It does not look very pleasant, this holding. The snow is just melting, and the landscape is dreary enough on every side, for as yet Spring has not even suggested that green is the colour you may expect to see in Nature's fashion-plate. Not she!
But here's the point. Look you here! the house is already built for occupancy, and has only to be moved from the sled to the ground. There is no occasion for a plumber or gasfitter either, and as for water and fuel, they are everywhere to be had for the taking.
Presently other rooms will be added of lumber or logs, and a cellar excavated. But who worries about these things when they have just become possessors of 160 statute acres of land that have to be prepared for grain and garden stuff? Who, indeed?
Here is where the girl comes in. She must learn to bake bread and cakes, how to dress game and fish, and how to make bacon appetising twice a day. She must "set" the hens so that there may be "broilers" against Thanksgiving Day, and eggs all the year round. She has to sow the lettuces, radishes, and onions for succulent salads; and always she must supply sunshine and music, indoors and out, for dad and mother and the boys.
Perhaps you think she is not happy, but you are sadly mistaken. She is busy all day and sleepy all night. She knows that after a while a railroad is coming in here, and there will be work and money for men and teams, which means the establishment of a town near by, where you may purchase all kinds of household comforts and conveniences, to say nothing of pretty blouses, hats, and other "fixings." Oh, she knows it, the minx! She is the kind of a girl Charles Wagner describes as putting "witchery into a ribbon and genius into a stew."
But let us take a look at the girl who lives in the more settled parts of the country, near a town.
If she be ambitious, or anxious to help the home-folk, she will want to become a teacher, a bookkeeper, Civil Service employee, or a stenographer. To accomplish this end, she drives to town every day to attend the High School or Business College. Or perhaps she may move into town for the school terms.
Of all these occupations, that of the teacher is most popular. Teachers, in these new provinces, are in great demand, for the supply is entirely inadequate. As a result, they are especially well paid.
If the teacher is hard to get, she is also hard to hold; for the bachelor population being largely in the majority, there are many flattering inducements of a matrimonial character held out to the girl teacher to settle down permanently with a young farmer, doctor, real estate agent, lawyer, or merchant. You could never believe what inducements these sly fellows hold out. Never!
In town our girls find many diversions. She may skate, ride, play golf, basket-ball, or tennis, according as her purse or preference may dictate.