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The Real Adventure By Henry Kitchell Webster Copyright 1916, Bobba-Merrill Cos. COMES THE GREAT EVENT IN ROSE ALDRICH’S LIFE, THE PROSPECT OF A BABY, AND SHE REALIZES THAT WOMAN’S FINEST PROFESSION IS MOTHERHOOD—BUT PLANS GO Y AWRY SYNOPSIS —Rose Stanton marries Rodney Aldrich, a rich young lawyer, after a brief courtship, and In stantly is taken up by Chicago’s exclusive social set ...de a part of the gay whirl of the rich folk. It is all new to the girl, f.nd for the first few months she is with the life. And then she comes to feel that she is living a useless existence, that she Is a social butterfly, a mere ornament In her husband’s home. Rose longs to do something useful and to have the opportunity to employ her mind and utilize her talent and edu cation. Rodney feels much the same way himself. !<e thinks he ought to potter around in society just to please his wife, when in reality he’d rather be giving his nights to study <*r social service of some sort. They try to reach an understanding, following the visit of two New York friends, who have worked out satisfactorily this same problem. CHAPTER Xl—Continued. But she went steadily on. “You tvere always so dear about it. But tonight—oh, Rodney ... 1” Her silly, ragged voice choked there and stopped, and the tears brimmed up and spilled down her cheeks. But she kept her face steadfastly turned to bis. “That’s what I said about being married and not sowing wild oats, I suppose.” he said glumly. “It was a Joke. Do you suppose I’d have said it If I meant It?” “It wasn’t only that," she managed in go on. “It was the way they looked at the house; the way you apologized for my dress; the way you looked when you tried to get out of answer ing Barry Lake’s questions about what you were doing. Oh, how 1 despised myself! And how I knew you and they must be despising me!” “The one thing I felt about you all the evening,” he said, with the pa tience that marks the last stage of exasperation, “was pride. I was rath er crazily proud of you." “As my lover you were proud of me,” she said. “But the other man— the man that’s more truly you—was ashamed, as I was ashamed. Oh, It doesn’t matter! Being ashamed won’t accomplish anything. But what we’ll do is going to accomplish something.” “What do you mean to do?" he asked. “I wan; you to tell me first,” she aald, “how much money we have, and how much we’ve been spending.” “I don’t know,” he said stubbornly. "I don’t know exactly.” “You’ve got enough, haven’t you, of your own ... I mean, there’s enough that comes in every year, to live on, if you didn’t earn a cent by practicing law? Well, what I want to do, is to live on that. I want to live, however and wherever we have to—to live on that—out In the suburbs somewhere, or in a flat, so that you will be free: and I can work —be some sort of help.” “You can wash the dishes and scrub the floors,” he supplemented, “and I can carry ray lunch to the office with me In a little tin box.” He looked at his watch. “And now that the thing’s reduced to an absurdity, let’s go to bed. It’s getting along toward two o’clock.” “You don’t have to get to the office till nine tomorrow morning,” said Rose. “And I want to talk It out now. And I don’t think I said any thing that was absurd.” “I shouldn’t have eall”d It absurd.” he admitted after a rather long si lence. “But It’s exaggerated and un necessary. Next October, when the lease on this house runs out, we can manage, perhaps, to change the scale a little. There you are! Now do stop worrying about it and let’s go to bed.” But she sat there just as she was, staring at the dying fire, her hands lying slack in her lap, all as If she hadn’t heard. The long silence irked him. He pulled out his watch, looked at it, and began winding it. He mend ed the fire so that it would be safe for the night; bolted a window. Ev “ That’s Why I Wanted to Decide Things Tonight.” ery minute or two he stole a look at her, but she was always just the same. Except for the faint rise and fall of her bosom, she might have been a picture, not a woman. At last he said again, “Come along, Rose dear." “It’ll be too late In October,” she said. “That’s why I wanted to de cide things tonight. Because we must begin right away." Then she looked up into his face. “It will be too late in October.” she repeated, "unless we be gin now.” The deep, tense seriousness of her voice and her look arrested his full attention. “Why?” he asked. And then, “Rose, what do you mean?" “We’re going to have a baby in October," she said. CHAPTER XII. The Door That Was to Open. What a silly little idiot she’d been jbet to have no tlv thing for her self! She’d been, all the while, beat ing her head against blind walls when there was a door there waiting to open of itself when the time came. Motherhood! There’d be a doctor and a nurse at first, of course, but presently they’d go away and she’d be left with a baby. Her own baby! She could care for him with her own hands, feed him—her joy reached an ecstasy at this —from her own breast. That life which Rodney led apart from her, the life Into which she had tried with such ludicrous unsuccess to effect an entrance, was nothing to this new life which was to open before her In a few short months now. Mean while, she not only must wait— she could well afford to. That was why she could listen with that untroubled smile of hers to the terrible things that Rodney and James Randolph and Barry Lake and Jane got into the way of hurling across her dinner table, and to the more mildly expressed but equally alkaline cynicisms of Jimmy Wallace. Jimmy was dramatic critic on one of the evening papers as well as a bit of a playwright. He was a slim, cool, smiling, highly sophisticated young man, who renounced all privileges aS an Interpreter of life in favor of re maining an unbiased observer of It. He never bothered to speculate about what you ought to and waited to see what you did. Well, In the light of the miraculous transformation that lay before her, Rose could listen undaunted to the tough philosophizings her husband and Barry Lake delighted in as w r ell as to the mordant merciless realities with which Doctor Randolph and Jimmy Wallace confirmed them. She wasn’t indifferent to it all. “Jim’s pretty weird when he gets going,” Eleanor Randolph said to Fred erica, on the next day after they had been dining at the Aldriches’, “but that Barry Lake has a sort of surgical way of discussing just anything, and his wife’s as bad. “We never got off women all the evening. Barry Lake had their his tory down from the early Egyptians, and Jim got off a string of patholog ical freaks. And then Rodney came out strong for economic independence, only with his own queer angle on It, of course. He thought it would be a fine thing, but it wouldn’t happen un til the men insisted on It. When a girl wasn’t regarded as marriageable unless she had been trained to a trade or a profession, then things would be gin to happen. I think he meant it, too. “Well, and all the while there sat Rose, taking it all in with those big eyes of hers, smiling to herself now and then; saying things, too, some times, that were pretty good, though nobody but .Timmy seemed to under stand, always, just what she meant. They’ve talked before, those two. But she was no more embarrassed than as if we’d been talking embroidery stitches.” , So far as externals went, her life, that spring, was Immensely simplified. The social demands upon her, which had been so Insistent all winter, stopped almost automatically. The exception was the Junior League show in Easter week, for which she put In quite a lot of work. She was to have danced in it. This Is an annual entertainment by which Chicago sets great store. All the smartest aud best-looking of the younger set take part in it, in cos tumes that would do credit to a chorus dresser, and as much of Chicago as is willing and able to pay five dollars a seat for the privilege is welcome to come and look. Delirious weeks are spent in rehearsal, under a first class professional director; audience and performers have an equally good time, aud Charity, as residuary Tega tee. profits by thousands. Rose dropped in at a rehearsal one day at the end of a solid two hours of committee work, found it unexpect edly amusing, and made a point, there after, of attending when she could. Her interest was heightened, if not wholly actuated, by some things Jim my Wallace had been telling her late ly about how such things were done on the real stage. He had written a musical comedy once, lived through the production of it, and had spent a hard-earned two weeks’ vacation trouping with it on the road, so he could speak with au thority. It was a wonderful Odyssey when you could get him to tell it, and as Rose made a good audience, she got the whole thing at her dinner table. The thing got a sociological twist eventually, of course, when Jane want ed tc know If it were true that the chorus girls received Inadequate pay. Jimmy demolished this with more wrath than he often showed. He didn't know any other sort of Job that paid a totally untrained girl as well. It took a really accomplished stenogra pher, for instance, to earn as much a week as was paid the average chorus girl. The trouble was that the indis pensable assets in the business were not character and intelligence and am bition. but just personal charms. “But a girl who's serious about It, who doesn't have to be told the same thing more than once, and catches on, sometimes, without being told at all, why, she can always have a job and she can be as independent as any body. She can get twenty-five dollars a week or even as high as.thirty." The latter part of this conversation was what she was to remember after ward, but the thing that impressed Rose at the time, and that held her for hours looking on at the League show rehearsals, was what Jimmy had told her about the technical side of the work of production, the labors of the director, and so on. As the weeks and months wore away, and as the season of violent alter nations between summer and winter, which the Chicagoan calls spring, gave pi: ce to summer itself. Rose was driven to intrench herself more and more deeply behind this great expectation. It was like a dam hold ing back waters that otherwise would have rushed down upon her and swept her away. And then came Harriet, Rodtiey’s other sister, and the pressure behind the dam rose higher. Rose had tried, rather unsuccess fully, to realize that there was actu ally In existence another woman who occupied, by blood anyway, the same position toward Rodney and herself that Frederica did. She felt almost like a real sister toward Frederica. But without quite putting the notion into words, she had always felt it was just as well that Harriet was an Italian contessa, four thousand miles away. Rodney and Frederica spoke of her affectionately, to be sure, but their references made a picture of a rather formidably correct, seriously aristocratic sort of person. She’d discovered, along In the win ter sometime, that Harriet’s affairs were going rather badly. It was along In May that the cable came to Frede rica announcing that Harriet was com ing back for a long visit. “That’s all she said,” Rodney explained to Rose. “But I suppose it means the finish. She said she didn’t want any fuss made, but she hinted she’d like to have Freddy meet her in New York, and Freddy’s going. Poor old Harriet 1 We must try to cheer her up.” She didn’t seem much in need of cheering up, Rose thought, when they first met. All that shojved on the con tessa’s highly polished surface was a disposition to talk humorously over old times with her old friends, in cluding her brother and sister, and a sort of dismayed acquiescence in the smoky seriousness, the inadequate civilization, of the city of her birth. Toward Rose herself, the contessa was, one might say, studiously affec tionate. She avoided being either dis agreeable or patronizing. Rose could see, Indeed, how she avoided !t. About this itlme the question where Rose and Rodney were going to live after their lease on the McCrea house ended, had begun to press for an an swer. October first was when the lease expired, and it wasn’t far from the date at which they expected the baby. They spent some lovely after noons during the days of the emerg ing spring, cruising about looking at possible places. This was the situation when Har riet took a hand In it. It was a situa tion made to order for Harriet to take a hand in. She’d sized it up at a glance, made up her mind in three minutes what Was the sensible thing for them to do, written a note to Florence McCrea In Paris, and then bided her opportunity to put her idea into effect. To her Rose was simply a well-meaning, somewhat Inadequately civilized young person, the beneficiary, through her marriage with Rodney, of a piece of unmerited good fortune. When she got Florence McCren’s answer to her letter, she took the first occasion to get Rodney off by himself and talk a little ' common sense into him. “What about where to live, Rod ney ? she asked. “Afade up your mind about it yet? It is time someone with a little common sense straight ened you out about this." Harriet couldn’t be sure from the length of time he took seeing that his pipe was properly lighted, wheth er he altogether liked this method of approach or not. “Common sense always was a sort of specialty of yours, sis," he said at last, “and straightening out. You were always pretty good at it.” Then out of a cloud of his own smoke, "Fire away.” “Well, in the first place," she said, “if you had your house today you’d be lucky if the paint was dry and the thing was fit to move into by the first of September.’’ “But we’ve got to get out of here, anyway, in October. And that means we’ve got to have some sort of place to get into. It is an awkward time, i’ll admit.’ “No, you haven't,” she said. “Yon can stay right here another six months, if you like. I’ve heard from Florence. When I found how things stood here, I wrote and asked her if she’d lease for six months more If she got the chance, and she wrote back and simply grabbed at it." Rodney smoked half way through his pipe before he made any comment on this suggestion. “This house isn’t Just whet we want," he said. “In the first place, it’s expensive.” Harriet shrugged her shoulders, picked up one of Florence’s poetry books and eyed the heavily tooled bind ing with a satirical smile before she replied. “I'd an idea there was that in It,” she said at last. “Freddy said some thing. . . Rose had been talking to her.” Then, after another little silence and with a sudden access of vehemence: “You don’t want to go and do a regular fool thing. Roddy. Yon're getting on perfectly splendid ly. But if you pull up and go to live in a barn somewhere and stop seeing any body—people that count, I mean—” Rodney grunted. "You're beyond your depth, sis,” he said. “Come back where you don’t have to swim. The expense Isn’t a capital consideration, I’ll admit that. Now go on from there.” “That’s like old times,” she ob served with a not iH-humored grim ace. “I wonder if you talk to Rose like that. Oh, I know the house is rather solemn and absurd. It’s Flor ence herself all over, that’s the size of it. But what does that matter for six months more?” He pocketed his pipe and got up out of his chair. “There’s something in it,” he ad mitted. “I’ll think it over.” ‘ Better cable Florence as soon as you can,” she advised. Rose protested when the plan for living six months more in Florence McCrea’s house was broached to her. She made the best fight she could. But Harriet’s arguments, re-stated now by Rodney with full conviction, were too much for her. When she broke down and cried, as she couldn’t help doing, Rodney soothed and com forted her. assured her that this no tion of hers about the expensiveness of it all. was just a notion, which she must struggle against as best she could. She’d see things in a truer proportion afterward. ******* Very fine and small and weak, Rose Stanton, lying in a bed with people about her, let her eyes fall heavily shut lest they should want her to speak or think. . . . Then, for a long time, nothing. Then presently, a hand, a firm, powerful hand, that picked up her heavy, limp wrist and two sensi tive finger-tips that rested lightly on the upper surface of it. After that, an even, measured voice—a voice of authority, whose words no doubt made sense, only Rose was too tired to think what the sense was: “That’s a splendid pulse. She's do ing the best thing she can, sleeping like that.” And then another voice, utterly un like Rodney’s and yet urynistakablv his —a ragged voice that tried to talk in a whisper but couldn’t manage it —broke queerly. “That’s all right,” It said. “But I’ll find it easier to believe when—” She must see him —must know what it meant that he should talk like that. With a strong physical ef fort. she opened her eyes and tried to speak his nnrae. She couldn’t; but someone must have been watching and have seen, because a woman’s voice said quickly and quietly “Mr. Aldrich.” And the next moment, vast and tow ering and very blurred in outline, but, like his voice, unmistakably, was Rodney—her own big, strong Rodney. She tried to hold her arms up to him, but of course she couldn’t. And then he shortened suddenly. He had knelt down beside her bed, that was it. And she felt upon her palin the pressure of his lips, and his unshaven cheek, and on her wrist a warm wetness that must be—tears. And then she knew. The urgency of a sudden terror gave her her voice. “Roddy,” she said, “there was go ing to be a—baby. Isn’t there?” Something queerly like a laugh broke his voice when he answered. “Oh, you darling! Yes. It’s all right. That isn’t why I’m crying. It’s just because I’m so happy.” “But the baby!” she persisted. “Why Isn’t it here?” Roduey turned and spoke to some one “She wants to see,” he said. “May she?" And then a woman’s voice (why, it was the nurse, of course! Miss Harris, who had come last night) said in an indulgent, soothing tone: “Why, surely she may. Wait just a minute.” But the wait seemed hours. Why didn’t they bring the baby—her baby? There! Miss Harris was coming at last, with a queer, bulky, shapeless bundle. Rodney stepped In between and cut off the view, but only to slide an arm under mattress and pillow EASY TO TELL REAL DIAMOND There Are Many Ways in Which the Finest Imitations May Be Detect ed, Even by the Inexperienced. The experienced eye does not find it difficult to decide whether a diamond is genuine, for the facets of real ones are seldom so regular as those of fine imitations. With the latter the great est care is taken in grinding to polish and smooth the whole stone so that there will be irregularity in the reflec tion or refraction of the light. A neces sary tool for testing is the file, which cannot scratch a real diamond, al though It quickly leaves its mark on an imitation. Better than the file is the for the sapphire is the next hardest stone to the diamond. Any stone that a sapphire can scratch is assuredly not a diamond. If you put a small drop of w r ater on the upper facet of a brilliant and touch it with the point of a .pencil the drop will keep its rounded form, but the stone will remain clean and dry. In case of an imitation the drop immedi ately spreads out. Plunge a diamond into water and it will be plainly visible and will glitter through the liquid, but an imitation stone is almost invisible. If you look through a diamond, as through a bit of glass, at a black dot on a sheet of white paper you will see one single point clearly. If you see sev eral points or a blur of black it is an imitation. The white sapphire, the white topaz and rock crystal are fre quently sold as diamonds, but imita tions are more commonly made of glass. Bound to Fight, Anyhow. Early last year, says a contributor to an English weekly, a grocer in x a Scottish village decided that either he or his assistant must enlist. 4s he was single and his mother and sisters were well provided for from their in terest in the shop, he thought it was his duty to go. Mackay, the assistant, agreed promptly, and presently found himself in command of the business. But a few months later the master was dumfounded to meet his late as sistant, attired in khaki, “somewhere In France.” “Hi, mon, ’ he said angrily, “what are ye doin' here? Did I no tell ye tae stay at hame in chairge o' ma shop?” “So I thocht at the time, maister,” replied Mackay, “bit 1 sune fun' oot it wisna only the shop I was in chairge o’, but a’ yer womanfolk. ’Man,’ says I tae maself. ‘gin ye’ve got to fecht, gang and fecht someone ye can hit!’ So I jtned." —Youth’s Companion. Rains Uncover Gold Nuggets. The days of ’49 have been revived here to a certain extent, says the Sac ramento (Cal.) Bee, several Auburn men having brought nuggets worth from $1 to S2O which were found in the ravines and streams since heavy rains have washed the dirt from the gravel. One nugget, which, it Is said, la worth S2O, was found. _____ WAUSAU PILOT and raise her a little so that she could see. And then, under her eyes, dark red and hairy against the whiteness of the pillow, were two small heads—two small, shapeless masses leading away from them, twitching, squirming. She stared, bewildered. "There were twins, Rose,” she heard Rodney explaining triumphantly, but still with something that wasn’t quite a laugh, “a boy and a girl. They’re perfectly splendid. One weighs seven pounds and the other six.” Her eyes widened and she looked up into his face so that the pitiful bewilderment in hers was revealed to him. “But the baby,” she said. Her wide eyes filled with tears and her voice broke weakly. “I wanted a baby.” "You’ve got a baby," he insisted, and now 7 laughed outright. “There are two of them. Don’t you understand, dear?” Her eyes drooped shut, but the tears came w'elling out along her lashes. “Please take them away,” she She Stared, Bewildered. begged. And then, with a little sob, she whispered: “I wanted a baby, not those.” Rodney started to speak, but some sort of admonitory signal from the nurse silenced him. The nurse went away with her bun dle, and Rodney stayed stroking Rose’s limp hand. In the dark, ever so much later, she awoke, stirred a little restlessly, and the nurse, from her cot, came quickly and stood beside her bed. She had something In her hands for Rose to drink and Rose drank It dutifully. “Is there anything else?” the nurse asked. “I just want to know,” Rose said; “have I been dreaming, or is it true? Is there a baby, or are there twins?” “Twins, to be sure,” said the nurse cheerfully. “The loveliest, liveliest little pair you ever saw.” “Thank you,” said Rose. “I just wanted to know.” She shut her eyes and pretended to go to sleep. But she didn’t. It was true then. Her miiycle, it seemed somehow, had gone ludicrously a%vr,v. Knowing that they have plenty of money to raise twins properly, why should Rose resent the fact that she has been presented with two babies instead of one? (TO BE CONTINUED.) PRICE OF SHOES EXPLAINED Musical Comedy Footwear, Not War, Sent the Cost of Footwear Up, Says Writer. An Interesting glory which is being widely reprinted credits the high cost of shoes to a brilliant idea which hatched in the brain of a California shoe retailer, according to the Louis ville Courier-Journal. The writer of the story, which appeared first in a Western newspaper, says that the Los Angeles merchant despaired of finding sale for his wares aujong Eastern women w 7 ho w 7 ere motoring in Cali fornia. He hit upon the plan of intro ducing startling varieties of footwear at fancy prices. He bought up a large quantity of ‘ ladies’ boots” with high tops in fancy colors. They were the sort of “boots” that had been seen often in musical comedy, but had not been worn by women on the street. The Easterners, upon beholding his window display, imagined that some thing new had “struck the East,” from Paris or elsewhere, and that they while traveling through the hinterland had not kept up with the fashions. They bought musical comedy shoes at any (trice the dealer was bold enough to ask. When they went back to New York with their smart “boots” the fashion was set. Manufacturers began at once to make high-topped shoes of all of the colors of the rainbow, and women who previously had regarded $6 as the highest (trice to be thought of began to buy the musical comedy shoes eagerly at from sl2 to $25. It is not the high cost of leather or the European war that caused shoes to advance, according to this story. One lone Los Angeles merchant established anew standard of values which women accept without question. The Unadventurous. At every corner handkerchiefs drop, fingers beckon, eyes besiege, and the last, the lonely, the rapturous, the •mysterious, the perilous, changing ! clews of adventure are slipped into our fingers. But few of us are wili ing to hold and follow them. We are grown stiff with the ramrod of con vention down our backs. We pass on and some day we come, at the end of a very dull life, to reflect that our romance has been a potted thing of a marriage or two, a satin rosette, kept in a safe deposit drawer, and a life long feud with a steam radiator.— O. Henry in the “Green Door.” Naturally. He —Why don’t you take a more suitable time to go to your dress maker? She —My dear man, all times to gt to a dressmaker are fitting ones. Painful Fix. “Flubdub has a boil on the back of his neck.” “Yes. and. what’s worse, there seems to be no adequate way of blaming H ,on his wife.” _ - HOME DRYING FRUITS AND VEGETABLES TRAYS FOR DRYING FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. (From FARMERS’ BULLETIN 841. United States Department of Agriculture.) One of the most prominent features of the food conservation program of European countries has been the uni versal drying of fruits and vegetables. The surplus vegetables In the city mar kets were forced by the governments into large municipal drying plants. Community dryers were established in the trucking regions and even itin erant drying machines were sent from farm to farm drying the vegetables which otherwise would have gone to waste. In addition, large quantities of dried vegetables from Canada and this country were shipped to France dur ing the last two years, and there is a possibility that dried fruits and vege tables may continue to be shipped abroad in considerable quantities to supplement the concentrated food diet of the men in the trenches. The drying of vegetables may seem strange to the present generation, but to our grandmothers it was no nov elty. Many housewives even today pre fer dried sweet corn to the product canned by the old method, and say tfhat dried pumpkin and squash are ex cellent for pie making. Snap beans often are strung on threads and dried above the stove. Cherries and rasp berries still are dried on bits of bark for use instead of raisins. In fact, many of the everyday foodstuffs al ready are dried at some stage of their preparation for market. The common dried fruits, such as prunes, raisins, figs, dates and apples, are staples in the world’s markets, while beans and other legumes, tea, coffee, cocoa, and various manufactured foods, like starch, tapioca, macaroni, etc., are dried either in the sun and wind or in specially constructed driers. Even though the drying of fruits and vegetables as practiced a few decades ago on many farms has become prac tically a “lost art,” the present food situation doubtless will cause a marked stimulation of drying as a means of conserving the food supply. This coun try is producing large quantities of per ishable foods this year, which should be saved for storage, canned, or prop erly dried. Drying is not a panacea for the entire waste evil, nor should it take the place of storing or canning to any considerable extent where prop er storage facilities are available or tin cans or glass jars can be obtained readily and at a low cost. Advantages of Drying. The advantages of drying vegetables are not so apparent for the farm home as they are for the town or city house hold, which has no root cellar or oth er place In which to store fresh vege tables. For the farmer’s wife the new methods of canning probably will be better than sun drying, which require a somewhat longer time. But shorter methods of drying are available, and the dried product holds an advantage in that usually it requires fewer Jars, cans, or other containers than do canned fruits or vegetables; also dried material can be stored In receptacles which cannot be used for canning. Then, too, canned fruit and vegetables freeze and cannot be shipped as con veniently in winter. Dried can be compacted and shipped witn a minimum risk. Special Advantages. To the housewife in the town the drying of vegetables and fruits pre sents special advantages. During the season when the market is oversup plied locally and prices are low she can lay in a stock, dry it, and put It away for a winter’s emergency without its taking up much of the needed small storage space in her home. If she is accustomed to canning her fruit and vegetables and finds she cannot se cure jars or tin cans, she can easily re sort to drying. With simple and inexpensive facili ties, all housewives can save quanti ties of food which are too small con veniently to can. A few sweet pota toes or apples or peas or even a single turnip can be dried and saved. Even when very small quantities are dried at a time, a quantity sufficient for a meal will soon be secured. Small lots of several dried vegetables, such as cabbage, carrots, turnips, potatoes, and onions, can be combined to advantage for soups and stews. Cleanliness Is Big Factor. Cleanliness is as necessary in the preparation of vegetables and fruits for drying as in their preparation for canning, perhaps even more so. To secure a fine quality of dried products much depends upon having the vege tables absolutely fresh, young, tender, and perfectly clean. If steel knives are used in paring and cutting have them clean and bright so as not to dis color the vegetable. The earthy smell and flavor will cling to root crops if they are not washed thoroughly before slicing, and one decayed root may fla vor several kettles of soup if the slices from it are scattered through a whole batch of dried material. High-grade dried oot” vegetables can only be made from peeled roots. To Dry Irish Potatoes. Select good, sound, well-matured potatoes. (a) Wash and boil or steam until nearly done. Peel and pass through a meat grinder or a potato ricer. Col lect the shreds in layers on a tray and dry until brittle. If toasted slight ly in an oven when dry the flavor is improved somewßat. (b) Boil or steam until nearly done, peel as above, cut into quarter-inch slices, spread on trays, and dry until brittle. To Dry Raspberries. (a) Sort out imperfect berries, spread berries on trays, and dry. Do not dry so long that they become hard enough to rattle. The drying should be stopped as soon as the berries fail to stain the bund when pressed. (b) Pick leaves and stems from fruits and spread on trays. Handle carefully and do not bruise. Spread in thin layer on tray and dry slowly.- Raise temperature gradually from 110 degrees to 125 degrees Fahrenheit in In the preparation of large quanti ties of potatoes a peeler may be util ized. The potatoes are thrown by cen trifugal force against a rough surface which, under streams of water provid ed by the perforated tin container above, nicks off the outer skin and leaves only the eyes to be dug out Blanching of vegetables is consid ered desirable by some housekeepers, although it is not strictly essential to successful drying. It is claimed that the blanch gives a more thorough cleaning, removes the strong odor and flavor from certain kinds of vegeta bles, and sofcens and loosens the fiber. This allows the moisture in the vege table to evaporate more quickly and uniformly. It also quickly coagulates the albuminous matter in the vegeta bles, which helps to hold in the natural flavors. Blanching consists of plung ing the vegetable into boiling water for a short time. Use a wire basket or cheesecloth bag for this. After blanch ing the required number of minutes, drain well and remove surface mois ture from vegetables by placing be tween two towels or by exposing to the sun and air for a short time. Preparing Food for Drier. In large factories the vegetables are put through special shredders and slicers not adapted for home use, but convenient and Inexpensive ma chines which can be used to great ad vantage are on the market. The meat grinder with its special disks can be used in certain cases; the common kraut sllcer will cut large vegetables into thin slices, such as potatoes and cabbage; and the rotary hand sllcer is adapted for use on a very wide range of material. A large sharp kitchen knife may be used when a handler cutting device is not available. Care should be taken that the material is sliced thin enough but not too thin. From an eighth to a quarter of an inch is a fair thickness for most of the common vegetables to be sliced and dried. Very small slices or strips dry more quickly because they expose a greater surface to the air than do larger cut pieces. But if cut too fine they are more difficult to handle in drying, appear to lose somewhat in flavor, and cannot be used so advan tageously to make dishes like those prepared from the fresh foods. The slicing machines are not suit able for children’s use, for they will cut fingers as mercilessly as they do t egetables and fruits, and even adults should exercise great caution in their use in the home. Good Packing and Storing. Although not necessary, tin cans or glass jars make good receptacles for storage of dried fruits *r vegetables. Pasteboard boxes with tight covers, stout paper bags, and patented paraffin paper cartons also afford ample pro tection for dried products when pro tected from insects and rodents. The dried fruit or vegetables must be pro tected from the outside moisture and will keep best in a cool, dry, well-ven tilated place. These conditions, how ever, are difficult to obtain in the more humid regions, and there moisture tight containers should be used. If a small amount of dried product is put in each receptacle, just enough for one or two meals, it will not be necessary to open a container the con tents of which cannot be consumed In a short time. The use of the small container also makes it more difficult for insects to spoil large quantities of dried fruits or vegetables. If a paper bag is used, the upper part should be twisted into a neck, bent over, and tied tightly with a string. If a further precaution against spoilage is neces sary the bag can be coated with par affin by painting it with a brush which has been dipped into melted paraffin. Another precaution may be taken by placing the small bags In a tin con tainer with a tightly fitting cover, such as an ordinary lard can or pall. All bags should bear a label Indicating what they contain. If fruits or vegetables are packed in tight containers Immediately upon be ing dried thoroughly, they will remain just as brittle as th*w were when ta ken from the drier. If, however, they are not dried thoroughly, they will “sweat” and soon mold. To prevent this the material should be examined within 24 hours after packing, and if It appears moist it must be dried further. To Dry Cauliflower. Clean, divide in small bunches, blanch six minutes, and dry two to three hours at 110 degrees to 145 de grees Fahrenheit. Cauliflower will turn ver - dark when drying, but will regain part of the color in soaking and cooking. Dried cauliflower Is especial ly good in soups and omelets. Brussels sprouts may be handled in a similar way, but add a pinch of soda to the blanching water. Peeling may be omitted, but the product will be very much inferior in flavor. Soup Mixtures. Each vegetable used in the soup mixture Is prepared and dried sep arately. They are put together in proportions desired, the preferred fla voring vegetables predominating. A combination of several vegetables makes the most desirable soup mix ture. Those most often used are car rots, cabbage, onior~ celery, potatoes, and okra. about two hours. Do not raise tem perature higher than 130 degrees Fahrenheit until a considerable por tion of the moisture has evaponted, as otherwise expansion will occur and jnlce will be lost by dripping. This is accompanied by loss of flavor and color. Finish drying berries at 140 degrees Fahrenheit for two to *hree hours. It is necessary to dry berries from four to five hours. Blackberries, dewberries, and huck leberries can be dried in the same way a raspberries. _ - SjgNNiRS , T— j „/ow mmr Mruut^/y Wanted! Medicinal Roots Herbs, Barks, Beeswax, Etc. Highest -n-b prices paid. Write for price list. NORTHWESTERN HERB CO.. 328 N. Clark Si.. Oka*. 0. PATENTS D a a D Adtocllidbooks?lSS; Bate* reasonable Highest references. Bestserrlese. VLTHO TC Women as welt as man lLj are made miserable by 'TY'I kidney and bladder trou x ble. Thousands recoin- BLAMF. mend Dr. Kilmer’s UL/XIITII.I Swamp-Root, the great kidney medic ine. At druggists In flfty cent and dollar sixes. You may receive a sample size bottle by Parcel Post, also pamphlet telling about it. Address Dr. Kilmer & Cos., Binghamton. N. Y., and enclose ten cents, also mention this paper. W. N. U., MILWAUKEE, NO. 28--1917. SAVING NICKELS AND DIMES Shortage in Small Coina Declared Due to Widely Adopted Prac tice of Thrift. l Shortage of small coins, complained of by banks, may be due partly to the practice of saving buffalo nickels and the new dimes, bankers say, according to the Minneapolis Journal. Many persons have formed the habit of putting away the buffalo coins or the new ten-cent pieces on the well established theory that the saver caa accumulate considerable sums In this way and yet do it so gradually that “he never misses It.” “The shortage of nickels and dimes probably is due in part to this prac tice. There is, however, an even mors stringent shortage of pennies, which has been felt for the last six months." Bankers said the penny famine prob ably was due to recently Instilled thrift among children. Pennies given them by parents, coins that formerly went hack into circulation as quickly as little feet could flutter to the cornet candy store, now find their way into the toy bank. FOR ITCHING, BURNING SKINS Bathe With Cuticura Soap and Apply the Ointment—Trial Free. For eczemas, rashes, ltchings, irrlta* tions, pimples, dandruff, sore hands, and baby humors, Cuticura Soap and Ointment are supremely effective. Be sides they tend to prevent these dis tressing conditions, if used for every* • day toilet and nursery preparations. Free sample each by mail with Book, Address postcard, Cuticura, Dept I* Boston. Sold everywhere.—Adv. _ The Shifted Shame. The ex-convict who recently testi fied that he, a mere unsophisticated rounder of thirty or more, was lured into stealing from his employers by a woman to whom he gave part of the money, reminds me of a boy who was brought into a prison In New York one afternoon in July, 1860. As the turn key led him along the youth saw in a cel. a man with a smooth, shrewd, somewhat hard face. The boy stopped and addressed the man in the cell. “You,” he cried, ‘are the cause of my being here!” “How comes that?” inquired Hicks the pirate, for the man in the cell was none other. “Why,” said the boy, “I stole $5 to hire a boat so I could go down to Bed loes island tomorrow and see you hanged.”—New York Sun. Why He Didn’t Register. An Indianapolis man who makes a practice of bragging about his short comings, said that there were just 85 reasons why he didn’t register for conscription. “The first one is that am only five feet one inch tall. “The second one is that, taking my height into account, I am too fat for my stature. “The third one is that I have only one arm. “The fourth one is that my teeth are bad. “The fifth one Is that I am too old.” “Well, what are the other 80 rea sons?” he was asked. “Well, the other 80 don’t matter. The five I have enumerated would give me the necessary alibi.”—lndianapolis News. “He'll Get You Yet." Two extremely well dres.-ed young men were sitting one day in a big, spick and span high-powered roadster drawn up by the parade ground at Fort Benjamin Harrison as a company of student officers, tired and dusty, swung by, returning from the en trenching ground. The young men grinned at the student officers and the student officers grinned back. Then one of the latter sang out: “Oh, you kids! Uncle Sam hasn’t got you now, but he’ll get you yet.”— Indianapolis News. Horrors of War. Mrs. Peck —They are going to arrest all suspicious persons. Mr. Peck —Maybe they won’t, Maria, so long as you are suspicious only of me.—Judge. The Trouble. “What was the matter with Blink’s lecture about the ethics of military aviation?” “I think it was over the people’s heads.” As soon as a man’s mind ceases to broaden it begins to contract. He is the wisest man who knows best how to hold his tongue. He Is an idle man who might be better employed. Doing what one can Is doing the right thing. * *