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Household Hints

"A word to the wise is sufficient."

Five or six drops of lemon-juice added to a piece of tough meat when it begins to boil, make it tender and also add a delicious taste to it.

Use a little sugar in the rinsing water when washing laces and fine fabrics. It gives a gloss that starch cannot give.

Old silk stockings, cut and sewed together, make good dust-cloths, especially if saturated with a good furniture polish.

In preparing soup for a child or an invalid, an easy way to get rid of the fat is to strain the hot soup through a clean cloth wrung out of ice water. This is a simpler and better way than waiting for the soup to cool to skim off the fat that rises to the top.

If you depend upon flat-irons and an oil stove to do your ironing, try covering them with a deep pan, and you will find that the irons not only heat quicker but retain the heat longer.

When cooking cereal, rice or other things in a double boiler, use the lower half to cook small vegetables in and save fuel by the double cooking.

After white wool and silk have been washed several times they become yellow. This may be prevented by adding two tablespoons of vinegar to each quart of rinsing water used.

Use benzine instead of gasoline to take out stains from woolen goods. It will remove the stains without leaving a mark.

Roll your pie crust on a thickly floured paper, and you will have no trouble in cleaning off the table or cabinet. One fold and roll and the mess is all cleared away.

In ripping up an old sweater, knitted or crocheted, wind the wool into skeins, then dip in lukewarm soapsuds, let dry and wind into balls. This takes the wrinkle out of the wool, and it becomes easier to knit and looks like new again.

When you cook a high-priced steak, cut out the bone for soup, put the end of the steak through the food chopper and form it into the shape of a chop. This may be broiled with the tender part of the meat, and the tooth troubled member of the family will bless you for your forethought.

If you add a few drops of vinegar to the blacking when polishing the kitchen range, the blacking will stay on longer and the stove will have a brighter gloss than if polished in the ordinary way.

Thread the needle before breaking from spool, leaving the last end of the thread longer. The thread will not knot as it will be running with the twist in the thread. To mark cups or other china that are to be loaned for social occasions, apply small pieces of adhesive tape, on which the name of the owner has been written in indelible ink, to the bottom of the dishes, and you have a method of identification which will not be noticed by the user. You can save an egg or two every time you make an omelet or scramble eggs for breakfast if you will add a cup of left-over cereal, rice, bread-crumbs or mashed potato to the dish.

To rip anything heavy like a serge dress which you want to make over, use a discarded safety razor blade. You can do the work much quicker than with a pair of scissors.

To take the shine off the toes of your suede slippers, use your old discarded wire hair brush. It will raise the nap with very little effort on your part.

On Monday morning put molasses on the children's white stockings or suits before washing, and let stand a short time. This will remove all of the grass stains. Don't throw away old woolen socks-they are ideal for polishing.

To mend runs in silk hose, use a very fine crochet hook and catch the stitches. When mended this way, the run is hardly noticeable.

When your silverware becomes tarnished, place it in potato water and it will look like new. This is an economical method and also a time-saver. One wash day, try putting your doilies and small pieces in a pillow-case and you will not have any trouble getting them out of the boiler. Cold rain or ice water and soap will remove automobile grease from wash goods. If food scorches, you should remove kettle from stove and set right in another pan of hot water.

Salt will put out fire in a chimney or gas stove oven. A little flour sprinkled over the top of a cake will aid in preventing the icing from running off.

If you get a cake too stiff, never add more milk; but beat an egg and add it gradually until the desired thickness is attained. In preparing stuffing for game of any kind, always add a little ground ginger, this imparts a nice flavor and makes the seasoning digestible.

When poison has been accidentally swallowed, no emetic is better than mustard. Mix three teaspoons with a cup of warm water, and swallow. At once the stimulative action upon the stomach causes that organ to reject all its contents, the poisonous ingredients with the rest. It is one of the quickest of all emetics and the most harmless.

Red and pink may be permanently set by dipping material in turpentine. When baking cake in gas oven, place cake in cold oven, light gas at full force and leave until the cake has smoothed on top, and spread to corners, then turn gas low and finish the baking. Your cake will never burn. If your cakes falls in the center, the dough probably was too rich. Watch your recipes lest you use too much sugar.

To stiffen your hair brushes after washing, dip them in a mixture of equal parts of water and milk and then dry before the fire.

To clean painted walls, dissolve two ounces of borax in two quarts of water, add one teaspoonful of ammonia, and use half this amount to a pail of water without soap. To remove coffee stains, fresh or old, from table linen, pour boiling water gradually around the outer edge of the spot, then all over it, and you will see the spot fade out. Rub with some good white soap and plenty of hot water, rinse out thoroughly in warm water and hang in the sun until dry.

Reed furniture can be cleaned by washing with a brush dipped in salt water.

When lace curtains are to be washed, baste a narrow strip of muslin along each outer edge, and let it remain until the washing and drying process is completed, and you will find your curtains straight and they will not sag.