American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1873-10-18

| would be horriAel / sometimes think
we rtaF come 10 want as Il punishment"
We'll, we won't waste any more. In six
! lessons you can learn to make as good
bright woman | think You are. SO this
week we will make bread every day. pf
course we cannot eat 1t all, but what We
don't want we vii! give % the poor"
And SO eyeiy day sat by the table and
gave belle instructions, while the pretty
hands, which even hard work could not
deface, nodded the inaves which came
out of the oven snowy within, Il delicate
| brown without-the sweet and Odorous
staff of life. Saturday l left her to her
own devices, and | don't believe she
blushed more which Harry proposed to
/ her than when he gave her that highest
! praise d man can offer: This is just as
good as my mothers" Poor Harry what
| a digestion he must have had to begin
with, and what bette mir my mothers
| bread" is to many young housekecperi
So here was one great trouble disposed
of. Like many other troubles in life, it
needed only to be grappled with and II
disappeared.
But how, in the meantime, did 1t fare
with the order of the house?
| Disorder is chronic trouble, and, like
many other chronic troubles, sometimes
needs sharp alternative to break it up.
! dlttTHObH SslH SoutctllllS III
| the parlor which made me sit down and
think little. The result was note,
| thus:
DEAR HARRY: VIII you come down TO the
house house as soon as you can conveniently In great
Down came Harry at pace like the
lope of California horse. Breathless he
rushed in.
| as Belle sicks'
"No.'' 1 replied; "but come into the
parlor a moment"
Now that he was here, | confess l was
a little afraid of the result. Men have so
much amour pr0pre, and do so hate to be
made ridiculous, that l felt as if l had
| drawn the elephant in rattle, and didn't
| know what to do with it.
Harry" said |, severely, "you remem-
Der our compact, and the duty of parents
&c set a good example,"
81 could see a glimmer of suspicion in
his face. Then / made a desperate
plunge.
Look over on the sofa. l 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, III pay you for this, if l live
The idea of getting a man home from his
Office to hang up his overcoat. What
will you bet that you don't catch me
again?'
"Betl You are demoralizing. 1 have
| lived in New York, and seen Jerome
Park; have been in Saratoga, and heard
about the races, but | never made bet
However, just to make up with you
Harry, Ill bet the price of that new China
set which Belle looked at so longingly
the other day.
Every 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 a cornucopia
of potatoes Ia Saratoga" and enter
tanned IA 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 a civilized, cult
waited man. No; the original potato is
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
lapor-saving institution; so, one day, /
took Il basket and disappeared When |
returned with it full, Belle looked up
aghast.
My goodness, are we to have a reri-
| ment for dinner?" said she.
No, replied, this is for the week.
One journey for fourteen"
Bellies eyes sparkled with a new
thought Once plant the germ of fore
thought in n woman's mind, and it will
| blossom out in a 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 il to us the
next day, and we found it source of solid
comfort; but, alas. | lost my standing
with the Hoosier.
That evening, when he went home to
"bacon and greens, y" 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 ocomdn to be telling IL
nun how to make things, somehow seemed
to him agin nater.''
One more experiment, and that is all
The rest were like unto them. Go0d cot
fee is a drink fit for the gods. believe it
as the original nectar; but poor coffee,
alas! if the deities, in that 0tter place, do
have anything to assuage their thirst, it
must be that 1t is such punishment to
drink it,
Now, Belle" said I, one morning,
coffee" Belle looked subdued at once
as If She expected a little more chemistry,
but l spared her. Give good coffee,
properly roasted and ground, plus boiling
water, and subtle something which
Sambo called de know how and the re
suit must bc-nectar. SO this week we
hDNra r.. for,