Part 5 (1/2)

The black-lead and brush, and broken saucer full of something pulpy, the powder that is always falling out of its packet or bit of newspaper, and the other odds and ends which crowd our house-maids'

dirty buckets, and the scrubbing brushes and hearthstone which enc.u.mber our sinks, are only barbarisms trying to conceal the slovenliness they pretend to correct. A house regularly and neatly attended to needs few or none of these things, while sandpaper, rotten-stone, and whiting may be almost entirely dispensed with. The homely old proverb should be remembered, when tempted by advertis.e.m.e.nts of these things, ”Elbow-grease is the best furniture polish.”

Mincing-machines, apple-paring-machines, and toys of this kind, are all very well when ladies use them themselves; but they represent so much idleness, waste, and destruction in the hands of careless cooks, who like to sit over their letter writing, or their weekly paper, while the kitchen-maid does the work. And when a fragile machine breaks or gets out of order under her heavy hand, she only ”drats the nasty thing” and throws away the broken part, pus.h.i.+ng the rest aside to become a portion of the dreadful acc.u.mulation of lumber to be seen in every house.

My own practice as a wood-carver teaches me to prefer using that perfect tool, the hand, in its ever adaptable way, to using it servilely to grind out sausages. By the time one has prepared the meat to feed the machine, set it in working order, and taken it to pieces again to clean it, one might as soon have used a sharp knife, and the meat would have tasted better than it does when its juice is squeezed out and its fibre torn to rags, so that the insipid _rissoles_ made from it need half a bottle of Harvey's sauce to make them eatable. It may be a matter of taste, but the difference seems to me as great as between music played on a piano and noise ground out of a barrel-organ.

Was.h.i.+ng-machines, I have found to my cost, are a failure also, at least in hired hands. I bought one of the best, but as I had also a was.h.i.+ng-tray, the machine, warranted to do everything, was neglected, and its lid employed as a table; as we too often see with our pianos, telling thereby a tale of forgetfulness. The mangling part of the machine, which was sometimes used by semi-compulsion, always had its screw left turned on at full pressure, so that the spring would have been powerless in a week, had I not loosened it myself. Was.h.i.+ng at home had better not be attempted in the case of ladies doing their own work.

We want to lighten the labour of the house; since, if we endeavour to do too much, we shall either become household drudges, or else decline the work altogether.

But supposing a family has time and opportunity to do the laundry work at home, a tablespoonful of liquid ammonia and a dessertspoonful of turpentine used in the was.h.i.+ng water, where a quarter of a pound of soap has been finely sliced, will be found to remove dirt from the clothes without rubbing, saving labour, much soap, and the wear and tear of the things.

In the case of large families, besides the greater economy of was.h.i.+ng at home, which is, however, doubtful when extra labour is hired, the immunity from infectious diseases being brought home in the linen is a powerful motive for undertaking the work, and doubly so where there is a garden, as it is so much better for our health to wear linen dried in the fresh air, rather than in the small courts of the neighbourhood where our laundresses usually dwell, or in the close pa.s.sages of their houses.

Kent's patent knife-cleaner is as much used, and as useful, as any of these domestic machines, though I prefer the leather-covered board.

Pyro-silver knives seem to save labour, as they are cleaned like any spoon; wiped first, as all greasy knives should be, with paper, then washed in warm water and wiped with a cloth. My own pyro-silver knives keep very well and remain bright, but as they have valuable handles of elaborate Burmese ivory-carving they are carefully used. I have heard people say that the pyro-silver does not wear well, being easily scratched and otherwise injured.

Balancing the sink on one side of the stove is the fuel-box, containing a quarter of ton of coal. This, in most of the new stoves, will last several weeks, and it may be bought in this small quant.i.ty at a time, or replenished from the usual coal-cellar. This consideration would be determined by the season, by whether the other stoves in the house burn gas or coal, and by the number of rooms requiring daily fires.

The fuel-box should have a lid, forming a table for any temporary uses, or any of the less cleanly sorts of work--I will not say dirtier work, because in this system there should be no dirty work, nothing but what a lady may do without loss of dignity, and without injury to hands which in the afternoon will handle delicate needlework, and in the evening recreate themselves over the piano.

And this leads us to speak of the systematic employment of lady-helps, in such cases as they may be a real comfort and a.s.sistance in a family, and not where they are expected to be perfect servants, who for small wages will relieve idle ladies from the difficulty of first obtaining and then enduring a few ignorant domestics.

THE LADY-HELP.

True position of a lady-help--Division of work in a family--The mother the best teacher--Marketing--Young lady-helps--Luncheon--Early dinners for children--Recreation--Preparing the late dinner--Evening tea--The lady-help a gentlewoman--Her a.s.sistance at breakfast--Her spare time --Tact.

I use this t.i.tle, not because I think it is the best, but because it is already in general use; though, as yet, very few people have any clear idea of what the true position of a lady-help should be. Some persons suppose they must treat her as a visitor, in which case she would be worse than useless, and such a situation could not possibly be permanent. Others think she must be employed precisely like an upper servant, and only look upon her as a means of escape from the penalties of their own position.

In houses where there are grown-up daughters it is not necessary, nor even advisable, to employ any labour outside of the family beyond that of the charwoman, as previously described.

The work may be so divided as to press too heavily on none, always bearing in mind, however, that, as ”Life is real, life is earnest,”

there is real work to be done in every household, the aim being to lighten it by contrivance, and by utilizing modern inventions; in fact, making of science and social economy two valuable servants, instead of exalting them to be our masters, as we have all been doing lately. For, notwithstanding all our brilliant inventions, we have so multiplied our wants that life is neither easier nor cheaper than it was in the days when we knitted our own stockings, spun our own flax, and used strong handloom sheetings, and woollen cloths which were not made of shoddy.

Let us take as a typical family a mother and three daughters, two of them grown up and one still a child--a by no means uncommon instance.

The men and boys may be many or few, it makes little difference to our example.

Probably the mother is not so strong as the grown-up daughters. She might make choice of the needlework department, or the teaching, supposing her own education to have been good; in which case she would add the benefit of her experience to every lesson given, rendering it far more valuable than instruction from a young teacher; as in all branches of study she would distinguish what is good and lasting from what is merely ephemeral, and we should have fewer flimsy pieces of music learnt to the exclusion of great masters, and fewer meretricious drawings on tinted paper, as we grow out of our admiration for these things at an early period, and home education would have a more solid groundwork. Young teachers are too apt to think they know everything, and only aim at their own standard of education, finished as they believe it to be.

Perhaps the mother might prefer to reserve a general oversight, with only such lighter work as the breakfast-table as already described. The daughters could share the remaining work in the following manner.

While the breakfast is being cleared away, one daughter, accompanied by her youngest sister, will arrange the bed-rooms, and dust the drawing-room and such parts of the dining-room as have not been included in the work of setting in order after breakfast. The little girl would rejoice in helping in this way--all children do; and when they have no real work of this kind, they imitate it with dolls'

houses. Housekeeping is one of a girl's natural instincts; it is only quenched by accomplishments being put in its stead.

While the manager of the needlework sees what requires her attention in that department, and plans it for unoccupied hours--keeping, perhaps, some fancy portion of it for pleasant work in the evening, while music or reading is going on--the daughter who is housekeeper for the week attends to the culinary arrangements, and considers what marketing will be required. She will, either alone or accompanied by one of her sisters, proceed to give her orders at the various shops, or go to the market and make her own selection. She will bring home some of the purchases herself--any parcel, for instance, that is no heavier than a little dog--but mostly the things will be sent to the house.

Co-operative stores may or may not be an advantage to their customers--it is a disputed point; but two good things they have done for us: first, making us pay ready money for what we buy; secondly, doing away with the ridiculous fear we formerly had of being seen carrying a parcel.