The following lines taken from a 
news item, are a refreshing change 
from the “fainting at a mouse” joke, 
with which we are all acquainted : A fire 
occurred in the house of Mr. Frohman. 
One of his sisters awoke and found her 
room filled with smoke, which was com¬ 
ing up the stairway. She alarmed the 
family, and then ran into the kitchen. 
Seizing a fire extinguisher, she had the 
fire in the hallway out in a few minutes; 
not, however, before some bric-a-brac 
and mementos of travel had been de¬ 
stroyed. 
*- 
We believe in compulsory education, 
but not the kind our artist has repre¬ 
sented at Fig. 116. Door, forlorn-look¬ 
ing doggie ! His part in life is to jump, 
skip, bark, and wag his tail. But his 
young mistress has very effectually put 
a damper on such deportment. It is not 
more severe to punish an animal for 
failing to comprehend a book than to 
find fault with children because they do 
not act according to grown-up standards 
of propriety. See to it that home disci¬ 
pline is not contrary to Nature’s in¬ 
tentions and purposes. 
PROMISES TO CHILDREN. 
they should not he cakei.essly made 
AND BROKEN. 
O VER and over, all day long, we are 
obliged to put off little impor- 
tuners with promises. There are not 
minutes enough in 12 hours to attend to 
all the childish wants, even though we 
had nothing else to do at all ; so we send 
the little ones away with hopes of “ by 
and by,” and we really mean to do it by 
and by, too. But I fear that some of the 
children’s by and bys never come. It 
isn’t because we do not tell the truth, or 
mean to tell it, when we do the promis¬ 
ing ; but simply because the very fre¬ 
quency of the coaxings and importuni¬ 
ties weakens the strength of the prom¬ 
ises we make until they lose their identity 
as real promises, and seem more like 
simple make shifts to relieve the moment’s 
pressure. But they are promises. If they 
cannot be positively sure of fulfillment, 
they ought never to be made ; for every 
time we fail to do just as we promised, 
we make an indelible black mark against 
our names in a little child's sensitive 
heart. Maybe the little child does not 
realize it or harbor the least resentment 
against us, but the impression is made 
once for all, and will have its own pecu¬ 
liar share in influencing him in the 
character that is forming for him out of 
the little incidents and happenings of his 
every-day life. 
A delayed or unkept promise may seem 
a small thing at the time, so trivial is its 
import; but small things pile up into 
great the world over. Every promise 
must be sacredly kept, if we would keep 
ourselves spotless in our little ones’sight 
—and who has not that high ambition ? 
There must always be a “by and by” 
when we promise one. I overheard a 
tiny maiden giving her own definition of 
a promise to her dolly one day: “A 
p'omish, dolly,” she said, “ means—why, 
it means when anybody p’omishes, he 
does it.” Can Webster's Unabridged do 
better ? This same little maiden, too, 
gave her mother, all unconsciously, as 
beautiful a compliment as mother’s heart 
could wish, when one day she exclaimed 
to a little friend, “ Oh, yes, I’m goin’, 
’cause mamma p'omished me, and my 
mamma always does her p'omishes.” I 
overheard the dear little tribute, and 
wished that I were that little lady’s 
mother. 
Promised Punishment. 
The sacreiness of a promise thus es¬ 
tablished in a little mind, is a grand 
foundation of truth to build upon. And 
’tis not only the little promises we make 
so many times a day to do some of a 
child’s errands and bits of pleasures—to 
make a little “ party ” for her by and 
by, with the play dishes, or hunt up 
some favorite toy that is lost—that need 
especial watching and remembering on 
our part. But there are the small pun¬ 
ishments that we are too busy to inflict 
at the time, and promise for by and by. 
How mightily important that we should 
not neglect to keep them. Sometimes 
it is a refusal to go out to play, or to do 
some other little wished-for thing. We 
deny the privilege because of some 
childish naughtiness ; but when the time 
comes, the little one is so sweet, and 
our own ruffled feelings have so smoothed 
out, that we cannot bear to carry out 
our threats—no, let us call them prom¬ 
ises—and so we make mental reserva¬ 
tions, and twist our consciences a bit— 
and the child goes out to play after all. 
There are extreme cases of this sort too 
unpleasant to think of, and perhaps al¬ 
together too severe to meet our own 
cases, but, after all, they are all nearly 
related, and the one may grow into the 
other all unconsciously to us. 
We’ve all heard some hasty mother 
say to her derelict little one, “ Stop that 
to set before our families the same, and 
very limited, bill of fare year in and 
year out, day after day, and week after 
week. Truly, they seem to think that 
country people in the North live solely 
upon salt pork and dried apples, and in 
the South we have nothing but fat meat 
and corn bread. 
A physician of my acquaintance who 
lived in town, at one time thought of 
moving to the country, when his wife 
won the admiration of her friends by 
•announcing her determination to go 
also. “ If he can live upon fat meat and 
corn bread, I can, too,” said this most 
courageous of women. This idea that 
seems to be so generally entertained 
concerning the deprivations of country 
people, finds acceptance only through 
lack of thought. How many dishes 
there are which serve to give variety to 
the housekeeper’s bill of fare in the 
city, that come directly from the coun¬ 
try ? Fresh, crisp vegetables — their 
prices rising or falling in direct propor¬ 
tion to their freshness—luscious fruits, 
and dewy berries and melons, each in 
its proper season. Think of the plump 
poultry and fresh eggs, sweet cream and 
golden butter ! Where do you find them 
COMPULSORY EDUCATION. Fig. 116. 
this minute, or I’ll whip you !” or, “I’ll 
put you to bed;” yet the little one went 
on in his sinful little way quite securely 
and indifferently. Is it any wonder 
that he was an “ unmanageable” child? 
1 heard of a little down-east boy who 
was promised a whipping for some fault, 
but it had to be postponed awhile. He 
went out behind the woodshed and sat 
down to nurse his woes. When a family 
friend discovered him there, later on, he 
tried to console him. “ Oh, never mind 
little man, your mother will forget all 
about the whipping,” he said. “ Oh, 
no!” the boy said, mournfully; “my 
mother's got a dreadful big remember ! ” 
We ache in sympathy with the little fel¬ 
low, so sure of his judgment; but we 
honor his mother’s staunch “remember.” 
The big promises we are in small 
danger of neglecting ; we are too honest 
for that. But it behooves us all to keep 
a constant watch over the daily little 
ones that slip from our lips so easily. 
ANNIE HAMILTON DONNELL. 
in greater perfection than in the well- 
managed farmhouse ? 
And it isn’t only during the summer 
months that we fare well; it is all the 
year ’round if we are only wise and 
provident, as our mothers and grand¬ 
mothers were before us. I keep apples, 
when our orchard bears at all, almost 
until the apples come again. Sound 
sweet potatoes were found in the pit of 
dry earth last fall when we were mak¬ 
ing ready to store away the new crop. 
We are never without good mealy white 
potatoes; we had fresh turnip salad 
this winter whenever the snow was not 
on the ground, and there are now pretty 
white heads of cabbage in hills in the 
garden. We had for dinner to-day the 
nicest canned peaches, put up in glass 
jars year before last, and delicious jel¬ 
lied grapes, just acid enough to be appe¬ 
tizing. Our cellar keeps such things 
perfectly, and I make such good use of 
our summer fruits when we do have 
them, that a failure in fruit is but little 
felt. Besides, we always sell enough of 
our surplus of such things to make us 
feel free to buy any imported delicacies 
for which we care. 
For fresh meat, we have a beef club 
during three months of the year ; nice 
fat mutton whenever we choose to have 
one dressed, and an icehouse full of ice 
to keep the meat fresh until it is used. 
A whole, corn-fed beef is ours in the 
spring if we choose, with the hams to 
cure and use as dried beef ; fresh steak 
until we tire of it, and delicious pickled 
beef, the very thing for March and April. 
Then there is farm poultry of every 
kind, from the juicy spring broiler to the 
stately Thanksgiving turkey and the 
Christmas goose, if we choose to revive 
the old English custom. 
But I had almost forgotten, in my 
great abundance of good things, the 
many excellent dishes that result from 
a country hog-killing—fresh sausage, 
souse, spareribs, tongue, brains, and, 
later on, the crisp, sweet breakfast bacon, 
and juicy country-cured hams ! Why ! 
my city friends are continually begging 
me to send them something to eat. They 
know where the good things grow. Our 
greatest trouble, in fact, is how to select 
from our great abundance, and our 
greatest care is that we share it faith¬ 
fully with our friends who lack. 
a farmer’s daughter. 
AN AMERICAN “FOURTH." 
A RE you tired ?” asked Mr. Dudley 
of his wife, as she opened the 
door of their pleasant sitting-room and 
sank with a sigh into her rocker. It was 
the evening of the Fourth of .July. The 
coolness and seclusion of her home were 
most grateful after the fatigue and dust 
and heat of the day. 
“ 1 am tired and disgusted,” she an¬ 
swered. “ What a way we have fallen 
into of celebrating the Fourth of July ; 
what with boomerangs, greased poles, 
and greased pigs ; horse races and foot 
races, the day has come to mean nothing 
to the people but degrading and mean¬ 
ingless, even cruel sports, and drunken¬ 
ness. Better abolish the day than have 
it observed in this way.” 
“ But, my dear, you forget how many 
foreigners there are among us ; we must 
concede something to their tastes and 
provide amusement for them.” 
“ That is just what we must not do,” 
returned the justly aroused Mrs. Dudley. 
“They should be made to partake of the 
spirit of our holidays. As they have 
sworn allegiance to our Government, so 
let them renounce their degrading pas¬ 
times, and cultivate a taste for something 
better.” 
“ But they cannot be forced.” 
“True; but they can be invited and 
instructed. Let us give them something 
entertaining and, at the same time, ele¬ 
vating. We should tender to these peo¬ 
ple the hospitality of our home, not that 
of the grogshop. The man takes his 
comrade into the grogshop and asks, 
‘ What will you have ? ’ We invite our 
friend to a seat at our table and give 
him little choice ; we expect him to par¬ 
take with us of the food we have pre¬ 
pared for ourselves. This is ‘the land of 
the free and the home of the brave. 
It is also, as an eminent writer remarked 
of New York City, the dumping ground 
A WORD FOR COUNTRY FARE. 
I WAS glad to see, in The R. N.-Y. of 
March 2, that some one has had the 
courage to speak up in behalf of the 
farmer's wife. Our city friends are very 
kind, and their solicitude in our behalf 
is most gratifying ; but in many cases 
they know so little about us that their 
compassionate interest and well-meant 
advice are more amusing than other¬ 
wise. We are constantly exhorted not 
Highest of all in Leavening Power.—Latest U. S. Gov’t Report 
IBMILUIELV PUB? 
