516 
AME LtICAN AGPJCU LT U LUST. 
[December, 
THE HffilOTMm 
For other Household Items see “ Basket ” pages. 
A Shell Catch-All. 
Not Jpng ago we saw a man on Broadway selling 
sea shells of various kinds, many of which were 
A CONVENIENT CATCH-ALL. 
arranged to serve some useful purpose, and at the 
same time possessed considerable beauty. One of 
these was a Catch-all, shown in the accompanying 
engraving, which has been made from a sample 
purchased for ten cents. The shell has a “ set¬ 
ting,” apparently in the end of a birch log, but 
it is not so. A piece of thin pine makes the bot¬ 
tom, which is of the size and general shape of the 
outline of the shell. Another thin piece of wood 
is then wound around this bottom and the edge of 
the shell, and fastened in place by glue, and covered 
with a strip 0 f birch bark. The irregularities of 
the rim are filled in with some fine cement and 
given a coat of varnish, when the shell is “set,” 
and the dish is complete. Such a mounted shell is 
quite handsome, and is so cheaply and easily made 
that it is within the reach of any one. It may be 
used for receiving burnt matches, and as the lining 
of the box is not combustible it is perfectly safe. 
Should there be a person in the house who smokes, 
he will find this Shell Catch-all convenient for 
receiving the ashes of his cigar, etc. 
A Linen Wall-Pocket. 
The convenient Wall-Pocket shown in the accom¬ 
panying engraving is made of pasteboard, well- 
starched gray linen, a braid of any desired color, 
Fig. 1.— A LINEN WALL-POCKET. 
and embroidery work to suit the taste. The pat¬ 
tern is made in this wise : Make a square on a large 
piece of paper, so that one half of it will be the 
size desired for the upper part of the back of the 
holder or pocket. Draw diagonal lines from op¬ 
posite corners, prolonging the perpendicular one 
half its length beyond the lower corner; connect 
this end with the ends of the other diagonal, and 
the outline of the pattern, as shown in figure 2, is 
complete. Cut the pasteboard after this pattern, 
and cover with the linen and 
braid, and stitch as one may de¬ 
sire ; in fact, the limit to this 
decorative needle-w'ork depends 
upon the taste, patience, and in¬ 
genuity of the designer. The 
cover should be so made that it 
can be removed from the paste¬ 
board when it requires to be 
washed. The front part is made 
of the linen folded as in making 
a newspaper fan, through the upper part of the 
folds of which a cord is passed, and fastened to 
the pasteboard back at the sides. The bottom and 
sides should be firmly fastened to the back, and 
the wall-pocket is ready to be hung up by a ribbon 
fastened with a bow, as shown in figure 1. With 
these general directions, any one may make a wall- 
pocket that will be both ornamental and useful. 
Home Topics. 
BY FAITH ROCHESTER. 
Hard Water and Soft Water in Cooking. 
I have been reading the testimony of Alexis 
Soyer, the celebrated chef de cuisine, concerning 
the effects of hard and soft water upon food cooked 
with either. He gives the preference in all respects 
to soft water, unless in the one matter of cooking 
fresh meat with a view to making it as white as 
possible. He says that hard water seems to con¬ 
tract the pores, and solidify the gluten, so that he 
believed it to be impossible to extract the true 
flavor of meat with hard water. In boiling salt 
meat, soft water extracts more salt than hard 
water, and makes the meat more tender. Soft 
water evaporates one-third more rapidly in boiling, 
and cooks every thing in less time. He said that 
hard water shrivels greens and peas, and affects 
leaves more than roots. Potatoes boiled in hard 
water are harder and whiter than those boiled in 
soft water, and more time is required for the pro¬ 
cess. In cooking dry vegetables, he says, we must 
allow one-fourth more time for hard water. He 
had no doubt that soft water makes the best bread. 
He said that bread made with the same flour and 
the same yeast, and by the same bakers, is much 
inferior made with hard water than when soft water 
is employed. He made many experiments with 
tea, and decided that soft water draws out the flavor 
of the tea more fully and more rapidly than hard, 
so that for a “good cup ” one must take more tea 
when using hard water than when using soft. 
Washing 1 Done Out of the House. 
I am obliged to hire my washing done now, and 
am glad to have it taken out of the house, and re¬ 
turned to me, unironed. My washing is so large 
that a woman washing in the house, calls it a day’s 
work, and charges accordingly. She may do some 
cleaning up, but taking the spatters on the wall, 
and the muss she makes while washing, and the 
extra labor of boarding and waiting upon her, into 
account, I think the work she does beyond the 
actual washing is not more than the trouble she 
makes me. My floor, being painted, I do not wish 
her to scrub it, and am able to. wash it myself. It 
seems good to have the work all done out of my 
sight, the clothes not only hung out to dry, but 
safely basketed, whatever the weather. I pay no 
more money in the latter case than in the former, 
and in both cases furnish soap and starch. 
Starching Made Easy. 
My washerwoman objects to making two kinds 
of starch, and prefers to starch all of the clothes 
with fine laundry starch. Finding that she used 
half a package of “ silver gloss” starch in the first 
washing, where she only had two shirts and two 
skirts with a few collars, but three dark calico 
dresses, and several large aprons and baby dresses 
and aprons, I proposed to her to make only flour 
Fig. 2. 
starch and use that for the calicoes, etc., and ] 
would starch the white clothes. She is unwilling 
to do so, because it takes so much time to make 
flour starch, or to rub out the lumps of flour to 
perfect smoothness. My sympathies are with her, 
and I yield the point, mentally, resolving to buy 
starch by the large, or wooden, box, and to provide 
large dark gingham aprons for the children, and to 
give up calico dresses until spring, so that the num¬ 
ber of pieces will be diminished. I never feel that 
I can stop to make flour starch when I do my own 
large washings, and unless I can get the starch 
made by another person, I make enough fine starch 
for all the pieces that need stiffening, or omit 
althogether to starch some of the oldest every day 
clothes. To be sure the laundry starch costs a trifle 
more, but dear me ! Time is money, and health too, 
and good temper and home happiness besides. 
I think it the best way to stir the starch, suffi¬ 
ciently moistened, into the boiling water, instead of 
the more common way of pouring boiling water 
into the moistened starch “ stirring briskly to pre¬ 
vent burning.” I now make both flour starch and 
laundry starch in this same way. There is less 
liability of burning and more certainty of having 
the whole equally and well boiled. To the fine 
starch, when boiled, I now add a little starch gela¬ 
tine, as it makes the starch less liable to 6tick, and 
easier to take a gloss in ironing. There are othe.' 
preparations equally good I presume. But tho 
latest and simplest thing I have heard of, in tha 
way of starch, is skimmed milk / I am assured by a 
friend that she has often tried it, when she had 
only a few calico pieces in her washing. Dip the 
article into sweet well-skimmed milk, and it will 
dry as stiff (a little stiffer I should think) as com¬ 
mon flour starch would make it. If there is cream 
in the milk it will grease it, of course. 
Baby’s Diapers. 
It has been my custom to make outside diapers 
of large squares of unbleached cloth, fold double 
squares of old cotton inside those. This puts tho 
thickness where it needs to be, and relieves the hips 
of too warm a burden. To-day I 6aw, in a friend’s 
house, large half squares of cotton flannel for the 
outside use with long “ towels ” of the same 
material to fold inside. If I had another supply 
to make for a child large enough to run alone, I 
should make such half squares of cotton flannel if 
for winter, and of strong cotton cloth for summer. 
Then I would lay four small plaits, two on each 
side, a few inches of the hypotenuse of the triangle, 
or about four inches apart. I would stitch these 
down an inch, folded straight toward the right 
angle of the triangle (you understand this geometry, 
I trust), and so make a kind of band to the diaper, 
over the hips and behind. I fancy this would make 
the garment stay on better, without too great 
tightness, and that it would be more comfortable 
for the child. It is somewhat like the diaper 
drawers, but keeps its necessary character by fast¬ 
ening snugly with the safety pin or pins. 
TTnder Suits for the Smallest Toddlers. 
For children who still wear diapers, I know of 
nothing better, except perhaps the nice (and expen¬ 
sive) long-sleeved, long-bodied, high-necked knit 
shirt, than those long-sleeved rather loose, soft flan¬ 
nel waists, reaching over the bowels to the diaper. 
These button behind and have several buttons 
around the bottoms, to which may be buttoned open 
underdrawers or warm flannel panties. I used to 
make little breeches running up to a point at the 
top, out of the way of the diaper, and fastened to 
the skirt waist on each side, by one button. That 
is a good way, but now it seems to me, that those 
I must make immediately, will be wide enough at 
their very tops to button clear around the waist, 
meeting in the front and back, but 6till separate, 
so that one can be removed if necessary, without 
disturbing the other. I have a mind to make these 
inner leggings of old, white, ribbed merino stock¬ 
ings, or the better part of merino underwear, snug 
enough at the bottom to go inside the stockings, 
reaching to the ankle-bone, and held in place by a 
strap under the foot. The baby will not be too 
warm in winter weather with these and my old- 
fashioned colored flannel knee breeches too. The 
