lgxx‘xm \‘xxxlv‘ s , 3‘ . 3 u» a?“ ‘ 3““ DETROIT, DEC. 31, 1892. THE HOUSEHOLD-"Supplement. CHRISTMAS-TIME. B Y EVAN GELINE. Don’t you know that pretty story 0! the shepherds on the plain? While they watched their flocks at midnight Floated down to them a strain Of the sweetest. sweetest music, Telling that th , Christ—child lay In Bethlehem’s lowly stable In a mangar on the hay. Then they brought their choicest presents And sat down about the Child, While they praised with joy and rapture, Little Jesus meek and mild. So do we this royal birthnight, Load with gifts the shapely tree. Gifts for chil l, for friend, for neighbor. That all hearts may happy be. in some homes are emp‘y places At this joyous Christmas time, Folded hands and shrouded faces Rise from mists of "Auld Lang Syne.” In their graves on lonely hillsides. In a winding sheet of snow, Many lie. twho shand our Christmas Pleasures, one short year ago. On the Savionr's Royal Birthnight. Drop all hatred, fend and strife. As we float on Time's broad river Into higher, better life. As the shepherds heard the carol. We to-night can hear it still, "Give to God the praise and glory, Peace on earth, to man good will.” THE BOOK TABLE. “The Deemster,” by Hall Cains, is one of the strongest and most interest- ing novels I have read for a long time. Selected at hep-hazard from hundreds of books on the counters of a great depart- ment store with the thought “Anything will do to beguile the time on the cars,” it proved a lucky choice, introducing me to a new author and a vigorous, ori- ginal, well told story. And I bought it —a cloth-bound volume of 360 pages, in fairly good paper and print. for a shill- ing! And every time I look at it I wonder what it cost the publisher! The scene of the story is laid in the Isle of Man, of which few know much except that it is famous for its Manx or tail-less cats,and concerns two generations. The Deemster and the Bishop are brothers; the trickery of the former robs the latter of his share of their father’s property; though the brothers remain friends their dissimilarity of disposition does not tend to brotherly feeling. Their children grow up together; Dan, the bishop’s only child, gay, lively, full of animal spirits and boyish mischief; Ewan, the Deemster’s son, quiet, stu- dious, affectionate, and both quick and passionate; one ready for a broil at any time, the other rarely stirred,but when roused fierce and resistless as a mount- ain torrent. The girl of the story is Mona, Ewan’s sister, beloved by Dan with more than a cousinly affection. The story tells the events which led to the murder of Ewan by Dan, and the latter’s punishment, a doom worse than death,which his own father,as judge of the tribunal under whose jurisdiction the offense came,pronounced upon him. This sentence was the revival of an old punishment, a terror beyond death’s terror, which had been known many, many years before in island history. The culprit was cut ofl’ forever from his people. “Hencelorth let him have no name among us; nor family; nor kin. From now forever let no flesh touch his flesh. Let no tongue speak to him. Let no eye look on him. When he is an hungered let none give him meat. When he shall be sick let none minister to him. When his death shall come let no man bury him. Alone let .him live, alone let him die, and among the beasts of the field let him hide his unburied bones.” The most dramatic of the many dramatic pictures in the story‘is where upon the Tyn wald or mount of judgment, the venerable Bishop of Man pronounces this awful sentence upon his only son, the son whom in spite of all his sins he loves better than life. For sgven years the outcast fulfilled this doom. Then he went back to the village; and it came about that the people looked upon him as their deliverer and knelt to him and begged his blessing. Himself the last victim of the fatal sickness which de- vastated the Isle, the doom of the Tyn- wald was not his; in death the woman he loved and who had loved him all these weary, sinful, cursed years,led his faltering accents in the praver common to all creeds, wherein all men acknow- ledge “0m‘ Father.” I like the story, though it is one of great sorrow, great love and great suffering, because it is so human. Old ‘ Thorkell, the scheming.plotting Deem- ster, or judge of the island, is punished for his meanness by the stings of anac- cusing conscience and his superstitious fears. The wages of sin were earned by ' reckless,passion-guided Dan. The good. old Bishop, who ruled his parish more wisely than he governed his son, like thousands of parents since Adam, was tortured and torn with anxiety over the lad, and found prayers and pains alike unavailing. And Mona’s lot, to suffer silently, loving, vet feeling the unworthiness of him whom she cannot help loving, is woman’s lot the world over. [1; is like life, real life. ineze pressibly sad,full of heartache and pain, yet wonderfully fascinating. Few of the new books are more in- teresting than "The West from a Car Window,” in which Richard Harding Davis recounts his impressions of the “wild and wooly west." The author 05 "Gallagher” and the creatorof “Van Bibber” combines picturesqueness and vigor with the terseness of the practic» ed newspaper man whose paper goes to press at three p. m. sharp, and who has ten minutes in which to tell a half col« umn story. He tells his story in news- paper English; there ls no attempt at fine writing. Others have written all the west. It took Davis to find somc‘ thing new and fresh in the oft-thrashed straw. He tells us, perhaps, nothing so very new; nothing we did not know be fore in a. vague, desultory way, but his way of putting it invests the old facts with new interest, like the touchcf Spring on a winter landscape. Where all is so good, it is hard to chOOss the best,but I liked the chapters “At a New Mining Camp” and “A Three-Year-Old City” especially. He descsibes “the village of fresh pine”——Creede, with de licious humor, and so graphically that you see it with him from the mountain “lying at our feet like a box of spilled jack-straws,” and feel with him that if is like a circus tent which has Sprung up over night and may be removed to- morrow and whose people are part of the show: we can almost see its electrh. lights gleaming over the unfathomcd mud of its streets and illuminating its "Leadville fronts” and canvas stores. He comments on people’s ideas of values in this fashion: “Mr. Creede was offer- ed one million two hundred and twenty" five thousand dollars for his share in the Holy Moses mine and declined in After that my interest in him fell away. Any man who will live in a log house at the foot of a mountain and drink melted snow any longer than he has be .. A..._‘....._i~;.._.___-....'....._..... . Me»: .C '1. k-2 " -" 4 A- 4&4 2 . The Household. or refuse that much money for anything, when he could live in the Knickerbock- er Flats and drive forth in a private hansom with rubber tires, is no long- er an object of interest.” Speaking of the people of Creede. he tells us of the lot-owners who on a cold day “would elect to remain in bed and would mark up the prices they intended to ask for their lots and claims one hundred dol- lars each; and then, consxdering this a fair day’s work, would go warmly to sleep again.” He tells us it is "instruc- tive and hopeful to watch a young man who can and has ordered numerous dinners at Bignon‘s composing a desert of bread and cheese: or to see how neat ly aYale graduate of one year’s standing can sweep the mud from the cabin floor without spreading it.” The description of the Sunday service in the gambling hall at Creede is as good as anything Bret Harte has written, but told in two paragraphs. Here it is: “A clergyman asked Watrous if he could have the use of the gamblingohall on Sunday night. The house was mak- ing about three hundred dollars an hour, and Watrous calculated that half an hour would be as much as he could afford toward the collection. He mount- ed a chair and said: ‘Boys, this gentle— man wants to make a few remarks to you of a religious nature. All the games at that end of the hall will stop, and you want to keep still.‘ “The clergyman stood on the platform of the keno outfit, and the greater part of the men took seats around it, toying with the marking cards scattered over the table in front of them. while the men in the saloon crowded the doorway from the swinging-doors to the bar. and looked on with curious and amused faces. At the back of the room the roulette wheel clicked and the ball roll- ed. The men in this part of the room who were playing lowered their voices but above the voice of the preacher one could hear the clinking of the silver and the chips and the voice of the boy at the wheel calling ‘seventeen and black, and twenty-eight and black again and—keep the ball rolling, gentlemen—and four and red.’ There were two electric lights in the middle of the hall and astove;the men were crowded closely around this stove, and the lamps shone through the smoke on their tanned, upturned faces and ' on the white excited face of the preacher above them. There was most excellent order, and the collection was very large. I asked Watrous how much he lost by the interruption. “ ‘Nothing.’ he said hastily, anxious to avoid the appearance of good; ‘I got it all back at the bar.’ ” Mr. Davis sums up his three months in the west by saying he would rather have a hall bed-room and a gas stove in New York City than one hundred and sixty acres on the prairie. Seven houses make a city in the West. He thinks it a pity to see men who would excel in a me- tropolis and be in touch with the world moving about them, wasting their ener- gies in a desert of wooden houses in the middle of an ocean of prairie where their point of view is bounded by the railroad tank and a barbed were fence. For the West, he says, is picturesque in spots, and as the dramatic critics say, the interest is not sustained throughout. From all this it will be seen that Mr. Davis is emphatically of the East, Easto am; yet his hasty views from a car window convey a graphic picture of. the West as he found it. I am surprised, however, to find in a book issued by a house of the Harpers’ reputation a mis- spelled word and atypographical error; I suppose a grammatical mistake must . be charged to the author. BEATRIX. ‘W A QUESTION FOR THE “HOUSEHOLD." I was wondering when I read Honey Bee’s letter if she had ever been tried in that direction. I would like to tell her just a little of my experience. Long ago I made up my mind that I would never be one of the complaining ones. I have shut my teeth so hard to bear it all without a murmur that it seems as if I had numbed all feeling. For thir- teen years of my married life I lived with my husband‘s people. I could not tell to any one what those years were to me; but they were terrible ones for a person of my disposition. And for ten years I have had my husband’s deafand dumb brother to do for. He is almost helpless from rheumatism, and has been for years. He is repulsive to me, eSpe- cially at the table; his appetite is enor- mous, and he has no respect for any one else; he is a terrible trial in every way. I think him liable to live for years in this way.. I have four children to work for, all in school at present. I like nice things in my home; and yes, I like nice clothes to wear; but you see to feed and clothe a person like that takes a great deal of the profit off. Did you ever have your mind fixed on a new winter cloak and dress and have to give them up because you could not afford them? I too wish I could feel as Busy Bee does, happy and contented in her home. But perhaps Honey Bee’s and my ideal of life has been too high. Now I would like to ask the HOUSEHOLD this: Would you be willing to do all this for your husband’s brother without a murmur? You know Ican only tell you just a little part of my every day trials or how the family treated me. No one ever asked me if I were willing to take this burden. I have sympathized with Honey Bee all through. Tell me just how you thinkI ought to feel in this matter and perhaps it will help me. A. G. S. —.—...——— “SHORT AND SWEET." Weary have been the long months since last I entered the HOUSEHOLD, and sad the changes that have o’er me passed, but its bright cheery letters he- get within me a desire to once more enter its charmed circle. It has been said that he who causes two blades of grass to grow where only one grew be- fore, is a benefactor to the race ; so, I think. one who brings sunshine into other lives and incites them to good deeds is also a benefactor. If we all had that “sweet peace that passeth understanding," there would be less fault-finding. I can hardly believe that any woman can be in earnest in speaking of her husband’s faults to oth- ers. Among my personal acquaint- ances, those who are in the habit of so doing are the very ones who are chiefly at fault. We sometimes fail to realize the perplexities of our husbands, or the constant drain on the pocketbook. A woman who takes the right course can lead her husband anywhere. Let us be patient, for the time may come when we shall be left to face the world alone. The blessed Christmas with its gifts and reunions is here. With what eager longing we used to look forward to this time, wondering what Santa Claus would bring us, but the illusions of childhood vanish all too soon. “Let us use a‘l the moms God has placed in our -ight. . To keep our ho nes innocent. happy and bright. Forahoms th'lt r joices in love’s saving leaven. Comes deliciously nigh to the splendors of Heaven.” With a merry Christmas and ahappy New Year to all, I am, ALOE. ”-0....” FROM CHEB 3YGAN COUNTY. Honey Bee asks what has become of Maybelle, and if I am disgusted with the jangling voices too. Oh, no, for I do not remember the letters of that na- ture. it is the word; of encouragement, information and the good that can be gleaned that I treasure up, and they help me a great deal. It seems too bad that anyone will send anything to be printed that will leave a sting. Let us try to send some words of encourage- ment and strength that will warm the hearts of tired farmers’ wives and mothers. Doesn’t Honey Bee know wherein lies the trouble that causes her to feel discontented with life and the wheels to run any way out smoothly ? I believe if each and every one in this uni- verse would give their lives into God’s keeping, asking His guidance and lov- ing care day by day. trusting Hirn ful- ly, there would he happiness and content far beyond our comprehension, My heart aches as I read of the over- worked, care-burdened sisters of our little band and I have longed to be able to cheer and help them; but have felt my lack of power of speech, but to-day let me say to all, Christmas is near, our lessed Saviour’s birthday ; a new year is close at band also; let us in love and kindness and for our little ones’ sakes,try to live day by day as is pleasing in the sight of our Heaven‘y Parent. Then the cares will roll away, the blessing of God will dwell upon us and we will have that peace that passeth all understand- ing. The little paper is a great friend of mine, but I miss some whose writings were very dear to me. Evangeline’s whole-souled thoughts did me so much good; also “Aunt Nell,” and “Old School Teacher,” of Tecumseh. Thanks to my HOUSEHOLD friends we have plenty of Sunday :0th papers as yet. Wonvnnma MAYBELLE. The Household. 8 TALK IT OVER. Well, I think so too, Theopolus! those “good old times” will linger in our memories and bring forth long drawn sighs. Let the trousers and pocket-books take a rest while we sympathize. I don’t want to find a word of fault with my husband, oh, dear, no; couldn’t if I tried; he’s perfection,because he is head, and knows best what’s good for us both. He thinks oil makes a better light than tallow candles, so no matter how much I ache to "do as mother did,” he won’t have the smell and grease around. He says “patches are all right for a boy,but a man doesn’t want such cushions;” so of course I think so too. He says “cider is of no use except for vinegar, and men who use tobacco are feeble-minded.” He says. too, “that there are women who are far more capable than some men of voting and holding office,” but when he looks right at me when he says so, I somehow blush and feel so worried- like. He says it is Scripture, and all right, that a wife should “ask her husband at home” for information, but if he is so weak in mind that he can’t tell her, or too lazy to get the desired information, it is necessary that if she is smart en- ough to find out the matter they change places; and that if a man will submit to be a “Stumpy caudal appendage,” it is good enough for him; since he would be head if he were capable or smart. I believe it, too, because my husband knows what he talks about. Now about the “fire question.” Some men build houses with such small bed- rooms that the family bed must stand tight in a corner, and are so careful of their wives that they will have them sleep at the back, and so careful of the children they insist the wife shall get up every time a child cries or coughs, for “wim men understand such things best.” Then they are so careful of them- selves; they are willing, nay, anxious, the wife should get up and build the morning fire in winter. Theopolus seems such a candid, earnest seeker after truth, and is so manly in stating his convictions, it really seems unneces- sary to apply to the HOUSEHOLD for advice; his wife could settle the question he propounds. Heads,I win; tails, you lose. Ask us something hard, Theo- polus. A. L. L. Funsom THE PEN PORTRAIT OF A DUCEESS, Peonle, especially those who have few opportunities for observation, are apt to cherish the idea that celebrities must be something quite out of the ordinary in appearance. There must, we think, be something about them which indi- cates their quality, marking them as of finer clay—best quality of porcelain, so to speak—than the rest of us made out of just common grades of plain dirt. We cherish a mental picture of duchesses and countesses modeled from the novels of the romantic school,where the dowa- gers always wear black velvet and dia- monds and move “with stately grace” in richly upholstered salons, while the younger women of the same class are invariably of statuesque figure and aris. tocratic pallor,gowned in white satin and pearls, with their “blue blood” suffici- ently patent to keep at an emphatically admiring. and respectful distance all creatures of the canaille. As a matter of fact, it happens that some persons of high social rank and po- sition, whom I have seen. are compelled to rely upon clothes and an aggressive manner to establish their claims to be considered “somebody” entitled to pre- cedence. I think I have caught on to the secret of their “high~bred manner,” which the local Jenkins invariably mentions when he notes their presence at any functions of our best society. The secret lies in the complete avoid- ance of notice of anything or anybody not immediately concerned in their own circle. They look with unseeing eyes, they bear with deaf cars, all outside their own close environment. It is as if those things in which thev are not con- cerned and interested, fail to exist. In these days, clothes alone are not an in- dex to social position, for dry goods are for sale to everybody who can pay ; and manners do not always tell the tale, for some people are born disagreeable and never took pains to improve upon na- ture; but when you find the happy union of clothes and manners—ah, then there’s something worth your observa- tion ! It is quite natural that we should expect the author who has charmed us by his wit, the clergyman whose elo- quence has stirred our sluggish souls, the lawyer whose keen intellect has placed him at the top of that ladder to which all aspire, to be favored also with physical advantages to correspond with mental equipments. But alas, we find, actually, that the poet gobbles his soup and confines his remarks to a request for the brown gravy; the divine looks like a prize-fighter in evening dress, and the legal luminary stands with his hands in his pocketszlike a hobbledehoy or pulls his mustache as nervously as an unfiedged youth of twenty. That round-shouldered. narrow-brewed, in- significant-looking man whose scanty locks straggle over a coat collar white with dandruff and gemmed with loose hairs, the eminent mathematico-scien- tist, for whose gray matter you have en- tertained such profound admiration I You can’t believe it. And when con- vinced, though you do not respect his intellect and information less, you feel somehow there is a misfit between in- side and outside. For the benefit of the girls who would like to model themselves after the “hot- ty Lady Imergin,” and for the edifica— tion of the rest of us who are a little given to toadying to rank and money, we clip Elizabeth A. Tompkins’ descrip- tion of an English duchess, the dowager Duchess of Montrose, who as “Mr. Man- ton” is known on every race track and trotting ring in Great Britain : “ I have seen her many a time in the paddock at different courses and at New- market, and she hardly meets one's pre- conceived idea of a duchess. She is short and stout of figure, very stout, and the chief thing that impresses one about her is the marvellous strength of her corset strings and compressing pow- er of her corsets. She carries heself very erect, and does her best to defy the march of time. She has a big beefy-red face, on which had temper and high living have left unmistakable traces. Her hair is blonde—I should say of the blonde that comes at so much a bottle— and she wears it done up high on her head, with a fringe across her forehead. She runs to every pronounced color in dress and to giddy hats. Once I saw her in an entire costume of royal pur- ple, even to the sunshade, and the ef- fect, to say the least. was startling. Light striped blazers, jaunty skirts and shirts and coquettish cravats are things she is fond of wearing also, although she’d tip the beam at something over 200 pounds, and is not more than five feet four inches in height and about seventy years of age. At least she is credited with being seventy, and I believe that is the age given in Burke, but she real- ly does not look over sixty. “ Her chief characteristics are ir- rascibility and outspokenness, and a good many anecdotes are afloat about her—so many indeed that one suspects them as being saddled on her as most good stories in America are on Abraham Lincoln, so I won’t vouch for them. One story told about her is that she had a maid whom she treated to occasional ebullitions of violent temper. She discharged her, but as the maid was about to leave in- sisted that she dress her hair once more. The maid did. She took down the duchess' hair, tied it securely to the chair back, stepped round in front of her noble mistress and told her emphat- ically and unvarnishedly just what she thought of her, and wound up by giving her a box on each ear and leaving. The duchess was purple with rage when she was released. She built a pretty little church as a memorial of her second husband (she has had three), and I think had a difference of opinion with the bishop about its dedication on account of an exquisite carving of St. Agnes by Sir Edgar Boehm. She insisted that it should go in; the bishop insisted that it savored too much of Roman Cathol- icism,and he wouldn’t dedicate the church with it up. The matter was settled by the carving being removed while the church was dedicated and put in place above the altar afterward.” '—-—.Of—-—-- I’I‘ really seems as if, after all that has been said. and said again and again, about signing names to articles intend- ed for publication, people would after a while learn the uselessness of sending anonymous letters to newspapers. and incidentally, to write on but one side of the paper. But it would seem to require a surgical operation to get the idea into some minds, for the unsigned, double- decked letters keep on coming. If you strike an idea of such colossal magni- tude you don’t feel equal to the respon- sibility of attaching your name to it, it had better be kept for home use. We may have a hard winter. I .-. ‘n "l ’ -. ..-.a,r,.u..b.-.,z.. ... The Household. HOLIDAY DAINTIES. Can you fancy Christmas and New Year’s without candies and oranges, raisins, nuts and big red apples? If you can, read this bit of Harry Romaine’s philosophy, which he classes as “a bare possibility:” “There’s less of snow and less of cold, And less of Christmas cheer: The weary earth is growing old And duller every year. "And yet. the children sport and play With laughter lou land clear; Perhaps—perhaps I’m growing gray And duller every vear!’ and remember-that though holidays may have become “an old story” to you be- cause you’ve celebrated half a hundred or so yourself, they are—and ought to be—the festival days of the year to the young, and take a little pains to make them glad and bright. At our city confectioners we may buy crystallized violets and rose leaves, candied fruits, and delicate morsels of sugar and flavoring which dissolve on the tongue as dew distills in sunshine. Very different are these from the pink and white peppermint “kisses," the striped sticks and the “gum drops” we thought such delicacies in “the good old days when Theopolus (and I) were young,” and which were chiefly flour, sugar and term alba. If you are not where you can buy fresh, pure candies. ' ‘it is a good p1an,and after all a pleasant trouble, to make your own, especially now sugar is so cheap. And you can reckon on plenty of assistance from the children, whose delight in the manu- facturing process is nearly as great as in the consumption of the finished pro« duct. Here are a few recipes, recom- mended as being excellent. PEANUT CANDY.—Melt white sugar without water (or at most with a very little, as few drops only), stirring it con- stantly to prevent scorching. Blanch the shelled peanuts by pouring boiling water over them and rubbing off the inner skin. Bruise or crush the meats with a rollingpin, and stir them into the sugar. The candy will be hard and crisp. Other nut meats may be used. Always butter the dish into which you turn the candy,using only the swee t- est and best of butter; and mark car- amels or other candy into squares or diamonds when it begins to stiffen,with the back of a warm knife. MOLASSES CANDY.——Two cups of mo- lasses; one of brown sugar; a teaSpoon- ful of butter and a tablespoonlul of vine- gar. Boil twenty or thirty minutes,and pull when cool. You may make nut candy by adding nut meats to a portion just before taking it from the fire. CREAM CANDY. —Two cups of white sugar; two-thirds cup water. Boll with- out stirring until it will spin a thread, flavor with a teaspoonful of vanilla, set into a dish in which there is a little cold water and stir briskly until it is white and creamy. Have ready shelled walnuts, almond meats you have blanch- ed by pouring boiling water over them, allowing it to stand afew moments then rubbing off the brown skin with the fingers; dates; figs, sliced or halved, or candied cherries, and make the cream into little cakes.pressing half a w alnut or a date in each and roll in sifted sugar; use almond meats, bits of fig or your candied cherries as centres for others. To candy cherries,take the canned fruit, let drain over night, or press out the juice carefully, then boil in a sugar syrup until they are clear; take them out one at a time, and drop in sifted sugar. CHOCOLATE CREAMS.—-Tw0 cups white sugar; half cup water. Boil three or four minutes, stirring constantly. Stir in half a cup of corn starch, flavor with lemon or vanilla, make up quickly into little balls and dip each in melted chocolate, laying on a buttered dish to harden. CHOCOLATE CARAMELS.—One cup of chocolate, grated; stir into it atable- spoonful of flour, next acup of sweet cream, stirring till it is smooth and free from lumps, next one cup of the best molasses and one cup each of brown and white sugar. Use one and a half teaspoonfuls of extract for flavoring. Boil half an hour. Test by dropping a little in cold water; when it hardens it is done. Pour into a greased tin, and mark in squares when partly cold. You may use maple sugar instead of brown sugar and have maple caramels; and stir chopped nut-meats into abortion and have nut caramels. SALTED PEANUTS.——Shell the pea- nuts; rub off the brown skin, pour boil— ing water on them, let stand a few minutes; then put a cupful of the meats in a tin dish, with a tablespoonful of nice, sweet butter. Brown lightly in the oven,shaking the dish often. When browned and heated through, turn into a'colander.then dry in soft paper,sprink- ling well with salt. l‘E. s. B ” Regarding Mrs. Charles Brooks—“E. S. B.”.——whose death Beatrix has so fittingly mentioned in the HOUSEHOLD, I was myself so favored as to call her friend and can testify to her many lovely qualities. Her life may be well ex- pressed by a few lines copied by her for the HOUSEHOLD some years ago, which I now copy from my scrap book: "Let me not die before I‘ve done for thee My earthly work. Whatever it may be. Call me not hence with mission unfulfilled: Let me not leave my space of ground untilled. Impress this truth upon me-tnat not one Can do my portion that I leave undone; For each one in thy vi Jes‘ard bath a spot To labor in for life and weary not." HoWELL. MBS. W. J. G. W HOUSEHOLD HINTS. MRS. LOUISE MARKSCHEFFEL. in her department in the Zoledo Sunday Journal, tells us she has discovered an infallible process of making cranberry jelly, which she relates as follows : To one quart of cranberries, use a half pint of Water and one pound of sugar (even three-quarters will do). Put the cranber- ries on the stove in a bright new tin and leave them there ten minutes with nothing but the .water on them, no sugar and no cover. When they have just burst fopen, rub them gently through a colander, not trying to get too much through, and put the juice back on the stove with the sugar. and let that boil ten minutes. A CORRESPONDENT of the Rural Mm Yorker says: When by accident the good porcelain kettle gets burned. do not scrape, but set it on the back of the stove, with a little water in it, into which pour suflicient potash to make it very strong. In a short time the scale will be found all eaten away, leaving the kettle as smooth as ever. Do not touch the liquid with the hand, but pour off and wash with clean water. A CORRESPONDENT of the Country; Gentleman writes : When the flame runs up the chimney of a lamp, it is an indication that the screw of the burner is worn out ; it is unsafe. Cast it aside and buy a new one. Empty your lamps occasionally, and wash the inside with suds, care being taken that they are well dried before refilling them. Do not wash flint-glass chimneys too often in soapsuds, as it has a tendency to make them brittle, but rub them out with a piece of clean flannel. Lamps thus man- aged will give a brilliant light, and amply repav one for the trouble. Useful Recipes. At a recent meeting of the Lenawee County Horticultural Society, the following recipes were furnished by the ladies: RICE PUDDING. —-Two thirds teacnpful rice, cook first in water, add milk and one egg, one cup sugar, several raisins, ground cin' namon one—half teaspoonfnl, butter like a piece of chalk(?) Bake half an hour. MRS. B. I. LAING. GRAPE JUICE.———Press the grapes before they are cooked, strain the juice, bring to a boil and can without sugar. This juice makes an excellent summer drink. used with water and sugar, when the thermometer is up in the nineties ‘and lemons ten miles away. If cooked before pressing, the seeds injure the flavor. Mas. HELME. COCOANUT CAKE.—Th8 whites of three eggs beaten to a froth, one cup pulverized sugar, one-half a cup of butter-lard makes it whiter, and just as good with a little more flavoring—one-half cup of sweet milk, two tesspoonfuls of baking powder mixed with the flour; cream the butter and sugar; add eggs and milk. beating all the time; add flour to make a rather thicu batter. blavor with one teaspoonful of lemon extract. Bake in layers. After greasing the tins, sift on as much flour as will stick. When taken from the oven. set for a minute on a wet cloth, and it will turn out easily. For the frosting, dissolve one cup of granulated sugar in water, and boil until think. Add the well beaten white of one egg. and sprinkle with cocoanut. 1f fig or raisin cake is desired, use chopped raisins in the frosting. Cook chopped figs with sugar and water until like a paste, and use as frosting. MRS. JEROME WAII‘E.