August 1940

ACROSS THE Editor's Desk

A YOUNG father, whose livelihood and future are deeply involved in the wars and uncertainties of the day, read his newspaper as he rode homeward in the suburban train. With every turn of the wheels, his spirits sank lower, because what he read was an almost unbroken record of world-wide crime and hatred, seasoned with a dash of accidents, domestic quarrels, and dishonesties.

The Man Next Door

After 10 years of married life, the b. w.'s tact is magnificent. When I forgot to turn on the headlights as we rolled out of the driveway the other night she said sweetly:

THE DIARY of a Plain Dirt Gardener

(Note: Last month I closed this account on July 24, with Maggie, the boys, and I up on Mt. Rainier, taking pictures of wildflowers. It would not seem right to leave both you and us up in the air that way. So pardon please, if I lapse back into July for a few days, to complete the record.)

Once It Was Mark Twain's Paint Shop

MARK TWAIN was born in Florida, Missouri, but you'd scarcely believe it if you came to Redding, Connecticut. He lived in Redding only about two years in the December of his life, but even so, he is considered more native than any native son.

Here's a Beauty

THIS house is rich with one of the most precious qualities a home can have. Call it livability, flexibility, or what you may, it's vital to unconfused living, and the more a house has of it the better a home it is.

Mike Green Learns About Watering

DUSK was falling on a long hot July day. My neighbor, Michael Jay Green, was sitting on his steps, relaxing. In his hand was the hose, and from its nozzle he played a stream of water to far and near corners of the lawn. The cooling relief that sprinkling brings floated into my window, and with it floated the temptation to join him.

WE ARE WHAT WE EAT

PEOPLE love to talk about their health. Every physician gets reconciled to playing that larky parlor game in which friends and strangers try to get free medical advice across the bridge table or in social conversation.

Dollars and Sense in Home Planning

THE central chimney, which in Colonial days provided flues for fireplaces in all rooms, is still sensible, with the heating unit supplanting fireplaces. Having the heater centrally located (70) means shorter runs for pipes or ducts and consequently greater efficiency and economy in both construction and operation.

Put YOU in Your Garden

ALL gardens are talkative. Some whisper --some shout. Walk into a friend's garden or a stranger's, and you needn't be an understudy for Sherlock Holmes to learn what the owner's taste in decoration is, what hobbies he or she has been riding. It's true for all of us.

Your Living-Room--HAS IT COME-HITHER OR GO-SHUDDER?

I DIDN'T marry an angel, but I did marry a handy man, both with figures-- the arithmetical kind-- and a saw. And I found long ago that the right kind of flattery would get a lot of work out of him.

Bergen, You're Just an Old Stay-at-Home

IN HOLLYWOOD, Edgar Bergen is considered virtually an outlaw. His gracious and calm home life is built around his quiet mother, who somehow seems a little awed by the flash-bang phases of Hollywood that whiz across the horizon but never across the Bergen property-line.

AUGUST Indoor Gardening Guide

AUGUST Outdoor Gardening Guide

AUGUST is the end of adolescence for our gardens. And now more than at any other time we appreciate the ability of some plants to go serenely on looking pretty altho hot sun, drying winds, and lack of water assail them day after day.

In Oakland's Sunshine

It Came Out of a Scrapbook

MRS. Leon C. Hanson, of Minneapolis, lays no claim to being an architect or builder, but if you'll take a look at the handsome home pictured on this page, you'll agree that she and her family qualify as pretty good amateur architects (without portfolio).

Furnished to "TAKE IT"

SUPPOSE you were the young home-building parents of three husky boys, bound to give any home something of a beating in the next ten or so years. Just how would you furnish that house so it could "take it"?

"Good Lines are Every Thing"

REMEMBER only yesterday, when about all we asked of furniture was strong construction and a fine finish? Today those points still rank tops in importance, but now we're demanding something more. Right up there with finish and strength we place good design, for it's finally possible for attractive appearance, livability, and charm to be combined with good lines-- just as comfort's a matter of good construction.

Rooms Out of the Paint Bucket

A WELL-KNOWN decorator once made the profound observation that nothing, with the possible exception of love, will lift a woman's morale like an entirely new and beautiful background. And we say that nothing, no exception, can create that entirely new and beautiful background more quickly and inexpensively than equal parts of imagination and paint.

Furnishing Ideas From the Movies

SOME of my toughest home-decoration problems I've solved at the movies! There was that maddening stairway window that I never knew how to curtain. Cinema-going one night, I spied an arrangement that was a honey-- and promptly made it my own.

IRONING'S EASY now!

WHAT'S this-- a fashion parade? There goes Dad in sharkskin, the twins in linentweed slack suits, Sis in a cotton-knit sweater, and Mother in neatest rayon. But if you think that's a signal for ironing-day headaches, you've a brand new think coming. For there's also an equally astounding fashion parade of smooth new equipment to make ironing easy.

Maybe You CAN Have a Baby

ALL the young married couples in the set have babies now-- all but Jim and Margaret. Their friends, full of the thrills and satisfactions of new parenthood, have begun to work on them. More than once, Margaret has come home in tears from a bridge party at which complacent young mothers took it upon themselves to tell her what she was missing.

A Streamlined Pickle Picks Off Top Prize

CRISP, luscious, and all polished off in spare moments of a busy day-- that's the success story of the speediest and best Bread-and-Butter Pickles we ever did eat! So hereby we declare them first-prize winner in our contest for pickles and chilly desserts, run off last February.

Along the Garden Path

Along the Garden Path

I PACK 6 inches of dry leaves in the bottom of cardboard cartons, take my buckets or boxes in which the waterlilies are planted, and set them inside the cartons. Then I pack 3 inches of leaves around the pails and over the lilies and set the cartons up on boards off the floor.

Snug Harbor

ALL the books assured us that our Ian, age 2, should have a room of his own, not only for purposes of sleep and play, but to develop that sense of security and pride of ownership so needed by youngsters.

IT'S NEWS TO ME!