The Library of Work and Play: Housekeeping

by Elizabeth Hale Gilman

When can these things be done, and who is to do them?

We will consider the laundry work first. This should be the periodical work for two days of the week; if it runs over it crowds other things, and indicates that the wash is larger than we may have it with the present number and quality of workers. On the days devoted to laundry work, the daily work should be as brief and the meals as simple as possible. Of course, when there is a woman in the house, or who comes into the house especially to do washing and ironing, the usual schedule can be adhered to.

The day on which the washing is done is a matter of choice. It is traditional to wash on Monday, but some people say that Tuesday is better. If a woman comes in to do the washing it must be done when she can come. The advocates of washing on Monday say that as it is the longest and heaviest weekly job, it is best got out of the way as early in the week as possible; that the work of the week seems to wait round until the laundry work is finished; they say, too, that it is easier to wash on Monday because other people are washing.

The advocates of Tuesday say that as more of the family are at home on Sunday and as the regular clearing up is not done, the house needs especial attention on Monday; also, that they do not like putting clothes to soak the last thing Sunday night.

If circumstances leave one free to choose the day, it is as well to try each long enough to get used to it, and then to decide on the one which proves easiest for every one concerned.

In the household with one maid, the mistress should help on the days the laundry is done with the daily work and in some cases with the laundry itself. In the two-maid household, the cook washes, the waitress assists, and the mistress frequently does some of the daily work. In the three-maid household it is possible for each to do her usual part of the daily work and give some assistance with the laundry.

The sorting and mending of the clean clothes is the work of the mistress or of an upstairs maid. The sorting should be done when the wash is finished. The mending, if heavy, often has to wait for odd times.

The next heaviest periodical work to the washing is the weekly cleaning. In a household with two maids or less, the cleaning should not be the periodical work on more than two days, one for upstairs, one for down. The living room and the dining room will probably have to be thoroughly cleaned each week, but the other rooms can usually be done in alternate weeks with the help of the daily setting in order and the careful use of a sweeper two or three times in the interval. It is more immaculate and more agreeable to have all the rooms thoroughly cleaned each week, but in a fairly large house with two women to do the work this ideal may become a grievous burden.

In houses in which there is an ample number of servants, the cleaning of the downstairs rooms, daily and periodical, is often done before breakfast. It is the ideal way of accomplishing this disturbing and uncomfortable job, but it cannot be so done unless there are enough workers in the house to divide the work into distinct departments.