The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1881-06-23
ssKitchAnlIs Kind. -.

Let the phrase stand. IT there was
more of the virtue of which it is the
clumsy representative in active ex-
ercise, better-born and more
euphonious term would long since have
been invented to express it.
In this region we have suffered the
genius of machinery to invade our
hearts and our home-habits, as we'll as
our workshops and kitchens. We keep
a debit and credit account of calls with
our nearest neighbors, and discharge
social debts BY giving wholesale
"crushes'' payable semi-annually. We
no longer "run'' or "drop in'' upon
one another as leisure permits and in
clination prompts. We entertain in
due form and at stated seasons. At
Homes and Receptions are announced
to let our world know that in the
matter of hospitality we have not
suspended payment.
The principle has struck root in
cottage as in mansion. It was not from
the latter that the enfa,st terrible took
the invitation to neighbor to "come
in for sociable cup of tea" on certain
evening.
Ibid your mother say at what hour
she would expect us?" asked the hidden
guest.
"No, ma'am She only told father
that she would ask you, and get the
bother off her mind"
To borrow a saying of q former
generation-the latch-string no longer
hangs outside of the door. Sometimes
the bolt is shot on the inside. .
The hospitality of the drawing room,
always in array for company, and that
of the kitchen the warm, pulsing heart
of the home ARE very dissimilar vir-
tues. In no way can neighborly good
will testify of itself more truthfully than
in the informal interchange of the pro-
ducts of the culinary care and skill of
those who think kindly and often of
each other. What housekeeper does
not weary into appetiteless disgust of
An unbroken series of dishes ordered,
and often cooked by herself? Whose
wan face does not brighten at the I'M
expected cover sent in at breakfast,
dinner or tea-time "with love- from
the friend across the way? 1t may be
only plate of.biscuits, just drawn from
the oven, differing in nothing except
the grace of sending from those on your
own table, or a bowl of soup exquisitely
seasoned by the goodwill that brought
it over to you, or a saucer of pudding
with the dainty flavor of unaccustomed-
hess commencing it to eye and palate.
Homelier fare than your daily food is
mamma to your jaded taste in such cir
cumstances.
II tried it once with my pastors
wife," said lady to me, the other day.
IL sent her a chicken-pie at Thanks
giving, and she did not understand it
at all. She hoped-so she told friend
who told me--that did not imagine
they were too poor to buy chickens for
themselves"
"Poor pastors wifer' commented l.
"That suspicion was the fruit of
neglected neighborly education"
Each of us owes it to her friends, to
herself, and to humanity, to do all in
her power to bring her kitchen into
familiar communication and harmony
with those to the right and left of her.
Minute dots of pleasantness such offices
may be, but the succession weaves pat
terms of beauty and brightness into a
web that is apt to be tiresomely mo-
notonous and often sad colored.
Of neighborly duties to invalids, I
would fain hope that I might take up
Paurs words and say, "Ye need not
that should write unto YOU" Icould
tell, did time and space permit, many
stories commemorative of tender fideli-
tv, long continued, to the sick and suf-
fering Of other households than those
with which the ministrants were con.
nected by ties of blood and law. OF a
consumptive girl, fed from day to day
and month to month by the thought
taking of one who, on being thanked by
tho weeping mother when the need of
such care had ceased, said simply, "Did
l send something every day? l can
hardly believe it. merely took some
trife from our own table when fancied
the dear child might be longing for a
change of diet. It is part Of invalid
ism to have fancies, you know"
Of another-a wife and housekeeper
who, during an illness and GONZALES
cence that lasted three months, ate lit
orally nothing that was not sent in by
neighbors who remembered her in deeds
as in prayers. This is--with reverence
we say ia form of Christ-likeness to
which she that occupieth the room of
the unlearned may attain by the exer-
else of such gifts as are already hers.
We are in danger of looking too far
for opportunities of doing good and
communicating. In reaching for rho
dodendrous we trample down the daisies.
-Mariaaa Harla'sd, in Examiner and
Chronicle.