be mean, the grind of doing the same thing day after day, year after
year, seems to bring the meanness right out. I've seen lots of instances
of that, and I'm perfectly sure that if I were a farmer's wife, and had
to work like a slave I'd be a perfect shrew and there'd be no living
with me at all."

They turned in from the road now, the wagon in which Bessie and Eleanor
rode in the lead, and came into a pretty avenue that led up a gentle
grade to the ridge on which the house was built. There were trees at
each side to provide shade in the hot part of the day, and for a long
distance on each side of the trees there were well kept lawns.

"My father likes a place to be beautiful as well as useful," said
Eleanor, "so he had those lawns made when we built the house. All the
farmers in the neighborhood thought it was an awful waste of good land,
but since then some of them have come to see that if they ever wanted to
sell their places people would like them better if they were pretty, and
they've copied this place a good deal in the neighborhood.

"We're very glad, because right now Cheney County is the prettiest
farming section anywhere around, and the crops are about the best in the
state, too. So, you see, we seem to have shown them that they can have
pretty places and still make money. And sometimes those lawns are used
for grazing sheep, so they're useful as well as ornamental."

Then in a few minutes they were at the house, and the smiling
housekeeper, whom Eleanor introduced to the girls as Mrs. Farnham,
greeted them.

"Come right in," she said, heartily. "There's supper ready and