Well, folks, here she is!

We announce today the new Household Editor, not to take the place of Faith, but to take up her work.

It has been a long and arduous search, but we feel certain that we have found, right here in the corn belt, of course, a young woman who has the heart for the work, judgement seasoned by a brief but intense period of experience as head of an active farm household, and unusual facility and charm in expression.

And we call her "Hope"--just because it seemed the natural thing to do.

The Applications

But first let us got back. It was on July 17 that Faith Felgar passed away, peacefully, rich in the love of a great throng of devoted readers, in her heart the songs of praise and gratitude that for many years had poured in to her from the four corners of the bread-basket of America. She left a great unfinished work. Somebody must carry it on: somebody must take the vacant place of leadership in a household of willing workers devoted to the common cause of happier and healthier farm homes.

Who?

We didn't have the faintest idea. So we offered the suggestion that there was an opportunity open for some farm mother "endowed with a great love for humanity and a great talent for expression." Even before that announcement appeared many applications had reached us. Afterward they came in a veritable deluge.

And as they piled up before us from day to day, more and more they brought home to us what a wonderful interest there is in this department. No greater tribute to Faith has been paid than these applications. The finest bunch of letters any editor ever read! If there were a dozen misspelled words in the whole lot they escaped our notice. Letters from women widely known: letters from women who had never written a word for publication. Here, we said, is represented the very cream of corn belt womanhood.

But what a problem! How could a choice be made with any assurance that it was the right one? In that we soon found we were not to be without help. Testimonials from all sorts of sources, from members of congress up, poured in. But they could not count for much, except as to character. Few outside our own editorial staff, we felt, were competent to pass on the qualifications necessary to conducting this Household, which is different from any other, and must be kept so.

Our Only Reliance

Thus we carried the problem around with us, almost 24 hours a day, and more and more felt that our reliance must finally rest in our own judgement, faulty as it might be. There was no other way.

There the applications were, more than 400 of them, from twelve different states. Every one received a careful, thoughtful reading. They were read, even between the lines--perhaps too much so! Many sent in clippings of things they had published; many submitted unpublished samples of their writing, most of which will appear in this department during the next few weeks, unidentified as such, of course.

There were personal interviews with some who came to our office and with others who came in the interest of applicants; there were telegrams, registered letters, special delivery letters, photographs, and so on. One thing we want understood. There was no personal influence of any kind, or of the slightest character in connection with the considerations of any applicant. So far as they went we were perfectly cold-blooded, and remained so! The best interests of the department alone ruled.

Her Application

Among all these splendid letters there was one to which we found ourselves turning again and again, for further consideration and study. We can't explain what it was there, something intangible, but whatever it was it appealed to us. It might not have appealed to everybody in the same way. We recognize that. But we thought we found there something of Faith's spirit of service for which we were looking. This applicant asked herself a good many questions, and answered them. For instance:

 "'Have I the right experience?' Well, I am a real farmer's wife. I have been married nine years and have three children. We have had the average joys and trials that come to such a life. We have had sickness, disappointments, financial burdens, a fire that destroyed our home. We have had, also much health, happiness and fun; so that we have ample courage to strive along. As a housekeeper and mother I did not start at the point of perfection, nor have I yet attained it. I have made mistakes enough. Heaven knows, to give me charity and sympathy for all the errors under the sun."

There is more than experience in that--something of humility, humor and sympathy. And again:

"'Are my interests broad enough and my sympathies great?' Well, I know I love the country--all its manifold occupations. Its busy-ness as well as its leisure, its limitations and its pathos as well as its virility and its beauty. I can see in it both romance and reality. And I love the people of the country--and of the town. I would use my talents, such as they are, in assembling, organizing and disseminating the facts that riper, wiser,  more experienced folk among us might contribute, for the aid of the perplexed and the yearning younger ones seeking help."

And she appreciated Faith. "What we must do is continue her optimism, her tolerance, her humor, her fine response to all beauty, her practical common sense."

We Inquired Further

Well, any way, we inquired further. We found that the applicant and her husband were both college graduates, she in domestic science, he in agriculture. And we found that together they were putting into practice the cream of the things taught them, and evidently doing it successfully.

Just at the moment they are living with his father and mother, awaiting the completion of their new house, replacing the structure that burned to the ground a few months ago.

We aren't going to take space to tell about their farming, or the farm organization and community activities of this enterprising family. We just want to say that they are real farm folks who love the life they are leading and have faith in their business, who have the same problems to meet and the same recreational opportunities of farm folks everywhere. They are not rich and by the same token they are not poor. We would call them simply thrifty and prosperous--typical of the best to be found in American farm life.

Her Name

Our new Household Editor will follow the precedent set by Faith in adopting a pen name, and by it will always be known to most of our readers. Outside of following in Faith's footsteps in the matter, there are practical reasons for it which need not be gone into here. So far as that goes, one name is a good as another--it is the character of the work that counts, and the knowledge that there is back of it an honest and urgent desire to be helpful.

It had to be "Hope," of course, following "Faith." Before it ever occurred to us, that suggestion began to come in, and we add to it "Needham," an old family name of the new editor's tribe. So there it is : "Hope Needham."

An Appeal

Which leads to the suggestion that she is likely to need more than ham, right at the start, if that very crude pun may be permitted. She will need help, and we take this opportunity to ask it for her. Goodness knows, her task is going to be difficult enough. And it really isn't hers alone. All the readers of the department must share in it if the work is to be as successful as it should be. So send in your suggestions, your comments and your criticisms. Write to Hope about anything under the sun. Inquiries will be answered, by her or somebody else, and confidences will be held sacred by her just as they were by Faith.

Tomorrow Hope Needham will make her initial bow. Be kind to her, be helpful, be tolerant--that the usefulness of the department may continue as it was Faith's wish that it should.

Dear Friends: 

Today opens a new chapter in our Household. I have as many misgivings as any of you as to how successful it will be. I only know that all of the loyal Householders will go valiantly along together, after the sudden loss of our leader, as she would have us do. And I know, too, that while any one of the 400 applicants might have done as well as or better than I as editor, not a one of us, regardless of talent or endeavor, could ever make a successor of the column without the continued support of all of you; without your help, your co-operation and your sympathy. For it is your column, not any editors. That is what makes it different from any others of its class. It has an unequaled spirit of friendliness and intimacy.

I don't know how I happened to be chosen from among so many. I know I wanted earnestly to have the chance to try. My husband and I began to take this paper when our children were not much more than babes in arms, because we wanted a paper that we could keep on taking after the children learned to read. We could not bear the thought of exposing their innocent minds to a paper where the headlines of crime and scandal overwhelmed all other news. We chose this paper as one that presented all the news in a wholesome manner, properly balanced in importance.

Came to Know Faith

Of course, it was not long after we began getting the paper before I found Faith's fascinating column, and from then on I did not miss an issue up to the day of her death. Having followed it so regularly, I felt bitterly broken at that abrupt tragedy. Like so many of the rest of you, I offered my services, not because I felt that I could take charge and swing the work with a grand gesture, but because the work needed to go on. Who ever took hold would need to start with a real desire to serve and grow into it. It was a magnificent tribute to the value of the Household that so many were willing to make the necessary sacrifices to help.

By some fate or other, the choice fell on me. I felt then that it would have been a relief not to have won! The magnitude of the task fairly staggered me. It began to look like an impossible sacrifice of privacy. It was with fear and trembling that I went in to the office for an all-day conference with the editor and the staff. But I met there such a cordial, friendly, helpful spirit, and found so many brave and cheerful letters that had come to the Household since Faith's death that it was like coming into the "shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land." I want to tell all of you that our paper is the product of exceptionally fine ideas. We can be proud to have a part in it. I came away from my first conference humble, for the work is vast; proud, because the service is great, and unafraid because you are with me.

It Is "Our" Column

Every one needs a means of self-expression. Artists use sculpture, paintings, music, and poetry; scientists use the laboratory. Some of us build bridges, houses and roads; some raise choice live stock and crops; some of us make homes out of houses and rear families Every one, I say, needs some means of expression This column is ours. I am going to pour myself into it, my hopes and ambitions, problems and achievements, even as I want you to do yours. You may write under a real or assumed name, but you can be perfectly free. We can in our column discuss big or little things, commonplace or noble, ridiculous, or sublime. I want to get acquainted with you and have you feel acquainted with me. I want to tell you, as the days go by, about my husband and little children, our new house, our garden and poultry, our work and play, so that you may know that I am really one of you, with the same mistakes and struggles and triumphs the rest of you had when you were at my stage in life, or will have when you reach that stage.

If something any of us write strikes an answering chord in your heart, please tell us while the reaction is warm within you. It is your chance to express yourself. Send in suggestions that have helped you, even though they seem trivial. They may be important to some of the rest of us. Ask for help in any household matter, even though you would be too timid to ask for it anywhere else Our circle is so big that you can surely find help even for the most unusual needs. Write to me freely and often. It will help and encourage me, and it will show me that, for Faiths sake, you are going to stand by until we get under way again. It will be in a way your tribute to Faith.

If There are Delays

If any of you have written since her death, or even shortly before that time, and have had no acknowledgment either through the paper or personal letter, please be patient just a little longer. Some of the material that I found among the Household mail will be a little out of season now, but I believe we will use it all any way, for this time, and, when we get straightened around, we will be more careful to get material printed in a timely order I will use all materials as fast as I can find room for it. If you are at all anxious about your inquiries, feel perfectly free to write again. there is a chance that some of the material will be overlooked when there is so much of it to be sorted at one time.

We must never forget that it was Faith's extraordinary personality that built the department into what it is. Without her scope of interest, her abundance of experience and her generosity of heart, it could not have become so great Now that she has gone, our loyalty and our gratitude induce us to "carry on," so that the glow of her life, which tinged may lives so richly, may linger and for a long time color our horizon.

A successor to Faith can only hope, in the beginning, to assume the routine office duties of the Household; work over the accumulated mail, sort and arrange the inquiries and helps But as we gradually grow accustomed to the change, and as I come, more and more into contact with all of your lives, I trust that I will be able to make a little place for myself in your hearts, and become, as Faith was, your counselor and friend.

Now is the time to take care of the surplus apples, all the early varieties that make such lovely sauce. As I sat on the screened porch this morning, working on a bushel or so of Duchess and Early Transparents, I could see barns, yards, garden and chicken house, and the horses and cows beyond knee-deep in clover." My mind wandered idly over many, many matters I got to wondering why we cling to farm life in spite of its hardships and hard times. I wondered why a hired man, for instance, with no ties to hold him any particular place, will stick to farming year in and year out, when he could get higher cash wages at the factory in town. I though of our different men of whom I had asked the question The answer often was, "Oh, I don't know: I've tried both; but there's something about the country ____!" and they never were able to express it any further.

There is something about the country that gets into the blood. When we are actually there, working all day, sleeping all night, we often are unconscious of the appeal for weeks on end. But leave the country for a while, or suddenly let some beautiful aspect strike you and you thrill from the roots of your hair to your toes. I get that thrill sometimes when I am first one up on a spring morning, when the light is still faintly gray and the only sounds are the almost inaudible twitter of birds and insects and the still so tiny that they only make an impalpable mist among the trees; when the hickory buds are still pink and crumpled like a baby's first.

In Early Morn

I get that thrill early on a midsummer morning when I step out to the well and look upon a green and golden world that is breathless at its own beauty; when the grain shocks are tawny hammocks in the stubble that has commenced to show green and the tassels of the corn are golden crowns: when you feel that the day will be "a scorcher," but for that exquisite hushed moment the world is bathed in the lingering coolness of the night and the last white mist hangs at the horizon.

I got it in the friendly dusk of early autumn, when the family scatters over lawn and porch quiet and satisfied with a hard days work well done Or in husking days, when the men have finished their sausage and hot cakes, I follow them outdoors for a breath of the tang, crisp air, and find the world still dark except for a strip of light in the east. Or in the winter afternoon, when the leaden sky, low and somber, meets the bare plowed lands and the dreary withered cornfield, and the gaunt trees resist the winter wind. I feel a fierce thrill of loyalty to a land that for all its bleakness can be at times so fair.

I get the thrill (did you ever, too?) when I wake suddenly, for no reason at all on a full moonlight night. Everything familiar seems mysterious and remote My heart fairly flops over at the immensity of life I marvel and I almost cringe with awe; and then the persistent, brooding silence, and the unearthly light finally flood my being with a strange comfort and rest, and soothe me gently back into the arms or rest.

In the Kitchen, Too

I get a thrill when I set a row of topaz and rub jellies on the window sill and revel in the sunlight pouring through I get it when the bread comes from the oven golden-brown and plump, or when I see a line of white clothes against a blue sky and pink hollyhock background. (I love hollyhocks! They are gracious, satin-soft and delicate, but they stand straight and brave and true. They are symbolic of the country itself; they are beautiful-- and brave)

I get the thrill when I look upon my babies asleep, and think with a tightening of the throat, that if I can raise them right they will live for years and years to thrill to the cycle of the seasons, and their children and children's children will still enjoy the country after I am gone.

Tell me, do you, too, love the country in these ways? Amid all the monotony and labor of the farm, in spite of trouble and worry and sacrifice, do you, sometimes, get the thrills that compensate for every hardship? If you do, you will understand what any one means who says, "there is something about the farm___!"

Years ago, before I was born, the little postoffice nearest our place bore the quaint name of Sunrise. In those days, the postoffice was the black walnut desk of my grandfather. He came to the open prairie when there was nothing such to be seen except sky and prairie grass They must have chosen the name as the Indians choose the name of the newborn child. They name it for the first object that meets the view when the Indian mother opens her eyes. The sunrise on the prairie was probably the most prominent, and, indeed the only object, except the sky and land, when grandfather cogitated on a name for his postoffice. The old name is only a memory now, but in this column, I shall call our community that still. The country now is well-settled, amply planted, prosperous and beautiful. The years have rolled along and our children are the fourth generation to live on the land. Unless we consolidate, they will attend the same one-room schoolhouse their father and grandfather attended. The family is not unique; in our community, and probably in yours, too, there are a number of the pioneer families clinging to the same communities. This old stock is important to America. Even though it came to America from the Old World only three or four generations ago, it is the realest American stock we have It is important that our children carry on the traditions.

Just now I don't mean the sober tradition of the strenuous labor, either, though that is essential, but I am thinking of the spirit that many of us remember nothing about; the spirit that kept those brave pioneers from despairing in the midst of danger and privation - the spirit of play.

Interest Change

We are beyond the good old days of the quilting bees and husking bees and square dances in those mammoth living-room kitchens of long ago. The telephone, automobile and radio have changed our interests much. But we farm people ought to stick together for part of our social life, at least. We are gradually learning to work together; let us keep on playing together, too.

Here at Sunrise we have a community club for young and old that meets once a month for a program, and often serves lunch afterward during a social hour. We have a building owned by the club and occasionally give plays and pageants and bazaars in addition to the regular meetings We have an open-country church, too, It is none too well-supported to be true, but many own churches are not, either We have other clubs and meetings that keep us somewhat together in spite of attractions in the towns. In that degree, we are continuing the old-time spirit of our ancestors But just this summer, amusement parks and dance halls have opened up along the hard roads. What these will do eventually to our rural meetings no one can tell.

I wish you would tell us bout your communities, your recreations and churches and how you meet the problem of keeping the young people satisfied on the farm.

Such a good discussion of some threshing problems has come in that I am going to share it with you today even though threshing is over with most of us by now.

Now ordinarily, I have no objections to threshers. We give no breakfasts or suppers and usually know what will be expected of us. I like the old-fashioned idea of feeding the men a substantial, well-planned meal, having a lot more women folks fussing around over them than you really need, and making a regular gala day of it. Threshing is hot, dirty work at best, and the men deserve whatever fun they can get out of it. I like to see the table handsomely set out and decorated with flowers, even though the men claim not to notice such things. But if women overwork and strain to outdo others in the elaborateness of the the meal, they lose the holiday spirit entirely. I would rather use oilcloth and cups without saucers and keep the cooks jolly and cheerful and hospitable.

But I feel unusually sympathetic with the points this writer brings out, for I had some of the same problems that she refers to. In the first place, we had less than half a day's threshing, so that I knew it was problematical whether or not I would have dinner to cook. When machine trouble delayed the crew a few minutes, or when a shower stopped the work, the schedule was changed enough from day to day that I really was not sure until Monday morning that I would have them Tuesday noon -- provided nothing happened. That meant I must get the washing over bright and early for with little children I find I can't postpone the washing to a "convenient" time. The regular time is about the only time there is a chance to do it.

In the meantime, I received a letter from the editor of our paper that he had received my application and would be down to interview me. You can imagine just how opportune a time it was for such a momentous occasion -- an interview at which I wanted specially to appear calm, capable, poised, and untroubled, to be sandwiched between a heavy family wash and the preparations for the annual threshing dinner!

Anyway, I finished the washing, fed the family, bathed and dressed the three children and myself, loaded us into the family flivver, and drove 10 miles to town to meet the train. On the way out I stopped and bought the threshing meat, for I did not see when there would be another chance. Of course, I planned to can it in the pressure cooker if anything happened to prevent the threshers from coming, but I really didn't need canned beef, as I had an ample supply left from last winer's home-killed stuff. But I got it: and by the time I reached home with the family, the meat, the cream can, and the editor, the sky was banking up in the west and nasty little flickers of lightning were darting out to tantalize an discourage me.

You would have enjoyed the scene of that interview. It was far from being the formal, concise and perfect thing it should have been. The children, having missed their naps, were none too tractable. They brought forth innumerable trophies of various sorts to display to this stranger who wanted to talk to their mother but was too fascinating to be let alone. I am obliged to say they even had a few sharp words among themselves as to who was going to show him something first. Only a patience developed by actual experience with boys of his own could have kept that editor with me long enough to ask the necessary questions.

However, he stood it till train time, and after he had left the weather looked so dubious that I did not risk doing any baking or preparing anything at all for threshing dinner except a great lot of applesauce, which I figured I could can if I didn't need it fresh. By that time I hoped it would storm and storm hard. I felt strongly on the matter. I was about fed up with uncertainty, both in the threshing business and editorial matters. But morning dawned serene and fair, as perfect a day as any one could wish. I had threshers, all right, after a strenuous morning, but with no more graciousness, I am afraid, than the law allowed. Of course it was no one's fault. But wouldn't it have been lovely for me if I could have known, definitely and without question, that I would have them or not have them, or that they would be taken care of efficiently and fairly by some such means as our contributor suggests?

Memory Gem

For every evil under the sun,
There is a remedy or there is noe.
If there be one, try and find it;
If there be none, never mind it.

--Selected by Mrs. E.B. Vilonia, Ark.

Last Sunday the preacher at our little Sunrise church said in his sermon that some people were so very good, so very anxious to be pious, that they concentrated on the First Commandment and never got any farther. They overlooked the fact that, while the First Commandment specified "Thou shalt love the Lord they God with all thy heart," the Second continues, "And another like unto it is this, Thou shalt love they neighbor as thyself."

If you had had the privilege of reading the letters that have some to the Household since Faith's death, you would feel, with a great thrill, that here is a place where everyone follows the Second Commandment faithfully and well. Ever so many readers of the column have sent in splendid contributions that will help me immensely I these first early days, and will keep you interested, too, for they are meaty articles, cram full of ideas, well expressed. B.H.M. sent in a wealth of helps, and marked them, "Use these if you need them in the lean days to come: if not, no damage done." Pep of Minnesota continues to contribute abundantly. Margaret Cameron, Lillian A. David and others too numerous to list here today, have helped immeasurably. Many letters say, "I want to help," "We must all pull together." "We must keep the good work going." and similar neighborly, generous things, without a single note of selfishness or jealousy. It is wonderful to find such spirit. It is a help and inspiration to all of us. If there were only time, I would write every one of you a personal letter and thank you for your loyalty.

This morning we woke to see a cold, heavy dew sparkling on yard and roof and tree. There was a chill in the air and a sort of wide, sad hush over everything. The grain fields were bare; the first cosmos were in bloom (that gallant foreteller of coming cold, that stands till the frost strikes again and again): the asparagus row was a luxuriant mass with the berries just beginning to glint red; the melon vines were beginning to wither, feeding their gorgeous vitality into their offspring. Truly late August is the middle-age of the year. Every where is the premonition of fall; the ending of one generation's work; the sacrifice of foliage and exuberance for the sake of the fruit; the hint of approaching winter and rest.

So goes the cycle of the seasons and of life. Soon the babies will be school children: then college students: then full grown men and women. And we, like the vines and the tress and the rest of nature, will sink gently into rest, having drawn sustenance from the elements only to give it to these our fruit, so that they might be strong and rich and in their turn grow and sustain life, and having spent their beauty pass along.

These are the sad thoughts that first signs of autumn bring to use. But a little later, when we have adjusted ourselves to the new order, we will find invigoration in the tang of fall; we will have more zest when the air is crisp and cold; even, if we make the most of opportunity, grow richer, more colorful and handsome in the autumn season, as the trees do. And as Faith put it, "Grow lovely, going old."

Next week little sister starts to school again. She is in the third grade. I will just have brother and sonny to keep me company in the new house then. But 4-year-olds and 3-year-olds can be lots of company and lots of help.

I wonder why it is that we mothers always feel sad when the babies start to school? It must be a sort of jealousy. We are so used to being the biggest part of our child's world!

We are jealous of the widening world. We are afraid to compete with the new personalities that are going to loom large in the baby's life. The new things, the strange places are most attractive to use all. We are afraid that we will lose our place on a pedestal. And very likely we will. It is natural for a growing child to take its mother as a matter of course, as he takes and day and night, heat and cold, breakfast, dinner and supper. It will be the outside things that thrill him, and change him and make him grow.

But there is always this consolation: After the busy school years, when our babies settle down to life and have babies of their own, they will turn to us again, with a bigger and deeper appreciation of our love. Especially our daughters will grow nearer and dearer to use through the experience we all must meet. And from that time on, mother will have again her place on the pedestal, and will become more and more the object of devotion. That is when we shall have our reward.

So during these growing years of the babies, let us be "up and doing with a heart for any fate." We had better be busy and happy in other things wile we wait.

When we moved into the new house, the telephone had not been installed,  and it was not put in for a week. We felt much abused at having to send messages back and forth bye the men and the children. But being so thoroughly happy at having a home again, and being busy as well, I did not quite get out of temper. Instead, as I scrubbed plaster off of windows and floors and sorted through boxes and chests, I got to thinking of the years when no one had a telephone and managed nicely without. I thought of my father and mother starting out their married life on a "homestead" in Nebraska. Twenty miles from a railroad, no telephone, no car, no fuel but buffalo chips, no building but what they made themselves, no trees and not much other vegetation--not much of anything but sand. They had sandstorms and sand hills. "Old Baldy" was a sand mountain in the distance. Sometimes, when my father had to go to town for supplies, my mother would be alone on the prairie for a week at a time. Five children were born out there, with no doctor nearer than twenty miles, and no hospital in fifteen hundred square miles.

In Contrast

In contrast, we have house within a mile of a dozen neighbors. We can get to a doctor or one of the best hospitals in the state in half an hour. We can order our groceries in the early morning, when the stock is fresh and have everything ready to bring out whenever we want them. We can telephone or telegraph to any place in the United States in the time it takes to make the connection. Surely there is little to complain of.

Yet the telephone man was greeted with a smile, and the brisk Clear bell ringing every few minutes makes the place seem like home!

Wonder if you missed me much last week? I was so dreadfully busy getting settled and feeding silo-fillers and hay0makers that I took a vacation from the pen and made use of your good contributions. Thank you every one for furnishing so much good material.

We are gradually getting to rights in the new house. Much finishing needs to be done, both indoors and out, but I am so delighted at having a home again that I don't see unfinished woodwork and floors at all, or heaps of brick and ashes in the yard. I see instead soft shining ivory enamel, and satiny floors, and a mahogany handrail that leads to a graceful goose neck turn at the landing.

I stand at that landing and look out of the double casement window on the yard and garden, with a heart content. For instead of a pile of lumber and a carpenter's work-bench, I see a row of hollyhocks and a trellised gateway. Instead of sun-baked grass and a heap of radiators waiting to be installed, I see a smooth lawn with some garden seats and a little pool and a bird-house and a sun-dial. Instead of a pile of unturned clay, I see a green velvet terrace with a border of roses and a path leading down to an old-fashioned flower-garden. And I see all around about, hiding every bare and ugly spot, clumps of sumach and blossoming shrubs.

I see a long way into the future don't I? For it will be a long slow task to build our place into what we want it to be. We must wait for somethings till we have time, and for others till we have money. And in the meantime the daily tasks go on.

Sometimes I get discouraged and weepy, remembering our spacious old house, with its generous rooms and its lofty ceilings. I mourn over my lost wedding dress and our treasured letters and college keepsakes and the babies' memory boxes. One of the dearest memories of my childhood is a picture of us children sitting with mother beside her keepsake trunk and looking, big-eyed, at one treasure and another of her girlhood, while she told us the stories of each one. When I think that I shall not have any such a trunk to pore over with my babies, I get all twisty in my throat. I shall not be able to go through the old house in after years and say to the children, "Here is where Cousin Grace stood to be married." "Here is the window where great-aunt Emma sat and picture pages for you." "Here is the room where Ruth was born." "Here is the dress in which I was married."

Then I remind myself of what one dear friend wrote us right after the fire: "It is sad to lose the keepsakes, but those things we have with us for only a little while, after all!"

So I remember how I used to struggle to keep those generous rooms and lofty ceiling clean. I remember that our rambling, hospitable old house was lovable, but most awfully inconvenient. And that those keepsakes were lucky to be looked at twice a year, at housecleaning time.

So I cast away gloom, and rejoice in the new home that we never would have had except for the fire--and plan to pile up new treasures for the years to come.

Sunday evening, and Daddy and I sit before the flickering fire. The children are snug in bed and all the house is still. A few minutes ago the air was filled with happy talk and laughter, as we had our cocoa and cinnamon toast before the fire. And I sit wondering how many of you Householders are at this hour meditating and resting with your children put away and your husband by your side in those same wordless communication.

It has been a day of excitement and joy. For last night at midnight my own dear family arrived to spend an unexpected few hours with use. We were in bed when two cars turned in the lane with a merry tootling of horns and flashing of spotlights on the house. Some one called, "Any room for tourists?" And Dady answered back, "No, we have a full house now!" Then the crowd laughed uproariously, and out of the cars piled mother and father and sisters and brother and babies, 10 in all. They had brought camp cots with them. They had started on the spur of the moment, for the baby sister and her husband were only home for a week, and rain threatened until late afternoon. Such hilarity, such hugging and kissing! It was a long time before all the new babies had been inspected and the house settled itself to slumber. There were cots in the alcove and living room, and all the five bedrooms were filled. Two of the men slept in a cot in the car. The six little grandchildren, who had been scattered from South Dakota to Ohio, were under one roof for the first time. They ranged from 8-year-old Ruth to the newest baby, Phyllis, aged one month.

Proud Family!

What time the family did not talk about and admire the new house, they talked about and admired the Household department. Of course, they are proud as Punch to have a member of the family in charge. The office was admired and the scrapbook was pored over. Constantly I heard the exclamation, "What a wonderful spirit!" What a different sort of Household department!"

Now that the family has gone and we are quiet again, I sit thinking about all of you, realizing what a tremendous responsibility I have in this job--wondering how I can serve you best. The clerical part, the handling of mail, the filing of records, is merely a professional job. There is nothing personal about it. But there is nothing professional in the editorials I write to you. They are my personal contribution to our Household, in return for the gifts I have had from you and Faith. "Freely ye have received; feely give."

What You Make It

I want to make the Household just what you want it most to be. From your letters it seems to me that you do not expect me to be a research agent, or a home demonstrator, or an encyclopedia. You do not expect me to know everything nor to answer all inquiries. You know that I am only one of you. You want me to put you in touch with one another. You want me to tell you about my life, not because it is different from yours, but because it is like yours. You want some one to cheer you when you are in the valley of shadows; you want some one to understand when you are happy. You want me to say the things you think but have no time to say. You want a daily contact with people who lead your sort of life. It is as though I completed the circuit that enables the start of fellowship to travel from one to another in our circle of mothers and home-makers.

When you write to me, I am glad to have you tell me your children's names and ages, and the things you do. It makes you seem more real to me. There is not space enough to print all these things, but they bring me closer to you and make it possible for me to reflect you in the editorials I write for you.

It is Our Paper and Our Household. Write and tell me if this is what you want to the Household to be.

We have two good letters today about houses; one about a dream house some time to be built, and one about a real house that has been lived in three years. I want to add a word about our new house. Like "Agatha," I had ideals of the home we would some day build. We were hurried by the fire into building some time before we were ready. And when we came actually to doing the work, I found that I couldn't have everything I wanted. I compromised on many points, but, some way, the place is all the dearer to us because we had to wrestle with reality to get part of our dreams into it.

You ask if I have a sleeping porch. No, I haven't; nor a sun room, either. Not because I didn't want them or hadn't always planned on having them, but because I found I wanted other things worse. For instance, we will have hot water heat. It cost a lot, but we wanted it badly enough to give up other things for it. I may be able to have the sleeping porch and sun room later, but if we had not put in hot water heat now, we probably would never have had it.

To Fit Old Basement

We modified our plans according to the basement we had. The old basement, with its concrete floors, was intact after the fire, except for some straightening needed on the walls. Excavating a new basement would have added about $1,500 to the cost of the house. We decided we would rather use the old site and the old walls and put that $1,500 somewhere else.

We did not put tile floors in kitchen, washroom, and bath. There, too, we met the problem of what we wanted contending with what we could have. I feel that I am going to be perfectly happy without them, now that we have decided on something else. I wanted casement windows, too, for they are so beautiful and so airy But I gave them up, though they would have cost but little more, on account of the danger of their not being weather-tight, and account of the problems of draperies and curtains. If they open out, they are weather-tight, but you have to have your screens inside, right against the curtains. If they open in, they are not weather-tight, usually, and they are likely to interfere with any design of draperies.

But here are some of the things I have that make me satisfied to give up some of the extra things I have mentioned: I have a big, open, light, clean basement, with a wide outside door where the men can carry out ashes, or carry in vegetables and heavy things. In the kitchen I have a dumb-waiter, a big broom closet, a roomy pan closet, a built-in ironing board, two flour bins, lots of drawer and cupboard space, plenty of working surfaces of varying heights, so I can sit or stand, a ladder stool, a generous sink, a table on casters that can be pulled out in the middle during working hours or for a pick-up meal for the children and me, and can be pushed back when the room is tidied up. There are three windows in the kitchen and a space for an ice-box when I get one. As soon as it can be built, I am to have a fuel box with a metal top, just as high as the range. It will do away with unsightly fuel pails and will provide a good place for hot things.

Handy Wash Rooms

I have a first-floor toilet and lavatory and eventually the men will have a bigger wash-room and shower-bath arranged for in the basement. The house is planned so that the men never need to come through the kitchen to get to any part of the house. The kitchen is my "castle," my workshop, not a passage-way. There is a part of the living-room partly portioned off for Daddy's office. It has an outside door, so that when he brings callers in to look over the records, he does not need to go into any other room. There is a nook in the back hall where the children can put their play coats, caps, mittens, and rubbers, and reach them for them selves. There are five bedrooms, with big closets; there is a bathroom, a linen closet, a blanket closet, and a clothes chute. There is a fireplace, and there is a lovely staircase.

The house itself is my ideal; typical Colonial, with a formal center entrance and a hall straight through from front to back, with the dining room and kitchen on one hand and the living room on the other. There are wide doorways opening from the dining room and living room on the hall. And French doors lead from the living room to a wide pooch at the east end of the house, next to the lane.

The house is set among the fine old maple and elm trees, that fortunately were not harmed by the fire.

So in spite of the sacrifice of part of our dreams, we are amply satisfied with our home, remembering always that it will grow and improve as the years go on.

Memory Gem

God's plans, like the lilies,
Pure and white unfold.
We must not tear the close-shut leaves apart.
Time will reveal the chalices of gold.

-- Selected by J.C.C, Kansas

At play-time today the children and I wandered around the yard and garden, planning and planing for next spring and trying to imagine how everything will look when it is done. We stopped for a while to watch the men working with brick and mortar. It occurred to me how much bricks and mortar are like people. There are just two kinds of people in the world, after all--the "reformers" and the "diplomats." The reformers are like the bricks--strong, sturdy, unyielding, clean-cut, confident. They will break, but they will not bend. Bricks in a pile are hard on each other. They chip and break. A group of "reformers," those people who believe firmly that they are right and that they have a mission to teach the world, also hurt and spoil one another.

Mortar is yielding and pliable--so much so that we can't tell where it will go unless we confine or support it in some way until it hardens. The "diplomatic" people are like that. Anxious always to smooth the path of life and keep people's sharp corners from hitting those with whom they come in contact. "Mortar people" consider the "brick people" very hard and unpleasant to live with. "Brick people" consider the mortar people too soft and yielding in their moral fiber.

Yet how useless a world it would be made up of just one or the other kind of folks! Those with firm convictions tons would be all at cross-purpose, because each would be trying to reform the world in a different way. The diplomats would never get anywhere at all because they would eternally giving up their convictions in order to get on comfortably with everybody.

But, combined in proper proportions, these two sorts of people build a strong, proud wall of citizenship, smooth and united. We need "brick" people for their strength, and "mortar" people for their tolerance. If we are mortar, let us respect the bricks for their rugged staunchness; if we are bricks, let us not despise those who make life more livable by smoothing up our contacts with humanity.

It all depends upon the point of view! Most every one feels that his own life is narrow and restricted, while his neighbor across the way has extra advantages, joy or leisure. The trouble is that we are like the early feminists who shouted, "Equal rights for women!" when they want all men's rights added to all the privileges of woman. We each want to keep the happy phases of our lives, eliminate the unpleasantness, and get the other fellows pleasures, too. The other day I had a visit from a friend with whom I had struck up one of those immortal college fellowships through being "in activities" together. That is the beauty of college; one finds such an assortment of friends! Many an hour in undergraduate days Tray and I spent discussing the problems of the world; more cynical and more intensely serious than we ever will be again! The night before May Day, when the campus waited in quivering anxiety to see whose names would grace the honor scroll on the senior bench, was a night more pregnant with emotion, more exhilarating and terrifying that if we had been waiting for the ultimatum from Serbia. Everything in which we were interested seemed momentous then; life was full of crises.

Whenever Tray runs out for a weekend visit it brings back those glamours days. And, besides, she leads a thrilling life now, so different from mine that it seems like a fairyland. She runs the household for her well-to-do father (by superintending the servants); she has a job in that most fascinating of professions, advertising (except when some emergency, like a trip to Europe or California, causes her to resign from it), and altogether leads such a blithesome life, meeting stimulating people, reading delightful books, seeing the latest plays, that I quite envy her. She is forever running across old college friends when they happen into the city, entertaining and being entertained by them. She always has the latest news of everyone; she knows who is successful and who is down on his luck, who has written a book, sho is making a name for himself in some unique way.

Just Radiant

Well on this latest visit, Tray was just as radiant and entertaining as ever. We chattered away for hours, and after the supper dishes were done and the children tucked away and daddy gone out for a meeting, we have a late seance before the fire, alone. There is something moody and melancholy about the unsteady flickering of an open fire at night, when there is no other light, and before long great gaps appeared in the conversation, and I was feeling sad and wistful.

"Whatever became of Marj?" "Oh, she is doing wonderful work in Denver. She was in the city last summer and the Theta Sigs gave a beach party for her." (She sees everyone sooner or later! It is as though I am caught in a stagnant little backwater, where I see the same folks day in and day out, going round and round in our little eddy, while she is in the midst of the turmoil where all the rivers come down to the sea!)

"I ran out to Woodsy Cove to see Susan one week-end, where she is running her quaint little tearoom!" (Imagine me dashing in on some one for a week-end, with my little brood! It would be like the charge of the light brigade! I would be as welcome as the German army trampling Belgium.)

A "Darling Dinner"

"We had the darlingest dinner party when Martha and her brand-new husband came to town. Mary is such a jewel of a cook, too; she never minds how many guests we have!" (My cook is a jewel, too; I never have to issue an order to her! When I want a dinner served, I merely decide what is needed, and do it. If I wanted to give a dinner party, when on earth would I feed the hired man? And where would I park the children?)

I was rapidly falling into that early Christian martyr mood in which a person can feel so noble over nothing. The sort of feeling a woman has who "enjoys poor health."

The talk petered out altogether. There was a long, long pause. A sigh or two from each of us. I thought of all the gayeties and frivolities which might adorn a life which did not adorn ours. I thought of pathetic bits of petty, such as "the short and simple annals of the poor." How piteous!

And Then--!

And then, out of a clear sky, came this astounding remark from Tray, with the wistfulest tone:

"You life is just ideal, isn't it?"

I was absolutely bowled over. My amazement must have been evident for she added in explanation: "Your life is so real and so orderly. You have a home and a husband and babies; there seems to be some purpose in what you do. And it makes you seem so safe, so sheltered, so serene. You don't know how I envy you!"

Do you know--I've stood a little straighter, breathed a little deeper, felt a little prouder ever since!

The Mother

I planned to go to England in the spring,
When hedgerows bloom and all the hills are free;
I longed to travel over all the world,
Nor leave a single beauty-spot unseen.
(I have a tiny garden here at home,
To tease me with its hint of springtime green.)

I kept my hand so supple and so white--
An artist's hands, that they might some time play
Great music! But my hands are scarred
And seamed with kitchen drudgery today.
(And my piano sits in soundless state;
I almost never find the time to play!)

I thought that I should sail through southern seas.
Blue as inverted heaven beneath my eyes.
I longed to pick queer tropic fruits from trees
Brightened by nesting birds of paradise.
(Four walls confine my world today--and yet
All heaven lies always in my baby's eyes!)

-- Selected

Christmas! The very word warms the heart, for it is the season of joy and happiness. Why Is it that there is more real joy at the Christmastide than at any other time of year? It is not the weather; it comes in wintry December. Christmas Day, itself, is one of the shortest of the days, we have less daylight than at any other period, yet it is the season of peace and good will, in spite of darkness and cold. Why? The answer to our question is not hard to find: There is more joy in the souls of men because we have just a little more of the spirit of Him whose birth we celebrate. Jesus came into our world and taught men, by His life and death, that the way of joy and peace lies along the road of lobe and service.

It is that spirit that makes Christmas, and wherever men and women practice the "Jesus way" there is peace and joy.

May He who came to Bethlehem in the long ago be welcomed to our hearts and homes this Christmastide, and not only on that day, but all the days.

O Jesus ever with us stay,
Make all our moments calm and bright;
Chase the dark night of sin away,
She o'er the world They holy light.

--P Ivison, Paston of Hopewell Church

This is the Christmas message from our whole community of Sunrise to all of you everywhere. I asked our minister to greet you for us, for Christmas is so much more than a personal matter. It is a world-wide spirit of gentleness, tolerance, and love. Once more, Merry Christmas! --Hope.

"The modern large city, with its emotional stress, its social complexity, its hothouse coddling, its hectic jazz life, is destructive of happiness and manhood... I want to get away from the shrieking taxicabs, the jazz bands, the jammed street cars, the mad hurly-burly, the stench and the smoke.

"Metropolitan civilization hasn't a thing worth possessing, or essential to happiness that I cannot find in the woods and its villages, except a few creature comforts like porcelain tubs, steam heat and the like. Why should a man sell out the only life he has to live on earth, the things that make for happiness -- health, strength, clean air and water, s simple home life with his family, wholesome neighbors, a bit of leisure to read good books, to go trout fishing, to ramble in the woods in October, to live with trees and flowers and birds and wild creatures--why sell out all this for a porcelain bath tub and a gilded radiator?"

This is a recent fervent exclamation from one of the young American poets, Lew Sarett, author of exquisite woodland and Indian poetry in volumes such as "Many, Many Moons," "The Box of God" and "Slow Smoke." He was a picturesque and appealing figure on the campus at Illinois when daddy and I were in college, and we knew him to be sincere and human. He knew hard work, and lonesomeness and poverty, before he won his fame.

Strikes Answering Chord

What he says strikes an answering chord in many of us who love the country. Even though we do not see with poets' eyes; even though we let the dreary grind of daily life blind us to our blessings, there are many of us who would not think of changing our country lives, austere and cramped and primitive thought they be, for the nerve-racking activity of the city -- permanently

And yet there is something in all of us that cries out for the luxuries and softnesses of life. Comfort -- and ease -- and beauty! Sometimes we would barter our very souls to move among silks and satins, gilded radiators and porcelain tubs, gay people, and all the other blessings which civilization has brought. It is no wonder that country people grow discouraged, when they are starved for all these delectable things.

We love the country, and we love nature; but we need no dispise the man-made comforts of life. And we look forward to the time (not so far away) when every country home shall have not only its abundant natural chards, abut softly-glowing lights that come like magic at a touch, many gilded radiators, and at least on porcelain tub! --Hope

No question in the Household has brought quite such a flood of discussion as the important one of "Mrs. Don't Love the Farm." So many splendid letters have been contributed that I can only give a selection of the most representative ones. I have tried to choose a variety of attitudes and circumstances, giving sidelights into our sisters' lives, making up a pretty fair cross-section of our rural corn belt life.

It seems to me quite a tribute to our farmer-husband that in all this flood of letters not one woman complains of a shiftless or lazy husband, a deserter, or a monster. Every husband under scrutiny is a hard worker and a good provider so far as his means allow. Most of the income goes for taxes, interest and living expenses. Not one husband has adorned himself in the latest Oxford bags and other masculine foibles, while his wife and children wanted for shoes. No, the complaint has been, mostly, that in addition to the rugged virtues, the man has not been able to provide leisure-class luxuries on a working man's income, or has not been quite so tenderly sympathetic of his wife's ambitions as he might have been. Not a one of use would want to give up the sterling virtues of stability; we only want the gentler virtues added on. It is a little bit like children crying for the moon, isn't it?

The very fact that we women demand so much proves that with all our "equal rights" we have not come to appreciate that we are, taking it by and large, a sheltered class. We are, most of us, relieved from the economic stress of supporting a family. That stress myst have been terrific on many farmers during the past years. Most of us help, more or less, to be sure, by caring for house, children, dairy products, poultry and such things. But we do not have the actual responsibility of making things go. We should make an effort to realize that we are sheltered and protected in an economic way, and for that reason we have larger responsibilities in other ways.

Has Definite Task

For one thing, it is largely our job to keep up the morale of the family. The husband and father, in strenuous times, has neither time nor energy left . It is up to the mother and wife to decide whether the household will be stern, austere, dull, cross, nagging, quarrelsome, bustling, cheerful, wasteful, shiftless, quiet, noisy or gay. She can make it what she will, by the way in which she meets her duties. In cases where there are little children, she is doing a full-size job just to keep the morale near her ideal. Some women have vitality to carry on considerable social life in addition; many of us have not. And we should not feel rebellious because we have to give up a good many pleasures during the few years when the work of establishing a home is config.

When the children have grown older, our responsibility broadens out, and while we can have more free hours just for personal enjoyment, or even a "career," we have a duty toward community and civic welfare. Many people used to oppose woman suffrage on the ground that it would only double the number of ballots to be counted. They overlooked the fact that they were introducing into politics a new class, a sheltered and protected class, who had time to study community needs and who had ideals of improvement to work toward.

Matthew Arnold once said: "If ever the world sees a time when women shall come together purely and simply for the benefit and good of mankind, it will be a power such as the world has never known." --Hope

Memory Gem

If you would get real joy from living
Put "self" away and take to giving,
Give smiles away and words of cheer,
A kind word there, a kind word here,
Will make this world a better place
And brighten many a troubled face.

Too often we are won't to believe
That life is just a time to grieve.
Better, far, to spread good cheer
And make life brighter while we're here.
He who gets real joy from living
Is he who takes delight in giving.

--Betty

When we get to taking life too seriously, and philosophizing too strenuously, we need a tonic of cheer and humor. Just such a letter as the following one from "Bill's Wife" touches the spot. In the series of discussions of husbands and farm life this sums up the matter pretty fully. It reads as though there is nothing much to it but fun; but it is a good, sound philosophy of life , after all. "Bill's Wife" sees her own faults as well as her husband's; she sees the short-comings of farm life as well as its advantages; and she winds up by saying, "After all, I'd rather Bill was my husband than the husband of some one else!"

It sounds frivolous, but it is really as serious as life itself. We might each make up our minds to be satisfied without our own circumstances and improve them by our own efforts; for we would, none of us, be satisfied with anybody else's. And if we find much that is not to our liking, the best place to begin improvement is with ourselves. According to the old negro spiritual, "It ain't my father nor my mother, my sister nor my bother; it's ME, O Lord! that's stand-in' in the need of prayer!"

Having this old melody on my mind, I must have been singing it unconsciously about the house; for just now I overheard Sonny singing lustily, while he punted nails in his board. "It ain't my fathah nor my mothah; it'th me, O Lo-o-ord! thath standin' in the Needham prayah!" --Hope

Memory Gem

"So many gods, so many creeds,
So many paths that wind and wind;
When just the art of being kind
Is all this sad world needs."

--Selected

Just the other day I came across an old fable or folk story to this effect: A spider spun himself a thread and dropped from the branch of a tree to a rose bush, where he spun a magnificent palace and lived in ease and luxury for a long time. One day he noticed that old thread, which ran from the very midst of his palace up into the air as far as he could see. "What's this thing for?" he cried contemptuously, and with an angry tug he broke the thread cry which he had come to where he was, and his whole palace collapsed.

That little story might be applied to our little old one-room rural schools. They have been the thread by which we have reached our present state of civilization, and now some people want to wrench them away from the school system because they are faulty. Before we condemn them entirely we should give them credit for the good they have done and may still do. When the rural school system was established, it met conditions that existed. The schools were designed to supplement with book learning the rugged physical life of the pioneers. There was no call for the school to provide physical exercise nor moral uplift, fo rah daily life took care of the former and the well established churches took care of the latter. As times changed, town conditions altered considerably, and in order to produce well rounded individuals the city schools need to provide physical activities, as well as some training in this and social contacts. Unless a town school provides courses in manual crafts of various sorts, as well as gymnasium facilities, the pupils are in danger of become physically lazy for there is nothing in the normal city life to take the place of the old-fashioned, active country chores.

Is a Tragedy

To be physically lazy is a tragedy to any individual. It is a treacherous weakness in any character, and it can easily lead to complete demoralization. I think it is the trait of physical laziness which was allowed to develop in city youth that has led to the so-called "crime wave" among adolescents. Purposeful work, such as chores or handcraft, is the ideal means of developing physical activity; but strenuous sports and gymnasium work are better than nothing at all to keep the children fit.

I believe in consolidated country schools. I do not believe in them because, as is often argued, "our children deserve whatever city children have." Our children already have some advantages which city children can never know until they are grown and responsible for a life-work and a family; especially, the immediate and absolute relation between work and its rewards. I believe in consolidated country schools, most of all for the social contacts they provide. The main things our children need that they cannot get from daily Fram life are teamwork and friendly rivalry with their equals. Not many farm families or one-room schools can supply this need.

As I said, the one-room school was designed to provide merely the mental stimulus to pupils. In that respect it is still the equal of many village schools. In large cities the pupils are carefully graded and tested by mentality and are given training suited to their physical and mental needs. In village schools, so far, not so much progress has been made. The other day I talked to a teacher in a village suburb of Chicago. There are 385 pupils in the school and 10 teachers. Each teacher has charge of nearly 40 pupils! And there is no more music, drawing or vocational work than in rural schools. It appears that in a case of that kind a child is better off in a small rural school, where at least he will get more individual attention. (Continued tomorrow) --Hope

As in all other problems, the matter resolves itself into a question of individuals. Given a conscientious teacher, almost any pupil can make a success of school. But in a class of 40 or thereabouts no teacher can hope to meet individual needs. The best she can do Is hold the entire class to an average standard. Both the gifted child and the backward child are handicapped.

The gifted child is likely to get along well in his school work, no matter where he is placed, rural, village or city school. The trouble is that in a large class he is not likely to be busy "to capacity," and he develops bad habits of loafing and has endless chances of getting into mischief. The famous Leopold and Loeb are examples of superior mentality gone wrong; they were not given enough to do. Unless a gifted child can be in a class of his mental equals, he is better off in a rural school with a good teacher than in a village class of average intelligence where the teacher cannot give him individual attention. In a class to himself in the rural school he can at least travel a mental pace proportionate to his abilities. He will lack most in social contacts, but that is something that can be supplied in other ways.

The backward child suffers most from our present system. All his school life he is treated as an "average" child, and if he could get just the right start he probably would be "average." But so many slow children get a wrong start and all through school like they struggle with their lessons; they ahem that heart-twisting, hunted, baffled look in their eyes whenever they recite; they are terrified at examination time. They are thwarted in every way, and they grow to hate and dread the very name of school.

Should Be Easy

Poor darling! Learning should be as easy and delightful as picnicking on the hillside. There should be some hard climbing, some rough spots, but there should always be the lure and the joy of "getting on." there should be sunshine and romance and feasts of delight.

When I hear a backward child recite in school, trying so desperately to fit into the "average" scheme, it reminds me of -- well let's use a homely farm example. It is like a Mason jar lid which has started on at a wrong slant and about the second turn it gains to find and stick and squeak, and no amount of tugging will make it fit into the grooves. We try and try again and finally in most cases, if we start it right, the cap winds easily over the grooved path and slips into place to make a perfect seal. But with our children it is harder to go back and try again, and we find many of them stuck at about the second round; and all our trigging and forcing and pushing and twisting, all through their school lives, is not enough to help them over the road; and when they finally "finish school" there is still an awful gap between childhood and normal intelligent adult life.

When I see a little child being crowded out of so much happiness because he can't follow the beaten path, I feel like saying: "You blessed thing. I can't stand to see you suffer any more. Let's throw all the books and all the schools to the wind, and we'll go outdoors together and play in the sun and the wind, and somewhere, after a while, some way, we'll find your natural way to learn, and we'll help you get your share of all the sweetness and light which civilization has garnered for you!" --Hope

Speaking once more of schools, I must pass on to you a quotation I have just run across in regard to the importance of selecting teachers for our children. This bit of wisdom is somewhere between two and three hundred years old, I suppose, for it comes from Roger Eascham in the time of Queen Elizabeth and Will Shakespeare. It seems to be as sound in principal today as ever:

"It is a pity that commonly more care is had, yea and that amongst very wise men, to find out rather a cunning man for their horse than a cunning man for their children. They say nay in word, but they do so in deed. For to the one they will gladly give a stipend of 200 crowns and loth to offer to the other 200 shillings. God that sitteth in heaven laugheth their choice to scorn and rewardeth their liberality as it should, for he sufferers them to have a tame and well ordered horse, but wild and unfortunate children, and therefore in the end they find more pleasure in their horse than comfort in their children." --Hope

Memory Gem

Self-help is the most dependable, and is always ready at hand. 

-- Selected.

"I look for a storm about Tad's letter," wrote a Household sister, and she was right. The storm has come upon us. Many have pointed out that some of our greatest Americans were members of large families and were very poor -- Franklin, Lincoln, and all the rest. They have pointed out that these men were self-educated. They have pointed out, too, that Leopold and Loeb were members of small families, and were very rich and had education thrust upon them.

It is well to remember that some of our great men and women were well-to-do, and most of our criminals are poor; that many great people were surrounded by intellectual culture from birth, and that many of the criminals went wrong because they didn't have a chance to learn. Considering that there are comparatively few rich families and many, many, poor ones, the proportion of greatness is not so different in the two two classes. And it is hardly fair to conclude that an education which is planned and provided for is worse than one which is wrung by sacrifice from an untoward environment.

Isn't it strange, when you stop to think of it; that we struggle to eradicate in our children the very characteristics which we most admire in an adult? The "willful, sassy, stubborn" child is a thorn in his parents' flesh, but all the great men of all time are "willful, sassy. stubborn men," though we dignify the words somewhat and say they are "strong-minded, quick-witted, and persevering." 

I'm afraid, if the whole truth were told, we sometimes try to weed out, not vices, but inconveniences, when we train the children. It requires So much of our precious time and thought to plan the training of a child who has individuality.. The decorous child is so much less of a problem-while he is small. He sits quietly when told to do so; he remains clean after being cleaned up: he is amenable and tractable in all ways; he gets on nobody's nerves. But when he is grown he is without ambition or initiative, and, to say the least, he is in very dull company when he is alone. But the normal child, by his very nature, is nerve racking to an adult. He wants noise when the adult wants quiet; he wants play when the adult must work. It is an adroit and ingenious parent who can live amicably with his offspring. 

Must Meet Ideas With Ideas

A parent must learn to replace an Inconvenient game or interest with a. convenient one; he must "meet an idea with an idea," warring with and so, without openly childish wants, lead the child, unconsciously, to be a social being. 

Look at Foste, Baah, Tita. Wilson, Roosevelt--all sassy, stubborn' men, who never yield an inch while they the right. feel they are in I wonder if they were "irreconcilable" when they were children; I wonder if they were perfectly obnoxious to live with? If you notice every such great man has gentler charms along with his strength of character; every one has a following of loyal and loving friends. Some way, I believe they attained greatness because their parents were wise enough not to stress the "willful, sassy, stubborn" traits in childhood, as though It were a war to the death between man and child. I believe those parents have quietly cultivated the more affable graces, and let those strong and violent traits "lie fallow."

Just a few weeks ago we were in the dead level of winter. The world was a poster in black and white and gray; the dawn came without of a streak light, just slow fading a dark gray into light. But suddenly the sun smiled, the snow melted, the "bottom went the out of roads"; the mailman, who usually dashes merrily by in a flivver at 9 o'clock, came plosh-ploshing by with team and a buggy at noon. The sun went away and we were left with ruts and mud-puddles and needles of ice that were undecided to thaw out or freeze a bit more. Then came rain, incessant rain for hours, drizzling plowed on the sodden black fields and the dead hedges. The wind came up at night and howled desolately. Rain clouds hid the sun in the morning, and suddenly the rain became featherly snow, which blew furiously from the northeast till the whole air was white and the children cried, "Mother Frost is shaking feather-beds now!" The wet white blanket covered the ugly ground, but sodden pools stained the white 'cover here and there. There came colder wind and finer, colder snow. By morning the roads were drifted full, and the sun shone on squeaky-cold a brilliantly world. The snow in the yard lay in hummocks like a colossal meringue.

Looks Like Spring

Now it has thawed again; the snow is all gone but a few scattering streaks in the dead furrows and the hedge rows. Without a single visible change, something about the landscape "looks" like spring. The bursting with very earth seems energy. The children wonder how soon we can clean the yard and transplant baby Dorothy Perkins rose and make the soap and clean out the playhouse (which has been abandoned during winter, with all its glorious outfit of broken crockery and leaky tins and soapbox cupboards and ancient brooder stove). I spend my time restlessly between white-sale catalogs, seed paint catalogs and landscape plans. plant.s say to daddy with the annual glitter in my eye, "It's nearly housecleaning time!" and he answers with a resigned look and the usual twinkle, "Yes, it's high time everything was moved around again!" -Hope.

Today is sonny-boy's birthday: he is 4 years old. He is right when he he says he isn't a baby any more. And a house without a baby is lonesome place. I'll have to count on all with Householders with new little ones to keep me in touch with babyhood. Jim's Wife of Iowa has a new one--that makes two boys and two girls for her. I hope she will write me a lot about the babies.

Since Daddy-Jim has to be away and Hope Needham can't have a family dinner, the boys will take the birthday cake to school and share it with the children down. there. I'm going too, to hear all the 'rithmetic lessons: so it will be a big day.

Sonny has a real name, poor dear but he seldom hears it. I am afraid he will grow up somewhat distorted in his letters, for when the children sort out the stockings, R stands for Ruth and W stands for Wilbert, but E stands for for Thonny.

A night or two ago the children stayed up late (8 o'clock) and enjoyed an evening with daddy while mother went down to Sunrise to the play, the last number on our home talent "lyceum course.' The early evening seems to have been spent in college songs, the vociferous type of music being the favorite just now. The air has been full of "Oskey-wow- WOW" and "We're loyal to you, Illi- nois" ever since. To top off a restful evening, they had stories of wild animals —- a singular bed time topic? Brother-boy tells me that daddy told them all about porky pines,laughing halloweenas and striped Hebrews. It sounds just like Little Jane's Adventures to me!

MEMORY GEM

Expect some good today and it mill come. 
As surely as supply succeeds demand. 
Expect some good today and it with seem 
A blessing in your outstretched hand. 
Expect perfection, happiness and peace, 
With eagerness, with faith sin cere and true, 
And ere the day is gone some 
Will come to you. -Selected.

The first spring day! The first whole day of sunshine warm soft after a spotty'and gloomy winter! The boys and I spent afternoon together We raked a section of the yard, hauled some trash in the little wagon, and had a bonfire. We walked around the garden found rhuharb just beginning to swell through the ground, all curly and red. The winter onions had tried valiantly to grow and had apparently discouraged several times, but they show up bravely green, nevertheless.

On the baby Dorothy Perkins rose we found tiny red buds getting ready to grow. The other roses are on the verge of drawing a breath of life, The iris clumps are pushing their blunt green way through the ground, and the buds of the three-year-old lilac are swelling till they are like to burst. We couldn't find a trace of the crocus though we hunted a long while, nor of the peonies either. We found a bird's nest caught in the raspberry bushes, apparently out of the gnarled old hackberry tree.

Raid Lumber Pile

When the passive enjoyment of the beauties of nature began to pall, as it sometimes seems to do on masculine minds, the boys and I raided the lumber pile and found some packing boxes. Now for mother undertaking any sort of "manual training is like venturing into uncharted seas: but we mothers have to venture much! So we got our hammers made two very presentable garden seats from the garden crates in which the sink and wash basin were shipped. It only required the inserting of a few nails, but we feel all the glow of creation! Then on another crate we nailed broad, thin boards and made a table. "Oh" sighed the impractical feminine member of the party when it was done, "what a charming tea-table!" "Why, mother!" answered the practical masculine two-thirds in astonishment, it's a carpenter's bench!" And as Ruth remarked when she came home from school, with the judicial logic which she inherits from her daddy, "Well, it is really better so; because they couldn't have tea parties much of the time, but, using it for a bench, they'll remember not to pound things on the dining room table any more!"

So the three of them are pounding nails in and out of boards and making a new sand box, while I write to you, and daddy has promised us some red barn paint to "beautify" with tomorrow.

Ruth says she saw three bees today!

Hope:

MEMORY GEM

Oh, be not the first to discover 
The blot on the name of a friend, 
Or the flaw in the faith of a lover 
Whose heart may prove true int the end. -Selected.

Politics and political questions have never been discussed in our Household, but we are never barred from advocating good, interested citizenship. In Illinois the important primaries come during April and our thinking women are doing their best to post themselves on the candidates to be elected and the issues to be decided.

"We, the people," constitute the government; and it is appalling to think that at the last presidential election only half of the eligible voters bothered to go to the polls. Since a majority of votes cast is sufficient to elect, it is possible for the president himself to be the choice of a little more than one-fourth of the voters. Unless we do our full duty as citizens at the polls, we have no right to complain of government in any way.

It is hard to come to a fair and just decision on any matter to be voted upon. We have to depend upon hearsay or upon some one else's judgment for many of our decisions, and both sources may be unreliable or prejudiced. Many times, no doubt, our decisions would be reversed if we could know all the facts. But imperfect though it be, our judgment is surely as good, and our vote worth as much, as the vote of the hired henchman who does the boss' bidding at the polls. Our votes are needed to balance such evil influences.

The Canvasser Helps

The other day a man canvassed our neighborhood asking every one to vote on several important political questions. On one of them I said: "I don't whether to say yes or no to this." "Everybody's votin' no to that one, lady," said the canvassar, cheerfully. "But the test is worded so whether I say yes or no may be misinterpreted." "Oh, it won't matter, lady; either one will do!" was his reply. He seemed surprised I took the matter so seriously. Finally he apparently thought of an argument which he had heard used by someone else, "Who do you think is gettin' up this bill, anyway--the rich folks or the poor folks?" I said, "Neither, I think it is the women. And their ideals and their motives are right. The only question, is whether the details are practical and fair, as they mean to have them be." He looked hopeless, but rather than try to argue with such an unreasonable creature, he rejoined: "I don't know nothing about It, lady. Smarter men than me got up these questions!" "Smarter men than me" get up most of the questions on which we have to vote. But I propose to do my own thinking as well as I am able and vote according to my conscience and not according to how the rest of the people are voting-don't you? —Hope.

"Too many parents are worrying and overburdening themselves to lift all the rocks out of the children's road of life instead of training the children to be able to clear their own roads, fight their own battles and make their own way," writes a mother, apropos of Tad's letter of a while ago. " So much self-sacrifice for children seems to me a great loss; a selfishness, for the children would get so much more from a mother who kept interests of her own." writes another. "The primary object of life is not self-sacrifice, but self-fulfillment."

This lifting the rocks is the big task of parenthood. There are so many kinds of rocks in the path of life, and some of them need to be lifted. The question is which ones should be lifted. If we mainly strive to lift financial rocks and provide material comforts, we may not be doing our children the service we intend. For it is a peculiar attribute of money that it brings most satisfaction to him who has earned it.

But there are character rocks to lift. We can, with what meager knowledge and poor ability we have, try to lessen the frailties and faults which our children inherited from us and protect them from our mistakes. We can never lift aside all such rocks, for personality is a mysterious compound of impulses, cravings and ambitions, and it is so hedged and walled about by reserve we never children well enough to protect them altogether.

Must Lift for Themselves

Then there are achievement rocks. Most of these the children must lift for themselves, but we must pick the rocks which are adjusted to their strength, and we must be ready to help them until they learn to help themselves.

Whenever we talk of lifting these rocks we talk of self-sacrifice and self-fulfillment. But nobody knows what those words mean. We interpret them differently. Sometimes I think self-development is only achieved through much apparent self-sacrifice. Sometimes "self-fu1fillment" is only an excuse to cut loose from irksome responsibilities. But most of us agree that there is in the average life a line beyond which self-sacrifice should not go, for the good of all individuals concerned. Each of us must fine his own line. In discussing such a question we understand each other so. We seem to speak the same language, but with a different accent.

"Scotland's a-Burning"

It reminds me of a story Grandmother Kate used to tell of her childhood. At one of the neighborhood parties the game of "Scotland's a-burning" was being played. Grandmother Kate, standing next to a carpet-topped, raw-boned maiden afflicted with a heavy cold, modeled her singing after her neighbor and caroled trustfully in a clear, treble voice, "Scotland's a bird-egg!" All she got for her sincere expression of the music as she understood it was a glare from carrot-top and snickers from the rest of the crowd, and her mother hastily ushered her into a back room for explanations.  

It is the same way when we talk of child training. We are all trying to do our best and give our children the best, but when We try to put our motives into words, it seems as though part of us sing "Scotland's a-burnin" and the rest sing "Scotland's a bird-egg!" and then we glare at each other, but it is all the same song.

And I suppose the we'll go on singing same song, with different accents to the end of time.

When we talk of housework schedules, we do so with the typical American admiration of efficiency. We concede the logic of a schedule, we admit the value of orderly systems. Some of us get a thrill out of following a schedule, but some of us, admiring the theогу, still strain against the leashes. Most of us have felt the craving to do something not on the plan. It is like the incident in the following letter, where a bride wept because she had to do dishes when she wanted to see the pond lilies while the dew was still on them. She solved her problem the next day by abandoning the dishes and going to the lilies while they were still fresh with morning dew. "I've always been glad I did," she says. "I shall never forget the picture and I've entirely forgotten the pattern on the cups and saucers."

The incident is symbolic of much that happens in all of our lives. In the pressure of the need for making a living or caring for a family, too often we repress the longing to enjoy the pond lilies. We force ourselves to stay with the cups and saucers, thinking that later will be time enough for the coveted pleasure. But sometimes, when we wait too long, the dew is gone and we miss the fine spiritual savor that might have uplifted us and eased our burdens along the way.

Could Not Sleep

One hot summer night when Margie Ruth was about three, she was restless and uncomfortable in her little bed. Instead of falling asleep at the scheduled time, she tossed and turned, asked for a drink, finally whimpered, "Mother, can't I get up a little while?" Now, I had determined to raise my baby according to the best of rules, and I knew that regularity was one of the cardinal virtues; but some way that night the impulse to break over the rule came to me, and I lifted the child and carried her out with me into the big, dark yard, where the lightest of breezes touched us softly, and the mildest of sweet odors soothed us, and the faint country night noises murmured around us. The velvety, star-sprinkled sky spread far and cool above us; and the spirit of rest brooded over us. Margie Ruth drew a deep, breath of wonder at the magnificence and strangeness of night. She seemed to feel, as I did, a strange expanding or communion of the spirit. She clasped her little hand in mine, and with a contented sigh she cuddled against me and in a few minutes her soft, even breathing showed she was asleep.

Had More Confidence

Some way, I have always felt that the sympathy between us was greater and her confidence in me was firmer because I took her out into that beautiful, restful night, instead of insisting on the letter of the law. Discipline is a valuable, an indispensable thing, but some things are bigger and more important than discipline. Every one ought sometimes -- not too often —- to abandon the duty of the moment and take time to look at the spiritual pond lilies of life before the dew is off. And there is no denying that a consistent schedule will keep a person in shape to seize the opportunities for these beautiful, immaterial things whenever they come up.

At this time of year it is usually hard to tear rural their people away from work for community meetings. But there is one function which never fails to fill the hall. That is the eighth grade graduation. Last night the 10 rural schools of our township held their joint exercises at Sunrise community hall. The house was packed to overflowing. Friends and neighbors and proud parents entered into the jolly, festive spirit of the children's program of songs, drills, dialogues and pantomimes. Then came the solemn time, so momentous to the graduates, when the superintendent of schools publicly commended them for their achievements and presented them with diplomas in recognition of the fact that they had successfully finished one of the first great tasks of their lives.

Other pupils who had won commendation by perfect attendance, extra reading and other endeavors, were presented with suitable awards were and certificates, and the meeting closed on a note of good fellowship, mutual affection and respect. Home and school end community for the time were united in a common bond, the desire for the welfare and progress of the children.

Within a few days countless communities will gather on the hillsides and prairies of America in another sort of fellowship, just as effective. Instead of looking to the present and the future, they will pause a little while in memory of the past. On Memorial day we will be bound together in recognition of our human heritage of sorrow and inevitable parting. And in remembering the courage and nobility and fortitude of those who have gone before, we will gain strength and faith to go into the future.

Whether happy or sad, emotional contact with our kind, above the level of the commonplace, is wholesome and uplifting. By such contacts our souls expand. -Hope.

"It is more important to teach our young people to be moderate in things all than to surround them with prohibitions." So with says a good Household, whose letter follows. She strikes the keynote of keeping control of the adolescent child. "Old men for counsel, young men for action," is as true now as it ever was. We cannot hope to repress our young people with "Thou-shalt-nots." It is natural and inevitable that they should be active, alert, up and doing. We must not try to curb this activity, only try to guide it and keep it within proper and sensible bounds.

It is natural for them to "run with the pack." We must not try to isolate them or make them too different from the folks their age with whom they must associate. It is the duty of every parent to set restraints and limits on the children, for the sake of their health and welfare, but for every "Thou shalt not" let's try to provide a "This you may do." If we object to dancing, cards, smoking, parties, extreme styles, let's provide some wholesome amusement in their stead. Or, let's permit certain kinds of parties and dancing under certain supervision and restriction. "Teach them to be moderate in all things, rather than surround them with prohibitions."

The official national Father's day has come and gone without any observance on the part of the Household. As so often happens, dad has been pushed into the background in the pressure of other matters. Some one facetiously теmarked that having Father's day would make the presentation of neckties a semi-annual affair for father instead of just a Christmas event. Giving a necktie seems to be the American woman's inadequate and inarticulate method of expressing love and appreciation to her menfolks. But, homely as the gift may be, any dad who wakes up some day and finds an assortment of neckties from his family will understand without words that the family is trying to express thanks for the patience, persistence and unswerving loyalty of the "head of the house." The gift will touch his heart as much, and probably embarrass him less, than a rush of words.

Today, in turn over honor of Dad's day, we turn over most of the space to contributions from men. It will do them good to express themselves, and it will do us good to get their points of view. —Hope.

Why it is that so many people believe that a farm woman, to fulfill her duty, must continue to be as primitive as possible, work as hard as her great-grandmother with little more equipment, and be content to see her city sister freed from all physical sports, one by one, through the help of commercial processes and improved home machinery?

Once upon a time, not many months ago, I went into a grocery buy supplies to for threshing. It happened to be a busy time, and the crew was coming a day or two earlier than we had expected. Among other things, I bought baker's bread. A friend of mine happened to be in store at the same time. She was astonished at my unseemly act. "Baker's bread -- and you live in the country!" she said. She is a woman who lives in town. She never bakes bread. Neither does she can fruit or vegetables or raise chickens or feed hired men or do her laundry. Why would she be so amazed that I, who do all of those some extent, should buy baker's bread when it suited my plans better than to bake it myself? Are all town women  Marys, free to sit at the Master's feet, and all country women Marthas, obliged forever to fret over house and food?

Takes Duties Seriously

The majority of country women, I believe, take their duties as seriously as an other class of women and are anxious to do their share of the world's work. Since no human being can do everything, I believe the country women should be allowed to choose that work they can do from among the opportunities before them, with no questions asked. If a woman tends the house and a family of little children, and feels that she has not strength enough to go beyond these things, let her do them well and not try to tend a garden and raise chickens and mow the yard. If her children are older, and if she has strength enough, let her take on as many of the other duties as she can fully handle. If she can do all the family sewing and mending, washing and ironing, churning and baking, and still have a little time to read and rest, still be able to smile at husband and children instead of nagging at them -- all honor to her. But why, just because she lives in the country, should it be assumed that a woman has extraordinary physical strength and ability to manage?

I have known a town woman who would faint if her fond husband unexpectedly sent her out a bushel of peaches to put up. She would have to cancel all engagements for the day and perhaps have husband help with the peeling in order to take care of them. I have known country women who could run that much extra work in between the routine chores, without turning a hair. I have known women who were almost exhausted in caring for their two children -- no baking, no washing, no ironing, no fuel to carry, no outdoor chores to do, no canning, no window washing, no heavy cleaning. I have known others who raised families of as many as 11 children, cheerfully and efficiently, including these other duties, with the care of the little ones.

Gives Pertinent Answer

The whole question came strongly to me recently, when a Household friend sent in a clipping which will be quoted later in the column today. It is an editorial by an honest and eminent minister who is surprised and grieved to find that tin cans repose on the pantry shelves of corn belt farm houses. He has asked "Why tin cans?" And the Household friend who sent in the clipping has given him some very pertinent answers.

It is true that corn belt farms are fertile. It is true that they will produce great quantities of vegetables or fruits, as well as a variety of grains. We hear much talk of diversified farming, and the most prosperous farmers practice it. But by diversified farming we do not mean that one man tries to raise everything which his land is capable of producing. We mean he selects a variety of projects which are suited to his locality and which will fit together so that the labor, as the income, will be more evenly spread over the year. Farm women can usually find time to can what surplus is raised in the garden, but not many can take full charge of raising the garden crops. Nor can the men, for the season when the garden needs most attention is the time the corn has to be plowed and the alfalfa put up. To care for a fair-sized garden in an efficient way would require the full-time service of one able-bodied man. On most corn belt farms it will not pay to hire a man just for the garden. It is cheaper to raise what can be raised with the combined help of the family, for summer use, canning just the surplus (which will vary from year to year, according to the kind of season), and buy the balance of what is needed for winter food. An orchard or a berry patch requires considerable work. Some of it can be done at slack times; some cannot. The farmers themselves are the best judge of whether it pays to neglect other things for the sake of raising more fruit. A farmer's wife may make more by raising poultry than by tending garden. Every family will need to figure it out for itself.

Seems Waste of Energy

It always seems a waste of energy to can what can be kept satisfactorily without. Some vegetables can be salted down or dried with less trouble than canning. Some can be wrapped in paper or packed in sand or wet leaves or dirt and kept fresh far into winter. It seems unwise to can vegetables which require an undue amount of labor, or which can be more efficiently cared for commercially. Peas, for instance, are a tedious crop to can at home. There must be several pickings, for one thing; whereas, commercially, the plant and all is pulled by machinery at one time; the peas are podded and graded by machinery and canned with much less bother than at home, and at a very reasonable price to the consumer. The same principle holds good in regard to buying ready-made garments. Such standardized garments as men's nightwear, shirts, and union suits are made so efficiently and in such quantities that only a few cents can be saved on each one by making them at home. It is up to a woman to decide how much her time is worth and use it to the best advantage.

After all, it is not merely how much work a woman does that will measure her worth to Her family and her friends. It is how much work she can do while she keeps the family. Being gifted with less physical strength than the men, they must balance the ledger by providing other qualities, such as tranquillity, neatness, confidence and good humor. --Hope

"If you want a thing well done, do it yourself." This is an old and true maxim, and one that applies well as to communities as to individuals. One of the biggest jobs a community has to do is to provide education for its young people, and the more of this education that can be given right in the community the better for all concerned. By this I mean that nearly every community can and should provide facilities for a high school education, so that its young people need not be sent far away from home to school at such an early age. Every time I go past the high school in our town, which is ten miles from home and see the dozens of student cars lined up along the street, I have the profound hope that somehow before our children are old enough to go to high school we can have one nearer home, right out in our own community in the open country, where the surroundings are pure and wholesome and beautiful.

Went Ten Miles to School

To be sure, I went ten miles from home to a town high school twenty years ago, and I don't know that suffered any serious consequences from it. But times have changed a lot in twenty years, and the young people of today have a lot of freedom and do a lot of things that were not even dreamed of then. While I think it is true that the young people now are no worse than they were then, certainly they have more temptations to meet, and have greater need for good home influence than ever before. When I went to high school it would hardly have been considered proper for the principal to frequent poolrooms up town and swagger down the street puffing a cigar, but such things now seem to add to his popularity. To my mind there is no worse institution little cities today than the poolrooms, and I would like to have my children go through high school out here where they are not in close contact with those demoralizing agencies. There is an ever increasing demand for good schools. Here in Illinois there are 64 new school buildings, being built this year. These are either township or community schools. Many of these, of course, are located in towns of some size, while a fair sprinkling of them will serve very largely rural communities.

Spend Too Much Money

One thing that holds many communities back from the building of community high schools is the amount of money that is being spent for many of them. ple is One town of about 4,000 people spending $300,000 on a new school building, and it is reported that one town of 17.000 population is planning to spend a million dollars on a high school plant. Unless these communities have a very unusual source of income, it looks as though they would be saddled with a school debt for many years to come. And the fact is that their children will not get any better preparation than they would in • schools that would only cost one-fourth as much.

The tendency seems to be growing to make our high schools more and more elaborate as to architecture and equipment until many of these new building would do credit to a college or university. But in a great many of them the pupils are no better prepared for college or for life work than they were a quarter of a century ago, when the schools and equipment and curricula were much less pretentious.

Not Necessary

It is not the purpose of this discussion to say why this is true, bu the  fact to be remembered is that elaborate and costly buildings and equipment are not necessary for good high schools. In any school the teacher is the most important factor. A good teacher with modest or even meager equipment will do better than a mediocre teacher with the finest equipment. Let us come down to earth again in our school building program, and then let us have these schools scattered throughout the country so they are readily accessible to our country children and are surrounded by the influences that we want our children to have.

There are notable examples of this kind of school to be found in every part of the corn belt. Here in Illinois there 1s none more famous than the John Swaney school in Putnam country. For a quarter of a century or so It has been there, a pioneer in the feld, a modern, complete, accredited high school right out in the open country, two miles from any town, in one of the prettiest spots in that part of the state only provides high school instruction for the children of that community and for others who come from a distance and pay tuition, but it has become a social center for the community. Athletic contests, amateur dramatics, literary programs and social events all center at the school. Practical instruction in agriculture and household science is given the pupils and institute and farm bureau meetings held at teh school attract the older people and stimulate progress in their work.

Good Cannot Be Estimated

It is impossible to estimate the good that such a school does in a community. The leaders in thought and action in our business, professional and political life are going to come from the farm as they have done in the past, provided we can give them the right kind of training there. But if we allow them to be lured to the city at an early age, before they are old enough or experienced enough to have some perspective of life, their foundation of training will not be as solid nor their vision as broad as the biggest things in life are going to demand. And our young people will be and are being lured to the city wherever there is nothing adequate provided at home to interest them and fill their leisure hours.

So there is no more important item in a program of real communtty thrift than the item of education. Educate the children as near at home as possible until they are through high school. Surround them with favorable influences, occupy their time with the things that are interesting, let the parents know and take an interest in whatever the children do, and they need have little fear that the children demoralized if they to college. --Daddy of Illinois.

There has been many an argument presented in favor of consolidated rural schools for the children's sake. One might be given for the teachers sake. A consolidated school gives them a chance to come in contact with other adults, a bit of the noon hour and recess. In the one room schools, the teacher is all day, long under pressure, with the children making constant demands on work, resourcefulness, and patience. It must be lonely for many a day for these teachers, and I have never found one who did not welcome an interested visitor at any time of day.

Following a resolve to visit our school every month this year, the boys and I went down on Friday afternoon at the end of the third week of the session, taking Ruth's birthday cake with us for a surprise. We are proud of our school, even if it is a little old one-room building. It is shiny white with new paint, and it stands in a big grassy yard, in a group of maple trees, so big that the two largest children in school can't reach around some of them. Our children are the third generation of the family to "get their learnin'" in the same old building.

Gave the Place a Cleaning

Three weeks ago, the neighbors got together, one morning when no one could thresh and gave the place a rousing cleaning, while the women scrubbed and polished the men mowed the lawn and trimmed the trees, and after our picnic dinner in the shitty yard we left it immaculate with that delicious soapy water, clean smell that is sweeter to a woman in house cleaning season then all the perfumes of Arabia.

We left it immaculate but very very bare. When we went down Friday we were surprised at the difference three weeks had made. The school was a busy live community; a regular hive of activity. Tinted tissue paper curtains at the windows and bright color "busy work" of the beginners cheered and adorned the room. The row of wraps near the door, the shelf of shining dinner pails, the row of towels and cups near the water cooler and basin. All gave evidence of friendly habitation. Most striking of all was the new sand table at the center front of the room.

Arrived at Recess

We arrived just as school was dismissed for recess, recess, and at once all the nine pupils dashed up to call my attention to this new play thing and the things they have done with it. It was divided by a cardboard partition into two equal parts. In one, the girls had built a park, and in the other the boys had laid out a farm. Even the seventh graders were bubbling over with naïve delight in the achievement. Everything was complete in miniature; swings, tables, benches in a fountain in the park, paper buildings and fences in the farm. There was even a pretentious cardboard entrance gate to the park in a large pebble monument memorial to the soldier boys. The boys had some wheat growing in their farm, it stood almost 7 inches high, spindly, and pale, but still growing and green, towering far above the windmill. Next week they are going to tear up the park in the farm and set up a village. Everyone has his special buildings to do, and there is a fine feeling of cooperation. It set me wondering, seeing them so thrilled with what many folks would call a babies toy, whether we are starving our rural children on the equipment question.

There is nothing at all at our school (and it is not much different from others, hereabouts) which could be listed as a playground equipment except a ball and a bat and a tennis racket. Of course that provides amply for scrub baseball and Andy- I-over, the two standbys of country school since ancient times, and the tennis racket introduces a more modern diversion, perhaps peculiar to our own school, known as "battle up flies".

Lack amusement equipment

Then there are the many games which need no equipment – cheese-it, hide and seek, tag, and so on. And for muscular practice there is the fence to walk when teacher is busy. But it does not mean that a little simple inexpensive equipment might not add considerably to their joy of play, as well as give the children more well-rounded, muscular exercise, than walking to school and doing chores can do. A swing or two, a teeter board, and a slide would be in reach of most districts means.

Where country schools are reasonably large, parent teacher associations are thoroughly worthwhile. Last year we had only three families represented in the school, and we contented ourselves with meeting at programs at the school on Thanksgiving and Christmas, the official school meeting in April, and the cleaning day in the fall. But we have quite a group of youngsters coming on, so that in a year or two we will have quite a school, and we hope by then to have a regularly organized association. If it seems we have too many organizations already we can at least plan to meet in the school for special occasions to show the teacher in the children that we are all cooperating – Hope

In spite of two months of rainy weather, in spite of the fact that the threshing is still one half done, and the silos, not filled in the wheat not in, and no prospect of getting the work done on account of the water logged ground – in spite of all these adverse circumstances, Sunrise, on the last day of September, held at second annual harvest home.

It is a genuine all community affair, for the church, the boosters and the Farm Bureau cooperated to make it so. The 9 one room schools of the Township contributed exhibits, and all schools were dismissed for the day. The girls 4H club also exhibited summer's work and held their achievement day in connection with the program.

The crowd was not as large as it would've been in good weather, but no one was downhearted, and it was a cheerful day for all. Rain spoiled most of the sports in the morning except the horseshoe tournament between men of the three teams – church, boosters, and Farm Bureau. The respective colors of the teams were white, blue and red. Many of the rooters were obliged to wear small flags, being loyal to all three. The big picnic dinner was followed by some rollicking community singing, led by the preacher. Then the girls club gave us their program, and then, having word that the speaker of the day was having trouble with the roads, we filled in an interval with more singing until he arrived. His talk was a good, solid, one on the proposed revenue amendment to the Illinois state Constitution. Our people were already well informed on the matter, and they listened with great interest to Mr. Cowell's discussion. Farmers as a class, take their citizenship more seriously than some folks, perhaps, because they feel government more keenly than others. Taxes, especially, are a very real intangible thing with a farmer!

Came Back in the Evening

After the speaking, and the open forum, following, the crowd disbursed for a little while. All who could be spared from chores, stayed at the community hall to visit and have Summer; the rest dashed home for the evening work, and came back for the evening. Music, a local talent program, and moving pictures were the order of the day. During the evening it was decided to make the harvest home in a new annual affair, with the pastor of Hopewell church, the president of the community boosters and the Director of the local Farm Bureau permanent committee in charge.

An element of sadness entered into the closing minutes of the meeting. It was the farewell appearance of our pastor, who is going to a new charge this year. We closed the day by singing. "blessed be the tie that binds" and when we stepped out into the open air, it seemed an auspicious omen that the stars were shining.

Those stars were actually shown that night in the next. We had a day or two of good weather. But rain has descended on us again, and we are once more in gloom.

We are Not Discouraged

During the dinner, someone chanced to remark, in connection, with a discussion of the Miami hurricane sufferers, "those crazy people! Why do they go right back and rebuild on the same spot, when they know that every so often another flood will com!" "Yes," someone else remarked; "they do it every time. An earthquake knocks the ground from under the Japanese, and they go back and build over the cracks. Fire and earthquake destroy San Francisco, and they rebuild as fast as they can, and even deny that they had an earthquake. Mount Vesuvius has an eruption and buries cities, but as soon as the lava cools, back, come the survivors in camp at the foot again " "Well, take Shawnee town." Someone else pointed out. "That's a little Illinois village on the banks of the river; has been there since Indian days, practically walled in our all sides for protection from water. Every so often the walls break, the town is flooded, folks run for their lives; and when the water subsides, they go right back to the same spot, fix up the walls and go on living."

"They haven't, any of them, got a thing on the farmer, though." Someone else contributed, " He takes hard knocks of one sort, or another every season, and comes back from more. Doesn't have sense enough to quit. Never knows when he's left. But, someway," he added in the general laugh that followed "I think more of him than if he quit!"

That's just it! It isn't lack of it sense, and it isn't just obstinacy, that makes human beings go back, and try again, and again until they conquer nature. It is some of the finest and strongest traits within them that call on them to go back until they win; loyalty, stability, patience encourage

Another Home-Coming

While we are talking of harvest homes in homecomings, it will be interesting to mention a case in our neighboring township. Saint Andrews church over there is to celebrate its 75th anniversary during the month of October. This is a real "open country" church, the only one of its kind in the Episcopal diocese of Chicago.

It marks the place of a vanished settlement in early educational center. Today at occupies a commanding position on the highest point in the Illinois valley and in the midst of a farming community. 75 years would not seem long in the east, where the Puritan and Quaker settlement state back 150 to 200 years or more, but in the cornbelt, 75 years of continuous organization is worthy of note. The stones in Saint Andrews cemetery date back 100 years, the church parish has only been organized 75. In the early 40s the people, who, mostly immigrated from the east, came into contact with Bishop Case and received the occasional ministration of the "church on horseback." In 1850, 10 acres of land was given by a loyal settler for the building of a church. In 1851 the parish was organized in a year later, was admitted into union with the convention.

 The original frame building (seating capacity, 100) was replaced in 1908 by a larger, attractive brick one. The old rectory has been repaired and remodeled, and now serves as a community center.

Served 45 Years

Originally the parish had a resident minister, and it is interesting to know that out of the 75 years history, 45 consecutive years were under the ministry of one man, Reverend HT Heister. Since his death, in 1906, the parish has been served from ministers of large towns nearby.

Early pioneer life and many hardships. In the church has passed through many visits. American rural life has sometimes drifted away from the church, but in recent years, there has been an awakening. The people of Saint Andrews are to be congratulated on their years of service in the community. It is a record to be proud of. – Hope.

"Of course, I know I ought to vote, and too many I may seem silly, but I just have a horror of doing the wrong thing, and I hate to go down to the polling place and begin." Writes Stay-at-Home from Illinois. "Frankly, I don't know the etiquette of voting, and the thought of it gives me the same sinking feeling I have when there are too many forks on the table at a function." 

The etiquette of metropolitan voting is an unsolved mystery to me, but the rural style is quite easy to acquire. Since you are from Illinois, our system will probably be the same as yours. When you approach the polling place, you will be accosted, no doubt, by one or more volunteer bureaus of information, who will offer you marked ballots to guide you in your voting. It is good form to listen to what they have to say, if you have not studied up on the matter, and to accept their marked ballots. You are allowed to carry those ballots into the voting booth with you. If the zealous worker convinced you that he knew what he was talking about, mark your ballot like the one he gave you, but if he did not, you have the privilege of marking all the opposing candidates. 

Is Quite Simple 

But first you must get into the booth. Our voting is done in a little Townhall, just as yours, probably. You should sweep regally into the room, as though this was all old stuff to you, and quite a bore; meanwhile, cast your eagle eye about until you spot a table with six men grouped informally about it. There's bound to be a table, because three of them men are clerks, and they must have copy books to write in. The other three are judges, and they resemble the landed aristocracy, in that they have very little to do till evening. Part of the six will be in their shirts sleeves, part will be chewing gum, and most all of them will be tilted back in their chairs in luxurious comfort until you approach. It is a political custom. 

If you have lived long in the community, you will probably know them all, but you needn't admit it, unless you feel like it. When you come close to the table, three of the manual straighten up and hold pens, poised over copy books, as though about to begin work, one will simply stare at you, one will begin to put his initials on a folded ballot and the sixth will ask you your name. Take the ballot, noticing carefully how it is folded, and then look about you for some small cubby holes with curtains at the front, known as voting booths. Step into one of them which is not already occupied, as it is against the rules of the game, as well as being somewhat crowded, for more than one to use the same booth at the same time. You will find pencil attached to strong string, and a table about chest high on which to spread out your ballot. Usually most of the ballot has to hang over the edge. No doubt you will drop several small sheets of paper to the floor, and you should pick those up and read them, for they are ballots on special questions, such as the tax amendment, and so on. 

May Simplify the Work 

If you want to hasten the ordeal when you open your ballot to look for the name of the party to which you belong and put a big X on the black party circle alongside. But if you want to be a real woman, you will "split the ticket." That doesn't mean that you tear off part of it, but that you leave the little party circle empty and put little Xs in all the squares you pick out as you go down the list of candidates. The practice of splitting tickets seems to be very popular with women, they seem to want to vote for a man or principal rather than a party. It is made them rather unpopular with the professional politicians, as well as with the judges and clerks, who have to count the votes. However, if you make an effort not to look guilty, when you come out of the booth, they will never know until it's too late. 

When you were marked up the proper number of Xs, fold the ballot carefully just as it was given to you: then, if it is wrong, it is not your fault. Take it back to the man who gave it to you, and he will announce formally that "Amaryllis Jones has voted." The three clerks studiously write it on their list. One may spell it Emaryllis and one Amaryllis, but that's their business, and your vote is safely cast. You do not need to linger to tell them you enjoyed the party, but may walk out at once, and either visit a while with the neighbors outside or go back home and finish up the sweeping. 

Can Carry It Off Airily 

It's not at all difficult, and after a little practice, one gets to carry it off with quite an air. And it really disturbs the board very little, as they are tilted back comfortably again before you reach the door. 

I forgot to say that candidates will sometimes have boxes of chocolates to pass to the lady voters. It is considered very shrewd to accept a little from each, as it will artfully conceal your political prejudices. But, to be serious, you ought to vote. It will only be formidable once, and even if you vote unwisely, that is better than not voting at all. You will never learn to swim if you resolve to stay away from the water till you learn how. – Hope.

They say a woman always insists on having the last word. I am even worse than that, for I take both the first and the last. A good letter from "Aunt Hope" on child training follows these paragraphs, but I am proceeding it with my answer. It all hinges on the old saying, "spare the rod and spoil the child," which "Ruth Vernon," a modern young mother, denounced in this column not so long ago. Aunt Hope answers her argument with the sound doctrine of the older generation. Aunt Hope quotes Scripture to show that it is our duty to "chasten" our children. It seems to me that the whole matter rests on how we interpret the word "chasten." If it means literally using the rod, Aunt Hope is right: if it can be used in a milder sense, Ruth Vernon, and I are also right.

Now, I am not one of those ultramodern mother mothers, who never says "don't!" to a child. I consider "don't" a very powerful emergency brake. But I do not run a car with the emergency brake on all the time. The more we can avoid the use of "don't" in every day routine, the more powerful the world will be on special occasions.

There is nothing I admire more than a mother who can be severely strict with her children, and yet at the same time kind and just. That sort of mother builds the strongest of characters. Many of us, however, are stern and strict at the wrong time in the wrong place, and are not consistently rigorous at all. I must confess that the only times I've spanked my children have been when I was mad. Literally, plumb irritated, and mad and too rushed to take time to think. By the time I cooled down, I could think of much better ways to handle the situation than corporal punishment. Don't you think a lot of us are that way? And don't you think it is a dangerous habit to get into of spanking the child impulsively in the heat of anger? Or it is a habit that grows like this scolding and nagging habit. It is likely to drive a child into deceitfulness, rather than teach him the error of his ways.

"Chasten"

If we mean by "chasten" to punish a child by using the natural laws of consequences, then Aunt Hope is right. The younger a child learns to meet disappointments and recognize the fact that he cannot have mother and daddy protect him from life itself, the better off he is. It is punishment enough for him to go without a play thing if he has lost or destroyed it. A spanking will hardly impress the lesson on him more. If he has to give up a coveted trip to town because of rain, which not even mother, or daddy can help, the mother can say "well, that gives us a chance to paste those pictures in the scrapbook." But, if the child prefers to make a scene about it, let him go to his room and weep. He will soon come to the philosophical conclusion that he loses more than he gains by rebelling against nature. A nickel or some candy, or a glowing promise of future treat, will only aggravate his troubles. If he gets "anything to make him stop crying," he will assume that whenever he can't have what he wants he will get something just as good by stirring up a fuss, and he will likely grow up believing that the world owes him a living. In such a case as this a mother need not a rod. All she needs is cheerfulness, gentleness and a little patience. Nature will do the chastening.

Some way, I cannot think that the apostle Paul meant for us to use the rod on these tender little bodies before we had given them a chance to learn the why and wherefore. Later, if they persist in evil, the rod may be the only cure. Paul wrote to the Ephesians "Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but nurture them in the chastening, in the admonition of the Lord," I think he means, for us to be watchful and gentle, and tender to the babies, and let the Lord through natural laws be the chastener, for Paul also wrote to the Ephesians "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and railing be put away from you with all malice, and be kind to one another tenderhearted, forgiving each other even as God also forgave you."

The day this is written, daddy and I are celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary. 10 years! How long it seems in yet how short! That summer day so long ago, marked the first break in his family circle and in mine. At our house there were six children none of whom had yet gone out into the world to seek his fortune. We had never been separated on Thanksgiving or Christmas. We had never known death or sickness or suffering in the family group, as far as children could remember. Both our parents and three of our grandparents were still living and we had aunts and uncles and cousins glower. Our life was so normal and contented, that when a sister of mine once wrote a story about us, her professor, not knowing it was taken from life made the comment "Interesting, but for pretty sake, have something HAPPEN!"

Since that autumn day, everyone of the six children has married and gone away. Only one lives in the same community as the parents, the rest are scattered from Ohio to California. 10 grandchildren have come into the family but two of the precious souls had to be given up in their infancy. The aged grandparents still so active and alert on our wedding day have passed away.

How Short They Seem!

How short the years have seemed! So crowded with events! So busy! That autumn 10 years ago, we were the community newlyweds, and we received our traditional charivari and gave our traditional party. But in a few months, another couple was in the limelight, and then another and another. At first, we were the young married folks, but little by little, as our families began to absorb more of our time and attention, we dropped out of the more active set and newer couples filled up our places. It has been so gradual a process that we have hardly realized it; like the man who edged over farther and farther on the log to make room for others, until he suddenly fell off the end. The youngsters who are marrying this year were in the grades 10 years ago! No doubt they class us (as we did folks with families when we married) as "the old folks."

10 years gives folks a tremendous education in the business of living. I remember we anticipated that in 10 years we would be so well established in life we would build our new and permanent home. Well, we have done it not because we reached the point we expected, but because Fate played us a trick and we had to build the replace the house that burned.

All Allows One Half

The first or second fall we were married daddy made some computations on paper relative to the profits on a hog project. I remember looking over the figures admiringly, thinking "How sound and conservative he is! He has provided for every possible contingency, and this net profit is really bound to be larger than he has made it." But when we showed the figures to his mother, she smiled and said after you have deducted every loss or expense you can think of, just divide the net profit in two, and you'll come near to having your actual profit.

I was quite shocked that anyone could be so cynical! But that fall when we shipped some feeder pigs from Kansas City, by somebody's error a cargo of deadly cholera germs came along. One by one our beautiful purebred Berkshires succumbed -- little pigs, half grown shoats and big hogs. It was not many days before we had a horrible funeral pryre to mark the place where that year's profits went up in smoke. Since then I have considered it one of the soundest principles of bookkeeping or budget-making to allow a margin of safety of just one half the anticipated profit. It is a neat and simple device for avoiding distress; for nine times out of 10 a timely little disaster will happen along and knock all your plans edgewise. "Blessed be those who expect a little for, for they shall not be disappointed."

Are Just Preliminary

But on average, we haven't had too much of bad luck, and not too much of good. It seems as though all the 10 years are just a preliminary. We have our children well started, our house built, and our business on a sound foundation. Now we are ready to begin. Doubtless there could be a lot of moralizing on the significance of the first 10 years but –

I called Jim to look this over saying I don't know how to finish it. His frivolous reply was nobody knows yet how it's going to finish. He spoke a weightier truth than he intended. 10 years is hardly long enough along the path of life for one to draw profound conclusions on the philosophy of the world. I'll just leave it at this. We've been married 10 years and every one of you will supply your own thoughts, sweet or bitter, according to your own experiences. Those who have traveled on beyond our milestone will smile, and say "How much they have yet to learn," and those who have just been married, will cry "10 years! An eternity! – Hope

During the summer "Economist" was kind enough to give us a three-year clothing budget for herself. Now comes the request that we take the question of a clothing budget for a whole family. What proportion of the farm income should go for clothes for the ordinary family? How fast do clothing expenses increase as the child grows older?

Since our oldest child is only 9, we can't give personal experiences beyond that. Suppose we draw up a sample budget and invite comments on it. Will you please look over the list following and let us know whether you think it would cover the needed clothing for a child, say, 4 to 10 years old? If the amount is too small, how much shall we increase it? If it is large enough, how much can you cut it down by using leftovers, remnants, make-overs, home sewing and bar- gains? We make the list, assuming that the child is in "going order"; that is, we are not trying to outfit a child who has nothing, but one who has had all he required the preceding year, and this list is to cover what would need to be bought for him in one calendar year.

Requirements of the Child

In our county our champion in the girls' 4H club a year ago estimated that a budget of $80 a year would outfit her for high school. A woman probably would not require much different than a high school girl. We have had no figures on a man's clothing budget, but if we can work out fair amount for the other members of the family, Dad can use whatever is left.

It we use the family described in the following letter -— mother, father and five children ranging from 9 years to 1 1/2, our tentative clothing budget would total up (allowing the same for both parents): Father and mother, $160: five children at $55 each, $275; total, $430. However, in a family that size there would be considerable saving in handing down outgrown clothing from one child to another, especially in the item of good coats and dresses. How does this figuring compare with what you and your family spend for clothing? -Hope.  

The melancholy days have come the saddest of the year. The air is wet and heavy on these short, gray, bleak days and the men shiver in their sheepskin coats. We are all burdened with the somber spirit expressed in the well-known lines "The ivy clings to the moldering wall, and at every gust, the dead leaves fall." even though our walls are far too few to molder and the ivy, alas, has never condescended to cling, though I have struggled all summer with it, coaxing propping, almost leaning upon it, doing everything but paste it up with adhesive tape

But mentally we have those gorgeous golden days, so typical of our prairie autumn, neither warm nor cold. The white frost lies heavy in the shadows until noon when the rising sun has crept up on it inperceptibly and enforced it to slink away. By midday, the air is almost balmy, and we have a few brilliant hours, set like a jewel between chill and chill. Suddenly the sun sets, the wind comes up raw, and, without twilight, we have night.

"Go by the pretty road." the children beg when we start to town, and so we wind through timber-land on the crooked old pioneer pathway, reveling in the masses of flaunting color in the groves of walnut, hickory, and maple

Is a Busy Season

It is a busy season. The two months of rain have jammed all the fall work together into these short weeks. Threshing was barely finished by election day. Lots of folks are wanting to shell corn in order to have room for the new crop. Others still have silos to fill and beans to thresh. It is hard to find help enough to man all the crews wanted. Occasionally a little shower throws all the plans askew. Perhaps we have planned to threat thresh beans in the morning to be out of the way of a neighbor who wants to shell corn in the afternoon, to be out of the way of a neighbor who wants to fill silo the next day. Every one goes to bed serene in the belief that two days are well planned. Toward morning, everyone is awakened by a general persistent, dripping, and we find that there is just enough rain to spoil the threshing and no one is quite ready to fill silo or shell corn so there is great scurrying by everyone to put in the morning profitably and locate enough help for the afternoon

At our house, it is elected to grind feed for the cows. At a quarter to 10 the head of the house dashes in. "Can we have dinner at 11? they'll be two extra men. And I wish you would call so-and-so for threshing help right after dinner and if you could make it, I guess you'll have to get in the car and go tell such-and-such since they have no phone." And away he dashes to throw another bushel of corn into the grinder, leaving his humble servant feeling as though the house had tumbled around her ears

Has its Compensations

Oh these captains of industry with the authoritative ways! You know that luxurious feeling of leisure that comes over a housewife when she has expected to have to feed a threshing crew and finds she doesn't? Gone, all gone! Drop that pick up work you had hoped to do, stir up the fire, grab a paring knife, get dinner cooking, try the telephone, find the line busy, get in the car, dash up and down the road delivering messages, get back just in time to rescue the cake from charring, and by the skin of your teeth have dinner ready when the men arrive luckily 10 minutes late.

But after dinner there is an extra hour -- so what difference has it made? There is such a satisfaction and feeling that everyone has a part part in getting things done. Loaded racks rumble by and tractors putt putt in all directions near and far; some of them from threshing runs some from fields being plowed. It may be a melancholy time of year, but there are compensations in cheerful achievement and pleasant peace --Hope

Maple Grove (that's our little one room school out here at Sunrise) now has a parent teachers' association. We have only nine pupils in school, but we have 18 members signed up for the parent teachers' association at the organization meeting. The children and their teacher planned a delightful Halloween program and invited all the patrons of the school to attend, and in the friendly festive atmosphere of the occasion we organized our club. I can't help but feel that these little clubs centered in our little schools may do as much to solve the problem of educating our children and producing good citizens as any of the more expensive methods advocated by various well-meaning educators, and politicians.

A girl who used to attend Maplegrove, now grown with children of her own in the neighboring school, told us what their parent teachers' association had accomplished in its two years of existence. "Our teacher came to me two years ago she said, and told me that she was starting her third year in the district and had not seen more than half of the parents of her pupils. It startled me to think that so many of us send our children for eight or nine months of the year for most of their waking hours for eight years or more to a strange place and a strange teacher, and then wonder why we do not have more control over them."

Should Pull Together

Why shouldn't the parents and the teacher get together, be friends, understand each other, pull together, when there is nothing more important to any of us than the welfare of the children? And the interesting thing about it all was that when we got together, we began at once to notice the school needed things. It was not the sort of place we really wanted our children to grow up in. If we hadn't started the club and got together and actually visited the building, we might have gone on thinking that whatever was there was plenty enough, but when we actually saw conditions, and had our interest roused, we saw a number of places where we could improve matters and give our children more of what we wanted them to have. Our building is more than 100 years old, located in a beautiful section of timberland, in a region rich in historic lore. Why shouldn't that school be made to be as big and fine an influence in our children's lives as any million dollar alma mater with gymnasium and pipe organ further away from home? It will not need to raise the tax much either to make it so, for if we parents meet and play with the children and the teacher, keep the building fresh was painting in good repair, their memories of their school will be happy ones, and the influence we have on them will be strong and permanent.

Here is an article by an eastern woman, who is having unusual success in educating children by a system different from the "graded schools." Her ideas may not be acceptable to all of us, but at any rate they are refreshingly interesting and perhaps they will make some of us better satisfied with improving the schools we have instead of fretting because we can't have better. --Hope.

MEMORY GEM

The clothes line is a rosary
Of household help and care,
Each little saint the mother loves
Is represented there.
And when across the garden plot
She walks with thoughtful heed,
I should not wonder if she told
Each garment for a bead.
A stranger passing, I salute
The household in its wear,
And smile to think how near of kin
Are love and toil and prayer.
--Selected

When you read this, you will have begun the new year. I am writing on the day after Christmas. Perhaps you will watch the old year out with festivities in hilarity perhaps a quiet family hour before the fireplace but if your husking is dragging on like ours, you will observe midnight only with the common general sleep that comes these strenuous days. The old year will die and the new year will be ushered in and to us it will only be one more restful night in the continuity of time.

This Sunday afternoon has been bright and sunny. There is no snow, but moisture has condensed and frozen on every tiniest twig and sprig of vegetation till the world turns white. The heavy rime, glowing and glittering on trees and hedges, adorns them with the lace-like tracery of old cathedrals.

It has been a long, luxurious, drowsy restful day. The boys are busy with their new toys, Ruth and I are writing thank you letters, and daddy is napping on the davenport. All the greeting cards are crowded on the mantle at the feet of the tall, red Christmas candles, yours among the many. And before we go farther, let me here thank you for the friendly and loyal greetings so many of you have sent to me into the household. I know I don't deserve the pleasant things you said, but praise is always sweet and it will help me carry in the dull times and try to do better in receiving and sorting and arranging your letters, so you will be kept in friendly touch with one another and continue to find the household profitable in both material and spiritual ways 

Hold Special Services.

It is nearly chore time. Daddy will have to rouse himself and go to milk the cows. While he is gone, the children and I will have our playtime, only today it will be our very special on Christmas service instead. We have held it every Christmas since Sonny was big enough to lift his lusty voice in so-called song. We will cuddle down before the fireplace in this year we will throw on the fire some fairy fuel, which makes the flame burn blue (blue for happiness, you know!) and the soft light will flare and fade on the Christmas tree in the corner, and the red candles will throw a mild glimmer over your names and messages on the mantle, til it will almost seem that you are with us, and then we will sing our favorite songs beginning with Silent Night. Of course, not one of us can carry a tune and part of us lisp a little on the words, but it will be sort of poetry to us, and if we can't do well enough to make the atmosphere solemn, we can at least have a good laugh. Happy new year to you all – Hope 

MEMORY GEM

Speak a shade more kindly.
Than the year before
Pray a little oftener.
Love, a little more.
Cling a little closer.
To the father's love
Life below shall liker grow.
To the life above
– selected

 Here's the editor of your household department snuggly settled in a pool for the night ride from Illinois to Nebraska. The children packed their suitcase and moved up to grandma's this afternoon as delighted over their trip of a quarter-mile is I am of mine of several hundred miles. It was after dark in the heavy spring chili spring, light rain was falling when daddy took me to the train. As the train speeds on through fog and rain I could see the lights of villages and farm houses and I wonder how many of you readers I am passing on the way.

Later in the night, I woke and looked out the window just as we crossed the Mississippi choked with ice. At daybreak we were at Council Bluffs where the rough and rolling country seems strange after our level prairies. On through Omaha we went and reached Lincoln at mid morning of a delightful, mild and sunny day.

Farming seems to be about the same here as it is at home. Lots of corn and lots of wheat, lots of livestock grazing in the fields where the corn has been picked. The landscapes are beautiful in this part of the country, even at the dullest of seasons. The country is rolling enough to be interesting and there is a thrilling spaciousness about it all. I've just walked from the hotel to Miss Mary Ellen Brown, state leader in the extension service, and she urges me to hurry out to the campus where there is a particularly interesting session going on. So we go by street car out to the edge of town where the agricultural college is located in a beautiful setting. The larger part of the university is located downtown but the agricultural college is on a separate tract of land. It is something like our Illinois campus – a big, friendly place with plenty of room between the buildings and no crowding out of the outspread natural panorama. The older buildings are red brick, and the newer ones are cream colored

Pay Rich Rewards

It is "Organized Agriculture Week" and all sorts of farm and home organizations unite in the programs. There are interesting programs scheduled in all phases of animal, husbandry and dairying and poultry and crops, but no one person can take them all in. So we are limited to the woman's home economic section. That meeting is being held in the big new college activity building. As the day goes by I'll try to tell you a little bit of what is going on in this big gathering of women. Some of them have come from parts of Nebraska as far as from Lincoln, as my home is. Some of them come from grain and livestock and dairy farms, some from enormous ranches of grazing country, but all of them are friendly and neighborly. If any of you have the chance to attend your state "farmers week" or whatever it may be called, try to take advantage of it. I do not know of any other kind of meeting that pays richer rewards for the time and money spent. And now I'm at the campus with the girls of the extension staff all busy helping us latecomers to register and helping us get in touch with the officials in charge to the program, and from now on the day will be so busy that I can't write anymore.

Shares After Christmas Letters

I want to share with you, some amusing and affectionate letters from grandparents and aunties, and cousins that came in the mail just before I left home. They are like the letters of the rest of you are getting nowadays if you are scattered from your people as the aftermath of Christmas. Sometimes I think the very sweetest part of Christmas is the time of the thank you letters, carrying the fragrance of the season into the new year.

My dear granddaughter, we received a nice Christmas box some days ago. Should've answered sooner, but your grandmother was in bed with a sick headache and I had to do the housework, keeping up the fires and act as a trained nurse, besides answering the doorbell and telephone and entertaining callers so I am behind with our correspondence. I really ought to do this on the typewriter, but ours is so poor I don't seem to know how to spell, so maybe you can make out to read this poor hand. Grandma is better today and down by the fireplace but I still carry up the coal.

Had Enjoyable Christmas

We had a real nice Christmas. Uncle Hugh and Aunt Carrie brought a Christmas tree and strings of little electric lights. The boxes were laid at the root of it, and Uncle Hugh picked them up one at a time and called out the names, and I had to pass them down to the ladies present, Uncle Hugh's wife and her ma. I cannot tell you all they got, for if I could reember it would take me so long that you would not get this till the middle of summer. I got a book called "Oh Professor, How Could You", by Harry Leon Wilson, and Carrie gave me a styptic pencil which she said was good to use on my face in case I cut myself with the razor. It would stop the blood and heal the cut, but she said she cut her thumb and tried it on that, but it did not stop the blood, so I am still going to be careful when I shave. My family all join me in many thanks for the nice things you sent in the box -- all original and hand-made, wishing you many happy returns of the day.

Uncle Hugh and myself divided the bag of candy and apples, which were nice indeed, and I especially want to thank you for the nice long string around the box. I saved every bit of it, six and a quarter yards of it. I rolled it into a nice ball and put it in the "string box," and if grandma does not find it maybe we will send it back to you around another Christmas box. We also got your nice letter telling of your presents. We are always glad to get your nice letters. We always like to hear from you, of your studies in the school and in your music and your theatricals. We also enjoy a word of your father and mother and of those darling boys. Don't forget to put in a hint of their daring escapades. Tell us of your father's problems and your mother's career, and of your grandparents on the other side, and of Uncle Will and Aunt Minnie, and Bobby and his folks. Tells us how many pigs and calves and chickens and cats you have. We would also like to know something of your ambitions; what you wish to do when you get big. We are sending your mother a box by parcel post that she will smack her lips over fo r the coming year.

With many good wishes for you and all of your for the coming year, and don't fall down on your schule work, I am as ever, your affectionate Grandfather Needham.

Was Her First Christmas

Dear Wilbert, Sonny and Ruth; Papa gave me this piece of paper to write you a letter on, and mama is writing it for me because I am too little. I shall be a year old the eighteenth of January. (First, I said "I will be." but Margie Ruth is so very particular about her grammar, that mamma thought I had better say shall.) So you see, this is my first real Christmas, and I was very glad to get so many things from my cousins. Did you make the dolly yourselves? Where did you get so many kinds of paint? I wish I had some colored paint to play in, but the dolly is just as good and mamma thinks it is much better.

Perhaps you thought I was too little to enjoy the big picture book, but no, mama has been showing me pictures for a long time. She never would let me turn the pages though and now she does. Even mama was surprised to see how well I can turn them. She didn't think I knew how. I was a little disappointed at first because I couldn't tear the pages. But the pictures are so pretty that I don't mind very much. Mama lets me poke my fingers in all the eyes I can find. Some other parts of the pictures are pretty too and I pat them and scratch them with my finger-nails. But I like eyes best.

Visited a Store

Mama and papa say to thank you for the other things, too. Did Aunt Hope let you help pick them out and buy them? I have never been in a store except when I was in Urbana. Grandpa gave mama some money and then grandma went with us to buy me an orgadie bonnet. Some day when I am bigger I will go to a store again and buy things for all my cousins.

I wish I could go to visit you again. I am much bigger now. I can walk all around if I have something to hold with one hand. And sometimes I let go and take one or two steps all by myself. I have four teeth now, and can bite big holes in my celluloid playthings. I think I am going to have some more teeth right away. Something hurts me most all the time and mama has to give me dollies to play with.

I am going to stand up in my bed now and watch mama take this letter to the mail box - Your loving cousin, Rosemary.
 

Home again! And it's good to be where the firelight glows. Indeed, for while last week in Nebraska was balmy and mild as spring, this week winter has descended on us. It has snowed for two days and nights, a soft, we, thick snow, not very cold. Now it is dusk of the second day and the wind has risen higher and higher all afternoon. Drifts are already knee deep in the barnyard. I've jut come in from floundering through them, dressed in coveralls and galoshes and gauntlets, and it is pleasant to find the children reading happily by the fireside when I come in.

The storm is growing worse and the temperature is falling. There was a funeral in our neighborhood this afternoon – a wild and heart-breaking day for such an event. And now whenever the telephone rings it brings news of another car stranded in the drifts and unable to get home. Bob-sleds and wagons are being readied to haul the wayfarers home. One car is stuck a few rods up the road from us and occasionally I leave the children and carry a telephone message to the folks up there, for the women in the party are not strong enough nor dressed suitably to climb and struggle through the drifts to our house. At last a neighbor man comes to the door, red and breathless from the stinging wind, and asks, "Are our folks here?" "Waiting in the car, a few rods up," we answer. "We can't see ten feet in front of us," he tells us; and as he starts back to the bob-sled he is hidden by the thick curtain of snow before he reaches the lane. We can see just a faint glimmer of lantern light and a dim shadow climbing into the box, then away skims the bob-sled with the soft jingle of sleigh bells.

Tucked in Snugly

Later the children are snugly tucked away in bed and the house is very still. The telephone  is quiet now, for every one is safely home who could get there or is resigned to staying away over night. Our daddy was 20 miles away, and he can't get home till tomorrow, and perhaps not then, unless the snow stops drifting so the roads can be opened up.

Now at last the wind dies down and the sky clears, and the moon shines out, hard and brilliant, over the glittering expanse of snow. The thermometer is dropping, dropping – there is no sound anywhere except the crackling of ice on branches. And as I stand alone at the window, looking out at the scene, beautiful but so cold, I think of that bereaved family down the road, shut in alone with their first night of grief, and I wonder which is harder for them to bear, the wild howling storm, or this "hard, dull bitterness of cold." – Hope

MEMORY GEM

Never guest was quainter;
Pussy came to town
In a hood of silver gray
And a coat of brown.
Happy Little children
Cried with laugh and shout,
"Spring is coming, coming,
Pussy Willow's out."

– Kate I Brown

Two letters came to my desk on the same day. One is from a discouraged farm mother, struggling against poverty, who feels (rightly) that somehow life is not always fair, financially, to farmers. The other is from another farm woman, who also had a hard enough time in the country, but who found after they had gone to town that life was not always rosy, even there.

The first woman takes exceptions to the results of the Nebraska questionnaire mentioned here a few weeks ago on "What's on the Farm Woman's Mind." The answers to that questionnaire, the opinions of several hundred Nebraska women, put as the matter of first importance better schools. Each woman was to mark the five questions that seemed to her of most importance out of a list of questions. When the vote was totaled up the school question had been marked oftenest.

Need Better Homes

Our correspondent of today maintains that she and a good many others feel that it is not better schools but better homes that are needed, and to get the better homes all we need is a better economic situation for the farmer. "Give the farmer a square deal," she says, "and he and his family fix up their homes as they want them." This attitude is quite in line with a report which was made by an Illinois committee on which my husband served. My husband's part was to correspond with a number of agricultural college graduates of recent years and find out whether they were satisfied with farm life, and if not, why not. Even before the answers were received my husband remarked that the first and main problem was an economic one. Given an intelligent group of farmers and a fair financial return for their efforts, and they will look after all the other problems as the need arises - roads, schools, markets, and so on. The answers to his letters bore him out in this opinion. As one many put it, "If you inherit land or marry it, you can make a go of farming. If you have to buy and pay for it, the way things are now, it is discouraging. If we can get prices and production adjusted, whether by legislation or co-operation or any other means, my answer would be, 'Of course I'm satisfied with farming. It is the only life.'"

I am inclined to agree to a great extent with the correspondent of today, in that the home is the most important. But it might be argued, and perhaps this is why so many Nebraska women voted for schools first, that in order to get better homes we must educate a generation to it.

Is Unduly Bitter

There is one point in this friend's letter which needs comment. She is bitter against salaried folks, particularly teachers. "Their salaries are greater than they need," she says. "If they can have a bank account, an automobile and when summer comes take a trip to Europe or some other place for pleasure, they are surely drawing a fair salary."

It seems to me that as many farmers as teachers have bank accounts and automobiles. And as for trips to Europe, those farmers whose land is free of encumbrance and whose children are grown and independent may be able to afford a trip to Europe, but take trips in America instead, while teachers feel that European travel helps them in their work. It is a mistake to feel that such advantages of life are limited to any one class. It is pretty safe to assume that no individual and no class has all the advantages of life. I know a good many teachers, and it is my experience that the ones who have no real home and no family to provide for frequently are able, after a number of years of teaching, to devote $500 or $600 to a trip abroad. But those who are married, buying a home and raising a family, do just about as the rest of us do; try to make the money reach around expenses, try to keep the children in shoes and school houses, books, pay the taxes when they are due, stall off the doctor and dentists as long as we dare. That's what we call compensation. Some of the teachers who go to Europe would cheerfully swap their travel for our homes and babies, if they could. Some of them prefer the life they have chosen, and I"m sure they have a right to live their own way. They wouldn't make successful parents and homesteaders.

Need Touch of Prosperity

It may be that the teachers and other classes are better paid for their exertions than we are, but it is a pity to let ourselves get embittered about it. Farmers all over the country are coming nearer and nearer together, and surely they will eventually find a way out of their difficulties. As Jim told us a year ago, "What we need is just a touch of prosperity." It would make all the difference in the world in the way we compare our blessings with other folks.

The second letter I mentioned in the beginning is from a farm woman in town, and we put it side by side with the discouraged letter from the country, hoping there will be a grain of comfort for both these women, our friends.

February has come and gone with its mild and balmy air and it's abominable mud. March has come in like a lion and given us a running assortment of rain, snow, sleet, sunshine, fog, mud, and ice, but appears to be straightening around for a settled spring. February quite lost its senses this year. The air was so invigorating the temperature so comforting that one's pulses went bounding, and one soul went soaring, and all that, but two or 3 pounds of mud on each foot was sufficient to hold ambition down to earth, and nothing much was accomplished in the farming and gardening line.

The frost is out of the ground now, so that walking is not quite so treacherous. We hear once more of the music of bang boards in the land, for some of the corn has stood, unhusked, all winter, in the midst of snow and mud. Not till that is finished will much be done toward the new seasons work.

It is customary hereabouts to do the main butchering in February, but the weather was so warm that we had to look sharp to find a suitable spell. When we chose our time, we had to rush the work to get it done before the temperature rose again. Daddy and the children and I cut up lard in the basement after supper one night until Sonny cut a finger, and after that, the youngsters perched on the celler steps and conversed briskly, hoping I suppose to make us forget it was bedtime. They outlined their life ambitions to us at some length. Ruth hopes to be a farmers wife, Sonny plans to be an engineer, and Wilbert has set his heart and becoming a millionaire.

Settle Community Problems

After they were finally tucked away for the night, Daddy and I settled the problems with the community and the universe while we finished up cutting the meat and eventually the butchering was completed for this year.

The farm sales are practically over and they never was a season in these parts were there were so many. It really has been quite festive. The men had somewhere to go nearly all winter.

The annual meetings of most local organizations are safely over, and we all know who's who in every club in association. Our home talent Lyceum course, sadly delayed by bad roads and storms of January and February, is being rushed through this month, date crowding date. The last of the home talent plays are being whipped into shape, the farewell parties for departing neighbors have been held, and all in all we are settling down to work.

First Taste of Tragedy

Our little parent teachers association is hanging together loyally though our teacher is quite ill and the school is almost broken up. It is hard to find a substitute this time of year and our youngsters may have to be "farmed out" to adjoining districts. Daughter Ruth has had her first taste of real tragedy this spring, first, in the illness of the beloved teacher, and then in the departure of favorite playmates from the school. "Isn't it awful to have to be separated from the ones you like the best," she asked with quivering lips, on the last, fatal day. "Seems like the last minute is the worst. We were never so happy all day, singing the songs they like the best and playing the games they chose, and then, at the last, it seemed as though we couldn't stand to say goodbye." The little girls are just moving a few miles away, but to the children it is as hard a parting as though they were going overseas forever. We are prone to be untouched by such apparently slight, childish, grief, but who shall say that they are not as deep and painful as any experiences we ever meet in life?

"Friend after friend departs,
Who has not lost a friend?
There is no friendship here on earth.
That has not come here and in."

And now comes the last of the sewing, in the house, cleaning, in the gardening, in the chicken raising. It is the turn of the year, when there comes a fresh inspiration. From now on, there is a little more poetry in the wash day, a little less bleakness on the farm.

Spring is really here with the grass, growing greener in the sky, growing bluer, with the big white washing down the road and the big white washing up the hill, waving hilarious, greetings to my big white washing, and the trees of my farm. Sending Jonty messages to the trees of your farm and getting them back again by the warm wind, that whistles and whirls and urges the countryside to one grand suite chorus of rejoicing.

Everything throbs with vitality, from the gay dawning to the peaceful night. Seems as though the village lights off to the southeast twinkle, more vivaciously than ever, these evenings and the row over airplane beacons around the northern and western horizon flare more brilliantly in their steady rhythm – now, the first one describing it, slow, bright arc, now, the next, and the next, and the next.

In the moonlight nights! Is there anything more thrilling than the glorious white light of the spring moon? One of the children woke up a night or two ago, and exclaimed at the whiteness of the glow. That woke the other two, and we let them stand at the windows and marvel at the site. To them (they are so seldom awake at that time of night in) it all seemed "wonder strange."

A Red Letter Day

It Is warm enough that ruth comes trudging Home from school with her coat flung open and a little bit of moisture on her flushed forehead. As Sonny remarked, "she is so warm she is covered with sweatness." The boys come in for meals, flushed and covered not only with sweatness, but with dust. It was a red letter day for them last week when busy day when Daddy got up from the breakfast table to hurry away and said, "Boys, you feed the calves for me this morning." What a squaring of shoulders was there, what exaggerated strut, as they tossed their caps on sideways (in intimidation of the current hired man). How proud they were, that they were given instructions, like the rest of the men, but not detailed instructions like babies! Daddy knew better than to tell them what to feed, and how much: had they watched him do it every time it had been done so far? They went to get their chores done and reported afterward that they had made an equitable division of the five heifer calves now on hand. Sonny chose the two largest ones, because they will be grown the soonest, and brother took the three little ones, because there are more of them. Since that day, the boys have tended the calves, and played with them, and almost lived among them. Sonny even wanted to know if they could take their naps out there, as he had tried, resting his head on one of the calves, and made such a soft pillow and lay so quiet. Brother wanted their supper packed in paper bags, as It Is when they play miner or workmen going to the factory, and wanted to eat out there with the calves. When I pointed out it was not just exactly a sanitary place in which, to eat, he maintained that the white on the calves was wider than snow, and that they smelled so sweet! 

Hitches in Single and Double

They have harnessed the cabs and driven them single and double. Wilbert has named his three Petty, Small, and Nice. He wants Sonny to name his George and Link after the father of his country, and the great emancipator, respectively, but up-to-date Sonny hasn't seemed impressed with the suggestion.

One day they took me out to give me a demonstration of putting the calves into the stanchions to feed. The system was for Sonny to push on the high quarters and Wilbert to stand in front of the stanchions and guide the head into the proper place and clamp it. All went well with the first four: they looked rather bored, and made no trouble, as they had no desire to go anywhere else. But the fifth and largest displayed a little obstinacy. It jerked and pulled away, kicked up Its heels and went into reverse, dragging Sonny, sprawling. He burst into tears of rage and humiliation, and cried, "You're always shoving me around!" But then, catching the look of alarm in my face, and apparently fearing that I would forbid further activities in such a dangerous place, he quickly straightened up and remarked with force casualness, "He kicks me lots of times, but it never hurts."

Today we are using our precious hour of playtime together to drive over to the village and call on your preacher, who is still sick. Will pick up Ruth on the way, and we're going to look for pussy willows as we go.

Happy little children.
Cry and laughing shout,
"spring is coming, com
Pussy Willows out!"

– Hope

There is an instinct that tells the little birds, when to come north in the spring, and there is likewise an instinct that tells our youngsters when it is time for the first John across the fields. It is always earlier than I anticipate, but perhaps that is because my touch with nature weekend as the years go by. Anyway, the time has come this season, the children say, and we have made the first momentous pilgrimage "over the pasture to Elmira's." When we make this trip, spring has formally arrived. The route "over the pasture" includes a hog lot, about six fences, a creek, or two, a field of corn stocks, and what not: but when the time comes, mother is expected to negotiate these difficulties without a murmur, though she would infinitely prefer to get out the car and go by the civilized road. But a mother never knows when she will lose cast with her children, by weakness, in such little matters: and I for one would not risk complaining.

The sun was bright in the sky, was blue on the day, selected: but the ditches ran brawling with water, and the ground was spongy with recent rains: and the wind blew raw. At the last moment, daddy convinced the children that the regular route was not a fit trail for a house plant like mother, and the obligingly consented to go around by the road, provided we would not walk on the gravel street along, but would have to follow the leader.

Line Up in Military Order

The leader was Ruth, of course. She lined us up in formal fashion and outlined to set of signals, which she fondly imagined where the last word in military discipline. She is partial to autocratic methods, when she is in charge of a project. This would work out very effectively, if it were not for the fact that the boys are what you might call "personal rights" men. Isn't it strange that we admire an adult some of the traits that annoy us most in children? Since being acquainted with my little brood, I never read a biography of a great man, saying, "He knew what he wanted, and never let anything interfere till he got i," but what I think, "How he must've annoyed his sister when he was little!" And whenever I hear a woman talk strongly about "standing up for her rights," I think she must've been driven into such firmness by her little brothers, being obstreperous and rebellious in their childhood.

Picks Precarious Places

But anyway, we set out on our journey this morning, when fate decreed we should go. The leader system seem to be to choose the most precarious places to walk. We walked odd, stepping-stones back-and-forth over the ditches: we crossed the creek, not by bridge, but by frail branches and clumps of trash that have been caught in the stream: at one place, we crept through a hole in a hedge, and walked in the lane roughened by cow tracks. Not even the most tender hearted poet could've referred to our "light and air tread." All in all, it was a clumsy and strenuous trip, but in spite of the difficulties we managed to admire the pussy willows and the other growing things we found. Once mother almost lost her grip on her iron nerves, however: that was when brother brought up for admiration a graceful baby grass snake about 6 inches long and as thick as a lead pencil of a most adorable shade of green! It would've harmonized beautifully with the kitchen woodwork, but we did not bring it home.

There is much of courage and appreciation for a mother to learn by taking a walk with her children. She has a chance for a wonderful renewal of childhood, which will be richer for the years of living that have passed since her own have forgotten early experiences in a great wide wonderful, beautiful world. And it seems to me that it gives the child a fair chance in life to have as much enjoyment with his parents as he can be given. Goodness knows, we have to curtail their pleasure soon enough "we have to discipline them early, to protect them from a harsh world. Let's at least be playful with them when we can!

Why They Were Punished

Did I ever tell you about the interesting investigation some teachers made with a lot of children of kindergarten age? The problem was to find out something about the punishment of children; and the teachers asked the children tell them what they were punished for. Three fourths of the acts that were punished were not wrong in themselves, but involved inconvenience to the adults in charge of the children. One little fellow said that he was punished for "sittin' on the sophy' in my dirty pants, and for setting on the ground in my clean ones."

It is commendable, I am sure, for any parents to have their child as a work of art "setting on the sophy'" in clean pants, part of the time: but for health and happiness, dress him so he can sit on the ground part of the time in pants they can't be spoiled by normal activity. And play with him while he is in his play clothes. He will be surprised how much he will learn about him, and how much more competent you feel to manage him and, incidentally, you will learn a lot about how to manage yourself.

But I hadn't much time to let my mind well thought such as these during our blitz and busy trip. We reached home at last: and mother was ready to relax for an absolute rest, after devoting the better part of the morning to active offspring, hoping they too, were ready for a period of quiet. But alas for hopes! Before anyone had a chance to sit down, there came a new that refrain that runs like a golden thread, through all mothers, waking hours: "Mother, now, what can we do?" – Hope.

"Shut your eyes till I get in the kitchen – something nice!" Was Sonny's cry, as my two tousled blue-overalled youngsters tumbled in the back door at noon the other day. And when I "shut my eyes" and held out my hand. I was given five stubby, grimy, crushed little dandelions, the first we've seen the season. Of course, to mothers, the dandelions her babies bring her are the sweetest flowers that blow, and I made a proper fuss over them, and listened as best I could while I put dinner on the table to the whole detailed story of where they were found, and how hard they were to get.

You see, the boys had made a couple of wheel stick or stick wheels, I never can remember which it is. But you find an old, rusty wheel, and size, but preferably small, and onto it, you bolt a stick, any length and shape and condition, but preferably not too rough and about 3 feet long. Sometimes it takes quite a while to find a bolt with a burr that will fit and that isn't too rusty to use, but it is a happy search if it takes all forenoon. But anyway, on this particular morning luck was with the boys and they got their wheel sticks made early, and then they felt an urgent call to go down the road and show them to their little chums, two boys of corresponding ages in a neighboring family. These wheel sticks are not for anything in particular, but you push them and run and it's so pleasant to guide them and make them go fast. If you are big enough for your daddy to let you stand on the running board of the car, you can trail the wheel stick on the ground and wee, but it goes! But if you're too little for that, you have to just run on your own chubby feet as fast as you can.

Spied Something Yellow

After they showed the wheel stick to the boys and helped them find supplies to make some for themselves, and then started home, why, right across the ditch they saw something yellow. It was in a hard place, but they got over, and sure enough it was dandelions, two of them. And so after they got those, they watched pretty close the rest of the way of home, and finally, they found three more, and here they were.

We floated them in a white saucer, and they made a cheerful centerpiece for the dining table. And radiant with satisfaction of a good deed well appreciated. Sonny announced beautifully, "after nap we're going to hunt up a big bunch and take it to Miss Anna." (For our teacher is still dreadfully ill at the hospital, and will not be strong for a long time.) Brother boy squelched him with his superior grant. "Won't do for that," he said, and I thought with one of those her little twinges that comes so often to mothers when the little ones are growing out of babyhood, "has he already learned that is only to mothers that these common little furry golden balls are sweet, and to them only because their own darlings made the effort to get them? Is he already touched by that melody which gets us all – that is not the love in the effort alone count but what other people think

But no! He is still just a baby, unsullieded by convention. "Won't do for that," he said. "Stems too short. Wouldn't have a vase to fit 'em so we can't carry the dandelions to the hospital, where the grown-ups might be embarrassed less someone think we didn't know any better. We'll just wait until we find some more some weeds with longer stems." – Hope.

One evening, not long ago our daddy was delayed a few minutes with his evening chores, just enough that we missed connections for about five minutes before we reached home, I had to leave to go to town with some neighbors. And for that little interim, the children were left alone in the house. The thing like that doesn't happen often, and all evening a ghost of a worry haunted me: even though I was sure they would be perfectly safe.  The next day at dinner, talk came up of some event, to which dad and I both wanted to go: but we are so in the habit of arranging for someone to be with the children that we had to decide which of us was to go. Baby boy, age 6 looked up a matter fact, way and remarked, "Why don't you both go? We can do the outside work like we always, and we can run the house."

A simple remark, but how startling in its significance! Can it be that there is a time coming when we won't need always to plan our days according to whether someone can look after the babies? In the beginning the chains galled us some, but as time went on, it became second nature for us to adapt our comings and goings around the welfare of the little ones and the stranger the habit grew, the less the chains chafed. And now, at the prospect of liberty, we are almost appalled.

Begged to Get Back

A few days ago the newspapers carried a story of an old man, who, after spending most of his years in a penitentiary, was pardoned and turned loose in the world strange to him. In a very short, while he came back to the prison, begging, pitifully, to be re-admitted, for he couldn't adjust himself to freedom. I think parents can understand his feelings, when their children shoot up suddenly and independent girlhood and boyhood. One by one, the bond are loosening: babies learn to feed themselves, and dress themselves, and bathe themselves, to keep out of dangerous places without being watched, and later to think, and decide and act for themselves. It all leaves a parent with us for sort of feeling, questioning whether freedom is all that it is cracked up to be. Those bonds were sweet, after all.

If there is a moral to all this, it would be a word of encouragement to those poor, tired, young mothers, whose moments are packed so full of tending babies that they have no time to take care of themselves, that there is an easier time coming: that this hardest time is short. And a word of warning to the rebellious young mothers who are afraid that they will lose too much of their own life if they devote themselves to babies now. "Who looses his life shall find it." In tending this rose garden of babyhood we have a thorny time in many ways. Some days we can notice nothing but prickles. But after the hard work is done, and we look back on the arduous days, we see nothing but a massive bloom. – Hope.

Is this momentous day approaches once more, it seems appropriate to include, along with the memory gem, which many have asked to have reprinted for the occasion, the letters which came in response to Ruth Vernon's recent letter, which included a mention of Mother's Day. It is especially appropriate that one of the letters is from "Twenty Some" who originally contributed Gillan's poem to the column last fall.

Mother's Day seems to me to be a wonderful day to retain in the calendar and I, like the rest of you, feel that father deserved credit too. But I would rather build up a separate Father's Day wouldn't you? Seems to me we could spare a day of peace for the two wonderful people who gave up themselves and ordered their lives for our sakes. Mother's Day is not a selfish day, even for the mothers. I know as a pack my box of dewey crabapple blossoms for my own little mother, I am not thinking of the day as it tribute to me, although I am a mother, for I know in my heart that I have not gone far enough nor done well enough to deserve tribute yet. I am thinking only of her, and the sweetness of her influence, and all the lives that touched her.

Thinking Back

As she sits at home on Mother's Day, and receives the boxes and the telegram for her six scattered children and their mates, I know that she is not accepting them smugly as her due, but is thinking back to her mother –little lame, Grandmother Kate, that ardent unvanquished spirit, who raise seven children and conquered the trials of pioneer life as gallantly as any emperor marshaling his legions against barbarians, and who, at the age of 85, left this life for one which I hope will provide her a satisfying outlet for her activity and her brilliance.

So it goes. No mother is basking in the glory of the day, though the remembrance and appreciation of her children is sweet to her, but each is looking back and laying her gratitude at the feet of her own mother. It is a sort of answer to worship which broadens the heart in humility and reverence. – Hope.

"April has wept itself to May," as the poet says, in literal truth this year. Such prolonged and heavy rains as we have all had through the middle west! The worst of it seems to be over where we are in north central Illinois, the floodwater having drained away and left our land almost tillable: but our hearts in sympathies are with those further down the Mississippi, who must suffer, not only the evil effects of the own rainfall, but the accumulated disaster of all of ours as well.

Our farmers are three weeks behind with spring work, and it will take good weather and strenuous days to get the corn land ready to plant in time. A goodly acreage of the customary oats crop could not be seeded at all. Strangely enough, the three successive freezes we had in late April did not seem to affect the fruit much.

Whatever misfortune we get in the way of rain is soon over, the real tragedy comes in the dwellers by the riverside, when the drainage waters gather into the big streams, swelling them to overflowing.

Test of Courage

Honor to those farmers, who submitted to the ruination of their lands, for the sake of saving New Orleans! There was a powerful test of courage and strength of character. How many of us, if our ancestors had worked that land 200 years and had built the levee to protect our homes, could've stood without protest, and seen those levies wrecked and our property ruined, for the sake of saving a strange city, apparently a selfish city, a city, which had done nothing in particular to help us? If many of those farmers were bitter and rebellious at the blasting of the walls, what right have we to judge them? The only fault was not being able to see a larger pattern in life: and not recognizing the need of a few to suffer for the sake of saving many.

How many of us rebel against much smaller troubles in our daily lives just because we have the same limitation? We at least give what we can afford to the suffering, flood victims and meanwhile we can count our many blessings, and be glad of some of the little happinesses that lie before us.

A Riot of Bloom

The tall, strong, crabapple tree, which we watch from the kitchen window every spring is riotous with bloom. It is the tree which gets green first of any tree in the spring, and it's development is one of the delights of our country life. It begins with just a hint of almost imperceptible color, and swiftly, day by day, becomes a massive, living green, when the maples are just barely beginning to swell their crimson buds. Then some morning, our crabtree is overlaid with the pink of buds, and from then on for a week or two it grows more and more splendid, until it is like a snowbank with bloom. As a fruit tree, it is no good, as daddy sagely remembers: the apples are very tiny, yellow ones, but afflicted with worms, and so high as to be inaccessible without an extension ladder, and the sturdy right arm at the head of the house. But as a thing of beauty, merely, it is a joy forever – not just in spring, but year-round.

Our gladioli bulbs are thriving, too. We spend more than we really could afford for them, and then, following the recommendation of an authority on the subject, I put them in the ground early in April. "Glads are very hardy," he said, "and the choicest ones should be put out the first of April, so they will have a long season in which to multiply." Then three freezes came and I truly believed that the way of the transgressor is hard. I resolved it should be a lesson to me not to indulge in any more high price bulbs, until my ship comes in. But a few days later, the slim green shoots begin to come through the ground, and now I feel quite proud of my skill with flowers. Nothing ventured nothing won they say.

Would Not Hold to the Supports

The ivy is another triumph for me, of which I must tell you. Last spring, I selected the sort of ivy, which seemed to me to fill the bill of what we wanted, and I set out and tended the plants. They grew luxuriously, but they simply would not cling to the wall. I tried all sorts of queer support, but accomplished nothing. My ivy became one of the family standing jokes. Then the spring daddy assured me that my ivy was dead and he chose a different variety and set it up to start the frost got part of him, but the joke is that my ivy is beginning to grow. Of course I can't guarantee that it will stick to the stucco any better this year than last, but I have hopes. It ought to be "acclimated" by now.

The boys' calves have been turned out into a new pasture just across the lane from the house. The boys been much time among their little pets. When one boy comes to the back door and yells "all down," he means the calves are resting. The other one goes scampering, and over the gate, they both scramble to nestle among the family of calves. Wilbert's three – Petty, Goody and Smalley -- are still a nice size for a little boy to manage. He can stand comfortably between two of them, with an arm thrown affectionately over each. He has given Goody to Ruth, so she can play with the mornings in the evenings. She has re-christened it "Goody, Two Shoes," rather meaningless for a calf, it seems to me, but apparently satisfying to her aesthetic sense.

Star and Butter

So these two calves have grown until they are taller than he is, so that his best times for petting them are when they are lying down to rest. He has named them Star and Butter. "Do you call her Butter, " asks sentimental mother, "because she is the yellowest?" "I call her butter," says Sonny, "because she butts me down."

We have a new dog too. Not really our own, but one to keep for the summer. The boys went to the village with daddy the other day and brought it home. They fairly battered me with information and their excitement when they got back. "A dog, mother, for us to keep all summer!" "He's the blacksmith's, and he wants him to run around outdoors!" "In town he just has to stay at home all the time, think of that!" "Down celler, mostly: can you imagine it?" "We have to keep him tied a few days, daddy says, and then he can run and play with us." "He's a rat terrier." "and he's a mouse terrier too." "He's white and fat and has a black spot on his eye." "He's friends with us already." "Isn't he cute?" "And his name," adds solomon Sonny, in a final burst of eloquence before he is entirely out of breath, "is Betty." – Hope.

The last day of school has come and gone, and the picnic is over. It is a strenuous but happy time for children and parents alike with its ice cream and other eatables and the reports of "who passed" and the chatter about summer plans and next year's work.

At Ruth's school we had a fine big crowd. The men came in just for dinner in their field clothes, for the days are crowded to the brim with hereabouts with work hereabouts and they could not come for all day. But a matter how busy they are, it was worthwhile for them to come in for a short time on such a day. Someway the children are a little prouder and happier if an event is important enough to have daddy there. Mothers are always on deck, of course. They have to come to bring the lunch. if nothing else in they usually visit school a few times during the year. But it takes special inducement to get the fathers out. We had tons of laughing and fun. And after dinner when the men had gone back to their tractors and the little ones have gone outdoors to romp, and the "big boys" had gone to practice for the graduation operetta, the women organized a parent teachers association. That is the third rural PTA in our neighborhood, and we are proud of all of them.

And now all that activity is off our minds till fall. What we must have now, is a long pull and a strong pull and a pull in altogether to get the crop in. The women and children must look after chickens and garden, and as many of the chores as possible: lunches must be taken to the men in the fields, and every moment must be made to count. The weather stays cold and cloudy and windy but we have bad enough have had enough dry weather for plowing and disking. On a good day, we can actually count eight tractors, weaving their tireless way back-and-forth across fields from daylight to dark, trailing back black ribbons of mellow soil, and we can hear the roar of many more that are out of sight. The very proverbial peace and quiet of the countryside has disappeared for the time being.

The incessant rumble might be nerve-racking to a vacationist, but to us, it is music in our ears. It means achievement of worthwhile things to us, and it means safety and prosperity for the coming year. We'd a lot rather hear that rumble than not! The days when the tractors have to be idle, are the days that are nerve-racking to us this spring. – Hope.

It was Ruth Vernon, I believe, who began the discussion of honoring the fathers was a special day, as we do the mothers. So far as we have learned, there is no national Father's Day set apart, corresponding to the second Sunday and May now universally accepted as Mother's Day. Some of the universities celebrate dad's day on a Saturday in the fall with a big football game as the main attraction.

Father and sons banquets are increasingly popular among the churches in the YMCA but there does not seem to be a uniform day for holding them. This year, our town held these banquets in the winter, every church entertaining its own group on the same night. In some letters printed today, a Father's Day on the second Sunday in June is mentioned. That day, I believe, is observed in practically all protestant churches as children's day, the movement to call May Day children's day is growing in strength year by year. It was started by child welfare organizations.

Suggests Parents Week

Another letter printed today suggested parents week, with Mother's Day on the first Sunday and Father's Day on the next. This seems to be a good suggestion, with a lot of possibilities. Wouldn't you write what you think about it – and let's set a Father's Day for our household, even though the nation at large has not chosen one. But beginning now we may be able to work up enough sentiment to have a widespread observance next spring.

In our little Hopewell church, it is customary on Mother's Day for a committee to provide sweet peas, pink and white, and to distribute them to all the congregation. Of course, everyone who has flowers brings bouquets to church for decorations, and one of the biggest and finest is presented at the closest of the service to the oldest mother present, and one to the mother, having the largest family present, and one to the youngest mother.

The tall trees have been swishing pretty steadily for sometime, according to the little poem, but they haven't swept our skies blue much of the time. We still have rain and wind and cold and clouds, which surely make us appreciate a few bright balmy days that occur once in a while. Very little corn is in the ground, and what little has begun to grow looks yellow and dispirited. It is the time when our men are normally straining every nerve to keep the cornfields clean and yet get the alfalfa hay put up. This year there is nothing ready to plow and very little alfalfa to worry about. Much alfalfa killed out this winter. It seems strange to us to hear of the young fellows starting out to the Kansas harvest. Our wheat is growthy and green, but has not started to head. The gardens are thrifty, and I never saw the berries bloom so beautifully. The children are all out of school, and fill the long days with caring for chickens and calves and pigs.

Helped Shell Seed Corn

The other day the children, and I spent the rainy afternoon in the loft of the corn crew, helping Daddy shell the seed corn. The rain beat on the roof and shadows covered the gloomy corners, and softened the lines of the dusty things that accumulate and such a place. We sat on inverted paint, pills, and bushel baskets, and while Daddy sorted and butted and tipped, we shelled the golden grains, the brightest things in the loft, from the glowing red cobs. When the little boys have blistered their hands enough to satisfy them, they set out about other activities – Brother, at some prying and pounding that seemed intensely important to him. Sonny, piling the red cobs into intrinsic shapes. Ruth and I raced each other in the shelling. There would be silence for a while, except for the rain,then we would talk a little, then be quiet again. We covered a lot of subjects in a random way, but one remark of Daddy stands out in memory, making the little homely scene one of the pictures that we carry with us always, not important in themselves, but close to our hearts for the very simplicity.

Isolation Has Its Advantages

"Folks talk a lot," he said, "about the need children have for social life and companionship. I used to pity myself when I was young, because I was the only boy and led what I thought was a lonely life. It was lonelier in some ways than country folks have now, for we had no telephones, radios, or automobiles. But the longer I live the more I feel that there are a lot of advantages in being isolated a bit from the bustle and stir of life. A person learns of necessity to develop resources in himself to do some independent thinking, and to be satisfied without being entertained all the time."

"These children of ours, they don't see the movies in the fire engines often, and don't get to hail the ice cream cone wagon a couple times a day, and don't have enough folks around to get up a ball team, or a tug-of-war, still have some opportunities for self development. Sonny here will never be fidgety, because he hasn't a gang around; he will find contentment in something near at hand, even if it is only piling red cobs to see how high they can build before they will top. There are lots of compensations and being a country child." – Hope.

"The monotony of farm life." I wonder how that phrase originated? It is actually appeared in print but have any of you found it in actual life? Remember, how short a time ago it was that we were all excited over the beginning of gardening and the starting of baby chicks and the delay in farming caused by the heavy and continuous rains? And now before we have got our breath, the fields have grown lush and green, and the grain has turned paler and paler until it glistens in pale gold. It has been cut and shocked and tomorrow we'll thresh. Harvest is the turning point of the busy summer, and then after the rush of threshing there is the annual breathing spell when we have time to pick up the loose ends that we have been obliged to hang while the bulk of the work went on. Now is the time for a few days vacation for farm folk, if they have a vacation at all. Now is the time to plan on saving flower seed and bulbs, and consider layout out of next year's improvements in the farm and grounds, the lawns and fences. Now is the strenuous canning season, from now until frost. Then before we know it, the children must be ready for school, and the sewing must be done, and the house must be cleaned, all in time for the winter's round of meetings and holidays.

Ruth and the boys spent the early forenoon helping the men pick cucumbers, and for reward get to ride with the cucumbers to the factory. Clumsy big Fido and little whirlwind Betty follow them everywhere they go. The lusty little Leghorns fill the air all day long with their crowing. Sunny says with the twinkle inside that they say "feed the roo-roo-roosters!" And he answers them occasionally. "you are fed!" The new little white belted pigs are source of endless delight. Enumerable kittens help make life interesting. The new cat or two for pets crowd out the ones so dear for last spring, Butter and Goody and the rest. Wilbur and Ruth are counting the days until school begins. Sonny and I are wondering how we will get along without them. We have to be each other's pals. When threshing is done, we will make a flying trip to the other grandma's – and then we must settle down again to that so-called "Monotony of farm life." – Hope.

It has been a long time since we described any of the escapades of the children at the house but since so many of you have said, tell us some more about them, and since this is a pleasant leisurely time of year for chatting, this little interval between threshing and fall work, it is a good time to catch up on their summer doings. We have just had our "vacation", a weekend with the other grandma 100 miles away. We went down on Saturday and came back on Monday, leaving Ruth for an important two week visit. She is released from music lessons for the month of August and she feels quite grown-up, making a visit alone.

Sonny has had a ringworm on his scalp, caught from his pet calf, Quitile. It did not seem to give him any discomfort, but was an ugly and slow healing sore. Incidentally, he broke out in heat rash for a few days, and altogether looked well battered up – though to tell the truth that is more or less his normal appearance. I never saw a child who carried more scars of battle on his body at one time. Bruises, scratches, rash, blisters, splinters, bee stings, and so on. Furthermore, he both tan sunburns and freckles; but his darling little smile lights up the little battered face like a lily in bloom.

Speaking of Lilies

Speaking of lilies, our big boy, Wilbert has the baby light complexion of the family. He is tanned a little, but normally his skin is lovely white with a damask rose blush, and his hair is light and fluffy. That is, it is fluffy while he sleeps and in between meals. When he comes to the table, it is plastered down to his head with so much water that it fairly drips. He feels more masculine with flat hair. Margie Ruth is our dusky maiden – dark hair, black eyes, well browned summer skin. She is fragile in build, but hardly as a shrub. Never sick, never much banged up. Tough and active as a hickory sapling. Very practical in many ways but with a charming and amusing delicacy of fancy. She lives much of the time in a little fairy world of her own manufacture.

The other day she asked permission to get supper all alone, for the children and me (for we have early supper before the men come home from chores). When we came in from gathering the eggs we were asked to go around to the front door, take places at the dining table, and order for the menu card we would find. This was the menu:

Coffee      Meiligan (French)
Pink milk   Potatoes
Milkshake   Peas (cold)
Eggnog      Onions
Bread and butter

We were supposed to order Meiligan (French) as that's what she had. It was the hobo mixture that uncle Wilbert told us about years ago – bacon, potato, onion, and egg all cooked together. The children I are fond of it for sentimental associations more than its appearance and flavor, and on state occasions, two or three times a year, we have it. For a drink we were supposed to order milkshake as that was prepared, but the boys unexpectedly setting their hearts on eggnog, The service was delayed a little bit.

Good but Weak!

The next night Wilbert of course had to have a turn getting supper. He shut set himself up in the kitchen for a while, then brought out Ruth's same menu for us order from, but no matter what we ordered from it we had to take we had prepared, which was cheese sandwiches and lemonade. The sandwiches were neatly made, and very good, but the lemonade was somewhat weak, as he had filled in enormous white pitcher on the strength of two lone lemons. He told us with a shy smile that it was good, but a little weaker than common. He made a cup of coffee for me as the extra touch of a thoughtful chef.

Sonny was to have his turn the following night, but something more exciting turned up and his interest in cooking temporarily waned. Heaven only knows what he would've served.

A few days later, I was unexpectedly called away from home at about 11 o'clock to help cook for threshers at a neighbors. There was no time to prepare the children's dinner, but they were tremendously excited and pleased to be told that they might pack themselves a picnic basket, using any food whatever they could find in the house, and carry it up the road to eat with grandma. The only stipulation made about appropriating any food was that they think carefully before they took it whether they would rather save it for more more important time. They chose carefully and well, it seemed to me, none of the choice delicacies having been used. But it would be impossible for me to say whether those delicacies were left because of sound judgment or because of the fact that the tops were on so tight.

So the workdays run on full of fun and work of happiness and childhood troubles. We talk much of the good time we had at the other grandma's where seven little cousins were gathered for the first time, and we fill the days as best we can, looking forward to the time when sister will be home again, and bringing Aunt Grace and little cousin Peejee with her. – Hope.

Ever since our youngest reached the age of five last March, the word "baby" has been taboo. The two young men of the household expect to be considered "men folks" and we have become accustomed to have them act independent and self reliant, to spend more hours out of doors with Daddy than in the house with Mother.

But the last few days there have been a reversion to baby days for all of us, for we have a blonde and chubby three-year-old girl cousin visiting us. In spite of their men's style overalls and blue chambray shirts and other accoutrements of manhood, the boys have been delighted in playing with Paula Jean, no matter how childish the game she wants to play. Mud pies, building blocks, hide and seek – anything is all right when they have the joy of an extra playmate. Margie Ruth associates with them with the amused attitude of an elderly relative, but she has not lost her sense of superiority. Mainly, she spends the hours with Peejee's mother and me. She did condescend to play in the water with them, when on a hot sunny day they dressed in bathing suits and overalls, and splashed water on each other as long as they all liked. (Even quite large girls go to the beach, you know.)

Brings Forth a Thrill

But the most interesting episode of the visit has to do with the losing of a white shoe. That brought us one of the mild but satisfying thrills that are so characteristic of our quiet country life. The boys had taken Paula up to the barn to see the Guernsey, but they went first to the house to see Grandma (probably because light refreshments may usually be expected to be served). When they started to the barn, Grandma told them that if one of them would come back to the house before they went home she would have a little surprise package for them. Brother and Paula sent Sonny back for the package and they rolled under a fence and scampered across the small corn patch to take a shortcut home and surprise him. But misfortune dogged their footsteps in that cornfield; Paula lost one little white shoe, and search as they might they could not find it. They reached home hot, sweaty and discouraged – the little one sobbing because the ground hurt her foot, and brother leading her tenderly by the hand. "We couldn't find the shoe but we took off the stocking so it wouldn't get dirty," he announced. Just about the time they finished telling the story of their mishap, sunny boy arrived serene and beaming. He had taken time to visit with grandma and get scrubbed clean and shining had walked happily home by way of the road, so overflowing with pleasure in the surprise he carried that he had not thought of the two had run ahead to tease him.

The appearance of the surprise put an end to the sobs. By the time Paula and Brother were washed up, Sonny had opened up the brown paper sack and had laid out in a row four identical round packages, wrapped in wax paper with a perky little twist for fastening: one for Ruth, one for Wilbert, one for Sonny, and one for Paula. In each round package was found a chocolate iced chocolate cupcake, and a handful of little square pink and white mints.

Everybody in Good Humor

There was so much pleasure and counting the candies in admiring the cakes and eating them, that everybody was in the happiest of humor, and someone suggested that there would still be time before the men came to supper for all of us to go hunting for the little white shoe.

So away we went. Just a few rods up the road was the corner of the corn patch with a very convenient break between hedge and fence for us to climb through. We couldn't roll under and meet thunder for the fence went smack to the ground. We couldn't climb over and meet clover for there was barbed wire on top. But there was just a nice place to crawl through and meet dew, so that's the way we went. And every single person could get through all alone without a bit of help. The minute we left the fence and struck out diagonally through the field, our little adventure began. There was not that anything in particular happened, but that we stepped out of the common place into a fairy world.

Visited Fairyland

How cool and green it was in there among the tall stocks, and how remote we seemed from the land of every day. The friendly golden tassels nodded to us when we looked up at the sunny blue sky, and the lone green leaves rustled in a gentle welcome. You could not see the road nor the house nor the barn, yet how safe and contented we felt. The cool earth underfoot was so comforting in the stalks of corn were not crowded and close as they always look from the house, but spread apart in cool and generous spaces like a forest. And every few hills we would come across an enormous pumpkin vine, rich, dark green, with leaves, like elephant ears and golden blooms eight inches across. It gave us the thrill that Alice in Wonderland must've had when she drank of the bottle that made her tiny. We wondered among the crisp stalks along time with the children turning up to us, beaming faces, and squeezing our hands with their little moist ones, and drawing sharp, ecstatic breaths, like they do when they swing so high that they touch the branches, or when they side down an extra long bump-the-bumps.

And when it was time to come home and get supper we wondered leisurely back again, crawled through and met dew, petted the dogs who were barking madly with joy at our return, and stretched out on rugs and couches in the cold, dark living room as tired as if we had really been somewhere. Little simple pleasures makes such big memories! Our little adventure brought back to me so sharply similar days, we children spent with our Mother on long hikes through the Hickory grows and oak woods long ago. But we never did find the little white shoe! – Hope.

School has started and we have all settled into the routine of fall. Margie Ruth in the sixth grade is one of the "big girls" in the school now – she and her classmates are the biggest ones there are and they are not very big. We have only four beginners and a second grader and our two sixth grade grade girls this year. Not a very large group – but how they love their school and their teacher! And our parent teacher association is looking forward to another happy year of companionship.

Wilbert is learning his "see my kitty" and all the other words appropriate to the occasion. He learns by the phonetic system, which I imagine most of your schools are using and I must say it seems to be a marvelous system. Ruth could read before she started to school, but Wilbert, while he had acquired a remarkable a lot of miscellaneous information, could not read. Now after a scant two weeks, he can read 20 or 30 words. Seems to me to be a very simple, sound and logical system.

Loses Companions

Sonny is without a companion now which puzzles him sometimes, but in the main he manages to get a lot of fun out of life even yet. The weather has been intensely hot and dry ever since school began, and Daddy sent Sonny into the house one morning because the sun was so strong, telling him he looked like a boiled beet. A day or two later Sonny came to the house voluntarily and throwing off his straw hat he said "My, I'm all sweat. Do I look like a boiled turnip?""

Speaking of Sonny he's a very surprising child. He is of a disposition that doesn't need much discipline, and what he does need is very hard to supply. He is so droll that anyone who attempts to correct him is likely to burst into a fit of laughing before he gets through. The other day, while Paula Jean was still with us, the children broke down the tire swing. The rope simply wore through and the child in the swing got a little bump. But everybody had a hilarious time after the incident, and then the boys and Peejee began to rope rump with the tire and the rope. With three children and two dogs in the melee, it was not long before friction arose, and I was obliged to settle the fracas. (I used to be humiliated when my children got into such affairs. I felt it was a disgrace. I've come to accept the more philosophically now. Instead of a disgrace, I consider bickerings as a natural phenomenon of childhood. Better families than mine have quarreled).

Didn't Touch It

Anyway, I laid the tire beside the tree, took off the rope, and said with considerable sternness, "This is not to play with. We will leave it here until Daddy can put it up. Don't touch it."

Later in the day, when the children had all forgotten about the tire, Fido began to play with it and when he got weary, he left it lying flat in the middle of the lawn. I happened to be working near a window, and before long Sonny came into sight, playing gun with a stick. I noticed a great light came over his countenance when he saw the tire, similar to that which radiates from the face of a scientist when he has solved a tremendous problem. Sonny carefully stooped over the tire, and inserted his stick. Then he scampered away and came back with a second stick, the same length. When satisfied that both fit across the tire, he stepped gingerly between them, and lifting the two sticks, pulled the tire up about him like a life preserver. Then, with a great chuckling, he romped and gambled all over the yard, cutting great circles and figure eights, and wound up in front of my window with his fat little face beaming an infectious smile, crying excitedly "I haven't touched it yet Mother!"

Kept Within the Law

I suppose he had disobeyed me, and yet he had not disobeyed the letter of the law either for I said "Don't touch it." It is just such little incidences as this which prevent the art of child raising from ever becoming an exact science. No doubt a wiser parent would have devised some sort of discipline, but as for me, I did the only thing I was capable of doing in the face of such a convulsing performance. I simply laughed until I was weak. Fortunately for my reputation, the other children were not present. If they had been there, something would've had to been done about the problem. As it was, Sonny was satisfied and soon scampered off to other play. There been nothing malicious or willful about his action. He simply had a funny thought and acted upon it.

I'm sure I don't know what would've been the scientific way to handle the situation. If you do, let me know. I only know I'm thankful there's only one Sonny instead of an orphan asylum full of him. – Hope

The movement designed to get parents and teachers acquainted and interested in the school children is rapidly gaining ground, especially in rural districts. The organizations are springing up like mushrooms in our vicinity, and let's hope it won't be long until every little one room school has its own. A school district is such a small intimate unit that would be hard to find a better basis for organization. Many requests reach this desk for help in planning parent teacher meetings, and perhaps a story of what other folks have done will be the best help we can offer.

Here at Maple Grove, we have the nicest time at P.T.A as I believe any organization we belong to. Our school is so small and the membership is so cozy that there is no room for jealousy, rivalry, prejudice and ill well. Our main aim is friendliness – just that and I believe we have it in abundance. We have not tried to accomplish any material objects, like raising money for pianos and playgrounds, we have only tried to get together and be friends. The children and the teacher have some fresh decorations and hand work on display at every meeting, which the parents are proud to see, and both children and adults take part in the programs and then we have just a happy social hour at the close.

Get Men Folks Out

We meet in the evening because we want the men folks always to be present. We meet on Friday evening so all the little ones may sleep late the next day and not be overtired. We serve refreshments because it seems that is the pleasantest way of being sociable. But we keep the refreshments simple so that no one will feel burdened contributing. We have programs, we try to have every member take part at one time or another, but we do not assign any part that is a strain to the participant. We make up our programs, often with readings for magazines such as "Children", "Hygeia", and "Child Welfare".

We have never held bake sales or socials to raise money for we feel the school district should provide whatever the school needs. We can contribute work and ideas but we feel that too many organizations are trying to raise money and we will be content to engage in spiritual rather than material projects. We do not have our organization for what we can make, but for what we can give our children and our neighbors in the way of interest and friendliness. We cleaned the school house and made a picnic of it. We can get old gas pipe at the junkyard, and with the addition of some rope and boards are men can rig up a set of swings. That won't cost the district much, but we would rather do it than have a box social to raise money to buy something more expensive. Our school is a modest little white rectangle with good substantial equipment, but nothing extravagant. We keep the buildings painted and the trees trimmed in the yard mode. We are contented to keep a simple rural school plant. We would rather provide for our little ones a good teacher in a friendly spirit, than all the equipment of city school can have.

Program Was A Success

Our first program this year was a great success. At the first meeting, we made it a point to invite every household in the district whether they have children or not. We had a good crowd and our program was a surprise. The little children sang us the songs they had been working on since school began. I wish you could've seen the little beginners march up and go through their parts. Too shy little twin girls were in the line who had never "said pieces" anywhere before but they marched up happily and unafraid at this meeting, because there was nothing to be afraid of with nobody there but Mother and Daddy and the neighbors. Then we had a short business meeting and a reading of a short history of the parent teacher movement. Then came a big surprise of the evening – a side-splitting Negro, dialogue, by two of our women, who had declared in the beginning that they were never could never do such a thing. The cleverness of their costumes in their acting would've broken the ice in a far stiffer audience and ours.

That concluded the program, for we have purposely planned to devote most of the evening to sociability. We had a wiener roast, serving buns and wieners and marshmallows and pumpkin pie, and what a time we had. Everyone was hilarious and happy. Groups mingled, and broke, and separated again and everybody had a chance for a little visit with everyone else. There is any value in social life at all. Surely it is in full measure in such a neighborly gathering is this.

Plan Patriotic Program

Our next meeting will be near armistice, and we still have a patriotic program. We're hoping to adopt a splendid program. Arrange by the Kansas State Agricultural College for the homemakers club on the topic "Victories of Peace and War". There will be a part for every member for the program is divided into many parts. Each one will have a few paragraphs to read about some victory either in peace or war. No one will be overburdened and we will have real cooperation.

The next meeting after that will be based on a report from our delegate to the district convention and we are hoping that she will bring us suggestions for more formal programs. Meanwhile, we make use of whatever comes to hand either of the official parent teacher, publications, or elsewhere, and always plan to allow plenty of time for just social ability – Hope.

Memory Gem

Down the lines of August – and the bees upon the wing –
All the worlds in color now and all the songbirds sing 
Never reds will redder be, more golden than the gold.
Down the lanes of August, and the summer getting old
– Guest

Now are the days when everyone in the household is aquiver with secrets getting ready for Christmas, and all the mothers and fathers must carefully refrain from putting two and two together, or they will find out too much and spoil the surprises. When a little 10-year-old girl says virtuously an hour before bedtime. "I'll just kiss you good night down here and go up to my room alone and you don't need to come in to cover me up even if you see a light why don't bother." Any mother knows that some mystery is afoot about which she had better not inquire. And when a six-year-old boy suddenly burst into song "Up on the housetop quick quick quick", and then claps his hand so violently over his mouth that he almost upsets himself, a mother must quickly concentrat her attention elsewhere, and never once connect the song with the Christmas program at the school.

Fortunately, we are blessed with a number of cousins and aunts and uncles, so we can do a lot of planning together. In this way, the strain of secret-keeping is lessened a little. Ruth planned the wrapping this year and every bundle that goes out of our house is to be wrapped in pink tissue and plastered with Christmas seals. Evenings at playtime we usually wrap gifts nowadays, gathering in Ruth's room. She has a box for each family to whom we send gifts, and as fast as things are finished, wrapped, and labeled she drops them in the proper box. Daytimes none of us are allowed in that room, except under her chaperonage. Mother wraps, the boys stick-em-shut with seals, and Ruth labels.

Most Gifts Are Home-Made

Most of our our gifts are home-made, for whatever the children give they must give from their own pocketbook or their own skill. Their little hoards are not very big, but they have made them stretch remarkably. We have regular pink mountains of things already, and are nearly ready for the final packing. A fruitcake, some candy and nuts, and some Christmas tree decorations. Each package will supplement the gifts and make each box pretentious.

One of Sonny's original ideas was to send each family a package of bandages. Bandage rolling is one of his accomplishments, and as he reasoned "if the cousins are like us, their mothers will be glad to have some bandages already wrapped." So every box has a package of rolled bandages bandages tied with red ribbon. Brother in his first year of school is very proud that his penmanship grades even beat Ruth, and so he painstakingly made out some sheets of writing for the doting grandparents containing such choice sentiments as "Can you see me? I can run. Can you run?" and he has wrapped them as beautifully as if they were perfumes from Arabys. Ruth, having achieved the eminence of 30 cents a week allowance and having been properly frugal in spending all year, is luxuriating in buying she refers to as real gifts, although, as she quietly remarked "you can depend on it mother that most of my shopping was done in the 10 cent store."

You would be surprised at the remarkable things that can be done with spools and lacquer. Dolls, extraordinary creeping lizards, doll beds, tables and chairs. Assorted sizes from the big linen thread spools down to the tiny buttonhole twist ones, they afford a lot of fun for busy fingers. And the assortment of boxes that can be painted and used for something – oatmeal boxes, soap, boxes, and everything. All in all, we have evolved a pile of gifts out of which almost nothing at all of which none of us need to be ashamed. And what a lot of fun it has been – Hope.

Christmas is the children's day of course. Everything we do is really planned for them. But during the last tumultuous days before the holidays, how many mothers and fathers of us get so intensely wrapped up in our plans that we neglect the children, give them absent minded answers, overlook playtime, and maybe in moments of exasperation, assure them that if they don't want a good Christmas all right, but we simply cannot get things done right if we are constantly bothered, and we are doing it all for them, etc. Bless you! They'd rather have no more Christmas than extra vegetables in the soup and be "in on" plans for fixing up the house and making gifts for others and have father and mother, good natured and interested and happy with them.

Giving the children a good Christmas may not consist in giving them a great display of elaborate toys. The best we can give them is to provide experiences that will develop them into good generous and self-reliant men and women. Giving, helping, learning to do things and to plan our experiences with which the most expensive gifts cannot compare.

Action is Important

Sometimes we get the idea that Things are important to a child. Just Things mean little to him. It is doing something with Things that is important. Did you ever stop to think how full your child's life is of exciting moments of victory and satisfaction just in every day living? This old world has become so common place to us that we forget how new it is to a child. Sonny had a set of blocks given to him this fall – the bright colored ones with which you make patterns or designs. Each cube has a red side, a white side, a blue side, and a yellow side, one side half white, and half red, one side half blue and half yellow. It is amazing the number of patterns that can be devised in the little set of 16 cubes. The lid of the box was covered with patterns and I'll never forget the glow of satisfaction on Sonny's plump, a little countenance, when we surveyed the first pattern that he managed to get right. He sat and admired it a long time, compared his design with his guide on the box, and it was perfect. He had copied it all alone, and he got it right and it was beautiful. And having done it once he had confidence he could do it again. And not only order the same design, but try a harder one, and when that was done right he could do another another. That little set of cubes provided him with hours of pleasure, and it was training his eye and hand at the same time, and teaching him accuracy and persistence. How much more enjoyment it him than would an electric train, which he would wind up and watch go round and round the same way always.

Wilbert has just learned to toss up the ball and bat it. It is so long ago that I first learned it that I have forgotten it took any training or skill to do it, but his joy and victory brought him as big as thrill as it did him.

Looked Easy

Some of the boys at school could do it and it looked easy! But time after time he would throw the ball into the air and before he could swing the bat, the ball would be on the ground. Then he would get the bat ready, but when he threw the ball, it went too high or too far to the side. At last almost by accident it seemed, he tossed the ball just right, and the bat came forward just as it should, and smack! The ball and bat met squarely. "Mother, I can do it! I can!" Then more practice, with more misses than hits, but with growing confidence that it was possible to develop certain skill in those muscles that would make you sure you could hit it every time. "Now come and watch me, mother!" Another miss and, crestfallen: "Well. I did do it. Now watch!" And soon a point was reached where ball and boy and bat worked in perfect precision almost every time. There was a real victory, a study in concentration and study and persistence.

Ruth began work on a pretty little piece. She wants to play for the club. First, she learned the right hand until the notes tripped up from her fingers like drops of water. Then she learned the left hand, with its rich full chords. Then she tried to play both together – and they didn't hitch. There was one place that went wrong every time. She was discouraged, almost to the point of tears. She was ready to give up music in entirely. "I'll try once more," she finally announced. Then some way, that time, the fingers fell into the right pattern, and the sound flowed forth as they should. "Mother," she cried in rapture. "I didn't know it was so pretty." She had been so occupied with the mechanical part that she had no chance to notice the rich full harmonies. But having heard them once she had patience to practice until she could hear them every time.

We Promoted

The boys were promoted to blue chambray shirts, and overalls "just like Daddy's" sometime ago, but last month, for the first time, they got four buckle arctics that were rubber all the way up, not cloth tops like little folks wear, but rubber just like Daddy's. It was amazing to see them pose before the mirror when they thought no one was looking, with overalls tucked into arctics with just the right bagginess, hands adjusted in pocket or in bib in imitation of Daddy and what we might call the typical American farmers "sports outfit". Boys are just as vain as girls, but instead of wanting to be beautiful, they want to look like someone they admire. Heaven grant they always choose as good model as they idolize now!

Ruth has always suffered the loneliness of the only daughter with no chum of her age. She has had to adjust herself all her life to folks either much older or much younger than herself. But now she is old enough to join the Lone Girl Scouts, and that brings her into fellowship with hundreds of other lonely girls. She has just received the handbook. She is ecstatic! Almost, one might say, consecrated! She knows the rules and regulations by heart. And she has become unnaturally polite, for courtesy is one of the first laws of the Girl Scouts. It is a momentous time in our life.

Duplicated Many Times

All these little incidents are simple in common place. They are duplicated in the lives of your own children. They show that just Things do not loom large in a child's life. The more closely we can keep in touch with these little experiences that seem big to them, the more sympathy we can give them, the closer we will be to them all their lives.

So when it comes to Christmas time, don't put too much emphasis on the gifts you give your children. Keep the pre-holiday season full and interesting but try not to crowd it with too many events. Take time to enjoy the season, even if you do not have so many handmade articles to display. Give them a generous wholesome Christmas dinner, but do not try so much to make it a big feed in and to serve it prettily. Let the children plan and help but keep back some surprise.

Plan A Ritual

Plan a little ritual for Christmas Day, that they can remember always. Tell them about it ahead of time so they will enter into the spirit of the program. Perhaps you will begin the day with simple Christmas carols. Perhaps it must be understood that every child will come downstairs and skip to the kitchen without taking the teeny peek into the living room on pain of I-don't-know-what. Five minutes to dress, 10 minutes to eat, and perhaps a dignified march into the living room, or perhaps a mad scramble when mother says "Go!" Maybe you will have a tree, maybe a gaily decorated box to hold the gifts, maybe a book for each child. Or maybe you will pile everyone's things at his place at the breakfast table. Maybe the oldest child will pass the things, maybe the youngest. Maybe Santa Claus will arrive in person. But whatever you do, whether you look on the gifts at Christmas Eve or on Christmas morning, make a pretty ceremony out of it that will color of the day for all time.

After Christmas dinner, be sure to have a quiet time in an outdoor time, a twilight supper and the pleasantest of talk, and get the children early to bed – Hope.

The "Golden Gateways of Three"

If you are attempted to reveal a tale to you someone else has told,
About another let it pass, before you speak, three gates of gold.
These narrow gates: first is it true?
Then is it needful? in your mind
Give truthful answer; and the next
Is last and closest: is it kind? 
And if to reach your lips at last it passes through
These gateways three, then you may tell the tale
Nor fear what the results of speech may be

When you read this, you will still be watching the old year out, but let me be the first to greet you with the old old phrase, Happy New Year. It would be a wonderful beginning if you could all happen in on me in the course of your new year's calls – Ruth Vernon, Cinneraria, Sally Ann, and all the rest of you who have have to make another year of companionship helpful and inspiring to us all. What a visit we could have together, helping to comfort the unhappy Betty Jane, discussing babies with harassed young mothers who wanted advice, exchanging recipes with the cranky cooks, enjoying old songs and poems with the grandmothers, and comparing their early days with ours. We would take time for cherry greetings to the men folks, who would probably be wondering about the barnyard, looking over the livestock and talking shop.

Then as twilight came on, wouldn't it be nice to urge them to come on in and sit with us by the fire for a friendly visit? And we would send the daughters, big and little, to the kitchen to fix up the homely sort of pick up dip supper we enjoy on a New Year's night, especially if it is also Sunday night. And the sons, at least the little ones, would crack nuts and pass apples (the big ones would probably be obliged to leave early!) And the babies we could take away upstairs for their beauty sleep. Wouldn't it be a satisfying day?

Of course, we never meet that way. We think we would like to but since we cannot let us find comfort in long-distance friendship. For one thing, we know each other only at our best through the Household. We know each other better, perhaps than we would ever in the flesh. May we all be spared for another year of companionship and mutual helpfulness! And may this Household Department bring all of you the enrichment of spirit that brings in me! – Hope.

The New Year

I bring you, friends, with the years have brought,
Since ever man toiled, aspired or thought –
Days for labor and nights for rest:
And I bring you love, a heaven-born guest:
Space to work in, and work to do,
In faith in that which is pure and true.
Hold me in honor, and greet me dear,
And soon you'll find me a happy new year.
– Margaret Sangster.

Memory Gem

Speak a shade more kindly
Than the year before
Pray a little oftener
Love a little more
Cling a little closer
To the Father's love

Up early, everybody, this crisp late-August morning, for this is the day we clean the school! True, it is an afternoon affair, to be followed by a wienie-roast and a bonfire at night, but the excitement begins at daybreak. Margie Ruth gathers up the pails, brooms and mops, soap and cleaning rags and such necessaries, while the boys feed the rabbits and finish the morning chores. Then Daddy loads the big iron kettle into the back of the truck, already well-laden with sacks of cucumbers and the three children, and away they go. The kettle will be dropped at the school house, and after the pickles are delivered to the factory, and the wienies and buns and ice-cream procured, back will will come the hilarious family to haul the water and get it heated. Meanwhile Kooi and mother (and the corresponding Koois and mothers in all the families of the district) are hurrying through the routine tasks of home and preparing the "extras" that everyone will want to supplement the wienies at the outdoor supper. And after a hurried dinner, everyone will gather to one of the nicest, friendliest annual affairs our community knows.

School will begin the day after Labor day, as usual. This will be Miss Lita's third year with us, so there is an atmosphere of confidence; maybe not so thrilling as when a new teacher is coming, but thoroughly comfortable. There is merriment by fits and starts, as the work spins along, but there are also moments of silence broken only by the splashing of water and the rubbing of cloths. At those moments one's thoughts go racing down various bypaths; and one of the paths is in this direction: What do we owe our teacher?

Duty Begins Far Back

Our duty begins far, far back of this day of cleaning the school! From earliest babyhood our child was being prepared. To be fair to the teacher we need to send to school a child who is well physically, normal mentally, stable emotionally; one who is self-reliant and amenable to discipline. No teacher can do her best with a rude ill-mannered, helpless child. It is our place to do the preliminary nursery work.

We owe the teacher a child who is clean, well and pleasant, one whil will obey instructions and who will cooperate.

Having so prepared the child in his baby years, we owe the teacher throughout the years of schooling proper home care for the child; food, rest, health habits. Even more important than these material things, we owe our teacher our confidence and trust. We owe her an attitude which will hep instead of hinder her; we owe her interest without interference. Almost invariably a teacher wants to be successful in her teaching and to be friendly with all her patrons. Since she is frequently young and inexperienced and may naturally make mistakes in judgment, it is the duty of parents to be ready to go a little more than half-way to keep the atmosphere free from friction.

So many of us do not realize how much responsibility the teacher takes off our shoulders in raising our children; how much training she gives them that we have neither time nor ability to give. If parents will co-operate with teachers by giving every child the sort of home atmosphere he deserves -- a home where he gets proper nourishment and rest and the right kind of sympathy in all his activities, they will find that the teacher will furnish her part of the training which is needed to build good citizens. -- Hope

"Is grandma Joseph's grandma, too, or is she his great-grandma?" asked Ernest Vail the other day, and it set me thinking of how much of an "extra" generation our little newcomer seems to be. We lived our own childhood and forgot it; went along through high school and college days, clear into Plain and higher mathematics; then we married and jumped right back to Mother Goose. We lived childhood again with our three little ones who were so close together, up to grammar school days, and then just when Mother Goose and all it implies were fading from memory, along came Joseph Sidney, and we traverse the path again. It is almost like being a grandmother and a mother all at once. They say grandparents enjoy babies more than the parents do -- and that makes me seem all the more like a grandmother; for this baby is unadulterated joy.

Joseph Sidney (such a massive name for such a bit of sweetness!) is growing and thriving just as all well babies do. He gains four ounces a week -- not as much as the older boys did, but still all that could be expected during hot weather. He has been promoted to a four-hour schedule (6, 10, 2, 6, 10) and that gives his mother a little more freedom, while he grows just as fast. He has cereal at 10 in the morning, and occasionally a supplementary feeding of modified cow's milk at six in the evening. In another week he will begin to take strained vegetables. He likes being on the floor where he can toss and turn as he pleases. He laughs out loud and talks a musical but unintelligible language while he plays. He can reach out and grasp a rattle, and is especially fond of dangling a string of red and green crokinole rings which the boys strung on a stout string for him. Marie Ruth has bathed him three times and often prepared his cereal. She especially enjoys dressing him in his finest togs when he is going out in society. Jo is friendly with every one but seems a bit partial to his daddy, whom he bats in the face with soft little wandering fists to show his affection. --Hope

Today the banks are closed all over the nation and streets in far cities are a-flutter with flags. To most of you it is just Columbus day; but to us it is a wedding anniversary. Thirteen years ago, on a magnificent day in the most magnificent time of year, we began our life together. And even as that very day contained both sunshine and rain, so our succeeding years have alternated between joy and sorrow. Joy has strongly predominated, with just enough shadow for contrast. There is an ancient superstition against the number 13; for years it has been accounted unlucky. But we have never had a finer or more satisfying year, and the climax of all was the arrival of little Joseph, the 13th living grandchild in the notoriously fickle and ill-starred month of April. Maybe you think it was hard luck that he wasn't a girl, a little sister, a partner for Margie Ruth; but no! A boy is just exactly what suits us best!

Perhaps 13 gained its reputation from the fact that it is the largest integral number, indivisible by anything except itself and one. This first 13 years is a cycle in itself; an epoch. It has been a time of the gathering and blending of the days of character, and the modeling of the first rough pattern of the vase of life. May we, in the next 13 years, be given grace to mold and polish and refine that vase into a thing of strength and beauty, before the stuff permanently hardens, and our work is done. --Hope

"A mist on the far horizon, an infinite tender sky, a haze on the golden cornfields, and wild geese soaring hight." Is it any wonder the poets worship autumn, the culmination of the year? In the spring when buds are bursting, seeds, swelling, leaves unfolding, nature cries "Push, ;push!" In the midsummer, when the sun pours its light-giving rays over the teeming earth, it says "Rush, rush!" But now, at ripening time, the message is "Hush, hush!"

Homeward bound, Margie Ruth and Jo and I feel the benediction of the season. We skim the pavement hardly conscious of movement, so richly soothing is the world. Baby Jo, delighted at being able to sit up in his basket, beams on what little part of the universe is visible to him, but Ruth and I are abundantly alive to the glories round about us. A piercing blue sky arches above, the level fields roll away to either side, alternately black-velvet plowing and tawny stubble-field and green baby-wheat; the fields of ripened corn, like multitudes of ash-blonde maidens, sway and rustle in an ethereal dance; and on the far horizon the timberland, fairly sodden with color, rises out of purple shadows. It is as though vast subterranean paint-vats had boiled over, as if a volcano had thrown up geysers of color to set and glaze in this autumn air.

I know a place where the trees arch over a bridge so thick and yellow this time of year that they almost burn, and remembering it, I say to Ruth, "Shall we take the Beautiful Road home?" To my surprise, she only murmurs, "No: just go straight ahead." And, turning, I see that her eyes are full of dreams. Drenched in this beauty, she is following mythical paths of thought, apart from me. There was a time, not so many years ago, when she would have cried childishly, "Oh yes, and then by the Crooked Road, mother, where there'll be lots of color!" But now she is too old for that. Isn't she 12 years old and in the eighth grade? Perhaps she is thinking, "This time next year I'll be in the midst of all the marvels of high school, with football games and boarding in town, and lots of girls to chum with, and who can appreciate how wonderful it all will be to me?"

The Byway

So I drive over the bridge with the gorgeous yellow arch, and one big perfect yellow leaf drops to the black water and floats away. I muse, "How cheerful it is to see a lot of leaves scamper and romp in the wind, but how melancholy to see one lone leaf let go of life!" But I say nothing to Ruth of such things, for she is lost in her dreams. I turn beyond the bridge and take a "cut-across" byway that we seldom travel. It used to be an adventure and a hilarious surprise to turn here, but Ruth scarcely notices now. Then we come to a queer little place where a lane dips out of sight under dense shrubs. Such an old-fashioned little road, so out-of-the-way that it doesn't know that yellow is all the rage and is still wearing its last-summer green! We have never dared try this road, for we don't know whether it has an end; we used to like to think that it dipped right down into Brownie-Land. But today, in a droll spirit of perversity, I boldly turn. She pays no attention! Truly she is a child no longer; she is adventuring out into worlds of her own. Within a few rods we suddenly emerge from the shrubbery into level land, and behold, we are on a road that carries no mystery whatever; we are headed straight for Our Own Road, which is so familiar that it gets no special attention, and so we trundle home, in silence and in peace.

Precious little girl-child; little second self! Traveling the fascinating road of Growing-up! Little do you realize how much of my own life you re-live for me. In those next few years how many new roads you will be trying! You will think you are are blazing new paths, so strange and wonderful life will seem. Little will you realize how near our mother is to you, how much she understands. I want you to live your own life, to stand on your own feet. But no matter how many roads you travel, nor how far, real roads and dream roads, may we travel the Home Road together! --Hope

Many a moon has passed since we first began discussing water lily pools in these columns. If we have seemed to harp too much on the subject, it was partly because reading about them was as near as many of us ever hoped to get to having one. They say constant dripping will wear away a stone, and perhaps it is the persistant reference to pools that has resulted in a real pool for me. When the men finished running concrete in the forms for the new garage the other day, they began digging a hole in the back yard, and something told me it must for nothing else than a lily pool.

Sure enough, it is taking shape, about 8 by 12, two feet deep in the middle and sloping to the edges. Old woven wire fence has been laid for reinforcement, and the concrete has been poured for the bottom and part of the side. When you get that far on such a project, it is practically impossible to abandon it; and so I am counting on the consummation of an old, old dream. Let me suggest that the rest of you who long for one try the same means; Lay any reference to lily pools where it will meet the eye of the "gude man," and perhaps in very self-defense he will build you one. --Hope

Saturday morning -- and the children and their father have gone to town to get their Christmas haircuts and do their Christmas shopping, while mother and Luella, with Baby Jo looking on, hurry to hide away some of the candies and gifts that had best be out of sight. It was an exciting morning, getting all the lists made out, deciding how best to manage to make the children's modest hoards reach far enough. Even with the gifts they have made at school, they found it necessary to "go in together" on some names in order to make a presentable showing. But at last every one was accounted for and they are off. The shopping day is almost as important as Christmas itself. And the happiest feature about the whole performance is that not a person was forgotten or left out; and not a gift was planned that is not heartily and generously given. The funds are so small and the lists so large that the children put a 10-cent limit on their gifts; but the loving care with which they spend each dime lends a luster that gold could not give.

It is heart-warming to think of all the thousands of homes where the same activities are going forward this Saturday before Christmas. Even as the "belfries of all Christendom," the hearts of little children (and grownup children, too) are rolling along the unbroken song of love and fellowship. "Give, give, said the little rill," we used to sing in school. "I am small, I know, but where'er I go the fields grow greener still -- the fields grow greener still."

Time for Rejoicing

The sweetness and generosity of the Christmas spirit fill the earth. We rejoice that it is more blessed to give than to receive, and we give not alone material things, but kindliness and tolerance and love -- all in remembrance of that Greatest Gift of long ago. Do you remember how Tiny Tim hoped the people saw him in church, because he was a cripple and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas day Who made lame beggars walk and blind men see? Not a thought of himself and his afflictions, except as it might carry comfort to some one else. So all of us, at Christmastide, yearn to rise above our faults and frailties and give love and understanding to all.

I wish I might send each of you your heart's desire for Christmas. I wish I might even send every one a bayberry candle to burn, for --

"A bayberry candle burned to the socket,
Brings health to the body,
Joy to the heart,
And gold to the pocket."

But since I can't even do that, let me give you my heartfelt wish: May Christmas grant you a richer gift than any material thing. May it give you an inner light which will warm your heart for at least half the year; which will shine like a lamp of peace and good-will over all your relationships with mankind, making you slower to blame and quicker to praise; which will glow so brightly that it will irradiate and make clear to you the motives and acts of other folks; which will illumine your way so that there will be less heartache and more happiness for you and your fellow men on the path you tread this year.

And may you each have the blessing of a few minutes absolutely alone on Christmas day, when you may reread the Story in peace and quiet and mediate on what the angel-message of long ago has meant to the world: "Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which be to all people, for unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord." --Hope

Memory Gem

O brother man, fold to they heart thy brother;
Where pity dwells, the peace of God is there;
To worship rightly is to love each other,
Each smile a hymn, each kindly deed a prayer.

I heard the bells on Christmas day,
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of "Peace on earth, good will to men!"

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christiandom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of "Peace on earth, good will to men!"

Almost two weeks of fog and soft wet weather; not a ray of sunshine in all that time. And then, when every one was consistently complaining about the weather and maintaining that anything would be better, up sweeps a snowstorm from the northwest, and once more "the gray day darkens unto night, unwarmed by any sunset light." We have a change in the weather, but such a change that we almost wish we hadn't complained about the fog. Now we have a little more cold and a lot more wind, but the murky grayness is only altered by being in motion instead of being still.

Two days and two nights of blinding snow and scolding wind; no milk-trucks, no mail-cars, no school. Roads bare in spots and level-full in others. Where are those oldtimers that tell us we don't have the winters we used to have? We are re-living "Snowbound" in all its glory, almost on its anniversary. By a humorous trick of fate we have a transient marooned with us who is far more of a blessing than a burden. The bread-man with his truck of pastries, cookies and bread got this far, homeward-bound, the day the storm descended, and fortunately (for our neighborhood) slipped into a ditch. So we have a stock of provisions, as well as the mild adventure of contact with a new personality, to help us while away the hours of imprisonment. The men of the neighborhood, bundled and booted, one by one make the arduous trip across fields or along fence-rows to our house to get a loaf of bread. The bread truck was easily pushed out of the ditch and brought under shelter, but not until the drifts had piled so high that further progress was impossible.

Then in the third night the wind subsided and the snow lay down to rest. In the morning the sun shone out with amazing brilliance, and heartened by the sight, all available men set cheerfully to work to shovel the community out. First the shovels, then horses plunging, then a grader working through and at last a track is opened, and we are back to normalcy. First the milk man goes through, in bobsled instead of truck. Soon the bread man will say good-buy and eventually the mail-man will come along. And the sun is shining, and every one is well, no one has suffered, the roadmen are ruddy and hungry, and we gather around a hearty dinner to talk over another those episodes that brighten up a placid life and make milestones along the path of life. --Hope

Memory Gem

On stormy days
When the wind is high,
Tall trees are brooms
Against the sky.
They swish their branches
In buckets of rain
And swash and sweep it
Blue again.

-- Dorothy K. Aidis

Dear Hope: While scrubbing away with a hand power washer on my weekly laundry I was wondering why a farmer's wife has to do so much more real physical labor than the city man's wife.

The thought came to my mind of how the hard working farmer raises his grain, then who sets the price? We hear how it is controlled by the supply and demand, but in reality isn't it the speculator who sets the price? Of course the farmer does not receive a fair price for his grain, but the consumer pays enough for it, and if the government wants to help the farmer, why not abolish the speculator and then the middle men will only be those who are necessary to handle the grain, thus bringing the producers' and consumers' price closer together. There certainly is too wide a margin between the producer and consumer and where does it go?

A lot of it goes into the hands of the speculator who happens to be the lucky one. Wouldn't it be better if it were divided between the producer and consumer?

Much of our grain lies hoarded in the store house, benefiting no one except the speculator, and when our new cops come on this stored grain plays havoc with the prices.

I do not relish the idea of the farmer being referred to as a "down and outer" or "broke and don't know it." when the fact is he is the most independent and essential man in the world.

Of course, this is too big a question for a farm's wife to tackle, but I'm certainly anxious to see an improvement in farm conditions and it does seem to be a mistake to have our grain turned loose into the hands of the speculator. It's like throwing a bone to a pack of hungry hounds the way they grapple over it. Yes, I've watched "the pit," and it is one grand mass of scrambling, roaring, deafening excitement.

Hard work? Yes, mentally, but is it a legitimate business? And isn't it a detriment both to the farmer and to many a small speculator?

I enjoy your column. Some of the wives' troubles do seem trivial, but no doubt many of them will realize this as they grow older and have bigger trials come to them. I say just be thankful if you have good health and plenty of substantial food for your family and a comfortable home.

Best wishes to all. --M. E. H., Illinois.

None Too Big for Sincere

Too big a subject? There is no subject too big for any sincere person to tackle, and in this matter of the welfare of the agricultural population certainly the women not only have the right to express themselves but should consider it their duty. In no other business is the wife so intimately a part of the "firm." And in deciding what is wrong and what needs to be done to correct any existing evils, we need to take another of those "far looks." We need to look at the matter not only from an individual standpoint, not even from a class standpoint, but from the point of view of the whole nation. We must admit that middlemen fulfill a necessary function in such a complex civilization as ours. We must admit that even speculation (that is, dealing futures, taking a risk or making a gamble on the future) serves a legitimate and worthy purpose. If it were not for some form of speculation we could never hope to stabilize prices. But it is obvious that much of the speculation indulged in nowadays, both in farm products and in stocks and bonds, is only a mad orgy of buying and selling phantom values, resulting in bitterness of feeling and inequalities. Neither the profits nor the losses in such dealings are in proportion to the effort involved, nor to the value of the service. But just where to draw the line between helpful speculation (a wholesome risk on the future) and between pure gambling (an attempt to win at someone else's expense) is the problem which has never yet been solved. We hope that the new federal farm board, by building up co-operatives powerful enough to influence the market will be a solution. Only time will tell. Certainly the farm board is is functioning as actively and definitely as any federal board has ever done in its first half year.

Real Work Yet to Be Done

It is all very well to say that no legislation will be effective. It is true that we cannot expect legislation to solve the problem, and now that we have the legislation creating the farm board, the real work is still to be done. However, this much legislation was needed; for neither individual farmers nor small co-operatives were powerful enough to accomplish anything -- just as local option was not powerful enough to conquer the liquor evil. And with farm relief, as with prohibition, we must expect a long period of experimentation even after the law is passed. In both matters we may eventually have to "back track" (we hope not!), but it is only by trying out the experiment on a national scale that we can hope to make progress. Except for minor corrections in the operation of the board, we should not look to further legislation to solve our problems, except for a law modernizing our tax system to equalize the burden.

The individual farmer must still carry his own responsibilities. No law and no co-operative organization can make a shiftless farmer into an industrious one, nor turn a poor farm into a productive one. The inefficient farmers cannot expect to be carried long by the workers, but must turn to other occupations. The poor or marginal lands (that is, those which even with good management can barely pay their way) may need to be bought up by the government and re-forested, or in some other way withdrawn from competition. And new lands should not be opened up until they are needed.

But in other respects each farmer must work out his own salvation, and that means he must bring himself and his farm to the highest point of productivity. With the help of his big marketing co-operatives and the farm board, he can then demand an equitable reward for his efforts and his produce. The old law of supply and demand has been too many times manipulated to get desired effects for us to accept it as our fate. Any talk of a "farmer's strike" or arbitrary limitation of acreage is not only unwise but impracticable. Here is the straightforward way in which this principle was expressed by E. E. Stevenson, the president of our own country farm bureau at its recent annual meeting:

"Surplus Matter of Imagination"

"The farm bureau and the Illinois Agricultural association, officered as they are from the bottom to the top by actual farmers and producers, are lending valuable assistance to the co-operative societies for the handling and marketing of farm products...

"It is not the province of the farm bureau to encourage a decrease in production. With the best that we have been able to do, we are within six months of starvation. The surplus with which we are confronted is largely a matter of imagination and is but seasonable at the most.

"A plan of orderly marketing by which the price of a commodity may be stabilized throughout the year will do much more to settle the question of the surplus than a program of decreased production, which is to begin with, impracticable and could only result in great suffering to those least able to t stand it. Efficiency in production has been and must continue to be the watchword of the farm bureau. The fertility of the soil must at least be maintained or increased if possible. We have no moral right to burden the generations yet to come with a depleted soil in order that we may enjoy a temporary benefit in increased prices for our products."

(As space is running short we will conclude this discussion tomorrow with an article written by our own Faith Feigar a little over 10 years ago.)

"The Lord helps those who help themselves" is not an idle saying, and no where is it more applicable than in this matter so much before the public eye just now, farm relief. In the dairy business particularly, in which it seems there is more grief in surpluses and marketing than in any other branch of agriculture, the principle holds good. In our locality butter fat is now at the lowest figure it has been for years for the month of January, thirty cents a pound. The season of heavy flow has not even begun and yet the market price is perilously near the cost of production. It is generally agreed that one of the causes of this situation is the tremendous increase in the consumption of oleo.

The manufacturers of that product have improved their technique and advertised the product and they sell it at a figure which makes it a serious temptation to substitute oleo for butter. Present-day oleo is a palatable, fine-textured, attractive-looking fat, but it does not contain the vitamins and minerals essential for health, as butter does. A producer of butter fat who sells milk and cream and buys oleo for home use is not only injuring his business from an economic standpoint, but is depriving his family of necessary food elements to which they have a greater right than any one else. It is to be hoped that every reader of this paper will consider carefully before he trades his butter fat for oleo. At first thought, he may think he is saving money or making money by the practice, and of course we have all sympathy for those who must make every penny count.

But in the long run, if all the farmer who need to save money are selling cream and buying oleo, the market will be so glutted with milk products that the price will be forced down and down until it meets the price of oleo. And every farmer knows that it is impossible to produce high class butter fat cheaply. It should be the principal of every farm home to select form the produce of the farm all that can be used to further the health and well-being of the family, then to sell the rest. Many farm families are necessarily deprived of many modern comforts and conveniences of city life. At least give them their fill of wholesome and healthful food; the best the farm affords, not the culls and left-overs and substitutes. --Hope.

Dear Hope and Household Folks:

This morning my mind is a medley of thoughts. Tonight we are to present our home talent P.T.A. play. It has been my privilege to direct it, and I am proud of our home folks. Our dress rehearsal last night was perfect. It is wonderful what talent there is in every community if only we take the pains to search it out and develop it. We are giving the same play that "Molly Manning" and her church society put on earlier in the year, and we want to thank "Molly" for her part in helping us with our play by sending us suggestions.

Yesterday afternoon the county home and community chairmen of the state extension work met for their monthly round table. We discuss all our problems with each other, our home demonstration agent and a worker from the state university. Yesterday we had a 4-H club leader with us and our discussion centered around the boys' and girls' club work for this summer. Our home demonstration agent pointed out the need of more and better home economics project and less of calf and pig clubs for our girls. The state representative said we should not neglect the calf and pig clubs too much as farm girls needed to be trained to be helpful farm wives in the future. We had a long debate over this question. It was about 50-50, as the saying goes. How I wished Hope and "Ruth Vernon" were with us, for I knew each one had a decided opinion and would express herself sincerely. We need to discuss this problem more now than ever, when agriculture is in the "limelight" and conditions are changing so rapidly.

About half of the women there yesterday said they would soon have to help with the chores, especially when the men start working in the field, besides, their own work would be heavier, with garden and chickens, house cleaning and what not. The question is -- should the women be expected to help with the chores just because the men have to get the crop in? Of course, it is imperative that the crops get into the ground at the proper time, especially if the season is already late or rains hinder the progress of the work.

Considers Her Dignity

Our county chairman of the women's work said she would not go to the barn for any man, no matter what happened. She contended that her place was in the house, even though there would be losses outside if she did not help out occasionally. She did not even believe in giving assistance if any of the stock was sick and no other man could be had to help. She would rather see the animal die than lower her dignity to go out and help. Just then I wished Mrs. Simmons were with us. I am sure she could have given us a splendid talk. Then our former township chairman spoke up. She said: "I have run the farm of 80 acres myself while my husband was sick and we could not afford a man. I learned to love the stock and became so interested I took up dairying and now have a fine herd of dairy cows. It was through my help we were able to send out seven children through high school and university, and now see them in good farm homes of their own. I do not feel that I am less a lady than I was before I did this, and I admire any woman who will help her husband when necessary." She also said that her husband loved and respected her as much as ever and was always willing she should have any modern convenience in the home that owuld lighten her work.

Just to cite a few of my own experiences: A few years ago we lost a very good dairy cow because I did not take time to go out when I heard unusual noises in the near-by pasture. I can never forgive myself for this neglect. Not because of the loss in dollars as much as the terrible suffering I could have spared this poor dumb creature, for hours upon hours. Just this very morning I heard a noise in the barn. The men were not yet up (it is my custom to rise when I awaken, even if the hour is early). So I went out and discovered a cow had broken through the barn floor and was standing with her hind legs down through the floor. I at once called the men and they went to help her out. Brother said he had noticed the bad place in the floor a few days ago, but just did not take time to fix it then. Now, that cow could have broken her legs by trying to get out alone. And so it is with many other things. I believe a woman should take interest enough to at least notice if anything seems unusual, even though she cannot go out to help with the work.

A few more words to answer the questions of so many. Thanks so much. Father is in his usual good health, not even having had a cold this winter. To several who asked about my son: He is at St. Stanislaus seminary at Florissant, Mo., just out of St. Louis. He is preparing for the mission field, be it in this country or foreign lands, wherever he is needed. Yes, he is the only child I have. No, he does not come home for vacation. It would break too much into the routine of the work and studies. It requires a period of from 12 to 15 years before the men are finished. They study and teach by turns. My boy, although only 21 years old, has been sent to a negro mission for practice work and ha also preached several sermons. Now he is back in the seminary digging out Latin and Greek and other languages. Best wishes to all. Sincerely -- Pep.

Two Things Enter In

We have a daughter who has been in home economics projects for two years and who is taking up a poultry project in addition this year. She summed the matter up pretty neatly, I thought, when she explained why she took both. "I love the sewing and wouldn't give it up, but I'd like to work part of the time with something alive and something outdoors. And, besides, the sewing project doesn't bring in any money!"

As to the outside work by farm women, it seems to me the most satisfying philosophy is to meet the situations that arise, never being hampered by an ironclad rule of conduct, "I will do this," or "I will never do that." In many cases the housewife would have neither time nor talent to contribute to the outside nor would there be need for her to undertake it. Whether or not she should habitually help with the farming depends altogether on the circumstances and the ambitions of the couple concerned. It is a pity for any woman habitually to work beyond her strength or to neglect the house and children to save a man's wages; but since most of us do more than tend a house and children nowadays, if we are real partners and want our husbands to succeed, we have the privilege of a choice in selecting the ways in which we shall help. It is no more demeaning to do farm work than to tend garden or raise chickens, or bake or sew or write books, and many women really enjoy it more. Some couples work side by side in everything they do; both help outdoors, both help about the house, and each enjoys both phases. In other households the lines of work run parallel and are mutually sympathetic, but they seldom need to cross.

Willing But Awkward

My husband and I, for instance, would be entirely willing to help one another out if occasion should arise. Willing, but awkward. For myself, I know enough about the theory of farming to be interested in every operation and to keep in touch with all the plans; but for me actually to harness a horse would require literally a feat of imagination. It is not that I have refused to do such work, but that the days have been full and that particular thing I have never needed to know. My husband, on the other hand, lends a sympathetic ear to the theory of housekeeping, but would far rather pay what wages it takes to hire a helper for me than to be obliged to handle the practical details himself.

If the time should come when he had to prepare a poached egg for me, for example, it would seem to me a more touching tribute of devotion than a box of American Beauty roses, for it would represent the humble and courageous effort to accomplish a difficult feat, for my sake. And so I say that it all depends on the persons concerned. It is no more nor less of an aspersion to say of a woman, "She never helps outside," than to say, "She always helps outside." There is no glory in doing such work when it is not needed; and there is certainly no glory in refusing to do it when it is needed. --Hope.

Dear Household:

Come, "Missouri Mule," let us reason together! Your letter about smoking was fine, but why give all the virtues to the women! The men in our family have been just as virtuous as the women. If our daddy smoked I would not try to keep Jimmy from using the filthy weed. Women have not smoked until recently. A few have begun to "tag" the men. I predict this will open the eyes of the men smokers as nothing else could, and they will lead these foolish ones out of their folly. Few men want their mothers, wives or daughters to smoke, and I have never heard a woman say, "I'm so glad my husband smokes and chews!"

"Pep," you knew I just couldn't keep still when a discussion of outdoor work for women was on. I remember years ago, when I had promised to become a farmer's wife and realized just how little I knew of farm life. I begged my parents to let me go to K.S.A.C. to learn how to make butter and raise chickens! They consented, and I went in perfect confidence that I'd learn all a farmer's wife should know. But to my dismay I found that butter-making was taught in the animal husbandry course and poultry raising was also relegated to the boys. So it isn't entirely my fault that I have the ideas I have on this vital subject.

I learned in my own home to make butter, and still make all we use. But the chickens are beyond me.

What do you do with a setting hen that eats all her eggs (Peg says to wring her neck!)

"Them's My Sentiments"

Hope wrote my sentiments exactly, and, like you, Pep, I have no patience with any woman who would not help a domestic animal if she could. But when I hear trouble at the barn, or even the chicken house, I get the "good man" up instead of investigating myself. Just one question, Hope. You say Ruth is taking up a poultry project. Now, will Wilbert, Sonny and Jo take up sewing projects? I fear we'd have a bit of trouble getting Jimmy to either sew or can.

I have known women who were so proud of the money they made raising chickens, pay out much more on ready-made clothing which they should have made themselves. Nothing wrong with the chicken raising, but why the pride? Isn't there greater glory in a girl or woman designing and making her own clothing than raising chickens, pigs, and calves? Which would you rather your son do -- a man's or a woman's work.

So many times I've wanted to write to Mrs. Simmons and tell her how very much her "home" articles have helped me, but fearing she is too busy to bother with letters with nothing in them about chickens, I've never said thank you! Since reading her article, "An Attempted Plea for Tolerance," I must tell her that we all didn't misunderstand, but since it brought forth an even better article, I'm not very sorry that some did.

Weeks later! I put this away in a drawer and forgot it, even wondered why Hope had cast it all in the waste basket! Reading "Molly Manning's" delightful letter made me want to assure her I feel the same responsibility in regard to my children's conduct. Whenever they have made mistakes I feel that I should have prevented that, and if they ever do a grave wrong I will be mostly to blame, or rather their parents. I've known so many parents who would accept the compliments their children brought them, but not the condemnations. But isn't Hope's thought that a child learns the good characteristics as well as the bad ones from parents comforting? -- Ruth Vernon.

No Law Against It

Question always welcomed here! If Wilbert, Sonny and Jo do or do not take up sewing projects, it will not be because there is compulsion either way. I'm sure the club would be open to them, but from the present indications they decidedly will not want to enter. However, I would not forbid Ruth her poultry work on that account, any more than I would say to Sonny, "You can't be a doctor, because Wilbert wants to be a farmer." Our daughter, like her maternal parent, has a bit too strong a taste for books, and we encourage any taste for handicraft, as a balancer.

Housework, it is true, provides handicraft of various sorts, and we encourage that. But Ruth is learning to cook and sew and clean, and enjoys them all. But, having grown up as a bookworm, I have made the discovery in comparatively recent years that no individual tastes the fullness of life without some form of outdoor manual labor -- in plain English, nice dirty work. It is both a sedative and a stimulant. It touches life with serenity and wholesomeness, and it is hard for one who does his own hoeing and digging to be a radical or a fanatic.

It is true that too severe and too prolonged manual labor, especially if performed under great economic stress, wears down courage and tangles nerves just as badly as strenuous mental work. If i could arrange the lives of us humans I would choose that every one should alternate days of gorgeously grubby work with days of interesting mental exercise. Workdays would be long enough and hard enough to bring real fatigue and luxurious rest. On the alternate days I would like for every human being to enjoy leisurely well served meals, baths and clean clothes, every mechanical device to make life comfortable, work of an interesting and stimulating but not physically tiring kind, and ample time for recreation and the amenities of life. Since this is only a pipe-dream, anyway, we need not figure out who would perform those necessary services which are menial but not necessarily grubby; but perhaps we would find a group of persons who would be willing to forego the sweaty days of hard labor for the lighter, if inferior, tasks.

And if I could order the development of my children I would like nothing better than for them to happen casually, as the years go by, onto craftsmen of various sorts who could show them the delight there is in any occupation for a master-craftsman, for one who loves his work, whether that work is sawing wood or managing a colossal organization. Then my girls would not be housewives nor my boys farmers, for the reason that they knew nothing else, but because in those occupations they found their best satisfaction in life. Their farther and I find what we want in farming. Our children may not. They shall be free to choose, and I hope we shall be able to provide them sufficient experience on which to base their choice. Man's work or woman's work -- there is no sharp dividing line any more. In the home, baking is woman's work; in commerce, it is often men's. All I ask is that whatever they choose, they try to do it to the best of their ability -- and enjoy doing it. --Hope.

Not So Easily Settled

You are right in saying that laughter and love are more effective tools for child training than switches and scolding. But of course the question is not quite simple even after we accept that fact. In "Homebird's" case, for instance, she has not only the children and her work to consider, but the matter of pleasing an unsympathetic husband. We are all of us torn by many desires, of course; we not only crave to satisfy our housewifely instincts and mother our children in the best possible way, but we want the approval of our husbands, we must cater to the requirements of hired help, we want to ward off the barbed criticisms of neighbors and relatives, we want to earn money, we want time for pleasure and diversion. How to maintain a wholesome balance between all these demands is a problem which is hard to solve. Suppose we just shut our eyes to the mess, and pick up the stubborn little rebel and love him back to sweetness.

There is not a doubt in the world that it is the logical, wholesome things to do, both for his sake and his mother's. But noon comes and the head of the house is surprised and displeased that the house is not in order and dinner not on the table. "You should have done the work first," or "You ought to just make the children mind, or better still make them help you with the work," is his comment. And the hired man doesn't like to wait for meals. And the neighbor on one side disapproves of your pampering the children while your work waits, while the neighbor on the other side thinks you are too strict with them. Your own mother perhaps thinks you have far too much to do, while your mother-in-law thinks you don't do enough. The missionary society thinks that if you had any religion you would arrange to get out to the meetings, while Mrs. Stick-to-Work looks with a coldly disapproving eye on any jaunts away from home.

It takes a brave and philosophical soul to disregard all such criticisms. So the greatest problem in child training, after all, is not training the children, but training ourselves to accept the frictions of life as wholesomely, gently and generously as we may. If we could be left alone with our children, with nothing but motherly affection to guide us, we might not be any more successful with them than we are in the midst of skimped and strenuous lives. But as "R.G. K." remarks, "if you can't do everything, keep smiling anyway." --Hope.

Once upon a time I heard a story of a politician who disappointed many of his constituents by voting contrary to their expectations on some matter dealing with the welfare of young people. When these constituents called him to account for the change in his attitude, his explanation was, "The outside pressure was so strong!" The answer of one of his constituents was "Where were your inside braces?"

This story comes to mind in connection with the current discussion in these columns of those two perennial bones of contention, dancing and smoking. And once more I am impressed, as I have been so many times, with the fact that the greatest protection against any poor habit or any wrong-doing is the "inside braces" set up during childhood. The braces must be in place, sound and permanent, well before the "outside pressure" is brought to bear.

And when it comes to establishing the "inside braces" we must decide the method which is best to use. It seems to me the emphasis should be positive, whenever possible. First of all, parents should set the examples of temperance and tolerance which they expect their children to follow. Example is a great positive force, you realize, when you compare its influence with the power of mere words. If you speak quietly to a child you will get a quiet answer. If you shout angrily, "Be still!" you get an echo of your own tone in the retort. If you say to a boy, "Better not smoke," while you have a cigar in your mouth, he will draw the natural conclusion that you do not mean what you say. If you say to a baby, "Don't touch that!" you leave him bewildered, without direction. But if you say, "Take this!" you can give him a harmless object while you quietly remove a hurtful one.

So, as a child grows up, if the emphasis is placed on what to do, the matter of what not to do will largely solve itself. Proper activities will crowd out the temptations for improper ones. If we emphasize strong bodies, good health, sound teeth, steady nerves, firm muscle, interesting work, happy play, we shall have less difficulty with the problems of smoking, drinking and bad companionship. Every lever we can provide our children for developing the best they have in them is a protection against evil, as is pointed out in the following letter from Radical of Iowa.

One lever she mentions having provided for her boys is athletics; another is saving for college. One we have given our boys -- I mention it not because it is the strongest or the most important, but because it is one example of setting up plenty of braces before the outside pressure comes -- is that they are each promised $100 on their 21st birthday if they have used neither tobacco nor liquor up to that time. It is not likely that a time will come when one drink or one smoke will seem worth $100, and if they do not take the first, they are safe. We have not put the proposition to them as though drinking and smoking were the greatest evils, and if they avoid them they will have no faults. We have merely pointed out that it is hard, almost impossible, for young boys and men to be moderate in the use of drink and tobacco if they once acquire the habit; and with the habit they will not attain quite the size and strength and character that they can without. We have laid down no commands; but the boys know how we feel about the matter, and their voluntary choice is supported and influenced by our general attitude and by the regard. So calmly do they assume that they will fulfill the conditions of that reward, that Sonny remarked the other day, when I told him we couldn't afford to get him something he wanted, "You can take it out of my hundred dollars if you want to." We make no stipulations about their behavior after they are 21, but we hope they will have acquired reason and judgment enough to manage their lives suitably after that.

Ruth Vernon, please don't feel, because of several of us do not agree with you on this subject, that we do not appreciate your sturdy defense of your side. We have stood shoulder to shoulder on too many subjects, we know each other too well to let a difference of opinion divide us. There is nothing more honorable than honest opinion, honestly expressed. As you say, your prejudices are colored by your upbringing. So are all ours. I believer all of us who have taken part in the discussion agree with the famous Voltaire, who said: "I do not agree with a word you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." --Hope.

Prolonged and excessive drought is the most important element of our welfare here in northern Illinois. It is so pronounced that fields and gardens are drying up. Corn is already seriously damaged -- and there is still no relief in sight. Letters from some of you in Nebraska and other states indicate that you have at last had relief, probably in time to save the crops. For you we are glad, and for those who are still worse off than we are (as is true farther south in our state and farther east than Illinois), we are sorry. But all in all, farmers are a philosophic lot. They continue harvesting and threshing and storing grain, even in the face of discouraging weather and low prices.

Threshing is going to be over before we can turn around, with straw so dry and not even dew to hinder an early start each morning, the work is booming along. Small grain with us is of exceptionally good quality and in many cases the yield is good.

Getting threshing done early is going to leave us more time than we sometimes have to work at odd jobs of building and improving the farmstead. Now is the time when many of us would delight in transplanting and sowing seed for perennials were it not for the excessive dryness of the hard-baked soil. We can at least make plans and hope for rain. And if rain doesn't materialize , we can still devote our extra hours to the school sewing, curtain making and furnishing up the house. Speaking of perennials, I want to share an interesting flower letter which I have just received from an expert and an enthusiast in answer to some of my amateur questions. It was a personal letter, but I am sure the writer will not object to passing on any information she has given. --Hope.

Are Not in Despair

A lot of talk going around these days about hard times, isn't there? Drouth, short crops, unemployment, stock market crashes, and so on. Threshing was completed in our vicinity without the shocks ever having felt a drop of rain. Fine quality grain we had, too -- what there was of it. And now we are all wondering whether the rain which is bound to come some time can possibly save the later crops -- corn and soy beans. Lots of talk, lots of figuring, lots of difficulty -- but in the main I believe our farmers, and I suppose it is about the same with all you readers, are by no means in despair. We are old friends with adversity. Now that other classes are beginning to feel the pinch, we can sympathize. Trouble isn't half so hard to bear when it is spread out among so many. In fact, when it begins to assume the proportions of a country-wide disaster, much of the sting is removed. A great calamity puts us on our mettle, binds us together for mutual protection and help. It may be that we Americans are destined to go through some grievous economic difficulties, but we are not likely to be oconfronted with such calamities like famine and earthquakes, as many sister-nations have gone through and survived.

Other classes are beginning to be bewildered by conditions. Crashes in values disturb them more than they do farmers, for they have nothing so tangible to hold on to. Wages fall, work lets up, business slackens, the wheels of industry hesitate, and what substantial footing is left? Values are in a turmoil. But farmers have their old stand-by -- work that needs to be done regardless of rates of interest and agitation at the pit. It is up to the farmers now to uphold the morale of the whole country. We are all in a slough of despond together, but we'll clamber out, and the first ones out must help to pull the rest. I dare say the farmers will be the first ones out.

Passed Prosperity On

Back in 1912, in those incredible years of prosperity before the great war, the editor of our paper described the "horn of plenty" of that season -- bumper crops and good feeling all around. He said, "Everybody looked to the farms rather than the politicians to give progress a little boost, and the farms have made good...Providence passed prosperity around to the farmers, and the farmers helped it along by putting in a busy season...Greater agricultural wealth will mean an era of unbounded general prosperity...Do not envy the farmer's affluence. He makes prosperity's wheels spin for all the people." Even in this year of threatened crop shortage, if the farmer is just a little better off than the rest he can start the wheel to moving. Let's try!

I have just been reading a new book called "Prosperity, Fact or Myth," by Stuart Chase. I was particularly interested in the chapter on farming prosperity, and was encouraged and cheered to read what the author had to say. After painting the darkest side of the picture by statics showing how little of the vaunted national prosperity had reached the farmers, he said:

Can Forget Rules

"In the face of this depressing testimony it is pertinent to inquire how farmers continue to exist at all. As a matter of fact many of them have ceased to exist -- as farmers.

"For agriculture to show a profit and loss account in red figures may be sad, even tragic, but it is not evidence of extermination...The farmer is carrying on a job far older than the money and credit system. He is handicapped seriously by its rules, but in a pinch he can still defy them. No penalty of sudden extermination hangs over him. If his books do not balance, if his debits exceed his credits, he can throw his books out of the window and go out and pick a mess of peas, or milk the cow. He has a roof over his head, food in his fields, fuel in the wood lot. He can stand a financial siege if he must.

"Farming is a career, not a business. Its roots are very ancient and run profoundly deep. In the face of plowed earth, flowing stream, hillside, meadow, orchard, woodland, all the figures which I have spread upon the record suddenly grow dim...Red figures or black figures, the farmers have gone on plowing and sowing and harvesting.

"Theoretically millions of them are bankrupt, actually most of them have not shared in American prosperity -- but they continue to exist, strong, hardworking, reasonably health. Because they are farmers. Their strength lies in the soil, not in engraved figures on pieces of paper.

"I am sorry for them, but I do not pity them -- sometimes indeed I envy them." --Hope.

System Not Perfect

Not many of us feel that the present school system is perfect. We are all wiling to experiment with the hope of improving. The question of winter is a most interesting one, for it is so complicated and so involved with other factors of child welfare. I imagine the first argument against school in summer would be "It's too hot for the children to study," but that might be open to argument. Children as a rule are not as sensitive to heat as older people; that is they are not conscious of it making them uncomfortable. For that reason they often overdo in hot weather and exhaust themselves at active play, unless restrained. The lessons and the routine of school might protect them from that danger.

But a more vital argument against summer school occurs to me; whether it is valid or not I leave to you. It is is that the school would interfere with a very important part of a country child's education; that is, contact with the farm work. A vacation in the winter would give the children delightful chances for outdoor play and exercise, even in bad weather, for moderately rugged children can stand much bad weather if they are properly clothed. But the farm activities are not so varied nor so interesting during the winter; and isn't it decidedly worth while for the child to get a goodly proportion of his "education" from practical contact with the affairs of life? The modern tendency is more and more toward just that practical point of view. Children are taught less by rules and printed directions and more by actually doing.

In some advanced schools, the children even learn how to figure wallpaper problems by actually papering small play-houses, which have previously been constructed by children who were working other arithmetical problems in this practical way. Such problems are artificial and may easily be overdone, but the country child's summer life is not artificial, and from it he learns many valuable conceptions of life. I imagine most country boys at least, would make a great outcry if they had to miss hay-making, threshing, silo-filling, and all the miscellaneous adventures of boyhood associated with them. --Hope.

Memory Gem

I live for those who love me,
Whose hearts are kind and true;
For the heaven that smiles above me.
And awaits my spirit, too;
For all human ties that bind me,
For the task by God assigned me,
For the hopes not left behind me
And for the good that I can do.

-- Banks

Memory Gem

"Suppose that this vessel," said the skipper with a a groan,
"Should lose her bearing, run away, and bump upon a stone.
"Suppose she'd shiver and go down, and save ourselves we couldn't.".
The mate replied, "Oh, blow me eyes, suppose again she shouldn't."

-- Selected

Little Caroline has grown out of the stage where she is just an adorable bunch of sweetness and has become an individual in her own right.

Past two now, she is at that distracting, exasperating, ludicrous, amazing and precious interval when youngsters try everything once and most things twice or more. Here is an extract from Ruth's latest letter:

"Had quite some excitement one day while Phil was in Detroit when I went out to the garbage pail and CL quietly turned the night-latch and locked me out of the house. Front door also was still locked because I hadn't been out there yet that morning. Garage and car also locked, all storm windows carefully hooked from inside and windows locked, and the neighbors away for the week-end! And me, on a nice cold day, with only a light jacket for wraps, no gloves, et cetera.

"Tried for some half hour to get CL to turn one of the night latches enough to open it and she did fiddle around but didn't get either of them completely turned. I finally remembered one kitchen window was unlatched, because we have a thermometer business that keeps that storm window from quite closing. It was one of the little high ones over the sink, and I had nothing to climb on but a couple of garbage pails piled on each other. Finally managed to get up where I could see in, but not enough to climb in.

"With another 15 minutes or so of painstaking instructions on my part and painfully slow compliance on Caroline's, I managed to induce her to get a chair, climb up on a kitchen counter, open a cupboard door, get my household key ring from the hook and hand it to me through the window!

"She took a sudden and unusual notion to be extremely obedient--to earlier instructions--and kept rebelling, informing me virtuously that she wasn't supposed to climb on the kitchen table, that it would be a bad girl to get into the cupboard and take the keys down, and it was quite a task to convince her that this was an emergency and it would be quite all right, for once! If only her conscience would pick more appropriate times to bother her!

"I must stop now and give her a little lift with the housework. She is dusting industriously and trying to set things to rights. She loves the new vacuum which she calls the 'bapoon cleaner,' so much that I hardly can get my hands on it." --Hope

Here is the story of a rural community club which has weather two world wars and has cleared itself of debt for the second time in 30 years (the first property having burned to the ground during the depths of the depression).

The club has 19 stars on its first service flag, 46 on its present one, and in some cases father and son appear on the respective flags.

We wonder if any other rural clubs of the middle west have a longer continuous history. We imagine that many a community has a similar club, with shining memories of happy gatherings--plays and concerts, minstrel shows and masquerades, showers for brides and charivaris for newlyweds, farewells for soldiers and for departing families.

We would be interested in hearing of any such organizations, and their stories may inspire other communities to see their own opportunities for friendship and unity.

As one woman said of the club of which the history is given today, "You don't appreciate what an organization like this means until you have to live a while in a community that hasn't one." -- Hope

Story of the Community Boosters

In December, 1913, a few of the people of the community around Kernan, Ill., met and organized a community club, known as the "Community Boosters." The purpose of the organization as set forth in the constitution, was to "to work for the betterment of the community." No territorial lines were drawn; men, women and children could join, and the membership fee was placed at 10 cents per year, an amount considered sufficient to provide for the actual running expenses.

During the first winter about the only activities of the club consisted of the regular monthly meetings with programs of a literary nature. The local people contributed most of the numbers, such as papers, readings, music, debates, etc., while occasionally a speaker was secured from outside the community to help out. The attendance at these monthly meetings grew steadily during the winter, and the membership increased also as the people became interested in the club.

The meeting place of the new organization was the town hall, situated in the little village of Kernan -- at that time a disreputable building with a low ceiling, poor light and ventilation and straight-backed benches for seats. It was not an inviting place for such activities. The regular meeting in April came on the night of election, and as the election officials were busy counting ballots all evening in the hall, the Boosters obtained permission to hold their meeting in an old abandoned church across the street. It was somewhat better than the hall, but the roof resembled a sieve, and as a result much of the plaster had fallen from the walls. It was roomier than the town hall and more comfortable.

An Annual Picnic

The old church was used by the Boosters for about a year, during which time a lot of things were accomplished, trivial in themselves apart, but altogether of much importance to the community. First, a custom was started of having a community celebration on the Fourth of July. A big picnic out in the woods, with ball game and other sports, program of music and speaking, and a big dinner at noon, became an annual affair. Practically everybody in the community went to the picnic and many visitors came from surrounding towns. People said they had a lot more real pleasure out there than at the noisy celebrations in town, with none of the evil after-effects.

There was no musical instrument at the church, except an old wheezy organ that had long outlived its usefulness. So in the fall, after the first Fourth of July picnic, the Boosters gave a chicken supper and applied the proceeds toward the purchase of a second-hand piano. This was their first acquisition of property, and they began to have more faith in themselves and more pride in their work.

In the winter the young people worked up a play. It was a three-act farce, a college play, with 22 characters. Most of the young people taking part in the play were complete amateurs, never having done anything of the kind before. It was almost impossible to persuade some of them to take part on account of their natural timidity. For nearly three months they practiced, meeting two or three times a week at the old church. They had to build their own stage, manufacture the scenery, rig up curtain, footlights and all, from the ground up. The play was given two successive nights, and the old church was packed to the doors both times. A week later they went up the road to Ransom and repeated the performance. When the theatrical season closed, the Boosters found themselves with over $100 in the treasury.

This was not, however, the greatest thing that the play accomplished. It was not started as a money-making proposition. Its real benefit to the community came first from the fact that it furnished something clean and wholesome to interest and hold the attention of the young people during the winter, and, second, from the fact that it showed the people that they had in their own community all the elements of amusement and entertainment that they needed or wanted. For these young people who had taken part in the play, who had been so timid and reluctant, surprised their friends and even themselves by the excellence of their performance.

Helped on Oats

Early the next spring the club found a way to be of financial benefit to the community. The county agricultural adviser, I. S. Brooks, came to one of the meetings and talked on the treatment of seed oats with formaldehyde for the prevention of smut in the crop. Very few of the farmers in the neighborhood had ever done anything in this line. At the close of Mr. Brooks' talk a committee was appointed by the president of the Boosters to canvass the community and find out how much formaldehyde could be disposed of, in the hope of ordering together and getting wholesale rates. The committee would have been pleased to be assured of an order of 10 gallons, but they disposed of 50 gallons, a whole barrel. The treatment cost the farmers about 1 cent per bushel for their seed, and in the fall over 75 farms in the township, where more than 5,400 acres of oats were grown, showed an increased yield of nine bushels per acre where the seed had been treated. The next spring two barrels of formaldehyde were ordered, and our community used more than any other township in the county.

The club had now been using the old church for just about a year, with no mention having been made of rent. The Boosters felt that if they continued to use the building some formal arrangement should be made for paying for its use. So they suggested their willingness to the trustees of the church and both parties agreed that a rental of $25 a year would be fair. The building needed a new roof very badly and it was figured that the material would cost about $100. The Boosters agreed to furnish half of this money, and this was to cover the rental for the year that they had already used the church and also a year in advance. The church authorities were to furnish the other $50 and everybody would help in putting the roof on.

Then it was thought best to have a written lease so that everything would be on a business basis. And this is where the rub came. The church trustees stipulated that the building was not to be used for plays, suppers, auction sales or "anything that would desecrate a church property." The club could not agree to this. Its members felt that they had lived in the community long enough that they need not be bound by such restrictions and they failed to see how any of the forbidden activities could "desecrate" a church that had not been used for purposes of worship for several years. So temporarily the Booster returned to the town hall.

The membership had grown by leaps and bounds and the hall was no longer big enough for the meetings, to say nothing of its inconvenience and lack of furnishings. The Boosters recognized that something must be done to secure a bigger and better meeting place. Failing in the effort to interest the township officials in fixing up the town hall, they began to plan on a building of their own. The church trustees offered to sell the church and, after preliminary dickering, the building and grounds were purchased for $400.

Incorporation

The foregoing happenings had been spread over a period of about two years. Now that the club had acquired some real property, a more business-like organization was thought necessary. So after much discussion and consultation it was decided to incorporate. And now one of the corporations regularly listed with the secretary of state of Illinois is "Community Boosters of Kernan, Ill., organized to work for the betterment of the community." Stock was issued in the corporation, valued at $1 per share, so that every person who contributed a dollar received a stock certificate and actually owned a part of the Booster property. The purchase of a share of stock took the place of membership for a year, and after that the annual dues were 50 cents. The business is handled by nine directors, three elected each year. These directors organize, and their officers are the officers of the club.

As soon as the transfer of property had been made the work of repairing and remodeling began. The farmers of the community did what part of the work they could, such as shingling, excavating, hauling, etc. As many as 30 men were working there some days, the women serving dinner in the town hall. The old church and its site cost $400; the repairs and alterations and equipment cost about $4,000. A new roof was put on the church, which was a building about 32 by 44.

Two additions were built, one on the rear, the full width of the building and 12 feet deep, to be used for a stage and dressing rooms; one of the same size in front for vestibule, basement stairway and committee room. A basement was dug under the main building and the stage addition, and this was divided into a comfortable kitchen and a spacious dining room. A sloping floor was put in the auditorium, second-hand opera chairs from a "movie" house were installed, and a regular drop curtain was bought for the stage. The building was furnace-heated and acetylene-lighted, attractive in appearance, the exterior being painted white.

On Dec. 7, 1916, three years after the club was organized, the building was dedicated. From then on that winter there was scarcely a week when the hall was not used two or three evenings a week. Parties, suppers, stereopticon lectures, socials, school programs, plays, minstrels -- all served to keep the community and the building busy. All organizations and enterprises that used the building were required to pay a fee sufficient to heat it, light it, pay the janitor's bill and provide for the estimated wear and tear on the building for the occasion. In this way the building became practically self-supporting.

In February the young people of the Boosters gave another play. Twenty-two characters were required and many of the people taking part had been in the former play. It was noticeable that they had learned a great deal in the matter of self-pos-

(article continued on page 6 of the Journal, but not included in manuscript)

Household readers will be interested to learn of the honors won by Hope's sons. Ernest, the second son, this year duplicated the record of his brother, Wilbert, by being chosen the winner of the bronze plaque of Gamma Sigma Delta, honor society in agriculture at the University of Illinois.

Wilbert is at present in the army. Ernest is enlisting in the navy V-5 program and will be a member of the newly formed third wing of the Flying Illini, which reports for duty in June.

The third son, Joey, is busy setting new records in high school, while the daughter, Ruth, mother of Caroline Lucile, well, Grandma Hope might have a further report to make some of these days!

So, there, Householders, and a fig for Hope's modesty. -- The Editors.

At Thanksgiving we had the customary dinner, with home-grown fowl and vegetables, pumpkin and mince pie, cranberry sauce and so on -- but at the table were only Daddy and Joe, the neighbor-boy helper, and I.

The day was spent by the men in the fields finishing the husking. It seemed easier to fill the day that way and we were glad we had plenty of work to do. When we heard from our service boys, we felt that we had all spent a similar wartime holiday and would make up for it at war's end.

Our Navy boy, in pre-flight school, wrote that their celebration consisted of 35 minutes for dinner instead of the usual 15. Our Army Signal Corps lieutenant wrote that "they had quite a turkey dinner all over camp, but it happened I had a special class during the noon hour, so I had a couple of hot dogs and a cup of coffee."

Our nephew in the Armored Forces spent Thanksgiving day en route from maneuvers at one field to a new location in Texas, and the other nephew, studying meteorology in the Army Air Corps in Rhode Island, had a typical Thanksgiving dinner, but strictly with soldiers -- and so far from home.

Not even Ruth and her family could be with us, as her husband is in such urgent war work that he can scarcely have any time away. A year ago, Wilbert was the only one who was absent. He spent his first Thanksgiving away from home at Camp Crowder, Mo., and then when Christmas came it was rather touching to have him write that his duty on Christmas day, along with others, was to keep the new arrivals getting homesick -- keep them at games or something so they wouldn't brood. The single men had let the married men take their share of this duty the day before Christmas so they could spend the actual holiday with their families. So our boy -- and I dare say the others were in exactly the situation -- just 21 and away from home on Christmas for the first time in his life, devoted himself to keeping others from getting homesick. Well, that's one way of keeping your mind off your own troubles.

Just before Wilbert left for the service a year ago the 14th of November, the two college boys managed to get home for a week-end to tell him goodbye, and we took some pictures. It so happened that one group we got of the boys was in their grandfather's yard beside the flagpole and the flag was flying in the autumn wind. Now, a year later, they are all in uniform, serving under that flag in New Jersey, Georgia and Texas, with two of them likely to ship out overseas by the first of the year. Growing up, as children are bound to do, they would have scattered any way within a year or so, but he war seems to point up the separation so. -- Hope.

Memory Gem

The sun shines after every storm; there is a solution for every problem; and the soul's highest duty is to be of good cheer. -- Emerson.

Since it came on Sunday, she had a chance to have a real celebration with her daddy home all day. She had had her usual quota of sleep, so her birthday started out bright and early, when she popped in to ask, "Now is it my birthday?" We put her presents on the breakfast table so she could have them the first thing and enjoy them all day. It turned out she knew a good deal more about such an occasion than we realized. We didn't know that she knew much what to expect, but as soon as she saw the packages, she asked, "Is the cake in one of those?" She also knew she was supposed to get to blow out the candles on the cake.

We had fixed the breakfast table in festive style and had the packages on it to be viewed and speculated upon during the meal. As soon as all three of us had eaten, she lit in on them and had a great time opening them all by herself. Then she and her daddy enjoyed the morning playing, while I took care of bottles, formula, bath and so on for Richard.

We had dinner at noon, including the guest of honor's preferred foods, such as chicken and frozen peas and of course, a birthday cake. The latter was a white angel food with pale pink frosting and it had three big pink candles in the middle and 36 tiny blue ones, one for each month, around the edge. No special reason for them except that the only big candles I could get were pink and we thought it would be nice to have some color contrast and I happened to see these delectable little blue ones, so figured out a way to include them. We fixed the table with a white cloth, pink lace-paper doilies under the plates, pink candles in crystal holders, and pale blue napkins, so it all matched the cake.

After her nap, the afternoon was Caroline's to plan. She was to get to choose what we should do. She decided she'd like to go "out to the country" and enjoy the "swings and sings." The "sings" consist of various other pieces of playground apparatus. There is a lovely playground there, all fenced in, with lots of trees, where the youngsters can play. She quite wore us out teeter-tottering and swinging, and we took a roll of pictures. Then we went home and to bed, after a pretty full day. "This was my happy birthday," she murmured sleepily at bedtime. -- Reported by her mother.

Memory Gem

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you are trudging seems all uphill,
When funds are low and the debts are high
And you want to smile but you have to sigh,
When the care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest if you must, but don't you quit! -- Selected.

Caroline is busy with a set of anagrams. She is quite fascinated now with learning to identify letters. She recognizes R, Q, O, I and L whenever she sees them (capitals only) and she plays half a day at a time matching anagram cards with letters in her ABC books. With some of them she runs descriptive phrases right along with the name of the letter, as "This is Q -- has a little tail on it."

Ruth: R-U-T-H (yes, I am).

She has learned three words in lower-case letters: Baby, boy and mother. She wants me to spend quite a bit of time teaching her to read. That pastime is at least less bothersome than one she experimented with yesterday: I discovered she had poured Rickie's $2.50 bottle of codliver oil concentrate out into a custard cup (spilling it liberally on her overalls, her little chair, the table, floor and whatnot in the process) and was giving her doll an oil-bath in it! The loss of the oil seems insignificant in comparison with the problem of getting the smell out of the house....Also yesterday I overheard a conversation on her toy telephone. Apparently she's getting tired of always being the one left home with someone to take care of her. At any rate she was saying in businesslike tones, "I wonder if I could get a girl to stay with my mommy?"

She has an imaginary play-mate now, "Bob." She and he are now inseparable. I haven't figured out much about "Bob's" exact shape, size and appearance. But he is ever-present and she holds the door open for him, offers him bites of her apple, carries any new discovery for him to see and now and then tells me with horror that I am stepping on him! Or else that I'm stepping in the river -- we have an imaginary river winding through the house, not to be stepped in under any circumstances.

Rickie is beside me in his basket, squealing and laughing like everything. He gets so tickled sometimes that he laughs loud enough to be heard all over the house. He is such a happy little boy, laughs so much and watches us a lot and takes an interest in the world around him. Sleeps most of the time, of course, but begins to stay awake more and playing during the day. He's growing so fast! His eyes are still dark gray-blue and he's getting more hair of a reddish-brown tint. -- Reported by their mother, Ruth.

Memory Gem

I wish that there were some wonderful place
Called the Land of Beginning Again,
Where all our mistakes and our heartaches
And all of our poor, selfish grief
Could be dropped like a shabby old coat at the door
And never put on again. -- Selected.

Dear Folks: Well, here I am settled in my new surroundings somewhere in Egypt and about ready to go to work. Got in yesterday noon with a couple of overnight lay-overs on the way. How's that for traveling?

It was really a swell trip -- an experience worth an awful lot. And after riding that far in a plane I can see why some people go for flying in a big way. It's surely a nice way to travel ... We stayed at Casablanca overnight. It was our first glimpse of a city that was really foreign. We got in after dark and were back at the airport the next AM before it was very light, so we really didn't get a good look at the city -- but we did get our first glimpse of the lower class African natives -- going along the road in their little two-wheeled carts hitched to a donkey and wearing ankle length dresses (men, women and children all the same), and turbans around their heads -- no shoes on their feet. A few of them had camels -- and for the first time we saw camels outside of a zoo.

Just before we hit the coast of Africa, an hour or so out, we had a heavy cloud bank between us and the ocean. It was perfectly clear above but we couldn't see a thing below except once in a while in a break in the clouds we saw the blue of the ocean. Finally as we neared the African coast, the pilot began taking the plane down through the clouds and for several minutes we couldn't see a thing either way, up or down. Then all of a sudden we burst out of the clouds (below) and saw Africa below us. It was quite a sight, especially since we hadn't been able to see it as we approached. There, near Casablanca, the ground was quite flat and desert-looking from the air, and every now and then we'd see a little habitation of some kind, a couple of stone shelters, some kind of animals and a small area fenced off with stone. Probably some native's pride and joy. ... From the air Casablanca looked like quite a city -- several large buildings, any as big as our own small skyscrapers, but on the ground it seemed to be much more backwards, quite dirty and quite smelly, as all these North African cities are.

Bengasi was our other overnight stop. Due to a little radio trouble the pilot didn't want to tackle the next leg of the journey at night without it. We didn't get to see the city but did get a good night's sleep and saw one of these beautiful African moonlit nights. It was even nicer than the one we saw at Bermuda.

After we left Casablanca, the terrain became very rough and mountainous and was that way all the way to Tunis. Practically all waste land, and we could readily understand when we saw it how tough it must have been a little over a year ago for the allies to push out the Germans. After Bengasi about all we saw was the desert -- and I mean desert. It was a clear day most of the way and as far in any direction as one could see was desert, flat and sandy, with no vegetation, no roads and no sign of habitation except for a native dwelling of some sort once in a great while. ... And then, all of a sudden we saw a very distinct line ahead which looked almost like the shore of a large body of water but which turned out to be the Nile delta. It was surprising how the desert waste could turn so suddenly and completely into a very green, well planted, thickly populated area.

Ahead we could see Cairo and between us and the city the Pyramids. The pilot was very cooperative and circled around the Pyramids completely, giving us an excellent birds-eye view of the whole scene. It was really quite a thrilling sight and surely brought out very well the great size of the Pyramids. we were several thousand feet up and everything else looked very small, but the Pyramids actually seemed to come up to meet us! Very large. The Sphinx, on the other hand, looked very small in comparison, smaller than I had expected. In fact, we had a hard time finding it from the plane.

While in Cairo, we toured what is known as "Old Cairo" and I can't begin to explain or describe it. It's really old and is filled with the dark-skinned Arab type of native. There are buildings there built before Christ -- in fact we went in a church, called the St. Sarguis church and supposedly the oldest church in Egypt. In the cellar of it they claim the Holy Family lived during the Flight to Egypt. It's supposed to be in the same form as it was then -- and looks it. None of these old buildings are kept up like museums but are merely standing there, still used by the natives and quite dirty and worse for wear ... But the way these Arabs live is the sight! They sit around in the streets in the old, dirty, torn dresses and turbans, usually not clean shaven, and very dirty. They don't wear shoes (that is, most of them don't ) -- and what a smell! The whole town has a distinct smell -- but Old Cairo is much worse. They stick their food in piles on tables right in the dust and dirt of the street -- some kind of pastry stuff and some spoiled looking meat -- and sit around on their haunches and eat it. Some of the women are veiled and some not, but all of them wear heavy black clothes when on the street where people can see them. Their diet must be deficient in some way (which I can readily understand!) because practically all of them have very poor eyesight. Lots of them have one eye shriveled up and almost out of sight -- and several of the children I saw had one eye all white in the middle. Lots of them, especially the old people, are missing teeth and they surely aren't what you'd call a handsome bunch of human critters.

In the newer part of Cairo one finds the rich Egyptians. In Egypt the people are either very rich or very poor. The rich ones are quite well educated and live in nice looking places, although inside I imagine we would still consider them a little backward.

Saw a caravan of four camels today, and one constantly sees Arabs with a donkey pulling a very ancient looking and quite small two-wheeled cart loaded with rock, or fruit, or baskets of stuff, or maybe his family, walking slowly along the road. I'll bet they could step on glass and not feel it -- their feet look that tough.

As far as beauty is concerned, probably the nicest part of the trip was the takeoff and seeing Miami and Miami Beach from the air. And the ocean -- I always thought it would be a grayish green. At least it always looks that way along the shore. But from the sky, it's perfectly blue! And I really mean blue. Sometimes light and sometimes very dark, but always blue except where it is very shallow and then it becomes very green. The clouds are very beautiful from the air also. A person could write a book on them alone. We saw so many different kinds from the thin, very light ones to the big fluffy white thunderheads, with the thick dark rain clouds in between.

We went through rain and sleet part of the trip, and at other times there was hardly a cloud in the sky as we could see.

We spent one night on the plane in the air before we got to the Azores. Just stretched out on the floor or on the seats along the sides wherever we could find room. The seats were the "bucket" type of seats -- you sit along the sides facing in -- the kind the paratroops use.

I have all my money in Egyptian money now, piastres and pounds. When at Casablanca we used francs. A piastre is four cents, a franc two.

So far the whole trip has been very enjoyable and I think I'll like my stay here quite well. --Love, Wilbert.

Advice to a Bride

(Especially to Hope's Ruth)
A brand-new husband is like a shoe --
He must be well "broke in,"
And your future wedded life will be
Just as you begin.
You must be firm from the very first,
Though smiles will help along.
But see that he hangs his coat and pants
On hooks where they belong.

Put onions in his soup, my dear,
And pepper, too, a lot.
A man's heart is in his stomach,
So keep it plenty hot.
Make him wipe his shoes off good
Before you let him in.
These things may not seem important,
But is just as you begin.

Make him get the breakfast,
And let you "beauty nap."
And soothe his injured feelings
With a tender little slap.
Mend his socks with binder twine,
Patch overalls with tin,
For as I've said before, my dear,
It's just as you begin.

--Blossom, South Dakota.

Memory Verse

Though troubles help to make us strong
Every time they come,
I find it hard to think of this
When I am having some.

(From Cheerful Cherubs by Rebecca McCann.)

Dear Folks: Family to the rescue! With flu in Ruth's family, grandma (that's me!) has to go there to care for the three little ones, and son Wilbert comes to my rescue with what to us, are interesting travel letters. So maybe others will find things of interest in them, too. There are four installments, of which this is the first. -- Hope.

The plane was supposed to take off around noon, but due to a very unusual and quite violent wind and rainstorm, which wrecked a dozen planes on the field and grounded all flights, we didn't leave till the next day.

And so, 6:00 o'clock Wednesday morning found my Val-o-Pac and I on our way to Payne field with a seven-day leave in my pocket. We were supposed to weigh in for the Palestine flight at 7:00 a. m. (which we did), but then, as usual, began a long period of waiting which lasted until 11:00 o'clock when finally we were told to load up. The plane was a C-46, a two-motored army transport. We got into our bucket seats, fastened our safety belts, and were in the air by 11:15.

During the first part of the flight all to be seen from the plane was sand -- no vegetation, no civilization . . . real desert, typically Egyptian. Before long we crossed the thin, blue, almost straight line of the Suez canal. This was my first view of it, and it was a very pretty one. We crossed at a point just north of where the canal widened into Bitter lake, the site of President Roosevelt's middle east conference, and as we passed over we saw several surface vessels and one submarine cutting their way smoothly through the water. . . . Then more sand and more of the same nothingness that is so prevalent for miles on either side of the Nile valley.

As we continued on our northeasterly course we came to the eastern shore of the Mediterranean sea and followed it the rest of the way. The Mediterranean has the same very beautiful deep blue that all large bodies of water have as seen from the air, and has the same mysterious way of blending into the blue of the sky, making the horizon indistinguishable.

Finally we began to notice a change, gradual at first though increasing in abruptness every minute. At first the change appeared to be only desert that was being irrigated to some extent, just enough to maintain a small amount of vegetation, but there were no trees, and the color from the air was a sort of greyish one instead of the deep green we saw a little later. Seemingly all of a sudden, as we approached the area of Lydda where we were to land, the landscape changed -- and definitely for the better. Below us we saw a very pretty and colorful picture of lush farming country, an even pattern of fields, straight roads lined with trees, the dark clustered green of orchards and groves, the same dark green of grass, and the yellowish green of the ripening wheat and barley fields. We were absorbed in the changing scene below us when the order came to fasten our safety belts for the landing, and a few minutes later, at about 12:45, we were taxiing down the runway of the Lydda allied airport.

G.I. trucks took us and our baggage from the field to the Leave center at Camp Tel Litwinsky, where the enlisted men and women were to stay. While there we exchanged our Egyptian pounds and piastres for Palestinian pounds and mills. (The Egyptian pound is worth $4.13 -- the Palestinian pound $4.09.) And then a G.I. bus to the city of Tel Aviv and the Yarden hotel.

Tel Aviv is an all-Jewish town of about 200,000, the first such to be developed since the downfall of the Jewish state, and now the largest town in Palestine. It was founded in 1909 when a few Jews decided to build a garden suburb outside the northern boundary of the ancient town of Jaffa. The name Tel Aviv means "The Hill of Spring" and it is rightly named -- especially after nine months in Cairo. It was really a pleasant relief with its modern buildings and its clean, broad, uncrowded streets lined with trees of various kinds. Then, too, it is located right on the Mediterranean and has a nice sandy beach for bathing. The Yarden hotel is probably the nicest hotel in town and was taken over some time ago by the United States army for officers on leave in the Holy Land. It is run in a very hospitable manner by Jewish civilians, and the accommodations are very good.

I arrived at the Yarden about 3:00 in the afternoon. The rooms are furnished for two officers, and as yet I had no room-mate. But not for long. I had just gone upstairs and started to clean up and unpack when in walked Lt. Wily H. Shira of New Castle, Pa., an ATC pilot stationed at Payne field near Cairo. We discovered our leaves covered the same period of time, and that we were both interested in seeing the same things, so we proceeded to plan our week. While down in the lobby checking on the various tours available, who should walk in but Major "Sandy" Sundstrom, Lt. Riiso Owre, and Captain "Willy" Wilensky, all three from the Pension Elite, 39 Kasr El Nil, Cairo (my own happy home in Egypt). They were all on leave, and had been up north to Haifa and Beirut, and were now on their way back, planning to spend their last two days in Tel Aviv.

After introductions and we had taken a 30-minute swim in the Mediterranean, we diced we'd like to try the Jewish kosher dinner that Willy so nobly suggested, and try it we did. First we had chopped herring salad, then "fruit soup," then Hungarian goulash (actually stew) and lastly fruit for dessert. It was all very tasty and we were favorably impressed, though due to being strictly a kosher menu, we had no milk or cream, since we had butter and weren't allowed both.

On Thursday we got up at 6:00 and after a very nice breakfast of bacon and eggs, we found we had been mis-informed on the Thursday tour, and instead of going to the Sea of Galilee would have to go to Jerusalem. Since Sundstrom, Owre, and Wilensky had already been there, they decided to spend the day in Tel Aviv, but Wily and I caught the 7:30 bus, went out to Camp Tel Litwinsky to pick up the enlisted men, and then went to Jerusalem in a convoy of about half a dozen G.I. trucks. The trip was an interesting and scenic one. For the first time we got a close look at the Palestinian countryside and it was certainly a sight for sore eyes after the sand and dirt of Egypt and the little garden-plot farms of the Nile valley.

As we left Tel Aviv we first passed through a quite level area, most of which was covered with orchards and groves of lemon, orange, and nut trees, many of which were enclosed by fences of either cactus (of the prickly pear variety) or evergreens of some kind. The smell of the orange blossoms was "something to write home about," and the fruit hanging on the trees looked very tempting. Gradually we moved from the orchards and tomato plots and vineyards to an area of more open and slightly rolling plains, the real agricultural district. Here we saw broad fields of ripening wheat and barley, a few patches of corn and oats, some large bare plowed fields, and no fences. It reminded me some of the wheat plains of South Dakota, though on a smaller scale, of course. It was certainly nice to be able to look off into the distance at fields of good looking grain crops for as far as one could see. We also saw herds of dairy cattle grazing here and there, in this section. From this fertile and slightly rolling agricultural area we proceeded into a much more hilly, almost mountainous, terrain that was quite similar in topography to the hill country of some of our eastern states, except that the hills were not as well covered with trees. There were some trees growing on the hillsides and along the road when we first entered this area. In fact, we saw some beautiful conifers that were straight and slender and green. But soon this "tree" country gave way to hills almost completely bare. The soil here was stony and rocky and all fences and buildings (where there were such things) were made of stone. The native hillside villages were built on the same style as the mud villages of the Nile valley, one-story, flat-topped, little huts, all fastened together, with sheep, goats, and children all running around together in and out of the small doorways, but we noticed right away how much cleaner they must actually have been, as a result of their being built of rock instead of mud.

One interesting thing about these rocky hills that we passed through before reaching Jerusalem was the fact that the rock on the hillsides out-cropped in such a way as to form almost perfect natural terraces from the bottom to the top, a regular stair-step appearance when viewed from a distance. In places we could see where the natural terraces had been improved and built-up by neatly stacked small rocks and stone, but mostly the "steps" were natural. Most of the flat surfaces of these terraces were bare except for weeds or a little scrub growth of some kind, but some of them supported small, irregular patches of wheat and barley. We saw lots of flocks of sheep and goats, mostly goats, and a few dairy cattle, grazing on the hillsides of this rough, rocky country. most of the goats were solid black, with long hair under their bellies, which gave them a very square bodied appearance. From a distance they looked much like a herd of Angus cattle. In fact, I was fooled more than once in this very way.

I noticed when I first arrived in Palestine, on the trip from the airport to Tel Aviv, and I continued to notice on all of these trips through the countryside, how many of the same weeds that we have at home grow in the Holy Land -- wild lettuce, wild mustard, dog fennel (plenty of it), bull thistles, and wild carrots, among others. In fact, we saw many spots that could have been put in Illinois or Indiana -- weeds, crops, soil, and all -- and would never have been noticed. What a difference from Egypt!

And then into Jerusalem. (To be continued.) -- Wilbert.

Jerusalem is divided into two parts, the Old City and the New City, with a total population of around 147,000. The new part is surprisingly modern, in fact as much so as Tel Aviv. It is very clean, the buildings are new-looking and the streets and sidewalks broad. Old Jerusalem is the part of the city within the old Turkish wall that was built in 1541.

As we entered Jerusalem we drove through the new portion of the city to the fine new YMCA building and there met the Red Cross girls who were to arrange our tours. Lt. Shira and myself had heard that the best way to get around and see everything in the shortest time was to get together a small group of three or four and hire a private guide. So we began looking for a third person, and our victim was an army chaplain whose home is in Poughkeepsie, N. Y., but who was then stationed in Florence, Italy. His name was Major W. R. Phinney. He was a very nice fellow to go around with and didn't mind my stopping now and then to take pictures, since he was a camera fiend himself. In fact he carried two cameras with him at all times, one for black and white and one for color... So about 10:30 a.m., Wily, Chaplin Phinney and myself started out with a private guide to see the town.

We naturally headed for the Old City, and we entered the wall through the Jaffa Gate. This gate is one of the famous eight in the wall, the others being the New, the Damascus, the Herod, the St. Stephens, the Golden (walled), the Dung, and the Zion.

Practically all of the historic area of the Holy City of Jerusalem is located in the Old City, and though one might be surprised at the "modernness" of the New City, the old portion is all one would expect, and looks just like its pictures. It is a maze of narrow, high-walled, cobbled streets (or alleys) with worn steps every now and then ascending or descending to different levels, and many arches overhead. All except the very main streets are too narrow for any mode of transportation other than donkeys, but of donkeys there are plenty, and also goats and sheep. The sides of many of these narrow passage ways are lined with little native shops or bazaars selling everything from food to bright colored textiles. We saw one section that appeared to be a native slaughter house, because they were cutting up freshly killed goat meat and had piles of fresh entrails and goat heads lying around. In another spot we saw goat skins being scraped, softened and cured, all by hand of course, and in a very primitive way. Practically all of these little shops in Old Jerusalem are run by the Moslems (the Arabs), and I noticed as soon as I saw them how much more colorful and even somewhat cleaner they were than the Arabs in the native section of Cairo. In Cairo practically all of the women wear solid black dresses, hoods and veils, but in the Holy Land, and especially in Jerusalem, the women were brightly dressed in whites, red, blues and even those in black usually had some red embroidery in their shawls. They word the same style of dress of course -- ankle length with a shawl over their heads and around their shoulders -- but they were more picturesque. We saw very few of the half-face veils so typical of Egypt, and many more of the type that completely covered the face.

The first thing of historic interest that we visited in Old Jerusalem was the "Wailing Wall." It is a portion of an old wall that once surrounded Solomon's temple, and for hundreds of years Jews have been making pilgrimages there in memory of the destruction of the temple, and the downfall of the Jewish nation. There were several Jewish people "wailing" while we were there. Some young women, some old, several men with beards and wearing long ragged black coats and Mormon style black hats. And they were all leaning up against the wall and chanting or "wailing" as they read from old books written in Hebrew. They surely sounded like they'd lost their last friend. Very interesting.

We then visited what is know as the temple area. It is supposedly the place where Abraham offered his son in sacrifice 2,000 years B. C., and the site of Solomon's temple, built a thousand years later. Then in 590 B. C. Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Solomon's temple and soon after, Zerubbabel's temple was erected. About 20 B. C., the third, or Herod's temple, was begun, and this was the famous one known to Christ, the one from which He chased the money chanters. At present the Mosque of Omar, built in 700 A. D., occupies the area, and the dome of this mosque is sometimes called the "dome of the rock" because under it is a large, natural stone that Mohammedan legend claims marks the center of the world and rests on the topmost branches of a palm tree from whose roots flow all the rivers of the world. It is also claimed to be the exact spot upon which Abraham offered his son.

After a look at the temple area, our guide took us along the "Way of the Cross," or the "Via Dolorosa," which is the route that Christ followed as He carried His cross from Pontius Pilate's pretorium to the hill on which He was crucified. The "fourteen stations" were marked along the route, and as we came to each one, the guide pointed it out, and gave us a brief story about it.

As we followed the Via Dolorosa and finally entered the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which now covers the spot of the crucifixion of Christ and the tomb in which His body laid, I saw what so many people have criticized about Jerusalem. It has been commercialized so much that it is hard for people to actually be moved very much by it. When I say commercialized, I don't mean in the way of advertisements and admissions, etc., but instead I mean that it seems to me they have tried too hard to make it attractive to tourists by building altars and shrines over every little individual spot that is considered important. Everything is built up very beautifully, with many lights, paintings, marble floors, colored glass windows, statues, jeweled crosses, etc. and then in the middle of it all will be a little round piece of glass fastened in the floor about six inches in diameter, through which can be seen a rough portion of the rock under the church, which the guide proceeds to tell us is the spot on which Christ was crucified; and a short distance away, still within the big church, we enter a small shiny marble room along one side of which a very smooth and perfectly turned stone sepulcher. Above it are 13 oil lamps hung by chains, and on the walls around it are colored tapestries. The guide then tells us that Christ's body was removed from the cross and placed in a sepulcher in a nearby garden, and this is the sepulcher ... Speaking for myself, I would have been more moved had I been able to see the garden.

And yet to some people these individual spots are considered very holy. But to me a certain specific spot is not important, because no one knows for sure the specific spot anyway; instead, the general location of Christ's various activities is all that's important and interesting to me, and instead of worshiping a particular spot because that is where He stood at a particular time, I would rather worship Him and what He stood for -- and just use the historic locations to refresh in my memory some of the things He did, and approximately where and under what circumstances He did them ... At any rate, it was very interesting to see it all, because I got an idea of the general layout of the area.

We ate lunch at the YMCA at 12:30, and then had planned to hire a cab for the three of us and our guide for the afternoon tour. Instead the Red Cross girls informed us they had an empty G.I. truck not in use, so we accepted their invitation to use it and started out for the Mount of Olives. ... This to me was more impressive than the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. It lies east of the city, overlooking the old part of Jerusalem to the west, and by looking east from the top of it, one can see the Dead sea. It yields a wonderful view, and the sides of it are dotted with olive trees that actually look old enough to date back to Christ's time. When you get on top you actually can visualize Christ coming up there to pray. It too is covered with small churches and shrines of various faiths, but still, as long as one stays out of them and on the open mountain top itself, he finds it quite impressive. On the highest point (I believe it is the highest), we saw a little Moslem mosque, not fancy, not decorated up at all, and no door, inside of which is the rock from which it is claimed Christ ascended into heaven. And in the middle of the rock is a small depression which some consider to be Christ's footprint; and this particular spot, although covered by a rough little Mohammedan mosque, also seemed more realistic and impressive to me than if it had been covered by a large church and fixed up with heavy large doors and lights and marble and richly decorated altars.

From the Mount of Olives we descended again to the Garden of Gethsemane which is located at the foot of the mount and faces the Golden Gate in the old wall of Jerusalem. As you recall, it was here that Jesus did so much of His praying, and here also He was betrayed and alter captured by the Roman soldiers to be taken and tried before Herod and Pilate. They say He was taken by the Romans from the garden through the Golden Gate to Pilate, and after that the gate was sealed and has remained so to this day. I believe the Jewish religion claims that their Messiah will some day come through that gate. The Garden of Gethsemane was also beautiful and impressive to me, although the actual garden area has been cut down to a small plot about 30 yards square, and the rest of the area has been covered by the large Church of Agony. In the garden we saw the old gnarled and twisted olive trees which are supposed to be 2,000 years old, and I believe it. They certainly look it. I took some colored shots of the garden with these old olive trees surrounded by flowers, and if I gave the right exposure, the slides should be very pretty. Inside the church we saw again the fancy paintings, the multi-colored ceiling, the stained windows, the marble floors and the very rich altars. In front of the main altar and surrounded by a railing was a rock about four or five feet square on which they claim Christ was kneeling to pray when He was captured. -- Wilbert.

(To be continued.)

Our last event of the afternoon was a trip to Bethlehem, a town of about 7,000, located about six or eight miles south of Jerusalem. Bethlehem is a hillside town and all around it are high but smoothly rolling hills, quite stony and rocky but dotted with olive, citrus fruit, and nut groves. Just north of the town we saw the broad deep valley in which the shepherds were herding their flocks when they noticed the Star shining over the inn where Christ was born. And looking at this again was much more impressive to me than the large "Chruch of Nativity" which now covered the spot where Christ was born. This church has the same characteristics of the other churches I've described, and in the middle of it is a beautiful lighted altar below which is a 10-inch silver star encircled with the words "Here Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary." A few feet away is a small room in one corner of which is a stone "manger," now all lined with marble and looking more like a fireplace, with oil lamps hanging down in it and a little railing in front of it. Certainly diffferent from what one might expect.

We spent a few minutes in a couple of souvenir shops outside the Church of Nativity, and then climbed in our truck and drove back to the YMCA in Jerusalem. After fighting off the souvenir salesmen until the rest of the gang arrived, we headed our convoy back toward Camp Tel Litwinsky and the Yarden hotel in Tel Aviv--tired but very glad the opportunity to see it all, even though I didn't quite agree with the way some of the spots are being "preserved for posterity."

This was Thursday evening, and we arrived at the Yarden around 6:30 p.m. Wily and I cleaned up, located the others, and made plans for the evening. It was suggested that we first go down along the beach and watch one of those beautiful Mediterranean sunsets, so I grabbed my color camera with high hopes of a classic sunset slide--but even though we started out while the sun still appeared high enough, it dropped so rapidly that by the time we reached a vantage point it was "down under," so after watching the breakers and listening to the surf for a while, we proceeded to Pills' terrace overlooking the sea, a combination restaurant and night club. We had a tasty fish dinner and listened to the music--and then home and to bed by 11:30.

Friday Wily and I were up again at 6:00 in order to eat breakfast and be ready to leave for the Sea of Galilee by 7:00. the truck took us again to Camp Tel Litwinsky for the enlisted men and enlisted women, and then we headed north. The trip to Galilee was even more scenic from an agricultural point of view than the trip to Jerusalem. Of course it was longer, being approximately 100 miles each way. We saw the same changes of terrain that we saw before but on a more extensive scale. In the level farming country, the fields of wheat and barley were larger; in the rolling country the hills were higher, and the valleys broader; in the rocky country the ground was more barren. First came the orchard district, and most of it could have been placed in Southern Illinois. Some orchards were enclosed with barbed wire fence (the first I've seen since leaving the states) and others with beautiful rows of tall slender evergreens.

And then, as we passed down our macadamized road (which is the prevalent type all over the Holy Land and is quite good) the orchards were replaced by the large relatively flat wheat and barley fields with now and then a piece of corn or a plowed area mixed in. I noticed as we went along here a very modern looking high-tension line built on towers almost as large as those around home. The interesting thing to note was the fact that in some of the fields we saw the people (mostly women) harvesting with hand sickles and piling it up in little bundles, while in another field we saw a man just finishing up with a combine and tractor; then, too, we saw several smaller fields being plowed with the old-fashioned wooden plow, drawn by oxen, while in another place we saw a John Deere tractor and two-bottom plow standing in the field.

To back-track a bit while on the subject of harvesting, between Camp Tel Litwinsky and the Lydda airport, we saw a large yard in which grain was being threshed in the way you read about in history books. Scattered around the yard were piles of the cut grain in different stages of being threshed. In one spot was a stack of loosely piled grain which as yet hadn't been touched. Next to it another pile had been leveled out into a smooth even layer of about two feet in depth ready to be worked on. And a few feet farther was a third pile, resembling the second, that was actually being threshed by having a sled holding a boy pulled over it by a horse. And there were other places in the yard where the process was completed, and the natives were sifting the grain out of the straw and chaff with pitchforks. It was all very colorful and would have made some interesting pictures but the truck was always full of people in a hurry to get some place else when we passed the yard, so I didn't ask to stop.

Back on the road to Galilee, as we passed by the broad, almost level farming country, we entered more of the very hilly land with the stony, rocky soil similar to what we saw outside Jerusalem. There were very few trees in this part of the country and the hillsides contained very little vegetation except on the flat surfaces of the natural terraces where grass and weeds and an occasional patch of ripening wheat grew. This was more of a grazing district, and we saw many large flocks of sheep and the black, long-eared goats that looked from a distance like Angus cattle. They were usually tended by wandering Arabs, probably Bedouins, who lived in long, very low, black tents that appeared to be made out of gunny sack material. Most of the tents didn't appear to be more than three feet off the ground but they were quite long and quite broad.

All of a sudden we went through a sort of pass in the hills and entered a long, broad level valley called the "Plains of Esdraelon." These plains are quite historic and are the site of so many famous battles dating back to may years before Christ that they are called the greatest battlefield in the world. Ahead of us we saw Mount Tabor, Mount Carmel, and Mount Moriah. And far off to the left, on a hillside and just barely to be seen, our guide pointed out the town of Nazareth. Soon after entering this area we stopped at the small town of Afula for a 15-minute break and a morning snack of hamburgers and orange juice. I also tried some ice cream, but it had more water than cream in it, so I wasn't too favorably impressed.

We passed through the Plains of Esdraelon and went into rolling hilly country again, but this time the hills although higher were more gently sloping and the valleys much deeper and broader. It was here we found some of the most beautiful long distant views. The valleys were all farmed, and when the road wound up over the top of a hill, we could see the checkerboard layout of the fields below and all of the various colors from dark green orchards to ripening grain. We found this kind of terrain all the rest of the way to the Sea of Galilee which we saw at last as we passed over the top of a hill. The sea was very pretty, a deep blue, and in the distance about 35 miles to the north, we saw the snow-capped peak of Mt. Hermon.

The Sea of Galilee is actually not a sea but a fresh water lake formed by a widening of the River Jordan as it flows south toward the Dead sea.

We immediately drove down to the home of the retired 80-year-old former Methodist missionary and YMCA worker, Dr. Harte, who acts as a host to all of the Red Cross "tourists" making the trip to the Sea of Galilee (about three groups per week). He gave us a little introductory talk, showed us around his little museum, and then suggested we take a swim in the lake. We had been forewarned and so came prepared with suits. And what a swim it was. We all hated to leave the water, it was so warm and perfectly clear. A warm spring bubbled up right in the center of the area in which we swam, and it kept the temperature of the water just right for swimming.

After the swim we went back to Dr. Harte's terrace overlooking the lake and had a lunch of sandwiches and chocolate milk while Dr. Harte took us on an "eye" tour of the important spots around the lake.

Dr. Harte's home is on the western shore, about one-third of the way from the north end. He pointed out that if we were to run a line from his house almost directly east to the other side, we would have to the left the northern one-third of the lake, and around it practically all of the places made famous by Christ. In other words, the northern shore was the only area around the lake (Sea of Galilee) with which Christ was closely associated.

Looking east directly across the lake from Dr. Harte's home we saw the slopes where authorities believe the multitudes were fed. And to the north, near where the River Jordan flows into the lake, we saw the various spots where the ancient city of Capernaum (the town where Christ did most of his preaching) may have been located, and just behind this area, the slopes where Christ spoke the Beatitudes to his disciples. To our right, also on the western shore of the lake was the city of Tiberius, which seemed to be a thriving city and more modern than some of the others in this vicinity.

As we left Galilee I saw the "best yet" as far as Palestinian agriculture was concerned: A hay baler actually at work in a field along the road.

On the way back to Tel Aviv we traveled a slightly different route, which took us farther west, through Nazareth, Christ's home town. It is a small town and very old looking, built on the side of a hill. The houses are for the most part the single story, flat-topped kind, made of stone. We saw many sheep and goats wandering through the narrow streets, and many native women balancing large water jugs on their heads. Again, the historic site pertaining to Christ and his family was covered with a church. Underneath the church, however, the cave and the connecting tunnels were left almost intact, and we went through these, seeing the big underground water reservoir that had been cut out of rock, and the cave in which Joseph and Mary and Jesus lived after their return from Egypt. Above the cave, in the area where the church now stands, Joseph had his carpenter shop, the one in which Christ worked as a boy. --Wilbert.

(To be concluded)

After Nazareth our next stop was our half-way point of Afula where we took another 15-minute break. While here a rather interesting thing happened. I walked across the railroad track to get a picture of Mt. Moriah which was off in the distance, and as I went by the station, a Palestinian military policeman with a big black triangular shaped hat and carrying a rifle yelled out, "What part of the States are you from, Buddy?" I told him, and he answered in perfect English, "Im from Chester, Pa. Just came over here about six years ago. I still have a sister and some other relatives living in Philadelphia." So I stopped and talked with him awhile.

Saturday was a quiet day. We decided not to take any tours, instead to spend the day in Tel Aviv and on the beach. We walked around the town in the morning, but since Saturday is the Jewish "Sunday," we found no stores open. We did find one place open called the American Milk Bar, and there we indulged in a peach sundae and a banana split. The ice cream didn't measure up to the good old American stuff, but it was the nearest to it that we'd had in a long time, so we really enjoyed it.

Saturday night we ate in the hotel--Wiley, Mrs. Chas. G. Walker (American Red Cross) from Texas, and myself. We had met Mr. Walker a day or two before, and enjoyed his company a lot. He was a very friendly easy going man, with lots of vitality, and he talked like a Texan. After dinner, we listened to some after-dinner music at the hotel for a while, and then made our way to the American Milk Bar again for some ice cream before going to bed.

Sunday morning we spent around town again, buying a few souvenirs, and looking without success for a place to buy film. Then in the afternoon we took a tour to the Jewish Communal Farm (near Tel Aviv), called "Givath Brenner." It was founded in 1928 on the area of land which was actually desert that had on it not even a blade of grass, so they claim. All the water had to be hauled in on donkeys. Finally the soil responded, and by 1933 the Settlement was ready to receive refugees from Nazi-persecuted territory. Today the people (numbering 1400) living on the farm come from all European countries. The land is owned by the Jewish national Fund, which buys land with funds provided by Jews all over the world, and thus the land becomes the property of the Jewish people. The Jewish National Fund leases the land to settlers--in this case, to the settlement as a whole. The land, buildings, machinery, livestock, in fact all the property is owned by the settlement. No individual owns anything. It is governed by general meetings of all members, during which committees are appointed to organize every branch of the life of the community. All clothing, housing, food, medical care, schooling, entertainment, etc., is provided at communal expense, and each person is given 20 pounds (approximately $80) spending money each year. There are now 100 of these collective settlements in Palestine, with a total population of 28,000. Membership is voluntary, and also a person may leave when he chooses.

On this particular farm the main crops are citrus fruits, tomatoes, dairy products, and marmalade made in the settlement factory from oranges and lemons. All in all they've done a good job and have come a long way toward changing the land from desert to land that will produce something. And the people seem to thrive on it, especially the children, who are raised by the settlement sort of in the same way that children in the States are sometimes raised "scientifically." The ones we saw on this farm were all very healthy, lively, and well-fed. However, I wouldn't like living that way myself, and I think the rest of the gang on the tour felt the same way. There seemed to be a lack of individual initiative for one thing. There was really no reason for anyone to take any pride in his work, and we noticed around the farm that, although they seemed to be producing quite well, they didn't care much about how the place looked. The buildings looked run down and there were piles of trash lying around here and there, and the roads through the settlement hadn't been improved very much. Their children seemed to be their biggest pride and they really did seem to be doing a fine job in that respect--though again I wouldn't care to be brought up that way myself.

I met an interesting fellow on the way to the farm that day. He was an enlisted man sitting next to me in the truck, and I had noticed that he knew something about the farm. So I struck up an acquaintance with him. when I asked him where he lived, he replied that he had no home in the States, but that his folks were running a dairy farm outside of Fairbanks, Alaska. From then on we had quite a field day discussing the relative merits and demerits of Alaska.

Sunday night a 22-piece army band from Casablanca played at the Garden, and the Red Cross furnished dinner and dancing partners for those who wanted to go. Wily and I accepted and escorted two of the local belles to the affair. We had an enjoyable evening, and were in bed by midnight. Chaplain Phinney, who was a great lover of classical music but couldn't stand this "modern noise" had rather a hard time of it trying to sleep in his third floor room. The band was outside on the terrace, and "that noise" carried perfectly to the third floor.

Monday morning we were up again bright and early for our second trip to the Holy City, Jerusalem. Again Chaplain Phinney, Wily and I stuck together. When we arrived in Jerusalem, Phinney, Wily and I took off by ourselves to see the native sections of the old city, and a very interesting time we had browsing through the narrow streets and looking in the bazaars and shops. In one particular shop we saw a curious thing. Right in the middle of a showcase, among some Oriental bracelets and rings, was one bar of American Lux soap. We took several pictures, bought a few souvenirs, and then went back to the YMCA for lunch.

After lunch Wily and I took a cab to Bethlehem. I wanted to get a color shot of the valley of Bethlehem and also one of Rachel's tomb. We drove into the town first and bought some Crusaders' crosses and some miniature Psalm books, and then went back out for the pictures. Rachel's tomb is (I believe) around 3,000 years old. It stands alongside the road running from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, and looks just like it's  pictures. Inside I bought a Jewish prayer book and a Jewish "Mazuzza" for souvenirs. The Jewish man in charge (may have been a rabbi) autographed the book in Hebrew...Then back to the "Y" to sit around until time for the trucks to go back to Tel Aviv.

Monday night we spent at the Yarden. The next day we packed, paid our bill, caught the bus to camp Tel Litwinsky, and then to the Lydda airport. Again we had that well-known wait, but finally we got off the ground. Wily was riding back as an extra crew member so was sitting with me, and during the trip gave me several interesting pointers about airplanes.

We landed in Cairo about 12:45, and then after checking in at the terminal, another interesting coincidence took place. I went over to the finance building to exchange my Palestinian money for Egyptian money, and was just leaving when a sargeant walked up and asked where he'd seen me before. It was none other than Sgt. Rutledge who used to be with me in Company B of the 30th Battalion at Crowder. I hadn't seen him since early March, '43 when I left Company B for the prep school area in Crowder. He looked just the same.

As far as the leave was concerned, it was about over. Wily happened to be coming into town so we caught a ride with a laundry truck and about 30 minutes later I was again at the Elite Pension, in Cairo. At 4:00 p.m. I went to work.

We both agreed the trip was well worth while, that we felt better on returning than we did when we left, that we had met a lot of swell people, and that we had learned a lot. We also agreed that for the first time we had an idea of relative distances in regard to the Holy Land. We realized for the first time in just how small an area all the stories of the Bible took place.

But to both of us the most impressive thing about Palestine, other than its religious interests, was its cleanliness, its invigorating climate, its fresh air, its cleaner and more colorful natives, and its rich farming country...After Egypt, it was almost like a trip back to the States.

(The end.)

Dear Hope and Household: It has been quite some time since I've written to you, but I'm telling you that at times a self-condemnation of mind and spirit has come over me, as the Household has been of keen interest. I'm happy to tell you that through it good friends and most interesting pen pals have come to me. Those were most thrilling and interesting travel letters which were written by your son Wilbert. How very, very much we've appreciated and enjoyed them! When Wilbert's letter, written when he flew from Florida to northern Africa, was printed, we considered it very choice. His descriptions were so vivid, in fact, I seemed to be going along with him.

I could hardly wait till the fourth and final letter about the Holy Land was printed, so I could send them all to a dear old lady in our little town of Claypool, Ind., who did visit the Holy Land 15 or 20 years ago. She had for years been a teacher in our town school and also the wife of our town's beloved doctor. She will return the clippings and they will then find a prominent place on the pages of my travel scrap book. I wish I had a copy of the letter describing Wilbert's trip from Florida to Egypt, but I clipped my copy and sent it to my brother and family, who had a son who was a pilot doing duty overseas. On V-E day, May 8, his 21st birthday, a plane crash meant death for him and the entire crew. As yet none of us know any of the details, only they were buried in Holland and the chaplain will tell us more as opportunity allows.

How we thank you, Hope, for your interest and concern for so many of us who are handicapped physically and shut in so much of the time. If your column meant nothing to others, it would be very valuable for us alone. I'd like to tell you by name all those who have been kind and thoughful of me through the months and years since I've been one of the Household's number. How I'd like to greet personally many of the friends of our group. I hope that you and each of your dear ones may be in health and that your sons may soon be at home, ready to throw their energies with might and main into reconstructing this war-torn world. May God bless and keep us all! -- Mrs. Arthur Reece, Claypool, Ind.

Dear Hope: The summer is past and autumn far spent and yet not a word of that promised write-up of Hope and her family. We have lost track of her baby boy. Hope, your daughter must now be the same age you were when you started out on this long adventure of keeping peace and happiness among the Household writers. If I'm not mistaken, the new poultry editor must be a neighbor to you. Do all the good people live in one spot? The pictures make me think you are sisters or at least the same age. Thanks for all your untiring efforts and as a reward may have peace of mind and soul happiness. -- Claddy, of Illinois.

There just hasn't been room for that write-up! We have even held back some excellent travel stories for a slack time that has never materialized, and you may have noticed that it takes some weeks to get a letter into print, but -- After all, it's Christmas! and whose column is this?

One of your sentences startled me. It hadn't occurred to me before that Ruth is, as you say, almost exactly at the age and stage of life that Hope was when she took the helm of the Household. And she has three children, just the age ours were then: a girl of 7, a boy of 4 and a boy of 3. I wonder, among the several readers whose families corresponded with ours then, how many happened to have grandchildren grouped the same? There were several--one was even another "Jim's Wife" -- and in spite of myself, I think of them still with a lapful of babies, even though mine are all grown up. But Ruth's life is considerably different than ours was then, for she lives in town instead of on the farm and she had baby sitters and diaper services and other modern innovations that we never dreamed of. And so far she has never met up with those "seven lean years" that we all faced back there in the early thirties. Remember? We even made "depression flowers" of cinders and iodine.

The two older boys are on their own, having finished college and done their stint in the war; neither one married and neither one farming, though they are both in jobs related to agriculture, one in farm management and one in educational work for a big co-operative. The postscript son, Joe, is off to college for his freshman year, and his course is not even related to farming, in spite of all his 4-H and FFA enthusiasms. He is enamored with chemical engineering.

So our family has waxed and waned, and we are alone again as we were in the fall of 1916, but considerably richer in worldly goods, experience, memories and blessings. The crops this year are with us as with many of you -- yields are down but price and quality are up. Farming, as one of you once so wisely stated, is a hard but happy life. Our greatest wish right now is that, somehow, everything could be distributed so that everyone, everywhere, could be as comfortable and contented as we are on this American midwest farm. -- Hope.

Christmas!

It's Christmastide. Let's clean the slate
Of every year-old grudge or hate.
Let's pin a sprightly sprig of holly
Upon dull care and melancholy.
Let's reach out friendly bands and grip
Each other's in warm comradeship.

This world's a pleasant place. Let's smile
In mellow retrospect awhile.
Let's feign we're young again, elate,
With hearts attuned for any fate.
Let's sing the old songs, ever new,
When we were heroes on review,
Before the fairies yet had brought
The stars and garters that we sought.

Ah, me, some gentles are not here
Who glorified the yesteryear;
Whose jocund jests and merry quips
Were ever ready on their lips.
Let's sing the old songs, ever new,
Then here's remembrance, hale and true,
To those forever passed from view.
Lay wreaths of holly where they sat.
And tender tears, remembering that
It's Christmas time.

-- (Author unkknown.)

Memory Gem

What e'er the hidden future brings
Is helped by hands divine.
Through all the tangled web of things;
There runs a clear design.
What, though the skies are dark today,
Tomorrow's may be blue,
when every cloud has rolled away,
God's providence shines through.

--Selected.

Dear Hope: Every time some one in the Household comments on how good the column is I wonder what they would say if they knew what it was like back in the days when you not only edited, but wrote for the rest of us. Maybe I enjoyed it so much because our children were small when yours were little, too--and your comments and suggestions fitted in with my problems and meant a lot.

Once you said you tried to do "one permanent thing each day," if it was only to drive a nail, low down, where the children could reach and hang up their coats. I've thought of that so many times, and have taken time to do some small constructive thing.

Another time you spoke of how hard it was to do the regular weekend work when the children came home from school in town on Friday night -- and had all their various interests to see to. And how it might pay just to rearrange the week's work so when they were home their needs came first.

It does work better, and I've thought of you often as I dusted and put the house in order and did some special baking before I went to town for the girls.

Do you still have fresh apple sauce for threshers? -- though I suppose nowadays it's only a combine -- and the excitement of the harvest has dimmed for you as for us -- though I honestly like this way best.

Well, anyway, I'm glad I was young when you were. It was a pleasant, helpful association. Good as the Household is now, it's different -- or I am.

I've always wondered - did your family make you stop writing about them? I can see how they could object to living in a gold fish bowl, but I'm glad I had a peek before you drew the curtain.

Do you know anyone now who makes blankets, using old wool scraps and wool clothes that have passed the make over stage? If so, could I have the address? -- Esther Kay, Nebraska.

Hope's Comment

Your letter was really a masterpiece of friendship. It brought tears to my eyes to remember those "dear dead days beyond recall". Those were sweet hours! We really wouldn't have time stand still, or go backward, but a letter like yours brings back for a little while the poignant preciousness of them.

I fill up the time nowadays, as no doubt you do, and all the other mothers who were young along with us, with one thing and another, but oh, how brimming over with busyness we used to be when the children were small! I get a taste of it occasionally now (do you?) when the grandchildren are left in my care, but it isn't the same. Now, we always know the exertion is just temporary--in a few hours, or at most a few days, we know the responsibility will be off of us and back on the mother. But then we were the all-in-all of our little flocks. We knew there was no relief, no second and third shift of workers to take over. The babies were our job 24 hours a day.

Do you remember how desperate we used to feel sometimes, wondering if life would race entirely past us before they grew up? How lucky we were to have such full lives. Even through all the depression and everything, those were happy years, and what tension there was was real and natural and normal. I wouldn't have missed it for worlds.

Thanks for bringing it all back. Today I'm alone in the house and you have given me a tender hour of retrospect that might have been missed if your letter hadn't touched it off.

And now for your question. Under separate cover a list of wool firms is being mailed you -- but whether they are all still in business since the war hasn't been checked. Perhaps the readers will have some newer information to share. -- Hope.

Dear Hope: My first baby, a boy, came a few months before your Joey arrived. I had so much trouble getting our baby started. When you wrote about yours, it helped me and I looked forward to that as I would have to my mother's suggestions if she could have offered them daily. And so many things about teaching Ruth to cook -- I have the clipping about baking pies and many others.

When mother suggested the boys wear their mittens to 4-H club meeting (but they did not need them), daddy didn't suggest, "You go back to the house and get your mittens!" Ruth's eighth grade graduation and the drive through the wooded road. Oh! you had a clever way of telling us things that we wanted to know. You have a sense of humor that added just the amount of spice to make me happy.

I shall add this comment of Hope's to my list and the greeting card and group pictures of long ago. I know you briefly commented on the members of your family about holidays, but I want you to write like you used to write.

Frankly, I felt sorry when Ruth married so young and babies kept her from accompanying her husband when he went traveling. How many children have they? I'm sure it is well that way. She will still be young when her children are grown. Do write comments more often. --Missourian.

Hope's Comment

Ruth has three children now, a girl and two boys, spaced almost exactly as our first three were, and just about the age now that ours were when you Householders and I first became acquainted. Like you, I feel that young marriages are perhaps best. Of course, Ruth was not overly young as brides go around here -- she was 22 and had been through college a year and a half. But since the war disrupted so many lives, my feeling has grown that it is probably better to marry young, even if you have to be separated by war or have to stay home with the babies, than to wait and see opportunities for meeting prospective partners diminish.

College years are best for meeting interesting young people of the opposite sex and choosing a mate. After that -- well, a woman teacher, for example, has few chances to meet men socially, and many jobs throw men almost exclusively among men during work hours. Maybe busy, burdensome, strenuous and complicated years are preferable to loneliness later.

As for the traveling, Ruth couldn't have gone with her husband, babies or no babies, for he traveled by air on high war priorities. Maybe it was lucky she had the chilren to keep her occupied. We seem to hear a lot about war marriages broken either by death or maladjustment, but the bulk of them are going on to success, on a pattern that seems strange and new to us older ones, with the youngsters facing up cheerfully to whatever situations this old world presents to them; just as couples in pioneer days met the particular hardships of their time, or those of the middle ages theirs, or, for that matter, the cave men and women theirs. Youth always seems to have the audacity and resiliency to meet whatever there is, and do what has to be done. -- Hope.

Memory Gem

The seed burs all with laughter crack,
On deatherweed and jimson.
And leaves that should be dressed in black
Are all decked out in crimson.

Don't talk to me of solemn days
In autumn's time of splendor,
Because the sun shows fewer rays
And these grow slant and slender.

Why, it's the climax of the year,
The highest tide of living.
Till naturally its bursting cheer
Just melts into Thanksgiving!

Paul Laurence Dunbar.

By a startling coincidence this Memory Gem was selected at random from a generous supply -- there was no particular significance in mind, it was just something that would do. But it was less than half an hour later as I sat here at my desk on routine work that put an end to all that had happened in a life of over 80 years, my husband's mother.

Our family has been singularly free from tragedy, and this, though it is a shock, is not a tragedy; it is just nature. What came between birth and death for this individual was an active and productive life, and she had lived some 20 years longer than any of her immediate family. Of late years her interests had been gradually narrowing, and for a year and a half she had had a full time nurse and was able to do little more than eat and sleep. Tonight she was put to bed as usual, after a day not much different than customary, and after a while just stopped breathing.

In many ways she had unusual good fortune in her life. She had two children, a boy and a girl, and they both lived near enough to see her every day. She had five grandchildren who all grew up here -- I used to think how nice it was that our children had one grandmother to see every day, and one to visit on trips. All the grandchildren are married but one, and she got to attend each wedding. All but Ruth were home at Christmas, and the youngest of the five great-grandchildren, a toddler, 1 year old, was just the right height to stand beside her couch and say, "Da da da" in a very solemn tone, and she was well enough to smile at him without moving her head and say, "Da da da to you!"

Sixty-two years she spent in the same home, all her married life, yet the last few months she kept asking to be taken "home." Whether she was thinking of her childhood home or a home to come no one could tell. She was buried on her 85th birthday.

It is not an easy blow for her 87-year-old husband but he has had a long time to prepare, and he knows the parting will not be long. Just a short time ago at a neighborhood funeral, as we stood outside the church when the casket was carried out, another neighbor, about his age, stepped up to him and said softly, "One more gone. You and I will be among the next," and grandpa answered, "Yes, that's right." They didn't know anyone was listening; there was no tone of fear or worry, just an acceptance of fact and a sort of quiet peace in their tones.

The four grandsons and two old friends were pallbearers.

It is odd, but in my 50-odd years of life this is nearest I have been to an actual scene of death; life had probably been gone a quarter of an hour when we arrived. And another odd fact occurs to me: For my youngest child, Joe, now 21, this will be a year he will never forget. Wtihin a few months he became of age, was best man at a friend's wedding, was pallbearer for his grandmother, and will enter the army.

It is three in the morning. The doctor has gone, and the undertaker. The children and relatives have been notified. Jim has gone to stay at his father's to soften the loneliness of the first night without her, and it is time everyone was abed.

Sleep, and if life was bitter to thee, pardon,
If sweet, give thanks; thou hast no more to live;
And to give thanks is good, and to forgive.

Content thee, whosoe'er, whose days are done:
There lies not any troublous things before,
Nor sight nor sound to war against thee more,
For whom all winds are quiet as the sun,
All waters as the shore.

-- Hope.

One of today's letters mentions a family bulletin board as being a help. Our family concurs in the idea. Each family can adapt the board to its own special needs. Ours is just a blackboard hung in the back hall right near the telephone and the back door.

On it we not only leave messages for one another but the feed man, relatives and friends who may drop by, telephone messages, record of callers, the daily egg record, or comments on farm work -- all these find a place from time to time.

Maybe I'll scribble "Ask me about oysters," or "News about Duke," and when Jim comes in to dinner, there'll be a reminder to tell him some joke or bit of gossip or news that he should know about but which I might have forgotten to mention. Or Jim will make a more or less cryptic report on some repair he has been asked to make, like "Some people aren't very mechanical. Thermostat needed a quarter-turn." Of course there are lots of "don't forgets" posted on the board, to catch the eye of the appropriate persons as they enter or leave.

For us, blackboard and chalk serves the purpose. Some places you might prefer a cork board for thumb-tacking notices, clippings, pictures. Ruth likes that kind. Familes with children of various ages find innumerable uses for a bulletin board. One child has to be out at Scout meeting, another at 4-H, one at high school band practice, mother shopping perhaps, dad in the field, -- but a bulletin board will keep them all posted about everybody's whereabouts, and about letters received, news of neighbors, plans for activities.

You all ought to try the system and see how much reminding and repeating it saves. -- Hope.

In reorganizing furniture and moving Jim's father to our house to live, we are coming across many an old letter and book and keepsake that sets us talking of years gone by. Often we refer to the printed geneology of the family to trace references to past generations.

One letter that held our attention today ws written nearly a hundred years ago by Jim's grandfather. He and a brother had come to Illinois in 1849, but Grandfather James had gone back to New Jersey in 1854 when called by the death of his father. This letter was explaining to Brother Joe the family plans. Instead of having a sale, or "vendue," they had decided to run the farm one more year, making a home for the mother. They told of the acreage of corn and oats and winter wheat they would have, mentioned buying another yoke of oxen, quoted the opinion of Aunt Sidney and Aunt Rebecca (they didn't approve) and so on. As it turned out, they did stay one more year in the east, then the whole family came out to Illinois in 1855 and have been here ever since.

But from details of the family we got to talking of farming methods and how much more work it would take to put in and harvest the grain in those days, and from that we went on to the development of machinery for small grain, from the cradle of old to the combine of today. Wonder how many of the readers will remember some of the machines Grandfather told us of, or who knows of others.

He doesn't remember the cradle except by hearing talk of it. He thinks one man cradled and another raked out enough grain for a bundle and tied it. But he does remember the Foye reaper, a sort of sickle and reel, with a man on a platform to rake off a bundle. The Foye was pulled by two horses, and a boy rode one horse and guided the team, as there was no place on the machine for the driver. Next came the dropper, on which you could mechanically trip a bundle, or whatever amount you thought would be enough for a bundle. Along about this time they used to "bundle by stations." Men would be put around the field at correct intervals, and the machine would trip or drop a bundle at each station as it came along. Then came the self-rake, and after that the March harvester, where the grain was cut and elevated something as it is on a binder, with a platform at the side and a man at each end. First one, then the other, would pull off enough grain for a bundle, put it on a table and tie. (Grandfather James invented a bundle carrier for this machine, so that several bundles could be carried along and then dumped in windrows.)

And then came that marvelous advance, the self-binder, which lasted many years as the standard harvesting machine for wheat, oats, rye, barley, clover for seed, soybeans, and so on -- with refinements and improvements added from time to time. It is still used some places but in our neighborhood it is practically eliminated by the combine. But Granfather says, "If you ask me, nothing can beat that self-binder. Sure, your combine saves some operations, and is very quick and easy, but you had better oats with the self-binder!"

Wonder if the youngsters who can't remember back of the combine and think of the self-binder as an antique will agree with him? I dare say, they think the oats we get now are plenty good enough. -- Hope.

It seems to me there is entirely too much frivolous talk among men about the frailties of women; for instance, about their propensity to move the furniture around without notice. Many irrefutable arguments could be advanced in favor of these frequent changes -- such as, good for the furniture, good for the floor, good for the rugs and paint, good for the morale -- but it is useless to contend with the illogical minds of men. Here is just one example of what a woman encounters when she tries to brighten encounters [sic] slightest deviation from routine.

When it became necessary to move grandfather's furniture to our house, there had to be some changes made. He has a big desk, and he has to have it conveniently located, since he is still active in insurance work, farmer's elevator and other affairs. But our office is not large enough for three desks. One had to be put into the dining room, and on account of location, lighting and such considerations, it was decided we'd better move Jim's to the new place and put grandfather's in the office. So far, so good. That was a man's plan, carried out by the men, hence incontrovertibly reasonable and logical.

Now before we go farther, let me impress upon you one fact: For 15 years or more Jim's desk had been left in the same location to the inch. After every housecleaning it was restored to its exact place. My own desk, at the other end of the room, had been shifted a bit here and there, and back again, and arrangement of correlated accessories had undergone trivial, if frequent, alterations. But Jim's desk had known this one transfer, and this one alone, as I say, for more than 15 years. Yet -- can you believe it? -- a few days later I happened to remark, half to myself, while we were doing the supper dishes, that I believed when housecleaning time arrived I would move my own desk and its miscelany of files and supplies to the dining room and his back, to leave the office entirely to the men. Jim's mouth fell open in utter astonsishment, and he nearly dropped my favorite cut-glass jelly dish.

"Move it?" he expostulated. "Move it? For heaven's sake, why? Eternal change!"

Isn't that just like a man? -- Hope.

Memory Gem

Some folks dream of becoming something; others stay awake and are something.

It will be 21 years this April since our "little sister" arrived but due to some mistake somewhere along the line had to be hastily rechristened "Joseph Sidney." Now it has happened again! Our oldest son's wife has another boy. The doctor had confidently predicted a girl and she was to be named Margaret Lynn. He had also predicted she wouldn't arrive for another week. In fact, he was right in only one prediction, it was not twins. And with all the boys' names there are, we are all too much surprised and bewildered to select enough for this husky babe.

The world is certainly going to the dogs. Six grandchildren and only the first one a girl. What kind of a law of averages is that? Write to your congressmen -- this must be amended! -- Hope.

Vanity plagues the feminine contingent at an early age. Our only grand-daughter, Caroline, now 10, has broken her wrist; hardly a break, either, but enough injury to require an X-ray and a day's hospitalization. They put her to bed, took her temperature every three hours, gave her pills and shots and then an anesthetic while the bone was set, and even made her ride downstairs to the taxi in a wheel chair. "I dont' get it!" she told the taxi driver. "All I had was a broken arm." She has been home from school all week, going to the doctor every other day and lying around the house with the arm elevated much of the time in between.

When it was finally decided she needed the day in the hospital, she really enjoyed the experience which was her first of the kind. She got quite a kick out of all the hospital routine, and made friends with the other girls in the ward -- one had an operation on both eyes, another surgery on her throat which had been cut when she swallowed something sharp, etc.

But one thing really got her down and seemed the greatest indignity she had ever had thrust upon her. At bedtime that night she murmured, "I knew I'd have to have the hypo and all those other things, but why did I have to wear that horrible hospital gown!" -- Hope.

According to the latest national statistics, women for the first time in our country's history outnumber men. This sober statement reminds me of a parody my father used to sing: "Man wants but little here below, nor wants that little long; 'tis not with me exactly so, but 'tis so in the song."

We might paraphrase and say that women may outnumber men nationally, but without grandchildren 'tis not exactly so. When Timothy Allen arrived a fortnight ago, we called your attention to the disparity in our ratio -- only one granddaughter to five grandsons. Today we can announce that our second son and his wife are doing their best to conform to national statistics and to bring our family into better balance. As of 2:45 this morning (we were called by long-distance at 3:30 a.m.) they are the parents of a daughter, Karen Christine. (This child was supposed to be a boy, who would have been called Eric. But that's the way it goes.)

To summarize, our score stands thus: Seven grandchildren, two girls and five boys. Ruth and Phil have Caroline Lucile, Richard Stevenson and Mark Alden. Wilbert and Betty have Dennis Jobe, James Michael and Timothy Alan. Ernie and Inez have Karen Christine. Some of those names are typical of modern America, the melting pot of the world. We borrow names from all nationalities. Here we have quite a tinge of Irish and Scandinavian, two strains that don't happen to be in the family, actually, at all.

I'm thinking of those mothers with lapfuls of babies when "Hope took the helm," whose families grew up in the same era as ours, who used to write, "Our Jean is Ruth's age, we have two boys just as close together as Wilbert and Ernie, our Sam is only a year older (or younger) than Joe." How are all those youngsters now? And how many grandchildren have arrived? How does our score compare with yours?

To have a new grandchild is wonderful; to have two within a month is notable. But more than that would be an anti-climax. You will be relieved to know that no more are imminent.

Like all the others, the two new ones are bonny babies. Emerson said, "The difference between the wise and the unwise is that the latter wonders at what is unusual; the wise man wonders at what is usual." The never-ending miracle of babies is that they are practically all perfect. When you think what infinite ways their complicated little mechanisms could go wrong, you are terrified, and you are humble with awe that so seldom anything does. -- Hope.

Memory Gem

I can't understand why they call money "dough." Dough is something that sticks to your fingers.

When we get depressed by the moaning about the high cost of living and the demands of all sections of the economy for more money, it does us good to meditate on at one young couple we know. The unions cry, "We must have six days' pay for five days' work!" The very way they express their demands rubs us the wrong way. Why should anyone get something for nothing? If their work is worth more than they are getting, they should have more pay per hour, but never pay for hours they didn't work. They claim they can't make ends meet, they are being ground down by the capitalists who are making phenomenal profits. Probably it is true that some people are making more than their share. But the people who find it hard to get along might take a lesson from this young couple we speak of, who find inner resources of contentment and make themselves happy on whatever they have.

This niece of ours and her husband have been married about three years. He teaches history at the university and is working on his doctor's degree. Anybody familiar with that situation knows that he is not paid at the rate of a bricklayer or miner, yet we have never heard these youngsters make one remark about not being able to make ends meet. They don't have a car nor television nor lavish wardrobes nor a lot of furniture and expensive gadgets. They spend very little on movies and nothing at all on liquor and night clubs, tobacco and a lot of things that are essential to some familes. They love books and poetry and art and music, and any college campus is so rich in those items that they have all they want practically free. She doesn't work outside the home, though she is qualified to get a job that would bring in more cash, but instead, by choice, she just keeps house and makes a career of having a happy home. When they entertain, it is done so cheerfully, yet so simply, that there is no strain, financially or otherwise.

When a lot of relatives happened to gather in town at one time last summer, she entertained us all at tea. She had us in relays because we couldn't all get into her two-room apartment at once and anyway she didn't have enough cups to go around. She just washed up the cups between groups and re-set her pretty table and served just tea and some little anise-drop cookies which were made from a new recipe she had discovered. When she had us for dinner, she served braised oxtail, in such a happy manner that it tasted better than a four-dollar steak. She buys what is cheapest at the market and then hunts through her myriad cook books for a way to make it tasty. She buys her fresh vegetables at closing time Saturday night and gets bargains that way. When they run short of money, if they ever do, they don't borrow from her mother who lives near, or go into debt in any way, they just get along and enjoy what they have till pay day comes.

This campus on the prairies provides only the simplest natural recreation, no mountains to climb, no ski runs, no lakes for boating or swimming. They can go to the parks for picnics in the summer and go walking in the country in fall or winter or spring, till their cheeks glow and their blood bounds with health. Indoors they can make conversation with friends that surpasses the interest of a card game.

It is true that in some circumstances you have to maintain a car and have to have cash for transportation and pay more rent than these people and can't get to any sort of recreation without it costing. We have plenty of sympathy for anyone who is distracted by financial worry and the stress of modern living, but it is nice to know that there are still some families able to enjoy the blithe and gentle life of "plain living and high thinking" that was characteristic of our New England forebears, still some who make a science of living and an art of life. -- Hope.

I was amused at the moving of the desks at your house. I can imagine that the entire change in set-up is getting on Jim's nerves. In a case I know of, where a wife died, the husband moved in with his son, but in a small comfortable house in the same yard. He cooked his two meals daily and ate one big meal with them. That way they all lived the privacy of their own lives. It can be nerve-wracking to have that privacy disrupted. I'm sure your husband was only giving vent to pent-up emotions at the radical change of affairs, at an age when quiet means a good deal to a person.

We, too, have a brand new grandbaby, a March baby, if you please. Did you know March babies are supposedly smarter than any other month's? This new one is our oldest son's third little son. -- Betty Glad, Missouri.

March Babies Bright

Sure, March babies are bright! Didn't our Ernie become valedictorian at Illinois, top guy in a graduating class of about 1200? But of couse September, January and April babies are pretty smart, too, for Ruth, Wilbert and Joe did almost as well . . . they say February babies are likely to be the most renowned, and in our big family we didn't have ary a February child till the boys both married February girls, and now Tim is a February, too. I dare say he will be president or a second Longfellow, or something in due time!

That plan of a separate house would be excellent in many cases, especially where the widower was comparatively young and able bodied, and where the son had a family still at home or a wife with poor health. In our case it really works out very well. No, it wasn't nerves, he doesn't have them. It was just Jim's perennial habit of teasing me about the frailties of womankind. He and his father are very congenial and similar in temperament and habits. Grandfather is well for his age, but hardly well enough to "do" for himself, even two meals a day. The biggest drawback about living here is that he has to climb stairs, for we have no first-floor bedroom. With our children all away, there is no complication. With reasonable health and freedom from other anxieties, most any household with two generations, especially if adult can make a stab at harmony; but where three generations try to live under one roof, especially with one of them 'teen age, there is a chance for plenty of friction.

Hope's Family Story

As to my people, we lived in Urbana, Ill., when we children were growing up, though five of the six of us were born in Nebraska when the folks homesteaded out there in the '90's. After coming back to their home town, Neoga, Ill., for a few years, they moved to the university town, where there was plenty of building going on, as my father was a carpenter and contractor. It was not only a good location for his trade, but a good place for a family to live, and he could send all to college there cheaper than sending us away. All six of us are married now and there are about 20 grandchildren on that side and, let me see, seven great grandchildren.

My father passed away very suddenly from cerebral hemorrhage on the morning of June 17, 1940, the day France fell. It happened that I was on jury duty in Chicago at the time, and all day our group discussed the war situation and the tragedy of France, and it was not till the end of the day when I went back to the hotel that I learned of the other tragedy. It was dark by the time I reached home and until I walked up on to the front porch I was in a daze, but then in the dark of the summer evening I could feel or see the gentle motion of the big porch swing in the breeze, the swing he built, the swing he sat in so many pleasant hours, where we children and our children used to cuddle up to him and visit. That is when the realization swept over me that he was gone.

To this day, when I am there and hear that special squeak of the springs, or through the big window see the corner of the swing in gentle motion, there is a sharp pang at the knowledge that it is only the wind and not he, there just out of sight in the old familiar place. He was strong as an oak, a bulwark of strength to us all, so calm and dependable and gentle. None of us could believe that one so rugged couldn't outlive our small and dainty mother. She could believe it least of all, and never recovered from the shock. Three years later she, too, left us. The day word came that the end was near for her, I was at the far end of the state at Ruth's. It was mid-afternoon by the time the visiting nieces and I got started to Urbana. Shocked and anxious, we could talk of nothing but our mother and grandmother. After a few minutes silence fell, and then one of the girls said softly, "did you notice that we all suddenly began saying 'she was' instead of 'she is,' as though she is already dead?" and sure enough by the time we reached home, we found she must have died at just about that time.

She was my ideal of the perfect lady. I never knew her to do a selfish, unkind or discourteous thing, nor to shirk a duty. She ruled by kindness, and she was in the finest sense a queen. And as for brains and talents, she had them in near-genious quality, but all that was diverted into raising her family. Even when her children were through college and working on their master's degrees, they would call to her to spell or define a word, it was so much quicker than using the encyclopedia. Her definitions were more concise and lucid than the dictionary itself, and we would trust her spellings and her pronunciations against the world. Our brother, the only boy in the family of six, the best brother one could have, had passed away in California from coronary thrombosis just three weeks before our mother's death, a great shock. We never told her but she seemed to sense it, they said, just before she died.

We were all struck by the coincidence, a little later in going through some family snapshots, that these three, the first of our big family to go, were caught together in a curious unworldly scene on the shores of the Pacific when the folks visited him a year or two before. Just those three, with foreground and background misted out with spray, standing together and looking with quiet but unfathomable expression out into the distance, almost as though they had heard some strange melody and had turned together to see something out beyond our ordinary time and space. -- Hope.

Dear Mother: This is a lovely place to spend the summer! The children are having a marvelous time. This Lake Wissota is the nicest of the Wisconsin lakes we have seen, big, clear, sandy bottomed. We swim two or three times a day off our own dock. There's a very nice island out in "big Wissota" -- meaning the main part of the lake (we are on a little sort of "appendix" of the lake, so that we have that little bay one direction from the house and the "big lake" the other direction). We have the use of a lovely new Dunphy boat this summer, 14-footer, stable and roomy, so it will take the whole family for supper on the island. We have a nice shady front yard and all the swimming, fishing, sunbathing and picnics anyone could want. We like the island for picnics and beach fires, but we have had typical fisherman's luck so far -- every place we try the fishing was wonderful last year!

Mark is having a fine summer with his various zoological specimens. He loves any kind of animals, and this summer has developed an intense interest in skeletons and anatomy. We know almost no one so far but the family next door, and they are very friendly. The doctor treats the boys as though they were his grandsons, especially Mark, and Mark makes regular treks over there to study a skull which the doctor has. "I'm so glad I know a man with a skull," he told me one night. The doctor's daughter has a horse which Mark adores. Fluffy, the hamster, is still doing fine. And Mark has a painted turtle named Homer which the doctor found along the road and brought to him. Mark's first idea was to keep it in the bathtub but Phil thought up a more novel and much more satisfactory solution: he drilled a little hole in the shell where it extends beyond the tail, soldered a ring into it, and in that way tied Homer to one post of our dock, where he can swim and sun himself to his heart's content. Mark's collection also includes a huge tadpole which the doctor also presented to him. It has two legs "sprouted" and is a good three inches long -- must be a bullfrog tadpole. In addition Mark has a goldfish in a bowl, and a minnow drying out on the sun porch roof in the hope that he can preserve its skeleton.

There are many birds nesting around, orioles, flickers, robins and so on, and dozens of friendly little gray squirrels playing around the yard all the time. In fact, we have all sorts of wild life except the fish we've been trying to track down. The water is still too cold and too high, the old-timers say, for Wissota is supposed to be a good fishing lake.

Now I must help Caroline with a sewing project and Rickie with a model airplane he's building (machines are to him what animals are to Mark). -- Ruth.

Dear Hope: Words fascinate me. They have such tremendous possibilities either for good or for evil. Quite often I encounter a word which is new to me, and I've noticed that when this happens, it is not long before I see it in print; perhaps several times in succession. Someone has said that if you use a new word correctly three times, it has become a part of your vocabulary. I like to keep a dictionary at hand.

A Spelling Bee

I never hear of a spelling bee without remembering a story from my Grandmother Kate. She was such a dramatic story teller that her anecdotes are still prize specimens in the family, still demanded for retelling, along with Mother Goose and the fairy tales by her great-great-grandchildren.

This particular spelling bee may have occurred in Ohio or in southern Illinois -- I forget whether she was a scholar or a grown-up at the time. But anyway it was a common matter to invite a competing school in for a bee, and as some noble spellers had been developed, the contests would be long and exciting. On this occasion a charming young lady stranger happened to accompany the visiting delegation and the young man teacher in grandmother's school was immediately impressed. You know the old saying, that a man assumes  that his girl has all his mother's virtues in addition to all her other charms. Well, in this case he assumed that the girl was an intellectual giant as well as a  beauty, and he invited her to do the honors of pronouncing the words.

The two lines formed as usual, and the young lady began with the short simple words so that the little children could be in on the fun. The lines thinned out a little, but long before the contest got into the final heat, she pronounced a brand-new word that sounded like Edge-wipe-it. The stunned spellers made try after try, combining our 26 letters in the weirdest ways and still no one got it right. They went down one after another and the bee was over before it really had begun. Even the young man teacher was so stunned that he couldn't intervene until it was too late. In those days there was never any coaching by the audience, nor help from the master of ceremonies. It wasn't good sportsmanship to ask for definitions or explanations. You either knew the word or you didn't; you spelled it right or you sat down. It was only later that any one thought it good form to inquire about this strange word, and the dimpling little pronouncer wrote it on the blackboard for all to see. She was quite thrilled that little-old-she had given out a word that put down two whole schools! It was apparently her first and probably her last intellectual triumph. Such a simple word, too -- just five letters. Ee, gee, wye, pea, tee -- Edge-wipe-it, Egypt.

Oh well, it wasn't the first time that sparkling blue eyes and shining curls and pearly teeth and dimples had missed a man. That sort of thing goes back at least as far as Cleopatra of good old Edge-wipe-it itself. -- Hope.

One of those peaceful, somnolent late-summer Sunday afternoons we took a drive, my husband, his father and I, in a direction that we don't often have occasion to go. It was only 25 miles to the north and east of us, but it not only took us into unfamiliar country but into a sort of Memory Land.

Through the gently rolling countryside we drove, almost the only object in motion, with the stubblefields resting in the golden sun and the tall, green corn in its full glory of growth, just before it began to show the tawny fading of maturity. It was a settled community of big, substantial homes, spacious lawns and generous barns and farmyards. If we hadn't already known, we could have told by the hamlet of Stavanger and the names on the mail boxes -- Halverson, Peterson, Olson, Nelson, Johnson -- whence these settlers came. Beyond Stavanger and across the county line into Grundy we came to a white, one-room school house in Nettle Creek township, and that was our destination, for that is where grandfather taught his first school 70 years. ago.

There it stood, much as it looked when he taught there, he said, freshly painted and well-maintained, quiet in its vacation-time repose. From the schoolyard he pointed out the homes of his three directors and the place where he roomed and boarded. The preceding spring he and a chum, in school at Morris, had taken the teachers' exams just for a lark and both passed. At the time they were not quite old enough to fulfill the legal requirements for teaching but, by avoiding direct questions on the subject, they secured schools in adjoining districts, and before the term was out they would be old enough. Their schools were two miles apart, and they boarded and roomed together halfway between.

Grandfather had a large school, all ages, the oldest pupils being two young men newly arrived from Norway. He went home only once during the school year, at Christmas. And he walked the whole 25 miles; it took him all day. He had hoped to pick up a ride, but the roads were in bad shape and the few farmers who were hauling wagon loads of corn to town didn't want to put any more load on their horses. School ended in April and he went home by train, to spend the work season helping his father on the farm. It was either that April or the one before, when he was in school at Morris, that there was the big snow on the ground when he got home.

We went to the place where one of his directors had lived and found that he had long since passed away and the farm was in the hands of a nephew and his wife. They were very friendly and knew enough of the old family names grandfather mentioned to tell us that only one of the people he had known in 1881 was still alive, the son of one of the directors, who had gone to school to him that term. We went to call on this gentleman and it was a queer and touching scene to watch those two lonely widowers in their late 80s, both a little frail with age, peer intently at one another. We saw two old men, but they saw or tried to see the teacher and the pupil of 70 years ago, the teacher, 17, and the pupil, 16, at the time. By the time their visit was over and we had driven home with reminiscences all the way, it seemed as though we had been on a long, long journey. So many, many things had happened, yet so much was still unchanged. And we had only been 25 miles from home. -- Hope.

One trifle leads to another, and by this casual process we happen on to many an anecdote of "the old days," now that grandfather lives with us. For instance, on one of the many humid mornings we had this summer, when all the shakers balked, we got out some old salt cellars and little spoons. One of these spoons happened to be a souvenir from the World's Fair at Chicago in 1893. The tip of the handle was carved in a likeness of the head of Christopher Columbus. "How slow can a person be?" was my exclamation. "As long as I can remember I have heard mention of the Columbian Exposition but never connected it with good old Chris?"

"Oh, yes," was grandfather's rejoiner. "That was the whole reason for the fair, to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Columbus' discovery of America. It just so happened that they didn't get ready in 1892."

"Mother and I went to it," he continued, and went on to tell about that trip. They took three days, went up by train, walked from the Dearborn station to the lake front and took a boat down to 54th street, the site of the fair grounds. And on the boat an Italian band played a brand new tune, the prettiest thing, grandfather says, that he had ever heard. It was called "After the Ball." He never heard it afterward without remembering those melodious strains floating out over the water of Lake Michigan that day.

They took a good deal of food with them and stashed it at the Illinois building; then would go there and have their lunch whenever they wanted to. It was a big building and many people made use of it; ever so many of them doing just what our folks did, eating food they brought from home. They took lodgings with a friend of a friend who lived not far from the grounds. One of the evenings they went downtown to a theater.

It must have been a thrilling vacation, with all the showy and educational exhibits and wonders. And it cost a pretty penny, too. For two people, for three days, counting railroad and boat fare, the theater, lodgings, meals, souvenirs and everything (even though they cut costs a little by taking that food from home), they blew in the grand total of thirteen dollars.

In 1951 you could hardly take your best gal to South Pacific on that. -- Hope.

Maybe you would like to read a letter from a mother in another war, another draft. It was written by my husband's great grandmother Hannah in New Jersey to her daughter-in-law in Illinois, Comfort, wife of her son James. At that time Comfort and James were young marrieds in their 20s with three little children. Grandmother Hannah was a Quaker as you will see by her "thee" and "thy." Her hand is fine and even, the punctuation and spelling a little quaint by our standards, and occasionally an "s" is made in the old long way so that it looks to us almost like an "f." Here is what she said:

Independence, 8th Mo., 21st, '62.

Dear daughter -- For such I feel thee. At this time I will not, I can not, attempt to delineate the hopes and fears or the gloomy forebodings that are resting on me at this moment. I have no wish to heap my sorrows on others or to raise unnecessary anxiety on thy already heavy burdened mind. That some of my family might be drafted has been strongly impressed on my mind for some time but I did not suppose any of them would enlist. A letter from Elmira last night tells me I was mistaken. And James, I suppose, is still liable to a draft. If he should leave, too, thy situation would be lonely, but the trouble comparatively slight to some in the vicinity of the south.

John Hays, one of my old school mates, removed to Virginia some years ago and has recently returned with his wife and daughter, leaving everything behind except what they could stow in a wagon. He had been compelled to take the oath to the Confederacy, after which he fed some sixty Union horses. It became known to the Rebels, he was imprisoned, and two weeks his wife and daughter lay in a loft or some place where there was room for only one to enter at a time, prepared to defend the place of entrance but not knowing what moment fire might be set to the building. I have not seen them and do not know how he escaped. His son was conductor on a railroad. They got after him, he jumped off and made his escape.

There has been many war meetings around here for enlistments and many enlistments, but it is thought drafting will yet be resorted to before the number is filled.

Has Daniel had a likeness taken since he has been there? I regret that I could not have had one. It seems long since I have seen him. I may see him again but it will not do to expect it. Well, I will try to leave this unpleasant subject and give the next page to more pleasant matters.

It has been quite cool for some days past but is quite warm again. Fruit is very plenty, cherries, apples, pears, etc. Peaches where there are any trees but they are scarce through here. I have been thinking to write for some days to inquire if pennyroyal grows there. If not I will gather some seed, as I still look towards a home there. James must have his hands full and the house must lay unfinished. Uncle James was at Rahway last week and called on Aunt Sidney. All well. Our friends in Hunterdon also well a few days since. Grandmother still walks to Quakertown. It is admirable how her strength holds out.

Will Daniel write to me? If he writes to you please inform me where a letter may be directed when you ascertain his whereabouts.

Joseph requested me to send him my likeness. I got two taken on sheet iron. They were neither of them good. The best one I sent him and the other I intended to send Daniel or some of the rest of you. I would like those grandchildren, Emma particularly, to still retain some little remembrance of her grandmother's looks, and this will only be a faint resemblance. They tell me it looks ten years older than I do. I got one for Walter before he went west and supposed he would leave it when he came away but I suppose he thought I got it for him, he must keep it. I asked Uncle if he had anything to say. He said he was going to write soon himself, had intended to ere this. It is very dry here at present. Corn is suffering and grapes drying up. Still Aunt Elizabeth's flowers look very nice. Several colors of dahlias are in  bloom and a variety of nice flowers in the garden.

With much love to you and your little flock I am every your affectionate Mother.

P.S. -- 22nd in the the morning. Several little showers since daylight. Word came last evening that three townships are exempt from drafting, ours one, their number being filled.

Apparently it was Daniel who enlisted (he was 22 at the time). And all the way through you can see how the mother's heart aches for the one who is absent at war. He was one of nine children. Three of the boys had gone west, but that didn't seem to worry her so much. And how relieved she was that the ones at home would not be subject to the draft. These Quakers did not believe in fighting, but still they held to their duties as citizens very firmly and would have accepted the call when and if it came. -- Hope.

When my brother and my sisters and I were young, it was a great, wide, wonderful world to be sure, but nothing like as wide as it seems to be for our children. Though part of us were born in Nebraska when our parents homesteaded there, we all grew up together in central Illinois. When we girls married we scattered as far as Michigan and Ohio; our brother in World War I was stationed away off in Washington state, afterward taught in south Dakota and wound up in California. Ours was the typical experience of an average large family for that generation. We thought we were pretty well scattered. But the next generation, well, listen to this:

Among us we had 20 children. Two are still in high school and the tailender is in eigth grade. But of the others, one boy in world War II was stationed in Cairo, Egypt, dreamed of homesteading in Alaska but wound up, happily, on the home farm with his wife and children. Another got into Europe with the invasion army and saw France, Holland, Belgium and Luxemburg. One with the navy air corps got to Cuba. Another signed up with the navy in his senior year of high school and has been getting his college education mixed in with semi-annual cruises in the Caribbean, the Atlantic and the Pacific. Still another got overseas at the end of the war and spent three years with the army of occupation at Trieste. The day he landed in New York, homeward bound, a girl cousin left from the west coast with her engineer-husband for a two year job in Hawaii. Her first baby was born out there. After two years in the states, the boy from Trieste shipped out from San Francisco for the Orient (maybe Korea?), and that same week a girl-cousin set sail from New York for Nurenberg, Germany, where she is to be librarian for at least two years. A sister who went along to see her off got herself a job at one of the world's biggest banks and will live right there where they have the Easter parades, Fifth avenue, New York. One girl was an army cadet nurse and spent two years at an Indian hospital in Arizona and now is following her officer-candidate husband wherever he is sent. And today our Joe starts his career in the army, no telling where all he will be before he comes home again.

And it isn't only geographic scattering; these youngsters are most diverse in their tastes and abilities. One girl-cousin has a research scholarship in bacteriology at Los Angeles; a boy is connected with some hush-hush atomic research on a college campus; a petite blonde is nearly through her pre-medical course on the way to becoming a genuine doctor; a tall and graceful brunett teaches art and dancing at a private school; one, married and mother of three, has begun to sell her writing. One girl married a doctor and lives in Ohio; another married an inventor and lives in a northern state; another a history professor at a state university.

Among them they have produced a baker's dozen of children, wonder where all of them will scattter when they are grown? This has always been a pioneering nation and each generation has found new worlds to conquer. The census bureau has just pinpointed the center of population for 1950 at a place in southern Illinois. Twenty years from now, if they count Americans no matter where they may live, where will the center be? -- Hope.

Not long ago we shared with you the quaint letter of Civil War times written by Quaker Grandmother, Hannah in New Jersey to her daughter-in-law, Comfort, in Illinois. -- Comfort, wife of her son, James. That letter was written in 1862. Here is one still older, nearly a century old, written in 1854 by the father of Comfort, who was living here in Illinois, to his son-in-law, James, who had taken his family back to New Jersey at the time of his father's death -- Hope.

"Respected Son and Daughter: It is some time since I have had any correspondence with you, but having the opportunity of perusing one of your letters through the politeness of Joseph, recording your father's death, which from appearances is a hard stoke to him. But it is a debt we all have to pay sooner or later and happy are they who are prepared.

"This leaves us all enjoying reasonable health, hoping it may find you and your concerns all well. In respect to your business here, Joseph has collected and deposited with me four hundred and seventy-three dollars, which I took the responsibility to lift your deed with a part of it. I gave Mr. Murray four hundred and twenty dollars to make out the deed, I gave sixty-five cents for recording deed, two dollars and forty-eight cents for tax last fall. In Joseph's letter you wanted to get timber for the balance.

"Now concerning the times in this far west. Everything in the shape of horse is one hundred fifty dollars. Some few may be less. Kit is worth a hundred and I have been offered three hundred for Jody and Nance, one hundred for Charley. Cows are from twenty to twenty-five dollars, wheat one dollar per bushel, corn from thirty to forty cents per bushel. Land is on the rise all through this country. David Strawn wants to exchange one eighty west of yours for your east eighty. Garver thinks you ought to exchange. Timber is worth thirty dollars per acre on the creek, likely some could be got for less. Work is worth sixteen to eighteen dollars per month.

"The spring had the appearance of opening very early but it keeps cold and dry. Last night it froze the ground quite hard. Spring wheat has been sown for some time past and some oats, though I think it won't do any good, it is so cold.

"I cannot think of all I would like to write but will content myself for the present by wishing you all the prosperity you need. Lucy sends Emma and Johnny a kiss apiece. Yours as ever, Samuel Milliken."

(Little Emma and Johnny, with their kiss apiece, were in their 60s when I first saw them, and both have been in their graves a quarter of a century or more. -- Hope.)

This fall when the merchants put away the Halloween stock and put out the Christmas wares, our first reaction was a sinking feeling, Oh, dear, is there nothing left of the old childhood magic? And when Santa Claus came to town right after Thanksgiving in broad daylight, rather garish and definitely masquerading, the depression got worse than ever. All the old charm and wonder seemed gone from the holiday. Then when a different Santa Claus appeared in every store, common as floorwalkers, and trees and wreaths and lights and tinsel appeared in most homes as well as stores, and everywhere you looked you were urged to buy this, buy that for Christmas - then surely  it seemed that the whole matter was commercialized beyond endurance and might best be ignored, except for the services on Christmas day.

Why, when we were little, we looked forward to Christmas in a thrilling imaginative way. The tree was never seen till it burst on us in all its glory Christmas morning (with some of our neighbors, on Christmas eve). And the gifts at our house were mostly small in money value, often home-made, but always surprises. Though I must admit that some of our playmates were awfully practical about the matter and pinned their parents down to promises in advance, one of them even boasting when he was 10 that he would get a bicycle for christmas when he was 12. It wasn't our custom to demand gifts -- we loved the unexpected. We wrote lettters to Santa Claus but we burned them ceremoniously in the fireplace, firmly believing that the wind carried the messages to the North Pole. So far as I remember our mother and father never infringed on the enchantment by reading what we wrote. It would have embarrassed us to have given our letters to a man dressed in a red suit and artificial white beard -- that would have seemed like begging and would have destroyed the marvel of it all. The first thing we did on Chritmas morning was to throw the windows open wide -- and it would be really early, with the air still dark blue with night and the stars still bright overhead -- and sing as lustily as we could, "Joy to the World." Then we would rush downstairs to the wonder of Christmas. Gifts were part of it, but I don't remember them as being the peak of interest at all -- it was the whole exciting wonder of the spirit of the day.

Maybe it is because we are getting older, but from Halloween to the middle of December the thought of Christmas was something of a disappointment and a burden. We went through the usual motions - the fruitcakes, the cookies, the candies, the lists, the sewing, the planning; just chores, just habit.

Then came a lift, when we heard that the soldier son would actually get home for the day. Maybe that was the catalyst needed -- or maybe it was a combination of items; A bit of snow, a chill in the air, a cloud pattern in the sky, the sun-bright gleam of wonder on a child's face, the unexpected strains of a favorite old carol. Whatever the cause, suddenly the elements fell into the right pattern, touched and fused and blazed into the ancient miracle, the same old unquenchable, flaming loving-kindness toward the whole world.

So has it ever been and so may it ever be. And happy is the home with children and grandchildren to renew the glory every time. May you all have the Christmas which is Hope, the spirit of Christmas which is Peace, and the heart of Christmas which is Love. -- Hope.

Christmas day, a most curious one so still and gently peaceful. Only two human beings in the house and one of them asleep. Being from a big family, I can't remember a time when there wasn't a crowd for Christmas. Later our children filled the house, and by the time the two older boys were away in service we had grandchildren to swell the party.

But this year! The plan had been for all of us to go to the second son's new home and help little Karen celebrate her first Christmas. Snow upon snow practically immobilized traffic for a week beforehand, and Christmas eve added eight more inches, but that wouldn't have daunted us. The trouble was that our Dad had flu and a distressing cough, and was not fit to travel or to be in a crowd. So at our urging the young folks went on as planned -- the oldest son, his wife and three boys and Joe the soldier-boy home on a week's leave.

Grandfather, not caring for the arduous seventy-five mile trip with the chance of being holed in somewhere indefinitely by road conditions, preferred a ten-mile trip to be with his daughter's family and celebrate with his latest great grandchild (our grand-niece), just three weeks old. That left just Jim and me at home. The traditional feast was modified to be appropriate for an invalid and served early so he could go to rest. So here I am alone.

Alone, but not lonely, for there are all the gifts and cards and letters to enjoy. It seemed that this year more people than common included personal notes with their greetings, many of them long heart-warming letters. Much as every one appreciates them, in all the Christmas rush there is seldom time to answer promptly. But for once here are several quiet hours on the holy day itself, when the mood is right and the heart is warm. It seems that ideas flow more freely and words fall into place more gently, "so hallowed and so gracious is the time."

Among the letters here must be a word or two to all you readers who have made the years so rich for me. It would be hard to find words abundant and tender enough to express all my appreciation and affection for you. Hundreds of letters, day after day, revealing so many admirable personalities, give a lift to life that no one can imagine who hasn't had the privilege of receiving such a wealth of mail. Truly, you are a goodly company. In the printed word the rest of you get just a semblance, though it is amazing how much personality comes through -- but to see all the handwritings besides is a superb experience. Every word you write finds a receptive reader here. Thank you all! Come often and refresh our hearts.

It is nearly dusk now. Even the snow can't reflect enough light for me to write much longer, yet it would be a sacrilege to turn on the lights at this witching hour. Before long the children will be home again, but meanwhile let's rest quietly in the glow of the fire, in the soft glitter of the ornaments on the Christmas tree and their reflections on the white Madonna on the mantel, in the invisible glow of memory and friendship.

By the time you read this the old year will have gone into history and the new year will have begun it's cycle, but perhaps it will still not be too late for this message to you all:

God bless thy year --
Thy coming in, thy going out,
Thy rest, thy traveling about,
The rough, the smooth,
The bright, the drear --
God bless thy year.

-- Hope.

Memory Gem

Whatever else be lost amid the years,
Let us keep Christmas--its meaning never ends.
Whatever doubts assail us, or what fears,
Let us hold close this day, remembering friends.

Thy own wish wish we Thee in every place,
The Christmas joy, the song, the cheer,
Thine be the light of love in every face
That looks on Thee, to bless Thy coming year.

When Li'l Joe the soldier got home for Christmas he was lugging on his back a great big load, not a Santa Claus pack but one of these big army laundry bags, a sturdy green cylinder about four feet high and two feet across, packed with GI garments and a goodly portion of Kentucky. They had been out on bivouac for a rainy week and had no time or opportunity to get their outfits cleaned before starting their leaves, and not wanting to let them lie dirty so long, he just fetched them along. When he spread them out, coated an inch deep, it seemed, with that yellow-red sandy clay, his Pa remarked, "Well, at least they didn't waste any good farm land when they took that area for an army base." Don't be insulted, Kentuckians, we really have a soft spot in our hearts for that state because my father was born there, but up here in the Nawth nothing looks like good farm land to us unless it is black. I will say that the Kentucky dirt washed out a lot easier than some of our Illinois mud.

It was really rather nice to have some laundry brought in again. For years we were used to getting clothes boxes in the mail, until recently when the parcel post rates increased so much that Joe and his buddies turned to the helpy-selfy automatic machines near the campus (which system they like very well after they learned by experiment that it is best not to put the gaudy sox in with the white underwear). Just a few days ago one of our older boys remarked, quavering his voice in imitation of an old man, "Times is changed! In them good old days I got my laundry done for 18 cents a week, and got a bonus back in every batch, apples, cookies, chewing gum or candy."

But what I wanted to say was that you're never too old to learn. When sewing shoulder patches on for Joe after the clothes were all cleaned and pressed, I remarked that he didn't have enough patches, shouldn't there be one on each sleeve? Wilbert did. And Joe replied, "Sure, he did. But the only time you have a right to wear a patch on the right sleeve is after you have been overseas with that outfit."

That was news to me, and I pass along the nugget of information without charge in case you can find use for it. Also, you are supposed to set the patch just half-an-inch below the shoulder seam. Betcha you didn't know that, either. It would be nice to have a patch on both sleeves so you could see them from any direction you approach, but on the other hand it's nice that only one is necessary per garment when you are doing the sewing. They are the toughest things to stitch! -- Hope.

Memory Gem

The best way to knock the chip off a fellow's shoulder is to pat him on the back.

Probably all of us have fleeting memories, at times, of strange experiences in remote childhood, too transient to put into words. But I wish that some day our 2-year-old Mike could, and would, be able to explain to me his sensations of last night. It was just a trivial incident, but curious.

Wilbert and Betty, going out for the evening left the three boys here, the two littlest ones already pajama-clad for bed. Baby Tim only gave us a drowsy smile, then rolled over in his play pen and went to sleep. Seven-year-old Dennis occupied himself with crayons and busy-work till his regular bed time. But 2-year-old Mike was off schedule. Every time he was tucked up on the couch, he would soon slide off and come, bright-eyed and affectionate, to cuddle on my lap and watch his big brother. Thinking to induce him to settle down, we made three pallets on the floor, Mike's in the middle. Dennis went off to sleep as soon as the lights were out; Gram dozed off too, but in a little while came to with a start when she found the middle pallet empty. I called, "Mike! Where are you?" And almost instantly a roly-poly figure came from somewhere and slid back into place.

This happened half a dozen times or more, and it was impossible to tell where all he went. I never heard him leave, but once I could discern him by the fireplace, staring intently at the embers. Once he was silhouetted against the French doors. And once, when he didn't get back as quickly as before, and I was startled enough to get up and grope for a light switch, here he came paddling in from the hall, and when he gently collided with me, he wrapped his soft arms around my knees. Nobody knows how far abroad that tour had taken him, maybe through the kitchen and dining room.

All this time he never said a word nor made a sound. He didn't bump into anything or as much as rustle a paper. He wasn't romping or teasing, he was just savoring a novel adventure, exploring in the dark. He was as sure-footed and silent as a cat. The point is, did his eyes adjust so that he could actually see in the dark like a cat, or was he protected by a baby's boundless faith that nothing would hurt him, day or night?

Some day I wish he could, and would, tell me all about this experience, but of course he never will. Maybe when he is grown the fleeting memory will come back to him and give him the shadow of a thrill. But he will never tell any one. As the saying goes, words couldn't express it. -- Hope.

Memory Gem

The smartest person is not the one who is quickest to see through a thing but the one who is quickest to see a thing through.

We set out from San Francisco bright and early on the home stretch of our rather impromptu trip to California, and now we were to have no more time for visits, side trips or sightseeing for David was headed for home like a hungry horse at the end of a hard day, or to put it more poetically, "he was the sworn companion of the wind." What we saw would be observed strictly from the road as we sped along, filled out by the memory of what geography and history we could bring to mind. This time we crossed the Bay bridge and wound through Berkeley and other cities that fringe the eastern shore, then struck out northeast for Sacramento. That was about the last place we noticed much tropical vegetation. No more palms and eucalyptus, acacia and pepper trees, but as we said before, while it was wonderful to see those exotic things, it really seemed comfortable and nice to look once more on good old maples, oaks and evergreens.

It began to rain before we were far out of Sacramento, and then to snow. When we went through Donner Pass a thin blanket of white already lay over the mountains and the stormy aspect really made the passage more impressive, for we couldn't help but think back to those days of old when that brave little party of pioneers met their tragic end at this place, starving, freezing and betrayed. We wondered how they had the audacity to seek a way through the mountains. It was bleak enough for us, on that good smooth road, with humans and machines within call if we had trouble, with a heater in the car and food available whenever we wanted it. Such a far cry from the situation then. And still, with all our modern advantages, the weather can still be master, for right here only last year two crack trains were stalled for days in the snow.

By the time we got to Reno people really looked almost blue with cold and the gas man told us they expected a foot of snow by morning. The temperature had dropped suddenly just the day before. The rain would stop and start again, and from time to time it would be snow or sleet or hail; once in a while the sun came out. We went over plains and through mountains, and finally as the rain got heavier we pulled up at Lovelock for supper. Margi and I assumed that was the end of the day's travel. But no! Not with David at the wheel. On we went with ominous mountains drawing close and then receding from us, and a heavy black cloud hanging over the orange strip of sunset sky behind us. We passed Battle mountain but haven't any idea what battle it was named for -- probably some Indian affair. We went through Emigrant Pass in complete darkness and maybe it was just as well -- no telling what damage our nerves might have suffered in daylight.

Finally we pulled into Elko and called it a day. David did the room-scouting for us all the way home, and in this place he secured a palatial suite at a huge motel, three big rooms and bath. Sometimes you hear talk of exorbitant prices for tourist accomodations, but we didn't find any. This was the most expensive anywhere and it cost four dollars each. It might be that we could have bedded down as many people as we liked for the same price. With three double beds and a big davenport, seven could have been quite comfortable. We only regretted we got in so late, for it we had arrived early, and if we had know anybody to invite, we could have held quite a large reception in our apartment.

The cheapest rooms we had, a couple of nights nearer home cost us only $7.50 for the three; but as it was quite late and the hostess was about as sleepy as we were, we are inclined to think she made a mistake. Most places we paid three or three and a half dollars each. At Riverside, Cal., the charge was only $2.50 each, and that was the place where they gave free orange juice when we arrived and offered free coffee and rolls before we left. Most of the places have about the same accommodations: all the hot and cold running water you want, ice water to drink if you want it, always a shower and sometimes a tub besides, air conditioning when it is needed and heating arrangements, very comfortable beds, clean and attractive furniture.  Usually there is a good cafe within convenient distance, and what we appreciated was that there was usually one open early enough in the morning to accomodate us. Some places have carports alongside but oftener the cars are just parked around the patio in front of the rooms. Back in Texas and some of those mild southwestern states, we noticed several times that folks just pulled off the road (the shoulders are wide down there) and arranged sleeping quarters in the car. We thought that a young couple trying to economize could very well save quite a bit of cash by doing that. Several times we saw carloads of young fellows just getting up in the morning with a mirror hung somewhere on the car, shaving and getting freshened up for the day.

But to get on with our story, we started from Elko about seven and the weather had cheered up considerably. It was still cold and windy but the sun was out. As we drove on into Utah we thought at first a lot more snow had fallen than we had realized, for the plain was white and crystalline as far as we could see, and with that pale blue sky and bright sun, we thought for a minute we were looking out on a typical winter snow scene. Of course it was just the great salt flats, and off in the distance we could begin to see the blue waters of Great Salt Lake. We reached Salt Lake City at noon and there we made a call on a friend who had lived at the University of Illinois with her two little boys while her husband finished school there. Now they have four boys. We intended just to say hello, take a swing through the city and go on. But she insisted on our joining the family for lunch and then she went sightseeing with us. This was a great advantage, for she had been born and raised here, and was herself a Mormon, in fact, a great-granddaughter of Brigham Young, so she could give us many more interesting and intimate details than most guides. We saw the monument where their leader first said, "This is the place," and of course the temple and the tabernacle and the sea gull monument and the pioneer museum, as well as the lion house with its 20 gables, where Brigham Young's many wives dwelt in harmony together. Our friend pointed out the gable to the apartment of her great-grandmother. Even with this much sightseeing we would have been on our way sooner, except that we got not one of the conducted parties on the temple square, and followed along and listened to the excellent guide expounding her people's history and beliefs. The Mormons are truly a very devout, kindly, generous and tolerant people. Although they suffered much persecution themselves, they never retaliated but invited other sects to come into their valley and settle there. They got along better with the Indians than many pioneers, because they won them with kindness.

It was interesting to think afterward about how close we had been to the heart of three great religions on this trip, and how genuinely generous all of them were: the Franciscan padres of the California missions, the Mormons at Salt Lake, and the Methodists at Santa Barbara. And that reminds me that we copied down the words from two plaques in the church at Santa Barbara. One, it seems to me, was in the church school part of the edifice, and it said:

"Our courteous Lord willeth that we should be as homely with Him as heart may think or soul may desire. But let us beware that we take not so recklessly this homeliness as to leave courtesy. -- Julian of Norwalk."

And the other was near the entrance of the church itself, and said:

"This is a place where prayer is wont to be made, a house which Christ by His Sacramental Presence has made a home."

It was after four when we prepared to leave Salt Lake, and we had hoped to get as far as Rock Springs, Wyo., by that night. Our hostess declared that we couldn't get farther than Evanston, as the road was mountainous and winding and not in extra good condition. But she didn't know David. We found the road just as she said. And it began to rain again besides. But there was no stopping our driver now. At Evanston we merely stopped for supper and went on. We didn't quit till nearly midnight, but we got to Rock Springs, even though we had to wind around mountains in the dark. Back in 1940 or 1941 we had stopped at this town before, coming down from Yellowstone past the Grand Tetons. It didn't exactly seem familiar because it was too dark to see anything, and we drove through and stopped at a motel on the far side, where we could bound out early and dash east again in the morning. At Rock Springs we got another roomy apartment, again with three rooms and a bath, and an extra cot in the kitchen -- and it cost $10 for the three of us.

Soon after 7:00 next morning we were on our way again, on a bright, cold, very windy day, and for quite a while we seemed to be on an endless plain, hardly a mountain to be seen even in the distance -- and this, we found later, was the Great Divide basin. We stopped at Wamsutter, Wyo., and there we had breakfast and mailed our last cards -- and beat them home by three days. We passed the continental Divide and soon ran into mountains again, through Rawlins and Laramie to Cheyenne. When we stopped at Cheyenne before, it was July and the time of rodeos, with many bright-shirted cowboys on the streets. This time we saw something entirely different, namely the air force base named for Francis Warren. David had been stationed here for a while when the base still belonged to the army, and he wanted to take a few minutes to run through it again and show us where he lived. It is a huge place, long established and therefore like a real town. We were impressed by the large brick residences of the officers and the smaller but cheerful cottages for the men (new since David was there), but what impressed us most was the snappy saluting that David rated everywhere he turned. Up to now, among all the aunts and girl cousins, he was just our boy, to park the car and run errands, carry bags and in general look after us -- very dear to us but a little on the order of a porter, we should be ashamed to admit. To be sure he was in uniform, but those captain's bars didn't mean a thing to us civilians. But dear me, when you get into a military environment, how they do count!

A Good Housekeeper Speaks

I was so busy to the day's far end,
I did not write that letter to my friend
In her great need. I had no time at all
To return a neighbor's recent friendly call.
The little child who passed my door went by
Without a smiling answer to her shy
Advancement, and the beggar at my door
Went on, still carrying the burden that he bore.
Even my nearest and my dearest knew
I had no time to spare the long hours through.
And now tonight my house is clean and bright.
The window sills are scrubbed, my boards are white,
The beds are smooth, each dish, neat on its shelf.
I'm pleased with it . . . but not pleased with myself!
Dear God, if a tomorrow may be mine,
Help me, instead, to make my spirit shine.
One should not be too spent at close of day
To read an old loved book, to kneel and pray.

-- Grace Noll Crowell.

Memory Gem

The way to get along with a woman is to let her think she is having her own way. And the way to do that is to let her have it.

Memory Gem

I do the very best I can and mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference. -- Abe Lincoln

Memory Gem

"Badly off as I was, I had a feeling as soon as I got here that this was the place to be, poor or well fixed." -- Victor Borge, Immigrant from Denmark to the U. S. A.

Memory Gem

Too many of us are like wheelbarrows, -- useful only when pushed, and easily upset.

Memory Gem

The sting of a bee carries conviction with it. It makes a man a bee-leaver at once.

Memory Gem

In a flat country molehills look like mountains.

Everybody talks about cutting down expenses but, like the weather, few do anything about it, or if they do (mostly the women) they are likely to get razzed by an indecorous family, especially if they try to work off some of the cheaper cuts of meat, the so-called specialties.

You take oxtails. You might as well, because we won't any more. They are about the cheapest thing on the counter, and by some epicures are counted delectable. Whatever taste I personally might have acquired for them is definitely clabbered.

Ours were braised. The platter was nicely garnished, the way you are supposed to do to charm the appetite and throw off suspicion, but there was mistrust in the countenances of my husband and my father from the moment they spied it, and when it was passed to grandfather there was a very definite pause before he served himself; so long that I was obliged to name the dish. "Oh, he said, "Well. They are supposed to be edible." And he took a scant portion. As my husband took what he considered his fair share, that is all he could reasonably be expected to tackle, a very small amount, I felt I had to explain, and instead of dramatizing the matter or claiming an experimental urge, I came right out with the truth -- namely, they were cheap. "Oh," said he. "Well. I have never seen a better demonstration of the fact that you get what you pay for, or a little less."

There was silence for a little while. Then my husband inquired, as he tried to sever a morsel of meat from the bone, "In a cut like this do you carve with the grain or crosswise?" A little later grandfather felt impelled to add an anecdote. So he told about the teacher from town who boarded with them years ago. She knew absolutely nothing about farm life, but was so fascinated by it that she would follow the men around in her free time and watch all that went on. The family happened to have a cow at that time which had a bob-tail due to some accident. The young lady remarked that she had always been under the impression that a cow had a longer tail than that. "Most of them do," replied the man, "but this is our soup cow. Whenever we need a soup bone we just come out and cut off a joint."

Then to cap the climax, my husband meditated out loud. "I wonder if there is very much anatomical difference between a horse tail and an ox tail?" In view of the recent horse meat scandals in Illinois, this remark was the crowning indignity.

Oh, well, the dog enjoyed what was left. He might have enjoyed it still more in the raw instead of cooked and garnished. And if we have any more oxtails around here, that is the way and the place they will be served.

How can a lady save money if her menfolks won't eat things like tripe, haggis and braised oxtails? How can a cook win the battle of the budget if she is continually sabotaged? -- Hope.

Our 2-year-old Mike is beginning to use a good many words. Someone in the family even taught him to say "Abraham Lincoln" by showing him the picture on the calendar, and now he recognizes that face on any calendar or in any book where he comes across it. The Abraham is quite a mouthful, but it is recognizable, something like "A-ma-man"; the Lincoln is plain as can be.

Now that he can pronounce words, his mother thought it was time for him to take place in a family ritual. For a long time he has understood about bowing his head during the blessing at table, but the other day when Dennie finished saying grace, his mother said, "Now, Mike, you say Amen." But Mike didn't get the idea that first time around. Apparently he thought the first act was over and conversation was beginning. So he raised his head, smiled cheerfully, and said, "A-men Lincoln!" -- Hope.

Back in childhood days we loved that magic phrase in the fairy tales "a year and a day." The prince was bewitched for a year and a day, the princess must wait for a year and a day, the lover must seek for and work for his beloved for a year and a day. In legal papers, both medieval and modern, we come across the same prase. And a few years ago in New Orleans we heard it in connection with burials in the above-ground vaults in the old St. Louis graveyard. Those who can't afford their own family mausoleums may rent the vaults for  "a year and a day." At the end of that time the vault may be rented to someone else and the prior remains put elsewhere. It is as though "a year and a day" is enough time for a family to recover from its grief and cut the final ties with the dead.

The phrases came to mind most vividly at our house when our son's family moved into the big house where Grandmother passed away 12 months ago. It wasn't exactly planned that way, but when it came about, it seemed singularly appropriate that the move was made exactly after "a year and a day." The anniversary and the extra day were gray and disconsolate with cold dripping winter rain, but moving day was bright with brittle winter sunshine. It seemed symbolic, as though it was really time now to break away from sorrow and definitely take up a new way of life.

When the end came last winter, Grandfather came to live with us but left the old home just as it stood. He kept the oil furnace going and whenever he liked (and that was often) he would go up there and sit in the familiar chairs, look over his books and keepsakes, listen to their favorite radio programs, and remember. By fall we had gradually done some sorting and rearranging. He had given away some of the furniture to friends and relatives, sold a few things, moved some down here. When the plan developed for the son's family to move to the bigger quarters, the small house being pretty crowded for three lively boys, there was painting and papering, wiring and plumbing to be looked after. Just by chance, or would you call it fate, everything was ready for the move the very day after the "year and a day."

So the old home is gone for good. Externally the house looks the same but inside, it will be forever different. Even if the old paper and the old furniture had been left, the house would have taken on new character with a different family living there. It could never be the same And yet the change didn't just come all at once on moving day. All year the changes had been subtly growing, and even before that, it wasn't home as it used to be, for Grandmother had been ill so long, with strange nurses in attendance. It makes you realize how few changes really come suddenly and all at once. Gradually Grandfather had been growing used to the change, and so had we all.

To the young folks the move meant starting a whole new era in their lives, with their thoughts all toward the future. To my husband and me the change was not sharply disturbing, for we still have each other, in our own home. To Grandfather it was the keenest blow of all. From now on the old home will live only in his memory, and it will live not as it actually was at the end, but as a composite of all the years they spent together there, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health. For the rest of us the door to the past is gently closing. For him, to whom our home is just a waiting room, that door will never entirely close until the door to reunion and a better home opens on the other side. -- Hope.

March

The month of miracles is here again, the wind
Is carrying bird cries, and the smell of loam.
It bends the frozen leaves of grass to find
A pale heroic crocus. Green has come
In little mounds of moss, and near the river
A troop of budding willows bend and quiver.
The birds now put an end to silent days,
The earth is young, familiar things are new.
Better foreswear a hundred blossoming Mays
When all this prophecy will have come true
And spend this afternoon out in the wind
Hearing the birds cry, watching willows bend.

-- By Martha Keegan.

Well, this is a day to prove Grandfather's contention, "The more machinery you have the more work there is to do."

It is an early April evening and men all over the neighborhood are still working. Supper is over and the dishes done, and when you step out on the porch you find the air a-hum with the drone of tractors, and the lights hover over the fields in all directions. The season opened up two or three weeks earlier than it did last year, and the oats and clover will be mostly in the ground before the night grows quiet and those fireflies settle down.

A generation ago farmers worked from dawn to dusk -- they couldn't work longer because they had no way to light the work and the horses couldn't stand any longer hours. A generation ago you would not have heard much but the creak of the windmills this late in the evening. The farmers, true to the adage, would have gone to bed with the chickens. And here they are, with all the modern inventions, laboring far into the night to get the crops in. The machines can go on indefinitely, and the men can take turns to keep the work going steadily on.

But don't for a minute think of them as slaves to the land. They are enjoying themselves. If you were close enough, you could probably hear every one of them whistling or singing -- seems to me I even hear one of them in the distance giving a yodel. I doubt if you could find any group anwhere in the world more contented and satisfied with with what they are doing right now. They are out in those fields because they want to be, not because they are driven. There would be other days to sow that seed -- but the season opened early and favorably and they want to do their part to help it along. Planting weather came along just right, not too early, not too late. And they start this crop with the unexpressed but exhilarating feeling that this may be The Year, the year when everything will go just right and every farmer can show what he and his land can really do when the chips fall right. No late frosts or early freezes, neither flood nor drought, showers in the night so we can work in the day, strong sun so you can hear the crops grow, no insect pests, big yields -- everything just so.

When the season starts too late, cold and wet, we work harder than ever with the hope that things will be better later on; when it comes too early, we say to ourselves, look out, we'll pay for this, be on guard. But when it starts like this, we think This is It! So all together, everybody -- here we go! -- Hope.

Memory Gem

Life is something like an artichoke, you pull out the leaf and only the tip is edible.

Enthusiasm carried us away. After that night of the humming tractors as the men ebulliently sowed oats and clover by artificial light, we had rain, then a freeze, more rain, a frost, more rain, and a gloomy Easter.

Possibly this is not the year. But we are undaunted. We are too far toward head-waters of our streams ever to be endangered by flood, so we haven't the nerve to complain of any moisture that is short of the terrible profusion of Old Man River and the Old Mizzou. No strange under-earth mountain ranges are rumbling with earthquakes beneath our farms. No tornadoes follow their baneful path over our acres. Even the hailstorms swing around to the north or to the south of us.

We never have a complete crop failure in this area, nor dust storms, nor the villainous locust and grasshopper pests that some folks have. And if our oats have washed out, or frozen, we still have time to reseed. This may not be the year, but it is bound to be a year good enough for all practical purposes. Chances are that our seeding is unharmed, and we have just had a reminder that the elements are not yet entirely under the control of man.

The women who uncovered their perennials and peeked under the dirt mounds to see if any roses survived last fall's early freeze find that little damage resulted from this late cold, wet spell, and now whenever the air warms up, everything is ready to boom. And those early bonfires were not a mistake either. The farmsteads that looked woebegone under the rain are now greening up neatly. Autumn bonfires fill a human need, with the pungent smell of burning leaves, a sort of incense that hovers over the laying of the earth to rest. But there is exhilaration about spring bonfires, with all their vigor, a casting out of all discouragement with the debris, a beginning again. It's hard to tell which are most staisfying. Depends on the season we are in, I guess.

So are we downhearted? No! Here we go on another season, not the year, but a good year, with some encouragements and enough troubles to break the monotony. Here we go again, putting our whole hearts into the job of producing more than our share, to make up for the stricken areas where work will be so delayed, so that the sum total of America's agricultural yield may be, as usual, plenty for all. -- Hope.

Memory Gem

If earrings grew on ladies' ears,
And this fact has been proved,
They'd spend the last cent that they have
To get the things removed.

-- Aneta Ziegler.

The arrival of the first grandchild is a world-shaking event, and the announcement of same an impressive project. Announcements of later arrivals get ever-lessening emphasis and eventually become merely routine, just a matter of record.

We now have our eighth. (She says sedately, trying to appear calm and collected.) Our second son's second child, supposed to be a man-child, turned out to be a second girl. But with Gram and Grandpa that is quite all right; the girls are pulling up a little more even in the race. (I say, Gram, not very dignified, perhaps you think. There was a time, with our first, when we were called Grandmother and Grandfather, and there was also great-grandmother and great-grandfather. But when more grandchildren got to talking there seemed to be less and less time for the old formalities, and so, in line with a snappy age, the youngsters of their own volition abbreviated the terms they used oftenest. Hence, Gram. My husband says he can stand that, but he doesn't think he could put up with Granny.) Our first was a granddaughter, then there were five grandsons in a row before we had another girl in the collection, so now our score is five boys and three girls. The tentative name is Theresa Gail. (Where does the younger generation find all these names?)

The father of this newest one was called Sonny in his childhood and it might as well have been called Sunny, for he was always smiling. He was the lucky type -- scarcely any illnesses or accidents, and tasks were easy for him. The youngsters who rode to high school with him used to say enviously that all he had to do to get his lessons was to ride home with his books in the same car; a sort of airy osmosis seemed to transfer the information to his brain, they claimed. His tour of duty in the navy was not too tough, and the war ended before he got into combat. He got his first job for the asking, and the second came without even that, and promotions have followed in amiable succession. Only in this one matter has he met frustration: both of his boys have turned out to be girls. Maybe it is good discipline for him to meet this much rebuff.

That remark about the eighth grandchild being routine was just conventional. As a matter of fact, the more you have, the more fascinating they become. When we only had Caroline, it seemed to us that everything she did was unique -- no other child in the world could be as charming and as interesting. Then her little brothers, Rick and Mark, began to do the same things at the same stage of development; and what was more surprising, the cousins, too, followed the same pattern of development -- Mike and Tim and Karen often duplicate some sweet little habit that I remember from Caroline. If a person had enough granchildren, he would finally come to see, that in spite of individualities, all human beings are basically much alike. So we might sum it up that the proper study of mankind is grandchildren -- you get so much more loving kindness and generosity of judgment that way than if you just study man. -- Hope.

Did all the one-room country schools have baseball for their favorite sport? It seems so to me when our children were attending our little Maple Grove, and my skills fell far short of what was expected at the school picnics! The youngsters played "scrub baseball" because there were seldom enough pupils to make up two full teams. They had to use girls and first-graders and the teacher to have enough to play at all, and when picnic day arrived, the children assumed that all the mothers would want to play, too, as nothing, in their estimation, was any more fun. They had to have special rules for little players, at least they seemed to make allowances for them, but for this particular mother they had to make allowances for total ignorance and bewilderment.

At our childhood home there were five girls and one boy; we had more girl cousins than boy cousins, there were 50 or 60 children in our block, and our school rooms had about 30 pupils apiece, so we had never had to resort to playing with the boys to have enough for games. We were whizzes at jumping the rope and playing jacks, but baseball! That was entirely beyond our experience. To tell the truth, most of my knowledge of the game was acquired while Joe, our youngest, was in high school, for by that time we had radios and it was my duty to listen to the main games closely enough to give him some sort of report when he got home. By degrees I learned not only the names of the players but many of the intricacies of the sport. Such and such a play would occur and the announcer would say so and so about it, and what did that mean? In that way, Joe found out what happened and at the same time taught me my lessons.

To this day I enjoy a game over the radio but I have serious doubts about understanding everything if I just watched a game without someone telling what was happening, and as for playing, if I ever should be where I had to take part, I haven't a doubt that, being left-handed, assumng that I ever hit the ball enough to run, I would head for third base and go around the wrong way . . . Just this spring, we took up the boards and stakes where the boys used to play horseshoes alongside the lane, having decided to let the grass take over, as it has been trying to do ever since they went away. And last week, in cultivating a flower border, I unearthed an old croquet ball, damp, dark and partly split, which the children had probably lost in a game years ago. It's been a long while since we played a game. But the grandchildren will soon be old enough to enjoy it, maybe we'll have to get a new set soon. -- Hope.

Memory Gem

The two greatest highway menaces are drivers under 25 going 65, and drivers over 65 going 25.

Summer evening in the country; a pleasant time, even in this atomic age, even on the verge of a political campaign, after the day's work is over and the supper done and the family gathered on the lawn for that restful period before bedtime. For men, women and children it has been a busy day, in the hay field, the corn field, the strawberry patch, the cherry tree, and the garden, and the play area (which is the fenced yard for the littlest children and the whole farm for the school-agers). The son's family and the hired man's family have gone to their own homes and everything is quiet. And since this is such a momentous time, suppose we record for posterity the spirited discussion of vital topics that occurs in just one typical midwest family in June, less than a hundred miles from Chicago, where a vast amphitheater is being air-conditioned for the opening, in less than a month, of the first of the two big party conventions.

Here we are, the three of us, my husband, his father and myself, in comfortable lawn chairs near the lily pool. First there is a long period of silent meditation -- or at least there is silence. Then my husband, who has been staring somberly at the lively commotion among the lower life in the pool, remarks, "If a baby toad is a tadpole, would you call a baby frog a fradpole?"

Only vague and langid smiles greet this statement. It is not controversial. Meditation, or silence, proceeds. Then grandfather comes out with the gentle question, "That funeral at Sunbury. Do those folks bury at Ransom or at Odell?"

Here is a matter with two sides. My husband offers an opinion. "Odell, I think. It's closer. Or is it? To tell the truth, I don't know exactly how you get to Odell cross-country."

Grandfather contributes, "I went cross-country to Odell once, literally. We struck right out across the prairie. The folks were going over there to visit the William Strawns and took me along. I was pretty small, but I remember stopping on the way to gather gum from the rosin-weeds."

"For heaven's sake, what for?" inquires my husband. Maybe you think excitement is picking up, but the words are more violent than his tepid tone of voice; he is just making talk.

"Why, to chew, of course. That was long before the days of Spearmint!"

"Must have had an awful taste."

"No, it was good . . . The best way was to snap it off the tops of several and wait a while, and when you went back quite a lot of juice would have accumulated at the tops of the stalks. . . I even remember getting gum from ironweed. It would collect in little white drops on the back of the leaves."

"And what kind of flavor did that have?"

"I don't remember now, but we liked it."

At this point the subject of weed-juices seems drained dry.

Eventually my husband ventures on the subject of hay, with the remark that the new mown field smells good, and the additional gratuitous information that the yellow sweet clover is in full bloom in a lot of fields.

"That sweet clover!" exclaims grandfather. "We used to fight that like we do sourdock now. I remember a good many years ago a patch got started near the lane where I went for the cows every evening. I got to taking a spade with me each time and digging up some. When I got rid of that patch, it was a real satisfaction . . . And now look at the price we pay for a pound of the seed to start the stuff deliberately!"

The evening wears on into dusk. One by one the fireflies bestir themselves, trying out thier lights tentatively in the grass, then gradually rising into graceful flight. "How far that little firefly throws its light." This murmur comes from the one who likes best a paraphrase Shakespeare, and who up to this time has not uttered a word, although she is a member of the supposedly wordy sex. And as the fireflies rise higher and stray farther, her thoughts dart in and out over the years, remembering when the children used to chase the little creatures with happy shrieks, and how when the lightning bugs got out of their reach, it was time to herd the little folks to bed. Do they (the fireflies, that is) just keep on flying all night, higher and higher, flashing their little stern-lights on and off for hours -- or do their batteries run down? Never remember seeing any fireflies when getting home late at night. Sometimes we must make a point of just sitting and watching until we find out how high they go and how long they are active, and whether there is a time when you could watch them selttling down gracefully and gradually back into the grass, just as they rose, only in reverse, like a film run backward.

"But not tonight," she says aloud, and firmly, as she starts to the house. Either the men's thoughts have been following along in the same groove, which is most unlikely, or they just don't care, for there is no response at all. Eventually they, too, will wend their way to bed.

So goes the profound discussion of vital issues on just one farm, in this momentous time just before the big conventions, in this atomic age. Multiply this by hundreds and thousands, and what do you get? I don't know. There is probably some deep significance here, but it is beyond me. We leave it to you to figure out. If the Russians could hear all these multitudinous comments, they would know what makes America great. Or would they? And if they would, would they mind explaining it to us?

Anyway, whether the Russians have any conception of it or not, this is one of the happy times. Today we have been busy, but not too busy. We are tired but not too tired. It is hot but not too hot. Sleep will be wonderful when it comes. A good day. And good night. -- Hope.

Memory Gem

One thing I find children have
In common with a pup.
They are able to make a bigger mess
Than they are able to clean up.

-- Aneta Ziegler

By the time you read these lines, your editor will be en route on a brief and unexpected trip to sunny California, or perhaps home from same. Maybe it is brutal to break the news to you-all so abruptly, but that is the way it was broken to me. In the midst of one of those days of which the song was definitely not written, "It's so peaceful in the country," a call came from my sister Margi in Urbana. Would I by any chance be able to drive out with her to California in her son David's car to meet him when he lands in San Francisco from Korea? Oh my goodness, this is so sudden! When would you leave? Tomorrow!

She waited to set the exact date till David got his sailing orders, and the plan had been for a young officer's wife to go along to meet her husband out there, and at the last minute she couldn't go. So it was up to Margi to find a traveling companion or leave the car at home and take a train, plane or bus. Still in a state of shock, yours truly agreed to go, provided the start could be postponed one day. California is lovely, and anyone would be glad of a chance to go, but really, if I'd had my druthers, I'd have chosen places nearer home, with a little more time to prepare.

Even without this phone call, the day was practically in convulsions here. It was like having a second earthquake hit before you got your breath from the first one. (Dad warns us to look out for earthquakes when we get near California.) The men were sorting spring pigs, after having welcomed 12 litters of fall ones in the previous two days (108 new pigs so far). It was the day for an interesting farm management tour to which they planned to go at about 10:00 or 11:00 o'clock, but due to the innate obstinacy of the genus swine, the pigs were not sorted till 12:30 and men and hogs alike were too tired to go anywhere; to say nothing of the unexpected dinner which mother had to prepare. But they picked out 110 barrows for market and 70 gilts to save and got them duly shut up in the proper pens. At 7:00 in the evening the truckers came to load. After which grandfather had to go to Ransom for an elevator meeting to help plan a big community picnic for Sept. 7, and your editor had to go to Kernan in the other direction, to help plan for the annual Harvest Home on Sept. 16, and the hired man and his family left for a two-day vacation down by Bloomington. Dad and Wilbert and his family stayed home, and well content they were to do so.

After my committee meeting, there was some planning and typing to do concerned with the Harvest Home and some installments to prepare for the Corn Belt Farm Dailies. That took till 3:00 o'clock in the morning, and the general feeling was that we had really danced the whole night through, which the song lauds as a pleasant procedure. This morning the washing has been done and some desk work; there are left the odds and ends of getting cash and travellers' checks, doing ironing, packing and sundry small tasks. Dad (who refuses to go with us, either with grandfather because it is too hard a trip for him, or without him because there is no convenient place for him to stay) is trying to persuade us to go by train instead of driving, thus saving both time and strength. I'm willing to yield right now but will have to wait and see what Margi says. If she says the word, we'll hop the El Capitan and be on our way. Of course, since the sole object of my going was to be a driving companion, there would be no point of my going with her on the train. But, dear me, after have sustained the whole shock of deciding and packing, you wouldn't make a change just on that account, would you?

Save for the above items and the routine canning of peaches and tomatoes, our simple rural life pursues the even tenor of its way.

Hoping all of you are the same, I am till further word, cordially yours. -- Hope.

Memory Gem

The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are. -- Samuel Johnson.

Well, we drove it. It took us six days and there were moments when we resolved that, just to get to California, we would not drive it again for love or money. We'd take a plane or train. But relaxing here in idyllic Santa Barbara the memories of strain are fading fast and we are almost ready to concede that, just possibly, we wouldn't object to another trip, particularly if we had a leisurely summer or winter to do it in. At the half-way mark we were smitten with dread at the mountains and deserts ahead of us, but we must admit that by another year whoever travels Route 66 will find a splendid pavement most of the way and the few stretches that appalled us will be eliminated.

The first day, of course, was routine. The route was just a means of getting somewhere else fast. We were familiar with the countryside and we by-passed all the big towns. Beyond St. Louis we welcomed the slight change in terrain, with Missouri's green wooded hills and grassy vales just comfortably different from home. The highway, even though it curved and dipped, was easy to drive and no problems disturbed our serenity. We pulled up on schedule at the loveliest motel we saw anywhere, cool and shady, air-conditioned, with a green lawn and a "worm" fence, and a most pleasant, quiet dining room across the way.

The second day was different. That was the day we had all our mechanical difficulties, and the weather grew hotter and the prospect wider and drier and more unfamiliar. We had got only as far as Joplin when we discovered the radiator was leaking. We found that the radiator on this particular model was made of iron during war shortages a year ago and the company instructed all to be replaced by copper ones by the first of this past June. Our nephew had bought the car in Pensacola, had driven it home to Illinois, had left it there and gone on to Korea. Somehow he had missed getting word that the part should be changed. However, we found a good shop where the man did the job and fixed us up in only two or three hours. No charge.

While we waited we wandered around the city of Joplin and found it a very comely place, with its wide, wide streets and its nice stores and its friendly people. We crossed into Oklahoma and found the vegetation getting more sparse and the spaces wider, the towns farther apart. Before we went very far we suddenly had a flat tire, out of sight of any habitation or tree on a blazing hot day. Luckily, before we had time to walk more than a few rods toward help, a young man came along and changed to the spare for us and told us that the tire was definitely defective. Part of the outer casing had never been properly vulcanized to the inner part, and pieces of it had simply torn off, and lay there beside the road.

All the rest of the way across the continent we were to see such scraps of rubber and to feel a sympathy with unknown travelers who had similar experiences. Our friend told us we would find a tire man in the next town but one. We spent what should have been the lunch hour prowling around that town trying to get to the place that people there all told us we couldn't miss, and when we found it, the proprietor admitted the tire should be replaced but he didn't happen to have the right size. He sent us on to the next town, Vinita, Okla., where they gave the same verdict, but the tire man was out to lunch. It seemed a good idea by then for us to have lunch, too, which we did, and then we took a look at a big department of conservation busload of native animals, such as foxes (which we found surprisingly small), and skunks and prairie dogs and quail and a wolf, and so on, on display in front of the handsome city hall. By then the tire man had done his duty and stored our new replacement in the trunk. Again no charge. But we began to wonder if this car, with only a little over 5,000 miles on it, was completely made up of defective parts, and if so which one would go next and whether we would always find the necessary replacements as easily.

Later that hot afternoon we witnessed a near-hit between a car and a truck passing, and we made one such pass ourselves, which was too close for comfort. As a result, by the time we got part way through Tulsa and found that due to road construction it would take us three hours yet to get to Oklahoma City where we had planned to stop, we felt that our nerves had taken enough punishment for one day, and we would stop there. However, we had gone considerably past the recommended motel and thought we could just go around the block and retrace our steps. That did not seem to work very well, and we found ourselves in the midst of beautiful tall and impressive civic buildings and churches downtown, but turned in our directions and at a loss how to proceed. Noticing we were near the Chamber of Commerce building we went there for help and were given a map with our way marked in ink. We were just to take an angling street for a block from where we were, turn left for a while, then turn right so far, and there we would be on Tenth street. "Yes, but we want to get back to Eleventh street," we said. "Oh, Tenth runs into Eleventh," said the girl brightly. We left, bewildered by the vagaries of city planning, but sure enough Tenth ran into Eleventh if you can imagine how such a thing could be, and it wasn't long before we were back where we wanted to be settled for the night in smallish but pleasant quarters, air-conditioned and comfortable. Once in, we didn't have the energy to go out again to hunt an eating-house but dined simply on some tomatoes and muskmelons, crackers and cookies which we had brought along from home just in case such a situation as this arose.

It has been a couple of years since we have gone touring to any extent and we must mention that motels have made tremendous improvement in that time -- and there are so many new ones going up everywhere, each excelling the other, that we wonder when the saturation point will be reached, and how many of the earlier ones will be crowded into failure, after all their investment by newer and fancier courts. One other point might be mentioned here; Whoever had the idea of giving ice water to weary travelers had a psychological stroke of genius. The very statement,  not "Do you want ice water?" but "We will send out ice water right away," gives a lift in torrid weather; and when that tinkling glass pitcher of sparkling water actually arrives at the hand of a friendly host, it is like "the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land."

In the morning, driving on to Oklahoma City, we were glad indeed that we had waited till we were rested, for a good deal of the way was detour. We will never forget that vivid red soil being scraped and manipulated to lay out a wide straight highway for future trips, but this present trip seemed exceedingly trying. In comparison with what we came to later, it was child's play.

It was at Amarillo, Texas, that night that we really got panicky. It isn't exactly clear why, except we were getting more tired and more amazed at the wide open spaces, feeling we could appreciate our country just as well or more from a plane, in much more comfort. We had been pleased at the fine wide roads in Texas and at the roadside clumps of trees like oases in a huge land -- so much so that we stopped under one of them and had an impromptu picnic with more tomatoes and crackers.

That night we were in commodious quarters, with a good cafe in connection with the motel, and we stopped driving early before we were too fatigued and refreshed ourselves by dressing for dinner. Everything had gone well, and yet when we got ready for bed and had written our nightly letters home and began to bone up on our procedures for the rest of the trip, we were suddenly appalled at the boldness of our adventure. How and why did we get into this project, we wondered; and could we ever make it over those lofty mountains and over the desert? We were so low in spirit that we even considered just stopping where we were and wiring David to come meet us there. Part of our depression may have been due to the hostess saying when she signed us in for the night, "Two women alone? I'd be scared to death." Part may have been due to the occasional comments of service station men about the hazards ahead. Anyway we went to sleep in a fine fever of worry. But the next morning we started on again with part of our fears allayed by rest. -- Hope.

(Tomorrow Hope is accosted by "The Law.")

That was Sunday of the Labor Day week-end. We had been warned at home to beware of traffic at that time, but we didn't have a quieter day in all the trip. Trucks were off the highway for the Sabbath, the weather was hot and brilliant but every one who was going anywhere (but us) seemed to have got there. Before we got out of Texas, buttes suddenly appeared and we began to get a variety of scenery, endless plains, then this more rugged conformation. We saw great herds of grazing cattle, and a few antelope came close to the road once or twice.

When we got past Tucumcari we had a new type of adventure; we were eased off the road by a traffic cop. We couldn't imagine what we had done wrong, but it turned out he suspected us, he said, of being one of a caravan of cars being sneaked across the state without paying an entry fee. He based his suspicion on the fact that our rear license plate was wired on instead of being bolted on. That had happened back in Missouri when we noticed that one corner had broken loose from its bolt, and finding a wire near-by and having no tools at hand, we had simply wired it into place. Then it turned out that the front plate was also wired on, which we hadn't noticed before. That probably happened because my sister had bolted on the plates herself and must have left them too loose, and when a nephew had driven her car to Chicago lately, he must have lost a bolt or two and wired the plate in place without saying anything about it. In Illinois it hadn't made any difference, but here they were more strict. It seemed odd to us that any one who wanted to smuggle a car across a state wouldn't be smart enough to bolt the license tags in place and make himself as inconspicuous as possible. And it seemed especially odd that any one would smuggle a car across which was a year old. However, we had been suspected. Of course our papers were in order and we had plenty of proof of our legal ownership and so on. The officer was convinced but suggested we had better get the bolts in as soon as we could. And there being a sort of blacksmith shop and garage across the road, he sharply summoned a man standing there to come across. It turned out that the innocent fellow was a tourist in trouble himself, not the proprietor. He had had three flat tires in a day and a half and was at that moment having some broken part welded in that shop. But being ordered over by a cop he came forthwith, and was kind enough to go back and borrow some pliers and a screwdriver, and even some bolts for the front tag, and in short order he had us fixed up. The cop had bade us a pleasant farewell and gone merrily on his way, whistling down half a dozen cars for speeding before he was very far away. What I mean, he was a public servant really on duty that day! As to the guy who fixed our bolts, we felt quite a friendly feeling for him. He had one kind of trouble and we had another, and while he was a westerner at the present time, he had once lived or visited in Illinois.

As we went on we speculated on how long our plates had been noticed, whether we were being followed by detectives across several states and so on -- for that morning at Amarillo, when we set the suitcases out the door quite early, ready to pack in the trunk, a police car had slowly and silently and darkly glided around the circle looking at the cars parked there. Ours was the only Illinois license (in fact we saw but one or two such on the whole trip, though Illinois folks are reputed to be great travelers, because, as some other states think, we have a good state to make money in but have to go away to enjoy it). At the time we had thought the police car was making a routine inspection and wondered if they made the rounds of all the motels every night; or if they might have been searching for a certain car to notify travelers that some trouble had developed at home -- and so on. But this experience made us wonder if we were under suspicion even then and had been eyed with distrust by who knows how many eyes. Not very many probably, in any case, for we never saw another traffic cop the rest of the way.

By the time this incident was over and we had exercised our imagination on all its aspects, we noticed that we were climbing higher and higher and hills were turning into mountains. Sometimes we swept around great curves but oftener we went up and down straight horrifying giant coasters. We thought to ourselves, well, today brings us to the highest elevations of the trip, and if we can just live through today we can surely face that one more hazard of the desert, and our troubles will be over. We stopped at some of the highest points, truly windswept heights. Of course 7,500 feet isn't very high compared with those peaks of the real Rockies farther north, around Denver, say, or in the Tetonos; but it's a whole lot different when you are doing the driving yourself for the first time, and we really felt we had achieved wonders. We felt so fine and got along so well that we went on farther than we had expected to, and put up at a most attractive Spanish type motel at Gallup, N. M., all white and pink plaster walls, with bright turquoise doors and window frames; with a vine-covered pergola at our front door and a lush inner court. We dined in state at El Rancho, a typical western lodge of logs hung in the foyer with Navajo rugs, something like the lodge at Starved Rock and at Yellowstone.

No air-conditioning here, nor from here on over. None is needed, for hot as the day may be, the nights grow cool giving blessed relief. The plaster walls hold out the heat of the sun, so the rooms seem cool even before daylight ends. Then suddenly comes that great restful chill, and the stars and moon seem near enough to touch. We slept in Gallup with the innocence of babes, with no foreboding of the morrow. We rested in the confidence that the worst was over, that we had fought a good fight and won.

Perhaps it is well that we can not know the future. We might not have slept so soundly that quiet Sunday night. But on the other hand, we wouldn't have been so well fortified to meet it. -- Hope.

(Take another jaunt with Hope tomorrow.)

It is a pity to go so fast on a trip like this that there is no chance to read all the historical markers, stop and look at points of interest, learn more about the crops and the culture of the people, and even go off the route here and there as much as 50 miles or so if there is something noteworthy to investigate. But on this trip we did none of those things. Our aim was to get here with the car in time to meet David.

One subject in which my sister and I are both especially interested is the Indians of the southwest, partly because Margi's daughter Anne had spent some time while she was a cadet army nurse at Fort Defiance, a Navajo Indian hospital. Her sympathies were much touched by the whole situation -- but more of that another time. On this trip the best we could do was watch for what signs of Indians we could see as we drove along. Of course we began to see Indians on the streets as far back as Oklahoma, some in American dress and some in native. In fact we are used to seeing Indian men in our own neighborhood, for they work along the Santa Fe railroad and some of them roam the village only four miles from our house at times. But out here in New Mexico on the Sunday and Monday of Labor Day weekend we began to see many more individuals in their showy holiday attire, probably gathering for some tribal event. Before we got to Gallup we saw many Indian houses made of a sort of soft-looking yellowish brick, and often a little roadside stand would be built at the roadside to match the house. Sometimes these stands were quite well-built, like little roofed houses, just big enough for a person or two to sit inside, with a little brick table in front on which would be laid out any items the Indians had for sale. Sometimes the stands would be ramshackle, built of branches and roofed with some sort of thatch, sometimes they appeared to have been started and abandoned without being finished, or else were falling into ruins. Through here their fields were green and healthy and looked well-tended; corn and alfalfa and something that might have been beans.

We saw little activity as we drove along, and most of the roadside stands were empty, but occasionally we would see a big white towel or rag blowing in the wind on an extension of the roof timbers, and that meant "open for business." Usually we wouldn't see anyone till we were right at the stand, then we could detect a person sitting modestly within, almost out of sight, with a little display of pottery on the table in front. There was nothing pushing about these salesmen! No placards or ads, just the white flag and the items for sale. If you cared to buy, just stop and be politely served. If you didn't, there was no pressure whatever. The ware seemed to be small and dainty and light in color, quite different from what we had seen blatantly displayed and advertised along the way in bigger, more commercial roadside stands. We made up our minds that at the very next place we would stop and see it and probably buy some. But at that point we ran clear out of the area of this type of house and shanty. We learned afterward that these were Laguna Indians, but we never did find any of their handiwork anywhere. They must be more reserved and self-contained than some tribes, less commercialized and keeping strictly to themselves. It will be something to look forward to in the future -- to see Laguna ware and learn something more of this tribe. By the way, we passed huge lava beds before we got to Gallup but haven't yet found out anything about them: how they came to be, how old they are, and so on. They looked black and tarry in the sun. That is another thing we will have to find more about.

We hoped we would find more of the Lagunas farther on, but as we neared Gallup the character of the Indian dwellings changed, some being of wood siding, unpainted, and some were grouped in villages. And beyond Gallup, the next day, when we came into Navajo country, the homes were quite another kind. The Navajos build hogans, round, with the roof sloping to the center where there is often left a hole for the smoke to escape. They have few windows and doors and are very low, as though they were used strictly for sleeping. They couldn't have been comfortable for much else. Often there would be an outdoor oven, and a stockade or roofless room where women apparently did some of their work. Very curious, and we would like to have stopped long enough to learn more. We did stop at a genuine old Indian trading post which has been there since the 80s and has a fascinating museum including the mummy of a Hopi cliff-dwelling woman. The old man there told us quite a bit about the items, and we bought some of the real Indian dolls and the silver and turquoise jewelry. He could have talked all day and we would gladly have listened -- if we had had time. That was on Labor Day, after we had left the pink-blue-and-white plaster patio where we had spent the night at Gallup.

It was at Gallup that we had our first chance to sit and talk with tourists in the lobby of the motel, so we took the occasion to find out a little about what we still had to face in our travels. If we followed Route 66 all the way we would go through Needles; how about that, would that be hard driving, would there be any better way to go? Oh, don't go by Needles! warned the honeymooning couple who had just come through from there. It is unbearable, they said; go by Las Vegas. Yes, said the proprietoress, by all means don't go by Needles, go either by Las Vegas or else down to Prescott and over  the desert. They took over the argument among themselves whether it was best to go to Kingman and put up there and start on very early in the morning for Las Vegas or drive clear to Vegas in the first place and spend the night there. The honeymoon couple were positive we should stop at Kingman; the woman just as positive that Vegas was best. Meanwhile we kept in our minds the suggestion of a service-station man farther back who had been just as positive that we should go to Prescott. We were grateful for all the discussion, but still were not sure what to do. So from then on we asked at every stop, and at alternate stops we would be told to go north and to go south; and the ones who advised going south alternated between advising crossing the desert by day and by night, and they varied in how comfortable or how uncomfortable the trip would be. One man said if it was him, he would go clear to Wickenburg and cross from there; another said by all means don't go to Wickenburg but cut off on 71 at Congress Junction. We decided that we would just continue to ask questions and leave it up to the last one we asked what we would do.

Meanwhile we had reached and passed Flagstaff, Ariz., and had practically decided to go to Prescott, since the desert way looked shorter than the northern, and in our innocence we thought that our main problem from here on was preparing for the heat of the desert. But at Flagstaff we had to make a choice between Route 89 from Ashfork and Alternate 89 from here. On the last advice before we left town we went toward Ashfork. No one gave us any inkling that we were facing anything as bad as what we had been through in mountain driving up to this point, and from the map we judged we had passed the highest places or at least wouldn't go any higher than we had successfully negotiated without a nervous breakdown. Maps tell you so much and omit as much you ought to know. It is a curious thing that everyone we have talked to since concerning our Waterloo has looked surprised and murmured, "Oh, that -- but there wasn't much of that. That's not so bad." However, to us that stretch we ran into between Flagstaff and Ashfork was the straw that almost broke the camel's back. It was a stretch labelled "Dangerous but passable" and that is exactly what it was. It was high, rough and narrow; there were two lanes but ours was the one next to the dropoff into the canyon. The whole way is only 50 miles between those two towns, but he narrow detour alone seemed twice that long to us. Alongside we could see the magnificent four-lane highway that was being constructed for future tourists, but for us there was only this nerve-wracking way. This and the early moment of panic at Amarillo and one later point in the desert where the three spots of utter discouragement we suffered the whole way; three moments from which we felt we would probably never recover. But within a few hours after we reached Santa Barbara we were laughing at our fears as heartily as anyone could, and our hair is no grayer than when we left home. -- Hope.

(Tomorrow Hope continues her jaunt to sunny California.)

That Monday night we spent in the lovely town of Prescott, Ariz. When we reached there we had been of a mind to follow earlier advice and get on down out of the mountains so as to cross the desert by night. One idea had been to linger till the cool of the evening in Prescott, having a leisurely dinner there while the sun went down. But the service-station man assured us that if we went on at all we had better go as soon as we could, for we had close to 40 miles of winding mountain roads in which we descended 2,000 feet. But then he admitted that when we had negotiated that stretch there wasn't much of any place to get a meal or stay for the night, and we wouldn't want to keep driving all night, after all day, without a rest. So we just stopped where we were, got quarters in a fine hospitable motel, had an excellent dinner across the street and got a Phoenix paper to read. They say the Lord always protects babies and fools, and we understood instantly how privileged we had been, when we found that during the Labor Day week end two men had run off the road at Winslow and been killed; one man had a heart attack while driving, just a few miles north of Prescott and his car and body had been found in the canyon. We had passed the very places without seeing an accident or having any trouble except the mental misery we endured among those curves and peaks and drops.

Starting refreshed the next morning, after having breakfast in Prescott to allow daylight to arrive for our protection down that downhill road, we found the way perfectly beautiful, and didn't worry a bit. Of course, this time we were hugging the mountain, and it makes all the difference in the world which side you are on. We met one woman driving up alone. She had stopped stock-still at a turn-out, with such a look of strain on her face that she seemed to be deciding whether just to die there or go on with her eyes shut and let the worst happen quick. I'd hate to drive up that stretch, on the outside all the way! Someone told us later that it was the stretch where Tom Mix lost control of his car and rolled into the canyon to his death. But for us, on that bright morning, in the inside track, it was one of the most beautiful stretches we encountered. The mountains there were covered with trees, and with every turn there was a change in the view, the mountains seeming to approach and recede as we saw them at different angles. At times we could see so far, great stretches of plains with fold after fold of mountains in the distance, and then the mountains would seem to gather close, but comfortably this time, not as ominously as when we were on that terrible narrow track back beyond Williams.

Eventually we crossed the Colorado River (not especially impressive at that point, we thought) and entered California, passed through the inspection point and reached Blythe, that place which according to the radio every morning at home suffers the most intense heat of any place in the United States. It was 10 o'clock in the morning of a hot sunny day. We don't know how hot because we haven't seen a thermometer since we left home nor heard a weather report. Since arriving here we have learned that the whole country had been having a heat wave. And we could see evidences of prolonged drought most of the way. The exceptions, as near as we remember now, were in Missouri and near Gallup, New Mexico. Anyway, we had reached the point where we were to get the car completely checked, find out what special accouterments if any we needed to cross the desert, and whether we dared cross at once or must wait over till the cool of the evening to start this most momentous portion of the trip.

Ten o'clock on a brazen hot morning at Blythe, Cal., at the edge of the desert (or already half way across, as some folks figure it), we faced our next step with a wild surmise, like Balboa or whatever explorer that was who stood silent upon a peak in Darien. Having met with such diverse advice up to this point, we had left the decision to the last one we asked. This was a service-station man at the east edge of Blythe.

"Sure, it's warm. Where isn't it?" he told us cheerfully. "But the desert doesn't get really hot till about 3:00; it's only 10:00 now and you will be across in three hours. The desert is painted lots worse than it is. If your car is in good shape and you take along plenty of water, you've not a thing to worry about. Go right on."

So we were in for it. To tell the truth, we couldn't see much use, having got that far, in hanging around all day in the heat waiting for the cool of the night, when we could just as well suffer as we drove.

On we went, with a water-bag hanging from the radiator,  a thermos bottle of ice water, and a pail partly filled with cold water and some wash cloths to sponge our faces and arms. The water in the pail was soon as warm as bath-water, but it helped anyway. Another time we would put a chunk of ice in the pail instead of water. There is no problem of roads across the desert; they are completely adequate and uncomplicated. We seemed to get plenty warm inside the car but not much warmer than we had been all week. That is, until we got to Indio, which is below sea level. We reached there at high noon and were beginning to get a little flushed of countenance. We had thought we might stop there for lunch but couldn't bear the thought of lingering, so drove on. Life was going on there just as normally as in any town we had seen.If the natives were over-heated they didn't show it. I suppose the human constitution can get used to anything.

We did our best to see all we could and admire every thing possible across the desert but there was a certain monotony about the sand and the tufts of vegetation, and not having taken any notes we can't at this moment recall anything of intense interest to tell you. By 1:00 o'clock we figured we were across and drew a deep breath of relief. We weren't any cooler for quite a while, but we were safe. Soon after 8:00 we drew up at a motel in Riverside and called it a day. This motel was the Spanish type, set right in an orange grove, run by most hospitable, homey folks. The accommodations cost less than anywhere we had been, and furthermore we were given fresh orange juice as well as ice water when we arrived, and were promised free coffee and rolls in the morning if we waited till 7:00 or after to start. We appreciated the kindliness but didn't take advantage of the morning treat; we were too anxious to get  to the end of our journey. We bathed and relaxed, ate some crackers and cheese and peaches we had with us and went to bed, right then in broad daylight. In the morning early we got up and wrote our daily letters home (omitted the night before) and were packed and on the road by 5:00, before daylight but cheered by a gorgeous full moon.

Back in Prescott we had been fortunate enough to meet a couple who had just come from Santa Monica, who gave us their detailed map and instructions for getting through Los Angeles, which had been our final worry. Following these directions, we sped along and were through that huge and fantastic city before morning traffic picked up. "Just follow route 60 or 70 or both, sometimes it will be one, sometimes the other, and sometimes they join; it doesn't matter. Eventually you will find yourself on the Ramona Freeway. You will come to a sign that says routes 60 and 70 end. Don't pay any attention to that. Just go on and you will be on the Hollywood Freeway."

Those were the instructions and they worked out except that when we paid no attention to the sign, we didn't find ourselves on the Hollywood Freeway. True to form we had been able to miss what our advisers said couldn't be missed. However, after a few stabs in different directions we located the freeway and found an entrance to it. Those freeways are sheer delight, and they are building more of them all the time here in California. They are so easy to get onto and off of, and spacious enough so that every driver can take his own pace without bothering any one else.

We were to see a sign, "Santa Monica Boulevard 1/4 mile," and sure enough we did. And what do you know? We were back on good old 66. We followed that right to the sea, turned right on alternate 101 and jogged comfortably north the last hundred miles of our trip, almost all of the time being within sight of great Pacific. At Santa Barbara we turned onto a street that appeared to lead into town, and luck seemed to be all our way this day. At the filling station we got a city map, stopped next door for a good warm breakfast, then simply drove up Milpas street to Anapamu, on that to Garden, then to the corner of Loma Vista and Carmelita, and there we were, at the house with the pepper tree over the walk. (Such lovely street names they have here!)

As we climbed out of the car we heard David's voice exclaiming, "Here they are!" This was not according to plan. We had expected his ship to be late, that it would take a day or two for processing, and then while he got down here we would have time to get our hair done, have the car washed and greet him in lady-like state. Instead his ship had docked early, it had taken only two hours for processing, he had been lucky enough to get the last available roomette on the south-bound train, and the last three or four days while we were struggling toward him over mountain and sand, he had been lolling on the beaches and picnicking in the mountains, resting and reading, here in this comfortable place with our sister-in-law and her 14-year-old daughter. However, in the joy of meeting, with our soldier safe in the homeland after his year at the front in Korea, all was forgiven all around, his premature arrival and our delayed one, and since then all has gone merry as a marriage bell, as the saying goes.

Within a few hours we felt completely rested and the memory of any difficulties had begun to fade. This is certainly a place where it is easy to take your ease. We will be here two or three days and then head for home. We haven't a thing to worry about. We have a man to drive! -- Hope.

Santa Barbara has everything, the sea on one side, the mountains on the other; a downtown district metropolitan enough for any one, clean and spacious, a residential area as relaxed and friendly as a small town. The people are comfortable and easy going, the climate so perfect that you never even think about it. Flowers everywhere, and exotic trees, like palms and eucalyptus and live oak, acacia and pepper trees.

But for us it is more than that, it is a place of sentimental memories, for here our only brother made his home years ago, and here our father and mother spent many placid hours in their latter years. So we not only wanted to enjoy the things all tourists enjoy here, but the things we remembered our parents especially enjoying: like the huge gnarled fig tree with its tortured roots, down by the railroad station, the bird refuge, the place up on Alameda Padre Serra where our father often talked of buying a lot and putting up a home (but never did), the church and the park within walking distance, the magnificent court house, and all the favorite walks from which our father used to come home with a pocketful of odd seeds and a twinkle in his eye. He planted many of those seeds, either in Santa Barbara or back home in Illinois; he raised sequoia trees to be two feet high, and to this day there is a date palm in a corner of Edith's yard that he started from a seed. It is not much over a foot high now and is probably 15 years old, so it is not likely to make a problem of space for some time to come.

We had thought that with three days or so to spend, we would have oceans of time to buy gifts and souvenirs, but we never did get down town long enough to shop. There didn't seem to be any rush at any time, and we were having such a good time elsewhere. We just admired the windows as we drove through and let it go at that. The first afternoon and night of course we had to drive past all the memory-places, winding up high on the mountain side where we could see the lighted city spread out below us, cupped between the heights and the sea. And every night we looked at a few reels of the old family movies, reminding us of happy times half forgotten. Sometimes we had tray dinners around the fireplace, visiting among ourselves or with callers; one night we had a beach picnic, and it was cold, but impressive to see and hear the waves come thundering in under the moon. Once we went out for Chinese dinner, and afterward drove north to the village of Goleta and sat in a drive-in theater to see two shows that we could have seen at home that very week. It is curious how much at home a person can be anywhere in the states or in Canada, you will find the same movies, the same dime stores, the same chain groceries, the same varieties of eating houses using just about the same china and style of service. So whatever strange new factors enter in, you always have that little hold on familiarity.

One afternoon we went on a garden tour and saw four beautiful beach houses with their gardens and one mountain home with the biggest display of succulents we ever saw anywhere. In one of the beach houses we saw some really fine flower arrangements with driftwood, and that set us off on the ambition to bring home a piece of driftwood to use here. We did, eventually, find a piece but it is rather a ratty-looking one compared to the beauties we saw there. But at least it is driftwood, or we think it is.

One day we went driving up the Santa Ynes valley. Years ago on my only other trip to California, we had driven down the Ojai valley toward Pasadena. On this trip we recalled having heard of many valleys around California, and we asked, "The San Joaquin valley, for instance. Where is that?" "Oh," said Edith and Jean cheerfully, "that is about six or seven valleys over." So you see Santa Barbarans have no shortage of places to go, -- if they are tired of one range of hills they just go over beyond into some other valley for a change. But in this particular valley we had some interesting adventures indeed. For one thing we came on a beautiful town called Solvang, which is Danish and as true to its mother-land as if it had been transplanted bodily. We took time there to buy some groceries for a picnic and to browse through a gift shop where Danish ware was emphasized. My purchase was some baskets that thrilled me as being very very Scandinavian. It was not till we got home that we noticed the label on the bottom said Made in Hongkong.

After our picnic in the environs of this thatch-roofed town, we visited the Santa Ynes mission and a little farther north La Purissima mission. This series of Franciscan missions has always fascintated us, and we always had been told that they were built a day's journey apart, for the convenience of weary travelers. The padre at Santa Ynes squelched that theory, however. He said they were much farther apart than that, and they were not built in order, but were built where situations were favorable. There had to be water and there had to be clay or suitable materials for brick, and there had to be Indians for the padres to work among. The Indians in this area were the Cuchamas, and at the present time a big dam to supply water to Santa Barbara is under construction, called, after that tribe, Cuchama Dam.

La Purissima was especially interesting, although at present it doesn't seem to have any padres in residence; it is under the control of the State Park system, and has been reconstructed to look as much as possible as it did in the original days. Great crews of CCC boys (remember them, back in leaf-raking days?) actually made bricks by hand and rebuilt the mission according to plans on record. It is a huge place, still not finished, but it is complete with chapel and rooms for the padrers, but guard rooms and stables, wash-house, and a dormitory for Indian girls, and an infirmary and other buildings. To say nothing of the elaborate garden surrounded by pear trees, with four lovely pools for beauty, from which the overflow water ran into other pools for lavenderia, or laundries, and from there to settling pools from which it was guided off in canals to irrigate the fields.

From La Purissima we drove on north to Lompoc, where our sister-in-law Edith used to teach, and near which many flower seeds are produced in huge colorful fields. We were too late in the season to see the bulk of these, but we did see acres of asters and zinnias and such late flowers. They told of one big field, which we didn't see, in which the flowers were arranged to represent the American flag. And only nine miles from Lompoc stands Camp Cooke, where our own Illinois National Guard is under training. Some of our home town boys are among them, but it was too late to go out and try to locate them on this trip.

Sunday, our last day in Santa Barbara, we went to the church our mother liked so well, where our brother was so active as long as he lived and where his widow and daughter still help in many ways. Then we had several quiet hours on the sunlit beach and in late afternoon visited the Mission. We had expected it to be the highlight of the trip, so thoroughly impressed had we been on our other visit, but the effect was not the same. The towers have had to be torn down and are being rebuilt. The parking space had been much enlarged, altering the effect of the round well we remembered in the front yard: and so much construction material had to be piled about that we couldn't get the same compassionate feeling toward the graves of the Indians and the vaults of the early workers in the Mission. Even the decorations in the chapel seemed more elaborate. -- not so primitive or so typically Indian as we remembered them. However, we did find, and buy, in the souvenir rooms an exquisite carved Madonna of pearwood, only seven or eight inches tall, but so simple, slender and smooth, so truly spiritual in effect that it will be a joy forever. Perhaps when the rebuilding is all complete and the rubble cleared away, the Mission will regain some of the gentle simplicity we remember. Right now it is too busy, too modern. We were almost sorry that we went.

The last evening we spent quietly around the fireplace, visiting with callers who dropped in, and wound up with the last of the family movies; thus concluding a perfect visit. But before going on with the rest of our trip, we ought to tell you a little about earthquakes, for after all, that is the only flaw in the ointment out there, and the bad should be mentioned with the good. -- Hope.

About these earthquakes, we bring up the subject not only because it is in the forefront of interest at this time but because earlier earthquakes had a good deal to do with our family. Only a few weeks before we reached Santa Barbara this year, the city had been slightly damaged by a series of shudders, and it seemed to us people were still a little jittery. At least once in every group we were with. But as one woman remarked, "Back east you have floods and snows that last for weeks, and tornadoes that are just as terrifying and do as much damage, so why should we worry over quakes, which come and go so suddenly? They are awful, but they are over before you have time to worry, and in that respect at least they are less nerve-wracking than some other natural tragedies." Up at Bakersfield the damage this year was much more severe, they say, but we didn't see that. All we saw here was a few damaged buildings, -- a chimney down, a corner out of line. We would probably not have noticed even these traces if they hadn't been pointed out to us.

Then in going through the Missions we were reminded of the subject because both Santa Inez and La Purissima were ruined by the big quake of 1812 and had to be rebuilt, only about a dozen years after they were established.

But the earthquake that affected our family especially was the fairly big one of 1925. Edith showed us dozens of pictures of the Santa Barbara buildings at that time, -- but just the negatives. Our brother had taken the pictures himself, but the chamber of commerce or some officials had decreed at the time that no prints of such pictures should be made or distributed, as it would be bad publicity for the town. Our folks laughed at the idea then, but as years went on, their loyalty to their adopted hometown induced them never to have prints made. Some day these negatives will be collectors' items, -- for the day will come when Santa Barbara (if it is like most towns) will want to prove that it had the biggest and best of something, even if it was only an earthquake.

The way we happen to be connected with the 1925 earthquake was this. After the first World War, my brother and three or four of his buddies, when they got out of the army, went to South Dakota to homestead, and while they were proving up on their claims, they taught school and ran small businesses of different sorts in town. Teaching in the same school with our brother was the charming young woman whom he eventually married, another homesteader. After they both proved up on their claims, they decided that while they were foot-loose and fancy-free they would take a year or so to see their country, stopping where they liked when they liked, for as long as they liked; and if they didn't find a town that appealed to them any more than home, they would come back to Illinois and settle down. They swung down southeast, and up to New England, across the great Northwest, down into Texas and finally got into California. On the way they had many amusing adventures that they wouldn't have missed for worlds. One that Edith told us this time, which we hadn't heard before, was the time they picked cotton for a day somewhere, and she earned eighty-five cents and our brother $1.25, while the regular pickers were making eight and ten dollars a day; and she overheard the overseer say, concerning the row she had picked, "It looks like a cow had gone down that row, and licked it." She is very clever in many ways and wonderful at teaching school, but from then on she never claimed to be an expert at cotton-picking.

Anyway, they arrived at Santa Barbara soon after the big quake, where dozens of business houses and homes were wrecked and ruined. My brother's line in college had been architecture and his practical experience had been working summers with our father, who was a contractor and builder. Here was a place needing the kind of help he could give, and he couldn't keep his hands off. By the time the place had been made presentable again, Wilbert and Edith had fallen in love with the town, its climate, its people, its natural advantages, so they built themselves a home and settled down. There their first child was born, my namesake, in January, 1936, and died three days later and is buried. There our brother was laid to rest in 1943 when he was stricken on Father's Day with coronary thrombosis, two weeks after the second and only living child celebrated her fifth birthday. The last pictures we have of him are the birthday-party movies of that June.

This Jean is the youngest of the twenty cousins, while our Ruth is the oldest. Jean was born in June of 1938, the very month that Ruth finished college and as her graduation trip had a trip to California. (It had been our idea to make a tradition of a California trip for each child's graduation. But by the time Wilbert finished, the war was on and he went into the army instead. The next year the war was still on, so Ernie went into the navy the day after commencement. And this year, when Joe would have finished, he was about mid-way in his army services. So our "tradition" didn't get past first base.) Jean is also called the "golden wedding baby" because she was born the year our parents celebrated their fiftieth anniversary.

So it was an earthquake that induced the folks to settle in Santa Barbara, but a lot of other things kept them there. It is impossible to mention all the advantages, but one of the most interesting phenomena is the vegetation. It is a cross between the tropical and the temperate zones. You see lots of palms and eucalyptus, lots of desert cacti and succulents, and yet you see many plants more familiar to us, only they grow so big. The things we grow in pots grow here as shrubs. For instance, outside the breakfast window and reaching up to the top of it, is a lantana in bloom. And by the walk is a red geranium three feet wide and three feet high. And remember those oleanders our grandmothers used to have in tubs, indoors in winter and out on the porch in summer? It seemed to me they were considered very rare and precious and took a good deal of care. Here they grow outside the year round in great profusion. Some are in hedges clipped to taste, some are shrubs, some are actually trees.

On my previous trip, which was in December, the poinsettias amazed me, growing as tall as the one-story houses, vivid against the plaster. This time the bougainvillea is predominant, growing on houses and walls and fences, tall luxuriant vines with cascades of blossoms. You see all colors: fuchsia, magenta, scarlet and crimson, blue and purple, lavender, pink and white. Well, maybe not white. But they are plentiful and beautiful and different from anything we have at home. We reveled in it all. But we must confess that when we got out of California, and saw some of the good old trees we are used to, they looked good. The lawns there are green and thick, but of course everything has to be watered daily, to keep them that way.

But this is enough about Santa Barbara, our only real stop on the trip, -- except for a day in San Francisco which we must tell another day. -- Hope.

When in California one must eat at least once the way the Californians do, that is, Chinese style. This time our Oriental meal was taken in a very simple place, not one of those dark, exotic places with grillwork labyrinths and heavy incense in the air. It was bright, light and pleasant, and the whole proceeding was interesting.

There were five of us, but to our surprise our hostess ordered "Dinner for Four." It seems that Dinner for One consists of three certain dishes, Dinner for Two adds a dish, for three adds another and so on. At an adjoining table, also a party of five, we heard them order "Two Dinners for Two."

Dinner for One consists of chow mein, fried rice and fried shrimp and costs a dollar. For two, they add egg foo yung and a dollar in price. For three, chow yoke and another dollar; for four, spareribs and a dollar; for five, chicken almond and another dollar, and for six, they substitute Chinese-fried chicken for the chicken almond. The dishes are so large that dinner for four makes more than we five could eat.

The first things the waitress brings are tiny cups without handles, for tea, and small butter-plates with sauce for the shrimps. About half a teaspoon of horseradish-mustard and about a teaspoon of catsup, not mixed but separate. There may be some significance in the two colors, for some Chinese students at the University of Illinois who prepared a full meal of Chinese dishes for some of us had one dish they called "the red-and-yellow." Anyway, this little dish made a nice spot of color in a meal that was just a little drab in looks, though tasty. Next came the pot of tea and the fortune cakes. These cakes were to use with the tea and each contained a paper slip with a sentence forecasting one's fate. (My first one said "You will meet a new romantic interest soon" and since that didn't appeal to me, the young niece traded me hers which said "You will take a journey in the near future," which we certainly had reason to believe would come true.) The cakes also constitute the only dessert. They are interesting in shape but we didn't find out how they were made. They are very brittle and seem to be made of flour, water and a little sugar, cut into circles three or four inches across and baked hard to a light tan. The edges are drawn together to form a half-circle but without creasing across the diameter, then the two points of the half-circle are drawn down toward each other over a rod (this is just the way it looked to us -- they may be cooked on a special iron to shape them), so that the center bulges out crosswise, leaving a little space or room or pocket where the paper fortune is found. Not a very clear description, but anyone who has seen them will remember the interesting shape, and perhaps someone can tell us more about how they are made.

The meal arrives on a huge tray carrying the six dishes and bowls, and you pass them around the table for each to serve himself as much as he desires. The chow mein is a great grayish mound of strings; bean sprouts, slivers of meat, celery, onion and who knows what, cooked very tender in a slightly thickened sauce or gravy, on a generous bed of crisp fried Chinese noodles.

The fried rice looked gray, too, probably from soy sauce, and it was seasoned with miscellaneous viands, hard to distinguish. The shrimp were practically the same as we make in our own homes -- just dipped in egg batter and fried in deep fat.

Egg foo yung turned out to be patty-cakes fried something like hamburgers, only made from some sort of egg mixture. The patties were about four inches across. Chow yoke was the nearest we had to a vegetable or salad. It was a mixture of rather coarse pieces of celery, cabbage or Chinese cabbage and other things, the most unusual of which were the bright green pea-pods. These were broader and shorter than any peas we raise and the peas had scarcely begun to develop. These vegetables were all cooked together and served in the same grayish sauce, almost a glaze. The spareribs were made from very small tender ribs cut in inch lengths and cooked in a rich sweet-sour tomato flavored sauce, a good deal like we would call barbecued spareribs.

No salad. No dessert. We enjoyed the meal for its novelty but would not care for it often. We were glad we were eating in a clean, simple dining room in bright afternoon sunshine, and could see into the immaculate kitchen, for to tell the truth, in one of those obscure, dim, incense-filled, elaborate Chinese places where secretive hangings box you in and the service always seem stealthy, we might have been skeptical about the whole thing. I wouldn't go so far as some of our 4-H boys did the first time they had chop suey and call it chop sewage; but I might say that Chinese food is like Christmas -- once a year is enough. -- Hope.

We had one more brief visit to make before heading home, and that was at San Francisco, where our niece Paula works as an expert draftsman for a shipbuilding concern, and does art work, her real heart interest, on the side. This is the same niece who long ago lost her little white shoe in the corn field, some of you perhaps will remember. Another niece, Elizabeth, called Obit, by the family because that is how the little ones used to pronounce her name, has just settled in san Francisco, too, with a pharmaceutical firm, after completing her scholarship and getting her advanced degree in bacteriology and stuff at the University of Southern California. As luck would have it, her firm chose this very week to send her back to the campus for some research work. If it had been a week earlier, we could have seen her while we were in Santa Barbara. As it was, she would be speeding south by train at the very time we were going north by car. So we talked by long-distance Sunday and made that do.

Then on Monday morning we set out northward from Santa Barbara. It makes you realize the size of the state when it takes you a whole day to get from there to San Francisco, and that is only about a quarter of the length of California. On the way we stopped to call on a cousin of our mother's who resembles her so much that it seemed almost like a reincarnation. The same build the same quick sweet smile, the same gentle ways. It was an experience both sweet and sad. She lives in San Luis Obispo, where another of the famous missions is located, so we took time to drive around it though it was too early for visiting the interior. It is the mission our mother considered the nicest of all. Later, by the way, we stopped at San Migual mission and wandered through its quiet garden and burial ground, and climbed the narrow, winding rock staircase to the beautiful bell tower, three bells in three arches. So we have now seen five of the series of missions and hope some day to see the rest.

We mentioned the brilliant flowers and green lawns of Santa Barbara, and admired the same things in all the towns we traversed, and yet the big over-all impression we carry away of California, it seems, is that endless succession of great smoothly rolling tawny hills, with live-oaks against them. That is what we saw most of the day's trip northward. We took route 101 which is somewhat inland, and felt that we had a good chance to see the country. There is a road, route 1, closer to the sea, and we wished we might have traveled both.

It got cooler and windier as we went up-country, and in late afternoon as we approached San Francisco, it struck us as a White City. If Rome was built on seven hills, San Francisco must be built on twenty-seven. And all the houses on different levels stacked up against each other like the white dominoes. When we got into the city it seemed as though the buildings all rose straight up from the pavements. They have large and lovely park areas, and no doubt residential parts where there are lawns and trees, but the general impression going through the city is strictly of white buildings rising from wide steep streets. The place is not only hilly but is so ingeniously contrived that you always seem to approach a stop-light at a very steep place and you fairly hold your breath hoping the light will change and you can get under way again before you roll back. Unless you see it, you can hardly imagine how any city could manage to have every street on an incline. At the intersections it seems as though all four ways drop away from you, and that is odd, for you must have to be at the bottom of the hill somewhere.

Anyway, the whole atmosphere of the place is invigorating. It didn't seem to be feverishly active, and yet everyone seemed alert and had a sparkle in the eye.

We found Paula's place with no trouble, in time for dinner. She is much more pleasantly situated than many career girls, who sometimes have to live in a room-and-a-half apartment. She lives on the second floor of one of the big old San Francisco residences, with a young widow about her own age and her 3-year-old son. Just to show you how much room they have; across the front, a large living room and a bedroom; then in succession, another bedroom, Peter's bedroom and playroom, a dining room, kitchen, utility room, and a sun deck. No motels for us this night, there was room to spare.

After dinner Paula thought it would be nice for us to see Fisherman's Wharf and on the way walk through a block or two of Chinatown. We asked if we needed wraps, and she said always after five you do. We found out she was absolutely right. After wondering for a week why we had cumbered ourselves with extra clothing and wraps, we found out. We went into wool suits at San Francisco and stayed in them till the last day of the trip.

We didn't use the car, for you haven't "done" San Francisco unless you have ridden the famous cable cars. So we walked over a couple of blocks and caught the one on California street and rode clear to the top of Nob Hill, past the well-known Mark Hopkins hotel. Leaving the car, we turned into Grant street, which is Chinatown. It was lined with bright, cheerful retail shops, busy with tourist customers. We were  still wandering from store to store, marveling at the low prices and deciding what to buy when we came to a Chinese movie theater and thought how much fun it would be to see a picture in a foreign language. So we went in and saw the picture through, with all its strange sights and sounds, and when it was over we all had extraordinarily different ideas of the plot. It took us hours of discussion later, off and on, to clear up some points. David claimed we had seen the same thing through three times, but then he was bored to begin with. We found it quite an experience and we had much more sympathy for foreigners in a strange land than we ever had before.

One of the queerest incidents had nothing to do with the screen. We sat in a front row of seats where an aisle crossed in front of us. There were many little children in the theater and they kept trotting back and forth, even as yours and mine. At one time a couple of pretty little Chinese girls about 4 years old started to scamper across in front of us but looked up at us and shied off like frightened colts, drew back a couple of steps and stared at us in a sort of horror and finally slunk past as far from us as they could get. Imagine that! They thought we were the foreigners! Oh, well, "all are odd but thee and me, and even thee is a little odd."

We never did get to Fisherman's Wharf.

In fact, we almost didn't get home. It was ten when we went into the show, midnight when we came out. And these cable cars don't seem to run so frequently after that. We went a block this way and a block that but finally got on a car. It was so sparsely filled that a warning sign was visible that we hadn't noticed before: Passengers Must Hold on at Curve. About the time we noticed it, the conductor called out the same words, and the car took a curve so smartly that we were practically wrapped twice around the posts we grabbed. Or anyway once-and-a-half. We mentioned that this was an invigorating place. The folks who ride these cars get the equivalent of a brisk osteopathic treatment on every trip. Not only up hill and down, but around bends.

Next morning after a leisurely breakfast we set out on a day that was to be a wonderful experience. We saw a lot but were not rushing to see everything. We had no sense of hurry and we had plenty of time to talk and visit. Using David's car this time, we first went to Telegraph Hill where we could see the whole city from the top of the tower, including the bay and the bridges and Alcatraz and all. Then we drove sightseeing through parts of the city, getting into several dead-end streets by mistake. It is a place where one could browse for weeks and always find something new. We drove around in a rich residential district, Belvedere, seems to me they said it was an island but if so, don't aks me how we got to it. We went over the Golden Gate bridge to Tiburon and there we had a leisurely early dinner at Sam's Anchor Cafe, right on the edge of the water. We looked out our window straight across the bay toward the Mark Hopkins hotel and Telegraph Hill, where we had been earlier. In the blue water we watched outboard motor boats, sailboats and palatial cabin cruisers. We lingered a long while over our meal, the most expensive and in some ways the most satisfying of the trip, and then we drove down to Muir Woods to see the big trees, since we didn't have time to go to Yosemite. Then in the twilight we went back over Golden Gate and so home to coffee and ice cream and more visiting.

As we crossed Golden Gate bridge that last time, the girls remarked cheerfully that it was a  great place for suicides. It seemed to have a fatal attraction for the depressed. And next norming we saw by the paper that within thirty minutes of the time we went across, the 141st suicide had leaped to his death. He had driven to the middle of the bridge, got out of his car, locked it and put the keys in his pocket, before he jumped. Such is the power of habit. If he had only thought, since he was determined to end it all, he could have made one last gesture of courtesy by leaving the keys in the ignition for the convenience of the police.

This incident just shows how we seemed to travel in a sort of vacuum of safety. We were not on any accidents and we did not even see any happen, but we would read in the paper of tragedies of various sorts happening at the very places we had been or were going. Like back at Pacific, Missouri, when we watched some airplanes overhead with mild interest and didn't know till night that they were trying to spot an escaped convict in the woods, and police cars and officers were all about us seeking. And later, in Arizona, folks were running off the highway and falling into canyons. And still later, in Nevada and Utah, two escaped convicts were on the loose and suspected of trying to hitch-hike to safety. One of them was tall and blonde, the other short and swarthy. We made it a rule to pick up no hikers at any time, but we imagined we saw those two convicts, alone and together, at least a dozen times along the highway, trying to thumb a ride. Since we got home, we have read in the papers that one of them is still supposed to be at large in salt Lake city. We get in on the fringes of excitement, but fate seems to have ordained for us a placid life.

It was a joy to have little Peter with us all that day. He is just 3, like our little Mike, and as blonde as Mike is dark. But it was amusing to see that they liked exactly the same jokes and games and stories, and liked equally well to be cuddled by Gram and Aunt Margi. It made us homesick for our own little ones and we were quite willing to start for home and step along lively. -- Hope.

Memory Gem

A physiologist says a nose is nine-tenths for breathing and one-tenth for smelling. That leaves nothing at all for sticking into other folks' business.

Memory Gem

By the time she is the mother of four or five, a woman is no longer irked by the noise of the children. It is the prolonged silence that stirs her dark doubts.

We sent out from San Francisco bright and early on the homestretch of our rather impromptu trip to California and now we were to have no more time for visit, side trips, or sightseeing for David was headed for home like a hungry horse at the end of a hard day, or to put it more poetically "he was the sworn companion of the wind". What we saw would be observed strictly from the road as we sped along, filled out by the memory of what geography and history we could bring to mind. This time we crossed the Bay bridge and wild through Berkeley and other cities that fringe the Eastern shore, then struck out north east for Sacramento. That was about the last place we noticed much tropical vegetation. No more palms and eucalyptus, Acacia and pepper trees, but as we said before, while it was wonderful to see those exotic things. It really seemed comfortable and nice to look once more good old, maples, oaks, and evergreens.

It began to rain before we were far out of Sacramento and then began to snow. When we went through Donner Pass, a thin blanket of white already lay over the mountains, and the stormy aspect really made the passage more impressive, but we couldn't help but think back to those days of old when that brave little party of pioneers met their tragic end at this place, starving freezing, and betrayed. We wondered how they had the audacity to seek a way through the mountains. It was bleak enough for us on that good smooth road with humans and machines within call if we had trouble, with a heater in the car and food available whenever we wanted it. Such a far cry from the situation then. And still with all our modern advantages the weather can still be a master, for right here only last year two crack trains were stalled for days in the snow.

By the time we got to Reno, people really looked almost blue with cold and the gas man told us they expected a foot of snow by morning. The temperature dropped suddenly just the day before. The rain would stop and start again from time to time it would snow or sleet or hail. Once in a while, the sun came out. We went over the plains and through the mountains, and finally as the rain got heavier, we pulled up at Lovelock for supper. Margie and I assumed that was the end of the day travel. But no, not with David at the wheel. On we went with ominous mountains drawing close, and then receding from us, and a heavy black cloud hanging over the orange strip of sunset sky behind us. We passed Battle Mountain, but haven't any idea what battle it was named for – probably some Indian affair. We went through Emigrant Pass in complete darkness, and maybe it was just as well – no telling what damage our nerves might've suffered in daylight.

Finally, we pulled into Elko and called it a day. David did the room scouting for us on the way home and in this place he secured a palatial suite at a huge motel, three big rooms and bath. Sometimes you hear of exorbitant prices for tourist accommodations but we didn't find any. This was the most expensive anywhere and it cost four dollars each. It might be that we could've bedded down as many people as we liked for the same price. With three double beds and a big Davenport seven would've been quite comfortable. We only regretted that we got the in so late for if we had arrived early and if we had known anybody to invite, we could've held quite a large reception in our apartment.

The cheapest rooms we had a couple of nights near our home cost us only $7.50 for the three; but is it as it was quite late and the hostess was about a sleepy as we were. we are inclined to think she made a mistake. Most places we paid three or three and one half dollars each. At Riverside California the charge was only $2.50 each, and that was the place where they gave free orange juice when we arrived and offered free coffee and rolls before we left. Most of the places have about the same accommodations; all the hot and cold water you want, ice water to drink if you want it, always a shower and sometimes the tub besides, air-conditioning if needed and heating arrangements, very comfortable beds, clean and attractive furniture. Usually there is a good café within inconvenient distance and what we appreciated was that there was usually one open early enough in the morning to accommodate us. Some places have carport alongside but oftener the cars are just parked around the patio in front of the rooms. Back in Texas and some of those mild southwestern states we noticed several times the folks just pulled off the road (the shoulders are wide down there) and arranged sleeping quarters in the car. We thought that a young couple trying to economize could do very well and save quite a bit of cash by doing that. Several times we saw carloads of young fellows just getting up in the morning with a mirror hung somewhere in the car, shaving and getting freshened up for the day.

But to get on with our story, we started from Elko about seven and the weather had cheered up considerably. It was still cold and windy, but the sun was out. As we drove on into Utah, we thought it first a lot more snow had fallen than we realized, for the plain was white and crystallized as far as we could see, and with that the pale blue sky and bright sun, we thought for a minute we were looking out on a typical winter snow scene. Of course, it was just the great salt flats, and off in the distance we could begin to see the blue waters of the Great Salt Lake. We reached Salt Lake City at noon, and there we made a call on a friend who lived at the University of Illinois with her two little boys while her husband finished school there. Now they have four boys. We intended just to say hello, take a swing through the city, and go on. But she insisted on joining the family for lunch and then she went sightseeing with us. This was a great adventure, for she had been born and raised here, and was herself a Mormon, in fact, a great granddaughter of Brigham Young, so she could give us many more interesting and intimate details than most guides. We saw the monument where their leader first said, "This is the place", and, of course the temple and the tabernacle and the sea gull monument and the Pioneer museum, as well as the lion House with its 20 gables where Brigham Young's many wives lived well in harmony together. Our friend pointed out the gable to the apartment of her great grandmother. Even with this much sightseeing, we would've been on our way sooner except we got into one of the conducted parties on the temple Square and followed along and listened to the excellent guide to explaining her peoples history and beliefs. The Mormons are truly a very kindly, generous, tolerant people. Although they suffered much persecution themselves, they never retaliated, but invited other sects to come into their valley and settle there. They got along better with the Indians than many pioneers, because they won them with kindness.

It was interesting to think afterward about how close we had been to the heart of three great religions on this trip, and how genuinely generous all of them were; the San Francisco Padres of the California missions, the Mormons at Salt Lake, and the Methodists at Santa Barbara. And that reminds me that we copied down the words from two plaques in the church at Santa Barbara. One it seems to me was in the church school part of the ediface, and it said "Our courteous Lord willeth that we should be as homely with him as heart may think or soul may desire. But let us be aware that we take not so recklessly this homeliness as to leave courtesy". – Julian of Norwalk,

And the other was near the entrance of the church itself and said "This is the place where prayer is wont to be made, a house  which Christ by his Sacramento presence has made a home".

It was after four when we prepared to leave Salt Lake, and we had hoped to get as far as rock Rock Springs, Wyoming by that night. Our hostess declared we couldn't get further than Evanston as the road was mountainous and winding and not in extra good condition. But she didn't know David. We found the road just as she said. And it begin to rain again besides. But now there was no stopping our driver now. At Evanston, we merely stopped for supper and went on. We didn't quit until nearly midnight, but we got to Rock Springs even though we had to wind around mountains in the dark. Back in 1940 or 1941 we had stopped at this town before coming down from Yellowstone past the Grand Tetons. It didn't exactly seem familiar because it was too dark to see anything, and we drove through and stopped in a motel on the other side where we could bound out early and dash east again in the morning. At Rock Springs we got another room apartment again with three rooms and a bath and an extra cot in the kitchen – and it cost $10 for the three of us.

Soon after 7 o'clock the next morning we were on the way again on a bright cold, very windy day, and for a while, it seemed to be an endless plain, hardly mountain to be seen even in the distance – and this we found later was the Great Divide basin. We stopped at Wamsutter, Wyoming, and there we had breakfast and mailed our last card – and beat them home by three days. We passed the Continental Divide, and soon ran into the mountains again through Rawlings and Laramie to Cheyenne. When we stopped at Cheyenne before it was July and the time of rodeos with many bright Cowboys on the streets. This time we saw something entirely different, namely, the Air Force Base named for Francis Warren. David had been stationed there for a while when the base still belonged to the army, and he wanted to take a few minutes to run through it again and show us where he lived. It is a huge place long established, and therefore like a real town. We were impressed by the large brick residences of the officers and the smaller but cheerful cottages for the men, new since David was there, but what impressed the most was the snappy saluting that David rated everywhere as he turned up. Up to now among all the aunts and girl cousins he was just our boy to park the car and run errands and carry bags in general look after us – very dear to us, but a little on the order of a porter we should be ashamed to admit. To be sure he was in uniform, but those captain's bars didn't mean anything to us civilians, but dear me when you get into a military environment, how they do count!

A Good Housekeeper Speaks

I was so busy as the days to the days are in.
I did not write that letter to my friend.
In her great need I had no time at all.
To return the neighbors friendly call?
The little child who passed my door went by
Without a smiling answer to her shy
Advancement and the begger at my door.
Went on still carrying the burden that he bore.
Even my nearest and my dearest knew.
I had no time to spare the long hours through

And now that tonight my house is clean and bright.
The window sills are scrubbed, my boards are white.
The beds are smooth, each dish neat on the shelf.
And pleased with it ... but not pleased with myself!
Dear God, if tomorrow may be mine.
Help me to make my spirit shine.
One should not be too spent at close of day
To read an old love book to kneel and pray.
– Grace Neil Cowell 

MEMORY GEM 

The best way to get along with a woman is to let her think she is having her own way. And the way to do that is to let her have it.

MEMORY GEM

I do the very best I can, and mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won't come out to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, 10 angels, swearing I was right, would make no difference – Abe Lincoln.

MEMORY GEM

As badly off as I was, I had a feeling as soon as I got here that this was the place to be, poor or well fixed – Victor Borge, immigrant from Denmark to the USA.

MEMORY GEM

Too many of us are like wheelbarrows, useful only when pushed and easily upset.

MEMORY GEM

The sting of a bee carries conviction with it. It makes a man a bee-leaver at once.

MEMORY GEM

In flat country molehills look like mountains.

Our Tim is 2. Grandfather, grandmother and great-grandfather were invited up for dessert to help celebrate. The occasion will live in memory for at least two reasons. One was the cake itself, which was a charmingly novel idea for a little one's birthday. Instead of a big angel food or similar elaborate cake, this was an ice-cream roll, and the two little candles looked very perky on the "log." Chocolate sauce from a pitcher enabled each person to make his dessert as rich and massive as he liked. Tim was shy about blowing out his candles, and even about eating his portion, but his 3-year-old brother Mike was only too happy to oblige in both departments.

But the second feature of the evening is what will make the day live on in infamy for the ladies of the family. Tim's mama had a new dress which needed a hem marked. The two little boys were fascinated with the process, and helped all they could by handing gram the pins from the tomato pincushion. We used a lot, not only because the skirt was full but because the boys were enjoying the game so much. The dress was then hung in the closet ready for sewing the next day.

It wasn't long till Tim appeared with his hands and pockets full of pins. The dress hung at such a nice height for a little boy to sit down on the floor and take them all out. He was ready for another nice game of taking pins out of one place and putting them in another.

We haven't gone into the psychological matter of whether this proves Tim to be clothes-conscious or not. But no doubt the story will seem funnier than it did at the time, in years to come when we recount what Tim did when he was 2 years old. -- Hope.

Another turn of the wheel, another cycle, and here is another New Year coming up. Some of us have been together a good long while in our Household comradeship, though few of us have ever met face to face.

Can you believe it is almost 30 years since "Hope Took the Helm"? In the beginning we had three little tykes around our house, Ruth, Wilbert and Ernest Vail, aged about nine, five and four. Our tagalong Joe wasn't born for several years after that. Many of you had about the same number of children, about the same ages, and many of you had postscript babies, even as we. These children of ours and yours have gone through school, gone through war service, married and had children of their own; and many of you have kept us posited on all these occurrences, with the problems and pleasures that come along with each stage. And now we have nine grand-children -- just about up to the average, according to what we hear from you, though many have out-stripped us in that line. Let's drink a cup of kindness now, for auld lang syne!

We wish you all good fare, good fellowship and good fortune. And may there be goodwill between us all and between the nations of the world this New Year. -- Hope.

Of all the millions of letters that have been written down through history, comparatively few have survived. For instance, we have only a few of the letters written by Paul to the early Christian churches, only a few of the letters written by soldiers on the battle-field to their families back home, and so on.

There is no way of telling how much we have missed by not having these letters, but I know whenever one does appear that has happened to be saved, we are all touched by the comparison of the days when the letter was written and the present time.

I've just had my attention called to a most interesting letter that has curiously survived for 17 centuries, and I want to share it with you, for I think it will be comforting to most of you. It was written by a middle-aged man name Cyprian, in a garden near the city of Carthage in Northern Africa, to a friend named Donatus. both the garden and the city have long been destroyed, yet this communication has survived, and can be copied and circulated, so that the ideas expressed live on and on. It goes like this:

"This seems to be a cheerful world, Donatus, when I view it from this fair garden under the shadow of these vines. But if I climbed some great mountain and looked out over the wide lands, you know very well what I would see. Brigands on the high roads, pirates on the seas, in the amphitheaters men murdered to please applauding crowds, under all roofs misery and selfishness and cruelty. Yet in the midst of it I have found a quiet and a holy people. They have discovered a joy which is a thousand times better than any pleasure of this sinful life. They are despised and persecuted, but they care not. They have overcome the world. These people, Donatus, are the Christians -- and I am one of them." -- Hope.

Dear All: Odd how we all have our likes and dislikes. There's a vegetable I just can't eat -- parsnips. But I don't say not to eat them because I don't like them. We are supposed to drink milk but I can hardly bear to taste it to see if it is sour. That shouldn't keep others from drinking it. I can use it on cereal and in cooking.

Hope, did the quilt get finished or not? I've often wondered. We have had a different sort of winter here in Ohio, cold early, then the rest of the time (so far) warm. I enjoy the letters of the readers' families, also the men's letters.

There is much flu around, some really bad cases. I enjoy the diet letters. I find it hard to reduce but one has to make up her mind, Fat or Food, -- and don't we all like Food. I was on a three-day diet once and really felt wonderful. Should go on again, as you get rid of poison in your system. Don't eat or drink a thing for three days. You can just feel poison going from your system. Then first thing, drink half a glass of warm water and eat very lightly for a few days, then keep on eating the things that are good for you. You will feel wonderful and wonder why you did not try it before. It helps those who have aches and pains to get rid of poison. -- Plank Road, Pennsylvania.

The quilts are well on the way to completion. Guess how many? FIVE! Three are all done, finished in peach, pink and yellow. The last two are being set together with blue and green, I think. Wish we could have a Household party and show them off. My deepest thanks to you all. -- Hope.

Dear Hope and Household: Truth is very vital to every one of us, as has recently been emphasized by the investigation of quiz shows.

We deny Jesus on our calendars by naming the seventh day "Saturday," instead of "Sabbath."

When we call the seventh day "Saturday." With "In God We Trust" on all our coins, we are "speaking lies in hypocrisy," which the Spirit told Paul would occur in the latter times.

It began with Charlemagne; called "The First Christian Emperor." In order to have one religion, he took the name Christian and the sacred day of the Sun-Worshippers, is what histories tell us. Now modern "One Worlders" are trying to get a new world calendar with an 8-day week every year and two in leap years, which would cause the Sabbath and Sunday to wander through the week as the years go by.

According to "The Authentic Jones Report," more than 100 ancient and modern languages have always had the seventh day named "Sabbath." Russia is one of them. So let us all use our influence to get the Sabbath on our calendars with no change in the sequence of days. -- Mary Esther Armstrong, Kewanee, Illinois.

Hope's Suggestion

There have been so many blunders and changes through the ages that who can tell which day is actually the Sabbath? It seems more important for each one to observe a Sabbath according to his beliefs. Prior to Christ's time calendars of a sort were used, and altered from time to time. Julius Caesar, about Christ's time, added a February 29 every four years. Other Caesars named months after themselves and changed the order of the months. Pope Gregory in the 1500's decided the February 29 was getting us too far ahead of the sun, so he decreed that we would drop Leap Year Day in any turn of the century not divisible by four (that is, there was Leap Year in 1600, not in 1700 nor 1800 nor 1900, but there will be one in 2000). Then along about George Washington's time we dropped 11 days and called what had been February 11 February 22. So you see many changes have altered the calendar and the Sabbath may not have kept in the regular pattern all the time. And the way March acted in 1960, it began to look like the old Earth had slipped a cog again and we'd better call March a winter month.

Sunrise and sunset and the cycle of the seasons are natural phenomena, but most of the arrangements concerning time are man-planned for convenience -- our clocks and watches, time zones, time tables and such. Those who talk of changing the calendar are trying only to bring time measurements into enough conformity that the whole world can abide by one system. Maybe there should be no change; maybe the change you mention is not the best one. But there is nothing in any of the plans that would prevent anyone from keeping his Sabbath, that I can see. -- Hope.

Dear Hope and Readers: The letter from "Proverb" of Kansas started me thinking, which had a drastic result, as you will see. Hope, I got all these sayings out of my head! Please use the best, and thanks for printing what you can. I never knew I had such things in my head till I got to thinking. I am an old-timer and remember back to the Gay Nineties, although I am not one of them (younger by 16 to 20 years). I have intended to write for years but needed an incentive to start me, which "Proverb" of Kansas furnished.

I think of you often and hope you are OK and adjusted to your loss. I am a widow of 10 years. I had to realize; I was completely played out running a large farm business, mostly on my own, and health gone. I am living in a nice home in town now but have as my long-time friend this paper every day. I live alone, and make out. The health is the big problem. I often think of your quilts and wonder how you came out with them. I will always love your Household, and this whole paper. -- Sand Cherry of Nebraska Sand Hills.

Before we start on your list of sayings and proverbs, we'll take a little space to report about the quilts. They are all done -- and there were five of them, each one prettier than the other. Each is finished in a different color; they are pink, peach, yellow, blue and green.

Every block that arrived was used, even though some were different sizes and types than were stipulated in the original instructions. There were enough blocks with white background to make one whole quilt; the other four are on unbleached muslin backgrounds. With every block different, it is amazing how beautifully the quilters fitted them all together in harmony.

On the back of one quilt are the names and addresses of all those who contributed toward the expense of finishing instead of making blocks. Whether satisfactory pictures can be made of the quilts we don't know yet. To show up well, they would need to be in color and that would be expensive and impossible to print in the paper. But possibly if we can get good color pictures, we might be able to have them enlarged and display a set at the International or at some of the big fairs. To display the quilts themselves would be more satisfactory, but what a lot of room that would take!

These quilts are more deeply appreciated than words can express. They will be a comfort and a treasure always. They would be that just as objects of art, but think how much more is involved when every block is a distinctive personality, reminding me of our mutual interests through the years, our discussions (disagreements as well as agreements), our exchanges of helps and ideas, our families with all the problems of child training and sewing and mending and cooking and making ends meet, our community activities and keeping up with changing times. So few of us have actually met one another, or even seen one another's photographs, yet how intimately our lives have intertwined.

I thank you all, from my heart, and hope that many of you will get to see the quilts. But if you never do, you can still see them in your mind's eye, the only way in which most of us know each other. Maybe the quilts and we ourselves show up better that way. -- Hope.

Memory Gem

Old gardeners never die, they just spade away.

The finest Christmas message we can bring you is news of the arrival of a new grandchild, the thirteenth. We suggested to the young mother that she might avoid the adverse number by having twins, but she claimed she wasn't THAT superstitious. So now we have Victoria Hope in the family, young sister to Cynthia Jo of whom we told you last year.

Joe, you remember, was our tagalong postscript baby, seven years younger than the preceding one (Ruth, Wilbert and Ernest Vail having come close together). Joe finished his Army service, then his interrupted college career, before he married Carolyn. It logically follows that we have a tagalong postscript family of grandchildren, and what a joy it is to break out the baby bed and high chair from storage in the attic for another round of happy infants.

All but Ruth's family, who live in Connecticut, were together for Thanksgiving, and Cynthia, such a good little girl, fairly beamed with contentment as she trotted about in a big house all day, surrounded by what must have seemed to her a multitude of loving relatives, while the new baby demonstrated her charming disposition by sleeping so well that we almost forget she was there except at feeding time.

Among the grandchildren there is one name-sake for Jim. Wilbert and Betty called a son James Michael. And there are two for me. Ruth gave her daughter my real given name, and now Carolyn has given hers my pen-name. That is appropriate, because Carolyn was a journalist herself and is probably more impressed by me as a columnist than as a mere mother.

Both the names she chose are especially touching to me. Hope because of the rich associations through the years with all of you, as well as because of the look to the future which it implies. Victoria because it symbolizes victory of youth over age, light over darkness, life over death, and stillness over grief.

The best of Christmases to you all. -- Hope.

Memory Gem

Women are wiser than men because they know less and understand more. -- James Stephens.

Memory Gem

And so I hold it is not treason
To advance a simple reason
For the sorry lack of progress we decry.
It is this: instead of working
On himself, each man is shirking
And trying to reform some other guy.

After 17 days' hospitalization for pneumonia, your editor is convalescing at her son's home for a few days. To the members of my family, the editor of the paper and all the people who rose to the emergency and compiled the installments which have appeared here since the day after Christmas, I am most grateful. It is not easy to take hold of an unfamiliar job and carry it through without any help or advice from the one who usually does it. So I will especially appreciate forbearance on the part of all you readers if any mistakes or delays have occurred during this interim. With cooperation all around, soon we will be back in the same old comfortable jogtrot together. -- Hope.

Memory Gem

We make a living by what we get but we make a life by what we give.

The response to the Flowers for the Living project, as announced in the Jan. 16 issue of The Drovers Journal, has been heart-warming. Readers who have sent in contributions for the fund to build a church in Africa in Hope Needham's name have been high in their praise of Hope for her many years of fine service. Many have read the paper continuously during the 37 years she has edited the Household column. All seemed to voice the same opinion: "Building a church in Africa is a wonderful way to honor our Hope and still influence others to God instead of communism."

In the first week after the project was announced, a total of 216 letters containing $464.75 toward the project were received. We are well on the way to our $1,400 goal. Thank you for your notes, your contributions and your encouragement. The project will be continued until the full sum is raised. -- Lucy Bonnett, chairman of the Flowers for the Living committee, Prairie City, Illinois.

At the end of the third week, the total of contributions from Household department readers had reached $1,020.50, reports Lucy Bonnett, Prairie City, Ill., who is serving as chairman of the committee. This sum had been received in 378 letters from readers. This left a balance of $379.50 yet to be raised for completion of the project.

The money is being given voluntarily by readers who wish to have a part in building a church in Africa in Hope Needham's name. Hope has been editor of the Household column for 37 years and readers felt a project of this kind would honor her and serve to influence under-privileged people to seek God instead of Communism. The goal is $1,400, to be raised entirely by voluntary contributions of any amount from readers of the Household column.

A progress report from Lucy Bonnett, Prairie City, Ill., who is serving as secretary-treasurer of the Flowers for the Living project (to construct a church in Africa as a memorial to Household Editor Hope Needham), indicates the fund collection is nearing its goal. At latest count, a total of $1,258.76 had been contributed voluntarily by Household department readers of this paper, which leaves only $141.25 to go to make the $1,400 goal. A total of 465 letters brought the contributions.

Mrs. Bonnett probably will not make another report soon, as she has taken up temporary residence in Rochester, Minn., to be near her husband, who underwent brain surgery in Saint Marys hospital on Feb. 27. She is temporarily living at 1307 SW 2nd St. in Rochester. Upon returning to her home, she'll make another report on the chapel fund project.

Dear Hope: Following the appearance of the letter by "Iowa Rose," in which she asked when the first Household column was printed, one of the staff members in the Chicago office, C. J. Weyker, dug into the dusty files to find the answer. He did not learn the date of the first Household column because in the earlier days these publications were not united under one corporate ownership and therefore there was considerable variance in the women's column. But he did set down some dates which I believe will interest many readers.

The files reveal that Faith Felgar became editor of this column (which was then called Hearth and Home) on October 11, 1901. Her predecessor was Dorothy Dee in the Chicago paper, but other women edited the women's columns in our other papers. The column appeared only one day each week in 1901.

Faith Felgar died July 17, 1925, from heart failure. She had gone into a hospital in Burlington, Iowa, for a few days' rest on the advice of her physician. Her real name was Mrs. George H. Kepper. She was the wife of a successful and extensive livestock farmer near Winfield, in Louisa county, southeast Iowa, the community which had been her home from childhood on. She edited the column for 24 years and the numbered installments which appeared under her name totaled nearly 5,500.

The first installment of Household under the present editor, Hope Needham, appeared August 18, 1925. Today's installment is the 11,237th which Hope has edited since that day. Quite a record! -- Allan W. McGhee, editorial director, The Corn Belt Farm Dailies.

This is written on the day of President Kennedy's funeral, though it will be much later when you read it. By then other developments may have occurred, but these are the thoughts that flood in now.

The hurly-burly of daily politics may have blurred temporarily a comprehension of what a truly great man we had in the White House. He was a man of many gifts; he had looks, charm, strength, intelligence, education and experience. He was sensitive to all the arts and sciences, especially literature, and was a magnificent writer (having won the Pulitzer prize for his "Profiles in Courage"), and an eloquent speaker, and a decisive politician. The whole course of his life had prepared him for the highest office in our land, and for international leadership.

But what comes to mind most keenly is how much this man endured. He had suffered to a degree that most of us never have to face. He lost his gallant older brother in the war, and a sister in a plane crash; so he knew what sudden death could mean. His father suffered a crippling stroke; so he had faced having an exceptionally competent parent become an invalid. A sister was mentally retarded; so he knew what that cross can be to a family. He went through the war in some of its ugliest phases. He didn't lose his life but almost did, and came out of the experience with a back injury that plagued him the rest of his life; so he knew what it is to endure continuous pain, and keep going.

Soon after his marriage he had such a recurrence of this trouble that his life was despaired of. Twice his wife has gone through the emotional crisis of losing him, -- once when he lingered so long at the painful brink but came back, and now when the end came without an instant's warning. He, in turn, went through the possibility of losing her, when her life hung by a thread at the birth of her son John, right after the nomination. And just last summer, they lost their baby; so he knew what it was to lose a child.

Is it any wonder that we, who have suffered only one or two or three of his afflictions, all feel kin to such a man? Or that he was so richly compassionate?

On a sunny day in Dallas, with hundreds of affectionate citizens around him, he was struck down. One minute he was smiling in the exhilaration of his welcome, the next he was unconscious, never to be aware of his surroundings again. Killed, not for some glorious principle, but to appease the petulance of a self-centered aberrant, who, it is believed, with a cheap gun used his only talent, sharp-shooting, in an evil way. Like most fanatics, he demanded rights for himself but utterly disregarded everyone else's. After flaunting his infidelity to our country, here and in Russia, he demanded that authorities change his discharge he had earned in the Marines from an undesirable to an honorable one. When they refused, he warned them that nothing would deter him from getting even. He got even, the evidence seems to say, by killing a President, and a policeman, and trying to kill a Governor and another officer.

Governor Connally had been Secretary of the Navy when the assassin made his appeal for the change, and the President would have been the last resort. Here he had both men in the same car, in a town with which he was ____, with time to lay his plans. What matter that the undesirable discharge was exactly what he had earned? If he wanted it changed and trampled on, and that he would not endure. He had guns, he had the parade route, he had a job in the very building most suitable for his purpose, and he had the skill. Not a thought for what his act would mean to his own family, nor the policeman's, nor the Governor's, nor the President's, not a thought for the complications his act would bring to the country and to the world. He got even!

Illustrating how oblivious to all but himself such an egoist can be, he called out to reporters (he who had killed two men within an hour!) that he hadn't been allowed a shower. As though the shattering of lives for which he was responsible was nothing in comparison with his personal comfort. When a reporter asked how he got a black eye, he answered with malice, "A policeman hit me." Not a word about his holding a gun on the officer at the time and only being prevented from killing him by an accidental misfire. He actually asked for some one to come forth and defend him. His smattering of communism had so puffed up his personality that he seemed to think people should rush in and hold the arms of officers while he shot them, rather than let HIM be hurt.

He got even! But before he had time to savor his triumph, before he could even tell his story, before he could realize the enormity of his deed, or repent, he was himself shot down and killed by a mercurial individual just as unreasonable as himself, though with a more unselfish motive. Apparently crazed by grief and rage at the assassination, this man fired once, and one more man lay dead without a chance to defend himself.

Haven't we all at some time, in childhood or later, experienced such a revulsion at a cruelty or injustice, such a surge toward revenge, that only circumstances saved us from rash and violent action? Many a one has only been restrained by lack of opportunity, so that he had time to calm down and let law and order take over. In this case, right at the apex of powerful emotion, circumstances were set up as though to order. The inflamed man had a pistol, he and the assassin were only a leap apart, and so the deed was done. Some say, "He got just what he deserved," -- but he deserved a trial and we deserved a chance to find out why and how he did what he did.

The Golden Rule does not say, do unto others as they have done unto you. Vengeance is Mine, saith the Lord.

So the world halted for four days, because of this bizarre sequence of events, this unnecessary, unreasonable and inexplicable tragedy. A little learning is a dangerous thing, and this assassin had learned just enough of communism to bolster his naturally warped selfishness. He might just as easily been corrupted by some of the venomous distortions from the extreme right, and the result could have been the same. There has been too much poison spread by both kinds of extremists. It is to be hoped that all kinds of them will be shocked into reality by what has happened. Some intellectuals play around with venomous words just to vent their spite, but when such words impinge on certain unstable characters, words aren't enough; the reaction is irrational physical violence. Those who are intelligent enough to draw up the perverted slanders against persons and even against our government, all in the name of patriotism, are smart enough to know how dangerous their game is. But it seems the longer they steep themselves in hate, the less they are able to see the truth. Every citizen must try to break down his prejudices, so the country can follow a steady and reasonable path, -- with malice toward none.

If Mr. Kennedy had been permitted to finish out his term, very likely some real progress might have been made toward a stable world. As it is, these three years will shine like a jewel in our country's history. We will remember a loving family, beautiful, vibrant, young, imaginative and gay, acquainted with trouble but valiant in meeting it, devoted to their country, intensely aware of the great sweep of history, aglow with visions of humanity going forward, in our time, toward a new heaven and a new earth.

Hard and cruel as it is, this tragedy will possibly bring about some good. Perhaps its dramatic intensity will stab us all awake, -- the extremists, the selfish, the indifferent, the thoughtless and all, -- so that we will pull together for a while with more loving-kindness. The new President is a fine and good man, well trained in government, intimate with current affairs, skilled as a conciliator, and above all, greatly enriched in his philosophy of life by his close association with his predecessor.

Maybe some good will come. But for the moment we can only grieve. A rabbi in Chicago used as a text for a eulogy a part of David's lament for his friend Jonathan:

"How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle! Jonathan lies slain upon the high places.

I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan.

Very pleasant have you been to me; your love to me was wonderful."

In spite of the mourning, our Government will go on. "Let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that can not be shaken." -- Hope.

Two subjects are taboo in this column, politics and religion because they are emotional, controversial and unresolvable. Sometimes it is hard to draw the exact line between these subjects and other phases of life. We do the best we can. This prelude is to explain that nothing in today's installment is intended to be political. It is basic personal philosophy.

What we wrote here recently about our national tragedy came truly from the heart. The death of the president was so intensely personal that it was like going through the family griefs all over again. Many Americans apparently felt the same way, as was clear from letters which came to this desk. But one letter was contrary to the general opinion and challenged us to answer, -- as though we had been insincere, or misinformed.

First, here is a sampling of responses which felt the shock the same way I did.

*   *   *

Dear Hope: I want to congratulate you on that wonderful article about our late President. I read it over and over. The world is so sad.

We have three children and seven grandchildren. We still live on the farm. I read the Household and pass it on to my mother. Keep up the good work. -- Mary E. Jones, Illinois.

Dear Hope: Your Household column is always splendid but we have just read your tribute to our late President Kennedy and feel it should be read by every one. It is wonderful. Thank you for giving us such an inspiration, even out of a terrible tragedy. -- Mr. and Mrs. Claude Canaday, Nebraska.

Dear Mrs. Needham: I have read a great many learned editorials on the death of our President but none of them equaled yours in depth and insight. I wish it could be published in some leading American magazine. It should be given wider publicity than just here in your column in the Midwest.

Since I do not have nor want TV, and the radio makes me nervous if I leave it on more than a few minutes, you gave a few facts regarding the tragedy and the life of Mr. Kennedy that I had never heard before. I just had to take time to tell you how sincerely I appreciate your talent and your gift of words.

My one gift seems to be health. In my 83d year now, I do a great deal of hard manual labor, then a little brain work at night. Sold a short story in November. I am well and happy. My children are all doing well. They had to make their own way. I'm always glad when you mention your family in the column. -- Pearl Chenoweth, Kansas.

*   *   *

And now for the letter which was so shockingly different.

Dear Hope: I just read what I would call your "Sob Special" on the late President JFK. As a 78-year-old farmer I was really surprised at your stand on this man. He is no different from the last four presidents. All you have to do to find out what people in public office or other positions stand for is read what they write and what they say in public, and you have it right before you with their names signed to it.

Maybe JFK was a sincere man, but he and "Yes-Man Ike" ordered troops with bayonets into a sovereign state just to get one or two Negroes into a school where they were not welcome and Gen. Edwin Walker said it was the worst unconstitutional, cowardly, disgraceful duty he was ever assigned to in his military life. What kind of men have we had as presidents that will do a thing of this kind but take no action against a small island just 90 miles from our shore?

Also, JFK supported the UN, and any good, honest American will say the UN is the worst enemy our country ever had, because its charter is 100 per cent communist. We hear of Ike as a great war hero, though he never heard a shot fired on a battle field in his life, but you never hear any praise for such men as McArthur, Van Fleet and Patton, because they are all against this socialist government we have had for 30 years.

When you condemn anyone who will take an honest stand against our socialist government as a a "right wing extremist", just remember it is still one great privilege in this great God-given nation of ours to say what you think, but if the socialist state department which JFK supported could have their own way, you would write what you are told to write or you would not do any writing.

Please do not take time to read the printed article enclosed. As to answering this letter, that is strictly up to you, Hope, for I think I have your answer right here before me. -- Chas. Howell, Illinois.

The pounds and pounds of printed matter which reach this desk daily do not indicate any suppression of free speech. Your letters and the printed article interested me greatly but amazed me by their bitterness and cynicism. Any man who is elected president of my country becomes my president, and he gets all my loyalty and trust. I honor all our presidents, but JFK seemed to me one of the greatest, the American ideal, a modern "universal man", with his native ability, his training, his wide sweep of interests and talents, his compassion. He brought fresh vigor and vitality to a world that was tangled in difficulties. Maybe his impact was greater on me because he came to office when death and loneliness had thrust me into a slough of despond. His inauguration address brought the first flicker of interest in taking up life again. If any person thinks that presidents, congressmen, judges and military are as evil as your letter and the article imply, why would he care to go on living?

In the printed article this mis-statement was especially startling: "The death of President Kennedy was plotted and accomplished by a confessed communist who was under the orders and subject to the discipline of Fidel Castro's conspiratorial murder-bund." Yet the FBI concluded after their investigation that Oswald, the accused assassin, was a loner, an erratic, unstable individual who never submitted to anyone's discipline and who was not even accepted by either Khruschev's or Castro's communists as a person they could trust.

The printed article continued with a congressman's astonishingly critical statements about almost everything and everybody in the U. S. A. But J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI says: "Our best offensive against crime, subversion, intolerance and all enemies of America's heritage of freedom is brotherhood, . . . built upon a solid foundation of mutual trust, understanding and faith in God."

The military moved into Little Rock and into Alabama and Mississippi, on order of the President, not to push unwelcome students into schools but to uphold the integrity of our courts. A governor has no more right than any other citizen to defy a Supreme Court order. We are all under the same law.

As to the UN, it seems to me a great and good idea, one which is doing as well as could be expected, being a new experiment after centuries of war. It may prove to be the salvation of humanity.

At the end of the printed article there is a sort of a questionnaire, which implies that anyone who is "for" certain phrases is wrong and that anyone who is "against" them is right. The phrases are short and explicit, convenient to use, but each includes a great deal, and all refer to problems which are debatable -- not attitudes where all the "bad guys" are for and all "good guys" against.

One of the phrases is "foreign aid." That covers a good deal, but most of us have a general idea of what is meant. No one would say it has been handled perfectly; but neither is it all bad. It can be, has been, should be and will be modified and improved. In due time it may be reduced and even done away with. But for its time, in the aftermath of war, it provided safety and healing for the civilized world. The "test-ban treaty" is another phrase surely it cannot be all bad if our nation and about 110 other agree that it is a good step forward -- not a big step but in the right direction.

The "sale of wheat" is another of the phrases. This, too, is debatable, but neither the one who is for nor the one who is against is a villain. Maybe it is better not to sell, but maybe it is better to sell, with proper safeguards as to payment, than to continue to pay storage on it until it spoils.

And as to "medical care" through "social security"; If the 535 elected representatives of our citizens in the halls of Congress decide that is a good way to look after our aged indigent, that is all right with me. I don't need help myself but many do, and a national plan seems logical. But if Congress decides against it, surely other methods will be developed.

As to the tenure of the President we got along for about 150 years without spelling out a definite limit. Whenever the people want a man to run for more than two terms, why should they not be free to vote that way, just as they are free to vote a man out at the end of one term if they prefer? Government of necessity moves slowly because of its very size and complexity. One term is hardly enough for an administration to complete its task. That is why the people have almost always given a second term to a president.

In regard to the president's treaty-making powers, the constitutional arrangement has worked so far. Why complicate procedures now? Is the idea to forbid treaties altogether, to limit them some way by statue, to put treaty-making into the hands of Congress or of the governors of separate states, or what? The present method seems efficient and practical, with the president negotiating treaties and sealing them with the consent of the Senate.

Speaking of Congress, many people picture that body as two armed camps facing each other, bristling and threatening. That is because the occasional dramatic clashes are what get into the news. For the most part they are a quiet group of gentlemen reasoning together, compromising, adjusting, accomodating, negotiating and finally deciding by majority vote the rules by which this vast and complicated country will run.

We can not maintain our nation on distrust, bitterness and cynicism. We can't just be against propositions. We need to take positive steps to meet challenging new situations, as science changes our world and population expands. Universal literacy will help, as will the eradication of disease and hunger. Maybe I'm too much of an optimist, but it seems to me that most of our citizens, including officials, are honest, well-meaning and reasonable; that the executive, legislative and judicial branches, on balance, are doing the best they can with complex problems, and that their best is probably better than many of their critics could do.

It is well for all of us to learn about all sides of any proposal, but the learning should be in the form of analysis and debate rather than name-calling and castigation. It should be the aim of each individual to help

[typist note: ended without a period or Hope's signature. not sure the whole text was included.]

Memory Gem

Only man, among living things, says prayers. Or needs to. -- Peter Bownan. (Sent by Heidi of Wisconsin)

A progress report has arrived from the pastor of the Messama church in Rio Muni, West Africa, where the Chapel of Hope is to be erected. This is the chapel for which you readers contributed some $1,500 in the spring of 1963, under the leadership of Lucy Bonnett and "Busy Gopher" of Minnesota.

The pastor says:

"Things do not move fast in Africa... So far there are 2,000 building blocks made, plus several truckloads of sand and rocks hauled to the site. The church members have also gotten together $500 of their own, which is a very large sum in an economy where the average yearly cash income is under $60. They are very sturdy and self-reliant people. Your gift was most generous and our people are deeply grateful.

"We hope things will move along more swiftly now. We are currently in need of a mason to start pouring the foundation. So far the available ones are not willing to come and spend a long period of time in a small village so out of the way.

"We will try to send you some snapshots of the site and the accumulated materials. -- Roy P. Strange, Pastor of Messama Church, Rio Muni, West Africa."

To us, in the midst of machinery and facilities, it sounds odd to speak of "a long period of time" to pour a foundation. We need to go back in imagination to the days when our farms and villages were being established, and think how much slower it was then to collect materials and perform the work. In Rio Muni a lot of time and patience takes the place of a lot of money. The Chapel will mean more to them than if some philanthropist had come in and built it for them overnight. They can savor the joy of watching it grow under their own efforts. -- Hope.

Reading newspapers nowadays inclines one to feel gloomy. Everywhere you go, in any meeting or convention, there is likely to be someone who adds to the depression by pointing out how evil times are here in America. It didn't help when I picked up a magazine and, thumbing through it, came on this:

"It is a gloomy moment in history. Not for many years, not in the lifetime of most men who read this paper, has there been so much grave and deep apprehension; never has the future seemed so incalculable as at this time. In France the political caldron seethes and bubbles with uncertainty; Russia hangs as usual, like a cloud, dark and silent upon the horizons of Europe; while all the energies, and resources and influences of the British Empire are sorely tried.

"It is a solemn moment and no man can feel an indifference, which happily no man pretends to feel, in the issue of events. Of our troubles no man sees the end."

I almost felt that the best solution was for the countries which have the nuclear bombs to fire them off all at once and get it over with. I thought this was a reprint of a newspaper editorial, or of a political speech by some candidate in the 1964 election. Then I noticed it was a quotation -- from Harper's Weekly for October 10, 1857!

What in the world did they have to worry about THEN?

Right afterward, it was time to prepare the Sunday School lesson, a study of the book Deuteronomy. This lesson covered the Reformation under King Josiah, a Hebrew king in the seventh century B. C., at the time when the old book of law which we call Deuteronomy was found beneath the alter, after having been lost so long it had been nearly forgotten. The first sentence of the lesson went this way:

"The second half of the seventh century B. C. was a period of international crisis in the ancient Near East. It was a time when the very foundations of civilization were being shaken. . . There was incipient chaos in every direction. The Assyrian Empire was coming apart at the seams and with it what little order the world had known. The barbarian Cimmerians and Scythians were threatening to destroy civilization with their attacks from the north and east. As the Assyrians lay dying, other nations were jockeying for power. The Babylonians were attempting to assert their control over the Near East, while the Pharaoh was leading his soldiers forth into the world arena in an effort to re-establish the glory that Egypt had known in former times. Everywhere there were wars and rumors of wars as nation rose up against nation . . . Chaos threatening to engulf the world."

That was seven centuries before Christ, and now, nearly 2,700 years later, there is trouble again, or yet, in the Middle East: Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Syria and all those countries. To say nothing of Asia -- Viet Nam, Cambodia, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Still, the world has not yet been engulfed by chaos! It's in a mess, to be sure, and in a mess which holds its own with any mess through the ages. But still, there has been progress in many ways and there are good aspects to our civilization.

Nothing did so much to dispel despair as the re-broadcast of the inaugural address of our young martyred President. Those confident, vigorous tones re-lit the flame of hope and determination, when he outlined all the problems ahead of us. "We do not shrink from them, we welcome them," he said. "It will not be done in the first 100 days, nor in the first 1,000 days, nor perhaps in our lifetime on this planet -- but let us begin!"

There was the stab of pain, realizing that his lifetime ended so needlessly with the thousand days, but at the same time there was resurgence of dedication to what he aimed to do. It may be that, in his memory, the impact of his tragic, youthful death will spur us on to heights we had not dreamed of. -- Hope.

Apartado 195, Bata
Rio Muni, West Africa

Mrs. Lucy Bonnett
Prairie City, Illinois

Dear Mrs. Bonnett:

I have just returned (Dec. 9) from the final large gathering of Christians at Messama for this year. There are three centers at which these people worship regularly; three times a year they come together at the church at Messama for Bible Study, business meetings, and communion following the Sunday morning worship service. I was encouraged at the progress made on the church building. There have been over 2,000 cement blocks for the walls made by hand with a wooden mold in the last six months. This is very good. The elders asked me to haul some sand in the back of my little pickup while there, so that the block making could continue. Unfortunately, the pictures that I mentioned to you in June were lost en route to the processor for three months. I am expecting them to arrive any day now so that I can send you prints, trusting they turn out, of course.

This area near Messama is a fruitful field for our church's labors. The government suppressed the Protestant faith for quite a while. Until then there had been numerous little chapels. When most of them were burned or closed, many church members drifted away from their faith in fear of reprisal from the government. These days, things are opening up again and former church members are surprised to find that the church has continued in other areas and is calling them back into fellowship. This area is one of our two areas for concentrated evangelistic effort in the next few years.

With best wishes to you and the readers who are interested in news of the Messama chapel, I am Very sincerely yours, Roy P. Strange, Pastor.

Just as a race usually winds up with a little canter after the finish line is crossed, let us wind up this last week of 1964 with a gentle interlude as an old era ends and a new one begins. Yes, the time has come for Hope to step aside and leave the Household in the hands of the younger generation.

Not that there is any emergency or commotion. For once let us enjoy a transition that is natural and pleasant. The years that I have been at the helm have been long and arduous, and rewarding. But the years have taken their toll of strength and enthusiasm, and it is well for some one else to take the responsibility.

I started in the summer of 1926, with scant warning and preparation, after the previous editor, Faith Felgar, died unexpectedly. At that time I was a young mother with a lapful of babies, just like many of the readers. How few who were with us then are probably among us now! There were three little ones at our house then, seven, five and four years. Three years later there was another, whom we referred to in the column as the "Postscript," or "Tag-along." Now those four children are all in homes of their own and there are 15 grandchildren, ranging in age from 24 years down to 3 months.

That's quite a range. The war was partly responsible. It happened like this: Only Daughter, our oldest, married straight out of college, and had her three children before the sons ever married. First Son started college the year after Daughter finished, and went into the Army immediately thereafter. Second Son finished college the next year and went into the Navy. When the war was over, both came back and got their Master's degrees before they married. By that time Third Son started college, broke off in the middle of his Army service during the Korean conflict (though he happened to be sent to Germany), and then he came back and finished school before he married. So Daughter's oldest child is now out of school and embarked on her career in New York City, Daughter's other two, and the eight children of Sons One and Two are scattered through college, high school and grades; while Third Son has four little pre-school girls.

If children and grandchildren keep one young, we would be young for a long time. But the death, without warning, of Husband in 1959 and of Daughter in 1962 took much of the zest out of life.

Of course many quiet pleasures remain, and many blessings. And bereavement, with all its weight of sorrow, does enlighten life, so that sympathies are tenderer and judgments gentler.

But for the leader of the Household you need some one to carry on with more relish and ebullience and cheer than Hope can bring to the job any more. You need the stimulation of keeping up with the times, examining new developments in our way of life. So, with appreciation of what the column has meant to me these many years, and with gratitude to all of you for helping make it what it is, I am bowing out. But for the next few days, till the Old Year becomes the New, let us reminisce together a bit. -- Sincerely, Hope Needham.

The Household, one of the most popular features of this paper, marks the end of an era this week. Hope Needham, who has edited the column for the past 38 1/2 years and brought it to its present popularity, will say her final good-bye to her thousands of readers as the old year ends.

Undoubtedly her goodbye is said with mixed emotions. "Hope Needham," who is actually Mrs. James V. (Lucile) Stevenson, of rural Streator, Ill., has lived with the problems, the joys, the sorrows of her thousands of readers for so many years that it is impossible she will not miss the daily flow of letters over her desk.

While, in her own words, editing of a column "is a lot more fun than digging ditches," it can become a task too. A newspaper is a hungry demon that devours copy day after day. If the editor of a column feels down in the dumps, gets the flu, or loses a loved one, the column must still go on.

For some time Mrs. Stevenson has felt she would like to unburden herself of the Household column chores, much as it, and its many friendships, have meant to her. Recently she urgently requested that a successor be chosen so that she could wind up her editorship of the column by the end of the year. Quite reluctantly, the editor agreed to her request.

"Hope," as she will undoubtedly continue to be known by the great bulk of her admirers, is reflecting on her years as the Household editor in her own column this week. A really complete resume, of course, would fill volumes. It is a bit startling to realize all the history that has been written since Lindbergh flew to Paris in his Spirit of St. Louis, and then to realize that Hope's editorship outdated that flight nearly a year.

Mrs. Stevenson took over the Household editorship after the death of Faith Felgar, the original editor of the column. In her more than 38 years at the Household helm, the column has attracted thousands of contributors, who poured in letters with their ideas, their doubts, their criticisms, their praise. Only a newspaper editor can really appreciate how well she handled her assignment, which is something like baking a cake. A little too much of this ingredient, not quite enough of that, and you could have a poor-eating cake, an uninteresting column.

Hope has seen the passing of many faithful and well-known contributors, too. Just this year marked the passing of "Old Sincerity," one of the column's "regulars" for many years.

One of the notable expressions of appreciation of Hope's work came in 1963 when considerable secret communications among Household readers were inaugurated by Lucy Bonnett, Prairie City, Ill., to give Hope her biggest surprise party. The culmination was the presentation of a check to Hope for a charity close to her heart, the establishment of a mission in Rio Muni in Equatorial Africa. The project among the Householders was given the title "Flowers for the Living." Building of the mission is in the preliminary stages.

Hope's tribute to the late President Kennedy shortly after his untimely assassination a little over a year ago, not only was a prime example of her ability to put words together, but was a tribute that could only come from one with her compassion for her fellow men and her understanding of what is in their hearts.

Her few short lines in Friday's column is her official goodbye, but her Household editorship will be remembered long after that issue is gone and forgotten.

A successor to Hope has been named and already is at work on the columns for the new year. Her first column will appear in the January 5 issue.

Memory Gem

Life is sweet because of friends we have made,
And the things which in common we share.
We want to live on, not because of ourselves,
But because of the people who care.
It's in giving and doing for somebody else --
On that all life's splendor depends,
And the joys of this life, when you've summed it all up,
Are found in the making of friends.

-- Grace Walter Clarke.

What a lot of changes in rural life since I took the helm!

Of course back in 1926, when I began editing this column, we were far from pioneer days, we thought we were extremely modern, but there was still much hard work connected with farming, and each farm was in general self sufficient. For better or worse, times have changed a lot, with the trend toward specialization.

We didn't have electricity on the farm in those days except for a few private farm plants and a few wind-chargers in states where the wind blew hard enough to turn the mill. Each farm had its cows, pigs, chickens, garden and orchard. A few horses were still used, "powered" by oats raised on the farm, but tractors were coming in and we were beginning to mesh with the rest of the business world, paying cash for gasoline and other things we needed.

I remember my grandfather telling that his family and all the neighbors lived well, as far as food and comfort were concerned, but the hardest thing of all was to raise $84 cash during the year to pay on the mortgage! There was a man in the community I married into, a man who owned half the township practically, who invested money about 1914 in, of all things, a farm tractor factory. The way the use of farm machinery skyrocketed from then on should have made him a millionaire -- but he happened to invest in the wrong make, and he lost all his property except homestead rights to five acres which were salvaged for his only son. For most farmers machinery really came in, more and larger and more efficient. Tractors, plows, hoes and disks, cornpickers and combines, always getting bigger and better, with rubber tires and extra comforts, by this year many harvested corn with gleaners that husked and shelled right in the field.

Electricity came in the early thirties and revolutionized farm life, indoors and out, with lights, heat, power wherever it was wanted. We relinquished many farm facets to specialists. We began to buy, instead of to produce, milk and bread and butter, vegetables and fruit. Gardening fell off. Vegetable production, year round, was left to the sunny Southwest; orchards, chickens and dairies were given up to other specialists. Home economics came into its own, with extension and 4-H helping spread new ways of living and doing. We gave up making soap and bought detergents. We canned with the boiler, then with pressure canner, and finally took to freezing food. We used to have threshing rings, but now each farm combines its own oats and harvests its own corn, with machinery that gets bigger and better.

The one-room schools, which had so many advantages and so many discomforts, have been replaced by consolidated schools, with their different advantages and discomforts. There is still room for improvement, but in one way or another, the children get their education.

All in all, it has been an era of marvelous changes. I wonder if every era has seemed like that to the people who lived at that time?

I remember my grandmother telling about the first matches and what a wonder they were. Up to then, a family had to take good care their fire never went out, and sometimes, if it did, they had to go to a  neighbor's and carry home a shovel full of live coals. Matches to be lighted when and where you wanted light or heat must have seemed a miracle. And think of what luxury piped-in gas lights must have seemed, after kerosene lamps; and electric lights after that -- all you wanted of them wherever you wanted! And running water, one of the greatest boons of all, was made possible by electricity.

Years of growth and change i farm life, those years from 1926 to 1964. -- Hope Needham.

It was not only in farm life but in the whole world that we saw change during this "Hope Needham era" we're talking about this week. Electricity revolutionized our whole way of life, and now the electronics industry is performing still more wonders. It seems that no age could possibly have seen so much progress in so short a time. With our color TV and transistor radios, does anyone remember the wonder of the old crystal set? Then the progress to the battery radio? We still have marks on the floors where the acid leaked. And the first all-electric radio -- followed so soon by the incredible TV?

I started with Household in August, 1926. Within a year (April, 1927) Lindbergh made the first flight over the Atlantic. We were as excited about that as we were recently when everyone breathlessly watches the launchings of men into space, to orbit the earth.

At this moment we have a vehicle on its way to Mars, and are calm enough about it. We have come to expect wonders as a way of life.

What a pity that we can't be as successful in improving human beings so there will be less crime and murder and war. We seem to be much slower in correcting human emotions than in building machinery. But even in that line we have made more progress than we sometimes think.

Take the Negro question: Results seem slow in coming, but it is something to have the whole nation aware at last of the smoldering resentment of a century or more among that under-privileged part of the poulation. So many of us lived almost a lifetime unaware of the strength and power of that resentment. Progress is slow, to be sure, but truly I believe that it is real and will last. -- Hope Needham.

Friends

When you get on and you've lived a long time
And the walk up stairs is a mighty high climb,
Though your eyes are dimmer than what they were
And the page of a book has a misty blur,
Strange as the case may seem to be,
Then is the time you will clearly see.

Often the blindest are youthful eyes,
For age must come ere a man grows wise,
And youth makes much of the mountain peaks,
And the strife for fame and the goal it seeks,
But age sits down with the setting sun
And smiles at the boastful deed it's done.

You'll see, as always an old man sees,
That the waves die down with the fading breeze,
That the pomps of life never last for long,
And the great sink back to the common throng,
And you'll understand when the struggle ends,
That the finest gifts of this life are friends.

-- Author unknown

Hard to Leave

It's kind of tough to have to leave
So many folks you've learned to know,
And have them grip your hand and tell
How much they hate to see you go!
It's kind of tough to say goodbye
To friends you've seen day after day --
It's hard to break the happy bonds
Of comradeship and move away.

But say! It's great to find new friends
Just waiting for a chance to show
Yow glad they are to have you come
And live with them! It's great to know
That folks are just about the same
No matter where you chance to roam,
And if you let them have their way
You'll soon be feeling right at home.

So it's a long farewell, old friends.
May God be mighty good to you!
Across the miles and down the years
You'll find my friendship always true.
And now I turn with eager heart
To meet whatever life extends --
To greet the folks that welcome me,
And try to make them all my friends.

-- by Lawrence Hawthorne

So we come to the New Year, 1965! May it be a happy and satisfying one for all of you. One thing in rural life hasn't changed -- neighborliness and friendship. We may not show it in the same ways. We may not go spend the day with one another as farm folks did years ago. Maybe we don't help back and forth in a routine way as we used to, because we now have machinery of our own to do the work. But let any emergency arise, and you will find farm people as wholeheartedly kind and helpful as they ever were. That is one thing that I hope will never change.

So we come to the end of an era, with all good wishes to one another. There is no emergency, no upheaval, just a quiet shifting of the Household editorship from one hand to another. Hope withdraws to the sidelines and the younger generation takes over.

May your roots be deep,
Your branches high,
And love, like candles on a tree,
Light up your sky.

-- Hope Needham.

After more than 38 years of faithful service, Hope Needham is retiring as Household Editor of our papers. Those 38 years have been marked by every conceivable facet of life and living of the distaff side of farm life. More than 10,000 times, by her own faithful count, HOPE has prepared the copy for her column, but in that preparation she has read and pondered many ties that number of letters from readers. She has made their problems hers.

HOPE made the Household column something of an institution, unique among agricultural journalistic circles. She made of it a place where the farm women of several generations could freely unload their burdens, contribute helps, entertainment, counsel and wisdom out of experience, and even on occasion administer a scolding. It had its own set of general rules, administered by HOPE, with no fixed boundaries, no discrimination and was open to all so long as all played fair. HOPE would have it just that way--fair, just, and above all, helpful.

Outside her editorial duties, HOPE continued over the years to be homemaker and mother on a fine Illinois farm. Three boys and one girl have enriched her life with a total of 15 grandchildren, in whom she takes all the pride to which every grandmother is entitled. Her late husband, JAMES V STEVENSON, was one of the top farmers of his area and state.

So, we say, "So long, HOPE!" It had to come. You have earned the love and gratitude of a great many farm women in many states, for all of whom we extend greetings, HOPE, and best wishes for the years to come. May you find rest and contentment in your retirement.

We welcome to the editorship of the Household a new hand, SUSAN SAYERS, whose work will speak for itself. We hope all readers will continue to lend the same loyalty and co-operation to the new editor which have so long been enjoyed by HOPE.

Mrs. James V. Stevenson of Route 4, Streator, retired this week as editor of the household column of the Corn Belt Livestock Journals.

"Hope Needham", as Mrs. Stevenson is known to her thousands of readers, became editor of the column in the summer of 1926, upon the sudden death of its original editor.

In her more than 38 years as the column editor, the local woman's column has attracted thousands of contributors with problems, criticisms, and praise.

In 1963, her readers presented her with a surprise check, for a project called "Flowers For The Living" among the "householders". This resulted in the church in Rio Muni in Equatorial Africa. Building of the mission is now in the preliminary stages.

The Corn Belt Livestock Journals are four publications of the Livestock industry, one of which is the daily Drovers Journal of Chicago.

A successor to Mrs. Stevenson has been named by the paper.

Mrs. Lucile N. Stevenson passed away at the home of her son, Wilbert, Route 4, Streator, Wednesday evening.

Services will be Saturday at 1:30 p.m. from the Park church with burial in Allen cemetery, Ransom.

Visitation will be after 4 p.m. Friday at the Elias funeral home, and until 11 a.m. Saturday when the body will be taken to the church.

Memorials may be directed to the Park church Memorial fund.

Mrs. Stevenson was born Sept. 26, 1893 in Nebraska, daughter of William A. and Alice (Brown) Needham. She married James V. Stevenson Oct. 12, 1916 in Urbana. He preceded her in death Oct. 17, 1959.

Mrs. Stevenson had resided in Streator since 1916 and was a ruling elder of Park church and taught an adult class there for many years.

She was a member of the Callere club, past president of the Illinois Home Bureau and a member of the state rural electrification committee, whose recommendations hastened the development of electric power in rural areas.

Mrs. Stevenson was the editor of a household column of the Corn Belt Farm Dailies for almost 40 years under the pen name of Hope Needham.

Upon her retirement in 1965 readers of the column donated a fund to build the "Chapel of Hope" in Rio Muni, West Africa, as a tribute to her inspiration.

She served for several years as secretary of the Allen-Otter Creek Mutual Fire Insurance Co.

Survivors include three sons, Wilbert, Streator; Ernest, Bloomington; Joseph, Fairbury; 15 grandchildren; four sisters, Mrs. Carrie Brown, Mrs. Revilo (Grace) Oliver, and Mrs. Marguerite Rarick, all of Urbana.

She was preceded in death by her husband, one daughter, Mrs. Philip (Ruth) Sidell, and one brother, Wilbert Needham.

Hope Needham, editor of the Household column in the Drovers Journal and its sister publications for over 38 years until her retirement Jan. 1, 1965, died suddenly Dec. 27.

Her son, W. N. Stevenson, reported that the long-time worman's column editor and writer died "peacefully", although she had been in failing health. She had sent a Christmas greeting to the readers of the Household for the Dec. 21 issue of Drovers Journal.

Hope Needham, who was Mrs. James V. (Lucile) Stevenson, lived on a farm near Streator, Ill., where she led a busy life as wife of a farmer, mother and editor of the Household column. She retired from active direction of the column at the end of 1964, ending 38 1/2 years at the task with a series of reflective articles which her readers prized highly.

Mrs. Stevenson became editor of the column in the mid-1920's after the death of Faith Felgar, an Iowa farm woman who had conducted the column successfully for many years. During her regime, hundreds of thousands of letters from farm readers were received and handled, many of them going into the column to provide the daily reading fare for a faithful "flock".

High-principled and firm in her beliefs, Mrs. Stevenson conducted the column on a high plane, although she let all readers "have their say" to the extent that space permitted. She was the recipient of much praise and numerous honors, although of a retiring nature in her latter years.

One of the notable expressions of appreciation for her work occurred in 1963 when secret communications among Household readers resulted in a surprise party in her honor. Culmination was the presentation of a check to Hope for a charity close to her heart, the establishment of a mission in Rio Muni in Africa. The project, named "Flowers for the Living," by Householders, drew modest contributions from thousands of Houshold readers. A recent article and picture in the Household column reported that the chapel project is now nearing completion.

Mrs. Stevenson was a gifted writer who often contributed her own thoughts and ideas as lead articles for the column. Her comments on national events were clipped and saved by readers as prime examples of good writing. The death of President John F. Kennedy stirred Mrs. Stevenson to write a tribute which showed the deep compassion for her fellow men and a clear understanding of what is in their hearts.

Mrs. Stevenson was preceded in death by her husband, in 1959, and by her only daughter, in 1962. These personal losses, she wrote in her column upon announcing her retirement, "took much of the zest out of life," although her sons and their families became her great interest in life after she gave up the column.