A Rose in Her Hair

I have been a farmer's wife in one of the States of the Middle West for thirteen years, and everybody knows that the farmer's wife must of a necessity be a very practical woman, if she would be a successful one.

No man can run a farm without some one to help him, and in this case I have always been called upon and expected to help do anything that a man would be expected to do. I was reared on a farm, was healthy and strong, was ambitious, and the work was not disagreeable.

Any bright morning in the latter part of May I am out of bed at four o'clock; next, after I have dressed and combed my hair, I start a fire in the kitchen stove, and while the stove is getting hot I go to my flower garden and gather a choice, half-blown rose and a spray of bride's wreath, and arrange them in my hair, and sweep the floors and then cook breakfast.

While the other members of the family are eating breakfast I strain away the morning's milk, for my husband milks the cows while I get breakfast, and fill my husband's dinner-pail, for he will go to work on our other farm for the day.

By this time it is half-past five o'clock, my husband is gone to his work, and the stock loudly pleading to be turned into the pastures. I drive the two cows a half-quarter mile and turn them in with the others, come back, and then there is a horse in the barn that I take to a spring quite a distance away.

I have not eaten breakfast yet, but that can wait; I make the beds next and straighten things up in the living room, for I dislike to have anything laid over until the next day.