The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1911-01-06
Idaho Country Life

at home. /,
The telephone is having much Il
do with the recent improvement II
life, city as well as country Oul
standard Of happiness and success
is radiating from one extreme to an
other, this time with. the probably
sensible difference in that it will
halt nearer the correct place. The
rural phone is help so long as II
does not take the place of frequent
little visits. 1t should be used tt
make dates and not to annul calls
When the farmers wife works sc
hard she has no time fol. the chatty
visit with her neighbor who resorts
to her phone for the social part OF
her life. Little Ned is sure going
to want to move to town when he
is eighteen and all the preaching
since Adam will not take the notion
out of his head, either. Call up your
neighbor and say one of these two
things: ~ am looking for you to-
morrow afternoon or else II AM
going to run over tomorrow after
noon" Your telephone should be
an instrument to take you into the
open, not one to keep you in Jail.
Now staying at home in a well-ar-
ranged farm region is not the worst
imaginable, but we will
not like it in Heaven if we have to
watch one bed of roses all the time
or drink the water of life from the
same gourd year in and year out.
Heaven is place where variety takes
place and where we will be expected
to let each person paddle his own
canoe just as he likes. just any time
day or night he likes, heading any
way he likes and coming back any
time he likes. Here We quarrel about
differences, there we will smile about
differences.
One more phone thought. A ply
sician was called one stormy night to
go at once four miles to see a child
with Group. He had the anxious
mother hold the sick child to the
phone. At once he prescribed and
went the next day and found the
child doing very nicely-under the
care of the physician who went when
called.
The rural mail delivery Is splen-
did, but like all good things, it can
be turned to evil if the Devil gets
control of it. The nice, breezy chatty
epistle is thing of joy. foever, but
when the farmers wife tries to get
along on epistles too long a time,
she will become melancholy, and
when melancholy the kitchen 1ue
never draws well and the last brand
Of -four does not come up to it's
'ormer record. She can send in to
Chicago for some little article on
which she can get. fifteen cents saving
md when her merchant who ships
n from an outside region the very
arm products she has for sale he will
make some sarcastic remark.
We are social creatures, Robinson
Crusoe Notwithstanding. ! have an
dea that Noah would have gotten
more converts If he had not built the
rk so plain If he had put on a
ew Dormer windows and few cupo-
as, and lot of lightning rods he
would have filled his ark with people
rom the country as we'll as from
he towns.
Now the writer is essentially a
ountry citizen. He never has a full
ress suit and would feel out of place
n one of their full-undress doings.
used to pull 'pursley and feed the
alves and pigs while mother MIXED
he cows. l think | know what | am
alking about when | say we are Just
ow at the dawn of better things for
he farmer.
Let us have one grand. central hall |
r building. Let us build one Of
hese, in every township and use it |
u various social purposes. Remem-
err all the while that the home was
he first institution that God insti-
tied and it will be the last. After
atan has had a hand in the school
nd the church and the grange and
lie lodge, he will enter the home.
Let every farm region have its
ALL. Here we can go to hear
'rmon, lecture, see rally or hold
box supper. Here we can take
lr dead for the last sad rites. or
'urse a church in the. larger sense
ould be better, but We are so d.
ded up on doctrines and the like,
lat 1t is difficult to maintain a
lurch in the early days of develop
ent. We can have the HAIL, at