Are We Too Busy?

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

The sunlight and shadows in the woods were beautiful that morning, the sunlight a little pale and the air with that quality of hushed expectancy that the coming of autumn brings. Birds were calling to one another and telling of the wonderful Southland and the journey they must take before long. The whole, wide outdoors called me and tired muscles and nerves rasped from the summer's rush pleaded for rest, but there was pickle to make, drying apples to attend to, vegetables and fruits that must be gathered and stored, the Saturday baking and the thousand things of the everyday routine to be done.

"Oh, for a little time to enjoy the beauties around me," I thought. "Just a little while to be free of the tyranny of things that must be done!" A feeling of bitterness crept into my soul. "You'll have plenty of leisure some day when you are past enjoying it," I thought. "You know, in time, you always get what you have longed for and when you are old and feeble and past active use then you'll have all the leisure you ever have wanted. But my word! You'll not enjoy it!"

I was horrified at these thoughts, which almost seemed spoken to me. We do seem at times to have more than one personality, for as I gave a dismayed gasp at the prospect, I seemed to hear a reply in a calm, quiet voice.

"You need not lose your power of enjoyment nor your sense of the beautiful if you desire to keep them," it said. "Keep the doors of your mind and heart open to them and your appreciation of such things will grow and you will be able to enjoy your well earned leisure when it comes even tho you should be older and not so strong. It is all in your own hands and may be as you wish."

We are all beginning to show the strain of the busy summer. Mrs. Menton has put up a full two years' supply of canned and dried fruits and vegetables. She says that, even tho no part of it should be needed to save anyone from starving, she will feel well repaid in the smallness of their grocery bills the coming year. She also confessed she was glad the lull in work was in sight for there wasn't "a whole pair of socks on the place."

Several women were comparing notes the other day. Said one, "My man says he doesn't mind a decent patch but he does hate to go around with a hole in his khakis." Everyone smiled understandingly and another took up the tale.

"Joe said this morning that he wished I'd make a working and call the neighbors in to fix up the clothes," she said, "But I told him you were all too busy to come."

There has been no time this summer to do the regular work properly. Mrs. Clearly says that if the rush of work does not stop soon she will have to stop anyway. She is a recent comer to the Ozarks and thru the dry seasons she has hoped for a good crop year. Now she does not know whether she will pray for rain next year or not. A good crop year does bring work with it and tho the worst may be over, there are still busy days ahead. there are the late fruits and garden truck to be put up, potato harvest and corn harvest, the second crop of timothy and clover and more cutting of alfalfa. There is the sorghum to make and the silos to fill and everything to be made snug for winter. Some of us will help in the actual work and others will be cooking for extra help. Whatever may be expected of us later, women have certainly done their utmost during this summer so nearly gone.

The Man of the Place and I have realized with something of the shock of a surprise that we do not need to buy anything during the coming year. There are some things we need and much that we would like to get but if it were necessary we could go very comfortably thru the year without a thing more than we now have on the place. There is wheat for our bread and potatoes, both Irish and sweet, there are beans and corn and peas. Our meat, milk, cream, butter and eggs are provided. A year's supply of fruit and sweetening are at hand and a plentiful supply of fuel in the wood lot. All this, to say nothing of the surplus.

During the summer when I have read of the high wages paid in factories and shops there has been a little feeling of envy in the back of my mind, but I suppose if those working people had a year's supply of fuel and provisions and no rent to pay they would think it wonderful good fortune. After all, as the Irishman said, "Everything is evened up in this world. The rich buy their ice in the summer but the poor get theirs in the winter."

The Man of the Place and I had known before that farmers are independent but we never had realized it and there is a difference between knowing and realizing. Have you realized it personally or do you just know in a general way? Thanksgiving will soon be here and it is time to be getting our blessings in order. But why wait for Thanksgiving? Why not just be thankful now?

Mrs. A. J. Wilder. "Are We Too Busy?" Missouri Ruralist,  (October 5, 1917): page 12.

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