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THE RTJR-A.lv NSW-VORRER 
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Management in Housekeeping f[ 
“Efficiency” in the Farm Home 
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I F I had but two children, instead of 
a larger family, perhaps I might say 
something on system; as I have known 
the past few years what it is to care 
well for my family and do some outside 
work. Let me say to start with, I was 
25 when married and had never done 
housework. I had worked as compositor 
in town and city printing offices for eight 
years before my marriage, so please don’t 
think an office or shop girl can never make 
a good housekeeper or manager. I left 
a city office to become a farmer’s wife. I 
told him he might be making a great mis¬ 
take, but now, after 14 years of happy 
wedded life, the good man says he has 
always been satisfied and that I “make 
good.” 
I have always loved my home and fam¬ 
ily and been happy in doing for them. 
We have had some trouble financially, so 
I’ve tried to help, and it has taken some 
system to keep things going smoothly. I 
have raised from 400 to 600 chickens in 
one year, besides my other work, and 
some small fruit to see to. Now, as my 
husband is just a “hired man” after leav¬ 
ing our own place, I haven’t the chickens 
and hens, but as we have been just 1^> 
miles from a village where a compositor 
was needed on the country paper I have 
worked for 19 months at this work, from 
two to four days a week (not real long 
days) and get two little girls off clean for 
school, make butter, do all my own work 
too, never buying baked goods. 
I was pleased with what Mrs. Van 
said on page S66 about “do comb your 
hair” as soon as up in the morning. I 
can remember as a little girl my mother 
with her hair always combed as soon as 
she was up, then again, after dinner 
“clean up” with hair combed, dress 
changed and clean apron, ready for the 
afternoon’s sewing. She had four little 
ones and often boarders too, to care for. 
When at home all day I aim to have 
housework done by two in the afternoon, 
unless in housecleaning or rush of fruit 
time. 
Getting up early in the morning and 
rushing about all work that possibly can 
be done before children are up, is one 
big part of systematic housekeeping. 
When I had young chickens to care for 
they were all seen to before five in the 
morning. It did not interfere with the 
morning’s work, and was better for the 
chickens, rather than keeping them shut 
up till late in stuffy coops. The only 
labor-saving device I have is a good 
washing machine. Water has to be car¬ 
ried in and out of the house, for no mat¬ 
ter how hard an owner seems to want 
to get a good man no conveniences are 
usually thought of for the family. My 
machine saves time and back. Washdays 
I do up the regular work with the girls 
helping about dishes, dusting, preparing 
vegetables, etc., and by 11 o’clock washing 
is on the line and plenty of time to pre¬ 
pare dinner. 
By having breakfast for two at six 
o’clock, on two other mornings at 6:30 
I am ironing until eight o’clock and that 
work is out of the way ready for the 
children to help when their breakfast is 
over, with the dishes. They are little 
girls, so I let them sleep when not in 
school. As a sample of a Saturday’s 
work, let me tell of last Saturday. Break¬ 
fast at six, separator was washed, butter 
churned and worked, jelly cake and rice 
pudding made, all by eight o’clock. The 
rest of the forenoon was devoted to the 
regular Saturday clean up ready for Sun¬ 
day, as we do not work Sundays. The 
little girls are learning easy tasks and 
sewing without a continual scold from 
mother, and we try to keep our house all 
the time as if we were expecting guests. 
Too many farm women, I find, have 
such mussy-looking bedrooms and dirty 
dining tables. I have my table where it 
can remain set and always with white 
cloth and dishes on it. We all have days 
when we work hard and don’t accomplish 
what we think we ought to; but with a 
regular system and eyes on the clock to 
keep us hustling we try to “keep ahead.” 
MRS. D. G. 
Potatoes and Housework. 
ANAGING the housework so as to 
save time requires forethought. 
This has been brought home to me forci¬ 
bly this Spring in this wise. Summer 
drought for several years cut short our 
supply of potatoes, and we had to buy 
such as we could find, three different 
varieties. I found it took longer to pre¬ 
pare them for cooking than it did our 
own smooth, easy-peeling ones. One kind 
especially, said to be bug and blight 
proof, peeled about as hard as a green 
quince. The man of the house thought 
he would plant some of them, but the 
cook took good care he didn’t get his 
hands on one of them. This Summer the 
cook is keeping a sharp eye on her seed 
potato patch which she personally con¬ 
ducts after the latest approved method. 
She began two years ago with one pota¬ 
to. She expects to have enough to plant 
the whole field next year. By the way, 
she gave us new potatoes for dinner 
June 2S. Also green peas (wrinkled) 
both of her own planting. The cook has 
an inquiring mind. She wonders how 
many points palatability is allowed on 
the score card at potato shows, or are 
potatoes judged from a purely masculine 
standpoint? If you allow the women to 
tell what they want there is going to be 
ruction. The cook wants you to give 
the score as used in judging potatoes. 
She will be presuming to judge potatoes 
next. c. 
How Do They Manage ? 
D OWN in one side of our tenant house 
live Mr. and Mrs. Robertson. They 
have eight children but the one daugh¬ 
ter (a capable girl and so good to the 
little ones) is married, and the oldest 
son is working away from home. That 
leaves the parents and six boys to live 
in six rooms, and a tent. Mrs. Robin¬ 
son is not an exceptional housekeeper, by 
any means, and has limited means also. 
But she sits down to do everything pos¬ 
sible, and she does every bit of work that 
can be done there out of doors. And 
though there is no fence between our 
grounds and the tenant house, in six 
years her boys have never annoyed us 
once. 
On the other side lives good Mrs. 
McNab. When her three sons were 
practically grown, she took five children 
of her cousin, when left orphans, to keep 
them from the State. Before these were 
grown up, a married daughter died and 
left five grandchildren to her care. The 
father is living and keeps a tenement 
where the older children sleep, but the 
oldest was twelve when their mother died. 
Mrs. McNab has a daughter who lives at 
home and helps with the work. Several 
of the boys work on the street railway, 
so are coming and going at all sorts of 
hours. The women keep everlastingly at 
it, and they all make mesh bags in their 
spare time out under the trees. Yet 
Mrs. McNab assures me that the only 
thing that really worries her is that we 
shall be troubled by the children’s noise 
and hers because some days she has to 
“scold at them” so much. The v question 
of housework by one for many seems to 
be a matter of the relative importance 
of things, separating the “must-be-dones” 
from the “ought-to-dos.” e. k. 
Reflections of a Ruralist. 
ARTNERS.—On page 777 is a little 
tale of partners. Here is another. 
A woman who had raised and lost a 
family, in her old age, broken in body 
and mind, went to live with a relative. 
After a year or more in the new home 
she astonished her caretaker by saying 
with much earnestness: “You are the 
only person who ever made a business of 
trying to find out what I want. Every¬ 
body else did what they thought I wanted 
or ought to want.” The caretaker says it 
is difficult to get from this woman an 
expression of what she wants. The pow¬ 
er to decide has perished from lack of use. 
For 45 years she was a man’s partner. 
I fancy if the man mentioned on page 
777 had tried to find out what his part¬ 
ner wanted instead of trying to con¬ 
vince her she wanted what he thought 
she ought to want, it would have been a 
different tale. In every true woman’s 
heart is planted the spirit of self-sacrifice, 
the mother nature, but a true man will 
not take advantage of it. That story of 
excessive cleanliness reminded me of the 
Ohio woman who washed the pump han¬ 
dle whenever her husband used it. C. 
A Maine Front Yard. 
All sorts of people take Tiie R. N.-Y., 
and they live under all sorts of condi¬ 
tions. Some of our housewives who live 
on the Western deserts have told us of 
roasting or broiling in the hot sun, obliged 
to economize in the use of even a thim¬ 
bleful of water. The other extreme is 
shown in the picture herewith. This 
shows another R. N.-Y. home, or rather 
its front yard. This home is in Maine, 
the farm backing up or fronting on the 
Kennebec River, which flows on a roar- 
ing torrent in Spring, and a dignified 
stream in Summer. During the pleasant 
weather this river privilege is utilized by 
the housekeepei*, as we notice in the pic¬ 
ture. A little wharf has been built where 
the boats can be fastened, and there are 
rustic seats so that during the cool of a 
Summer’s day the housekeeper, after her 
work is done, may sit on the river bank 
and watch the shadows and the passers- 
by. Those who are fortunate enough to 
live near a large river in this way will 
understand the great pleasure that comes 
to this household in its ability to utilize 
the water in this manner. 
Cool Southern Housekeeping. 
S to keeping cool in Summer, I have 
a big back gallery, all latticed in, 
12x30 feet, with a 12-foot ceiling, 
where we sleep except in rainy weather, 
In rainy weather we sleep in the house 
and eat on the gallery. In good weather 
we eat in regular scriptural fashion, in 
the yard, under our vine and our iig tree, 
as we have a good large native scupper- 
nong grape running over an arbor about 
eight feet from the ground, and helped 
out by a couple of fig trees, and under the 
same arbor is a large lawn swing whei’e 
the children play all day until tliey get 
July 25, 
tired and want a nap, when we put a 
light frame built like a wide ladder across 
the swing, pitch on a mattress and pile 
in the kids and let them snooze till they 
get tired. 
But the cooking—that hot job. Well, 
we sport a coal stove, gas stove and tire¬ 
less cooker, but the larger part of our 
Summer food is prepared on regular Old- 
Testament stoves, the brazier of coals. 
We don’t call it that; we say a charcoal 
furnace, and have several, a couple of 
iron ones and a clay one; the latter ex¬ 
actly answers the description printed in 
The It. N.-Y. some time ago of the cook¬ 
ing furnaces sed by the Armenians, 
Arabs or Persians, and is ahead of the 
iron ones in efficiency. It costs from 40 
to 75 cents as to size, and sometimes we 
run a whole battery of furnaces, set 
around in the shade, and so avoid over¬ 
heating either the cook or kitchen, cook¬ 
ing evexything except cake or biscuits on 
them. The chickens do the housework 
by removing the scraps, and the children 
cannot spill food on the floor and grease 
it. Looks pretty lazy; well, maybe it is, 
but it is comfortable, and it looks more 
like efficiency than laziness, for the meals 
are prepared and cooked with half the 
work and double the comfort of a kitchen, 
and are fully as good or better cooked. 
We have learned how to be comfortable 
in hot weather, and save work, and it is 
worth trying. m. b. p. 
Mobile, Ala. 
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(I The Woman At Law II 
= | [Under this heading we shall discuss the legal H 
|s rights of women, particularly as regards tliier § = 
|| property and their children. There will be || 
§1 direct answers to actual questions and general If 
1 1 statements of law.] .\ .■. .•. .*. |f 
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Support of Children. 
S INCE my husband will not agree to 
live in peace, rather leave than do 
so, I would like to know what he has 
to get on the property both personal and 
real, that is, what intex-est lias my hus¬ 
band in both personal and real property 
where he leaves three minor children, or» 
girl 19, one boy seven, one girl three, to 
be taken care and raised by me; leaving 
because he refuses to treat me right and 
leave me in pe^tfe. S. B. B. 
Virginia. 
You do not give sufficient facts on 
which to base an answer. In the absence 
of any divorce or sepai-ation through the 
courts, the property rights of both on 
separating would be subject to contract 
between them. If the title to the property 
both real and personal is in either one 
of them individually, it would remain in 
that one even after separation, unless 
by contract they decided otherwise. The 
husband cannot leave his wife and chil¬ 
dren without being liable for their sup¬ 
port. If you wish to sepai'ate, yoa 
should take into consideration that your 
husband must support the family, and 
this should be given due weight in a 
division of the property. If he leaves you 
with the cai'e of the family, he should 
give you all of the property if it is not 
of great value, and a major portion if 
there is a good deal of it. M. D. 
To Take or Not to Take Under a Will 
A man living in Pennsylvania makes a 
will, he having no children. After his 
death can the widow, not being satisfied 
with the will, break it, or must she accept 
it as made? What portion of a man’s 
property in Pennsylvania can a widow 
hold by law, they having no children? 
Pennsylvania. G. M. K. 
She cannot break the will unless her 
husband was incapable of making a will, 
but she can refuse to accept the provi¬ 
sions made for her by her husband’s wilt 
and elect to take the property which 
would come to her if there had been no 
will, which, in this case where there are 
no children, the widow is entitled to the 
real or personal estate or both, to the 
aggregate value of .$5000 in addition to 
the widow’s exemption (.$300). If the 
value of the estate exceeds $5,000. the 
widow is entitled to such sum of $5,000 
absolutely and in addition one-half the 
remaining real estate for life and one- 
half the remaining personal estate abso¬ 
lutely. If she elects to take against the 
will of her husband she must manifest 
her election by writing, signed, acknowl¬ 
edged and delivered to the executor or 
administrator, and recoxaled. M. D. 
Wages of Son. 
1. Can a son get any wages for work¬ 
ing over age? They claim they told him 
he could leave. 2. Was it legal for first 
cousins to marry about 28 years ago? 
Pennsylvania. A. s. 
1. After the son becomes of age it is 
wholly a matter of contract between the 
parent and son as to whether the son 
is to get any wages. If the parents can 
prove that they told him he could leave, 
there might be a presumption that he re¬ 
mained and just worked for his board, 
and if the son wishes to prove that there 
was an agreement to pay him wages, he 
must show some express or implied con¬ 
tract to that effect. 2. Since January 1, 
1902, it lias been unlawful in Pennsyl¬ 
vania for first cousins to marry, and their 
marriage is void, but before that date 
tlxei'e was no law against it. M. D. 
THE FRONT YARD OF A MAINE FARMIIOFSE. 
