906 
The  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
.Tune  30,  1923 
Pastoral  Parson  and  His  Country  Folks 
By  Rev.  George  B.  Gilbert 
Shingling. — Well,  today  we  have  been 
shingling  the  barn.  We  got  a  carpenter 
to  come  and  help  us  and  boss  the  job. 
Without  you  really  know  how,  it  gener¬ 
ally  pays  to  have  somebody  round  who 
does.  The  Parson  had  been  bothered  as 
to  poles  for  the  staging.  He  expected 
to  have  to  go  up  in  the  pasture  and  cut 
some  poles.  He  could  rake  up  three  on 
the  place,  but  it  really  needed  five  long 
ones.  But  the  experienced  carpenter  had 
a  staging  up  in  almost  no  time.  For 
two  of  the  long  poles  he  just  opened  the 
barn  doors  and  used  them.  lie  nailed 
braces  as  they  stood  out  straight  from 
the  barn  from  their  outer  edge  to  the 
barn  and  we  put  the  staging  plank  right 
across  the  top.  Who  ever  would  have 
thought  of  it? 
Nailing  Them  On.— There  is  more  to 
shingling  than  just  “breaking  joints” 
with  a  good  inch  each  side.  How  many 
nails  will  you  put  in  a  wide  shingle?  This 
man  never  put  in  but  two  nails  in  any 
shingle,  one  hbout  an  inch  from  each 
edge.  If  you  do  drive  in  more  nails, 
never  drive  the  nail,  so  that  if  it  splits 
the  shingle,  the  crack  will  come  right 
over  another  joint.  Shingle  cracks  must 
break  joints  just  like  regular  shingles. 
We  laid  these  18-in.  5%  inches  to  the 
weather.  fWe  got  a  late  start  this  morn¬ 
ing  as  we  did  not  get  home  from  a  party 
iast  night  down  county  till  almost  two 
o’clock  (daylight  time,  the  people  down 
there  were  on  standard),  but  with  the 
help  of  this  carpenter,  we  put  up  the 
staging,  cleaned  off  all  the  old  shingles, 
drove  in  the  old  nails  and  almost  finished 
a  roof  on  the  barn  that  is  38  ft.  by  15. 
We  called  it  a  good  day’s  work.  One 
while  it  was  so  hot  we  could  hardly  stand 
it,  and  before  night  it  turned  so  cold  we 
thought  we  would  have  to  get  coats  on. 
Hatching  Chickens. — There  certain¬ 
ly  has  been  the  greatest  lot  of  poor 
hatches  and  dead  chickens  this  year  that 
the  Parson  seems  ever  to  remember.  It  is 
now  claimed  that  to  get  one  pullet  ready 
for  the  laying  pen  you  must  set  at  least 
six  eggs.  If  many  people  really  figured 
out  what  a  chicken  cost  them,  they  would 
be  surprised.  The  tendency  will  prob- 
ablv  be  to  keep  good  hens  much  longer. 
As' the  Parson  tells  the  boys,  it  would 
be  much  more  profitable  to  go  out  and 
buy  hens,late  in  the  Fall  and  keep  cull¬ 
ing  out  and  selling  in  July  and  August, 
and  then  buying  again.  At  least  the  Par¬ 
son  thinks  it  would,  and  hopes  to  get 
George  to  try  it  out — keeping  careful  ac¬ 
counts.  The  old  hen  still  has  many  an 
incubator  guessing,  and  many  a  rather 
ordinary  flock  still  keeps  the  old  vitality. 
A  woman  down  country  has  an  even  230 
as  fine  chicks  as  you  ever  saw — every 
one  of  them  hatched  out  under  hens.  As 
carefully  as  she  could  reckon  yesterday, 
she  has  had  only  15  die  and  most  of 
these  wrere  from  accidents,  practically 
none  from  sickness.  Then  too,  she  said 
that  just  about  all  the  eggs  hatched— 
only  now  and  then  one  that  didn’t.  This 
woman  had  wonderful  success  with  her 
hens  last  Winter  and  one  chief  feature 
of  her  care  of  them  seems  to  be  that  she 
kept  warm  water  in  the  pen  practically 
all  the  time.  She  has  no  electric  lights. 
The  Geese  Again. — Just  as  we  were 
all  thinking  what  a  great  thing  it  was  to 
raise  geese  and  all  the  church  people 
were  having  good  luck,  this  year  we  had 
quite  a  setback.  One  woman  who  sold 
50  day-old  goslings  last  year,  this  year 
with  the  same  old  geese,  under  the  same 
conditions,  had  very  poor  luck  about  the 
eggs  hatching  and  has  not  had  one  to 
sell.  In  another  case  where  every  egg 
was  good  last  year,  this  year  very  few 
of  them  would  hatch.  We  had  very  fair 
success  with  the  geese  here  on  the  farm, 
but  this  year  we  did  not  do  as  well.  We 
generally  set  one  of  the  geese  and  this 
year  we  set  both.  The  last  goose  would 
certainly  make  anyone  mad.  She  per¬ 
sisted  in  moving  her  nest  all  around  the 
shed — was  all  the  time  fussing  with  it 
and  fixing  it.  As  no  hens  would  set  we  had 
to  leave  the  eggs  under  her  and  they  be¬ 
came  fewer  all  the  time.  Whether  she 
broke  them  or  what  became  of  them,  it 
was  impossible  to  tell.  At  last  she 
hatched  out  two  goslings.  With  these 
two,  we  rather  experimented,  letting  the 
old  goose  do  as  she  pleased  with  them. 
She  took  them  right  down  to  the  brook 
for  a  swim  and  drink  and  then  showed 
them  how  to  eat  grass  and  they  came 
right  along,  rain  or  shine;  we  did  not 
touch  them,  feed  them  or  anything. 
Well,  they  came  along  fine,  till  one  morn¬ 
ing  the  Parson  was  feeding  the  chickens 
and  the  old  geese,  having  escaped  for  the 
moment  from  their  pasture,  persisting  in 
driving  away  the  chicks  and  eating  the 
corn,  the  Parson  shied  a  corncob  at  a 
goose.  Now  the  goose  had  the  impudence 
to  dodge  the  cob.  and  if  it  didn’t  go  by 
and  hit  one  of  those  little  goslings  in  the 
head,  and  that  finished  him.  So  from 
11  nice  eggs  the  old  goose  is  around  with 
one  youngster. 
Who  Knows. — Without  any  apparent 
cause  two  of  the  big  goslings,  nearly  half 
grown,  have  just  sat  down  at  night  and 
died.  Others  around  here  have  had  the 
same  thing  happen.  In  the  throat  of 
one  of  them  there  seemed  to  be  quite  a 
wad  of  daisy  blossom.  Could  it  have 
been  this  that  killed  him?  Has  anyone 
had  such  experience? 
Wild  Morning-glory. — Now  we  are 
to  fight  wild  morning-glory  as  usual.  The 
land  that  has  it  the  worst  is  in  oafs 
this  year.  Does  anyone  know  how  to  get 
rid  of  it?  How  about  turning  the  land 
into  a  pasture?  You  never  see  any  in 
a  pasture.  The  Parson  believes  it  would 
kill  it  out.  We  expect  to  try  it  on  about 
an  acre  next  year  anyway.  Then,  too, 
will  pasturing  kill  out  witch  or  quack 
grass?  Did  anyone  ever  see  any  of  this 
in  a  pasture?  About  the  same  might  be 
said  of  wild  onion.  Did  you  ever  see 
wild  onion  in  a  pasture  where  there  was 
enough  stock  to  keep  it  well  cropped- 
down? 
Feeling  Old. — The  Parson  has  been 
feeling  old  today.  Perhaps  it  is  because 
we  had  a  long  day  of  it  yesterday.  He 
got  up  just  at  break  of  day,  partly  to 
keep  the  crows  out  of  the  grove  by  the 
ice  house  where  they  seem  to  come  after 
young  birds,  and  partly  to  hoe  out  the 
garden.  Then  it  was  hurry  and  rush  all 
day  and  make  up  three  gallons  of  ice 
cream  and  get  off  down  country  for 
sociable  that  night.  We  got  off  early,  as 
we  wanted  to  cut  around  a  lot  of  cedars 
so  as  to  take  them  up  and  set  them  out 
around  the  house  next  Spring.  You  just 
cut  round  them  in  the  Spring — about  a 
foot  from  the  trees — and  they  will  send 
out  a  mass  of  little  roots  to  make  up 
for  the  loss.  Next  Spring  these  little 
roots  will  hold  the  dirt  in  a  mass,  and 
you  can  finish  taking  them  up — cutting 
off  the  main  tap-root,  and  they  will  be 
sure  to  live  and  you  can  transplant  quite 
big  trees.  This  is  the  way  the  green¬ 
house  people  do  it.  Well,  we  got  away 
down  country  and  had  a  flat  tire.  As  the 
shoe  was  new  we  did  not  expect  it.  and 
had  to  patch  up  the  tube.  Now  in  patch¬ 
ing  it  will  not  do  to  rub  the  “stiekum” 
after  if  has  begun  to  dry.  This  was 
evidently  done  on  the  patch,  as  we  got 
the  shoe  all  on  and  well  blown  up  when 
out  came  the  air  again.  So  we  had  to 
take  it  all  off  and  patch  it  again.  Al¬ 
ways  scrape  or  sandpaper  the  tube  well 
and  clean  with  gasoline.  Let  the  stiekum 
dry  well  before  applying. 
A  Fine  Party. — We  had  a  fine  party 
that  night,  and  played  games  and  sang 
hymns  and  had  square  dances  and  about 
midnight  started  home  again.  After 
about  six  miles  the  gas  seemed  to  have 
got  clogged.  The  Ford  wouldn’t  budg^. 
Se  we  turned  her  around  by  hand  and 
backed  up  a  long  hill;  then  turned  round 
and  she  went  like  a  top.  Then  without 
warning  about  five  miles  from  home, 
every  light  went  out.  This  is  a  danger¬ 
ous  tiling  to  have  happen.  Luckily  we 
stopped  before  hitting  anything.  We  used 
up  all  our  matches  but  could  not  locate 
the  trouble.  So  we  came  all  the  rest  of 
the  way  home  with  no  light  whatever. 
This  was  a  slow  process,  and  the  Par¬ 
son  more  than  once  longed  for  Old  .Tim 
and  the  buggy.  It  was  just  two  o’clock 
when  we  entered  the  kitchen,  a  21-hour 
day.  The  Parson  claims  that  when  you 
get  the  other  side  of  50,  a  20-hour  day 
is  long  enough. 
Doctoring  the  Horse. — Speaking  of 
Jim  reminds  the  Parson  of  a  story  he 
heard  the  other  day  about  a  sick  horse. 
The  farmer  had  a  sick  horse  and  sent  for 
the  horse  doctor.  The  doctor  came  and 
left  him  a  lot  of  white  powder  and  gave 
him  a  quill  and  told  him  to  put  some  of 
the  powder  in  the  quill  and  open  the 
horse’s  mouth  and  put  the  other  end  <  f 
the  quill  in  his  mouth  and  blow  the 
powder  down  the  horse’s  throat.  Having 
given  the  directions  he  departed.  As 
the  doctor  had  occasion  to  pass  that  way 
the  next  day  he  thought  he  would  inquire 
for  the  horse.  The  girl  came  to  the  door 
and  said  the  horse  seemed  to  be  all  right 
but  the  man  was  upstairs  very  sick, 
indeed.  8o  he  went  to  see  him.  He 
certainly  was  sick  and  white  as  a  ghost 
and  could  hardly  talk.  “What  is  the 
matter?”  inquired  the  horse  doctor.  “Mat¬ 
ter  enough,”  he  gasped.  “Matter  enough. 
I  did  just  as  you  told  me.  I  put  the 
powder  in  the  quill  and  the  quill  in  my 
mouth  and  opened  the  horse’s  mouth  and 
put  the  other  end  in  his  mouth  but,  dang 
it,  he  blew  first.” 
A  Great  Day. — Here  it  is  Monday 
morning  and  the  Parson  must  get  off 
this  letter.  We  certainly  had  a  great 
day  down  country  yesterday.  In  the 
morning  a  man  phoned  down  from  a 
neighboring  city  asking  about  our  service. 
He  was  a  reader  of  The  R.  N.-Y.  and 
proposed  coming  and  seeing  for  himself. 
So  he  and  his  wife  and  the  flivver  came 
down  to  the  Parson’s  farm  and  we  all 
rode  along  down  county.  Clossie  got 
into  his  car,  as  he  never  would  have 
found  the  way  without  a  pilot.  It  kinder 
worried  us,  as  you  know  how  it  is  having 
company  unexpected  like.  As  no  one 
lives  in  sight  of  this  church  anyway  you 
cannot  expect  a  mob  every  Sun'day.  But 
providence  was  certainly  with  us  all  day 
yesterday.  We  had  a  fine  congregation 
- — the  best  this  Summer.  Singing  and  all 
seemed  to  go  well.  Everybody  happy  as 
clams.  The  Parson  racked  his  poor  brain 
horribly  in  the  sermon  and  clinched  his 
sentiments  with  poetry.  The  wThole  out¬ 
lay  seemed  to  please  our  visitor,  not  only 
from  what  he  said  hut  from  what  he  did, 
for  when  the  plate  came  round  he  and 
his  good  wife  helped  us  out  to  the  very 
gracious  tune  of  $25.  Fortunately  the 
gift  was  rolled  up,  as  the  Parson  is  sure 
the  treasurer  would  have  dropped  the 
plate  if  he  had  seen  it,  and  not  quite 
sure  that  he  wouldn’t  have  dropped  dead. 
We  all  had  a  fine  dinner  together  and 
these  were  such  mice  people.  Their  vDit 
cheered  us  all  up  a  whole  lot. 
Children’s  Day. — And  in  the  after¬ 
noon.  we  had  Children’s  Day  over  in  the 
old  Methodist.  Church  we  fixed  up.  Most 
Episcopal  churches  do  not  deign  to  ob¬ 
serve  Children’s  Day  but  the  Parson 
thinks  they  make  a  mistake.  What  a 
fine  time  we  had.  The  day  was  perfect 
and  we  had  70  in  that  old  once  abandoned 
church.  All  thought  the  children  did 
wonderfully  well  with  their  speaking  and 
singing.  Forty  of  us  had  supper  to¬ 
gether  after  the  service.  Did  you  ever 
hear  about  the  little  girl  in  the  Episcopal 
family  who  was  asked  to  say  grace?  They 
had  company  for  dinner  and  they  had 
beef  stew.  The  girl  hated  beef  stew. 
She  gazed  at  this  great  dish  of  it  right 
in  the  center  of  the  table.  Then  she 
bowed  her  head  and  said  grace.  “Lord 
have  mercy  upon  us,  and  incline  our 
hearts  to  eat  this  stew.” 
Ice  Cream  and  Strawberries.— That 
suits  the  boys  to  a  “T.”  The  children 
have  just  come  in  with  a  great  dish  of 
berries  and  dinner  is  ready.  We  will 
make  up  some  ice  cream  this  afternoon 
and  have  bread,  butter  and  ice  cream 
and  crushed  strawberries  for  supper,  and 
that  will  be  ea*sy  for  Mrs.  Parson,  and 
there  will  be  cream  enough  left  in  the 
big  freezer  to  take  down  to  a  school- 
house  social  way  down  county  tonight. 
This  hot  weather  we  can  eat  things  that 
are  easy  for  the  women  folks  to  get.  A 
man  was  making  a  speech  nearby  the 
other  day.  Some  women  were  sitting  in 
the  gallery.  “I  see  there  are  angels  here.” 
he  said.  “I  always  call  the  women  angels 
and  this  for  three  reasons;  first  they  are 
always  up  in  the  clouds;  second,  they 
are  always  harping  about  something,  and 
third,  they  never  have  any  clothes  to 
wear.” 
Trouble  Over  Boarding  Hens 
We  have  all  sorts  of  problems  submit¬ 
ted  to  us  by  readers.  Among  the  hardest 
of  these  questions  are  those  relating  to 
the  cost  o^  L  >arding  or  taking  care  of 
stock.  Peoph  frequently  go  away  from 
home  for  a  time,  and  leave  a  horse  or  a 
cow,  a  dog  or  a  cat.  with  the  neighbors 
to  be  cared  for  while  they  are  gone. 
When  they  come  back  after  a  month  or 
two  absence  they  take  the  animal  back. 
and.  of  course,  ask  for  their  bill.  Usu¬ 
ally  they  are  thunderstruck  at  the 
amount  charged  them  for  this  service. 
There  is  almost  as  much  trouble  and  per¬ 
haps  as  many  friendships  broken  over 
this  charge  for  boarding  Spot  or  Dobbin 
or  Pussy  or  Jack  as  there  are  over  tres¬ 
passing  hens  which  come  from  the  neigh¬ 
bor's  yard  and  exercise  in  the  flower  gar¬ 
den.  The  trouble  is  that  in  most  of  these 
cases  no  definite  bargain  is  made.  If 
would  be  almost  impossible  to  make  one. 
for  who  can  tell  what  it  costs  to  keep  a 
hen.  a  dog.  or  a  cow?  Then  when  the 
entire  cost  is  figured  up,  it  seems  alto¬ 
gether  too  large  to  be  fair.  We  have  just 
had  one  case  that  is  rather  typical  of 
many  others. 
In  this  case,  a  country  home  was 
broken  up  through  sickness.  Among 
other  stock  there  were  45  very  good 
White  Leghorns.  The  owners  did  not 
know  just  what  to  do  with  them,  so 
they  arranged  with  a  neighbor  to  board 
these  hens  on  his  place.  He  would  not 
set  any  price,  as  he  said  he  did  not  know 
how  much  grain  the  hens  would  consume, 
but  he  had  those  hens  three  months.  Now 
he  put  in  a  bill  for  $55  for  feeding  the 
hens  and  $10  a  month  for  taking  care  of 
them,  which  means  a  total  of  nearly  $85, 
and  seven  of  the  hens  have  either  died  or 
disappeared.  The  three  months  covered 
the  period  of  the  year  when  most  hens  are 
at  their  best  for  laying.  This  man  gets 
around  that  by  saying  that  they  laid 
practically  no  eggs,  and  that  they  ate  up 
nearly  all  the  eggs  they  did  lay.  He 
claims  that  his  charge  of  nearly  $55  cov¬ 
ers  the  actual  expenditure  for  grain  and 
dry  mash  only.  The  owners  of  these  hens 
feel  that  the  bill  is  too  high,  but  what  can 
they  do  about  it?  The  New  Jersey  Ex¬ 
periment  Station  at  its  egg-laying*  con¬ 
tests  has  made  very  careful  studies  re¬ 
garding  the  cost  of  feeding  a  hen  for  one 
year.  As  an  average  of  feding  2.000  pul¬ 
lets  at  the  Bergen  County  egg-laying  con¬ 
test,  the  feed  cost  for  each  Leghorn  one 
year  is  $2.25.  The  average  cost  of  feed¬ 
ing  1,200  yearling  hens  at  Vineland  was 
$2.37.  A  fair  average  price  would,  there¬ 
fore,  be  about  $2.30  a  year,  or,  in  round 
numbers,  about  19  cents  a  month.  On 
that  basis,  a  grain  charge  for  three 
months  would  be  57  cents  a  hen,  and  for 
45  hens  it  would  be  $25.65,  which  is  less 
than  half  the  charge  made  for  boarding 
these  hens.  It  is  evident  that  this  is  an 
excessive  charge,  although  it  is  possible 
that  the  grain  was  bought  in  very  small 
quantities,  and  thus  cost  more.  As  for 
the  charge  of  $10  a  month  for  taking 
care  of  45  hens,  we  knowr  many  people 
who  would  be  only  too  glad  to  do  that 
work  for  half  that  amount.  To  charge 
$85  and  return  38  hens  is  certainly  a  re¬ 
markable  proposition,  and  yet,  what  can 
be  done  about  it?  No  bargain  was  made. 
No  figures  were  set.  It  was  just  under¬ 
stood  that  this  man  should  take  the  hens, 
and,  when  the  owner  wanted  them  back, 
charge  what  he  thought  was  right.  Our 
thoughts  as  to  what  is  right  in  such  a 
matter  will  evidently  vary  considerably. 
Yet  this  is  a  fair  illustration  of  the  way 
many  of  these  things  are  done,  and  the 
unbusinesslike  methods  followed  in  work¬ 
ing  out  a  contract.  The  owner  of  the 
hens  would  be  far  better  off  to  make  this 
man  a  present  of  the  entire  flock  and 
then  try  to  forget  it,  but  it  is  doubtful 
if  the  farmer  would  accept  the  hens  in 
full  payment  for  his  bill,  for  he  could 
probably  go  out  and  buy  38  good  pullets 
for  less  money  than  he  is  charging.  The 
most  remarkable  statement  connected 
with  the  whole  thing  is  the  claim  that 
these  45  hens  laid  practically  no  eggs  at 
all.  If  that  is  true,  it  must  have  been 
very  largely  the  fault  of  their  feeding, 
and  that  is  further  evidenced  by  the 
statement  that  they  ate  all  of  the  eggs 
(hey  did  lay.  It  looks  to  us  like  a  case 
of  shutting  the  hens  in  a  small  place, 
throwing  grain  at  them  indiscriminately 
and  then  practically  letting  them  alone. 
Of  course,  we  do  not  have  the  full  cir¬ 
cumstances  about  it.  We  just  print  this 
story  as  typical  of  similar  bargains  which 
are  too  often  entered  into. 
Jelly  Suggestions 
The  juice  of  stewed  rhubarb,  as  well 
as  fruit  juices,  may  profitably  be  canned 
for  later  use  with  gelatine  or  pectin.  By 
using  plain  gelatine  with  fruit  juice,  one 
can  make  2  qts.  of  jelly  at  about  the  cost 
of  1  pt.  jelly  made  with  the  gelatine  which 
comes  already  flavored  (by  various 
names).  The  rule  is,  soak  one  envelope 
gelatine  for  five  minutes  in  %  pt.  cold 
water,  then  add  1  pt.  boiling  fruit  juice, 
and  .sweeten.  The  fruit  acid  in  dry  form 
which  accompanies  some  gelatine  is  sel¬ 
dom  needed  with  fruit  juice,  but  I  find  it 
a  handy  substitute  for  lemon  juice  in 
making  apple  sauce  or  conserve,  or  with 
any  cooked  fruit  which  lacks  flavor.  It 
may  also  be  used  for  bleaching.  G.  a.  t. 
Loganberry  Pie 
Three  cups  loganberries,  one  cup  sugar, 
one-half  teaspoon  salt,  one  teaspoon  flour, 
one  teaspoon  butter.  Line  a  pie  plate 
with  plain  paste ;  fill  heaping  with  ber¬ 
ries ;  dredge  with  flour,  salt  and  sugar. 
Dot  with  small  lumps  of  butter,  cover 
with  top  crust  or  strips  of  pastry  across 
top.  Bake  40  minutes  in  moderate  oven. 
MRS.  J.  W.  R. 
A  Western  New  York  Bride  and  Groom  Break  Ground  for  the  New  House 
