A PAGE OF FUGITIVE VERSE. ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. BEFORE MY SWEET BIRDLINGS As I sit me here in the twilight, I bethink me of days gone forever. Fall like music on each listening ear. And a school-girl so happy and bright, Now sits in her rocking-chair reading— While her brother is mending his kite. Soon the clock tells the hour for retiring, There are brows of beauty and bosoms of snow, There are fragments of songs that nobody sings; And the garments she used to wear. Upon his breast, and listen whilst the fairy tale he tells Of the Elfin Queen who holds her court amid the flower-bells. Now youths and maidens, one and all in sweet home-tasks engage, Smiled on approvingly by those who own a riper age; No harm can injure those who safe at the homeanchor ride; There are hands that are waved when the fairy No worldly pleasures yield to peace that gilds shore By the mirage is lifted in air, the home fireside. And we sometimes hear through the turbulent Our own fireside, our bright fireside, there's GRANDMA'S CORNER. We'll make "a corner," but not in wheatA corner for grandma, a cosy seat, And the sweet good-night kiss ne'er forgotten, If you have gentle words and looks, my friends, Away from all doors and the winds that blow, Is again on my lips fondly pressed. Yet another change comes o'er my picture In the girl a sweet maiden I seeAnd the boy, with his kite and his marbles, Has outgrown both his father and me. And now their young friends gather round them, And the old house re-echoes with mirth; Oh my children how dearly I love you, May you cherish with fond recollection, I fain would your path strew with roses--- Yet I love to sit here in the twilight And think of the days that are gone; And again hear those happy young voices Before my sweet birdlings were flown. -Mrs. M. A. Calkins. To spare for me--if you have tears to shed That I have suffered-keep them not, I pray, Until I hear not, see not, being dead. If you have flowers to give-fair lily buds, White roses, daisies (meadow stars that be My own dear namesakes)-let them smile and make The air, while yet I breathe it, sweet for me. For loving looks, though fraught with tender ness, Giving dear grandma the headache so. We will have it warm, we will have it bright- I really believe she would choose bare floor, And kindly tears, though they fall thick and No, no, Miss Grandma, 'twill never do fast, And words of praise, alas! can naught avail To lift the shadows from a life that's past. And rarest blossoms, what can they suffice, Offered to one who can no longer gaze Upon their beauty? Flowers on coffins laid Impart no sweetness to departed days. -Unidentified. AT THE FIRESIDE. Around the hearth when raving storms and bitter winds do blow, When all the wintry wolds are wrapped in shroud of whitest snow, When closer to him doth his rags the shivering outcast draw, To leave your comforts and rights to you; rest. "Why?" Grandma dear, don't you ask us Look at our mother with tearful eye, Who dreams not of a single meal, and prays but If grandmother had not so long ago- Pile on more logs; the brighter that our cheery hearth doth glow, The more our hearts shall warm to those who no such blessings know When grandpa was far on the stormy main- You dear old diamond! We understand Poor wanderers, who on this earth no jot of joy You toiled for the sake of your toiling matecan find. Poor we may be, yet not so poor but that a penny fee For the sake of the children you loved so wellAnd now, like a queen, you shall with them dwell. We have for such; and know, O Lord, we lend We all are your subjects, with reverent love, it unto Thee; Delighted to serve you our homage to prove : Who aideth not his brother when he knocketh Your corner the throne-room, your chair is the at the door EDITOR'S PORTFOLIO. HOLYOKE, MASS., AND NEW YORK CITY, JANUARY 9, 1886. All communications for the Editorial Department should be addressed to the Editor of GOOD HOUSEKEEPING, Holyoke, Mass. Postage stamps must accompany all contributions sent for editorial consideration, when the writers desire the return of their MSS., if not accepted. This issue of GOOD HOUSEKEEPING is copyrighted, but our exchanges are invited to copy from its columns-due credit being given-as they may desire, save the contributions of MISS MARIA PARLOA, all rights in these being especially reserved to the writer. The special papers which appear in GOOD HOUSEKEEPING will be written expressly for its pages by our selected contributors, and,-with rare exceptions,the entire Table of Contents will be served up from our own larder. Whenever we borrow from a neighbor a bit of this or a bite of that, we shall say where such bit or bite came from, and to whom it belongs. TO ALL NEWSDEALERS. Retail Newsdealers can send their orders for GOOD HOUSEKEEPING to the News Companies from which they procure their regular supplies and have them filled. It will be furnished regularly by the following companies: American News Co., International News Co., National News Co., New York News Co., New York; American News Co., Denver, Kansas City, Omaha and St. Paul; Brooklyn News Co., and Williamsburg News Co., Brooklyn; Baltimore News Co., Baltimore; Central News Co., Philadelphia; Cincinnati News Co., Cincinnati; Cleveland News Co., Cleveland; New England News Co., Boston; Western News Co., Chicago; Pittsburg News Co., Pittsburg; Washington News Co., Washington, D. C.; Newark News Co., Newark; St. Louis News Co., St. Louis; New Orleans News Co., New Orleans; San Francisco News Co., San Francisco; Rhode Island News Co., Providence; Albany News Co., Albany; Northern News Co., Troy; Detroit News Co., Detroit; Montreal News Co., Montreal; Toronto News Co., Toronto and Clifton, Canada. THE CO-OPERATION OF CHILDREN. Many are the theories propounded for the relief of the overbur dened housekeeper,-ever more overburdened as the art of living becomes ever more complex. One of the most alluring of these theories is Co-operative Housekeeping; promising relief from incessant care, and from the growing perplexity of the servant problem. Amidst the discussions of this plan, its advantages and disadvantages, a certain form of co-operation seems to have been quite overlooked, although it is within every one's reach, and requires no elaborate preparation to make it effective, the co-operation of children in their mother's work. Every mother knows how eager to "help" is the very little child; but few are the mothers who have not sighed, “Ah, well, by the time you are old enough to be of use you won't be so anxious to help." And in fact this prescience is but too sadly true. Now, in all sympathy with the overburdened mother, I would ask, is the fault not yours that your older children are of so little use? How did it come to pass that the loving, eager, helpful little child, so ready to bear burdens beyond its strength, and to undergo real hardship for the glad privilege of "helping mamma," has become the indifferent, listless daughter, unlovingly resenting each imposition of household duty, deeming it almost an impertinence that she should be asked to share her mother's cares, an indignity that she should be supposed competent to do so? Must there not have been some fault in the training, when so radical a change takes place in so short a time? "But my daughter has so much to do," sighs one overburdened mother. "What with school and practising she never has a moment, and it would be cruel to call her early in the morning when she has been over her books all the evening before." "And I am so busy," moans another. "I really cannot bother with teaching my daughter to work. It is much easier to do it all myself, and it is hard enough at the best." groans a third. "Let her take her comfort while she may. Time enough for her to work when she can't help herself." Now all these excuses, even the second, are alike in this respect, that they assume domestic work to be an evil. You would call your daughter early to go on a pleasure excursion, though she had studied never so late. You would take infinite pains to teach her some art or accomplishment that you believed would add to her happiness; you would grudge her no share in your occupations which you believed would make her happier. Both by precept and example you teach that there is no pleasure in the work which is the business of your life. But your little child does not think so. Whether boy or girl, it simply rejoices in helping you; it loves to be with you; it is glad to share your occupations. Your smile of approbation is a rich reward for toil; the belief that it is of use makes drudgery delight. All this love, this chivalry, this cheerful self-abnegation-oh mother! do you realize what you are doing when you forbid such impulses as these their beautiful development? Will you not perceive that, should you meet these lovely impulses half way, and, holding them in sacred honor, set yourself earnestly to train them to perfect efficiency, you would be doing the very noblest and grandest work ever allotted to woman? Not simply providing for the future lightening of your own cares, but making life a nobler, higher thing for your children; training souls made in God's image to take delight in that which delights Him,— the service of others. By making them competent to the easy performance of common duties, you are not only raising them above the petty trials and the vexatious failures of the inexperienced housekeeper; you are training them in the highest virtues of which human nature is capable,-loyal recognition of past kindness, glad acceptance of obligation, chivalrous tenderness toward the weaknesses, careful observances of the necessities of those who are nearest them. From this high point of view it might be argued that boys as well as girls should share in household training. And why not? Is not the very little boy as eager to be helpful as his little sister? Will your son be less respectful to his mother when he has learned something of what her care of him has cost her? Will he be less tender of her when he has come to know the weariness of some of her labors? Will he hold her in slighter esteem when experience has taught him how much of the sweetness and the brightness of home he owes to efforts of hers of which he would never have dreamed if he had not shared them? Will he be less manly when he has relieved her of a heavy burden, or spared her an hour of drudgery toil? There are many domestic services which can be most efficiently rendered by boys; not merely the hewing of wood and the drawing of water, but the sweeping of rooms, (and any one who has contrasted a boy's first handling of the broom with girls' initial attempts will have felt convinced that nature intended him, not her, to be the sweeper), and even the more refined occupation of the care of house plants and the arranging of bouquets,-occupations in which many boys take genuine delight; in fact, there is hardly a limit to the avocations which a cheerful, bright boy may share with his mother. Such housekeeping as this would be co-operative in the very truest and highest sense. MILLIONS OF COPIES. A friend of the editor of GOOD HOUSEKEEPING, who has always resided at the North, but who is now making a winter of it in traveling through the South, trying very hard to enjoy himself and to "She'll have enough to do when she is married, poor thing," have a good time generally, gives, in a private note, some of his southern experiences "among folks" and this is his conclusion: "It is my impression that there ought to be about a million sub- | scribers to GoOD HOUSEKEEPING in the South, and-not to make any unkind intimation-two millions at the North." We had only put our figures at One Million Copies for The Homes of the World, but if Three Million Copies are needed for our own United North and South, we must make new figures at once, as all parts of the world are joining the procession and filling the mail bags with their orders for GOOD HOUSEKEEPING, and a large majority of these are accompanied by a P. S., giving direction to "be sure to send back numbers." MEASURE FOR MEASURE. BUT LET US MEASURE WITH CONSISTENCY. GOOD HOUSEKEEPING is conducted in the interest of "The Higher Life of The Household," but we make no pretensions of attempting to do all that this implies "without money and without price." And the readiness and generosity with which those who tarry in the Homes of the World have responded to our announcement and continuance of publication, give us abundant assurance of the correctness of our position in this respect. But there are one or two features becoming prominently unpleasant of late, in this connection, which justice to ourselves will not allow of being longer passed by unnoticed. Were the instances of which we propose to give an illustration or two, rare ones, of course they would make no occasion for comment, but unfortunately they are many in number and so many that neither our patience or our pocket have room to contain them. Now a little "reciprocity" is a good thing, a very good thing, indeed, but it is apt to "catch on the center" of reciprocal motion too easily to be mutually beneficial. Were these three letters the only ones of their kind there would be no occasion for these remarks, and our good nature would dictate a compliance with the separate requests, but unfortunately, they are examples only of a formidable pile of similar ones, lying before us as we “take our pen in hand" to perform the unpleasant duty of endeavoring to prevent the pile from growing higher by sitting down on it in this epistolary fashion. 66 It "cheers but not inebriates" us to know that every one of the men folks" want GOOD HOUSEKEEPING sent regularly to their wives, and we would gladly so send and take our pay in the Higher Life of the Household sure to follow, if we could safely stand the strain of circumstance, but we have never yet known the business of publishing papers for "the good of the cause" alone, to develop into a healthy state of affairs, either morally or financially speaking, and life is too short for us to spend too many of its days in experimental efforts only. Therefore, friends and brethren, we have decided not to experiment too promiscuously at present, so if you please we will now attend to business as business should be attended to. LIBRARY LEAFLETS. DECORATIVE AND FANCY ARTICLES. In these days of domestic art work and of æsthetic gratification, a work that gives directions for making three hundred decorative and fancy articles for presents, fairs, etc., and nearly one hundred The following letters tell the story briefly yet, we think, intelli- decorative designs, is indispensable in every household. The gently: Dec. 10, 1885. MESSRS. CLARK W. BRYAN & Co., HOLYOKE, Mass., GENTLEMEN :-We will be glad to have you send a copy of GOOD HOUSEKEEPING for the coming year to one of our editors, Mrs. street, and we will reciprocate. Very truly yours, The "exchange" which this publication already carries three copies of GOOD HOUSEKEEPING, sent in accordance with similar applications and this last request looks to us, really and truly, like "too much pork for a shilling." The next application is equally modest, but is put up, however, in another form of modesty MESSRS. CLARK W. BRYAN & Co., query of what to make for a present is heard not only just before Christmas, but all the year round, whenever the family birthdays occur, or at the birthday anniversaries of friends and relatives, or when young friends are to be married, or at the recurrence of wedding anniversaries. Lucretia P. Hale and Margaret E. White answer these questions in the work at hand. Directions are given for making the different styles of aprons and bags, for making mantel curtains, mirror draperies, portières, screens, pillows, table covers, bell-pulls, pillow shams, fender stools, scarfs, chair-back covers, rugs. All the lawn tennis accessories are made subjects for work, library furniture and belongings, sachets, traveling conveniences, work table articles, domestic articles of many sorts, articles of distinctive personal use, wall pockets for a great variety of uses, and so many other articles that they cannot even be referred to. There is a chapter of suggestions appropriate to fairs, and others to weddings and to Christmas. A work of this kind is highly serviceable to young women, and older ones would often need to make drafts upon its information and suggestions. No one, capable of utilizing these, can fail to speak of the book in terms of high praise. Boston: S. W. Tilton & Co. SANITARY SUGGESTIONS. At no previous period of the world's history has there been concentrated on the prevention of disease so much careful study and painstaking investigation as the present time. To briefly present the most approved agents for the prevention of infectious diseases, point out the necessity for their use and explain their application so that any one of ordinary intelligence may be able to efficiently use them in the household, is the object of this little pamphlet of 58 pages, prepared by Dr. B. W. Palmer. Sold by J. T. Webber & Co., pharmacists, Springfield, Mass. Price 25 cents. THE KITCHEN. "The Kitchen," is an epitome of every day cookery, containing many useful, practical directions, recipes, etc., with numerous wood engravings, showing how to carve and the proper mode of sending dishes to table. The information is put in small compass, and the little volume has flexible imitation alligator skin covers. Chicago: Rand, McNally & Co. Price 25 cents. CUPID'S ADVICE: "If your Mamma will use Packer's Tar Soap, those eruptions will vanish, your skin will become smooth, soft and healthy, and your complexion beautiful." Packer's Tar Soap. "Unquestionably the best."-Medical Press. "We can speak from personal experience that Packer's Tar Soap is carefully made from vegetable oils. It is exceedingly smooth and agreeable to the skin, and as it is combined with pine tar and glycerine, it is a valuable remedy in skin diseases, as well as pleasant for toilet uses. We commend it, without hesitation, as the most satisfactory soap, in both these respects, that we have ever used."-Medical and Surgical Reporter, Phila. "For toilet purposes, skin diseases, and washing infants, Packer's Tar Soap is the best we have ever used."-New England Medical Monthly. WHAT IS SAPOLIO? It is a solid, handsome cake of scouring soap, which has no equal for all scouring troubles with the most marked benefit."-Egbert purposes except the laundry. To use it is to value it. What will Sapolio do? Why it will clean paint, make oil-cloths bright, and give the doors, tables and shelves a new appearance. It will take the grease off the dishes and off the pots and pans. You can scour the knives and forks with it, and make the tin things shine brightly. The wash-basin, the bath-tub, even the greasy kitchen sink will be as clean as a new pin if you use Sapolio. One cake will prove all we say. Be a clever little housekeeper and try it. Beware of imitations. There is but one Sapolio. ENOCH MORGAN'S SONS CO., NEW YORK. "I use Packer's Tar Soap in children's eruptive Guernsey, M. D., 526 Fifth Avenue, N. Y. 25 cents per cake. All druggists, or mailed post-paid. Send for descriptive pamphlet. Address THE PACKER MFG. CO., 100 Fulton St., N. Y. BABY'S BIRTHDAY. A Beautiful Imported Birthday Card sent to any baby whose mother will send us the names of two or more other babies, and their parents' addresses. Also a handsome Diamond Dye Sample Card to the mother and much valuable information. Wells, Richardson & Co., Burlington, Vt. Have you tried "WHITING'S STANDARD Writing Paper and EUREKA" Envelopes, made by WHITING SILK. "I HAVE FOUND IT" Is the exclamation of every lady who has used the FAST COLORS. PAPER CO., HOLYOKE, MASS.? You will find them the best for correspondence and all the uses of polite society. Cream and Azure, rough and smooth All Experts in Knitting, Art Embroidery, finish, all sizes. Ask your sta Etching, Outlining, Etc., prefer the above goods to any other, and always insist on having EUREKA SILK. tioner for "Whiting Standard.” ANGLO-SWISS MILK. MELLIN'S Economical and convenient for all kitchen purposes. Better for babies than uncondensed milk. Sold everywhere. ANGLO-SWISS CONDENSED MILK CO. 86 Hudson St. N. Y. P. O. Box 3773. FLECTRO SILICON FOR CLEANING AND POLISHING GOLD, SILVERWARE, JEWELRY, PRODUCES greatest brilliancy. ORA ET LABORA MARK. FOOD FOR INFANTS AND INVALIDS. The only perfect substitute for Mothers' Milk. The most nourishing diet for invalids and nursing mothers. Keeps in all climates. Commended by physicians. Sold everywhere. Send for our book, "The Care and Feeding of Infants." Sent free. DOLIBER, GOODALE & CO., Boston, Mass. EMILY FAITHFULL says:-"We have MISS, effects IZED PHOSPHITES on a young friend who has suffered with indigestion all her life; after taking it for a fortnight she said: 'I feel another person, it is a pleasure to live.' We urge you to put it to the test, for in several cases, personally known to us, signal benefits have been derived from its use." "CROSBY'S VITALIZED PHOSPHITES is a cure for all nervous disorders." Druggist or by mail $1. 56 W. 25TH ST., NEW YORK. stetric Bandages, Shoulder Stocking Supporters, Sanitary Napkins, etc. NEW ENLARGED ILLUSTRATED CATALOGUE FREE. 6 TRADE MARK EAST WOODS PATENT GOOD CORSET Fit all ages. FERRIS BROS, Manuf'rs 81 White St., New York. "WOOD'S" PURE Flavoring Extracts, EXCEL ALL OTHERS. THOS. WOOD & CO., BOSTON. |