State Convention— farm Life. 
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farm, toiled a fond father and a loving, gentle voiced mother, per¬ 
forming her household duties with no help but her young chil¬ 
dren ; struggling with privations, knowing little of society outside 
her home, seldom leaving it except for the house of worship. 
Time passed on and growing children made increasing demands- 
on the mother’s time and the father’s purse. There was little 
money for improvements, but the trees were planted, the roses 
bloomed, the peonies reared their crimson heads and scattered 
their gay colored petals to the winds, the vines yielded their purple 
fruit, the orchard its treasures, and the seedling pear tree hastened 
to add its fruit. There was no thought of adding more acres to 
the farm. The children must be clothed, schooled, and fed. 
Daily bread and intellectual food must be had. Books and papers 
were there. The little seven year old boy, whose arms could 
scarcely span the columns of a newspaper, would talk intelligently 
of the news of the day. The years went by, and seven dutiful 
sons and three daughters, each with a spotless reputation, went 
out from that humble home into our own beautiful west, to fill 
places of honor and trust. The daughters became teachers and 
wives, and presided over tasteful, beautiful homes, and those 
parents, now in the late evening of life, with only its simple com¬ 
forts, are giving to the world the example of successful lives. 
There is no good reason why farmers’ wives should become 
rusty and faded before their time, a by word, as they often are, 
/ 
for those who know little of a useful life. The cultured brain 
can live -without the appliances of wealth or the pleasures of soci¬ 
ety. Years of sickness and almost solitary confinement to her 
chamber did not destroy the gifted mind of that sweet woman, 
Elizabeth Barrett Browning; neither did the poverty nor humble 
home of Erederika Bremer make her songs less sweet or her com¬ 
pany less charming. 
The causes of premature old age aud worn out nerves are not so 
much in the outward surroundings as in the spirit of the place. 
The hand of affeetion and taste can do much to lighten the 
privation and labor, but in country homes where there is much of 
this, too little thought is given to that better part of life, and this 
is why we so often hear it said that women do not like farming. 
Many a man will tell you that he has tried farming but his wife 
