178 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



and whose friend was in the same condition. In walking home 

 one of them slipped into the ditch and as he looked up he said: 

 "Bill, come and help me out." In a maudlin way his friend 

 said, "Well, I can't help you out, but just to show you I am a 

 good fellow I'll get in with you." Now don't do that. Don't 

 get in with her; get her out. Brighten up, keep her in touch 

 with the world outside, give her a littje trip, if only to a neigh- 

 boring town; let her take her time and help her; she will appre- 

 ciate it. Stay by the boys and girls. Make them feel they 

 are comrades with you instead of wards of yours; make them feel 

 you have a great big, brotherly interest in them instead of 

 just the supervision of a father? Why, it goes so much farther 

 and is worth so much more to the lad and the lass than that 

 other. I wish we might brighten up a little. I wish you might 

 see with me this picture out on the canvas. It was drawn by a 

 cartoonist. A picture of a dollar, "the American God." The 

 picture of the dollar was blurred. In an instant the face of a 

 young boy was shown; he was at his desk and his hand was on 

 the pen and then the lines in his face hardened, the lines in his 

 hand grew rigid and the bag of gold began to grow, and as it 

 grew the lines in his face grew harder and harder. Yet he 

 became an old man and, needless to tell you, a miser. And 

 over here was another dollar and it was blurred, and the same 

 young man was shown. The lines in his face did not grow so 

 hard; the bag of money was never so large; but the picture of a 

 young girl came in at the side and over the desk, and then came 

 the father and mother, and the little ones about. The money 

 bag was never large and the lines on the face were never hard. 

 And then the little home seemed to come as if by magic on the 

 canvas, the old cabin, a little hill, a stream and rustic bridge, 

 and over there the sun was setting. Down the hill went the 

 bent old man and woman each supporting the other as, arm in 

 arm, they went from the old homestead over the bridge and 

 into the sunset land together. 



It is when our womanhood shall have awakened to the 

 highest possibilities and our manhood has learned the true 

 estimate of little kindnesses our homes will be happy homes, 

 pictures of rural content and sweet living; then you will see 

 scattered over our state from border to border thousands of 

 happy homes, happy in the first great gladness that comes 

 with the new home, happy in the sunset hour, as pictured by 

 the little poem of Lewis': 



