Marion Harland's Complete Cook Book: A Practical and Exhaustive Manual of Cookery and Housekeeping

the match and rub it upon the stain until it disappeared—the work of a minute. The sulphur in the ever-convenient match acted upon the black spots without blackening the skin, whereas any one of the four detersives he had mentioned would have left a hard, disagreeable sensation upon the cuticle. He was all right as to the principles. The one driblet of practical wisdom was for the moment worth them all. A bright young woman whom I am glad to know, has written a little book entitled, “FIRST AID TO THE YOUNG HOUSEKEEPER.” It includes scores of things which everybody ought to know, and which everybody else, especially the writer of household manuals, takes it for granted that the housewife _does_ know. It is intelligent attention to this very matter of detail that constitutes the “finish” of work of whatever kind. One of the “Sunday books” of my childhood was a series called “THE WEEK,” a story of English cottage life. I can recall many sentences and the whole story in substance. One remark was to this effect: “Mary was a good housekeeper; Nanny an indifferent. Nanny’s hearth was free of ashes and cinders, but dusty in the corners. Mary’s was not only swept, but pipe-clayed. Mary’s kettle was bright and black; Nanny’s clean, but brown and dull.” That is, Nanny had mastered general principles; Mary looked to details. I read last week in a woman’s corner of a daily paper a letter from a grateful housewife whose hall carpet had been deluged by the kerosene from a broken lamp. By the advice of a visitor she promptly covered the great spot with dry oatmeal. When this was swept off in the morning not a trace of the oil remained. “My husband explains this by saying that the oatmeal is at once an alkali and an absorbent,” she writes. “I pass the useful knowledge on.” A careless servant knocked a lamp from the table in the bedroom of my summer cottage and the matting got a full quart of the best kerosene. I had the floating oil wiped up with