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Homes Make the 
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Woman And The Home. 
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THE SPICE BOX. 
T HAT the lessons of economy may be fixed the more 
surely we have prepared two large cuts, Illustrating 
many points in the articles already given. We reverse 
the regular order for the sake of effect. This week we 
give the result of systematic economy of time : The House 
wife’s Rest. Next week we will show How She Earned It. 
* * * 
Wk learn that our contributor S. A. Little has been 
made a member of the Standing Committee on Education 
in the New York State Grange. No doubt this fact will 
give her articles on education a weight of authority which 
even their sound common-sense was inadeqate to carry, 
such worshipers of authority are we all. The R N.-Y. 
fully appreciates the help of contributors possessed of both 
common sense and authority. 
* * * 
The comments so far received upon the article entitled 
“The Home Paper,” are without exception in opposition 
to the ideas so well set forth by Sara Armistead N. Are we 
to infer from this fact that none of our readers agree with 
her as to the desirability of the Home Paper containing 
more matter from the very heart of the homes themselves? 
or has our friend said all that there is to be said upon this 
side of the question ? 
* * * 
LEST some bright reader should venture to wonder to 
herself whether a report of conventions held several 
weeks ago does not smack a little of stale purveying, we 
will offer just a word in explana¬ 
tion. Economy has held such 
sway for some weeks past that 
even with the two pages now 
allowed to this department, there 
was little room for anything else. 
One of our own subscribers had 
the rare privilege of attending 
these conventions; and we pre¬ 
sume the greater number of our 
readers have little access to pa¬ 
pers which have given accounts 
of the meetings. For these sev¬ 
eral reasons, and because the Na¬ 
tional Council was an especially 
important one, we have desired 
that it should not pass without 
notice in our columns,even though 
that notice is a little late. 
TWO MORE DOUBTERS. 
I DON’T believe that any peri¬ 
odical is now or soon will be 
conducted on purely philan¬ 
thropic principles—not even one’s 
chosen church paper or our own 
RURAL. All are published on a 
business basis. There are doubt¬ 
less scores of editors who take an 
honest pride in giving us our 
money’s worth in the shape of 
clean, palatable, strengthening 
mental food—of use alone to those 
who can and will assimilate it. | 
If it is good food, what matters l— -- 
it who is the purveyor—whether 
it be the $10,000 editress in her city 
home, or the gratuitous writer 
who gives out of the fulness of her heart a little of her 
own dearly bought experience? It maybe the latter will 
suit my palate best, as I am a working woman; and it 
weeks, perhaps months, before I found a practical oppor¬ 
tunity to make use of it. Is it at all likely that when I did 
apply it, my husband would recognize the result as the 
outcome of a newspaper paragraph, or would he think I 
was doing my own work in my own way, “ just the same 
as before ?” 
The remark set me to thinking upon the matter, and I 
came to the conclusion that I was not one of those women, 
and I believe they are scarce. 
If housewives should tell of the many good things they 
have incorporated into their daily work from the home 
papers, it might be very encouraging to the editors and 
helpful to others by emphasizing practical helps. May I 
mention a few instances where I have been helped ? 
For many months I kept a recipe for salting meat to 
dry, sent to The R. N.-Y. by an Ohio contributor, and this 
spring cured by it 70 pounds of beef. From the same 
paper I learned to make the use of “ Buhach ” in bed¬ 
rooms, gratifyingly effective, by keeping the doors and 
windows closed for a few hours after the application of 
the powder. 
I am waiting an opportunity to try the effect of mixing 
carbolic acid in the paste used in papering rooms where 
vermin may exist, an idea culled from a home paper 
recently. I never thought of wetting only a portion of the 
flour mixed for pie crust, so as to have the surplus, if there 
should be any, as good to-morrow as to-day, till I read it 
in The Rural. I might mention many more, but must 
not be wearisome. s. E. H. 
THE HOUSEWIFE’S REST. Fig. 114. 
Next week we will show How She Earned It. 
A LESSON FROM MOTHS. 
U NDOUBTEDLY during the spring cleaning many of 
the Rural sisters will find that moths have silently 
over one another—of the impression which she made on an 
audience composed largely of Southern men, whom she 
was addressing upon the question of Social Purity. The 
narrator was one of the group upon the platform, where 
she could look into the faces of the audience. The feeling 
at first was squarely against Mrs. Wallace and her 
topic, prejudice showed plainly in almost every counten¬ 
ance. As the talk proceeded, one face after another relaxed 
with interest, and later into assent, and before the close, 
the eloquence of Mother Wallace carried every one with her. 
After the lecture hundreds of these conservative, preju¬ 
diced Southerners crowded forward to thank the speaker, 
to shake hands with her; almost, as our informant said, to 
embrace her for her efforts in behalf of an unpopular, but 
sorely needed reform. Efforts are making to have her 
speak near New York the coming summer—we think at 
Ocean Grove. 
SHALL IT BE A WILL ? 
T HE HE is a better way of giving the“gude wife” 
her share of the property than making a will in her 
favor. Wills are expensive affairs at best, and it is a won¬ 
der that so many men follow such a miserable fashion ; 
for whether a man’s property is much or little, it soon 
grows beautifully less, as many a widow can testify, by 
expenses or in post-mortem litigation. 
A friend finding that his stay on earth would be short, 
sent for his brother, a lawyer, and asked him if there was 
not some way in which his property could be divided 
as he wished, without the ex¬ 
penses always incurred with a 
will. 
“ Most certainly there is,” was 
the reply. And forthwith deeds 
were made out, and the wife and 
three children were each provided 
for in a sensible way, a small 
farm being given to each. These 
deeds were to be put on record 
af .er his death. There were no 
debts, and the personal property 
was left for the wife to use as 
she saw fit in the care of the 
family. She was the natural 
guardian: who would look after 
their interests better ? 
The good man passed away 
within a few days after he had 
made a settlement of his busi¬ 
ness. The wife mourned the loss 
of her companion ; but she did 
not see the hard-earned money 
going to administrators and pro¬ 
bate judges, and wait a year 
before she could have the privilege 
of doing as she thought best 
with what was rightfully her 
own. Lawyers and administra¬ 
tors may be all right in their 
places; but a farmer has no call 
to work all his life to get some- 
| thing ahead for his family and 
then leave a will that will throw 
a good percentage entirely away 
_'_1 for all the good it will be to his 
helpmeet or his children. 
So I think Mr. Terry had 
better for his good wife’s sake 
make haste and look into that “will business,” and 
let her have a deed of her share. mat maple. 
Michigan. _ 
may even be that the other may give me something, if 
nothing more than a little wholesome discontent, that 
will eventually prove a motive to strive for higher things. 
I don’t believe that the man who said his wife read the 
home department in a half-dozen papers, and then “ did 
her work in the same old way;” knew what he was talking 
about, and I advise him to try to get acquainted with his 
wife. I don’t believe any intelligent woman could read so 
much without catching a helpful idea now and then ; if in 
no other way than just as the babies catch the measles— 
unconsciously. 
I don’t believe the day will soon come when “ some 
editor ” will pay any and every woman for the helpful 
hints she may choose to write out for his use. Why ? Be¬ 
cause the market is overstocked with her wares, so many 
of us are ready to air our ideas, and talk in meeting ; even 
if we have to do it for nothing, and pay our own postage 1 
Like to get pay? Of course we would 1 and perhaps it 
would only be justice, for what is worth publication, 
and without warning destroyed wholly or in part some of 
their most beautiful carpets. Let us learn a lesson from 
these little insect destroyers, viz., that a little evil thought 
cultivated or nourished in the heart will silently but sure¬ 
ly destroy it. 
Let us cultivate what is good and noble in our hearts as 
we would the most precious flowers ; but let us extermi¬ 
nate evil thoughts from the heart as thoroughly as we 
would the moths from our closets. Life is too short to 
be wasted in unkind thoughts or words. 
We all know something of the damage of an unkind 
word, but few of us think of the damage of an unkind 
thought. Yet does not the word generally come from the 
thought ? If we but guard well our thoughts, our lips 
will not often speak unkindly. 
We might all find it easier to love even our enemies if 
we only knew more of their lives. If we would meditate 
more upon God’s patience with us and His willingness to 
forgive us when wrong, we would oftener find it easy 
POINTS FROM TWO WOMEN’S GRAND MEETINGS. 
T was my privilege to attend the convocation of the 
“ White Ribboners,” held under the auspices of the 
National Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, at Wash¬ 
ington, D. C., in February. The opening meeting was de¬ 
voted largely to Bible reading and a consecration and 
prayer service, to begin the work of the week in a manner 
befitting the cause, and the aims and methods of the 
W. C. T. U. The reading was by Mrs. S. H. Martin, rep¬ 
resenting the Maryland Union and superintendent of the 
State department of railroad work. She is a very fine 
reader aud her manner is both striking and impressive 
in reading and conversation. She said that the Union 
(Continued on next page.) 
|Ui$sccUanMU£ ^Uvmisiug. 
In writing to advertisers, please mention The R. N.-Y. 
would seem to be worth compensation. 
But alas, Sara A. N., what would be the situation of 
“ some editor ? ” He would be brave indeed, who dared to 
offer publicly even modest pay for practical articles suited 
to country and suburban life. Witness the situation of 
our own Rural Cook, overwhelmed, deluged with manu¬ 
scripts from impecunious housewives, all trying to grasp 
that little Economy prize. May we hear more on this sub¬ 
ject ? MARY MANN. 
It seems to me that a man may say that his wife reads 
the papers and then does her work in her own way the 
same as before, and really know very little about the 
truth of the matter. I have read of a good thing in a house¬ 
hold column, and have kept it stored in my mind for 
through His grace to forgive those who wrong us. B. 
IN HARNESS AT SEVENTY-FOUR. 
F the lady known as “Mother Wallace,” referred to by 
our contributor, H. A. House, Harper’s Bazar says : 
“Mrs. Zerelda G. Wallace, the mother of General Lew 
Wallace, recently addressed a meeting in Washington 
upon the topic, ‘ Why the Members of the W. C. T. U. De¬ 
sire Woman Suffrage.’ Mrs. Wallace is 74 years old, but 
she spoke for an hour with such enthusiasm and eloquence 
that not one person left the house until the close of her 
speech.” 
An enthusiastic admirer of this dear woman told, not 
long ago—in speech so eager that the words fairly tumbled 
DANDRUFF 
With its intolerable itching which is “Peace-destroying 
and exhaustive to the vital powers,” sbouhl never be 
neglected because its natural end is in Baldness. “ Thor¬ 
ough shampooing with warm water and 
PACKER S TAR SOAP 
removes dandruff, allays itchiog and is an excellent remedy 
in treatment of Skin and Scalp Diseases. 
Packer’s Tar Soap is a perfect luxury for all toilet pur¬ 
poses, purifying, invigorating and leaving the skin smooth 
and soft, and giving to the Complexion brilliancy and 
bloom. Invaluable to the Nursery. 
25 cents. Druggists 
