452 HISTORY OF THE GRANGE MOVEMENT; OR, 



mark the noisy and, at the first glance, unnecessary 

 mirth of the farmers' wives and daughters? To city 

 people, with scores of pleasures and amusements within 

 reach, these outbursts may seem ridiculous ; but they 

 are natural. They are the assertion of the protest of 

 nature against the long and dreary restraint that has 

 been put upon them, and the mirth of these women is 

 as natural and irresistible as the song of the long im- 

 prisoned bird escaping from its cage. They laugh and 

 are boisterous because they have been silent and sub- 

 dued so long. Such occasions, such opportunities for 

 enjoyment come rarely to them, and they are quick to 

 take advantage of them. Their time for pleasure is 

 brief, and they make the most of it. Then they go 

 back to their dreary monotony at home ; for no matter 

 how comfortable the home, how liberal the- provision 

 of the husband and father, there is a monotony and a 

 loneliness about it which the most loving wife and 

 dutiful daughter feels most keenly. 



" Time was when young American women born and 

 bred in the country were glad to ' go out to do house- 

 work,' and a woman's i help' in the house was intel- 

 ligent and capable. That time has passed ; intelligent 

 American girls, if their services are not needed at home, 

 and they are obliged wholly or partially to earn their 

 own living, become teachers or seek employment in the 

 cities and villages, while the only household 'help' 

 that can be obtained is of the raw Irish or German 

 variety, which requires a generation in which to be 

 educated, and which when educated ceases to be obtain- 

 able. The farmer's wife, therefore, though she may be 

 able and willing to pay for good assistance, cannot get 

 it, and is obliged to make a slave of herself, working 



