ith plenty of
sugar in both. Occasionally the coffee is cleared (!) with a bit of
salt fish skin. I was told by one who always saved the outside skin of
codfish, after soaking it for fish balls, for clearing her coffee,
that, "it gives a kind of _bright_ taste to it; takes off the
flatness-like, don't you know?" We raise more vegetables and in
greater variety than any other people; have better and cheaper fruits
than can be procured in any other market upon the globe; our waters
teem with fish (unsalted) that may be had for the catching. Yet our
national _cuisine_--take it from East to West and from North to
South--is the narrowest as to range, the worst as to preparation, and
the least wholesome of any country that claims an enlightened
civilization.

Properly fried food once in a while is not to be condemned, as the
grease does not have a chance to "soak in." But when crullers or
potatoes or fritters are dropped into warm (not hot) lard, and allowed
to remain there until they are oily and soggy to the core, we may with
accuracy count on at least fifteen minutes of heartburn to each
half-inch of the fried abominations.

Perhaps there is nothing in which we slight the demands of Nature more
than in _what and how we eat_. Chewing stimulates the salivary glands
to give out secretions to aid in disposing of what we eat. We swallow
half-chewed food, thus throwing undue labor on the stomach. It is
impossible for the work of disgestion to be carried on in the stomach
at a temperature of less than one hundred degrees. Yet, just as that
unfortunate organ begins its work we pour into it half-pints of iced
water. We add acid to acid by inordinate quantities of sugar, and
court dyspepsia by masses of grease. If we thus openly defy all her
laws, can we wonder if the kind but just mother calls us to account
for it?

CHAPTER XXXVI.

FOUR-FEET-UPON-A-FENDER.

It is the sisterly heart rather than the author's fancy that gives me
as a companion in this, the last of these "Familiar Talks," the
typical American house-mother.

Whatever the alleged subject discussed in former chapters--and each
has borne more or less directly upon the leading theme, old yet never
trite,--THE SECRET OF A HAPPY HOME,--I have had in heart and
imagination this thin, nervous, intense creature whom I seat beside
me. Her own hands have made her neat; the same hands and far more care
than ever goes to the care of herself make and keep her home neat