554 RKADINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



his manger. I le would stand quietly for hours beside his haltered 

 mate, but to attempt publicly to confine his own person was to 

 invite a certain and disastrous interruption of the Sunday deco- 

 rum. This task done, you go to the shade of the school-house 

 and talk crops and weather with the other farmers until the 

 arrival of the preacher's buggy announces that it is time to rejoin 

 the women who sit stiffly inside. No, I did not mean to say re- 

 join ; for you go with the other men to a place on the men's 

 side it is only the young man who has taken a girl to church 

 who dares to cross the aisle which separates the sexes, accus- 

 tomed from childhood to sit on opposite sides of the school-house. 

 Who knows how much influence this custom has had on our anti- 

 suffrage legislators, many of them brought up in country districts, 

 and trained to the idea that in all public functions it is necessary 

 to have a great gulf fixed ? 



The services begin with a hymn or two, the timid soprano on 

 the left joining in with a thunderous but uncertain bass on the 

 right. Then comes the sermon, not a dissertation on the author- 

 ship of the writings of Moses, not higher criticism sandwiched 

 in between a text and a prayer, but a real sermon, rousing amens 

 from the seats in front and echoes from the fields about ; and the 

 minister closes, not with an appeal to your judgment regarding 

 this or that biblical authority, but with the request that you stand 

 up and be convicted of sin. 



The going home is rather pleasanter, for you have the immediate 

 prospect of getting into some more comfortable clothes, and the 

 more remote one of getting something to eat. The attendance at 

 church and Sunday-school delays domestic operations somewhat, 

 and the Sunday dinner is always late. 



The parlor is open Sunday afternoons, and you may enter with 

 the rest of the family and have your turn at the religious and 

 the secular weekly. There may be callers to help entertain, and 

 you get the temporary relaxation of turning the ice-cream freezer 

 or of going out to the well to haul up the watermelon. Together 

 with your employers, you rise into the higher social stratum of 

 the day, a remark which brings me to my next chapter, The 

 Social Status of the Hired Man. 



