Farm life -- United States; Girls -- United States
The wisest find life a difficult thing to classify; therefore young
girls must not be blamed if they do not critically analyze the causes
and the effects that appear in their personal environment. When asked,
however, to give pictures of their daily experiences they do not fail
us. Such glimpses of the real life of some Country Girls in their farm
homes will be afforded by the partial recitals given in this chapter. To
other Country Girls or to those to whom the welfare of the country girl
is dear, or even to those urbanized city residents who consider the
dwellers in the open country as a sort of alien race whose ways must be
made a matter of study before they can be comprehended--these and
perhaps others will surely be interested in these fresh and vivid
accounts of the everyday doings in the farm homes of our country.
A fortunate country girl when asked to write a description of a
representative working day of her life, sends the following joyous
account. She is fifteen years old. Her life is under the protection of
highly educated parents and the safeguards of right home training, taste
and refinement. They come from magnificent stock and work a farm of
medium size in the Northwest. She said:
"I get up at about half-past six in the morning, and have breakfast at
seven. Then I help Mother what I can before I start for school. Mamma
puts up my luncheon while I get ready. About a quarter past eight I
start on my two mile walk to school. For about three quarters of a mile
I follow the road, then I turn off into woods. By following a
half-beaten trail for a ways, I come to a bridge made of wire. The
sides and bottom are of wire; on the bottom are laid rows of planks with
cross pieces to keep them where they belong. The bridge sways when you
walk on it and sometimes it sags quite a little. Across the river I go
through more woods. The schoolhouse is set on the top of a little hill.
There are about twenty pupils in the school. At recess and noon we often
play baseball. We have a fine teeter and swing. At noons all of the
girls and sometimes the boys take their dinners and go out and find some
pretty spot in the woods to eat. In the spring-time we often go flower
hunting. I never get home in the afternoon until about half past four.
After school I play, sew, or help in the garden till supper time. After
supper I do the supper dishes, then we all have a nice time sewing,
reading, or playing games around the fireplace."
A rest-breathing idyl like this shows that it is possible for bits of
heaven to appear here upon earth now and then! The picture is made still
more vivid by this little note:
"Several times we took lunch to an unworked mine near by and enjoyed the
beautiful view and amused ourselves by picking gold out of the crevices
in the rocks." The final touch of romantic beauty!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account