The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1901-10-01
THE R
An Appreciation Of the Girl Of the New
South by One Who Knows Her.

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South by One Who Knows Her.
In the Woman's Home Companion
for October Mr.. H. s. Canfed has
an entertaining article on "The
Southern Girl of Yesterday and To-
day" He compares the girl of the
South with the girl of the West and
North and finds much in the formers
favor. He says:
SIN former days the o slaves a
girls father owned, the o she
felt 1t a requirement to become an
accomplished housewife. These re-
condite arts, of which we men pierce
not the mysteries and see only the
results, are preserved to-day down
South : and if there is n quality
which more than another endears a
Southern girl to her worshipers/it is
her love of home, her pride in her
home and heg ability TO make that
home a home. This is a knowledge
which does not glare Oppressively
in the drawing-room but when she
marries it becomes more and more
golden year by year. The young
Southern mother happily married
does not think her life restricted
because that life is hOmelike. She
does not feel 'cabined, cribbed, con-
fined She enjoys brief excursions
into the outside world; but she tires
readily, and on the return journey
her eyes light up as the car-wheels
whirl under her, and she thinks,
Each revolution is that much nearer
home!' If some wrestler wearied
in the arena of earth's activities,
some cynic siokened with this deep
disease of life, should seek her in
her peaceful fastness, and, borrow
ing from sardonic Iago, tell her that
her mission is to 'sUckle fools and
chronicle small BEER she would
smile superior. She knows better.
Home is hOme-in summe when the
wide fields stir not in the swCOning
Moons in autumn when hillside and
valley blazed in a riot of hue in
winter when the mild air has a tang
that merely hints of snow in the far
country whence the wild goose beats
his way with steady wing in spring
time when she sees the fat soil rise
and roll in smooth, dark waves back
from the plOw.'
THE SOUTHERN CIR OF YESTERDAY.
Of that Southern girl Of long ago
1 write in reverence. Her beauty,
her virtue, her tenderness, her re.
pose, her loyalty to her own are heri-
tages of every man who knows her
in the flesh, OF knows her by tradi-
ton. There was fine, strong stuff
in her. She was nobly constant. l
am not old, yet l remember the
fierce South cheering on her sons,
and the women at home bearing the
most savage of the brunt, steady,
Industrious, accomplishing, grieved
for the bright blood that was split,
yet locking their lips upon fear and
longing, and bidding father, hus-
band, son or lover to the fray. IIe-
member coffee made from bits of
sweet potato dried in the sun sas-
safras root dug by negro boys as d
substitute for tea a hundred sim
pie herbs which took the place of
contraband medicines, and bread
made from Indian corn, sometimes
saltless, and many, many pitiful ex-
pedients to fill the mouths of hun
cry children. I remember these
things, but l do not rememberbthat
any oma of them over repined.
Whatever may be said for or against
the men of the South, the 'impolite
sex, as a fool has termed them, did
not falter. This woman, who picked
lint TO be sent to the front, ran the
plantation while it's owner was fac
ing Grant, taught the little negroes
treir alphabet, and had prayers each
evening in the big sitting-room, is
the grandmother of the girl of to-
day"
TNSTR UCTEO az TN HIS 0UTTER