reappeared with the key. "Here you are. Aunt Susan left it with Mrs.
Brown, who is to look after the place, and to use her judgment about
letting people in. Aunt Susan has only been gone two days, she went
hurriedly at the last, and Mrs. Brown is to close the house for her, but
she hasn't got 'round to it yet. Lucky for us, there'll be everything we
need for lunch; I brought eggs--see?"
Laughing like a boy. Burt unlocked the back door, and then produced four
eggs, from as many pockets. He laid them carefully down upon the kitchen
table.
"Now, Nan, we can use anything in the kitchen or pantry, and Mrs. Brown
has a blueberry pie in the oven which she'll give us, she'll bring it
over when it's done.--Want to go over the house?--Give you my word it's
all right, in fact Aunt Susan told Mrs. Brown she wished she could rent
it, as is, if she only knew somebody who would love it--that was her
word. You can love it until the afternoon train, can't you?"
If Anne heard, she made no reply, she was exploring.
Downstairs, a wide hall occupied a central third of the house; it was
well lighted by the windows each side the front door, and by double
doors of glass, which opened on to the back porch. On one side the hall
were kitchen and pantry, nearly equal in size, and glistening with white
paint, aluminum, and blue and white porcelain. With a hasty glance over
these treasures, to which she was coming back, Anne stepped out into the
hall again, and around to the front of the winding staircase, and
entered what she knew at once for the "owner's bedroom." There were
windows on two sides, as this was a front room, and each broad sill bore
its own pot of ferns. The furniture here was all old-fashioned, of some
dark wood that had been rubbed to a satin finish, the floor was of plain
surface, with braided mats, and a blue and white counterpane provided
the only bit of drapery in the room. Anne's bright head nodded with
satisfaction. Here was character; to win Aunt Susan's respect would be
no light task, her personal and intimate belongings showed an austere
sense of values and an almost surgical cleanliness. Yet Aunt Susan could
not be a martinet; her hall, furnished for other people, showed due
regard for their comfort; the living room, which took the entire western
side of the cottage, bore unmistakable signs of much occupancy, with
wide and varied interests. A set of dark shelves, at the lower end, held
china, and suggested that one might also eat at the refectory table,
which was furnished as a desk and held a few books, many writing
materials, and a foreign-looking lamp. There was also a piano, well
littered with music, a sewing bag thrown down upon a cretonned window
seat, and the generous fireplace was flanked by two huge baskets, one
heaped with magazines, the other a perfectly round mound of yellow fur,
which suddenly took form and life as a yellow tabby cat fastened hopeful
topaz eyes upon them, blinked away a brief disappointment, and then
yawned with ennui.
"His missie left him all alone," said Anne, bending to stroke the smooth
head. "What's upstairs, Burt?"
"Go and look, I'll take your place with the Admiral until you come
back," offered Burt, and at sound of his name the yellow cat jumped out
and began rubbing against a convenient table leg. Anne found them in the
same relative positions when she returned from her inspection of the
upper floor.
"Your Aunt Susan must use it for sewing," she told Burt, dreamily. "With
that big skylight--it could be a studio, couldn't it?"
"It is," Burt informed her. "Aunt Susan is an artist--with her needle.
She gives, or gave, dressmaking lessons, in her idle moments. She gave
up dressmaking, when she bought this house and settled here, but now she
teaches the daughters of her old customers, they come out in automobiles
every Wednesday, in winter. Saturday afternoons she has some of the
young girls in the village, here,--without price--and without taste,
too, some of them! And Nan, I hate to mention it, but--Aunt Susan is a
pretty good cook, too!"
"Feed the brute!" quoted Nan, with a gay laugh. "Will the Admiral drink
condensed milk?"
Mrs. Brown came over with her blueberry pie as Burt was summoned to
luncheon. She surveyed the table, which Nan had laid in the kitchen, and
then the Admiral, who was making his toilette in a thorough manner that
suggested several courses, with outspoken approval.
"My, I wish Susan Winchester could pop in this minute. You found the
prepared flour, and all--baked 'em on the griddle! Wa'n't that cute! I
never did see an omelet like that except from Susan Winchester's own
hands, and she learned from a Frenchwoman she used to sew with. Some
folks can pick up every useful trick they see."
Turning to Burt, she continued:
"With all the new fangle-dangles of these days, women voting and all,
you're a lucky boy to have found an old-fashioned girl!"
"I know it," said Burt, brazenly, but he did not meet Anne's astonished
eyes. "My girl has learned the best of the new accomplishments, without
losing what was worth keeping of the old."
Anne's judgment told her it was a good luncheon--no better than she
served herself at home, though. She stared at her own slim, capable
fingers. Was she domestic, after all?
"We've been looking at apartments in the city," Burt went
on--"apartments in a hotel, you know.--Try the omelet, Mrs. Brown--Nan's
don't fall flat as soon as other omelets do.--But we haven't found what
really appeals to us."
"I should think not," declared Mrs. Brown, vigorously. "I always say a
person hasn't a spark of originality that will go and live in a coop
just like hundreds of others, all cut to the same pattern. Look at your
Aunt Susan, now. This house belonged to old Joe Potter, he built it
less'n ten years ago an Mis' Potter she had it the way she wanted it,
and that was like the house she lived in when she was a girl, little,
tucked-up rooms, air-tight stoves, a tidy on every chair, and she made
portieres out of paper beads that tickled 'em both silly--yes, and
tickled everybody in the ear that went through 'em, though that wan't
what I meant to say. When she died, Joe wouldn't live here, said he
wouldn't be so homesick for Julia in another house, this one was full of
her. So, your Aunt Susan bought it, and what did she do?
"She knocked out partitions, took down fire-boards, threw out a good
parlor set and lugged in tables and chairs from all over, put big panes
of glass where there was little ones--in some places, she did, and only
the good angels and Susan Winchester knows why she didn't change 'em
all, they're terrible mean to wash--made the front hall into a setting
room and the parlor into a bedroom, got two bathrooms and no dining
room--well, to make a long story short, this house is now Susan
Winchester. Anybody that knows Susan would know it was her house if they
see it in China.
"Did you learn to keep house with your mother?"
The transition was so abrupt that Anne started. "I--my aunt brought me
up--and nine cousins," she answered. "My aunt is as unlike Burt's as you
can imagine, but just as dear and good. She had a big family, and there
was never time enough to have her home as she wanted it--so she
thought--and I thought so, too--but yet--Aunt Milly's home was always
full of happy children, and, perhaps, that's what she really wanted,
more than dainty furnishings or a spotless kitchen."
"Folks, mostly, get what they want, even if they don't know it,"
confirmed Mrs. Brown. "Look at the Admiral, here. He don't want to come
over and live with me, same as Susan meant he should. He wants to stay
right in his own home, and have his meals and petting same as usual, and
here you come along today and give them to him. Trouble is, folks don't
always know what it is they want."
When Mrs. Brown went back to her own dinner, she left Anne with
something to think about. Washing the dishes in Aunt Susan's white sink,
which was fitted to that very purpose, drying them upon a rack which
held every dish apart from its neighbors, and, finally, polishing the
quaintly shaped pieces upon Aunt Susan's checked towel, which remained
dry and spotless; opening every drawer and cupboard to see that all was
left in the dainty order she had found there, Anne had a clear vision of
the blue and silver furnishings at the Kensington. What had she told
Burt: "It doesn't look like either of us"?--while Aunt Susan's home--
"Burt," she called, "come and answer this question. Did you come to
Byrnton instead of Branton on purpose?"
"What's this?" said Burt. "Cross-examination?"
"It's an examination, surely, but I won't be cross," replied Anne, with
a rare dimple. "You must answer my question truly."
"Yes, Your Honor," said Burt. "I did, Your Honor."
"Did you know your Aunt Susan wouldn't be home?"
"Our Aunt Susan," corrected Burt.--"No, Your Honor--that is, I
thought--"
"You knew she was going to California?"
"Yes, Your Honor."
"This summer?"
"I didn't know exactly when--honestly, Nan, I did want you to meet her."
"Why?"'
"I knew you'd like the way she keeps house. I didn't realize that the
house could speak for itself, without her.--You do like it, Nan?"
"I don't have to answer questions, because I'm the Judge," Nan told him.
"I'll ask you one more. Do you want me to ask you to take this cottage,
for us, in the fall, and stay in it until Aunt Susan comes back?"
"Not unless Your Honor pleases."
"Case dismissed, for lack of evidence," said Nan.--"Burt, could we live
here?"
"We could. I'll admit it's what I'd like, if you do. The difference in
rents would buy gasoline. Could you work here, and keep house, too?"
"I can if I'm smart," answered Nan, soberly. "I wonder if I'm smart."
"Dear," said Burt. "What have you done since you came to New York but
work and keep house, too, in less convenient quarters than this, and
with no one to help you--no good husband like me--?"
"That's so!" she turned a radiant face upon him.
"If we like, we can begin another home, of our very own, when Aunt Susan
wants hers back," Burt smiled quizzically. "No one else's house would
suit you for always, Nan. Ask me why."
"Why?"
"Because," said Burt in triumph, "personality, like the measles, will
out!"
AMERICAN COOKERY
FORMERLY THE
BOSTON COOKING-SCHOOL MAGAZINE
OF
Culinary Science and Domestic Economics
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Post-office Box, or Street Number.
ENTERED AT BOSTON POST-OFFICE AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER
LOVE'S DAY
When the morning on the hill crest snuffs the candles of the night,
And the wide world blooms in beauty with the coming of the light,
With the morn awakens, ever sweet and ever new,
The happiness of knowing I share the dawn with you.
When the morning shadows shorten on the sunny slopes of noon,
And the roads of earth are humming with toil's deep, insistent tune,
Fragrant as a sea wind, blowing from an island blue,
Through moiling hours of toiling comes my memory of you.
When the shadows of the twilight like long lashes dim and gray
Close in slumber softly o'er the weary eyes of day,
Calling through the twilight like harbor lights from sea,
Your love becomes a beacon that shines with cheer for me!
_Arthur Wallace Peach._
LIMITATION OF ARMAMENTS
"On Armistice Day, November 11, at the hour when the twenty-four men
representing the six participating nations first face each other across
the council table, a nation-wide demonstration will be under way in the
United States. Organized labor announces that in every town and city the
workers will join with other citizens in mass-meetings and parades and
that the keynote of Armistice Day should be, 'It is time to disarm.' It
will help in impressing upon our own government and upon other
governments that the people are weary of war-made tax burdens; that they
are deeply in earnest in their demands that these burdens be removed. It
will strengthen the purpose of the four men who are to represent America
to know that they have the support of the workers and the voters. The
action of organized labor will help in liberating and directing these
'moral forces'; but Labor cannot do it alone. There are others of these
'forces' that cannot be tapped or directed by Labor, and these must come
into action. The time is drawing nigh for their mobilization."
_Philadelphia Public Ledger._
"Without the crowding, persistent, fighting force of the masses the
crusade cannot be won. This is the people's salvation and it is,
therefore, the people's fight. It is now up to the people of this
country to make their wishes known and their opinions felt. It should be
constantly in mind that, without the mobilized moral force of those upon
whom these crushing burdens are now falling, there is little hope that
the load will ever be lifted. If it is not lifted, no one can prophesy
what lies beyond. There can be no relief from taxes, no relief from
expenditures and no relief from war, except through disarmament."
W. E. BORAH.
"One more war, fully prepared for, prepared for with all the diabolical
perversions of science, will reduce Europe and America to what Russia is
today."
_Churchman._
Certainly we believe in the closest limitation of armament. In this
matter we would go to the extreme limit. We are tired of militarism and
tired of war and the rumors of war. While we need and desire a merchant
marine, we have no use for fighting ships or submarines. Years ago we
began to dream that America would never engage in another war, but we
have witnessed the most horrid conflict that ever devastated the earth.
How can any one ever want war again? The nation that makes an aggressive
attack on another should be regarded as an outlaw and treated as such by
the rest of the world. Dissensions are sure to arise, but these can be
settled by conference and agreement or by arbitration.
Prosperity is dependent on peace. No other world-wide saving can equal
that which can be gained through limitation of armament. The wealth of
the world consists of just what the world produces. The one master word
of the day is Production. People are not producing enough to satisfy all
their wants; there is not stuff enough to go round. As a nation we need
less of politics and more of production. Our main contention should be a
moral appeal for unity in the industrial world. "The field for
constructive, imaginative, and creative minds is the field of commerce."
A PIONEER IN HOME ECONOMICS
From a recent report by Mr. Eugene Davenport, vice-president of the
University of Illinois, we draw the following:
Miss Isabel Bevier retired this year from her work in Home Economics at
the University of Illinois. She entered the service of the University in
1900. During the twenty-one years of its existence, Professor Bevier has
given herself unsparingly to the development and conduct, day by day, of
the department of Home Economics. The field was almost entirely new, as
a university subject. The courses have been outlined and conducted with
a double purpose in mind. First, the presenting of home economics as a
part of a liberal education; and second, the development of courses
leading to a profession in teaching, dietetics, and cafeteria
management.
The first graduating class in 1903 numbered three. The number rapidly
increased, reaching ninety-four in 1918. The total number of students
coming under the instruction of the staff of teachers for the last
twenty-one years is approximately 5,000.
If efforts are to be judged by their results, whether in respect to
alumnae or the present registration of undergraduate students, it is not
too much to say that the purposes of this department have been in the
main accomplished, by which is meant that the department has trained
hundreds of competent executives and teachers without such exclusive
attention to the professional as to break the contact with that great
mass of university women who are to become, not teachers or
professionals of any kind, but the heads of American homes. To achieve
this double purpose has been the great ambition of the department, in
which it has eminently succeeded.
It is not too much to say that at present, no department of the
university enjoys more of the confidence and respect of the institution
than does the department of Home Economics.
At the Recognition Service in honor of Professor Bevier, in May, 1921,
the alumnae presented the University with an excellent portrait of Miss
Bevier.
"FEEDING-THE-FAMILY" CLUB
Women are waking up to the fact that upon their shoulders rests the
responsibility of having a healthier nation. Too many people are dying
of avoidable diseases. Rich foods have taken more toll of life than war
and pestilence, dietitians tell us. More and more stress is being placed
upon diet--not for the sick only, but for those in good health, that
they may preserve it. By diet we mean the proper combinations of foods
and the scientific uses of vitamines, starches, proteins and acids.
What we need is more than a reading acquaintance with those subjects.
A certain group of women in Long Beach, Calif., have decided that the
acquisition of knowledge concerning food properties is the only way to
better living for their families. They have grouped together under the
name of the "Feeding-the-Family" Club, and, under the leadership of the
head of the department of domestic science of the public schools, they
meet on Wednesday evening each week for two hours to learn how to
prepare healthful, nourishing meals for the average family. There are
sixteen women in the group, representing fifty-six persons, most of whom
are children in school. Think what it means to those children to have
mothers who are vitally interested in seeing them grow up to be strong,
virile men and women. "Knowledge makes Power," aye, the knowledge of the
mothers of today makes for the powerful citizens of tomorrow.
R. C. C.
DO YOUR OWN WORK AND SAVE MONEY
If you are one of the people who are "sick unto death" of these thrift
articles and are utterly weary of reading how to clean your porcelain
gas-stove and keep your electric washer in repair.
The magazines are so full of helpful hints to the $5,000 and upwards
class, that it seems as though a mere person like myself might inquire,
"How about poor us? Won't somebody write something for us? How can we,
who make up most of the world, live within our incomes?"
As nobody has responded as yet, I am going to tell how we manage and,
possibly, some one else may be helped thereby.
Six years ago, when my husband and I awoke from our honeymoon trance, we
found ourselves in California, strangers in a lone land, penniless and
jobless. My husband was blessed with neither college education nor
profession, but we were both young and undaunted--therefore we pulled
through. We rented an apartment, furnished, at $15 per month and
buckled in. I might say that the rent didn't have to be paid in advance
or we wouldn't have moved in. My soul mate--otherwise husband--worked as
a truckman, a taxi driver, a cement lamp-post worker, a chauffeur, a
night watchman, a salesman, a cook and a dish-washer. In five years we
moved twenty different times, an average of once every three months (not
because we wished to skip our rent, but because my husband found jobs in
so many different parts of the city).
The end of the sixth year has found us located, at last. We get $150 per
month and live on that alone. We are buying our own home, a flivver
stands in the garage, our house is nicely furnished (a good deal of the
furniture we have made ourselves) and we dress and live respectably. I
do all my own cooking, washing, ironing, sewing, cleaning, baking and
gardening, with a little writing thrown in as a spare-time occupation.
No electric machine, $300 gas stove, $700 bedroom set, nor blue-goose
stenciled kitchen yet graces our home. No little tea-wagon runs our food
to the table. We don't lay by 35 cents in one envelope, $1.25 for
electricity in another, nor 63 cents per week for meat in another. We
merely save a small portion each month. First, toward our home and the
rest we spend or save as we see fit. Our twenty chickens help out a
little in meat and eggs, but one whole year passed by before we bought
linoleum for kitchen or bath-room. At present we are working on a $7
second-hand writing desk with varnish remover and putty knife and in the
end we shall have a very modern, pretty, little, fumed-oak desk for
one-seventh the cost of a new one.
So, Ladies, get in and do your own work. Forget the servant problem and
the money question. Make things yourselves and see how much fun there is
in Life. Don't be afraid to soil your hands--cold cream will fix them.
Get as much fun out of each day as possible.
H. W. P.
[Illustration: SOME HOMELY THANKSGIVING VEGETABLES]
Seasonable-and-Tested Recipes
By Janet M. Hill and Mary D. Chambers
In all recipes where flour is used, unless otherwise stated, the flour
is measured after sifting once. Where flour is measured by cups, the cup
is filled with a spoon, and a level cupful is meant. A tablespoonful or
a teaspoonful of any designated material is a LEVEL spoonful. In flour
mixtures where yeast is called for, use bread flour; in all other flour
mixtures, use cake or pastry flour.
Potage Parmentier
Cook the well-washed, white stalks of two or three leeks, sliced
lengthwise, in two tablespoonfuls of fat in a saucepan, and allow to
remain over the fire for five or six minutes, or until slightly colored.
Add four large potatoes, pared and sliced, one quart of cold water, and
two teaspoonfuls of salt, cover, and cook for twenty minutes after the
water boils. Strain out the potatoes and leeks and press through a
colander. Thicken the water by adding one-fourth a cup of flour, blended
with two tablespoonfuls of butter or a substitute; stir until it has
boiled for one minute; add one-half a teaspoonful of white pepper, stir
into it the potato puree, and let the whole come to a boil. Pour into
the tureen, and add one-half a cup of rich cream, a cup of well-browned
croutons, and a few chervil leaves, or the green leaves of cress or any
preferred herb. The addition of the half-cup of rich cream is essential
to the soup "parmentier."
Potato-and-Peanut Sausages
Mix one cup of roasted and fine-ground peanuts with one cup and one-half
of highly seasoned mashed potatoes. Add one beaten egg, and form the
mixture into small sausage-shaped rolls, rolling each one in flour. Roll
on a hot pan, greased with bacon fat, or bake in a very hot oven, until
the outside of the sausages is lightly browned. Pile in the center of a
dish, and garnish with curls of toasted bacon, placed on a border of
shredded lettuce.
Roast Turkey
Clean, stuff and truss a twelve-pound turkey, that, when cooked, may
rest on the wings level on the platter, the drumsticks close to the
body. Rub all over with salt and dredge with flour. Cover the breast
with thin slices of salt pork. Set on a rack in a baking-pan (a "double
roaster" gives best results). Turn often, at first, to sear over and
brown evenly. For the first half hour the oven should be hot, then lower
the heat and finish the cooking in an oven in which the fat in the pan
will not burn. Cook until the joints are easily separated. It will
require three hours and a half. Add no water or broth to the pan during
cooking. For basting use the fat that comes from the turkey during
cooking.
Turkey Stuffing
Add one teaspoonful of salt, one-fourth a teaspoonful of pepper and one
tablespoonful and one-half of poultry seasoning to three cups of cracker
crumbs; mix thoroughly and add three-fourths a cup of melted butter.
[Illustration: ROAST TURKEY]
Garnish the Roast Turkey with Stuffed Onions