758 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
November”.*) 
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ 
| Woman and | 
I The Home. ♦ 
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ 
FROM DAY TO DAY. 
Yet in herself she dwelleth not, 
Although no home were half so fair, 
No simplest duty is forgot, 
Life hath no dim and lowly spot 
That doth not in her sunshine share. 
She doeth little kindnesses 
Which most leave undone, or despise; 
For naught that sets one heart at ease, 
And giveth happiness or peace 
Is low esteemed in her eyes. — Lowell. 
* 
One of the new colors with which some 
shops are now filled is automobile red. 
Automobile, it may be remarked, is the 
French name for horseless vehicles. The 
new red is not really a red, but a bril¬ 
liant Dahlia crimson. It will, doubtless, 
supplant the cerise and geranium shades 
so long popular, and will be very hand¬ 
some in millinery trimmings. A little 
turban of automobile velvet and broad¬ 
cloth, trimmed with sable and pheasant’s 
plumage, made a delightful suggestion 
for Winter. 
* 
Among labor-saving ideas for the 
kitchen, is the use of a zinc-topped ta¬ 
ble. This is kept clean with much less 
labor than a wooden top. When hot 
grease is spilled upon a wooden table or 
floor, it is a good plan to pour cold water 
upon it immediately. This hardens the 
fat before it has had time to sink far 
into the wood, and it may be scraped up 
with a knife. All wooden kitchen uten¬ 
sils need frequent scalding, after which 
they should be dried in the open air. If 
carelessly treated, they are liable to be¬ 
come greasy and rancid. 
* 
A flat paint-brush should be included 
among the home baker’s conveniences. 
It is to be used for brushing egg or milk 
over the tops of rolls, buns or piecrust. 
It must be carefully washed and dried 
after each using, before it is put away. 
It is also wise to have several small scrub 
brushes for use about the sink, as well 
as one whisk broom. One brush should 
be kept exclusively for cleaning vegeta¬ 
bles. The sink brush should never be 
used for any other than its rightful pur¬ 
pose. The brushes should be placed 
where they can dry out properly, and 
washed once a week in hot water and 
washing soda. 
* 
A local souvenir, which proved very 
salable at a church fair last Christmas, 
was a calendar, having a page for each 
month decorated with some scene of in¬ 
terest in the vicinity. The pictures 
were half-tone engravings from photo¬ 
graphs, the calendars being made by a 
printer whose specialty was such work. 
They were not expensive, and sold rap¬ 
idly, many people buying them for dis¬ 
tant friends. Any picturesque neigh¬ 
borhood gives the opportunity for sou¬ 
venirs of this class. It will, also, be 
found that a set of neatly-mounted pho¬ 
tographs, which may be good amateur 
work, giving pictures of local celebri¬ 
ties and scenes, will sell well, as a rule. 
* 
Most housekeepers now use porcelain- 
lined preserving kettles, but there are 
still some who cling to brass utensils, 
and they are certainly durable. The 
Chief Cook serves preserves cooked 
in a kettle which has seen 40 
years of family service, and is still 
as good as new. The only danger 
in the use of brass or copper vessels is 
the uncleanliness of slatternly cooks. 
For cleaning such vessels, salt and vin¬ 
egar are excellent materials, followed 
by copious rinsings. A mixture of am¬ 
monia and whiting is excellent to re¬ 
move stains from brass, and may be fol¬ 
lowed by dry whiting to give polish. 
Another mixture used for cleaning brass 
is oxalic acid and rotten stone, of each 
four drams, with four ounces of water. 
Whiting mixed with water, rubbed off 
with a dry flannel, will give polish. 
* 
Tiie health department of Buffalo, N. 
Y., has interdicted the use of the long 
rubber tube on infants’ nursing bottles, 
and in consequence of this action, a suit 
is now pending to test its validity. The 
health department has prepared for such 
litigation by a long series of chemical, 
microscopical, and bacteriological in¬ 
vestigations. Any nursing bottle be¬ 
comes a source of danger when carelessly 
managed, but there is no question that 
the maximum of danger to health is at¬ 
tained by the use of the long tube. Bottle 
babies used to be a rare and much-pitied 
exception, but it is amazing to see what 
trivial excuses are now used to shirk the 
m )ther’s duty. It is often the case that 
a bottle baby continues to use the bottle 
long after it should be weaned, if natur¬ 
ally nursed. The familiar bottle is in¬ 
sisted upon, every time the baby takes a 
nap, or is put to bed. This habit, per¬ 
mitted to save trouble, is a serious mis¬ 
take, resulting in ultimate injury to the 
child. 
MOSQUITOES IN FLORIDA. 
A writer in Harper’s Bazar gives im¬ 
pressions of Florida mosquitoes which 
pale the record of New Jersey’s pests. 
Says she : 
“ I shall never forget the feeling I had 
when one of my neighbors said, at the 
beginning of the season, ‘ Oh, well, there 
are not many days when you cannot 
drive into town in the middle of the day 
for the mail.’ I did not understand her, 
or scarcely believe her, but I do now. I 
also know of several other families who 
have regularly prepared for the mosquito 
season by laying in a stock of sewing and 
reading, and who announced, when the 
season began, that they did not intend 
to go out or to receive until it was over ; 
so that practically all social life is at a 
standstill, invitations usually ending 
with, ‘ weather and mosquitoes permit¬ 
ting.’ The moonlight nights in this little 
corner of the earth are glorious, but we 
have been able to enjoy them only from 
our front piazza steps once in nearly two 
months, and then only for a brief half 
hour, while a strong sea breeze swept in 
over the bay ; at the same time, friends 
living a mile away have sat out on their 
piazza ‘ every evening for a while.’ 
“ I am writing of life on the east coast 
of Florida, more than 30C miles south of 
St. Augustine, and of a part of the coun¬ 
try that, in spite of mosquitoes, has a 
wonderful future before it, and is already 
the great truck-garden section of the 
State for early vegetables and tropical 
fruits, as well as a most delightful Winter 
resort and fishing and hunting country. 
“Sitting now at my front door, be¬ 
hind a screen of the finest wire-work, I 
can look out on to one of the most beau¬ 
tiful of landscapes, the blue waters of 
the bay rippling in the sunshine, the 
long leaves or branches of the cocoanut 
trees bending and swaying with a pleas¬ 
ant rustling, while the crimson blossoms 
of the Hibiscus bushes are nodding good- 
naturedly over the gray stones of the 
wall at the mocking bird playing hide- 
and-seek among the ginger plants. J ust 
beyond the wall, on the path leading up 
from the water, and bordered on both 
sides by banana trees, there comes a 
man, who has just landed at the wharf 
with a string of sea trout for me; he 
wears a frame over his head covered with 
mosquito netting, and, as they say here, 
is ‘ batting himself ’ with a green branch 
that I saw him break from my favorite 
guava tree. Of course, I shall buy the 
fish, which will cost a mere trifle, but it 
will take at least 10 minutes to clear 
the kitchen of mosquitoes that will come 
in with the sea beauties ; for, as my fish¬ 
erman says, ‘ they are very bad this 
morning.’ 
“If he were a visitor, he would have 
to brush or be brushed off before he 
could enter, with the palmetto brush 
that takes the place of the front-door 
bell during mosquito time; for the 
brushing operation is a noisy one. All 
out-of-door work must be attended to in 
the middle of the day, when the mosqui¬ 
toes are less troublesome.” 
CONVENIENCE IN HOUSE-BUILDING. 
Table Talk suggests the following 
ideas in house-building, which would 
add much to the convenience of any 
housekeeper: 
A Summer kitchen, even if it is only a 
back shed, will help keep the house warm 
in Winter and cool in Summer. 
A kitchen storeroom where the sup¬ 
plies can be kept will save the women 
time and trouble of goingdown cellar or 
up attic, and will be a daily blessing in 
most families. 
The bathroom should be accessible 
without having to pass through any 
other room. 
If the floors are not of hard wood, it 
will be handy if at least one dimension 
of each room is an even number of carpet 
widths. Carpet comes either three-quart¬ 
ers (27 inches) or yard (36 inches) wide, 
and rooms can generally be multiples of 
at least one of these dimensions. A room 
that is just four inches over an even 
number of carpet widths is an expensive 
nuisance. 
A square kitchen seems the handiest to 
the housewife. 
The dining-room should be consider¬ 
ably longer than it is wide. In other 
words, if you have to skimp on the size 
of your dining-room it is better to shave 
off the width of it and arrange for room 
lengthwise. The room must be wide 
enough for a four-foot table, and guests 
on each side, and passageway behind the 
guests ; that is a fixed width, no matter 
how many are sitting down to the table ; 
but the table has to be lengthened to 
accommodate more guests, and there 
should be lengthwise room. 
The parlor may be more nearly square 
than the dining-room. It should, if pos¬ 
sible, be so planned as to leave room for 
a piano against an inside wall. A piano 
placed against an outside wall gets out 
of tune and changes with the outside tem¬ 
perature. 
Set it down that winding stairs are an 
expensive, inconvenient, dangerous and 
inartistic arrangement. Straight flights 
are equally dangerous and more inartis¬ 
tic. Flights with right-angled turns at 
landing ways give a fine effect, and do not 
trip one up, and children cannot fall far 
when they start from the top. 
CHEESE CURDS. 
My aunt was visiting me in the old 
house where she spent her childhood. 
One day she was telling me how things 
used to be arranged. “ The cheese press 
stood here,” she said, “and the third 
shelf behind the door in the pantry is 
where we used to keep the cheeses.” 
Then she described the process of cheese 
making, and told how her mother would 
let the children eat some of the sweet 
curd. “ I have been longing for some 
curds for 25 years,” she ended, “ but 
I don’t know of any one who makes 
cheese now.” 
I thought of a little wooden box of 
rennet or “ junket ” tablets in the pantry, 
and determined that my aunt should 
have her longing satisfied before another 
day went by. I heated a quart of milk 
till it was blood warm, then dissolved 
one of the tablets in a little water, and 
stirred it into the milk. When the milk 
was well set, I stirred it again, and let 
it stand a few minutes so that the whey 
and curd would separate. Then I poured 
it all into a sieve and let it drain for 
some time. 
For a press, I took my round potato- 
masher, or squash-strainer. I laid a piece 
of cheese-cloth in it, put the curd in, 
sprinkling salt over each layer as it went 
in, then laid the edges of the cheese¬ 
cloth over the top, and pressed the 
plunger or follower down. It was more 
than full at first, but the curd soon 
settled. I tied a string through the 
handles, which were some distance apart, 
and hung the whole over the sink to 
drain. 
When it was taken from the press an 
hour or so later, the curd was firm and 
dry. I presented my aunt with a piece, 
and she tasted it critically. “ Yes,” she 
said, in answer to my question, “ it tastes 
just as it used to, and it squeaks, too.” 
The rest of the family declared warmly 
in its favor, and those who did not like 
sour-milk or Dutch cheese, pronounced 
this sweet kind delicious. 
In very many cases of sickness, the 
doctors, nowadays, prescribe a milk diet. 
Some people dislike milk, especially 
when they are not feeling well; but if 
the milk is given hot, it is sometimes 
relished. It should be as hot as it can 
be taken, not boiled, and perhaps slightly 
salted. Another way to serve milk is in 
“junket” so called, that is, milk sweet¬ 
ened and then thickened with either 
liquid rennet or rennet tablets. This is 
very delicate and easily digested. 
s. B. ROBBINS. 
KITCHEN HINTS. 
Nutmegs should be grated blossom end 
first. 
Melted butter will not make good 
cake. 
Good management is better than a 
good income. 
The colder eggs are, the quicker they 
become stiff. 
Powdered charcoal, mixed with boil¬ 
ing water, is a good disinfectant to pour 
down drain pipes. 
Cooked cheese is more easily digested 
than raw. A pinch of cooking soda in a 
cheese dish will aid digestion. 
For good pastry, have everything very 
cold. This is also true regarding every¬ 
thing which has baking powder in it. 
Use plenty of apples—baked, stewed, 
raw—but do not kill them with sugar, 
and your complexion will take care of 
itself. 
Tomatoes are very good for the liver. 
They are better without sugar, and 
cooked a long time. They are excellent 
to clear the complexion. 
If you are afraid of the color of calicoes 
fading, put one teaspoonful of sugar of 
lead or beef’s gall into a pailful of water 
(cold) and soak them 15 minutes before 
washing. 
Soap and chalk, mixed and rubbed on 
mildewed spots, will remove them if they 
are not bad. Mildew is a vegetable 
growth, and if it has grown too long on 
the fabric, cannot be removed. 
Oil stains may be removed from wall¬ 
paper by applying powdered pipe-clay 
mixed with water to the thickness of 
cream, and allowing it to remain on 
about four or five hours. 
All cock's 
Porous Pjlasters 
are the best plasters made. 
The Arabs say that the best 
Teacher is Time. That is true, 
especially when year after 
year enforces the same lesson. 
For more than 40 years All¬ 
cock’s Porous Plaster has 
been in use in every part of the 
world, and the testimony is 
universal as to its superior 
value. 
Your druggist may have 
some other plaster on hand 
which he is anxious to dispose 
of, or some worthless imitation 
purchased at a low price for 
the purpose of substitution. 
Do not be deceived; insist 
upon having Allcock’s. 
