The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1901-08-17

Then came the incumbered farm II
California, the large family of chill
dren, the unremitting toll known only
to farm women whose husbands have
mortgaged not only their ground,
but also the life and strength of both
themselves and their wives. The out
look for such women is scarcely less
dreary than that of the slave in chains
in Siberian mines.
The hapless California farm wife
struggled on as she could, doing often
mans work as well as a woman's, the
grinding toll, the brain crushing debt,
the flock of children hanging to her
just the same. The only thing that
moved was time. That at length brought
her freedom, but it was the freedom of
a pauper. The children grew to ma
turity and went their way, the mortgage
that pressed upon her was foreclosed
at last and she was driven off the farm
and out into the world without a penny
to show for all her effort. Helen Will
mans, the farm wife, was getting some
more education.
When she was a schoolgirl back in IL
1inois, Emerson had lectured in her
town and singled her out among the
pupils because of her large, noble look
ing head, which he commented on, say
ing that he thought she might be heard
from some day. During the years she
MIXED cows and hoed cabbages her
mental horizon was not bounded by the
COWS and cabbages. Even then she day
dreamed of writing and of living her
own life, a life. above all, free. She
probably would never have done it,
however, If the farm had not been sold
over her head. When the very last
prop on which her hope had leaned
broke beneath her, again the day dream
of writing returned She was foot loose
now and homeless
Helen Wilmans took a resolve which
showed at once how brave and how ig-
norant she was. She would go to San
Francisco and earn from her writing
pen that living she had not been able
to secure from the profits of the pig
pen. She had not money enough to pay
car fare to San Francisco The VII
lage tailor lent it to her. Away she
went, plunging into deep waters with
out an idea how to swim. She wrote, |
wrote thoughts bold, sharp, radical, |
free. Some editors saw the stuff that
was in them, but most who saw refused |
to buy for that very reason. The song |
Of the free is not what the average |
reader wants, though he perhaps thinks |
he does A very few editors bought her |
effusions, and a very few people read |
them.
Starvation looked Helen Wilmans, |
the dauntless, in the eyes and ratified |
his heshless fingers in her face. She |
herself has told how in those days she |
seriously meditated suicide If she |
could not live, then she would die, die |
like a brave woman, at once; not spin |
out agony 1t does seem that nearly |
all who achieve anything uncommon |
are squeezed by the fates till they cry !
out in their torture and burst their /
bonds.
Do things merely happen or are there |
telepathic wires connecting persons and |
events that in space are thousands of /
miles apart? Among those that had /
read Helen Wilmans writings was a 4
Chicago editor who appreciated them. /
In the nick of time, just in time, per-
haps, to save to the earth this remark |
able, inspiring life, he wrote, asking 1
Mrs Wilmans to accept a small place i
on his paper. She did SO immediately
It was just when the wave of Mental |
Science, so called. was beginning to rip |
pie.
hard. To make a mental picture of |
your high desire. to hold it in your i
mind day and night, to win and work /
toward it, hustling perhaps none the i
less because you are inwardly willing
and steadily thinking yourself already
what you wish to be-this appealed ir-
resistibly to the powerful woman who
had endured SO much. Given only room
for her feet to stand. she accomplished