No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 189 



labors she received not only her pay, but the heartfelt thanks of her 

 employers. 



The first few dollars that she had earned gave her a taste for more, 

 and, being a girl of original ideas, of executive ability, and what is 

 most essential, of health and strength, she soon found other work 

 that willing hands could do. About the time currants were ripe, 

 she said to her mother: ^'Last summer, when Aunt Maria was here, 

 she told us she paid twenty-five cents a glass for currant jelly and 

 it was not so good flavored as ours. When father goes to market, 

 I think I will send a few glasses, and if he sells it a little lower than 

 the grocery stores do, perhaps we can get custom for it. Shortly 

 after this conversation took place, a letter came from the aforesaid 

 Aunt Maria asking if they could not make for her some jelly like 

 the kind she had eaten when she was there. She would be willing to 

 pay what she did at the store, and would know it was pure and 

 clean. Quite a number of Aunt Maria's friends sent orders for 

 jelly, when she let them taste its sweetness, and told how she came 

 by it, until from that neighborhood no currants went to market 

 in the raw state. This was such a paying employment that when 

 currants were gone other fruits took their place and went through 

 the same process. 



While the jelly season lasted the mending basket may have been 

 somewhat neglected, but it was never despised, and in after days 

 she often said her first step upward was in one of these. Her 

 father had said to her in the fall: "Julia, if I should get two or three 

 turkeys to keep over, do you think you and I could raise a flock next 

 summer?" As none of their near neighbors were in the business and 

 no woodland near in which they could hide, she thought and said, 

 "Why not?" 



Many a farmer's wife has been reduced to a very limp condition 

 by the four C's — cows, cooking, chickens, and children — but found 

 there was deeper water yet to cross when she tried to go on to 

 turkey. In this present embarkment a man was at the helm, with 

 his seven league boots, and when the rains descended he could pull 

 this cargo of turkeys to a safe Ararat and be none the worse for it, 

 thanks to a very sensible custom men have of dressing to suit their 

 occupation. Here also, a woman was engaged who did not have the 

 supper to look after and a lot of sleepy children to wait on just at 

 the time when the turkevs should be hunted and fed. Of course, 

 under this management, they were enabled to turn quite a good 

 deal of their corn and wheat into turkey meat, and received good 

 prices for it. The tail feathers adorned the hats of many a belle, and 

 though they brought but little a bunch, they helped to increase the 

 pennies in the pile. 



One day, when at the store, she saw a small bottle marked. 



