If the fire in a stove has plenty of fresh coals on top not yet burned through it will need only a little shaking to start it up; but if the fire looks dying and the coals look white, don’t shake it.  When it has drawn till it is red again, if there is much ash and little fire, put coals on very carefully.  A mere handful of fire can be coaxed back into life by adding another handful or so of new coals on the red spot, and giving plenty of draught, but don’t shake a dying fire, or you lose it.  This management is often necessary after a warm spell, when the stove has been kept dormant for days, though I hope you will not be so unfortunate as to have a fire to coax up on a cold winter morning.  They should be arranged over night, so that all that is required is to open the draughts in order to have a cherry glow in a few minutes.

Good Housekeeping

TO REMOVE INK FROM CARPETS.

When freshly spilled, ink can be removed from carpets by wetting in milk.  Take cotton batting and soak up all the ink that it will receive, being careful not to let it spread.  Then take fresh cotton, wet in milk, and sop it up carefully.  Repeat this operation, changing cotton and milk each time.  After most of the ink has been taken up in this way, with fresh cotton and clean, rub the spot.  Continue till all disappears; then wash the spot in clean warm water and a little soap; rinse in clear water and rub till nearly dry.  If the ink is dried in, we know of no way that will not take the color from the carpet as well as the ink, unless the ink is on a white spot.  In that case, salts of lemon, or soft soap, starch and lemon juice, will remove the ink as easily as if on cotton.

TO TAKE RUST OUT OF STEEL.

If possible, place the article in a bowl containing kerosene oil, or wrap the steel up in a soft cloth well saturated with kerosene; let it remain twenty-four hours or longer, then scour the rusty spots with brick dust; if badly rusted, use salt wet with hot vinegar; after scouring rinse every particle of brick dust or salt off with boiling hot water; dry thoroughly with flannel cloths and place near the fire to make sure, then polish off with a clean flannel cloth and a little sweet oil.

TO MAKE A PASTE OR MUCILAGE TO FASTEN LABLES.

Soften good glue in water, then boil it with strong vinegar and thicken the liquid, during boiling, with fine wheat flour, so that a paste results; or starch paste with which a little Venice turpentine has been incorporated while it was warm.

A recipe for a transparent cement which possesses great tenacity and has not the slightest yellow tinge:  Mix in a well-stoppered bottle ten drachms of chloroform with ten and one-half of non-vulcanized caoutchouc (rubber) cut in small pieces.  Solution is readily effected and when it is completed add two and one-half drachms of mastic.  Let the whole macerate from eight to ten days without the application of any heat and shake the contents of the bottle at intervals.  A perfectly white and very adhesive cement is the result.