If the cook has thus far received slighter attention than the waitress, it is because her work is so much more closely confined to one department that it requires less minute consideration. She prepares the meals, takes charge of the kitchen, cellar, and pantries, inspects the latter and the refrigerator every morning in company with the mistress of the house, and reigns supreme in the lower realms. In small families where two servants are employed the cook usually is laundress as well. In that case the waitress generally takes part of the cook's work on washing and ironing days, preparing the luncheon on those days, washing all the dishes, and keeping the kitchen in order. The waitress often assists with the fine ironing on Tuesday. Cook and waitress relieve each other on their days out. The cook waits on table when the waitress goes out and attends the door, unless the mistress chooses to do this herself. When the cook takes her holiday the waitress assumes her duties.
When the housekeeper has a force of more than two servants the complications thicken, since with the introduction of each new maid comes more specialization. Unless the new servant is engaged because the family is so large that the work is too heavy for two maids, or because of the need of a special servant, as a nurse, the addition is usually due to increased elaboration in the way of living, and this, of course, subdivides specialization still more as well as raises the scale of wages. The "professed cook," who does nothing but cook and demands a helper or scullery-maid, gets higher pay than the general cook who does the washing and ironing or the one who may refuse to do laundry-work but yet undertakes all the labor of the kitchen. The waitress who understands the service of wines and is an adept at handling large dinners and luncheons, demands—and gets—large wages and feels her dignity to an extent that makes her cling tenaciously to the rights and privileges of her position.
The average American household which employs servants—and there is a surprisingly large proportion of the sum total who keep no servant at all—is contented with one, two, or, at the most, three servants. The third may be a nurse, as I have said, or a laundress, who, besides her washing and ironing, does the chamber-work and thus leaves the waitress free for her especial tasks in the dining-room and for the duties of a parlor-maid. The laundress may also wash windows or help in other cleaning. Or the third servant may be seamstress and chambermaid and have nothing to do with the dining-room or with the kitchen unless she fills one of these places on the "day off" of the regular incumbent.
In a book that deals with the work of the maid-servant it is not worth while to go into the duties of the man-servant or to touch upon the possibilities of change latent in the introduction of Japanese and Chinese service. That all has its part in the domestic labor problem, but this is not the opportunity for discussing this phase of the servant question.
VI
CERTAIN PROBLEMS OF SERVICE
The tendency to introduce the wearing of livery into domestic service has grown within the past few years. There are still many protests against it, and writers are found who declare the cap and apron of the housemaid a badge of servitude. But the growth of the livery has been universal, and implies no more degradation in one relation of life than in another. The public servant, whether he be policeman or street-cleaner or motorman or car conductor or what you will, takes his uniform as a matter of course. The shop-girl, who often prides herself on belonging to a higher social class than the "living-out girl," does not feel disgraced if in the big department store where she works she is expected to conform to the rules of the establishment and don a black gown and a white collar. The trained nurse does not feel it an indignity to wear a cap. In truth, there is a great deal of nonsense talked about the livery of the servant-girl. I have known sensible young women—at least they were sensible in everything else—who would flatly refuse to wear a pretty and becoming cap, and would give up the chance of a good place sooner than put one on.
The girl who surveys matters with an unprejudiced view will recognize a pretty little cap as an uncommonly becoming adjunct to her dress. She will also appreciate the fact that she looks much neater with her flying locks tucked back under a cap than she would with the stray tresses wandering over a forehead that is heated by brisk work. Rightly considered, the cap is no mark of servitude, and has a reason for its existence in the added neatness and freshness it imparts to the working-girl's garb.
This, indeed, is the whole object of the livery. When the maid is at work she should be dressed in a manner that is suitable for her employment. In the morning when she is to be busy with her housework, in and out of the kitchen, handling a broom and dust-cloth, her dress should be a neat print. In houses where the mistress provides the working-frocks of the maids, as is sometimes done, she can have these frocks made all in one piece, but in the majority of homes, where but one or two maids are kept, they dress themselves. Under these circumstances they cannot be expected to conform to any especial color or style, and will probably wear shirtwaists and skirts. It is a pity if the skirts are dark woollen goods, because these gather dust and retain the odors of cookery, but a large apron will protect the skirt, and washing is saved to the maid if her whole gown is not of a light material. She is wise if she wears a large sweeping-cap in the morning when she is busy at work that is likely to make dust, but this can be exchanged for a smaller cap when the rougher parts of her labor are out of the way.
For the afternoon, when it is feasible, the maid, whether she be the maid-of-all-work who discharges the functions of both cook and waitress, or the servant who is waitress and parlor-maid, should, if correctly dressed, wear a black frock with white collar and cuffs, and a white bib apron. The latter may be a little more elaborately trimmed than that she has on in the morning. In fact, with a morning apron she may dispense with the bib altogether and wear only a plain, large apron. Some mistresses demand the broad collar, although the cuffs may be omitted. I say "when it is feasible" the maid should make this change, because it is not always the most convenient thing in the world for the maid who has to do the cooking of the dinner before she serves it to be in her black frock all the afternoon. She may look neat in her gingham waist and skirt, and then, when she gets everything in order for the dinner, she may slip away to her room for a minute and get into the black waist. The waitress who has no kitchen work is usually expected to have on her black waist soon after luncheon in order to be ready to answer the bell properly dressed. The absolutely correct custom demands that she should be in this garb before luncheon is served, but this rule is not followed in the average household.
There are many obstacles in the way of strict enforcement of various regulations which are insisted upon as essential by those who endeavor to make the social by-laws. To such rules the majority of housekeepers would be glad to conform if they could. Like Lady Teazle, they would be only too happy if roses grew under their feet and they could gather strawberries all the year round. But domestic exigencies forbid many indulgences, and the wise woman is she who adapts herself to things as they are and does not make herself wretched over non-essentials. When a woman keeps but one maid to do the work of a household of half a dozen members, she cannot hope to have her establishment conducted as it would be with a force of three or four maids. She may very properly insist upon certain niceties of serving and waiting, but if she does this she must make up for it in other ways. For instance, the woman who demands candles for her dinner-table instead of gas must not expect the maid who does all the work of the house to have time to keep the candlesticks in order. The care of the flowers that brighten the table must also come upon the mistress. She must take this sort of thing for granted as much as she does the necessity for relying upon her own efforts in the preparation of her more delicate desserts and salads. Such efforts are the price she pays for wishing to live in a certain fashion, and, since she has made her choice, she has no right to be dissatisfied with it. Plainer modes of life and ultimate salvation are not incompatible, but if she prefers the added daintiness to the lighter labor it devolves upon her to do the additional work necessarily implied by the touches of elegance.