742 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
October 21 
Woman and Home § 
From Day to Day. 
THE OLD HOOKED RUGS. 
When Aunt Belindy got her frame and 
stretched some burlap In with tacks, 
And set two chairs exactly right and hung 
the frame across their backs. 
We children used to huddle ’round and 
watch the thing with all our eyes, 
And get in Aunt Belindy’s way and make 
her old-maid temper rise. 
But yet w r e braved her cuffs and threats 
and crowded up around her snug, 
Determined not to miss a move in starting 
in to hook that rug. 
I’ve seen a lightning artist paint and en¬ 
tertain a sidewalk mob, 
And people who are looking on can see he’s 
doing quite a job. 
But he can never hold my gaze as my old 
Aunt Belindy could 
When, taking from the ash-strewn hearth 
a piece of charred and blackened wood, 
She drew upon the burlap breadth designs 
as fast as we could look— 
Squee-jiggers, scrolls and twists and quirks 
—to show the figures she should hook. 
And when upon the virgin cloth the border 
slowly, slowly grew 
It seemed to our young, anxious gaze that 
such a task would ne’er be through, 
So many bits of rag and tag, so many hooks 
and pulls and snips, 
It seemed as vast and grand a task as 
building palaces and ships. 
And in our childish eyes, I fear, Creation’s 
self had not to lug 
The burden Aunt Belindy did when she 
commenced to hook a rug. 
And yet with things well under way, her 
temper softened and she took 
Our proffered aid, and when it came to 
“filling in” she let us hook. 
She let us pick the colors out and rum¬ 
mage through the bulging bags, 
And separate the woolen strips and snip 
and twist, the cotton rags; 
And when at last the frame was full and 
Pa with sheep shears clipped it snug, 
We shared in Aunt Belindy’s pride as un¬ 
derstudies on that rug. 
A score or more of years ago Belindy 
passed where rugs are not; 
I trust she walks on pearl and gold while 
mortals tread the rugs she wrought.. 
For she has earned eternal rest who 
worked so hard this side the tomb, 
Who put such patience in her tasks to 
cheer the old home’s dear fore-room. 
But when, my boy, we wander home, we 
weary worldlings curst by cares, 
And tiptoe to the dear old room and sit 
there in the horsehair chairs, 
Those dear old rugs bring only tears that 
drop upon them as we look— 
For, oh, that ragged rug of Life our hands 
since then have helped to hook! 
—Holman F. Day in Lewiston Journal. 
* 
The Atchison Globe says that, if a 
woman can bake good bread, she has as 
much right to the word artist as a wo¬ 
man who paints a bad sunset. Why not 
describe her as a scientist rather than 
an artist? The knowledge of chemis¬ 
try and physics which go into one loaf 
of perfect bread certainly entitle her to 
the distinction. 
* 
Longmont, Col., has inaugurated a 
new Autumn festival. October 5 was 
“Pumpkin day,” when every visitor was 
served with free pumpkin pie. The pies 
were made by the women of Longmont 
and its vicinity, and judging by the con¬ 
fidence shown in getting up the festival, 
they were good ones. A pumpkin pie 
festival sounds more suggestive of New 
England than of the golden West. 
* 
At the Washington Barracks, Wash¬ 
ington, D. C., the Government is now 
giving a course of instruction in cooking 
for the sick to men enlisted for service 
in the Hospital Corps. Men are now en¬ 
listed direct for the Hospital Corps; 
during the recent war ordinary volun¬ 
teers were picked out for this service. 
The teacher, Miss Stack, gives instruc¬ 
tion in preparing milk, cereals, broth, 
jellies, etc., and also in preparing the 
ordinary army rations for the use of the 
sick. Miss Stack teaches 10 different 
ways of preparing hardtack, and is giv¬ 
ing special attention to rice, which is 
sure to be the most available cereal in 
the Philippines. The War Department 
is so well pleased with the instruction 
given at Washington, that a similar 
army cooking school is to be opened at 
San Francisco. 
* 
A young woman called at one'of the 
New York hospitals, during the Dewey 
celebration, to receive treatment for a 
portrait of Admiral Dewey, which was 
stamped on her hand. A department 
store was operating a machine which 
stamped the Admiral’s portrait on hand¬ 
kerchiefs, and, in the rush, this young 
woman caught her hand in the machine, 
receiving the impression in her flesh in¬ 
stead of her handkerchief. The injury 
was not serious. 
* 
A friend who likes entire wheat 
bread asks how to make biscuits from 
the same flour. Our recipe is as follows: 
Sift together one quart of entire wheat 
flour, one teaspoonful salt, and two 
heaping teaspoonfuls baking powder. 
Rub in one tablespoonful lard or butter. 
Mix quickly with one cupful of cold 
water (or milk) to a soft dough. Roll 
out one inch thick, cut out and place in a 
greased biscuit pan. Bake in quick oven 
about 20 minutes. 
* 
The octopus does not look like a 
toothsome delicacy, but there are many 
places in Europe, Asia, and Africa 
where this ghastly bundle of tentacles 
is exposed for sale on the fish stalls, 
and the squid, used by Atlantic fisher¬ 
men for bait, is sold for food on the 
Gulf and Pacific coasts. When properly 
cooked, these creatures are said to be 
very gelatinous and agreeable in flavor, 
but we have serious doubts whether we 
should ever acquire sufficient courage to 
cook one. 
* 
A friend in Connecticut has this to 
say of the humble kerosene can as an 
aid in domestic medication: 
If you have a sore throat take a few 
drops of kerosene oil on sugar. Ugh? 
Well, the old kerosene can has a rather 
smutty look, and oil dropped out of the 
bottom of a lamp wick may have contract¬ 
ed some strange flavors. In that case get 
a nice bottle with a nice label and keep 
it on the medicine shelf. Kerosene doesn’t 
really taste as bad as half of the stuff from 
the apothecary’s shop. Pneumonia, in its 
early stages, cannot be better fought than 
with a cloth placed on the chest, front or 
back, the cloth having been well saturated 
with kerosene oil. 
It should be remembered, however, 
that if the kerosene be carelessly ap¬ 
plied, it may'remove the skin, and cause 
a serious sore. Last Spring, a case was 
reported where kerosene was applied ex¬ 
ternally to the throat and chest of a 
child suffering from diphtheria. The 
kerosene removed the skin in patches, 
and on this exposed surface diphtheria 
bacilli took immediate hold, causing a 
shocking form of the disease, which re¬ 
sulted in the death of the child. 
* 
Broiled duckling is seldom heard of, 
but it is more delicious than broiled 
chicken, when prepared as follows: 
Clean, split down the back, flatten, and 
rub with soft butter. Put in a dripping 
pan one cupful of hot water, to which is 
added a teaspoonful of salt, a table¬ 
spoonful of butter, and a teaspoonful of 
powdered sage. Epicures like the addi¬ 
tion of half a cupful of currant jelly, but 
every one does not care for this. Place 
the duck in a wire broiler, set the 
broiler over the dripping pan, and cook 
in a hot oven for 30 minutes, basting 
frequently with the pan liquor. When 
the fowl begins to be tender, finish by 
broiling over hot coals. Serve garnished 
with parsley and cubes of jelly. The 
basting liquid may be thickened for 
gravy if desired. Broiled duckling is 
dainty enough for any epicure, and not 
a bit too good for the farm where it is 
grown. Boiled celery or onions in white 
sauce are suitable for serving with it. 
* 
One unfeeling man asks what a wo¬ 
man accomplishes, in walking down the 
street, by clutching her dress skirt in 
the middle of the back, and holding it 
there, firmly, until she reaches home. 
It is evident that this critic never at¬ 
tempted to raise the sweeping dip of a 
sheath skirt, or he would know that the 
only way in which it may be done is by 
wrinkling the material around the hips 
in accordion folds, clutching the slack of 
it in the middle of the back, and then 
sailing along with the intense expres¬ 
sion of one who has just succeeded in 
routing a setting hen. 
Keeping House in Spain. 
A Spanish Laundry. —A writer in the 
American Kitchen Magazine says that 
in Spain the family washing is carried 
to the nearest convenient pond or 
brook; the laundress steps into the cold 
water and rubs the clothes on rough 
stones, using strong acids in place of 
soap. Sometimes the soil is rubbed off, 
sometimes the clothes are, and always 
the trimming disappears. Then the 
linen is hung upon brier bushes, for 
clothes-pins have not found their way 
to Spain, and a hillside is transformed 
into what seems to be a snow-landscape. 
A Meager Kitchen. —The kitchens 
are almost bare of utensils with which 
to cook. The long range, with its coal- 
bin built into one end, would seem to in¬ 
dicate that a great amount of cooking 
could be done, but the fire-box is small. 
Patent conveniences such as flour sift¬ 
ers, raisin-seederB, and measuring 
glasses have never been heard of in that 
leisurely land. Even rolling-pins and 
bread-boards are unknown, for the 
bread and pastry are furnished from, the 
bakery every morning. One pound of 
flour will last a family for weeks, as its 
only use in the household is to thicken 
gravies and sauces. 
Bakers’ Wares. —The bread, by the 
way, is close-grained, looking almost 
solid, but one soon acquires a taste for 
it. It is kneaded by being repeatedly 
thrown under a heavy, revolving wheel 
which presses it flat hundreds of times 
before it is taken up and moulded into 
loaves. A fire is made on the floor of 
the brick oven, from which, when it is 
well heated, all the coals are removed 
and the bread laid in its place on the 
oven floor. Even small villages furnish 
pastry-cooks and confectioners, whose 
windows set forth a countless variety of 
almond and cocoanut cakes, macaroons, 
tarts and buns. 
Meat and Eggs. —Almost all home- 
cooking is done on top of the stove. 
The flesh of cattle two years old, which 
is something between veal and beef, but 
tougher than either, is the commonest 
meat. This, rubbed with garlic, sea¬ 
soned with pepper, salt and saffron, and 
covered with lard, is put into a pan 
nearly full of water. Onion, tomato and 
lemon are added to give flavor to the 
sauce, and in this the meat stews on 
top of the range. 
The most distinctively Spanish dish, 
“berza,” appears as the first course of 
every dinner, and for the poor, com¬ 
prises the entire meal. It is made of 
corned beef, sausage and pork, boiled 
with peas, beans, cabbage and squash, 
or, indeed, any other vegetables in sea¬ 
son, and served all together in one dish. 
Eggs and omelets are much used, and 
they are fried in oil, as is everything 
else. The oil ordinarily used is rancid. 
Butter is almost unknown, and all dairy 
products are scarce, for little pasturage 
is to be found in the entire breadth of 
the country. 
The Value of Reserve. 
Said a woman once who had lived 
through years of varied experience 
which had ripened and sweetened her 
nature, “I have often been sorry for 
things which I have told; I have never 
repented for what I have kept to my¬ 
self.” 
That is a bit of experience which 
every woman with confidential inclina¬ 
tions would do well to take to herself, 
says Sallie Joy White in the Woman’s 
Home Companion. There are those who 
have a constant desire to pour out their 
souls to every one whom they meet. 
The most sacred things of life have for 
them no flavor until they have shared 
the knowledge of them with some one 
else; it does not seem to matter much 
who the other one is. Their minds are 
like a series of shallows prattling their 
ways along, making of every stone an 
excuse for louder babbling. There are 
no reserves in their natures. 
There is no use talking or thinking 
much about these persons except so far 
as they make you think of them by ob¬ 
truding some confidence upon you, of 
which you are usually the unwilling and 
unsympathetic recipient, because you 
know very well that you are selected 
purely on the grounds of propinquity. 
You happened to be about when there 
was something to tell, that was all; 
there was no compliment to you in the 
selection; had another chanced to be in 
the way just at the moment it would 
have been all the same. 
But the woman who knows how to 
keep silence has in her possession “the 
golden key that unlocks one of the doors 
to secret happiness.” It is hard some¬ 
times not to speak; there are times 
when it seems as though the heart 
would break unless it could share its joy 
or its sorrow with one who would give 
sympathy. But if the mood can be re¬ 
strained gladness can be assured to 
come afterward. Many persons know 
when to speak; few, even of the wisest, 
know when to say nothing. To be sure, 
these speak only to the friend whom 
they believe to be true and sympathetic, 
but even with the closest friend there 
should be reserves and a wise reticence. 
One should leave something for one’s 
self alone. There are thoughts and bits 
of personal experiences and preferences 
which are the sweeter and stronger for 
remaining unshared. 
Every one of us has moments of a 
temporary enlargement of the heart 
when alone with some cherished friend, 
and often at that time and in that con¬ 
dition we are so far left to ourselves as 
to breathe forth a confidence that in 
days to come—perhaps almost as soon 
as it is spoken—we would give much to 
have back again in our sole possession. 
We marvel at our own indiscretion and 
lack of wisdom, with a reactionary 
shrinking of the heart which is absolute 
physical pain. The saddest part of it is 
that even that experience does not al¬ 
ways prove the successful teacher, but 
we do the same thing over again until 
some day the bitter crop of our indis¬ 
creet sowing is fully reaped. 
Money 
to be Made 
Good pay for all you 
do, and perhaps five 
hundred ora thousand 
dollars extra at the 
end of the season. 
We want good, reli¬ 
able agents to secure 
subscriptions to 
The Ladies’ Home Journal 
AND 
The Saturday Evening Post 
distribute prospec¬ 
tuses, secure renewals, 
and generally look 
after our interests. 
The Curtis Publishing Company, Philadelphia 
