Part 5
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.
VIII
IN THE LAUNDRY
Whether or not a housekeeper expects to do her own washing and ironing, she should know in every detail how it is to be done. The occasion may not arise for her to put her hands into the wash-tub or to wield a flat-iron, but she should understand the operations and know how to correct intelligently the errors of her laundress.
There has been a good deal said of the burden of laundry-work, and yet I have known many women who preferred undertaking it themselves to trusting it to the charge of an ignorant or untrained washerwoman. This is sometimes the only variety that can be secured in the country or in small places, but the laundry, which is the resource so often of dwellers in the city, is frequently far more injurious to clothing than the treatment of the poorest laundress. In such circumstances or when economy seems necessary the housekeeper who has the ability to do up the clothing of her family and the bed and table linen possesses a power which means not only comfort, but saving of wear and tear as well as of money.
In the effort to provide the A-B-C of laundry-work a beginning must be made with directions for sorting and preparing the clothes for washing.
The first step is to separate towels and bed-linen from starched white garments and place them in different piles, with flannels and stockings in a third gathering. This should be done on the evening preceding wash-day, as the labor is much lessened by putting the clothes into soak overnight. The method--or lack of method--of the careless laundress is to throw those garments to be submitted to this preliminary treatment into a tub of warm water to which has been added some washing-powder or detersive and leave them thus all night.
Instead of this the clothing should be looked over carefully, dipping the worst-soiled portions into warm water and rubbing the spots well with laundry soap. Each garment should then be rolled up with the soaped side inward, and all the rolls thus made packed down into a tub of lukewarm water to which has been added a small quantity of borax, household ammonia, or other equally good and harmless detersive.
Just here it is well to make a slight digression on this subject. I have already spoken of the injurious effects of washing-soda in laundry-work. It cuts and perforates the linen on which it is used, but it is so potent in taking out dirt that I have known laundresses to bring it with them in their pockets when its use was forbidden by a housekeeper. Washing-soda is possibly the most destructive of these agencies, but there are others on the market, sold as patented preparations, which are hardly less harmful. Of a number of them it is true that they are helpful if used in moderation. The trouble is that the unskilled worker is likely to imagine that where a little is good much would be better, and to apply the powder or fluid with a liberality that has disastrous results.
Even when borax or ammonia--probably the least deleterious of all detersives--is used, it should be in small quantities when the clothing is to be left with it for any length of time. Therefore there should be very little put in the tub in which the raiment is to be soaked.
Woolens, cotton and wool, or silk and wool, colored clothes, and stockings are not given this soaking, but left to one side until the next morning.
When the actual washing begins flannels should have the first attention. They should be given especial care, since upon this depends their coming from the wash smooth and soft instead of thickened and rough. Soap should not be rubbed upon them unless there are badly soiled spots, and then these should be soaped without applying soap to the rest of the garment. A little ammonia should be added to the water in which they are washed, and this should be lukewarm and made into suds by the addition of shaved soap before the flannels are put in. They should not be rubbed on the board but between the hands, with frequent dipping up and down in the water until they look clean.
The flannels are then squeezed between the hands until as much water as possible is gone from them, when they are thrown for rinsing into water of the same temperature as that from which they were taken. This is essential. Water which is either colder or hotter will thicken and shrink the flannels. After a thorough rinsing they are again wrung out and hung to dry at once, in the shade, if an outdoor drying-place is used. They look better if they are ironed while still slightly damp. When both colored and white flannels are to be washed the latter should come second, that specks of lint from them may not disfigure the colored articles.
The second water from the flannels will answer very well for the first washing of the other clothes. It is not necessary to practise this economy in a flat furnished with hot water from the cellar, but the fact is worth recalling when the supply of warm water is insufficient.
Too many pieces should not be put into the tub at once, as the clothes cannot be washed properly if crowded together, and plenty of water is demanded to get them clean. The water should be warm and the clothes which have been soaked overnight will require little rubbing on the board in order to make them clean. It may be mentioned that clothing which is worn long enough to become badly soiled will need an amount of hard rubbing which will wear it out much sooner than garments that have been thrown into the wash before they are very dirty.
The boiler, half full of cold water, should be at hand. Colored clothes are never boiled, and they may be washed separately if this seems more convenient. After the soiled spots on the white clothes have been well soaped the pieces should be dropped into the boiler. The addition of a tablespoonful of kerosene to the water is beneficial. The boiler should be put on the stove and the water brought to a boil, stirring the clothes up from the bottom with a clothes-stick from time to time. The boiling should not continue long, but the clothes be removed as soon as the water has fairly boiled. Too long on the fire yellows the clothing.
Clean hot water should be at hand and into this each article should be dropped as it comes from the boiler. Careful rinsing is one of the secrets of having clothes a good color after washing. Each piece should be turned inside out to rinse it sufficiently. The garments to be blued should be transferred from the rinsing water to cold water to which a few drops of bluing have been added. Judgment must be used in this addition or the clothing will be too blue. A favorite trick of careless laundresses is to save themselves the scrubbing which would make the garments clean, and cover their fault by making them very blue.
After the bluing the unstarched pieces may be wrung and hung out to dry. The other pieces must be starched as will be directed a little further on.
The rinsing water in which the clothes were dipped after coming from the boiler will serve for the first washing of the colored garments. As these need no bluing, such of them as do not require starching may be rinsed and hung out at once to dry. Those that must be stiffened may be dipped into the starch, wrung out, well shaken, and dried.
For boiled starch, a half-cupful of the dry starch is needed in proportion to a quart of boiling water. The starch is made to a paste with cold water, the boiling water poured upon it, and the mixture stirred over the fire until it is clear and smooth. Some laundresses insist upon boiling the starch an hour, but good results may be gained with the preparation made as just directed. This starch is of the right consistency for shirts, aprons, etc., but it must be thinned to use for either table-linen or for delicate underwear until it is little thicker than single cream. If shirt bosoms or cuffs or the cuffs of shirtwaists are to be stiffened, raw starch must be added to the boiled. Raw starch is prepared by moistening a handful of the raw starch to a paste with a little cold water, increasing the water until a quart of it has been used, and stirring it with a piece of fine white soap.
The pieces which have already been passed through the boiled starch may be dipped into the raw starch for additional stiffening, after the first starch has dried in them. They are well moistened in the raw starch, rolled up and left for half an hour or so, and ironed while damp. The quantity for which direction has just been made is rather large for a small family, but the proportions may be used in smaller measure.
Cheap soap and starch should never be employed; they are an extravagance in the end. The soap should be bought, in a small family, about a dozen cakes at a time and dried. One cake is enough for a small wash, unless left floating in the tub after its use is over.
All stains should be looked to before the clothes are washed at all. Fruit and wine stains, like those from coffee and tea, may be taken out by stretching the spotted part over a basin and pouring boiling water through the fabric. The process should be repeated several times or until the stain is gone. Soap will often “set” a spot which would come out if washed in clear water. Fruit stains, rust stains--such as iron-mold--and sometimes ink stains may be removed by wetting the spots with lemon-juice, sprinkling salt upon this, and laying the article in the sun. The operation must be done more than once before the spot will come out entirely. The same treatment will sometimes obliterate mildew stains, but if these prove obstinate, boiling in buttermilk the article marked will perhaps take them out. Turpentine will remove paint stains, and oil marks must be washed with cold water and a good white soap. Grass stains are sometimes taken out by rubbing with butter and then washing this out. All spots or stains are far harder to get rid of after they have once been put through the regular wash.
Fine pieces of linen like doilies, centerpieces, embroidered and lace-trimmed handkerchiefs, or very delicate lingerie underwear should never be washed with the ordinary clothing unless the housekeeper gives her special attention to them. They should under no circumstances be rubbed on the wash-board, but rubbed between the hands in a good suds made of warm water and a fine white soap, and rinsed very carefully. If they are to be stiffened at all the starch water through which they are passed should be no heavier than milk. While still warm such articles should be pressed on the wrong side; and if embroidered, a thick woolen cloth must be laid under the ironing-sheet. By this method the work on the article stands out well.
A little experience with ironing is worth more than instruction. When the clothes have been well sprinkled and folded, the work done evenly, and each piece rolled up tightly when dampened, a strong arm and steady, smooth strokes will give good results; but practice is needed to make the work entirely satisfactory. Experience will tell when the iron is the right heat. For starched clothes a greater heat is needed than for flannels; the iron must be tried on a piece of paper to make sure it is not too hot. Each piece pressed should be ironed until dry to make a smooth finish. Table and bed linen should be ironed lengthwise. Always the irons should be well wiped off before using, and when not in service they should stand on end on a shelf. Never should they be left on the range when not in use; this roughens the surface.
The electric iron is a great aid, but this must be used with care or it will be short-circuited and burned out. Always the power must be turned off when the iron is laid aside for even a few minutes.
No advice as to laundry-work would be complete that did not speak a word relative to mending. The woman who does her own work will be on the alert for breaks or thin places in any article and will lay pieces thus damaged to one side as they are pressed. As a matter of course it is well to make repairs before the washing is done, when this is possible, but many garments are far pleasanter to mend after laundering than before. Stockings do not gain enough harm by being washed before darning to offset the unpleasantness of having to mend them while they are still soiled.