The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-09-28

market wagons start for the city, pea
picking stops. This gives the women
time for fagot-gathering Some land
owners pay their help partly by giving
the run of a wood-lot. BY O'Clock,
through the country lanes the women
are moving village-ward wheeling fag-
OTIS in a barrow, carrying them in up
turned aprons or bundled upon their
heads, just as their fore-mothers in Eu-
rope have done for centuries.
At every turn one feels the foreign
touch-in the women washing at the
brooksides in Sunday groups of holt
day-seekers shooting sparrows. 1t is
because Italy is so new a nation that
it has few preserves and no well-eu-
forced game law that the Long Island
Italian walking out from the village
with his wife, his children and his gun,
follows ia caccia" over ground that
shelters no game bigger than field
mice, thus compelling the farmer TO
plant his acres thick with mo Hunt
ing" signs.
Few Poles own land, and so in mid
summer, when wedding groves slack
and the late picking crops" are not
ripe, troops of women move from farm
to farm, begging work. Every English
speaking farmer is to them a boss" or
"bosso," while the farmers sons and
brothers are distinguished as "BCsso
Jim" or "BoSso Pete" If Bosso Pete
needs no help, he finds it hard to make
the woman understand; they know no
English If, on the other hand he
wants them, there is less trouble.
Across Long Island Sound, in Con-
necticut, busy time for women farm
hands comes with the corn harvest
italian women are engaged for the
husking. and no one who has seen a
group of them surround a cart loaded
with corn, pushing and pulling it to
| the barn, will doubt their capacity.
The women Work Hard.
Farm work may seem to many I'M
desirable for women, yet it is the task
at which these women can best sup
port themselves brought up to it as
they We're from children. They are
used mainly on the light crops, and,
1 though their dark cheeks do not show
the red of Northern blood, they look
| healthy.
The Frenchwomen. of whom there
| are many around Woodhaven, chat at
| their work. The other foreigners are
less vivacious. They are slow of mo-
ton and enduring. The farmers say
! that a Polak woman does nearly a
mans work, and does it as easily. Her
movements are not jerky, like an Amer
lean woman's, but steady and patient.
A farmer unconsciously expressed the
| difference when he said that Polaks
were like COWS. An American woman
| is like a nervous filly.
1t is a common remark among city
doctors that Swedish and German girls
taken from the outdoor work of Eu-
rope and confined in American kitch-
ems often lose their red cheeks and
| their strength, after a year or two of
service. The change to indoor work
| Saps their vitality. The Polak farm
| laborer is saved from shaving in a city
sweat shop. Her wages are higher
her working day is shorter: she is
never employed more than ten hours
With her habit of budding with her
| kind in tenements, outdoor work is her
only chance of continued vigor. And
it is the only chance of her children,
who are now getting. not a paltry
fresh air week." but plenty of oxygen
for a good share of the year.
1t is only the Polak, the newest inn
migrant to Long Island, that has no
land. The Italian. who came a little
earlier, may lease from four to seven
acres, paying from $3.50 to $3.50 per
| year, and having the right of fagot-
gathering in the large farmers wood
! lot. The rate of his lease is high, but
/ the land is valuable and he is making
| money.
The German. who comes before the
/ Italian, usually owns the land he
works. from ten TO twenty acres. His
| wife works by his side She may even
run "A pillow, but she never is employed
on another mans farm As time goes
on and the family holdings increase.
she rs relieved from outdoor work and
her daughters are brought up with an
the advantages that prosperity can Of
fer
Before the German came the irish
man. lie has long been among the
wealthieFt Of Long Island farmers.
Newcomers tn America are moving
along fhe road over which che older
settlers have Travelled ~ Colonial
times me pioneer had only his famHy
~ depend upon. Outside help was un-
stta4nable ~ ~ uae mans lgl feu