©EG. 21 
MOORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKE 
403 
JMess’ foi|t-«Jolto. 
THE VIOLET. 
Br JEAN FLOTD. 
I found it in an ancient book, 
In the garret's gloom and must: 
It was only a pressed violet. 
Only returned to dust. 
It wag only a pressed violet, 
Perfume and color fled. 
Tot I touched the phantom reverently. 
As sacred to the dead. 
The book was old—Its purplo 
And gold was dull and frayed— 
Its leaves grown yellow—roarrod withal 
By tracks the worm had made. 
8oma youthful poet’s verso—to-day 
By all the world forgot, 
As be within Ills humble grave. 
Alas I the dreamer’s lot. 
The rhymes hud touched one heart, at least, 
For there the violet lay. 
Mute record of 1 know not what 
Experience, passed away— 
Of passion or of quiet thought, 
Of heart‘a decline or glow, 
1 see a light of young romance 
Shine out of long ago ! 
Only a pale, pressod violet 
’Twijct dusty leaves—no more i 
Yet lives onoe lived are shadowed In 
The poem and the flower; 
And the chorda that through humanity 
Mysteriously twine. 
By these have linked the graoe unknown 
Of perished dreams, to mine. 
-m-s- 
IT CAN’T BE DONE. 
As a oonstant reader of the Rural, New- 
Yorker I have become dooply Interested In 
the artlclee which have appeared from time to 
time upon farmers’ wives and their work. Up 
to the present I have felt no desire to enter In¬ 
to the controversy ; but the article In the Ru¬ 
ral of Nov. 9th, by H. H., upon her neighbor, 
Mrs. R., seems so overwrought, and so very liko 
the fairy stories that Interested us in our child¬ 
hood, I feel Impelled to give my ideas as a prac¬ 
tical view of the case. 
I have spent the greater part of my life upon 
a farm, and think I know of what I write. This 
Mrs. R. has thirteen In her family through the 
hot weather, and the care of the milk from six¬ 
teen cows: and we are told she docs all her work 
without help, besides making and tending gai- 
den, feeding oalvos, building morning tires, and 
other work that belongs to the men. She is 
able to do all this work without “grumbling or 
complaining," because she has her husband's 
encouraging words," and has inherited from 
hor mother fwho never hah any hard work to 
do) good health and a strong constitution. 
Now, if we grant that hor strength will hold 
out through all this labor, is It possible for oue 
pair of hands to do all in the time allotted? I 
think not. 
The working hours of a woman on a farm arc 
sixteen—ought not to bo more, and cannot well 
be loss. With the milk from sixteen cows the 
churning must bo done every day; the strain¬ 
ing, skimming and emptying of milk, churning, 
working and packing of butter, washing of 
pans, palls, churn, etc., and keeping the milk- 
room clean und in good order, will take, at a 
low estimate, four of thocoolest and best work¬ 
ing hours of the day. One hour for meals, and 
One hour for those odd jobs and little hindran¬ 
ces which we never make any account of, hut 
which are suro to come, leave her ten hours for 
the housework proper. By odd Jobs I mean 
such as taking her hands out of the bread to 
attend tho call of a tin peddler, or the oolts 
come up from pasture to an empty trough for 
drink. She cannot resist their pleadings, so 
she just throws on her sun-bonnet, runs out and 
pumps a few strokes to last until flic men come 
to dinner; or (he old turkeys have called tholr 
whole family over the fence into the garden, 
aud she must drive them out or all the early 
cabbages will he destroyed ; or mother hen 
brings a nice brood of chickens to the baok door 
for feed; or a fine swarm of bees come out, and 
she mu3t hive them ; or if they alight higher 
titan her courage will let her climb, she must 
go and call somo of the men ; or tho little one 
comes In from play with a "flstle " In her foot 
and wants " moover ’’ to get it out; or husband 
comes in and wantc wife to take a needle, 
quick, and tlx his suspenders, or sew on a but¬ 
ton that he has burst off while making an un¬ 
usually heavy lift—and many more that it would 
be tiresome to mention. 
I have seen many smart women, women with 
tacft and system and order, and the convenien¬ 
ces and modern improvements for dairy work; 
but I never saw one pair of hands that in ten 
hours could do the baking, washing, ironing, 
mending, getting three meals,washing, combing 
and keeping children presentable, drying corn, 
picking berries, putting up fruit and making 
pickles for Winter, cleaning house, making 
soap, carpets and bedding, going to the village 
on errands, entertaining company, visiting, 
sowing and knitting, and finding an hour or 
two each evening, after the children are in bed, 
for reading and conversation. No! H. H.! it 
must be an Ideal woman of whom yon speak! 
It can’t be done! Mrs. W. R. B. 
Phelps, N. Y., Nov., 1872. 
-*■♦-*- 
Gen. Thomas’ widow wili spend the winter 
in Florence. 
R 
EVENING IN A FARMER’S HOUSE- 
I AM doing to-night what I have never done 
before—writing an article for a paper. But I 
have taken courage by reading so many excel¬ 
lent articles In your "Ladles’ Port-Folio " de¬ 
partment. having read them with a great deal 
of Interest.especially those pertaining to agri¬ 
culture, Its pursuits, and the homes of farmers. 
1 am a daughter of a farmer «Dd know some¬ 
thing of the lives they lead; ami as farmers 
usually make It a life of toil, I find that those 
who do tho most labor, work early aud late, go¬ 
ing through with tho same routine, coi n, oats 
and potatoes, reading little but their own town 
paper, fulling asleep as soon as their day’s work 
Is done, being able to converse on nothing but 
what Is daily transpiring around them, are the 
kind of farmers that city people Judge the 
masses by. 
A farmer of course has his cheeks bronzed by 
the sun, and often misshapen with toil. But is 
that any reason why he cannot have a cultiva¬ 
ted brain, a refined nature, and be conversant 
with all general topics of tho day, aB well as 
merchants and professional men? X say he can. 
According to the strength given, his work is no 
more than his co-workers, the female members 
of hi» household. To bo a good farmer one 
must have perseverance, patience, and a con¬ 
tented disposition ; with these he will come out 
purified, aud "excelsior ’’ will ever be bis motto. 
1 wlU give a partial description of our hum¬ 
ble homo; for wo can neither boast of wealth 
nor a lovely dwelling, hut of a farm situated 
about two miles from a thriving villago—an old 
homestead, descended to us for four genera¬ 
tions back; an old house that has stood the 
winters for over one hundred years-buta very 
pleasant homo to me. as every footstep is fa¬ 
miliar ; ana at evening, alter tho “ chores ” are 
all done, and we gather around tho center ta¬ 
ble of our pleasant sitting-room, reading our 
daily paper, and onue a woolc the Rural New- 
Yorker, which comes as a dear friend, and 
with books, which wo have never domed our¬ 
selves, wo past, eaoh evening of the week en¬ 
tertaining one another—not alone in reading 
aloud, but lu conversing upon what has been 
rein), so advancing with those who have the 
advantages of oily schools and other privileges, 
and storing our minds with knowledge which 
will bo useful to us in after life, enabling us to 
assert an Independence in whatever place in 
society we may hereafter assume. I hopo this 
humble assertion from one of "Eve’s daugh¬ 
ters "may not Und its way into the Editor’s 
scrap bosket, to find its way out out only 
through the nimble Ungers of some hoy selling 
papers, or to be laid silently upon the grate 
with hundreds of others of like production. 
Alpha. 
DOMESTIC HAPPINESS. 
The great end of prudence is to give cheer¬ 
fulness to those hours which splendor cannot 
gild, and aeournulation cannot exhilarate. 
Those soft Intervals of unbended amusement, 
in which a rnan shrinks to bis natural dimen¬ 
sions and throws aside the ornaments nndjdiB- 
guises which he feels In private to be useless 
incumbrances, und to lose all effect when they 
beoarno familiar. To bo huppy at home is the 
ultimato result of all ambition, the end to 
which every enterprise and labor tends, and of 
which every desire prompts the execution, ft 
is, indeed, at home that every man must be 
known by those who form a just estimate of 
his virtue or felicity ; for smilesand embroidery 
are alike occasional and tho mind la often 
dressed for show la painted honor and ficti¬ 
tious benevolence.— Johnson. 
---- - ■ 
WOMAN PERSONALS. 
Miss Sarah C. Lewis of Braintree, Mass., 
bequeathed, at her death, the income of her 
house and *3 per week to be applied to the care 
of her favorite tortoise-shell cal; recently the 
cat who inherited liiis tiome aud annuity died, 
and the Univcrealist Church succeeded to the 
entire property in accordance with the will of 
the dcooused. Bid the cut die a natural death ? 
There is a story that a handsome young lady 
named Miss Moss, whose father Is reported to 
hold high official position under the British 
Government, reached Knoxville, Toun., re¬ 
cently, having traveled from tho mother coun¬ 
try to meet and wed her affianced lover who 
had preceded her several months and Is a resi¬ 
dent of the above-named town. 
According to "Ell Perkins” an Ohio young 
lady made a formal proposition of marriage re¬ 
cently to Thomas Nast, the artist, who re¬ 
sponded by sending the would-be wife a car¬ 
toon containing Mrs. N ast and tho Children, 
labeled " the only objections." 
The Shah of Persia, on tho occasion of his 
daughter’s marriage, created h new female or¬ 
der called " Order of the Sun,” and bestowed 
the first decoration on his mother. 
a Terre Haute, Ind., lady is preparing a 
lecture upon "Tho Conflagration of Love.” It 
will probably be as graphic as a description of 
the Chicago fire. 
Mrs. Sarah E. Fuller, a wood engraver of 
this city, has opened u studio for the reception 
of female pupils desirous of learning the art. 
Miss Mollif, Nolan of St. Louis. Mo., has 
applied for a patent for a hand lire extinguisher 
of her own invention. 
Jading foi| the fmmg. 
TEACHING PUBLIC SCHOOL. 
Eighty little urchins 
Coming through tho door. 
Pushing, crowding, making 
A tremendous roar. 
Why don’t you icoep quiet ? 
Can’t you mind the rule ? 
Bless me I this Is pleasant, 
Keeping public school. 
Eighty little pilgrims 
On the road to lame [ 
If they fail to reach it. 
Who will bo to blame? 
High and lowly stations. 
Birds of every feather, 
On a cornmou level 
Here are brought together. 
Dirty little faces, 
Loving little hearts, 
Eyes brimful of mischief, 
Skilled in till the arts. 
That’s a precious darling ! 
Wbat are you about? 
“ May I pass tho water ?’’ 
"Please may 1 go oat?" 
Boots and shoes are shuffling, 
Slates and books are rattling, 
And In the corner yohder 
Two pugilists uro battling ! 
Others cutting didoes, 
What a botheration I 
No wonder wo grow crusty 
From such association. 
Anxious parent drops in. 
Merely to inquire 
Why his olive branches 
Do not shoot higher ? 
Says he wants his children 
To mind their p’s and q's, 
And hopes their brilliant talent 
Will not be abused. 
Spelling, reading, writing, 
Petting up this young ones, 
Fanning, scolding, fighting. 
Spurring on the dumb ones. 
Gymnasts, vocal uiuslo? 
How the heart rejoices 
When the singer uomes 
To cultivate the voices. 
Institute attending, 
Making out reports, 
Giving object lessons. 
Class drills of all sorts; 
Beading dissertations, 
’ Feeling 11 ko a fool— 
Oh, the untold blessing 
Of keeping public school. 
——-W-A-*- 
A CHRISTMAS CAKE, 
ntfe-W-D WHAT game of it. 
BY MRS. SARAH D. HOBART. 
It was Christmas Duy, and Mrs. Lennox was 
finishing hor morning’s work by making a largo 
and savory fruit-cake lor the minister’s Christ¬ 
inas dinner. Three rosy-chooked, curly-headed 
little ones—two in chairs and one standing on 
Up-toe by t he table—watched tho process with 
eager eyes till tho JuBt touch was given and tho 
dough transferred to tho bulling tin. 
“ NOw run away, all r>f you!" said the mother; 
and, taking off her spectacles lo wipe her eyes, 
alio carolosaly laid i hem upon the table while 
she stirred the Hi e. 
Charlie und Willie went to tho window to 
look at the gay sleighs, with their pranolng 
horses, aud little three year-old Robbie slipped 
down from his high chair und, catolling some¬ 
thing up from the table, buried it deep In ihe 
yielding dough which stood so Invitingly near. 
In a moment more the cuke was In the ovon, 
and, coming hack to the table. Mrs. Lennox 
began looking for her spectacles. But they 
were not to be found. 
"Charlie-Willie!” she cried, "have you 
seen them ? " 
The boys said " No,” I ittlo Bobbie shaking his 
curly head and protesting his innocenee as 
strongly as either of tho others; and the 
mother searched arid searched. Down tho 
long rows of pantry shelves, In the Hour bar¬ 
rels, the sugar box, the pickle jar in every spot 
that mischievous hands reach—but till In vain. 
At last she gave up the quest In despair, and, 
pm ting on her old, steel-bowed ones, drew the 
cake from the oven. 
Such a beautiful golden-brown as it was, with 
hereand thereu purplo raisin breaking through 
tho tender crust. Wrapping it up carefully, she 
seat it across the way to tho parsonage, and be¬ 
gan preparations for dinner. 
a * * a * 
Mrs. Gray, tho minister’s wife, was slicing 
her cake with many kind thougbtsof the giver, 
when the knife rasped against something hard. 
Cutting it out carefully, she produced a pair of 
gold spectacles. 
"Just see what I have found!" she cried, 
running into the sitting-room where her hus¬ 
band was writing. “ Was there ever such a 
woman ! Who but Sister Lennox would have 
thought of storing away a Christmas gift In 
such a manner ? And Just when you were wish¬ 
ing for them so much. It’s liko a lairy tale. 1 
must go and thank her at- once ! " 
Away she hurried, for the two houses were 
tke closest and best of neighbors, and entered 
her friend s parlor just, as tho latter was relating 
to her husband the story of her loss. 
"How can 1 ever thank yon?" said. Mrs. 
Gray.” 
“It’s nottiing, nothing at all,” answered Mrs. 
Lennox, with that air which we all assume 
when we feel conscious of having performed 
some good deed. 
“It seoms as If the Lord always sends what 
we most need ; and only last night husband said 
thoro was nothing he wished for so much! ” 
"Times must bo very hard at our minister’s 
if a fruit-cake Is such a great rarity," thought 
Mrs. Lennox. 
" nis Sight is failing so fast," Mrs. Gray went 
on, “he bad been thinking of buying a pair of 
steel-bowed ones—tho best we could afford on 
our slender income, but they would not be ex¬ 
actly suited to a minister, you know. You are 
our good lairy. You divine our wishes before 
they are expressed. May (ho Lord bless you 1” 
and she wrung hor friend’s baud and hurried 
homo. 
"‘Failing sight!’ 1 steel-bowed I ’ A light 
was breaking lu on Mrs. Lennox’s mind. She 
stood at tho window a moment, thoughtfully 
rubbing her poor old glasses, that looked so 
cheap and plain beside those she had lost. A nd 
it teas a loss, tor they were far from wealthy, 
and it would be many a day before she could 
afford unothor pulr; but it' any tears dimmed 
her eyes they were all gone when she walked 
back to the happy group by the fireside; aud, 
catching up the tiny cause of all this trouble, 
said, in hor cheery way, "Ah, little rogue! you 
know who needed them the most. Mother’s 
old ones will do very well, and our minister 
will have Indeed a ‘Merry Christmas! ’ " 
-- 4 » » - 
_ A STORY FOR THE CHILDREN. 
A Fit LEND of ours told us a story a iitte while 
ago, which Interested us bo much that we want 
to tell it to all our little friends. This gentle¬ 
man owned a lino horse, which was very fond 
of him, and would come from tho pasture at 
the sound of his voice, and follow him about 
like a dog. Well at oue liiuu tho horse became 
lame, and wasobligod to stay in Ills stable, and 
not be used for many weeks, and it was during 
this time that Mr. 0. became Interested to see 
how much llio liorso knew and how kind,his 
sympathies wore. 
An old cut had made her nest upon the scaf¬ 
fold Just above the horse's manger, and had laid 
there her little family of live kittens to bring 
them up under good tuition, we suppose. She 
and the horse got on nicely for some days. 
She jumped down into his manger and went off 
lor food, and then came back mid leaped up to 
her kitteus again. But ono morning she rolled 
off into the manger, with tier foot bleeding, 
and badly hurt, so that she could scarcely crawl 
butshc managed to leap away on three feet and 
get her breakfast; but when she oamo buck she 
was entirely unable to get up to her kittens, uud 
wbat do you think she did. She lay down at 
tho horse's feet, and mewed and looked up sev¬ 
eral times, till at last pony, seeming to under¬ 
stand her wants, reached down, took the cat in 
his teeth, and tossed hor up on the scaffold to 
her kittens, who, we doubt not, were glad 
enough to sec her. 
This, Mr. C. told us, ho saw repeated morning 
after morning. Kit would roll off Into the 
manger, go and get her breakfast, come back, 
and be tossed up to her family by the kind 
horse, who must have understood eat language 
and boon willing to listen to it. 
PROBLEM.—No. 9. 
Hi solve 210,000 cubic rods into three factors, 
which shall constitute the sides" of a triangle 
containing an area of ten acres and having also 
a perimeter that measures 200 rods. 
B 
Scalo of ligure, 40 rods to the inch. A B + B 
C + C A — 310 rods. A B+B O+C A-270,000 
cubic rods. Area, A B C = 10 acres. 
t&~ Answer next week. B. F. Burleson. 
-- 
CURIOUS QUERIES-No. 1. 
Why is a promissory note like a rosebud? 
iSf" Answer next week. 
-- 
PUZZLER ANSWERS.-Dcc. 7. 
Illustrated Hkhus No. 
Crossing the Delaware. 
MiHL’ELLA NEOUS E.vig m a 
out enigmas. 
18. — Washington 
No. 7.—Working 
you can of the good qualities of others; forget 
und k<ep silent concerning the ba<| qualities? 
Botanical Riddle No. :i. l, Cork; 2. Mist 
1 ree; <), Araek; «, Birch; 5, Damson; 0, latch 
n y ir' , i. FlK iJ 8 0? lllow: 9* Citron; in. Sandal- 
,7’ Clove; 13, Coffee; 14, Palm; 15,’ 
Aspen, 111, Evergreen: 17. Dyewood ; 18, Ash 
In, Arbor t iigj; 2n, Locust; 21 1’upaw - ,ht 
Woodbine; 23, Mace; 24, Vine. 1 ' ’ 
Cross-Word Enigma No. 8.—Rural. 
