forth from these farm homes, to shine in every sort of high position, and to reflect honor upon their bringing up.
The rural free delivery of mail and the rural telephone are great boons to the isolated woman on the farm. She is wishing with all her heart for an enlarged parcels post, so that she may buy more freely from the city merchants.
In the matter of money, the woman on the farm is more independent than her city sister. She earns her pin money by selling poultry, butter and eggs; picking wild berries; making jelly and jam for the city people who go away for the summer; taking summer boarders; picking hops; peeling the chittim bark, and in various other ways. Some do literary and art work. One Oregon girl bachelor, being weary with working for others at housework and sewing, now lives alone, on a few acres of land, and depends upon the revenue from two cows, one sow, and a hundred hens. Two women in the Willamette Valley do all their work on a large farm, except the plowing. They raise registered cattle and sheep, and have a few acres in native huckleberries. One old lady gets her pin money from three acres in cherry trees and currant bushes.
Leadership among women asserts itself in the country as in towns, and the church and Sunday school work goes on much the same. All social gatherings are difficult to keep up because of the scattered homes. For this reason a woman's club does not flourish in the country, nor do literary societies and reading circles. Not many women have a driving horse at their disposal, to go at will, without interfering with the farm work. But wherever a Grange is established no lack is felt in social or educational matters. The Patrons of Husbandry is an ideal order for the country people, including as it does the whole family from the 14-year-old child to the great grand parents. When it was organized, about forty years ago, Miss Carrie Hall, of Boston, Mass., earnestly urged the seven founders of the new order to admit women on an equality with men, and it was done. That was a bold and progressive step for that day, and the women of the Grange have ever held Miss Hall in grateful memory for her courage.
The Grange upholds woman's suffrage in theory and in practice. Every honor, distinction, and office is open to the woman who, by her character and her ability, can win her way. Thus the women of the Grange learn to debate and discuss all practical and intellectual subjects side by side with the men. Women of the Grange are interested in the same things that call forth the efforts of local woman's clubs. They see that cemeteries, school, and church grounds are kept in neat order, and that trees, vines, and shrubs are set out wherever they can be protected and watered. They inspect the sanitary conditions and the water supply of their district schoolhouses. Matrons of Husbandry are in. the advance in urging the addition of nature studies, school gardens, and the work bench to our country school system. They wish especially to see their children educated towards the farm and not away from it.
