ORNAMENTATION OF THE FARM-HOUSE. 139 



maize that you are proud of, show them ; hang them over the 

 mantel ; group them, with rare wheat or barley heads, into an 

 ornament that will be richer than any the upholsterer could 

 devise. The grasses, both wild and cultivated, may be pre- 

 served and arranged as not only to make a charming decora- 

 tive feature, bat to serve as specimens whereby to determine 

 any question of habit or name. So, too, if you have rare 

 fruits, and your daughters are studying— as they do in these 

 times — the art of copying them in wax, — a very delicate and 

 pretty art, — place them on show as trophies. Or, perhaps, 

 the same daughter, or a boy with a taste for natural history, 

 has a knack (easily learned) of stuffing birds ; in which case 

 you cannot have a better ornament than a well-mounted owl, 

 or a brace of quail, or a group of our commonest songsters. 

 Then there ace the wonderful things to be done in colored 

 leaves and rustic-work in twigs, — all charming, and, if you 

 come to that, bearing their price in city shops, and eagerly 

 sought for. 



Now, such things in the homestead not only carry an essen- 

 tial grace, but demonstrate a pride in the country life, and a 

 determination to have familiarity with it, and knowledge of 

 it, and carry, furthermore, evidence to all cultured people who 

 enter your homestead, of the opportunities within your range 

 of life for linking happily together minute knowledge and a 

 refined taste. To a home of such belongings, children coming 

 back from schools of whatever sort, will not find their minds 

 starved by contact with bareness, but piqued and gratified 

 and stimulated by its fresh and suggestive aspect. In gone- 

 by times, there were something coarser ways of finding enter- 

 tainment. There were the husking-bees and apple-parings, 

 — easy, jovial, kindly, in which young people all participated 

 with glee. Well, your daughters now, do not want to take 

 their tournures and trains into a barn. They have come by 

 schooling, reading, lecture-going (if you please), to a differ- 

 ent level. They perceive that the husking business is given 

 over to a different set of fellows, who do it for two or three 

 cents a bushel, and "be jabbers, are as good as iver the nixt 

 jintilman." 



We cannot declaim against this new aspect of the family. 

 We cannot take our female country population out of their 



