598 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
August 19 
[ Woman and Home \ 
From Day to Day. 
An Australian womtm, who believed 
that, when one finds a horseshoe, luck 
is insured by throwing it over the 
shoulder, has reason to change her 
opinion, bhe picked up a horseshoe on 
the street, and threw it gracefully over 
her shoulder. It went through a hat¬ 
ter’s window, and struck an irascible 
customer who was trying on a new hat. 
The customer jumped to the conclusion 
that one of the salesmen had attacked 
him, and immediately reciprocated by 
giving him a blow that sent him 
tnrough a plate-glass. A general fight 
followed, though none of the partici¬ 
pants knew what the trouble was about. 
The woman wno was at the bottom of 
the disturbance got away, but her faith 
in the horseshoe as a medium of luck 
received a severe shock. 
* 
Experience in the Spanish War gave 
evidence of the need of women nurses 
in the army, and this need has been 
officially recognized by the War Depart¬ 
ment. An order has been issued for the 
organization of an army nurse corps, 
which will be under the immediate su¬ 
pervision of Dr. Anita Newcomb McGee. 
Contracts for nurses will be made for 
one year, except immune nurses, who 
will not be required to sign for any defi¬ 
nite period. For service in the United 
States, a nurse will receive $40 a month, 
and in any of the colonies, $50. Chief 
nurses over five or more nurses will re¬ 
ceive $10 additional, and over 10 or more 
nurses will receive $25 additional. In 
case of illness, medical attention and 
care will be furnished, but extra leave, 
with pay, will not be allowed. Such 
positions mean very hard work, but 
doubtless there will be plenty of capable 
nurses willing to fill them, and it is 
gratifying to know that even the Sur¬ 
geon-General, who was not at all favor¬ 
ably disposed towards women nurses a 
year ago, is now willing to acknowledge 
their value. 
* 
The farm housewife, who has made 
apple pie, crisp and flaky as to crust, 
with well-sp'iced, juicy, fragrant, “in¬ 
nards,” as a Down-East fisherman de¬ 
scribes the contents, so often that she 
could construct a pie in her sleep, will 
smile at the ignorance of a woman who 
can’t make that staple dish. Yet there 
are such unfortunates, and we heard re¬ 
cently of one whose experience with an 
everyday apple pie was quite disas¬ 
trous. She lives in a tiny city flat, with 
no other companion than a maid. One 
day, in the absence of the domestic, she 
decided to make an apple pie; she had 
always understood that the construction 
was very simple. She made the piecrust, 
according to her cook book, and then 
decided to go into another room to roll 
it out, because the kitchen was exces¬ 
sively warm, being, like most flat 
kitchens, about the size of a dish closet. 
The adjoining room, which was used for 
the storage of trunks, contained no 
table, but the amateur cook placed her 
pastry board on the top of a trunk, and 
began operations. All went well until 
the operator, in an excess of zeal, over¬ 
balanced herself, and fell over the 
trunk, while piecrust, pastry board and 
rolling pin went spinning across the 
floor, in an avalanche of flour. The 
amateur cook recovered herself with 
some inward exasperation, collected her 
belongings, dusted off the piecrust, and 
made a fresh start. This time she suc¬ 
ceeded in building the pie, though the 
crust developed a good many traits of 
unexpected obstinacy before it would 
consent to nestle close to the tin, and 
the apples seemed as reluctant to be 
tucked up smoothly as a batch of small 
boys who don’t wish to go to bed. How¬ 
ever, it was finished at last; the edge 
was crimped, and a symmetrical pattern 
pricked over the surface with a fork. 
But when the oven door was opened, 
the cook discovered, to her horror, that 
her pie tin was too wide to go into the 
oven! She gazed at the oven with 
speechless disgust; then, hunting up a 
smaller tin, she slammed the pie into 'it, 
upside down, as if she were turning a 
griddle cake. When that pie came out 
of the oven, it had the appearance of 
having passed through much tribulation 
—a cyclone, for instance—and the crust 
was mixed up with the apples in an ex¬ 
tremely earthquaky manner; but the 
maker insists that, like a shaved cat, it 
was not nearly so bad as it looked. 
She has decided, however, that it takes 
more talent to make a pie than is or¬ 
dinarily supposed. 
* 
There are many substitutes for tea, 
but few of them can be regarded as 
actual rivals to the Chinese herb. In 
South America, however, a species of 
holly known as Paraguay tea is used 
by preference, and foreigners who ac¬ 
quire the taste for it care little after¬ 
wards for the Chinese tea. The Para¬ 
guay tea or mate (pronounced mata), is 
a shrub which strongly resembles its 
relative, the Englisn holly. T he whole 
plant, stalk, bark and leaves, after be¬ 
ing dried, is chopped up fine. Instead 
of being steeped in an ordinary teapot, 
the mate is put in a small gourd having 
a hole at the top, the neck of the gourd 
forming a handle. Boiling water is 
poured over the mate, and the infusion 
is taken through a tube having a 
strainer at the end. The infusion is 
paler in color and more bitter in taste 
than ordinary tea. It may be flavored 
with milk and sugar, and served in or¬ 
dinary teacups, if desired, but that is 
not the Paraguayan mode. The gourd 
mate cups are often very ornamental, 
with silver decorations. Mate is con¬ 
tinually in evidence in Paraguay, and 
adjacent territory, being offered as an 
accompaniment of all social calls or 
business transactions. 
* 
During the Summer, we find the whole¬ 
some, nutty-flavored bread made from 
entire-wheat flour particularly accept¬ 
able. It is quite likely that the relish 
it gives is the result of a natural crav¬ 
ing for brain and muscle-producing food, 
for we are very likely to reject some of 
the more substantial dishes in warm 
weather, and the extreme enervation 
felt in Summer by young or weakly per¬ 
sons is often due, in some degree, to 
lack of nourishment. Entire-wheat 
bread, with good butter, fruit and milk 
is wholesome, nourishing, and accept¬ 
able. Entire-wheat rusks will also be 
found excellent to eat in milk, and we 
much prefer them to the highly-praised 
shredded-wheat biscuits, which always 
remind us of the criticism of one small 
girl, who complained that they were 
made out of string. These rusks are not 
sweetened, like buns; the following is 
a good recipe for them: 
Make a sponge of a quart of well- 
warmed and well-sifted flour, a cup of 
butter, a pint of milk scalded and cooled 
until lukewarm, half a teacup of home¬ 
made yeast and a teaspoonful of salt. 
After this sponge has been beaten and 
has risen over night—it should be as 
stiff as it can be beaten—add two well- 
beaten eggs. Let the mixture stand un¬ 
til it is very light; then roll it out to 
about an inch in thickness and cut it 
into round cakes. Place one cake on top 
of the other and let them rise half an 
hour, then bake them. Pull the cakes 
apart, so one side is soft, pile them 
loosely in a dripping pan and set them 
in the warming closet of the range or in 
the oven when tne fire is declining at 
night, and let them stay over night. 
The next day hang them in a loose bag 
of sheer cotton in a warm kitchen to 
cool. The third day they are ready to 
eat. They are excellent for young chil¬ 
dren, when soaked in milk. 
* 
The Saturday Evening Post says that 
Mrs. May Wright Sewell, the new Presi¬ 
dent of the International Council of 
Women, became generally known a few 
years ago through- her participation in 
the general federation of women’s clubs 
which resulted in the International 
Council. She has frequently represent¬ 
ed American women abroad, and has 
long been a prominent figure in the im¬ 
portant National Conventions. Mrs. 
Sewell is the head of a classical school 
for girls in Indianapolis. On one occa¬ 
sion she was instructing a class in 
physics. Force was the subject, and 
she made plain to the girls the difference 
between centrifugal and centripetal 
force. 
“Centrifugal,” said Mrs. Sewell, “is a 
force whose direction is from the center, 
and centripetal is a force whose direc¬ 
tion is toward the center. Do you all 
understand that?” 
The class chorused assent. 
“Now, will some girl give me an illus¬ 
tration?” continued Mrs. Sewell. 
“The domestic virtues are centrip¬ 
etal,” replied a small girl, “because 
they keep a man in the center of his 
home, and a centrifugal force is—is— 
well, a saloon is a centrifugal force.” 
¥ 
Many of our friends who do not care 
for ordinary novels, like good historical 
stories, which revive the past and hold 
one’s attention in a manner impossible 
to a dry historical treatise or text¬ 
book. American history has been re¬ 
garded by many as deficient in romantic 
interest, but of late years, there has been 
an uprising of the American sentiment 
in literature. Dr. Weir Mitchell’s Hugh 
Wynne was one of the most popular 
books of its season, and may be called 
the first to popularize the romance of the 
American Revolution. This Summer, 
a novel which has already reached its 
sixth edition is Richard Carvel, by Win¬ 
ston Churchill, a young man who had 
written one previous novel called The 
Celebrity. The most famous characters 
of Revolutionary times, both in Eng¬ 
land and America, appear in this book, 
and its point of view is very different 
from that of Hugh Wynne. Still an¬ 
other new Revolutionary story is Janice 
Meredith, by Paul Leicester Ford, one 
of the most charming books we have 
read lately. These three books present 
the period of the Revolution, its daily 
life and characterisucs, in most inter¬ 
esting style; they are delightful read¬ 
ing, and they wnl satisfy any reader 
that the American writer need not 
leave his own country to find plenty of 
material for historical romance. 
_Lightning caused the death of 367 
persons in the United States last year, 
and a property loss ot $1,441,880. Few 
of the deaths occcurred in cities. The 
annual number of thunderstorms at 
given localities in this country aver¬ 
ages between 35 and 45. The maximum 
is in the southeastern States. 
A German Kitchen. 
First, I saw that the walls were hung 
with copper vessels of all sorts and 
sizes, glittering l.ke ancient armor, says 
a writer in the American Kitchen Maga¬ 
zine. Then there were racks full of 
that clean, beautiful blue and white 
ware that charmed me wherever I met 
it, and which, from rolling pin to a 
spice jar, seemed to attract the worker 
and force a skill and a flavor else¬ 
where unfoun^. There were ranges and 
charcoal fires, and rows of long tables 
lining the room, where I saw vegetables 
dressed for the cooking processes, and 
meats being manipulated by the whitest 
of hands. It was these hands, and 
above all the intelligence that flashed 
from the faces of three of the workers 
that astonished me. Their caps and 
aprons, too, were of a different texture 
from that of the fourth maid, a stolid, 
heavy-featured young person. I noticed, 
too, that all these were under the direc¬ 
tion of the cuief cook, a huge woman 
with a sharp voice, but they moved in 
obedience to her slightest command, and 
whisked, this one the whites, that one 
the yolks, of me eggs until her word 
broke the spell. 
I was a little mystified, and when my 
visit was ended and I had thanked them 
for all their courtesy, receiving in re¬ 
turn kindly smiles, I determined to ask 
our host some questions. 
“Ah, well might you note the differ¬ 
ence in the maids,” ne said, “for one of 
those with the brignt eyes is the Grafin 
G., the blonde is a grand-daughter of 
Count L., and the third the child of one 
of our richest men.” 
“And how comes it that they serve 
in your kitchen?” 
He laughea. “I have a famous cook, 
famous alike for her ability to cook 
and for her outrageous temper; but for 
the latter, she would not be possible in 
so small an establishment. It is from 
her skill that I receive quite an income, 
as these ladies of quality pay consider¬ 
able sums in order to learn. They come 
for six months, every day—with certain 
exceptions—and while in the kitchen 
are simply the cook’s assistants. I 
have never known an instance of rebel¬ 
lion against her authority or a mention 
of actual rank. They begin by prepar¬ 
ing the vegetables; each one is respon¬ 
sible for the cleaning of her tools and 
table; ana they rise to the height of 
dessert-making ana simple confections. 
They also learn „o buy, and to choose 
cuts of meat. The proper knowledge of 
all these things, emphasized jy practice, 
is considered a most notable part of a 
young woman’s education. She goes 
into her husband’s house as fully 
equipped to carry on her side oi the es¬ 
tablishment as he does, and I venture 
to say mis is one reason why domes¬ 
tic disturbances in Germany are com¬ 
paratively rare.” 
Afterward I learned that among les¬ 
ser mortals there is a pretty custom 
of exchange. Mrs. A. sends a daughter 
to Frau B., and is wili.ng to receive one 
in return. These girls during the day 
follow precisely tlu work of ordinary 
maids. They are taught cleaning, 
sweeping, and serving, as well as cook¬ 
ing, and stay from six months to two 
years without other wages, than that in 
the evening they are dressed according 
to their real station and received into 
the family circle. None of these domes¬ 
tic students take meals with the ser¬ 
vants, but have a table alone. 
WALTHAM WATCHES 
The best and most reliable timekeepers 
made in this country or in any other. 
The “Riverside” movement is jeweled 
throughout with rubies and sapphires. 
For sale by all jewelers. 
