VII
THE HOME WITHOUT A SERVANT
THE housekeeper who undertakes to run her establishment without a servant is beset by certain disadvantages. When she has had a bad night, is suffering from indisposition of any kind, or wishes to undertake some piece of work, such as dressmaking, for which she desires to have her time free, it is inconvenient to feel that without her personal effort no part of the business of the house will be done, that all responsibility as well as all performance falls upon her.
On the other hand, great are the comforts of the woman who has no one but herself to do her work. These should be considered, since an enormously large proportion of American housekeepers employ no regular servant and many others call in assistance only for such toil as washing and ironing and heavy cleaning.
The woman who does not keep a maid can run her kitchen to suit herself and have things done as she prefers. She need not be constantly worried because the cook neglects to line the garbage-pail with a newspaper or to put on the cover, persistently leaves the refrigerator open in hot weather and will not save left-overs. The mistress knows that the dishes are washed by an approved method, since she does it herself, and this position also enables her to have the utensils and general plenishing of the kitchen and pantry in the order she likes.
The same freedom obtains in other parts of the house. There is no uncertainty as to whether towels and napkins are used in the prescribed routine; no doubt if the beds are properly aired and made, the corners of the rooms swept and the top shelves dusted, sanitary precautions observed as to drains and similar niceties of care followed. The woman who does her own work can be sure of an attention to details which she could not compel from a hireling except at the cost of close watchfulness and more or less nagging.
More than this, the economies to be compassed in a house where no maid is kept far exceed the mere outlay for food which is required to supply an extra person. No one but the mistress of the home will watch for small leaks, and, having bought judiciously, will take pains that the saving thus practised is not lost by careless use of materials. She will plan her meals so as to utilize remnants, will see that the trifle which seems of no importance is put aside to combine with another apparently negligible quantity, will guard worn-out household linens for other services than the rag-bag, will watch for the first breaks in table-cloth or napkins and stop them with a wise stitch or two. Through it all she will possess the delightful sense of having her home to herself, of knowing there is not a nook or a corner of it where she does not reign supreme, and that her theories are put into practice from the top of the house to the bottom.
Such delightful sensations as these are of course out of the question for the woman who undertakes housekeeping without a good working knowledge of how to conduct it. The theories to which reference has been made may be the best of their kind, but unless they are backed by the ability to do the things they describe there is likely to be trouble. Still, the woman who has more book instruction in the line of housekeeping than actual experience can learn by doing and in time reach a point where her independence is a joy to her. The best aid she can have in this endeavor is system, the habit of doing each task at a certain hour and in a certain way, and she need not consider the time wasted she bestows on planning out her routine so as to make it at once easy and efficient.
In a city apartment or a small house fitted with the latest improvements the way is much simplified. If one can have a fire by striking a match and turning on the gas-stove, is supplied with hot water by a means outside her own kitchen, has milk, ice, meat, and other provisions brought to the door of her pantry, and no responsibility as to getting rid of ashes or garbage, she may feel that her lines have fallen in pleasant places.
Naturally, a woman who lives in these conditions must direct her work in a very different way from that incumbent upon the dweller in a village or on a farm, who must build and keep in her own fires for cooking and heating, warm every drop of hot water that is used—often perhaps having to draw or pump it first—fill the lamps by which the house is lighted, and do all the many other duties which are performed for the dweller in a city flat and taken by her for granted. Yet as much efficiency, as delightful a life, exist in these conditions as can be found in a home where the work is reduced to a minimum. The housekeeper who must put up with inconveniences will generally find that they are offset by benefits which go far to counterbalance the drawbacks.
If the city housekeeper with all modern improvements at her command requires system in her work, it is even more necessary for the one who must do without such aids. At the same time she must secure every help she can. When she can get one of the gasolene-stoves which, if properly managed, are hardly second to a gas-range in excellence, or, if lacking one of these, she can secure a good oil-stove with an oven; if she can provide herself with an oil hot-water-back or heater which will warm the water for cooking and bathing; if she purchases all such aids as fireless cookers, steamers, hand vacuum-cleaners, and other up-to-date appliances, she will simplify her labor and at the same time preserve the youth and strength that would be devoured by the adherence to the methods of her grandmother in a day when twentieth-century living is taken for granted on even the remote rural free-delivery route.
In addition to this she should study the art of sparing herself in other ways, even of shirking when it is wise. By this advice there is no implication that she should be careless of work that should be done or perform it in the wrong way. But often duties can be postponed with no harm to anything except the housekeeper’s supersensitive conscientiousness, just as there are times when it is even wiser to leave the room unswept or undusted than to wear oneself down to absolute fatigue and the fretfulness or irritability such weariness connotes.
One of the first rules for the home-worker to lay down for herself is that no positive moral superiority is displayed by standing at one’s occupations. There is no reason except a custom better broken than preserved why a woman should not have a high stool or chair on which to sit while washing and drying dishes, while preparing vegetables, beating eggs, creaming butter or flour, and performing other such tasks, as well as while ironing small pieces. The stool or chair should also be accompanied by a hassock or footstool on which to rest the feet. The fact that some of the old type of housekeepers will call the practice lazy does not in the least affect the common sense of the suggestion and the habit.
Another means for rendering kitchen work agreeable is to have the right sort of utensils with which to accomplish it. I have spoken of some of the conveniences already. Certain of them are high-priced, but many of the aids to easy and pleasant cookery are inexpensive. To have plenty of bowls and spoons, the right kind of measuring-cups, pans, and pudding-dishes, is as essential in its way as the purchase of a bread or cake mixer or a washing-machine. Too often housekeepers put up with the poor outfits they have and let a mistaken economy prevent their securing the right kind of tools. Nothing worth having is gained by washing dishes in a rusty and battered pan, drying them on ragged towels, any more than by serving your puddings in a chipped bake-dish or measuring ingredients in a leaky cup. This is not real economy; it is either slovenliness or sloth. When a woman does her own work she can surely trust herself to take care of the articles she uses, and she should not stint herself in buying those she needs.
Also she should dress for the part of maid-of-all-work when she is filling that rôle. Tightly fitting waists and long skirts should never be worn, and wash frocks are the best, since the material not only does not harbor odors of cooking as does a woolen fabric, but the garment can be washed when it is soiled.
A shirtwaist and short skirt or a one-piece frock is the best uniform, and always there should be a large and comprehensive apron with a high bib and shoulder-straps. In addition to this it is well to have a couple of aprons supplied with sleeves, which can be slipped on over an afternoon frock when getting dinner ready or when washing up afterward. All the aprons should be long enough to come down well to the hem of the gown and should be of some pretty goods, such as gingham or percale, or one of the crinkly fabrics which do not need to be ironed after washing. There is no reason why a woman who does her own work should not look attractive while she is at the process. Above all, she should abjure curl-papers, kid curlers, and similar atrocities both while at her duties and when presiding at the breakfast-table for a family which should surely take away with them an agreeable mental picture of the mistress of the house. If these adjuncts are actually necessary to render the wearer presentable later in the day, she should at least conceal them under a pretty boudoir cap. Such a cap is advisable not only on account of the appearance, but as a protection to the hair from smoke and steam.
After the morning meal is over the housekeeper may either put her dishes to soak in hot water, leave her beds to air, and go out to do her marketing, or she may decide to postpone the purchasing until later in the day and despatch her household duties before she leaves the house. Often it seems wiser to go to market late in the morning, or even in the afternoon, and thus have the best part of the forenoon unbroken for domestic occupations. The systematic housekeeper can usually plan her meals so that this plan can be followed without inconvenience.
In the well-kept flat there is not very much to do when there are only two in the family. With so few in the house articles do not get out of place to any marked extent, and when the windows have been opened in the chambers and living-room while breakfast was going on there is little to hinder the housekeeper from devoting only a short time to pushing furniture back into place, running a carpet-sweeper over the floor, and doing necessary dusting. A bed or two must be made, the bath-room put in order, the dishes washed, and the dining-room and kitchen set to rights; but in the apartment where the woman does her own work there will be no accumulation of other persons’ dirt to be removed.
When a whole house is occupied there is more to be done. Halls and stairs must be brushed, perhaps front steps swept, stoves looked after in winter, and flies beaten out and rooms shaded in summer. Other duties will present themselves if there is more than a single floor to be kept in order—a floor on which are found kitchen, pantry, and dining-room as well as chambers and bath-room.
Whether it be an apartment or a whole house, the same order of work should be followed. The morning should be the time applied to turning off any heavy or disagreeable work which has to be done. Cleaning, sweeping, dusting, making ready of vegetables for dinner, preparing the pudding or other dessert which is to be cooked later in the day, should always be planned for the early hours of the day. This is the time when the energies are at their best and freshest, and it is also the period when interruptions are least likely. In the afternoon one cannot be secure against callers or other demands upon leisure—to say nothing of the comfort one feels in knowing that the unpleasing portions of the day’s toil are done and over with!
The young housekeeper who becomes absorbed in her new occupation sometimes slips into the fault of yielding herself to it too unreservedly. When a woman really loves the work of cooking and planning, of keeping her house in exquisite order and contriving to make supply and demand meet one another, she is in danger of becoming given over to it. Her husband is not likely to be able to understand her attitude, and although he may enjoy a well-kept home, he will probably feel he desires something more in his wife than a domestic devotee.
Against the danger of drifting into this position the young housekeeper should be on the alert. No one else is as much interested as is she in the business of running her particular home, and the sooner she appreciates this the better for her and the more agreeable for every one else. At first she will possibly wish to talk of little else, but after the very earliest novelty has worn off she should wake up to the perception that there are other things in the world besides her home. She should see that she must keep herself in good mental condition as well as keep her house; that the time is not wasted that she spends in reading, in wise recreation, especially in permitting herself a little rest each afternoon which will help preserve her freshness and vigor and put her into condition to make life pleasant for her husband when he comes home at night.
For this is as important a point as any other in housekeeping. Even a man who loves his home wearies of finding a worn-out wife at dinner every evening, and of being confined for subjects of conversation to the round of the happenings connected with the butcher, the baker, and the grocer. He likes a lively, fresh wife awaiting him; he enjoys being entertained after the hard toil of the day; he is pleased when she is glad to go with him for a little outing or a mild dissipation. To be in readiness for this is an object the housekeeper should have in view through the work of the day, and she should resolutely cut out any additional labor which will interfere with her making the dwelling a home as well as a mere place to live in.
As a practical illustration of this let me commend the habit of letting the dinner-dishes wait to be washed until the next morning when there is something on hand with which this work would clash. While it is undoubtedly agreeable to go to bed with the pleasant sensation that there are no “hangovers” in the way of undischarged duties, it is often wiser to postpone a task than to perform it at the cost of hurry and flurry. The dishes may be put in a pan with hot water and a little washing-powder, and left until after breakfast the next day, when they may be washed without haste or nervousness.