American Woman's Home: Or, Principles of Domestic Science;: Being a Guide to the Formation and Maintenance of Economical, Healthful, Beautiful, and Christian HomesStowe, Harriet Beecher
Religion
American Woman's Home: Or, Principles of Domestic Science;: Being a Guide to the Formation and Maintenance of Economical, Healthful, Beautiful, and Christian Homes
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Home economics
The writer would here urge every mistress of a family, who keeps more
than one domestic servant, to provide them with single beds, that they
might not be obliged to sleep with all the changing domestics, who
come and go so often. Where the room is too small for two beds, a
narrow truckle-bed kept under another during the day will answer.
Domestics should be furnished with washing conveniences in their
chambers, and be encouraged to keep their persons and rooms neat and
in order.
_The care of the Kitchen, Cellar, and Store-room is necessarily the
foundation of all proper housekeeping._
If parents wish their daughters to grow up with good domestic habits,
they should have, as one means of securing this result, a neat and
cheerful kitchen. A kitchen should always, if possible, be entirely
above-ground, and well lighted. It should have a large sink, with a
drain running under-ground, so that all the premises may be kept sweet
and clean. If flowers and shrubs be cultivated around the doors and
windows, and the yard near them be kept well turfed, it will add very
much to their agreeable appearance. The walls should often be cleaned
and white-washed, to promote a neat look and pure air. The floor of
a kitchen should be painted, or, what is better, covered with an
oilcloth. To procure a kitchen oilcloth as cheaply as possible, buy
cheap tow cloth, and fit it to the size and shape of the kitchen. Then
have it stretched, and nailed to the south side of the barn, and, with
a brush, cover it with a coat of thin rye paste. When this is dry, put
on a coat of yellow paint, and let it dry for a fortnight. It is safest
to first try the paint, and see if it dries well, as some paint never
will dry. Then put on a second coat, and at the end of another
fortnight, a third coat. Then let it hang two months, and it will last,
uninjured, for many years. The longer the paint is left to dry, the
better. If varnished, it will last much longer.
A sink should be scalded out every day, and occasionally with hot lye.
On nails, over the sink, should be hung three good dish-cloths, hemmed,
and furnished with loops; one for dishes not greasy, one for greasy
dishes, and one for washing greasy pots and kettles. These should be
put in the wash every week. The lady who insists upon this will not
be annoyed by having her dishes washed with dark, musty and greasy
rags, as is too frequently the case.
Under the sink should be kept a slop-pail; and, on a shelf by it, a
soap-dish and two water-pails. A large boiler of warm soft water should
always be kept over the fire, well covered, and a hearth-broom and
bellows be hung near the fire. A clock is a very important article in
the kitchen, in order to secure regularity at meals.
WASHING DISHES.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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