Sm————
MY LAST
More years ago than I can state
(Or would divulge if I were able)
It was my privilege and fate ‘
To worship the enchanting Mabel.
She was a maid of sweet fifteen;
Blue-eyed and flaxen as a fairy
‘Was Mabel; as a rule I lean
To something darker, but I vary.
And for a while we lived enrapt
In our young loves, and all was jolly;
Till I was shamefully entrapped
By one who bore the name of Molly.
For Molly’s eyes were black as ink;
And Molly’s hair was deepest sable;
t pains me even now to think
How badly I behaved to Mabel.
But I was doomed to pay the price,
For Molly proved both false and giddy;
gave her some sincere advice
Once, and was jilted for a middy.
Oh, bitter, bitter was my cup!
I almost felt like one demented;
I hardly cared for bite or sup
Till I saw Mabel, and repented.
But Mabel’s wrath was undisguised,
She was distinctly cold ‘and haughty;
I told her I apologized,
I owned that I was very naughty.
I left no stone unturned to woo
The suffrage of her tender mercies;
I wrote her letters not a few,
And some extremely poignant verses.
ILLUSION.
Tears, vows, entreaties, all were vain;
We parted with a final flare-up—
I only saw her once again,
Just at the time she put her hair up.
For several years we ranged apart;
But though in minor ways unstable,
Down in its deeps, my torpid heart
Has always hankered after Mabel.
And often, when I heard the name
It would begin to throb con moto
In homage to my boyhood’s flame,
And anguished longing for her photo.
I have no longings now. To-night
For one brief hour we came together,
And for that one brief hour you might
Have knocked me over with a feather.
Perhaps the fault was mine. Perhaps,
In nourishing a youth's ideal,
I had forgotten how the lapse
Of time would modify the real.
Maybe the charms that won the boy's
Young heart were there in full perfection,
Jut could no longer counterpoise
My bias for a dark complexion.
But ah, what boots the abstract doubt?
Seeing that she has wed another,
What boots it that 1 thought her stout,
And growing like her dreadful mother?
’Tis but my last illusion fled,
Perished, dissolved in idle folly;
The Mabel of my dreams is dead—
I wonder what became of Molly!
—London Punch.
A CLEVER THIEF
UUUUYUYY By Mrs. Christine Stephens YUHYUYYY
OR the greater part of the
mh year our little neighbor-
ii F IM hood in Penobscot County,
a Maine, was kept in a state
P=.) of alarm by the frequent
and sudden visitations of a large black
bear, which turned up when most un-
looked for and in most unexpected
places. It was all the more exciting,
as no bears had been seen in that lo-
ality for some years. This one was
so inquisitive and daring in its treat-
ment of human habitations, that I
think it must have been partially
tamed at some period of its life,
Its first reported appearance was
about the end of March, when Dod
Nerrick and Wink Dudley were mak-
ing maple sugar on the side of Jack's
Ridge. They had a little camp in the
lee of the great maples, with a rough
stone arch and a set of big iron ket-
tles. Here they used sometimes to
stay and boil sap nearly all night after
a big “run.”
One night they had put their last
kettleful on to boil, after a hard day
of rain, which at the last had turned
to snow. The sap did not evaporate
rapidly, and the boys were tired out.
They built a new fire about 9 o'clock
and threw themselves down on a bed
of fur boughs in one corner of the
camp to drowse, but had hardly shut
their eyes when a loud sniffing like
that of a great dog aroused them,
There in the doorway, with long
muzzle extended and head swaying
from side to side, was a big black
creature with shining eyes. Dod not-
iced in the light of the arch fire that it
had a white stripe in its face. It
shuffied in toward the other corner of
the camp, where two pails of warm
syrup stood.
With a whoop: of terror both boys
leaped from the boughs and bolted,
nearly running against the beast in
their frantic haste to get out of the
camp, and did not stop till they
reached home. °
On going to camp early the next
morning, they found the pails over-
turned. What had not been devoured
bf their contents had run down
through the wide cracks of the camp
floor. Part of a small ham, from
which the boys had fried savory slices
for their dinners, was pulled down
from its peg by the arch and eaten,
and the boughs of the bunk were scat-
tered about the camp. Outside great
tracks in the soft spring snow showed
their visitor to be a bear. Probably it
bad just come from the long fast of
hibernation, and the odor of boiling
syrup, had tempted it to the camp.
Dod and Wink did not see the bear
again till toward’ the middle of May.
Dod had determined to hang a May
basket for Luck Jane Nickey, despite
the dire threats of her father, who had
given out word that any youngster
caught galloping over his onion beds
on such a “tom fool’s errand” would be
flogged.
As an earnest of his intention, the
old gentleman kept two or three long
birch withes standing in a corner in
his entry. But Dod was not improssed
by these formidable preparations, and
sallied forth one bright moonlight
night with Wink.
When nearing the Nickey place, the
boys heard a great commotion in the
barnyard, which was at some distance
from the house — plaintive bleatings,
deep bellowings, and at times a loud
stamping of sheep and cattie zsout the
yard. Dropping their May baskets on
the doorstep, Dod and Wink ran down
to the yard to discover the cause of
such a ‘commotion.
“It’s a bear!” exclaimed Wink, pecer-
ing between the high bars.
“Our bear!” cried Dod. “There's the
white stripe. Run for Mr. Nickey!
Wink rushed to the house to waken
the owner, while Dod gathered stones
and hurled them with all his might pro-
miscuously at the flying combatants.
In the meantime Wink narrowly
dodged the promised flogging, for the
furious Mr, Nickey, wakened, as he
believed, by the persistent and loud
thumping of May baskets, pounced cut
suddenly, withe in hand. It was only
after nimbly circling the house several
times that the boy succeeded in mak-
ing his pursuer understand the state
of affairs.
By that time the bear had come to
the conclusion that the odds were too
great to contend against, for a pair
of big steers were careering. about
with tails in the air, now and then
making dashes at her with lowered
head. A great long-horned ram would
deliver a sounding blow when the
steers left an opening. At last the
ponderous horns fiercely butted the
bear’s stomach when she had reared
to strike the sheep, and sent her heels
over head into a deep pool in one cor-
ner of the yard.
This, with Dod’s sudden and noisy
attack, put bruin in a panic, and re-
linquishing her hope to feast on young
mutton, she crawled through a broken
fence and ran off across the potato
field toward the nearby woods, just as
Wink and Mr. Nickey arrived on the
scene,
They found one sheep badly lacerat-
ed and another with her fleece nearly
all pulled off.
Mr. Nickey was so thankful because
the bear had been discovered in sea-
son to prevent any further damage
that he did not pursue his inquiry as
to why Dod and Wink were there at
that time of night.
Nobody could stop to hunt bears till
planting was over. In the meantime
the creature broke in’o an old outhouse
of Mr. Dudley’s, where there was a
large lot of Roxbury russets, that
Wink and his father had carefully
picked over for market. These apples
were bringing a high price at that sea-
son, and were reckoned on to pay the
taxes for the year. But the bear had
little pity for the burdened taxpayer.
Next she stole a young pig from
Peggy Wright, for which that energet-
ic little spinster had “tailored” hard
for ten days in fitting out Deacon
Withal’'s boys with Sunday suits.
Peggy looked upon that pig as an im-
portant item, and could not part with
it without a struggle. On hearing its
cries, she gave pursuit, blowing a
great tin dinner horn. But the bear
got away with the pig despite the
racket.
To the theft of the pig was added
the slaughter of the Nerrick gander.
His beautiful, white, snowy feathers
and one big red foot alone remained
to tell the story of his unhappy fate.
Following this occurred an incident
that roused the neighborhood to hunt
the maurauder. In haying time, after
sundown one evening, Dod, with his
sister Zilph and her little terrier, Jim,
set out to find the cows that had not
come home as usual. After hunting
for some time they heard the bell off
in the edge of a rough, swampy tract
of hemlock scrub, and with its wild
jangling came the hoarse bawls and
deep grumbling of cattle. Something
was wrong. .
Dod and Zilph, running with all
speed, soon came in sight of the herd,
and perceived to their horror that a
bear had grappled one of Dod’s grizzly
yearlings—one of a pair that he had
hoped to exhibit at the county fair in
the fail. The wild beast was tearing
and clawing its prostrate: victim,
which it had dexterously cast in be-
tween a hemlock stub and some big
rocks. The other cattle, instead of
running away, kept circling round, ut-
tering threatening cries,
Dod seized a branch of dead hemlock
and rushed courageously upon the
bear, shouting with all his might,
while Jim barked furiously. Assault-
ed in the rear so unexpectedly, the
bear at first took to her heels.
But she was reluctant to give up her
‘prey; so she turned and faced Dod
with grinning teeth and ugly eyes,
looking greedily toward the prostrate
yearling, beside which Dod was bran-
dishing his club and shouting. The
boy saw that it was the old white face
again. .
Dod told Zilph to run for help. The
cattle, now fairly routed and fright-
ened, bolted toward home before her.
The boy’s brave front disconcerted
the bear and at first she made no
movement forward, but shufled back
and forth in great impatience, growl-
ing and showing her teeth. But soon
Dod’s threatening shouts and wild
brandishings began to lose effect.
The bear began to edge closer. Then
at his master’s command, and encour-
aged, Jim sallied forth, made a little
detour, dashed slying up to the ene-
my’s rear and grabbed her heels,
The bear turned and tried again and
again to scoop in little Jim with a
sweep of her great paw, but the wily
little dog dodged the long claws until
, at last one sharp nail tore through his
ear, and he retired hastily beneath a
scrub hemlock and was silent. Then
i
1
|
1
in the gathering @usk the bear turner
“nce more to Dod and the yearling.
Dod was in a panic. To leave the
already bruised yearling to be torn and
tortured by the cruel bear could not
be thought of. Yet the ugly glow in
the bear's eyes warned Dod of danger,
He could no longer hear the tinkle
of the bell. The cows had reached the
yard. A bird began singing off a little
way in the woods, and Dod could hear
| the “Yeep. yeep, yeep! Yawp, yawp”
of a wandering flock of bclated turk-
eys wending their way homeward be-
fore an exasperated and noisy small
boy on the next farm.
Suddenly loud shouts broke over the
ridge above Dod, and his father and
the hired man came running into
view. Then the bear took to her heels
and disappeared into the scrub.
The yearling was pulled out of the
hole and driven home, a good deal
bruised and torn about the flanks.
The next morning several men start-
ed out to hunt the creature, but not
a sign was discovered. Then a trap
was set. But she was altogether too
knowing to be “taken in,” although
she managed to secure the bait—a
shank of veal and several other dain-
ties. :
Not long after that she looked in on
Betty Marston one hot morning, just
as ‘Betty was putting her cream in to
churn. With hysterical cries for help
the girl tumbled out of the buttery
window at the back of the house, and
ran to the meadow, where the men
were mowing. She left the bear in
possession of the kitchen, where a
large baking of pumpkin pies from
the brick oven had been set down on
the wide brick hearth to cool.
When the excited haymakers rushed
in with pitchforks and rakes, they
found only the empty pie-shells, out
of which the bear had deftly scooned
the contents.
She had upset the big dash churn and
guzzled some of the cream; the rest
was running across the kitchen floor
and out at the door rock.
Several parties soon went out to
seek the bear, but no clue to her where-
abouts could be discovered, nor did she
fall into any of the snares that were
set for her. She harvested Dod’s wa-
termelons and Wink’s lucious cantel-
opes in the burned patch later on, and
destroyed no end of corn in the silk.
In the fall she took a few fat lambs
just to fortify herself for the winter,
which the harassed farmers were glad
to see set in. .
Toward the end of February Dod
and Wink set out one morning on
snowshoes with guns and axes to go
up to Jack’s Ridge to prepare wood for
the coming sugar season. They worked
through the forenoon, cutting and
breaking up the dead maple limbs,
getting a large pile ready. After
lunch they went with their guns away
over the ridge and down the wooded
valley beyond, hoping to find some
rabbits, and possibly a few partridges.
After tramping for about two hours
they had secured only one rabbit, and
were about to start toward home, tired
out, when they were saluted by fierce
growls and snarls close at hand. The
boys were terribly alarmed. They
could not run on snowshoes, but what-
ever the beast was they realized after
a moment's panic that it could make
but slow progress: through - the deep
snow. So they stopped to listén.: =
The growls séemed stationary, and
to proceed from a dense brush of a fall-
en hemlock not far away. « Dod and
Wink determined to find out what
creature was making such a fuss and
why it did rot show itself.
Cautiously making a circuit, - they
approached the hemlock, and after
clambering over brush and small
bushes, in which they frequently en-
tangled their snowshoes, they discov-’
ered that the sounds came from an old,
hollow pine stump. Through a small
hole above tlie roots and half hidden
by henilock boughs a bear’s head pro-
truded. .
With the white stripe in her face,
her red mouth, big white teeth and
glaring, wicked eyes, she made a very
ugly picture indeed. The boys had
stumbled upon her den at last.
Some time during the winter a smgi!
hemlock had been blown down and
lodged across the opening under the
great pine roots, through which, in the
fall, she had entered to make her bed.
Snow had drifted in among the liem-
lock branches, and what with fre-
quent rains and. the warmth of the
creature's body within, had formed a
wall of ice, barring her exit. Her
breath had kept a small opening, and
through this she plunged her head,
now that she had awakened from" her
long sleep, to reconnoiter. She had
scented them from afar, and at once
gave voice to her rage.
Seeing them near, she made frantie
efforts to break through. She dug and
bit savagely at the sides of the aper-
ture, making the ice and hemlock
twigs fly in little showers, all the time
uttering wild and furious cries. The
boys feared she would ‘soon be loose
upon them. Dropping into their guns
some small chunks of lead to serve as
bullets, they approached near as
they dared and fired through the
boughs. The lead tore through the
bear’s scalp, and brought redoubled
roars and fiercer struggling. She had
now her head and shoulders out. The
situation was alarming. Wink reload-
ed and fired a second charge, which
took effect in the shoulder. Dod fol-
lowed it up with a shot through the
head, and the bear fell back into the
cavity.
Some minutes passed before the boys
dared to make a close investigation:
but as no further sound came from the
den, they grew brave and went up to
tt. The old bear was dead. Enlarg-
ing the hole in the pine stump, Dod
and Wink entered her den. The bofin-
ty on the old bear’s scalp, together
with her skin, brought Dod and Wink
na
as
a purse of money.—Youth’s Compan-
| ion.
ih i H
aiDlackd i
4 ; fldventare. i 4
|
BALLOON ADVENTURE.
OMTE HENRY DE LA
3 PAULX, the daring aero-
% naut, who is at present
conducting a series of ex-
periments in marine bal-
loonilig on the Mediterranean, in the
vicinity of Cannes, predicts that, if
things go as he has reason to expect,
he will, during next summer, show
that he can sail about on the Medit-
erranean as safely in his balloon as
he could on a yacht, remaining for a
week or fortnight on the water. He
says he has: already solved the prob.
lems of demonstrating the stability
of the balloon at a small elevation over
the surface of the water for an indef-
inite length of time, and of deviating
from the course of the wind at -least
thirty degrees. On land the Count has
had some wonderful adventures. His
hundredth aerial trip was accom-
plished in November of last year, and
since then he has made five more as-
cents. He has beaten: every record in
the world, having covered a distance
of about 13,500 miles; passed 882 hours,
that is to say, about thirty-six days, in
his balloons, and conveyed 327 pas-
sengers. >
“One of.the most sensational excur-
sions I ever made,” he said, “was on
October 22, 1898, when M. Mallet and
myself safled over the furnaces of
Liege, with a thousand cubic metres
of inflammable gas at an elevation
which was rather dangerous, and land-
ed in Pomerania, near Rostock, after
a voyage of more than 650 miles. It
was a glorious night, and at 10 o'clock
we passed over a town, where a sil-
very chime rang out. the hour with
tones that sceined to gather a marvel-
lous sweetness as they echoed through
the silence of the night. After passing
over the town of Chimay, in Hainault,
Belgium, we emerged from a momen-
tary fog and saw ‘the Meuse, near Di-
nant, like a silver streak in the land-
scape, the Chateau of Walsen, the old
abbey of Waulsord, and the rock of
Bayard. The next scene was one of
the most memorable I ever witnessed.
The horizon looked strangely illum-
inated in the distance, and as we ap-
proached the lurid blaze of light be-
came stronger, until the whole sky
seemed to be on fire. We looked at
our maps, and concluded that we were
in the vicinity of Liege.
“As we came nearer the effect was
grandiose, flames shot up hundreds of
feet into the ‘sky from innumerable
furnaces, and the sight was realisti-
cally Dantesque. It required by little
imagination to make us believe that
ve were about to enter the inferno, and
the doleful inscription, ‘Abandon hope,
all ye who enter here,’ would have been
quite in place in the burning sky be-
fore us. Suddenly we realized that
we had better mount higher if we did
not want to be roasted. We quickly
threw out some ballast, and the bal-
loon rose about 400 yards higher. It
was not too much, for the confiagra-
tion seemed to increase every instant,
fire’ belching out of a hundred funnels,
the flames roaring with a sinister
‘noise asvthey shot up into .the air,
rarefying it and threatening. to"suck us
into the burning whirlpool. The sight
was unique and fascinated us in spite
of ourselves. All the fod¥ndries and
blasting furpaces were in frvll work,
crowds of men were shouting, immense
Cyclppean hammers rebounding on
enormous anvils, and ‘steam drills
were hissing and seething. Looking
down from our frail basket it seemed
as’if the ground wete burning. We
could- distinguish the. forms qf the
workmen, who looked like pigmies sur-
rounded on every side by fire, and we
wondered how they could live in the
midst of the flames. We gave a sigh
of relief as we bounded over the last
furnace and were carried on over:the
plains of Holland and the north of
Germany. At 1 o'clock we landed in
a pine forest near Rostock.”—London
Globe. - -
LOST IN THE DESERT.
“The craze to find a metal is a funny
thing,” said the old prospector. “I al-
ways had it, and once, in British Col-
umbia, away north, it gave me a close
call. ‘I was alone when I got as far
as the last settlement. There were
four Indians and-a fur trader there.
They all advised me not to go into the
barrens, but like a good many others,
I thought I was wiser than the na-
tives, and I only meant to go a few
miles. There was nothing to do but
foot it, and carry your provisions and
blankets on your back.
“The country was fiat as a floor and
bald and smooth as my head, with no
landmarks. The only way I could get
direction was by the sun and the stars.
“When I had been out for about two
days my provisions were nearly gone.
I was going to turn back and make a
dash for the settlement. All day long ¢
gray cloud had been nmroving up from
the west very slowly. 1 suppose it
was coming on so-slow I didn’t realize
what it meant to be without the sun
to guide me. ‘There wasn’t even a
blade of grass on that desert, nor a
living thing, nor a stone sticking up.
The clouds kept bending over more
and more, and finally they closed down
over me like a trap.
“I shall never forget the lonesome-
ness of that place, and how, whenever
I stopped walking, I would strain and
strain my ears without hearing any-
thing but the thump of my own heart.
But I thought I was all right, and kept
on walking toward ‘the settlement,
steadily, until it was nearly night.
Then I saw something white a few
yards off to one side. In one gasp the
breath wernt out of me. The white
thing was a bit of cracker 1 had
dropped when I had eaten my lunch!
“I sat down and tried to think. I
knew it was no use to walk that way
any further. I began to think my bones
would whiten out there on the barrens,
but finally I went to sleep. In the
morning I was crazy with hunger. I
ate my last piece of hardtack, and
nearly all day I walked aimlessly, hop-
ing to find some landmark. There was
no sleep in me that night. Whenever
I shut my eyes I could see nothing but
a great flat plain with a line across it—
the straightest line you ever saw.
“Well, it was that crazy notion that
saved my life. It suddenly occurred
to me that I could draw a line across
this desert. When it was getting light
in the morning there were a few min-
utes when I could see which side of
the circle was east by the glimmer
through the clouds. So I worked with
my sheath knife till I had built a lit-
tle pile of earth, and waited for day
to come. The moment I saw the glim-
mer and had the direction I ran toward
the sun a hundred yards or more, sight-
ing back across the two piles, and
built a third. They were only two lit-
tle piles of dirt, but they looked like
towers on the desert.
“All that day I built piles of earth
southward until I lost count, and the
next day when I saw the glimmer of
morning I knew I had the right direc-
tion. Toward night I struck a dog's
track, and finally I sighted a clump of
three and a group of cabins. I fired
my revolver several times, until I saw
two men on horseback coming out to
me; then I swung down on my knees
and fell over, flat on my face.
“It was several weeks before I could
close my eyes at night without sight-
ing “along little piles of earth.”’—
Youth’s Companion,
FOUGHT DOG IN DARK.
A half hour's fight with a mad dog
in a dark cellar was the thrilling ex-
perience that fell to the lot of Police-
man Quirk, of the Morrisania station,
on a recent afternoon. Th2 mongrel
had bitten two children and caused a
panic in the neighborhood before the
policeman cornered him. Shortly af-
ter 1 o'clock the dog, foaming at the
mouth, plunged into a crowd of chil-
dren at 159th street and Melrose ave-
nue, and bearing little Elsa Heinz to
the ground, fastened his teeth into her
left arm. A boy struck the brute a
glancing blow with a ball bat, and was
attacked for his temerity. He dodged
and the animal sprang for four-yeare
old Joseph Kern, who stood dazed di-
rectly in the animal's path. With teeth
fixed in the boy's right arm, the animal
hegan to tear the child’s flesh. Po-
liceman Quirk arrived just as John
Murphy had beaten the dog off the
child. The two followed the dog down
into the cellar of S09 Melrose avenue.
The moment they entered the brute
made a rush at them. The policeman
stunned it with his club, but the dog
came back at him in an instant. Mur-
phy retreated to the dumbwaiter
shaft, and Quirk hit the springing
brute with his revolver. A wound in
the side only made the animal more
savage, and it closed in on the officer,
even catching his trousers in its jaws.
Wounded a second time the animal
drew itself together and made a fly-
ing leap for the officer’s throat, but a
well-directed bullet ended its career.
When Quirk appeared dragging the
carcass a rousing cheer went up from
a thousand throats. When the ex-
citement had subsided it was found
thatthe girl’s wounds were slight. On
the upper part of the boy’s right arm,
however, were two bad wounds, while
his clothing®was torn and he was suf-
fering from shock and fright.—New
York Times.
A STORM AT SEA.
I contented myself with the fore-
crosstrees, some seventy feet above
the deck. As I searched the vacant
stretch of water before me, I compre-
hended thoroughly the need of haste
if-we were to recover any of our men.
Indeed, as 1 gazed at the heavy sea
through which we were running, I
doubted that there was a boat afloat.
It did not seem possible that so frail
craft could survive such stress of
wind and water,
I could not feel the full force of the
wind, for we were running with it, but
from my lofty perch I looked down as
though outside the Ghost and apart
from her, and saw the shape of her
outlined sharply against the foaming
sea as she tore along instinct with life,
Sometimes she would lift and send
across some great wave, burying her
starboard rail from view and covering
her deck to the hatches with the baoil-
ing ocean. At such moments, starting
from a windward roll, I would go fiy-
ing through the air with dizzying
swiftness, as though I clung to the
end of a huge, inverted pendulum, the
are of which, between the greater
rolls, must have been seventy feet or
more. ‘Once the terror of this giddy
sweep overpowered me, and for awhile
I clung on, hand and foot, weak and
trembling, unable to search the sea
for the missing boats or to behold
aught of the sea but that which roared
beneath and strove to overwhelm the
Ghost.—From Jack London's “The Sea
Wolf,” in the Century. '
Submarine Warboats.
It is said that Great Britain is now
endeavoring to overtake France in the
development of the submarine branch
of her navy. The Admiralty has de-
cided upon a submersible torpedo boat
which can travel for long distances on
the surface at high speed, and can, at
need, dive entirely below in about six
seconds and can reach a depth of 100
feet. These boats are to be of 200 ton
displacement. During the present year
the French Navy will have thirty sub-
marine boats in commission, and Great
Britain expects within a short time to
complete nineteen.
HOUSEHOLD
AFFAIRS,
Lastly, the range, whether coal or
gas, needs attention. Cooks know well
that flues must be attended to if hot
water and proper heat are tg be ob-
tained, but a large majority appear to
be unaware that, in addition to being
properly black-leaded and rubbed up,
the shelves should be carefully dusted
daily, and washed weekly or so with
strong hot soda and water. The same
remark applies to gas stoves, the
shelves of the oven being thoroughly
cleansed in hot soda and water, and
the enameled parts well rubbed up
with a flannel dipped in salt.
‘When the biennial cleaning is on, the
boiler of the range should always be
seen to, not only to insure a regular
supply of hot water, but to avoid ac-
tual danger. Xecollect, any disturb-
ance of the regular supply of water
to a self-filling boiler implies danger of,
explosion, whether the disturbance be
due to neglect or frost.
CLEANING LIGHT CLOTH.
‘Wraps of white or pale-colored cloth
such as are so fashionable at present
for dress occasions, soon succumb to
the influences of our dirt-filled atmos-
phere. Every touch leaves its mark on
them. One of the best ways to care
for these delicate coats is to have
constantly on the toilet table a bottle
of strong borax water, say a teaspoon-
ful of borax to a pint of water, dis-
solved while the water is hot,
When the first suggestion of soil
appears, rub it with a fresh piece of
cotton dipped in borax water. If the
spot is difficult to get out, use two
or three fresh pieces of cotton, so that
the soil is not scattered, and rub brisk-
ly to keep the water from soaking into
the cloth.
This treatment will remove dust,
mud spots and also perspiration stains.
It is wise to treat a spot as soon as
possible after it is acquired, as every,
hour makes any soil in cloth more diffi-
cult to get out. While cleaning thor-
oughly, borax water does not leave the
ugly circle of stain that gasoline so
often does.
{ USEFUL JAVELLE WATER.
Every laundress should use javelle
water. A small teacup of the fluid
added to a boiler of water will assist
materially in keeping the clothes white
and will not injure them in the least.
The most obstinate stains of fruit, tea,
coffee, etc., on the tablecloths and nap-
kins will usually succumb to an ap-
plication of one part of javelle water
diluted with four parts of soft water.
If the stained article is soaked in this
fluid for several hours and then thor-
oughly washed and rinsed, it will usu-
ally come out perfectly clean and
white. Only white goods can be treat-
ed in this way, however, as javelle
water is likely to fade colors.
It is made as follows: Place four
pounds of bicarbonate of soda in a
large granite or porcelain lined pan,
and pour over it four quarts of hot
water. Stir with a stick until the soda:
has dissolved, add a pound of chloride
of lime, and stit until this also has
dissolved. Allow the liquid to cool in
the pan, strain the clear portion
through thin cleth into wide mouthed
bottles or jugs and cork tightly for use.
The part that contains the sediment
may also be bottled and used for scrub-
bing sinks, tables and anything to
which grease is liable to adhere.
As an aid to the housewife in doing
washing ‘quickly and easily this fluid
Is unsurpassed. The quantity which
may be made from eingredients given
may be lessened by dividing by two or
four as the case may be. One-fourth
of the items named will be enough to
last for three or four washings.—New
York Daily News.
Florentine Cream—To the juice of
three lemons add one and one-half cup-
fuls of sugar; soak half a box of gela-
tine in half a cup of cold water half
an hour; stir over the fire until dis-
solved; add this to the sugar and lemon
juice; when cold add three cupfuls of
whipped cream; mould and serve cold.
Rice Flummery— Boil four and a
half ounces of rice flour in half a cup-
ful of milk, stirring all the time: when
quite thick add four tablespoonfuls
of granulated sugar and half a tea-
spoonful of almond flavoring; turn into
a mould; when cold turn it out on a
platter and serve with cream or fruit
sauce.
Cranberry Cream—Soak two table-
spoonfuls of gelatine in one-third cup
of cold water; wash ove pint of cran-
berries, put them in ap agate pan with
two tablespoonfuls of water; then rub
them through a strainer; add to the
pulp one cupful of sugar, return to the
fire and when boiling add the soaked
gelatine; pour into a pan and stand this
pan into another of cold water; stir
until it begins to thicken; add one pint
of whipped cream.
Kidney Omelet—Chop cold boiled kid-
ney quite fine; make an omelet with
three eggs beaten; three tablespoonfuls
of milk, a pinch of salt and a’ little
pepper; put one teaspoonful of butter
in a frying pan; when melted turn in
the mixture; let cook slowly until crust
forms on the bottom; in the mean-
time sprinkle over the omelet the
chopped kidney and a little parsley;
fold in half; turn out on a hot platter;
spread with butter and garnish with
! parsley,
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