Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

The search was long but they found it. It was in a small structure, on a quiet street, and several flights up, without elevator. But, as Peggy said, "Elevators have not been in style in our boarding houses, and flights of stairs have--so what matters it?" The suite, when you arrived up there, was airy and comfortable. It provided two bedrooms, a cheery living room, a dining room and a kitchenette. Clarice remarked, "The 'ette' is so small we can save steps by being within hand's reach of everything, no matter where we stand."

The rent was less than the combined rental of their four old rooms. Heat and janitor service were provided without charge, but they were obliged to meet the expense of gas for the range and of electric lights.

They might have lived along happily in their new nest without a budget, and without specific agreements as to expense. But they were business girls. So they sat right down and decided every point, modifying each, under trial, to a workable proposition. Then they stuck to it and _made_ it work.

There was the matter of furnishing. Each partner, while retaining personal title to her property, contributed to general use such articles of furniture she possessed as met apartment needs. From one, for example, came a comfortable bed, from another, chairs and a reading lamp, from a third a lounge chair, and from the fourth her piano and couch. Of small rugs, sofa pillows, pictures and miscellaneous small furnishings there were sufficient to make possible a real selection.

Then the four determined on further absolute essentials to make the rooms homelike. There were needed comfortable single beds for each, dressing tables, bed linen, dining-room equipment, kitchen ware, a chair or two, and draperies. Their decisions were made in committee-of-the-whole, and nothing was done that could not meet with the willing consent of all.

To meet the first cost they each contributed fifty dollars from their small savings, and assessed themselves a dollar and a quarter per week thereafter. They then bought their equipment, paying part cash and arranging for the balance on time. And be sure it was fun getting it!

Then there was the question of meals. It was determined to prepare their breakfasts and dinners and to put up lunches. To allow a certain freedom, it was agreed that each should pack her own lunch, and that regular meals should be cooked and served, turn and turn about, each partner acting for a week. A second member washed the dishes and took general care of the apartment. Thus a girl's general program reduced to,

First week Cooking
Second week Free
Third week Dishes, etc.
Fourth week Free
Fifth week Cooking
Etc.

During an experimental period, the cost of provisions and ice was summed up weekly and paid by equal assessment. Later a fixed assessment of seven dollars, each, was agreed to, and proved sufficient. There were even slight surpluses to go into the mannikin jar on the living room mantel, which Clarice called the "Do Drop Inn", because it provided from its contents refreshment for those who dropped in of an evening.

Naturally there was a friendly rivalry, not only in making the most of the allotment, but in providing attractive meals and dainty special dishes. Clarice's stuffed tomatoes won deserved fame, and Margaret made a reputation on cheese souffle. Peggy, too, was a wizard with the chafing dish.

Consideration was given the matter of special guests, either for meals, or for over-night. The couch in the living room provided emergency sleeping quarters. As for meals, separate fixed rates were set for breakfasts and for dinners. This was paid into the regular weekly provision fund by the girl who brought the guest, or by all four equally, if she were a "general" guest. The girl who brought a guest also "pitched in" and helped with the work.

Whenever the group went out for a meal, as they did now and then for a change, or for amusement, or recreation, each girl paid her own share at once.

Finally, there was the factor of laundry. After a little experimenting, household linen was worked out on an "average" basis, so that a regular amount could be assessed each week. Of course each girl met the expense of her own private laundry.

As a result of this planning, each member of the household found herself obligated to meet a weekly assessment containing the following items: Rent, furniture tax, household laundry, extras ($1.00) and personal laundry. Of these, the only item not positively fixed, as to amount, was the last. Each girl, naturally, paid all her strictly private expense, including clothes, and medical and dental service.

One of the number was chosen treasurer for a three-months' term, and was then, in turn, succeeded by another, so that each of the four served once a year. The treasurer received all assessments, gave the weekly allotment to the housewife, and paid other bills. Minor deficiencies were met from "surplus." Moreover, she kept accurate accounts.

Once settled comfortably in their quarters, with boarding-house memories receding into the background, it took but little time for a happy, home-y atmosphere to develop. Of course, with closer intimacy, there were temperamental adjustments, as always, but they came easily. The household machinery ran smoothly, almost from the first, because there _was_ a machine, properly set up, operated and adjusted--rather than an uncertain makeshift.

To Express Personality

By Dana Girrioer

"'Keep house?' I should say not!" answered Anne, who had journeyed out into the suburbs to "tell" her engagement to Burt Winchester to the home folks before she "announced" it. "I'm going to retire to the Kensington, or some nice apartment hotel, at the ripe old age of twenty-four. What'd you think, we're back in the dark ages, B. F.?"

"'B. F.'?" repeated Aunt Milly.

"Before Ford," said Anne, laughing. "Oh, it was the thing for you, Auntie, you couldn't have brought up your own big family in a city apartment, to say nothing of stretching your wings to cover Little Orphant Annie, besides, everybody kept house when you were married!"

"And now nobody does, except a few Ancient Mariners?" inquired Cousin Dan.

Anne blushed. "Of course it suits some people, now," she amended, hastily. "Perhaps it's all right to keep house, if you have a big family, or lots of money and can hire all the fussing done."

"You don't need to hire fussing, if you've a big family," said Aunt Milly, her eyes twinkling behind the gold-bowed spectacles. "You'll keep on with the drawing--illustrating?"

"Surely," answered Anne. "Burt will keep right on being a lawyer."

"I see," said George. "Well, Queen Anne, I suppose when we want to visit you we can hire a room in the same block, I mean, hotel. I thought, perhaps, having so far conformed to the habits of us Philistines as to take a husband, you might go the whole figure and take a house!"

"Please!" begged Anne. In that tone, it was a catchword dating back to nursery days which the elf-like Anne had shared with a whole brood of sturdy cousins, and meant, "Please stop fooling; I want to be taken seriously."

"I love to draw--but my people don't look alive, somehow," said little Milly, wistfully.

Cried Anne: "Keep trying, Milly; there is nothing so lovely as to have even a taste for some sort of creative work, and to develop it; to express your own personality in something tangible, and to be encouraged to do so. Do understand me, Auntie and the rest; it isn't that I want to shirk, but I do want to specialize on what I do best! I'll wash dishes if it's ever necessary, but why must I wish a whole pantry on myself when either Burt or I could pay our proportionate share of a hotel dish-washer, or butler, or whatever is needed?"

At the studio it was much easier.

"Some time in the early fall," Anne told her callers, who arrived by two's, three's and four's, as the news began to circulate among her friends.

"No, I won't keep this," with a jerk of her thumb towards the big, bare room which had been hers since she left Aunt Milly and the little home town. "There's a room at the top of the Kensington I can have, with a light as good as this, and that settles the last problem. I'd hate to have to go outdoors for meals, when I'm working."

"Nan Gilbert!" exclaimed her dearest friend. "You have the best luck! You can do good work, and get good pay for it, and be happy all by yourself; and now you're going to be happier, with a husband who'll let you live your own life; you'll be absolutely free, not even a percolator to bother with, nothing to take your mind from your own creative work, free to express your own personality!"

"Mercy," said Anne, closing the door upon this last caller. "If I don't set the North River, at least, on fire, pretty soon, they'll all call me a slacker."

She hung her card, "Engaged," upon the door leading into the hall (some one had scrawled "Best Wishes" underneath the printed word), and proceeded to get her dinner in a thoughtful frame of mind. The tiny kitchenette boasted ice-box, fireless, and a modest collection of electric cooking appliances; in a half-hour Anne had evolved a cream soup, a bit of steak, nearly cubical in proportions, slice of graham bread, a salad of lettuce and tomato with skilfully tossed dressing, a muffin split ready to toast, with the jam and spreader for it, and coffee was dripping into the very latest model of coffee-pots. Anne had never neglected her country appetite, and was a living refutation of the idea that neatness and art may not dwell together. She moved quietly and with a speed which had nothing of haste; her mind was busy with a magazine cover for December, she believed she'd begin studying camels.

After dinner came Burt Winchester, a steady-voiced, olive-skinned young man, in pleasant contrast to Anne's vivacious fairness, and together they journeyed uptown and then west to the Kensington, for a final decision upon the one vacant apartment. The rooms were of fair size, they were all light, and the agent had at least half a yard of applicants upon a printed slip in his pocket.

Burt studied the apartment not at all, but his fiancee with quiet amusement. He was much in love with Anne, but he understood her better than she had yet discovered.

"I don't think we'll ever find anything better," she was saying to him. "Perhaps he'd have it redecorated for us, with a long lease--"

The agent coughed discreetly. "The leases are for one year, with privilege of renewal," he said to Burt. "It has just been redecorated; is there anything needed?"

"It would all be lovely, if one liked blue," murmured Anne. "Just the thing for some girl, but not for me, all that pale blue and silver, it doesn't look a bit like either of us, Burt. I had worked out the most stunning scheme, cream and black, with a touch of Kelly green--"

Another cough, somewhat louder, and accompanied by an undisguised look of sympathy for Burt. "The owner prefers to decide the decorations, Madame," said the agent. "Tastes differ so, you understand."

"Please hold the suite for me until tomorrow night," said Burt, decisively. "I suppose we'll take it; if not, I'll make it right with you."

"I should say, 'tastes differ,'" laughed Anne, tucking her arm into Burt's, as they began the long walk down-town. "Do you know, Aunt Milly and the girls thought, of course, we'd keep house, and Dan and George are going to pick out girls that will keep house, I saw it in their eyes. You--you're going to be satisfied, Burt?"

"I think so," answered Burt, judiciously, and then with a change of tone, "Nan, you precious goose, you've always told me you were not domestic."

"And you've always said you were no more domestic than I was," finished Anne, happily. She entirely missed the quizzical expression of the brown eyes above her. "Nuff said.--Are we going to Branton tomorrow, Burt, with the crowd? Can you take the day?"

Anne's "crowd," the half-dozen good friends among the many acquaintances she had formed in the city, were invited for a day in the country. She and Burt now talked it over, agreeing to meet in time to take the nine-thirty train, with the others.

But at nine, next morning, Burt had not appeared at the studio; instead, Miss Gilbert had a telephone message that Mr. Winchester was delayed, but would call as soon as possible. It was unlike Burt, but Anne, sensibly, supposed that business had intervened, and, removing her hat, was glad to remember that she had not definitely accepted the invitation when it was given. The "crowd" were sure enough of each other and of themselves to appear casual: Burt and she could take a later train, and have just as warm a welcome.

At nine-thirty Burt appeared, explaining briefly, "Best I could do. There's a train in twenty minutes, we'll catch it if we hurry."

Anne hurried, which proved to be unnecessary, as the train seemed late in starting; during the trip there was little conversation, as Anne was tactful, and Burt preoccupied.

"Branton!" called the conductor, at least it sounded like Branton, Burt came out of his revery with a start, and Anne followed him down the aisle. They stood a moment upon the platform of the quiet little station and watched the train pull out; as they turned back into what seemed the principal street, Anne craned her neck to look around an inconvenient truck piled with baggage, and made out the sign, Byrnton.

"Oh, Burt, what were we thinking of?" she exclaimed. "This isn't the right place at all! We were to take the road up past a brick church--and there isn't any here--this is Byrnton, and we wanted Branton. What shall we do--why don't you say something?"

"Fudge!" said Burt, soberly, but in his eyes the dancing light he reserved for Anne. "I'll ask the ticket-agent."

He came out of the station, smiling. "This isn't the Branton line at all, but a short branch west of it," he informed her. "We took the wrong train, but he says lots of people make the same mistake, and they are going to change one name or the other, eventually. I am to blame, Nan, for I know this place, Byrnton; I have, or used to have, an Aunt Susan here, somewhere--shall we look her up? We have nearly three hours to kill. It will be afternoon before we can get to Branton--and Aunt Susan will give us nourishment, at least, if she's home."

"Very well," Anne assented. If Burt's business absorbed him like this, she must learn to take it philosophically.

"What a pretty place, Burt! Do see those wonderful elms!"

Byrnton proved to be an old-fashioned village, which had had the good fortune to be remodelled without being modernized. Along the main street many of the houses were square, prim little boxes, with front yards bright with sweet williams, marigolds, and candytuft; these had an iron fence around the garden, and, invariably, shutters at the front door. An occasional house stood flush with the brick or flagged sidewalk; in that case there were snowy curtains at the window, and a glimpse of hollyhocks at the back. The newer houses could be distinguished by the wide, open spaces around them; the late comers had not planned their homes to command the village street, and neighbors, as an older generation had done, but these twentieth century models did not begin until one had left the little railway station well behind.

"What a homely, homey place," said Anne, noting everything with the eye of an artist. "I don't see how you could forget it, if you have an aunt living here."

"That's the question," answered Burt. "Have I an aunt living here? She may be in California; however, in that case, the key will be under the mat."

Anne continued to look about her, with sparkling eyes. "If Aunt Milly had lived in a place like this, I'd be there yet," she told him. "The factories spoiled the place for me, but they made business good for Uncle Andy and the boys, and Aunt Milly likes the bustle, she'd think this was too quiet.--Isn't it queer how people manage to get what they want--in time?"

"It is, indeed," smiled Burt. "There, Nan, that low white cottage at the very end, the last before you come to open fields. That's Aunt Susan's."

They quickened their pace; Anne was conscious of an intense wish that Aunt Susan might be home. She wanted to see the inside of the white house, bungalow, it might almost be called, if one did not associate bungalows with stucco or stained shingles. This cottage was of white wood, with the regulation green blinds. There was an outside chimney of red bricks; a pathway of red bricks in the old herringbone pattern led up to the front door, with its shining brass knocker. A row of white foxgloves stood sentinel before the front of the house, on each side the entrance, their pointed spires coming well above the window-sills; before them the dark foliage of perennial lupins, tossing up a white spray of flowers, and then it seemed as if every old-fashioned flower of white, or with a white variety, ran riot down to a border of sweet alyssum. Above all the fragrance came the unmistakable sweetness of mignonette.

"Oh, Burt!" called Anne, "I do hope she's home. What a woman she must be, I can guess some things about her, just from the outside of her house. I hope she'll show me the inside of it."

Burt shook his head. "She'd have seen us before this and been out here," he suggested. "Come 'round to the back."

The back of the premises proved no less fascinating; there was the neatest of clothes-yards, a vegetable garden, and a small garage, after which Anne regarded the silent cottage with wistful eyes.

"Those beautiful, old-fashioned flowers, no petunias but the white frilled kind,--she's an artist--and has the wash done at home," she enumerated, "and runs her automobile herself, I am sure, for she's a practical person as well; if she were just a sentimental flower-lover, she'd have had something or other climbing up the house, and it spoils the woodwork."

"It's safe to say Aunt Susan's in California," said Burt, disregarding this. "No joke, Nan, she has a married daughter who has been trying to get her out there for years, and Aunt Susan's always threatening to go. Never thought she would, but we can soon find out; I know who'll have the key."

He left Anne and walked back to the house just passed, and presently reappeared with the key. "Here you are. Aunt Susan left it with Mrs. Brown, who is to look after the place, and to use her judgment about letting people in. Aunt Susan has only been gone two days, she went hurriedly at the last, and Mrs. Brown is to close the house for her, but she hasn't got 'round to it yet. Lucky for us, there'll be everything we need for lunch; I brought eggs--see?"

Laughing like a boy. Burt unlocked the back door, and then produced four eggs, from as many pockets. He laid them carefully down upon the kitchen table.

"Now, Nan, we can use anything in the kitchen or pantry, and Mrs. Brown has a blueberry pie in the oven which she'll give us, she'll bring it over when it's done.--Want to go over the house?--Give you my word it's all right, in fact Aunt Susan told Mrs. Brown she wished she could rent it, as is, if she only knew somebody who would love it--that was her word. You can love it until the afternoon train, can't you?"

If Anne heard, she made no reply, she was exploring.

Downstairs, a wide hall occupied a central third of the house; it was well lighted by the windows each side the front door, and by double doors of glass, which opened on to the back porch. On one side the hall were kitchen and pantry, nearly equal in size, and glistening with white paint, aluminum, and blue and white porcelain. With a hasty glance over these treasures, to which she was coming back, Anne stepped out into the hall again, and around to the front of the winding staircase, and entered what she knew at once for the "owner's bedroom." There were windows on two sides, as this was a front room, and each broad sill bore its own pot of ferns. The furniture here was all old-fashioned, of some dark wood that had been rubbed to a satin finish, the floor was of plain surface, with braided mats, and a blue and white counterpane provided the only bit of drapery in the room. Anne's bright head nodded with satisfaction. Here was character; to win Aunt Susan's respect would be no light task, her personal and intimate belongings showed an austere sense of values and an almost surgical cleanliness. Yet Aunt Susan could not be a martinet; her hall, furnished for other people, showed due regard for their comfort; the living room, which took the entire western side of the cottage, bore unmistakable signs of much occupancy, with wide and varied interests. A set of dark shelves, at the lower end, held china, and suggested that one might also eat at the refectory table, which was furnished as a desk and held a few books, many writing materials, and a foreign-looking lamp. There was also a piano, well littered with music, a sewing bag thrown down upon a cretonned window seat, and the generous fireplace was flanked by two huge baskets, one heaped with magazines, the other a perfectly round mound of yellow fur, which suddenly took form and life as a yellow tabby cat fastened hopeful topaz eyes upon them, blinked away a brief disappointment, and then yawned with ennui.

"His missie left him all alone," said Anne, bending to stroke the smooth head. "What's upstairs, Burt?"

"Go and look, I'll take your place with the Admiral until you come back," offered Burt, and at sound of his name the yellow cat jumped out and began rubbing against a convenient table leg. Anne found them in the same relative positions when she returned from her inspection of the upper floor.

"Your Aunt Susan must use it for sewing," she told Burt, dreamily. "With that big skylight--it could be a studio, couldn't it?"

"It is," Burt informed her. "Aunt Susan is an artist--with her needle. She gives, or gave, dressmaking lessons, in her idle moments. She gave up dressmaking, when she bought this house and settled here, but now she teaches the daughters of her old customers, they come out in automobiles every Wednesday, in winter. Saturday afternoons she has some of the young girls in the village, here,--without price--and without taste, too, some of them! And Nan, I hate to mention it, but--Aunt Susan is a pretty good cook, too!"

"Feed the brute!" quoted Nan, with a gay laugh. "Will the Admiral drink condensed milk?"

Mrs. Brown came over with her blueberry pie as Burt was summoned to luncheon. She surveyed the table, which Nan had laid in the kitchen, and then the Admiral, who was making his toilette in a thorough manner that suggested several courses, with outspoken approval.

"My, I wish Susan Winchester could pop in this minute. You found the prepared flour, and all--baked 'em on the griddle! Wa'n't that cute! I never did see an omelet like that except from Susan Winchester's own hands, and she learned from a Frenchwoman she used to sew with. Some folks can pick up every useful trick they see."

Turning to Burt, she continued:

"With all the new fangle-dangles of these days, women voting and all, you're a lucky boy to have found an old-fashioned girl!"

"I know it," said Burt, brazenly, but he did not meet Anne's astonished eyes. "My girl has learned the best of the new accomplishments, without losing what was worth keeping of the old."

Anne's judgment told her it was a good luncheon--no better than she served herself at home, though. She stared at her own slim, capable fingers. Was she domestic, after all?

"We've been looking at apartments in the city," Burt went on--"apartments in a hotel, you know.--Try the omelet, Mrs. Brown--Nan's don't fall flat as soon as other omelets do.--But we haven't found what really appeals to us."

"I should think not," declared Mrs. Brown, vigorously. "I always say a person hasn't a spark of originality that will go and live in a coop just like hundreds of others, all cut to the same pattern. Look at your Aunt Susan, now. This house belonged to old Joe Potter, he built it less'n ten years ago an Mis' Potter she had it the way she wanted it, and that was like the house she lived in when she was a girl, little, tucked-up rooms, air-tight stoves, a tidy on every chair, and she made portieres out of paper beads that tickled 'em both silly--yes, and tickled everybody in the ear that went through 'em, though that wan't what I meant to say. When she died, Joe wouldn't live here, said he wouldn't be so homesick for Julia in another house, this one was full of her. So, your Aunt Susan bought it, and what did she do?

"She knocked out partitions, took down fire-boards, threw out a good parlor set and lugged in tables and chairs from all over, put big panes of glass where there was little ones--in some places, she did, and only the good angels and Susan Winchester knows why she didn't change 'em all, they're terrible mean to wash--made the front hall into a setting room and the parlor into a bedroom, got two bathrooms and no dining room--well, to make a long story short, this house is now Susan Winchester. Anybody that knows Susan would know it was her house if they see it in China.

"Did you learn to keep house with your mother?"

The transition was so abrupt that Anne started. "I--my aunt brought me up--and nine cousins," she answered. "My aunt is as unlike Burt's as you can imagine, but just as dear and good. She had a big family, and there was never time enough to have her home as she wanted it--so she thought--and I thought so, too--but yet--Aunt Milly's home was always full of happy children, and, perhaps, that's what she really wanted, more than dainty furnishings or a spotless kitchen."

"Folks, mostly, get what they want, even if they don't know it," confirmed Mrs. Brown. "Look at the Admiral, here. He don't want to come over and live with me, same as Susan meant he should. He wants to stay right in his own home, and have his meals and petting same as usual, and here you come along today and give them to him. Trouble is, folks don't always know what it is they want."

When Mrs. Brown went back to her own dinner, she left Anne with something to think about. Washing the dishes in Aunt Susan's white sink, which was fitted to that very purpose, drying them upon a rack which held every dish apart from its neighbors, and, finally, polishing the quaintly shaped pieces upon Aunt Susan's checked towel, which remained dry and spotless; opening every drawer and cupboard to see that all was left in the dainty order she had found there, Anne had a clear vision of the blue and silver furnishings at the Kensington. What had she told Burt: "It doesn't look like either of us"?--while Aunt Susan's home--

"Burt," she called, "come and answer this question. Did you come to Byrnton instead of Branton on purpose?"

"What's this?" said Burt. "Cross-examination?"

"It's an examination, surely, but I won't be cross," replied Anne, with a rare dimple. "You must answer my question truly."

"Yes, Your Honor," said Burt. "I did, Your Honor."

"Did you know your Aunt Susan wouldn't be home?"

"Our Aunt Susan," corrected Burt.--"No, Your Honor--that is, I thought--"

"You knew she was going to California?"

"Yes, Your Honor."

"This summer?"

"I didn't know exactly when--honestly, Nan, I did want you to meet her."

"Why?"'

"I knew you'd like the way she keeps house. I didn't realize that the house could speak for itself, without her.--You do like it, Nan?"

"I don't have to answer questions, because I'm the Judge," Nan told him. "I'll ask you one more. Do you want me to ask you to take this cottage, for us, in the fall, and stay in it until Aunt Susan comes back?"

"Not unless Your Honor pleases."

"Case dismissed, for lack of evidence," said Nan.--"Burt, could we live here?"

"We could. I'll admit it's what I'd like, if you do. The difference in rents would buy gasoline. Could you work here, and keep house, too?"

"I can if I'm smart," answered Nan, soberly. "I wonder if I'm smart."

"Dear," said Burt. "What have you done since you came to New York but work and keep house, too, in less convenient quarters than this, and with no one to help you--no good husband like me--?"

"That's so!" she turned a radiant face upon him.

"If we like, we can begin another home, of our very own, when Aunt Susan wants hers back," Burt smiled quizzically. "No one else's house would suit you for always, Nan. Ask me why."

"Why?"

"Because," said Burt in triumph, "personality, like the measles, will out!"

AMERICAN COOKERY

FORMERLY THE

BOSTON COOKING-SCHOOL MAGAZINE

OF

Culinary Science and Domestic Economics

SUBSCRIPTION $1.50 PER YEAR, SINGLE COPIES 15C
POSTAGE TO FOREIGN COUNTRIES, 40C PER YEAR

TO SUBSCRIBERS

The date stamped on the wrapper is the date on which your subscription expires; it is, also, an acknowledgment that a subscription, or a renewal of the same, has been received.

Please renew on receipt of the colored blank enclosed for this purpose.

In sending notice to renew a subscription or change of address, please give the _old_ address as well as the _new_.

In referring to an original entry, we must know the name as it was formerly given, together with the Post-office, County, State, Post-office Box, or Street Number.

ENTERED AT BOSTON POST-OFFICE AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER

LOVE'S DAY

When the morning on the hill crest snuffs the candles of the night,
And the wide world blooms in beauty with the coming of the light,
With the morn awakens, ever sweet and ever new,
The happiness of knowing I share the dawn with you.

When the morning shadows shorten on the sunny slopes of noon,
And the roads of earth are humming with toil's deep, insistent tune,
Fragrant as a sea wind, blowing from an island blue,
Through moiling hours of toiling comes my memory of you.

When the shadows of the twilight like long lashes dim and gray
Close in slumber softly o'er the weary eyes of day,
Calling through the twilight like harbor lights from sea,
Your love becomes a beacon that shines with cheer for me!

_Arthur Wallace Peach._

LIMITATION OF ARMAMENTS

"On Armistice Day, November 11, at the hour when the twenty-four men representing the six participating nations first face each other across the council table, a nation-wide demonstration will be under way in the United States. Organized labor announces that in every town and city the workers will join with other citizens in mass-meetings and parades and that the keynote of Armistice Day should be, 'It is time to disarm.' It will help in impressing upon our own government and upon other governments that the people are weary of war-made tax burdens; that they are deeply in earnest in their demands that these burdens be removed. It will strengthen the purpose of the four men who are to represent America to know that they have the support of the workers and the voters. The action of organized labor will help in liberating and directing these 'moral forces'; but Labor cannot do it alone. There are others of these 'forces' that cannot be tapped or directed by Labor, and these must come into action. The time is drawing nigh for their mobilization."

_Philadelphia Public Ledger._

"Without the crowding, persistent, fighting force of the masses the crusade cannot be won. This is the people's salvation and it is, therefore, the people's fight. It is now up to the people of this country to make their wishes known and their opinions felt. It should be constantly in mind that, without the mobilized moral force of those upon whom these crushing burdens are now falling, there is little hope that the load will ever be lifted. If it is not lifted, no one can prophesy what lies beyond. There can be no relief from taxes, no relief from expenditures and no relief from war, except through disarmament."

W. E. BORAH.

"One more war, fully prepared for, prepared for with all the diabolical perversions of science, will reduce Europe and America to what Russia is today."

_Churchman._

Certainly we believe in the closest limitation of armament. In this matter we would go to the extreme limit. We are tired of militarism and tired of war and the rumors of war. While we need and desire a merchant marine, we have no use for fighting ships or submarines. Years ago we began to dream that America would never engage in another war, but we have witnessed the most horrid conflict that ever devastated the earth. How can any one ever want war again? The nation that makes an aggressive attack on another should be regarded as an outlaw and treated as such by the rest of the world. Dissensions are sure to arise, but these can be settled by conference and agreement or by arbitration.

Prosperity is dependent on peace. No other world-wide saving can equal that which can be gained through limitation of armament. The wealth of the world consists of just what the world produces. The one master word of the day is Production. People are not producing enough to satisfy all their wants; there is not stuff enough to go round. As a nation we need less of politics and more of production. Our main contention should be a moral appeal for unity in the industrial world. "The field for constructive, imaginative, and creative minds is the field of commerce."

A PIONEER IN HOME ECONOMICS

From a recent report by Mr. Eugene Davenport, vice-president of the University of Illinois, we draw the following:

Miss Isabel Bevier retired this year from her work in Home Economics at the University of Illinois. She entered the service of the University in 1900. During the twenty-one years of its existence, Professor Bevier has given herself unsparingly to the development and conduct, day by day, of the department of Home Economics. The field was almost entirely new, as a university subject. The courses have been outlined and conducted with a double purpose in mind. First, the presenting of home economics as a part of a liberal education; and second, the development of courses leading to a profession in teaching, dietetics, and cafeteria management.

The first graduating class in 1903 numbered three. The number rapidly increased, reaching ninety-four in 1918. The total number of students coming under the instruction of the staff of teachers for the last twenty-one years is approximately 5,000.

If efforts are to be judged by their results, whether in respect to alumnae or the present registration of undergraduate students, it is not too much to say that the purposes of this department have been in the main accomplished, by which is meant that the department has trained hundreds of competent executives and teachers without such exclusive attention to the professional as to break the contact with that great mass of university women who are to become, not teachers or professionals of any kind, but the heads of American homes. To achieve this double purpose has been the great ambition of the department, in which it has eminently succeeded.

It is not too much to say that at present, no department of the university enjoys more of the confidence and respect of the institution than does the department of Home Economics.

At the Recognition Service in honor of Professor Bevier, in May, 1921, the alumnae presented the University with an excellent portrait of Miss Bevier.

"FEEDING-THE-FAMILY" CLUB

Women are waking up to the fact that upon their shoulders rests the responsibility of having a healthier nation. Too many people are dying of avoidable diseases. Rich foods have taken more toll of life than war and pestilence, dietitians tell us. More and more stress is being placed upon diet--not for the sick only, but for those in good health, that they may preserve it. By diet we mean the proper combinations of foods and the scientific uses of vitamines, starches, proteins and acids. What we need is more than a reading acquaintance with those subjects.

A certain group of women in Long Beach, Calif., have decided that the acquisition of knowledge concerning food properties is the only way to better living for their families. They have grouped together under the name of the "Feeding-the-Family" Club, and, under the leadership of the head of the department of domestic science of the public schools, they meet on Wednesday evening each week for two hours to learn how to prepare healthful, nourishing meals for the average family. There are sixteen women in the group, representing fifty-six persons, most of whom are children in school. Think what it means to those children to have mothers who are vitally interested in seeing them grow up to be strong, virile men and women. "Knowledge makes Power," aye, the knowledge of the mothers of today makes for the powerful citizens of tomorrow.

R. C. C.

DO YOUR OWN WORK AND SAVE MONEY

If you are one of the people who are "sick unto death" of these thrift articles and are utterly weary of reading how to clean your porcelain gas-stove and keep your electric washer in repair.

The magazines are so full of helpful hints to the $5,000 and upwards class, that it seems as though a mere person like myself might inquire, "How about poor us? Won't somebody write something for us? How can we, who make up most of the world, live within our incomes?"

As nobody has responded as yet, I am going to tell how we manage and, possibly, some one else may be helped thereby.

Six years ago, when my husband and I awoke from our honeymoon trance, we found ourselves in California, strangers in a lone land, penniless and jobless. My husband was blessed with neither college education nor profession, but we were both young and undaunted--therefore we pulled through. We rented an apartment, furnished, at $15 per month and buckled in. I might say that the rent didn't have to be paid in advance or we wouldn't have moved in. My soul mate--otherwise husband--worked as a truckman, a taxi driver, a cement lamp-post worker, a chauffeur, a night watchman, a salesman, a cook and a dish-washer. In five years we moved twenty different times, an average of once every three months (not because we wished to skip our rent, but because my husband found jobs in so many different parts of the city).

The end of the sixth year has found us located, at last. We get $150 per month and live on that alone. We are buying our own home, a flivver stands in the garage, our house is nicely furnished (a good deal of the furniture we have made ourselves) and we dress and live respectably. I do all my own cooking, washing, ironing, sewing, cleaning, baking and gardening, with a little writing thrown in as a spare-time occupation. No electric machine, $300 gas stove, $700 bedroom set, nor blue-goose stenciled kitchen yet graces our home. No little tea-wagon runs our food to the table. We don't lay by 35 cents in one envelope, $1.25 for electricity in another, nor 63 cents per week for meat in another. We merely save a small portion each month. First, toward our home and the rest we spend or save as we see fit. Our twenty chickens help out a little in meat and eggs, but one whole year passed by before we bought linoleum for kitchen or bath-room. At present we are working on a $7 second-hand writing desk with varnish remover and putty knife and in the end we shall have a very modern, pretty, little, fumed-oak desk for one-seventh the cost of a new one.

So, Ladies, get in and do your own work. Forget the servant problem and the money question. Make things yourselves and see how much fun there is in Life. Don't be afraid to soil your hands--cold cream will fix them. Get as much fun out of each day as possible.

H. W. P.

Seasonable-and-Tested Recipes

By Janet M. Hill and Mary D. Chambers

In all recipes where flour is used, unless otherwise stated, the flour is measured after sifting once. Where flour is measured by cups, the cup is filled with a spoon, and a level cupful is meant. A tablespoonful or a teaspoonful of any designated material is a LEVEL spoonful. In flour mixtures where yeast is called for, use bread flour; in all other flour mixtures, use cake or pastry flour.

Potage Parmentier

Cook the well-washed, white stalks of two or three leeks, sliced lengthwise, in two tablespoonfuls of fat in a saucepan, and allow to remain over the fire for five or six minutes, or until slightly colored. Add four large potatoes, pared and sliced, one quart of cold water, and two teaspoonfuls of salt, cover, and cook for twenty minutes after the water boils. Strain out the potatoes and leeks and press through a colander. Thicken the water by adding one-fourth a cup of flour, blended with two tablespoonfuls of butter or a substitute; stir until it has boiled for one minute; add one-half a teaspoonful of white pepper, stir into it the potato puree, and let the whole come to a boil. Pour into the tureen, and add one-half a cup of rich cream, a cup of well-browned croutons, and a few chervil leaves, or the green leaves of cress or any preferred herb. The addition of the half-cup of rich cream is essential to the soup "parmentier."

Potato-and-Peanut Sausages

Mix one cup of roasted and fine-ground peanuts with one cup and one-half of highly seasoned mashed potatoes. Add one beaten egg, and form the mixture into small sausage-shaped rolls, rolling each one in flour. Roll on a hot pan, greased with bacon fat, or bake in a very hot oven, until the outside of the sausages is lightly browned. Pile in the center of a dish, and garnish with curls of toasted bacon, placed on a border of shredded lettuce.

Roast Turkey

Clean, stuff and truss a twelve-pound turkey, that, when cooked, may rest on the wings level on the platter, the drumsticks close to the body. Rub all over with salt and dredge with flour. Cover the breast with thin slices of salt pork. Set on a rack in a baking-pan (a "double roaster" gives best results). Turn often, at first, to sear over and brown evenly. For the first half hour the oven should be hot, then lower the heat and finish the cooking in an oven in which the fat in the pan will not burn. Cook until the joints are easily separated. It will require three hours and a half. Add no water or broth to the pan during cooking. For basting use the fat that comes from the turkey during cooking.

Turkey Stuffing

Add one teaspoonful of salt, one-fourth a teaspoonful of pepper and one tablespoonful and one-half of poultry seasoning to three cups of cracker crumbs; mix thoroughly and add three-fourths a cup of melted butter.

Garnish the Roast Turkey with Stuffed Onions

Parboil eight choice onions about one hour. Remove from the water and cut out a circular piece from the top of each to form cups. Chop, fine, the pieces of onion; add an equal measure of cold, cooked ham, salt and pepper to season, one-fourth a cup, each, of fine, soft crumbs and melted butter and mix thoroughly. Season the inside of the cups with salt, then stuff with the prepared mixture. Bake slowly about half an hour, basting with melted butter. Serve decorated with celery tips.

Oyster-and-Onion Puree

Steam one pound of white onions, and when tender sift through a colander. Cook one quart of oysters in their liquor until the gills separate; strain, and chop the oysters in a chopping bowl. Return the liquor to the saucepan, and cook with three tablespoonfuls of flour and three tablespoonfuls of softened butter, rubbed together, stirring constantly until well thickened and smooth. Season with one teaspoonful and one-half of salt and one-half a teaspoonful of pepper. Sift into the onion-pulp one-fourth a cup of flour, and stir until blended; add one-fourth a teaspoonful of celery seed and one bayleaf, and mix with the thickened oyster liquor. Stir until the whole comes to a boil and the puree is thick as porridge. Add the chopped oysters and one pint of thin cream, let heat through, and serve with oysterettes, saltines or other plain crackers.

Salmon a la Creole

Clean and scale a small salmon, stuff with one-half a loaf of stale bread moistened with hot water, seasoned with one-fourth a cup of butter, salt and pepper to taste, and one-half a cup of capers. Mix all well, and bind with one beaten egg. Place the salmon on the rack of a baking-pan in a very hot oven, cover with thin slices of bacon, and let cook until done. Serve on a bed of chopped fresh mushrooms, cooked in a little bouillon, and garnish the dish with small fresh tomatoes.

Brother Jonathan

Make a mush of yellow cornmeal, and mould in cylindrical moulds, such as baking powder boxes or brown bread moulds. Let stand until next day, and cut into slices. Arrange the slices on a large porcelain pie-plate in pyramidal form, sprinkling each layer with some sharp, hard cheese, grated, and seasoned with a very little red pepper. Sift buttered crumbs freely over the whole; brown in a hot oven, and serve as a vegetable with fish, with sour grape jelly melted and poured over it.

Plymouth Succotash

Boil, separately, one chicken and four pounds of corned beef. The next day remove meat and fat from both kettles of liquid, combine liquids, season with salt (if needed) and pepper; when boiling add five quarts of hulled corn; remove to slow fire and let simmer three hours. Have ready three pints of New York pea beans that have been soaked twelve hours, boiled until soft and strained through a sieve; add to soup (for thickening). Boil one yellow turnip (or two white turnips), and six potatoes; when done add to succotash. This recipe makes eight quarts.

New England Salad

Dress flowerets of cold, cooked cauliflower with oil, salt, pepper and vinegar. From cold, cooked beets remove the top and center portions to make beet cups. Arrange the prepared cauliflower to fill cups, pour over boiled salad dressing and arrange a heart of celery in each filled beet-cup.

Guinea Chickens

Clean and truss two guinea chickens; place on a bed of sliced, uncooked carrots, potatoes and celery, arranged in the bottom of a casserole--(a large bean-pot serves as well). Sprinkle the chicks with salt and pour over them melted butter; set the cover in place. Bake in a moderate oven one hour and one-quarter, basting every fifteen minutes with melted butter. Add no water to the casserole.

Rib Roast of Beef with Yorkshire Pudding

Place a rib roast of beef on a rack in a dripping pan; dredge with flour and sear over the outside in a hot oven, then add salt and pepper and drippings and let cook at a low temperature until done, basting every ten minutes. Remove to a platter and serve with Yorkshire pudding.

Yorkshire Pudding

Sift together one cup and a half of flour, and one-third a teaspoonful of salt; gradually add one cup and one-half of milk, so as to form a smooth batter; then add three eggs, which have been beaten until thick and light; turn into a small, hot dripping pan, the inside of which has been brushed over with roast beef drippings; when well risen in the pan, baste with the hot roast beef drippings. Bake about twenty minutes. Cut into squares and serve around the roast.

Apple Mint Jelly for Roast Lamb

Cut the apples in quarters, removing imperfections. Barely cover with boiling water, put on a cover and let cook, undisturbed, until soft throughout. Turn into a bag to drain. For a quart of this apple juice set one and one-half pounds of sugar on shallow dishes in the oven to heat. Set the juice over the fire with the leaves from a bunch of mint; let cook twenty minutes, then strain into a clean saucepan. Heat to the boiling point, add the hot sugar and let boil till the syrup, when tested, jellies slightly on a cold dish. Tint with green color-paste very delicately. Have ready three to five custard cups on a cloth in a pan of boiling water. Let the glasses be filled with the water; pour out the water and turn in the jelly. When cooled a little remove to table. (English recipe.)

Marinaded Cutlets

Cut a pound of the best end of neck of mutton into cutlets, allowing two cutlets for each bone, beat them with a cutlet bat and trim them neatly. Let them soak for an hour in a marinade made by mixing six tablespoonfuls of red wine vinegar, one tablespoonful of olive oil, half a teaspoonful of salt, six bruised peppercorns, a minced onion, a sprig of thyme, and a bayleaf. At the end of the hour drain the cutlets, and dredge them with flour to dry them. Brush over each one with beaten egg, and roll it in bread-crumbs; repeat the egging and breadcrumbing a second time, and, if possible, leave them for an hour for the crumbs to dry on. Half fill a deep pan with frying-fat, and when it is heated, so as to give off a pale blue vapor, place the cutlets carefully in the pan, and when they float on top of the fat and are of a rich brown color, they are sufficiently cooked, and must be taken from the fat and drained on kitchen paper before being served _en couronne_, or on a mound of mashed potatoes, green peas, French beans, or Brussels sprouts.

Veal cutlets, fillets of beef, fillets of white fish, or cutlets of cod or hake, are excellent when prepared by the same method. (English recipe.)

Thanksgiving Corn Cake

Sift together two cups of corn meal, two cups of white flour, four _heaping_ teaspoonfuls of baking powder, one LEVEL teaspoonful of soda, one teaspoonful of salt, and one-half a cup of sugar. Add one cup of sour milk (gradually), three-fourths cup of sour cream, four eggs and one-third a cup of melted butter.

Thanksgiving Pudding

Beat the yolks of four eggs; add one pint of soft bread crumbs, one cup of sugar, the grated rind of a lemon, one teaspoonful of salt, and one cup of large table raisins from which the seeds have been removed; mix all together thoroughly, then add one quart of rich milk. Bake in a very moderate oven until firm in the center. When the pudding has cooled somewhat, beat the whites of four eggs dry; beat in half a cup of sugar and spread or pipe the meringue over the pudding; dredge with granulated sugar and let cook in a very moderate oven about fifteen minutes; the oven should be of such heat that the meringue does not color until the last few minutes of cooking.

Coffee Fruit Punch

Add one-half a cup of fine-ground coffee to one cup of cold water, bring very slowly to a boil, and let simmer for ten minutes. Strain, allow grounds to settle, decant, and add one cup of sugar. Mix one-half a cup of sifted strawberry preserve with the juice of two lemons, the juice of three oranges and the grated rind of one, and half a cup of pineapple juice. Let the whole stand together for half an hour; then strain, add the coffee, a quart or more of Vichy, or any preferred sparkling water, and serve in tall glasses filled one-third full with shaved ice; garnish each with a thin strip of candied angelica.

Sweet Cider Frappe

Make a syrup by boiling one cup of sugar and two cups of water fifteen minutes; add one quart of sweet cider and one-half a cup of lemon juice; when cool freeze--using equal parts of ice and salt. Serve with roast turkey or roast pork.

Fig-and-Cranberry Pie