The American Country Girl Part 11

1 knife sharpener.

_Earthenware and Gla.s.s_

1 bowl, 6 qts.

2 bowls, 3 qts.

6 bowls, 1 qt.

12 cups (custard).

6 breakfast plates.

6 fruit jars, 1 pt.

6 jelly tumblers with covers.

6 fruit jars, 1 qt.

1 baking dish, 1 qt.

1 baking dish, 2 qts.

1 teapot.

1 ca.s.serole, 2 qts.

1 bean pot with cover.

1 b.u.t.ter jar.

1 measuring cup, 1/2 pt.

1 pitcher, 2 qts.

1 pitcher, 1 qt.

1 pitcher, 1 pt.

LINEN

12 fine linen dish towels for gla.s.s.

12 coa.r.s.er dish towels.

24 knit dishcloths.

12 hand towels.

6 coa.r.s.e floor cloths.

6 dustless dusters.

12 holders, washable.

12 cheesecloth squares for wrapping lettuce.

MISCELLANEOUS

1 letter file for bills.

1 hook for business notes.

1 memorandum pad and pencil.

1 account book.

1 fountain pen.

1 pencil.

1 indelible pencil.

Supply of blocks, impression papers, pencils, erasers, blotting paper, ink, pens, pins, clips, etc.

Supply of cards for a card catalog for all household records.

It is not claimed that this list is imperative for each and every girl.

She must adapt it to her special needs. It is merely a typical list. And if the young woman who reads and ponders it does not know how to adapt it to her own needs, she certainly is not fitted to undertake her own housekeeping. She should go to some school where young women are trained in household science and there study the science of utensils and the chemistry of cooking and cleaning, and the whole science and art of home-making.

The list may seem a long one; but when the appliances and utensils are placed before the adequately prepared young woman, she will have a sensation not of discouragement but of delight. To make every young woman realize that if she has adequate preparation she can feel perfectly at home in a house with an industrious little motor at its heart from which will go forth the miracle of an invisible force that will bring every part of the work to magical completion without any effort of ours and that thus what once was drudgery may be turned into a delight,--this is the problem that stands with expectant, perhaps ominous, eyes at our doorway; ominous if we show an unwelcoming look, expectant if we give it greeting and stand ready to take this friend to our heart.

Everything in this world is good. The great G.o.d Power led the woman out of her House and into the Factory. It was necessary in order that she should have a chance to learn the rules of the game. Now, her lesson learned, the same great G.o.d Power is quietly but firmly taking her again by the hand and leading her back to her House. There she will dwell; and there she will again attempt to create that divine reflection of heaven which we call Home. Now that she is once more allowed to undertake this task, let us hope that she will be successful in building up an inst.i.tution worthy of the scientific age in which she lives, illuminated with electric beams that shall beat into every rat hole and every germ-protecting dark corner, and with every conceivable energy-producing and conserving device that can be planned by the human mind.

CHAPTER XII

THE HOUSEHOLD LABORATORY

VOICES IN THE HOUSEHOLD

Upon the shelf the clock ticks merrily; The kettle sings his song in drowsy mood; Within the stove crackles the fragrant wood; The coffee-mill grinds out a cheerful lay.

Surely within the oven one can see A roast ... what else on earth would smell so good?...

And little globes of fat, all amber-hued, Dance in the pan and sing with noisy glee.

Sweet sounds! Inviting yet another song; And I will sing in unison with them.

Work brings the joy that helps the work along, And so, harmonious, sounds the kitchen hymn.

While all about the ready dinner-table The children's voices raise a merry babel.

_Helen Coale Crew._

CHAPTER XII

THE HOUSEHOLD LABORATORY

The kitchen should be a combination of laboratory, machine shop and studio. The work done there is just as complex as that! There are an almost infinite number of different things needed to accomplish the different processes that have to be carried on in this workshop. There must be a variety of mechanical devices to negotiate and subtly maneuver all the effects that are to be brought out to artistic and wholesome conclusions.

This is true to a great extent nowadays in all households whether in city or country. But the farm is yet, as it always was, a place where there is greater complexity to master because many more things are done there. The spirit of machinery has entered into the life of the city kitchen and eased the burden; it must now enter the country household and work the same magic there.

If the kitchen is to be a combination laboratory and machine shop it must look like one. It must be filled with appliances for every part of the intricate work of making ten thousand things that are needed for the family through the various seasons and changes of the year.

Imagine an exquisite room long and narrow. The walls are painted white or light gray--a warm golden gray for the relief and pleasing of the eye. The floor is comfortable to the feet, sanitary, easily cleansed and durable. There is an iron ring in the floor where the cover to the chute is lifted down which the dust is to be thrown. There is another for the ash chute, lined with metal for protection from fire by means of the hot coals that may sometimes be left in the ashes. One beauty of the electric stove is that it produces no ashes; one advantage of the vacuum cleaner is that it does away with dust.

The sink has two compartments--all enameled white--one for the washing of the dishes and one for the draining. In the second is the wire drainer. The sink is placed at the right height for this particular housewife, be she a little treasure done up in a small parcel or a tall stately woman when standing very straight--as every one ought to, whether city or country bred.

At the right of the sink there is a table or shelf for the dishes as they are taken from the wheeled tray that has brought them from the dining table, and at the left is the draining sink or draining board or a shelf on which the dishes may be laid when they have been dried with the linen drying cloth.

There is a window before the worker and from it she can look out over the garden off to the fields, and beyond toward the village, following her thoughts now and then to the great big world outside.

When an ideal like this is held up before their eyes, the younger women see the futility and bad policy of the old methods. For it is the worst policy to lay heavier burdens upon man or beast than he can carry. It is better policy to conserve the strength of the beast of burden whether horse or daughter. The farmer has found that labor-saving utensils and appliances are his best investment in the barn. Why not in the house?

Running water is needed for the dairy stalls; but it is more necessary in the pantry. The live stock in the kitchen is of a fiber incomparably delicate and fine. It will be good for the big brother to scrub that floor; and everything the father and the brother can do to sustain the struggle of the mother and the sister will come back to them with rich interest in the value of the product, viz., the health, happiness and vibrancy of the women in the home and the power to give out energy in their home life and to their children.

The young woman of to-day takes it into account that she will probably have to deal with a scheme of life that does not include service in the household laboratory other than that of her own hands. She realizes that there will never be a peasant cla.s.s in this country; and she sees that housewives must take the consequences of this happy lack: namely, they must do their own work. Every woman will be always as good as every other woman and therefore there can be no servant in our kitchen; there cannot even be "help."

What then shall be done? There must be fit machinery. The drudgery point must be reduced till labor becomes a joy. The kitchen is not to be a place to which the housewife is condemned; it is a place she is going to love because it is a laboratory where science has sway, where aseptical cleanness reduces every process to a fragrant dream, and the laws of processes appear as miracles of nature controlled at last by the art of man.