Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1873-10-23

bright woman / think you are. So this
week we will make bread every day. OF
course we cannot eat it all, but what we
don't want we will give 10 the poorn
And so every day sat by the table and
gave belle instructions, while the nrettv
hands, which even hard work could not
deface, nodded the leaves which came
out of the oven snowy within, a delicate
brown without-the sweet and odorons
staff of life. Saturday left her to her
own devices, and | don't believe She
blushed more when Harry proposed to
her than when he gave her that HIGHEST
praise man can offer: s'This is lust as
good as my mothers" Poor Harryl what
digestion he must have had to begin
with, and what bette NOR my mothers
bread' is to many young housekeeper!
30 here was one great trouble disposed
OF. Like'many other troubles in life. it
needed only to be grappled with and it
disappeared.
But how, in the meantime, did it fare
with the order of the house?
Disorder is a chronic trouble, and. like
many other chronic troubles, sometimes
needs sharp Alternative to break it up.
Tuesday afternoon / saw something in
the parlOr which made me sit down and
think little. The result was note
thus:
DEAR HARRY: VIII you come down to the
haste as soon as you can conveniently In great
Down came Harry at a pace like the
lope OF California horse Breathless he
rushed in. :.
as Belle sick?"
''No," l replied; 'but come into the
parlOr moment"
Now that he was here, l confess was
a little afraid of the result. Men have so
much amour propre, and do so hate to be
made ridiculous, that l felt as if had
drawn the elephant in a rattle, and didn't
know what to do with it,
Harry" said l, severely, ''you remem-
Der our compact, and the duty of parents
to set a good example?''
II could see a glimmer of suspicion in
his face. Then l made desperate
plunge.
Look over on the sofa. I only sent for
you to hang up your overcoat."
Pause, awful to me, while Harry vi
brated between anger and merriment
Finally, good fellow that he was, he sat
back in his chair and laughed heartily.
kitty, I'll pay you for this, if l live
The idea of getting man home from his
office to hang up his overcoat, What
will you bet that you don't catch me
again?'
Bet. You are demoralizing. I have
lived in New York, and seen Jerome
Park; l have been in Saratoga, and heard
about the races, but never made a bet.
However, just to make up with you,
Harry I'll bet the price of that new China
set which Belle looked at so longingly
the other day"
VERY WELL" said Harry; "but you see
If she gets it,"
After this it was a source of much
silent amusement to Belle and myself to
see Harry every morning, sauntering care
lessly around the room, as if he had no
object whatever, but slyly looking out of
the corners Of his eyes to see if anything
Of his was astray, and the bouncing upon
the offending article, like the eagle upon
his prey. lost my bet
And now descend we, at one full swoop,
from esthetics to-pOtatOes.
Perhaps you know very little about
these except in their daintiness. You
may have driven out from your hotel this
summer and returned with d cornucopia
Of potatoes la Saratoga" and enter
tanned kind of dim fancy, if you have
thought of it all, that they grow in some
such mysterious way; but the original
article is no more like their crisp, brown,
brittle bits of deliciousness than the orig
inal ''What is IT, is like civilized, cult
waited man. No; the original potato is a
dirty, ugly tuber, with its mother earth
clinging closely around it, and needs
divers and sundry operations before it can
be presented to your artistic eyes.
We had made out regular bill of fare,
and on this bill figured the esculent afore-
said, twice day, breakfast and dinner.
So fourteen times a week Belle was in the
habit of disappearing in the nethermost
regions with a little pan, which she filled
with the ugly, dirty thing, and then sub
jected to the wearisome preparatory pro-
cesses.
Now, New England housekeeper is a
labor-saving institutions; so, one day, |
took basket and disappeared. When
returned with it full, Belle looked up
aghast
MY goodness, are we to have regi-
ment for dinner?' said She
mo, l replied, this is for the week.
One journey for fourteen"
Bellies eyes sparkled with new
thought. Once plant the germ of fore
thought in a woman's mind, and it will
blossom out in thousand unexpected
ways.
But there is one thing in housekeeping,
before which the most New England-like
faculty must stand abashed; there is no
laying that spectre" who is continually
asking for "clean dishes"
The gods On Olympus, it is said, toss
aside their goblets, and take fresh ones
every time; but poor mortals cannot do
that, and so comes the inevitable soap and
water But one can be helped through
the process, and so one day [ walked out
to the shop of kind Of halfway Hoosier
carpenter, and gave him directions for
making a dish-drainer-a thing he had
never heard Of. He brought it to us the
next day, and we found it a source ofsolid
comfort; but, alas l lost my standing
with the Hoosier.
That evening, when he went home to
''bacon and green's" for the third time that
day, he told his wife, who, with kind con-
sideration, managed to send it along to
me, that
Them Yankee girls was powerful cute,
but he didn't think he should want emo
for wife He'd ruther have one OF 'or-
nary kind. For aoOnaan to be telling a
man how to make things, somehow seemed
to him agin mater"
One more experiment, and that is all.
The rest were like unto them. Good cot
fee is drink fit for the gods. believe 1t
is the original nectar but poor coffee,
alas, if the deities, in that other place, 40