Melt the butter, slightly warm the molasses, spice, and sugar, and beat together ten minutes. Then put in the water, soda, and flour. Stir very hard, and bake in three small loaves. Brush them over with syrup while hot, and eat fresh.
Cream the sugar and butter, stir in the beaten yolks, the milk and spice, the soda, and when these are well mixed, the flour. Bake in two square or round loaves.
Cut in shapes, brush over with white of egg while hot, and bake.
On baking-day, take from your dough, after its second rising—2 cups risen dough. Have ready, also—
Beat the yolks very light, add the creamed butter and sugar, the spice, milk, soda, and dough. Stir until all are well mixed; put in the beaten whites, lastly the fruit. Beat hard five minutes, let it rise twenty minutes in two well-buttered pans, and bake half an hour or until done.
Cream the butter and sugar, warm the molasses slightly, and beat these together; then the beaten yolks, next the milk and spice, the soda, the flour and whites well whipped; lastly, the fruit, which must be thickly dredged. Beat well before baking.
A little citron, shred fine, is an improvement. Bake in two broad pans, in a moderate oven. This cake will keep a long time.
Beat whites and yolks separately and very stiff, rub the sugar and butter together, and work in first the yolks, then the milk, then the flour and whites. Bake in well-buttered wafer or waffle-irons, very quickly, browning as little as possible. Roll them while hot upon a smooth, round stick, not larger than your little finger, slipping it out carefully when the cake takes the right shape.
These little cakes are an acceptable addition to any tea or supper table, and look well among fancy cakes in a basket.
Stir the butter into the water, which should be warm, set it on the fire in a saucepan, and slowly bring to a boil, stirring it often. When it boils, put in the flour, boil one minute, stirring all the while; take from thefire, turn into a deep dish, and let it cool. Beat the eggs very light, and whip into this cooled paste, first the yolks, then the whites.
Drop, in great spoonfuls, upon buttered paper, taking care not to let them touch or run into each other, and bake ten minutes.
Wet the corn-starch with enough milk to work it into a smooth paste. Boil the rest of the milk. Beat the eggs, add the sugar and corn-starch to these, and so soon as the milk boils pour in the mixture gradually, stirring all the time until smooth and thick. Drop in a teaspoonful of butter, and when this is mixed in, set the custard aside to cool. Then add vanilla or lemon seasoning; pass a sharp knife lightly around the puffs, split them, and fill with the mixture.
The best cream cakes I have ever tasted were made by this somewhat odd receipt. Try it.
Blanch the almonds in boiling water. When stripped of their skins, throw them into ice-water for five minutes. Take them out and dry between two cloths. Shave with a small knife into thin slips. Put them into a slow oven until they areveryslightly colored. Meanwhile, melt thesugar—without adding water—in a farina kettle over the fire, stirring it all the while. When it bubbles up and is quite melted take off the kettle and instantly stir in the hot almonds. Have ready a tin pan or mould, well buttered and slightly warmed. Pour in the nougat; press it thin and flat to the bottom of the pan if you mean to cut into strips; to all sides of the mould if you intend to fill it with syllabub or macaroons. Let it cool in the mould, for the latter purpose, withdrawing it carefully when you want it. If you cut it up, do it while it is still warm—not hot.
The syrup should be a bright yellow before putting in the almonds.
Use none but the best butter in pastry.
“Cooking butter is a good thing,” said a grave epicure to me once, “an admirable thing—in its place, which is in the soap-fat kettle or upon wagon-wheels!”
It is certainly out of place in biscuits, cake, or in any substance destined for human palates and stomachs. It is never less in place than in pastry; never betrays its vileness more surely and odiously.
Butter intended for pastry should be washed carefully in several clear, cold waters, and kneaded while under water, to extract the salt. Then wipe it dry and lay it in a cold place until you are ready to work it in.
“Keep cool,” is a cardinal motto for pastry-makers. A marble slab is a good thing to roll out paste upon. Next to this, the best article is acleanboard of hard wood, which is never used for any other purpose. It is harder to make good pastry in warm weather than cold,on account of the tendency of the butter to oil, and thus render the crust heavy and solid.
Few people know what really good pastry is. Fewer still can make it. It has no inevitable resemblance either to putty or leather. Itislight, crisp, flaky, goodly to behold—goodlier to the taste.
“Pork fat and pies kill more people yearly in the United States than do liquor and tobacco,” said a popular lecturer upon conservatism.
Perhaps so; but I incline to the belief that bad pastry is answerable for a vast majority of the murders. Not that I recommend pies of any description as healthful daily food—least of all for children. But since they are eaten freely all over our land, let us make them as wholesome and palatable as possible.
Sift the flour into a deep wooden bowl. With a broad-bladed knife, or a small keen “chopper,” cut up the lard into the flour until it is fine as dust. Wet with ice-water into a stiff dough, working it with a wooden spoon until obliged to make it into a roll or ball with your hands. Flour these, and knead the paste into shape with as few strokes as will effect your end. Lay the lump upon a floured kneading-board and roll it out into a thin sheet, always rolling from you with quick, light action. When thin enough, stick bits of butter in regular close rows all over the sheet, using a knife for this purpose rather than your hands. Roll up the paste into close folds as youwould a sheet of music. Flatten it that your rolling-pin can take hold, and roll out again as thin as before. Baste, roll up and then out, until your butter is gone. It is a good plan to sprinkle the inside of each sheet with a little flour after buttering it, before making it into a roll. Finally, make out your crust; butter your pie-plates, lay the paste lightly within them, cut it off evenly about the edges after fitting it neatly; gather up the scraps left from cutting, and make into another sheet. If the pies are to have a top crust, fill the plates with fruit or whatever you have ready, lay the paste on this, cut it to fit, and press down the edges to prevent the escape of the juice, with a spoon, knife, or jagging-iron, ornamenting it in a regular figure.
Bake in a moderate oven until a light brown. Be particularly careful to have your heat as great at the bottom as at the top, or the lower crust will be clammy and raw.
Pastry is always best when fresh.
It is well, when you can spare the time, to lay the roll, when all the butter is used up, in a very cold place for fifteen minutes or so before rolling it into crust. Indeed, some good housewives let it stand on the ice an hour in hot weather. They say it tends to make it flaky as well as firm.
Touch as little with your hands as may be practicable.
Chop half the butter into the flour until it looks like yellow sand (sift the soda and cream-tartar with the flour, passing it through the sieve twice to make sure it is well mixed); work with ice-water into stiff dough; roll into a thin sheet, baste with one-third the remaining butter, fold up closely into a long roll, flatten and re-roll, then baste again. Repeat this operation three times, until the butter is gone, when make out your crust.
This is an easy and sure receipt, and the paste very fine.
Chop half the butter into the flour; stir the beaten egg into half a cup ice-water, and work the flour into a stiff dough; roll outthin, baste with one-third the remaining butter, fold closely, roll out again, and so on until the butter is used up. Roll very thin, and set the last folded roll in a very cold place ten or fifteen minutes before making out the crust. Wash with beaten egg while hot. This paste is very nice for oyster-pâtésas well as for fruit-pies.
Mix the flour, a tablespoonful of butter, the beaten egg and ice-water into a paste with a wooden spoon. Flour your pastry-board, and roll out the crust very thin. Putthe rest of the butter, when you have washed it, in the centre of this sheet, in a flat cake. Turn the four corners of the paste over it, and roll out carefully, not to break the paste. Should it give way, flour the spot, that it may not stick to the roller. When very thin, sprinkle lightly with flour, fold up, and roll out four times more. Set in a cool place for an hour, roll out again, and cut into tartlet-shells or top crust for pies.
The bottom crust of pies may often be made of plainer pastry than the upper.
Wash the butter, dry, and then melt it in a vessel set in another of boiling water, stirring gently all the while to prevent oiling. Take off the salty scum from the top, and when almost cold beat up the butter little by little with the egg, which should be previously whipped light. When these are thoroughly incorporated, work in the flour, roll out twice, sprinkling lightly with flour before you fold it up; let it stand folded five minutes in a cold place, and make out for tartlets orpâtés. It is not suitable for large pies. Bake before you fill them, and brush over with a beaten egg while hot.
The meat should be a good piece of lean beef, boiled the day before it is needed. Half a pound of raw suet, chopped fine, may be added. Chop the meat, clean out bits of skin and gristle, and mix with twice the quantity of fine juicy apples, also chopped; then put in the fruit, next the sugar and spice, lastly the liquor. Mix very thoroughly, cover closely, and let all stand together for twenty-four hours before making the pies.
Mince-meat made by this receipt will keep all winterin a cool place. Keep in stone jars, tied over with double covers. Add a little more liquor (if it should dry out), when you make up a batch of pies. Let the mixture stand at least twenty-four hours after it is made before it is used.
Lay strips of pastry, notched with a jagging-iron, in a cross-bar pattern, upon the pie, instead of a top-crust.
I take this opportunity of warning the innocent reader against placing any confidence whatever in dried currants. I years ago gave over trying to guess who put the dirt in them. It is always there! Gravel-stones lurking under a specious coating of curranty-looking paste, to crucify grown people’s nerves and children’s teeth; mould that changes to mud in the mouth; twigs that prick the throat, not to mention the legs, wings, and bodies of tropical insects—a curious study to one interested in the entomology of Zante. It is alldirt!although sold to us atcurrantprices.
Wash your currants, therefore, first in warm water, rolling up your sleeves, and rubbing the conglomerate masses apart, as you would scrub a muddy garment. Drain them in a cullender, and pass them through three more waters—cold now, but cleansing. Then spread them upon a large dish, and enter seriously upon your geological and entomological researches. “Sultanas”—sweet and seedless—are nearly as troublesome, but their specialty is more harmless, being stickiness and stems.
Nevertheless, since John has a weakness for mince-pies (I never saw an un-dyspeptic man who had not), it is worth your while to make them, having this consolation, that if you are wise you need not engage in the manufacture oftener than once, or at most, twice a winter. But let the children taste them sparingly, and never at night, if you value their health and your own sound slumbers.
Pack down in a stone jar, with close cover, and keep in a cool place.
“Mince-pie in summer is a pleasant rarity,” was the remark of a party of hungry travellers, in semi-apology for the fact that every plate made a return journey to the comely landlady, who was dispensing generous triangles of pie. She smiled gratifiedly, but said nothing in reply, until, when the gentlemen had strolled off to the woods with their cigars, she came upon me, seated alone on the piazza, and grew confidential under the influence of that sort of free-masonic understanding housekeepers have with one another, almost at sight.
“I had to laugh,” said the good soul, “when they praised my mince-pies. They’re healthfuller in summer time than the real thing.”
I took down the receipt on the spot from her lips. If any one doubts the merits of the counterfeit, let her do as I did—try it.
Pare, core, and slice ripe, tart winter apples—Pippins, Greenings, or Baldwins—line your dish with a good crust, put in a layer of fruit, then sprinkle light-brown sugar thickly over it, scatter half a dozen whole cloves upon this, lay on more apples, and so on, until the dish is well filled. Cover with crust and bake. Sift powdered sugar over the top before sending to table.
Stew green or ripe apples, when you have pared and cored them. Mash to a smooth compote, sweeten to taste, and, while hot, stir in a teaspoonful butter for each pie. Season with nutmeg. When cool, fill your crust, and either cross-bar the top with strips of paste, or bake without cover.
Eat cold, with powdered sugar strewed over it.
Make the stewed apple very sweet, and let it cool. Beat the eggs light, and mix the yolks well with the apple, seasoning with nutmeg only. Then stir in gradually the milk, beating as you go on; lastly add the whites; fill your crust and bake without cover.
Stew and sweeten ripe, juicy apples, when you have pared and sliced them. Mash smooth, and season with nutmeg. If you like the flavor, stew some lemon-peel with the apple, and remove when cold. Fill your crust, and bake until just done. Spread over the apple a thick méringue, made by whipping to a stiff froth the whites of three eggs for each pie, sweetening with a tablespoonful of powdered sugar for each egg. Flavor this with rose-water or vanilla; beat until it will stand alone, and cover the pie three-quarters of an inch thick. Set back in the oven until the méringue is well “set.” Should it color too darkly, sift powdered sugar over it when cold. Eat cold.
They are very fine.
Peach pies are even more delicious, made in this manner.
Cream the butter and sugar, stir in the beaten yolks, then the lemon, nutmeg, and apple; lastly the whites, very lightly. Bake in paste, with cross-bars of the same on top.
Beat all well together, and bake in crust without cover.
Is made precisely like pumpkin pie, except that, being less rich, it requires one more egg for each pie.
Parboil, skin, and slice crosswise firm sweet potatoes. Line a dish with paste, put in a layer of sliced potato, sprinkle thickly with sugar, scatter among them a few whole cloves, and cover with more slices. Fill the dish in this order; put a tablespoonful of melted butter in each pie; pour in a little water; cover with crust, and bake.
Eat cold.
Parboilthe potatoes, and grate them when quite cold. If grated hot, they are sticky and heavy. Cream the butter and sugar; add the yolk, the spice, and lemon; beat the potato in by degrees and until all is light; then the milk, then the brandy, and stir in the whites. Bake in dishes lined with good paste—without cover.
You may make a pudding of this by baking in a deep dish—well buttered, without paste. Cool before eating.
Mix as you do sweet potato pudding, and bake in open shells of paste. To be eaten cold.
Cream butter and sugar, beat in the yolks, the lemon, spice, and brandy, stirring in the whites at the last.
Bake in pie-crust, open.
You may, if you wish to have these very nice, beat up the whites of but four eggs in the mixture, and whip the whites of four more into a méringue with four tablespoonfuls sugar and a little lemon-juice, to spread over the top of each pie.
Eat cold. They are very nice baked in pattypans.
This is just enough for one pie. Take the thick white rind off the lemon before you chop it. Take out the seeds carefully.
Stir the corn-starch into the water, cream the butter and sugar, and pour over them the hot mixture. When quite cool, add lemon and the beaten egg. Take the inner rind off the lemon and mince very small.
Bake in open shell.
Cream the sugar and butter, stir in the beaten yolks and the lemon, and bake. Beat the whites to a stiff méringue with three tablespoonfuls powdered sugar and a little rose-water. When the pies are done, take from the oven just long enough to spread the méringue over the top, and set back for three minutes. This mixture is enough for two small, or one good-sized pie.
Eat cold.
Cream the butter and sugar, beating in the orange andlemon until very light; add the beaten yolks, fill two pastry shells and bake. Beat the whites stiff with two tablespoonfuls powdered sugar, and when the pies are done, spread over them, returning to the oven for three or four minutes.
Beat up well, and bake with upper and lower crust.
Beat all well together, and bake in tartlet shells without cover.
Rub the chocolate smooth in the milk and heat to boiling over the fire, then stir in the corn-starch. Stir five minutes until well thickened, remove from the fire, and pour into a bowl. Beat all the yolks and the whites of two eggs well with the sugar, and when the chocolate mixture is almost cold, put all together with the flavoring, and stir until light. Bake in open shells of pastry. When done, cover with a méringue made of the whites of two eggs and two tablespoonfuls of sugar flavored with a teaspoonful of lemon-juice. Eat cold.
These are nice for tea, baked in pattypans.
Cream the butter and sugar, and when well mixed, beat very light, with the wine and rose-water. Add the cocoanut with as little and as light beating as possible; finally, whip in the stiffened whites of the eggs with a few skillful strokes, and bake at once in open shells. Eat cold, with powdered sugar sifted over them.
These are very pretty and delightful pies.
Rub the butter and sugar together; beat light with the brandy and lemon-juice; stir in the beaten yolks; lastly the cocoa-nut and the whites, alternately. Bake in open shells.
Eat cold, with powdered sugar sifted over it.
Boil the milk, take it from the fire, and whip in gradually the beaten eggs. When nearly cold, season; add the cocoa-nut, and pour into paste-shells. Do not boil the egg and milk together. Bake twenty minutes.
Some put the custard quite raw into the pie-dishes, but the cocoa-nut is apt, in that case, to settle at the bottom.
You may, however, pour the raw mixture into cups, and bake by setting in a pan of boiling water, stirring well once, as they begin to warm. This is cocoa-nut cup-custard, and is much liked.
Dissolve the chocolate in a very little milk, stir into the boiling water, and boil three minutes. When nearly cold, beat up with this the yolks of all the eggs and the whites of three. Stir this mixture into the milk, season, and pour into shells of good paste. When the custard is “set”—but not more than half done—spread over it the whites, whipped to a froth, with two tablespoonfuls sugar.
You may bake these custards without paste, in a pudding-dish or cups set in boiling water.
Boil the milk, stir in the corn-starch wet in a little cold milk, and boil one minute. When nearly cold, stir in the sugar, the yolks of all the eggs, and the whites of two; flavor, and pour into your paste-shells. Whip the remaining whites to a méringue, with two tablespoonfuls white sugar and a teaspoonful of vanilla, and when the custard is just “set,” draw your pies to the edge of the oven to spread this over them. Do it quickly, lest the custard fall by exposure to the air.
You may bake this as a pudding by omitting the pastry. Eat cold.
If you have not corn-starch, substitute arrow-root or rice-flour.
Beat the yolks and sugar light, and mix with the milk; flavor, whip in the whites, which should be already a stiff froth, mix well, and pour into shells. Grate nutmeg upon the top.
Bake this as cup-custard, or a custard pudding, in cups or a deep dish set in a pan of boiling water.
Peel, stone, and slice the peaches. Line a pie-plate with a good crust, and lay in your fruit, sprinkling sugar liberally over them in proportion to their sweetness. Very ripe peaches require comparatively little. Allow three peach-kernels, chopped fine, to each pie; pour in a very little water, and bake with an upper crust, or with cross-bars of paste across the top.
Some simply pare the peaches and put in whole, packing them well, and sweetening freely. In this case they should be covered entirely with crust.
For one of the most delightful pies that can be made of any fruit, look forapple méringue pie, and substitute peaches. Peach méringue pie may be made in winter from canned peaches.
Line the dish with a good crust, and fill with ripe cherries, regulating the quantity of sugar you scatter over them by their sweetness. Cover and bake.
Eat cold, with white sugar sifted over the top.
Are made in the same manner.
To three cups of currants allow one of raspberries. Mixwell together before you fill the crust, and sweeten abundantly. Cover with crust and bake.
Eat cold, with white sugar sifted over it.
Is made as above, with more sugar. The most common fault of currant pie is extreme sourness. Small fruits should be looked over carefully before they are cooked. Currants are troublesome, but they must nevertheless be looked after warily on account of their extreme stemminess.
Top and tail the gooseberries. Put into a porcelain kettle with enough water to prevent burning, and stew slowly until they break. Take them off, sweetenwell, and set aside to cool. When cold pour into pastry shells, and bake with a top crust of puff-paste. Brush all over with beaten egg while hot, set back in the oven to glaze for three minutes.
Eat cold.
Top and tail the berries. Line your dish with crust, and fill with berries, strewing white sugar among them. Cover and bake.
Pick over the fruit, put in a dish lined with pastry, sweeten very freely, cover and bake. Brush with beaten egg when done, and return to the oven for a few minutes to glaze.
Wash and pick over the berries. Put into a porcelain saucepan with a very little water, and simmer until theyburst open and become soft. Run through a cullender to remove the skins, and sweeten to taste. Bake in pastry shells, with a cross-bar of pastry over the top.
Cap and pick over the berries, arrange in layers, besprinkle with a good coating of sugar, in a shell of pastry. Fill it very full, as strawberries shrink very much in cooking. Cover with crust and bake.
Huckleberry pie is made in the same way.
Line a dish with paste and fill with raspberries, made very sweet with powdered sugar. Cover with paste, but do not pinch it down at the edges. When done, lift the top crust, which should be thicker than usual, and pour upon the fruit the following mixture:—
Boil these ingredients three minutes; let them get perfectly cold before you put them into the tart. Replace the top crust, and set the pie aside to cool. Sprinkle sugar over the top before serving.
You can make strawberry cream tart in the same manner.
Skin the stalks with care, cut into small pieces; put into a saucepan with very little water, and stew slowlyuntil soft. Sweeten while hot, but do not cook the sugar with the fruit. It injures the flavor, by making it taste like preserves. Have ready some freshly-baked shells. Fill up with the fruit and they are ready to serve.
You may, after sweetening the stewed rhubarb, stir in a lump of butter the size of a hickory-nut for each pie, also a well-beaten egg for each, and bake in pastry. Lay cross-bars of pastry over the top.
Skin the stalks, cut in lengths of half an inch; strew lavishly with sugar, and fill the crusts with the raw fruit. Some scatter seedless raisins among the rhubarb. Cover, and bake nearly three-quarters of an hour. Brush with egg while hot, and return to the oven to glaze.
Eat cold, as you do all fruit-pies.
Someyears ago—more than I care to count over—I read a lively little book entitled, “The Greatest Plague of Life.” I have forgotten who wrote it, if I ever knew. It was in the form of an autobiography; the heroine called herself, with an amusing affectation of disguise, Mrs. S-k-n-s-t-n,“ and it was illustrated by George Cruikshank. I read it aloud in my home-circle, and many a hearty laugh we had over the poor lady’s perplexities and calamities.
Regarding the history as a clever burlesque, I suffered no appreciable draught upon my sympathies until timeand experience brought me in contact with so many who echoed her plaint, that I could not but recur, now and then, with a half-sad smile, to her sufferings under the rule of Norah, who chased her up-stairs with a carving-knife; with Mary, who drank up the cherry-brandy, filled the bottle with cold weak tea, and kept her pitying employers up all night to pull her through an epileptic fit; with John, who never answered the parlor bell “unless they persewered;” whose stomach could not bear cold meat at dinner, but rallied bravely under a couple of pounds at supper. There was one nursery-maid who whipped Mrs. S-k-n-s-t-n’s child, and another who upset the perambulator in the park, and, too much absorbed in the suit of a whiskered Guardsman to note what had happened, went on dragging the carriage upon its side until the baby’s cheek was cruelly scarified by the gravel—besides a host of otherunworthies set for the distress of Mrs. S-k-n-s-t-n’s mind, body, and estate.
“Douglas Jerrold wrote that book,” interrupts a friend at my elbow. “And,apropos de bottes, have you seen Punch’s recent article, ‘Servantgalism; or, What Shall Be Done With the Missusses?’”
“The malady in America must bear another name,” remarks a lady, gayly. “We have no servants—at least in this region. My cook is forty-seven years old, and my chambermaid a widow, who has buried two children; yet they would be highly affronted were I to speak of them except as ‘girls.’ It is a generic term that belongs to the class ‘who live out,’ from sixteen up to sixty. I had a lesson on this head not a month since. My laundress, who has lived with me six years, was thanking me for a service I had done her brother.
“‘I’ll never forget you for it, mem,’ she sobbed. ‘I’ll bless you for it, on me knees, night and morning.’
“I am glad I have been able to help your friends, Katy,” I said. “You have been a faithful servant to me——”
She cut my sentence in the middle by walking out of the room—I supposed, to conceal her emotions. I was undeceived, five minutes later, when her angry tones reached me from the kitchen, the door of which she had left open.
“I’ll never believe a person has a good heart, or deserves to be called a Christian, who names an honest, respectable girl, who tries to do her duty, aservant!‘A faithful servant!’ says she; ‘as if she was a queen, and meself a beggar!’”
“What did you say to the ungrateful wretch?” asks a listener, indignantly.
“Nothing. I went quietly out of hearing, reminded, for the hundredth time, of Solomon’s warning, ‘Take no heed unto all words that are spoken, lest thou hear thy servant curse thee.’ I recalled, too, the saying of a mightier than the Royal Preacher: ‘Whosoever will be greatest among you, let him be yourservant.’”
“I thought you were one of the favored few who had no trouble with them,” says another housekeeper, sighingly. “There is real comfort,—excuse me, my dear Mrs. Sterling—but it is refreshing to a wearied soul to know that you have felt some of our tribulations. It seems to me, at times, that there is no other affliction worthy the name when compared with what we endure from the ‘Necessary Evil.’ I have tried all sorts—the representatives from every nation under heaven, I verily believe—andthey are all alike! They will wear me into an untimely grave yet.”
“I wouldn’t let them, my dear Martha,” replies Mrs. Sterling, with her sunny smile. “If evils, they are surelyminor afflictions. And, after all, I imagine ‘they’ are a good deal like the rest of man and womankind—pretty much as you choose to take them. The truth is, there is no justice in wholesale denunciation of any class. You recollect the Western orator’s truism, ‘Human nature, Mr. President, nine cases out of ten, is human nature.’ When I consider the influences under which a majority of our servants have been reared—ignorance, poverty, superstition, often evil example in their homes—my wonder is, not at the worthlessness of some, but that so many are virtuous, honest, and orderly. You will allow that, as a general thing, they are quite as industrious as their mistresses, and control their tempers almost as well. And we make so many mistakes in our dealings with them!”
My old friend does not often lecture, but she has something to say now, and forgets herself in her subject.
“We err so grievously in our management, that a sense of our failures should teach us charity. Do we understand, ourselves, what is the proper place of a hired ‘help’ in our families? If it is the disposition of Mrs. Shoddy to trample upon them as soulless machines, Mrs. Kindly makes a sort of elder daughter of her maid; indulges, consults, and confides in her, and wonders, by-and-by, to find herself under Abigail’s thumb—her husband and children subject to the caprices of a pampered menial. I never hear a lady say of a valued domestic, ‘I could not get along without her,’ without anticipating as a certainty the hour when she shall announce, ‘Thereissuch a thing as keeping a servant too long.’ The crisis comes, then, to Mrs. Kindly. In a moment of desperation she frees her neck from the yoke. Abigail packs her six trunks, having entered Mrs. Kindly’s service, seven years before, with her worldly all done up in a newspaper, shakes the dust off the neat Balmoral boots which have replaced her brogans,against the heartless tyrant who sits crying, in her own room up-stairs, over thoughts of how Abigail has been so clean, quick, and devoted to her interests; how she has nursed her through a long and dangerous illness, and had the charge of Emma and Bobby from their birth. She has prepared a handsome present for her in memory of all this, and is hurt more than by anything else when she learns that the girl has taken her final departure without even kissing the baby.
“It is not strange that the deceived mistress should, from that day, write down Abigail a monster of ingratitude, and forget the faithful service of years in the smart of wounded feeling; when the truth is that she did the maid more injury by injudicious petting, than the latter could do her mistress had she absconded with all the plate in the house. She has, as might have been expected, proved Abigail’s unfitness to be her confidante and co-adviser; but, at the same time, she has filled her brain with notions of her superiority to her fellow-servants, her heart with burnings for the higher station she can never occupy.
“I speak feelingly upon this subject,” continues Mrs. Sterling, with a laugh; “for I was once led into this very mistake myself, by the attractive qualities of a young woman who lived with me nine years as seamstress and chambermaid. She was so even-tempered, so sensible, industrious, and respectful, that she gained upon the esteem of us all. One day, while we sat together at work, I told her of some family changes in prospect, prefacing the communication by the remark, ‘I want to speak to you of something, Eliza, which you must not mention to any one else at present. The interests of an employer and a servant should be the same.’
“Then, very foolishly, I opened up my mind freely onthe subject that engaged it. She answered modestly, but intelligently, entering into my plans with such cordial interest and pledges of co-operation, that I went to prepare for a walk, feeling really strengthened and cheered by the talk. At the front door I was met by a letter requiring an immediate reply. Returning to my chamber to lay off my hat and shawl, I heard Eliza talking loudly and gleefully in the adjoining sewing-room, with the cook, whom she must have called up-stairs through the speaking-tube. You cannot imagine, nor I describe, my sensations at listening, against my will, to an exaggerated account of the interview which had just taken place. Not only my language, but my tones were mimicked with great gusto and much laughter by my late confidante—the phrase ‘The interests of the employer and the servant should be the same’ occurring again and again, and forming, apparently, the cream of the joke. I was very angry. But for the rule adopted early in my married life, never to reprove a servant when out of humor, I should instantly have ordered the treacherous creature—as I named her—from the house. I sat down instead, to cool off and to think. With reflection, common sense rallied to my aid.
“‘The girl does well enough in her place, which is that of a hired chambermaid and seamstress,’ said this monitor. ‘She knew her position, and would have kept it, but for your folly in dragging her up to temporary equality with yourself. You made yourself ridiculous, and she was shrewd enough to see it. Take the lesson to heart; write it out in full for future guidance, and keep your own counsel.’
“Eliza never suspected my discovery. She remained with me until her marriage a year afterward, and we parted upon good terms.”
I have quoted from my friend at length, because I honorher excellent judgment and mature experience, and because I agree so fully with her touching the evil of so-called confidential servants. The principle of acknowledged favoritism is ruinous to domestic comfort, let who may be the object thus distinguished. Rely upon it, my dear lady, at least one third of home-wrangles and social scandal arises from this cause. Be assured, also, that if you do not perceive the impropriety of lowering yourself to the level of your subordinates,theywill, and gauge their behaviour accordingly. The connection is an unnatural one, and, like all others of the kind, must terminate disastrously in time. Then the discarded favorite, aggrieved and exasperated, leaves your house to tattle in the ears of some other indiscreet mistress, of your sayings and doings. Show your servant that you respect yourself and her too truly to forget what is due to both. Be kind, pleasant, always reasonable and attentive to her needs, willing to hearken to and meet any lawful request. Make her comfortable, and, so far as you can, happy.
Excuse one more quotation from Mrs. Sterling, whom, when I was much younger than I am now, I consulted with regard to the just medium between familiarity and austerity.
“Remember they are human beings, and treat them as such,” she said. “Not that you are likely to reap a large reward in their gratitude, but because it is right, and because you find no exceptions to the practice of the Golden Rule laid down in the Bible. Be faithful in your obedience to the law of kindness. With the return tide you have nothing to do. This is a safe and straight path. I believe it to be also the smoothest. You will be better and more cheerfully served than your neighbor, who, recognizing in every hireling a natural enemy, is always on the defensive.”
I have found the most serious obstacle to a comfortable pursuance of her safe path, to lie in this same prejudice—rooted by centuries of misunderstandings and caste-wars—the belief of necessary antagonism between employers and employed. Mrs. Sterling’s Eliza only expressed the prevailing sentiment of her class, when she ridiculed her mistress’ proposition that their interests ought to be identical. I have failed so often and so signally in the endeavor to impress the merits of this policy upon domestics, that I rarely attempt it now. There is always a suspicion—more or less apparent—that you have a single eye to self-interest in all your regulations and counsels. “What does she hope to gain? What am I in danger of losing?” are the queries that invariably present themselves to the subordinate’s mind. The arguments by which your plans are supported are thrown away upon ignorant and illogical listeners—your array of facts totally disbelieved. Your auditor does not say this, but in divers and ingenious ways she contrives to let you know that she is not so silly as to be imposed upon by the specious array of evidence.
For how much of this are mistresses responsible? Has this creed of distrust been learned by experience of injustice or exaction, or is it one of the popular prejudices, which are harder to overthrow than sound and well-established principle? Of one thing I am certain: Mistresses and maids would more speedily come to a right understanding of oneness of interest but for the influence exerted over the former by Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Robinson, and Mrs. Brown, who don’t allow this, and couldn’t think of that, and never heard of the other privilege or immunity being granted to servants. Before they would yield such a point, or submit to one syllable of dictation, they would do all their own work, etc., etc. Poor Mrs. Pliable, listeningdumbly and meekly, goes home with a low-spirited sense of her own pusillanimity upon her, and tries to assert her authority and redeem past faults by a sudden tightening of the reins, that results in a runaway and general smash-up.
Cannot we remember—you and I, my dear reader—that we may sometimes be as nearly right as those who talk more loudly and strongly than we upon domestic economy, laying down rules we never thought of suggesting; splitting into ninths a hair our short-sighted eyes cannot make out when whole, and annihilating our timid objections with a lordly “Ialways do so,” which is equal to a decree of infallibility? Cannot we make up our minds, once and for all, to be a law unto ourselves in all matters pertaining to our households? Mrs. Jones’ rule may be good for her; Mrs. Robinson’s better than any other in her particular case, and Mrs. Brown’s best of all for one in her peculiar circumstances; yet any one or all of them be unsuitable for our use.
Avoid talking about your domestic affairs with people whose gossip on these topics is incessant. You are angry when a whiff of some such discussion as enlightened Mrs. Sterling, with regard to her mistake, is wafted to you through the dumb-waiter or register, an accident that will occur while the tones of the plaintiffs are loud and untrained by education or policy. It is mean and unkind—traitorous, in fact, you say, for them so to misrepresent and revile you—after all the kindness you have showed to them, too! Bridget, Chloe, or Gretchen, passing the parlor-door and catching the sound of her name as roughly handled, may have her own sensations, and draw her own inferences—being human like yourself. It is tiresome and vulgar, this everlasting exchange of experiences about “my girl,” and “your girl,” and everybody else’s“girl.” It is time sensible women ceased, in this respect, to imitate the fashion of the class they censure, and put down the bootless tattle with a strong will. Order your household, then, so far aright as you can by the help of common sense and grace from on high, and let Mesdames Jones, Robinson, and Brown look to the ways of their own, and expend their surplus energies upon their neighbors’ concerns—counting you out.
(I believe that is slang, but let it stand!)
These worthy and fussy housewives act upon the supposition that all “girls” are cast in the same mould. Being human (do not let us forget that!), the probability is, that there are varieties of the species.
But, if the mistresses are led by their associates, the “girl’s” “acquaintances” sway her yet more powerfully. Every conscientious, well-meaning housewife knows what a brake is this informal, but terrible “Union” upon her endeavors to improve and really benefit those under her direction. I have been amazed and disgusted at the tyranny exercised by this irresponsible body over the best servants I have ever seen.
“We would be hooted at, ma’am, if we didn’t give in to them,” said one, when I represented how senseless and almost suicidal was the course recommended by these evil advisers. “There’s not a girl in the town would speak to us if we didn’t join in with the rest. It’s like a strike, you see—awful upon them as holds back.”
Do not, then, my discouraged fellow-laborer, imagine that I am ignorant of your trials, your doubts, your disheartening experiences. If I disagree with Mrs. S-k-n-s-t-n and do not pronounce our servants to be the greatest plague of life, inclining rather to the belief that—always allowing for human nature and the drawbacks I have enumerated—good mistresses are apt to make good servants,it is in consequence of long and careful study and observation of the practical working of Mrs. Sterling’s rule. Like begets like. Pleasant words are more likely to be answered by pleasant than are tart or hasty ones. If you would have your servants respectful to you, be respectful to them. The best way to teach them politeness is by example. It should not cost you an effort to say, “Thank you,” or “If you please.” The habit exerts an unconscious refining influence upon them, and you dignify instead of degrading your ladyhood by being pitiful and courteous to all. If you can only maintain your position by haughtiness and chilling disregard of the feelings of inferiors, your rank is false, or you unfit to hold it.
To begin, then: Be mistress of yourself. Amid all your temptations to angry or sarcastic speech (and how many and how strong these are, you and I know), curb yourself with the recollection that it is despicable, no less than useless, to say cutting things to one who has no right to retort upon you in kind.
“Ma’,” says Miss Aurelia in Miss Sedgwick’s admirable story, “Live and let Live”—“how can you let your help be so saucy to you?”
Master Julius, who was standing by, took a different view of the matter.
“If Ma’ doesn’t want her help to besarcyto her,” he said, “she hadn’t ought to besarcyto them.”
Teach your children the like forms of kindly speech and habits of consideration for the comfort and happiness of your domestics, checking with equal promptness undue freedom and the arrogance of station. It is as graceful to bend as it is mean to grovel.
Learn not to see everything, and, so soon as you can, put far from you the delusive hope that anybody else—unless it be dear old John—will ever serve you as well asyou would serve yourself. This failure is attributable to some one of the nine-tenths we spoke of just now. She is a prudent housekeeper who can wink at trifling blemishes without effort or parade. There is one text which has come into my troubled mind hundreds of times on such occasions, calming perturbation into solemnity, and bringing, I hope, charity with humility—
“IfThou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?”
But if your hold of the rein be gentle, let it also be firm. Never forget that the house is yours, and that you—not hirelings—are responsible for the disposition of the stores purchased with John’s money.
“I was much amused the other day,” said an easy-tempered lady to me, “at a talk that passed under my window between my new cook and one of her visitors.
“‘And how are ye gitting along?’ asked the guest.
“‘Oh! pretty well-ish, now,’ was the reply. ‘I was a-feard, when I first come, thatshewould bother me a-trotting down into the kitchen so constant. But I give her a hint as how that wasn’t the trick of a raal lady, and she’s kep’ out nicely sence then. You’ve got to stand up for your own rights in this wurrld, or you’ll be trod upon.’”
Now, it would be throwing away words to reason with a woman like that cook, or a mistress might show that in no other department of labor would such a principle be tolerated—that from the Secretary of State down to the scavenger who empties your ash-pan, every employé who draws wages has an overlooker, to whom he is accountable for the manner in which his work is done and his money earned; and that the fact that she is an ignorant, high-tempered woman is no just cause of exemption. Yet in how many families is this point tacitly yielded, and themistress admitted upon sufferance to her own kitchen—the room furnished with her money, and in which she hardly dare touch or look at the articles intended for the consumption of her own family?
One often hears such remarks as, “It isn’t every girl who will stand having the mistress popping in and out while she is at work.” When, in any other situation, the very fact of this unwillingness to have the owner of the materials used in that work present, would be strong presumptive proof of negligence or dishonesty. The principle is pernicious from beginning to end, and should not be tolerated for an instant.
It gives me pleasure to state here, that I know nothing personally of this curious reversal of the rights of employer and domestic. I am inclined to believe, if one-half I hear of other housewives’ trials be true, that I have been highly favored among American women. My authority in the kitchen, as in other parts of the household, has never been disputed—in my hearing or presence, that is. I have always met with a cheerful reception below-stairs when I appeared there to direct or share the labors of my cooks; have found them willing to undertake new dishes, and ready to learn my “way,” however unlike it might be to their own. As a rule, also,—to which the exceptions have been few and very far between—those employed by me have been cleanly, industrious, kind-hearted, and respectful; patient under inconveniences, and attentive in sickness. I should not, therefore, do my duty, did I not lift my voice in a plea for charitable judgment, just and generous treatment of a class which, however faulty, have much to do and to endure. Mrs. Skinflint’s grocer’s account may be less than yours, if you adopt this policy—Mrs. Sharp’s coal-cellar be better dusted, and the paint in her attic scrubbed oftener; but Ibelieve, in the long run, you will be the most comfortable in body, as in conscience. Your machinery will move with fewer jerks and less friction. Your servants will remain with you longer, and be better-tempered while they stay, if you show that you appreciate the fact of a common humanity; that you owe them duties you are resolved to fulfil during their sojourn under your roof, however mercenary may be their performance of those devolving upon them.
Finally, dear sister, do not add to the real miseries of life by regarding the annoyance of a careless, slothful, or impertinent domestic as a real trouble. Class it with petty vexations which are yet curable as well as endurable, and live above it—a noble, beneficent existence in the love of your fellow-creatures and the fear ofGod—a life that can not suffer perceptible disturbance from such a contemptible rootlet of bitterness as this. It is only the feeble, the inefficient, or the indolent mistress whose peace of mind is dependent upon such casualties as a breeze, a hurricane, or a sudden vacancy in the department of the interior.
Recollect, when the infliction is sharpest, that brier-pricks are disagreeable, but never serious, unless the blood beveryimpure.