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"I happened to be teaching in Montana at the time the bench lands near Ft. Benton were opened to settlement. My nerves were out of tune, and I felt that life was pretty much of a squeezed orange, but I had enough energy to react to the land fever excitement, and it was not long before I was planning my return to farm life with all the eagerness that I had felt in leaving it.

"The lone man is much handicapped when he becomes a homesteader, but the lone woman is almost incapacitated for homesteading, and her first move towards entering a claim for a homestead should be to induce some other woman to join her. Two women taking up adjoining claims can build near enough together to utilize the same machinery and to save expense in hiring help, and also to provide mutual protection-protection not So much from physical danger as from that sense of loneliness that comes when one lives without companionship amid the overpowering forces of nature, in the rough, unsubdued by civilization.

"I broached my farm scheme to a kindergartener who assured me that she would just love to have a farm, because it was such fun picking flowers, and she loved fresh vegetables. I knew something about the work and care needed to make a success of a farm, and I desided it would be folly for me to try to make such blissful ig

norance wise to the realities of the farm. Next I tried some of our older teachers, but they refused to commit themselves except to say: 'If I were only a man I would do it in a minute."

"I felt that I had every qualification for farming that a man has except the brute strength, and I argued that that was the cheapest commodity to hire. As long as our Uncle Sam would allow teachers the privilege of proving up on a claim while continuing their school work, I proposed to work for a vine and fig tree of my own, rather than to content myself with the cheerless prospect of an old ladies' home or a teacher's pension.

"My enthusiasm finally became contagious enough to induce our drawing supervisor to join me in my plan to take up a homestead. She had health and one hundred dollars in the bank. I had a brother who was making good as a homesteader, and four hundred dollars in cash, besides we both had positions, good for fourteen hundred, and one thousand respectively. Thus equipped, we proposed to take up a claim, engage in dry farming, and use our salary to convert our three hundred and twenty acres of wild grass land into a prosperous farm. Our plan was to raise all the varieties of grain that are adapted to the climate, keep as much stock as we could feed, besides raising garden truck and poultry to supply our living, and to sell

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I am in the field, and my hired man is cutting my first crop of flax.

if there were a market for it.

"The filing of our application and the drawing of our land was quite as conventional as securing a teacher's certificate, but conventionality ceased September 27, 1909, at precisely fivefifteen in the afternoon, when the Great Northern train stopped at a lonely watering tank and two school teachers who would a-farming go, clambered to the ground. As the engine puffed the train into motion, and the teachers saw the coveted horizons, surrounding the grazing lands where were uncounted numbers of horses, sheep, cows and antelope, our undertaking suddenly looked terrifying. A loud 'hello!' soon broke this spell, and we were restored to enthusiastic ranchers by the greeting of our agent. 'You don't look very husky, for farmers, but you are getting the pick of some of the best bench land in the State. There is a big spring in that coulee yonder besides the immense reservoir belonging to the railroad, both of which show that you will be dead sure to strike water when you dig your wells. This bunch of grazing cattle proves there is moisture in the ground, and it only needs cultivating to raise good crops. You ladies are sure plucky, and here's good luck to the pair of you.'

"In half an hour we had set our stakes and were being driven back to Ft. Benton. We filed our claims the next morning, and returned to our work in the proud assurance of our new possessions.

"That winter we read the free documents furnished by the United States Agricultural Department for our diversion. We made sunbonnets and bedding rather than fancy work, and we bought lumber and nails instead of dresses and hats.

"Early the next March we sent the rancher brother to build our shacks, a mere box car of a house with two small windows. The cost was one hundred and ten dollars for each.

"March 28, 1910, we started for our first taste of real ranch life. Unfortunately, the only train that stopped at our watering tank would land us at our destination at 11:30 p. m. The night happened to be pitch dark, and our furniture was lying in heaps where it had been thrown from the freight car, caused many a groan and many a bruise as we groped our way to our shacks.

"As the light of the train disappeared in the distance I would have given my ranch, shack, sunbonnets and bank account for a large sized masculine shoulder and a scratchy coat,

and jokes, we succeeded in getting enough furniture into our shacks so we could luxuriate in chairs to sit on, a table to eat on, a stove to cook on, and before night-time a bed to sleep on. I rassure you it was two tired farmers that four o'clock quit work and went to bed.

"Every rancher and farmer remembers that summer of 1910 as the hottest, dryest ever known, and we shall always consider it as such. The buffalo grass withered and died. The sheep and cattle were driven northward for pasturage, but the the two teacher-farmers were left in their little box car houses with the sun beating down at the unspeakable degree of 108 in the shade, for days at a time. We devised several methods of making

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Picking up coal along the railroad line life more bearable, one of the most

to bake pies.

where I might have buried my head and wept comfortably, but such luxuries are not for the rancher novitiate. While each was protesting against the enthusiasm that had brought her to this desolate plight, our eyes accustomed themselves to the dark sufficiently to discover two black specks, which we knew must be our shacks. Gripping hands and tugging at our suit cases, we at last reached the nearest shack.

"For that first twenty-four hours it seemed a case of 'cheer up, for worse is yet to come.' By the sense of feeling we found the matches in our grips, and then it was an easy matter to locate our candle and to find some blankets, in which we wearily rolled our selves up and lay down on the floor to await the daylight. In the dimness of the early morning we went to the spring for water and picked up bits of coal along the track. We soon had a fire and cooked one of the best breakfasts I ever ate.

"Fortunately, a Japanese section boss had left a rude push cart near the watering tank, and with that we managed to gather up our scattered 'lares and penates,' and by a combination of shoves and pushes, groans

successful being by baking lemon pies. I never think of that summer without being thankful that I knew how to make good lemon pies, and also for the correlated fact that two men liked lemon pies, and one of those men had charge of the refrigerators on the trains that stopped at our watering tank, and the other was the fireman on the same train. It is certain we never had occasion to complain of our ice man, and we never had to go far to find coal to bake our lemon pies.

"At last the summer was over, and we went back to another year of teaching school, saving money and planning for the next season on the farm.

"My fall shopping was mostly done at the hardware store. It is surprising how wire fencing and farm machinery will use up pay checks.

"Although the season had been so dry, I hired a man to break forty acres for me that fall, and early the next spring had it sown to flax, which yielded seven bushels to the acre and netted me one hundred dollars as my share, which was one-third of the profits.

"During the summer of 1911 we made vast improvements on our farms. Our shacks were transformed into homes. The price was just $150, and consisted in adding a bedroom, shingling, ceiling, and best of all, we built

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In my own home at last. I am sitting in the doorway.

in a real cupboard, a closet and bookcase. A well was dug at a cost of $100. A garden had been planted in the early spring, and we raised an abundance of peas, beans, onions, cabbage, potatoes, etc. Oh, this summer was spent in the lap of luxury in comparison with the previous season.

"That fall I decided to have another forty acres broken. By this time, we could count sixty shacks in our valley, and there were plenty of farmers who were anxious to work on shares. The following spring I planted wheat and raised fifteen bushels to the acre.

Our Uncle Sam is continually looking after the interests of the farmers, especially those who carry on dry farming. An appropriation was made by Congress in 1912 to secure and distribute the seeds adapted to the needs of those sections which have scant rain fall. We hope to have special types of sorghum, wheat, oats and grasses which the experimenters predict will increase our harvests and add greatly to the land value of all this region.

"It has cost me about ten dollars per acre for improvements and to prove up on my land. I have put about $3,000 on my place, and it has produced about $700, of which $400 was paid for help. At least $500 of my salary has gone to my ranch each year,

and every penny which the place has produced has gone right back into improvements, and I have had to borrow $500.

"I proved up on May 22, 1915, under the five year act. At that time I owned my farm, which I value at $30 an acre. The land is all fenced and cross-fenced. I have 170 acres planted to wheat, twenty acres to oats, eight acres to alfalfa, and twenty acres to summer fallow. The prospect is that we will have record crops. I have four fine brood mares, a riding pony, a two year old colt, three one year old colts and two spring colts, a cow and a calf, besides some fifty chickens. I have a fine barn, a chicken coop and a root cellar. I also have a wagon, a carriage, harness, and farm implements. I am enjoying my home, and teaching our country school, which is half a mile from my house.

"Our watering tank is now surrounded by an enterprising little town, and look in any direction as far as the eye can see, the land has all been converted into thriving farms. Loss of position and fear of prolonged illness have lost all terrors for me. One couldn't be sick in this glorious air.

"I started in with the disadvantage of health none too good and nerves none too steady, and the advantage of such general knowledge as most farm

ers' daughters absorb, and a position
worth $1,000 a year. Aside
Aside from
these, I have had no special handicap
and no special qualifications for my
undertaking. I have done nothing but
what any teacher could do. There are
still homesteads to be had, and Uncle
Sam allows the teacher to draw her
checks while proving up on her land.
The farms that Uncle Sam has to give
away need very careful management
in order to make them into paying
propositions. They are merely oppor-
tunities, not certainties.

"I advise most teachers to stick to their job. Those who have a longing for the simple life can buy a few weeks of that kind, which consists of

picking flowers and eating vegetables fresh from the garden, but for those who have the real farm hunger, there is a way 'back to the land.' As for myself, I know of no other way by which, in five years' time, I could have acquired such riotous health, secured much valuable property, experienced so much joy in living, and infused so much of hope and buoyancy into life, and no other way to provide such cheering prospects for my old age.

"Uncle Sam's farms are a land of promise, but the promises are fulfilled only to those who are willing to give hard work and continual study to those farm problems which confront every homesteader."

A BLESSING OF THE NEW YEAR

Across the highway hung the mists of night,

And shadowy clouds obscured the mystic way,
But through the gloom that hid the sun from sight—
Behold! a rift of dawn-a shaft of shining light-

Dear God of changeless word-lo! it is day!
I hear a bird's sweet song, clear as a flute-
Tuned to a joyous note.

And silent lips long mute
Echo my heart's salute-

As from that feathered throat

I catch the message rare,

A psalm of praise, an ecstacy of prayer,
Proclaimeth victory over all the night.
And there, before my wondering eyes,
The closed way my faltering feet have sought,

Is opened wide. And sullen, clouded skies

Are turned to gold. The rosy dawn floods glen and hill,
Again the world is young! The New Year brought
New life, new strength-the shining way is frought
With hope. God of my faith, Thy way endureth still!
Vanished my burdens now, gone is the heavy load-
My feet have entered in the open road.

ELIZABETH VORE.

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