From Kitchen to Garret: Hints for young householders

by J. E. Panton

I could write pages both about the nursery cupboards and the sofa, but will mercifully refrain, because I have other things to say about the furnishing of the walls, and the emphatic necessity of a high guard for the fire fastened into the wall, so that it cannot be taken, as we took ours once, for the gratings before a lion in an imaginary ‘Zoo,’ also furnished by the sofa; while we have also to consider the night apartment, for naturally the perfect nursery of which I would like to think we were all possessed has its night apartment leading out of it. This should be painted and papered en suite with the day room, and have very dark serge curtains to draw over the windows, so that all light may be excluded, thus enabling the sense of darkness and quiet to be obtained that is so very necessary for a small child. I do not think I have mentioned what I should like to impress very much on my readers, that on no account, on no pretext whatever, should that most pernicious gas be allowed in any nursery, either day or night. There is nothing more harmful for small lungs than the vitiated atmosphere caused by gas, nothing worse for small brains and eyes than the glitter and harsh glare of the gas, that a servant invariably turns up to its height, and very often drags down, regardless that an escape of gas is pouring out of the top of the outraged chandelier or bracket. There is no reason, either, why gas should be allowed; a good duplex lamp gives quite sufficient light to work by, and must be kept clean, or it will smell and also give out no light at all, and all danger is done away with if it be set well in the centre of the nursery table, which has, remember, no cloth to drag off suddenly, and which should stand square against the wall, or in a recess by the fire when not actually in use for nursery meals. Or a really strong, good bracket, painted the colour of the wall, just high enough to be out of the reach of little hands, might be provided on purpose for the lamp, and the nurse could either have a wicker-work table provided for her, or could put her wicker-work covered basket on a chair by her side, and sit close under her lamp to work; or it might even stand on the mantelpiece on a broad shelf, where also it would be equally well out of the little folks’ way. You have nothing to do, as I said in one of my former chapters, but to notice the effect gas has on plants, and then notice how these same plants live on and flourish without gas, to understand that my theory about the unhealthiness of gas is a right one; and I think all will agree with me in saying that directly one is ill one recognises for oneself how disturbing gas is, and the first demand of a restless invalid is to have the gas put out, and a candle given instead. I shall never forget one case of illness I once had the unpleasantness of seeing. The wife, who had constituted herself nurse, and who knew about as much of nursing as an ordinary cat would, asked me to look in on the invalid and see what I thought of him. I went into the dressing-room, and even there the evil was apparent. A hot gust of air met me, and, to my horror, I saw no less than three gas jets, in a small room, flaring away, because the lady wanted plenty of light, and thought it would cheer the restless, fevered creature whose uneasy head was tossing on the pillow, and whose wild eyes looked in vain for relief; so out went all that gas, the windows were opened at the top, two wax candles, provided with shades, were lighted, and in less than an hour the room became cool, and the poor man was asleep for the first time for—I had almost written days; and it was certainly days since he had had any deep or restful sleep at all.

I do not think, even, when we are grown up, we at all realise the necessity or even the possibility of complete rest; but a baby does, poor little thing, and is very often never allowed to have it. There is no sense of peace in most houses, and I want dreadfully to impress upon all my readers that they must ‘seek peace and ensue it’ for their children, if they utterly refuse to do it for themselves, and, therefore, the nursery should be quiet, and should even be a haven of rest to the mother herself, when she is overdone with her unpaid-for, never-ceasing work; and where she has her especial chair and footstool, and where she comes not only to see the babies, but to have the quiet, confidential talk with nurse, who should be able to have confidence reposed in her; or she is most certainly not fit for her place, which, if it be not a confidential one in the very highest sense of the word, is positively nothing at all.

The night nursery should, of course, have a fireplace and a ventilator. The fire should not be a matter of course, unless the room is far from the day nursery, when a fire should be lighted in cold weather as a matter of course. A room for children should never be overheated in any way; but no one should fall into the foolish idea that a fireless bedroom is hardening, and a fire makes people tender, for it does nothing of the sort; it simply makes life bearable to the chilly, and prevents all those dreadful lung troubles that used to be the scourge of so many English families, but that since the almost entire disappearance of those foolish, wicked low frocks and short sleeves in our nurseries, and the appearance of more fires, have well nigh been stamped out; and will be stamped out entirely when the Queen, so sensible in all other ways, puts a stop to the order she has given about low dresses, and recognises that people can be quite as full dressed with their clothes on as they are almost stripped to the waist and exposed, in the most delicate part of the human frame, to the bitter winds from which we English people are never entirely free.

I hope I shall not be considered a hopeless faddist with my theories; but at all events I have common-sense on my side, and most people who think at all will, I am sure, see that I am right in all I say, and that I speak from experience; and as a baby’s education begins quite as soon as the mite is washed and dressed for the first time, I may be forgiven, perhaps, if I insist on peace, quiet, rest, proper clothes, and absence of gas, even as soon as a nursery is required at all. Of course for the first few weeks the baby does not require a room all to itself, but it should be ready for it, for sometimes it is just as well that it should go into its own premises, thus giving its mother time and quiet to be restored to her proper state of health again, which I do not think she is allowed to do when she is wearied by hearing the infant howl when it is dressed, and when she may be aroused any moment, even from most necessary sleep, by the small tyrant, who cannot be relied on for anything in certainty—at all events, at that early stage. If the nursery has been properly aired and got ready for the baby, and a nurse engaged to come on after the monthly nurse leaves, there is no reason why the baby should not go there whenever his mother wants to get rid of him; and I maintain that often far too much is sacrificed for the infant, who, in his turn, suffers from too much kindness and consideration, and who does not require half the fuss and trouble he causes in a house where he is a first arrival, and, in consequence, is something too precious and amusing—and, in fact, is almost treated like a phenomenon, or at least like a very precious fragile new toy.

Now, a baby is nothing of the kind, and here, then, common-sense must act as a supplementary nurse, and come to the rescue. She must firmly insist on the small person becoming used from the very first to take his rest in his own berceaunette. She may look aside should the frilled pillow be warmed, because, despite the flannel on the head, a cold pillow is always an unpleasant surprise, and one promptly resented by a baby; but she must insist on his neither being cuddled up by his mother nor allowed to sleep with the nurse, just as much as she must frown on his going to sleep with a full bottle (like a drunkard) by his side, because if he does he will wake a little and suck, and then sleep a little more, and so on, getting neither sleep nor food in a manner that can possibly be of the smallest use to him.

And now I should like to say a few words—for ladies only, please—about the great necessity of having everything down to the nurseries, or nursery, ready before the young person expected makes his début in a troublesome world. I have been astounded often by the manner in which young matrons put off making the most necessary preparations, until often enough, just at the last, the expectant mother sets to all in a hurry to do what should have been done ages before—wearies and agitates herself to death almost in her endeavours to make up for lost time, and very often causes such a state of things that danger to herself ensues; and at the best great trouble is caused, simply because she would not listen to other people, and be a little beforehand with the world.

Do you know, I quite secretly think some of these young ladies believe, that if no encouragement is given to the baby in the way of having a pretty room and nice wardrobe ready for it, it may not, after all, arrive in the world at all, and that this is the reason why so much is left to do until very much too late; but though I dare say it is very hard to realise that an infant can really and truly come to the small, perfect house, where such an event has never happened before, I can assure you all that, once it has given a hint of its intentions, its arrival is only a matter of time, and that come it most undoubtedly and certainly will, and therefore, under these circumstances, it is much better to be ready for its arrival, and not have to distract yourself and others at a critical time, by telling a strange nurse fetched in a hurry where she may be able to borrow clothes that should have been ready months before; or to know things are not aired, or that there is not a room where nurse and baby can retire safely when you want to be quite quiet; or to have half an hour’s talk either with your husband or your familiar friends who are admitted to your room, where thus you can have the freedom from supervision for a short time; or the perfect rest I for one can never have with a nurse and baby perpetually in evidence.

But all too often one is compelled to have the infant in one’s room because of the absurd way in which our houses are arranged, and I do wish architects and builders (to return to another old grievance, like the gas subject) would consult a jury of matrons, even if they will not consult their wives alone, before they set to work to give us any more houses, for really they are one and all ignorant of the commonest principles of their art as regarded from a purely feminine point of view. Why won’t they recollect that one or two rooms should lead out of each other? Why won’t they remember nurseries are wanted in most houses? and why will they not arrange their plans with a memory of some of the most common events of domestic life? If they did, the first floors of most habitations would be very different to what they are now, and domestic life would be much easier. I can only hope that the conscientious male, whose eye of course ceased to fall on this page when he read the warning words For ladies only, will take up the thread of my discourse where it ceased to be private, and will read, mark, and inwardly digest as much of this last paragraph of mine as he possibly can.

Of course, one of the first things to be provided is a bed for the small infant, as from the very earliest dawn of its existence there is no doubt in my mind that it ought to be taught to sleep in its own cot, and that without any of the pernicious petting, patting, and putting to sleep that mothers and nurses are so fond of, and that brings about its own revenges in the forming speedily of a most unruly tyrant, who promptly makes their lives a burden to them, refusing to go to his slumbers without an attendant nymph.

People fondly imagine that babies do not know in the least what their caretakers do until they are, at the smallest computation, three months old, and have begun, in nursery parlance, to ‘take notice.’ Now, let any one who has ever seen an infant taken by some one who is ignorant of its ways contrast the picture with that of this same baby taken by a ‘past mistress’ of the art, and they will at once understand what I mean when I declare solemnly that a child is never too small, too tiny, to feel and know whether it has to deal with some one who knows its ways, and means it to be brought up decently and properly, or with a well-meaning idiot, who allows herself to be conquered and enslaved by a long-clothes slobberer, who the more it is given in to the more it immediately exacts from its worshippers.