Days Out

I HAD followed up her advertisement, and she stood before me in the dim hallway to which she had given me entrance. As she fingered the front doorknob she told me her qualities. ‘Yes, mum,’ she concluded, ‘ I does my work, mum. I don’t never have company, and I don’t never want days out.’

I protested. ‘ I always give my cook one day a week, afternoon and evening.’

‘Yes, mum, I know. But when I gets my work done, I likes to set right down in the kitchen. I don’t want to go nowhere. If there’s somethin’ I need, — a spool o’ cotton, or some stockin’s,—why, I most gen’ally tells the lady, two-three days ahead, and then I runs out of a Saturday evenin’, mebbe, fer an hour or two.’

‘And Sundays?’ I asked faintly, — ‘ I let my cook and waitress both go out on Sunday afternoon.'

‘No, I don’t never go out on Sundays at all. Ye’ see, I likes to do my work, and when I gets through I likes to rest. That’s the kind I am.’

I sighed. Undoubtedly hers was a good kind, but undoubtedly I did n’t want her. I had had one experience of that kind. She stayed with me two years, and in all that time was never away over a meal-hour. She was as good a creature as ever lived, but when she left, I said to myself, ‘Henceforth I shall insist on days out.’

The fact is, I have an unconquerable love for my own kitchen and pantries. When I was a child they were to me realms of bliss, where I was often tolerated, often even welcomed. They still seem this to me, and — not to be tolerated at all — it is too much!

Perhaps that is an exaggeration. My cooks have usually tolerated me. They have even been polite to me. When I slink half-apologetically into the kitchen, to have a finger, so to speak, in the pie, they bring me dishes, and materials, and clear tables for me, and try to make believe I am not in the way — at least the nice ones do. But they watch me furtively. If they are self-righteous, their attitude is slightly critical, if they are self-distrustful, it is apprehensive: — what am I going to find out about their pantry? And as I am idiotically sensitive to my cook’s attitude, I am conscious of this, and it spoils the fun. I slip out of my kitchen — their kitchen — and hie me to other parts of the house, that seem more truly mine.

But, on the days out, —ah, those delicious days out! For the cook’s outings are my innings. She is happy, too. How she works! The luncheon dishes are whisked out of the way, the kitchen is ‘red up,’ and she flies to her room to dress. I slip out, glance up the backstairs, go to the range and poke the fire, change the draughts, shift the kettle a little, then hastily retreat to the parlor, and play the piano, with the soft pedal down, until I hear the back door shut. Then! No more piano for me! I can play the piano any time.

I walk swiftly and boldly out into the kitchen — my kitchen — MY kitchen. I perch on a table and swing my feet, in a glory of possession. What shall I make? I go over to the range again. Good fire, — good oven. I can make anything, anything! A feeling of power comes over me. I go to the pantry and scan its contents. I am always careful to have it well stocked on these days, that my creative impulses, no matter how freakish, may suffer no thwarting by reason of a lack of materials. I pick up the cook-book and resume my perch. I am in no special hurry. It is not yet four, and one can do almost anything between four and half-past six.

The telephone rings. I go, with my thumb in the cooky recipes. I lay the book open on the table beside me, and my eye runs down the page as I take down the receiver.

‘Yes? Yes, this is Mrs. 舒 Oh,

Mrs. Grundy, good afternoon. — What? Another bridge? Are n’t you a gay lady! — Oh, I’m so sorry. I don’t play well, of course you know, but I suppose I would come to fill up, only you see I can’t. It’s my cook’s day out. (I’m so glad I ordered molasses this morning!) — No, I can’t change, she’s gone already. (Would sugar-cookies be better, I wonder.) — Yes, of course, it is inconvenient sometimes, but they do want their days out, don’t they? — Thank you, I’m sorry too. I hope you’ll find somebody, I’m sure you will. — Yes, good-bye.’ I hang up the receiver with a sigh of relief. —Yes, I think, — ginger cookies. Hester and Tom will be in soon,—and they’re so good when they ’re just out of the oven.

I go back, get into my big apron, give another look to my fire and my oven, and plunge in. There arises a delicious odor of spices and molasses and butter — an aroma of cooking, in short.

The front door opens and shuts, there is a stampede of feet up and downstairs. Then the kitchen door bursts open. ‘Oh, GOOD! It’s Sarah’s day out! Hester! Come on. It’s Sarah’s day out! ’

Hester arrives. ‘May we make the toast?’ ‘May I set the table?’ ‘What do I smell?’ ‘May I stir?’ ‘May we scrape the bowl ? ’ ‘ May we make griddle-cakes? ”

It is like a frog-chorus in spring.

Perhaps I try to be severe.

‘Griddle-cakes? Nonsense! Who ever heard of griddle-cakes at night? Ginger cookies are queer enough. Besides, they don’t go well together.’

‘No matter! Who cares! We always do nice, queer things when Sarah is out. And we can eat up all the cookies as soon as they’re done, and then they won’t interfere with the cakes.’

It makes really very little difference how it turns out, what things finally get cooked. The important thing is, that the cooking goes merrily on, and joy reigns.

It is, I maintain, a joy to rejoice in. I am heartily sorry for people who never do their own cooking. Cooking is an art, not only creative but social. It takes the raw materials and converts them into a product that is every way pleasing, and that brings the people who enjoy it into social harmony. The immediate products do not abide: the better they are, the more quickly they vanish; but they leave behind something spiritual and permanent. A busy mother, who was a wonderful cook, once said to me, ‘Sometimes it hardly seems worth while to cook things when they go so fast; but then, I think, after all they leave behind them a memory of a jolly home-table that does last, so perhaps it pays.’

I am sure she was right. The memory of that home-table has lasted forty years and more, and does not yet seem to be fading.

There are other things to remember about that home, there are other things that are worth while in any home, but I think that in our modern conditions we lose too much of the pleasure that comes through doing practical things together. Almost all the physical work of our daily lives is delegated. Life is being systematized on that basis, and though there are great gains, there are also losses. The change is deeply affecting the character and quality of our hospitality. This is a big subject, and I am not going to be drawn into it too deeply. All I want to say is, that I believe we are letting ourselves be so involved in the machinery of our hospitality that we are cheated of some of its pleasures. We have submitted to certain conventions of ‘entertaining,’ and if we cannot satisfy these, we do not ‘entertain.’ What a pity! And yet, while I say this, I am aware that I too am enslaved. There are many people whom I have not the courage to invite to my house — except on my cook’s day out. Then I am emancipated. There is no one whom I dare not invite, if I want her, when I am my own cook. Mrs. Grundy herself may come and welcome. And I believe Mrs. Grundy would have a good time. She might not ask to scrape the bowl, but I fancy she would be delighted to turn the griddle-cakes, or run out for the hot toast.

It is irresistible, this charm of doing things one’s self, of doing things together. People have talked about the simple life until we are sick of the name. But we are not sick of the thing, the real thing. And our present conditions are not satisfying us. They need to be shaken up and recombined. We cannot go backward, but we can, perhaps, while accepting what is good in the new order, try to hold fast to what was good in the old. Probably it is best for me not to do all my own housework, but it would, I am convinced, be little short of a calamity if I never did any. To feel that my cook is doing her work contentedly, that she needs her wages and I need my time — this is all very well. But, like Antæus, I must touch earth often. I yearn for the poker, I hanker for the mixing bowl, I sigh for the frying-pan. Man does not live by bread alone, but neither does he live by taking thought alone. I love to think, and talk, and feel, but I cannot forget that I have hands which clamor to be put to use, arms which will not hang idle. It does not satisfy me to do makebelieve work that does not need to be done: picture-puzzles and burnt-wood and neckties. I want real work, primitive work. Hurrah for the coal-hod! Hurrah for the tea-kettle! Hurrah for the Day Out!