Marion Harland's Complete Etiquette

<h2>CHAPTER XXXVIII<br/> <small>THE WOMAN WITHOUT A MAID</small></h2> <p class="drop-cap">THE thought of being without a maid strikes dismay to the heart of many a woman who can not be accused of laziness. She thinks of the manual toil connected with housekeeping as composed of a round of degrading tasks, and she can not imagine herself as performing these with dignity and attractiveness. The ugliness connected with doing Bridget’s work is what repels, and it must be confessed, at the start, that dust and dish-water are not agreeable things to contemplate, though hemmed squares of clean cheese-cloth for the one and plenty of good soap in the other tend to reduce disagreeable qualities to a minimum. One half, at least, of the prejudice many women, not financially prosperous, feel against “doing their own work,” as the phrase curiously goes, is the aversion to doing unbeautiful things. The other half rises from the sense of dismay in attempting that in which one has had no practise, for which one has had no previous preparation. The tasks connected with housekeeping<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[372]</SPAN></span> are many and various; and if one is called to face them without experience or a system, the result is apt to be pandemonium until the mistress-maid is broken in. It is a pity, however, to approach the work with the idea that it is necessarily distasteful and disagreeable. Most women have some natural aptitude for domestic service. When properly trained they like it, or, at least, parts of it. What they lack often is not aptitude but practise; and, instead of expecting to gain skill through practise, as they would in other departments of work, they expect it to come by inspiration. Housekeeping is a science and an art. More even than this, it is a business, and needs, exactly as the business of a man does, time and patience for its conquest.</p> <hr class="tb" /> <div class="sidenote">DRESSING FOR WORK</div> <p>A sub-professor on a small salary in one of our best eastern educational institutions married a charming young woman with a wise head on her pretty shoulders. Her thought was that she could best help him by doing the work of a maid. Her name wherever known had been a synonym for exquisite taste, and she lost nothing of this in the conduct of her new rôle. Ugliness of any sort was not in her scheme of things. She determined that she should be no less pretty in her husband’s eyes because of the part she was to play in his kitchen. She<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[373]</SPAN></span> had made for herself eight blue and white striped seersucker gowns with broad hems on the short skirts and with plain shirt-waists. The sleeves were made elbow length, so as not to incommode her in her work, and a turnover collar of white which left her throat free was at once comfortable and becoming. With these dresses she wore dark aprons or white ones, according to the work she was doing. Her husband and friends declared she had never looked more pleasing than while “in service.” She was an excellent refutation of the idea that a woman must look slovenly when doing household tasks. Though “dressing the part” seems a small beginning toward getting the work of a house done, it is a helpful beginning because it affects the spirits. A working woman needs working clothes. If they be pretty as well as comfortable and appropriate, they give an impetus toward cheerful labor that is not to be lightly estimated.</p> <hr class="tb" /> <div class="sidenote">AVOID INTERRUPTIONS</div> <div class="sidenote">THE VALUE OF SYSTEM</div> <p>A woman who learns to be her own maid and makes a success of the work must adopt it as a business and must devote herself to her tasks with regularity and system. She must be firm against intrusion and interruption from the outside world. She must adopt housekeeping as a profession and aim not merely at completing the daily round but at achieving an excellence that will in time impart<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[374]</SPAN></span> interest to the work. Order and simplicity are the two laws she must obey if she is to get through with dignity and self-respect. An order of the day and an order of the week must be made out and followed as far as possible. System and arrangement are the great time savers. To sit down at one’s desk once a day or once a week and make out conscientiously a list of all the things necessary to be done in the time named, then divide and tabulate these according as seems best,—this use of the brain will economize time and will save many a weary step.</p> <p>Orderliness in work leads most directly to that harmony and peace in housekeeping which the average woman is so fearful of losing when she takes up the labor for herself. The writer used frequently to take luncheon at the house of a clever friend who cooked and served the meals. Her cooking could always be counted on as delicious; but it was the serving, that Scylla and Charybdis in one, of most women who must “do” entirely for themselves, that astonished and delighted one. On a side-table, ready for her hand, were placed the extra dishes needed. On this, too, was room for those things only temporarily necessary on the dining-table. The occasions when the hostess must rise to serve her guests were reduced by the perfection of her arrangements to a minimum. When she was compelled to visit pantry or kitchen, she left the<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[375]</SPAN></span> table without a flurry and was back with the article in question almost before one realized her departure. This grace in service was partly, of course, a matter of nature, but it was largely due to trained and systematic habits of work. These oiled the wheels of housekeeping and made them run more or less smoothly.</p> <hr class="tb" /> <div class="sidenote">A SIMPLE MENU</div> <p>The woman without a maid must cultivate simplicity as well as order in her household arrangements. To do this requires some originality of soul and mind. She must model her work not upon what her neighbors and friends do, but upon what she thinks necessary to be done for the comfort and good health of herself and those dependent upon her. She must not attempt more things than she can do well. Many a young woman who starts out with joyous intention to be cook for husband and family, fails in her intention by reason of planning too large a bill of fare. For beginners, at least, it is well to cut out made desserts and pretentious salads. A cream soup with a broiled steak, potatoes nicely cooked, lettuce with a French dressing, coffee and fruit, make a dinner which, if neatly served, affords nourishment and delight to the ordinary man. How much better to attempt nothing more than this and make a success of it than to try for roast, two or three vegetables, an intricate salad<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[376]</SPAN></span> and a pudding,—to have these imperfectly achieved and awkwardly served. For it goes without saying that it is much more difficult to serve an elaborate than a simple meal. Also the elaborate meal demands for serving many more dishes, and the extra dishes make added work in the dish-washing which follows a meal as the night the day. Simplicity of living must be the aim of the woman who does her own work. It is only by cultivating simplicity that she can live restfully and with the taste that makes for beauty.</p> <hr class="tb" /> <div class="sidenote">DIVIDING HOUSEHOLD TASKS</div> <p>In a household where no servant is employed each member of the family should regularly perform certain duties. Where there is a family of some size all the work should not be crowded upon the shoulders of the mistress. If one person does the dusting, another the mending, another the cooking, another the sweeping, and so on through the list of necessary employment in a household, the burden need not fall too heavily upon any one. No paid servant can feel the interest in successful achievement that rewards the effort of those who are laboring for the convenience and beauty of their own home. A household conducted on plans of the most rigid economy may still be cheerful and even charming if the members of it choose to view the matter in a sort of Bohemian, picnicking spirit. If<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[377]</SPAN></span> the duties are assigned with regard to the tastes and capacities of each, no real hardship is involved and a spirit of gaiety is invoked by the concerted effort at producing comfort with the expenditure of little money.</p> <hr class="tb" /> <div class="sidenote">THE VULGARITY OF PRETENSE</div> <p>An utter absence of pretense is the only graceful attitude in a home conducted in the way described. To be ashamed of the work one does and to try to conceal it results in an uneasy, hypocritical manner and deceives no one. “I almost opened my own door when she called on me,” said a silly, snobbish, impecunious woman in telling of the visit paid her by a rich resident of the neighborhood. The remark blinded no one and made the speaker ridiculous.</p> <hr class="tb" /> <p>There are books of various kinds written for the help of the woman who must get on without a maid. These often can make for her a quicker and better path to her goal than she can work out alone and unaided. One of the best-known stories about the great English statesman, Charles James Fox, is of his learning to carve. He determined to make a conquest of this branch of knowledge as he did of any other attempted by him. Day after day he brought to the dining-table with him a book on carving, and cut the fowl or joint placed before him<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[378]</SPAN></span> in accordance with the rules of the book. His subsequent beautiful carving was the result of this method, of his willingness to learn the best way of doing whatever he attempted.</p> <hr class="tb" /> <div class="sidenote">HELP FROM COOK-BOOKS</div> <p>Reliable books on cooking, on the relative values of foods, on sanitary housekeeping, are not hard to find, while the magazines and papers are full of happy suggestions on these and kindred themes. A woman who intends to be her own maid should possess some reliable volumes on her subject, should make her work more interesting to herself and more valuable to her family by a reference to authorities on her subject. The more one knows about the work one has in hand, the more one is apt to care for it. And enthusiasm for one’s task, in its turn, begets good work.</p> <hr class="tb" /> <p>No woman on whom falls the burden of keeping her own house should feel permanently discouraged. She may learn to do her task not only with comfort but with grace. The difficulties in her way can be surmounted through experience and study. If she has a natural liking for the ordering and managing of a house, her work may become a delight. “Why do you look so sad?” said one woman to another. “Because I have a perfect maid,” said the second. “All my life until recently I kept house for my husband<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[379]</SPAN></span> and myself. Housekeeping was my passion as music is yours. Now my husband insists that I shall keep a maid. She knows her business. It would spoil her if I helped. I am a stranger in my own kitchen. Wouldn’t you be unhappy if you had no opportunity to play Chopin and Beethoven? Well, I am miserable because I can’t concoct salads and soups.” This testimony to the joys of housekeeping is extreme, but it may serve to cheer some beginner in domestic labor who sees only duty but no pleasure in the work.</p> <hr class="tb" /> <div class="sidenote">A SOUTHERN GIRL’S PARTY</div> <p>To feel that because one is limited in means one can not entertain is wholly mistaken. The young lady in a southern family in aristocraite Charleston, herself the granddaughter of a governor of the state and a member of the famous St. Cecilia Society, told the writer, who was a “paying guest” in the simple home, how she entertained her friends. “In the morning we whip up a cake, order cream, telephone the girls, and when they come, that’s the party!” But her own delightful spirit of hospitality, the perfection of her breeding, were the largest element in that party’s undoubted success.</p> <hr class="chap" /></div> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[380]</SPAN></span></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />