THE COURIER
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Monday Evening, October 7, Eight
O'clock Meeting of executive board.
PIIOQKAH.
Tuesday Morning. 9 O'clock Presen
tation of credentials by delegates.
Ten O'clock Meeting of board of di
rectors. Tuesday Afternoon, 2 O'clock Meet
ing of Federation, Mrs. Smith, chair
man. Invocation, Mrs. Ida W. Blair, Wayne.
Music, violin solo, "Thuringor Volks
lied with Variations," H. naessner;
OttoVoget, Wayne.
Address of welcome, Mrs. J. T. Brese
ler, Wayne.
Response, Mrs. Gertrude McDowell,
Fairbury.
Annual address of the president,
Mrs. Draper Smith, Omaha.
Report of officers.
Report of Committees Credentials,
Mrs. John Erhardt, Stanton. (Roll call
of delegates.)
Reciprocity Bureau Mrs. A.A.Scott,
Lincoln.
Constitution Committee Mrs. Lillian
R. Gault, Omaha.
Club Extension Committee Mrs. Win
nie Durland, Norfolk.
Program Committee Mrs. Ella B.
Lobingier, Omaha.
Tueeday Evening, 8 O'clock Educa
tional session, Mrs. Anna L. Apperson,
chairman, Tecumseh.
Music "Mazourka," for harp, op. 12
Edmund Schnecker; Mrs. Estelle Blake,
Omaha.
AddreBS "Primary Methods, Miss
Ida Swan, Peru.
Paper "Woman's Relation to the
School." Mrs. J. M. Pile, Wayne.
Address Women at the School
Meeting and in the Schoolroom," State
Superintendent W. K. Fowler, Lincoln.
Paper "Patrons' Associations," Mrs.
W. M. MorniDg, Lincoln.
Address "What Not to Study in the
Club," Miss Margaret McCarthy,
Omaha.
Address Miss Margaiet J. Evans,
vice president G.F.W.C.
Wednesday Morning, 9:30 O'clock
Business meeting, Mrs. Smith, chair
man. Club Reports One hundred fourteen
clubs, two minutes each.
Wednesday Afternoon, 2 O'clock
Bueiness meeting, Mrs. Smith, chair
man. 2:30 O'clock Art session, Mrs. F. M.
Hall, chairman, Lincoln.
Art Conference One hour.
Music "Valse Caprice, Gabrielle Ver
dalle; Mrs. Estelle Blake, Omaha.
I. "Benefits Derived from the Study of
Art," Mrs. A. W. Field, Lincoln.
II. "Art Study in Women's Clubs (a
three years' course suggested), Mrs.
Jennie E. Keysor, Omaha.
III. "How to Build Art Interest,'' Mrs.
H. M. Bushnell. Lincoln.
Discussion.
Ceramic hour.
"Early Historic China of United
States,'' Mrs. H. M. Brock. Lincoln.
"American Potteries'' (eastern), Mrs.
Anna R. Morey, Hastings.
"American Potteries" (western), Mre.
Belle Perfect, Omaha.
"American Pottery at the Pan-American
Exposition," Miss Mellona Butter
field, Omaha.
"The Influence of the Public on the
Ceramic Worker," Mrs. A. B. Fuller,
Ashland.
"The Ceramic Worker's Obstacles."
Miss Nina Lumbard, Fremont.
Discussion.
Outlines and Suggestions for Study:
China and picture exhibit in church
lecture room.
Wednesday Evening, 8 O'clock Re
ception to the Federation at the home
of Mrs. J. T. Bressler, president of the
"Wayne Town Federation.
Thursday Morning, 9,T0 O'clock
Business meeting, Mrs. Smith, chair
man. '
Report of Special Library Committee
Mre. Belle M. Stoutenborough, chair
man.
The Nebraska Traveling Library
MiBB Edna D. Bullock, secretary Ne
braska Library commission.
Discussion.
10:45 O'clock Industrial session, Mrs.
Amanda M. Edwards, chairman.
Mueic "Fruelingsrauschen," "March
Grotesque, Sinding; Mrs. Will Owen
Jones, Lincoln.
Girls' Industrial School at Geneva
and Other State Institutions Nellie
Elizabeth Cady, St. Paul.
Nebraska Industrial Home at Milford
Mre. Elizabeth Sisson, Norfolk.
Woman as a Factor in Industrial Pur
suitsMrs. W. II. Clemmons, Fremont.
Women and Children as Employes
Mrs. D. M. Carey, Seward.
The George Junior Republic Mrs.
Etta R. Holmes, Kearney.
Parental Schools and Courts for Juve
nile Offenders Mrs. M. N. Presson,
Milford.
Discussion.
Thursday afternoon, 2 o'clock Bust
ness meeting, Mrs. Smith, chairman.
2:45 o'clock Household economic ses
sion, Mrs. W. G. Baker, Norfolk, chair
man. Music "Magic Fire Music," Wagner
BraEsin; Mre. Will Owen Jones, Lincoln
Repmt of state work Mrs. W. G.
Baker.
Housekeeping on a business basis
Mrs. Anna B. Steele, Fairbury.
Influence of early home life on chil
dren Mrs. M. A. McMillan, Norfolk.
Progress of domestic science in
schools, Professor Rosa Bouton, Lin
coln. Ac drees "Thesocial trend of Amer
ican life." Mre. Elia W. Peattie, Chi
cago. Thursday evening, 8 o'clock, Mre.
Draper Smith, chairman.
Music Selected; Jules Lumbard,
Omaha.
Address The practical and apathetic
value of forestry Reverend C. S. Har
rison, Pres. Nebr. Park and Forestry
AsB'n., Yoik.
Town and village improvement, illus
trated Mrs. C. W. Damon, Omaha.
Music "America," led by Jules Lum
bard, the audience joining in the re
frain. Friday morning, 9:30 o'clock, Busi
ness seesion, Mre. Smith, chairman.
Report of nominating committee;
election of officers; election of delegates
to G. F. W. O. biennial; report of reso
lution committee: installation of new
officers; adjournment; meeting of the
old executive board; meeting of the new
executive board.
A Critique from Mrs. D. C McKillip.
Seward, Nebr., Sept. 17, 1901.
A Nebraska story in the September
McClure's, by Kate M. Cleary, entitled
"The Stepmother," is a lugubrious tale
and conveys the impression that Ne
braska is not a good place to live in. Why
is it that our own story writers writing
for eastern periodicals pick out the very
worst features of our climate, Buch as a
dust storm or a blizzard and, ignore all
the delightful, pleasing attributes of
the country?
Why do they pass over in silence the
thousands of happy homes in the state,
where the farmers' wives have every
comfort and convenience and many
luxuries? And why do they select some
woebegone individual who "speaks in
plaintive monotone produced by color
lees years of self-repression and self
denial" and hold her up to the reading
public as a type of the Nebraska coun
try woman?
Mrs. Peattie hangs a wisp of faded
hair over their foreheade; Kate Cleary's
type is "weary-eyed, with a Bcarlet
blotch burLing on either cheek, and two
front teeth gone, and gowned in the
everlasting print wrapper of the prairie
housekeeper."
It is not with her story that I feel in
clined to quarrel, for she has the right
to make that just as sad and grewsome
as she pleases; but I do object to her
generalities and sweeping assertions
concerning the characteristics of the in
habitants of our state.
She Bays they are chary of caresses
the prairie people perfunctory Kisses
are given at the marriage feast or be
fore the burial, but even these are few
and far between." She dsecribes the
rural population of Nebraska that will
compare favorably with that of any
other state in the union in civilization,
education, enterprise and kind-heartedness,
as if they were a tribe in Central
Africa having racial peculiarities of
their own, instead of being a component
part of our great commonwealth with
that same human nature that makes the
whole world kin.
Sympathy is as sweet, kindness as'
dear and love as delightful to hearts that
beat under a hickory shirt or calico
wrapper as the hearts under broadcloth
and Bilk, and when ehe further states
that the "attitude of a young western
farmer to his mother is that of an In
dian to his squaw," it is an insult to the
very beet of Nebraska's population.
For "our staunch yeomanry is the coun
try's pride." Many of them are uni
versity graduates and hb cultured and
kind as their city cousins. I do not
think the author knows much about
Nebraska or its inhabitants. Her story
is full of inconsistencies anyway. She
locates the home of the Carneys in a
forlorn place and Mrs. Carney tells her
stepson, Dan, on Decoration day that
"There hasn't been a soul to this houee
since Christmas, except some campers
whose wagon broke down." Yet in the
afternoon, when Dan and his girl get
caught in a dust storm on the way home
from the memorial exercises and take a
short cut to Dan's home, they find the
house full of neighbor women caring for
Mrs. Carney, who went out a short time
before to drive some calves in out of
the storm and succumbed to a heart at
tack. "Carney trades his eastern business
for a rocky Nebraska farm." I have
never seen a rocky Nebraska farm, but
perhaps Kate Cleary has. And ehe says
"there was no timber in that region; the
small, shabby house perched upon the
bluff was exposed to the bitter winds of
winter and to the almost uuore malig
nant furnace blasts of summer, yet
under these' adverse conditions she
grows a flourishing peach orchard which
is a great source of income.
I am afraid what she knowB about
farming wouldn't make a book, and
what she knows about Nebraska is still
less. Like Rider Haggard who hung
bis new moon in tho eastern sky and
Jules Verne who had hie party cross Ne
braska from Kearney to Omaha in a
few hours on a sailing sled, it is a good
story, but poor facts.
There is a lesson which the author
never intended should be drawn from-
her article: and that is where, except in
productive Nebraska, could a woman
with a drunken, shiftless husbaud and a
houee full of children of her own, with
the help of her two stepsons, have made
so good a living? Had they lived else
where that "riotous, roystering, healthy
brood that came tumbling in at supper
time, and laughed and mocked and
fought and burst into peala of laughter,"
might have been too nearly starved to
possess euch hilarious spirits. And
"Dick, perfumed and pomaded, in his
Sunday beet," who went to town to a
strawberry festival at the Methodist
church might not have had the price
anywhere else, for strawberries come
high in May. And Dan, who took his
girl to Decoration day in a new covered
buggy and gave her his silk handker
chief to tie over her eyes to ke he
dust out, could not be classed a -the
unfortunates of the earth. At
poor, forlorn stepmother, to whon r
sympathies go out, might have g
much more happiness from life hau
learned that she who asks little . -,
nothing, and made her demands ac
ingly. When there are thousands . i
thousands of prosperous, happy Lo
in Nebraska, whose owners started w
niless and have reaped a competes
from the soil and whose children a'
well educated and prosperous, at i
whose lives have been successful, vU v
can not our Nebraska story writers
select a type of inhabitant which rerr
sents Nebraskans instead of eterna v
chanting a tale of woe? .It is su h
stories that give our state a bad re- ..
tation.
PRELUDE.
The blossom-snow begins to blow
About the orchid close ,
The fields forget the violet
But soon shall come the rose, My Dear ,
Ah, soon shall bloom the rose .
The long year's prime is summertime ,
And summer's coming on ,
But the spring o' the year is all too dear
And Spring is past and gone, My Dear,
O this is past and gone .
October Scribner's.
President Roosevelt's Mid-Winter Hunting
in the Rockies.
In mid-winter, hunting on horse
back in the RockieB is apt to bo cold
work, but we were too warmly clad to
mind the weather. We wore heavy
flannels, jackets lined with sheepskin,
caps which drew down entirely over our
ears, and on our feet heavy ordinary"
Bocks, German socks, and overshoes.
Galloping through the brush and a
mong the spikes of the dead cedars,
meant that now and then one got snag
ged; I found tough overalls better than
trousers; and most of the time I did not
need the jacket, wearing my old buck
ekiu shirt, which is to my mind a par
ticularly useful and comfortable gar
ment. It is a high, dry country, where the
winters are usually very cold, but thp
snow not under ordinary circumstances
very deep. It is wild and broken id
character, the hills and low mountaus
rising in sheer slopes, broken by clilTa
and riven by deeply cut and gloou,)
gorges and ravines. The sage-brjstt
grows everywhere upon the flats an 1
hillsides. Large open groves of pinjoi
and cedar are scattered over the peaks,
ridges and tablelands. Tall spruce
cluster in the cold ravines. Cotton
woods grow along the stream courses
and there are occasional patches of
scrub-oak and quaking asp. The en
tire country is taken up with cat!
ranges wherever it is possible to get
sufficient water-supply, natural or art
ficial. Some thirty miles to the ea
and north the mountains rise highe
the evergreen forest becomes contir.
ous, the Biiow lies deep all through t
winter, and such northern anitnals
the wolverine, lucivee, and snow-sh
rabbit are found. This high count
is the summer home of the Coloraii
elk, which are now rapidly beconiir
extinct, and of the Colorado blackta
deer, which are still very plentiful, bu
which, unless better protected, will (o
low the elk in the next decade or fc
In winter both elk and deer come don
to the lower country, through a part
which I made my hunting trip. Fror
"With the Cougar Hounds," by The.
dore Roosevelt, in the October Sent
ner's.
