138 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



farmer's wife that was responsible for that sort of thing. To 

 me that was a very pathetic thing — that there should be a type 

 of our best citizens in whose lives there was such monotony that 

 in the end it began to prey on the centers of reason and, in many 

 cases, dethroned it. 



Now I am thankful for progress; for a little improvement 

 in the matter of roads so that the women can get about a little 

 more. They don't begin to see in the community where they 

 live what their husbands see. And therefore I am glad that 

 there is a little taste being formed with reference to better roads 

 in order that she can get abroad a little easier. Then I am glad 

 for the rural free delivery of mail, which is a godsend, and as 

 much to the women as to the men. I tell you, too, I am pro- 

 foundly grateful for the telephone. It just did me good to be 

 out in the country last Sunday morning and see a lady sit down 

 after breakfast at the telephone and ring up a sister somewhere — 

 I don't know where it was, "seven hundred six" she called for — 

 and she had a good social chat over the telephone with her 

 neighbor. My, what a break in the monotony of that woman's 

 life on the farm it is to be able to thus have a little chat! And 

 you go to one of those phones and ring and just hear the clicks! 

 Why, the phones all go down! I was wanting to inquire the 

 other day concerning the state of health of a friend of mine out 

 in the country who was ill, and I did not get an answer. I 

 heard the clicks though as the call was made, and I waited and 

 waited, and finally a voice piped in. She said, "I don't think 

 there is anybody answering the phone at their house today. I 

 learned a little while ago that she is very much better." I did 

 not know who it was, but I got the information I wanted. Now, 

 the telephone is a great thing in solidifying and bringing together 

 the social life of a community, and I am grateful for it on that 

 account. I am looking for the doors to be a little more tightly 

 closed to our insane institutions against these women who have 

 been isolated on the farms hereafter, because they have an 

 opportunity to think, to talk and to have social life over the 

 phone. 



Well, I am glad of another thing, and that is that we have 

 in the country the occasional automobile. Now it is not the 

 automobile itself that is doing the work. It is the ambition 

 awakened, it is their longing and hungering and yearning, and 

 all that sort of thing; that is just fine! If you can get a woman 



