1900 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
A Shattered Idol. 
HOW TIIE GOOD ELDER FED THE CALF. 
Regularly every Sunday forenoon on 
his way to service the minister called 
for Aunt M’ri’ Stevens. Aunt M’ri’ is a 
poor, lone widow, and if the minister did 
not call to take her along in his team, it 
is to be feared that the poor old woman 
would not 'have heard his sermons very 
often. And in this Spring “going”— 
slump and snow—why, what could Aunt 
M’ri’ have done without the genial as¬ 
sistance of the minister? And how she 
did spread his praises. And to think 
that this had to happen! 
“Land sakes, ye’re airly, ain’t ye, 
Elder,” she called out of the door when 
he drove up to the gate t’other Sunday. 
“I haven’t got all my chores done yet. 
I haven’t got my dress changed or noth¬ 
in’. I guess ye’d better go right along 
without me-” but there was a note of 
regret in her flustrated tone. 
The minister climbed out and hitched 
his horse. He came into the house 
where the old lady was bustling about. 
“What have you got to do, Sister?” he 
asked. 
“About all the chores are done except 
feedin’ the caff,” said she. “His vittles 
are mixed, but I haven’t had time to go 
out and tend to him. I weaned him las’ 
week, and he’s a master sight of bother. 
I’m going to veal him, but the butcher 
won’t be round ’til week after next.” 
“You go right ahead, Sister Stevens, 
and change your dress, and I’ll go out 
and feed the calf. I was brought up on 
a farm, you know.” 
“Massy me, Elder. I couldn’t think of 
lcttin’ you do such a thing. It’s a tum¬ 
ble gormin’ piece of work. And here 
you are all in your meetin’ best.” 
“Sister Stevens, we are here on earth 
to help each other. The best way I can 
start in my Sunday is to help you by 
feedin’ that calf. Where is the pail?” 
So the elder took the pail and trotted 
out to the barn, where a hungry calf 
was already calling for breakfast with 
lusty baritone. When he saw the min¬ 
ister coming he lowered his head and 
commenced to butt his fuzzy frontlet 
against the bars of his stall in an ec¬ 
stasy of anticipation. 
“Steady now, steady now, you hand¬ 
some little fellow,” said the minister, 
soothingly, as he stepped over into the 
pen. “Steady now!” 
And then with the skirts of his shiny 
black frock coat gathered between his 
knees, he poured the warm skim-milk 
into the trough. Now there are ways of 
feeding a calf so that he will not do the 
thing that this calf then proceeded to do. 
No matter what the aforesaid ways are. 
I say this simply so that the calf may be 
exculpated. He simply acited according 
to his lights. As soon as the elder 
poured the trough full of milk, the calf 
rammed his nose clean to the bottom. 
The milk was up to his eyes. Through 
nose and mouth, with one great 
gulp, he took in all he could 
swoop. It shut off his breath. He 
choked. He yanked his head out of 
the trough, and with a whoof like the 
bellow from the exhaust pipe of a steam 
mill—lie blew. The elder was right in 
front of him. After the explosion he 
looked as though he had been standing 
in the middle of a dairy kitchen when a 
cyclone struck it. 
***** 
The rest of it Aunt Stevens has told 
so many times to the horrified neigh¬ 
bors that I will use her words. 
“I heerd something of a touse out in 
the barn jest as I was tying my bunnit 
strings. The elder didn’t come in as 
quick as he ought to have done, and so 
I went out there. Wall, I do hate dret- 
ful to tell ye the rest. 1 wouldn’t have 
believed it, not if the best friend I had 
told me. No, sir; that I wouldn’t. And 
to think that Sunday after Sunday I 
have rid to church with that sheep in 
wolf’s clothes! To think how I have 
called him the salt o’ the earth! 
“When I got in the barn there seemed 
to be a tumble wrassle goin’ on in the 
calf pens. I looked over in there. Oh, 
massy, it was awful! There stood Elder 
Smart right straddle of that caff’s neck. 
He had the caff by the ears and plunk, 
plunk, plunk! he was jabbin’ his nose 
down into that trough, and what do you 
think he was sayin’—sayin’ right there 
on Sunday? It’s most too awful to re¬ 
peat. Wal, sir, he was sayin’, grittin’ his 
teeth all the time—he was sayin’: 
“ ‘Drink, ye offshoot o’ Tophet, drink!’ 
“ ‘Elder, Elder,’ says I, and I thought 
he’d really abuse that innocent little caff 
before he’d let it go. 
“Thinking it my duty as a good Sa¬ 
maritan, I took the elder into the 
kitchen and wiped off his clothes so that 
he was fit—so fur as the outside of him 
was concerned—to appear in the pulpit, 
but I told ihim that never, never agin 
would I dast to ride with a man who 
had thus showed the cloven hoof of sin. 
I should expect to be struck by lightnin’ 
out of a clear sky. That is the kind of 
whited sepulcher that is at the head of 
this, our blessed church, here. I can 
tell you the presidin’ elder will get this 
story straight, and he will get it right 
from me.”—Lewiston (Me.; Journal. 
The Beginning of a Home. 
The American Kitchen Magazine for April 
gives the following account of Mrs. Henry 
Ward Beecher’s first start in housekeeping. 
Mrs. Beecher related this experience for the 
benefit of some young friends: 
“We were first settled far West. For 
six weeks we boarded, or rather were 
entertained by a parishioner. Then 
changes in their family rendered it ne¬ 
cessary for us to decide on some more 
independent mode of living. Boarding 
was too expensive, and would eat up all 
our small income. But how could we 
keep house on it? 
“You have sufficient to furnish one 
room, you say. We had nothing. We 
could not rent a whole house. That was 
beyond our ability. At last we found 
two small rooms; but such rooms! They 
had been occupied by laboring men, 
without a woman’s care, and were ex¬ 
ceedingly dirty. At last our little rooms 
were clean, and to furnish them was the 
next effort. A cook-stove, small square 
of cotton carpeting that just covered the 
middle of the floor in our ‘best room,’ an 
old bureau, a pair of candlesticks, half 
a dozen cups and saucers, and as many 
knives and forks, were given us. The 
husband’s college study-table, chair, sin¬ 
gle bedstead, and a brass lamp were 
hunted up from the ‘good-for-nothings’ 
in the Seminary yard, well cleaned and 
polished, and sent down from the Sem¬ 
inary to our home. We found, among 
some rubbish in our back yard, thrown 
out to be burned, three shelves, the rem¬ 
nants of an old bookcase. These were 
cleaned, varnished, and screwed to the 
back of the study-table, and the top of 
the table covered with a piece of cloth, 
the x’emains of an old coat found also 
among the ddbris of college days. Now 
what country pastor could ask for a 
more convenient, not to say elegant, 
study-table than this? A very cheap 
itable covered with an old shawl, half a 
dozen wood-seated chairs, a cheap bed¬ 
stead, husk mattress and pillows, two 
sheets and a pair of pillow-cases—to be 
washed, ironed, aired and replaced every 
Monday—completed the furniture of 
what was to be the pastor’s study and 
our parlor and bedroom. 
“The smaller room was to be the 
kitchen, and in it the stove was placed. 
There was a sink in this room, and from 
two boards found among the fuel the 
husband made a cover, which could be 
shut down over the sink and make a 
cooking-table or ironing-table, as need¬ 
ed A curtain of four-cent calico was 
stretched by a wire across one corner of 
MOTHERS.—Be sure to use “Mrs. Wins¬ 
low’s Soothing Syrup” for your children 
while Teething. It is the Best.— Adv. 
c 
3i i 
the room, making a half circle. A wire 
ran through the hem at the bottom and, 
linked into staples at each corner, held 
it firm like a partition. Here, on a 
bench on one side, the tubs and wash- 
boiler were placed, the flour barrel and 
other stores on the other side; overhead, 
the bridle, saddle, etc., were hung wrap¬ 
ped up in a piece of this same expensive 
calico, and a calico roof was stretched 
over all to keep out dust. The single 
bed, redeemed from the rubbish of col¬ 
lege days, having been well-nigh worn 
out with scrubbing and scalding, was 
placed in the back part of the room. 
Four long poles were screwed into the 
corners, a strong wire on which a cur¬ 
tain of calico was strung was fastened 
into staples at the top of the poles. This 
was our wardrobe when we had no com¬ 
pany, and our garments were tied to the 
wire inside. But if company came to 
stay over night, our garments were all 
folded, put into trunks and slipped under 
the bed, and our double bed with its 
husk mattress and pillows given up 'to 
our guests, and we adjourned to the 
kitchen. 
“This gives you a full list of our furni¬ 
ture. Here we passed the first year of 
our married life, and there never was 
and never can be a happier year. We 
did our own work, washing, ironing and 
all. After keeping well ahead of our 
own sewing, we found leisure to take 
other sewing that was remunerative and 
a great help.” 
“There is always a best way of doing 
everything, if it be only to boil an egg,” 
said a great American author. Daily 
life is made up of little actions, with a 
great one thrown in now and again; 
often the trivial routine hides some big 
purpose, but the daily deeds are none 
the less apparently unimportant. Yet it 
is by the way in which different per¬ 
sons perform little actions that char¬ 
acter is shown. One woman will walk 
with her head erect, watching the 
world;; another gazes despondently 
upon the ground; a third stares into the 
clouds. “I love to see women walking, 
when they neither shuffle, strut, no:“ 
toddle,” said Dr. Johnson, adding “but 
nineteen women out of twenty proceed 
in those three fashions.”—Modes and 
Fabrics. 
Scrofula and 
People tainted with scrof¬ 
ula very often develop con¬ 
sumption. Anemia, running 
of the ear, scaly eruptions, 
imperfect digestion, and 
enlargement and breaking 
down of the glands of the 
neck, are some of the more 
prominent of scrofula symp¬ 
toms—are forerunners of con¬ 
sumption. These conditions 
can be arrested, consumption 
prevented and health re¬ 
stored by the early use of 
Scott’s Emulsion 
Your doctor will tell you so. 
At all druggists * 50c. and $1.00 
SCOTT & BOWNE, Chemists. New York. 
W 0 ^ nAYPACY FORALLWJLL,NGTOW o«‘ 
iPU—Un I LHO I Gold, Silver, Nickel, Mctai 
Plating. At home or traveling, taking 
orders, uaiug and selling Prof. Gray'd 
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Tableware, Bicycles and all metal goods. 
No experience. Heavy plate. Modern 
methods. We do plating, manufacture 
outfits, all sires. Guaranteed. Only out¬ 
fits complete, all tools, lathes, materials, 
•to., ready for work. We teach you 
the art, furnish secrets and formulas 
Pamphlet, samples, etc., FRKI‘\ 
Works, CINCINNATI, O. 
Y° U can buy a chimney to 
fit your lamp that will 
last till some accident hap¬ 
pens to it. 
Macbeth’s “ pearl top ” or 
“pearl glass” is that chimney. 
You can have it — your dealer will 
get it — if you insist on it. He may 
tell you it costs him three times as 
much as some others. That is true. 
He may say they are just as good. 
Don’t you believe it — they may be 
better for him; he may like the breaking. 
Our “ Index " describes all lamps and their 
proper chimneys. With it you can always order 
the right size and shape of chimney for any lamp. 
We mail it FREE to any one who writes for it. 
Address Maciseth, Pittsburgh, Pa. 
Dyes for Rag Carpets. 
DIAMOND DYES MAKE COLORS THE 
SUN CANNOT FADE. 
They Do the Most Dyeing for 
the Least Money. 
When you dye rags or yarns for carpets and 
rugs, you want colors that will hold till the goods 
are worn out. Diamond Dyes are the only pack¬ 
age dyes that will make such colors. 
For cotton or mixed goods, be sure to get the 
special fast dyes for cotton or mixed goods, and 
for wool, the fast wool dyes, and you will have the 
brightest, fastest colors there are. 
If you use dyes that claim to color both cotton 
and wool with the same dye, you run the risk of 
spoiling your goods, or of getting colors that will 
fade right out. They may dye cotton, but they 
will only stain wool. Diamond Dyes will always 
give satisfaction. 
Sample card of colors and direction book for 
home dyeing mailed free on request.—W ells, Rich¬ 
ardson & Co., Burlington, Vt 
>va I Un ANU MAIN fUK UNt UAT’5 WURK. 
__ .1 cuko j irn 
BLITINK CO. Box 500 
Roys and Girls can get a Nlckel-Platcd 
Watch, also a Chain and Charm for selling 
IX doz. Packages of Bluino at 10 cents each, 
bend your full address by return mail and 
we will forward the Bluine, post-paid, and 
a largo Premium List. No money required- 
"" Concord Junction, Mass. 
Brass Band 
IaKtruim'ntH, Drums, Uniforms, 
A Supplies. Write for catalog, 446 
illustrations, VKKK; it gives in¬ 
formation for musicians and new 
bands. lyON & HEALY, 
80 Adams St., CHICAGO. 
COE’S 
ECZEMA CURE, $»1 at druggists. 25c. 
box of us. Coe Chem. Co., Cleveland, O. 
".'.'HARD of HEARING 
Write J. D. Howe, M. I)., 1986 Vermont Ave., Toledo, 
Ohio, for particulars of a new, simple, successful 
self-treatment. 
a & 
are you one 
of the sixty thousand who will receive 
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Send us your name and address and a 
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It’s an up-to-date fashion book—extra 
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Superb variety of Foulard Silks, 
65c., 85 c. 
Let the character, tone and rich effect 
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Extra large variety of beautiful Im¬ 
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Pretty inexpensive Wash Goods 64, 8, 
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both pretty and useful. 
Write for samples. 
BOGGS & BUHL, 
Department C, 
ALLEGHENY, PA. 
