554 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
August 15 
BEING A SUMMER BOARDER. 
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE CASE. 
“ Put yourself in his place ” is an ad¬ 
monition of which every one feels the 
force, more or less. It touches the sum¬ 
mer boarder question no less than all 
other questions. There are some things 
about keeping summer boarders that 
can be learned easiest by being a sum¬ 
mer boarder. 
This experience fell to my own lot 
during the last season. To be sure, I 
lived in the country with a big garden 
stocked with the finest of vegetables. 
We had the “ abundance of fresh eggs, 
fruits, shade, boating, etc.,” and, in 
short, could say the shibboleth of the 
summer boarder advertisements so glibly 
that T almost decided to take boarders 
myself. But the family got it into their 
heads that 1 needed a change, and as I 
had never been among the highlands of 
the Hudson, it was decided to try some 
delightful place there. 
There had been one advertisement in 
the daily paper throughout the season, 
one which offered all the usual induce¬ 
ments, with “ transportation free”; and 
all the large rooms, the beautiful 
scenery, the quiet and the rest, were 
only ten minutes walk from the ter¬ 
minus of a city trolley line. Our minds 
feasted on the delights of this place. 
We thought of the wide stretch of river 
and mountain with ever increasing de¬ 
sire. Finally, the family carried the 
point, and Esculapia and myself de¬ 
parted, bag and baggage, to become 
summer boarders. 
Now, we had in our own minds, an 
exact schedule of what was necessary 
to keeping boarders. Besides all the 
things above noted as inducements, 
there must, of necessity, be good board, 
good, clean rooms—nicely furnished as 
became a summer boarding house—good 
springs and mattresses, and a pleasant 
hostess, consumed with burning desire 
to please her boarders. That we our¬ 
selves had other duties than getting the 
needed rest, and paying our bills 
promptly, did not occur to me; or, as I 
afterward discovered, did it to Esculapia. 
We were met by as sweet a blossom of 
a daughter as any boarding mistress 
need desire—bright, quick, deft and 
pretty, as well as willing and free¬ 
hearted. We at once decided that this 
was one of the necessities of an ideal 
boarding place. As to the rest of the 
furnishing, we found the rooms to con¬ 
tain some ancient bedsteads crowned 
with still more ancient springs and 
straw ticks that bobbed up on one side 
and fell in on the other, to the end that 
the unwary sleeper fell out on the floor. 
The chairs were decrepit to breaking 
down, the toilet ware cracked and 
nicked, the curtains indescribable 
breadths of something. The hostess 
made rather plain her preference that 
both should occupy one bed, though the 
room contained two ; worst of all, we 
found that guests were expected to make 
their own beds ! At $0 a week, these 
guests demurred, though assured that 
no one else had objected to the plan; 
indeed, most of the boarders had pre¬ 
ferred it! 
Plainly, things were not ideal, and the 
prospect was far from reassuring. We 
found, further, that the lean hostess 
marshaled a brigade of 10 children, and 
that, beyond these, she had no help in 
kitchen or chambers, except at the 
very busiest time, when, she informed 
us, the one roof had sheltered 55 guests. 
In the dining-room, we found long 
picnic tables set upon wooden horses. 
The food was fairly abundant, and fairly 
well cooked, but could not approach that 
seen upon the daily table of many a farm 
home. At breakfast, there were good 
bread and butter, coffee, milk if desired, 
potatoes, eggs, and sometimes raw toma¬ 
toes or raw fruit. Sometimes, there 
were muffins, but every morning, the 
bill was otherwise about the same. 
“What! You don’t drink milk ? Nor 
coffee ? I declare 1 I do’ no what to 
git for your breakfast! ” declared the 
hostess. 
Another morning it was : “ Ye don’t 
seem to eat yer eggs very good ! Don’t 
ye like eggs, either ? I declare ! I never 
see anybody come to the country before 
and not eat our fresh eggs and milk ! 
Wha’d ye come here fur , anyhow ? ” 
Plainly, although no word of com¬ 
plaint had been heard from us, we could 
not be considered desirable boarders, 
because of our failure to enthuse over 
fresh country eggs and milk. 
Throughout the week, having little 
else on our hands, Esculapia and I de¬ 
voted ourselves to finding out all we 
could about summer boarding. By put¬ 
ting a quiet question now and then, we 
attained a pretty thorough idea as to 
how this family worked it. The whole 
year, with them, looked toward the 
short boarding season, bounded by the 
limits of the summer vacation in the 
city schools. Then they did their heav¬ 
iest work, then they made their yearly 
“ living and for this time they planned 
during the other 10 months. 
Ten years previous, they had begun, 
in a small way, each year’s guests bring¬ 
ing in a new and larger contingent the 
following year. All the material for 
the table (except meat) was raised on 
the small farm, for which, with the im¬ 
mense house, the rent paid was $200 per 
year. The number of guests through¬ 
out the season was, perhaps, 200, some 
of whom stayed one week, some four or 
five. Very largely, they were mothers 
with children of school age, to whom 
the absolute freedom of the large, re¬ 
tired grounds, the safety and the free¬ 
handed generosity, were wholly capti¬ 
vating. 
We studied the question from all 
points of view, trying to find out how 
this family, running counter to the 
stock ideas as to ways and means neces¬ 
sary to the business, had achieved such 
a measure of success. There were a few 
plain reasons : first, the place itself and 
its surroundings were ideal; second, the 
whole family were open-hearted and 
genial; third, every guest was made free 
to all that grew on the place, in the big 
apple and pear orchards and every¬ 
where; and every trunk that went back 
to the city was—as one of the sons ex¬ 
pressed it—heavier when he carried it 
down than when he had carried it up. 
To be sure, the tyranny of the hostess, 
who ruled every one with a rod of iron, 
insisting on the house being closed and 
all in bed at 10 o’clock, made some of the 
young people restive ; but it was so plain¬ 
ly in the interests of the children and 
semi-invalids, that it was recognized as 
best, after all. The better element, who 
could not find the family congenial, 
could still gain something by looking 
upon them as “types” of the farming 
class (which they certainly were not)', 
while those of less culture could be 
“hail-fellow,” with them, and enjoyed 
being called by their given names, and 
the familiarity that belongs to such 
address. 
It appeared from the hostess’s conver¬ 
sation, that there are “ types ” of sum¬ 
mer boarders, as well as of rustic mis¬ 
tresses. 
“ Oh ! yes ; we git all sorts ; in these 
10 years, we’ve had about all the experi¬ 
ence there is, I guess ! I’ve had some of 
the most stylish kinds there is, and some¬ 
times they’re suited all right, and then 
ag’in they ain’t ! This very year, I had 
one that wa’nt, and she flounced off to 
another place, and after a week, she tried 
to git back ; but we was full then, and 
couldn’t take her ! ” 
“ Would you, if you could, have done 
so ?” 
“ Oh ! yes ; I don’t care ! It’s all clean 
money—if you git it ! Sometimes you 
have to be smart, though ! These city 
folks, some kinds, they think they can 
beat you fine ! Now we had some Jews 
this summer—sometimes we run to them 
for weeks, and sometimes they’re as nice 
as the best—but these wa’nt. They had 
some of the best rooms, and we brought 
’em out free with their trunks and all, 
and they had lots of fine dresses and lots 
of fun. Girls, they was, too ; but they 
tried to jump their board bill. Got the 
expressman to come for their trunks 
while we was all rushed gittin’ break¬ 
fast. But he seen the man come, and 
when he found out what’s up, he or¬ 
dered the man out of the house. The 
man was sassy, but finally went, and so 
did the girls—after a lawyer, they said. 
I guess they got one,” she concluded, tri¬ 
umphantly, “ for the next day they come 
back for their trunks, paid their bill, 
and wanted him, to take ’em to the sta¬ 
tion. He charged ’em 75 cents apiece, 
aginst takin’ ’em free if they’d behaved, 
and I guess they went home wiser as 
well as $3 poorer. Oh ! I tell you they’s 
all kinds ! ” 
Esculapia contends that success with 
summer boarders rests on faulty gram¬ 
mar, a shrewish though free-hearted 
landlady, a pretty daughter, and a big 
pear orchard. But this is so far from 
the general idea that one feels uncer¬ 
tain. Ml'RA V. NOKYS. 
Yftll PAII CAUF the whole of this, and put 
IUU UHH t tils rough, coarse corn 
stalks into the best possible shape for consump¬ 
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ST. ALBANS’ SHREDDER 
Shreds dry fodder in a way that produces a long 
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ST. ALBANS FOUNDRY CO., ST. ALBANS, Vermont. 
P ERCENT. 
total value of a corn crop 
the dry stalks after the 
husked. In the aggregate 
country is something en- 
waste incident^o tke^ira- 
is in 
has 
ear 
the loss 
ormous 
How Much Hay ?—To a horse weigh¬ 
ing 1,100 pounds, I would, in no case, 
give over eight or nine pounds of hay 
daily ; that is, not over that amount 
should be actually consumed. Some¬ 
times considerable hay is wasted as food, 
and passes for bedding. Of course, such 
should not be considered. It is quite 
generally true that horses get too much 
hay. Driving horses should not receive 
too much of this bulky food, as it dis¬ 
tends the abdomen and makes them less 
trim, and more heavy and awkward in 
their movements. Horses thus used, 
should receive a total ration of about 
two pounds of hay and grain for each 
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THE RURAL NEW-YORKER New York. 
JOHN H. JACKSON, Successor to JACKSON BROS. Established 1852. 
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