246 
Vbt RURAL. NEW-YORKER 
A Meeting in a Blizzard 
I spent New Year’s with relatives in 
Cayuga County, New York, and while 
there attended a stereoptieon lecture, four 
miles out in the country at the “Brick 
Church.” The night was the wildest one 
of the Winter thus far. The wind blew 
as if conscious of unlimited power at the 
bellows’ end, and the snow pellets landed 
with a biting sting. 
My host was the preacher-speaker who 
was to give a talk on the Columbus Cen¬ 
tenary with slides. Supper was to be 
served after the lecture, and thus arrange¬ 
ments had been carried gut that under 
more ordinary circumstances would have 
easily permitted the affair to be postponed 
to an evening of more auspicious weather. 
It was a certainty that the attendance 
would be small, but this only made me the 
more eager to attend, as I wanted to study 
the frame of mind at close range of those 
who braved the inclemencies of that 
boisterous night. 
When we arrived, considerably beyond 
the customary hour, one m..n and family 
besides the caretaker were present. That 
man had come miles on a cross road with 
four in the cutter -to get to the church. 
Gradually the friends of the church came 
in with their baskets and pans. The gale 
outside did not permit of warming the 
building very far away from the stoves. 
During, the lecture the parishioners hud¬ 
dled in the warm corners, and afterwards 
a generous spread with piping hot coffee 
was served from this end of the church. 
No one spoke of the sacrifices made to 
reach the church; one middle-aged lady 
regretted the lateness of her arrival, since 
she had been “busy all day in the barn 
husking corn.” All was cheer and good 
will among the few present, and many 
pleasantries were exchanged. 
Then came the big coffee cup with the 
jingle of coins. A collection was being 
taken to help mission work in some less 
favored land, and a copious outpouring of 
silver followed. Though after 10 o’clock 
the social hour kept up unabated, and the 
discussion ranged from honey production 
and live stock to more interest in prayer 
meetings and a motley of topics. 
This is the picture as I saw it. I would 
like to present it because to me it is a 
sane picture, “made in America,” of her 
prime qualities that ennobled our land in 
the esteem of all the world. Here, in¬ 
deed, was true democracy. One man 
would serve as volunteer fireman, another 
would bring the fuel, another would bring 
water for the coffee and another would 
help hang the screen and assist on the 
lantern. All were of one degree of fel¬ 
lowship. And this picture is duplicated 
all over this land among the folks on the 
farms. 
I am not so familiar with another pic¬ 
ture, but I see its reflections in the daily 
print, and enough is visioned to give a 
good working idea of its coloring. Here 
we have the labor agitator of the_ city, 
who in the name of assumed holy inten¬ 
tions would shatter these true foundations 
of democracy; the communist who would 
bring the pale of pestilence throughout the 
land with his unworkable theories, and 
the plain anarchist, who wants no order. 
The shades of variance in their violence 
are often wide, but nowhere in their en¬ 
tire line do they approach the sane po¬ 
sition of the farmer. lie has seved this 
country more than once, and he will do 
it again. Without his even keel and 
steady balance all would be lost, for he 
feeds' the nation. All are his boarders. 
There are indications that the noisiest 
ones will have to shut tip. This comes 
as a welcome rumor. Leniency, far be¬ 
yond that ever asked by the farmer, ^has 
been shown these storm petrels. Work 
and not argument is what all the world 
needs most now. Imagine some of these 
agitators as “husking corn all day in a 
cold barn” and then fighting a blizzard for 
a heart-to-heart visit with friends after 
a gospel discourse. This is the original 
kind of material, entering in American 
structure, and it must be preserved at 
all costs. A - H - p - 
A Chapter on Chilblains 
After several years of chilblains I 
found a cure. I took two vessels and 
placed them side by side. In one I put 
water just as hot as I could possibly 
bear it. in the other cold water; first 
put the foot in the hot water, holding 
it there for perhaps 10 minutes. The 
skin of the foot and ankle will turn quite 
red ; then take out of the hot water and 
plunge immediately in the cold water, 
holding there about one minute. Then 
take out of the cold water and rub, rub, 
rub, with a good Turkish towel, not an 
old soft one that wouldn’t cause the blood 
to circulate. This rubbing should be on 
the toes, the foot, both top and bottom, 
the ankle and the leg as high up as the 
knee. If this rubbing is well done the 
chilblains will cause no more inconven¬ 
ience for at least 24 hours. 
New Jersey. MRS. s. A. 8. 
On page 46 a cure for chilblains or 
frosted feet is asked for. The remedies 
that M. B. D. gives are no doubt good, 
but the following is one that I and many 
others have tried with unvarying success. 
Bub the afflicted parts copiously with 
spirits of turpentine, then bake them by 
an open fire or hot stove for 10 minutes 
or more. Often one treatment is suffi¬ 
cient. F. TV. H. 
Maryland. 
When the awful itching begins put the 
feet in a bowl of very hot water with 
a large teacupful of salt and keep im¬ 
mersing first one foot, then the other 
until the water cools until you can keep 
your feet in the water. Have the water 
very hot and grit your teeth, and you 
will soon be relieved, and I really think 
in time it will fix the chilblains entirely. 
This is a remedy, but not a cure. 
New York. MRS. C. c. N. 
Slice a raw potato, very thin, place 
the slices on a thick saucer and sprinkle 
generously with coarse cattle salt. Place 
where warm, but be sure not to heat 
it. In about 15 or 20 minutes the salt 
will have drawn the juice from the pota¬ 
toes. Rub this on the affected parts. 
Almost instant relief is experienced. This 
is effective until another exposure to 
severe cold renews the chilblains. 
New York. MRS. A. V. 
Fighting the Rat Pest 
We are bothered, pestered to death, so 
to say. with rate in our house. There is 
no cellar underneath it; we occupy the 
ground floor with kitchen, laundry and 
dining room, all of which have Avood 
floors. It seems as though the rate have 
thier nests underneath them, and we can¬ 
not get through to reach them unless we 
tear up all the floors. There is nothing 
kept around for them to feed on. but they 
insist on staying, eating our clothes and 
linen, linoleum, gnawing on all the furni¬ 
ture, rugs, etc. Traps are of no avail 
any more; those rats appear to be smart 
enough to know what they are there for. 
We have several kinds of them, wire 
basket and several different spring styles; 
have boiled them, burned them out over a 
fire and fumigated them, thinking that to 
destroy their odor would make them take 
the bait. Nothing doing. I’ve sought 
their holes that they eat through the floors 
and baseboards and poured a strong solu¬ 
tion of creosote oil down them and then 
plugged them up with glass and tin. You 
would think the odor, being so strong, 
would drive them away, as it nearly drove 
us out of the house, the fumes being gase¬ 
ous and staying at the bottom, but no, 
those rats just politely started a couple 
of holes in some other places and took 
possession of the house again. 
After reading this I think you’ll agree 
with me when I say I am at the end of 
my wits. Do you know of a method 
that can be successfully used, if not to 
kill them all but to drive them away to 
stay? I used some poison at one time, 
and one of them went and died between a 
floor and ceiling, and I had to rip up the 
floor to get it out and get rid of the odor. 
Do you recommend the methods that are 
being advertised in The R. N.-Y. as suc¬ 
cessful in ending this misery? 
Chicago, Ill. MRS. J. KELLY. 
_ Very likely this is a case for a profes¬ 
sional rat-killer to come with ferrets or 
dogs and drive the rate out. AYe have 
used the bacteria, or virus remedies, 
with varying success. This method is 
based on the theory of starting a con¬ 
tagious disease among the rate. The 
germs of such disease are given in the 
food. The rats eating it become sick and 
the disease spreads from one to another. 
In our case the disease seemed to clean 
out most of the rats, but after a time a 
new family or strain came in from out¬ 
side, so that the remedy must be tried 
again and again. We advise a trial of it, 
but in your city situation we think a rat 
catcher with ferrets would be best. 
February 7, 1920 
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