The Library of Work and Play: HousekeepingGilman, Elizabeth Hale
General
The Library of Work and Play: Housekeeping
Gilman, Elizabeth Hale
Home economics
A kitchen in which much work is done needs a thorough weekly cleaning.
People are apt to do this on Saturday, but there will be many
households in which it will be unwise to do so. If the master of the
house has a half holiday on Saturday, and the mistress of the house
does the housework, the work of Saturday morning must be only the daily
work and such preparations as will leave Saturday afternoon and Sunday
as free from work as possible. Some extra cooking, marketing and menu
making, some adornment of the house and laying out of fresh table linen
will be desirable and necessary; but kitchen cleaning, the changing of
bed linen, or the making up of weekly accounts, should be appointed for
some other day in the week.
If the housewife has servants to help her, she can have more work done
on Saturday, but even then, she will guard against having things done
which make the house seem unrestful, or which occupy her.
Arrangements for "days out" are merely adjustments by which one
person's work is done by others. If there is one maid, the mistress
takes her place; if two, one does the necessary work of both, the
mistress helping a little. For the day a maid goes out no periodical
work belonging to her department must be appointed. "Sundays out," like
the days, are merely an adjustment of duties to allow for fewer workers.
Some of the periodical work is much more occasional than that already
mentioned. This must be fitted in, sometimes by leaving more frequent
work undone for one day, but usually by appointing it for a day when
there happens to be a little less to do than usual. The silver, for
instance, usually need not be done more than once a fortnight or once a
month, and can be fitted into a morning when there is no sweeping, or
into a rainy Monday. Other infrequent work can be managed in the same
way.
In simple households a detailed written schedule is not necessary
perhaps nor desirable, unless it be for periodical work and the "days
out." For these a schedule like the one herewith might be made. This
one is for two maids and includes some infrequent work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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