THE WOMAN WITHOUT A MAID
THE thought of being without a maid strikes dismay to the heart of many
a woman who can not be accused of laziness. She thinks of the manual
toil connected with housekeeping as composed of a round of degrading
tasks, and she can not imagine herself as performing these with dignity
and attractiveness. The ugliness connected with doing Bridget’s work
is what repels, and it must be confessed, at the start, that dust and
dish-water are not agreeable things to contemplate, though hemmed
squares of clean cheese-cloth for the one and plenty of good soap in
the other tend to reduce disagreeable qualities to a minimum. One half,
at least, of the prejudice many women, not financially prosperous,
feel against “doing their own work,” as the phrase curiously goes,
is the aversion to doing unbeautiful things. The other half rises
from the sense of dismay in attempting that in which one has had no
practise, for which one has had no previous preparation. The tasks
connected with housekeeping are many and various; and if one is
called to face them without experience or a system, the result is apt
to be pandemonium until the mistress-maid is broken in. It is a pity,
however, to approach the work with the idea that it is necessarily
distasteful and disagreeable. Most women have some natural aptitude for
domestic service. When properly trained they like it, or, at least,
parts of it. What they lack often is not aptitude but practise; and,
instead of expecting to gain skill through practise, as they would
in other departments of work, they expect it to come by inspiration.
Housekeeping is a science and an art. More even than this, it is a
business, and needs, exactly as the business of a man does, time and
patience for its conquest.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DRESSING FOR WORK]
A sub-professor on a small salary in one of our best eastern
educational institutions married a charming young woman with a wise
head on her pretty shoulders. Her thought was that she could best help
him by doing the work of a maid. Her name wherever known had been
a synonym for exquisite taste, and she lost nothing of this in the
conduct of her new rôle. Ugliness of any sort was not in her scheme
of things. She determined that she should be no less pretty in her
husband’s eyes because of the part she was to play in his kitchen.
She had made for herself eight blue and white striped seersucker
gowns with broad hems on the short skirts and with plain shirt-waists.
The sleeves were made elbow length, so as not to incommode her in her
work, and a turnover collar of white which left her throat free was at
once comfortable and becoming. With these dresses she wore dark aprons
or white ones, according to the work she was doing. Her husband and
friends declared she had never looked more pleasing than while “in
service.” She was an excellent refutation of the idea that a woman must
look slovenly when doing household tasks. Though “dressing the part”
seems a small beginning toward getting the work of a house done, it is
a helpful beginning because it affects the spirits. A working woman
needs working clothes. If they be pretty as well as comfortable and
appropriate, they give an impetus toward cheerful labor that is not to
be lightly estimated.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AVOID INTERRUPTIONS]
[Sidenote: THE VALUE OF SYSTEM]
A woman who learns to be her own maid and makes a success of the work
must adopt it as a business and must devote herself to her tasks
with regularity and system. She must be firm against intrusion and
interruption from the outside world. She must adopt housekeeping as
a profession and aim not merely at completing the daily round but at
achieving an excellence that will in time impart interest to the work.
Order and simplicity are the two laws she must obey if she is to get
through with dignity and self-respect. An order of the day and an order
of the week must be made out and followed as far as possible. System
and arrangement are the great time savers. To sit down at one’s desk
once a day or once a week and make out conscientiously a list of all
the things necessary to be done in the time named, then divide and
tabulate these according as seems best,—this use of the brain will
economize time and will save many a weary step.
Orderliness in work leads most directly to that harmony and peace in
housekeeping which the average woman is so fearful of losing when she
takes up the labor for herself. The writer used frequently to take
luncheon at the house of a clever friend who cooked and served the
meals. Her cooking could always be counted on as delicious; but it was
the serving, that Scylla and Charybdis in one, of most women who must
“do” entirely for themselves, that astonished and delighted one. On a
side-table, ready for her hand, were placed the extra dishes needed.
On this, too, was room for those things only temporarily necessary on
the dining-table. The occasions when the hostess must rise to serve her
guests were reduced by the perfection of her arrangements to a minimum.
When she was compelled to visit pantry or kitchen, she left the table
without a flurry and was back with the article in question almost
before one realized her departure. This grace in service was partly,
of course, a matter of nature, but it was largely due to trained and
systematic habits of work. These oiled the wheels of housekeeping and
made them run more or less smoothly.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: A SIMPLE MENU]
The woman without a maid must cultivate simplicity as well as order
in her household arrangements. To do this requires some originality
of soul and mind. She must model her work not upon what her neighbors
and friends do, but upon what she thinks necessary to be done for
the comfort and good health of herself and those dependent upon her.
She must not attempt more things than she can do well. Many a young
woman who starts out with joyous intention to be cook for husband and
family, fails in her intention by reason of planning too large a bill
of fare. For beginners, at least, it is well to cut out made desserts
and pretentious salads. A cream soup with a broiled steak, potatoes
nicely cooked, lettuce with a French dressing, coffee and fruit, make
a dinner which, if neatly served, affords nourishment and delight to
the ordinary man. How much better to attempt nothing more than this and
make a success of it than to try for roast, two or three vegetables,
an intricate salad and a pudding,—to have these imperfectly achieved
and awkwardly served. For it goes without saying that it is much more
difficult to serve an elaborate than a simple meal. Also the elaborate
meal demands for serving many more dishes, and the extra dishes make
added work in the dish-washing which follows a meal as the night the
day. Simplicity of living must be the aim of the woman who does her own
work. It is only by cultivating simplicity that she can live restfully
and with the taste that makes for beauty.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: DIVIDING HOUSEHOLD TASKS]
In a household where no servant is employed each member of the family
should regularly perform certain duties. Where there is a family of
some size all the work should not be crowded upon the shoulders of
the mistress. If one person does the dusting, another the mending,
another the cooking, another the sweeping, and so on through the
list of necessary employment in a household, the burden need not
fall too heavily upon any one. No paid servant can feel the interest
in successful achievement that rewards the effort of those who are
laboring for the convenience and beauty of their own home. A household
conducted on plans of the most rigid economy may still be cheerful and
even charming if the members of it choose to view the matter in a sort
of Bohemian, picnicking spirit. If the duties are assigned with regard
to the tastes and capacities of each, no real hardship is involved and
a spirit of gaiety is invoked by the concerted effort at producing
comfort with the expenditure of little money.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: THE VULGARITY OF PRETENSE]
An utter absence of pretense is the only graceful attitude in a home
conducted in the way described. To be ashamed of the work one does and
to try to conceal it results in an uneasy, hypocritical manner and
deceives no one. “I almost opened my own door when she called on me,”
said a silly, snobbish, impecunious woman in telling of the visit paid
her by a rich resident of the neighborhood. The remark blinded no one
and made the speaker ridiculous.
* * * * *
There are books of various kinds written for the help of the woman who
must get on without a maid. These often can make for her a quicker and
better path to her goal than she can work out alone and unaided. One of
the best-known stories about the great English statesman, Charles James
Fox, is of his learning to carve. He determined to make a conquest of
this branch of knowledge as he did of any other attempted by him. Day
after day he brought to the dining-table with him a book on carving,
and cut the fowl or joint placed before him in accordance with the
rules of the book. His subsequent beautiful carving was the result of
this method, of his willingness to learn the best way of doing whatever
he attempted.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: HELP FROM COOK-BOOKS]
Reliable books on cooking, on the relative values of foods, on sanitary
housekeeping, are not hard to find, while the magazines and papers are
full of happy suggestions on these and kindred themes. A woman who
intends to be her own maid should possess some reliable volumes on her
subject, should make her work more interesting to herself and more
valuable to her family by a reference to authorities on her subject.
The more one knows about the work one has in hand, the more one is apt
to care for it. And enthusiasm for one’s task, in its turn, begets good
work.
* * * * *
No woman on whom falls the burden of keeping her own house should feel
permanently discouraged. She may learn to do her task not only with
comfort but with grace. The difficulties in her way can be surmounted
through experience and study. If she has a natural liking for the
ordering and managing of a house, her work may become a delight. “Why
do you look so sad?” said one woman to another. “Because I have a
perfect maid,” said the second. “All my life until recently I kept
house for my husband and myself. Housekeeping was my passion as music
is yours. Now my husband insists that I shall keep a maid. She knows
her business. It would spoil her if I helped. I am a stranger in my
own kitchen. Wouldn’t you be unhappy if you had no opportunity to play
Chopin and Beethoven? Well, I am miserable because I can’t concoct
salads and soups.” This testimony to the joys of housekeeping is
extreme, but it may serve to cheer some beginner in domestic labor who
sees only duty but no pleasure in the work.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: A SOUTHERN GIRL’S PARTY]
To feel that because one is limited in means one can not entertain is
wholly mistaken. The young lady in a southern family in aristocraite
Charleston, herself the granddaughter of a governor of the state and
a member of the famous St. Cecilia Society, told the writer, who was
a “paying guest” in the simple home, how she entertained her friends.
“In the morning we whip up a cake, order cream, telephone the girls,
and when they come, that’s the party!” But her own delightful spirit of
hospitality, the perfection of her breeding, were the largest element
in that party’s undoubted success.