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Show IP I AUTOMOBILE NEWS 11 FARMER'S WIFE ; AND MOTOR CARS I ' It is lack of sood roads .is much as B 6ny one thing which Is sending the B v country wife to the city, rt is lack H f of good roads which closes the H 1J! churches and Sunday schools in parts jy of Kentucky and Tennessee through m mnl January, Februnrj and March, and , tB cuts off even that social life from the ' llffl farm people. Women arc hungry for t IB neighbors and the rebellion of very 1 1 In many of them boiled down and crys- gjf II taliz-ed is the same as that of a woman wf Um from Southeast Arkansas, who wrote Kg HX "I do not mind the hard work nor Kg ma the lack of conveniences so much as tjJB I do the lack of all social life. The Hf!fl greatest need in this section of tho B B county is good roads. The country is B fl very thinly settled, farms are from B V three to five miles apart, and the i B w rainfall is so execsshe that the loadsi B I are almost Impassable for six months j gffi B of the year. In the summer and fall tt.''fl the ronds are d; but then the work StI on tnc farm s s0 heavy that every ftWp horse is at work, and the farmer luV- says he cannot feed an extra horse In I all the yearjust for the wife and chll-ij chll-ij ' dren to drive in the summer time." f . And then as an enlightening conduit condu-it ' slon, she says. "The people here arc ' not very sociable and picincs are al- pS moat unheard of except in election Kjjk; J'ear, when there are always a few ftlT ' political meetings and picnics." Kffj Good roads, means of easy transpor- B . i tation, are after a little extra money H; and a little leisure have been won Ijij the most important factors in the B pleasure of the country woman. This Bl is true because our pleasures have BIB.' passed the individualistic stage No BilJ sane woman wants to go off in the BBS: middle of a 10-acre lot and frolic BBS i about by herself. Jt can't be done1 IBB We have to be happv in bunches, and Bflf $ some means of gcttlug together is a BBB- prc-requlsite. BhS ' BBS" People in the city still laugh at the BBS farmers' demand for automobiles. Bflfl They do not realize thai the automo- BBB bile gives the farmer the things the BB, live In the city to get. They say with BBK shocked surprise: BBw "Why, the farmers of Kansas are mortgaging their farms to buy mo- s. tor cars!" ' JEi Well, why shouldn't thev? A motor I If car is a. great deal more than a thing l' 1 1 of steel and leather and glass and m ' l brass driven by gasoline It is social I; m opportunitv' It is action! Tt Is pro- B Ij gress! Why Is it nor. just as import- B ; II ant for the farmer and his wife as Br; It college education is for their chll- M j JUi dren? No one would think it improvl- mL ; If dent for a man to mortgage his farm Rial o send his sons to college One Ky'B Michigan man wrote us that he had l.!fl mortgaged his farm four t Jies to w'l educate his children. He seemed B B proud of the performance. But from fMIB Indiana we have a letter full of cur- yftal lous mixture of apologr and defense Fll. l'rom a woman who deferred the final B m payment on the farm mortgage be- Kj jfl ause she wanted to buy an automo- B? M bile. May she live long to enjoy it! H ji " if experience proves aeroplanes a Bj 'if better mode of communication than B automobiles, may whole townships full k3 of farms be mortgaged, if need be, to Bj buv them! Hh The country Is prosperous: the B farmer has money, and his wife has Bl her hand on the surplus. It is her jS creat chance to have what she wants. BB One wrote to us from the middle B "Of course we are interested in pa- R pcrs on how to fatten steers and the Hl value of hairy vetch as a fertilizer; Hlj but, after all, good crops arc only Bf the means to what we really want to B know what the outside world is think- r inp and doing, to hear the music they B are hearing, to sec the pictures they B , are painting, to know what hooks B they are reading, and, above all, to B share in their good times. We have B a rlgh- to these things, and we arc B going to have thorn " B Certalnlv they are going to have B them! Their chance to raise "up suc- B cessors to the quilting- party and the B husking bee Is here. There are, how- B: ever, two ways to get them: one, to H follow the example of Aunt Serepta B Bancroft and pursue them to the city B in which case the former will fol- Ht low. the production of food will fall m to increase as it should, and the cobc M of living will climb still higher for M . us all; the other, to develop a satisfac- B : tory social lifp In the country. For B too many of them the bumper corn H crop is merelv paing the way to the |