450 
JULY 6 
THE BUBAL HEW-YOBKEB. 
sculptor, W. W. Story, who has lived; for 
many years in Italy. During the years pre¬ 
ceding the Revolution Marblehead was a com¬ 
mercial port, second only in importance to 
Boston. In 1839 there was a fleet of 98 fish¬ 
ing schooners owned in Marblehead, and 
manned by Marblehead fishermen. The town 
is not large, yet during the Secession War it 
furnished 1,048 men for the army and navy. 
Its patriotism is one of its notable features. 
This neighborhood was, in aboriginal times, a 
great rendezvous for the Indians who found 
the hard rocks peculiarly well suited 
for stone implements, and large collec¬ 
tions of Indian relics have been made 
by the inhabitants. The flora of the region, 
notwithstanding the rockiness of the soil, is 
very interesting. Among plants peculiarly 
associated with Marblehead, may be men¬ 
tioned the genista, or woad-waxen, the Dept¬ 
ford pink, Emerson’s “Rhodora,” the orchids 
calapagon and arethusa, violet, saxifrage, 
calombine, anemone, Houstonia, adder’s 
tongue, bell wort, shadbush and meadow rue. 
The swamps in season are aflame with azaleas, 
blue flag and scarlet lilies, and in September 
the varieties of golden rod are said to num¬ 
ber 38. I never found over eight or nine, but 
my own collection was made in one afternoon’s 
careless saunter, and was doubtless very in¬ 
complete. After spending one day in the old 
town we were enabled to settle ourselves very 
comfortably on the “Neck” where I made 
it my first business to get well, and at the 
end of one week I was able to sit up all day, 
which for many a month I had been unable 
to do, and from that time on, my recovery 
continued. The effect of a strong sea air, 
upon some persons is quite magical, inducing 
sleep, and greatly improving the appetite. 
Upon the occasion of my second visit to the 
“Neck” in the following summer, the bene¬ 
ficial effect of the air was much less. It pro¬ 
duced a great deal of headache from being too 
strong for me, but the fine appetite and good 
sleep resulted as aforetime. There were no 
pests in the way of mosquitoes, or gnats, to 
speak of, no sand—everything was as clear, 
and sweet as sea air and a clear sweep of sea 
winds could make it. 
FOR THE GUEST CHAMBER. 
BY OLIVE E. DANA. 
T HERE is no room that affords better 
scope for decoration than the “ spare 
room,” and there is no apartment or depart¬ 
ment where decorative skill, issuing in “fancy- 
work,” is more legitimate or appropriate. 
Girlish fingers have been quick to seize their 
opportunity and use it. But it often seems a 
pity that the energy and skill here spent, 
were not materialized in some other form 
than that too often given them. Things 
which absorb so much time and strength, 
albeit they are the products of so-called leisure 
hours, should have three qualities which are 
not always found in them—utility, beauty, 
and durability. And there are many things 
really admirable and of lasting value that 
may be fashioned even by inexperienced 
hands for this apartment, things that a Pene¬ 
lope might own or over which one of our own 
Puritan grandmothers would not have dis¬ 
dained to bend. 
Some of these things, designed for the 
guest-chamber of a new home, have lately 
come to my notice, and as I have watched 
them growing under busy hands in odd mo¬ 
ments, I have wanted to tell the “Rural ” 
readers of them. And to begin with the bed, 
as one ought: It is a return to a fashion be¬ 
yond our remembrance, this bestowal of 
needlework in dainty lavishness upon bed- 
linen. Our grandmothers did it, and maybe 
our mothers’ trousseaux displayed a little of it, 
but it has been so long gone by that it i3 prac¬ 
tically a new fashion. And who does not like 
the suggestion of womanly thrift about it? 
In this case, the sheets were made of fine 
bleached cotton, with a hem of the usual 
width, or about four and one-half inches, 
above which the threads are drawn and a row 
of hem-stitching set in. The pillow cases, of 
width of course to suit the pillows, and also of 
a fine quality of cotton, receive a correspond¬ 
ing finish. One pair of sheets, with, of course, 
tbe pillow-cases to accompany them, receive 
a little more attention in that more threads 
are drawn and a row of fine, eye-trying Mex¬ 
ican work is inserted. Some people might 
prefer linen, when so much work is to be be¬ 
stowed, but the cotton answers very well. 
We “never outgrow our liking for white 
spreads, though we too, have lavished love 
and leisure on silk patchwork. And a downy, 
springy bed, made up with the bed-liuen here 
described, nicely laundered, with only the 
usual snowy[covering, for the outside, for the 
pillow-shams might well be spared, would 
tempt the weariest traveler tojiwift and sweet 
repose. 
Next in order comes the dressing-case, and 
for this a long linen scarf, decorated as suits 
the taste or skill of the maker, is fashionable 
and sensible. Those I most fancy are of 
butchers’ linen, moderately coarse, and un¬ 
bleached. They are about one and two third 
yards in length, and a half-yard in width be¬ 
fore making. They have all around a hem 
an inch and a-quarter in depth, done in nar¬ 
row hem-stitch. In each end are three rows 
of drawn work, of the same width as the 
hem, with corresponding spaces between 
them. Across each end is a border of wide 
lace, crocheted of unbleached linen thread. 
The bleached liDen might be used for such 
covers, if preferred, and they are very pretty 
without the lace, in which case the ends should 
be finished with a knotted fringe. One row 
of the drawn work also makes a neat and 
tasteful decoration. With such a covering, 
the many mats of the old-time toilet-sets 
could well be spared, and the bureau display 
only the tasteful pincushion, a favorite ma¬ 
terial for which, and a durable one, is satin. 
It may be lace-covered, but is quite pretty 
without it. 
The commode may be covered with a scarf 
similar to that intended for the dressing-case, 
though it may be elaborate. 
Round mats of white cotton, crocheted in 
simple patterns, and with or without the edge 
of color, are dainty and serviceable. 
And this article of furniture admits of one 
other bit of decoration both unique and use¬ 
ful, in the form of a pitcher-scarf. This re¬ 
quires one-third of a yard of butchers’ linen, 
the width of the linen sufficing for the length 
of the scarf. It has an inch-wide hem, done 
in hem-stitch, and a row of drawn work in 
each end. It is to be hemmed only on the 
sides, as the ends are finished with knotted 
fringe some three inches in depth. This 
small scarf, it may be added, is to be thrown 
across the top of the pitcher, serving instead 
of the clumsier towel to keep out floating 
dust, which will otherwise settle on the water 
therein. 
SMOKING IN PRIVATE. 
J. H. G. 
M ANY of the ills to which human flesh is 
heir, are the direct result of smoking 
tobacco. It is imposssble to estimate or trace 
the evil consequences of the filthy habit. It 
affects the innocent as well as the guilty. The 
innocent victims of the tobacco curse may be 
numbered by the thousands. The person 
into whose face the deadly fumes are blown 
always suffers more than the smoker, who in¬ 
hales the smoke only to blow it out again. 
How many delicate lives are wasting away 
in the polluted air of the home of the habitu¬ 
al smoker? The following story, vouched for 
by the New York Graphic, is an example of 
what is going on in thousands of hemes all 
over the country. 
“My little girl,” said a pretty young mother 
the other day, “has been nearly killed by her 
father’s smoking. You see when I married 
I determined to be very liberal and advanced, 
and to do what I could to make home as at¬ 
tractive to Tom as his club. Mother would 
never allow smoking in her house, except in 
the smoking room, but I made sage reflections 
upon the tactlessness of women in managing 
men and determined that Tom should enjoy 
me and his cigar together whenever he pleas¬ 
ed. When my daughter Lillian first began to 
be brought out of the nursery she was as 
round and rosy a baby as ever you saw, but 
we had not been having her with us much as 
we sat together until she began to grow list¬ 
less and pale and lose her appetite. I called 
in our doctor, but nothing did her any good; 
she seemed to be just dwindling away, and 
she continued to dwindle until her father was 
called away on business for a month. Then 
shq picked up and was quite bright again by 
the time he came home. That happened sev¬ 
eral times, until I said to myself one day as 
she was frolicing with me: ‘Her father never 
saw her like this.’ Tnen it suddenly flashed 
on me that there was something very queer 
about this. The upshot was that we found 
out beyond a peradventure that it was living 
in her father’s tobacco smoke that was killing 
the child. I don’t feel so much wiser than 
my mother now as I used to, and smoking at 
our house is again practiced on ancestral 
principles—at the top of the house.” 
LETTERS TO A COUSIN. 
I. 
D EAR COUSIN: Whatdoyou do when 
it rains ? If you know how to amuse 
yourself and appear pleasant and agreeable to 
others during a cold, windy, drizzly week I 
I implore you to share your secret with me. 
Uncle George reads novels. He likes the kind 
with a hero, * 'dark, dashing and bold” and a 
“maiden fair with golden haire” and lots 
and lots of love. Do you want just such a 
book ? Then get “Shandon Bells” or any other 
one of William Black’s, for I think he writes 
the sweetest love stories under the sun. 1 
used to enjoy them, oh so much! I think I 
shall never forget when “Three Feathers” 
was running in one of our weekly papers. I 
had been bribed by a dear aunt not to read 
any love stories for a year, with the promise 
that she would then give me something worth 
reading. So I did not read this story from 
beginning to end, but I could not resist the 
temptation to read “bits” of it now and then 
—with burning cheeks and a guilty conscience. 
Still I did not feel vary faithless when I ac¬ 
cepted “Little Women” at the end of the 
year, or think the reward unmerited. After 
that, all of Miss Alcott’s books were read and 
re-read with delight. I think now that there 
have been no better books written for chil¬ 
dren. 
I read the other day that the great Tolstoi cob¬ 
bles shoes when it rains and he cannot get out 
to enjoy his favorite recreation of plowing 
or mowing. He says: “ You cannot conceive 
what a satisfaction it is to plow. It is not 
very hard work as it seems to many; it is pure 
enjoyment. You go along lifting up and 
properly directing the plow, and you don’t 
notice how one, two and three hours have 
gone by. The blood runs merrily through 
your veins; your head becomes clear; you 
don’t feel the weight of your feet. But the 
appetite afterward, ana the sleep!” There, 
cousin, did you have any idea that plowing 
was like that? But I remember you have 
brothers, who have probably expatiated 
at great lengths (as boys will when 
they get enthusiastic) about the calm, 
sweet repose that fills their souls after a 
day’s plowing, and you have doubtless 
wished many and many a time that you were 
a man and could go out and share their joy. 
Seriously, dear, the great man is right. 
Nothing “ in the world” (Max O’Rell calls 
that expression an Americanism) is so health¬ 
giving and exhilarating as out-of-door work. 
I have planted out three long rows of sweet 
peas this afternoon and picked three quarts of 
strawberries, and I am sure I don’t feel half so 
tired and stupid as I would if I had worked 
just three button-holes. Of course, a great 
deal depends on the point of view. If you 
like to work button-holes, it will not make 
you tired to do them, or three times three 
times three; but I imagine that three more 
would be like the “last straw”—and you 
would be too nervous thoroughly to enjoy 
resting as you could had you been digging in 
the garden for the same length of time. 
I received a “ Rocky Mountain ” cactus to¬ 
day from a friend in Denver. She said it 
had lovely large pink blossoms on it when she 
found it, and she told me that if I have no 
room for it in the flower beds I should plant 
it in the vineyard, so I infer that it will grow 
in any place. But I have put it in a large pot 
and watered it with hot water—I have read 
in some place that hot water was best for 
cactus—and I hope It will flourish and be a 
credit to—to the fair donor (I had almost said 
to myself). If it doesn’t I shall write an elegy 
on the “ Transplanted Cactus,” in which it 
will be made to mourn and pine away with 
longing and home-3ickness for a waft of wind 
from its dearly beloved Pike’s Peak; and 
Mary, when she reads of its untimely death, 
will feel that she was very, very cruel indeed 
ever to have sent it so far away from its kin¬ 
dred; even if they were a prickley set, I doubt 
not that they were just as dear to the heart of 
the little cactus, as one little downy chick is to 
another little downy chick. 
Flowers are the loveliest of all gifts—don’t 
you think so? I would rather have this little 
cactus than any elaborately embroidered fan¬ 
cy-work my friend could have sent me. The 
fancy-work that so many girls spend half 
their time in making grows old and faded 
in a few years if it is not kept carefully 
folded away, and what good is it to any one 
in that case. But a little slip of a begonia will 
have one or two flowers the first year; 
five or six the next, and 25 the third 
year, growing larger and more beautiful 
each succeeding season and it is constant¬ 
ly on exhibition so that all your friends may 
admire it. I admit that the plant might die 
and the argument would seem to be lost, but 
you kuow your tidy or banner might be 
whisked off into the fire and that would be 
equally disastrous. Flowers aud pictures, 
and books aud music—these are the gifts that 
give ever-increasing joy and consolation to 
the soul. A dainty little souvenir received at 
Christmas time was a book of Colorado wild 
flowers, containing some half dozen speci¬ 
mens—yellow columbines, some grasses 
from the mountains, the Indian Paint Cup, a 
purple flower I had never seen, and a spray 
of golden rod. I remember the little inscrip¬ 
tion under in gold paint was: 
“ Golden rod lifted her leaves to the sun; 
He bent and kissed them every one.” 
Golden rod would be my choice for our na¬ 
tional flower, but, as some one said, we have 
a bird for our emblem and that is sufficient, 
unless circumstances should give us a flower 
some day. To deliberately choose a national 
flower seems a cold, unnatural proceeding. 
There ought to be some legend sacred to the 
hearts of our countrymen connected with a 
thing of that kind. 
But good bye, dear, and remember that you 
are to tell me how to spend a rainy week in 
the country. Remember that last clause and 
don’t advise entertainments that are indi¬ 
genous to the city alone. I have appealed to 
you because I feel sure that your Yankee in¬ 
ventiveness has long ago enabled you to And 
out some better way than we Westerners 
have for spending rainy days. 
Affectionately your cousin, 
DOCIA DYKENS. 
GOLDEN GRAINS. 
T HE CHRISTIAN UNION reminds its 
readers that there is a time for all 
things and that very much of the trouble that 
exists in the world is due to the fact that we 
do those things we ought not to have done and 
leave undone the things we ought to have 
done. 
Timeliness is as important as fitness. The 
right thing may become wrong'unless it is in 
the right time. Look well to the time of doing 
anything; there is a time for all things. 
Choose the right time for saying things. If 
your wife looks wearied aud worn out, be sure 
it is not the right time to tell her that the 
dinner is not hot, or that the bread is sour. 
Comfort her—cheer her up... 
If you are annoyed or vexed at people, just 
remember it is not the right time to speak. 
Close your mouth—shut your teeth together 
firmly, and it will save you many a useless 
and unavailing regret and many a bitter 
enemy. 
If you happen to feel a little cross—and 
who among us does not at some time or other? 
—do not select that season for reproving your 
noisy household flock. One word spoken in 
passion will make a scar that a summer of 
smiles can hardly heal over. 
If you are a wife, never tease your hus¬ 
band when he comes home, weary from his 
day’s business. It is not the right time. Do 
not ask him for expensive outlays when he 
has been talking about hard times—it is, most 
assuredly, the wrong time. 
If he has entered upon an undertaking 
against your advice, do not seize on the mo¬ 
ment of its failure to say, “I told you so!” In 
fact, it is never the right time for those four 
monosyllables. 
O, if people only knew enough to discrim¬ 
inate between the right time and the wroDg, 
there would be less domestic unhappiness, les 9 
silent sorrow and less estrangement of heart. 
The greatest calamities that overshadow our 
lives have sometimes their germ in matters 
as apparently slight as this. If you would 
only pause, reader, before the stinging taunt, 
or the biting sneer, or the unkind scoff passes 
your lips—pause just long enough to ask your¬ 
self, “Is it the right time for me to speak?" 
you would shut the door against many a heart¬ 
ache. 
• 
The world hinges on little things, aud 
there are many more trivial than the right 
time and the wrong. 
CONDUCTED BY MRS. AGNES E. M. CARMAN. 
“FOURTH OF JULY.” 
66 T^OURTH OF JULY is coming again 
T How shall we celebrate it?” is the ques¬ 
tion asked by all the boys aud girls. Many 
families have a grand family picnic where all 
members, from grandfather down to the tiniest 
When Baby was sick, we gave her Gascon* 
When she wua a Child, she cried for Castor!* 
When she became Miss, she clung to Castor!* 
When she had Children she gave them Castor** 
