CHAPTER III ⬩ SERVANTS
York Harbor, August 10.
Dear Penelope:
It has been so long since your last letter that I feared you were ill and was at my desk starting to write you when yours came and explained the whole situation. What a picture of misery, and to think that that nice-looking Mary turned out so unsatisfactory and that you have had such a succession since her departure! So you feel degraded and as though there was something the matter with you personally, do you? Well, there is nothing the matter with you, and you are the same dear girl that you have always been, and with your willingness to give the servant question all the thought that it needs, these very experiences will help you to cope with it more wisely. It made me laugh to hear how disgusted your husband was because your present housemaid was such a fright! Don’t let that worry you; just provide her with neat white aprons and a cap and he won’t know her. Tell him I wish he had seen the little apparition that came to me, when we were first married (we were living in the South at the time), in answer to my advertisement for a housemaid. At least forty-eight tiny little braids, each about four inches long, stood straight out from her little black head and she was clad in bright red plaid from top to toe, her face beaming all over with good nature. She looked clean, as you say your new maid does, and the transformation was complete when later, with hair smoothed out, and in a neat calico dress and white apron, she stood before me for inspection. Since then, you can imagine I have had all sorts and kinds and so many experiences that I have gradually grown to look at domestic service in a broader way.
You have had enough discomfort already to make you feel that it is a serious problem and I am so glad that what you have gone through has only determined you to come out victorious in the end and not to follow the example of so many women who go into apartments to get rid of household cares. Undoubtedly they do reduce the number of their servants and their worries in this way, but the family also loses much of the home feeling. What would we think of our husbands if, when the men in their employ gave them trouble, they said to us that they could not manage their employees and would have to get rid of most of them which would necessitate their reducing their business and our living in less comfort in consequence? Wouldn’t we in our hearts think they were failures in their vocations? And yet we women are just as much failures in our vocation when we give up the privacy and comforts of home to go into an apartment because we cannot manage our servants.
Every woman who tries to bring about a better understanding between herself and her servants helps every other woman to make home life more comfortable, so it really isn’t a little thing to do. On the contrary, if enough women try, they may bring about great results. Nothing is so absolutely destructive to an understanding between mistress and maid as the habit, so common and so catching, of looking at servants as a class by themselves, unlike other human beings and antagonistic to their mistresses. What we should do is to try to get into a sympathetic mood by remembering that human nature is the same the world over and in all classes, the great difference being in education, early surroundings, and training. If we only keep this in mind, while it really seems almost impossible to understand the ignorance of many servants and to see things from their point of view, yet we may at least realize that it would be a disgrace if our ideals of conduct were not higher than theirs.
When I tell you that you will need nearly every known virtue to keep house well, you will expect to come out of the experience a piece of absolute perfection! Certainly Patience is one of the foremost needed. It is so easy and natural for us to scold a servant when she has neglected her duty or done something stupid, instead of patiently following her up every time she neglects anything and with a pleasant but decided manner seeing that she does it. And yet I know, from experience, that the scolding produces no result except to make her angry, while the other method will have one of two results; she will either get into the habit of doing her work well to save herself the mortification or irritation of being corrected or else she will show you that she isn’t worth training and that you might as well let her go. One’s patience, however, may cease to be a virtue in the case of a sullen servant. I would not keep such a one, no matter how good her work was, if after having spoken to her about it she did not change, for nothing will wear you out sooner, and to no purpose, than having to contend with that kind of a disposition. Tell her the reason that you part with her and perhaps she will do better in her next place, in which case you will have helped her and her future mistress.
Unselfishness—there’s plenty of opportunity for a mistress to show if she is sincere in her desire to be fair. Just one instance: It isn’t very pleasant, to say the least, if, after one has trained a servant to be skillful and she has stayed for several years so that one has grown dependent on her, she leaves for higher wages. Yet in every other calling people are praised for what is called their ambition to rise, and if we can’t pay high wages, how can we expect to keep the most skillful servants? And why should we make them feel as though they were not behaving well when they leave for more money?
How much Wisdom and Thoughtfulness, too, we need to keep all the different dispositions in the house in harmony, to know just the right moment to correct and the time when extra work or a rainy wash-day or a headache make it wisest to delay correction.
And then Moral Courage—it is wonderful how that often will win the day. It is fatal to be afraid of servants. If you have to reprove one of them that you like and do not wish to lose, it is a good thing to fortify yourself with the thought that it would be better to lose her than to give in to any unreasonableness, for that would certainly put you in her power. You will be surprised how the calm firmness that this thought will give you will generally win the day, if it is backed by the fact that the maid knows she is in a comfortable home and has a considerate mistress.
But I know you want me to talk about your particular troubles, when there was a comfortable home and a considerate mistress. I can readily believe how interested you were in making Mary happy and that you wanted her to feel that your house was her home, and I can just picture how sweet and nice your kitchen and her bedroom looked with everything so neat and new. It was disappointing, in return for all your thoughtfulness of her comfort, to have her show that all she apparently wanted was to get away from her work as quickly and as often as possible. And then after her departure to have such a series of incompetents in quick succession, each with some new demand, was perfectly disheartening. I do feel so sorry for you, for I know just how discouraged you must have been. Of course I have no way of divining what the cause of dissatisfaction was, but we always have to bear in mind that there is so much of the antagonistic spirit between mistress and maid that those of us who do not have it, but who want to be kind, have to suffer for those who are unjust. At any time a maid may come to us direct from a home where she has had a hard mistress, who gave her her outings grudgingly, didn’t like her to have her friends come to see her, and perhaps, while giving her an almost luxurious room, rarely spoke a kind word to her and took it for granted she would be faithless and perhaps even dishonest.
Or, she may have come from some good-natured but thoughtless mistress where her room was miserably uncomfortable and where possibly she had to share her bed, washstand, and bureau with a girl whom she had never seen before or who wasn’t clean. From such places she would come to you naturally in an antagonistic mood, and, suspecting that she would not be looked out for, make demands for even more than she really wanted. She would make the mistake that I have just advised you to avoid, of classing all mistresses together as unkind or thoughtless. Of course it is very unintelligent to do this, for we might as well class all lawyers or all bankers together and expect no good from any of them because some have such low standards. And yet we can hardly blame her when we ourselves have heard so many mistresses talk of servants as though they were all worthless. You seem to think you might have come to some agreement with Mary if you hadn’t been so indignant at what seemed ingratitude after all you had done for her. Possibly that is true, but it is past now and it is useless to cry over spilt milk. What you can do is to start out differently with your new maid in the light of your past experience.
I think you will find yourself much happier if you don’t look for gratitude, for it isn’t to be found very much in any class of life. Above all things, don’t let what you have gone through make you distrustful, for it is the part of wisdom as well as of kindness to let the new maid feel that you expect well of her. If she has good stuff in her, that is the way to bring it out. We ourselves show our best side to those who believe in us.
You seem to have a vague feeling that Mary’s leaving you had something to do with the outings she wanted. That may have been so, for very few of us can enter into servants’ lives enough to realize the vital importance of their outings to them. I can understand your being a little distrustful of her when she wanted to go to a dance, for I used to feel that way myself, but I don’t feel so any longer. Through interest in social work I have learned to appreciate how important recreation is to all classes and how natural is the taste for dancing and the theater. Of course, if a maid wanted to go often, that couldn’t be allowed, for it wouldn’t be compatible with good work.
While most of us are interested in helping to give recreation to the less fortunate classes, we have hardly awakened to the fact that there is one class, that of our servants, who are ridiculed if they want it. It is really quite pathetic to think how little appreciation we have of their need of amusement, and how many jokes are made at the expense of those who want occasionally to go to a dance or to the theater. You and I know some people who don’t even want to let them have their friends come to call. If we desire good work from servants we shall have to be more human and show them that we take an interest in their having a good time.
Perhaps we have had such easy lives ourselves that we have to go back to our childhood to remember the delicious sense of freedom from restraint when school was out, in order to form some idea of the pleasure a maid feels on her “afternoon” when she leaves all duties behind her and gets beyond the sound of the bell. As a well-trained maid, she always has to go about the house noiselessly, never raising her voice in speaking unless spoken to. Perhaps she doesn’t like the other maids and longs for some congenial friend and to talk and laugh unrestrainedly. Is it surprising that she forgets that she doesn’t have to pay her board and lodging as the girls do who are otherwise employed than in domestic service, and that she only thinks of their greater freedom? She naturally longs for that freedom and for some time that she can surely call her own.
If any trouble crops up with this new maid, don’t (because you are so sorry that you let the other one go) offer her higher wages or urge her to stay. It will give you backbone to remember that she will be useless if she stays while dissatisfied and also that offering her higher wages when you are paying enough is only a bribe and simply makes her feel more essential to you than she really is. It wouldn’t remove the cause of her dissatisfaction but only delay its coming to the surface again. Sometimes by a quiet talk you can find out what the trouble is and if the complaint is reasonable you can remove the cause.
A case in point is an experience that I myself once had when there was dissatisfaction among some servants whom I really liked. It was after I had, with a great deal of trouble and study, tried to arrange all their afternoons and evenings out and their Sundays to be, as I thought, convenient for myself and comfortable for them. I was indignant at first at what seemed ingratitude and felt ready to dismiss them all. But, on sober thought, the idea occurred to me of trying to get at the bottom of the trouble by calling them all together and letting each one in turn tell me what was her cause of discontent. At the same time I told them all that, while I might not be able to do what they wanted, still, as my only thought in arranging their outings was to give them rest and have them enjoy themselves, I was ready to consider making some changes so long as they would not interfere with the proper and regular running of the household. It seemed quite a new idea to them that their mistress was really interested in their pleasure. They were nice women and with the prospect of a sympathetic hearing, their antagonism seemed to pass away.
To my surprise I found that it was not more outings that they wanted (in fact they proposed fewer), but to be away from the house longer at a time. I promised them nothing at the moment because I feared that I should say something unwise, but impressed it upon them that they would have to work together and help one another if they wanted these changes. This conversation resulted in my arranging a programme that was satisfactory to them and perfectly convenient to me, and one that I have not had to change for years.
It may help you very much to find out what I learned from this conversation, so here it is. The first point was that servants need their regular outings to be longer than they usually are, because it takes them so much longer than it does us to get dressed and to reach the more remote parts of the town where they usually go. This seemed to me reasonable as I thought over the work of the different servants. Instead of just putting on her hat and coat as we do, a maid has to change everything to make herself neat and fresh to go to church or shopping or to visit her friends. If she has the ordinary two hours’ leave, in most cases she would have to turn around to come back almost as soon as she reaches her destination. If she goes to church we know the service will not be out till after twelve-thirty or even later; so that in order to return in time to set the table by one o’clock, she must leave the church instantly without a moment’s chat with her friends. The waitress cannot get her breakfast things finished before ten o’clock in many households and with the common habit of irregular Sunday breakfasts generally it will be much later. With the chambermaid the situation is probably worse if there are a number of rooms to make up, and it seems almost impossible for the cook to get to morning church unless some special arrangement is made for her.
The second point was that servants would like to be able to count on an absolutely certain, specified time to leave the house and to return, both on Sundays and week-days. This they cannot do if some of the family stay in bed very late, if there is an invalid in the house, or if there are extra people at the Sunday lunch, unless the mistress makes a very definite plan for the servants to relieve one another, so that their free time of going out or to church will not be interfered with and the regular work will still go on.
The third and last point that I can remember is that most servants really do not care to go out so frequently, but that, on the contrary, they would sometimes rather stay at home on their day out if they could be sure of the time to themselves and that they would not be called on for work.
These three points are always carefully conceded to them in hotels, and consequently hotel service is much desired by maids, as housekeepers in small towns find to their great inconvenience.
This experience of mine may let light into your situation and give you a basis for a good programme. In working it out it is necessary to be careful not to make things comfortable for the servants at the expense of the family. As the two points of making the outing longer and starting at regular hours can only be accomplished by one servant taking the duty of the other in her absence, it is important to impress on their minds at the outset that these duties must be performed so well that the household will not be inconvenienced. Since it is a fair exchange, maids are usually contented to do this, and it is the duty of the mistress to train them and to see that each servant carries out the idea, doing her fair share of the work. Where there is more than one servant, these outings can easily be arranged, even with a family of irregular habits, so that they all will be able to get off promptly and stay out long enough, without any inconvenience to the household. In the case where there is only one maid, who does the cooking and all the work of the house, the household is, of necessity, run more informally, and a chafing-dish meal can take the place of one of the Sunday meals in order to let her off. But if the mistress feels that she must have her meals go on just as regularly on Sunday as any other day, she should hire some one to come in for the time the servant is out. You can readily see that she should not expect one servant to keep up the house unaided in just the way that two or three servants do it.
I have heard nice women say, “I have only one servant, so of course I can’t let her go out.” This is really cruel, though not intentionally so, because, if the maid has all the work to do, she needs a complete and regular rest all the more. The mistress should look upon the money paid to some one for taking her place as one of the regular necessary household expenses.
Whether there is one servant or many, each one is entitled to some regular time to herself and if housekeepers were more careful about this there would be less discontent among servants, I am sure. As I said before, we need to be a great deal more human in our relationship with them. How reasonable, for example, these three points seem when we take the pains to see the servants’ point of view, and how easy it would be to misjudge the situation otherwise. What most of them really want is to have some time that they can actually call their own. You would be surprised to know the calm that settled down upon my family and how much more home life there appeared to be in the kitchen after I had arranged a new programme of work and given them these three points that they wanted. Just try it and you will see for yourself, and I am sure too, that you will be glad to practice every virtue that good house management requires if, in that way, you can bring about peace instead of that uncomfortable atmosphere which constant dissatisfaction among the servants causes. If a home is unhappy downstairs you can always feel it upstairs, and, in fact, sometimes at the front door.
I believe I will enclose the plan for the outings of three servants that has worked so well in my case. A simpler plan can be arranged for two servants because they alternate. I have already said what I think is our duty in case of one.
What a long letter I have written you! I send it on the “wings” of the first mail hoping that it will reach you in time really to help you in your present situation.
Affectionately yours,
Jane Prince.
CHAPTER IV ⬩ MAID OF
ALL WORK ❧ ❧
York Harbor, August 18.
Dear Penelope:
Your ears must have burned this morning, for I have been thinking so hard of you. It is an entrancing day after a storm, and the sound of the slow, dreamy washing of the waves on the shore, as I sit here knitting on the piazza, seem to carry me far away from everything about me to your dear self. The girls came home yesterday from visiting Mrs. Gardner with all the latest news of you, how sweet and pretty your surroundings are, and, best of all, Tom’s devotion to you and your happiness. “Spooney,” they called you both, but never mind, what do they know about it? You and I understand,—that is enough, isn’t it?
Your little message to me showed that there was one annoyance, however, weighing on you in the midst of all this bliss, the undercurrent of worry from signs of discontent in the kitchen. When everything is so bright and pleasant around you, and you are so happy, why can’t the maid feel so too? I am afraid it will be many a long day before I can go down to see you, but I am so glad I have my hands and eyes and they shall be devoted to you, dear child, this morning. The more I think about the apparent discontent of your present maid, the more do I believe that it is because you do not realize that a maid of all work cannot do all that you expect her to do and also give the finishing touches that give charm to the home. I know how you love everything to be the pink of perfection, and it isn’t necessary for you to lower your standards of refinement of living,—only to remember to be content to live more simply or informally and that all the pretty little touches must come from you. I have dined a number of times with a young couple where the wife, accustomed to servants before her marriage, did most of the housework, including the cooking, and only had a woman come in for the rough work, sweeping, etc., and to wash the dishes when she had guests. The table always looked refined and sweet and the little apartment made you feel at once the interested touch of the family.
So don’t be discouraged because, after your servant dusts, everything looks crooked and the rooms have a neglected appearance. It is simply because you are asking too much of your maid, who has all she can do in taking care of the practical side of the housework. When I spoke a little while ago of living more simply, visions came before me of your wedding day and the room, that looked like a miniature Tiffany’s, spread out with your wedding presents,—silver, cut glass, and ornaments,—and then I thought of your little maid and how impossible it would be for her to keep the silver looking bright as it should, with everything else she has to do, and how discouraged she would be at the very thought of it. So my advice to you is to put all your silver away that you do not need until you have enough servants to keep it bright without overworking them. Your dining-room will look much prettier with a few bright pieces than overladen with silver that is dull and gives the impression of careless housekeeping.
You must remember that each of the servants you have been accustomed to had her own especial part of the housework to do and plenty of time to do it in. It isn’t so with the maid of all work. She has so much to do that you really have to choose what of the lighter work you will find the pleasantest to perform and do something yourself in order to make her burden easier and have your rooms look homelike and attractive. Suppose you decide to make up your own beds, do the dusting, and attend to the lamps. That is all good exercise and you can wear a pair of gloves to keep your hands nice while you are working. You can manage in this way. If the maid gets up at six-thirty, dresses, throws her mattress over the foot of her bed, and opens her windows to air her room, she can be ready to start the kitchen fire, if there is a coal range, and put on the cereal (which has been cooked the night before and is much better for long cooking) by seven o’clock. She can then go into the parlor, draw up the shades there and in the dining-room, rebuild the fire if it has been used, and go over the floor with a dustless mop. After that she can set the dining-table and cook the breakfast. (You will have to put your beds to air yourself before you leave your room.) When she has put the last of your breakfast on the table, you can wait on yourselves, leaving her to get her own breakfast. (Just here I must speak to you of the loneliness of the maid of all work having all her meals by herself, because, when you think of this, and know that many of them never even sit down to their table, I know you will try to encourage yours to take proper and regular meals and will see that the kitchen is made a homelike place for her.)
To return to the order of her work. When you have finished your breakfast she can clear the dining-table, wash your breakfast things, and straighten the kitchen. After that she should let you know that she is ready to take your orders for the meals. Having finished your breakfast and seen Tom off for his business, you might commence your share of the housework by going to your room, making up the beds, dusting it and all the other rooms and putting them all in order. When the maid lets you know that she is ready to receive your orders for the day, you should stop your work temporarily, if you haven’t finished it, in order not to delay hers, which is more important. Then you should go with her to the refrigerator and wire chest to see the left-overs and plan the meals for the day, utilizing the left-overs and writing on a small pad, kept for the purpose, the bill of fare for lunch, dinner, and breakfast, pinning this up in the kitchen, to leave no excuse for forgetting. All the orders having been disposed of, the menus of the day before can be gone over, praising the successes and pointing out the mistakes. This being finished, the maid can clean the bathroom and do up her own room and be ready for the work of the day which can be arranged in some such way as this:
| Monday | Washing. |
| Tuesday | Ironing. |
| Wednesday | Bedrooms, one week; dining-room and living-room, next week. |
| Thursday | Hall and bathroom, one week; brasses, next week. |
| Friday | Silver. Afternoon out every week. |
| Saturday | Kitchen, refrigerator, etc. |
In the case of the maid of all work, washing the windows has to be done by outside labor, and the time to do it depends a good deal on wind and weather.
One has to be very considerate on washing-day, planning ahead so as to have a cold lunch if possible on that day and not to invite any one to dinner. The “afternoon out” is another time when the maid must be thought of, and nothing should be allowed to interfere with her having this regular time to herself undisturbed. You and Tom will have, both of you, to understand the necessity of this consideration so that he will realize that he mustn’t bring friends home at these times unless it is for such an informal frolic that your guests understand it too, and enjoy what you can have on the chafing-dish. Don’t leave disorder for her to clear up which would give her as much trouble as getting the dinner. Lack of thought in ways like this often causes a servant to leave, though she won’t give you the true reason.
Sunday is another time when she has to be thought of, to be sure to let her have her time off so that she can get to church or to see her friends. You will have to arrange all this with reference to the customs of the place in which you are living or your distance from the center of things. It is much better to accept the fact that this must be arranged satisfactorily to you both than to make some arbitrary rule of your own which will always cause trouble. If you compare notes with your friends you will find plenty who don’t do this, but you will find plenty, too, who have ceaseless trouble with servants.
Every day except washing and ironing day the maid can and should by three-thirty o’clock be neatly dressed in black with a white apron, to go to the door. Plain black sateen waists are cheap and wash perfectly well, so that she can wear one while cooking, but I would advise you to provide her also with turn-over collars that are rather low at the neck, because if she wears the stand-up kind she will be pretty sure to take it off so as to be comfortable when cooking and perhaps mortify you by appearing at the door sometime collarless.
You will find that you can invite as many as four to dinner informally, making six in all, with a maid of all work if you have some one in to help her wash the dishes. I don’t mean for you to engage an expert for this, for they are expensive, but some friend of your maid who enjoys the sociability of coming with the prospect of a good dinner and a little extra money thrown in. Of course you have to arrange to have things that don’t take much time or can be prepared the day before and that your maid cooks especially well, never trying a new dish at such a time.
It can be a nice little dinner, nevertheless. Suppose you begin with grapefruit, which you can arrange yourself, cutting out the center and putting sugar in and setting it in the ice-box early in the day so that the juices will be drawn out and it will be cold and delicious by dinner time. Next, a clear soup, which can be prepared the day before or can be a canned consommé of the best make, flavored with a little lemon, and with a thin slice of lemon in each plate. (Even if your maid can make a delicious cream soup I wouldn’t advise attempting it, since it takes too much time on the day of the dinner.) Third, a roast and two or three vegetables. For the fourth course a salad which you can prepare yourself, making the dressing. Next the fifth course, ice-cream and cake, or some other bought dessert; and, finally, coffee.
All these suggestions that I have written you have actually been tried and found practical and cause the least amount of friction, so I send them to you to modify to suit your own case. That is where your genius will come in—the modifications that oil the machinery of your house to suit your circumstances and your maid’s particular characteristics.
I have only a minute before the mail goes to add another suggestion to this long letter of advice, and that is that it might help you to look into the question of the innumerable domestic labor-saving machines, such as fireless cookers, bread-mixers, vacuum cleaners, washing-machines, electric utensils of all sorts and kinds, and see if there are any that could be used to advantage in your household. With every wish that contentment may soon reign in your kitchen,
Devotedly yours,
Jane Prince.
CHAPTER V ⬩ WEEKLY
CLEANING ❧ ❧
York Harbor, August 27.
Dear Penelope:
Your sense of the ludicrous is going to be of the greatest help over rough places, for often little troubles seem to vanish if we can only laugh over them. I was very much amused with your clever devices to cover up from your maid the fact that you could not remember in what order her work ought to be done. It is surprising, isn’t it, how we can go on living for years in our mothers’ well-ordered households without ever thinking what the method is that makes everything go so like clockwork?
But it is the experience of most of us, and this letter shall go off at once to you hoping to reach you before the next sweeping day, for, as I understand it, that is the vital question for the moment. Without any preamble I shall plunge right into my subject. With two or three maids, of course, every room should have its regular weekly cleaning, but where there is but one she can only manage to sweep each room once in two weeks, you arranging the order of her work as I suggested to you in my last letter.
I will give you two methods of cleaning, one with a broom, and the other with a vacuum cleaner, but I strongly recommend the cleaner as it raises almost no dust and makes the cleaning much easier. You can buy a kind now in the department stores that is no heavier than an ordinary carpet sweeper, is used the same way by hand, does not require electricity in the house, and is comparatively inexpensive, ranging from six dollars up.
The following is the order for the thorough weekly cleaning with a broom:
Before beginning run the shades up to the top and open the windows at the top keeping them shut at the bottom. The rising hot air will then carry the dust out of the window, while, if the window be open at the bottom, the cold air, which falls, will blow the dust in.
Take small rugs out to be shaken.
Brush window sills and lower part of blinds.
Dust each small piece of furniture and take it out of the room.
Shake out of the window all table covers and take them out of the room while the cleaning is going on.
If it is a bedroom, cover bed with dusting sheet.
Brush hard all upholstered furniture with a whisk broom and cover with dusting sheets.
Dust all ornaments laying them carefully under dusting sheet on sofa or bed.
All little things being out of the room and large pieces of furniture covered, sweep carpet or rug, and then, with dustless mop, go over the floor, being careful to clean under heavy pieces of furniture that cannot be moved, rubbing the floor well, but not using oil, as it soils light dresses, or water, as it takes the polish off. Once a month or oftener wax the floor and polish it with a soft cloth on your broom or a polishing brush that comes for the purpose.
Clean mirrors by washing with water that has a little ammonia in it. Wipe and polish with a lintless cloth or newspaper. Newspaper is always on hand and makes a fine polish.
Wash the gas globes if they are dirty (probably about once a month), being careful not to screw them on tight when they are put back, as that makes the globes crack when they get hot.
Take away all soiled bureau and sideboard covers. Lay the fire if it has been used, and wash up the hearth.
Laying a coal fire in the grate: Put the blower on to prevent as much as possible the ashes flying about. Shake the ashes down through the bars of the grate with a poker. Remove them from the pan with the shovel and put them in the coal scuttle. Take the ash-pan out and brush under it. Take the blower off and twist newspapers in loose rolls and put them in the bottom of the grate. Lay kindlings crosswise on top of the paper with spaces for draughts in between. Put coal on top of the kindlings. When the fire is wanted, put the blower on, and light the fire from below. When the coal is well caught, take the blower off.
Laying an open wood fire: Place a large log close against the back of the chimney, another in front, leaving a space between. In this space between the two lay lightly pieces of newspaper twisted loosely; on top of this paper place kindlings crosswise resting on both logs, and far enough apart to let the air through; then one or two other sticks on top of the kindlings bark side down. Do not remove the ashes from a wood fire, as it burns better on a bed of hot ashes.
If soot should ever fall from the chimney on to the rug, sprinkle the place thickly with corn meal and brush it up. This removes at once what otherwise would be a bad stain.
After the fire has been laid, empty all scraps from scrap baskets into a receptacle and take this and also the hod of ashes, if the fire was of coal, downstairs.
Close windows, pull shades down half-way, arrange curtains, take covers off furniture, bring chairs back. Put clean bureau and sideboard covers on, and put the ornaments back in their places. Fold up dusting sheets and put them away.
If brasses are brightened once a week, they remain bright with less effort, but if you have a good many it is best to reserve one morning for this, as it is dirty work. A pair of large old gloves should be provided to keep the hands clean when doing it. Just as with silver, with only one maid it is better not to have too many brasses out, unless you can hire some one to clean them.
When I tell you the order of cleaning a room by a hand-power vacuum cleaner that is made only to sweep the carpets and rugs, does not go by electricity, and has no attachments, you will see that it saves you the most troublesome and heaviest part of the work of sweeping day and that two or three rooms can be cleaned in the time it would take to clean one with a broom. By the following order of work you get the best results and do not have to go a second time over any of your dusting. No dusting sheets have to be used, rugs do not have to be taken up nor furniture and ornaments removed. Of course, before beginning to clean you open windows and arrange shades in the same way that I described when preparing to sweep a room with a broom.
The weekly cleaning of a room with a hand-power vacuum cleaner:
Brush window sills.
Brush hard all upholstered furniture with a whisk broom.
Shake out of the window all table covers and take them out of the room while cleaning is going on.
Go over carpet or rugs with the vacuum cleaner and then the bare floor with a dustless mop. (Sweeping with a vacuum cleaner is supposed not to make any dust, but as it isn’t perfection there is a fine dust that rises from it; so all the dusting should come after the sweeping.)
Dust every piece of furniture, shaking duster out of window.
Dust all ornaments and shelves.
Clean mirrors and do all the work coming after this in the same order as described in cleaning a room with a broom.
With the more expensive electric power vacuum cleaners the order of work is the same, but there are all sorts of attachments to clean floors, upholstered furniture, curtains, etc., that any of their agents would explain to you.
I am speaking from experience when advising a vacuum cleaner, because, after using an electric one in town, I bought for use here, where I haven’t electricity in the house, the hand-power kind, as I couldn’t stand the dust made by an ordinary broom. If you decide to get one, do let me know how you like it.
Your practical but loving friend,
Jane Prince.