40 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 



the sunny side of forty, was a daughter of a well-to-do farmer 

 and had excellent ' ' schooling ' ' for the time and place. She was 

 a country schoolma'am at the age of eighteen, and also gave 

 music lessons to a few children in the community. She spent one 

 year at a small Western college, but was married at the age of 

 twenty-two to a young farmer who was living on a rented farm 

 and whose only capital consisted of a team and farming im- 

 plements. She has raised or is raising her eight children ; they 

 have bought a farm of 160 acres, which is now paid for; they 

 have a comfortable house; and they are just beginning to feel 

 in easy circumstances. The long, hard struggle through which 

 they have gone has in no way embittered their dispositions. 

 They are active in church work; the mother teaches a class in 

 Sunday-school ; and the eldest daughter, seventeen years of age, 

 is the organist. The children were unusually bright and healthy, 

 and the mother insists that some way must be found to send them 

 all through college, and I have little doubt that they will succeed. 

 The husband is a hard working man of kindly disposition, but 

 considerably her inferior in mental and social endowments, of 

 which fact, however, both seemed utterly oblivious. 



One form of social diversion common throughout the corn belt 

 is what is known as the "basket-meeting." A basket-meeting 

 is nothing more nor less than a regular church service turned 

 into a picnic. Some grove near the country church is selected, 

 and on Saturday afternoon the men gather and erect an outdoor 

 pulpit, with a sufficient number of benches for the congregation, 

 and on the following Sunday, at the regular hour, the church 

 service is held here instead of in the church. After the service 

 the members of the congregation, having come supplied with 

 baskets of provisions, spread them upon the benches and partake 

 of a bountiful dinner. 



But such a minor festivity pales into insignificance in com- 

 parison with such annual events as the Fourth of July, Old 

 Settlers' Day, and the County Fair, though the latter has sadly 

 degenerated since it fell into the hands of city sports, who make 

 it simply an occasion for horse-racing, accompanied by all the 

 devices for separating a fool from his money which usually sur- 

 round a circus. 



