1304 
THE RURAL, NEW-YORKER. 
October 30, 1915. 
As I write there is a fearful roaring 
noise coming to my ears. It comes from 
one of those many devices that boys 
think up on a farm for their great 
amusement. There is a strong clothes¬ 
line wire from the corner of the house 
to a big post, the house end being about 
two feet higher than the other. On this 
the boys have put a little iron clothesline 
pulley, with a rope attached. They go 
up a step ladder by the house, give them¬ 
selves a push and away they go the 
whole nhigfh, clinging to a rope attached 
to a pulley. How much they enjoy this! 
It seems as tho* they would never tire 
of it. Why buy toys for our farm boys? 
Because there are always things on a 
farm that a boy can do to help, are we 
not in danger of begrudging them their 
play? And then wonder why they do 
not want to be farmers! What farm has 
not a couple of old buggy wheels around 
back of the barn? I took the axle to a 
blacksmith and had him bend it down 
about four inches just inside the wheels. 
I was going to make a cart of it. but 
I guess I never shall. The boys had it 
out of the wagon and the wheels on it 
before 1 had the horse put up. And 
such a time as they have had playing 
with those two wheels! A six-dollar cart 
would not have given them half the 
pleasure. One day I sent the boys for 
the wheelbarrow and they came with it 
placed right across the axle, crying 
out, “See our jitney.” It was a handy 
thing. The weight went on the axle, so 
all you had to do was to push. I nailed 
some slats on each side of the axle so 
that it would stay in place. The outfit 
looks to be a thing of joy forever. 
The boys have made one or two bodies 
for the axle, removing for the time the 
wheelbarrow, but they soon went to 
pieces. The thing is a constant chal¬ 
lenge to them to make a better one. Some 
day when I come home from being away 
all day, I.will find quite a body on it. 
The boys have free access to the nails 
and hammers and one saw. Mow fast 
they are learning and growing when they 
are inventing and making things! What 
an advantage the farm boy has here. The 
Pastoral Parson believes in letting a boy 
do things at the time when he wants to— 
that is, of course, helpful things. How 
boys love to fuss around an auto! Though 
the old it is but 11, they can test the 
tires and take them off and bring the 
inner tube to the liopse, do most of the 
oiling, test the batteries and look them 
over, put in the water and oil and gas 
and crank her up. So often when chil¬ 
dren want to do things and could do 
them, we won’t let them ; then when we 
want them to do the same things, lo, and 
behold! they have lost all interest! And 
really is it any use for any of us to 
try to do things in which we have no 
interest and take no pleasure? And 
when we are filled with interest, then it 
isn’t work any more at all; it is play. 
The boys and I try to make all our work 
seem like play, and always to have a 
good time at whatever we are doing. 
A Da,*£ Fob The Boys. —Now we 
are on this matter, how many of 
us have helped the boys to make a dam 
in the old brook on the farm? I don’t 
care how busy you are, you. will never 
spend a day so well. And what boy 
will forget to his dying day the time when 
his father helped him make a dam? It 
was a fearfully hot day when the boys 
and I made ours, but we made it well, 
with a big log and many stones. Such 
good times we had in it. How it light¬ 
ened the hot afternoons when we would 
all strive to get through early and have a 
swim before supper ! Let us all remem¬ 
ber that the natural life of the child is' 
the play life, and the boy without a play¬ 
ground makes a man without a job. Our 
boys love to watch us work and to try 
to do what we are doing. Whenever pos¬ 
sible, let them help. Even when I am 
painting a wagon or buggy I let them 
each have a little old brush and work 
away on something that does no harm and 
may help. Are we wise in sending boys 
off to work in the fields alone? But when 
“Pops” goes too, with a good can of 
water and plenty of apples and a few 
silces of bread and merry talk all the 
while, it’s a different thing! 
A Husking Party. — I do not know 
so much about the oldtime quilt¬ 
ing party, for that is not in my line, 
but I do think we could all help bring 
back the good old husking bee. The 
Pastoral Parson has had one at his 
farm, and expects soon to have another. 
We are apt to make too much work of 
these things, and then they are given 
up. I put ;. couple of planks along one 
side of the barn floor for seats—the 
ends on boxes—and a good pile of corn 
in front of the seats. It was announced 
that the sooner the corn was husked 
the sooner the games would begin. Need¬ 
less to say, it was cleaned out in short 
order. I had the graphophone perched 
over on the hay cutter, and we kept that 
going all the time of the games. Courtesy, 
Jacob and Rachel, Virginia reel, and 
quadrilles were in order. Then the 
luncheon of cocoa and crackers, nothing 
else. That was enough and no work at 
all. Such a good time as they all seemed 
to have. They did enough husking to 
more than offset the work of getting 
ready, and soon we shall have another. 
Boys and Parties. —Did you ever 
hear of a boy refusing to attend 
his own party? I once attended such a 
party, and it was both tragic and comic. 
The well-meaning household had decided 
that the boy, about 12 years old, must 
have a genuine surprise birthday party. 
All the boys and girls of the neighborhood 
came early in the evening and were 
seated in a circle in the parlor. The boy 
was kept about the barn until all was in 
readiness, then he was steered into the 
kitchen and asked to fix up a little bit 
and go into the parlor. Various snick- 
erings from this quarter, however, let 
the cat out or the bag, and right then 
the trouble began. The boy refused to 
go into the parlor or near it, or have 
anything to do with the whole thing. The 
older sister came out in the kitchen and 
stamped her pretty foot and settled the 
fact that he was the “horridcct thing 
coming wise fathers, and women able in 
health and equipped in training to be¬ 
come home-makers and home-keepers? 
About as poor a specimen of a boy as 
you would find in a day’s journey ap¬ 
peared at one of our country socials one 
night. lie seemed to be capable of every 
kind of sly mischief, and sucked cigarettes 
a good deal of the time. He had not, 
however, missed Sunday school for seven 
years! “Are you going to join ?” I heard 
one boy ask of another just after the 
Sunday school superintendent had asked 
him him to join his school. “I don’t 
think so,” said the boy. “He wants me 
so as to make his school bigger than 
the one over town.” 
Boys were made to fill up Sunday 
schools just about as much as men were 
made to fill up church pews. When 
Sunday schools are made to fill the needs 
and longings and aspirations of boys and 
when churches use their vast resources 
and their best thought and efforts to 
furnishing lofty ideals, improving the 
whole living, and clearing away the per¬ 
plexities of men, they will both, in due 
time, be full. 
Such Work Supported. —It is en¬ 
What Page do You Think He is Reading? 
she ever saw in her life.” A good cousin 
of the family came out and pleaded till 
the tears came, but to no avail. “Needle’s 
eye” and “spin the platter” were gone 
through with twice before the surprisee 
stumbled along to the door and tumbled 
into the nearest chair. The kind of 
party that boy wanted was one of his 
own set of boys, and held in the kitchen 
with a pot or cocoa on the stove that 
would net a good five cups apiece. Later 
on he wants the party with the girls and 
games where some slight preference 
among the girls can be shown. 
What Is the Matter? —Who can 
tell why the present-day generation 
of so many native stock families seems 
to have “run emptin’s” as father would 
say? They were not robbed of their 
birthright. But how about their youth- 
right? What kind of a youth-right have 
your youths in your neighborhood or your 
church? I)o you pride yourself on how 
much you can keep the maids and youths 
apart, and does your vision go no 
further than church record books and 
outside benevolence, or are you striving 
to make men and women, men worthy 
to become husbands and capable of be¬ 
The Boy on the Lonely Road 
The Pastoral Parson Tells How He Gets All the Boys 
By Rev. Geo. B. Gilbert 
couraging to see how people are glad to 
support the work that takes this large 
view of life and its needs. The man 
who went on the Lonely Road with the 
Pastoral Parson and wrote about it to 
The Rural New Yorker insisted on leav¬ 
ing a five-dollar bill on my desk for this 
work. An entire stranger, whom I took 
in for a ride one day and who was in¬ 
terested in my load of missionary ma¬ 
terial, on shaking hands for a farewell, 
left a similar bill with me. Some six 
weeks after talking about the work in a 
village church, the Pastoral Parson re¬ 
ceived a check for six dollars from some 
person he has never spoken to. At another 
time after giving a talk on this work to 
a group of inquirers I was handed a little 
over ten dollars. So it looks like the 
happiest Thanksgiving time for the Pas¬ 
toral Parson and his family and mission 
people that they have yet known, and 
next time he wants to write you a real 
Thanksgiving letter. 
A Man in the Kitchen. 
I greatly enjoy reading the Woman 
and Home Department of The R. N.-Y. 
I find in it so much of interest to me, 
perhaps because I am a young bachelor 
doing the cooking and other housework 
for father and myself. If that bachelor, 
W. E. II., on page 11(11, does his own 
cooking, I wish I could tell him that by 
all means he ought to increase his kitch¬ 
en apparatus with a fireless cooker. I 
made mine at a cost of five or 10 cents 
for the lumber. It is in use every day 
and as in my case I do both the field or 
outside work and the cooking also I find 
I save a great deal of time and worry by 
using it. I just simply wouldn’t go with¬ 
out one of these contraptions. Here are 
a few of my tried-out recipes: 
After three sliced tomatoes and a piece 
of ham about the size of half a saucer 
have been boiling 10 minutes in one 
quart, or a little over, of buttermilk, add 
a cup of broken pieces (one to two inch 
length) of macaroni, salt and pepper and 
several chopped onions; stew or boil this 
from .“10 to 45 minutes and it is ready to 
serve. 
Here is my way of preparing the old 
stand-by, the navy or white bean : Soak 
the beans over night in fresh water to 
which has been added a quarter tea¬ 
spoonful of baking soda; in the morn¬ 
ing drain the water off, put on the stove 
with fresh water, salted to taste, and 
also a little soda, just a pinch, and a 
small piece of salt pork or ham; when 
about done, which is in from 45 to 60 
minutes, add one or several chopped 
onions, pepper and then thicken a little 
with browned flour (flour kept in the 
oven until brown). When it has boiled 
about five minutes and while still boil¬ 
ing briskly, quickly put the kettle into 
a fireless cooker, and when noontime 
comes around take it out of the cooker 
and you have something that I know 
will tickle the palate and stick to the 
side ribs. Sometimes we make a varia¬ 
tion of the above by adding some sugar 
and vinegar just before putting into the 
cooker. 
And, since the potato harvest is now in 
full swing, here is another way of utiliz¬ 
ing the surplus “spuds” by making them 
into potato dumplings; here is my way: 
Boil potatoes with the skin on them un¬ 
til well done, then drain and when cooled 
off a bit peel and then mash thoroughly. 
When mashed add a little salt and suffi¬ 
cient flour to make into a stiff dough, of 
which take a handful and work or shape 
into a neat round ball about half the 
size, or a trifle smaller, of a baseball. 
Then drop these slowly one by one into 
salted, briskly boiling water. The ket¬ 
tle must contain sufficient water to cover 
them ; boil from 15 to 30 minutes. They 
are greatly improved by putting the ket¬ 
tle, while still boiling briskly, into a 
fireless cooker and leaving them therein 
about an hour. These dumplings are 
given a rich nutty flavor by putting 
about a spoonful of small buttered toast¬ 
ed bread cubes or squares into the cen¬ 
ter of each at the time they are being 
shaped into form. They can be served by 
cutting them into small pieces on the 
plate, and then spread with a thick, 
brown, well flavored beef roast gravy, or. 
by spreading over them apple butter or 
some other thick sweetened, and spiced 
fruit sauce, either hot or cold. 
Virginia. gus boeiime. 
