AMERICAN HOMES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 27, 2 February 1932, Page 11

AMERICAN HOMES.

EASY HOUSEWORK. Housekeeping differs all over the world. In some parts we find women doing the week's washing in the clear waters of a running stream; in others there are staffs o£ innumerable servants who, each having their own particular work, would not lift a linger to move a spoon if that were someone else's job. But it would seem from accounts that, from the woman's point of view, America leads the way for a homely paradise. With the advantages of all the most modern conveniences, the Nejv York housewife could have the easiest time in the world, but -she who might be so idle is nothing of the sort," says a writer in an English paper, who was impressed by the methods there. Equipped with her vacuum cleaner, washing machine, iron, toaster, egg-beater, refrigerator and delicately-regulated oven—all run by electricity—in an apartment where reallv hot water is constant and all rooms adequately heated in winter, so that a lire is lit only occasionally as a luxury for the eye, .she does most of her own work.

I am constantly surprised into admiration bv the hick ot" false pride here (remarks the writer). Nobody keeps up appearances by hiring domestic help somewhat beyond the family means, as some of us at home do. Women well-to-do, even wealthy from our standards, keep a first-class nurse for the children, a good cook, loss certainly a housemaid, but the mistress washes her own lingerie' and small linen, does her own room, makes her own preserves and pickles — and massages her hands afterwards with expensive cream. The same woman who at home would k.'ep at least a general here employs a coloured maid for half a day once a week, and spends her money on beauty culture, concerts,-. or lectures on child-guidance and economics. If American women arc spoiled by their menfolk to our way of thinking, at least they never confine their children exclusively to the nursery. They take motherhood seriously and scientifically. It rightly blamed for a belief that culture can be sucked in as effortlessly as cocakola, at least they have interests outside their own horizon which do not cease after marriage—as too often in England —--and far from old age having any terrors for them, after sixty they arc at their most active, bright and endearing. Good servants are. .difficult "to get and horribly expensive. Even daily help costs r,O cents (2/) an hour. To get a maid (no one speaks of charwomen), you ask friends to recommend a coloured girl. Some days she will ring up to say she is "sick," which means she is taking a holiday. While actually tinder your roof she will protect your interests against the whole world. She adores a party. Onlv on the telephone is she hopeless end" over-inventive. Her manner is alwavs that of a'kindly superior towards the" weak. Servility is unknown. She gives advice unasked, but with the delicate tact of all coloured people. Everyone here is, indeed, youv equal. Taxi-drivers talk to you about their daughters in college. The grocer's boy says, '•Bye-bye! - ' after depositing his wares in "the* kitchen, but doss not look for a tip. A salesgirl in a big store offered to teach mc how to iron my own things if I would come in one lunchhour. And when they say "Yes, ma'am!" it is as the old Southern colonel of fiction always said, "Yes, suh," in conversing with his' peers.

To get any jobs done —wiring or plumbing or repairs—is alarmingly costlv and almost always unsatisfactory. There seem to be few skilled workmen. Every man is jack of all trades, working his way up. Mostly this master ot no trade is"a Czech or some utterly non-English-speaking individual, in whose ears complaints are meaningless. Yet my wiudow-ckaner one day found the kitchen stacked with china unwashed after a tea party, and, without a word being said, washed everything up and stacked it away. Sometimes I ask myself how, when 1 come home again to England, I shall bear our chilly bedrooms in winter. What did one do in summer, with nielting butter and souring milk, in a land where John, the Italian iceman, never calls? Already I notice how quickly the English speak, how clipped the words_ and how musical the tone. Costly, living here? Kent runs about double. Food is reasonable if you eat "in." Clothes? Good materials and really well-made things are heartbreakingly dear, the American habit being more for numerous, inexpensive things quickly thrown away. But then it. is the fashion for everyone to say they arc woefully hard tip, even when it is not true.- It docs not make them less hospitable, but more so. It makes it bearable to be a little shabby. And 1 have learned by now that, though it is true my American friends do value the making of money very highly, they do not value their friendships or regulate their likes and dislikes the slightest, degree in terms of dollars.