Chapter 6 KEEPING THE HOUSE.

aking the home and keeping the house are two different things, though closely allied. Having considered the graces of mind and heart which so largely contribute to the successful art of home-making, it is not less necessary that we now devote our attention to the more practical, and certainly not less important, quality of housekeeping.

Ignorance of the prosaic details of housekeeping is the primary cause of much of the domestic worry and discomfort that exist, to say nothing of the more serious discords that may arise from such a defect in the fitness of the woman supposed to be the home-maker.

For such ignorance, or lack of fitness, to use a milder term, there does not appear to me to be any excuse; it is so needless, so often wilful.

Some blame careless, indifferent mothers, who do not seem to have profited by their own experience, but allow their daughters to grow up in idleness, and launch them on the sea of matrimony with a very faint idea of what is required of them in their new sphere.

It is very reprehensible conduct on the part of such mothers, and if in a short time the bright sky of their daughters' happiness begins to cloud a little, they need not wonder or feel aggrieved. A man is quite justified in expecting and exacting a moderate degree of comfort at least in his own house, and if it is not forthcoming may be forgiven a complaint. He is to be pitied, but his unhappy wife much more deserves our pity, since she finds herself amid a sea of troubles, at the mercy of her servants, if she possesses them; and if moderate circumstances necessitate the performance of the bulk of household duties, then her predicament is melancholy indeed.

To revert again to our Angelina and Edwin of the comic papers, we have the threadbare jokes at the expense of the new husband subjected to the ordeal of Angelina's awful cooking. At first he is forbearing and encouraging; but in the end, when no improvement is visible, the honeymoon begins to wane much more rapidly than either anticipated. Edwin becomes sulky, discontented, and complaining; Angelina tearful or indignant, as her temperament dictates, but equally and miserably helpless.

The chances are that time will not improve but rather aggravate her troubles, especially if the cares of motherhood be added to those of wifehood, which she finds quite enough for her capacities.

True, some women have a clever knack of adapting themselves readily to every circumstance, and pick up knowledge with amazing rapidity. If they are by nature housewifely women, they will triumph over the faults of their early training, and after sundry mistakes and a good deal of unnecessary expenditure may develop into fairly competent housewives.

But it is a dangerous and trying experiment, which ought not to be made, because there is absolutely no need for it. It is the duty of every mother who has daughters entrusted to her care to begin early to train them in domestic work. That there are servants in the house need be no obstacle in the way. There are silly domestics who resent what they call the "meddling" of young ladies in the kitchen; but no wise woman will allow that to trouble her, but will take care to show her young daughters, as time and opportunity offer, every secret contained in the domestic répertoire.

One of the primary lessons to be learned in this housekeeping art is that of method; viz.-a place for everything, and a time. It is the key to all domestic comfort. Most of us are familiar with at least one household where the genius of method is conspicuous by its absence; where regularity and punctuality are unobserved, if not unknown. The household governed by a woman without method is to be pitied. Her husband is a stranger to the comfort of a well-ordered home; and her children, if she has any, hang as they grow, as the Scotch say; while her servants, having nobody to guide them, become careless and indifferent, and so suffer injustice at her hands.

It is such women who are loudest in complaints against servants, and who are in a state of perpetual warfare against the class. Of course this method must be kept within bounds, and not carried to excess, thereby becoming an evil instead of an unmixed good.

We are familiar with that other type of women, who make their housekeeping an idol, at whose shrine they perpetually worship, regardless of the comfort of those under their roof-tree. With them it is a perpetual cleaning day, and woe betide the luckless offender who has the misfortune to mar, if ever so slightly, the immaculate cleanliness of that abode! He is likely to have his fault brought home to him in no measured terms.

The woman possessed of the cleaning mania, who goes to bed to dream of carpet-beating and furniture polish, and who rises to carry her dreams into execution, is quite as objectionable in her way as the woman who never cleans, and for whom the word dirt has no horrors. Although it is doubtless pleasant to feel assured that no microbe-producing speck can possibly lurk in any corner of the house, and to be certain that food and everything pertaining to it is perfect so far as cleanliness is concerned, there is a sense of insecurity and unrest in the abode of the over-particular woman which often develops into positive misery and discomfort. It is the sort of discomfort specially distasteful to the male portion of mankind. Although they may be compelled to admit, when brought to bay, that "cleaning" is a necessary evil, it requires a superhuman amount of persuasion to make them see any good in it. The way women revel, or appear to revel, in the chaos of a house turned topsy-turvy is to them the darkest of all mysteries. It is long since they were compelled to treat it as a conundrum, and give it up.

I think, however, that, with few exceptions, women dislike the periodical household earthquake quite as much as men, and dread its approach. The housekeeper who considers the comfort of those about her will do her utmost to rob it of its horrors. This can be done by a judicious planning, and by resort to the method of which we spoke in the last chapter.

Let "One room at a time" be her motto, and then the inmates of the house will not be made to feel that they are quite in the way, and have no abiding-place on the face of the earth.

This may involve a little more work, and a great deal of patience; but she will have her reward in the grateful appreciation of those for whom she makes home such a happy and restful place.

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