Manners and Social Usages by Mrs John M. E. W. Sherwood (great book club books TXT) 📖

the kitchen at unexpected

hours.

 

Cooks vary so decidedly in their way of preparing meals that no

general directions can be given; but the best should be made to

follow certain rules, and the worst should be watched and guarded. A

great cleanliness as to pots and kettles, particularly the

teakettle, should be insisted upon, and the closets, pails, barrels,

etc., be carefully watched. Many a case of typhoid fever can be

traced to the cook’s slop-pail, or closets, or sink, and no lady

should be careless of looking into all these places.

 

A cook, properly trained, can get up a good breakfast out of remains

of the dinner of the preceding day, or some picked-up cod-fish,

toast, potatoes sliced and fried, or mashed, boiled, stewed, or

baked. The making of good clear coffee is not often understood by

the green Irish cook. The mistress must teach her this useful art,

and also how to make good tea, although the latter is generally made

on the table.

 

With the sending up of the breakfast comes the first chance of a

collision between cook and waiter; and disagreeable, bad-tempered

servants make much of this opportunity. The cook in city houses puts

the dinner on the dumb-waiter and sends it up to the waiter, who

takes it off. All the heavy meat-dishes and the greasy plates are

sent down to the cook to wash, and herein lies many a grievance

which the mistress can anticipate and prevent by forbidding the use

of the dumb-waiter if it leads to quarrelling, and by making the

maids carry all the plates and dishes up and down. This course of

treatment will soon cure them of their little tempers.

 

In plain households the cook has much less to do than the waiter;

she should therefore undertake the greater part of the washing and

ironing. Many very good cooks will do all the washing and ironing

except the table linen and the towels used by the waiter; and if

this arrangement is made at first, no trouble ensues. The great

trouble in most households comes from the fact that the work is not

definitely divided, and that one servant declares that the other is

imposing upon her.

 

If a mistress is fair, honorable, strict, and attentive, she can

thus carry on a large household (if there are no young children)

with two energetic servants. She cannot, of course, have elegant

housekeeping; it is a very arduous undertaking to conduct a city

house with the assistance of only two people. Many young housekeepers become discouraged, and many old ones do so as well, and

send the washing and ironing to a public laundry. But as small

incomes are the rule, and as most people must economize, it has been

done, and it can be done. The mistress will find it to her advantage

to have a very great profusion of towels and dusters, and also to

supply the kitchen with every requisite utensil for cooking a good

dinner, or for the execution of the ordinary daily work—such tools

as an ice-hammer, a can-opener, plenty of corkscrews, a knife-sharpener and several large, strong knives, a meat-chopper and

bread-baskets, stone pots and jars. The modern refrigerator has

simplified kitchen-work very much, and no one who has lived long

enough to remember when it was not used can fail to bless its airy

and cool closets and its orderly arrangements.

 

The “privileges” of these hard-worked servants should be respected.

“An evening a week, and every other Sunday afternoon,” is a formula

not to be forgotten. Consider what it is to them! Perhaps a visit to

a sick sister or mother, a recreation much needed, a simple

pleasure, but one which is to them what a refreshing book, a visit

to the opera, or a drive in the park, is to their employers. Only a

very cruel mistress will ever fail to keep her promise to a faithful

servant on these too infrequent holidays.

 

The early Sunday dinner is an inconvenience, but it is due to the

girls who count on their “Sunday out” to have it always punctually

given to them.

 

Many devout Catholics make their church-going somewhat inconvenient,

but they should not be thwarted in it. It is to them something more

than it is to Protestants, and a devout Catholic is to be respected

and believed in. No doubt there are very bad-tempered and

disagreeable girls who make a pretence of religion, but the mistress

should be slow to condemn, lest she wrong one who is sincerely

pious.

 

In sickness, Irish girls are generally kind and accommodating, being

themselves unselfish, and are apt to show a better spirit in a time

of trouble than the Swedes, the Germans, or the Scotch, although the

latter are possessed of more intelligence, and are more readily

trained to habits of order and system. The warm heart and the

confused brain, the want of truth, of the average Irish servant will

perplex and annoy while it touches the sympathies of a woman of

generous spirit.

 

The women who would make the best house-servants are New England

girls who have been brought up in poor but comfortable homes. But

they will not be servants. They have imbibed the foolish idea that

the position of a girl who does house-work is inferior in gentility

to that of one who works in a factory, or a printing-office, or a

milliner’s shop. It is a great mistake, and one which fills the

country with incapable wives for the working-man; for a woman who

cannot make bread or cook a decent dinner is a fraud if she marry a

poor man who expects her to do it.

 

That would be a good and a great woman who would preach a crusade

against this false doctrine—who would say to the young women of her

neighborhood, “I will give a marriage portion to any of you who will

go into domestic service, become good cooks and waiters, and will

bring me your certificates of efficiency at the end of five years.”

 

And if those who employ could have these clear brains and thrifty

hands, how much more would they be willing to give in dollars and

cents a month!

 

CHAPTER XLVIII. THE HOUSE WITH MANY SERVANTS.

 

A lady who assumes the control of an elegant house without previous

training had better, for a year at least, employ an English housekeeper, who will teach her the system necessary to make so many

servants work properly together; for, unless she knows how to manage

them, each servant will be a trouble instead of a help, and there

will be no end to that exasperating complaint, “That is not my

work.”

 

The English housekeeper is given full power by her mistress to hire

and discharge servants, to arrange their meals, their hours, and

their duties, so as to make the domestic wheels run smoothly, and to

achieve that perfection of service which all who have stayed in an

English house can appreciate. She is a personage of much importance

in the house. She generally dresses in moire antique, and is lofty

in her manners. She alone, except the maid, approaches the mistress,

and receives such general orders as that lady may choose to give.

The housekeeper has her own room, where she takes her meals alone,

or invites those whom she wishes to eat with her. Thus we see in

English novels that the children sometimes take tea “in the housekeeper’s room.” It is generally a comfortable and snug place.

 

But in this country very few such housekeepers can be found. The

best that can be done is to secure the services of an efficient

person content to be a servant herself, who will be a care-taker,

and will train the butler, the footmen, and the maid-servants in

their respective duties.

 

Twelve servants are not infrequently employed in large houses in

this country, and in New York and at Newport often a larger number.

These, with the staff of assistants required to cook and wash for

them, form a large force for a lady to control.

 

The housekeeper should hire the cook and scullery-maid, and be

responsible for them; she orders the dinner (if the lady chooses);

she gives out the stores; the house linen is under her charge, and

she must attend to mending and replenishing it; she must watch over

the china and silver, and every day visit all the bedrooms to see

that the chambermaids have done their duty, and that writing-paper

and ink and pens are laid on the tables of invited guests, and that

candles, matches, and soap and towels are in their respective

places.

 

A housekeeper should be able to make fine desserts, and to attend

to all the sewing of the family, with the assistance of a maid—that

is, the mending, and the hemming of the towels, etc. She should be

firm and methodical, with a natural habit of command, and impartial

in her dealings, but strict and exacting; she should compel each

servant to do his duty, as she represents the mistress, and should

be invested with her authority.

 

It is she who must receive the dessert when it comes from the

dining-room, watch the half-emptied bottles of wine, which men-servants nearly always appropriate for their own use, and be, in all

respects, a watch-dog for her master, as in large families servants

are prone to steal all that may fall in their way.

 

Unfortunately a bad housekeeper is worse than none, and can steal

to her heart’s content. Such a one, hired by a careless, pleasure-loving lady in New York, stole in a twelvemonth enough to live on

for several years.

 

The housekeeper and the butler are seldom friends, and consequently

many people consider it wise to hire a married couple competent to

perform the duties of these two positions. If the two are honest,

this is an excellent arrangement.

 

The butler is answerable for the property put in his charge, and for

the proper performance of the duties of the footmen under his

control. He must be the judge of what men can and should do. He is

given the care of the wine, although every gentleman should keep the

keys, only giving just so much to the butler as he intends shall be

used each day. The plate is given to the butler, and he is made

responsible for any articles missing; he also sees to the pantry,

but has a maid or a footman to wash the dishes and cleanse the

silver. All the arrangements for dinner devolve upon him, and when

it is served he stands behind his mistress’s chair. He looks after

the footman who answers the bell, and takes care that he shall be

properly dressed and at his post.

 

In houses where there are two or three footmen the butler serves

breakfast, luncheon, tea, and dinner, assisted by such of his

acolytes as he may choose. He should also wait upon his master, if

required, see that the library and smoking-room are aired and in

order, the newspaper brought in, the magazines cut, and the paper-knife in its place. Many gentlemen in this country send their

butlers to market, and leave entirely to them the arrangement of the

table.

 

If there is but one footman in a large house, the butler has a great

deal to do, particularly if the family be a hospitable one. When the

footman is out with the carriage the butler answers the front-door

bell, but in very elegant houses there are generally two footmen, as

this is not strictly the duty of a butler.

 

A lady’s-maid is indispensable to ladies who visit much, but this

class of servant is the most difficult to manage. Ladies’-maids must

be told, when hired, that they can