Part 34

A good Irish nurse is the best and most tender, the most to be relied on. Children love Irish servants; it is the best recommendation we can give them. They are not good cooks as a rule, and are wanting in head, management, and neatness; but they are willing; and a wise mistress can make of them almost anything she desires.

The Germans surpass them very much in thrift and in concentration, but the Germans are stolid, and very far from being as gentle and willing as the Irish. If a housekeeper gets a number of German servants in training and thinks them perfect, she need not be astonished if some fine morning she rises and finds them gone off to parts unknown.

The Swedes are more reliable up to a certain point; they are never stupid, they are rather fantastic, and very eccentric. They are also full of poetry, and indulge in sublime longings. The Swedish language is made up of eloquence and poetry as soft as the Italian; it has also something of the flow and the magnificence of the Spanish. It is freighted with picturesque and brilliant metaphor, and is richer than ours in its expressions of gentleness, politeness, and courtesy. They have a great talent for arguing with gentleness and courtesy, and of protesting with politeness, and they learn our language with singular ease. I once had a Swedish maid who argued me out of my desire to have the dining-room swept, in better language than I could use myself. One must, in hiring servants, take into account all these national characteristics. The Swedes are full of talent, they can do your work if they wish to, but ten chances to one they do not wish to.

Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XII. were two types of Swedish character. The Swedes of to-day, like them, are full of dignity and lofty aspiration; they love brilliant display; they have audacious and adventurous spirits; one can imagine them marching to victory; but all this makes them, in this country, "too smart" to be servants.

They are excellent cooks. A Swedish woman formerly came to my house to cook for dinner parties, and she was equal to any French chef. Her price was five dollars; she would do all my marketing for me, and serve the dinner most perfectly,--that is, render it up to the men waiters. I rarely had any fault to find; if I had, it was I who was in the wrong. She came often to instruct my Irish cook; but had I attempted any further intercourse, I felt that it would have been I who would have had to leave the house, and not my excellent cook. They have every qualification for service excepting this: they will not obey,--they are captains.

The Norwegians are very different. We must again remember that at home they are poor, frugal, religious, and capable of all sacrifice; they will work patiently here for seven years in order to go back to Norway, to that poetical land, whose beauty is so unspeakable. These girls who come from the herds, who have spent the summer on the plains in a small hut and alone, making butter and cheese, are strong, patient, handsome, fresh creatures, with voices as sweet as lutes, and most obedient and good,--their thoughts ever of father and mother and home. Would there were more of them. If they were a little less awkward in an American house they would be perfect.

As for the men, they are the best farm-laborers in the world. They have a high, noble, patient courage, a very slow mind, and are fond of argument. The Norwegian is the Scotchman of Scandinavia, as the Swede is the Irishman. There are no better adopted citizens than the Norwegians, but they live here only to go back to Norway when they have made enough. Deeply religious, they are neither narrow nor ignoble. They would be perfect servants if well trained.

The Danes are not so simple; they are a mercantile people, and are desperately fond of bargaining. They are also, however, most interesting. Their taste for art is vastly more developed than that of either the Swedes or the Norwegians. A Danish parlour-maid will arrange the bric-à-brac and stand and look at it. To go higher in their home history, they are making great painters. As servants they are hardly known enough amongst us to be criticised; those I have seen have been neat, faithful, and far more obedient than their cleverer Swedish sisters.

Could I have my choice for servants about a country house they should be Norwegians, in a city house, French.

In Chicago, the ladies speak highly of the German servants, if they do not happen to be Nihilists, which is a dreadful possibility. At the South they still have the negro, most excellent when good, most objectionable when bad. Certainly freedom has not improved him as to manners, and a coloured coachman in Washington can be far more disagreeable than an Irishman, or a French cabby during the Exposition, which is saying a great deal.

The excellence, the superiority, the respectful manners of English servants at home has induced many ladies to bring over parlour maids, nurses, cooks, from England, with, however, but small success. I need but copy the following from the "London Queen," to show how different is the way of speaking of a servant, and to a servant in London from that which obtains in New York. It is verbatim:--

"The servants should rise at six-thirty, and the cook a little earlier; she then lights the kitchen fire, opens the house, sweeps the hall, cleans the steps, prepares upstairs and downstairs breakfast. Meantime the house parlourmaid does the dining-room, takes up hot water to bedrooms, lays the table, and so forth, while the housemaid dusts the day nursery and takes up the children's breakfast. Supposing the family breakfast is not wanted before eight-thirty, that meal should be taken, in both kitchen and nursery, before eight o'clock. As soon as this is over the cook must tidy her kitchen, look over her stores, contents of pantry, etc., and be ready by nine-thirty to take her orders for the day. She will answer the kitchen bell at all times, and perhaps the front door in the morning, and will be answerable besides for ordinary kitchen work, for the hall, kitchen stairs, all the basement, and according to arrangement possibly the dining-room. She must have fixed days for doing the above work, cleaning tins, etc. The cook also clears away the breakfast. As soon as the housemaid has taken up the family breakfast, she, the housemaid, must begin the bedrooms, where the second scullery-maid may help her as soon as she has done helping the cook. The house parlour-maid will be responsible for the drawing-room and sitting-room and all the bedrooms, also stairs and landing, having regular days for cleaning out one of each weekly, being helped by the second scullery-maid. She should be dressed in time for lunch, wait on it, and clear away. She will answer the front door in the afternoon, take up five o'clock tea, lay the table and wait at dinner. The scullery maid must clear the kitchen meals and help in all the washing up, take up nursery tea, help the cook prepare late dinner, carry up the dishes for late dinner, clear and wash up kitchen supper. The nurse has her dinner in the kitchen. Servants' meals should be breakfast, before the family, dinner directly after upstairs lunch, tea at five, supper at nine. They should go to bed regularly at ten o'clock. Now as to their fare. For breakfast a little bacon or an egg, or some smoked fish; for dinner, meat, vegetables, potatoes, and pudding. If a joint has been sent up for lunch, it is usual for it to go down to the servants' table.

"Allow one pint and a half of beer to each servant who asks for it, or one bottle. Tea, butter, and sugar are given out to them. The weekly bills for the servants shall be about two dollars and a half."

The neatness of all this careful housekeeping would be delightful if it could be carried out with us, or if the servant would accept it. But imagine a New York mistress achieving it! The independent voter would revolt, his wife would never accept it. English servants lose all their good manners when they come over here, and do not appear at all as they do in London.

American servants are always expected to eat what goes down from the master's table, and there is no such thing as making one servant wait upon another in our free and independent country. There are households in America where many servants are kept in order by a very clever mistress, but it is rarely an order which lasts for long. It is a vexed question, and the freedom with which we take a servant, without knowing much of her character, must explain a great deal of it. Foreign servants find out soon their legal rights, and their importance. Here where labour is scarce, it is not so easy to get a good footman, parlour maid, or cook; the great variety and antipathy of race comes in. The Irishman will not work on a railroad with the Italian, and we all know the history of the "Heathen Chinee." That is repeated in every household.

Mr. Winans, in Scotland, hires a place which reaches from the North Sea to the Atlantic; he spends two hundred thousand dollars a year on it. He has perhaps three hundred servants, every one of them perfect. Imagine his having such a place here! How many good servants could he find; how long would they stay? How long does a French chef, at ten thousand dollars a year, stay? Only one year. He prefers to return to France.

Indeed, French servants, poorly paid and very poorly fed at home, are the hardest to keep in this country; they all wish to go back. It is a curious fact that they grow impertinent and do not seem to enjoy the life. They go back to Europe, and resume their good manners as if nothing had happened. It must be in the air.

It is, however, possible for a lady to get good servants and to keep them for a while, if she has great executive ability and a natural leadership; but the whole question is one which has not yet been at all mastered.

There is no "hook and eye" between the ship loaded down with those who want work and those who want work done. The great lack of respect in the manners of servants in hotels is especially noticeable to one returning from Europe. A woman, a sort of care-taker on a third-story floor, will sing while a lady is talking to her, not because she wishes to sing at all, but to establish her independence. In Europe she would say, "Yes, my Lady," or "No, my Lady" when spoken to.

It is to be feared that the Declaration of Independence is between us and good service. We must be content if we find one or two amiable Irish, or old negroes, who will serve us because of the love they bear us, and for our children's sake, whom they love as if they were their very own.

This is, however, but taking the seamy side, and the humbler side. Many opulent people in America employ thirty servants, and their house goes on with much of European elegance. It is not unusual in a fine New York house to find a butler and four men in the dining-room; a chef and his assistants in the kitchen; a head groom and his men in the stables; a coachman, who is a very important functionary; and three women in the nursery besides the nursery governess, who acts as the amanuensis of the lady; the lady's maid, whose sole duty is to wait on her lady, and perhaps her young lady; a parlour maid or two; and two chambermaids, a laundress and her assistants.

Of course the men in such a vast establishment do not sleep in the house, perhaps with one or two exceptions; the valet and the head footman may be kept at home, as they may be needed in the night, for errands, etc. But our American houses are not built to accommodate so many. One lady, the head of such an establishment, said that she had "never seen her laundress." A different staircase led to the servants' room; her maid did all the interviewing with this important personage.

If a lady can find a competent housekeeper to direct this large household, it is all very well, but that is yet almost impossible, and the life of a fashionable woman in New York, who is the head of such a house, is apt to be slavery. The housekeeper and the butler are seldom friends, therefore the hostess has to reconcile these two conflicting powers before she can give a dinner; the head footman walks off disgusted and leaves a vacant place, etc.

The households of men of foreign birth, who understand dealing with different nationalities, are apt to get on very well with thirty servants; doubtless such men import their own servants.

In a household where one man alone is kept, he is expected to open the front door and to do all the work of the dining-room, and must have an assistant in the pantry. The cook, if a woman, generally demands and needs one; if a man, he demands two, for a chef will not do any of the menial work of cookery. He is a pampered official.

In England, the housekeeper engages the servants and supervises them. She has charge of the stores and the house linen, and in general is responsible for the economical and exact management of all household details, and for the comfort of guests and the family. She is expected to see that her employers are not cheated, and this in our country makes her unpopular. A bad housekeeper is worse than none, as of course her powers of stealing are endless.

The butler is responsible for the silver and wine. He must be absolute over the footman. It is he who directs the carving and passing of dishes, and then stands behind the chair of his mistress. All the men-servants must be clean shaven; none are permitted to wear a mustache, that being the privilege of the gentlemen.

A lady's maid is not expected to do her own washing, or make her own bed in Europe; but in this country, being required to do all that, and to eat with the other servants, she is apt to complain. A French maid always complains of the table. She must dress hair, understand dress-making, and clear starching, be a good packer, and always at hand to dress her lady and to sit up for her when she returns from parties. Her wages are very high and she is apt to become a tyrant.