THE RURAL* NEW-YORKER 
them beautiful results. Now it happens 
that this very lamp was the one that 
proved most disappointing to the man 
who asked the question. How can these 
things lie? We often have contradictory 
testimony of this kind, and it becomes 
very difficult to analyze such a discussion 
and find out the true facts about it. 
* 
On page 300, two women told of their 
plan to take up homestead land with a 
view of staying by it until they proved up 
and owned the land. The call for infor¬ 
mation has come pouring in upon us from 
all over. The letter has attracted atten¬ 
tion of people on the Pacific coast, who 
handle this kind of land, and also from 
people in Maine who have gone West, 
secured a title to land, then sold it and 
came back East. All sorts of advice 
has been volunteered, and as is usual m 
observer.” This man is convinced there 
are possibilities in agricultural education 
for men older than himself. Recently 
we told of Joseph A. Fagan, of Connecti¬ 
cut. who at nearly 00, “went to school” 
to learn how to grow potatoes. The ques¬ 
tion naturally is, would these men have 
done more with an education if they 
could have had it at the other end of 
life? 
* 
ti'T'nERE are all sorts of people in 
JL the world.” That must be true, 
as otherwise the “world” would come to 
an end through lack of excitement. Same¬ 
ness leads to insanity. Not along ago a 
render wrote in some excitement that he 
objected to our pictures of children. He 
accused us of getting into “baby farm¬ 
ing.” Another man is much disgruntled 
because we offer women a chance to state 
IIkk First Child the Ideal of Womanhood. 
486 
UiiiiHimiiHHiimmtimtmitmiumitiiiutmuniiimnitimittimtmmiiimTTHitmiiiiniNniiitmiminL' 
|| || 
|1 Women and Home || 
= = 
fiiitiiiiiMiMimiiiiiimMMiiiiiiimHHHiniiimiHiiintuiiiiimimwiniMiiimiimiMiniiiiuiiiiitiiiiiiinilK 
In School Days. 
Still sits the school-house by the road, 
A ragged beggar sunning; 
Around it still the sumachs grow, 
And blackberry-vines are running. 
Within, the master’s desk is seen, 
Deep scarred by raps official; 
The warping floor, the battered seats, 
The jack-knife’s carved initial! 
The charcoal frescoes on its wall; 
Its door’s worn sill, betraying 
The feet that, creeping slow to school, 
Went storming out to playing! 
Long years ago a Winter sun 
Shone over it at setting; 
Lit up its western window-panes, 
And low eaves’ icy fretting. 
It touched the tangled golden curls, 
And brown eyes full of grieving, 
Of one who still her steps delayed 
When all the school were leaving. 
For near her stood the little boy 
Her childish favor singled; 
His cap pulled low upon a face 
Where pride and shame were mingled. 
Pushing with restless feet the snow 
To right and left, he lingered; 
As restlessly her tiny hands 
The blue-checked apron fingered. 
He saw her lift her eyes; he felt 
The soft hand’s light caressing, 
And heard the tremble of her voice, 
As if a fault confessing. 
“I’m sorry that I spelt the word; 
I hate to go above you, 
Because,”—the brown eyes lower fell,— 
“Because, you see, I love you !” 
Still memory to a gray-haired man 
That sweet child-face is showing. 
Dear girl! the grasses on her grave 
Have forty years been growing! 
He lives to learn, in life’s hard school, 
How few who pass above him 
Lament their triumph and his loss, 
Like her,—because they love him. 
—Whittier. 
* 
T HIS back-to-the-lander on page 485, 
tells of the way his wife has 
worked. Here is one man who would 
vote for suffrage if his wife - wanted it. 
She deserves it if any man ever did. Our 
friend tells the cold truth also about this 
l.ack-to-the-lamling. A good wife and a 
job are two helpful things at that busi¬ 
ness—especially the wife. 
* 
A S ONE argument against suffrage we 
are reminded that women cannot 
bear arms in war. They have done so 
in past years. We have heard of women 
of old times in besieged cities who cut 
off their long hair to make bowstrings 
and then used the bows when their men 
fell. But Senator Clapp disposes of this 
argument by telling of a man who lias 
lost both legs and both arms—and still 
votes at every election. 
* 
O X page 492 is a little extract from the 
“Atlantic Monthly” showing the mis¬ 
ery of poverty on the plains. The writer 
of this incident wept as she thought of 
the outlook before the two children of 
this sad household, but the practical 
Mrs. O’Shaughnessy took a more hopeful 
view. 
“You think it is a soft heart you have, 
but it is only your head that is soft. Of 
course they are having a hard time. 
What of it? The very root of indepen¬ 
dence is hard times. That’s the way 
America was founded; that is why it 
stands so firmly. Hard times is what 
makes sound characters. And them ‘kids* 
are getting a new hold on character that 
was very near run to seed in the par¬ 
ents.” 
Who among us will say that Mrs. 
O’Shaughnessy is wrong? We can easily 
find you millionaires who would give 
everything they have (except their 
money) if their boys could only be 
brought up in poverty. 
In the last Woman’s Number a corres¬ 
pondent in Ohio wanted to know about 
securing a good light for the house. 
About 25 or 30 replies have been received 
from people who say they have tried dif¬ 
ferent methods, and finally found one that 
suited. A singular thing about this dis¬ 
cussion is the fact that several of these 
people refer in glowing terms to a certain 
make of lamp, which they claim has given 
such cases quite a number of people 
want to sell their land. There are also 
the usual number of men who are appar¬ 
ently living alone on their farms and 
would like to obtain companions. On 
the whole it is an interesting study, and 
when the returns are all in, we shall try 
to sum up the outcome of it. The most sen¬ 
sible suggestion thus far received is from 
a man who tells these young women to 
try their hand at living upon an eastern 
farm as far back in the wilderness as 
they can get. Let them take such a farm 
and see what they can do toward improv¬ 
ing it before they cut loose entirely and 
jump across the country, far away from 
their home and the civilization which they 
have always known. 
* 
<moRx in South Wales, a probate 
D judge, a county commissioner, a 
successful farmer and father of eight chil¬ 
dren,” seems to have been a complete and 
well-rounded career for an average man. 
Edwin J. Davies, 53 years, of Kansas, took 
the short course on agriculture this Win¬ 
ter. “It lengthens the life which seemed 
painfully short after I passed the 50th 
milestone. I can now see a bud on a tree 
and understand why it is there. I can 
select the right kind of seed for planting, 
and I can judge the value of live stock. I 
had a vague idea of what seed should be, 
but never knew the value of good seed, or 
selection until I attended college. I knew 
before my course the value of live stock, 
only by those points familiar to the casual 
their own ease and to have equal rights 
with men in the columns of The R. N.-Y. 
“Women,” this man says, “are the cause 
of all evil” and should be kept down. 
We do not envy him the job of holding 
the lid down. These men are rare excep¬ 
tions among our correspondents. The 
great majority will gladly welcome 
woman as partner and comrade, which 
ought to be the American conception of 
wife, sister and mother. Here is a note, 
unique in its way, which expresses the 
sentiments of many a man of middle 
years: 
While on the veranda one evening 
last Summer I heard the inquiry made, 
“Who lives here?” and the answer 
drawled out, “one old bachelor and two 
old maids.” The answer was correct, 
and it may be because of our having no 
little ones in our home that we appre¬ 
ciate ■so much the childrens’ pictures in 
The R. N.-Y. I see so much beauty in 
this picture of a young mother with her 
first child that I thought you might also, 
and wish to add it to the illustration of 
The New Yorker. Of course I may be 
prejudiced, as it represents a second and 
third cousin in San Francisco. 
JOHN B. DAY. 
So we print the picture right here. 
Oood blood travels far, and Mr. Day’s 
first cousin falls far short of being as 
far removed as night. 
* 
E xperience in infant feed¬ 
ing.—P erhaps my experience in rear¬ 
ing a delicate infant may be of use to Mrs. 
J. G. S., who inquires concerning the dif- 
March 27, 
ference between Jersey milk and Holstein 
milk. When my youngest child was a few 
months old it was plainly evident that 
she was suffering from lack of nourish¬ 
ment. By the doctor’s advice and much 
to my regret. I was obliged to supple¬ 
ment breast milk with cow’s milk. We 
gave the baby Jersey milk with disastrous 
results; neither skimming nor diluting 
with cereals made it digestible for the 
child. We were then advised to try 
Holstein milk, and in desperation my 
husband bought a scrubby but healthy 
two-year-old Holstein heifer. We had no 
pasture for her, and had to buy all her 
feed, but her milk agreed perfectly with 
our baby, who is now a rosy, sturdy child 
of five years, my companion and comfort 
when the older children are away at 
school. 
Fowl in Casserole.— In reading the 
item on the parboiling of a tough goose, 
I thought of our way of making a tough 
fowl tender and palatable. No doubt many 
other housewives use the same method. 
Here it. is: Cut the fowl up as for frying, 
flour each piece and brown—not cook—in 
grease in a frying pan on top of the stove. 
Season with salt and popper and put the 
pieces in a deep dish with about a quart 
of water, cover closely, put in a moderate 
oven and steam till tender, from three to 
four hours, according to the toughness of 
the fowl. The gravy made from a chicken 
cooked in this manner is especially good. 
Round steak may be made tender in the 
same way, cooking in a little water from 
an hour and a half to two hours. The 
steak, of course, is not cut up, but left 
in a thick slice. Potatoes peeled and 
baked in the same dish make a nice 
accompaniment. They should be par¬ 
boiled ten minutes and baked with the 
meat about an hour. M. L. A. 
* 
H ERE are statements which will be 
new to many of our country read¬ 
ers : 
I have been interested in your potato 
campaign and note what you say as 
to eradicating city people’s prejudice 
regarding the potato. The only reason 
that it has become unfashionable to eat 
potatoes is because, in the case of women 
especially, it tends to make them stout, 
according to what nearly all well known 
doctors tell them (I know my own doc¬ 
tor has told me not to eat them for that 
reason). But there is another reason 
much more important than the one stated 
above why there are not more potatoes 
used among the poorer and working 
classes, as well as the middle classes, and 
that is because 10 cents worth of potatoes 
will not go as far as 10 cents worth of 
bread (one quart of potatoes against a 
10 cent loaf of bread), and the house¬ 
wife has all the bother of preparing the 
potatoes, which takes her time as well as 
costs money for fuel to cook them. In 
the case of bread it is delivered fresh at 
her door for the 10 cents and only has 
to be cut before it is eaten. There may 
be more nourishment in the quart of po¬ 
tatoes, but most people will make that 
up by eating something else. A great 
many farmers do the same thing in an¬ 
other form, when they will not “bother 
with a kitchen garden but buy things in 
cans at the store.” The way to make 
city people eat more potatoes would be 
to give them to them cheap enough so 
that the housewife will save a little by 
using potatoes instead of so much bread, 
and you will have to allow something for 
the fuel used to cook them with. My 
grocer says there are three pounds of 
potatoes to the quart and he sells them 
at 10 cents per quart. 
Dr. Kellogg shows that this notion 
that potatoes promote fat-making and 
tend to obesity is an error. Yet many 
doctors still preach it. You will notice 
that potatoes, three pounds for 10 cents, 
means $2 per bushel. “High cost of liv¬ 
ing” indeed. 
* 
R EAD the li t tie story on page 493 and 
you will learn of one farmer who 
would be $250 better off if he had read 
The R. N.-Y. and our little book “Hind¬ 
sights.” This man signed a “marriage 
certificate” which turned up at a bank 
as a note for $250! We have exposed 
this old fraud many times, and the book 
has a full statement about it. Read 
“Hind-Sights” and gain foresight. 
* 
W E are quite surprised to learn that 
so many farm women are keeping 
sheep as a profitable farm business. We 
had no idea that sheep were so popular 
as farm companions. After all the clean 
and affectionate sheep is better suited for 
women to handle than swine or cattle. 
Some of these women seem to be expert 
at lamb raising and to find a good profit 
at it. 
