This book has been written about the Country Girl and for the Country Girl; for her mother and father, and for everybody else as well; but especially for the Country Girl herself. It will reach its aim if some father says, "Why, here now, somebody has written a book about my little gal there. I should not have thought it was worth while to make a book about her. Well, now, perhaps she is of some account. Guess I'll give her a little more schooling; guess I'll let her go to that institute she was asking to go to; guess I'll let her have some music lessons, or buy her a piano, or send her to college." Or if some mother says wistfully, "My daughter is going to have a better chance than I had!" Or if the Country Girl herself should say, "I see my opportunity and I will arise and fulfil my mission." The book will reach its aim, too, if another thing should happen. This is the first book about the Country Girl. There have been tons of paper devoted to the farmer; reams filled on the farm woman; not a line for the girl. May this first book be followed by many, correcting its misconceptions, rectifying its mistakes, directing its enthusiasms into the best channels for the welfare of the six and three-quarters millions of Country Girls of this land! By that time there will be seven millions--unless in fact these six millions shall have run away to build their homes and rear their children in the hot, stuffy, unsocialized atmosphere of the town, leaving the happy gardens without the joyous voices of children, the fields without sturdy boys to work them, the farm homes without capable young women to--shall I say, to _man_ them? No, let us say to _woman_ them, to _lady_ them, to _mother_ them, and so to make them centers of wholesome interesting life that, if the girls do their part, shall be the very heart and fiber of the nation. The author is sorry that she cannot write to all the Country Girls who have written her either through the questionnaire or through other means of communication in the groups with which she has been so happily associated; but she wishes that every Country Girl who reads this book would write to her (using the address below) and tell her where she thinks the book has spoken truly and where mistakenly. She trusts the judgment of the Country Girls of America absolutely, if they can but be induced to speak in unison and after careful thought. MARTHA FOOTE CROW. Tuckahoe, New York City August, 1915. CHAPTER I THE COUNTRY GIRL--WHERE IS SHE? Woman will bless and brighten every place she enters, and she will enter every place on this round earth. _Frances E. Willard._ _O Woman, what is the thing you do, and what is the thing you cry?_ _Is your house not warm and enclosed from harm, that you thrust the curtain by?_ _And have we not toiled to build for you a peace from the winds outside,_ _That you seek to know how the battles go and ride where the fighters ride?_