IS j  ,  ^*.r  ■»  is  T  A  <M »  '*  ./■ 
122 
7?*  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
“And  /  862,  862  T,  you  fry  and  I'll  eat, 
and  I  can  till  you  I  kept  the  woman 
busy.” 
It  is  strange  how  incidents  of  the  long 
ago  are  called  up  out  of  the  subconscious 
by  common  things  of  everyday  life.  The 
other  morning  one  of  our  girls  stood  over 
the  stove  in  our  little  camp,  frying  pan¬ 
cakes  for  breakfast.  There  were  several 
mouths  watering  for  each  cake,  and  she 
certainly  had  a  busy  job.  The  word  car¬ 
ried  me  back  through  the  years  to  the  big 
kitchen  in  a  Pennsylvania  farmhouse 
where  the  farmer  and  I  were  eating  our 
supper.  He  called  himself  a  Pennsyl¬ 
vania  Dutchman,  and  he  looked  the  part, 
though  he  would  have  been  offended  if  I 
had  called  him  such  a  name.  Ills  wife 
stood  by  the  hot  stove,  frying  sausage 
for!  us.  It  was  not  considered  the  proper 
thing  in  that  household  for  the  women  to 
sit  at  table  with  the  men. 
“Yes,  sir,”-  said  my  host,  “I  was  lost  in 
the  woods  for  36  hours ;  no  food  nor  sleep 
in  all  that  time.  Finally  I  broke  out 
into  a  clearing  and  there  was  a  house  and 
barn.  I  walked  in  and  sez  to  the  woman, 
‘What  you  got  for  supper?’” 
“  ‘Pancakes  and  sausage,’  sez  she. 
“Well,  I  sez,  sez  I,  ‘You  fry  and  I’ll 
eat,’  and  I  can  tell  you  I  kept  the  woman 
busy.” 
I  have  no  doubt  of  it.  The  tired-look¬ 
ing  woman  by  the  stove  seemed  to  realize 
his  full  capacity  for  such  business,  _  for 
he  proceeded  to  prove  his  statement  right 
there. 
***** 
“I  kept  the  woman  busy  !” 
I  suppose  men  have  made  that  boast 
and  proved  it  ever  since  man  and  woman 
first  started  the  partnership  of  a  home. 
The  woman  has  certainly  been  busy  most 
of  the  years  since  Eve  first  began  house¬ 
keeping.  Jn  most  of  the  homes  that  I 
know  the  woman’s  middle  name  is  busy. 
There  were  10  members  of  our  camp  fam¬ 
ily,  and  we  all  desired  to  emulate  the  ex¬ 
ample  of  my  Pennsylvania  friend.  It  has 
ever  been  that  way.  I  have  no  doubt  that 
it  was  the  same  with  the  original  pan¬ 
cakes — prepared  centuries  ago  on  these 
rocky  hills.  I  can  imagine  some  Indian 
squaw  preparing  these  original  cakes  for 
her  "brave.”  She  took  a  good  handful  of 
flint  corn  and  put  it  in  the  cavity  of  a 
rock  and  pounded  it  with  a  „ small  stone 
until  it  was  crushed  into  coarse  meal. 
Then  she  swept  it  out  with  a  turkey 
feather  into  a  birchbark  dish.  Of  course 
some  moss  and  dirt  and  chips  of  granite 
went  with  the  cornmeal.  but  what  did 
that  matter?  Man  has  always  eaten  his 
peek  of  dirt,  and  he  never  seriously  re¬ 
belled  about  it  until  these  interfering  sci¬ 
entists  began  to  tell  him  about  “bacteria” 
and  germs.  What  did  man  care  for  such 
things  until  he  knew  they  were  in  his 
food?  As  for  the  chips  of  granite  eaten 
with  these  cakes,  I  have  always  ‘felt  that 
our  stomach  was  originally  something  of 
a  gizzard.  The  squaw  mixed  her  meal 
with  water  and  worked  in  a  little  wood 
ashes,  for  she  had  found  that  this  made 
the  cakes  “rise”  a  little.  Then  she 
found  a  flat  stone  and  heated  it  in  the 
fire,  smeared  on  a  little  bear’s  fat,  poured 
on  her  batter  and  the  cakes  were  frying, 
llow  she  learned  that  the  little  smear  of 
fat  on  that  stone  made  a  hotter  surface 
for  the  cake  I  do  not  know.  Out  in  the 
woods  she  had  buried  a  big  lump  of  bear 
fat  until  it  should  become  rich  and  strong. 
Her  “brave”  had  no  use  for  plates;  he 
took  the  hot  cake  in  one  hand,  rubbed 
the  bear  grease  over  it  with  the  other — 
and  he  “kept  the  woman  busy” — that’s 
all.  Anyway,  “fingers  were  made  before 
forks.” 
***** 
And  now  here  we  come,  a  group  of 
palefaces,  to  the  same  spot,  frying  cakes 
aid  still  acting  up  to  that  old  desire  to 
keep  the  woman  busy.  Time  has  kept 
alive  the  fundamentals,  but  put  on  a  few 
trimmings.  One  generation  has  surren¬ 
dered  the  preparation  of  these  cakes  to 
others.  The  Indian  woman  pounded  the 
corn  herself,  and  saved  the  cost  of  all 
middlemen  service.  A  dozen  middlemen 
stand  between  us  and  the  original  grain. 
Corn  and  wheat  and  barley  and  rice  were 
all  used  in  making  this  “pancake  flour.” 
We  might  trace  them  all  back  to  the  soil 
of  Dakota,  Iowa,  Wisconsin  and  Louis¬ 
iana,  and  figure  the  many .  hands  em¬ 
ployed  in  growing  and  carrying  them  to 
some  central  place  where  they  were 
ground  and  mixed.  The  baking  powder 
mixed  with  them  may  have  come  from  the 
wine  barrels  of  France  or  California. 
The  dried  milk  was  originally  produced 
by  cows  wandering  over  the  pastures  of 
New  York.  All  were  mixed  together  by 
machinery,  put  in  packages  and  distrib¬ 
uted  all  over  the  world.  The  original 
pancake  maker  on  this  hill  planted  and 
hoed  and  husked  and  ground  her  own 
corn.  Our  modern  young  -woman  opens 
a  paper  package  which  represents  the 
labor  of  perhaps  150  different  people. 
The  original  “brave”  smeared  his  rancid 
bear  fat  on  his  cake  and  ate  until  his 
body  could  hold  no  more.  Then  he  rolled 
under  a  tree  in  great  contentment.  As 
our  cook  tosses  out  the  hot  cakes  we  may 
use  butter  from  Minnesota,  bacon  fat 
from  Kansas,  syrup  from  Vermont,  or 
molasses  from  Cuba,  or  sugar  from  Utah  ! 
The  years  have  worked  out  all  these  great 
changes,  in  making  or  serving  the  cakes, 
but  we  are  still  fundamentalists  in  our 
great  desire  to  keep  the  woman  busy.  All 
these  things  come  into  mind  as  I  wait  my 
turn  for  the  next  hot  cake  and  glance  out 
at  the  shining  lake.  Is  it  not  probably 
true  that  one  great  reason  for  the  unequal 
distribution  of  wealth  in  this  country  is 
the  fact  that  we  who  live  in  the  country 
have  surrendered  to  others  the  job  of  do¬ 
ing  things  which  our  fathers  and  mothers 
did  at  home?  We  have  given  these  things 
into  other  hands,  and  paid  these  hands 
for  doing  much  that  we  might  do  our¬ 
selves.  It  is  a  long  step  from  the  Indian 
woman  grinding  her  corn  in  a  hole  in  a 
rock  to  our  modern  young  woman  using 
pancake  flour  which  represents  the  labor 
of  150  various  people.  The  Indian  kept 
his  woman'  busy,  as  we  do,  and  probably 
enjoyed  his  pancakes  as  thoroughly  as  we 
do  in  our  "more  elaborate  mixture. 
***** 
The  original  red  woman  worked  with- 
This  Worth  Tire  deserves  the  name. 
It’s  oversize,  heavy  and  dependable. 
Above  all  it  is  positively  guaranteed 
to  deliver  8,000  miles  of  service.  And 
you  “see  before  you  pay.” 
out  reward,  except  it  may  be  an  occa¬ 
sional  grunt  of  approval  from  her  man. 
Her  work  has  now  been  taken  up  by 
countless  middlemen,  until  it  now  ap¬ 
pears  that  for  every  farmer  or  producer 
there  are  nearly  two  people  who  make  over 
and  handle  and  serve  the  tilings  which 
the  farmer  produces.  The  Indian  woman, 
as  I  have  said,  got  as  her  reward  an  oc¬ 
casional  grunt  of  approval  when  the  cakes 
were  well  cooked  or  the  bear  grease  was 
particularly  strong.  The  modern  middle¬ 
men  who  have  taken  her  place  in  manu¬ 
facturing  food  and  other  necessities  de¬ 
mand  full  pay — and  they  get  it,  too — 
with  the  farmer  finally  paying  the  entire 
bill.  People  lived  on  the  shores  of  this 
lake  300  years  ago — or  at  the  time  Co¬ 
lumbus  came  over.  Suppose  the  Con¬ 
necticut  farmer  of  that  day  wanted  a 
house.  The  woman  went  out  into  the 
woods  and  cut  down  poles  or  logs.  These 
she  fastened  together  with  rawhide,  cov¬ 
ered  the  whole  thing  with  skins  or  woven 
twigs,  with  the  holes  plastered  with  mud. 
Suppose  today  a  man  in  New  London  or 
some  town  within  a  few  miles  of  this 
place  wants  a  house.  Who  will  do  the 
former  “woman’s  work”?  Carpenters  and 
September  1,  1923 
plasterers  will  charge  him  from  $8  to  $12 
a  day,  and  they  will  keep  him  busy  trying 
to  pay  the  price.  I  have  seen  the  greater 
part  of  this  mighty  industrial  change 
worked  out.  Most  of  it  has  come  about 
since  the  Civil  War,  gaining  speed  with 
each  new  generation.  As  farmers  and 
country  people  we  all  realize  what  it 
means.  When  we  attempt  to  change  it  by 
going  back  to  the  old  plan  of  doing  it  our¬ 
selves  we  run  up  against  habit  and  fash¬ 
ion,  which  have  decided  that  we  must  buy 
things  rather  than  attempt  to  make  sub¬ 
stitutes  at  home.  Well,  I  did  not  intend 
to  write  a  long  industrial  essay  on  pan¬ 
cakes.  My  folks  would  rather  eat  them 
than  listen  to  a  sermon.  We  surely  kept 
the  young  woman  busy  that  morning.  She 
had  to  mix  several  batches  of  batter  in 
order  to  provide  for  the  home  runs  made 
on  her  cooking.  In  this  rough-and-ready 
out-door  life  bulky  food  is  desired,  with 
as  little  fuss  as  possible.  Pancakes,  fried 
potatoes,  bacon,  cereals  with  milk,  and 
fish,  are  all  in  demand.  I  cannot  say  that 
our  fishermen  have  won  much  beside  the 
usual  “fisherman’s  luck”  thus  far,  but 
now  and  then  they  bring  in  a  bass  or 
pickerel.  I  am  no  fisherman,  and  can  see 
Worth  CordTire 
Guaranteed  for  8,000  Miles 
30x3i  Non-Skid  Clincher 
Standard  Ford  Size 
$g85 
A  Good  Tire  for  Little  Money 
$085 
Compare  this  rock-bottom  price  with  that  paid’for  the  last 
tire  you  bought.  The  difference  is  what  you  save  by  pur¬ 
chasing  direct  from  us.  Multiply  this  saving  by  the  number 
of  tires  you  buy  in  a  year  and  you’ll  see  what  this  means. 
Remember,  we  are  talking  about  a  strictly  high-grade, 
Non-Skid,  Clincher  type  Cord  Tire,  guaran¬ 
teed  for  a  full  8, OCX)  miles  of  service. 
Worth  Cord  Tires  are  made  in  a  large, 
splendidly  equipped  !  modem  factory.  Only 
the  best  obtainable  grades  of  cotton  cord 
and  pure  rubber  gum  are  used.  Skilled 
workmanship  and  a  rigid  system  of  inspection  insure  a 
standard  of  quality,  deserving  the  name — Worth. 
Low  Prices  on  Many  Sizes 
30  x  3Vfc 
Standard  Size 
Clincher 
30  x 
30  x 
32  x 
31  x 
32  x 
33  x 
34  x 
3  Vz— Standard  Size,  Non-Skid  Clincher .  $ 
Non-Skid 
Non-Skid, 
Non-Skid, 
Non-Skid, 
Non-Skid, 
Non-Skid, 
Clincher 
Straight  Side. 
Worth 
lied 
Cord 
Tube 
$  8.85 
$1.70 
9.75 
1.70 
11.70 
1.84 
14.15 
2.20 
14.70 
2.39 
15.70 
2.47 
16.20 
2.55 
19.95 
3.02 
20.95 
3.16 
21.95 
3.21 
3'/2 — Super-Size, 
3  V2 — Super-Size, 
4  — Super-Size, 
4  — Super-Size, 
4  — Super-Size, 
4  —Super-Size, 
32  x  4V2 — Super-Size,  Non-Skid, 
33  x  4V2 — Super-Size,  Non-Skid, 
34x4'/^ — Sr.per-Size,  Non-Skid, 
Worth  Red  Tubes  are  fitting  companions  to  Worth  Cord  'Tires. 
Tubes  are  oversize,  cord-type — guaranteed. 
Send  No  Money-See  Before  You  Pay 
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ceptional  value  that  we  will  ship  them  C.  O.  D.,  either  by  express 
or  parcel  post,  as  desired.  Before  paying  a  penny  you  can  examine 
them  and  satisfy  yourself  that  they  are  exactly  as  represented  and 
the  best  tire  value  to  be  found  anywhere. 
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Cord  Tires  are  absolutely  firsts  and  are  guaranteed  for  the  mileage  specified. 
This  guarantee  is  made  by  a  strong,  well¬ 
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tubes  continuously  since  1907.  Any  of  the 
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financially  responsible  for  the  strict  fufill- 
ment  of  our  guarantee:  National  City  Bank, 
Chelsea  Exchange  Bank,  Gotham  National 
Bank,  Columbia  Bank,  all  of  New  York. 
Or  consult  Dun’s  or  Bradstreet’s  Agencies. 
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