Household Organization Part 3

In whatsoever way the ceremonial may be performed is of importance to none but ourselves. The visitor forgets it immediately, only retaining a general impression, cheery or dismal, as the case may seem; and if we are nice people and our visitors nice people, according to our respective ideas on that subject, we shall cultivate each other's acquaintance all the same.

It is immensely hard work to make five hundred a year look like a thousand. The effort to do so is seen through in an instant by a keen-sighted observer, and then it is ten chances to one if you get credit for what you really possess. It is never worth while to pinch and pare our everyday life for the sake of a few occasions of display.

Let us now go on to consider the best fittings and furniture for the entrance-hall.

Encaustic tiles make very good flooring for a hall, and are very easily cleansed with a mop or a damp cloth wrapped round a broom. A good thick door-mat is a great temptation to people to rub their boots well. This is really better than one of those delightful indoor sc.r.a.pers all set round with brushes, which are seldom used after the first few weeks of their introduction. Mine is as good as new, and as highly polished, and I have had it for years. A couple of good door-mats are much more useful.

It is necessary to have a stand with a large drip-dish in a corner of the hall, to hang up cloaks and mackintoshes, and hat-pegs of course, but particularly a good-sized cupboard for boots, shoes, and goloshes, so that the family may change them in the hall on entrance. A carved _bahut_, or Italian linen coffer, is very useful in a hall for children to keep their school and garden hats and bonnets in, the lid serving for a bench; but many halls, which are often merely narrow pa.s.sages, would be inconveniently crowded by one of these rather ponderous pieces of furniture; besides which, they are costly.

A deep bowl of Oriental china is as nice as anything for a card-dish, and the hall is a more appropriate place for it than the drawing-room.

Where it is thought necessary to warm the house, hot-water pipes laid from the kitchen are as cheap as anything. If the pipes are heated by a separate gas-stove in the hall, they will supply hot water to the bed-rooms also; but it is not a healthy practice to heat the pa.s.sages of a house: it causes the cold to be so much more felt on going out.

Where the influence of the stove is felt in the bed-rooms it often prevents sleep.

In many houses which are kept too close and warm the families are subject to constant headache, and in others to a perpetual succession of colds; according to their temperament requiring more oxygen, or their susceptibility to the sudden change from the heated to the outdoor air.

Unpolished oak is the most usual and the best material for hall furniture; it is cleaned by rubbing with a little oil, which shows the grain and enriches its colour.

One rule which in practice saves more dirt in the house than any other, is that no member of the family be allowed to go upstairs in walking-boots. I have carried out this law for some years, after having long been troubled by my schoolboys rushing up and down stairs with their dirty boots on; and the saving to my stair carpet is very considerable. Boys and girls do not run up and down so often, if compelled to exercise a little attention beforehand.

But little boot blacking or brushing need be done in the house.

Gentlemen can easily have their boots cleaned out of doors, and ladies, by the use of goloshes, may reduce this work for themselves to a minimum, many kinds of boots being much better cleaned when sponged over lightly than when they are brushed or blacked. Every member of the family may not unreasonably be expected to take care of his or her own boots.

The door-step, or flight of steps, which is such an affliction to householders and such a joy to servants, may be kept sufficiently clean by being washed by the charwoman who comes one morning a week to do the scrubbing and scouring; which would be too menial--in other words, too public and too laborious--for any lady-help to endure.

Hearthstoning the step seems a very useless practice; the grey stone itself is a nicer colour, and only requires a mop or a broom to keep it free from dirt, according to the weather. Much white dust is brought into the house by the daily use of hearthstone, and precious time is wasted in the operation.

It may be well to understand, at the outset of our description of the work of a house, what parts of it cannot usefully or practicably be undertaken by women who have been gently nurtured, before discussing the portions which their knowledge and skill are best calculated to perform. For although we may by forethought reduce within a small compa.s.s the toilsome part of the duties, there will always remain some functions which it would uselessly tax a lady's valuable time and strength to perform. For, after all, the office of the mistress is to raise housekeeping to the level of the fine arts, "where the head, the hand, and the heart work together."

Incidental mention has already been made of the charwoman; she may be employed for the harder work in the following manner:--

The charwoman should not have her meals in the house, but she should be paid by the piece for certain work done; say, door-step, 1_d._ or 2_d._, according to size and number of steps; kitchen floor, 4_d._; pa.s.sages, according to size and requirements. Many charwomen would gladly undertake work on this plan, and many poor women or strong girls would rejoice to do a morning's work and get home early to their family with what would pay for their dinner.

It is impossible to lay down fixed prices for piece-work, as this must necessarily vary with the size of houses and the habits of the owners.

The charwoman can shake the heavy door-mats, and sweep out the kitchen flue, if the species of stove used require sweeping--and most of them do. She may also break the large lumps of coal into k.n.o.bs of the size necessary for the patent ranges needing fuel of a certain size, and she might place the week's supply of coal in the fuel-box.

It would be better in many cases to employ for this hard work a strong boy with a Sat.u.r.day half-holiday. He could do it all quite as well as a woman, and much more easily; but as we find we shall be taxed for a man-servant if we employ any arms but a woman's, we must make the best use we can of the worse means, consoling ourselves with the idea that the woman will use the money paid better than the boy might do.

BREAKFAST.

Lighting gas-fire--Difficulty of rousing servants--Family breakfast --Cooking omelet--Hours of work and enjoyment--Duties of mothers and householders--What is included in six hours' daily work--Clearing away the breakfast--Bowl for washing the _vaisselles_--Ornamented tea-cloths --Muslin cap worn while dusting--Use of feather-brush--Cleaning windows--Advantages of gas-fire.

The gas-fire is the key-note of my system of domestic economy. The thing most impossible for a lady to contemplate doing, unless compelled thereto by duty, is to get up early, and before the shutters are open or the household stirring, to lay and light a fire, or light one already laid. The thought of going to a coal-cellar, shovel in hand, to bring in a scuttle of coals on a winter's morning is enough to make the bravest shudder. It is work only suited to those who have strength and hard nurture.

But can the most delicate woman think it a hardship to light the gas-stove, or tripod, in the dining-room, whereon stands an enamel-lined kettle ready filled overnight, or else a coffee-pot already full, and only waiting for the match to be struck to make it hot?

This is less trouble than to rouse one's self at seven o'clock to ring the bed-room bell, which often fails to summon a sleepy maid: and few English servants are early risers. Those who keep foreign servants have greatly the advantage in this respect.

Very many of us require our servants to rise and be downstairs before seven, as most gentlemen have to be in the city, or at their offices or chambers, by nine, and all schoolboys and girls at school. In the great majority of families breakfast must be ready punctually at eight.

While the family is a.s.sembling and prayers are being read, the kettle is boiling, and the tripod is soon ready for eggs to be boiled upon it, and bacon or kidneys fried.

My experience of another plan for a very comfortable every-day breakfast is, where a spirit lamp (methylated spirit, not petroleum) stands on the breakfast-table at the mistress's right hand, and from a plate containing eggs, b.u.t.ter, and some rashers of bacon, she cooks a savoury omelet, and fries the rashers in a small china fryingpan over the lamp, pa.s.sing to each person the hot slices as they are done, and serving the omelet fizzling from the pan to all.

This process of cooking only takes five minutes, and the food is ready to be eaten as soon as the tea is made or the coffee poured out; and it is a pretty and cheerful occupation while letters are being read and talked of, or the _Sat.u.r.day Review_ cut.

A few savoury herbs, such as parsley or chives, are a great addition to the omelet; and it is easy to chop overnight the teaspoonful that is sufficient for the purpose, and put it on the plate with the other preparations. A few slices of cold potato are easily fried when the bacon is taken out of the pan; the bacon fat fries them deliciously.

The china frying pans may be bought at many shops, particularly at No.

9, Oxford Street, London.

Toast is not easily managed; but with hot rolls from the baker's, marmalade, honey, and potted meat or ham, on the table, a very substantial breakfast may be had with little trouble, and no delay in its preparation.

We will suppose the gentlemen of the family have left the house for the business of the day, and the boys gone to school, and we will now, before continuing our description of the house and its furniture, give an outline sketch of the proceedings of the ladies during their absence.

For England expects every woman to do her duty, as well as every man, and to prove herself a help-meet for man before pretending to rivalry.

The division of our time given in the old lines seems to be a very rational one--

"Six hours to work, To soothing slumber seven, Ten to the world allot, And all to heaven."

This allows ample time for rest and enjoyment, and sets apart an hour for daily service in the church for all who wish to attend it.

In Utopia, Sir Thomas More allots six hours a day for work to all men and women, and no longer; as he holds it to be important that we should have more time available for enjoying the living we work for, than for working to sustain it.

We give ourselves so little enjoyment in our play, that a great man once said, "Life would be very tolerable if it were not for its pleasures." We have come to treat our play as if it were our work--and no wonder, since we have made it so very troublesome--and having thrown our appointed work upon the shoulders of other people, we now complain how badly they do it.

We mothers have a certain work given us to do, not by man, but by our Maker, whose servants we are. This is to take care of our children.

Instead of doing this, we leave them almost entirely in the hands of strangers, and during great part of the day we know nothing of their doings, nor of what they are learning or thinking.

What should we say to a nurse or a governess who neglected them as we do, and how shall we answer for our lack of care?

We householders have laid upon us the care of our houses. Yet it has come to be a recognized thing that we are to touch nothing in them with our own hands--at the utmost, we are to give our orders; and the wealthy among us do not even do that, but are waited upon with every luxury, and then sent ready-dressed into society.

We are not our own, and we have little to do with the making of our position in life. We must accept the _status quo_ and make the best of it; so we may as well acquiesce cheerfully in our circ.u.mstances, doing as much as we can, and see if regular occupation will not make our hearts lighter, and help to bring back the days of Merry England again.

But we have no time for preaching now, and I would not willingly give a sermon in any case. I only threw out that suggestion of six hours' work for fear you might think I meant you to be busily employed all day, and then you would drop the book in disgust. But go on a little longer, and you will find that I am less hard than the Ladies' Art-Needlework Society, which insists upon eight hours of close application, and far less hard than the Cambridge Board of Examiners, which drives you on night and day, leaving no time for household duties; much less for dancing, or picking flowers in country lanes.

No; my six hours' work will include your music-practising, and your attentive reading for purposes of study. For unless yours be the only pair of feminine hands in the family, you will not find more than three hours occupied with household work, and part of that time will comprise a daily walk, a const.i.tutional with an object, and the remaining part will not be disagreeable; at least, I hope not, but it will be work and not play.

After this explanation let us return to our subject. We will take it for granted that there are at least two ladies at home. One, the lady-help or eldest daughter, for example, will dust and set in order the drawing-room, whilst the mistress of the house proceeds to clear away the breakfast somewhat after the following manner.

When the coffee-pot was taken from the gas tripod to be placed on the breakfast-table, the kettle was refilled from a tap fixed on one side of the dining-room fire-place, and the water will be by this time hot enough to wash the cups and plates in.

Immediately under the tap stands a large bowl of Delft, or other ware sufficiently strong for daily use, and yet ornamental or picturesque enough to remain always in the dining-room. Terra-cotta is a good material for this purpose, as the colour is always decorative to a room. One might have a bowl of very elegant design made at the Watcombe terra-cotta works. Better still, in the case of its being required to be movable, would be a wooden bowl of the Norwegian carved work manufactured by peasant artists of Thelemarken, under the direction of M. de Coninck, of Christiania. Some one of Minton's vases or _jardinieres_ would answer the purpose very well; but unless it had a plug and a pipe for letting off the water, like many washstands have, it would be heavy to lift with water in it. But a bowl with these fittings, placed on a fixed stand near the fire-place, would be well worth while taking some trouble to procure for the dining-room. It would be quite as ornamental, and no more expensive, than the china flower-pots on unsteady pedestals which are so universally popular; indeed, it might balance one of these on the window-side of the fire-place, if it were thought proper. A piece of oilcloth might be spread under the pedestal, if it does not stand on the varnished floor.