Evening Star Newspaper, May 29, 1937, Page 18

- Red Pepper For Breaking Up Rats’ Symphony Orchestra < Suggested Also Effective in C Potato Should Have Metal Sponge Bath Befo BY BETSY HEN a man reads the woman’s page—it's news! Also. it tickles the vanity of the Woman's Editor to such an extent that she can't and even printing the evid ‘The other morning a letter arrived in the mail from a masculine reader, which not only approved of the page and ye editor's column—but also included some very practical sounding “house-<+ hold hints” that might prove of real value to Washington housekeepers— both masculine and feminine. It has long been sus- pected that men * 1 —when left to their own de- Vices—are much more ingenious around the household than women. The main reason that most of them hide this light of intelligence un- der a bushel of pretended help- lessness is that they ere just plain lazy, and when there is & woman around to do the job, they leave it to her—lock, stock and barrel! However, when confronted with the grim facts of housekeeping, when no escape is possible, they go about the matter in a highly efficient and time- saving manner which puts many of our more elaborate ‘systems” to shame. The writer of my “pat-on- the-head” letter appears to be no exception to this rule—and offers two very handy little household tricks to prove his eligibility to the high and mighty order of class A housekeep- ers. Ill let him speak for himself: X ok ok THE ROYAL BAKED POTATO. "“YHETH.ER the nicely browned tuber, throned on your din- ner plate, is a russet from Idaho, an Early Ohio from the Red River Valley of Northwestern Minnesota, an Irish cobbler from Maine, or an early pink from Norfolk and the South— you will admit that the king of all vegetables at your dinner party is the royal baked potato. “The problem is to get him right. Scoured of every speck, as clean and toothsome as though he were peeled, all potato and nothing but potato— 80 you can eat that delicate browned and buttered product of culinary art, #kin and all—the only way to my Betsy Caswell, thinking—without mental reservation | or remorse. “Here is the secret which I have worked out for my family of one. Get 8 metal sponge for 5 cents at the five- and-ten store. The potato has two main layers of skin. The outer husk is worthless—no taste, no food value. That is why some people—ladies especially—cannot eat a baked potato as, to my taste, it should be eaten. Men are not so squeamish—tougher consciences. But your metal sponge does the scouring act so thoroughly that even a 16-year-old miss can eat the potato—the whole potato and | nothing but potato—and enjoy every mouthful without stopping to remove the worthless outside husk. “Your metal sponge will remove the entire outside husk in half the time it takes to peel the potato. You then have a beautiful white or pink tuber about the color of a half-grown new! the night hideous, until the rent fell potato with as delicate and ‘peachy’ | tint as the 16-year-old herself. The specks that cannot be washed off, or even removed by a brush—such as insect and handling scars—are scoured off by the metal mesh. The worthless husk is gone. All food value, all flavor properties, are preserved. And you do the whole job with a few vigorous flashes under your cold-water faucet—in half the time you would consume with & brush or a potato peeler. “Have you thought of this? The flavor and food values of the tuber lie next to the inner skin layer. Peel the potato and you lose half the nu- trition and fine flavor of it. Mostly what you have left is tasteless starch. You have the fat-making part—and | rob yourself of the flavor and best food content, spoil your figure and your fun, finally driving you to eating Dorothy There Would Be EAR MISS DIX: Don't you think that there would be & great deal less divorce if, before they married, young people would ask themselves: “Why am I in love with this girl or boy? What qualities does he or she possess that makes me think that I want to epend the balance of my life with him or her?” A MAN. Answer—Undoubtedly. But it would virtually silence the wedding bells if lovers stopped to psychoanalyze each other and ascertain what it was that made them feel that-away about that particular girl or boy. For we are all in the Dr. Fell class when it comes to our emotions. The reason why we cannot tell why we are attracted to one individual and repulsed by an- other when both apparently are of eoqual worth and have equal charms. T doubt extremely if any man in the world ever knew why he fell in love with the woman he did. It was just something about her that caught his fancy. She wasn't better looking. Bhe wasn't cleverer. She wasn't sweeter or more sympathetic than a thousand other girls he had met, but somehow he knew she was just the one for him. * ok K % TAND the same way with women. No girl knows why she falls in love with Tom instead of Harry. It Just happens. That's all. A lad she never saw before, and of whose good or bad qualities she is totally ignorant, comes whistling down the street. She gets up and follows him because she knows intuitively somehow he is her man. As a matter of fact, we don’t love people for their virtues. No man falls in love with a girl because she 45 & good cook, or because she is industrious, or because she teaches Sundsy school, or becsuse she i 2 ase of Cockroaches; re Baking. CASWELL. keep from broadcasting the event— ence! raw carrots, like a bell-wether sheep or butting goat. “Moral: One 5c metal sponge Wwill save you 25 per cent of your monthly investment in the potato bin. At least, that is the estimate of our cook! {If you have a nickel, try it out— | instead of wasting your money on in- | digestible sheep-food!” * ok K K RED PEPPER FOR RATS AND ROACHES. “ONE year ago I got a three-room, ground-floor, bachelor apart- ment at half-price for rent. I soon | learned why the flat had been empty for a year, and why I got a three-room apartment on the usual rental charge for one room on the third floor up. “That place was the nightly habitat of three families of rats of sundry and numerous ages, and —said my statistician—13 families of cock- roaches. I saw cockroaches by day and heard the musical trombone of gnawing rats by night, until I longed again for that lonesome narrow one- room flat on the third floor. “I invested in three rat traps. and in the first week got six rats just out- side my back door. But the nightly | trombone went on as ever with the support of a new troupe of the rodent | unemployed. I used cockroach poison | until the atmosphere of the kitchen turned me sick. “Then I got the happy inspiration— red pepper for rats and roaches. At midnight, when my ground floor began to rumble with the gnawing rodent orchestra in full swing—in the back- | hall and under the kitchen floor—I | noted the spot where the chief trom- | bone player was ripping into his third | encore with reckless abandon. I had armed myself with a 25-cent can of | cayenne pepper imported from the tropic zone." An aperture in the Kitchen floor was breaking through from the ground below. Barefoot and clad only in my male unmention- ables, I watched that spot until | block. Our church is like the latter, | understand. In the church with the | finally I had poured into it a table- spoonful of the red condiment of | Central America. “The gnawing sound went on with | feverish vigor for 5 minutes. Then | there was a painful hiatus. The musician had lost his music, perhaps. | | He was off key—forgot the tune. He | choked, he sniffed, he tried again| | and got out one note. I poked into the | | hole a second dose—silence. Three | ‘;mghts in succession the same thing | happened. A 5-minute concert— | probably by other members of the rodent orchestra. And that was the end of the rats. They had apparently whispered the terrible news, that here was & haunted house to be shunned | | by the whole rodent population of the District of Columbia. “For one year, I have listened in | vain for the music of that gnawing | trombone. There are rats in the | next block, I hear. But not a rat seems to have crossed the street now for 12 months—where once their music vied with the radio in making 50 per cent ad valorem, and slumber was a scarce luxury. “For the cockroaches—I simply dropped a few spoonfuls of cayenne into the sink drain and garbage pail, and sprinkled the runways around the kitchen floor. Three days were enough for the bugs. Their jury seemed to come to a prompt verdict— guilty of murder in first degree—and then they went home, to other homes than mine, and have never come back in now the twelfth month of the red pepper prohibition era. “Thereby, for 25 cents I have rid & 3-room flat of the former chief tenants, day and night, and saved $300 in rent—but don't tell my land- lord! Sneak over to the corner groc- ery, get your pepper, save your rent and keep mum. “F. N. S.—HOUSEKEEPER, NON- SIT-DOWN, THOUGH MALE.” Dix Says If Young People Analyzed Their Love, Few Marriages. kind to her old parents, or because she is the sort of a girl who would make a good wife. On the contrary, he is far more likely to fall in love with some little flibbertigibbet who is pretty and attractive and lively and who has & way with her. Nor does a girl fall in love with a man because he is settled and sober and has a prosperous garage. She is more likely to fall in love with a good-looking scamp with a light foot and a nimble tongue and who knows more about making love than he does about making a living. * ok ok X OF' COURSE, if we picked out our husbands and wives by their good qualities, we would make much more sensible matches than we do. We would marry the homely, sensible Jones girl who has a tidy little fortune and is the best cakemaker in town, instead of the glamorous maiden who hasn’t a penny to her name and doesn’t know how to do a thing on earth, but whose very touch fills us to the marrow of our bones. Or we would marry the fat rich widower who is a pillar in the church, instead of the wild youth whose very presence makes life gay and exciting. But would we be happier if we did, and if we married for our heads in- stead of our hearts? - -— Season of Stripes. NEW YORK (#).—It's & season of stripes. Everything is made of striped materials. Evening gowns, afternoon frocks, blouses, scarfs, bags and right down to shoes—all are striped in gay colors. — Picnic Note. Place waxed papers over the tops of salt and pepper shakers before taking them to a picnio, | positions of the aisles in the church. NG_STAR, WASHINGTON, D. ¢, SATURDAY, MAY 29, 1937. Masculine Reader Proves The Old Gardener Says: Dahlias are among the good garden flowers which may be planted rather late. They are at their best in late Summer and Autumn, when the weather is beginning to get cool. Of course, all garden makers are familiar with dahlias of the usual type, but there are many who have not yet become acquainted with the dwarf varieties, most of which have been imported from Eng- land. Their use is suggested now in gardens where geraniums and begonias have become common- place, for they are charming bed- ding plants. Their use for mak- ing beds has become widespread in foreign countries and there is no reason why the plan should not be adopted here. Dwarf dahlias are well worth adding to the amateur's planting list. Seating In Church Wedding Problem of Placing Parents of Bride and Groom. BY EMILY POST. EAR MRS. POST: I am a little confused about seating our fami- lies and friends at church. There are two diagrams in your book—one of the church that has a center aisle and another one of a church having two main aisles and the center occupied by a double row of pews in a solid and naturally I have studied that diagram carefully, but I still can't center aisle the bride’s family and friends sit on the left facing the | chancel and the groom's family and friends, of course, sit in the seats on | the right side. But in the two-aisle | church you have designated the re- | verse order of seating. In other words, | the bride's family and friends sit in the pews on both sides of the right aisle and the groom's family and friends in the seats on both sides of the left aisle, which is used for the recessional. Will you clarify the rea- son for this turned-about seating? Answer: The seating in the diagram is not really “turned about” if you realize that the seating must be ac- cording to the position of the pews on the aisle and not according to the However, let me try to explain. Obvi- iously, the pews in the center are the important ones, rather than those at the side, and since the bride’s parents occupy the first pew on the left side of the aisle it is necessary that this aisle be the one at the right because the front pew on the left of the left aisle would be a side pew. For this same reason the groom's parents sit in the right-hand front pew on the left aisle. | Conventionally, the procession goes up the right, or “bride’s” aisle, and | the recessional comes down the left, or “groom’s” aisle. Occasionally the di- rection of the procession is reversed in order to allow the bride to face her family as she comes down the aisle after the ceremony and to allow the groom to stand directly in front of | his own family as he greets his bride | instead of far over at the right. But this is not the correct arrangement. Sometimes in a double-aisle church only one aisle is used, and in this case, if it be the right-hand one, the| groom's family sit way over gt the | side. Or if the left-hand aisle be chosen, then the bride's family is far over at the side. Dear Mrs. Post: Is an usher ex- pected to ask a guest whom he does not know, “Are you a friend of the bride or groom?” so that he will know on which side to seat her? Answer: Yes, always. * x % X EAR MRS. POST: I am moving my offices into the city, which is about 50 miles from this town. I would like very much to send an- nouncements of this change of busi- ness address. May these be sent not only to the customers on my records but also to people who are potential business prospects? Another thing, my wife and I have many acquaint- ances whom we have met when taking various cruises and trips abroad. Could this same announcement be sent to these people, with whom we never correspond except at Christmas time, and in viev of the fact that we want to use these announcements for both business and private purposes may the business and house address both be included on them? Or would you suggest having two separate an- nouncements printed? Please give the forms for the combined announce- ment or for separate cards. ; Answer: I don’t think that you could possibly combine both purposes. Your business cards may be sent to everybody in the telephone directory anywhere, whether you know them or don’t know them. Your personal card may be sent only to those who are your personal acquaintances and friends. To your personal friends send your ordinary visiting card with your new address on it. Correct word- ing of the business card would be: John A. Blank Attorney-at-law announces the removal of his offices to 55 Main Street New City Telephone: Blank 000 (Copyright, 1937.) “Shop-Wise” By B. D. Allen To 1e1L GENUINE TORTOISE SHELL FROM IMITATION... RUB IT BRISKLY UNTIL WARM. IF IT| HAS AN ODOR OF CAMPHOR | QR CELLLULQIO. TS IMIATION Eli gibility to Become Class A House —— ekeeper : Capturing Treasure From Golden Waters Novelist Has Record Of Twenty-Four Books In Twenty-Four Years Ethel Hueston Has Had Interesting and Ethel Hueston, in private life Mrs. Randolph Blinn, gained much material for arecent novel in the Black Hills of South Dakota, where she and her hus- band have taken up some gold mining claims. She is shown here with her famous dog, Fraulein Freida von Hueblin. Fatuous Feline Father If Papa Doesn’t Eat His New-Born Child, He Learns to Love It Dearly. BY MARY ALLEN HOOD. ITTENS entering this world need all the lives with which fate might endow them. Their's is an uncertain fam- ily life. Their papa doesn't love them. The gentleman cat occasionally looks upon his new-born child as a meal. ‘That gesture is a sign that something is wrong. Meat is lacking in daddy's iet. . ‘There is always an oldest kitten in a litter. They may be quintuplets to the world, but at home things are different. The youngest is often the weakest. Baby gets pushed so far away that he can't get to dinner on time. The less he eats the weaker he grows. What he needs is food to give him strength. Yes; and strength to fight for his food. Take him away from the litter for a while, deposit him in a warm place with a flannel- covered hot-water bottle for company. Feed the little fellow a teaspoonful of cream and hot water (half and half) every two hours. The mixture should be pleasantly warm but not hot. His interior isn't made of as- bestos. After a few hours he will have summoned up enough muscle to bat- tle for himself. Sometimes mamma cat ‘bites off more than she can chew. It hecomes a physical impossibility to supply all of her offspring with nourishment. She needs an assistant. The proper procedure is to find a lady cat with a very small family. She will be per- fectly willing to adopt a few extra, providing that she doesn’t know it. New boarders can be added while she is out for an airing. Mix them up with the other kittens and the bed- ding. Home will be the same familiar place when mamma returns. Her babfes should all smell the same. Occasionally an infant kitten is left all alone. It is an orphan. If an honest effort is made to attend to it, well and good. It can either be given to another mother cat or raised by hand. Otherwise the kindest act would be to turn it over to an animal shelter. Infant kittens brought up from scratch give one a great deal of sgfisfaction, mainly because some Ppeopie say that it can’t be done. Destroying a whole family of kittens & most unkind from ihe mothers A standpoint, unless there is & substi- tution, i. e, a Persian kitten for & short-haired kitten. One must re- member that she has stored up a food supply. Even one kitten will keep her comfortable and happy. There is nothing more determined to be motherish than a mamma cat. Papa cat changes his attitude when his child is half-grown. It has a purr, a meow and whiskers. Yes, sir; it is his own offspring. Junior kitty becomes his boon companion. Daddy sees that he is bathed and groomed regularly. He plays with the young- ster till they are both weary, then goes to sleep with it in his arms instead of in his stomach. Manners of the Moment T'S HARD to know what to do with the big, strong silent man. If you try to draw him out, he answers yes and no and then stops. You just wear yourself down. And if you chat< ter for your own comfort, it may amuse him and it may not . . . but Just try to find out which. One girl we know had & man like that once. She’s a firm-minded girl And the very first time he came to call, she decided to meet like with like. After he'd said hello and sat down, he didn’t open his mouth. So she said hello and sat down, and didn't open her mouth. She claims they sat that way, without saying one solitary word to each other for one entire hour. She timed it. And finally he broke down and told his life history. After that, she says, they were fast friends. 8o maybe that's the way to do it. We're afraid we’'d break down our- selves, when the clock struck the half hour, with our own life story. But we wish we were a good holder-outer. It sounds like a swell idea. JEAN, (Copyrighs, 15874 T Scout Life Good for All Boys, Encourage Youngster to Pursue Healthy Outdoor Life. BY ANGELO PATRI. OYS have to play and work and live together to get the best out of their growing time, which is all too short. No grown person can ever take the place of companions of the boy's own age. They learn quickly and easily from each other, accept guidance, praise and punishment from each other and thrive mightily while they would wilt under the same treat- ment from a well-intentioned adult. It is a great mistake to keep a boy closely confined to his own com- pany and that of his family. He has to get beyond the family limits to sample life, test it, make it work. There is a great difference between working with a member of the family and working with an outsider. The family contribution is likely to be coals to Newcastle, The child knows every wrinkle of thought in the family group and gains little except bare experience by close association with it. of view, another way of thinking and doing, and the newness stimulates the children. Boys more than 10 years old have to hunt in packs. They gather in bunches at recess, at playtime, and they all talk at once, move together in the same direction, do the same thing about the same time and argue endlessly about it. That is a pattern of boy life, and it is a healthy one to follow. The hut and the gang and the club are as essential to those youngsters as milk with their cereal in the morning. Prepare the way for them. Just as soon as it is possible let the lad join the Boy Scouts and en- courage him to take the whole course. He will get fun out of it and much education not found in books. He does what his associates do, and if that is good to do he is in the midst of goodness multiplied by the numbers in the squad. He draws strength from his brothers who are all going his way. At this stage of a boy's life a hike along & country road with a campfire lunch at the end of it, a scoutirfg trip through the woods, or along a stream, a fish hooked and laid in the basket in anticipation of supper before the camp fire spells deep delight. When the last bite is eaten that night, the clean-up finished and the group piles on more sticks and the smoke and sparks rise high, then the backs and legs stretch and the minds relax. It is story time. After that, bed; sleep wrapped in & blanket and cradled in balsam boughs. There may be a better way of spending & long, fine day. If there is, no boy I know has | burning pitch | known in the West as ‘squaw wood’ Every outsider has another point | Varied Life Gathe ring ‘“Atmosphere” for Her Works. BY LOUISE HARTLEY WASSELL, WENTY-FOUR novels in 24 yi i Ethel Hueston, Washington novelist, Jane of Deadwood Gulch,” is now in the hangs of the publisher. Mrs. Hueston's writings are known and read throughout the civilized world, ears is the admirable achievement of whose new book, “Calamity She wrote her first book in Colorado 24 years ago and the last here in the Capital. Every year she ‘“dashes off” a novel wherever she chances to be, in California, in the Middle West, at her< % Summer home in New Jersey rope or on the high seas. “I am a natural-born question asker,” the author said, “and with questions, an- swers, facts and personalities, books are virtually written before I touch the typewriter.” It is a far cry from Blinn's lux- urious study in the Capital to the rugged life of panning gold in the Black Hills of South Dakota, the scene of her latest novel. However, Mrs. Hueston is as familiar with the sweet music of the ‘“rocker,” which separates gold nuggets and dust from the sand and shale, as with Wash- ington’s sophisticated drawing rooms. While living on the Blinn claim in Deadwood Gulch, she learned to par wash and sluice gold like a profes- sional. “True to form,” she relate: “I showed the usual talent of my sex in the final clean-up. No book about the Black Hills could possibly omit the elusive vellow metal for which they are famous. I learmed almost everything about gold,” she contin- ued, “except how to get enough to satisfy me. After panning gold all day, we gathered around the great open fireplace of our log cabin, where stumps, commonly in Eu- and called ‘pine knots’ in the East, made the wierd tales of prospectors seem more realistic.” * K * ok HE ancient prospectors of that section frequently reminded Ethel Hueston of her striking resemblance to that hardy Black Hill's character, Calamity Jane. They claimed that Jane at 20 looked 35 and at 35 looked 70. “At least,” the novelist said, “I fancied myself a sanctified replica of the fabulous Jane, but I am not marked with small pox. Jane was almost exactly my size and height, with hair about the color of mine and the same haggardness of face, caused in my case by hard work and hers, from a hard life. She was so ‘tough,’ it is difficult to speak of her in mild terms, Jane can only be characterized by her own unprintable expletives." Governed by a happy restraint, the author has consistently adhered to the policy—now become a tradition— of writing only about places, types and customs familiar to her. Blessed with an interest in people and an in- quiring mind, she goes about asking pertinent and impertinent questions of every one she meets, whether she is writing a book, panning gold, trad- ing horses or sailing the high seas. “For fictional purposes,” this bril- liant author explains, “it is often necessary to create characters. I | suppose I have an imagination of some sort but I clip its wings by hold- ing to a known locale truly historical figures have done well enough for themselves and I take no | liberties with them. I even hesitate to put my own words on the lips of the famous dead, who are not in position to voice rebuttal.” Intuitively for her first novel, “Pru- dence of the Parsonage” the writer depicted her early life in a small Iowa town where her father was pastor of the Methodist church. “I knew that life to the last leaky shingle on the parsonage roof,” she laughingly ad- mitted. “Even now when I return to Towa, old friends speak of my father as the ‘Horse-racing. Preacher’ for he was & great lover of and always had evér found it. +. Encourage the boys to join the Scouts. Then help the Scout master do & good job. Praise every mark of his godd influence and never, if you truly value that work, deride that influence. Don’t say, “And you're & Boy Scout. Fime Scout you are. I thought Boy Scouts knew something.” That is the best possible way to kill all interest in the idea. Try the other Way. “Glad you're going out tomorrow. Always does you good.: You're getting 8 good tan, too. Looking like a regular Scout. You might need an extra quarter tomorrow, eh? You've got enough? Good scouting. Still, you never can tell. You might need it. Twon't take up much room. Hope you have a good day.” Help a good idea along. Root for your own Scout and never miss a chance to cheer for the crowd. The boys need both the Scouts snd the cheers, YOoporiens, 19374 A simple, lacy motif is the basis my | I insist that | fine horses and would not allow any one to pass him on the road. He was reputed to be the best horse trader in that vicinity,” | “Prudence of the Parsonage” proved to be her most popular book, being translated into 20 languages, and was the forerunner of a “‘parsonage surprise,” she continued, friend wrote from China that s seen in a Shanghai hook store, a copy of “Prudence,” which she recogmzed by the American jacket and frontise plece.” * ok K “'HEN the author “goes historical® she begins with the lowest stone in the foundation and follows every trail as she did in preparation for “Star of the West,” which is & story of the Lewis and Clark Expedie tion. Agazin while gathering bac ground material for “Man of t Storm” she spent many mont St. Louis and the Yellowstone, reade ing reams of moth-eaten old d and records. et, despite her materials, s has a happy ending. philosophy of life,” she sa we not strive to leave kind and ha thoughts with our friends at p: The subtle endings left to the reader" imagination may be clever and style of the moment, but perh: am a little old-fashioned, for I always prefer the pleasant finale. I have no | illusions that happiness is everlaste ing, but certainly an author is privis | leged to choose the moment to close ! her book and that moment can just as easily be a happy one, so there I close, and take no thought of the | morrow.” | Ethel Hueston has been in great demand lat 1 ng requests to review her . “A Roof Over | Their Heads,” deals with the dole v West tic, coping with In discussing | I i t that this clever lady, like an unint Cy gives its bad points first the walking qu “after haunting libr departmental bure and then transplanting the facts to my own Iowa.” | * ox % X ETHEL HUESTON has other hobbies beside writing. For more than & vear she conducted a weekly column under her dog's name, so Fraulein | Freida von Hueblin, the author's huge German shepherd, became famous in her own right. In addition to having her photograph accompany the col umn, this noted dog posed for Charles Keck’s historical murals now in the new court house in Kansas City | The author is very proud of her interesting collection of trophies. One she treasures highly is a crude “gold pan” in which John Parrot. better known as “Potato Gulch Johnny.” liscovered the largest nugget ever | found in the Black Hills | In real life, this versatile writer is | the wife of Randolph Blinn. former | newspaper man, now connected with the Department of Commerce. Long before the manuscript of her | latest book was completed, the author of 24 novels had visualized book num- | ber 25, which may turn out to be a pungent study of life today in the Na- tion's Capital, for this design that's only waiting for the chance to glorify your dining room table. It is so simple to make, and works up so quickly, that you'll probably decide to make a whole dinner cloth, even if you only begin on a luncheon set. It's an especially good pattern for use in the dining room, because you can make runners and buffet sets to match your dinner cloth. The pattern envelope contains complete, easy-to-understand, illustrated directions, also what crochet hook and what materials and how much you will need. To obtain this pattern, send for No. 474 and inclose 15 cents in stamps or coin to cover service and postage. Address orders to the Needlework Editoe of The Evening Star, oprrisms, 10472 /