Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled During Her Visit Among the "Pennsylvania Germans"Thomas, Edith May Bertels
General
Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled During Her Visit Among the "Pennsylvania Germans"
Thomas, Edith May Bertels
Cookbooks; Cooking -- Pennsylvania; Pennsylvania -- Social life and customs; Pennsylvania Dutch
Passing through fields overgrown with high grass, wild flowers and
clover, they came to the woods. Surprising to say, scarcely any
underbrush was seen, but trees everywhere--stately Lebanon cedars,
spruce and spreading hemlock, pin oaks, juniper trees which later
would be covered with spicy, aromatic berries; also beech trees. Witch
hazel and hazel nut bushes grew in profusion. John Landis cut a large
branch from a sassafras tree to make a new spindle on which to wind
flax, for Aunt Sarah's old spinning wheel (hers having been broken),
remarking as he did so, "My mother always used a branch of sassafras
wood, having five, prong-like branches for this purpose, when I was a
boy, and she always placed a piece of sassafras root with her dried
fruit."
The Professor's wife gathered an armful of yarrow, saying, "This is an
excellent tonic and should always be gathered before the flowers
bloom. I wonder if there is any boneset growing anywhere around here."
Boneset, a white, flowering, bitter herb, dearly beloved and used by
the Professor's wife as one of the commonest home remedies in case of
sickness, and equally detested by both Fritz and Pauline.
[Illustration: THE NARROWS OR PENNSYLVANIA PALISADES]
Mary gathered a bouquet of wild carrot, or "Queen Anne's Lace," with
its exquisitely fine, lace-like flowers with pale green-tinted
centres. Mary's Uncle could not agree with her in praise of the dainty
wild blossoms. He said: "Mary, I consider it the most detested weed
with which I am obliged to contend on the farm."
[Illustration: TOP ROCK]
After quite a long, tiresome walk in the hot sun, they discovered the
lonely grave, covered with a slab of granite surrounded by a small
iron railing and read the almost illegible date--"Seventeen Hundred
and Forty." Ralph said, "If he ever sighed for a home in some vast
wilderness, his wish is granted." It certainly was a lonely grave in
the deep woods, and gave all the members of the party a sad and eerie
feeling as they wended their way out into the sunlight again, to the
waiting carriages, and were soon driving swiftly along the Narrows,
as they have been called from time immemorial by the inhabitants,
although I prefer the name of Pennsylvania Palisades, as they are
sometimes called.
Said Professor Schmidt: "Numerous tourists visit the Narrows every
year. The Narrows are said to resemble somewhat the Palisades on the
Hudson. I have seen, the latter and think these greatly resemble them
and are quite as interesting and picturesque."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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