TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART V 411 



ADDRESS OF MRS. C. H. SEWELL, OTTERBEIN, INDIANA. 

 Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: 



I assure you that it is a very great pleasure, indeed, for a farmer's wife 

 of Hoosierdom to be invited to go visiting and come to such a wonderful 

 place as Iowa. I feel that in view of the things that Mr. Hunt said this 

 morning, you will pardon a little personal note, and I will be like the 

 preacher we used to have, who always said before he began to talk that 

 he "wanted to say a few things." 



I am a farmer's wife, doing all the housework that falls to the lot of the 

 average farmer's wife. We have had two children in our home — a little 

 daughter, who has only recently left us for a home of her own, and a 

 seventeen-year-old boy. These children were very typical chaps — they 

 were not ideal children at all— the boy tore up his toys to see what was 

 inside, and our daughter always got peach stains on her best white dress, 

 so I know a great deal about the problems of farm women; and it was 

 necessary for me to get over here to travel from eleven o'clock yesterday 

 until 8:30 this morning; it was necessary for me to do just as your wives 

 or you women would have done on similar occasions — cook up enough to 

 last, and pray it will last, until I get back. (Laughter). 



My presence here this afternoon marks, as does your presence here in 

 this convention, an entirely new order of things. Twenty-five years ago 

 the farmer and his wife would not have been found in such gatherings as 

 we have here. The farmer's wife would not have been asked to go visit- 

 ing, as you have invited me. She would haye been thought to have done 

 her whole duty when she had cooked the dinner and washed the dishes 

 and swept the floor, and done the 1001 little odd things that the farm 

 women have to do, and wipe the noses and wash the hands and send the 

 children off to school, and administer corporal punishment occasionally. 

 Those were the things that were supposed to be the work of the farmer's 

 wife. 



Now, I haven't any cure-all for the ills that you farm people are heir to, 

 because we do have real fancied ills today. It is not possible for me to 

 come to you from a sister state, altho I wish I could, and tell you exactly 

 how you ought to run your affairs. If I were able to do one of those things, 

 1 would not be here; I would have a wonderful office in a steam-heated 

 building with a mahogany-topped desk, fine chairs, and a thick velvet rug, 

 and you would have to find some way to get in to see me, because I would 

 be very much in demand. I feel very much like the little Irish girl whom 

 you may have heard about who came down to confession one bright Sunday 

 morning. She was a little slow in beginning the recital of her sins, and 

 the good priest said "Well, come, Mary, speak up, what was your sin?" 

 But she kept her eyes on the floor and she said, finally, "Well, Father, if 

 you must know, I kissed my lover," and he said "Well, that's not so bad. 

 How many times?" and she replied "Faith, Father, I came down to con- 

 fess to you, and not to boast." (Laughter). 



When my subject was announced to me, I wondered just exactly what I 

 v/as going to do with it — Keeping up with Father and the Boys. It seems 



