698 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
Woman and the Home 
From Day to Day. 
THE RURAL PHILOSOPHER. 
I dunno why they blame me kazc I'm lazy- 
in’ along. 
List’nin' to the river as it ripples out a 
song; 
I’m right in line with Scripter—an' the 
text I could repeat— 
“Considerin’ the lilies’’ while they're win¬ 
nowin’ the wheat! 
The river an’ the mockin' birds. 
The cattle-bells a-ringin', 
They set the music to my woi’ds— 
I let ’em do the singin'! 
When the trees are bowin’ “llowdy!'' as 
the Summer winds go by. 
An’ the sun's a blazin’ jewel in the middle 
o’ the sky, 
I dunno why they blame me if a shady 
place I keep, 
Where I breathe the breath o’ blossoms on 
a bed o’ daisies deep ! 
The river an’ the mockin' birds. 
The drowsy dreams are bringin' 
They set the music to my words— 
I let ’em do the singin'! 
The toilers they are toilin’ for the wealth 
their arms can hold. 
But—let me have the lilies, an' I’ll let ’em 
take the gold ! 
A bi’other to the blossoms, a friend to 
flowei’s an’ stream— 
The toiler for the toilin', an' the dreamer 
for the dream ! 
Green hills an’ meadows sweet, 
Birds where blooms are swingin’, 
Let my soul the words x-epoat 
An' you may do the singin'! 
—Frank I,. Stanton. 
* 
A pretty jabot is made of black rib¬ 
bon velvet 1/4 inch wide. Thei'e is a 
flat bow four inches from tip to tip, 
and below this a strip of the velvet 
8J4 inches long, the end turned over in 
a point. It is edged all around with 
inch-wide white Valenciennes lace, 
and is finished with three round brass 
buttons set an equal distance apart on 
the strip of velvet. 
* 
A neat way to finish the bottom of a 
skirt, new to us, is to use a bias strip 
of the material, about two inches wide, 
folded over to the middle like a mil¬ 
liner’s fold, so that the edges overlap, 
where it is stitched along by machine. 
This is hemmed along the bottom of 
the skirt just as a braid would be put 
on, the side with the raw edge being 
put next the skirt, the bit of raw 
edge projecting beyond the machine 
stitching being uppermost. This makes 
a very neat edge, much better for silk 
or fine woolens than braid, while giv¬ 
ing the needed protection to the edge 
of a skirt. 
* 
There are still many localities where 
a spectacle peddler can sell his wares, 
. and imperil the eyesight of people who 
ought to know better than to buy them. 
Many people seem to think + bat if eye¬ 
glasses or spectacles magnify nothing 
else is required, without any concep¬ 
tion of the mechanical defects that can 
only be repaired by careful fitting. No 
one would take a costly watch to the 
village blacksmith for repairs. Why 
should the wonderful gift of sight be 
put into the careless hands of some ig¬ 
norant pretender? If your eyes are 
not what they used to be, or if recur¬ 
ring headaches on the part of some 
young person point to eye strain, con¬ 
sult the best authority within your 
reach, and don’t buy a pair of glasses 
with less circumspection than you 
would show in choosing a parlor rug. 
* 
Radishes may be added to our list 
of cooked vegetables, even if we are 
not growing the Oriental types de¬ 
manded by Chinese cooks. When this 
vegetable becomes larger and more plen¬ 
tiful in the garden and we grow tired 
of it uncooked, we cook the radishes in 
several ways. The simplest method is 
to peel, boil till tender, but not soft 
enough to mash, drain and serve with 
white sauce like any creamed vege¬ 
table. The bojled radishes are also 
•nice with maitre d’hotel butter, made 
by beating four tablespoonfuls of soft 
butter to a cream, working in one table¬ 
spoonful of lemon juice, a little pepper 
and a tablespoonful of chopped parsley. 
Stir this sauce through the boiled rad¬ 
ishes as soon as they are drained, and 
serve in a hot dish. This sauce is 
sometimes varied by adding an equal 
amount of vinegar, as well as the 
lemon juice, and using chopped chives 
instead of parsley. It is especially nice 
with fish, but makes a savorv dressing 
for many vegetables, including boiled 
new potatoes or asparagus. A third 
way to serve the radishes is to boil, 
drain, and then saute in hot butter. 
Allow the butter to become bubbling 
hot in a frying pan, put in the rad¬ 
ishes, and shake them about until they 
are well coated with the butter, but 
not browned. Turn into a hot dish, 
and scatter a little chopped parsley 
over the i-adishes. 
* 
The new school-teacher had a talk 
with Mrs. Hobart one day in regard 
to discipline, says the Youth’s Com¬ 
panion. “I don’t see how you manage 
Bobby as well as you do,” said the 
teacher. “I like him, but he’s such a 
mischievous little fellow, and he will 
not mind; yet everyone says he minds 
you. I wish you’d explain it to me.” 
“Well,” said Mrs. Hobart, doubtfully, 
“I’d just as soon tell you, but I’m 
afraid it won’t help you much. You 
see I kind of coax him.” 
“Coax him!” echoed the teacher. 
“Yes,” said Mrs. Hobart, “that’s 
what I do. I say to him, ‘Now come, 
Bobby, wouldn’t you rather be mother's 
good boy and have griddle cakes and 
syrup for supper, and play games till 
eight o’clock, than have just plain 
bread and milk that’s been through the 
separator, and go to bed right after it, 
with the curtains drawed so you can’t 
see the stai's?’ 
“I can most always coax him that 
way. 
“Once in a while, if lie’s real set to 
be naughty, I’ll say, ‘See here, Bobby, 
which’d you l’ather, have mother fry 
you some doughnuts or cut a little wil¬ 
low switch, not so very little, either?’ 
“I can coax him that way sure, if 
the other fails.” 
A Leopard and a Zebra. 
My garden is not of the zoological 
order, I do not even own the “leopard” 
of which I write, but if one ever hap¬ 
pens my way I shall joyfully add it to 
my collection, for I have seen what a 
handsome specimen can be made with 
little .outlay or care, and even under 
adverse conditions. All who know the 
leopard plant, with its gracefully 
shaped and prettily spotted leaf will 
need no further introduction. Pei'haps 
all do not know with how little sun¬ 
shine and how much letting alone this 
plant is contented. Last Summer I 
made the acquaintance of the hand¬ 
somest specimen I have ever seen. It 
had full 40 leaves, every one large and 
perfect and brightly mottled in its best 
leopard style. Its pot stood in a jar¬ 
diniere and the jardiniere on a tabou- 
rette in a small hallway facing north. 
There was no window in the hallway, 
but the door stood open most of the 
time, and only a screen door shut out 
air and light. No ray of direct sun¬ 
shine could possibly reach the plant, 
and in Winter its place was before a 
northern window in a sitting-room 
where all the sunny windows were 
shaded by a veranda roof, rooms in 
which I should not have expected to 
keep a plant alive for a month. Yet 
here were these handsomely variegated 
leaves preaching me a sermon upon the 
possibility of finding the right thing for 
every sort of location. Of course the 
plant received comparatively little wa¬ 
ter, it could use but little there in the 
shade, but it was never allowed to be¬ 
come dried out. [The leopard plant 
is Senecio Ksempferi aureo-maculatus, 
formerly known as a Farfugium. It is 
a worthy and beautiful plant, now 
somewhat neglected, but formerly 
much used as a window plant. It is 
excellent for Summer bedding in a 
shady place, but not hardy in Winter 
north of Washington. It was intro¬ 
duced to English gardens more than 50 
years ago by Robert Fortune from 
China, “from a mandarin’s garden.” 
—Eds.] 
My “zebra” was brought me a year 
and a half ago by a small neighbor who 
stopped on her way to school to leave 
me a rather droll-looking plant, its feet 
6323 Boy’s Pajamas. 6 to 14 years, 
crowded into a thumbpot and its stiff, 
upright leaves fully eight inches tall. 
“It’s got some sort of a long name, but 
I can’t remember what,” was her intro¬ 
duction. Later I found photograph 
and name in the catalogues, and came 
to know my zebra-striped leaves as 
Sansevieria Zeylanica. One catalogue 
has it that this “elegant variegated plant 
is especially adapted for house decora- 
June 12, 
tion, the thick leathery leaves standing 
the dust and heat of the house with 
impunity.” In another catalogue I read 
that it “will stand more hardship and 
more abuse than any other plant of 
which we know . . . not affected 
by gas, dust or heat . . . grows to 
a length of three or four feet.” 
Sansevieria’s endurance of hardship 
and abuse I have put to the test by kill¬ 
ing mine, throwing it away, repotting it 
and possessing now as many plants as 
I had leaves. Too much water and 
forcing was its death. Last Spring I no¬ 
ticed a yellowness close to the ground, 
and behold all the leaves came off in 
my investigating hand. In a spirit of 
further experiment I set the youngest 
leaf in a pot of fresh earth. The larger 
leaves did duty as foliage in a vase 
with daffodils and then with white Nar¬ 
cissus, but about the time they were 
thrown away I noticed signs of growth 
in the one leaf repotted, so found the 
still crisp and unwilted leaves and gave 
them a further chance of life. They all 
rooted, as I found later when turning 
them out of the pot to inquire if the 
drainage was good. They had again 
been over-watered, and to guard them 
from this ill I put two inches of char¬ 
coal and potsherds in the bottom of the 
crock. My cross-striped zebra inter¬ 
ests me. What a pity that the true 
mountain zebra of Cape Colony had not 
as many lives to lose and so serve his 
species from being exterminated! If 
he is at all like my plants he can subsist 
where a less hardy life would starve. 
No situation so far tried suits my San¬ 
sevieria as well as does a back corner 
of the plant shelf quite out of the sun¬ 
shine, and where the watering pot does 
not reach it oftener than twice a ween 
As the leaves start one within the clasp 
of another, as most endogcns grow, I 
was curious to see what my rooted 
leaves would do as independent plants. 
But they had a way both original and 
simple. Each threw out an offset under 
ground and sent up, a few inches from 
the parent leaf, a pair of fresh new 
plantlets. I know a house where fur¬ 
nace heat and illuminating gas reduce 
to a lingering death all plants less 
tough-fibered than palms and Boston 
ferns. To its plant-loving mistress I 
shall present a Sansevieria Zeylanica, if 
ever I succeed in growing a truly de¬ 
corative specimen. 
OLD-FASHIONED PLANT LOVER. 
The Rural Patterns. 
A simple little dress fastening down 
the front is shown in No. 6331. The 
quantity of material for the medium 
size (12 years) is 7 1 / 2 yards 24, 534 
yards 32 or 4-34' yard 44 inches wide 
with 34 yard 27 inches wide for collar 
and cuffs. The pattern 6331 is cut in 
sizes for girls of 8, 10, 12 and 14 
years of age; price 10 cents. 
The boy’s pajamas shown consist of 
coat and trousers. The coat is under¬ 
faced at the neck and front edges and 
supplied with the always convenient 
patch pocket while it includes regula¬ 
tion sleeves. The trousers are wide 
enough for comfoi-t without being over 
large and are finished with a casing at 
the upper edge in which tape is in¬ 
serted to regulate the size. The quan¬ 
tity of material required for a medium 
size (10 years) is 5)4 yards 24 or 27, 
4*4 yards 36 inches wide. The pattern 
6323 is cut in sizes for boys of 6, 8, 10, 
12 and 14 years of age; price 10 cents. 
Cream of Sago Soup.—Wash half a 
cupful of sago and cook it clear in one 
quart of water; add a few sprigs of 
parsley, a stalk of celery and one small 
£reen onion tied together with thread. 
When the sago is clear dip out the 
greens, add one level teaspoonful of 
salt, a pinch of cayenne; stir well, then 
add one pint of sweet hot milk. Beat 
the yolk of one egg until light, add half 
a cupful of rich milk. Draw the sauce¬ 
pan to the back of the stove, add the 
egg, stir well and serve. 
