The Expert Maid-Servant

by Christine Terhune Herrick

Among the stipulations incident to the engagement of a maid, it is well to make mention of breakages. This may not be needful when hiring a cook, but it is a safeguard when engaging a waitress or even a general housework servant. Inquiries should be put as to the maid's carefulness with china, and there should be an agreement that the maid is responsible for breakages except in cases of unavoidable accident. Such a proviso as this may deter some maids from taking a place, but the careful girl is not likely to object to the rule, and the mistress would probably be unfortunate should she engage a maid who resented such a regulation.

II
WHEN THE MAID ARRIVES

The first days of a servant in a new place are not easy either for mistress or for maid. This should be recognized by the mistress, and she should lay in an extra supply of patience for the emergency. She will need it, in order to endure with equanimity the sins, negligences, and ignorances of the new-comer—especially the ignorances. Yet, looked at impartially, the blunders made by the maid are probably not so much the result of ignorance as of unaccustomedness. The situation is much harder for her than for the mistress. The latter is at least on familiar ground. To the former the place is an unknown quantity. She does not know where anything is kept. She is ignorant of the preferences of her new employer. She is encompassed by novel surroundings and faces; and—a fact that is not always recognized by employers—the very phraseology of the new mistress is strange to her. The maid lacks the mental training that would enable her to adapt herself quickly to the changed conditions, the unusual expressions. Under the circumstances, the wonder is not that she does things so badly, but that she accommodates herself as readily as she does to the fresh environment.

I have spoken of the diffidence that sometimes produces the impression of sullenness. This same diffidence often takes other forms that are even more trying than gloom. I have known of one maid who, during the first fortnight of her stay in a new place, received every order with a loud giggle—the fashion in which her embarrassment manifested itself. Another was so much at a loss what to do with her hands when they were not occupied with her work, that she slapped them together constantly as she moved about the house or stood waiting for orders. Yet both of these maids, after their first shyness had worn off and they had found themselves and their relation to their work, became admirable servants and overcame the defects that had at first tried the patience of the mistress almost beyond endurance.

In the average American household, where there is only a small domestic force, the mistress should always show the servant what are her duties or direct how these are to be performed. In large households, where there is a housekeeper, the training of the new servants may be delegated to her, but these establishments are too few to be weighed in making up the main account. As soon as the maid comes the mistress should direct her or show her to her room, and tell her to change her street garb for her working-dress and then to report herself to the mistress. She, on her own part, should be ready for the new-comer, not only with a clearly framed idea of the work she will put her to first, but also with the house in good order for the work that is to be done.

Nothing is more discouraging to a servant than to come into a place that is dirty from the carelessness of the former occupant, or untidy and topsy-turvy. The maid is as susceptible to first impressions as the rest of us, and the moral effect of bringing her into a dirty and disorderly kitchen is distinctly bad. The mistress should have had the kitchen and pantries cleaned by the outgoing maid—and it should have been done under her own supervision or else thoroughly inspected after the work is finished. Should the maid who is leaving not have done her task thoroughly, it is better for the mistress to give her own time and labor to cleaning closets and shelves, or engage a charwoman to do it, than to permit the maid to come in before the work is properly performed. The servant who finds dust in the corners, the stove unpolished, the cellar and refrigerator uncleaned, is likely to draw the conclusion that the places can remain as she found them, or may be suffered to drift into the same condition again whenever she is too lazy or too careless to give them proper attention.

A word about the maid's bedroom. In some circumstances it is impossible to make it very alluring. When all of a family are tucked away in dark, inside rooms, as is the case in many city apartments, it cannot be expected that the maid will fare better than her employers. But, fortunately, all humanity are not cliff-dwellers. There are plenty of homes where it is possible for the maid to have a light, airy bedroom, which could be made attractive at a small expenditure of time and money. Yet it is seldom that a servant's room has anything pleasing about it. The mistresses defend themselves by saying that the servants are heedless with good things, that they do not take care of what is given them, and any mistress can cite facts to prove this position.

Without disputing the truth of these statements, it may yet be urged that it is hard for a servant to come into a room that bears plainly the traces of its former occupant's untidiness. Possibly the new-comer has in her the potentialities of neatness and cleanliness, and it is unfair to check these at the start. The room cannot be refurnished for every new maid; but the furniture it contains can be of a sort that is readily freshened. The white iron cots are neat as well as comfortable, and there should be a good mattress always. A hard-working maid has a right to a comfortable bed. If there are two servants, they should have separate beds. This should be an invariable rule. The mattress should be protected by one of the covers that come for this purpose. This can be washed as often as it needs it. The blankets, too, should be washed between the departure of one maid and the arrival of another. A neat iron wash-stand, a plain bureau that can have a fresh bureau-cover or a clean towel laid over it, a comfortable chair, a rug by the bed, are not expensive and add much to the comfort of a room. It is wiser to have the floor bare and painted, or spread with a matting, than covered with a shabby and worn-out carpet which gathers dust and dirt. The walls are better painted than papered. The mistress can consult her own preferences as to whether or not she shall put pictures on the walls, but she should not make of the maid's room a lumber place for the old engravings and chromos that will be tolerated in no other part of the house, and do it under the impression that she is making the place attractive to the maid-servant within her gates. The bed should, if possible, be made up before the maid arrives, with a fresh spread, and the room should have the absolute cleanliness that is always a charm.

One more point should be looked after in preparing for the maid's arrival. The mistress should make sure that the supply of china and cutlery that the maid will use for her own meals is in decent order. It cannot be pleasant for any one to have bent and tarnished forks and spoons, cracked and stained cups, saucers, and plates for her food. The cost of replacing these by new is very slight and pays for itself in the agreeable impression given the maid by the fresh, bright articles.

A list of the dining-room silver, linen, and china should be made by the mistress and gone over by her with the maid the day of the latter's arrival. By thus verifying the list the maid has a clear idea of the property that is given into her charge and knows for what she is responsible. If the china is nicked or cracked, mention should be made on the list of each piece thus disfigured, and there should be a note of linen that is worn or broken. By means of such a list the mistress is able to keep track of her possessions and there is no possibility of the maid's excusing a chipped plate or a cracked dish with the plea that it was injured before she came. Such a list is also a safeguard to the maid, who is by it enabled to prove that she is not to be blamed for disasters that occurred during the stay of a predecessor.