You may think these are all such little things, that you cannot conceive it possible they should be of much importance in arranging a house, or making home happy, and will probably feel that your question has been unsatisfactorily answered. But, dear “young wife,” believe me, it is by little things that you must make the house, now committed to your charge, a happy one, and so attractive to your husband that he can have no wish to seek pleasure elsewhere. It is not by any great effort once in a while, but by the constant, daily evidence of your thoughtfulness and care, that you will secure the confidence and companionship you are so earnestly desiring and seeking after.
XLVIII.
THE CARE OF COOKING-STOVES AND RANGES.
NEXT to perplexities and trouble with servants, there is nothing that so severely afflicts the careful housekeeper as the attempt to secure attention to the cooking-stove or range. The reasons given for failure in any particular point are innumerable, and all cast the burden of blame on the poor, inoffensive stove. There never was such a miserable cooking-stove. The fire won’t burn, or it burns too fiercely; the oven won’t bake at all, or bakes so furiously that everything you trust to it is ruined. It smokes, or the gas escapes, and fills the house with the offensive odors; it burns out more coal in one day than should be used in two; the dampers are useless, or the grate cannot be turned over. There is scarcely a defect to be imagined but is charged to this necessary evil,—the cooking-stove or range.
In part, no doubt, these ceaseless annoyances spring from the heedlessness or ignorance of the servants, but more frequently, we think, it is because the mistress herself does not understand the cause of the difficulty, or how to point out and remedy the mistakes. It is impossible to expect a girl will be successful in managing the fire and stove unless you are competent and willing to give her full instruction, and are also ready to follow this up with constant daily supervision, until time and a faithful trial convince you that the subject is fully understood, and your injunctions regularly followed. Even then watch, with all kindness and patience, not with a fault-finding spirit, but because carelessness and forgetfulness are bound up in the heart of almost every servant, and ceaseless vigilance is your only protection from mistakes of the most mortifying and vexatious character; and do you not know that such trials always come at the most unexpected and inconvenient time? No doubt there are occasionally servants found, or heard of, who are faithful, careful, competent, and safe to be trusted in every particular; but they are, “like angels’ visits, few and far between”; and it is wise for every housekeeper to be as exact in her explanations, and as watchful in seeing them executed, as if she knew her girl was totally ignorant of everything about the stove or range, until well convinced that she fully understands and regularly carries out her mistress’s lessons. Then, if she fails, it is safe to look upon the failure as culpable negligence, for which it would be very difficult to find a reasonable excuse.
Simply telling a servant how you wish the stove managed, or anything else done, is by no means sufficient. To say to the new cook, “Bridget, I wish you to be very particular in cleaning out your range or stove every night before retiring, and have your kindlings and coal all laid ready to start a fire in the morning,” will not secure obedience. The answer will doubtless be, “O yes, mem, I always do that.” Perhaps once in a great while you may find a cook that will do this regularly; for it certainly, if they will only try it, is the easiest way. But take nothing on trust. See with your own eyes before you retire how much this always means. Too often it should be translated, “when it suits my convenience.” Perhaps for a short time it may be done in accordance with your wishes; but keep open eyes, or nine times out of ten, in less than a month, you will be told, “I can’t do anything with the range or stove.” “Have you thoroughly cleaned it out each night as I directed?” “O yes, mem; of course I have.” Now, either go to work yourself and see what is the matter, which is the best way, or send for a man from a stove manufactory to examine. Stand by with the cook to see the results of his examination. Of course the fire must be all out before he can do anything. He will then remove every cover from the top, and most likely find the whole surface perfectly clogged up with small bits of coal and piles of ashes, so that the draught is obstructed; or, if the difficulty does not lie there mainly, he will take out the slide to the pit under the oven, and, notwithstanding cook’s assurances that it is regularly cleaned out, you will find it filled with ashes up to the oven bottom; or the grate has been so imperfectly emptied and cleaned that it is broken, and clogged with clinkers, leaving hardly room to make a fire in it. Now you have the whole mystery solved. All the girl’s protestations and assurances of great care in keeping the stove in perfect order cannot longer blind your eyes. A few such examples may not insure cook’s future attention and truthfulness, but they will teach you, that as the foot of the master is the only warrant for large crops on a farm, or successful operations in any pursuit, so the eye and hand of the mistress must ever be most vigilant and effective to secure comfort in the house.
There is no one convenience on which so large a part of house comfort depends as on a good cooking-apparatus, whether in the form of stove or range; and however perfect the patent, nothing can so easily be put out of working order by careless management. Before starting a new fire, examine if the stove has been thoroughly cleaned from the last one; then open the dampers; roll up and put into the grate a few pieces of paper,—or some shavings, if you can have them, are still better; lay lightly on this some splinters or small bits of kindling wood. Do not throw them on in a heavy mass, but so arrange them as to give free breathing-holes; on this foundation put a few larger pieces of pine kindling, and if you are hurried, and need a quick, bright fire, sprinkle over a small shovelful of coke, if you have it. Nothing kindles quicker than coke. Now replace all the covers, and set fire to the paper with a match, held underneath the grate. If lighted from above, it must be, of course, before the covers are put on, and that fills the kitchen with smoke. When the wood is well blazing, before at all wasted, take off the covers and cross-piece (the paper will have burned out by that time, and little smoke will trouble you), and pour on the hard coal, scattering it evenly at the sides, but a little heaped or rounded in the center. Be careful that the grate is not filled ABOVE the fire-brick. This is a very important consideration, for if heaped above, it injures the stove, burning out the iron-work, and obstructing the draught, so that the coal cannot kindle readily, but wastes and smolders without doing much good. As soon as the coal is well kindled, close the draughts, or dampers, and you will have a clear, serviceable fire. It is a great mistake to use a large amount of paper or kindling. The paper, when burnt out, makes a smothering, black kind of ashes, that deadens the fire, and the pine kindling, if used too profusely, fills the stove with so much bituminous smoke as to clog the pipes needlessly.
When your breakfast is dished and sent to the table, tell the cook to raise a cover from the stove, and see if it would not be well to add a small shovelful of coal to keep the fire in good working order; but it will not be necessary to open the draughts until the breakfast is over and the dishes washed and put away. When that is done, it will be time to begin arrangements for dinner, and then the draughts should be opened a few minutes, and the fire raked down or shaken, so as to remove all the ashes; but on no account stir it from the top; that kills the fire, turning the coals black. The ashes being removed, lift off the two front covers and the cross-piece once more; pour on more coal, always remembering not to fill above the fire-brick. The object in lifting off both covers and cross-bar, instead of pouring in the coal at one hole, and pushing it across with the poker, as most girls do, is to prevent the coal from scattering and lodging on the plate of the stove, under the side covers. If this is done, the coal remaining there prevents the heat from having a free circulation; therefore every time the coal is added, even if both covers are removed, giving a free opening to pour on what fuel is needed, it is best to pass the poker under the side-holes, and see that the upper plate is free from coal and ashes.
We have written these simple directions at the request of a “very young housekeeper,” who assures us that there are hundreds “longing for just such instruction, who, fearing to expose their ignorance, are keeping silent, subjecting themselves to all sorts of mistakes, which make their husbands cross, and set themselves almost crazy.”
We regret that any should feel ashamed to ask questions on household matters, however simple. To answer them, if in our power, is pleasure, and the questions are a great encouragement; for we often think we have exhausted all that need be said, when some word from the “young housekeepers” remind us of points which we have overlooked.