Each in His Place

By Mrs. A. J. Wilder, Mansfield, Missouri

I know a farm woman who is wearing overalls this spring at her outdoor work. "They wear overalls in the munition factories," she says. "Isn't the raising of food to preserve life as important as the making of shells to take it? Why should I be hampered in my work and tormented by skirts flapping around my ankles when I am out in the field?"

Why, indeed! When every bit of one's time and strength can be put to such good use in work that is so very necessary to the world, it seems foolish to spend any of it uselessly. The simpler and more suitable we can dress the better. This year of our Lord 1917 is no time for giving much attention to frills, and when we remember the tight skirts of recent date, we surely cannot accuse overalls of being immodest. As the Man of the Place said to me, "Just hunt up a couple of your old tight skirts and sew them together, then you'll have a pair of overalls."

We all feel that we would like to do something to help our country in these perilous times, however much we may regret the necessity. We may do this: may do our share of the work and bear our share of the burden of the world without leaving our homes or exposing ourselves to new and fearful dangers. Not that country women would hesitate to take these risks if it were necessary, but it is natural to be glad that we may help as much or more in our own accustomed ways. Women in the towns and cities can be spared to work in the factories, to make munitions, to join the navy or to go as nurses with the Red Cross, but what would happen to the world if the farm women should desert their present posts?

Our work is not spectacular and in doing it faithfully we shall win no war medals or decorations, but it is absolutely indispensable. We may feed the field hands, care for the poultry and work in the garden with the full assurance that we are doing as much for our country as any other person. Here in the Hills we have helped plant the potatoes and corn, we help with the milking and feed the calves and hogs and we will be found on the line just behind the trenches, "fighting for Uncle Sam," as I heard one woman say, and every extra dozen eggs, pound of meat or bushel of vegetables we raise will help beat back the enemy, hunger.

Some women were talking over an entertainment that had been planned for the crowd. They seemed to be taking only a half-hearted interest in the subject and finally one of them exclaimed: "I can't feel right about doing this! It does not seem to me that this is a time to be feasting and frolicking. I do not think we ought to eat an unnecessary mouthful and sometimes I feel like choking on the food I do eat when I think of the people in the world who are hungry and starving."

I fully agreed with her. When there seems not to be enough food to go around, we ought to be as careful and economical with it as possible. If it is true, as we are told, that most of us have the bad habit of overeating, now is a good time to break that habit.

I am sure that we farm women will not be found second to those of any other occupation in willingness to bear our part in effort or in self denial, and if, as experts say, "armies travel on their stomachs," we are doing our best to enable the soldiers of the United States to go as far as those of any other nation.

Mrs. A. J. Wilder. "Each in His Place" Missouri Ruralist,  (May 5, 1917): page 9.

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