464 
THE RURAL T4 E W-YORKER 
March 21, 
Woman and the Home 
From Day to Day 
THE PROMISE OF BREAD. 
Out on the frozen uplands, underneath 
the snow and sleet. 
In the bosom of the plowland sleeps the 
Promise of the Wheat; 
With the ice for head and footstone, and 
a snowy shroud outspread 
In the frost-locked tomb of Winter sleeps 
the Miracle of Bread! 
With its hundred thousand reapers and 
its hundred thousand men, 
And the click of guard and sickle and the 
flails that turn again, 
And drover’s shout, and snap of whips 
and creak of horses’ tugs, 
And a thin red line o’ gingham girls that 
carry water jugs; 
And yellow stalks and dagger beards that 
stab thro’ cotton clothes, 
And farmer boys a-shocking wheat in 
long and crooked rows, 
And dust-veiled men on mountain stacks, 
whose pitchforks flash and gleam; 
And thrashing engines shrieking songs 
in syllables of steam, 
And elevators painted red that lift their 
giant arms 
And beckon to the Harvest God above 
the brooding farms. 
And loaded trains that hasten forth, a 
hungry world to fill— 
All sleeping just beneath the snow, out 
yonder on the hill! 
—C. L. Edson in American Magazine. 
A simple but very nourishing dish to 
take the place of meat is macaroni alia 
Campagnola. Partly cook in boiling 
salted water six ounces of macaroni; 
partly drain, and replace in the pan 
with four ounces of melted butter, four 
ounces of grated cheese, and four well- 
beaten eggs. Mix well, and stir over a 
slow fire for 15 minutes. Serve with 
grated cheese. 
* 
One of our readers recently asked for 
recipes for cooking Swiss chard, a use¬ 
ful vegetable which always finds a place 
in our own garden. We were somewhat 
surprised, on examining four standard 
cook books, and a fifth devoted entirely 
to vegetables, to find no mention of chard 
in any one of the five; so we gave the 
inquirer our own methods of using it, 
without any added wisdom from others. 
Chard is so easily grown and productive, 
that it ought always to find a place in 
the home garden. If any of our readers 
have further recipes for preparing it, we 
should like to hear of them. Indeed, we 
should like any new or little-known re¬ 
cipes for cooking vegetables. Such re¬ 
cipes are always useful to rural house¬ 
keepers, and anything that aids the con¬ 
sumption of garden products must result 
in ultimate benefit to the farm. 
* 
Tiie Youth’s Companion tells how a 
young girl in Mississippi asked her 
brother for money to go to college. He 
said he could not afford it, and tossing 
her a nickel, added, “Unless you can go 
on that!” 
The plucky little girl took the five-cent 
piece and bought some calico fron which 
she made a bonnet that she sold for 25 
cents. With this money she bought more 
calico and made more bonnets. After 
she had made several dollars in this way 
she determined to raise potatoes. She 
did all the work in the field except the 
plowing. The venture was a success 
and she had enough money to start to 
school. She did not stop work, however, 
and it is not surprising that a girl of so 
much determination was able to borrow 
enough money to supplement what she 
made. She was graduated with honor 
from the State College for Women, at¬ 
tended a medical school, still earning all 
her expenses, got her degree and is now 
a successful practicing physician in a 
large town in the South, and it all began 
with a nickel. 
* 
The cable despatches reported a des¬ 
perate fight between a cormorant and a 
lobster was watched by a crowd at Dolly- 
mount, near Dublin, Ireland, March 3. 
The cormorant dived into the water and 
rose with the lobster in its beak. The 
bird then descended rapidly and vigor¬ 
ously battered the lobster against a rock. 
The cormorant rose again and shook the 
lobster as a dog does a rat. Suddenly the 
cormorant began flapping its wings vio¬ 
lently and struggled with the lobster un¬ 
til it became exhausted and fell dead on 
the beach. It was found that the lobster 
had gripped the cormorant’s tongue and 
the bird died of suffocation. This recalls 
a similar battle which we witnessed, 
some years ago, between a fish-hawk or 
osprey and a large fish, the scene being 
a large tidal river near the New Jersey 
coast. The osprey, after it's natural 
habit, made a sudden descent to strike a 
fish, but instead of rising at once with 
its prey, was seen to struggle violently at 
the surface of the water. There was a 
brief but terrific battle, amid clouds of 
spray and a boiling mass of foam, as the 
great wings of the osprey lashed the 
water. Viewed through a telescope, it 
could be seen that the bird had struck a 
fish too large for it to master, yet so se¬ 
curely that it could not release its talons. 
After a time the unlucky bird was seen 
floating with outstretched wings, evident¬ 
ly drowned by the struggles of its an¬ 
ticipated victim, which had apparently 
escaped, though it must have been severe¬ 
ly lacerated by the osprey. 
An Easter Dinner Party. 
Soft greens, and yellows are suggestive 
of Spring, and they make a charming 
color scheme for an Easter dinner table. 
One simple arrangement, in which these 
colors prevail, is gained in this way: 
Make a simple basket of white birch 
bark, and fill it with ferns, and as many 
blown egg-shells, tinted a pretty yellow, 
as there are to be members of the party. 
Fill each shell with small bonbons, and 
use them as favors at the close of the 
meal. In the middle of the table arrange 
a mat of the ferns, and place the basket 
hours. Before serving remove the pork 
from the bones, and fill the centre of the 
crown with hot, well seasoned peas, 
drained dry. For the mint jelly, make a 
plain unsweetened lemon jelly, and add 
enough mint infusion to flavor, and tint 
it. 
By many an Easter meal is net con¬ 
sidered complete without eggs in some 
form, so we will have ours served in a 
salad. Separate yolks and whites of six 
hard-boiled eggs. Chop the whites very 
fine, and mix with French salad dressing, 
then arrange on lettuce leaves; if lettuce 
is not easy to get, as is often the case in 
the country at this time of the year, the 
inner leaves of a crisp head of cabbage 
will answer the purpose very well. Force 
the yolks of eggs through the ricer, or a 
sieve, and pile on the centre of the 
whites, and moisten with the dressing. 
If you can get a green pepper, cut it in 
narrow strips, round and round, and 
garnish the top of the salad with it, this 
will carry out the color scheme used in 
the decorations admirably. 
To make the maple syrup cake, beat 
two-thirds of a cup of butter to a cream, 
then add one cup of granulated sugar, 
and gradually four tablespoonfuls of ma¬ 
ple syrup, and the beaten yolks of three 
eggs. Sift three cups of flour with four 
teaspoonfuls of baking powder and a lit¬ 
tle salt, and add to the first mixture, al¬ 
ternately, with two-thirds of a cup of 
water, then fold in the beaten whites of 
the eggs. Bake in two layers. 
For the frosting and filling boil two 
cups of maple syrup until it spins a 
thread, then pour in a fine stream over 
EASTER CUSTARD WITH WHIPPED CREAM. 
in the centre. The ferns one finds in the 
woods in Winter are still fresh and green 
in April, and will do very nicely for this 
decoration. 
If the dinner is to be at night, have 
the candle or lampshades of yellow and 
green crepe paper, and one long-stemmed 
yellow flower (jonquils are very appro¬ 
priate) placed across each plate will 
make a very effective finish to the 
scheme. The flowers can be either of pa¬ 
per or the real blossoms, as the case may 
be, and, if one likes, they might take the 
place of the tinted egg-shells, especially 
if they can be the real jonquils. The 
lovely shades of these flowers would har¬ 
monize beautifully with the green of the 
ferns. 
A menu for a dinner in Spring should 
be, like the decorations simple and 
dainty : 
Cream of Corn Soup, Crackers 
Olives, Pickles 
Roast Loin of Lamb. Mint Jelly 
Mashed Potatoes, Peas, Rolls 
Easter Salad 
Easter Custard, Maple Syrup Cake 
Coffee 
Make the soup in the usual way, us¬ 
ing one quart of milk to one can of corn, 
then just before sending it to the table 
add a sprinkle of the yolk of a hard 
boiled egg, pressed through a potato ricer, 
and have the crackers toasted a delicate 
brown. 
For the meat course select parts from 
two loins, scrape the bones between the 
ribs, as far as the lean meat, and trim 
off the backbone. Shape each piece in 
a semi-circle, having the ribs outside, 
and fasten the pieces together to form a 
crown. Trim the ends of bones uniform¬ 
ly, but do not leave them too long, then 
wrap a thin slice of salt pork around 
each, to prevent burning. Sprinkle the 
meat with salt and pepper, cover with 
buttered paper, and roast one and one-half 
the beaten whites of two eggs, beating 
constantly meanwhile. Return to the 
fire over hot water, and beat until the 
egg stiffens, then add one cup of finely 
chopped walnut meats. 
The dessert is simply an ordinary cust¬ 
ard, flavored with almond extract, and 
baked in individual molds, chilled, and 
turned out in glass serving dishes, then 
piled high with sweetened whipped 
cream, and sprinkled with powdered mac¬ 
aroons. If the cream could be tinted a 
delicate green with vegetable coloring, 
which is quite harmless, it would give 
this simple dessert a still more festive 
appearance. Rosamond lampman. 
Swiss Chard. 
Will you give some recipes for cooking 
Swiss chard? Mrs. 8. P. 
The first tender young leaves are 
boiled, drained dry and chopped, then 
served like spinach, seasoned with pep¬ 
per, salt and butter. As the chard grows 
larger, the leaf is stripped from the 
stout mid-rib, and this only is cooked. It 
may be treated like asparagus, boiled in 
salted water and then dressed with cream 
sauce, or melted butter, pepper and salt. 
We prefer to cut it into inch lengths for 
boiling. The stalks may also be boiled 
and dressed with plain French salad 
dressing. Chard is very desirable in the 
home garden, as it is very productive, 
and any excess is greedily devoured by 
the hens. 
Preventing Butter Sticking. —Pour 
boiling water over prints and then drop 
them into fresh buttermilk and let stand 
until butter has been washed. Then put 
prints into good clean cold water to 
wash off buttermilk then put into cold 
water and they are ready for use, and 
you will have no trouble from butter 
sticking to prints. A. c. 
Mrs. Grumble —“I see by this paper 
that most of the States are pass¬ 
ing laws to prevent women from 
working over eight hours a day. 
That applies to everybody except 
us, I guess. We country women 
can work all day and half the 
night and nobody cares.” 
Anty Drudge —“The way you work 
is enough to make anybody 
gloomy. But you can make your 
own eight-hour law if you want 
to. Just use Fels-Naptha Soap. 
It will get your work done for 
you in even less than eight hours 
every day, even washday.” 
Fel 
s-N a p t h a 
Soap 
stops 
over- 
work 
and 
over¬ 
time. 
It’s 
better 
than 
any 
laws, 
because it gets the 
work done, instead 
of just preventing 
you from working. 
On wash day, 
soap your clothes 
with Fels-Naptha 
and put them to 
soak for 30 min¬ 
utes in cool or 
lukewarm water, 
then rub them a 
bit with your 
hands or on the 
washboard, rinse 
and hang out. 
Fels-Naptha does 
everything as 
quickly and easily. 
Better buy it by the box or carton 
and use it every day. Follow the 
directions on the Red and Green 
Wrapper. 
I'VlB & Co., Philadelphia. 
FELS-NAPTHA 
