NOTE AND COMMENT. 
Thk family sewing, especially the dressmaking, is a 
task that presents itself as a problem to many who 
have to undertake it. To aid these, we shall be glad 
1o receive suggestions from those who have solved, 
the problem to their satisfaction, and shall soon give 
to our readers a symposium on the subject. 
I I § 
Drkss reform is not only being preached but being 
practiced. In Central Park the women bicyclists who 
ride in blcotner costumes are so frequent that they 
hardly excite comment. Of course these same bicy¬ 
clists do not presume to wear their costumes except 
when accompanied by the wheel. When women 
choose their outdoor dress for its simplicity and 
healthfulness, they will have reached a common-sense 
standard, whatever the cut of their clothes may be. 
'i 'i 
Thk survival of the fittest is one of the laws of 
nature. A certain journal, in opposing woman’s suf¬ 
frage, says that if it be granted, the outcome will be 
that the woman voter and the old maid will be one 
and the same person, so unattractive and unwomanly 
will the emancipated woman be. Now it is undoubt¬ 
edly true that acquaintance with the world does make 
some changes in a person. There are women who 
may pass for specimens of the sex and bring no serious 
discredit on womankind if they are kept within the 
home. Contact with the world transforms these into 
creatures not womanly and not likely to be chosen as 
mothers of mankind. But it is not the process of life 
that is responsible for this result. Life is an analy¬ 
sis, more or less elaborate, and the result depends on 
the original elements in the character far more than 
on surroundings. Our contemporary, in making a 
mistaken assertion, has indicated one of the best 
fruits of woman’s freedom. If it will help to separate 
the womanly and unwomanly elements, well and 
good. The woman who cannot meet the demands of 
business life and maintain her womanliness, is not 
calculated to be the mother of a man. 
WHOM SHALL WE BLAME? 
DON’T know how it is,” and Mrs. Fifield con¬ 
tracted her brows till their lines almost met 
above her keen, black eyes; “times seem to have 
changed since I was young. My sisters and I used to 
look up to ma, and defer to her opinions. Why, I 
should no more have thought of questioning my 
mother’s judgment—” Mrs. Fifield paused for an apt 
illustration, and Mr. Fifield remarked in a tone of hu¬ 
morous approval: “You let her judgment pass un¬ 
questioned, and quietly followed your own bent in 
most things, didn’t you ? ” 
“No, I did not. Ma set us our share of the work 
and we did it. When she found me reading a novel, 
she took it and burned it up, and I never borrowed 
another so long as I was at home. She believed in 
girls marrying, and picked out husbands for us, and 
had us all married off before we were 25 years old. 
But I am not speaking of mere obedience ; we thought 
ma knew, and respected her ideas.” 
“Yes, she thought that Silas Barnes would make 
about the right sort of a husband for you, if I remem¬ 
ber rightly.” Mr. Fifield chuckled a good deal over 
this playful thrust, keeping up his demonstrations of 
silent mirth long after his wife’s crisp retort. 
“Well, there, Horace; I expected that, and now 
you have said it. But didn’t ma come around to my 
way of thinking in the end ? She hadn’t a son-in-law 
she thought more of than she did of you, after a 
while.” 
Mr. Fifield lifted his head from the back of his 
easy chair and looked comically at his wife. “Where 
is your argument, Janet ? ” he asked. 
“ Right where I left it.” A sober mouth refuted the 
merriment in her eyes, and she continued quietly: 
“ Ma was right; Silas did make the girl he married a 
good husband. But her infiuence and training had 
taught me to know a good man when I saw one, and 
I had seen you before ma and Silas took that notion 
into their heads. Say what you will, I maintain that 
ma’s influence did more to shape the lives and charac¬ 
ters of her children than all the results my efforts and 
pains will ever show on my descendants.” 
“You have done your best, certainly, and no one 
can do more than that. The girls will come out all 
right, Janet; don’t worry.” Mr. Fifield spoke sooth¬ 
ingly and showed signs of returning to his paper. 
A little tightening of the lips betrayed the good 
woman’s impatience of a man’s way of dealing with 
domestic problems. She was not silenced by the rus¬ 
tling newspaper. “ I scrimped and saved and worked 
hard to help Mary fit herself for a teacher. Now she 
has left a calling where she was successful and doing 
useful work to become a cook.” 
“ Mary earned more with her cooking classes last 
month than I did on the farm,” interposed Mr. Fifield. 
“I wanted to see her the principal of our high school. 
I have not said much, but I don’t know which I detest 
most, woman lecturers, or somebody’s making a great 
fuss over nonsensical ways of doing simple things 
that every woman with an ounce of common sense 
knows how to do well enough already. Clara has left 
our church to go and be a papist, or something nearly 
as bad. Fannie is growing so proud and extravagant 
there is no satisfying her, and I expect any Monday 
morning to hear our fourth daughter announce that 
she is engaged to marry that spendthrift of hers, who 
earns $3 a day and hasn’t a cent left when pay day 
comes around. What does my infiuence amount to ? ” 
Mr. Fifield looked up with an expression of relief at 
the sound of some one turning the door knob. “Here, 
Sarah,” he said to his sister, as she entered; “ sit 
dojvn and tell us whether the times, or our homes are 
to blame when our children don’t turn out as we want 
to have them.” 
Sarah Fifield glanced at the papers under the even¬ 
ing lamp, seeking the clue that had led to the discus¬ 
sion, and thinking she had caught the thread of 
thought, said, “Oh, it is so impossible to decide. We 
often read of crimes committed by men and women 
born of virtuous parents, and reared in Christian 
homes. Probably the temptations are greater to day 
than ever before, but so are the efforts being made to 
help and restrain. Some taint of heredity, or some 
lack in the home training must account for every 
ruined life. In country neighborhoods, where there 
are few secrets and every one’s ancestry is known, the 
wonder usually is not that now and then one goes 
wrong, but that the grandchildren of certain disrepu¬ 
table families are making so much of themselves. You 
know we have often remarked the seesaw rise and 
fall taking place among the families of our own town. 
Probably the fact is that we judge'wrongly; the 
prominent people of a place are not always the most 
virtuous and upright. Only those are called thieves 
and seducers upon whom the law sets its ban. Unfor¬ 
tunately, those who make the greatest professions 
of piety are sometimes not the most truly religious. 
The dividing line between sharp bargaining and dis¬ 
honesty, is a thin and wavering one. What is merely 
a taint in the home sentiment, becomes a stench in the 
offspring.” 
“ You are rather hard on the parents of the ne’er- 
do-wells,” objected Mrs. Fifield, 
“ That is so,” the other assented. “The fatality of 
atavism ought to be kept prominently in mind. It has 
always been a question how much a good bringing up 
could be relied upon to counteract vicious traits. 
Ther, too, the constant -crossing of different family 
lines makes combinations that no calculation can pre¬ 
dict. I often wonder that people marry so recklessly; 
but it seems the only way if one would marry at all.” 
All three smiled, and Mrs. Fifield brought the argu¬ 
ment back to its original lines by explaining, “ We 
were discussing whether mothers have as much hold 
on their daughters as they did a quarter of a century 
ago,” adding, “ I hold that the mother’s influence is 
not what it once was.” 
“ Perhaps that is so,” assented the sister-in-law. 
“ The life of each one of us flows in a broader chan¬ 
nel than was possible to people in our circumstances 40 
years ago. If influences come from many sources, each 
must be less felt. To look back half a century, think 
how little there was to read! The weekly news¬ 
paper, the Bible, a history or two and the almanac. 
The condition of the country girl has changed grad¬ 
ually. I was past 20 before I ever went so far from 
home that I could not see our mountain. We never 
saw a city cousin or summer boarder; went to a nor¬ 
mal, or even to a village high school; scarcely wrote 
or received a letter, or saw any one who knew more 
of the world than we 
did. Think of the contrast 
of the influences that sur¬ 
round almost every farm¬ 
er’s daughter to-day.” 
“That is it,” agreed 
Mrs. Fifield, sadly. “We 
have done too much for 
cur children. If I had not 
tried to make a minister 
of Willis, he would never 
have got to be the leader 
of a foot-ball team. If 
Clara had not gone to 
Boston to study art, she might never have heard 
of choir boys and incense. Bess and the little boys 
shall stay right here on the farm for all my trying to 
give them advantages.” 
“ If they are like the rest of the Ijrood, they will do 
their own planning, and find a way to pay for the ad¬ 
vantages,” laughed the father. 
The two women joined in the laugh, and the aunt 
added, “ That is so, Janet; they all have remarkable 
ability. They may make mistakes, but they are alive 
with good intentions. Not one but is as upright and 
honest as—as Horace here. Oh, it is what parents are 
that tells most; not what they preach, but what they 
practice. That shapes the character, and we must 
let each one have the chance to shape his life for him¬ 
self so far as he can.” 
“There is no fear but our children will try their 
hands at that,” remarked the fond father with cheer¬ 
ful conviction. “ They haven’t got their mother’s 
black eyes for nothing.” hrudknck hbimbosk. 
A CHAPTER ON MENDING. 
N mending a garment, two things are to be con¬ 
sidered, neatness and dispatch. If the garment 
be quite good, it will pay to take the necessary time 
to do the mending in the neatest manner possible. 
The quickest way is not always the best. But when 
a garment has passed the stage when it is both useful 
and ornamental, and is relegated to workday wear, it 
is often wisest to mend such a garment in the quickest 
way. I have used the sewing machine to do mending 
of this kind, sewing up long tears, or putting in large 
patches, and do not think it a careless way of doing 
work, but the most sensible way. Machine sewing is 
stronger than hand work, and a patch well sewed will 
wear longer. 
The old adage, “a stitch in time saves nine,” applies 
to the patches as well as the stitches. The woman 
who does her own sewing can save time by looking 
ahead to mending day while she is making the new 
garments. Let the garments have extra pieces of 
cloth put at those places which are first to wear out, 
like elbows of sleeves, etc. Another item to be re¬ 
membered is, when making dress skirts, to put on the 
braid or binding at the bottom so that it may be easily 
ripped when it needs to be replaced by new. A recent 
improvement on one of the sewing machines is an at¬ 
tachment that changes the lock stitch to the chain 
stitch. This is a great convenience, but an ordinary 
machine stitch miy be made loose when sewing on 
braids so that it will rip easily when necessary. 
A hole that has worn through is usually round, and 
many persons follow this outline in the mending. 
Tuis sefems rather a careless way. The patch is going 
to show any way, and as the hole is already there, why 
not have it symmetrical ? If the hole be made square 
or oblong, it is much easier to mend it neatly, as cloth 
is woven of threads crossing at right angles; it is 
easier to fold a straight edge along a thread of the 
goods, and it stays in place better after being sewed, 
not puckering or pulling away from the stitches. 
Don’t put one patch upon another, unless the gar¬ 
ment has reached that state where one feels a reckless 
desire to bury it in the oblivion of the rag bag and let 
bygones be bygones. In that case, don’t let your 
particular disposition cause you to waste time over 
fine stitches. 
In women’s and children’s dress it is easy, if one ex¬ 
ercise some ingenuity, to adapt styles so as to cover 
a multitude of shortcomings in an old garment. New 
cuffs, yokes and trimmings on skirts, etc., are often 
far from the foolish indulgences in fashion that some 
might think. They are often the only means of mak¬ 
ing a worn-out dress presentable. Unfortunately, we 
cannot apply this combination of the useful and orna¬ 
mental to men’s clothes. A man must either wear 
patches or have a new suit. After all, women have 
some advantages in clothes, although a rainy day or 
an attempt at bicycle riding will suggest dress reform. 
A man’s best suit may get “shiny” before it is at all 
worn out. If the cloth be of the right kind, and the 
woman be equal to the task, the garments may be 
turned. This means to rip cut every stitch, hutton- 
holes and all, and turn the cloth and make it over 
again. Tnere are very few, except tailors, who can 
do this work satisfactorily, but it has been done to my 
knowledge by one of those women who always rise to 
the necessities of the occasion and succeed in making 
home comfortable and attractive, no matter how lim¬ 
ited their opportunities and resources. o. 
Highest of all in Leavening Power.—Latest U. S. Gov’t Report 
ABMILUTEEV PURE 
