Farm Life op Women, 207 



bright exceptions, but those belong largely to the second 

 part of my subject. Life of women on farms as ib should 

 be, and I turn with pleasure to it, for I feel sure thab it is 

 coming. Here the mother not only bears children but rears 

 them intelligently; not only helps to save money but helps 

 to spend it to make life better worth the living ; if she is 

 unable to afford a girl to help her about work, she takes 

 turns with her husband in going out among people ; he 

 stays at home with the babies some evenings and she goes 

 with neighbors and both are better citizens, better parents, 

 for her enlarged thought, her cheerfulness given to her by 

 contact wi^h people outside of home. But this is not all I 

 wanb her life to be when it is as it should be. Perhaps some 

 of ray dreams of her life as it should be, are Utopian. I 

 can tell you better whether they are or not ten years from 

 now ; for the present, I grant they are largely theory, but I 

 believe they are common sense theory. 



I want the woman on the farm to go visiting more, and 

 have company more. I want her to set her neighbors a good 

 example in the method of entertaining. I want her to set a 

 simple table, one which will not so completelv use up all her 

 energies that she cannot enjoy her company. I want her 

 to spend less time in trying to keep pace with the habits of 

 dress of the mother in the village, who has more time to 

 spend on such things. I want her to dress herself and her 

 children so comfortably, so healthfully, so plainly that she 

 need not be continually worrying over her sewing and iron- 

 ing. I want her to be emancipated from bed quilts and rag 

 carpets, body, mind and soul- destroying appliances that 

 they are. I want her to accustom her children to early 

 hours for bed, and then I want her and her husband to read 

 iogetlier books which will broaden the minds of both. I 

 want her to teach her children the good old adage, "Chil- 

 dren should be seen and not heard," when the father reads 

 aloud to her in the few spare moments he may have in the 

 house. I want children and mother to profit by the outlook 

 that the father enjoys. I want her to give the older chil- 

 dren care of the younger ones, so that in a very few years 



