October 1941

Two Old Homes Take Their Medicine

TOO many doctors and dentists have their offices in towering buildings these days. Swooshing elevators and walks down echoing corridors don't put you in the right frame of mind for tongue-depressing or tooth-drilling. And when you get to the end of the corridor it's not nearly as satisfying to grimace, grab the aching portion, and tell your troubles in an aseptic reception room as it is to groan out your woes in the quiet peace of a tree-shaded home.

THE DIARY of a Plain Dirt Gardener

This commonplace soul is a bit cast down as October comes. In fact, I wondered what was the use of garden work anyhow, as I went mumbling forth to get some exercise this late p.m. instead of going downtown with Maggie and the boys to see a movie.

Maps Are Our Decorations

"THEN we crossed the river and turned east. Wait-- I'll show you!" Your friend waits-- certain you're about to root out a dusty box of road maps in which you'll find every state but the right one. But you fool him.

Giants for Your Winter Garden

THERE had been a pot or two of amaryllis bulbs in our family ever since I could remember, but never had I imagined there were such wonderful hybrid forms until I saw those at Charleston's famed Magnolia Gardens.

Ambushed by a Closet

IN FRENCH melodramas, a closet is always the hiding-place of the guilty lover when hubby returns home unexpectedly. "Come out --or I'll shoot!" roars Monsieur, leveling his pearl-handled revolver at the closet door.

Scrapbook OF Chimneys

Easy Bloom FOR BUSY PEOPLE

LET us introduce you to yourself. You're proud, not one to be satisfied with a few spiky evergreens around your house foundation. What you want is a gardened home, individual, attractive any month of the year. And yet you haven't the time nor effort for a lot of gardening.

Young Home

YOU can't sing "Old Folks at Home" about the Cutcheon house in Madison, Wisconsin. You listen with your tongue in your cheek when Mrs. Cutcheon tells you, as she did me, that the house was planned all on one floor because "we're growing older." Old folks, according to the books, don't have young ideas.

FROM DUMP TO PRIZEWINNING Garden

THEY had just bought the house and it was fine, but Charles Pease stood looking out the back door and felt sick and uncertain. That dump, that was what he didn't like-- that unsightly dump right in his own back yard. Buying a dump didn't make sense.

October Outdoor Gardening Guide

THIS MONTH I'm offering pointers on choosing those shrubs, trees, and perennials to go into your garden. Any takers?

Our Little House Had the Horrors

Scan 'em and weep! You will, when you view these photographs we're inclosing. We've just paid good money for this horrible little house and now we're shaking with galloping jitters! But Jack and I ached for a place of our own, even tho we're just one year married. And how I craved a patch of soil to grub in, tho I can't tell a petunia from a radish till the blossom end gets busy!

But It's a Real Beauty now!

Thinking of Buying Linoleum?

IS IT TRUE what they say about linoleum ... that today's handsome patterns won't wear off ... that it's easy as a porcelain table top to clean ... that it's kind to the feet, won't crack or curl, and will wear till your babies are in college?

Revamped for Easy Comfort

"THIS big old house we live in figured it had us Andersons sold on sight," grinned our host. "And it figured exactly right!"

Charm ON A Budget

3 in 1

ON THE ground floor of our bungalow we had one small "extra" room-- and we needed three!

Now Wash Day's Really Fun!

BIG family, little family-- wash once a week or every day-- lovelies or overalls. However it goes, there's a washer made just for you.

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america's Cheese Tray America's Cheese Tray

IT USED to be we thought of cheese as a good pal for apple pie or a soda cracker, and little else. Today we're learning to love it in scores of other ways-- cheese with salad, cheese for dessert, cheese for tea, cheese for little and big buffet suppers.

Here's the Whole Secret to Combining Colors in Your Garden

HOW can one tell Emerson? Poor fellow, he gazes with mingled affection and puzzlement at his well-laidout and richly floriferous June borders and wonders "why people never stop to admire my garden the way they do Merkel's down the street. I've lots more flowers and bigger and finer blooms, if I do say so.

Furniture Styles And How to Recognize Them

10 COLORFUL COMMANDMENTS for Thy Bathroom

A Little Meant a Lot

SIXTEEN years ago, the Willis L. Howards of Lebanon, New Hampshire, moved into a pre-Civil War home. Ever since they've yearned to restore its original Colonial lines.

THE MAN NEXT DOOR

Ours, alas, is the halfway generation, it dawned on me as I escorted the family thru an amusement park: too modern and strenuous for our mothers-in-law, not modern nor strenuous enough for our children.

Your Table Set in Beauty

SO YOU can imagine what a trip thru a modern dinnerware department would do to poor old Horace! He'd probably end up in a padded cell cutting out paper dishes. For how could the great Walpole ever have made up his mind between the charms of the gorgeous earthenwares, pottery, and china that bedazzle our modern eye?

Here's an Idea!

Good Gardens Demand Framing

WHAT do we need most in gardenmaking? Not new varieties, not larger flowers.

Here's an Idea!

WINDOWS that weather the STORMS

JACK USUAL stayed in the dark about storm windows for years, from the time he first became a home-owner. To him a storm window was just something that came with the house-- something you sweated and cussed over twice a year and left in the basement thru the summer to gather dust.

I Stopped Apologizing for My Garden

THERE was a long period in my garden experience when I spent much time in apology. I apologized because the garden lacked neatness, because black beetles devoured my asters, cutworms bit off the seedlings, and black spot disfigured the roses.

Meet Tri-Meat Roll-Up

EAGER for a grand new meat-stretcher? Look this way! It's Tri-Meat Roll-Up, Dish-of-the-Month and $5 top winner in our Cooks' Contest for Tempting Beef Dishes and Square-Cut Cookies announced last March. To Mrs. J ck Williams, of Opportunity, Washington, goes the cash, and plenty of credit for a tasty, beautifully behaved meat roll plump with savory stuffing. You will find details and its picture on page 53.

Do You Mean to INCINERATE?

TO LOOK at our incinerator, anyone might think it cost us a lot of money. But all we spent was the little-less-than-a-dollar it cost us for the stovepipe chimney.

BACON gets a BAKE

NO, LADY, that acrid smell isn't a burnt offering to the new day. It's just bacon being neglectfully fried. For bacon hates to be neglected, and unless you're willing to stand by patiently turning it and shifting it in the pan, it will snarl itself all up.

Sheer Beauty at Your Windows

"GUESS it's curtains for us-- glass curtains," I muttered as I yanked down the shade. "That new house next door spells goldfish privacy for ours-- and I suppose glass curtains spell grief!"

It's NEWS to ME!

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We Kids Run the House

LAST spring a modern version of Job's trials fell on our family. The first and most terrible was a doctor's verdict on our mother's health. He told us emphatically that if she weren't given a summer free from homemaking worries and with plenty of time to spend outdoors, her eyesight would be seriously affected.

Furniture of Many Uses

HOW the neighbors would have snorted if Grandmother had suddenly up and moved her sideboard to the front hall or her bedroom dresser to the dining-room! Of course, she really couldn't, for those old pieces weren't built to be adaptable.

The Conscriptee's Insurance Problem

SINCE we Americans own over two-thirds of all the life insurance on earth, no wonder Uncle Sam is doing all he can to maintain the bestinsured army in the world. Jack L., 26-year-old Chicago advertising man, found that out two months ago.

It's Your Party! Tables, Foods, and Fun

FOR fun and for your share in your community's aid to Britain, Welfare Drive, or church group, start a series of Gallopin' Teas. Here's the scheme:

To Your Very Good Health . . . the Air Bath

FOR centuries we've said to one another quite solemnly, "The finest things in life are free." Yet how much do you appreciate one of the good earth's freest and finest gifts-- air?

Built around the Children

THE kids come in for their share of things these days. But all too often they're pushed into the background when it comes to one of the most important phases of their lives-- the planning of the home they're to grow up in.

Tips for Tinkerers

Our rugged, gossipy old chairs came, as you can guess, from 50-gallon oak barrels my husband cut down to fit. Hoops were first bolted down at intervals. The back is built up with thin boards to suit the curve of your back. Then burlap or monk's cloth is tacked over the back and seat, which is of veneer.

WHY DON'T YOU SAVE THOSE Geraniums?

GRANDMA may have had a knack of growing things, but she was certainly never any great shakes with geraniums. On the rare occasions one of hers bloomed she like as not gave a party in its honor.

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Here Are IDEAS!

You really should have a new dining-room table but can't quite afford it? Here's what to do. Paint the old table, add a design of flowers or leaves on top, then shellac it. Smart but more expensive would be a sheet of glass cut just to fit the decorated surface.

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It's NEWS to Me!