45o 
June 4, 
T1IE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
I Woman and Home \ 
From Day to Day. 
HOW AND WHY. 
Did .you tackle that trouble that came your 
way 
With a resolute heart and cheerful. 
Or hide your face from the light of day 
With a craven soul and fearful? 
Oh, a trouble’s a ton, or a trouble’s an ounce, 
Or a trouble is what you make it, 
And it Isn't the fact that you’re hurt that 
counts, 
But only how did you take it. 
You are beaten to eartb? Well, well, what's 
that? 
Come up with a smiling face. 
It's nothing against you to fall down flat, 
But to lie there—that’s disgrace. 
The harder you’re thrown, why, the higher 
you bounce; 
Be proud of your blackened eye! 
It isn't the fact that you’re licked that counts ; 
It’s how did you fight—and why. 
—Credit Lost. 
* 
Crumbs from shredded wheat biscuits 
should be ground in a food chopper and 
then stored away in a dry place for use in¬ 
stead of bread crumbs when frying fish or 
other food; they make a very appetizing 
brown covering. 
* 
One rooster presiding over a nearby 
poultry yard always makes a great fuss to 
attract the hens when offered food he does 
not care for. Apparently he tells them 
that even if not very appetizing, it is 
wholesome and nutritious, and he looks 
very benevolent while they eat it. If, 
however, lie finds any delicate tid-bit he 
gobbles it in a moment, without saying a 
word to his family. Honestly, doesn’t that 
rooster act “just like folks?” We always 
find generosity easy enough when it in¬ 
volves no element of self-sacrifice. 
* 
Here is Mrs. Lincoln’s recipe for honey 
gingerbread, given by the Home Science 
Magazine: Warm a generous half cup of 
butter and beat into it two cups of strained 
honey.. When you have a light cream 
beat in one tablespoon of powdered sugar, 
a tablespoon of ginger and one half tea¬ 
spoon of cinnamon. Add the beaten yolks 
of four eggs, and alternately with the 
frothed whites, three even cups of flour 
sifted twice with one teaspoon of baking 
powder. Beat hard for one minute and 
bake in buttered shallow pans for 45 min¬ 
utes. Keep covered for 30 minutes. 
* 
A new steam cooker, the O-hi-O, is 
made square, like an oven. It has shelves 
with doors opening at the side, so that 
one may look at any one thing while it is 
cooking without disturbing the others. 
There is a special appliance for retaining 
steam, and the steamer would only take 
one burner of a gas or oil stove. This 
would be a great convenience in Summer 
cooking, for one could cook a whole din¬ 
ner with one burner. These steamers cost 
from $2.80 to $6.80, according to size; the 
price is higher than for other kinds, but 
they certainly seem well worth it. 
* 
Oatmeal jelly will be an excellent 
warm-weather breakfast cereal which can 
be prepared the day before. Cook the oat¬ 
meal as for mush, using one-third more 
water. When done strain through a 
coarse sieve, pour into molds and set aside 
until cold. If preferred it can be served 
hot by placing the molds (teacups make 
nice molds) in a steamer over boiling 
water for 10 minutes. The jelly will keep 
its shape nicely. Serve with cream and 
sugar. The straining, removing all parti¬ 
cles, makes the oatmeal much easier of 
digestion, and it is enjoyed by children or 
invalids who cannot eat the ordinary 
cereals. In spite of its reputation as 
wholesome food, oatmeal, as ordinarily 
cooked, is not always found readily diges¬ 
tible, either by children or elderly persons, 
but one of the most frequent faults is lack 
of sufficient cooking. 
In buying dress shields, many women 
never stop to consider special needs; they 
always buy the same style, and, too, often, 
a size too small, which is poor economy. 
A shield should always be so large that 
the binding is well outside the line of per¬ 
spiration, and it should be sewn in care¬ 
fully, avoiding wrinkles or displacement. 
A great many special models are now 
made. What is called the high-point 
shield comes up very high in front, and is 
especially made for cases of excessive per¬ 
spiration. There are several shirtwaist 
shields made with little elastics to slip 
over the arm, so that they can be slipped 
on and held in place without being sewn 
into the waist. A little shield is made to 
be worn at the elbow, which is a necessity 
to some when tight sleeves are worn. A 
shield is also made to protect the corset 
under the ar m. 
A Busy Day at Lime Rock Farm. 
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling-a-ling! That means 
five o’clock and time to get up. With a 
sigh I slide out of my warm nest and 
begin dressing. Already the tramp of 
heavy shoes is heard, descending the back 
stairs. In 10 minutes I am in the kitchen 
and the fire is crackling in the stove. 
Then I open the door for a pail of fresh 
water. Whiz, whir, white-clad sentinels 
are on guard at that door. No foot may 
pass until the countersign, a basin of 
cracked corn, is given. I meditate rue¬ 
fully on the disadvantages of raising the 
Winter layers in a brooder close to the 
threshold, but with rats and crows in the 
ascendant, there seems to be no alterna¬ 
tive. By the time the preparations for 
breakfast are under way, a patter of bare 
feet tells that the children are up. “Early 
to bed and early to rise” is the rule at 
Lime Rock Farm, and the boys are always 
tucked away by 8 P. M. They hover 
about the stove, for the morning is chilly 
and a little rivalry has to be encouraged 
to set them scrambling into their clothes. 
Pudgy is 4)4 and the Little Corporal 
nearly seven. They are not perfect, 
though an old maids’ children, just sturdy, 
noisy, fun-loving boys, the wealth and 
pride of the place. I often think how des¬ 
perately poor we should be without them. 
How they stow away the oatmeal, por¬ 
ridge, ham, creamed potatoes, and grapes! 
No jaded appetites nor impaired diges¬ 
tions at Lime Rock Farm. 
After breakfast the hum of the separa¬ 
tor resounds through the house. Does it 
pay to have a separator when one has only 
the milk of two cows? In my case, yes. 
It is one of the things which has solved 
the hired girl problem for us. When 1 
came home after the sad blow which left 
the boys motherless, to fill as best I could 
the mother’s place in the household, my 
friends advised having an experienced 
helper in the kitchen. In 10 years of hos¬ 
pital nursing I had forgotten my early 
training as a housekeeper, and the care of 
Pudgy, then a tiny baby, took much of my 
time. I tried their plan, but had to give 
it up. The neighboring town offers 
strong inducements to all but the most 
inferior working girls, and these I will not 
have. We live simply, and the money we 
would expend for help goes for machinery 
and improvements to lighten the burden 
of household work. As it is Saturday, 
the next thing is the breadmaking. I use 
one of the quick, new ways which dis¬ 
penses with setting the sponge over night. 
After the mixing and kneading are done 
and the dough snugly tucked away under 
a warm cover by the stove, I air the bed 
rooms and carry the dishes into the 
kitchen to be washed. The dining room 
is brushed up and darkened, though the 
flies are not much in evidence these cool 
days, when proper precautions are taken. 
After the dishes, the cleaning. Satur¬ 
day’s share covers bathroom, pantry and 
kitchen. I try to have a place for every¬ 
thing and a day for special duties, as by 
so doing I can accomplish more and save 
friction in the domestic machinery. By 
9.30 the cleaning is finished and the bread 
is light as a puff. I mold it into loaves 
and by 10.30 it is ready for the oven. 
Then I do the upstairs work, and turn 
my attention to the dinner. I scrub and 
wash the potatoes which are to cook in 
their jackets. After the bread is in the 
oven, comes a lull, and I take advantage 
of it during the garden season to slip out 
among my flowers. “How do you find 
time for flowers along with all the work? 
is a question often put to me. I am 
tempted to make the answer that a neigh¬ 
bor did to her husband’s remonstrances 
for filling her windows with house plants: 
“If it’s to be just plain work. I’m going to 
quit.” My flowers are mostly hardy 
roses. They are heavily mulched and fer¬ 
tilized in the Fall, cut back in the Spring, 
and get an occasional spraying to keep 
down the insects. It is a poor day for 
roses when I cannot gather a nosegay for 
the table, or to send to a sick friend. The 
climbers shot out of all bounds last Fall, 
and Crimson Queen and the Yellow Ram¬ 
bler on either side of the front steps are 
sprawled ungracefully. I go for a ham¬ 
mer, nails and a pair of stout gloves and 
train and prune industriously for a quar¬ 
ter of an hour. Then 1 put the potatoes 
into boiling water and brown the bacon 
in the bottom of the kettle before turn¬ 
ing in peas with a very little water to 
cook. I fry the hominy, set the table and 
arrange the dessert, which, on the day 
reierred to, consisted of grapes, musk- 
melon and a pumpkin pie baked the day 
before. 
After the dinner work is over I hear the 
Corporal’s lessons, then lie down for halt 
an hour. In Winter I use this time for 
reading, but in the long, hot days a nap 
refreshes me for the work of the after¬ 
noon. At 3 P. M. the boys go with me to 
the garden. I will have all the fruit and 
vegetables we can use for the table if I 
have to help grow them. I find the work 
a pleasant change from the house and do 
not mind a little sunburn. I cleared the 
late growth of weeds out of the Rough 
Rider, strawberries while the boys manu¬ 
facture a jack o’ lantern of forbidding 
countenance. Then I loosened the soil 
carefully between the rows of onion sets 
with a narrow hoe. Those onions were 
our particular pride. They were sown 
July 20 after the early peas were taken 
off, and how they did grow! 
At five o’clock I start the fire to heat 
the water for baths, for it is “tub night” 
for everybody. As the men were anxious 
to secure a last load of buckwheat, after 
the early supper the boys and I bring the 
cows. The sun was setting as we reached 
the pasture gate, but the hilltops were all 
aglow, and the distant windows shone like 
burnished gold. A flock of meadow larks, 
the last birds t*o leave in the Fall, rise and 
circle about with their plaintive “peint, 
peint.” There are times when I experi¬ 
ence a pang of regret in thinking of a 
well-loved profession abandoned, but up 
here in the beauty and stillness, with a 
warm little hand tucked into each of mine, 
I have only a feeling of deep content as 
we follow the slowly moving cows home¬ 
ward. m. e. colegrove. 
Grange Notes, 
Now is the waking time for old Dame 
Nature, and though she is a bit lazy and 
inclined to put us off, the signs are un¬ 
mistakable. It seems as if some of the 
stirring impulses that form the environ¬ 
ment of the farmer just now were taking 
possession of him, too. Three new 
Granges with large charter membership 
have sprung into being within 15 miles 
radius of us. Already there are two in 
town, and we are keen rivals, too. 
We have a Ladies’ Degree Team now, 
and they conferred the third degree on a 
class of 16, April 8. Our deputy was 
very complimentary, saying he had never 
seen the work given in form more perfect, 
and doubted if it could be nearer per¬ 
fection. The decorations were simple 
and very effective. From a hook in the 
center of the ceiling coils of green and 
white crepe paper drooped to corners and 
side walls. The officers’ desks were 
wound with paper and flowers used were 
Daybreak carnations, green and white va¬ 
riegated geranium leaves, and a huge 
Begonia filled one corner, hiding the un¬ 
gainly safe. All the degree team wore 
white with green sashes and the geranium 
leaves in their hair. All the ladies who 
assisted in any way wore white. Two 
large American flags made a background 
for the goddesses. Fruit of crepe paper 
in a birch basket looked very handsome. 
The bill for regalia was less than $10, and 
included everything used for the two de¬ 
grees, third and fourth. The floor work 
is always left to the conductor, who in¬ 
vents as many pretty figures as space and 
time will allow. In our case everything 
was very simple and as precise as clock¬ 
work. We entertained 11 visiting Granges 
and. of the 197 members of own Grange 
there were 148 present. As I noticed the 
cordial greetings of Patrons who had met 
for the first time a warm feeling of fel¬ 
lowship stole into my heart. We are, in¬ 
deed, brothers and sisters. 
ADAH E. COLCORD. 
TIIE JUVENILES AT LIME ROCK FARM. Fig. 194. 
