880 
THE RURAt NEW-YORKER 
Woman and the Home 
From Day to Day 
MOTHERHOOD. 
I wonder so that mothers ever fret 
At little children clinging at their 
gown; 
Or that the footsteps when the days are 
wet, 
Are ever black enough to make them 
frown. 
If I could mend a broken cart to-day, 
A cap or jacket on my chamber floor; 
If I could kiss a rosy, restless foot. 
And hear it patter in my home once 
more; 
If I could mend a broken cart to-day, 
To-morrow make a kite to reach the 
sky, 
There is no woman in God’s world could 
say, 
She was more blissfully content than I. 
But ah! the dainty pillow next my own 
Is never rumpled by a shining head : 
My singing birdling from its nest has 
flown ! 
The little boy I used to love is dead. 
But now it seems surpassing strange 
to me 
That while I bore the badge of mother¬ 
hood 
I did not kiss more oft and tenderly 
My little child, who brought me only 
good. 
—Mary Clemmer Ames. 
* 
If you have a camera that refuses its 
duty, it will be wise to examine the lens. 
Where the lens is a compound one, ce¬ 
mented together, the transparent cement 
changes in character in the course of 
years, and darkens, thus gradually ren¬ 
dering it useless. Any good optician can 
diagnose the trouble, and remedy it. 
He 
The “Youth’s Companion” quotes the 
story of a small boy who evidently be¬ 
lieved in the adage “Of two evils choose 
the less.” Turning a corner at full speed, 
he collided with the minister. 
“Where are you running to, my little 
man?” asked the minister, when he had 
regained his breath. 
“Home!” panted the boy. “Ma’s going 
to spank me.” 
“What!” gasped the astonished minis¬ 
ter. “Are you eager to have your mother 
spank you that you run home so fast?” 
“No,” shouted the boy over his shoul¬ 
der as he resumed his homeward flight, 
“but if I don’t get there before pa, he’ll 
do it!” 
* 
Probably few of the minor ills of life 
can make one much more miserable than 
a bad case of sunburn, which seems 
rather a joke to evei'yone except the chief 
victim. Dr. Rucker of the Government 
Public Health Service, says that blondes 
suffer more than brunettes from the ef¬ 
fect of heat, because the pigment in a 
brunette skin transforms to some degree 
short rapid actinic heat waves; thus the 
idea that fair people feel the heat more 
has a basis in fact. Dr. Rucker says 
blondes should wear blue or orange un¬ 
derwear, to protect the skin, while white 
outer garments add coolness by reflecting 
the heat rays. As a rule a painful case 
of sunburn is relieved by applications of 
some quickly evaporating substance, rose 
water being especially comforting, but a 
very bad case may induce sufficient fever 
to call for a doctor’s care. The blisters 
resulting from bad sunburn need care, 
too, for sometimes a sort of poisoning re¬ 
sults that affects the whole system. An¬ 
tiseptic washes and a simple salve should 
induce prompt healing in most cases, 
however. 
* 
Here is an onion soup that is savory, 
nourishing, and nufde without meat. It 
calls for one quart of milk, four large 
onions, three egg yolks, three tablespoon¬ 
fuls of butter, a large tablespoonful of 
flour, a cupful of cream and a seasoning 
of salt and pepper. Put the butter into 
the frying pan ; cut the onions into thin 
slices and add them; stir them until they 
begin to brown and then cover the pan 
containing them. Set it back, where the 
onions must simmer for half an hour, 
then draw it again to the front of the 
stove, add the flour and stir the whole 
constantly for three minutes. Mix it 
with the boiling hot milk and cook it for 
15 minutes. Press the soup through a 
strainer. Return it to the fire and add a 
seasoning of salt and pepper. Beat the 
egg yolks well, add the cream to them 
and then stir both into the soup. Let 
the whole cook three minutes, stirring 
constantly. Serve immediately with crou¬ 
tons. Milk may be used in place of 
cream, if an extra tablespoonful of but¬ 
ter is added. 
* 
Whenever nothing else claims atten¬ 
tion, newspaper writers unite in criti¬ 
cizing present fashions of dress for their 
crudeness, extravagance, or flaunting im¬ 
modesty. It is an ever-present subject, 
and apparently always has been; the He¬ 
brew’ prophets denounced the women who 
sewed pillow's into their armholes, and 
displayed paint and false hair, and the 
old-time residents of the Massachusetts 
colony went so far as to legislate against 
any woman who should entrap his ma¬ 
jesty’s liege subjects into marriage by 
artificial aids to beauty. Through all* 
this time artificial aids to beauty have 
appeared to hold their attraction, and the 
very men who have fulminated most 
strenuously against them have often been 
most susceptible to their influence. But 
it is quite absurd to believe that present- 
day styles must be ugly or immodest, or 
that one cannot buy anything except vul¬ 
gar exaggerations. The one-piece dress, 
with a skirt of moderate but not hamper¬ 
ing narrowness, the natural waist and 
the small hat now 7 prevalent ai’e all pretty 
and comfortable. In underw’ear we now 
use just about the style of garments, in 
combinations and union suits, that dress 
reformers of the previous generation tried 
to make women adopt for health’s sake. 
Even the much-abused corset no longer 
crowds the lungs and pinches the waist 
as it used to in crinoline days. The fact 
is it is possible to model one’s clothes 
after prevailing styles, and yet be com¬ 
fortable and active. It is quite true that 
many women and girls do adopt models 
in dress and behavior that suggests a de¬ 
pravity of mind they do not really pos¬ 
sess, but such danger signals are a warn¬ 
ing rather than an example. Looking 
back upon past years when we held up 
voluminous trains, climbed wearily onto 
street cars under the burden of innumer¬ 
able pleats, or tried, in driving storms, 
to manage an 18-gore skirt with one hand 
and a self-willed umbrella with the other 
we are ready to sound the praises of a 
lighter and narrower garment, and to 
defy the disinterested manufacturers who 
would swathe us in IS yards of material 
when seven would be sufficient. 
Preserving Tomatoei and Garden 
Lemon. 
1. Give recipe for making tomato pre¬ 
serves. 2. Does the so-called garden 
lemon make good preserves? If so how 
prepared. R. s. S. 
1. Recipes for tomato preserves were 
given on page 511, R. N.-Y. for April 5, 
1913. While yellow tomatoes are spe¬ 
cially mentioned in these cases, firm- 
fleshed red ones may be used. The yel¬ 
low color is the more attractive. 
2. The botanist says that the garden 
lemon, which we have not grown, ap¬ 
pears to be the type of Muskmelon known 
as Cueumis Melo var. Chito, of Naudin, 
although the type seldom has the brown 
markings on the rind found on the Amer¬ 
ican races. It is a slender growing plant, 
bearing lemon or orange-formed fruits 
without characteristic flavor, but with 
solid cucumber-like flesh and seeds. It 
is made into preserves, but depends upon 
ginger or lemon to supplythe flavor lack¬ 
ing in its own insipidity. We should fol¬ 
low the rule given for pumpkin or 
watermelon rind in preserving this fruit. 
The fruit is peeled, cut up and soaked 
five hours in weak brine, then drained, 
and soaked two hours in fresh water, 
which is changed two or three times. The 
fruit is then put into boiling water, con¬ 
taining a teaspoonful of powdered alum 
to two quarts of water, just brought to 
the boil, and then drained. A syrup is 
then made with 2% pounds of sugar to 
iy 2 quarts of water, which is brought 
to a boil and skimmed till clear. The 
drained fruit is added to this, and sim¬ 
mered until it can be pierced with a 
straw. The pieces are then lifted out 
with a skimmer, placed on a large plate, 
and put in the sun one or two hours un¬ 
til they have hardened. Meanwhile the 
rind of one large lemon, cut small, the 
juice of two lemons and a small piece of 
green ginger root cut in thin slices are 
added to the syrup, which is boiled gently 
for 10 minutes. When the fruit seems 
hardened; it is put cold into the jars, 
the syrup brought to a boil, and then 
strained over it. Citron melon is very 
nice preserved this way, and no doubt 
the“garden-lemon” would be equally good. 
The Rural Patterns. 
When ordering patterns always give 
number of pattern and measurements de¬ 
sired. 
The first group shows 7408 outing coat 
or blazer, 34 to 40 bust. 7901 fancy cut¬ 
away coat, 34 to 42 bust. 7793 sport or 
mannish shirt, 34 to 40 bust. 7596 five- 
gored skirt, 22 to 32 waist. 7891 child’s 
dress, 2 to 6 years. 7906 child’s Empire 
dress, 1, 2 and 4 years. 
The second group includes 7570 men’s 
single-breasted coat, 36 to 44 breast. 7164 
men’s outing or negligee shirt, 34 to 46 
breast. 7650 men’s bath robe, small 36 
or 38, medium 40 or 42, large 44 to 46 
breast. 6709 boy’s middy blouse, 6 to 12 
years. 74S5 boy’s blouse, 4 to 12 years. 
Price of each pattern 10 cents. 
The Wise Woman Says. 
“The two friends who have done most 
to enrich my life are coming to see me 
and coming both at the same time, so 
you will have a chance to compare two 
very dear women for they are about as 
unlike as two ladies can be,” said Mrs. 
Sage. 
After the visits were over and impres¬ 
sions had gradually come to the surface 
like cream on a pan of milk, Mrs. Sage 
skimmed off her reflections in this wise: 
“Yes, one might say that Eleanor 
had enjoyed almost every advantage and 
Janet faced almost every disadvantage. 
One has always been in easy circum¬ 
stances and one frequently in very hard 
ones. They both had good brains, sound 
hearts and high principles. And Elea¬ 
nor’s life has run placidly amid the 
world’s green pastures and still waters, 
a good and devoted husband, lovely chil¬ 
dren, social enjoyments. Poor Janet’s 
life has given her but poor substitutes in 
these lines. 
July 19, 
“But I’ll not say poor Janet. As you 
say, she is rich in many unusual ways. 
She seems to walk on the uplands, to 
have wide views of things people in the 
valleys miss altogether. Yes, her detach¬ 
ment from self and petty likes and dis¬ 
likes, her understanding of all sorts of 
people and charity for all kinds and con¬ 
ditions, is a restful atmosphere to 
breathe. She condemns no one, and yet 
I remember when she was as critical and 
sure of her own notions as any girl in the 
schoolroom. Her trials have certainly 
worked as the hymn promises: 
“Thy dross to consume, and thy gold 
to refine!” 
“I love Eleanor as much as ever I did,, 
but do you know I’ve sometimes thought 
that to fall into ruts was about the worst 
thing that could happen to a person’s 
character. Not as bad as going to pieces, 
of course, but bad in checking growth and 
preventing development. You are al¬ 
lowed to have your own way, and you 
think you have good judgment and are 
steering a pretty fair course, and sure to 
come out just where you want to be. The 
fact is that, runing always on the one 
course, you are plowing deeper and 
deeper into ruts that make it harder and 
harder to turn out for anyone or any 
happening. You get surer and surer you 
are right, and more and more sure others 
are less right, till you are a trial to your¬ 
self and everybody else. You can’t see 
over the hedgerows. You don’t want to. 
Well, some day your wheels won’t turn. 
You are in up to your hubs. 
“Your friends say you have a nervous 
collapse, perhaps. If your case is very 
bad they say you have settled into the 
egotistical mania! Maybe you have to 
go away to a sanitarium. But perhaps 
you worry along merely growing old and 
peevish before your time. And, some¬ 
how, though you have steered exactly by 
the big letter I you hung up and called 
the North Star, and have kept the course 
all along, you do not arrive where you 
thought you should. At least the place 
doesn’t hold the happiness and rewards 
you planned to get when there. 
“All this doesn’t apply to my friend 
Eleanor, for I have let my simile run 
away with my special care into generaliz¬ 
ing. But she has been at a sanitarium, 
poor child; and her daughter once con¬ 
fided to me that mamma’s nerves threat¬ 
ened sometimes to spread a pall over 
what might be a gloriously happy house¬ 
hold. I wish she could see how set she 
is in her social prejudices. But it is a 
common fault in women. They see the 
virtues of their own ways and ideas and 
associates, and do not think as they can 
help condemning everything not conform¬ 
ing with their petty notions. And some¬ 
how the less they have seen of the world 
the more sure they are that judgment 
sits enthroned in their special little skull¬ 
ful of brains. Eleanor has traveled and 
seen other social conditions, but her own 
corner of the big world has so pleased 
her that nothing has broadened her sym¬ 
pathies much. It is pleasant to enjoy 
her dainty narrow circle with her for 
awhile, but in contrast to Janet’s breadth 
and freedom it is a rather stifling atmos¬ 
phere, and makes one long for the open 
sky and freshness of the uplands where 
self is forgotten. 
“There is a stanza of Browning’s, 
Rabbi Ben Ezra, that comes to my mind 
when I see a character that has tri¬ 
umphed over the hard things of fate and 
turned troubles into blessings: 
“Then, welcome each rebuff 
That turns earth’s smoothness rough. 
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand 
but go! 
Be our joys three-parts pain! 
Strive, and hold cheap the strain; 
Learn, nor account the pang; dare, 
Never grudge the throe.” A. T. s. 
Strawberry Nectar.—To one quart of 
mashed strawberries add the juice of one 
lemon, two tablespoonfuls of orange 
juice and three pints of water. Let it 
stand three hours, then strain it upon 
three-quarters of a pound of powdered 
sugar, and stir until dissolved. Serve ice 
cold. 
Russian Cup.—Make a syrup of two 
pounds of sugar and three quarts of 
water. While hot add two large cucum¬ 
bers, sliced. Let stand two hours and 
strain. Add a pint of strong tea and the 
juice of six lemons. Serve with cracked 
ice. 
