Housemaid

“ A gibbering housemaid groans and glares,
And tries with trembling hands to snatch
A ghostly dustpan from the stairs.
MORAL.
Ye housemaids who this tale may read,
Remember, backs are hard to mend,
And injured noses freely bleed,
And falls may cause untimely end;
Your masters are but mortal men,
A neck once broken naught repairs. ”

“ Next morning, as he was a clergyman, I asked him to take family worship, and in the course of the prayer he made most tender supplication for the sick relative of “one who serves in this household,” and we learned that he had been conversing with the housemaid who attended to his room, having traced some expression of sorrow on her face, and found out that her mother was ill; while we, the heads of the household, had known nothing about the matter, and while we imagined that a scholar would be only distantly aware that a housemaid had a mother. ”

“ You say so, housemaid or housekeeper, when the song of the early bird reminds you of crying children, whose faces are to be washed; when the rustling of fallen leaves in the wind makes you wonder how the new broom is going to sweep ”

“ And help my mamma do the work, and bake a little pie,
For mamma says all little girls, if they would only try,
Can help their mammas very much with willing hands and feet,
By sweeping rugs and door-steps and keeping porches neat.
So I am mamma's housemaid, and she pays me with a kiss,
And papa, when he comes at night, says, "Bless me, what is this!
How bright and clean the rugs do look!" And then I laugh and say
That my little broom and I work for mamma every day. ”

“ The housemaid, oh yes, ach Got, I hear that some one take from the place to live mit him, and it is not a wonder, for she was so tall, so stout, have such black hair, and such great eyes, it was a pity that she spend her life answering the bell, and bringing up hot water in a jug. ”

“ These must be as described before, general and housemaid, then all will go rightly, providing care is taken to obtain good girls from good families, who have not been spoiled by a careless or bad mistress, or ruined by an unhappy and thriftless home training, which is often indeed worse than none. In a larger house where there are children; six maids and a boy to help, are the maximum; namely, cook and kitchen-maid,{291} parlour-maid and housemaid, nurse and nursemaid ”

“ The housemaid would be more of a step in advance if the housewife, released from her former duties, then entered the ranks of productive labour, paid her substitute, and contributed something further to the world's wealth. But nothing could be farther from the thoughts of the Lady of the House. Her husband being able to keep more than one woman to do the work of the house ”

“ DUTIES OF THE HOUSEMAID. 2292. "Cleanliness is next to godliness," saith the proverb, and "order" is in the next degree; the housemaid, then, may be said to be the handmaiden to two of the most prominent virtues. Her duties are very numerous, and many of the comforts of the family depend on their performance; but they are simple and easy to a person naturally clean and orderly, and desirous of giving satisfaction. In all families, whatever the habits of the master and mistress, servants will find it advantageous to rise early; their daily work will thus come easy to them. ”

“ In two of these conditions the housemaid gains on the housewife. She is partly out of the sex-tendency status and partly into the contract relation; hence the patient, submissive, conservative influence is lightened. In families of greater affluence there is some specialisation; we have varieties in housemaid; cookmaid, scullerymaid, nursemaid, chambermaid, parlourmaid,—as many as we can afford; and in such families we find such elevation of home-industry as is possible; marred, however, by serious limitations.
Household industry is a world question ”

“ I asked her as to the other servants. She says the maids are still very nervous. I spoke to them for the first time about the noises to-day. The butler's wife has heard sounds, but her husband only scoffs. The upper housemaid thinks ghosts the proper thing, and tolerates them along with the high families to which she is accustomed. The under housemaid is very shy, is Highland, and knows little English, and won't talk, but owns to discomfort, and is scoffed at by the other servants, who think it all part of her having been only a "general" till she came here. ”

“ Such observations may be thought trifling and too minute, but the neglect of many such trifles occasions much discomfort, particularly to those who may be only occasional guests in a family; they may be days in the house without seeing the housemaid to explain their wishes, and even if they have the opportunity, they feel a delicacy in giving orders as to how their fire should be lighted, or their bed-room comfortably arranged, yet much silent annoyance, particularly to the invalid, has been occasioned by a careless housemaid. ”

“ A good housemaid will carefully look over the furniture when she ‘does’ the room, and will rub off at once any marks of soapy water she may come across. But such excellent and conscientious{277} maids are few and far between, except in the ‘highest circles,’ and they don’t inhabit Suburbia; therefore should every mistress cast an eye over every room once a day, and see for herself that the depredations of her husband, and all too often those of her visitors too, are carefully eliminated. ”

“ At the same time, I am convinced that the real trouble, as I said before, is caused in small houses by the ‘composite maid’ being called a cook, or house parlour-maid, when she is just either a general servant, or else a housemaid; and in larger ones by sufficient care not being taken to obtain the kind of maiden one really does want, and by expecting too much from her when she is in our service. ”

“ Housemaid and Kitchen Linen.—In the housemaid's department, paint cloths, old and soft, and chamber bottle cloths, fine and soft, are to be provided. To these must be added dusters, flannels for scouring, chamber bucket-cloths, which last should be of a kind and color different from everything else. All these must be neatly hemmed and run, or seamed if necessary. Nothing, in a well-directed family, should bear the impress of neglect, or be suffered to assume an untidy appearance. ”

“ Our contemporaries are wrong in stating that the individual to whom the post of wet-nurse has been assigned is nothing but a housemaid. We have full authority to state that she is no maid at all, but a respectable married woman. ”

“ Kitchen maids and scullery maids eat in the kitchen. Chauffeurs, footmen, under-butler, pantry boys, hall boy, odd man and steward's-room footman take their meals in the servants' hall, waited on by the hall boy. The stillroom maids have breakfast and tea in the stillroom, and dinner and supper in the hall. The housemaids and nursery maids have breakfast and tea in the housemaid's sitting-room, and dinner and supper in the hall. The head housemaid ranks next to the head stillroom maid. ”

“ On leisure days, the housemaid should be able to do some needlework for her mistress,—such as turning and mending sheets and darning the house linen, or assist her in anything she may think fit to give her to do. For this reason it is almost essential that a housemaid, in a small family, should be an expert needlewoman; as, if she be a good manager and an active girl, she will have time on her hands to get through plenty of work. ”

“ In the same way must the housemaid be managed, for in such an establishment the parlour{283} work can but be of the most meagre description, and if the mistress is house-proud, and really has desires after fine and careful living, she must keep silver, glass and china clean herself, and see herself to the laying of the cloth and all the thousand and one items which go to form the finer portions of housekeeping. ”

“ A few minutes later there tripped down the garden-walk a trimly attired young housemaid.
The mistress had seen her from the window and thought she looked cold and tired. Would she come into the house to rest? ”

“ It is the greatest advantage to all housemaids to be able to get up fine linen, and to have a knowledge of clear starching: besides making a servant doubly useful to her mistress, it may be the means at any time when out of a situation, of her gaining a respectable maintenance. One who gets up muslins and laces in a superior manner, is sure to find employment, and it may also lead to her filling one day, the superior situation [76] of lady’s-maid. ”

“ The wanton country-maid."
Town-maids too of the same pattern. Whether in town or country, give me the girls that work. The Girls That Work! But evidently it is high time woe began a new chapter.
CHAPTER IX THE LEGEND OF HEBE, OR THE HEAVENLY HOUSEMAID
Yes, I blush to admit it, my First Love was a housemaid. So was she known on this dull earth of ours, but in heaven—in the heaven of my imagination, at all events—she was, of course, a goddess. How she managed to keep her disguise I never could understand. To me she was so obviously dea certe. The nimbus was so apparent. ”

“ Strange as it may appear, such advice we have more than once found necessary; we therefore address ourselves to those who for want of regular training, and from not bringing common sense into practice, [6] have fallen into similar errors to those here alluded to, and to a still more numerous race, who are every day leaving their father’s cottage with the desire to obtain a housemaid’s place, and would therefore willingly learn something of a housemaid’s duties. ”

“ She has often to help in bed making, and is generally required to dust the drawing-room, often to arrange the flowers for that and the dining-room, to put up fresh curtains, look after the drawing-room fire, and answer the sitting-room bell. She washes up the breakfast, tea and coffee things, and the glass and plate from dinner, and the plate is under her charge to be kept clean and in order. She does, in fact, all the lighter and less menial work of a housemaid, combining with these many little tasks that a mistress who kept only two servants would in all probability do for herself. ”

“ One cannot see a servant dressed in this modest and becoming manner, without feeling respect for her, and forming a good opinion of her general conduct and character; in her daily work there will probably be the same spirit of cleanliness and regulation, and in her mind also. A mistress has been heard to observe, that in looking out for housemaids, her mind always turns to the remembrance of a young girl, who was with her but for six weeks, during the illness of her own servant. ”

“ Some housemaids have a habit of constantly turning the arm-chair away from the fire, and placing it against the wall, and though, morning after morning, they find it has been turned towards the fire, yet they never take the hint, unless an express order is given ”

“ You look rarther rash my dear your colors dont quite match your face but never mind I am just going up to say goodbye to Rosalind the housemaid. ”

“ Some housemaids have a way of shaking the feathers into the middle of the bed, leaving the sides in such a sloping condition, that there is some chance of passing part of the night on the floor, others of shaking the feathers to the top of the bed, forming an inclined plane, so that the constant feeling of sliding down lower and lower leaves people very uncertain as to where they are to find themselves at last. ”

“ You see in my club, which is called the Loyal Housemaids, we swars never to ’tend to two ’fessions at onct. When we is housemaids, we is housemaids, but out here where th’ain’t ter say no house, I kin do as I’s a mind, and I sho’ did want ter make some biscuit ter go with that there fricassy. ”

“ The tidy little housewife, who, in neat little breakfast-cap and dressing-gown, overlooks the short-comings of careless cook and house-maid; explores cupboards, cellars, pantries, and closets; disembowels old bags, old boxes, old barrels, old kegs, old firkins; who, with her own dainty hand, prepares the favourite morsel for the dear, absent, toiling husband, or, by the cheerful nursery fire, sews on the missing string or button, or sings to soothing slumbers a pair of violet eyes, whose witching counterpart once stole her girlish heart away. ”

“ He leaves the nats of the household to the especial care of his wife, who covers all the posts within the rooms with white cloth, so that they may be comfortable while sitting in their favourite places. To counteract the effect of the evil spirits who may wish to take up their dwelling within the home, the careful housewife keeps near at hand a jar of water that has been blessed, and daily sprinkles floor and roof for the protection of her family. ”

“ Here is the active housewife, whose hand was always busily employed sewing, darning, scouring, never idle for one minute, keeping her house clean, and her children tidy. "The fashion changeth." She can stir no hand, can think for no one any more. ”

“ We discover the source of the unusual atmosphere. It is herself, the wife, the mother, the home-maker. She is the mystery of the ideal home. Each day her divine art grows more perfect because her heart is consecrated to the work. She may not be surrounded with material splendor. The miracle is in the soul she possesses. Love is the magic wand she yields. She loves her home, her children, her husband. She is the queen mother in the paradise she creates.
We have seen that a good housekeeper may not be a home-maker. Every home-maker, on the other hand, is a good housekeeper. ”

“ These are the qualities necessary to constitute a good housewife:​—She must be well-made and well-mannered, gentle, industrious, rich, liberal, charming, of good birth, upright, and humble. A stingy, curious, dirty, foul-mouthed, vulgar, false, intriguing, lazy, or stupid woman, is not only entirely unfit for a housewife, but will never be beloved by a husband. ”