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brothers grew up also, how we would go down in the 

 cool cellar and churn and churn and churn, hour after 

 hour before the butter would come, and we would look 

 longingly out until mother would come down and 

 experiment; she would put in cold water and then hot, 

 and after a long while there would be little specks of 

 butter. Mother always had to finish the work, be- 

 cause none of us could go through the complex motion 

 of churning up and down and around at the same 

 time. The water was brought from a distant spring, 

 and she worked the butter very carefully, having none 

 of the modern improvements, and at last it was ready 

 for market, and my mother would get in the w T agon 

 with my father, with some new mown hay on top of 

 her butter, and she would go to the city and sell the 

 butter, and then the money was always hers. She had 

 the butter money, and she also had the egg money. I 

 didn't think so much of it in those days, because I did 

 not understand what I understand now, how much that 

 meant to my mother. I remember the pride with 

 which she would count over her money in these days 

 when she was getting eight and ten cents for her but- 

 ter and five or six cents for her eggs, and she was very 

 apt to spend it all for groceries; nevertheless she spent 

 that money herself, it was hers to spend, as she wished. 

 T understand it all now, the perfect control of that 

 butter money, and this afternoon as I sat here and 

 heard you talking of } r our dairies and creameries, I 

 said to myself, " Where is the farmer's wife's money, 

 her own, especial money for her own use that she used 

 to get from the butter?" I was sorry to think that 

 way about it, but it looked to me as if the pin money 

 of the famer's wife is gone, because when the cream is 

 sold to the creamery, it is perfectly natural that the 

 farmer takes the money. 



