The Complete HOUSEKEEPER by EMILY HOLT Author of Encyclopedia of Etiquette ^T

lii:IHHiUili'ifjl*llt!iii iummtiMWutttiuiiuruiuui!; MiiiiiimiiiiiiiiF(iMiiiiMinini(!iTni''.iifi.iHi(niiiiii ' '!irpfiiM,i:i iitrinitOiJfiO(Mi»nrjM>'!ni>-i' [n,(i The Complete HOUSEKEEPER By EMILY HOLT Author of Encyclopedia of Etiquette ^t i LIBRARY ANNEX 2 - ^i umiwmmwoH ** ii iii i rr miiiiiiii iiii m iim ^^^rrTrTrrrrr > rrriTmT i n Isw ALBERT R. MANN LIBRARY AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY Cornell University Ipl J Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924000624092 ENCYCLOPiEDIA OF HOUSEHOLD ECONOMY THE COMPLETE Housekeeper By Emily Holt Author of Encyclopcedia of Etiquette ILLUSTRATED Garden City New York DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 1917 Copyright, igo3, by DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CXHMPANY, CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. Kitchen Convenience—^Arrangements and Appliances i II. Repairs and Restorations—Whitewash, Paint, Wall-Paper, Uphqlstery . io m. Concerning Closets—Pantry, China- Closet, Linen-Closet, etc 42 IV. House Cleaning—Carpet Cleaning, Win- dow Washing, Paint-Cleaning, etc. 63 V. In the Laundry—Equipment and Opera- tions 81 VI. Cleaning and Mending China, Glass and Metal 99 VII. Food Values, Digestion, the Balanced Ration 116 Vni. Wartime Foods and Inexpensive Recipes . 143 DC. Canning, Preserving, Drying, the Fire- less Cooker 223 X. The Little Children's Table, School Lunches 252 XI. HousHOLD Accounts, the Budget, Markett ing, Use of Parcels Post 258 Xn. Installation, Testing and Care of Plumb- ing—Sanitation 271 XIII. The Water Supply: Springs, Wells, Cis-' terns. Pumps, Pipes, Filters, etc. 292 Contents CHAPTER PAGE XIV. Lighting, (Candles, Lamps, Gas, Elec- tricity) AND Heating (Systems and Fuels) 307 XV. Disease Prevention, First Aid, Home Care OF THE Sick 324 XVI. Bleaches, Disinfectants, Insecticides . 349 XVII. The Family Sewing—Patterns, Fitting, the Machine, Patching, Darning and Mending 365 XVIII. War Knitting (Sweaters, Mufflers, Hel- mets, Wristlets), Red Cross Needle- work (Surgical Dressings) . , . 384 Index , . 397 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS rAcma CAGE A Fresh-Air Closet lo " Have a Wall-Closet Six Inches Deep and a Little " Broader THAN THE Sink 12 Range with Shelf and Cupboards 16 ' Outdoor Fresh-Air Closet ^ . .46 The Linen-Closet y • 54 Laundry with Set Tubs, Table, and Clothes-Horse Screen 82 House Pipes—^How They Run 282 Cesspool, with Ventilating Pipe 284 Chapter ONE %xti^m Cottbmtence convenience is the key-stone in KITCHENthe arch of domestic economy which has come in large measure to spell human prog- ress. If one could but make the nation's kitchens all they should be, there would be less need of amendment to its laws. The good red vital blood, from which is evolved winning brain and brawn, is, in the last analysis, good food. Good food in turn depends less on original quality than upon the skill and knowledge of the cook. Notwithstanding, skill and knowledge alone do not avail—there must be strength and proper equipment. Whether the cooking is the work of the house-mistress, or the maid, the best ways of doing it ought to be religiously followed. The Floor Like most other things kitchen convenience begins best at the beginning. That is to say, at the floor, which is the foundation of a cook's comfort. The ideal floor is of tile. Like the most part of ideals it is beyond realization by the majority. Next comes linoleum, whose thousand virtues are linked with the single crime of being too costly for at least half the kitchen of the common- wealth. Broad heavy oil-cloth, in tile or mosaic patterns, deserves to rank next, for wear, use, and cleanliness. Household Economy [Chapter Cheap, staring, red-and-white oil-cloth is a delusion and a snare, no matter how dark and dingy the room it car- pets. Chiefest among its manifold sins must be reck- oned the facts that it shows both wear and dirt quicker than any other floor covering. A detached, or a cellar kitchen, may be well floored with narrow brick, laid edgewise in cement, and rubbed smooth on top. Such a floor, well oiled twice a year, will not be unwholesomely damp. It is, however, so cold one should never stand directly upon it save in the hot- test weather. A stone-flagged floor is among those blunders that are worse than crimes. Luckily it is so rare, it may be left out of account. Nine kitchens in ten throughout these United States " have bare board floors. Hence the question : What sort of boards?" Nothing soft and sliver-y; neither anything that needs must be painted. The end of a kitchen floor is mainly to be scrubbed—and the paint proof against soap-suds and elbow-grease has yet to be discovered. Consequently a painted floor soon comes to look like a very ragged, and extra-chromatic Joseph's coat. Narrow boards of heart-pine, well matched, well sea- soned, free of sap-wood and wind-shakes, well laid, and oiled afresh every six months, make a fairish floor—^the best board floor outside of the hard woods. In the hard woods it is a near thing between oak boards and ashen ones. Oak lasts a trifle longer; ash is the fresher and more sightly. Nothing, indeed, can well be more grate- ful to the trained housewifely sense than a well-scrubbed ashen floor, with all the grain showing upon the polished flesh-pink surface—a surface that years of good usage only freshen and deepen. Neither oak nor ash wears appreciably in less than a generation—hence only the first cost needs to be con- sidered. Ash takes a little smoother surface under the o°e] ^ttctien Con\3entence 3 plane, and is more manageable in laying—it should be driven up so tight that the cracks are practically invisible. Oak makfes up for occasional roughness by having ever so much more spring. It is also cooler to the feet, and has the crowning mercy of yielding up grease-spots much more readily than ash. Its habit of darkening with age is also to be set to its credit. Whatever the boards—whether hard or soft, wide or narrow, it is crucial to have them lie even. An edge standing the sixteenth of an inch above its fellows may occasion falls and stumbles innumerable. A creaking board, " a bird in the floor," as country folk say, is little short of k nervous torment. A nail-head projecting ever so slightly is a positive danger. So, too, is a splintered crack. So most of all is a dry-rotted board, the best trap yet devised to catch and breed all sorts of moulds and mildews. Hence those who needs must put up with hired kitchens may well look to these things : Whether the kitchen floor is firmly laid? Are the cracks in it conspicuous by absence ? Does the base-board fit snugly down all round ? Are there anywhere cracks, crannies, and crevices, as be- hind the stove, under the sink, or about the door-jambs, in which mice can lurk, vermin harbour, or such small deer as thimbles, laundry-wax, bread crusts and crumbs, even an occasional potato-paring, can engulf themselves past finding. It is, of course, the landlord's province to remedy all these things. He will promise—it's usually left the house- holder to perform. So it is a saving of nervous energy to do it one's self at first hand, even though it be but in makeshift fashion. Do not grudge a few nails to hold the loose board firm, nor the strip of smoothed quar- ter-inch stuff that closes the yawning base-board crack, neither the putty and plaster which fill irregular crevices —^putty on the scouring-line, plaster higher up. Putty 4 Household Economy [Chapter is commonly cheap—three to ten cents a pound. A single pound often works wonders, and five pounds of it is an outside estimate for the most ramshackle kitchen, which may thus be made trimly habitable by the; outlay of a few cents. Still it can be made even cheaper than bought ready mixed. Since it keeps perfectly, requiring only to be beaten up afresh with a little oil, it is a handy and valu- able thing to have about the house. (See Chapter on Repairs and Restorations.) A thick springy mat, as cocoa-fibre, corn-husk, woven rope, in front of the sink, will save much wear of the kitchen-floor and the cook's nervous energy. Standing is notoriously among the hardest forms of exercise, ever so much more exhausting than walking, or even running. All the harder if one stands upon a dead unyielding surface. Since a cook needs must stand more than half the time, beyond any other worker, it behooves her to deaden the pressure upon feet and spinal column. The elastic mat is a help. A greater help is a length of the thickest cocoa-matting stretching from the sink to the range, and passing the table on the way. It should not be tacked down, neither left at loose ends to curl and trip the unwary. Have the cut ends clamped fast with strips of doubled tin, beaten flat, and riveted through matting and all. Thus the matting always lies flat, with no pos- sibility of dirt accumulating underneath. It may be cut in squares, or to rug-length—any way, indeed, if the ends are duly tinned. With a roof or back yard avail- able it can be beaten like other rugs. Upon ironing-days, one bit laid upon another under the ironer's feet will save much in power, and, consequently, in time.

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