323 
•The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
The Happy Hills 
There’s a wonderful country, lying 
Far off from the noisy town. 
Where the wind-flower swings. 
And the veery sings. 
And the tumbling brooks come down ; 
’Tis a land of light and of laughter. 
Where peace all the woodland fills; 
'Tis the land that lies 
’Neath the Summer skies 
In the heart of the happy hills. 
The road to that wonderful country 
Leads out from the gates of care; 
And the tired feet 
In the dusty street 
Are longing to enter there; 
And a voice from that land is calling 
In the rush of a thousand rills— 
“Come away, away. 
To the woods today. 
To the heart of the happy hills.” 
Far away in that wonderful country, 
Where tlie skies are always blue, 
In the shadows cool, 
By the foaming pool. 
We may put on strength anew ; 
We may drink from the magic fountains 
Where the wine of life distils; 
And never a care 
Shall find us there. • 
In the heart of the happy hills. 
—Boston Transcript. 
* 
Friends in Gray 
I.o! I have grown so gray in time, 
I make me friends with all things gray ! 
With silvery mists that rise and climb 
Upon the footfalls of the day; 
With musing Summer skies o’ercast, 
When not a wind may list to blow— 
But cloudland. leaning vague and vast. 
Throws argent lights on streams be¬ 
low ! 
I melt. I merge, in Autumn meads. 
Where gossamer cloth-of-d reams is 
spread 
With shimmering drift of feathery seeds 
The unregarded wild hath shed ; 
With glistening rain, with sprinkled rime. 
With sea-foam dry, or wind-blown 
spray— 
I am become so gray with time, 
I find my friends in all things gray ! 
Methinks that oft they say to me, 
“We, too. are dim and silvery-sad ; 
Our grayer garments brushing thee. 
Thou mayst forget how thou art clad!” 
And 1. discerning them as well— 
A pilgrim bound the self-same way. 
Their veiled passion strive to tell— 
We are the Soul of All Things Gray ! 
—Edith M. Thomas. 
I have noticed for years that if the 
wholesale price of meat goes up one cent 
the retailer advances two cents. Say any¬ 
thing about it, and he will say, "Well, I 
have to pay a cent a pound more for the 
bone.” And at the same time, after weigh¬ 
ing your meat he will cut out the bone 
and throw it in a basket under the coun¬ 
ter and sell it again. c. T. L. 
Very likely the majority of our house¬ 
keepers have seen that performance. Some 
of them have bought the bone back as 
“cut bone” for poultry food, “dog meat,” 
or even soup stock. This- Winter our peo¬ 
ple have bought several “quarters,” or 
large pieces of meat and cut them up to 
suit, thus saving a good share of the re¬ 
tail price. There are good chances for 
farmers to fatten meat animals, slaughter 
and sell direct in good-sized lots. 
* 
Under the Prohibition amendment 
Congress must make a new law to pro¬ 
vide for enforcement. Secretary Glass 
of the United States Treasury is submit¬ 
ting the draft of such a law, and one in¬ 
teresting feature is the following: 
Every wife, child, parents, guardian, 
employer or any other person who shall be 
injured in person or property or means 
of support by any intoxicated person or 
in consequence of intoxication, habitual 
or otherwise of any person, shall have a 
right of action in his or her own name 
against any person who shall be selling 
to another any liquor contrary to the 
provisions of act. causing the intoxication 
of such person, for all damages actually 
sustained as well as for exemplary dam¬ 
ages; and a married woman shall have 
the right to bring suit, prosecute and con¬ 
trol the same and the amount recovered 
the same as if unmarried. 
Evidently Secretary Glass expects vio¬ 
lations of the law for some time after the 
amendment becomes a part of the Consti¬ 
tution, but the intention is to punish 
them promptly and severely. The right to 
recover damages from the liquor seller is 
sound, and always has been. 
* 
That “burning question” propounded 
by “Barbara” on page 137 has called out 
In All the Rush and Roar of 
a fictitious name and address. They did 
this through fear that father or mother 
would have them sent home. Now they 
have disappeared—perhaps been killed, 
wounded or taken prisoner. There is no 
way of tracing them on the records, and 
their parents can only watch and wait 
and hope. 
* 
There are thousands of our readers 
who will subscribe to the sentiment ex¬ 
pressed in the following note. They will 
be the people who find pleasure and com¬ 
fort in flowers. They believe that flow¬ 
ers represent part of the language which 
God uses in telling the world of beauty 
and joy. It would be impossible to tell 
of all the comfort and hope which the 
simple flower garden has brought to the 
lonely farm home. Would that every 
weary woman could read the answer to 
her trouble in flowers: 
I feel that our flowers have been a lot 
of comfort to my wife and myself during 
the past trying year. My wife had a 
younger brother blown to hits in France, 
and an older sister died on the operating 
table, so she has had her share, yet she 
has been comforted and cheered by her 
flowers, and she is now sitting at my el¬ 
bow. studying the seed and flower cat¬ 
alogs. No doubt my regular farming or 
gardening operations would be of more 
interest to most readers, but as I look 
1 oday Remember Washington 
April, and I have six children to support 
with a small income. I thought if 1 could 
get his consent to be the house-mother and 
have my six children with me and take iu 
some more if he wished it would be a 
great help to me and my children. I am 
til) years old and feel the responsibility of 
bringing my family up and giving them a 
good education on the small income. If 
he would like references I can send him 
lots of names of people he could write to. 
I have tried so hard to work on a small 
income these war times, and it is very 
hard. \\ e would so love to go on a fruit 
farm ; my children love to pick fruit. I 
do not wish to be parted from my chil¬ 
dren. so thought perhaps we could all go : 
there are a great many people who wish 
to adopt my children, but we have all 
agreed to stick together. 
Be of Good Cheer 
We who live in the isolated places 
must cultivate a special grace, which, for 
want of a better name. 1 shall call self¬ 
cheer. Our city sisters are in touch with 
their own kind at all tim-s—we are de¬ 
pendent upon ourselves for weeks at a 
time for company. Man in his natural 
state is a gregarious creature (and wom¬ 
an. of course, is an improvement over 
man in that as in some other things!) 
No weak-willed woman, and no woman 
who does not love nature iu her solitudes 
has any business going to a lonely farm 
to dwell. The louelinees of country life 
many replies. Most of them are general 
letters, full of well-meant if not very 
practical advice. Among others is the 
following—interesting because it intro¬ 
duces the farmerette question: 
Dear Barbara: I read your inquiry in 
The R. N.-Y. and how well I know there 
are many young women longing for the 
change you are getting. If it so happens 
that you have to resume the home posi¬ 
tion and wish to look into something else, 
would you consider a position on a farm 
where you could take music lessons and 
have the use of piano? a. j. s. 
After all, why is not that sensible ?- 
The way things are crowding upon us 
now, it will not seem strange five years 
hence, to offer music lessons and piano 
practice as inducements to a farm hand! 
What is perhaps the saddest part of 
the war is now appearing. Many readers, 
mostly elderly people, write us about their 
boys, who seem to have disappeared. The 
boys enlisted before they were of legal 
age. They were so anxious to get into the 
army that they evidently jnade a false 
report on their age, and, in some cases. 
back over the last year it seems that the 
pleasure the flowers afforded us is more 
than money secured for the cattle, even 
though the money went into Libertv 
bonds and stamps. w. e. d. 
* 
In t the December Magazine number of 
The R. N.-Y., page 1434, we printed a 
letter from a farmer in Massachusetts 
who proposed a new plan for caring for 
children. lie has a fine large house on a 
fruit farm, but is unmarried. His plan 
was to engage some woman as house¬ 
mother and then take about a dozen chil¬ 
dren to be brought up together, the State, 
or some institution, to pay a small sum 
for each child. The charitable institution 
to which we applied did not approve the 
plan. They thought the group of children 
too large to be under the control of just 
a “house-mother.” The note has. how¬ 
ever, brought out a large correspondence 
from our readers. The following letter 
is quite unusual, and we have never be¬ 
fore seen just such a proposition; 
If you will kindly send me the address 
of “II.” I should like to write to him. 
My husband got killed on the railroad last 
has real terrors for the unaccustomed, but 
it also has ample compensations. I often 
think of the great man who was outlining 
his day’s schedule to an old Quaker lady. 
She listened attentively while he allotted 
himself a full hour’s work for every hour 
in the day. “And pray, friend,” she in¬ 
quired when he had finished, “when does 
thee think?” At least, these lonely jobs 
of ours give us time to think. Loneli¬ 
ness, like many other things, can be over¬ 
come if we exercise enough will power. 
1 he thing we cannot have may just as 
well be banished from our thoughts. It 
saves wrinkles. The poet Riley says: 
O heart of mine, we shouldn't worry so! 
Vv hat we ve missed of calm we couldn’t 
have, you know, 
u hat we ve mot of stormy pain. 
And of sorrow's driving rain. 
M’e can better meet again. 
If it blow. 
M orry takes a greater toll of human 
health and happiness than all the hard 
work ever instituted, and the sad part of 
it is that it is all so unnecessary and 
vain. W e worry when Johnny goes to 
school lest he get hurt in a rough ball 
game, and when he returns with a whole 
head we wonder what he did do. and 
worry about that. We worry over our 
worries, and the sudden absence, of them 
worries us worse. Our temperature goes 
to fever heat if Mary Jane isn’t invited 
to the party, but we’re sick abed with 
worry if she is. 
Did you ever notice the difference in 
your mental state after a call from two 
different friends? One drops in dolor 
ously. recounts his troubles, bemoans high 
prices, wails at a newly exposed Govern¬ 
ment scandal, wags his head woefully over 
the poor crop outlook, forecasts desolation 
and death generally, and departs, leaving 
nD host in a gloom of doubt and d is pair. 
The other comes in with a cheerv greet¬ 
ing. reels off all the pleasant gossip of the 
neighborhood, inquires about your favor¬ 
ite stock, grius cheerfully over such small 
handicaps as high prices, poor crop condi¬ 
tions and no help, and when he goes 
leaves you with your mind full of Hen¬ 
ley's “Invietus”: 
“Invictuts”; 
Out of the night that covers me. 
Black as the pit from pole to pole, 
I thank whatever gods may be 
For my unconquerable soul. 
HARRIET L. WOOD. 
The Memory of a Grave in France 
It doesn't seem right that I should 
write like this at this time, or even feel 
impelled to write at all. But sitting here 
and seeing my sister softly crying revives 
for me visions that only yesterday, it 
seems, were realities. My sister shades 
her eyes from the lamplight while she 
pretends to read, yet I know she is cry¬ 
ing. I am a man. and am not supposed to 
show any tears, yet there is a feeling 'way 
dowu deep that just seems to ache. In 
The R. N.-Y. I have just read what Geo. 
Arnold says iu referring to the return of 
the soldiers: “Soldiers are not revolu¬ 
tionists." He closes with these words: 
“These young men with high ideate and 
good common sense are not going to -fall 
for any radical social experiments, in my 
opinion.” It matters not what social 
changes may or may not take place, but 
a change, a far better method of distri¬ 
bution for farm products should take 
place. There is going to be a change, 
and I am going to help that change to 
come about. 
Only last May I stood beside my dear¬ 
est friend as he was starting for France. 
He said in parting, while I yet held his 
hand. • Well, Joe. I’ll be back again. Just 
as soon as we lick ’em over there, we are 
going to come home and lick ’em here, 
so we can get more than 35 cents of the 
dollar for us farmers. I'll then take 
Joan away from you and you can become 
my brother-in-law. How’s that?” He 
l/U-^.ed and Pounded me on the back, 
'■''ell. goodby. old man, until I get back. 
Fake this kiss to Joan. ’ He quicklv 
kissed me and was goue. Yes. gone for¬ 
ever. for he died of wounds in France, 
and that is all perhaps that I have to 
sav. \es. he is gone, and those of us 
who are left are going to change things. 
W e owe it to Dan. who lies in his grave 
iu I ranee, and we owe it to ourselves 
It must be! 
This is my answer to Mr. Arnold: I 
hope he will tell his son when he gets 
home again to remember the words of un¬ 
friend Dan. aud remember the tears of 
my sister Joan, and help us make things 
a little brighter and to ease a little of 
the pain of my sister’s heart. j. n. e. 
WOMAN AND HOME 
