I long ago discarded the old-fashioned tin and iron cooking utensils in favor of agate-nickel-steel ware, which is as easily washed as crockery bowls and plates; is light and neat in appearance; never rusts, and is altogether satisfactory. All of my kettles have covers, and we use covered roasters—another boon to housewives—for cooking meats. They keep in flavor and juices, and lessen the labor of basting.
Always have a rocking-chair convenient into which the cook can drop for rest between the times of active duty, and one apiece for maids in the laundry. For yourself, follow the rule I laid down imperatively a quarter-century ago in Common Sense in the Household—“Never stand at your work when you can sit.” A chair suited in height to the mixing table will save you many an ache in the feet, back and head.
Do not allow servants to jumble their table crockery, etc., up with pots, saucepans, kettles, colanders and the like. There is no reason why the dresser or closet in which the kitchen tableware is kept should not be as daintily arranged as the dining-room buffet. It should hold no commerce with the pot closet.
The servants’ chambers must be furnished with iron bedsteads, good mattresses, plenty of clean blankets and white spreads. The “honeycomb” spreads are absurdly cheap and easily washed. The rest of the appointments of the dormitories need not be elaborate. If they are neat and comfortable the occupants are more likely to try and make them attractive. When one pins up a crucifix over her bed, her mother’s or sister’s photograph against the wall, or even a colored lithograph of a patent medicine—notice it pleasantly. It means that she is catching the home feeling. Muslin curtains cost next to nothing. Hang them up at her window; give her a pretty cover for her bureau-top and a plain one for her washstand, and plenty of towels. The Golden Rule works well here—where does it not?
RANGE-SCREEN PARTLY RAISED
I read a little story many, many years ago—before you were born, I think—a slight, commonplace affair, that has furnished two generations of busy housewives with a hard-worked mot de famille.
Excuse the foreign phrase! We have none in English that exactly translates it. “Household word” comes nearer to it than anything else, without quite covering it.
The tale was of a fidgety housekeeper of the sort stigmatized in the rough parlance of the sensible vulgar as “nasty particular.” A friend, calling upon her soon after breakfast, found her fairly beside herself with worry because guests she had expected at noon had telegraphed that they would be with her at eleven o’clock that morning. Distracted Martha “could never in the world be ready for them. There was so much to do that she did not know what to take hold of first. It was enough to drive a woman out of her senses,” etc., etc., etc.
“But what have you to do?”