Saving for Staples--The Kitchen--Buying--Linen
The very next day the two lady-maids went seriously to work on their
problem of living on a little. They arranged for a woman to come one day
in the week and wash, do a little cleaning for perhaps an hour while the
wash was drying, and then iron the heavy things; the next morning the
sisters were to finish up the light and dainty things left over, the
napkins, pretty waists, handkerchiefs, and odds and ends; these would
take only an hour or two after the regular routine of bed-making,
dusting, and brushing up the hardwood floors was out of the way, and
this in their small, convenient apartment was no great task.
After everything was in order, they sat down with books and pencils to
lay out a sort of campaign for the winter.
"I said we would allow ourselves about seven dollars a week for food,"
Mrs. Thorne began. "Please notice that I said about. It is really
impossible to be absolutely exact with you, because you are not sure
just where you are going to live. If you are in the country proper, or
possibly even in a suburb, you will find food somewhat less than in the
city; milk, eggs, and vegetables are almost always cheaper there than
they are here. Then, too, prices differ in different places, sometimes
without any apparent reason. So we won't be absolutely bound down to
seven dollars a week; sometimes we will spend only six, and once in
awhile we may go a little over our allowance, though I plan never to do
that.
"Now out of this dollar a day we must buy meat, vegetables, groceries,
milk, butter, and eggs, so you see we shall have to be very careful
indeed and very saving, especially as we must have a little margin every
week to put in some staple. One week we will lay in half a barrel of
potatoes, if we find some that are cheap just then; another, we will buy
olive oil, or fruit for preserving, or flour, or something for our
emergency closet; all these things must be taken into account, you see,
if we are not going to get into deep water financially. Just fancy! We
might spend our dollar a day right along, and some morning wake up to
find ourselves flourless, sugarless, coffeeless, and no money in our
purse but the one dollar for the one day! No, the only safe way is to
put in staples as we go along, and so never get out of everything at
once.
"You see that tin bank on the kitchen mantel: every day when I come back
from market I put in that all the pennies and nickels I have left; then
some days, when I have spent only about fifty cents down-town, because
we had so much in the house in the way of left-overs that I did not need
to get much of anything, I put in all of the dollar that I have
left,--perhaps forty cents or so. You can see that I always have enough
for our needs right there without drawing on our future.
"And then besides staples there is entertaining to save for. Half the
fun of keeping house is having one's friends in to a meal now and then.
I just love to give dinner-parties."
"But I thought we allowed for that," said Dolly, turning over the leaves
of her book. "You certainly said Entertaining came under Incidentals;
see, here it is in black and white."
"So I did, but by that I meant really serious entertaining, which comes
only once in awhile, such as a big family dinner at Christmas, with a
fourteen-pound turkey or some similar extravagance. If we undertook any
such affair as that I should unhesitatingly take out its cost from
Incidentals, because otherwise we should be on short rations ourselves
for far too long a time to be comfortable, in order to make things come
out even; but now I am speaking of little dinners and luncheons when we
have four people at a time. Those I hope to get out of our regular
allowance; that is what I want a good margin for. And we can do it all,
too; even with meat and vegetables at the frightful price they have
reached to-day, it's quite possible, if you know how to manage. Other
people do it, and we can, too. 'What man has done,' you know."
Dolly groaned.
"I'm perfectly sure I had better cable to Fred to-day that I have
decided we can never be married at all," she declared, dismally. "The
longer I think about the matter the more certain I am that seven dollars
a week is nothing, absolutely nothing. Why, the last winter we kept
house mother went off for a week, and I did the ordering; and I remember
the meat bill alone for father, Cousin Marion, myself, and three maids
was twenty-eight dollars. Father did not say anything when it came in,
and did not seem surprised, and I would not have thought that there was
anything strange about it except for a remark mother made when she came
back and looked over the accounts. 'Well,' she said, 'I do hope you
won't marry a poor man; if you do, I'm sorry for him in advance!' From
which I argued that poor people did not spend twenty-eight dollars a
week on meat,--not as a general thing!"
"I suppose you had sweetbreads for luncheon once or twice?" asked Mary,
smiling.
Dolly nodded. "Certainly. We had sweetbreads several times, and quail,
and broiled chickens, too; and for breakfast we had little French chops,
and such things; and for dinner we had capons and guinea-hens and legs
of spring lamb. All the delicacies of the season were ours for the
telephoning. So you see I don't know the first thing about living on a
little."
"I should say not," said her sister, emphatically. "If ever there was an
ignoramus, you are one, my dear. But then, I did not know any more than
you when I was married, and behold me now! And I'll make you into an
expert, too, before this year of servitude is over, or I'm no prophet.
And as we had better lose no time over it, we will begin the lessons
this very minute. Come out in the kitchen and take a careful view of its
contents. I'm proud of my kitchen!"
Dolly did not wonder, when she looked around the room and noticed what
her sister pointed out. It was small, but very attractive. The walls
were painted cream color and the floor was covered with a blue and white
oilcloth. The woodwork was the exact color of the walls. Around the
room, six feet from the floor, ran a shelf set out with nests of blue
and white bowls and cheap but effective plates and cups and saucers to
match, all meant to use in cooking. Under the edge of the shelf, over
the table, hooks were driven, and from these hung spoons and egg-beaters
and the little things needed in stirring up dishes. The table itself was
covered with blue and white enamel cloth. The sink was painted white,
and the dish-towels were of crash marked off in blue squares.
The open cupboard door showed shiny tins and blue and white saucepans,
and some delightful contrivances in the way of cream-whippers and
mayonnaise-droppers and moulds. Everything was not only spotless but
charmingly pretty to look at.
"Do you remember a book we had when we were small, called 'We Girls,' I
think it was, in which the family decided to let their maid go and do
their own work? They had a basement kitchen and an up-stairs
dining-room, and the problem was how to manage. They solved it by doing
the work up-stairs in the dining-room, behind a screen. The
cooking-stove was brilliant and ornamental with polish. The carpeted
floor--carpeted, mind you--never had a speck of flour or grease on it.
The cooking was done as if by magic, and they called their workroom a
'ladies' kitchen.' That story made an undying impression on me when I
was sixteen. I thought if Fate would only grant me the boon of doing my
own work in a palatial kitchen like that, I should have no further
requests to make. And I've never forgotten the idea behind the story.
My kitchen simply must be an attractive room, bright and cheerful, with
the 'rocking-chair and the white curtain and red geranium in the
window,' which newspaper articles tell us nowadays are essential to make
a maid contented; you know the kind of thing I mean! Well, since I mean
to be a maid a good deal of my life, my kitchen too must be charmingly
pretty. And I have not spared expense to make it so, either, for I
regard all my blue bowls and labor-saving utensils as investments; they
make my work easier, and that is everything when one has other things in
the world to do besides cook."
"But don't you have to keep supplying these things over and over? Your
first outlay does not by any means cover the whole thing; you have to
replace all the time."
"Oh, no, for when I do my own work things last forever; I don't smash
bowls and cups and burn the bottoms out of saucepans, as a maid does.
And even when I have a maid, I find these things pay, for she will not
break pretty things half as fast as she will ugly cracked and burned
ones; those she does not bother handling with care. And then I watch the
ten-cent counters and other places, and pick up blue and white ware when
I find something very cheap; so it does not cost as much to keep stocked
up as you would think. But now I want to show you my stoves. I have
three of them--think of that!"
"I don't see a single one," said Dolly, looking around in amazement.
"That is because this is an apartment and not a house, and we cook by
gas. But instead of having a range, as most people do, I got the
landlord to just give me a three-holed stove standing on little low
legs, connected with the gas-pipe with this flexible tube, which I can
take off when I am not using it. When I want the stove, I first reach
under this cooking-table and pull out this lower table,--an invention of
my own; I'm thinking of patenting it. I got a small pine kitchen table,
exactly like the larger one, and had six inches cut off the legs and
rollers put on; you see it slips in and out easily under the regular
table. Then I had the top covered with zinc, so nothing would set it on
fire. Under this, on the floor, stands my gas-stove. I pull out the
small table, set this stove on it, attach the tube to the gas-jet, and
cook. The upper table holds all my extra dishes, you see, and I take
them off when I want them on the gas. I have a splendid sheet-iron oven
I use to bake things quickly; that I keep out by the refrigerator,
because it is bulky, but it is light and easy to handle, so I don't mind
lifting it in and out. Then when I have finished cooking I unfasten the
gas pipe and let it hang down by the wall; I lift off my stove and put
that on the floor, push my zinc table under my ordinary one, and there I
am, all done and orderly. In a little kitchen like this I have to manage
space. Of course if you have a good-sized apartment or a house you can
have a regular gas-range, as other people do; but I am explaining how to
manage if you have a tiny kitchen, such as many of us cliff-dwellers
have to cook in. But in any case, have a zinc-topped table; you lift off
a hot pot from the stove and set it down there and neither burn nor
crock anything, and that is a real blessing when you have to do your own
cleaning-up."
"Doesn't your gas cost you a great deal each month? I remember hearing
somewhere that it was expensive to cook with it."
"It is not expensive for us, because I use it carefully. Of course if
you have a maid who turns on four burners at once, and runs them for
hours, you will have a frightful bill. But see these saucepans; three of
them, and triangular in shape, so that when they are put together they
make what looks like one good-sized round one. You can fill all three
with vegetables or other things, and cook them at once on one burner.
That's one great saving, to begin with."
"But even so, when you cook soup or corned beef, or such things, which
take hours and hours, you must use lots of gas, in spite of yourself."
"Ah, that is where another great economy comes in. Look at my fireless
stove!" From a corner she drew out a covered wooden box and raised the
lid. It was lined with asbestos pads, some fitted close to the sides,
others ready to tuck in here and there, or put over the top beneath the
lid.
"Now," she said, triumphantly, "you behold the eighth wonder of the
world! I want to make soup, let us say, or a slow-cooking rice-pudding,
or a stew. I put any one of them on the gas-stove and let them boil for
fifteen or twenty minutes, depending on the size of the materials. A
small pudding will need less time and soup more,--say twenty or
twenty-five. Then I take it off, cover it tightly, put the dish or pot
in the box and tuck it up carefully, shut down the cover, and set the
box away. When I want it, six or eight hours later on, I open the box,
and behold, my soup or my pudding is done to a turn and not a cent's
worth of fuel used."
"They'd have burned you for witchcraft a century ago," said Dolly,
gazing awestruck at the miraculous box.
"So they would have--cheerfully," Mary replied. "But wait a minute; I
forgot to tell you that it also freezes ice-cream."
"That fairy story, my dear, I distinctly decline to believe."
"It's a fact, nevertheless. The way to do it is this: I make what is
called by the initiated, a mousse; that is, I boil a cup of sugar and a
cup of water to a thread, pour it slowly over the stiff whites of three
eggs, just as you make boiled icing, and when I have beaten it till it
is cold I fold in half a pint of whipped cream and flavor it. Then I put
the whole in a little covered pail and set that in a larger pail. To
admit a somewhat embarrassing truth, they are merely lard-pails which I
save for this purpose. I put cracked ice and salt between the two, cover
both, and set them in the box. As the pads retain cold as well as they
do heat, the ice does not melt, and the mousse gradually freezes itself.
Unlike ice-cream, you must never stir it any way; so that if I put the
mousse away at noon I take it out for dinner a perfect frozen mould,
which both metaphorically and literally melts in your mouth."
"Do have it every day," begged Dolly, with fervor.
"We will have it semi-occasionally," laughed her sister. "Cream, whites
of eggs, and flavoring all cost money; but still we do and will have it
at convenient periods. That is one of the things I keep a bank for; you
will be surprised when you see how much I accumulate there from week to
week."
"I certainly shall be surprised if it turns out there is anything at all
in it," declared the skeptical pupil, who had yet to learn economy.
"Now see my third stove; no well-regulated family can manage without
three. This thing that looks like a big square tin cracker-box is what
is called an Aladdin oven. Perhaps you think I do not need it; but wait
a minute. Suppose you want to have baked beans--"
"Fred simply adores baked beans," Dolly murmured, parenthetically,
hanging on her sister's words.
"You can't afford to bake them in the gas-oven, because it takes a whole
day or night; and of course you can't well bake things in the fireless
stove. At least, you cannot make them crisp and brown there, though you
can cook them in it. So you put this stove on the zinc table, light the
Rochester burner which is attached to a lamp underneath, and then let it
go on and bake for you without any attention. It will bake the beans a
beautiful and artistic brown, and the kerosene in the lamp will cost you
about two cents. Now are not my stoves worth their weight in gold? And
if you are too poor to buy them, one of their greatest attractions is
you can make two of them yourself. Take a wooden pail with a cover, and
make hay-pads for your fireless stove, and get a real tin cracker-box
and put a lamp under it for the Aladdin oven, and you will have good
substitutes for both these."
"Well, they are truly wonderful," said Dolly, with conviction, "and far
be it from me to throw cold water. But suppose I live in a country
village where there is no gas and where the kitchen is unheated. I don't
see but that I shall have to have a real old-fashioned stove, and burn
plain coal or wood in it, to heat the kitchen, nevertheless."
"Yes, of course you will; these stoves do not heat the kitchen at
all,--which, by the way, is a merit in city eyes. But you can have a
regular stove for winter, and for summer a kerosene-stove, which is
really as good as a gas-range, because it is made with a flame which
does not smoke or black things up, and it has an oven lifting on and off
exactly like this one on the gas-stove. That will save fuel and work and
keep the house cool at the same time. But I certainly would have a
fireless stove in any case, because you often want to cook things all
night and still not keep the fire going. Oatmeal, for one thing, is far
better cooked in this than on top of a stove; you let it simmer from
eight at night till seven the next morning, and you will take it out in
a sort of jelly which is delicious and very digestible. The Aladdin oven
you can have or not, as you find you need it; perhaps in the country you
might get on without it, but in town I find it a necessity."
"The stoves must have cost a good deal," mused Dolly. "Did you buy them
out of Incidentals?"
"Yes, I did. I consider all utensils for my work necessities, and when I
cannot buy them out of the margin in my tin bank I deliberately take the
money out of the general fund; but in this case you can even things up
by saving on Fuel, so it is all the same in the long run, you see. But
now look at this pail; this is my bread-mixer."
"You don't tell me that you make your own bread! Why, I supposed of
course you bought that in the city. Isn't it a nuisance to have to make
it?"
"Simply child's play with this. In the evening I put in the flour and
milk and water and yeast, according to the directions, exactly so much
of each; then I turn the handle and beat them up for five minutes, cover
the pail, and set it away in a nice cozy place, and in the morning I
beat it all up again for three minutes in the same way, and put it in my
pans to rise. Afterwards I bake it in my gas-oven. In summer I mix it up
in the morning and bake it the same day, because, of course, it rises
more quickly in warm weather."
"Do you really save much by making it yourself? Because unless you do, I
think I'll buy mine; I am sure I would rather."
"I should say you did save! Why, baker's bread would cost at least five
cents a day, getting only one loaf, and that is nearly a dollar and a
half a month, and a good deal more than a bag of flour would cost, which
would last twice as long at least. Flour is expensive to buy by the bag,
too; if I could I should always get a barrel at a time, and save a
bagful by doing so, but I have no place to put a barrel, and when we are
alone it lasts too long, and in a steam-heated apartment it possibly
might spoil. But if you live in the country, buy this by the quantity."
"Don't you always buy things by the quantity? I thought all careful
housekeepers made a point of doing that."
"That depends. If I have a maid I seldom do, because experience has
taught me that, generally speaking, the more she has to 'do' with, the
more she uses up and wastes, and it is natural enough that she should do
just that way. So I find the best way is never to have too much on hand.
I get a few pounds of sugar, only one box of gelatine, half a cake of
chocolate, and so on. I know there is a theory that by buying at
wholesale you save a good deal, and so you do, on paper. Actually, with
a maid, I believe you use enough to even the account. You know the
French, whom I always try and copy as far as possible, since they are
such wonderful managers, buy only in tiny quantities, such as we should
be ashamed to ask for in our shops. I am perfectly sure if it were
cheaper to buy in quantities they would do that way.
"But of course there are exceptions to this rule; when I do my own work,
at least, I frequently do buy a good deal at a time. Tea and coffee I
get in small quantities, because they do not improve by keeping; canned
vegetables we use rather seldom, and I get those only by the half-dozen.
Still I save a little there, because a half-dozen of this and that gives
a discount on the whole dozen or dozens that they come to. Butter I buy
by rule: a pound a week for each person, when I have a maid; when we are
alone I frequently manage to use a little less. Sometimes, too, I get a
pound of good cooking-butter and help out with that a little.
"I make it a point to read the market reports in the papers and get an
idea of what is cheapest at the moment. Sometimes things will fluctuate
from week to week in the most curious way, and you can find real
bargains in fruit or some particular vegetable. For instance, when I
read that a ship has come in loaded with dates or lemons or pineapples
or Bermuda onions, I wait a few days till they are distributed, and then
I ask for them, and invariably the price has dropped below normal. So I
do not lay down any hard and fast rule about buying, but I just do as
seems best from time to time. There are certain things I should do if I
had more room, such as buy flour, as I told you, and sugar as well, by
the barrel. I cannot do that in a small apartment. In the country I
should put in winter vegetables each fall; that, too, I cannot do here,
but I try and make it up in other ways."
"Could you not do with a maid as the Southerners do with their colored
people, and give out stores every morning?"
"Perhaps some women might, but, honestly, I have not the moral courage
to do so. When everybody does it, as in the South, it is accepted as a
perfectly proper thing to do. Here it would be thought mean and small,
and a maid would think herself under suspicion of possible theft, and I
am sure she would take herself off at the first moment. No, it would not
do to try such a thing here, I am sure."
"But with other things besides groceries which you must have,
table-linen and bed-linen and towels, how do you do about buying those
things? Do you lay in a supply every year at a regular time, or get them
as you go along?"
"Linen is one of the things it is difficult to get when you have a small
income, and when your housekeeping allowance does not permit any margin
larger than just enough for staples. I have to do as best I can here,
too. Of course the linen I had when I was married still exists, but most
of it is too fine for us to use every day. Costly tablecloths and
napkins wear out when they are in constant use, and if I get rid of mine
rapidly I shall never be able to replace them; so, though I have so
much, I am about on a level with the woman who has none. Don't make the
mistake I made, Dolly, and buy your linen all of the loveliest quality.
I know it is a temptation, when a father who does not mind what things
cost is paying the bills. It is not wise in your future circumstances to
have too much beautiful linen and too little that is good also, but
plainer and heavier. Get an abundance of small tablecloths and lunch
squares, and napkins of medium size, and good strong towels, and
sensible sheets and pillow-cases of cotton. I know linen sheets and
pillow-cases with monograms on them are delightful to have, but then in
a short time you must buy, buy, buy, as you find these are not what you
need in your particular surroundings, and with a laundress who possibly
stoops to use soda in her washing once in awhile when she thinks you
won't find her out.
"As to replacing these things, I get a dozen napkins or towels or a
tablecloth when I have the money and when they are cheap; that is all I
can tell you about it. I do not buy them at regular intervals, because I
cannot do that way. I believe, of course, in putting in just so much
linen every year and so never getting short, only I can't do it."
"I suppose all your things need replacing at times. When chair coverings
wear out, and carpets, and your china set breaks to bits gradually till
it disappears, do you fly to Incidentals, or what?"
"Oh, I do as I told you before; I manage as best I can. You learn to
cover your own furniture in time, not elegantly, but well enough. You
paint or stain your floors when your carpets wear out, and put down
rugs, not always Oriental rugs, either, but occasionally artistic--and
luckily fashionable--rag-carpet rugs made in beautiful colors, dyed just
the way you want them, in olive-greens or dull orange or old blue; they
are really beautiful, and I mean to have plenty of them as my wedding
supply of good rugs gradually goes. As for china, I take care of what I
have, you may be sure, and once in awhile I put Christmas money or
birthday money from home into a set of plates for salad or dessert; or I
save up and buy a whole set of platters and vegetable dishes and plates
for a main course. Even if I were rich I should never care for a whole
dinner-service that matched. I like different kinds of plates for
different courses, though they ought to harmonize. Then as tumblers and
such small things vanish, I cut down my table expenses for a week and
buy them with my savings, unless my tin bank is full at the time. I will
not break into Incidentals unless I must."
"No, I should expect you to serve water in tin mugs before you would
touch that sacred sum."
"Well, perhaps I might do that way; I'm glad you suggested it."
"Is that the end of the lesson for the day?"
"What have you written down?"
"'Have a pretty kitchen,'" read Dolly. "'Have a zinc table and three
stoves; make your own bread; buy some things by quantity and don't buy
others so; have linen not too nice for hard usage; get dishes as you
can, when they break; and don't buy anything with money out of
Incidentals."
"Very good indeed, especially the last warning," laughed Mary. "Now the
class is dismissed, for it is too lovely to stay indoors another minute,
and we will go to market and then down-town. By the way, one of the joys
in having no maid is that you can turn the key in your door and walk off
any minute you please and leave no anxieties behind you. You know the
dishes are washed and put away, there is nothing left in the oven to
burn, and no mistakes to be made by anybody; and you come home when you
please. I just love to do my own work!"
"What a desirable state of mind to be in," Dolly replied. "Let us hope
I'll attain that same lofty height by the time my 'prentice year is
up."