Besides this table another will be needed on which cake and bread can be made, or food can be set without fear of contact with soiled dishes or dishwater. This table is equally necessary in kitchens where there is a sink. Sometimes in small kitchens its place is taken by the shelf of a dresser, the tops of the tubs or a board which, when not in use, folds down beside the wall or the dresser. The point is to have some place other than the draining boards where food can be prepared. You will read in magazines that it is lovely to have kitchen tables covered with white oilcloth. Unfortunately the statement is not always followed by its complement, namely, that such a covering must be protected from being scorched and cut by means of pot boards, asbestos mats or folded newspapers. Several practical cooks and housekeepers have told me that there is nothing so good in the kitchen as a zinc-covered table. It is not pretty but one need never spare it any usage, and at rest times its ugliness may be covered with a cloth. Spots on zinc which will not yield to soap and water can sometimes be removed with vinegar. Plain wooden tables are hard to keep in satisfactory order. They are easily scorched, easily stained, and they require daily scrubbing. A pretty kitchen is a pride and delight, but the serviceableness and practicability of its furnishings must be the first consideration in selecting them. Things which have to be constantly remembered and guarded take too much thought and strength to be in place in a workshop. A kitchen should be bright, orderly and noticeably clean, but I think the less it looks like a sitting room the better. Wherever it is possible, maids should have some other place to sit. _Chairs._--For much of the kitchen work a woman needs the reach, muscular leverage and alertness which she gets from standing. There are, however, some things such as preparing fruit and vegetables, stoning raisins and beating eggs which she can do as well sitting down. If the kitchen is as it should be, a workshop, stools are the best seats with which to furnish it. They may be scrubbed, they take up little room, and they afford an opportunity to rest, without an accompanying temptation to loiter. "Sittin' back" is in some places an equivalent phrase for "inactive." It picturesquely explains why people work more alertly sitting on stools than in chairs. If the kitchen is also the maids' sitting room, it must have comfortable chairs in it. But they should be made of _scrubable_ materials, and cushions should be covered with wash fabrics. Rocking chairs are the worst possible kind for a kitchen, they are especially irritating to the ankles and temper of the cook.