THE COUNTRY HOME [CHAPTER 
has any. I must carry out other people’s feelings 
and views. Very well, I am going into the country 
to make a home for mine own self. I have about 
two thousand dollars to use, and now I want your 
advice. Can a woman make a living in the country, 
without a man to take care of her? Why cannot I 
keep bees, or raise chickens for broilers, or have a 
greenhouse, or grow small fruits ?”’ To be sure, you 
can do all or any of these things, if, with a small 
capital, you have grit and judgment. Another letter 
is from a young fellow who says, ‘“‘I was born in 
the country, but my schooling did not fit me for life 
on the farm; it only taught me how to ‘do busi- 
ness ’; I did not understand that farming is business. 
City life seemed to me something better and larger 
than country life, and handling capital to be the 
greatest possible ambition. I have done business, 
and I have handled capital. I begin to see now 
that my life is not broad, but desperately narrow. 
I wish my children to grow up with the trees and the 
birds. I should like your advice about how to get 
a home, where we shall be right in the line of what 
I call modern progress — that is, progress toward 
simple and natural life. I shall gradually let go 
of city work, and my ambition will be to create 
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