Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1894-12-29
LIFE IN A SOD HOUSE
Not 80 Pleasant as It Might Be, Especially
for the Housewife.
There Are No Social Distinctions, Dur
ing the Early Years Mt Least
-Woman's Hard Lot.

From the Chicago Times
On q new farm in western Nebraska the
house is q very incorspicuous object. The
eye wanders over immense grain fields.
perhaps a large timber claim of young box
elders and cottonwocds, a garden. roomy
stock yard and the sod roofs OF many
sheds for poultry. stock and machinery;
but except for q wreath OF smoke or the
chance reflection Of window pane. the
dwelling would be overlooked.
1t Is often Of The half-dugout. half-sod-
house order Of architecture. the back part
followed out of the side Of a low hill and
the front Of the squares Of sod merely
placed together, and all upheld by slight
frame Of wood, with a door and one or
two window castings. and perhaps a Few
rafters overhead. 1t Is very small and low,
and serves the single purpose of shelter.
There is a possibility even of its failure In
this. and the trap door aslant at one SIDE
Of the house proclaims the cyclone cave
ordinarily the receptacle for milk and but
ter.
Life in one of these prairie dwellings Is
certainly getting close to nature ana the
primitive; closer, perhaps, than the Arap
tribes Of the desert. who. on the whole,
observe more laws religious and secular.
and have less solitude and social depriva-
ton. To realize this one has only to fancy
| e. man and wife in a sodhouse fifteen
| miles from the nearest village, In one or
the sparsely settled districts OF western
| Nebraska. For days, and in some seasons
| for weeks, they see no human being out
side of their own household. Even beg
ging Indians and tramps are almost I'M
known in this country. Prairie dogs cast
up their mounds and found towns in the
unmolested spots about the place; gophers
and field mice burrow through the sod
| walls of the house; not infrequently snakes
swing themselves down from the rafters
| Quyl N q
any milk pans standing about. At night
coyotes and some Of the gray wolves come
| up through the canon and skulk about the
poultry yard or howl close to the win
dows. Through the day, while the man Is
In the fields. the herding usually falls to
the womans lot. Probably each takes a
noon luncheon in paper, to save coming
| back to the house until night.
Become Prematurely Old.
The woman attends to her necessary
household duties. throws a gunny sack
over her bronco's back. jumps astride.
rounds up the cattle and drives them
down the canons to Craze on the steep
sides or in a low strip beside a creek
Canons are not sociable places; one can
scarcely have conception of the prlmeVal
| unless he has walked through canon.
He thinks OF the dawn OF creation, or the
races Of extinct mammoths. and wonders
If centaurs have not merely retired into
the inner caverns What the sodhouse
|
tude like that it is hard to tell-the mort
gage on the farm, diseases among the
stock. the prospects Of the crops, the time
when they can put up their frame dwell
ings, the hard. unadorned facts In the
tread-mill of her life; she makes new plans
for the work, work, work, which Is her
sole law of existence. Perhaps she has
memories of another time, other surround
ings, but they must seem vague and far
| away. Even the weather is monotonous;
there is practically always the cloudless
| sky. the brilliant sun, the strong, dry
| wind, that curls the leaves of the young
| corn and turns the buffalo grass brown.
| Terms of Perfect Equality.
| Women, and men, too, become withered
and prematurely old. Hair and skin take
on the general tint of things about them.
Their teeth drop out without a thought OF
replacing them. And there comes a GER
! tain feverish look in their eyes-a look OF
intensified expectation, stralning into the
future. They lose all thought OF appear
anCe; 1T gets TO mean vanity rathef than
| self-respect to them. Such a life must
have its inevitable mental and moral eff
| feet. All the sensitive. the aesthetic, some
| times the moral sense itself, becomes
| atrophed The tragedies of city are
| uncarthed and brought to light, but the
silent tragedies of sthese desolate lives are
| swallowed up and lost in the remoteness
and immensely OF the prairie wastes.
| 1t Is a motley assortment of humanity
| that takes the claims and homesteads on
| the Opening up of a country like this. Ex-
| cowboys, who have come to admit the
claims of a single wife and family, con-
firmed pioneers who move with the ad-
| vance of railroads, people of refinement
! aud reverses of fortune, many Russian and
| Ger nan immigrants, and sprinkling of
all he other nations of the earth. After
| the first rush sitting process sets i'll
| which soon separates them into three
classes: Those who stay through every
thing and make the prosperity of the coun-
fry no w p.af
beyond the original sod house, and the
shifting transients who move at a sign Of
trouble and come back In a time of pros
perity.
There is. however, no sitting social pro-
cess during these first years. The sod
| house levels all ranks, and at the rare in
| tervalS when any of the people are brought
| together socially 1T is on terms OF perfect
| equality; they simply take one another for
granted with no question of antecedents,
| family history, or social advantages. They
are people who are starting life anew and
! living en- hopes Of the future, with for
getfulness of the past and endurances Of
the present.
A woman's lot is the harder; she misses
more things In such a life than a man does
| If she Is strong enough, mentally and
physically, to endure 1t until they come
| into better things, she lives out her allotted
| time unpraised and unrewarded of this
world. II she has mental bias toward
| the morbid or melancholy, she is in danger
| of adding one to the list of the women In
| the hospital for the insane at Lincoln
| The real pioneers, who survive every
thing. in the end have comfortable homes
| and have created some advantages for
| their children. They have lived in the sod
| house until the year Of a good crop and
| few household necessities to be bought,
| and have had the small, bare, frame cot
| tage built. The next season, If good for
| tune continues. a porch and an IL" are
added, and In a few years IT Is enlarged
and comfortably fitted up. Often the old
| sod house Is left standing near the new
| one for some purpose. or sometimes as a
| matter of sentiment.
Cause for Detection.