FINDING THE PLACE 29 



live for. They kept bees and grew enthusiastic over 

 their pets. They are now rosy and full of old-girl- 

 ishness. 



Horace Mann said that the world could not get 

 on without a quota of old maids. Certainly this sort 

 of sun-kissed women are invaluable in any neighbor- 

 hood. It was the country, however, that made them, 

 and it was the getting back to Nature that awakened 

 and refreshed their souls. 



As. things are now, women can run a country 

 home nearly as well as men. They have not only 

 the garden and the bees and the hens, but they can 

 manage the small fruits with ease. I know one Ohio 

 girl who has taken to quince growing, and if you 

 want to see something beautiful walk through her 

 rows of Angiers and Meech and Pineapple quinces. 

 You will easily find in Missouri and Arkansas a goose 

 girl that is, a girl or woman who runs a goose 

 farm and she makes money at it to a certainty. 

 It is a novel sight to see a long drove of geese going 

 to market, shooed along by their owners. 



The ordinary clerk is, in my judgment, the least 

 fortunate of all men, because he is being spoiled for 

 home-making. He is kept in an intellectual tread- 

 mill until he has got beyond the power of growth 

 and expansion. Look out for this, my friend, for 

 it may come before you are thirty years of age. 

 However, if the clerk will break loose from conven- 

 tionalism, especially from the boarding house; will 

 marry a wife and buy a place out near the trolley, 



