Household linens must include, too, the 6 barred-linen kitchen towels at
10, 12, or 15 cents a yard, for drying silver and glass; and 6 heavier
towels, either barred or crash, for china and other ware, at the same
price, with 3 roller towels at 10 cents per yard; while last, but by no
means least, come the dozen neatly hemmed cheesecloth dusters at 5 cents
a yard, for men must work and women must sweep--and dust!
CHAPTER VI
THE KITCHEN
The old condition of "Queen-Anne-in-the-front-and-Mary-Ann-in-the-back"
in the home furnishing, when the largest outlay of money and taste was
put into the "front room" and the kitchen took the hindermost, has
gradually given way before the fact that a woman is known, not by the
drawing-room, but by the kitchen, she keeps. Given the requisite
qualifications for the proper furnishing, care, and ordering of her
kitchen, and it can usually be said of her with truth that she is
mistress of the entire home-making and home-keeping situation. If any
one room in the home was conceived solely for the relief of man's
estate, that room is the kitchen, and it has supplied the energy which
has sent forth many a one to fight a winning battle with the world, the
flesh, and the devil; and while it is, alas, too true that it is the
rock upon which many a domestic ship has gone to pieces, it is the true
foundation of the home and, therefore, of the nation. Wherefore let us
first look well to our kitchens and then live up to them.
THE PLAN
The kitchen of our grandmothers was a large, rambling affair, with
numerous storerooms, closets, and pantries, the care of which involved
a stupendous outlay of time and strength. But the demands of our
modern and more strenuous life necessitate strict economy of both, and
the result is a kitchen sufficiently large for all practical purposes,
with every space utilized and everything convenient to the hand. The
amount of woodwork is reduced to a minimum, since wood is a harboring
place for insects and germs. Where it must be used it is of hard wood,
or of pine painted and varnished, the varnish destroying those
qualities in paint which are deleterious to health. The plumbing must
be open, with no dark corners in which dust may hide. Odors from
cooking pass out through a register in the chimney, and ventilation is
afforded by transom and window. Blessed indeed is the kitchen with
opposite windows, which insure a perfect circulation of air. So much
for the general working plan.
LOCATION AND FINISH
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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