1900 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
423 
A South Bromfield Cyrano. 
Part I. 
The people of South Bromfield won¬ 
dered how Mliss Martha Wren managed 
to retain her youthful looks. 
“ ’Tain’t that she’s so handsome,” one 
oracle of the village store explained, 
“but she just looks so happy. Every¬ 
thing about her, from those little curls 
on ner forehead to her pink cheeks and 
her blue eyes—especially her eyes— 
seems tr be sayin’, ‘What a happy place 
tbis world is to be in!’ ” 
Mrs. Melinda Holt, Martha’s aunt, 
thought her niece owed her good looks 
to the fact that she spent so much of 
her time working in her garuen. This 
garden was the pride of South Brom¬ 
field, and every stranger was taken to 
visit it. Decorative supplies were drawn 
irom it whenever church festivals oc¬ 
curred; its roses were gathered for the 
brides, and its sweetest blooms were 
placed within the hands of the dead. 
Not only were all the flowers of the field 
found there, but homely herbs, season¬ 
ings for soups, and savory, succulent in¬ 
gredients for salads likewise flourished. 
“Martha ain’t only worked out her 
own salvation in that there garden,” 
said Aunt Melinda, “'but a good many 
other folks’, too. Her liver medicine has 
helped more people than I could count 
up to take a cheerful view of life. I 
wouldn’t ever accuse Providence of send 
in’ liver complaint to anybody, although 
it seems natural for dark-complected, 
spare people to have it. But it does 
seem as if it was providential that as 
long as people was bound to have it 
there should be them simple herbs to 
cure it. Then them hop-bitters of 
Martha’s just built Mary Powers right 
up when she got so spindling after that 
quarrel with her beau, when he went off 
out West. There’s nothin’ like them for 
chirkin’ up folks that’s been disappoint¬ 
ed in love, and it cleans out the system 
just beautifully. There’s been a good 
deal of marryin’ and givin’ in marriage, 
too, here in South Bromfield lately, and 
that’s made a big demand for Martha’s 
hop-yeast. You see, these young girls 
can write essays and make lace hand¬ 
kerchiefs, but when it comes to makin’ 
bread they don’t know much about it. 
So Martha’s yeast has kept more than 
one family from partin’ in sunder. Some¬ 
how 1 never can help but believin’ more 
■in the doctrine of predestination and 
foreordination when I think of that 
yeast, for I don’t care who the woman 
is, she just seems to oe foreordained to 
make good bread when she uses it. Yes, 
Martha’s garden has done her and lots 
of other folks good.” 
Aunt Melinda’s reasoning was partly 
true, but tnere was a hidden spring of 
happiness in Marina Wren’s life of 
which no one, unless it was Henry Graf¬ 
ton,, knew. 
Little did South Bromfield or Aunt 
Melinda guess that the swaying lilies, 
the luscious roses, the fragrant violets, 
were to Martha a visible testimonial of 
the love which had once been hers. For 
bad sue not been compared by her dead 
lover to the beautiful things which grew 
therer We listen to our own love-story 
over again in the pleading notes of 
Schubert’s Serenade; we see it glowing 
from the painted canvas; it is personi¬ 
fied in the sculptured Venus; and shall 
love not speak to us from a dear old- 
fashioned garden? 
So each year as the tender green crept 
over bush and tree Martha sowed and 
weeded and as each plant put form 
again its buds and fruit she lived her 
past over again and looked forward to 
tne springtime of eternity, when her 
love should blossom anew. And content 
and happiness shone from her eyes, be¬ 
cause love had not passed her by, as it 
does some women, but had given that to 
her which is every woman’s birthright— 
to be deeply loved by some man. 
Just how much of her content she 
owed to her friendship with Henry Graf¬ 
ton she hardly realized. He was a dis¬ 
tant cousin of hers, and they had always 
known one another; but from the day 
on which he had carried in the dead 
body of her lover, Emmett Borden, 
where it had been thrown at her door 
by the maddened, infuriated horses, he 
had seemed to come in as a part of her 
life. 
They had found upon Emmett’s breast 
a letter addressed to her, and Henry 
knew what no one else in South Brom- 
fysld did, that Emmett’s courtship of her 
had been through the medium of these 
letters. Just why he should have writ¬ 
ten to her when he passed her door and 
saw her nearly every day, the villagers 
would have found it hard to understand; 
but Martha thought she knew. 
“He wasn’t one who could express 
himself in talking with you,” she ten¬ 
derly thought; “and knowing how much 
store I set on people who had brains, he 
wrote out his beautiful thoughts to me 
in letters. People who used to think he 
was dull and stupid wouldn’t ever think 
so if they could just read those letters.” 
It was strange, she thought, how much 
alike Henry and Emmett were in some 
o l their ideas. Once Emmetjt had writ¬ 
ten to her: 
“Do you know, Martha, that I always 
think of some of those sweet-smelling 
things in the garden in connection with 
you? The kind you can’t see, and they 
don’t have any gay blossoms, but you 
always know they’re there by that sweet 
smell. It’s sort of quieting and sooth¬ 
ing, ana don t stick itself in your way 
to be said nice things to, but just creeps 
in in that still way to make everything 
around sweeter.” 
And here was Henry, who, when she 
gathered him a bouquet each morning 
for his old office-desk (he was a printer, 
and editor of the town paper), would al¬ 
ways say, when asked for his choice of 
flowers: 
“Oh, I don’t care; only put in some 
mignonette. When I’m workin’ where I 
can’t see them I can smell that, and 
somehow it always seems just like you.” 
—Woman’s Home Companion. 
Pioneer Experiences. 
One of the creature comforts of the 
East which the old settlers missed was 
the good cider vinegar, to which they 
had always been accustomed. When ap¬ 
ple orchards must be raised before the 
material for cider vinegar is available, 
quite an interval must come in. Cur¬ 
rant bushes were the hardiest, and 
quickest to bring into plentiful bearing. 
The juice < f the red currant, reduced 
with an equal quantity of soft water, 
put in a suitable vessel and set in a 
warm place, was left to make. A piece 
of brown paper was spread with mo¬ 
lasses and put in to supply the place of 
“mother,” the whole being sweetened 
with molasses, and although the vinegar 
that resulted from this mixture was 
rather thin and lacked body, it made 
very respectable vinegar, more whole¬ 
some than some of the modern com¬ 
pounds for sale under that name. One 
painstaking old lady had a small vine¬ 
gar factory of her own. The plant con¬ 
sisted of two large-sized jugs. Into one 
sbe put aJll the rinsings of the dishes 
that had been used to hold syrup, mo¬ 
lasses, or other sweet things, the cold 
tea left in the teapok, and any other 
vinegar-making material that came in 
her way. As this accumulated and be¬ 
came fit for use she drew off the top and 
stored at in the second jug, from which 
she drew her supplies for table use. In 
this way she always had on hand a fine 
article of vinegar. 
Pie plan, was a boon to the pie-loving 
settlers. Quickly "aired, it asked noth¬ 
ing of the generous soil but to be set 
out. The only care it required was to be 
MOTHERS.—Be sure to use“Mrs.Wins- 
low’s Soothing Syrup” for your children 
while Teething. It is the Best— Adv. 
lightly covered during the Winter 
months, and it was the earliest avail¬ 
able vege.aDle of the garden, and most 
cooks will say that the hardy, small¬ 
stemmed pie plant of that day exceeded 
in flavor any of the mammoth varieties 
whic.. have since been introduced to the 
public. Wild plums, grapes and crab 
apples were among the resources for 
sauce, and satisfied a natural craving 
for a variety of food. aunt racket,. 
Cucumber Pickles. 
I haa to run over to Mrs. Grey’s on 
an errand, and met her at her door 
going in with a basketful of small cu¬ 
cumbers. 
“Pickles?” I asked. 
“Yes,” she said. “I don’t put up 
many. I don’t think they are very 
wholesome things, but I think mine are 
as little injurious as it is possible for 
them to De.” 
“I don’t suppose you put in much 
spice?” 
“None whatever, and somehow they 
are the sourest pickles I ever saw, so 
one doesn’t need to eat so much, you 
see.” 
(She washed the little cucumbers, rub¬ 
bing off the prickly points. “You know, 
of course, that it is necessary to leave 
the stems on and not break out a piece 
of toe cucumber, as you are likely to do 
if you pull them off the vines. I use 
a knlife or scissors, and cut the stem 
half an inch long or so.” She had a 
two-quart glass jar, and in this she 
packed the cucumbers. When it was 
full she put a large spoonful of salt on 
top, shaking it down, filled the jar with 
coal water, put the cover on, and set it 
away. “I leave it in the brine 24 hours, 
then pour it out, rinse the cucumbers, 
and fill the jar with cold vinegar, screw 
the top on tight, and put down cellar.” 
' Well,” I said, “is that a!ll?” 
' Yes, except that in October or No¬ 
vember, when the vinegar looks white, 
I pour out a little and replace it with 
fresh.” 
“That is the easiest way to make 
pickles I ever heard of,” I said. 
“And they are good,” she assured me, 
“only extremely sour.” 
SUSAN BROWN ROBBINS. 
With the Procession. 
So live, that when thy summons comes to 
join 
The innumerable caravan, which moves 
To that mysterious realm, where each shall 
take 
Ills chamber in the silent halls of death. 
Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night, 
Scourged to his dungeon, but sustained and 
soothed 
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy 
grave, 
Like one who wraps the drapery of his 
couch 
About him, and lies down to pleasant 
dreams. —Thanatopsis. 
We can do more good by being good 
than in any other way.—Hill. 
Censure is the tax a man pays to the 
public for being eminent.—Swift. 
No matter what his rank or position 
may be, the lover of books is the richest 
and happiest of the children of men.— 
Langford. 
It is not for you to look ait your neigh¬ 
bor and to assume mat he is more favor ¬ 
ed by fate than you. You can judge of 
no man’s life until you have lived it. 
You cannot estimate the weight of hi3 
burdens until you know the exact 
amount of his sitrength. While his pack 
may appear to you to be very light com¬ 
pared with your own, yet his back may 
be weak and sore where yours is whole. 
—Credit Lost. 
$2100 in Premiums. 
No Lottery. It costs nothing for our cus¬ 
tomers to compete. Our clothing catalogue 
with large cloth samples and our lithograph¬ 
ed carpet catalogue showing Carpets, Rugs, 
Art Squares and Draperies in their realeolors, 
both free. Expressage paid on clothing- 
freight paid on carpets; also lining furnished 
free, and sewing free. Address this way : 
JULIUS HINES & SON, Baltimore, Md. Dept. 320 
A KNOCK OUT 
There is more disability and 
helplessness from 
LUMBAGO 
than any other muscular ail¬ 
ment, but 
St. Jacobs Oil 
has found it the easiest and 
promptest to cure of any form 
LAME BACK 
i 
B. & B. 
shirt waists 
thousands of them 
and all choice 
Greatest shirt waist season this store 
ever engaged in. 
Doing a record-breaking business with 
the kind of waists people want—strictly 
new and uncommonly stylish styles— 
made by experts. 
Variety of styles is simply enormous— 
yet all selected for some difference, pat¬ 
tern, color, or both, that brings it within 
the range of your approval. 
Colored Waists begin at 50c. —assort¬ 
ment extends to $4-.50. 
White Waists 75c. to $10. 
Prettiest dollar waists — colored 
madras or percale—pinks, blues, violet, 
black or watermelon red and white, and 
lots of fancies. 
White waists also, .11, that any of you 
who want dressy styles will declare great 
property. 
Fine assortment of colored waists 11 50, 
12, 12.50. 
Making a feature of white Lawn 
waists $1.50 —four rows of inserting 
on front—dress sleeves, flare cuffs—or 
shirt waist sleeves, stiff cuffs. 
Other dainty white waists 12,12.50,13.50 
Send us your orders for sliirt 
waists. 
We’ll save you money. 
BOGGS & BUHL, 
Department C, 
ALLEGHENY, PA. 
COE’S 
ECZEMA CUKE, <S1 at druggists. 25c. 
size of us. Coe Chem. Co., Cleveland, O. 
t R 00 A n A Y F A QY F0R ALL willing to worn; 
vw n UM I LMO I Gold, silver. Nickel, Metal 
IMutlng. At home or traveling, taking 
orders, using and aelling Prof, itruj’s 
Machines. Platea Watches, Jewelry, 
Tableware, Bicycles and all metal goods. 
No experience* Heavy plate. Modern 
methods. We do platiug, manufacture 
outfits, all sizes. Guaranteed. Only out- 
tits complete, ail tools, lathes, materials, 
• to., ready for work. We teach you 
the art, furnish secrets and formulas 
rite toduy. Pamphlet, samples, etc., PKEE* 
D. OKAY -fc CO., Plutlnir Work*, CINCINNATI, «. 
The Snowflake 
Washer 
is simple, strong, almost noiseless, 
always without lost motion, a great 
seller, and agent rewarded. The 
lever is operated back and forth 
with ease, making the clothes com¬ 
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Satisfaction guaranteed; prices 
low. Big reduction on Urst ma¬ 
chine. Address 
W. 8. MILLER, Meyersdale, Pa. 
The Domestic Sheep. 
Its Culture and General Management. 
By Henry Stewart. An up-to-date book 
on sheep. The most scientific, practical 
and useful book ever published on this 
subject. Indorsed by the world’s high¬ 
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subscriptions at 11 each. 
