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Hendricks, banker's daughter, stood at the front of the hay- NANCY load, cheeks flushed and eyes shining. Her hands proudly guided the straining team, as they marched up the ascent to the barn, clattered across the bridge, and drew up triumphantly next to the hay-mow. Then she turned to her friends with head thrown back and arms out-flung. "I think the farm is the nicest place in the whole world!" she announced. "That's becausefybu don't have to live on it,"-commented Sally sourly. Sally, by sheer perversity of nature, wanted to be a stenographer in a city office, and instead, here she was keeping house for her brother, who, nevertheless, was very dear to her. Tom, however, gazed at Nancy with his heart in his eyes. In the dim barn a shaft of light came sliding down through a knothole, filled with golden dust-fairies, which came and rested on her wavy hair, turning it to gold, too. Outside, a group of oaks left dark blue-green blots of shadow on the golden landscape. Here was peace—not stagnant, but a live, glowing, active peace! Nancy answered the look in Tom's eyes: "Isn't it wonderful?" she breathed. Sally slid down the hay-load with a grimace and went outside to see to the pulley rope. Then Tom jumped down too, and reached out his long brown arms to his golden - haired divinity, who descended demurely from her throne, but could not evade his grasp. "Would you be satisfied ," he whispered, "to live on the farm, here with me?" Nancy looked all around the place as if cogitating, but dimpled at the little shake he gave her, and brought her gaze back to his eyes. "I'd just-^-fcwe— it," she answered. A few minutes later Sally's footsteps resounded hollowly over the barn floor. "Say," she called, "when are you people going to get that team out here?" And . Tom and Nancy came back to earth. It was evening, after a long walk and talk together in the maple lane, when they broached the subject to Sally. She was sitting on the porch, gazing at the moonlight which made shadow-lace on the carpet of grass before her. There was something restless, as of unsatisfied longing, about Sally, and tonight, as they approached, there was something wistful, too, Tom thought. Then they broke the news. "And it's going to 4iappen quite, quite soon, Sally dear," said Nancy, laying her head on her friend's knee a.moment, "and you can make plans for your old commercial course right away." "Do you really think you can manage the work, Nancy?" asked her friend slowly. "The work!" cried Nancy, "why dear girl , there's work anywhere and everywhere! And I am young, and strong, and why shouldn't I do it? How could I help but succeed with Tom here?" He gave her hand a quick pressure. "But—your folks—" continued Sally. "I'm going down to see t hem right away, and I know they won't object. They never have refused me anything yet ," she added , bubbling with laughter. Sally only sighed and shook her head. But Tom and Nancy were undaunted , and she went home with high courage. He waited a long time for her letter , however; but at last, after weeks, it seemed, he held it in his hand—his first lovc-toR-r. NANCY'S EXPERIMENT How the Grit and Perseverance of the City Girl Won Out for the Farm His tanned face glowed with happiness as he read her simple *words. But a page, farther he .commenced to frown. "I can't understand the folks," he read ; "they don't see it my way at all. Father and mother both say I know nothing whatever about the farm but its romantic side, and that the work would be too hard for me, 'n'everything. They say I can't cook —which is only too true, I'm afraid, boy dear—and that I simply don't know what I'm iip against. But I don't care, Tom, I would do anything—" and here Tom was able to smile a little once more. Thinking it over afterwards, however, he was chilled by the finality that seemed back of it all. So he decided to go and see her father about it at once. That evening the train set him down in her city, and Tom walked boldly up the unfamiliar walk and rang her door-bell— or, more properly, her father's. And the next minute he held a surprised but ecstatic Nancy in his arms. "Tom! How did you happen to come?" she whispered. "I came to see your father," he announced. . "My father?" she asked, her eyes widening in surprise. "Yes," he said grimly, "where is he? Lead me to him." His voice was hard. M ARJORIE S AWYER / Had a Real Taste of Farm Lif e , Tom , and I Love It.' "Now?" asked Nancy very doubtfully. "Right away," he affirmed. The next minute he was standing before a plump, bald-headed man, with Nancy left firmly in the rear. "My name's Tom Sherman," he said with a little ring in his voice. And then a long, earnest conference followed. , "I can't see it that way, my boy," said the banker, tapping his glasses on the polished table. "We have to look out for her happiness, and she was not brought up to be a farmer's wife. We have no objections to you, though , none at all. If you would go into some other business, now—" His eyes swept over the six feet of lean manhood, taking in the firm jaws and clear eyes;—"a position in the bank, now—perhaps I could manage that for you?" The young man's eyes narrowed. He could see in vision the bank clerk's cage, and as that picture faded, dim purple hills rose before him, and golden fields , splashing brooks, and soft-eyed cattle. And there amid the fields was joy—freedom, independence. He turned to the older man. "I'm sorry, sir," he said quietly, "but I ran t give up my work." And he turned and left the room. "It 's all coming out right. Nancy dear," !"• s-iid later, pressing her tear-stained face to his shoulder, "but it all depends on you." He held her at arm's length ami looked her straight in the eye. "Are you a sticker, or not?" he questioned. "Remember, all the world loves a sticker." She laughed once more,, and shook her yellow head. "Your courage is—superb," she flashed at him. "And so is my faith in you," he murmured. But after he had gone home, that faith began to ebb slowly. Her letters were growing cold, it seemed. Was the pressure getting too strong for her? Was she losing faith in herself? Or was he too far away? Yes, that must be* it! Later on he wrote that he was coming Sunday. Soon after he got a telegram: "Don't come now. Explanation follows." "She isn't playing fair," said Sally fiercely, as she peered over his shoulder. "Hush, Sally! She must have some good reason," he responded. A letter came, but no promised explanation. "I couldn't see you just now," it said. And Tom was sick at heart. But he kept on bravely, writing often in spite of Sally's remonstrances. Gay, gentle letters—letters full of the spice of summer apples, and the gold of harvest-fields and wayside blossoms. But tlie answers came fewer, and fewer. And at last one came which shattered his hope into bits, and his faith, too. "I am going away," it said. "It is useless to try to write me, or to find me." "It just isn't fair," sobbed Sally, her arms around her brother's neck, "it just isn't fair!" "She may have her own reasons, Sally," he repeated patiently. "I wouldrFt stand it," burst out Sally indignantly. "She means she's jilted you, but wasn't man enough to come out and say so. "Love doesn't work that way, Sally," was his sober answer. "And her father wanted you to give up the farm! Give up our father's tarm that he got with his own work! "Why Sally! I didn't know you cared so much for the farm!" Her hands clasped and unclasped. "Yes—I—care," she said. No answer to his next letter; nor the next. Then one day came a postal—a stingy postal card: "I am staying with one o( father's friends," she wrote. "I am near Mansfield, but don't try to write to me." And Tom waited again. Wh y did she write at all? Did she care for him a par tide? Was she trying to test his love foi her, or maybe, hers for him ? What was it: At last, late in October, came a letter, a. thick one, and in it one cherished sentence: "If you really care for me, Tom, enough to marry a hired girl, perhaps you had better meet me next Thursday in B." It didn't take Tom long to go; no, indeed; and quicker, it seemed, than it takes to tell it, and yet very slowly, the time came when he was sitting opposite her at a little flower-decked table. "Not now," she said, when he asked for her explanation, "not until after-lunch." When they had finished he leaned forward expectantly. She toyed ' a glass with agitated fingers. "Well, Nancy," he ventured. "Well, Tom—I've been working on a farm." She announced it breathlessly, her cheeks crimson. "You've—what?" he blinked. She laughed then, to.watch the amazement in his face. "I've been working on a farm, Tom; as a hired girl.'It He imprisoned her hands swiftly. "Tell me about it," he commanded, the old look in his eyes. "Well you see—" She took a long breath and started again. "You see father and mother didn't believe my going onto a farm was anything more than a mad impulse. And they said I couldn 't sland it. I didn't know what any housework was, much less farm-work. And I would be lonesome, and home-sick. I said I would," she added with shy coquetry, "if I were away from you. No, stop! And at last I said I would try farm-work for myself , and see how it was. And finally they agreed." Tom made an inarticulate ans-wer. "Father knew some people in the country," she* continued. "They were good , respectable young people, he said, and if I were bound to work out it would be a good place. Meantime I' must stop writing to you." At the hurt look in his eyes she said slowly, "That was hard on me, too, Tom." Then, continuing, "In the house there were Mrs. Sanders and her husband, and his brother, and the baby. And I swept , and made biscuits, and washed the separator, and scrubbed the back steps, and it wasn't hard. It wasn't harder than at home—just different , that's all. Then Mrs. Sanders got sick." There was a pause. "What did you do then?" asked Tom, in a curiously strained voice, "Everything," she dimpled. "All I had done before, and more too. Mrs. Sanders had a fever, and 1 had to carry a drink every two minutes. And then the baby would cry. I didn't do much housekeeping during that time. If it hadn't been for Mrs. Sanders' brother I don't know what I would have done—he was so kind! What did you say?" "Nothing," growled Tom. "And when Mrs. Sanders got a little better the threshers were there. So altogether I thought I had a real taste of farm life. Tom, and I love it! That is—I'd love it under some conditions, Tom. And if you want to ask me again to marry you—I don't think—I shall say—No." "I shan't ask you again ," said Tom gently but triumphantly, "for we were engaged all the time, Nancy—all the time: and we shall be married at once. It was the farm against the fates, Nancy—and the farm had to win. You know that, too!"
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Page 7 and 8: DAN McCARTY'S GLORIOUS LE Royally H
Page 9: ONE SCHOOL REBUILDS A COMMUNITY How
Page 13 and 14: v ;v ' .'' : - ; ¦ ' . - ' ¦ •
Page 15 and 16: The Farmer's Wife , March, 1920 Pa&
Page 17 and 18: THE (iJESTIONOF WALL PAPER What to
Page 19 and 20: Deliciousness in Vegetables You who
Page 21 and 22: med it with lace and beading. The s
Page 23 and 24: HOME DEMONSTRATION AGENTS News of I
Page 25 and 26: PLANNING SIMPLE MENUS Three Basic P
Page 27 and 28: JUST AMONG US GIRLS A Frank Little
Page 29 and 30: sÊ^Hgî^HKiîîîîîîîîîîî^
Page 31 and 32: THE BOOK SHELF Let Us Help You Find
Page 33 and 34: SELECT YOUR SPRING STYLES NOW ¦sî
Page 35 and 36: îN YXAT Ih^V WPAr In I^Plil /A Rfl
Page 37 and 38: A ^ HANDICRAFT HELPS Design for a T
Page 39 and 40: ~^ ~" AWELL-KEPT hand is a comfort
Page 41 and 42: The Farmer's Wife , March, 1920 Pag
Page 43 and 44: BARNUM PUT ITSELF ON THE MAP Succes
Page 45 and 46: HOW I BUILT UP MY POULTRY BUSINESS
Page 47 and 48: The Farmer's Wife , March, 1920 iTO
Page 49 and 50: IN THE DAIRY What Feeding and Good
Page 51 and 52: The tears started in the girl s eye
Page 53 and 54: SCHOOL REBUILDS COMMUNITY (CONTINUI
Page 55 and 56: .y »ft '' '>'."j. '" y. ' ."" ' ""

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