642 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
April 
::: NOTABLE PEOPLE ::: 
Pictures of Common Folk—Three Vermont Notables 
Opportunity and Woman. 
By notable we mean worth noticing 
or talking about. The big people, out in 
the limelight, usually receive more atten¬ 
tion than they deserve. They are sure 
Cleora Abbott—Prize Hen Woman. 
to be advertised. We seek the humbler 
individuals who do worthy things in 
smaller places, and are often passed by 
in the hurrying throng. This month 
there are three—as it happens all from 
Vermont, a State noted for its fine wom¬ 
en and active old people. The two girls, 
Cleora Abbott and Marion Pilkington, 
belong to the Windsor County Boys’ and 
Girls’ Poultry Club. This was organized 
by the County Y. M. C. A., and contains 
C9 members, averaging 14 years of age— 
29 girls and 40 boys. Each member took 
a setting of 15 eggs of any desired breed 
—these eggs to be hatched and raised by 
a hen. Full records were kept of work, 
care, feed expense and similar items— 
each record certified by an adult. Cleora 
Abbott, age 15 years, won the highest 
honors. She hatched 15 chicks from 15 
eggs. Up to January 1 the pullets out 
of these 15 chicks laid 11.3 eggs—a clear 
profit on the original 15 of about $12. 
Miss Clara won a 70-egg incubator and 
a pen of White Wyandottes worth $25. 
Marion Pilkington is 13 years old. We 
see her in the picture with some of her 
11. I. Reds. She also obtained 15 chicks 
from 15 eggs through the help of her 
faithful friend—the hen. At the end of 
four months all these chicks were living. 
She won first prize for largest total 
weight of chicks—62 pounds—and won 
as prizes an incubator and a brooder. It 
is not likely that either one of these 
devices will equal the original old hen. 
It is hoped to develop this organization 
of young people into a cooperative egg¬ 
selling club. We tried to get these girls 
to tell just how they managed the eggs 
and chicks, but there is too much instinct 
in the thing of hatching 15 chicks from 
15 eggs, and who can communicate in¬ 
stinct? At any rate Cleora and Marion 
are worthy to go into our list of notable 
people who set us all an example in doing 
humble things well. 
And now what have you to say to A. 
P. Jones of Brandon, Vermont, who is 
shown climbing a telephone pole on his 
80th birthday, and showing the boys how 
to do it? You see these people up in 
the “Bashful State” start early at doing 
good-sized things, and keep it up late. 
Some of these boys of 50 to 60 would 
have a dizzy head before they got 10 
feet up that pole, but here is Brother 
Jones climbing it like a fly. Here is a 
brief story of his life: 
I was born in Lincoln. Vt., in 1832; 
went to Fond du Lac, Wis., in 1854, 
was engineer on stationary, railroad lo¬ 
comotive, and steamboat. I was engineer 
on the Mississippi River when the Civil 
War broke out. I left Pittsburgh for New 
Orleans November 6, 1S60, on steamer 
Bellwood, then returned to Fond du Lac 
and ran one engine in railroad shop for 
12 years. I was also lineman for 10 
years on railroad and telephone. I re¬ 
turned to Vermont 25 years ago, carried 
on a market garden for a few years, since 
which time I have been just a farmer. 
For the past few years I have not been 
able to do the heaviest part of the work, 
but take care of cows, horses and hens, 
and saw wood. I have never been sick 
to speak of; I think that my being tem¬ 
perate, using neither whiskey nor tobac¬ 
co, is the reason for my good health. 
A. P. JONES. 
At a recent public dinner in New 
York, Dr. Katherine B. Davis. Commis¬ 
sioner of Correction, remarked that she 
wished she had a husband, so that he 
could attend banquets for her when she 
was too busy to go herself. The Gov¬ 
ernor, the mayor or the district attorney, 
could send their wives, but she, an effi¬ 
cient spinster, had no one to protect 
her from the social obligations that eat 
up so much of a busy person’s time. For 
a good many centuries men have been at¬ 
tending the banquets of life, while the 
women stayed in the cave, or the hut, 
or the castle, attending to the business of 
being a woman. During all these cen¬ 
turies, while the home was the indus¬ 
trial center, the women did just such 
work as they are doing today ; they man¬ 
ufactured the food, they wove and made 
up the clothing; they cared for infancy 
and helpless age, and nursed the sick. 
When all these occupations became spe¬ 
cialized and commercially profitable, men 
took them out of the home, reminding the 
women, however, that it was their duty 
to stay behind. 
Now we see women taking up all their 
old occupations again, in the outside 
world to which they have gone. Perhaps 
we can blame Elias Ilowe for some of 
our modern feminine unrest; without the 
sewing machine our feminine population 
would have been kept so busy hemming 
their frills that they would never have 
had time to become, like Dr. Davis, a 
full-fledged penologist with a doctor’s de¬ 
gree. But we are not worrying, as some 
very good people do, over the changing 
attitude of women towards life. More 
than a hundred and fifty years ago Lady 
Alary Wortley. Montagu remarked that 
she had traveled widely and seen much of 
the world, but she had only found two 
kinds of people in it, men and women, 
and they were very much alike. Modern 
conditions seem to bring out the wisdom 
of Lady Mary’s remark. Through all 
history, Opportunity has ever found the 
man ready for it, and now we are giving 
our old friend Opportunity a chance to 
find the woman too. It is just as well 
to remember however, that all the oppor¬ 
tunities seeking the right woman, are 
not roaming around the outside world. 
Some of the biggest and best opportuni¬ 
ties that ever escaped their seekers have 
been grasped by hands callous from the 
broomhandle, or encumbered with a 
worn old thimble. 
The Baked-bean Center Moving. 
Who would have thought that the 
baked-bean center of this country was 
ever in danger of moving away from New 
England? Who would have thought, if it 
ever did go, it was likely to jump straight 
across the country and locate upon the 
desert? Yet if we are to believe the 
bean authorities at the Arizona Experi¬ 
ment Station, this is likely to follow. 
Liston to them as they step upon the 
house-tops and proclaim themselves 
prophets. 
It is the year 1917. A lady is shop¬ 
ping in a large city grocery store. “Have 
you any canned baked beans?” she asks 
the salesman. “The best made, and two 
cents cheaper, too,” he replies, producing 
a can. The striking label on the can 
catches the lady’s eye immediately, and 
she takes it for a closer examination. 
"Arizona baked beans.” she reads over a 
picturesque lithograph of an Indian 
dressed in full regalia. “Grown by the 
I'apago Indians in Arizona for hundreds 
of years—a real American product.” 
“This isn’t the old Boston brand that I 
have been buying, but I will try it,” she 
says. Two days later she orders a dozen 
cans. 
This prediction is made by Prof. G. S. 
Freeman, the plant breeder who says 
that people do not realize the full value 
of the Tepary bean. It is a dry land 
beau, quite hard, and requires an extra 
time for cooking. Prof. Freeman claims 
that a given weight of Tepary beans will 
produce 40% more cooked beaus than 
the ordinary kind which has been famed 
in song and story. It is equal in food 
value to other sorts of beans; a little 
higher in fact in the fats and oils. The 
Arizona people actually think that within 
a few years these beans put into cans 
will take care of the Western trade, and 
that the more they are eaten, the greater 
will be the demand for them. 
No, Burbank seems to have nothing to 
do with the production of this bean. The 
Indians consumed it hundreds of years 
ago, even before the Pilgrim Fathers 
struck New England and began to eat 
baked beans and succotash. Surely the 
old times and the old traditions are 
crumbling all about us when Arizona 
comes forward well matched to fight New 
England for supremacy on the baked- 
bean question. 
Back-to-the-Landers. 
A number of interesting stories could 
be told about the “back-to-the-land” prob¬ 
lem. We get many of them here, and all 
sides are certainly represented. In one 
case which has just come to our knowl¬ 
edge, a man and his wife left the city, 
bought a small farm in Southern New 
Jersey, and started in to try to pay for 
it. As usually happens, the money ran 
dry, for most “baek-to-the-landers” do not 
realize what it means to get into a situa¬ 
tion where the pay envelope does not come 
along every Saturday night. These peo¬ 
ple, however, were determined to own 
their farm, so the man left his wife to 
hold the place as best she could, and he 
enlisted in the army and went to the 
Philippines for several yeai'S. He sent 
his money back, and his wife used it 
wisely on the farm until it was paid for. 
Then he came back to improve the place 
and make his home. The children had 
grown up, and several of them wanted 
to go to town. They thought they would 
find a better opportunity there in a town 
business. This man finally gave way, 
sold his farm, and invested the money 
in a town business, only to lose it all, 
and to find that his boys were after all 
dissatisfied. They would not go back to 
the country with him, but the man and 
wife have made another trial, and are 
back on the land again. The man is still 
working in the town, going to his place to 
spend Sundays. Ilis wages are going into 
the farm, and in the course of time he 
and his wife will have the place paid for 
again, and when they complete this “sec¬ 
ond struggle,” he says, that no one can 
induce him to sell his home again. 
In another case a man and his wife 
had a fine fruit farm, well stocked and 
well paying. They took their family to 
college for education and rented this fine 
farm to a back-to-tlie-lander family. This 
family took the place—the man stayed 
at bis job for a while and put the money 
into the farm. They apparently worked 
hard, yet even with this fine place, on 
which the foi'mer owner made money, 
they have not been able to pay half their 
rent! 
In another case two “back-to-the- 
landers,” man and wife, left New York 
to establish a fruit and poultry farm in 
the country. They too ran upon the hard 
problem of lack of capital. They used 
up their ready money in two bad sea¬ 
sons before the farm was paid for, and 
before their hens and their fruit could 
give them much of an income. The man 
was unable to obtain his old job in the 
city. Ilis wife was an expert steno¬ 
grapher, and she went back to her old 
place. The man stayed at home to keep 
house and work on the farm, because he 
felt that while he couldn’t keep house 
as well as his wife could, he could work 
harder, as his strength was greater. The 
woman ti’aveled back and forth some 60 
miles a day, Summer and Winter, earn¬ 
ing her salary and paying this cash in 
against her husband’s labor. In a year 
or two they had the farm paid for, and 
the hens and the fruit are now doing 
well. These “back-to-the-landers” can 
look back upon their hard days with a 
smile. They would not sell their home, 
and it will gi-ow more valuable with each 
year, and yet they understand only too 
well the absolute need of working capi¬ 
tal to make such a place go. In another 
case a man and his wife, of middle years, 
bought a small place outside of the great 
city. They were wise enough to see after 
a little experience that it would take 
them several years to adapt themselves to 
farming or gardening, so that it would 
pay. Their farm was not paid for, and 
so both man and woman held their jobs 
in the city, and go and come every day, 
earning their salary as before, and hiring 
a housekeeper to take care of the place. 
In a year or two they will have the place 
“.Showing Us IIow” At 80 Years. 
paid for, with working capital, and some 
of their trees in bearing. Then they can 
take hold of the poultry business and de¬ 
velop it as they need. 
MARION PILKINGTON AND HER HENS. 
