In setting a tea-table, small-sized plates are set around, with a knife, napkin, and butter-plate laid by each in a regular manner, while the articles of food are to be set, also, in regular order. On the waiter are placed tea-cups and saucers, sugar-bowl, slop-bowl, cream-cup, and two or three articles for tea, coffee, and hot water, as the case may be. On the dinner-table, by each plate, is a knife, fork, napkin, and tumbler; and a small butter-plate and salt-cup should also be placed by each plate.
CHAPTER XXII.
WASHING, IRONING, AND CLEANSING.
Many a woman without servants, or with those untrained, must do her own washing and ironing, or train others to do it, and this is the most trying department of housekeeping. The following may aid in lessening labor and care.
It saves washing and is more healthful to use flannel shirts. Farmers, sailors, and soldiers have found by experience that they are more comfortable than cotton or linen, even in the hottest days. Many gentlemen use them for common wear, changing to a cotton-flannel night-gown for sleeping. So young children can have a flannel jacket and flannel drawers sewed to the jacket in front, and buttoned behind, and change them at night for cotton-flannel made in the same way. The under-garments for women may be made of the same material and pattern, and this will save washing and promote health.
Some ladies economize time and labor by wearing three-cornered lace articles for the neck, trimmed with imitation Valenciennes lace, wash them in their wash-bowl, whiten in soap-suds in a tumbler or bowl in their window, stiffen with gum-arabic, and after stretching, press under weights between clean papers. This is a happy contrivance when on a journey or without servants. Those who wish to save all needless labor in washes should have under-garments and night-gowns made in sack forms or other fashions that save in both material and labor. They also should omit ruffles and other trimmings that increase the labor of ironing.
There is nothing which tends more effectually to secure good washing than a full supply of all conveniences. A plenty of soft water is a very important item. When this can not be had, lye or soda can be put in hard water, to soften it. Borax is safer than soda, which turns white clothes yellow, and injures texture. Buy crude borax, and for a common washing use half an ounce. A borax soap is thus made: To a pound of bar-soap, cut in small pieces, put a quart of hot water and an ounce of powdered borax. Heat and mix, but do not boil, cool and cut into cakes, and use like hard soap. Soak the white clothes in a suds made of this soap over night, and it saves much rubbing. Two wash-forms are needed; one for the two tubs in which to put the suds, and the other for bluing and starching-tubs. Four tubs, of different sizes, are necessary; also, a large wooden dipper, (as metal is apt to rust;) two or three pails; a grooved washboard; a clothes-line, (sea-grass or horse-hair is best;) a wash-stick to move clothes when boiling, and a wooden fork to take them out. Soap-dishes, made to hook on the tubs, save soap and time. Provide, also, a clothes-bag, in which to boil clothes; an indigo-bag, of double flannel; a starch-strainer, of coarse linen; a bottle of ox-gall for calicoes; a supply of starch, neither sour nor musty; several dozens of clothes-pins, which are cleft sticks, used to fasten clothes on the line; a bottle of dissolved gum-arabic; two clothes-baskets; and a brass or copper kettle, for boiling clothes, as iron is apt to rust. A closet for keeping all these things is a great convenience. Tubs, pails, and all hooped wooden ware, should be kept out of the sun, and in a cool place, or they will fall to pieces.
COMMON MODE OF WASHING.
Assort the clothes, and put those most soiled in soak the night before. Never pour hot water on them, as it sets the dirt. In assorting clothes, put the flannels in one lot, the colored clothes in another, the coarse white ones in a third, and the fine clothes in a fourth lot. Wash the fine clothes in one tub of suds. When clothes are very much soiled, a second suds is needful, turning them wrong side out. Put them in the boiling-bag, and boil them in strong suds for half an hour, and not much more. Move them, while boiling, with the clothes-stick. Take them out of the boiling-bag, and put them into a tub of water, and rub the dirtiest places again, if need be. Throw them into the rinsing-water, and then wring them out, and put them into the bluing-water. Put the articles to be stiffened into a clothes-basket by themselves, and, just before hanging out, dip them in starch, clapping it in, so as to have them equally stiff in all parts. Hang white clothes in the sun, and colored ones (wrong side out) in the shade. Fasten them with clothes-pins. Then wash the coarser white articles in the same manner. Then wash the colored clothes. These must not be soaked, nor have lye or soda put in the water, and they ought not to lie wet long before hanging out, as it injures their colors. Beef’s-gall, one spoonful to two pailfuls of suds, improves calicoes. Lastly, wash the flannels in suds as hot as the hand can bear. Never rub on soap, as this shrinks them in spots. Wring them out of the first suds, and throw them into another tub of hot suds, turning them wrong side out. Then throw them into hot bluing-water. Do not put bluing into suds, as it makes specks in the flannel. Never leave flannels long in water, nor put them in cold or lukewarm water. Before hanging them out, shake and stretch them. Some housekeepers have a close closet, made with slats across the top. On these slats, they put their flannels, when ready to hang out, and then burn brimstone under them, for ten minutes. It is but little trouble, and keeps the flannels as white as new. Wash the colored flannels and hose after the white, adding more hot water. Some persons dry woolen hose on stocking-boards, shaped like a foot and leg, with strings to tie them on the line. This keeps them from shrinking, and makes them look better than if ironed. It is also less work than to iron them properly.
Bedding should be washed in long days, and in hot weather. Empty straw beds once a year.