A DOUBLE DELUSION. 
“ What a lovely dolly, dear Flossie,” I said, 
“ I am sure that she came from France! 
Does she shut her eyes when you put her to bed ? 
Can she walk and talk and dance ? ” 
“ Hush! ” murmured softly my brown-eyed pet, 
She might hear you, don’t you see ? 
She doesn’t know she’s a dollie yet, 
But she s’poses she’s folks like me.” 
—Louise Manning Hodgkins in Youth's Companion. 
Tiik panorama of “fashions” still 
moves on, but at a slower pace ; for so 
many of the audience of women have 
other and more important matters to 
which they prefer to give some atten¬ 
tion. The feverish haste to be off with 
the old and on with the new, is only a 
characteristic of empty heads and idle 
hands, and these are no longer considered 
the crowning graces of woman. Yet 
most of us wish to take a peep at the 
fashions twice a year. And a majority 
of us look at the season’s display from 
our own standpoints, with our own small 
pocketbooks in hand. We shall give 
some fashion notes and hints which we 
wish to make practical as well as pleas¬ 
ing. Perhaps it will help us to give the 
advice most wanted, if the readers will 
send in some of the questions they wish 
answered. __ 
A FARMER’S WIFE. 
“ 1\ /TARRY a farmer! Alice Morrill 
lYx are you crazy ?” Alice laughed 
gayly, as she packed away the books 
from her desk in the country schoolhouse 
at Shelbyville. It was the close of the 
spring term, and her friend, Amy How¬ 
ard, had been visiting the school, and 
now waited to accompany the teacher to 
her home in the village. 
“ So you think I wouldn’t make an 
ideal farmer’s wife ! John does, though,” 
and a tender smile rested on her lips, as 
Alice thought of the stalwart young 
farmer who had wooed and won her. 
“ Why, Alice,” said Amy earnestly, “I 
don’t believe you know anything at all 
about the hard life a farmer’s wife leads, 
especially when both men and women 
ase used to working as the Wagners do. 
Excuse me, dear, but John Wagner comes 
from a family which has the name of 
being the hardest workers, and greatest 
savers in the town where they live.” 
“Yes,” answered Alice gravely; “1 
know all that, Amy, and I’ve counted 
the cost; but 1 believe in John’s love for 
me, and I’ve told him all about my inex¬ 
perience, and I’m sure I can get along 
nicely. But let us walk home, and I 
will tell you our plans.” 
These girls were old and firm friends, 
and as they walked toward the village, 
an observer would notice the bright, res¬ 
olute face, and sprightly walk of the 
young teacher, and the almost anxious 
expression on the face of her companion. 
“You see,” continued Alice, “since 
John and I have been engaged, we have 
talked over our future prospects a great 
deal, and he agrees with me, that 
farmers must use their brains more, and 
save much useless drudgery, besides 
making their occupation more enjoyable; 
so we are both reading and studying 
everything we can find, that we think 
will help us.” 
“ But, Alice, how can you follow any 
other but the old way, if you are to live 
with John’s people ?.” 
“Oh, we are not going to live with 
them! You see, John is going to buy 
some of his father’s land, and there is a 
small house across the road where we 
are to live.” 
“ Well, that’s better,” answered Amy ; 
“ but I know you’ll hate, the work, and 
wish that you were back in town.” 
“ Well,” laughed Alice, as she bade 
her friend good-bye. “ I ll report in a 
year, and we’ll see.” 
The wedding was not to be till the 
following February, and all summer and 
fall, Alice spent in getting ready to be a 
farmer’s wife. She made sheets and 
pillow cases, quilts and comfortables ; 
hemmed towels and table linen ; made 
herself some neat gingham dresses, and 
long aprons, in the good old fashioned 
way. When she was married, her friends 
gave her pretty china and glass ware, 
some substantial silver and pretty 
pictures. Uncle Isaac Morrill gave a 
Cooley creamer, and an unknown friend 
sent a barrel churn. 
John and his wife spent a couple of 
weeks visiting friends, and then took 
possession of their little farm to begin 
work in earnest. While spending a few 
days in a town of some size, they at¬ 
tended a farmers’ institute, where several 
prominent men gave lectures on various 
subjects connected with the farm. There 
Alice learned the best method of making 
butter, and raising chickens, while John 
listened to discussions on the most ap¬ 
proved ways of feeding stock, using fer¬ 
tilizers, and kindred topics. 
John’s mother and father said that the 
children never would succeed the way 
they started. “ Why, John,” said his 
mother, “Alice cannot make butter fit 
to eat in that new-fangled way. Not 
work it but once ! The buttermilk will 
stay in, and the butter won’t keep;” and 
r~ 
skin of any delicate person, young or 
old. There are cuticles tough enough to 
stand it, but this pachydermis quality 
belongs to very few people. 
“ The skin should be dried by patting 
and pressure with a very soft towel. 
Persian towels are to sensitive skins 
simply abominations. I have a great 
many patients who cannot use cotton 
toweling in any form, as the cotton is 
not sufficiently absorbent. Turkish 
toweling makes excellent bath-robes, 
scrub-cloths and dusters, provided it is 
washed often enough, and there its 
utility ought to stop, for it has no busi¬ 
ness in contact with the skin merely as a 
towel. When the baby is washed and 
dried, a gentle patting with a warm hand 
is the perfection of method to create a 
delightful glow upon the surface. The 
skin is made up of millions of little 
pores, and the rasping and scraping back 
and forth that is recommended by some 
careless persons, means nothing more or 
less than roughening up the skin and 
closing these pores, which are supposed 
to be opened by the washing. Indeed, 
that is precisely what washing is for. 
And what is the benefit when immedi¬ 
ately there is a scratching up of the skin, 
breaking it up into tiny particles, which 
at once fall into the pores and clog them? 
is dangerous, and almost inevitably 
warps a naturally sweet disposition into 
something ungainly and unlovely.” 
1 
m 
rv 
VI 
A SWIMMING LESSON. Fig. 207. 
From Harper’s Round Table. 
John's father said, “Not sow grain? 
Why, man, I’ve always raised wheat on 
that land, and it can be done again.” 
John laughed, and invited his parents 
to wait a year before judging, a. n. s. 
CTo be continued.) 
CRUELTY TO BABIES. 
“ T TOOK up a household paper the 
A other day,” said a sensible old 
doctor, who is always saying instructive 
things, “ and laid it down with a feeling 
of profound disgust at some of the rub¬ 
bish I read in it,” says the New York 
Ledger. “Among other things, there was 
an injunction, emphatic, italicized and 
underlined, to the effect that the young 
mother who would keep her baby 
healthy, must under no circumstances 
neglect to give it the most thorough 
rubbing with a towel after every bath. 
Now, every woman of sense ought to 
know that a thorough rubbing with a 
towel, as it is generally applied by en¬ 
thusiastic and incompetent young moth¬ 
ers and nurses, .is little less than torture 
to the delicate skin of the baby. I have 
seen children with chronic eczema pro¬ 
duced by this detestable and dangerous 
practice. 
“As a matter of fact, a towel should 
never be used to rub the surface of the 
A brisk patting, on the contrary, brings 
the blood to the surface and acts as a 
tonic to the skin. 
“ There are many persons who find it 
of great advantage to take a cold dash 
after the scrubbing is finished, then 
wrap themselves in a sheet—linen, if 
possible—and lie down for a few min¬ 
utes with a blanket cover over them. 
The skin almost immediately absorbs 
the water and is greatly benefited 
thereby. 
“ Babies can be educated to enjoy a 
cold or cool bath. One youngster, who 
was exceedingly hard to manage at first, 
grew to a condition of screaming en¬ 
thusiasm when he was allowed to float 
some rubber dolls and balls around in 
the bath. His dread of watei’ was en¬ 
tirely removed in this way. In the be¬ 
ginning, the bath was just warm enough 
to be comfortable ; then the temperature 
was gradually lowered until he would 
endure the splash of almost cold water 
with the greatest delight. He beat the 
surface of the water with his rubber 
babies until he was spattered from head 
to foot. 
“ This is a much better way to manage 
a timid child than to attempt either 
force or argument. It is all very well 
to say that children should be disci¬ 
plined, but pressure on certain natures 
TO CURE RENNET. 
W E have received but one reply to 
our request for information ; 
but rather than delay further, we give 
the instructions received together with 
the following taken from an article on 
cheesemaking in The Housekeeper : 
For the rennet, one should secure the 
stomach of a young calf that has been 
allowed no food save its mother’s milk. 
The calf should not be over five weeks 
old when it is killed. When the rennet 
is removed by the butcher, it should be 
immediately emptied of curd, rubbed 
with dry salt and placed where it will 
dry quickly. Repeat the rubbing fre¬ 
quently, and when dry put the rennet in 
a tight box in a dry place, for it is ready 
to be used at any time. I do not know 
that it will ever spoil if treated in this 
manner. When preparing a rennet, 
never wash or soak it, as that would cer¬ 
tainly spoil it. 
On the evening before the rennet is 
to be used, cut from the dried rennet a 
piece containing about six square inches, 
and place it in a cupful of warm water. 
In the morning, strain the new milk, 
place it on the stove, and when it regis¬ 
ters at the cheese mark (88 degrees), re¬ 
move from the fire and put in the care¬ 
fully strained water in which the rennet 
has been soaked and rubbed. As it is 
turned in, stir the milk with a long 
wooden paddle in a soft, rolling way 
until all is well mixed, then cover with 
a cloth and leave alone for about 20 
minutes. Now try it. If it is a soft 
curd, vepr much like custard, it is all 
right. 
* 
We will suppose that all know that 
rennet is the stomach of a veal calf, 
salted and dried. The contents of the 
stomach must be washed and freed from 
all foreign matter, being careful not to 
let it stand in water any length of time. 
Then take a forked stick, stretch the 
stomach on that, then in the bag thus 
formed, place the curds from the stom¬ 
ach and one coffee-cupful of rock salt, 
rubbing fine salt on the outside ; then 
hang it up to dry. When wanted for 
use, cut off a piece one inch square to 
curdle one pint of milk, letting it soak 
overnight, as time is necessary to dra w 
out all the strength. mbs. d. l. b. 
THE VALUE OF FRUIT. 
F RUIT, as a food and medicine, is dis¬ 
cussed by Harry Benjafield, M. B., 
in Popular Science Monthly : 
Good ripe fruits contain a large amount 
of sugar in a very easily digestible form. 
This sugar forms a light nourishment, 
which, in conjunction with bread, rice, 
etc., forms a food especially suitable for 
the warm colonies; and when eaten 
with, say, milk or milk and eggs, the 
whole forms the most perfect and easily 
digestible food imaginable. For stomachs 
capable of digesting it, fruit eaten with 
pastry forms a perfect nourishment ; but 
I prefer my cooked fruit covered with 
rice and milk or custard. I received a 
book lately written by a medical man 
advising people to live entirely on fruits 
and nuts. 1 am not prepared to go so 
fax-—by the way, he allowed some meat 
to be taken with it—for, although 1 look 
upon fruit as an excellent food, yet I 
look upon it more as a necessary adjunct 
than as a perfect food of itself. Why 
for ages have people eaten apple sauce 
with their roast goose and sucking pig ? 
Simply because the acids and peptones 
in the fruit assist in digesting the fats so 
abundant in this kind of food. For the 
same reason, at the end of a heavy din¬ 
ner we eat our cooked fruits, and when 
