326 
Ihe RURAL NEW-YORKER 
Pastoral Parson and His Country Folks 
By Rev. George B. Gilbert 
Gnawing Ribbies. —A man stopped in 
at the barn the other day and some of the 
boys took great delight as they always do. 
in showing him about the barn. As the 
boy told him about one cow after another, 
his face suddenly lighted up and a broad 
grin accompanied his next description. 
“And that one you see there, we're going 
to gnaw his ribbies as soon as papa gets 
him butchered.” And the Parson sits 
down to his old typewriter with the flavor 
of one of those same ribbies 'between his 
teeth. 
Food and Bovs. —You see the boy in 
the picture looking at these same ribbies, 
and he is thinking how they will taste 
when lie comes home from school and fin¬ 
ishes his chores and comes and washes up 
and sits down to supper. How the Par¬ 
son looks back to those hot roast suppers 
with brown gravy and mashed potatoes 
and turnips on the old farm ! How he 
liked to-take a rib along with him when 
lie went over to the barn. And a rib you 
have raised on the farm and watched 
grow month after month tastes different 
than any rib you can buy. A man just 
this minute ’phoned out to see if he could 
buy a yearling that "lie looked at last 
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night, but'-affcei^timsp rib* -for dinner, the 
Parson answered ."no.”' jWVll keep it till 
another fall and gnaw itsjvibs. 
THIS Liver. —And. "then there, is the 
liverdJfty morning after butchering ! How 
well tho Parson remembers sniffing it as 
he -m«sed--&oin-r,siuinbei , s .on a. V inter 
morn iligv—'—XEe jlittle fresh. stuip s and-the 
sweetbread, am 1 _the—liner, would be all 
sputtering at, each other, in,the spider and 
tlie Cemliiiliiii'prvfragrance .would mount 
iip through the register hole in the ceiling 
in a way to drive' a growing b/A’, into a 
perfect frenzy. They. tell, ot a man who 
lived over thejotlier side of Mount Hunger 
wild; when breakfast was TahVd.v would 
shout with all. his might up the back 
stairs—“Tho titters- is did. — But yqu 
don’t have' to shout to 'a boy "upstairs 
and tell him when the liver is did. He 
-knows it. by -the,smell! And lie'll be down 
stairs and washed on time. 
Getting Supper!—S ince the girl that 
lived with us six years is , now' happily 
married—a-mldi+evs—acruss the- street. it is 
up to "the.-ho\s and tlu- Parson to help 
•Moms all we jt*an'.al$5ltJJu* house. .. L,;itidy 
we have had .such good times-getting sup¬ 
per. AYiGgirt 'dfH-heads tdg»;t^er a nd don't 
let Mrs. Parson kinds'-what yp^rePgomg to 
have unless die gets wJiiffs’ from the 
kitchen. The other . night we felt -like 
sausage,- but tin- 'real ' sausage had tong 
since been devoured, so we-'got some beef 
and cut it up and cut with it some bacon 
and then found some sage seasoning in 
the pantry and gave it a big doctoring 
with this. IIow the boys love sage! We 
decided that night at supper tllar we 
would plant at least half the farm to 
sage next Summer. It wasn't the spider 
alone that shrank this "sausage" before it 
ever got to the table! 
A Double Yoi.kf.r. —It may have been 
this White Leghorn hen you see in the 
picture that made “Sit" so excited the 
other night. You see this hen is taking a 
side glance at that beef ami she knows 
she will get muon good picking from the 
waste parts and that the pail full of blood 
there on the barn floor will be mixed with 
her mash. At any rate some good lieu, 
according to “Sit." put in a full day’s 
work even when the days are short, for 
she laid six eggs in the nest on the husks 
and what’s still more one of them was a 
double-yolker. At this point “Sit” had 
to get up into Daddy's lap and whisper in 
his ear that “Trixy," the cat. had walked 
on the double-yoker and cracked it and 
couldn't she and Daddy have it for sup- 
np*—just we two and no one else?" So. 
amid many glancings and whisperings, the 
was fried. Sit moved her chair down 
f "om beside Moms till it was close up to 
Daddy, so that the egg could be eaten at 
crocisely the same time and in the same 
way. Poor “Munner” nearly shed tears 
over thus being deserted and Sit could 
hardly enjoy her egg after all. But she 
stuck it out and after supper the Parson 
heard her asking Mrs. Parson if “she felt 
real well?” .thus making up for her ill 
treatment* 
Sit Goes to a Party. —Sit has never 
been to school yet. for we never send them 
till the law makes us; but she is six years 
old and is such a help about the house. 
Sin- gets the table ready for meals, sets 
the table, and can do wonderfully well at 
drying the dishes. Last night, the Parson 
gave the school children a party up in 
the neighborhood hall, and Sit got it into 
her little head that she wanted to go. She 
came to the Parson as he and George 
were rushing through the supper dishes, 
and he seut her upstairs to ask her 
mother. 
Wity Not? —Now Sit is such a little 
girl and does not go to school and had 
never been to a party that the whole 
thing struck her mother as quite unthink¬ 
able. and forthwith a burst of woe and 
grief filled the household. Now the chil¬ 
dren are so good about not making a fuss 
when they cannot go anywhere, and Sit 
was so heartbroken that soon mother ap¬ 
peared downstairs for a consultation. We 
saw that the question was not "Why 
should she go?" but rather “Why should 
she not go?" The party was to begin 
early and be through early. She could 
sleep the next \norning. We would look 
after her. She promised she would uot 
cry nor whimper if tired when she came 
home. And so. with her little hand in 
Daddy’s, she trudged along to this—her 
first —party. 
Think First. —We ought to think 
twice before. wo say “No" to children. It 
is so'easy always to say no. And we do 
not realize that they are constantly grow¬ 
ing older and can do things today that 
they coidd not do yesterday. If we will 
let them do what th$y want to when it is 
just as .well for them and perhaps better, 
they will be more willing to refrain when 
we say no. There should be good reasons 
for “don’ts’’ and "noes”—reasons that we 
can give the children. The Parson was 
much interested and pleased with A. IVs 
article about children on page 141. If 
children feel that you are always wanting 
them to have a good time and willing to 
help them to have a good time, theu when 
we say no.,they will realize that it is for 
some good reason, or we never would 
have said it. 
. Gnu. Drowned. —The oldest boy has 
just come in from high school to tell us 
that, a girl was drowned while skating 
over on the pond last night. She was 
only 10 years old. Why should parents 
let a girl go skating at such a time, when 
yearly every paper tells of someone pick¬ 
ing- dandelion blossoms, and the brook by 
the barn is as open as in June? The Par- 
- soil noticed that the rhubarb had gotten 
• quite a start, and it is in January. Per¬ 
haps the people did not know where the 
girl was. So much to their shame. Think 
gu 
• of anyone not knowing where a 10-vear- 
oljl child is! And yet there seem to be 
aqr number of families that do not know 
whore their children are half the time. 
'Praising or Blaming. —The boy in 
high'; school came home with a hunting 
; stqry the other night, and the Parson has 
thought of it much as lie goes about the 
barn with the children. It was about a 
man who went into a strange woods huut- 
! iug anil ’ there he found an abandoned 
wqpdchopper’s hut and lie made use of it. 
, He had a feeling there was some wild 
• auiinal inside, and when the lights were 
i oujtj he; saw a pair of green eyes looking 
; at . him from up under the corner of the 
i roqf.A It was a cat that had been left 
there years before. After much pains the 
1 tijan made friends with the cat and it 
i brought iu mice as a rule, hut one day it 
brought in a beautiful squirrel, 
i He Praised It. —He made much over 
, this, praising and petting tin* cat and 
holding the squirrel before it. So it 
brought more and more squirrels till the 
day it had a rabbit. Then the man 
praised the cat greatly, for the rabbit, and 
so more and more rabbits were brought in. 
Then one day the cat had a mink. How 
he did pat and praise him for this. And 
so the cat got more mink. Then one day 
'lie cat brought in a marten. Such praise 
and such a supper as it had that gight! 
Soon the cat caught little else but mink 
and marten, and brought them in the 
cabin for the man. 
Christrmas Greens. —The boys and 
the Parson make their Christmas money 
each year by getting two loads of Christ¬ 
mas trimming for one of the big churches 
in town. It is a good little job. and we 
enjoy it so much when the weather is not 
too rough. We. started this year about 
11 o’clock and got hack in time for chores. 
We took half a loaf of bread, a big knife, 
plenty of apples, and a Christmas box of 
candy. This we ate on the way. Then 
another day we go off in another direction 
and get some laurel. Then we put both 
loads together and take them in town. We 
take pleasure and pains in getting the 
best we can find and the church was will¬ 
ing to pay more than we asked. 
Christmas Wreaths. —The people 
down county as a rule got good prices for 
their wreaths this year. One family, by 
taking them to a distant city, got 40 cents 
each, $M 2 for the load, hut it was a ter¬ 
rible trip in the pouring rain all the way 
home. Another family got $12 for a load 
that the Parson had all sold for tlvem. and 
their money waiting. Many make them 
and send to friends in New York by 
parcel post. 
Four Hens. —But tho Parson must 
stop right here and go over and catch up 
February 22, 1919 
four hens to take away down county to¬ 
morrow to give to a man suffering from 
consumption. The Parson found he had 
but two liens, and he should have more to 
get all the fresh eggs ho can cat. How 
sorry the Parson is for him. lie has a 
wife and a little hoy. Such a nice women, 
working so hard to save her husband. He 
worked in a terrible factory where it was 
so liot that lie would get dizzy and the 
floor would seem to come tip to meet him, 
and then the dreaded flush spots came in 
his cheeks, and now he lies there in bed 
with tho windows open. 
Open Windows. —The Parson was 
reading somewhere that people who have 
consumption in the country are less apt 
to get well than those in the city. It 
seems strange but when one rides through 
the back country, it is astonishing how 
tight the windows are at night. That old 
idea about damp air being harmful has 
probably killed more people than lighting 
ever has. In the close and dusty and 
dirty city, the sleepers open up the win¬ 
dows and in the open country with the 
ozone as pure as the dew from heaven, 
they close them down. 
The Next Day. —And here it is the 
next. day. and yesterday we went down 
with those hens and saw the poor fellow 
lying there and cheered him as best we 
could and put the lions out in the little 
henhouse. He had a pair of ducks there, 
decoy ducks for hunting and wanted us to 
bring them along home to the boys. The 
raison does not imagine they are real 
mortgage lifters, but they are cunning as 
Fun and Christmas Money > 
they can be—much smaller than most 
ducks. You have to cut their wings or 
they will be off and away to the wild 
woods again. They will be cunning 
enough swimming around on the boys’ 
pond next Summer. Some things pay iu 
money and some things pay a good deal 
more in other ways. There is a lone 
bantv rooster around the place that will 
never glut a savings bank, but he was 
given to Shelley by a good Rural New- 
Yorker reader from Rhode Island, and lie 
loves him dearly, and spends much time 
talking to him as lie works at the chores 
at night. 
Real Mortgage Lifters. —But the 
Parson believes that geese, where you 
have ft place for them, away from the 
garden and fenced in. are a paying propo¬ 
sition. turkeys being so high, for people 
are crazy to get them for Thanksgiving. 
We sold one that brought just 40 cents 
less than $0. A woman down county 
raised 27 from one goose and one gander, 
and they brought her over $100. Ducks 
will cat their heads off in grain, hut geese 
feed on fhe grass and will fatten with 
very little grain if they have a good grass 
lot and good water. 
Oi.d Jfrry. —Old .Terry is our old gan¬ 
der and is a part of the farm family. No 
one knows how old he is. but everyone 
round here knows how crazy lie is. He 
criginally came from New Jersey, where 
he was raffled off in a saloon and was 
brought to C’onm client in a bag on the 
cars. He is ns white as the driven snow, 
and weighs 1!) pounds. He will not hesi¬ 
tate a minute to attack a 200-pound hog 
and when once he has him by the ear. you 
would think it was butchering time. 
True Bi ue. —Jerry is true blue to his 
ladies, especially to one of them, for In¬ 
is very partial and always cares much 
more for one than the other. Last Spring 
his favorite lady was sitting on eggs just 
inside the small hole in the henhouse 
whore the hens go through. Jerry never 
forgot her for an instant, and spent much 
of his time with his head through the hole 
talking to her. We set it big White Wy¬ 
andotte hen with goose eggs last Summer. 
The nest was in a box under the corn 
barn. One day when she was off. old 
Jerry, with his long neck, peered over the 
Ode of that box and spied those eggs. 
What a fuss he made! He called loudly 
to his chief lady and she peered in and 
they had a long talk over it. After a 
little swim in the pond they returned 
and of course that good white hen was 
warming up those eggs. Old Jerry 
reached right over the top of that box 
and took that good old peace-loving white 
hen by the neck and yanked her out of 
that box as though lie had hold of an ear 
of corn. Her will cries of grief and rage 
brought the Parson to the rescue. 
Wonderful Weather. —Moms went 
down county with us yesterday for tin- 
first time since last August. Tt was warm 
and balmy like Spring. We took our 
lunch and ate by the wayside. Today 
is the last day of January. The brooks 
are as open as July. The hens think it 
