FINE ARTS OF A COUNTRY HOME 237 



It left a lonesome home, where there was little 

 that was interesting to be done and all things were 

 toil. The wife no longer wove and the daughter 

 no longer milked, although the very word wife was 

 originally weaver and the origin of the word daugh- 

 ter, away back in early Aryan life, was milker. 

 Everything lost track of itself and words lost their 

 meaning. Swapping made way for that sort of 

 commerce which needs money, and the simple hearted 

 home keepers knew not what to do with this paper 

 stuff. Having a bunch of it when the hops or the 

 plums brought a good price, they bought pianos to 

 stand where the spinning wheel had stood. On these 

 after a while the auctioneer played and the heartsick 

 owner went into the city to find work. 



Steam not only took away country industries, but 

 so exalted town employments as to concentrate wealth 

 and multiply by contrast town privileges. The city 

 was drawing the best blood and the brightest brains 

 away from the country. Its churches got the chief 

 talent and then the country churches died all over 

 the hillsides and in the villages they just kept alive 

 to little purpose. Music of the highest order was 

 heard only in the larger towns and the help of skilled 

 physicians could be reached only at great cost. 



One weekly newspaper reached the country family 

 and a letter now and then that cost the receiver 

 eighteen and three quarter cents for postage. Even 

 when this was lowered to a reasonable cost, he must 

 drive or walk five or ten miles to his postoffice. His 



