family are "to work, and to
tease one another." Evidently here is a place on the planet where work
and play run into each other and become one and the same thing! She
says: "There seems to be no necessity for games." She adds: "We older
ones often amuse and watch the three children play."

As to the number of young people in the vicinity she says that there are
about twenty "within this natural district." During the school year they
have about six social gatherings; in summer there are informal picnics
and Sunday visits with refreshments. Social life centers about the
school and the doings in the adjacent town. Among some of the neighbors
there is a German Club. As facilities for a social center, they have the
schoolhouse (but with stationary seats), a playground, any number of
natural groves and of fishing holes, and the big ditch for swimming. For
the girls alone they have swimming parties and visiting parties; and
they help one another during haying and threshing. This she puts down
among the social gatherings for girls in her neighborhood!

In the house there is a library of about two hundred and fifty volumes.
Lack of time is the only thing that prevents reading. There is a public
library in the nearest town and she goes there every week in winter. In
summer however she is too busy with farm work to go so often. In the
family evenings either she or her mother reads aloud: also on Sunday
afternoon. The books that they have thus read together of late are
_Lorna Doone_ and one by Wason called _Friar Tuck_ which she marks an
underscored "Good."

They have a piano and the favorite songs are such old favorites as
_Annie Laurie_ and _Juanita_. Also they sing church songs, and popular
tunes, such as _The Trail of the Lonesome Pine_. They adapt the music to
the different tastes in the ten-children family.

Besides the daily evening paper and the local weekly paper, they take
_Successful Farming_, _Better Fruit_, _Scientific American_, _American
Magazine_, _Cosmopolitan_, _Epworth Herald_, some law papers, the
government bulletins and reports, _Current Opinion_, etc. For her own
interests she is going to take _Epworth Herald_, _Primary Education_,
_Youth's Companion_, _American Geographical Magazine_, _Current
Opinion_, _Stock Reports_, _Successful Farming_. Her other cultural
interests are these: Music; school, especially high school
entertainments, correspondence with normal school friends; teachers'
institute, each fa