MAIDS AND MALLARDS
We have so rarely entered our house with the reader that he knows little
of its domestic machinery. So much depends upon this machinery that one
must always take it into consideration when reckoning the pleasures and
even the comforts of life anywhere, and this is especially true in the
country. We have such a lot of people about that our servants cannot
sing the song of lonesomeness that makes dolor for most suburbanites.
They are "churched" as often as they wish, and we pay city wages; but
still it is not all clear sailing in this quarter of Polly's realm. I
fancy that we get on better than some of our neighbors; but we do not
brag, and I usually feel that I am smoking my pipe in a powder magazine.
There is something essentially wrong in the working-girl world, and I am
glad that I was not born to set it right. We cannot down the spirit of
unrest and improvidence that holds possession of cooks and waitresses,
and we needs must suffer it with such patience as we can.
Two of our house servants were more or less permanent; that is, they
had been with us since we opened the house, and were as content as
restless spirits can be. These were the housekeeper and the cook,--the
hub of the house. The former is a Norwegian, tall, angular, and capable,
with a knot of yellow hair at the back of her head,--ostensibly for
sticking lead pencils into,--and a disposition to keep things snug and
clean. Her duties include the general supervision of both houses and the
special charge of store-rooms, food cellars, and table supplies of all
sorts. She is efficient, she whistles while she works, and I see but
little of her. I suspect that Polly knows her well.
The cook, Mary, is small, Irish, gray, with the temper of a pepper-pod
and the voice of a guinea-hen suffering from bronchitis, but she can
cook like an angel. She is an artist, and I feel as if the
seven-dollar-a-week stipend were but a "tip" to her, and that sometime
she will present me with a bill for her services. My safeguard, and one
that I cherish, is an angry word from her to the housekeeper. She
jeeringly asserted that she, the cook, got $2 a week more than she, the
housekeeper, did. As every one knows that the housekeeper has $5 a week,
I am holding this evidence against the time when Mary asks for a lump
sum adequate to her deserts. The number of things which Mary can make
out of everything and out of nothing is wonderful; and I am fully
persuaded that all the moneys paid to a really good cook are moneys put
into the bank. I often make trips to the kitchen to tell Mary that "the
dinner was great," or that "Mrs. Kyrle wants the receipt for that
pudding," or that "my friend Kyrle asks if he may see you make a salad
dressing;" but "don't do it, Mary; let the secret die with you." The
cook cackles, like the guinea-hen that she is, but the dishes are none
the worse for the commendation.
The laundress is just a washerwoman, so far as I know. She undoubtedly
changes with the seasons, but I do not see her, though the clothes are
always bleaching on the grass at the back of the house.
The maids are as changeable as old-fashioned silk. There are always two
of them; but which two, is beyond me. I tell Polly that Four Oaks is a
sprocket-wheel for maids, with two links of an endless chain always on
top. It makes but little difference which links are up, so the work goes
smoothly. Polly thinks the maids come to Four Oaks just as less
independent folk go to the mountains or the shore, for a vacation, or to
be able to say to the policeman, "I've been to the country." Their
system is past finding out; but no matter what it is, we get our dishes
washed and our beds made without serious inconvenience. The wage account
in the house amounts to just $25 a week. My pet system of an increasing
wage for protracted service doesn't appeal to these birds of passage,
who alight long enough to fill their crops with our wild rice and
celery, and then take wing for other feeding-grounds. This kind of life
seems fitted for mallards and maids, and I have no quarrel with either.
From my view, there are happier instincts than those which impel
migration; but remembering that personal views are best applied to
personal use, I wish both maids and mallards _bon voyage_.