TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART V 419 



Of course, we wondered how it could be done, and as if in answer to my 

 thoughts she said "While the girls are getting the pictures that you want, 

 I want to show you some of the things I am especially interested in," and 

 one of the things she showed me was the way she ironed her towels. I 

 supposed she would take me down into the basement and show me some 

 electrically — driven machinery that did the work, but, instead, she took 

 me into a wonderfully-planned kitchen, and she opened great drawers 

 and cupboards and bins that were bu'ilded into the wall, and in these 

 drawers were piled clean unbleached linen towels. They had been well- 

 washed — I have laundered too many not to know; they had been washed 

 in clear soft-water, with pure, fluffy soap-suds, and they had been hung 

 up and dried in the open air where the sun and wind had done their full 

 duty, and then neatly folded up and put away — they had not been ironed 

 at all. (Applause). 



I see women many times in my audiences who shudder when I tell that 

 story — they couldn't possibly sleep on a sheet that didn't have all the 

 v/rinkles ironed out. You know the story of what the little boy said about 

 washing himself when he got ready for school — he said, when sister got 

 ready for school she washed herself and then looked in the glass to see if 

 she was clean, but he had just to look at the towel. (Laughter). That's 

 the way some of our farmers wash in Indiana — I don't know how they do 

 it in Iowa. (Laughter). They are in such a hurry that they don't have 

 time to see whether they have got all the dirt off — they just look at the 

 towel; and I wonder whether it makes any particular difference whether 

 you iron that towel or sit up all night crocheting blue lace around the 

 edge, as so many women do. 



That is why I am saying that women make slaves of themselves and 

 do a great deal of unnecessary work which could be gotten along without. 

 Our husbands like to rough-it; they don't mind, and they would a great 

 deal rather be able to get into the house all the way, even if it wasn't so 

 immaculately kept, than to be able to get no further than the back door 

 because the cook was cross. (Laughter). Have you ever noticed the 

 hired man and your husband, and even the dog, seem to sense it, and 

 quickly find that they have important business on the other side of the 

 farm or out in the barn in just a little while? And how, when we have 

 v/orked beyond our strength and are tired out in body, mind and soul, 

 everything goes wrong and we feel upset, and we scold at things that at 

 other times we laugh over? In such times it is a good thing to remember 

 that little verse by Margaret Sangster: 



"We have careful thoughts for the stranger. 



We have smiles for the sometimes guest, 

 But oft for our own a bitter tone, 



And we love our own — the best." 



It seems to me that sometimes farm women have forgotten the fact that 

 nature is very exacting. Talk about your farm bankers, that they exact 

 a pay-day. Nature is just as exacting, and she demands the debt shall 

 be paid sooner or later, generally with compound interest, and whenever 

 a woman has been so foolish and misguided as to overwork herself, she 



