822 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
December'* 
l Woman and | 
| The Home. | 
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FROM DAY TO DAY. 
Glass dishes, either “ real ” cut glass 
or the pretty imitations which cost so 
little, often become dull and luster less, in 
spite of careful washings. Cut glass, 
after constant usage, is often repolished, 
but it is quite possible to give bril¬ 
liancy to these articles by cleansing 
them properly. First wash them care¬ 
fully in warm suds, with a cloth, follow¬ 
ing this with a little brush which will 
go deep into the depressions. When 
dipping the glass into the suds, don’t 
plump it in carelessly, thus inviting 
cracking, but slide in sideways. When 
the dish is washed, put it into a box of 
fine sawdust, kept for the purpose. 
When dry, shake out the sawdust, and 
polish with a soft cloth or chamois. The 
brilliancy thus gained is astonishing. 
Boxwood sawdust is what the jewelers 
use for drying ornaments of metal and 
precious stones, and it gives a high luster. 
* 
We overheard a sharp-faced young 
woman, who sat next to us in a business 
lunch-room, making a fretful complaint 
to the waitress because her coffee didn’t 
arrive quickly enough. After she was 
gone, another waitress made a slight 
comment, to which the berated one ob¬ 
served, philosophically, “Yes, most 
women jaws like that, if things ain’t 
just right. It was no fault of mine, but 
I’m used to their jawing. I’d rather wait 
on men, though.” The speech was not 
very flattering, neither is it, in all 
cases, true, but it is a fact that a great 
many women are addicted to querulous 
speeches, which do no good, and merely 
add to the sum total of human irrita¬ 
tion. If we are going to make any New 
Year’s resolutions, suppose we decide, 
now, whether we belong to those women 
who “ jaw,” as the waitress said, and if 
so, decide upon total abstinence from 
that habit in the future. 
* 
Housefurnishers show an increasing 
taste for deer heads, skins, and other 
trophies of the chase, as ornaments, in 
hall or dining-room. These have been 
freely used by fishing and hunting clubs 
for years past, but now there is an in¬ 
creasing taste for such decorations in 
the home. Such American trophies as 
Indian arms and war bonnets of feathers, 
or painted and beaded deerskins, are 
now being used by decorators, with 
fine effect. The beautiful Navajo blan¬ 
kets, which are certainly genuine Ameri¬ 
can products, have been used for por- 
ti6res and draperies, with rich effect, 
but they are very expensive in the East, 
and, we judge, not at all cheap even in 
the localities where they are made. In 
spite of admiration of the quaint draper¬ 
ies and pottery of the Orient, we have 
always thought that some of our native 
American manufactures gave material 
for fine decorative effects, and we are 
glad that they are gaining the admira¬ 
tion they deserve. 
ARMY COOKING. 
A Massachusetts woman, writing to 
the American Kitchen Magazine, ob¬ 
serves that, while investigations are 
going on and strenuous efforts are being 
made to fix the blame for the starvation 
and death of our soldier boys in Cuba, it 
is surprising that so little blame attaches 
to the army cooks, who spoiled good 
rations with bad cooking. In our Civil 
war, if we may believe the stories of the 
veterans, good cooking was the rule 
rather than the exception. Even in 
Libby prison and Andersonville, where 
the pinch of want was really felt, good 
cooking came to the rescue on more than 
one occasion, and one of the survivors 
tells of a marvelous mush, made of corn 
■teal and cow peas, that was so delicious 
that it consoled the men for the loss of 
Thanksgiving turkey. It fairly makes 
one’s mouth water to hear one of the 
G. A. R. veterans at a banquet or camp 
fire tell how a cup of coffee tasted in ’62. 
Good Java coffee, carefully roasted, and 
ground with the butt of the musket, 
was boiled in great kettles over the open 
fire, and when sweetened with brown 
sugar, and ladled out in pint tin cups,— 
clear as amber, fragrant as violets—was 
a beverage to make a man forget dis¬ 
comforts, and feel like giving thanks to 
God. 
When we read of the coffee which our 
boys drank in Cuba, and on board the 
transports—half roasted, half burned, 
altogether vile—we cannot wonder that 
some of them disgraced themselves and 
their regiment by their patronage of the 
army canteen. Ilowever, there was 
some good cooking done in Cuba, as is 
shown by the experience of a Worcester 
boy, a member of the Second Massa¬ 
chusetts regiment, who on the very same 
rations of which others so bitterly com¬ 
plained, managed to keep strong and 
well. He messed with five other men, 
each taking his turn with the cooking. 
But one of the men knew how to cook, 
and his rules were followed by all, so 
that little privation or real hardship was 
experienced by that tent’s company. 
Potatoes and onions were scarce, to be 
sure, but each man received one, two or 
three times a week. If these had been 
cooked whole and eaten, they would 
have failed of their highest usefulness, 
and would have been wholly inadequate. 
Instead our wise army cook adopted the 
motto, “ the greatest good to the great¬ 
est number,” and used the precious vege¬ 
tables in making soup. The onions, two 
or three of them, were carefully fried in 
bacon fat, a few sliced potatoes, and 
some broken-up hardtack added, with a 
little salt and pepper, and a liberal al¬ 
lowance of water, and lo, the result was 
a dish fit for a king. 
So with the baked beans. Those served 
by the army cooks were generally hard 
and indigestible, because they were 
rarely soaked before baking. Our Wor¬ 
cester boys saved up the beans given 
them until they had enough to fill a good- 
sized bean pot and, after soaking and 
parboiling them, placed them in the pot 
with a generous allowance of pork, and 
baked them under hot ashes, in a hole in 
the ground. Any one who has shared 
the hospitality of a logger’s camp, knows 
how delicious beans baked in this way 
taste, and will understand what the Wor¬ 
cester boy meant when he said on com¬ 
ing home, “ I can bake beans better than 
you can, mother.” 
But it is a fact that our boys of to-day 
cannot cook as the old-fashioned mother’s 
boy could in the Civil war 35 years ago. 
Is it not because, in the hurry and stress 
of school and business life, our boys are 
less in the kitchen, “ watching mother 
cook,” than in the old days; and may it 
not also in part be due to the fact that 
mother herself is not found in the kitchen 
as she was, even in our well-to-do fami¬ 
lies, 30 years ago ? 
MARTHA'S MANAGEMENT. 
The Chicago Record publishes a series 
of household articles under the above 
title, and a recent installment gives some 
excellent ideas in cleaning. The inquir¬ 
ing Laura asks how to keep her white 
paint clean, a very serious question in 
the western soft-eoal-burning towns. 
“ It is a good plan to have a small paper 
basin and a clean special soft cloth for 
wiping off the window sills every morn¬ 
ing,” replied Martha. “ If the paint has 
not become very dirty a piece of soft 
flannel dipped in the water, wrung quite 
dry and sprinkled with finely powdered 
French chalk, will be efficacious. It is 
not wise always to use soap, as it is apt 
to injure the paint if continually applied; 
but white soap may be desirable occasion¬ 
ally. To use soap successfully, wring a 
clean cheesecloth from warm water, rub 
the soap over it, rub it between the 
hands to make a lather and wipe gently 
over the paint, using a fresh portion of 
the cloth for each stroke; never rub to 
and fro, for that grinds the dirt into the 
woodwork. Some people use a table¬ 
spoonful of ammonia to one quart of 
moderately hot water, and apply it with 
a flannel, but it is apt to dull the paint, 
and I prefer doubling the quantity of 
water to the same amount of ammonia 
and using it with a little soap. To in¬ 
sure perfect success the water in the 
basin should be changed very often.” 
“ I suppose your remarks will apply to 
cleaning the paint throughout a room, 
as well as to window sills ? ” said Laura. 
“ Yes ; but it will expedite matters to 
take a pail instead of a basin.” 
“ How can I keep from rubbing the 
wallpaper when paint-washing ? ” 
“If your cloth is wrung dry enough 
and your hand is steady there need be 
no trouble of that kind ; in very partic¬ 
ular work you could hold a bit of paste¬ 
board against the wall to cover the paper 
with the left hand while you washed 
the adjoining paint with the right hand. 
If the cleaning cloth is too wet drops 
may flirt from it to the paper, or small 
trickles may run down the woodwork, 
which will be difficult to wash away.” 
“ Have you a recipe for making new 
oilcloth out of old ? ” 
“ I have not,” replied Martha, with a 
smile ; “ but I can suggest a way to keep 
oilcloth new. After washing it with 
weak sudsy water, and rinsing it, rub it 
all over with a cloth that has been dipped 
in milk.” 
“My marble table top has become 
quite stained. What can be done for it?” 
“ Mix powdered soapstone and benzine 
into a paste, spread it quite deeply over 
the marble and leave it over night, well- 
covered from the air. Next morning 
wash it off thoroughly with clear water, 
and if the stains have not disappeared 
repeat the performance. Whiting will 
do as well as soapstone to mix with the 
benzine.” 
“ If you have scratches on your furni¬ 
ture,” remarked Hepzibah, who had been 
unusually quiet, “ you can mix one cup¬ 
ful of spirits of turpentine and three 
cupfuls of linseed oil, and when well 
shaken apply it with a woolen cloth and 
rub it dry with another woolen cloth. I 
think you will find that the wood will 
be quite renovated and the scratches 
hidden.” 
“ Can you give me a simple floor pol¬ 
ish ? ” 
“ A very good one is made of turpen¬ 
tine and spermaceti — a pound and a 
half of the latter to each gallon of the 
former. After melting the spermaceti 
add, by degrees, the turpentine. It is 
most efficacious when applied warm to 
the floor after it has been very thor¬ 
oughly cleansed.” 
“ How often must it be used ? ” 
“ About once a month.” 
“ Do you remember that small oil 
painting that hangs on the left side of 
my piano ? It has grown very much 
soiled from the continued outpouring of 
furnace heat through the register. I 
have often wondered if I could clean it 
myself.” 
“ You might try rubbing sections of 
peeled raw potato over it(slightly moisten 
them with water first) until the surface 
begins to lather ; wipe it off with a soft 
wet sponge, and continue the treatment 
until the painting looks clean. Use 
more than one potato if necessary. Fin¬ 
ish by washing it off with tepid water 
and wipe it perfectly dry with a soft rag 
of silk. The frame may be freshened, 
after brushing it perfectly clean and free 
from dust with a soft brush, by applying 
a mixture of a half ounce of chloride of 
potassa and the white of one egg with 
another soft brush.” 
“ I shall not consider I have done my 
duty by you, Laura,” said Hepzibah, 
“ unless I tell you how to make soft soap 
and to wash feather pillows.” 
“ I shall attune mine ears,” said Laura. 
“ In the first place, the inner side of 
the ticking should be rubbed with bees¬ 
wax before the feathers are filled into it; 
this keeps the feathers from working 
through and saves much annoyance. 
Now, in the course of years the pillows 
will become soiled. I should fill a wash- 
tub with hot soapsuds and plunge a pil¬ 
low, just as it is, feathers and all, right 
into these suds ; shake it about in several 
waters and then hang it on the line in 
the yard in a shady spot, but where 
plenty of wind will blow on it. After 
shaking it up once in a while during the 
day it must be brought in before dusk 
and put out again on the morrow and, 
in fact, should air in this manner for a 
week. Feather pillows must never be 
put in the sun when they are aired, be¬ 
cause the heat will draw the oil and give 
them a disagreeable odor.” 
“ Why must I learn how to make soft 
soap ? ” murmured Laura. 
“ Because you will need it some day,” 
replied Hepzibah, sternly. “Get four 
pounds of tallow, a box of good lye, and 
for this quantity allow three pints of 
cold water. Let the tallow dissolve 
slowly in an iron pot; then remove it 
from the fire. Dissolve the lye in the 
cold water and add it to the tallow, 
which must be lukewarm, stirring it con¬ 
tinually until it becomes thick and white. 
Cover this closely with a heavy cloth 
until the next day, when it will have be¬ 
come hard. Cut it up quite fine and add 
hot water; stir incessantly until all is 
dissolved, then pour into a five-gallon 
crock and fill up with water to the brim. 
Now it may be reserved for future use. 
If you will take one quart of this soap, 
dissolve it with hot water, add a box of 
lye, and when that is dissolved add water 
enough to make four gallons, you will 
have a very fine soap for scrubbing. You 
must dilute it with boiling water and 
use it in place of hard soap.” 
* I! 
To Any 
College 
Without Cost 
A little book for young 
women and for young 
men; an explanation of 
the plan by which young 
men and girls may ob¬ 
tain college, university 
or conservatory training 
without its costing them 
a penny, and the stories 
or some of those who 
have already done so. 
Free to any address. 
Th« Curtis Publishing Company 
Philadelphia. Pa. • 
; { 
UNFADING COTTON DYES. 
Special Fast Diamond Dyes For Cotton That 
Will Not Wash Out in Soapsuds. 
It is absolutely impossible to get a fast and satis¬ 
factory color on cotton from the same dyes as are 
used for woolen goods, and for that reason Diamond 
Dyes have a specially prepared line of fast colois 
for cotton that will give perfect satisfaction. If you 
want to color cotton or mixed goods be sure to get 
the fast Diamond Dyes for cotton, as they will give 
colors that will not fade even by washing in strong 
soapsuds or exposure to sunlight If any dealer tries 
to sell you the same dye to color cotton as he would 
sell you for coloring wool, do not accept it, as such 
dyes are unreliable, and in the majority of cases 
will ruin the material on which they are used. 
There are some fifty different kinds of Diamond 
Dyes, so that you can get any color that you wish. 
By using them in different strengths any desired 
shade can be made, and all the fashionable colors are 
readily gotten with these dyes. 
To get a fast, rich, full black, use one of the Dia¬ 
mond Dye Fast Blacks. There are three different 
kinds, for wool, for cotton and mixed goods, and for 
silk and feathers. They color a rich, lull black that 
cannot be distinguished from new goods. 
Diamoud Dyes are prepared specially for home use, 
with very simple directions, so that it is but little 
trouble or work to use them, a direction book will 
be sent free to any address. Wisixs, Richakuson 
& Co., Burlington, Vt. 
