No matter if the purse is not very heavy, young people, with good health and a fair share of taste and ingenuity, have great pleasure in store for themselves, when they undertake together to furnish and beautify a house, which is to be their home. There are so many small conveniences, so many little contrivances, that a carpenter never thinks of, because he has never had woman’s work to do, and therefore cannot see how important these little things are. A woman should know just where an hour’s work, well considered and planned, can be employed to manufacture some convenient thing, that will save much time and strength, and which, however cheaply and roughly made, she can, in a few spare moments, transform into an object of real beauty.
“Harper’s Bazaar,” always full of suggestions, often describes the way of making useful articles beautiful ones. The pictures and explanations are very easily understood, and each one who attempts to profit by these suggestions can elaborate or modify as her skill, time, or means may allow. There is no end to the variety and improvement that will grow out of each successive trial; and certainly no end to the pleasure that one can enjoy in seeing such trophies of taste spring up within and around a new home. A few yards of bright blue, pink, or green paper muslin, with an overskirt of cheap Nottingham lace, dotted muslin, or an old lawn dress, can soon transform a rough half-circle or square piece of board into a pretty washstand or dressing-table. Old broom-handles make good legs for the stands; and a part of the length of the handle, not needed, or some smaller stick, answers nicely for the rounds or braces. The husband can easily bore the holes in the top, into which the legs may be fastened, and also for the braces necessary to keep the table firm; an old piece of cloth does nicely for the under-cover; an old hoop-skirt nailed around the edge of the top, before the wadding and upper cover are put on, is excellent to make the outside skirt hang in a proper manner, or the grandmother’s old-fashioned wire fire-fender, which for years has lain rusting in your mother’s garret, is admirable for that purpose. Then, with the bright, delicately colored paper muslin, and the white lace or lawn overskirt, or cover, you have, with trifling expense, as pretty a toilet-table or washstand as any one need desire. Underneath the hoops or fender you may have a convenient repository for work-basket or boxes, if your house is not well supplied with closets.
“Sleepy Hollows,” sewing-chairs or easy-chairs made from old hogsheads or barrels, and pretty lounges from long packing-boxes, are, we think, among the articles the “Bazar” has sometimes mentioned,—giving pictures and explanations of the manner in which the roughest and hardest work may be executed. From these directions, any one with tolerable skill can gather the first ideas, and then proceed to make the articles, modifying the shape to suit their own fancy.
Pretty ottomans or stools covered to match the furniture of the room are a great convenience, and help to give a genteel, stylish air. If skillfully made and dressed, who could imagine that they are formed from well-cleaned and scoured soap-boxes or butter-tubs, with castors screwed to the bottom, and a cover with hinges on the top, thus serving a double purpose,—making a pleasant seat, easily rolled to any part of the room, and a convenient box or trunk for holding work-bundles, papers, or your boots and slippers.
We never regret the loss of youth and strength so much, or are so near being envious, as when we see young people studying how ingeniously they can arrange a small cottage, and give it the air of beauty and elegance their natures so much crave. They will not find half the pleasure in enjoying it, all perfected, as they would have had in planning and executing; and yet how many throw aside such enjoyment, and turn this pleasant labor into drudgery, not willingly cultivating all the talents God has bestowed upon them, but repining because they cannot afford to employ an upholsterer to furnish what their own skill might have executed perhaps far more satisfactorily.
We will follow these suggestions no further, but hope some of our young housekeepers may be led to improve the hints, in a manner that shall make them converts to the ideas advanced.
LIII.
COOKING BY STEAM.
MUCH has been said of the superiority of steamed food over that which is boiled or baked; and year after year the papers or magazines devoted to domestic economy and the improvement and simplification of household labor have advocated this mode of cooking meats, vegetables, and many other articles of food, every few months recommending some new invention. We have tried one experiment after another, finding, to be sure, some imperfection in all; but enough that was practicable to convince us there was much which was desirable in the idea; and, if able to do the work with our own hands, confident we could reap great advantage from it.
When the mistress of a family has not strength to do her cooking herself, or that part of it which requires more than ordinary judgment and skill, she is not situated so that new modes of work can be tried with much prospect of success. Most servants, particularly the cooks, when accustomed to one mode of work, are very reluctant to change; and, therefore, if the mistress is not able to make all experiments herself, she will soon find, unless fully prepared to have the autocrat of the kitchen abdicate without “giving notice,” that it is safest, and wisest often, to allow a tolerably good girl to move on in the “even tenor of her ways,” without attempting any changes, except those which she can bring about quietly and imperceptibly. This is no very easy lesson for an old housekeeper to learn; but repeated defeats must teach her that patience, as well as discretion, is a “better part of valor.”
In the last century, an American, Benjamin Thompson, made Count Rumford by the Elector of Bavaria for distinguished military and scientific services, gave much time and thought to the study of heat and experiments in cooking, being the inventor of the present style of coal fireplaces and grates, cooking ranges, etc. He was the first person on record, with any pretensions to learning and philosophy, who ever studied the dressing of meat for food as a science. The result was the invention of a boiler for cooking by steam. Within a short time another boiler has been perfected involving the same principles, but containing various improvements over the steamer of the last century, which has been named “Rumford’s Boiler” in compliment to the original inventor. We have been trying it.