Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farm Journalist

by Stephen Hines

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  At a recent meeting of the “The Athenians” some very interesting papers, prepared by the members were read. Quoting from the paper written by Mrs. George Hunter: “The first societies of women were religious and charitable. These were followed by patriotic societies and organizations of other kinds. At present there exists in the United States a great number of clubs for women which may be considered as falling under the general heads— educational, social and practical. The clubs which may be classified as practical include charitable organizations, societies for civic improvement or for the furthering of schools, libraries, and such organizations as have for their object the securing, by legislation, of improved conditions for working women and children. In 1890 the General Federation of Women’s Clubs was formed. There were in the United States at the last enumeration more than 200,000 women belonging to clubs.” Get the number? Two hundred thousand! Quite a little army this.

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  A very interesting paper and one that causes serious thought was that prepared by Mrs. Howe Steel on “The Vocation of Woman.” “Woman,” says Mrs. Steel, “has found out that, with education and freedom, pursuits of all kinds are open to her and by following these pursuits she can preserve her personal liberty, avoid the grave responsibilities, the almost inevitable sorrows and anxieties which belong to family life. She can choose her friends and change them. She can travel and gratify her tastes and satisfy her personal ambitions. The result is that she frequently is failing to discharge satisfactorily some of the most imperative demands the nation makes upon her. I think it was Longfellow who said: ‘Homekeeping hearts are happiest.’ Dr. Gilbert said, ‘Thru women alone can our faintest dreams become a reality. Woman is the creator of the future souls unborn. Tho she may be cramped, enslaved and hindered, tho she may never be able to speak her ideal, or touch the work she longs to accomplish, yet in the prayer of her soul is the prophecy of her destiny.’

  Here’s to woman the source of all our bliss.

  There’s a foretaste of Heaven in her kiss.

  From the queen upon her throne to the maiden in the dairy,

  They are all alike in this.”

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  In “Soldiers of the Soil,” a story of country life in California by Rose Wilder Lane, a real country woman says: “It is my opinion there are lots more happy homes in the country than there are in the city. If everybody lived in the country you wouldn’t hear all this talk about divorce.” I wonder how true that is and if true, or if not true, what are the reasons for it? I suppose there are statistics on the subject. There are on most things, but you know “there are three kinds of lies—lies, d— lies and statistics,” so why bother about them? The reasons given by the women quoted were that while the woman in the country worked, to help out the family income, her work was at home, while if the woman in the city worked she must leave home to do so; that, working together, man and wife were drawn together, while working apart they drifted apart.

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  There may be fewer divorces in the country without it necessarily following that there are more happy homes. It seems to me that the deadly monotony of working with, and playing with, the same person in the same place for days and weeks and months and years would be more apt to drive a person to divorce or suicide than if they were separated during the working day and could meet when it was over with different experiences to talk about and to add variety to their companionship. To be sure, in the city a woman can live in one apartment as well as another so long as her pay envelop comes to hand regularly, while in the country when a woman leaves her home she leaves her job too. Perhaps this has more effect in lessening divorce in the country than the happy home idea. We carry our own environment with us to a certain extent and are quite likely to stand or fall by the same principles wherever we may live.

  When Is a Settler an Old Settler?

  June 5, 1916

  “Why you are an old settler,” said a new comer to us recently. “Yess,” I replied proudly, “we consider ourselves natives,” yet when we drove into the Ozarks 20 years ago,4 with a covered hack and a pony team, we found the “old settler” already here. In conversation with us he made the remark: “My father was an old settler here. He came up from Tennessee before the war.”5 Since then, in working the fields, we have found now and then a stone arrow or spear head made by a settler older still.

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  When we came to the Ozarks a team of fairly good horses would trade for 40 acres of land. The fences were all rail fences and a great many of the houses were built of logs. The country was a queer mixture of an old and a new country. A great many of the fields had been cropped continually since the war and were so worn out that as one of the neighbors said, “You can’t hardly raise an umbrella over it.” Aside from these old fields the land was covered with timber and used for range. The “old settlers” told us that the thick growth of timber was comparatively a new thing; that before the country was so thickly settled there were only a few scattering large trees. The fires were allowed to run and they kept down the young growth of timber. Wild grass grew rankly over all the hills and cattle pastured free.

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  It has always been a great pleasure to hear the tales of earlier days. A neighbor, Mrs. Cleaver, told us stories of her experience in war times and the days, equally as bad which immediately followed. Her husband did not go to the war but one night a band of men came and took him away. She never knew what became of him. Then came hard days for her and her young step-son. They raised a little crop and a hog or two for their living but whenever they had stored a little corn or meat some of the lawless bands of raiders that infested the Ozark hills, would come and take it from them. When the war ended, some of the leaders of these lawless bands continued their depredations, only in a little different fashion. Thru the machinations of one of them, Mrs. Cleaver’s step-son was taken from her, by due process of law, and bound out to him until the boy should be of age, to work without wages, of course. When Mrs. Cleaver protested, I suppose in rather a frantic way, she was driven from the court house, with a horse whip, by the sheriff.

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  Not all the old time stories were so serious. There is the story of the green country boy who never had seen a carpeted floor. A new family moved in from the North somewhere and this boy went to the house one day. As he started to enter the door he saw the carpet on the floor. Standing in the door he swung his long arms and jumped clear across the small room landing on the hearth before the fireplace. Turning to the astonished woman of the house he exclaimed: “Who Mam! I mighty nigh stepped on your kiverled!”6 Our friend in telling this story always ended with: “I never could make out whether that boy was as big a fool as he pretended to be or not. He made a mighty smart business man when he was older and made the business men of Kansas City and St. Louis hustle to keep up with him,” which is a way the hill boys have.

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  One old lady, who has lived here since the war, says that when she came the “old settlers” told her of the time when a band of Spanish adventurers came up the Mississippi River and wandered thru the Ozarks. Somewhere among the hills they hid their treasure in a cave and it never has been discovered to this day.

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  But how old must a settler be to be an “old settler”? or if you prefer the famous question, “How old is Ann?”7

  Facts Versus Theories

  June 20, 1916

  Facts will not always bear out theories! It was a Missouri judge, at a little inland county seat, who adjourned court without a proper regard for the interests of the case that was being tried before him, and who, when remonstrated with and told that he “could not do that,” replied, “Well, I have.” And now a Missouri farmers’ club has also set at naught the opinions of experts.

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  In an article, on women’s clubs, in a late magazine, I find this opinion by Eugene J. Grant a prominent New York man
whose wife is a leader in club work in the state: “I do not believe that clubs for men and clubs for women should ever be combined. I say keep them separate. They won’t mix well. Men and women may work toward the same ends, but they work differently, and there’s no use in trying to combine the clubs.” To this the Bryant Farmers’ club of Bryant, Mo., may reply, “Well, I have.”

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  Article 2, section 1 of the constitution of The Bryant Farmers’ club says, “Any one in good standing may become a member of this club by paying the annual fee of 25 cents.” This is well clinched in section 2 of the same article. “When the head of a family joins the club, all members of his or her family under 21 years old, may become active members without paying additional fees.” Not only the women but the children are taken into this Farmers’ club and made active workers, all as a matter of course.

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  The Bryant Farmers’ club was started about 17 months ago and was planned to help pass the winter evenings and in order that neighbors might become better acquainted. The meetings are held at homes of the different members. At each meeting the place for the next meeting is decided upon and three members are selected to make a talk or write a paper upon some farm topic. After the business of the meeting is disposed of, the members talk over their successes and failures and compare notes. The talks and discussions are followed by a short literary program. The homes of the members are scattered and the long distances to go makes it difficult at times for them all to be present at the meetings but there usually is a good attendance. At times as many as 68 have answered at roll call. Advising with and helping one another in this way the club members, of course, raised some fine crops. Making a collection among themselves, they exhibited it at the fairs at Mansfield and Ava last fall. The exhibit received a great deal of favorable comment and won, for the Bryant Farmers’ club, 85 blue and red ribbons. During the busy summers, when the evenings are short and the days, tho long, are still too short to accomplish the work waiting to be done, the meetings of the club are discontinued unless something especial comes up, when a meeting is called by ’phone.

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  The club is growing and branching out in several directions. The members are planning to build a hall, in some central location, in which to hold their meetings and social entertainments and also as a place in which to keep a permanent exhibition of their best grains, grasses and other farm products. As a start toward this hall they have already given one entertainment which netted them $25 for the building fund. They also are co-operating in the purchase and management of livestock and in the sale of livestock, farm and garden products.

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  The officers who have led the members in making this farmers’ club so successful surely deserve honorable mention. They are as follows—M. L. Andrews, president; Miss Hattie Williams, secretary-treasurer; C. A. Williams, D. B. McMillan and J. E. Williams members of executive board. The president and secretary-treasurer also are members of the executive board by reason of their office.

  Haying While the Sun Shines

  July 20, 1916

  One of the neighbors needed some help in the hay harvest. Being too busy to go himself, he called a town friend by telephone and asked him, if possible, to send out some one to work thru haying. Mansfield has made a beautiful shady park of the public square in the center of the town and it is the gathering place for those who have idle time on their hands. Everyone enjoys it, the busy man with just a few idle minutes as well as the town loafers who, perhaps, have a few busy minutes now and then. It seemed like a very good place to look for a man to help in the hay field, so here the obliging friend went.

  “Any of you fellows want a job?” he asked of a group resting in the shade. “Yes” said one man. “I do.” “Work on a farm?” asked the friend. “Yes, for I need a job,” was the reply. “Can you go out in the morning?” was the next question. “How far out is it?” asked the man who needed a job. “Two miles and a half,” he was told. “Can’t do it!” he exclaimed, dropping back into the restful position from which he had been disturbed. “I wouldn’t go that far from town to work for anybody.”

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  The Man Of The Place, inquiring in town for help, was told that it was not much use to look for it. “Jack was in the other day and begged with tears in his eyes for some one to come help him get in his hay and he couldn’t get anyone.” Jack’s place is only half a mile from town so surely it could not be too far out, but to be sure the sun was shining rather warm in the hay field and the shade in the park was pleasanter. All of which reminds one of the tramp of whom Rose Wilder Lane tells in her Soldiers Of The Soil. She met him, one of many, while on her walking tour thru the state of California. After listening to his tale of woe, she asked him why he did not look for work on a farm. She was sure there must be a chance to find a job there, for the farmers were very short of help. To her suggestion the tramp replied, “Who wants to work like a farmer anyway!”

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  No one seems to want to “work like a farmer,” except the farmer’s wife. Well! Perhaps she does not exactly want to, but from the way she goes about it no one would suspect that she did not. In our neighborhood we are taking over more of the chores to give the men longer days in the field. We are milking the cows, turning the separator, feeding the calves and the pigs and doing whatever else is possible, even going into the fields at times. Farmers are being urged to raise more food for the world consumption, to till more acres and also produce more to the acre. Their hands are quite full now and it seems that about the only way they could procure more help would be to marry more wives.

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  A few days ago, I ran away from a thousand things waiting to be done and stole a little visit with a friend. And so I learned another way to cut across a corner and save work. Here it is, the way Mrs. Craig makes plum jelly. Cook the plums and strain out the juice: then to 3 cups of the boiling juice add 4 cups of sugar and stir until dissolved. Fill jelly glasses at once and set to one side. If the juice is fresh it will be jelled in the morning but if the juice is from canned plums it takes longer and may have to set over until the next day but it jells beautifully in the end.

  Kin-folks or Relations?

  August 5, 1916

  “I do like to have you say kin-folks. It seems to mean so much more than relations or relatives,” writes my sister from the North. They do not say kin-folks in the North. It is a Southern expression.

  This remark was enough to start me on a line of thought that led me far a-field. Kin-folks! They are such homey sounding words and strong, too, and sweet. Folks who are akin—why they need not even be relatives or “blood kin!” What a vista that opens up! They are scattered all over the world, these kin-folks of ours and we will find them wherever we go, folks who are akin to us in thought and belief, in aspirations and ideas, tho our relatives may be far away. Not but what those of our own family may be akin to us also, tho sometimes they are not.

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  Old Mr. Weeks died last winter. His will left the fine farm to his youngest son, subject to providing a home for his mother so long as she lived. A comparatively small sum of money was left each of the seven other children who were scattered in other states. And now a strange thing happened! We always expect to hear of trouble and quarreling among the heirs, over a will and an estate and in this case we were not disappointed. There was trouble, serious trouble and disagreement. The surprising thing was in the form it took. The youngest son refused flatly to abide by his father’s will. He would not take that whole farm for himself! “It was not fair to the others!”

  His brothers and sisters refused absolutely to take any share of the farm. “It would not be right,” they said, when their brother had made the farm what it was by staying at home and working on it, while they had gone away on their own affairs. Lawyers were even called into the case, not to fight for a larger share for their clients, but to persuade the other party to take
more of the property than he wished to take. There is nothing new under the sun we are told, but if anything like this ever happened before it has not been my good fortune to hear of it. The members of this family were surely kin-folks as well as relatives.

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  Two sisters, Mabel and Kate were left orphans when 18 and 20 years old. There was very little for their support, so as they would be obliged to add to their income in some way they went into a little business of ladies’ furnishing goods. All the responsibility was left with Mabel altho they were equal partners and she also did most of the work. Kate seemed to have no sense of honor in business nor of the difference between right and wrong in her dealings with her sister. At last Mabel had a nervous breakdown under the strain and the shock of the sudden death of her fiance. While Mabel was thus out of the way, Kate sold the business, married and left town, and when Mabel was recovered she found that the business and her sister were gone, that the account at the bank was overdrawn and a note was about due which had been given by the firm and to which her own name had been forged. Because of the confidence which her honor and honesty had inspired, Mabel was able to get credit and make a fresh start. She has paid the debts and is becoming prosperous once more.