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.