DETROIT, JULY 22, 1884.

 

THE HOUSEHQLD=n=§uppl®memto

 

 

A FARJIER‘S WIFE.

 

Unspoken homilies of peace
Her daily life is preaching;

The rtill refreshment of the dew
Is her unconscious teaching.

And never tenderer hand than hers
Unknit the brow of ailing;

Her garments to the sick man’s ear
Have music in their trailing.

Her presence lends its warmth and health
To all who come before it.

If woman lost us Eden, such
As she alone restores it.

For larger life and wiser aims
The farmer is her debtor;

Who holds to his another’s heart
Must needs be worse or better.

Through her his civil service shows
A purer-toned ambition,

No double consciousness divides
The man and politician.

In doubtful pa'ty ways he trusts
ller instincts to determine;

At the loud polls, the thought of her
Recalls (.‘hrist’s mountain sermon.

He owns h. r logic of the heart,
And wisd om of unreason,
Supplying, while he doubts and weighs
Th needed word in season.
He sees with pride her richer thought,
Her fancy’s freer range s;
And love thus deepened to respect
Is proof against all changes.
—John G. Whittier.

——¢oo——

WHAT SHALL WE SAY?

The perplexing “ whys ” of life confront
us daily. One of these at present merits
our attention and study, viz.: Why is it
that so few thoughts uttered in our hear-
ing are worthy of repetition? We speak
of that which interests us. Can it be that
the great mass of humanity has no inter-
est in higher themes than those en-
tering into their daily converse?

Why do history and our own experience
present so few who have acquired pre-em-
inence in the art of conversation? One
of the apparent causes of the deficiency
in this art is the lack of pains taken to
cultivate language and its expression.
Students devote years to study, while lit-
tle attention is given to making the most
practical and pleasant use of their ac-
quirements. A grand possession is the
mind which is a kingdom in itself, but
that which is devoted solely to our own
use never yields the satisfaction derived
from that which is helpful to others as
well, for in working for others we win
new possessions, make new creations,
made possible only by going out into
lives touching our own.

What more beautiful gifts do we ever
receive from our fellow creatures than
their noblest thoughts? They shall echo
eternal in our hearts, they are presented
to-our spiritual natures and therein re-
corded. Who can estimate the innumer
able creations in the realm of thought re
sulting from the expression of a forcible
truth? As the sunbeams paint the sky
and transform into glistening diamonds
the drops of dew, so the gift of noble
thought reflects fair lines upon life and
beautifies all the eommonplaceness of ex-
istence. .

The question is, how are we to intro-
duce higher themes when society already
has its list of subjects and subject matter
well conned and determined upon. There
is always reality back of the shadow,
though we so often fail to grasp but the
shadow. There are persons who can con-
sider a subject only as it has always been
considered. With them the things which
have been are those which shall ever be.
\Vhile forms and externals will be ob-
served by many, these are not they who
are shaping the world's onward thought.

To be able to entertain by conversation
we must not hold too lofty an opinion of
our own abilities. The man of large and
varied experiences, who has been wisely
taught thereby, finds existence become
full, free and broad, including a vast
realm outside of self. He recognizes in~
dividuality: all the shores of his life have
been touched by the current of lives which
pressed upon his own, so he is able
through his own needs to supply also the
wants of others. To make our converse.
tion useful, we must cultivate habits of
acute observation, study human nature,
and, most important of all, we must
think. All learn to talk, but thinkers are
rare. We must plan and work out our
thoughts as we would problems. If we
never trace out the suggestions of thought
given us, we cannot rise above the ground
work of intelleetuality.

Woman has a grand work to do in this
line. She has opportunities and privileges
here which demand her careful attention.
A woman, Madame De Stael, is account-
ed the greatest conversionalist the world
has known. Such was her power of lan-
guage, it is said, that her auditors at one
time were unconscious of a severe thunder
storm which raged around them. Some
might be willing to give more study to
this matter if they knew it has been the
custom of nearly all noted conversation-
alists to make specific preparations for

 

anticipated converSations. Repartees and

 

witticisms, supposed to have been im-
promptu, have all been studied, the con—
versation being often skillfully guided
into prepared channels. It is a demon-
strated fact with all speakers, I think,
that those “impromptu” efforts are the
best where there has been prep tration.
Conversation has been compared to a lyre
with seven chords~philosophy, an, pne-
try, love, politics, scandal and the weather
——the last two topics are most generally
selected. Conversa ion l-l a divine art,
and should be used accordingly. What
right has any one to encourage inanity of
mind, and impoverish thought by the
presentation of petty. trivial themes com-
pared to which silence is brilliant? If
those who have nothing to say could only
understand that silence is demanded of
them, there would not resound in God’s
skies to-day such a meaningless jargon of
words.

Life is grand enough to lift us above
its trivialities. Why should we seek as.
Companions others than those who have
some interests in common with us? And
with these we should let only such themes
as are worthy our intellect become cur—
rent in our social intercourse. When
sweet influences whisper to us fair
thoughts, when they are evolved by the
culture and refinement of our own na-
tures, let us speak of these visions of
the mind. We delight in the creation of
the artist, before the sculptured marble
we stand in awe. Fairer visions every
day fade unpainted from the mind than
artist's fingers ever ske tched;lovelier forms
the soul creates than sculptor ever chisel-
ed. We do not understand, or often
think of the wonderful power of mind
creation. Whatever we build today we
have increased our power to build with
fairer proportions tomorrow. We follow
along the line of our predominating in—
terests and ambitions. If we grow to have
an interest in people’s real life we shall
desire to know their experiences, their
better thoughts, we shall become so
earnest and derive such pleasure from
talking of the realities there will be no
time for the mere platitudes of conversa-

tion. STRONG MINDED GIRL.
Lnsmn, July 15.

HF“-

HARVEST NOTES.

 

The moments have flown swiftly since I
penned my last article to the Household.
All Nature was luxuriant in beauty, every-
where the eye turned it met fields of
waving grain. The steady “click" of the
mower has robbed the meadows of their

 


 

2 ' THE HOUSEHOLD.

 

 

wealth of grass. Hay has been secured
without a shower, and now the reapers
and binders are steadily leaving the bun-
dles of wheat in their wake. The farm-
ers certainly have no reason to complain.
The weather has been glorious, the crops
far exceed their expectations, help has
been plenty, they have been highly bless-
ed. But there are grumblers among man-
kind as well as womankind, some are
never satisfied, with blessings just with-
in their reach they fail to discern them.
With barns filled to overflowing, they are
sorry they haven't more; human nature is
so hard to satisfy. It needs all kinds of
people to make up the world; some are
calculated for nothing else but chink
stones; some are natural fault finders;
some are always elbowing their way
through life; some strike ahead with some
aim in view; others are waiting for some-
thing to turn up in their favor. It is not
just the thing nowadays to sit idly by
waiting for our father’s shoes. Henry
Ward Beecher says: “ Aman is not a man
when he is created, he is only begun. His
manhood must COme with years. A man
who goes through life prosperous, and
comes to his grave without a wrinkle, is
not half a man. Difiiculties are God‘s er-
rands, and when we are sent upon them
we should deem it a proof of God’s confi—
dence, and prize it accordingly.” The
main thing is to be in the business we are
constituted for; we can adapt ourselves to
most anything, just as we learn to eat
certain kinds of food; it goes down hard
at first, after alittle it is easier. It is a
good idea to sandy the tastes and inclina‘
tions of our boys and girls. You can tell
very soon if your boy inclines to like the
farm. If you have to drag him out of
bed in the morning, compel him to go to
the field to drag or plow, you can make
up your mind he is on the wrong track.
Put him in a machlne shop, harness shop.
or try carpenter's work awhile; you will
soon discover what he likes, and when
he finds out keep him there, encourage
him in every way until he makes a suc-
cess of it. We read that

We are the same our fathers have been,
We see the same scenes our fathers have seen,
We tread the same paths our fathers have trod,

but literally it is not so. There is that
nameless something, born within us, that
knows What is agreeable and what is dis~
tasteful, and we all know from personal
exp: rience that it is hard work to be kept

at something we do not or cannot like.

EVANGALINE.
BATTLE Cnnnk, July 14th.

———-——.O§——-—-

KENSINGTON PAINTING.

 

Prudence asks some one to tell her how
to do Kensington. painting. I am going
to suppose that she does not know any
thing about it, and tell her as I would
want to be told. I will name only the
essential colors to begin with. Flake
white, Antwerp blue, deep chrome yel-
low, scarlet lake and Vandyke brown,
each costing ten cents a tube, and a red
sable No. 1 brush, which will cost eighty'
cents. That is all you need to paint
simple flowers, like apple, blossoms,
daisies or forget-me-nots. Be sure to be-

gin on single blossoms, and try to copy

Nature; but you must have patterns un-

less you can draw. The patterns can be

bought of Briggsd: 00., New York, for

from five to fifty cents each, with direc-
tions. To do the work, fasten the
material on to athin board, stamp the
pattern by passing a warm iron over the
back of the paper, then begin at the
left hand side, and work the paint, if it is
a little flower, with only a stub pointed
steel pen, from the outside of the petals
toward the centre with firm strokes, work-
ing it well in, and being careful not to
go over the edges, and be sure to put on
lots of paint; the work must be bold to be
effective. Where two leaves lie together
do not have both the same shade, one
must be deeper than the other; remember
nothing is a clear solid color, and don’t
let the figures looked “starched.” To
make medium blue, use two-thirds white,
and less than the other third Antwerp
blue;to make pink. use red instead of
blue; for green use blue and yellow for
leaves like mountain ash; to make red-
dish or bronze green, use a particle ’of
Vandyke brown with the blue and yellow,
and to mase ashy green use a little
White. The brush is only necessary in
spreading the paint on a large flower like
wild roses. Satin produces the most
artistic work, but nearly any firm stuif
can be used. Felt takes quantities of
paint. I have told as much as an amateur
can tell, but you only know the A B C’s
yet.

Any flat dish will do for a palette;
press out only the least little bit of paint
at a time, till you learn to know how
much you want, and how to mix well.
The brown is used in the centre of nearly
all flowers, pansies, lilies, apple blos
soms, roses, and nearly all that have pol-
len or stamens. A knowledge of em-
broidery will help you about it very
much. Let the pen strokes be irregular,
in the larger flowers particularly. and do
not make one continued stroke in such,
but break them, but never go crosswise,
let them all go one way. Make the
stems small and graceful. I am sure you
can see how to begin, and as you pro—
gress you will gain ideas from observing
flowers. It is better to get suggestions
from some one who really paints in oil,
because half of the persons who teach
Kensington work, do not know anything
but the bare method of putting on the
paint, when in fact that is the simplest
1) art of it. The shading and blending of
colors, and bringing out the curves, and
many other small things, is what makes
the work really artistic. Use a big apron
to paint 1n, and if the paint makes you
sick, drink new milk. A little turpentine
or benzine will take out accidental spots.

I can tell you too, how to make a mantle
lambrequin. I followed Beatrix’s sug
gestion, and planed a pine board six
inches wide and four feet long, painted
it with ivory black, and put it up with
two brackets, which cost ten cents, then
I took a piece of wine colored flannel,
long and wide enough to cover it; on the
ends and front put astrip of wine colored

 

velvet, of a lighter shade, fastened down

 

over the seams with the stitches called
single sheaf, with pale blue silk thread;
then embroidered in one end a cluster of
daisies, and in the other pansies; then
with wine colored silk of another, still
lighter, shade, left from my silk mittens,
I knotted fringe, as you would in a man’s
scarf, in the ends. It is very pretty and
did not cost anything but my time while
visiting one afternoon and two evenings.
The scarf hangs six inches below the shelf
on each end, and just comes to the edge
in front; put your shelf low enough to
show the top of it, and your work on the
scarf easily. I am now making and paint-
ing a cabinet frame after Beatrix’s di-
rections in a late Household,to put on the
shelf.

If nothing butalambrequin will satisfy
you, take astrip of felt, “according to
taste,” and paint in Kensington 3. strag-
gling vine of mountain ash leaves and
berries, or apple blossoms and leaves
across the bottom, it’s the easiest and
prettiest kind you can make. But the

scarf is later. ONE OF THE GIRLS.
HOWELL, July 15.
—-——mo———

EXPEC'I‘ING TOO MUCH.

 

Says a writer in an English periodical
called Belgravia: “If you marry a
drudge—a pink-and-white mother with
her head wholly in the kitchen, and her
heart wholly in the nursery—why, by and
bye when the pinksand-white is whitey»
brown, and she comes up to town with
half a dozen children under twelve and
untidy gloves, what can you expect but
that people will think your wife is
‘horrid’?” This is a fair sample of the
injustice of the world. Men generally
speak as if it was a woman’s fault that she
has “ half a dozen children under twelve, ”
and expect her, withababy forever in
her arms, and several assorted sizes
clinging to her skirts, to be as dainty in
person and dress, as well read, as charm-
ing in conversation, as fair of face. as
before the cares and pains of maternity
were laid upon her. Can a woman who
egery eighteen months increases the
census by one, and is nurse and house-
keeper too, be expected. with any degree
of common sense, to retain the bloom
and fairness of youth, or do much else
but “put her head in the kitchen and her
heart in the nursery?” Go to! A woman
gives her youth, her strength, her beauty,
her life, to the duties of mother and house-
keeper, and people will think her “hor-
rid” because she cannot give to either
person or mind the attention others do,
who have no such burdens to bear! And
too often the husband, contrasting her
mentally—almost unconsciously—-with
other women whose lives have run in
easier channels, feels half ashamed of
her, and perchance her keen intuition
finds it out! What a reward for the
loving devotion of a lifetime! I am re-
minded of the saucy girl’s answer to th e
motherly friend and well wisher, who
advised her to get married so as to have
some one to take care of her when she
was old. The level-headed miss replied:
“Oh, when you’re old is just the time

 

the men don’t care for you!”

 

 

 


 

 

 

THE HOUSEHOLD. 3

 

 

It makes me impatient to hear the state-
ment, so oft reiterated, that Mrs. Carlyle’s
privations, sacrifices and self denials
made “ Sartor Resartus ” and “ The
French Revolution” passible. Now Jane
Welsh Carlyle was no “fool woman.”
If her life had notbeen selfishly absorbed
by her husband, who knows what might
have been her work. And had not she as
much a right to make the most of her life
and talents as he?

Marriage subordinates to itself a
woman’s every talent, thought and pro-
ject. unless wealth aids her by the leisure
it gives. I doubt very much whether
marriage offers to woman any prospect of
development, aside from the special
qualities of wife and motherhood. “ It is
not good for man. to be alone,” says the
Apostle, but mention of any good to
woman is left out, doubtless by order of an
over-rulingProvidence. BRUNEFILLE.

DETROIT, July 13.

.__——-...—-—-———
A CHAT WITH MEMBERS OF
OUR HOUSEHOLD.

 

I am exceedingly interested in the little
paper devoted to the ladies. Its columns
afford us encouragement, comfort, and
useful suggestions, and [have been great-
ly profited by them. I like it better now
it is published by itself. When the
FARMER is brought from the Office, the
Household almost invariably drops out
from the foldings of the larger paper, as
much as to say, “Read me first," which
I do. I place it beside my plate at dinner
time, and after the men have finished
their dinner and gone to work, I take my
resting-spell, and read and think over
what has been written for the benefit of
others.

I have long wanted to express my ap-
preciation of the merits of the Household,
but like “Felix” of olden time have
waited for a “convenient season,” but
getting discouraged inasmuch as no
such time has rewarded my waiting, I
will appropriate a little time which be-
longs to other duties. The work basket
piled full of garments waiting for the
replacing of missing buttons, and the
sewing on of patches, stares me in the
face, but I’ll look the other way.

I wish to express thanks to Beatrix for
the kindly Suggestions concerning the
cooking of mackerel. I have tried her
method, and with success. Ihad been
thinking for a day or two before reading
her article, that I wished Ihad something
a little more appetizing than usual, and
when I saw the word mackerel, that was
_ just the thing I wanted to fill out the bill
of fare.

.I really enjoyed Evangeline’s thoughts
on “A Contented Mind.” There was
much practical truth In her article.

I make rice pudding as Aunt Nell does,
except that I do stir it three or four times
when it first begins to bake, to prevent
its sticking to the bottom of the dish.

One lady speaks about putting butter,
pepper and salt in the peas when they
first begin to cook; I think she hardly
means just that way. When butter is to
be used for seasoning, it is best not to put

 

 

it in the food till just before it is taken
up and sent to the table.

I too “think it funny to see a pair of
black legs walking off with a white muslin
dress and a brilliant sash.”

I will tell the ladies how I treat my
Calla lily. I use quite a large jar, put
very rich dirt or barnyard soil in the bot—
tom, then not quite so rich, next gravelly
loam and pebble stones; fill the jar with
water, (in winter warm water), change
once a week. I have magnificent blossoms
from early winter till May, when I turn
it out under an evergreen tree to rest.

MYRA.
PONTIAC, July 16th;

—————¢o¢—-———

TEA TABLE ETIQUETTE.

 

A correspondent makes some inquiries
as the proper method of waiting upon
table when one has guests at dinner or
tea. Should the hostess sit at the table
with her friends, pour the tea and pass it
from her seat at the head Of the table, or
should she pour the tea and serve the
sauce from a side-table, waiting upon
her guests without sitting dOWn with
them. Only one answer is possible. The
hostess, if she have a servant or even a
young daughter, to whom she can entrust
the duty of waiting upon the table, may
have tea served from a sideboard, and the
sauce, pickles and cold meats also placed
upon and served from it. But she herself
should never resign her place at the head
of her own table to stand behind her
guests’ chairs like a servant. The host
and hostess should be at their stations at
the head and foot of the table “ though
the sky fall.” While the lady of the
house pours the tea and passes it to her
guests, or has a young son or daughter, or
her servant take it from her and hand it
to them, her husband generally serves the
sauce. Then biscuit and butter, cold
meats or pickles are passed, and entertain—
ed and entertainers are ready to ca: to-
gether It is quite allowable for a hostess
to ask a guest to pass any article of food
which may be out of her reach and with‘
in that of the other, but the guest should
never take the liberty to do so without
being requested. Nor is it “ good form”
to add sugar and cream to tea or coflee
before passing it; let the cream jug and
sugar bowl follow the tea down the line
of guests, that each may take such quan-
tity as may be best suited to their taste.
Nor does etiquette require a guest to wait
to be invited to take a second biscuit, etc.
It is allowable to help one’s self or ask a
neighbor to pass what you cannot reach,
with perhaps a glance at the hostess and
word of praise for the excellence of her
cookery, if you are an old or intimate
friend, or “ with your permission” if pre-
ferred.

Another correspondent inquires whether
after staying all night with a friend she
should put her room in order and make
up her bed before leaving in the morning.
No. It is presumable that the hostess
will change sheet and pillow-slips to have
the bed in readiness for the next chance
comer. Throw back the bed-clothing
upon a chair at the foot of the bed and
leave it to air. Pick up any litter you

 

may have made, that is all that is re-
quired of you. If you are staying some
days with your friend, it is proper you
should keep your own room in order, un-
less your hostess has a servant who at-
tends to the chamber work.

————oo.————-

HOUS EHOLD CHAT.

 

I read the Household eyery week, and
find it very nice indeed, telling so many
things we all want to know. I wish to
make an inquiry respecting the best kind
of washing machine for family use. My
washings are the hardest part of my
week’s work, and I would be very glad
of some information on the subject. I
have a recipe for washing fluid for boil-
ing clothes, which I know to be just
splendid, for I use it every week. Icould
not do my washing without it, and it is
not hard on the hands, and keeps the
clothes very white. I will send it, so if
there are any of the readers of the House-
hold who would like to try it, they can do
so.
I am glad to see the butter question dis
cussed among the ladies, but pray tell us
who could afford to make butter at four
teen cents a pound; better feed the new
milk to the calves. It makes a great deal
of hard work withlittle pay, for ordinary
farmers’ wives who have to set the milk
down cellar and make butter. If we could
all have the Champion creamery, and
all of the appliances, it would be a
pleasure, but that little “if ” is sometimes
very much in the way.

I have had a large experience with
carpet moths, and would say alum water
is the only thing I ever found that would
stop their ravages. Wet your carpet
about two feet deep around the edges,
and let it dry in; it will not hurt the ear-
pet in the least, and you will have no
more trouble about moths in the carpet.
I tried everything I ever heard of with--
out avail, until Iheard of this, and it
fixed them.

Iwould say to Mrs. R. Edwards, try
camphor gum for the ants. Sometimes
it will drive them all away. If they bother
about getting into crocks or dishes of any
kind, make a wide white chalk mark
around them. This will stop the large
ones, but not the small ones, I think.

ELLENOR.
LANSING, July 14.

[When Ellenor comes to the Household
again, which we hope she will do often,
will she please comply with our request
to write upon one side of the paper only.
HOUSEHOLD En]

____,..._____

CANNING PEAS, AND A QUERY.

 

Not long ago a housekeeper asked di-
rections for canning peas. I never put up
any in that manner. so cannot give my
experience; but a friend at whose table I
ate very excellent green peas in mid-
winter, said she cooked them till done,
and canned as she would fruit. Her first
attempt was afailure, because she season-
ed them with salt and butter. The latter
spoiled, and the peas were vile. The
peas put up in tin, which are to be had of
the grocers, are generally a snare and a

 

 


4: ' THE HOUSEHOLD.

 

delusion. They are too old when canned,
and I fancy some acid or some such
“stuff” is added, which makes them
about as palatable as small-sized bass-
wood bullets.

In conversation with an experienced
housekeeper a few days ago she said she
did not think peas could be canned in
any way to make them really an accept-
able addition to the table. “ They ought
to be cooked as soon as they are taken
from the pods,” she said.

Old School Teacher wonders whether
the mothers of the hired men are the ones
who are to be blamed for the worry and
impatience of farmers’ wives over the want
of neatness and general inconsiderateness
of the hired men. I wish to answer the
question in Yankee fashion. by asking
another: Does Old School Teacher be-
lieve that if the mothers of these hired
men had trained them in their youth in
the manner in which she trains her own
boys in habits of personal cleanliness and
decency, they would appear at her table
after the fashion she pictured in last
week's Household? BEATRIX.

._..___...._

A NEW WAY TO COOK PEAS.

 

Some one has told her way of cooking
peas. I think I have a better one, which
I have followed many years, and I think
every one will adopt it after havmg tried
once. After being shelled never wash
the peas, as there is no need for it, and
by so doing the litte chit, that is the
sweetest part of the pea, is removed;
wash the pods and boil them half an
hour first to sweeten the broth, for we all
know that the pods contain much more
sweetness than the peas, then drain the
water on to the peas and cook until ten-
der, season with salt, pepper and butter,
or better still, cream, thickened with a
little flour.

Asparagus, (although out of season
now) is good cooked the same as peas, on
toast or without. It is good also cooked
as greens, boiled whole in water a little
salted, and when skimmed out put on a lit‘
tle salt, pepper and butter, and eat with
vinegar.

In canning fruit, it is needless trouble
to heat or put the Cans in hot water;
just set them on acrash towel or any cloth
that has been folded double or triple,
and dipped into water, and dip the hot
fruit into them. I have followed this
plan many years, and I never broke a can;
of course there must not be a draft of air
on them. Perhaps all do not know that
pickles or vinegar will not keep in a jar
that has ever had any kind of grease in

it s. A. G.

blannonn, July 12th.
—-———ooo—————

A WARNING.

 

“Maybelle,” didn’t your pen slip when
you said use yellow deck for greens?
There is a difference between yellow and
narrow dock, although they look so much
alike that many people are not able to
distinguish the difference. Years ago
while away from home I was poisoned by
eating yellow dock greens.

Will some one tell how to cleanse wool

 

so that it will be suitable for mattresses
and comfortables? When wool is worth
only twenty-eight cents per pound, I
believe it will pay farmers’ wives to make

their own wool bedding. PRACTICAL.
AUG us'ra, J uly 14th.
---—OO.-——-

PU’I'I‘IN G DOWN CUCUMBERS.

 

As I am a subscriber to your valuable
paper, I wish to know through its
columns how to put down cucumbers so
as to have them sour, crisp, and retain
their natural green appearance, when
taken out of the barrel in which they
were put down. G. C. FRASER.

PORT SANILAC, July 15th.

[A recipe for putting down cucumbers
in a manner calculated to secure the
qualities our correspondent desires, was
given in the Household of June 24th.
HOUSEHOLD En]

 

SCRAPS.

 

REV. THEODORE CUYLER, in a sermon
on marriage, gives us plain facts in a
plain fashion. He says: “The social
malaria of these times is a false idea of
matrimony; the consequent curse of the
day is easy divorce. Every strand that is
cut in the sacred bond of wedlock loosens
the fabric of both society and the Church.
Easy divorce breeds a practical polygamy
as abominable as any in Utah. Occasion-
ally divorces are justified by the criminal
conduct of one party towards deceived
and long suffering innocence. ‘ Incom-
patibility ’ is no more a valid ground for
divorce than bad digestion or a broken
limb. I have watched the after history
of the hundreds whom I have married,
and have usually found that the ‘ misfits’
were the result of hasty or thoughtless ens
gagements—sometimes in defiance of pa-
rental wisdom and wishes. When young
people go into an engagement for life as
carelessly as they go to a picnic, they
must expect to pay for their folly with
bitter experience. With thousands at mar-
riage engagement is a matter of boyish
or girlish caprice. Sometimes a wife is
sought for the gross gratifications of sen-
sual appetite; sometimes as a shrewd pe-
cuniary speculation; sometimes to secure
a support for shiftless laziness from a
father-in-law. There is but one single
valid motive for wedlock, and that is pure,
old-fashioned love—a love strong enough
to stand any strain, and to bear every
pressure.”

 

“ THINK twice before you speak," is an
old saying often repeated to the young to
induce them to take heed to what they
say, and as a safeguard against imprudent
speech. “Sober second thought is best”
is another to the same end. While with-
out doubt much folly will go unuttered
by following these precepts, I doubt if
the practice is always good. Continual
repression becomes a fixed habit which
applies to all we say or do, and the noblest
impulses of the heart are crowded back
while we calmly weigh the pros and cons
and finally perhaps let what others will
think. or questions of policy or expedi
ency, overrule our better nature. Let us
think twice and not speak at all if we are

 

to utter words born of malice or unkind-
ness, but if kind,or appreciative, or loving
words rise to our lips let us speak them
and do our deliberating afterward.

”MOH—

Contributed Recipes.

 

SPICED CURRANTS.—Eight pounds fru'it, five
pounds sugar, one pint cider vinegar, one
and one-half ounce cinnamon, onehalf ounce
cloves. Boil one hour all together. Put in
more spice if you wish, and cook it down as
much as you wish. B.

DETROIT.

 

WASHING FLUID.—-One pound concentrated
lye, one ounce of salammonia, cne ounce of
salts of tartar, two ounces borax. Dissolve
in six quarts of water, add the salammonia
when cold; cork tight. Use teacupful to three
pails of water, and boil twenty minutes after it
boils. This costs thirty cents, and is cheaper
than Anti-Washboard soap. You do not have to
rub the clothes only a little. I pound mine
and boil. Soap them where they are dirty be-
fore boiling. and they are ready to suds and
rinse. ELLENOR.

LANSING.

 

CREAM Cheeses—To make cheese for a fam-
ily of. six take twelve quarts of clabbered milk
and cook it in a tin pan from ten to twenty
minutes, pour into a clean cheese cloth bag
and squeeze dry, then turn the curd into a pan
and add salt to suit the taste and one-half tea-
cupful of butter; mix thoroughly, turn it into
the dish in which it is to be served and pour
over it one~half cup of sweet cream. The se-
eret. of making good cheese is to let the milk
cook until the curd and whey readily separate,
or until the curd is quite hard, and be sure to
squeeze out all the whey. Some people do not
like the sweet cream added.

PRACTICAL.
AUGUSTA.

 

PICKLED Arenas—Take the sweet apples
fully ripe, core and quarter them. Take two
quarts of vinegar, two pounds of sugar, one-
half ounce of mace, one of cloves and one of
cinnamon, with a spoonful of allspice. (These
spices should not be ground.) Let it boil.to-
gether ten minutes. Then put in enough of
the apples to cover the syrup and let boil until
clear. Skim them and lay on a platter; put
fresh apples to cook until you have as many
as your syrup will cover when placed in a jar.
These, after a few days, sometimes need to be
brought again to boiling point, and then will
keep any length of time.

BA

 

 

 
  

c on:

The ONLY CORSET made that can be returned by
its purchaser after three weeks wear. it not found
PERFECTLY 1§1A'l'l‘§l‘-'A§>TOIhY
in every respect, and Itsp ce re unde bgse er. Made
in a. variety of styles and pnces. 801 by firstrclm
dealers everywhere. Beware of worthless imitations.

None ermine unless it has Ball’s name on the box.

c CAGO CORSET 00., Chicago, Ill.

    

 

3“ ,,
1,.
a

 

 

 

 

 

. l5