Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1868-07-01
Our Farmers, Wives,

0ur Farmers Wives.
Next to being minister's wife, |
should dread being the wife of q farmer.
Sometimes, indeed, the terms are synony-
nous. Raising children and chickens,
ad iufnitum; making butter, cheese,
bread, and the omnipresent pie; cutting,
making and mending the clothes for a
whole household, not to speak Of doing
their washing and ironing; taking care
of the pigs and the vegetable garden;
picking myriads Of cucumbers; drying
fruitssand herbs = putting all the twins
through the measles, whooplng, cough,
mumps, scarletfev and chicken-pox
besides keeping a perpetual river of hot
grease on the kitchen table, ipwhich is
to float potatoes, carrots, onions and tur-
nps for the ravenous maws OF the farm
hands, ~
No wonder that the poor things look
harassed, jaded and toil-worn long before
they arrive at middle age. No wonder
that life so hard and angular should OBJ
siterate all the graces of temninity-when
no margin is left, year after year, for
those little re6nements which acoman
under any pressure of circumstances nat
urazly and rightly desires, and lacking
which, she is inevitably unhappy and
coqrSeaed.
Now your farmer is round, stalwart,
comfortable animal. THERE'S no baby
weiling at his pantaloons while he ploughs
or makes fences. He lies down under
the nearest tree and rests, or sleeps, when
he can no longer work with profit. lie
comes unto, his dinner with the appetite
of ashyena and the digestion of "a rhinoce.
ros, and goes forth again to the bayfield,
till called home to supper There is his
wife, and too often with the same frowsy
head with which she rose in the morning,
darting,hither and thither for whatever
is wanted, or helping the hungry children
or the farm-hands. After the supper is
finished comes the dish.washing, and milk
ing, and the thought for to-morrow's
breakfast; and then perhaps all night she
sleeps with one eye open for a baby or
sick child, and rises again to pursue the
same unreleved, treadmill, wearing round
the next day.
Now the uppermost idea in the minds
of too many farmers is, how to get tile
greatest possible amount Of acorh out Of
their wioes. A poorer policy than this
can scarcely be. They treat their cattle
better. Ii they are about to be present
ed with fine calf or colt, they take pains
that the prospective mother is well cared
for both before and after the event. The
farmer who would not do this would be
considered extremely short-sghted. Their
cattle are not allowed to be overworked,
or underfed, or abused in any way. Now.
pray, is not farmers wife as valuable an
animal as COW, or horse, even looking
at the practical side of it? Is it not as
importantto have a sound, healthy mother
of children, as TO have healthy mare or
COW? You may say that no woman
should marry farmer who does not er-
pect to uorh. say, in reply, that wo.
man was never intended to split or carry
wood, or to carry heavy pals or buckets
of water. and yet how many farmers
can we count who ever think of the
wonsen of the house, in regard TO the dis.
tance or proximity of the wood Or the
water in relation to the kitchen :? while
too many grudge to these overworked
women that labor-saving apparatus in
every department of their work which
would prolong their lives years to fami-
ly of growing children. Then, to grudge
such an Industrious wife decent raiment
wherewith to make herself and her chill.
dren neat and comfortable, is shame
To oblige sucA a woman to P4ead like
beggar for the dollar she has earned q
thousand times over in any family but his
opn, should make him blush. Look at
our, farmers wives all over the land, and
see if. with rare exceptions, their toll.
worn, harassed faces do not endorse my
statement. Every mother should have
time to talk with her children-to ac-
quaint herself with their souls as we'll as
their bodes-to do something beside
wash their faces and clothes. And how
are these hurried, weary women to find
It? Of what avail isl to those children
who come up, but who are not brought mp,
that another meadow, or another barn, is
added to the family inheritance, when
the grass waves over the mothers tomb
stone before their childhood and youth is
oast2 or when they can remember her
only as a fretted, querulous, care-bur-
dened, overtasked creature, who was al
ways iostling them oct of the way to
eatet, up some burden which she dare not
drop, though she drop by the way her
selfq FANNY FERN
''H ----
FrLos. OR RuN.RouND.-If felon or
run round appears to be coming on the
finger. YOU can do nothing better than to
soak the finger thoroughly in hot ley. 1t
~, .;.E,I h,t II will cure disorder 1