TO FARMERS' WIVES. 193 



and sensible woollen stockings, no more underwear is 

 quired. 



This is such an improvement on the old regulation of 

 separate under flannels, chemise, drawers, corset, under- 

 skirt, overskirt, and perhaps a dress divided into a basqua 

 and two additional skirts, that no woman who has once 

 tried the delightful comfort of dressing so sensibly will 

 go back to the irksome and complicated toggery she used 

 to wear. 



Let us dress as comfortably and at the same time as 

 becomingly as we can. How much of our nervousness, 

 and irritability, and weariness, might be traced to a drag- 

 ging skirt, or the compression of half a dozen bands 

 about the waist, or a "hateful" corset, or an ill-fitting 

 or out-of -fash ion dress ! To be clean and to be comfort- 

 ably and tastefully dressed is the condition that is indeed 

 "next to godliness." Have we not often seen the good 

 effect of a bath and a clean, nicely-ironed frock or apron 

 upon some tired, dirt-demoralized little child ? And 

 what are we but children, to be overcome now and then 

 by the dust and grime of our work and the depressing 

 influence of a faded calico ! When we find ourselves in 

 such sloughs, let us lose no time in getting out of them. 



Being a farm-wife, and not accustomed to the more 

 leisurely mornings of "eight-hour" workers, you must 

 have clothes into which you can jump, as it were. 

 And is it not just as easy to jump into a pretty, nicely- 

 fitting percale or gingham working-costume, with its 

 clean collar or ruS already basted in the neck, as it 

 is to jump into a limp, stringy calico "wrapper" of 

 some dark, ugly pattern, and having about as much 

 comeliness as a meal-sack with a string tied around 

 its center? Percales and ginghams cost a trifle more 

 at the start, but they will outwear and outwash half 

 a dozen cheap prints ; and besides will always look 

 fresh and new if light, firm colors are selected. 

 9 



