The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1873-02-27

| her TO make some eXert0ns She went
into housework with a will, equally
pleased and surprised to find herself really
good for something. Ned helped her all
periments of what Ned called the "new
girls"
| One day, Susan decided to have baked
beans for dinner. She put something like
two quarts boiling. BY and by, looking
| in the pot, she was dismayed to find it
| full of beans to the brim. She took out
nearly half, but still the beans continued
to swell beyond her widest forbodings.
Ned came in to dinner to find an immense
dish of beans crowning the dinner-table,
| while several pans of the same agreeable
edibles, in various stages of doneness,
| were standing around the kitchen.
"Whe-cw!" exclaimed Ned. "You're
good provlder,' Sue, but seems to me
| you are rather OVERRIDING this bean busi-
ness. feel about beans as the old lady's
hired man did about liver. He liked it
well enough for 80 or 60 days, but didn't
| care about it for steady diet"
"Don't laugh, Ned" said poor Sue,
looking anxious and exhausted. "I've
had really dreadful time with the things.
| positively believe three beans would
have been enough"
Susan usually had very good success
d
an unforeseen complication. The sponge
had soured in the night.
"Ned," she said, "did you ever notice
how much soda mother uses when the
sponge is sour? Pm sure don't know"
''NOr [. guess she just stirs it in till it
tastes all right"
she put in large tea-spoonful of soda.
Then she and Ned both tasted and smelt
it.
"'Taint right yet," said Ned, with an
air of wisdom and experience. dab in
some more"
In went another spoonful. Another
testing by the cooks.
SIT tastes smarty," said Sue. "I be-
lieve shall put in another spoonful"
After getting in four spoonfuls, they
concluded it would "do."
The bread came out of the oven deep
yellow-brown in hue. and eXhaling an
overpowering odor of soda. Sue made
biscuit for tea, and the pigs reveled in
new bread for supper that night. Ned,
being implicated swore solemn secrecy
and as he used afterward triumphantly to
observe, sit didn't kill the pigs, either"
But Susan's experiences were not all so
disastrous. Mrs. Whitaker was quite
astonished to see how well things went
on. She really began to think Susan was
notable housekeepers as Mrs. Whitaker
are apt to be "natural cooks" Order
and method is the rule of the house, and
they adopt, instinctively, mothers way"
of doing things. A certain deftness and
skill is hereditary with them. Perhaps,
if Susan had, as she sometimes wished i'm
the old dreamy days, been an "author-
ess," her proudest triumphs would have
given her no. deeper thrill of pleasure
than when her father said
"Susan, this is really capital squash
pie. If your mother don't look out,
you'll beat her yet. Just give me another
piece"
One day Ned astonished Sue with a
bona fide compliment.
"You're growing handsome, Sue" said
Sue thought ned was making fun OF
her, thereby, for once, doing him an in
justice. For there is no surer cosmetic
and beautifler than housework, when not
carried to excess. No amount of dumb
bells, hesh-brushes, constitutional"
walks and drives gives the energy, the
brisk circulation, the cheerful tone to
body and mind that comes from the vigo-
rous, varied exercise of house-work. Sue
flew briskly around the house now,
singing as she made beds upstairs,
with the fresh morning air sweeping
breezily through the open windows, now
sweeping the sitting room, now kneading
dough, now out in the gHrden for vege-
tables, all this varied work bringing ev-
cry muscle into play the more healthily,
because not done deliberately and with
"malice aforethought."
"How do you feel, to-day. Susan"
queried Mrs. Whitaker, anXiously.
81 really don't know, mother" re-
piled Susan laughingly. 81 haven't had
time to Think
And so Sue had grown plump and rosy,
had buoyant step, light and sparkle
in her eyes, the radiance In looks and
spirit that comes from a sound mind in a
sound body.
One Monday, Sue was in the clothes
yard, trying to hang out the clothes. Sue
was short, and the line high up, and the
wind blowing a gale. 1t certainly was
provoking wind. 1t blew Sues sun-bon-
net off, and her curly brown hair into all
sorts of wild tangles and tousles, and the
table-cloth she was trying to hang up
kept tapping back all over her. Sue stood
on tiptoe, straining her arms up, and
struggling in vain with the refractory
table-cloth.
"Let me help you, Susan" said a
| pleasant, manly voice.
of the table-cloth, to find Charlie
Goodman beside her. Charlie was
working in his south lot, which Joined
the Whitakers' garden, and seeing his
neighbours distress had come to the res
cue, like the kind-hearted fellow he was.
"Oh, thank you, Charlie" said Sue,
with perhaps more color in her cheeks
than the wind was solely responsible for.
1t was so vexations to be caught looking
so! And Sue fastened to roll down her
sleeves, and conceal her bushes under her
sun-bonnet, while Charlie hung up the Ia
ble-cloth, and let the line down within
her reach.
1t is as pleasant for woman to be
helped, as for man to help. She felt
quite glow of gratitude to Charlie.
SHOW nice it is to be tall J" she said
"I'm ever so much obliged to you"
sNot at all. Pm glad to do it. A little
body like you ought always to have tall
man round somewhere handy, to helr
her." said Charlie, looking not unad
miringly down on the flushed face anG
tangled brown curls under the sun-bon
net.
"Nonsense, Charlie!" laughed Sue
slyly, STOPPING to'pick up a clothes-pin.
Charlie went back to his work wonder
ing he had never noticed before what s
pretty girl Sue Whitaker was.
Somehow, Charlie found great deal tt
do in the south lot, that fall. Any de
ficiency on his part, hitherto, in "notic
ing" Susan, was more than atoned fol
now. He always had an eye out in tn,
direction of the Whitaker mansion. Tn,
number of errands he discovered tina
necessitated his 'just running over
there, was really surprising. OF course