herself and others against risks. One of the
simplest helps to this is the use of washing-soda--a chemical
which is absolutely ruinous to clothing when used as a detergent
in laundry-work, but is admirable for cutting grease or fat which
has accumulated in waste-pipes and for eating away other foreign
particles which have gathered there. I hasten to add that it will not
disintegrate strands of hair or bone buttons--both of which are often
found by plumbers in the joints of choked pipes they have been called
in to open!
Another aid to keeping the pipes clean and free is household ammonia.
This does not need to be poured clear into the pipes, but when it has
been employed in rinsing greasy dishes or in cleansing the sink, or in
brightening glass or silver, the hot water to which it has been added
is of distinct benefit to the waste-pipes. It may be suggested, by the
way, that one of the best methods for using the washing-soda is to lay
a good-sized lump of it over the drain-pipe from the sink so that the
water which goes down carries particles of the soda with it on their
cleansing errand.
Either ammonia or a solution of washing-soda should be used in rinsing
out the set-tubs after laundry-work has been done. When one thinks of
the human waste from the skin which adheres to the clothing and is
washed off from it in these tubs, there is a degree of foulness in the
notion of letting the tubs pass with no more cleansing than the rinsing
they get from the second or third water through which the clothes are
passed.
Other cleansing preparations come which are perhaps less severe in
their effect on the hands than the common washing-soda. Many of those
on the market are known to be excellent by the proof they have given
housekeepers. The names of several of these will at once suggest
themselves to any one who keeps up with the times in the line of
domestic helps. Whatever the chosen cleaning medium may be, a bottle or
box of it should always stand in the bath-room, not only for rinsing
out pipes and keeping them clear, but also for preserving the purity of
basin and tub and toilet-bowl.
I have often been impressed by the carelessness of housekeepers in
this detail, especially in homes where there are several children.
Evidently these have never been taught the niceties of rinsing out the
tub after bathing, or the basin after washing the hands. Around each
vessel runs a high-tide mark of soap or dirt, the mere sight of which
is enough to deter the observer from using bowl or bath. The touch of
the hand to the inside of either will almost always discover a sediment
or accretion of grease or dirt or both. This accumulation is readily
removed by a soap-rubbed cloth or by one dipped in ammonia or other
detersive. Such care may seem a trifling detail, but it is one which
should never be neglected.
In connection with this a word does not come amiss as to the superior
attractiveness of nickel bath-room fittings, or of those of the kitchen
or butler’s pantry, when they are kept bright and clean, over those
which are suffered to lapse into dinginess. When the nickel coating is
hopelessly scoured off it is not a serious matter to have the fittings
done over and made to look like new.
The whole care of the bath-room deserves more attention than it usually
receives. Soiled towels and wet wash-cloths should not be flung down
here and there, or stray medicine-bottles and medicine-boxes left in
untidy rows on the shelves. The medicine-cabinet should be kept in
order; the towels and wash-cloths folded neatly and hung up after
using; clean towels in plenty in readiness for the chance guest; the
soap-dish should be scoured scrupulously as often as once a day. Of
course it takes time to do these little things, but their presence
or absence marks the difference between the good and the careless
housekeeper.
Washing-soda has another use beyond that of keeping drain-pipes
clear. A solution of it is excellent for washing out the ice-box or
refrigerator. This process should take place at least once a week. When
this is said it is not meant that the ice-box should not be cleared out
oftener than that. A new piece of ice should not go into it if there
is a possibility of bits of food of any sort having been left in the
corners or cracks of the ice-chamber. Daily inspection of the contents
of the refrigerator will make sure that all food in it is keeping well
and is sweet and fresh.
In most well-made refrigerators of the day the shelves are so built
that they can be slipped in and out. By this plan they can be scrubbed
clean and the sides of the refrigerator can also be scoured off, as
would not be feasible with non-detachable shelves. After it has been
made clean a few pieces of charcoal should be laid in the corners. This
will keep the place sweet by absorbing the odors from food, and every
few days the fragments of charcoal should be thrown out and new ones
put in their place.
Even with this care the ice-box will sometimes get a close smell; at
such times a small shovel should be made nearly red-hot, a little
ground coffee sprinkled upon it, and this put into the refrigerator
for a few minutes. It should be understood by every housekeeper that
butter, milk, and cream should never be kept near strong-smelling
articles of food. They absorb the odors and taste of the items they
have been with.
Milk is usually kept in open dishes or pans for those who wish to get
the full good of the cream which rises to the surface, and nothing
else except other milk products or perhaps fresh eggs should be
permitted near it.
When highly flavored foods of any sort must be kept in a refrigerator
they should either be closely covered--which is not always possible
or desirable--or put in a chamber by themselves. Butter should not be
suffered to remain in the wooden boxes or plates on which it is often
sent home; lettuce and greens should either be washed before they are
put away or wrapped in clean paper. Lettuce is best rinsed and then
done up in a clean cloth before it is laid near the ice.
When canned goods of any sort are opened they should at once be turned
from the tin. They will keep indefinitely in the can while this is
sealed, but as soon as the air gets at the contents a chemical change
is wrought by the contact of the fluid and the tin and the food soon
becomes affected and a positive menace to health. The housekeeper
should always have in her stock a number of small bowls or dishes into
which to turn the fruit, vegetables, etc., which have been sent home to
her in a can.
A wire meat-safe is an important item to have in the pantry, when
there is room for such a convenience. Lacking this space, the dweller
in flats achieves a compromise by a box built outside of her kitchen
window, covered on top with oilcloth or other water-proof material,
that the contents may be kept dry. According to the exposure of the
window to the sun, the sides of the box may either be of wire netting
or solid wood. In length the box matches the width of the window and is
usually high enough to allow of two shelves. In this improvised outdoor
pantry can be kept in cool weather many articles which would otherwise
crowd the refrigerator unduly and would perhaps wither or spoil in the
warm kitchen or pantry.
Every convenience she can lay her hands on the housekeeper is within
her rights in securing. When it is worth while it pays for itself in
sparing her busy hands and feet, in easing the tire of her overworked
back. On her floor she should have linoleum, as it is easier to keep
clean than the bare boards, more sanitary and more convenient than rugs.
The study of how to arrange her kitchen so as to save herself steps
is one of the first things the new housekeeper should undertake. The
table should stand near the sink and not too far from the stove; the
utensils most frequently in service should be hung on a row of hooks
close at hand or be ranged on a couple of shelves above the table.
Here, too, should be such articles of seasoning, etc., as are in
constant demand--the salt-box, the pepper-cruet, the vinegar-bottle,
the flour-dredger, and the like. The bread-box and bread-board should
be near the table on which the loaf is to be sliced; the bread-knife
should be close by.
One of the greatest conveniences for a kitchen is that piece of
furniture called a kitchen cabinet, which unites the functions of a
dresser, a receptacle for provisions, a table or shelf at which to
make bread and roll pastry, and various other qualities that must be
known to be appreciated fully. These cabinets come in different sizes,
styles, and finish, and are easily made by the clever home carpenter.
The fireless cooker must not pass unnoticed, whether this be of the
home-made hay-box kind or of the more elaborate variety containing
plates to heat for cooking the contents of the vessels of the cooker.
Whichever make is selected, the cooker itself is one of the most potent
aids the housekeeper can have as a saver of time, of fuel, of labor,
and of fatigue. By its assistance the meal virtually cooks itself, once
it has been started in the right way. Food prepared in the fireless
cooker preserves its flavor as it cannot do if cooked in the oven or on
top of the stove, and there is far less waste of the material of each
article than if it were suffered to go off in steam and aroma.
The most popular fuel of the day is undoubtedly gas, since the cost
of electric equipment puts it beyond the reach of most housekeepers
of moderate means. Yet there are many parts of the country where all
cookery must be done by coal or even by wood, and where the only solace
of the worker is that she has the comfort of the heat in winter and the
benefits of slow cooking at all times.
For housekeepers who must buy their coal it is well to know that the
most advantageous mixture for the average-sized range is a mixture of
egg-coal and nut-coal, in the proportion of equal parts of the red ash
and the white ash. The latter burns more slowly than the former, while
this gives a stronger fire and makes fewer cinders.
A fresh fire need not be made more than once a week if the housekeeper
is careful to rake out the ashes at bedtime, put on fresh coal, open
the draughts for ten or fifteen minutes or until the new coal is fairly
kindled, then close the draughts and leave the upper door of the stove
open. In the morning the draughts have only to be opened after the
upper door has been closed and a little fresh coal put on as soon as
the fire has begun to be red. Not until this has begun to burn well
should a further small supply of coal be added. This mode is much more
economical of fuel and work than making a fresh fire every day.
VII
THE HOME WITHOUT A SERVANT
The housekeeper who undertakes to run her establishment without a
servant is beset by certain disadvantages. When she has had a bad
night, is suffering from indisposition of any kind, or wishes to
undertake some piece of work, such as dressmaking, for which she
desires to have her time free, it is inconvenient to feel that without
her personal effort no part of the business of the house will be done,
that all responsibility as well as all performance falls upon her.
On the other hand, great are the comforts of the woman who has no
one but herself to do her work. These should be considered, since an
enormously large proportion of American housekeepers employ no regular
servant and many others call in assistance only for such toil as
washing and ironing and heavy cleaning.
The woman who does not keep a maid can run her kitchen to suit herself
and have things done as she prefers. She need not be constantly worried
because the cook neglects to line the garbage-pail with a newspaper
or to put on the cover, persistently leaves the refrigerator open in
hot weather and will not save left-overs. The mistress knows that the
dishes are washed by an approved method, since she does it herself,
and this position also enables her to have the utensils and general
plenishing of the kitchen and pantry in the order she likes.
The same freedom obtains in other parts of the house. There is no
uncertainty as to whether towels and napkins are used in the prescribed
routine; no doubt if the beds are properly aired and made, the corners
of the rooms swept and the top shelves dusted, sanitary precautions
observed as to drains and similar niceties of care followed. The woman
who does her own work can be sure of an attention to details which
she could not compel from a hireling except at the cost of close
watchfulness and more or less nagging.
More than this, the economies to be compassed in a house where no maid
is kept far exceed the mere outlay for food which is required to supply
an extra person. No one but the mistress of the home will watch for
small leaks, and, having bought judiciously, will take pains that the
saving thus practised is not lost by careless use of materials. She
will plan her meals so as to utilize remnants, will see that the trifle
which seems of no importance is put aside to combine with another
apparently negligible quantity, will guard worn-out household linens
for other services than the rag-bag, will watch for the first breaks
in table-cloth or napkins and stop them with a wise stitch or two.
Through it all she will possess the delightful sense of having her home
to herself, of knowing there is not a nook or a corner of it where she
does not reign supreme, and that her theories are put into practice
from the top of the house to the bottom.
Such delightful sensations as these are of course out of the question
for the woman who undertakes housekeeping without a good working
knowledge of how to conduct it. The theories to which reference has
been made may be the best of their kind, but unless they are backed
by the ability to do the things they describe there is likely to be
trouble. Still, the woman who has more book instruction in the line of
housekeeping than actual experience can learn by doing and in time
reach a point where her independence is a joy to her. The best aid she
can have in this endeavor is system, the habit of doing each task at a
certain hour and in a certain way, and she need not consider the time
wasted she bestows on planning out her routine so as to make it at once
easy and efficient.
In a city apartment or a small house fitted with the latest
improvements the way is much simplified. If one can have a fire by
striking a match and turning on the gas-stove, is supplied with
hot water by a means outside her own kitchen, has milk, ice, meat,
and other provisions brought to the door of her pantry, and no
responsibility as to getting rid of ashes or garbage, she may feel that
her lines have fallen in pleasant places.
Naturally, a woman who lives in these conditions must direct her work
in a very different way from that incumbent upon the dweller in a
village or on a farm, who must build and keep in her own fires for
cooking and heating, warm every drop of hot water that is used--often
perhaps having to draw or pump it first--fill the lamps by which the
house is lighted, and do all the many other duties which are performed
for the dweller in a city flat and taken by her for granted. Yet as
much efficiency, as delightful a life, exist in these conditions as
can be found in a home where the work is reduced to a minimum. The
housekeeper who must put up with inconveniences will generally find
that they are offset by benefits which go far to counterbalance the
drawbacks.
If the city housekeeper with all modern improvements at her command
requires system in her work, it is even more necessary for the one who
must do without such aids. At the same time she must secure every help
she can. When she can get one of the gasolene-stoves which, if properly
managed, are hardly second to a gas-range in excellence, or, if lacking
one of these, she can secure a good oil-stove with an oven; if she can
provide herself with an oil hot-water-back or heater which will warm
the water for cooking and bathing; if she purchases all such aids as
fireless cookers, steamers, hand vacuum-cleaners, and other up-to-date
appliances, she will simplify her labor and at the same time preserve
the youth and strength that would be devoured by the adherence to the
methods of her grandmother in a day when twentieth-century living is
taken for granted on even the remote rural free-delivery route.
In addition to this she should study the art of sparing herself in
other ways, even of shirking when it is wise. By this advice there
is no implication that she should be careless of work that should be
done or perform it in the wrong way. But often duties can be postponed
with no harm to anything except the housekeeper’s supersensitive
conscientiousness, just as there are times when it is even wiser
to leave the room unswept or undusted than to wear oneself down to
absolute fatigue and the fretfulness or irritability such weariness
connotes.
One of the first rules for the home-worker to lay down for herself is
that no positive moral superiority is displayed by standing at one’s
occupations. There is no reason except a custom better broken than
preserved why a woman should not have a high stool or chair on which
to sit while washing and drying dishes, while preparing vegetables,
beating eggs, creaming butter or flour, and performing other such
tasks, as well as while ironing small pieces. The stool or chair should
also be accompanied by a hassock or footstool on which to rest the
feet. The fact that some of the old type of housekeepers will call the
practice lazy does not in the least affect the common sense of the
suggestion and the habit.
Another means for rendering kitchen work agreeable is to have the
right sort of utensils with which to accomplish it. I have spoken of
some of the conveniences already. Certain of them are high-priced, but
many of the aids to easy and pleasant cookery are inexpensive. To have
plenty of bowls and spoons, the right kind of measuring-cups, pans,
and pudding-dishes, is as essential in its way as the purchase of a
bread or cake mixer or a washing-machine. Too often housekeepers put
up with the poor outfits they have and let a mistaken economy prevent
their securing the right kind of tools. Nothing worth having is gained
by washing dishes in a rusty and battered pan, drying them on ragged
towels, any more than by serving your puddings in a chipped bake-dish
or measuring ingredients in a leaky cup. This is not real economy; it
is either slovenliness or sloth. When a woman does her own work she can
surely trust herself to take care of the articles she uses, and she
should not stint herself in buying those she needs.
Also she should dress for the part of maid-of-all-work when she is
filling that rôle. Tightly fitting waists and long skirts should never
be worn, and wash frocks are the best, since the material not only does
not harbor odors of cooking as does a woolen fabric, but the garment
can be washed when it is soiled.
A shirtwaist and short skirt or a one-piece frock is the best uniform,
and always there should be a large and comprehensive apron with a
high bib and shoulder-straps. In addition to this it is well to have
a couple of aprons supplied with sleeves, which can be slipped on
over an afternoon frock when getting dinner ready or when washing up
afterward. All the aprons should be long enough to come down well
to the hem of the gown and should be of some pretty goods, such as
gingham or percale, or one of the crinkly fabrics which do not need to
be ironed after washing. There is no reason why a woman who does her
own work should not look attractive while she is at the process. Above
all, she should abjure curl-papers, kid curlers, and similar atrocities
both while at her duties and when presiding at the breakfast-table for
a family which should surely take away with them an agreeable mental
picture of the mistress of the house. If these adjuncts are actually
necessary to render the wearer presentable later in the day, she should
at least conceal them under a pretty boudoir cap. Such a cap is
advisable not only on account of the appearance, but as a protection to
the hair from smoke and steam.
After the morning meal is over the housekeeper may either put her
dishes to soak in hot water, leave her beds to air, and go out to do
her marketing, or she may decide to postpone the purchasing until
later in the day and despatch her household duties before she leaves
the house. Often it seems wiser to go to market late in the morning,
or even in the afternoon, and thus have the best part of the forenoon
unbroken for domestic occupations. The systematic housekeeper can
usually plan her meals so that this plan can be followed without
inconvenience.
In the well-kept flat there is not very much to do when there are only
two in the family. With so few in the house articles do not get out
of place to any marked extent, and when the windows have been opened
in the chambers and living-room while breakfast was going on there is
little to hinder the housekeeper from devoting only a short time to
pushing furniture back into place, running a carpet-sweeper over the
floor, and doing necessary dusting. A bed or two must be made, the
bath-room put in order, the dishes washed, and the dining-room and
kitchen set to rights; but in the apartment where the woman does her
own work there will be no accumulation of other persons’ dirt to be
removed.
When a whole house is occupied there is more to be done. Halls and
stairs must be brushed, perhaps front steps swept, stoves looked after
in winter, and flies beaten out and rooms shaded in summer. Other
duties will present themselves if there is more than a single floor
to be kept in order--a floor on which are found kitchen, pantry, and
dining-room as well as chambers and bath-room.
Whether it be an apartment or a whole house, the same order of work
should be followed. The morning should be the time applied to turning
off any heavy or disagreeable work which has to be done. Cleaning,
sweeping, dusting, making ready of vegetables for dinner, preparing the
pudding or other dessert which is to be cooked later in the day, should
always be planned for the early hours of the day. This is the time when
the energies are at their best and freshest, and it is also the period
when interruptions are least likely. In the afternoon one cannot be
secure against callers or other demands upon leisure--to say nothing of
the comfort one feels in knowing that the unpleasing portions of the
day’s toil are done and over with!
The young housekeeper who becomes absorbed in her new occupation
sometimes slips into the fault of yielding herself to it too
unreservedly. When a woman really loves the work of cooking and
planning, of keeping her house in exquisite order and contriving to
make supply and demand meet one another, she is in danger of becoming
given over to it. Her husband is not likely to be able to understand
her attitude, and although he may enjoy a well-kept home, he will
probably feel he desires something more in his wife than a domestic
devotee.
Against the danger of drifting into this position the young housekeeper
should be on the alert. No one else is as much interested as is she
in the business of running her particular home, and the sooner she
appreciates this the better for her and the more agreeable for every
one else. At first she will possibly wish to talk of little else, but
after the very earliest novelty has worn off she should wake up to the
perception that there are other things in the world besides her home.
She should see that she must keep herself in good mental condition as
well as keep her house; that the time is not wasted that she spends in
reading, in wise recreation, especially in permitting herself a little
rest each afternoon which will help preserve her freshness and vigor
and put her into condition to make life pleasant for her husband when
he comes home at night.
For this is as important a point as any other in housekeeping. Even a
man who loves his home wearies of finding a worn-out wife at dinner
every evening, and of being confined for subjects of conversation to
the round of the happenings connected with the butcher, the baker, and
the grocer. He likes a lively, fresh wife awaiting him; he enjoys being
entertained after the hard toil of the day; he is pleased when she is
glad to go with him for a little outing or a mild dissipation. To be
in readiness for this is an object the housekeeper should have in view
through the work of the day, and she should resolutely cut out any
additional labor which will interfere with her making the dwelling a
home as well as a mere place to live in.
As a practical illustration of this let me commend the habit of letting
the dinner-dishes wait to be washed until the next morning when there
is something on hand with which this work would clash. While it is
undoubtedly agreeable to go to bed with the pleasant sensation that
there are no “hangovers” in the way of undischarged duties, it is
often wiser to postpone a task than to perform it at the cost of hurry
and flurry. The dishes may be put in a pan with hot water and a little
washing-powder, and left until after breakfast the next day, when they
may be washed without haste or nervousness.
VIII
IN THE LAUNDRY
Whether or not a housekeeper expects to do her own washing and ironing,
she should know in every detail how it is to be done. The occasion
may not arise for her to put her hands into the wash-tub or to wield
a flat-iron, but she should understand the operations and know how to
correct intelligently the errors of her laundress.
There has been a good deal said of the burden of laundry-work, and
yet I have known many women who preferred undertaking it themselves
to trusting it to the charge of an ignorant or untrained washerwoman.
This is sometimes the only variety that can be secured in the country
or in small places, but the laundry, which is the resource so often
of dwellers in the city, is frequently far more injurious to clothing
than the treatment of the poorest laundress. In such circumstances or
when economy seems necessary the housekeeper who has the ability to do
up the clothing of her family and the bed and table linen possesses a
power which means not only comfort, but saving of wear and tear as well
as of money.
In the effort to provide the A-B-C of laundry-work a beginning must be
made with directions for sorting and preparing the clothes for washing.
The first step is to separate towels and bed-linen from starched
white garments and place them in different piles, with flannels and
stockings in a third gathering. This should be done on the evening
preceding wash-day, as the labor is much lessened by putting the
clothes into soak overnight. The method--or lack of method--of the
careless laundress is to throw those garments to be submitted to this
preliminary treatment into a tub of warm water to which has been added
some washing-powder or detersive and leave them thus all night.
Instead of this the clothing should be looked over carefully, dipping
the worst-soiled portions into warm water and rubbing the spots well
with laundry soap. Each garment should then be rolled up with the
soaped side inward, and all the rolls thus made packed down into a tub
of lukewarm water to which has been added a small quantity of borax,
household ammonia, or other equally good and harmless detersive.
Just here it is well to make a slight digression on this subject.
I have already spoken of the injurious effects of washing-soda in
laundry-work. It cuts and perforates the linen on which it is used,
but it is so potent in taking out dirt that I have known laundresses
to bring it with them in their pockets when its use was forbidden
by a housekeeper. Washing-soda is possibly the most destructive of
these agencies, but there are others on the market, sold as patented
preparations, which are hardly less harmful. Of a number of them it
is true that they are helpful if used in moderation. The trouble is
that the unskilled worker is likely to imagine that where a little is
good much would be better, and to apply the powder or fluid with a
liberality that has disastrous results.
Even when borax or ammonia--probably the least deleterious of all
detersives--is used, it should be in small quantities when the clothing
is to be left with it for any length of time. Therefore there should be
very little put in the tub in which the raiment is to be soaked.
Woolens, cotton and wool, or silk and wool, colored clothes, and
stockings are not given this soaking, but left to one side until the
next morning.
When the actual washing begins flannels should have the first
attention. They should be given especial care, since upon this depends
their coming from the wash smooth and soft instead of thickened and
rough. Soap should not be rubbed upon them unless there are badly
soiled spots, and then these should be soaped without applying soap
to the rest of the garment. A little ammonia should be added to the
water in which they are washed, and this should be lukewarm and made
into suds by the addition of shaved soap before the flannels are put
in. They should not be rubbed on the board but between the hands, with
frequent dipping up and down in the water until they look clean.
The flannels are then squeezed between the hands until as much water
as possible is gone from them, when they are thrown for rinsing into
water of the same temperature as that from which they were taken. This
is essential. Water which is either colder or hotter will thicken and
shrink the flannels. After a thorough rinsing they are again wrung out
and hung to dry at once, in the shade, if an outdoor drying-place is
used. They look better if they are ironed while still slightly damp.
When both colored and white flannels are to be washed the latter should
come second, that specks of lint from them may not disfigure the
colored articles.
The second water from the flannels will answer very well for the first
washing of the other clothes. It is not necessary to practise this
economy in a flat furnished with hot water from the cellar, but the
fact is worth recalling when the supply of warm water is insufficient.
Too many pieces should not be put into the tub at once, as the clothes
cannot be washed properly if crowded together, and plenty of water is
demanded to get them clean. The water should be warm and the clothes
which have been soaked overnight will require little rubbing on the
board in order to make them clean. It may be mentioned that clothing
which is worn long enough to become badly soiled will need an amount of
hard rubbing which will wear it out much sooner than garments that have
been thrown into the wash before they are very dirty.
The boiler, half full of cold water, should be at hand. Colored clothes
are never boiled, and they may be washed separately if this seems more
convenient. After the soiled spots on the white clothes have been well
soaped the pieces should be dropped into the boiler. The addition of a
tablespoonful of kerosene to the water is beneficial. The boiler should
be put on the stove and the water brought to a boil, stirring the
clothes up from the bottom with a clothes-stick from time to time. The
boiling should not continue long, but the clothes be removed as soon as
the water has fairly boiled. Too long on the fire yellows the clothing.
Clean hot water should be at hand and into this each article should
be dropped as it comes from the boiler. Careful rinsing is one of the
secrets of having clothes a good color after washing. Each piece should
be turned inside out to rinse it sufficiently. The garments to be blued
should be transferred from the rinsing water to cold water to which
a few drops of bluing have been added. Judgment must be used in this
addition or the clothing will be too blue. A favorite trick of careless
laundresses is to save themselves the scrubbing which would make the
garments clean, and cover their fault by making them very blue.
After the bluing the unstarched pieces may be wrung and hung out to
dry. The other pieces must be starched as will be directed a little
further on.
The rinsing water in which the clothes were dipped after coming from
the boiler will serve for the first washing of the colored garments. As
these need no bluing, such of them as do not require starching may be
rinsed and hung out at once to dry. Those that must be stiffened may be
dipped into the starch, wrung out, well shaken, and dried.
For boiled starch, a half-cupful of the dry starch is needed in
proportion to a quart of boiling water. The starch is made to a paste
with cold water, the boiling water poured upon it, and the mixture
stirred over the fire until it is clear and smooth. Some laundresses
insist upon boiling the starch an hour, but good results may be gained
with the preparation made as just directed. This starch is of the right
consistency for shirts, aprons, etc., but it must be thinned to use for
either table-linen or for delicate underwear until it is little thicker
than single cream. If shirt bosoms or cuffs or the cuffs of shirtwaists
are to be stiffened, raw starch must be added to the boiled. Raw starch
is prepared by moistening a handful of the raw starch to a paste with a
little cold water, increasing the water until a quart of it has been
used, and stirring it with a piece of fine white soap.
The pieces which have already been passed through the boiled starch
may be dipped into the raw starch for additional stiffening, after the
first starch has dried in them. They are well moistened in the raw
starch, rolled up and left for half an hour or so, and ironed while
damp. The quantity for which direction has just been made is rather
large for a small family, but the proportions may be used in smaller
measure.
Cheap soap and starch should never be employed; they are an
extravagance in the end. The soap should be bought, in a small family,
about a dozen cakes at a time and dried. One cake is enough for a small
wash, unless left floating in the tub after its use is over.
All stains should be looked to before the clothes are washed at all.
Fruit and wine stains, like those from coffee and tea, may be taken
out by stretching the spotted part over a basin and pouring boiling
water through the fabric. The process should be repeated several times
or until the stain is gone. Soap will often “set” a spot which would
come out if washed in clear water. Fruit stains, rust stains--such as
iron-mold--and sometimes ink stains may be removed by wetting the
spots with lemon-juice, sprinkling salt upon this, and laying the
article in the sun. The operation must be done more than once before
the spot will come out entirely. The same treatment will sometimes
obliterate mildew stains, but if these prove obstinate, boiling in
buttermilk the article marked will perhaps take them out. Turpentine
will remove paint stains, and oil marks must be washed with cold water
and a good white soap. Grass stains are sometimes taken out by rubbing
with butter and then washing this out. All spots or stains are far
harder to get rid of after they have once been put through the regular
wash.
Fine pieces of linen like doilies, centerpieces, embroidered and
lace-trimmed handkerchiefs, or very delicate lingerie underwear should
never be washed with the ordinary clothing unless the housekeeper gives
her special attention to them. They should under no circumstances be
rubbed on the wash-board, but rubbed between the hands in a good suds
made of warm water and a fine white soap, and rinsed very carefully. If
they are to be stiffened at all the starch water through which they are
passed should be no heavier than milk. While still warm such articles
should be pressed on the wrong side; and if embroidered, a thick woolen
cloth must be laid under the ironing-sheet. By this method the work on
the article stands out well.
A little experience with ironing is worth more than instruction.
When the clothes have been well sprinkled and folded, the work done
evenly, and each piece rolled up tightly when dampened, a strong arm
and steady, smooth strokes will give good results; but practice is
needed to make the work entirely satisfactory. Experience will tell
when the iron is the right heat. For starched clothes a greater heat is
needed than for flannels; the iron must be tried on a piece of paper
to make sure it is not too hot. Each piece pressed should be ironed
until dry to make a smooth finish. Table and bed linen should be ironed
lengthwise. Always the irons should be well wiped off before using, and
when not in service they should stand on end on a shelf. Never should
they be left on the range when not in use; this roughens the surface.
The electric iron is a great aid, but this must be used with care or it
will be short-circuited and burned out. Always the power must be turned
off when the iron is laid aside for even a few minutes.
No advice as to laundry-work would be complete that did not speak a
word relative to mending. The woman who does her own work will be on
the alert for breaks or thin places in any article and will lay pieces
thus damaged to one side as they are pressed. As a matter of course
it is well to make repairs before the washing is done, when this is
possible, but many garments are far pleasanter to mend after laundering
than before. Stockings do not gain enough harm by being washed before
darning to offset the unpleasantness of having to mend them while they
are still soiled.
When possible, fine articles which have to be darned or carefully
mended with a patch or by piecing are best repaired before they are
ironed. After they have been washed they can be put aside until the
housekeeper has time to mend them properly, and they can then have an
iron run over them and the mended spot smoothed.
The life of fine table-linen can be prolonged indefinitely by attention
to the first break in the hemstitching, the first wear of a thread in
the fabric, the first hole in lace. After the material once begins
to go, even long and careful mending will scarcely save it, but
watchfulness for the earliest symptoms of wear will postpone the evil
day.
IX
WHEN COMPANY COMES
Elaborate entertaining should not be undertaken by a young couple of
moderate means. Hospitality should be a matter of course, but never on
a scale that makes it a burden to carry out at the time or to pay for
afterward.
Perhaps the best and in many respects the most agreeable form of
hospitality is that which calls in the occasional guest to an informal
meal--a sort of improvised party. The husband asks a crony to dine on a
certain night, the wife invites a friend to meet him. Little change is
made in the family meal--perhaps a salad added as well as a sweet, or
more unusual items ordered, or a special dessert prepared, but nothing
which would bring the repast into the line of a dinner-party. There is
no state and ceremony and everything is pleasant and jolly. Such little
dinners are among the most charming forms of entertainment that can
be achieved by young people of moderate means. When it seems well to
widen the circle of invited guests, all to be done is to increase the
provision made without departing from the simplicity which is one of
the features of this kind of entertaining.
In the properly regulated home, where the observances of polite society
are followed as much when the family is alone as when there is company,
guests have no terrors. When the unexpected visitor arrives the table
is found spread for two in the same style that it would be for ten. The
napery is fresh and well laundered; the silver, glass, and china are
shining--clean and arranged in correct order--the knife at the right of
the plate with the soup or bouillon spoon, the fork at the left with
the napkin; the bread-and-butter plate, with its slice of bread or roll
and the butter-ball, near the fork, to correspond with the water-glass
on the other side.
In such a home the maid is taught to follow the orderly sequence of
courses, changing the plates and crumbing the table with as much pains
for one as for half a dozen. Little by little she becomes accustomed to
the routine, so that when a more formal entertainment is planned her
work seems to her merely an amplification of that to which she has
grown wonted.
At the same time a warning should be uttered to the housekeeper of
small ménage against attempting to ape the hospitality of those whose
incomes far exceed her own. Pretense is always absurd, and the woman
who undertakes to imitate the style of the wealthy and fashionable
hostess only renders herself ridiculous without in the least impressing
those with whom she is striving to compete. Such entertaining strains
her income and is in reality far inferior to the little parties she
might give that would possess a merit all their own.
The hostess who aspires to give dinners should make them small, in
the first place. Six is an excellent number--four besides the man
and woman of the house--and it is rarely safe for the beginner to
have more than eight all told, unless she is prepared to hire extra
service. Fully as much attention should be bestowed upon the selection
of the guests as upon the items of the bill of fare. Friends may be
unexceptionable taken alone or in their own environment who do not mix
with those from another circle, and in these conditions even the most
delightful develop unexpected powers of boring and being bored. To get
the right persons together at a dinner and to seat them in the proper
combinations requires a good deal of social skill, and for this reason
it is better for the tyro in entertaining to start with small parties
and only work up to the larger affairs as she becomes more accustomed
to exercising general hospitality.
Experiments in food should never be tried on company. Only those
articles should be served which the maid has proved her ability to
prepare perfectly and to serve correctly. When innovations are to be
presented it should be in the privacy of the family circle. A dinner
that is confined to a few courses should be remarkable rather for their
excellence than for their unusual character or for their costliness.
I have known housekeepers who won themselves a reputation for their
dinners when the items of these were of the simplest character, but
were beautifully cooked and served with a touch of unusualness which
redeemed them from the commonplace.
Again let me warn the hostess against attempting too much on such
occasions. In any establishment not supplied with a corps of trained
servants a great deal of the work of even the quietest dinner falls
upon the hostess. To her it comes to see that the table is set,
the many small and fussy details looked after; generally she must
give the final touches of seasoning or blending to soup, sauces, and
salad-dressing. It is no wonder if sometimes she comes to the table too
tired either to enjoy the food or to lead the talk of the board and
play the part so important for a hostess who desires to have her guests
enjoy their evening.
Such fatigue is not necessary if the rules I have laid down are
followed. If, for example, the cook can make an unapproachable tomato
or oyster bisque; if she can roast a leg of lamb so that it will melt
in the mouth, prepare candied sweet-potatoes to tempt an epicure, and
spinach with the knack of a French chef; if there is some special sweet
dish for which she has made herself famous, whether this be a prune
soufflé with whipped cream, or a frozen mousse or ice--then let the
hostess confine herself to these items for her company dinners until
her maid has acquired further accomplishments. What difference does
it make if precisely the same dinner was served to a knot of friends
last week? The guests are different this time, even if the dishes are
unchanged, and these are good enough to stand repetition though they
appear half a dozen times in succession!
In a neighborhood where dinner is usually served in the middle of the
day and the period for social festivity is in the evening, supper may
take the place of dinner and be no less attractive. When this is the
case, I would advise the hostess to adopt some specialty and stick to
it, with only a few variations.
For instance, I know one housekeeper who was transplanted from the
South to another section of the country, and who there became famous
for the meals she served from her mother’s cook-book. Fried chicken
with cream gravy, Southern sweet-potatoes, beaten biscuit, Sally
Lunn, waffles, fried oysters, batter-bread, syllabubs, were among the
dainties she offered her appreciative guests. Not that she had all
these at one time, but she rang the changes on them, to the delectation
of the company.
Another woman I know who was born and raised in New England made a
success much farther south than this by feasting her friends on such
delicacies as genuine baked beans, cooked in a bean-pot (she made the
fireless cooker take the place of the ancient brick oven), Boston brown
bread--she called it “rye ’n’ Injun”--fried pork with cream gravy,
even creamed codfish and boiled potatoes, made to taste as no one had
ever before dreamed such things could taste. Of course doughnuts and
coffee were included in her menus, and pumpkin-pies and other dishes
of that sort. It was amusing and, in a way, pathetic to see the joy of
the exiles from New England before whom were placed the viands they had
been used to in the long-ago.
The simplicity of the provision should not be made an excuse for
departing from the orthodox methods of service. A supper such as I have
described can be served with as much daintiness as a formal dinner, and
the courses should follow one another in as orderly a style.
As strict in the lines of its etiquette as a dinner is the lunch, where
usually women are the only guests. Such a meal as this may also be
limited in its items. It may begin with bouillon or soup in cups and,
without pausing for an entrée, may go directly on to a solid course,
such as chicken in some form, chops, cutlets, and the like, with a
vegetable or two; this be followed by a salad with crackers and cheese,
and the meal wind up with a sweet of light character, and coffee.
When one has a well-enough trained maid to introduce such an entrée
as oyster pâtés, crab meat _au gratin_, eggs _à la Bénédictine_,
or something of the kind, and can reconcile the extra cost to her
economical conscience, the guests will probably enjoy the additional
provision, but no hostess can feel she is guilty of social stinginess
if she omits these features and follows the simpler lines.
The same caution may be given here as with the dinner--to introduce no
novelties for the first time. Use the family as an experiment station
before presenting the new dishes or the untried fashion of serving them
to outsiders.
Like the luncheon is the breakfast-party, with this difference--that
men are frequently invited to the latter, while they are seldom at the
formal luncheon. For such a breakfast, to be served at twelve-thirty or
one, the first item may be fruit; the soup may be omitted and the meat
course, consisting of some such dish as broiled or fried chicken, chops
or steak or fish, should be accompanied by a good hot bread as well as
by potatoes daintily cooked; and coffee in large cups may be served the
same time. A sweet to wind up a meal like this is rather out of place
unless it takes the form of waffles or griddle-cakes of a delicate
variety with maple syrup or honey. Sometimes the breakfast concludes
as it began, with fruit, although of a different kind from that with
which the meal opened. When oranges or grapefruit prelude the repast,
grapes, etc., may end it.
All these affairs I have mentioned are for a small number. The
afternoon tea is the best method of entertaining guests on a larger
scale, and with a minimum of expense.
I do not need to go here into the details of sending out cards for
such an affair. Whether the tea be a single one, given for the amiable
purpose of wiping out social obligations, or as a means of introducing
a visitor to the local friends of the hostess; or a series of three
or four afternoons, the method followed is the same and the guest who
comes expects nothing beyond a light refreshment. At the more elaborate
affairs of this sort coffee or chocolate may be served as well as
tea, or a bowl of punch offered. The edible provisions are always
practically the same and cover a range of sandwiches of different
kinds--piquant, solid, and sweet--varied by toast buttered plain or
sprinkled with cinnamon, hot scones, small buttered biscuit and similar
cates, followed by cakes of various kinds, plain or fancy, and in some
cases bonbons and salted nuts. The last are not really necessary.
At such a tea as this, if it comprise more than a few intimates, the
maid is usually in attendance to open the door, direct the guests to
the drawing-room, bring hot tea or hot water when needed, remove soiled
cups and perhaps pass the food. In the latter service the hostess may
have the aid of her friends, who usually appreciate the honor of being
asked to “pour” or to help act as hostesses in introducing new-comers,
looking after the comfort of strangers and making sure that no one is
neglected in the distribution of refreshments.
Thus far reference has been made to hospitality exercised in the home
where a maid is kept. Far more numerous are those establishments in
which no regular service is employed. Even in these one’s friends may
be entertained as delightfully, if not as formally, as in the houses
supplied with hired domestics.
The regulation dinner is practically out of the question, and it is
wiser not to attempt it. But merry informal suppers, luncheons, and
breakfasts can be compassed and often these are greater successes
than those parties given under the supervision of a staff of trained
servants. The main point to be guarded against is the attempt at
anything which cannot be put through well. As soon as struggle is
made to do the impossible the effort becomes not only a burden to
the host and hostess, but a sort of nightmare to the guests. Better
have a roast-oyster party in the kitchen, where selected members of
the company do the cooking over the gas-stove, while others take upon
themselves the responsibility of serving the eaters, and the whole
affair is a jolly picnic, than to endeavor to manage a stately function
with insufficient aid and appurtenances.
The same sort of informality may mark the afternoon-tea party in
the home where no maid is kept. All the making ready can be done in
advance, the sandwiches cut and piled, the cakes arranged, the china
and tea equipage set out, so that nothing is needed but to start the
kettle to boiling and make the tea when it is needed. A friend will
preside at the tea-table, other friends will look after other details
and leave the hostess free to welcome and entertain her guests. Such a
party as this is one of the pleasantest, least costly, and generally
satisfactory ways of gathering one’s friends about one for a social
hour or two.
The hostess of small means and no maid should concentrate upon some
such line of entertaining as this and stick to it. She should aspire
to become known for her merry afternoon teas, her pleasant Sunday-night
suppers, her gay and informal after-theater spreads, where the
chafing-dish is the principal feature and where her guests are so well
amused that they think far less of the simple food put before them than
they do of the good-fellowship they have enjoyed. Formal entertaining
may have to be foregone, but the substitutes she offers are more
genuinely satisfactory both to the guests who share them and to the
host and hostess who have to pay for them!
X
THE CHILD IN THE HOUSE
With the introduction of a baby into an establishment the whole general
management of the place is changed.
That is to say, it is changed for a while. A serious mistake is made
when even so important an event as the arrival of a new member of the
family is permitted to cause a permanent alteration in the conduct
of the home. The most devoted of husbands and fathers will yield his
position as first-and-foremost for a while to the latest advent; will
take it for granted that his wife shall be absorbed in the needs of the
baby, shall have no conversation but that which deals with its joys and
woes, its accidents and accomplishments; but eventually any man worth
a row of pins will recollect that after all he was a human being, a
husband, and a householder before he was a parent, and will claim a few
of the rights coming to him in those capacities.
The prospective mother who grasps this truth and puts it into practical
service after the baby comes is much more likely to make a success of
her wifehood and matronhood than the one who is all mother and nothing
else. If the child is well and is properly trained there is no reason
why it should not be a satisfactory member of society and a joy to the
household and to all about it instead of a nuisance to every one except
its most devoted parent.
A great deal more of the comfort of the child and its future good
habits is settled within the first month of its life than is suspected
by those who have had little to do with the care of babies. If it
is started with regular habits of eating and sleeping, is from the
beginning accustomed to lie in its cradle or crib instead of being held
in the arms constantly and lifted and rocked at its first whimper, it
takes such treatment for granted and forms no habit of making demands
for that which is difficult for the attendant always to supply and does
no good to the child to receive.
With a delicate or sickly babe the same strict rules cannot be enforced
as with a healthy infant, and yet even a puny child is better off
if kept to a steady regimen than if fed, taken up, and put down at
uncertain intervals, and allowed to accumulate a crop of irregular
fashions of eating and sleeping. Sometimes the struggle to implant a
sense of law and order is a difficult undertaking when the ill health
of the child or the carelessness of the first nurse has brought it into
bad ways, but persistence in the effort is worth while for the sake of
the comfort success is bound to bring later to all concerned.
The periods of feeding are determined by the doctor, to begin with, and
the space between them is gradually widened as the child grows older.
The system which should be the guide of the housekeeper in her home has
as large a field of usefulness applied to children as anywhere else.
The baby should be washed and dressed at a regular hour; the time for
its meals and its outing should be invariable; the hour for undressing
it, washing it, and making it ready for bed should never vary except in
cases of rare exigency. If it is a healthy child it will fall naturally
into the habit of taking a morning nap after the bath and the meal, of
waking at a certain time, and then of lying comfortably in the bed or
on a couch or in its carriage with no wails to be lifted and walked
with. Modern medical science has declared that the less handling a
little baby receives the better for it, and that for some months its
growth should be in most respects as much like that of a vegetable as
possible.
As the child gets older and begins to use its limbs it will be good for
it to be exercised rather more, but nature is a pretty safe guide to
follow in this respect. The baby who is well and normal is not slow to
show its growth and progress, and it is far wiser for the parent to be
led by these than to attempt to hurry development either of body or of
mind. The child will assert itself soon enough, and so decidedly as to
leave no room for doubt as to its proclivities.
Possibly it may sound a trifle absurd to say that from the first the
child should have the habit of obedience implanted, yet this is no
absurdity, but a serious and important fact. At an astonishingly early
age the infant endeavors to pit its small will against that of its
seniors, and the initial step in revolt is promptly followed by others
unless the attempt is checked at once.
Neither time nor place is sufficient here to go into the reasons why
the training of a child in obedience, even at the cost of suffering
and punishment, is not the exercise over the weak of the tyranny of
the strong, but the display of superior wisdom for the benefit of the
inexperienced. It is enough to remind those who think that a child
should be allowed to grow up naturally, unrestrained by rule and
severity, when severity is required to enforce discipline, that all
through life the human being must conform to constituted authority
as exemplified in the laws of health, of the state, of teachers and
employers, of morality, of religion. In view of this the sooner the
child learns to defer to those in whose charge it is the better for it
later on, the less cruel the lessons life holds in store for it.
Apart from this there can be no doubt that the well-trained child is
actually happier than the one with no law but its own whim. Also it is
much pleasanter company than the self-willed, undisciplined infant who
follows its own sweet will regardless of the comfort or preference of
others.
The same kind of regimen established for a child in babyhood should
be pursued when it grows older and begins to share more actively in
the life of the household. The mistaken custom of permitting a child
to keep the same hours, eat the same diet, and follow practically the
same life as its elders cannot be sufficiently condemned. The habit of
going to bed early after a light meal, of having the heaviest repast
in the middle of the day, of partaking of such food as is particularly
suited to the needs of a growing child, of being debarred rich and
indigestible articles of diet, of having postponed until more advanced
years exciting amusements and pursuits instead of being hurried into
them while hardly out of infancy, should all be enforced. A child is
not a miniature man or woman, but an immature human being who must
develop naturally, as plants grow, and is wronged by being forced
into premature bloom or fruition, mentally or emotionally as much as
physically.
The child’s food should be carefully considered by the mother and she
should not regard the time wasted she bestows in studying food values
and devising the best sort of diet for the nursery. Not until the first
teeth begin to come should starchy food of any sort be given, and then
with caution. Until the saliva flows freely to help digest starch,
bread in any form, crackers, etc., should be withheld. As the child
reaches the stage where solid food is allowed this should continue to
be simple in character. A child does not have the longing for variety
common to more sophisticated palates.
For the breakfast of the child of two or more years of age a cereal,
well cooked, with plenty of milk, should be given. Sugar should not
accompany it. When sweet is desirable, as it often is, it should be
taken in some other way than as an adjunct to a regular article of
diet. With the cereal and milk the child seldom needs anything more,
but if the consumption of the porridge is not sufficient, a soft-boiled
egg or a poached egg may be supplied, with a little toast. Milk should
be the drink.
In the middle of the morning a supplementary meal may be taken, and
this may consist of a piece of bread and butter and a glass of milk.
Whole-wheat bread is better than that made from the bolted flour. When
there is a tendency to constipation Graham bread is good.
At noon the substantial provision of the day is to be served and a
cup of soup may begin the dinner, followed by a very small piece of
steak or chop cut up fine, or by an egg, if one has not been taken at
breakfast, a baked potato, well mashed, with butter or cream and salt
upon it. Rice is also excellent when served with plenty of good butter.
A plain sweet, like stewed fruit, a milk pudding, one of rice, of
arrowroot, tapioca, or a custard, will answer. Milk may again be drunk
unless the child has eaten a meat soup or broth and meat besides.
Generally the little one who has taken so substantial a meal as this
at noon will need nothing more until supper-time, when bread and milk,
crackers and milk, or something of the sort may be provided; or bread
and a good plain jam or stewed fruit, like prunes or apple-sauce, with
a glass of milk. After this comes the child’s bed-time, and it should
be put to sleep in a quiet room, alone, with the door open if symptoms
of nervousness declare themselves, but without a nurse or other
attendant. This may sound hard-hearted, but the child who is accustomed
to such solitude from infancy will not feel it an infliction, and the
saving of inconvenience to the parents in the habit of going to sleep
unattended is incalculable.
The good manners of the child should receive early consideration.
The habit of courtesy implanted in infancy gives a finish of manner
in later life that no surface polish can impart. It is as easy for a
little boy and girl to be taught to rise when elders come into the
room, to take their turn at the table, to handle a knife, fork, and
spoon properly, to eat in a decent fashion, to say, “Thank you,” “If
you please,” and the like, and to show the thoughtfulness for the
feelings and comfort of others which is the foundation of all good
breeding, as it is to let the youngsters grow up as they will and
hammer superficial manners into them when they are older. The good old
rule that “children should be seen and not heard” is sadly in need of a
revival in many homes, and parents cannot wonder at the unpopularity of
their offspring when they reflect upon the disagreeable qualities these
often possess.
All this does not mean that children should constantly be snubbed and
repressed until individuality and initiative are crushed out of them.
In most children these characteristics are strong and triumphant. But a
certain measure of deference to elders should be inculcated--a respect
which will prevent a child from interrupting the conversation of his
seniors, a regard for the conventions which, after all, have more to do
with peace and amity in the family than many of us are willing to admit.
As the child grows older and begins school and kindergarten, other
children will be associated with him, and from them he will learn many
things it would never occur to his parents to teach him. Sometimes it
seems as though the least that children acquire at school is their
regular lessons. These become almost a side issue. The influence of the
strange boy or girl often carries more weight with a child than all
the precepts of father, mother, and teacher. Part of this effect is
transitory, but much of it sticks through life; and while the children
are little more than babies it becomes incumbent upon the parents--by
which is usually meant the mother--to strengthen the bond between
herself and her child so that she may the more effectually offset the
outside forces that sway him.
The sooner the mother recognizes that this is her lifelong “job” and a
most important one, the better for all concerned. The mere animal care
of the child any competent nurse could bestow, and sometimes it seems
as if the charge of a specialist who understood the ins and outs of
dietetics and was able to study the child’s constitution impersonally
might perhaps be better than the attention received from the average
parent. With regard to the question of instruction in book learning
there is little doubt that a well-qualified teacher is far more capable
than the most devoted father or mother. All such duties as these can be
delegated to those who are trained and paid for the work.
When it comes to the companionship, however, it is another matter.
Here is something only the mother can give. It is “up to her” to
study the ins and outs of her child’s nature; to know where and how
to bring pressure in order to counterbalance another influence; to
make herself so one with him that he turns to her instinctively, with
complete confidence in her ability to meet his need; to be so close
in his intimacy that she grasps his thoughts almost before they are
formulated; to persuade him unconsciously to rely upon her judgment,
her companionship, her understanding to an extent that will hold him in
temptation and move him to range himself on the side of right against
wrong.
Of course it is not always easy. The mother does not resign her own
individuality by the mere fact of motherhood; she does not lay aside
her special interests when she takes up those of her child. Yet if she
lets him suspect that anything comes ahead of his well-being in her
heart she makes a fatal mistake; she starts the rift between them which
may widen into a chasm not to be bridged by all her agony and tears.
It may sometimes be hard to yield up one’s own will and preference in
this way, and yet the mother gets her pay as she goes along, and her
labor brings its reward in a fashion unequaled in any other vocation in
the universe. Nothing in the whole world pays so well as being a mother!
THE END
Transcriber's Notes:
Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.
Perceived typographical errors have been changed.
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