Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1880-08-04
Chips from the Waste Basket.

Chips from the Waste Basket.
have Just been reading the household
department in the last FREEMAN.
have read it every week, Mr.. Editor. and
it strikes me that the editor is getting
rather personal in his remarks, when he
says, Yes, you are the very one | mean
sit down and write about it." it really
looks as if he meant somebody, so | sit
myself down " to write about it,"
Now, why our wise editor should be
exercised in his mind over the fact that
we housekeepers don't pour in upon his
devoted head perfect avalanche of que
ries and questions, receipts for pound cake
and pickles, baby's collie and blackberry
JAM all at a moments notice, as it were,
is rather mysterious to me,
This is busy season of the year, Mr..
Editor, and you men recognize the fact in
regard to matters out of doors, but seem
to ignore the same fact in regard to the
labors of your better halves" When
the thermometer is up rambling about
among the nineties, as it has been | don't
know how many days this summer,
and we are steamed over the wash tub,
broiled over the ironing table and done
brown cooking the dinners for husbands
and hired men, until we long, like Sidney
Smith, to "take off our flesh and sit n
while in. our bones" isn't it rather unrea-
sonable to expect us to WELD our pens rs
vigorously as we are obliged to our
brooms. especially when what little vigor
the ironing and cooking had left US has
been expended in welding said broom
and the dish-cloth?
Now, just have little patience with US,
Mr.. Editor. and keep that household
department running in good order-il
isn't half as much work to run one on
paper as it is practically-and when we
have less butter to make and our fruits are
picked and canned, when we have sufli-
GENTLY discussed the presidential cand-
dates and decided whether our worser
halves shall vote for Garfield or Hancock,
then we will deluge you with recipes and
patterns, queries and answers till you are
fain to cry. enough.
wish that some of the correspondents
of the ladies department of the old
Vermont Farmer might be among your
readers, and doubtless some there are,
and that your appeal may rouse them into
contributing something to make this
/" household department interesting,
something like our department in the old
Vermont Farmer in its best days, before
much editing had killed it. l was not alone,
as am assured, in my enjoyment of those
columns of original contributions.
like your clippings from Fanny Field S
contributions to the Ohio Farmer; she is
sensible as well as spicy, hut am afraid
you left out some of that article about
washing, for really can't make out from
what you gave us how she manages hers
to get it out SO quickly, us she seems to
rather ignore washing machines and
washing fluids. My experience has not
been quite like hers in regard to washing
machines. | have tried three different
kinds all of which were helpful, but the
one we are now using is the best 1t is
called the prairie washer" | think, and
though it does require some strength, it is
much easier than the rubbing board for me
| to use and more expeditions. If one only
has man available for an hour or two il
is a great help to be sure, but we very sci.
dom have the available man, SO we run
our own machine, and think it much
easier than the old way of doing all the
rubbing, article by article, by hand
l wish | could thank Fanny Field in
person for her womanly defence of those
who do hard and uncongenial work, not
because they like it, but because it needs
to be done | have sometimes thought
that the housckeeper who has to cook the
dinner when she would like to be writing
" that article for the paper, who has to
wash dishes when she longs to be reading
the last magazine or new book, scrubs the
floors when all the nine muses. are dancing
through her head with "thouohts that
breathe and words that burn" needs as
much courage and more self'denial than
the man who commands an army.
The woman who has refined and luxu-
rlous tastes, with no means to CRAFTY
them, who spends the time when she longs
to be ftshioning some dainty article OF
beauty in mending Young hopeful's pants
and pater families tattered hose, fights
harder and more noble battles than ever
Napoleon won.
How many women there are who are
denounced as shftless and as having no
faculty, when all the trouble with themsis
they are in the wrong places; there are
too many of the round people crowded
lhlO Slutlc COIHeIS anu vice versa. But
if round people will persist in putting
themselves into square corners, or are
crowded into them by force Of circum-
stances over which they have no control,
it Is much wiser and Drawer to make them
selves as square us possible, and not be
continually frotting and crying out that
their corner don't fit them. And it is
quite possible to gradually change our
corners, little at time, so that they may
become quite symmetrical. 1t is the little
things that in the aggregate make our
home and surroundings pleasant or other
wise. There are many things that cost
little in money, and not too much time,
that help to make our home attractive and
homelike. There are none so Door that
they cannot brighten their windows with
few pots of blooming plants.
The handsomest ornament that ever
graced my sittingroom was box of wan,
dering jew that hung between the two
south windows, quite at the top, and "A
thick, pendant mass of green branches
and leaves reached nearly to the floor
This plant does not like much sun, and the
light was quite strong enough between
these windows for it to thrive.