Women Make the Homes Make the 
H “" Woman And The Home. 
A LTHOUGH owing to the space allowed us not being 
elastic, we can not promise outright to publish 
everything that might be suggested, we should be very 
glad to hear from any of our readers who do not find 
what they would like to find in this department. It is 
our aim to publish just what the majority of our sub¬ 
scriber* would find most helpful and most interesting, as 
far as is consistent with the allotted space. Letters re¬ 
ceived show that many are well pleased, but there may be 
others who do not find what they most need ; if so, they 
are the ones from whom we especially wish to hear at 
this time. * * * 
There seems to be a growing custom among advertisers 
in many quarters to secure the publication either of ful¬ 
some adulation of their own wares, or of systematic dis¬ 
paragement of those of their chief rivals, as news matter. 
Nowhere is this tendency more marked than among rival 
baking powder companies. To such a ludicrous extent 
is this being carried of late that we find in the current 
number of an exchange two separate articles, each pur¬ 
porting to be a report of a meeting of the American 
Chemical Society, and the one giving the direct lie to the 
other. Little can be gained by such underhand practices, 
for the immediate result is to induce lack of confidence in 
every firm that can stoop to methods of this nature. 
* * * 
“Those who have worn down their teeth in masticating 
old, tough beef will find that carbonate of soda will rem¬ 
edy the evil. Cut the steaks, the day before using, into 
slices about two inches thick, and rub over them a small 
quantity of soda. Wash off next morning, cut it into 
suitable thicknesses and cook. The same process will 
answer for fowl, leg of mutton and any other meats that 
are tough. Try this plan all ye who love delicious, tender 
meat.” 
The above is clipped from an exchange, and we would 
like to have any who may have tried it report as to its 
satisfactoriness. There is always a certain objection to 
the inordinate use of soda in cooking, in that it is gener¬ 
ally considered deleterious. And whether it be a whim 
or not, we are unable to say, but it has always seemed to 
us that meats, especially chicken, even merely washed in 
soda water, lost the excellence of flavor peculiar to them in 
their best and most natural estate. 
CONTRIBUTED HINTS AND RECIPES. 
HY doesn’t the lady who bolls milk in a tin dish on 
the stove put the milk in a small tin pail and set 
it into a kettle with boiling water over a quick fire ? The 
milk boils very quickly with no danger of burning. 
Buttermilk is very seldom mentioned in cooking rules, 
yet it is much better for many things than sweet or sour 
milk: for biscuits, drop cakes, griddle cakes, gems, and so 
on. A teaepoonful of saleratus for every two cupfuls of 
buttermilk dissolved in milk, is a reliable rule unless the 
milk Is sour and old; then it would be best thrown away. 
Buttermilk Cake.—O ne cup of sugar beaten with a 
tabiespoonful of butter, one egg, one cup of buttermilk 
with a teaspoonful of soda dissolved in it, two cups of 
flour ; spice to taste. Very simple and quickly made. 
Sponge Cake.— One cupful of sugar beaten with two 
eggs, four tablespoonfuls of milk, IX cupful of flour with 
a teaspoonful of cream of tartar and half a teaspoonful of 
soda sifted through it. Very good, quickly made and good 
for layer cakes. 
A quarter of a yeast cake seems ample allowance for 
raising bread. Why take a whole cake unless the yeast 
taste is preferred ? 
Geraniums are kept successfully through the winter in 
cellars in this vicinity. To wrap in newspapers and hang 
upside down on nails is a good way. To set into boxes and 
water occasionally is another way. 
Please accept these items for the “ Woman’s Depart¬ 
ment ” with the best wishes of your friend, who is a con¬ 
stant reader of your valuable paper. “ ELLEN.” 
New Hampshire. 
Putting a teacup of soda water (dissolved washing 
soda) in your dish water will destroy the grease, save 
soap and keep your dish cloths white and pure. There is 
hardly a more valuable agent in household cleanliness 
than sal soda. A little used in scouriDg tables, floors, pie 
boards, rolling-pins and other wooden-ware keeps them 
clean at small cost in trouble and expense. The best way 
I have found for washing tinware is to use hot soap suds, 
rinsing in scalding water, and as soon as it is dry rubbing 
it with newspaper and setting in the sun awhile. Treated 
in this way it will not often need especial scouring. 
Paper is a good and cheap material to cleanse utensils. 
Knives rubbed with it, preserve their brightness; stoves 
rubbed hard with it every morning will remain clean and 
bright and polish will be saved. A sprinkle of lime on 
kitchen floors will remove grease and save time and 
trouble in rubbing. mbs. C. 
Bend a piece of wire into the shape of a hairpin, passing 
the ends through a stick with two holes about two or three 
inches apart. Wind yarn or rags on these pins, and stitch 
through the center on the machine or by hand, on a foun¬ 
dation. Cut the yarn on each end of the wire and you have 
the material for a beautiful rug. 
Last fall I made each of my girls black cashmere sleeve, 
less aprons to wear over red and blue cashmere dresses to 
save washing white aprons. mbs. C. e. v. 
For a baked pudding take almost any kind of canned 
fruit or fresh fruit (stewed) to suit your taste or conven¬ 
ience. Apples and raspberries mixed are very nice. Use 
a new tin or earthen dish, something that will not Injure the 
fruit, and deep enough so that the juice will not boil over. I 
put about IX inch depth of sauce in the dish, add plenty 
of sugar and a piece of butter half the size of an egg, and 
set it on the stove to heat while I prepare the crust. This 
is the same as I make for extra-short biscuits with either 
buttermilk and soda or sweet milk and baking pow¬ 
der. I do not roll It, but mix it with a spoon quite 
stiff and then spread it over the fruit so it will be an inch 
thick when baked. Sprinkle sugar over the top and dot 
small pieces of butter over It; bake nicely and eat with 
cream. In this way you can use sauce that the family 
have become tired of on the table and it will be relished in 
the pudding. 
Potato soup is very good. For a foundation save the 
water you boil your potatoes in; add to it butter, cream, 
salt and pepper; toast some bread to add to It at the last 
moment, or use crackers; for a change add a little cabbage 
and onion sometimes. 
Scalded skim milk in winter (when it will be sweet) is 
an excellent drink. 
Dried apples partly cooked in some molasses (or 
brown sugar) with dried orange peel, and then chopped, 
make a good fruit for a farmer’s fruit cake and save 
raisins and currants. mbs. h. c. m. 
EFFICIENCY OF WOMEN AS POSTMASTERS. 
SPECIAL from Washington to the Associated Press 
says that among the 2,000 or more reports which the 
Post Office Department has received thus far from county 
seat postmasters, 61 are from women postmasters. Of 
these 29 at once undertook the visitation of the fourth- 
class offices of their counties, five delegated the work to 
their assistants, and the other 27 corresponded with the 
Department and promptly began the required visitations 
by correspondence or by proxy. One Georgia postmis¬ 
tress suggested annual visits. Another reported that 
many of the offices were in country stores and were not as 
neatly kept as women would keep them. An Illinois 
postmistress reported that not one of the visited post 
offices was perfect, not even her own. An Idaho postmis¬ 
tress rode 254 miles on horseback to make her inspections, 
and cheerfully spent $20 In the process. A Kentucky 
woman went her rounds with horse and buggy, spent $30, 
and reported that every postmaster visited would wel¬ 
come closer relations with the Department. Another in 
Kentucky traveled over 100 miles, and spent $15 for horse 
hire alone. A Louisiana postmistress reports that she 
keeps bankrupt willingly in order to improve the service 
in her own village. A postmistress in Mississippi reached 
the post offices off the railroad line in a sailboat; another 
in Mississippi traveled through the piny woods inland 
without hesitation. 
A New York woman visited 44 post offices with horse 
and carriage, traveling 291 miles, and a North Carolina 
woman was so courteously welcomed by all the postmas¬ 
ters that she promised another visit next year. A Texas 
woman omitted to visit one office because it required a 
horseback ride of 35 miles. A Vermont woman was not 
prevented from visiting the offices in her county because 
it is composed of five islands. Virginia and California 
postmistresses visited every office in their counties. A 
Pennsylvania woman attacked the tremendous undertak¬ 
ing of visiting 126 offices, many of them among the Alle¬ 
ghany Mountains, and disposed of it. A West Virginia 
woman wrote that some of her offices were almost impos¬ 
sible to be reached, but she would reach them jast the 
same. An Alabama postmistress regretted that she could 
not undertake the work, as it was impossible to hire any 
conveyances in her county, and one in Mississippi asked 
to be excused as she was very young. 
READING HABITS. 
OFTEN think that parents, if they were not them¬ 
selves so much to blame, have cause to be disappointed 
at the little real good their children get out of the papers 
and magazines they take for them. I have noticed so often, 
the children read nothing but the stories, and sometimes 
not all of them, but just a certain class. For instance, one 
boy read only the stories of adventure; while the girls of 
the family didn’t like them at all, they said. 
Forming the family into a kind of reading circle so that 
all read at least some of the same things is a good plan. 
Then lead them to talk of what is read. If it is history, 
the facts will be much easier to remember for having been 
talked over. And if it is only fiction the virtues of the 
different characters will be more likely to be seen and ap¬ 
preciated by all. And the imagination will be cultivated 
much more by making the story people “real.” I have 
heard sisters mention Jo, Beth, Meg and Amy as if they 
were some of their cousins, and Rebecca and Ivanhoe 
seemed to be among their acquaintances, and Benjamin 
Franklin was pronounced a “dear funny old fellow.” 
There is one youth’s paper, The Youth’s Companion—that 
will add quite a finish to the education of the boy or girl 
who intelligently reads it. History, politics, poetry, fic¬ 
tion, morals and manners are all well represented. There 
are also talks on health, or rather on some of the ways to 
preserve it. The only way to bring all of these to the no¬ 
tice of the boy or girl is for the parents to lead them to see 
the need of the broad knowledge thus to be gained. 
Parents, many of them, need to broaden their own hori¬ 
zon through their reading. Some men will take up the 
weekly paper, glance through it, reading some of the arti¬ 
cles that especially treat of their business, look over the 
advertisements and then throw it aside. What has such 
a father, for instance, gained that will make him more 
sociable and morea companion for his son? Oh, that every 
father and son, every mother and daughter, would strive 
to be as little Lord Fauntleroy and his mother “very good 
companions.” 
Children, even big ones, delight to hear stories; tell 
them the story of Hamlet and they’ll soon be eager to read 
it. Read to them some of the beautiful parts of Hiawatha, 
and they’ll soon read the whole. One boy I knew didn’t 
like to read, but he sat up until nearly midnight to hear 
the Lady of the Lake read for the second time. 
Arouse their curiosity. Shall I tell how I learned to 
like to read poetry ? In cleaning out the bookcase one day 
I came across a small, well-worn copy of Lalla Rookh. I 
read a little of the prose at the foot of the page and be¬ 
came so interested that 1 read clear through the book, to 
find that a few of the last pages were gone, and I had to 
leave the beautiful princess in a most distressing state of 
mind. That wouldn’t do, so I went back and read the first 
poem, the second and finally every one, hoping to find some 
clew to her fate, but, of course, all in vain. But how in¬ 
terested I was and what a discovery I had made 1 Why, 
poetry was just delightful. I always feel grateful towards 
that little torn book, though it was several months before 
I secured the ending of the story. 
Don’t let any father think he has done all his duty when 
he hands out the money for that paper his child pleads 
for. See that the nut is thoroughly cracked and the ker¬ 
nel all obtained if you would realize the worth of your 
money. Ay ! you’re careful to do so when it is a nut; why 
not be equally so when the benefits are so much greater ? I 
can’t believe you realize how much you might do if you 
only would try. Try. RAY. 
CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS. 
OW closely we connect the delicate resinous odor of 
cedar and hemlock and pine with the idea of the 
Cnristmas of our childhood. True, the Christmas of our 
childhood had many charms which It is impossible to 
impart to the holiday for “ grown up” people, but we may 
recall faint glimpses of that dear long ago if we make our 
rooms sweet with the odors of the forest and our hearts 
glad in remembrance of kind actions done for those 
around us. 
A very simple and effective way to trim one’s rooms is 
to pin sprays of white cedar to the picture cords so that they 
overlap each other and hide the cord. A cluster of bitter¬ 
sweet or holly berries here and there will brighten the 
room, and autumn leaves and ferns will add much to the 
prettiness of lace curtains and other draperies. 
It Is dreadfully old-fashioned to press autumn leaves, 
but they are so lovely that one may be pardoned perhaps 
for describing a process for preserving their colors when 
pressed. Shave some paraffine wax into a basin of hot 
water. Dip each leaf into the basin. Give it a little shake 
so there may be no drops at the edges and lay on a piece of 
paper to cool. Leaves prep ired In this way will keep their 
color for years, if protected from dust. I know of no way 
to preserve the color of ferns, when they are exposed to the 
light. The dear little gold back ferns, so common in Cali¬ 
fornia, are an exception to this rule. Running ground 
pine is very pretty for decorative purposes, but it cannot 
be found in all localities. 
A Christmas tree should take root in every house where 
there are children. No matter if it is only one branch, 
make it look as tree-like as possible, hang it with gilded 
nuts, strings of pop-corn and pop-corn bails tied with 
bright ribbons. Johnnie’s skates and Ruth’s doll will be 
twice as enjoyable if tney come from a Christmas tree. 
No matter hosv poor a family may be, some little surprise 
may be planned for the wee ones if only loving hearts 
prompt busy brains. 
Many a life has been lost because of 
the taste of cod-liver oil. 
If Scott’s Emulsion did nothing more 
than take that taste away, it would save 
the lives of some at least of those that 
put off too long the means of recovery. 
It does more. It is half-digested 
already. It slips through the stomach 
as if by stealth. It goes to make strength 
when cod-liver oil would be a burden. 
Scott & Bowne, Chemists, 132 South 5th Avenue. New York. 
Your druggist keeps Scott’s Emulsion of cod-liver oil—all druggists 
everywhere do. 81. 
