1874.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
265 
wm mmmmiM. 
[For other Household Items, see "Basket " pages). 
A Clothes-Line Reel. 
An Illinois correspondent sends us a sketch of a 
contrivance for taking in a clothes-line, which he 
has made, and, finding it to work satisfactorily, he 
wishes to give it to the readers of the Agriculturist. 
He justly remarks that it is a great deal of trouble 
to put up and take down an ordinary clothes-hue, 
and it is often left out and exposed to the weather 
and soon becomes rotten. We regret that his 
description is not quite so full as it might be, but, 
as we understand it, it affords a hint to those hus- 
bands who like to make things handy for the 
" women folks," and give his sketches and descrip- 
tion. In the first place, he has an upright box, to 
serve as a post, built of boards ; this is shown at 
a iu both engravings, figure 1 being a front view 
Fig. 1. — FRONT 
and figure 2 a side view iu section. This box, a, is 
made large enough for the weight, b, to move up 
and down freely inside ot it. Attached to this up- 
right box, at the proper bight, is a box, e, to con- 
tain the reel for the line. The reel is double ; it 
has a large shaft, <?, upon which the line is wound, 
and a smaller shaft, c, for the cord of the weight. 
This box is so attached to the upright one that the 
small shaft, e, is opposite to it. The weight has a 
pulley attached to it ; the cord for the weight is 
fastened to the top of the upright box, goes 
through the pulley on the weight, over a pulley at 
the top, and down to the shaft, e, of the wheel. 
When this cord enters the box there is a guide pul- 
ley or roller, /, to make it run smoothly. When 
the line is put upon the reel the weight is first 
wound up by revolving the reel, which will wind 
the weight cord up upon e. The line being made 
fast to the shaft d, the weight is allowed to ran 
down, which will reel up the line upon d. There 
must be an opening iu the box, c, the length of the 
shaft, <?, in order to allow the line to run freely. 
When the clothes-line is pulled out, of course the 
weight will be wound up, and when it is to be taken 
iu the descent of the weight will cause the line to 
be reeled upon its shaft and be properly housed. 
We give this merely as a suggestiou, regretting 
that our correspondent did not give exact measure- 
ment, size of weight, etc., allot which are neces- 
sary in explaining such a contrivance. 
J^ tea-cupful ; eggs, 3 ; baking-powder, 1 tea- 
spoonful. Bake like jelly-cake, but have the layers 
thicker. When done, split open with a sharp knife 
and place one above another, having the crust 
down, with mock-cream between each layer made 
thus : One pint boiling milk, beat well, and stir in 
2 eggs, 1 cup of sugar, 2 table-spoonfuls of corn- 
starch, and lastly add }< tea-cupful of butter. This 
cake is better two or three days old. It makes a 
very nice dessert. 
Frencli Oeaui-Calce.— Mrs. E. G. B.— 
Sugar, 1 tea-cupful ; flour, 2 tea-cupfuls ; milk, 
The Atrocity of Feather Beds. 
BY A COUNTRY PARSON. 
The cackling of the goose is said to have saved 
Home. The feathers of the same bird are dealing 
death to America. We are reminded ot this as the 
summer approaches and the hospitality of rural 
friends occasionally introduces us to the "feather 
bed" which has come dowu an heirloom in the 
family for Ave generations. It is a capacious bag, 
holding some thirty to forty pounds of good, honest 
goose feathers, plucked a hundred years ago, and 
held in high esteem by succeeding generations until 
it has come into the possession of the present in- 
cumbent of the old homestead. Underneath this 
feather bed is the straw bed, filled annually with 
clean, sweet oat straw. This relieves the pressure 
upon the bed cords, which are annually tightened 
at the spring house-cleaning with the old-fashioned 
winch and pin until the tense cord makes music 
to the stroke of the hand. This feather bed was a 
tolerable institution iu the days of log houses, with 
the free ventilation of a big fireplace and rifts in 
the roof through which the wind whistled and the 
snow drifted in every winter storm. But now, with 
tight houses and stoves that heat everything from 
cellar to garret, the case is altered. No amouut of 
airing and suulight will permanently redeem the 
bed from the odor of old feathers, which is any- 
thing ljut agreeable, tmd the more atrocious effete 
animal matter that has escaped from the sleepers 
that have sought repose here for generations past. 
Think now of John Giles coming in from his day's 
work in the field where he has been following the 
plow or driving the mower or reaper, his body all 
day long iu a vapor bath, to repeat the process in 
the night watches as he stretches his weary limbs 
upon this unpatented pcrspirator. Here he tries 
to sleep, but wakes often from fitful dreams, and 
tosses as if a fever were raging in his veins. Is it 
any wonder that he rises from unrefreshing sleep 
with the early dawn, that he grows lean and 
cadaverous, and becomes cross and dyspeptic ? 
The poor wife who shares his couch has possibly, 
in addition to his discomforts, the care of a nursing 
child. Is it auy wonder that she comes to the 
morning more dead than alive ? Is it any wonder 
that so large a per ceut of the inmates of our 
lunatic asylums come from our farms? The old 
proverb that "the rest of the laboring man is 
sweet " needs to be received with several grains of 
allowance. There is not much sweetness or refresh- 
ment on this pile of feathers in the sweltering 
summer nights. It is surprising to see how long it 
takes modem improvements to invade the agricul- 
tural districts, even with the help of railroads and 
newspapers. Hair mattresses and spring beds are 
unknown luxuries in many of these districts where 
the civilization is at least two hundred years old. 
" The age of home-spun," supposed by some of 
our brilliant writers to have departed fifty years 
ago, is still continued in almost unbroken force. 
Something cool and soft to sleep on and under, is 
still a desideratum in most farm-houses. The 
apology for feather beds and cotton-quilted com- 
fortables is not poverty, but convenience of manu- 
facture. The feathers are a home product, and a 
tea-drinking makes the quilts and comfortables. 
Yet John Giles owns his farm, is out of debt, has a 
good bank account, owns railroad stock, and could 
have mattresses, fine linen, and blankets if he un- 
derstood their comfort and economy. Where are 
our advertisers of good beds and bedding? 
Home Topics. 
BY FAITH r.OCUESTER. 
The Contents of Children's Dinner Bask- 
ets. — I think I will tell a little true story, to begin 
with — a bit of my own early experience. 
I was rather a delicate child, subject to sick 
headaches and to frequent fits of childish sickness 
— in the summer fevers, and in winter inflammation 
of the lungs, cold in the head, et at. I got the idea 
when quite young that I was not expected to make 
a very healthy woman, and that it would not be 
strange if I should grow up to be a chronic invalid. 
It did not occur to me — nor to any one else, 
so far as I am aware— that this would depend 
chiefly upon my habits of liviug during my early 
years. Though I became a church member at 
thirteen, I had not the least awakening of con- 
science in rega r d to physical sins (or unhealthy 
habits of eating, dressing, exercise, etc.) until more 
than five years later, and since then I seem to have 
been learning only slowly, with pain and difficulty. 
When I was twelve years old I was a pupil at a 
select school more than half a mile from home, and 
carried my dinner in a small tin pail. I was allowed 
to put this up for myself, without any supervision 
from others. A little white "milk emptyings," 
bread, well spread with butter, went in for decen- 
cy's sake ; all the rest was pie, cake, and pickles. 
The cake and pickles were my chief dependence. 
I used to feel secretly sure that I should soon 
die of heart disease ! My little five-year-old Dot 
knows more of physiology and hygiene to-day than 
I did then, though I was getting on well with my 
algebra and grammar and history, and had just 
taken a prize for the best composition. I thought 
it was my heart that pained me so under my ribs 
after I had eaten the cake and pickles. One after- 
noon I had to go out of school crying with the 
pain, and the teacher's wife allowed me to lie on 
her bed until school was over. Then, instead of 
walking home, I went to stay all night with my 
seat-mate, who lived nearer the school. Her 
mother said it was dyspepsia that troubled me, and 
that she had it herself. I had heard the name be- 
fore, and felt rather flattered at having such a 
respectable disease, and drank the hot tea she 
prescribed and prepared with an unusual feeling of 
being in the fashion. 
Not long after I took my dinner witji me and 
went home with my seat-mate at noon. I sat nib- 
bliug my lunch in the kitchen, where Anna's eldest 
sister, a young married woman home on a visit, 
was ironing. I always liked her. She looked into 
my pail, saying merrily : " I wonder what you carry 
for your dinner." 
"I don't wonder that you have a pain in your 
side so much ! " she exclaimed. " Don't you know 
that it is the pickles?" 
I explained that I had dyspepsia, but she laughed, 
and told me that I always would have, and worse 
and worse, as long as I ate such lunches. She 
counseled me kindly to make the bulk of my dinner 
of bread and butter or other plain fare. This ad- 
vice was acted upon in some degree, and I soon 
found such a connection between pickles and sick 
headaches and dyspeptic paius, and later between 
mince-pie and rich cake and the same aches and 
pains that prudence led me to avoid them. It was 
not conscience yet. 
This experience, like others of the same stripe, 
has enabled me to realize better the wisdom of the 
good God in giving us pain and sickness and death 
as results of disobedience to physical laws. It 
seems strange that individuals learn the wisdom of 
obedience so slowly ; and very strange that the 
human race parts with its stupidity in this respect 
so tardily. Yet all this may not seem slow or 
strange to us millions of years hence, but only a 
beautiful part of our Maker's great plan for our 
full and perfect creation. He might have created 
us with only instinct, like the brutes, but he gave 
us reason and freedom to work out our own salva- 
tion, physical as well as spiritual. 
The dinners of the school children tell steadily 
upon their growth and welfare and future useful- 
