The American Country Girl Part 3

What an inspiration their calm patience is! And I love to get out at that hour. At this alt.i.tude the mornings are always chilly but by eight it is pleasant. At half-past eight I had the three larger children dressed and at breakfast, while I ran the milk through the separator.

While the children finished, I went again to the barnyard, where I fed my little chicks and turkeys and looked after the rest. I have two rows of flowers between the barnyard and the house, so I stopped a few minutes to smell the sweet-peas, to admire the gorgeous colors of the poppies, and to pull a few weeds. By ten I had baby Robert bathed and all his little wants attended to, the breakfast dishes and the milk things washed, my bread in the oven and my dinner started. So I sat down to churn and to read while I churned. I use an old-fas.h.i.+oned dash churn, therefore I have an excuse for sitting down. I am glad of it, for I can read then. By twelve I have my sweet golden b.u.t.ter printed, have heard Jerrine's lessons and have dinner ready. By half-past one we have had dinner and I have the kitchen in order and we all lie down for a rest.

At two I begin making the beds, by three the whole house is straightened, so I have two hours for myself. I read a little story for the kiddies and then send them all to play while I read a little. I write a couple of letters and then go out to hoe and pull weeds a while.

I cook most of my supper while I cook dinner so I can prepare supper in a few minutes. So I feed my biddies, and the children gather the eggs, until we hear the men coming in from the field. By seven o'clock we have had supper, and Baby is put to bed. Jerrine helps me put the kitchen to rights. Then comes the goodest part of the day. We go to milk. Jerrine and Calvin sit in the wagon out of harm's way and I milk. Jerrine lets the cows in for me and empties the milk. We all enjoy the beauties of the sunset, the beautiful colors, the crisp little mountain breeze. By nine the kiddies have had their bath and are in bed. Daddy-man is playing the phonograph so they can go to sleep lulled by _Annie Laurie_, _Bonnie Doon_ and _The Sword of Bunker Hill_. Now that I have that line written I see it is rather an odd thing to be lulled by a sword, but I reckon you can figure out the meaning. At ten o'clock my day will be finished. I shall finish this paper and read a little with Daddy-man and then it will be my bed-time. As I finish I see I have left out many little joys. I have kissed little hands to make hurts well perhaps a dozen times. I matched some colors and cut some blocks for Jerrine's patch work; I made a finger-stall for the hired man. I have answered the 'phone a few times and-- Now if some university can help me to make my days more elastic so that they can encompa.s.s all my joys comfortably, I shall be glad. There's so much I want to do but-- Good-night."

The writer of the following story goes beyond the one typical day and for the sake of a more accurate treatment of her program includes a whole week. Thus is recorded the general plan of the American housework system as it is carried on to-day. She says:

"A representative week of my life at home in the summer is easier to describe than one day, for each day is individual to itself. To begin with the most interesting occupation of the morning, I get up at about five-thirty in time to toast the bread for breakfast. After breakfast I take care of the milk and then Mother and I wash the dishes. Sweeping, dusting and putting in order the kitchen, dining-room and living-room comes next. The hard-wood floor in the kitchen is mopped twice a week.

Next the bedrooms are put in order. This regular morning work takes from an hour to an hour and a half. On Monday we always do the family was.h.i.+ng, which generally takes me about three hours and a half when Mother hangs up the clothes. Mother bakes the bread, prepares the vegetables for dinner and plans the desserts. If she needs me I sometimes help with these. She lets me bake the cake and what extra bread is needed for variety, such as brown bread, graham, cornbread, etc. Monday afternoon we generally iron for an hour and a half to start on Tuesday's work. After the ironing is finished I sweep and dust the bedrooms, unless something extra comes up, such as indoor painting, varnis.h.i.+ng hard-wood floors, cleaning of cupboards, etc. Tuesday afternoon is open for sewing. On Wednesday and Thursday after the morning work is completed Mother and I sometimes go visiting, but generally I spend these days sewing. On Friday there is the weekly sweeping of the living-room, the lamp chimneys to be washed, the windows to be polished and the porch to be cleaned. Sometimes there is company expected Sat.u.r.day or Sunday, so that I do part of this work Thursday.

Sat.u.r.day morning there is a cake to be iced and in the afternoon we often have callers or else we go somewhere.

"Sunday is a day looked forward to all the week. We sleep a little later Sunday morning and after the morning work is done all the family, consisting at present of Mother, Father, my two brothers and I, get ready for church. In the afternoon we sometimes either go away or have company, but the kind we like best is the good old fas.h.i.+oned kind that we enjoyed when we were children, just to read a favorite book or story for the two or three short but precious hours before ch.o.r.e time. In the afternoon after their naps Mother and Father always enjoy a walk back on the farm. The evening we either enjoy quietly at home or if it is fair weather we attend the evening meeting at the church.

"This is the frame-work of the program of the summer days on the farm. I have said little of the heat because our kitchen is cool, nothing of the work because nothing is worth while which isn't hard work, made emphatic with backache and punctuated with drops of sweat. Gathering the berries, early apples, etc., was omitted because they come in just any time and are fun. Driving on the horse fork, canning fruit, etc., all come in their time, making every day full of busy little tasks."

The following gives the experience of three sisters in an opulent home on the western slope of the Catskills. It seems likely that the writer depreciates her own share in the work and in the success of the systematic household. She says:

"It is difficult to select any one day for a representative farm day program. The work changes with each day in the week and also changes very much with the seasons. In the spring there is the gardening, house cleaning and the raising of chickens, besides the s.h.i.+pping of many crates of eggs to New York. All this is done in the house and, although it is done all the year, in the spring when there are more eggs the work is heavier.

"The chickens are hatched out by incubators in a small house built for that purpose and when hatched they are moved to the brooder house. Here they are cared for until strong enough to be put out doors in brooders.

Later they are sorted and put into larger colony houses out in the field. The entire responsibility and work of this is taken by my sister Isabell, so it is needless to say that her program through the spring months would show days that were more than busy.

"In the creamery, from which b.u.t.ter in pound prints is s.h.i.+pped twice a week to private families, the work of wrapping, packing and marking is also done by Isabell. There is more of this work to be done during the winter months than in the summer because so many of the people who take the b.u.t.ter go abroad for the summer months.

"The management of the house, the cooking, and to a large extent the management of the business fall to my oldest sister, Elizabeth. We have two dining-rooms, one for the men, of whom there are sometimes as many as eight--and the other where we eat. For the housework we have no outside help except a woman who comes in once a week to bake for us and who also does the was.h.i.+ng for the men. Our own was.h.i.+ng is done by Elizabeth, with the aid of a power machine and steam which is piped from the creamery to the laundry.

"During the summer Elizabeth cans berries, fruits, beans, corn and tomatoes in as large amounts as our garden may produce for winter use.

Ham, bacon and sausage are also made on the place. Even soap is made in the big iron kettles in just the same way that our grandmothers used to make it. Many people marvel at the amount of work which is done here without any apparent confusion, and the reason for this is to a large extent due to my sisters' management. We have electric lights and steam heat and the kitchen is arranged in every way to save unnecessary labor.

"As for social life, we are not able to have as many guests here or to go to as many things in town as when we had sufficient girls in the kitchen. Most of our friends live in town six miles distant. This is due probably to the fact that we all went to High School there. We have a driving horse and go to most of the social things in town which occur in the afternoon. We rarely go down at night unless there is some exceptional event. My sister belongs to several clubs in town and recently has organized a study and social club among the farm women of this immediate vicinity. I think if one asked my busy sister what kind of recreation she enjoyed most, she would answer horseback riding and shooting. Most of the time we are too busy and interested in things here to complain about being far away from things in town. Sometimes, however, when the roads are bad, it becomes monotonous to be shut away from the outside world, and I can easily see how this phase of farming is often the reason for great discontent.

"My part in the community is rather small. I just help, and when the other members of the family go away, I fill their places. The year Isabell was at Cornell I had charge of the chickens. Now the bees occupy a great deal of my time.

"I don't know as it is necessary after writing all this to add a program of a day, but I will simply put down the things I do in a day which isn't especially rushed.

"I get up at about 6:15 or am supposed to. My sisters get up earlier.

After I have eaten my breakfast I prepare the potatoes for dinner. By that time all the men have had their breakfast and I wash the dishes and clean up things in general. Then there are beds to be made and perhaps rooms to be cleaned. After that some mornings I go to the creamery and wrap b.u.t.ter, but recently I have worked for an hour or so fixing bee equipment. About 10:30 on some mornings, I put on my bee togs and work with them until nearly dinner time, when I set the table and help get dinner. After dinner I wash the dishes and, unless there is garden picking or preparing of something for canning to do, as there often is, I am free until about four-thirty. If I go to town I leave directly after dinner and get back about six. We don't go down a great deal however. During the afternoon the mail comes bringing the daily paper and at the end of the month the magazines. The entire family take turns reading the paper, and the magazines are read at the first opportunity.

We sew, do little odd things, and are never at loss as to how to spend the time. Supper is at five, so the men can milk after it. I wash dishes or gather eggs after supper and unless something turns up to do am free. We often pick garden things for the next day because it is cool then."

The itinerary of the American Country Girl might thus be followed from the energizing cool of the morning when the impact of the day's work is so buoyantly met to the quieting cool of the evening when rest is so joyously welcomed. So far in our investigation there has always been some source of hope and enthusiasm to be discovered. If the margin of unbearable drudgery seems to be reached, there is the solace of music at evening when the whole family join in an orchestra of violin, cornet and piano. If the days seem to grow unendurably monotonous, a pageant looms on the horizon to capture the interest and to make life fascinating at once. A fourteen-hour day of hard labor is broken by a recess in the midst to write a letter and send it out to some girl friend in the great big world that shall keep the secluded spirit in some touch with the outside currents of life. At the stroke of eleven the daily paper comes; at the twentieth of the month the magazine. A French or an organ lesson is possible; and life, though burdened is kept enlivened on every side.

In such homes, work is not drudgery and the word "monotonous" has no fatal meaning.

Perhaps it may be said that there is always something that can be found, if it is looked for searchingly enough, to make a life of hard work bearable. Work is good; all of us write that down on paper and believe that we believe it. But when the principle is ill.u.s.trated in a practical form many things are required to sustain our conviction. There must be a meaning, a hope, a definition, a goal. Each life is a system set in with other systems. To make one of them a success, all must move on right lines toward the chosen end. Other letters from these sensible young women in the rural realm will perhaps make us feel this more keenly than the foregoing.

CHAPTER V

WHAT ONE COUNTRY GIRL DID

THORN APPLES AND SWEET ACORNS

I love the taste of thorn apples and sweet acorns and sumac and choke-cherries and all the wild things we used to find on the road to school.

And I love the feel of p.u.s.s.y willows and the inside of chestnut burrs.

I love to walk on a country road where only a few double teams have left a strip of turf in the middle of the track.

And I love the creaking of the sleigh runners and the snapping of nail-heads in the clapboards on a bitter cold January night.

In the first cool nights I love the sound of the first hard rainfall on the roof of the gable room.

And I love the smell of the dead leaves in the woods in the fall.

I love the odor of those red apples that grew on the trees that died before I went back to grandpa's again.

I love the fragrance of the first pink and blue hepaticas which have hardly any scent at all.

I love the smell of the big summer raindrops on the dusty dry steps of the school house.

I love the breath of the great corn fields when you ride past them on an August evening in the dark.

And I love to see the wind blowing over tall gra.s.s.

I love the yellow afternoon light that turns all the trees and shrubs to gold.

I love to see the shadow of a cloud moving over the valley, especially where the different fields have different colors like a great checkerboard.

I love the little ford over Turtle Creek where they didn't build the bridge after the freshet.

I love the sunset on the hill in Winnebago County, where I used to sit and pray about my mental arithmetic lesson the spring I taught school!

_Elisabeth Wilson._

CHAPTER V

WHAT ONE COUNTRY GIRL DID

It may be interesting to some of the Country Girls who read this book to see not only some pictures here and there from the life history of girls but also to look over several more detailed accounts, so that they may realize more fully what the new era in country life means to a young woman on the farm who takes hold of her problem with vigor and enthusiasm. To gratify this desire there will be given in this and the following chapters, with the kind permission of the writers, a number of sketches in some detail of the experiences of several girls, who though they represent widely separated regions of the country, still seem to be moved by a like impulse toward an advance in efficiency and power of service.