47o 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
July 7 
[ Woman and Home j 
From Day to Day. 
THE PATTERN IN THE ROOM. 
Let us take to our hearts a lesson—no les¬ 
son can braver be— 
From the ways of tapestry weavers on the 
other side of the sea. 
Above their heads the pattern hangs, they 
study it with care; 
The while their fingers deftly work, their 
eyes are fastened there. 
They tell this curious thing besides, of the 
patient, plodding weaver- 
lie works on the wrong side evermore, but 
for the right side ever. 
It is only when the weaving stops and the 
web is loosed and turned 
That he sees his real handiwork—that his 
marvelous skill is learned. 
The years of man are the looms of God let 
down from the place of the Sun, 
Wherein we are weaving alway till the 
mystic web is done— 
Weaving blindly, but weaving surely, each 
for himself his fate. 
We may not see how the righi side looks, 
we can only weave and wait; 
But looking above for the pattern, no 
weaver need have fear, 
His toil shall be sweeter than honey, his 
weaving is sure to be clear. 
—Baltimore Sun. 
* 
A i.aw recently passed by the Arkan¬ 
sas Legislature makes a woman who 
wears a stuffed bird on her hat liable 
to a fine of from $25 to $50. 
* 
To remove fruit stains from enamel 
saucepans use chloride of lime. Fill the 
saucepan with cold water, add one tea¬ 
spoonful of chloride of lime to each half 
gallon, and boil until the stain is re¬ 
moved. 
• 
A Kansas philosopher observes that a 
man doesn’t object to telling his wife 
often what he likes to eat, but he thinks 
the fact that he told her 10 years ago 
that he was fond of her should be suffi¬ 
cient for to-day. That cynical comment 
is not true of husbands only. 
* 
The best protection against the sun, 
to be worn by a person whose skin is 
particularly tender and susceptible of 
sunburn, is a veil of yellowish-brown 
gauze. Photographers know that the ac¬ 
tinic rays of the sun do not pass through 
yellow glass, and the same principle 
makes the yellowish gauze a better pro¬ 
tection for the face than other colors. 
* 
Prairie-grass matting and furniture 
are among the Summer novelties. The 
material is the long sweet grass of the 
western prairies; it is wrapped with 
fine twine into ropes of finger thickness, 
which are woven into matting, or twist¬ 
ed over the frames in making furniture. 
The natural color is a soft green, but 
the grass is also dyed red and blue. 
The results obtained are very attractive, 
and the prairie grass should become a 
valuable material; besides, it is certain¬ 
ly thoroughly American. 
* 
A great many women (especially 
those who pride themselves on being up- 
to-date) have a pernicious habit of 
writing letters on the principle of a dis¬ 
sected puzzle. They jump from the first 
to the third page, then zigzag to the 
second and after that jump to the 
fourth. Such divagations, continued 
through an eight-page letter, are suffi¬ 
ciently distracting; when the same sys¬ 
tem is applied to a legal document it is, 
apparently, enough to render it invalid. 
In a recent caise, the courts declared a 
will invalid because it was written in 
this fashion, the third page being num¬ 
bered two, while the second page, bear¬ 
ing the signature, was masqueraded as 
third. It was held that the law requires 
wills and similar documents to oe signed 
at the end, and as the second page 
could not be regarded as the end when 
followed by a third, the signature must 
be considered as occurring in the body 
of the document, which, consequently, 
was not legal. 
* 
Linen underwear for both Summer 
and Winter use, is being highly recom¬ 
mended by many health authorities, and 
is now largely worn, a special open- 
meshed material being made for the pur¬ 
pose. It is not, however, a new idea. 
We have seen some of the little linen 
shirbs made for cherished babies several 
decades ago, before modern hygiene in¬ 
sisted upon covering the little stranger 
with delicate lambswool. The tiny linen 
garments were exquisitely fine and 
smooth, the stitching of the seams as 
regular as a row of pearls, and the nar¬ 
row hems turned on the outside, to 
avoid creasing the delicate flesh, but we 
wondered then, and wonder now, how 
the babies endured the first contact of 
such chilly garments. 
* 
Little girls from 10 years old and up 
now wear shirt waists and separate 
skirts, many of these skirts being made 
of linen crash or Russian duck, cadet or 
navy blue, red or white, either plain or 
polka-dotted. This is a convenient 
fashion, but otten unbecoming to an un¬ 
formed, thin, childish figure. We should 
not be in too big a hurry in putting 
shirt waists on the little girls; it is often 
difficult, too, to keep a child neat about 
her belt and collar. One of the oddest 
of the new fashions, for little girls, is 
the wearing of half-length stockings, 
which are the extreme mode for girls 
aged even 10 or 12 years. The stockings 
are white or tan, and are worn with 
bronze slippers. We are accustomed to 
little open-work silk socles on children 
up to the age of five or six, but should 
not care to see them on little girls above 
that age, nor is such a mode suitable for 
this variable and very often mosquito- 
infested climate. 
* 
The Youth’s Companion tells of a city 
minister who was called upon, at some¬ 
what short notice, to perform a marriage 
ceremony. He went to the house at the 
hour named, having made a note of the 
address in his memorandum book. 
He rang the bell, and when a maid opened 
the door he walked in, saying: 
“I believe I am expected here this even¬ 
ing. Will you kindly say to the family 
that I am here?” He then.pushed aside a 
portiere hanging between the hall and the 
parlor, and found himself in the presence ot 
a somewhat embarrassed young couple sit¬ 
ting on a sofa in a half-lighted room. 
“Good evening,” said the minister, bland¬ 
ly. “1 am on time, I believe. Eight 
o’clock, I think, was the hour set for the 
ceremony.” 
“Ceremony?” said the young man 
“What ceremony?” 
“Why, the marriage ceremony, to be 
sure! Are you not the young couple who 
are to be united in the bonds of matrimony 
this evening?” To the amazement of tn* 
minister, the young lady uttered a shriek 
and fled from the room, while the young 
man turned scarlet. 
“Have I made a mistake?” asked the em¬ 
barrassed parson, as he hastily drew foi th 
his note-book. “No,” he added. ‘‘I was 
to come to Number 236 this street, and—” 
“But this is Number 237,” interrupted the 
young man. “Number 236 is across the 
street/’ 
“Oh, I beg your pardon! I beg your par¬ 
don a'thousand times. ’ exclaimed the min¬ 
ister, as he retreated hastily. He lingered 
on the door-step to add to the profuse 
apologies he had already made to the young 
man, who had followed him to the door, 
and it was something of a relief to have the 
young man say, frankly and half-confi- 
dentially: 
“It is all right, parson. I was just rack¬ 
ing my brain to think of something to kind 
of open up the way for me to ask that 
young lady a question that will lead up to 
a wedding in this house soon, if it is an¬ 
swered the way I hope it will be, and you 
have helped me out wonderfully'. It will be 
as easy as rolling o- a log to say what i 
want to say now. I am much obliged to 
you.” _ 
Ironing Shirt Waists. 
“Oh, dear!” she sighed, “do look at 
these cuffs; is there any method on 
earth by which ‘boughten’ shirt-waist 
cuffs and collar may be ironed smooth?” 
I took the offending garment, quotes 
the Chicago Inter-Ocean, and, dampen¬ 
ing the cuff again in cold starch, took it 
to the board and laid the cuff wrong 
side up on it. I did not attempt to pull 
the wrinkles from the right side, but 
selecting an iron good and hot, but not 
hot enough to scorch, I ran it over the 
wrong side of the cuff and then lifted it 
for inspection. 
“Why, there isn’t a wrinkle in it,” my 
friend exclaimed; “how did you do it?” 
“It is simply reasoned. You have not 
noticed that in the ‘boughten’ garments 
the cloth runs one way on the right side 
and the other way on the wrong side; 
for instance, if the material is striped, it 
will have the stripes running up and 
down on the outside of the cuff, if these 
run lengthwise of the goods; on the in¬ 
side or wrong side of the cuff, you will 
find them running straightways, that is, 
the stripes running the lengthways of 
the cuff. This seems alii wrong to the 
ordinary seamstress, ais we are taught to 
think that collar and cuff making is one 
of the most particular arts, and that 
every piece of linen and outside must 
run the same way. 
“Now, I think that these are made this 
way on purpose to iron smoothly in¬ 
stead of simply to save cloth in making. 
The outside running crosswise, as it 
does, of the goods, will naturally seem 
a little fuller than the wrong side, and if 
you begin by ironing the right side first 
you will be apt to get wrinkles that no 
amount of pulling can ever efface-; 
whereas, if you take the wrong side first, 
the natural roll of the cuff of the outside 
will taae all this seeming fullness up, 
and there will not be a vestige of a 
wrinkle. See?” 
The Children’s Teeth. 
If a child has a dirty face, its parents 
are disturbed and mortified, but there 
are very many parents who view with 
calm unconcern, or else entirely ignore 
a far worse state of affairs inside the 
child’s mouth. Whether they think any¬ 
thing inside does not matter, or whether 
they do not notice, I do not know. One 
sees a pretty child, daintily dressed, with 
tidy hair and clean face. One thinks 
what an attractive child he us till he 
smiles; then is exposed to view a double 
row of foul teeth, the edges, perhaps, 
white, but the rest yellow, brown or 
black, according to the stage of neglect. 
Why will parents allow such a disfigure¬ 
ment? It is nothing less. Such a set of 
teeth will spoil the prettiest face, and 
not only that, but must fill anyone the 
least isensitive with a feeling of disgust 
and aversion. If parents are deaf to all 
that is said and written about the care 
of tne teeth on account of the child’s 
health, let them think of it from the 
point of view of looks and cleanliness. 
Of course it is hard for a busy mother 
to attend to little things like this but 
if something must be neglected, let it be 
the faces and hands, rather tnan the 
teeth. They will not suffer permanently, 
but if the teeth are neglected, suffering 
and false teeth will be the result. 
The first teeth should be brushed after 
meals if the child’s mouth is to look neat 
and well cared for. Teach them that it 
is just as disgraceful to have dirty teeth 
as it is to have dirty face and hands. If 
the habit is formed early lit will be easier 
to care for the permanent teeth, which 
begin to come at -ue age of six. There 
are cases where there is some organic 
defect in the teeth, and where no 
amount of care can save them, buc even 
when things are as bad as that, accumu¬ 
lations of food may be removed, and he 
mouth will look a little better. There 
are many preparations for cleansing the 
teeth, but white castile soap and pre¬ 
cipitated chalk are cheap and effective, 
being, oesides, the oasis of many of the 
tooth powders, susan brown bobbins. 
The Traveling Library in Ohio. 
Selection of Books. —There is a well- 
grounded belief in the heart of every 
Buckeye that his State offers better p- 
portunities for culture than any other 
place in the world. The plan of travel¬ 
ing libraries was not original with us, 
but we soon adopted it. The first at¬ 
tempt at sending out books was not an 
unqualified success. There was not 
enough money, and the books eligible 
for such use were of little value, com¬ 
paratively speaking. The last General 
Assembly won the lasting gratitude of 
the reading public, by appropriating 
$4,000 for the purchase of books. This 
amount is being spent by State Li¬ 
brarian C. B. Galbraith, with rare dis¬ 
cretion and judgment. Mr. Galbraith 
has lent a willing ear to the suggestions 
from Granges and farmers’ clubs as to 
selection of books for the farmers. In 
the library are to be found choice 
works in h.story, fiction, agriculture, 
mechanics, biography, social science and 
domestic science. In fact, every sub¬ 
ject of interest to the reading public, 
has books treating upon it. Let me 
show you the kind of books we have in 
our own library. Wehappened to be in the 
city, and made a personal selection. We 
have Storer’s Agriculture, Plumb’s Corn 
Culture, Bailey’s Principles of Fruit 
Growing, Sempers’s Manures, Atkinson’s 
Distribution of Products, Ely’s Taxation 
in American States and Cities, Bull¬ 
finch’s Stories of Gods and Heroes, 
works by Carlyle, Browning, Yonge, 
Wright, Coffin and others, in all 40 
books, which we could not buy for $75. 
These books were neatly boxed, and set 
down at our depot for 50 cents. The 
library club pays the expressage both 
ways on books. 
How to Get the Books. —If a resi¬ 
dent of Ohio, and you have no Grange 
or club, form a library club, elect a li¬ 
brarian, send to C. B. Galbraith, Colum¬ 
bus, Ohio, for instructions. He will send 
by return mail, blanks for names of 
members, bond, and instructions. The 
bond—$200—is merely nominal, and is a 
guarantee that all books sent out will be 
returned with no defacement save what 
would amount to the natural wear and 
tear. My husband is bondisman oil two 
libraries in our community, and if peo¬ 
ple could only be induced to read more, 
would go on other bonds. Of course, 
reasonable care must be exercised in the 
selection of persons in club. Mr. Gal¬ 
braith is anxious to place these books in 
every township, and will gladly answer 
any legitimate inquiries. Each library 
consists of from 25 to 40 books, varying 
according to value and size of volumes. 
How It Works.—No catalogue is is¬ 
sued, as no appropriation was made for 
that purpose. I doubt the wisdom of is¬ 
suing a catalogue. Several years’ experi¬ 
ence as librarian in a college, induces me 
to believe that many people will only 
read books of which they have heard a 
chance word, leaving books often more 
valuable on the shelf. With so compe¬ 
tent and obliging a librarian as Ohio has, 
he can be safely trusted to make a 
selection of the best books at his com¬ 
mand at the time the order is received. 
We note with gratification the large 
number of Granges in Ohio that have 
availed themselves of the opportunity to 
get the very best books the world offers, 
for a nominal sum. Need any one com¬ 
plain of lack of reading matter when 
$1.50, at the very outside limit, will 
carry books to the uttermost limits ot 
the State? We read of Lincoln’s sacri¬ 
fices to procure a book to read. Then 
we think of the hosts of boys and girls, 
like Micawber, “waiting for something 
to turn up” to help them get a few 
books. Let them go to work and turn 
something up, earn the small amoun 
necessary and get a fine library for then 
vacation’s reading. The books may be 
kept three months, with privilege of re¬ 
newal. MARY E. LEE. 
