Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1893-01-26
A FRONTIER FARMERS WIFE.
Her Burdens Are Many and Her Pleas
ures Are Few,

11er 5uruens are MANY ana her RlcdS-
ures Are Few.
The women who live in cities can form
no estimate Of the work done day after
day blythe farmers wife on the frontier
There are no convenient laundries, bak-
cries or stores where she could buy the
ready made articles she is compelled to
make for herself. 1t is unceasing work
with her from early sunrise to long after
the hours have grown small at night.
She lights the fires for breakfast.
1 Nowhere is a man SO completely lord
and master as ON the farm. His mother
was 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 farmers
wife milks as many as eight or ten cows
twice day. The milk is carried into the
cellar in great heavy pals that would try
mans strength, and she returns to the
work Of getting breakfast. During the
| progress Of the meal she cannot sit back
and eat and rest, as many do, but is kept
| jumping up and down waiting on the
men folks and children. It is often a
question to strangers who visit on the
/ frontier if she ever gets chance to eat
at all. Then the children are to be start
ed off to school, and though the credit Of
their education falls to the father it is
| the mother who does extra work that
they may go, and who pulls them out of
bed and starts them off in time every
/ morning.
The milk is to be strained and put
away, crooks scalded, butter churned,
and the dishes and chamber work still
wait. Dinner and supper and afternoon
work take up her day. Then in their
turns throughout the week there is
washing, ironing, baking every other
day, scrubbing, sweeping, sewing and
mending. In harvest time she will have
as many as fourteen to cook for and does
it all alone. 1t is seldom that farmer
feels that he can afford to hire help in
the kitchen. She has the vegetable gar
den to see to. To brighten the dreari-
ness of her life she has close to the sell
4 dom opened front door bed of half
starved looking fowers-old fashioned
coxcomb, four-o' clocks, grass pinks and a
few other cheerful looking plants that
will thrive 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
q new baby every other year, and the
only time when help is employed to as
sist her is for period of two or three
weeks when the little stranger arrives.
The births of the babies Are about all
that vary the monotony Of her life. Oc-
casionally death calls and takes from
her tired arms little life and leaves in
its place an added pain in her heart. She
is old and tired out at thirty.
When her daughters reach the age at
which they could assist her the dreary
prospect of a frontier life appalls them,
and they seek employment in town.
Nothing in her house is of late improve
ment Her washboard is of the kind her
mother used, and her churn in its heavy,
clumsy build shows that it belongs to
the same date Improvement stalks all
over the farm and leaves no trace i'll the
kitchen. Her pleasures are few. The
/ satisfaction that she is doing her best
seems to be all that rewards her She
is heroine in calico dress, wrinkled
and stoop shouldered-a woman with a
burden, who never complains. Late at
night, when all the members of the
family are in bed, light viii shine out
across the prairie from the family living
room. tits by this light the farmers wife
is doing her mending and sewing, and it
will shine out long after the occasional
travel that way has stopred, and no
one but the one that blows it out knows
at what hour the patient burden bearers
labors cease. FRANCES L. GARSIDE.