The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1881-07-23
Small Things.


A knowledge of many little facts that
are not always to be had Systematically
laid down in books, but which descend
additionally from mother to daughter
by word of mouth, as the unwritten
music of the songs of Shakespeare de-
sends from actress to actress, is often
more useful to the sorely bestead young
house-mistress than all the Latin and
mathematics that she learned at school
can be. She may know how to play
BeethoVen'S sonatas so as to hold
drawing-room breathless and entranced,
but it stands her poorly if, while she
plays, a great ink spot on the drawing
room carpet stares her in the face, that
she does not know how to wash out
with milk, and clean up afterward with
warm and nice soap-suds, or a grease
spot that could have been absorbed out
Of existence by frequent applications of
magnesia or of buckwheat flour, if she
had only known enough to sprinkle it
abundantly on the spot, and brush it off
9fterward. What does it benefit her
chat her wit and ready repartee can
Keep whole dinner table gay, while
the fine cookery, that at no end of
trouble she has taught her cook, keeps
them contented, if the company are
forced all the time to be nervously fiirt-
dng fans and napkins and adiectives
against the pestiferous flies that she
could have driven away by leaving in
She room, an hour or so beforehand, a
little preparation of equal quantities of
cream and brown sugar, and half as
Oluch black pepper, had her mother
ever known as much, or thought to tell
her of itP OF what use is it to her, liy-
ing possibly far from bakeries and bread
shops, to keep crackers, for instance, in
She house, if she has never learned how
70 freshen them by leaving them for
three minutes in hot oven, or to pre-
vent their being nibbled all over by
ants by strewing the store-room shelves
with few cloves, occasionally renewed?
Such things are tribes, each one by
itself, of course, but half a hundred
such things can contribute very materi-
ally so comfort and good nature in a
family.
hf the knowledge that the steam of
green tea will revive her rusty black
lace, and make it as fresh as new, has
not descended to her, of what good is it
that the lace hasP Or why should she
have a costly bit of the beautiful Brus-
sells lace in her keeping if nobody has
ever told her to shut it away from the
air or from any peculiarly strong per-
funnel She will spend more presently
in frequent repairs and redressings than
the lace cost in the first place. She can
afford possibly to weargold embroidery,
in au era of gliding, if she knows enough
to clean it, when it furnishes, with a
Crush dipped in burned and pulverized
rock-alum; and she may be splendid
and graceful in long, white ostrich
plumes that would need as long purse
90 provide frequently if she had not
seen them dipped again in the thick
warm lather of curd soap, then rinsed
and dried, and curled over a knitting.
kneedle before the fire.
What right has she to be the head OF
family if she is not sufficiently mistress
of herself and of a few surgical facts to ar
rest the bleeding of cut limb by TIGHT
Bigature between the cut and the pulsinp
heartP---if she does not know that ALWAYS
handy mustard and water will empty
the stomach that has received poison, or
that the white of an egg when admins
tered internally will transform swal-
sowed corrosive sublimate with its dead.
gy torture into the simple salvation OF
blue massp-if she can not distinguish
between apoplexy and drunkenness by
knowing that the whole limb will con
Vuisively withdraw in the former case il
Che sole of the foot be tickled, and doe:
not then further know that the clothing
must be at once loosened, and blister,
be applied to the calves of the legs, the
pit of the stomach, and the back of the
neck? If she be a pioneers wife, il
would be ~, useful thing for her to re
member that, when her grandmother
was q pioneers wife before her, sht
SounG pine sawdust nearly as good a,
soap with which to wash her linen.
A myriad such small things as thes,
might be supposed to form necessary
parts of the education of all women; bu
in realitynot even a small fraction o
either facts or women are acquainted
with each .otheHsv Few wives know how
TO take the white spots out Of their ole
mahogany, the stain Of their artificial
roses frorao their light silks, to eleal
their iiligree silver, to choose a genuine
silk, to make their own bandoline, O
even more imperative things than an,
such as these. ~ ,
OF course they may never have ligh
silks or filigree silver, or use bandoline
aud Of course it's impossible all at ono
10 make one's mind an encyclopndia n