The Library of Work and Play: Outdoor Work — John Shaqi
The Library of Work and Play: Outdoor WorkMiller, Mary Rogers
Philosophy
The Library of Work and Play: Outdoor Work
Miller, Mary Rogers
Agriculture -- Juvenile literature
MAKING BAYBERRY DIPS
To make bayberry candles you must first gather the wax-covered berries.
Get them early, for, as cold weather comes on, the pellets of wax drop
off. Two quarts make only a little ball of wax, so you must gather an
enormous quantity of the berries. Put them into water and bring it to
a boil, stirring well to be sure that all the wax is melting. Being
lighter than water the wax will rise to the surface. When you think
all the berries are bare, take them from the fire. As the water cools,
the wax hardens on top. If the berries do not all go to the bottom you
will have to melt the wax again over a slow fire or in a double boiler
until the wax rises clean at the top; all dirt and refuse on its lower
surface can be scraped off. Do not let the wax burn. Smoke is a sure
sign that it is too hot. In a double boiler there is no danger.
To make the dips, take regular candle wicking, a soft, white, loosely
twisted cord, cut it twice the desired length for the candle. Double it
and twist enough to hold it together. The loop at one end is convenient
to hold it by. Dip into the hot wax and then as it cools draw the wick
down with finger and thumb so that it hangs straight and kinkless.
A second dip adds a little to the diameter of the candle, the third
another layer and so on till your first bayberry dip is finished. If
the first effort is not a good shape and has to go back into the pot
you needn't be discouraged. Didn't the first chocolate cream you ever
made look like a chestnut gone wrong? But with patience it is possible
for even a beginner to produce very shapely candles. They do not need
to be absolutely regular. Paraffin or tallow candles, moulded just
alike by the hundred thousand dozen, may be as round and perfect as
machinery can make them. Part of the charm of the bayberry dips is in
these slight irregularities of shape and size.
WILD CRAB APPLES
Thickets of small trees, bearing little solid green apples are a
feature of almost every farm in the prairie states. They are common
also on the hilly pastures of Ohio, western Pennsylvania, and New
York. The South, too, has its native crab apple. School children the
country over loved in my day to fill their pockets with the hard, sour,
little fruits and nibble at them surreptitiously under cover of a broad
geography. But perhaps children's tastes have changed since that far
time.
Modern geography must be different, anyhow. I saw one the other day
shaped just like a fifth reader or history or any other. It just looked
like any book, not one bit like a g'ography.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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