The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1901-07-16

No girl can consider herself ready
so be a really first class hOusekeeper
on her own account, even though she
may have graduated, so to speak, in
q course of cookery lectures and
even learned to apply her knowledge
practically, unless she has also mas
tered the intricate mysteries of do
ing up her future husbands shirts.
This ought she to do and not to leave
the other uudone. Many girls will
say at once that they do not expect
to have such work TO do. Possibly
not but for all that there are sew
eral reasons which make that by no
means general feminine accomplish
ment, a par ticularly desirable, If not
necessary one. Apart from the fact
shat one of the most fascinating quail
tiles of the typical American girl,
rich or poor, is her ability to turn
her hand TO anything in an emer-
gency, and to turn it etfectually,
nobody knows when tickle fortune
may frown on her quOndam ~favorltes
and leave them stranded. Then
again few ladies can get their ser
wants to do things exactly right IN
less they are able to teach them pre-
Cisely how to do it, and show that
they understand the process thor
oughly themselves.
There is not many an American
husband who would not be especially
pleased to know that his wife was
smart enought to do up his shirts
herself, if need were, and would
probably rate that accomplishment
even higher in the scale than the
one of being able to sing a few fash
ionable songs passably we'll. Not
shat the two are by any manner
Of means incompatible, but the first
may be learned with far less expen-
diture of time and money than the
second.
ANY I R CAN MASTER HIS ACCOM-
PLIsHMENT.
Still the ability to conquer that
bugbear of the home laundress (as it
has always been considered) does not,
as is the case with everything really
worth knowing, come by nature
without d little ~painstaking, prac-
ice and due attention TO detail. But
any girl who is willing to bestOw d
tithe of the time and attention she
devotes to matters of really far less
permanent Importance will easily
master this desirable accomplish
ment. Who has not seen her broth
ers fret and fume over shirts indiff-
6rently Numbered, cOnsigning them
ruthlessly anew to the wash, despite
she well-meaning efforts of the
house girl? For there are often
times and places where it is not cOn-
venient to send linen to a distant
steam laundry.
1t is straege how few laundresses,
sven when they can do a thing per
fectIy themselves, are able to explain
so anyone else exactly how it is
done. They leave so much to the
imagination, usually slack and IN
tutored in such matters. We have
all noticed this if we have ever
tried to get an old darkey cook to
explain to Us the mysteries of some
particularly appetizing dish, which
she makes without a recipe. Even
in getting ones own grandmother,
who has in all probability knitted
hundreds of pairs of socks in her
life, to teach one how to turn a heel,
it is pretty much the same seeming
" imD0ssible matter.
THE SHIRT BOARD.
To begin, then, without taking the
slightest detail for granted the shirt
BOARD, which is best made of syca
3Ore or some similar wood, should
% sixteen by eleven inches in size,
And about an inch thick covered