124 TOM’S EXPERIENCE 
stationery and some of the leading magazines and 
newspapers, and from the business she realizes a liv- 
ing—an economical one, I think it is, but she says 
she manages to make ends meet. Her boy is devel- 
oping into a first-class twelve-year-old farmer. Act- 
ingon my advice he gathered up a fine lot of chickens 
—about 125 he told me he had a few days ago—and 
frequently sold seven and eight dozen eggs per day, 
for which he got from $1.00 to $1.25. One week 
his sales amounted to over $10.00. At the time I 
am writing this (July, 1883) they have been here 
about three months, and besides his chickens he has 
fifteen acres each of corn and potatoes, and altogether 
is as enthusiastic a boy-farmer as you could wish to 
see. And it seems to me it is, and will be, vastly 
better for him than to have been a clerk in some- 
body’s store, or to have drifted into one of the 
‘learned ”’ professions. 
WHAT OTHER STRUGGLING WOMEN CAN DO. 
I have given some extra space to this case of Mrs. 
Sanford’s because I know it will be of interest to 
many struggling women who are striving so hard for 
something more than a mere living from day to day 
and from year to year, and who, from their present 
positions can see nothing better than that in the 
future. Do you advise all such to go to Dakota? 
asks some one. Emphatically no—not all. I simply 
tell them what some of their sisters have actually — 
done and are doing here. They would not all suc- 
