a shrinking
little woman with "faded eyes and broken body." She wears
a blue sunbonnet. Her dress of checkered material has lost
its color from long use. In a thin, nervous voice she
answers the questions of the distinguished leader of two
kinds of "society."

"Do you work in the fields?" Mrs. Harriman began.

"Yes, ma'am."

"How old were you when you married?"

"Fifteen."

"How old was your husband?"

"Eighteen."

"Did you work in the fields when you were a child?"

"Oh, yes'm, I picked and I chopped."

"Have you worked in the fields every year?"

"I do in pickin' and choppin' times."

"And you do the housework?'

"There ain't no one else to do it."

"And the sewing?"

"Yes, ma'am. I make all the clothes for the children
and myself. I make everything I wear ever since I was
married."

"Do you make your hats?"

"Yes, ma'am. I make my hats. I had only two since I
was married."

"And how long have you been married?"

"Twenty years."

"Do you do the milking?"

"Most always when we can afford a cow."

"What time do you get up in the morning?"

"I usually gits up in time to have breakfast done by 4
o'clock in summer time. In the winter time we are through
with breakfast by sun-up."

"Did you work in the fields while you were carrying your
children?"

"Oh, yes, sometimes; sometimes almost nigh to birthin'
time."

"Is this customary among the tenant farmers' wives you
have known?"

The answer was an affirmative nod.

Let us now once more consider the home, and compare factory operations
with the domestic arts. There is no doubt that in cooking, for
instance, the housewife finds scope for a far higher range of
qualifications than the factory girl exercises in preparing tomatoes
in a cannery, or soldering the cans after they are filled with the
cooked fruit. The housewife has first of all to market and next to
prepare the food for cooking. She has to study the proper degree of
heat, watch the length of time needed for boiling or baking in their
several stages, perhaps make additions of flavorings, and serve
daintily or can securely. There is scarcely any division of housework
which does not call for resource and alertness. Unfortunately,
however, although these qualities are indeed called for, they are
not always called forth, because the houseworker is not permitted to
concentrate her whole attention and inte