complicates her responsibilities, but otherwise she spends her days
in much the same fashion as before, with some deduction, often, alas,
inadequate, to allow for the bearing and rearing of her too frequent
babies. Also in the claims that industry makes upon her in her
relation to the productive life of the community, under such primitive
conditions, her life rests upon the same basis as before.

As a telling illustration of that primitive woman's occupations, as
she carries them on among us today, the following will serve. Quite
recently a friend, traveling in the mountainous regions of Kentucky,
at the head of Licking Creek, had occasion to call at a little
mountain cabin, newly built out of logs, the chinks stopped up
with clay, evidently the pride and the comfort of the dwellers. It
consisted of one long room. At one end were three beds. In the center
was the family dining-table, and set out in order on one side a number
of bark-seated hickory chairs made by the forest carpenters. On the
other a long bench, probably intended for the younger members of the
family. Facing the door, as the visitor entered, was a huge open
fireplace, with a bar across, whence hung three skillets of kettles
for the cooking of the food. The only occupant of the cabin at that
hour in the afternoon was an old woman. She was engaged in combing
into smoothness with two curry-combs a great pile of knotted wool,
washed, but otherwise as it came off the sheep's back. The wool was
destined to be made into blankets for the household. The simple
apparatus for the carrying-out of the whole process was there at hand,
for the spinning-wheel stood back in a corner of the room, while the
big, heavy loom had, for convenience' sake, been set up on the porch.
That old woman's life may be bare and narrow enough in many ways, but
at least she is rich and fortunate in having the opportunity for the
exercise of a skilled trade, and in it an outlet for self-expression,