260 HOW TO LIVE IN THE COUNTRY 



you how much you will earn. Those extravagant 

 stories that some authors indulge in are not the stuff 

 to make good country homes. Simply do your level 

 best on the track you have selected and you can surely 

 make it pay." 



The best thing about the last letter I have quoted 

 is the cooperative spirit. In the country it is im- 

 possible to thrive without the woman can see things 

 out of doors and do them as well as indoors. She 

 ought to be able to have a swarm of bees, toss off a 

 load of hay on a pinch, harness a horse, or milk a 

 cow, without thinking it unwomanly. Foreigners 

 who come to this country succeed as a rule in country 

 home making, and it is almost invariably because they 

 live simply, keep money in hand, and forego luxuries, 

 while the whole family works together in the field 

 and in the house. 



A widow wrote me some time since that she was 

 possessed of two girls, twelve and fifteen years of 

 age, that she was living on a very small income, 

 fortunately a fixed affair, but not large enough to 

 enable her to educate these girls to a fashionable 

 life. She was thinking of finding a country home, 

 where their training would be largely in matters of 

 natural science and where they could themselves earn 

 their own living while they were learning. I ad- 

 vised this woman to find a suburban residence, pos- 

 sibly rent it at first and start in with a garden of 

 flowers and strawberries. Then branch into the 



