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ALBERT R. MANN LIBRARY 
 Cornell University 
 
 Gift of 
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 From Home Bakings, by Edna Evans 
 San Francisco, 1912. 
 
 
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Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924085640260 
 
HOUSEZEEPEES' LIBEAEY. 
 
 Each volume i6mo, cloth, $1.00. 
 Domestic Problems. By Mrs. a. M. Diaz. 
 Twenty-Six Hours a Day. By Mary Blakb. 
 Anna Maria's Housekeeping. By Mrs. S. D. Power. 
 Cookery for Beginners. By Marion Harland. 
 *#* Will be sent postpaid on receipt of price by 
 D. LOTHROP & CO., Publishers, 
 
 Franklin and Hawley Streets, Boston, Mass. 
 
ANNA MARIA'S HOUSE 
 KEEPING 
 
 BY 
 
 Mks. S. D. power 
 
 Author of " Children's Ktiquette," " Ugly Girl Papers," etc 
 
 BOSTON 
 D, LOTHROP AND COMPANY 
 
 FRANKLIN AND HAWLEY STREETS 
 
Copyright by 
 
 D. LOTHROP AND COMPANY 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Ko. . Pagb. 
 
 I. — How to make Housework easier ... 7 
 
 II. — The Night beforehand 22 
 
 III. — A good Brealdast 36 
 
 IV. — A Lady's Account Books .... 49 
 v. — A Bill of Waste 64 
 
 VI. — Two Teakettles 77 
 
 VII. — A comfortable Kitchen 88 
 
 VIII. — To clean and to keep clean .... 99 
 
 IX. — In my Lady's Chamber 115 
 
 X. — Summer Comfort 130 
 
 XI. — Blue Mondays 145 
 
 XII. — Starching and Ironing 160 
 
 XIII. — Over the Mending-Basket .... 175 
 
 XIV. — Food and Drink igo 
 
 XV. — A Screw loose 207 
 
 XVI. — When Company comes 218 
 
 XVII. — Making the best of Things .... 235 
 
 XVIII. — Shopping 249 
 
 XIX. — Sickness in the House ..... 264 
 
 XX. — In the Storeroom 280 
 
 XXI. — Planning and Packing 293 
 
 XXII. — A Dress Rehearsal 307 
 
 XXIII. — Church Picnics 322 
 
 XXIV. — Helps that are Helps 335 
 
ANNA MARIA'S HOUSE- 
 KEEPING. 
 
 I.— HOW TO MAKE HOUSEWORK EASIER. 
 
 A NNA MARIA said the other day she would 
 -^ •*• like to know if there really was any way of 
 making housekeeping easier, short of shirking it 
 altogether. If there was any improvement she 
 thought people couldn't know it any too soon. She 
 read all the plans for making work lighter, but for 
 them you must build a new apartment-house, with 
 steam heat and pneumatic tubes to send groceries 
 home and shoot the dinner up from the great central 
 bake-house and kitchen, which was to be somewhere 
 in the same square. She wondered if the meals 
 wouldn't get cold on the way, and how you'd ever 
 make cake light if you had to send it six or eight 
 
 7 
 
8 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 doors off before you could put it in the oven. She 
 wasn't just at liberty to join cooperative schemes, and 
 if she was she didn't know how somebody else's way 
 of housekeeping would suit hers. She distinctly 
 belonged to the common sort, who don't keep a man 
 and a maid, but do everything " menial " for them- 
 selves, who don't drink tea from Japanese teacups, or 
 eat dessert on painted china, who use red and white 
 tablecloths for breakfast and lunch, and glass goblets 
 at a dollar a dozen, but who like nice order and 
 dainty housekeeping as well as people who have lace 
 tea-cloths and cloissonnfe or Minton ware. She never 
 even belonged to a "family" to speak of — her grand- 
 father wasn't a judge nor a bishop, nor even a wholesale 
 grocer; she thought it was a very great neglect on 
 the part of her father and mother not to provide . 
 their children with distinguished ancestors and heir- 
 loom china and silver coffeepots — but it couldn't be 
 helped. They had only been hard-working, honest, 
 respectable folks, who lived in a rented house and 
 had baked beans every Sunday and salt-fish twice a 
 week. That was their standard of elegance. All the 
 same Annd Maria though^ she enjoyed reading 
 
HOW TO MAKE HOUSEWORK EASIER. 9 
 
 Longfellow and Miss Caroline Fox's journal, and 
 making macrame toilet sets, and planting rose- 
 cuttings and carnations in the clematis border, possi- 
 bly not as well as if she came of an old family, but 
 just as well as she could, being herself. She didn't 
 know how she could be happier than she was, if only 
 the housework didn't take up so much time from 
 reading and rose-planting and rose-knitting. She and 
 her mother couldn't do like the ladies in stories, who 
 lived alone in a cottage or in lodgings, and went 
 around dusting things with the tips of their fingers ; 
 who breakfasted on an egg and slip of toast, and 
 washed the china on the mahogany table, and left 
 everything else to the convenient charwoman who 
 comes in every day to do all the rest of the work. It 
 must be rather expensive, if she charged a dollar and 
 a half a day, like Mrs. Mulvany who went out to 
 day's work in their neighborhood, ^nna Maria 
 always had a woman to wash and scrub, but that 
 woman was herself. She didn't mind the work, but 
 she hated taking so much time paring potatoes and 
 making cookies, and cleaning out the sink and clear- 
 ing the table three times a day, when there were so 
 
10 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 many pleasant things to be done in the world. 
 And she hated having her hands red and rough, so 
 that they caught the silk of her embroidery, and 
 shamed the white pages of her diary when she wrote 
 in it. 
 
 Anna Maria is our neighbor's daughter, a nice girl 
 with shrewd, sensible ways, who goes to the High 
 School, and stands well in the Latin class, and is 
 specially good, her teacher says, in Political Economy 
 and Rhetoric. She helps her mother, does much of 
 the sewing, and has the finest cinerarias and cycla- 
 men abloom in her windows this February of any- 
 body in town. As Darius Perkins says, all her sense 
 don't run to seed in books. She knows plenty about 
 things, as well as other people's ideas about them. 
 
 Anna Maria is rather a favorite with me, and I wish 
 we could find some way to help her. She doesn't 
 want a hiredij^girl — the last one they had turned up 
 her nose because the f^ily hadn't a vell?^ t carpet or 
 a plated silver tea-set, and weren't, as she phrased it, 
 "highly connected." When she left it took„Anna 
 Maria and her mother a straight weelc of house- 
 cleaning to get things in order, the closets sweet ^pd 
 
HOW TO MAKB HOUSEWORK EASIER. II 
 
 the paint bright, and they never will get the grease- 
 spot out of the wall where she hung the hams against 
 the wall-paper. Anna Maria says the whole house 
 smelled of hired girl while she was in it, and you 
 could not open the front door without a draft of beans 
 or onions, fried cakes or burnt something rushing at 
 you. Between the two crosses she would rather 
 endure the work than the help, but need it take all 
 one's time just to feed and clean and feed again? 
 That is what she would like to know. 
 
 Dear Anna Maria, it need not. There are hosts of 
 helps nowadays — help that don't have unpleasant 
 habits, that don't sing " Pinafore " and the " Sweet 
 By and By " at the top of their voice from cellar to 
 roof-tree, or smell of burnt fat, or wipe the bread 
 knife on their aprons. If you spent about a quarter 
 of what a girl's wages would amount to for a year in 
 these helps, you would find, I think, that cooking and 
 cleaning needn't take all your time. When a car- 
 penter wants to do good work, and fast work, he 
 looks out to have the best tools in the best order, and 
 the first thing you want is to have, your tools, good, 
 bad or indifferent, in the best order they will allow. 
 
12 ANNA MARIA'S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 The greatest help I know of in housekeeping is a 
 sharp knife. It saves time paring vegetables and 
 cutting meat or bread. So Anna Maria wants to get 
 her father to sharpen the carving knife and the 
 kitchen knife and the little paring knife, and she 
 wants an oil-stone to keep them sha,rp. A kitchen 
 grindstone which sits on a table and turns in a jap- 
 anned iron trough, is a very great help, and it only 
 costs a dollar and lasts-a generation. 
 
 Then, Anna Maria, you want a very solid meat- 
 block on three legs, that wiir stand pounding, hacking 
 and sawing, on which you can trim your joints of 
 meat, crack bones for soup, chop hash — or no ; for 
 that you want a small sausage grinder. No dishes 
 are nicer than those of meat or vegetables divided 
 very finely, for the flavor spreads, and the fibre 
 cooks better, and the food is easier of digestion than 
 in solid form. 
 
 Broad saucepans aad frying pans " are best for 
 cooking quickly. To fry potatoes or hominy or cakes 
 for breakfast with a common "spider," or skillet, 
 is miserably slow compared with the way you can 
 turn them off from the broad griddle, which gives 
 
HOW TO MAKE HOUSEWORK EASIER. 13 
 
 every slice a chance to brown. Use a cake turner 
 for lifting everything that is fried, if you want to save 
 time, and take them up in neat, whole slices instead 
 of slovenly flakes. 
 
 You need not bum your face over the kitchen 
 stove if you only use a long, wooden-handled fork, 
 such as the shops have for ten cents, and a long 
 spoon for cooking. Let me tell you one thing; when 
 you have baking and work over the stove, rubbing 
 the face with sweet oil, glycerine, or vaseline, is very 
 good to prevent that dryness and harshness of the 
 skin which ruins faces early. You need not make your 
 face to shine with it like a Central African, but rub a 
 little into the skin after washing it and drying well, 
 and wipe off all that shows on the cheeks. 
 
 I know that sifting the coal ashes and blacking the 
 stove are Anna Maria's greatest dread ; they are so 
 disagreeable. Her people are talking of buying a 
 new range, and I hope that they will have one of 
 those which screen the cinders before taking out the 
 ashes. There are two or three screens in use which 
 will sift ashes without as much dust as you would 
 make sweeping the kitchen, and they cost a dollar 
 
14 ANNA MARIA'S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 each. A quarter of another week's wages of a first- 
 class hired girl gone for that, and the life long dread 
 of cinder sifting banished, and a quarter of the coal 
 saved in a year. For the stove, nothing is better 
 than the Brunswick black, the dull but beautiful 
 finish of the best Berlin iron, used for fine grates. It 
 is a varnish kept by dealers in high-class fire fittings, 
 and costs fifty cents a quart, which will blacken all 
 the grates and stoves in the house, only it won't do 
 for sheet iron. When that is rusty rub it with a file 
 or sand, and polish with common stove blacking 
 mixed with turpentine varnish. Use this only when 
 the stove is cold and the fire out, or the turpentine" 
 'may blaze and burn you. Rub the moldings of your 
 stoves with the Berlin black, and polish the top of 
 the cook stove, as fast as it burns red, with the Magic 
 blacking, which needs no hard rubbing to make it 
 bright. " 
 
 Now for the dishwashing, in which you want to 
 save time and save your hands too. '' I have washed 
 dishes so often without wetting my hands till it was 
 time to wring -out the towels, that I'm sure Anna 
 Maria can do it too with practise. Dishes well 
 
HOW TO MAKE HOUSEWORK EASIER. 15 
 
 scraped and piled at the left of the dish pan, the 
 wooden drainer at the right, next the broad shelf 
 under the slide window into the china closet, and 
 there is no time lost going backward and forward 
 with things.. ,You save time in housekeeping by sec- 
 onds and half minutes, but by the day's end they 
 count in hours. If you can't wash the dishes imme- 
 diately, cover them with water, wash and wipe the 
 silver which will get dull by standing, and leave the 
 rest till convenient. Plenty of hot water and soap, 
 plenty of clean towels, and the little white dishmop, 
 make washing dishes rather easy, pleasant work. 
 But the tin pans and the stove ware ! How to save, 
 time and tribulation, listen to what I tell you. As 
 soon as anything is cooked, empty kettle or pan, and 
 pour in cold water at once, before a crust has time to 
 form. ■ When you find the hours of scraping and 
 scouring saved by this simple care, you will be out of 
 patience with careless folks who neglect it, to say 
 nothing of keeping the tin boilers and saucepans in 
 ' good order, by this plan. Wash kettles and cook- 
 ing ware with the steel dishcloth of flexible rings 
 linked together, which do the work of twenty scrapers, 
 
i6 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 only you must fasten a wooden handle to it to keep 
 your hands out of the hot water and the soda or lye 
 you must use to keep the utensils nice. Rinse them 
 all — I rinse my cooking things whether I do my 
 plates or not, to keep them from any possibility of 
 giving the taste of one day's cooking to- the next. 
 Then wipe tin and iron with coarse towels, kept for 
 them, to save your hands from wringing the dishcloth 
 over and over. To save time, scald your tinware and 
 dry it in the open oven or in the hot sun, turning it 
 upside down to drain. 
 
 If you want to know how much is saved by these 
 little things, just time yourself by the clock and find 
 how long it takes to do up the work mornings, how 
 long to wash the dishes, how many minutes to sweep, 
 how many to clean and polish stove, faucets, or any 
 little brightening and scouring which always comes 
 to hand. Then see how long you are sweeping and 
 putting the sitting-room in order, and doing the 
 chamber work. Nothing stimulates and guides work 
 like timing it by the clock. .You will find as other., 
 girls have found before you, that the kitchen work 
 which may last two hours can be briskly and com- 
 
HOW TO MAKE HOUSEWORK EASIER. 1 7 
 
 fortably done in three quarters of an hour, and that 
 chambers and sitting-room can be made perfectly 
 neat in half an hour. Of course this provides for a 
 way of doing work very different from that of the 
 aesthetic damsels in stories who wave a feather dils- 
 ter daintily and gingerly over the parlor ornaments 
 for their forenoon's work. I've seen a young woman 
 packing her trunk for a journey who was just thirty- 
 five minutes folding and rolling up six pairs of red 
 cotton stockings. I had the curiosity to glance at 
 the time while she was about it. This was her usual 
 gait and manner of doing things, very precise, very 
 ladylike, never hurried, and intolerably slow. I hope 
 when you pride yourselves on your ideal ladyhood, it 
 won't include being so elegantly slow. There is too 
 much to do, to enjoy, to learn in life not to get the 
 fullest of our privileges, and the most of our time. 
 You will find that you gain in a week's practise, by 
 lookirig at the clock every ten minutes. It is the 
 same kind of a check on dawdling or wasting 
 moments that keeping an account is upon spending 
 money. The waste stares you in the face, and 
 sham^ or grieves you into doing better. 
 
l8 ANNA MARIA'S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 Learn all the swift ways chemistry provides for 
 doing your work. If you want bright tin and brass 
 and steel, as of course you do, you need not spend 
 hours in scouring them. A ten-cent can of potash, 
 and a sixpenny cake of sapolio, pride of the kitchen, 
 or mineral soap, which are white and pleasant to use, 
 will do the work for you. Dissolve a tablespoonful of 
 potash in a gallon of boiling water in an iron kettle ; 
 in this lye boiling hot dip all rusty articles for an 
 instant or two till the spots look bright, then rinse at 
 once, wash, and wipe dry. If a kettle or saucepan 
 is burnt insjde, pour in a cup of this lye, and scald 
 till the crust comes off. Have you a rusty or greasy 
 old jar to cleanse — wash it first, then fill with hot lye 
 and let it stand half a day. Keep a jar or firkin of lye 
 beside the sink, for you will want it for all sorts of 
 things — taking rust from brass, iron and tin, cleaning 
 pails, taking grease out of floors and shelves. The 
 lye may be used for rinsing things over and over. A 
 spoonful in dishwater, a cupful in water to scrub 
 with, is very cleansing, only you must not let a drop 
 fall on your clothes; for it will stain and burn, and yoif** 
 must use it with a swab, and not let it get on your 
 
HOW TO MAKE HOUSEWORK EASIER. 1 9 
 
 hands, or they will be ruined with cracks and sores. 
 Always rinse your hands in vinegar and water after 
 using it. If you are careful in its use lye is the 
 greatest help in cleaning, and does away with all 
 greasy, disagreeable and bad smelling work. A 
 spoonful in a basin of warm water will clean old, 
 grimy paint, and leave it looking bright as new. It 
 must be rinsed oS. quickly and wiped dry, and it should 
 not be used on varnished furniture or oiled wood. 
 
 You want to make that smoky teakettle bright and 
 nice enough to complete your kitchen picture when 
 it sings for tea, and you don't want to scrub an hour 
 over it. Make a strong hot suds with lye in it, dip 
 the kettle in and wash the smoke off with a swab or 
 brush, rinse it, drain dry, and clean with whiting and 
 kerosene, or fine sapolio, applied with one large flan- 
 nel, and polish with dry whiting and a fresh cloth. 
 It is easier than decalcomanie, and then you keep 
 your kettle bright by rubbing it every day with» coarse 
 paper. 
 
 For all this cleaning of silver, brass and tin, 
 you wear gloves to keep your hands from growing 
 into paws, stiff, rough and unmanageable. If you 
 
20 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 can't get old kid gloves enough, cotton flannel gloves or 
 mittens are good, made up the soft side in, and the 
 seams outside opened and felled down. They should 
 have long wrists to button over the dress-sleeve, and 
 ought to be washed every day after getting through 
 work. 
 
 I hope you never wear anything but wash dresses 
 about housework. It cannot be nice to wear cash- 
 mere, flannel, or cloth for work, even if they are 
 old dresses, for woolens catch dust and lint, and hold 
 grease and smells of cooking and of suds in a dread- 
 ful way, no matter how careful the wearer. A clean 
 sixpenny print is far more ladylike for kitchen or 
 sweeping work than a second-best flannel or serge, 
 and it should be easy-fitting, large in the armholes, 
 and without lining unless it is a double gown lined 
 with print. An unlined print, without overskirt or 
 trimming except a gathered flounce, is washed, and 
 ironed almost as easily as a bib apron, and can be 
 made of six to eight yards of calico. Nor need it 
 look like a housemaid's dress either. A fresh dark 
 print, domestic gingham in small brown or blue 
 clieck, an indigo or china blue percale with small 
 
HOW TO MAKE HOUSEWORK EASIER. 21 
 
 white dots, are any of them very pretty made as an 
 English gown, gathered in a belt at the waist, the 
 skirt rather scant, but fullness added by a small 
 flounce at the feet, the sleeves gathered on the 
 shoulder and tapered in leg-of-mutton fashion to the 
 wrist, or gathered in a band like the old bishop 
 sleeves which are worn again. The white collar and 
 little brooch or bow of ribbon at the throat, the stout 
 apron of crash, ready to take all traces of rough 
 work, the smart slippers and red or blue stockings 
 are picturesque enough to suit any girl who has taste 
 as well as fancy. 
 
II.— THE NIGHT BEFOREHAND. 
 
 YOU would like to know how to get the upper- 
 hand of your work, and keep it, instead of 
 having it drive you all your life long ? 
 
 Then let me tell you, Anna Maria, that you can't 
 begin too early after you are thirteen, the practise of 
 housekeeping. You may go to a cooking-class and 
 learn to make charlotte russe, and arrowroot for 
 invalids, and bone turkey for parties) and it is very 
 useful to know just how an expert cook does these 
 things ; you may go to lectures which tell you all 
 about the carbons and nitrogens of food, and how 
 they combine ; you may read and write down any 
 number of recipes in nice little blank books, yet the 
 first half-day's housekeeping will bring you face to face 
 with more that you don't know than you ever dreamed 
 of. You can as well expect to become a painter by 
 
THE NIGHT BEFOREHAND. 
 
 23 
 
 reading the hosts of books written on art, and study- 
 ing galleries of pictures, without handling a brush, as 
 to learn anything about housekeeping without going 
 into the drudgery with your own hands. 
 
 What is more, you must resolve to take the re- 
 sponsibility of the work, and learn what it is to be 
 the working power of the whole household machine. 
 You must learn how to be up to time with prompt 
 meals, and laundry-work, to have supplies of clean 
 clothes and towels always ready, to keep rooms tidy 
 and fresh, and to renew things as they wear out, so 
 that the word "homely" in your mind will never sig- 
 nify shabby or mean. 
 
 It is no small thing to stand at the head of affairs, 
 and be the motive power on which depend the wel- 
 fare and credit, the health, temper and spirit of the 
 whole family. A late breakfast sends father and 
 brothers to business with the whole day thrown out 
 of shape ; a poor meal leaves all the family to 
 work or study without proper supplies to work upon, 
 and they will feel weak, nervous and lacking in 
 energy, perhaps in some vital crisis like that which 
 found Napoleon at a memorable battle. The fortunes 
 
24 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 of the field were wavering ; a bold movement at the 
 right hour would have saved the day, but a badly 
 cooked dinner had given him a headache, his brain 
 was clouded and confused, his heart palpitating, 
 when he needed clear head and firm nerve — he gave 
 the wrong order and the battle was lost. When in 
 midlife you come to find how essential the comfort 
 of a well-kept home is to the bodily strength and 
 good conditions, to a sound mind and spirit, and use- 
 ful days, you will reverence the good housekeeper as 
 I do — above artist or poet, beauty or genius. 
 
 Between you and me, Anna Maria, it takes genius 
 to be a first-rate housekeeper. A woman of third- 
 rate will "let things go," and think they will "do," 
 and make up all sorts of clever-sounding excuses for 
 her shiftlessness, and even make a virtue of neglect, 
 pretending she lets them slip for matters of higher 
 importance. But the woman of keen mind and 
 senses finds the dust in corners, and the smells from 
 the sink and pantry, and the careless laundry and 
 chamberwork intolerable and not to be borne, and 
 amends all that other people have " put up with," to 
 the injury of their health and brains, for generations. 
 
THE NIGHT BEFOREHAJfD. 25 
 
 You may not be a genius of the first rank, Anna 
 Maria, but you may have what goes with genius — a 
 spirit of the first and finest order, which tolerates no 
 secondary, slipshod work of any sort. 
 
 While your mother is gone to Tiverton will b®a 
 good time to begin your responsible housekeeping 
 you think ? 
 
 Before your mother goes will be better, for you 
 will find the experience of an old housekeeper at 
 hand the next thing to having a fairy godmother 
 popping up out of the meal-chest or the chimney cor- 
 ner at the right minute. You will want all that your 
 mother and aunt Jane and old 'Cretia, the colored 
 washerwoman, and the receipt books can tell you. I 
 never let any mortal, old or young, great or under- 
 sized, go out of my house without their telling me 
 at least one thing I didn't know before;, and you will 
 find literally no end to the notions and helps you can 
 pick up day by day. 
 
 To-morrow you begin then to do your best, and to 
 better it. My dear child, to-morrow always begins 
 the night before, and you can't get the good of your 
 day without planning for it. To get breakfast quickly. 
 
26 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 you want ever so much done the night before. Not 
 as the over-smart, half-taught women say in those won- 
 derful home departments of the country papers, which 
 show how little our women know about housekeeping, 
 by grinding coffee and filling the teakettle the night 
 before. The coffee loses flavor, and water that has 
 been standing all night absorbs bad air and is unfit 
 to use. Besides it is so flat that it can never make 
 good tea or coffee. But you can have the dining- 
 room swept and in order, the table set if necessary, 
 and covered with a large white mosquito netting 
 kept for the purpose. You are to bake bread to-mor- 
 row, and no good housekeeper wants bread " riz by 
 daylight," as that funny Mrs. Sanford says in the 
 Round Robin novel. You want your fire to keep 
 over night, in cool weather, and let me tell you that 
 learning to manage a coal fire has tested the wits and 
 endurance of cleverer women than you or I ever shall 
 be. Shake down the ashes, and put on fresh coal 
 with a layer of cinders on the top, then close all the 
 drafts except the smoke draft. Why ? Because else 
 the gas from the fresh coal will fill the room with a 
 dangerous, sometimes fatal air, and that from the 
 
THE NIGHT BEFOREHAND. 27 
 
 cinders is worse. You see that little blue flame 
 playing on the top of the cinders ? That denotes the 
 presence of carbonic-oxide gas, which is to the dreaded 
 carbonic-acid gas that kills people in mines and 
 in old wells, what prussic acid is to arsenic, swifter 
 and deadlier. The one thousandth part of this gas 
 mingled with common air has proved fatal, and the 
 worst is that it has no smell that people commonly 
 notice. Not long ago a whole school in Connecticut 
 was found insensible from the fumes of this gas 
 escaping from the box-stove which had been crammed 
 with fresh coal and the drafts all closed. A work- 
 man's family were found dead from the same cause 
 last year, having filled their cylinder stove with coal 
 for the night and shut it up to keep. Always leave 
 the smoke-draft open in stove, range or furnace. 
 When there is a wind or it is very cold weather, and 
 the draft is stronger than usual, drawing through 
 every chink and seam of the iron, close the damper 
 half way, and leave one of the stove-covers half off, 
 sticking the poker into the fire to keep the lid in 
 place. 
 
 In the morning, if you want early breakfast, never 
 
28 ANNA MARIA'S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 wait for coal to burn up, but half fill your teakettle, 
 pumping off the water that has stood in the pipe all 
 night till it runs cold and fresh — put four or five 
 large sticks of kindling, three inches thick, to be par- 
 ticular, on the coals, open the drafts and whip on 
 kettle and frying-pan to catch every instant's heat. 
 You can in a good stove, cook beefsteak and potatoes, 
 griddle cake and wheaten grits, or bake biscuit with 
 this fire, by the time if burns down ready to put coal 
 on. It ought not to take you more than fifteen min- 
 utes to get such a breakfast from the time the first 
 blaze starts. It takes Irish Ann an hour and a half 
 with her potherings and pokings, but with your intel- 
 ligence and quick nerves you can do better. You 
 may not do it the first time of trying, nor in a wteek, 
 but in a fortnight, or month at the outside, you should 
 have difficulties in your grasp and your hands so 
 trained that things go of themselves. 
 
 To-night you may set griddle cakes, stirring corn 
 meal, flour, or graham meal as you prefer into sour 
 milk, or mixing with milk and water and cream of 
 tartar or a spoonful of molasses, leaving the jar in a 
 warm place to sour and rise. Why do you mix these 
 
THE NIGHT BEFOREHAND. 29 
 
 over-night? So that the meal or flour can more thor- 
 oughly absorb the water or milk and swell each 
 particle and develop its flavor as it cannot in hasty 
 mixing just before it is cooked. You will find the 
 diiference in the goodness of your cakes next morn- 
 ing. Sift your flour three times to make it light, 
 after its compression within the barrel in which it 
 was packed. Graham or corn meal will answer with 
 once sifting. You want to sift graham, no matter 
 how nice it looks, down to the bran, and take out 
 any black specks ; then put all the bran into the flour 
 again. It needs to be sifted in this careful way 
 because the graham, or wheat meal, which is the 
 better name, easily heats or ferments in keeping, and 
 may breed worms in spite of the careful grocer or 
 housekeeper. Each quart of milk or water for making 
 griddle cakes will take a heaping pint of flour or meal 
 to make batter just right ; if thick at night it will be 
 thin enough when mixed in the morning. Keep this 
 rule in your head, for it will insure griddle cakes that 
 are good if other points are attended to. Set the 
 batter in an earthen jar or pitcher twice as large as 
 the amount it is to hold, for the mixture will swell 
 
30 ANNA MARIA S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 and rise, and you want to be able to stir it without 
 spattering or overflowing the vessel. You will pre- 
 vent those dismal catastrophes of spoiled dresses, 
 and floors and tables overrun with your cooking, by 
 remembering always to use a large pan or jar for 
 mixing. 
 
 To wash the potatoes, which you fancy must be 
 disagreeable, let them soak in plenty of water five 
 minutes while you mix the cakes, then scrub them 
 with a stiff whisk broom or brush, stirring them 
 well in the pail, which is the best thing to hold them. 
 Drain and rinse, then with a sharp penknife cut oif 
 the seed ends in a thin slice at each end, and cut out 
 all rough or discolored spots which make the potato 
 unsafe to eat. People should be much more par- 
 ticular about the quality of potatoes than they are, 
 for a good sound potato is excellent eating, but poor 
 potatoes are slow poison. Physicians have no doubt 
 that cancer, and violent irritations of the blood, are 
 caused by eating poor potatoes, infected with disease 
 or poisoned by bugs and worms. No green-tinted or 
 "false-hearted" potato is fit for food, and if it goes 
 into the pot, it will spoil others boiled with it. You 
 
THE NIGHT BEFOREHAND. 3 1 
 
 need not pare potatoes before boiling; remove all 
 spots and leave them over night in plenty of water 
 to freshen. If they stain your fingers, rub them with 
 pumice stone or on the kitchen grindstone, which will 
 leave them like satin for smoothness and neatness. 
 
 Set your bread, which I won't tell you about just 
 now, and cover your mixtures with a cloth, and saucer 
 or board over that. Have a broad soapstone or four 
 bricks warm on the back of the stove to place the 
 bread and batter on, for one great point in having 
 either of these good is to keep them evenly warm all 
 the time without burning, which the bricks will insure, 
 as they hold heat. Bread should be covered with a 
 fresh cloth and a piece of blanket over that with a 
 board to keep all in place. 
 
 What next ? If you have a cat and dog, you are 
 bound to see that they are comfortable ; the dog in a 
 good dry kennel with board floor lined with pine 
 shavings which keep away the fleas that torment him. 
 Remember to offer both dog and cat water the 
 last thing at night, for want of which they often suf- 
 fer before morning. You will be shocked to know 
 how much our dumb faithful friends and pets suffer 
 
32 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 at our hands from thoughtlessness. They cannot 
 complain, till extremity drives them to a whine or 
 howl, and the only way to prevent this undeserved 
 torture is to provide for their wants beforehand, reg- 
 ularly. Put yourself in their place, and do as you 
 would have them do by you, were they masters for 
 once. Give the cat her basket or cushion, unless she 
 prefers gallivanting by moonlight. 
 
 You never want to shut up a room with a sink in 
 it, unless in the coldest nights, for more or less bad 
 air constantly comes up the waste pipes from the 
 sewer or from the mucus which lines pipes in use, 
 and which will certainly affect all food in the room or 
 closets adjoining. Meat, milk and butter are espe- 
 cially sensible of taint from the malaria, and diphthe- 
 ria often is traced to this cause in very good houses. 
 You want to leave one or more windows down at the 
 top for four inches, securing them from being opened 
 by burglars by a stout nail in a hole bored through 
 sash and frame, like an old-fashioned spring-bolt. 
 Or a stout stick placed upright between the upper 
 bar of the top sash and the top of the lower one, will 
 keep it safe. 
 
THE NIGHT BEFOREHAND. 
 
 33 
 
 , The last part of a housekeeper's duty is to go over 
 the house and see that outside doors and windows 
 are secure, and this is no light responsibility. 
 
 I know it was the great care of my life when I 
 first had a house of my own, for I could not sleep till 
 I had seen that every window was latched, and a 
 nail above the sash, and the doors bolted and locked 
 from cellar to attic. You must see to this yourself, 
 or you will find as I did, on leaving it to servants or 
 brothers, that the family went the risk of sleeping 
 with the hall door open all night, somebody carelessly 
 shooting the. bolt without trying it to see if the latch 
 was caught ; or the back windows and pantry were left 
 open and unguarded, a silent invitation for any prowler 
 to step in. You remember that fearful Hull murder in 
 New York, when the negro Cox confessed that the sight 
 of the open parlor windows, so easy of access, tempted 
 him to pilfer, and then to suffocate his victim to pre- 
 vent detection ? It is a world of trouble to wander 
 over a house, trying each of fifty windows perhaps, 
 looking in the coal-hole and the closet under the 
 stairs, and I have been laughed at for my care more 
 times than was pleasant. You may look a score of 
 
34 ANNA MARIA S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 years without finding anything amiss, but it is good 
 comfort heating any unusual noise in the night to be 
 sure it is no prowler inside the house. Or if you 
 ever found a ruffian's face looking through the slats 
 of the window blind at eleven o'clock at night, as 
 you sat writing in a lonely country house with only 
 frightened women in it beside yourself, there will be 
 unspeakable courage in the first thought that every 
 bar was fast between him and the house. That little 
 experience I went through one night in a cottage on 
 the Nantasket road, and behind bolted doors and 
 windows was able to hold parley with the intruder till 
 neighbors heard our alarm, and drove him off. The 
 same night two other houses on the way were entered 
 through unguarded upper windows, and robbed of 
 considerable amounts, doubtless by the same fellow,. 
 It was worth the five years' trouble before, the getting 
 out of bed midnights and wandering over the house 
 to be sure no bolt was neglected, or the cellar door 
 forgotten, to have the habit and the assurance that 
 all was safe that one particular moment. 
 
 Fasten doors with bolt and lock, leaving the key in 
 the lock, and securing it against being turned from 
 
THE NIGHT BEFOREHAND. 35 
 
 without by a stout wire bent over the shank of the 
 door knob, both ends put throijgh the hoop of the 
 key, and turned up outside of it. Hang a chair on the 
 knob if you like. Windows should have sash catches, 
 but a nail driven above the lower sash is a very good 
 safeguard, and blinds should be always closed at night 
 with stout "snaps," which no wind can blow open. 
 
 Have pails of water drawn, in case of fire or sick- 
 ness, and leave the kettle filled on the stove, to be 
 ready with hot water for sudden cramp or congestion. 
 It may save a life sometime to have hot water 
 promptly, when ten minutes would be too late. 
 Remember, in housekeeping as in everything else, 
 nothing is so sure to happen as the unforeseen. 
 
III. — A GOOD BREAKFAST. 
 
 'nn*HE secret of a good day is a good morning, 
 ■*- and a good morning always begins the night 
 before. So many things toward a good start the 
 coming day can be done the hour before you retire. 
 The coffee is not to be ground or the teakettle 
 filled to spoil over night, as I told you, but the 
 dining-room can be swept, the table set with sHver 
 and qhina, the clean mosquito netting thrown over it, 
 to keep off dust, and the fire laid for kindling if 
 necessary. Night too is the time for little personal 
 cares which thriftless people hurry through on rising, 
 with breakfast duties waiting, and are apt to slight 
 accordingly. Then is the time to wash neck, ears, 
 arms and armpits daily with soap and hot water, for 
 one perspires more when active, and no care is too 
 36 
 
A GOOD BREAKFAST. 37 
 
 nice to prevent odors from clinging about dress and 
 person, which are the vulgar but unnecessary conse- 
 quence of houseworl?. At night brush the hair 
 thoroughly, and wash it once a week; rub your 
 slippers with glycerine polish, baste the fresh ruffle 
 in your gown, trim your fingernails and sew on the 
 loose button. It will be a relief to find your dress 
 and belongings ready to slip into next morning. If 
 you do not bathe daily, and are in more or less dust, 
 thorough neatness demands washing the feet nightly 
 as much as washing the neck, and a fresh pair of 
 stockings every day will be necessary for our nice 
 housekeeper, even if she washes them herself. There 
 is the comfort of doing one's own work, that no 
 Bridget can grumble over the quantity of clean 
 towels and toilet-covers, hose and pillow-cases found 
 desirable. 
 
 Now for this hurry of early breakfast, which is the 
 bugbear of the day ; you must strive and practise 
 till it is a machine matter down to the smallest point. 
 Set the water from the faucet running the first thing, 
 draw on sweeping-cap and gloves for stove-work, and 
 let me whisper one secret again ; rub glycerine or 
 
38 ANNA MARIA'S HOUSEKEEPING, 
 
 sweet oil on your cheeks to prevent burning them 
 over the fire. Fill the teakettle, and have your 
 frying-pan and griddles on before lighting the fire, 
 as I told you, that they may catch every bit of heat, 
 open the dampers five minutes till the stove roars, 
 then close the oven damper to throw the heat to the 
 top of the stove, where it is needed instead of up 
 chimney. If you want an early breakfast, you must 
 have potatoes and cracked wheat or oatmeal boiled 
 the day before; then coffee can be made, beefsteak 
 cooked, potatoes stewed or fried in American style, 
 the mush steamed or fried brown, and griddle cakes 
 begun or eggs boiled, in fifteen minutes from the time 
 you come down. Time yourself by the clock, day 
 after day, until you can do this. You, Anna Maria, 
 are supposed to bring quicker brains and more 
 natural skill to your work than Bridget, and her 
 slovenly, dragging ways are as disgraceful to you as 
 her bad grammar, or tawdry Sunday bonnet would 
 be. 
 
 No attitudinizing, no fine lady affectations over the 
 griddles and saucepans; instead, cultivate the fine 
 character which acts up to the need of the hour 
 
A GOOD BREAKFAST. 39 
 
 swiftly, promptly, but with the quiet and certainty 
 which keeps briskness from turning into vulgar 
 hurry. Your object is to send the family off to 
 school and business with a good start and good 
 breakfast, which gives them cheer and strength to 
 face the day, a capital better than money for people 
 who have real work to do in the world. I have 
 heard a girl of sixteen say: "Father isn't particular, 
 and I get what's easiest for breakfast, bread and 
 butter and tea, and a slice of ham, a little cold meat 
 for lunch, and whatever happens for dinner, and he 
 never says a word ; " and I have seen the father look- 
 ing worn and uncomplaining, going from his com- 
 fortless breakfast, and ill-kept house, to his day's 
 work, or the young clerk, her brother, going to the 
 office to work indoors all day, shut from the fresh air 
 and sunshine which feed one, growing paler and 
 thinner month after month, without the support of 
 good, warm relishing food, which the girl was too 
 careless to prepare, or to see that the servant 
 prepares. ■ 
 
 I want to speak seriously about this matter of 
 providing good food, as it is something on which our 
 
40 ANNA MARIA'S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 brains, morals and tempers depend, as well as our 
 bodily strength. Good food is not rich food, still 
 less is it the "tolerable" fare which is just under- 
 cooked and flavorless enough to tax digestion more 
 than it ought. 
 
 The really good food helps one to do the most 
 work with least fatigue ; to study with the bright- 
 est thought. It is the best of everything cooked 
 in the nicest possible way, and with pleasant variety. 
 It may be simple fare, but the potatoes will be the 
 whitest and dryest "selected," as marketmen say; 
 the steak, whether sirloin or " chuck," will be freshly 
 cut, bright and clean; the" butter faultless even if 
 you go without it at dinner as the French do, for the 
 sake of having the best, and the coffee, flour and 
 meal in your storeroom will be the best of their 
 kind. Then it will be as delicately cooked and 
 neatly served as at the most expensive restaurant, if 
 not better; for your ambition will be to have as many 
 niceties as possible at home which are not known 
 abroad. 
 
 It has been quite the fashion to say that the 
 French habit of taking a roll and cup of coffee on 
 
A GOOD BREAKFAST. 41 
 
 rising, with a substantial breakfast at noon, was the 
 only correct way, but those who thought so discover 
 that different climates and habits require difference 
 of food. So the bright girl who pines to change the 
 order of her mother's house, and plans for breakfast 
 of cafk-au-lait and rolls, like that at French pensions, 
 or of toast and marmalade, because that is the correct 
 thing in English novels, is reminded that the people 
 who find such fare sufficient, dined about seven in the 
 evening, and had some rusk and wine, or bread and 
 cheese, or ices before they went to bed at midnight or 
 later. Busy Americans who took supper at five, or 
 dinner at six, and went to bed at ten, require the 
 comfortable breakfast common at our tables. Honor 
 your own customs as natural and fit for the country 
 and society when found ; ■ for highbred foreigners 
 easily learn to prefer the cheery American breakfast 
 with all the steak, broiled chicken, muffins, maple 
 syrup, apple butter, and the rest of the nice country 
 variety. We will take the standard breakfast, Anna 
 Maria, and see how it can be improved. 
 
 Except in very cold weather, fruit is always accept- 
 able, and should be your table decoration instead of 
 
42 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 flowers, which refined taste begins to find out of place 
 among meats and vegetables. " Arranging the flowers 
 for the table" is one of the genteel young lady's 
 duties which we can gratefully dispense with. Have 
 them in the room, but on mantel or brackets, where 
 their odor will not mingle with that of coffee and 
 broiled meats. Nice mellow apples, grapes and 
 oranges are in season most of the year, and, dressed 
 with leaves, are the most tempting centre piece for 
 the table. The fruit can be arranged the night be- 
 fore and left in a cool place, the same leaves placed 
 in water after each meal, lasting a week. The next 
 dish is usually wheat, hominy or oatmeal, with sugar 
 and milk. Wheat is better for general use, as it has 
 more phosphate for the brain and bones, and is less 
 oily than oatmeal, and better for the complexion. 
 The very best way to eat either is with meats and 
 gravies as a vegetable ; but the food which made Cae- 
 sar's legions strong, deserves to be well cooked. 
 The " steam-cooked " and " prepared " wheat is by 
 no means as good as the plainer sort which any good 
 miller can furnish, so it has been carefully washed 
 and dried before grinding, the thinnest outer scale 
 
A GOOD BREAKFAST. 43 
 
 taken off and the grain cracked or cut to be as little 
 floury as possible. The " crushed white wheat " is a 
 good staple article. Cook it the afternoon before, in 
 the farina boiler, or in a tin pail set on a trivet in a 
 kettle half full of boiling water. To a quart of fresh 
 boiling water in the pail add eight large tablespoon- 
 fuls of wheat, dropping it in gently, and letting it 
 mingle without stirring, and a teaspoonful of salt. 
 This will be very thin and watery at first, but will 
 swell in cooking. Cover, and set a few moments 
 over the hot fire till the water in both kettles boils 
 hard, then set back where it will simmer half an hour, 
 the last ten minutes with the cover off the pail to let 
 the water evaporate. The grains should be swelled 
 and distinct as rice. Watch to see that it does not 
 burn, and do not stir it, as that makes it pasty. If 
 you like, add half a cup of raisins or currants which 
 have been soaking half an hour in a warm place, 
 when the wheat begins to boil. This is nice with the 
 sugar and milk. When- done, pour into a dish ; if 
 nicely cooked, the wheat comes out in a mass, leav- 
 ing the kettle quite clean. Next morning all you 
 have to do is to set the dish into, a steamer over 
 
44 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 boiling water and heaf through to make it ready for 
 table, unless you like it fried in thick slices on a 
 large, very hot griddle, with just enough butter or 
 nice fat to keep it from sticking ; or shaped between 
 the bowls of two large spoons into balls, dipped in 
 beaten egg and fried brown and dry in a kettle of fat 
 for queen fritters ; or stirred with three eggs, minced 
 beef, pepper, and a half cup of gravy, and baked in a 
 pudding-pan, for a side dish. 
 
 Now for your cold boiled potatoes, which you may 
 serve stewed or fried in butter or nice fat on the big 
 griddle, so that each piece will brown well, instead of 
 jumbling them into the frying-pan to be half scorched 
 and half sodden in the common .sorry fashion. For 
 frying this way, you may use rather dull-looking pota- 
 toes, which will fry dry and light, but it takes white 
 mealy ones to make a nice dish stewed. Don't try 
 Saratoga potatoes till you can cook plain fried ones 
 well that have been boiled beforehand, taking them 
 up with the griddle-cake turner to keep each piece 
 whole, browning each like a pancake, peppering and 
 salting over the fire, so that the flavor will cook into 
 them, and arranging neatly on a hot platter in over- 
 
A GOOD BREAKFAST. 45 
 
 lapping rows, when you will find potatoes a VAmeri- 
 caine quite as satisfactory as any of the French ways. 
 But I will not give recipes, save a hint or two on 
 points where many questions have been asked, as 
 about the cooking of wheaten grits. These chapters 
 are not about cookery, but housekeeping, and it will be 
 more help to give a list of simple things for breakfast 
 which you can learn to cook from the many pleasant 
 books on the subject. For every second-rate house- 
 keeper I ever knew, was wont to declare that the 
 hardest thing in her life was to tell what to get for 
 three meals a day. Now let us lay this bugbear once 
 and forever, Anna Maria, by finding out what there is 
 to have if we can get it, what we can have, and what 
 we will choose to have for two weeks ahead^ I will 
 give you a list made by a real housekeeper for her 
 own use, and you can strike out all that you cannot 
 get; write down your list of supplies, and make up 
 your memorandum of what you will have for break- 
 fast each day for the week or fortnight to come. It 
 will be an evening's fun making out your list with 
 the' help of the family whose tastes are to be 
 consulted in the matter. The dishes below are 
 
46 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 specially served for breakfast in a good style of 
 living. 
 
 WHAT SHALL WE HAVE FOR BREAKFAST ? 
 
 Fresh fruits in season, raw tomatoes sliced, radishes, 
 salads, cresses. 
 
 Farina, wheaten grits, oatmeal, pearl hominy, samp, 
 and all these fried. Boiled rice and corn mush are 
 only served at breakfast fried in slices. 
 
 Dry toast, cream, and egg toast, corn muffins, gra- 
 ham or wheat muffins ( vulgarly called gems ), queen 
 fritters, corn bread, brown biscuits, flannel cakes, 
 corn orwheatmeal griddle cakes, buckwheat in season, 
 rice, hominy, and oatmeal cakes, and, best of all, 
 Adirondack pancakes. 
 
 Baked potatoes, Saratoga, lyonnaise, stewed, fried, 
 with gravy ; baked sweet potatoes. 
 
 Sweet corn fritters in season, carrot-mince, oyster 
 plant and parsnips, parsnip fritters, vegetable hash, 
 fried squash, baked beans, fried apples. 
 
 Beefsteak, veal cutlets, mutton chops, venison steak 
 in season, salmon steak. 
 
 Fresh fish, fried and broiled, fish-cakes, oyster frit- 
 
A GOOD BREAKFAST. 47 
 
 ters, clam fritters, fish with cream, omelets, dropped 
 eggs, hash, on toast and with eggs, broiled chicken, 
 Maryland chicken, lamb tenderloins, kidneys with 
 vegetables, calf's brains with tomato sauce, giblet 
 toast, potted squirrel, Oxford, sausage, turkey or 
 chicken hash, potted meats ; beef jelly for summer 
 breakfasts. 
 
 Apple, peach or quince butter, wild raspberry jam, 
 cider apple sauce, baked pears and apples, honey, 
 maple syrup, white sugar syrup, melon syrup. Coffee, 
 cocoa, chocolate with vanilla or cinnamon flavor, 
 dandelion coffee, and root beer or lemonade tea, the 
 three last in spring and summer. 
 
 Few of the above are expensive dishes even for 
 plain families, and I advise you to make it a year's 
 study to learn how to cook them. Any family of five 
 spending from eight to ten dollars a week on mar- 
 keting can afford such a bill of fare, if' there is a 
 careful little housekeeper and clever cook at the 
 helm. You will hear this questioned, but I have the 
 bills of a city family to show for it, and in many parts 
 of the country things are much cheaper. You can't 
 afford such fare with a common servant at any such 
 
48 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 price, for it takes a clever person to spend money 
 well. Perhaps you will like to spend an evening 
 with me over a lady's accounts, and see what part they 
 play in nice housekeeping. 
 
IV. — A LADY'S ACCOUNT BOOKS. 
 
 T~\0 you see that shabby little pocket memorandum 
 ^^^ book with blue cover and pencil tuck, on the 
 hanging shelf with the smart octavos in Russia 
 leather.' That is a little girl's first account book, 
 given with her first whole dollar to spend, by her 
 father, when she was seven years old. You will find 
 every penny of it set down scrupulously in the shaky 
 handwriting : ten cents for writing paper, five cents 
 worth of liquorice, three cents postage — it was just 
 after the ten-cent postage for every letter was abol- 
 ished — eight cents worth of zephyr wool, one cent 
 for lozenges, five cents to a younger sister — ah, how 
 many things that dollar bought ! It lasted the greater 
 part of a year for spending money I believe, till she 
 was promoted to an allowance of five cents a week 
 spending money, which you will find faithfully set 
 49 
 
5° 
 
 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 down each Saturday, with one fearful lapse of months 
 when it went to pay for a yard of ribbon, which she 
 understood the clerk to say was four cents, but proved 
 when cut and done up to be four shillings, or fifty 
 cents. The clerk offered to take it back, seeing the 
 little girl's mistake, but an order was an order with 
 her childish sense of honor, and she paid for it with 
 her mother's money, and stopped her allowance till 
 the sum was made up. How hard it was to do with- 
 out any money so long, and how ugly that ribbon 
 looked always ! I want to say that it would have 
 been strictly right and ladylike to have let the clerk 
 take it back, as the mistake was honestly made, and 
 as long as we are not infallible, we should not be too 
 proud to accept consideration for our blunders. 
 
 But it was long ago, and the slim young lady account 
 book next it in blue morocco, has two or three stories 
 of foolish expense nearly as sad to tell. But they 
 went down in black and white, and did this good : 
 that one day the owner sat down and counted up all 
 the useless sums spent in a year, and at the head of 
 the next page you see written the solemn injunction : 
 " No more confectionery, no newspapers, no nuts, no 
 
A LADYS ACCOUNT BOOKS. 51 
 
 photographs ; " for in these trifles enough had been 
 frittered away to buy the silk dress which was desir- 
 able for evening wear, and which could not possibly 
 be afforded when it was most needed. The poor 
 little student had felt that five dollars a year was 
 more than she could afford to pay as subscription to 
 a good library, yet in two years she had spent for 
 occasional magazines and weeklies over twelve dollars, 
 when the library would have given her the reading of 
 all the home and foreign magazines, and a hundred 
 newspapers, with all the books she wanted beside. 
 
 It was a faithful lesson which the blue account 
 book read to her, and when she went to housekeeping 
 on a limited income, the first thing bought was a 
 family account book, which did more, she says, to 
 keep down expense than anything in the world. One 
 can't go on spending needlessly with the record and 
 balance of loss staring her in the face every day and 
 week. Her New Year gift sometime ago was a set 
 of housekeeping books, in small octavo, bound in 
 dark-red leather to match, and a pretty show they 
 make — Inventory, Personal Expense, Day book and 
 Ledger — they are the handsomest volumes in the 
 
52 ANNA MARIA S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 bookcase, and placed among poets and birthday books. 
 Anna Maria, there are sheets of account paper 
 sold at ten cents a quire, and the first thing this 
 evening you want to make out a list of all the house- 
 keeping articles in the house, and the condition they 
 are in. Women usually keep the run of such things in 
 their minds ; but it is more businesslike, and makes 
 matters clearer to know what you have in writing. 
 Then you know whether the wind has blown away 
 dinner napkins and pillow cases, or whether the 
 washerwoman scorched a pair and tucked them in 
 the coal hole, and whether the new sheets wore as 
 long as they should, or whether there is soda in 
 the new washing-mixture eating them thin every 
 week, and a dozen other things a housekeeper must 
 be aware of. You must go with pencil and paper 
 through the house, making a rough list — "taking 
 account of stock " — which you will find much to your 
 profit. Have one page for table linen, a second 
 for bed linen, which is the name for it, though it's 
 all cotton ; another for the clothing, a page for each 
 one of the family ; the furniture, bedding, crockery 
 and china, kitchen ware, stores^ — that is, flour, meats, 
 
A LADYS ACCOUNT BOOKS. 53 
 
 preserves, wood, coal, and things bought by quan- 
 tity. You see how it is set down in this book. 
 
 Table linen, July 13th, 1881. 
 
 I doz. breakfast napkins, nearly new, 
 1-2 " " " half worn, 
 
 I doz. dinner napkins, fern pattern, new, 
 I " " " snowdrop " ten mo's wear, 
 
 1 " cake " fringed, " " " 
 3 half bleached tablecloths, 
 
 3 white check, " " " 
 
 2 dark-red lunch cloths, six mo's " 
 I blue and silver-gray " new, 
 
 I wild rose cloth, 3 yds. long, good, 
 1 scroll pattern " " " worn, 
 
 April 20th, 1882. 
 
 1 double damask dinner cloth, lily pattern, 
 
 2 half bleached breakfast cloths, snowdrop pattern, 
 I 3-4 doz. napkins, oak-leaf pattern. 
 
 June l8th. 
 Made four tray-cloths from scroll pattern tablecloth. Also 
 two window-seat cushions from old turkey-red cloth. 
 Here is the china closet inventory : 
 8 plain china coffee cups & saucers, 
 
 12 " " tea " 10 
 
 13 " " breakfast plates, perfect, , 
 7 " " " " cracked. 
 
54 ANNA MARIA'S HOUSEKEHPING. 
 
 9 cut glass water goblets, 
 14 common " " 
 
 I " glass pitcher, 
 24 jelly glasses, and so on. 
 Silverware. 
 
 I plated dinner castor, 
 
 1 " breakfast " 
 
 I doz. silver teaspoons, 
 
 I doz. ice cream " 
 
 6 silver tablespoons 
 
 4 " " " gold lined, 
 
 I " fish-slice, 
 
 I cake basket, plated, etc. 
 
 You see this inventory only has to be made out 
 two or three times in a life, and you may give your 
 spare hours for a week to making it. After this, you 
 must put down everything bought, or made up, or 
 lost, and go over the count as often as necessary. 
 The housekeeper in a large English family keeps 
 such an inventory, and compares it once a week with 
 the articles in use to see that none are lost or stolen. 
 If you do your own work, once a month will be often 
 enough to count up the spoons and toilet covers, the 
 socks and handkerchiefs, and all the rest. 
 
A LADYS ACCOUNT BOOKS. 55 
 
 Next you want a few folio sheets of bill paper in a 
 stiff pasteboard cover, easy to write on, with a pencil 
 tied to a string ; this cheap day book to hang in the 
 kitchen beside the calendar and clock. Here every 
 item is entered which you buy, whether on credit or* 
 paid for at once. Also have a letter hook, clip, or 
 some contrivance for holding bills which thV butcher, 
 baker and candlestick maker will send in once a 
 week or once a month, if you buy on credit ; and 
 remember! always ask for a bill when you buy 
 things, unless the purchase is very trifling and paid 
 for immediately, and always make the dealer receipt 
 that bill when you pay it, signing his name and 
 " received payment," plainly ; lastly, keep all your 
 bills whether paid or not, to the end of the year, when 
 small receipts may be burned. Always keep receipts 
 for rent, board, taxes, for borrowed money, if you ever 
 have to borrow, and it is not a bad plan to file all 
 your bills of every sort ; that is, put them away in reg- 
 ular order. People who change from place to place 
 often, will find it wise never to destroy a receipted 
 bill. Mistakes will happen with honest folks ; petty 
 dishonesty is not so uncommon as it ought to be — 
 
,56 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 a dealer's clerk may forget to enter your bill as paid 
 on his book, or he may think it smart to try to collect 
 the money twice, or there may be persons of the same 
 name as yours who have not paid their bills ; but if 
 you have the dealer's bill in his own or his clerk's 
 writing, with that little '■'■ Eeifd paft, John Smith," or 
 whatever his name is, that settles the matter : you can- 
 not be called on to pay it over. You will find the 
 habit of keeping receipts save you a world of cheating 
 when you take that tour in Europe which every girl 
 looks forward to as a possibility in her life, for conti- 
 nental skopkeepers have a trick of getting the same 
 bill paid two or three times, unless one is shrewd 
 enough to have the receipt to show. 
 
 With the inventory, your hasty day book and a bet- 
 ter book in which you enter the sum of each week's 
 expense with different dealers, or under the heads of 
 fuel, meats, vegetables, furnishings, groceries, etc., your 
 housekeeping accounts can be kept in good shape. It 
 is no small credit to a girl to have a set of neatly kept 
 books, by turning to which she can see at a moment, 
 what each week's expense has been, how much has 
 been made or saved in housekeeping, and what indul- 
 
A lady's account books. 57 
 
 gence in spending she will be able to allow. 
 The next thing you need to learn, Anna Maria, is, 
 just what ought to be allowed for everything. How 
 much coal or wood is enough for each fire one day, 
 week and month ; how much flour, sugar, meat and 
 vegetables you need for each person in the family; 
 how much coffee goes to make a cup or a quart, 
 strong or common ; how much gas or kerosene should 
 be burned; how long supplies ought to last — this 
 knowledge is one of the most important parts of house- 
 keeping, and one which people know the least about. 
 But if you don't know how much it takes to feed 
 and warm the family with comfort, how can you order 
 supplies so as to have plenty on hand, and yet not 
 waste as much as you use ? If ten dollars a week is 
 all your father can afford to pay for groceries and 
 fuel, how can you be sure you are not spending more 
 than you can pay, or that you get all the pleasant liv- 
 ing you might out of that sum ? This kind of wisdom 
 makes a woman a good manager, and she will keep a 
 family well dressed with a good table and a trifle to 
 spare for the same money on which a family of poor 
 contrivance is always pinching and running behind. 
 
58 ANNA MAEIA's HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 I don't want you to learn to save for stinginess' sake, 
 but that you may have all the good and pretty things 
 money and labor can bring you. I well remember 
 the sense of control over affairs it gave me to find 
 that it was possible to calculate the quantities and 
 cost of housekeeping as exactly as the yards of lining 
 and trimming to make a dress. Now here are some 
 things you want to make note of : 
 
 One third of a ton of coal should keep fire all day 
 in a stove or open grate one month ; and you must 
 allow that amount for the cooking range ten months 
 in the year. In summer many families contrive to do 
 most of their baking and roasting the same day the 
 ironing is done, and only light the range that day, 
 cooking by a kerosene stove the rest of the time. 
 
 Good' management will have enough left from the 
 three tons for the range to last for this summer fire. 
 A No. 8. furnace should burn night and day on half 
 a ton a month, and a large one 'takes not over one 
 ton a month when well managed. A large base burn- 
 ing stove run night and day to full heating power 
 needs not over half a ton. One half cord of pine, and 
 the same of dry oak, should be kindling enough for 
 
A LADY S ACCOUNT BOOKS. 59 
 
 range, furnace and two extra fires one year. Now, 
 find how many fires you need to keep in the house, 
 and the price of fuel, and calculate how much you 
 must order in a year, and what it will cost. Find out 
 how much actually is used in the house in one year, 
 and see whether it is less or more than the estimate. 
 Your father can tell you what the coal and kindling 
 bills amount to in a twelve month, and if it is more 
 than half a ton a month for each full fire, there is 
 waste going on which ought to be stopped, and it 
 will be your work to save that waste. If you can 
 have just as good fires and just as warm rooms by 
 burning ten dollars less in coal in a year, that ten 
 dollars can go toward new books, pictures, or new 
 china and furnishings. I advise every boy and girl 
 twelve years old and over, to learn how to build and 
 keep fires in furnace, range, grates or stoves with the 
 least waste of fuel, for it is knowledge certain to be 
 useful. A man once told me his kitchen range used 
 two tons of coal a month, although it was the same 
 size as my own which only used half a ton to do the 
 same work. There were twenty-four tons of coal 
 wasted in doing the work of six ; and as coal was 
 
6o ANNA MARIA S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 then six dollars a ton, there was over a hundred dol- 
 lars thrown away just as if he had tossed the bank 
 notes into the fire. I think you will agree there is 
 more fun to be had out of money than to send it up 
 chimney in this way. 
 
 Now as to food. How much of each kind is enough 
 for each person daily or weekly ? You must learn 
 something about this, or you will be alternately pro- 
 viding too much and having it spoil on your hands, 
 and then scrimping to make up for it. Never waste, 
 never stint, is the good housekeeper's rule, and the 
 most wasteful extravagant people are sure to be, the 
 meanest in many matters. 
 
 An experienced woman will tell you that in a fam- 
 ily it is safe to allow, for each person consumes in a 
 week, one quarter to one iait pound of butter, one- 
 half pound of coffee, two pounds of sugar, four pounds 
 of meat, and three loaves of bread. in some shape, 
 beside one third of a pound of wheat or oatmeal, 
 fruit and vegetables not being counted. 
 
 Now as you wish to live expensively, or moderately, 
 or economically, as suits your income, you can decide 
 whether to allow Philadelphia butter at seventy-five 
 
A lady's account books. 6 1 
 
 cents a pound, Mocha at forty-five, prime cuts of beef at 
 forty and sixty cents a pound, as they cost in cities, or 
 the best country butter at thirty-five cents, sirloin and 
 chops at twenty-five cents a pound, and Java at thirty- 
 five, which are common prices. Or if, as you do, 
 Anna Maria, you wish to spare as much money for 
 pretty things and good times in other ways, you must 
 learn thrifty ways of buying supplies of just as good 
 quality at the seasons when they are cheapest, and in 
 quantities when they are always lowest in price. You 
 can have a better table, with more variety than most 
 families, at a great deal lower cost, for nothing is less 
 understood among Americans than how to make the 
 most of food. I see plain families sitting down to 
 salt fish and potatoes for dinner three or four times a 
 week because meat is high, and they do not know 
 how to serve a daintily browned steak from a cheap 
 cut, or' braise a bit of soup beef till it looks and eats 
 as well as sirloin roast, or to make a rich and savory 
 stew out of " trimmings " of meats. They never can 
 afford venison or game, though by watching the mar- 
 ket they would sometimes find these as cheap as any 
 meat, and they don't use maple syrup, or comb honey, 
 
62 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 or peach butter, or quince marmalade, and a dozen 
 other nice things they might have if they knew how 
 to buy supplies cheaply, as they should. For you must 
 give your folks ample variety, Anna Maria; not so 
 much at one meal, but exchange from day to day if you 
 want them well and strong and good humored. The 
 human system needs variety, and you will find as a 
 rule that the food which relishes best, nourishes best. 
 What does a doctor order to make an invalid gain 
 strength, but game, chicken, broths, ice creams, jellies, 
 white grapes, and things which taste good because 
 they are good. And to keep your people sound, 
 merry and well, you want to give them just as good 
 food as you can afford, plenty of it, and in variety. 
 As I have told you, good food is not always what we 
 call rich food, which generally means over-rich in 
 butter or fat, eggs, wine, or spice. Yet it should be 
 rich in some of these things to a degree, rich in nour- 
 ishment for nerves and brain, phosphate for bones 
 and teeth, fat to keep us warm and round the limbs, 
 and gelatine to lessen the waste of the body in work. 
 Poor cooking robs food of these qualities more or 
 less. Poor food has lost them, to begin with. Nice 
 
A lady's account books. 63 
 
 baked pears have fat and heat-making carbon in their 
 rich syrup as truly as a ^ice of bacon or beef ; but if 
 the pears are woody and tasteless to begin with, or 
 are baked watery or dried, the nourishment is out of 
 them, and you might as well eat sawdust and sweet- 
 ened water. Bread has phosphates and strength-feed- 
 ing elements, but if it is '' slack-baked " or " sad," 
 you turn it into such stuff that only the strongest 
 stomach gains anything from it. 
 
 Let us look into this matter of nourishing foods 
 farther. 
 
v.— A BILL OF WASTE. 
 
 TV TY dear, I'm glad you've run in this way while 
 -^ * -■- the folks are at lecture ; take the little Shaker 
 chair and let us be cosey. You would like to go over 
 housekeeping accounts this evening when we are sure 
 not to be disturbed ? The High School girls would 
 poke fun at that as poor entertainment, I'm afraid, 
 but you begin to find an interest in such things. 
 The success, the history and the tragedy of some 
 families lies between the covers of their account 
 books. This ledger with the red and blue ruling is 
 all we have left by the fairy godmother who used to 
 have a trick of appearing on the hearth or by the 
 wayside just in the right time to help distressed dam- 
 sels, or succor the whole family. The old fairy 
 never shows herself any more, but she is there in the 
 wainscot, or with her ear at the chimney flue, and her 
 hand turns the leaves of the family account book 
 nights, and makes strokes of good or ill luck accord- 
 64 
 
A BILL OF WASTE. 65 
 
 ing to what she finds there. As we keep its pages 
 well or neglect it, we will feel the tap of her angry 
 wand, or we will find her blessing left beside the 
 hearthstone. 
 
 To show you in ugly, complete shape, what can 
 slip away from one in the course of the year by easy, 
 careless waste, let me give you some calculations 
 I've amused myself with in a satiric way, when 
 I wasn't able to hinder the waste going on around 
 me. You know I have been out of health a good 
 deal, and obliged to leave things in the hands of such 
 help as we could find. If there has been a cross in 
 my life it has been to be obliged to lie by and see 
 substance and comfort thrown out of the windows by 
 reckless stranger hands, without being able to prevent 
 it. As the worry would not be kept out my head, I 
 used to try to reduce it to exact shape, and pencil 
 calculations about it, for it was a satisfaction to know 
 the worst ; just how much the stores laid in for the 
 season would run short, just h6w many dollars of a 
 moderate income were washed away in soap, starch, 
 and firing, or flung away in spoiled food. The loss 
 once known could be faced, regretted and dismissed. 
 
66 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 It always was a relief to know that five dollars a 
 week were wasted when I had feared twelve. Any- 
 thing better than uncertainty. 
 
 You know Mrs. Mills, who was laid by so long 
 with lameness, so long after her fall on the ice last 
 year, and you know Mary McGowan, the country 
 girl she had to work for her. The way that girl got 
 on was remarkable. Coming here three years ago 
 without a second dress to her name, and hardly able 
 to read, by making the most of every chance, and 
 never spending a penny for anything she could pos- 
 sibly have given her, she turns out on Sundays and 
 afternoons as well-dressed, and, as her class say, well- 
 appearing as any girl in town. She is intensely 
 ambitious to get ahead in the world and improve her- 
 self. She told Mrs. Mills one day that she hated 
 work, and wanted to educate herself to be a lady 
 physician or teacher ; " something better than a hired 
 girl in a kitchen," as she said, with an accent of 
 bitter scorn. It was very well for her to wish to 
 learn, and Mrs. Mills was glad to lend her books and 
 see her find time to study, and talk with her about 
 things she wanted explained. With three afternoons 
 
A BILL OF WASTE. 67 
 
 a week and every evening to herself, there was time 
 enough to study if she wished ; more than many a 
 young man has had to fit himself for college. The 
 ladies of the Mission Society used to " take an interest 
 in her," as they called it, and write her notes of 
 advice and sympathy, send for her to visit them, urge 
 her to write essays for the Sunday-school class, and 
 advise her to read, write and study every chance. I 
 used to wonder sometimes why it never entered the 
 heads of these good women to exhort her to do her 
 duty in the calling where she was, and the only one 
 she was fitted for as yet, or why no one ever asked 
 her gently if she was dealing fairly with the employer 
 whose bread she ate and whose money she took. 
 The ill-kept house, dirty and shabby about the front 
 hall, the neglected grates and windows, the finger- 
 marked doors, the disorderly rooms, all went 
 down to Mrs. Mills' discredit, not that of the IJout 
 young woman engaged at her own terms to take 
 care of the house. Mrs. Mills was ordered to keep 
 still and get better, so she could only shut her eyes 
 and bear the waste and disorder as best she might. 
 You will know about it some day when you have a 
 
68 ANNA MAEIa'S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 house of your own, if you ever have to depend on 
 hired help. But I was going to tell you of the day 
 when she first felt able to go into the kitchen and 
 take things in hand. I found her sitting before the 
 table, sorting and cleaning things from the pantry. 
 May you never open the door on such a provision 
 closet as that was ! the shelves left so white and clean, 
 covered with paper which was a sample bill of fare 
 for weeks — smeared with syrups, cold gravy, dripping, 
 sifted with pearl hominy, sago, coffee grounds, meat 
 scraps partly spoiled and giving such an odor as 
 would soon spoil everything left in the closet. In 
 one corner was the new tin dish pan full of old bread 
 scraps, and under it the stone bread jar big enough 
 to hold a child, and full of scraps, the cake box the 
 same. They were put on the table, and I sat down 
 to help sort the clean cut slices of bread and wedges 
 of 9kke from those only fit for the chickens. The 
 lower layers were mouldy, showing they had lain for 
 weeks, and in the jar was a grown dead mouse, 
 smothered by an avalanche of bread. There was a 
 half-bushel of spoiled bread, including the molise's 
 vault, and we had the curiosity to weigh it. Twenty 
 
A BILL OF WASTE. 69 
 
 pounds wasted of home made bread worth six cents a 
 pound. I looked further. There was a joint of 
 roast beef with blue mould on it and an odor quite' 
 conclusive of decay, that weighed three pounds and a 
 half, worth seventeen cents a pound. Two pounds 
 of fish gone stale in a covered dish, twenty cents, 
 Three quarts of soup stock sour in the kettle by 
 keeping in a warm place. Cake dry, and too dusty 
 for use in puddings, at least a dollar's worth ; as 
 much more burned ; the pickled cabbage spoiled by 
 neglect, half a dollar ; two pounds of suet, mouldy, 
 sixteen cents. Dripping spoiled at least three pounds, 
 eighteen cents. And the grocery bills at least five 
 dollars a week higher with the girl than before she 
 came. Will you count it up ? 
 
 Bread, 20 pounds, at 6 cents if 1.20 
 
 Beef, 31-2 " " 17 " .59 
 
 Fish, .20 
 
 Soup, 3 quarts, at 9 cents .27 
 
 Cake, 1. 00 
 
 Cabbage, -5° 
 
 Dripping and suet, -34 
 
 Jf4.io 
 Waste in cooking, 10.00 
 
 $14.10 
 
70 ANNA Maria's HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 Seven dollars a week waste that could be counted ; 
 the list just reckoned being the loss for a fortnight. 
 Add to this the socks, towels and handkerchiefs which 
 blew off the bushes or were snowed under, the pillow 
 cases and fine things mildewed, the china broken, 
 napkins stained or scorched, and you will agree that 
 Mary McGowan was a fortune to anybody by getting 
 rid of her. I can't say she was any worse than a 
 dozen other girls I've known — alas ! — but the won- 
 der in her case was, that neither she with all her 
 ambitions and good feelings, nor the cultivated Chris- 
 tian women who cared for her, ever thought there 
 was want of principle in her wasting another's sub- 
 stance so recklessly, and that other anything but a 
 rich woman. Common honesty would keep her, from 
 filching seven dollars a week from Mrs. Mills' purse, 
 but neither high sentiments or Christian teaching 
 prevented her from wasting that and more for her 
 employer, out of dislike and impatience of her employ- 
 ment. I had rather some one had stolen the money 
 if it were my case, for then it would have been of use. 
 As it was, over twenty-five dollars a month was thrown 
 in the garbage. Perhaps you think this an imaginary 
 
A BILL OF WASTE. 7 1 
 
 case, but it is such a bill as a sick and sorry woman 
 sat down to last winter, over the wanton waste of a 
 « faithless help." 
 
 A gentleman once made an estimate of the daily 
 loss in London, if each grown person wasted two 
 ounces of bread, and that is so small a crust that you 
 would never think about it. The amount came to 
 many thousands of pounds; worth nearly JS5000. 
 Think what good this money would do the charities 
 and hospitals of the city; and remember that if so 
 much bread is wasted one day, so much money must 
 be paid out to replace it the next. 
 
 Pray don't think I mean you should follow the old 
 frugal habit of " eating a thing to save it," if there is 
 more food on your plate than you care for. The very 
 poorest economy I know of, is forcing more on your 
 digestion than it needs, and spoiling your stomach to 
 save a pennyworth of something. But there is no 
 need of wasting the pennyworth either. Better learn 
 tasteful ways of helping to food without loading 
 plates, or serving more than a person is likely to 
 want, and thus saving it in its best shape; for 
 it is worth much more neat and untouched to serve 
 
72 ANMA MARIAS HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 on the table again than to give cows or chickens. 
 
 Two young housekeepers who were school friends 
 when girls were comparing expenses. The families 
 were the same and the- style of living ; yet one spent 
 ^15 a month less than the other. 
 
 " But how do you make it out, Sadie ? " implored 
 her friend, almost with tears in her eyes. " I am sure 
 I economize every way I can think of, yet you have a 
 nicer house and table than we do on less money." 
 
 " There's only one way to account for it, Helen," 
 said the graver of the two, a girl who had been 
 trained to care-taking by a good mother. " I do my 
 own work as you do, and looking back on our ex- 
 penses for a year, I don't think one cent's worth of 
 our supplies has been wasted, or that it failed of being 
 turned to the best account. I know there has not 
 been a stick of kindling, or a scuttle of coal burnt, or 
 a pound of flour, or a bit of soap, that wasn't put to 
 its best use, nor a shilling's worth of anything 
 scorched, torn, or lost in the washing, and it all counts 
 by the end of the year. 
 
 " But you must be all the time thinking of little 
 petty savings, that must narrow the mind in time, and 
 
A BILL OF WASTE. 73 
 
 I never could bring myself to that in the world. I 
 hope I never should.'' 
 
 " Helen, you know my grandmother was one of the 
 neatest, most economical souls ever made. She used 
 to say that she could do a day's baking of bread, pies, 
 and cake, and when all was made, the waste flour and 
 scrapings would all go into the bowl of a spoon. It 
 was true, for I've seen her mix and mould in the nicest 
 way without, it seemed, strewing a grain of flour, or 
 dusting the table. She taught her family this habit 
 of nice dealing ; and mother taught us, till it comes 
 like second nature to be careful. You don't think 
 every moment about being attentive to a visitor who 
 calls, for it's easy and natural to entertain. You play 
 an air on the piano without thinking, because you 
 have practised it, or you are nice about your dress be- 
 cause you can't help it. But I have heard coarse, 
 unrefined people say they never could abide to be 
 always thinking of their manners or their clothes, for 
 they were sure they never could attend to anything 
 else if they did. Folks can narrow their minds by 
 always thinking of one thing, whether it is dress, or 
 music, or how to save a few cents ; but that is no rea- 
 
74 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 son why we should be afraid to be well dressed, or 
 fine musicians, or good economists." 
 
 It is a great mistake to think that care or saving 
 narrow the mind. Rather, they are the exercises in 
 simple numbers which train it for the larger problems 
 beyond. The motive for economy is what m;akes one's 
 mind sordid, or the reverse. You want to spare that 
 you may spend. Let me call one thing to your no- 
 tice ; that lavish, careless people are the very ones who 
 are mean in quiet ways. The woman who disdains to 
 save on her grocery bills, or to think whether a ton 
 more coal is burnt in a season than is necessary, is the 
 very one who will feel that she can't afford to sub- 
 scribe for a magazine, or buy a book, but will borrow 
 her neighbor's library books, and leave her to pay the 
 fines for keeping them out over time, beside prevent- 
 ing her from drawing a new one, which is more. She 
 will allow, perhaps, a poorer acquaintance to pay for 
 carriage fare and lunches, instead of insisting on 
 paying her own as she ought ; she will let a plain sort 
 of visitor come half a dozen miles to see her on busi- 
 ness and go away faint and tired without offering the 
 slightest refreshment ; she is the woman to drive past 
 
A BILL OF WASTE. 75 
 
 poor Mrs. Martin hurrying over the long, hot walk to 
 the station without five minutes to spare, and never 
 think of offering the vacant seat in the carriage ; and 
 she will see Alice Hathaway's Christmas work at a 
 standstill weeks for want of the right colors in silk, 
 nor ever dream of giving her the odd skeins left in her 
 own basket. Small kindnesses do not occur to her. 
 You know Mrs. Reeves has the name all over town 
 of being a close woman because she will not pay high 
 prices at the shops, won't buy eggs at fifty cents a 
 dozen for everyday cookery, or take turkeys at twenty- 
 eight cents a pound when she can buy them of the 
 farmers for eighteen pence. Her servant girls de- 
 nounce her stinginess because she puts them on allow- 
 ance of fuel and provisions for the week's work, and 
 looks after the soap and matches. She wears fifty-cent 
 thread gloves whenever possible, instead of long Swed- 
 ish ones at $2.50, beside a score of other economies 
 which other ladies criticise as beneath them. But 
 the washerwoman in her kitchen Mondays always finds 
 her big cup of hot coffee and sandwich ready at eleven 
 o'clock when she begins to remember that she ate a 
 cold breakfast at six o'clock, and walked two miles 
 
76 ANNA MARIA'S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 before work. Old Miss Clay, who lives by herself in 
 lodgings, is always asked to stay to tea when she calls, 
 and has some cold chicken or plum pudding put up 
 for next day's lunch. Daddy Mills, who is left alone 
 now his wife and daughter are dead, has his washing 
 and mending done every week and his poor old 
 clothes kept in good repair. Half a dozen families 
 have their magazine and weekly newspaper sent 
 them out of the money saved on soap, starch and 
 matches alone, and every year Mrs. Reeves buys a 
 rare book, or new picture, out of the saving on coal 
 bills. On a limited income she sends her sister's girls 
 to school, and gives them expensive lessons in music 
 and painting. No wonder she wears darned gloves 
 and, as I heard her hired girl tell ours in the kitchen 
 one evening, " never has a loaf of black cake in the 
 house any more than if she was a washwoman herself." 
 She knows how to put the greater before the less. 
 Lecture's over. I hear Esquire Fitch and the min- 
 ister talking along street as they always do. Would 
 you have thought it was so late ? 
 
VI.— TWO TEAKETTLES. 
 
 ' I ""HREE miles and back from the Mattapan 
 woods for palm willows and violets is good 
 excuse for feeling rather tired on a fair spring day. 
 You and I would both be better for a fresh cup of 
 tea if it were not such trouble to make it. To fill the 
 kettle, start the fire, wait for the water to boil, to 
 rinse the teapot, get out the caddy and go through 
 the service of making tea for the entire family is too 
 much for tired creatures, and we will sit around from 
 now till teatime, an hour and a quarter, drooping 
 and half-comfortable, pretending to work and doing 
 nothing well for want of that small refreshment. 
 
 How much of their lives people waste going on 
 with aching heads and flagging energies, doing their 
 work only half as well and half as fast as they would 
 after a cup of tea or soup had revived and freshened 
 them. Your feet burn and are so swelled after the 
 
 77 
 
78 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 tramp that you are minded to give up walking for the 
 rest of the season. Nothing is better for that ex- 
 hausting pain than bathing the feet at once with hot 
 water — a brief and effective remedy — only there is 
 no hot water. 
 
 I forgot ! We are at aunt Jane's, who has taken 
 out rights of comfort large and small. The fire is low 
 in the range, but there is a plenty of hot water in the 
 boiler with its covering of felt which keeps the heat 
 in night and day, beside a steaming kettle, ready for a 
 foot-bath or fomentation, and, as I live ! a second tea- 
 kettle, bright as new, holding three pints, and just off 
 the boil, as old ladies say. 
 
 Now for aunt Jane's nice ways, which are blissful 
 to watch as the single kerosene lamp-stove is lighted 
 with the touch of a match, and the small kettle falls to 
 singing at once, and the little brown Japanese teapot 
 comes out, kept for tea-drinking at odd times, the 
 small caddy whose top holds just two spoonfuls of 
 the leaf, and the old teaboard, a beech oval fitted in 
 black lacquer rim — why, one makes tea for the pleas- 
 ure of it, in such fashion. Drank from fluted teacups 
 with a thin slice of fresh lemon floating in each, with- 
 
TWO TEAKETTLES. 79 
 
 out milk or sugar, how delicate and inspiring it is ! 
 They tell of people who put a drop of ottar of roses in 
 the tea-caddy to flavor the pekoe, but aunt Jane 
 knows a trick worth two of that, and mixes fresh 
 apple petals, kin blossoms to those of the tea-plant, 
 with her fine tea, which is scented like the costly 
 " imperial " teas that come through Russia. You 
 know the delicious perfume of the highest qualities of 
 tea comes from drying the flowers of the plant with 
 the tender young leaves. But what use would the 
 fluted " old pink " china or the inlaid caddy have 
 been without the ever ready kettle on the boil ? And 
 who but aunt Jane would have the simple device of 
 keeping two teakettles with constant relays of hot 
 water ? In Mrs. Oliphant's story of The Curate in 
 Charge, charming as all her stories are, another aunt 
 Jane, an old-fashioned gentlewoman, laj's down the 
 rule to her nieces that " in a good house the kettle is 
 always boiling," ready for fresh tea Which English- 
 women like any hour of the day. Not only for tea, 
 but for twenty other and more important uses, hot 
 water is so constantly needed that the teakettle has 
 become the symbol of home comforts, which are 
 
8o ANNA MAEIA's HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 the only reason and excuse for having homes at all. 
 When you come to think of it, why shouldn't every 
 house have two teakettles, and hot water on call? 
 Just because they don't think of it, or give that little 
 time, that small sum of money and contrivance which 
 insures life-long comfort on this and a score of other 
 points. The cost of the second kettle usually stops 
 people from providing it, for it is curious how the 
 outlay of a few shillings will ^gcare them from some 
 convenience which would save them time, labor and 
 trouble, at least once a day the year long. You see 
 aunt Jane's large teakettle is an old-fashioned black 
 iron one, which she bought in a small shop for thirty 
 cents because it was old style, though it never had 
 been used. Now the iron teakettle has the advan- 
 tage over tin of holding the heat longer, and keeping 
 water hot better. So Philena, the hired help, told us 
 her grandmarm said, and we found the same thing in 
 Count Rumford's Philosophy, which has a great many 
 things of interest to housekeepers. • It is curious how 
 the grandmothers find out by experience what the 
 philosophers discover by experiment. For my part, I 
 find it impossible to do without either. Well, the big 
 
TWO TEAKETTLES. 8 1 
 
 teakettle costing only thirty cents, aunt Jane could 
 afford to buy a small, convenient tin one for forty 
 cents to keep polished and on its good behavior for 
 tea-making and sick-room use. When the children 
 want to make paste for scrap-books, or Lucy wants to 
 do up her lace ruffles, or somebody wants hot lemon- 
 ade for a cold, there is never any waiting for boiling 
 water, and waste of time and patience, because of the 
 two teakettles, one of which is hot if the other 
 isn't. 
 
 Another convenience at aunt Jane's is the two 
 dustpans and the chamber-broom hung in the back 
 entry up-stairs. You know when one has been 
 cutting out work in her room there will be litter, or 
 when the boys are not careful to use the door-mat, 
 they will leave traces of mud on the carpet, and what 
 a trouble it is to run down-stairs after broom and 
 dustpan. Aunt Jane said she never could afford to 
 carry her one hundred and forty pounds of weight up 
 and down-stairs every time a room needed extra 
 sweeping, when a new broom cost thirty-five cents, 
 and a second dustpan ten. While she was about 
 it, she would have a dust-bin too, and if you lift the 
 
82 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 cover of that large box in brown linen and red trim- 
 ming in the corner of the passage up-stairs, you will 
 find it is an old tin cracker-box, to receive sweepings 
 from the bedrooms. They are all swept thoroughly 
 once a week of course, but between whiles all tran- 
 sient sweepings go into this box, which is emptied at 
 convenience. Aunt Jane counts that this second 
 broom and pan which cost forty-five cents in all, have 
 saved her going up and down-stairs at least five times 
 a week for the last five years, or thirteen hundred 
 times, and allowing that interest on the first invest- 
 ment might make the price of her broom and things 
 seventy-five cents, one cent fare saves her from going 
 up and down seventeen times, and she considers it 
 cheap. I know a family who went without a new 
 dustpan ten years after they needed it, and made the 
 old one do, because they never felt they could aiford 
 to pay half a dollar — country price — just for a con- 
 venience. But the mistress said when she had to 
 get a new one finally, and thought of all the back- 
 aches and vexations about sweeping up she might 
 have saved by getting it before, she felt too big 
 a fool to stay in the family. There are savings which 
 
TWO TEAKETTLES. 83 
 
 are found to be frightfully expensive in the end. 
 The boys' bed stands in a corner of their room, 
 away from the windows, and inconvenient to reach 
 for making. You know how unwholesome it is for 
 any one who sleeps at the back of a bed in such 
 a position where no fresh air reaches it. Yet how 
 tiresome it is to pull the bedstead out every night, 
 and push it out of the way in the morning, the room 
 being too small to allow its standing out. The cas- 
 ters are too small. Get a large size with broad wood 
 wheels, and you can push the bedstand back and 
 forth easier than you can move a chair. The boys 
 can pull it out at night into the best air in the room, 
 and shove it back to give them room for dressing. 
 You can move it about as you like to tuck in tne 
 clothes when making the bed, and leave it out to air 
 when no one is in the room ; a touch will put it in 
 place any time, and the broad tires will not wear the 
 carpet like small iron ones. It is a trifle to see that 
 the furniture in a house has easy casters; but the 
 difference in ease of moving and keeping it neat 
 will surprise you. It's the principle of having two tea- 
 kettles over again — that comforts are always cheap. 
 
84 AKNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 I go frequently to a restaurant, where the dinner is 
 good enough to tempt one, but there is always a 
 moment of pain from the sharp squeak of chairs 
 moved on the marble floor. It gives me a nervous 
 dread from the moment of entering till that agonizing 
 sound has pierced my ears and gone into the roots of 
 my teeth. There is a little invention of rubber caps 
 for chair legs which allows chairs to move on any 
 surface without wear or sound, and public or private 
 dining-rooms where the rubber-shod chairs are in use, 
 have a sense of luxury most grateful. So many peo- 
 ple use polished wood floors, I wonder that the rubber 
 caps do not come into general use. When families 
 for convenience live in the kitchen a good deal, or 
 have painted floors for the dining-room, these sound- 
 less chairs would be just as desirable as on tile pave- 
 ments. The rubber caps cost five cents apiece, less by 
 the dozen, fit any chair, and wear for years. I don't 
 know a greater comfort to nervous mothers than to pro- 
 vide a set for the chairs in use, and they save carpets 
 remarkably. 
 
 Boys are noisy creatures, that stamp about the 
 house with the tread of a hose company, wear carpets 
 
TWO TEAKETTLES. 85 
 
 and bring mud indoors insufferably. I don't know 
 anything that wants to be rubber shod more than 
 they, and the remedy for this noisy tread is to treat 
 them as you would the chairs. Have the shoemaker 
 glue a thin sheet of rubber on the sole of the heavy 
 boots, and their power of disturbance is gone. The 
 rubber does not make the feet damp with perspiration, 
 because it does not cover the shoe ; it saves the soles 
 from many a wetting, and mud does not stick to it as 
 to leather, for which it seems to have an affinity. 
 The rubber sole can't squeak, or clatter, and the only 
 reason I can discover why every boy and girl in the 
 country isn't rubber shod in this way is because it 
 would make the shoes last too long for the interest 
 of the shoe business. I remember having my shoes 
 rubber soled when a schoolgirl, and how soundless 
 and what a comfort they were. 
 
 Did you ever happen to make a call in a house 
 when you wanted to be sure your hair and bonnet 
 were right after a windy walk, and can you ever for- 
 get the dismay of finding no mirror either in the hall 
 or parlor ? If I had not more than once found houses 
 that were well furnished otherwise deficient in this 
 
86 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 respect, I would not mention the point. But some 
 good people seem to think mirrors mere vanity and 
 expense outside of a bedroom. I wish to plead for 
 their right use and convenience about the house. A 
 mirror should not be the friend of vanity, and it is a 
 very poor, weak soul to which it so ministers. It 
 should be, and''is, the friend of all that is neat and 
 becoming in dress and behavior, the silent, irresistible 
 conscience which reflects our ill humors, awkwardness 
 and very accidents, without fear or favor, and it is my 
 private conviction there can hardly be too many such 
 glasses about a house. 
 
 It is said one reason why the French are such 
 agreeable, well-bred persons is because large mirrors 
 abound in their houses, reflecting their movements 
 and making them conscious of awkward actions at 
 once. There is truth in this, and there can hardly be 
 a better educator in any room than a large mirror. 
 
 If you can have things in the house at all to your 
 liking, see that it is well provided with good glasses. 
 One in the hall, certainly, f*: even the boys like to 
 take a peep, and see that their hair is brushed as they 
 fly out for play, and the young man with the gas bills 
 
TWO TEAKETTLES. 87 
 
 likes to settle his collar and hat as he waits, and call- 
 ers always want a glimpse of themselves as they pass 
 in, unless they are carriage people, and have a dress- 
 ing glass over the front seat. There should be one 
 in each living room, not necessarily a large or promi- 
 nent glass, but the largest in the sitting-room. 
 
 The fashion of mantel mirrors is too good to be 
 given up, as it reflects the attitudes of the group 
 about the fire, and rebukes sprawling or awkward sit- 
 ting. A glass not over a yard long can be hung side- 
 wise and tilted to give a pretty good view of the inte- 
 rior of a room. A wide glass hung on the wall oppo- 
 site the boys' seats in the dining-room, would sooner 
 or later make them aware of sundry tricks of manner 
 you will try long to cure, unless they are brought to 
 see themselves. Mirrors are not expensive compared 
 with what they used to be ten years ago, and a second- 
 hand one reflects just as well as a new one. I suggest 
 that you look closely after the small savings, to allow 
 plenty of " bright reflections on manners," as some- 
 body calls glasses about your house. 
 
 It is, after all, simply a case of two teakettles over 
 again. 
 
VII.— A COMFORTABLE KITCHEN. 
 
 T T 7'HY do people always build kitchens at the 
 back of the house ? 
 I always said when my house was built it should 
 have two fronts, one before and one behind, but no 
 back door where pails, barrels and rubbish should 
 gather, no muddy stoop or trampled ground about 
 the steps. Instead, it should be like one sweet cot- 
 tage I knew, whose paths led by croquet lawn and 
 tennis ground at the side, to a surprise of trim ^rass- 
 plots and flower beds behind the house, where a 
 peach-tree was trained to shade the pantry window, 
 from which one could pluck its leaves for flavoring 
 custards and creams, and a Boursault rose climbed 
 over the back door to the kitchen roof, when it 
 laid its tresses of crimson cup-roses in the sun. A 
 broad greensward, no less lovely that it -was con- 
 venient for bleaching, and a low spreading orchard 
 88 
 
A COMFORTABLE KITCHEN. 89 
 
 lay behind the flower plots, all secluded, fair and 
 sweet as a walled English garden. 
 
 Why should women and girls banish themselves to 
 dull rear regions where all manner of rubbish is at 
 home ? The other day I drove by a large farm with 
 a big brick house, whose owner, a rich Dutchman, 
 built the largest front room for the kitchen, because, 
 he said, his wife spent most of her time there, and 
 she should have the very best room in the house. 
 Everybody said he was shrewd and right about it, 
 though nobody thought of following his example. 
 
 You want to make the kitchen pleasant, Anna 
 Maria, so that you won't grow tired of staying in it 
 day after day. Do not go to an extreme like some 
 weak-minded, fanciful women who want pictures and 
 book shelves in the kitchen, forgetful that steam and 
 flies will do their best to spoil frames, glass and 
 bindings; who want bits of carpet about, to catch 
 one's feet and be always lying awry, and a lounge and 
 work basket, to become scented with cooking. The 
 clean, orderly kitchen is always attractive by its neat- 
 ness, and all you need to add is a splint rocking- 
 chair and boxes of sweet herbs and flowers at the 
 
go ANNA MARIA S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 windows. It wants a wide east window for. the morn- 
 ing sun, and a south one for cheerfulness. 
 
 Were I building a house the kitchen should not be 
 wholly at the back, but project at the side so as to 
 have one window for the pleasant front yard and the 
 road. It should be lighted on three sides with a 
 south porch shaded by awning in summer, to be taken 
 down and give the full sun in winter. Its walls 
 should be painted cream gray, pinky drab, or brown- 
 ish buff, colors cheerful but not readily defaced, from 
 which fly-specks and soil could be washed as from 
 stone-china. Papered walls are objectionable in a 
 kitchen, for the steam loosens the paper and it ab- 
 sorbs smells and cannot be cleaned when soiled. 
 Whitewash rubs off, and it costs more in three years 
 to have whitewashing done than to paint the walls in 
 the first place. The floor should be even and solidly 
 laid of hard pine, oak or maple, the first finished in 
 good yellow paint, or in the dark shellac polish like 
 black walnut, and which cleans easily. Oak, maple 
 or any of the hard woods need a light shellac finish 
 which shows the grain and color of the wood. Do not 
 have the floor oiled, however wiseacres may advise it. 
 
A COMFORTABLE KITCHEN. 91 
 
 Oiled wood holds dust and lint, and always looks 
 dark and damp. Oilcloth looks well, but has no ad- 
 vantage over a well-laid floor. 
 
 Do not have a high ceiling which gives you more 
 space to heat in cold weather and more work in 
 keeping walls clean the year round. Have windows 
 to let down at the top and a ventilator in the chim- 
 ney to draw ofE all the cooking odors. Learn to 
 keep your kitchen and entries free from villianous 
 smells of suds, of cooking cabbage, fish and beans, 
 which give housework most of its vulgar associa- 
 tions. It takes the soul out of the sweetest country 
 walk by new-mown fields or blossoming orchards, to 
 pass a house where the smell of frying doughnuts or 
 corned beef informs the neighbors what the family 
 are to have for dinner. There should be an airy little 
 passage between kitchen and living rooms to keep 
 odors of cookery from wandering about the house, 
 and as you do your own work, you can afford ser- 
 viceable improvements. 
 
 The best housekeepers require but a small sup- 
 ply of utensils, and you will find the fewer things 
 you have to take care of the better. In fact, half 
 
92 ANNA MAEIA'S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 the housekeeping aids advertised are more trouble 
 than help. Among the things you need to save time 
 and strength are these: A strong white wood table 
 for baking and ironing with top at least 3x6 feet, and 
 drawer, but no leaf, for it can be framed more firmly, 
 without one. Instead have a light, small table to 
 move about easily where you want it, to hold the 
 pans for shelling peas and paring apples, or to lay 
 the starched things on ironing days. Also, have a 
 broad drop-shelf with strong hinged brackets to fold 
 back underneath, so that it can hang against the wall 
 when not in use. A wire cupboard should hang over 
 the cooking table with spice, soda and small things 
 used in cookery. Do not have the cupboard for iron 
 ware under the sink where more than a suspicion of 
 dampness, close odors, grime and black beetles is apt 
 to gather, and where your back must ache stooping for 
 what you want. Have the sink, whether of iron or wood, 
 neatly painted on the underside, and supported by 
 stout metal brackets without any casing, leaving the- 
 floor underneath open and dry, as well as making 
 the sink easier to work at. Have a nice painted 
 woodbox beside the stove with a hinged half-cover, 
 
A COMFORTABLE KITCHEN. 93 
 
 and a cupboard above for iron ware. This brings 
 cooking utensils in easy reach, where you want 
 them without stooping. The upper shelf in this is 
 the place for flat-irons, where they will be out of dust 
 and rust. They are always in the way on the mantel, 
 and grow rusty in closets away from the fire. 
 
 It will save half your strength to keep things used 
 together close to each other, in convenient range ; the 
 poker, stovelifter and hearthbroom close to the stove 
 on nails just the height of your hand, to save stoop- 
 ing for them, the cooking-table next the pantry door, 
 that you need not cross the room for everything 
 wanted in baking^ and the tubs, washbench, rubbing- 
 board, clothespins and clothes-stick all in one large 
 closet. It is a relief to find the broom and dustpan 
 always together, and the duster at hand. The china 
 closet should be between dining-room and kitchen, 
 with a large slide window opening on a broad shelf 
 next the sink, in the corner adjoining, if you want 
 the greatest convenience in washing dishes and put- 
 ting them away. One little point which greatly 
 adds to ease and safety in going about a kitchen in 
 a hurry, is to have the corners of all tables and 
 
94 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 shelves rounded, that you need not run against them. 
 All the woodwork of doors, windows and base- 
 boards ought to have the plainest mouldings, for 
 scrolls and beadings catch the dust and are hard to 
 clean. Be sure to have brackets at different heights 
 each side the window for shelves which may be 
 shifted as your plants need. Shallow boxes of curled 
 parsley and sweet herbs should be growing in the 
 warm, moist air of the kitchen, which often suits 
 plants better than any other part of the house. Have 
 the clock on a shelf with your account sheet and some 
 good receipt books in easy reach, and a light tool box 
 in the closet, with clawhammer, screwdriver, wrench, 
 gimlet, a ball of string and assorted nails, tools you 
 can buy for ten cents apiece, which will be no end of 
 help on occasions. 
 
 You want a closet for tubs, brooms, pails and such 
 large things, a closet three feet deep at least, with 
 door or doors to open the entire front, so that things 
 can be taken out, and it can be swept or cleaned easily. 
 Nothing like dark closets and corners behind doors 
 for collecting mold and dust. If you are bent on 
 doing work well and easily, you will have these im- 
 
A COMFORTABLE KITCHEN. 95 
 
 provements made as you are able. Your father will 
 soon see that it pays to supply a neat, economical 
 housekeeper with conveniences, and it costs no more 
 to frame a closet with cheap doors than with lath and 
 plaster. One thing more, and that is a firkin, or large 
 pail with tight wooden cover for garbage. Now 
 remember, no decent kitchen ever has a sour, ill- 
 smelling receptacle for slops, and leavings of any 
 kind — no decent house has ugly, ill-smelling things 
 anywhere on the premises. 
 
 How are you going to help it, do you ask ? 
 
 Unless your scraps are to be saved for a cow or 
 pig, burn all leavings and parings, the refuse from 
 tables, and the scrapings as fast as made. Open all 
 the back drafts of the stove, put the leavings on the 
 hot coals and let them dry and burn, which they will 
 do in a few minutes. With the drafts open there will 
 be neither smell nor smoke. If the scraps must be 
 saved, have a waste pail with a tight cover, or a cov- 
 ered firkin large enough to empty a panful of parings 
 into in a hurry without dropping any on the floor. 
 Never pour slops with the waste for it sours and fer- 
 ments sooner. Have the pail emptied twice a day 
 
96 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 in warm weather and scrubbed with water and a few 
 turns of an old broom, which cleans it without touch- 
 ing your hands to it. But if rinsed, drained and dried 
 in the sun even your waste pail will be as neat, whole- 
 some and well kept as any of your belongings. 
 Every washday all slop pails and barrels should be 
 scrubbed with hot suds and a broom outside and in, 
 scalded and aired, when I think you will not have 
 to shrink from them as disagreeable subjects. Kitchen 
 furnishing shops supply large tight garbage firkins 
 neatly painted with covers, which never need be ob- 
 noxious to sight or smell. A sour waste barrel in a 
 corner always foul with droppings is not to be toler- 
 ated, for it is enough to cause fever in warm weather. 
 You must not consider it beneath you to look after 
 such details of house and yard, to see that everything 
 in sight or out of sight is wholesome, clean and safe 
 as it is possible to be. You have been taught to de- 
 spise the slovenliness which wears a good dress and 
 bright ribbons with unwashed skin and careless 
 underclothing; learn also to despise and dread the 
 housekeeping which is satisfied with pretty parlor 
 and chambers, while the closets are unswept and 
 
A COMFORTABLE KITCHEN. 97 
 
 musty, and the back sheds and cellar full of half- 
 decayed rubbish. Dread it because such neglect 
 causes ill health. Do not rest till your working part 
 of the house is as pleasant as the -well-furnished part. 
 Of all rooms in a house, I delight in a well-kept 
 kitchen, for no other room is so given up to good 
 ■works and consummate cleanliness, so washed and 
 scoured and polished, till it smells of the sanctity of 
 neatness. When the western sun shone broad and 
 merry over the sparkling window, yellow floor and 
 white tables, when a savor of sweet marjoram and 
 lavender from the window-boxes was in the air, and 
 the shining stove with its bright teakettle and sim- 
 mering pans was a shrine of good cheer, I have taken 
 portfolio and books out in my kitchen to the light- 
 stand' and little shaker chair to enjoy the sparkling 
 humor, the warm home radiance, the neatness and 
 seemliness which made the place akin to poetry and 
 clear thoughts. It was not too homely to read Ten- 
 nyson's songs or Blackwood's Magazine in, with the 
 fresh plants in the window, the pears baking to rich 
 syrup in the oven, and the black cat with golden 
 eyes, purring in her satin fur in the best of the sun- 
 
98 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 light. Didn't I learn "Mariana in the Moated Grange" 
 and "Where Claribel low lieth," and Bayard Taylor's 
 Arab songs from the book propped open on the ironing 
 table, catching a stanza between the ruffles of a white 
 skirt or the turn of a sleeve ? Nor was it less tidy of 
 a morning, when one was rushing round to get early 
 breakfast, for sister Maggie knew how to keep order 
 in the stir; the stove was brushed clean, the floor 
 swept, the kettles nice about their jackets, the dishes 
 ranged in order on the table, not dropped out of 
 chaos, and everything was clean in spite of use. It 
 was pleasant baking days, preserving days and Satur- 
 days, nor absolutely tedious washing days, for Mag- 
 gie had the knack of keeping things at their best. As 
 she crossed a disorderly room the chairs went into 
 place, the baskets into their closet, half a dozen 
 unnecessary pots and pans retired to the storeroom, 
 and'ttie contents of sink and tables fell into array, 
 the blind was pulled straight and the rug set smooth. 
 Slack women looked on in admiration and talked of 
 " her gift " for housekeeping, as if every mortal with 
 head and hands could not train them to see at a glance 
 what needs to be done, and to do it as quickly. 
 
VIII.— TO CLEAN AND TO KEEP CLEAN. 
 
 '~r*HE neighbors who remember her, speak of 
 "^ my grandmother as a pattern housekeeper of 
 the old style. With eleven children, a large circle 
 of acquaintances to entertain and a fastidious hus- 
 band, she managed to do and direct everything for 
 house and family in the nicest manner, without los- 
 ing her serenity, or being other than delicately neat 
 in dress. In the Yankee phrase, " dirt wouldn't stick 
 to her." Therefore I have always had great respect 
 for one of her favorite maxims handed down, that 
 " one keep-clean was worth a great many make- 
 cleans." 
 
 »l^^ 'it- 
 Still one must make clean before she cart keep 
 
 clean, and Irish Katy has not left the kitchen in the 
 glorious neatness we were talking about last time. 
 I don't envy you the housecleaning, but if bringing 
 purity, order and safety into the dark corners of the 
 99 
 
loo ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 world is a heavenly mission, yours is one — and where 
 should such purity and safety begin if not in one's 
 own home? You have read of Miss Octavia Hill, 
 the English lady who rented tenement houses in the 
 worst part of London, and had them cleaned, taking 
 part, I believe, in the scrubbing and whitewashing 
 with her own hands, to give the wretched poor a 
 glimpse of that cleanliness which is next to godliness. 
 It was one of the finest missions of the century, and 
 I have thought some homes where education and 
 taste had place, needed a similar visitation. One 
 would think the pictures would leave the walls, the 
 books come down from the shelves, the tidies and 
 knickknacks get up and shake off the dust, in homes 
 kept with the negligent half-order, which is all people 
 seem to attempt now, their time being too much taken 
 up with Kensington work, Tennyson clubs and. 
 "foctels," to see that their houses are pleasantly or 
 wholesomely kept. They let the poisonous dust 
 gather under the beds and in corners, allow contagion 
 to breed in vile, damp places left by slops, and food 
 becomes tainted in their close closets, their very 
 garments gather musty odors while they are taken 
 
TO CLEAN AND TO KEEP CLEAN. 1 01 
 
 up with finer things as they suppose — as if one read 
 poetry with a face unwashed ! There is more sincere 
 refinement in the clean bare floors, spotless pantries 
 and sweet, airy bedrooms of plain homes where 
 pictures and books are luxuries, than in fine houses 
 where everything is attended to save the cardinal 
 virtues of health and neatness. Thorough cleanliness 
 in every room and corner, from doorstep to roof-tree, 
 is what you must exact before you lay pretty car- 
 pets, hang illuminated mottoes, and fill the windows 
 ■with flowers and the shelves with books and china. 
 Nor is this strict neatness going to take up all your 
 time and strength as foolish women try to persuade 
 you. A girl or woman in good health ought to be 
 equal to taking care of a small house or flat in the 
 best manner and have half her time left for study, 
 visits and needlework. Women find housework tire- 
 some and dragging because they never half learn it ; 
 and partly because they make up their minds to hate 
 it as some girls hate the piano. I should think 
 women would hate housekeeping the way some of 
 them do it. Can't you take it up for something bet- 
 ter, a gracious ideal that is to be the reality of your 
 
102 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 artist friends' pictures and your favorite authors' 
 kindliest scenes, where everybody who enters will 
 find himself at his best, under its sunny conditions 
 of comfort? 
 
 The first step toward this is, to make things clean; 
 the next is to learn how to keep them so. 
 
 Katy meant to leave the kitchen neat, for she 
 mopped the floor, blacked the stove, and wiped the 
 windows. Put on your oldest calico (let it be a 
 clean one) and your sweeping-cap, and we will see 
 how much is to be done after her. You don't want 
 to imitate the nonsense of novel heroines, who 
 always appear in the kitchen with white collar and 
 spotless cuffs. A well bred woman never wears any- 
 thing not suited to her work. You may put on your 
 lily-white cu£fs after the cleaning, but a white hand- 
 kerchief round your neck to keep the dust out, and 
 plain sleeves, are the proper dress to-day. Have 
 everything eatable covered closely and put away, 
 tables and sink cleared, plenty of hot water, two 
 pails, an old broom and a clean new one, two scrub- 
 bing brushes, a stumpy whisk broom for cleaning 
 windows, a stout nut picker or sharp skewer of hard 
 
TO CLEAN AND TO KEEP CLEAN. 103 
 
 wood to get the dirt out of cracks, plenty of cloths 
 for wiping glass and paint. Old flannel or merino 
 underwear make soft mop-cloths which wring easily. 
 You must have good tools to work with, and a well 
 set mop and large cloths will do the cleaning in half 
 the time of poor ones. If you haven't old cloths 
 enough, it pays to buy a yard or two of coarse towel- 
 ing for floor cloths, and sixpenny unbleached cotton 
 for wiping paint. For your cleaning outfit you will 
 want : — 
 
 A bath-brick which will cost 5 cents, a peck of 
 clean sand, 10 cents, a cake of mineral soap, 8 cents, 
 a pound of whiting 5, pound of washing soda 5, a can 
 of solid lye or potash, 10, a quart of cheap ammonia, 
 25, mop, 50, broom, 25, two whisks, 10, flannel, 25, 
 2 yards of towelling, 20, 2 yards of cotton, 13 ; in all 
 $4.16, say $s, to allow for difference in prices. You 
 would pay this for the poorest servant one fortnight, 
 or for a charwoman half a day each week in two 
 months, who would not do your work nearly as well, 
 and would waste twice the supplies you will want in 
 the time. I make this little calculation to show that 
 you save enough to allow yourself every needed 
 
104 ANNA MAEIa'S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 help which women are apt to stint themselves. 
 All things ready, sweep the cobwebs down with 
 your clean broom which will not leave a streak along 
 the walls, get up on your step-ladder, and with brush 
 and dust-pan clear the dust from door and window 
 tops, and dust the mouldings with the whisk broom. 
 Brush the walls, and dust the base-boards with the 
 broom, then sweep the floor with light strokes without 
 flourishing to raise a dust, and instead of stabbing at 
 the skirting of the wall, run your broom along it, 
 which will clean all the dust out, a point which makes 
 much of the difference between well-swept rooms and 
 careless ones. Use the whisk in the angles of the 
 floor and mouldings, where the dust and fluff by long 
 lying have felted together, or a sharp skewer or 
 steel pick will perhaps be the only thing to take them 
 out. You will find dust caked in corners, where Katy 
 washed the floor without thorough sweeping or 
 thorough rinsing after. Around the carelessly kept 
 tl^reshold are likely to be collections of this -kind 
 which must be scraped out with an old dull knife, kept 
 for cleaning. Sweep with windows open if the 
 weather will allow, and when through, shake the door 
 
TO CLEAN XND TO KEEP CLEAN. 1 05 
 
 mat, brush out the entry and porch, and go out of 
 doors while the dust settles, to give your lungs fresh 
 air. Sweeping is the best exercise for chest and 
 arms. English ladies of rank wishing fine forms 
 as well as pretty faces have taken to brooms and bed 
 making to develop their arms and shoulders. 
 
 Time yourself to do this sweeping in fifteen min- 
 utes, then sit down for a five minutes' rest. You can 
 train yourself to do all the work of a house without 
 fatigue, by taking short rests at intervals. So take 
 the shaker chair while we talk about dust and what it 
 is made of. 
 
 House dust is minute particles of soil from 
 the streets, brought in by the feet, or sifted through 
 door and window casings, fine ashes from the fire, 
 mixed with minute scales of skin from our bodies, and 
 fluff from clothing and carpets. These particles, 
 nearly invisible themselves, collect in such amount 
 that they soon show in an unswept room, in the locks 
 of lint which gather under tables, along walls, and 
 undisturbed places. This waste goes on day and 
 night, grinding of dust from roads, wear of clothes 
 and carpets, fine dust flying from fires and atoms from 
 
io6 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 human bodies. It irritates the lungs to breathe ; ever 
 so little damp begins a ferment in it, poisoning the 
 air, and the only safe way to dispose of it is to sweep 
 it up and burn it. Don't throw sweepings about the 
 yards or vaults, but burn them instantly, or if that is 
 not convenient, keep them in a barrel to burn the 
 first chance. This grime on the paint left by Katy's 
 careless washing is the sediment of dust in the water 
 and dust settled in the steam of cooking, which if 
 not often aired and washed, leaves the dingy look of 
 frowsy kitchens. 
 
 Begin to wash doors and base-boards, and you will 
 see the annoyance dust harbors. In the mould- 
 ings of doors and windows run the dust-lice, which 
 gnaw books, paint and wood, and are ready to fall 
 into food. Smeary paint invites that ugly moth, which 
 delights in nothing so much as a greasy spot in a 
 warm room, and which will lay its eggs next in the 
 dining-room carpet. In that dusty corner behind the 
 woodbox, a venturous ant has made her nest, and 
 some July morning you will be surprised by her emi- 
 grant family in the store room, especially if spilt sugar 
 and meal are left to tempt them there. Under the 
 
TO CLEAN A.ND TO KEEP CLEAN. 107 
 
 sink, in dampness and grease, water beetles and 
 roaches increase like wliarf rats. All these and more 
 in swarms I have found in the melancholy process of 
 clearing after a kitchen girl who "could not be at 
 the throuble " of keeping things entirely clean. These 
 insects thrive on refuse and they cannot be regarded 
 as safe or agreeable things in a kitchen, running 
 over food and leaving corners offensive with their 
 traces. 
 
 After you have swept and dusted everything by 
 brushing it, begin cleaning. If you have a painted 
 wall to wash, the best and easiest way is to close 
 doors and jyindows, take the cover ofiE a boiler of hot 
 water on the fire, and leave the steam to settle in the 
 room for ten minutes. Steam is penetrating, and it 
 will soften the spots and soil so that nothing will be 
 easier than to wash, rinse and wipe the wall yard by 
 yard. Steaming leaves doors and windows easy to 
 clean, but to have paint look clear and bright, it must 
 be rinsed with clean water, and wiped quickly dry. 
 Don't take a pailful and scrub with it till it thickens 
 with dust, but use a large tin basin, and change the 
 rinsing water as often as it grows cloudy, and as the 
 
108 ANNA MARIA'S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 wiping cloths grow damp, rinse and dry them by the 
 fire or in the sun, while you use fresh ones. If the 
 paint is soiled with finger-marks, rub with mineral 
 soap, remembering it is not the paint you want to get 
 rid of, but the soil. Or, pour two tablespoonfuls of-* 
 ammonia into the basin of warm water and rinse well 
 after it. Old paint, especially old grained paint, is 
 brightened by using a tablespoonful of potash solu- 
 tion in a basin of water, swabbing the woodwork 
 with it swiftly, and rinsing with cold clear water 
 without wiping. Delicate paint is best cleaned with 
 whiting on a moist flannel, wiping with a wet cloth 
 and drying quickly. By using a swab to wet the 
 paint a few minutes before you begin to clean it, 
 scrubbing mouldings with a large brush or the whisk 
 broom, always rubbing with the grain of the work, 
 not across, rinsing without slop and keeping plenty 
 of clean dry cloths to wipe with; you will not find the 
 cleaning very dreadful business. 
 
 The paint done, wash the window frames, taking 
 care to wet them all over to soak the dirt, scrub- 
 bing the top and lower edge with strong suds, scraping 
 with a knife the ancient deposits of grime and flies, 
 
TO CLEAN AND TO KEEP CLEAN. 109 
 
 finishing with a wash of potash water to extract the 
 soil. The soap, sand and potash are for the unpainted 
 part of the sash and casings only, for each will ruin 
 paint. And now comes the trying part of your work, 
 to clear out the corners of each pane of sash, and the 
 grooves of moulding. The steel nut picker comes in 
 play here, followed by the whisk which will wash out 
 comers better than anything else. Scrub round the 
 window lock on the middle sash, clear all the dust 
 from it with the pick, leave no crevice about your 
 window that is not absolutely free from dust and 
 smooth. Very likely a lazy painter has not dusted 
 the corners of the sash perfectly before painting, and 
 they look woolly:, clear it with the pick. If there is 
 paint on the glass, scour it off with mineral soap, or 
 touch it with strong potash water, and then scour. 
 Use no soap to wash glass, but rub greasy spots with 
 whiting or ammonia, then rinse, drain and wipe with 
 dry clean cotton cloths. Keep old pillow cases and 
 skirts for this use, and for dusters. You can afford 
 to take time and pains over such work, for it will 
 never be troublesome again while your housekeeping 
 lasts. 
 
no ANNA MARIAS HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 Now for scouring tables, chairs and shelves, all 
 which in a kitchen should be unpainted, to clean more 
 perfectly. Your tables with white pine top and 
 chestnut frame, the chairs of varnished chestnut, the 
 shelves of clear inch pine, should always after the old 
 English standard of good housewives, be clean enough 
 to show the grain of the wood as when first planed. 
 To keep them so you must scour them after the good 
 old fashion with soap and sand, for there is nothing 
 like sand to clean and smooth the grain of wood. 
 Take out the drawers and wash them, for Katy has 
 left finger-marks inside, and crumbs, till they are not 
 fit to keep clean cloths and utensils in. Now the 
 potash water comes in use. From the can chip out a 
 tablespoonful, dissolve in an iron kettle of boiling 
 water, and you have a willing servant which will do 
 all sorts of hard, disagreeable work for you. It is 
 strong and effective, and you must use it with very 
 great care^ for a drop of this solution will take the 
 color out of your dress, and eat holes in it; will take 
 the paint off wood, remove grease from wood, iron, or 
 stone like magic, kill bad smells, sweeten dark, damp 
 corners, whiten dull floors, remove rust, brighten zinc. 
 
TO CLEAN AND TO KEEP CLEAN. Ill 
 
 in short, I never can keep house without this trusty 
 chemical. Never let your hands touch it, for it will 
 wrinkle and make them sore. Apply it with a swab, 
 and rinse the article on which it is used at once. 
 Keep the kettleful of the solution hot to cleanse cook- 
 ing utensils ; one spoonful of this in a basin of 
 water will be strong enough to wash paint or most 
 woodwork with. Use it to take finger-marks from 
 table-drawers ; scour and rinse them and set to drain 
 in the sun to sweeten, till every trace of damp has 
 disappeared. Turn the table upside down and clean 
 the soil and fly marks there. You will probably find 
 spider-webs and eggs in that coigne of vantage, and 
 a colony of cockroaches, to dislodge which, swab the 
 cracks and joints well with hot strong potash, scrub 
 and rinse, and when dry, apply plenty of kerosene 
 with a feather, saturating all cracks. The smell soon 
 disappears, but no insects will take a fancy to keep 
 house there, again. 
 
 Swab the zinc under the stove with potash to clean 
 it, letting the solution stand a few moments before 
 rinsing off. Next collect all jars, pans and cooking 
 ware for a grand cleaning. They are not smooth to 
 
112 ANNA MARIAS HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 the touch, nor do they smell sweet to the practised 
 senses of the true housekeeper. Washed in grimy dish- 
 water, wiped on doubtful towels, left in an airless 
 cupboard or pantr}', they do not belong to our order 
 of thorough neatness. There is a trace of sweetmeats 
 in the apple-sauce crock, and a pasty rim in the yeast 
 jar, while hot lard has been suffered to soak into a 
 third. The tin pans have black seams from which 
 the grease can be scraped with a pin, the sugar firkins 
 are smeared outside, whatever they may be within, 
 and the starch, sago and other nest-boxes are r)ot 
 nice to handle. Take the jars first : put each in the 
 kettle of potash upside down for five minutes. Take 
 out carefully into a large pan of clean hot soapsuds, 
 wash with a dish mop, scour sticky spots, drain, wipe, 
 and set where the sun will shine full into it out of 
 doors or at an open window. In winter set over the 
 hot stove to air. Not till this course of purifying 
 is gone through after the reign of a careless servant is 
 kitchen ware fit for handling. 
 
 The tins come next for a thorough washing and 
 sunning, to be polished at leisure another day. Then 
 the firkins are emptied, swabbed outside and around 
 
TO CLEAN AND TO KEEP CLEAN. 1 13 
 
 the rim with hot potash, scoured with sand and soap, 
 rinsed and set in the sun. The starch boxes the 
 same. The pantry shelves if unpainted are cleaned 
 with sand, first taking out grease spots with potash. 
 The floor is washed, all spots of dried dough, flour 
 and meal soaked and scraped off with that invaluable 
 old knife. While the pantry dries with door and 
 window wide open to air it, wash the rest of its con- 
 tents, cleaning the flour bin or barrel of spots with a 
 moist cloth and mineral soap without wetting it much 
 and then wipe with a damp cloth. Wash all pegs 
 and nails and hooks in the wall, swabbing them with 
 a basin of hot potash, for they often become so crusted 
 with fly-marks and greasy fingers, that they are not 
 fit to hang clean things on. The flat-irons will be 
 none the worse for a dip in potash to take any grease 
 off, washing and drying them on the stove. Then put 
 the potash in your largest kettle and boil the other 
 kettles, sauce-pans, frying and bakepans in the lye, 
 ten minutes apiece, when you will find all the greasy 
 crust on the outside scrape and scale off, and a little 
 scouring with a brush and sand will leave all your 
 "kitchen battery" smooth, innocent, and safe to touch, 
 
114 ANNA MARIAS HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 as even the menial things should be in your kitchen. 
 The old-fashioned story of the two maiden ladies 
 whose kettles and frying-pans were so clean "you 
 could get up from hemming a cambric handkerchief 
 and rub your fingers on the bottom of each one with- 
 out soiling the work when you came back," was 
 always delightful to me, since I first heard it as a 
 child. And though I never could bring my gridirons 
 and saucepans to the same polish of neatness, still 
 it has been a worthy model to aim after. As old 
 " granther Hale " out in Tioga County used to say, 
 "When I find anything too clean for me in this world, 
 I can't expect to go to a better one." 
 
IX.— IN MY LADY'S CHAMBER. 
 
 'nr^HERE are two things I tell my girls it is impos- 
 -*- sible to be too particular about," said a good 
 housekeeper. "One cannot be too nice about 
 washing dishes or doing chamber work." And this, 
 from one of the most graceful of hostesses used to 
 entertaining the best company of the State — army 
 officers and foreigners of distinction her guests — 
 deserves your consideration. 
 
 " I always know," said another woman of the world, 
 "whether the lady of the house is old-fashioned 
 enough to look after the comfort of her guests herself, 
 by the state of the toilet ware. If that is nice, the 
 mistress has seen to it herself, for that is one thing 
 servants will not do properly, unless her eye is on 
 them." I will go farther, for it seems as if few mis- 
 tresses themselves know how to provide the niceties 
 of the bed-chamber in a house. There will be a set 
 
ii6 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 of inlaid furniture, pillow overlays, ruffled and laced, 
 a pink china toilet set, decorated splasher and mats, 
 in the best bedroom of course, but how is the bed 
 fitted and when was it aired, and is there a covered 
 pitcher and glass' for drinking water, and a soap 
 dish with drainer that won't let your French soap dis- 
 solve in it, and a table you can write on comfortably, 
 or a footstool of any sort, or a dozen other things for 
 comfort. If the spare chamber has these, how is it 
 with the fantily sleeping rooms, and your own bed- 
 room, Anna Maria, if left to a careless servant or 
 inexperienced girl. 
 
 Let me advise you to read Florence Nightingale's 
 Notes on Nursing at once, in the beginning of your 
 housekeeping, to learn the reason for the strict care 
 of bedrooms for sick or well. The human body throws 
 off by insensible perspiration, and by the breath, 
 every night several ounces of waste animal matter, 
 that has served its purpose, and which the system is 
 in haste to get rid of. This waste is thrown off in a 
 diffused form and is hardly noticed in a single night, 
 being mostly absorbed by the night clothes and bed- 
 ding. If these are hung in a draft of air, much of it 
 
IN MY lady's chamber. II7 
 
 passes off, and if the sun shines on them out of doors, 
 that has still more effect in changing the waste to a 
 harmless form, which we mean by saying the sun 
 " sweetens " things. But if the day clothing is left in 
 a heap, the bed just as you get out of it, and the night- 
 gown rolled up or hung in a close closet so that little 
 air reaches them, the waste decomposes, and gives 
 the unpleasant beddy odor complained of in sleeping 
 rooms. Well may they have a disagreeable smell, 
 for day by day a substance has been allowed to 
 gather in the room, and penetrate everything there 
 which if collected in mass, so as to be seen and 
 recognized would be shocking and offensive to the 
 last degree. 
 
 This waste which saturates clothes and bedding is 
 absorbed again into your body which is more sensitive 
 to such influences when asleep than awake. You 
 breathe it, your skin absorbs it by those myriad, mys- 
 terious vessels of which it is full as a sponge, and the 
 blood receives this waste again, to the injury of your 
 health and complexion. You must make a habit to 
 get rid of this, taking off all the clothing at night, 
 especially that worn next the skin, and hanging each 
 
ii8 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 piece separately where the air can reach it, and by 
 airing the bed and bedclothes every day, giving them 
 frequent days in the sunshine out of doors. The 
 Southern method is a good one as told me by an old 
 Louisiana housekeeper, who said that once a week, 
 on Saturday, all the mattresses and bedclothes were 
 put out in the sun, on frames for the purpose, and 
 left all day, to be made up wholesome and sweet with 
 the weeklyfresh linen at night. This is a nice practice 
 which all ought to adopt some sunny day each week. 
 When you get up in the morning, take off the 
 blankets and spread them on chairs where the sun 
 will fall on them if possible, throw both sheets off to 
 leave the mattress to air, open the windows wide, and 
 put the pillows in them to sun. Hang your night- 
 dress where the air will blow through it. If you must 
 wear an undervest all the time, have a change for 
 night, and let me tell you, this little habit of changing 
 the clothing next the skin frequently, has "more to do 
 with the complexion than you are aware. A girl who 
 has an irritable skin will find a great difference in 
 the clearness of her face if she puts on a freshly aired 
 suit of merino every night and morning. By using 
 
IN MY lady's chamber. 
 
 119 
 
 the skin to these changes and to bear the air a few 
 minutes daily, you lessen the risk of taking colds and 
 neuralgias, all your life. 
 
 As long as you have your mattress ofiE, we may as 
 well examine the bedstead a little. How often do 
 you thoroughly dust it, springs, slats, corners, and 
 mouldings, side rail and head-board, as well as the 
 rest ? Lay newspapers on the floor to catch the dust, 
 and go over the bedstead, getting the last grain of 
 dust out of every crevice, using pick and whisk broom 
 or long bristle brush for the purpose, then if it has 
 not been very carefully kept, touch the sockets for 
 the slats with a swab wet in hot strong lye, setting a 
 basin underneath that none may drip on the floor. 
 Wash the ends of the slats with a scrubbing brush in 
 strong suds, and then dip them in hot lye, and stand 
 the boards in the sun to dry; swab every crack or 
 rough knot in the slats and inner work of the bed- 
 stead with the lye, and when dry, saturate them with 
 kerosene, putting it on with a feather, and apply it to 
 every crevice of the mouldings and carvings. Polished 
 wood always looks better for an application of kero- 
 sene, but this is for another purpose, to prevent any 
 
120 ANNA MARIA'S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 possibility of future annoyance, for take one thing to 
 heart about your beds and bedrooms, that where dust 
 lies there will be insects. Dust the bedstead 
 thoroughly at least twice a week if not every day, 
 brush the slats and under parts at the weekly sweep- 
 ing, and go over them with kerosene twice a year at 
 house-cleaning times. Prevention is better than cure, 
 and with this care you may insure yourself against a 
 housekeeper's worst annoyances. 
 
 Why do we use the lye and kerosene both on the 
 slats and rough places? Because insects select 
 cracks and roughnesses of wood to lay their eggs, 
 and harbor there, and the potash cleanses and removes 
 all traces of them, while the kerosene soaks into the 
 wood and keeps them away in future. 
 
 Now are the baseboards and corners of the room 
 free from dust ? I suppose of course the mantel and 
 bureau are tidy, but how is it behind the glass, and 
 on the wash-stand shelves, and in the corners of your 
 closets ? How do the bureau drawers look inside ? 
 It is rather dreadful to open bureaus after some 
 young people have used tliem; for the lining shows 
 ornamental touches in the shape of dark finger 
 
IN MY LADYS CHAMBER, 121 
 
 marks, smears of hair oil and cold cream, dust of 
 powder where one upsets the powder-box, fluffs 
 from hair brushes and stray combings, old soiled rib- 
 bons, notes, rusty hair pins, under the paper lining 
 on which their white neckties and fichus were laid. 
 Charming isn't it and traces by which a lady would 
 wish to be known. Remove the contents, take out 
 the bureau drawers, and turn them upside down on a 
 large newspaper or sheet on the floor to catch the dust, 
 then brush the corners out with a whisk and wipe 
 with a damp cloth. If soiled with grease or finger 
 marks, remove these with mineral soap, or soda 
 water, made by dissolving a bit of washing soda the 
 size of a walnut in a gallon of boiling water. Rinse 
 this off with a wet cloth, and sun the drawers an hour 
 or two to make them wholesome, delicate, and pure 
 as the nest of a girl's ribbons and laces ought 
 to be. 
 
 When dry, line each drawer, large and small, even 
 the comb cases, with clean manilla paper, fitting it 
 nicely in the corners. You can afford to buy a quire 
 of strong nice paper for this use, as one lining ought 
 to last a year or two. White paper takes the color 
 
122 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 out of silk things by the trace of lime left in bleach- 
 ing it. 
 
 Now you can put your scent satchets and muslin 
 bags of rose leaves and sweet clover among the 
 handkerchiefs and fresh clothes, with a happy feeling 
 that they are in keeping. 
 
 Keep comb and brush in a separate box or case, 
 fitted with paper lining which must be often 
 changed. 
 
 I will suggest that a hair brush which is washed 
 once a week, as all brushes should be, first with 
 ammonia and then rinsed with alum water and dried, 
 is a more becoming neighbor to a young lady's toilet, 
 among her bows and laces, than the specimen too 
 often found. 
 
 Keep the toilet bottles wiped, the pincushion 
 dusted, and the toilet mats beaten and aired, though 
 nothing which will not wash really has any place 
 there. 
 
 The washbasin, and all the ware about the wash- 
 stand, needs washing or careful wiping every morn- 
 ing, but Katy's method of doing chamber work, or 
 rather of not doing it, calls for immediate use of soap 
 
IN MY LADYS CHAMBER. 123 
 
 and soda water. A clean light pail with plenty of 
 hot suds for washing the toilet ware and clean dry 
 cloths for wiping should go round with the slop pail 
 every day. Bring the chamber pail now with hot 
 water and a pitcherf ul of the strong hot soda water I told 
 you of, and wash and scald every article, for you will 
 find they need it. Often the sediment on pitchers 
 and bowls will need sapolio to remove it, for it 
 almost becomes part of the glaze in time. That 
 neglected slop jar you will take out, and scrub with a 
 broom and suds, not touching it with your hands; 
 then let it stand with scalding soda water in it an 
 hour or two, rinse, drain, and leave it all day in full 
 sunshine. 
 
 Katy thought it enough to rinse it daily, or wipe it 
 with a half-wet cloth. But you must know that dirty 
 water leaves a slimy coating on whatever it stands in, 
 wood, china, or tin, which is not rinsed off, and if 
 left in this careless way, your slop jar takes a lining 
 of putrid matter which gives the bad odor to ill-kept 
 chamber ware. 
 
 Just fix it in your mind that a bad smell is 
 Nature's warning of something evil and danger- 
 
124 ANNA MARIAS HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 ous to be removed, and of all things dangerous about 
 a house, neglected slops are to be dreaded. They 
 contain fever germs, and are certain sooner or later to 
 cause disease. Especially, if any epidemic is about, 
 measles, scarlet fever, typhoid, dysentery or diph- 
 theria, the floating invisible seeds of such sickness 
 finds in the foul lining of waste pipes or slop jars and 
 pails the very soil where it starts and spreads. The 
 wisest doctors and scientific men are earnest in beg- 
 ging people to be more careful in these things about 
 their houses, as the most terrible scourges are 
 traced back to such beginnings as a sour sink, a 
 neglected garbage barrel or ill-smelling slop pail. 
 Above ail things never allow slops to stand in bed- 
 rooms longer than can be helped. Run up the first 
 thing after breakfast and empty them, leaving the 
 beds till later if necessary, . and at night, again 
 empty what collects during the day, that it may not 
 taint the air they breathe when asleep. This is the 
 rule of the best English housekeeping, and in this 
 country, and you must not think it too much trouble, 
 for nothing is more necessary to health than such 
 care, especially in warm weather. 
 
IN MY LADYS CHAMBER. 125 
 
 Everything which holds water or slops in a bed- 
 room should have a cover to keep the dust and bad 
 air out of the water, and to keep the gases from the 
 slops from spreading in the room. Miss Nightingale 
 will tell you more about this matter. 
 
 I should not dwell on this if the care of bedrooms 
 was not so shockingly misunderstood. Not one 
 private house out of ten is well kept in this respect, 
 and in boarding schools, etc., is shamefully neglected. 
 I know of places where excellent French and music 
 are taught with beautiful manners, where girls sleep 
 in close rooms where the smell from neglected slops 
 and wet carpets never dry about the washstands, is 
 not to be described. Of course headaches, dull 
 chills and nervousness are common, and I have 
 heard of malignant fevers in schools and boarding- 
 houses caused by the same neglect. 
 
 Every day you should wash the slop jars and pails 
 
 with clean suds, and a whisk or swab kept for such 
 
 things, then wipe, or set them to drain in sun and 
 
 air. There is nothing like sunshine to search and 
 
 1 
 cleanse away the last trace of ill things, for the rays 
 
 of the sun have the chemical power to destroy the 
 
126 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 germs of decay and disease in everything submitted 
 to them. Sun your rooms, sun your clothes, your 
 furniture and all utensils, to be sure that the inward 
 refinement and purity we all strive for, I hope, extends 
 to the sanctity of cleanliness and health of even 
 the meanest article in your house. If the highest 
 motives have weight with you, remember that as 
 mistress or housekeeper, you are bound before God 
 to watch over every point that can affect the health 
 of those under your roof in food, comfort and cleanli- 
 ness, most of all because more depends on them 
 than any other of the conditions of life. Let no one 
 with pettier views persuade you either that such care 
 is beneath you as a lady, or is needless labor; Ij, is 
 the fashion to ridicule careful women who are anxious 
 for the old brightness and strictness of housekeep- 
 ing, but the worst old shrew who ever scrubbed and 
 scolded deserves satire less than the women who 
 neglect and slur over things of such vital importance 
 as strict neatness and healthiness for " higher things," 
 " claims of society," and the artistic cant of the day. 
 If you think this talk is too serious for the subject, 
 remember that we elders see the end of many things 
 
IN MY LADYS CHAMBER. 1 27 
 
 which for you are at their beginning. Even if you 
 are careless about these things to a degree, typhoid 
 fever may not visit your house this year or the next, 
 and nothing worse than chronic catarrh, headaches, 
 or neuralgia, may ever come of it. But you can 
 count on some reward for negligence, for nature' 
 always repays slights. 
 
 When you make beds in the morning, let it be with 
 clean apron and freshly washed hands. You will not 
 want to leave the dinginess from possible rubs against 
 sink or stove on white counterpanes, or to sully white 
 pillows with careless handling. A separate apron for 
 making beds should be kept for such work alone. 
 Turn the mattress over, end for end, and fold the 
 sheet smoothly under the four sides of the bed, so 
 that tossing at night will not pull it out of place. The 
 old-fashioned sheets, two and a half yards long, won't 
 do this, but a sheet six quarters wide and three yards 
 long is a good size to turn under and keep in place. 
 
 By the way, it is nice to have a case of stout sheet- 
 ing made to slip over the mattress and tie, to keep it 
 clean under the sheet. This cover can be washed, 
 and in moving or handling beds saves wear and soil 
 
128 ANNA MARIA'S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 enough to make it great economy to use one. The 
 bolster needs a close case for, probably, the sheet 
 will slip off and leave the ticking to be soiled by 
 
 sleepers' heads. 
 
 The upper sheet is to be brought well down and 
 turned under the foot, blankets laid the same way, 
 the end of one coming a foot farther than the other at 
 the head, not to lie heavy on the shoulders at night. 
 A narrow blanket crossway at the foot of the bed is 
 comfortable for cold feet. The coverlid should reach 
 quite to the bolster, but not turn over at the top, be 
 laid square and true, turned under the foot, and then 
 with the rest of the clothes be tucked lightly inside 
 the rails of the bedstead, not folded under the si^es 
 of the mattress, but left for the air to reach. The 
 white coverlid should be large enough to come well 
 down, and look as if the bed were a huge square iced 
 cake, without a wrinkle anywhere, at corners or foot. 
 The sheet is turned over the clothes a quarter of a 
 yard at the top. You don't need telling that the 
 same end of the sheet goes to the head of the bed 
 each time, or that the same side should be next the 
 bed and blankets always. There is something not 
 
IN MY LADYS CHAMBER. 129 
 
 pleasant in having the end that was over your feet 
 one night next your face the next, or the side you 
 slept on two or three times turned next the clean 
 blankets, to soil their fairness. In winter, have the 
 footcovers or duvets as the French call them, comfort- 
 ables of eider or goose down, a yard deep to lay 
 across the lower end of the bed. These are very 
 prettily made, because they are for the outside of the 
 bed, and one side is crimson and another blue, or one 
 is pearl gray with the other coral pink, or the top is 
 pink brocaded with roses, and the under side rose red 
 shading richly with it. It is well to have pretty things 
 for your beds if you can afford them, because they 
 make rooms attractive, and one tries to keep them in 
 nice order, more than common ones. The boys' beds 
 can be furnished with blood red or deep blue blankets, 
 turkey red comfortables, and gay colored spreads, 
 while the best room has all the glory of downy white 
 blankets embroidered at the ends, the upper pair in 
 pale blue or pink lamb's wool, fine as plush, the red 
 and amber or rose color and pearl eider puffs and the 
 marseilles quilt, or the guipure lace over velvet or 
 garnet silk — just as you happen to afford it. 
 
X. — SUMMER COMFORT. 
 
 "X/OTJ dread summer ? Most housekeepers do, I 
 -■■ believe ; summer with its roses and dust, its 
 sunshine and flies, its fresh fruits and hot cooking, its 
 garden parties and the burden of entertaining com- 
 pany. Yet we were made to live through summer, 
 and there must be some way in which it can be made 
 endurable and welcome, even to a girl or woman who 
 has the work and the cooking to do. 
 
 The house is clean by the first of May, let us say, 
 at farthest, and the summer struggle is to keep it so 
 through the season. »■ 
 
 One of the weak-minded women was lamenting 
 what hard work it was to keep entries and sitting-room 
 carpets from being tracked over with spring mud, and 
 how the dust would blow in from the street, and cover 
 everything so she might go round with a duster in 
 her hand all day and it wouldn't do a bit of good; 
 130 
 
SUMMER COMFORT. 131 
 
 and then the flies seemed as if they would eat her 
 up. The reason for her discomfort was not far to 
 seek. 
 
 Outside her house was an untidy broken clay path, 
 the grass worn away, leaving bare patches which 
 would furnish mud and dust for the year round. The 
 scraper was rickety, the mat clogged with last week's 
 mud, the door-handles in the sitting-room were sticky 
 from the children's fingers, and the breakfast-table 
 stood, uncleared, inviting flies, with sugar bowl 
 open, cakes and syrup left in the plates, and the 
 crumbs unbrushed from the cloth, although Mary was 
 washing the dishes in the kitchen, for we could hear 
 her. If the woman had set out to have flies and all 
 sorts of summer plagues she couldn't have made bet- 
 ter arrangements. Now it is hard to banish dust and 
 flies, but it is possible to prevent them entirely. 
 See that the turf around the house is sodded and quite 
 up to the borders, and that the walks are well graveled 
 or cemented. Don't make the wretched mistake of 
 using coal cinders and ashes for walks, for they ruin 
 shoes and dresses, track badly when wet, and look 
 dingy and mean anyhow. Cinders can be used for a 
 
132 ANNA MARIA'S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 layer under gravel or sand, but should never come in 
 sight. 
 
 Have a large mat outside the front door, no matter 
 whether of coir, husks, or braided rags, but keep it 
 clean by turning it over and beating with the broom 
 when dry. A wide low scraper so placed that it is 
 easy to use, and a second mat inside the entry door 
 in bad weather, will lead people to make their shoes 
 neat on entering the house. In summer sprinkle the 
 walks and the grass plot to keep the dust down, and 
 you will not be troubled with much in the house. 
 
 Before hot weather begins remove all woollen cur- 
 tains, furniture and carpets that will hold dust. 
 Mattings or a dark painted floor with rugs made from 
 bits of carpet are nicer in summer than the most 
 expensive carpets. A pretty cottage I once saw was 
 laid with white matting at twelve cents a yard, with 
 half-yard border of plain dark-red Venetian carpet 
 which cost fifty cents a yard. Any dark old carpet 
 will answer as border, or you can get pretty ingrain 
 borders from seven to twelve inches or half a yard 
 wide at twenty-five to fifty cents a yard. All fashion- 
 able summer houses have bare floors of inlaid wood, or 
 
SUMMER COMFORT. 133 
 
 plain oak, maple or chestnut, or stained and polished. 
 A nice new pine floor stained red like cedar and var- 
 nished with shellac, is pretty, and any old floor, 
 stained with burnt umber to a walnut color and fin- 
 ished in shellac is handsome enough to go with any 
 furnishings. You can stain and polish a floor seven- 
 teen feet square in this way for one dollar and a half, 
 doing the work yourself, which any girl in her teens 
 is equal to. Instead of Japan varnish, always use 
 shellac on floors, for it wears better and never dries 
 sticky. Take a hair brush instead of a broom to 
 sweep such polished floors, or you can wipe them 
 every morning with a damp mop as easily as they can 
 be swept. 
 
 If you want a cool house in the torrid days, look 
 to its ventilation. It passes understanding how 
 people can keep their rooms shut up as they do in 
 summer. I dread to go into some houses in the vil- 
 lage, for they are certain to have the rooms closed to 
 keep out the flies, with perhaps a two-inch crack of 
 a window left open, and the room smells like the 
 interior of a pyramid with its stale air. To be cool 
 or healthy, the house should have a draft through its 
 
134 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 entries from ground to garret; not a gale of wind 
 blowing the curtains about, enough to set everybody 
 sneezing, but a gentle steady change of air. If there 
 isn't a transom to open over the street door, there 
 ought to be, and it should stand open, together with 
 a window or trapdoor at the top of the house, night 
 and day except in storms. Air ascends naturally; 
 give it an opening on the lower floor to come in and one 
 up-stairs to go out, and it will rise, carrj'ing all heat 
 and smells and much dust with it out of the house. 
 Flies will not live in a draft : they are delicate crea- 
 tures and a strong air offends them. You never see 
 houses like Judge Parsons, with wide windows and 
 folding doars that stand open all season, troubled 
 with flies. 
 
 If there is no transom in the outer door, the upper 
 cross panel might be cut out and an openwork piece 
 closing with a slide inserted to give air. Or the 
 shutter door that can be locked and barred at night, 
 leaving the real door wide with the garret window oi 
 one in the upper hall open will give a cool current 
 through the halls. If all the inside doors have tran- 
 soms or openwork ventilators opening into the entry 
 
SUMMER COMFORT. I35 
 
 and their windows down at the top and properly 
 shaded, you will have a cool house the hottest day of 
 August. And such contrivance will give the family 
 refreshing sleep on sultry nights, and the usual 
 scenery be omitted of uneasy ghosts in white drapery 
 wandering to and fro with palm leaf fans in their 
 hands, exchanging laments and trying for a cooler 
 place till daybreak. 
 
 You think about having door and window screens 
 of course. The best writers on ventilation do not 
 approve their use whether of wire or mosquito netting, 
 because they do not allow air enough to pass through 
 their meshes to properly supply the rooms. You 
 know how close and warm a room with these screens 
 always appears on coming from the outer air. With 
 the upper window open and a strong current forcing 
 its way through them, wire screens are not ojec- 
 tionable, but if you have a nice green yard between 
 the house and the street, and no mosquitoes to dread, 
 I shouldn't put screening between me and the fresh 
 air merely to keep out flies, for flies can be kept out 
 better in another way. It is much more desirable to 
 have awnings for all the windows on the sunny side 
 
136 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 of the house. People imagine these are expensive 
 for general use, and so they are if you employ an 
 awning maker to put them up complete. But when 
 the striped awning stuff is seventeen cents a yard, 
 and any woman with a sewing machine can make it up, 
 and any carpenter can rig frames for them for twenty- 
 five cents a window, no good house can afford to be 
 without them. Awning or no awning, you must keep 
 the sun off the glass if you want a cool house. Let 
 the sunlight into rooms for an hour as early or late 
 as possible, for they need it winter and summer to 
 keep them pure ; but shut the blinds before the day 
 grows hot. If there are no blinds, have cotton 
 shades for the outside of the window, or as some 
 housekeepers advise, lower the top sash and draw the 
 roller blind outside to hang over the glass, for it con- 
 denses the rays as they pass through, making the 
 room doubly hotter. Even on a winter day, if you sit 
 in the sunshine which falls through a window, the 
 heat soon becomes unbearable, because the glass 
 increases its power. So on warm July days you want 
 the rooms swept and in order and the blinds closed 
 before nine o'clock in the morning. A very comfort- 
 
SUMMER COMFORT. I37 
 
 able fashion I saw in a seaside hotel was to hang cur- 
 tains of common chintz or shirting at chamber doors 
 so that they might stand wide open and airy, with 
 sufficient privacy most of the time. 
 
 Now about flies. I can tell you from experience 
 that it is perfectly unnecessary to have even a dozen 
 flies all summer. The neighbors darken their houses 
 and shut themselves up and half suffocate behind 
 screens for fear of these plagues, but I never do 
 either, and rarely see a fly. They don't like to come 
 and see me, for they never get anything to eat. One 
 law in this household is executed with the fidelity of 
 a dragon, if dragons are faithful as supposed — and 
 that is, to allow no crumbs or smears, and no trace of 
 eatables about the place, outside of the proper rooms 
 and proper hours. Where there is no food there are 
 no flies. You have got to choose between taking 
 strict care to starve them out, or have twice as much 
 trouble with their presence. Yes, I've lived through 
 the usual worry of babies with sticky fingers and 
 children who wanted something to eat between meals, 
 and know what it all means. I don't remember 
 whether I kept a wet sponge to wipe fingers and 
 
138 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 doorknobs tied to my apron strings or not, but it was 
 something like it. In the first place there is no need 
 of children running about with smeary fingers, and 
 slices of bread and butter, for they can learn before 
 they speak to eat in proper places, and to have hands 
 washed as soon as they are through. I have seen a 
 baby worry as much because his hands were not 
 washed as his nurse could to see him so. Then 
 sticky doorknobs and shelves must be washed any- 
 how, and it is just as easy to do it first as last, after 
 they have drawn a feast of flies. A smear of sweets 
 on a doorknob, a fragment trodden into a carpet, a 
 dust of sugar or drop of sauce on a pantry shelf is 
 enough to feed a dozen flies and they are alert to 
 take advantage of it. No food is to be eaten or kept 
 in the china closet, which is the place for dishes and 
 table ware only : all eatables in the pantries are to be 
 kept closely covered in clean plates or jars, all crumbs 
 wiped or swept up as soon as made, and no food or 
 scraps are to stand in the kitchen uncovered when 
 not actually in use. Is it necessary to leave cups of 
 sugar about with flies taking toll, or gravy with two 
 or three swimming in it, or the freshly baked cake 
 
SUMMER COMFORT. 139 
 
 for the whole swarm to parade over, when it is so easy 
 to cover things with saucer or cloth ? In the dining- 
 room, as soon as the table is set, it should be covered 
 with the fresh white netting kept for the purpose, and 
 the moment the family rise, let it be replaced.till you 
 are ready to clear things away. All food should be 
 set away in icebox or pantry under cover, tablecloth 
 shaken and the crumbs brushed up before the dishes 
 are washed, which should be soaking all the time. 
 Then air the dining-room thoroughly, so that the odor 
 of food may leave it, and let the windows stand open 
 between meals. 
 
 Half the heat and worry of cooking and kitchen 
 work may as well be saved as not, even in summer. 
 I used to work very comfortably in our country 
 kitchen, by taking the old-fashioned windows out 
 bodily, leaving the wind to draw through freely and 
 temper the heat of the large stove. The model 
 kitchen will have swing windows, to let all the air in 
 possible, but till people have sense enough to build 
 them, we must manage cooking with as little heat as 
 we can. Plenty of families light the range but twice 
 a week all summer, on washing and ironing days 
 
140 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 doing the baking and roasting for the week. The 
 small kerosene stoves with ovens will do all the cook- 
 ing and ironing, with little heat and expense. And 
 I advise you to set one of these down as an indis- 
 pensable help. A double stove with three cooking 
 places costs twelve dollars, and will rob summer 
 cooking of its terrors. Three gallons of kerosene at 
 fifteen cents each, will do all the cooking and ironing 
 of a family for a week, and many women use but half 
 as much. There is the comfort of abolishing all 
 dust and trouble of making fires, or waiting for the 
 stove to heat, and the moment the last dish is lifted 
 from the stove, the fire is out and all is cool in five 
 minutes. As for washing, that can be done in sum- 
 mer without any fire at all. New soaps are made 
 which cleanse clothes and whiten them thoroughly 
 without the aid of hot water. I have used them for 
 over ten years, and have whiter, sweeter clothes than 
 the washerwomen with all their scalding and perspir- 
 ing. Any good chemical washing soap will cleanse 
 things beautifully without hot water, if they are soaked 
 in sunwarmed suds, and bleached for an hour in the 
 hot sun before rinsing. Leave the water in tubs to 
 
SUMMER COMFORT. I4I 
 
 warm in the sun, the day before, and put the clothes 
 to soak at night with plenty of soap, using both more 
 soap and more water than is usual. Wring them out 
 of this and put them through the machine in tepid 
 water, rubbing all soiled places lightly with soap, 
 and laying them wet on the grass in the sun. As 
 soon as dry, have them rinsed and hung out. No 
 matter if they are a little yellowish, the sun will 
 whiten them for you. This mode is practised in 
 England among the cottagers, some of whom are the 
 neatest women in the world. And Southern house- 
 keepers tell me it is the way washing is done in the 
 Gulf States. When you have the strong sun to do 
 the work, with chemistry stronger than any soda or 
 bleaching powders in the world, what is the use of 
 heating the house and making it horrible every Mon- 
 day with slops and steams and smells unmentionable? 
 You will find no stains or grime able to resist sun- 
 shine. If they do not disappear at first drying, dip 
 them into clean weak suds or even clear water, and 
 bleach again, wetting them several times as they dry. 
 On a rainy Monday, which set half the housekeepers 
 in town fretting, I have seen people take the clothes 
 
142 ANNA MAEIA'S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 from the soaking tub and lay them on the grass for 
 the rain to wash, and when it was over rinse and 
 hang them up, clean and dazzling white as no laun- 
 dry could make them. It was using sense and infor- 
 mation together. If you can have sun and rain do 
 your work for you, why waste your own strength and 
 time over it ? 
 
 If the ice gives out and you want to cool butter, 
 wrap the roll in linen in a clean unglazed earthen 
 flowerpot, and tie the whole in thicknesses of old 
 flannel or blankets, wet them thoroughly, and set in 
 the shade, in the wind, in a shallow pan of water.- 
 The evaporation from the wet flannel and porous 
 clay will cool the contents remarkably. All water 
 for drinking or cooking should be filtered, for pure 
 water is growing rarer and rarer with the wasting of 
 the brooks, and bad drainage of streams and wells. 
 Filtered water in large jars of stone ware kept wet in 
 an airy place will be refreshingly cool without ice. 
 The Mexicans and Spanish settlers in the Southwest, 
 cool their drinking water in such jars as their fathers 
 on the Continent did before them, and our people in 
 New Mexico and Arizona are learning to prize the 
 
SUMMER COMFORT. 1 43 
 
 great vases and ollas as much as Yankee bean pots. 
 Flowers and boughs assist in keeping the house com- 
 fortable as well as delightful, for the flowers drive 
 flies away by their perfumes, and large jars of green 
 fern, alder, branches of willow or any thick-leaved 
 tree kept in water will cool a room by the moisture 
 they give out. The English peasantry know this, 
 though they cannot tell the philosophy of it, and in 
 old times the custom was to set tubs and pails of 
 water full of green boughs about the stone floored 
 cottages for coolness. The water should be changed 
 every day, and have a little borax or charcoal to keep 
 it sweet. I think you will like this excuse for keep- 
 ing your rooms full of fresh green things and fra- 
 grant flowers, the only things of which we cannot 
 have too much. The less furniture in summer rooms 
 the better, as leaving them more spacious and airy. 
 With a trim house which every sweet air can wander 
 through at will, its leisurely spaces, its freshness of 
 sprinkled leaves and flowers, its softly lowered lights 
 making rooms and chambers pleasant, kitchen trou- 
 bles reduced to their least heat and effort, with light 
 nourishing food of soups and stews, vegetables 
 
144 ANNA MARIAS HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 cooked with gravies, giving us the essence of meats 
 without bulk, fruits, berry-cakes, puddings and deep 
 plain pies, salads and velvet creams, we find that 
 great heats can be borne tranquilly without loss of 
 comfort or strength. 
 
XI. — BLUE MONDAYS. 
 
 A POOR housekeeper always dreads Monday," a 
 ^ wise woman once said in my young ears when 
 I thought Mrs. Barbauld might as well have written 
 Never yet did housewife 
 Greet with a smile the weekly washing day. 
 
 Sunday evening would close serene and full of lovely 
 thoughts, while Monday opened on scenes of slop 
 and steam, soiled clothes strewn over the floor, a 
 sink full of unwashed dishes, an unkempt house, and 
 a mistress with hair and temper awry. This is the 
 kind of penance some women go through every 
 week of their lives, and never improve in fifty years' 
 experience. 
 
 Not every woman needs to do her own washing, 
 
 even in plain families, but every one should know 
 
 how to order things that washing days will not make 
 
 the whole house uncomfortable, and be a martyrdom 
 
 »4S 
 
146 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 to the worker. It is best to know how to take a 
 hand at the washing yourself, for laundresses are not 
 found in every part of the country, and many an army 
 officer's wife, many a home missionary's wife, and the 
 daughters of well-to-do families in country towns, find 
 themselves obliged either to wash their own clothes 
 or go without clean ones. Lady Hester Stanhope 
 when a girl in the proudest family in England, used to 
 remember her aunt, the Countess Dowager, going 
 about the wash-rooms and bleaching grounds, peer- 
 ing into tubs and "coppers,"^ as the English call 
 boilers — berating the maids and occasionally plying 
 her rattan across their shoulders if the linen was 
 not white enough to suit her ladyship's ideas. Miss 
 Martineau and Mrs. Somerville used not only to 
 wash linen and laces, but to dye and " do over " 
 gowns and pelerines in right notable fashion, and 
 George Sand who was a woman of much force of 
 character as well as genius, often recalled how in the 
 days when she was making her literary reputation in 
 Paris she did her own washing — and did it beautifully 
 too. I never knew a woman of really fine spirit and 
 breeding who could not without hesitation accept 
 
BLUE MONDAYS. 147 
 
 whatever duty was needful, whether tending a sick 
 person, doing field or housework, or looking into 
 details of business. 
 
 The loveliest, most refined women have always 
 in reserve a fibre of steel to meet the inevitable 
 without affectation or complaint. I've seen a high- 
 bred Englishwoman with accomplishments at her 
 fingers' ends, work at the wash tub as composedly 
 and gleefully as if born a laundry-maid, while the 
 young women of no particular family or bringing up are 
 the ones who cannot go to market without a maid to 
 carry the basket, cannot carry a parcel and always 
 speak of washing and " domestic duties " as things 
 of a lower order, quite out of their comprehension. 
 I do not mean that one is to do rough work unneces- 
 sarily, but that you should learn a spirit which asks 
 only, " Is this necessary, is it best ? " and thereupon 
 make duty acceptable and becoming. Half the 
 rough work in the world — I will "speak the truth and 
 say most of the work in it, is rough only in the 
 manner of doing it. Not to be in heroics over 
 common indispensable work, which belongs to our 
 cheeriness and comfort, along with white curtains 
 
148 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 and ruffled skirts, snowy kerchiefs and collars, and 
 soft white body linen, I would have you feel your- 
 self so much of a lady, so thoroughly in love with 
 what is fine and becoming, that you are safe in doing 
 whatever is convenient for you, whether it is digging 
 the borders and filling flower-pots, or putting the 
 week's washing through the alchemy of white foam, 
 to come out snowy and odorous of freshness. 
 
 The beginning of washing as it should be, is taking 
 care of the soiled clothes through the week. They 
 must not be tossed in all sorts of corners to gather 
 more soil to vex the washerwoman and wear them 
 out, neither must the clothing full of perspiration 
 from the body, be packed in a bag or basket to satu- 
 rate the heap with smells. You know that clothing 
 absorbs the secretions from the body, and if at all 
 warm and damp, these change into unwholesome 
 poisonous matters. Ill-smelling clothes are not good 
 for one to work over, or breathe steam from the suds 
 in washing them. When you change clothes, put the 
 soiled ones in the sun to air thoroughly an hour 
 before putting away. You may have a clothes 
 bag of gay calico lined and bound with red alpaca 
 
BLUE MONDAYS. I49* 
 
 braid, a double bag with stout partition in the middle 
 and a large opening each side, for you want to keep 
 fine things slightly soiled apart from those that see 
 hard usage. Such a bag should hang in the up-stairs 
 entry to receive soiled things from the bed-rooms, 
 and be emptied daily into the big basket in the 
 airy back-kitchen, shed or porch, never anywhere in a 
 close closet or cellar-way to taint the air around. Have 
 a separate bag for tablecloths and napkins. Dish- 
 towels and cloths are to be washed and rinsed daily, 
 dried and kept separately from everything else. 
 
 Be good to yourself by making and keeping one 
 hard and fast rule : always to do the washing Mon- 
 days. There is reason for this; because you never 
 will feel so strong and fresh for the hardest work 
 of the week as after Sunday's rest. Remember rules 
 are favors for the makers and rods for the breakers, 
 when you grumble at having to do things when 
 you don't feel like them. The penalty usually is 
 having them to do when you feel still less inclined 
 and less able, in a vexatious hurry. 
 
 No matter if the girls are going in town shopping 
 by the Monday train and want you to join them, or if 
 
'150 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 the committee of the Bluebell Coterie want you to go 
 around to solicit subscriptions for the momentous 
 matter of their society badges, or if you feel just 
 like reading the new poems all the forenoon and 
 writing letters in the afternoon — to tell what you 
 think about them. Let these weighty interests 
 go by — for Tuesday morning you will feel just as 
 strongly inclined to go after flowers with the May 
 party, or to work at your sofa cushion, or to call on 
 the neighbor who was hurt last week, and by Friday, 
 the housework will roll up in a crushing shape, when 
 you have neither strength nor spirits to meet it. 
 
 Promise yourself to begin that you will never allow 
 the washing day to be dreadful to you or the house, 
 and that its disagreeables shall be met and conquered, 
 as they may be by the aid of common sense and 
 intelligence. Now you want to put your wages into a 
 new sort of a servant, one that will do the work, and 
 neither waste, steal or tattle, and whose keep costs 
 nothing. You can afford to have all the modern 
 helps for washing, a good washer, of the rocking 
 patent, or still better, one of the steam boilers and a 
 rocking washer beside. If you can have a small 
 
BLUE MONDAYS. 151 
 
 laundry next the kitchen, by all means persuade your 
 father to fit up one, with a boiler set in the brickwork 
 to save fire and avoid heating the house in summer. 
 " Set tubs," as servants call them, are very convenient 
 for lazy people, but are not kept clean as easily as 
 movable round tubs, which are better every way. 
 And where a regular laundry is impossible, a small, 
 extra stove for the boiler, round tubs with wooden 
 spigots to let the water out and hose to lead it into 
 a large barrel or cesspool furnish every help at 
 small expense. Aunt Hester will tell you that a 
 stove can be picked up at auction for three to five 
 dollars which will answer all purposes. The steam 
 washer costs three dollars and fifty cents, and the 
 rocker from five to ten dollars as you may get it 
 new or second-hand. If the latter, it will need to be 
 cleansed inside and out with a broom and hot lye, to 
 clear away the grease and settlings careless people 
 leave in machines, which smirch clothes where 
 you least expect it. The laundry must never be a 
 rubbish hole, but be kept clean and free of dust, 
 so that you will not have any more soil to wash out 
 than belongs to the clothes. It is well to have two 
 
IS2 ANNA MARIA'S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 wringers, one of large size for sheets and counter- 
 panes, so as not to strain the smaller for common 
 articles. A large closet should be made to keep 
 all the washing utensils clean and out of sight. 
 You want plenty of clothes lines ; one to hang out 
 all the time for drying and airing things every 
 day, and two for the washing, to be taken in when 
 the clothes are dry, and kept in a clean bag. Com- 
 mon hemp line is cheap enough so that you can 
 keep a fifteen-cent one out rain or shine, but you 
 must keep lines and clothes-pins clean, or you will be 
 vexed with soiled spots on the fresh linen which 
 won't wash out easily. Don't use galvanized wire 
 lines ; they wear the clothes, and in winter freeze to 
 them so that they are easily torn. Clean props and 
 galvanized hooks for the line are necessary, and 
 above all, a well-kept grass-plot for the drying-ground 
 where no dust, no hens or weeds can mar your clean 
 washings, with a shady corner for calicoes, that the 
 sun may not fade them. 
 
 What else ! No soda nor washing powder, javelle 
 water nor bleaching fluid which whiten clothes beau- 
 tifully but ruin them in a short time. Some powders 
 
BLUE MONDAYS. 1 53 
 
 and fluids are safe, but none are better or cheaper 
 than borax which we know is good for hands 
 as well as clothes. A pound of borax in a wide- 
 mouthed bottle tightly corked is enough to last three 
 months, and costs ten cents. An ounce of oxalic 
 acid in a bottle with glass stopper will last a long 
 time for taking out iron rust, and you want a pound 
 of chloride of lime for bleaching desperate spots, or 
 for- disinfecting purposes. Bluing in little balls is 
 better than the liquid in bottles. Beside these, keep 
 one or two articles in your washing-closet not usually 
 found there, but very useful — a peck of clean wheat 
 bran for washing nice prints and lawns, and a truss 
 of hay to restore color to brown linens. A small jar 
 of rock salt is convenient to dissolve in the rinsing 
 water to set the color of new prints. Keep these 
 things ready, for it is troublesome hunting them up 
 just as you need them. 
 
 Put the clothes in soak in tepid water, making a 
 good lather to begin, ajid rubbing plenty of soap on 
 the bindings, cuffs, and soiled places. Hot water 
 sets the soil, tepid or cold loosens it, and soap com- 
 bines with the animal oils and perspiration, which it 
 
154' ANNA MAEIA'S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 neutralizes and takes out. It does not make much 
 difference whether clothes are soaked all night or 
 half an hour, provided plenty of water and soap are 
 used. When ready to wash, the first thing is to 
 wring the clothes from the soaking water into a tub 
 of clean warm suds, where they are rubbed. This 
 may be done with the washing machine which turns 
 out house linen nicely without other rubbing. Body 
 clothing will need careful rubbing by hand on a 
 washboard on all places where the wear comes. 
 This is best done on a Magic washboard, which has 
 slats an inch square that turn as one rubs, giving the 
 clothes four times the rubbing on their blunt corners, 
 they get from a common board. If you can't afford 
 a machine, by all means have a Magic washboard, 
 which is one of the few inventions that are really 
 helps ; it cleanses clothes very easily, does not wear 
 them out, only costs fifty cents, and is better 
 than most washing machines. I had one once, but 
 don't know where the kind is made or sold. Let me 
 tell you one thing about rubbing clothes; to fold as 
 many thicknesses as you can handle between the 
 soiled place and the board, if you want to wash easily 
 
BLUE MONDAYS. 1 55 
 
 and well. If you take up a fold or two and rub hard 
 on the spot, it does very little good, for the fingers 
 take the rubbing, not the cloth. To cleanse neck 
 bindings, cuffs, or soiled stockings, use a dull steel 
 knife or a wooden one to scrape them, laying them on 
 a smooth board in the tub with many folds under the 
 soiled parts, and dipping them in the water often. 
 This is an easy way to get out the grime from cotton 
 stockings that have been drabbled. 
 
 But these hints are for you only if you can't have 
 that best gift to housekeepers, a steam-washer. I 
 can never get over wondering at the simplicity and 
 effectiveness of this little contrivance of galvanized 
 iron tubes which sets the jet of boiling suds playing 
 through and through the boiler of clothes till every 
 spot and stain is discharged without the aid of hands. 
 With the steam-washer you do not soak the clothes, 
 but soap every soiled part dry and plunge them into 
 the boiling water to steam half an hour. By all rules 
 this ought to set the stains, but this is the exception 
 which proves the rule beyond our common knowl- 
 edge. Chemistry tells us, and experience shows, 
 that heated steam, and soap boiling through clothes 
 
156 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 half an hour is too much for mortal soil. Things 
 come out clean, but rather sad looking ; they need a 
 " sudsing " in clear water to wash away the grimy 
 boiling fluid ; then the rinsing in plenty of fair water, 
 shaking and bluing, and you hang out clothes of old- 
 fashioned whiteness which soar between you and the 
 blue sky on the line, till the verses come into mind 
 about the linen fair and white which is the right- 
 eousness of saints. If washing is worth doing at 
 all, it is worth doing well , not with ruinous alkalies, 
 but with safe ministers which bring out our clothes 
 the symbol of purity. 
 
 There is nothing vulgar about washing — that is, 
 there should not be, need not be. Take time to 
 sweep your kitchen first, and have the dishes neatly 
 piled in the sink to soak till convenient to wash 
 them, set chairs in place, brush the stove clean, and 
 pray don't have stove covers straying about the floor 
 — for nothing makes the kitchen more forlorn — but 
 pile them in the oven out of the way. Have your 
 wash-bench scoured white, the tubs and baskets in 
 good trim ; don't allow soiled frocks and flannels to 
 illustrate the floor while they wait their turn, and 
 
BLUE MONDAYS. 157 
 
 keep the doors closed between the kitchen and other 
 parts of the house. With this care, and a stove ven- 
 tilator, you may wash every day of the week and no 
 one in the house be the wiser. 
 
 I won't tell you any farther about washing ; you may 
 find the rest in Mrs. Cornelius' Housekeeper's Friend, 
 and learn by asking every washerwoman you meet. 
 For clever as you may be, to the day of your death it 
 will surprise you that you can't find an old horny- 
 hnaded laundress or char-woman who won't tell you 
 something helpful you did not know before. 
 
 Clothing from the sick or towels soiled by ever so 
 slight illness should be put immediately into warm 
 water when taken from the person, all unpleasant 
 substance removed after soaking an hour, with a 
 very dull knife kept for such uses, and then put 
 in lukewarm soapsuds till it can be properly washed. 
 Never leave such things to dry and make the air 
 offensive. If the disease is contagious, put the 
 cloth into water which has a tablespoonful of carbolic 
 acid to the pailful, and add a heaping dessert spoon- 
 ful of chloride of lime to the boilerful of water when 
 the things are boiled. Garments and bedding from per- 
 
iS8 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 sons sick of diphtheria, measles, scarlet fever or any 
 contagion should never lie about a house, or be 
 washed with the family washing, as they are likely to 
 give the whole house the same disease. 
 
 And lastly, Anna Maria, don't stint your people 
 in clean clothes and towels "to save washing." I 
 vowed from the time I was a girl the phrase should 
 never be heard in my house, but everybody should 
 have all the clean towels and pillow-cases, napkins and 
 handkerchiefs they wanted, if I had to sit up nights 
 and wash them. With a Robbins steam washer a 
 Doty rocker and wj-inger, you will find it easy to 
 keep the family in the very luxury of white linen, 
 snowy toilet-covers, ruffled pillow-cases, and unsul- 
 lied skirts, clean napkins every day and dainty 
 tablecloths, so that your brothers will never have 
 occasion to wish that things might be as nice at 
 home as they are at the restaurant or the club. I've 
 seen too many slender women get their big wash- 
 ings out of the way by ten o'clock Monday morn- 
 ing, with the aid of a good machine, and sit down 
 smiling and untired, to have any dread of the process 
 on which the honor and health of the house- 
 
BLUE MONDAYS. 1 59 
 
 hold depend. Pray is the labor ignoble which fur- 
 nishes the glistening sheets and spreads for the 
 guest chamber, the snowy curtains for the bedroom 
 windows, the crisp tucks and rufHes, the trim, spot- 
 less stockings and fresh collars and linen for every- 
 body ? Then -see that you make it respected by 
 your cleverness and tact in doing it. 
 
XII,— STARCHING AND IRONING. 
 
 T HOPE, Anna Maria, that you follow the old 
 -*- fashion of starching bed and table linen 
 slightly, for things look better, iron easier, and keep 
 fresh longer for it. Pillow cases and sheets feel 
 cooler and more grateful for the finish starch gives 
 them, and absorb less from the body. Nor need 
 there be the waste of starch which half-taught servants 
 find necessary. I never found one who had any rule 
 for the amount used, whether there were a dozen shirts 
 
 and sheets or only three ; they guessed at the starch 
 
 / 
 
 wanted, and some girls took pride in saying they used 
 a pound every week with the washing. Clothes are 
 better for just enough starch to give finish, not stiff- 
 ness, and more than this injures the fabric. Of 
 course shirts and collars are the exception, which 
 need to be stiff to hold their shape. 
 
 Most of the starching is done when the clothes 
 i6o 
 
STARCHING AND IRONING. l6l 
 
 are rinsed. Shirts and fine linen or muslins require 
 gloss starch, which comes in packages — common box 
 starch answers for everything else ; or if that makes 
 too much an item of expense, flour starch, well made 
 with blumg, will do for cottons and colored things. 
 Make starch when the fine clothes are nearly done 
 scalding ; have a very clean bright saucepan to boil 
 it inj for the least grease or rust will affect it, and 
 stain the clothes. For each shirt, collar, and pair of 
 cufiEs, together, allow a teaspoonful of dry starch. 
 Have your teakettle of water boiling fast; moisten 
 the starch with one tablespoonful of cold water for 
 each teaspoonful of starch ; dissolve the lumps, then 
 pour on the boiling water gradually, stirring fast in the 
 saucepan on the stove, till all lumps and milky white- 
 ness disappear, and the whole boils clear. Strain 
 through a very clean coarse cloth into a large dish, and 
 cover to cool. When collars and cuffs are rinsed drop 
 them into the starch, and rub them in it as if you 
 were washing them, so that it will be well rubbed into 
 the fabric ; wring them with your hands, or wipe the 
 jellied starch from the surface and dry quickly. You 
 must not hang out shirts and linen just starched on a 
 
1 62 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 breezy day, for, as the laundry maids say, the wind 
 blows all the starch out of them ; neither should you 
 put them out in a fog or damp weather and expect 
 to find them stiff when dry. Better dry things just as 
 they are rinsed, and starch them the next day it is 
 fine. 
 
 There will be starch left, but not enough for the 
 rest of the washing. For muslins, add twice as much 
 hot water, and boil over again a moment. Dip mus- 
 lins or laces into the starch when cool enough, press, 
 or clap gently between the palms, and shake the 
 moisture from each article without wririging, which 
 frays the delicate substance. Fine things look much 
 clearer for being waved till dry, or drying in a breeze, 
 and taken in the moment when dry. Now for the 
 common washing allow a dessert spoonful of plain 
 starch to each sheet and pair of pillow cases, and to 
 each tablecloth. Make the starch as before, in larger 
 quantity, and add it, a quart at a time, boiling hot to 
 the bluing water. Don't put it all into the rinse at 
 once, as some folks do, for then the first things rinsed 
 will have most of the starch, and the last very little ; 
 but wring out a few pieces and put in fresh starch for 
 
STARCHING AND IRONING. 163 
 
 the rest. Have it hot, because it is thin and mixes 
 better so. Bring your clothes in quickly if it is a 
 windy day, before they are dry, and finish them in the 
 house, if you want any effect from the starch. Don't 
 hang starched things where they will freeze. In win- 
 ter dry your shirts without starch and finish operations 
 in the house. Never let marseilles quilts freeze, for 
 the forcible shrinkage injures the figure and splits 
 the material. Old washerwomen tell me never to let 
 clothes hang out when snowing, for " snow grays 
 things," which may be from the ammonia in the 
 flakes. 
 
 Boil brown or unbleached linens in water with a 
 handful of hay in the boiler, to keep or restore their 
 shade. For prints, especially the pretty, expensive 
 percales which lose all beauty in ordinary washing, 
 there is only one way of treatment. Tie a quart of 
 bran loosely in a sleazy cotton bag, and boil it with 
 three or four pails of water. When cool, take half to 
 wash the dress in, using a very little fine soap on greasy 
 places ; don't let the garment soak a moment, but 
 wash quickly, and rinse at once in the^rest of the bran 
 water, then in a pailful of lukewarm water, and dry in 
 
i64 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 the shade on a clear breezy day, take in when damp, 
 and iron at once. The bran cleanses the cotton and 
 acts as starch besides. Any colors that bear washing 
 at all, may be cleansed in this way. You should take 
 a separate day for doing up nice prints, when the 
 weather is just right, and you can iron them immedi- 
 ately. This is the French method of washing fine 
 lawns and cambrics of delicate colors, and the Bon 
 Marche, at Paris, that great establishment where you 
 find everything a woman is likely to want for herself 
 or her house, sells thousands of little bags of bran 
 and oatmeal, for baths, and for doing up dresses. 
 Common prints would look a great deal better than 
 usual, if washed at once, one piece at a time, and 
 never allowed to soak, but hurried through the starch 
 and on the line before another was put in the water. 
 The exception is with new black, or black and white 
 prints, which should soak ten minutes the first time 
 they are washed, in strong salt water, a pound of 
 coarse salt to a pailful of cold water. 
 
 In old times ironing was one of the fine domestic 
 arts, like making cake and taking care of china. 
 There is a pretty picture in some quaint correspond- 
 
STARCHING AND IRONING. 165 
 
 ence of the last century, where a lady describes how 
 she and her young friends met to iron their laces 
 and linens at each other's houses, and how Lord 
 Harry This and Sir Charles That, in their scarlet 
 coats laced with gold, and their flowing shirt ruffles, 
 lounged beside the ironing tables with jest and com- 
 pliment while pretty Mistress Betty and Lady Susan, 
 in muslin caps and kerchiefs, and flowered chintz 
 gowns tucked up over quilted red petticoats, ironed 
 kerchiefs, caps, and aprons, and crimped shirt ruffles 
 till tea. In those days only the ladies of the family, 
 or the head lady's maid, could be trusted to do up 
 the fine muslin articles which made so much a part of 
 a woman's toilet, and to this day it remains an accom- 
 plishment to iron well. It is ladylike work, for iron- 
 ing requires strict neatness of all surroundings and 
 deftness of hand. For all the increase of laun- 
 dries till there is one in every new town, one can 
 seldom be sure of having things washed, much less 
 ironed as they should be. Collars and cuffs come 
 home with the streaks of last week's wear ironed 
 under the polish ; nice ruffled ginghams are rough 
 about the gathers, and show dull patches where the 
 
i66 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. , 
 
 material was allowed to dry before ironing; plain 
 underwear, napkins and pillow cases are so hastily 
 done that one is uncertain whether they were touched 
 at all. 
 
 I tell you, Anna Maria, all the little niceties, the 
 finish of housekeeping, pay: the carefully dusted 
 corners, the fresh napkins every day, the smooth 
 glossy linen, the pillow-cases that wear the press of 
 the iron in every thread and seam. Men feel the 
 soothing, refining effect of this far-reaching care and 
 order, even if they are heedless enough to destroy it 
 in an hour ; boys feel it, children love it, and crave it. 
 When Bennie was a little boy four years old, he 
 used to insist on having the sheet turned down and 
 the pillows spread smooth as hands could lay them, 
 and then crawl in carefully, not to disturb the snowy 
 smoothness, and lie luxuriating in the order and 
 whiteness of his bed. The big boys have come 
 home evenings and gone into their neat rooms, with 
 the beds made up with fresh linen, the second time 
 in a week, and the chuckle of content which escaped 
 them, overheard in the entry, was enough to pay for 
 all the trouble. It has been worth all care and pains 
 
STARCHING AND IRONING. 167 
 
 to have them write, " There is something about home 
 I miss everywhere. It seems as if things were 
 cleaner there than anywhere else. I have lain 
 awake Sunday mornings with my eyes shut, so I 
 ^couldn't see the dust on the mouldings in my board- 
 ing-house, or the dingy curtains or the half-ironed 
 towels they brought me, and have thought of home, 
 with the white back stairs, where the clean carpet 
 and the sheets, towels and tablecloths always seemed 
 so fresh. I never knew what neat housekeeping 
 was worth before. It's the one thing that makes 
 
 a home." 
 
 * 
 Half the success of ironing comes from having the 
 
 things in the right state to iron ; neither too damp 
 nor too dry. Sprinkling and folding them just be- 
 fore you iron won't answer. The moisture must 
 have time to be absorbed evenly through the fabric. 
 Sprinkle and fold clothes over night for Tuesday's 
 ironing. The old rule is to " sprinkle fine," that 
 is, in fine drops; but I hope you have one of the 
 twenty-iive-cent sprinklers, which does the work to 
 admiration in half the usual time. Have an empty 
 basket to hold things as they are folded, the large 
 
1 68 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 table clear and the kitchen in its best order. Clean 
 clothes are certain to take a smirch if there is grime 
 or dust in reach. Sort the towels, pillow-cases, nap- 
 kins, handkerchiefs, aprons, all together. Beginning 
 with the cases, sprinkle each, taking care that hems 
 and corners are not left dry ; spread each case length- 
 wise, lay half a dozen in a pile, smoothing out the 
 wrinkles with your hand, and roll together tightly as 
 possible. The pressure takes out the wrinkles and 
 leaves less for the iron to do. Follow with towels 
 laid together and rolled up the same way. It is 
 better than folding each piece singly, for they do not 
 dry so soon. Dust your basket well with a whisk, 
 lay a large clean cloth in it, and put the folded 
 clothes in, sheets and large things lowest, small 
 things on the top, and cover close with another 
 cloth. Colored things should not be sprinkled till 
 an hour before ironing, and should not be laid with 
 white clothes at all, as the colors may run with damp- 
 ness. 
 
 To iron with comfort, you want a clean kitchen or 
 laundry, good light, a neat stove, and hot irons. 
 Have the table close to the heater, so that you need 
 
STARCHING AND IRONING. 169 
 
 not walk back and forth for fresh irons ; and it is a 
 great convenience to have a swivel chair without 
 arms, in which you can sit and iron part of the time. 
 In hot weather, the best way is to first heat your 
 irons on the common stove after breakfast, let the fire 
 go out, and keep them hot with the kerosene heater. 
 It is hard to heat cold irons by the kerosene stove, 
 but, once heated, it will keep them piping hot a whole 
 afternoon with one third of a gallon of oil. The 
 heater can be on a stand — an old sewing-machine 
 table, say — close to the ironing-table, and you will 
 find it hastens work wonderfully to have plenty of 
 hot irons in reach of your hand. You will need, on 
 the table, a clean blanket and sheet to iron on, wip- 
 ers and clean linen-covered holders which are cooler 
 than woollen, a bowl of clean water and cloth to 
 dampen spots. 
 
 Six irons are needed, of which two should weigh 
 from eight to ten pounds, for sheets and table- 
 cloth, two of six pounds, and two light ones having 
 sharp points for ironing gathers. A pair of polish- 
 ing irons for shirts are considered'indispensable now- 
 adays, and you can grind off the tips of middle-sized 
 
lyo ANNA MAEIAS HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 irons on your grindstone to make them. You must 
 keep all your irons well polished, and nothing is 
 more convenient for this than a block of sandstone, 
 or part of a broken grindstone. Failing these, strew 
 sand on a board and rub the irons over it. Then 
 rub when warm with beeswax, wiping very carefully. 
 See that your irons are in good condition before you 
 begin, and that the heater is clean, and the fire well 
 replenished. A tin cover for the irons while heating 
 will quicken the process, and save the heat. See 
 that no window or door opens a draft on the irons or 
 the table. You will find your irons cooling vexa- 
 tiously fast in a current of air. To work well or 
 • fast, your irons must be as hot as possible without 
 scorching. Use them, if a little scorching, on rough 
 towels or tablecloths, moving very quickly. 
 
 To iron a pillow-case, take it by the seam corners 
 and shake out ; lay it with the seam next you, and 
 iron one side smoothly, first along the seams, then 
 across ; fold lengthwise and iron the other sides ; 
 fold once more along the middle, iron the fold 
 smooth, and fold ^across the middle, pressing the 
 folds with a heavy iron to have them sharp and 
 
STARCHING AND IRONING. 171 
 
 nice,, then hang on the clothes-frame, which should 
 be dusted with a damp cloth, and have a clean 
 white cloth to cover things. 
 
 When you iron a wrinkle into anything, wring the 
 cloth in the bowl of water, dampen the place, and 
 iron again. If a corner of a hem gets dry dampen 
 that before ironing, in the same way, and you will 
 have no faults in your work. Handkerchiefs and 
 napkins you will iron all around the hem first, then 
 across, always ironing the same way the threads of 
 the weaving run, not cornerwise,.or the article will be 
 askew. Fold them squarely, and let a heavy iron 
 stand on them a moment. 
 
 But all the heavy ironing should be done by an in- 
 vention I hope to see in every kitchen as commonly 
 as a stove — the family mangle. This is a pair of 
 polished wooden rollers, working with cogs, like a 
 clothes wringer, and sheets, tablecloths, towels, all 
 articles without gathers, folded and put through, 
 come out smoothed by pressure, without the heat and 
 fuss of ironing. Most English houses have the bed 
 and table linen mangled, the hems of sheets and pil- 
 low cases being finished with irons, and the gloss put 
 
172 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 on the damask by a second ironing. A small mangle 
 costs ten dollars and would save its price in a year in 
 fuel, to say nothing of the comfort of ironing without 
 fire in hot weather. Another convenience is a stout 
 clamp or brace to hold the end of the skirt board 
 steady while ironing, instead of resting it on a chair, 
 which is uncertain support. 
 
 I have not told you how to iron a shirt or collar, 
 because it would take an article by itself to do that. 
 Neither patent polish or polishing irons, bosom 
 boards or pleat knives will ever teach you how to 
 iron a shirt nicely, unless you take care of twenty 
 points in the work beside. Yet you can do it.- I 
 have known girls of ten and twelve years old who could 
 iron shirts or collars neatly, and have sat beside the 
 ironing board while an accomplished lady, a French 
 and Latin scholar, turned off six shirts, faultlessly 
 ironed and polished in half an hour with the certainty 
 of machine, work, every stroke telling, and, to the 
 best of my recollection, she used neither polishing 
 iron or prepared starch. Learn the rest first ; to iron, 
 every gather in skirt, flounce or sleeve, to turn out 
 ruiBes like flower petals for smoothness, to iron bias 
 
STARCHING AND IRONING. 1 73 
 
 bands, dampi^jg and ironing over the wrinkles till 
 they fade out; to press clear folds with the heavy 
 irons ; to iron puffs with the little French egg-iron, 
 or to fold in the middle, iron like a ruffle, and then 
 erase the fold by damping it and running the tip of 
 your sharp flat iron along its length ; to iron strings 
 of all kinds as if they were ribbons, and to do plain 
 underclothes with the same preciseness you would 
 the richest show embroideries. 
 
 I have not told you of any polishes to put in 
 starch, for I have seen as fine work done without 
 them as with them. Polishing is not a matter of 
 butter or salt or gum arable or spermaceti in the 
 starch, though people use such things. The gum 
 makes linen hold stiffness better ; it does not make it 
 glossier than starch properly used, and well-boiled. 
 I will give you a few hints, however, for practice. If 
 linen blisters in ironing it is because starch was 
 not well rubbed into the fabric. Touch the place with 
 thick starch and iron over again. If starch cakes 
 and sticks — either it \Yas ill made, too much starch 
 used for the water, ill-boiled or lumpy, or the iron is 
 not warm enough, or is rusty and wants polishing and 
 
174 ANNA MARIA'S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 waxing, or you have used raw starch and not rubbed 
 it well into the linen. If black specks appear on the 
 surface, dampen and scrape them off with a knife, 
 touch with starch and iron again, first laying a thin 
 cloth over it for the first stroke or two. Iron always 
 the long way of the threads in starched things ; first 
 iron straight into shape and dry, no matter how dull, 
 then dampen with a cloth, go over with a hot iron, 
 dampen and iron two or three times till the wrinkles 
 disappear, and you will find out how polishing is done. 
 
XIII. — OVER THE MENDING-BASKET. 
 
 ■X/OU have the serious business of life laid out be- 
 -■- fore you in that big basket of things torn and 
 worn, haven't you, Anna Maria ? Just ask me to take off 
 my bonnet and wrap, won't you, and hint that you could 
 endure to have me stay the afternoon ? I never did 
 think much of the flimsy etiquette which obliges you 
 to sit with idle hands whenever a neighbor comes in 
 to chat comfortably with you, and loses twenty 
 minutes hearing how the children on the West Side 
 are with diphtheria, and how Mr. Briggs' barn was 
 burned at the Centre last night, and Clarinda Wells 
 is to sing at the concert next week, with various en- 
 grossing news of the sort, which you could hear and 
 enjoy just as well while knitting or sewing the rufHe 
 on your apron while you listened. The German 
 ladies don't drop work for every caller. English 
 ladies of rank do not feel that they show one disre- 
 *7S 
 
176 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 spect if they keep on with their lace work or stitching 
 of any sort. You may have heard of the countess 
 who was so fond of plain sewing that she spent her 
 leisure at it, and gave away dozens of linen shirts 
 made in the finest manner, among her friends. I'm 
 not that countess, but I never see a shabby, unmended 
 thing that I don't ache to get hold of it, and make it 
 presentable, and the thought has crossed my mind 
 whether in small society like ours, intimate friends 
 couldn't be of use in meeting round to do up each 
 other's mending and making over, as well as in sew- 
 ing for the poor. We might sew for the poor and for 
 our friends too, and give sickly Mrs. Dawson a chance 
 to get out on fine days without being haunted with 
 that heaped-up mending-basket, and the boys' trousers 
 that need darning at the knees, and we might let Miss 
 Carington, the school, teacher, rest her eyes evenings 
 after correcting a dozen exercises, instead of doing all 
 her own sewing, so that she can send more money home. 
 That would be doing good as we have opportunity, to 
 some purpose. 
 
 Well, now, before we begin, have you good 
 needles, long and short ? Is the sewing machine in 
 
OVER THE MENDING-BASKET. 1 77 
 
 order ? Are your scissors and shears sharp ? for you 
 can't do neat mending unless they are. Have you 
 smooth strong linen thread that works easily, silk and 
 twist, and strong sewing cotton, and binding tape ; 
 not the glazed sort, but fine, twilled tape, both narrow 
 and wide, with buttons of pearl, linen, agate, horn and 
 metal? You had better spend a dollar at once for 
 such things. You can get a year's supply of all these 
 " findings " of the best quality, tapes, needles, buttons 
 and threads, from the city, for a dollar, and it saves 
 hours of time and wear of clothes to have them ready. 
 Get them, and keep in a locked drawer of your work- 
 stand where the children cannot get at them, to mix 
 and tangle things. Keep stout needles threaded 
 with black linen and white cotton, coarse and fine, 
 and black silk, on a hanging cushion where any one 
 can seize them to sew on a loose boot button, or 
 baste. a ruffle, or tighten a coat button in a hurry. 
 The time and -the temper I've saved since I learned 
 to keep my needles threaded and handy 1 
 
 That reminds me, Nellie pet, your boot buttons are 
 loose. Jump up in my lap and let your next friend 
 sew them on. Not that black cotton, if you please, nor 
 
178 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 the sewing silk that frays, nor the fine linen thread 
 either. Give me that stout hank, and a number four 
 needle, and the wax. And, pet, we'll double the 
 thread and knot one end of it only, so there will be 
 no clumsy knot to mark your soft foot, and we 
 take just three stitches apiece to each button, fasten 
 thread with a stitch in the lining of the boot, without 
 cutting it, and go on to the next, till they're all done ; 
 and if one of those buttons comes off till the boot 
 wears out, tell me, and I'll come and sew it on again, 
 I think you observed that you hated nothing worse 
 than sewing on boot buttons, Anna Maria — the pull- 
 ing to get the needle through, and thread fraying, is a 
 great trial of patience. So it is, and I think too much 
 of my patience to give it unnecessary trials. If you 
 have good linen thread and wax it well at first and 
 after sewing on each button, and have a needle just 
 right to carry it, it won't fray or break ; using double 
 thread, three stitches do the work of six single ; and if 
 you fasten thread between the buttons without cutting 
 till all are sewed, you will find it hold till the shoe is 
 old. There is something in knowing just how to sew 
 on even a boot button. 
 
OVER THE MENDING-BASKET. 179 
 
 Now you are not going to waste hours of precious 
 existence in darning those gaping heels of socks ! 
 You will cut out the heel entirely, take up the stitches 
 and knit a new one double in an evening. Or you will 
 hire it done by the girls of the Industrial Home, or by 
 old Mrs. Cutter, who earns her missionary money and 
 her liniment by odd jobs at home. If you can't do 
 this, get soft buckskin, and sew heels of that in Joe's 
 socks, as I have seen good housekeepers do. The 
 next socks he has, I advise you to get a pair of stock- 
 ing savers, of fine leather, like the lining of ladies' 
 boots, to slip over the heel, for they do away with a 
 great deal of mending. It is well to buy socks and 
 stockings that are a size larger than one needs, to 
 allow for shrinking, which makes them wear out. Our 
 merchants are just beginning to sell children's stock- 
 ings with double-knit heels and toes. The whole sole 
 of hose ought to be double to resist wear, but at least 
 you can line the boys' pairs. Those scarlet cashmere 
 stockings have the feet well worn out, and the color is 
 faded beside, with Katy's method of washing, which 
 leaves all the fine flannels and stockings to soak in 
 strong suds, while she rinses the others, instead of 
 
i8o ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 whisking each stocking through its wash and up to dry 
 before the dye can start. But the legs of the pair are 
 firm and good, so if you want fine wool hose that will 
 outwear three pair of woven ones, do you get white 
 Saxony yarn, knit feet to the old cashmere tops, 
 and have them dyed the popular dark red. In this 
 way you get stockings handsome and durable, and 
 the old tops will outwear two pairs of knitted feet yet. 
 Nellie's stockings have broken out in small holes in 
 the heel. Nellie, child, bring me the tack hammer so 
 that I can drive the steel peg into the heel of your 
 little shoe that makes these wicked holes. Looking 
 after the shoe-pegs and welts often prevents damage 
 to stockings. 
 
 The high wind tore thfe sheets this week on the line, 
 and there is no use in sewing up the rent. The only 
 way to get farther wear from them is to turn them. 
 Rip the hems two inches at each end, overcast the 
 selvages of the sheet together, tear it down the mid- 
 dle and hem the edges. You have a neat, new sheet, 
 that will wear six months or a year longer. The 
 corners of the hems are fringing out in the best 
 sheets and tablecloths, because the careless maker 
 
OVER THE MENDING-BASKET. l8l 
 
 did not know she ought to put twice as many stitches 
 there as in the rest of her work, and fasten by sew- 
 ing the ends over and over. I take it for granted 
 you are too good a housekeeper to hem napkins or 
 towels or sew seams in sheets with the machine, as 
 slack women do. You can't make a machine hem 
 look well on damask or toweling, the work draws, 
 and looks mean, while as for sheets, I wouldn't be 
 buried in one with a machine seam ! A machine 
 hem for sheets is another thing. Those tablecloths 
 can only be made neat by paring the corners round, 
 and hemming them again. There is a thin place in 
 the damask. Give me some ravelings of coarse 
 linen and we will have it darned in a few minutes. 
 Here is another cloth quite' worn out in the centre 
 while the ends are good. Cut ofE two ends the full 
 width of the linen and three quarters of a yard 
 deep ; hem these for carving napkins, to lay under 
 the roast and soup at either end of the table above a 
 clean cloth, to save it from spots. The smaller side 
 pieces of your old cloth will do for bread or lunch 
 cloths, to put over a small table. Or, you can cut 
 out the weak part in the middle of your old cloth, 
 
i82 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 and insert a square of half-worn damask from the 
 corner of one in like case, joining the two by her- 
 ring-bone or open-stitch. A little knowledge of 
 fancy work is the saving of many a half-worn article 
 nowadays. Keep all the old napkins and handker- 
 chiefs — all the old linen you have. You want nap- 
 kins to wrap cake in, to strain things through, and 
 when past every other use, they are invaluable for 
 hospital lint and eharpie — which is a coarse lint. 
 We who remember the war and the Sanitary Com- 
 mission, know how priceless every-scrap of old linen 
 in the country was for the hospitals, and such times 
 may come again. If not war, there may be acci- 
 dent, when there will be little time or heart to hunt 
 up necessary things, so keep your old linens and soft 
 worn cotton ready; have them washed, boiled and 
 bleached on the grass, to be pure of all stains, iron 
 them on both sides, to make them soft as possible to 
 raw, shrinking wounds, cut out all seams, hems and 
 bindings, roll them together and keep where you can 
 find them at a moment's notice, with the court plaster 
 and salve, in the medicine closet. Here are old 
 chemises and nightgowns, in good shape yet, but 
 
OVER THE MENDING-BASKET. 183 
 
 too worn to last through a month's washings. Lay 
 them by, ironed without starch, for sickness, when 
 poultices and liniments would ruin better ones. 
 Here is a nightgown with binding and ruffle worn 
 out; choose thinner, finer cotton, rebind, and whip 
 new embroidery on the neck and wrists. Good 
 gowns will always wear out two sets of ruffles. The 
 children's nightgowns are too short, but quite large 
 enough round the shoulders, and not half-worn. 
 You may put on a deep ruffle to lengthen them, or 
 cut the skirt straight across by a thread, and piece 
 them down by a machine seam, overcast, not felled, 
 goring and hemming the new part to suit the rest. 
 Don't patch that torn sleeve, cut ofE the weak part 
 and add a new half-sleeve. This chemise band is 
 torn through ; if you sew it up, it will break out next 
 time it is worn the same way ; cut the torn edges, rip 
 the band an inch or two, and spread the gathers, 
 then add an inch and a half of new cotton, facing well 
 to the ends of the band ; embroider the bit to match 
 the rest, or work a few scallops in crochet to suit, 
 and the garment is good for another season. Half a 
 dozen buttonholes broken away ; that comes of mak- 
 
184 ANNA MARIA'S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 ing them too near the end of the binding. Rip off 
 the torn corner, piece the binding an inch longer 
 than the old one, and work a new buttonhole at least 
 three eighths of an inch from the end. That sort of 
 buttonhole will outlast the clothing it is made on, 
 and Joe can't tear it out, by trying. 
 
 Here is a set of merino underwear, shrunken too 
 much to be comfortable, you say. Cut the vest 
 straight down the front from the button flap, add a 
 wide facing of twilled cotton on each side, if the chest 
 needs widening, and make buttons and buttonholes 
 all the way. Cut the binding off the drawers and cut 
 two or three inches from the lower part of the shirt, 
 sew the two garments together by overseaming the 
 raw edges closely, and facing the seam with soft tape. 
 You have a combination suit as convenient and com- 
 fortable as those you pay eight dollars for. This all- 
 wool vest is wearing thin under the arms ; run it, like 
 the heel of a stocking, with white zephyr wool, and it 
 will wear six weeks longer. Children are always 
 plagued to get in and out of their clinging merino 
 under shirts ; cut them open all the way down, and 
 add wide facings to button from top to hem. Your 
 
OVER THE MENDING-BASKET. 185 
 
 father's under-shirt is wearing thin on the shoulders ; 
 take the skirt of an old one, not too worn, and face 
 back and shoulders, catstitching the facing down and 
 new binding the two at the neck. The sleeves are 
 quite ragged j replace them with a new flannel pair, 
 with knit cuffs at the wrist. It's some trouble, but it 
 all saves buying twenty dollars' worth of new under- 
 wear this season, and gives you the money to spend in 
 pleasanter ways. 
 
 This silk undervest is worn under the arms, and the 
 mate to it has no sleeves at all, to speak of. For the 
 first, insert square gussets, cut from bits of old silk 
 stockings, sewing the edges together over and over. 
 For the other make sleeves out of the long tops of 
 worn silk stockings, ripping the hem, sewing the large 
 end into the arm hole and knitting a small cuff to 
 cling round the wrist. This knit skirt of Shetland 
 wool is completely worn through in front, but it is a 
 pity to throw aside so expensive a piece of under- 
 wear. You can match the wool in the city, and 
 with wooden needles knit a new front which will give 
 the skirt three seasons more wear. That Welsh flan- 
 nel is wearing very thin on the front breadth, but the 
 
i86 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 rest is sound ; line the front with thin twilled wool that 
 comes for lining, shrinking it first by washing. Such 
 skirts must be lined, turned hinder part before, and 
 upside down, and new borders crocheted for them 
 before they can be called legitimately worn out. Do 
 you know American women are the most careless and 
 extravagant creatures about clothes in the world,* 
 taken as a whole ? I notice rich women, who always 
 have been used to money, will twist and turn, retrim 
 and refresh their clothes very much more than women 
 who have to contrive for every new garment they get. 
 One of my acquaintances paid three hundred dollars 
 for an embroidered camel's hair suit, when such dresses 
 first came in fashion ten years ago, and she bought an 
 evening dress the same season for nine hundred dol- 
 lars. Both gowns are in wear yet, remodeled to suit 
 the style, and will reappear into newer ones to make 
 variety for five years more. And all these hints about 
 refreshing nice underwear I have drawn from the best 
 dressed women of my acquaintance. 
 
 You will call my methods with old clothes making 
 over, rather than mending, and so they are. Life is 
 too short to do so much mending every week, and I pre- 
 
OVER THE MENDING-BASKET. 187 
 
 fer to give a fortnight to it the beginning of each sea- 
 son — put on new bindings, stays and facings, sew on 
 buttons so they will stay the whole year, fit up stock- 
 ings and merino wear and have the business off my 
 mind for three months, except the little looking 
 over which takes in all not more than half an hour 
 weekly. 
 
 Joe's trousers come last, and I don't wonder you 
 heave a sigh over them, torn, dusty things as they are. 
 Give Joe a clean, stiff manilla scrubbing-brush, which 
 you will find the best possible thing for cleaning thick 
 clothes, and have him take the trousers out on the 
 back porch and brush them clean. Then leave them 
 on the clothes line to blow and air in the sun half a 
 day before you mend them, and they will be much 
 pleasanter handling. There must be a patch on the 
 knee of one pair, but neither Joe nor any one else need 
 know it. Cut the hole square by a thread, cut your 
 patch an inch and a half larger, baste it true and even, 
 which is the nicest part of the work, stich it by the 
 machine, open the seams, dampen and press on the 
 wrong side with your heaviest iron. Haven't I seen 
 my friend Mrs. Burrows sit down before six pair of 
 
i88 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 the worst-looking trousers a boy ever went through, 
 insert patches or half a leg as needed, machine stitch- 
 ing them so truly and pressing them so skilfully 
 afterward that no boy, however notional, could object 
 to wearing them. , 
 
 Tailor's shears and goose, and ample cloth for 
 piecing, made the work very different from the bun- 
 gling patches which sad-eyed mothers toil over, leaving 
 padded knees which justly are a trial to any boy's 
 sensibilities. You should see the repairs which city 
 tailors will put on gentlemen's clothes. I've seen an 
 eighty-dollar coat with a dozen moth-holes up the 
 front, darned and filled so nicely you had to take a 
 magnifying-glass to find the places. When you know 
 how, cloth is the easiest thing to mend nicely so that 
 piecing won't show. When Joe buys new clothes, 
 see that he brings home large pieces for mending, 
 and don't roll them up and put them away to look 
 bright and fresh when they are used to patch his 
 faded trousers. Lay them in the sun, every day for 
 a week, so that the color will be toned down, not to 
 contrast with the rest of the suit. And put the evil 
 day of mending far off by lining the knees of all 
 
OVER THE MENDING-BASKET, 189 
 
 trousers with soft twilled linen which will take the wear. 
 I believe in having garments so cared for and rein- 
 forced in weak places, and where the wear comes, 
 that they do not need repair, but like the deacon'^s 
 one-horse shay, last till they come to pieces, and are 
 done with. You will find it much the best way. 
 
XIV. — FOOD AND DRINK. 
 
 'T'^HE saying that every house has a skeleton in 
 
 its closet has more fact than poetry about it, 
 
 if we are to take the evidence of our sense of smell. 
 
 You come upon the skeleton behind the door of an 
 
 unaired clothes-closet press, where soiled things and 
 
 stale bedroom odors have their own way week after 
 
 week, till you wonder nice girls can bear to put on 
 
 dresses which hang in them. Too many pantries and 
 
 food closets have their spectre, if we judge by the 
 
 mouldering, unsatisfactory odors about ice-box and 
 
 meat safe, and the worst is, that it doesn't stay there, 
 
 but comes out in the shape of dull headaches and 
 
 sore throats and low fevers which haunt the house. 
 
 This is serious talk, but it isn't more serious than 
 
 the facts call for. Doctors who spend their lives 
 
 looking into these things, tell us that every year, out 
 
 of a certain number in town or country, beside the 
 190 
 
FOOD AND DRINK. I9I 
 
 old and infirm, and those who inherit disease or die 
 of accident, twenty thousand die needlessly of illness 
 from bad air and bad food. They are not all poor 
 folks who live in squalid, fever-stricken alleys and 
 must buy the refuse of the markets to eat at all. The 
 most luxurious homes suffer equally with the poor, 
 and no house is safe until the skeleton has been 
 hunted out and laid permanently by daily, intelligent 
 care. Housekeeping is not a matter of mere comfort 
 and respectability, and every woman and girl must 
 learn their responsibilities, for the health, strength 
 and life of the family is in their hands. The food 
 people eat three times a day, the water they drink, 
 the air they breathe, constantly have more to do with 
 their happiness and success than, money or talents, 
 and more to do with their long life than any other 
 care or medicine. 
 
 Pure water is growing scarcer to find as the country 
 is older and more closely settled. For water may 
 look clear as mountain brooks and taste sweet as the 
 rill from a glacier, yet be very unsafe to use. There 
 Is a town in Northern Ohio noted for its spring of 
 sparkling, delicious water, which never fails to make 
 
192 ANNA MARIA S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 new-comers violently ill when they drink it, from some 
 mineral in solution. The wash of weedy shores, the 
 use of animals, the drainage of fields, may make the 
 pond water which supplies town reservoirs very un- 
 wholesome, while few would find anything to com- 
 plain of in its taste or smell. Well water is not safe 
 to drink if there is any sink drain, stable heap or 
 vault within a hundred feet of it, for the wash from 
 all such places soaks through the soil six feet in a 
 year and more, and sooner or later will reach the 
 well or the underground spring which supplies it. 
 Nor can you call water fit to use when slops and 
 washtubs are emptied on the ground about it, or rains 
 can wash the soil through the ill-fitting curb. A tightly 
 covered well is not; so good as an open one, for water 
 needs air to make it sweet. One thing you can be sure 
 of, that though water which is bright and sparkling 
 may be unsafe to drink, water which isn't clear, and 
 looks or tastes unpleasant, is sure to be dangerous. 
 When spring opens and the town water, or the well, 
 runs roily and yellow for days from the m&lting of 
 the last snow which carries the wash of the banks with 
 it, or when in summer it smells fishy, or has the 
 
FOOD AND DRINK. 193 
 
 cucumber taste we come to know so well from the 
 water-weed or the mucus in the pipes which carry it, 
 you don't need to be told that it isn't fit to use, and 
 it's an even thing if you don't have low fever or 
 chills before the season is over, from drinking it. 
 
 What are you going to do about it ? Use filtered 
 water for drinking and cooking entirely. You can 
 buy a filter for five dollars, and you will find it the 
 best use you can make of the money. Let alone 
 health and safety, in a week after using it you will 
 begin to wonder why the meat and vegetables taste so 
 much nicer, and remark how much better tea and 
 coffee this seems to be than the last you had, and 
 after a little you will discover it is owing to the fil- 
 tered water. Everything cooked in pure water has a 
 finer taste, and tea and coffee are not the same things 
 made with it. But a filter wants care ; for the sponge ' 
 which strains the worst impurities out of the water, 
 should be washed and dried in the sun, or in the 
 oven, every day, or it soon grows foul. The best 
 way is to have two sets of sponge, and let one air all 
 day while the other is in use. Then the packing of 
 sand and charcoal in time is clogged with impurities 
 
1 94 ANNA MARIA'S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 which begin to wash back into the water, and the 
 sand has to be washed, sunned, and dried, and the 
 charcoal burnt over in a red-hot retort to consume 
 the waste with which it is loaded. Be sure to get one 
 of the new filters with two sets of strainers, which can 
 be unscrewed as easily as you take the mold out of an 
 ice cream freezer.so that one set can be cleansed 
 while the other is at work. To make sure of pure 
 water, change the packing once in three months. If 
 you cannot have a filter, and are not certain of the 
 safety of the water, boil it, and let it cool in a porous 
 earthen jar in the shade and wind. Boiling frees it 
 from animalcula or vegetable matter, and softens it, 
 and emigrants whose neighbors were sickening all 
 around them from the bad water of ponds and marshy 
 springs, have kept in perfect health by drinking no 
 water which had not first been boiled. 
 
 It is a great thing to have arrangements complete 
 for a supply of pure water, and you want to do as 
 much for food. Now let me tell you that you can't 
 have food fit to eat that is kept in a close cupboard, 
 however clean. If you have but a closet to keep food 
 in, it must have a window and a gentle draft of air to 
 
FOOD AND DRINK. I95 
 
 carry off the odors which else will spoil all the more 
 delicate flavors. For the odors of food are its finer 
 parts, and in an airless closet these settle and are 
 absorbed by the wood, the plaster, the milk and but- 
 ter, the flour and other eatables. Then you have the 
 butter turning cheesy or frowy, the cream taking a bad 
 taste, the milk souring sooner than it ought, the very 
 pies, bread, and flour losing their wholesome sweet- 
 ness. In the storeroom you can't keep salt fish, sour 
 milk, cheese and onions in all their fragrance, and 
 have anything else nice. Did you ever have the 
 privilege of going into one of these common country 
 store-rooms, not the sweet dainty places we read of, 
 smelling of sugar, and spice, and all that's nice, but 
 one of the sort we don't read of, clean and scoured, 
 but where the fragrance of the bean pot vies with 
 that of the buttermilk jar, and the sour yeast in the 
 corner, and the fried fat in the doughnut kettle, and 
 yesterday's soup, and to-day's chowder thicken the 
 atmosphere with fish and onions ? If you had, it would 
 be the best lesson on ventilation of food you would 
 want. The very shelves and walls of those old pan- 
 tries get the cheesy and salt fish and hammy smell, 
 
196 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 and you can't keep anything sweet in them till the 
 plaster is whitewashed and the wood washed with 
 purifying lye. If you would have wholesome food, 
 Anna Maria, keep the pantry window down at the top 
 night and day, except in the coldest weather. 
 
 Food of all kinds keeps better on clean dishes, so 
 don't think it is too much trouble to pour the gravy 
 into a fresh bowl and put the slices of meat on a clean 
 plate, and turn the few spoonfuls of jam into a saucer 
 instead of leaving it in the smeary compotierj which 
 is a better name than our awkward " sauce-dish." 
 Reason why, thin smears and daubs of food spoil 
 soon and help spoil the rest. Especially see that the 
 milk, cream and butter are put away in clean ware. 
 Milk will keep sweet longer for this little precaution, 
 and things are so much pleasanter to see and handle. 
 Then everything must be closely covered with cloth 
 and small plates. It is well to buy different sizes of 
 cheap ware for covers, and the odd little pottery, mugs, 
 bowls, and pitchers are very convenient for holding 
 bits and ends of food too good to throw away. Beside, 
 food keeps better in this ware than in anything else. 
 
 Fat of all kinds needs the nicest care to be sweet 
 
FOOD AND DRINK. 1 97 
 
 and wholesome, for nothing takes odors more rapidly, 
 and if you leave cupfuls of grease, or drippings, to 
 stand open in the closet, you must expect to find a 
 queer flavor in your fried potatoes, and several differ- 
 ent savors in the plain piecrust beside the one you 
 wanted. Keep all the fat from cooking in a small 
 stone jar, well covered, try it out once a week into a 
 clean jar and let it cool uncovered in a draft of air. 
 In winter set it out doors to freeze, which refines it 
 remarkably. At other times keep it tightly covered 
 in the icebox. Fat which has absorbed a coarse 
 taste can be purified by freezing and become nice 
 again. 
 
 Butter wants much more care than most people 
 give it, both in making and keeping. The way to 
 secure good butter for winter is to buy it in fifty- 
 pound firkins in September, when it is usually as 
 cheap and good as at any season of the year, have it 
 put up with a very little saltpetre and sugar, and in 
 a clean place it will keep sweet a year. I haven't 
 given many receipts, but here is one which I have 
 tried over and over, and which can't be too widely 
 known and used : 
 
198 ANNA MARIA'S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 Take two pounds best dairy salt, one pound white 
 sugar, one ounce saltpetre finely powdered and sifted 
 through muslin. Mix all these well together. Keep 
 in a bottle closely corked, and work one tablespoon- 
 ful into one pound of butter and it will keep indefi- 
 nitely. There is nothing hurtful in the compound, 
 and the saltpetre prevents the acid from ioiramg, 
 which gives the butter a strong taste. You can 
 work this into market butter if you choose to take 
 the trouble, and I think it will repay you. 
 
 Instead of opening the firkin every day for butter 
 for the table, cut out a week's supply at a time, to be 
 kept in a small stone jar, and keep the butter in the 
 large package closely covered top and sides, with 
 clean linen cloths, and a large cloth and wooden 
 cover over all. Butter soon loses its best flavor when 
 open, and becomes not much better than so much 
 suet. As good butter is the key note of a nice table, 
 and as poor butter is a very unwholesome thing to 
 eat at all, you must pay particular attention to its 
 keeping. A plate of it that has been shut up in a 
 closet with meat, left-over food and close air, is not 
 fit to be eaten by a" human beingr 
 
FOOD AND DRINK. 
 
 199 
 
 Keep milk in the purest, coldest air you can find, 
 with a thin cloth over it. Don't take the warm new 
 milk that hasn't had time to get cold since the milk- 
 man's cart hurried off with it from the cow, and set it 
 away in a tightly stoppered can, for all milk wants to 
 stand open to the air, that the animal heat and flavors 
 may pass off thoroughly : if this isn't done, the parti- 
 cles in the milk decompose, giving the unpleasant 
 odor you will notice in close cans, and making it unfit 
 to use. Dairies which keep the milk in huge close 
 tin drawers or cans instead of open pans make a 
 great mistake, for neither butter nor milk kept in 
 this way is fit for food, nor will it keep nearly as long 
 as it should. Never let milk stand near a sink or any 
 refuse. I have heard of children who took diphtheria 
 from milk which had absorbed sewer air from the 
 vent of a stationary washbasin where the nurse kept 
 the pitcher cool at night. If you must keep milk in 
 a sick-room, nursery, or in a close closet, let it cool and 
 air for three hours in the best place you can find for 
 it, then put it in a tight can, with a flannel case, and 
 set it in a shallow pan of water in a dfraft, which will 
 keep it cold and preserve it swept a/Iong as possible. 
 
200 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 The icebox or refrigerator wants a great deal more 
 care than it gets in general. Left to the servants, 
 and only half cleaned in a season, it is the most unin- 
 viting place for food one can imagine. The waste 
 pipe should be in order, so that no water stands in 
 the box, for water melts ice, and moisture spoils food 
 quickly. The box should be washed thoroughly with 
 strong hot suds, rinsing with cold water, wiping and 
 airing before fresh ice is put in. " Well, ma'am," 
 the old iceman said as he waited for Mary to finish 
 wiping the box one morning, "I'm pleased to find 
 your box is always clean, for ice wants a clean place. 
 If you could see some of the boxes we put into, with 
 splashes of sour milk and grease and scraps of meat 
 and potatoes and everything sticking to the shelves 
 as the girls leave 'em ! I don't see how anybody can 
 eat what comes out of them." Every plate, pitcher, 
 and dish that goes into the icebox should be clean as 
 possible and closely covered. All dark corners of 
 meat should be trimmed off, for these spoil quickly 
 and give a stale smell to the box. You do not need 
 to be told that vegetables and meat must be kept 
 separately from milk,, butter, and-more delicate things. 
 
FOOD AND DRINK. 201 
 
 It is a good plan to keep lumps of charcoal in each 
 compartment to purify the air, and absorb any odors 
 that may escape. 
 
 The care of meat is a nice thing too, and for the 
 health of the family, needs more attention than it 
 often gets. After it has been well-chosen, bright col- 
 ored, fine-grained, with a firm white fat, freshly cut, 
 with no dried and darkened edges or corners to spoil, 
 and sent home, it must not lie in paper one moment 
 more than is necessary, for paper, which is nothing 
 but pulp of rotten rags, glue and lime, spoils food 
 very soon. Take the meat out, and the first thing 
 scrape it clean all over. You hear people tell you to 
 wash meat before cooking, and others say that it 
 should be wiped only, for water washes away the 
 flavor, but scraping removes all that is not 
 nice, and the meat keeps better for being put away 
 clean. Fish should be cleaned and wiped with a 
 coarse towel and He wrapped in Clean dry cloth with 
 salt over it. Meat may be kept without salt by sear- 
 ing the outside on a very hot griddle, turning it on all 
 sides and letting each cook half a minute. This closes 
 the pores so that the juice does not escape, and the 
 
202 ANNA Maria's houskkeeping. 
 
 air cannot readily affect the flesh ; it also makes the 
 meat tender. Keep it in pure air, away from sour 
 milk, yeast, salt fish, or any strong flavors, for meat 
 and flour absorb bad air as well as butter, and spoil 
 the quicker for it. 
 
 Vegetables need a cold dark place where they will 
 not freeze. They should have clean bins or boxes, 
 and be clean themselves when stored. A furnace- 
 warmed cellar is no place for them. A cold, dark 
 cellar or garret is the best place for fruit, which 
 should be often sorted and picked over. Apples take 
 bad flavors from being with other stores. Pick out 
 all inferior and bruised- ones at first, and make them 
 into apple butter, which is the best way of keeping 
 them, and is always ready for pies ; and as a compote, 
 which is better, I think, than our word sauce, which 
 has so many other meanings already. Potatoes should 
 be picked over in February, and scalded in a kettle 
 of boiling water for two or three minutes, to prevent 
 sprouting. You will find your spring potatoes much 
 better for it. Onions should be kept in shallow 
 boxes, and need as much looking after as choice 
 fruit, for they are very sehsitive to bad air, and, when 
 
FOOD AND DRINK. 203 
 
 not in the best condition, are about as healthy to eat 
 as diseased meat. When perfectly sound there is no 
 healthier food than onions, and an old English rhyme 
 runs : 
 
 Eat leeks in March and onions in May, 
 And all the year after physicians may play ; 
 
 which is very sound sense, as old housekeepers and 
 doctors can tell you. Onions purify the blood, correct 
 biliousness and dyspepsia, and are better for con- 
 sumption and children's diseases than most medi- 
 cines. Many vegetables have strong medicinal 
 qualities. Tomatoes have a similar principle to 
 calomel, but not so injurious. All the talk about in- 
 jury from tomatoes comes from eating them unripe 
 or overripe, or from cans where their acid has dis- 
 solved and corroded the tin. I hope some time peo- 
 ple will know enough to put tomatoes up in glass jars 
 exclusively. Sour vegetables, or fruit shut up in tin 
 cans for six months, cannot be the most wholesome. 
 The rind of cucumbers contains a very strong purga- 
 tive, which is a reason why one should be very care- 
 ful to pare them perfectly, and soak them in cold 
 
204 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 water an hour to extract the drastic juice. One last 
 word : never serve any dish of whose perfect sweet- 
 ness you are not entirely sure. The slightest stale, 
 flat, or changed taste is reason enough to throw it 
 away. I knew a whole family made violently ill by 
 eating a soup which stood a trifle too long in warm 
 weather. Not one of those who ate it tasted any- 
 thing amiss, but the cook confessed she couldn't be 
 sure whether anything was the matter with it or not, 
 and she thought it too good to throw away. I don't 
 think any of those people got well of the sickness 
 the whole summer for this paltry economy. The rea- 
 son why such care is urged in keeping and storing 
 food, and keeping dishes and cooking utensils strictly 
 clean, is because the little decay or ferment,' such as 
 gives the rank smell to ill-washed kettles, will start a 
 change in food which is very dangerous in the system. 
 When your mother or aunt complains of dinner not 
 agreeing with her, or one of the boys calls out in the 
 night for Jamaica Ginger, you don't think that the 
 slightly sour bread, or the canned tomatoes that had 
 grown sharp, or the stew that had changed, "not 
 enough to hurt," as most cooks say — those few drops 
 
FOOD AND DRINK. 205 
 
 of cankering acid, or yeastly ferment — have acted on 
 the sensitive juices and tissues of the body like ver- 
 digris or calomel. People can eat food that isn't 
 just right a good while and not notice the effect, but 
 nature always pays her debts. These things have 
 what doctors call a cumulative effect, which means 
 that it grows stronger by repetition, till an ulcerated 
 sore throat, or attack of colic, pulls one down, and 
 he never gets his strength fully back again. One 
 hears such sad cases of neglect all the time. Three 
 years ago this spring, a young lady of one of the 
 wealthiest families in Boston went to finish her shop- 
 ping for Newport. It was a warm, oppressive day, 
 and going out of the store, she felt suddenly faint. 
 Her strength was utterly prostrated from that mo- 
 ment ; she was taken home in a carriage, and in two 
 weeks was dead from diphtheria. In that strictly 
 guarded home, with every appliance for health and 
 luxury, the cause was found in the waterpipe which 
 led from the expensive refrigerator, with its plate- 
 glass doors and marble shelves, to the house drain, 
 so that all its vile air rose among the food and poi- 
 soned all the inmates. Neither the smart footman 
 
2o6 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 nor the first-class cook had noticed anything wrong, 
 for people in general have very blunted sense of 
 smell. 
 
 Be thankful if you have senses which quickly warn 
 you of unwholesome air. Never mind if dull people 
 tell you that " the smell is in your imagination," for 
 the fault lies with them and not with you. If all this 
 watching and looking after things seems too much 
 effort, remember that the thing in this world which 
 can be done without effort and care is not worth at- 
 tempting ; and the best inheritance in this world is 
 an athletic, healthy spirit, in love with worlj for its 
 own sake, and which counts its ends worth all the 
 strength and striving one can put forth. 
 
XV.— A SCREW LOOSE. 
 
 "\/'0U wanted me, Anna Maria, to go over things 
 this morning, and decide what was best to do 
 
 with them before spring cleaning. You are thinking 
 about draperies and toilet mats, mantel screens 
 and corner brackets, spring dresses and Kate Green- 
 away aprons, with all the pretty devices a girl runs 
 over in her mind. You want the house and its belong- 
 ings just as bright and pretty as it can be with what 
 you have. The only trouble is you don't know where 
 to begin. 
 
 There is a story of a man who had an ambitious wife, 
 who used to say he wanted to be rich, and his wife 
 only wanted to be " comfortably off ; " but he declared 
 he would be rich a long time before she was com- 
 fortable. Everybody wants to be artistic now where 
 people used to be content with being comfortable. 
 
 Yet I've seen plenty of folks who thought their houses 
 207 
 
2o8 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 artistic who would never be in reach of comfort. We 
 will make sure of the comfort first, without leaving 
 taste out, and I think in going over the house, we will 
 begin at the front door. 
 
 Do you notice how loose the knob is, how it swerves 
 in your hand as you try to turn it, and how Charlie 
 has to twist and turn the handle two or three times in 
 his little red-mittened hand before the door opens, 
 when he comes from school in a hurry ; and what 
 a sense of irritation it gives one every time he or she 
 takes the ill-conditioned thing in hand ? One of these 
 times it will come off, and there will be a day's bother 
 for the family before it is repaired. Put a stop to all 
 this vexation at once by finding a screw-driver and fas- 
 tening the loose bolt. Life is too short, too full of 
 better things^ to have its energies wasted by such 
 petty fret and hindrance. The time is nothing; the 
 annoyance repeated five or six times a day for weeks 
 is something serious in the end. Yet how many 
 families endure such annoyances for a whole season 
 for want of two minutes' work with a common tool, 
 which any schoolboy or girl should be able to do. 
 
 The screw is gone ? Now, you remember, you swept 
 
A SCREW LOOSE. 209 
 
 it up last week and threw it into the fire, thinking 
 it wasn't worth saving. You can buy a dozen such 
 screws for five cents, and it wasn't worth the trouble 
 of picking up that one. Beside, if you did, it would 
 only lie around on the mantel or window sill for 
 weeks, and be in the way every time you dusted. You 
 hate uninteresting trash about a house. The boys are 
 always picking up nails and bits of lead or tin, and 
 the consequence is that windows and shelves are 
 decorated with such rubbish. You don't mind saving, 
 but you (Jon't like theTttter it makes. 
 
 I sympathize with you entirely there. I knew a 
 family where the father was punctilious about saving 
 every nail, every scrap of string, every sheet of paper 
 that came into the house, and I know what a burden 
 he made life to his womenkind who liked neat ways, 
 and were always troubled to put away his nails and 
 bits of wire, the nuts and rivets, the tags and strings 
 by which his presence through the house could be 
 traced. This fashion of saving made me hate the 
 very idea of being careful, or of keeping little things ; 
 and it was not till I had a house of my own that I 
 learned how valuable trifles can be, and that not the 
 
2IO ANNA MARIA'S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 saving was to be dreaded, but the disorder. You 
 want not only to save, but to know how to save. 
 
 For want of that tiny screw to the doorknob, you will 
 have to find Willie, see that he is neat enough to go 
 down town, and send him to the shop for a paper of 
 screws. As Willie is with the rest of the boys, watch- 
 ing the ice break up in the river, and will have to 
 change his boots when he comes home, and get you 
 to sew a button on his coat, and you will have to see 
 that his face is clean, his hair brushed, and his mittens 
 on, and he will have to bring back samples of screws 
 before you can get the right size, I think you will 
 agree that it would have been less trouble to save 
 the screw in the beginning ; better still to have tight- 
 ened it as soon as it came loose. But while you wait 
 for the screws, let us provide against such awkward- 
 ness happening again. I want to give you a charm 
 against all litter of nails and strings, all losing of 
 screws, loss and breakage of every sort, as far as 
 mortal can prevent. You want a light wooden tray — 
 an old kitchen knife-box, or quarter-box for raisins will 
 answer -^ with handle in the middle, and small parti- 
 tions in the sides to hold things of different sizes. 
 
A SCREW LOOSE. 211 
 
 Have the tray finished as nicely as you can, scrubbed 
 with sand or sandpapered, all roughness smoothed, 
 and cracks filled, last of all, finished with oil varnish 
 which will not chip like spirit varnish. A neat tray 
 that you don't object to handle is more likely to be 
 used than a rough, grimy box no one wants to touch. 
 In this tray you want tools : a claw-hammer large 
 enough and heavy enough to drive a ten-penny nail, 
 and let me tell you, though you are a girl, it is easier 
 to drive nails with a hammer of some weight than 
 with these foolish light tools sold " for ladies' use." 
 Next, you need a common screw-driver, such as comes 
 with sewing machines, and costs five cents ; a larger 
 one for obstinate screws, twenty-five cents; a gimlet 
 for boring holes, five cents ; two files, one coarse, one 
 fine, the two costing twenty-five cents ; a handsaw, 
 fifty cents j and a good jack-knife worth twenty-five. 
 You have a hatchet with broad blade already — as 
 most families do — but is it sharp ? If not, the 
 kitchen grindstone will set that right. Add to these, 
 if you choose, a kit of soldering tools, which come 
 for women's use in a neat wooden box for fifty cents, 
 iron, scraper, solder and resin complete. Also a 
 
212 ANNA MARIAS HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 glue-pot and two wooden clamps at five cents apiece, 
 and you cannot only save the cost of repairs, which 
 is the least consideration, but also the waiting for 
 things which need mending, and the vexation of care- 
 less workmen and slighted work. Things have come 
 to such a pass now that the ordinary workman will 
 often refuse to mend a thing at all, preferring you 
 should pay the price for a new one. As he says, 
 " Not wanting to be bothered with repairs." I have 
 taken my French coffee-pot to the shop to have a trifle 
 of soldering done which would restore its usefulness, 
 and the tinman refused to touch it. He would sell 
 me a new pot, price two dollars and fifty cents, but 
 he would not do twenty-five cents' worth of work on 
 the old one. " It was too much bother to do small 
 jobs." 
 
 I did not give up my coffee-pot, which made such 
 incomparable coffee, but waited until I found an old- 
 fashioned tinner who for thirty cents gave back the pot 
 ready to last longer than a new one. It often happens 
 that the first of any convenience manufactured, es- 
 pecially of patent articles, are much better made than 
 any after, and you have better wear from an old 
 
A SCREW LOOSE. 213 
 
 thing mended than from a new and inferior one. 
 Don't tell me you can't use a soldering iron or a saw. 
 I know a dozen women as clever with such things as 
 their brothers. If you don't know how at first, you can 
 learn by practice ; and you may as well do your own' 
 bungling and botching as pay workmen for it, and 
 most of them botch repairs anyhow. There is noth- 
 ing in the ordinary repairs of a house, in tin, wood, or 
 iron, painting or puttying, which is not as easy for a 
 girl or woman as half the work which properly falls to 
 her share. For instance, the door of a closet sticks, 
 and every time it is opened you must work and coax 
 it, bear down on the handle or kick the panel before 
 it will budge. I have seen families worry with a 
 door for years without the energy to put it in order. 
 You can see by the mark on the floor or frame what 
 the matter is. The door needs planing off the eighth 
 of an inch on some corner. The best way to cure it 
 is to take it off the hinges, and have the edge planed 
 true ; but this is too heavy for you, though I have 
 seen a slender woman take a door down, trim it with 
 her jack-plane, and put it up in less time than one 
 could send for a carpenter. This trouble you can 
 
214 ANNA MARIAS HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 remedy by paring, the corner very carefully with 
 a sharp knife, and rubbing it smooth with sand- 
 paper. A window rattles at night, disturbing the 
 sleep of every one near it. Whittle out two small 
 'wedges of hard wood to fit between the sash and 
 window-frame, and the clatter is stopped. 
 
 But the question is where to find a bit of hard 
 wood when wanted. An old slate frame was burned 
 up last week of seasoned maple, just right for such 
 uses. The odd block from the baby's old set would 
 do, but that was burned too. Better keep a box to 
 save such things. A window shade hangs awry, a 
 distress to sight, and to the hand of any one who 
 wants to pull it up. Usually such things hang till the 
 shade is half ruined. Take it down at once. Your 
 fine screw-driver pries out the little nails easily; the 
 little clamp which screws on the table holds roller 
 and holland straight at one end, while you tack the 
 other with your sure-headed hammer. A tiny rivet 
 is wanting for the roller cap — somebody brushed it 
 off the window sill when it fell, and thought no more 
 about it. You can't get such a rivet short of the 
 factory where the curtain fixtures were made ; dealers 
 
A SCREW LOOSE. 215 
 
 do not keep them. You must put up another socket. 
 There has been one calmly rusting on the wash- 
 room window these three months. What a rusty, 
 disagreeable object to touch ! Boil it in your lye-can 
 a few moments ; it comes out clean and bright. Th© 
 screws have worn the wood in the screw-holes because 
 somebody tried to pry tliem out with the hatchet, like 
 nails, the last time the shades were taken down, in- 
 stead of unscrewing them. Use a size larger screw. 
 Where to find them ? It seems to me that for three 
 months I have seen screws, nails, rivets, wherever 
 such things ought not to be — on the kitchen mantel- 
 piece last week, on the flower-stand week before, on 
 the window in Willie's room, or the sidelight in the 
 hall where he tucked them before darting out to play. 
 Of course they are not to be found now. But I'll tell 
 you where they ought to be after this — in one of the 
 compartments of your tray, where every such thing as 
 a fixture, or part of a fixture, should be kept, together 
 with tacks, brads, nuts, and all the things which are 
 useless till they prove invaluable. 
 
 To gather these things is the use of those handy 
 modern articles known as catchalls. Every room in 
 
,2i6 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 the house should have one of these. A cigar-box, 
 decorated, makes a good one to stand on the mantel 
 and receive odds and ends, from pens to nails, old 
 keys, bits of metal, or hard wood, waste paper, rags 
 and strings going into a waste-basket fanciful enough 
 to disguise the litter it contains. 
 
 Nobody wants \o run to the kitchen closet and 
 work tray with every nail, or bit of rubbish, but it is 
 dropped in the little carved catchall and nobody the 
 wiser till the end of the week, when all these recep- 
 tacles are to be emptied, contents sorted, and each 
 kind go to its own place, the rags to the big rag bag 
 in the stair closet, the hardware to the scrap tray 
 where nails of one size drop in their division, screws 
 in theirs, nuts and bolts in their own, and pieces 
 of seasoned hard wood go in a box by themselves, 
 ready for the boys' jack-knives or your "Boston 
 knife," when wanted. The use of tools will teach you 
 the worth of such material. Have a place for it, with 
 convenient catchalls to receive house litter, and you 
 will find that it is better to keep a thing a dozen 
 years till you want it, than to once want it, and be 
 without. 
 
A SCREW LOOSE. 217 
 
 So, when Willie splits up the store boxes for kind- 
 ling, teach him to draw out all the long, slender nails 
 first, and put them away, because such nails are best 
 for holding boards together, and are not commonly 
 sold. That bit of hoop iron will serve to brace your 
 trunk when it begins to gape at corners. Those little, 
 long nails from the raisin-boxes are the only ones 
 to tack the corners of trunk trays so that they will 
 hold, and hold aU the better for being bound with 
 that thin brass off a foreign package you were just 
 going to throw away. Willie wants new partitions in 
 his insect cases. He can whittle them out of the soft 
 wood of broken clothes pins. Or he w&nts to line his 
 rabbit hutch so the inmates cannot gnaw their way 
 through. Bricks are out of the question, but tomato 
 cans are not. Heat them, when empty, till the solder 
 melts, and the ends drop out, when you have square 
 pieces of tin which need hammering or rolling flat to 
 fit them for lining or roofing small pens. Any boy 
 can nail these pieces around the lower part of a rab- 
 bit pen or chicken house, making it both rabbit and 
 rat proof. And this is one of a hundred ways in 
 which rubbish can be turned to use. 
 
XVL— WHEN COMPANY COMES. 
 
 W T'ELL," says Judith Purvear, opening her hand- 
 
 * some fur-lined circular, and throwing back 
 
 her thick satin bonnet-strings, as she settles herself 
 
 for a neighborly call, " I've just been to Mrs. Hill- 
 
 yer's over on Spring street, and such a state as that 
 
 woman was in ! I don't doubt she's out of her mind 
 
 by this time ! Expecting company, you know — her 
 
 brother's wife she never has seen and her mother 
 
 coming on to stay a fortnight on their way to the other 
 
 brother's, in Maine. You know Penelope Hillyer is 
 
 a great hand to put on all the style she can carry, and 
 
 her mother learned it to her. And that little Jennie 
 
 Hillyer is so anxious and so afraid everything won't 
 
 be just right, it's funny. She's had all the carpets up, 
 
 and the paint scrubbed, and cut up her organdy dress 
 
 to flounce the toilet table, and sent to town for English 
 
 preserves and pickles for fear Penelope won't think 
 218 
 
WHEN COMPANY COMES. 219 
 
 hers good enough ; and she wanted to know if I 
 thought it would do to put the big easy-chair in the 
 parlor for old Mrs. Spinner, because the sun has faded 
 the reps ; and would I hang tlie lace curtains all 
 round the bay window, or just across the arch; and 
 when I dined at the Wards' were the spoons crossed at 
 the corners of the table, or laid beside the dishes, and 
 was the bread on table or on the sideboard ; and did 
 I think it would do to have colored napkins for break- 
 fast, as they did on account of the children — she had 
 a set of such pretty colored ones — and would I set the 
 cups and saucers ready for pouring coffee, or pile 
 them together — she heard both ways were used; and 
 would I have boiled ham for breakfast, or wouldn't 
 folks expect it ? Boiled ham for breakfast ! Where 
 did you ever hear of that ! Where do you suppose she 
 was raised "i " 
 
 It wasn't worth taking up seriously. Such a woman 
 never knows when she has the worst of it ; but my 
 sympathies went with little Mrs. Hillyer, anxious to 
 please her grand sister-in-law, and worrying about 
 small proprieties, yet ready to make the queerest blun- 
 ders. She went from school-life to housekeeping with 
 
220 ANNA MARIAS HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 very little practice of the latter — it would come of 
 itself when it was needed, her mother said. But poor 
 health came first, and with slender strength, the care 
 of children, and a small income, she had fallen out of 
 all ways of living save the easiest, and she never 
 knew the art to make the easy-going life graceful. 
 The family lived on picked-up dinners and scrappy 
 breakfasts. 
 
 Tidying was going on at all hours of the day, 
 and was never done, after all; and the poor little 
 woman never was through with her work, or knew any 
 satisfaction in doing it. She couldn't put more 
 strength into her overwrought brain and muscles, 
 so as to grasp her difficulties, and sweep them out of 
 the way any more than you could roll the ton of rock 
 that lies by the road. But, worse than her ineffi- 
 ciency, was the coarseness of the comfortable, well- 
 to-do woman who could only see something to laugh 
 and scream over in the troubles and mistakes of her 
 weaker neighbor. I wish I could make you see the 
 horror and vulgarity of this spirit which seems spread- 
 ing among the women and girls of to-day. " I could 
 forgive a woman any fault," said one who knew the 
 
WHEN COMPANY COMES. 221 
 
 world, " sooner than contempt of a less fortunate 
 neighbor." 
 
 If you don't want company to be a burden and a 
 bore, and meet it with more blunders than poor Mrs. 
 Hillyer, learn how to keep house for yourself first. 
 And more than this, set yourself to learn the stand- 
 ards of good taste in matters great and small, even 
 of such things as napkins and teacups, as well as more 
 serious matters. In every two ways of doing things 
 one of them is sure to be better than the other ; and 
 you may as well find out which it is, for these little 
 things give the grace to housekeeping which no money 
 can procure. Housekeeping ! I write the word with 
 a sort of love, for to me it means home-having ! 
 Just take down Mrs. Stowe's House and Home Papers 
 to-night, and read the chapter which has these pictures 
 of the noble housekeepers of New England. 
 
 In earlier ages the highest bom, wealthiest and proudest ladies 
 were skilled in the simple labors of the household. ... By 
 a lady we mean a woman of education, of liberal tastes and 
 ideas, who without any very material additions or changes would 
 be recognized as a lady in any circle of the Old World or the 
 New. The existence of a class of ladies who do their own work 
 
222 ANNA MARIA's HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 is a fact peculiar to American society. In early times were 
 to be seen families of daughters, handsome, strong women, 
 rising each day to their indoor work with cheerful alertness, one 
 to sweep the room, another to make the fire, while a third pre- 
 pared the breakfast for the father and brothers, and they chatted 
 meanwhile of books, studies and embroidery, discussed the last 
 new poem, or some historical topic started by grave reading ; or 
 perhaps a rural ball. They spun with the book tied to the dis- 
 taff ; they wove ; they did all manner of fine needlework ; they 
 made lace, painted flowers — in short, in the boundless con- 
 sciousness of activity, invention, and perfect health, set them- 
 selves to any work of which they had ever read or thought. 
 The amount of fancy work done in our day by girls who have 
 nothing else to do will not equal what was done by those who 
 performed, in addition, the whole work of the family. Those 
 remarkable women of old were in a measure made by circum- 
 stances. There were no servants to be had, and so children 
 were trained to habits, of industry and mechanical adroitness 
 from the cradle. Every movement was calculated, and she who 
 took two steps when one would do lost her reputation for fac- 
 ulty. Now if every young woman learned to do housework and 
 cultivated her practical faculties in early life she would in the 
 first place be more likely to keep her servants, or would avoid 
 that wear and tear of ill success in those matters on which fam- 
 ily health and temper mainly depend. 
 
 The spirit of tiie chapter is condensed into the par 
 
WHEN COMPANY COMES. 223 
 
 agraph. Such young housekeepers as Mrs. Stowe 
 describes are yet to be found in our American soci- 
 ety, where they are its flower, of a kind which will 
 come into cultivation again with the true damask 
 rose and clove gilly-flower for which florists are begin- 
 ning to look in old-fashioned gardens. It is a becom- 
 ing ambition for any girl to aim at being one of them. 
 And the final pride of housekeeping is to receive 
 company well, so that you will not find it a burden, 
 nor those who come to your house find themselves 
 less comfortable than in their own. 
 
 Of course to do this, you will have to learn to 
 treat yourself well ; not like the genteel ladies we 
 read of, who have hash and gingerbread lunch served 
 with the same ceremony as a state dinner, to keep 
 the children and servant-maid in training, but in that 
 easy, well-mannered way which is neither slovenly 
 when alone or stiff in company. 
 
 Two safe rules for entertaining are : Seldom apol- 
 ogize ; never pretend. If you don't have dinner in 
 three courses beside dessert every day, and you know 
 Henrietta or Penelope doesn't either, why trouble 
 yourself and the maid with changes of plates, and 
 
224 ANNA MARIA'S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 bringing in coffee in the small cups, and having out 
 the finger-bowls that you use precisely a dozen times 
 a year? The girl is nervous for fear she will not 
 hand the cups, or use the berry service right, and 
 you are secretly nervous for fear she may drop the 
 precious ware, and forget to talk amusingly, and Pene- 
 lope sees through it all. That's all you get by this 
 bit of pretence. But you can every day train the 
 girl or train yourself to wait on the table dexterously 
 and quickly, which is the greatest comfort at any 
 dinner, whether of herbs or roast fillet, with game 
 removes, and the cloth and napkins may be always 
 fresh and well-ironed, not starched so that they slip 
 from handling, or ironed as^ew with machine hems 
 drawn and shrunk in washing. 
 
 The dishes may be ranged orderly on the table, 
 and unsightly things removed at once, like the shells 
 of baked potatoes and the oatmeal saucers, when 
 used. To do this without disturbance, you want the 
 little side-table, with two or three shelves to stand 
 at your elbow while presiding at meals, with relays of 
 deesert plates or dessert itself, extra spoons, knives 
 and napkins, a bowl of hot water, and nice towel if 
 
WHEN COMPANY COMES. 225 
 
 spoons and things need washing to go around for dif- 
 ferent courses, while the lower shelf may receive the 
 soiled plates, and keep them out of sight. One house- 
 keeper I know has her bright little single oil stove 
 with its bright brass and nickel-trimmings on such a 
 table, and bakes her delicate griddle-cakes, boils eggs, 
 or broils cutlets on a covered broiler while at the 
 table. Why not? She does not wish to lose the 
 cheery breakfast chat with family and guest, so she 
 makes her work becoming enough to bring into the 
 room with them. The batter is in a smooth, clay jar, 
 modeled for decoration, but remarkably good she 
 finds for kitchen use, or in one of those embossed 
 stone-ware mugs oiFlandres gres which you find at the 
 German importers. The chops, .or steak, neatly 
 trimmed, are on a covered plate, to be cooked in a 
 sheet iron broiler and served smoking hot to each 
 person, just as the famous Beefsteak Club of London 
 serves them in the grill-room to its titled members 
 from its silver gridirons. It is all done like a lady, 
 noiselessly and quickly, so that it is a treat to take a 
 breakfast from her hands. 
 
 Breakfast over, such a woman will see that her 
 
226 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 guest is comfortably bestowed somewhere, before 
 going to her own work. A visitor cannot expect you 
 to devote your whole time to her, and you would 
 both grow tired of each other probably, if you did. 
 Of course if your cousin or old schoolmate from 
 Minnesota or Idaho or Tahiti has come to her old 
 home for a visit which she only expects to repeat 
 once or twice in her lifetime, or the old neighbor who 
 rarely crosses her own doorsill comes to stay a day and 
 night with you, you will wish to spend every moment 
 possible with her ; and this must be arranged for 
 beforehand. 
 
 If it is an intimate friend, and you think she 
 would like it, take her out in your kitchen with you 
 for a cosey chat while you wash the dishes and beat 
 up the pudding for dinner. Try to have things 
 about your kitchen cabinet, so that polite persons 
 will not be frightened to peep into it. One of 
 the most charming visits I ever had in my life was 
 with a New England literary woman who did her own 
 work, and the evenings in her pretty, up-stairs draw- 
 ing-room, when she set the music-box playing softly, 
 and showed her choice photographs and relics, and 
 
WHEN COMPANY COMES. 227 
 
 told of her Washington winter, or the long afternoon 
 drives when we went through delicious coast scenery 
 one day to see a quaint and celebrated collection of 
 historical curiosities, and the next to call on Mrs. 
 Harriet Prescott Spofford and the poet Whittier, 
 were hardly more delightful than the mornings she 
 went through her dishes and dusting, and let me go 
 with her, while we cracked jokes in abandoned ease 
 and long aprons. By all means, give a visitor her 
 choice, naming several occuptions available. 
 
 " Now, Emma, there's the last Round Robin novel, 
 and the Century, if you want to curl down in the rock- 
 ing-chair and read, and the bookcase never is locked, 
 or the garden is pleasant for a stroll, and there's a 
 nice view from the end of the street if you care to go 
 farther ; or if you want, bring your fancy work where 
 I am, and we'll talk enough to forget we're in working 
 quarters." 
 
 But have things prepared so that housekeeping 
 will claim you as briefly as possible; and it is surpris- 
 ing how much can be done before a visit, even to 
 having vegetables washed for three or four days, soup 
 ready for heating up, jellies, creams, tarts, fruit picked. 
 
228 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 all dusting and cleaning done to your satisfaction, 
 relays of clean to\yels and napkins all ready, plans 
 made for entertaining your guest, the piano tuned, 
 the carriage in order, even if it is only an old chaise 
 to be brushed, washed, and the tires tightened. See 
 that these things are done in time and not left to the 
 last minute. 
 
 It's a piece of common care for your guest's com- 
 fort to see that she has as good a bed to sleep in as 
 you can give her. Not only that the counterpafie 
 and toilet covers and mats are the freshest, but that 
 the room, bed and pillows have been aired and sunned 
 thoroughly the day before they are to be used. I 
 have been put to sleep in a bed where the blankets 
 were absolutely wet to the touch with sea air, and 
 the mistress of the house next day was surprised, 
 " for the things had been out in the sun all day less 
 than a month before." The fever caught in that 
 damp room lasted all summer. People grow so 
 insensible to the odors and atmosphere about them 
 that they never can be sure how these things may 
 affect others coming freshly into them. You in health 
 and elasticity may sleep soundly on a husk mattress 
 
WHEN COMPANY COMES. 2 2g 
 
 on which a person with weak spine will toss all night 
 in torture. And you may very properly think nothing 
 better for most of the world than your nice hair 
 mattress, when your old lady visitor may lose her rest 
 the week she is with you for want of the feather- 
 bed which she has used since childhood. Or a sus- 
 ceptible person will find a lasting headache brought 
 on by sleeping on soft low pillows, when a tendency 
 of blood to the head requires that it should be kept 
 up by three well-filled ones. Nothing shows a nar- 
 row, meagre mind worse than inability to comprehend 
 or allow for other people's habits which vary from your 
 own. You may be as sure as you exist that hard 
 beds and no pillows are best for health, and yet it 
 may be just as true that some difference in the circu- 
 lation or the nerves renders feather-bed and high 
 pillows indispensable to the well-being of others. 
 Inquire into these likings of an elderly visitor, or one 
 who is out of health, if you don't wish their stay with 
 you to be a penance. Consult their habits as far as 
 you can as to the hours of rising and retiring and 
 meals. In chilly mornings send up a pitcher of hot 
 water, and light a fire for them to dress by, without 
 
230 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 needing to be asked for such comforts. Have the 
 extra pillow and blankets in the room, and call atten- 
 tion to them when showing the guest up at night. 
 Always take a visitor to the chamber assigned on 
 arrival, as she may wish to put her toilet in order. 
 Open closet and bureaus she is to have, for a guest 
 has been known too bashful or delicate to appropriate 
 them to her own use without permission. See that 
 there is drinking water in reach, for one does not feel 
 like wandering through a strange house in search of 
 the ice pitcher, or like sending some one after it 
 every time she is thirsty. Ink for writing, which is not 
 conveniently carried in a trunk, matches, and a dean, 
 well-trimmed lamp or candle, should be ready in the 
 room, and some kind of foot warmer, if the weather is 
 at all chilly and the fire cannot be lit. At night, just 
 before retiring, have any slops in the rooms emptied, 
 the pitcher refilled, the lamp wiped dry of oil and 
 lighted ready, the heat turned on if there is a register, 
 a nice book left out for a " nightcap," some trifle to 
 eat in a plate — a little confectionery, crackers, 
 apples, oranges — for one may lie awake hours with 
 nervousness when a few nibbles of food would give 
 
WHEN COMPANY COMES. 23 1 
 
 the craving stomach something to do, draw the blood 
 from the brain and send one to sleep comfortably. If 
 you grudge these attentions, either you can't care 
 much for your guest, or you need lessons in hospi- 
 tality ; and either way, had better dispense with invi- 
 tations till you are ready to carry them out. 
 
 So in food your habits may be so different from 
 your visitor's as to interfere with her health, and a 
 little inquiry is the safest thing. Don't say you are 
 not going to put yourself out for people ; that what is 
 good enough for you must do for them. In your 
 house every one is dependent on you for comfort, 
 and to make your tastes the limit for others is too 
 boorish and selfish to contemplate. A rather con- 
 spicuous instance is in mind, when a well-known, 
 cultivated Eastern lady left a comfortable home by 
 advice of her physician, to travel in the Pacific 
 States, Those who have taken the journey will 
 know how she missed the carefully prepared table, 
 the ever ready bath and the warm rooms people are 
 used to in good homes. After her return one of 
 the families she visited made their guest the subject 
 of a magazine caricature, the head and front of her 
 
232 ANNA MARIA'S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 offence being that the poor, worried invalid wanted 
 fruit for breakfast, asked for a hot bath at night, find- 
 ing herself in a house with a bath room, and com- 
 plained of the poor quality of the grapes and the 
 rawness of the climate as she had found it. Mighty 
 crimes in a guest, who came with a letter from a mutual 
 friend, requesting that all attention should be paid 
 her. The family who could neither take pains to 
 procure nice fresh fruit for a visitor when it was plenty, 
 nor furnish a bath which would have been unspeakable 
 relief to a nervous sufferer, and must then ridicule her 
 publicly in an article, where her real name was given 
 with the change only of a single letter, is a specimen 
 of a sort of breeding not so uncommon as it should 
 be, and will do for a pattern to avoid. I'm not talk- 
 ing now of the duties of guests to their entertainers ; 
 you have only to answer for your own part as hostess, 
 which you are not to slight foeTiny short comings of 
 your gtjest. But I have seen such wretched illiberality 
 of spirit between people of a different style of living 
 and a thoughtless young visitor who perhaps picked 
 the flowers and fruit more lavishly than her hosts 
 were used to, or sat up later and burned more gas or 
 
WHEN COMPANY COMES. 233 
 
 oil than they thought proper, or kept the horse out 
 too long for the convenience of the family, though 
 not to any real injury, that I want to remind you 
 that you don't receive guests to make them happy in 
 your way, but their own, and you should either be wil- 
 ling to sacrifice some of your ways to them, or avoid 
 trouble by never inviting them at all. It is a tribute 
 to both sides when people of different families can 
 stay a fortnight in each other's houses and part with 
 as high regard as when they met. But whether your 
 beds and cooking are to your frj^ nd's liking or not, 
 whether her manners suit your notions or not, one rule 
 is binding on both if you would consider yourselves 
 well-bred — that the confidence between host and 
 guest is sacred. Your guest is not to be " talked 
 over " after she leaves ; neither the holes in her 
 stockings nor her soiled petticoats, nor the way she 
 lay abed mornings, nor the way she liked to attract 
 attention, nor her appetite for Baldwin apples, any 
 more than she is to report what a shabby table you 
 kept, or how dull the evenings were, or what a curious 
 old lady your deaf aunt was. Silence at once and 
 forever on all that concerns those who have slept 
 
234 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 under your roof. Do not allow yourself to be drawn 
 into discussing their peculiarities, or betray a covert 
 smile when they are named, or those who try to pump 
 you .will be the first to sneer at your loose tongue 
 and bad manners when your back is turned. If your 
 guest betrays you and circulates anything to your 
 disadvantage, content yourself with explaining the 
 matter when it comes up, but say nothing against her. 
 In your silence, her ill-breeding betrays itself, and 
 she is her own worst accuser. 
 
XVII.— MAKING THE BEST OF THINGS. 
 
 "\70UR little note slipped under the door last 
 -*- evening, on your way home from the drug- 
 gist's, for Tom's toothache drops, came straight to 
 heart and hand. You find home dull with the best 
 care you can give it; and as you look round the 
 shabby, commonplace rooms, you wish for some 
 way of brightening them and brightening life 
 together. Life seems rather " grubby " and tame 
 to you, does it ? — a common complaint at sixteen. 
 In stories, you know, the young lady's arduous 
 duty is to fill the vases and dust the ornaments, "and 
 I have seen young women who really thought they 
 had made the best of their time when they had 
 dawdled over cut flowers and china an hour of a 
 morning. 
 
 In a world so full of novelties and delights as 
 this, where there is so much to be done for one's 
 23s 
 
236 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 self and for others, can one be satisfied with mere 
 touches and glances like this? Well might a keen 
 novelist of the day say concerning one of his 
 heroines: "She was a lady, and nothing else — the 
 most charming and useless of creatures." She was 
 not a lady, pur sang, or she would have been good 
 for something; at least as much as the French 
 duchesses who fled to England in the Revolution, who 
 made caps and mantles for a living, or gave lessons 
 in drawing, and did these things very well too. They 
 were taught to do everything better than common 
 people, as became their rank. The Princess Louise 
 of England is a lady, if you please, but not a useless 
 one. In their toyhouse at Osborn she and her royal 
 sisters were taught every detail of housekeeping from 
 washing and ironing shirts to cooking dinners and 
 butter-making, under far more rigid inspection than 
 you ever face, and she can decorate a room, or serve 
 a supper skilfully, not disdaining any use of her hands 
 to which hands can be put. The Prince of Wales 
 very wisely insists that his lovely young daughters 
 shall be taught different occupations as carefully as 
 if they expected to earn their bread by them. They 
 
MAKING THE BEST OF THINGS. 237 
 
 are to take their studies, he directs, as thoroughly as 
 if they were qualifying for governesses, and their 
 mother, the Princess Alexancjria, who, if stories are 
 true, used to sew on her own gowns, sees to it that 
 they neglect nothing either pleasant or convenient 
 for a woman to know. 
 
 Girls and women of a certain inferior turn of 
 mind are fond of thinking of their place in life as 
 the woman's kingdom, and of themselves as queens 
 and sovereigns of home, which is about as fine as 
 these high-flyers can reach. These queens of the 
 baking-pans and empresses of the pot lids find it 
 consoling to move about their little houses in a halo 
 of imagination, like that of the hired girl I knew, 
 who confessed to wearing white satin and diamond 
 earrings in fancy all the while her hands were in 
 the dishwater scraping the frying-pan with her finger- 
 nails. I beg you to disdain such shams and affecta- 
 tions, and be proud enough to' content yourself with 
 the plain fact of being an American girl in modest 
 circumstances, who is bound to make the best of 
 everything with her own hands, and very thankful for 
 the chance. You certainly can make your house 
 
238 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 interesting, and your busy life will keep you out of a 
 hundred absurdities and affectations. The funniest 
 of common things is the way a girl takes to copying a 
 favorite heroine by little pruderies and primnesses, as 
 if she were educating herself into finer ladyhood, and 
 by catching tricks of manner, she could imbibe a 
 whole character. 
 
 If you ever resent the not-over-pleasant duties 
 which crowd out so many pleasant things, you may 
 take consolation from the letters of Mrs. Carlyle, 
 who knew both sides of life. Brought up to elegant 
 leisure, the only child of doting, well-to-do parents, 
 and full of all the tastes which belong to a bright, 
 accomplished, sensitive woman, she led the life of 
 a poor man's wife for a score of years, bound to 
 extract the utmost comfort and gentility out of a 
 narrow income by the strictest economy and clever 
 handiwork. Her letters to her old home friends 
 are full of domestic affairs, notable -cleanings and 
 tearings-up when Mr. Carlyle was away, picking 
 apart of mattresses, taking down bedsteads and soak- 
 ing them to get rid of " beings," the bare idea of 
 which sent her wild and Carlyle frantic, making of 
 
MAKING THE BEST OF THINGS. 239 
 
 bed hangings, which with their linings and trimming 
 were a heavy work in those days of hand needlework, 
 with help of her hired girls who smashed whole tables 
 of china and got too drunk to stand ; how she swept 
 and " black-leaded " grates, made the cold meat do 
 for days to save cooking, and boiled the porridge for 
 supper by the parlor fire to save trouble — all told 
 in the liveliest fashion, with fun, temper, and often 
 tears in the words. But with all her heavy load of 
 unshared care, the genuine sense of the woman 
 speaks out in words like these, written from the 
 home of her wealthy relatives on a visit : 
 
 I declare, I am heartily sorry for these girls in this absurd, 
 indolent way, sailing down the stream of time. How grateful I 
 ought to be to you, dear, for having rescued me out of the 
 young-lady sphere I It is a thing that I cannot contemplate 
 with the proper toleration. 
 
 Brave little woman ! She could paper, paint, scrub, 
 and black grates, upholster and mend, even to cob- 
 bling Mr. Carlyle's cloth shoes all one New Year's 
 Day, without over-much murmuring, but the aimless, 
 endless young-lady life of dressing, sipping tea, read- 
 
240 ANNA Maria's housekeeping 
 
 ing a little, riding a little, and doing fancy work a 
 little, filled her with disgust, as it must every 
 capable woman or girl who feels in herself the ability 
 for more than mere slipping through life the easiest 
 way. 
 
 If you look at your housework as the means to 
 a delightful home, it will not seem hard or hateful ; 
 even the dreaded sweeping day, which I own to 
 hating worse than wash-day, leads to the repose of 
 fresh, fragrant rooms, and sanctity from dust and 
 defacement. It need not be quite so much a penance 
 with proper things to do it. For a sweeping outfit 
 you want several large covers of glazed cambric or 
 chintz to throw over piano, sofa, and all the large 
 pieces of furniture you cannot wheel out of the room. 
 A bed cover is indispensable in sweeping chambers. 
 The good old-fashioned ones used to be of nankeen, 
 bordered with chmtz stripes and the size three by 
 four yards, to envelop everything about the bed. At 
 least you can use old sheets and newspapers to cover 
 things, if nothing else is at hand. A carpet-sweeper 
 you must have, not because it does the work easier, 
 so much as because it saves breathing dust, which is 
 
MAKING THE BEST OF THINGS. 241 
 
 dangerous for the lungs. The common brush sweepers 
 are better than brooms, but I prefer the Atmospheric 
 carpet-sweeper, which has a fan in the box, that draws 
 all the dust and lint into it without any brush to 
 clog or wear out the carpet. It is pretty to see how 
 it licks lint and threads from the floor, leaving 
 Brussels or ingrain as absolutely clean as if it came 
 from a steam cleaner. 
 
 A long-handled sweeping-brush for wood floors and 
 mattings, and a long dust brush for cornices and 
 lintels, make work easy, but you can do it just as 
 nicely with a clean broom kept soft by dipping in 
 boiling suds every week, and wrapping a clean cloth 
 round the head of it for high dusting. A large 
 dustpan with tall, upright handle, four feet long, 
 saves much tiresome stooping, and is more desira- 
 ble than expensive brushes, if you can't have both. 
 Stiff manilla paint brushes to dust corners and 
 tufted , furniture, soft brushes for mouldings, and 
 feather brushes for highly polished wood complete 
 the outfit ; but in place of these one manages very well 
 with a five-cent whisk broom and a soft old cotton 
 duster. 
 
242 ANNA MARIA'S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 In sweeping a parlor, first put all the vases and 
 small ornaments out of the way in a basket or 
 closet, that they need not become indistinguishable 
 with dust. Put all the furniture possible in the 
 hall, and cover pictures, book-cases, clock and other 
 things so closely that dust cannot sift on them 
 carefully wiping off dust that has already settled 
 on them. With a clean brush dust the upper 
 part of the roller blinds and draw them up to their 
 full height out of the way. Dust over doors and 
 windows before you sweep, not to have a double 
 cloud to brush down afterward. If you sweep with 
 a broom, use damp tea leaves, bran, coarse meal, 
 sawdust or dry snow to keep down the dust re- 
 membering to have these things damp, not wet ; to 
 sprinkle only a yard or two where you mean to sweep 
 at once, and to take it up with the sweepings before 
 you go to the next place. Brushing a damp mass 
 of dust and trash over a whole carpet, is not the way 
 to improve it. Fine carpets like Wilton or Moquette 
 should be swept with the pile, to keep them from 
 wearing; and dealers say that Brussels should be 
 swept only one way. It is a good rule always to 
 
MAKING THE BEST OF THINGS. 243 
 
 begin at the corner farthest from the door, taking 
 up the dust every yard or two. Take rugs up, 
 bringing opposite sides together, noi to spill their 
 dust ; lay them face down on green sward, or hang 
 them so out of windows and beat the backs till 
 all the dust is out. Beating on the face sends the dust 
 into the firm woven ground of the rugs. Let them 
 sun for an hour or two on the wrong side, then air in 
 shade with the face up, finishing with a few minutes' 
 broad sunshine to take out the smell which clings 
 to fluffy mats as well as other unsunned carpets. 
 
 As soon as the sweeping is done, open all the 
 windows wide to let as much dust blow out as may 
 be, but keep the doors closed which lead to the 
 rest of the house. While waiting for the dust to 
 settle, go over the furniture in the hall or on the porch, 
 using the stiff brush or whisk on all upholstery, 
 brushing crevices and tufts thoroughly, and beating 
 the cushions with the flat rattan bat sold for the 
 purpose in fancy shops. Use the soft brush or cloth 
 only on wood, but don't go over things with a 
 feather duster and imagine you leave them clean. 
 The dust flies and settles elsewhere for you to 
 
244 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 breathe, and streaks are left in unlikely places. Use 
 a slightly damp cloth to wipe off the dust, and carry 
 it from the room. Read Miss Nightingale's Notes 
 on Nursing if you want to know why a damp cloth 
 is preferable to a flirting brush when dusting a room 
 is in question. 
 
 The stiff brush comes in play for dusting window 
 frames and baseboards after you have wiped the 
 frames and swept the skirting with clean brush or 
 broom into the dust-pan. Try to dust so that your 
 cloth or brush leaves no soiled streak on paint or 
 wall — a sort of shading not uncommon in easy-going 
 houses. White spots on varnished furniture can 
 be rubbed off with alcohol, kerosene, or a little 
 wet ashes. Ink can be scoured off with sapolio, 
 or if the wood is deeply stained, dilute vitriol and 
 wash the spot many times, letting the liquid, which 
 is dangerously caustic, soak in. Put a few drops of 
 furniture polish on a woollen cloth and rub the chairs 
 first washing smears off with kerosene, which also 
 improves varnished wood. 
 
 Keep glue, shellac, varnish, a little white paint 
 and brown or oak stain ready to touch up furniture 
 
MAKING THE BEST OF THINGS. 24$ 
 
 and woodwork. It looks shiftless to keep a dozen 
 broken things about till it is worth while to send for 
 a repairer, when every boy and girl of twelve can 
 use glue and varnish as well, if they only learn. If the 
 mirror frame is shabby, regild it with the materials 
 which come ready for use, at fifty cents a box. If it is 
 too far gone, paint the whole frame over, black, 
 brown, deep red or white. If the grate frame and 
 hearth are rusty, japan them with the black varnish 
 any dealer will furnish for twenty-five cents, and 
 give the coal-scuttle a coat while you are about it. 
 Is there grease on the marble of bureau, table-top 
 or mantel, try sapolio on it first, and then a paste of 
 slacked lime and potash, which will draw the worst 
 grease out of stone or floors. Is the wall paper torn, 
 paste the loose end at once ; if soiled or torn off, 
 cut a square piece to match the figure exactly, 
 and paste over the blemish. Fill holes in the 
 plastering with plaster of paris mixed thick with 
 water, smoothing with a knife. If the carpet shows 
 grease spots, rub hard soap on them, and wash 
 off with crash, rinsing with lather, and rubbing hard 
 with dry crash. This will seldom hurt the colors, if 
 
246 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 quickly done, using but little water. Rub rust off the 
 stove with sand paper or the kitchen burnisher, i. e., 
 the steel pot cloth, before blacking it. 
 
 You would like to know how to make your sitting- 
 room look cosey and "livable," .and want some 
 hints for the arrangement of furniture. A family 
 room needs certain things to be inviting, one of which 
 is a long lounge, not the wretched little parlor lounge 
 that is neither good to sit or lie on, but a gen- 
 erous home-made one, with pillows, for tired people. 
 Doctors say one can rest more lying down ten minutes 
 than sitting down an hour. Next you want easy- 
 chairs, Shaker, cane seat, rattan, wood or uphol- 
 stered, it matters not, so there is a comfortable seat 
 for each of the family. A wide round table where 
 all can find room for work or books is desirable, 
 for it gives all an equal chance, and is more invit- 
 ing than other shapes. A cloth is in the way for an 
 evening table. A book-shelf, not a book-case which 
 takes room, wide, plain brackets and broad window 
 seats for flowers, a clock, and clear glasses for bou- 
 quets, will be the furnishing strictly needed. 
 
 Scrupulous neatness is to be the first charm of 
 
MAKING THE BEST OF THINGS. 247 
 
 your rooms, which in showy upholstery or bare plain- 
 ness, is distinct and attractive as the scent of lav- 
 ender. Beside this, the secret of a pleasant room 
 lies in what aunt Jane would call "having things 
 correspond," or what an artist would call the unity 
 of things — what old Caleb who "chores round" 
 would say, unhesitatingly, was the keeping of things. 
 You want a room mostly in one color or shades 
 of a color. Perhaps you can't do much more in this 
 way than to avoid green and red tidies and lamp- 
 mats, or purple mats and pale blue tidies and 
 deep blue vases, with bouquets on the front, to go 
 with a scarlet and wood-color carpet. You can't get 
 over the carpet, as you can't afford a new one, 
 unless you take the bold step introduced by modern 
 taste, and have it dyed deep red, brown, or deep 
 blue, when the most obnoxious colors come out in 
 different shades, making a fair artistic carpet. If I 
 had an ugly carpet, I would treat it to a bath of 
 madder dye, laid on scalding hot with a brush, be- 
 fore giving up the question. Dreadful, many-colored 
 mats and cushion covers can certainly be dyed, and 
 ten dollars in paint and dyeing will go farther toward 
 
248 AN^fA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 making a really agreeable room than a hundred in 
 common furnishings. A coat of pinky white or pinky 
 drab paint mixed with varnish, laid over doors and 
 common furniture would harmonize with your mad- 
 der red or brown or deep blue carpet, and when 
 you " do up " shades and curtains next, try a few 
 drops of cochineal in the starch, to give them a 
 pleasing tinge. You don't begin to know the re- 
 sources of simple things. 
 
XVIII. — SHOPPING. 
 
 ' I ''HERE is art in spending money, and you will 
 
 -^ find that knowing how to use it to advantage 
 
 is the best help to a generous disposition. As Mrs. 
 
 Carlyle in her shrewd Scotch way would observe, 
 
 " There's a deal of spending in a dollar," if you know 
 
 how to make the most out of it. " To make the crown 
 
 a pound," or to make it go as far as a pound, is the 
 
 lesson most of us have to learn nowadays, when the 
 
 world is so full of wants that even the rich rarely 
 
 have as much ready money as they need at their 
 
 command. After all it is the contriving and making 
 
 the most of every coin and scrap and handicraft that 
 
 gives zest and flavor to our possessions, and to life. 
 
 The first thing in clever shopping is to know what 
 
 you really want, and let me tell you many people 
 
 never get so far in their lives- as to know this. Take 
 
 an evening to it — make a list of all you would like to 
 249 
 
250 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 get if you had the money. Consider what substitutes 
 you can contrive without spending, then strike out 
 everything you can do without from the rest, and see 
 how far you can indulge in the way of pleasant things 
 which are not strictly necessaries. Then write an- 
 other list of things you need, and ought to have. 
 It clears one's ideas and is a great help to thinking to 
 write out these lists with the prices. Then you see 
 just how far your money will go. 
 
 Don't rush out and buy at the first shop you come 
 to, after the fashion of foolish damsels. A good buyer 
 never spends money till she has been the round of the 
 shops learning prices. You have heard deserved rid- 
 icule of idle women who spent their own time and the 
 seller's, pulling over goods for amusement, on the 
 plea that they were " pricing " things. But it is quite 
 the usage and wholly allowable, to make the tour of 
 shops to inform yourself on styles and prices. Take 
 the early morning, or a rainy day when few customers 
 are out, and the clerks have time to attend to you.- 
 Say politely that you do not mean to buy at once but 
 wish to look at such and such goods, and learn the 
 prices first, and use all the despatch you can, not to 
 
SHOPPING. 251 
 
 take too much of the merchant's time for nothing. 
 Learn to be prompt and decided in your choice, not 
 to sit looking foolish over a counter of goods unable 
 to make up your mind what you want, or be bullied 
 or persuaded into buying what you don't really like. 
 Refuse to let the clerk pull down things you do not 
 need and cannot afford, on the plea of merely look- 
 ing at them, for after a certain amount of attention 
 he has a right to expect you to buy of him, and to feel 
 ill-used if you do not. Be careful about giving trou- 
 ble in these pricing expeditions, and you leave no 
 hard feelings behind if you do not leave a penny 
 in trade, or even buy the traditional paper of pins. 
 Don't ask for samples unless you really need them 
 and intend to buy. The girls and women who tell of 
 the pretty percale and silk pieces they get for patch- 
 work by asking for samples, confess to a petty fraud, 
 unbecoming a lady, for it is neither more nor less 
 than getting goods under false pretences. Be sure 
 that experienced clerks know very well whether you 
 are honestly and thriftily learning prices, intending 
 to buy, or making pastime of looking over their goods 
 and wasting their time and your own. 
 
252 ANNA MARIAS HOUSEK.EEPING. 
 
 Every good shopper knows the best time for buying 
 at low prices is when the height of the season is past, 
 after New Year in winter, or in July and August. 
 All classes of goods are then marked down in price 
 to sell them off before the new goods come in for 
 next season. Now you will find hosiery and under- 
 wear from one third to one half cheaper than the 
 same qualities were before holidays, and now is the 
 time to lay in a stock of woollen fabrics, flannels, 
 blankets, towelings and housekeeping goods. Before 
 the spring fashions are out and the rush of dress- 
 making begins, all hands in the making-up depart-' 
 ment of large stores are busy on chemises, nightgowns 
 and all sorts and sizes of underwear. The counters 
 are piled with drifts of white garments, pretty with 
 tucks, ruffles and embroidery at much less than you 
 can get the material and have them made — yes — but 
 not so cheap or neat as you can make them yourself. 
 If the main point in your shopping is to make the 
 most of a little money, and you have time at disposal, 
 do not spend on ready-made clothing. The gown 
 which looks so neat for one dollar, really takes but 
 four yards of eight-cent cotton with five cents' worth 
 
SHOPPING. 253 
 
 of thread and buttons and two yards of cheap em- 
 broidery. You can make a better gown easily in half 
 a day with the sewing machine for half the money. 
 Ready-made things are a boon to overworked mothers 
 and busy women who have not time to set a stitch for 
 themselves, but they look with envy on the trim, fin- 
 ished garments which nice sewers make for them- 
 selves. You want to make your own ruffling and knit 
 or embroider your own fine durable trimming if you 
 are bent on ladylike economies. 
 
 Buy all thick underwear in the between-season af- 
 ter the January stock-taking. The fine Scotch wool 
 socks which were seventy-five cents in December are 
 marked down to fifty cents now, and there are bar- 
 gains in good strong hose for girls and boys for a 
 third less than you can get them next fall. It is good 
 judgment where economy is an object to buy all your 
 flannels for next winter before April, from undervests 
 to blankets. Save a little ready money to buy when 
 things are cheap if you want your purse to hold out 
 through the year. 
 
 By the way, bonbons and small wares rup away with 
 more of girls' money than they would like if they 
 
254 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 knew it. If one spends only five cents a week in 
 candy, it is two dollars and fifty cents a year, the 
 price of a good book, a pretty ornament, or the ma- 
 terials for a lasting bit of decoration, which the girl 
 who has only five cents a week to spare needs" much 
 more than she does walnut taffy or lime drops. Five 
 cents a week for candy ! More girls spend a dollar 
 a week, and I know plenty of them who never come 
 home from down town without their pound of " French 
 mixed." Good candy is delightful and the craving 
 for sweets is natural in young folks, but you hardly 
 like to think of all the other things it runs away with 
 in five years. Just look this question squarely in the 
 face, whether you had rather have a sugar almond to 
 nibble any hour of the day, or ten or twelve dollars 
 more to spend at holidays. If you choose the latter, 
 and want to get rid of the taste for sweets, buy a 
 pound or two of the stuff and eat all you want for 
 once. The girls in the confectioners' shops rarely 
 care for candy, and you can soon break yourself of 
 the craving for it all the tim|. Then if you want it 
 afterward, arrange that it shai| fall in with your ex- 
 penses — a " quarter " of chocolate drops is no bad 
 
SHOPPING. 25s 
 
 substitute for a lunch in a day's shopping, or crackers 
 and a box of bonbons for the family will give an in- 
 expensive treat instead of a regular tea, after late din- 
 ner, Sundays or holiday evenings. I give this much 
 space to the candy question, because it is one of the 
 serious items in a modern girl's spending, and most 
 families spend more for it than for their garden ex- 
 penses and plumber's bills, if they only knfew it. The 
 readiest way to manage the candy bill is not to allow 
 it as an extra, but make it fill the place of something 
 else, as food or treat. 
 
 Then the little things, the spools of silk, the tape, 
 hairpins and nets, the skeins of filoselle and crochet 
 needles that are so trifling when bought, but take the 
 change out of ten dollar bills so easily. The only w^y 
 to reduce these expenses is to buy the year's needs at 
 a time, and make the supply last. Count how many 
 papers of hairpins you used last year, and how many 
 pins and needles. Your account-book will tell if you 
 keep one, and that's one of the benefits of keeping 
 accounts — you know where you can save if you 
 must. Four papers of hairpins, and three papers of 
 pins, large, medium and small, and three papers of 
 
256 ANNA MARIA'S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 assorted needles are all a girl can actually use in a 
 year though not all she can waste. I hope you are 
 not the girl I heard of at boarding-school who used 
 to pull the pins from a paper and shower on the car- 
 pet so that she could always have one by stooping to 
 pick it up wherever she stood. It was convenient, I 
 grant, but the plan has its drawbacks. Yes, I can re- 
 member when the idea of taking care of pins and 
 needles was insupportable to me in young lady days, 
 when the word saving was as hateful to me as it is to 
 most girls. But when I go by the pretty things in 
 the holidays, and sigh for a beveled mirror in a plush 
 frame, or a guipure canopy and coverlet, or an em- 
 broidered cushion that is beautiful as a painting, and 
 think "You goose, you might have one and all these 
 things for the money wasted in pins and findings in 
 the course of your life " — why, small economies don't 
 look as despicable as they used. 
 
 For the material part of her wardrobe, the first 
 thing a girl wants to do when she comes to use her 
 needle cleverly, is to buy a piece or two of good cot- 
 ton and linen, for a full supply of lingerie — which 
 sounds better than the nondescript word underwear. 
 
SHOPPING. 
 
 '57 
 
 Let her take a season or a year to the work, which 
 will be a pride and satisfaction to her. The dainty 
 tucks, and buttonhole scallops, and whipped ruffles 
 instead of machine work, will give her belongings a 
 value in every feminine eye which falls on them, and 
 then I who scribble from week to week without stop 
 must pay thirty dollars the dozen for things that don't 
 begin to compare with yours which never cost you ten 
 dollars. And I never take any comfort in these shop- 
 made things either. You may choose for this work 
 either the fine Lonsdale cambric at twelve and a half 
 cents — not shirting by that name — or the heavy 
 India cottons at forty cents a yard if you want fabric 
 that will last for nice embroidery, or the white French 
 percale at twenty-five cents. Or as the thrifty French 
 seamstresses and waiting maids do, you may buy the 
 finest unbleached cotton with roundest even thread, 
 at ten cents, bleach and embroider it for something 
 almost as nice as the higher priced imported cottons. 
 The hand embroidered gowns you see marked as 
 French and that sell from three to ten dollars each 
 are made of soft Willimantic cotton at seven and 
 eight cents a yard, wrought by fishermen's girls on 
 
258 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 the Maine shores, or French Canadians in forest 
 homes in the long winters of Prince Edward's or the 
 Saguenay. As for linen, you will be lucky to find the 
 Union linens, for personal or household use, which 
 were common a few years ago, and which being half 
 cotton were pleasanter, healthier and cheaper than 
 the pure flax. Pure linen is desirable for handker- 
 chiefs, towels, tablelinen and shirtmaking, rarely for 
 other purposes. But in these goods there is much 
 to know of the difference between the weight of sin- 
 gle and " double damasks," " half-bleached," and 
 " blue Barnesley," and true ecru, between Irish, 
 Scotch and Saxony or Russian linen, which last is 
 stronger and more lustrous than any other from the 
 fine variety of flax grown for it. Pure linen has flat 
 thread and pulls into ragged fibre, while cotton breaks 
 short. 
 
 For dresses you want changes of pretty house 
 gowns, in washing materials, which Americans will 
 soon learn to use as much as the French do. But 
 for this purpose do not choose the pretty satines 
 and painted percales, which are meant to be made up 
 with frippery of linen lace and satin ribbons, worn 
 
SHOPPING. 259 
 
 a season without washing and thrown aside. They 
 will not wash and wear a month to satisfaction. Buy 
 the stout and fine American and English prints in 
 small figures, and check ginghams, to be made in their 
 own style, not with puffed and draped overskirts, in 
 imitation of the latest fashion plates, but in simple 
 gowns or frocks, of Kate Greenaway figure if you 
 like, such as the Lady Beatrice and Lady Gwendoline 
 abroad wear at their lessons, and walks and painting 
 till they are "out" in society and wear full toilets. 
 For walking dress a fine flannel suiting is better style 
 than brocaded wools or imitation stamped velvets as 
 you know. Learn one safe rule, never to buy cheap 
 trimming, such as fringes, velvet ribbons or beadwork. 
 Self trimming, of stitching, folds and pleating of the 
 dress material is always good, while cheap lace and 
 finery stamp the wearer as vulgar at once. Linen- 
 back velvet and satin answer as well or better than 
 all silk materials for trimming because they are 
 firmer and do not fray readily. Lift the velvet to the 
 level of your eye against the light to see if the shade 
 is blue black or rusty, or if the pile is thick and even 
 as it should be. As a rule, trimming materials just 
 
26o ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 - above the medium price wear longest and give satis- 
 faction. The cheap stufi is of poor quality, the high- 
 priced owes its cost not so much to quality as to some 
 freak of fashion. 
 
 For better dress it is safe to buy standard materials 
 and quiet colors, trusting the accompaniments to give 
 it stylish air. Unless one goes out a good deal, a bro- 
 caded velvet dress or cloak for instance will be out of 
 date long before it is ready to throw aside when you 
 can wear a plain silk or cloth with trimming of fur 
 one year, front of figured velvet the next, and em- 
 broidered bands or bright colored linings another. 
 Do not buy fancy fabrics in cheap quality. They 
 must be very good to wear at all. 
 
 In light weight silks, choose the smooth dull tafetta 
 
 or the twilled, instead of thin, shiny gros grain. For 
 
 f 
 trimming, buy thick, soft silks. But choosing a silk 
 
 dress is another matter. As deceitful as silk ought 
 
 to be a proverb. Probably not one silk dress out of 
 
 a dozen gives satisfaction to its owner, by wearing 
 
 as it should. I'm not speaking for girls who have 
 
 half a dozen new gowns a year, but when you buy a 
 
 silk dress, Anna Maria, you want something for the 
 
SHOPPING. 261 
 
 investment that will look ladylike among the best, 
 and will not deface or give out under three years' 
 frequent wear. Then don't spend time looking over 
 Bonnet's or Guinet's silk, but patronize your own 
 country's manufacture. Don't you know that Ameri- 
 can silks are the standard for good qualities ? Ask for 
 the first quality of Cheney's American silk and be 
 sure you get it, for the firm sends out two grades, and 
 you want the best, pure silk, weighty but soft, with 
 subdued lustre, that does not rustle overmuch, a silk 
 for a lady's wear, and which is largely bought by 
 English ladies for its excellence. There you have a 
 dress to last from six to ten years according to the 
 wear you give it, without cutting on the seams or 
 wearing shiny. Silk is cheaper this year than for 
 many a long one before it, but the American holds 
 its own, here and abroad. You may not find the 
 best quality outside the large cities — I never have 
 been able to — but when you do, you will know what 
 good silk ought to be. 
 
 And that reminds me, to tell you and all girls of 
 the advantage in buying all you can in the large cities. 
 I often think while passing the pretty things in the 
 
262 ANN^ Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 shops that I, an old lady, have no longer use for, how 
 delightful it would be to send excursions of country 
 girls here twice a year to do their shopping. Why, 
 it would be like dropping a little fortune into their 
 laps, or doubling their spending money. The pretty 
 percales and satines down to a shilling that were fifty 
 cents the last I remember, the yZ^w/,^ cashmeres at half 
 a dollar. Jerseys at two dollars, neat walking jackets 
 that a ladylike girl need not despise as low as five 
 dollars, and handsome long cloaks for fifteen and 
 eighteen dollars — things of really good style, not 
 rubbish. And the pretty laces, aprons, ribbons and 
 kerchiefs for so little I wonder that city people with 
 nieces in the country are not always sending presents 
 for the pleasure of it. Of course you can send for 
 catalogues and buy by mail, but catalogues have to 
 be paid for by the makers and their prices are never 
 anything near as low as you can buy yourself, being 
 as a rule half as much again as the same goods would 
 be sold to you over the counter of the same store. 
 And the women who make a business of " shopping 
 with taste and discretion " make higher charges still. 
 If you want the benefit of shopping by mail, have a 
 
SHOPPING. 263 
 
 correspondent in the city who doesn't make her liv- 
 ing by that sort of thing ; some girl who knows the 
 shops and where to buy blonde hairpins for five cents 
 a paper, and crimp nets for ten, and lovely ruffled 
 white muslin aprons for twenty-five, and capital long 
 spring gloves for a quarter, and Swede mosquetaires 
 for seventy-five that won't give out while you are 
 pulling them on. You might make the service mutual 
 without either paying too dear for it, by giving her 
 a percentage or by returning the favor to her family 
 in buying their quinces, grapes, honey, and pounds 
 of winter butter at country prices, as city people like 
 to do. In this way city and country can keep up 
 cordial acquaintance and help. Or you could send 
 her yards of that pretty linen lace you knit at your 
 leisure, or work a toilet set, or do some dainty 
 sewing that town life has no time for. Such friendly 
 little arrangements can put fresh grace and help into 
 many quiet lives, and lengthen strait incomes just as 
 well as if the fabled uncle from California had stepped 
 in with the gift of the equally fabulous check — of 
 which uncles are strangely forgetful nowadays. 
 
XIX. — SICKNESS IN THE HOUSE. 
 
 "\70UR mother sick, and Willie down with scarlet- 
 fever? Your heart and hands must be full, 
 my dear girl, and your inexperience weighs you down, 
 you say. But old and practical nurses took their 
 first lessons sometime, in just such anxious trembling, 
 when, for the first time, life to them seemed to be- 
 come really life. 
 
 Patients should be upstairs, as infections rise, the 
 spores and scales which carry the disease, and the air 
 of the sick-room naturally floating upward with the 
 currents of air. If scarlet fever, measles, diphtheria, 
 or any such disease, is in a lower room, the upper 
 part of the house is almost certain to be infected, and 
 persons sleeping there are in danger. The best 
 place for such a case is the large chamber in the 
 wing, cut off from the rest of the house by the side 
 
 entry, where the patient is away from the sights and 
 264 
 
SICKNESS IN THE HOUSE. 265 
 
 sounds of the living rooms, and it is easy to keep 
 them free from infection. I know a house where 
 such a room with windows on three sides is called 
 the hospital chamber, and every one taken sick in the 
 family at once goes into it. The room is specially 
 furnished for sickness, with nothing in it that can be 
 spared, to absorb or give off bad air. The walls are 
 not papered, for paper absorbs infection and bad 
 smells, but they are painted so as to be washed 
 readily. There is no carpet for the same reason 
 — the carpet of a room holding the germs of 
 diphtheria or scarlet fever ready to give it 
 to another, long after the first patient is well. 
 The floor is covered with matting to deaden sound, 
 for matting can be washed with carbolic acid as well 
 as boards, and so disinfected. The bed is a thin one 
 of hair over a woven wire mattress, which makes the 
 most luxurious soft couch, as provided in hospitals 
 for weary, aching invalids. Over the hair bed is a 
 rubber sheet to prevent the tick from being stained 
 with medicine or dressings, over this an old blanket 
 to keep the patient from chill of the rubber, and 
 then the sheet. A set of thin, old blankets, and a 
 
266 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 light coverlet, easily washed, are kept for sickness, 
 and are thoroughly washed with carbolic acid in the 
 water, and boiled, after each case of sickness. You 
 don't want to spoil good blankets by washing them 
 and scalding as often as hospital bedding requires. I 
 learned this care the- year we had diphtheria, scarlet 
 fever, and chicken-pox, rheumatism with its poul- 
 ticings, and a bad case of tumor with lancings and 
 dressings, all in seven months. That is the sort of 
 training life puts us through sometimes. 
 
 By such costly lessons I learned the safety of put- 
 ting a patient as soon as he sickens in a separate 
 room, for you never know at first just what an ail- 
 ment may turn out. The chill with slightly sore 
 throat which brings a child to the lounge in the 
 sitting-room for a day or two, at the end of that 
 time proves to be scarlatina, or the gray diphtheria 
 patches appear, and then to the care of the sick one 
 is added the anxiety of knowing that its hot breath 
 has been sowing the seeds of the disorder among 
 the rest of the household. In sickness, if nowhere 
 else, a care in time saves nine. It often saves life. 
 
 Have the room airy, with two opposite windows 
 
SICKNESS IN THE HOUSE. 267 
 
 down at the top, and the bed out of the draft. It is 
 better to have a fire in any weather when it is 
 endurable, and keep windows open, for the draft 
 carries away and consumes the bad air while drying 
 and improving the fresh that it draws in. Keep the 
 bed well out from the walls, so that air can circulate 
 around it, and have, if possible, a lounge or small 
 bed, in the same room so that the nurse need not lie 
 down on the sick bed, which is not good for her or 
 the patient either. An excellent old practice in infec- 
 tious sickness is to burn sulphur in the room once or 
 twice a day, sprinkling a teaspoonful on a hot shovel 
 and carrying it around slowly that the fumes may fill 
 all parts- of it. It does the patient no harm, but 
 rather much good to breathe it, if not strong enough 
 to make him sneeze or choke, and inhaling sulphur 
 fumes of moderate strength with open mouth kills 
 the poison of diphtheria and ulcerated throats, while 
 it greatly lessens the chance of other persons taking 
 the disease. 
 
 A nurse should be very careful of her personal 
 habits, bathe often, for her own refreshment and to 
 keep her strength up, and wear fresh washable dresses, 
 
268 ANNA MARIA'S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 that neither rustle nor crackle with starch. I have 
 been so annoyed with well-meaning women who would 
 take away my breath as they bent over me with odors 
 of perspiration, and hair not kept with nicety, that 
 seemed to smother the feeble strength left in me. 
 And the chattering nurse who persists in talking a 
 weak patient light-headed — is there any visitation 
 to be compared with her in horror ! Above all things 
 learn to shun the art some people have of talking 
 endlessly and saying nothing, mincing their subjects 
 fine we may say. As I have heard a weakish per- 
 sonage of that sort go on, when she knew one was 
 waiting hopelessly for rest and silence with a tired 
 head, " I won't disturb you, but I just thought I'd 
 ask you so as not to have it to say again — very 
 many people don't like it so but I can't know of 
 course without asking you, and opinions vary so much 
 you never can tell — now don't say one word and 
 exert yourself as you ought not to indeed — but will 
 you have the window-shade down ? " Don't let your 
 ideas flow through your tongue till it must tremble 
 like the magnetic needle, and the senseless words 
 utter themselves till the nervous patient nearly takes 
 
SICKNESS IN THE HOUSE. 269 
 
 leave of sense and sanity together. Learn how to 
 talk in a sick-room. Don't talk loud or fast, in the 
 chatter which young women imagine is conversation, 
 say little at a time, three or four sentences, not 
 more, and then rest,, and don't expect answers. It 
 diverts a sick person and soothes him to hear two 
 other people talking fresh gossip when he is not ex- 
 pected to join, rather than be talked to himself, only 
 the chat should not be long. O, it is with a long 
 apprenticeship in sickness one's self one comes to 
 know how light and sound and exertion affect an 
 invalid, to le;irn what nervousness and weakness are, 
 and how little things sometimes send the forces 
 ebbing back to faintness and failure which had set 
 hopefully toward health and safety. 
 
 As much depends on the food of your patient as on 
 medicine. If one ever learns the right value of food 
 and drink it is over a sick person, when the processes 
 of strength and growth alter with a few spoonfuls 
 more or less of the right kind of nourishment, and you 
 feel the pulse sink under your finger for want of the 
 draught of beef tea, or sip of wine and milk, which 
 keeps the fluttering strength alive. Many a patient 
 
270 ANNA MARIA'S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 in a fair way of recovery has been lost for want of 
 good food to restore the lost vitality. -You need to 
 learn much to cater for the sick: to give fever 
 patients lemons, acid jellies — not fruit jellies made 
 with sugar — but gelatine flavored with wine and a 
 breath of spice, little piquant soups, a few spoonfuls 
 of which revive one so much and which the system 
 absorbs as a sponge drinks water, almost, apple 
 pulp scraped with a silver knife, or the juice from 
 the ripest of strawberries, given drop by drop, to- 
 gether with barley water made in the good old way 
 with lemon-juice and sugar candy, and calves-foot jelly, 
 blandest and most blissful of foods. Nervous and 
 weakly patients who need building up require strong 
 broths without a drop of fat in them, savory roast 
 chicken, game and such essence of meat as we get 
 by putting five or six pounds of the neck or shoulder 
 of beef in a stone jar, covering tight without one drop 
 of water and baking in a moderate pven two hours. 
 The jar will be found half-full of the richest gravy 
 which is the very thing to build up nerves and brain. 
 A cupful of this gravy heated scalding hot, with a 
 fresh egg dropped in, and toasted oatmeal crackers, 
 
SICKNESS IN THE HOUSE. 27 1 
 
 is a very hearty meal for an invalid. But remember, 
 food for a sick person must be of the freshest best 
 quality, for anything stale or injured which a healthy 
 system might get over will hopelessly derange a 
 feeble one. Remember, also, that if half the care 
 were given to the health of well people that we 
 take to cure invalids, there would be very few sick. 
 Humor the fancies of your patient all the doctor will 
 allow. If there is a craving for any one thing in 
 particular, whether it is roast chicken at midsummer 
 when chickens are scarce, or oranges out of season, 
 guava jelly or velvet cream or white grapes, get that 
 very thing if you can, and say nothing about the 
 trouble of getting it. That will worry all the pleasure 
 out of a weak patient, when to gratify his taste may 
 be the turning point to health. It is wholesome for 
 people in this world to have their own way about 
 their personal habits anyhow, sick or well, always 
 provided it does not interfere too much with the 
 comfort of others, and to the sick everything should 
 give way. Lay this rule to heart. 
 
 It may seem hard to give up talking or singing in 
 the near rooms because it worries Willie or yom 
 
272 ANNA MARIAS HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 mother, and I have heard well people pettishly pro- 
 test against " giving in too far to the whims of sick 
 people," and talking pretty loudly about the rights 
 of healthy ones, I'm ashamed to say I have when 
 younger said something of the sort myself. It was 
 treated as very ridiculous by a party of summer vis- 
 itors that a well-known authoress left her seaside 
 house every night to get sleep at a lonely cottage 
 away from all sounds. Bitter complaints were made 
 of her sensitiveness when the fall of a hairbrush in a 
 room overhead broke her uneven slumbers, and there 
 was a good deal of spiteful criticism about "sheer 
 nervousness," and " that sort of thing being a good 
 deal cultivated." If those who are sound enough to 
 go to- bed and sleep every night, and pass unmoved 
 by the sights and sounds of every day life, could once 
 know the ordeal life becomes when night after night 
 the brain is racked with waking till dawn, and the 
 least stir spoils the chance of restoring sleep, and 
 under such fatigue the nerves grow more and more 
 acute till light, sound and conversation are misery — 
 we would never hear any grumbling about sick 
 people's fancies. I remember lying ill of brain fever 
 
SICKNESS IN THE HOUSE. 273 
 
 when only twelve years old, and too young to have 
 fancies, when the creaking of a door, or any sharp 
 sound, sent shoots of pain through my head that I 
 could hardly bear. And the old rooster would 
 persist in crowing shrilly just under my window, 
 torturing me when too sick to make my pain under- 
 stood, till the loving little brother of three years old 
 guessed the trouble and put the Saracen to flight. 
 Take all pictures out of the room where a sick person 
 lies speechless or light-headed, for they torment the 
 helpless brain with unheard-of images. A lady once 
 told me of the suffering caused her by the family 
 portraits in her room when she was lying, as her 
 friends thought, unable to notice anything. The faces 
 seemed to become distorted and leave their frames 
 in shapes of horror to attack her, day after day, and 
 she could make no one understand what ailed her. 
 For this reason, avoid strange, bold-figured curtains 
 and wall papers in a sick-room — better avoid all 
 figured things, for the very blankness of walls and 
 space rests a fevered brain, however dull to a well 
 one. 
 Don't fuss around a sick person whom even well- 
 
2 74 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 meant attentions worry. " Even a bunch of flowers 
 will sometimes "aggravate" one — in fact I think, 
 from my own experience, a great deal too much is 
 made of flowers and fancy attentions to sick people. 
 I want a well-browned tender mutton chop, sans fat, 
 gristle or bone, on a clean hot plate, without cracks 
 or specks in the ware, a fresh napkin on the tray, and 
 a thick, white towel to spread over the bedclothes 
 to keep them from soil, some good bread, the best on 
 earth is none too good for the sick, but no foolish- 
 ness of flowers on the tray. Sick people don't want 
 flowers and food together; the scent of the two 
 doesn't combine well, and there may be insects on 
 the leaves to get into the dishes. Bring the flowers 
 in after the meal is all over, put them in sight in a 
 vase, and say nothing about them till the patient's 
 eye lights on them for himself. Don^t put your hand 
 on a sick person, even in the way of kindness, 
 unless you are very intimate — the too familiar, fre- 
 quent stroking of one's head is very annoying. In 
 case of headache, ask if it would be agreeable to 
 soothe it with your hands, and see that they are 
 both cool and clean before you touch any one. A 
 
SICKNESS IN THE HOUSE. 275 
 
 warm, moist hand never ought to touch another per- 
 son, sick or well. If your hands are apt to be moist, 
 rub them with the fine soapstone powder used for 
 gloves. 
 
 Study all the arts of comfort for the sick. Better 
 is good nursing without medicine than medicine 
 without good nursing. Cool a fevered patient by 
 bathing him in very hot water, and then fanning 
 him, which will relieve much more than using cold 
 water at first. Or lay wet cloths on the wrists and 
 back of the neck, and fan them, which will soon 
 cool the whole body. Wet a hot head on the top and 
 sides and fan it to reduce fever or rush of blood 
 to the head. This last, together with nervous head- 
 ache, is often better relieved by the use of very hot 
 water than by cold. When one suffers from chill, put 
 on a flannel nightgown and woollen stockings and 
 drawers, then put hot soapstones to the spine and 
 feet, give the patient something warm to hold in the 
 hands, and cover with blankets next to the person, 
 which will warm him sooner than you can possibly 
 do in a cotton gown and sheets. Hospitals have hot 
 water cushions of rubber for sick persons to hold 
 
276 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 between their hands, but as water is sure to leak by 
 nature, there is nothing so good for home heating 
 as the old-fashioned soapstone slabs, of which every 
 house ought to have a supply. Hot bricks are next 
 best, because they hold a tempered heat a long 
 time. Cover all compresses and poultices with warm 
 dry flannel to keep the heat in, and be particular 
 not to let the bedding remain wet when such things 
 are in use, for the patient is easily chilled by damp 
 clothing. Change sheets and blankets as often as 
 the strength of a sick person will allow. It is not al- 
 ways necessary to wash them daily, but they and the 
 nightgowns, can be hung in the sun, or thoroughly 
 dried and heated by the fire, when they will be almost 
 as sweet and fresh to put on as if newly washed. 
 Hardly anything gives a patient more refreshment 
 than the change from body clothes and bedding, 
 charged with perspiration, smelling of poultices anci 
 lotions, to dry, sun-sweetened sheets and gowns, 
 Night clothes and underclothes for the sick should 
 never be made to slip over the head, but open all 
 the way down for ease in changing ; and where appli- 
 cations are to be made in the back, have everything 
 
SICKNESS IN THE HOUSE. 277 
 
 button both back and front, or turn the garment 
 round. Much inconvenience to nurses and fatigue 
 to the sick is saved by these simple devices. 
 
 The doctor will prescribe for Willie, but I will tell 
 you a common thing to relieve the smarting and 
 itching, not only of scarlet fever, but measles, erysi- 
 pelas, and all kinds of poxes and rashes from those 
 made by mosquito bites down. It is carbolated oil : 
 fifteen ^rops of strong carbolic acid to six table- 
 spoonfuls of sweet oil or almond oil. Any pure sweet 
 fat will answer if you cannot get the oil, but the acid 
 must be of strength sufBcient to heal the smarting, 
 and if too strong will make it worse. You must test 
 it on your own skin in some tender spot, or on a 
 patch of the eruption. It ought to relieve in a 
 moment. If too strong, add more oil, drop by drop. 
 This is a hospital remedy, and you need not be afraid 
 of it. When too strong, relieve the smarting by a 
 little fresh oil without acid. Rub this oil over the 
 entire body wherever the eruption is seen, as often as 
 the itching is felt. It not only heals, but lessens the 
 chance of infection from the scales which it brings 
 away at each bathing instead of leaving them to fall 
 
278 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 off in the bedclothes the carpet, or to float in the 
 air, dealing disease wherever they chance to light. 
 Burn oil bottle and the cloths you rub it on with, 
 when the child has no farther use for them, and 
 never let an article of any sort he has used or worn 
 be carried into another room. Put all soiled cloth- 
 ing, sheets and towels into a bag hung outside the 
 window. No matter if it doesn't look very nice, it 
 is better than giving the entire house a chance at the 
 fever. , When things are to be washed, lower the 
 bag to the ground and if possible do the washing 
 out of doors, boiling all linen and cotton things an 
 hour in clean water to which strong disinfectants 
 have been added. The room with all bedding and 
 furniture is disinfected, when the physician pro- 
 nounces it safe for the patient to go about, by closing 
 doors and windows tight, spreading blankets, mats 
 and clothing wide over chairs and railings in it, and 
 fumigating. Have a shovel of hot coals placed 
 where it will not set anything on fire in the room, 
 sprinkle on two large handfuls of powdered sulphur, 
 and leave the room shut up over night. You will 
 want to leave all windows open wide all the next 
 
SICKNESS IN THE HOUSE. 279 
 
 day and the day after, if not for a week to get the 
 sulphur smell out, but you will not have to dread 
 that any one who enters risks taking the disease, for 
 a year after. The fumigation is the same for all 
 infectious diseases. 
 
XX. — IN THE STOREROOM. 
 
 TT is very well to buy your marketing day by day, 
 ■*■ the potatoes and carrots with the roast for the 
 dinner, and the pears for dessert with the ice cream — 
 if you like to see the money spent right and left 
 as long as you don't pay the bills. But if your half 
 dollar must go as far as your neighbor's three, or 
 in other words if you have only one dollar to spend 
 where you want five dollars' worth, you must study 
 the keeping and buying of food. It will not make 
 one particle of difference to your health and well- 
 being at the end of the year whether your good beef, 
 wheaten grits and plum pudding have cost forty dol- 
 lars a week or ten or half that, but it will make all the 
 difference between being delighted or discontented 
 with your lot in life whether you have a little more or 
 less money to gratify your tastes, and have a good 
 
 picture or pretty room, or a pleasant visit to show 
 280 
 
IN THE STOREROOM. 28 1 
 
 for your thinkings and savings. You need not fancy 
 it beneath you to study the quality and price of food 
 and to count every dollar of expenses three times 
 over. Mr. Hope, the English connoisseur whose con- 
 servatories, gardens, picture-galleries and collections 
 of gems were the admiration of all England, who en- 
 tertained princes and dukes with an elegance which 
 they could hardly return, was found by no means 
 to have tlie enormous fortune supposed necessary 
 for such style. He had attained all these luxuries 
 and refinements by wisely spending moderate wealth, 
 and he was so good a calculator that at his great 
 dinners he knew the cost of every dish to a shilling, 
 and kept his household expenses without the waste 
 of sixpence. Lord Bulwer the novelist, an aristocrat 
 and model of elegance living in what he considered a 
 narrow way on $15,000 a year, kept all his house 
 accounts and knew to a pound how much coal, 
 candle and provision his establishment used. The 
 slghtest waste was insufferable to him and he knew 
 so well how to turn every guinea to its worth that he 
 was never under money obligations to any one, and 
 could send back the allowance his own mother made 
 
2S2 ANNA MARIAS HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 him for the sake of sweet independence. It is only 
 half-rate people who ignore cost and shrink from cal- 
 culation. An intelligent woman carries her intelli- 
 gence into everything, the corners of her pantry and 
 the depths of her flour-barrels. You have no more 
 right to cheat yourself out of the quality and quan- 
 tity of good your income should yield than to cheat 
 your neighbor. 
 
 Look to the weights and measures of what you buy. 
 A pair of good scales is a great security, and a yard 
 measure which you can buy for ten cents is another. 
 I value scales and yardstick because they give good 
 assurance that one is fairly dealt with. One whcf 
 never measures carries an uneasy feeling that she 
 is often taken advantage of, but when every doubt- 
 ful parcel is weighed, one finds that the pound of 
 Alderney butter looked small because it was more 
 solid than common qualities are, and the suspicious 
 steak being of closer grain weighed more than one 
 of flabby texture and larger size. The comfort of 
 knowing one is fairly dealt with is worth occasional 
 trouble. All good dealers respect a customer who 
 sees for herself to such matters. If anything is 
 
IN THE STOREROOM. 283 
 
 wrong don't make a fuss about it ; treat it as a mis- 
 take, and be as polite as you are firm in having it 
 corrected. Too many shops will take advantage of a 
 careless buyer while they deal correctly with one who 
 demands her dues. 
 
 Bread is the first staple to be thought of, and 
 your family of six persons ought to find two'barrels 
 of white flour, half a barrel of graham flour with- 
 fifty pounds of buckwheat and corn meal a liberal 
 supply for one year. The time to buy bread stuffs 
 is just before cold weather, laying in the barrel of 
 flour at once, but the wheat meal and other things 
 in smaller quantities because they spoil if kept too 
 long. Perhaps you will prefer to change the pro- 
 portions, and use twice as much wheat meal as flour. 
 Mine comes from private hands where the wheat and 
 milling are unsurpassed, and is put up in barrels 
 lined throughout with paper, which keeps it better. 
 Your grocer will line your barrels or half barrels with 
 clean manilla wrapping paper if you ask him. 
 
 It is a mistake to think it needful to buy the high- 
 est brands of produce. Learn to judge by quality 
 alone, and you will find that "new process" and 
 
284 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 patent methods do not by any means imply the 
 best article. Indeed experienced housekeepers are 
 shy of buying things that are largely puffed and 
 pressed upon them. In flour especially I have always 
 doubted whether the highest-priced brands were worth 
 more than some of the old sorts, and one of the best 
 Boston dealers, belonging to the largest firm in the 
 city supplying the best class of customers, gave his 
 opinion lately that the best St. Louis flour was equal 
 in good bread-making properties to any of the higher- 
 priced kinds. Always feel doubtful of the abilities 
 of a housekeeper who professes that she never can 
 make bread with anything less than " Haxall " and 
 "cold blast" flour. "St. Louis for pastry? No 
 indeed — only the one brand for everything and that 
 the best for me," said one lofty matron, who provoked 
 a smile on the face of knowing ones, aware that the 
 best bread flour makes a pastry almost impossible 
 to roll out for toughness. Price is very little criterion 
 of quality and fitness in provisions. You must learn 
 to know what you buy from infallible signs of excel- 
 lence, the creamy yellow tinge of good flour that takes 
 the print of the skin when squeezed in the palm, the 
 
IN THE STOREROOM. 285 
 
 fresh wholesome smell, the waxy firmness and unap- 
 proachable clear color of fine butter, without the sus- 
 picious pinky or deep yellow of artificial coloring, the 
 clean bright look of fresh meats, whose quality a prac- 
 ticed buyer knows by a glance. Learn these things 
 by sight and smell alone. Leave all prodding and 
 handling to a lower grade of buyers. A delicate sense 
 of smell is to be cultivated, and is a surer test than 
 tasting. 
 
 For healthy living, that will ensure good complex- 
 ions, freedom from headaches in general and support 
 the strength you may use the brown bread which is 
 common on the best English tables, and is served 
 even with strawberries and ice cream at Belgravian 
 lunches. The fairness of the Jersey Lily is due to 
 such a diet through girlhood. See that the brown 
 flour is free from black specks of cockle and buck- 
 wheat, and has not too much bran. What is sold for 
 graham flour sometimes is only "canaille," or "mid- 
 dling " with common bran stirred in. In Boston we 
 have the Arlington wheat meal, ground from wheat 
 that is washed and very clean from other substances, 
 and is about as coarse as corn meal. The Franklin 
 
286 ANNA MARIA'S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 flour is whole wheat ground fine as white flour, and 
 nice for cake or pastry. When you have eaten these 
 well made from whole meal, the white flour tastes poor 
 by comparison. But the mistake of modern dealers 
 is in sending out everything ground too fine, by which 
 the flavor is very soon lost. The fine corn flour does 
 not make as nice muffins and bread as the old-fash- 
 ioned meal of distinct grain, the buckwheat cakes 
 are not good as they used to be, because the kernel 
 is ground too fine and mixed with white flour beside, 
 and so with rye flour which makes delicious drop 
 cakes when eggs are plenty. If you want varied fare 
 at small expense, you must provide largely of different 
 grains in shape of meal, flour, grits and hominy, 
 from fine to coarse. Oat meal makes puddings as 
 savory as rice of the same recipes, and so does pearl 
 hominy. They are delicate also as fritters and break- 
 fast cakes. Just wait till I rummage out aunt Jane's 
 private stock of recipes that have been tried for a 
 generation, if you want to know what good American 
 living really is like, in flavor and variety. 
 
 Butter with our bread is the next necessary, and 
 you may congratulate yourself on living in a country 
 
IN THE STOREROOM. 287 
 
 where both are plenty. The English breakfast and 
 te'a where thin slips of toast figure with the scared 
 looking pat of butter would make one of our house- 
 holds blush for shame. " Butter, like religion," my 
 old dairy woman used to say, " is a matter every per- 
 son must decide for himself." Not one person out 
 of five hundred butter-makers knows how it ought 
 to be made. The cream never should sour before 
 churning, it should be kept in a cool airy place, 
 away from other food, never shut in tight jars or 
 cans, where it changes in a short time so as to be 
 wholly unfit for use, it should be quickly churned, the 
 butter worked free from every particle of milk with- 
 out washing it or touching with the hands, and put 
 down with the whitest salt, sugar and saltpetre, in 
 small five-pound boxes for summer and fifty-pound 
 firkins for winter use. Your care after buying your 
 large tub of butter is to keep it in a clean, cool 
 airy place, away from dust and all strong smelling 
 things, like fish or cheese, and keep it closely covered. 
 Once a week take out enough for use in a small jar, 
 for it ruins butter to open a firkin daily. 
 
 Five pounds each of rice, sago, and tapioca will be 
 
288 ANNA Maria's HoysEKEEPmo. 
 
 found ample for a month's supply if not more. Keep 
 them in glass jars with screw tops, if you want your 
 storeroom to look neat and things in the best con- 
 dition. Cornstarch, arrowroot, sea moss farina and 
 all such fine food should be kept in glass and not 
 left to stand in papers till used up. How much 
 food is impaired by standing open, or by insects 
 dropping in, or other things spilling in, nobody 
 guesses. But one sees on one shelf the cornstarch 
 package, the paper of raisins, the open sugar pail 
 and on the upper one the box of paris- green, the 
 insect powder and silver polish ready to be spilt by 
 marauding mouse or hasty hand, and afeelingof secur- 
 ity is not the result. Keep all injurious articles out 
 of your storeroom and food closets. Don't take any 
 chances with them. 
 
 Canned food is so largely used that it seems 
 treason to the convenience of the housekeeper to 
 hint that there are better ways of keeping fruits 
 and vegetables. Keep all tin cans in a cold place, 
 all glass ones in a cold and dark one, for light 
 injures thing-s put up in glass as every woman knows. 
 As soon as a tin can is opened pour the contents 
 
IN THE STOREROOM. 289 
 
 into a dish, for more harm is done by leaving 
 tomatoes or acid fruit in metal after opening than by 
 long keeping when sealed. If the inside of the can 
 is corroded with crystallized films, it is safe not to 
 use what is in it. All canned goods in glass or 
 tin should be use'd as soon as possible after open- 
 ing, for exposure to the air works rapid change in 
 them. At least cook or scald them right away. 
 
 If more care were given to keeping ripe fruit in its 
 natural state, half the labor of canning might be saved, 
 and we could have not only barreled apples but pears 
 and grapes till March or later. It is a great deal 
 less work to buy nice sound fruit, wrap it in paper 
 and pack in bran, moss or soft paper in tight boxes — 
 to stand in some cold place where they only will not 
 freeze. Aunt Jane regularly put away the choice 
 bunches from her Isabella grape-vine in this way for 
 twenty years, and never failed of having them for 
 dessert till the first rhubarb came round in spring. 
 If you can engage some farmer to gather fruit on the 
 twig for you, leaving the stem attached without bruis- 
 ing, it will be very sure to keep. Paper barrels are 
 safe things for storing fruit, expensive at first, but 
 
290 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 lasting and worth all they cost for their keeping 
 properties. 
 
 Dried fruit is worth more attention than it receives 
 since canned goods have crowded it out of use. But 
 the shrewd housekeeper will advise you not to choose 
 the nice, white thinly cut evaporated apples and 
 peaches, which being cut so thin have lost all rich- 
 ness of flavor and likeness to fruit. Rather take 
 the old-fashioned kind quartered and dried in the 
 sun, for the large pieces not only keep flesh and flavor 
 but the sun sweetens them, turning their juice to 
 grape sugar in process of drying which is a kind 
 of after ripening. Dried cherries with stones in are 
 richer than pitted ones — and so with plums. Don't, 
 whatever folly you may commit, be persuaded to 
 keep fruit with preserving powder. It may keep, 
 but its being fit to eat is another thing. Twelve 
 jars of. the finest Jocunda strawberries which I was 
 induced to put up with fruit powder have just been 
 put down on the compost heap, after giving every 
 one who tasted them an unhappy evening, with furred 
 teeth, drawn tongue, and sundry aches. And aunt 
 Jane sits by and never says, " I told you so," in the 
 
IN THE STOREROOM. 291 
 
 most aggravating Christian fashion ! She believes in 
 old-fashioned dried fruit, jams and pound for pound 
 preserves, and after this so do I. 
 
 I do not think that the adulteration of food in the 
 better qualities is so common as it used to be, per- 
 haps, and shrewd buyers can depend on getting 
 good material if they know how to use it afterward. 
 Object to very blue- white cut sugar, which has in- 
 digo in it if nothing worse, and powdered sugar which 
 will not dissolve wholly in hot water and leave it 
 clear, for that is mixed with white earth. Syrup 
 with fine bubbles in it is fermenting and not good ; 
 if very thick and not too clear suspect glucose, which 
 is not dangerous but still is not cane syrup which we 
 have a right to expect. Beware of dark or yellowish 
 condensed milk, or such as leaves any sediment. No 
 one used to good food can fail to detect the unnatural 
 cast and flavor of mixed food. 
 
 Perhaps nothing is more deteriorated than ground 
 coffee. So do not waste your money on gayly put up 
 cans of Imperial Breakfast Coffee or any other fancy 
 name, but buy a ten-cent cofifee mill, order the roasted 
 berry and grind it as you may make the coffee. If 
 
2g2 ANNA MARIA'S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 you want a mixed coffee very pleasant to drink, buy a 
 pound of dandelion coffee, and put a tablespoonful in 
 the coffee-pot mornings. It is safe^ healthy, and many 
 persons like the sweet rich flavor it gives better than 
 pure coffee. 
 
 If possible buy cider vinegar by the barrel for 
 it grows better by keeping. Kerosene is enough 
 cheaper by the barrel to make it good economy to 
 order it in quantity. Heat a spoonful and see if 
 it takes fire readily when a match is held to it. 
 Pratt's Astral oil is the standard, and so refined that 
 it burns without smoke or smell, gives more brilliant 
 light and burns longer in kerosene stoves, beside 
 being the safest oil known, and well worth the higher 
 cost. The inferior oils are poor economy. Keep 
 your lamps and oilcans or barrel in the coldest place 
 possible, never in the Sun or in a hot room, for heat 
 raises an inflammable vapor from the best of oils 
 which may take fire by accident. Of course you 
 will not keep oils where food of any sort is stored. 
 
XXI.— PLANNING AND PACKING. 
 
 THE Lawrence girls have sent over to ask if you 
 will be so kind as to spend the day with them 
 and help in their packing scrape. For Julia is going 
 with her aunt to Mount Desert, and Helen and Flor- 
 ence have just been asked to join the Farwells who 
 start with the Raymond Excursion, Thursday, for 
 California. When I was sixteen it would not have 
 been possible for a woman and three girls to go off 
 travelling where they pleased without an escort of 
 their own family. When aunt Syra and Mary Bates 
 were engaged as teachers in the Female College at 
 Steubenville, next to Wheeling on the Ohio, they had 
 to wait three months till Doctor Seattle, the principal, 
 could come all the way to Boston and back on pur- 
 pose for them, it was so highly indecorous and unheard 
 of for ladies to leave home without an escort. Mrs. 
 Lyle, the rich banker's widow, wanted to see Niagara 
 293 
 
294 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 twenty years before she could find a chance to go 
 from Towanda in care of relatives as she thought 
 proper, and then while she was taking three weeks to 
 get ready, she took neuralgia in her head, and never 
 got away from home before the erysipelas set in which 
 ended her uneventful life. And you know how the 
 Van Allen girls and their mother stayed at home sum- 
 mer and winter all their lives in the big square house 
 with the tulip borders, because they had no brother 
 to take them anywhere and the father was dead. 
 Now, in care of a Raymond party, the mother and 
 girls, or the single lady who boards, or the young 
 schoolteacher can go from Boston or Chicago to San 
 Francisco, or the Willamette, in as scrupulous escort 
 as their own uncles might be, and much more experi- 
 enced in the ways of travel. It is like travelling en 
 prince, with the best cars and special trains, every 
 detail of baggage, dinners, carriages and hotels pro- 
 vided without care, and courteous cultivated gentle- 
 men in charge, keeping ceaseless watch over the com- 
 fort of the whole large party. I am glad the mother 
 or the aunt, and the girls need not stay at home alone 
 any more, but can buy courtesy and care with a round 
 
PLANNING AND PACKING. 295 
 
 ticket, and go to see the world as gayly and safely as 
 their brothers and sons do. You may count on a good 
 time if you will make preparation with the same fore- 
 sight and system which the admirable manager of 
 the route uses in caring for his party four months 
 ahead. Let an old tourist who has taken the journey 
 by excursion and in private party, and who never 
 counts on more than a day's warning to go to the end 
 of the world, help your girls' memories over the bags 
 and trunks. 
 
 A well furnished trunk really packs itself, its trays, 
 bonnet boxes, tills and tapes suggesting their peculiar 
 uses ; but all trunks are not so well provided. Never 
 mind. The old one is solidly built, and the joiner can 
 send two light trays with tapes crossing to hold the 
 contents, and nail cleats for them to rest on. A 
 stout pasteboard box, lined with the glazed linen 
 known in tailors' findings, makes a good bonnet box 
 lighter than the French milliners' boxes of wood, and 
 lightness is everything when every pound over the 
 regulation hundred weight is charged for. In event 
 of a smash the wooden box goes to pieces anyhow and 
 the pasteboard one can't do more. Put in the bonnet 
 
296 ANNA Maria's housekeeping, 
 
 crown down, and fill it with all sorts of light things, 
 laying an open handkerchief first. Fancy work, and 
 materials, fichus, lisle stockings, folded ribbons, all 
 go in and help keep the shape of the bonnet, which 
 must be tied in by four cross strings of tape attached 
 to the sides of the box just above the bonnet brim. 
 Veils and kerchiefs may fill the corners without crush- 
 ing the trimming, for a bonnet goes safest in a full 
 box. When you unpack, take the handkerchief out 
 by its four corners, with the contents, and the bonnet 
 is free at once. Helen will want it at Manitou any- 
 how, where one goes to chapel in the shadow of Pike's 
 Peak. Laces, collars, and cuffs go not in boxes, but 
 in those pretty " portfolios " of quilted silk or satin, 
 which lie so smooth and take little room. Boxes, 
 except for spools and buttons, must be tabooed where 
 space is precious. A travelling work-basket of paste- 
 board covered with chintz, to lie flat when packed, is 
 the suitable thing ; so is a thread bag with casings for 
 spools, and skeins, a slipper and shoe-bag, and a col- 
 lapsible one of enameled cloth for soiled clothes, that 
 will not let them scent the trunk. All provided ! 
 Very well. Lay out all that is to go, in orderly piles 
 
PLANNING AND PACKING. 297 
 
 on the bed, have the trunk close by and a low seat 
 between the two, so that you need not make drudgery 
 of it, for packing and stooping over trunks is very tire- 
 some work to people conscious of having spines in 
 their backs. Don't omit the large sheet of fresh 
 wrapping paper in the bottom of the trunk to catch 
 the dust which works in, somehow. The heaviest 
 things go in first, and these are books. 
 
 A pocket dictionary, Bible, hand-books of botany 
 and geology as you like, a scrap-book, or rather a 
 portfolio for all the odds and ends of photographs, 
 clippings, leaves, that keep the memories of a tour, 
 will be the essentials of your library. Perhaps you 
 will want Shakespeare and a poet or two beside, but 
 on a pleasure journey it is surprising how little time 
 there is for reading. You will want some good stories 
 to rest your mind when tired with sight-seeing and 
 novelty, but half a dozen " Franklin Squares " strapped 
 with your hand luggage are enough, for you can buy 
 novels anywhere. Take plenty of stationery, for you 
 can't buy linen note paper at twenty-five cents a 
 pound west of the Mississippi, also take small wares 
 to last till you are home again, for the little things we 
 
2g8 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 buy for five cents — spools of silk, linen buttons and 
 boot-buttons, elastic, hair nets, and such — mount up 
 to the inevitable " two bits '' or twenty-five cents once 
 you are out of Chicago. 
 
 I give you one lady's list of inevitables for the 
 overland tour, expected to last three or four months : 
 
 Three papers of crimping pins, five of hairpins, 
 five invisible front nets, five hair nets, five yards 
 elastic cord, three papers of pins, three spools black 
 sewing silk, six spools sewing cotton, the same of 
 mending cotton, two dozen boot buttons, one half 
 dozen tape, two dozen linen and pearl buttons, skein 
 linen thread for boot buttons, wax, three ounces vas- 
 eline, the same of carbonate of ammonia, dry, one 
 ounce gum tragacanth ( for mucilage and bandoline ) 
 four ounces gum camphor, one ounce permanganate 
 of potash, the same oipure carbolic acid, the same of 
 citric acid, one half dozen of toilet soap, one half 
 pound powdered borax, two bottles lavender water, 
 one bottle shoe dressing, one box ink-powder, one of 
 elastic letter bands, one of mouth glue, two pounds 
 thin note paper, envelopes half as many, one half 
 dozen pencils, two small boxes pens. 
 
PLANNING AND PACKING. 299 
 
 This looks like an odd mixture but it is all wanted. 
 The ammonia and borax are to soften the hard water 
 on the Plains for washing hands, the permanganate 
 of potash dissolved in water will soften the skin, 
 heal eruptions and neutralize bad odors, which I 
 grieve to say are too often found about the bedrooms 
 of first-class hotels, or what pretend to be such. You 
 cannot always get lemons, and a tiny crystal of citric 
 acid in a glass of water will give you a morning 
 lemonade which will keep off the biliousness which 
 steals over one in the long journey with its changes 
 of water and food. Of course it is troublesome to 
 take care of one's self, but it is also vexing to be left 
 at the hotel with a tearing headache while all the 
 rest are going up Cheyenne Canyon, or to find your- 
 self half blind with malaria when you want to be 
 enjoying yourself between the orange groves and the 
 drives at Los Angeles. Of all wretched things, to 
 be sick on a pleasure journey is the most out of place 
 and unhappy. 
 
 The small medicine case, the toilet water, ammonia 
 etc., belong in the travelling bag, where also you want 
 note-book, pencils, knife, sketching block and herbal, 
 
300 ANNA MARIA'S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 if you use them, writing tablet with a quire of paper, 
 envelopes and stamps ready, envelopes directed and 
 stamped, beforehand, for writing letters is a hurried 
 business on a journey, and a direction ready may save 
 a post when one is short of time. Have a bottle of 
 shoe polish put up in the bag, for it is good for many 
 things beside shoes. That, the bandoline, and laven- 
 der must be carried in a warded case like an exagger- 
 ated spool bag, to prevent breaking, unless you have 
 the olive wood boxes with screw tops which hold bot- 
 tles so safely, else a deluge of blacking or ink over 
 one's handkerchiefs is the least to be looked for. 
 Don't forget a small bottle of chloroform liniment, 
 invaluable if toothache, earache or any stray neuralgia 
 comes on. Ask your doctor for the recipe, and never 
 go on a journey without a bottle of it. And Jamaica 
 ginger is a very useful travelling companion that one 
 is sorry to be without. 
 
 Better carry your case of bottles forty years and 
 not need it than to be found once without when you 
 want it. A packet of chocolate in some shape, acid 
 drops and fine crackers may well be taken, for dis- 
 tances are long between meals on the overland routes, 
 
PLANNING AND PACKING. 30I 
 
 and I have seen — in a " wash out " — a train of 
 Pullman passengers on a Pacific railroad wolfish 
 with hunger, going thirty hours between two eating 
 stations two hundred and fifty miles apart, with the 
 Rocky Mountain range between, and not a stale 
 cracker or stick of candy to be bought on the dreary 
 route. Accidents will happen, and delays are not 
 uncommon, whe^refore you will prepare for them like 
 a wise traveller, with plenty of wraps, and at least a 
 day's supply of Albert biscuit, graham wafers, lime 
 drops, sweet chocolate, almonds and raisins, for you 
 get more nourishment in small compass in such things 
 than from a basketful of the inevitable chicken and 
 cake. Have your lunch done up in oiled paper which 
 is strong, neat and takes less room than box or 
 basket. Beside things named, the larg^ travelling 
 bag should hold a print wrapper for sleeping and 
 dressing gown on the train, collars, cufls and hand- 
 kerchiefs, two or three pairs of stockings, toilet tow- 
 els, some with tapes to tie over pillows and give your 
 cheek something nicer than railroad or hotel pillow 
 cases to lie on ; slippers, hood, or soft hat, and loose 
 wrap to wear on the cars, for riding all day in walking 
 
302 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 dress, bonnet and boots makes a journey more tire- 
 some than necessary. 
 
 Old travellers who spend this month on the Pacific 
 coast, the next in the Riviera and the next in the 
 Hebrides, and go knocking about the four quarters of 
 the globe, hardly wait to enter a train till they are in 
 negligd as far as propriety allows. I wouldn't quite 
 recommend the style of the English bishop's lady who 
 went with us from Omaha to Colfax, in morning 
 jacket and quilted petticoat, though it was a very nice 
 black satiii petticoat and probably quite the proper 
 thing in British eyes. If comfortably dressed to 
 begin, it is surprising how little luggage one needs on 
 the cars. A small valise, with waterproof, shawl and 
 books strapped on the outside, ought to carry all that 
 one lady needs outside of her trunk between Chicago 
 and San Francisco. Dress lightly with thin flannels, 
 for the cars are warm even on the snowy mountain 
 tops, and your cloak and shawl will be all that is 
 needed on the way. 
 
 I like to pack the travelling bag early, before the 
 trunks are done, and have it off my mind. Left to 
 the last, one gets tired, and things are forgotten, or 
 
PLANNING AND PACKING. 303 
 
 crowded like a pedler's pack. That done and laid 
 aside with travelling dress and cloak, one can give 
 one's mind to the trunks. Books and underclothing 
 go in first, then the dresses in trays, with parasol, 
 bonnet box and small things wedged as closely as you 
 can get them on the top. To have things go smoothly 
 and safely, learn to pack firmly, so that nothing can 
 be shaken about. All nice dresses should go in wide 
 shallow boxes, or be pinned in soft paper or thin 
 towels, to prevent injury. See that all flounces and 
 pleatings lie smooth, and that waists and sleeves lie 
 flat, folded only in their seams. It was easy to give 
 rules for folding dresses when they were made with 
 plain straight skirts, and you had only to divide the 
 skirt into four equal parts, and lay it smooth, but no 
 such thing is possible with polonaises and puffed 
 overskirts. Fold in the seams and across the middle 
 of puffs is all that a dressmaker can tell you. Lay 
 things smoothly with no turning up at the sides of 
 the trunk. If a dress or skirt doesn't fit in, take it 
 out and fold it smaller. If the trunK is too large to 
 be filled snugly, make the compartments smaller by 
 thin partitions of wood tightly wedged in. If your 
 
304 ANNA MARIA'S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 things only half fill the trunk, pack that half as closely 
 as it will hold, and leave trays empty and nailed 
 down to keep the rest in place. The moving about 
 of lightly packed things ruins boxes and dresses 
 together. 
 
 Wrap nice books and boxes in towels or thin paper 
 to keep them from rubbing against the sides. Trink- 
 ets, or china, should be wrapped in plenty of tissue 
 paper and wedged into ribbon boxes, rolled in towels 
 and tucked among clothes where they touch nothing 
 soHd. Lay framed pictures glass down, between lay- 
 ers of clothing. Carvings ought to have separate 
 boxes, and lie bedded in tissue paper, or sheets of 
 wool wadding. 
 
 Silk in the piece should never be folded, you know, 
 because it will crack in the creases. Roll it round a 
 paper core, and wrap it in a ^soft towel or square of 
 thin cotton. Any fabric keeps better in rolls than 
 folded flat. Nice ribbons keep their color best 
 wrapped in thin manila paper, with oiled paper out- 
 side, such as caramels are kept in. If you were going 
 to Japan, or the Sandwich Islands, which are the next 
 stage from California, you would want a set of tin 
 
PLANNING AND PACKING. 305 
 
 boxes, and stout pasteboard ones, lined with thick 
 oiled paper to keep everything in — gloves, ribbons, 
 shoes, silks, cambrics, or the damp would be sure to 
 spoil them. 
 
 Just fancy keeping all your finery in tin cake 
 boxes ! 
 
 Finish by leaving the things you are likely to need 
 first at the top of different compartments, so that you 
 can lay hands on them without going to the depths of 
 the strata. See that all buckles, straps and hinges 
 are in order, before the canvas cover is drawn on the 
 trunk, and have a stout strap outside of all, riveted on 
 so that it cannot be stolen from baggage rooms, by 
 knavish porters. Have your initials distinct and clear 
 in black paint, but it is not desirable to have one's 
 full name and address. Pack the little rubber or 
 crash dressing case, a medicine vial or two, handker- 
 chiefs, one small towel, a vinaigrette, notebook, pencil 
 and knife in your small handbag, with the red Russia 
 leather book of coupons for the journey, and bon 
 voyage, girls ! 
 
 This is pretty, to leave you, Anna Maria, a note of 
 thanks on the way to the depot, with tickets for a 
 
3o6 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 White Mountain tour in July under the Raymond 
 escort. The next thing will be a dress rehearsal, 
 over your wardrobe for the occasion, and I'm coming 
 over like a fairy godmother, with my thimble in my 
 pocket, and a needle for a wand. 
 
XXII. — A DRESS REHEARSAL. 
 
 OF course the spring sewing must be done be- 
 fore you can go away for the season. Never 
 stop to wish for somebody else's purse as long as 
 you have a few dollars in your own, and wits to 
 make them go as far as possible. Suppose we look 
 over the boys' clothes and get them off your mind 
 before we settle to your dresses. Things have an air 
 of being at the end of the season, but they must last 
 a few weeks till milder weather. 
 
 The worst of boys' clothes is that being mostly 
 woollen they absorb dust and odors to that degree 
 aunt Jane declares she can smell a boy across the 
 room by his fusty jacket. Every closet ought to 
 have a window ; but as every closet does not, all the 
 boys' suits should have a thorough airing once a 
 week. On a sunny day, at aunt Jane's, you will see 
 the back porch strung with lines of trousers and jack- 
 307 
 
3o8 ANNA Maria's housekeeping, 
 
 ets turned inside out, and swinging in the wind from 
 breakfast time till four in the afternoon. First they 
 are whipped and shaken till the dust is out, grease 
 and mud stains taken out with a stiff manila scrub- 
 bing-brush, hot water and soap, any part of the lin- 
 ing that is soiled is scrubbed in the same way, 
 rinsed in many waters ^sometimes aunt Jane says it 
 takes a dip in very weak copperas water to cleanse 
 and sweeten them to suit her — sun and wind all 
 day doing the rest. Then the closets have the fioors 
 washed often, and the doors left wide open every day, 
 while the rooms are airing, and by this care that 
 immaculate woman keeps her boys' wardrobe as neat 
 and sweet as any girl's. One rule is that no boots 
 and shoes are kept in closets with clothing, for leather 
 and woollen suits together get up a smell of their own, 
 that is to say the least, extraordinary. For one thing 
 the boys never wear. their boots or thick shoes up- 
 stairs, or in a carpeted room. As soon as they come 
 home the boots are taken off in the little dressing- 
 room off the entry, put on the back porch to be 
 cleaned if they need it, and then all go in the boot 
 closet downstairs, while the boys wear slippers or low 
 
A. DRESS REHEARSAL. 
 
 3°9 
 
 shoes about the house. It was some trouble to make 
 them understand they were not to come stalking into 
 the sitting-room in rubber boots or walking shoes, 
 but the noise, dust and wear of carpets saved by it 
 would make any woman's heart glad. The boys pre- 
 tend their mother copies Turkish manners and would 
 like to have them leave their shoes outside, like the 
 Turks at the door of a mosque, but they find stout 
 shoes last longer for being kept to their own particu- 
 lar uses, and carpets certainly wear better when not 
 ground by half inch soles. 
 
 How baggy at knees, and wrinkled at elbows the 
 suits are, when schoolboys have nearly gone through 
 them. To prevent this, every Saturday night, after 
 they have been brushed, dampen the knees of the 
 trousers and press them with a heavy iron, or leave 
 them all night under a smooth board and heavy 
 weight, the way Soldiers keep their uniforms smooth. 
 When a jacket is worn rough, lay it on a table, 
 scrub with a stiff brush, hot water and soap, using as 
 little water as possible, rub with a dry crash towel, 
 put a thin cloth over, and press the garment well. 
 A shabby coat often comes out as good as new from 
 
310 ANNA MARIAS HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 this treatment. Coats must not be hung ^ by the 
 loop on the collar for any length of time, but be 
 put away on the wire shoulder forms which cost ten 
 cents apiece. Trousers and vests should be laid 
 away in press, to keep them in shape. 
 
 Always in the spring, after beating, cleaning and 
 a grand airing, take the woollen clothes in while 
 the sun is on them, and put away, with as little 
 folding as possible in large chests, lined with thick 
 paper, and plenty of gum camphor in rather large 
 pieces among the layers. I hope to see the large 
 wooden chests for storage form part of our outfits 
 as they were of our grandmothers'. Boxes are much 
 better to keep clothes in than leather trunks are, 
 and a set made of cedar, or lined with veneers of 
 that wood, built very large to receive clothes with- 
 out much folding would be better than cedar closets, 
 especially if there is a dry attic to store them. One 
 chest for blankets, one for men's clothing, and one for 
 women's, should be part of the family plenishing, and 
 descend as heirlooms after the sensible custom of 
 our ancestors. Furs keep best in the new barrels 
 made from paper pulp, which can be sealed up to 
 
A DRESS REHEARSAL. 3II 
 
 wholly exclude moths. If you must store them with- 
 out any such convenience, beat them thoroughly on 
 the inside, brush the fur well, put into a clean large 
 paper bag which you get from the grocers, with 
 lumps of camphor in the pockets and folds, and 
 paste the top of the bag closely. Keep each article, 
 so sealed in a separate bag, in a box or trunk, lined 
 with camphorated or tarred paper, and jDaste strips 
 over the keyhole and closure of the trunk. This 
 work should always be done as soon as you are 
 through wearing furs and woollens. Moths seldom 
 attack things in constant use, but seize their chance 
 if articles are left in closet or trunk for a fortnight 
 unguarded. Don't leave your winter dresses and 
 the boys' clothes hanging in unused closets or the 
 attic, half the summer. Beside moths, the ants, 
 wasps and flies will gnaw holes in them, dust gathers, 
 and light fades them. The waste of clothes comes 
 nearly as much from neglect as from use. 
 
 I know, of course, that girls like to run through 
 dresses and have new ones, but to dress well on 
 the limited means, old things must be kept in succes- 
 sion, and tenderly cared for. I have just been help- 
 
312 ANNA MARIA'S HOUSEKEEPING, 
 
 ing a young lady look over her wardrobe, who has 
 been in straitened circumstances since the war. It 
 is a sad instance of the way people can come down 
 from a brownstone house in the fashionable part of 
 New York, a house where the window curtains were 
 three hundred dollars a pair, the conservator)' and 
 aviary cost enough for you or me to live on, and 
 my young lady's school dresses were forty and fifty 
 dollars apiece — enough to buy a dress for a court 
 ball, as ladies who have lived much abroad will tell 
 you. First came embarrassment, then a crash in 
 business, the fine house and furniture were sold 
 at auction, the parents died in the struggle with 
 narrow means, and my brave young lady took a place 
 as governess. But as if harm could not leave her 
 without its utmost spite, the little bank stock she 
 had left was lost, and on the heels of this ill-fortune, 
 in a crush at a city shop one day, her handsome 
 cloak, a relic of old times, was cut in three or four 
 places, and her dress pocket picked of the last 
 money she had in the world. This befell just as fail- 
 ure of their income obliged the family she had been 
 with for years, to dispense with governess and ser- 
 
A DRESS REHEARSAL. ,1, 
 
 vants. Don't say these things never happen outside 
 of stories. They never happen in stories half so 
 sadly as they do in real life as you will know when 
 you read more in that deep volume. This happened 
 in the winter of 1884. But this young lady, taught as 
 well-bred girls are to take care of things, has been 
 able to dress well for ten years without spending 
 twenty-five dollars a year on her clothes, by making 
 clever use of her own and her mother's old wardrobe. 
 Such a marvel of thrift I never saw, and I wish 
 women could take lessons of this sorely tried girl, 
 how to make the most of what they have. White 
 stockings are out of use, you know, but Emma, hav- 
 ing a stock of fine balbriggans, colors them pale 
 blue and pink to correspond with summer dresses, 
 dipping some in dye made of deep bluing water, set 
 with alum, and others in pink dye extracted by 
 boiling scraps of crimson cotton flannel. Fast as 
 the well-darned feet wear out, new ones are deftly 
 made from the stronger parts of old pairs, and these 
 are not bungled, but so carefully joined that it is 
 rather a pleasure to one fond of nice needlework to 
 see them. Her white silk lace turns yellow with 
 
314 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 wear past restoring — she does not throw it away, 
 but treats it to a dip in the same bath with her stock- 
 ings, and has rufifles of pretty pink and blue blonde 
 to trim cravats and fichus. She buys a silk kerchief 
 in tasteful color for twenty-five cents, and embroid- 
 ers a large initial in the corner for a stylish bit of 
 neckwear, but she doesn't go to the expense of hav- 
 ing it stamped, or buying embroidery silks at five 
 cents a needleful. She dampens the corner of the 
 kerchief, and irons it over the embossed initial on 
 another handkerchief laid on flannel, and the letter 
 is transferred in relief, to be penciled over with ease. 
 Odds and ends of silk are raveled, scalded to set 
 the color, or dipped to get the shade wanted, and 
 skill does the rest. You never see neater em- 
 broidery than Emma does with such materials. I 
 am given to contrivance myself, but my poor thrift 
 was left far behind by hers. Fancy ripping out the 
 chain stitch embroidery on a linen suit, and keeping 
 the thread to darn merino hosiery : Her black velvet 
 jacket first was worn as a broad rose-colored sash 
 at one of Mrs. Lincoln's receptions, when Emma was 
 in the nursery ! It has been successively part of a 
 
A DRESS REHEARSAL. 3x5 
 
 dress flounce, and a table scarf, but being originally 
 very good velvet, it bids fair to outlast several dye- 
 ings and piecings yet. The best of it is that Emma 
 is such a perfect mistress in the art of making over 
 that her work has not the poverty-stricken air of 
 most pieced and furbished things. This is an art 
 worth learning and learning well. 
 
 Like a nice girl you always wear a thin under 
 kerchief or high corset cover to take the soil from the 
 skin, instead of disgracing the neck of your dress 
 linings. And you find it not too much trouble to 
 wear arm shields in the sleeves, for these contriv- 
 ances not only insure neatness but keep a dress 
 from the most destructive wear. There is an acid 
 in perspiration which makes the fibre of fabrics 
 decay, as surely as the black dye in cloth. But 
 instead of buying shields, you will find it better to 
 make them of thin cambric, brushed with sweet oil 
 and parafiine wax, and dried over a hot stove. 
 Waxed paper makes good shields, that stand more 
 wear than any one would suppose, and being very 
 thin take less room in dresses. Then you are care- 
 ful to shake and brush a dress well before hanging 
 
3i6 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 it away after wearing it. It improves all dresses 
 to turn them inside out and hang them out-of-doors 
 for several hours after wearing. They keep a fresh- 
 ness that is pleasant, and this freshness preserves a 
 dress, for stale air, dust and secretions from the per- 
 son all subtly injure colors and fabrics in time. Be 
 careful what kind of brushes you take to different 
 materials. Stiff brushes wear out things fast, and 
 the best way is to take care that dresses get little 
 mud or soil to need harsh treatment. After the 
 grass is green, the best and easiest way to brush all 
 dresses from lawn to cashmere and silk, is to take 
 them to a piece of clean sward, and beat the skirt 
 back and forth, letting it sweep the sod at each 
 stroke. The grass acts as a fine, soft brush, that 
 does not fray any fabric, and the work is done in 
 much shorter time than by a clothes brush. Grena- 
 dines and fine pleated lawns are refreshed in this 
 way better than any other. Silk and satin should 
 have a whisk of long, soft hair. Velvet should 
 always have the dust wiped ofE with a piece of 
 black crape, before putting away. It will grow 
 rusty much sooner if not kept free from dust. Vel- 
 
A DRESS REHEARSAL. 
 
 317 
 
 vet jackets, cloaks and dresses should not be folded 
 in drawers, but hung by many loops in roomy ward- 
 robes, where they cannot wrinkle or be crushed. 
 
 Now what to do about these dresses for the season. 
 You have been thinking whether it is best to make 
 things over, or buy a few new ones and spare the 
 time and trouble of re-making. That depends. If 
 you .were a very busy person with more profitable 
 employment for your time, it would be better to buy 
 one or two new gowns, and let the old ones go. 
 But you see, you have more time and skill than 
 money, and you should spend of what you have 
 most. A little money put into nice trimmings and 
 fancy things with an old gown gives abetter effect 
 than a plain new dress. Then fashion helps us out 
 with pretty contrivances. Your blue plaid gingham 
 needn't be thrown aside because the waist won't 
 meet in front. Cut off buttons and buttonhole 
 edges, and fill the space with a puffed and shirred 
 shirt or guimpe as it is called, (pronounced gamp). 
 Get a dressmaker to come one day, to fit and baste 
 all these things, and then another day to finish oil 
 when you have done the sewing. The buff dress that 
 
3i8 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 was ruined with acid as you think, is not past help, 
 for you can set in new pieces with the sewing 
 machine mind, not by hand, and cover the places with 
 broad trimming of the new heavy linen torchon, that 
 is durable as Irish crochet. Do all piecing with 
 the machine, which makes a more even join than 
 the nicest hand sewing, use fine thread and press the 
 seams open. I believe anything can be done with 
 dresses, since hearing of Mrs. Governor William 
 Smith's claret silk that was spoiled by lemonade, but 
 had thirty pieces set in the body and flounces so 
 cleverly that no one seeing it is the' wiser. Mrs. 
 Governor William Smith's devices, or those of her 
 clever little dressmaker for her, were staple remi- 
 niscences of my girlhood when Aunt Paulina Tres- 
 cott came to do our family sewing. Wasn't an 
 India shawl caught in the carriage door and torn 
 zigzag in a heartrending way, and didn't Miss Tres- 
 cott take a week darning it with the fringes so beau- 
 tifully that Mrs. Governor Smith always pointed out 
 the spots to particular friends with affectionate pride ? 
 I wonder if that shawl is in existence yet ? It ought 
 to be. 
 
A DRESS REHEARSAL. 319 
 
 Nothing is the matter with your flannel suit save 
 the Hercules braid is rusty. You can rip it off and 
 have it dyed, or you can take a shorter way, by 
 going over it with a toothbrush and liquid shoe- 
 blacking. Let me tell you " Brown's " or anybody 
 else's polish has a great many uses besides being 
 good for shoes. Your black straw turban looks 
 dusty and faded. Brush it well and give it two 
 coats of polish, letting it dry between, and you 
 wouldn't know but it had come from the milliner's. 
 That little soft black felt hat would be useful in 
 riding, if it were not gray with wear ; sponge it 
 with the polish. It won't look glossy, but the black 
 will be revived. The boys' hats which turn greenish, 
 and the hat bindings are improved by such a dress- 
 ing, and your old rubber cloak and sandals can be 
 made shining and new with a coat of it. I never 
 knew of its injuring any fabric. There is vitriol in 
 shoe-polish true, but so there is in many black dyes 
 for woollen goods. When you mend black kid gloves, 
 always go over the seams outside with a little black- 
 ing, and they will look neater. 
 
 Never give up black lace, or indeed lace of any 
 
320 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 kind till it is in fragments. When merely crumpled, 
 wind it tightly and smoothly on anything hard and 
 round, a broomstick, the long handle of a tin dipper 
 or a bottle, and leave it fifte.en minutes in hot steam 
 over a kettle of boiling water, which will smooth it 
 and revive the color. When aged and gray, it is 
 time to re-dye it, and all your faded white silk laces 
 with it. Yak lace can be dyed a dozen times and 
 look as well as ever. White thread and cotton laces 
 can be dipped in weak coffee, or tinged with bluing, 
 or a dash of pink dye as you like, or you can paint 
 dots of bright color on the figures with pigments 
 mixed in clear varnish with Chinese white. 
 
 You want a wrap for riding. Take the faded 
 Paisley shawl, that has been out of use ten years, 
 and have it dipped in chloride of lime to discharge 
 all the color, only a moment or two or your shawl 
 will dissolve into rags, then rinse in five waters and 
 have it colored pretty light blue, pink, or coffee brown. 
 Not that you are to undertake this yourself, unless 
 you have an Aunt Jane skilled in dyes to help you. 
 All black and dark woollens or silks can be re-dyed 
 black, light wools may take fancy shades, a little 
 
A DRESS REHEARSAL. 32 1 
 
 deeper than the original color, and many trimmings 
 bear dyeing well. Dyeing and embroidery are the 
 two resources of a slender wardrobe — for what can't 
 be dyed, my dear, may be improved by quilting, 
 braiding or powdering with brilliant dots or sprigs of 
 needlework. 
 
XXIII.— CHURCH PICNICS. 
 
 SO you are on the committee to supply refreshments 
 for the festival to which the Sunday-school looks 
 forward. A good report of your housekeeping at home 
 will certainly bring you into demand this way. - 
 
 Nowadays, every woman is likely to be brought 
 into semi-public duty of some sort, in the host of tem- 
 perance, church and Sunday-school festivals, charity 
 fairs and suppers, soldiers' lunches and school re- 
 unions, so it must be part of your education to know 
 how such things should go off. 
 
 Like everything else in this world, this refreshment 
 business is best begun pencil in hand, so that at every 
 step you may know just where you are. For each 
 hundred persons who attend the picnic, or the excur- 
 sion, which is the name for the old " Sunday-school 
 celebration," your committee must secure a certain 
 
 amount of food, which the families of the congregation 
 322 
 
CHURCH PICNICS. 
 
 323 
 
 agree to provide. Experienced housekeepers know 
 pretty well how much a given number of hungry peo- 
 ple will eat, and your Sunday-school friends should 
 find a liberal supply, for no church should ever bear 
 the reproach of stingy doings in its festivals. The first 
 injunction ever given for such matters and the only one 
 needed, should hang in every vestry and committee 
 room, and every Christian take it to heart : " Letevery- 
 'thing be done decently (that is respectably, or hand- 
 somely, as the Greek would be rendered to-day in our 
 own phrase) and in order;" that is systematically, 
 which I grieve to say is not the case with too many 
 church social affairs. The providing is left to an un- 
 experienced young lady committee who don't see all 
 the families in time to allow for preparation, and who 
 leave each person to bring what seems good or conveni- 
 ent. The consequence is, a surfeit of cake, but only 
 half enough sandwiches, and those of a hasty lunch- 
 counter variety, four dozen loaves of gold cake and 
 bushels of doughnuts, but not crisp cookies enough to 
 go around, or half enough lemonade. People eat more 
 cake than agrees with them, and have headaches and 
 feel faint before they go home for want of relishing 
 
324 ANNA Maria's housekeepiijg. 
 
 and right food. The bolder children are stuffed till 
 an after-course of jalap and senna would be highly- 
 proper, while the timid ones go hungry on a slice of 
 cake and half a roll, and too many of those who attend 
 go home feeling as if they never wanted to go to a Sun- 
 day-school picnic again. Now a leisure day in the 
 woods, or on the seashore, with fresh air and change of 
 scene, as well as change of food, ought to leave people 
 with fresher, better feelings, and it is sheer waste of 
 time, efforts and parish cake, if you don't send them 
 home the better for coming. At least see to it that 
 your part of the entertainment is well done,for the most 
 fastidious are apt to go home satisfied if they have 
 had something good to eat. The credit of the church 
 depends on your way of taking up a duty, which too 
 many persons slight, and very few understand. Please 
 to understand that the object of the picnic, or wood- 
 party, or excursion, as you choose to call it, is not to 
 give one because other churches do, or to raise a few 
 dollars for the library, or a church stereopticon, nor 
 yet to draw scholars to your Sunday-school. None of 
 these ; but it is the reminder of the Jewish feast of 
 tabernacles, the day of gladness in open air and sun- 
 
CHURCH PICNICS. 325 
 
 shine, in rest from toil, and friendly gayety, in light 
 feasting, which stores up strength for the resting frames 
 to take to the daily work of the next weeks. Yes, you 
 may smile, but the underlying fact of all our social 
 feasting, the reason why all our holidays and rejoic- 
 ings are celebrated with richer and more varied eating, 
 is that in the repose of muscle and lightness of spirits, 
 the body can digest and accumulate a little surplus of 
 strength to meet the wear of life again. As the good 
 dinner Victor Hugo gave poor children once a week 
 kept up their health in spite of every day privations, 
 so every holiday ought to freshen us for the stress of 
 work and business. It is a failure if it does not do 
 this, and if our parish festivals do not come up to the 
 mark, it is time they should. 
 
 And first, see that your party have enough to eat. 
 As you wish to provide liberally every hundred who 
 come will need the following amount, the same or in 
 kind : Either one hundred and fifty sandwich rolls, or 
 eight large loaves of home-made bread made into sand- 
 wiches; if made as they should be, most of your party 
 will prefer these to sweet things, excepting only the 
 juvenile cake-sharks. The bread should be baked only 
 
326 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 the day before, cut very thin, not buttered, but spread 
 with beef or ham, chopped fine as if grated, and mixed 
 with salad dressing. The sliced sandwich is not easy 
 to manage neatly without plate, knife and fork. If 
 rolls are sent, part of the inside should be scooped out 
 and filled with the sandwich mixture. 
 
 If cold meats are to be served, your hundred will 
 call for two small hams, or twenty-five pounds beef, 
 five cold tongues sliced thin, and a dozen large chick- 
 ens. Salad is relished by everybody, and is not expen- 
 sive, as veal and lamb may be mixed with chicken, 
 while fresh chopped cabbage, beets, hard eggs, parsley 
 and a dozen other ingredients may combine with the 
 celery and lettuce. Salmon salad, or fresh white fish 
 salad, will give variety, and, in serving, salad only calls 
 for saucers and spoons like ice cream. If you want to 
 manage with least trouble and risk, instead of borrow- 
 ing the plates and silver of the entire parish, let the 
 committee order a gross of wooden plates and saucers, 
 which come at a good deal less than a cent apiece, and 
 will last a number of picnics. With paper napkins in 
 plenty, things are more civilized, and you will find a 
 load of care off your mind in borrowing and returning 
 
CHURCH PICNICS. 327 
 
 things. If anybody desires better, it is open for them 
 to bring their own napkins, fork and spoon as used to 
 be the custom of good society at all feasts only two 
 hundred years ago. 
 
 As long as the great American picnic-goer likes 
 pickles, you may as well provide them, for the relief 
 of possible bilious tendencies. If I mention two 
 gallons of home-made pickles, let them be in vari- 
 ety — cucumbers dark with spice or yellow with mus- 
 tard, bunches of barberry, cauliflower, sweet pickled 
 peaches, cherries, plums, but all well-drained and 
 convenient for handling. All pickles or preserves for 
 picnics should be put up with stems on. 
 
 Take a few loaves of bread and a box of butter for 
 people who prefer plain bread and butter with their 
 chicken and cucumbers. It is much nicer freshly cut 
 and spread as wanted. Mild cheese, cut into two-inch 
 bits half an inch thick, will carry well in a napkin in 
 a tin box. Five pounds will probably be enough as 
 the liking for cheese is not universal. Eggs take well 
 in shape of egg sandwiches, sliced when hard boiled 
 between very thin slices of bread and butter, so does 
 veal loaf, which is chopped veal bound together with 
 
328 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 beaten egg, and flavored with herbs, then baked in 
 bread pans so that it can be sliced. 
 
 No, I shall not forget the cake, and you may depend 
 on its being the only thing that other people will not 
 forget either. It is easy knowing how much to pro- 
 vide. A common scalloped cake pan, ten inches 
 across, will give eighteen good slices, a brick pan of 
 the same length ten slices or fifteen as you choose to 
 cut them. Rich fruit and black cake are not cut over 
 half an inch thick. A dozen loaves in all of cup cake, 
 sponge, chocolate, fruit and lady cake, should be 
 enough for one hundred people, with one hundred and 
 twenty-five little cakes baked in patty pans, which may 
 include pound and currant, Dundee and Marseilles 
 cakes. Twice as many cookies, jumbles, ginger snaps 
 and Brighton biscuit, will prove enough for the most 
 hardened picnic eaters. Jelly cake and fruit tarts are 
 certain to be called for by every one, so ask to have 
 plenty of them, if any are furnished. Where a dozen 
 or twenty families do the baking, it is as little trouble 
 to have things in proportion as to have Ipads of 
 frosted pound cake and only two or three of anything 
 else. 
 
CHURCH PICNICS. 329 
 
 Beverages in variety are too much trouble for large 
 volunteer parties. Content yourself with lemonade not 
 too sweet, and plenty of ice water for everybody 
 taking two or three clean casks or kegs along and a 
 basket of cheap tumblers. It is better however for 
 everybody to bring small baskets with napkins, cups 
 and spoons, or whatever extras are fancied. Remem- 
 ber it takes three large lemons to make two quarts of 
 lemonade with the most economical skill, and calculate 
 accordingly. If you must manage with fewer lemons 
 than you like, press them with a lemon squeezer at 
 home and pour boiling water on them, a quart to a 
 dozen lemons. Carry this, lemons and all, in a cov- 
 ered jar, set in a wooden pail, and strain through a 
 linen cloth into the ice water, adding to bring up the 
 strength if required, two or three teaspoonfuls of 
 powdered citric acid, not tartaric. Citric acid is con- 
 densed lemon juice anyhow. And don't let any one 
 spoil the lemonade by using anything but white sugar 
 in it. Citric acid and white sugar with the grated peel 
 of three lemons will make better lemonade than the 
 washy stuff usually served, where a dozen lemons float 
 in slices on a half barrel or so of tepid water which 
 
330 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 tastes strongly of muscovado sugar. Bottled lemon 
 soda, and cold tea with thin slices of lemon in it, with 
 sugar but no milk are popular, but do have them iced, 
 for flat beverages well sunned in July air savor too 
 much of cheap excursions. Iced milk with the cream 
 in, may be taken in jugs, but the best way of carrying 
 all such things is in a half-barrel or firkins, half filled 
 with pounded ice and sawdust, in which the bottles, 
 jugs and pails can be set, the whole covered with many 
 layers of paper, and a piece of carpet. 
 
 Pack the plates and saucers with layers of clean 
 paper between each two, and have thin bars of wood 
 fastened over the top of the basket to hold the pile 
 firmly that it cannot shake and break. Insist that all 
 the tablecloths must be marked with the owners' 
 names, and all the tableware can be marked with 
 initials by a match dipped in turpentine varnish and 
 lampblack, or any black paint that will not wash off 
 at once. An hour spent at the vestry marking all 
 things sent will save a week's trouble hunting and re- 
 turning stray articles, beside endless heart burnings 
 over lost property. 
 
 If you must have hot tea and coffee, or hot bouillion 
 
CHURCH PICNICS. 33 1 
 
 or chowder, which are popular picnic fare in different 
 parts of the country, the easiest way to get them up is 
 to carry a kerosene^stove and light it in the wagon 
 which takes the baskets. A shelter is easily rigged in 
 the fashion of emigrant wagons, with a light frame 
 covered by unbleached cotton or awning cloth, which 
 makes the cook business lighter, for it is no easy mat- 
 ter to boil coilee and make soup with the wind puffing 
 smoke in one's face from every quarter. 
 
 If you want the older ladies to enjoy the picnic, and 
 go home without fatigue and neuralgic twinges, provide 
 all the canvas camp-chairs, mats and pieces of carpets 
 possible to give people easy seats. Hammocks and 
 swing-chairs add much to the real comfort of such 
 parties, for to tell the truth, most of us elders enjoy 
 our easy-chairs out of the draft, on our own shady 
 piazzas, better than any picnic between here and Gal- 
 veston, and the younger folk are not averse to some- 
 thing better than a backless seat on the ground, with 
 the damp striking through thin dresses. 
 
 It ought to be understood that a simple, durable 
 style of dress is the only one for picnics and wood 
 parties. Let white muslin and organdy suits be 
 
332 ANNA MARIAS HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 frowned down as bad taste, and pretty summer flan- 
 nels, satines and prints be worn instead. With bright 
 ribbons and flowers such dresses are festal enough for 
 any occasion of the kind, nor should wraps be forgot- 
 ten in case of sudden change in the weather. Have 
 these all ticketed with the owner's name on a tag, tied 
 up in close parcels and sent in the store wagon with 
 the baskets and picnic equipage generally. A locked 
 box will prove the safest thing to carry them in and it 
 should be the business of some careful young fellow to 
 look after the contents and deliver them, as an ex- 
 pressman hands out parcels. If your party is a large 
 one, of a hundred or over, a system of checks for wraps 
 ■will be the easiest and safest for everybody. You 
 can't have any fun without these cares, and it is so 
 much easier taking care before than after — always. A 
 summer shower comes up, or the wind changes, and 
 people are distracted trying to find shawls and cloaks, 
 unless they " hang on to them " as the prudent ones 
 do, and spoil their comfort carrying wraps all day. 
 
 What is left at picnics oughj>'not to be wasted in 
 the wholesale manner common. I have seen wagon 
 loads of young people pelting each other with the half- 
 
CHURCH PICNICS. 333 
 
 hundred cream cakes left from lunch, and after a sol- 
 diers' lunch furnished by the town ladies on parade- 
 day, the regiments have flung barrels of sandwich rolls 
 at each other for sport. Good taste and thrift forbid 
 such monkeyish performances. What is left shoud be 
 at the disposal of those who sent it, if they can distin- 
 guish their own cake and rolls, or it should be neatly 
 packed and sent to families where such a treat would 
 be acceptable ^ to those who stayed at home with 
 young children and the sick, or to people who didn't 
 think themselves good enough to go to picnics, and 
 who don't have cake every day. The ddbris, instead 
 of disfiguring the grounds, should be collected in a 
 box and go to somebody's chickens, for the sake of 
 keeping the picnic grounds orderly, and no stray 
 papers or tin cans should be left as traces that well- 
 bred Christian people have been feasting there. 
 
 Why not send things to the nvinister ? Of course you 
 send them, not because the minister's family is a de- 
 pendent and beneficiary of the parish, but because a 
 good deal more is expected from them than other folks, 
 in the way of entertaining and giving time to others, 
 and it is only just you should help them in every 
 
334 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 thoughtful way. With people coming to dine, or take 
 tea, almost any day in the week, it will be a decided 
 help to have loaves of nice cake that will keep for 
 weeks in the cake box, or a basket of rolls and cook- 
 ies that make luncheon easy for days. You do not 
 know how the minister's wife has her time broken by 
 calls on parish matters or charity, so that it is not al- 
 ways easy for her to do a forenoon's baking uninter- 
 rupted. She will do her work, and your work, better 
 for all the helps and attentions thrown in her way. 
 But don't forget the washerwoman, and the poor fam- 
 ily down by the mill, who never come to church, or 
 the old ladies who live alone, or the sick mother whose 
 family of boys are doing the housework the best they 
 can without her, or the sewing women who live on a 
 cup of tea and bread mainly. The fragments are some- 
 times the best of the feast. 
 
XXIV. — HELPS THAT ARE HELPS. 
 
 ' I "HE Gaylor girls were congratulating you last 
 night that your mother had decided on account 
 of her poor health to keep a girl this summer. They 
 thought it absurd in you to follow the old habit of doing 
 the work yourself , and vowed " no one should ever see 
 them do a hand's turn for themselves so long as they 
 could pay somebody to do it for them." A fine senti- 
 ment, that has the right ring of American republican- 
 ism about it, that does equal honor to their heads and 
 hearts. When every move in business is toward 
 cheaper prices and economical styles of living, when 
 fire, flood or panic may in one afternoon cut off the 
 finest incomes, our women and girls, safe, sheltered for 
 the time, think it becoming and ladylike to say such 
 shallow things and live up to them. The only safe rule 
 is to allow no one to do anything for you that you 
 can do for yourself, while turning your time and abil- 
 33S 
 
S3^ ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 ity to the best account. Two women in fair health 
 can divide the housekeeping of a plain family with 
 comfort and time for other pursuits. If one is dis- 
 abled, the occasion is clear for outside help, but to 
 you and me the necessity is one to grieve over, as Sin 
 Saxon, in Leslie Goldthwaite's beautiful story, dreaded 
 to have a servant come and derange her trim house- 
 keeping. If you could get one of the nice country 
 girls with a moral antipathy to dirt and a bent toward 
 scrubbing, bred to quickness and thrift, it would be 
 better than miners' luck. I've had such " help, " to 
 give them their grateful old name, a sunny-faced girl 
 in clean calico gown, who cooked a good breakfast, 
 served it and had the dining-room in speckless order, 
 the kitchen tidy and house settled by nine o'clock 
 every day — she would have been disgraced in her 
 own eyes not to have her work done up by nine o'clock 
 in the morning — who could see when things needed 
 tearing up and putting to rights, and had an instinct 
 and energy which left her no rest till everything was 
 in order. She had no fear of doing what wasn't her 
 work ; she could cook bread, steak, vegetables to per- 
 fection, make pies and jumbles no pantry need blush 
 
HELPS THAT ARE HELPS. 337 
 
 to own, and if she wasn't gifted in garnishing with 
 dabs of beet, boiled egg and parsley, her dishes, 
 platters and napkins were always clean, and it didn't 
 take away your appetite to go into her kitchen just as 
 she was taking up dinner, for no chaos of dirty dish- 
 towels, and parings, spatters of grease and cinders 
 surrounded her cooking. She had the gift of faculty 
 and habit of using it. This is what you must look for 
 if you want help worth paying. 
 
 For it is not a one-sided bargain you are making. 
 You get the services of a woman trained to nothing 
 better than the use of her hands and muscles in 
 domestic work, at any rate one who can do nothing 
 else for the time. For this you pay from eight to 
 twelve or fifteen dollars a month according to her skill 
 or the scarcity of help — but that is the least part of 
 what you give her. She fares as well as you as to 
 food, a decent room and comforts are a matter of 
 course, and you bear the expense of her inexperience, 
 carelessness, and perhaps her ill health. Your house- 
 keeping will cost one third more at least, with even a 
 tolerable servant — so far girls know how to use sup- 
 plies without waste. All these things count in the 
 
338 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 wages of an apprentice or workman — they rightly 
 should in the servant girl's account. 
 
 For your sake, as well as her own, you are bound to 
 treat her with consideration. No woman with good 
 feelings will put a girl to sleep in a dark airless hole 
 in the basement, or an attic out of repair without com- 
 mon furniture. You must give her a clean, airy room 
 and good bed, and have her keep it so. It is a good 
 rule to have every servant who leaves wash the thinner 
 blankets and quilts, air the bed thoroughly and scrub 
 the room for the next who comes. If she found it 
 clean for herself she will rarely object to do this for 
 another of her own class. I use the word class as a 
 convenience, but I detest the unchristian, unladylike 
 idea that the women of any sort or nation differ from 
 the highest rank, save iii circumstances only. Give 
 your hired girl who does your hard work a good bed 
 to rest on, and a cheap set of springs under it, for one 
 recovers strength better in an easy bed. The furni- 
 ture may be plain, second hand, but not battered, 
 dusty or greasy. Have a glass large enough to comb 
 her hair and pin her collar by comfortably — no 
 pinched seven-by-nine affair. Let her have a stand, 
 
HELPS THAT ARE HELPS. 339 
 
 bureau, rocking-chair or at least a low chair, and a 
 closet or ample rack for her dresses. A bare floor 
 with carpet by the bed is kept clean easily, and she 
 will hardly thank you for giving her a carpeted room 
 to sweep. She will appreciate little things like a 
 clean towel on the bureau, a tidy on the rocker, a gay 
 hair-receiver and a white spread on the bed. If you 
 had to sleep often in rooms with fusty, rickety old fur- 
 niture, with bare, stained bureau and table, and grimy 
 patch quilts, you would appreciate a neat bright room 
 to yourself, and be careful how you had to leave it. 
 If the room is nice you can with better grace in her 
 eyes insist on its being kept neat, and you will have 
 to teach every girl that comes to throw off the bed- 
 clothes, turn up the mattress and open the window 
 before she goes down in the morning. She may leave 
 the bed unmade till she gets into it at night — that is 
 her own lookout — but she must empty slops and 
 leave the room airing the first thing. It is easy to 
 take the clean slop-pail up at night and bring it down 
 when she goes to light the fires, and then it is over 
 for the day, and the room does not gather indescrib- 
 able smells that makes the sleeper in it stupid and 
 
340 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 heavy in the morning. Have plenty of bedclothes, 
 and an old quilt folded under the sheet, both to be 
 easy to sleep on and to keep the bed clean. See that 
 the girl has a hot soapstone or brick wrapped up to 
 warm her bed in cold nights. It takes the chill off a 
 cold room and bed, and often prevents taking cold 
 which unfits one for working comfortably. Take 
 care that she has umbrella and rubbers to go out with 
 in stormy weather, teach her not to rush out of a 
 heated kitchen to the yard with bare head and arms 
 chilly days, and give her good chance for baths with a 
 warm room and hot water, for nothing makes one feel 
 more active and like work than a hot bath. Make 
 one rule : that your help must go to bed at ten o'clock, 
 unless on special occasions, and have nothing done 
 evenings in stirring-about work except to mix some 
 little thing for breakfast. Teach her that she can peel 
 apples and vegetables or fold clothes just as well sit- 
 ting down, for she cannot be on her feet all day and 
 keep sprightly for work. The hours of kitchen help 
 begin earlier and -end later than those of any other 
 employment, and should be made equal by giving time 
 for rest and pleasure in the afternoon, /rm^d'^f the 
 
HELPS THAT ARE HELPS. 341 
 
 housework is properly done, as it should be, before 
 two o'clock. 
 
 That brings the question, how much one woman 
 should be expected to do. In a plain family a well- 
 trained servant ought to get all the meals and clear 
 them away, do all the washing, ironing, cleaning and 
 sweeping, keep entrances neat and wait on the door 
 bell most of the time. I know perfectly well that half 
 the girls from intelligence offices say they can't do 
 this, and in a house with modern conveniences ^11 
 make a day's work of getting three simple meals and 
 clearing away, keeping the family on famine diet wash- 
 ing day, and finishing the ironing at 9.30 Saturday 
 night, after a fashion. The ordinary "first-class 
 cook," puffy and fat, is all day peeling her turnips 
 and carrots for a plain boiled dinner, and resents 
 being asked to sweep an entry or clear a front door. 
 When you get such a woman to work, you have made 
 a great mistake. What the ordinary Ariierican family 
 needs is what the intelligence offices call a girl for 
 general housework, and don't get, a plump one. A 
 light, wiiy girl will get through work in half the time 
 that a fat one will, without half the fatigue. 
 
342 ANNA MARIA'S HOUSEKEEPING, 
 
 In your family of six, the boys ought to get up the 
 kindling and coal, take down and sift the ashes, and 
 tend the furnace or sitting-room stove. It will take 
 them fifteen minutes a day in all, and the care won't 
 hurt them. Your trim kitchen maid should be up at 
 five in summer and half-past five or six in winter as 
 you need an early breakfast. She should have the 
 sitting and dining-rooms tidy, which should want little 
 more than sweeping about the stove, and dusting, the 
 door-steps swept, and breakfast ready by seven, with 
 the kitchen nearly ready for ironing or baking. She 
 can hand the cups and plates at breakfast, then hurry 
 up-stairs and empty slops from the bedrooms — work 
 which must be done early — then eat her own break- 
 fast which should be in the kitchen with her own 
 separate tablecloth and napkin. A good servant will 
 keep her kitchen nice enough for anybody to eat in, 
 and there, should be a small table to eat from, beside 
 the regular kitchen table which is wanted for work. 
 Half an hour is time enough for her to wash the 
 breakfast dishes and have the dining-room tidy. 
 There is no sense in the way heavy-footed girls drag 
 about this work till eleven in the forenoon. I've seen 
 
HELPS THAT ARE HELPS. 343 
 
 a table for twenty persons cleared and dishes all 
 washed in ten minutes by the clock,' seen biscuit made 
 and baked and breakfast got in fifteen minutes, a cup 
 cake stirred up and baked in eight minutes by lively 
 farmer girls whose pride was in their work, and who 
 would have a washing of six white shirts, twelve 
 sheets, six white skirts, with body and table linen for 
 a family of nine persons, all on the line by ten o'clock, 
 and spend the afternoon at the piano, or go visiting. 
 They used Doctor Holmes' rule, to work briskly while 
 they worked and rest well when it was done. With 
 all my heart I pity these droning servants who keep on 
 their feet all day, spinning the work out till ten o'clock 
 or midnight, do less and feel thrice as tired as they 
 need. Better by far get a willing greenhorn, and teach 
 her how to work, making the agreement that she is to 
 stay long enough to make it worth while to train her, or 
 forfeit part of her wages. If she learns well, raise her 
 wages as she deserves every three months till she 
 makes the full pay of a good servant. - Don't be a 
 screw in prices, but don't make the mistake of think- 
 ing that a girl who won't do well anyhow will improve 
 by raising her wages. 
 
344 ANNA MARIA'S HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 Try to teach the girl to make work easy for herself 
 wash-days by putting clothes to soak the night before 
 in warm strong suds, and having the wash-boiler full 
 of water on the stove the night before, where it will 
 be hot in the morning ; and on ironing days by seeing 
 that stove, irons and table are clean, and clothes 
 sprinkled the evening before ; teach her order in 
 piling up dishes, in marshaling her pots and pans, 
 and how to keep tidy in the midst of work. Do a 
 little with her, and she will catch your brisk step and 
 turn of hand ; then insist on her sitting down in the 
 middle of the forenoon for an hour about some light 
 work, or with the newspaper if the work is done. 
 The time is not lost to you when she is resting and 
 you may show her that you do not feel it so. But you 
 must for her sake as well as your own, exact careful 
 business-like performance of her work while she is 
 about it. She is not to make your house anything 
 but homelike with her slovenly sweeping, and untidy 
 paint, dull fires and poorly cooked meals, with the 
 discomfort of work forever going on. Treat her well, 
 and you have a right to be teated well by her, and to 
 have your work done to suit you. 
 
HELPS THAT ARE HELPS. 345 
 
 The daughters of the house, in a large family, ought 
 to take the care of their own rooms, the parlor and 
 guest chamber, iron their own muslins and laces per- 
 haps, make the cake, polish silver, and answer the 
 door bell when necessary, beside washing china, set- 
 ting table and doing light work as convenience re- 
 quires. The work can be so divided as to be a 
 burden to nobody. In small families who do not live 
 pretentiously, one good servant will do all the work 
 comfortably, keeping the house neat, serving meals 
 well," and being herself presentable for waiting on 
 table and door. 
 
 Don't be afraid to treat a good servant kindly. 
 Seldom praise directly, but treat her as if you were 
 contented, and be friendly, as I am happy to say, 
 most American people are with their dependents. It 
 looks well to see young ladies going to evening lecture, 
 church sociable or concert with the tidy maid, whose 
 cheerful face shows she is happy to be with them. 
 Don't you remember how kind Mrs. Carlyle — that 
 model housekeeper whom one can't help quoting — 
 was to her little Scotch servant whom she took for a 
 companion one day to the National Art Gallery in 
 
346 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 London, bringing home by way of compensation that 
 immortal criticism of a Madonna from the enraptured 
 lassie : " O my ! how expensive ! " Don't be afraid of 
 being kind to your servants, or of treating them like 
 the same sort of humanity as yourself, for you will lose 
 too much by the contrary course, "The pithiest, 
 quaintest turns of language, the most caustic wit, the 
 most touching pathos in the world," says a deep ob- 
 server, " I have heard not from the educated and 
 refined lady in her drawing-room, but from hard-work- 
 ing women of the lower class, from the lips perhaps 
 of a washer-woman or of a maid servant who could 
 hardly spell out her letters from home, or the chapter 
 from her Bible of a Sunday." Don't keep an ordinary 
 " tolerable " sort of girl if you can help it ; there are 
 enough good ones in the world to be found by seek- 
 ing. Treat yourself to good help if you have any — 
 and choose a girl to whom you can feel like being her 
 best friend. Then see that she treats you well, does 
 your work as you want it done, makes you comfort- 
 able, and makes her labor tolerable to herself. You 
 are entitled to this, and it is no kindness to her to allow 
 things to go on slack fashion. Train her, as I have 
 
HELPS THAT ARE HELPS. 347 
 
 said, to system and despatch which shorten her hours 
 of work, and make work itself more interesting. Teach 
 her your nice ways, telling her the right thing to do 
 from the first. It is easier to direct than to correct. 
 Take the lead for two or three days and show her 
 how the table is to be set and served, how to make 
 the coflee and bake the potatoes, and tell her that 
 she is to knock on entering the family rooms. It is 
 the hardest thing to teach American girls that they 
 cannot, in a well-bred family, bounce into sitting-room 
 or chamber as unceremoniously as they please. They 
 may tap and enter without farther signal, in sitting- 
 room or parlor, but no person, relative or servant, 
 will enter the bedroom of another without knocking 
 and waiting till bidden " Come in." 
 
 The good servants are not all dead, and they make 
 fortunate homes where they stay. Don't pass over 
 faults that can be corrected — do not grudge any 
 kindness in your power to make their lives as comfort- 
 able as you want yours. 
 
 Whether life will be this or the other thing de- 
 pends on the woman who reigns in the kitchen. For 
 you can't even read a newspaper with satisfaction if 
 
348 ANNA Maria's housekeeping. 
 
 you have had no breakfast fit to eat, and you can't 
 color a picture when your head aches with sitting in 
 a chilly room because the kitchen girl has let the fur- 
 nace fire get down, and you can't ask company if she 
 declines to know how to wait on them, and you can't 
 go to the Wagner Festival with any pleasure if " she " 
 gives warning and goes off the same morning and 
 leaves you with the work on hand and lunch to get, 
 nor can you study or write in peace if " she " keeps 
 bouncing in about trifling orders just as they happen 
 to come into her head. Don't you know Beetho- 
 ven's life was ruined by worthless servants, and that 
 poor Hannah More's fortune was eaten up by them, 
 and more than one woman meeting the world single-, 
 handed loses all the money and the comfort she earns 
 for want of one good and trusty servant? Thank 
 heaven, that can hardly befall you or me, Anna Maria, 
 for we can always be sure of one good servant — the 
 best of all — one^s self. 
 
MARGARET SIDNEY'S BOOKS. 
 
 Margaret Sidney may be safely set down as one of the best writers of 
 javenile literature in the country. — Boston Transcript. 
 
 Margaret Sidney's books are happily described as "strong and pure 
 from cover to cover, . -. bright and piquant as the mountain breezes, or 
 a dash on pony back of a June morning." The same writer speaks of her 
 as "An American authoress who will hold her own in the competitive 
 good work executed by the many bright writing women of to-day." 
 
 There are few better story writers than Margaret Sidney. — Herald 
 and Presbyter. 
 
 Conimeuts of (he Specular and Religions Press. 
 
 FIVE LITTLE PEPPERS AND HOW THEY GRE'W. 
 
 A charming work. . . The home scenes in which these little Pep- 
 pers are engaged are capitally described. . . Will find prominent place 
 among the higher class of juvenile presentation books. — Religioiis Herald. 
 
 One of the best told tales given to the children for some time. . . 
 The perfect reproduction of child-life in its minutest phases, catches one's 
 attention at once. — Christian A dvocate. 
 
 A good book to place in the hands of every boy or girl. — Chicago 
 Inter-Ocean. 
 SO AS BY FIRE. 
 
 Will be hailed with eager delight, and found well worth reading. — 
 Christian Observer. 
 
 An admirable Sunday-school book — Arkansas Evangel. 
 
 We have followed with intense interest the story of David Folsom. . 
 
 . A man poor, friendless, and addicted to drink; . . the Influence 
 of little Cricket; . . the faithful care of aunt Phebe ; all steps by 
 which he climbed to higher manhood. — Woman at Work. 
 THE PBTTIBONE NAME. 
 
 It is one of the finest pieces of American fiction that has been pub- 
 lished for some time. — Newsdealers^ Bulletin, New York, 
 
 It ought to attract wide attention from the simplicity of its style, and 
 the vigor and originality of its treatment. — Chicago Herald. 
 
 This is a capital story illustrating New England life. - Inter-Ocean., 
 Chicago. 
 
 The characters of the story seem all to be studies from life. — Boston 
 Post. 
 
 It is a New England tale, and its characters are true to the original 
 tvpe, and show careful study and no little skill in portraiture. — Christian 
 at Work^ New York. 
 
 To be commended to readers for excellent delineations, sparkling style, 
 bright incident and genuine interest — The Watchman. 
 
 A capital story ; bright with excellent sketches of character. Conveys 
 gbod moral and spiritual lessons. . . In short, the book is in every 
 way well done. - Illustrated Christian Weekly. 
 HALF YEAR AT BRONCKTON. 
 
 A live boy writes: "This is about the best book that ever was written 
 or ever can be." 
 
 " This bright and earnest story ought to go into the hands of every boy 
 who is old enough to be subjected to the temptations of school life." 
 
 D, LOTHROP & CO., Publishers, Boston. 
 
BOOKS BY POPULAR AUTHORS. 
 
 Ella Farman, a graceful writer as well as the accomplished and success- 
 lul editor of Wide Awake ; Julia A. Eastman, whose school life stories 
 are full of sparkling expression and incisive knowledge of human nature ; 
 Rev. J. L, Pratt, who writes with rare appreciation of the needs of 
 young people who are beginning to examine for themselves into religious 
 beliefe and opinions ; Mrs, A. E. Porter, whose stories are well calculated 
 to make truthfulness, steadfastness and right living the subjects of youth- 
 ful admiration ; the author of Andjr Luttrell, whose books, dealing with 
 knotty problems, and positive in reli^ous teachings, are perennial favor- 
 ites; Mrs. E. D. Kendajl, whose writings, excellent for boys,^ are marked 
 by an earnestness of purpose well calculated to impress life lessons ; 
 Mary J. Capron, whose healthful and stimulating stories point to right 
 ideas on the fundamental truths of Christian religion ; Rev. Z. A. 
 Mudge, a favorite Sunday-school writer; these are among the popular 
 authors whose works can be unhesitatingly accepted as worthy of admit- 
 tance to Sunday-school or family libraries. 
 
 ELLA PARMATST'S BOOKS. 
 y 9 vols.t 12W0, illusi., $10.00. 
 
 Annie Maylie. Grandma Crosby's Household. 
 
 A Little Woman. Good-for-Nothing Polly. 
 
 A Girl's Money, How Two Girls Tried Farming. 
 
 A White Hand. Cooking Club of Tu-Whit Hollow. 
 
 Mrs. Kurd's Niece. 
 JULIA A. EASTMAN'S BOOKS. 
 6 vols*, X2tna, illtist, $7.50. 
 Kitty Kent. Romneys of Ridgemont (The). 
 
 Young Rick. Schooldays of Beulah Romney. 
 
 Striking for the Right. Short Comings and Long Goings. 
 
 REV. J. L. PRATT'S BOOKS. 
 4 vols., i2mo, illust., $6.00. 
 Evening Rest. Branches of Palm. Bonnie iErie. Broken Fetters. 
 MRS. A. B. PORTER'S BOOKS. 
 
 5 vols., i2»to, illust., $6.25. 
 
 This One Thing I do. Sunset Mouiltain. 
 
 Millie Lee. My Hero. Glencoe. Parsonage. 
 
 BY AUTHOR OF ANDY LUTTRELL. 
 
 6 vols., izmOf illust., $7.50. 
 
 Andy Luttrell. Strawberry Hill. Barbara. 
 
 Silent Tom. Talbury Girls. Hidden Treasure. 
 
 MRS. E. D. KENDALL'S BOOKS. 
 3 vols., i2mo, illust., $3.75. 
 Judge's Sons. ^ Master and Pupil. 
 
 The Stanifords of Staniford's Folly. 
 MARY J. OAPRON'S BOOKS, 
 4 vols.i iimo., illust., $5.00. 
 Plus and Minus. Maybee's Stepping Stones. 
 
 Gold and Gilt. Mrs. Thome's Guests. 
 
 REV. Z. A. MUDGB'S BOOKS. 
 3 vols.y iimo, illust., $3.7S' 
 Shell Cove. Luck of Alden Farm. Boat Builders. 
 
 W. H. G. KINGSTON'S BOOKS, 
 
 8 7/ols., izmoy illust., J8.00. 
 Voyage of the Steadfast. Young Whaler. Charley Laurel, 
 Fisher Boy. Virginia, Peter the Ship Boy 
 
 Little Ben Hadden. Ralph and Dick. 
 
 D. LOTHROP & CO., Publishers, Boston. 
 
2 YOUNG FOLKS' LIBRAU T ADVERTISER. 
 
 The Yensie Walton Books. 
 
 These books, from the pen of Mrs. S, R. Graham Clark, are possessed 
 of such conspicuous merits, as to secure for them the unqualified com- 
 mendation of eminent religious journals such as the Central Christian 
 A dvocate^ The yournal and Messenger, The New Orleans Christian 
 Advocate^ The LutJieran Observer^ Christian at Work, The Dover 
 Morning Star^ The Gospel Banner, Philadelphia Methodist^ Herald 
 and Presbyter, 
 
 YENSIE WALTON. OUR STREET, 
 
 YENSIE WAIjTON*S WOMAMHOOD. 
 
 THE TRIPLE E. ACHOB. 
 
 i2mo, cloth, illustrated, uniform binding, $1.50 each. 
 
 YENSIE "WALTON. 
 
 " Yensie Walton," by Mrs. S. R. Graham Clark. Boston : D. Loth- 
 rop & Co, Full of striking incident and scenes of great pathos, with 
 ocxasional gleams of humor and fun by way of relief to the more tragic 
 parts of the narrative. The characters are strongly drawn, and, in gen- 
 eral, are thoroughly human, not gifted with impossible perfections, but 
 having those infirmities of the flesh which make us all akin. It will take 
 tank among the best and most popular Sunday-school books. — Episcopal 
 Register. 
 
 A pure sweet story of girl life, quiet, and yet of sufficient interest to hold 
 the attention of the most careless reader.— Zion^s Advocate. 
 YENSIE "WALTON'S "WOMANHOOD, 
 
 The many readers who have made the acquaintance of " Yensie Wal- 
 ton " in one of the best Sunday-school books ever published, will be de- 
 lighted to renew that acquaintance, and to keep their former companion 
 still further company through life. There is a strong religious tone to the 
 whole story, and its teachings of morality and religion are pure and 
 healthful and full of sweetness and beauty. The story is a worthy suc- 
 cessor to Mrs. Clark's previous work. — Boston Post. 
 
 The heroine is an excellent character for imitation, and the entire atmos- 
 phere of the book is healthful and purifying. — Pittsburg Christian Advo- 
 cate, 
 OUR STREET, 
 
 By the same author, is a capital story of every day life which deak with 
 genuine character in a most interesting manner. 
 
 THE TRIPLE E, 
 
 Just published, is a book whose provoking title will be at once acknowl- 
 edged by the reader as an appropriate one. It fully sustains the author'f 
 r^utatjon. 
 ACHOR, a new book in press. 
 
 J). LOTHROP & CO., PublisliGrs, Boston. 
 
NEW PUBLICATIONS- 
 
 The Tent ijt the Notch. By Edward A. Eand. A 
 Sequel to "Bark Cabin on Kearsarge." 111. Boston: D. 
 Lotlivop & Co. Price $1.00. The boys and girls who last 
 year read Mr. Eaud's charming book, JBark Cabin on 
 Kearsarge, will hail this present volume with genuine de- 
 light. It is a continuation of that story, with the same 
 characters, and relates the adventures of the Merry family 
 during the vacation season, the camping-out place being 
 changed from Kearsarge to the Notch, and the bark cabin 
 giving place to a large tent for a summer residence. The 
 location selected for the camp is a short distance down the 
 Notch road, within easy walk of the Crawford House .where 
 the ladies of the family have a room, although their days 
 are spent at the tent. From this point excursions are 
 made in all directions, every known point of attraction being 
 visited and others eagerly searched for. One day they make 
 the ascent of Mt. Washington, the ladies going up by rail 
 and the boys taking the Crawford bridlepath. Another 
 they climb Mt. Willard to enjoy the magnificent panorama 
 spread out below, and one day the boys take part in an ex- 
 citing but unsuccessful bear hunt. The author has inter- 
 woven with his story many of the local traditions of the 
 mountains, and his descriptions of the natural scenery of the 
 region are so vivid and accurate that one who has gone over 
 the same ground almost feels as if the book were a narrative 
 of real occurrences. Like the first voluem of the series, 
 The Tent in the Notch is capital reading, even for old folks. 
 To the boys and girls who expect to make the mountains a 
 visit this summer, it is, aside from its interest as a story, as 
 good as a guide book, and what they will learn from its 
 pages will add greatly to their enjoyment. 
 
 OvBB Seas: or, Here, There, and Everywhere. Ill 
 'Boston : D. Lothrop & Co. Price $1.00. Twenty-one bright, 
 sparkling sketches of travel and sight-seeing make up the 
 contents of this handsome volume, which every boy and girl 
 will delight to read. The various stories are all by popular 
 authors, and cover adventures in Italy, Germany, France, 
 and other countries of Europe, China, iilexico, and some out 
 of the way corners of the world where travellers seldom get, 
 and which young readers know little about. They are full 
 of instructive information, and the boy or girl who reads 
 them will know a great deal more abotit foreign countries 
 and the curious things they contain than could be gained 
 from many larger and more pretentious books. The volume 
 is profusely illustrated.