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THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
November 19 
I Woman and ♦ 
| The Home, t 
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FROM DAY TO DAY. 
No use in mopin’ 
When skies ain’t bright; 
Keep on a-hopin’— 
It’ll soon be light! 
No use in grievin’ 
’Bout the milk you spill; 
Keep on believin’ 
That the cow’ll stand still! 
No use in rowin’ 
’Cos the crops is slow; 
Keep on a-plowin’ 
An’ they’re bound to grow! 
No use! the heaven 
Is above the skies; 
Putin the leaven 
An’ the bread will rise! 
—Atlanta Constitution. 
* 
England is now importing kangaroo 
tails from Australia. Epicures have dis¬ 
covered that the tail of this quaint mar¬ 
supial makes one of the richest and most 
delicious of soups, and caterers find 
that their customers fully appreciate 
the novelty. Australians consider that 
even the turtle must take second rank, 
when compared with the kangaroo, as a 
basis for soup. The tails are sent over 
in refrigerator chambers, together with 
rabbits and other Australian game. 
* 
In some of the New York department 
stores, a nursery is provided where 
babies may be checked, while their 
mothers do their shopping. Many of us 
will remember the nursery at the World’s 
Fair, where babies were checked and 
cared for by trained attendants, among 
the pleasantest surroundings. One of 
the Brooklyn churches has carried out 
this idea, a large room being fitted up 
with hammocks, cribs, toys, etc., and a 
volunteer corps of young women is on 
hand to care for the babies while their 
mothers, thus relieved of anxiety, at¬ 
tend service. The idea seems to take 
very well. One of the duties assumed 
by members of an Episcopal organiza¬ 
tion composed of young women is that 
of caring for invalids, young children 
and aged persons on Sunday, thus giv¬ 
ing an opportunity for church-going to 
the guardians or care-takers. Each in¬ 
dividual member is expected to take this 
duty, wherever it lies near her ; very 
often the beneficiaries do not know the 
influence which prompts these kindly 
deeds. Most of us find opportunity for 
such kindnesses; they are the small, 
unapplauded acts that mean so much in 
the world’s happiness. 
* 
The correspondents of one of the New 
York daily papers recently dropped poli¬ 
tics long enough to discuss the incom¬ 
parable richness and flavor of genuine 
New England apple sauce. One be¬ 
nighted person asked whether this lux¬ 
ury was made from dried apples, an im¬ 
putation indignantly denied. One cor¬ 
respondent gives this account of the 
process: 
The nicest and largest Pound or Pumpkin 
Sweets that grew on the farm were reserved for 
the apple sauce, which was made by the barrel 
and half barrel by our grandmothers in New 
England. Cider was made at the mill, of selected 
apples, brought into the Summer kitchen, where 
three brass kettles of graduated sizes were set in 
a brickwork adjoining the large chimney, where 
was, also, the brick oven. Over the mantel, 
finished in old-fashioned wainscoting, were the 
secret closets, one where the silver and money 
were kept, a secret spring opening a panel on 
each side of the chimney, the other for the family 
medicine—hot drops, composition, Lobelia, and 
ammonia for bee stings. 
The three kettles were filled with cider,, and 
fires were built under them. As the cider boiled 
away in the large kettle, it was filled from the 
next size and the second one from the smallest 
one, in order that there should be a continual 
boiling in the large kettle. It was boiled until it 
was as thick as molasses. The apples, pared 
and quartered, were added after having been 
heated through in one of the smaller kettles, and 
were added to the large kettle in quantities that 
would not stop the boiling, and carefully cooked 
until a rye straw could be inserted, yet each 
quarter of the apple remain whole. This was the 
critical time. To prevent scorching, a wooden 
spade-like spoon about 2*4 feet long was used to 
stir it carefully. Boys of to-day would use that 
spoon for a snow shovel. 
The color of this apple sauce was a dark red¬ 
dish brown. I have heard workmen on the farm 
call it “ biled cider apple sass,” and sometimes 
the boys of the family would call it the same, but 
would be corrected by grandmother. Apples 
were dried to be used in the Spring and early 
Summer, after the supply in the cellar was gone. 
* 
Many are the queer advertising schemes 
noted about New York. One day re¬ 
cently, we noted a group of odd figures 
standing in front of St. Paul’s church 
on Broadway, gazing at the 25-story St. 
Paul building opposite. There were six 
young women, all dressed alike, in chintz 
gowns of florid red and yellow, made 
with skimped skirts and waists, and leg- 
of-mutton sleeves. Each woman wore a 
big white poke bonnet, and carried an 
old-fashioned reticule over her arm. 
Reticule and bonnet bore, in red letters, 
an advertisement. Of course every one 
looked at the women, and doubtless, 
their employment would pay the adver¬ 
tiser. Several such schemes were em¬ 
ployed at the recent food show. Among 
others, we saw two young girls walking 
about, carrying a few school books and, 
in lieu of a school-bag, a flour sack, 
bearing the advertisement of a popular 
brand. The girls were nicely dressed, 
and did not suggest, by their appear¬ 
ance, any idea of an advertisement. One 
of the showiest of these living adver¬ 
tisements we have ever seen was in Chi¬ 
cago, where a horseman, with the armor 
and trappings of a medieval knight, car¬ 
ried a glittering banner devoted to the 
praise of some proprietary article. One 
could ignore an everyday “sandwich 
man”, but not this gorgeous mailed figure. 
MENDING THE ROCKING CHAIR. 
About every house, are rocking and 
other chairs that have given out at the 
joining of the seat and back. A break 
usually comes first at this point of great 
strain. An excellent way to mend such 
a chair is shown in Fig. 359. Mortise, 
or let in, the side piece its thickness 
into the seat, with a bevel joint at the 
other end, and use round-headed, blued 
screws at both ends. If the side piece 
be curved downward a trifle, it will look 
less stiff. D. 
HOME LIFE IN INDIA. 
An American medical missionary de¬ 
scribes life in India in the American 
Kitchen Magazine. She says : 
“Perpetual heat is our portion, the 
average heat in the house being 84 de¬ 
grees for the year, night and day. A drop 
to 72 degrees seems to some a rare treat, 
but it is likely to drive more speedily 
into shawls or jackets, and to make 
them wish for hot coffee rather than tea 
for the early morning meal. On the 
other hand, used as we are to heat, there 
are weeks when one finds difficulty in 
eating and breathing, and even at night, 
the heat is so intense and parching that 
it is almost impossible to sleep without 
punkahs. Dust storms and gales of hot 
wind sometimes descend upon us with 
such fury that every door and window 
must be tightly closed, and even then 
the sweeper has to brush out the whole 
house morning and evening. Nervous 
people find their nerves “so on edge” 
with the constant sighing of the wind, 
that they feel that they cannot possibly 
endure it a day longer. 
“At certain seasons, eye-flies are so 
persistent in their maddening devotion 
that not only are branches from green 
trees hung to catch them and strings 
suspended over the desks, but pieces of 
gauze have to be tied over the eyes be¬ 
fore one can read or write. Fleas, at 
certain months, seem colonizing, not in 
our rooms only, but with strong personal 
attachments to certain sensitive people. 
We go to our visits in the native houses, 
and wearied with hours of work, return 
to throw ourselves upon our beds, only 
to find that we have brought back a 
small regiment of vermin with us. Or 
just ready for church or calls, we are 
summoned to some serious call, and soil 
our shoes and white garments on the 
vile surface filth in the courts, and per¬ 
haps for the third or fourth time in the 
day, must change all our clothes and take 
another bath. 
“Within, what do we find? Creepy 
centipedes, it may be in our bathrooms, 
pretty, tiny lizards everywhere, and 
onans with long forked tongues behind 
our sofa pillows, white ants that crawl 
and eat and deprive us of everything 
which the beetles and crickets and silver 
puchies leave, save the hair on our heads. 
As to this last, there was a tradition 
dear to our hearts that one teacher put 
her school-girls to sleep upon corrugated 
roofing on bricks so that the ants should 
not eat the girls’ hair. After I came to 
this country, I interviewed the mission¬ 
ary, and to my grief, learned that the 
precaution was taken because of rats and 
not ants. 
“In the rainy season, cobwebs collect 
everywhere in a night, bats fly in our 
faces, all our black dresses mold, and 
books must be rubbed daily, while shoes 
must be wrapped in cloth and oiled silk, 
and gloves kept in tightly-sealed bottles. 
“The mosquitoes drive us to bed at 
untimely hours, and necessitate our 
wrapping our feet in shawls at prayer 
meetings ! Flying white ants drop their 
wings in our ears, hair and all cracks 
and crannies, and have such a magnetic 
drawing to soup that often in the rainy 
season they win the battle, and we leave 
them to take the dinner while we reflect 
on the feast which the small Hindus will 
have as they collect the delectable little 
bodies to fry for breakfast, or to eat sans 
ceremony if they are impatient little 
souls ! 
“ The cobra and his friend, the viper, 
contest sometimes our grounds with us, 
and have a predilection for kitchen steps, 
to the disapprobation of our bare-footed 
cook. Scorpions remain, but they do not 
trouble us much. We put our slippers 
set the foot of the bed inside the mos¬ 
quito curtain, and matches under our 
pillow. Thus we feel armed against 
attacks from below, if we are called, as 
we usually are, suddenly from our beds. 
It is well to shake all clothing before 
putting it on, and to be ready to dodge 
any concealed enemy. Yet these trifles 
do not move us, for in all probability, 
we will come to no harm through snakes, 
centipedes or scorpions. 
“ But how about eating and drinking? 
These seem more vital things. Can we 
regulate our kitchens ? Can we teach 
our cooks neatness ? Can we ? I don’t 
know ! Do we ? Hardly, yet I’m not 
sure that it’s the cook’s fault. The 
kitchen is away from the house, which 
boasts not even one chimney. For that 
matter, the kitchen itself has for a chim¬ 
ney simply a hole in the roof protected 
by a sort of storm shed. We do provide 
an American stove, shelves and tables, 
but in all probability, the cook will chop 
his vegetables and meat on a greasy, 
black board on the mud floor (which is 
hardened and kept free from vermin by 
being sprinkled with a watery infusion 
of bullock’s manure !) while he and his 
assistants and friends chew betel-leaf 
and sit with bare feet and legs on the 
floor about that dainty tray. 
“Chickens, perhaps, and probably a 
saucy crow and the servant’s children 
have, also, to be watched carefully lest 
they too often join the company. The 
grain for the ponies has to be fed to 
them under the mistress’s own eyes lest 
their out-caste keepers eat it all, and the 
cow (a poor creature, but still a cow, 
when she is not a buffalo cow !) has to 
be milked at the door lest the high-caste 
custodian dilute the fluid which we 
rather honor by calling milk, with any 
water which comes to hand—though it 
may be from the roadside ditch.” 
MODEL CHILDREN. 
A writer in Trained Motherhood, com¬ 
menting upon those children regarded 
by adults as models, remarks that good 
children are not popular with their con¬ 
temporaries, and the more thoroughly 
this is impressed upon parents in gen¬ 
eral, the better for all concerned. Let 
all of us, grown-ups, married or single, 
set our memories to work, and there are 
few among us who will not recall the 
fact that the boy or girl to whom, in 
childhood, we had the greatest antipa¬ 
thy, was the boy or girl brought up 
to us constantly as a model of something 
or other—it may have been good be¬ 
havior; it may have been progress at 
school, it may have been anything else 
that was considered desirable. That 
comparisons are odious is true at all 
times, but they are never more odious 
than when flung at young heads that, in 
most cases, are not so heedless as older 
heads are likely to consider them. 
“ Mary T. and I are very good friends 
now,” observed a middle-aged woman, 
speaking of a neighbor; “ but there was 
one time in my life that I hated the very 
sound of her name ; that was when we 
went to Sunday-school together, and I 
was dosed every Sunday with her good 
behavior in class.” 
“ I was dosed with her, too,” sighed 
another woman, “and I haven’t quite got 
over it yet. In my case, it was her pro¬ 
ficiency in geography. She could bound 
every State in the Union, so mamma was 
given to telling me, whenever I came to 
grief over ‘ questions on the map.’ I 
wished then, and wish now, that her 
mamma had been good enough to keep 
that fact to herself.” 
Few of us are possessed, at any time 
of life, with the serene philosophy of 
the little four-year-old who, being told 
by her mother of the superiority of one 
of her playmates, replied nonchalantly: 
“ Oh, but mamma, she is a good little 
girl.” 
| Agents 
1 Wanted 
We want an Agent in every 
town to secure subscribers to 
The Ladies’ Home Journal, 
to look after renewals and 
distribute advertising matter. 
We offer profitable employ¬ 
ment for the Winter, also 
special rewards for good work. 
|iooo will be given to the 
Agent sending the largest list 
up to April 15 next; $500 to 
the next best worker, and so 
on—distributing $ 11,500 
among 500 best Agents the 
coming season. Good pay is 
assured every Agent whether 
he or she secures one of the 
extra awards or not 
The Curtis Publishing Company 
| Philadelphia, Pa. 
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