The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking: Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes

rom the beginning it must be understood that what is written here applies

chiefly to country homes. The general principles laid down are applicable

with equal force to town or city life; but as a people we dwell mostly in the

country, and, even in villages or small towns, each house is likely to have its

own portion of land about it, and to look toward all points of the compass,

instead of being limited to two, as in city blocks. Of the comparative advan-

tages or disadvantages of city or country life, there is no need to speak here.

Our business is simply to give such details as may apply to both, but chiefly

to the owners of moderate incomes, or salaried people, whose expenditure

must always be somewhat limited. With the exterior of such homes, women

at present have very little to do; and the interior also is thus far much in the

hands of architects, who decide for general prettiness of effect, rather than

for the most convenient arrangement of space. The young bride, planning

a home, is resolved upon a bay-window, as large a parlor as possible, and an

effective spare-room; but, having in most cases no personal knowledge of

work, does not consider whether kitchen and dining-room are conveniently

planned, or not, and whether the arrangement of pantries and closets is such

3 HELEN CAMPBELL

that both rooms must be crossed a hundred times a day, when a little fore-

sight might have reduced the number certainly by one-half, perhaps more.

Inconvenience can, in most cases, be remedied; but unhealthfulness or un-

wholesomeness of location, very seldom: and therefore, in the beginning, I

write that ignorance is small excuse for error, and that every one able to read

at all, or use common-sense about any detail of life, is able to form a judg-

ment of what is healthful or unhealthful. If no books are at hand, consult

the best physician near, and have his verdict as to the character of the spot

in which more or less of your life in this world will be spent, and which has

the power to affect not only your mental and bodily health, but that of your

children. Because your fathers and mothers have been neglectful of these

considerations, is no reason why you should continue in ignorance; and the

first duty in making a home is to consider earnestly and intelligently certain

points.

Four essentials are to be thought of in the choice of any home; and their ne-

glect, and the ignorance which is the foundation of this neglect, are the secret

of not only the chronic ill-health supposed to be a necessity of the American

organization, but of many of the epidemics and mysterious diseases classed

under the head of "visitations of Providence."

These essentials are: awholesome situation, good ventilation, good drainage,

and a dry cellar. Rich or poor, high or low, if one of these be disregarded, the

result will tell, either on your own health or on that of your family. Whether

palace or hut, brown-stone front or simple wooden cottage, the law is the

same. As a rule, the ordinary town or village is built upon low land,