RECIPE FOR MAKING HARD SOAP WITHOUT BOILING
To make hard soap without boiling, empty a can of "Lewis Perfumed Lye" (or any other good, reliable brand of lye) into a stone jar with 1 tablespoonful powdered borax. Add 2½ pints of cold water to the lye. Stir until dissolved. Be very careful not to allow any of the lye to touch hands or face. Wear old gloves when emptying can and stirring lye. Stand the dissolved lye in a cool place. The tin cans containing the fat to be used for soap (which have accumulated, been tried out, strained, and put in empty tin cans at different times) should be placed in the oven of range for a few minutes. When warm they may be turned out readily into a large stew-pan. Put over fire and when all has dissolved and melted, strain through cheese-cloth bag into an agate dish pan. When weighed you should 5½ pounds of clear fat. A recipe telling exact quantity of fat and lye usually comes with can of lye. When temperature of fat is 120 degrees by your thermometer (luke-warm), the lye should have been allowed to stand about 1 hour from the time it was dissolved. It should then be the right temperature to mix with strained, luke-warm fat or grease not over 80 degrees by thermometer. Now slowly pour the dissolved lye over the fat (a half cup of ammonia added improves soap), stir together until lye and grease are thoroughly incorporated, and the mixture drops from the stirrer like honey. The soap may be scented by adding a few drops of oil of cloves, if liked. Stir the mixture with a small wooden paddle or stick. Stir slowly from 5 to 10 minutes, not longer, or the lye and fat may separate. Pour all into a large agate dish pan lined with a piece of clean muslin. Throw an old piece of carpet over the top and stand near the range until evening, when, if made early in the morning, a solid cake of soap, weighing 8½ pounds, may be turned out on a bake-board (previously covered with brown paper) and cut into 20 pieces of good hard soap. Lay the pieces of soap in a basket, cover to protect from dust, and stand in a warm room to dry thoroughly before using. Soap made according to these directions should be solid and almost as white as ivory if the fat used has not been scorched.
This soap is excellent for scrubbing and laundry purposes. The greater length of time the soap is kept, the better it will become. The grease used may be clarified by adding water and cooking a short time. Stand away and when cool remove fat from top, wiping off any moisture that may appear. Soap-making is a small economy. Of course, the young housewife will not use for soap any fat which could be utilized for frying, etc., but she will be surprised to find, when she once gets the saving habit, how quickly she will have the quantity of fat needed for a dollar's worth of soap by the small outlay of the price of a can of lye, not counting her work. The young, inexperienced housewife should be careful not to use too small a stew-pan in which to heat the fat, and should not, under any circumstance, leave the kitchen while the fat is on the range, as grave results might follow carelessness in this respect.
TO IMITATE CHESTNUT WOOD
Before painting the floor it was scrubbed thoroughly with the following: One-half cup of "household ammonia" added to four quarts of water. The floor, after being well scrubbed with this, was wiped up with pure, clean water and allowed to get perfectly dry before painting. For the ground color, or first coat of paint on the floor, after the cracks in floor had been filled with putty or filler, mix together five pounds of white lead, one pint of turpentine and about a fourth of a pound of yellow ochre, add 1 tablespoon of Japan dryer. This should make one quart of paint a light tan or straw color, with which paint the floor and allow it to dry twenty-four hours, when another coat of the same paint was given the floor and allowed to dry another twenty-four hours, then a graining color, light oak, was used. This was composed of one pint of turpentine, one teaspoon of graining color and two tablespoons of linseed oil, and 1 tablespoon of Japan dryer, all mixed together. This was about the color of coffee or chocolate. When the wood had been painted with this graining color, before drying, a fine graining comb was passed lightly over to imitate the grain of wood. This was allowed to dry twenty-four hours, when a coat of floor varnish was given. The room was allowed to dry thoroughly before using. The imitation of natural chestnut was excellent.