A Farmer's Home. 299 



within easy draining distance, and you have, sooner or later, a 

 death-trap. This was just the condition on my farm when I 

 came here, and previous occupants had paid the penalty. One 

 of the most promising young farmers in this county died not long 

 ago of typhoid fever. It was not the first case on the farm, nor 

 the last. A hearty, strong man might not be stricken down ; but 

 this friend got rather worked down and overworried, and his life 

 was sacrificed to ignorance or carelessness, or both. And such 

 cases are getting to be so common. One dislikes to say anything 

 when people are so afflicted; it seems almost cruel, but the wel- 

 fare of the living demands it. There is no real safety when accu- 

 mulated filth is allowed anywhere about your places. Don't say 

 it is 100 feet from your well or home; it may not be safe at 1000 

 feet. Don't have it at all. A doctor was telling me last winter 

 that he was called to a house where they were having the typhoid 

 fever, and an examination of the premises made him suspect the 

 well water was contaminated by a cesspool that was at what was 

 considered a safe distance away.. He got a barrel of salt and 

 emptied in, and a lot of water, and in a short time could taste the 

 salt in the well water. Just think what that family had been 

 drinking, and for Heaven's sake know that you are not doing the 

 same, and know it before you have lost your dear wife or one or 

 more beloved children. 



But to come back to the kitchen : That oil stove is, or may 

 be, a great comfort to the women during the hottest weather. 

 We have a range with six burners, but my wife generally does 

 the washing and heavy jobs on the cook stove, but the rest of the 

 time uses the oil stove, which scarcely raises the temperature of 

 the kitchen at all. All work can be done on it readily, and I 

 would do so myself, but you cannot hurry a big job as fast as on 

 a stove. I went in the kitchen the other morning when our folks 

 were ironing, etc., and all six burners were going full tilt, and 

 had been for some time. I asked my wife why she did not iron 

 out on the porch, as it was one of the hottest days of the summer. 

 "Why," she says, "it is cooler in here." Well, I could not 

 believe it, and got a thermometer and tried it, and found it was 

 actually a trifle cooler right in the kitchen than on a shady porch. 

 This in the forenoon, before the house had got heated up. It was 

 95 on the porch, and 93 in the kitchen, with oil range in full 

 blast. Think of that, you women who were then roasting over a 

 cook stove. We can bake bread, or do anything, over the oil 

 stoves, and, practically, without any bad odor or taste to the 

 victuals. We have for several years. But we use only the very 

 highest grade of oil. As we Use oil for lighting, it is more con- 

 venient to use the same fluid for the stove, rather than gasoline. 

 And then oil is far safer than gasoline in fact, just as safe as 

 wood. I have never yet heard of any accident with a first-class 

 oil stove and the best oil. Gasoline is all right, like nitro- 



