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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



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ITEN two 

 f a 111 i 1 ies 

 live to- 

 gether in a rent- 

 ed, f u r n i s bed 

 hou,se for some 

 five months two 

 things are sure 

 to occur — b t h 

 liouse keepers 

 will be jolted out of some of their liouse- 

 keeping ruts, and eacli of them will antici- 

 pate with joy the prospect of her very own 

 home, especially her own kitchen. And this 

 is said with no intention of disparaging 

 either family or the pleasant, homelike, 

 rented house. 



The house in which we have been living 

 since early in January has large, airy and 

 sunshiny rooms with plenty of books, easy 

 chairs and cushioned window seats, large 

 halls, adequate closet space, bathrooms, 

 porches and a beautiful yard with orange 

 trees, deciduous fruits, rose-covered per- 

 golas and flowers. The men and girls loved 

 it on sight, and if our two boys had beeu 

 here they would have loved it. We two 

 housekeepers loved it too — at times. But 

 there were times when the care of it seemed 

 so burdensome that we became almost as de- 

 pressed as a beekeeper when the sun refuses 

 to shine during the honey flow. 



The part of the house which we do not 

 love at all is the kitchen in spite of the 

 fact that we both enjoy cooking. While it 

 is not a pretty, modern, white kitchen it 

 has plenty of cupboard space, a large win- 

 dow, framing a beautiful view, over the sink 

 and is equipped with a good gas range, 

 plenty of utensils and conveniences and well 

 stocked with linen. But (and it is an in- 

 superable but) in order to get to the dining 

 room one has to go through a door in the 

 side of the kitchen next the sink, traverse 

 a long serving pantry and go through a 

 swing door into the dining room. Or one 

 can choose another route through a door in 

 the opposite side of the kit-^'ien near the 

 gas range on through the hall and living 

 room and through double doors into the 

 dining room. (I am not sure whether one 

 goes through a door or a doorway, the house 

 being dictionaryless, but 1 '11 let it stand, 

 for there have been many times when J 

 have been impatient enough to go £hrough 

 the 2-inch doors themselves.) The distance 

 from the kitchen to the dining room table 

 is about the same by either route. Never, 

 never again will either of us I've in a house 

 which hasn't a door leading direct from the 

 kitchen to the dining room, not even if our 

 husVjands should become rich and we should 

 keep several servants apiece. T tliink it 

 would be difficult to keep them under sucli 

 circumstances. 



The partition between the kitchen •■iiid 

 dining room is taken u|) with a \vid<> .•md 

 convenient sideboard with chin;! cinsct.s, 

 flaiikeil by a storage closet on citlu'r i'in\, 



IN A RENTED KITCHEN 



CONSTANCE ROOT BOYDEN 



(Stancy Puerden) 



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.Tune, 1922 



one of which 

 opens into the 

 dining room and 

 tlie other into" 

 the kitchen. The 

 space between 

 the two closets, 

 on the kitchen 

 side of the par- 

 tition, is filled 

 in with cupboards, open shelves and draw- 

 ers, with an open workshelf at table height 

 balancing a similar shelf on the dining room 

 side. In the center of this is a small door, 

 hinged at the top, through which food and 

 dishes may be passed into the dining room, 

 but because of the cupboards on the kitchen 

 side and the china closets on the dining 

 room side the passage is long, and I rather 

 sympathize with one of my nieces who 

 sometimes slangily requests, "Shoot me the 

 glasses" when she is preparing to wash 

 dishes. 



The distance from here to the office, to 

 which the men of the temporarily double 

 family have to drive every day, is twelve 

 miles, and they have three favorite routes, 

 Huntington Drive, Valley Boulevard and 

 Coyote Pass. Coyote Pass is supposed to 

 furnish the draft from the ocean which de- 

 lightfully tempers the climate adjacent to 

 it. For that reason when the housekeeper 

 who sits at the end of the table near the 

 sideboard felt a draft on the back of her 

 neck she christened the pass cupboard 

 "Coyote Pass," and now we always allude 

 to it that way and try to remember to close 

 "Coyote Pass" when everything essential 

 to a meal has been put through. And the 

 route to the dining room through the hall 

 and living room has become ' ' Huntington 

 Drive, ' ' while the serving pantrv route is 

 "Valley Boulevard." The latter 'also leads 

 to a breakfast room, but as it was rather 

 small for our number and quite as far from 

 the kitchen as the dining room we never used 

 it for that purpose. 



WHEN we took this house we were glad 

 to find it apparently well equipped 

 with clocks. There was a good-look- 

 ing mantel clock in the living room, a pretty 

 little wall clock in the dining room, a state- 

 ly and beautiful old clock, which would not 

 run, in the library, and a large, old-fashion- 

 ed pendulum clock hanging on the kitchen 

 wall. We thought it quite fine to have a 

 kitchen clock which struck witli a sonorous 

 tone. But whether the Ohio invasion or the 

 January freeze hoodooed those clocks we 

 have never determined; but soon after Ave 

 moved in they struck, not as good clocks 

 should, but like tlie miners on April 1. The 

 dining room clock just laid down its tools 

 without notice; the living room clock had a 

 bad case of heart trouble and skipped ticks 

 in a distressing way for several days before 

 it too stopped woik; tlie hour hand on the 

 kitclien clock decided to take a rest at six, 



