Another Study on Household Equipment. 521 



Hoiv it is done 



Isabel C. Barrows 



Two pictures are in my mind. One is a great Canadian kitchen, 

 with a wood stove whose fathomless maw was never satisfied and whose 

 oven turned out bread black with the raging fires before it was fully 

 baked through. The floor space of the kitchen took an hour or two to 

 scrub ; every time a meal was prepared the tired farmer's wife had to 

 walk about a mile between cupboard and table, sink room, or spring 

 house, and stove. That is no exaggeration ; it was actual measurement. 

 She would have thought it impossible to spend as much time in walking 

 through the beautiful maple grove. 



The product of the kitchen, so far as cooking was concerned, was 

 fried pork for breakfast, griddle cakes fried in lard, doughnuts fried in 

 deep fat, hot coffee and boiled potatoes. For dinner, pork, or in the fall 

 beef, and at certain other seasons veal or lamb ; chicken on Sunday, boiled 

 potatoes, turnips, cabbage, pie, green tea and white bread. For supper 

 hot biscuit, cheese, tea, cookies, cake, jelly and a dish of cold beans for 

 " the hired man." That meant hours of cooking, miles of walking, heaps 

 of dishes to wash, a big pile of wood to burn, and several pails of water 

 ■from the spring, some rods away. There were half a dozen in the 

 family, all dyspeptics and the poor wife was always tired. 



The other picture is of an old-fashioned farm house which had a 

 large storeroom opening off from the kitchen. Shelves were on two 

 sides, a door on one and a window on the fourth. An up-to-date man 

 took the old farm. A spring up on the hill was piped and the water 

 brought into this storeroom. A good blue-flame kerosene stove was placed 

 beside it on a zinc-covered table. A small portable oven was hung above 

 it, which could be lowered over the stove when it was needed for bak- 

 ing. Supplies of all kinds for cookmg were placed on the shelves, with 

 cooking and serving dishes. The housewife could stand in one spot in 

 that little room and do everv bit of her cooking without taking one step. 

 A stool, which when not in use was slipped under the table, was used for 

 all work that she could do sitting down. 



The food included no meat, but it was amply nutritious. For 

 breakfast she had only to open a box and take out the chief dish ready 

 for the table, for the preparation was begun the night before. The box 

 was an old chest that had been about a hundred years in the family, 

 strong and close. Inside it was a wash-boiler about which was a close 

 packing of straw, hay and sawdust, so that it was solidly firm with this 

 five-inch wall of packing. A pad of several inches thickness was nailed 

 to the under side of the cover so that when the chest was shut, the cover 



