The first places were called “petty places” and looked upon as stepping-stones to better things. It was considered unwise to allow a girl to remain in her petty place more than a year; but a year she must stay whether she liked it or not, for that was the custom. The food in such places was good and abundant, and in a year a girl of thirteen would grow tall and strong enough for the desired “gentlemen’s service,” her wages would buy her a few clothes, and she would be learning.

The employers were usually very kind to these small maids. In some houses they were treated as one of the family; in others they were put into caps and aprons and ate in the kitchen, often with one or two of the younger children of the house to keep them company. The wages were small, often only a shilling a week; but the remuneration did not end with the money payment. Material, already cut out and placed, was given them to make their underwear, and the Christmas gift of a best frock or a winter coat was common. Caps and aprons and morning print dresses, if worn, were provided by the employer. “She shan’t want for anything while she is with me” was a promise frequently made by a shopkeeper’s wife when engaging a girl, and many were even better than their word in that respect. They worked with the girls themselves and trained them; then as they said, just as they were becoming useful they left to “better themselves.”

The mothers’ attitude towards these mistresses of small households was peculiar. If one of them had formerly been in service herself, her situation was avoided, for “a good servant makes a bad missis” they said. In any case they considered it a favour to allow their small untrained daughters to oblige (it was always spoken of as obliging) in a small household. They were jealous of their children’s rights, and ready to rush in and cause an upset if anything happened of which they did not approve; and they did not like it if the small maid became fond of her employer or her family, or wished to remain in her petty place after her year was up. One girl who had been sent out at eleven as maid to an elderly couple and had insisted upon remaining there through her teens, was always spoken of by her mother as “our poor Em.” “When I sees t’other girls and how they keeps on improvin’ an’ think of our poor Em wastin’ her life in a petty place, I could sit down an’ howl like a dog, that I could,” she would say, long after Em had been adopted as a daughter by the people to whom she had become attached.