1012 
Woman and the Home 
From Day to Day, 
“BACK TO THE LAND.” 
Out in the upland places 
I see both dale and down. 
And the plowed earth with open scores 
Turning the green to brown. 
The bare bones of the country 
Lie gaunt in Winter days, 
Grim fastnesses of rock and scaur, 
Sure, while the year decays. 
And, as the Autumn withers 
And the winds strip the tree, 
The companies of buried folk 
Rise up to speak with me. 
Prom homesteads long forgotten, 
From graves by church and yew, 
They come to walk with noiseless tread 
Upon the land they knew— 
Men who once tilled the pasture 
The wind-swept thorn beside ; 
Women within gray, vanished walls 
Who bore and loved and died. 
And when the great town closes 
Upon me like a sea, 
Daylong, above its watery din 
I hear them call to me. 
Dead folk, the roofs are round me 
To bar out field and hill, 
And yet I hear you on the wind 
Calling and calling still; 
And while, by street and pavement, 
The day runs slowly through, 
My soul across these haunted downs 
Goes forth and walks with you. 
—Violet Jacob in the London Outlook. 
* 
Breaking the shell of a hard Win¬ 
ter squash with a hatchet is rather a 
dangerous process; if a handy little 
meat saw forms part of the kitchen out¬ 
fit it will be found very convenient 
for this purpose. It is easier and safer 
to saw the hard shell than to chop it. 
* 
Cassia buds, which are often used 
to spice pickles, are not really the true 
cassia, but are the unexpanded flower 
buds of the cinnamon tree. The cin¬ 
namon tree belongs to the laurel fam¬ 
ily, while the true cassia is a legume, 
a well-known member of its tribe being 
the medicinal senna, Cassia senna and 
several other nearly related varieties 
supplying the leaves used in medicine. 
* 
Alabama tea cakes are made accord¬ 
ing to an old-fashioned recipe as fol¬ 
lows : Beat together four eggs and two 
cupfuls of sugar, then add one cupful 
of creamed butter, one even teaspoon¬ 
ful of soda and a teaspoonful of vanilla. 
Add the flour, four cupfuls, or as much 
more as needed, place on a dough- 
board, roll thin and cut with a small 
biscuit cutter. Sprinkle a little sugar 
on the top before putting in the oven, 
and add a dusting of cinnamon if liked. 
These cakes are very nice to serve 
with cocoa or chocolate. 
* 
Harrison cake is one of the old- 
fashioned recipes that go back to past 
generations of American housewives. 
The recipe is given us as follows: Four 
cupfuls of flour, three cupfuls of mo¬ 
lasses or half this amount of sugar, 
one cupful and a half of butter, two 
cupfuls of milk, four eggs, a teaspoon¬ 
ful of soda and two pounds of raisins. 
Cream the butter, add the sugar or 
molasses and then the milk and eggs, 
beaten together. Stir this mixture into 
the flour and soda, which should be 
sifted together several times. Add the 
fruit after sprinkling it with a little 
flour. Bake the cake in a slow oven 
for four hours. 
* 
One of our friends tells us of his 
yearning for fresh milk on a big ranch 
in Western Canada, where there was 
much stock, but no milkers. He could 
never understand why no one ever 
tried to milk some of the fresh cows, 
but after a brief but exciting interview 
with a range cow which he penned in 
a log corral for the purpose of milking 
her, he went back to condensed milk 
without a murmur. This recalls 
Homer Davenport’s story of the blue 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
October 14, 
roan cow. He was staying on a west¬ 
ern ranch, where fresh milk was un¬ 
known. Commenting on this, the fore¬ 
man told of a certain blue roan cow 
which he thought could be developed 
into a milker under proper conditions. 
Mr. Davenport continues: 
We decided to go and get that blue-roan 
cow. We took along three of our best men 
with the lariat. After a strenuous day we 
located the cow, and held her in location 
with four ropes. This was at sunup. 
Shortly afterward she was on her back in 
a large swamp, and we began to milk. At 
sundown we were still milking. 
We found it difficult to save quite all the 
milk. Milk sent straight up, in streams 
quite vertical, is hard to get into a pail. I 
do not vouch for such a process as a safe 
and sane method to get milk, but I cheer¬ 
fully vouch for it as a form of exercise 
which rivals hunting big game in Africa. 
For us it had a permanent result. It 
lent to condensed milk a sweeter and more 
wholesome flavor than ever condensed milk 
had had before. It did not. after that ex¬ 
perience with the blue-roan cow, seem in the 
least absurd to live upon a cattle ranch 
and still go without fresh milk. 
* 
As a matter of duty, why not make 
a will? This does not apply to minors, 
or to people who own absolutely 
nothing, or to those whose family af¬ 
fairs are so compactly arranged that 
there is no troublesome and expensive 
division possible. But there are en¬ 
tirely too many cases where the sharp 
pang of personal bereavement is made 
still more painful by the tangled condi¬ 
tion of the family affairs. Very few of 
us know what the laws of inheritance 
are; they differ widely in different 
States. Some of these laws are wise 
and liberal; others may operate in cer¬ 
tain cases so as to cause great suffer¬ 
ing. In many States we are informed 
that the father is the natural heir of 
an unmarried son or daughter who pre¬ 
deceases him, while the mother is ex¬ 
cluded. This certainly would not be 
the desire of an affectionate son or 
daughter; furthermore, in some States 
the widow of a childless man who died 
intestate might be impoverished by the 
operation of such statute. There are 
many cases, too, where a person de¬ 
sires to benefit one not a legal heir, yet 
connected by the closest ties of love and 
duty. The law, however, cannot recog¬ 
nize such claims, unless bequest is made 
in proper form. A legal will is not 
necessarily an elaborate instrument, and 
in most States if the testator writes a 
plain statement of his wishes, without 
any attempt at legal phraseology, and 
signs it in the presence of two wit¬ 
nesses, who also sign it, with date at¬ 
tached, the law recognizes it as a legal 
will. The witnesses must not be bene¬ 
ficiaries under the will. It is always 
wise to have such an instrument drawn 
up by a competent attorney, but there 
are some emergencies where this seems 
impossible, and it is well to remember 
that the absence of a lawyer need not 
invalidate a just will. The intention 
of the law is to carry out the wishes 
of a testator, unless there is very clear 
evidence of fraud or undue influence, 
but legal heirship ranks before friend¬ 
ship or affection. In one case under 
our observation a wealthy woman who 
married late in life willed most of her 
estate to her husband, who was, when 
married to her, a widower with grown¬ 
up daughters. She was deeply attached 
to her step-daughters and expected 
them to inherit from their father. But 
the father died first, without inherit¬ 
ing from his wife; the step-mother, 
through sudden illness, neglected to 
make a new will, and thus died in¬ 
testate, Her estate passed by law to 
distant blood relations, with whom she 
was barely on terms of friendship, and 
the step-daughters, to whom she was 
tenderly attached, were disinherited. 
Death is the one absolutely inevitable 
event in every life; whether we look 
towards it with dread or resignation 
we owe to those we love the considera¬ 
tion and forethought shown in care for 
their material welfare if they sur¬ 
vive us. 
Hunting Dewdrops. 
Such a pretty picture I saw from my 
kitchen window one morning! Two 
little girls, each in a compact little 
bunch on my walk, very carefully and 
slowly were putting their fingers down 
among the grass. The small faces were 
earnest and absorbed, and we wondered 
what they could be doing. Now and 
then they seemed to consult, and com¬ 
pare their finds. Having occasion to 
go to the door, I said, “What are you 
hunting? Four-leaf clovers?” The an¬ 
swer came, “No; dewdrops.” That 
sounded so pretty that I stooped down 
to see. Most of the grass blades held 
each a clear little drop on its tip, some 
larger than others. They certainly were 
interesting. I picked a blade with a 
large drop and held it up to the sun, 
e cpecting to see rainbow colors, but in¬ 
stead it glowed like a tiny electric light, 
which the children and I found very 
surprising and pleasing. 
These little girls are on the right 
track. They are learning to observe the 
beauty that lies all about the child that 
lives in the country—not simply the 
beauty evident to all, like that of the 
mountains and lakes, but the wonders 
that are so small that they are passed 
over by all but the careful observer. 
These same little girls are much inter¬ 
ested in the experiments of a neighbor, 
who though a busy woman, finds time 
to love all out doors. When she comes 
upon a promising caterpillar she brings 
it home with the leaves that it is eating 
and keeps it well fed until it changes 
into a chrysalis, and at last comes out 
a perfect butterfly with wonderful 
colors, or maybe it spins a cocoon and 
sleeps until its resurrection as a moth 
whose beauty is enjoyed by her family 
and friends. A part of the pleasure is 
in seeing the wings spread and lift the 
delicate creature as it realizes its power 
and liberty to float away in the sun¬ 
shine. This year our trees had many 
spiny elm caterpillars, and one of these 
little girls, having learned how the 
chrysalis looks, picked up one that had 
fallen, and took it home. Great was her 
admiration and that of her family when 
later the shining yellow-edge butterfly 
escaped from the small, ugly case. 
To one it seems that this study of 
nature should be encouraged by all par¬ 
ents and others who have children un¬ 
der their car^. How much more whole¬ 
some is such an interest than that which 
figures so largely in the minds of some 
children—their dress, and their per¬ 
sonal appearance. This love of nature 
will be a pure and life-long .pleasure, 
and will conduce to contentment when 
much else is denied. Then again the 
religious life of the child will be fos¬ 
tered, for the question must naturally 
come sometime, “How do these things 
come to be ?” And when that is an¬ 
swered, the heart must respond with 
thanks to the Maker and Giver of these 
good gifts. E. F. M. 
The man who never learns anything 
from his own blunders couldn’t learn 
anything in any college.—Ram’s Horn. 
More Heat 
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Select the stove at the store, 
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dealer’s and f .our own. 
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are made in many styles, sizes and 
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Over 4.000,000 housewives are en¬ 
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Jewel Stoves may cost a little more 
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You owe it to yourself to investi¬ 
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Write for our new stove booklet™ 
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DETROIT STOVE WORKS 
"Largest Stove Plant In the World" 
Detroit, Dept. J Chicago. 
■ Ml 
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Polish Your Silver 
with Treadwell’s Polishing Cloth. Always 
ready for use. No muss, no dirt, no dust. 
Will produce a higher luster and do it quicker 
than any other polish. 
Cloth, 12x20 inches; by mail postpaid, 25c. 
C. E. TREADWELL 
1857 California Street, Denver, Colo. 
t_t \t T 7 ' xy _Calif, sage honey, freight paid, per 
rtkJiN.lL, I lb.—Light Amber, 10c.; White, lie.; 
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payment. Large sample, 10c. Honey leaflet free. 
SPENCER APIARIES CO., Box 53, Nordhoff, Cal. 
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N. Wertheimer & Sons, 
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2429 Trinity Building. New York 
• ' ' NEW ■ 
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i 
