770 
THIS KURA L, NEW-YORKEK 
A Woman’s Co-operative Store 
Ten Country Women and Two From Town 
i : = By Helen I. Castella = 
I T was the school teacher who started 
it the afternoon the mite meeting met 
at Mrs. Mays, where she had been 
boarding, to get what she called “the 
rasp” off her nerves They had sampled 
Mrs. Lumley’s plum cake and Mrs. Boni- 
vard’s doughnuts. Their appetites had 
been satiated (if one might use such a 
word in connection with eatables that 
fairly melted in one’s mouth) with Mrs. 
Proctor’s marmalade and Johanna Cu¬ 
rie’s trifles. A delicious yellow layer- 
cake, with walnut tilling fairly oozing 
from its cracks, stood out upon the table, 
while with no thought or connivance at 
color scheme, the green of the pickles, 
the yellow and white of the deviled eggs, 
and the pink of the freshly boiled tongue 
made a sight that fairly created an appe¬ 
tite if one had been foolish enough to 
come to the table without it. 
“My, but you women are foolish!” 
Some of the sharp edge had gotten from 
the school-teacher’s nerves into her voice 
during the years of close confinement and 
endeavor to keep up with a constantly 
changing and experimental curriculum. 
“Every one of you has the making of 
pin-money right to hand, for each of you 
prides herself on what you call your 
‘specialty,’ but you just eat and eat it 
up, over and over again. I don’t believe 
one of you women ever earned a dollar 
in your lives!” 
“I did—but Twasn’t on sweet potato 
pie—which I pride myself is my special¬ 
ty. I taught school before I was mar¬ 
ried.” Mrs. Bergman looked around the 
table and then at Nettie Middleton with 
a triumphant air. It was almost as 
though she had said. “And it’s a pity 
you hadn’t done likewise.” 
“Yes, it is!” The tired school-teacher 
had no hesitancy in agreeing with the 
plump matron’s unspoken speech. “But 
you see, we teachers, once we get past 
the first bloom, are too tired when night 
comes, to fix up with the idea of catch¬ 
ing any man. I’ll bet you got your bus- 
band before you were 23, and I don't 
care—even if I was married—and could 
make things like you people, I declare if 
I’d be above making extra pin-money for 
myself.” 
“We’re not above it!” the chorus was 
unanimous. “It’s the other way round, 
Miss Middleton. We’re beneath it. 
There isn’t any way of selling what we 
make, unless ’.twould be through the 
women’s exchanges, and somehow, eat¬ 
ables are not practical to be sold that 
way. One or two of us have tided at 
Christmas time; but there are so many 
women nearer who can see just what 
sells best, an’ what is needed—” 
“Why don’t you cooperate?” said Net¬ 
tie Middleton, sharply; “form yourselves 
into a body of women, pledged to stick 
by each other, and make an outlet for 
what you know will sell, once people 
have tasted it, from its very delicious¬ 
ness? What you want is to make a 
business for yourselves—not to rely on 
somebody else’s business already estab¬ 
lished.” 
“But, you see, Miss Middleton, each 
of us is a home woman. We don’t know 
anything about business—we’re all tied 
down with families. Of course none of 
us could leave home, but maybe we could 
get together in some way if we had 
somebody to tell us.” 
“I’m trying to tell you—but I’m used 
to explaining things on a blackboard. 
Suppose we’d take it this way, and say 
we’d form ourselves into a cooperative 
club, and we’d have dues of—well—say 
two dollars a month, apiece. Now don’t 
all gasp”—as several “ohs!” and general 
exclamations of dismay were heard, “try 
and bear in mind that it’s business we’re 
discussing, and not a purely social affair 
where you meet to talk over fancy work 
and gossip. The two-dollar assessment 
would give us an income, if there were 
twelve of us (Iieba and myself included) 
of ,$24 a month to meet expenses of a 
small, neat shop right in the residential 
part of the nearest city. There’d be two 
of us to run the shop, and 10 of you to 
keep it supplied with the stuff to sell. 
Each of you would have two basket 
hampers, and these would be constantly 
going, full from you to the shop, and 
empty from the shop to you. The parcel 
post would, of course, be the manner of 
transportation. You would send whatever 
you could spare, and all that you could 
spare, every day, every other day, or at 
least twice a week, keeping a careful ac¬ 
count of all actual money expended, such 
as sugar, spices, and so forth, but having 
the agreement between us all that time 
is to be given free. No one is to charge 
anything for the actual labor. Now, to 
make this clearer, suppose I give you an 
illustration. 
“Mrs. Bonivard makes these dough¬ 
nuts. We’ll imagine that we’re selling 
on an average of 10 dozen doughnuts a 
day, at 12 cents a dozen. That would 
net us $1.20, and probably the cost of 
the material used for that amount would 
not exceed 20 cents. That 20 cents 
would belong to Mrs. Bonivard, the 
one dollar going into our capital (not 
our expense fund) ; the capital, being 
all profit, would be our remuneration for 
labor. Now Mrs. Bonivard would prob¬ 
ably be supplying the shop with some¬ 
thing besides doughnuts, which we would 
reckon on the same ratio. Putting each 
of you down for a profit of $2 a day 
would give us at the end of the week 
$120 dollars, divided among 12 people, 
$10 dollars a week apiece. Naturally 
this wouldn’t be a fixed amount—it 
would largely vary by what was sent in 
and sold; but with two people to keep 
you posted all the time as to what there 
was a demand for—it does seem as 
though—” she paused, pencil in the air, 
a dreamy look in her tired blue eyes. 
“And the store would be all ours, 
wouldn’t it?” It was Mrs. Bonivard 
who broke the silence, perhaps because 
the doughnut idea had taken hold of her 
with intensity, “I mean, would belong 
to all of us, so’s we could all have a 
say.” 
“Exactly. We’d be business partners. 
In the first place, we would all have a 
hand in furnishing it with something 
from our own homes to give it an in¬ 
dividuality to stand on. Of course we’d 
have to get a showcase—maybe second¬ 
hand ; but wouldn’t it be nice to have 
all the china in the window alike?” 
“■Grandmother’s old blue set!” inter¬ 
rupted Mrs. Mays, estatieally, “the very 
thing! There’s nothing like those plat¬ 
ters for a walnut cake, and gingerbread 
cookies with raisins in ’em piled up on 
one of them plates ’ll fairly make your 
mouth water!” 
“We’d need curtains, wouldn’t we, 
Miss Middleton?” Neither Johanna Cur¬ 
ie nor any of the other ladies saw any¬ 
thing funny in thinking of curtains at 
this time. “I’ve been wonderin’ all Sum¬ 
mer what use I was goin’ to make of 
that heavy lace I’ve been workin’ on. I 
can see them now—cream color home- 
spun, edged with the lace, on a brass 
rod, clear across the window. It’ll be 
swell!” 
“I vote, if Miss Middleton's willing to 
see us through what she’s proposed, that 
we make her treasurer of the organiza¬ 
tion,” and although at first the school¬ 
teacher’s hands went up in protest, in 
the end she yielded, for it was through 
hers and her sister’s hands that the 
money would pass anyway. 
“Let us understand, though, that no 
one is working under anyone else. If, 
for any reason one of us wishes to with¬ 
draw. we can do so by paying our 
monthly dues for the current month, and 
receiving from the capital all money com¬ 
ing to you from an equal division of the 
cash on hand. Certain months some of 
you may contribute a great many more 
things than the others, and again, the 
next month, it may be just the other 
way around. But I know our sales will 
show at the end of the month a pretty 
fair division, especially if we each view 
the place with a proprietory interest, 
realizing that it is going to add not only 
cents, but dollars to our income.” 
The little shop is now in its third 
year. To its surprise, almost from the 
first, it was spoken of in the neighbor¬ 
hood as “the delicatessen,” although it 
had entertained no such aspirations. But 
Nettie’s sister, Iieba, confessed that all 
her life she had a hankering to make 
salads, and from her modest bowl of po¬ 
tato salad, set temptingly in the window, 
there have evolved chicken, crab and 
Waldorf, each having its particular day 
in the week. 
Nettie, always considered the business 
manager of the firm, has been besieged 
many times to take on new members, all 
women anxious to add to their income 
by placing homemade products on sale, 
but after consultation wtih the others, 
she still refuses. Were the contributors 
greater in number, the shop might lose 
the delightful reputation it has for things 
that are “just right.” Not one of the 
10 countrywomen would dream of put¬ 
ting into a hamper a scorched or soggy 
cake, or jelly composed of anything but 
pure fruit juice and sugar. Mrs. Niclde- 
son’s roast chickens, arriving on Friday 
night, are browned to a turn, and have 
solved the problem of many a Sunday 
night supper, as have also the appetizing 
pans of pork and baked beans and the 
Boston brown bread on Saturday nights. 
May 30, 
And Mrs. Mays no longer wrinkles up 
her forehead when the twins hang around 
Dad and tease to know whether he 
thinks he can send them to college. Be¬ 
cause she knows that if Dad cannot, 
she can. 
Business Canning for Neighborhood. 
BOUT eight years ago Mr. and Mrs. 
Cornelius Canfield, of Cattaraugus 
County, N. Y r ., began canning their sur¬ 
plus from field and garden, using tin 
cans and doing the cooking on a cook- 
stove, and the same year put up a few 
dozen cans for neighbors. Mr. Canfield 
and wife had worked in a canning fac¬ 
tory and understood the work. They 
had so many calls for canning that they 
soon bought a canner, and having built 
a new house, they utilized their old one 
for canning. After the second or third 
year they began canning beef, and their 
meat canning now exceeds all else. With¬ 
in the past year they have canned 2,102 
cans of vegetables and cereals. 7,968 
meat (custom work), some fruit; also 
chickens and rabbits that are not reck¬ 
oned. Their custom work is greatly ap¬ 
preciated, as in all the hundreds of cans 
we have used we never found a poor 
one, nor, to our knowledge, has anyone 
of beef; a very few of beans once 
spoiled. 
Their meat canning this year lasted 
till May, they canning 15 quarters of 
beef the last week in April. Of their 
own products, they canned 953 of meat 
and 1,728 other things within the last 
year. Mr. and Mrs. Canfield, with the 
help of one other in hurrying seasons, do 
this work as well as the work on a small 
farm and housework. Their prices for 
custom work are as follows: Corn, 75 
cents a dozen; peas and beans (shelled 
and cut), 65 cents a dozen; beef on the 
bone, 75 cents a dozen; cut from bone, 
65 cents; pork and ham, 65 cents a 
dozen. Prices of their own goods: Beef, 
$3.60 a dozen; corn, $1.30; beans, $1.40; 
tomatoes, $1.40. It will be seen that 
within a year they have canned 12,751 
cans, besides some things that were not 
reckoned. ’They do not tell their formula 
for canning, but they cook meat five 
hours; other things longer than where 
steam heat does the cooking. They use 
wood for fuel, and in hurrying times often 
have to cook all night to keep up and 
keep things from spoiling; but they seem 
to be satisfied with their work, and make 
enough so that they continue in spite of 
the hard work. They ship the hones to 
Buffalo for 60 cents a hundredweight, 
but we think a good bone cutter would 
pay them, or their neighbors, and have 
the bones kept nearer home. They have 
calls for their canning from distant 
States as well as the home towns, and 
people bring their meat from miles 
around. When we raise our meat and 
have it canned at Canfield’s we know 
what we are eating, and we also know 
where to take any surplus garden stuff, 
including pumpkins, squashes, as well 
as the other things mentioned. E. A. it. 
A Hopeful Illinois Woman. 
N page 637 Mrs. E. S. writes, asking 
about candy making. I know a 
woman, about 10 miles from here, who 
has made candy for years for her sole 
support, and now at the present time she 
is helping to support her son’s family of 
eight children, her son having died. She 
makes up about four tons of sugar every 
Winter, and her machinery consists of a 
laundry stove and two brass kettles, in 
which she can make 20 pounds of candy 
each, and a marble-top table to cut the 
candy on. She makes a kind of pepper¬ 
mint candy. Mrs. E. S. can do whatever 
she likes to do—do her very best at it, 
stick to it, and she will succeed. I have 
tried a number of things myself, and I 
can make the most the year around sell¬ 
ing milk. I try to supply my list of 
customers, and if I get short of milk I 
buy. I live on a farm, and have been 
boss and manager for almost 14 years 
(as I have been a widow that long), 
and now am getting to the place which 
is called pleasant living—that is, where 
I can get all the necessaries and some 
small luxuries. I am satisfied on the 
farm, and am thankful that I live in 
Illinois, and also that we, women of Iil- 
linois, can vote. I like The It. N.-Y.. 
which I have read for more than 20 
years. mbs. a. w. 
Advertisements For Farm Women 
I N the last magazine number of Woman and Home we offered three free 
advertisements for homemade articles offered by farm women. The 
object of this was to show the possibilities for business in our Sub¬ 
scribers’ Exchange Department. So many women applied that we found it 
difficult to make selections. After considering all carefully we decided to 
insert four instead of three advertisements for the following named women : 
Miss Amy A. Harwood, Dorset, Vt. 
Mrs. Wm. H. Atkins, New Paltz, N. Y, 
Mrs. C. J. Gilbert, Cranesville, Pa. 
Mrs. W. A. Smith, Clarkson, N. Y. 
This seems as fair a selection as we can make. The advertisements 
will be found in the Subscribers’ Exchange on page 7S7. This department 
was established for the special purpose of giving smaller advertisers a 
chance to announce their goods at little cost, and in a place where such 
announcements would surely be noticed. Advertising is a fair and necessary 
part of all business. 
Printer’s Ink in Some Form Must Be Used if we would attract the 
attention of buyers outside of our own neighborhood. We find after care¬ 
ful investigation that The II. N.-Y. is read each week by over half a million 
readers—all of whom have desires to gratify and more or less money to sat¬ 
isfy such desires. Right here then, in our own big family, lies a business 
opportunity for you if you have some article which represents a fair bar¬ 
gain. Me print these four advertisements as an experiment to show our 
readers the possibilities of home direct trade. 
