Marion Harland's Complete Cook Book: A Practical and Exhaustive Manual of Cookery and Housekeeping

the range like an impervious screen. Sliding doors in the center allow one to look into pots and kettles simmering behind it, when oversight is advisable. If left closed, it will lower the temperature of the kitchen twenty degrees within two hours. It cost twenty dollars when new, twelve years ago. If I could not get another, twelve hundred dollars would not buy it. I long ago discarded the old-fashioned tin and iron cooking utensils in favor of agate-nickel-steel ware, which is as easily washed as crockery bowls and plates; is light and neat in appearance; never rusts, and is altogether satisfactory. All of my kettles have covers, and we use covered roasters—another boon to housewives—for cooking meats. They keep in flavor and juices, and lessen the labor of basting. Always have a rocking-chair convenient into which the cook can drop for rest between the times of active duty, and one apiece for maids in the laundry. For yourself, follow the rule I laid down imperatively a quarter-century ago in COMMON SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD—“Never stand at your work when you can sit.” A chair suited in height to the mixing table will save you many an ache in the feet, back and head. Do not allow servants to jumble their table crockery, etc., up with pots, saucepans, kettles, colanders and the like. There is no reason why the dresser or closet in which the kitchen tableware is kept should not be as daintily arranged as the dining-room buffet. It should hold no commerce with the pot closet. The servants’ chambers must be furnished with iron bedsteads, good mattresses, plenty of clean blankets and white spreads. The “honeycomb” spreads are absurdly cheap and easily washed. The rest of the appointments of the dormitories need not be elaborate. If they are neat and comfortable the occupants are more likely to try and make them attractive. When one pins up a crucifix over her bed, her mother’s or sister’s photograph against the wall, or even a colored lithograph of a patent medicine—notice it pleasantly. It means that she is catching the home