Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1904-09-15

MISS LANE.
not at all excused from fulfilling the
duties this same prejudice classes as
within woman's sphere. If that Penn
sylvania woman mail carrier were a
man, would she have to get up and
milk the cows and feed the live stock
and then come in and get breakfast for
the family and after that harness her
own horse? Well, not muchl If she
had been man the women folk of that
family would have MIXED the cows
and fed them, too, and would have
hustled around lively to get for the
favored masculine creature just the
incest hot breakfast cellar and pantry
afforded and then would have petted
and pitied him if it happened to be
cold or wet morning and gone out to
see him and his mail wagon off in
state No s1ch favors for the brave
girl mail wa. ON driver who steers her
vehicle over rough and stony roads,
through light and darkness, cold and
heat, rain and thunder and lightning
However. she stand, up to the work
and needs no pity. Ohio has at least
one woman mail contractor who car
ries parcels, passengers and mails over
a route thirty-fiye miles long. Her dis
trict covers five towns. She, too, is a
young lady.
Mountaineer folk are not apt to get
into the newspapers, else it would
have been widely known years ago
that in the coal region of West Virginia
is woman, now great grandmother,
who for more than thirty years has
carried the United States mail bags in
and out and up and down over stony
mountain paths that are difficult for
a horse to tread; for u wagon, impos-
sible. Yet over these paths the re-
markable woman mail carrier has tray
eled on horseback for a generation. She
is past sixty now. over six feet tall
and straight as an arrow. She knows
not fear of man, beast or fiend.
In Massachusetts is another woman
She is Miss Ruth Lane of North Mar
ion, well educated young lady so full
of pluck and power that she has never
attempted anything she did not achieve.
Some of the things she has tried We're
so difficult that men quailed before
them. One such task is covering this
very mail route. The country is so
rough that a horse wears out speedily
in drawing a wagon up hill and down
dale. In winter, through the worst
rigors of Massachusetts weather, the
trip will have to be made on horseback,
with saddlebags. Like the rich and
fashionable ladies who make their sum-
mer homes among the New England
hills, Miss Lane rides astride.
There is one peril attending her route
that would hardly be looked for in that
part of the Union. 1t is a real danger
from highwaymen. Many wealthy per-
sons spend the warm months in the re-
gion covered by her route, and the mail
daily conveys to them letters contain
ing money and other valuables More
than once in a lonely spot on the road
mail carriers who went before her had
been held up and robbed Even this
fact has no terrors for Ruth Lane. She
is an unerring shot with the revolver
and her faithful pistol will be always
with her, and Ruth's alert eye will en-
able her to get the drop on any fellow
that attempts to interfere with her.
When she was schoolgirl some
times the weather in winter was so
bad that it kept her brother at home,
but never Miss Ruth. One winter she
was church sexton, building the fires
in the meeting house and even saving
the wood that fed them. She is d ia
nous cycler. She used to ride to school
on her bicycle At house on the road
there was vicious bulldog that ter
rorized bicycle riders so much that they
finally abandoned the route. Not Ruth
Lane. One day she took with her an
ammonia gun, filled with an uncom-
monty strong charge As the fierce
beast sprang at her she let him have
the charge full in his eyes. With an
awful howl he fed and never again
troubled a cycler.
SUSAN PEPPER