MOTHER CRAFT

Ladies' Mirror, Volume 2, Issue 9, 1 March 1924, Page 45

MOTHER CRAFT

Mothers and Daughters

House-Pride

"P YEN in these days of progress and activity there are still a good many daughters who find themselves at home with too little to do when first leaving school. They have become accustomed to having their time fully planned for them, and have not yet learned how to use their leisure. The time they are asked to give to helping in housework they are rather apt to regard as unjustifiable interference with their own liberties, and too often they are far froiri.realising how much is being done for them. My own theory is that every girl would be better for a real business training in an office or shop but a mother who has looked forward for years to a daughter's help in the house may say, and say rightly, that even a short spell of wage-earning and outside life will unsettle her for the stay-at-home daughter and housekeeper. Business habits can be taught at home; the danger is in treating home labour as though it were as natural and inevitable as breathing, and needing no more training or appreciation. Many an old-fashioned father took very much this point of view. He considered that a girl should take naturally to home-making, and that he was entitled to her whole working day in return for her board, lodging, and dress allowance. Both old-fashioned parents were too prone to think that praise of any sort made the young uppish and unmanageable; they found fault when necessary, and when things were going well they held their tongues. The old-fashioned father used to tell his girl, if she grumbled, that she did not know when she was well off; he was very ready to imply that she was living at home doing nothing when the less fortunate had to turn out into the world and earn their own living. Whereas, as she very well realised, she was really working harder than she would have had to do in a trade or profession, without earning as much in either money or consideration. Most girls have at heart a natural love of housework; but they soon weary of a drudgery in which they are allowed no initiative or responsibility. Let any mother look back into her own past, and she will remember what a totally different aspect housework assumed as soon as it was her own home for which she was working, and her own credit was at stake. A young girl is much more likely to take to home interests if one part of the house is her own domain entirely. And, wherever it is possible, the best start in the training of a home-worker is to give her a bedroom to herself, making her responsible for its care and adornment. And if her first ardour falls away, one of the best methods of reawakening it is a thought-out present for her room. For there is nothing like a pretty new possession for raising the tone. Bring Him Home to Supper It was ages since I had seen Molly. We were at school together, and meeting old school friends is always rather an ordeal. So I went through the little garden of Molly's pretty country cottage preparedwell, for disillusionment. But not for the surprise I got. Molly, who must be nearly forty, you know, still looked twenty-five. No, I do not mean that her hair was dyed yellow, or any of those things, but there was something very young in her eyes and in her smile. As I entered the drawing-room, she was bundling out her pretty, fairhaired daughter, Prudence. "Go!" she said. "For goodness' sake run off and let me talk to Betty." And then she added this parting injunction: "Bring a friend to supper, if you like!" Prudence's blue eyes twinkled. "Isn't mother dreadful!" she laughed. "By 'a friend,' she means a man, you know. What a shocking flirt she must have been in her youth!" And, twirling a tennis racket, she ran off down the garden path. "Goodness!" I exclaimed. "Is there a special man already? Prudence seems so young " "Oh, no!" said Molly cheerfully. "Just any man that she meets at tennis, and—and likes." "Just any man!" I gasped. "Home to supper? Don't you insist on meeting him first?" "My dear," said Molly, "I move with the times! What is the good of behaving like a Victorian mother to Miss 1924? In our young days we went to tennis parties with our mothers or suitable chaperons, and young men were duly and decorously presented. But tennis clubs and dance teas have swept away all that. Nowadays, a girl dances with a man one night. plays tennis with him the next day, and then " * , . . * * * "But, my dear Molly," I protested, "things surely need not go farther than that. If Miss 1924 can make friends lightly, can she not drop them just as lightly? Isn't it rather a mistake to encourage her to bring these promiscuous acquaintances home to supper?"

Molly pondered. "The next-door people have a girl," she said. "Her name is Nellie. The mother has those delightful nineteenth century ideas, and is always boasting of the way Nellie is brought up. Nellie, she says, does not strike up these tennis and dance friendships. True, she may sometimes play tennis with a man who is not a friend of the family, but there the acquaintance ends " "Well?" I murmured, for the pause was full of meaning. "Oh," said Molly, "don't imagine that poor Nellie is different from other girls. She resorts to subterfuge, of course. I happen to know that when she is supposed to be working late at the office she is often out with one or other of the men friends that she dare not speak of at home. How much safer and wiser if she were encouraged to take him home to supper! Mothers to-day are not expected to go out with their girls and choose their friends. But I do everything in my powereverything, that is, that dainty little meals and pretty surroundings can do— persuade my girl to bring her friends home for inspection." ***•■* ■' "And doesn't Prudence ever make mistakes?" I asked. "Doesn't she sometimes bring in a man you do not care for at all? And, once having opened your doors to him " Molly laughed. "Oh, Prudence brought home an awful specimen once!" she said. "Girls are such duffers, sometimes!' This man had played a brilliant game of tennis, but oh, you should have seen him in the drawing-room, and at supper! My dear, I shudder to think what might have happened if I had not nipped that affair in the bud! For he was genuinely very smitten with Prudencepoor dear! And Prudencelittle goose!—could think of nothing but tennis and chocolates " "But how did you stop it?" I asked. Molly shrugged her shoulders. "A man's colours show up very clearly in a domestic atmosphere," she said. "And mothers, if they have any sense, can very discreetly and tactfully bring to light the real faults and imperfections a man may possess. Of course, it is generally useless to warn a girl directly about these things; but oh, so much can be done when she brings him home to supper. Believe me, she sees him in a different light." * ■ * * * "And your daughter thinks you a dreadful flirt!" I murmured. "Poor Prudence!" "Say rather 'Lucky Prudence" protested Molly. "She doesn't have to pretend that she works late at the office six days a week. Thank Heaven she looks on me, as a friend, and wants her friends to meet me. Yes, the child and I are just pals—only I am a little older and wiser than she is!" "Well, well! Perhaps Ido say 'Lucky Prudence" I admitted.

Summer Fruits for Preserves and Sweets 'T'O the housewife summer means fruit, and fruit means many hours spent over a steaming preserving- kettle, with jars to fill and screw down, and exasperating incidents to meet and be finally crowned by a triumphant feeling of duty well and truly done, as one views golden peaches, ruby plums, and creamy white pears, safely encased in gleaming jars until winter's demands have to be met. "Yes, it's an awful bore, but it's well Avorth it," is the verdict. 0 0 0 Orange and Pear Conserve Prepare six —small—as for the Hawaiian dainty, and then place in a preserving kettle and add two quarts of water. Add six cooking pears, first paring and then cutting in quarters and then in thin slices. Cook slowly until the orange is tender, and then add one package of seeded raisins, two-thirds of a cup of preserved ginger, 31b. of sugar. Stir to dissolve the sugar and then bring to a boil and cook slowly until thick. Pour in one-half pint all-glass fruit, jars, and seal while scalding hot. Vegetable Honey A very delicious tomato honey that is ideal for serving with buckwheat cakes in connection with crisp sausage is made as follows: —For each pound of ripe tomatoes allow the grated yellow rind of one lemon. Cut the vegetable into small pieces, add the rind, and cook until quite thick. Press through a puree sieve, measure the pulp, and for each pint add two cupfuls of sugar (or one cupful of honey and one cupful of sugar) and the juice of one and one-half lemons. Cook, stirring frequently, until of the consistency of honey, and seal in half-pint jars, as for canned fruit. What to do with Plums Plums make excellent jam, jelly, and cheese (from the fruit left over after making the jelly). They bottle very well, and also dry, pickle, and candy. For immediate use they may be made into boiled puddings, with a suet crust, or baked in a basin lined with short crust pastry. Spiced Apple Jelly Cut half a peck of juicy cooking apples in three pints of vinegar and one pint of water until soft, adding an ounce of broken stick cinnamon, two slices of lemon, half an ounce of whole cloves and half a teaspoonful of grated nutmeg. When soft drain through a jelly bag, boil the juice for twenty minutes and add three-quarters of a cup of sugar for each cupful of the juice. Simmer until it jells, skim well and store as for ordinary jelly. This is delicious to serve with chicken, duck, roast pork and either cold or hot ham. Quince Marmalade Cook the skins of the pared quinces in water to well cover, and for a quart of the peelings add the grated yellow rind of one large lemon. Cook for forty minutes, then strain, and in this liquid cook the cored fruit that has been cut into small pieces. When the fruit is tender press through a fine sieve and allow three-quarters of a cupful of sugar for each cup of the pulp. Let the quince cook for twenty minutes, add the hot water, and for a pint of the combined fruit and sugar add the juice of half a lemon and half a cupful of blanched chopped almonds. Cook down quite thick and store as for jelly. (Do not use any of the quince seeds.) Tomato Preserve Take ten pounds of green tomatoes, sliced thin, and add six unpeeled lemons, thinly sliced and from which the seeds have been removed. Place in a preserving kettle, add one cupful of apple juice and half a pound of shredded candied ginger. Let stand over night, and in the morning simmer for thirty minutes. Add eight pounds of heated granulated sugar and cook down thick, stirring frequently. Store in small jars, as for canned fruit.