Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farm Journalist

by Stephen Hines

  March 20, 1920

  “You are tired to death with work,” I read. “Work with a little ‘w’ is killing the soul out of you. Work with a little ‘w’ always does that to men if they give it the whole chance. If you don’t mix some big ‘W’ work in with it, then indeed your life will be disastrous and your days will be dead.”

  “What is it you mean by big ‘W’ work?” he asked. “Of course, that’s the work you love for the work’s sake. It’s the work you do because you love the thing itself you’re working for.”

  I closed the book. “That is plenty enough to think about for awhile,” I said to myself. “I don’t want any more ideas mixed with that until I thresh it out well.”

  We are all doing a great deal of little “w” work and it is necessary and right that we should. We must work for the pay or the profit that comes from it whether or not we love what we are working for, because we must live and lay by something for old age.

  But it is sadly true that giving all our time and thought and effort to personal gain will cause us to become selfish and small and mean. If instead we devote ourselves a part of our time to work we love for itself, for what we are accomplishing, we grow stronger and more beautiful of soul.

  Perhaps we all have been too intent on our own financial gain. From firsthand experience as well as the printed news, it would appear that no one is excessively fond of the work he is, or has been doing. Everyone is insisting on more money and less work or more profit and less return for it—little “w” work, all of it.

  But there are encouraging signs in these somewhat discouraging times of grafters and grafting, of profits and profiteering, of distrust and suspicion, jealousy and strife. Sounds ugly, does it not? But those are the things to which our attention is called daily.

  However, as I have said, there are hopeful signs. Only the other day a county officer refused a $900 raise in his salary, because, he said, knowing the condition of the county as he did, he knew that the money was needed so much worse for other things.

  Altho it was a stormy day when I read of this man, it seemed as tho the sunshine was streaming over the world. A public official placing the welfare of the community before his private gain so far as to refuse more pay for his services is wonderfully encouraging to our hopes for our country. If there were enough of such public spirited men the difficulties which we are facing as a nation would soon disappear.

  To work for the good of the community without full reward in money but because we love our fellows and long for the common betterment, is work with a big “W,” work that will keep our souls alive.

  Then there is the owner of the apartment house in New York who did not raise the rent! When at last his tenants had a meeting and voted to pay more rent, he refused to accept it, but when they insisted he took it and spent it all on improvements which made the tenants more comfortable.

  And the little group of neighbor farmers who, after having made their own loans with the Federal Land Bank, gave their services, as appraisers for a year without pay, to help other farmers secure the same benefits.

  There is also the young woman with the musical talent and the lovely singing voice, who uses it so freely for the pleasure and benefit of others; and the one who grows beautiful flowers because she loves them and delights in giving them away.

  There is after all a great deal of work being done in the world, for the love of the thing worked for, with no thought of selfishness, and the lives of such workers are fuller and richer for it.

  The Farm Home (22)

  April 5, 1920

  Politics looks “mighty curious” as the time draws near for women all over the country to take part in it for the first time.

  Do you suppose that our ideas of housekeeping have been all wrong and we should have learned the milliner’s trade in order to be a good cook and taught school in order that we may do the family washing properly? This seems to be the manner in which candidates for the managership of the biggest business in the world are being chosen.

  The biggest business in the world? Why that’s the United States of America! The expenses of the business run into billions of dollars a year.

  The income is furnished by you and me and others like us, in many ways; by the taxes we pay directly, and goodness knows, they are coming high these days; by the tax on toilet articles; by the tax on legal papers; by duties on imports, which we pay in higher prices of the goods we buy; by an income tax if we are fortunate enough to have so much income. And all that not being enough, there is a bill now before Congress to put an excess profits tax on farm lands.

  Besides the managing of these huge amounts of income and expense there is a vast volume of trade at home and with foreign countries that must be looked after and regulated in such a way as to be fair to us all, or as near as may be to that desired state.

  There are disputes between labor and capital, between farmers and packers; of producers and consumers with profiteers. There are matters of international business and diplomacy that must be handled delicately yet with a sure hand and a certain knowledge of conditions at home and abroad.

  Surely a man should be chosen as manager of such a business for his business, for his business ability, his qualities as an executive, his broad, comprehensive knowledge of world conditions and people as well as of the home problems of our own country, for in our buying and selling, even of our eggs and butterfat, in our taxes and wars, our peace and prosperity, even our health and our lives, we are closely united with the rest of the world, for better or worse until death parts us.

  Our next President, who will be our business manager for four years, should be chosen for his fitness for the place as tho we were hiring him to attend to our own private business, for a lack of knowledge or disposition on his part will be felt in our homes, from the front door to the kitchen. It will make a difference in the amount of our egg money and the price of our new dresses.

  In our own affairs we do not hire a person to take charge of an important work who has been carefully trained for something altogether different.

  The Farm Home (23)

  April 20, 1920

  Out in the woods, the other day, I saw a tree that had branches on only one side. Evidently other trees had grown so near it that there had been room for it to grow in only the one way and now that it was left to stand alone its lack of good development and balance showed plainly.

  It was not a beautiful thing. It looked lopsided and freakish and unable to stand by itself, being pulled a little over by the weight of its branches. It reminded me of a person who has grown all in one direction; in his work perhaps, knowing how to do only one thing, as those workmen in factories who do a certain thing to one part of a machine day after day and never learn how to complete the whole, depending on others to finish the job.

  Or a woman who is interested in nothing but her housework and gossip, leaving her life bare of all the beautiful branches of learning and culture which might be hers.

  Or that person who follows always the same habits of thought, thinking always along the same lines in the same safe, worn grooves, distrusting the new ideas that begin to branch out in other directions, leading into new fields of thought where free winds blow.

  And so many are dwarfed and crooked because of their ignorance on all subjects except a very few, with the branches of their tree of knowledge all on one side!

  Lives never were meant to grow that way, lopsided and crippled! They should be well developed and balanced, strong and symmetrical, like a tree that grows by itself in the open, able to stand safely against the storms from whatever direction they may come—a thing of beauty and satisfaction.

  The choice lies with us, which we shall resemble. We may be like the young woman devoted to dress and fancywork, who when asked to join a club for the study of current events, replied, “What! Spend all the afternoon studying and talking about such things as that! Well, I should say not!”

  Or, if we prefer, we may be like Mr. and Mrs. A. Mr.
A. is a good farmer; his crops and livestock are of the best, and besides he is a leader in farm organizations. Mrs. A. is a good housekeeper; her garden is the best in the neighborhood and her poultry is the pride of her heart.

  As you see they are very busy people but they keep informed on current affairs and, now that the son and daughter are taking charge of part of the farm work, are having more time for reading and study. Their lives are branching out more and more in every direction for good to themselves and other people, for it is a fact that the more we make of our lives the better it is for others as well as ourselves.

  You must not understand me to mean that we should selfishly live to ourselves. We are all better for contact and companionship with other people. We need such contact to polish off the rough corners of our minds and our manners, but it is a pitiful thing when anyone cannot, if necessary, stand by himself, sufficient to himself and in good company even tho alone.

  The Farm Home (24)

  May 5, 1920

  When Commodore Perry discovered the North Pole several years ago, it seemed there was no great field of adventure and discovery left. For some reason there never has been much interest taken in reaching the South Pole and the circumference of the earth was a well beaten track. What then was there left so intriguing to the imagination as to lead men on and on facing danger and death to discover?

  But the imagination of mankind was not bounded by the whole round world. His fancy has literally taken flight above the earth and he is now exploring the vastness of the firmament above.

  A very interesting article on this subject is, “Air ‘Submarines’ to Sound the Depths Beyond the Clouds.” In reading it one learns that airmen are flying high, both actually and in a manner of speaking.

  In this new field of discovery there is no monotony. The flyer’s imagination is stirred by cutting adrift from the familiar earth and there are mysteries in the upper regions which excite his interest and lead him to greater efforts.

  There are fierce winds encircling the earth and belts of mysterious gases and vapors, with other strange conditions that make a trip, to the outer edge of the atmospheric ocean which surrounds the earth, more alluring and adventurous than the voyages of those old navigators who set sail on an unknown sea in hopes of finding a short route to India.

  As the aviator ascends the cold increases at the rate of 1 degree of temperature for every 300 feet of altitude. After the 4-mile level he has risen above the screen of atmospheric particles that we call the sky and entered the region of absolute silence, where the firmament becomes black and stars shine in the brightest day and where the cold is intense and terrible.

  But the idea that the cold keeps on increasing with the altitude has been found to be a mistake. At 6 to 8 miles above the earth there is an “inversion of atmosphere,” as it was called by its discoverer, Mr. De Bort, and from there up it constantly grows warmer. These facts were ascertained by means of small balloons with self-registering instruments.

  Within the 6 to 8-mile limit the conditions are those with which we are all familiar. There thunders and lightenings play their accustomed parts and storms gather to descend upon the earth in rain or snow or sleet. The earth’s atmosphere extends above the “weather strip,” tho constantly thinning, for 20 to 30 miles.

  Above the earth’s “atmospheric envelope” investigators tell us, the great trade winds blow at the rate of 100 miles an hour, always from west to east. Still beyond this there are drifting ice clouds. Meteors and shooting stars flash across the void and then comes the boundary of the circle of inflammable air or pure hydrogen. After this is the stratum of helium which on earth is made from radium and treasured in test tubes.

  During the last few months, interest has been increased in high flying by several record breaking flights. One of these being that of Major R. W. Schroeder, who flew to an altitude of more than 36,000 feet.

  Aeronauts are now planning specially constructed airplanes to meet conditions at great heights and to lessen the dangers of high flying. The main feature of these new airships will be an enclosed cabin designed to protect the flyer. This cabin will be fitted with air compressors, oxygen tanks and heating arrangements.

  And so perhaps someday a daring voyager may rise above the 5 mile limit of easy breathing to where the sky is black and the stars shine brightly even at noon, thru the region of clouds and storms, where the elements are forever striving, on beyond into the place of absolute silence where the fierce, great, trade winds blow forever higher and still higher into the stratum of inflammable air and thru this into the stratum of helium.

  Will there some day be, I wonder, ships of the air making this voyage and bringing back cargoes of helium?

  The Farm Home (25)

  June 5, 1920

  There is an old story about an argument between a Quaker and an infidel, in which the infidel, denying the existence of God and all things spiritual, exclaimed, “I don’t believe in anything I can’t see!”

  To which the Quaker calmly replied, “Friend, does thee believe thee has any brains?”

  I was reminded of this story recently when I read of the new system of electrical precipitation of dust by the use of the electric sieve.

  This electric dust sieve is invisible without weight or substance, being woven of fine lines of electric force. It occupies no space, having no material body yet it will not allow the tiniest speck of dust to pass tho it does not interrupt the flow of gas.

  The sieve has been extensively used in abating the dust nuisance in the making of cement and is now being put in use in blast furnaces to cleanse the gas of dust.

  The manner of using electric force to sift the dust from gas is very simple. The gas is compelled to pass thru a vertical pipe, coming in at the bottom. In the exact center of the pipe and running the full length is an electric wire held tight by a weight at the bottom. When the current is turned on this wire the electric force repels the dust particles in the gas which is passing thru the pipe and in flying from the wire they strike against the sides of the pipe and adhere to it.

  After the electric sieve has been in operation for from one to four hours the dust particles deposited on the sides of the pipe have lessened the distance between the electric wire and the pipe which causes electrical discharges to take place. The gas is then shut off by a damper, the electric current is cut off and the sides of the pipe are cleaned by being rapped by the hammer operated, of course, by machinery, and the dust is collected from the pipes.

  There is enough potash in the dust, from the ores being treated in the furnaces, to make it a valuable by-product. It is sold to be used as fertilizer and it is said that it brings enough to pay the expenses of running the plant.

  A considerable saving also is made in the operating expenses by the use of the electric sieve. It formerly required from four to six men to clean the dust from the stove walls, combustion chambers and boilers. Now the dust is caught and precipitated before it enters those places, by the invisible electric sieve which has no weight nor any material body and occupies no space.

  Indeed if there is left in the world anyone who will not believe in things invisible, we are justified in the doubt expressed by the Quaker’s question, “Friend! Does thee believe thee has any brains?”

  For invisible forces are all about us. Of some we have an imperfect knowledge while of others we have as yet only the vaguest ideas.

  The Farm Home (26)

  July 5, 1920

  Out in the berry patch, the bluejays scolded me for trespassing. They talked of a food shortage and threatened terrible things to profiteers who took more than their share of the necessaries of life. But I was used to their clamor and not alarmed even when one swooped down and struck my bonnet. I knew they would not harm me and kept right on picking berries. This is a parable. I give it to you for what it is worth, trusting you to draw your own comparisons.

  When The Man Of The Place and I, with the small daughter, came to Missouri some years ago we tried to sav
e all the wild fruit in the woods. Coming from the plains of Dakota where the only wild fruit was the few choke-cherries growing on the banks of the small lakes, we could not bear to see go to waste the perfectly delicious wild huckleberries, strawberries and blackberries which grew so abundantly everywhere on the hills.

  By the way, did you ever eat choke-cherries? At first taste they are very good and the first time I tried them I ate quite a few before my throat began to tighten with a fuzzy, choking feeling. A green persimmon has nothing on a ripe choke-cherry, as I know. I have tried both. So when we came to the Ozarks we reveled in the wild fruit, for as yet there was no tame fruit on the place. Huckleberries came first and we were impatiently waiting for them to ripen when somebody told me that the green ones made good pies. Immediately I went out into the little cleared space in the woods where the low huckleberry bushes grew and gathered a bucket of berries. Company was coming to dinner next day and I took special pains to make a good pie of the berries for I did want my new neighbors to enjoy the visit. And the crust of the pie was deliciously crisp and flaky but after one taste, the visitors seemed to hesitate.

  I took a mouthful of my piece and found it bitter as gall. I never tasted gall, but that is the bitterest expression I know and nothing could be more bitter than that pie.

  “Oh!” I exclaimed. “They told me green huckleberries were good!”

  “These can’t be huckleberries,” said Mrs. X, “for green huckleberries do make good pies.”

  Mr. X was examining the berries in his portion. “These are buckberries,” he said. “They grow on a bush about the size of a huckleberry bush and you must have made a mistake when you gathered them.”

  And so I added to my knowledge the difference between huckleberries and buckberries and we have enjoyed many a green huckleberry pie since then. Used when quite small the berries not only taste delicious but give a bouquet of perfume to the pie that adds wonderfully to the pleasure of eating it.