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HOUSEHOLD TOPICS. 
A LETTER TO COUSIN HATTIE—MY HOME. 
You wish to know liow to improve your home 
in an inexpensive way. Perhaps the experience 
of an old woman, whose principal capital is a 
small stock of feminine ingenuity, may be of some ser¬ 
vice. Expecting a visit this summer from my young 
nieces, I was anxious to make some improvement in 
the old home, and “ with malice intent” made a de¬ 
scent upon George in his post-prandial nap to beg the 
filthy lucre ” necessary. Surprising the garrison, I 
came off with flying colors and a modest sum snugly 
nestling in my purse to be expended tor straw mat¬ 
ting, paint and paper. Do not picture the old home 
a grand, grey, gabled mansion of fretted stone and 
hanging balconies garlanded with ivy green. Ours is 
but a small cottage, with vine-clad porch, hall, four 
rooms, and that eminently southern luxury, a back 
gallery. In the porch are two hanging baskets of my 
own construction. One is the half of an old powder- 
keg that I begged from a friend, and converted into a 
thing of beauty by tacking on bark, twigs, and roots, 
the whole covered with two coats of varnish and plant¬ 
ed with Ferns, whose fairy foliage, half disclosing, half 
concealing, veils the burning heart of the scarlet Ger¬ 
anium. The other basket v r as once a tin basin, that 
in its humble sphere had done good service. Now I 
have painted it green and pasted on bunches of fruit 
and flowers cut from the wrappings of old fruit jars, 
the edge finished with a band of gilt paper, the whole 
varnished, you will never recognize the ci-devant basin, 
now covered with the blooms of Portulacca and tossing- 
on the breeze its graceful pennons of Maurandia. 
Adopting an idea found in that little treasure, The 
Floral Cabinet, I oiled my hall floor in imitation of 
oak and walnut; every alternate plank is rubbed with 
boiled oil, the other planks with burnt umber and lin¬ 
seed oil. On the inside of the shade of my hall-lamp 
I have pasted red tissue paper, and the ruddy light 
falls on a pot of luxuriant Ivy which stands on a 
bracket that George, in a leisure moment, carved for 
me. Our little parlor is the pride of my foolish old 
heart, so much of its comeliness is due to the work of 
our own hands. I expended a small sum in the pur¬ 
chase of paint, and, after several successful failures, I 
succeeded in painting my ceiling at the small cost of 
what my sable handmaid calls “a creek in the neck.” 
George and I were our own upholsterers; I selected 
the wallpaper, which is without figures, in color a 
pale blueish grey; my fashionable niece calls it mauve ; 
the bordering is crimson and gold. My three win¬ 
dows are curtained with snowy muslin, looped with 
crocheted bands of crimson. Searching through my 
treasures in “ Noah’s Ark,” which is an old oak chest, 
I found a piece of crimson cloth which I had owned 
longer than the prescribed “seven years” without find¬ 
ing any use for it; this I cut into lambrequins, which, 
fringed with crimson and gilt, excited the admiration 
of many who knew not that their chief claim to con¬ 
sideration lay in their antiquity. 
In the front window hangs a basket of simplest 
materials. It is constructed of vines, twisted into 
shape, confined by wire and draped with our lovely 
Spanish Moss. It holds a pot of the Yinca, whose 
blue petals, harmonizing with the sober hue of the 
mossy drapery, makes a graceful union of “the blue 
and the grey.” My three brackets George carved, 
and I stained them with burnt umber and oil, in imi¬ 
tation of walnut. One holds a basket of fresh 
flowers and creeping vines, placed under a painting of 
the fair young face of “Beatrice Ceuci.” On the 
second bracket is a mimic forest tree, a crooked moss- 
covered twig fastened to a box which is concealed by 
mosses, lichens and autumn leaves, kept in place by 
bits of putty. Bracket number three holds a minia¬ 
ture turreted castle made of cork, and painted the 
melancholy brown of “ storied ruins.” In the east 
windows I have made a mimic window-garden, the 
jest of my young nieces, who call it “Auntie’s play¬ 
house.” Having an old work-table, a little the worse 
for wear, I had the top removed, a deep box put on to 
fit the window, tilled it with earth and surmounted it 
with a frame for vines, the whole stained with umber 
and varnished. In the centre of the box I placed my 
fish globe, with its brilliant little navigator Capt. Kidd. 
Around it I have planted Ferns, Begonias, my Calla 
and trailing Coliseum Ivy; above, my canary warbles 
in his gilded cage. On one side an ambitious Madeira 
vine hangs its leaves of “ soft bright green,” and deli¬ 
cate scented blossoms. On the other hangs my favor¬ 
ite Smilax, contending for mastery with a sturdy 
English Ivy. 
At the third window is a small stand, for which I 
have made a very pretty ornament. The glass shade 
of an old astral lamp I turned upside down and had a 
tin bottom soldered on. I painted the interior dark 
red in imitation of Bohemian glass. After the paint 
had dried I filled the vase with earth, and planted 
with Ferns ; so, with small expense, I have a graceful 
Fern case. 
I hope, dear Hattie, these suggestions may be of 
some use to you. With your birthright of woman’s 
wit you will need but little money to beautify your 
home. 
I have gleaned many valuable hints from the col¬ 
umns of my little companion, The Floral Cabinet, 
so, in conclusion, I shall recommend you to its kind 
editor for future assistance in “ Household Topics.” 
Nellie. 
A WORD FOR OUR PETS. 
Canary birds have become so common within the 
last few years that it seems as though something were 
wanted in a house where there are none. They are 
certainly very beautiful, and their singing is so sweet, 
and all their little cunning actions endear them to such 
a degree that,- when they die or are lost, we feel as 
though some dear little friend were gone, and we really 
mourn them. 
But every one who has had the care of a bird for 
any length of time knows what an anxiety it is, as the 
little creature is so very delicate, it must have the 
greatest attention. They are subject to a number of 
diseases, all of which are easy to cure, compared with 
the feat of ridding a bird of mites when it is once 
affected; and, in regard to this, is the piece of informa¬ 
tion which I would contribute, for I know it will be 
very acceptable to bird-lovers, or at least we would 
have found it so six months ago. We have eight 
birds, five of them beautiful singers, and when we 
bought them we knew literally nothing of their care. 
Soon after getting them here their singing gradually 
became less and less frequent, until at last we might 
have stayed in the bird-room for hours without hear¬ 
ing even a chirp. We were very much disappointed, 
for we expected to take a great amount of pleasure in 
their sweet little songs, but we comforted ourselves 
with the assurance that they were moulting and would 
soou begin to sing. Time went on, however, and 
they seemed to get more and more gloomy, and we 
also noticed they would pick frequently at their feath¬ 
ers. We at last sent for a bird-book, and on reading 
it found that our canaries had all the symptoms of 
being covered with mites; and it also gave us the 
comforting assurance that there was no way of getting- 
rid of them. We resolved to make a trial, however, 
and at the suggestion of a friend placed a piece of 
flannel over each cage at night, and the next morning 
found them completely covered with these tiny red in¬ 
sects, so minute we could scarcely see them move. 
We thought then we had surely discovered a cure, so 
the flannels went on every night, and every morning 
millions of mites were brushed off, but day after day 
this went on, and there seemed to be no visible de¬ 
crease in their number, and we concluded some strong¬ 
er measures must be taken, for they multiplied faster 
than we could destroy them, and seemed to breed in 
the cages. Our cure therefore must begin there, so all 
the-.cage doors were opened, the birds flew out, and 
their deserted houses (plenteously inhabited by mites) 
were taken to the laundry, and there met with a warm 
reception from a kettle of boiling water; but, for fear 
that a few little insects had survived their hot bath, 
the cages were then thoroughly scrubbed with a strong- 
solution of salt and water, and dried in the sun, and 
the birds housed. 
The little homes were draped with flannel again 
that night, but the next morning no mite appeared; 
and the birds, visibly improved, began to sing joyously. 
Now the combined songs of the fi ve are so very deafen¬ 
ing we think of importing a few mites to quell their 
too risen spirits. I forgot to add, wo wash the perches 
every other day, in salt and water, to prevent any re¬ 
appearance of our trouble. This may seem a very 
simple and unimportant fact to many, but to those 
whose lictle pets have been almost driven wild by the 
ravages of these bloodthirsty insects, it will prove in¬ 
valuable. 
Flushing, L. I. Clara Chase. 
AN ARGUMENT FOR MARRIAGE. 
Powers, the sculptor, writing to a friend of what 
people call the folly of marrying without the means to 
support a family, expresses frankly his own fears when 
he found himself in this very position; but he adds, 
with characteristic candor: “To tell the truth, how¬ 
ever, family and poverty have done more to support 
me than I have to support them. • They have com¬ 
pelled me to make exertions that I hardly thought 
myself capable of; and often, when on the eve of des¬ 
pairing, they have forced me, like a coward in a cor¬ 
ner, to fight like a hero—not for myself, but for my 
wife and little ones. I have now as much work to do 
as I can execute, unless I can find some more assist¬ 
ance in the marble, and I have a prospect of further 
commissions.” The truth here expressed by the gifted 
sculptor is like a similar remark we heard not long 
since by a gentleman who tried matrimony in the same 
way, and found afterward that the loose change in his 
pocket, which he had before squandered foolishly and 
icily—in young men’s whims, as he called them—was 
enough to support a prudent wife, who, by well-regu¬ 
lated economy, bad proved a fortune in herself, and 
had saved a snug sum of money for her once careless 
husband. “A wife to direct a man toward a proper 
ambition and to a general economy,” he said, “ is like 
timely succor at sea, to save him from destruction on a 
perilous voyage.” 
