Manners and Social Usages by Mrs John M. E. W. Sherwood (best english novels for beginners .TXT) 📕

Having put away the glass and china, the lady shakes the tablecloth, folds it, and puts it away. She then takes a light brush

broom and sweeps the dining-room, and dusts it carefully, opening a

window to air the apartment. When this is done she sets the parlor

in order. The maid-of-all-work should, in the mean time, make a

visit to the bedrooms, and do the heavy work of turning mattresses

and making beds. When this is accomplished she must return to the

kitchen, and after carefully cleaning the pots and kettles that have

been in use for the morning meal, devote an undivided attention to

her arduous duties as laundress. A plain dinner for washing-day—a

beefsteak and some boiled potatoes, a salad, and a pie or pudding

made on the preceding Saturday—is all that should be required of a

maid-of-all-work on Monday.

The afternoon must be spent in finishing the washing, hanging out

the clothes, and preparing the tea—an easy and informal meal, which

should consist of something easy to cook; for, after all that she

has done during the day, this hard-worked girl must “tidy up” her

kitchen before she can enjoy a well-earned repose. It is so annoying

to a maid-of-all-work to be obliged to open the door for visitors

that ladies often have a little girl or boy for this purpose. In the

country it can be more easily managed.

Tuesday is ironing-day all over the world, and the maid must be

assisted in this time of emergency by her mistress. Most ladies

understand the process of clear starching and the best method of

ironing fine clothing; if they do not, they should. In fact, a good

housekeeper should know everything; and when a lady gives her

attention to this class of household duties she is invariably more

successful in performing them than a person of less education and

intelligence.

On Wednesday the maid must bake a part of the bread, cake, and pies

that will be required during the week. In this the mistress helps,

making the light pastry, stoning the raisins, washing the currants,

and beating the eggs. Very often a lady fond of cookery makes all

her dainty dishes, her desserts, and her cakes and pies. She should

help herself with all sorts of mechanical appliances. She should

have the best of egg-beaters, sugar-sifters, bowls in plenty, and

towels and aprons ad libitum. She has, if she be a systematic

housekeeper, a store closet, which is her pride, with its neat,

labelled spice-boxes, and its pots of pickles and preserves which

she has made herself, and which, therefore, must be nice.

The cooking of meat is a thing which so affects the health of people

that every lady should study it thoroughly. No roasts should be

baked. The formulary sounds like a contradiction; but it is the

custom in houses where the necessity of saving labor is an important

consideration, to put the meat that should be roasted in the oven

and bake it. This is very improper, as it dries up all the juice,

which is the life-giving, life-sustaining property of the meat.

Let every young housekeeper buy a Dutch oven, and either roast the

meat before the coals of a good wood fire, or before the grating of

a range, in which coals take the place of wood. By this method she

saves those properties of a piece of roast beef which are the most

valuable. Otherwise her roast meat will be a chip, a tasteless and a

dry morsel, unpalatable and indigestible.

The cooking of vegetables is also to be studied; potatoes should not

be over-boiled or underdone, as they are exceedingly unhealthy if

not properly cooked. Bread must be well kneaded and delicately

baked; a woman who understands the uses of fire—and every

householder should—has stolen the secret of Prometheus.

On Thursday the maid must sweep the house thoroughly, if there are

heavy carpets, as this is work for the strong-armed and the strong-handed. The mistress can follow with the dusting-brush and the

cloth, and, again, the maid may come in her footstep with step-ladder, and wipe off mirrors and windows.

Many ladies have a different calendar from this, and prefer to have

their work done on different days; but whatever may be the system

for the management of a house, it should be strictly carried out,

and all the help that may accrue from punctuality and order rendered

to a maid in the discharge of her arduous and multifarious duties.

Most families have a sort of general house-cleaning on Friday:

floors are scrubbed and brasses cleaned, the silver given a better

cleansing, and the closets examined, the knives are scoured more

thoroughly, and the lady puts her linen-closet in order, throwing

sweet lavender between the sheets. On Saturday more bread and cake

are baked, the Sunday’s dinner prepared, that the maid may have her

Sunday afternoon out, and the busy week is ended with a clean

kitchen, a well-swept and garnished house, and all the cooking done

except the Sunday meat and vegetables.

To conduct the business of a house through the week, with three

meals each day, and all the work well done; by one maid, is a very

creditable thing to the mistress. The “order which is Heaven’s first

law” must be her chief help in this difficult matter; she must be

willing to do much of the light work herself, and she must have a

young, strong, willing maid.

CHAPTER XLVII. THE HOUSE WITH TWO SERVANTS.

The great problem of the young or middle-aged housekeeper in large

cities is how to form a neat, happy, comfortable home, and so to

order the house that two servants can accomplish all its work.

These two servants we call the cook and the waiter, and they must do

all that there is to do, including the washing.

When life was simpler, this was done without murmuring; but now it

is difficult to find good and trained servants, particularly in New

York, who will fill such places. For to perform the work of a

family—to black the boots, sweep and wash the sidewalk, attend the

door and lay the table, help with the washing and ironing, and make

the fires, as well as sweep and dust, and take care of the silver—

would seem to require the hands of Briareus.

It is better to hire a girl “for general house-work,” and train her

for her work as waitress, than to take one who has clone nothing

else but wait at table. Be particular, when engaging a girl, to tell

her what she has to do, as many of the lofty kind object

particularly to blacking boots; and as it must be done, it is better

to define it at once.

A girl filling this position should have, first, the advantage of

system, and the family must keep regular hours. She must rise at

six, or earlier, if necessary, open the front-door and parlor-blinds, and the dining-room windows, and then proceed to cleanse the

front steps and sidewalk, polish the bell-pull, and make all tidy

about the mats. She must next make the fires, if fires are used in

the house, and carry down the ashes, carefully depositing them where

they will not communicate fire. She must then gather the boots and

shoes from the doors of the sleeping-rooms, and take them to the

laundry, where she should brush them, having a closet there for her

brushes and blacking. Having replaced the boots beside the

respective doors to which they belong, she should make herself neat

and clean, put on her cap and apron, and then prepare for laying the

table for breakfast. This she does not do until she has brushed up

the floor, caused the fire to burn brightly, and in all respects

made the dining-room respectable.

The laying of the table must be a careful and neat operation; a

clean cloth should be put on, with the fold regularly running down

the middle of the table, the silver and glass and china placed

neatly and in order, the urn-lamp lighted, and the water put to

boil, the napkins fresh and well-folded, and the chairs drawn up in

order on either side. It is well worth a mistress’s while to preside

at this work for two or three mornings, to see that her maid

understands her wishes.

All being in order, the maid may ring a bell, or knock at the doors,

or rouse the family as they may wish. When breakfast is over she

removes the dishes, and washes the silver and china in the pantry.

After putting everything away, and opening a window in the dining-room, she proceeds to the bedrooms.

Every one should, before leaving his bedroom, open a window and turn

back the clothes, to air the room and the bed thoroughly. If this

has been neglected, it is the servant’s business to do it, and to

make the beds, wash the basins, and leave everything very clean. She

must also dust the bureaus and tables and chairs, hang up the

dresses, put away the shoes, and set everything in order.

She then descends to the parlor floor, and makes it neat, and thence

to the kitchen, where, if she has time, she does a little washing;

but if there is to be luncheon or early dinner, she cannot do much

until that is prepared, particularly if it is her duty to answer a

bell. In a doctor’s house, or in a house where there are many calls,

some one to attend exclusively at the door is almost indispensable.

After the early dinner or lunch, the maid has a few hours’ washing

and ironing before getting ready for the late dinner or tea, which

is the important meal of the day. If she is systematic, and the

family are punctual, a girl can do a great deal of washing and

ironing on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, even if she has to answer

the bell; but if she is not systematic, and the meals are not at

regular hours, she cannot do much.

On Thursday, which we have already designated as sweeping day, she

must sweep the whole house, all the carpets, shake the rugs in the

back yard, shake and sweep down the heavy curtains, and dust the

mirror-frames with a long feather-duster. The mistress can help her

by insisting that her family shall leave their rooms early, and by

herself refusing to see visitors on sweeping day.

On Friday, in addition to the usual daily work, the silver must be

polished, the brass rubbed, and the closets (which, in the hurry of

the week’s work, may have been neglected), carefully cleaned and

ventilated, On Friday afternoon the napkins and towels should be

washed.

On Saturday these should be ironed, and everything, so far as

possible, made ready for Sunday.

The cook, meantime, should rise even earlier than the waiter; should

descend in time to receive the milkman, the iceman, and the

breadman; should unlock the basement-door, sweep out the hall, and

take in the barrels which have been left out with the ashes and

other refuse.

A cook should be instructed never to give away the beef-dripping,

as, if clarified in cold water, it is excellent for frying oysters,

etc., and saves butter. The cook should air the kitchen and laundry,

build the fire in the range, and sweep carefully before she begins

to cook.

A careful housekeeper takes care that her cook shall make her

toilet in her room, not in the kitchen. Particularly should she be

made to arrange her hair upstairs, as some cooks have an exceedingly

nasty habit of combing their hair in the kitchen. It will repay a

housekeeper to make several visits to