OUB COUNTBY’S CAUSE
BY M. J . M. S
War's cruel ploughshare cleaves the lanil
In furrows wide and deep;
J4uch furrow is a hallowed grave
Where our loved heroes sleep.
Hut all the seed we're planting now
In weariness and pain,
Shall, at the harvest-time bring forth
Fair lields of priceless grain!
Our hearts are saddened by the sight
Of sick and wounded men ;
It seems as though (lod's summer air
Could ne'er be pure again.
But side by side with war's dark sins
Man's noblest virtues shim*,
And woman’s sweet compassion beams
With lustre half divine.
Sweet Mother Earth with tender care
Covers her wounds with flowers,—
And we would learn her loving art
For these deep wounds of ours.—
For though our griefs must inly bleed
Through many a coming year,
Each sorrow makes our country's cause
To patriot hearts mure dear.
DM 01 GREAT CENTRAL IR.
What is Seen and Done There—Reports
autl Gossip;
milE rush to the Fair was greater yesterday
-A- than any former day. The ticket sellers
were kept as busy as so many financial bees
hiving the green-backs, which are to go
towards the funds of the Sanitary Commission.
In all the avenues and departments there were
throngs of delighted visitors, and a good busi
ness was done all around. We continue our
notice of the Fair, and the matters and things
conhectcd therewith.
THE PENNSYLVANIA KITCHEN,
The Executive Committee of the Great Cen
tral Fair did a sagacious thing when they
placed Mrs. 11. I\ M. Biukenbink at the head
of the ladies’ branch of the committee to get
up a Pennsylvania Kitchen. The lady named
not only aided in the work of getting up the
kitchen, hut she has proved a host in keeping
it “up,” a task not less important than the
primary organization of the institution. In
the first place, we have a large room, “white
washed with blue,” or with some other color.
The prudent people, whose social and do
mestic habits the kitchen is designed to illus
trate, know nothing of wall paper, and they
are not at all familiar with fresco painting, but
they have a taste for art —cheap art—a love
of art which prompts them to cut a raw potato
into a diamond or a heart-shape, and having
dipped their carved esculent in whitewash, to
proceed to embellish the walls with a variety
of small daubs which faintly suggest promis
cuous in-door snowballing, with considerable
eccentricity in respect to form upon the part
of the snowballs. In this style of high (Dutch)
art, the walls of the Pennsylvania Kitchen are
Oitb ID.a.iXi-2- Pabb.
adorned, and we accept the described condi
tion of things as a judicious step towards the
preservation of the unities in respect to white
and other washes.
At one end of our kitchen there is a mam
moth stone fire-place, with its chimney corner
capacious enough to afford shelter for half a
dozen shivering mortals of a cold night,
when the old dame is busy with her spin
ning, and the young Frauleins, who are not
“sparking,” are busy with their apple-paring,
stocking-knitting, or netting, and other use
ful employment. There swings a crane with
its pendant pot-hooks and hangers, and be
low are the huge old andirons which used to
grace all family hearths in the days before
hickory had become obsolete, and ere oak
had yielded the palm to anthracite. Over the
mantel hangs the trusty rifle, and upon the
mantel-piece itself there are brass candle
sticks, snuffers, and other traces of the happy
age before tallow candles had succumbed to
gas at three dollars per thousand feet, and
Government tax added.
Our Pennsylvania Kitchen affords evidence
of prospective good cheer in the gammons that
adorn its walls ; the dried beef promises well,
while stalwart sausages and able bodied pud
dings, mingled with strings of dried apples
or “sclinitz,” in festoons, give evidence of
abundance.
There is necessarily a little blending of the
parlor with the kitchen in this department.
The corner-cupboard glistens with rare china,
every hit of which is at least a hundred years
old, and some of it dating back, probably, for
twice or thrice that period. Then there is the
dresser, with its wealth of polished pewter
platters, its tidily scrubbed shelves, and all
over proclaiming Berks county in the most
unmistakable —though silent—Pennsylvania
Dutch. The ancient clock, the quaint old
chair, the spinning-wheels, with their venera
ble manipulation, the largo family hible, the
flax hackling and “cards,” all the labor of
Berks county.
And, by the way, we would hazard a trifle
against a handful of “sclinitz,” that Mrs.
Biukenbine lias some mysterious agency wi'h
“Old Berks,” judging from the fact that that
productive locality sends regularly down to
our Great Sanitary Fair huge supplies of rea
dy-made bread, (and bread, too, that is worthy
of the name,) with gammons, eggs, tongues,
ready-made noodles, dried beef, and the inevi
table “ schnitz.” In point of fact, Beading,
which is the representative of Berk’s County,
in the furnishing of these welcome supplies,
has done so well in the noble Sanitary cause
that we have almost promised ourselves to
never again poke fun at the bad English and
worse Dutch of Berk s countians, or to assert
that they are still voting, every four years, the
out and out, unsplit Jackson-ticket for the
Presidency.
There are no table cloths in the Pennsylva
nia kitchen; napkins are tabooed, and silver
forks are not recognized. We have in their
place pine tables, scrubbed as clean as a Hol
lander's door-step, and food as wholesome
and scrupulously tidy as the boards they are
served upon. There is a hill of tare in sound
Pennsylvania Deutsch, which we would here
publish, had it not already appeared in our
columns among the observations of “Sergeant
Miller.”
If any lady or gentleman with a mind to
try some “Dampf-knauf uml Schnitz,” is dis
posed to invite our opinion concerning that par
ticularly Teutonic dish, we can only fall back
upon a sort of a Tootsish conclusion, and ex
press the conviction that it is very nice, judg
ing from analogy, anil considering the fact
that some waffles and cheese-cake which Mrs.
BiiiKiNiiiNF. insisted upon making the l’elion
to the Ossa of a very good dinner, which we
had already enjoyed in the Restaurant de
partment, were very good, and quite up to the
old home standard, which is sufficient praise.
The Pennsylvania Kitchen is doing a very
large and rapidly increasing business. Its
excellent, cooking facilities, which are in the
rear of the Stone Chimney already described,
are full and complete, and experts from “Old
Berks” preside at the spit and the watlle-iron.
In the kitchen proper the gues’s are waited
upon by fair young
‘•Maidens with their kiith s short.
An«l goldon bnilkinccl hair.'’
They arc volunteer ai»U, who assume the
dress of the locality they represent, and who,
like all other right-minded persons, think all
sacrifices light that are made in the holy
cause in which they are engaged.
DELAWARE
This State has done nobly. Small as she is,
her contribution to the great cause is varied
and interesting. Feeling deeply for the sol
diers battling for the country, and the perpe
tuity of its institutions, her citizens have come
forward and joined hands in their endeavor
to add to the treasury of the Sanitary Com
mission. Delaware has regiments in the field
who have reflected credit upon their State,
and her soldiers are among the most trust
worthy in the army of the Potomac. While
these veterans are at the front, tlicir friends
at home have not been unmindful of their in
terests, and in addition to the liberal contri
butions in cash to the Sanitary and Chris
tian Commissions, the collection of articles in
the Great Central Fair will net a handsome
sum in aid of the Holy work. Truly, “ The
Blue lien will Protect Her Chickens.”
The display by Delaware is on Eighteenth
street, and south of Union avenue, and it in
cludes an Art Gallery, a Department of Arms
and Trophies, and another of Relies and Cu
riosities, in addition to the large collection of
fancy and useful articles temptingly arrayed
for sale.