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DETROIT, JULY 11, 1887.

 

 

 

THE HOUSEHOLD-"Supplement.

 

MAMMA.

 

"‘It’s ‘Mamma!’ here and ‘Mammal‘ there.
Till I am like to drop;

It‘s ‘Mammal Mamma!’ all the time,
0, will it never stop?

“ It‘s ‘ Mammal Mammal Mamma!’ till
It would wear out a saint! ’

Ah, poor, tired mother! Thus I hear
You oft-times make complaint.

But when the quiet night descends,
And every voice is still:

0, does no vague but'hannting fear
Your gentle bosom fill?

0, does no sudden heart-throb make
You seek the children’s beds,

And call Heaven’s blessings down upon
Their precious curly heads?

Their little hands make mischief, and
Their little feet make noise;

But, 0, what could you do without
These naughty girls and boys?

Ah, think of lonely mothers who
All day in silence sit;

Across those hearthstones nothing now
But ghostly shadows flit 1

Ah, think of those who never hear
The sweet child voices call;
Whose empty arms reach out to find
No little ones at all!
-—'¢o¢—-——
THE PRESERVE CLOSET.

 

To the housekeeper, as to the farmer,
summer is the harvest of the year. Berries
and stone fruits are to be canned and pre-
served and jamed, and vegetables canned
and dried for winter use; and there are
many women who think their supply is
“ short” unless they have ranged in orderly
rows in closet or cellar, at least a hundred
cans of fruit. It is said that canned fruits
were found in the ruins of Pompeii, and
that the enterprising American' who re-
discovered the process made a fortune out
of his knowledge. However that may be,
the method came quickly into favor among
housekeepers, and the pound-for-pound
preserves which were the pride of our
grandmothers’ hearts in their young days,
and so expensive when sugar was scarce
and high, are almost obsolete. What a
treat we children thought that clear, trans-
lucent fruit, dripping with its amber j uicesl
hbw glad we were to see company come
whose station would call for the best the
house afforded, and how we endured the
minister whose clerical garb and catechiz-
ing struck terror to our souls, because we
knew if we “ were good ” we should share
in the dainties that graced the tea-table in
his honor!

My first lesson in housekeeping lore was
in the making of peach preserves, when I
was got quite nine years old. Very awk-

ward fingers pared the great yellow peaches
in thin, but rather irregular “peelings,”
and a most important personage I felt my-
self as I weighed the sugar and fruit and
laboriously dipped the scum from the kettle.
And when the precious conserve—there
must have been about three pints of it—was
poured out into the pretty mottled jar, and
set away to cool, and I brought my father
in to inspect and sample it, I felt as if I
was really quite what he called me, “ a
little woman.”

Almost every woman has her own way of
canning fruit. Some make very laborious
work of it, others manage the task quite
easily; part of the secret lies in the execu-
tive ability of the worker. It is really a
very simple process. A porcelain-lined
kettle, or an earthen dish, to cook the fruit
in and a wooden or silver spoon to stir it,
that it may not be darkened by contact with
tin or iron; good cans -and there is none
better than the Mason—with new rubbers
and perfect tops; fresh fruit and granulated
sugar, are all the necessaries. The fruit is
much more apt to keep without fermenting
if put up when perfectly fresh. And as the
granulated sugar is more free from impuri-
ties than “cofiee A” or whitey brown. it
is cheaper to buy the best quality.

I confess I am unable to discover any
particular difierence between fruit cooked
in the can by boiling in a water-bath, and
that where sugar and fruit are put together
and ladled into the can when cooked suffi~
ciently; unless it be that possibly that cook-
ed in the can may be a trifle more perfect in
shape. But there 18 a great deal of differ-
ence in the labor. Mrs. Helme, of Adrian,
recently exhibited some fine canned straw-
berries before the Lenawee Horticultural
Society and told how they were put up, as
follows:

“My method is to fill the can with the
largest selected berries, and press the juice
from the smaller or interior ones, and from
it make a sirup, by adding one cup of sugar
for one quart can of strawberries. Pour the
sirup over the fruit in the can until it is
nearly full. I then place the can in a boiler
of cell water, reaching to the shoulder of
the can, and heat the water in the boiler
until it boils. I then take out the can, and
let it stand ten minutes; fill with hot pre-
pared sirup and seal.”

It is said that some varieties of strawber-
ries fade more than others; probably this
accounts for the discrepancy in statements
respecting the effect of sugar in canning in
a late HOUSEHOLD. Strawberry jelly is im-
proved it the juice of a lemon is added to
the fruit. From twenty to twenty-five
minutes is long enough to cook this fruit for

 

preserves or jam. A pretty way to arrange

 

strawberry jelly is to take a pint of juice, a
scmt pound of sugar and the juice of two
lemons. Soak a b )x of gelatine in a little
cold water for two hours, add the fruit
juice and sugar and pour over all a pint of
boiling water, let come to a boil ( hard) on
.the stove, turn half of it into a mould and
set on ice to harden, keeping the remainder
'warm. When that in the mould is set,
place on it some large fresh berries and turn
on the rest of the jelly.

There is no jelly so delicious as that made
from currents: for cake, tarts, or with
meats its pleasant acid is alike agreeable.
A pound of sugar to a pint of juice is the
inflexible rule, and be sure your fruit is not
too ripe or your jelly won’t “ jell.” Spiced
currants make an agreeable condiment with
cold meats; you need to proportion the sugar
and fruit in the ratio of three and one-half
pounds of the former to five pounds of the
latter, a quart of good cider vinegar, and
cloves and cinnamon with discretion.

The gooseberry is a comparative stranger
to American gardens, but a great favorite
in England, where it is largely cultivated.
Spiced gooseberries are nice with meats.
Five pounds of berries, three and one-half
of sugar, a quart of vinegar, an ounce of
whole cloves and cinnamon. The spices
are to be tied in a cloth and boiled in the
vinegar with the sugar for ten minutes.
Cook til the juice begins to thicken. Jams,
preserves and spiced fruits are best put in
cans and sealed while hot, same as canned
fruit.

Raspberry vinegar is a good cordial, as is
also that made from blackberries. Put a.
quart of fresh raspberries into a quart of
vinegar, let stand a week, stirring occasion-
ally; add one pound of white sugar, boil
twenty minutes, strain and bottle.

Sour cherries are best for preserving or
canning; the sweet sorts are insipid. You
want your “pound for pound” for pre-
serves, and cook till the. fruit is clear. The
nicest way is to cook the fruit in a sugar
sirup of one cup of water to a pound of
sugar, till clear, skim the fruit out and boil
the sirup down, skimming it before pouring
it over the fruit.

Blackberries seem principally seeds when
canned. Probably the best use one can
make of them is to use them in jam.

Green grape jelly is delicious, but jelly
from ripe grapes is apt to contain crystals,
of grape sugar, I suppose, which are rough
to the taste. I think the grape loses more
of its excellence in the attempt to preserve
it than any other fruit, strawberries not ex-
cepted. It is most satisfactory where the

 

juice is expressed and bottled. These

  


2 ’ THE_HOUSEHOLD.

 

fruit juices or sirnps, whether of the grape,
entrant or raspberry, are excellent; good
tonics and very palatable. To prepare
them, the fruit is steamed or heated, the
juice obtained as in jelly-making, sugar to
taste is added—a cupfull to three pints of
juice is a good proportion—then boil one
minute, skim if necessary, and bottle or
can; fill the bottle full and pour melted wax
over the cork. Such sirups or friit juices
will keep any length of time without fer-
mentation, and may be diluted if used for a
beverage. Of course everybody under-
stands there is not the slightest trace of
aloohol in such a preparation.

Ladies have told their success in canning
pieplant in celd water without cooking.
But it I was “short” on supplies for the
preserve closet, I would try the following
using it for tart pies: Strip the pieplant
and cut as for pies; to every quart thus pre-
pared allow a pound of sugar; put the two
together and let stand over night, turn off
the juice and boil it for twenty minutes,
add the cut pieplant and boil twenty min-
utes, slowly. I remember putting up a
couple of cans of pieplant, by way of ex-
pcriment, my last year of housekeeping.
preparing it as for pics, cooking as little as
possible and yet scald it thoroughly, and
canning as any other fruit. It kept splen-
didly, in midwinter was used for tart pies,
and relished by all of us. The last pie,
prepared as a special treat, came to grief;
as I was taking it from the oven an unlucky
movement turned it bottom side up on the
floor. My big brother, mindful of the jar-
gon of the base-ball team, called out “No
pic,” but I thought “ Out on foul” would
have been equally as appropriate.

The tomato, whose place in horticulture
has been settled by declaring it a fruit when
raw, a vegetable when cooked, don’t
amount to much except when canned or as
catsup. The preserves are insipid, even
if lemons are added, and we have so
many better fruits that it is not worth while
to bother to make them up. Some tested
recipes for catsup and pick es were given
in the Housmnoxm last summer, to which

we refer inquirers. ’
ham.“ \ BEATRIX.

\VORK FOR 'WOMAN.

 

‘ Not then will woman idly rest,
A pretty house sold dove.

When st to be the eagle‘s mate,
And cleave the clouds above:

But strive with him in noblest work,
And with him win at last:

When all the struggle, all the toil,
And weariness is past."
Independence is a strong element in

woman’s nature. The old simile of the
ivy and the oak is true in a measure; that
she wants love and protection and sympathy,
we know, but that self-reliant feeling will
develop, and in Spite of this care she likes
to earn money herself. That woman as
weil as man is endowed with a business
capacity, that she can invest capital and
manage financial affairs with a shrewd,
keen, business tact, and meet with success,
has been proven conclusively. Her presence,
which breathes such an air of home, robs
counting rooms and offices of their stiff
business-like appearance; with her dainty
attire and deft touch they wear the air of
parlors and possess the atmosphere of

of roses or water lilies, the bright face and
ready smile, they are only factors that make
up the sum total. M my launch in business
for themselves; others are employed. The
firm of R. H. Macy & Co., of New York,
probably employ the largest force, they
number nearly three thousand, and the
superintendent is a woman. A woman
does the pron-treading, another manages
the telegraph and telephone Wires.
Mr. Wheeler, of the firm. says he “feels
certain that the moral tone of woman is
raised and strengthened by business ex-
perience. The tr Lining and discipline
women get in a great store, better fit them
for the. management of rfishome, than home
training; it makes them self reliant, practi-
cal, broad-mimled, steady and sober.”
Miss Mary F. Seymour, the head of the
Union Stenographic & Type Writing Asso-
ciation of New York, has Very similar ideas.
When she first begun business, she was
unable to find woman helpers; she was
obliged to employ men. Parents were
timid about allo ving their daughters to as-
sociate in business with men. She thinks
that the worst danger to a girl lies in her-
self; girls that are honest, dignified and
pure, will not suffer from contact with the
world; “that manhood is improved and
polished, and made gentle, where the daily
business life is passed in the presence of
modest girls.”

The best way we can judge a man is in

his business relations. Q lite often a sound,

practical business man would be passed
unnoticed in society, and an empty-headed,

shallow fellow outshine him. Society is a

poor place to judge of real merit; every one

appears at his best. And when a girl who
has been in business marries, as she does in
the very same proportion that girls in homes
do, what kind of a wife does she make?

She cannot- bake or cook. No; but her

mental training has fitted her to manage a

home well, she has an idea of system, she

has been where she has heard public matters
discussed, she knows what to read, and
how to take part in masculine conversation.

So it seems, aside from dollars and cents,

it is a mutual benefit; they see each other in

a common sense light, not in society decep-

tion. We find women on the editorial

staff. Byron says:

“ Words are things; and asmall drop of ink,
Falling like dew upon athought, produces
That makes th )usrnds. perhaps millions

think."

Mrs. Frank Leslie assumsl the editorial
chair after the death of her husbmd, and
saved his papers and magazines from
failure. Miss Mary L. Booth receives four
thousand dollars per year for editing

Harper’s Bazaar. Jennie June, Mrs. Mary

Clemmer Ames, Miss Mary E. Dodge, have

experience. It seems as if there were
places that women were especially fitted for.

“ Such gifts are woman’s priceless dower,
Yet, sisters mine, how few
Dare take the precious burden up,
And woman‘s true work do.”

Fifty years ago, a female physician was
unknown. Miss. Elizabeth Blackwell was
the first to obtain a degree, I think in 1848,
at the college in Geneva, N. Y. She was
English by birth, but came to this country
when eleven years of age. Since that time

all received large salaries and had a large

students, and at the present time, there are

anumber of female medical colleges with
women at the head, and they are success-
ful, too.

I have read that there are countries in the
East where the practice of midwife has
never passed into the hands of men. It
would seem that woman with her ready in-
tuition could successfully do this work, in
caring for her 01le sex, and for little ones,
and I have heard it rem irked that in cases
where strong nerves were required they
were never known to quail, combining
strong sympathy with perfect composure.
Women as reformers have had great in-
fluence; during those dreadful slavery days,
women worked in union with the men.
Mrs. L. Maria Chill published the first anti-
slavery book which agpeared in America,
she was a most beautiful writer beside.
Miss Francis Will..rd, whose name is a
household word, is doing much in the
temperance reform and woman suffrage. A
great many pages are made bright with the
names of. women who have been teachers,
ministers, missionaries and philanthropists.
Lawyers and historians are comparatively
few. There are women woo pursue farm-
ing and make money at it; bee culture, silk
raising and poultry are all branches of
business in which women have been suc-
cessful, but the'branch of housekeeping has
few followers from choice; dish washing
possesses n) more charms than it had fifty
years ago, and is performed in pretty much
the same way. Still, cooking schools have
been established, clubs formed, and fine
cooking has become a science.

I have read that God formed a niche for
every One; but it seems to me that lots of
people are off their base, or else the world
is going wrong. It used to be a prevalent
opinion that if a woman became educated
and well-informed, and had a mind not de-
voted entirely to domestic affairs, she lost
her crowning grace, “that delicacy, which
is to woman what color is to the flower,
that nameless something which poets strive
to describe but cannot, that something
which attracts us to woman.” Prof. Angel],
of Michigan University, says that he sees
no possible tendency in that direction.
Tennyson say :

“ Heneeforth the woman's cause is man‘s;

They 1]? or sink together, dwarfed or God-
1 'e.

Bond or free, not like to like, but like in dif-
ferences:

Yet in the long years, liker must they grow:

The man be more of woman. she of man;

Dispensing harvest, sowing the To Be,

Self reverent each and reverencing each.

Distinct in individualities,

But like each other.“

BATTLE CREEK. EVANGELINE.

——-——-¢oo—-——-——
CARE OF REFRIGERATORS.

The N. E. Farmer says: It is now the
season for using refrigerators, and a few
words of warning are needed by those
housekeepers who have the mistaken notion
that an ice chest needs no more attention
than a tri-weekly supply of ice. Nothing
in which food is placed, or with which it
comes in contact, needs more care can the
refrigerator. It should be kept as pure and
sweet as the churn. Once a week, on a
day when the supply of ice is low, if you
use the chest refrigerator, remove the ice

 

 

drawing-rooms. It may be only atumblel‘

medical colleges have welcomed women

and wash the interior with soap and water

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

   


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE HOUSEHOLD.

     

3,

 

and. rinse well; also see that the outlet is
unclogged. Replace the ice and wash the
removable shelves in the same manner; air
and dry them in the sun. Such a weekly
cleaning may waste a few pounds of ice
during the summer, but it will save much
in the flavor of the food, and in the health
of the family.

If at any time even a few drops of milk
or food are spilled, have them removed at
once and not left to sour and contaminate
the entire contents.

Keep out of the refrigerator all such ar-
ticles of food as' will affect the flavor of
others, as fish, boiled cabbage and other
strong flavored vegetables, for milk, butter,
bread, in fact everything, will be tainted by
them. This weekly cleaning usually can
not be trusted 3to the kitchen help, and if
there is a girl to assist about the work let
her attend to other tasks, and with your
own hands make sure that the ice-chest is
not a producer of disease germs.

Tbs air in a refrigerator if not changed by
frequent opening and occasional airing, be-
comes stagnant aud charged with the ex-
halations of food and the moisture from
the melting ice. It can be readily under-
st (1 that such a receptacle is not the
p . r place for milk, especially that which
is to be used by an infant. The foul air is
particularly noticeable upon opening a re-
frigerator from which the ice has been en-
tirely melted. It is yet to be decided
whether we are not depending too much on
ice for food preservation. Housekeepers
are becoming impatient at the rapid spoil-
ing of meat and poultry which have been
ice-kept and which, fresh at the hour of
purchase, must be sp:edily cooked or lose
their flavor.

If we find that meat which has been kept
by means of cold storage must be used at
once lest it spoil, milk preserved long upon
ice must be used with great care, for it is so
powerful an absorbent that its possibilities
of danger are even greater.

—————4mo—————

METHOD AND ORDER IN DAILY
LIFE.

How many times, while doing my work, I
think of the steps that might be saved and
apologies that might be spared when a
friend or neighbor drops in for a moment,
if we had more method and order in our
daily life. "A place for everything and
everything in its place” is a vely true way
of keeping order, if one doesn’t think that
the place for an article is to drOp it just
where we are using it. Often it will take a
little longer to carry your shears or paper,
or whatever you may have in use to its
proper place, than to lay it down where you
are, but it will not take as long to find it
next time you need it. Perhaps you have
noticed that in some people’s houses you
may call at anytime of day, still all is order
and no one appears to have anything to do;
while in other homes all is confusion at all
times, floors never swept, dishes never
washed, sewing never done, always work
enough to keep three or four women busy
all day to straighten into anything like
order. All this for lack of method. “Well!”
some say, “ I have more work than I can

undone.” Very true; many a mother has
much more work than she can do, but find
out the easiest and quickest way to do your
work, and “slight” that which will be
noticed least. You who have half a dozen
children must not try to dress them in
white dresses, with white aprons, as those
who only have one. When the little ones
are grown to “big ones” and can wash
and iron their own white dresses, then they
can have them, but as long as they are
small and you have do it, they will look as
well and feel as well dressed in something
darker that needs little or no washing and
ironing. Have your work and meals
planned ahead; it will be easier to think to-
night what you will have for dinner to-
morrow than to wait till eleven O'clock
and then try to think of something.
YrsiLAxrr. M XRY B.

._..____...____
WOMAN’S LOVE FOR W'OMAN.

This may seem an out-of-the-way head-
ing, for one who would wish to lighten
“ Dot’s perplexities,” in the HOUSEHOLD,
June 27. We all have a favorite “theme ”
—“hobby” is the modern explanation—

 

and mine is an untold tenderness, a loving
sympathy for our girls, young wives, even
extending to the matronly grandma, full of
wisdom from years of experience, her path-
way to the “ Beautiful Land ” fragrant with
the sweetest flowers of blessed deeds and
loving words, scattered since childhood.

Sister “ Dot”—for are we not all sisters?
-—you c..rried me back for nearly a score and
a half of. years of housekeeping, since I, too,
became afarmer’s wife,nota “naturalhouse—
keeper ” as you say.

«After seventeen years of the delicious
freedom of early pioneer life, I taught four
summers and two winters in district schools
developing my natural love for children ;
and every scholar—girl or boy—shared in
my love and prayers, although many of
them sweetly sleep beyond the need of
earthly love. The next step was marriage—-
a school for life—with one of a family of
sons deprived in early life of a mother’s
holy tenderness, and never knowing the
sacred influence of a sister’s gentle,winning
love, and now I must needs learn how to
exemplify Childhood’s first lesson, the
“sturdy oak and clinging vine,” in the
primitive forest of pioneer days, where the
graceful deer roamed at pleasure, hiding
her young in the dense thickets at man’s in-
trusion. This was comparatively easy, but
the passing years unfolded the mysteries of
wife, mother, nurse, seamstress, cook, dairy-
maid, laundress, and maid of all work in
general, expected from one set of hands,
the propelling power looking the embodi-
ment of fragility. To even master the first
degrees of the science of cookery, and con-
quer the shrinking sensitiveness of being
visited by a husband’s well-to-do and ex-
perienced relatives, was the one huge moun-
tain that has now dwindled down to the
proverbial mole hill; and out of terrible
failures and mistakes I have learned wis-
dom, and to feel a strength I never knew in
youth,by trusting in Him who can never
fail, and resolving, with our Father’s help,
I will do what I see is duty, at any- sacrifice
of selfishness or personal vanity.

 

possibly do alone and I must leave some

  

mer’s wife Dot probably burns wood in the

cook-stove. Save the ashes and have some
one who understands it set up an old fash-
ioned leach. The first lye run off will bear
up an egg. Now, put in all your grease—
which will accumulate where pork is used——
tallow, rancid butter, etc. Boil in a large

kettle. When thoroughly dissolved, add

water till it becomes thick. I made three
barrels this spring, without any bother ex—
cept the required work, saving one kettle
of lye in which to deposit scraps, rinds, etc.,
which the hot weather is fast turning to
good soap. The soap made two months
ago will now make a suds equal to hard
soap, and more cleansing for dirty clothing,
which all farmers must have.

Having long thought I would comply with
our beloved Editor’s invitation, time and
time again, for “ early experiences” put in
writing, should she think this attempt will
in any way soft-en “ Dot’s” perplexities, or
those of other young wives, I will send my
address in full to the HOUSEHOLD, and
could I assist these in any way by answer-
ing questions, or giving advice by private
letter, they may feel at liberty to write to
me.

Although blessed with sons, I have but
one daughter, and my heart reaches out to
every daughter in our land, gratefully re-
membering the counsel of “ Mothers in

Israel” all through life.
HOPEFUL.

CANNING VEGETABLES.

 

Vegetables are rarely canned with suc-
cess, in any quantity, in the home kitchen.
The canning factory has a monopoly of the
business, and its appliances are too ex-
pensive to make it worth while to get them
for use on the farm. Sweet corn and
tomatoes are the leading articles in this
line, lima beans next; but asparagus, green
peas and 3* ring beans are put up in smaller
quantities. Maine is said to excel all other
States in quality and quantity, in the pro-
duction of canned earn, the Maine corn is
famous for its excellence; and little New
Jersey takes the lead in tomatoes, which
is the foremost product inthe canned goods
trade. New Jersey “has the call” on
tomatoes, at prices from five to twenty per
cent above those paid for Maryland and
Delaware stock.

Lima beans are delicious when canned,
but we have never seen a recipe for putting
them up outside a factory. The smart Cal—
ifornia dealers buy the dried beans, ship
them in sacks to Chicago, where they are
soaked, steamed, canned and put upon the
market as strictly fresh stock. The con-
sumer detects the imposition, for the fully
ripe beans are still somewhat hard and like
an underdone white bean to the taste.

A number of ladies have reported suc-
cess with a recipe for canning corn which
appeared in the HOUSEHOLD ayear ago,
while others asserted the corn, put up
“exactly by the recipe,” spoiled. Where
some succeed and others fail, it is fair to
look for reasons for failure outside of the
directions. Sweet corn for canning must
be fresh, not more than a couple of hours
from the field. The method employed is to
cut the corn from the cob and pack it

 

In regard to soap-making, being a far-

 

 

closely into quart cans. using a stamper to


 
   

4

THE HOUSEHOLD.

 
 

 

 

press it in perfectly solid; press it in till the
milk overflows the top of the can. Screw
on the tops as tight as you can
with your hands, then set the cans
on a framework on the bottom of your wash—
boiler, fill with cold water to the
shoulder of the cans, let come to a boil and
boil "three hours. Lift out the cans and
screw the tops en tightly with the can-
wrench. The points to be observed to
secure success are to have the corn fresh,
packed perfectly solid in the can, and to
keep the water boiling till the corn is thor-
oughly cooked in the cans. If the last con-
dition is not observed, the contents will
spoil “sure as fate.”

The following directions for canning
asparagus are taken from an exchange:

“ Wash and prepare the asparagus as for
cooking; put it in glass jars tips upward,
set the jars in a pan of hot water and then
fill each jar with boiling salted water. Put
on the covers of the jars without the rub-
bers and set each one in a boiler of boiling
water. There should be a wooden frame
in the bottom of the boiler for the jars to
rest on, and it is best to place kitchen
towels between them, so they will not
knock together while boiling. Let the
water reach up to the neck of. the ' jars.
Cook the asparagus twenty minutes in this
way, with water boiling, then remove the
jars from the boiler, unscrew t e covers, put
on the rubbers, fill up with boiling water
well salted if it has boiled down in the jars
while cooking, replace the covers, screw
them down as tight as you can. when they
are cold tighten them again and set away.”

———¢o.————

SCRAPS.

 

THERE is a popular saying to the effect
that every housekeeper, no matter how ir-
reproachable her methods, has yet her
“dirty streak”—or at least one item in
which she relaxes her usual vigilance in the
warfare maintained against dirt. Even the
armor of Achilles had its vulnerable spot,
you know. And every woman also has her
pet economy which she practices to the de-
light of her heart. I knew one once whose
passion was the saving of letter paper, her
letters to her friends were a queer hodge-
podge of odd half-sheets of assorted sizes
and tints. Another never'wasted an inch
of thread; a third boasted she had never
owned but one paper of pins since her mar-
riage, fifteen years previous. My own
favorite economy—for since I have alleged
this peculiar form of economy is common
to all, I may as well acknowledge my own——
was, in my housekeeping days, an extra
care in economizing butter. And I think
any woman who began housekeeping with
one cow and a family abnormally fond of
milk, butter and cream, will understand
how the economy in that especial direction
was developed. Nor is the weakness con-
fined to femininity alone. Thackeray, in
his private and hitherto unpublished letters,
says of himself: “Isn’t it curious that a
gentleman of such expensive tastes should
have this meanness about paper and
postage? The best is I have spent three
francs in cab-hire, hunting for the man who
was to carry my two~franc letter.” One

elderly man could never hear to see a bit of
wrapping twine thrown away; a millionaire
has been known to dismount from his car-
riage to pick up two or three cobblestones,
which he carried home to help pave the

something common and wanting in sig-

courtyard of his barn———in fact almost every
man or woman has this little peculiarity.
An acquaintance confesses that in her de-
sire to economize her car tickets she often
loses, in damage to her clothing, many times
the small sum she saves, yet still keeps on
“saving.” Wasteful in many things, care-
less and indiderent in others, perhaps even
wantonly extravagant in ordinary expen-
ditures, there is almost always some one
item in which economy closely verges upon
or actually attains pusimony. Study
human nature and see if this is not true.

“MARGARET, Margaret, where are you,
Margaret?” The .soft voice of the old
lady calling her géandchild, brought to me
a new revelation of the beauty of this name,
meaning “apearlg” and I wondered how
any girl ever christened by it. could bear to
have its musical rhythm desecrated and de-
generated into Maggie, Madge, Margery,
or the coarse Mag, which is “ perfectly
horrid.” So many really beautiful names
are spoiled by this rage for diminutives and
nicknames, which transforms them into

nificance. Where there is one girl who has
the good sense to prefer the full sweet
roundness of “ Margaret,” there are a
dozen who insist on the gutteral “ Maggie,”
and so with nearly all our feminine names.
Sara, “the princess,” becomes S‘tllie or
Sadie or Satie; Agatha, “good,” and Agnes,
“chaste,” become the unmeaning Aggie;
Dorothea or Dorothy, “the gift of God,”
somehow never get their full complement
of syllables, but are abbreviated to Dora or
“Dedo;” Esther, “a star,” is quite too
Biblical for the modern girl, Who changes it
over to Essie, and Helen, “light,” gets to
be Nell or Nellie by the same process of
evolution. I’m tired of the Maudes and
Mabels, the Ethels and Hazels of the
time, and long for something stronger. I
cannot'understand the would-be refi uement
and excessive nicety of the lady who in-
sisted that the girl she employed to sew for
her, who had been christened Ptoebe,
“pure, radiant,” should change her name
to Mabel because “Phoebe was so dread-
fully old fashioned.” I would rather be
Bridget than Belinda, for one signifies
strength and the other has no meaning.
There is the incongruity of names, too, as
Lily applied to a buxom brunette, as unlike
her floral prototype as can be ima ined, or
ablack—eyed, olive-skinned girl kg to
struggle along as Blanche or Rose. Cer-
tain names seem associated With certain
physical peculiarities, and we on ght not to
violate their fitness. To my taste the most
beautiful in the long list of feminine
names are two most unhappily nicknamed,
Margaret and Gertrude; either is beautiful
in its entirety, and hideous when “mod-
ernized.”

 

CALLING the other day upon an acquaint-
ance, in pursuance of my errand I was
shown over her house, through the neat,
tastily furnished parlors, the dining-room,
its sideboard sparkling with cut glass and
silver, the cosy library, upstairs, into “the
girls’ room.” “ You must excuse the looks
of things,” said my cicerone, as she opened

 

into the apartment. And certainly “ the
looks of things" called for an apology. The
bed was made up, and some very elaborate"
pillow shams were adjusted, but the room

looked as if the contents of a couple of
closets had been emptied into the middle of
the floor and then stirred up with a stick,
The dressing bure ill was littered with hur-

pins, face powder and curl-papers, and one

corner of the mirror proved an asylum for a

dirty collar; a pair of crumpled kid gloves,
the remains of a corsage bouquet and-a
torn playbill told of a late visit to the-
theatre; a pair of down-at-the-heel slippers
were kicked under the end of a low divan
which supported a dressing-sack and a
soiled petticoat, acouple of dirty towels
had found rest on a chair, and on any piece
of furniture you could have written
“slattern” in the dust. An hour later I
met the young lady occupants of the room.

finely dressed, looking as next and trim as
you please. “ Well,” thought 1, “ I don’t
suppose the beautiful emperor moth, when

he has stretched his wings in the sunshine,

once glances at the dirty-brown, cracked
case he left behind him, and so probably
no thought of that disorderly room haunts
these gay girls as they eat ice-cream at
Sanders’ with their beans. But I wonder
what the latter would think if they saw
what I did?” Yet for the encouragement of
those young men who nny chance to read
these Scraps, I am willing to affirm that I
believe untidy girls are the exception, and
that in the average girl order and neatne ss
are excellently well developed. Between
the painfully neat and the dreadfully un-
tidy we find the great majority who “ hit
the happy medium.” And it is between
extremes we always find the point which is
just exactly right.

BEATRlX.

.————...——.——.

QUEsrrox.-—Can any reader of the Hons};
HOLD inferm me where a folding loom.
with steel reeds, can be obtained? Address
Box 513, Imlay City, Mich.

____.__...____

Useful Recipes.

 

TOMATO SrEw.—Scald and skin the desired
number and place in a stewpan without wa-
ter. Let them simmer half an hour. Add
pepper, salt, a good sized lump of butter and
a spoonful or two of white sugar. Grate a
little stale bread over the whole, and take
from the fire as soon as it borls. Serve hot.

 

PEACH TAPIOCA.—Soak some tapioca over
night, and in the morning boil until it is per—
fectly clear, adding more water from time to
time, as needed. Take some very fine peaches.
cut them fine with a silver knife, sprinkle
liberally with sugar, and when you take the
tapioca from the stove stir the peaches into
it. Eat cold with sugar and cream.

 

FRIED Porarons.——Peel raw potatoes, wash
them, then slice very thin. Do not wash them
after they are sliced. Into the spider put a
tablespoonfnl of lard, suet or drippings.
When hot pour in the sliced potatoes, then
pour in a teacup or more of water. Sprinkle
salt on top. Cover and cook over moderate
fire. Do not stir, but slide a. knife under oc-
casionally to prevent sticking. The potato
when done should pour out whole and white
and delicious.‘ It takes a little practice to

 

the door and permitted me to precede her

    

get it just right. Some like it brpwned.