Part 12

In conclusion, we would beg our young readers to make friends of books. They will cheer many an hour that would otherwise be lonely; they are kind, ever ready, yet unobtrusive comforters in perplexity or sorrow; they represent that which is best and truest in all ages, and are the highest expression of itself, of which humanity is capable.

=THE SICK ROOM.=

We cannot leave this book without giving a few simple rules for nursing the sick. Most of our young people, and many old, are ignorant of the commonest principles.

Never wear a rustling dress or creaking shoes in waiting on the sick. Be careful not to shake the bed, or fidget near it, so as to touch, disturb, and needlessly fatigue the invalid. Few noises are more irritating in sickness than noise from the grate. The startling effect of putting on coals may destroy the effect of an opiate. It is better to put them on one by one. In voice and manner be _gentle_, and in spirit _cheerful_ and _hopeful_. Do not depress by tears, but control looks, words, and actions. Say nothing in the room, or even outside the door, which you would not wish the sick to hear. Ask questions but rarely, and never occasion a needless effort to gratify your own curiosity. In giving nourishment with a spoon, be careful to raise the bowl of the spoon so as not to drop anything, or annoy the sick person by untidy feeding. Be sure to have cups, spoons, and glasses clean. Make everything as attractive as you can from the nicety and freshness of the dish. Do not allow jellies or rejected dainties to remain in the room. The time may come to any boy or girl when they may desire to watch by a sick bed of a parent or friend, and the above rules may assist them.

If the sick person should take a dislike to you, be not disheartened at it; but if possible resign your place by the bedside. It may be that you were clumsy, and awkward, or over-anxious. It may be only one of those unaccountable fancies which sometimes takes possession of the sufferer, and which it is our duty to treat with care and consideration.

1.--COOKING FOR THE SICK.

Beef tea. Take one pound of beef, without any fat, cut it in very small pieces, and put it in a bottle; cork it and put it into a kettle of water, and boil it until the juice is exhausted; this will do for very sick people who can only take a teaspoonful of nourishment at one time. Take a pound of lean beef, cut it up fine in a quart of cold water, let it boil an hour, then salt it, and put in a pinch of cayenne pepper, strain it, and it is ready for use. This given to a person troubled with sleeplessness (from general debility), about a half cup full just before retiring, will generally enable the patient to sleep.

2.--PORT WINE JELLY.

Take a half pint of port wine, one ounce of isinglass, one ounce of gum arabic, one ounce of loaf sugar; let it simmer for a quarter of an hour, stirring it till the gum and isinglass are dissolved, then pour it into a mould. When cold it will be quite stiff.

3.--TOAST WATER.

Brown thoroughly, but not burn to a cinder, a small slice of bread; put it into a pitcher, and pour over it a quart of water which has been boiled and cooled; after two hours pour off the water; a small piece of orange or lemon peel put into the pitcher with the bread improves it.

4.--TO PREPARE RENNET WHEY.

Get a rennet, such as is used for cheeses. Then take a piece two inches square, or a little larger, rinse it first in cold water, then pour on to it two table-spoonfuls of hot water, and let it stand a half hour in a warm place. Take three pints of milk, and heat it blood warm. Then pour in both the rennet and water, and stir it in well. Cover and let it stand in a warm place, to keep the milk of an even temperature; it must not be moved until it turns to a curd; then cut up the curd with a spoon and strain it, and boil up the whey once. It is then ready for use. If in an hour it does not turn to a curd, take out the rennet, and put in some more freshly prepared. It will then surely curd.

5.--FLAX-SEED SIRUP.

This we know to be an excellent remedy for a cough. Boil one ounce of flax-seed in a quart of water for half an hour; strain, and add to the liquid the juice of two lemons and half a pound of rock candy. If there is a soreness and general weakness from the cough, add half an ounce of powdered gum arabic.

6.--MUCILAGE OF SAGO.

Take an ounce or a table-spoonful of sago, steep in a pint of water, in a pan placed on the back of the stove for two hours, then boil for fifteen minutes, stirring it all the time. This mucilage can be sweetened with sugar and flavored with lemon juice, or milk can be added.

7.--APPLICATIONS FOR THE SICK.--REFRESHING LOTION.

Mix one table-spoonful of vinegar, one of eau de cologne, and one of water. Dip a linen rag or a handkerchief into this preparation and lay upon the head. It refreshes a patient.

8.--RECEIPT FOR CROUP.

One tea-spoonful of powdered alum mixed with molasses or lard, and sometimes water; make a child with croup swallow it; it is a quick emetic.

9.--REMEDY FOR SORE THROAT.

Take a tea-spoonful of chlorate of potassium and dissolve in a tumbler of hot water, and gargle the throat every two hours.

10.--BURNS.

Dissolve alum in water, and bottle ready for use; or common lime-water; either remedy applied at once will relieve a burn and draw out the fire. Pour the solution into a bowl, and hold the burnt place, if possible, into it, or wet cloths with it. Sweet oil and laudanum can be added to the lime-water.

We simply give a few remarks for ordinary troubles, which may be useful; but we cannot leave this article without giving some useful rules for making _good bread_, which few make, and every young girl should learn how to do, as good bread is essential to the health of every household. An experienced housekeeper has kindly prepared for us the following article.

=DIRECTIONS FOR MAKING BREAD, YEAST &C.=

Holy Writ assures us that bread is the staff of life, and experience fully proves the assertion. Yet many of us know not how to make this needed support. Every girl, no matter what her station in life may be, should learn how to prepare it in its _highest excellence_.

The word _bread_ is derived from brayed grain, from the verb to bray, or pound; indicative of the method of preparing the flour.

Dough comes from the Anglo-Saxon word _deawian_, to wet or moisten. Loaf is from the Anglo-Saxon _lif-ian_, to raise or lift up, as raised bread. Leaven is derived from the French verb _lever_, to raise.

Dwellers in country towns and villages are forced to prepare the leaven, or yeast; so we append a receipt which never fails to make good bread. Wash and pare six good-sized, white-fleshed potatoes, grate them raw, on a lemon grater. Pour over them three quarts of boiling water; it will thicken up like starch. Add one table-spoonful of salt and half a cup of sugar. When the mixture is lukewarm, pour in one cupful of yeast. Set the pan beside the stove, and in six hours it will be light enough to use. Let it stand over night in a cool place; next morning cork it tightly in a jug. Keep it in the cellar or ice-house; but be sure that it does not freeze--that kills the life of it. Home-made yeast requires double the quantity of baker’s yeast. One teacupful of this yeast will make three loaves of bread and a pan of biscuit.

Potatoes added to the bread increases its bulk and quality. Boil six common-sized potatoes in two quarts of water, with one table-spoon of salt. When perfectly salt, mash fine on a plate, leaving no little particles. They can be rubbed through a colander and reduced to a pulp; turn it into the bread-pan, and pour over the water in which they were boiled. Sift eight quarts of flour, and when the potato-water is cooled, so as to be a little warm to the touch, stir in half the flour; then add one teacupful of the yeast. When that is thoroughly mixed up, put in the rest of the flour, making it thick enough to knead stiffly. Do this in the evening, and place the pan in a warm room in winter, a cool one in summer. Early next morning it will be risen finely. Another pan should have been tightly covered over it, and it will rise up into the pan. Knead it thoroughly on the moulding board, chopping it with a chopping-knife, or pounding with a pestle. Bread must be kneaded for an hour at least, if one desires the best quality. Holes in the slices of bread show that it was not well made. The superiority of the French bread-makers is owing to this cause. In many bakeries the dough is prepared by machinery. After the process of kneading is finished, rolls can be made, and baked for breakfast. They are prepared by rolling the dough in the shape of a rolling-pin, then cutting off a small portion, and rolling that in the same shape. Dip the sides and tops in melted butter, place in a pan, and put them in a warm place for twenty minutes; then bake in a hot oven twenty minutes. The melted butter causes them to break apart perfectly, and to brown handsomely.

The remainder of the dough is placed near the stove to rise a second time. It must be closely watched--_ten minutes’ neglect will sour it_.

To be sure a teaspoonful of saleratus will sweeten it; dissolve it in warm water, and mix it in so there will be no yellow spots; but, if used, it takes away the fresh sweetness of the bread. Making bread is not like cake or pie-making--_it demands close attention_; will not be neglected without injury. It requires some brains to make good bread, and that is one reason why so many families rarely know what the best quality of bread is. If it sours, turn in the saleratus; if it is half-kneaded, and half-risen, and the oven is ready, why, bake it, and thus very poor bread is the result! Bread cannot be set aside for dish-washing or sweeping. It must be of the _first consequence_.

When it is risen for a second time, and blubbers appear, flour your moulding-board, turn out the dough, cut it into as many parts as you desire loaves of bread, and knead, pound, or cut each loaf _well_; then have your bread-pans buttered, and put in the dough, kneading it into the corners of the pan. Prick it all over with a fork, place near the stove for fifteen or twenty minutes, or until it has filled the pans to the brim. Have your oven so hot, that if a sprinkling of flour is thrown in, it will brown quickly, but not burn; then set in the pans. Three quarters of an hour, in a properly heated oven, will bake bread. Don’t burn your crusts, but watch the oven, and in twenty minutes after putting them in, look at them and turn the pans round, for usually one side of an oven bakes the fastest. When it is baked, take it from the pans directly, else the sides will become moistened and clammy. Spread a clean towel on the table or shelves, and stand the bread on it. If the crust is too thick and brown, wrap the loaves in a clean towel wet with cold water; this softens it.

If these directions are closely followed, and a good brand of flour is used, no girl can fail to make A No. 1 bread.

No lady can teach her servants unless she has learned the alphabet of cookery herself, and bread may be called the A B C’s of the kitchen.

1.--WAFFLES.

Take one quart of milk; melt in the milk a large spoonful of butter; beat up four eggs, and add to this mixture a little salt; add to the slightly warm milk a small gill of yeast, flour sufficient to make a batter just right for a waffle iron, or a little thinner to bake on a griddle iron. The batter for waffles is also nice baked in tins as muffins. Some elder person can direct, the first time you make this recipe, the proper thickness of the batter.

2.--A CREAM TOMATO SOUP.

Twelve tomatoes, skinned and cut up, cook thirty minutes (or a quart of canned tomatoes, ten minutes will cook it). When cooked, stir in quarter of a teaspoonful of soda; when done foaming put in two large crackers, rolled fine; one quart of milk, salt and pepper to taste; stir in a piece of butter nearly the size of an egg; let it all boil up once, then serve for dinner.

3.--BREAKFAST CAKE.

Three table-spoonsful of sugar, two of butter, two eggs, one teaspoon of soda dissolved in a cup of milk, two teaspoons of cream of tartar mixed into a pint of wheat flour, beat well and bake quickly.

4.--MOLASSES GINGERBREAD.

Three cups of flour, two of molasses, one of boiling water; dissolve in this, butter the size of an egg, half a teaspoonful of soda, dissolved in a little hot water, one large spoonful of ginger, and one of cinnamon. Bake in bread tins until done, which can be ascertained by pricking it with a broom corn; if none of the gingerbread adheres to the stick, it is done. This is the way to ascertain if any kind of cake is done.

5.--PLAIN COOKIES.

One cup of molasses, one half a cup of milk (sour if possible), dissolve a teaspoonful of soda in the milk. One table-spoonful of butter, flour sufficient to make it stiff to roll out and cut in any shape desired.

6.--MOONSHINE CRACKERS.

One quart of flour, one table-spoonful of butter, a teaspoonful of salt, rub these into the flour and turn it on to the moulding board; turn into it a small tumbler of ice-water; knead the water in little by little. Then pound it with the rolling pin fifteen minutes, roll as thin as possible, and cut out as you do cookies; round cutters are the best for crackers; mark with a jagging iron, and bake ten minutes.

7.--NEW YEAR’S COOKIES.

Rub three quarters of a pound of butter into a pound of flour. Take a half pint of boiling water and pour over a pound and a half of light brown sugar in a bowl; dissolve a small teaspoonful of soda in two large spoons of hot water. Add flour _only_ sufficient to roll out very thin; cut it out in oblong shapes with a jagging iron; bake _quickly in a hot oven_. In New York they mark these cakes with mottos,--Christmas and New Year’s.

8.--SPONGE CAKE.

Two cups of fine-powdered sugar, two cups of flour, six eggs, one large lemon, or one and a half of small size; beat the yolks of the eggs and the sugar and grated peel of the lemon together; beat the whites separately, and stir into the sugar, &c., with the flour; this makes one good-sized loaf, or two small ones; be careful and not have too hot an oven.

9.--LOAF CAKE.

Two cups of light wheat dough, one of sugar, half a cup of butter, two eggs, half a teaspoonful of soda, one grated nutmeg, two teaspoonfuls of ground cloves, two of cinnamon; stoned raisins can be added, half a cupful; mix all together. This makes one loaf.

Neatness is essential in cooking. Wash your hands often. Baking badly spoils the best of cake and bread. Learn of an experienced person the proper degree of heat.

=POLITENESS.=

We will give a few simple rules, which we hope all will read and remember.

1. Talk but little in the presence of your elders, unless spoken to. Learn to be a good listener.

2. Never enter a room, church, or hall first, with an elder person; let them go _first_.

3. On entering a house or room, always speak _first_ to the _lady of the house_, and always take leave of her _first_.

4. Never take the most comfortable seat or position in a room, if there are older persons present.

5. _Let the golden rule Jesus Christ gave us ever be your rule of action._

Transcriber's Notes

In the text version and underscore has been used to denote _Italics_, and equals signs to denote an =Ornamental Font=.

The text contains inconsistent hyphenation which has been left as printed.

Minor corrections to obviously incorrect punctuation have been made.

Corrections:

p. iv. Embroidery in Lame of Velvet and Gold corrected to match LAMÉ in chapter heading.

p. 17. tumeric changed to turmeric.

p. 25. enterest is apparently an obsolete form of interest, so left as printed.

p. 43. presant changed to present.

p. 46. managment changed to management.

p. 48. attentention changed to attention.

p. 52. You’re changed to Your.

p. 55. polyphnoist changed to polyphonist.

p. 55. bee should he heard changed to bee should be heard.

p. 69. Maderia changed to Madeira.

p. 83. may he planted changed to may be planted.

p. 100. unles changed to unless.

p. 122. stiches changed to stitches.

p. 157. ladel changed to ladle.

p. 157. must he used changed to must be used.

p. 185. difierences changed to differences.

p. 187. sugur changed to sugar.

p. 195. teasponful changed to teaspoonful.

p. 195 wheat flower changed to wheat flour.

End of Project Gutenberg's Home Arts for Old and Young, by Caroline L. Smith