The American Country Girl

by Martha Foote Crow

AN OLD-FASHIONED VIRTUE

This may be considered a brief for the "old maid" of olden time; or rather for the quality that she stands for in our dream and story life. We have not given this so-called "old-maidishness" its rightful place among the virtues. The quality deserves to be classified among the highest expressions of the intellect. In the olden time, when the mother was busy with her family of from two to twenty children, the mother's unmarried sister was the "efficiency-clerk" of the big household. She was the motor, the balance-wheel; she knew where everything was, to the last sheaf of catnip; she put everything in its place and could go and get whatever was wanted. Behind all this was her classifying mind.

That "old-maidishness" was composed of three elements: a fine discrimination of values, an appreciation of little things as pivots for greater things, and a love of orderliness. To her the first law of heaven was her first law. Heaven never had a law till it had order; and when the stars found that there was to be something more than a fortuitous concourse of atoms in the universe, we know what they did: they sang. In any house there will be more singing when orderliness reigns there. But the household is a concourse of myriads of parts. We cannot always sing that the house "is so full of a number of things" that we think we "should all be as happy as kings." It is only when we can keep good track of these things that we can be "as happy as kings." This was a large part of the mission of the invaluable old maid in our early centuries.

There was a great deal of system in the housekeeping of our ancestors. Bags, basket and bundles were trained into the service of good order. They cross-stitched numbers on the pillow-slips and on the sheets and on the rare napery they had spun and woven with their own capable hands and had bleached on their own soft grass-plots. They kept their "simples" in carefully protected and distinctly labeled sheaves. Their piece-bags were innumerable. They could go in the dark into the storeroom, put their hand in behind things, feel unerringly for what they needed, and find it there.

The burden upon the memory that this elaborate system of old must have entailed is now transferred to the card catalog. This invaluable modern device is a system for recording upon cards of a certain uniform size the items and lists and notes to be remembered and preserved, and of classifying them carefully for ready reference. These cards are stood up in a closely packed row, in a box or drawer, or in a compartment made especially for the purpose, where they are arranged alphabetically or by subjects, in such a way as to be easily run over by the finger till the desired card is found. The cards must be made of stiff paper or card-board; they must be accurately cut to a required measure, usually five inches wide by three inches tall, and they must be fitted exactly into the box, with "guides" to aid in finding the main subjects. The "guide" is a card of a different color from the others, usually yellow, and has a little top extension, so that when the guide is put in its place in the row of white cards, this top extension will stand up above the others so as to catch the eye readily. On this little bit of the guide that stands up above the rest, a main heading is written very clearly in fine lettering,—or, better, printed neatly—and on all the cards that are selected to be slipped in behind that guide are written the notes or references on subjects that belong under that heading. For instance, suppose the main heading, written on a certain guide, should be this: "Recipes." Then each card that follows that guide would have written on its face the details of some recipe—one recipe to one card. And all the cards on which the housekeeper had written the recipes she wished to preserve would be placed behind that guide. Then whenever she wished to use any one recipe, she would open her drawer, look along the tops of the cards until she found the guide extension—the little projecting piece that had the word "Recipes" on it. Behind that guide she would find all her recipes; then it would be but the work of an instant to pick out the one she wanted. On each separate card would be written in the upper right-hand corner, the name of the recipe on that card. If the housekeeper had a great many recipes, she might make more guides: one for cake recipes, one for bread, and so forth.

Then there would be still other main heads. One might be marked "Inventory." One might be called "Clothing." Records of music, of engagements, of books, and so forth might be set down. Any subject that needed to be kept track of could be thus securely noted in the card catalog.

Under the heading "Inventory" a most useful record might be made. Subordinate headings on cards of some other color should be used. The first of these would be "Parlor." Behind that would be placed the cards that told all the articles of furniture or decoration that that important room contained. "Dining-room," "Kitchen," "Pantry," etc., would come along in order and all items considered worthy of note would be put on their proper cards. Then there would be other cards entitled "Linen-closet," "Side-board," "Old Bureau," "Old Chest," "Black Trunk," "Brown Trunk," "Old-fashioned Deep Basket," or other containers of clothing, silver, bedding, linen, utensils, or treasures of any kind. In case of fire, the card catalog, along with the locked document box or safe, would be one of the things to be sought for first and rescued from harm. In fact there should by rights be two copies of any household inventory made, so that in case the inventory in the house should chance to be burned with the house, there might still be a careful record preserved in some safe place for future reference, for purposes of insurance or for historic archives. Every one of us should think of the family as an institution of dignity, one whose smallest doings have importance, because we belong to a great human family, and because we are bearing on the touch of life to future generations. We are now making history. And we should see to it that our link of the unending chain should not break for want of a sensible and accurate recorder.

This description of the card catalog is given with so much particularity because it has been proved by long experience that it is a very great saving of trouble to have it exactly right. The making of the cards is a matter of the nicest care. This exactitude is essential to the quick movement of the fingers and is therefore a saving of time in hunting for the one card desired. The jelly may be almost ready to "jell," and one may run to the catalog of recipes to find what is the matter; one must not be impeded an instant at that critical point. Time is always precious, too, to the housekeeper, and the orderliness that makes it possible to find things quickly is one of the most important elements in the success of the new housekeeping.

Whatever part the daughter in the farm home may have in the business of the farm, she will find the card catalog of the utmost value to her in making herself useful and in placing her results on the basis of authority. In such a system of records she can always find what she wants on demand; the various accounts can be added to and taken from and corrected to date at any moment without recopying the whole. So the records of the daily egg-harvest can be kept, the in-come and out-go of any of the products of the farm, the weighing and testing of the milk, the mending and making of fences, the apple harvest, the dates for putting in crops, the dates of payments to the men and the number of their days' labor, and many other items that belong to the business of the farm. Of course when the farm business becomes very large and intricate, an elaborate system of bookkeeping is necessary. But for the myriads of little things that belong to the home side of the farmstead, this ingenious system is especially adapted. Here we may advantageously keep our records of such memoranda as specially concerns the family, the household accounts and receipts; inventions we may hear about and new devices in which we may be interested and that we may sometime want to find out about or make our own; contents of the tool chest, dates of repairs and memoranda of things that need to be repaired about the house; cans of fruit and other things stored away on the shelves and in the cupboards of the cellar and in the cold room and elsewhere—a valuable record to check up against another year's yield of these treasures; doctor's visits and prescriptions, notes of symptoms, together with dates and any circumstances that may need to be accurately remembered; music, victrola records; Christmas and birthday gifts given or received; dates of events, the coming and going of guests at the home; personal items such as the size of shoes, gloves, collars, hats, etc., for the different members of the family; books we should like to have; newspapers and magazines taken or desired; records of the magazine club or of the book loan club; correspondence, letters received and sent; patterns, clippings, quotations. For remembering all these things the card catalog will prove the unfailing helper; and all and many more will be the care of the Country Girl when she becomes administrator of a household in the new time.

A simple bookkeeping may also be recorded in the card catalog. The monthly or seasonal or annual statements of expenses may be recorded here, however, and may be kept for comparison with other seasons and years. These records may be placed under the following heads: