amous self-sacrificing housewives who survive
from past times, should be asked why she did not have a certain
convenience that would lessen her labor, she would say: "Well, I thought
that over and decided that I could possibly get along without it." The
answer would be typical. Whatever she could possibly get along without
she ought not to have. Unconsciously the woman makes all things a matter
of conscience. But the conscience is a creature capable of education as
well as of ethical impulse and determination. The conscience should be
more highly educated. The question should not be, can I possibly get
along without that?--but, can I bring myself and my family to a higher
degree of efficiency, to a state of more robust vigor, of more intense
and joyous activity, by having the conserving appliances, by cooking
more sustaining meals, by inducing them to wear shoes with thicker soles
and coats of rubber, or to stop work sooner? Can I get a little more
efficiency out of myself and of my family and out of the workers in barn
and kitchen by adopting these new-fangled ideas or devices? The new era
woman will always give the new-fangled idea a chance.

A noble joke was played upon a woman of this kind by her modern young
niece when she took an old barrel from the woodshed and with the aid of
two old kettles and an armful of hay turned it into a fireless
cooker--or rather into a "hay-box" cooker, for it hardly deserved the
better name though it was built on the same principle. The girl had been
bragging that she could cook potatoes for dinner in an old box out in
the woodshed. The aunt, of course, thought her niece was joking. But she
assured her aunt that she was in earnest and would show her. So she
peeled the potatoes and bringing them to a boil on the stove at eight
o'clock in the morning and whisking them, piping hot into the hay-box,
she left them there till exactly twelve, the dinner hour, and then
brought them triumphantly forth, still piping hot, perfectly cooked,
perfectly mealy and delicious. The happiness point was reached for her
when her aunt sank down in a chair absolutely nonplussed with this
miracle that she had seen with her own eyes!-- Or, better still, when
the potatoes the aunt had surreptitiously prepared by her accustomed
methods were refused by everybody, while the family partook of those
that were cooked by the miracle. Triumph could no further go! It cannot
be said that old is old and new is new and neve