The Yellowstone journal. [volume] (Miles City, Mont.) 1893-1901, 1893-04-02
A FRONTIER FARMERS WIFE,
Her Burdens Are Many, and Her Pleasures
Are Few.

Her burdens Are Many, and Her Pleasures
Are Few.
The womeC who liye in cities can form
no estimate of the work done day afte,
day by the formers life on the frontier.
There are no convenient laundries, baker.
les or stores wher; she could buy the
ready made articles she is compelled tc
make for herself. 1t is unceasing work
with her from ea.rly sunrise until long
after~the hours nave grown small at
night. She light the fires for breakfast.
Nowhere is a mar SO completely lord
and master as On the farm. His mother
was a farmers wife and lighted the fires;
his wife shall do the same. While the
kettle is boiling she does the milking,
and cases are not rare where a farmers
wife milks as many as s or 10 cows
twice a day. the milk is carried into
the cellar in great heavy pals that
wOuld try a mans strength, and she re-
turns to the work of getting breakfast.
During the progress of the meal she cam
not sit back and eat and rest, as many
do, but is kept jumping up and down
waiting on the men folks and children.
1t is often a question to strangers who
visit on the frontier if she ever gets n
chance to eat at all. Then the children
are to be started off TO school, ami
though the credit of their education falle
TO the father it is the mother who doe
extra work that they may 70. and WHO
pulls them out of bed and starts them
off in time every morning.
The milk is 10 le strained and put
away. crooks scalGel. butter churned,
and the dishes and chamber work still
wait. Dinner and supper and afternoon
work take up her day. Then i'll their
turns through out the week there arv
washing. ironing. baking every other
day, scrubbirg. sweeping. sewing and
mending. In harvest time she will hlva
as many a. f 10 cook for and does il al
alone. 1t is seldom that Il farmer feels
that he can afford to hire help III tie
kitchen. She has the vegetable garlen
TO see to. To brighten the d~reariness nf
her life she has close to the seldom opened
front door a bed Of laif starved looE.ao
fiowers-old fashioned coxcomb, -four
o'clocks. gfass pinks and a few other
cheerful looking plants that will thriv~
under neglect. She makes everything
that her family wears except hats and
shoes. She has no time to think of rest
or self.
1t is in most cases her lot to welcome a
new baby every other year, and the o Y
time when help is employed to assist her
is for a period of two or three weeks
when the little stranger arrives. The
births Of the babies are about all thai
vary the monotony of her life. Occa-
~sionally death calls and takes from her
tired arms a little life and leaves in its
place an adaed pain in her heart. Sheis
old and tired Il at 30.
When her daughters reach the age at
which they could assist her, the dreo~y
prospect Of a frontier life appalls them.
and they seek employment in town.
Nothing in her house is Of late improve
ment. Her dashboard is of the kind her
mother used. and her churn i'll its heavy.
clumsy build shows that it belongs to the
same date. Improvement stalks all ove1
the farm and leaves no trace ia the kitch.
en-. Her pleasures are few. The salts.
faction that she is doing her best seems
to be all that rewards her. Shnis q hero
inc in a calico dress, wrinlsled and stooq
shouldered-a woman with a burden
who never complains. Late at night.
when all the members Of the family are
in bed, a light will slime ont across the
prairie from the family living room 1t
il by this light the farmers wife is doing
her mending and sewing, and it viii
shine out long after the occasional travel
that way has STOPPED, and no one bBt
the one who blows it out knows at what
hour the patient burden bearers labors
cease.-Baltimore Herald.