DUTIES OF A COOK. A cook should be healthy and strong, and particularly clean in her person. Her hands, though they may be rough from the nature of her employments, yet, should have a clean appearance. Her honesty and sobriety must be unquestionable. The kitchen should be thoroughly cleaned twice during the week, and well swept each day: besides which, the broom and mop should always be at hand to remove any thing that may have fallen on the floor, while the business is going on.. A dirty floor and fireplace, unpolished utensils, with basins, jugs, or other articles left lying about, are symptoms of a slovenly cook, and are sufficient to excite suspicions of her nicety in things of greater importance. The cleaning of the kitchen, pantry, passages, and kitchen stairs, should always be over before breakfast, that it may not interfere with the usual business of the day. After each day's cooking is over, the grate and hearth should be cleared, a small fire made up, and the boiler and kettle filled up and set on to boil. She should then proceed to wash her dishes, having previously prepared two tubs, one with clean hot water, and the other with cold; in which latter the plates and dishes should be well rinsed, before they are put into the rack to dry. The saucepans and kettles which have been used should be then scoured, but not too roughly, either with wood ashes, or with fine sand, then well rinsed out, wiped dry, and turned down on a clean dry shelf. If tin saucepans are not well dried, they quickly rust, and are then spoiled. The upper rim of saucepans should be kept bright; but the outside, where the fire reaches, it is useless to attempt keeping bright; and indeed the rubbing and scouring they would require, would soon wear them out. For the same reason, the saucepans should not be scoured with a very heavy hand, which wears off the inside tinning without cleaning them the better. Iron and tin saucepans are properly superseding the use of copper; for though metallic copper be not poisonous, yet, if a copper vessel be left by a careless servant in a damp state exposed to the air, it cannot be used with safety until it be scoured. When copper pans are not well tinned, the verdigris, or rust of copper, very soon appears, and this is highly poisonous; particularly if any thing be suffered to stand in it till it becomes cold. There are few cooks who are not extravagant in coals. A good fire is essential while cooking is going on, which may, perhaps, be the cause of the habit they acquire of keeping a large one at other times of the day. A cook should never suffer her fire to get very low; for she wastes both much coal and time by this negligence. A fire should be regularly supplied with coals, which would prevent it from ever being so smokey as to be unfit for use at a few minutes' notice; and it should be generally known that smoke is merely unconsumed coal: and if it get low, when any thing is required to be prepared quickly, the cook has no resource, but to apply the bellows furiously, so that, before the fire burns properly, much must be wasted. The ashes should be riddled from the cinders, and these reserved to throw on the back of the kitchen fire, after cooking is over; or they will serve to burn in stoves and ovens, when once the fire under them has been lighted. Ac Extravagance frequently proceeds from a careless indifference to the interests of her master and mistress. It is part of the cook's duty to take such charge of meat, beer, bread, butter, cheese, and all the articles of common consumption, as shall prevent any degree of waste. cumulations of small pieces of bread ought never to take place, with a clever cook, who will always insist upon having these fragments eaten by the servants before fresh pieces are cut from the loaf. When there are any pieces left, she can pour boiling milk over them, and prepare a common bread pudding for the early dinner. There is a frequent waste in the consumption of beer, owing to too much of it being drawn at a time. When this happens to be the case, a thoughtful cook will remember that a crust of bread put into it, and the jug covered over, will for a short time, prevent it from becoming very flat. A good cook will always be careful that the spits are wiped clean while they are hot, and left ready for the next day's use. The jacks should be oiled and cleaned occasionally, or the dust will clog the wheels, prevent it going well, and will make it necessary to have it taken down and more thoroughly cleaned. It is bad management in a cook ever to be without hot water; especially if she live in a family where there are young children, for whom it is in frequent, and, sometimes, immediate demand. The salt-box and candle-box should both be kept very clean. The former should be hung near the fire, as common salt attracts water from the air and dissolves; and the latter as far from the fire as can be, in a dry place. Silver spoons should never be used in the kitchen, unless for preparing preserves: wooden and iron spoons are as cleanly, and may be used without fear of scratching or bending them. When a beer barrel is emptied, it should be stopped close up, or the sediment will turn sour and spoil the barrel; if the sediment be removed and the barrel washed clean out, the bung should then be taken out, and the barrel exposed to the air as freely as possible. The cook should not permit the dust-hole to remain long without having been emptied, and no cabbage leaves or green vegetable matter should be allowed to be thrown in. These soon ferment, and the gas which is extricated causes an intolerable smell.-Mrs. Parkes. THE TULIP. BEHOLD the gay tulip--here pause and admire! To the genial sunshine its bosom it spreads, Even so in the glittering sunshine of wealth And suspend their career in the absence of health. But soon, gaudy tulip, thy beauty must fade, It was thus with the crocuses down in the shade,— And thus it must be with all living at last, But the tulip's gay flower, when withered away, And to short-sighted man shall less favour be given, THE CANADIAN INDIANS. A FAMILY of Indians have pitched their huts very near us; on one of the islands of our lake we can distinguish the thin blue smoke of their wood fires, rising among the trees, from our front window, or curling over the bosom of the waters. The squaws have been several times to see me; sometimes from curiosity, sometimes with the view of bartering their baskets, mats, ducks, or venison, for pork, flour, potatoes, or articles of wearing-apparel. Sometimes their object is to borrow "kettle to cook," which they are very punctual in returning. Once a squaw came to borrow a washing tub, but not understanding her language, I could not for some time discover the object of her solicitude; at last she took up a corner of her blanket, and pointing to some soap began rubbing it between her hands, imitated the action of washing, then laughed, and pointed to a tub; she then held up two fingers, to intimate it was for two days she wanted the loan. These people appear of gentle and amiable dispositions ; and, as far as our experience goes, they are very honest. Once indeed, the old hunter, Peter, obtained from me some bread, for which he promised to give a pair of ducks, but when the time came for payment, and I demanded my ducks, he looked gloomy, and replied with characteristic brevity, "No duck-Chippewa (meaning Sthis being the name they have affectionately given him) gone up lake with canoe-no canoe-duck by-and-by." By-and-by is a favourite expression of the Indians, signifying an indefinite point of time; may be it means tomorrow, or a week, or a month, or it may be a year, or even more. They rarely give you a direct promise. As it is not wise to let any one cheat you if you can prevent it, I coldly declined any further overtures to bartering with the Indians until my ducks made their appearance. Some time afterwards I received one duck by the hands of Maquin, a sort of Indian Flibbertigibbet: this lad is a hunchbacked dwarf, very shrewd, but a perfect imp; his delight seems to be tormenting the grown babies in the wigwam, or teasing the meek deer-hounds. He speaks English very fluently, and writes tolerably for an Indian boy; he usually accompanies the women in their visits, and acts as their interpreter, grinning with mischievous glee at his mother's bad English and my perplexity at not being able to understand her signs. In spite of his extreme deformity, he seemed to possess no inconsiderable share of vanity, gazing with great satisfaction at his face in the looking-glass. When I asked his name, he replied, "Indian name Maquin, but English name Mister Walker, very good man ;" this was the person he was called after. These Indians are scrupulous in their observance of the Sabbath, and show great reluctance to having any dealings in the way of trading or pursuing their usual avocations of hunting or fishing on that day. The young Indians are very expert in the use of a long bow, with wooden arrows, rather heavy and blunt at the end. Maquin said he could shoot ducks and small birds with his arrows; but I should think they were not calculated to reach objects at any great distance, as they appeared very heavy. 'Tis sweet to hear the Indians singing their hymns of a Sunday night; their rich soft voices rising in the still evening air. I have often listened to this little choir praising the Lord's name in the simplicity and fervour of their hearts, and have felt it was a reproach that these poor half-civilized wanderers should alone be found to gather together to give glory to God in the wilderness. I was much pleased with the simple piety of our friend the hunter, Peter's squaw, a stout swarthy matron, of a most amiable expression. We were taking our tea when she softly opened the door and looked in; an encouragin |