Читать книгу The Library of Work and Play: Housekeeping - Elizabeth Hale Gilman - Страница 16

ONE would like to take the person Hawthorne is describing on a camping party or a picnic. She would be equally agreeable to stay at home with, or to find at home when one came in. It is a sign that there is such a person in a house when the whole family have to know where "Mother" is, as soon as they get inside the front door. Sometimes it is a sister or an aunt, sometimes a father, who has to be found before one can settle down, but whatever the relationship, it is the person who makes us feel at home.

It is odd, is it not, the way we are always saying that we "feel at home," or "not at home," or "homesick," or that something is "homelike"? What do we mean by it, anyway? When people try to tell what home is, they usually make poor work of it. It is not in the least necessary to tell what it is; a home is a thing to have, not to talk about. All I want to say here is that homes are not houses and furniture, but people. There is an Indian proverb which says, "The hearth is not a stone but a woman." Fathers and brothers have their own share in making their homes, but mothers and daughters are more apt to take care of their homes and stay in them. So it has come to be that making homes is a special and particular work of women.

Whatever work a girl may hope to do in the future, she will live somewhere, and whatever that somewhere is like, it should be as homelike as she can make it. This is partly on account of a good many people she will find who need a little pleasantness and comfort given to them, and partly because she will not be comfortable and happy herself unless she has something homelike about her. This is why it is a great advantage to be a woman; what power we have to make homes, we carry with us. Hawthorne says that a woman, who is especially gifted in this way, can make a home of any place, even though she is there but a few hours—a hotel bedroom, for instance. The Indian proverb, however, goes even further. It says, not that a woman can make a home, but that she is a home. That is, we should have the power to make people feel at home wherever we are.

Most women, though, have something more to make a home out of than themselves. They have little houses or big houses to keep. When they begin to do this they find themselves very glad of all the cleverness, and learning and experience which they can gather. It is much easier to do some of this gathering before one has a house of one's own, and ways of doing it lie all round us, often unrealized and unused.

Through most of our teens, school is the principal thing. Whether we are interested in it or not, it is then our recognized occupation. Nowadays, there are opportunities in many schools to learn things helpful in housekeeping. They are not only to be found in cooking and sewing classes. Chemistry and physics, which may one or other of them be required of you for college entrance examinations, are also of excellent service in housekeeping. Some of you will be in schools where you can choose to some extent what courses you take. In that case, do not say chemistry is "messy," and physics is "too hard," but just tussle with them for the sake of your home-making, as a boy would who knew he was to be a physician or an engineer. I hardly dare to mention it, but detested arithmetic, learned in school, often afterward saves the peace of a household and the happiness of the housekeeper. Personally, I have found what geometry I know useful on many unexpected occasions. But to turn to a more agreeable subject, I can recommend any course in light carpentry, for you will almost surely like it if you try it, and no one thing is more useful in a house—except perhaps, arithmetic.

If, on the contrary, you are in a school where there are no choices, or if you are obliged to narrow down to the requirements of a college entrance examination, the only thing to do is to keep in mind the things which will be especially useful to you—physical sciences, mathematics, manual training, domestic science; study some of them if you can, and, besides that, see what you can learn at home. I do not mean that the other things which you study at school are not useful in home-making; they are. It is just that certain things are part of the special training for this work, and those named above are the ones more usually taught in schools.

We turn now to the preparation which can be given to us, and which we give ourselves, at home. Ideally, this is the place to learn home-making.

If we have a home, whether it is a palace or a room in a tenement, some one in it "keeps house." If that person is one's mother, then is one the normal and fortunate person who learns in the normal and fortunate way, from being with her. If she does some of the work of the house herself, and we help her, we learn far more than we realize until some moment of emergency comes and we find that our eyes, and hands, and noses, and muscles are trained for service.

If your mother merely directs the affairs of her house and the details are carried out by others, watch how she does it, for this may be the way in which you will keep house; and persuade her to let you try it, sometime when she is to be absent. In this case there will be some one else in the house from whom you will need to take a few lessons. It will perhaps be a housekeeper, or a very trusted maid. Make friends with her and ask her questions. If she sees you want to learn and not to criticize she will become the most delighted, flattering teacher you ever dreamed of.

If your mother does part or all of the housework it will probably be one of your appointed duties to assist her. If it should happen, as is sometimes the case, that you are not required to help with the housework, then be a woman, and not a lap dog, and ask to help. In the proper story-book, a mother's response to such a request would be an affectionate answer and much patient teaching, and I think, in many, many cases, that is the reply a daughter does receive. But just suppose that you are one of the other cases. I can imagine a variety of answers you might get to "May I help?" One of them might be, "Go out of the kitchen, you'll spoil your clothes"; and others might be, "Don't bother me, I'm busy," or "Don't interrupt," or, "I'd rather do it myself than put up with your clumsiness."

The first thing to do when one gets an answer like this is to go away. The second is according to temperament; if you feel hurt and discouraged, then, try not to, or if you feel that your responsibility is ended by the refusal of your offer, then don't think that; it isn't true. Think rather, that you may have offered just at the wrong moment—you will find when you begin to keep house yourself that there are a good many wrong moments—or that there may have been some simpler thing you could have done which would have been a greater help. We might also consider the possibility that our way of helping has not been quite agreeable on some former occasion. Perhaps, alas, we may be clumsy, or we may be slow, or we may be more nuisance than help just at first. After we have gone away and thought ourselves quiet, then we must do that most difficult and heroic of things—try again to help the person by whom we have been rebuffed.

You see I speak entirely of your side in this matter. That is because neither you nor I may be permitted to pass judgment on your mother. She is like some one about whom we have read a short story, we only know one little period of her life and only a few of her thoughts and feelings even then. She must always remain a bit of a mystery to us, because we can never know very much about what happened before we were born.

There is a thing which makes helping mothers difficult, that one must guard oneself against, especially because it is so natural and so insidious. It is especially a snare when we learn about housekeeping outside of our homes, though it very frequently lies in wait for us anyway. It is the desire to reform our homes and our mothers, and that instantly. I venture to say that the trouble with this lies in the instantly. The ways you are taught at school may be better than mother's ways; but, on the contrary, mother's ways may be the result of practical experience, and they may be an adaptation to the practical needs and tastes of her family. It may be that the things you learn are better adapted to your own generation and your own future housekeeping than they are to your parents' tastes and needs. You are the future, but remember that your parents are the past, without which you would never have been. There is this also to consider, that as we grow older, we grow toward orthodoxy. We place our faith in the "new thing" of the hour, and in a little while, find that it was proved impracticable ten centuries ago. While we are deciding that the old people we know are narrow-minded old fogies, behold, some girl or boy tells us that the reason we do not believe in their theory of the universe is because we are "old-fashioned." To you, young, thoughtful, and alive, belongs the belief that you are born to make the world better; and this is true. Not, however, by tearing down is this accomplished, but by building up. And the building is done by laying in a lifetime one small stone in the structure, ages old, which has its foundations in the deeps of the universe, and upon whose finished spires shall shine the glory of Heaven.

But there—it is of some practical ways of helping mother, and thereby learning housekeeping, that I wish to speak just now. They belong to the class of things called little services, but I can assure you, they are great, in tact, and helpfulness and love. They are homely; but they are just the sort of things angels would like to do. Dusting is one of them, the little everyday dusting which makes such a difference in the tidiness of the house, and perhaps takes five minutes, or less, to a room. With this goes taking up crumbs in the dining room, with a sweeper or dustpan and brush, and arranging flowers and watering plants. Tidying means removing dirt and litter, and putting each thing in the place where it belongs. Tidiness is not a housekeeper's superstition; it is a mechanical device for invoking the spirit of restfulness.

Another homely thing always needing to be done is mending. It is, by nature, incidental work, and therefore it is especially grateful to the housekeeper to have it done by an incidental helper. I do not mean merely darning stockings and sewing on buttons though that is the larger part of it, but also, mending which is done with hammer and tacks, or glue, or perhaps a varnish brush. I mean all those odd jobs which pursue the busy housewife in the hours when she ought to rest. Get your mother to write a list of these odd jobs on her memorandum pad, as she sees or thinks of them during the day, then see how many of them you can find a way to do.

Photograph by Helen W. Cooke

Tidying

If your household does not include a waitress, there is a class of small services which need to be done before each meal. One is not quite so sure to be at home at meal times, as if one were a boy, but one can arrange to be. Certain things are needed on the table which come from the refrigerator or the cellar, cool things which should be put on at the last moment. The cook has already fifty things to do at the last moment, and few things relieve her more than to know that she need not think of the table until she puts the meal upon it. I saw a girl, once, looking at the dining-room table, and tapping out some sort of rhythm with four finger-tips against her cheek. She owned up that she was saying to herself, "Bread, butter, milk and water"—four things which she had made it her business to see on the table before each meal. Sometimes there were jelly and pickles and other relishes to put on, but these four, which she counted off on her fingers and her cheek, were the essentials.

Wiping and putting away the dishes is a small service which one can do often and acceptably. It is elsewhere described, but is also mentioned here because it belongs to this list of opportunities.

If your mother, or whoever does the cooking in your house, likes to be helped with it, there will be many little things which you can do, like beating eggs for instance, or shelling peas. No one can tell you what they are, though, except the person who is cooking.

How many, and which of these small services you are able to do, depend on how long your school hours are, and on what sort of health you have, and on how much of the housework is done by the family. It is not fatal if you do not do any of them, provided your reason is not laziness or selfishness.

There is another group of small things, helpful, but more personal to yourself, which you are less likely to be prevented from doing. You probably have a room, or half a one, and a closet, and bureau drawers, and certainly clothes, which are your own. Possession means responsibility. If we find this sharp-cornered foundation-stone of truth in the depths of our own bureau drawers, it is less likely to fall heavily on us later on. Our own things and the places in which they are kept should be our own care, and not another's.

It may not be your business to do the periodical sweeping in your room, but the daily dusting and tidying the household authorities will be glad to have you do.

You cannot find a better way to learn to make beds than to make your own, for in that case you get the benefit of the insufficient airing or the crease, or the crumb, which you have let go. If, for some reason, you cannot make your bed every day, try to do it on Sunday. It is a custom of gentleness from one woman to another.

Keeping a room in order is accomplished by the same means that any tidiness is brought about, that is, by having a place for things and seeing that they are there. The things that most girls want in their rooms are apt to be hard to keep in order. They are things which our heartless elders call "trash." I would not undertake to say what a girl's room should or should not contain, but I would ask her not to have so many things that they are either never neat or else a tormenting care; not to hang things on her walls which are vulgar or silly; and not to leave her clothes and little adornments for other people to put away. Keeping one's own possessions in order is a reasonable service to others, and one of the natural, gradual ways of learning home-making.

Will you turn over a few pages and read the suggestions about the fittings and care of closets you will find in the chapter on upstairs work? Bureau drawers, however, are not mentioned elsewhere than here, for I consider them the private property of individuals, to be cared for by their owners and not to be intruded upon by others except in emergency. Articles put in drawers should be classified as far as possible, and things used least often should be put in drawers least easy to get at. Suppose, for instance, a bureau has four drawers, the lowest is probably deepest and requires stooping to open it. In it can go best waists, and sashes, and girdles, and scarfs, and fluffy objects which should lie loosely. In the third drawer underclothes might be put; to be folded and packed close does not hurt them. As they are things which go into the wash, they should be worn in rotation, and this is accomplished without thought or trouble if we pile all the garments of the same kind together and always put the newly washed ones on the top or the bottom of the pile, and take the ones we are to wear from the opposite place. It takes a great many troublesome words to describe this action, which is very simple, and almost immediately becomes mechanical. In the second drawer of this possible bureau might go collars, and handkerchiefs, and gloves, and ties, and things which must be kept uncrumpled. If one has ample room, pretty boxes are good to keep these things in, and they make for neatness. If one must economize space, it is better to have some squares of silk, or pretty coloured linen or silkoline in which one's possessions can be laid flat, and then the four corners of the wrapper folded over upon them. I have found these more convenient to get into and more easily washed than regular veil and necktie and glove cases.

The top drawer is the one which locks most securely, because it is under the top of the bureau, instead of under another drawer which might be removed. It is therefore the one in which people usually keep the things which they especially value, and their pocketbooks or handbags. If a part of the top drawer is set apart for the collars, ties, handkerchiefs, hair ribbons and belts which are in immediate use, it will assist immensely to keep a room and bureau top neat. One does not wish to put things, which have been worn, away with things which are perfectly fresh, and one wants the belt and ribbons which one wears for two or three days in succession close at hand. If they are folded or rolled up to keep them shapely, and put in a space in the top drawer which has been chosen for the purpose, time and tidying will be saved. The space will need emptying out frequently, but that can be done on those Saturdays when one is seized with a sudden clearing-up fit.

Care of our clothes is not directly related to housekeeping—it is only a collateral relation. A neat house, however, is marred if the housekeeper herself is untidy. For our immediate purpose, though, the point is, that the habit of caring for our clothes, and the deftness and inventiveness which such care requires, are qualities constantly useful in housekeeping. I met a woman once, who boasted that she did not know how to hold a needle, but give her a hammer and nails and she could do anything. I happened to see her later with a hammer and nails, and she was clutching the hammer close to the head, and pounding in nails with more disregard for the help of leverage, than if she had been a cave-woman pounding a stake with a stone. Some people can hammer who cannot sew; and some people can sew who cannot hammer; some people can do neither, and some people can do both. But the fact remains that if we can use our hands and heads cleverly for one thing, we have a better chance of using them cleverly for another; and blacking shoes, and binding skirts, and mending stockings, and putting in ruchings, are steps in an apprenticeship to more interesting and clever work. Incidentally, too, we are giving ourselves that exquisite daintiness which is one of a girl's charms.

At least one means of learning something of housekeeping lies open to every creature. That means is an observing interest. We never remain entirely ignorant of the things in which we are interested. We gather ideas about them everywhere, and in the most unexpected and unintentional places. If we sit at tables where the meals are carefully served and well cooked, that privilege teaches many things about serving and cooking. There is as much to learn in a cheap restaurant, if we watch how things are done, and think out the reason for the methods. If we watch a servant or a housewife doing work well, we need never again be entirely ignorant of how to do that work. If we read a book or hear a lecture, or overhear a scrap of talk in a street car which contains a thought to help us or an unusual method to be tried, it ought to stick to our memories as if magnetized. Think in the morning that you want to know something about the cats in Thibet, and almost surely before night, you will have heard or read something about them. We know how often this is true of remote and unusual affairs; it is infinitely more true of intimate daily ones. It is a great blessing; a means of getting knowledge without other struggle than remembering what we want to know. If it is not a royal road, it is at least a royal by-path, to learning.

Some day, you will discover that you are "grown up," and if you have learned what you could and helped when you could, you will discover, too, that you have the gift and power to make a home—that you are a woman, who is not a stone but a hearth.