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A Frontier Farmer's Wife

A Frontier Farmer's Wife image
Parent Issue
Day
17
Month
March
Year
1893
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

The wonien who live in cities can f orín no estímate of tho work done day after day by the farmer's wife on the frontier. There are no convenient laundries, bakeries or stores where she could buy the ready made articles she is compelled to make for herself. It is unceasing work with her from early sunrise nntil long after the lionrs have grown srnall at night. She lights the fires for breakfast. Nowhere is a man so comptótely lord and master as on the farm. His mother was a farmer's wife and lighted the fires; his wife shall do the same. While the kettle is bciling slie doss the inilking. and cases are not vare where a fan; r's wife milks ai many as 8 or 10 cowa twice a day. The milk is carried into the cellar in great heavy pails that wouU try a man's Btrentrth, and she returns to the work of getting la-eakfast. During the progiN ss of the ineal alie oannot sit back and eat and rest, as many do, but is kept jamping up and down waiting on the men folka and children. It is often a qupstion to strangerswho visit on the frontier if she ever gets a chance to eat at all. Then the chüdren are to be started off to school, and though the credit of their educa tion to the father it is the mother who does extra work that they may go. and who pnlls them out of bed and starts them off in time every nioruintr. The milk is to be strained and put away, crocks scalded, butter churnecl, and tho dishes and chamber work still wait. Dinner and supper and afternoon work take r.p her day. Then in their turns throughout the week there are washing, ironing, baking every other day, scrubbing, sweeping, sewing and mending. In harvest time she will have as many as 14 to cook for and does it all alone. It is seldom that a farmer feels that he can afford to hire help in the kitchen. She has the vegetable garden to see to. To brighten the dreariness of her lif e she has close to the seldom opened front door a bed of half starved looking flowers - old fashioned coxcomb, four o'clocks, grass pinks and a few -other cheerful looking plants that will thrive under neglect. She makes everything that her family wears except hats and shoes. She has no time to think of rest or self . It is in most cases her lot to welcoine a new baby every otlior year, and the only time when help is employee! to assist her is for a periocl of two or three weeks when the little gtranger arrivés. The births of the babies are about all that vary the monotony of her life. Occasionally death calis and takes from her tired arms a little life and leaves in its place an added pain in her heart. Sheis old and tired out at 80. When her daughters reach the age at which they could assist her, the dreary prospect of a frontier life appalls them, and they seek employment in town. Nothing in her house is of late improvement. Her washboardia of the kind her mother ïised, and her churn in its heavy, clumsy build shows that it belongs to the same date. Improvement stalks all over the farm and leaves no trace in the kitchen. Her pleasures are few. The satisfaction that she is doing her best seenis to be all that rewards her. She is a heroine in a calicó dress, wrinkled and stoop shouldered - a woman with a burden who never complains. Late at night, when all the meinbers of the family are in bed, a light will shine out across the prairie from the family living room. It is by this light the f armer' s wif e is doing her mending and sewing, and it will shine out long after the occasional travel that way has stopped , and no one but the one who blows it out knows at what hour the patiënt burden bearer's labors

Article

Subjects
Ann Arbor Argus
Old News