We illustrate this week another way to make wash¬ 
day easy, and recommend it where other power is not 
obtainable. We think, however, horse power is more 
satisfactory, and do not doubt that after a trial of 
this method our readers will agree with us, and find 
the means of substituting horse power. 
2 2 2 
We find this advice in the woman’s column of a 
paper: “Have an easy, comfortable, cushioned rock¬ 
ing-chair in the kitchen, and sit down for a spell and 
elevate your feet. That takes the strain off the back, 
and the benefit is wonderful.” There it is again 1 
Advising women to adopt some purely masculine 
habit. This advice is a little in advance. It is all 
right, but isn’t likely to be practiced outside of the 
gymnasium for awhile. We must wait patiently until 
dress reform is established before the table or mantel 
can take the place of the footstool. Tired backs can’t 
be cured yet awhile. Hut women are used to them, 
and as long as false modesty usurps the place of com¬ 
mon sense, they will suffer in many ways. 
2 2 2 
“The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that 
rules the world.” But physicians tell us that rocking 
the cradle makes a nervous baby, so the cradle mustn’t 
be rocked. By and by the poet’s pretty sentiment 
will have to be remodeled and brought up to date. 
But there will still be poets, and they will find pretty 
things to say, even when the rest of mankind have 
become scientific. But now that a woman doesn’t 
have to rock the cradle with one foot and turn the 
spinning-wheel with the other, what shall she do with 
time hanging heavily on her hands? 
To quote Science, “ Nature abhors a 
vacuum,” and the housekeeper has not 
yet found the time when she has nothing 
to do. Evolution keeps things moving ; 
when one duty is removed another is 
substituted, perhaps of a different kind. 
The duty of the woman of to-day is to in¬ 
form herself of the best ways of doing 
her work, and to broaden her mental 
sphere in other directions, also, remem¬ 
bering that the poet’s thought is true and 
will always be true. The mothers of the 
nation hold its destiny in their power. 
May they realize this and not give all 
their time to working with the hands. 
go on with some cleaner, lighter work, that may be 
easily put aside if necessary. In the country, there is 
not this ever present danger of having the condition 
of the house or her own appearance inspected by her 
friends, so the housewife gradually falls into the 
habit of letting the hard work drag along throughout 
the day, after the manner of the housekeeper who 
said to me, “ I do the first work that I can lay hands 
on, and I always get through some way. What’s the 
odds ? The work all has to be done sometime.” Very 
true. But how much easier the work becomes when 
some definite task is assigned to each day of the week, 
as well as to each hour of the day. 
It will doubtless seem absurd to suggest that it is 
desirable to have a regular washday and a regular 
ironingday ; yet there are many farm households 
where the washing is done whenever it happens to be 
convenient, the ironing left until the last of the week, 
and the mending done only as the clothes are needed 
to put on. This manner of working can but increase 
the general discomfort] ofothe family, and add to the 
burden of work never done. Surely the 'trouble neces¬ 
sary to have this part of the work out of the way early 
in the week, will be far more than repaid by the com¬ 
fort of knowing that the hard tasks are over, ani that 
there are clean clothes for any emergency. 
It is certainly easier to set apart a certain day for 
the regular sweeping and dusting, and do it on that 
day instead of whenever it happens to be convenient. 
Work is BO much surer to be done when there is a 
definite time set apart for its doing than when one 
waits for that very uncertain “ convenient season.” 
The same truth applies to bakingday. A housekeeper 
J 
SYSTEM IN THE HOUSEWORK. 
F rom careful observation of the every¬ 
day life in many of our farmers’ 
homes, as well as the homes of working¬ 
men everywhere, it seems beyond ques¬ 
tion that many, if not most of the hard¬ 
ships and discomforts, arise from lack of 
system in the management of the house¬ 
work. The various tasks are done too 
much as it happens, with no definite plan 
of time, or place, or manner, and in con¬ 
sequence, the housewife is harassed and wearied with 
a feeling of being driven from one task to another, 
and utterly discouraged by the thought of work that 
is never dene. It is pitifully true of the ordinary 
farmer’s wife, that her work is never done. 
Labor with what zeal we will, 
Something still remains undone; 
Something uncompleted still 
Walts the rising of the sun, 
is truer, perhaps, of the farmer’s wife than of any 
other housekeeper. But her work can certainly be 
made much pleasanter and easier, and the entire 
household more comfortable, if the work is system¬ 
atically planned, and the plans adhered to as rigidly 
as possible. 
So much has been written upon the subject, and so 
many elaborate directions given as to what the serv¬ 
ants shall do on certain days, that the farmer’s wife 
never thinks of applying the principles to her own 
housework. Yet the setting apart of a day, as well 
as a definite hour in the day, for certain tasks, will 
cause the machinery of the smaller household to run 
more smoothly, just as surely as it does that of the 
larger one. This plan is even more essential, if there 
be but one pair of hands for all the tasks. 
The housewife in the city or village has the stimulus 
of public opinion and the example of her neighbors to 
force her to form some plan for her work, and she is 
helped in that degree. She is especially careful to do 
the hardest, most unsightly part of the day’s work, in 
the morning, and in the afternoon, with orderly sit¬ 
ting-room and her own dress made presentable, is 
rt ady for the always possible caller. She may then 
Woman’s Rights 1 ” Washing by Husband Power. 
Beengraved from Harper’s Bazar. 
Fig. 180. 
can soon learn how long a certain quantity of food 
will last her family, and thus set apart a certain day 
or days upon which to prepare it. In this way, the 
unwelcome discovery that the bread jar is empty and 
other supplies out just at the wrong time, may be 
avoided. So many families have fallen into the habit 
of living from hand to mouth in this respect, baking 
for each meal as it comes I Pancakes, Johnny cake, 
or hot biscuits, form the bread supply, with perhaps a 
cake hot from the oven or hastily prepared ginger 
bread. A very uncomfortable style of living at the 
best, adding to the burden of the housewife, and 
especially hard in any emergeney of sudden illness or 
the arrival of unexpected company. System in this 
respect, as in every other part of the work, will lessen 
the care and worry of the housewife, and increase 
the comfort of the home. 
Some plan in the purchase of groceries and house¬ 
hold supplies, saves many 
a needless trip to town_ 
when the time to go can- ~ 
not well be spared. Money 
may generally be saved 
by buying a considerable 
quantity at a time, and 
probably no more will be 
used or wasted when there 
is plenty, while it will 
certainly save much in¬ 
convenience from an un¬ 
expected exhaustion of 
supplies. 
MRS. DALINDA COTEY. 
THE HOUSE THAT GRANDPA GROSSBEAK BUILT 
ESS was a city girl; that is^ when the family mo^ed 
East, upon the farm, she was only two years old, 
and cried plaintively, “ Back to C’ago, back to C’agol” 
But when, a few weeks after, she had explored the 
new domain, and had found kittens, chickens, bossies, 
a youthful, bat tame woodchuck, and the cleanest, 
most delicate looking, and altogether most fascinating 
pig, she was heard to declare to Grandpa Grossbeak, 
to whom she had at once become attached, that she 
didn’t care a bit for “C’ago.” And Grandpa Gross- 
bsak, like the good grandparent that he was, lost no 
opportunity for attaching the youag lady still more to 
the farm. “For,” said he, “this girl’s mother will 
soon be sending her to school and college, and making 
a doctor or a lawyer of her; and if I don’t look out, 
she’ll forget us, farm and all.” 
So one day in May, Grandpa Grossbeak called her 
out into the garden, and what do you think ? There 
in little green plants, was a picture of what Jess called 
a “cubby house.” Grandpa Grossbeak had marked 
out in the soft earth freshly spaded, the ground plan 
about four feet square, of a little house, with a door 
and a tiny bay window. With the thin end of a board 
he had then indented the soil and strewed corn in the 
cleft; this was now two inches high, and growing fast 
every day in the hot sun. Here were the walls, the 
bay window and the entrance, all in bright green rows 
of plan’s And best of all, in the dooryard of the 
house, springing up in finer green plants, was the 
printed word “JESS,” so plain in tiny growing spires 
of wheat close together that Jess, now four years old, 
could read it. Wasn’t this fine, to find one’s own 
house, and even her name growing right 
out of the ground ? 
But this, though a surprise, wasn’t real- 
ly the best of all. For after the corn 
walls had grown higher than Jess’s head, 
the plants had been thinned to prevent 
crowding, and the little girl couldn’t 
i look over the sides of the “cubby house,” 
one day Grandpa Grossbeak nailed some 
thin boards together about four feet 
square. Then he drove a stake in each 
of the four corners of the house, laid the 
top on the stakes, and there was a splen¬ 
did roof to keep off the rain ; flat, it is 
true, but shady. Pretty soon, the corn 
grew up taller and hid the roof. Then 
J ess had a perfect house; good enough 
for any doll that ever “lived,” or any 
four-year-old either. 
Jess’s birthday came in August, and she 
had a party. The party couldn’t get into 
the house all at once, but they could 
take turns, and if there wasn’t room in¬ 
side, there was plenty outside. The name 
“JESS” in growing wheat had been 
freshly trimmed back by Grandpa Gross¬ 
beak until it looked as though it had just 
been printed in big letters of green. 
Usually blackberries and cream taste bet« 
ter away from home, but on this occasion they tasted 
just as good to Jess as to any of her company, and 
she felt very proud to entertain her friends in her 
own house. 
Whether Jess becomes a doctor or lawyer, as her 
grandpa pretends to fear, she will not forget the first 
house she ever had, if it did last only till the autumn 
frosts made rags of its sides, letting the cold winds 
whistle through. G. s. p. 
A GLANCE AT THE FASHIONS. 
T he fall styles verify the predictions of the sum¬ 
mer. Double skirts have been rejected. Dame 
Fashion is losing prestige. Women are no longer so 
easily swayed by her whims. When a change is to be 
inaugurated, it must have something more to commend 
it than mere newness. It has been said long ago that 
“ when a woman will, she will, and when she won’t. 
Highest of all in Leavening Power.- 
Latest U. S. Gov’t Report 
»W<I 
PURE 
