NOTE AND COMMENT. 
You shall have a duck, my dear, 
And you shall have a dress, 
And you shall have a nice yoiinK man. 
To marry you at last. 
So ran the roundelay we used to sing in childhood. 
What the “duck” had to do with a maiden’s happiness 
in those days, it would be hard to tell. But nowadays 
the “ duck” is dear to the summer girl’s heart, and it 
means a dress, at once so charming, sensible and 
stylish that she who is arrayed in one goes forth con¬ 
quering and to conquer. Who may doubt that these 
pretty outing suits will not open the way to many a 
manly heart, and their simplicity and economy make 
such a plea to the pocketbook that—well, who doesn’t 
know the rest ? They say Cupid is getting his eye¬ 
sight, and his arrows are being aimed at the common- 
sense spot most of us possess. If he’ll just hit the 
mark every time marriage will never be a failure. 
§ ? § 
When our country wanted a flag, the stars and 
stripes were designed, and the design carried by 
Washington and a friend to a milliner, Mrs. Betsy 
Ross, who was to make the flag. Six-pointed stars 
had been chosen, but Mrs. Ross with her scissors 
deftly fashioned one with five points which, placed 
beside the other, won the Father of our Country, and 
the more symmetrical star was chosen. So a woman 
had part in designing our flag. And this year, on 
Decoration Day, was enacted for the first time, the 
ceremony of raising a flag over the grave of Betsy 
Ross, who made the first stars and stripes. 
2 ? 2 
Miss Agnes Irwin, a great-granddaughter of Ben¬ 
jamin Franklin, has been appointed Dean of Radcliffe 
College, or Harvard Annex. Miss Irwin is an accom¬ 
plished woman and a successful teacher, but is not a 
graduate of any woman’s college, having studied prin¬ 
cipally at home. The ability to get an education out 
of whatever opportunities life offers is that which 
brings success; and the successes of self-made men 
make as bright pages as any our history can show. 
Let no one lament opportunities which cannot be his, 
but see to it that he loses none which are given him. 
WHY NOT « HOUSEWORK ” FOR MEN ? 
CONCERNING GRIEVANCES OF THE EMPLOYEI) ANE 
“ UNEMPLOY'EE.” 
A Talk with a Tramp. 
To reach the point when one’s actions are directed 
by common sense instead of habit, is a journey that 
most of us are a long time in making. This adhesion 
to custom, upon no better ground than that it is cus¬ 
tom, is seen in the obstinacy with wh:’ch men (more 
than women) cling to the traditions of their work. 
Day by day men come to my door asking for clothes, 
food and money, and when I take the time to interro¬ 
gate them as to their vagrancy, I usually hear the 
same old story, the mill or the foundry, the mine or 
the factory, has shut down and they are thrown out 
of employment. 
“ But can’t you do anything else but what you have 
been bred to do ? You have a head and a pair of 
hands, and if you really wish to work, you can find 
enough to do—20 different things,” which I say over 
and over again, with probably no effect whatever, as 
men who become tramps do not wish to work ; and if 
they met with no encouragement in their trade, there 
would speedily be no tramps. One morning, as I was 
sitting on the piazza, my attention was attracted by 
the American appearance of a young man about 30 
years of age, who asked for alms. He said that he 
preferred work to beggary, but could get no employ¬ 
ment, and from his looks I thought it might not be 
time altogether wasted to discuss the labor question 
with him. The conversation ran on after this fashion: 
“ When you say that you cannot get work to do, you 
mean the kind of work that you like to do, or that 
you have been in the habit of doing. Isn’t this so ? ” 
I asked. 
“ Well, perhaps. It isn’t so easy to do what you 
haven’t been used to ! ” 
“ Yes, that may be; but people who succeed in life 
do not stand appalled before unaccustomed work, or 
haggle about the quality of it. Now you know very 
well that if you preferred work, any kind of honest 
labor, to beggary, to making a tramp of yourself, that 
you could find it in plenty, as there is no end of it 
waiting to be done. Have you offered to do house¬ 
work ? One can always get that, and at gocd wages.” 
"Housework?” (with amused contempt.) ‘ Of course 
I don’t want housework.” 
“ Why shouldn’t you do housework, pray ? ” 
“ Because I’m a man—” 
“That’s no reason whatever. The best cooks are 
men ; also the best launderers; and in most large 
hotels men are the dishwashers. In Europe, they do 
chamber work. Men are excellent sewers, as tailors. 
What would you consider manly work ? ” 
“ I had a place as clerk in a store ; I’d like that—” 
“ That is no more man’s work than woman’s.” 
“ That’s so. I tell you that women are knocking us 
men out all around.” 
“ And do you know why ? It is because they do 
any kind of work they can get, whether it is what 
you call man’s work or woman’s work. What they 
can do is their work, and men in turn who cannot do 
much of what women ordinarily do, and do it well in 
time, are very stupid fellows. If you would take any 
kind of work, at any price, and do your best at it, you 
would speedily put yourself in the way of finding the 
kind of work you prefer. It is an old saying that 
‘ beggars can not be choosers.’ ” 
The man laughed, and as I had recommended him 
to try housework, he wanted to know if I would give 
him some to do. “Yes. I will pay you 10 cents an 
hour to scrub piazzas, wash and polish the outsides of 
windows, and clean a couple of carriages,” I replied— 
“that is, if you do the work well.” The result was 
that the man accepted the offer, worked seven hours, 
and received a simple luncheon in addition to 70 
cents. He thanked me as he went away, declaring 
that he meant to wash windows all the way to Pitts¬ 
burgh—for which city he was en route—since he had 
found out that he could do it. 
The Hired Man’s Housework. 
This dislike or refusal of men to do housework was 
put in evidence in a somewhat recent issue of The R. 
N.-Y., concerning the washing of the “hired man’s” 
clothes, etc , by his employer’s wife or daughters. 
The farmer’s wife, as I know her, is the last woman 
in the world to take in washing, or to add one jot of 
unnecessary work to her already overburdened shoul¬ 
ders. If I were a fair-minded man, I would rather 
have my wife, a thousand times ever, my fellow 
worker in the field, than to think of her over 
the washtub cleaning the hired man’s clothes. 
Were I the wife required to do such work, I would do 
the hired man’s work afield or in the barn, while he 
did his own washing. But all such annoyances are 
very easily adjusted if properly arranged. Employers 
can, if they will, make their own rules, and when the 
contract is made with their employees, have a dis¬ 
tinct understanding with them as to what will be re¬ 
quired. In the region where I live, the “hired men” 
give out their washing to a poor woman, who does it 
for from $1 to $2 per month. All of them make their 
own beds and take care of their own rooms, and many 
of them mend their own clothes, where their laun¬ 
dress is not charged with it. It is chiefly a matter of 
habit. It is far worse for an overworked woman on a 
farm to sit up at night to darn and mend, than it is 
for the average hired man to do it. Many young men 
at college do their own mending and cooking, and 
some washing. There isn’t the slightest hardship in 
it, or unfitness, when necessity or economy requires it. 
When hired men are boarded in the employer’s house 
and eat at the same table with his family, it is but 
fair that the contract with them should include any 
and all kinds of help required in and about the house. 
As to the employees who wish to be “treated like 
one of the family”—a treatment that is usually ill- 
advised—it is very probable that not one of them 
would accept such a position if offered, as “ one of the 
family” does not receive wages. The family is a 
partnership, and the members of it work without 
stipulated hire, without regard to hours or time, doing 
whatever needs to be done for the mutual interest of 
all concerned. Any man (or woman) who has good 
sense, and a yood stock of self-respect will not make a 
contribution of his uninvited society to his employer’s 
family, simply because he is hired to do their work. 
There is an enormous difference between service and 
society. One is a business relation solely, while the 
other is purely personal 
and a matter of congeni¬ 
ality. 
During the past few 
years, so I have been in¬ 
formed, in some factory 
villages in the State of 
Maine, because the women 
of the households can earn 
more money in the mills, 
than can the men, the 
latter have become the 
house-workers, doing just 
what the women form¬ 
erly did, so that the latter can be the bread-winners. 
The assumption by women of so much of the work 
that men formerly did, must of necessity oblige men 
to take up the work abandoned by women. House¬ 
work is one of these, and one of the best paid also. I 
already know of several families whose domestics are 
white. American-born men. So long as there is house¬ 
work to be done, there is no excuse for the “unem¬ 
ployed ” to complain of lack of work. 
MART WAGER-FISHER 
AT THE FAMILY TABLE. 
WHERE AND WHAT SHALE THE CHILDREN EAT? 
Should children eat at the same table and of everything the parents 
do? Are alTfoods found on the family table lit for young children 7 
Do you cook special dishes for the children ? 
Children’s Table Manners Need Parents' Oversight. 
In accordance with my own theories, my two little 
daughters, aged four and two, eat at table with us, 
the elder sitting at table, the younger in her high 
chair at my side with her dish on the tray of the chair. 
In this wav, I can personally attend to their wants, 
and at the same time teach them the little elegancies 
and courtesies of the table, something which mil¬ 
lions of money or the fiuest 'book education would 
fail to bestow. Some one has said that children are 
“little animals,” and that truth is more p’ainly 
demonstrated at “ feeding time’’than at any other 
time. In my mind, I am satisfied that if children feed 
like animals at five, some of the animal nature will 
be evident at 45, for children’s habits, once formed, 
are continued in later life. 
Many mothers prefer their children to eat by them¬ 
selves in order to more carefully regulate their diet, 
since many things found upon the family table are not 
suitable for children. Right here comes in the ques¬ 
tion of obedience. If a child know that by clamoring 
for whatever he fancies, he can secure" it, then the 
family meal time with children is little less than 
“ Bedlam let loose,” and the children themselves must 
suffer from over-indulgence in diet. My own little girl 
has always understood from the time she came to the 
table, that “just this much” meant exactly that and 
nothing else; and that things that were “ not good 
for little girls ” were never to be put upon her plate, 
and consequently were never asked for. Not knowing 
the taste of those articles of food not desirable for 
her, she never cared for them. The children should 
be considered at every meal, and when a large part of 
the meal is not suitable for them, something should be 
especially prepared ; and there are any number of 
dishes easily prepared that are healthful and palat¬ 
able. Most children are fond of fruit, and it is a 
desirable food for them at breakfast and for dessert at 
dinner. Berries are better omitted until the third 
year on account of the seeds. Bananas do not agree 
with all children, and are prohibited from a child’s 
diet by some physicians. Oranges are liked by most 
children and I have never known them to disagree when 
the juice and pulp only were taken. The various 
preparations of oats and wheat furnish a large part of 
my children’s diet, one always eating sugar and cream, 
the other sugar and butter. Soft boiled eggs are ex¬ 
cellent, but should not be given of tener than once a 
day. Meat should not form a part of a child’s diet 
until he is two years old and should then be given 
very sp \ringly. Beef and mutton are preferable to 
any other meat. Milk is the best drink, varied by an 
occasional cup of cocoa, if the cocoa is of the kind 
from which the oil has been extracted. Unlike Tommy 
Tucker, my girls do not eat white bread and butter as 
frequently as they eat Graham bread and butter. T 
always sift the flour and discard the hulls. Battered 
toast, milk toast and water toast are always relished, 
also stewed fruit; but preserves are never given the 
children. Boiled rice, rice pudding, corn starch or 
tapioca pudding and the various custards, are suitable 
for children’s desserts and are so easily prepared that 
there is no reason why they should not be a part of 
the children’s or grown folks’s dinner. The taste of 
Highest of all in Leavening Power.—Latest U. S. Gov't Report 
ABSOLUTELY PURE 
