The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-12-27
EVENING STORY
Farm Administration-59.
= BY JANE OSBORN.

-
If women students took courses in
veterinary surgery and animal hus-
bandry there was no very good reason
why the men students at tn short
winter courses OF the State Agricul-
tural college should not select Prof.
Lucy Cummings course, known as
farm administration-69. Still Prof.
Lucy Cummings was surprised, not to
say a little confused, when off to the
left side of the lecture room, contrast
ing with the fifty or more young wom-
ems faces. she saw the four men stu
dents who had apparently elected to
take her course. = -
1t dealt, as the catalogue said.- in de-.
scribing it. with "the sociological
and sociological problems of the farm
household" and considered in detail
the problems of making the farm
Ehome a CENTER for family recreation
and neighborhood social activity
Three of the young men who had
elected it, wore spectacles. and took
notes copiouSly. Lucy discovered
4, 1t they were fitting themselves to be
instructors in agricultural subjects and
were apparently going straight thru
the catalogue as part of their prepa-
raticn.
The fourth member took no notes
he was, in fact, not taking the course
for credit. He was among the dozen
or so attendants of the agricultural
college who apparently came to a few
lectures merely as a matter Of di-
version during the winter months
when time hung heavy on their hands.
The fact that he was the only one
of the class who was not taking the
purse for credit and that, therefore,
free to study Lucy as she delivered
her lecture made his presence loom
large in the lecture room.
Sometimes it seemed to Lucy-who
vas but twenty-five and just in her
second year as college professor
it seemed as if the room contained but
those two smiling. rather amused,
kindly. always attentive brown eyes.
Lucy herself had never lived many
| m nths on the farm. She had chosen
| to specialize in agricultural house
wifery because it combined her nat
ural interest in domesticity and things
rural-not because she had really
tworked out the problem. of the farm
| er's wife OF had even a remote idea
of some of the difficulties that faced
| the farm woman in her domestic re-
Lucy frequently felt handicapped
| because of her lack of practical ex-
| perience, but never did she feel so
| much SO as when in the course of a
lecture sh. would give utterance to
4 SOIIle highly OpllIfllStlC ana LASOfGCl-
cal ideas as to the charms of farm
house life and she would see the ey es
| IT the side of the room registering a
| degree more of amusement.
/ sThe lecture that Lucy planned to
! give the day before class disbanded
for the Christmas holidays was a prac-
teal talk on Christmas in the farm
house. When she worked this lecture
up the year before she felt that she
| had achieved her masterpiece, and in
| fact many of the students of that year
had told her that it had proved i'm
Intensely helpfA. -
| In the lecture she gave practical
tbased on no actual experience. to be
4 eura-aadyice on how to.ebring Yule-
tfde cheer to the farmhouse. how to
set up the Christmas tree and how to
deck it with ornaments that could be
all produced on the farm-strung
popcorn, cranoerries and rosy apples.
e She took occasion to draw a contrast
| between the Christmas season in a
city home and that in a farmhouse,
with all the advantage scored in favor
/ of the latter. In order to- get thru
the lecture at all she had to keep ner
eyes steadfastly turned away from the
side of the room dominated over by
| the two brown eyes. Then came the
that she had said something that had
brought an anticipatory thrill of
Christmas spirit to her class.
/ She was almost overcome with hap
piness as she heard the many voices
giving their Christmas best wishes.
| They had actually clapped to show
their appreciation. This Lucy knew t,
be most unusual tribute at the college.
And Lucy needed this encourage
ment sorely, for after sconege had
closed all that was left to her was the
little deserted boarding house in the
college town. Almost every one had
left for the holidays, but Lucy had
no place to leave for. Her only rel
| atives, very distant cousins. live
across the continent, and Lucy had
grown used 10 solitary Christmasies,
the one day in the year when people
| so seldom include any one but their
| own family in their Qualification.
| So a snowy Christmas came and
went and all the Yuletide cheer that
Lucy got was in the recollection of
the spirit of Christmas that she had
put into that lecture and the applause
of appreciation that came afterward.
Lucy went out for solitary stroll
over the snow the day after Christmas,
and it was there that she met the
two brown eyes for the first time out
of classroom. All she had learned
about the owner OF them was that he
was a well-to-do and prosperous farm
err who was taking the course merely
for a diversion.
| AS far as actual knowledge of agri-
nculture went there wasn't a specialist
| in the college to whom he c..4>4 II
give practical pointers in the special
lists own suPject-so Lucy hau been
| told.
| Before Lucy knew it 81 had ac-
| cepted the Invitation offered to her
from ner interesting student to get into
his sleigh, and then she realized that
she had actually consented to accom-
pany her companion to his farm five
miles away
I'D like to have it fixed up the way
you told us farms ought to be fixed
up" he smiled, but it's pretty hard
| for an old bachelor like me to get any
! of that fine spirit into farming. When
| my mother was with me there we-used