392 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



Domestic Life in the Free States. 



We copy the first of the following articles 

 from the Prairie Farmer; the second from 

 The Wool Grower's Reporter, published in 

 Cleveland, Ohio, by whom it is extracted from 

 Moor's Rural New Yorker. We hope we shall 

 not be scalped for presuming to extract them 

 for the perusal of slave drivers. We make no 

 comments. 



farmers' wives. 



sulks and make the whole household wish 

 they lived anywhere but there. A woman 

 can do as much as that anywhere, I know ; 

 but in a country house she possesses pecu- 

 liar power that elsewhere she has not. In 

 th'e retirement of ruyal life it is not so 

 easy to get away from a home that is 

 notoriously unpleasant and uncomfortable ; 

 but in the Crowd and variety of a city it is 

 a very different matter. 



Farmers wives, in our rural districts, are 

 of their influence. 



Their True Social Position— Women of the Rev-\ h ™&y aware of their influence. They 

 olution— English Country Ladies compared I underrate themselves practically, to begin 



with American — Routinism of American 

 Housewifery — Her Home Influences. 



[We have copied good articles entitled 

 Farmers' Boys" and " Farmers' Girls," 

 from Life Illustrated, and here find one 

 which we regard good in the same paper, 

 on Farmers' Wives. We cannot forego 

 the pleasure of presenting it to our read- 

 ers, believing it will assist in rendering 

 the class referred to more contented, more 

 efficient in real duties, and less inclined to 

 yield to the idea that they are good for 

 nothing."] 



In this country, the wife of the farmer 

 stands at the head of society. She may 

 not know it, but it is true as gospel. Da- 

 ting back with the beginning of our social 

 system, we find that she is at the bottom 

 of all bold and brave enterprises that have 

 made us great, and has sustained the bur- 

 den and the heat of the whole day in our 

 national undertaking. Because she has 

 had the making of the men, training them 

 from the gristle of boyhood. She has 

 carried the whole fabric in her own heart, 

 since upon her have the heroes relied and 

 to her approbation looked for their chief 

 reward. The wives of the farmers were 

 the women of the Revolution, of whom 

 we cannot say enough in praise. Although 

 it may be said they first projected or 

 gave shape to our revolutionary plans, yet 

 without their aid we have to acknowledge 

 that little or nothing could have been 

 done. 



The wife, in the country, is the one and 

 only being who makes the homestead 

 beautiful. She invests it with an atmos- 

 phere of love. She is the single magnet 

 by which husband and children are at- 

 tracted there. She can make all things 

 lovely and bright, or she can create cloud- 

 iness and gloom, put everybody in the 



with ; they run to one extreme, and think 

 themselves of no consequence in the 

 world ; and then they run to another and 

 declare they are just as good as anybody. 

 That is hardly in character. A little 

 brush — the least particle in the world — of 

 city influence, and they are all in a flus- 

 ter. In an instant they are willing to for- 

 get all the beauty, all the charming asso- 

 ciations of their country home life, and 

 grow crazy with envy of their city cou- 

 sins' flounces and furbeloes. The calm, 

 contemplative, really religious existence 

 they enjoy in the heat of nature, they en- 

 tirely undervalue and would gladly trade 

 it off for a sight of stony streets, the sound 

 of rattling carts and the certainty of never 

 again seeing the sun rise and set. 



English country ladies have a fresh, ro- 

 bust and hearty look. Ours, however, 

 wear a different appearance. The coun- 

 try ladies in America have a care-worn, 

 anxious, responsible air, as if all the in- 

 terests of the farm, its occupants and the 

 town devolved solely on themselves. Half 

 the time they are a good deal smarter than, 

 the men and take the business out of their 

 hands. They can reckon you up the cost 

 and value of a hog or a ' critter,' without 

 even having access to the slate ; whereas 

 their husbands would have to hunt up and 

 study all the chalk-marks around the home- 

 stead, in order to get at what they wanted. 

 If the majority of our farmers are sud- 

 denly asked what they will take for their 

 new beef, they will turn and answer that 

 they would not like to sell without first 

 consulting ' mother' — meaning their wife. 

 In this, and in other ways, the woman in 

 the country becomes gradually unfemi- 

 nine — loses a certain degree of that sweet- 

 ness and freshness which so beautifully 

 become the female character, mingles in 

 with the roughness, and hardness, and 



