but with apparent satisfaction, and simply said, "Have you finished?"
As I had, he again took the floor.
"Now, I am sure that my foundation is secure and my psychological
attitude all right, for all the objections you mention were brought up,
in one form or another, at the meeting we held, and I was able to meet
every one of them. No, my dear, I do not mean to uproot the 'eternals'
and the Joneses shall stand for onion flavor to the end of time. The
personal equation will always be considered. Each farmer will simply
send his consignment of berries or fruit with explicit instructions as
to recipes to be followed, just as our great-grandfathers sent their
grist to the mill to be ground and ordered middlings left in or
middlings left out, according as to whether it was for pancakes or
bread. Those worthies took it on faith that they brought back the same
grain they carried and there need be no question now. Farmer Dunn's
marrowfats need never get mixed with Deacon White's telephone peas,
and Mrs. Thornton can always send her flannel jelly bag.
"It is my opinion that the good wives will have gained enough leisure
time to come to the Kitchen and inspect the process while their batch
of fruit is being handled."
So closely are faith and works related in Jack's philosophy of life
that in an incredibly short time Podunk awoke one morning to find the
abandoned Haskell house turned into a "Community Kitchen," in charge
of a New England man and his wife, of thrift and learning. They began
on the currant crop.
Of course, since Jack was behind the innovation, I had to show my
faith by sending the first lot, with instructions that the jelly
should be boiled only one minute after the sugar was added. The
twenty glasses of tender crystalline jelly that stood on my pantry
shelf the next day needed no argument and so encouraged my nearest
neighbor that she sent half of her picking to the Kitchen. I saw that
it caused a wrench, but she supported herself on the consciousness
that she was only risking half. But the jelly that came back adhered
so closely in color, taste and texture to the "traditional" that the
other half was sent without a qualm. This made a beginning and by the
time the raspberries were ripe a dozen families were converted.
When the fall fruits came on, it had grown into such a fashion to send
the preserving out that the capacity of the Kitchen was somewhat
taxed. An evaporating outfit was added, that saved hundreds of bushels
of apples from absolute waste. A simple device for making unfermented
grape juice brought profit enough the first year to paint the town
hall, build over the stage and buy a curtain that never failed to
work.
The second year a "Sunshine" Laundry was added to the Kitchen, which
proved a great boon. Podunk had wrestled with the domestic problem,
but like the rest of the world had not solved it, and was left to do
its own washing.
As the name suggests, the "Community Kitchen" was established on a
coöperative basis, with the understanding that after all running
expenses were paid and each contributor had a certain share of profit,
proportioned to the amount of surplus material he contributed, all the
remaining profit was to go for the improvement of the town.
The "Kitchen" is now three years old and every visitor coming to
Podunk naturally wanders into the pretty new library on Main Street.
The sweet-faced librarian is always cordial and tells you with
unmasked pride that this is the first library built of fruit and
vegetables.
But complete regeneration came not to Podunk, until the Culture Club
became an active organization, impelled forward by the brain force of
the women of the community. Given a margin of leisure, it was
demonstrated that culture will flourish as persistently in rural
districts as in city precincts. Shakespeare and Browning were not
neglected, nor were Wagner and Mendelssohn.
Nature study, Domestic Economy and Civic beautifying opened new and
broad avenues of culture, and classes in these subjects were held
every week. The women of Podunk began to know their birds and to call
them by name. The church suppers took on a new aspect, for the
dietetic unrighteousness of four kinds of cake and three kinds of
sweet pudding, at the same meal, was openly discussed and frowned
upon. Deacon Wyburn, who had a tooth sweeter even than Jack's,
declared, at first, that this was heresy that should not be allowed to
enter the sanctuary. But regeneration came to the deacon as
indigestion departed.
And all of this happened, because Jack saw the need of an emancipation
proclamation and the people of Podunk availed themselves of its
freedom. I have always said that Jack was a man among men.
Fate
Great men live in word and deed,
Tho' the hand that sows the seed
No harvest knows.
Fixed as is the rolling sea
By its bounds, so this shall be
To thee and those;
Something lost and something won
E'er the life that hath begun
For thee shall close.
--_Grace Agnes Thompson_
Out of Chicken Pie
By Helen Campbell
"The point is," said the young woman, "never to spend any time in
self-pity and never mention one of whatever afflictions may have been
apportioned to your individual self. The first takes your strength and
spoils any good work you might do. The second is a bore to your
friends and destruction to self-respect. In the first grip of things
it is possible one may send up a howl. But at that or any other time,
no matter what the impulse, Don't!"
Was she a young woman after all? For, as she brought out the "Don't!"
staccato, I looked again. Really she seemed more like a nice boy, well
up in athletics, and as far on in general college work as athletics
permit. Her hair was short, cut close to her head, yet curly, and
though rather a dark brown, yet showing gold where little tendrils had
their way, here and there, behind an ear or on her slender neck. Her
hands were small, of course, for she was a Southern woman, generations
of whom had no need to use their hands in any coarsening work, yet
could and did use them in delicate cookery, preserving, and the like,
and knew every secret of cutting and generally overseeing the garments
for a plantation. Delicately formed, straight as a dart and with the
alert expression of a champion tennis player, she stood at the gate
into the chicken-yard, and smiled a delightful smile.
"I shouldn't tell you one word," she said, "if you hadn't come from so
old a friend. Oh, privately I would tell anyone interested, but
printing is another matter. It will help, you say. I'm sure I don't
know. Perhaps, but I somehow seem to think most find out for
themselves, perhaps by a good many experiments, just what to do. But
I will tell you just how it began with me. Nellie has told you, I
don't doubt, that I was left a widow with three children. We had lived
in town, after my marriage, in a rented house. When my husband died
and I presently summed up my capital, it was, first, the children,
then, not quite two hundred dollars left in the bank after the
expenses of the long sickness and the funeral were paid. Added to this
were nine hens and a rooster that I had kept at the end of the little
garden at the back of the house, our cat and dog and about a
fortnight's supplies in the pantry. Our clothes, too, were in fair
amount and order. That was all. Lots of people came to condole with me
and tell me what to do, but not one made what seemed to me a really
practical suggestion. I knew what I could do, or thought I did, which
amounts to the same thing, if you really go ahead and do it. I did it.
"The first thing was to move into the country, where I had longed to
have the children. It isn't country now exactly, for the station is
not far away, but the house was out of repair, and I had the option of
buying it at the end of the year, if I wanted it then. The owner
couldn't do much and was glad to think it might be off his hands, and
I took it for eighty dollars a year--this to include a few repairs.
"There was a big garden, not tended for years, not a fruit tree, and
the four acres outside the fenced-in garden one mass of brush. My next
neighbor was a farmer from the North, come South for his health and
getting it, and he took an interest from the beginning; he ploughed my
land for me, and agreed to go over it with the cultivator when it was
necessary, but I must first manage to rake up and burn up all the
weeds and sticks, etc. The children helped me and we made a spree of
it. I bought a cow of him, a good one, and, as one of my hens had
begun to set on a box of nails, decided she should have eggs. He had
some fine, pure-blooded Plymouth Rocks, and mine were Wyandottes, just
as good and no fear as to crossing breeds, and so I started in. What I
was after was broilers, and if broilers wouldn't support us, why there
was something else that I felt sure would, and that was chicken pies.
You smile, but let me tell you they weren't everyday chicken pies. Our
old Dilly on my father's plantation was a champion chicken-pie maker,
in demand for every wedding and general church entertainment, and she
taught me just how, swearing me to secrecy long as she lived. So I
watched her many times, realizing, at last, that it meant using the
very choicest material straight through. No old hens simmered all day
long to make them tender. On the contrary, she demanded the choicest
broilers, and she made, not exactly puff paste but the most delicate
order of pastry to put them in. To season to a turn and with no
variation, and to have the gravy smooth and rich, these were her
secrets, and I learned them so thoroughly that after once sampling
them there was no further trouble as to orders. I sent little
individual pies to every hotel and restaurant in the city I had left.
I had bought a good cow, as I said, and soon bought another, to have
plenty of cream, for that was one important item in the pies, and as
the work got too much for me alone I presently had a girl to help, and
at last another, all of us doing steady hard work, but liking it. I
raised the chickens, you see, though I often hated to have them
killed, and by this time we had small fruits, and all that grows in a
well-kept garden. The children helped as well as went to school and
were rosy, healthy creatures, my comfort and joy, and they always
have been. I never have cleared over five hundred a year, but what
more do I need? I make ten cents clear on each individual chicken pie
and fifteen on the larger ones. Specials I make as large as people
want them, but I prefer the little ones. Three sizes are made every
day, and some families, who go away for the summer, have their chicken
pies expressed to them each week and won't do without them. Some
people fuss and say they are too rich. Others want me to charge less
and say, if I would use lard instead of butter in the pastry, I could
sell cheaper. But I answer that it is my business never to fall below
the standard. Aunt Dilly would turn in her grave if she thought her
rule was to have lard used instead of butter. I made some experiments
and found it was distinctly best to stick close to the old original
text. You can buy cheap pies anywhere and they taste cheap. These melt
in your mouth. And you ought to know that two other women in the
neighborhood have specialties, too, and I taught them, for my mother
used to make a delicious chicken jelly for sick people and one woman
does that and has a big market for it at the Woman's Exchange, and
another makes cornbeef hash for three restaurants and has all she can
do. The gist of it is _good cooking can always be made to pay_. Keep
to the best form you can find, never vary, and a living, and often
much more, is certain. When women learn that, perhaps more of them
will turn in this direction. Here is the home paid for, trees growing
and yielding, children growing too, and Tom almost ready for college,
and chicken pie has done it, and will keep on doing it, perhaps as
long as I live. At any rate I should never stop doing something as
perfectly as I could for that is half the fun of living. Don't you
think so? We keep the evenings for as much of a good time as possible.
I keep a little of my old music and play accompaniments, for Tom has
a fine baritone voice and we all sing, and Edith and her violin take
the kinks out of any day's work. We have a fair little library and do
not mean to fall behind or forget what quiet progress means. It has
been a happy life, thank God! How could it help being so, with such
children and a certain sure thing to do?"
Yes, how could it help being thus with such a spirit at work to bring
it about? That was the thought as I looked at the mother, and wished
that all dolorous and uncertain women might have the same chance.
Joining the Sunshine Circle or the Harmony Club might be the first
essential. After that things would take care of themselves.
In August
Cora A. Matson Dolson
For me a basket and a book
Where cooling hemlocks grow;
And, in the deep of wooded nooks,
The spikes of cardinal glow.
A book to bring but not to read--
Enough to know it near,
To turn a leaf I do not need,
The song is with me here.
A bird-note comes adown the wood,
It seems to stillness wed;
A tap, then gleam of scarlet hood
High in the tree o'erhead.
The Indian-pipe is waxen stemmed;
The squirrels near me play;
While on this bank by mosses gemmed
I dream the hours away.
Old Age
By Kate Gannett Wells
Old age becomes more of a problem when living in it than when viewed
afar off. It is a question of economics and ethics more than of
wrinkles. It is so easy not to mind it when well, rich and beloved; it
is so impossible not to object to it when sick, poor and unwelcome. It
creeps into almost every home and, though we try to alleviate it and
succeed to a certain extent, through affection, cookery and
cleanliness, the vast majority of the world does not know how to
manage to live on almost nothing, and yet it is upon those of small or
of no means that the support of old age presses most heavily. So love
only is left, and too often not even that.
Then one wonders if one ought to refuse marriage and devote one's self
to one's parents;--or, if married and children are many, and food and
lodgings scant, shall one also house one's aged parents? If the ethics
thereof are difficult to settle when money and space are available, it
is a hideous task for decision when both are lacking.
Nowhere does the attempted settlement to remove the stigma of
pauperism from the aged through legislation threaten to be more
puzzling than in England, where after January 1, 1911, a workhouse
inmate of above seventy years and "fairly respectable" is entitled to
leave the house and receive in lieu of its shelter five shillings a
week. Is acceptance of such pension outside of a workhouse more
honorable than being dependent on Government for support inside the
workhouse? That is the question the Old Age pensioners of England are
trying to solve. Who is going to house, feed and clothe them for five
shillings a week? What does that amount to, set against the care of an
infirm, old, undesired relative who is not wanted either for his keep
or his affection, and who will only grow older? Even as a boarder of
no kin whatever to his landlady, is he likely to be as comfortable as
in the workhouse? Startling have been some of the discoveries that
have followed upon this apparently beneficent legislation.
Well was it that Miss Edith Sellers of England, of her own free will,
visited relatives of the inmates of a London workhouse, hoping to
carry back to the latter place the joyful tidings that they were
wanted in families. Alas! out of 528 such inmates only 221 had any
relatives, and more than half of that number knew that, if they went
to their kinspeople, they would not be taken in. Some who had felt
sure of a welcome were bitterly disappointed. "Old folk give no end of
trouble; keeping them clean takes up all one's time. Besides they must
have somewhere to sleep," was generally answered. One grown-up
daughter, supporting herself, her mother and brother in two rooms, one
no better than a cupboard, grieved she could not take back her father.
Other sons and daughters, by blood or by law, waxed indignant at being
urged to receive their kinsmen, even for the sake of the shillings.
They had neither room nor food for them; each generation must care
first for its own children and not take up burdens of parents, worse
still of grandparents, aunts and cousins once gotten rid of;
especially, if they were of the drunken variety, as was too often the
case.
Fortunately Miss Sellers found a few other homes which promised to
receive a pensioner for the sake of his pension, or from real
affection. After all the bitter work-a-day life in these narrow homes,
attics, cellars, two or three rooms at most, would have been more
wretched for the pensioners to bear than their blighted hopes. "To
work a bit harder," in order to take in one's aged mother, is not
possible in thousands of cases. Better to remain a workhouse pauper
and be sure of warmth, cleanliness and food than to wander forth
uncared for or to be an unwelcome burden on an overworked child.
Therefore is it that the English Old Age Pension Act does not solve
its own problem, for the infirm or sick must still be sheltered in
some refuge which should have no workhouse taint of pauperism attached
to it.
However much there may be among us of similar reluctance to take home
aged pauper relatives, it has not yet become a matter of public
investigation, though, if it were, it is possible that there would be
as much unwillingness manifested here as in England. Certainly many of
our almshouses and homes for the aged poor suggest that there will be
the same forlorn hopes shattered, if pensions should ever be conferred
instead of legal residences in almshouses.
Fortunately for us, old age is still an individual question. All the
more, then, should elderly people not let themselves get crabbed. Of
course, if other people would not nag one with being old, one would
not be,--quite so old!
What old age, whether poor, middling or well-to-do lacks is amusement.
It is lonesome to keep jolly by remembering that one's mind ought to
be one's kingdom. Meditation is all very well, but so also is the
circus, the "greatest value of which lies in its non-ethical quality."
Even if it has its symbolism, it does not mercilessly set one to
moralizing, save as a three ring circus and a "brigade of clowns"
(the result of trying to make as much money as possible) incites to
weariness. The real "gospel of the circus" lies in its democracy, in
its revealings of the power of training on acrobats and animals
through kindly persistence, and in the mutual good will and law
abiding qualities of the household of a circus. Always has it belonged
to the people, and even ministers have not been discounted for their
attendance.
It seems a wide jump in fancy from old age to a circus, and yet to me
they are intimately connected through the dear old people, poor and
well to do, whom I have known, who found in it their objective base
for amusement. To them the clown and his jokes were links in the
spirit of human brotherhood. Alas, as a pension of five shillings a
week will not permit of the circus in its glory, old age asks for the
minor blessings of five cent shows, public parks, and good tobacco.
Just to be out doors is rejuvenating.
All the more is amusement desirable, because legislation has
undertaken to set the goal when one shall no longer work. To retire
teachers, officers, workers, merely because they are sixty-five or
seventy is an insult to human nature, which rejects any arbitrary
limit save that of incapacity. The average of average people, though
perhaps unable to earn their living after seventy, are still capable
of being occupied. Therefore let the old folks work at household and
woodshed drudgery as long as they can, however irritating their
slowness may be to the young and merciless. Let the old serve also in
semi-public ways, because of their experience, even if they are not
wanted round.
It is a common saying that it is harder to resign office at seventy
than at sixty, just because old age clings to occupation as its
protection. But if with most of us, if not with all, as the years
increase, occupation shrivels and the fads or hobbies, the solace of
earlier days, cease by their very weight to be pursued,--then may
there still be amusement provided for the elderly before they become
"Shut Ins," dependent on Christmas and Easter cards for enjoyment.
Love and Affection
By Helen Coale Crew
I love thee not, Love, though thou'rt called divine!
Thou pagan god, whose flashing fires glow
But for a season; then the winter's snow
No colder lies than ashes on thy shrine.
Thou selfish child! Ready to fret and whine
When disappointed. Wandering to and fro
In quest of joy, from flower to flower dost go
Like greedy bee upon a honeyed vine.
But thou, Affection, human art, and true!
Fitted for every day's most urgent needs;
Warm-glowing ever, all the seasons through;
Mother of tenderness and selfless deeds.
Clear-seeing thou, nor like that other blind;
Clear-burning on the hearths of all mankind.
Three Girls go Blackberrying
By Samuel Smyth
Grandpa told Mary that he saw a few blackberries in the pasture. Mary
hastened to inform Mina that there were bushels of ripe blackberries
in the pasture. Mina hurried to tell Jane, and almost breathlessly
suggested that they go and get them before anybody else found them.
Jane thought it would be more comfortable after sundown. Mina said
that they would be gone before that time, and insisted that they go at
once. Outnumbered, Jane reluctantly consented. Mary must change her
dress; so must the other two. Much time was spent in that operation,
for it included the special dressing of the hair, also. There was much
impatience manifested by Mary, the first to declare herself ready; but
after the others appeared she suddenly thought of several things that
she must attend to. At last each inquired of the others, "Well, are
you ready?"
"Yes, in a minute," said Mina. "I forgot to put on cold cream to
prevent sunburn."
"So did I," said Jane; "and, Mary, you had better use some, also, or
you will regret it."
"I think I will," said Mary; and a good half hour has passed before
they are all downstairs again, when the old question was asked again,
"Are you ready?"
"Had we better wear rubbers?" asked Jane.
"No," answered Mary, "but I am going upstairs to put on an old pair of
shoes."
"That is sensible," said Mina. "I think we all had better follow
Mary's example, as it won't take a minute."
Upstairs they all went again; much talk and another half hour passed
when each made the declaration, "Well, I am ready, are you?" with
much emphasis on the personal pronoun I.
"Are you coming with me?" said Mary, and she started in the direction
of the pasture with great animation, when Jane inquired, in a loud
voice, if she were not going to take something along to put the
berries in.
"To be sure I am. In my hurry I entirely forgot it. What shall I
take?" asked Mary.
"We ourselves have not yet decided. Which do you think would be
better, Mary, a basket or a pail?"
"I don't know and I don't care what you take, I am going to take a
paper bag," replied Mary. "It is light and convenient, and we can
easily destroy all evidence of failure in case we fail to get any
berries."
"Thank you, Mary, for the happy suggestion. We will take paper bags.
What size will be suitable?"
"I think," said Jane, "that if we each fill a flour sack, that will be
sufficient for once. It is such a job to carry so many or to make them
into jam."
"To obviate any chance for envy as to which shall gather the greatest
amount of berries, let us take along a common, large receptacle, into
which each of us shall deposit as often as our smaller vessels shall
be filled."
"That is a thoughtful and wise plan for an unambitious person. I
assent to the proposition," smilingly answered Mina.
A bushel basket was found and all agreed to take turns in carrying it
to the pasture. At last, the procession was formed, after several more
short halts for consultation and criticism, and was finally under way
for the pasture. But when in the highway, which they had to cross to
reach the same, they were accosted by two ragged boys with, "Say,
girls, do you want to buy any berries; only five cents a quart; twelve
quarts--all there were in the pasture, every one, and it's the last
picking of the season."