Upon the shelf the clock ticks merrily;
The kettle sings his song in drowsy mood;
Within the stove crackles the fragrant wood;
The coffee-mill grinds out a cheerful lay.
Surely within the oven one can see
A roast ... what else on earth would smell so good?...
And little globes of fat, all amber-hued,
Dance in the pan and sing with noisy glee.
Sweet sounds! Inviting yet another song;
And I will sing in unison with them.
Work brings the joy that helps the work along,
And so, harmonious, sounds the kitchen hymn.
While all about the ready dinner-table
The children's voices raise a merry babel.
Helen Coale Crew.
CHAPTER XII
THE HOUSEHOLD LABORATORY
The kitchen should be a combination of laboratory, machine shop and studio. The work done there is just as complex as that! There are an almost infinite number of different things needed to accomplish the different processes that have to be carried on in this workshop. There must be a variety of mechanical devices to negotiate and subtly maneuver all the effects that are to be brought out to artistic and wholesome conclusions.
This is true to a great extent nowadays in all households whether in city or country. But the farm is yet, as it always was, a place where there is greater complexity to master because many more things are done there. The spirit of machinery has entered into the life of the city kitchen and eased the burden; it must now enter the country household and work the same magic there.
If the kitchen is to be a combination laboratory and machine shop it must look like one. It must be filled with appliances for every part of the intricate work of making ten thousand things that are needed for the family through the various seasons and changes of the year.
Imagine an exquisite room long and narrow. The walls are painted white or light gray—a warm golden gray for the relief and pleasing of the eye. The floor is comfortable to the feet, sanitary, easily cleansed and durable. There is an iron ring in the floor where the cover to the chute is lifted down which the dust is to be thrown. There is another for the ash chute, lined with metal for protection from fire by means of the hot coals that may sometimes be left in the ashes. One beauty of the electric stove is that it produces no ashes; one advantage of the vacuum cleaner is that it does away with dust.
The sink has two compartments—all enameled white—one for the washing of the dishes and one for the draining. In the second is the wire drainer. The sink is placed at the right height for this particular housewife, be she a little treasure done up in a small parcel or a tall stately woman when standing very straight—as every one ought to, whether city or country bred.
At the right of the sink there is a table or shelf for the dishes as they are taken from the wheeled tray that has brought them from the dining table, and at the left is the draining sink or draining board or a shelf on which the dishes may be laid when they have been dried with the linen drying cloth.