The American Country Girl Part 13

CHAPTER XIV

AN OLD-FAs.h.i.+ONED VIRTUE

This may be considered a brief for the "old maid" of olden time; or rather for the quality that she stands for in our dream and story life.

We have not given this so-called "old-maidishness" its rightful place among the virtues. The quality deserves to be cla.s.sified among the highest expressions of the intellect. In the olden time, when the mother was busy with her family of from two to twenty children, the mother's unmarried sister was the "efficiency-clerk" of the big household. She was the motor, the balance-wheel; she knew where everything was, to the last sheaf of catnip; she put everything in its place and could go and get whatever was wanted. Behind all this was her cla.s.sifying mind.

That "old-maidishness" was composed of three elements: a fine discrimination of values, an appreciation of little things as pivots for greater things, and a love of orderliness. To her the first law of heaven was her first law. Heaven never had a law till it had order; and when the stars found that there was to be something more than a fortuitous concourse of atoms in the universe, we know what they did: they sang. In any house there will be more singing when orderliness reigns there. But the household is a concourse of myriads of parts. We cannot always sing that the house "is so full of a number of things"

that we think we "should all be as happy as kings." It is only when we can keep good track of these things that we can be "as happy as kings."

This was a large part of the mission of the invaluable old maid in our early centuries.

There was a great deal of system in the housekeeping of our ancestors.

Bags, basket and bundles were trained into the service of good order.

They cross-st.i.tched numbers on the pillow-slips and on the sheets and on the rare napery they had spun and woven with their own capable hands and had bleached on their own soft gra.s.s-plots. They kept their "simples" in carefully protected and distinctly labeled sheaves. Their piece-bags were innumerable. They could go in the dark into the storeroom, put their hand in behind things, feel unerringly for what they needed, and find it there.

The burden upon the memory that this elaborate system of old must have entailed is now transferred to the card catalog. This invaluable modern device is a system for recording upon cards of a certain uniform size the items and lists and notes to be remembered and preserved, and of cla.s.sifying them carefully for ready reference. These cards are stood up in a closely packed row, in a box or drawer, or in a compartment made especially for the purpose, where they are arranged alphabetically or by subjects, in such a way as to be easily run over by the finger till the desired card is found. The cards must be made of stiff paper or card-board; they must be accurately cut to a required measure, usually five inches wide by three inches tall, and they must be fitted exactly into the box, with "guides" to aid in finding the main subjects. The "guide" is a card of a different color from the others, usually yellow, and has a little top extension, so that when the guide is put in its place in the row of white cards, this top extension will stand up above the others so as to catch the eye readily. On this little bit of the guide that stands up above the rest, a main heading is written very clearly in fine lettering,--or, better, printed neatly--and on all the cards that are selected to be slipped in behind that guide are written the notes or references on subjects that belong under that heading. For instance, suppose the main heading, written on a certain guide, should be this: "Recipes." Then each card that follows that guide would have written on its face the details of some recipe--one recipe to one card.

And all the cards on which the housekeeper had written the recipes she wished to preserve would be placed behind that guide. Then whenever she wished to use any one recipe, she would open her drawer, look along the tops of the cards until she found the guide extension--the little projecting piece that had the word "Recipes" on it. Behind that guide she would find all her recipes; then it would be but the work of an instant to pick out the one she wanted. On each separate card would be written in the upper right-hand corner, the name of the recipe on that card. If the housekeeper had a great many recipes, she might make more guides: one for cake recipes, one for bread, and so forth.

Then there would be still other main heads. One might be marked "Inventory." One might be called "Clothing." Records of music, of engagements, of books, and so forth might be set down. Any subject that needed to be kept track of could be thus securely noted in the card catalog.

Under the heading "Inventory" a most useful record might be made.

Subordinate headings on cards of some other color should be used. The first of these would be "Parlor." Behind that would be placed the cards that told all the articles of furniture or decoration that that important room contained. "Dining-room," "Kitchen," "Pantry," etc., would come along in order and all items considered worthy of note would be put on their proper cards. Then there would be other cards ent.i.tled "Linen-closet," "Side-board," "Old Bureau," "Old Chest," "Black Trunk,"

"Brown Trunk," "Old-fas.h.i.+oned Deep Basket," or other containers of clothing, silver, bedding, linen, utensils, or treasures of any kind. In case of fire, the card catalog, along with the locked doc.u.ment box or safe, would be one of the things to be sought for first and rescued from harm. In fact there should by rights be two copies of any household inventory made, so that in case the inventory in the house should chance to be burned with the house, there might still be a careful record preserved in some safe place for future reference, for purposes of insurance or for historic archives. Every one of us should think of the family as an inst.i.tution of dignity, one whose smallest doings have importance, because we belong to a great human family, and because we are bearing on the touch of life to future generations. We are now making history. And we should see to it that our link of the unending chain should not break for want of a sensible and accurate recorder.

This description of the card catalog is given with so much particularity because it has been proved by long experience that it is a very great saving of trouble to have it exactly right. The making of the cards is a matter of the nicest care. This exact.i.tude is essential to the quick movement of the fingers and is therefore a saving of time in hunting for the one card desired. The jelly may be almost ready to "jell," and one may run to the catalog of recipes to find what is the matter; one must not be impeded an instant at that critical point. Time is always precious, too, to the housekeeper, and the orderliness that makes it possible to find things quickly is one of the most important elements in the success of the new housekeeping.

Whatever part the daughter in the farm home may have in the business of the farm, she will find the card catalog of the utmost value to her in making herself useful and in placing her results on the basis of authority. In such a system of records she can always find what she wants on demand; the various accounts can be added to and taken from and corrected to date at any moment without recopying the whole. So the records of the daily egg-harvest can be kept, the in-come and out-go of any of the products of the farm, the weighing and testing of the milk, the mending and making of fences, the apple harvest, the dates for putting in crops, the dates of payments to the men and the number of their days' labor, and many other items that belong to the business of the farm. Of course when the farm business becomes very large and intricate, an elaborate system of bookkeeping is necessary. But for the myriads of little things that belong to the home side of the farmstead, this ingenious system is especially adapted. Here we may advantageously keep our records of such memoranda as specially concerns the family, the household accounts and receipts; inventions we may hear about and new devices in which we may be interested and that we may sometime want to find out about or make our own; contents of the tool chest, dates of repairs and memoranda of things that need to be repaired about the house; cans of fruit and other things stored away on the shelves and in the cupboards of the cellar and in the cold room and elsewhere--a valuable record to check up against another year's yield of these treasures; doctor's visits and prescriptions, notes of symptoms, together with dates and any circ.u.mstances that may need to be accurately remembered; music, victrola records; Christmas and birthday gifts given or received; dates of events, the coming and going of guests at the home; personal items such as the size of shoes, gloves, collars, hats, etc., for the different members of the family; books we should like to have; newspapers and magazines taken or desired; records of the magazine club or of the book loan club; correspondence, letters received and sent; patterns, clippings, quotations. For remembering all these things the card catalog will prove the unfailing helper; and all and many more will be the care of the Country Girl when she becomes administrator of a household in the new time.

A simple bookkeeping may also be recorded in the card catalog. The monthly or seasonal or annual statements of expenses may be recorded here, however, and may be kept for comparison with other seasons and years. These records may be placed under the following heads:

_Food_ (including meat, groceries, milk and eggs, green vegetables, and fruit, ice, and fuel for cooking).

_Shelter_ (including rent or purchase money, taxes, insurance, interest, repairs, fuel for heating, furnis.h.i.+ng).

_Clothing_.

_Education_ (including papers, books, school, lectures, concerts, art).

_Benevolence_ (including church and charity).

_Recreation_.

_Transportation_ (including expenses of travel).

_Health_ (including doctor's bills, and medicine).

_Savings_.

_Labor_.

_Sundries_.

This scheme is designed to be used for the budget of a family; but it is most important that every young girl, whether in city or country, and whether her purse be a long one or a short one, should know each year whether the demands upon her cash account are exceeding those of the year before, and that she should make up her mind whether there shall be any change in that regard during the year to come. This is a training that every girl should insist upon giving to herself constantly. If she finds herself called "oldmaidish" therefor, she will know that she cannot have earned the name, since there are no old maids any more! The same sort of person must now be called "efficiency administrator."

In suggesting this form of self-discipline to the Country Girl, we know very well that the girl that determines to keep accurate records of her expenses has a good fight before her. Women seem at present to have a preternatural disinclination toward keeping their own accounts, and nearly every girl inherits this bent. In canning clubs for women it is found that the members will do all the delicate measuring accurately; their sense of taste is unerring; their judgment of results is perfect; but they just will not render an account of their work!

That women are not by right of their s.e.x incapable of mathematical processes is shown by the fact that so large a number of women attain distinction in the higher fields of that study, becoming astronomers, computing eclipses and ranging the outer realms of the sky with great telescopes. The rather general dislike of women for the simpler forms of computing probably has grown up in the financially irresponsible state that has become a part of woman's very bone and marrow during late centuries. But it must not be so any longer. Too much depends upon orderliness in finances, for the Country Girl to neglect this means of becoming efficient in her life-work.

All of these card-catalog and other "devices" are a part of a great movement to put efficiency into every human industry. And this movement, again, is a part of the upward striving of mankind. The "industry" that is to be the life-work of the Country Girl must not be behind.

It is claimed that the average farmer puts more thought into his work than the average woman in a farm home puts into hers. This is partly because the seasons make less change in her work than they do in his.

But they do make a very great change in her work; and the difference between her work and his in this respect ought not to make the great difference that exists between the amount of foresight he shows in his planning and the dim irresolute bungling that is so often the characteristic of hers. We cannot say that we have an ideal unless we contrive a plan to express that ideal. Something luminous and startling may glow before our eyes and flatter our self-conceit with a hope that seems like a resolution. But without a definite plan, the glow soon vanishes and we are no better for having had it. In fact we are worse.

It is a real injury to our soul development to entertain an unfounded ideal and then allow it to fade away before we concentrate it into purpose; for we have deceived ourselves and we have weakened our will.

Now and then we read of some woman of olden time who thought out her plan for the next day after she went to bed at night. She was a prophecy of the present; or rather, of the time to come. Too much cannot be said to the young women of to-day about the necessity of foresight.

Foresight is the great bulwark of efficiency. Hurry, they say, is only poor planning; and we know what depredations hurry is making upon our fields of life. The Country Girl, if she wishes to help in the upbuilding of national character, must drive hurry from her field, and this she can do by efficient planning. She must now adopt the systematic spirit in order that when she has a farm home upon her hands she will be ready for the simplification that alone will make her work under the new complications endurable and easy. It will be necessary for her to reduce all to a definite scheme. She must then plan her work by seasons; she must plan it by days, and by hours in the day. She must make records of the time it takes for each part of the work, and she must think out a way to do it in less time. It will be well if she can arrange it so that different kinds of work will overlap, in order that one thing may be preparing while she is doing something else. And if she finds it a weight upon the mind to keep track of so many things at once, she must yield herself to this discipline, knowing that she is thus training her mind for better service and that she will be more fitted to use to good advantage the extra hours that she will thus gain. She will come to the new cultural duty of the hour she has thus wrung from the working period with increased joy and with new powers gained by the strenuousness of the hour's work that went before.

The administration of a house is to call for a higher training in mechanics. Education is giving much more of this now than formerly and will answer the demand for still more. The girls of the country, where this education is needed far more even than in the city, must be prepared to answer this need.

We cannot be expert in the new housekeeping unless we have some comprehension of the chemical processes that constantly go on under our hands. One young woman took for her master's degree a study of the bacterial flora found in spoiled canned peas and string beans. She found that there are some organisms that only grow all the better after they have been boiled one hour. She found that the strongest acids do not inhibit the growth of some other kinds. She has been a good year working on that theme. If she should include one or two other kinds of spoiled foods her work would extend over another year.

How many kinds of bacterial life are there? How many fruits, vegetables, foods of all sorts, are made the home of these various kinds? What processes will protect each kind from becoming harmful to human life?

How many hours will it take to show that certain processes will render each variety a safe food? How many young students must give years to the business of finding out what we may use and what we may not? How long will it take us to realize that the detail of preparing the food for the table is a great scientific study, one deserving our highest expertness, meriting our highest honors, to those who work in the laboratory of the university and to those who labor in the laboratory of the house? Every young woman should consider herself a licensed observer; she should watch every process to see what she may learn of nature's secrets, that she may compare it with what she has read and thus make additions to the sum of knowledge that may be beneficial to all.

It is not alone because foods have as close a connection with our well-being that we should study them. They have in themselves an extraordinary fascination. The daily and hourly companion of the worker in the household should be the magnifying-gla.s.s. The dissecting microscope is a form of magnifier that is especially adapted for household use and should be within the reach of every one. To get into the habit of putting all foods to the test of this infallible little instrument gives one a great feeling of safety and comfort. Every bag of oatmeal should be examined, all cereals, especially cornmeal, all products that have been kept in any storehouse, should be thus tested.

If all the women of the country would use the magnifying-gla.s.s on everything that comes into the house, and promptly reject what is not perfectly clean, the level of good health and long life would rise suddenly by perceptible degrees among our people.

If the prospective household administrator cries out that she cannot be bothered with such little things as these, she will be one of those that will be left behind. Those that can be bothered are the people that are to win. The value of the little thing, when it is the pivot for greater things, is one of the discoveries of modern science; and, strangely enough, there is no little thing that is not a pivot for greater things.

Our part is to train ourselves to realize this. In the household of the future there will be nothing that the microscope can reveal or the card catalog record that will not be of importance to the success of the whole.

It would be amusing--if it were not so tragic!--to see the utter serenity with which some of the older women will say, "But I have no scientific turn of mind, I do not care for the microscope!" It is as if they said: "But I prefer to murder the members of my family; I do not care to give them the key that will let them out of imprisonment where they have been carelessly but dolorously confined; I have no predilection for das.h.i.+ng away the poison from their lips when unwillingly they are about to drink it!" To such a woman either the word "duty" has no meaning or else she is lacking in instruction as to what duty is. But the coming Country Girl will avoid the mistakes of the past; she will do everything in her power to gain the training that is necessary for her to meet successfully and inspiringly the duties and privileges of the new era.

CHAPTER XV

HEALTH AND A DAY

No one can be the highest type of philosopher unless in exuberant health.

_Epictetus._

CHAPTER XV

HEALTH AND A DAY

"Give me health and a day and I will make ridiculous the pomp of emperors!" cried Emerson.

The ultimate use of health is to make us happy, and the deepest hurt of sickness is that it destroys our power of enjoyment. Moreover, since our happiness when we are at our human best, consists in adding to the welfare and happiness of others, our highest in life is sadly crippled when we allow disease to get the better of us. If we desire to be happy, we should, as the Camp Fire Girls' law says, "hold on to health" and with a tight grip.

It used to be thought that health was a gift of heaven bestowed on certain of its favorites. You had it or you did not have it: that was all there was about it. By pious behavior and prayer perhaps we might gain this benefit from the partial hand of heaven--perhaps not! And if you did anything to help yourself directly to a larger portion of vigor, ate heartily, or took an invigorating walk, you were in danger of indulging a selfish spirit that should be curbed.