The Brussels Post, 1961-10-12, Page 5SAFETY. BELTS
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Lives
ICT THEM • USE THEN
'77-*•=0F;t4r4 ;=="4'r!"-","1'!"71,"'"'"" "1-•:"*.
tuy .And rube Were
Real Racketeers.
RELICS OF A BYGONE DAY — What appears to be
graveyard for 'hula hoops actually is a collection of old
Conestoga wagons in a field near Harleysville, Pe, Such
as these helped populate the Old West In days before
railroads pushed their iron "highways° across the
country, Teamsters running freight in Conestogas between
Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are credited with estalt,
lisping' our drive-an-the-right traffic custom.
e,
Their Cooking Was
On. A Mammoth Scale
just won't work in a camp that
doesn't have it. For bigger opera
ations there, will be mixing ma-
chines, and other hotel and res-
taurant equipment that refines.
the ancient rites,
But methodically, always con-
serving movement, the woods
cook works today in very much
the same mammoth fashion he
did back when King Spruce
was the boss, before the customs
and traditions and people of the
woods of Maine moved, like the
arts and sciences, into the west.
They took the peavey arid sour-
dough bread and molasses cook-
ies and the Bangor scale and
struck out for other stumpage
— and wherever they went they
had to have the cook, whose
deeds were mightiest and whose
work started first in the morn-
ing and ended last at night,
So there is something et little
heathen and uncouth in seeing
a modern camper squeezing a
little plastic bag beside the dri-
ki of Chesuncook Lake, making
himself a modern, apartment-
size, prefab cake, Hew have the
mighty fallen. I could hear from
long ago the bellowing voice of
Joe Benoit) master cook at the
Alder Stream operation, calling
instructions over his shoulder as
he kneaded bread, telling his
cookee how to start "a Nova
Scotia cake." "T'ree pail flour,"
he said, I remember, too, how
good that cake was. Along with
the doughnuts, pie, cookies, and
applesauce, it made a wonderful
dessert, — By John Gould in
the Christian Science Monitor.
PREHISTORIC ODDITY — A bald
cypress was excavated right
In the back yard of the Nation-,
al Geographic Society i,h. Wash-
ington, D.C. Ironically, the so-
ciety series' people all over the
world to photograph such od-
dities. Martha Block looks at
the log, which grew during the
Ice age, 100,000 to 500,000
years ago.
Although an occasional spoofing
note has been heard here about
prefabricated foods, a great shock
of dismay stung me to the quick
up in the woods the other day
when I saw a young man he a
blackfly net squeezing frosting
for a cake in a little,plastic bag.
The packaged cake, thus, has
gone beyond the domain of its
-intent, and instead of remaining
a boon for the burdened house-
wife, it has become a camper's
item, giving to "roughing it" a
kind of comfortable leisure, which
is at least a paradox.
A woods cook is by tradition a
special kind of master of the dif-
ficult and unlikely, A cake, in
the north country, was always
three feet across, and the making
of it was a professional secret
amongst those specialists who,
very often, were French-speaking
only. In Maine, the difference be-
tween a French Chef and a
French Cook is hardly academic
— one makes lovely things with
an ooh-la-la and a soupcon, and
the other feeds 300 men in a half
hour. Furthermore, while petits
fours are being artfully designed
to attract the oh's and ah's of
delighted epicures, the woods
cook not only bakes his half-
acre of cake with a thick fudge
frosting, but turns out a cord of
doughtunts, 17 pies, 1,000 board.-
feet of molasses cookies, and
starts the bean-hole beans for to-
morrow.
In a region where this vast and
Bunyanish accomplishment i s
routine and legendary, the cur-
rent wide public interest in
"camping out" offers areas of
comparison. The packaged food
has mixed everything all up.
We, as a family, like to go
camping. We have also been in
touch, somewhat, with the Indus-
trial aspects of the Maine wil-
derness knowing certain people
connected with lumbering oper-
ations and having a certain free-
dom of movement that the gen-
eral public doesn't come by.
While most of Maine's private
lumbering roads are open to the
public a good part of the time,
sections are closed during oper-
ations so vacationists won't tangle
•
4
4
.411
They Make SoNp
Every Mondayi
"Barrels of soft soap my people
used to make at butchering time,"
Trine says, stirring vigorously
with a large Wooden paddle a
mixture Which is at first the
wear and, consistency of honey,
"Ana was when the scrap grease
was rendered and used up. Now,
We use it up each Week AS It
accumulates, In the old days,
Momma and Gross-momma leach-
ed their own lye from wood
ashes. Nowadays we have lye
from the store to make the work
go faster,"
She Still uses the same
surements her mother and grand.
orders arrived at the office of
the advertisers.
In this case, everyone who sent
thirty shillings actually got seats.
They were each sent a folding
camp stool worth 2e Ild.
happened on the hospital grand-
stand couldn't have been more
sincere — indeed, he was appall-
ed.
"I only wish," he said, "we
could make your loss good, But
we can't."
"We don't expect it," said Izzy
magnanimously. "It's all in the
luck of the game, and whatever
the loss is were going to stand
it_ ourselves. We don't want to
embarrass • you in any sort of
He patted the off feats
shoulder with a gesture worthy
of a bishop comforting one of his
flock.
"After all," he added, "you did
us a good turn when you let us
come on to the stand, so we'll
leave it at that and call it quits,"
The Coronations of the 'late
King George VI and of the pre-
sent Queen attracted crooks to
London from nearly every coun-
try in the world,
Pickpockets, card sharpers,
swindlers and confidence men
roamed London hell-bent on
shearing the sheep. One "outfit"
operated an agency through
which they sold tickets for seats
on the processional route
Months before the Coronation
they began to advertise-in news-
papers well away from London,
offering seats at prices from five
guineas upwards, the more ex-
pensive including a champagne
lunch:
Everyone who sent a cheque
received a letter typed on elabor-
ately printed paper which, in
fact, bore a mail-forwarding ad-
dress, and a seat ticket bearing
an impressive seal "authorizing
the bearer" to occupy seat num-
ber so-and-so at such-and-such
an address.
In truth the vendors hadn't
a single seat to offer, and a fort-
night before Coronation. Day they
quietly dispersed leaving the
luckless ticket buyers to do the
best they could.
How much they made I never
knew, but it certainly ran into
thousands,
Another gang rented the view-
ing rights from the second floor
of an office on the processional '
route. From this office there was
space at the windows for about
four dozen seats. They sold
every seat twenty times over and
then disappeared,
Another mob advertised 'Coro-
nation Seats — only thirty shil-
lings?' The advertisements ap-
peared simultaneously in news-
papers all over Britain. Thou-
sands of pounds' worth of postal
mother usedt One can of high-
test lye dissolved in two and a
half pints of cold water in a
covered enamel bucket to keep
the fumes in, After this has cool•
ed, it is stirred in a thin, steady
stream into six pounds of fat
that has been melted down and
cooled till the stirring spoon
leaves a track, "Stir in one
direction only," Trine says.
"We scarcely give a though to
soap when we use it, yet it re-
quires work and planning, plus
so much accumulated know-
ledge," I muse.
"Momma was rated a good
soapreaker," she admits modestly,
testing a spoonful of the mixture
to see if it has the right consist-
ency for pouring ("about as
thick as salad dressing"). "She
added color to some, pink or
light green, to make it nice for
when we had company."
Reminded of something real
long ago on the subject, I tell
her of the first efforts to make
perfumed soap. "Many batches
separated and were ruined before
they found 'that only the oil of
perfumes could be used success-
fully." She is interested, genuine.
ly so, but perfumed soap front
the store holds no charm for her,
"Only the homemade will, clean
the olaildreres play clothes," she
says.
Soon she is ready to pour the
soap into a shallow box lined
with wax paper and a cloth
wrung out almost dry In cold
water. Itept covered to retain
heat and left in a warm place, it
will be ready to cut into bars
when no grease or liquid remains
in the bottom of the box.
Now it is ten o'clock and time
for "the piece," The twins are
called in, cool glasses of Milk
from the springhouse are poured
and the -midmorning piece, a
plate of brown-sugar brownies,
Is set out.
These are mouth-watering
good. "Bound to take a prize at
any fair," I tell her, remember-
ing how the banner-decorated
tents are even now going up at
the fairgrounds. ?et knowing
full well that no Amish entries
Will be made, since it is not in
accord with. Church rules.
At the word "fair," Molly and
Melts eyes dance with excite.
merit. "B'looris," they 'chorus in
unison. They have not forgotten
the collated balloons they re-
ceived at last year's fair, their
mother says,
Walking thoughtully h o m e
across the fields, I wish for an-
other. gift for them end for all
little ones who• look to their
eiders to keep them ftent harm.
A sphere, a universe where all
men dwell as peacefully together
as do our Ainish neighbors, Is it
too much to hope for'
Now we are In the season of
long hot days and long hot nights,
The sun pours down its heat,
more than the hours of darkness
can dispel. Only the early morn-
ing hours are pleasantly cool,
It is also the time of quick
growing. The corn In the well-
tended fields — off to a late
start on account of the wet spring
— managed to stand "knee high
by the Fourth of July," sturdy
a n d glistening, promising a
bumper crop by late fall,
It is, as well, the time of color
in our valley, for the whole
countryside is laced with the
shell pink, ivory white, and rosy
red of rambler roses, They grow
everywhere, covering fences,
well houses, garden walls, with
loveliness,
This is the hard-working time
for the birds, Little time now to
sing with the first fine fervor of
early spring, There are hungry
up the essential movement of
wood,
It is not wise to let a novice
take his etatiori wagon, family,
and boat up a wilderness high-
way where at any turn he may
expect turnpike privileges from
a sturdy caterpillar that is haul-
ing 80 cords of pulp, Yet from
time to time, for story purposes
and for background values, we
have gone in over such roads,
and have seen the operations at
close quarters. Always, to me,
the greatest single item of inter-
est has been the cook.
The prodigious feats of lum-
bering, past and present, pale
before the day - to - day accom-
plishments of the man who feeds
the workmen. Those workmen,
strong, rugged, hearty, in the
open air all day, and getting
their food as a part of their in-
dustrial agreement with the
company, are not to be toyed
with, They want things hot,
hearty, plentiful, and tasty. Eat-
ing is a part of the job, and
the ancient, unalterable rule of
the lumber camp calls for vocal
silence while at table, The
pleasant continental accompani-
ment of fair discourse, or the
traditional American custom of
discussing business at lunch is
not "permis , "Dis room
is for heat, man ami, if you
wan' talk, go on de bedroom!"
It is even so, and the violent
altercations that might arise
amongst strong men with dif-
fering opinions are forestalled
by the simple rule that opinions
don't get expressed. Dining is in
silence, and in peace,
A lumber camp meal is always
"vittles and with-it," Preparing
this menu is a predawn to after-
dusk job for the cook and his
crew, and it pays extremely
well, and at the least indication
of what Is now called "institu-
tional food," the howl of the
woodsmen would soon send.such
a cook down the toteroad and
back to the civilization he so
well deserves, Here will be the
last place the prefabricated din-
ner will ever be accepted, or
served. It is true that certain
concessions have been made —
it seems odd that bottled liquid-
petroleum gas is now Used for
firing the great ranges,
It Is strange, and even alarm-
ing, that modern labor condi-
tions, even with chain-saws,
make it more expensive for a
lumber company to provide
stovewood, right in a wooden
country, than it costs to bring
in bottled gas. Cooks now insist
on having it — they are not
attracted by more money, they
13y big-money standards the
Block Boys — Reuben and Izzy
where small fry but they
could turn a pretty penny when
neeeoarY, and never had to go
so low OA work
In all the years I knew them,
neither had any regular employ-
ment ?et they lived comfortably
mostly on their wits.
Naturally, they had their up:;
and downs. Just before the
Coronation of the late King
George VI, they found them-
selves, after a spell of residence
in Southampton, in low financial
water. In fact, they owed so
much rent that they decided to
move to London to see what
pickings might be made out of
the Coronation.
They found that the populace
had already bought its flags,
paper hats, streamers, bunting
and carnival novelties in such
quantities that supplies were al-
ready exhausted,
Less nimble-witted operators
might have been forgiven for
making Coronation ,Day a holi-
day, But certainly not the Binock
Boys.
They found, in an out-of-the-
way "surplus goods" and "bank-
rupt stock" warehouse, a con-
signment of Japanese-made toy
binoculars that actually worked.
They bought the lot for nine-
pence each — a thousand of
them. Then they shifted opera-
tions to Westminster Hospital,
The hospital, since demolished,
stood opposite Westminster Ab-
bey* It commanded a mignificent
view of the approach to the
Abbey and the hospital manage-
ment board, mindful of the hos-
pital's financial needs — the wel-
fare state was not then in being
— had erected a huge grand-
stand in front of the hospital and
had no difficulty in packing it
with people able to afford several
guineas a seat.
It was one of the best placed
grandstands on the Coronation
route, On the promise of a per-
centage to the hospital funds, the
Binock Boys had little difficulty
In persuading the hospital au-
thorities to grant them the con-
cession of hiring the binoculars
tc the occupants of the stand.
S
Long before dawn on Corona-
tion Day they were on the stand
wearing white overalls with im-
pressive armbands on which sp-
eared the words "Binocular
teward."
The glasses were hired out at
s. 6d, per pair and a deposit of
ten shillings. And by the time the
procession was still a mile from
the Abbey their trays were empty
end their pockets full,
This was the moment at which
they had planned to disappear.
But they found that no one was
permitted to leave the grand-
?stand. Thousands of police kept
everyone along the route ime
mobilize al.
The procession Moved slowly
to the. Abbey, The service went
on and the ceremonial procession
re-formed and slowly moved off,
The boys frantically racked
their brains for some way of
escape, The thought of returning
the deposits filled them with
herr, but no inspiration came. As
it happened, none was needed,
writes Frank Ross in "Tit-Bits."
When the signal for dispersal
came they made themselves as
ineonspicuous as possible, hop-
ing that their customers might
fail to find them. But the bino-
cular hirers seized almost to a
man oh getting something for
what seemed like next to noth-
ing — binoculars, for 12s. tid. --
which would be a wonderful
souvenir of the great day, The
moMent they saw the Binock
Boys they went off at a tangent
to find another exit from the
stand,
Of the thousand pairs hired
out only thirty-two were return-
ed: The result was a clear ptofit
of More than £570,
But the hospital still had to
have its percentage, and as they
saw an official approaching them
lazy whispered hoarsely to Rube!
"Leave this' to me,"
lie told the official the truth.
Only thirty-two pairs of binoeu,
lars oat of 1,000 had been return-
ed. Their loss, said Izzy, had
been -Caere enclotie:
The :hospital 61111010S Spit
Why and apologies that this had
"There ate Sai '60.'00101 219
remedies for .h cold," States
dotter. ter, hut the number of
tures for a tole is ietee •
"Ahd don't forget to reinovei
ettalete iititore Yoe
in the eq.!,
poiniti It can empty tanks of c:irs being shipped
arid fill those of the vehicles coming off the
transports: Part of a Ceritinuing "Make-do" pro-
grant, the hybrid was constructed from a 506-
galloe gai task, d three-horsepower engliie,, 1
ecirriptitiCir arid air pump, plus assorted pipet.
soureo needed to operate such things Cri.
Manned Weather statiOni and radio beacOrti in
remote areas. It should Operate up to year
aUtomatically. The Strange vehicle on the right
Was built On a 1056 auto chassis. it services
V4ithitle4 thiptsa to and from Ovelledi
There's always something now
corning : from the, armed services. Nee dad two
of the latest,- a thermonuclear "porcupine"
trio rle filling statictii, Of the device on fah
are 'heat exchangers *fifth' viol it nuclear
powered genet:MO .6 it ti Miniature power
mouths to feed. And Where the
first nest was destroyed or a:
brood has already been success-
fully latinehed, many birds have
started another family.
The bisects, tee, come into
their ,Own at this time of year.
Cricket* are having a heyday
out in, the new-mown:
Wasps are engineering their
wondrous homes, Bees burnble
steadily in Amos's field of red
elover. And the many-hued but-
tertlies flit :about apparently de,
lirious with the joys of the rSea,
son.
Zuunaline clings to the old
ways of doing household tasks,
and thinks nothing of rising. an
hour or two early to braid dough
for the tops of her snowy loaves,
or to bake a half-dozen fruit
pies for a harvest dinner, Trine
and Anna, however, reach out
eagerly for short cuts .and timee
saying methods, "A short out I've
found for your Southern pecan.
pie," Trine tells me with. a merry
twinkle, "Instant butterscotch
pudding for filling is almost as
good, If one adds eggs and corn
syrup, and ever so much quick-
er." •
She and Anna keep up a rapid,-
fire exchange of ideas and. new
ways of doing things when they
are together these days, "Grape
juice can be made with a cup of
uncooked grapes to a quart Jae
filled the rest of the way up
with a syrup of sugar and boil-
ing water. Good as can be — and
a hundert jars in just a few
hours time." Or, "Starched
clothes dampened with warm
water and placed in a warm oven
for a few minutes can be ironed
right away," They give such in-
formation as interestedly as
more sophisticated young wives
might give tips on fashions or
bridge, while happiness and con-
tentment with their lot makes
their faces glow.
Their harvest tables sag with
good food, just as Emmalinete has
always done, yet they keep more
nearly to a menu. Their meals are
more than ample, a veritable
feast it seems, but one which is
more, nearly in keeping with the
ones outlined in the farm maga-
zines they both read avidly
when they can find the time.
For Trine this usually means
when the twins and "Yonnie,"
the baby, are tucked in for the
night. Lights are apt to burn
rather late in their home as she
and Eli read and study, yet they
are early risers.
Soapmaking is a Monday morn-
ing ritual with this young Amish
hausfrau, as routine as Monday
wash day. Done in the wash
house, from which the twins are
excluded at all times, this task
involves a wood-burning vat cut
down from an old heating stove
on which the fat and tallow,
prime soapmaking ingredients,
are melted. The other agents are
store-bought lye and cold water
— plus a lot of knowhow, writes'
Mabel Slack Shelton in The
Christian Science Monitor,
• Porcupine, Junk Tanker
'• •
Making The job Easier •