Shorter Hours for Farm Women

by Mrs. A.J. Wilder, Editor Homemakers Section, Missouri Ruralist.

Editor's Note.– At a time when women across the seas are marching the streets and demanding votes for women, when the law gibes the woman in shop or factory a nine hour day it is interesting to note that the Missouri farm woman is making no demands. Her lot is a fairly happy one and she wisely realizes it. Yet it can and must be improved, and Mrs. Wilder who is herself a farm woman here makes some suggestions which should be helpful even to the wife of the tenant who has but little to call her own.

When so much is being done to better the conditions of the laboring men all over the world, it is good to know that the work of farm women is receiving its share of attention. Thinking persons realize that the woman, on the farm, is a most important factor in the success or failure of the whole farm business and that, aside from any kindly feeling toward her, it pays in dollars and cents to conserve her health and strength. Women on the farm have not, as a rule, the conveniences that city housekeepers have and their work includes much outside work, such as gardening, caring for chickens and gathering as well as putting up fruits and vegetables.

Farm women have been patient and worked very hard. It has seemed sometimes as though they and their work were overlooked in the march of progress. Yet improvement has found them out, and a great many helps in their work have been put into use in the last few years. Farm homes with modern heating, lighting and water equipment are increasing in number and, although the majority have not yet advanced so far as that, a great number have passed the stage of the bucket brigade from the spring or the hand over hand hauling of water from deep wells. It is getting to be quite the common thing to have the water piped down from the spring, raised up from the spring with a ram, or forced up from the bottom of deep wells by the compressed air pump. So, many steps have been saved the women folks, for they did most of the water carrying. It is so much easier to turn a faucet when one wants a bucket of water; and the time and strength saved can be used to so much better advantage in other ways.

Cream separators are taking the place of the troublesome setting of milk; gardens are being planted in rows so that a horse will do in a few minutes what would be a work of hours by hand; home canning outfits are lessening the labor of canning fruits and vegetables; kitchen cabinets are saving steps in the kitchen and bread and cake mixers save tired hands and arms. Just the change from heavy iron ware utensils to granite ware and tin has made more difference than one would think at first. Vacuum cleaners have almost done away with house cleaning time ,for many farm women. In place of the above-ground cellar there is the simple little hanging cellarette. Several shelves of convenient size, either round or square are fastened together the required distance apart. A close fitting case or cover, of two thicknesses of burlap or bran sack is made which completely encloses all the shelves and is closely buttoned down one side, for the door. The "cellar" is then hung from the ceiling in some convenient place; a leaky bucket full of water is hung above so that the water will drip on it, keeping all the burlap wet; a pan is set under it to catch the drips and there you have a handy cellar for keeping cool the butter and milk. One will save many a trip up and down cellar steps or perhaps down to the spring. This hanging cellar is kept cool by the evaporation of the water from its surface.

A friend of mine was unable to stand the heat of the cook stove in summer, so she bought an inexpensive oil stove and a fireless cooker. Anything which required long cooking she started on the oil stove, then placed in the fireless cooker, finishing off, if necessary, when the time came, by a few minutes browning on the oil stove. The combination worked perfectly. There was only a little heat from the oil stove; none at all from the fireless cooker; time and labor of carrying in fuel and keeping up fires; of taking up ashes and cleaning up the dust and dirt all saved and no increase in the running expenses, for the wood, on the farm, sold and bought the coal oil for the oil stove.

Another labor saving idea is the use of a small work table on casters, which can be easily moved from place to place. If cupboards, stove and table are some distance apart, this is a great step saver. At one trip it can take from the cupboard to the stove all things necessary in the getting of a meal. The meal can be dished up on it and all taken to the dining table at once. The dishes can be taken away to wash upon it.

It was while recovering from a serious illness that I discovered the uses and value of a high stool. It is surprising how much of the house work can be done while sitting -- ironing, washing dishes, preparing vegetables and dishes to cook or bake and even such cooking as frying griddle cakes can be accomplished while sitting. There should be a foot rest on the stool so the feet will not hang and it should be light so it can be easily moved. The movable table and the high stool form a combination for saving steps and tiresome standing that is hard to beat.

Ideas for using the things at hand to make our work easier will come to us if we notice a little. For instance if we keep some old newspapers on hand in the kitchen the uses we find for them will multiply. Rub the stove over with one when washing the dishes, and the disagreeable task of blacking the stove can be delayed much longer. The paper can be burned and our hands remain clean. Put papers on the work table to set the pots and pans on while working and the table will not have to be scoured. When the men come to a meal, with their work clothes on, from some particularly dirty job, newspapers spread over the tablecloth will save a hard job of washing and ironing.

Time and strength saved by the use of one help make it easier to get the next and the time saved gives leisure to meet with the neighborhood club or to talk with a neighbor and find still other ways of doing the work more easily. Talking things over is a great help as is also the planning of the work so that the whole family can work together to advantage and without friction. As in any other business each one must do his work well and on time so as not to hinder the others in what they are trying to accomplish.

The combination of capital or business interests forms a trust, the joining together of union forces makes a labor trust and each does much better for his own interests than though everyone worked alone. Why not join the household forces and make a family trust all working together for the same objects? in order to do this successfully there must be system in the work and each one must know what is expected of him. In this way more and better work can be accomplished. It takes careful thought and planning to have the household machinery run smoothly and to the minute, with meals on time so that the farm work will not be hindered and the woman who can do this and the outside work connected with the house has proven her executive ability and business talent.

While system is a great help in the work it is best to get a new light on it once in a while, so we will not get in a rut and do things a certain way because we are in the habit, when we might make some improvement. It helps in finding the little kinks that need straightening out in our work, to notice if there is any of it that we dread to do and if there is, then study that thing and find some way to do it differently. Perhaps just some little change will be a great help. A woman's work on the farm is very interesting if thought and study are given it and in no other business can a woman so well keep up with her husband in his work. The more the farm is studied with the help of good farm papers and the Experiment stations, the more interesting it becomes and the woman on a farm may, if she wishes, become such an expert as to take the place of a farm adviser. Work in which we are interested can never become drudgery so long as we keep up that interest.

One thing is most important if we expect to keep rested and fit to do our best and that is not to worry over the work nor to try to do it before the time comes. The feeling of worry and strain caused by trying to carry the whole week's work at once is very tiring. It doesn't pay to be like the woman of years ago in old Vermont, who opened the stairway door at 5 o'clock on Monday morning and called to the hired girl: "Liza! Liza! Hurry up and come down! Today is wash day and the washing not started; tomorrow is ironing day and the ironing not begun; and the next day is Wednesday and here's the week half over and nothing done yet."

Better for a little while each day to be like the tramp who was not at all afraid of work, yet could lie down right beside it and go to sleep. Slipping away to some quiet place to lie down and relax for 15 minutes each day, if no longer, rests both mind and body surprisingly. This rest does more good if taken at a regular time and the work goes along so much better when we are rested and bright that there is no time lost.

Change is rest! How often we have proved this by going away from our work for a day or even part of a day, thinking of other things and forgetting the daily round for a little while. On coming back, the work is taken up with new interest and seems much easier.

If it is not possible to go away, why not let the mind wander a little when the hands can do the task without our strict attention? I have always found that I did not get so tired, and my day seemed shorter, when I listened to the birds singing or noticed, from the window, the beauties of the trees or clouds. This is a part of the farm equipment that cannot be improved upon, though it might be increased with advantage. Perhaps someday we will all have kitchens like the club kitchen lately installed in New York, where everything from peeling the potatoes to cooking the dinner and washing the dishes is done by electricity, but the birds' songs will never be any sweeter nor the beauties of field and forest, of cloud and stream, be any more full of delight, and these are already ours.

Mrs. A. J. Wilder. "Shorter Hours for Farm Women." Missouri Ruralist, June  28, 1913, 3, 10. This article was accompanied by a photograph of Mrs. Wilder and two other photos: the outside of Hazel Lawn Stock farm and the kitchen. The caption read: "GOOD EQUIPMENT SHORTENS WORKING HOURS. At Hazel Lawn Stock farm, the home of S.W. McClure, three miles from Hughesville, Mo., as much attention is given to the comfort of the home and the provision of labor saving equipment as to the securing of modern machinery for the field work. The 10-room house is equipped with a bathroom, hot and cold water, acetylene lights, and a furnace. After a hard day's work, the screened porch with its comfortable rockers provides a cool resting place for the family, free from mosquitoes or insects. A peep into the kitchen shows Mrs. McClure standing before her kitchen sink. A good range, plenty of hot and cold water with numerous modern cooking utensils quite materially lighten the work in this kitchen. The comforts of the McClure home are within reach of the majority of the farm folk of Missouri. The McClures are, needless to say, regular readers of the Ruralist.

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