4. Must see that no damaged article of linen is sent out to the guest-rooms.
5. Must mend all the linen.
6. Must keep track of the linen.
7. Must keep the linen-room books.
8. Must mark the new linen before sending it out.
The linen-room is the housekeeper's pride. What is more pleasing to a housekeeper than to look into a well-kept linen-room. This room is the housekeeper's "stock-exchange," the room where all her business transactions take place. It is also her home. She has her geraniums in the window and her desk in one corner. She has her sewing-machine, and telephone, and a bright rug or two on the spotless floor. The linen-room is the place where the housekeeper is found or her whereabouts made known.
The room should be thoroughly cleaned every Saturday, and swept and dusted every day. It requires skill and labor to keep a well regulated linen-room looking neat and pretty. Linen-shelves are scrubbed, not papered. All heavy articles, such as spreads, blankets, pillows, and table-felts should be kept on the top shelf. The water-glasses, ice-water pitchers, extra slop jars, washbowls and pitchers, should also be kept on the top shelves, and covered with a dust-cover. The other shelves should be scrubbed, and the sheets, slips, face-towels, and bath-towels used for the guest-rooms, put on a shelf by themselves. The helps' linen should be put on another shelf. The table-linen should be placed by itself, and so on—a place for everything and everything in its place.
The table-cloths should be mended first before they are sent to the laundry. The best way to mend table-linen is first to fill the holes with darning-cotton, just as you would if you were darning a stocking; then loosen the presser-foot of your sewing-machine and darn it down neatly with the machine. If the hole is very large—say as large as your hand—the better way is to cover the hole with darning-net before filling it in with the darning-cotton; then it may be finished on the machine.
When the table-cloths are too bad to mend, the large ones can be cut down into small ones and the small ones into tray-covers. Old napkins can be sewed together and used for cleaning-cloths. Table-linen is very expensive and the careful housekeeper will easily save her salary above that of a careless one by properly taking care of the linen.