Two Girls That Tried Farming

DOROTHEA ALICE SHEPHERD and Louise Burney v. Fate.

Yes, that was the way the ease stood, We were making the fight.

We often wonder now that we dared. But success is enervating. Our needs gave us requisite intensity then.

I suppose fate and folks thought we were very well off as we were — Louise as housemaid in a family where she was “ as good as anybody,” and I as district school-teacher; at. least, I know that in the first of the struggle the sympathy was all on the wrong side. It is a very fine thing, now that we have succeeded; but there were days and times when — well, never mind! it is little matter since we have succeeded, have accomplished nearly everything which they predicted we never could do.

I was a district school-teacher, and Louise a hired girl, as I said. People who have become interested in us since our success say we are each the other’s complement. Perhaps. Ever since we were tiny school-girls we had owned in joint proprietorship many Spanish castles, where we chiefly stayed when together, as neither of us had any other bona-fide home. But the time came when, instead of reading and romancing together, we spent our hours in scolding over our lot. I suppose, indeed, that had we been members of the International, or the Commune, instead of a pair of harmless Yankee village girls, wei could not have discussed the problems of work and property much more fiercely than we did. We wanted a home, we wanted to be our own mistresses, we wanted a living that should be independent of the likes, dislikes, and caprices of others.

We read up the subject of labor, talked over every branch we had known women permitted to try. We turned from all the traditional industries of our sex; we knew those ancient avenues were crowded. Louise would have liked to take a step up. “I should prefer something that would take us among books, shouldn’t you, Dolly? If we only had money we would begin a little store: books on one side, with a nice news counter, and on the other side bottles and drugs. Don’t you think so, Dolly, some day? ”

But Dolly knew two ladies, tired-out teachers, who were doing just that; and she knew the amount of debt incurred in addition to the capital invested.

Then, in her desperation, Louise would resolve she must save her wages and educate herself as a teacher of mathematics, while I should perfect my French and drawing. “If I could, don’t you think we might get hired in the same school, Dolly? ”

My poor Louise! there has always been something the matter with her head where figures are concerned. When she sets the basket of eggs in the wagon I always inquire if the “little pencil” is in the pocket-book. Tt always is, for — careful little soul —she wouldn’t be the one to peril our precious gains by trusting to a mental calculation of eleven dozens at thirteen cents per dozen.

But finally, when a good plan and capital to carry it out both seemed impossible, both the plan and the capital suddenly “ turned up.”

A maiden sister of Louise, who as housekeeper had saved up eight hundred dollars, died and left the sum intact “ to us,” as Louise was pleased to say. And one day soon after, she laid down the New York Tribune, and said, “ Let us go West! ”

It was meant as a merry jest; but it was a breeze to blow I the tendril of a vague fancy of mine round a “happy thought ” which I suppose many other women have tried to clamber up by.

“ Lou, why not? ” I exclaimed at once. “ Why not go West and buy a bit of land and raise small fruits for the markets ? ’ ’

In a few moments we had talked ourselves brave and eager, not so much over the work as over the happiness; the plan presented itself to us as idyl, pastoral, holiday, picnic. “ That would be home and independence beyond any of the other plans,” said Lou. “Just you and I, and nobody to deal with but Dame Nature! ”

I went back to my boarding-place. I read and reflected. Unfortunately for our project, I had a genius for details, and now it came into baleful activity.

I stayed away from Louise untill there was not a shred of our bright plan left. Friday she sent me a note, and Saturday night I went up to see her.

She took me up into her room, turned me round, looked me attentively in the face. “ Dolly, what have you turned down the lights for? Are n’t we going to raise small fruits? or did I dream it ? ”

“ Lou, do you know how long it takes to bring strawberries into profitable bearing, and raspberries too? ”

“ I believe strawberries bear in June, and raspberries some time in July — why?” answered she innocently. “I suppose we should set them early in spring.”

“ Lou Burney, we should have to wait as good as two years! ” I cried. “ Yes, and then, unless we were supernaturally early in market, the bulk of our crops would go at ten cents per quart. I ’ve searched market reports through old papers until I ’m perfectly certain the markets everywhere must be overstocked. It is not safe to stake our interests in such an enterprise. We should have to produce enormous crops to make it a business worth while. And it isn’t likely two ignorant girls could do that,— not at first; and since, meantime, two ignorant girls must live, they had better beware.”

“ Oh, Dolly! do you mean to say all our talk the other night has gone for nothing ? And you were so sure! How could you? ’’

“ I hope you don’t blame me for looking round! ” I replied, rather crossly, for I was as badly disappointed as she.

Men say we have no business instinct. Louise and I are far more inclined to believe that now than at first. It is woman-like to seize blindly hold of somebody’s happy thought and endeavor to realize it under the most absurd circumstances. If you could only hear the plans that lone, energetic women have submitted to us! Still, we don’t think it the fault of sex, so much as of training. For just one century give the generations of women the active life of men, and we shall not make these mistakes.

Louise looked up at last so regretfully. “ I believe I’d rather we had n’t found out, and gone on and tried it, it was such a nice plan: you and I with a house of our own — it was next thing to being birds and living in a nest. I would rather have tried it, and lived so a while, even if we failed at last. Oh, Dolly, can’t we? it could n’t take much just for you and me — just two girls; how could it? ”

“ For one day it would n’t take much; but for a year, even one year, have you any idea what it would cost? ”

“ No, Dolly, I haven't, that I know of. But you have, I see. I understand that look; you’re going to bear down on me now with a column of figures! ’ ’

Yes. In my pocket I had a newspaper slip whose figures and statistics might well deter one from waiting for berries to grow. It was a compilation from the Report of some Labor Commission, giving the average cost of living of the individuals of ordinary families.

One hundred and thirty-two dollars and thirty-three cents.

“ Two hundred and sixty-four dollars and sixty - six cents!” she exclaimed. “ No, Dolly, we could n’t live while we waited, if this is correct. The berryplan must be for women who have something to subsist them while they wait; we must have something to sell right away.”

She took up the slip again, and looked over the items. “ How much the small things cost! those which people who have them never count among the expenses of living — milk and eggs and butter and vegetables. J was thinking of only meats and flour. Dear me, Dolly, we could n't, for we should have nothing in the world left after we bought any sort of a place. To accomplish anything, we ought to have all such things without buying. Why don’t you say something, Dolly?” she asked me at last.

“ I can’t. Not now. I ’m thinking. I 'll come again in three days. Then, I believe, I shall have plenty to say.”

Lou caught me by both hands. “You mean things when you look like this, Dully Shepherd; what is it? ”

But I broke away from her, not letting too much hope creep into my smile either. I felt, indeed, that now I had seized upon what Castelar calls “ the Saving Idea.” But I always like to dissect a flash. Until I had studied it in detail I could not tell. My mind was in confusion, with my thoughts all circling round a central idea: Could we go West and buy a farm, a real farm, a man’s farm?

It was a startling thought to me — a girl who never had planted a hill of corn, or hoed a row of potatoes in her life, and who had a hacking cough, and a pain in her side. Still I felt strangely daring. Out-of-door life was what I needed, and home, and freedom from anxiety concerning my daily bread. For the first time I could find a certain good in the fact that I was all alone in the world. There was nobody, either for Lou or me, to interfere with our devoting ourselves to the solution of a problem. If we failed, there was nobody to be sorry or mortified.

Louise did not wait for my mysterious three days to expire. The afternoon of the second she came down to the school-house. It was just after I had “dismissed.”

“ Now! ” demanded she.

Well, I had gone through the new plan in detail, had thought and thought, read and read, had found there was no sex in brains; for out of the mass of agricultural reading I saw that even I, had I the strength, could reduce whatever was pertinent to practice. I resolutely cast money-making out of the plan, but I believed we could raise enough for our own needs, and I thought, “ Oh, Lou Burney, if we should be able to establish the fact that women can buy land and make themselves a home as men do, what a ministry of hope even our humble lives may become! ”

In my earnestness I had tried various absurd little experiments. In my outof-door strolls I think I had managed to Come upon every farming implement upon the place. Out of observation I had lifted, dragged, turned, flourished, and pounded. I had pronounced most of them as manageable by feminine muscle as the heavy kettles, washing machines, mattresses, and carpets that belong to woman’s in-door work. I had hoed a few stray weeds back of the toolhouse, a mullein and a burdock (which throve finely thereafter), and found it as easy as sweeping, and far daintier to do than dinner-dish-washing.

I felt prepared to talk. “Well, Lou, I said, “ we will try it very much as we talked. We will even have some berries. Only we will make our bread and butter the chief matter, and do whatever else we can meanwhile. We will take our moneys” — I had three hundred of my own — “ and go up into the great Northwest and make the best bargain we can for a little farm, which, however, shall be as big as possible, for even at first we must keep a horse and a cow, and a pig and some hens. Keeping a cow, you know, will enable us to keep the pig, and therefore it means smoked ham and sausage for our own table, lard, milk, cream, and butter. As you said, we must have something to sell right away. There will be, as I have planned it, a surplus of pork, butter, eggs, and poultry with which to procure groceries, grains, and sundries. We shall also raise our fruits and vegetables. We can grow corn to keep our animals, and for brown bread for ourselves. We will set out an orchard and a grape arbor, and have a row of beehives. Meanwhile, having secured the means of daily life, I have other and greater plans for a comfortable old age.”

These I disclosed. She made no comment upon them, hut reverted gravely to the animals. “ I should think we might, Dolly, only the horse; do we need a horse? Be sure now, Dolly, for it would be a great undertaking. You know we would have to keep a nice one if we kept any, not such a one as women in comic pictures always drive. Be sure, now.”

“ Yes, I am. We must cultivate our own corn and potatoes. I can see that in small farming hiring labor would cost all the things would come to. Besides, how could we ever get to mill, or church, or store? Only by catching rides; our neighbors would soon hate us.’

“ Well, then,” said Lou, “ let us go.”

Accordingly, we came up into Michigan to cousin Janet’s. Making her hospitable house our head - quarters, we proceeded to “look land' like other Eastern capitalists: that is, cousin Janet’s husband took us in his light wagon to see every farm that was for sale within ten miles. And it was such fun we little midgets to go tripping over magnificent estates of two or three hundred acres, and spying about with only a thousand dollars in our pockets!

Of course, we could not buy them; and we did think, so long as we were “ only two girls,” there was no need for such wide-spread consternation when we finally made our choice. However, Lou and I were of one mind. We had resolved to keep ourselves to the plan of “ mixed farming; ” and when the whole of that rubbishy, neglected thirty-five acres was offered to us by its non-resident owner for a sum quite inside our means, instead of turning up our noses at it, we felt it to be a bit of outspoken friendliness on the part of Providence, and to the astonishment of the neighborhood we bought it without delay.

But we have been obliged thus to rely, almost wholly, upon our own judgment from the beginning, — so many things which we lack are necessary in order to carry out a man’s advice: money, strength, hired men, horses, Still we believe that these very lacks, compelling us as they have to certain close economics and calculations, have helped us to our success.

Our scraggy acres were a contrast, to be sure, to the handsome orchards and wheat fields we had visited. But from the day on which we “drew writings,” Lou and I never have looked upon the spot without seeing it, not only as it is, but as what it is to become, and is becoming. Every stone picked up, every fence corner cleared, every piece of thorough plowing, every rod of fence built, every foot of trellis, every rosebush and grape-vine and shade tree planted, has been to us as one brush-stroke more upon the fair idyllic picture we saw in the beginning.

On our way home from the village we again passed our place. John rather maliciously asked if we would not like to look at it “ as a whole,” and stopped the team.

As a whole, it was a narrow, hilly stretch outlined by a weak skeleton of a fence; a forbidding surface of old stubble ground and wild turf, the distant hill - tops crowned with tall mulleins. There was not a sprig of clover on the place, and though there was an old brown house and barn, there was not an orchard tree, nor a reminiscence of garden.

John discoursed again of the poor soil as we sat there. He warned us that we could never expect to raise wheat. Wheat! I had seen little save wheat since we came into the State. I did n’t believe in so much wheat, on account of a few principles in chemistry, and I told him so; and let him laugh at my “ school - ma’am farming ” while I jumped out and crept through the bars and ran up to make sure the old house was locked. What an old house! It had grown dear to us already, as being our very own: but in reality it was as brown and straggling, and as lonely and unpicturesque, as an old bird’s nest

With a strange new sense of security which only the possession of a bit of real estate can give one, we flitted away to prepare to come again in I the spring with the first robin. I went back to cousin Janet’s and hired out, not to her, but to cousin John; while Louise took up her old business of housework at a wealthy farmer’s near us — cheerily, both of us. We had paid for our farm, and there remained to us funds for the purchase of horse, wagon, and cow. Lou, being supposed coolest in case of fire, took charge of the precious deed, and of the money, promising to add thereto, before spring, fifty dollars ; “ And that will buy your clover seed, Dolly.”

“But you know you believe in clover, Lou, and several cows and sheep ? ”

I did not fancy shouldering alone the responsibility of my theories.

“ Oh, yes, dear Dolly, if you are certain you do.”

I was pretty certain.

Lou had her two dollars each week. What I earned was twelve dollars per month, experience, and health. Of course they wanted to keep the sick girl in the house. But at the outset I made for myself some short dresses,—I am small and slender, and it was not at all such an outrage upon the æsthetics of dress as you may fancy, — and thus lightly and conveniently attired, and beginning moderately, I worked out-ofdoors every day with cousin John and the boys.

I found everything hard, but nothing impossible.

Little Rob and I cut up half a dozen acres of corn unassisted. Unassisted I husked the same, bound my bundles, and well, too. At first I was greatly discouraged over this same “ binding,” as all women are: for cousin said he could n’t sacrifice too much to our experiment, and that he would n’t have me in the husking unless I could bind my stalks as I went. I promised, but it tore and wore my hands cruelly, and then the bundles upon which I had spent so much time would fall in pieces while I was carrying and setting them up. But one day, when I was at quite a loss what to do, I espied two German women in the neighboring field occupied like myself, and I climbed the fence and called upon them, as very properly I might, they being the later comers. They, I found, had availed themselves of woman’s proverbial wit; they showed me some balls of coarse twine.

“ Go puy you self some palls of leetle rope, and not tear you shmall hand’s mit twisting stalks and marsh hay. It do take more time to twist him, than it do to earn do leetle rope.”

I returned triumphant, and after that bound my stalks, woman - like, with “ leetle rope.”

After the first few days, I could work early and late. Cousin Janet said I should surely finish myself up now; and Louise was afraid I would, too. But day after day I appeared in my cornfield, where I worked after a fashion of my own, I did n’t fancy wet stalks, and bugs, and mice nests, and perhaps a snake, in my lap. But the vigorous motions required to strip and break the ear from the husks, and the exercise of binding and carrying, expanded my chest as thoroughly as the motions of the movement cure, and marvelously strengthened shoulder and wrist. My cough ceased. The sunlight of the lovely, vaporous Indian summer weather, and the sweet air, proved at once a balm and a tonic for my irritated stomach, and, together with the exercise, invigorated my appeThe. I used to run down to dinner as hungry as the boys, and bark gleefully “ like a wolf ” in Janet’s ears, to show her how ravenous I was, until at last the hired man — an old Scotchman — said one day to John, who was lecturing me, “Hoot, mon! let the lass alone! gie her oatmeal pairritch for her breakfast and let her work; them as likes wark can wark their fill on that! ”

So they can. Louise and I know that.

A cup of strong, pure, well creamed coffee, with a dish of oatmeal mush dressed with cream and sifted sugar, has been our daily breakfast for years. The old Scotchman’s hint has been a fortune to us in the matter of solid muscle and healthy thought.

While I grew brown and strong out in the sunny fields, I was daily learning my business working alongside cousin John. I learned the easy way, the “ man’s way,” of holding the plow and turning a furrow, and it was a proud time for me when Rob and I were trusted to plow out the potatoes when potato harvest came. I “ thanked my stars ” every day then, as every day since, that I had had the energy and the sense thus to fit my self to carry out our enterprise.

I was taught how to make a proper stack of the cornstalks — one that would shed rain — and how to build a load. I would persist: if I slid off the load, as often I did, I would clamber back; for if I was as slim as a willow whip I was also as lithe. I picked apples day after day, until no possible height on the ladder could turn me giddy. I drove the mower to cut the seed clover; I could, in my short, scant skirts. I learned to harness, to milk fast and clean, how to feed and care for stock, and how to swing an ax and fde a saw; and if I did sometimes quite wear out John and old Donald with my questions, and with being in the way, and with the general bother of a girl mixed up with the work, Lou and I don’t know that we care: man, as a race, owes us a great deal. I would “ tag round ” all day at cousin’s heels with his little boys, who thought it great fun to go out and work with Dolly, and who between them taught me almost as many things as their father did; and at night I sat in the rocking-chair and questioned John about sheep and wool and lambs and hay-making, and then compared what he had said with the Rural and the Agriculturist.

Cousin paid me my wages by going over to our farm and plowing up every rod of it save the door-yard and woodlot. He protested against the nonsense of “ fall plowing; ” but I insisted, talking “cut-worms” and the magic harrows of the winter frosts. He protested still more loudly because I bargained for every load of barn-yard compost which the farms for ten miles around would sell and deliver spread upon our plowed land—to “winter waste,” they said; and he called me a “ headstrong girl ” because after making the land so rich I would not " take a wheat - crop off ’ ’ when I “ seeded it.” But Lou and I knew a wheat-crop was an affair of money, men, and teams from beginning to end; besides, we meant to save the entire strength of the soil for our future meadows.

Many a sly dig did I get about my stubbornness.

“ Have ye bought yer team yet, Miss Shepherd?” Thus a friendly neighbor.

Miss Shepherd is saved the trouble of reply. “ A team? Dolly an’t a-goin’ to buy no team; she’s a-goin’ to work her farm with idees.'’

Well, why not? — if I can.

So, pursuant to John’s theory' of “ idees,” I question and question until I have learned the routine of the main farm crops, the number of days’ work per acre of both men and horses, cost of seed, and probable average and market value of yield. I also learn the daily amount of food consumed by each of the meat-making animals, together with the usual market prices of the different meats.

When winter came, I returned to my ancient employment. My school-keeping wages paid my debts to the farmers; and with the surplus I bought out cousin’s hennery entire,—the fowls and the guano, — together with a pretty pair of Poland pigs. Lou had purchased grass and clover seed, and had learned to drive; and as I knew how to milk, and April was near at hand, we bought a load of hay, handsome horse Pampas and gentle cow Maggie, cultivator and spades, gathered up all the old tools cousin had given us, even to a drawshave, and went down home.

And here a blessing upon the gray heads of cousin Janet and cousin John is surely in order; fora portion of everything in their house was sent with us, from a bag of flour and a bam down to a tiny sack of salt and the residue of my oatmeal, from a load of nursling fruit trees down to a bundle of currant bush and a peony root; and, last of all, a lovely little cat, " to purr and sit in your laps and make it seem like home in the evening.” That was what little cousin Jamie said as he reached up and put it in my arms after we were in the wagon.

Well, it was a bare little home after we had done our very best with it; and had it not been our own we could not have stayed there. We had spent all our money on the land, and there was nothing left for the house. There was not one bright thing in it except the crackling fire, and Louise with her golden hair and crimson checks. Such a homemade home as it was! I had braided a great rug, and that turned out to be the only bit of carpet we had for four years. Our window-shades were of newspapers scalloped and adorned with much elaborate scissors - work. We had three chairs, antiquated specimens that I had brought down from cousin’s wood-house chamber, cushioned and draped; and the trouble we had, to be sure, because we could not step up on any one of them to reach things! We used a stand in place of a table, for which Lou contrived a leaf; and we slept upon an oldfashioned post - bedstead which Janet had given us. We owned three plates and a platter, as many knives and forks, cups and saucers; John said if we had company Lou and I could wait, which we did. The rest of our in-door possessions consisted of some odd kettles, a score of shining new milkpans, a couple of pails, a broom, a small pile of books in blue and gold, a trunkful of magazines, — unbound but precious, — an etching of Evangeline, and a splendid engraving of Longfellow sitting in a rocking-chair: that, truly, was everything we had to put into that great, rambling old house.

However, we still think it was better to have bought the clover seed.

The first, evening was strange enough to us. I remember just how oppressive the silence became after everything was done and we sat down. Lou cried, and I laughed. Then we felt how absurd it was to be afraid in our own house; and we cheered ourselves with the pussy and the fire, and said we would subscribe for a newspaper. After that all went well.

Only, everyr morning Lou would ask me, i' Dolly, you never will go off and leave me, will you ? ”

“ No, that I won’t! And y"ou never will either, will you? ”

“ No, indeed! ”

And that is our “ good morning ” still.

In due time cousin John came again, and gang-plowed the fields we had devoted to clover. Then he lent us his team, and Lou and I harrowed and harrowed. Then we sowed our clover and timothy and orchard grass, so thickly, too, that John was fain to swear at our wastefulness. Hut 1 didn’t believe, even then, that there was need for such spotted meadows as I had observed — the clover growing in distinct patches and tufts, the grasses coarse, sparse, and wiry; I wanted some fine, sweet grasses. I will say here that I was rewarded for my faith in liberal seeding; for owing to that, and to (he plentiful winter dressing, and the fine seed-bed we made of all the fields, our pretty trefoil came up all over like wheat, or a lettuce-bed, and our grasses are fine, thick, and sweet. Of course clovering upon such an extensive scale obliged us to hire pasturage for Pampas, and to “ soil ” gentle Maggie; but we found the latter plan, though troublesome, one of our most profitable experiments.

And then, waiting for May" day’s and corn-planting, we began work in earnest. In our convenient short dresses, in which Louise said she felt “ so spry,” rejoicing in loose bands and in shoulderstraps and blouse waists to a degree that would have delighted Miss Phelps, we shouldered our axes and our dinnerpails, àa la lords of creation, and went over to our bit of forest to get up " the year’s wood,” after the manner of the model householder.

I will allow you for a moment to fancy us vainly attacking huge logs, and then tell you we were simply thinning out the young trees. It was not a difficult task to fell them. Afterwards we constructed a couple of rude, strong saw-bucks, and sawing diligently, day after day, we at last had a supply for months piled neatly in the green recesses.

After that came fence-mending, yes, and fence-making, for wee were obliged to have sixty rods of entirely new fence. We found that our own woods had been thoroughly denuded of “rail timber,” and, further, that even in this comparatively new country, a board fence was already cheaper than one of rails, when it came to buying outright.

This was the result of Lou’s inquiries at the village lumber yards. " And,” added she, “the fences, even at these rates, will cost almost as much as the land did. There is a country saw-mill three miles up north, of which fact a man would take advantage.”

“ And why not we? ”

The next day, in our new, gay little wagon wee set off over the hills. There was a quizzical light gleaming in the black eyes of the proprietor of the mill as he came forward to listen to our inquiries; but it mattered little to us. lie soon found that AVC meant “ cash down,” and AVC found that by buying logs and hiring them sawed AVO should compass a saving of fifteen dollars.

“ And now, Dolly,” said Louise on the way home, “ I shall draw those boards myself. Those mill-men look good-natured — they will load for mo. You and I together can lift off the wagon-box, and I have studied out how to lengthen the reach with a false one. I can ride nicely on the reach going, and on the boards coming back. Nothing shall be wanting on my part, Dolly.”

It is not pertinent to the history of this experiment how people stared to see little Louise riding by upon a wagonreach. She took care, wisely, to look very pretty, and I believe it was thought rather “ cunning ” than otherwise; she and her yellow-striped Avagon and her spirited roan horse were all upon such a little scale, “ and all of us sandy-complexioned,” she laughingly said as they started.

I Avorried greatly for fear she would fall off; but by noon she was safely back Avitli her little load of hoards. Encouraged by her brave smile I thought we might unload. And we did. “ No harder than dancing several hours, Dolly,” she said cheerily. “ And saving our money serves much the same purpose as the music.”

Next day ditto, and tlie next, and the next.

“ There!” said the little teamster, as she surveyed the boards scientifically scattered up and doAvn the lines of future fence. “There, Dolly, AVC have saved the twenty dollars with wliicli becomingly to accept tlie inevitable - -a Avoman cannot dig post-holes and set posts! ”

The post - setting accomplished, Ave bought our fence-nails, and vvitli our hammers and saws Avent out to build fence. AYe built it, too, notwithstanding masculine wisdom assured us we could not. We lifted the boards by uniting strength, I held them against the post close to Lou’s accurate red chalk marks, — it is Lou who has the correct eye, — and she drove the nails. During which we found that the fifteen dollars saved Avas the margin for straight edges, uniform width, freedom from hark, immunity from knot-holes, and the general superiority of art over nature, town over country.

We also took doAvn and relaid the entire roadside fence, not accomplishing all this, of course, without countless resting-spells; the fibre that endures, the power of giving blow and bearing strain, is of painfully slow growth.

The fence-mending done, we attempted another bit of thrift. We harnessed Pampas to the little Wagon, for which we ourselves had constructed a light extra box to place atop the other, and then we drove up and down our estate, — Lou practicing in the art of standing to drive, the while, — through the woods and through the grubby residue Avhicli John could n’t plow, cutting our wagon-roads as we went, often both jumping out to roll aside a log, rolling and blocking, rolling and blocking, until we had conquered, and thoroughly “ picked up ” the place, bringing back to the door load after load of sticks and limbs and chips for summer wood.

There were three acres of this unavailable residue. While we were loading, we often paused to contemplate it. It was covered by a growth of white oak grubs; old stumps and knotty logs had been rolled down upon it, and it had been made a dumping ground for stones and the mountainous piles of brush from former clearings.

“ Here, Dolly dear, is our knitting work! ” Lou said one day.

Just that it was for two years. When no other work pressed, we “logged.” That is, we cut down grubs—trimming up the tallest to mend fence with—and piled the brush, old and new, around the logs, dragging the stumps into piles of two and three; many a summer night have we tended Our big bonfires over there; twice have we had the whole place on fire and the neighborhood out to save the fences and put out the flames. In fact, our daily life those first years was so truly primitive, and seemed such a bit of delightful outlawry from the conventional housewife of our sex, that Louise often said, “ We might as well be gypsies, Dolly, and live in the hedge!’ ’

Meantime other things were happening. We had tried a bit of the newspaper gardening: Louise and I had agreed we would try almost everything. Underneath a thin coverlet of straw, and the shelter of some loose cornstalks, down the sunny south side of the selected garden site, we had lettuces and peas and onions growing greenly, right in the midst of snow-storms. It was a pretty sight, after a light April snow, to take a peep in and see them smiling up at us with such a live, cheery, undaunted look, as if to say, “ We are very comfortable, thank you, and as busy as we can be!” It made us cheery. We were like two children. We hovered every day about this first gardening, this premature bit of summer which we had evoked as from fairyland. It was such a wonderful thing to us, as wonderful as the telegraph, to ask a question of Nature,—a question wrapped up in a tiny brown seed, or a brown bulb, or a little withered, wrinkled bean, — and be answered thus.

Another development in our affairs was not so encouraging. Pampas, upon acquaintance, was proving to be an extreme conservative, who liked things to run on in the old ruts. He had been born in the purple; and so soon as he learned that he had probably become involved for life in the problem of woman’s independence, his discontent threatened us serious trouble. Having been accustomed to a town carriagehouse he did not take kindly to our rustic accommodations, although his good breeding while he supposed himself merely on a visit led him to accept them courteously; but of late we had been wakened, and lain trembling to hear him pawing and knocking his stable in the dead of night — our horse — what were we to do with him?

“ I will whip him for that,” Louise said at last.

He had never drawn anything save a light phaeton, or worn any but the daintiest trappings, and he hated our harness and never would accept the bits without a protest; and of late he had shown his contempt for our pretty wagon by a series of short runs back and forth whenever he was put in the thills; and now he was resorting to sudden jumps, and to standing straight upon his hind feet in his desperate Struggles to free himself.

“And I will whip him for that!” finally said Louise one day, after dismounting for the seventh time from the load of wood which he had vainly tried by rearing and plunging to overturn. I looked at his ugly mouth champing the hits so restively, and at his unloving eye, and I fancied little short Louise whipping him! I should have laughed had I not been so anxious.

One day when he would n’t “ back,'’ she kept her word.

She led him out into an open space, told me to come along, and throwing off her sun-bonnet, took the whip. “ Now back, Pampas! back!”

Not a step. Nothing but that fierce champing.

“ Back, I say! back! ” She tries to force him back with all her strength — and her white, firm arm and shoulder have strength. But Pampas champs and plants his feet, and then tries to make a little run at her, and I cry out. She crushes him back, the veins standing out on the little brown fist like cords.

She is white enough now: “ Get into the wagon, Dolly, and pull on the lines! ”

I clamber in, and, while she tries again, I pull, and cry “Back! back!” with all my weak voice. It is an excited feminine shriek, and it sounds as if I were afraid and were about to break down and cry, when in reality I am as brave and angry as Louise.

She tells him once more. Then she forces the bits back, and she raises the whip, and she brings it down upon his breast fiercely and fast, and crics, “ Back, Pampas! ” Pampas rears; that taint of mustang blood shows itself now; he raises her clear from the ground, but he can neither knock her down nor shake her off.

The whip comes swift and fierce. “Back! back there! back!” And I am as angry as she. I don’t care if we both do get. killed, and I pull, and she cries to him, and all at once he does back — runs back swift and hard. She holds fast. “Brace yourself if you can!” and then we bring up against the fence, and I sit down suddenly, and am thrown forward upon the dash - board. He plunges, but little Lou bolds him there. She can hold him. Then, after a little, she lets him come forward, a few steps at a time, breathing hard and stepping high. He stands and paws, and looks, oh, how furious!

Lou takes breath a moment. “ This never 'll do!” she says, and tells me to get out. She springs in while I try to hold him as she did; he evidently thinks he can trample me down. “ Now, don’t be frightened! The harness is strong, and I can hold him; let go now! ”

I try to let go, and he gives a plunge, nearly knocking me over, and shoots out at the open gate, as Lou meant. Up the road they go, Lou bare-headed, her golden fleece of hair floating straight behind her. I can see her whipping him up the long hill. He plunges, kicks, breaks into a run again, and the next minute they are out of sight, and the Kromers all come out to the gate to look. I can hear them for a little while over on the other road, the wagon rattling and bounding once or twice, and then there is nothing more to be heard.

They are gone an hour. I try to get dinner, but I cannot see, for tears. I let one of our plates fall and break. I let the meat burn. I wring my hands and walk the floor. I am just tying on my sun-bonnet to go and see what I can find, when suddenly I think I hear wheels. I run to the door. I did hear wheels. And it is Louise coming from the other way. Pampas is walking meekly. He is covered with sweat and foam — such a sorry - looking beast! Lou sits on the seat, serene, but white and large-eyed.

She smiles as they pause in the gateway. She composedly backs him a little. Then they come on again a few steps, then she stops him. She backs him again. “ See! don’t he know his master? ”

He looks so meek and sorry. I think he would like to lay his nose against my cheek, but she will not let me pot him, not ever so little.

How we congratulate ourselves! for the neighborhood has for the last fortnight plainly been of the opinion that “ them two girls have no business with a horse! ”

But the next morning at breakfast, we hear the old ringing hoof-blows upon the side of the barn. Louise jumps up and takes down the whip, and I follow her. It is dreadful to me that we two gentle, intelligent girls, cannot coax and win and govern a horse according to theory.

I hear Pampas start with a jump as Lou unlatches the stable door, lie sees her, sees the whip, and he — yes, he actually falls upon his knees. Lou nods at him meaningly, lays down the whip, tells him to get up, which he does, tells him to gO to eating, which he does.

“ There, old fellow! ” she says.

Pampas trembles when he hears her comine:, for nearly a week. Once more he has to be shown the whip at a time when his memory bids fair to fail him concerning the art of backing, and then it is all over with; and I am permitted to pet him again. He is a good horse for a year at a time, and very dear to the hearts of his small mistresses. Then, usually, he and Louise have to make some few fresh arrangements concerning good behavior; but it is never now a serious affair.

By this time the money capital of the enterprise had become entirely exhausted, and we were left dependent upon the butter and eggs of our plan. During our first week at cousin Janet’s we had found that they were not going to bring us the prices we had counted upon. We could only trust that there might be such a thing as making good the deficiency in prices by the production of larger quantities. We experimented with the feed of our poultry, and at last we did succeed in bringing what Louise called “ a perfect storm of eggs.”

Knowing it costs no more to keep the good cow than the poor one, we had paid an extra price and had secured one of extra excellence, upon whom our meal and “middlings” were not wasted: gentle Maggie, with her little Maggie of still more precious blood in the stall adjoining. She was all that a shorthorned, yellow-skinned, slender-footed, black-nosed little cow can be; and we never blamed her because our butter brought us only twenty-five, twenty, eighteen, fifteen, twelve and a half cents per pound; that is the descending scale from March to June.

We make, I fancy, the veritable “ giltedged ” butter of the Boston and Philadelphia markets. It is sweet, fragrant, sparkling, golden-tinted, daintily salted, and daintily put up; but even from the most fastidious private buyers we never have received above thirty cents per pound, and during the greater portion of the summer have sold it for fifteen cents and twelve cents, the same price which Mrs. Kromer receives for her soft, lardylooking rolls; perhaps that is the most aggravating part of it! The finer grades of butter, it seems, are not appreciated by the Western citizen and his family. Making inquiries in Detroit and Chicago, we learn there is no trade in these extra grades, and that, if offered, they could not be placed at anything like Eastern prices.

And while Eastern families are accustomed to pay from thirty to forty cents per dozen for eggs, we have never, even in winter, secured over twenty-five cents for the fresh-laid, while in the plenteous summer time we sell for ten cents.

In due time also we found that our blackcap raspberries would really go for ten cents per quart, and the bulk of our strawberries for the same. We abandoned forever the “ small fruits ” item of our plan. We have our thrifty purple canes, and our Wilson and Jocunda beds, where, with many a back-ache and many a dizzy headache, we grow those great, rich-hearted, scarlet and crimson berries which are chronicled as marvels by grateful editors, berries that one must needs slice for the table; but they are never for sale, thank you!

Therefore, enterprising little women, if you can secure land there, remain East with your dainty Jersey cows, your Leghorns and Dorkings. Stay by the good markets. Your labors will be no more arduous, while the returns will be double.

However, by cheerfully ignoring several of the items mentioned by the Labor Commission as among the necessities of the ordinary family, we did, week by week, make both ends meet. For our very own personal needs, the little Arcadian income would really have sufficed; but there always came up something to be purchased which we had not made account of: the pound of nails, the pane of glass, the feed for our fowls, a horseshoe to be set, a bit of repair upon wagon or tools, the road tax, the pleasant little expenses for company. It was, indeed, quite a close affair those first years. Even in the early weeks we dismissed the idea of smoked ham and dainty sausage, and devoted “ Pincushion ” and “ Roly-poly ” to the payment of taxes and the discharge of debt for hired labor. Since, however, we conjugated the Spartan verbs, “ To save” and “ To scrimp; ” and the new year never did find us in debt. They were good days, full of discipline and wisdom; we would not have missed them.

It was the busiest of all the springs; a home has to be begun in so many directions at once — meadow, field, garden, orchard, flowers, and shrubbery. Ah, that setting of trees! With us “ arbor day ” stretched through a week, what with pear, apple, peach, and cherry, evergreen, lilac, rose, and locust, to say nothing of the vines and canes. I confess to hours when we toiled side by side in silence, digging those holes. Nature is no gallant. She has inexorable laws which woman, in common with man, must meet. The spade in delicate hands must be driven as deep as the horniest palm can thrust it. Protect your white hands as you will, if you labor out-of-doors there will come upon them brownness, redness, and freckle; there will be cracks, torn flesh, “ slivers,” what not, and upon your soft, pink palms, callous, blister, and soreness unendurable; a brown, enlarged, useful, and strong hand will be one of the penalties of your independence. Also, my graceful sisters, your slender shoulders will broaden, you will affect, a roomy bodice, and your arms will lose their tapering contours. As compensation, you will possess an exquisite perception of the purity of atmospheres, a comfortable disregard of changes in the weather, an appetite for fruits and vegetables and nourishing steaks, and an indifference to poisonous seasonings and flavorings. You can walk, lift, carry, and undertake fresh independence.

Our tree-setting and early gardening well out of the way, came corn planting. In consideration of certain “suits” made for his little boys, cousin John sent over his horses, plow, and old Donald. Him we coaxed to sit under a budding tree, and Ourselves took possession of the horses and plow. I had been longing to show Lou what I could do; and, truly, at cousin John’s I had not thought plowing so very terrible. But I found our stony, hilly field somewhat different from his soft, level, garden land. To my surprise and hers, instead of walking quietly along my straight, loamy furrow, as I had meant and had led her to expect, Lou beheld me pulled this way, then that, dragged over clods, forced into long strides, the plow now lying upon its side, now leaping along the surface, until the trained team paused in mute inquiry.

We can plow, as I said, but do not think it advisable. Dozens of farmers do not scorn to do something outside, and by a job of carpentering, masonwork, threshing-machine, or the like, furnish themselves with many comforts otherwise unattainable. So I trust that we are none the less legitimately farmers because by a bit of dressmaking, or, rather, fine sewing, we hire our plowing and mowing and whatever other work we please.

We dragged and marked the four acres without assistance. Then we proceeded with another item of “ that newspaper foolery,” which, according to John, no farmer can afford. We had so often been assured that our land wouldn't grow corn, we didn’t know but it might be so, and thought it well to assist the soil to the extent of our means. With our determined and persistent hoes we composted the guano of the hennery with plaster until it was fine, dry, and inodorous. Such a task as that was!

Lou would stop and lean her forehead, wet and red, upon her hoe-handle, and utter a bit of the current but kindly neighborhood sarcasm.

“ * Two girls ! ’ don’t you think so, Dolly?”

I did think so, sometimes.

Then, with a pail in one hand, and a wooden spoon in the other, we each went over the field and deposited a modicum of this home-made fertilizer wherever a hill of corn was to grow.

This preliminary work was, of course, tedious. But it made a difference, we think, if the opinions concerning the state of the soil were correct, of at least forty bushels per acre; for tlie field yielded us, upon an average, ninety bushels to the acre. And let me say that in most instances, as in this, it has paid us to " work our farm with idees.” Our superior melons and turnips, savoys and strawberries, as well as our corn crops, are the result of special work upon special plans, assisted by special fertilizers; not the costly ones of commerce, but home - made and carefully adapted by means of many experiments.

The fragrant May days passed. Our corn shot up its delicate pointed blades, our currant and berry settings puffed and ruffled themselves from top to toe with their little frilled leaves of exquisite green, and each morning there was some miraculous development at the garden beds. It was a pretty sight of a midMay morning: our “ variegated foliage ” beets, peas finger high, onion beds rank upon rank of green lances, lettuces fit for salad and mayonnaise, tomatoes needing trellis, potatoes so liigli, thick and green, all freshly hoed and sparkling with dew. Ah, it is worth while to make garden! Not that ours has ever been particularly early, not that we could ever compete with a dozen Irish women we know, who raise “ truck ” for the markets. Oh, no! any season one can buy cucumbers when our vines are just starring themselves with their little yellow blossoms, and the groceries are full of red, ripe tomatoes when ours are only “ beginning to turn,” and so on; and we have quite our share of hand-to-hand fight with cut-worm, potato-bug, striped-bug, ants, and the onion fly, frost, and drought; but still we have always bad plenty and perfection in the end, and a world of simple pleasures by the way.

“ Cultivating corn” we found to our relief to be entirely practicable, although Pampas at first made cousin John’s instructions of none effect. Nothing could induce him, that first season, to cross the field at less than his road pace, his naughty, handsome head held aloft; and every few moments he would break into a trot. After experimenting with him during one forenoon, we took him down to the stable, and I donned my long dress and went up to Mr. Kromer’s. There I succeeded in lending him to take Mr. Kromer a journey, and in borrowing in return steady old Jane, who would walk up and down the rows with me at my own pace.

We are kept thus busy with hoe and cultivator all the summer long. We spend few daylight hours in the house, and look on to a snug winter in-doors with a zest indescribable. The autumn months come on apace, bringing still harder work and greater hurry. We cut up our corn, husk it, build a homely crib of poles, draw our stalks and stack them, dig our potatoes, store our vegetables, and rejoice like two squirrels as we heap up our winter cheer.

As the long, cold winter finally closes, we look cheerily from our windows out upon the world. Of course some strange, abnormal labors fall to our lot; there are paths to he shoveled through the snow, Pampas and the Maggies to be led forth to water, stables to be kept in wholesome order. But we do it, therefore others can.

The in-door coziness rewards us for it all. There is no enjoyment quite like that which comes as the lot of thrift and industry. We, have avoided all debt save that which in due time the wellfattened Polands cancel. Maggie, feeding through the fall upon our golden pumpkins, enables us to fill the winter flour barrel, and a surplus of potatoes purchases a store of groceries. Eggs, week by week, supply “items.” A day’s work of picking apples “ upon shares ” in the Kromer orchards has filled the apple-bin. During the long leisures, various pieces of fine sewing provide hay for Pampas. Spring finds us hopeful and not in debt.

Year after year we live on in this fashion, tugging away at great labors and knowing few leisures, but kept cheery by the thought that we have already lived so comfortably so long, that we are not in debt, that our early plan bids fair of success; until we begin to hear, on this hand and on that, “ Why, how prosperous those girl-farmers are! Did you ever see the like? ”

Then we pause, and look about us, and find it is so. The time has come. We ourselves see what a green, grassy, leafy nest the once despised little farm is, with its gardens and fruit yards, and rosy clover meadows, and rich upland pastures.

We have been “ true to the early dream.” The “ golden foot of the sheep ” is on our once barren hill-tops. Durham Maggie and Maggie II. and Maggie III. and Jersey Daisy feed luxuriously upon the sweet grasses and the honeyed clover - blossoms, while the cream-rising and the money-making go on together in the cool, shadowy milkroom day by day. The butter shipped in tubs, the choice mutton sheep, the fleeces in a load, are not representative of a ruinous and aggravating amount of labor, and give us our money in that profitable shape, “the lump.”

Of course the nights and mornings of the entire year are as busy as ever; and there is a deal of hard work and hurry in haying time and sheep shearing. But if one must work for a living, and likes a rural life, and can he content to live in a manner so simple and unvarying, the care of small flocks and herds is an easy, gentle, womanly occupation. We like their friendship and their company, and I dare say spend much unnecessary time with them. Lou carries her neatness and love of order into their quarters, until the sheep-cote is a pleasant place to visit. I often tell her that the sheds, so clean and warm and strawy, are as nice as the house, and that I don’t see why, for hundreds of overworked women, the Arcadian time of shepherdesses might not profitably come again.

“ I know it, Dolly,” answers Louise. “ I have thought of it so much. And now that men are coining more and more to share their occupations with us, I do wish the thousands who are tired and restless and discouraged, and have n’t head enough to become doctors and lawyers, and yet need money just as badly, could see what a pleasant way of living this is. I wish we could tell them in some way, Dolly, just how we do. We raise nearly everything we consume, you know, but wheat. I wish you could tell them, Dolly! ”

And Lou’s wish is the raison d’être of my story.

D. A. Shepherd.