The American Country Girl

by Martha Foote Crow

This was the first entrancing glimpse. But any one who knows about farm work, realizes that this view of a run-down, neglected old place means a long struggle. Nature has reached out hands to pull the whole cultivation back into the wilderness. In that tangled fragrant clearing was waiting a severe test for a trained farmer, not to say, for a beginner. But this girl was determined to live on the farm, and she stood ready to face all difficulties in the attainment of her desire. That neglected garden was typical. She soon had it cleaned and the bulbs reset, and it was not long before there were flowers for every month in the year. All difficulties seem to have been met with a spirit of determination and of cheer. "We were crazy," she declares, "to live on a farm and determined not to fail; but as soon as one problem was solved, another would bob up. There was never a day without some unexpected happening, and adventures were plentiful."

She would have amply proved that she appreciated the attractiveness of farm life if she had not classified her thoughts and set them down so neatly. To her the charm of life on the farm consists, first, in the fresh air and wholesome food, with plenty of fruit and vegetables, together with the pleasure of helping to produce and prepare the food. In her opinion having to depend upon one's self to decide courses of action as much as you do in farm life, gives one backbone and trains one to rely upon self and to be an effective leader. She has, as most true country people have, an ineradicable and fundamental passion for independence. In town one may have the advice of the minister, the doctor and the lawyer; but in the country, she says, it is the Lord and I. Again, it takes much less time and less expense to keep up appearances in dress in the country; one is freer from interruptions than in town, and ties of kinship are stronger among people of the country. No, the farm is not monotonous; one acquires a liberal education just by being alive; nature study, the work in the flower garden, affords constant variety; and there are new interests and adventures every day.

This girl has also thought on the other side of the question, and she can see that there may be reasons why one may prefer to leave the farm. One may feel the lack of companionship near one's own age and the lack of recreation. Too much importance may be placed on field work to the neglect of the garden; unkind criticism by neighbors may be the only recreation available; and not paying the women of the family for their aid in the household service, may be in her mind sufficient reasons for desertion. These, in short, are some of the things she emphasized.

An average day of her life on the farm is a busy one. She says:

"The sun wakes me up in the morning, or maybe it is the mocking-birds singing. I work in the garden gathering the vegetables, picking the flowers, or cultivating, until breakfast time. After breakfast I make the beds and straighten the bedrooms; then I work in the garden again until about 9:30 or 10:00 o'clock. Then I come in and help with the dinner or sew or study or write, and if it is bread-baking day I always knead the bread and prepare it for the oven. As we have breakfast about five-thirty o'clock we get so hungry we have dinner about 11:30. After dinner we rest a half hour either by reading or by lying down. In the afternoon after a bath I study or sew until it is cool enough to work in the garden. For supper we only make coffee and warm over something left from dinner. We have supper at five o'clock, but usually have a bowl of clabber or a glass of milk before going to bed. I work in the garden until dark; then we talk a while and go to bed about nine o'clock. In the winter we talk or read after supper until bed-time. However, in canning time the study, the sewing, and a good part of the reading are put aside."

It is evident that her share in the housework is not a small one. She does the sewing and much of the gardening, taking entire care of the flower-garden. She does marvels of canning; she keeps the accounts; she straightens out the rooms, and helps with the cooking. She runs the errands, waiting on the father, who is permanently disabled. To facilitate her work she has a sewing machine, an oil stove, a pump near the door, and a wheel-hoe. What she desires in the way of equipment in order to make her housekeeping easier are these only—her thoughts for herself have not flown very high!—a kitchen cabinet and a clothes wringer. Since they eat a great deal of cream cheese and lots of fruit and vegetables raw, she does not feel that they need a fireless cooker; but she does greatly need a canner. Since the canner is so frequently offered as a prize, this need will no doubt be soon supplied.

The recreations of this hard-working girl consist of reading, going visiting, walking, studying nature, making a flower garden, and writing letters. She also naïvely includes going to Sunday School among her recreations. She takes an excursion to the shore once in a great while; but only seldom has she the time for that. She can have the use of a conveyance at convenience, and on Saturday she and her mother drive to town and occasionally on Sunday to church. Has she no games? No, she is an only child and has never had any playmate in the home. Besides the flower garden and nature study form her recreation. But she thoughtfully encloses in one letter a list of games that she thinks girls may like to know about and gives a bibliography of articles on games for young folks in the woman's paper they are accustomed to take in her home. In her community there are perhaps twenty-five young people. They have a dance once or twice a month and a picnic twice a year; and there is a school social every two months. The social life of the village centers about the school as much as anywhere. Perhaps they could attract more interest to the church if the members of the church choir only had tact and facility enough. They have no resident minister and therefore the church lacks a centralizing element. But the village has a hall with a platform, a two-roomed school house, and a tennis court, as facilities for a social center. There is also a rest room at the ice cream parlor and back of the church there is another hall. One would say that there was no excuse for this town if it did not have a thriving social life and a good time for everybody on the highest lines. And ought they not to overcome all separating difficulties, if there be any such, and establish a regular pastor and begin to have a real community life? For how can a town with all those advantages hold up its head among the towns of America if it has a church building and no church therein? Certainly though one girl can do much, she cannot do all.

One may judge any girl by the books she sets down as her favorite reading matter: This farm girl mentions The Bible, Shakespeare, Silas Marner, Days Off, The Calling of Dan Matthews, Alice in Wonderland, Little Women, John Halifax Gentleman, Lorna Doone, David Harum, The Little Minister, Distractions of Marietta, The Chimes, Treasure Island, Josephus, Lady of the Lake, Rose and Ring, Prince Otto, Red Badge of Courage, Poems of All Great Poets, Idylls of the King, Department of Agriculture Bulletins, Botanies and School books. To this list she adds the name of the woman's paper she and her mother had taken, the file of which she has preserved for some years. Those she underscores as the ones she reads with most delight are these: Little Women, Little Minister, Alice in Wonderland, and all the stories in her woman's paper. The serial story appeals to her most, because she has to wonder how it is going to come out.

She does not let anything interfere with reading an hour or so every day. She and her mother read together a great deal. She reads to her mother articles in the woman's paper, and the poetry of Lewis in the Houston Post. They take several weekly papers, three monthly magazines, and a daily city paper. She herself took two of these, the woman's paper and one of the most vital of the national weekly journals. She likes these two best—one because it gives the home view and the other because it gives the world view. They supplement each other, she thinks, and help one to develop a well balanced mind and character.

Her other cultural interests, however, are centered in the household tasks and in helping in the Sunday School, and she finds these so interesting that the days are all too short. The Sunday School must mean a great deal to her for she mentions it as a cultural as well as a recreational resource. It was about four years ago that the Sunday School was started. They had good music for about two years, one family playing all the instruments. Through the librarian she loaned her books, bringing them as they were called for. The librarian saved her the trouble of asking for the return of the books and in five years only one was lost. They also had a plan for passing their magazines about. Every Sunday when she went to church she would take armloads of flowers to give away; and if any one wanted plants or bulbs she brought them on request. This seems so delightfully practical. Why should not the church door be a place for the exchange of free will offerings of all kinds?