The Expert Maid-Servant

by Christine Terhune Herrick

The usual costume of the maid-of-all-work in the early part of the day is a neat wash-frock and white apron. While waiting at table she should wear a cap. She should have a colored apron on when working in the kitchen, but there should always be a fresh white apron at hand for her to slip on when she answers the bell. When she dresses to wait at dinner she should put on a black frock, white collar and apron and cap. Since she must wear the frock in the kitchen, it is better to have it of wash goods. The mistress should be in readiness to answer the bell when the maid is dressing for dinner, or when she is at the wash-tub or doing any other work it is difficult for her to leave. A great deal of consideration is demanded of both mistress and maid when there is but one servant and the family desires to live daintily and in accordance with good form.

A general outline of the daily work has thus been given, but each day must have its share of the week's duties. By general consent Monday and Tuesday are given over to washing and ironing, and on these days, unless a laundress is hired to help, the mistress of the house must take charge of the chamber-work and of all the dusting, and, if the wash is large, will perhaps feel it well to wash the dishes after breakfast, and to lend a hand in the preparation of luncheon. The plan practised in some houses of having all the sweeping done on Friday is open to criticism. Even if there is baking to be done on Wednesday, a portion of the sweeping or other cleaning may also be accomplished then. The dining-room or drawing-room, as being near the kitchen, may be cleaned on the days when the maid must watch her cooking closely.

This method of apportioning the work has much to commend it. Washing windows is tiresome, and the maid will feel it less if she does a few every day than if she gives a whole morning or afternoon to them. The scouring of large pieces of brass or silver and the cleaning of paint it is well to discharge all at one time, and this may be done on Thursday, while the sweeping of the bedrooms and cleaning of the upper part of the house may be reserved for Friday. The woodwork about the doorknobs should be wiped off, the stairs brushed down, and the halls gone over with the carpet-sweeper daily, and the house, from top to bottom, swept well at least once a week.

V
DUTIES OF TWO OR MORE SERVANTS

With specialization in the household come complications. The manual labor of the mistress may be lessened when she adds to her domestic force, but with every new maid she assumes more responsibilities. She has to reconstruct the system to which she had become accustomed when she employed but one servant, and very often the whole tone of the establishment is changed from what it was in the days to which she sometimes looks back as comparatively care free.

Yet with the increase in a family or with an alteration in the mode of living additional service becomes necessary, and, unless the housekeeper is of the type who takes life hard, there is no reason why she should not soon adapt herself to the new conditions. As in all other circumstances where she must make plans for her domestics, she should have her scheme of action clear in her own mind before she gives it to her servants. Vacillation and uncertainty on the part of the mistress shake the maid's confidence in the judgment of the ruling brain, and dispose her to question decisions and to neglect the duties which she thinks do not strike even the mistress as absolutely essential.

It is hard to change the method of work when the former general household servant is put into the place of cook or waitress and a second maid engaged. The former factotum is likely to criticise the way in which her late duties are performed, and perhaps to feel that the lion's share still falls to her. So, unless it is an exceptionally competent maid who has been doing all the work, it is usually well to begin a new deal of this sort by getting two maids and dividing the work between them from the outset.

The duties assigned to the different domestics in a house where two or more servants are employed are not easy to define explicitly. They must be determined largely by the individual wants and conditions. The size of the family, the arrangement of the house, the style of living, the fact of there being small children in the home, all suggest modifications of any general outline. Therefore, the schedule of ordinary household duties following must be subordinate to the conditions mentioned, and also to the capabilities of the individual servant. In a household where more than one servant is employed it is desirable that there should be from the beginning as clear as possible an understanding of the duties to be discharged, since with the specialization comes a disinclination to undertake any work outside of the particular line for which the servant was employed. In the household of more than one servant there is a strong probability that the statement, "I was not engaged to do this kind of work," will be heard, sooner or later.

"It seems absurd that I should employ a man-servant besides the coachman and the gardener," said a housekeeper to me the other day. "I have plenty of maids, and, as nearly as I can make out, I took on this extra man for the sake of having him sweep off the stone platform in front of the porch steps. It was nobody's work. The waitress said she did not hire to do outside work, and the coachman said it had nothing to do with his work. It was not the gardener's business, and they were all so strenuous about it that I told my husband I seemed to be the only one to whose lot it really fell by rights to keep that platform clean. There was so much discussion over it that I finally hired a houseman for the especial purpose of having that platform swept. Of course, he looks after the furnace and brushes off the porch and washes windows and does other things of that sort, but they are merely incidents. The real reason I keep him is so that my husband or I won't have to sweep that platform!"

Bearing in mind the possibility of such complications, the mistress should tell her second maid when she engages her that she may have to perform other tasks than those which lie exactly within an over-rigid conception of her duties. If this is understood from the start it averts later annoyance.