1062 
Tht RURAL NEW-YORKER 
Pastoral Parson and His Country Folks 
By Rev. George B. Gilbert 
Painting the House. —We have been 
having a great time painting the house, 
and it is not done yet. Few people 
painted during the war, as the price of 
oil was prohibitive. Now it is much more 
reasonable. There was a time a while 
ago that the Parson could have bought a 
barrel for 75 cents a gallon. A little 
later, when he wanted it, it was 00 cents. 
Why this arbitrary raise in price in a 
few weeks? lias the price of tilings now 
anything to do with supply and demand? 
Who got that .$8 out of the Parson? And 
why? Is our system of production for 
profit instead of production for the public 
need going to stand the test? 
The Colors. —Yes, we are painting the 
buildings white. It is taking two coats, 
and it generally pays to put on two coats. 
It is the second coat that counts both for 
preserving the wood and for looks. Be 
sure to fill up the nail holes on the clap¬ 
boards with paint. Have a little putty 
with you all the time to fill up deeper 
holes. The best putty is that you make 
yourself out of white lead and whiting. 
This last is a powder, and costs only five 
eents a pound. Mix it with the white 
lead till it is the. consistency of ordinary 
putty. This is especially good to use 
around in the house, as it will not turn 
yellowish after being painted over white, 
as ordinary putty will. We use nothing 
but the best of white lead and raw lin¬ 
seed oil. with no turpentine or drier or 
anything else in it. Buying mixed paint 
is all right for small jobs with colors, 
but never would the Parson do it for a 
house. When yen do it yourself you 
know what you are putting on. 
Other Colors.— The Parson buys a 
bronze green paste for the blinds, thin¬ 
ning this with the linseed oil: but be 
careful and do not make it too thin. We 
like this color a great deal better for 
blinds than any of the light greens. It 
comes in 12-pound pails. Though we 
generally use black for the windows, this 
time we used this same bronze green, and 
it did just 'as well. In drawing the win¬ 
dow sash have the paint very thick. P>e 
sure to putty up the windows good before 
painting. This is rather a tedious job 
sometimes, but the Parson, as he stops 
to do it. thinks of the young fellow over 
in the eastern part of the State who used 
70 pounds of putty in putting the win¬ 
dows in shape in a fine old farm home¬ 
stead he had bought. Fix up a sort of 
easel arrangement to hold the windows 
while working on them. It will pay to 
take the time, for it is a great deal easier. 
The Doors. —Now the screen doors had 
long been a sight to behold. What with 
the children’s hands and the cats climb¬ 
ing up on them, it was impossible to keep 
them clean. You could see the dirty 
white clear from the road. It did little 
good to paint them over. So we decided 
to try the bronze green on them, and it 
was a great success. They look fine 
against the white of the house, and no 
more showing dirt. One could hardly be¬ 
lieve it would make such a difference— 
“such a comfort.” as Mrs. Parson puts it. 
Then there were the house doors them¬ 
selves. They were always dirty-looldng, 
too. Somewhere we learned that mahog¬ 
any-colored doors looke fine on Colonial 
houses. So we got the painter in town 
to mix up three quarts of paint as near 
that color as he could. It isn't really 
brown, or it isn't really red. It is a 
rich nice color. And with this we painted 
the doors. My! what a relief, and how 
nice they look ! 
Painting Insiue. —The inside of these 
outside doors has been white, also the 
other doors leading out of the dining 
room. It has been so hard to keep these 
looking any way. Then. too. it made a 
lot of plain white surface in the dining 
room. So wo painted the inside of the 
doors this same mahogany color. Here 
again it was just about the most suc¬ 
cessful little change we have ever made. 
There were either dirty-looking doors or 
scrub, scrub, scrub—all the time. It 
makes the whole room look so much bet¬ 
ter. Then we went at the stairs. When 
the carpet wore out we painted both the 
tread and rise white. The railing or 
banister is of black walnut. This ma¬ 
hogany paint almost exactly matched 
black walnut. So the Parson painted the 
rise white again and the tread this ma¬ 
hogany. Under the tread board there is 
a molding; this we painted white. 
.Tust the tread boards mahogany—the 
whole of it, clear around the outside of 
the railing, too. To save daubing the 
dark on the white, paint the dark or 
strong color last, of course. The Parson 
held an old auto marker as a protector. 
To do this you must have little paint on 
the brush or it will run down the back 
of the marker, and you must also wipe off 
the marker every time it is used. Use 
a very small brush, too. Such a differ¬ 
ence as this makes in the looks of that 
stairway! Mrs. Parson is delighted with 
it. The last coat will be about half floor 
varnish and half paint; this will make it 
hard. The inside of all the doors in. the 
kitchen will have a coat of the dark paint, 
too. The doors in the chambers, how¬ 
ever, will remain white. 
Selling Farms. —The same old story 
of selling out is still merrily going on, 
with its wake of trouble coming after. 
Here is a young fellow whose uncle lives 
down in New York, doing a rushing busi¬ 
ness. Ilis uncle sees to that end and he 
looks after this. “Why don’t they cut 
the hay on this farm?” asks the Parson 
as he drives along by a place he has 
passed many times. Then he heard how 
it is. The place was sold for about 
$3,800 and a small sum paid down—$100 
going at once to the agent as part pay¬ 
ment. The buyer moves in just after the 
seller is going out. and immediately there 
is a feeling about the stuff that is being 
carried off instead of left on the place. 
There is always a great chance for trou¬ 
ble unless an exact written list is made 
of just what is to be thrown in. Then 
some trouble about the title arose—some 
old lien having been paid, but not can¬ 
celled on the town records. So now the 
agent has sued the seller for the rest of 
his fees for selling. The buyer, living on 
the place, selling the eggs (hens thrown 
in), says the place is not his; he has not 
bought it and has no deeds. If he has 
not bought it, how has the agent sold it? 
So the buyer has sued the seller because 
the title didn’t suit him. Now the former 
owner or seller says the bay is not cut, 
the farm run down and damaged, the eggs 
sold, etc., so he must sue the intended 
buyer. So the agent has sued the owner 
and the owner has sued the buyer, and 
there you are. And who comes out 
ahead—always comes out ahead? The 
agent! lie has got $100, and as for the 
other people, the lawyers will look after 
theirs. 
Kill the Wasps. — ‘‘I hear the people 
who have just bought the Milasey place 
are about to move.” said the Parson as 
lie and old Jim jogged up to where the 
people live that used to own it. “Yes. 
they are going in the Fall, and they want 
to sell the worst way. You know, they 
had a fire the other day.” The Parson 
had not heard of the fire, and asked how 
it happened. It seemed that the big 
wasps were getting into the attic and 
building nests, ready for Winter. Now 
when you want to get rid of wasps you 
want to burn them out. So you just take 
some old rags and tie them to a stick and 
pour kerosene over them and light them 
and hold them right up under the nests 
in the attic. This did make the wasps 
uncomfortable, but it not only warmed 
them up, but it warmed up the shingles 
as well. So the wasps and the shingles 
merrily burned up together, and only by 
the aid of the neighbors was the house 
saved at all. ’The insurance companies 
refused to stand for such damage, and 
there they are. with the roof about half 
gone. 
\\ orse Yet.—T his instant, as tlie Par¬ 
son writes, there comes down the road a 
man who last Fall bought a farm up 
above here. The price agreed was $(5,250. 
The Parson would have called the place 
worth just $3,000. There was a fine 
house, but little land; not enough to 
make a living on. The living on this 
place used to be made from a water¬ 
power gristmill, for which there is no use 
now. First, $050 was paid down, of 
which, after paying the agent's fees and 
all legal requirements and other inciden¬ 
tals. there was very little left. A lot of 
stuff was thrown in, including furniture 
and lumber, etc. There was an acetylene 
gas plant in the cellar, and the whole 
place piped for gas. With the first touch 
of cold weather this was frozen up solid 
and ruined. The people decided to go 
into geese, and kept them all Winter in 
the hitherto almost spotless cellar. They 
never pretended to clean it out. Then 
they froze up the water pipes in the 
kitchen, ordered a plumber to come out 
and repair them, and told him to send the 
bill to the former owner of the property, 
which he did. There was a very fine old 
family bedstead that the man did not 
leave on the place, but the buyers saw it 
when they were looking at the farm. 
When they found he had taken it they 
fairly cried with grief and wanted to buy 
it from him. They took on so that he 
said they could have it for $15—a frac¬ 
tion of what it was worth. Of course he 
had in mind all the time the money he 
was going to get for the place. lie also 
thought of the beautiful great limousine 
that they came out to the place in when 
they bought it, and the sealskin coats 
they wore. So he hired a truckman to 
take the bedstead out to them at quite an 
expense. They never paid a cent for the 
truckage or bedstead either, and the last 
known they had had the valuable piece 
carried off the place and stored away in 
the city! 
Goon Kindling. —Quite a lot of new 
shingles were left on the place, as they 
were needed right away to shingle an “L,” 
and also about $300 worth of lumber. 
What nicer for kindling than those fine, 
new, dry shingles, and what easier for 
the furnace than that lumber—and that 
is the way they both went! The fur 
coats have never been seen since the first 
day they came out, and the big car was 
found to belong to a garage man ! 
The Income. —As for the income on 
this place so far, there does not seem to 
be any. They must have bought about 
$500 worth of tools, which are scattered 
about the place, out in the weather. A 
little hay has been cut; a few cocks look 
as though they ha'd been out several 
weeks. They do not have eggs enough 
for their own use. They had one boarder 
come from New York. They asked her 
$25 a week, and she promptly left. They 
bought a surrey to get boarders in, and 
the man who sold it to them complained 
to the Parson that he had not got a cent 
for it. But of course on a farm one of 
the great attractions is the water from 
the old well. 
Handy Place. —It seems that early in 
the season—the boarder season—a fowl, 
duly killed and dressed, was put in the 
well bucket and lowered into the well to 
cool. Whereupon the bottom of the 
bucket promptly fell out, and down went 
the hen. She has been there evei since. 
Of course a well is a handy place to keep 
dead things! It adds attraction to the 
whole place. The man who owned that 
place loved the well. He loved its water. 
He quaffed it as a boy. He expects the 
place back this Fall on his hands, and it 
is easily worth $1,000 less than when he 
sold if. Did it pay to ask so much for 
it and to know so little about those who 
were to buy? 
Asking and Getting. —This brings up 
the question of what is the right way to 
try to sell anything. If a horse is worth 
$100, will you ask $150, with the idea of 
coming down if need be? Has the price 
on a commodity any relation to its value, 
or must we get to the point where we 
must haggle and beat down the seller? 
Is it not this way in the Far East with 
everything one buys, and do we want it 
this way 'here? Is it really best to ask 
for a thing more than it’s worth, even if 
you don’t care about selling? Does it 
square with the Golden Rule? 
The Disii-wasiiing Machine. —Mrs. 
Parson has found that it makes a great 
deal of difference what you use for soap 
in a dish-washing machine. In fact, she 
cannot use any soap at all. After a few 
times it leaves a bad. gummy substance 
all around the inside of the machine. 
•Soap powder is just about as bad. So 
she just uses washing soda, and it works 
to a charm. 
Dinner Time. —The Parson lias been 
down to dinner, and such a good dinner 
as we had ! Our mouths were made up 
for young woodchuck, broiled as you 
would a chicken, but it must have been 
an old fellow the boys got hold of, for he 
pulled out as soon as they went to get 
him. Wo have had four broiled young 
woodchucks, and they were certainly fine; 
even Mrs. Parson admitted it and ate 
some. So we had broiled chicken for 
dinner. How we do enjoy our broilers 
each Summer ! So many farmers buy old 
tough meat out of the cart all Summer, 
and never eat a broiler. Wo split them 
The Barbecue, Farmers’ Week at Conncc llcut Agricultural College 
August 27. 1921 
down the breatbone, and Mrs. Parson 
puts them in an iron skillet and puts a 
little butter on them and sprinkles flour 
over them and bakes them right in the 
skillet in the oven. Be sure to bake til! 
thoroughly done. 
Farm Noises. —The Parson has just 
read great headlines in the paper: “Farm 
Noises Cure Shell Shock.” He does not 
doubt it. Old .Terry Gander leads his 
family of 11 up just as close to the Par¬ 
son’s window as he can possibly get every 
morning at just the break of day. There 
he seems to hold what might be a cross 
between a prayer meeting aud a song 
service. The Parson is sure that whether 
a man had shell shock or any other kind 
of shock, he would forget all about it 
when he heard that noise in the morning. 
Large Halls. —The Parson has just 
been speaking at a Grange meeting where 
the community has a large beautiful hall. 
It has a beautiful floor and a beautiful 
stage and a beautiful metal ceiling—and 
is used hardly at all. Of course not. It 
costs' $15 a night in Winter and $10 in 
Summer. This is practically prohibitive 
for such frequent socials and gatherings 
as a village ought to have, and all coun¬ 
try places ought to have. If a community 
house is to be built or modeled from aii 
existing building it should by all means 
have a room of medium size, easily heated 
by a stove in about half an hour’s time 
at almost no expense. It should not be so 
large but that graphophone music will 
suffice for dancing. There should be 
something going on in this place every 
two weeks all Winter and every week ail 
Summer. Have the Summer boarders 
around your locality any place to go 
every week with ice cream and soda and 
dancing? “If they don’t have such a 
place they will not come another year.” 
said a farmer to the Parson the other 
day. This man had 24 in the family that 
week, and 22 were down at the social at 
the old church, and 17 out the next day 
to church in a pouring rain. 
A Real Consecration. —For years the 
Parson lias had to battle with the idea 
that “consecrated” buildings must not be 
used for the ordinary happiness and wel¬ 
fare of God’s children. A host of church 
people would rather such buildings be 
given over to barn swallows and bats 
than to have them filled with merry 
laughter as well as fervent prayers. A 
mother came to the Parson the other 
night down in the old church. “ I have 
got. my baby to sleep and put her down 
in the church inside the gate.” she said 
with a questioning look, as though she 
wondered if it was all right to put a baby 
there. “Inside the gate,” mused the Par¬ 
son. He thought quite likely it was in¬ 
side the gate where the choir sits. But 
when he went down that way he saw it 
was not that gate. It was the gate to 
the chancel. There, beside the altar, 
with the communion rail and gate pro¬ 
tecting it, lay that darling baby, fast 
asleep. The Parson stood and looked 
upon it with feelings’ of reverence and 
awe. That chancel had been consecrate! 
in many ways by many men, from bishops, 
priests and deacons down, but never, to 
the Parson’s mind, in all its century of 
standing had it received so holy a dedi¬ 
cation as it did the other night with that 
precious baby, gently sleeping, right 
alongside the Altar of God itself. 
Writing a Will 
Some mouths ago we printed a copy of 
the will made by F. W. Woolworth, the 
millionaire who made his fortune selling 
5 and 10-cent articles. It was a simple 
form, suitable for use where the entire 
property is left to the wife. Several read¬ 
ers have asked us to reprint this will, and 
it is given below : 
I. Frank IV. Woolworth. being of sound 
and disposing mind and memory, do make 
public and declare this to be my last will 
and testament, in manner and form fol¬ 
lowing : 
First. I direct my executrix hereinafter 
named to pay all my just debts and fu¬ 
neral expenses as soon as convenient after 
my decease. 
Second, I give, devise and bequeath ti> 
my beloved wife, Jennie Woolworth, all 
the real and personal property of which T 
may die seized or possessed of, of what¬ 
soever nature or wheresoever situated, to 
her and her heirs forever, trusting to my 
said wife, Jennie, that she will make sucli 
provision for our children now born or 
hereafter to be born as she may deeiu 
suitable and proper. 
Third, I hereby nominate, constitute 
and appoint my beloved wife. Jennie, the 
executrix of this my last will and testa¬ 
ment. without bond. 
Lastly, I hereby revoke all former wills 
by me made. 
In witness whereof I have hereunto 
set my hand and seal this thirty-first day 
of July, one thousand eight, hundred and 
eighty-nine. frank w. woolworth. 
Another and- yet briefer will was made 
by Justice White* of tin* Supreme Court. 
This contains 51 words, and should be 
sound, as it was made by the Chief Jus¬ 
tice : 
This is my last will. I give, bequeath 
and devise to my wife, Leita M. White, in 
complete and perfect ownership, all my 
rights and property of every kind and na¬ 
ture, whether real, personal or mixed, 
wherever situated, appointing her execu¬ 
trix of my estate without bond and giv¬ 
ing her seisin thereof. 
EDWARD D. WHITE. 
