THE SOLACE OF READING
The countryside does not sufficiently appreciate the value of its asset in the changing seasons. The alternation of winter and summer gives the admirable opportunity for the harvest for support, and for the fireside evenings for culture; the two combined make the possibility of an ideal life. Even in the busy time of summer, the farmer who scientifically organizes his scheme of farm work, will be able to give one day a week at least for reading and the study of the literature of farming. Perhaps the number who compose this orderly scheme of work may at present be small, nor has any such boon of system including leisure for reading reached the farm woman. How that older woman on the farm has felt about this, is one of the great complaints lying back of the Country Life Movement. Will the Country Girl be obliged to inherit this deprivation?
From the Country Girl of to-day, the report is far more cheering than from the older women. She has many books at hand. She feels no poverty in this regard. Sometimes they say: "We have a very large library in our house—as many as a hundred books," or they say, "My father left us a large law library," and they seem to love to gaze at the brown backs of these volumes. Certainly this pride in the inheritance is noble.
If you ask Country Girls what books they have for their very own, they will in many cases give long representative lists. Encyclopedias will be included and sometimes books of reference. Their library lists give an insight into the taste in reading of the American Country Girl that is most gratifying. The first impression is that her taste is well founded in classics; the second, that she keeps up with the times. She shows on the whole great catholicity.
We cannot give room to the long lists: but we may mention some of the books that, in response to our request, some Country Girls mentioned as favorites.
In a long list of books that are her own an Iowa girl stars the following as her favorites:
| Life of Ellen H. Richards |
| Shakespeare's Works |
| Whittier's poems |
| Ben-Hur |
| Uncle Tom's Cabin |
| Kidnapped |
| Quentin Durward |
| The Woman Who Spends |
The stories she enjoys reading when she is tired; the others she takes to study.
Another mentions these:
| All of Mrs. Porter's |
| Several of Stewart Edward White's |
| Several of Ralph Connor's |
| Three of Fox's |
| Two of Churchill's |
| Shepherd of the Hills |
| Johnson's Natural History |
| Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant |
| Life of Livingstone |
| Robert E. Speer's works |
She adds Dickens, Poe, Alcott, Whittier as starred favorites.
In a list of twenty books, a Colorado girl stars a large number. The list is headed by "The Library of the World's Greatest Books." Then she mentions:
| Laddie |
| Freckles |
| Girl of the Limberlost |
| Barriers Burned Away |
| Lady of the Lake |
| As a Man Thinketh |
| The Choir Invisible |
| Little Women |
Her list includes also the Life of John Bunyan, the Life of Christ, the works of George Eliot and of Burns, and many more standard and popular books. She has had a course at college and reads the U. S. Bureau of Agriculture Bulletins.
Books starred by an Idaho girl are:
| At the Foot of the Rainbow |
| Promised Land |
| Friar Tuck |
| Treasure Island |
| King of the Golden River |
| Water Babies |
| The Crisis |
| The Varmint |
| Set of Kipling |
| Set of W. Irving |
She includes also Riley, E. B. Browning, Wordsworth, Burns.
One writer who lives sixty miles from any kind of library is so fortunate as to have all of Dickens, Scott, Shakespeare, and a copy of Longfellow, Tennyson and Browning. "I have," she says, "a great many miscellaneous books, The Promised Land, Laddie, A Girl of the Limberlost, The Friendly Road, and books of that kind. The first three authors are my favorites; but the Bible and Longfellow are the most comfort and enjoyment."
On the whole there are comparatively few to complain, as one did, that the Bible and a paper now and then compose their entire means of outlook into the world of literature; or as this one said: "When I was at home my only book that was my own property was the Bible." Fortunately this young girl had thus a compendium of all literature, and she is coming out all right.
It also should be a surprise that there should be so few to include a list like this: "Prue and I, some books on the economic status of woman, and a few books on domestic science." But perhaps Country Girls would not think to classify their interest in such studies as these under the heading "reading."
The mothers and daughters, if requested together, would no doubt mention some of the same interferences with the pleasure of reading; but the daughters give some that the mothers would never have thought to state. Work is the great interference for both. The daughters are deterred by housework, sewing, picking blue-berries, darning stockings. Weariness, the tired-out feeling, come in. There is so much work to be done in doors and out, and the barn work lasts so late; the evenings are short and when the work is finished, it is time to retire.
It is rather pathetic to see how many Country Girls will mention the moment of getting to bed and to sleep as the happiest point in the day. But then—no one has yet said that she was too tired to sleep—and that, we are sure, has happened many and many times to the mothers of yore! And when the daughter speaks of having been kept from reading by her demonstration work duties, we certainly hear a note of the new era being struck. But what farm woman of the old days ever gave "so many other pleasures," or "too many places to go," as reasons for not reading? Piano practise, too, and "friends running in" prevent the reading. There cannot be much isolation in such a farmstead as that!
Many Country Girls insist emphatically that in spite of difficulties they do read a good deal. Such a girl says that when she has a book the hour of night draws nigh too soon. Another always reserves a few hours each week for reading, though sometimes she can not make it every day. A determined girl declares that she lets nothing interfere with a certain amount of reading. This sort of testimony reaches a height in one who says that she reads or studies five hours every day. Yet the girl who wrote that does most of the housework for a small family and takes care of a large garden.
A few lament the scarcity of books. They have no opportunity to get books aside from the few belonging to one's friends; but these are soon read and re-read. Lack of material is the chief interference with reading with an uncomplaining but very important minority.
If there does really remain any girl in the country who does not know that she can get books from the traveling libraries that are maintained now by almost every State, the glad message should be taken to her at once. And any girl with a fair share of energy could start a small library in her village or her community, even as the peripatetic librarian did in Mr. Bouck White's book, The Mixing, who carried the books about to every house and pressed them upon the family at its very threshold. In that case the house was the castle of the woman as well as the man, but the little librarian battered an entrance with her winning ways. After a while everybody blessed her, and her old mare and wagon were welcomed along the roads.
Or the Country Girl might begin with a book exchange club in which each member buys a book a year and these are handed from member to member by the month or as shall be agreed upon. Meetings may be called to talk the books over and fine discussions of ethical points involved in the stories read may be held. At the end of the year the books may be lodged in some convenient place to be used by others not members of the club. In this way a nucleus is made for a regular library. The same can be done with magazines. At the end of the year a "banquet" may be held; each member may be dressed up to represent some book, speeches may be made while good things are eaten, and literary conversation may to some extent drive out less worthy and less interesting themes. Almost anything can be done if there are young people enough to get together and talk over plans. The whole tone of the community may be lifted and many a young person may be saved from the evil things that creep in where the mental spaces have not been forestalled by better ideals.
Many a Country Girl has laid the foundations for a regular public library by using the country store and the schoolhouse for book stations. In one very successful attempt of this kind, one hundred books of fiction and travel, children's books, religious books, history, and biography were chosen. Voluntary assistance was given by friends, and records were carefully kept. The following were the appliances necessary. Besides the one hundred books, there were five hundred book labels, one hundred borrowers' cards, four record books for the librarian, three small memorandum books for the stations, three typewritten book lists or catalogs, and one hundred hand bills. On the borrowers' cards were printed the directions, which were these: "Any responsible person wishing books may borrow them one at a time; no book may be kept out longer than two weeks; no charge is made for the use of books; please take care of them and return them promptly." The librarian visited the stations at regular intervals and took up the books that were returned.
There can hardly be a more definite way in which a girl may serve her community than by starting some such scheme as this. If her own home were conveniently situated, she could use it as book station.
It is to be feared that the Country Girl does not make the most of one great privilege: namely, to lead the family to indulge the luxury and joy of reading aloud together on winter evenings from some interesting author. Even in a family that is fond of reading, each member of the circle will be seen when lamps are lighted to settle down to read from the book or paper that interests himself or herself alone, and all the good of unified thought, that might be theirs if they had read aloud, of vital interruption and comment, of living together in mind and growing together as the story develops, of enjoying the humor and romance together, are entirely lost. To read great pieces of literature together in the family is to put a personal consecration about the genius-crowned work of the master spirit. Never can a great epic or drama mean so much to any one of us by closet perusal as it would if we had shared it with our next of kin. This is another place where losing our life is gaining our life. Our treasure is doubled by giving it to others. Winter evenings and Sunday afternoons all the year round, may be made memorable by association with the greatest minds through their preserved works.
The complaint has been made that there is no literature of farm life—that our literature is now completely urbanized and industrialized. There certainly is a tendency in this direction, especially in the realm of fiction. But it is possible to find some that are giving the country its due, and the writings of Mrs. Porter, so dear to Country Girls, are a proof of the fact.[1]
But if the Genius of Fiction has become absorbed with the problem of the city, that of Poetry has remained true to its first love among the fields and streams. It is a joy to know that the poets will always be found among the books chosen for the happy winter evening in the country home. There, if not in fiction and tale, countryside people find a reflection of their thoughts. Perhaps this is because poetry is the one art that can conveniently penetrate to the distant homes in remote rural places. Since time immemorial country life seems to have been not only an inspiration to poets, but also to the development of our powers of expression in that highest of the arts. What is there about life in the open that gives to genius its incentive? The beauty of the surroundings ought to be a sufficient answer. But perhaps that very individuality that we blame country life for overdeveloping may be the favorable ground for the upspringing of this noble human blossom. At any rate it seems that if a soul is born with the endowment of genius, the psychical offices of country life will carry those native qualities to their highest power. Many a city child has been born with the light of genius in its eyes and has had this fire smothered out in the close air and wild rush of the metropolis. But the woods still face the window where Bryant looked out into their mysterious depths, and the brook still sings its way down from the mountains and past the farm where he spent his early years. To him the Berkshire groves were God's chosen temples, first and last.
It is because of this that the poetic writers of the present day and hour should find a sympathetic hearing in the country realm even when the turmoil and drive of the metropolis are deaf to their music. If our living poets may have the people of the countryside for their great and widespread audience they need ask no greater joy.
Mr. Vachel Lindsay, a wandering poet who has traveled almost all over this country preaching his Gospel of Beauty and Democracy, says that in almost every ranch-house "is born one flower-girl or boy, a stranger among the brothers and sisters," a "fairy changeling." The land, he says, is being "jeweled with talented children," from Maine to California. These children of to-day, though they may not be adapted to the strain of heavy labor, yet they will be infinitely patient with the violin, or chisel, or brush, or pen. Country people should be on the watch for those rare wonder children who will be the poets of the future. One of these may seem at the beginning like a simply unusual child. Afterward it may be seen that what was thought queer or different, may have been higher or supreme. We may not have been ourselves sufficiently attuned to the supreme in human accomplishment to recognize the elements in their beginning. Great genius is not "to madness near allied," but is the sanest and most normal thing in the whole realm of creation. The extension of human powers in the field of what we call "genius" is what makes the benefactor of the race in any field most successful and the reformer most influential.
Moreover, every child has the right to find forces in his world that will make his powers, however great or however small, grow to the full measure of which he is capable. If one has a little ability in the field of any one among the arts, he has a right to experience the joy and the benefit that as much training as he is capable of taking shall give to him. Therefore artistic training should be given to every child. And since poetry is the art that is most widely disseminated, the one most practical in its service and cheapest to get hold of in places far distant from picture galleries and concert halls, therefore there should be in all the homes in the open, a great deal of poetry, in order to satisfy the demand that is deeply imbedded in every human being for the satisfaction of the love of beauty.
Here is indeed a great service for the daughter in the family to supply. She is the poetic individual in the home circle. It will be readily acknowledged as fitting that she should know poetry by heart. That she should sing poetry feelingly and speak it effectively will be forgiven by a business-hardened parent and a rough, deriding brother, more readily than if any other member of the family circle should make the attempt. And the persevering and enthusiastic girl will be repaid by finding that the tight outer case of the father will after a time be loosened and that he will be surprised to find himself enjoying what he did not know he liked. She will be gratified again when the heroic ballad, told to appeal to the brother who is in the chivalrous and fighting era of boyhood, fulfils its mission not only by amusing him, but by leading him up to the chivalric motives and to the conquest of selfishness by the higher ideal of honor and devoir. If, too, she will select for her evening reading volumes of the poets who are writing to-day in her own country, writing out of today's life and mood and hope and pain, she will be far more likely to find a sympathetic response in her living audience, than if she chooses from the pages of any souls of poets dead and gone, however classic.