B2 
THE RURAL. NEW-YORKER 
JAN S3 
describes as “the advisers of girls.” We hear 
that women pushaud crowd; that they try to 
get the best of everything, and never even 
thank the men who offer them any courtesy. 
This may be true in some cases, but it is no 
valid excuse for lack of courtesy on the part 
of men. We recently saw two elderly Sisters 
of Mercy stand in a crowded car for some 
minutes, until two women got up, and offered 
their seats. Then indeed some men rose to 
tender their seats, but not before. We admit 
that we often see lack of courtesy on the part 
of women, but it is largely the outcome of dis¬ 
courtesy on the part of the other sex. All we 
can do is for each and every woman to decide 
that she will be the pink of courtesy herself, 
and trust that her example may be so far re¬ 
spected as to gain some few followers. 
ASPIRATIONS IN HOMESPUN. 
FIRST LETTER. 
N ambitious girl, whose life is bounded 
by homely cares, usually passes through 
a period when she longs for a career—for 
something nobler in her eyes than dishwash¬ 
ing and house cleaning. Just what this career 
is to be she is not very sure; it largely de¬ 
pends on her general reading. My own am¬ 
bition during that period, was to be a physi¬ 
cian—a gentler edition of Rhoda Gale. That 
ambition has never amounted to anything, 
but it gave me something practical to think 
about outside of my own little selfish cares, 
and it made me study matters of physiology, 
and hygiene which have been of infinite ser¬ 
vice since. If we are all able to turn our 
vague longings into some practical channel 
we are likely to get rid of that terrible impli¬ 
cation of “anxiousness and aimlessness” with 
which we have been charged of late. 
A good many of us, who are sufficiently 
well satisfied with our sphere of usefulness, 
are apt to feel the want of social opportuni¬ 
ties in our quiet country lives. We hear so 
much about the akwardness of honest coun¬ 
try-folk when brought in contact with the 
great world, that we are very apt to feel as if 
all that awkwardness were vested in our own 
persons; though for my part, I believe that 
partially educated town people are infinitely 
more ill-bred than the corresponding class in 
the country, chiefly because they are more 
pretentious. 
Any one may be thoroughly well-bred,if she 
desires, no matter how retired her home may 
be, but of course there are many points of 
etiquette which are only acquired through 
familiarity with society. 
Almost every country girl has some city 
friend whom she visits at intervals. In such 
case, she is likely to see more social ceremony 
than she is accustomed to at home, and a little 
previous knowledge on the subject is of infinite 
value. Take, for example, the etiquette of a 
ceremonious dinner. A clever English novel¬ 
ist speaks of the agonies endured at a stately 
dinner by one unaccustomed to the ceremony. 
He says, feelingly: “Better a dinner of herbs 
—or at least hashed mutton—in familiar com¬ 
pany, than eight courses eaten ou our best be¬ 
havior.” But one totally unfamiliar with 
ceremonious dining need make no glaring 
errors if she is quiet of manner and observant. 
A few simple rules will give the cue for be¬ 
havior. 
The dinner dress should be as handsome as 
means will permit, though different in style 
from a ball dress. Guests remain standing 
until the hostess is seated; on first sitting 
down gloves are removed and the napkin un¬ 
folded. The first course of oysters will be al¬ 
ready served; they are eaten with a small, 
spoon-shaped fork. The next smallest fork is 
for fish. Soup is eaten with a large spoon; it 
is taken from the side of the spoon and noise¬ 
lessly ■; too many people offend in this. In de¬ 
fault of knife, fish is eaten with the fork in 
the right hand, and bread in the left; but 
where there is any pretense to- style a silver 
knife is provided. In eating soft dishes, such 
as croquettes, a fork only, held in the right 
hand, is used, but when both knife and fork 
are used the fork should not be changed to the 
right hand when carrying food to the mouth. 
Ices and puddings, unless very soft in consist¬ 
ency, are to be eaten always with a fork; the 
spoon is not used when it can be avoided. It 
is not considered necessary to wait until all 
the guests are served before beginning. These 
are a few very simple rules, but they will pre¬ 
vent a good deal of awkwardness, especially 
if you practice them every day. Perfect 
manners will give'the dinner of herbs all the 
dignity of the stalled ox. 
I don’t think many of us are as careful of 
our home manners as we ought to be. I often 
catch myself saying something to one of my 
numerous sisters that I would never think of 
saying to a stranger, though ours is considered 
a very courteous family. Yet the home folks 
have a greater claim on our courtesy than 
outsiders. If we all bear in mind our “com¬ 
pany manners” when in the home circle, we do 
a good deal to prevent domestic jars, to say 
nothing of the improvement to our social ease. 
COTTAGE MAID. 
CONCERNING WOMEN. 
MARY WAGER-FISHER. 
The ventilation of the dwelling in winter is 
so important a matter that no woman who 
loves health can afford to neglect it. In warm 
weather, with doors and windows open, ven¬ 
tilation generally takes care of itself; but in 
winter, the tendency is to keep in the foul air 
in order to shut out the cold. Unless the house 
is kept so warm that windows can constantly 
be kept open, the living rooms need a blast of 
fresh air through them several times a day. 
The last one to go to bed should air the lower 
part of the house in order to insure a fresh 
supply of oxygen for the up-stairs sleeping 
rooms. This is a very important matter. In 
order to realize how close and stuffy the at¬ 
mosphere of a house is, one has only to take a 
brisk tramp of five minutes in the open air 
and return indoors. Night air is as good in 
its way as day air, and it holds to reason that 
as we all have to breathe at night, the night 
air was made to be breathed. 
In first using a large book, like an eucyclo- 
poedia or dictionary, go through it carefully, 
turning a few pages together at a time and 
pressing them well down with the hand, so as 
gradually to limber the stiffening in the back, 
and so on through the entire volume. This 
method of procedure is one used by old book¬ 
men, who say that such usage at the outset 
prevents the back of the book from breaking. 
One of the saddest features of the Christmas 
season are the huge stacks of shapely young 
evergreens, now seen in all cities, for Christ¬ 
mas trees. Think of the hills and mountains 
robbed annually of thousands of evergreens, 
cut down in their youth, to please a passing 
whim, and then dumped out with rubbish! I 
am sure that no lover of trees can contemplate 
this yearly slaughter of evergreens without a 
feeling of indignation, to say nothing of the 
greens uprooted in the woods, to grow there 
no more. What with reforms in funerals and 
reforms in a multitudeof other things tending 
to moderation and economy, is it not high 
time to reform Christinas? For a more crowd¬ 
ed, hurried, worried, pushing, trafficking, un¬ 
holy and cantankerous time than the present 
Christmas season has come to be, it would be 
difficult to invent. This is in and about large 
commercial centres. It is to be hoped that in 
the country Christmas still retains something 
of the old-time flavor. 
The death of Madame Boucicault, who was 
at the head of the great dry goods bouse in 
Paris, the Bon Marche, removes one of the 
greatest merchants of modern times. She be¬ 
gan life comparatively poor with her husband. 
Both were clerks, and now she dies after thir¬ 
ty years of mercantile life, leaving a fortune 
of seventy-five million francs—and five francs 
are a trifle less than our dollar. And she 
was as great a philanthropist as she was great 
in business. She built an asylum for old peo¬ 
ple in the neighborhood where she lived, de¬ 
fraying all its expenses. She built and en¬ 
dowed free schools. She put a great bridge 
over the river Saone,costing a million of francs. 
She endowed forty beds in a hospital in the 
town where her husband w r as born. She gave 
a large sum to the Pasteur Institute, etc., etc. 
She had a great funeral as if she had been a 
sovereign, a poet or statesman. 
Goodness that is active and positive takes an 
undying hold on the hearts of the people. It 
was the secret of Jenny Lind’s popularity. 
She was without pretense and her kindly acts 
sprang from genuine kindly feeling, and were 
not done for effect. It is pleasant to read that 
in accordance with her desire, the patch-work 
quilt, given to her years ago by children of 
the United States, was buried with her. It 
shows that she loved it. It seems to be a cus¬ 
tom of the Germans—and the Germans abound 
in customs—to plant on the wedding day a 
myrtle tree. When the marriage is happy the 
myrtle thrives. Jenny Lind’s husband, Otto 
Goldschmidt, was a German, and the myrtle 
planted on their wedding day in a box (they 
were married in this country) had grown to 
be a shrub four feet high “thickly and deli¬ 
cately leaved” at the time of her death, and 
her husband had a wreath woven from it for 
her coffin. _ 
'The Germans have another custom that 
would well bear transplanting to American 
soil. They call it “sparkassen,” and it is 
very like the endowment plan in our life in¬ 
surance companies. When a girl is born, her 
parents pay a fixed annual sum to the spar¬ 
kassen company, which invests this moderate 
sum at fair rate of interest, adds year by year 
the annual payment and the accrued interest, 
so that when the girl reaches the ago of 18 
she has a snug little fund to help herself with, 
a capital for business or a dowry in case she 
marries. The annual sum is hardly felt by 
the parents, but in the course of years it rolls 
up into quite a little fortune. The French 
have something like unto it, but in this coun¬ 
try, unless a girl chooses to marry, her future 
is too often left to chance. She lives “on and 
on” at home without any definite plan or ar¬ 
rangement, trusting to good intentions on the 
part of her parents or relatives; but “good 
intentions” that are not absolutely legal enact¬ 
ments, have no more financial value than bad 
intentions. A paragraph in a newspaper 
lately points to shrewd common sense and 
foresight on the part of a Nyack, N. Y., girl, 
who, having been bequeathed by her father 
when he died a rough and hilly farm, planted 
it to blackberries, currants and strawberries, 
and meets with success. Her wise neighbors 
advised her to sell it and learn type-writing— 
being a woman, “of course she could do noth¬ 
ing witb a farm.” A woman farmer on Long 
Island, who has between one and two square 
miles of land, has 50 farm hands employed for 
most of the year, keeps a carpenter and black¬ 
smith to do the tinkering, but is general over¬ 
seer herself, and manages well, too. 
A new employment for women is the nurs¬ 
ing and care of children aftej they have 
learned how to do it. A training school for 
teaching this art is soon to be established in 
an Eastern city. Child nurses, as a class, are 
no better than the average housemaid, no 
more intelligent or trustworthy, and the 
need and fitness of a trained class for this 
work is apparent to every one. It is an old 
Rabbinical saying that “as God could not be 
everywhere, he made mothers;” but there are 
times when mothers, even, can’t be every¬ 
where, and, then, a good many mothers are 
ill fitted for rearing children. 
One of the crazes of the period is the wear¬ 
ing of garments made of wool, aDd only of 
wool. A Dr. Jaeger, of Germany, started it, 
and there are shops in the leading large cities 
for the sale of his goods, woven of “natural” 
undyed wool. Some of the features of his un¬ 
dergarments, being made of two thicknesses 
over the abdomen and chest, have been 
adopted by other manufacturers, and the idea 
is not a bad one. If people could only be 
brought to believe that to wear wool exclu¬ 
sively the year around w T ere highly inducive 
to health, it would be a great thing—for sheep 
growers, at least. 
T have heard some discussion of late about 
the relative views of honesty among men and 
women. It would appear that in trivial law¬ 
breaking, women are prime offenders. A good 
many women will write on the margins of 
newspapers, slip articles in them for transmis¬ 
sion through the mails, knowing that both 
are violations of the postal law. The same 
women will smuggle, and really seem to enjoy 
getting even paltry things through the Custom 
House without being obliged to pay duty. 
Some women, too, lack a nice sense of honor 
in business matters, not refunding borrowed 
money with promptitude and exactness, and 
allowing men, who are under no obligations 
to them whatever, to defray some incidental 
expenses, etc. But then there are loads of 
men of the same ilk. 
The wearing of caps and gowns by college 
girls is a comparatively recent innovation, 
and borrowed from English colleges for 
women. An undergraduate really has no 
right to the cap and gown, but she wears it, 
nevertheless, in the American schools. Some 
of the girls look very well in them, and some 
do not. As the Bryn Mawr College for wom- 
( en is very near my own door, I sometimes 
drop in to listen to a lecture. The last one 
I heard was on the reproduction of cells in 
plants by the Botany Professor, who is very 
wise in her specialty, and after graduating 
from Cornell won a doctor’s degree at the 
University of Zurich. Most of the pupils 
wore caps and gowns, and one, a very pretty 
Western girl with fair waviug hair and a 
creamy complexion, wore the regalia with 
such grace that as she stood with the long 
loose folds of the black alpaca gown envelop¬ 
ing her figure—they are made with “angel 
sleeves” and the whole thing hangs from a 
narrow yoke about the neck—she was 
for the moment an enchanting vision of the 
classic and statuesque. The cap is black, with 
a square flat top, with tassel, like a college 
don’s. After the lecture, the girls worked in 
the laboratory, studying the cells of a living 
plant through microscopes and making draw¬ 
ings of what they saw. Just now there is a 
craze among college pupils for biological 
studies. But Biology is simply Zoology and 
Botany—animal and plant life. Botany is a 
marvelous science, and notwithstanding the 
researches already made, and achievements 
recorded, no one as yet has solved the mystery 
how the sap in a tree is carried, say, to any 
hight above 30 feet, to say nothing of two 
hundred feet. 
CONDUCTED BY MRS. AGNES E. M. CARMAN. 
Years ago, when we founded a little home 
of our own, we made a rule never to invite a 
person to call or spend a time with us whom 
we did not wish to see. With but few excep¬ 
tions, that rule has been adhered to for 15 
years, and notwithstanding the fact that we 
are voted “queer” by some of our neighbors, 
we have derived a deal of satisfaction 
from our course. Our home duties are many 
while cur social ones are few,and the outcome 
of our rule is that we are not interrupted in 
our work by people whom we care little for 
and who care less for us. Another outcome 
is that we have never had to battle with the 
chronic visitor, that unconcerned being who 
requireth much and giveth little and who re¬ 
spects neither your time, privacy, conven¬ 
ience, Dor pocket-book. We know families who 
are periodically put to unlimited inconven¬ 
ience by these visiting leeches and who have 
not the moral courage to tell them that their 
visits are unwelcome. The visits of such peo¬ 
ple flavor of wormwood and boneset rather 
than of milk and honey, but if you will with 
hypocritical politeness, ask such people to visit 
you when you don’t want them, why, the 
thing to do is to open your mouth and swallow 
the dose without a grimace. 
We are glad to see our friends, we enjoy 
their company, we welcome them to our home, 
but we are unwilling that even our near 
friends should visit us so often, or stay so 
long, that their presence interferes with our 
customary duties. 
THE OTHER SIDE. 
ANNIE L. JACK. 
I am very sorry that Mrs. Fisher is not to 
show us the bright as well as the dark side of 
farming; for there is a bright side, as I can 
testify after over a quarter of a century’s ex¬ 
perience, and my lot was not any better at 
the start than that of thousands of others. 
Living on a rented farm, with always a baby 
in arms for many consecutive years, I look 
back now in wonder that I did not fall by the 
wayside, and I attribute the success that has 
crowned our efforts to several things; and first 
of all,there was genuine respect for each other 
and united effort to lighten each other’s bur¬ 
dens. A morose or indifferent husband is 
what deadens feeling in a woman’s heart; but 
if she sees her husband willing to share her 
cares, and if she shows an intelligent interest 
in his, there is every hope for happiness. Good 
health and good soil, a near market and plenty 
of fruit for family use, even before our exten¬ 
sive fruit orchards were in bearing, had some¬ 
thing to do with the bright side of our farm¬ 
ing. 
The darkest side with me has been the lack 
of good schools where our children could re¬ 
ceive the education I craved for them, and the 
lack of social intercourse with those who were 
their peers or superiors, when they were old 
enough to crave society. For I never could 
endure that popular lounging place, the cor¬ 
ner grocery for the boys; nor the round of 
useless evenings that fill the winters in this 
part of the world. And I have borne the bur 
den of work in the heat of the day, know all 
its bitterness, but do not find it so hard to 
bear as it is now to part with our children 
who must go out into the world to seek ad¬ 
vantages they cannot get here. Although I 
am well aware that it is all for the best, I feel 
that what I have spoken of as the “darkest 
side” has entailed on me a loss irreparable 
that dwarfs all the toil and care that filled 
my hands when they were too young to care 
for anything but mother’s love. 
But there is not any life of greater possibili¬ 
ties than that of a farmer, if he is willing to 
give his home all the refining influences that 
a refined woman can bring to it. Little by 
little they can surround themselves with lux¬ 
uries that only the very wealthy can acquire 
in city life. Easy carriages and good horses 
are to be had, a small greenhouse and vinery 
will furnish fruit and flowers at all seasons, 
and a garden with the delicacies that fol¬ 
low gives both beauty and usefulness. Of 
course this entails labor; but I fail yet to see 
that we are any more “fagged” than a fash¬ 
ionable city woman who has a round of so- 
called pleasures from which she has to recruit 
When Baby was sick, we gave her Castorla. 
When she was a Child, she cried for Castorla, 
When she became Miss, she clung to Castorla, 
When she had Children, 6he gave them Castorla. 
