"COLUMN ONE"
By Mary Mayo, Editor

A week or so ago Mr. Clyde Houston remarked that he and Mrs. Houston have always raised such a bumper crop of strawberries every spring that the speckled blobs of delight were actually sort of hard to get rid of.

They started working at their over-production worries earlier this year by giving away a lot of the plants, but in the event some of you local growers anticipate the same surplus problem, I hereby hand you, for free, a recipe not only designed to use up any old extra strawberries you might have lying around but for also placing you in the company of such notables as Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein.

You'll have to think up your own name for the finished product while you plan your advertising campaign prior to foistering it off on your unsuspecting . . . uh, that is, introducing it to your BREATHLESSLY EAGER prospects because up to now it is called simply "an excellent cream for the complexion."

And to banish any qualms of possible set-to's with pure food laws, I quote the following description: "This cream, which has the juice of strawberries as a principal ingredient, is perfectly harmless . . . so harmless, indeed, that mothers need not hesitate to rub it on the faces of very young babes . . . . . "

For the mixture you will need one-half ounce of white wax, one-fourth ounce of spermaceti, three drops of tincture of benzoin and two drops of oil of rose.

According to the recipe, "You must be sure that your druggist gives you exactly the right amount of ingredients as the correct mesurements will assure you a cream of perfect consistency."

And if you buy them at Mac's Drug Store, DO let me go along . . . I can't wait to see his expression when he hands you exactly THREE drops of benzoin and TWO drops of oil of rose.

Next you take large, fresh strawberries for three-fourths of an ounce of juice; wash, drain, macerate and strain through muslin. Shave the wax and spermaceti into a porcelain kettle, heat slightly; remove from fire and pour in the strawberry juice.

Whip the contents with an egg beater before adding the benzoin and perfume. Apply at any time. Excellent for freckles, tan, sunburn, rough skin, wrinkles, pimples, large pores and sallowness.

This little how-two was gleaned from a big old "cookbook" my mother sent me last fall, although years of constant usage has reduced it to more of a thick sheaf of pages rather than a book of any form.

Someday I'm going to entrust it to a book-binder who will, I hope, be able to shuffle and tenderly reinforce the yellowed pages so they will last another generation or two.

Nobody really knows the age of the old book since the title page, the only one actually missing, disappeared long ago.

The book was highly treasured by my mother ever since, I suppose, the day when she was ten years old and wagged it home from a church bazaar as first prize for the chocolate cake she had sneaked into Grandmother's kitchen and baked when nobody was home.

Grandmother claimed the book was second-hand when Mama got it and that she had made such a nuisance of herself at the bazaar one of the ladies finally grabbed up her own cookbook in desperation and shooed her home with it. But my brothers and I were loyal and accepted this sarcasm as a jealous little joke of Grandmother's because for all she was known around the neighborhood for the excellence of her pies, Mama could beat her at cake-baking any time.

There's undoubtedly millions of little measles, mumps, and chicken pox germs crawling through the pages because the only time Mama let us look at the book was when we were sick in bed and bored with pawing through her box of keepsakes and she was bored with playing World War I records for us on the Victrola.

The few pages of illustrations aren't half so bright as they were then and they have also shrunken in size mysteriously, but they are still there, from the little boy in oilskins clutching a huge fish my older brother loved to look at to the pictures of the prissy little yellow-haired snip who stood on a stool before an old-fashioned range above the legend, "I'm cooking dinner for my Papa" that I used to like to glower over.

Not many phases of life in the American family of that day managed to escape the big old book's attention.

Table-setting, etiquette, budget-planning, 11 course meals and recipes are tossed to the reader willy-nilly with household hints, infant care, weather observations, and sure-cures for absolutely every ailment known to man or animal.

I wonder if you know, for instance, that celery is infallible for the cure of rheumatism and all nervous disorders.

And that "a child ought not to be permitted to sit with his back to the fire; it weakens the spine, and thus the whole frame; it causes a rush of blood to the head and face and predisposes him to colds."

For external cancer, our dauntless advisers prescribe a poltice of bruised thorn-apple leaves but "be the cancer internal, take the dried blossoms of the common red clover, put them in hot water, let them steep overnight, and this will be a clover tea. Take a tablespoon of tea five or six times daily; cases of virulent cancer have been cured with this simple remedy."

Rats and mice were known nuisances in that day and age but not for long if they followed the instructions offered in the cookbook.

"When these pests of the kitchen are present, they may soon be disposed of by the following strategy: Put a barrel with a little meal in it in a place where they 'most do congregate.' After having been fed long enough to relieve the oldest and most experienced rat of his suspicions, fill the barrel one-third or one-half full with water, and sprinkle the meal two or three inches deep on the top of it. In some cases a dozen or more are thus caught in a night."

The book is good for laughs and entertainment for the generation growing up at our house now, but I can't seem to keep from thinking . . . what's this stuff I'm writing going to sound like about the year 2050?