Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 262, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 November 1918 — Page 2

Rummage! Rummage!

By ROBERT JAY

(Copyright. un, 7 by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.) Sinclair Knox was spending the day in a small village on the north shore of Long Island. The business he had come to transact had taken only a few moments of his time and he had learned, on going to the ferry landing, that he would have to wait till five o’clock in the afternoon for another boat. It was late in the season and the ferry ran very much according to the whim of the captain. The town did not promise to offer much excitement, but the stranger took a turn along the shore and then returned to the village square. Immediately he was attracted to a crowd that stood about the entrance to the chapel of a good-sized church on the main street. He crossed the’road and. stood opposite the gathering of inhabitants, and presently a very handsome young woman appeared with a cloth sign, which she tacked to the door. Then she opened the door and the crowd rushed in. Sinclair Knox then stepped across the street tto read the sign. “Rummage sale Friday and Saturday under the auspices of the Ladies’ Aid Society” was what he read. He had heard of rummage sales, but he had never come in.contact with one. Trying to decide whether or not to go in and 'broaden his knowledge of the ways and means of workers in village churches, he strolled up the street. As he retraced his steps he took courage when he saw a man enter the chapel. "It can* do me any harm.” he de-

Looked at Sinclair as He Entered.

elded, “and I can’t find anything more exciting around these haunts.” And then in the back of his mind lurked the image of that young woman who had tacked up the sign and thrown open the doors. She must be a part of the Ladies’ Aid, for she never could be classed- with the rummage he soliloquized as the drew close to the edifice. The sdund of a deep, vibrant voice entreating someone to step up to the table and look at the wonderful bargains entirely settled Sinclair’s mind. He would go in. A long tableful of wearing apparel stood On one side tff the room. Other tables held hats and bdotjts and in a corner stood furniture, ranging in design from Jacobean te modern mission. There were ruffled silk skirts, and there were Infants’ bootees. There were plush albums and Florentine frames; and the patrons of the rummage sale rummaged mercilessly among the goods. The girl behind the table of wearing apparel looked at Sinclair and smiled as he entered. She knew at once that curiosity must have brought him thither. She watched him with an amused smile as he eyed with interest the persons who were attending the sale. After a while other members of the church society came to assist the young woman, and each one stood behind a table and tried to sell her wares. It was a most unique sight to Sinclair Knox. 4 . He wanted to linger and the only excuse he could find was to pretend to be looking for something. Nothing that be could be expected to want came to his mind. At last a thought flashed into his head. He stepped to the young woman who had first been in charge. ...... , "Do you have such a thing as a —a —an antique picture frame with a—well, with' a French print, perhaps?” he inquired, with hesitation. ‘Til see.” \the girl said in a most charming manner. “We have almost everything, I think." And she led tye way to another table. “Cora, have you seen any old French prints anywhere?" she asked, smiling meaningly at another young “Don’t go to too much trouble,” ad- • monished .young Knox at her side. “Oh. that’s what we’re here for.” yalrf the young woman behind the

table. "It’s no trouble—ls we have it I” Both girls searched every available spot for something resembling the young man’s specifications, but the only thirig that could be found was an old hand-wrought copper miniature frame that had been stripped of its picture. Sinclair took it. “It’s hardly ,a French print—is it?” he laughed. v “Hardly!” both girls echoed, with laughter. “But it’s not bad," Knox admitted. “Not with the right girl’s picture. 'in it,” the young woman behind the table suggested. • Sinclair looked at the other girl for a moment, and then, his eyes on the frame in his hand, said: “I’ll buy it at your own price if I may have —a picture—in it." “Yours, Gerry, yours!” cried Florence Moore, catching her friend by the arm. “Ahd we’ll charge a pretty penny for it” “It is for the church, you know,” reminded the young man. “It’s in a good cause.” Geraldine Bonner’s face was covered with blushes, but her friend was whispering in her ear. Sinclair stood aside. “Father,” Geyaldine began, but ’ Fibfence clapped her hand quickly over her mouth. .“Father need know nothing of It I’ll put in that picture you gave me. I can easily have another.” Sinclair looked inquiringly at Geraldine. “Pd like the frame and I’d like the picture to put in it. I’m a stranger in the village. It’s a fancy I’ve just taken.’ I don’t even know your name, and I won’t ask it—now,” he said, more earnestly than he realized.

“For the church, Gerry !” urged the other girl. Geraldine threw up her head with determination. “All right—and come next year and I’ll give you another one,” she said laughing. Sinclair waited while the photograph was found and fitted to the frame and'then he took his leave of the two girls and the fummage sale. He stood that picture on his mantelpiece and he learned to love it. The eyes were so friendly and he could always hear the girl’s voice as he had first heard it coming out of the church door that day. He did not know how best to get in personal touch with the girl; it was a delicate and he did not want to jeopardize'’his opportunities by plunging headlong into the wrong method of procedure. But, at least, he decided, nearly a year later, I can harm by.going across the ferry to the same village again. “And —” he thought, “I might chance to see her.”

On the ferryboat a dodger blew off its nail on the side of the cabin. He picked it up and read it out of sheer curiosity. “Rummage! Rummage! At the chapel of the First M. E. Church, Friday and Saturday, September 3 and 4,” he read and his eyes widened. He folded the dodger carefully and placed it in his pocket. When he stood face to face with Geraldine Bonner in the church chapel again he took the printed dodger from his pocket. “The wind tossed this to me on the ferryboat 'this morning," he told her by way of excuse for being there. The girl blushed. ‘“lt’s an ill wind —’ you know;,” she laughed. “It is, Indeed,” Sinclair said earnestly. “And I’m the one to whom it has blown ‘good’ today. Do you remember that I was to have another' picture?” Geraldine hung her head. “I do—you may have it. I know it’s not conventional —” “Never mind, conventions,” the man interrupted. “We’re past that. I’ll tell you all about myself when you’ll let me and we’ll be splendid—friends," he said. * z' But they were more than friends before they had really begun to know each other.

Patrol Men Doing Good Work.

Little is heard of the hundreds of men on patrol duty in the United States navy. Silently, with unflagging vigilance, they watch the coasts with a telling effect so good In its results that they form a unit in the force of eyes that never close. Now and then word comes from them. They are in an attack, make some dash and win commendation, or tidings come of a casualty in the long and heavy fight with the ocean. One of the latter refers to John R. Alexander, a seaman, second class, of the United States naval reserve, who, in this splendid work, gave up his life. He is reported lost overboard from a submarine patrol on April 10. Alexander enlisted April 27. 1917, at Pittsburgh. His father, John R. Alexander, lives at 2615 Broad avenue, Altoona, Pa.

Drew Tribute from Enemy.

The armed guard of the American tanker Moreni had the unique distinction of being commended for bravery by the enemy. The Moreni made a running fight of two hours against a German submarine and was only abandoned when she had taken lire. The commander of the German “U” boat approached the lifeboat in which some of the men were escaping, congratulated them upon their game fight and treateu two of them for wounds. The Moreni gun crew w-as in charge of Chief Boatswain Andrew Copassakl, U. S. N.,^who , lives at 2096 Dailey avenue. New York city.

Team Work.

The war calls for the team work of soldier son and soldier father —the hero of the trenches and the hero the furrow.

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, IND.

THE LAND ARMY OF AMERICA (Women as Farm Hands)

By JESSE LYNCH WILLIAMS

v Of The Vigilante* 1

“I had to hire them for my farm because I couldn’t get men. . . . Neighboring farmers who borrowed some of them later hated to admit that they were more efficient than man w'orkers, but had to!” The farmer who wrote those words employed 25 girls last sumpier,,to get in his crops, some of them girls from the “seasonal trades” out of' a job, others students or college graduates out for a vacation, but few, if any, of them experienced farm hands. He made two important discoveries. First, that they were good workers. Second, that this kind of work was good for women, and as this farmer is none other than Doctor Sargent, the director of physical training, he ought to know. He adds that he did pot have a chance to try them at plowing or heavy work, though they can do that too, but at other kinds of farm work he found them in all ways the equal and in some ways the superior of men. They do hot average as strong as men, though in proportion to their weight they are, but they made up in care and thoroughness what they lacked in “heft,” and they did not loaf on the job when the boss was not looking. Women are nearly always more conscientious than the “superior sex.’.’

Has Come to Stay. The Woman’s Land Army of America is still a new thing in most parts of the country, but it has come to stay and the sooner the farmers of America get that idea through their heads ahd live down their old-fashioned prejudice against this “new-fangled notion” the better for them and for the country. Every man released from the farm means one more, man for the army or Q for other war work not done by women. t A year ago almost every farmer in the country shared this impractical and unpatriotic prejudice. Such prejudices die hard. All our prejudices about women die hard. I will give an amusing illustration. Last summer a pumber of “units” were employed in various parts of Westchester county, New York. A “unit” means a sjqliad of woman workers (a “gang,” we might call it, if they were men) who live and work together' under the charge of a competent older'woman experienced in agriculture, a sort of forewoman who manages the whole outfit, which includes their own cook and food and bedding. The farmer does not supply

MEETING THE EMERGENCY

By VIVIAN M. MOSES

Of The Vigilantes

When H. G. Wells called the present war the war of machines he had in mind the vast quantities of engines of war used at the front—the ordnance, both large and small, the bomb-mor-tars and mine-throwers, gas-projectors, airplanes and tanks employed in the actual fighting. But there is another sense in which this is the war of machines even more truly than that in which the great British novelist used the term; for on the machines in the shops and factories of the allied nations depends an allied victory —on the machines and the men who drive them. As has been the case with each of her allies, the United States since it entered the war has had to increase stupendously the output of its machine shops. This' result is being accomplished by the erection of new plants, by the (enlargement and increase in facilities of -the shops already engaged in the production of war products, and by the conversion to this purpose of plants previously engaged in other work. The problem of multiplying the shops to work in is a comparatively simple one; more difficult is the problem of supplying the skilled workmen to fill these shops. Obviously we cannot quadruple our skilled workmen by the old methods of apprenticeship and training fast enough to meet the nation’s needs. The old method has been found wanting. It consisted in taking the raw, unskilled laborer into the. shop, starting him at the simplest work that could be found, and letting him fight his way slowly and painfully to the status of a trained mechanic. It was a method which wasted the three precious elements, time, material and man-power. New Way Was Found. The training accomplished by private and public vocational and technical schools brings far better results, but produces too small a quantity of skilled mechanics to meet the emergency. “ France found a new way. Great Britain has adopted it. And now America must get in lifffe —is already getting in line, in fact, with gratifying results. For the new method is swift. Is sure, is comparatively cheap. It turns the grocer boy or the school teacher into a skilled mechanic with equal facility. It is the method of the shop training school. Shop training schools are now main-

anything except the wages and possibly a place to put up a few tents. The' farmer’s wife has no bother or extra work in.the matter at all. Well, ever/ one of these units in Westchester county made good, and there were exactly as many surprised farmers in Westchester county as there were units. At the end of the season each employer was asked, “Will you employ woman farm hands again next year?”' Each farmer made exactly the same reply, “Yes, if I can get the same women.” Each thought that he had happened to have the luck to get the only good bunch of girls! Sly, shrewd fellows, those farmers! For it seemed to them quite obvious that women as a class could not be good farm laborers. A perfectly natural prejudice. Men as a class' have always had the same certainty that women could never be good at anything “outside of the home” until they went out and made good at everything from voting and doctoring to driving ambulances, and even at fighting ill the trenches when the necessity arose over in poor betrayed Russia. Kept Island From Starving. America4i farmers, however, are the most enlightened id the world. Perhaps it will not take them so long to get the idea into their heads asdt required to beat it into the British brain. In England, even aftefe the scarcity of farm labor had become more acute thpn it is here now, the “woman’s Jand army” movement was almost blighted by masculine prejudice until the government became alarmed and turned a clever trick. Prizes were offered at the county fairs for public competitions for woman workers in various departments of farm work. This aroused considerable curiosity and created a great deal of discussion. The question, however, was not whether girls could do farm work, but which girl could do it best! Big crowds gathered. Bets were made. Rivalry ran high. And when it was demonstrated before the astonished eyesjjf the British farmers that these “farm lassies,” us they now affectionately term their “farmerettes” over there, not only knew' their job but were experts at it, the.prejudice broke down and the country was saved. The woman’s land army of England, now 300,000 strong, has kept the island from starving. This patriotic fact has been publicly acknowledged in parliament. There are already 17 states of the Union organized under the Woman,’s Land Army of America, and in New York alone 3,000 farmerettes are registered for this season. It is a fine patriotic service, a good thing for the farmer who can thus get good sober, industrious laborers at a cheap rate, a good thing for the girls, who can thus get a wholesome outing as well as fair tVages, and the best thing of all for the nation, needs food and needs men, and heeds them at onee.

tained by most of the larger metalworking plants engaged in manufacture of war products. They are spaces set aside for this purpose alone, and equipped with machines of every type used in the shops proper. An expert mechanic especially selected for his aptitude for this work is in charge in each of these shops, and under him other skilled mechanics act as -teachers. Here are received the raw or undertrained applicants for work. They are assigned to the types of work to which they best seem fitted, and quickly and practically instructed in this work at the very machines which they will have to operate in the main shops. They work with the materials and on the actual orders upon which the shop is engaged and the product of their labors becomes a part of the output of the shop. They are paid a fair hourly wage as learners, and this wage increases as the skill of the learner enables him to increase his output. The results obtained in these shop training schools are almost beyond belief. The ideal conditions under which a raw man is taught to handle his machine enable him to become a skilled mechanic in a small fraction of the time formerly consumed in the old method under which he picked up knowledge bit by bit in the shop from such other workmen as had time to help him. * Mechanics Are Needed. For here, in a New England shop, is a grocer’s man, after a week’s training, operating his milling machine effectively, and reading the blue-print related to his work. Here, in an Ohio shop, are three girls formerly employed in a department store; they are now operating heavy handturret lathes on work requiring great precision; and the length of their training required variously from three to ten days. “Here is a particularly capable woman,” says an expert from one of the greatest American war. factories, visiting another shop (speaking of one who was probably a teacher). “How long have you been here?” he asks this product of the shop training school. “I came yesterday,” replies the woman, who is working a great turret-lathe. America needs skilled mechanics, and needs them greatly. The shop training schools will supply this need, quickly and efficiently. To the employer they offer the surest method of supplying the trained operators without which his machines cannot turn. To the individual seeking employment or willing to take a place in the swelling ranks of those providing the sinews of war for the American government, the shop training schools provide the opportunity fo> becoming, without urifiergoing a long period of training or probation, skilled mechanics, worthy of and receiving the wondrously high rates of payment which trained labor is commanding.

A Bird in the Hand

(Snecial Information Service, United States Department of Asrripulture.i, CLEANING A CHICKEN

Steps in Cleaning and Cutting Up a Chicken.

HOW TO COT AND DRAW A CHICKEN

Simple Method Is Outlined That Makes the Best of a Very Unpleasant Task. REAL ART IN PREPARATION Housewife's Everlasting Bugaboo Loses Half Its Terrors When Plan Shown in Illustration Is Followed Carefully. Cleaning chickens —the housewife’s everlasting bugaboo—loses half its terrors when done by this quick and economical method. There is a real art in drawing and cutting' up a chicken for cooking or canning. By carefully following the directions given here, the entire digestive tract is removed without coming in contact with the meat; and the flesh and bones from a whole bird may be fitted neatly into a' quart jar. The bird should not be fed for 24 hours before killing. It should be killed by sticking in the roof of the mouth and picked dry. When the feathers have been removed and the pin feathers drawn, the bird should be cooled rapidly. As soon as it has been properly cooled it should be singed and washed carefully with a brush and light soap suds, if necessary. Cutting Up and Drawing. T. Remove the wings after cutting off the tips at the first joint. 2. Remove the foot, cutting at the knee joint. 3. Remdve the leg at,the hip or saddle joint 4. Cut through the-connecting joint to separate the thigh from the leg. 5. Cut through the neck bone at the head with a sharp knife, being, careful not to cut the windpipe or gullet. With the index finger separate the windpipe and gullet from the neck, and cut through the skin to the wing opening. Leave the head attached to the windpipe and gullet and loosen these from the neck down as far as the crop. 6. With a sharpened knife cut around the shoulder blade, puli it out of position and break it. 7. Find the white spots on the ribs and cut along them through the ribs. Cut back to and around the vent and loosenit. 8. Leaving the tyead attached, loosen the windpipe, gullet and crop, and remove the digestive tract from the bird, pulling it back- toward the vent. Remove the lungs and kidneys with/the point 'of a knife and cut off the neck close to the body. 9. Cut through the backbone-at the joint or just above the diaphragm and remove the oil sack. 10. Separate the breast from the backbone by-cutting through on the white spots and break. 11. Cut in tjharp at the point of the breastbone, cutting away the wishbone

and also taking with it the meat 12. Cut the fillet from each side of the breastbone. Bend in the bones of the breastbone. Packing for Canning. Use a quart jar. Pack the saddle with a thigh. inside; the breastbone with a thigh inside; the backbone and ribs with a leg inside, the leg large end downward, alongside the breastbone; the wings; the wishbone; the fillets; the neckbone. Do not pack the giblets with the meat. Directions for the home canning of chicken, meats, soups, fruits and vegetables may be found in Farmers’ Bulletins of the United States department of 'agriculture, and will be supplied free of charge to anyone writing for them to the division of publications. 4

CAN YOUR COCKERELS.

This is the season when it no longer pays to feed the males of the early hatches. Will you send them to market or eat them at home? Can the cockerels and put a row of good chicken dinners on your pantry shelf for winter days, when the price of poultry goes still higher.

Ducks for Meat and Eggs.

The Pekin breed is kept almost exclusively by producers of green ducks, and also on many farms where they are grown for meat. They fatten rapidly and may be fed on rations recommended for chickens, but better results are usually secured by feeding more greensand vegetable feeds and a lairger. proportion of mash. For the general farmer who Is more Interested in obtaining eggs than producing meat the Indian Runner is a good breefl. This duck holds the same relative position in the duck family that the Leghorn does in the chicken family. It lays a good-sized white egg considerably larger than a hen’s egg, and is declared to be a small eater, a good forager, and hardy. The introduction. of this breed is helping to build up a trade of first-class duck eggs. These eggs should be marketed frequently, as they depreciate in quality more rapidly than hens’ eggs.

Cull the Flocks.

Much of the poultry now raised on the farm and in the back-yard flock is not as profitable as it should be. The estimated production of the average hen is not over 85 eggs per year, touring 1915 about 2,000 hens under close observation in contest in.this country laid on the average 151 eggs. Since these hens varied from nothing to 814 in their production, it is evident that the 151 eggs are not the maximum obtainable. All poultry raisers should cull their flocks and keep only the best layers. A* study of the principles of breeding, care and feeding will enable poultry keepers to accomplish this result > * A small, well-protected yard, with as much sunshine as possible, will rs» suit in added eggs. v