5o6 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
July 11 
^ w w ww'T 
Woman and Home 
From Day to Day. 
BREAKING THE ICE. 
We had some offish neighbors once that 
moved in. down the road. 
We reckoned they was ’bout the proudest 
folks we'd ever knowed, 
An’ when we passed ’em now an’ then we 
held our heads up high 
To make dead sure they couldn’t snub us 
if they was to try. 
It really made me nervous, so I jes’ braced 
up one day 
An’ thought I’d go ahead an’ show my 
manners, anyway. 
On Sunday, ’stid o’ turnin’ round an’ gazin’ 
at the view, 
I looked at them an’ says: “Hello!” An’ 
they says: “Howdy do!” 
It wa’n’t the cold an’ formal greetin’ that 
you’ve sometimes heard; 
They smiled an’ said it hearty, like they 
meant it, every word. 
It’s solemn to reflect on what we miss 
along life’s way 
By not jes’ bein’ natural an’ good humored 
day by day. 
There’s lots o’ folks who fling the simple 
joys of life aside 
Because they dread the shadow of their 
own unconscious pride. 
And nine times out o’ ten you’ll And the 
rule works right an’ true— 
Jes’ tell the world “Hello!” and it’ll an¬ 
swer “Howdy do!” 
—Washington Star. 
* 
We have met with some preserve jars 
this season that would be excellent for 
canning meat, because of their width 
and squareness. They are called the 
Royal, and have exactly the same top as 
the Lightning jars, but the bottle itself 
is square instead of round, and is thus 
convenient for filling, or for storing 
away. We no longer get the old-style 
Mason jar, although cheaper than oth¬ 
ers, and free from any objection as re¬ 
gards its airtight sealing, but the newer 
models are more convenient in shape, 
and easier to close or open. Still, the 
housekeepers of the country owe a great 
debt to the inventor of the Mason jar, 
which has done us good service for 
many years. 
Most of the centenarians one reads of 
are people in the humbler walks of life, 
whose limited opportunities enable them 
to see little of the world during their 
century’s passage through it. An ex¬ 
ception to this was Mrs. Margaret Anne 
Neve, who died last Spring in the Island 
of Guernsey, at the age of 110 years and 
10 months. Her father commanded the 
militia in Guernsey during the time of 
Napoleon Bonaparte, and she lived all 
her life on the Island, where the register 
of her parish church records her birth 
May 18, 1792. Mrs. Neve was a wealthy 
woman, who traveled extensively until 
she was over 80; an accomplished lin¬ 
guist, and the friend of many literary 
notables; she was also the guest and 
correspondent of the late Queen Vic¬ 
toria. Mrs. Neve retained her faculties 
and good looks to her death. Her 
benevolence and beauty of character 
caused her to be regarded with venera¬ 
tion in Guernsey, while her intellectual 
brilliancy impressed everyone who met 
her. She may be regarded as a very re¬ 
markable woman, apart from her record 
of life in three centuries. 
The rainy days following the long 
drought furnished many examples of 
the carelessness that leads to shabby 
clothes. Many women who go to busi¬ 
ness daily are careful to have special 
clothes for rainy weather, but a large 
majority are not; they wear their new 
Spring suits in both fair and stormy 
weather, and soon find the freshness of 
their wardrobe hopelessly gone. City 
mud is not honest loam or clay; it is a 
mass of gluey filth, full of bacterial hor¬ 
rors, which mere brushing does not re¬ 
move. A sensible girl will keep an old 
skirt and coat for bad weather, being 
careful, however, that the garments are 
neat and in good repair. An underskirt 
a little shorter than ordinarily worn 
should go with it. It sounds unneces¬ 
sary to say that the rainy-day under¬ 
skirt should be of black cambric or sa¬ 
teen; yet we always see, in rainy weath¬ 
er, any number of women showing drag¬ 
gled white muslin beneath their muddy 
skirts. The rainy day skirt is not so 
short now as it was two years ago, when 
ankle length was ordinarily seen. Un¬ 
fortunately the skirt that just clears the 
ground gets quite as muddy in wet 
weather as a longer one, and must be 
held up in walking. 
* 
Tjie pictures of abnormaliy fat babies, 
which usually illustrate advertisements 
of patent baby foods, tell a different tale 
to the medical authorities from that 
pointed out by the food manufacturer. 
Said a New York doctor, who is visiting 
physician to two large children’s hos¬ 
pitals: 
We have fat babies in both my hospitals 
and lots of ’em. As a matter of fact when¬ 
ever I see a fat man I say: “Alcoholic,” 
and in the same way when I see a fat 
A Western Farm Home. 
Many farmers’ wives in the East hard¬ 
ly realize the comfort that surrounds 
them, even in an old-fashioned house 
with few modern conveniences,, as com¬ 
pared with the privations encountered 
on some of the virgin prairies. It is 
true that communities build up rapidly 
in the great West, and the sod house of 
one generation soon gives way to the 
convenient modern dwelling of the next, 
but life is hard for every pioneer, and 
some of its greatest trials fall to the 
women. A witty woman once observed 
that her sympathies were not so much 
with the Pilgrim Fathers as with their 
wives; they endured all the hardships 
that the Pilgrim Fathers did, and the 
Pilgrim Fathers too! In like manner, 
when we read of the courageous home¬ 
steaders who fight drought and cloud¬ 
bursts, grasshoppers and blizzards, until 
the virgin prairie is harnessed to its 
work of feeding the world, we think of 
lonely women, like the one who stands 
in front of that pitiful little sod house 
in Nebraska, shown in Fig. 188. Our 
friends tell us that a sod house or a dug- 
out is often very comfortable, but the 
housekeeper has to renounce many 
things that she thought necessities in 
the tree-embowered home “back East.” 
We should like to visit awhile with that 
Nebraska housewife, who stands up so 
courageously by her front door; we 
have no doubt she has met many house¬ 
keeping problems, and bravely sur- 
A NEBRASKA SOD HOUSE. Fig. 188. 
baby, I say “patent-baby-food-ic.” The 
havoc wrought by rum in adult life is 
hardly a bit greater than that wrought 
among infants by the different lacteal 
atrocities forced upon their unprotected 
stomachs. I don’t mean to say that fat 
babies are never healthy, of course. But 
fatness in babies is merely incidental. Ifs 
the color of the skin and strength of bone 
that’s the real criterion. Fat is the easiest 
thing in the world to produce and the most 
uncertainly beneficial. I have a case right 
now of a baby whose misguided mother 
saw a patent milk advertisement in a 
street car a few months ago. The baby is 
now a year old, is round as a butterball, 
and is dying of bowel trouble. If the 
weather were colder, it would undoubtedly 
have pneumonia instead. 
Last Summer, during the warmest 
weather, 90 per cent of the babies dying 
under a year old were reported by the 
hoard of health in one of our large cities 
as bottle-fed, the majority being given 
diluted condensed milk. Infant mor¬ 
tality is always heaviest in the ibummer, 
and the mother who adopts bottle-feed¬ 
ing, without the most imperative rea¬ 
sons for it, incurs a very grave respon¬ 
sibility. 
Skillet Cakes. —Delicious “skillet 
cakes,” as Ruby christened them, can 
be made from left-overs of rice, hominy, 
oatmeal, dried beans, boiled lean meats, 
cold chicken, etc.; a little of all of these 
with addition of beaten egg, sweet milk 
and fiour, or but one of the left-overs 
and then of course more egg, milk and 
fiour should be used. Drop from a spoon 
into hot fat, cook brown on both sides, 
and serve hot. e. o. 
Illinois. 
mounted them, and we hope the rich sod 
beneath her feet will produce among its 
other crops a modern farmhouse that 
will make up for all the privations she 
may first pass through. 
Sunday Afteruoous. 
Almost any conscientious mother will 
tell you that Sunday afternoon is the 
hardest time of the week for her and 
that, instead of having a day of rest, she 
is more exhausted when Sunday evening 
comes than if she had been washing all 
day. It seems too bad that in every 
country neighborhood there are families 
GRAIN'O 
THE PURE V ^ 
GRAIN COFFEE 
Even children drink Grain-O 
because they like it and the doc¬ 
tors say it is good for them. Why 
not ? It contains all of the nourish¬ 
ment of the pure grain and none 
of the poisons of coffee. 
TRY IT TO-DAY. 
At grocers everywhere; 16c. and 25c. per package. 
STEVE 
FIREARMS 
Have stood the test for 40 years, arid are the popular 
ARMS of to>day. 
We make a larjje and varied line of 
RIFLES> from - $3.00 to $150.00 
PISTOLS, from - 2.50 to 50.00 
SHOTGUNS, from 7.50 to 30.00 
Ask your dealer for the ** STEVENS.” If he does 
not keep them, we will send, express prepaid, on receipt 
of price. 
Send for illustrated catalog. 
J. Stevens Arms & Tool Co., 
Main Street, 
CHICOPEE FALLS, MASS. 
PRICES REDUCED 
$4.00 Vapor Bath Cabinet 92.25 each 
00 Quaker “ “ S.SOeach 
$10.00 “ “ “ 6.10 each 
$1.00 Face & Head Steam. Attch. 65c 
Quality best. Guaranteed. $2. Book 
Free with all “Quakers.” 
, Write for our Hew Cata¬ 
logue, special 60-Day offer. 
I Don’t miss It. Yonr last 
chance. Hew plan, new 
prices to agenta^salea- 
— • ,- ^ ' men, managers. Wonder¬ 
ful sellera. Hustlers getting rich. Plenty territory. 
World M’T* Co.; 620 World Bldg., dnclnnatl, O. 
A durable, 
sauitary and 
beautilu 1 
L 
ALABASTINE 
wall coating. A LA BASTIN E Is not a cheap hot 
water kalsomine, stuck on with glue, and 
furnishing a breeding ground for disease 
germs and vermin. W rite for complete infor¬ 
mation, mentioning this paper. 
Alabastine Co., Grand Rapids, Mich, 
and 105 Water Street, New York City. 
IN AN HOUR 
it easily. The 
You can do the washing that 
formerly took half the day and do 
SYRACUSE EASY WASHER 
washes by air pressure., the easiest way; no rubbing, no 
wooden pegs to twist and tear the clothes ; simply air 
to force the suds in and dirt out. It is made of steel- 
galvanized > You can try it for 30 days, and then 
return it if dissatisfied. We pay ail freight charges. 
Write for our book of formulas. 
Dodge & Zuill, obi) S. Clinton St. Syracuse,N.Y. 
Clothes Repaired 
WITHOUT NEEDLE OR THREAD BY 
“Yankee” Mending Tissue 
Needed In every house; easy to use; satisfactory re¬ 
sults. Sample package, 15 cents. Agents wanted. 
CONNECTICUT RUBBER CO., Hartford, Conn. 
TKc 
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ELGIN 
WATCH 
Every Elgin Watch is fully guaranteed. 
Alljewelers have Elgin Watches. '•Time- 
makers and Timekeepers,’’ an Illus¬ 
trated history of the watch, sent free 
upon request to 
Elgin National Watch Co. 
Elgin, III. 
