740 
April 10, 1920 
WOMAN AND HOME 
From Day to Day 
The Easter Day of Courage 
Friend of the broken hopes, this day is 
ours— 
Sad men and weary given up for lost; 
Or did you think that pretty dreams and 
flowers 
Can brave the Winter and defy the 
frost. 
And that strong sap within the hearts 
of men, 
Courage, mount not again? 
Nature herself appoints this laughing 
day, , 
And man but mirrors in liis saered 
creeds 
The light that lives beyond the quenched 
ray. ... . , , 
The harvest waiting in the withered 
seeds, 
The glory burning through the black 
eclipse, 
The song on songless lips. 
Darkness and tears, our weakness and 
our wrong. 
The woe we worked, the good we did 
not do, 
Are but the ways of God to make us 
strong; 
Heroes and saints were once such 
men as you. 
When to the dregs we drink disaster up, 
Lo, honey in the cup! 
To the brave soul all days arc Easter 
days. 
Cast Winter from your heart-, fear not 
life’s cold! 
All your Decembers turn to flowering 
bays. 
And sudden all your lead is minted 
gold— 
Ah, how the faces of the angels shone, 
When rolled away the stone! 
•—Nicholas Breton in Munsey’s Magazine 
* 
Many women who buy by mail feel 
city help conditions in the form of ex¬ 
asperating delays and errors. Mail-or¬ 
der houses, their warehouses and storage 
full of merchandise, and orders rushing 
in by every mail, are so short of all lines 
of help that complaints are incessant, 
moreover, much of the mail is handled by 
young people who are not only inexperi¬ 
enced, but who frankly don't care whether 
their work is accurate or not. In the 
grocery department of a great city store 
that does a large mail-order business, we 
were told that careless ‘‘order, pickers” 
were responsib ■ for much, trouble. The 
salesman takes the order, and the “order 
picker” then assembles it. The order 
pickers are largely high school hoys who 
work part time and some of them are 
careless and inattentive. A surprising 
amount of part-time help is employed by 
large stores. The complaint is general 
that it is very hard to find young peo¬ 
ple with any sense of responsibility. Ap¬ 
parently they have always done as they 
liked, and expect to continue that atti¬ 
tude in business. 
aj: 
The Illinois Congress of Mothers 
states publicly that “moral conditions in 
the schools : the United States are very 
bad,” and on reform started is the sup- 
pressioc. of silly and immodest dress in 
the big’, schools. Unfortunately it is 
silly mothers who arer directly respons¬ 
ible for the trouble, and there is no way, 
apparently, in which they may be re¬ 
formed. 
S’: 
There are two bulletins sent out in the 
Cornell Heading. Course that are espec¬ 
ially timely just now; one being “Dande¬ 
lions as Food.” the other “Ways of Using 
Rhubarb.” One excellent recipe for 
rhubarb pie given in the above bulletin 
calls for the following materials; One cup¬ 
ful sugar, two tablespsoon, Lou:-, one pint 
of rhubarb, cut in small pieces, one-third 
cupful raisins, one tablespoonful butter, 
one tablespoonful lemon juice, one tea¬ 
spoonful grated lemon rind. Line a pie 
pan with plain pastry, and prick pastry 
■with a fork. Mix the sugar with the 
flour, and sprinkle one-third of the mix¬ 
ture over the crust. Add the rhubarb 
and raisins. Cover the top with the re¬ 
maining sugar and flour, add the butter 
in small lumps, and the lemon juice and 
rind. Then bake the pie in a slow oven. 
Experience with Clematis Coccinea 
Noticing the inquiry of Mother Bee as 
to Clematis coccinea, would reply that 
it is easily grown and a very free 
bloomer. Unlike many others of its fam¬ 
ily, it dies to the ground with Winter 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
and in Spring sends up dozens of tender¬ 
looking leaf stems, which grow very rap¬ 
idly making a more spreading and dense 
screen than C. Jackmauii. Ours covers 
a poultry wire trellis 11 feet high, and 
would climb higher if given support. 
Throughout a long blooming period it is 
literally red with its small pitcher¬ 
shaped blossoms, corolla red, and lined 
with orange color. The bloom is suc¬ 
ceeded by the familiar feather-tailed seed 
pods, such as other Clematis have. Our 
vine was planted by our mother more 
than 40 years ago. Her flower-loving 
friends, likewise our own. always doubted 
its being a true Clematis, claiming it be¬ 
longed to the honeysuckle class. 
[It is listed by various nurserymen as 
C. coccinea, but is given in Bailey’s Cy¬ 
clopedia of Horticulture as C. texensis. 
Some botanists call it C. Viorna var. 
coccinea. The typical C. Viorna grows 
from Pennsylvania southward.—Eds.] 
Whatever its botanical name, it de¬ 
serves to be more commonly grown, for 
its beauty as a porch vine, and if for no 
other reason, to lure to our homes those 
beautifully feathered sprites, the humming 
birds. These welcome little visitors are 
so eager for the honey in the flower cups 
that their shyness is overcome and they 
hum around while we are sewing or read¬ 
ing, often alighting in a near-by pear tree, 
affording us the coveted glimpse of them 
at rest. We once had the pleasure of 
seeing what must have been a nest full 
of the tiny fledglings, downy and un- 
feathered, save for wing feathers. They 
had followed the parent birds to the porch 
and were humming among Asters and 
Petunias below the vine. mbs. l. m. c. 
A Rag Carpet 
Some 20 years ago one Winter I made 
up my mind I would like to make a rag 
carpet. Rug carpets in those days were 
quite popular, and weavers with carpet 
looms were numerous through the coun¬ 
try. During the last decade the popular¬ 
ity of rag carpets has been on the wane. 
In these times of H. C. of I,., when rugs 
kind of binding. The warp woven at in¬ 
tervals through the carpet for binding is 
better, for it is less work, but this an¬ 
swers the purpose. The carpet was sewed 
up with thrums (recalling “A Window in 
Thrums”) ; pieces of warp which were 
left after the carpet was woven. 
First, the carpet served as a covering 
on an auto rest room floor. I did ap¬ 
preciate its value that Summer and Fall. 
The ladies and children admired the 
bright colors, and it always looked clean 
and neat. Light carpets are more dur¬ 
able, wear well and wash to better ad¬ 
vantage than a dark one made of dark 
warp rags. 
The carpet has been used on the bed¬ 
room and living room floor. It has worn 
well. Last Fall the center stripe had 
Iho appearance of fading to some extent. 
I decided to give it. a good scrubbing on 
the floor with brush, soap and water. I 
washed one-half yard at a time, and 
rinsed with lukewarm water, until I had 
scrubbed the entire room. I took fade¬ 
less dyes for cotton, scarlet, three pack¬ 
ages made according to directions, only 
adding three quarts of soft water, boiled 
fur 20 minutes. Set color with three 
heaping tablespoonfuls of common table 
salt, let stand over n ; eht and in the 
morning took a new paint brush three 
inches wide and painted the old stripe 
scarlet out to the black threads on each 
side of the stripe. The color is wearing 
just splendidly, and makes the room look 
cheerful and bright during the long Win¬ 
ter days. mbs. a. m. h. 
Rugs and Mittens 
I was much interested in the two ar¬ 
ticles recently published, one on old-fash¬ 
ioned knitted mittens, the other home¬ 
made rugs. I can braid, knit and cro¬ 
chet rugs, but I never could make a 
great success “hooking” them, so I took 
an old corset steel, a little wider than a 
ribbon-runner, or tape needle, made a slot 
in one end, and sewed my design into the 
foundation. It was more quickly done 
than I could hook it. and it looked the 
A very beautuul centerpiece is illustrated in No. 920. It is of morning-glory design. 
It is for outline and long and short stitch embroidery. The flowers are for lavenders and 
pink, the leaves and vines green and the lattice work in green. The design is on white em¬ 
broidery fabric, size 27 inches, and with mercerized floss to complete embroidery, cosis $1.25. 
for large rooms are from $60 to $100. and 
ordinary carpets run from $.” to $5 per 
yard, the housewife begins to look around 
for a different and cheaper floor covering. 
Hence, a weaver tells me they are turning 
their attention toward making rag carpets 
again, and they are becoming quite popu¬ 
lar on account of cheapness and durabil¬ 
ity. 
The rags I used were torn one-half inch 
wide, and were good cotton rags well 
sewed. The carpet consisted of 27 yards, 
40 inches wide, making in all .‘50 yards. 
One and three-quarter pounds of rags 
were required to the yard, and two pounds 
of white warp included. 
A piece of board about the size of a 
shingle served to wind rags on to lay 
out my plan of stripe; center two threads 
of pure white rags, on each side three 
threads of salmon pink, then four of a 
darker shade of pink, three of red, two 
of yellow and two of copperas, three of 
black, four of medium blue, four of black 
and a hit-and-miss filler of C8 threads. 
This repeated all through the ’50 yards 
of carpet. 
When new the colors were very pretty 
and bright, the carpet fine and smooth, 
the rags well beaten up. which makes a 
good carpet. It originally was made for 
a bedroom carpet, but has been in use on 
different floors in the house. The pink, 
red and yellow rags were colored with 
fadeless dyes for cotton, and have worn 
well; blue and copperas were old-fash¬ 
ioned dyes our grandmothers used. Black 
rags were from old black calico dresses 
worn more or less in those days. 
I did not know just the length of car¬ 
pet wanted, so no binding of warp was 
woven in the strips. When ready to cut 
into lengths, the carpet being light, light 
green denim, a piece three inches wide 
and 40 inches long, was pasted on the 
carpet. This was cut in center of denim, 
so the carpet would not ravel or lose any 
of its sturdy qualities as a rag carpet. It 
was bound with another piece of denim, 
finishing off each end of strip with this 
same when finished. If the strips for the 
flowers are cut a little wider, and 
being drawn through onto the right 
are left a litler looser, and are picked out 
with the fingers, they make the petals of 
the flowers look more real. Woven rag 
rugs are much prettier if the rags are cut 
nearly an inch wide; then as each thread 
is woven in, pick the rag open between 
the threads of warp and it resembles shell 
work, and well repays all the extra 
trouble. I got my idea from looking into 
a store window while waiting for a car 
one day. A rug of this style was in t , .-» 
window display, marked double the price 
of the common rug, or Colonial rugs as 
we must call them. 
My mother had five men to supply with 
knitted mittens, and she learned three 
different ways to prolong the wear of 
those mittens nearly double the time. 
When one thread is worn out in the palm, 
leaving the other as the article described, 
take a darning needle threaded with yarn 
about as coarse as the thread left, which 
will also be worn somewhat, and darn the 
new thread in the place where the one 
was worn out between the remaining 
threads, and it will wear as long as the 
mitten will last. If the new thread is 
much coarser tbuu the partly worn one, it 
draws the old thread and wears out much 
faster. Another method was to cut out 
the worn palm entirely, take up stitches 
of mitten and knit a new palm, sewing 
sides of new strip to the remainder of 
mitten with needle and yarn. Another 
was to cut a new palm from the buck of 
a worn mitten, cut out the worn palm 
and darn it into place. All of these 
methods will double the wear of the mit¬ 
ten, and although a little trouble, can be 
done in much less time than new ones can 
be knitted, besides conserving yarn. I 
showed some of our Southern neighbors 
how to fix some, and I assure you they 
were grateful. The worn bottoms of 
stocking feet can be renewed the same 
way, and amply repay the trouble taken. 
JESSIE. | 
Dr. Hess Dip 
and 
Disinfectant 
Now is the time to get 
out the sprinkling can and 
make a liberal use of Dr. 
Hess Dip and Disinfectant. 
Spring is cleaning-up time. 
Dr. Hess Dip and Disin¬ 
fectant is a powerful germ 
destroyer. It establishes 
health conditions. Use it 
in garbage cans, sinks, 
drains, closets, cesspools, 
all damp, foul-smellingand 
disease breeding places. 
No better way to avoid 
contagious diseases. Use 
it also about the poultry 
bouse, pie pen and stables. 
One pallon makes 100 gal¬ 
lons of disinfectant. 
l 
I 
Why not save money? 
COFFEE 
3 1 lbs. of Best 
4 Combination 
(Ground Only) 
PARCEL POST FREE "V1THIN 300 MILES 
r o combat the high cost of 
coffee we have combined the 
finest coffee grown zvith health¬ 
giving roasted cereals and the 
highest grade chicory. 
The flavor is delicious ! 
MONEY BACK IF NOT SATISFIED 
VAN DYK 
51 BARCLAY ST, NEW YORK CITY 
Branch Stores Everywhere. 
Dyed Her Faded 
Skirt, Also a Coat 
“Diamond Dyes” Make Shabby Apparel 
Just Like New—So Easy! 
Don’t worry about perfect results. Use 
“Diamond Dyes,” guaranteed to give a 
new, rich, fadeless color to any fabric, 
whether wool, silk, linen, cotton or mixed 
goods,—dresses, blouses, stockings, skirts, 
children’s coats, draperies,—everything! 
A Direction Book is in package. 
To match any material, have dealer 
show you “Diamond Dye ” Color Card. 
£111111111111 
minimum 
| The Farmer | 
§ His Own Builder | 
= By H. ARMSTRONG ROBERTS 
ZZ A practical and bandy book of all kinds ~ 
SI of building information from concrete to —■ 
PRICE $1.50 = 
S carpentry. 
For sale by 1 
E THE RURAL NEW-YORKER | 
— 333 West 30lh Street, New York 5 
