658 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
July 4, 
Woman and the Home 
From Day to Day. 
A REMARKABLE CIRCUS HORSE. 
It was a fiery circus borse 
That ramped and stamped and neighed, 
Till every creature in its course 
Fled, frightened and dismayed. 
The chickens on (he roadway’s edge 
Arose and flapped their wings, 
And making for the sheltering hedge, 
Flew off like crazy things. 
Nor iron gates nor fences barred 
That mettled steed’s career, 
It galloped right across our yard 
And filled us all with fear; 
And when it tossed its head and ran 
Straight through the pantry door. 
Cook almost dropped her frying pan 
Upon the kitchen floor! 
It neighed and pranced and wheeled about 
And scampered off, but then 
We scarcely saw the creature out 
When it was in again. 
And so throughout the livelong day, 
Through house and yard and street, 
That charger held its fearsome way 
And only stopped to eat. 
But when at dusk, a little lame, 
It lowly climbed the stairs, 
Behold! a gentle lady came 
And made it say its prayers. 
Now, what a wondrous change you see! 
'Sh! Come and take a peep— 
Here lies, as tame as tame can be, 
A little boy, asleep! 
—T. A. Daly in the Catholic Standard. 
* 
Colored embroidery is much worn as 
a dress trimming, and some of the most 
effective styles owe much of their 
beauty to nimble fingers. Silk embroid¬ 
ery lias the edge cut out to follow the 
design, and is then appliqued upon a 
foundation of filet net, the edge of the 
embroidery being outlined with fine gold 
braid or buttonholing. The filet band¬ 
ing may then be edged with narrow 
Valenciennes or Cluny lace, and a very 
handsome trimming is the result. 
* 
Potatoes en casserole is a French 
dish that ought to find a place in Ameri¬ 
can kitchens. Peel and cut new pota¬ 
toes in balls or cubes. Put one-fourth 
cup of butter iyi casserole, let melt, and 
turn in three cups of potatoes; add one 
teaspoon of salt and shake the casserole 
over the fire until the potatoes are well 
buttered and salted. Add one and one- 
half cups of boiling water or stock. 
Cover casserole and set in oven to cook. 
Lift the cover and stir the potatoes oc¬ 
casionally, that they may cook evenly. 
Cook 30 minutes. Add a little cream 
and season to taste. Serve from casse¬ 
role. 
* 
• Barley makes a change from other 
cereals, and as it requires long cooking 
it may be prepared during dinner prepa¬ 
rations, and then heated in the double 
boiler for breakfast. Pour over a cup¬ 
ful of pearl barley a pint of water and 
wash well. Rinse in three waters; then 
pour four cups of cold water over the 
washed barley and let it soak for four 
hours. Put over the fire with the water 
in which it was soaked, in a double 
boiler. Stir in a level teaspoonful of 
salt and cook slowly for five hours or 
longer, stirring occasionally. Reheat 
next morning in the double boiler. Eat 
with cream. 
* 
Bordered materials, the border form¬ 
ing the trimming, are much used this 
season, being especially pretty in thin 
wash goods. In materials without a 
border the same effect is produced by 
matching it in similar goods with a 
striped pattern, which is used for band¬ 
ing. It is often possible to match a 
sprigged or dotted dimity or lawn with 
a larger pattern of the same color which 
can be made into bands. Bands of flow¬ 
ered dimity are also used for trimming 
white or self-colored organdie with ver^ 
good effect. Black and white striped 
lawn trimmed with bands of rose-col¬ 
ored linen was one suggestive combina¬ 
tion ; another was gray and white linen 
trimmed with pale blue. Rose-colored 
linen trimmed with bias bands of black 
and white stripes is another attractive 
style. 
The elderly matron with the bundles, 
who was journeying to a point in Wis¬ 
consin, and occupied a seat near the 
middle of the car, had fallen asleep, 
says the Youth’s Companion. On the 
seat in front of her sat a little boy. 
The brakeman opened the door of the 
car and called out the name of the sta¬ 
tion the train was approaching. The 
elderly woman roused herself with a 
jerk. 
“Where are we, Bobby?” she asked. 
“I don’t know, grandma,” answered 
the little boy. 
“Didn’t the brakeman say something 
just now?” 
“No. He just stuck his head inside 
the door and sneezed.” 
“Help me with these things, Bobby,” 
she exclaimed, hurriedly. “This is 
Oshkosh. It’s where we get off.” 
* 
Here is another Texan woman who 
writes about the pioneer’s strenuous life 
in the Galveston News. Her husband 
belonged to the famous Texas Rangers, 
so she was often left alone with tier 
children while he was away on duty: 
We landed in Texas in 1849, camped 
three miles from Marshall, lived there eight 
years, moved to Palo Pinto in the Fall 
of 1858 and lived there during the war. 
I had to spin and weave all the cloth we 
used, from a hand towel up to sheets, 
pants, dresses, shirts, blankets and cov¬ 
erlets. I had to live on a dirt floor. It 
makes me tired to hear folks talk about 
hard times now. I have waded the Brazos 
River and carried my shotgun. My se"en- 
year-old child would carry a sack of coin 
to feed my hogs to keep them gentle, while 
I built a pen with a slip-gap. The pigs 
would go in, then we would shut them 
up and I would mark them with the 
scissors. I taught them to come for their 
feed by the tap of a bell. We had a hand- 
mill and I ground corn on it to make 
bread and to feed my little chickens. It 
was hard work' I have carded and spun 
by firelight, hut most of the time I had to 
have everything done and the doors barred 
and lights out for fear of the Indians 
coming and taking us by surprise. We 
had to leave and go down in Parker County 
three times. They finally broke us up, 
stole every horse we had, drove off our 
cattle, and when my husband was dis¬ 
charged in ’05, we swapped what cattle we 
could find for a yoke of steers and an old 
wagon, put what we could in it and left 
Palo Pinto. 
* 
We recently saw a picture of an in¬ 
telligent farm woman who does a good 
deal of field work attired in men’s over¬ 
alls, anti frankly, we did not like it. It 
may be a convenient and comfortable 
costume, but it was certainly very ugly, 
and open to many objections. We must 
have many feminine readers who have 
solved the problem of a sensible and 
practical costume to be worn when do¬ 
ing field or garden work, and we should 
like to get some of their experience. 
There is no reason why such a dress 
should be of a style to arouse adverse 
comment from conservative people, or 
to excite a distaste for the work. Many 
of the women gardeners trained in Eng¬ 
lish horticultural schools wear full 
knickerbockers or bloomers, to which 
we should add a short skirt, possibly of 
denim, with attached blouse, and khaki 
leggings. What advice do readers offer 
concerning the woman farmer’s dress? 
An Ohio Farm Cat. 
Some time ago I noticed in your 
paper ideas expressed by various people 
about cats. Who could ask for a nicer- 
looking cat than the one in the picture? 
He is not a pedigreed animal, he cannot 
boast a string of blue ribbons, but he 
walks with as stately an air as though 
he were owned by a king. In color he 
is a pure Maltese, with only the one 
white spot which shows on his throat. 
L. E. HURST. 
The longer I live the more I am cer¬ 
tain that the great difference between 
men, between the feeble and the power¬ 
ful, the great and the insignificant, is 
energy—invincible determination; a pur¬ 
pose once fixed and then death or vic¬ 
tory—Buxton. 
Charity Sweetheart’s Letters. 
The squash bugs have been very 
harmful this season, and it does seem 
strange that they find out the plants 
as soon as they break ground. I tried 
a number of remedies, watering them 
with a wash of red pepper and tobacco, 
but it did not banish them. So we had 
an old keg falling to pieces, and I took 
the hoops and sewed mosquito netting 
on them like a little sieve, setting one 
over each hill, and that saved them but 
the leaves were already riddled and it 
was “locking the stable door after the 
horse is stolen.” However the vines 
recruited, and are now in flower, but 
would have done better if rescued 
earlier. 
I made an interesting venture this 
year with my Boston fern that may be 
useful to some one else. Being flower¬ 
less plants, they do not produce true 
seed, but I found on the back of mine 
some small brown scale-like forms, 
which are the spores, and it was a temp¬ 
tation to try to raise some young plants. 
I took an old tin pie plate perforated 
at the bottom, and put in some broken 
crocks, then covered them with fine leaf 
mold and sharp sand with a little finely 
chopped moss among it. The spores 
were sown over the surface, and the 
plate set in a vessel of water up to the 
rim every two or three days. It was 
kept in a box with ai pane of glass on 
AN OHIO FARM CAT. Fig. 251. 
top, and after awhile the whole surface 
of the plate was covered with green; 
then little lumps appeared, and the first 
tiny fronds. I was so pleased that I 
could raise them, and now have a num¬ 
ber in thumb pots set in a box of damp 
moss. If they do well I mean to sell 
them later, and feel quite proud of my 
success, though brother often says I am 
too much like the maid with the milk 
pails—which is the same as counting 
chickens before they are reared—£pr 
that is more difficult than “hatching,” as 
I found to my cost. For in spite of 
experience and “book learning,” the 
chicks would die all Spring, and no 
change of diet could save them. Sher¬ 
man had some pets and after they were 
three weeks old the crows carried them 
off one by one in spite of their mother, 
and the efforts of a shotgun. Then my 
Plymouth Rocks began to get weak in 
the legs and dropped off ti’l only six 
proved the “survival of the fittest.” Per¬ 
haps these disappointments are good for 
us, for we might get too satisfied and 
self-confident if there were no losses 
in our ventures. 
An unexpected bit of pocket money 
came my way in gathering the flowers 
and leaves of the elder (Sambucus) 
that were asked for by a druggist to 
send to a specialist in the city. The 
flowers were to be used as an eye wash 
for a certain form of inflammation, and 
the leaves as an ointment, to make into 
a cooling salve. There happened to be 
a number of the shrubby bushes grow¬ 
ing down beside one of the pastures, 
and it was not much trouble to gather 
them in the cool of the evening, with 
the boys to help. The elder flowers are 
known to be useful as a wash for face 
and hands; if steeped and strained the 
water is said to relieve sunburn, and 
allay the irritation from the bites of 
misquitoes. So many simple things are 
valuable to us, but we pass them by 
for pills and pellets. I have found a 
simple remedy for chapped hands when 
they have been exposed to wind and 
weather and dirty work to be a small 
handful of wheat bran, rubbed smartly 
in after soaping, especially where they 
get dark and grimy around knuckles and 
wrist. It is very healing if hands are 
sore, and when washed off in soft water 
they feel almost cured. We keep a 
dishful near the kitchen sink and find it 
very useful. 
My b®ys will soon be grown up—it is 
not possible to shut my eyes any longer 
to the fact, and this Summer we shall 
have to decide what they will do for a 
future. It is a question that is near thg 
heart of many a mother and auntie of 
good home loving boys, for the world 
is all strange to them, and the first 
break is hard to bear. To keep the 
boys on the farm is the aim of every 
good parent, provided the boy has. no 
distaste for the work. But if his in¬ 
clination is in another direction it may 
be well to give him an opportunity to de- 
velop. But the problem is before us. 
and we understand its importance. 
CHARITY SWEETHEART. 
Cooking Prunes. 
I was glad to read M. E.’s defence of 
the prune on page 488, but he fails to 
state how properly to prepare the fruit 
for serving. This is the important fea¬ 
ture, as he himself admits, and I have 
thought that the way we prepare them 
might be of interest to spine. We wash 
the prunes thoroughly, then put them to 
soak in sufficient water to supply the 
proper amount of liquid or juice when 
served, and allow them to soak for 24 
hours, then place on fire and boil for 
five minutes, then place vessel in a fire¬ 
less cook-box and allow to remain 12 
hours, when they will be ready to serve. 
No sugar is needed. If one has no 
cook-box, the prunes may be allowed to 
stand in a closed vessel for 24 hours 
after the five minute cooking, making 48 
hours soaking. It is soaking, not cook¬ 
ing or stewing, which makes dried or 
evaporated fruit palatable, and few of 
them require any sugar when so pre¬ 
pared, peaches, pears and nectarines 
being prepared in the same way. We 
have found this method a great im¬ 
provement over the ordinary stewing 
with sugar and suggest that others, who 
find stewed prunes somewhat unsatis¬ 
factory, try soaking. G. B. 
Cherry Fritters.—Mix and sift one 
and one-half cupful of flour, two tea¬ 
spoonfuls of baking powder, one-half 
teaspoonful of salt together and add 
gradually two-thirds of a cup of milk. 
Drain one and one-half cupfuls of pitted 
cherries thoroughly, sprinkle with pow¬ 
dered sugar at least half an hour before 
adding them to the batter, drop by 
spoonfuls in smoking hot fat, drain on 
brown paper and serve with sauce pre¬ 
pared as for roly-poly. Serve very hot. 
Cherry Dumplings.—Prepare a rich 
baking powder biscuit dough as for 
shortcake; roll out half an inch thick 
and cut into squares. Place in the cen¬ 
ter of each square of dough a table¬ 
spoonful of pitted cherries; fold the 
corner of it over, wetting the edges; 
press them together, folding from oppo¬ 
site corners. Place in the steamer with 
tight-fitting cover and steam one hour, 
or bake in the oven in a dripping pan, 
surrounded by three-quarters of a cup 
of sugar and two cups of water, basting 
several times while baking, which will 
mean about 20 minutes in a hot oven. 
Serve with cherry sauce. 
