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 .LiiiLL 
 
 In Prosperous Days. 
 
HOW TWO OmiS T(R1E^ 
 FA^MIJ^G. 
 
 [Originally published m the ATLANTIC Monthly /c?^ 
 February, 1875 ; here given with amplifications a7id 
 additions^ 
 
 ■BIT 
 
 Dorothea Alice Shepherd, pseud, '^t 
 
 
 \-.>^. 1879. ^^^^y 
 
 BOSTON: 
 D. LOTHROP AND COMPANY 
 
 FRANKLIN STREET, CORNER OF HAWLEY. 
 
 

 COPYRIGHT, 
 
 1879, 
 By D. LoTHROP & Co, 
 
HOW TWO GIRLS TRIED 
 FARMING. 
 
 DOROTHEA Alice Shepherd and 
 Louise Burney v. Fate. 
 Yes, that was the way the case 
 stood. We were making the fight. 
 
 I confess that we often wonder now 
 that we dared. But success is always 
 more or less enervating. Our needs 
 gave us requisite intensity then. 
 
 I suppose Fate and Folks thought 
 
 7 
 
8 How Two Girls Tried Farming. 
 
 we were very well off as we were — 
 Louise as housemaid in a country 
 family where she was " as good as any- 
 body," and I as district school-teacher ; at 
 least, I know that in the first of the strug- 
 gle the sympathy was all on the wrong 
 side. It is a very fine thing, now that 
 we have succeeded; but there were days 
 and times when — well, never mind! it 
 is little matter since we have succeeded ; 
 since we have accomplished nearly every- 
 thing which they predicted we never 
 could do. 
 
 Still, just here I must set it down 
 that no woman ever encouraged us in 
 our various plans for change and bet- 
 ter times. The men to whom we talked 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, g 
 
 smiled weakly and said little — I suppose 
 they considered us hardly worth dis- 
 couraging. But women actively discour- 
 aged us. It was not our fortune to 
 meet any who were essaying independ- 
 ence for the sake of the theory, but 
 only those who were trying to earn a 
 living. Of these, the most experienced 
 and the most courageous, when we con- 
 fided to them the plan which we finally 
 carried into execution, gravely advised 
 abandonment. Whenever it came to a 
 face-to-face talk with those women who 
 had experimented in business, whom the 
 outside world looked upon as success- 
 ful, they, every one, confessed to a sort 
 of heartsick weariness. We found not 
 
10 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 one who held up her own example and 
 experience for our admiration and hope. 
 We found not one who recommended 
 to us her own way of earning a 
 living. 
 
 " It costs all it comes to," said each 
 and every one. 
 
 Those in salaried positions were the 
 cheeriest, wore the fewest care-lines on 
 forehead and cheek. 
 
 We found no woman feeling comforta- 
 ble over an investment of money, except- 
 ine in cases where the business was in- 
 telligently "kept small," kept within the 
 limits where the proprietor herself could 
 perform the labor, or nearly all, thus 
 paying out little or none of the profit to 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming. ii 
 
 employees. These safe-going persons 
 were continually " taking stock," and bal- 
 anced their books every Saturday. 
 
 We found fewr speculators ; women who 
 dared borrow capital and flaunt a showy 
 business on the strength of a man's in- 
 stinctive belief that " business must 
 brighten soon." 
 
 These investigations upset for us many 
 an ideal possibility in " trade." 
 
 "Don't invest in fine goods — don't 
 trade on the 'innate love of the beauti- 
 ful,'" very earnestly said one woman to 
 us, a woman whom we had long ob- 
 served and envied. 
 
 A year later her chromos and portfo- 
 lios of fine engravings, the water col- 
 
12 Hozu Two Girls Tried Farming. 
 
 ors and the art needlework which she 
 had hopefully and helpfully bought from 
 white-handed toilers, the costly illustrated 
 gift-books, the inlaid cabinets and the 
 beautiful carvinG^s which had made her 
 store the loveliest lounging place in the 
 little town, were sold for twenty-five 
 
 cents on the dollar. 
 
 " I keep showy goods, but not fine 
 ones," said another — one of the half- 
 dozen prosperous tradewomen I know — 
 the proprietor of a fancy goods store. 
 " I buy for the small every day happen-to- 
 needs of the household. The ladies who 
 wear fine crepe lisse and real silk rib- 
 bons would hardly buy at my store — no 
 matter how good ni}' wares. It is safer 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming. rj 
 
 to keep store for that class of customers 
 who are paid wages every Saturday- 
 night." 
 
 She is fully persuaded that were she to 
 go into handsome, spacious quarters, and 
 full-stock her counters and shelves after 
 her own aesthetic ideas she would "fail 
 up" before the close of the year. 
 
 Said another, more easy, more heart- 
 less, more happy-go-lucky than the others, 
 " I am going to sell out — make a 
 change. I have had a good time so far, 
 but I know better than to go on. I 
 should break sooner or later ! " 
 
 Lou and I now know — nay, we hear 
 rather — of women who have succeeded 
 in active business ; but at the time of 
 
/^ How Two Girls Tried Farming. 
 
 our own struggling forth all we could 
 learn of any woman's experiment in in- 
 dependence was depressing. 
 
 So, as I said before, I wonder that 
 we dared. 
 
 People who have become interested 
 in us since our success say that Lou 
 and I are each the other's complement. 
 
 Perhaps. We are wholly unlike, yet 
 agree and lean upon each other. 
 
 Ever since we were tiny school-girls 
 we had owned in joint proprietorship 
 many Spanish castles, where we largely 
 lived when together, as neither of us 
 had any other bona-fide home. But the 
 time came when, instead of reading and 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, 75 
 
 romancing together, we spent our leis- 
 ure hours in scolding over our lot. I 
 suppose, indeed, that had we been mem- 
 bers of the International, or of a Com- 
 mune, instead of a pair of harmless Yan- 
 kee village girls, we could not have dis- 
 cussed the problems of work and prop- 
 erty much more fiercely than we did. 
 Only I don't think we ever thought we 
 had a right in other people's property. 
 Even to us two simple girls it would 
 have seemed an absurdity that one 
 should reason he had a right to what 
 another had lawfully gained or inherited. 
 But we did want a home; we did 
 want to be our own mistresses ; we did 
 want some means of living that should 
 
1 6 How Two Girls Tried Farmiiig. 
 
 be independent of the caprices, the Hkes 
 and dislikes, and the varying fortunes 
 of others. And to us this seemed lit- 
 tle, something that should be simple 
 of getting, not overmuch to beseech of 
 Fortune, to demand confidently of Fate. 
 But I am bound to confess that, al- 
 though we read everything we could 
 find on the subject of Labor, and made 
 constant inquiry relative to every occu- 
 pation we had known women to under- 
 take, at last, turning from every one of 
 the traditional industries of our sex, find- 
 ing all those ancient avenues crowded, 
 it was a very long time before we could 
 discuss our own future without, at each 
 interview, going through with a certain 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming. ij 
 
 amount of day dreaming — perhaps wo- 
 men do not easily distinguish between 
 planning and wishing. I think Louise 
 believed she was planning whenever she 
 said afresh what she already had said a 
 hundred times : 
 
 " I should prefer something that would 
 take us among books, shouldn't you, 
 Dolly ? If we only had money we would 
 begin a little store : books on one side 
 with a nice news counter, and on the 
 other side bottles and drugs. Don't you 
 think so, Dolly, some day } " 
 
 Whereupon Dolly, also for the hun- 
 dredth time, would remind her of the 
 two ladies, tired-out teachers, who were 
 doing just that ; and then she would 
 
1 8 How Two Girls Tried Far mmg. 
 
 also go on to speak of the amount of 
 debt incurred in addition to the capital 
 invested. 
 
 Then becoming practical in her des- 
 peration, Louise would resolve she must 
 save up her wages and educate herself 
 as a teacher of mathematics, while I 
 should perfect my French and drawing. 
 
 "If I could, don't you think we might 
 get hired in the same school, Dolly.?" 
 
 Mathematics ! my poor Louise ! when 
 there always has been something the 
 matter with her head where figures are 
 concerned. When she sets the basket 
 of eggs in the wagon I always inquire 
 if the " little pencil " is in the pocket- 
 book. It always is, for — careful little 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farmi7ig. ig 
 
 soul — she wouldn't be the one to peril 
 our precious gains by trusting to a men- 
 tal calculation of eleven dozens at thir- 
 teen cents per dozen. 
 
 But, finally, when a good plan and 
 capital to carry it out both seemed im- 
 possible, Fate relented and both the plan 
 and the capital suddenly *' turned up." 
 
 A maiden sister of Louise, who as 
 housekeeper had saved up eight hundred 
 dollars, died and left the sum intact " to 
 us," as Louise was pleased to say. And 
 one day soon after, she laid down the 
 New York Tribune and said : 
 
 " Let us go West ! " 
 
 It was meant as a merry jest; but it 
 was a breeze to blow the tendril of a 
 
20 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 hitherto vague fancy of mine round a 
 '' happy thought " which I now know 
 many other women have tried to clam- 
 ber up by. 
 
 " Lou, why not ? " I exclaimed at once. 
 " Why not go West and buy a bit of 
 land and raise small fruits for the mar- 
 kets ? " 
 
 In a few moments we had talked our- 
 selves brave and eager — not so much 
 over the work as over the happiness — 
 the plan presenting itself to us as idyl, 
 pastoral, holiday, picnic. 
 
 " That would be home and independ- 
 ence beyond any of the other plans," 
 said Lou, who, even more than I, hated 
 "the third person." "Just you and I, 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, 21 
 
 and nobody to deal with but Dame 
 Nature ! " 
 
 I went back to my boarding-place. I 
 read and reflected. Unfortunately, for 
 our project, I had a genius for details 
 and now it came into baleful activity. I 
 stayed away from Louise and made fig- 
 ures on the back of a letter I had in 
 my pocket until there was not a shred 
 of our bright plan left. Friday she sent 
 me a note, and Saturday night I went 
 to her. 
 
 She took me up into her room, turned 
 me round, looked me attentively in the 
 face. 
 
 " Dolly," said she at last, *' what have 
 
22 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 you turned down the lights for ? Aren't 
 we two girls going out West to raise 
 small fruits ; or did I dream it ? " 
 
 "Lou," I said, " have you any idea how 
 long it takes to bring strawberries into 
 profitable bearing, and raspberries too ? " 
 
 " I believe strawberries bear in June, 
 and raspberries some time in July — 
 why ? " answered she innocently. " I sup- 
 pose we should set them early in spring." 
 
 " Lou Burney, we should have to wait 
 as good as two years ! " I cried. " Yes 
 and then, unless we were supernaturally 
 early in market, the bulk of our crops 
 would go at ten cents per quart. I've 
 searched market reports through old 
 papers until I'm perfectly certain the 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, 2j 
 
 markets everywhere — everywhere, Lou 
 Burney — must be overstocked. I am 
 convinced that it is not safe to stake 
 our interests in such an enterprise. 
 We should have to produce enormous 
 crops to make it a business worth while. 
 And it isn't hkely two ignorant girls 
 could do that — at least not at first; 
 and since, meantime, the two ignorant 
 girls must live, they had better beware." 
 "Oh, Dolly!" Lou gasped at last. 
 "Do you mean to s^y all our talk the 
 other night has gone for nothing .? And 
 you were so sure! How could you.?" 
 " I hope you don't blame me for look- 
 ing round," I replied, rather crossly. 
 "One of us, at least, should be capable 
 
24 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 of that." Indeed, I was as sorely hurt 
 as she, for it was the very first plan over 
 which I had felt any enthusiasm, any 
 hope. 
 
 " But you had not the right to be 
 sure, if you were not sure," she persis- 
 ted. " You know how I depend on 
 you, Dolly," she added pathetically, " you 
 know that when you say anything is 
 so I never inquire into it at all ! " 
 
 All of which was true. 
 
 I could say nothing. She went on 
 regretfully : 
 
 " Dolly, I do believe I'd rather 
 we hadn't found out, and gone on, 
 and tried it. It was such a nice plan: 
 you and I with a house of our own — 
 
How Two Girls Tried Inarming. 25 
 
 it was next thing to being birds and 
 living in a nest. Yes, 1 would rather 
 have tried it, and lived so a while 
 even if we failed at last. Oh, Dolly, 
 can't we after all ? It couldn't take 
 much just for you and me — just two 
 girls ; how could it '^ " she went on 
 eagerly, and still more eagerly. " For 
 you know we shouldn't live like a great 
 family — just two girls, Dolly. Those 
 three great regulation meals that always 
 must be prepared in a family — a fam- 
 ily you know, where there are men — 
 of course that costs. Of course I admit 
 that we couldn't control the cost at all, if 
 we were so situated. But we shouldn't 
 be situated so, Dolly — no, thank Heaven, 
 
26 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 there is no man in our plan with his 
 regularly-recurring hunger ! You know, 
 Dolly, if you will only think, that half 
 the time we should have just a bowl 
 of bread and milk for dinner ! and what 
 would that cost ? — why, next to nothing. 
 And when we didn't want supper — 
 half the time, Dolly, I don't care for 
 any supper at all — why we'd omit 
 supper entirely — we could if there was 
 no man about. Don't you see, Dolly 
 dear, that it couldnt cost for two girls 
 like a family, a real family ? " 
 
 There was something in what Lou 
 said — and still there wasn't. I told her 
 folks averaged about alike in their needs, 
 and what we didn't consume one day, 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, 2j 
 
 we must the next, and that I felt sure 
 the cost of food for a household of 
 women would be about the same as for 
 the mixed family. 
 
 " Well, then, how much would it take, 
 anyhow ? " said she, with a little frown 
 between her golden brows. " I don't 
 credit a word of it that it would cost 
 as much as if we were a real family 
 going to housekeping. Just think how 
 little I ate for breakfast this very morn- 
 ing — a slice of bread and butter, an 
 ^gg' a cup of coffee — six cents, may 
 be — three times six are eighteen cents — 
 seven times eighteen cents are seven 
 times eight are fifty-six, and seven times 
 one are seven and five to carry — 
 
28 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 well, about a dollar and a quarter — 
 mercy ! how boarding-houses must make 
 money ! " 
 
 Here she paused for breath, and I 
 reminded her that she was probably to 
 have roast beef for dinner, and would 
 need and have a steak for the morrow's 
 breakfast, and that her figures were not 
 correct, any way. 
 
 " But never mind," said I, " we will as- 
 sume that for one day it couldn't cost 
 much. Have you any idea what it is 
 
 said to cost one person one year.^^" 
 
 " No, Dolly, I haven't, that I know of. 
 But you have, I see. I understand that 
 look; you're going to bear down on me 
 now with a column of figures ! " 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, zg 
 
 Yes, I was. In my pocket I had a 
 newspaper slip whose figures and sta- 
 tistics might well deter one from waiting 
 for berries to grow, It was a compila- 
 tion from the Report of some Labor Com- 
 mission, giving the average cost of living 
 of the individuals of ordinary families: 
 
 One hundred and thirty-two dollars 
 and thirty-three cents. 
 
 *' Two hundred and sixty-four dollars 
 and sixty-six cents ! " she exclaimed, after 
 some figuring. " Well, D0II3V she added, 
 with a sigh, " we couldn't live while we 
 waited, if this is correct. The berry plan 
 must be for women who have something 
 to subsist them while they wait ; we ought 
 to have something to sell right away." 
 
JO How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 She took up the slip again, and thought- 
 fully looked over the items. 
 
 " How much the small things cost ! 
 those which people who have them never 
 count among the expenses of living — 
 milk and eggs and butter and vegetables. 
 I fear I was thinking of only meats 
 and flour, and groceries, as the things 
 that must be bought. To accomplish 
 anything, we ought some way to have 
 all such things without buying, as, of 
 course, farmers' families do. Dear me, 
 Dolly, we couldn't for we should have 
 nothing in the world left after we bought 
 any sort of a place, while, of course, we 
 should need to have some money to 
 use right along every day. I fear this 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, ji 
 
 plan will have to go with the rest. I wish 
 we knew how the women who have done 
 such great things with berries managed 
 while they were waiting for their fruit 
 to come into bearing. Nobody ever 
 seems to tell that part of it. ' Why don't 
 you say something, Dolly } ' " she asked, 
 turning on me suddenly. 
 
 " I can't. Not now. I'm thinking. I'll 
 come again in three days. Then, I be- 
 lieve — I believe that perhaps I shall have 
 plenty to say." 
 
 Lou caught me by both hands. 
 
 " You mean things when you look like 
 this, Dolly Shepherd ; what is it ? " 
 
 But I broke away from her, not letting 
 too much hope creep into my smile, 
 
J2 How Two Girls Tried Far mmg, 
 
 either. Yet, I felt that now I really had 
 seized upon what Castelar calls " the 
 Saving Idea." Remember, I was wholly 
 ignorant then of the fact that here and 
 there a brave, strong-brained woman — 
 many in the aggregate — was doing this 
 same thing successfully. I say strong- 
 brained, because no flippant woman can 
 succeed in the management of a farm. 
 It requires far clearer and steadier fore- 
 sight than to buy^ and sell successfully. 
 Only the born woman of affairs may 
 safely adventure in this direction. I have 
 met not one of these women-farmers ; but 
 I dare to say they are all good logi- 
 cians, though perhaps slow in mental 
 movement, whom no sophistry can mis- 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, jj 
 
 lead, who are never to be diverted from 
 the main purpose. 
 
 But I would not tell Lou. I meant to 
 dissect this flash. I would study it in 
 detail. Just at present my mind was in 
 confusion with my thoughts all circling 
 round this central idea : 
 
 Could we go West and buy a farm^ a 
 real farm, a ma^is farm ? 
 
 It was a startling thought to me — 
 it might well be to a young woman 
 who never had planted a hill of corn, 
 or hoed a row of potatoes in her life, 
 and who had a hacking cough, and a 
 pain in her side. Still I felt strangely 
 daring, since out-of-door life was of course 
 what I needed physically ; and home, and 
 
j^ How Two Girls Tried Farming. 
 
 freedom from anxiety concerning my daily 
 bread, certainly could not retard the cure. 
 For the first time I could find a certain 
 good in the fact that I was all alone in 
 the world. There was nobody, either for 
 Lou or for me, to interfere with our devot- 
 ing ourselves to the solution of a problem. 
 If we failed, there was nobody to be 
 sorry or mortified. 
 
 Louise did not wait for my mysterious 
 three days to expire. The afternoon of 
 the second she came down to the school- 
 house. It was just after I had " dis- 
 missed." 
 
 "Now, Miss Dolly Shepherd!" de- 
 manded she. 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, J5 
 
 Well, I had gone through the new 
 plan in detail, had thought and thought, 
 read and read, had found there was no 
 sex in brains; for out of the mass of 
 agricultural reading I saw that even I, 
 should I have the strength, could in 
 one way or another reduce whatever 
 was pertinent to practice. I resolutely- 
 had cast money-making out of the plan, 
 but I believed we could raise enough 
 for our own needs ; and I had thought, 
 " Oh, Lou Burney, if we should be able 
 to establish the fact that women can 
 buy land and make themselves a home, 
 just as men do, what a ministry of 
 hope even our humble lives may be- 
 come ! " 
 
36 How Two Girls Tried Farmmg, 
 
 In my earnestness I had tried vari- 
 ous absurd little experiments. In my 
 out-of-door strolls I think I had man- 
 aged to come upon every farming im- 
 plement upon the place. Out of obser- 
 vation, I had lifted, dragged, turned, 
 flourished, and pounded. I had pro- 
 nounced most of them as manageable 
 by feminine muscle as the heavy ket- 
 tles, washing machines, mattresses, and 
 carpets that belong to a woman's in- 
 door work. I had hoed a few stray 
 weeds back of the tool-house, a mullein 
 and a burdock (which throve finely there- 
 after), and found it as easy as sweep- 
 ing, and far daintier to do than dinner- 
 dish-washing — and none of it was to 
 
Dolly tests her strength. 
 

How Two Girls Tried Farming. jg 
 
 be done " over the stove ! " To be sure 
 there was the hot sun, but there was 
 also the fresh air. 
 
 I felt prepared to talk. 
 
 "Well, Lou," I said, "we will try 
 the out-of-doors plan, and very much as 
 we at first talked. We will even have 
 some berries. Only we will from the 
 very first make our daily bread and 
 butter the chief matter, and just do 
 whatever else we can, meanwhile. I don't 
 see, no more than you, how these women 
 who have done so well with fruit-raising 
 managed whilst. But this is the way / 
 have planned for us for whom there 
 shall be no dreary whilst, as we will be- 
 gin at once : 
 
40 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 " We will take our moneys " — I had 
 three hundred of my own — " and go 
 up into the great Northwest and make 
 the best bargain we can for a little farm, 
 which, "however, shall be as big as pos- 
 sible, for from the very beginning we 
 must keep a horse and a cow, and a pig, 
 and some hens. Don't open your eyes 
 so wide, dear — I got it all from you. 
 It is your own idea — I have only put it 
 in practical working order. 
 
 " Keeping a cow, you know, will en- 
 able us to easily keep the pig; so keep- 
 ing the cow means smoked ham and 
 sausage for our table, our lard, our milk, 
 our cream and our butter. As you said, 
 we must either have such things, or else 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming. 41 
 
 have something to sell right away. 
 There will also be, as I have planned 
 it, butter, eggs, and poultry with which 
 to procure groceries, grains, and sundries. 
 There will also be, in the winter, a sur- 
 plus of pork to sell. We shall also raise 
 some vegetables. We can also the first 
 year grow corn to keep our animals, 
 and for brown bread for ourselves. We 
 will, among the first things we do, set 
 out an orchard and a grape arbor, make 
 an asparagus bed, and have a row of 
 bee-hives. Meanwhile, having thus se- 
 cured the means of daily life, I have 
 other and greater plans for a comforta- 
 ble old age." 
 
 These I also disclosed. She made no 
 
42 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 comment upon them, but reverted gravely 
 to the animals. 
 
 " I should think we might do it all, 
 Dolly, only the horse ; do we need a 
 horse ? Be sure now, Dolly, for a horse 
 would be a great undertaking. You 
 know we would have to keep a nice 
 one if we kept any, not such a one as 
 women in comic pictures always drive. 
 Be very sure, now, Dolly." 
 
 " I am. For we must cultivate our 
 own corn and potatoes. I can see that 
 in small farming, hiring labor would cost 
 all the things would come to, just as 
 business women have told us it is in 
 other work, you know. Besides, how 
 could we ever get to mill, or church, or 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, ^j 
 
 store? Only by catching rides; our 
 neighbors would soon hate us." 
 
 " And who would drive ? " asked Lou. 
 
 I paused. 
 
 " You would have to, I suppose," I 
 said at last. I felt she could; and I 
 also felt that I couldn't. 
 
 Lou nodded. 
 
 " Yes, because you will have to be 
 the one to go to the neighbors to bor- 
 row things," she said, as if balancing our 
 accounts. 
 
 " We shall live within ourselves," said 
 L " What we don't have we will go 
 without." 
 
 Lou said there would be some com- 
 fort in that kind of being poor, and 
 
44 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 grew jolly and care-free presently, and 
 said " we would go at once." 
 
 Accord ngiy, we came up into Michi- 
 gan, to cousin Janet's. Making her hos- 
 pitable house our head-quarters, we pro- 
 ceeded to " look land " like other Eastern 
 capitalists : that is, cousin Janet's hus- 
 band took us in his light wagon to see 
 every farm that was for sale within ten 
 miles. And it was such fun — we little 
 midgets to go tripping over magnificent 
 estates of two or three hundred acres, 
 and spying about, with only a thousand 
 dollars in our pockets ! 
 
 Of course, they might have known we 
 could not buy them ; and we did think, 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, ^5 
 
 so long as we were " only two girls," 
 that there was no need for such wide- 
 spread consternation when we finally 
 made our choice. However, Lou and 
 I were of one mind. Cousin Janet and 
 her husband had anxiously shown us 
 various snug little village houses with 
 an acre of ground attached, but we had 
 resolved to keep ourselves to the plan 
 of " mixed farming ; " and when the 
 whole of that rubbishy, neglected thirty- 
 five acres was offered to us by its non- 
 resident owner for a sum quite inside 
 our means, instead of turning up our 
 noses at it, we felt it to be a bit of 
 outspoken friendliness on the part of 
 Providence ; and to the astonishment of 
 
46 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 the neighborhood, instead of "haggling," 
 and " beating down," and innumerable 
 conversations, man fashion, we bought it 
 without delay, at the very first interview. 
 
 But, somehow, we have been obliged 
 thus to rely, almost wholly, upon our 
 own judgment from the beginning — so 
 many things which we lack are neces- 
 sary in order to carry out a man's advice : 
 money, strength, hired men, horses. Still 
 we believe that these very lacks, com- 
 pelling us as they have to certain close 
 economies and calculations, and to care- 
 ful studies of first principles, have helped 
 us to our success — a success which has 
 not " cost all it come to." 
 
 Our scraggy acres were a contrast, to 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming. ^7 
 
 be sure, to the handsome orchards and 
 wheat fields we had visited, and also to 
 the tolerably well-tilled farms on either 
 side of us. But from the day on which 
 we " drew writings," Lou and I never 
 have looked upon the spot without see- 
 ing it, not only as it is, but as what it 
 is to become, and is becoming. Every 
 stone picked up, every fence corner 
 cleared, every piece of thorough plowing, 
 every rod of fence built, every foot of 
 trellis, every rose-bush and grape-vine and 
 shade-tree planted, has been to us as one 
 brush-stroke more upon the fair idyllic 
 picture we saw in the beginning. 
 
 On our way home from the village 
 lawyer's we again passed our place. 
 
^f8 How Two Girls Tried Farmhig, 
 
 John, rather maliciously, asked if we 
 would not like to look at it " as a 
 whole." We assured him, with dignity, 
 that we should, and he stopped the 
 team. 
 
 " As a whole " it was a narrow, hilly 
 stretch weakly outlined by a skeleton of 
 a fence ; a forbidding surface of old 
 stubble ground and wild turf, the distant 
 hill-toj)s crowned with tall mulleins. 
 There was not a vSprig of clover on the 
 place, and though there was an old 
 brown house and barn, there was not an 
 orchard tree, nor a reminiscence of 
 garden. 
 
 We sighed, not that our farm was wild 
 and neglected, but that even the outer 
 
How Tzuo Girls Tried Farming, ^g 
 
 aspect told such a black tale of impov- 
 ishment and robbery. 
 
 Cousin John discoursed again of the 
 poor soil as we sat there. He warned 
 us that we could never expect to raise 
 wheat. Wheat ! I had seen little save 
 wheat since we came into the State. 
 I didn't believe in so much wheat, on 
 account of certain principles in chemis- 
 try, and I told him so ; and left him 
 to laugh at my " school-ma'am farming " 
 while I jumped out and crept through 
 the bars, and ran up to make sure the 
 old house was locked. What an old 
 house ! It was growing dear to us al- 
 ready, as being our very own : but in 
 reality it was as brown and straggling, 
 
50 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 as lonely and unpicturesque, as a last- 
 year's nest 
 
 — " torn with stones and rain." 
 
 With a strange new sense of secur- 
 ity from the ups and downs of life, 
 which only the possession of a bit of 
 real estate can give one, we flitted away 
 to prepare to come again to our own 
 in the spring, with the first robin. 
 
 I went back to cousin Janet's and 
 hired out, not to her, but to cousin 
 John; while Louise took up her old 
 business of housework at a wealthy far- 
 mer's near us — cheerily, both of us. 
 
 We had paid for our farm — and just 
 here I would earnestly advise that no 
 woman undertake what a man often 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, 5/ 
 
 does — and sometimes successfully — the 
 purchase of a farm on credit, calculat- 
 ing to "make it pay for itself;" for in 
 nine cases out of ten the frequent 
 man's luck will also be hers — she will 
 have paid in all her capital, and she 
 will slave and stint to "keep up the 
 interest " on the balance of the price- 
 money, she will go on doing so for 
 two, three, or four years, the money she 
 may make all going in that direction, 
 instead of being used for " improvements," 
 her farm probably becoming impover- 
 ished each year, until at last the land 
 returns to its owner on "foreclosure of 
 mortgage," all her toil and struggling 
 counting for nothing, in company with 
 
^2 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 the portion of purchase-money paid in 
 at the first ; and a woman's courage and 
 a woman's physical strength will hardly 
 renew themselves, as in the man's case, 
 to begin afresh. 
 
 Well, as I said, we had paid for our 
 farm, and there remained to us funds 
 for the purchase of horse, wagon, and 
 cow. Lou, being supposed coolest in 
 case of fire, took charge of the precious 
 deed, and of the money, promising to 
 add thereto, before spring, fifty dollars. 
 
 " And that," said she sunnily, " will buy 
 your clover seed, Dolly." 
 
 " But you know you believe in clover, 
 Lou, and the cows and sheep ? " 
 
 It was something to shoulder alone 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, 5J 
 
 the responsibility of my theories since 
 they were to be carried out by the aid 
 of another's earnings. 
 
 " O, yes, dear Dolly, if you are certain 
 you do," Lou answered, cheerily. 
 
 I really was pretty certain. 
 
 Lou had her two dollars each week. 
 What I earned was twelve dollars per 
 month — good cousin John ! — much ex- 
 perience, and much health. Of course 
 they wanted to keep me in the house. 
 But at the outset I contrived for myself 
 some shortish dresses — I did not wear 
 the short dress as I am constrained to 
 say I ought. A dress, reaching only to 
 the knee, with trousers graceful in the 
 cutting, the whole suit made of strong 
 
5^ How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 material — tweed, cheviot, jean, linen — 
 is the only sensible and suitable attire 
 for a woman doing out-of-doors labor, 
 Lou and I have never worn it ; we knew 
 we ought — we meant to some day, but 
 we never have. We disliked it, aestheti- 
 cally; though I am bound to add that 
 by reason of wearing the conventional 
 dress, we have endured other ills much 
 more to be contemned and held odious, 
 even from an aesthetic point of view 
 than " the Bloomer costume." 
 
 But the inches I did cut off my gown 
 rendered out-of-door movements practica- 
 ble, and beginning moderately, I worked 
 every day with cousin John and the 
 boys, never once considering the weather, 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, ^^ 
 
 for I knew that once on our farm we 
 must go out, rain or shine. 
 
 I found everything hard, but nothing 
 impossible. 
 
 Little Rob and I cut up half a dozen 
 acres of corn, unassisted. I also helped 
 husk the same, bound my bundles, and 
 well, too. At first I was greatly discour- 
 aged over this same " binding," as all 
 women are : for cousin said he couldn't 
 sacrifice too largely to our experiment, 
 and that he wouldn't have me in the 
 husking unless I could bind my stalks 
 as I went. I promised, but it tore and 
 wore my hands cruelly, and then the 
 bundles upon which I had spent so 
 much time and care, often would fall in 
 
^6 How Two Girls Tried Farmi7ig, 
 
 pieces while I was carrying and setting 
 them up. 
 
 I couldnt bind with stalks as men do, 
 anyway — neither then, nor at any time 
 afterwards. When I came into the field 
 in the morning, I would spy about for 
 any tall, supple grasses, grown up after 
 the last cultivating, and, pulling them 
 up, lay in a store for " bands." But my 
 weeds were not always to be found ; and 
 one day, when I was at quite a loss 
 what to do, I espied two German women 
 in the neighboring field, occupied like 
 myself, and I climbed the fence and 
 called upon them, as very properly I 
 might, they being the later comers. 
 They, I found, had availed themselves 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, 57 
 
 of woman's proverbial wit; they showed 
 me some balls of coarse twine. 
 
 " Go puy youself some palls of leetle 
 rope, and not tear you shmall hands 
 mit twisting weeds and marsh hay. It 
 do take more time to twist him, than 
 it do to earn de leetle rope." 
 
 I returned triumphant, and after that 
 bound my stalks, woman-like, with " leetle 
 rope." 
 
 After the first few days, I could 
 work early and late. Cousin Janet said 
 I should surely finish myself up now ; 
 and Louise was afraid I would, too. 
 But day after day I appeared in my 
 corn-field, for I was greatly interested 
 in this corn-harvesting experiment, since 
 
^8 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 I felt sure that it was not only the 
 grain we should chiefly raise, but that 
 it was the grain that a woman could 
 most easily cultivate from beginnuig to 
 end, if she must do it with no money 
 for hiring labor. 
 
 So I persisted. Of course I didn't 
 fancy wet stalks, and all sorts of bugs, 
 and mice nests, and perhaps a snake, 
 in my lap, no more than any other 
 woman would. Yet I persisted; and 
 there were compensations. 
 
 The vigorous motions required to strip 
 and break the ear from the husks, 
 and the exercise of binding and carry- 
 ing, expanded my chest in the same 
 manner as the motions of the move- 
 
Dollv finds nothing impossible. 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, 6i 
 
 ment cure, and marvelously strengthened 
 shoulder and wrist. My cough ceased. 
 The sunlight of the lovely, vaporous 
 Indian summer weather, and the sweet 
 ■air, proved at once a balm and a tonic 
 for my irritated lungs and stomach, and 
 together with the exercise, invigorated 
 my appetite. I used to run down to 
 dinner quite as hungry as the boys, and 
 bark gleefully " like a wolf " in Janet's 
 ears, to show her how ravenous I was, 
 until at last the hired man — an old 
 Scotchman — said one day to John, who 
 was expostulating with me respecting my 
 incessant labor : 
 
 " Hoot, mon ! let the lass alone ! gie 
 her oatmeal pairrich for her breakfast 
 
62 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 and let her wark; them as likes wark 
 can wark their fill on that ! " 
 
 So they can. Louise and I know that. 
 A cup of strong, pure, well creamed 
 coffee, with a dish of oatmeal mush 
 dressed with cream and sifted sugar, has 
 been our daily breakfast for years, though 
 I own to always craving and needing a 
 thoroughly first-class beefsteak for dinner. 
 
 The old Scotchman's hint has been 
 a fortune to us in the matter of solid 
 muscle, and perhaps in the way of 
 healthy thought also. 
 
 While I was thus growing brown and 
 strong out in the sunny fields, I was 
 daily learning my business working along- 
 side cousin John. I learned the easy 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, 6j 
 
 way, the " man's way," of holding the 
 plow and turning a furrow, and it was 
 a proud time for me when Rob and I 
 were trusted to plow out the potatoes 
 when potato harvest came. I " thanked my 
 stars " every day then, as every day since, 
 that I had had the energy and the sense 
 thus to carry out our enterprise. I was 
 taught how to make a proper stack of the 
 cornstalks —one that would shed rain — 
 and how to build a load — I would 
 persist : if I slid off the load, as often I 
 did, I would clamber back ; and I picked 
 apples day after day, until no possible 
 height on the ladder could turn me 
 giddy. I drove the mower to cut the 
 seed clover; I could, in my scant skirts. 
 
6/f How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 I learned to milk fast and clean, how 
 to feed and care for stock, and how to 
 swing an ax and file a saw ; and if I did 
 sometimes quite wear out John and old 
 Donald widi my questions, and with 
 being in the way, and with the general 
 bother of a girl mixed up with the work, 
 Lou and I don't know that we care, t 
 would " tag round " all day at cousin's 
 heels with his little boys, who thought 
 it great fun to go out and work with 
 Dolly, and who among them taught me 
 almost as many things as their father 
 did ; and then at night I sat in the 
 rocking-chair and questioned John about 
 sheep, and wool, and lambs, and hay- 
 making, and afterward thoughtfully com- 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, 6^ 
 
 pared what he had said with the Rural 
 and the Agriculturist, 
 
 Cousin paid me my wages by going 
 over to our farm and plowing up every 
 rod of it, save the door-yard and wood- 
 lot. He protested against the nonsense 
 of "fall plowing;" but I insisted, talking 
 " cut-worms " and the magic harrows of 
 the winter frosts. He protested still 
 more loudly because I bargained for 
 every load of barn-yard compost which 
 the farmers for ten miles around would 
 sell and deliver spread upon our plowed 
 land — to " winter waste," they said ; 
 and the neighbors all called me a 
 " headstrong girl " because after making 
 the land so rich I would not "take a 
 
66 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 wheat-crop off" when I "seeded it." 
 But Lou and I knew a wheat-crop was 
 an affair of money, men, and teams 
 from beginning to end ; besides, we 
 meant to save the entire strength of 
 the enriched soil for our future meadows. 
 
 Many a sly dig did I get about my 
 stubbornness. 
 
 " Have ye bought yer team yet, Miss 
 Shepherd '^. " Thus a friendly neighbor. 
 
 Miss Shepherd is saved the trouble of 
 reply, by cousin John. 
 
 " A team ? Dolly an't a-goin' to bu}^ 
 no team ; she's a-goin' to work her 
 farm with idees^ 
 
 Well, why not ? — if I can. 
 
 So, pursuant to John's theory of 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, 6j 
 
 " idees," I question and question, and 
 read and read, until I have learned 
 the routine of the main farm crops, the 
 number of days' work per acre of both 
 men and horses, cost of seed, and prob- 
 able average, and probable market value, 
 of yield. I also learn the daily amount 
 of food consumed by each of the meat- 
 making animals, together with the usual 
 market prices of the different meats, and 
 also the best time and aQ:e to sell. 
 
 When winter came, I returned to my 
 ancient employment. My school-keeping 
 wages paid my debts to the farmers ; 
 and with the surplus I bought out cou- 
 sin's hennery entire — the fowls and the 
 guano — together with a pretty pair of 
 
68 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 Poland pigs. Lou had purchased grass 
 and clover seed, and had learned to 
 drive ; and as I knew how to milk, and 
 April was near at hand, we bought a 
 load of hay, handsome horse. Pampas, 
 and gentle cow, Maggie, gathered up 
 all the old tools cousin had given us, 
 even to an awl and a draw-shave, pur- 
 chased some spades and a beautiful new 
 double-shovel plow — ah, no woman ever 
 looked more approvingly on her new 
 piano than we did upon our trim little 
 plow in its gay red paint and its ar- 
 ray of shining shares — we wouldn't 
 have had a drop of rain fall on it for 
 dollars ! — and went down home. 
 
 And here a blessing upon the gray 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, 6g 
 
 heads of cousin Janet and cousin John 
 is surely in order ; for a portion of 
 everything in their house was sent with 
 us, from a bag of flour and a ham 
 down to a tiny sack of salt and the res- 
 idue of my oatmeal, from a load of nurs- 
 ling fruit trees down to a bundle of 
 currant brush and a peony root ; and, 
 last of all, a lovely little cat, "to purr 
 and sit in your lap, and make it seem 
 like home in the evenino^." 
 
 That was what little cousin Jamie said 
 as he reached up and put it in my 
 arms after we were seated in the waQ:on. 
 
 Well, it was a bare little house after 
 we had done our very best with it, and 
 had it not been our own we should not 
 
'/o How Two Girls Tried Farming. 
 
 have thought we could stay. We had 
 spent all our money on the land, and 
 for tools and " live stock," so that there 
 was really nothing left for the house. 
 Perhaps this fact — that we had bestowed 
 so little thought upon the house itself, 
 had really felt so little concern about it — 
 will prove to those who search to see 
 this thing, the unfeminizing influence 
 of following a masculine pursuit. How- 
 ever, were we not wise, true, brave, strong.^* 
 We must not, no more than man, put 
 in peril the bread-and-butter item of the 
 plan. 
 
 But we felt all that any woman could 
 demand of us, that first evening. There 
 was not one bright thing in the room 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, yr 
 
 except the crackling fire, and Louise 
 with her ofolden hair and crimson cheeks. 
 Such a home-made home as it was ! I 
 had braided a great rug, and that turned 
 out to be the only bit of carpet we had 
 for four years. Our window-shades were 
 of newspapers, scalloped, and adorned 
 with much elaborate scissors-work. We 
 had three chairs, antiquated specimens, 
 that I had brought down from cousin's 
 wood-house chamber, cushioned and 
 draped with some of our old gown skirts, 
 and the trouble we had, to be sure, with 
 those chairs, because we could not step up 
 on any one of them to reach things ! We 
 used a stand in place of table, for which 
 Lou contrived a leaf — poor self-deprecating 
 
7-? How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 Lou, who, I am sure, might have stood 
 and faced the world alone as a carpen- 
 ter — and we slept upon an old-fashioned 
 bedstead which Janet had given us. We 
 owned three plates and a platter, as 
 many knives and fork^, cups and saucers; 
 John said if we had company Lou and I 
 could wait, which we did. The rest of 
 our in-door possessions consisted of some 
 odd kettles, a score of shining new 
 milk-pans, a couple of sweet new cedar 
 pails, a broom, a small pile of books in 
 blue and gold, a trunkful of magazines 
 — unbound but precious — an etching 
 of Evangeline, and a splendid engraving 
 of Longfellow sitting in a rocking-chair, 
 and Lou's watch: that, truly, was every- 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, yj 
 
 thing we had to put into that great, 
 rambling old house. 
 
 However, we both still think it was 
 better to have bought the clover seed. 
 
 The first evening was a strange ex- 
 perience. I remember just how oppress- 
 ive the silence became after everything 
 was done, and we sat down. Finally, 
 Lou cried, and I laughed. Then pres- 
 ently we felt how absurd it was to be 
 like this in our own house ; and we 
 cheered ourselves with the pussy and 
 the fire, and said we would subscribe 
 for a newspaper. And pretty soon, all 
 was going well. 
 
 In due time cousin John came again, 
 and gang-plowed the fields we had de- 
 
7-^ How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 voted to clover. Then he lent us his 
 team, and Lou and I harrowed and har- 
 rowed. Then we sowed our clover and 
 timothy, our red-top and blue grass and 
 orchard grass, all according to the pro- 
 portion and measure sent us, because we 
 wrote and asked for it, by the N. Y. 
 Tribune, We followed the receipt so 
 thoroughly that John was fain to swear 
 at our wastefulness. There was required 
 double the quantity which any farmer in 
 that vicinity had ever sowed upon his 
 land. But we bought and sowed it. I 
 didn't believe, even then, that there was 
 need for such spotted meadows as I had 
 observed — the clover growing in distinct 
 patches and tufts, the grasses coarse 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming. 75 
 
 sparse, and wiry ; I wanted some fine, 
 sweet grasses. I will say here that I 
 was rewarded for my faith in liberal 
 seeding; for owing to that, and to the 
 plentiful winter dressing, and the fine 
 seed-bed we made of all the fields, our 
 pretty trefoil came up all over like wheat, 
 or a lettuce-bed, and our grasses are fine, 
 thick, and sweet, and the farmers, the 
 big farmers of hundred-acre fields, came 
 to look at our little meadows and mar- 
 vel at our clover, and cut samples of 
 our orchard grass to take away for show. 
 Of course we did not enjoy these tri- 
 umphs, these results of " working our 
 farm with idees " — oh, no ! 
 
 Even the big hill whose barren sandy 
 
7<5 How Two Girls Tried Farming. 
 
 top was everywhere visible, which every- 
 body said could never " be seeded down," 
 is covered to its very top-tip with ten- 
 derest grasses and sweetest clovers ; 
 and often of a summer morning we see 
 Pampas standing there, high against the 
 clear northern sky, serene with his sat- 
 isfaction over his dewy breakfast — "a 
 statue to our spunk," Lou says. 
 
 And then, waiting for May days and 
 corn-planting, we began work in earnest 
 In our brief dresses, in which Louise 
 said she felt "so spry," rejoicing in 
 loose bands and in shoulder-straps and 
 blouse waists to a degree that would 
 have delighted Miss Phelps, we shoul- 
 dered our axes and our dinner-pails, a 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farmi7ig. yy 
 
 la lords of creation, and went over to 
 our bit of forest to get up " the year's 
 wood," after the manner of the model 
 householder. 
 
 I will allow you just a moment in 
 which to fancy us vainly attacking huge 
 logs, and then tell vou we were simply 
 thinning out the young trees. It really 
 was not a difficult task to fell them. 
 Afterwards we constructed a couple of 
 rude, strong saw-bucks, and sawing dili- 
 gently, day after day, we at last had a 
 supply for months piled neatly in the 
 green recesses. 
 
 After that came fence-mending, yes, 
 and io^nce^makijig, for we were obliged 
 to have sixty rods of entirely new fence. 
 
y8 How Two Girls Tried Fa^nnhig, 
 
 We found that our own woods had been 
 thoroughly denuded of " rail timber," and 
 further, that even in this comparatively 
 new country, a board fence already had 
 become cheaper than one of rails, when 
 it came to buying materials outright. 
 
 This was the result of Lou's inquiries 
 at the village lumber yards. 
 
 " And," added she, " the fences, even 
 at these rates, will cost almost as much 
 as the land did. Just think of it ! Well, 
 now, there is a country saw-mill three 
 miles up north ; of this fact a man would 
 take advantage." 
 
 " And why not we ? " 
 
 The next day, in our new, gay little 
 wagon we set off over the hills. There 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, yg 
 
 was a quizzical light gleaming in the 
 black eyes of the proprietor of the mill 
 as he came forward to listen to our 
 inquiries ; but it mattered little to us — 
 we had become accustomed to quizzical 
 liorhts. He soon found that we meant 
 " cash down," and we found that by 
 buying logs and hiring them sawed we 
 should compass a saving of fifteen dollars. 
 " And now, Dolly," said Louise on the 
 way home, " I shall draw those boards 
 myself. Those mill-men look good-na- 
 tured — they will load for me. You and 
 I together can lift off the wagon-box, 
 and I have studied out how to lengthen 
 the reach with a false one. I can ride 
 nicely on the reach going, and on the 
 
8o How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 boards coming back. Nothing shall be 
 wanting on my part, Dolly." 
 
 It is not pertinent to the history of 
 this experiment how people stared to. 
 see little Louise riding by upon a wagon- 
 reach. She took care, wisely, to look 
 very pretty, and I believe it was thought 
 rather " cunning " than otherwise ; she 
 and her yellow-striped wagon and her 
 spirited roan horse were all upon such a 
 little scale, " and all of us sandy-com- 
 plexioned," she laughingly said as she 
 started. 
 
 I worried greatly for fear she would 
 fall off " the reach," but by noon she 
 was safely back with her little load of 
 boards. Encouraged by her brave smile 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, 8i 
 
 [ ventured to think we might unload. 
 And we did. 
 
 " No harder than dancing several hours, 
 Dolly," Lou said cheerily. " And saving 
 our money serves much the same pur- 
 pose as the music, don't it } " 
 
 Next day ditto, and the next, and the 
 next. 
 
 " There ! " said the little teamster, as 
 she surveyed the boards scientifically 
 scattered up and down the lines of 
 future fence. " There, Dolly, we have 
 saved the twenty dollars with which be- 
 comingly to accept the inevitable — a 
 woman ca7inot dig post-holes and set 
 posts ! " 
 
 No, indeed! 
 
82 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 The post-setting accomplished, we 
 bouo:ht our fence-nails, and with our 
 hammers and saws went out to build 
 fence. We built it, too, notwithstanding 
 masculine wisdom assured us we could 
 not. We lifted the boards by uniting 
 strength, I held them against the post 
 close to Lou's accurate red chalk marks 
 — it is Lou who has the correct eye — 
 and she drove the nails. During which 
 we found that the fifteen dollars saved 
 was the margin for straight edges, uni- 
 form width, freedom from bark, immu- 
 nity from knot-holes, and the general 
 superiority of art over nature, town over 
 country. 
 
 We also took down and relaid the 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming. 8j 
 
 entire roadside fence, not accomplishing 
 all this, of course, without countless 
 resting-spells ; the fibre that endures, the 
 power of giving blow and bearing strain, 
 is of painfully slow growth. We did it, 
 as everything else, little by little. 
 
 The fence-mending done, we attempted 
 another bit of thrift. We harnessed 
 Pampas to the little wagon, for which 
 we ourselves had constructed a light 
 extra box to place atop the other, and 
 then we drove up and down our estate 
 — Lou practicing in the art of stand- 
 ing to drive, the while — through the 
 woods and through the grubby residue 
 which John couldn't plow, cutting our 
 wagon-roads as we went, often both 
 
8^^ How Two Girls Tried Farmi^tg. 
 
 jumping out to roll aside a log, rolling 
 and blocking, rolling and blocking until 
 we had conquered, and thoroughly 
 " picked up " the place, bringing back 
 to the door load after load of sticks 
 and limbs and chips for summer wood. 
 
 There were three acres of this una- 
 vailable residue. While we were load- 
 ing, we often paused to contemplate it. 
 It was covered by a growth of white 
 oak grubs ; old stumps and knotty logs 
 had been rolled down upon it, and it 
 had been made a dumping ground for 
 stones and for the mountainous piles of 
 brush from former clearings. 
 
 " Here Dolly dear, is our knittiug 
 work ! " Lou said one day. 
 
" Knittinsf-work." 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, 8y 
 
 Just that it was for two years. When 
 no other work pressed, we "logged." 
 That is, we cut down grubs — trimming 
 up the tallest to mend fence with — and 
 piled the brush, old and new, around 
 the logs, dragging the stumps into piles 
 of two and three by means of Pampas, 
 and a big chain ; many a summer night 
 have we tended our big bonfires over 
 there, with pussy-cat frisking about our 
 steps ; twice have we had the whole 
 place on fire and the neighborhood out 
 to save the fences and put out the flames 
 — what we do not know and cannot do 
 in the way of " whipping out " a fire is 
 really not worth any woman's while. 
 In fact, our daily life those first years 
 
88 How Two Girls Tried Farming. 
 
 was so truly primitive, and seemed such 
 a bit of delightful outlawry from the 
 conventional house-life of our sex, that 
 Louise often said : 
 
 " We might as well be gypsies, Dolly, 
 and live in the hedge ! " 
 
 Meantime, other things were happen- 
 ing. We had tried a bit of the news- 
 paper gardening: Louise and I had 
 agreed we would try almost everything. 
 It was a proud day when Louise, with 
 me standing by to see her, first set her 
 little sturdy woman's foot on the spade 
 and slowly drove it home and as slowly 
 brought up and turned over a big slice of 
 earth. She knocked it to pieces as it fell. 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, 8g 
 
 ''That dirt is otirs, Dolly," she said 
 gaily. I looked at it vaguely, yet some- 
 how feeling very rich. 
 
 So we had a bit of garden ground 
 made ready, while the farmers about us 
 sat by their fires in the belief that it 
 was yet winter; and, presently, underneath 
 a thin coverlet of straw, and the light 
 roof of some loose cornstalks, up and 
 down the sunny south side of the se- 
 lected o:arden site, we had lettuces and 
 peas and onions growing greenly, right 
 in the midst of snow-storms. It was a 
 pretty sight, after a light April snow, 
 to run up there and take a peep in and 
 see them all smiling up at us with 
 such a live, cheery, undaunted look, as 
 
go How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 if to say, " We are very comfortable, 
 thank you, and as busy as we can be ! " 
 It made us cheery. We were Hke two 
 children. Every day we hovered about 
 this first gardening, this premature bit 
 of summer, which we had evoked as 
 from fairy-land. It was such a wonder- 
 ful thing to us, as wonderful as the tel- 
 egraph, to ask a question of Nature — 
 a question wrapped up in a tiny brown 
 seed, or a brown bulb, or a little with- 
 ered, wrinkled bean — and be answered 
 thus. 
 
 But another development in our af- 
 fairs was not so encouraging. Pampas, 
 upon acquaintance, was proving to be an 
 
How Two Girls Tried Inarming, gi 
 
 extreme conservative, who preferred that 
 things should run on in the old ruts. 
 He had been born in the purple; and 
 as soon as he learned that he had prob- 
 ably become involved for life in the 
 problem of woman's independence, his 
 discontent threatened us serious trouble. 
 Having been accustomed to a town car- 
 riage-house he did not take kindly to 
 our rustic accommodations, althouorh his 
 good breeding, while he supposed himself 
 merely on a visit, led him to accept 
 them courteously ; but of late we had 
 been wakened, and lain trembling to hear 
 him pawing and knocking on the sides 
 of his stable in the dead of night — our 
 horse — what were we to do with him.? 
 
g2 How Two Girls Tried Farming. 
 
 " I will whip him for that," Louise 
 said at last. 
 
 He had never drawn any vehicle save 
 a light phaeton, or worn any but the 
 daintiest trappings, and he hated our 
 harness, and never would accept the 
 bits without a protest; and of late he 
 had shown his contempt for our pretty 
 wagon by a series of short runs back 
 and forth whenever he was put in the 
 thills ; and now he was resorting to sud- 
 den jumps, and to standing straight 
 upon his hind feet in the desperate 
 struggle to free himself. 
 
 " I will whip him for this, too ! " said 
 Louise one day, after dismounting to go to 
 his head and lead him on for the seventh 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, pj 
 
 time, from the load of wood which he 
 had vainly tried by rearing and plung- 
 ing to overturn. I looked at his ugly 
 mouth champing the bits so restively, 
 and at his unloving eye, and I fancied 
 little brief Louise whipping him ! I 
 should have laughed had I not been so 
 fearful she would do as she said — that 
 being a habit she has. 
 
 One day when he wouldn't "back," 
 she kept her word. 
 
 She jumped down from the wagon, 
 went to his head, led him out into an 
 open space, told me to come along, and 
 throwing off her sun-bonnet, took the 
 whip. 
 
 " Now back, Pampas ! back ! " 
 
g4 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 Not a step. Nothing but that fierce 
 champing 
 
 " Back, I say ! back ! " She tries to 
 force him back with all her strength — 
 and her white, firm arm and shoulder 
 have strength. But Pampas champs and 
 plants his feet, and then tries to make a 
 little run at her, and I cry out. She 
 crushes him back, the veins standing out 
 on her little brown fists like cords. 
 
 She is white enough now : " Get into 
 the wagon, Dolly," she says, without 
 looking round, " and pull on the lines ! " 
 
 I clamber in, and while she tries again, 
 I pull, and cry, " Back ! back ! " with all 
 my weak voice. It is an excited feminine 
 shriek, and it sounds as if I was afraid 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, p5 
 
 and was about to break down and cry, 
 when in reality I am as brave and 
 as angry as Louise. 
 
 She tells him once more. Then she 
 forces the bits back, and she raises the 
 whip, and she brings it down upon his 
 breast fiercely and fast, and cries, " Back, 
 Pampas ! " Pampas rears ; the taint of 
 mustang blood shows itself now; he raises 
 her clear from the ground, but he can 
 neither knock her down nor shake her 
 off — oh! how ugly he looks. 
 
 The whip comes swift and fierce. 
 " Back ! back there ! back ! " And I am 
 as angry as she. I don't care if we 
 both do get killed, and I pull and she 
 cries to him, and all at once he does 
 
g6 How Two Girls Triea Farming. 
 
 back — runs back swift and hard. She 
 holds fast. " Brace yourself if you can ! " 
 and then we bring up against the fence, 
 and I sit down suddenly, and then am 
 thrown forward over on the dash-board. 
 He plunges, but little Lou holds him 
 there. She can hold him. Then, after 
 a little, she allows him to come forward, 
 a few steps at a time, breathing hard 
 and stepping high. He stands and paws, 
 and looks, oh, how furious ! 
 
 Lou takes breath a moment. " This 
 never'll do ! " she says, and tells me to 
 get out. She springs in while I try to 
 hold him as she did ; he evidently thinks 
 he can trample me down. 
 
 " Now, don't be frightened ! " she says 
 
^ ■ 
 
 ■ ^>^?w?''^^?-^^i^-? 
 
 - f "' . 
 
 .'./ ^ ' •..•.■ 
 
 V* ^ •.■^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Pampas shows his mustang blood. 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, gg 
 
 with a sudden sweet smile at me. "The 
 harness is strong, and I can hold him; 
 let go now ! " 
 
 I try to let go, and he gives a 
 plunge, nearly knocking me over, and 
 shoots out at the open gate, just as 
 Lou meant. Up the road they go, Lou 
 bare-headed, her golden fleece of hair 
 floating straight behind her. I can see 
 her whipping him up the long hill. 
 He plunges — I can see the long bounds 
 of the wagon — kicks, breaks into a 
 run again, and the next minute they 
 are out of sight, and the Kromers all 
 come out to the gate to look. I can 
 hear them for a little while over on the 
 other road, the wagon rattling and 
 
100 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 bounding once or twice, and then there 
 is nothing more to be heard. 
 
 They are gone an hour. I try to 
 get dinner, but I cannot see, for tears. 
 I let one of our plates fall and break. 
 I let the meat burn. I wring my hands 
 and walk the floor. At last I am just 
 tying on my sun-bonnet to go and see 
 what I can find, when suddenly I think 
 I hear wheels. I run to the door. I 
 did hear wheels. It is Louise, coming 
 the other way. They have evidently 
 been round the big square, of a thous- 
 and acres, more or less. Pampas is walk- 
 ing meekly. He is covered with sweat 
 and foam — such a sorry-looking beast ! 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming. loi 
 
 Lou sits on the seat, serene, but white 
 and large-eyed. 
 
 She smiles to me as they pause in the 
 gateway. She composedly backs him a 
 little. Then they come on again a few 
 steps, then she stops him. She backs 
 him again. 
 
 " See ! don't he know his master ? " 
 
 He looks so meek and sorry. I think 
 he would like to lay his nose against 
 my cheek, but she will not let me pet 
 him, not ever so little. 
 
 How we congratulate ourselves ! for 
 the neighborhood has for the last fort- 
 night plainly been of the opinion that 
 " them two girls have no business with 
 a horse ! " 
 
T02 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 But the next morning, while we are 
 at breakfast, we hear the old rino:ine 
 hoof-blows upon the side of the barn. 
 
 Louise jumps up and takes down thc 
 whip, and I follow her. It is very dread- 
 ful to me that we two gentle, intelligent 
 girls, cannot coax and win and govern 
 a horse according to theory. Pampas 
 starts as Lou unlatches the stable door. 
 He turns his head. He sees her, sees 
 the whip, and he — yes, he actually 
 falls upon his knees. 
 
 Lou nods at him meaningly, lays 
 down the whip, tells him to get up 
 which he does, tells him to go to eat- 
 ing, which he does. 
 
 " There, old fellow ! " she says, and 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, loj 
 
 then it is her turn to tremble. She 
 turns to the fresh air, leans against the 
 stable door a moment, white and sick. 
 
 After this, for nearly a week, Pam- 
 pas trembles when he hears her coming. 
 Once or twice he has to be shown the 
 whip at a time when his memory bids 
 fair to fail him concerning the art of 
 backing, but the seriousness of the trouble 
 is over with ; and at last I am permitted 
 to pet him again. 
 
 Yes, it is very dreadful to me that we 
 cannot coax and win and govern a horse 
 according to theory. ' I cannot reconcile 
 the fact with my cherished traditions, 
 with my ideals of the horse — but it is 
 a fact that we are disappointed in the 
 
104 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 " noble creature." It is a fact that Lou 
 does not love her horse. Perhaps it is 
 because she does not respect him. She 
 says he is not frank, or generous, or 
 sunny, that he is selfish. He calls to 
 her when he hears her step, for an ear 
 of corn, but he fails to look glad, or 
 turn his head lovingly at the touch of 
 her hand; perhaps he is conscious that 
 she disapproves of his wastefulness in 
 eating his hay. To me he is kind in 
 a certain lofty manner. For me he will 
 bend his strong neck and patiently wait 
 while I awkwardly pull his head-stall 
 into position. For Lou he will not stoop 
 that neck an inch. Once, when Lou 
 came home sick, and I tremblingly took 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, 105 
 
 my life in my hands and led him to 
 pasture, he kindly waited — yes, waited 
 intelligently — while I got all the bars 
 down, and then carefully stepped over 
 the pile, turned and held his head low 
 for me to pull off the halter — then 
 was off. With his master, it is his cus- 
 tom to paw and curvet while the first 
 bar is being shoved, then, in a flying 
 whirl, to alight, at great peril to the sun- 
 bonneted head, on the other side where, 
 still curvetting, he is held until the halter 
 is slipped, when he is off and away ; 
 and standing in the back door, trembling 
 for Lou's safety, I hear his heels swiftly 
 beating the grassy hillside in the wild 
 prairie gallop none of the neighbors, 
 
io6 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 horses ever indulge in, but I do not 
 breathe until Lou comes in sight down 
 the lane. 
 
 No, we cannot make a pet and com- 
 panion of our horse. 1 am afraid of 
 him — Lou is merely his master. She 
 is his master. In the matter of Pampas 
 she makes no concessions to her wom- 
 anhood. He does not stand in his sta- 
 ble in winter-time until he is unman- 
 agable. No matter how electric the 
 air, each morning he is led out and 
 exercised, and I stand at the pantry 
 window with my heart in my mouth, 
 while he flies in swift circles about the 
 hooded little figure which urges him to 
 still wilder evolutions. She never puts 
 
Hozv Two Girls Tried Farming. lo^ 
 
 off going to town because it is keen and 
 frosty, and Pampas will be sure to " act 
 bad." Trembling, but determined she 
 shall not meet her fate alone, I prepare 
 to go too, braving the penalty of a 
 stiff neck for days to come, in my ner- 
 vous anxiety lest a team came up behind 
 us unawares, sending Pampas into the 
 air like an Indian arrow, and off, often 
 to be stopped only by reining him 
 straight out of the road into a fence 
 corner. The solicitous men of the team 
 behind, stop, alight, come to our rescue, 
 but Lou calmly puts aside all proffers of 
 assistance, until it comes to be a recog- 
 nized thing on the road, that one is to 
 drive quietly on, no matter what trouble 
 
ig8 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 " those girls " appear to be in. And 
 then, when we start for home ! ah, 
 that moment when I sit with crowding 
 heartbeats, while Lou, having untied our 
 pawing, tossing steed, gets to my side, 
 reins in hand, the best and quickest 
 way she can. The men standing about 
 offer to hold him, but she will have no 
 one at his head — she will not accus- 
 tom him to that. What " silver threads " 
 I have, I owe, I think, to beholding 
 Lou clambering about over on the thills, 
 now to fasten up the check-rein which 
 the tossing head has unloosed, now to 
 recover the " lines " which he has jerked 
 or whisked from her hand. I am never 
 at rest after she sets forth. Once she 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, log 
 
 accompanied her horse in a mad leap 
 across the railroad track, under the 
 very nose of the rushing locomotive ; 
 once he whirled and threw her from 
 the wagon, but she was picked up with 
 the reins wound securely round her 
 little fist, and drove home alone, " black 
 and blue " with bruises, yet still master. 
 But she does not love Pampas — nor 
 Pampas her. 
 
 By this time the money capital of 
 the enterprise had become entirely ex- 
 hausted, and we were left dependent 
 upon the butter and eggs of our plan. 
 We met the issue cheerfully. During 
 our first week at cousin Janet's we had 
 
no How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 found that these staples were not going 
 to bring us any such prices as we had 
 counted upon. We could only trust 
 that there might be such a resource as 
 making good the deficiency in prices 
 by the production of larger quantities. 
 We experimented with the feed of our 
 hens — our fascinating hens — and at 
 last we did succeed in bringing what 
 Louise called " a perfect storm of eggs." 
 Yes — our fascinatins: hens. For we 
 were perfectly absorbed in our pursuit 
 — each day, each simple busy day was 
 an enthusiasm. To rise betimes, to have 
 breakfast just ready when Lou came 
 in from milking, and meantime to have 
 skimmed the cream, and fed the hens 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, iii 
 
 — why we put both heart and mind into 
 it. The busy days were long with pleas- 
 ure — the pleasure of successful toils. 
 Perhaps, one must feel this way about 
 any labor to make it a satisfying success. 
 Even our hens were fascinating, as I 
 said. They were the brightest, busiest, 
 cheerfulest little bodies, complaisant indi- 
 viduals, interesting acquaintances, every 
 one. I knew the peculiar crow, and 
 cackle, and cluck of each member of my 
 small army of happy stay-at-homes, whom 
 the neighbors blessed and wondered at 
 alternately. Mr. Kromer and Mr. Hooper 
 sowed their great wheat fields close up 
 on either side of our narrow strip of a 
 farm, and went home and slept serenely, 
 
112 How Two Girls Tried Farming. 
 
 and we ourselves neither picketed our 
 garden nor stood guard over tomatoes 
 and strawberries. After the wheat was 
 harvested and drawn into the barn, Mr. 
 Hooper came to say that we " might turn 
 our hens in." Being thrifty, we were duly 
 grateful. We should need to buy no 
 more corn and " middlings." The wheat 
 field would subsist them for weeks. The 
 eggs would be " a clear gain." 
 
 So we went out and invited our vir- 
 tuous and now -to -be -rewarded fowls, an 
 easy matter since they generally formed 
 into a long silent pattering procession at 
 the tail of my gown whenever I appeared. 
 Little and big, chattering as they went, 
 they followed us up to the field, up and 
 

 
 A fashionable ''train." 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, ii^ 
 
 in — and also out and back. Thrice we 
 went, and thrice we returned — we and 
 our hens. 
 
 " They actually don't know enough to 
 forage ! " said Lou, half vexed. " Did 
 you ever hear of such hens ? " 
 
 We were determined to avail ourselves 
 of that wheat — it meant dollars and 
 cents to us little farmers. We laid a 
 plan, a real woman's plan, and went to 
 bed, to rise next morning before light. I 
 went into the domicil of my wondering 
 little family, and quietly placing my two 
 hands on their plump unsuspecting sides, 
 (I could walk up to any one of them 
 in the broad day-light of out-of-doors and 
 lift them in my hands, to be rewarded 
 
tt6 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 with a soft nestle-down and a little pert 
 side look from a bright eye, both mo- 
 tions dainty as a canary's) I took them 
 from the roost, and handed them, one 
 by one, outside to Lou who slipped them 
 into a covered bushel basket. When the 
 basket was full we two thrifty farmers took 
 it up by the ears, tugged it up to the 
 wheat field, climbed the fence, lifted over 
 our heavy, fluttering, frightened burden, 
 and going quite over the hill, emptied 
 them out into the soft, dewy dark. " They 
 had had no breakfast," we reasoned, 
 " and of course would pick up the wheat ; 
 their voices would call the rest; once 
 wonted and unfed elsewhere, they would 
 take possession, and with the money 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, iiy 
 
 saved we would buy a handsome blanket 
 for Pampas." 
 
 Alas, and alas ! Stumbling back in the 
 dark, before we reached the fence, sped 
 past us on a winged run, screaming at 
 the top of their voices, our hens ; and 
 there they stood at the door of their 
 house on our arrival, a frightened hud- 
 dling heap, waiting to be let in — " hope- 
 lessly well fed," Lou said. 
 
 They were well-fed — we fed them 
 " with idees " — that is, we fed them chem- 
 ically — but the fine, chopped green veg- 
 etables, now lettuce, now cabbage, now 
 onions, now fruit, the coarse meats 
 bought at market, the varied grains, with 
 constant " middlings " stirred up with hot 
 
ii8 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 water — now with a dust of cayenne 
 pepper, now of salt, now of sulphur, the 
 constant supply of plaster and bones, 
 and the constant supply of fresh water, 
 brought us the desired result — eggs the 
 year round, a supply in winter as well 
 as in summer. To be sure we earned 
 them, but we had not committed the 
 fatal mistake of supposing we should get 
 things on our farm without earning 
 them. From first to last we have de- 
 spised that man's way of setting down 
 and making a calculation of the interest 
 on the money invested in the farm and 
 the tools, and the stock, and the wages 
 of himself and his team per day, and 
 then, after adding up the yield of his 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, iig 
 
 farm, declaring that one was making 
 nothing, but really running behind. As 
 if a happy daily life were not the very 
 best one could get out of money and 
 labor, any way ! 
 
 Our butter experience was not quite 
 so encouraging. Knowing it costs no more 
 to keep the good cow than the poor 
 one, we had paid an extra price and 
 had secured one of extra excellence, 
 upon whom our meal and " middlings " 
 were not wasted: gentle Maggie, with 
 her little Maggie of still more precious 
 blood in the stall adjoining. Louise 
 lavished upon her all the affection that 
 by right of romance should have gone 
 
120 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 to Pampas ; and Maggie returned it 
 with all that intelligence and attach- 
 ment Pampas did not show — just as 
 dogs have disappointed us while cats 
 never have. 
 
 She was all that a short-horned, yel- 
 low-skinned, slender-footed, black-nosed 
 little cow can be ; and we never blamed 
 her because our butter brought us only 
 twenty-five, twenty, eighteen, fifteen, twelve 
 and a half cents per pound ; such is the 
 descending scale from March to June. 
 
 We make, I have been persuaded, the 
 veritable *' gilt-edged " butter of the Bos- 
 ton and Philadelphia markets. It is 
 sweet, fragrant, sparkling, golden-tinted, 
 daintily salted, and daintily put up ; but 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, 121 
 
 even from the most fastidious private 
 buyers we never have received above 
 thirty cents per pound, and during the 
 greater portion of the summer have sold 
 it for fifteen cents, and twelve cents, the 
 same price which Mrs. Kromer receives 
 for her soft, lardy-looking rolls ; perhaps 
 that is the most aggravating part of it ! 
 The finer grades of butter, it seems, are 
 not appreciated by the western citizen 
 and his family. Making inquiries in 
 Detroit and Chicago, we learn there is 
 no special trade in these extra grades, 
 and that, if offered, they could not be 
 placed at anything like eastern prices. 
 And while eastern families are ac- 
 customed to pay from thirty to forty 
 
122 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 cents per dozen for eggs, we have never, 
 even in winter, secured over twenty-five 
 cents for the fresh-laid, while in the 
 plenteous summer time we sell for ten 
 cents. 
 
 In due time also we found that our 
 black-cap raspberries would reall}^ go for 
 ten cents per quart, and the bulk of our 
 strawberries for the same. We aban- 
 doned forever the " small fruits " item of 
 our plan, so far as income was con- 
 cerned. We have our Wilson and 
 Jocunda beds, where, wuth many a back- 
 ache and many a dizzy headache, with 
 hotly glowing brow and scorched hands 
 — since strawberries to be spicy and 
 sweet must be picked dry in the mid- 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, 12^ 
 
 day sunshine — we grow those great, 
 rich-hearted scarlet and crimson berries, 
 berries which are chronicled as marvels 
 by grateful editors, berries that one 
 must need slice for the table; but they 
 are never for sale, thank you ! One 
 must pay for every strawberry one raises 
 its full money's worth in labor, nor will 
 strawberries ever be cheaper. 
 
 The raspberries are more satisfactory, 
 the needed labor coming only at regular 
 intervals. Under our systematic treat- 
 ment, on the same plantations they yield, 
 year after year, bountifully and uniformly, 
 and we have them for plentiful use the 
 year round, as farmers have apples — and 
 how those farmers' wives with nothing 
 
12^^ How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 but apples envy us — and we can them 
 wholesale, picking them by the pailful, 
 cooking them in a great boiler, dipping 
 them with a big dipper into great stone 
 jars holding three or four gallons, and 
 sealing up with the sweet and winey 
 crimson lusciousness, bird songs and 
 dewy mornings, the gold-and-rose silences 
 of early, lovely August dawns, and all the 
 pretty pictures of the little upland plan- 
 tation with its tall purple canes, each 
 trellised group of three bending greenly 
 from its stout bands, black with ripe fruit, 
 starred here and there with the little 
 white hearts where the birds have been 
 breakfasting — the birds that know they 
 are welcome and often pick in the same 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming. 12^ 
 
 row with me, conscious that I am aware 
 it is they who keep the plantation free 
 from bug, fly and worm, so free that we 
 do not even know what species of crea- 
 tures harm raspberry canes. 
 
 So, there were some disappointments, 
 yet on the whole an encouraging daily 
 success. We doubtless should have done 
 better had our land lain near the large 
 thickly-settled eastern towns, instead of 
 west. But, despite all short comings 
 in the way of market prices, we two 
 farmers did, by cheerfully ignoring sev- 
 eral of the items mentioned by the Labor 
 Commission as among the necessities of 
 the ordinary family, week by week, make 
 
126 How Two Girls Tried Farmmg, 
 
 both ends meet — perhaps because we 
 sternly balanced accounts every week, 
 nay, every day. 
 
 For our very own personal needs, the 
 little Arcadian income would really have 
 sufficed ; but there always came up some 
 thing to be purchased which we had not 
 made account of : the pound of nails, the 
 pane of glass, a horseshoe to be set, a bit 
 of repair upon wagon or tools, the road 
 tax, the pleasant little expenses for com- 
 pany. It was, indeed, quite a close affair 
 those first years. Even in the early 
 weeks we dismissed the idea of smoked 
 ham and dainty sausage, and devoted 
 " Pin-cushion " and " Roly-poly " to the 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming. 12*/ 
 
 payment of taxes and the discharge of 
 debt for hired labor. 
 
 Ah, Roly-poly — pink-nosed and fat Roly- 
 poly of the twinkling legs, predecessor of 
 a long line of Roly-polys, each a pet 
 in his own time and place — shall we 
 ever forget that soft dark spring midnight 
 when we were suddenly wakened, how or 
 by what we knew not ! At last I became 
 conscious of a strange little noise out- 
 side, under the window. 
 
 " Hark ! " said Lou, at the same instant, 
 sitting up. 
 
 I harked. After due waiting, another 
 little scrambling sound, together with a 
 low happy grunt. 
 
 Lou groaned. 
 
128 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 " Those pigs are out, Dolly." 
 
 Yes, unmistakably. 
 
 " Quietly, now," I said, as when all was 
 ready we unclosed the door and issued 
 forth — each bearing a pan of sour milk, 
 cream and all. 
 
 I was proud of my forethought in 
 that little matter. Lou, who would have 
 taken a lasso and walked fearlessly into 
 a herd of Pampas' wild relatives, was 
 helpless here. She was content to do 
 my bidding meekly. 
 
 " P^ggY' piggy • " ^ called cheerfully. 
 " Come, piggy ! " 
 
 Guilty piggy ! He jumped, barked 
 like a little dog, and I dimly saw and 
 distinctly heard him scampering around 
 
xi x»in.iiii;iht AdveiitLire. 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, iji 
 
 the corner of the house. But I was only 
 too glad to discern thus that only one was 
 taking an outing. Carefully bearing my 
 pan of milk, I went swiftly around the 
 other corner, and met him at the back 
 door. Off he ran, but I ignored him. 
 I calmly set my pan down by the wood- 
 pile, and turned my back. Presently, I 
 heard the little waddling form approach- 
 ing, nose to the ground, uttering quick, 
 delighted little grunts. A moment more, 
 and the naughty pink nose was in 
 the milk, the naughty fore-paw right in 
 the middle of my bright new milk pan. 
 Softly I turned. Softly, at a signal, came 
 Lou, pouring in her contribution to this 
 feast al fresco. 
 
IJ2 How Two Girls Tried Farming. 
 
 Thus reassured, Piggy forgot fear and 
 put in both fore-paws; it was then I 
 softly bent and seized him, grasping his 
 fat little body with both hands — but oh, 
 the muscle of even a small pig, the 
 weight of the solid little self! he strug- 
 gled up, down, outward, backward, kicked, 
 squealed as if in mortal pain ; but I was 
 already bearing him onward, and Lou, 
 behind me, stumbling over the pan of 
 milk reached helpfully and seized — not 
 the kicking little pig, but my wrist, 
 and bearing that on high, almost forc- 
 ing me to let go the pig, squeezing it 
 unmercifully, determined to not lose her 
 hold, kick as he might, I both laugh- 
 ing and panting to the extent I could 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, /jj 
 
 not speak to expostulate or explain, we 
 reached the pen and tossed Master 
 Roly-poly over in beside his sleeping 
 mate. Then we restored the lifted door, 
 under which he had squeezed through, 
 to its place, and went back to the house, 
 all in the vague dark — poor Lou so 
 mortified and vexed at the way she had 
 helped, that she would not speak to me 
 until the middle of the next forenoon. 
 
 Well, to go back a little, it was a 
 busy busy spring ; a home has to be 
 begun in so many directions at once — 
 meadow, field, garden, orchard, flowers, 
 and shubbery. Ah, that setting of trees ! 
 With us "arbor day" stretched through 
 
I 34- How Two Girls Tried Farmmg, 
 
 weeks; what with pear, apple, peach, 
 and cherry, evergreen, lilac, rose, and 
 locust, to say nothing of the vines and 
 canes. I confess to hours when Lou 
 and I toiled side by side in silence, 
 digging those holes. Nature is no gallant. 
 She has inexorable laws which woman, in 
 common with man, must confront. The 
 spade in delicate hands must needs be 
 driven as deep as the horniest palm can 
 thrust it. Protect your white hands as 
 you will, if you labor out-of-doors there 
 will come upon them brownness, redness, 
 and freckle ; there will be cracks, torn 
 flesh, " slivers," what not, and upon your 
 soft, pink palms, callous, blister, and 
 soreness unendurable; a brown, enlarged, 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, 135 
 
 useful, and strong hand will be one of 
 the penalties of your independence. Also, 
 my graceful sisters, who shall essay inde- 
 pendence in this field, your slender shoul- 
 ders will broaden, you will affect a roomy 
 bodice, and your arms will lose their 
 tapering contours. As compensation, 
 you will come into possession of an ex- 
 quisite perception of the purity of atmos- 
 pheres, a comfortable disregard of changes 
 in the weather, an appetite for fruits 
 and vegetables and nourishing steaks, 
 and an indifference to injurious season- 
 ings and flavorings — you can walk where 
 you will, lift what you will, carry for 
 long distances, and confidently project 
 fresh undertakings. 
 
1^6 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 Our tree-setting and early gardening 
 well out of the way, came our first 
 farming proper — corn planting. In con- 
 sideration of certain " suits " made for 
 his little boys, cousin John sent over 
 his horses, plow, and old Donald. Him 
 we coaxed to sit under a budding tree, 
 and ourselves took possession of the 
 horses and plow. I had been longing 
 to show Lou what I could do ; and, 
 truly at cousin John's I had not thought 
 plowing so very terrible. But I found 
 our stony, hilly field somewhat different 
 from his soft, level garden land. To 
 my surprise and hers, instead of walk- 
 ing quietly after my horses along my 
 straight, loamy furrow, as I had meant 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, /j/ 
 
 and had led her to expect, Lou beheld me 
 pulled this way, then that, dragged over 
 clods, forced into long strides, the plow 
 now lying upon its side, now leaping 
 along the surface, until the trained team 
 turned their heads in mute inquiry. 
 
 We can plow, as I said, but do not 
 think it advisable. Dozens of farmers, 
 especially those young farmers who are 
 bound to succeed, do not scorn to do 
 something outside, and by a job of car- 
 pentering, mason-work, threshing-machine, 
 or the like, furnish themselves with 
 many comforts otherwise unattainable. 
 So I trust that we are none the less 
 legitimately farmers because by a bit of 
 dressmaking, or fine sewing, we hire our 
 
ij8 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 plowing and mowing, and whatever other 
 work we please. 
 
 We dragged and marked the four acres 
 without assistance. Then we proceeded 
 with another item of " that newspaper 
 foolery," which, according to John, no 
 farmer can afford. We had so often 
 been assured that our land wouldn't 
 grow corn, we didn't know but it might 
 be so, and thought it well to assist the 
 soil to the extent of our means. With 
 our determined and persistent hoes, we 
 composted the guano of the hennery 
 with plaster, until it was fine, dry, and 
 inodorous. 
 
 Such a task as that was ! 
 
 Lou would stop and lean her forehead, 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, ijg 
 
 wet and red, upon her hoe-handle, and 
 utter a bit of the current but kindly 
 neighborhood sarcasm. 
 
 " ' Two girls I ' don't you think so, 
 Dolly ? " 
 
 Dolly did think so, sometimes. 
 
 Then, with a pail in one hand, and a 
 wooden spoon in the other, we each 
 went over the field and deposited a 
 modicum of this home-made fertilizer 
 wherever a hill of corn was to grow. 
 
 Such preliminary work was, of course, 
 very tedious. But it made a difference, 
 we think, if the opinions concerning the 
 state of the soil were correct, of at least 
 forty bushels per acre; for the barren 
 mullen field yielded us, upon an average, 
 
7^0 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 ninety bushels to the acre. And let me 
 say again that in most instances, as in 
 this, it has paid us to " work our farm 
 with ideesT Our superior melons and 
 turnips, savoys and strawberries, as well 
 as our corn crops, are the result of 
 special work upon special plans, assisted 
 by special fertilizers; in no instance the 
 costly ones of commerce, but home-made 
 and carefully adapted by means of 
 many experiments. 
 
 The fragrant May days passed. Our 
 corn shot up its delicate pointed blades, 
 our currant and berry settings puffed 
 and ruffled themselves from top to toe 
 with their little frilled leaves of exqui- 
 site green, and each morning there 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, i^i 
 
 was some miraculous development at the 
 garden beds. It was a pretty sight of 
 a mid-May morning : our " variegated 
 foliage " beets, peas, finger high, onion 
 beds, rank upon rank of green lances, 
 lettuces fit for salad and mayonnaise, 
 tomatoes needing trellis, potatoes high, 
 thick and green, all freshly hoed and 
 sparkling with dew. Ah, it is worth 
 while to make garden ! Not that ours 
 has ever been particularly early, not that 
 we could ever compete with a dozen 
 Irish women near us, who raise " truck " 
 for the markets. Oh, no ! every season 
 one can buy cucumbers when our vines 
 are just bestarring themselves with their 
 little yellow blossoms; and the groceries 
 
1^2 How Tzvo Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 are gay with red, ripe tomatoes when 
 ours are only " beginning to turn," and 
 so on ; and we have quite our share of 
 hand-to-hand fight with cut- worm, potato 
 bug, striped-bug, ants, the onion fl)^ 
 and frost, and drought; but still w.. 
 have always had both plenty and perfec 
 tion in the end, and a world of simple 
 pleasures by the way. 
 
 A little later came " cultivating corn ** 
 and this we found to our relief to be 
 entirely practicable, although Pampas did 
 his best to render cousin John's instruc- 
 tions of none effect. Nothing could 
 induce him, that first season, to cross 
 the field at less than his road pace, his 
 naughty, handsome head held aloft, every 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farmmg, i^j 
 
 few moments breaking into a trot. After 
 experimenting with him during one fore- 
 noon, we took him down to the stable, 
 and I donned my long dress and went 
 up to Mr. Kromer's. There I succeeded 
 in lending him to take Mr. Kromer a 
 journey, and in borrowing in return 
 steady old Jane, who would demurely 
 walk up and down the rows with me at 
 my own leisurely pace. 
 
 We are kept thus busy with hoe 
 and cultivator all the summer long. 
 
 We spend few daylight hours in the 
 house — the house is still a secondary 
 matter — and look on to a snug winter 
 in-doors with a zest indescribable. The 
 autumn months come on apace, bringing 
 
1^4 How Two Girls Tried Farming. 
 
 still harder work and greater hurry. 
 We cut up our corn, husk it, build a 
 homely crib of poles, draw our stalks 
 and stack them, thus really mastering 
 the corn-crop — dig our potatoes, store 
 our vegetables, and chatter rejoicingly 
 like two squirrels as we heap up our 
 winter cheer. 
 
 As the long, cold winter finally closes 
 us in, we look cheerily from our win- 
 dows out upon the world. Of course 
 some strange, abnormal labors fall to 
 our lot ; there are paths to be shoveled 
 through the snow, Pampas and the Mag- 
 gies to be daily led forth to water, sta- 
 bles to be kept in wholesome order. 
 But we do it, therefore others can. 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, 145 
 
 The in-door coseyness, the sense of in- 
 dependence, fully reward us for it all. 
 There is no enjoyment quite like that 
 which quietly comes as the lot of thrift 
 and industry. We have succeeded in 
 avoiding all debt save that which in due 
 time the well-fattened Polands cancel. 
 Maggie, feeding through the fall upon 
 our golden pumpkins, enables us, with 
 her beautiful butter, to fill the winter 
 flour barrel ; and a surplus of potatoes 
 purchases a store of groceries. Eggs, 
 week by week, supply " items." A day's 
 work — O, such a lovely day's work — 
 of picking apples " upon shares " in the 
 Kromer orchards has filled the tiny apple 
 bin. During the brief leisures, various 
 
146 How Two Girls Tried Farmmg. 
 
 pieces of sewing provide hay for Pampas. 
 Spring finds us not in debt, and more 
 hopeful than ever of " our plan." 
 
 Year after year we live on after this 
 fashion, tugging away at great labors 
 and knowing few leisures, but kept 
 cheery by the thought that we have 
 already lived so comfortably so long, 
 cooing away to ourselves we are not in 
 debt, that our plan bids fair of success, 
 until we begin to hear, on this hand and 
 on that : 
 
 " Why, how prosperous those girl 
 farmers are ! Did you ever see the like ? " 
 
 Then we pause, and look about us, 
 and find it is so. The time has come. 
 We ourselves see what a green, grassy 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, z^/ 
 
 leafy nest the once despised little farm 
 is, with its gardens and its fruit yards, 
 its rosy clover meadows, and its rich 
 upland pastures. 
 
 We frankly confess to all the world 
 that we have not proved equal to the 
 much " mixed farming," to the raising of 
 general crops, to the personal tillage of 
 plow lands, We, however, have been at 
 disadvantage, physically. We possess but 
 the minimum muscular strength of wo- 
 man ; the limits close around about us 
 nearly. The tall, long-limbed, and large- 
 framed woman, may be far more grandly 
 independent. Still, we doubt whether she 
 makes much more money than we, in our 
 circumscribed, special ways. 
 
i^}.8 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 However, we can assure those who pre- 
 fer to work, rather than " manage," that 
 years before our experiment there were 
 women, here and there, who were suc- 
 ceeding in " mixed farming." There were 
 also other women who were able to 
 profitably direct large agricultural opera- 
 tions. But it is not wisdom to point to 
 brilliant successes ; the average woman 
 may well be more interested in the other 
 average woman, who simply " makes a 
 good living " off her land. 
 
 For example, while we were attempt- 
 ing our plan, one brave New Hampshire 
 woman, for many years had had the 
 entire care of an hundred-acre farm. 
 She had been previously a sewing-girl, 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, I4g 
 
 giving up her employment on account 
 of a cancerous trouble. She began grad- 
 ually, assisting her father ; but for twenty 
 years she has had the farm in her own 
 hands, having perfectly recovered her 
 health. 
 
 This woman farmer does all the work 
 that any man farmer does, has no help 
 except as she " changes work " with her 
 neighbors, as men in similar cases do. 
 She plows all day, holding the plow, 
 while a boy drives, plowing an acre of 
 rough land per day, which in her vicinity 
 is considered a good day's work. She 
 cuts twelve tons of hay annually — mows, 
 cures, loads and stores it away herself, 
 exchanging work with her neighbors for 
 
1^0 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 extra help, even as a man would. She 
 harrows, plants, hoes and reaps. In 1879, 
 she raised thirty bushels of potatoes, do- 
 ing all the work from first to last. She 
 keeps three cows, last year marketing 
 over two hundred pounds of butter. Last 
 autumn she picked about two hundred 
 and fifty bushels of apples. She draws 
 her own wood, sometimes cutting it, and 
 always loading and unloading, managing 
 her ox team and her sled with the skill 
 of a crack teamster. She also does all 
 her housework, at present living quite 
 alone. Her house is tidy, her buildings 
 well kept, and everything has the look 
 of being in the hands of a thrifty farmer. 
 She enjoys her work, is independent in 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, r^i 
 
 her operations, asking no man's advice. 
 She feels no need of advice. 
 
 We have not done all this ; still, sub- 
 stantially, we have been " true to the 
 early dream." The " golden foot of the 
 sheep " is at last on our once barren hill- 
 tops. Durham Maggie and Maggie II. 
 and Maggie III. and Jersey Daisy feed 
 luxuriously upon the deep, sweet grasses, 
 and the honeyed clover-blossoms, while 
 the cream-rising and the money-making 
 go on together in the cool, shadowy milk- 
 room day by day. The butter shipped 
 in tubs, the choice mutton sheep, the 
 fleeces in a load, are not representative 
 of a runious and aggravating amount of 
 either hired or personal labor, and give 
 
1^2 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 us our money in that profitable shape, 
 " the lump," and we have built a barn, 
 " a love of a barn " — the talk of the 
 neighborhood, since it is a genuine 
 girl's barn, all stairs and doors, "an 
 adorable barn," in fact ; yet we have found 
 each of the fourteen doors handy, as our 
 Maggies are not imprisoned in stancheons 
 but each has her own cosey room with 
 its separate outer entrance — there are no 
 ugly passage-ways in which to turn and 
 "lock horns." 
 
 We think we have been wise. Even 
 the " mixed " farmer and strong plow- 
 woman of whom I have told you, and 
 of whom much more might be profitably 
 told, is gradually abandoning her field 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, i^j 
 
 crops for the dairy and for stock raising. 
 We think that the care of small flocks 
 and herds is an easy, gentle, and 
 womanly occupation. We like their 
 friendship and their company, and I 
 dare say spend much unnecessary time 
 with them. Lou carries her neatness 
 and love of order into their quarters, 
 and the sheep-cote and the barn are 
 always pleasant places to visit. I often 
 tell her that the sheds, so clean and 
 warm and strawy, are as inviting as 
 the house, and that I don't see why, for 
 hundreds of overworked women, the 
 Arcadian time of shepherdesses might 
 not profitably come again. 
 
 " I know it, Dolly," answers Louise 
 
i^^j. How Two Girls Tried Farming, 
 
 earnestly. " I too, have thought of it 
 so much. And now that men are com- 
 ing more and more to share their occu- 
 pations with us, I do wish that some of 
 those women who are so tired and rest- 
 less and discouraged, and haven't brains 
 enough to become doctors and lawyers 
 or business women of any kind, and 
 yet need money just as badly, could see 
 what a pleasant way of living this is. I 
 wish we could tell them in some way, 
 Dolly, just how we do. We raise nearly 
 everything we consume you know, except 
 wheat — that is we raise the means to 
 buy what we don't raise. It would be 
 such a relief, such a restoration to health 
 and youth even, to rise in the morning 
 
How Two Girls Tried Farming, 755 
 
 their own mistresses. This unspoken yet 
 ever-uttered " by your leave," is so wear- 
 ing. O, I do wish you could tell them 
 Dolly ! " 
 
 And Lou's wish is the reason d etre 
 of my story. 
 
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