Author: Kaila

I am a amateur genealogist from Canada who is interested in exploring my ancestry from Manitoba and beyond. I will use this blog to document genealogical finds in newspapers and other sources as well as other interesting tidbits surrounding my family and others from the surrounding area.

An Aquatic Conversation

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This is the third article in April of the School for Housewives 1905 series published on Apr 23, 1905, and an article about what sort of plants can be grown with the coming of spring.

School for Housewives – An Aquatic Conversation

Flowers and Easter go as naturally together in the mind and upon the tongue as April and soft showers, June and roses. It is human and natural that plant and flower vendors of all ranks should take advantage of the season’s demand to impose preposterous prices upon those to whom the association of the Christian festa with the resurrection of blade, bud, and blossom is sweet and sacred.

Every housemother must have a living plant upon her table on Easter day. The extravagance of the rich and time requisition of the churches set a price upon the humblest spring flowers which puts them beyond the poor man’s reach.

Our forefather’s kept house plants, not in leaf alone, but in flower, all winter. The traveler in England, in Scotland, and on the Continent sees cottage windows lined with thrifty shrubs and blossoming blubs, from November to May. We of this country and this generation have long since given over the attempt to decorate our sitting rooms in like manner. Azaleas, geraniums, cinerarias, and primroses, brought hopefully at the conservatory, begin to droop within a few days after they are brought into the arid atmosphere of furnace-heated, gas-lighted houses. We may inhale impalpable dust by the proverbial peck, and lengthen out our days in seeming health. Plant pores are choked and the sap refuses to circulate.

The flat-dweller who reads these lines may have abundant testimony to their truth if she will look out upon the balconies and fire-escape lining the court separating her back windows from her neighbors’. That window is exceptional which does not display one – often a dozen-forlorn, discarded earthen flower pot, with brown stalks of varying height protruding from useless soil.

Because to most of us the love of green and growing things is a passion I am writing this article. There is keen delight in watching the successive processes of the ever-new, always marvelous miracle of creation. The exquisite story of “Picciola” is in no particular exaggerated. Every leaf is a revelation; every bud has a history.

Because the sincere lover of the beautiful cannot content herself with the stiff monotony of glazed rubber plants – bearing at their best estate a humiliating likeness to patent leather – or the mournful droop of palms that live, but do not grow; because pots with earth in them are cumbrous, homely, and, as we have shown, always more or less monuments of blasted hopes – I would direct the ambition of my fellow-worshiper to some methods by which the Easter spirit may be invoked by one who is no gardener, and winter barrenness be beaten back from our windows.

RAISING HYACINTHS

The wise woman who buried bulbs of hyacinths, tulips, narcissus and crocus in the earth, sex weeks ago; who kept the tiny pots in the dark, wetting the soil once a week – may now bring them into the light by degrees, and have the pure delight of seeing the tender shoots leap up to meet the sunlight, gaining strength and color hour by hour. The next best thing to this – and sometimes a surer joy – is to buy hyacinth, crocus, and jonquil bulbs which are already “Started,” to the extent of showing a couple of inches of sturdy leafage above the top of the bulb. Hyacinth glasses are cheap. Fill each to the ridge that supports the swell of the blub, so that the lower part will touch the water. If it is submerged, the tissues will rot before the roots can strike downward. Set in the shade for a week, approaching nearer and nearer to your sunniest window daily. Then let them bask, rejoicing in the source of light and all life. As the water slowly evaporates, replenish with more that is just the temperature of the room. I have had most satisfactory results from bulbs treated thus. You should have the same.

The Chinese sacred lily deserves a distinguished place in our aquatic conservatory. Choose bulbs of uniform size; settle them in and among clean pebbles in the bottom of a bowl. A pressed glass bowl will allow you to see the lively work of the roots among the stones. The better vessel is a stout, broad-bottomed china bowl with a Chinese pattern upon it – the willowware, if you can get it in any color except blue. The opaque blue contracts unfavorably with the green stem and leaves. When bulbs, pebbles and water are in, set the whole construction in a dark room or closet, and leave it there for a fortnight. As with the other bulbs, let its approach to the perfect light be gradual. Otherwise, the delicate shoots will be scalded.

Another most pleasing decoration for mantel, window or dinner table is made by setting among clean pebbles in the bottom of a glass bowl a dozen or more healthy sprays of variegated Tradescantia, familiarly known as “Creeping Charley,” “Wandering Jew,” and “Wandering Willy.” Select woody stems, fill the bowl half-way to the top with water; set in the window – and see it grow! In a few weeks the stems will curl over the brim of the bowl and hang downward, branching to the right and left until you have a cataract of green streaked with purple and pink. A goldfish globe suspended in the window and stocked with Tradescantia is a pretty ornament.

SWEET POTATO VINE

Another hanging plant is port, or Madeira, vine. China cornucopias, with holes at the side by which to suspend them against the wall, may be bought at Japanese stores. Set a port vine root in each, pour in water and hang evenly at the side of the window.

The common sweet potato is a faster grower than the Madeira vine. Pick out one that will fit loosely in the mouth of a hyacinth jar. You will soon cease to think it homely in watching the tiny, swift filaments shoot into the water, the rapid growth above of a delicate green leaves and the graceful sway of the sprays.

A pleasant dash of green to window sill or table is gained by lining a large round platter with canton flannel and setting in the middle of it a globular sponge. Soak the flannel with water, and scatter millet seeds thickly all over it. The sponge should be filled in every pore with the seed while dry, and before it is put in place upon the flannel. Fill it with water and set in the window, wetting it every morning. In an incredibly short space of time you will have a hillock of dapple green, surrounded by a band of verdant turf.

Ah! the blessed Easter-tide! Ah! the visible promise of resurrection and of life to which death is unknown! Let us rejoice and be glad in it!

Marion Harland

OTHER ARTICLES ALSO PUBLISHED…
The Housemother’s Exchange
Three Little Kitchen Conveniences
Unique Dishes – Syrian Recipes Contributed by a Syrian Constituent

Creamed Sweetbreads a Chafing Dish Dainty

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This is the third article in April of the School for Housewives 1903 series published on Apr 19, 1903, and is a short article on cooking with the chafing dish.

School for Housewives – Creamed Sweetbreads a Chafing Dish Dainty

A good chafing dish dainty for a late supper is creamed sweetbreads, served on toast; with coffee and little bread and butter sandwiches it is vey satisfying. Its strong point is that it is quickly done, requiring only heating at the time, as the creamed sauce and sweetbreads are prepared in advance, without in any way taking from the delicacy of the dish.

A pair of sweetbreads, one pint of cream sauce and a dash of sherry are the ingredients.

The sweetbreads should be cut in small discs. The cream sauce is first put in the dish and heated, stirring all the while. When the sweetbreads are added the stirring continues until the boiling point is reached. The lamp is then lowered and a wineglass of sherry added. This may be served on toast or in “patty” cups.

To make a pint of cream sauce take two tablespoons of butter, two of flour, one pint of cream or milk, half teaspoon of salt mixed with the flour. Blend the butter and flour until a smooth paste, then put on the fire and add gradually the cream. Stir constantly until the proper creamy consistency is reached, which should take twenty minutes. This quantity serves four.

The sweetbreads are simply parboiled.

To make the bread and butter into dainty little sandwiches is much nicer than to have the “spreading” of it at supper time, while the plate of prettily shaped sandwiches adds to the feast.

Marion Harland

OTHER ARTICLES ALSO PUBLISHED…
Good Advise to Parents
Grass Houses of Wichitas Vanishing
Interesting Notes for the Housewife
Recipes
This Summer’s Dresses Will Sweep the Ground Again

The New Windy Day Skirt

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This is the second article in April of the School for Housewives 1903 series published on Apr 12, 1903, and is a short article on the innovative new skirt that will not blow up in the wind.

School for Housewives – The New Windy Day Skirt

Only a day or two ‘fore Christmas,
A Bower-looking chap
Came rushin’ in the store
And bawled out: “Say, pap,
Gimme a suit that’ll stand a hug,
A squeeze, a yank an’ a twist,
An’ gee! If y’ don’t git a wiggle on
I’ll hand y’ out a fist.”
Lay on the Bowery Dance.

When Miss Elizabeth White, the clever business-woman-dressmaker, who has undertaken to drive the Parisian dressmakers from the American field, devised her “Windy day skirt,” an article of dress that will withstand all the winter winters that ever blew, she must have been thinking of the lay of the last Bowery dancer.

At the meeting of the Dressmakers’ Association recently she gave to the public a creation built to stand windy weather and one that will look just like the ordinary skirt and present no more inconveniences than the everyday garment.

She brought out into view a pearl gray skirt and hung it on a wire figure. It was a modish enough skirt of silk made for a wearer with a good figure. She styled it the “drop skirt” – a sort of latter-day term for an underskirt. It looked pretty enough, the women audience thought, to be worn outside, if necessary.

The skirt is best described in Miss White’s own words:

“The ‘drop skirt,’” she sad, “looks just like any other skirt. I had often thought that if I could invent some sort of a rock that would stand the wind and still keep its shape and keep close to the ground, one of the greatest blessings would be handed down to womankind. One day I thought of haircloth lining, and on this principle the ‘drop skirt’ is built.”

“There is no difference, practically, between my new skirt and what women have been wearing for thousands of years. This skirt has the usual soft and clinging effect at the bottom. You’d never suspect that it has a haircloth flounce? Well, it has, and that’s its beauty for a windy day.”

“I have named it the ‘Lily skirt,’ for it has the lily effect – a lily held upside down, you know. Just see how prettily it sweeps away.”

“There’s another name for the skirt, and that’s the ‘wind skirt.’ You see we are going to wear such thin stuffs this spring and summer that we’ll need a foundation skirt.”

“You’ll see that it has style and effect, and I can lend its good qualities to the other skirt. Now I’ll tell you how to build the ‘windy skirt.’”

“If made of taffeta silk it will require from 10 to 12 inches yards, 20 inches wide. If only the flounce is taffeta and the upper part of percaline, farmer satin or any lightweight material, it will require 5 1/2 yards of taffeta silk for flounce and about 4 ½ yards for the upper part, and from 2 ½ to 2 ¼ yards of haircloth 24 inches wide. The wind skirt can be built as economically as you desire in any material. The flounce is cut about eight inches wide, having a facing of haircloth equally as wide, with the hair in the haircloth running around the skirt, not up and down. Be sure to shrink the haircloth before using. When the flounce is finished, two small ruffles are added to it, one 5 ½ inches wide and the other about 2 ½ inches wide. These two small flounces are ornamented with narrow plaited ruches or ribbon. To protect the lower flounce we found it necessary to blind it with velvet braid, which can be quickly attached by one sewing only, and affords an elegant finish and perfect protection.”

“The wind skirt can be made as a solid lined skirt of wool or silk, or as a petticoat or slip skirt. As you walk, you see that you kick against the ruffles, which give away with pretty effect.”

“When you’ve had haircloth in your skirts before, you remember, you broke the haircloth by walking against it. In the new wind skirt the haircloth is too high to be kicked, and just high enough to hold the skirt in its place.”

“When the wind blows against the skirt the haircloth holds the cloth firm and the wind sheers off as it would off any taut surface. Your skirts cannot cling to your legs.”

Marion Harland

OTHER ARTICLES ALSO PUBLISHED…
Good Advise to Parents
Grass Houses of Wichitas Vanishing
Interesting Notes for the Housewife
Recipes
This Summer’s Dresses Will Sweep the Ground Again

The New Dutch Designs for Embroidery

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This is the second article in April of the School for Housewives 1904 series published on Apr 10, 1904, and is a short article on embroidery.

School for Housewives – The New Dutch Designs for Embroidery

While scattered examples of the picturesque “Dutch” designs have been displayed on fancy-work counters for the last year or more, it is only of late that we have come to realize the full possibilities of these quaint patterns.

A great liking for them is manifesting itself in the advance sales of summer fancy work. Even the Japanese motif, with its topical interest, will prove no more than a powerful rival.

The sturdy Hollanders, with vrouws and children, are to be found upon every class of handwork. Whether for needle, carving tool or scorch pencil, what more effective treatment could be desired for the border of a table cover than a circle of tots in sabots playing some Dutch equivalent for “ring-around-a-rosy?”

Some good subjects for the decorator are shown in today’s illustrations. The laundry or toy bag in heavy yellow linen is trimmed with a stamped band all ready to embroider, there’s an effective little box, also decorated by needlework, and a desk outfit which then could be copied either in stitchery or burnt wood.

Pillow covers are especially attractive carried out in this way. and half a dozen or more of smart patterns have appeared.

For bureau boxes, wooden mirror backs, and the thousand and one little furnishings of boudoir or living room, it would be difficult to name a more satisfactory decorative scheme.

Marion Harland

OTHER ARTICLES ALSO PUBLISHED…
Council Table Talks, Mainly About Babies and Mothers
Good Recipes by the Contributors

A Suggested Substitute for the Tyrant Potato

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This is the second article in April of the School for Housewives 1905 series published on Apr 9, 1905, and is an article on the benefits of rice over the potato.

Personally I would eat a well cooked potato over rice any day.

School for Housewives – A Suggested Substitute for the Tyrant Potato

Among the many new avocations undertaken by the clever modern woman, when suddenly thrown upon her on resources, is that of professional glove cleaner.
In a magazine article written almost twenty years ago I thus characterized a vegetable which by methods mysterious to the student of dietetics has established itself as a “necessary of life” in all English-speaking countries. Potatoes are no cheaper than turnips, and less easily raised than cabbages; less nutritious than carrots, and more insipid than any one of the half-dozen esculents I could name.

When “new” they are almost as indigestible as bullets, when “old” they have a rank, weedy taste. Yet the arrogant tuber holds royal rank in palace and in cottage. Children are allowed to eat it before they cut their eye teeth, and the family bill of fare gives precedence to it tri-daily in many a home. Prices of potatoes are quoted along with wheat and corn; poor and rich must have them, no matter how dear.

As I write there lies before me a well-written paper covering two columns of the Culinary Corner in a prominent family weekly. The article is headed “A Potato Luncheon.” I quote from the introductory paragraph:

ENERGY CONTAINED IN RICE

“Concerning the potato as an article of food, arguments have waxed warm, pro and con. Without taking either side, it may be said that no vegetable which may form soup to dessert, not omitting bread, is to be scorned for its food properties, and of none is this true except the potato.”
“The menu follows:
Potato Soup,
Potatoes with Cheese,
Potatoes with Onions,
Curried Potatoes,
Potato Salad with Potato Gems,
Potato Souffle, Potato Cake,
Potato Pie.”

Not staying to discuss what may be called a culinary freak – since no sane housekeeper would risk setting family and guests for all time against the stupid tuber tortured into seven different forms – we relegate the ingenious menu to the niche occupied in gastronomic literature by the Frenchman’s pebble soup. Dr. Franklin is said to have astonished a party of friends with a sawdust dinner.

To prove that I do not stand alone in unfavorable criticism of our ugly tyrant, I give a story told to me today of Mrs. Borer’s views upon the same subject:

“Why,” she asked, in the course of a demonstrated lecture, “will people persist in ranking potatoes as the principal vegetable admitted to their tables?”

“Because they are nourishing,” said a listener.

The lecturer shook her head; “but they are not!”

“Because they are readily digested?” ventured another.

“Not at all!” replied the lecturer.

“Very harmless?” was the third venture.

“Quite the reverse!”

After a silence, some one spoke more confidently.

“But what tastes better than a mealy roasted potato?”

Mrs. Rorer smiled; “Al, now you have advanced one fairly sound arguments in their favor!”

I hope the anecdote is authentic! It is good enough to be true and worthy of my distinguished contemporary.

A baked or roasted potato – while it has no flavor to boast of – is the least objectionable member of its class.

Now for my suggested substitute for the plebeian who ought never to have been raised from his native level.

A careful writer upon the comparative value of food says: “Plain, boiled rice, rightfully cooked, is actually digested and begins to be assimilated in one hour, while other cereals, legumes, and meats, and most vegetables require from three and a half to five hours. Rice thus enables a man to economize fully expended in the digestion of ordinary food, setting it free to be used in his daily vocation, in the pursuit of study, or social duties, and in the case of invalids and enfeebled vitality, adding it to the reserved force of the system.”

“It has been carefully estimated that rice contains more than four times the energy in Irish potatoes, and when the waste in preparing potatoes is considered, the difference is increased to six-fold. It is scientifically ascertained that of the food taken into the human body, one-sixth goes to the replenishing and upbuilding, and five-sixths go to produce energy. The value of food is based upon the amount of energy it can furnish rather than its capacity as a mere flesh-producer. It is evident that, on this basis, rice stands first among human foods.”

(C.H. HOWARD, U.S.A.)

The idea that rice is wishy-washy stuff, fit only for the consumption of invalids and children, amounts to prejudice among the ignorant and the laboring classes. Those whose charitable work qualifies them to pronounce upon this point will sustain this statement. Other cereals come under the same condemnation. One invalid to whom I offered cracked wheat thoroughly cooked, and mantled with real cream, returned the reply; “Thank you, ma’am, but I would not eat such messes when I was well, let alone when I am sick.”

Another to whom I sent a bowl of delicious chicken broth, refused it because “there was rice boiled with it, and she couldn’t bear nothing that had rice cooked in it.”

A third would not so much as taste rice jelly, so sure was she that “there was no substance to it!”

A well-to-do parishioner in a country church once came to me in perplexity concerning the stocking of the pastor’s pantry, which was to be a surprise gift upon his return from a trip abroad. Shelves creaked under pies, cakes, jars of pickles, preserves, mincemeat, butter, lard, coffee, etc. There were two barrels of flour, one of potatoes, one of sugar, a chest of tea, a box of soap, and – hence the distress – one woman had sent in a tin case containing ten pounds of rice!

“I dare not keep it back,” lamented the mistress of ceremonies. “But I am downright ashamed of it. It looks so common, somehow!”

Being Southern-born, I retorted in surprise; “Not as common as potatoes, too my way of thinking.”

How shall we fight a prejudice so reasonless and so deep-rooted?

In the first place, by teaching those who hold it how to cook our substitute properly.

HOW RICE SHOULD BE COOKED

To borrow from our military dietetist:
“There is one practical difficultly to be surmounted, especially among the families of our working people. Rice is not generally well cooked in the North. The boiled rice is apt to be soggy, or mashed, in a way to be unattractive in looks and to the taste, and undoubtedly less healthful than when properly cooked. It should be boiled or steamed so that each kernel stands up distinct and whole. A certain amount of mastication is conductive to better digestion. One reason that rice is more popular in the South is that it is usually better cooked.”

Marion Harland

 

OTHER ARTICLES ALSO PUBLISHED…
Housewives, in Council Assembled, Help Each Other
Some Excellent Recipes for Cooking Rice

An Automobile Luncheon

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This is the first article in April of the School for Housewives 1903 series published on Apr 5, 1903, and is a short article on a simple lunch for traveling by car.

School for Housewives – An Automobile Luncheon

A good, simple little luncheon for the automobile trip or any little jaunt, which may be carried in one of the invaluable tea baskets, consists of

Olive sandwiches,
Deviled eggs,
Grandmother’s gingerbread,
Grapes,
Wafers,
Ginger ale and tea.

With the care which a tasty housekeeper bestows upon her sandwiches and dainties, this may be made very tempting.

The eggs are hard-boiled and cut in half. The yellow is then removed and mixed to a smooth paste, with salt, pepper, mustard, celery salt and a little minced ham. The eggs are refilled with this and tied in place with a baby ribbon.

The bread should, of course, be very fresh. After slicing then it is cut out with a sandwich cutter and left flat or rolled and tied with a ribbon. The slices are buttered and filled with chopped olives mixed with a little mayonnaise. Sandwiches should not be left in the air a minute, but should be wrapped immediately in waxed paper.

The grandmother’s gingerbread is a good sort of cake to take on such a trip, as something that will not get the hands sticky or crumbly easy will be found the most desirable. Trouble will be saved by slicing the bread before packing in the box. Like the sandwiches, it should be wrapped in waxed paper.

Grapes are also nice for a picnic lunch, as they will not cause much of a cleaning up. Some little wafers and a couple of bottles of ginger ale will fill up the chinks beside the tea kettle.

Marion Harland

OTHER ARTICLES ALSO PUBLISHED…
Advise to Parents
Fancy Dishes Made by Well-Known Men
Housewife’s Exchange
Some New Recipes and Household Help

How Uncle Sam Teaches Gardening to Children

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This is the first article in April of the School for Housewives 1904 series published on Apr 4, 1904, and is about teaching children gardening.

School for Housewives – How Uncle Sam Teaches Gardening to Children

Photographs Reproduced by Courtesy Of “Floral Life,” Philadelphia.
Practical Work among Vegetables and Flowers for Public School Scholars

A few years ago the Department of Agriculture hit upon he happy idea of interesting public school children in practical gardening.

The plan was received with enthusiasm by the little circle of thinkers to whom it was first made known.

Here was a simple and pleasurable way of accomplishing a number of good ends. A way to keep the children interested and occupied in the open air and to stimulate their power of observation, at the same time causing forlorn or dilapidated back yards to blossom like the wilderness.

In he beginning the philanthropy was beset by many difficulties. One of the greatest of these was the fact that few teachers knew a pea vine from a pie plant.

Various methods were used to introduce the children to the seeds. In some instances little envelopes containing the latter were distributed to the pupils, with the laconic direction, “Plant.”

It is likely that all of the seeds were planted – but not all of them grew.

One tot carefully covered the envelope with six inches of soil, and eagerly awaited results. Several bricks were removed from the pavement by another youngster, the seeds most carefully distributed upon the earth and the bricks as punctilious returned to their former location.

Since that time civic leagues, woman’s clubs and similar institutions have helped along the good cause by distributing seeds, with directions for planting on the packet.

The results here have been much more satisfactory than by the first method.

The lasting and most valuable results, however, must be obtained through intelligently teaching the subject in the schools. In a short time the public schools of Washington, D.C., hope to be a model in this work for other cities.

The chief of the Bureau of Plant industry of the Department of Agriculture, Dr. E.T. Galloway, realizing the value of well-organized work through the medium of the public schools, placed at the disposal of the Normal School, a workroom, a greenhouse and all material necessary for an elementary course in horticulture. The course is under his careful guidance. Two ??? a ??? during one term is the time allotted to it.

By this method the child receives an addition of ??? to its teaching crops each year, equipped to handle the subject intelligently with children under their immediate care and to give inspiration and ideas to other teachers.

All facts are taught by experiments, the workroom being really a laboratory.

Germination experiments are performed in the spring, showing seed vitality, conditions for planting and depth of planting. Plant propagation by cuttings, budding and grafting are taught. Geraniums scarlet sage, hydrangeas, begonias, ivy are propagated in the fall and grown in the greenhouse during the winter. Cuttings of forsythia and privet for hedges are buried in sand to be ready for planting in the spring. Young apple seedlings are grafted. Bulbs are ??? for winter blooming. This material is used to beautify schoolrooms during the winter and school grounds in the warm weather.

In the spring each student has her home garden in which she applies her learning.

The beautifying of back yards is not the primary object in this course. it comes usually as a result of the effort expended, but the real aim is to cultivate close observation of plant life; to instil a love for plant culture, and by so doing awaken the young student teachers to the ??? influence of plants ins school or home, and to enable them to be an inspiration to others from the fullness of their pleasure in the work. Some of the students prefer to devote their ??? to but one variety of plant, bringing it to a high state of perfection. Sweet peas, poppies and nasturtiums have been prime favorites for such work. Others have remodelled yards after methods of good planting, keeping the centre of the yards in grass and massing the plants in borders. A number of them have had to resort to box gardening, but, whatever the form, i has always brought pleasure with it.

In addition to the work mentioned, the course of instruction calls for planning improvements of school grounds.

A school very much in need of attention is selected. Each student submits a plan for improving its grounds without reducing the playground.

The best plan is accepted and followed.

Marion Harland

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A Collection of Good Recipes of General Interest
Housewives, Parents and Children Discuss Topics of Mutual Interest – Little Talks with Marion Harland
Starching – For Young Housekeepers

When ‘John’ Brings a Friend Home to Dinner

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This is the first article in April of the School for Housewives 1905 series published on Apr 2, 1905, and an article about how a housewife should stay calm when their husband brings a guest over for dinner unexpectedly.

School for Housewives – When ‘John’ Brings a Friend Home to Dinner

Imprimis – John has a right to expect this privilege. Your bachelor is a hospitable animal, and business customs foster the virtue. The very reprehensible habit of “treating” is an outgrowth of the instinct of hospitality. The merchant, being a man, comprehends that his customer and fellow-man will be more amenable to reason if his stomach be at peace with itself and the rest of the body. The stereotyped, “Suppose we step out and take something,” is a preliminary to negotiation and sale.

When the “something” includes luncheon, it is yet more assuasive to the inner man, which sets the pace for action in the outer man. Acceptance of a dinner almost seals an important bargain. Sometimes “the house” stands treat, if a customer or client be a particularly fine fish, richly worth the trouble demanding.

Apart from his business training, John, in his bachelorhood, liked to play the host. There is much in the disposition that prevails all over the world – to break bread amicably with one’s kind. I have though sometimes that it is a recognition – as a subtle as it is strong – of the universal brotherhood of man. We live by eating. Eating in friendly companionship acknowledges a common need and a friendly disposition to promote the common ground.

BE READY FOR HIS GUESTS

Be this as it many, it is certain that one element of the pleasure with which John has looked forward to having a home of his own was the anticipation of seeing his friends at his table. A glow of prideful proprietorship in that home warms his heart at the thought of saying to his old schoolfellow, Tom, or his business acquaintances, Dick and Harry, “Come around with me and take a family dinner, won’t you?” The glow permeates his whole being and pride becomes exultation if he can meet the civil demur of the proposed guest with “My wife is always glad to have me bring a friend home. You will take us as you find us, old man!”

It is your duty as his wife, the keeper of his house and the maker of his home, to prove his words true – every time.

Madame Recamier, whose beauty and charm were the marvel of her generation, was asked how she had become so graceful as never to betray awkwardness in the slightest motion. She replied: “By always acting in private as if the eyes of the court were upon me.”

The house that is always well ordered cannot be thrown into confusion by an unexpected guest after the morning’s work is done and matters have settled into the groove of daily routine. When your luncheon or dinner table is laid for John, it should be also ready for any guest he may bring with him. I was so happy as to be a listener the other day to an able paper upon “American Hospitality” read before and discussed by a woman’s club. In the course of the debate one plain-spoken member asked: “What of yesterday’s coffee stain and this noon’s grease spots upon the cloth when your impromptu guest comes in, and you can’t afford a clean cloth every day?” A practical housewife answered: “There should be neither stain nor spot. Cleanliness must be had at any price.”

Lest our young housewife should be discouraged by this dictum, let me drop a homely hint or two. Coffee and tea stains may be washed out after each meal while fresh, with the corner of a napkin and a little cold water. Have a bit of white chalk at hand for chance grease spots. Rub it well upon them, and leave thus until next day, when you can brush out chalk and grease together. Attention to these trifles will give John (and the chance guest) a clean tablecloth in all circumstances. Another hint: Have your damask ironed on both sides, and give it a “French wash” when one side is beginning to look grimy. Laundry bills are a serious item in the family expenses. As our plain-spoken woman says, “You cannot afford a clean cloth every day.”

The cloth laid, and smoothly, see to it that the table furniture is befitting the honored master of the home. Give him bright silver and glass and dainty china. The practice of spreading the family board with coarse napery, common crockery and plated silver, worn brassy at the edges, is, to put it candidly, a vulgarity, when there are stores of fine china, cut-glass and sterling silver in closet and sideboard reserved for “company.” The appointments for the table should be the same for John when he “comes marching home” solus, as when you are certain that he will being a visitor with him.

I do not deny that the dear fellow has a fatal facility for inviting Tom, and even Dick and Harry, on washing day, and even during housecleaning week.

One tactless householder, having given the invitation and received a ready acceptance, delivered himself of an afterthought on his way home:

“I say, old fellow, we are always glad to see you, you know; but I’m afraid you won’t have anything for dinner today but a confounded dressmaker.”

The most serious objection in Mary’s mind to the exercise of impromptu hospitality on John’s part is the risk of insufficient provision for the increased number. Housekeepers do not need to be reminded that, while what is enough for two will serve three, an adequate supply for three is not always enough for four. The small roast or a single fowl will suffice for five or six, because the caterer counts upon “left-overs.” But the small steak – quite enough for John, Mary and Bridget-Thekla – or the four English chops, or the bit of fish on Friday, with a couple of vegetables, a salad and a sweet, with a demitasse of coffee, which would suffice for the four, looks miserably insufficient – Mary would say “skimpy” – when a six-footer with a full-grown appetite joins the band of eaters.

All the same, put a cheerful courage on, gird up the loins of your ingenuity and face the situation womanfully.

I hope you have what I have elsewhere called “An Emergency Pantry.” While John conveys Tom or Dick or Harry to his (John’s) room to brush off the dust and wash his hands, open a can of soup. If it be mock turtle, add a glass of wine, the juice of half a lemon, a pinch of sugar and a small cup of boiling water. Your cook will warm it up in five minutes. If a chicken soup, beat a raw egg into a small cup of milk, add a tablespoonful of butter stirred in a frying pan to a “roux” with the same of flour, mix with the soup and boil up once. Set on olives and salted nuts, and a dish of bonbons to fill out empty spaces on the table. Add crackers and cheese to the salad course, and follow with pudding with nuts and raisins. If Bridget-Thekla be well trained, and you keep your head, the meal will not be ten minutes later on account of these additions. The guest must be made to believe that his coming involved no more work than the laying of an extra plate, knife, fork and tumbler.

Above all, and through all, and in spite of all, keep cool! Do not let the first, the second, the third and the fourth course be Roasted Hostess!

Our next talk will be upon “A SUBSTITUTE FOR THE TYRANT PORATO.”

Marion Harland

OTHER ARTICLES ALSO PUBLISHED…
Conveniences That Save Much Time
Good Recipes Tested and Recommended by Members
Housewives Council Gives Useful Hints
The Importance of Flowers for the Home-Table

An Easter Greeting

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This is the fourth article in March of the School for Housewives 1902 series published on Mar 30, 1902, and is Marion’s yearly Easter message. I very much enjoyed this particular article, especially Marion’s description of a blizzard.

School for Housewives – An Easter Greeting

A Glimpse of Nature, and the Tender Thoughts It Suggests

Hope and Promise Writ in the Budding of Storm-Stressed Woods

“You will have an Easter message for us. I hope?”

I looked up from the letter I was reading and through the window nearest my desk. Blizzard No. 3 of 1902 was in raging possession of the world. The fields were tumbled white sheets, rising and falling in the fierce wind. To borrow Charlotte Bronte’s words – “There was but one cloud in he sky, but that curtained it from pole to pole.” The benignant outlines of the hills I love were hidden behind wavering draperies of snow, now blotted out completely, now grayly traceable, troubled and unfamiliar. The trees rocked and struck blindly at one another with their naked arms, as in a frenzy of pain. The sullen roar of the north wind was like surf upon a rock-edged beach. From time to time the distant shriek of a belated train might have been the cry of wanderers done to their death by the tempest.

Within twenty feet of my window a grey-breasted woodpecker was driving his bill into the southward side of an oak, steadily and confidently as he will drill and seek upon May-day.

He came North with the bluebirds and a robin or two ten days ago. I saw him collecting sticks and straws for the underpinning of his next yesterday. The air then was soft and mild, the wind slept behind the hills, the sky was blue overhead. “A veritable weather-breeder,” said wise human creatures. Top-knot with the gray breast took no thought for the morrow. According to his calendar the winter was over and gone; the time for the singing of birds had come. His duty was to build and to trust. The twittering of a bevy of saucy snowbirds who watched his labors did not lift a feather of his crest. The weather was no concern of his.

It was no more of his business now. Supper must be had in good season, for twilight would fall early and hard. Instinct – or was it faith? – told him that fat larvae and drowsy beetles lurked under the rough bark, and he fell to drilling, nothing doubting.

But he stuck steadily to the southern side of the tree! The opposite side was coated with snow and flying flakes thickened the coat continually. Should the wind veer he would have trouble keeping his hold. The wind was none of his affair, either. He was comfortable and safe where he was. Should he draw that covert blank, the grove was made up of trees, and every tree had a southern side. As for what the morrow would bring, it was as likely to bring calm as storm, the more likely to bring sunshine because this day was inclement.

The cheerful diligence of his “drill! drill! drill! tap! tap!” the very perk of his top-knot said:

“Behind the clouds is the sun, still shining.”

Because there were trees, there would be leaves, and blossoms, and balmy airs, and floods of sunshine in God’s own good time. Meanwhile, he waited – always busily – and always on the southern side of the tree. It would be the sunny side before long. That was the reason eggs, larvae, beetles and borers were most plentiful there.

This, dear Constituents – so many more in number and so much more interesting than at this time a year ago, that my heart grows larger and warmer in thinking of you – this, then, is my “Easter Message.” Know of a surety, because the ways of the Lord of all are equal, that here is a southern side to every tree, and keep upon it. The storm must pass, for the sun is in God’s heaven, and good is ever stronger in the end than evil. As surely as the chilled and shrouded earth is, at heart, quick with life, and

“Underneath the winter snows
The invisible hearts of flowers
Grow ripe for blossoming” –

Shall joy come after your night of weeping.

As the blessed season of promise renews the memory of those we have committed to the warm, dark, sweet earth with the “sure and certain promise of immortality,” let it bring renewed appreciation of the sublimity, the beauty the glorious comfort bound up in those words. They always have to the ear of my soul a tone of the Voice which shall awake the sleeping children of the One Father in the dawn of the Day when he shall really and in truth begin to live.

Gather into smitten and yearning hearts the full blessing of the Easter-tide. Because Christ lives, our beloved shall live also, and we with them when Easter promises shall ripen into heavenly fruition.

Marion Harland

A Tempting Chafing Dish Luncheon

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This is the first written article in March of the School for Housewives 1903 series published on Mar 29, 1903, and is a short article on luncheon.

School for Housewives – A Tempting Chafing Dish Luncheon

A spring time luncheon for two, which contains one hot dish, sandwiches, fruit, cakes and coffee, may be cozily served with the aid of a chafing dish, on a small table in the sitting room.

Creamed shrimp on toast is the hot dish selected. It is simple enough to be successfully prepared by a novice. Beat in a chafing dish the yolks of two eggs, half a cup of cream, a teaspoonful of anchovy sauce. Sit all the while with a wooden spoon; when the cream begins to thicken put in half a pint of boiled shrimp. Let the shrimp get hot, but do not allow to cook long enough for the eggs to curdle. Serve on strips of toast.

To make the lettuce sandwiches, cut the bread out with a sandwich cutter, removing all crust. The lettuce s cut into strips, not minced. These are put between the buttered slices of bread and well moistened with mayonnaise.

The strawberries are served with shipped cream; a tempting plate of macaroons is passed with them.

Coffee is large cups is served all through the lunch.

This gives quite a sufficient repast to invite a friend to enjoy with you, and yet involves so little fuss that it is in the reach of the college girl or bachelor girl, who has only a limited amount of room and convenience.

Marion Harland

OTHER ARTICLES ALSO PUBLISHED…
A Children’s Games
Gardening is Now Fashionable
The Housewife’s Weekly Exchange
Queer Mail at the White House
Some Excellent Advise to Parents
Yeast and Two Delicacies