A YANKEE FARMER'S WIFE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 2020, 18 June 1885, Page 4

A YANKEE FARMER'S WIFE.

She has received a certain amount of instruction at a public school, then marries young, and begins her, to me, herculean labours. It is her part to perform all the daily household tasks but with seldom any outside aid. She must make butter, milk the cow, feed the chickens, and attend to the kitchen garden, as will as to her pet flowerbeds and vines. Then she harnesses her hor-e and dii\cs to a neighbouring town to barter (.is no one else can) with her butter, eggs and garden pro^ ducc. If anj tiling is broken or out of order in the house and fat in, she mends it, and, being a woman of infinite resources, she nisi) even construct some of liei own furniture or paint het fence. Her "parlour ' is adorned with tin* Lite st absurdities in the w.iy of wotstfd woik or pressed bonqin ts, while her store closet is will stocked with piesenes, and hei g.met hung 'tith dried fruits. It is piobable she has children, and noiv are more thoughtfully tended in all their needs, be tin y physical, moial, or ornamental. The clothing of the family, oven to then stockings and mittens, is her h.uidiwoik, while occasionally a garment i« made for one of the ullage poor. But w here is her «elf culture ? say you. Ah ! there is the my^tct > —how and w hen is it accomplished ? And there is no denying the fact, a narrow, provincial : education it may be, but that is owing solely to her circumscribe I life. ' If you were to eutei a small common- > place, white washed faimhouse in any of ! the stiaggling New England villages, which appear Itttioi'lse than a duster of huts in a w ilderne*! to English eyes — if you were so bold hh to entci in, and ao fortunate as to ha\e uninteirupted con . vernation with the mtstre-iB of the house, [ yon would find her a plain, probably , faded woman, clad in neat cilieo, sharp* , voiced and sharp xisatjed, pot hap*, but ' gontle in tnnnnuis, and di^plajing as .she talks a well-ciiltn.ited intelligence, and more or le&s famil'.uitv with literature ' all its bunches of history, philosophy, I science, and belles letties. You would find hei a membei of the net rest hbrarj, , and a subset ibcr to all the leading periodicals. But in order to make this a s'rictly • truthful account, I inu-t add that »ho seldom reads the neMspipeis, and is utterly dexoid of that knowledge of 1 current affair* that di-tiiiguixli(B parti1 cularly the women of 2snv Yoik and ' Chicago But then consider how piecions to her is each n oment of time, and how : far she removed f 10m the centre of life and civilisation l-fihe has no amusement, no dUersions, no tiips away; nothing 1 but the dull, cveilastmg grind. And she ih patient and nexer ri&ting from her 1 round of nccce&s.iry duties, and that, to her, no less neces^osy one of ctlf culture. Some one has beautifully siid that " the Unml that rocks the ciadl-* is the hand ' th.it locks the world. 1 ' The children of Piiscilla— or, mote coiroctly, " Siirey Ann" —will doubtless be rich, and some 1 will call them parvenu^, perhaps ; but as for het giandchildren and tfrcatgrand- ■ childitn, what may they not become ?—? — 1 " Cassel's M.i^a/ine.

If silence be polde n dumb people ougl ♦ to grow ncli. Tho hdi» of the Into Pope Pius IX. hi ought an action some time ago against the Italian < iovcrnimnt for the recovery of alleged an cars of the annual allowance due to the Pope under the Law of (Juaiantccs. A judgment of the C'ouit of Cessation, just delivered, finally declares these claims to be uiiMistninahle. Food for Poui/rin. — An American poultry keeper of laige c\peiirnr* claims that tho best single grain for laying hens is pure wheat, yet a variety of gi >in will give much better results than a stiady (lilt. lie recommends the following weekly diet for evening feed : — Monday, wheat; Tuesday, coin; Wednesday, wheat ; Thursday, oats ; Fiiday, wheat ; Ha tut day, soaked bailey ; Sunday, buck wheat or Egyptian coin. The morning feed should be always ground, often cooked, and rather elaborate and diversified. Pkocabi.v there is no spectacle so dear tothsejes and the health of tlie young unmaiued ladies as a wedding, especially if the bride and her bevy of bridesmaids .ne hktly to diatingush thomwlves in the way of personal adornments. Taking advantage of this feminine weakne-g, the promoters of a chuit-h charity, with the concunenee of the \iuar and the churchwardens of an Knglit-li paiish, recently made a s-mall charge for admission to the church on the occasion of a fashionable wedding. The building was crowded, and the remit was a substantial addition to the funcU of the object benefited. Possibly the example may be followed elsewhere.