March 5 
!9B THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
^ y p-yjr'^ yp <y> f^'T * 
[ Woman and Home \ 
From Day to Day. 
GRINDSTONE OF FATE. 
One day when, I, a boy, bewailed the 
wealth to me denied, 
I recollect my Uncle Hiram taking me 
aside 
To chide me for my petulance and whisper 
in my ear 
A bit of homespun logic and some facts 
designed to cheer. 
"My boy,” he said, “in after years you'll 
recognize that strife, 
Unceasing toil and poverty equip one best 
for life; 
For men, like tools, don’t get an edge or. 
things as smooth as wax. 
It's just the grindstone’s roughness, lad, 
that sharpens up the ax. 
"’Twas Lincoln’s task of splitting rails, 
his buffeting by fate 
In early life that made him fit to steer the 
ship of state. 
A towpath life proved Garfield’s steel, a 
tanyard’s pleasure scant 
And weary round of work brought out the 
best there was in Grant. 
Is each had held within his mouth, when 
born, a silver spoon, 
And had not been so ground by fate the 
whole of life’s forenoon, 
Their brains that keenness would have 
lacked to probe prosaic facts— 
It’s just the grindstone’s roughness, lad, 
that sharpens up the ax. 
"If things went always smooth with you,” 
my Uncle Hiram vowed, 
“You’d go through life unknown and un¬ 
distinguished from the crowd. 
More apt than not, while rasping want and 
grinding work, I’ve found. 
Will sEar'pen wits that steps may cleave 
to fortune's higher ground. 
The wearing stones of fate that seem your 
progress to retard 
You’ll some day bless and thank the world 
for bearing down so hard. 
The grit that puts an edge on is just what 
success exacts— 
It’s just the grindstone’s roughness, lad, 
that sharpens up the ax!” 
—Success. 
* 
Linen nub crash is the materia] used 
for some smart new wash stocks, the 
goods being flecked or "nubbed” with 
white. These stocks have tabs crossed 
like an Ascot in front, finished at the 
end with a linen ornament and a cluster 
of tassels. These tassels and ornaments 
are of a contrasting color, red on white, 
blue on green, tan on green. 
* 
A nice fruit butter that will give va¬ 
riety at this season, can be made by 
combining dried apricots with apples. 
The apricots should be soaked over 
night_and then cooked until tender be¬ 
fore the apples, peeled and sliced, are 
added. The sugar is added after the 
fruits have cooked smooth. The pro¬ 
portion of apricots used is merely a mat¬ 
ter of taste. This is a good way to make 
use of apples that are beginning to 
speck. 
* 
Cotton at 18 cents a pound sounds 
like a very high price, but we recently 
saw beautiful cotton dress goods whose 
raw material cost 80 cents a pound, ac¬ 
cording to those selling it. The staple 
is said to grow on an island near Cuba, 
and possesses extraordinary strength 
and luster. The material made from it 
looked like silk with a crape finish, and 
showed a great variety of delicate col¬ 
ors; it cost 37% cents to $1 a yard. 
* 
With all the improvements in modern 
manufactures, there is one process at 
least in which we must recognize the 
superiority of our ancestors, and that is 
the bleaching of linen. Modern hurry- 
up methods of chemical bleaching give 
a beautifully white fabric, but not one 
that wears. Many a woman who buys 
table linen for family use sighs for the 
old-style fabrics that descended from 
one generation to another. It is in 
recognition of this that some of the 
more expensive linens offered by good 
shops are specially advertised as “old 
bleach” linen; that is, a fabric whitened 
by sunlight and shower out on the green 
turf. Huckaback toweling of old-bleach 
linen begins at 35 cents a yard, going up 
to $1.10; hemmed towels of the same 
cost 25 cents each; hemstitched, 50 cents 
to $1.75. Hemstitched old-bleach towels 
with border of hand-drawn work cost 
from $1.75 to $5.25 each; old-bleach bed 
sets, consisting of sheets, pillow cases 
and bolster case, with hand-drawn work 
and hemstitching, cost $31 to $40 a set. 
The old bleach table linens are propor¬ 
tionately expensive. 
* 
The higher education does not always 
imply domestic ability, as displayed by 
an incident recorded in the Youth’s 
Companion: In a coeducational college 
near Chicago the senior class recently 
decided to give an old-fashioned “soci¬ 
able” for which the girls of the class 
should provide the supper. To two of 
them was assigned the task of bringing 
doughnuts of their own manufacture. 
For several days they went about with 
puckered foreheads, evidently wrestling 
with some mighty problem. Their study, 
which had been a haven of peace, re¬ 
sounded through long evenings with ar¬ 
gument and expostulation. At last, 
when their relations were somewhat 
strained; they applied to a court of ar¬ 
bitration to settle their differences. Mrs. 
Smith, wife of one of the professors, 
was taken into their confidence. 
“Mrs. Smith,” begged one of them, 
"won’t you settle a dispute for us? It’s 
about doughnuts, and 1 can’t convince 
Anna that I’m right. She thinks they 
ought to be fried in milk!” 
“And what would you do with them?” 
"Why, I know just what to do. I’ve 
been in the kitchen and seen Imogene 
cook them. You fry them in water, of 
course, in a whole kettleful.” 
* 
One of our friends, describing a 
Grange meeting, says of the audience: 
"No one face but what bore witness to 
an inward contentment, that can make 
a positively plain person good to look 
upon.” Walking through a crowd in the 
city recently, one of our friends exclaim¬ 
ed: "Oh dear, why are all these people 
so objectionably homely?” Analyzing 
their faces, we decided that their appar¬ 
ent ill looks w r ere really the result of ex¬ 
pression rather than features; they w T ere 
all either vacant, or discontented faces. 
Outward appearance did not show one 
happy or contented face among them. It 
was not the “divine discontent” that 
leads to nobler things, but the petty ill- 
nature, the “fretchedness,” as old-coun¬ 
try people express it, that adds so much 
to the discomfort of life. What a sad 
thing it is to give so large a part of one’s 
life to “envy, hatred and malice, and all 
uncharitableness,” that the features are 
permanently molded to their expression': 
Even where there is no active indul¬ 
gence in ill temper, how often we meet 
good and worthy people whose voice and 
expression are so dolorous that all their 
good qualities are obscured by it. It is 
very easy to put oneself into this atti¬ 
tude; prosperity seems more disastrous 
to some characters than adversity to 
others. Anyone can find excuse enough 
for sadness in this workaday world; why 
not use equal energy in searching for 
gladness that may be passed along to 
others? What a world of admonition 
there is in the epitaph over the grave of 
an old New England woman, herself un¬ 
known, save as thus recorded: “She 
was so pleasant.” 
Two Connecticut Recipes. 
Corn Chowder.—Pare and slice thin 
onions enough to make a pint; boil one 
hour; to this add one-half pint potatoes 
cut small, boil 10 minutes longer. Fry 
brown a slice of fat salt pork cut small 
and add fat and all, then a pint of ten¬ 
der sweet corn (canned corn is all 
right). Boil 10 minutes longer; the 
whole of this now should be two quarts 
or more; this is the best time to salt 
and pepper to taste. Add one pint of 
milk and a cupful of cream or a piece 
of butter as large as an egg if cream is 
not plentiful. Do not let cream boil; 
serve very hot. This makes a nice Win¬ 
ter supper dish. 
Buckwheat flour makes nice griddle 
cakes made the same as with white 
flour, only make the batter a little 
thicker. For a pint of buckwheat flour 
add two tablespoonfuls of white flour. 
I use a teaspoonful of molasses, which 
helps make them a good brown. I have 
found a rule for soda which after much 
practice I think reliable. Use a small 
teaspoonful of soda to a pint of sour 
milk or buttermilk, and if it foams at 
once add milk. If it does not foam in 
one minute add soda. With a little 
practice I am sure even a young cook 
will find this reliable. o. e. b. 
For Breakfast 
Luncheon 
or Tea 
A few small biscuits easily made with 
Royal Baking Powder. Make them 
small—as small round as a napkin ring. 
Mix and bake just before the meal. 
Serve hot. 
Nothing better for a light dessert 
than these little hot biscuits with butter 
and honey, marmalade or jam. 
You must use Royal Baking Powder 
to get them right. 
ROYAL BAKING POWDER CO., NEW YORK. 
Good lamp-chimneys 
one make 
my name on ’em all. 
Macbeth. 
How to take care of lamps, including the 
getting of right-shape chimneys, is in my 
Index; sent free. 
Macbeth, Pittsburgh. 
AN EASY MARK 
FOR THE 
STEVENS 
Spring days here, and we feel 
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out of doors.” 
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no Main Street 
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nn oil r—Fine Country Homo or Florist’s and 
Un OnLL Market Gardener's place of 10 acres, 
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rice and right. M. T. WILLIS, Box 130, Sandy 
rui wnchincrton County, N. Y. 
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