How Girls Can Help Their Country Part 22

Third Series

EXERCISE I.

Bend knees deeply, fifteen times.

EXERCISE II.

Lying face downward, hands at side, raise the head and chest from the floor as far as possible.

EXERCISE III.

Lying face downward, head resting on the folded arms, raise each leg upward and backward from the hip with straight knee, ten times.

EXERCISE IV.

Lying on the back, hands under head, raise both legs with straight knees to a vertical position, toes pointed upward, ten times.

EXERCISE V.

Charge obliquely forward left, arms in line with the body and rear leg; touch the floor and return, making it a four-count exercise.

Repeat ten times in each direction.

EXERCISE VI.

Run in place for one minute, rest and repeat.

EXERCISE VII.

Take ten deep breaths.

HOME LIFE

Housewifery

Every Girl Scout is as much a "hussif" as she is a girl. She is sure to have to "keep house" some day, and whatever house she finds herself in, it is certain that that place is the better for her being there.

Too many odds and ends and draperies about a room are only dust-traps, and rugs or carpet squares, which can be taken up easily, are better than nailed down carpets. Keep all the furniture clean and bright. Fresh air, soap, and water are the good housewife's best allies. Bars of soap should be cut up in squares, and kept for six weeks before being used.

This hardens it, and makes it last longer.

In scrubbing boarded floors, the secret is not to deluge the floor; change the water in the pail frequently.

In the work of cleaning, think out your plan beforehand, so as not to dirty what has been cleaned. Plan certain times for each kind of work, and have your regular days for doing each thing.

PASTE-BOARDS AND DEAL TABLES.--Scrub hard the way of the grain. Hot water makes boards and tables yellow. Rinse in cold water, and dry well.

SAUCEPANS.--New saucepans must not be used till they have first been filled with cold water and a little soda, and boiled for an hour or so, and must be well scoured. After basins or saucepans have been used fill them at once with cold water to the brim; this will prevent anything hardening on the saucepan, and will make cleaning easier.

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Needlework

"A st.i.tch in time saves nine." We cannot agree with this favorite saying, because it saves so many more than nine, besides saving time and preventing untidiness.

Tailors, who are such neat workers, will say that they never pin their work first. If you are not a tailor, it is much better to place your work, before you begin, with plenty of pins. You will never get straight lines or smooth corners if you do not plan and place it all first, just as it has got to be, and tack it there.

Have you noticed that thread is very fond of tying itself into a bow; but this can be prevented by threading the cotton into the needle before you cut it off the reel, making your knot at the end you cut.

In rough measures, one inch is equivalent to the distance across a twenty-five-cent piece, and a yard is from nose to thumb, as far as you can reach. Needlework is good for all of us; it rests and calms the mind. You can think peacefully over all the worries of Europe whilst you are st.i.tching. Sewing generally solves all the toughest problems, chiefly other peoples'.

Pillow lace needs a little more attention, but is a lovely art which girls can easily master. The writer was taught to make the flowers of Honiton lace by a little Irish girl, and the variations you can invent are endless. You would find a good sale for insertion lace of the Torchon patterns. Make your own pillow, and buy some cheap bobbins to begin learning with, and do not try fine work at first. Learn to spin wool and thread; a spinster can earn money in this way.

The Girl Scouts' Patch

We don't know whether you ever did such a thing as burn a hole in your dress, but we have, and if it is in the front, oh, dear! what will mother say. Now, there is a very good way that Girl Scouts have of making it all right and serviceable; they put in a piece and darn it in all round. If possible, get a piece of the same stuff, then it will not fade a different tint, and will wear the same as the rest. You may undo the hem and cut out a bit, or perhaps you may have some sc.r.a.ps left over from cutting out your dress.

The piece must be cut three or four inches larger than the hole, and frayed out on all four sides. Trim the hole with your scissors neatly all round quite square with the thread. Then lay your piece over the hole--of course on the back or "wrong side"--and tack it there with cotton. Now take a darning needle, and thread each thread in turn, and darn each one into the stuff. If the ends of stuff are very short, it is best to run your needle in and out where you are going to darn, and then, before pulling it through, thread it with the wool. This patching is excellent for table-linen.

We once had an aunt who was a thorough old Scout, and was rather proud of her mending. She always said that she didn't mind what colored cotton you gave her to sew with, because her st.i.tches hardly ever showed, they were so small, and also she put them inside the stuff. If she was putting on a patch to blue stuff, she could do it with red cotton, and you would never have noticed it on the right side; her st.i.tches were all under the edge. Or else she sewed it at the back, on the wrong side, so that it looked perfectly neat.

If you are not able to match the wool for a darn, it is a good plan to use the ravelings of the stuff itself. Sometimes, away in the country, you can't go to a shop and you have nothing like the piece you want to mend. A Scout would turn it inside out and undo a little of the hem, and ravel out the edge. Suppose you were to cut a hole in the front of your blue serge skirt; if you darn it with the ravelings of the turnings of the seam or the hem, that will be exactly the same color and the same thickness as your dress. No wool you could buy would match as well. Or if you want to mend a jersey or knitted gloves, you never could buy such a good match--the same sized wool and the tints.

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Damask table-cloths should be darned to match the pattern, following the flowers of the design, and large holes may be mended like the "Scouts'

Patch" just described. To sew on b.u.t.tons properly, leave them loose enough for the iron to push. On was.h.i.+ng articles have your threads long enough to make a little stalk to the b.u.t.ton, which is wound round before finis.h.i.+ng. Your needle should be sloped out to all sides, so as to take up fresh stuff farther out than the holes in the b.u.t.ton.

Scouts may make many useful presents in their spare time, such as cretonne covered blotters or frames, mittens, warm felt slippers (for which woolly soles can be bought), pen-wipers, pin-cus.h.i.+ons, and needle-books. They could also make articles for their hospitals, such as night-clothing, soft caps, handkerchiefs, pillow-cases, and dusters.

HOME COOKING

There is a legend in Turkey that when a rich man is engaged to marry a lady he can break it off if she is not able to cook him a dish of dates in a different way every day for a whole month. A friend of ours did somewhat the same in trying a new cook; he always tested them with nothing but cutlets for a fortnight. The real test of a good cook is to see how little food she wastes. She uses up all the sc.r.a.ps, and old bits of bread are baked for making puddings and for frying crumbs; she sees that nothing goes bad, and she also buys cleverly. Those who do not understand cookery waste money.

Perfect cleanliness and neatness should be insisted on, or your food will be bad and unwholesome.

Eggs

Is an egg lighter or heavier when cooked? An experienced cook is experienced in eggs. There are "new laid" eggs which are fresh and "fresh" eggs which are not; there are "cooking" eggs which are liable to squeak. Eggs are safe in their sh.e.l.ls, and think you don't know whether they are fresh or not, or whether they are raw. Any egg can be thrown out of a first-floor window on to the lawn without the sh.e.l.l breaking; it falls like a cat, right end upwards, and this is not a boiled egg, either! You can tell that because it will not spin on the table, so it must have been a raw egg. A cooked egg would spin.

To tell a stale egg, you will see it is more transparent at the _thick_ end when held up to the light.