A Housekeeper’s Experiments 
“Hello, here come Ben Jones and his 
wife, and they are stopping here; maybe 
I can catch a ride to the village,” and 
he did, for Mrs. Jones had come to stay 
while Ben and Jim Greene, her husband, 
went to the village to do some errands, 
buy some groceries and spend the rest 
of the afternoon around town, not gossip¬ 
ing, of course, for men never do that. 
“Well,” Mrrs. Jones began, “hasn’t this 
been a long Winter, with the roads im¬ 
passable with snow, and so much sick¬ 
ness? And now that Spring has come, 
the roads are worse than ever, and it is 
too early to clean house or make garden 
or do anything interesting.” And young 
Mrs. Jones looked very blue. This was 
her second Winter on the farm, and she 
missed the attractions a village affords. 
Mrs. Greene smiled. “Yes, it certainly 
is monotonous, if we think of it all the 
time, but I had so many experiments I 
wanted to try out, and so many little 
first-aids to house-cleaning to do that time 
has passed very quickly.” 
“Experiments?” exclaimed Mrs. Greene, 
in rather an incredulous voice, as though 
she suspected her neighbor of having a 
laboratory hidden away somewhere in the 
old farmhouse. She hastened to explain. 
“You see, I am always reading or hearing 
of some plant, pattern or recipe that I 
want to try out, but haven’t the time in 
the busy season, so I save them, and when 
this slack time comes I begin to experi¬ 
ment to my heart’s content. If you are 
interested, I will show you some of the 
results.” Of course, Mrs. Jones wanted 
to hear, so she began : 
“First, this dress I have on was an 
old white skirt that was out of style, but 
had lots of wear in it yet, and the white 
waist was nearly the same, so I dyed 
them old blue and fastened them together 
and so have a good-looking house dress 
without paying a war price for it. Then 
from the same clothes press I took two 
old. thin white waists and dyed tVin pink 
with the soap dyes; they will wear for 
awhile for afternoons, and not. soil so 
easily as white. IIow do you like these 
work aprons?” And she brought out two 
good-looking blue aprons. “These were 
flour sacks, and they vent in the same 
dye kettle as the dress after removing the 
lettering. I have quite a quantity I had 
been saving for quilt linings, but, not 
needing them now. I decided to use them 
up in other ways to cheat the II. C. of I,. 
I still have some to color rose-pink for 
my little girl’s apron, but I am waiting 
to color some white rags to make a rug 
for her room at the same time. I think 
we are so fortunate in having a good 
weaver close by. Now rag rugs are styl¬ 
ish. we can doubly enjoy them, for they 
always were the most sensible for country 
homes. I enjoy planning the color 
schemes for them, and never allow the 
weaver to make a jumble of several clash¬ 
ing colors in one rug.” 
•lust then the children coming in from 
Pla.v announced that they were hungry, 
and Mrs. Greene, as a treat, passed out 
some fruit cake and offered Mrs. Jones a 
piece, as that was an experiment also. 
Mrs. Jones asked for the recipe, and here 
it is. It is called soft fruit cake: Mix 
together one-half cup molasses, one-half 
cup sugar, one cup mincemeat, one small 
cup seeded raisins, one-third cup melted 
fat. one-half cup sour milk. Stir into 
t . 61 one-half cup hot coffee, in which 
dissolve one heaping teaspoon soda. Add 
three cups flour with one teaspoon cinna¬ 
mon. one scant teaspoon ginger, one-third 
teaspoon cloves and pinch of salt. Beat 
together and add last one beaten egg. 
Bake in a slow oven. 
I hen Mrs. Greene called her neighbor’s 
attention to the middy blouse her little 
girl was wearing. “I made that from a 
P,P n '°Sj vny flannel shirt of her fatta- 
'! ; '''t'l a big red sailor collar, it had 
three good qualities; it was pretty, warm 
and easily made. 
“IIow thrifty your plants look.” said 
- t" T los l niost of mine one of 
+omof^° f n ' Rlts - Have you started your 
tomato plants so early?” 
nl ‘X WI ? S the reply; “those are my 
Idant experiments a package of Begonia 
, u ' ve always wanted some for 
T n,r, g ; b - Ut) “ PVer r° uW afford them, so 
w. 1 ymg to raise them for. myself. 
of 1 try out one or two packets 
failn2? e t hl ? g np T w - , Sometimes it is a 
seed a P 'J H1 t ®s I always save my own 
1 il ° not tbiuk 5t *■ 
clean?nf?» a ’ ,0nt y ° Ur first *®Ms to house 
strSL 1 .always try to clean and 
pressed nn/ b . urpn V drawers, clothes 
curtnfn o eupboards, make any new 
othS worU Cded n ln - d \ avp , my mending and 
bc,ore 1 .. 
Gm'ni t 0 h f < o n ^ r, /°“ es appeared, so Mrs. 
of geranium f ° r » ,lonip . with a bunch 
„f "V; Ips \ hpr recipe, a whole lot 
own ( 1 P h! 10D and some fine ideas of her 
be e-uiLdVi >g nr i 0U / 1< 1,1 llcr mind ready to 
plans of w ,n< f,mnp(1 into economical 
wife , ™ n - s .’>ch as every farmer’s 
prices 1 1111140 m this day of high 
A. T. 
Tht RURAL NEW-YORKER 
Notes from Tennessee 
The week has been one of tragedies for 
our country village. First, one of our 
neighbor’s sons was brought home from 
the coal mines in Virginia, dead; crushed 
beneath tons of rock. Ilis brother, wlm 
accompanied the remains, said he had cau¬ 
tioned him, time and again, against being 
so careless, yet youth, with its foolish 
courage, sometimes will not heed until 
too late. And the poor mother, who is a 
widow, is prostrate with grief, that we. 
her friends, cannot lighten, except with 
our ever-ready sympathy. Then two lads, 
one 13, the other 3;», each one the only 
boy in tlio family, ran off. They had told 
a sister they were going West; would 
work out for money enough to buv a good 
farm and then come back. One had $02, 
the °ther 25 cents and the family revol¬ 
ver. The mothers, ns usual, were wild, 
neither eating or sleeping until, through 
the telephones and telegraph, they were 
located and brought back, sadder, but, let 
us hope, wiser boys. 
l iy , (b< V bpy kave? They cannot tell, 
ut I think in search of entire freedom 
,.'^m all restraint and from the perusal of 
liltliy novels that make of thieves and des¬ 
peradoes heroes. How many boys have 
the authors of such literature to curse for 
their first downward step? I count mv- 
self among the neediest of the needv. but 
hetore I would knowingly send out broad¬ 
cast over tbe world such polluted bait for 
the young and unwary, as some so-called 
writers do I would beg m.v bread from 
the back doorsteps. As we cannot pre- 
v<‘iit the printing or sale of unworthy 
reading matter, we can burn and destroy 
what we can lay our hands on. and re- 
p!ace so far as we are able with some¬ 
thing better. A good book, one that 
leaves a pleasant clean taste in tbe mouth 
ami an earnest desire to live a better, up¬ 
right life, makes for the uplifting of hu¬ 
manity. Such books I like to pass on and 
keep busy. 
I have just finished braiding a silk rug 
tor a person in New York, and I assure 
you it is a disappointment. The colors 
«lo not blend and run together with the 
beant.y of the soft, faded cotton strips T 
have a silk crazy quilt about half finished, 
sind at the present am quilting a quilt 
pieced of blue and white. As the squares 
:u e small I am just running narrow bias 
lines across tbe quilt. 
M e pay 30c per lb. for sugar. The gov¬ 
ernment control is a two-edged sword, 
cutting ‘both ways; we pay for the control 
and double for the sugar. Yet they tell us 
that in some way and some day the guilty 
aha 11. lie punished and the good rewarded, 
lo sift the chaff from the wheat and sepa¬ 
rate the good, from the bad will surely 
require the wisdom of a superior power, 
for we have been told that this is for our 
good, and that is for our betterment, and 
all the time things grow worse, and the 
outlook darker. Yet nothing is ever so 
bad but what it might be worse, as I told 
them Sunday evening when one of the 
worst hailstorms ever known here was in 
operation. It was a sight to see, and cov¬ 
ered the ground several inches deep with 
stones large, as partridge eggs. Pencil 
blooms flew in every direction, as well as 
plum and pear buds, but what if out¬ 
crops .and gardens had been up toward 
maturity? The chickens thought at first 
it was raining corn; then they decided 
someone was throwing rocks at. them 
They were scared to death almost, run- 
ning. cackling, and the guineas living and 
hollering.” The children thought it fun¬ 
ny. but I was a bit afraid some of them 
would be knocked silly. 
The yard fence is still a dream, so Lee 
and T set nut a rose hedge. If they grow 
I really believe they will outshine pickets. I 
And I know the growth will prevent the 
hillside washing away. I was giving my 
tomato plants a sun hath and a young 
pullet decided the pan would make a nice 
nest and then after she had kicked out 
all the plants she changed her mind. 
MRS. D. B.f. 
951 
Canning Mushrooms 
We made several attempts at canning 
mushrooms. They would not keep, so 1 
decided to try them by the cold pack 
method as you first described in Tiie R 
N.-Y. three, years ago. Wp have never 
Inst a can since. Half pint cans are used. 
We canned the egg yellow chautarelle 
(( antharellus cibarins) and honey mush¬ 
room (Armillaria mellea), also “parasol 
mushroom” (Lepiota procera), all with the 
same success. Last week we opened a 
can put up two years ago, just as good as 
when first prepared. Maine woods are 
full of edible mushrooms. It is a great 
study; I am only a beginner. If there 
is one point one is not sure of. do uot 
use them, but study until you know. 
JENNIE LIND. 
Stains 
To remove a stain from crepe de chine 
or similar material, steam it over the nose 
of a teakettle, and press between sheets 
of clean white blotting paper. 
In removing stains from fabric it is 
often advantageous to stretch the goods 
over an embroidery hoop. 
To remove from linen fruit or coffee 
stains, when there is cream in the coffee, 
rub spots with glycerine. q. a. t. 
Molasses Ccokie*.—One cup shorten¬ 
ing, one-fourth cup sugar, one tablespoon 
ginger, one teaspoon salt, two cups molas¬ 
ses, one large teaspoon saleratus dissolved 
in oue-hnlf cup wetting, either cold water 
or coffee, and flour to make a dough stiff 
enough to handle easily. 
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