DIVIDING HOUSEHOLD TASKS
In a household where no servant is employed each member of the family should regularly perform certain duties. Where there is a family of some size all the work should not be crowded upon the shoulders of the mistress. If one person does the dusting, another the mending, another the cooking, another the sweeping, and so on through the list of necessary employment in a household, the burden need not fall too heavily upon any one. No paid servant can feel the interest in successful achievement that rewards the effort of those who are laboring for the convenience and beauty of their own home. A household conducted on plans of the most rigid economy may still be cheerful and even charming if the members of it choose to view the matter in a sort of Bohemian, picnicking spirit. If the duties are assigned with regard to the tastes and capacities of each, no real hardship is involved and a spirit of gaiety is invoked by the concerted effort at producing comfort with the expenditure of little money.
THE VULGARITY OF PRETENSE
An utter absence of pretense is the only graceful attitude in a home conducted in the way described. To be ashamed of the work one does and to try to conceal it results in an uneasy, hypocritical manner and deceives no one. “I almost opened my own door when she called on me,” said a silly, snobbish, impecunious woman in telling of the visit paid her by a rich resident of the neighborhood. The remark blinded no one and made the speaker ridiculous.
There are books of various kinds written for the help of the woman who must get on without a maid. These often can make for her a quicker and better path to her goal than she can work out alone and unaided. One of the best-known stories about the great English statesman, Charles James Fox, is of his learning to carve. He determined to make a conquest of this branch of knowledge as he did of any other attempted by him. Day after day he brought to the dining-table with him a book on carving, and cut the fowl or joint placed before him in accordance with the rules of the book. His subsequent beautiful carving was the result of this method, of his willingness to learn the best way of doing whatever he attempted.
HELP FROM COOK-BOOKS