May 1939

ACROSS THE Editor's Desk

HERE is a challenging thought I should like to share. For there is no escape front it. It is in the atmosphere we have to breathe. And it affects our happiness.

TATTLE TALES

May, because it's the month in which National Baby Health Week falls, seems an appropriate time for this cover. The little homemaker, whose interest in undressing has apparently been distracted by an intriguing shoelace, is the daughter of a Chicago photographer who assisted in the picture taking.

THE DIARY of a Plain Dirt Gardener

For a busy spring Monday evening in the family life of a PDG, let me recommend today's. I took up the sowing of perennial seeds in a frame, broken off by Maggie's supper call last Saturday. Meanwhile Donald cleaned off and spaded another frame. Into this I then dumped another wheelbarrow load of soil and one of peatmoss.

IT'S NEWS TO ME!

How to Buy or Build a Home

Relax Enjoy Your Garden

I LIKE gardening because we grow lots of everything-- have a whale of a good time about it all and don't worry much. We really garden for fun-- for the sheer joy and gaiety involved. Perhaps I should be ashamed of the weeds in my rose bed, the few dandelions in the lawn, and the occasional family of aphids that grow fat and thrive among the chrysanthemums, but I'm not.

Out West With the Pumphreys

PICTURE the verve and young freshness of modern decoration joined with just the right notes of traditional design, and you've caught the spirit of this invitingly friendly home of Mr. and Mrs. Marshall C. Pumphrey, Better Homes & Gardens' readers of Los Angeles.

Down South With the Glenns

THE most truly lovely and lovable homes are like stage scenery. They act as a subtle, flattering background for the players. Which is just what the "pastel house" on Cherokee Road does for Mrs. Jack Glenn, who, with her husband and young son, is enjoying the delights of their new Regency bungalow in Atlanta, Georgia.

Clematis, Glamorous Climbers

I SHAN'T forget the first large-flowering clematis I ever saw. It was growing on a fence on a large estate. I thought that it must be something rare and exotic and beyond me. I asked its name and was told that it was the Ramona Clematis. I couldn't rest until I tried to grow it myself. But at that time few American nurserymen had them. Finally I heard of a man who would sell me a plant, and since then I've tried them and succeeded in growing a score of other choice clematis hybrids.

Cutflowers to Spare

WOULDN'T you like to have a real cutting garden? Wouldn't you like to cut all the flowers you wanted-- have a free hand with the shears? Wouldn't it be luxury, tho, always to have plenty! Plenty for all the vases-- plenty for little desk-top bouquets at the office-- plenty to make big, loose arrangements for the living-room.

The Human Side of Hollywood He-Men

DO YOU hate Humphrey Bogart? If you saw him as the snarling, top gangster in "Racket Busters," you'd be only human if you conceived a violent aversion to him, for he was almost everything that we despise in life's affairs-- on the film and sound track.

Don't Make Your Friends Play Hide and Seek

ONE night a fellow named George and his wife started out to a party. The party was at 2459 Tonawanda Drive, wherever that was. George drove over to where he thought it was, but it wasn't. At the filling station the man said to go back to Hubbell Drive and turn right to Van Wavern Drive, and then turn left and keep circling.

MAY Indoor Gardening Guide

THERE'S nothing like a few spring flower arrangements to lift the house from its winter doldrums. With all out-of-doors ablooming, we've plenty of Nature to bring indoors. However, cutting a bunch of flowers and dropping them into any old thing that holds water will not suffice. This is as slovenly a habit as tossing food in a conglomerate mess onto a plate and serving it without thought or order.

MAY Outdoor Gardening Guide

MAY is the month of reward. First prize is the glowing satisfaction of having something attractively different, a direct result of last fall's thoughtfulness. Those rare bulbs you planted are smiling at you from nooks and crannies that in the less well-thought-out garden are waste space.

Harmony in the Home

Cleanup Squad

GREETINGS, Commander-in-Chief of the Cleanup Squad! You've a brisk campaign against winter's dirt and grime ahead of you, so here we've mustered up fresh recruits, pledged to see you thru with a minimum of energy spent, a maximum of pleasure earned. Like a wise generalissimo, marshall your forces beforehand and plan each day's schedule to get the most done with the least effort. Make a list of the things you need and have them on hand before you start. Wear shoes and frocks that are comfortable.

Our Job Is Their Health

"NEVER missed a day of school in his life," we boast about Billy. But aren't we parents and teachers taking too much for granted when we assume that because Billy hasn't broken his beautiful record, he's necessarily a well and happy boy?

a little tape, A Little Time

FUN IN THE NURSERY-- that's what our leading lady (small Joan's and Bobby's mother) had when she set out to add sparkle and young charm to her children's sleep-and-play room. The cost? Ridiculous! The results? Tremendous!

It Takes No Heap o' Livin'...

FEW architects recognize that hundreds of thousands of people still want, with good reason, to build their homes up in the air with two or three feet of foundation exposed beneath. Only two, so far as we know, have ever successfully worked out a small home to be built that way.

The Man Next Door

It's a man with a remarkable memory who can remember which of his neighbors borrowed his rake last fall-- or whose rake it is that's hanging in the garage.

Wield That Can Opener

NOBODY has to be "educated" to using canned foods these days. They're as accepted a convenience as running water and electric lights. Already we've over 300 of them on the market, with new ones arriving constantly. But about even our best friends we sometimes have questions, so here are answers to your canny ones.

Fun in the Attic

NOT so long ago it wasn't very likely that you'd send your favorite niece up to the attic to sleep, or pilot the bridge crowd aloft for an afternoon of contract, or expect your freshly laundered offspring to keep clean and cool romping beneath the eaves.

How Smart Are You?

TO SEE how you stack up (you may learn something, too), test yourself on the "before" floor plans of this remodeled house in Terrace Park, Ohio. Study this original layout for two minutes, then point out seven major faults with it. Play fair --don't read further until you've tried it.

Mr. and Mrs. Banks on Their Own

PRESENTING the charming rooms of Mr. and Mrs. Howard Banks, Better Homes & Gardens' readers of Hollywood, furnished principally with a wealth of imagination and the ingenuity of two interesting people.

It's a Money-Maker

PAGING Mr. Ripley! At last we've found it-- an accommodating Cheese Soufflé that waits for late stragglers. The secret's in the low oven temperature and long baking time. It's the darling of Mrs. A. C. Day, of St. Louis, Missouri, and it wins first prize of $5 in our three-way Cooks' Contest announced last November for Egg Main Dishes, Asparagus Creations, and Carrot Specials.

Pillow Pointers

"NOW I lay me down to sleep...." So saying, as a child, when pillows meant little else than toss-abouts for bedtime skirmishes, you bandied them vigorously, then snuggled your head into one and began dreaming.

DOG QUIZ

HERE'S another mixed quiz to test your knowledge about dogs. Besides affording a few minutes' entertainment, I hope you'll find in it much that will be helpful in your own dog-care and training problems. Turn to page 121 and compare your answers with those given by authorities. Score yourself 10 for each correct answer.

Frocks for Your Furniture

Goddess of the Night

DUSK was gathering slowly, silently, such a dusk as only an Arizona sunset can effect-- all gold, blue, rose, and mauve.

DAD'S Practical Pointers

If you'll coat the shanks with soap before inserting screws into plaster, they'll go into a wall more easily and with less danger of breaking the surface. For that matter, coating a screw with soap for any job is wise.

Here's an Idea!

IF YOUR dining-room has the doldrums, it's ten to one it's the dining table that's the culprit. During the meal everything's lovely, with dishes and linen, silver and glassware making graceful tableaux of themselves. But what, if anything, happens when all decamp?

Dear Plants of Other Years

SWEET herbs, curing herbs, flavoring herbs-- which would you grow? All are bound up with sentiments of other years when every woman was skilled in the arts of "physick, the stillroom, and the kitchen"-- days when milady breathed the air of lavender and other herbs.

1 Bird in the Yard--10 IN A BOOK

I JUST can't remember the exact date when Davy began calling the birds in our garden something else besides sparrows. Or when his zeal to distinguish a robin from a kingfisher at first glance, as you do a Cocker from a Spitz or a rose from a peony, became back-yard chatter in our neighborhood.

Walk Talks

FlRST rule for walks: put them where persons walk, not where you hope they'll walk. Should they curve? --yes, if the curve is direct.

How Long Is a Bathtub?

OVER his evening paper, Mr. Putter cast a measuring glance at his son's ever-lengthening form, and agreed with himself that he'd been right in ordering a five-foot-six bathtub for their new home.

Two Little Houses Grow Up

STRAY architects around Van Nuys, California, better look up E. L. Hungerford, and he'll probably take them in and feed them. He's very fond of architects, thinks every home-builder or remodeler ought to have one around. One look at what an architect did for his home, and you don't wonder that he thinks so.

Which Flowers for That Window Box?

GREENWICH VILLAGE, once arty and Bohemian, now campaigns for a thousand window boxes a year. San Francisco, 3,000 miles across the country, conducts a similar window-box campaign to make the city sparkle for tourists. Wide-awake places such as Dayton, Ohio, Camden, Maine, and Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, hang neatly planted flower boxes on their street lamps and bridges.

$10 a Month--Buys What?

RUSSELL J., who's 29, recently showed me an insurance chart he'd worked out. He calls it his Time and Cash Table. It shows roughly how much of several kinds of insurance he can buy for $10 a month at 30, 40. and 50.

Garden of Enchantment

Silhouette Sundial

Preschool Budgets

WILL your boy or girl grow up to be a spendthrift or a wise financier? When is he going to learn the real value of money? How early ought he to be taught the lessons of thrift and economy? And how will you do it?

Easy to Make!

ANYONE who can saw a board neatly at right angles, bore a hole, and drive home a screw should be able to make this inviting snack lounge for the outdoor sitting room without any assistance from The Man Next Door or the local carpenter.

Play Right With Flavors

DO YOU follow the books too closely? Are there just the vanilla bottle and the pepper shaker on your shelf? Then take a tip and place your bets on the dark horse. Plenty of times the unknown will win over the too consistently played favorite, even in foods.

The QUESTION Before the House

Fiberboard, originally developed as insulating material and later found to be an excellent plaster base and structural sheathing, is now used extensively for decorative paneling. When used with appropriate mouldings. its possibilities for panel designs are almost endless.

Have You Heard About Chard?

At LAST the much booed and lauded spinach has a rival! Swiss chard, according to Dr. Mary Swartz Rose, of Teachers' College, Columbia University, in the revised edition of her book, The Foundations of Nutrition, ranks higher than spinach in calcium, phosphorus, and iron, important body-building and body-regulating minerals, and also in calories and protein value.

GROWING UP THE Trellis

Make a Note of It

THERE was a time when I made frequent exclamations such as, "Oh, I can't make a cake for dinner; I'm out of flour." Or, "Mrs. Watson? Was her party yesterday?" And my husband on important occasions sometimes found his suit not back from the cleaners.

Sure Cure for Kitchen Complaint

DO YOU ever grind your teeth in the kitchen, weep into the dishwater, or suddenly long to throw the whole meal at your family, and rush out and buy a new hat? Then it's a sure sign you've that insidious malady called Kitchen Complaint, and it's high time you were squelching it before it breaks up your happy little home.

Whims & Hobbies

Mrs. Helen Hodge, Topeka, Kansas, native artist whose paintings are owned in almost every state in the Union, photographs Kansas wild-flowers as a hobby. Her large collection is being exhibited at women's clubs in the interest of legislation for protection of wildflowers.

Making Garden Moonlight

I WENT to see a couple of gardens one night. The hosts didn't raise eyebrows in surprise and get out their flashlights to lead me gingerly around. They simply came from the garden... and then took me back into the garden. It was a dreamy sort of place with soft lights and shadows, a place filled with fragrances of night-blooming flowers.

I Grow Large Mums HERE'S HOW

YOU need no greenhouse to grow large-flowering chrysanthemums. Nor do you need to master some secret art or formula or develop some inherent horticultural skill. All it takes to grow these mums 5 to 6 inches across is a little extra attention.

Graphic Names

Next Month

Carl Purdy

THAT last four miles, in which you climb 1,700 feet, is up a single-track dirt road that clings to the side of the mountain. But at its end, at 2,600 feet, you come to the home of Carl Purdy, dean of plantsmen on the Pacific Coast.

Along the Garden Path

A SPRINKLER for spraying over low fences and hedges without running the hose under or thru is shown in the sketch.