roduce and prepare the food.
In her opinion having to depend upon one's self to decide courses of
action as much as you do in farm life, gives one backbone and trains one
to rely upon self and to be an effective leader. She has, as most true
country people have, an ineradicable and fundamental passion for
independence. In town one may have the advice of the minister, the
doctor and the lawyer; but in the country, she says, it is the Lord and
I. Again, it takes much less time and less expense to keep up
appearances in dress in the country; one is freer from interruptions
than in town, and ties of kinship are stronger among people of the
country. No, the farm is not monotonous; one acquires a liberal
education just by being alive; nature study, the work in the flower
garden, affords constant variety; and there are new interests and
adventures every day.

This girl has also thought on the other side of the question, and she
can see that there may be reasons why one may prefer to leave the farm.
One may feel the lack of companionship near one's own age and the lack
of recreation. Too much importance may be placed on field work to the
neglect of the garden; unkind criticism by neighbors may be the only
recreation available; and not paying the women of the family for their
aid in the household service, may be in her mind sufficient reasons for
desertion. These, in short, are some of the things she emphasized.

An average day of her life on the farm is a busy one. She says:

"The sun wakes me up in the morning, or maybe it is the mocking-birds
singing. I work in the garden gathering the vegetables, picking the
flowers, or cultivating, until breakfast time. After breakfast I make
the beds and straighten the bedrooms; then I work in the garden again
until about 9:30 or 10:00 o'clock. Then I come in and help with the
dinner or sew or study or write, and if it is bread-baking day I always
knead the bread and prepare it for the oven. As we have breakfast about
five-thirty o'clock we get so hungry we have dinner about 11:30. After
dinner we rest a half hour either by reading or by lying down. In the
afternoon after a bath I study or sew until it is cool enough to work in
the garden. For supper we only make coffee and warm over something left
from dinner. We have supper at five o'clock, but usually have a bowl of
clabber or a glass of milk before going to bed. I work in the garden
until dark; then we talk a while and go to bed abou