g From Necessity Today, Knitting for Pleasure Tomorrow

As I write these lines I am riding on a slow train through Oklahoma.
Purposely I am in the day coach smoker for that's the place to study
local color, and see the natives.

The atmosphere around is oil and gas, the talk is "bringing in a
gusher," "tanks," "rigs," "leases," "wild cat sales," "offsets,"
"selling stock," and the like; all the phrases, all the talk is striking
it rich, getting money.

Indians, Mexicans, Negroes, college boys in surveying crews and
speculators form a hodge podge. Men from all parts of the states are
here seeking dollars.

I have been around these oil and gas fields in autos and by teams. I've
been observing life, character, passions and habits.

I've seen brave women here with nursing babies living in tents or
patchwork shacks. Some of these women dream at night of silks and satins
and mansions and position.

By day these poor women work and mend and cook and sew, doing their part
to help things along. Many of the husbands are earning five to eight
dollars a day and spending most of it on foolishness. The poor wives get
only enough for bare necessities, and yet they patiently work and mend
and cook and sew.

Talk about patience; talk about devotion; talk about grit; talk about
courage; just come down to the oil fields and see these poor pioneer
women.

Talk about selfishness; talk about cowardice; talk about brutality; talk
about debasement; come down and see some of these men making $25 to $50
a week and never a cent in their pockets Monday morning.

Woman is called weak--that means the rich woman--the poor woman
possesses strength that psychology cannot explain. Men can be analyzed,
but you are at a loss to understand woman. Poor women grow into a sweet
replica of their mothers, the most unselfish, patient, generous,
forgiving, lovable, adorable creatures on earth.

Man grows away from his mother; he roughens and cools and grows selfish
and expects and demands the woman shall love him with all these faults,
and generally she does.

The poor woman makes an idol of her husband and in her love thinks he is
ideal.

Let him spend his money, she sticks to him; let poverty and want come to
the home, she sticks. Let ill treatment be her portion, she sticks; and
withal there are smiles on her lips most of the time.

I'm sorry for the poor woman in the oil fields, and the only glimmer of
compensation I can find is that she do