14,6 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[April, 
keep a long while in a cold, dry place; but if a large 
quantity be made at once it is well to have it press¬ 
ed hard into bags of strong cotton cloth. 
Beef Toast is prepared by chopping fine the 
remnants of beefsteak or cold roast beef. It should 
be warmed up with a little water and seasoned with 
butter, salt, and pepper. Slices of bread should 
be toasted and laid on a platter on which the meat 
is to be turned when hot. 
Bread Fritters are made by soaking bread¬ 
crumbs in milk over-night. In the morning add 
an egg and salt and very little flour, as the thicker 
the batter is made by the crumbs the shorter and 
more delicious they are. 
The lady who sends the above advises, as do the 
others, that all possible preparation for breakfast 
be made the night before. 
-- --- ®--. -- 
Home Topics. 
BY FAITH ROCHESTER. 
Mistress and Maid. —I can not wonder at all 
that refined American girls shrink from going out 
to service in families. But what girl who works 
for a living, as sewing girl or shop girl, would not 
find a happier lot in the kitchen of Mrs. Sin Saxton 
Schermati (see “Other Girls,” by Mrs. Whitney), 
especially with such a work-fellow and room-mate 
as Bell Bree or Kate Sencerbox ? Better still to be 
housemaid for Miss Louisa Alcott, the author of 
“Work.” I read lately some of her experience 
with American help contributed by herself to the 
Boston Transcript. It is better than anything she 
can say in fiction upon the subject. I was espe¬ 
cially delighted with the terms she made with the 
helpers she employed. If I had not sent away the 
paper containing the article I would venture to 
quote verbatim , although I know the editor would 
cut it out, as he insists on “original” matter—as 
if anything ever was original. 
She frankly stated what sort of work she wished 
done; she wanted some one to work with her in the 
kitchen, taking at the same time the brunt of the 
labor. She wished an intelligent, respectable wo¬ 
man, who could make one of the family, sitting at 
the table with them, and reading their books and 
newspapers. She found just such companionship 
and help as she desired, in more than one case, and 
can not possibly supply all the applicants that now 
come to her for a situation, as she can not afford to 
give up her own share in the household gymnas¬ 
tics, so essential to her health. 
I think the great secret of Miss Alcott’s success 
with American helpers lies in the fact of her having 
outgrown, or having perhaps failed to inherit, the 
spirit of caste which mars nearly all human rela¬ 
tions so far in history. Her helpers were never 
thought out of place in the parlor, though they 
were persons of sufficient refinement to leave the 
room when company called—just as you or I would 
do if boarding or visiting in Miss Alcott’s family 
when visitors called to see other parties, unless we 
were invited to remain. Miss Alcott never hesitated 
to introduce her help to guests, when they fairly 
met, as “Miss So-and-so,” not just “Jane,” or 
“ Mary.” In short, she treated her help as one 
lady treats another lady She paid no exorbitant 
wages, but gave the women who worked faithfully 
for her three dollars per week and a warm {sovl- 
warming, I mean), comfortable home, where they 
were free to enjoy all the luxuries and refining in¬ 
fluences of that home like its other inmates. 
Getting Away from the Children.— When a 
baby is too young to reason with at all, it may be 
best to put on your bonnet in another room, and 
save it if possible from all thought of your absence 
until your return. But I have found it the best 
way usually to give the little ones an affectionate 
gooa-by when I leave them for an hour or more. 
It is only treating them fairly, and they appreciate 
your confidence in them. Sometimes one will set 
up a cry to go too, when it is not a part of your 
plan to have its company; but you have only to 
refuse firmly—the more emphatically the louder it 
cries. It usually takes more than one lesson to 
teach a child that it can not conquer you by scream¬ 
ing. Many children do gain their wishes in that 
way. Last summer I heard a child of four crying 
to go down town with her father. I heard him say 
petulantly more than once, “No, you can’t go”! 
She only screamed the louder, and at the last mo¬ 
ment he said, with the air of a vanquished man, 
“Well, get your bonnet and come along then.” 
That child knows how to gain her point with her 
father, who regards her as a very willful child. A 
few weeks afterward the same little girl’s mother 
came along past a group of children, and her own 
child skipped out to meet her. The mother had 
her hat under her shawl. She gave the little one 
some errand into the house, and then ran fast 
around the corner with the friend who accompan¬ 
ied her, saying to me, “I am going to meeting and 
I don’t want her to go.” The little one came out 
in a few moments and inquired for her mother. I 
called her to me and said, “ Your mother has gone 
to meeting. She was afraid you would cry to go 
with her if she told you ; but I am sure I can tell 
her when she comes home that you did not cry at 
all.” She went back to her play without any com¬ 
plaint, and the mother seemed surprised when I 
told her about it next day. 
Food for Expectant and Nursing Mothers. 
—I find many excellent things in a book called 
“The Philosophy of Eating,” by A. J. Bellows, 
M.D., late professor of chemistry, physiology, and 
hygiene. To set a few thoughtless mothers to 
thinking, and to save their families from some sick¬ 
ness, and death perhaps, let me give the substance 
of a portion of the volume. He says in effect 
that the milk of the cow was intended to 
develop the calf, a work which it does perfectly ; 
but if the calf were fed ou cream alone or on but¬ 
ter it would very soon die. Butter can not develop 
a human being; and yet how many expectant and 
nursing mothers thoughtlessly provide themselves 
and their precious little ones with food largely con¬ 
sisting of superfine flour, butter, and sugar, without 
knowing or thinking that sugar and butter have no 
elements at all for muscles or bones or brains,' and 
white flour very little. 
Children, if their mothers fed exclusively on such 
food, would die within a month ; and as it is, ac¬ 
cording to Dr. B., only one half in all Christendom 
and not one eighth in all Heathendom have vital 
power to carry them through the first five years. 
Those that live have a life of struggle with disease 
and suffering in just the proportion as they are 
deprived of food containing elements adapted to 
develop the whole system, and give power to resist 
and overcome disease. He states,what all thought¬ 
ful persons know, that most of our food contains 
an undue proportion of carbon. The butter, fine 
flour, and sugar which form so large a portion of 
our diet, consists largely of carbon, and this he 
considers renders all organs more susceptible to 
inflammatory and other diseases; while the defi¬ 
ciency of the nitrates and phosphates is another 
fault in such food. Animals in their natural state, 
living as they do according to natural laws, as a 
general thing raise all their young to full maturity. 
A physically perfect young man or woman, with 
perfect teeth and sound lungs and well-developed 
muscles and brains, is a rare exception to the 
general rule, and this he ascribes to improper food. 
Mothers’ milk, if the mothers live on proper food, 
is the best as it is the natural food for children 
until teeth are formed, which indicates a condition 
that requires a change; but sickly mothers, those 
mothers who live on white bread and butter,would 
greatly benefit their children by weaning them and 
substituting the milk of the cow for their own poor 
product. The cow furnishes milk with too much 
nitrogenous matter. For this reason we, for young 
children, dilute it with water. As to other food 
than milk, that which will supply nourishment for 
the muscles and brain should be selected; but 
starch, arrowroot, sugar, and cream, all of which 
are sometimes given in ignorance of their charac¬ 
ter, contain no element of food but carbon ; but, 
on the other hand, beefsteak and oatmeal, and 
6uch other articles as contain large proportions of 
nitrogenous and phosphatic elements, tend to 
develop the muscles and brain too rapidly; and a 
special regard should be had to this consideration 
where the child is very active and precocious. 
The Breakfast Question.— I am curious to see 
some of those best bills of fare sent in by the 
breakfast-getters of the Agriculturist constituency. 
I do not kuow whether they would help my case 
much. There are a good many difficulties in the 
way of solving this problem of a good early break¬ 
fast. First is the difficulty of waking up in time. 
Who wants to get out of bed and light a match to 
examine the clock on a cold winter morning? You 
lie waiting for it to strike, perhaps, and what if you 
have to count seven for your pains ? Or you wait 
for a whole hour, and it strikes one, and by that 
time your blood is all in your head and your feet 
are cold. You have been writing articles for the 
press in the rare quiet of the hour—how clear the 
thoughts do come (and go !) just when there is no 
possibility of putting them on paper !—or you have 
the children’s wardrobes all pulled to pieces about 
you, and can’t sleep again until you see how they 
are all to be clothed for the coming season. 
Then there is the fire to start. We have nothing 
to do on a winter morning but light the fire, all 
laid the night before in the kitchen stove, with the 
match and scrap of paper on the hearth. 
The baby is always the unknown quantity in this 
problem. No one can tell at just what stage in the. 
proceedings she will put in her claims for attention. 
If one woman has everything to do the time is a 
very busy and perplexing one. 
I can not sleep comfortably if my mind is not 
made easy on the subject of breakfast materials 
before I go to rest. Steak to broil, potatoes all 
dressed for baking or boiling, plenty of bread in 
the house, coffee ready browned; that makes the 
problem not very difficult, especially if your hus¬ 
band, like mine, is ready to do a part—to broil the 
steak and make his own coffee, for instance, should 
any emergency arise such as is quite supposable 
where young children abound. Many nice things 
may be quickly prepared for an early breakfast if 
the preparation is begun the previous day ; for in¬ 
stance, potato or fish-balls, meat, or meat and 
potato hashes, etc. 
If warm bread must be made, graham gems take 
least time, provided your oven heats quickly. If 
the oven is hot when the raw gems go into it, you 
can take them out, done, in twenty or at most 
thirty minutes. 
Professor Blot Concerning Bread. —We ex¬ 
pect to find some directions about bread-making 
in our recipe-books. I turned to see what our 
celebrated cookery instructor would say, and found 
only this : “ It is next to an impossibility to make 
good bread in a small family range or stove ; four 
times out of five the bread is too much or not 
enough baked. Good baker’s bread, besides sav¬ 
ing a great deal of time and labor, is as cheap as 
you can make it at home.” That is all! and it 
edifies me more than I can tell. But please tell us 
where to find our “ good baker’s bread.” 
That reminds me of a new recipe for yeast which 
I have just received from the best bread-maker I 
know of—my own sister. After all, perhaps I 
ought not to call her the “best bread-maker.”' 
The author of “ The Philosophy of Eating ” would 
call her very light, very white, very sweet bread, 
made of superfine flour mixed with new milk, poor 
stuff compared with almost any kind of graham 
bread, because superfine flour is such worthless 
stuff in his estimation. But if he saw the rye and 
Indian bread that always accompanies this beautiful 
white bread to the table he would feel better, for 
he highly commends rye and Indian bread. I hope 
sister will send me her recipe. 
Yeast.— Two cups of grated potatoes; one half 
cup of sugar; one fourth cup of salt. Place these 
in a pan and pour over the mixture one quart of 
boiling water, stirring meanwhile. Place the whole 
on the stove and let it boil up once. When cool 
enough—about blood heat—add half a cup of 
good yeast. Set in a warm place to rise. It is 
very light and foamy, and does not sour readily. 
Like all soft yeast, keep it in a covered vessel as 
cool as possible without freezing. 
