1906. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
867 
HOME PICTURES . 
“Everybody works but Mother.” If any 
member of the family has a right to take 
things easy it is Mother. Too many of 
the family burdens fall upon her anyway 
■—responsibilities and cares as well as 
hard work. It is a blessed household in 
which the boys are brought up to relieve 
Mother of the harder work. It does the 
boys good and helps the whole situation. 
The picture, Fig. 373, shows t\vo cheer¬ 
ful boys who are enabled by means of an 
“easy” washing machine to do the week’s 
washing. Mother can sit down and keep 
an eye on the work while her hands are 
busy with the lighter work of sewing. 
Here is surely something to be thankful 
for, and this little scene might well be 
enacted in thousands of farm kitchens. 
And the next picture gives another 
cause for thankfulness. Wouldn’t you 
like to have eight healthy and sweet little 
ones to provide for and train? This is a 
Massachusetts family—where they tell us 
families are running out—and their father 
says they arc all members of the Apple 
Consumers’ League! He is at present an 
office clerk, but this big family and other 
things have driven him to a desire for a 
farm. This is the way he puts it: “I 
aspire to be the owner of a good fruit 
farm!” He bought a couple of acres of 
meadow land and as he said “began to 
educate myself along the lines of fruit 
culture.” This “education” is of great 
help to him, and when he comes to get 
his larger farm he will know what to do. 
Ibis man may well be.thankful, not only 
for this fine family but for the desire in 
bis heart to provide for them in a country 
home. He could not have a worthier 
ambition. 
I he last picture illustrates a case where 
Mother is obliged to work. No washing 
machines or roast turkey for this woman. 
She is obliged to dig roots with a crooked 
stick in order to provide for the family. 
A great difference in home life and civili¬ 
zation is shown on this page. Very likely 
some of our remote ancestors were driven 
out to provide food in this way. They no 
doubt expected it, since it was an estab¬ 
lished custom. It is a great social jump 
to the home feeling which rules that 
Mother shall be home maker and do the 
lighter work while Father goes out and 
earns the living and the boys do the hard¬ 
er housework. We regret to say that this 
custom is not universal yet, but it is gain¬ 
ing, and one of the greatest things people 
have to be thankful for is the fact that 
these softer and gentler ideas-are grow¬ 
ing. 1 bat is wby the old sentiment—“No 
place like home” grows stronger. 
Sometimes we have hard work to make 
people see it until they realize some of 
the feelings of the prodigal son with no 
home to go back to. This is what a 
reader in Indian Territory says about 
people there: 
I tioy most all belong to the migratory or 
covered-wagon class of farmers; stop in one 
place long enough to make a crop of corn 
and cotton, then pull out for other parts. 
Rut they are really not to blame. It is the 
best they can do here. What land is 
not owned by the Indians, who cannot sell 
it, is owned by the “grafters” who won’t sell 
it, not unless they can get three prices for 
it. They have too fat a thing renting it 
out at $3 to $7 per acre, or a third or fourth 
of the crop. This is a fine country in many 
respects, but the people in the North and 
East who have homes are making the mis¬ 
take of their lives when they sell out to 
come down here to be robbed by the rail¬ 
roads, express companies, real estate agents, 
merchants, and. in fact, everything and 
everybody who can get a whack at them. 
Some people with comfortable homes 
and fair prospects are discouraged because 
they think too many people have a 
“whack” at them now. They would find 
giving up their home much like running 
the gauntlet with the blows multiplied and 
more cruel. Try to develop the home 
before you leave it. 
A WOMAN HOMESTEADER. 
How She Got a Farm. 
If you are a farmer by nature, and have 
good health, you can find good Govern¬ 
ment land in the northern part of our 
great country, as well as the South and 
West, but if you are not strong, I advise 
you to go to the great Southwest, as you 
will not need so much strength and money 
“EVERYBODY WORKS BUT MOTHER.” Fig. 373. 
A Good Lesson in tiie Chemistry of Common Things, 
Practically Applied. 
FULL MEASURE OF “THE BEST CROP.” Fig. 374. 
Eight Little Down-Easters, Who Will Help to Make Future History. 
AN INDIAN WOMAN GATHERING ROOTS. Fig. 375. 
Providing Sustenance for the Simple Life at Kamloops, British Columbia. 
to provide against cold weather. Then 
also, there is enough rain in most parts 
of the Southwest to insure crops without 
the cost of depending on a water or irri¬ 
gation company to furnish you water 
from dams or reservoirs, which is not 
only expensive, but far from sure. 
In the year 1900 I left Colorado to visit 
some old-time friends in eastern New 
Mexico, a prairie country about 4,200 feet 
altitude, where they had gone to take 
up a homestead, and for the wife’s health. 
I had long considered a home in Colo¬ 
rado, but in every case there was that 
“water right” to buy, and I had not good 
enough health always to help myself, and 
only $200 saved up, so I went, as I before 
mentioned, to New Mexico. At that time 
no women had taken up “claims” there, 
as they are called, but I saw no reason 
why they could not, so proceeded to the 
United States Land Commissioner’s of¬ 
fice to inquire. I found that every per¬ 
son, either male or female, of the age of 
21 or over, or the head of a family, of 
either sex, was entitled to 160 acres of 
Government land, upon application to the 
commissioner, upon a printed form fur¬ 
nished by him, for a certain tract of land 
previously seen and examined by the ap¬ 
plicant. For this, there is a fee of $16 
or $18. After doing this, I found I was 
allowed six months’ leave to go and work 
before building a “residence,” as the law 
says—after six months—there was the 
rub. How small a house could be called 
a “residence” and still be fit to summer 
and winter in for five years, the time re¬ 
quired by law for “proving up” a home¬ 
stead? After some worry, as lumber 
was expensive, I had built a room 12 x 16 
feet with a 6 x 6 feet closet in the north¬ 
east corner. This was a box house, made 
of ship-lap upright boards and clcated on 
outside, with two windows and a door,' 
and a tin chimney through the roof. 
There you have it, all for $65. Had I 
been a carpenter, I might have built it 
myself. ^ As it was I painted it with that 
New York water paint, which cost me 
about $2, I think. I then bought 4k2-cent 
unbleached muslin and tacked good and 
tight all over my walls, and my friends 
gave me enough paper to paper it. Each 
part was a different color, so I had three 
rooms out of one. My mother sent me a 
rag carpet that fitted the long part of 
room and a curtain for the closet door. 
I also hung a curtain between the long 
part of room and the little square part, 
which I made into a kitchen with a box 
for a work table and a bachelor stove, or 
sometimes called a laundry stove, with a 
small oven in pipe. The old saying is 
that a “homely” person can make a home 
out of a drygoods box, and this now 
looked like home to me. Putting cloth on 
the walls and screens in the door and 
windows cost about $5. Then a wire 
fence to enclose my yard and garden spot 
and having the garden plowed cost $16. 
I tried carrying my drinking water one- 
half mile and going down there to wash 
my clothes, this being the home of my 
nearest neighbor, but found it too hard 
work, so I had a well bored 50 feet, in 
case I could ever afford a windmill, and 
this with the pulley, curbing and valve 
bucket cost me $35. I have since added 
$35 worth of wire fence and a small cow 
stable costing $35, so have now over¬ 
reached my $200 by $11. Twelve hens 
were also a part of my farm, but they 
paid for themselves. Now as to the liv¬ 
ing expenses in these new places, you will 
find on the whole, that your bills are no 
higher than at home. Supposing coal is 
high, and soft at that, my last Winter’s 
coal bill did not exceed $5. I believe 
with careful management my experience 
could be everyone’s in a mild climate like 
ours. / Of course, where it is colder, bet¬ 
ter houses would be needed, larger stoves 
and more fuel, etc. 
What profit is it all at the last? First, 
in my part of the country, we have plenty 
of pleasant sunshiny days, cool and in¬ 
vigorating nights, with just enough rain 
with a little snow sometimes, and now 
and then a sandstorm to make it interest¬ 
ing. The water is good and found all the 
way from seven to 50 feet in depth. The 
soil is sandy loam, with reddish loam 
and clay in other strips. Every vine crop 
is a success and almost all kinds of corn 
crops the same. The most luscious fruits 
and vegetables are also grown. A great 
many have set out large orchards and 
locust groves, and the trees last year made 
remarkable growth. Some of my neigh¬ 
bors are widows with children, and I 
would like to take you all for a drive 
that you might see how well they have 
done with their gardens, broom corn, and 
sorghum for syrup. There is also the 
question, Is it safe for a woman alone? 
Yes. A lady is always safe in the West. 
Of course it is pleasanter to have a friend 
with you. I always had a friend or 
neighbor with me at nights, and most of 
the time. “Show yourself friendly,” and 
you will have friends, and it is not only 
possible, but tolerably easy to own your 
own farm, even if you are a woman and 
alone in the world. e. m. plant. 
