A FARMER'S WIFE by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, Cal. · Nov 12, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 45.

"A FARMER'S WIFE."

By Editor

THE following story we clip from the Housekeeper. It speaks for itself. We are glad that it does not represent all men, or the majority of men; but such things are observable in almost every neighborhood. We print for the benefit of the naturally selfish husband. Does that include you?—

She was a Minnesota farmer's wife. Her husband counted his acres by the hundreds. He was more than well-to-do, he was a "man of means," yet she was dying of consumption induced by her hard life of toil, and excessive child-bearing. Alas! these terrible pangs were for naught, since her offspring had not sufficient vitality to survive a year. Indeed, some of them gasped and died immediately after birth.

One little ray of brightness beamed into this woman's monotonous life—she learned, at length, that she had a talent, that she was really gifted as an artist. A relative, who was an art instructor in the east, spent one summer at this farm home. Discovering the talent of her husband's sister, she gladly instructed her. Mrs. B— proved so apt a pupil that one of her first paintings took first prize at the fair.

Having found her "gift from God," fain would she develop fully, and enjoy it; but her time must needs be spent in more "useful" employment, to please her "liege lord."

"Money and time all wasted!" was his contemptuous exclamation when she had joyously hung a completed picture in a good light. Within a few years she finished pictures that connoisseurs pronounced really fine—ah, they were the product of a starving soul!

But consumption had at last claimed her. O, it was then pitiful to witness her mental anguish. Vainly she longed for "the end," because of her "expense to her husband."

Long and earnestly she pleaded with the nurse to take this and that painting as remuneration for services rendered.

"Husband doesn't value them, and I would die so much happier knowing that my sickness was paid for. I've induced the doctor to take that little one that won the prize; but that will not pay half the bill," she added, with strong emotion.

The end soon came, and one more martyr joined the legions that have been immolated upon the altar of man's supreme selfishness and superiority (?). This is true in every particular.