Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 171, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 July 1913 — Page 2

THROUGH A LAND OF CANALS CANALS

ROM Antwerp to Rotterdam is less % than three hours by the rails, but on the little steamer which crawls through the creeks, canals and lakes of Zeeland it is a full day. Come, steep yourself in sober lux- ' ury in an atmosphere of self-respect and much peace and dampness. The steamer starts in the cold half dawn with all the Antwerp stretch of river lights burning an orange yellow. After two hours of tonic shivering

you see uie buu across a nat ana lertiie land, a Dig red sun which you may look at without blinking. There if a mighty river flowing full and broad between low banks with scattered trees. You glide Into canals lined to the water’s edge with grass and buttercups, enlivened with groups of fishers in trousers of the strangest cuts, who stand chatting with the keepers of the locks and drinking healths in schnapps. The trousers are bloomers, not unlike the knickers of the fair when full built (speaking of the knickers), and they wear round knit caps of vivid green. Others, more sober, wear bomb-shaped casquettes of orange velvet-embroidered with black silk.

* The captain promised breakfast in five minutes. That was an hour and twenty minutes ago. The second cabin passengers are drinking gin. The captain says the breakfast only waits for some cow to be milked near a lock. The boat is still in a canal between high banks, which thrust on the view the ankles of the village girls who stand along the edge and look down philosophically, knitting; for their skirts are very bell-shaped. The village girls are silhouettes against the sky. Then a one-horse gig, •with yellow wheels and a green box, flits by mysteriously and disappears behind the ridge. And there is nothing more. -■ Ah, yes, it rains. The steamer crawls through the canal, imnoded by the locks and dams. Here is another Dutch girl. She is standing on the bank above our heads as we descend, a Dutch girl In a white starched percale cap, cream-colored kerchief crossed upon her breast, with a black bodice, a bine skirt, wooden shoes and blue stockings. The boat is in a narrow river once again, with scenery green and clean, with sweet effects of light in this peculiar air—a milky, velvety light:— near a comic opera village. More village girls, the milk and blush rose blondes of Zeeland, with their silky masses of pale golden hair, Immaculately clean. They look so solid, tight and tidy, do these little Dutch girls in their stiff bodices. Out in the open Ooester Skelt, three miles - across, the yellow brownish water scarcely marks itself against the banks of yellow green, low dikes, with long, long lines of trees, whose roots assist to hold the soil together. We hug the edge. Along the bank there coughs and snorts a dinky little ancient automobile. As it nears we see it is conducted by a pretty girl In white. She looks like a bride! The villagers run out, rejoicing. Who is she? What is jt? What Is he? Mystery. We steam onward. Now, there are always these long lines of trees that stand like a grim regiment to defeat the floods of the encroaching sea It is the Verdronken Land, where thousands perished—villages and towns and all the countrjaide—in 1632, when a dike burst. There Is a short Canal de Keeten. At a village where the captain stofrn to get his hair cut a fair bumboat girl sells us schnapps. Then the little steamer quits the subdivisions of the Schelde, meanders through the mazes of the Maas, comes through the Krammer and the Volkerak to the wide Hollandscb Dlep, which has rough water and looks almost like the sea. Once this bay was land, but long ago, In 1421, a tidal wavefwtped out a hundred market towns and villages, and upward of 100,000 people perished, and the water stayed. Then soon it is the little Dorsche Kil, a very narrow stream (where the Prince of Orange was drowned in 1711), which takes ue to the broad and lovely Merwede, a double river, where the windmills of the landscape aad rtbe busy villages proclaim the land of Holland one has read of. Now it Is raining. Dort, or Dordrecht is the llrst fine town. It is the cleanest land! The very a»ws are scrubbed down with soap and rubbed

the d,o v e-c 010 re d shawl slips ofT the shoulders of a Quaker girl—if there be any left who wear dove-colored shawls. I am thinking of Philadelphia and Penn’s Manor. Here thfere are villages that do not know the railway and their daughters do not know the modern fashions. A village girl buys one fine gown and it will last her fifteen years. Do you thing she is not just as nice beneath it? These girls spare no expense on their best gowns. They have real linen and real lace and fine silk stockings if they choose to wear them, and each girl has a gold helmet, which is worth from S9O to S3OO. It begins to rain. This helmet is a thin and supple shell of gold which snugly fits the head. Sometimes it is scoop-shaped to let the back hair be coiled in a knot, sometimes they plait their back hair in two long queues, which hang down before the ears on each side of the face; but the gold helmet must be always there, though it be only seen to shimmer in the sunlight through the meshes of a kind of night-cap, also fitting snugly, which may be of linen or of lace, in which case it has ruffles. Each girl has her gold helmet, even those who go to service up in Rotterdam, thodgh when they grow sophisticated, citified and shame-faced they first put on city bonnets over their gold helmets and white nightcaps and then later on lock up their caps and helmets In their bureaus and take to smart pink cotton prints for gowns and wear coquettish ruffles of gauzy tulle on thieir heads, for all the world like London chambermaids. These helmets, horned on each side of the forehead with long twisted prongs of gold and dating back to when the Germanic tribes were struggling with the Romans, are, together with the bomb-shaped skirts, soon bound to disappear and figure only, like the peasant costume of the ‘ north of France, in charity bazaars on city girls instead of country girls, who are abandoning them for flimsy trash three years behind the current mode. The air is sultry' like a gentle steaming in the laboring noonday sun. Clouds rising above clouds around the whole horizon meet at the zenith like a dome. There is no end of peaceful hamlets, pretty, tidy. busy. We stop captain to make an afternoon call. Small girls pass In procession bearing tulips. Where to? What for? Mystery. We steam on. And there is nothing more. The river widens and the windmills and the sawmills giVe place to shipping. Then the squat spires of a city full of little unartistlc churches show themselves, and we approach the seventh commercial port of Europe. The captain says It looks like rain From boosy Belgian Antwerp to Dutch Rotter- * dam and Its mild thoroughfares is all the distance from the continental system to our American respectability. The town is Puritan. The girls look at you with straight eyes, as Innocent of coquetry as lambs; they are not like French girls walking with their mammas, casting down their eyes consciously. Would a French girl play

dry with bath toweling till they shine. The sloping stone dikes are mopped every morning between 7 and 9 o’clock. Tiled roofs of a soft red rise like flowers amid the foliage of the trees; thatched roofs of ardove-tint go sloping down close to the ground as if they would slip off the cosy houses Just as

Copenhagen or other promiscuous kissing gamesf Here they kiss all the afternoon, as innocent as little billing birds. They kiss in the rain; and it rains often. ' In speaking of the handsome quays they call the Boompjes (more like a park than any ordinary waterfront), the guidebook says that visitors may enter and inspect the vessels without objection provided they do not get in the way of the work in hand. We did not enter and inspect, but I can well believe we might have done so. We did walk Innocently into the garden of the most aristocratic club of Rotterdam and mingled freely with the smart set were holding tulip competition, where the heroine was a blonde, blue-eyed, fourteen-year-old girl who had grown an apple green variety! We were only made aware of our position when we drank curacao and bitters offered by a waiter in blue broadcloth and a yellow vest, who refused to take our money, we not being club members. Rotterdom is so airy, open, bright, so shady, flowery and well watered that its citizens may sing. Canals are everywhere, and the canals are beautiful. Tliey give a park-like look to all the streets,' bordered by lawns, garnished by shrubs and trees and tulips. And the citizens, from out their kitchen windows or their parlor windows, when they have company for dinner, hook .up fresh fish In profusion, which adds a labor-saving element to their blithe freedom. Should a list be made of continental cities which have no great sights, no monuments, no ruins, no collections —in a word, no treadmill tourist round —the town of Rotterdam .would take a place of honor in it, although she has a maritime museum, a picture gallery and a statue of Erasmus. In the market you can make a study of the bodices and headgear of the peasants. Catching the Dutch taste for still life you may muse on symphonies of color in the produce. Here are the fish stalls, where all the shades of white —silver white, blue white, white shaded with bronze green, white with metallic reflections —unite in a clear scale of -hartoony. Here all the tints of green are heaped together in the vegetables, melodiously accompanied by the fragrance of the flowers, which sing together with the fruits in the most diverse color tones. • Though Rotterdam is a great port and an important manufacturing center, my best impressions of the pleasant city are connected with a case chantant, a park, the markets and the residential streets. The great manufactures are shipbuilding, tobacco factories, sugar refineries and many great distilleries, especially of gins and Dutch liqueurs. The more important articles of commerce are coffee, sugar, tobacco, rice and spices. It is the seventh port of Europe. Again and again the vision of a well-known and bqloved city rises up before the writer's docile Imagination ard affects him to the point of tears —the city of Philadelphia. Pa., which, I see. must be a faithful moving picture today of what New York was In 1750. It is the city of homes par excellence, and it resembles Rotterdani. and Rotterdam resembles It. The wearied tourist seeking for a snug retreat in which to raise a beard will find Rotterdam a second Philadelphia. And looking from the watch tpwer of St. Lawrence's church, down on the tranquil panorama; on the river and the suburbs; on the red brick houses and the streets so straight and self-re-specting, where the children play jackstones on the front doorsteps, and their big sisters play bull In the ring and kiss the boys on the sidewalk; to look down. I say, on the slow but yellow trolleys whose faint jingle rises as from some secure blameless and fruitful sheep field; to admire the smoke of manufactories. And police wagons taking drunken factory hands to jail, he will cry. “It Is Philadelphia—Philadelphia, for the eok side of the platter la so clean 1”

WORKS ON SCHEDULE

WOMAN'B EXCELLENT ARRANGEMENT FOR THE “DOGi DAYS." Cooking for the Week, by Her Method, Practically Confined to One Day Means Ease and Rest for the Other Six. Following is the way 09c housemother arranges the meat courses in her home during the “dog days.’’ She is blessed, fortunately, with a family that value her highly enough to insist on easy work in hot weather. She uses her coal stove only once a week, cm Saturday, when she does all her baking, On other days, she uses the flrelese cooker for the preparation of vegetables and other foodstuffs which do hot require quick cooking or much heat. She uses an oil* stove for making coffee and tea, and cooking such vegetables and other foodstuffs as require but short time. Oh Saturday she bakeß enough cake, bread and pie to last through most of the week to come, and Bhe also roasts a big piece of meat. On Sunday the roast is served cold, with a special acid jelly of chili sauce. On Monday the meat is chopped fine and molded in aspic jelly, which is made from a stock prepared by boiling the bones of the roast. On Tuesday meat enough for two days is cooked in the flrelesß cooker, and what is left over by Wednesday is turned into a loaf 6f pressed beef. On Thursday chops or cutlets are used, and on Friday fish is served. Two pies, each of a different variety, and often a pudding are baked on Saturday. One of the pies is used for Saturday’s dinner, and the pudding or an ice is served on Sunday. The other pie is reserved for Monday or Tuesday. On the other days the desserts are jellies, Bavarian cream or chilled desserts, or something that requires no hot fire to prepare. Two loaves of cake are also baked on Saturday, one that is of the kind that improves with keeping a few days. While the oven is being used the tdp of the stove is put to a good purpose. A whole ham and a beef tongue are boiled on Saturday to use throughout the week at luncheons. Enough boiled salad dressing • to last through the week is prepared and placed in the refrigerator. If Saturday happens to be a mercury record-breaker the baking is done on Monday or Tuesday. With plenty of fruits, vegetables, cheese, eggs, salad and herbs an excellent table is set throughout the sqmmer. Of course it requires some hard work and much judgment and executive ability to do the bulk of the week’s cooking on one day, but the housewife has an excellent rest for the other six days. There is little or no heat from the kitchen during the week, and much oil and coal are saved —an item worth considering.

Cherries Preserved With Cloves.

Take the weight of the cherries in sugar and to every two pounds of sugar allow one-half pint of water. Make a sirup of this and when clear boil the cherrieß in it about *5 minutes, but not.long enough to lose their shape. They should previously have been stoned. Do not put In but a few at a time. When they are all done let the sirup boil one hour, pour over the cherries while hot and Beal. Now, I am very fond of cherries, but have found them a trifle insipid and to overcome that I Use one-quarter teaspoonful ground cloves to every two pounds of sugar. They are not spiqed, but simply suggestive of the clove.

Artistic Porch Pillows.

Natural-colored burlap mafces serviceable covers fpr porch pillows. To decorate, cut inch-wide strips of bright silk (possibly from discarded neckties or hair ribbons which have been washed), thread in a tape needle and darn in half-inch stitches through the loosely woven burlap a bold design of interlaced squares or triangles, or a swastika. A half dozen covers can be made in an afternoon, and they are very effective when piled in a porch settee or Gloucester hammock on the piazza of the summer bungalow.

Corn Cakes.

Add to one-half can of corn one egg. Season with salt and pepper, add bread crumbs until butter is fairly thick; then let stand 20 minutes. This mixture must be thick enough when dropped by the tablespoon. Won’t run much. So if you think batter needs more crumbs add them. Fry in small cakes in bacon fat until brown and crisp on both sides. Serve with bacon for breakfast.

Keep In Water.

Cranberries may be kept an indefinitely long time without being cooked simply by keeping them covered with water, writes contributor. The berries I bought at Thanksgiving time were four months later in as perfect condition as when my grocer gave them to me by being kept fn water in a Mason jar.

Split-Pea Soup.

Two cups peas (split and dried). Pour in a kettle with four quarts of water, one-half pound lean salt pork, one onion, one stalk celery and salt and pepper to taste. 801 l three or four hours and rub through a sieve. Serve hot. .

To Brighten Paint.

Varnished paint can be kept blight by soaking in water for some time a bag filled with flax seed and then using it .with a cloth to clean the paint

fTOy^OWIAND The way- is long ahead; It winds past wooded slopes. Where fruitful vines are red With spring's rewarded hopes. Where grateful shadows fall. Where streams flash in and out,' By many a vine-clad wall. Where petals float about!— The way is long and fair, ’ Why not go blithely there. Unhindered by a doubt? The way ahead i* long; It leads to triumphs which QAall fill our hearts with song And make us proudly rich; Why look ahead with fear, Or lag upon the way 7 f The <sky la wide and clear. The wind blows fair today; The world has need of those Who scoff at little woes And gladden where they niay. The way is fair and wide. It winds o’er many a hill, ffhere weak men shall be tried. And cowards will fare 111; But you and I shall find No cause to lag or dread; The sick, the lame, the blind, Our fame shall gladly spread; The wind blows fair, the earth Has need of men of worth— The way is long ahead.

Worried.

“Yes, a strange thing happened yesterday. I have beett trying all day to figure it out.” * “What was the nature <(f it?” “When I got home last night my wife didn’t have a single complaint to make to me about things the children had been doing during the day. I’m trying to decide whether the children have become cunning enough to deceive her or whether she has suddenly fallen in love with some other man and doesn’t care any more.”

Horrible.

"Weary, wake up,” said Limping Lem, shaking his fellow traveler’s shoulder. “Wake up! Wot’s de matter wit youse?” “Huh?” asked Weary, half opening his eyes. "Wot’s de matter wit youse? You been havin’ de night mare?” “Gee! I guessj I did. It was horrible. I was dreamln’ dat I was a boy again and me mudder was gittin’ ready to give me a bath.”

No Place for It.

“We’ve got to move our seismograph away, from here. This is a bad location for it.” “Why so?” “Old man Armstrong, .who lives across the street, keeps continually disturbing /the instrument by his treatment of the young fellowß who come to see his daughters.”

No Use Trying.

“Oh, pshaw! I’m going to give it up. I never can learn to be a regular Bohemian.” . “What’s the trouble?” “My early training makes it absolutely impossible for me to sleep after 6 o’clock in the morning."

Why?

“Say, that block of stock you sold me last week has been going down ever since.” “Well, why do you suppose I sold it to you?” *

She Couldn’t Hear It.

“Now wait a moment, dear,” •he pleaded. “Try to .listen to reason.” “I’ve been trying,” she bitterly replied, “but reason seems to be dumb.”

Altruism.

“The cherry pie is in our midst.” Says one of our rural contemporaries. We hope there will be no serious consequences.

Hope.

Whenever a woman looks Into a mirror she hopes to discover some hitherto hidden beauty.

Not of Much Account.

> X man who can't stand prosperity 'isn’t likely to bear up very well under adversity.

Ruination Made Easy.

Many a reputation Is ruined by r sly wink.