26 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
[January, 
mou, and I get less chance to “ oil the machinery,” 
or “wet the clay,” or whatever you call the op¬ 
portune words and “switching off” tricks for 
keeping squabbles at bay. They get cold feet 
and hands from the frequent opening of doors, 
and perhaps from the windows open at the top to 
let out the steam. If the kitchen must serve as a 
laundry it should be a pretty bare room, as the 
steam of the suds is so generally injurious. 
I must “put out” the washing, then—to have 
the flannels all shrunken, the calicos faded, the 
white clothes begrimed ? And then, I do not 
know of any woman about here (taking in wash¬ 
ing) who would keep her room in as wholesome a 
condition as I should mine. How wet some of 
these kitchens do get with steam. This added to 
the compound smell which prevails in such rooms 
the whole winter long, makes a home for little 
children about as unwholesome as possible. But 
the woman wants money to buy shoes and stock¬ 
ings for her children. I can not give her that and 
pay for the washing beside. She wants to do the 
washing—mine and other folks—and I pass it 
along with a heart of pity for her children, and for 
their mother. She is saved considerable mental 
suffering by her unenlightened condition. If her 
baby dies she will only weep over a “ mysterious 
providence.” 
When can we have good, cheap, public laundries ? 
A Word from the Woman’s Congress. —While 
I was agitating the question with which I started 
these “ Topics ” this month, an essay upon the sub¬ 
ject of “Enlightened Motherhood,” read before 
the Woman’s Congress lately in session in New 
York, came in my way. Much of the “ light ” at¬ 
tempted to be shed abroad upon this subject is 
simple darkness, it seems to me. “ Ideas are in the 
air,” Emerson says, and I take it as a sign that 
some of the clouds of crude ideas in our mental 
skies are blowing over, that an essay on Enlight¬ 
ened Motherhood in the first Woman’s Congress 
should have recognized so well some of the 
limitations of a mother’s power and responsi¬ 
bility. 
Mrs Corbin, who wrote the paper on Enlight¬ 
ened Motherhood to which I refer, had been study¬ 
ing a pamphlet sent out to the mothers of Phila¬ 
delphia by a medical society of that city, “ On the 
Care of Young Children during Hot Weather.” 
Mothers were told, in that, to have their cooking 
done “in a shed, or in the yard, or in the garret,” 
but there was a plain suggestion that a kitchen in 
the bottom of the house must impair the purity of 
the atmosphere of the rooms above. Mothers 
were also told to keep their children out of the rooms 
where cooking and washing were being done. 
If this latter caution is important in hot weather 
when all the windows and doors may stand open, 
it seems equally so in winter when the steam and 
odors are so much more confined. 
Almost every day children come into our house 
who smell so badly of the odors of the kitchens 
where they live that I can hardly bear to go near 
them. I have not tried to count the smells, but I 
distinctly perceive tobacco smoke, burnt grease, 
and over-burnt, over-boiled, bitter coffee. 
Mrs. Corbin tells how she inquired of her wise 
physician what she could possibly do to save the 
life of her babe who was slowly dying. He an¬ 
swer, d : “The best that you can do, the best that 
any mother can do with a nursing baby as deli¬ 
cately organized as this one, is, as much as possible, 
at all times and under all circumstances to keep a 
quiet mind. Be placid, equable, unmoved. Your 
baby draws her life from your life now. It must 
be sweet, serene, unshaken by storms, or she can not 
thrive upon it.” 
Mrs. Corbin says : “But what advice is this to 
give to a housekeeper, beset with the nameless and 
numberless sources of discord and inharmony 
which characterize the reign of the “black beast” 
and Bridget. With a kitchen stove, and an ordi¬ 
nary cook, or rather the ordinary succession of 
cooks, each one worse than the last, the cases are 
rare and exceptional when a woman can ever be 
sure of a year and a half of such quietude of 
mind as is absolutely necessary to the proper 
bearing and rearing of a child. It is, therefore, 
after mature deliberation, and with a solemn sense 
of my own responsibility to God and man, that I 
stand here and cbarge^upon the kitchen stove a very 
large percentage of the mortality that desolates 
our homes. Banish cooking and laundry work 
from the house, with all their concomitants of foul 
odors, unnecessary heat, and an atmosphere peri¬ 
odically surcharged with vapor, and the salubrity 
of the premises would be increased fifty per cent. 
With cookery and laundry work, Bridget also 
would fold her tent like the Arabs, and as silently 
steal away.” 
Several years ago Mrs. Stowe, in the pages of the 
Atlantic Monthly, prophesied and prayed for the 
establishment of public laundries and public 
cooking houses. It will probably be some time 
yet before we get them, even in our cities, and we 
must possess our souls in patience and do the best 
we can. Let us learn all that we can about the 
laws of health, about ventilation and wholesome 
cookery ; and let us be more careful to prevent the 
escape of steam into our kitchens, where our 
children have to live as long as their mother is con¬ 
fined there. What if we should abolish dough- 
uuts and griddle cakes and other fried food? 
Couldn’t “papa” stand that? Ah ! He must be 
“ enlightened” too ! 
“The Black Beast.” —It is blacker than there 
is necessity for, it seems to me. Mr. R. had a leisure 
day at home lately, and after doing a number of 
“ dickering jobs,” he said to me: 
“ If you will tell me where to find the blacking, 
I’ll black the cook-stove. It is just cool enough 
now.” 
I thanked him, but said I didn’t want it 
blacked. I knew it was quite brown, but I was 
content to have it so. He looked surprised and I 
explained. 
It has been several years since a blacked kitchen 
stove has seemed clean to me. I hardly dared to 
entertain such a thought, till I found that some of 
the very neatest housekeepers thought so too, and 
practiced accordingly. They wash their stoves 
daily, and the surface of the stove is then clean. A 
blacked stove blackens everything that rubs against 
it, and the children’s stockings often suffer from 
its contamination. I have never been able to 
polish a stove without a deal of trouble to prevent 
soiling the carpet or w r alls adjacent; and I always 
feel as though my own body and clothing have 
been unnecessarily defiled, even when I wear 
gloves. To keep a stove black requires daily at¬ 
tention, and it is one of the unnecessary cares 
with which I do not choose to encumber myself. 
My auditor looked his approval, and remarked : 
“They say that greasy dish-water is best for 
washing a stove.” 
“ I can not bear to use it,” I said, “ the smell of 
it upon the hot stove is so disagreeable. I prefer 
to keep a cloth for that especial purpose, and to 
use clean water. The greasy water gives a blacker 
surface to the iron, but that does not pay me for 
the bad odor it gives out.” 
“I think you are right,” said Mr. Rochester. 
“ Besides polished stoves give out less heat than 
those with rougher brown surfaces.” 
It is not necessary to put the hands into the 
water with which the stove is washed. Make a 
small mop or swab with a wooden handle, and 
rinse this out and liaug it to dry each time when 
you have done with it. 
Care of the Hands. —Is there aDy particular 
virtue in rough, red hands? It is disgraceful to 
shirk necessary labor, but soft, white hands are a 
comfortable thing for a wife and mother, or any 
other woman to possess. Try a few drops of ammo¬ 
nia in the basin of water with which you wash your 
hands after the day’s housework is done. It has a 
softening and cleansing effect. Powdered borax is 
also excellent. Glycerine is the thing to use upon 
chapped hands and the cracks at the finger ends. 
A Word farther about Stove Hearths.— It 
occurs to me that I overlooked one strong point 
in favor of the high hearths. It is not often, I 
I think, that your low hearth offers equal facilities 
with a high one for broiling. Certainly no way of 
cooking a steak is quite equal to genuine broiling. 
I have tried the way of cooking it in a hot un¬ 
greased spider a good deal, but broiling is better, 
though usually more troublesome. 
Gridirons or Broilers, and Steaks. —The 
gridirons that go with our stoves usually have 
grooved iron bars. It is a trouble to keep these 
clean. Wire broilers are more easily managed. 
One that shuts the steak in so that it can be turned, 
gridiron and all, is very convenient. 
A steak should be turned several times, at very 
short intervals. It should lie as near as possible 
to the hot coals. The under side sears almost in¬ 
stantly. Turn it before the juice has a chance to 
gather upon the upper surface, and sear that side 
also. Frequent turning keeps the juices in the 
steak, but if you perceive them upon the meat 
when you go to turn it, hold it over the hot meat 
platter while you turn it. The double wire gridiron 
makes this an easy matter. This, also, is the easiest 
gridiron that I know of for snatching from the 
coals when a blaze flashes up. Salt thrown upon 
the blaze puts it out. Flames under the steak are 
apt to give it a bad, burnt flavor. To avoid them 
cut away and leave out the big chunks of suet that 
sometimes come with the steak. 
Do not season the steak till nearly or quite 
done. Put it at once between hot platters with 
its seasoning, and after a few moments you will 
find it all covered with juice or gravy. 
I have used a patent broiler upon the top of the 
stove over a hot blaze, but I prefer the coals. 
When broiling at the top of the stove over a wood 
fire look out for your draughts. If there is a 
“top draught” in the front of the stove, this is 
the time to open it. Have the dampers turned so 
as to draw the smoke up chimney as fast as pos¬ 
sible, never using the oven at the same time. 
What Shall we have for Breakfast ? 
The above question was proposed in the Novem¬ 
ber number, and the answers have been coming in 
at a most unexpected rate. Indeed, so numerous 
are the lists that the committee to whom they wore 
referred have been unable to make the decision in 
time for it to be published in the Household pages, 
but it will be given among the “ Basket Items,” as 
that portion of the paper goes to press some days 
later than this. 
- 4 - mm *——» » — 
Puddings and Pancakes, 
BY MRS. H. S. P. 
Plum Pudding. —Two eggs; six crackers; three 
pints of sweet milk ; a piece of butter the size of 
an egg; one cup of raisins; a little salt and nutmeg. 
Baked Indian Pudding. —Four eggs; one quart 
of sweet milk ; five large tea-spoonfuls of Indian- 
meal; nutmeg and sugar to the taste. Boil the 
milk and scald the Iudian-meal in it, then let it 
cool before adding the eggs. Bake three-quarters 
of an hour. Eat with butter or sweet sauce. 
Pancakes.—O ne egg; two spoonfuls of sugar; 
one cup of sweet milk ; one tea-spoonful of soda ; 
two tea-spoonfuls of cream-of-tartar; three cups 
of flour. 
' Quick Pudding.— One egg; one cup of sugar; 
one table-spoonful of melted butter; one cup of 
sweet milk ; half a tea-spoonful of soda; three 
cups of flour. Bake half an hour or more. Eat 
with sweet sauce. 
Sago Pudding.—Two large spoons of sago boiled 
in one quart of milk; the peel of a lemon ; little 
nutmeg; when cool add four eggs; little salt. 
Bake about one hour and a half. Eat with sugar 
and cream. 
Doughnuts. —One egg; one cup of sugar; two 
cups of sour milk; one spoonful of cream if the 
milk is not very rich ; one tea-spoonful of soda ; 
little salt; nutmeg; flour enough to roll. 
