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After this breaking in, she went to a Wiltshire dairy-farmer who possessed forty to fifty cows in milk. He was prejudiced against women workers, and Miss Matheson’s first day was not a happy one. Writing of it afterwards, she said: “I arrived on a Saturday. On Sunday morning I assisted with the milking, and found I was expected to milk at least eight or ten animals. My four weeks’ training had simply taught me how—there had been little time for practising new accomplishments. Consequently my employer told me he would not require me after the end of the week. This announcement was a shock, and exceedingly discouraging. However, I toiled through that week, and at the end of it was asked to stay. Soon I was milking from eight to fifteen cows twice a day; had full charge of the churns and pails, took the milk to the station to meet the London train, looked after the poultry and helped on the land—harvesting, threshing, spreading manure, etc.”
Of course, such work meant rising at five, and by the time Miss Matheson returned from her evening drive to the station it was nearly seven, but the station drive was, she said, a pleasurable duty, “for the sight of the London train reminded me that I still lived in the world.”
Miss Matheson spent seven months on the Wiltshire farm, and the farmer on her departure paid her the compliment of engaging three girls to assist him. She then went to the Prince of Wales’s farm on the Duchy of Cornwall estate, where she is still working.
This farm specialises in stock-breeding, and the herd is a large and valuable one. With cows to milk, calves to rear, bulls to groom and exercise, food to prepare, bedding to change, the work is perpetual, for there are only three workers to tend the animals, and people in charge of stock must work seven days a week. During the winter the cattle claim all the time and attention, but in the summer Miss Matheson manages to help on the land in addition. When autumn came, Miss Matheson’s employers at the Duchy farm began to wonder if she would be able to stand the winter work, but she hastened unhesitatingly to reassure them. The work certainly needs pluck and endurance, both physical and mental. The handling of bulls, for instance, demands no small amount of nerve. “I have had one or two adventures with the bulls,” wrote Miss Matheson to a friend, “and though I must confess I tremble at times, I manage to hold my own. Of course, I could get help if I asked for it, but I do dislike asking. It gives one such an only-a-girl sort of feeling, and then again I am always afraid to let anyone know that sometimes I am afraid.”
It is unnecessary to state the reasons which bring an educated woman voluntarily to take up such a hard and exacting life, not merely for a few weeks of summer, but month after month. Only a deeply-rooted motive can be the impelling force, and there can be no finer form of patriotism than the unsensational performance of these strenuous tasks, far from the glamour and excitement of direct contact with the war. Not only in the fruits of her own labour, but by the force of her example, as one of the pioneers along a new road for women, Miss Matheson is performing as fine a war service as any Englishwoman to-day.
Just as the educated women have made an inspiring response to the call of the country in taking up agricultural work, so also have the women of the villages. In many country districts they have always been accustomed to work on the land, but to-day thousands who never worked before have come forward to give the most concrete proof of their patriotism. They are rightly proud to be entitled to wear the green Government armlet, given for 30 days’ work or 240 hours.
WOMEN AS WOODCUTTERS
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