From MY FRIEND FLICKA, by Mary O'Hara - the next book my 10-year-old student will be reading.
"It had amused Nell at first to be addressed as the Missus, but it had not taken her long to learn that, it here in the West, it meant "the woman," with all that word signified of gentleness and motherliness. Here, in her world of men, husband and sons, hired men, haying crew, horse buyers, to be the Missus meant to be that before which they could remove their hats, and bend their heads. In the cities a woman could turn into a driving machine, or harden herself to meet difficulties, but the Missus on a farm or ranch, though she might be a milker of cows or a trainer of horses, must be more and not less woman for all of that, or she would rob the men around her of something which was as sweet to them as the sugar in their coffee."
"It had amused Nell at first to be addressed as the Missus, but it had not taken her long to learn that, it here in the West, it meant "the woman," with all that word signified of gentleness and motherliness. Here, in her world of men, husband and sons, hired men, haying crew, horse buyers, to be the Missus meant to be that before which they could remove their hats, and bend their heads. In the cities a woman could turn into a driving machine, or harden herself to meet difficulties, but the Missus on a farm or ranch, though she might be a milker of cows or a trainer of horses, must be more and not less woman for all of that, or she would rob the men around her of something which was as sweet to them as the sugar in their coffee."
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