1900 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
257 
Ail Okanogan Nemesis. 
BIT OF BEAT LIFE FKOM THE PACIFIC SLOPE 
The broad rays of the setting sun lin¬ 
gered on the yellow buttes, turning to 
gold the brown bunchgrass and sage¬ 
brush on the river banks. The sky 
looked like some rare rose and blue tint¬ 
ed porcelain. The air was still with a 
mellow warmth, with now and then a 
hint of a cool breeze from the Colum¬ 
bia’s rushing tide. The great yellow 
peaches that hung thick on the trees of 
a ranch that stretched along the east 
bank of the river rivaled the color of 
oranges in the bright sun rays. In the 
yard, by the log barn, a weary, gray¬ 
haired woman was milking a small black 
“siwasti” cow. “Seems as though he 
might get rested some time.’’ She sigh¬ 
ed as she looked across the garden patch 
to the house, where her husband sat in 
his rocking chair, reading a paper, under 
one of the pine trees that they had left 
in the yard for shade. Lorenzo Smith- 
son was a tall, angular man of perhaps 
45 years, who was perpetually resting— 
he called it—from what labor no one 
but himself knew. Mandy, his wife, de¬ 
voted her time to caring for him and 
trying to be farmer and housekeeper 
at the same time. 
She carried her brimming pail of milk 
to the house, strained it, and washed 
and put the pail away. She measured 
out a pan of flour and started to “set” 
the bread to raise for next day, when 
she heard a sharp call of “Mandy! 
Mandy! you haven’t shut the chicken 
house up, and there is a pesky coyote a 
running away with the old yellow hen! 
’Pears to me you are mighty careless.” 
Mandy ran out and shut the chickens 
up. Lorenzo greeted her return with: 
“You oughtn’t to be so shiftless; that 
hen was a-laying right along, and eggs 
are 15 cents a dozen down to Wenatchee; 
besides it stirred me all up, an’ I lost 
my place in the paper.” Mandy meekly 
replied that she kind of forgot. She had 
milked the cow and got the kindling, fed 
the calf and pigs, besides washing the 
dishes since supper; seemed like she 
wasn’t so spry as she used to be. 
“Well,” Lorenzo answered, “you ought 
to take pattern after Widder Strongwel- 
ler; she is a hummer, now, I tell you. 
Gets around lively, keeps two men to 
work, besides a woman; no slack doings 
there.” 
Mandy’s tired blue eyes filled with 
tears as she turned to enter the house 
to finish her work. She thought of the 
pretty daughter who had been such a 
help and so much company a year ago. 
But young Faston had taken her, a bride, 
to his ranch up the Methow, and “Oh!” 
thought Mandy, “that dreadful rough 
country! Will I ever see Bessie again? 
Seems like she is a long way off.” 
Mandy spent a restless night. The heat 
seemed stifling. Next morning she felt 
languid and had no appetite for the nice 
breakfast she called Lorenzo to. She 
plodded through her work, did her bak¬ 
ing and drove to the landing with a load 
of peaches for the boat to take down the 
river to Wenatchee. It was 10 o’clock 
before she reached home, and a strong 
wind was blowing the white sand from 
the river shore, sending it in clouds over 
everything. Mandy shook and dusted 
things to keep them neat for Lorenzo. 
Yet he grumbled and said he wished 
“she would be a little neater; things 
was all dusty.” Somehow her head 
ached; she was tired at last, and after 
dinner laid down to rest. Before night 
she was in a high fever, and kept fret¬ 
ting because she could not see to things 
for Lorenzo. He wandered around the 
house like a lost child. Everything 
went wrong, now tnat Mandy was sick. 
A kind neighbor did all she could for 
her. Yet in one short week Mandy had 
gone to rest. 
When the funeral took place her friends 
gathered to pay their last respects. 
They spoke of her good heart and mild 
ways. One woman whispered to another 
that it was “nothing in the world but 
hard work that killed her, anyway! She 
made a perfect baby of that great Lor¬ 
enzo Smithson, a-waiting on him so?” 
The minister from the lake had come 
and they were all waiting for Lorenzo 
to make his appearance from upstairs. 
Finally, the minister being an old friend, 
went up in search of him. He found 
Ixirenzo seated on the edge of the bed, 
with his hair all rumpled over his head 
and his tie and collar in his hand. “Mr. 
Smithson,” said the minister, “why do 
you not come down stairs? We are 
waiting for you.” 
Lorenzo answered: “ ’Pears like I 
can’t; Mandy ain’t here to fix me.” 
The sagebrush and bunchgrass around 
Mandy’s grave were green with return¬ 
ing Spring when Widow Strongweller 
gave a big wedding party. She looked 
like a big, white cabbage rose in her 
white organdie, that she had sent to Se¬ 
attle for, when she stood up with Lo¬ 
renzo in the “front” room to be married, 
while his gray suit lent a becomingly 
subdued expression to his figure. After 
the wedding ceremony was performed a 
fine spread was served on long tables 
under the pines. They were laden with 
a typical “east-of-the-mountains” feast, 
such as you will only find in Okanogan 
county, Washington. The wedding took 
place at high noon, and as soon as the 
feast was over the bride and groom, with 
all the guests, drove up to Lake Chelan 
and spent a good part of the night in 
dancing in the hall at Lakeside. Next 
morning they all boarded the steamer 
Stehekin and went up the lake for a 
ride, stopping for lunch at Moore Point. 
After an absence of two or three days 
Mr. and Mrs. Smithson were home again 
by six o’clock in the evening. Phoebe 
Smithson was a go-ahead, independent 
woman, who could not bear to have any 
one “a-loppin’ around reading,” as she 
expressed it. So when they got home 
she told Lorenzo to change his clothes 
and start the fire in the kitchen, and 
then milk while she got supper. She 
said: “You know, I let Mary Ann stay 
over to the lake to visit her folks a spell, 
an’ we can get along. And I won’t keep 
but one man after this, seeing you are 
so spry. He will be here next week to 
harrow. Now, while I tnink of it, you 
best rent your ranch to that fellow from 
the Sound. I guess he wants to get dried 
out. Yes, an’ we won’t take any more 
papers than the Leader, Post-Intelli¬ 
gencer, and mayDe a farm paper or a 
magazine. We won’t have much time 
to read.” Lorenzo answered: “Mandy 
always built the fire and milked.” 
“Well,” said Phoebe “seeing she isn’t 
here, I don’t see any way but for you to 
do it yourself.” 
Lorenzo donned his blue overalls and 
reluctantly built the fire and then went 
out to the barn. Here he found plenty 
to do. Coming in he found a good sup¬ 
per on the table. Phoebe was leisurely 
stepping from the stove to the table, her 
substantial weight jarring the floor at 
every step. When the meal was over 
she handed Lorenzo the tea towel with 
the remark that he could make himself 
useful wiping the uishes. While at work 
he told Phoebe that he thought they 
ought to go visiting soon. “I’ve been 
wanting to visit my wife’s folks this 
long time.” “Whose folks?” said 
Phoebe. “Mandy’s,” he replied. “The 
what, Lorenzo?” “My wife’s.” The 
whose?” exclaimed Phoebe. The folks,” 
merely replied Lorenzo. “That’s more 
like it,” said Phoebe. “You are my hus¬ 
band now and when the crops are in we 
will go visiting.” 
The Summer had waned into Fall, 
Lorenzo stood one morning leaning over 
the gate thinking how he used to rest 
and how Mandy had worked, although 
so quiet about it, and how little he had 
done to help her, when he was roused to 
action by the sound of his wife’s voice. 
“Oh, Lor’! get a move on and hitch up 
the team; the corn fodder has to be got 
in and you must get me peaches down 
to the landing before the boat comes 
along. Hiack! now, I am going to see 
to packing more peaches for to-mor¬ 
row.” Lorenzo started briskly for the 
barn. "She is a hummer an’ no mis¬ 
take,” he muttered. “Oh, land o’ lib¬ 
erty, I am a goin' to go an’ set a spell 
by Mandy’s grave to-night after moon’s 
up an’ rest!”—Seattle Post-Intelligencer. 
Food in Mexico. 
Thebe is one staple article of food in 
Mexico that will make the New Eng¬ 
lander feel at ease, and that is the 
ubiquitous frijoles, says a writer in the 
American Kitchen Magazine. At home 
he calls them beans, but he soon be¬ 
comes addicted to the more musical 
Mexican appellation. Of course, they 
are not “Boston baked,” but he will 
find them well and palatably cooked, al¬ 
though a la Mexicana. The affection 
which the Mexican has for this article of 
fcod rivals that of the most loyal Bos¬ 
tonian, and finds happy expression in 
the term frijolitas, or “dear little beans.” 
The New Englander will miss the 
brown-bread accompaniment, however. 
The bread has not the deathly whiteness 
which is the mistaken standard aimed 
at, and too successfully achieved by our 
bakers and millers in the north. The 
Mexican mills probably being of inferior 
quality, the most nutritious part of the 
wheat is not bolted out. At least the 
bread, which is baked in flat, cake-like 
loaves, is of darker color than the 
popular product of our bakeries and 
kitchens, and it has a wholesome taste 
and substance quite in its favor. In all 
my travels there I did not meet a 
doughnut or a pie,—perhaps that partly 
accounts for the general good health, 
cheerfulness and long life of the natives. 
At the ranch of a well-to-do planter 
in the valley of the Fuerte, our lunch 
consisted entirely of boiled sweet po¬ 
tatoes and generous supplies of milk. 
One day our party stopped at a native 
casa of the peasant class. In Mexico 
these are descendants of the pative 
American races, and therefore they be¬ 
long to the first families of the land. 
We asked for something to eat, and were 
given keso, or homemade cheese- 
curds, and after waiting awhile were 
treated to our first experience in eating 
the celebrated tortillas. They were made 
"while we waited,” and the process of 
preparation was not the least interest¬ 
ing part of the entertainment. They are 
made of native corn, which has been 
softened by a bath of lime water. Then 
the kernels are mashed to a pulpy con¬ 
sistency between two flat, smooth stones, 
the lower one broad, the one used in the 
hand smaller and. used like a pestle. 
The mass is rolled in sheets as thin as a 
knife blade, then placed upon a stone 
previously heated, and baked. The 
cakes with the cheese of curds are very 
good, and they leave that satisfied after¬ 
feeling which wholesome food whole¬ 
somely prepared inevitably gives. 
Butter or syrup was not in evidence. 
Butter does not form a conspicuous part 
of Mexican diet, neither does lard, nor 
is the frying-pan much used. The meats 
are rather of a poor quality, and consist 
chiefly of beef products rather than 
pork. The pig seems to be regarded a 
good deal as a domestic pet. One does 
not see a lot of them in a pen, but a sin¬ 
gle one tied to a tree in front of the 
house, where the children feed it from 
the table much as they would a good- 
natured dog. But meat is not very im¬ 
portant where there is such a variety 
and abundance of fruit. Even the 
pitahya cactus yields a delicious pulpy 
fruit that makes one think of straw¬ 
berries and cream or a rose-tinted cus¬ 
tard of delicious flavor. This, however, 
is eaten direct from the tree; but on 
account of the nest of little spines one 
encounters in plucking, the indulgence 
is not unalloyed bliss. As the tiny, al¬ 
most invisible thorns have a habit of 
staying in one’s fingers for a month or 
two, the memory of the fruit is kept 
vivid, but it is rather a pungent sort of 
recollection. 
Old as the Sills 
are the pains and aches of 
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RHEUMATISM 
NEURALGIA 
SCIATICA 
Sure as taxes is the cure of 
them by 
St Jacobs Oil 
PflF’Q ECZEMA CURE, »1 at druggists. 25c 
UUL 0 box of us. Coe Chem. Co., Cleveland, O. 
Test of Time. 
THE ADVANTAGE OF PERMANENCY. 
Statistics show that less than Five merchandise 
dealers in each One Hundred are successful. 
They come and go and are forgotten. 
Singer machines are sold only by The Singer 
Manufacturing Co., dealing directly from 
maker to user. 
THE SINGER COMPANY IS PERMANENT AND 
ITS REPRESENTATIVES ARE ALWAYS AT 
HAND TO CARE FOR SINGER MACHINES. 
This is an important consideration to the pur¬ 
chaser of a sewing-machine. 
Many a woman has experienced the annoying 
loss of a small part of the sewing-machine ob¬ 
tained through some dealer selling “ cheap ” machines but who is totally unable to 
furnish duplicate parts therefor and is liable to be gone in a short time. 
THE SINGER SEWING-MACHINE HAS BEEN MADE FOR M OR E THAN 50 Y EARS 
AND IS STILL BEING MADE AT THE RATE OF 
ONE MILLION MACHINES YEARLY. 
It is constantly improved and represents the best skill in the art. 
The sure means of avoiding trouble and loss is to GET A SINGER, thus you deal 
directly with the leading sewing-machine manufacturers of the world, having an 
unequaled experience and an unrivaled reputation—the strongest guarantee of excel¬ 
lence of product and fair dealing in its sale. 
SOLD ON INSTALMENTS. OLD MACHINES EXCHANGED. 
The Singer Manufacturing Co. 
Salesrooms in Every City. 
