Vol. LXIX. No. 4067 
NEW YORK, OCTOBER 8, 1910. 
WEEKLY, $1.00 PER YEAR 
SOCIAL LIFE IN THE COUNTRY. 
By the author of “ Nell Beveri.y. Farmer.” 
When one moves to the city one does not expect to 
know one’s nearest neighbors, but in the country, one 
is led to believe from all old-time traditions and 
customs, that the whole countryside is on intimate 
terms of neighborliness with each other. This, I hon¬ 
estly believe, was the case many years ago, but New 
England has fallen away from this custom in present 
years, and countless families bewail the fact that they 
have no neighbors; and although houses may be near 
together, the people in reality are very apart. We all 
seem to be living for ourselves alone. Nut but what 
we take a kindly interest in each other, and are al¬ 
ways glad to meet one another, when we can do so 
without too much trouble. We gossip in a friendly 
way about the marriages, the births, deaths and auc¬ 
tions in the neighborhood; we attend the funerals if 
possible, and the wed¬ 
dings if we are invited, 
but in a general way we 
let each other alone. 
Though when we are 
sick we do all we can for 
each other, yet we never 
think of what we might 
do in brightening our 
own and our neighbors’ 
lives when we are well. 
I say “we”; though 
not New England born, 
I am to all intents and 
purposes a native New 
Englander, having lived 
here for 16 years. I re¬ 
member the surprise I 
felt, two years ago, when 
I heard one woman say 
in speaking of her hus¬ 
band’s sister, that she 
had neither seen nor 
heard anything of her 
for three months, though 
they lived only three 
miles apart. “But I know 
they are all right,” she 
added, “for I always hear 
as soon as anything is 
t h e matter.” Another 
case, a few years ago, is 
typical of our selfishness, 
or shall I say our self- 
centeredness? A young 
married woman, on re¬ 
turning home after a 
severe hospital illness, was left alone for several weeks 
by her neighbors and acquaintances, although she was 
very popular in the town, and active in church and 
social work when well. In speaking of it afterwards 
she said: “It seemed as if I would die from loneli¬ 
ness. I had no telephone and not a soul came to see 
me, although they asked my husband about me every 
time they saw him. It did seem as if somebody might 
have come in just once.” And some of us might have 
gone; but we were very busy, the roads were bad, the 
weather disagreeable, and besides we saw her husband 
and heard from her. We sent her our love and sym¬ 
pathy, but we did not take it to her. 
Understand I am writing of my section of New 
England, but from what I hear, other localities arc 
destitute of social feeling as well. Times have 
changed front the good old days when women went 
with their sewing or knitting to spend long afternoons 
with their friends, leaving the homes they visited 
brighter for days afterwards. We of to-day do not 
1 ave time for that. We meet at the church social 
gatherings, at the annual fair in our own or a near-by 
town; or at the Grange, which is doing a great deal to 
keep alive social feeling in the towns. Sometimes we 
meet townspeople in near-by shopping centers, whom 
we might not see in a year if chance did not throw us 
together, and we read about them in the local items 
published in the county paper. 
Perhaps it is because I spent the first 20 years 
of my life in the States of Michigan and New York 
that I cannot quite get used to this way of living. I 
remember, with pleasure, the neighborhood visiting 
and the merry evenings when the young people, and 
older ones as well, “surprised” each other at their 
homes for an evening’s fun. We also had a dramatic 
club, which gave several entertainments and suppers 
curing the Winter; in the Summer there was a sol¬ 
diers’ reunion, and also school picnics and other gath¬ 
erings to draw the people together; and my 
A TYPICAL FARMHOUSE IN WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS. Fig. 405. 
father delights in telling of such gatherings held here 
in his boyhood home in New England ; of the long 
Winter evenings when the old folks came in to tell 
stories, and the young folks roasted apples, popped 
corn and played games around the big stone chimney 
until bedtime sent them home. They tell us that news¬ 
papers and magazines have done away with the neces¬ 
sity for old-time social gatherings; that the march of 
civilization has educated us in different lines. Perhaps 
it has, but man is a social creature and needs to-day 
the kindly greeting and friendly handshake as much 
as he did centuries ago; and there are many young 
people, who stand' timidly at the church door, while 
the people they have known by sight all their lives, 
pass them by without a word, and feel heartsick and 
turn away, feeling sure that there is no religion in 
the world; that the church is but a social center for 
the few, and holds no welcome for them. For the 
unsocial feeling of New England extends to a great 
degree to our churches. God knows we need the sup- 
Vr ) . 
port the sAmgers might give, for our churches have 
to struggle to make both ends meet, but we do not 
welcome the stranger within our gates with the cordial 
handshake and invitation to come again, that he re¬ 
ceives in the West. 
The telephone is a great blessing to the isolated 
farm woman, but there are many who do not have one, 
and to them the loneliness of their lives is a serious 
question. Weeks may pass and no woman enters her 
house, and in these days of automobiles, if she does 
not have a horse she can drive, she is indeed shut in 
from the outside world. Her husband meets the men 
at the milk depot, at the creamery, the store or black¬ 
smith shop, but she sees no one but her husband, chil¬ 
dren and the neighboring men, who come on business 
or errands to the house; and as one woman expressed 
it: “It seems sometimes as if I will fly; I get so 
hungry for the sound of a woman’s voice. What do I 
care about their eternal wood lots that 1 hear day in 
and day out? I want to 
hear some woman tell 
me how her baby is 
teething, for a change.” 
To sum up, the situa¬ 
tion is this : We get into 
a rut and stay there. We 
stay at home so much 
that we hate to leave it. 
We have so much to do 
all the time, that we are 
behind if we take a day 
off. We seldom visit, 
only on Sundays when 
married sons and daugh¬ 
ters return to the pater¬ 
nal home, or their par¬ 
ents come to theirs. 
Brothers and sisters visit 
each other’s homes, too, 
but when the relationship 
is more distant they sel¬ 
dom think of such a 
thing. Many of us do 
not take enough interest 
to attend an entertain¬ 
ment given by our chil¬ 
dren ; they can go to the 
hall and we are proud of 
their success, but it is 
too much trouble for us. 
And so, to my mind, this 
is. one real cause of the 
young people drifting to 
the towns and cities, for 
they want to get where 
folks are alive and where 
something is going on; and where folks have not for¬ 
gotten that they were young once and wanted to en¬ 
joy life. 
Although I have taken a pessimistic view of the 
situation, yet, 
For every evil under the sun, 
There is a remedy or there is none; 
If there be one, try to find it, 
If there be none, never mind it. 
And there is a remedy for the lack of social feeling 
in the country. The Grange with its regular meet¬ 
ings, its suppers, entertainments and picnics is a power¬ 
ful factor in the towns fortunate enough to have a 
wideawake Grange. The church, with its ladies’ so¬ 
ciety, brings together many women who otherwise 
might not leave their homes for weeks at' a time; the 
suppers they give occasionally and the young people’s 
socials all help to keep alive the social feeling in the 
community. But we could do more. A general town 
picnic once a year on a mellow October day, which 
