Chapter VIII: Front Matter (8)

Soak the crumbs in the milk; rub the butter and sugar to a cream, and put with the beaten yolks. Beat up this mixture with the soaked crumbs; stir in the corn-starch; then the whisked whites, flavoring, and, at the last, the grated cocoanut. Beat hard one minute; pour into a buttered pudding-dish—the same in which it is to be served—and bake in a moderate oven three-quarters of an hour.

Eat very cold, with powdered sugar on top.

IMPROMPTU CHRISTMAS PUDDING. (_Very fine._)

2 cups of best mince meat made for Christmas pies. Drain off all superfluous moisture. If the meat be rather too dry for pies, it will make the better pudding.

1½ cups prepared flour.

6 eggs—whites and yolks beaten separately.

Whip the eggs and stir the yolks into the mince-meat. Beat them in hard for two or three minutes until thoroughly incorporated. Put in the whites and the flour, alternately beating in each instalment before adding the next. Butter a large mould very well; put in the mixture, leaving room for the swelling of the pudding, and boil five hours steadily. If the boiling should intermit one minute, there will be a heavy streak in the pudding. Six hours’ boiling will do no harm.

Turn out upon a hot dish; pour brandy over it and light just as it goes into the dining-room. Eat with rich sauce. I know of no other pudding of equal excellence that can be made with so little trouble as this, and is as apt to “turn out well.”

If you have no mince-meat in the house, you can buy an admirable article, ready made, at any first-class grocery store. It is put up in neat wooden cans (which are stanch and useful for holding eggs, starch, etc., after the mince-meat is used up) and bears the stamp, “ATMORE’S CELEBRATED MINCE MEAT.”

And what is noteworthy, it deserves to be “celebrated.” It has never been my good fortune to meet with any other _made_ mince-meat that could compare with it.

LEMON SOUFFLÉ PUDDING.

1 heaping cup of prepared flour.

2 cups of rich milk.

½ cup of butter.

Juice of 1 lemon and half the grated peel.

4 table-spoonfuls of sugar.

5 eggs—whites and yolks beaten separately and very light.

Chop the butter into the flour. Scald the milk and stir into it while still over the fire, the flour and butter. When it begins to thicken, add it, gradually, to the beaten yolks and sugar. Beat all up well and turn out to cool in a broad dish. It should be cold when you whip in the stiffened whites. Butter a mould; pour in the mixture, leaving abundance of room for the _soufflé_ to earn its name—and steam one hour and a half, keeping the water under the steamer at a fast, hard boil.

When done, dip it into cold water for an instant, let it stand one minute, after you take it out of this, and turn out upon a hot dish.

Eat with brandy sauce.

LÉCHE CRÉMA SOUFFLÉ. +

1 quart of milk.

3 table-spoonfuls corn-starch, wet with cold milk.

1 cup powdered sugar.

½ cup strawberry jam, or sweet fruit jelly.

6 eggs—beaten very light.

Flavoring to taste.

Boil the milk, and stir in the corn-starch. Stir one minute and pour into a bowl containing the yolks, the whites of two eggs and half the sugar. Whip up for two or three minutes and put into a nice baking-dish, buttered. Set in a pan of boiling water and bake half an hour, or until firm. Just before withdrawing it from the oven, cover with jelly or jam, put on dexterously and quickly, and this, with a _méringue_ made of the reserved whites and sugar. Shut the oven until the _méringue_ is set and slightly colored.

Eat cold, with cream.

CHERRY SOUFFLÉ PUDDING.

1 cup prepared flour.

2 cups of milk.

5 eggs.

3 table-spoonfuls powdered sugar.

Bitter almond flavoring.

½ pound crystallized or _glacé_ cherries.

A pinch of salt.

Scald the milk, and stir into it the flour, wet up with a cup of the milk. Boil one minute, stirring well up from the bottom of the farina-kettle; mix in the yolks beaten light with the sugar, flavor, and let it get perfectly cold. Then whip the whites until you can cut them with a knife, and beat, fast and hard, into the custard. Butter a mould thickly; strew with the cherries until the inside is pretty well covered; put in the mixture—leaving room for puffing—and boil for an hour and a half.

Dip into cold water; take it out and let it stand, after the lid is removed, a full minute, before turning it out.

Eat warm with wine, or lemon sauce.

SPONGE-CAKE SOUFFLÉ PUDDING. +

12 square (penny) sponge-cakes—stale.

5 eggs.

1 cup milk.

2 glasses sherry.

½ cup of powdered sugar.

Put the cakes in the bottom of a buttered pudding-dish; pour the wine over them, and cover while you make the custard. Heat the milk and pour over the yolks of the eggs, beaten and strained, and half the sugar. Return to the fire, and stir until quite thick. Pour this upon the soaked cakes, slowly, that they may not rise to the top; put in the oven, and when it is again very hot, spread above it the whites whisked stiff with the rest of the sugar.

Bake ten minutes, or until the _méringue_ is lightly browned and firm. Serve in the baking-dish.

Eat cold. It will be found very nice.

APPLE SOUFFLÉ PUDDING. +

6 or 7 fine juicy apples.

1 cup fine bread-crumbs.

4 eggs.

1 cup of sugar.

2 table-spoonfuls butter.

Nutmeg and a little grated lemon-peel.

Pare, core and slice the apples, and stew in a covered farina-kettle, without a drop of water, until they are tender. Mash to a smooth pulp, and, while hot, stir in butter and sugar. Let it get quite cold, and whip in, first the yolks of the eggs, then the whites—beaten _very_ stiff—alternately with the bread-crumbs. Flavor, beat hard three minutes, until all the ingredients are reduced to a creamy batter, and bake in a buttered dish, in a moderate oven. It will take about an hour to cook it properly. Keep it covered until ten minutes before you take it out. This will retain the juices and prevent the formation of a crust on the top.

Eat warm with “bee-hive sauce.”

RICE SOUFFLÉ PUDDING. +

½ cup raw rice.

1 pint of milk.

6 eggs.

4 table-spoonfuls powdered sugar.

1 table-spoonful butter.

Soak the rice in warm water enough to cover it well for two hours. Put it over the fire in the same water, and simmer in a farina-kettle until the rice is dry. Add the milk, shaking up the rice—_not_ stirring it—and cook slowly, covered, until tender throughout. Stir in the butter, then the yolks of the eggs, beaten and strained, whatever flavoring you may desire, and when these have cooled somewhat, the whipped whites. Bake in a handsome pudding-dish, well buttered, half an hour.

Eat warm—not hot—or _very_ cold.

ARROWROOT SOUFFLÉ PUDDING.

3 cups of milk.

5 eggs.

1 large table-spoonful butter.

3 table-spoonfuls sugar.

4 table-spoonfuls Bermuda arrowroot, wet up with cold milk.

Vanilla or other flavoring.

Heat the milk to a boil, and stir into this the arrowroot. Simmer, using your spoon freely all the time, until it thickens up well. Put in the butter; take from the fire and beat into it the yolks and sugar, previously whipped together. Stir hard and put in the whites, whisked _very_ stiff, and the flavoring.

Butter a neat baking-dish; put in the mixture and bake half an hour.

Sift powdered sugar over it, and serve immediately.

A VERY DELICATE SOUFFLÉ.

5 eggs—whites and yolks beaten separately.

2 table-spoonfuls of arrowroot wet up in 4 table-spoonfuls cold water.

4 table-spoonfuls powdered sugar.

Rose-water flavoring.

Beat the sugar into the whipped yolks, and into the whites, little by little, the dissolved arrowroot. Flavor and whisk all together. Butter a neat mould, pour in the mixture until half way to the top, and bake half an hour.

If quite firm, and if you have a steady hand, you may turn it out upon a hot dish. It then makes a handsome show. It is safer to leave it in the baking-dish. It must be served at once. It is very nice.

BATTER PUDDING. (_Very nice._) +

1 quart of milk.

16 table-spoonfuls of flour.

4 eggs beaten very light.

Salt to taste.

Stir until the batter is free from lumps, and bake in two buttered pie plates, or very shallow pudding-dishes.

APPLE AND BATTER PUDDING. (_Very good._) +

1 pint of milk.

2 eggs, beaten light.

1 dessert-spoonful butter, rubbed in the flour.

¼ teaspoonful of soda, dissolved in hot water.

½ teaspoonful of cream of tartar, sifted in the flour.

A pinch of salt.

Flour enough for thin batter.

6 apples—well flavored and slightly tart.

Pare and core the apples and put them in a buttered pudding-dish. Pour the batter over them and bake three-quarters of an hour. Eat hot with hard sauce.

PUDDING-DISHES.

The baking-dish of “ye olden time” was never comely; often positively unsightly. Dainty housewives pinned napkins around them and wreathed them with flowers to make them less of an eyesore. In this day, the pudding-maker can combine the æsthetic and useful by using the enameled wares of MESSRS. LALANGE AND GROSJEAN, 89 BEEKMAN STREET, NEW YORK. The pudding-dishes made by them are pretty in themselves, easily kept clean; do not crack or blacken under heat, and are set on the table in handsome stands of plated silver that completely conceal the baking-dish. A silver rim runs around the top and hides even the edge of the bowl. They can be had, with or without covers, and are invaluable for macaroni, scallops, and many other “baked meats.” Saucepans and kettles of every kind are made in the same ware by this firm.

FRITTERS.

Not even so-called pastry is more ruthlessly murdered in the mixing and baking than that class of desserts the generic name of which stands at the head of this bake. Heavy, sour, sticky and oleaginous beyond civilized comparison, it is no marvel that the compound popularly known and eaten as “fritter” has become a doubtful dainty in the esteem of many, the object of positive loathing to some.

I do not recommend my fritters to dyspeptics and babies, nor as a standing dish to anybody. But that they can be made toothsome, spongy and harmless, as well as pleasant to those blessed with healthy appetites and unimpaired digestions, I hold firmly and intelligently.

Two or three conditions are requisite to this end. The fritters must be quickly made, thoroughly beaten, of right consistency,—_and_ they must not lie in the fat the fraction of a minute after they are done. Take them up with a perforated spoon, or egg-beater, and lay on a hot sieve or cullender to drain before serving on the dish that is to take them to the table. Moreover, the fat must be hissing hot when the batter goes in if you would not have them grease-soaked to the very heart. Line the dish in which they are served with tissue-paper fringed at the ends, or a clean napkin to absorb any lingering drops of lard.

BELL FRITTERS. +

2 cups of milk.

2 cups of prepared flour.

3 table-spoonfuls sugar.

4 eggs, very well beaten.

A little salt.

½ tea-spoonful of cinnamon.

Beat the sugar into the yolks; add the milk, salt and seasoning, the flour and whites alternately. Beat hard for three minutes.

Have ready plenty of lard in a deep frying-pan or Scotch kettle; make very hot; drop in the batter in table-spoonfuls, and fry to a good brown. Be careful not to scorch the lard, or the fritters will be ruined in taste and color.

Throw upon a warm sieve or cullender as fast as they are fried, and sift powdered sugar over them.

Eat hot with lemon sauce.

RUSK FRITTERS. +

12 stale rusks.

5 eggs.

4 table-spoonfuls white sugar.

2 glasses best sherry.

Pare all the crust from the rusk, and cut each into two pieces if small—into three if large. The slices should be nearly an inch thick. Pour the wine over them; leave them in it two or three minutes, then lay on a sieve to drain. Beat the sugar into the yolks (which should first be whipped and strained), then the whites. Dip each slice into this mixture and fry in boiling lard to a light golden brown.

Drain well; sprinkle with powdered sugar mingled with cinnamon, and serve hot, with or without sauce.

LIGHT FRITTERS.

3 cups stale bread-crumbs.

1 quart of milk.

4 eggs.

Salt and nutmeg to taste.

3 table-spoonfuls prepared flour.

Scald the milk and pour it over the crumbs. Stir to a smooth, soft batter, add the yolks, whipped and strained, the seasoning, the flour—then, the whites whisked very stiff. Mix well, and fry, by the table-spoonful, in boiling lard. Drain; serve hot and eat with sweet sauce.

CURRANT FRITTERS. (_Very nice._)

2 cups dry, fine bread-crumbs.

2 table-spoonfuls prepared flour.

2 cups of milk.

½ pound currants, washed and well dried.

5 eggs whipped very light, and the yolks strained.

½ cup powdered sugar.

1 table-spoonful butter.

½ teaspoonful mixed cinnamon and nutmeg.

Boil the milk and pour over the bread. Mix and put in the butter. Let it get cold. Beat in, next, the yolks and sugar, the seasoning, flour and stiff whites; finally, the currants dredged whitely with flour. The batter should be thick.

Drop in great spoonfuls into the hot lard and fry. Drain them and send hot to table.

Eat with a mixture of wine and powdered sugar.

LEMON FRITTERS. +

2 heaping cups of prepared flour.

5 eggs—beaten stiff. Strain the yolks.

½ cup cream.

Grated peel of half a lemon.

½ cup powdered sugar.

1 teaspoonful mingled nutmeg and cinnamon.

A little salt.

Beat up the whipped and strained yolks with the sugar; add the seasoning and cream; the whites, at last the flour, worked in quickly and lightly. It should be a soft paste, just stiff enough to roll out. Pass the rolling-pin once or twice over it until it is about three-quarters of an inch thick. Cut into small, circular cakes with a tumbler or cake-cutter; drop into the hot lard and fry. They ought to puff up like crullers. Drain on clean, hot paper. Eat warm with a sauce made of—

Juice of 2 lemons.

Grated peel of one.

1 cup of powdered sugar.

1 glass wine.

Whites of 2 eggs beaten stiff.

APPLE FRITTERS.

8 or 10 fine pippins or greenings.

Juice of 1 lemon.

3 cups prepared flour.

6 eggs.

3 cups milk.

Some powdered sugar.

Cinnamon and nutmeg.

A little salt.

Pare and core the apples neatly, leaving a hole in the centre of each. Cut crosswise into slices half an inch thick. Spread these on a dish and sprinkle with lemon-juice and powdered sugar.

Beat the eggs light, straining the yolks, and add to the latter the milk and salt, the whites and the flour, by turns. Dip the slices of apple into the batter, turning them until they are thoroughly coated, and fry, a few at a time, in hot lard. Throw upon a warm sieve as fast as you take them out, and sift powdered sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg over them.

These fritters require dexterous handling, but if properly made and cooked, are delicious.

Eat with wine sauce.

RICE FRITTERS. +

2 cups of milk.

Nearly a cup raw rice.

3 table-spoonfuls sugar.

¼ pound raisins.

3 eggs.

1 table-spoonful butter.

1 table-spoonful flour.

Nutmeg and salt.

Soak the rice three hours in enough warm water to cover it well. At the end of this time, put it into a farina-kettle, set in an outer vessel of hot water, and simmer until dry. Add the milk and cook until it is all absorbed. Stir in the butter and take from the fire. Beat the eggs very light with the sugar, and when the rice has cooled, stir these in with the flour and seasoning. Flour your hands well and make this into flat cakes. Place in the middle of each two or three raisins which have been “plumped” in boiling water. Roll the cake into a ball enclosing the raisins, flour well and fry in plenty of hot lard.

Serve on a napkin, with sugar and cinnamon sifted over them. Eat with sweetened cream, hot or cold.

CORN-MEAL FRITTERS.

3 cups milk.

2 cups best Indian meal.

½ cup flour.

4 eggs.

½ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.

1 teaspoonful cream of tartar, sifted in flour.

1 table-spoonful sugar.

1 table-spoonful melted butter.

1 teaspoonful salt.

Beat and strain the yolks; add sugar, butter, milk and salt, the soda-water, and then stir in the Indian meal. Beat five minutes _hard_ before adding the whites. The flour, containing the cream of tartar, should go in last. Again, beat up vigorously. The batter should be just thick enough to drop readily from the spoon. Put into boiling lard by the spoonful. One or two experiments as to the quantity to be dropped for one fritter will teach you to regulate size and shape.

Drain _very_ well and serve at once. Eat with a sauce made of butter and sugar, seasoned with cinnamon.

Some persons like a suspicion of ginger mixed in the fritters, or in the sauce. You can add or withhold it as you please.

PEACH FRITTERS. (_With Yeast._)

1 quart of flour.

1 cup of milk.

½ cup of yeast.

2 table-spoonfuls sugar.

4 eggs.

2 table-spoonfuls of butter.

A little salt.

Some fine, ripe freestone peaches, pared and stoned.

Sift the flour into a bowl; work in milk and yeast, and set it in a tolerably warm place to rise. This will take five or six hours. Then beat the eggs very light with sugar, butter and salt. Mix this with the risen dough, and beat with a stout wooden spoon until all the ingredients are thoroughly incorporated. Knead vigorously with your hands; pull off bits about the size of an egg; flatten each and put in the centre a peach, from which the stone has been taken through a slit in the side. Close the dough upon it, make into a round roll and set in order upon a floured pan for the second rising. The balls must not touch one another. They should be light in an hour. Have ready a large round-bottomed Scotch kettle or saucepan, with plenty of lard—boiling hot. Drop in your peach-pellets and fry more slowly than you would fritters made in the usual way. Drain on hot white paper; sift powdered sugar over them and eat hot with brandy sauce.

You can make these of canned peaches or apricots wiped dry from the syrup.

POTATO FRITTERS.

6 table-spoonfuls mashed potato—very fine.

½ cup good cream.

5 eggs—the yolks light and strained—the whites whisked very stiff.

2 table-spoonfuls powdered sugar.

2 table-spoonfuls prepared flour.

Juice of 1 lemon. Half the grated peel.

½ teaspoonful nutmeg.

Work the cream into the potato; beat up light and rub through a sieve, or very fine cullender. Add to this the beaten yolks and sugar. Whip to a creamy froth; put in the lemon, flour, nutmeg, and beat five minutes longer before the whites are stirred in. Have your lard ready and hot in the frying-pan. Drop in the batter by the spoonful and fry to a light brown. Drain on clean paper, and serve at once.

Eat with wine sauce.

CREAM FRITTERS. (_Very nice._)

1 cup cream.

5 eggs—the whites only.

2 full cups prepared flour.

1 saltspoonful nutmeg.

A pinch of salt.

Stir the whites into the cream in turn with the flour, put in nutmeg and salt, beat all up hard for two minutes. The batter should be rather thick. Fry in plenty of hot sweet lard, a spoonful of batter for each fritter. Drain and serve upon a hot, clean napkin.

Eat with jelly sauce. Pull, not cut them open.

ROLL FRITTERS, OR IMITATION DOUGHNUTS. +

8 small round rolls, stale and light.

1 cup rich milk.

2 table-spoonfuls sugar.

1 teaspoonful mixed nutmeg and cinnamon.

Beaten yolks of 3 eggs.

1 cupful powdered crackers.

Pare every bit of the crust from the rolls with a keen knife, and trim them into round balls. Sweeten the milk with the sugar, put in the spice; lay the rolls upon a soup-plate, and pour the milk over them. Turn them over and over, until they soak it all up. Drain for a few minutes on a sieve; dip in the beaten yolks, roll in the powdered cracker, and fry in plenty of lard.

Drain and serve hot with lemon-sauce.

They are very good.

SPONGE-CAKE FRITTERS.

6 or 8 square (penny) sponge-cakes.

1 cup cream, boiling hot, with a pinch of soda stirred in.

4 eggs, whipped light.

1 table-spoonful corn-starch, wet up in cold milk.

¼ pound currants, washed and dried.

Pound the cakes fine, and pour the cream over them. Stir in the corn-starch. Cover for half an hour, then beat until cold. Add the yolks—light and strained, the whipped whites, then the currants thickly dredged with flour. Beat all hard together. Drop in spoonfuls into the boiling lard; fry quickly; drain upon a warmed sieve, and send to table hot.

The syrup of brandied fruit makes an excellent sauce for these.

CURD FRITTERS.

1 quart sweet milk.

2 glasses white wine.

1 teaspoonful liquid rennet.

5 eggs, whipped light.

4 table-spoonfuls prepared flour.

2 table-spoonfuls powdered sugar.

Nutmeg to taste.

Scald the milk, and pour in the wine and rennet. Take from the fire, cover, and let it stand until curd and whey are well separated. Drain off every drop of the latter, and dry the curd by laying for a few minutes upon a soft, clean cloth. Beat yolks and sugar together, whip in the curd until fully mixed; then the flour, nutmeg and whites. The batter should be smooth, and rather thick.

Have ready some butter in a small frying-pan; drop in the fritters a few at a time, and fry quickly. Drain upon a warm sieve, lay within a dish lined with white paper, or a clean napkin; sift powdered sugar over them, and eat with jelly sauce.

Odd as the receipt may seem in the reading, the fritters are most palatable. In the country, where milk is plenty, they may be made of cream—unless, as is too often the case, the good wife _will_ save all the cream for butter.

CONCERNING ALLOWANCES.

(CONFIDENTIAL—WITH JOHN.)

I do not like that word “allowance.” It savors too much of a stipend granted by a lordling to a serf; a government pension to a beneficiary; the dole of the rich to the poor. But since it has crept into general use as descriptive of that portion of the wife’s earnings which she is permitted to disburse more or less at her discretion, we must take it as we find it.

Marriage is to a woman one of two things—licensed, and therefore honorable beggary, or, a copartnership with her husband upon fair and distinctly specified terms. When I spoke of the wife’s earnings just now, it was not with reference to moneys accumulated by work or investments outside of the home which she occupies with you and your children. We will set aside, if you please, the legal and religious fiction that you have endowed her with all—or half your worldly goods, and put still further from our consideration the sounding oaths with which you protested in the days of your wooing, that you cared nothing for pelf and lucre—Cupid’s terms for stocks, bonds and mortgages, houses and lands—except that you might cast them at her feet. If you recollect such figures of speech at all, it is with a laugh, good-humored, or shame-faced, and the plea that everybody talks in the same way in like circumstances; that pledges thus given are in no wise to be regarded as promissory notes. Hymen’s is a general court of bankruptcy so far as such obligations go. Your wife is a sensible woman, and never expected to take you at your word—at least, such hot and hasty words as those, in which you declared yourself to be the most abject of her slaves, and herself the empress of your universe, including the aforementioned stocks, mortgages, houses and lands, real and personal estate—all assets _in esse_ and _in posse_.

Having cleared away, by a stroke of common sense, this gossamer, that like other cobwebs, is pretty while the dew of early morning impearls it, and only an annoyance afterward; particularly odious when it entangles itself about the lips and eyes of him who lately admired it—we will look at the question of the wife’s work and wages from a business point of view—pencil and paper in hand.

First, we will determine what should be the salary of a competent housekeeper; one who makes her employer’s interests her own; who rises up early and lies down late, and eats the bread of carefulness; who is not to be coaxed away by higher wages, and is never in danger of giving warning if her “feelings are hurt;” if the servants are insubordinate, or the master is given to fault-finding, and not always respectful to herself. It would be to your interest, were you a widower, you confess, to give this treasure two dollars a day—as women’s wages go. “And,” you add in a burst of manly confidence, “she would be cheap at that.” But we will put down her salary in round numbers, at $700 per annum.

Now comes the seamstress’ pay. Again, a “competent person,” one who is ever in her place; whose work-hours number fourteen out of the twenty-four, if her services are required by you or the children; whose needle is always threaded, her eye ever vigilant; with whom slighting and botching are things unknown by practice; who takes pride in seeing each of the household trig and tidy; who “seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands;” who is an adept in fine needlework as in plain sewing, and not a novice in dress-making; who, perchance, can “manage” boys’ clothes as well as girls—who will do it, of a certainty, if you explain that you cannot afford tailors’ bills for urchins under ten years of age; finally, who possesses that most valuable of arts for a poor man’s wife,

“To gar auld claes look a’maist as weel as new.”

Shall we allow to this nonpareil the wages of an ordinary seamstress who “cannot undertake cutting and fitting,”—one dollar a day? Or, is she entitled to the pay of a dressmaker’s assistant—half a dollar more? I do not want to be hard with you. We will set her down for $450 a year. And, again, we conclude that you have made a good bargain.

Next, the nursery-governess, and perhaps the most important functionary in the household. She must, you stipulate, have charge of the children, by day and night; guard morals, health and manners, besides teaching the youngerlings the rudiments of reading and writing; must superintend the preparation of the elder ones’ lessons for school-recitations, and look to it that catechism and Bible-lesson are ready for Sabbath-school; that musical exercises are duly practised; that home is made so attractive to the boys that they shall not be drawn thence by the questionable hilarity of engine-house and oyster-cellar. A lady she must be, else how would your girls be trained to modest and graceful behavior, and your friends be entertained as you deem is due to you and to them, in your house? A responsible, judicious person is indispensable to the comfort and health of you and yours; one who does not regard the care of a young baby as “too confining;” nor sleepless nights on account of it, a valid reason for “bettering herself;” nor a brisk succession of measles, mumps and chicken-pox cogent cause for informing you that she “didn’t engage for this sort of work, and would you be suiting yourself with a lady as has a stronger constitution—immediate, for her trunk is packed.”

Would a thousand dollars per annum provide you with such a hireling? I knew a wealthy man who offered just that sum for a nursery-governess during the protracted illness of his wife. She must be intelligent and ladylike, he stated, qualified to undertake the education of the three younger children. There were six in all, but there was a tutor for the boys. The governess’ bed-room adjoined that of the little girls, the door of which must stand open all night. The baby’s crib was to be by her bed, and a child, three years old, was also to share her chamber. She would be treated respectfully and kindly, and every enjoyment of the luxurious establishment, compatible with the proper discharge of the duties appointed, would be hers.

_He could get no one to take the place._

This is simple fact, and it is pregnant with meaning.

Nevertheless, what if we put down the wages of your nursery-governess at the same sum you are willing to give your housekeeper—$700? Oblige me by adding up the short row of figures under your hand.

$700
450
700
——————
$1,850

This you will please consider as the amount of your wife’s salary, due from you for services rendered, exclusive of board and lodgings, which are always the portion of resident employees in your house. There is no charge for “extras,” you observe. We have said nothing about the bill for nursing you through that four weeks’ spell of inflammatory rheumatism last winter, or the longer siege of fever, three years ago, when this servant-of-all-work sat up with you fourteen weary nights, and would entrust the care of you to no one else. By her skillful ministrations, the miracle of her patience, love and prayers, you were rescued, say the doctors, from the close clutch of death. You cannot see the figures very distinctly while you think of it, but we agreed, at the outset, to keep feeling in the background.

You “have tried to be a kind, affectionate husband,” you say, in a very unbusiness-like way.

I believe you, and so does the blessed little woman whom I have shut out from this conference, lest her foolish fondness should spoil the effect of our matter-of-fact talk. I would have you and all husbands be _just_, no less than loving. Let us return to our figures. The estimate is for a man of moderate means and modest home, one of the middle class which is everywhere the bone and muscle of the community—the class that makes national character, the world over. If you are wealthy, and put the care of a large and elegant establishment upon your manager, the remuneration should be in proportion. For a fancy article you have to pay a fancy price. You misunderstand your wife and me, if you imagine that we would inaugurate in your household a debit and credit system and quarter-day settlements. She would be the first to shrink from such an interpretation of your mutual relations. I should, of all your friends and well-wishers, be the last to recommend it.

But I have studied this matter long and seriously, and I offer you as the result of my observation in various walks of life, and careful calculation of labor and expense, the bold assertion that every wife who performs her part, even tolerably well, in whatever rank of society, more than earns her living, and that this should be an acknowledged fact with both parties to the marriage contract. The idea of her dependence upon her husband is essentially false and mischievous, and should be done away with, at once and forever. It has crushed self-respect out of thousands of women; it has scourged thousands from the marriage-altar to the tomb, with a whip of scorpions; it has driven many to desperation and crime.

“Every dollar is a lash!” I once overheard a wife say, in bitter soliloquy, as her husband left her presence after placing in her hand the money for which she had timidly asked him, to pay the weekly household bills.

Then, still supposing herself unseen, she threw the roll of bank-notes upon the floor and trampled it under foot, in a transport of impotent, and, to my way of thinking, righteous wrath.

“An exceptional case?” I beg your pardon! I wish it were. Her husband meant to be kind and affectionate as honestly as do you. When money was “easy,” he would give it to her freely and cheerfully, provided his mood was propitious at the time of her application. He had expended large sums in the purchase of jewelry and handsome clothing for her, and exulted in seeing her arrayed in them. He loved her truly, and was proud of her. His mistake was in ignoring the fact that he _owed_ her anything in actual dollars and cents; that she worked for her livelihood as faithfully as did he, and that his debt to her was, in the highest degree, a “confidential” one. If put into the confessional, he would have admitted that he thought of himself as the only bread-winner of the family, and was, sometimes, tartly intolerant of the domestic demands upon his earnings. He made a yet grosser mistake in feeling and behaving as if the money deposited in her hands for the current expenses of the establishment, were a gift to her personally. This is a masculine blunder that poisons the happiness of more women than I like to think of, or you would be willing to believe. Be kindly-affectioned as you will, your wife cannot respect you thoroughly if she sees that you are habitually unreasonable and unjust. And it is neither just nor rational to speak and act as if all the butter, flour, sugar, meat and sundries which she saves you the trouble of buying, and of which, nine times out of ten, she is the more judicious purchaser, were to be consumed by her, and her alone.

“You never thought of such a thing!” you protest betwixt laughter and vexation.

Then, do not act as if it were your settled conviction.

Set aside from your income what you adjudge to be a reasonable and liberal sum for the maintenance of your family in the style suitable for people of your means and position. Determine what purchases you will yourself make, and what shall be intrusted to your wife, and put the money needed for her proportion into her care as frankly as you take charge of your share. Try the experiment of talking to her as if she were a business partner. Let her understand what you can afford to do, and what you cannot. If in this explanation you can say, “we,” and “ours,” you will gain a decided moral advantage, although it may be at the cost of masculine prejudice and pride of power. Impress upon her mind that a certain sum, made over to her apart from the rest, is hers absolutely. Not a present from you, but her honest earnings, and that _you_ would not be honest were you to withhold it. And do not ask her “if that will do?” any more than you would address the question to any other workwoman. (With what cordial detestation wives regard that brief query, which drops, like a sentence of the creed, from husbandly lips, I leave your spouse to tell you. Also, if she ever heard of a woman who answered anything but “yes.”)

Advise her, for her own satisfaction, and because it is “business like,” to keep an account of her receipts and expenditures, but apprise her distinctly that you do not expect her to exhibit this to you, unless she should need your assistance or advice in balancing her books, or in some perplexed question of “profit and loss.” She will be ready to appreciate that the one sum deposited with her is a trust fund to be used to the best advantage for the general good, and the proud consciousness that she is the actual proprietor of the other, and irresponsible, save to her conscience, for the manner in which it is spent, will make her the more careful not to use it amiss. As to the housekeeping money—the weekly or monthly “allowance”—you may be very sure that you and the children will get the benefit of every cent. However economically she may handle her private store, the bulk of it will not be increased by surreptitious pinchings from the family supply of daily bread.

I have known women whose sole perquisites were what they could save from their not large allowances, who, in the absence of their husbands from home, would keep themselves and families of hungry, growing children,—with the consent and co-operation of the latter—upon the most meagre fare consistent with the bare satisfaction of the cravings of nature, that the few dollars thus spared might go toward the purchase of some coveted article of dress for one of the girls; a set of tools or books for a boy, or a piece of furniture desired by all. Which bit of economy (!) being reported to the _paterfamilias_ when the dearly-bought thing was exhibited, was pronounced by him, his hand complacently finding its way to the plethoric wallet in his pocket, to be worthy of his august approval. How many husbands have heard their wives remark how cheaply the family lived when “papa was away?” and how many have asked themselves seriously why and how this was done?

Other women, and more to be pitied, I am acquainted with, who make false entries in the account-books, which are showed weekly to their lords as explanatory of “the way the money goes.” It is easier and less likely “to make a fuss,” to record that seven pounds of butter have been bought and used, his lordship having helped in the consumption thereof, when by sharp management, five have sufficed; to write down “new shoes for Bobby, $4,00,” when, in reality, the cost of mending his old ones that they might last a month longer, was only $1,50,—than to confess to the practical critic who does not overlook a single item, that the money “made” by these expedients was spent, partly in paying up a yearly subscription to the Charitable Society; partly for an innocent luncheon during a day’s shopping in the city.

“Unjustifiable deception?” Have I pretended to excuse it? But I look back of the timid woman—the pauper, bedecked in silks, laces and gems,—for most men like to see their wives dressed as well as their neighbors—the moral coward, who has lied from the natural desire to handle a little money for herself without being cross-examined about it—and ask—“by what stress of humiliating tyranny was she brought to this?”

All women do not manage monetary affairs well, you remind me, gently. Some are unprincipled in their extravagance, reckless of everything save their own whims and unconscionable desires. Must a man beggar himself and those dependent upon him, lest such an one should accuse him of parsimony? By yielding to demands he knows to be exorbitant, he proves himself to be weaker even than she.

I have said nowhere that a woman is the best judge of what her husband ought to appropriate from his gains or fortune for the support of his family. But he stands convicted of a grave error of judgment, if he has chosen from the whole world as the keeper of his honor and happiness, a woman whom he cannot trust to touch his purse-strings.

Let us be patient as well as reasonable. So long as a babe is kept in long clothes, and carried in arms, it will not learn to walk alone. The majority of women have been swathed in conventionalities and borne above the practicalities of business by mistaken tenderness or misapprehension of their powers, for so long, that, however quick may be their intuitions, time and practice are necessary to make them adepts in financiering. The best way to render them trustworthy is not by taking it for granted, and letting them see that you do, that they have sinister designs upon your pockets. They are not pirates by nature, nor are they, even with such schooling as many get from their legal proprietors, always on the alert to wheedle or extort a few dollars for their own sty and selfish ends. After all, is there not a spice of truth in the would-be satire of the old distich?

“What are wives made of—made of?
Everything good, _if they’re but understood_!”

If you chance to be painfully conscious of the mental inferiority and warped conscience of your partner in the solemn dance of life; if there is more “worse” than “better” in the everyday wear of the matrimonial bond; if sloth and waste mark her administration of household affairs, instead of the industrious thrift you would recommend, and which you see others practise; if the rent in the bottom of the pouch carries off the money faster than you can drop it in, you are to be pitied almost as much as your bachelor neighbor, who sews on his own buttons, and depends upon boarding-houses for his daily food. Still, my friend, is there any reason why you should accept the consequences of this one mistake on your part, with less philosophy; bring to the bearing of it a smaller modicum of Christian resignation than you summon to support you under any other? Women have been as grievously misled by fancy or affection, before now, and have borne the burden of disappointment to the grave without murmur or reproach.

Then, there is always the chance that your wife is not “understood,” or that, well-meant as your attempts to “manage” her have been, you have not selected the most judicious methods of doing this. In this enlightened and liberal age, nobody, unless he be bigot or fool, habitually thinks and speaks of women as a lower order of intelligent beings. But even in your breast, my ill-mated friend, there may lurk a touch of the ancient leaven of uncharitableness, and in your treatment of her “whom the Lord hath given to be with you,” there may be a spice of arrogance, the exponent of which, were you Turk or Kaffir, would be brute force.

“I do not object to your proposal, my love. You always have your own way in household affairs,” said a very “kind and affectionate” man to his wife, with the air of a potentate amiably relinquishing his sceptre for love’s sake.

“Will you tell me, my dear husband, why, if I conduct ‘household affairs’ wisely and pleasantly (and you have often acknowledged that I do!) I should not have my own way?” was the unexpected reply, uttered in perfect temper—no less sweetly for being an argument. “For twenty years I have made domestic economy a constant and practical study. Is it reasonable to suppose that, after all this expenditure of time and thought, I am not a better judge of ways and means in my profession than are you, whose life has been spent in other pursuits? For all your indulgent affection to me, as displayed in a thousand ways since our marriage-day, I love and thank you. But excuse me for saying that I am not grateful that you have, as you are rather fond of saying, ‘made it a point to give me my head’ in all pertaining to housekeeping. That you do this shows that you are just and honorable. It is no more a _favor_ done to me than is my non-interference with your clerks and purchases, your shipments and warehouses, a matter for which you should thank me.”

The husband stroked his beard thoughtfully. He was a sensible man, and magnanimous enough to recognize the truth that his wife was a sensible woman.

“Upon my word,” he said, presently, with a frank laugh, “that is a view of the case I never took before. I believe you are right.”

One more hint, which may be of service to those who are not so ready to acknowledge the superiority—in any case—of feminine reasoning, or to such as are _not_ blessed with sensible consorts—the best friends of these ladies being judges.

“Drive him with an easy rein!” said my John in trusting me for the first time to manage his favorite horse. “His mouth is tender as a woman’s. You cannot deal with a thoroughbred as with a cold-blooded roadster.”

“What will happen if I hold him in hard?” inquired I, eyeing the pointed ears and arched neck with as much apprehension as admiration.

I commend the laconic answer to your consideration, as altogether pertinent to the subject we have been discussing.

“A rear-up, and a run backward, instead of forward!”

RIPE FRUIT.

THE sight of the fruit-dish or basket upon the breakfast table has become so common of late years that its absence, rather than its presence, in the season of ripe fruits would be remarked, and felt even painfully by some. It is fashionable, and therefore considered a wise sanitary measure, to eat oranges as a prelude to the regular business of the morning meal. Grapes are eaten so long as they can be conveniently obtained. It may be because my own taste and digestion revolt at the practice of forcing crude acids upon an empty, and often faint stomach, that I am disposed to doubt the healthfulness of the innovation upon the long-established rule that sets fruit always in the place of dessert. I have an actual antipathy to the pungent odor of raw orange-peel, and have been driven from the breakfast-table at a hotel more than once by the overpowering effect of the piles of yellow rind at my left, right, and opposite to me. A cluster of grapes taken before breakfast would put me, and others whom I know, _hors de combat_ for the day with severe headache. In the consciousness of this, I can be courageous in declining the “first course” of an _à la mode_ breakfast, and at my own table, withholding the fruit until the stomach has regained its normal tone under the judicious application of substantial viands. Then, it is pleasant to linger over the vinous globes of crimson, purple, and pale-green; to dip ripe strawberries in powdered sugar with lazy gusto; to pare rosy rareripes and golden Bartletts while discussing the day’s news and plans, in the serene belief that the healthful, delicious juices are assimilating whatever incongruous elements have preceded them in the alimentary canal.

I write this, not to guide the practice of other households, but to enforce a remark I see an opportunity for bringing in here. Be a slavish follower of no custom whatsoever. It is sensible and expedient to act in uniformity with your neighbors when you can do so without moral or physical injury. Conformity to a foolish or hurtful fashion is always weak, if not positively wicked.

Serve your fruit, then, as the first or last course at your family breakfast as may seem right to yourself, but, by all means, have it whenever you can procure it comfortably and without much expense. In warm weather, you had better banish meat from the morning bill of fare, three days in the week, than have the children go without berries and other fresh fruits. Make a pretty glass dish, or silver or wicker basket of peaches, pears or plums, an institution of the summer breakfast. In autumn, you can have grapes until after frost; then, oranges and bananas if you desire. These, being expensive luxuries, are not absolutely enjoined by nature or common sense. Let the “basket of summer fruit,” however, be a comely and agreeable reality while solstitial suns beget bile, and miasma walks, a living, almost visible presence, through the land.

Fruits, each in its season, are the cheapest, most elegant and wholesome dessert you can offer your family or friends, at luncheon or tea. Pastry and plum-pudding should be prohibited by law, from the beginning of June until the end of September. And in winter, a dish of apples and oranges flanked by one of boiled chestnuts, and another of picked walnut or hickory-nut kernels, will often please John and the bairns better than the rich dessert that cost you a hot hour over the kitchen-range, when Bridget was called away to a cousin’s funeral, or Daphne was laid up with “a misery in her head.”

Among the creams, jellies and “forms” of a state-dinner dessert, fruit is indispensable, and the arrangement and preparation of the choicer varieties is a matter for the taste and skill of the mistress, or her refined daughters, as are the floral decorations of the feast.

FROSTED PEACHES.

12 large rich peaches—freestones.

Whites of three eggs, whisked to a standing froth.

2 table-spoonfuls water.

1 cup powdered sugar.

Put water and beaten whites together; dip in each peach when you have rubbed off the fur with a clean cloth, and then roll in powdered sugar. Set up carefully, on the stem end, upon a sheet of white paper, laid on a waiter in a sunny window. When half dry, roll again in the sugar. Expose to the sun and breeze until perfectly dry, then, put in a cool, dry place until you are ready to arrange them in the glass dish for table.

Garnish with green leaves.

FROSTED AND GLACÉ ORANGES.

6 sweet, large oranges.

Whites of two eggs, whisked stiff, }
1 table-spoonful water, } for frosting.
1 cup powdered sugar. }
Cochineal. }

1 cup sugar, }
1 ounce gum arabic, } for glazing.
2 table-spoonfuls hot water, }

Pare the oranges, squeezing them as little as you can, remove every particle of the inner white skin, and divide them into lobes, taking care not to break the skin. Take half of the sugar meant for frosting, and stir it up with a few drops of liquid cochineal. Spread on a dish in the sun to dry, and if it lump, roll or pound again to powder. Put the white sugar in another dish. Add the water to the stiffened whites; dip in one-third of the orange lobes and roll in the white sugar; another third, first in the eggs and water, then in the red sugar. Lay them upon a sheet of paper to dry.

Put the gum arabic and hot water together over the fire, and when the gum is melted, add the cup of sugar. Stir until it is a clear, thick glue. Set in a pan of hot water and dip the remaining pieces of orange in it. Lay a stick lengthwise on a flat dish, and lean the lobes against it on both sides, to dry.

Heap red, white, and yellow together in a glass dish, and garnish with leaves—orange or lemon leaves if you can get them.

This is a delicate, but not difficult, bit of work, and the effect is very pretty.

TROPICAL SNOW. +

10 sweet oranges.

1 grated cocoanut.

2 glasses pale sherry.

1 cup powdered sugar.

6 red bananas.

Peel the oranges; divide into lobes and cut these across three times, making small pieces, from which the seeds must be taken. Put a layer of these in the bottom of a glass bowl, and pour a little wine over them. Strew thickly with white sugar. The cocoanut should have been pared and thrown into cold water before it was grated. Spread some of it over the sugared oranges; cut the bananas into very thin round slices, and put a layer of the fruit close together, all over the cocoanut. More oranges, wine, sugar and cocoanut, and when the dish is full, heap high with the cocoanut. Sprinkle sugar on this, and ornament with rings of sliced banana. Eat very soon, or the oranges will grow tough in the wine.

Oranges cut up in the way I have described are more easily managed with a spoon, and less juice is wasted, than when they are sliced in the usual manner.

This is a handsome and delightful dessert.

COCOANUT FROST ON CUSTARD. +

2 cups rich milk.

½ pound sweet almonds, blanched and pounded.

4 eggs, beaten light.

½ cup powdered sugar.

Rose-water.

1 cocoanut, pared, thrown into cold water and grated.

Scald the milk and sweeten. Stir into it the almonds pounded to a paste, with a little rose-water. Boil three minutes, and pour gradually upon the beaten eggs, stirring all the time. Return to the fire and boil until well thickened. When cold turn into a glass bowl, and heap high with the grated cocoanut. Sift a little powdered sugar over all.

STEWED APPLES. +

Core the fruit without paring it, and put it into a glass or stoneware jar, with a cover. Set in a pot of cold water and bring to a slow boil. Leave it at the back of the range for seven or eight hours, boiling gently all the time. Let the apples get perfectly cold before you open the jar.

Eat with plenty of sugar and cream.

Only sweet apples are good cooked in this manner, and they are very good.

BAKED PEARS. +