CHAPTER III
IS THE COUNTRY GIRL HAPPY ON THE FARM?
Let the mighty and great
Roll in splendor and state!
I envy them not, I declare it.
I eat my own lamb,
My own chicken and ham,
I shear my own sheep and I wear it.
I have lawns, I have bowers,
I have fruits, I have flowers.
My lark is my morning's charmer;
So you jolly dogs now
Here's God bless the plow—
Long life and content to the farmer.
Inscription on an old English pitcher.
CHAPTER III
IS THE COUNTRY GIRL HAPPY ON THE FARM?
The young women who read this book will surely believe that no mere curiosity inspires the question at the head of this chapter, but a fully fixed idea that much depends on the answer. If it is not to be possible for the young women to be made happy in the rural environment, they surely are going to turn in great numbers and follow the beckoning finger of industries and engagements townward. And if multitudes of them do this, it will be increasingly difficult to keep that composite thing, the farmstead, in perfect balance; and in that balance the daughters have every year a more important part. Their share, in fact, is constantly growing more vital, more indispensable to the welfare of the whole.
There is also an even more important consideration. It is this. The daughters in the homes of to-day are the home-makers of to-morrow; if they are estranged irrecoverably from the countryside, what is to become of the countryside in the days that are to come? Can we entertain the hope that the city cousins will come to the rescue? Can we reply upon the inrush of new families from across the seas to enter our widespread fields and valleys and support for us the burden of scientific housekeeping, and high-minded home making, and modern education in the spirit of American institutions?