In many homes life on the farm is a somewhat one-sided affair.  Many times the spare money above living expenses is expended on costly machinery and farm implements to make the farmer’s work lighter; on more land where there is already a sufficiency; on expensive horses and cattle and new out-buildings; while little or nothing is done for home improvement and no provision made for the comfort and convenience of the women of the family.

If a silo will help to reduce the man’s labor, a vacuum cleaner will do likewise for his wife.  If the stock at the barn needs a good water system to help it grow, the stock in the house needs it too, and needs it warm for baths.

You see many a farm where there is a cement floor in the barn, while the cellar in the house is awful.  A sheep dip, but no bathtub; a fine buggy and a poor baby carriage.  On many farms a hundred dollars in cash are not spent in the home in a year.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES IN THE HOME

These are not meant as complaints about the purchase of labor-saving farm machinery.  Such complaints would be short-sighted, for it is only by improved methods of farming that the means and the leisure can be found to enrich the home life in every way.  But the advantages gained by improvements that increase the farmer’s returns are largely lost if they do not at the same time bring “happier lives” to the family as a whole.  The farm home is not only the place where the family living is earned; it is also the place where the family life is lived. Democracy aims at equal opportunity to enjoy “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”; “days of dreary work” must be transmuted into “happier lives” for the women and children as well as for the men.  Unless this is done in the home there is little chance of its being done at all.

A story is told of a housekeeper in a farm-home in the West who saw in the sacred rite of old-school housekeepers something more than scrubbing and polishing ...  When her housecleaning was over she knew just what linen she would need during the coming year, just how much fruits and vegetables she would need to can or preserve or dry, just what clothing must be replaced or repaired, and what dishes would be needed to keep her set complete.  She not only made changes to improve the appearance of her house, but planned and made the changes in her workshop which would save steps and make her work as easy as possible.  When her mind got to work, housekeeping became a game, the object being to eliminate all unnecessary labor.  Her benches and tables and sinks were raised to the proper height and she became ashamed of the back-breaking energy she had wasted bending over them.  A high stool, made by removing the back and arms from the baby’s outgrown high chair, made dishwashing and ironing much easier.  She has been housekeeping intelligently a dozen years, yet each house-cleaning or stock-taking period she installs some new labor saver.