The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
1757 
The Thoughts of a Plain Farm Woman 
Thanksgiving. —This is the time of 
year when we are supposed to weigh up 
our personal things to be thankful for, 
and having made a list of these, carefully 
do them up and lay aside until the next 
official Thanksgiving Day arrives. While 
this is undoubtedly better than to never 
give thanks at all or to stop but a minute 
for an inventory of one’s blessings, yet 
it is a pretty poor -way to go about this 
business of being thankful. Farm women 
especially are apt to feel that they have 
precious little to be grateful for. anyway. 
There is no class of women who have been 
told so frequently and so insistently that 
they are slaves to the work of the farm 
and must be pitied, condoled with and 
lifted up by those willing persons whose 
one mission in life seems to be that of 
bettering the other man’s or woman’s con¬ 
dition, no matter whether that condition 
is good, bad, or indifferent. I think that 
it is time to stop pitying farm women, and 
instead to begin envying them. 
Improved Conditions. —Of course it is 
true that some country women are still 
miserably overworked, still patiently and 
pathetically doing without the common de¬ 
cencies and conveniences of life, but they 
are today decidedly in the minority. The 
last four years have witnessed a new birth 
in farm spirit, and most farmers worthy 
of the name have come on and made 
money, paid off the mortgage, bought the 
wife some of the necessities and luxuries 
she has always craved, and in a nutshell, 
have lifted farming to the dignity and 
a part of the profitableness of other pro¬ 
fessions and callings. This is what has 
happened on the majority of American 
farms, and where it has not happened, the 
man and woman themselves have invaria¬ 
bly been to blame, or long illness and the 
like have played the mischief. 
Reasons for Thanksgiving. —So it 
seems particularly appropriate to run 
over some of the reasons why wo farm 
women should be thankful—not just for 
one historical Thursday in November 
—but every day in the year from now on. 
First, our sex in most States has been 
enfranchised and we are consequently as 
powerful and important legally as our 
better-halves. The great government of 
this country is going to listen with its 
ear to the ground, for what the woman 
has to say hereafter, and as country 
women comprise a vast host of these vir¬ 
gin voters, I see no reason why our aims 
and influence will not be decidedly felt, if 
we choose to exercise ordinary judgment 
and discretion and not be guided by hoary 
tradition or petty politics at the polls. 
Tite Woman’s Share. —Again, since 
conditions on the farm are undeniably im¬ 
proved from those of five years ago, al¬ 
though we expect to improve them a hun¬ 
dred-fold more, the woman-partner is 
bound to share in the bettered scheme of 
things and for her long industry and over 
hours, take back pay and pay-and-a-half 
even as the federated laborers do. Not 
exactly pay-and-a-half. of course, but the 
wife of a modern, hard-working, scientific 
farmer ought to be able to afford good 
clothes, occasional vacations and amuse¬ 
ments and by degrees practically all the 
conveniences and improvements now found 
in the homes of any city dweller. These 
things are a necessary and right part of 
farm life and should be demanded as a 
matter of course the minute the general 
fund will warrant such expenditures. 
Bathrooms, furnaces, labor-savers, are not 
counted as luxuries today by the world. 
They are included under the head of ne¬ 
cessities and decencies, and the man or 
woman country-bound is entitled to 
them, and should insist on them at the 
earliest possible chance. But the trouble 
is that many of us have become so rec¬ 
onciled to a hard and joy-robbing lot that 
we cannot make a stand for these things 
which would change life completely. We 
feel that it is all right to own a car. 
and a silo, and a purebred bull, and all 
the improved, expensive machinery, but 
that fanners oughtn’t to consider the 
“softer” things of life. When we get 
over this viewpoint, and insist on and 
take our due, the country will have lost 
its terrors for nine women out of ten. and 
all will very sensibly make up their minds 
that the farm is the safest and sanest 
place in the world to live happily on for¬ 
ever after. 
Human Equality. —Someone once re¬ 
marked that all Americans are created 
free and equal—but I sadly doubt it. In 
the first place, there are farmers and 
farmers’ wives who would never make a 
success of farming any more than some 
doctors make successful ones, or some 
ministers preach clearly and convincingly. 
These non-converts to agriculture raise 
their voices in generally condemning the 
business of farming, and if the truth were 
known, they make a much louder noise 
at it than do those who play the game 
and win out in the long run. For of 
course anyone who has been through the 
mill knows that farming is no sinecure. 
The woman has got to willingly work long 
and hard to accomplish her ends, just as 
the man has, but if they want to succeed 
and want it evouph, there is nothing on 
earth which will try to stop them. Be¬ 
cause a woman lives on a farm is no 
reason why she should be. counted un¬ 
lucky. If she had doubts about her hap¬ 
piness in the first place, she should never 
have tied to the life which at least has 
always been an open book to those in¬ 
terested. On the other hand, if she pos¬ 
sessed so little intelligence and interest 
that she gave the matter no thought any¬ 
way, then she is probably as happy at 
farming as at anything else, for to be 
successful, happy, thankful—any or all—• 
one has got to possess character, mind, 
reason and endurance, for the race al¬ 
ways goes, if not to the swiftest, at least 
to the surest. 
Real Things. —I think that the time 
has come to paint the farm woman’s life 
in its true colors and do away with the 
fog and folderoF surrounding it. On the 
farm you will get three square meals a 
day—provided one isn’t too lazy to cook 
them—and a roomy roof to cover your 
head, and money enough to buy a modest 
wardrobe. One is perfectly sure of these 
three rather important items, and to boot, 
there are pleasures out-of-doors which 
cannot be computed in dollars and cents, 
if you value green fields and blue sky and 
flowers and gardens and confiding animals 
and thrifty crops at prevailing rates. I 
cannot pity a woman because she is too 
far from town to enjoy the movies five 
nights out of a week, or kindred amuse¬ 
ments. Neither do I pity her very much 
if she lacks the backbone to stand up for 
her natural rights, provided she owns a 
husband who is as narrow and mean as 
Fncle Reuben has often been painted in 
the past. If a woman wants to have 
something to be glad over and thankful 
about and wants it bad enough, she will 
get it, provided she has the average wo¬ 
man’s brains and resources, and her living 
in the country will make no difference. 
There are discontented wives and women 
in every run of life and always will be, 
but the farm woman’s possibilities seem 
so wonderful compared to the artificial, 
congested lives of many silly city persons 
that there is really no comparison. Who 
with any common sense would choose to 
live in a three or four-room apartment, 
with “no children wanted,” leading a hard, 
nerve-racking life in restaurants and 
amusement centers, spending altogether 
too much money on the things that do 
not count at ail, and laying by almost 
nothing in real richness and rewards for 
the old age which some day comes to 
us all? Some of us may sigh for the gay 
white lights and the easier way, but these 
fail to satisfy ambitious, earnest women; 
and country women, after trying them, 
quickly come to the conclusion that there 
are worse things in the world than cook¬ 
ing and baking and sweeping and “ehor- 
ing” from dawn till dark—provided it is 
all lovin- and worth-while service. It all 
lies in our own individual hands anyway. 
We will make the best of things and keep 
on eternally striving to make them better, 
or we will sit down in the ruins of our 
own particular little failures and com¬ 
plain and rail at others and especially at 
our job, farming, and attempt to get sym¬ 
pathy and pity instead of common sense 
and hard truths. 
The Future on the Farm. —As I 
look ahead through the years, it seems 
as if we American farm women have 
full lives and purposeful lives before 
us. To help plan and work for and 
achieve _ the job we are engaged in—to 
feed this country and other countries, 
seems to me so big, so vital, that every 
thought and resource should be devoted 
to the fulfillment of it. Women who take 
no interest in the crops and farm condi¬ 
tions are rare indeed. If we are real 
partners, we know every detail about them 
as well as our men, and knowing, who 
can complain of the dullness of agricul¬ 
ture and the lack of zest to be found in 
it? We are fast approaching the time 
when we will be as financially indepen¬ 
dent and as contented as any normal 
class in America. The woman is the one 
to lead and insist upon this right and 
wholesome standard in her home, and if 
she stands shoulder to shoulder with her 
farmer, and uses her ballot wisely and 
well, we will all live to see American 
agriculture take its natural place in the 
sun, and our greatest trials and tribula¬ 
tions will be over and done with. But 
we all won’t attain to this good state of 
affairs. Poor farmers we will always 
have with us—and farmers’ poor wives! 
It takes all kinds of folk to farm it. and 
not all of us have the capacity for success. 
But. if everyone were to succeed, there 
would be no fun in living anyway, and 
meanwhile those of us not yet successful 
can hopefully keep fighting on, realizing 
that times are going to be better, not 
worse, for the persevering farmers of the 
future. I think we can find a good many 
things to be thankful for this year, and 
those who can’t are far gone indeed. Don’t 
envy a successful farmer and his wife; 
resolve to be one yourself. It can be done, 
but it all depends on ourselves 
H. S. K. W. 
© 1919, G.-D. Co. 
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