The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking | Page 7

stove or range, and working-space for all
operations in cooking, be close at hand. The difference between a
pantry at the opposite end of the room, and one opening close to the
sink, for instance, may seem a small matter; but when it comes to
walking across the room with every dish that is washed, the steps soon
count up as miles, and in making even a loaf of bread, the time and
strength expended in gathering materials together would go far toward
the thorough kneading, which, when added to the previous exertion,
makes the whole operation, which might have been only a pleasure, a
burden and an annoyance.
Let, then, stove, fuel, water, work-table, and pantries be at the same end
of the kitchen, and within a few steps of one another, and it will be
found that while the general labor of each day must always be the same,
the time required for its accomplishment will be far less, under these
favorable conditions. The successful workman,--the type-setter, the
cabinet-maker, or carpenter,--whose art lies in the rapid combination of
materials, arranges his materials and tools so as to be used with the
fewest possible movements; and the difference between a skilled and
unskilled workman is not so much the rate of speed in movement, as in
the ability to make each motion tell. The kitchen is the housekeeper's
workshop; and, in the chapter on House-work, some further details as
to methods and arrangements will be given.
CHAPTER II.
THE HOUSE: VENTILATION.
Having settled the four requisites in any home, and suggested the points
to be made in regard to the first one,--that of wholesome


situation,--Ventilation is next in order. Theoretically, each one of us
who has studied either natural philosophy or physiology will state at
once, with more or less glibness, the facts as to the atmosphere, its
qualities, and the amount of air needed by each individual; practically
nullifying such statement by going to bed in a room with closed
windows and doors, or sitting calmly in church or public hall, breathing
over and over again the air ejected from the lungs all about,--practice as
cleanly and wholesome as partaking of food chewed over and over by
an indiscriminate crowd.
Now, as to find the Reason Why of all statements and operations is our
first consideration, the familiar ground must be traversed again, and the
properties and constituents of air find place here. It is an old story, and,
like other old stories accepted by the multitude, has become almost of
no effect; passive acceptance mentally, absolute rejection physically,
seeming to be the portion of much of the gospel of health. "Cleanliness
is next to godliness," is almost an axiom. I am disposed to amend it,
and assert that cleanliness is godliness, or a form of godliness. At any
rate, the man or woman who demands cleanliness without and within,
this cleanliness meaning pure air, pure water, pure food, must of
necessity have a stronger body and therefore a clearer mind (both being
nearer what God meant for body and mind) than the one who has cared
little for law, and so lived oblivious to the consequences of breaking it.
Ventilation, seemingly the simplest and easiest of things to be
accomplished, has thus far apparently defied architects and engineers.
Congress has spent a million in trying to give fresh air to the Senate
and Representative Chambers, and will probably spend another before
that is accomplished. In capitols, churches, and public halls of every
sort, the same story holds. Women faint, men in courts of justice fall in
apoplectic fits, or become victims of new and mysterious diseases,
simply from the want of pure air. A constant slow murder goes on in
nurseries and schoolrooms; and white-faced, nerveless children grow
into white-faced and nerveless men and women, as the price of this
violated law.
What is this air, seemingly so hard to secure, so hard to hold as part of

our daily life, without which we can not live, and which we yet
contentedly poison nine times out of ten?
Oxygen, nitrogen, carbonic acid, and watery vapor; the last two being a
small portion of the bulk, oxygen and nitrogen making up four-fifths.
Small as the proportion of oxygen seems, an increase of but one-fifth
more would be destruction. It is the life-giver, but undiluted would be
the life-destroyer; and the three-fifths of nitrogen act as its diluent. No
other element possesses the same power. Fires and light-giving
combustion could not exist an instant without oxygen. Its office seems
that of universal destruction. By its action decay begins in meat or
vegetables and fruits; and it is for this reason, that, to preserve them, all
oxygen must be driven out by bringing them to the boiling point, and
sealing them up