The Expert Maid-Servant

by Christine Terhune Herrick

A chambermaid will make corresponding blunders for a time. She will have to be told more than once how the beds are to be made, will have to receive repeated instruction never to put the blankets on with the doubled end at the top, and to be careful about stretching tight the lower sheet and tucking in the coverings properly at the bottom. At the beginning the mistress should establish her standard about this sort of thing as she does about sweeping, dusting, and other cleaning, and she must never relax her requirements if she expects to have her house properly kept.

All this need not be told the maid the first day she comes, but even then she may be made to understand that work is not to be slighted or neglected. This principle, at least, she must have clearly in her mind at the end of the first day's service, even although her thoughts may be a trifle chaotic as regards details. Those it will be the work of the mistress to make clear as time goes on and the maid becomes accustomed to her work.

III
MISTRESS AND MAID

There is a type of mistress who seems to regard servants as beings of an inferior order. Her directions are given curtly—sometimes harshly. She takes the ground that the servant is paid for her work and that for anything beyond the business relation there is no need for consideration. She may be called one extreme type.

The other extreme is more common. In her desire to propitiate her employée she is herself almost servile. She is in frank fear lest the servant may leave her, and in order to retain her services makes almost any concession. Such mistresses as these furnish materials for most of the jokes on the servant question—jokes that are hardly exaggerated.

Between these two extremes there is room for a mistress who unites considerateness with self-respect. She speaks pleasantly to her servants, but she does not spoil them by an ingratiatory manner or show herself ready to make any sacrifice sooner than run the risk of parting with them. She gives orders as orders, instead of asking services as favors; but she issues her commands in a kindly way and with none of the tone or manner of a dictator, still less of a shrew. When her servants are to be reprimanded, she does it quietly, lowering rather than raising her voice. If a servant cannot be managed in this manner, she feels it is better to part with her. In the words of a veteran housekeeper of this variety, "I will not have a servant in my house whom I have to scold."

Every one recollects the saying that in herding sheep it is necessary not only to teach the dogs to drive the sheep, but to accustom the sheep to obey the dogs. So it is as desirable for the mistress to learn the proper method of dealing with the maids as it is for the maids to understand the mistress. There are many kinds of manners in both. But few are the servants who do not respond more quickly to a kindly, gracious manner than to one tinged with severity.

Mention has been made of the difficulty a maid sometimes has in accustoming herself to the phraseology of a new mistress. To the girl's hesitancy about asking for a repetition of an order, or an explanation, are due some of the blunders she makes. The mistress should be sure she is entirely understood before she sends the girl about her work. Also, she should be clear as to the cause of a mistake or of apparent disobedience before she finds fault. Always the mistress should be ready to make explanations about the work. When the maid comes for instruction she should be met patiently, and if there seems to be a difficulty of understanding, a practical illustration will often do more than half an hour of verbal directions. When the mistress can show the maid how the table is to be set, how the beds are to be made, can give her an object-lesson in sweeping or dusting or dish-washing, she will have accomplished more than a dozen lectures would have wrought. Nothing better in instruction has been devised than the Squeers method. "First they spells it and they goes and does it." But it is the mistress who does the spelling as well as the doing if she wishes the new maid to grasp a novel mode of performing a household duty.

The mistress should not shrink from reproof when it has to be administered. There are very few employées in any walk of life who are possessed of so large a supply of conscientiousness that they discharge their duties as well without oversight as with it. To every gang of workmen there is an overseer. In housekeeping the mistress is overseer as well as planner. She must "follow up" her maids—not so obviously that they feel she does not trust them, but closely enough to produce the impression upon them that she takes an interest in their work and means to see that it is thoroughly done. When it is not accomplished to her liking she should call them to account, not unkindly, but decidedly. If a ring of dust around the bric-à-brac shows where the duster has been flourished about the furniture instead of being used to wipe each surface carefully, the mistress should call the maid to bring her cloth and point out to her the defects in that portion of her work. Should there be dirt left in the corners of the room, finger-marks on the paint, streaks on the windows, the same course should be pursued. When this has been done a few times, unless the employée is exceptionally slow-witted, she learns that it is less trouble to perform the work properly in the first place than to have to go over it twice, and the second time under the supervision of the mistress.

All this the employer can do without joining the ranks of the fussers or belonging to that class known as the "nasty particular" housekeepers. The latter, who put the cleanliness of the house so far above the comfort of its inmates that these feel they would rather have dirt with peace than tidiness without it, are common enough to make a word of warning in place. But it is possible to accomplish neatness without sacrificing family concord, and in the desire to secure the latter the housekeeper should not permit herself or her servants to drift into carelessness.