THE DAY'S WORK.
It is safe to say that no class of women in the civilized world is
subjected to such incessant trials of temper, and such temptation to be
fretful, as the American housekeeper. The reasons for this state of things
are legion; and, if in the beginning we take ground from which the whole
field may be clearly surveyed, we may be able to secure a better
understanding of what housekeeping means, and to guard against some of the
dangers accompanying it.
The first difficulty lies in taking for granted that successful
housekeeping is as much an instinct as that which leads the young bird to
nest-building, and that no specific training is required. The man who
undertakes a business, passes always through some form of apprenticeship,
and must know every detail involved in the management; but to the large
proportion of women, housekeeping is a combination of accidental forces
from whose working it is hoped breakfasts and dinners and suppers will be
evolved at regular periods, other necessities finding place where they
can. The new home, prettily furnished, seems a lovely toy, and is
surrounded by a halo, which, as facts assert themselves, quickly fades
away. Moth and rust and dust invade the most secret recesses. Breakage and
general disaster attend the progress of Bridget or Chloe. The kitchen
seems the headquarters of extraordinary smells, and the stove an abyss in
its consumption of coal or wood. Food is wasted by bad cooking, or
ignorance as to needed amounts, or methods of using left-over portions;
and, as bills pile up, a hopeless discouragement often settles upon both
wife and husband, and reproaches and bitterness and alienation are guests
in the home, to which they need never have come had a little knowledge
barred them out.
In the beginning, then, be sure of one thing,--that all the wisdom you
have or can acquire, all the patience and tact and self-denial you can
make yours by the most diligent effort, will be needed every day and every
hour of the day. Details are in themselves wearying, and to most men their
relation to housekeeping is unaccountable. The day's work of a systematic
housekeeper would confound the best-trained man of business. In the
woman's hand is the key to home-happiness, but it is folly to assert that
all lies with her. Let it be felt from the beginning that her station is a
difficult one, that her duties are important, and that judgment and skill
must guide their performance; let boys be taught the honor that lies in
such duties,--and there will be fewer heedless and unappreciative
husbands. On the other hand, let the woman remember that the good general
does not waste words on hindrances, or leave his weak spots open to
observation, but, learning from every failure or defeat, goes on steadily
to victory. To fret will never mend a matter; and "Study to be quiet" in
thought, word, and action, is the first law of successful housekeeping.
Never under-estimate the difficulties to be met, for this is as much an
evil as over-apprehension. The best-arranged plans may be overturned at a
moment's notice. In a mixed family, habits and pursuits differ so widely
that the housekeeper must hold herself in readiness to find her most
cherished schemes set aside. Absolute adherence to a system is only
profitable so far as the greatest comfort and well-being of the family are
affected; and, dear as a fixed routine may be to the housekeeper's mind,
it may often well be sacrificed to the general pleasure or comfort. A
quiet, controlled mind, a soft voice, no matter what the provocation to
raise it may be, is "an excellent thing in woman." And the certainty that,
hard as such control may be, it holds the promise of the best and fullest
life here and hereafter, is a motive strong enough, one would think, to
insure its adoption. Progress may be slow, but the reward for every step
forward is certain.
We have already found that each day has its fixed routine, and are ready
now to take up the order of work, which will be the same in degree whether
one servant is kept, or many, or none. The latter state of things will
often happen in the present uncertain character of household service. Old
family servants are becoming more and more rare; and, unless the new
generation is wisely trained, we run the risk of being even more at their
mercy in the future than in the past.
First, then, on rising in the morning, see that a full current of air can
pass through every sleeping-room; remove all clothes from the beds, and
allow them to air at least an hour. Only in this way can we be sure that
the impurities, thrown off from even the cleanest body by the pores during
the night, are carried off. A neat housekeeper is often tempted to make
beds, or have them made, almost at once; but no practice can be more
unwholesome.
While beds and bedrooms are airing, breakfast is to be made ready, the
table set, and kitchen and dining-room put in order. The kitchen-fire must
first be built. If a gas or oil stove can be used, the operations are all
simpler. If not, it is always best to have dumped the grate the night
before if coal is used, and to have laid the fire ready for lighting. In
the morning brush off all ashes, and wipe or blacken the stove. Strong,
thick gloves, and a neat box for brushes, blacking, &c., will make this a
much less disagreeable operation than it sounds. Rinse out the tea-kettle,
fill it with fresh water, and put over to boil. Then remove the ashes,
and, if coal is used, sift them, as cinders can be burned a large part of
the time where only a moderate fire is desired.
The table can be set, and the dining or sitting room swept, or merely
brushed up and dusted, in the intervals of getting breakfast. To have
every thing clean, hot, and not only well prepared but ready on time, is
the first law, not only for breakfast, but for every other meal.
After breakfast comes the dish-washing, dreaded by all beginners, but
needlessly so. With a full supply of all conveniences,--plenty of soap and
sapolio, which is far better and cleaner to use than either sand or ashes;
with clean, soft towels for glass and silver; a mop, the use of which not
only saves the hands but enables you to have hotter water; and a full
supply of coarser towels for the heavier dishes,--the work can go on
swiftly. Let the dish-pan be half full of hot soap and water. _Wash glass
first_, paying no attention to the old saying that "hot water rots glass."
Be careful never to put glass into hot water, bottom first, as the sudden
expansion may crack it. Slip it in edgeways, and the finest and most
delicate cut-glass will be safe. _Wash silver next._ Hot suds, and instant
wiping on dry soft cloths, will retain the brightness of silver, which
treated in this way requires much less polishing, and therefore lasts
longer. If any pieces require rubbing, use a little whiting made into a
paste, and put on wet. Let it dry, and then polish with a chamois-skin.
Once a month will be sufficient for rubbing silver, if it is properly
washed. _China comes next_--all plates having been carefully scraped, and
all cups rinsed out. To fill the pan with unscraped and unrinsed dishes,
and pour half-warm water over the whole, is a method too often adopted;
and the results are found in sticky dishes and lustreless silver. Put all
china, silver, and glass in their places as soon as washed. Then take any
tin or iron pans, wash, wipe with a dry towel, and put near the fire to
dry thoroughly. A knitting-needle or skewer may be kept to dig out corners
unreachable by dishcloth or towel, and if perfectly dried they will remain
free from rust.
The cooking-dishes, saucepans, &c., come next in order; and here the wire
dish-cloth will be found useful, as it does not scratch, yet answers every
purpose of a knife. Every pot, kettle, and saucepan must be put into the
pan of hot water. If very greasy, it is well to allow them to stand partly
full of water in which a few drops of ammonia have been put. The _outside
must be washed_ as carefully as the inside. Till this is done, there will
always be complaint of the unpleasantness of handling cooking-utensils.
Properly done, they are as clean as the china or glass.
Plated knives save much work. If steel ones are used, they must be
polished after every meal. In washing them, see that the handles are never
allowed to touch the water. Ivory discolors and cracks if wet.
Bristol-brick finely powdered is the best polisher, and, mixed with a
little water, can be applied with a large cork. A regular knife-board, or
a small board on which you can nail three strips of wood in box form, will
give you the best mode of keeping brick and cork in place. After rubbing,
wash clean, and wipe dry.
The dish-towels are the next consideration. A set should be used but a
week, and must be washed and rinsed each day if you would not have the
flavor of dried-in dish-water left on your dishes. Dry them, if possible,
in the open air: if not, have a rack, and stand them near the fire. On
washing-days, let those that have been used a week have a thorough
boiling. The close, sour smell that all housekeepers have noticed about
dish-towels comes from want of boiling and drying in fresh air, and is
unpardonable and unnecessary.
Keep hot water constantly in your kettles or water-pots, by always
remembering to fill with cold when you take out hot. Put away every
article carefully in its place.
If tables are stained, and require any scrubbing, remember that to wash or
scrub wood you must follow the grain, as rubbing across it rubs the dirt
in instead of taking it off.
The same rule applies to floors. A clean, coarse cloth, hot suds, and a
good scrubbing-brush, will simplify the operation. Wash off the table;
then dip the brush in the suds, and scour with the grain of the wood.
Finally wash off all soapy water, and wipe dry. To save strength, the
table on which dishes are washed may be covered with kitchen oilcloth,
which will merely require washing and wiping; with an occasional scrubbing
for the table below.
The table must be cleaned as soon as the dishes are washed, because if
dishes stand upon tables the fragments of food have time to harden, and
the washing is made doubly hard.
Leaving the kitchen in order, the bedrooms will come next. Turn the
mattresses daily, and make the bed smoothly and carefully. Put the under
sheet with the wrong side next the bed, and the upper one with the marked
end always at the top, to avoid the part where the feet lie, from being
reversed and so reaching the face. The sheets should be large enough to
tuck in thoroughly, three yards long by two and a half wide being none too
large for a double bed. Pillows should be beaten and then smoothed with
the hand, and the aim be to have an even, unwrinkled surface. As to the
use of shams, whether sheet or pillow, it is a matter of taste; but in all
cases, covered or uncovered, let the bed-linen be daintily clean.
Empty all slops, and with hot water wash out all the bowls, pitchers, &c.,
using separate cloths for these purposes, and never toilet towels. Dust
the room, arrange every thing in place, and, if in summer, close the
blinds, and darken till evening, that it may be as cool as possible.
Sweeping days for bedrooms need come but once a week, but all rooms used
by many people require daily sweeping; halls, passages, and dining and
sitting rooms coming under this head. Careful dusting daily will often do
away with the need of frequent sweeping, which wears out carpets
unnecessarily. A carpet-sweeper is a real economy, both in time and
strength; but, if not obtainable, a light broom carefully handled, not
with a long stroke which sends clouds of dust over every thing, but with a
short quick one, which only experience can give, is next best. For a
thorough sweeping, remove as many articles from the room as possible,
dusting each one thoroughly, and cover the larger ones which must remain
with old sheets or large squares of common unbleached cotton cloth, kept
for this purpose. If the furniture is rep or woolen of any description,
dust about each button, that no moth may find lodgment, and then cover
closely. A feather duster, long or short, as usually applied, is the enemy
of cleanliness. Its only legitimate use is for the tops of pictures or
books and ornaments; and such dusting should be done _before_ the room is
swept, as well as afterward, the first one removing the heaviest coating,
which would otherwise be distributed over the room. For piano, and
furniture of delicate woods generally, old silk handkerchiefs make the
best dusters. For all ordinary purposes, squares of old cambric, hemmed,
and washed when necessary, will be found best. Insist upon their being
kept for this purpose, and forbid the use of toilet towels, always a
temptation to the average servant. Remember that in dusting, the process
should be a _wiping_; not a flirting of the cloth, which simply sends the
dust up into the air to settle down again about where it was before.
If moldings and wash-boards or wainscotings are wiped off with a damp
cloth, one fruitful source of dust will be avoided. For all intricate work
like the legs of pianos, carved backs of furniture, &c., a pair of small
bellows will be found most efficient. Brooms, dust-pan, and brushes long
and short, whisk-broom, feather and other dusters, should have one fixed
place, and be returned to it after every using. If oil-cloth is on halls
or passages, it should be washed weekly with warm milk and water, a quart
of skim-milk to a pail of water being sufficient. Never use soap or
scrubbing-brush, as they destroy both color and texture.
All brass or silver-plated work about fire-place, doorknobs, or bath-room
faucets, should be cleaned once a week and before sweeping. For silver,
rub first with powdered whiting moistened with a little alcohol or hot
water. Let it dry on, and then polish with a dry chamois-skin. If there is
any intricate work, use a small toothbrush. Whiting, silver-soap, cloths,
chamois, and brushes should all be kept in a box together. In another may
be the rotten-stone necessary for cleaning brass, a small bottle of oil,
and some woolen cloths. Old merino or flannel under-wear makes excellent
rubbing-cloths. Mix the rotten-stone with enough oil to make a paste; rub
on with one cloth, and polish with another. Thick gloves can be worn, and
all staining of the hands avoided.
The bedrooms and the necessary daily sweeping finished, a look into cellar
and store-rooms is next in order,--in the former, to see that no decaying
vegetable matter is allowed to accumulate; in the latter, that bread-jar
or boxes are dry and sweet, and all stores in good condition.
Where there are servants, it should be understood that the mistress makes
this daily progress. Fifteen minutes or half an hour will often cover the
time consumed; but it should be a fixed duty never omitted. A look into
the refrigerator or meat-safe to note what is left and suggest the best
use for it; a glance at towels and dish-cloths to see that all are clean
and sweet, and another under all sinks and into each pantry,--will prevent
the accumulation of bones and stray bits of food and dirty rags, the
paradise of the cockroach, and delight of mice and rats. A servant, if
honest, will soon welcome such investigation, and respect her mistress the
more for insisting upon it, and, if not, may better find other quarters.
One strong temptation to dishonesty is removed where such inspection is
certain, and the weekly bills will be less than in the house where matters
are left to take care of themselves.
The preparation of dinner if at or near the middle of the day, and the
dish-washing which follows, end the heaviest portion of the day's work;
and the same order must be followed. Only an outline can be given; each
family demanding variations in detail, and each head of a family in time
building up her own system. Remember, however, that, if but one servant is
kept, she can not do every thing, and that your own brain must constantly
supplement her deficiencies, until training and long practice have made
your methods familiar. Even then she is likely at any moment to leave, and
the battle to begin over again; and the only safeguard in time of such
disaster is personal knowledge as to simplest methods of doing the work,
and inexhaustible patience in training the next applicant, finding comfort
in the thought, that, if your own home has lost, that of some one else is
by so much the gainer.