526 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
July 8, 
[ Woman and Home j 
From Day to Day. 
FLOWERS. 
Your voiceless lips, O flowers! are living 
preachers, 
Each cup a pulpit, each leaf a book. 
Supplying to my fancy numerous teachers 
From loneliest nook. 
Floral apostles! that, in dewy splendor, 
“Weep without woe, and blush without a 
crime.” 
Oh ! that 1 deeply learn, and ne’er surrender 
Your lore divine. 
In the sweet-scented pictures, heavenly 
Artist! 
With which thou paintest nature's wide¬ 
spread hall. 
What a delightful lesson thou impartest 
Of love to all! 
Not useless are ye, flowers ! though made for 
pleasure, 
Blooming o'er field and wave, by day and 
night, 
From every source your sanction bids me 
treasure 
Harmless delight. 
Fostlnimous glories; angel-like collection! 
Upraised from seed or bulb interred in 
earth, 
Ye are to me a type of resurrection, 
And second birth. 
Were I. O God ! in churchless lands remain¬ 
ing, 
Far from all voice of teachers and divines, 
My soul would find, in flowers of Thy ordain¬ 
ing, 
Priests, sermons, shrines ! 
—Horace Smith (1779-1849). 
* 
If raspberries and Summer apples are 
available at the same time, a combination 
of the two will make an excellent jelly. 
Cook and strain separately, then mix the 
juice, and proceed as with any other jelly. 
* 
Strawberry dauphines form a delicious 
and very pretty dessert. Have ready six 
pastry shells that have been baked and 
allowed to cool; fill with strawberry jam, 
or whole preserved strawberries. Whip 
one cup of rich cream with three tea¬ 
spoonfuls of powdered sugar and season 
with a few drops of orange extract. Pile 
this quite high on the pastry, and put one 
or two preserved or candied strawberries 
on the top. 
* 
Where a housekeeper does not make 
her own soap she can prepare an excellent 
soft soap for housecleaning by combining 
one pound of bar soap with one pound 
of sal soda. Cut the soap into small 
pieces; put soap and soda into a stone 
jar on the back of the stove, where it is 
not very hot, and pour over all a pail of 
cold water. Stir occasionally, and after 
it has stood several hours, when perfectly 
dissolved, put away to cool. It forms a 
soft jelly, and will be found very useful. 
* 
Swedish stew will make a savory 
change in meat dishes. Put into an earth¬ 
en dish 2 J /2 pounds of stewing beef, cut 
into small slices; a large carrot, sliced; 
a large onion, sliced; three cloves, three 
rounding tablespoonfuls of pearl tapioca, 
a heaping tablespoonful of bread crumbs, 
a tablespoonful of vinegar, one-eighth of 
a grated nutmeg; salt and pepper. Cover 
tightly after adding a little water, and 
bake in a moderate oven five or six hours. 
A bean pot is a good thing to cook it in. 
* 
To make strawberry sauce to serve hot 
or cold, cook one cupful of water with 
half a cupful of sugar for 10 minutes, then 
turn in a quart of berries, and boil up just 
once. This is delicious if chilled in the 
ice box and served with cold cornstarch 
or farina pudding. Raspberry sauce can 
be made in the same way. Strawberry 
hard sauce is made as follows: Cream 
thoroughly one cup of sugar with one- 
fourth cupful of butter; then beat in one 
cupful of strawberries, which had been 
crushed and pressed through a colander 
or fruit press. Chill in the ice box, and 
serve with any steamed or baked pudding. 
Cretonne pillow slips can be bought 
readymade to fit any pillow. They are 
used during Summer to slip over orna¬ 
mental covers that might otherwise be¬ 
come soiled or faded, and are also used 
where a more elaborate cover is removed 
for the Summer. They are made just like 
a laundry bag, with a drawstring which, 
when drawn up, leaves a frill at the top 
or end of the pillow. In a country house 
recently visited, the bedrooms were fur¬ 
nished with simple white furniture and 
single white iron beds of the shape usually 
seen in hospitals and other institutions, 
having a plain curved rail of the same 
height at both head and foot. The beds 
all had colored chintz or cretonne covers, 
edged with a deep valance, while the pil¬ 
lows were slipped into covers to match, 
drawn up with a drawstring as described 
above. The effect was very attractive, and 
the washing of white bed covers which 
soil quickly in Summer, was thug avoided. 
* 
This little bride went to cooking school, 
says Good Housekeeping, and the instruc¬ 
tor gave her a primary lesson, bread mak¬ 
ing; also, to encourage her, a dainty con¬ 
fection for dessert. When the two hours 
of school had fled the little bride begged 
a tin pail with a lid. In the pail she 
dropped the ball of dough that she had 
just kneaded, and on top of the dough 
for convenience in carrying she placed 
the mold of orange jelly and whipped 
cream. Serenely she boarded the horse- 
car—this was in Boston, before the era 
of trolleys. Placing the little pail on her 
lap, she—still serene—rode through the 
sweet Spring sunshine to the far away 
suburb, dreaming happy dreams of love 
in a cottage, and of the pan of crusty 
biscuit she would pull out of the oven 
just as the one man in the universe came 
in to supper. Suddenly she awoke from 
her blissful dream, conscious that every 
eye in the car was looking at that tin 
pail, and every face was smiling. Poor 
little bride! Her bread dough was steadi¬ 
ly aspiring to the zenith, and the lid was 
ascending with it. Frantically she essayed 
to push the lid down; the dough bulged 
out at the sides. For half an hour she sat 
with crimson face, desperately holding 
on to that lid. And that dough heaved, 
and that dough bulged, it dropped down 
the sides of the pail, it advertised the cook¬ 
ing school, it proclaimed the bride to all 
and sundry, and all and sundry were 
mightily amused. But the bride was not 
amused. Neither did she resurrect her 
mold of orange jelly from the tragic and 
untimely grave into which it sank. 
Charity Sweetheart’s Letters. 
It has been a very busy time, and the 
chickweed and purslane are beginning to 
show badly in the garden. But just as 
everything wanted hoeing Minty “took 
sick,” and I have had anxiety, which is 
worse than work. She is not a trouble¬ 
some patient, but I found out that the 
boys were added care, without her, and 
that they are growing self-willed and ob¬ 
stinate, so that 1 have sometimes been 
very tired. When Cleveland has a head¬ 
ache, to which he is subject, he wants 
“Aunty” to bathe his forehead, and charm 
away the pain. But there is no such al¬ 
leviation for me when the throbbing pain 
makes me almost blind; there is nothing 
to do but to bear it. I was going to say, 
“grin and bear it,” but remembered the 
man who was suffering and said he would 
bear it as long as he could, but he’d be 
darned if he’d grin. Writers of poetry 
tell us to smile when we are sad, and not 
be so dreary as to show our distress to 
others; it would be a much more cheer¬ 
ful world if we could fill out the poem 
with sober prose, but I am afraid our 
physical troubles overwhelm us if they 
are severe. I asked an old friend lately, 
if she found me changed after a long 
absence; “Why, no, Charity,” she said, 
“not in looks—but you seldom smile now, 
that seems the worst change.” And it 
isn’t much to be wondered at with all our 
household cares, and added to this the 
conversation that the men folks give us 
which is part of our daily society news. 
If a neighbor comes in they sit down and 
compare losses instead of blessings. 
“The weevils are spoiling all my peas,” 
says the neighbor, then Brother answers: 
“The crows have eaten my corn.” The 
neighbor tells about an acre of potatoes 
that have been drowned out in the low 
land, and Brother says he has lost all 
his plums from the curculio stinging 
them. Neighbor has lost his best cow 
and his colt was born lame. Brother has 
a sick wife and the barn needs shingling. 
So they compare trouble notes, and for¬ 
get to compare blessings. Meanwhile I 
try to keep things going—but dust will 
gather on everything, and I have no time 
for reading or recreation, only to try to 
do the next thing each hour as it comes 
along. 
Vegetables arc plentiful and of good 
quality this year, and I am trying dainty 
dishes for the boys, with very little meat 
during hot weather. We have beans and 
omelet which is Sherman’s favorite dish, 
and have enjoyed the big Marshall straw¬ 
berries that I planted a year ago last 
September. When I was out picking them 
one day Nellie Lynch came along. She 
stooped down and picked some of the 
biggest and ate them, then went and sat 
down under a tree a little way off. 
“I don’t see how you can pick in the hot 
sun, Charity,” she said, and I told her I 
couldn’t if I had on a small hat and stiff 
corsets, such as she wore. She tossed 
her head and remarked that she liked her 
strawberries best in the city, without hav¬ 
ing to pick them. “You’re quite wel¬ 
come,” I remarked, “but those you eat 
here don’t have to be washed—everything 
has its compensations.” I sometimes 
think they do have it easier in many ways, 
but when I remember how fresh and sweet 
things are that grow in our own garden, 
and how many comforts we enjoy that city 
people know nothing about, 1 feel that 
there are indeed real “compensations” for 
living in the country. It often amuses 
me to hear the patronizing tone that 
dwellers of the towns take in speaking of 
the green fields, and woodlands, but when 
it comes to July they are apt to be like 
Nellie, ready to sit down in the shade 
amidst the rural scenery they affect to 
dispise, and eat its choicest products. 
Ah yes, “God made the country”—and 
its beauty extols the work of His hands 
as the days pass by. Minty has been 
moved to the window; the little girl baby 
that came to us only lived an hour, and 
she is dull and depressed. But her eyes 
brightened at the sight of the first sweet 
peas and mignonette that I took to her, 
and she said: “Are they out already?” 
Then she looked at me sadly and said: 
“If baby had lived I should have named 
her for you—Charity,” and somehow it 
comforted us both. 
CHARITY SWEETHEART. 
The Bookshelf. 
The Outlook to Nature, by Prof. L. 
H. Bailey. This book contains four 
lectures delivered in Boston last January 
as part of the University Course under 
the auspices of the Education Committee 
of the Twentieth Century Club. The lec¬ 
tures are entitled: The Realm of the 
Commonplace; Country and City; The 
School of the Future; Evolution; The 
Quest of Truth. They are written in 
Prof. Bailey’s usual pleasing style, and 
will lead any thinking reader to a closer 
communion with nature. Published by 
the Macmillan Company, New York; 
296 pages; price $1.25 net; postage 12 
cents additional. 
A Dark Lantern, by Elizabeth Rob¬ 
ins. A very clever and absorbing novel 
of modern English life, sufficiently morbid 
and neurotic to be unwholesome reading 
for persons of unstable moral standards. It 
may be called a study in feminine de¬ 
terioration produced by too much ease, 
comfort, wealth and culture. Miss Rob¬ 
ins has done some brilliant writing in 
this book, as in “The Open Question” 
and “The Magnetic North,” but it leaves 
an evil savor in one’s mind, and the “dark 
lantern” seems but a wrecker’s beacon 
after all. Published by the Macmillan 
Company, New York; price $1.50. 
When you write advertisers mention The 
R. N.-Y. and you'll get a quick reply and 
“a square deal.” See guarantee, page 8. 
Get the heating outfit 
now!—before Winter 
conies. 
Now, before Winter—not then, 
when it’s here — is the time to 
put in steam or water warming, 
when makers and fitters are not 
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American x [deal 
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ashes in the living rooms saves much housework. 
You will need our catalogues to select from — sent 
free, on request, stating size and kind of building 
you wish to heat. 
Dept. 6. 
CHICAGO 
Don’t get Angry 
with your razor. It has a 
temper of its own. It 
will work well if you use 
WILLIAMS’ l H H N S 
Sold everywhere. Free trial sample 
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Shavers Guide and How to Dress 
Correctly.” 
The J. B Williams Co., Glastonbury, Conn. 
TELEPHONES 
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so simple you can build your own line. 
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PISOS CURE FOR 
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Best Cough Syrup. Tastes Good. 
Use in time. Sold by druggists. 
CONSUMPTION 
