A physician, driving with his wife through a lonely country neighborhood, heard screams issuing from the open door of a cottage and went in to see if he could be of use. A child had upset a kettle of boiling water upon its legs and feet and was in agony from the scald.
“Have you linseed oil and lime water in the house?” asked the doctor.
Before the distracted mother could say that there was neither, the doctor’s wife said, “Do you burn wood in any room?”
There was a wood-stove in the parlor. There is always lard in the country pantry. In three minutes an ointment of lard and soot from the stovepipe was beaten up and spread upon old linen; in five minutes the scalds were covered with it. The relief was speedy; the cure complete in a day or two.
The wise housewife gleans a great store of precious driblets against the hour and minute of need. Such study of details is like sweeping up gold filings. The separate particles are nominally valueless, compared with the mastery of great principles. When massed and assorted, they go far toward making life easy.
A suggestive German fable is of a trooper who saw a loose horseshoe on the ground as he was going into battle, got down, picked it up and hung it about his neck by a string. In the first charge a bullet struck the horseshoe and glanced aside harmlessly.
“Ha!” said the trooper. “Even a little armor is a good thing, if rightly placed.”
The horseshoe was “a detail.”
CROQUETTES