1268 
Iht RURAL NEW-YORKER 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
“CLASS” 
The other day the papers announced 
the death of the ex-Empress Eugenie. 
She lingered along, feeble and half-blind, 
until she was nearly 95 years old. She 
has been called “the Queen of Sorrows,” 
for few other women have lived a sadder 
life. Very few of this generation knew 
or cared anything about her. I presume 
most of our young people skipped the de¬ 
tails of her life as given in the papers. 
Yet when I was a boy, shortly before the 
war between France and Germany, the 
women of the world regarded this sad 
empress as the great model of beauty and 
fashion. I suppose it w-ould be hard for 
women in these days to realize how this 
beaxitiful empress dictated to people in 
every land how they should arrange their 
hair and wear their dresses. At that time 
most women wore their hair in short nets 
bunched just below the neck, and it was 
the age of “hoopskirts”—most of them, as 
it seemed, four to five feet wide. Just 
how this woman managed to put her ideas 
of fashion into the imagination of her sis¬ 
ters I never could understand. From the 
big city to the little backwoods hamlet 
women were studying to see what 
“Ugeeny” advised them to wear. I have 
often wondered if in her last days the 
poor, blind, feeble woman remembered 
those days of power. 
Her death brings to mind an incident 
that had long been forgotten. I had 
been sent to one of the neighbors to 
borrow some milk, since our cow was dry. 
In those days, any caller—even a little 
boy—was like a pond in which one went 
fishing for compliments. The woman of 
the house, an immense, fat creature, with 
the shape of a barrel, a short, thick neck 
and a round moon face, had arrayed hei*- 
self in glad clothes of the latest style—• 
several years, I imagine, behind Paris. 
She wore an immense hoopskirt, which 
gave her the appearance of walking in¬ 
side of a hogshead. Her hair was parted 
in the middle and brought down beside 
her wide face to be caught in a net just 
below her ears. I knew »so little and 
cared so much less about style in clothes 
that I can remember in detail only two 
costumes that I have ever seen women 
wear. This outfit, is one of them. 
“This is just what Ugeeny is wearing,” 
said the fat lady as she poured out the 
milk. “You can tell your aunt that you 
have seen one lady dressed just accord¬ 
ing to Paris ideas,” 
It did not strike me as very impressive, 
but I was glad to have the experience. 
“You can tell her, too, that a very fine 
gentleman came here today and said I 
looked enough like Ugeeny to be her half- 
sister—dressed as I am now. This gen¬ 
tleman has been in Paris, too.” 
“It was a book agent,” put in her hus¬ 
band. “and sold her a book on the strength 
of that yarn. Ray. Mary, you don’t look 
any more like Ugeeny than old Spot does 
■—and you don’t need to.” 
“The trouble with you, John Drake, is 
that you have no soul, and no idea of 
beauty or higher feeling.” 
“I know it. I may not have any soul, 
but I’ve got a stomach, and I know that 
ou can make the best doughnuts and 
ndian pudding ever made in Bristol 
County. That’s more than Ugeeny ever 
did. or ever can do. You are worth three 
of her for practical value to the world, 
and I think you a handsome woman— 
but you can’t look like her. because you 
haven’t got the shape, and I’m glad of it.” 
Bxit where was there ever a woman 
who could be satisfied with such evident 
truth, and who did not reach out after 
the imnossible? She turned to old grand¬ 
pa, who sat back in the corner, away from 
the light. 
“Now. grandpa, you see a lot of the 
world. What do you say? Don’t I look- 
like Ugeeny?” 
Old grandpa nodded his white head and 
looked at her critically. 
“You're in her class, Mary—that’s what 
I’ll say—you’re in her class!” 
* * * * * 
“You’re, in her class.” repeated grand¬ 
pa. “The people in this world are di¬ 
vided into classes—strung together like 
beads on different strings. Some strings 
are like character, others like looks or 
shape or thinking or maybe meanness. 
You can’t get out of your class—for the 
Bord organized it and teaches it. You 
look at me; I’m in the class with some 
of the finest men that ever lived on 
earth !” 
“Now. Mary, see -what, you’ve done.” 
said John Drake. “You’ve got grandpa 
startd on that class business. He’s worse 
than Ugeeny.” 
But grandpa went right, ahead. “Ain’t 
I in the class with the old and new 
prophets? Here I have for yeai*s been 
telling what is coming to the world. Folks 
won’t always be down as they are now. 
My wife killed herself carrying water and 
fuel to get up vittles and keep the house 
clean. Rome day or ‘nuther every farm¬ 
house will have water and heat and light 
right inside. There’ll be power to do all 
this heavy work. In those days farmers 
will be kinga” 
The old man’s face lighted up as he 
talked. 
“You don’t believe me now, but it will 
all come. I’m out: ahead of the crowd. 
So was Wendell Phillips and William 
Lloyd Garrison and Charles Sumner on 
the slavery question. Folks hooted at 
them, laughed them down and did all they 
could to stop their ideas. But you can’t 
stop one of these ideas when there’s a 
man back of it. Those men lived to see 
what the world called fool notions made 
into wisdom. They just had visions 
which don’t come to common men. That’s 
what I’ve got now, and what I ask is, 
Ain’t I in their class?" 
* * * * * 
“If I was in your place I wouldn’t 
mind grandpa,” said Mary, as she shook 
out that great hoopskirt. “That’s not 
good talk for boys; it makes them discon¬ 
tented !” 
“But that’s why they’ve got to be if 
the woi-ld is going ahead,” put in grandpa. 
“What’s the matter with farming today, 
I’ll ask? Education has all gone to 
other things. Farmers think the common 
schools are plenty good enough for farm¬ 
ers, while the colleges are all for lawyers 
and such like. You mark what I say— 
some day or ’nuther there will be /arm 
colleges as big as any, where farming will 
be taught just like lawing or doctoring. 
Then people will see that farming is agri¬ 
culture, mid the difference between the 
two will change the world. This Ugeeny 
doesn’t, amount to much as a woman, and 
I don’t believe this Prince Imperial will 
ever nile France, but Ugeeny has put 
women like Mary in her class. These 
clothes look foolish to me, but every 
woman who follows Ugeeny in dress gets 
into her class, and it’s like a school girl 
passing from one grade to another, for 
some day they’ll pass out of that, hoopskirt 
and that bob net for their hair and i-ise 
up to better things, and it will be Ugeeny 
that started them. She may be only a 
painted doll, but she has given the women 
ideas of beauty and something better than 
common. Rometime or ’nuther you will 
see the result of her idle life. That’s why 
I say Mary’s in Ugeeny’s class. Rhe’s 
got the vision of beauty and something 
far ahead of you. John. You are smart 
and strong. but. Mary’s getting class. That 
hoopskirt and that net are not prisons—• 
they help to set her free.” 
“Well, grandpa,” said John, good-na- 
turedly, “I suppose, according to you, I 
ought to put on a swallow-tailed coat 
every time I milk.” 
“No ; not when you milk, John, but if 
you shaved every day and put on your 
best clothes once a day for supper, you 
would get in the upper class, and carry 
your boys with you. But. I ask this boy 
here, ain’t I in their class?” 
I was sure of it, but just then we heard 
the horn sounding far down the road. I 
knew that Uncle Daniel had grown tired 
of waiting for the milk, so he blew the 
horn to remind me that I was still in 
the class of errand boys. 
* * * * * 
In August of that year I went up on 
Black Mount after huckleberries, and ran 
upon grandpa once more. He sat on a 
rock resting, while Mary and three chil¬ 
dren were picking near by. The hill was 
thick with a tangle of berry vines and 
briers, with snakes and woodchucks as 
sole inhabitants. Old grandpa sat on the 
rock and waved his stick about. 
“In my younger days this hill was a 
cornfield. I have seen it all in wheat. 
Fanners let education and money get 
away, and. of course, the best boys chased 
out after them. But ilt won’t always be 
so. Rome day or ’nuther this field will 
come back. It won’t pay in these coming 
days to raise huckleberries in this way. 
They will be raised in gardens like straw¬ 
berries and raspberries. This hill will 
'have to produce something that is worth 
more—poaches or apples.” 
“But how can they make peaches grow 
on this sour hill, grandpa?” a deed one 
of the boys. “There’s a seedling now— 
10 yeai’s old and not four feet high!” 
“They will bring in lime for the soil 
as they will coal in place of wood. I 
don’t know how it will be done, but some 
day or ’nuther they will use yeast in the 
soil as they do in bread to make it come 
up, and they’ll harness the lightning to 
’leetrify it. You wait till these farm 
colleges give us knowledge. And farm¬ 
er^, too. They won’t, always stand back 
and fight each other and backbite and try 
to get each other’s hide. Rome day or 
’nuther grown-up men and women are 
going to see what life ought to be. They 
will come together to live, instead of 
standing apart to die. I may not see it, 
and people laugh at me for saying what 
I know must come true. But didn’t they 
laugh at Columbus? Didn’t they try to 
kill Galileo? Wasn’t Morse voted a fool? 
Hasn’t it always been so with the men 
and women who looked far over the valley 
and saw the light ahead? And, tell me 
this: Ain’t 7 in their class?" 
That was 50 years and more ago. I 
had forgotten it, and yet when I read the 
headlines announcing the death of Em¬ 
press Eugenie I had to put the paper 
down, for there rose before me a picture 
of that sunny Rummer day on the New 
England hills. On the rock in that lonely 
pasture sat old grandpa pointing with his 
stick far across the rolling valley, far 
to the shadow on the distant hills, where 
he knew the immortals were awaiting him 
—as one who had kept his soul clean and 
his faith undimmed. T wish I could look 
across the valley to the distant hills with 
the sublime hope with which he asked his 
old question : 
“Ain’t J in their class?" 
s!t $ * * 4t 
A year or two ago I went back to the 
old town. Ah. but if grandpa could see 
it. now! The old house with its “beau” 
windows and new roof seemed to be 
dressed with as much taste as Eugenie 
would be if she v-ere still Empress of 
France. There wore power and light and 
heat all through it. Two boys and a girl 
were home from an agricultural college— 
one of the boys being manager of the 
local selling organization. Black Mount 
was a foi-est of McIntosh and Baldwin 
apple trees, the old swamp was drained 
and lay a thick mat of clover. Grandpa’s 
vision had come true—all but one thing. 
Education and power had brought ma¬ 
terial things, which would have seemed to 
be miracles to John and Mary. Yet 
farmers wei-e not “kings,” after all, as 
grandpa said they would be, for there was 
still discontent and talk of injustice. 
But. after all, that is what grandpa said 
—“That’s what, they’ve got to be, if the 
world is going ahead.” 
Pei*haps, after all, a “divine discontent” 
is the noblest legacy of the ages. 
But in the churchyard back in one cor¬ 
ner I came upon grandpa’s gi*ave. It 
was not very well cared foi\ It had not 
been trimmed. A bird had made her nest 
and reared her brood right by the side 
of the headstone. It. was a lonely place. 
As I stood there a cow in the adjoining 
pasture put her head over the stone wall 
and tried to gnaw the grass on that 
neglected grave. And this was what they 
had carved on the stone: 
“The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh 
away !” 
If I could have my way. I would put 
up another stone with this insci-iption: 
Grandpa. 
“lin’i I in their class?" 
H. W. O. 
Commissioner Porter and Bond 
Exemption 
My attention has been called to an 
article on page 1191 of Tiie R. N.-Y. 
relating to the Cornwall Farms Daix-y 
Company. The article wholly misrepre¬ 
sents the facts in the case. In the first, 
place, during the license year of 191R-19, 
after a thorough examination of the as¬ 
sets of the company, including a consid¬ 
erable amount of real estate, an exemp¬ 
tion from the filing of a bond was granted 
this company for that license year, end¬ 
ing August 31, 1919. The application 
for the new license year showed a greatly 
increased volume of milk being purchased 
and, after an examination of my Bureau 
of Licenses, a bond was demanded from 
the company. Ruck bond not having been 
filed, the case was sent to the Attorney- 
General early in December of last year, 
and the case has been under his conti-ol 
ever since. 
One W. B. Horton, of Perryville. N. 
Y., wrote this department at various 
times, and was advised of the exact situa¬ 
tion. including the demand for the bond. 
It i6 true that a letter was sent him 
regarding the previous year’s exemption, 
but his attention was called this year to 
what had been done by the department 
in attempting to secure a bond from the 
Cornwall Company. 
Your statement as to losses on account 
of exemptions by me is not boi-ne out by 
any facts. I do not know of a single case 
where I have granted an exemption to a 
company which has later gone into bank¬ 
ruptcy during the period for which such 
exemption was granted. 
I wish to add that I have repeatedly 
taken the position that I did not want 
the responsibility of granting exemptions, 
and have urged the repeal of such pro¬ 
vision by the Legislature. No exemption 
has been granted by me until a very 
thorough investigation. Furthermore, un- 
der the decision of the courts of this 
Rtate and an opinion by the Attorney- 
General. it. is my duty to exempt if after 
an investigation I find that an applicant 
for such license “is solvent and possessed 
of sufficient assets to reasonably assure 
compensation to probable creditors.” 
I trust you will give this letter the 
same publicity that was given M T . B. H. 
and your comments thereon. 
EUGENE II. PORTER, 
, Commissioner. 
We had no purpose of a personal criti¬ 
cism of Commissioner Porter in the state¬ 
ments to which he refers. Our criticism 
was of the system that makes possible 
the accumulation of losses to dairymen. 
Our sympathies have rather been with 
Commissioner Porter. We know the 
power of the milk trust in New York 
State. We know the means by which it 
got control of the Department; and we 
know that under present conditions 
neither Commissioner Porter nor any 
other man could use it to serve the dairy- 
men of the Rtate as it was intended to 
do, and remain at the head of it. Tf free 
to do so, we believe Dr. Porter would 
want to use the Department for the pur¬ 
poses for which it was created. 
Dr. Porter, however, is uot fortunate 
in his explanations. What, does it mat¬ 
ter, even if the once exempted company 
did not go into bankruptcy until after the 
period of exemption expired? The im¬ 
portant fact is that the Department ex¬ 
empted the companies. Dairymen’s sus¬ 
picions were thereby quieted. They wore 
given official assurances of the soundness 
of the milk dealer to secure payment for 
July 31, 1920 
the milk. The failure followed, and 
dairymen, through these repeated pro¬ 
cesses, keep on losing an average of over a 
million dollars annually. 
Nearly two years ago dairymen asked 
our opinion of the responsibility of the 
Cornwall Dairy Company. We looked it 
up. We found that it was recently or¬ 
ganized. It took over the business of one 
of its officers, who had previously paid 
his modest milk bills and who had some 
personal means. We could not find that 
any cash was paid into the treasury of 
the company. Rtock was issued for the 
business, and the company was getting 
large credit on the fact that the previous 
owner had paid his bills, though this pre¬ 
vious owner and present official was in 
no way responsible for the present milk 
bills. He could draw out money received 
for milk on salary and dividends, leave 
the company bankrupt, and no dairyman 
could touch him for execution for their 
milk bills. It was exactly the kind of 
machinery that has been created thou¬ 
sands of times before to swindle farmers 
out of milk. We reported these facts, and 
recommended that the Depai-tment be re¬ 
quested to demand a bond, and that milk 
bilks be collected promptly. To the re¬ 
quest for a bond Dr. Porter wi*ote these 
dairymen that he did not consider it 
necessary to demand a bond from the 
company. Dairymen were not advised of 
the change of judgment or of circum¬ 
stances, and when inquiry again was 
made it was too late to be of service. If 
a dealer refuses to issue a license when 
demanded by the Department, Tiie R. 
N.-Y. will take all the chance of a libel 
suit and publish the facts, if the Depart¬ 
ment will furnish them. 
We agree with Dr. Porter that there 
should be no exemptions in the law. The 
exemption clause testifies to the power of 
the milk trust. That is the form of joker 
used hy the trusts, because they have con¬ 
fidence in their ability to influence the 
execution of law. If Dr. Porter were 
free to exercise his own judgment and 
preference we believe he would give dairy¬ 
men the pi’eference and exact the bonds, 
taking his chances in the courts for any 
contest over his judgment. But if he did 
it. we would have another commissioner 
with more respect for milk trust interests. 
Learning the Automobile Business 
I have a boy 18 years old who wants 
to learn the automobile business: that is, 
to be able to repair cars in a thorough 
workmanlike way. Which would best fit 
him for this kind of work, a course at an 
auto school or to enter some automobile 
factory as an apprentice? Of course, we 
have the circulars from flic school, and 
they read all right, but they are advertis¬ 
ing the school, and we want to be sure 
that their claims are not overdrawn, for 
we can ill afford the expense if the train¬ 
ing there would uot be thorough, practical 
and sufficient. W. P. w. 
New Hampshire. 
If we had such a boy our plan would 
be to put him in some first-class garage 
or factory as an apprentice. and_ let him 
learn “from the ground up.” We would 
make sure to locate him in some place 
where first-class, honest work is done, and 
where the surroundings are good. In 
connection with this practical work let 
him read and study the best works on the 
subject. We think that would be a more 
practical training than, the school, but 
we have had no real experience, and 
would like to hear from those who have 
had. 
A Woman from Germany 
I have a niece in Germany who would 
like to come to me. Rhe is 20 years old, 
good and strong. Rhe would like t<? keep 
house for me; my wife refuses to live on 
a farm, and I have no children. I could 
double the output on my place if I had 
a woman to do the housework. At pres¬ 
ent I am obliged to do all the farm work 
and keep house, loo. because I cannot 
afford to pay $50 a month for a house¬ 
keeper. I have been told that I could 
not get my niece across the water, as the 
United Rtates was still at war with Ger¬ 
many. How must I go about it to be 
able to have her come? I have two 
horses and 10 head of cattle to look after; 
have to do the milking and take care of a 
good flock of chickens, so you can see 
that. I have lots to do outside the house¬ 
work. F. J. S. 
This woman must first obtain a T Pass- 
port, signed and vised by some United 
Rtates Consul or some other authorized 
agent. Rhe cannot enter this country 
without, it. Then when she comes you 
must make affidavit that she will not be¬ 
come a public charge, and that respon¬ 
sible people will provide for her. But 
the first step is to obtain a passport from 
Germany. The rest will be comparatively 
easy. 
