1901 , 
rilE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
683 
A Housework Girl. 
“Folks are dreadful pi*ovoiiing some¬ 
times, but I don’t know wnen I ever was 
so discouraged about anybody as I was 
when Cousin Cynthia Mason’s daughter 
Ella come to stay with me a spell. Your 
speaking of your girl not liking to do 
housework, Miss Drake, makes me 
of it. 
“When Cynthia died, it left Ella 
pretty much alone in the woria, but she 
had lots of friends in the city and 1 
knew she’d had advantages, so I thought 
of course she’d get along as nice as 
could be. 
“Well, it went on for a year or so, and 
then one day I got a letter from her say¬ 
ing she’d like to come and stay with 
me for awhile. She said that everything 
was so crowded in the city there wasn’t 
no chance for a girl, but she thought 
she might do something in a country 
town. 1 told her to come along and I’d 
do the best I could for her. 
“Well, she hadn’t been with me 24 
hours before 1 see what was the matter 
with her. She was a pretty girl and had 
nice manners. She had a pleasant voice 
and had took lessons, and could sing, 
and play on the piano considerable. 
She had gone to a business college for 
one term and knew a little about book¬ 
keeping. She could draw and paint 
quite nice, and when her mother died 
she was planning to be a kindergarten 
teacher. She stayed with me a fort¬ 
night, and I did my best to get work for 
her, but nothing come of it. Her clothes 
kept getting shabbier, and her money 
kept getting lower, and she was dread¬ 
ful blue. 
“At the end of two weeks I said to 
her one night after supper: ‘Ella,’ I 
says, ‘I’m going to have a good plain 
talk with you. I s’pose it’ll hurt your 
feelings, but things have come to such 
a pass that I've got to speak right out. 
I mean it for your good, and I’m going 
to help you all you’ll let me. To begin 
with. I’m going to tell you why you 
don’t get any work. It is because you 
haven’t got anything to sell. This is a 
little country town, but the folks here 
ain’t fools. When they hire a book¬ 
keeper they want one that knows her 
business; they don’t want to have to 
teach her how to do the work they pay 
for. It’s the same way with music; lota 
of the young girls here in town can sing 
and play bettern’n you can, so you ain’t 
competent to give ’em lessons. You can’t 
paint or draw as well as the regular 
drawing teacher that teaches in the 
schools.’ 
“By this time she was looking at me 
as though I’d insulted her. ‘Aunt Asen- 
ath,’ she says, ‘if I had enough money 
to pay my car fare. I’d go back to the 
city to-night.’ 
“ ‘I expected you’d get mad,’ I says, 
‘but s’pose you wait till I get through 
talking. I haven’t got money to spare 
to send you to business college or to 
music or drawing teachers, I don’t doubt 
you’ve got the ability to succeed in any 
Of. those things; you lack the training, 
that’s all. Now there is a training that 
I can give you, and I’ll do it gladly. It’s 
something you and every girl ought to 
know how to do, and if you’ll learn 
you’ll be able to earn your living and 
be independent.’ 
“ ‘Well,’ she says, when I stopped, 
‘what is it?’ 
“ ‘It’s housework,’ I says. 
‘'She just sat and stared at me. Then 
her face begun to grow red. ‘House¬ 
work!’ she says with a sniff. ‘House¬ 
work!’ Then she laughed. ‘I’m not 
quite so poor as that, yet,’ she says, and 
she got up and would have gone out of 
the room, but I called her back and 
made her sit down again. 
“ ‘I guess you can wait till I get 
through,’ I says. ‘What I propose is 
this: I’m going to have some boarders 
next Summer, and I shall have to hire 
extra help. If you will stay with me 
I’ll teach you how to do housework, and 
when you get so you are worth it I will 
pay you wages. Your mother made a 
mistake in not teaching you to do house¬ 
work, but I know she thought she was 
doing what was best for you. If you’d 
known even a little about it tuere’s lots 
of situations I could have goc for you. 
I know of two or three nice old ladies 
you could have been companion for, 
and there are small families where you 
could have had a good home and fair 
wages.’ 
“ ‘You think you are too good for 
housework,’ I says, to end up with, ‘but 
have you thought how that sounds to 
one who is doing housework for you? 
It’s honest work, and it takes brains 
just as much as anything else, and it’s 
something every woman ought to know 
how to do, I don’t care who she is.’ 
“Ella stood up and looked at me. You 
never see anyone look so offended. ’1 
will think over your proposition,’ she 
says as stiff as could be, ‘but I don’t 
think I shall accept your very generous 
offer. The idea of my being a house¬ 
work girl!’ and she laughed a real un¬ 
pleasant laugh and went off to bed. 
“ ‘I think you’ll come to it, my young 
lady,’ I says to myself, ‘and pretty soon, 
too, if you haven’t got 45 cents to your 
name.’ I don’t deny I was considerable 
riled. I take pride in doing my work 
well, and to have her act as enough I’d 
insulted her did make me feel kinder 
hard towards her for a spell. Then I 
reasoned that she wa’n’t to blame, and 
that ’twas all on account of her bring¬ 
ing up, so by the next morning 1 felt 
as kind as ever to her, and her stiff, 
dignified ways only amused me. 
“Things went on for most a week, and 
I declare! I most began to think she 
would get work, she was so busy hunt¬ 
ing for it every day. One day I was in 
the sitting room looking over the paper, 
and I heard Ella come in. She went to 
her room and stayed there for quite a 
spell. She was so quiet I most forgot 
she was there, when all of a sudden her 
door fiew open, and she came running 
across the room and threw herself down 
in front of me with her head in my lap. 
She cried there softly, for awhile, then 
she quieted down some and says, ‘I’m 
at the end of my resources. Aunt Asen- 
ath. I spent my last cent for an adver¬ 
tisement four days ago, and nobody’s 
answered it. Now I’m ready to do any¬ 
thing you say.’ 
“I patted her on the head. ‘That’s a 
good sensible little girl,’ I says, ‘and 
now the first thing is to come and help 
me get supper.’ 
“Well, I thought I’d seen something 
of green girls before, but when I took 
Ella in hand I found out different. I 
was pretty near discouraged with her 
sometimes, but I was bound 1 wouldn’t 
give up, and along towards Spring I 
could see she’d begun to improve a lit¬ 
tle. 
“One day she says to me, ‘Do you 
know, there’s quite a good deal to house¬ 
work, after all?’ and then I knew she 
was on the road to recovery, as you 
might say. After that her remarks got 
more and more interesting. 
“ ‘I believe housework agrees with 
me,’ she said another time. And she 
did look a sight better than when she 
come. 
“ ‘It’s as healthy work as there is for 
a woman,’ I says. 
“ ‘I think you are right,’ she says, 
‘and actuaily I don’t know but I like 
it better than anything else I’ve ever 
tried.’ 
“She got so she did her work iis nice 
as could be, and before the 'Summer was 
out I paid her $3 a week, and she earned 
it, too. She’d been planning all through 
the Summer that when I got through 
needing her in the Fall, she’d go to the 
city and take lessons in cooking and 
try to get to teaching it. 
“She was real happy making her 
plans, and I let her talk, but I had a 
feeling all along that she wouldn't go. 
You see there was John Winslow who 
lived just a little ways from us, and I 
had an Idea that maybe he’d have some¬ 
thing to do with Ella’s plans. 
“After my boarders was gone she 
helped me with my canning and the 
housecleaning. When that was done 
there wa’n’t nothing to hinder her go¬ 
ing to the city, but somehow she didn’t 
seem in any great hurry to start, and 
finally one day she come to me all kind¬ 
er blushing and smiling, and says, ‘I’ve 
changed my plans a little. Aunt Asen- 
ath. I’m not going to the city after all, 
but I’ve got a chance to start a kind of 
housekeeping kindergarten right here 
iu town.’ 
“Now John Winslow had two little 
sisters he was trying to bring up, so I 
see right off what she was driving at, 
but I pretended not to understand and 
looked as puzzled as I could, so she had 
to go on. 
“ ‘I’m—I’m going to have a partner in 
the enterprise,’ she says, blushing hard¬ 
er than ever. ‘Why, Aunt Asenath! I 
believe you must be stupid not to un¬ 
derstand.’ 
“I had to laugh at that. ‘You little 
goose,’ I says, ‘of course I understand, 
and I’m real glad you ain’t going to the 
city.’ 
“Well, after she’d been married a year 
or two, she was kinder talking things 
over with me, and she says, ’xt was the 
best thing that could have happened to 
me—my coming here and getting all out 
of money. Suppose I had found some 
work here and then had married John, 
not knowing a thing about housework? 
:W1‘2 Infiint’fl 
I'ettiooat, 
One Size. 
.'JDOG Infant’s Slip, 
Oiu- Si/.e. 
Why,’ she says, ‘I firmly believe we’d 
have been divorced by this time,^ al¬ 
though John has got a lovely disposition 
and would put up with a good deal. As 
it is, I think I make a pleasant home for 
him and the children.’ 
“ ‘That you do,’ I says, ‘and John Is a 
lucky man.’ 
“And so. Miss Drake, if I was you. 
I’d make that girl of yours learn all 
about housework. She’ll get to like it 
by and by, and it may save her from 
the divorce court later on.’’ 
SUSAN BROWN ROBBINS. 
Rural Recipes. 
Cider Apple Sauce.—Apple sauce made 
from sweet apples and cider is deli¬ 
cious. Pare, core and quarter the ap¬ 
ples, cover them with hot water and 
stew gently until tender. The water 
should by this time be quite well boil¬ 
ed away. Now add either sweet cider 
or a mixture of boiled cider and water, 
together with as much sugar as may be 
necessary. Cook 15 or 20 minutes, then 
cool and keep in covered jars. 
Apple Jam.—Use equal amounts in 
weight of sour apples and sugar. Pare, 
core and chop the apples fine, and make 
a clear syrup of the sugar. To this 
syrup add the apples, the juice and 
grated rinds of three lemons and a few 
pieces of white ginger. Boil until the 
apple looks clear and yellow. For the 
jelly, the apples need only be wiped 
clean and sliced, the skin and seeds be¬ 
ing left in place. Cover the fruit with 
cider and cook until soft. Strain 
through a cloth. To every pint of juice 
thus obtained add one pound of sugar 
and boil a few minutes. We like to 
fiavor our apple jelly with rose geran¬ 
ium leaves, using about three leaves to 
MOTHERS.—Be sure to use“Mrs.Wins- 
low’s Soothing Syrup’’ for your children 
while Teething. It is the Best.— Adv. 
a quart of juice. The result is a deli¬ 
cate, scented flavor, suggesting an ideal¬ 
ized combination of several fruits. 
Deviled Mushrooms.—Peel and cut in¬ 
to quarters one pound of wild mush¬ 
rooms and stew them gently in cup¬ 
ful of water 10 minutes. Then add one- 
half cupful of cream, a tablesi>oonful of 
browned flour and a saltspoonful of 
mustard, rubbed smooth with a table¬ 
spoonful of butter, a half-teaspoonful of 
salt and half a saltspoonful of paprika. 
Simmer three minutes, add one table¬ 
spoonful of grated horseradish and two 
tablespoonfuls of tarragon vinegar. Mix 
quickly. Serve at once. 
Cream Peach Pie.—Peel, stone and 
halve ripe peaches. Line a deep pie- 
plate with puff paste and lay the 
peaches in this. Sprinkle with half a 
cupful of sugar and fit on an upper 
crust. Have ready a cold cream sauce 
made as follows: Scald one-half pint 
of milk and thicken with a tablespoon¬ 
ful of cornstarch rubbed smooth in a 
little milk (cold). Add two tablespoon¬ 
fuls of sugar and the frothed white of 
an egg. Boil together five minutes and 
cool. When the pie is done carefully 
lift the top crust and fill to overflowing 
with the cream sauce. Replace the crust 
and set in a cool place. Sprinkle with 
powdered sugar and eat very cold. 
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