The National tribune., 1906-10-11
THE FAMILY.
By SENORA SARA.

or cold water, and does 1t make any
difference which you use? It certainly
does, if you want nice white potatoes
for MASKING or to serve just plain boiled
with their jackets on. First, always
soak old potatoes before you cook them
at all. Put them in cold water to soak
for an hour before you peel them, or
cook with jackets on, or bake. Wash
them very clean-use small brush
Then have water boiling hot, into which
plunge them all over: have an inch of
water above them while they boil. Po-
tatoes cooked in water that has to boil
after the potatoes are put in will be
soggy. AS soon as potatoes are tender,
pour off the water. If to be served with
jackets on, two minutes in q hot oven
in piepan makes them nice and mealy.
If to rice or just plain mash, sprinkle
salt over them after the water is poured
off, shake them around, and then mash
They should be right mealy and fine if
the potatoes We're good to start with.
1t does not pay to cook a poor Irish
potato.
Here's a thought for you to turn over
in your minds: ITO help yourself, help
Others" Does that sound paradoxical?
Well, just work at it awhile and see if
it is not all right.
HIS iioHl odHSSItT, one VI
the worlds sweetest women, is well
worth considering:
THE Seamy side of home-making
strangely enough is most often seen
where wife is too domestic. A wo-
man who lives only for her house and
for her family seldom keeps pace with
her husband and children intellectually
and alphabetically. She is so anxious
to have her table as it should be, her
iii ,ir,cy- iy,
periodical cleaning and polishing done,
that she has no time for anything else
Outside interests of some sort are nee
eSS2ry If ones mental powers are to
grow. These interests should not be.
when it can be helped, in the line of
wage-earning. Longing t. help their
husbands, women sometimes attempt
tasks beyond their strength. The ordi-
nary care of home and the manage
ment of children are enough to tax the
energies of a wife and mother, and she
should not undertake beyond these du-
ties any other work unless there is real
need. Our children receive the impress
sion of our breadth or narrowness, and
they are the better for having in the
home some one who is not always hur-
ried and worried, but who has leisure
to listen to them when they have little
trials and plenty of time to share their
joys"
mice" woman cannot bring herself
to sprinkle clothes as a Chinaman does,
even though he gets the water on even
ly-that is, by filling his mouth with
water and squirting it over the clothes.
But | know one who bought herself 4
long, rather osely-put-togcther whsk
broom. This she keeps very clean when
not in use. To use she has pan IF
water, and dips the broom in that and
then shakes it over her clothes. It
sprinkles them nicely.
If you want a "scraper' for pots, kct-
ties and pans, try on oyster or clam
shell. Get nice clean one with smooth
edges. 1t will not break easily. does
not rust, and you can easily keep it
washed clean.
Busy h3usemother. in buying your
new furniture be careful to get as Sc
verely plain woodwork as possible. You
will find it perfect joy to keep it pol
ished up. Carved wood, IL machine
turned, is an inartistic dirt gatherer,
and it is almost impossible to keep it
clean. If you are wise. you will also
avoid brass bedsteads They are
simply the limit for making work 1t
is very hard to keep them bright and
shining, and they are sight" If you
do not keep them bright. If you want
a bedstead that is easy to keep clean,
get an iron one that is painted. You
can clean it with coal oil, gasoline or.
turpentine by simply rubbing down, and
you can paint it over again if it gets
SCARED.
A pound of pluck is worth a ton of
luck.
There is another USE for coal oil that
is quite as valuable as any that has
been mentioned. If the children get
vermin in the hair at school, just take
a small cloth, saturate it with coal oil,
and with that youngster between your
knees rub his hair and scalp till the
hair is well saturated. You will prob
/ ably only have to do this once. Next
day brush and comb the kidlet we'll,
and his head will be free from vernin.
| Down in Georgia they are rejoicing
| because they have a law which forbids
| the putting of children under-well,
possibly it is IL years of age-in the
cotton mills or at any other work that
will keep them out of school, and a
current magazine has pictures of little
girls Of five who have thus been kept
out of the mills. and who can now go
! to school. Oh, the pity of It, A five
| yearold child in school, 1t is positively
criminal. Almost as bad as putting the
wean in a factory for eight and 10 hours
a day. Surely, surely it isn't necessary
to put little child like that at work.
| Why not let 1t have a chance TO eat and
sleep and grow? 1t seems such pity
that children should be made wise"
SO early in life these days. 1t used not
| to be so, and / may be old-fashioned,
| but it seems to me as / look back that
| the men and women who got little
| "schooln' and lots IF play, who had to
| walk two miles to school. sweep, dust
and make the fires after they got there,
to help the teacher, who boarded round
and got $40 a month. made the strong
est and the brightest men and women,
after all. No child should be cooped
up in the house eight and 10 hours a
day. 1t should be outdoors racing in
the fresh air. studying birds and bees
and flowers. learning natures great les
sons; learning to be kind and gentle
with dumb brutes. which helps 1t to be
kinder to its own. 1t should fly kites
and play mumbly-peg, marbles, hop
skip-and jump-any old thing that will
work it's legs and stir its blood and keen
its muscles stretched to a tension that
/ induces growth. School is all right in
the proper time. AT 10, say, with some
judgment, and thinker that has been
i working overtime, the child will learn
more in one year than in four if sci
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