From the work of girls like these, incentive has been removed, or else it was never there. This sort of Country Girl may not reason it out to the point of clearness, but the lack of acknowledgment of her labor in the farmstead as an industry, as an essential part of the business, makes her toil seem hopeless; it renders her feeling toward whatever charm the country may have for her permanently callous; and it takes all the vibrancy out of her spirit. All this makes her alert to find deep-seated defects in rural life in conditions that, but for her disaffection would seem but difficulties easily overcome. The look cityward is not always caused by the incitement of an uneasy, a commercial, or an ignoble impulse. It is sometimes the call of the best and noblest part of the soul. To such as recognize this higher purpose the passion for education, for free access to libraries, for association with intellectual people, form a part of the city's lure. They desire to see more of life, to have more and closer contact with one's fellows, to gain valuable companionship, to get more and broader pleasures, to have greater opportunities to make something of one's self. The young women who are thinking such thoughts as these are full of the energy of youth; they are at the moment of opening ambitions and developing personality; they are making plans for the future. They are not the women who in long years have grown accustomed to their burdens and have either learned how to bear them or have become sodden with the despair of ever finding any relief from their load. The brightness of young hope has not faded out, and the buoyant spirit still stands up underneath whatever is to be done or borne. Youth feels equal to anything. Therefore the slightest deflection of their courage from the norm should have the closest attention. CHAPTER VIII THE INHERITANCE We men of earth have here the stuff Of Paradise--we have enough! We need no other thing to build The stairs into the Unfulfilled-- No other ivory for the doors-- No other marble for the floors-- No other cedar for the beam And dome for man's immortal dream. Here on the path of every day-- Here on the common human way-- Is all the busy gods would take To build a heaven, to mold and make New Edens. Ours the stuff sublime To build Eternity in time! _Edwin Markham._ CHAPTER VIII THE INHERITANCE This, then, is the indictment of country life as it now is, by the Country Girl who is now living in the midst of it.