LXXIII.PLANNING FOR THE WEEK.
NOTHING so simplifies labor as a well-defined, regular plan for each day’s specific duties. At first, to one unaccustomed to systematic work, it may be difficult to get into the track, and follow the route until it is so familiar that it becomes almost second nature. But with each effort, duties thus methodically performed will be easier, and when theplan you design to follow has been well digested, and each part so adapted as to reach toward the good of the whole, labor will not only be greatly diminished, but a positive pleasure in the performance of duties so perfectly organized will be the crowning reward.
Yet to arrange a plan for each day requires thought and judgment, and she must be a wonderful character who, from the beginning, can so perfect a code of laws for the regular discharge of household labor, that no modification or change will be necessary. If a young housekeeper, at the end of one year’s trial, begins to feel somewhat at home in her dominions, she should be well content, nor allow a shadow of discouragement to mar her comfort, even if now and then she finds her carefully planned rules requiring some little adjustment, to secure a smooth and easy action.Try, andreject, until you have secured a plan by whichyou, the mistress, can best manage others, or yourself perform the work. No one can tell you by what rules you can best govern your domains. Suggestions may be given, which will be of great service in enabling you to arrive at the desired results in the most successful and expeditious manner; but further than that,the work to do is yours, and not another’s. Each one must work out the problem of what is best for herself individually, with what aid she can glean from the experience of others, according as it shall be congenial, or adapted to her own peculiar way of working and her own peculiar position.
Even those daughters who are fresh from the wise instructions of a mother, who led them with her through a daily round of cares until they are as skillful in domestic management as she is herself, will not find, when they enter the marriage state, the duties of their new homes exactly like those of their mother. Many things may, and doubtless will, compel a somewhat different administration, althoughthe fundamental principles will be still the same. The husband’s position may demand change in the mode of proceedings to which she has, from childhood, been accustomed. His tastes or means may render it advisable that the wife should modify or enlarge her rules for the performance of domestic duties. The desired change may, from necessity, or fromwhims, which for permanent happiness she will be wise to humor, be so abrupt and entire as to require almost a new mode of action and labor, calling for much deliberation before it can be perfectly satisfactory; and of course this will be almost like commencing an education from the beginning.
Different homes and diverse tastes demand, and justly, to be regulated on somewhat different plans. New duties, and new modes of performing them, are opened to the young housekeeper, however efficient she may have been in all domestic affairs under her mother’s eye; but this should be no reason for discouragement or self-reproach. Put the mother in the daughter’s place, and she might find it equally strange, and no easier to rearrange her code of laws for domestic labor, only so far as age and longer experience has taught her more wisdom and greater facility in regulating household affairs. But whatever the style or position, there is none, however high or low, that is not improved and the work simplified by systematic arrangement. Let each day of the week have its own peculiar work, modified or varied, of course, by changes which cannot be foreseen,—such as sickness, absence of part of the family, unexpected company, invited guests, or holidays.
And here let us say, it is desirable, when you invite friends to dinner or tea, that you choose such days as are the least filled with work which cannot be well set aside,—such as washing, ironing, etc.,—so that you may take time for entertaining your guests, without the burden of feeling that you are compelled to leave for to-morrow the work that shouldhave been done to-day, and, by so doing, to lay up for yourself too heavy burdens and unsettle the regular course of labor for the rest of the week.
We do not propose to give rules for any one. That would be quite impossible, as so much depends on the taste of the master and mistress, the number of the family, and of the servants employed. But there are a few things which, in our opinion, will make the work easier, and increase the comfort of all concerned. For instance, on Saturday all the clothes for changes should be laid out, so that the Sabbath may find us arrayed in spotless garments. And this being done, as all the soiled clothes are ready, it would seem that Monday must, almost of necessity, be set apart as the establishedwashing-day. Of course, if one has a laundry distinct from the kitchen, as soon as the washing and ironing of one week is finished, the range will be cleaned out, ashes brushed off, kindling laid, and floor scrubbed, all for the next week; and if everything is thus in order, it must be an uncommonly large family if the washing is not all done, clothes-lines and pins brought in, and, in winter, coarse clothes sprinkled and folded, in good time on Monday night. This should be Monday’s work, somewhat modified, perhaps, according to the help employed in this department. When two or three girls are employed in one house, as we have before said, we do not think it the most comfortable way for thecookto take charge of the washing. Let her help, if necessary, as she may find time; but if she first performs her regular duties, the family will be more comfortable; and if the second girl has charge of the washing, the clothes will, or should be, more satisfactorily done by one steady hand. Let Tuesday be for ironing. Wednesday the chambermaid and laundress will need for cleaning the laundry and halls, wiping off finger-marks from doors, and any chamber-work which did not receive particular attention Monday or Tuesday. The cook will need by Wednesdayto clean up her tins, floors, closets, or if company or the family require, to do some extra cooking. On Thursday the silver should be carefully looked over and polished by chamois-skin, after washing inhotsoapsuds, or with whiting if any brown spots are found. Friday is the best day for sweeping, and seeing that mattresses and bedsteads are free from dust; which, if left to accumulate, will breed moths and other vermin. Saturday may be employed in cleaning parlors, washing windows, polishing door-handles, bell-pulls, and stair-rods, and a thorough oversight of the house generally.
These items are only by way of suggestions, to be filled up or discarded as the housekeeper’s judgment, taste, or position may deem advisable. We only claim that, having once examined and become fully persuaded in your own mind what your position and the comfort of your family demand, you should settle upon some well-considered plan, and then determine to carry it into practice, as far as possible, with promptness and regularity. Take time to consider;try, and try again; but having settled what is best, act upon it without flinching.