August 1942

COMING NEXT MONTH

There are song-birds-- a lot of them-- trilling just outside the offices where Better Homes & Gardens editors work. You know, we're just crazy enough to believe that working where there are birds and trees and grass helps us to publish a lot better magazine than we otherwise could.

THE Awakened Spirit

PEOPLE cross the seas to see ruined buildings, nor are they disappointed when they view their goal. Yet the sight of a pile of disordered stones is all that rewards their effort.

WHAT DOES A CHILD SEE IN A GARDEN?

SLIDE SLIDE!

THE Dithertons started keeping a budget book on the tenth of the first month after they were married.

THE DIARY OF A PLAIN DIRT GARDENER

Now it so befell that at 10:30 this summer night, under an egg-shaped moon, our dust-covered, sticker-plastered, fender-dented, tire-worn flivver, loaded down with battered baggage, came driving into our own driveway.

The Man Next Door

Well, the most optimistic development in our block is the vow of the couple in the yellow brick house and the couple in the miniature chateau that their two-year-old son and their 18-months-old daughter shall be married in 1965.

"We're Building Today for Tomorrow"

Dear Editors: Your July number with its prophetic article "Listen, Son..." reached me at the right psychological time.

Garden Dry? You Lazy?

THIS wouldn't be news to my Good Woman Friday, perhaps, but there are times when I'm actually lazy. Summer heat does it. When the thermometer boils skyward, a table set back in a shady retreat, with a pitcher of chilled drink, pulls much stronger than a flower bed badly in need of weeding. It's shameful, but true.

Worriers Are Family Termites

"WELL, who's going to worry about your salary if I don't?" demanded Mrs. Jenkins as her easy-going, hard-working husband passed over his monthly pay envelope. "You ought to be getting twice as much. I don't know, for the life of me, what we're going to do if you don't get a raise! There's Elizabeth going to college in the fall.

WORRY DOCTOR'S CHART

Grow a One-Hoe Garden

FOR almost everybody an intimate little garden has very special appeal. Personally, having experimented with many types from very small to fairly large, I find myself drawn more and more to the little garden fairly sparkling with neatness and order. It demands so little in upkeep and always looks as if you could pick it right up and take it into your heart. You never feel that about expansive vistas.

A PAINT PRIMER for Beginners

YOUR home needs painting, skilled labor's scarce, and you've never held a paint-brush in your hand! What a dilemma!-- or is it? In our opinion, it isn't. As long as you've willing hands, a level head, and good materials to work with, you can turn out a creditable job all by yourself.

AUGUST INDOOR Gardening Guide

AUGUST OUTDOOR Gardening Guide

AUGUST is the time to rebuild your garden for fall. My experience is that we generally start fall lawn work too late. If an area of the lawn is so weedy that it's to be rebuilt, do it the third week in July. Put on ammonium sulphate-- four pounds to 100 square feet-- to burn out all weeds. Put it on dry and don't wash in. Let it burn all it will.

Keep Your Borders Blooming

DO YOUR flower borders, after the big burst of spring color, get a bit frowzy as midsummer approaches? When visitors want to look around, do you find yourself saying, "Oh, it's too bad you couldn't have seen this 10 days ago, when the late tulips were in bloom!" or "Try to get back next week; the Oriental Poppies will be a riot then"?

Scrapbook of Entrances

Three Porches GO TO WORK

PITY the poor front porch-- everyone's after it with an ax! And it isn't a bit of trimming that the remodelers have in mind. They're bent on chopping it off so not a splinter marks the spot.

New Furniture FOR LITTLE HOMES AND MODEST PURSES

Nine Ideas for Saving Space

Plenty of Room for Young Fry

THAT Arkansas hillbilly-bachelor Lum, of the radio show "Lum and Abner," hasn't yet got to the altar-- on the networks.

Let's Go ANTIQUING

TODAY we're hunting accessories-- pictures, embroideries, rugs, mirrors, and other decorative treasures which brought a flash of color into our forefathers' rather drab domiciles.

WE'RE "IN CLOVER" IN OUR Cape Cod Modern

How to Lengthen their Lifeline

Hot? Not These Babies!

She Pickled Her Garden AND WON TOP PRIZE

LIKE pickles that pack a fine tangy wallop and keep their garden shapes? Satisfaction guaranteed on the next page. It's Dish of the Month, $5 winner of Cooks' Contest on Mixed Pickles and Peach Desserts, set rolling last January. Ina Martin, Ontonagon, Michigan, was the concocter, and whole baby carrots, cukes, and cauliflowerets-- plus pepper seasonings-- make it a dandy.

Pitcher Parade of Coolers

The Man Next Door

A Little Home With a Big Welcome!

SHOULD you be out on Oberlin Road in Hamden, Connecticut, some warm summer morning when windows are flung open to the breeze, you'll suddenly catch an aroma that sends you back thru the years to Grandmother's kitchen. You'd know it anywhere-- that mingled fragrance of freshly baked rolls, spice cookies, and New England baked beans that meant "Company's coming!"

IT'S NEWS TO ME!