1914. 
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WOMAN AND HOME 
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MY MOST USEFUL MEAL 
By DR. HARVEY W. WILEY 
I have been interested in the great 
problem of dining for nearly three score 
and ten years. Of my earliest exper¬ 
iences I have little memory. I have been 
told that I was one of those rare, living 
unfortunates foreordained to be brought 
up on the bottle. This doubtless explains 
my deep sympathy today for the infant 
for any cause separated from its mother s 
breast. When asked to give an account 
of the dinner that lingers most sharply 
limned in my memory—two stood up like 
mountains on the vast plane of momen¬ 
tous meals. I shall endeavor to tell you 
about the first one. The event now de¬ 
scribing occurred at the very beginning 
of my struggle for existence. Its char¬ 
acter was almost prophetic of the never- 
ceasing battle of my life. 
Bearing a diploma from Hanover Col¬ 
lege, which told in Latin, as I thought 
to a waiting world, that I had been ad¬ 
mitted to all the rights and privileges, 
as well as the obligations, of the Aca¬ 
demy of Letters, I received from my 
father his “Good-bye, Harvey, take care 
of yourself*’ and enough paper money 
(specie payments had not been resumed 
at that time) to pay my fare to Crown 
Point, Indiana, just as far from my 
home in Jefferson County as I could get 
without going to Chicago. I had been 
told of the possibility of becoming a teach¬ 
er in that new but wide-awake town. On 
reaching my destination my fortune con¬ 
sisted of a diploma, a perfectly dawn¬ 
like vision of the future, and a 50-eent 
shinplaster. All of this property was 
useful in a way, but it wasn’t, with the 
exception of the paper scrip, a very elas¬ 
tic asset capable of being converted into 
kale. 
I went directly to the office of the 
county superintendent, and there met the 
first of the almost innumerable reverses 
that have littered the path of my life. The 
teacher had already been appointed—No, 
at that time there were no vacancies in 
the county—Yes, there mL.ht be one be¬ 
fore the snow flies. The superintendent. 
Mr. Cheshire, seemed to intuitively or 
by use of the then undiscovered X-ray, 
audit the contents of my pocket. He in¬ 
vited me home to dine (this is not the 
dinner, however). He found I could 
speak a little German. He was a candi¬ 
date for county clerk, at that time a 
most remunerative office. There was a 
township in the county almost solidly 
German. Would I go with him at his 
expense for a few days to canvass the 
farmers? I should worry. I spent a 
whole week improving my German. We 
visited every farmer in the township. I 
learned afterwards he carried it almost 
unanimously. lie said he felt certain that 
before a month passed he could get me a 
school. Uncle William Maxwell, my 
mother’s brother, lived in Newton Coun¬ 
ty, directly south of Lake County, of 
which Crown Point was the capital. Yes, 
I would go there and wait for a letter 
from him at Brook, a post office not then 
famous as now, where George Ade gets 
bis mail. 
But between me and my uncle’s farm 
flowed the sluggish Kankakee, dammed 
by the natural limestone ledge at Mom- 
ence, Illinois. An impassable marsh from 
20 to 40 miles wide forbade any direct 
transit. Twenty miles to the east there 
was a poorly-marked trail, which, if it 
could be followed, would lead to a spot 
where the Kankakee could be forded or 
swam (swimmed or swum). I decided 
to undertake the journey. It wasn’t very 
far as the crow (or buzzard) flies, but 
it was at least 50 miles, of which half 
was through an almost trackless marsh 
across which the youthful seeker after 
a job would have to walk. 
After a good breakfast with Mr. 
Cheshire I started on the journey. It 
was a warm, hazy, lazy day, in late 
September. Already the early prairie 
fires were filling the air with smoke and 
making a dim glory of the autumnal sun¬ 
sets. With my 50 cents I bought a ticket 
to the nearest station in the neighbor¬ 
hood of the trail. With my stomach full 
of breakfast and my heart full of hope 
I set forth. In one respect, at least, I 
was like St. Peter, for I could truly say 
—“Silver and gold have I none.” Nor 
did I have any scrip in my purse. 
The path on the north side of the river 
vas well marked, and before sunset I had 
reached and forded the Kankakee, up¬ 
lifting my little belongings to keep them 
dry, and felt that the worst of the journey 
was over. Yes, I was a bit hungry as 
the night came on. The morning had 
been so warm I had not thought of bring- 
a match. In Northern Indiana the late 
September nights are as full of chill as 
its noons are of balm. Before dark I 
chose a spot on a sand hill, where a 
scrub oak was growing, as a bed. But 
with thin clothing, moistened by the 
labors of the day and chilled by the frosts 
of the night, and without an overcoat, 
for I had never owned one then, sleep 
was coy. In vain I tried to forget cold 
and hunger in the fairyland of dreams. 
I spent much of the night walking around 
that tree. I can see yet the path trodden 
deep in the sand, made by my peripatetic 
vigils. With the earliest dawn I contin¬ 
ued my journey. 
But the marsh south of the river I 
found quite a different proposition from 
its neighbor on the north, there was no 
vestige of a path. Evidently neither 
white man nor red had ever set foot in 
this difficult region. The marsh con¬ 
sisted of a series of level, grassy and 
miry stretches, into which I would sink 
often up to uiy knees, separated by sand 
knolls in which the walking was almost 
as slavish. Fortunately I didn’t weigh 
240 pounds in those days—otherwise I 
might have entirely disappeared in the 
grassy mud of the marsh. Fortunately, 
also, my feet were as big then as they are 
now—which proved my salvation, for 
they only had to hold up 130 pounds. 
In spite of my light weight and the ab¬ 
sence <n impedimenta, my progress was 
exceedingly slow. The sky was clear and 
I had no difficulty in keeping to the 
south. With no reserve of fat I was 
proving a sad failure as an autophage. 
At high noon I was sure I had not 
covered live miles—and O, how tired and 
weak from hunger! I realized, however, 
that I never would get any credit, nor the 
thanks of Congress, for dying in the 
Kankakee marsh, and so I pushed on. 
After a while I found the mud was not 
so deep nor the sand so runny, and took 
eourage. But as the sun neared the 
horizon and no sight of the solid prairie 
gladdened my eye, and no vestige of 
human habitations stimulated my hope, 
I found myself facing the probability of 
another night of “ring around the rosy” 
with a jack oak as the central beauty. 
Not an inspiring thought in view of the 
advanced state of my accelerated kata- 
bolism! As the sun touched the horizon 
in the hazy west, hope died away and 
the grim menace of chilled starvation and 
sore and stiffened muscles stared me in 
the face. In spite of my fondness for 
a pun, I was not consoled by the thought 
that the reason the Children of Israel 
didn’t starve in the wilderness, in spite 
of the fact that there was no manna, was 
because they lived on the “sandwhichis 
there.” I hadn’t the grit to eat it. 
I was preparing to select my siliceous 
couch for the second night of chilled 
vigil, when a distant sound caught my 
ear, a low clicking sound which might 
have been (except for the continuity) 
the warning signal of a rattler. Could 
my ears deceive me? No, it is the click 
of a mower. In an instant the stupor 
of fatigue left. A glass of the delicious 
and refreshing beverage tf far-away At¬ 
lanta could not have accomplished a 
greater miracle. With strides which 
Hiawatha with his magic moccasins 
might have envied. I subdued the unwill¬ 
ing distance and saw—Yes, a live driver, 
a team of horses, a real mowing machine 
—in fact, a life-saver. In about one 
thousandth of the time which you, dear 
reader, have given to this simple narra¬ 
tive, I told my story of want and wan¬ 
dering. He unhooked his horses (it was 
already time to stop gathering the wild, 
moist grass) ; he invited me to a seat 
in his wagon. He was five miles from 
home. O, those long weary miles! O, 
those contented horses, seemingly un¬ 
aware of the flood of expectant pepsin 
washing the yearning coverings of an 
empty stomach! 
And the dinner? Corn pone and home- 
cured bacon, potatoes, milk and butter! 
I felt that I might well employ the rest 
of my life in singing peons to the pone. 
The bacon would have inspired a thou¬ 
sand Shakespeares. The milk and butter 
were (soon) out of sight. And then and 
there a fitting tribute to the 8,000 con¬ 
sumed calories out of a total of not more 
than 0.000 available was elegantly paid. 
Nor Heliogabalus, nor Gargantua, nor 
Lueullus, ever sat (or reclined) at a 
feast like that! 
L’envoi—My benefactor kept me over¬ 
night and sent me on my way bearing 
a bounteous breakfast. That night I 
reached Rensselaer, the capital of Jasper 
County, where I spent the night with an 
old college chum. The third day I set 
out to the West, and before nightfall I 
had reached the farm, near Brook of 
great fame, of my maternal uncle, farmer 
and physician, who gave me asylum and 
set me to work for a small wage on the 
farm. 
In about a month the expected letter 
from Mr. Cheshire came. I had my first 
real job, teacher in the public school of 
Lowell, Lake County, situated on the 
northern border of the Kankakee marsh. 
I was launched. 
N. B.—I did not walk back to Lowell 
-—I had earned enough money husking 
corn to buy a railway ticket for the 75 
miles of travel necessary to flank the 
marsh. 
POSSIBILITIES OF THE FARM. 
I feel that the great need to-day of 
women on a farm is to look our methods 
squarely in the face and see if we are 
not using about the same methods of do¬ 
ing work our grandmothers did. The 
average woman takes thousands of use¬ 
less steps every day, and in most house¬ 
holds conditions could be remedied at 
home with comparatively little expense. 
How many places of business are con¬ 
ducted in such crude ways as the ordin¬ 
ary farmhouse kitchens are? They say 
the big packing houses have utilized every 
part of the pig but the squeal. In a 
great many farmhouses it’s all squeal. 
Father squeals “cause farmin’ don’t pay.” 
Mother squeals because the life is all 
drudgery, and all the children, do likewise 
because father and mother do. The fact 
is they might all do better if they would 
only look about and see the many fine 
opportunities a farmer’s family has to 
earn money, to better their condition, 
without leaving home. Every farm wom¬ 
an should have her own pocketbook. 
When the young farmer and wife start 
out they usually are a little shy on 
worldly goods, and fondly imagine one 
pocketbook will do. Later there are 
children to provide for, new machinery 
to buy, old Dobbin dies and has to be 
replaced, lightning strikes a cow which 
must be replaced, or the line fence has 
to be rebuilt, so the mother’s hands are 
tied with work and care; and she fails 
to get the things she needs, for interest, 
rent and taxes must be paid. Suppose 
she cuts out the needless part of house¬ 
work and takes up some outside work, 
such as raising any of the different kinds 
of poultry, or taking orders for nursery 
firms. There is money in this, and it 
may be done at home with telephone. 
Putting up garden vegetables for city 
trade is one of the things she may do at 
home. Each year would then find some 
new convenience added to the home, which 
in time would be a place all would be 
proud of. 
When a family all put their shoulder 
to the wheel it is bound to turn. It is the 
grandest place in the world to live if 
we would only do all we could to make 
a real home, and not simply a place to 
stay, until we have a chance to get away. 
Our little boy, 11 years old. is very proud 
of the fact that he has a bank book of 
his own with $100 to his credit at our 
local bank. He has made most of this 
with his father’s help. This year he has 
taken care of the pigs, one of which his 
father bought for him in early Spring. 
This will bring him nearly $20, sold 
direct to consumer. He is enthusiastic 
over his work, and has had experience 
that will be worth many times the money 
received for his pig. 
As for myself, I love the farm, and all 
the things on it. I often help my hus¬ 
band milk, and he is ever ready to wipe 
the dishes or turn a hand at any house¬ 
hold work. One of the things I appre¬ 
ciate is a swift little driving horse and 
a buggy that doesn’t rattle. The only 
person who could induce me to leave the 
farm would be the undertaker and I hope 
his day is far away in the shadowy fu¬ 
ture. MRS. JAMES LAMPMAN. 
“When We Were a Couple of Kids.’’ 
“School Days, School Days, Dear Old Golden Rule Days.” 
