The Expert Maid-Servant

by Christine Terhune Herrick

Without hope of any reward, except that of the comfortable sensation we have when we have attempted to do the decent thing, let us try to make our maids feel at home in our houses. If it is possible, they should have a place in which to meet their friends. Where there is space, it is becoming more and more the custom to provide a sitting-room for the servants in which their visitors can be received. To many housekeepers such an arrangement as this would be impossible. In such cases there should at least be an effort to render the kitchen as pleasant as the circumstances will permit. It may be clean and neat, there may be a couple of chairs that are tolerably comfortable, and any little attempt the maid may wish to make to add to the attractiveness of the apartment should be encouraged.

VII
GENERAL SUGGESTIONS

The mistress of a house must not look for bricks without straw. In other words, she must not demand good work from her maids if they lack the tools with which to achieve it.

When women, in the course of discussions on domestic topics at clubs and elsewhere, declare that housekeeping can be practised on the same principles as those on which men conduct their business, when they affirm that housekeeping may be run like machinery, they sometimes forget what is meant by the management of machinery. The metaphor pleases them so much that they fail to examine it too closely. But any machinist will tell one that an engine does not go of itself. I do not mean only that the fires must be kept up and the water which is to generate steam must be provided. There is more to it than that. The machinery must be watched and oiled and kept in perfect repair. If any bit of it is injured it must at once be replaced. There must be a regular inspection made to see that there is not so much friction on one part as to make too much wear and tear, and that other portions which are temporarily out of use do not become rusty so that they are unmanageable when they come in demand.

But what housekeeper takes such care of her home machinery as this? Here and there one may be found, but the majority, having started the works going, seem to have the impression that the wheels will continue to revolve with no further attention. It is taken for granted that the maid will pursue the even tenor of her way as if she were another piece of clockwork that has been wound up—or, perhaps, as if she were a part of the same big machine which comprises the household and all its appointments.

The difference, of course, between the machinery and the home is that in the conduct of the latter the human equation has to be reckoned with constantly. It is not enough for the mistress to see that all parts of the engine are supplied, if this or that section is to be injured through carelessness as soon as her back is turned. The head machinist would probably drop a man on short notice who had proved himself to be persistently careless of the portion of labor committed to his charge. The fact that he could do other parts of his work well, that he was kindly and good-natured and never spoke an impertinent word, would weigh for little if he did not pay attention to his especial duty and take proper care of that which was committed to his charge. With the domestic servant matters are on a different footing. In counting up her good and bad qualities the mistress must keep a debit-and-credit account and feel that one positive virtue offsets many negative defects.

Yet, even while she does this and puts up with shortcomings because of some one conspicuous merit, the mistress should not relax her effort to approximate, so far as she may, the performance of household duties to the workings of the machinery to which it is so often likened. And to do this she must see that everything necessary is at hand, to make the wheels turn smoothly.

It is a proof of the carelessness with which many homes are managed, and of the slackness which maids take for granted, that the household equipment is so often conspicuously poor. I have been in houses that were well furnished above-stairs where I have seen the maids attempting to do careful cookery with utensils that were utterly inadequate. There were broken vegetable-graters, cream-churns, egg-beaters, flour-sifters, coffee-pots with parts of their mechanism missing, bowls and dishes with large sections gone from them, an insufficient supply of such small items as measuring-cups, mixing-spoons, vegetable-knives, and the like. I have also had a glimpse of the articles provided for keeping a house clean—stubby brooms, worn-out brushes, half-bristled scrubbing-brushes, a stingy provision of the detergents and cleansing fluids manufactured for household use. In the midst of this dearth the maids worked as best they could, accomplishing wonders when one thought of the means they had in hand.

"But," some one will say, "these things were doubtless provided at first, and if they are lacking now it is because of the carelessness of the maids that had them in charge."

Precisely so. But the maids ought not to have been permitted to be careless. If that consummation devoutly to be desired of making the house run like a machine is ever to be brought about, the methods of the shop must be introduced into domestic work. The maid should have given to her the utensils that she will need in order to do her work properly and then she should be held responsible for them—not responsible merely by word either. It will be necessary for the mistress to keep her eyes on these details just as the head machinist makes his inspection. She will have to see for herself that the broom is hung up or stood on the handle instead of on the bristle end, that the brushes and dust-pans not only have their nails or hooks, but are kept on them when not in use instead of being thrown into a corner of the kitchen and kicked about by any one who finds them in the way. She will have to inquire if the dish-towels are washed out after service, boiled once a day, and well dried and aired—not thrown carelessly over a clothes-horse or a line to dry with the grease and stains from carelessly washed dishes still clinging to them. Once in so often the mistress must make an examination of the contents of the pot-closet to ascertain for herself if the double boiler has been left on the fire until the water has cooked away and the bottom has cracked from dryness. She must see that her pans are scoured when they need it, that no utensil is ever put away with part of the contents sticking to the inside.