The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1876-08-19
Hints to Girls Concerning House
EeeDin0.

every one of you probably some little indepen-
dence Of money, or some possibility OF economic
f ing it. Buy your own utensils; setuP your own
establishment, if only by slow degrees. You
will know the good of it then and you will be
setting up your character at the same time
There will be no sudden violent resolution and
undertaking, which drafts aid and encourage
ment from everybody about you, getting up
prospective virtue by subscription, and up set
ting half the current order of the household
for an uncertain experiment Be in earnest
enough to make your own way, and before you
or any body else thinks about it, you will have
become a recognized force in the domestic com
munity you will have risen into your altitude
without assumption, just as you are growing,
by invisible hair -breadths, into your womanly
stature.
Then, some day, you may say to your moth
er, "Let me have charge of the china-closet
and pantry, please;" and you may enter upon
new realm, having fairly conquered your own
queendom. And l can tell you this new one
will be pretty and pleasant realm to queen
in, an epitome of the whole housework prac-
ticed in dainty, easy little ways. Shelves to be
kept nice, wiped down with a soft wet cloth
wrung from the suds that cups and silver have
come out bright from; cups and silver, plates
and dishes, to be ranged in prettest lines and
piles and groups on the fresh shelves; cup
boards to be regulated with light daily touches
and requirements; yesterdays cake and cake
basket, fruit or Jelly, custards or blanc-mange,
to be overlooked and newly dished for the next
table setting the nice remnant of morning
cream to be transferred to a fresh jug and put
| in cool clean corner; to days parcels, per-
haps to be bestowed and the doors closed with
a feeling of plenty and comfort that only the
thrifty, delicate housewife-who knows and
utilizes the resources that are but uncomforta-
BILE odds and ends to the disorderly, needless,
procrastnating one-ever has the pleasure of.
All this is, costly in miniature to the larger
care of kitchen and larder, what the little girls
baby house has been Gf she began like true
woman child, to "spin and weave" for her
womanly vocation) to the "house of her own"
that she -you--began to talk of then, and that
you are earning right to now. And pretty
soon this daily care,-this daily pleasure
will have become facile thing, thing easily
slipped into the days programme, and never
to be mountain or bugbear any more, either
to do or to teach; because you "know every
twist and turn of it," and it is not process of
conscious detail, but simple whole that you
dispose of with single thought and its quick
mechanical execution.
| In like manner, again, you can take up cook
| ing. You can learn to make bread, until the
| fifteen minutes labor that it will be for you to
toss up the dough for to-morrow's baking, will
not seem to you terrible inaiction, when it
happens that you may have it to do, any more
than the mending of pair of gloves for to-
morrow's wearing; simply because It will be
an old accustomed thing that you know the
beginning and the end of-not vague, un-
tried toll looming in indefinite proportions,
that are always the awful ones.
HOW GIRLS CAN LEARN TO BE HoUsEKEEPsRs.
Begin with your own things and your own
place. That is what your mother will tell you
| if you rush to her, enthusiastic with great in
| tentions, and offer to relieve her of half her
housekeeping. Don't draw that little bucket
of cold water to have it poured back upon your
|
relieve your closetpegs of their accumulation
of garments out of use a month or two ago.
Institute clear and cheerful order, in the
midst of which you can daily move; and learn
| to keep it. Use yourself to the beautiful which
is the rght,-dsposing of things as you ham
| die them so that it will be part of your toll
ct to dress your room and its arrangements
| y tba Jro,
ries you take off as lightly and artistically
hung, or as delicately folded and placed, as the
skirts you loop carefully to wear, or the ribbon
and lace you put with soft neatness about
your throat. Cherish your instincts of taste
and fitness in every little thing that you have
about you. Let it grow impossible to you to
| put down so much pin box where it will
disturb the orderly and pleasant grouping up
on your dressing table; or to stick your pins
| in your cushion, even at all sorts of tipsy and
uncomfortable inclnations. This will not
make you "fussy"-it is the other thing that
does that the not knowing, except by fdgety
experiment, what is harmony and the intangi-
BILE grace of relation. Once get your knowl-
edge beyond study, and turn it into TACT
which is literally having it at your fingers
ends, as I told you,-and order will breathe
about you, and grace evolve from commonest
things, and uses and belongings, wherever you
may be; and quitting things to rights" will
not be separate task-work and trouble, any
more than it is in the working of the solar sys-
tenn. 1t will go on all the time, and with con-
tnual pleasure.
Take upon yourself gradually,-for the sake
of getting them in hand in like manner, if for
no other need, all cares that belong to your own
small territory of home. Get together things for
usein these cares. Have your little wash cloths
and your sponges for bits of cleaning your
furniture brush and your fathers duster, and
your light little broom and your whisk and
pan; your bottle Of sweet oil and spirits of tur-
pentine, and piece of flannel, to preserve the
polish, or restore the gloss, where dark wood
grows dim gets spotted. Find out, by fol-
lowing your surely growing sense of thorough
ness and niceness, the best and readiest ways
of keeping all fresh about you. Invent your
own processes they will come to you. 1 shall
not lay down rules or system for you. When
you have made yourself wholly mistress of
what you can learn and do in your own apart
ment, so that it is easier and more natural for
you to do it than to let it alone,-so that you
don't count the time it takes any more than that
which you have to give to your own bathing
and hair-dressing,-then you have learned
enough to keep whole house, sor far as its
cleanly ordering is concerned.-lMrs. A. D. r.
Whitney, ST. Nicholas, august.
N3~A traveller on horseback was jogging the
road in the wire grass region of Georgia, when
his attention was attracted by small tallow-
faced urchin who was plowing patch of corn
near the roadside, the patch being in every re-
spect in full keeping with the general sur
roundings. The traveller accosted the boy,
when the following conversation ensued
"Hello, my son, your corn seems to be small p
''Yes, sir, we planted small corn"
"Ah But what makes it look so yellow z"