1902 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
5o3 
A Trial of Hospitality. 
There came a knock at the side door 
and Mrs. Parker, after removing her 
hands from the dishwater, dried them 
hurriedly; then taking the lamp went 
into the sitting room to receive her 
caller. She gave a dismayed look at the 
carpet rags,' heaped in one corner; at 
the books and papers scattered about on 
the usually neatly-kept table, and with 
a quick and stealthy attempt to bring 
order out of the chaos of chairs made 
her way through the room just as the 
door was opened from without and Mrs. 
Spaulding appeared on the threshold. 
“Good evening, Tillie; do come in. I 
am real glad to see you. Will you mind 
coming into the kitchen while I finish 
ray work? But why in the world did you 
knock? And what makes you look so 
tired?” And Mrs. Parker paused to give 
her friend a searching look, as she led 
the way to the back room. 
“Well,” was the reply, “I could not 
see a bit of light anywhere, and I did 
not know as you were here. I’ve been 
too busy even to glance over here to¬ 
day. As for ‘looking tired,’ I assure you 
I feel so, and to judge by your appear¬ 
ance to-night you know what the feel¬ 
ing is, yourself,” and both women laugh¬ 
ed in spite of their evident weariness. 
“Let me dry the dishes for you, 
Molly,” and Mrs. Spaulding proceeded 
to do so, in spite of her friend’s feeble 
protest. “You tell me what your day 
has been, and then I’ll tell you about 
mine.” 
“Well to begin, Frank had to go to 
town this morning and after helping 
him to start early I thought I should 
have a day to myself, so I brought out 
my carpet rags, expecting to do quite a 
bit of work on them. I had been busy 
but a short time when there came a 
knock at the front door, and behold, 
there stood the Rev. James Mead, his 
wife and their two sons. I had dinner 
for them, and we were getting along 
finely when up drove brother Rob with 
his two boys. He wanted to leave them 
while he went to the mill. For some 
reason those two sets of boys didn’t 
seem to agree very well, and Mr. Mead 
just amused himself all the afternoon 
watching his wife and me try to keep 
the-roof over our heads. 
“Maybe it is because I don’t know 
much about children that they seemed 
to worry me so—but—really 1 feel as 
though I had been through a regular 
political campaign. The worst of it all 
was when the four joined forces and 
played their pranks on us instead of 
each other. One time we were in total 
darkness; every blind in the house was 
closed and the doors all locked on us. 
And the way they upset everything in 
the house was fearful! When I return¬ 
ed to the sitting room after preparing 
tea I could hardly believe my eyes, for 
such a place I never saw. Mr. Mead 
was buried in a newspaper, not liter¬ 
ally, of course, but he was so engrossed, 
apparently, he was perfectly dead to all 
that was going on about him, and his 
wife, poor little thing, was on tne verge 
of tears. The boys said they had heard 
about ‘the house upside down’ at the 
Buffalo Exposition, and they were just 
trying to play it, to see what it could 
be like. 
“We were all glad to go to the dining 
room, for even the boys had begun to 
Iook cra/.y themselves. They had all 
gone before Frank came home, and I 
had straightened up some, but when he 
caught sight of that room he asked if 
I was getting ready to move, or was 1 
planning to elope. Anyway, he’d like to 
know what was up, for he had never 
seen the house look liKe that, even in 
house-cleaning time. When I told him, 
he laughed at first, and then he said: 
‘Poor little woman! They all think 
they can run over you, don’t they? 
Even to the children, but they don’t 
dare try it when / am by anyhow!’ And 
then he tried to help me, as best he 
could to make the place habitable, 
which has made him late with the barn 
work, for he is not done milking yet.” 
“Well, you did have a time of it, didn’t 
you, my dear? What a day this has 
been! Shall I tell you what I’ve been 
through?” inquired Mrs. Spaulding. 
“Yes, please, but let us see if we can’t 
find some easy chairs, somewhere. This 
will do in here, I guess,” and the two 
seated tnemselves in the pleasant din¬ 
ing room, after extricating two rockers 
from the debris in the room beyond. 
Mrs. Spaulding, with a merry laugh, 
remarked, “Misery loves company sure 
enough; I don’t feel nearly as tired now 
as when I first came, and before 1 found 
you were a victim of fate, too.’ 
“Now I’ll tell you, what befell me: 
Mrs. Cross is visiting George’s sister, 
and as she is an acquaintance of mine, 
I invited both down to spend the day. 
As there were to be only the four of us 
to dine, I cooked but one chicken, a 
large one, however, made a custard pie, 
and with new biscuits, fresh vegetables, 
etc., prepared quite a tempting dinner. 
I waited and waited, and finally, when 
at half-past twelve, they didn’t appear, 
I just stepped over to the other house 
and invited Father, Mother and Harry 
in to partake of chicken with us. They 
came, and we were just nicely started 
with our dinner, when up drove a load 
of five. They were some cousins of 
ours, who had driven a distance of 18 
A LITTLE HOUSEKEEPER. Fib. '.202. 
although I think they referred to the 
size instead of the quality. And, would 
you believe it, there is a piece of that 
fowl left yet—the neck—and George 
says we ought to invite the neighbors 
in to help dispose of it, as 12 of us didn’t 
seem to make much headway with it. 
Now, do you wonder I’m tired, Molly? 
And all that George does is to laugh at 
me and wish he might have had a piece 
of pie.” But Mrs. Spaulding became 
sober directly as she said: 
“Do you know, Molly, this is one of 
the things I can’t become used to in 
country life—being obliged to have all 
your resources under your own roof. 
Perhaps I’ll grow accustomed to it in 
time, but it bothers me a good deal at 
present. Now in the city when unex¬ 
pected company comes by sending out 
to the store in a short time excellent 
food, already cooked, appears upon your 
table, and you have the time to devote 
to entertaining your guests, instead of 
tiring yourself out caring for their 
stomachs.” 
“In some respects that is true, Tillie,” 
said Mrs. Parker, “but there are some 
things not altogether pleasant in the 
city style of serving company. For in¬ 
stance, I once visited in town at a cer 
tain place, where just before teatime the 
young hopeful of the house was called 
from the parlor, where he was enter¬ 
taining some young people into the 
kitchen, to be closeted for some time 
with his mother. He disappeared 
through the backyard; was gone for 
awhile, and finally returned with his 
arms full of parcels, which he placed on 
the kitchen table and then went back 
to the parlor. Three or four times was 
this performance gone through with be¬ 
fore tea was ready, the boy meantime 
growing sulky and cross at being so 
often interrupted in his games. In fact, 
1 felt as though I had made so much 
trouble and work 1 never cared to go 
there again.” 
“Yes, Molly, I know, but you must not 
judge of all families by that one.” 
“Certainly not, neither must you form 
your opinion of country life from the 
standpoint of to-day’s events, for there 
are exceptional days for all of us, every 
where.” Gertrude mowkis. 
WHAT DO THE CHILDREN DRINK? 
Don't give them tea or cotlee. Have you tried the 
new food drink called GRAIN-O? It Is deUclous 
and nourishing and takes the place of coffee. The 
more Grain-0 you give the children the more health 
you distribute through their systems. Grain-O is 
made of pure grains, and when properly prepared 
tastes like the choice grades of coffee but costs about 
M as much. All grocers sell It. 15c. and 25c. __ 
Corns Cured Free. 
Allen’s Antiseptic Corn Plaster 
cures corns. To prove it I will mail free 
'plaster to any one. Send name and ad¬ 
dress—no money. 
Geo. M. Dorrance, 210 Fulton St., Oept.L, N. Y. 
miles. They had sent a postal, but as 
George failed to go to the office yester¬ 
day we were thoroughly surprised. 
“Of course we were glad to see them, 
but when I thought of that one chicken 
and one fresh pie, my heart failed me. 
However, 1 soon had the table in order, 
and 10 of us, now, sat down before that 
one lone fowl! I gave George a covert 
glance, and I saw Mother gaze stealthily 
at Father, who seemed to understand, 
for when the chicken was served, Harry 
was the only one in the family who 
seemed to care for it at all. Our friends 
ate with a zest it did one good to see, 
only I was all the time wondering into 
how many pieces I could cut that pie. 
We were just ready for dessert when I 
heard voices, and looking up there were 
Kate and Mrs. Cross coming down the 
walk. They had been detained by call¬ 
ers and had come as soon as possible, 
but their horse was slow and they had 
been over an hour on the road and were 
as ‘hungry as bears,’ they said. I was 
just ready to cry, for there had been 
nearly a clean sweep of the board (as 
you may imagine) already, but instead 
of giving way to tears, I began to pon¬ 
der over that pie, and wonder if I 
couldn’t stretch that chicken’s neck, 
and then I went into the kitchen and 
laughed. 
“Kate and Mrs. Cross preferred to 
wait till the table was vacated, and then 
Mother and I brought on all we could 
find. There was a little chicken and 
one piece of pie left for them, anyway, 
and the girls said they had a fine repast, 
MOTHERS.—Be sure to use “Mrs. Wins¬ 
low’s Soothing Syrup” for your children 
while Teething. It is the Best.— Adv. 
m 
^JLK 
in the coffee bin—not 
a pleasant thought, 
yet when coffees are 
kept open in bulk who 
knows what different 
“things" come climb¬ 
ing and floating in ? 
Lion Coffee 
f 
put up in sealed packages insures 
cleanliness, uniform quality, 
I freshness and delicious flavor. 
OLLARS 
A Household Helper. 
The little housekeeper shown at Fig. 
202 is Ethel Irene Pratt, of Miami Co., 
Ohio. Her mother says she is both a 
comfort and a help; she is only seven 
years old, but she goes errands, dusts 
the furniture, wipes dishes and cares 
for her little brother, when not at 
school. We have known some grown¬ 
up women who could hardly present so 
many evidences of usefulness. A wo¬ 
man’s life is likely to be a happy one, 
just so long as it is busy and useful, and 
we may well expect the little Ohio 
housekeeper to retain her sunshiny face 
long after her riotous curls have 
changed to silver. 
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THE 
RIDEAU 
LAKES 
The llideau River, lakes and 
canal, a unique region, compara¬ 
tively unknown, but affording the 
most novel experience of any trip 
in America. An island waterway 
between the St. Lawrence River at 
Kingston and the Ottawa River at 
Ottawa ; every mile affords a new 
experience. It is briefly described 
in No. 34 of the “ Four-Track 
Series,” “To Ottawa, Ont., Via 
the Rideau Lakes and River.” 
Copy will bo mailed free on receipt of a 
2-ceiu postage stamp by George 11 Danii ls. 
General Passenger Agent. New York Central 
& Hudson River Railroad, Grand Central 
Station. New York 
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