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THERE IS ONE
"Face that duly as the sun,
Rose up for me since life begun;"
ONE ROYAL HEART THAT NEVER FAILED ME YET.
TO MOTHER,
AS A BIRTHDAY GIFT,
ON JANUARY 3, 1889,
THE EIGHTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF HER UNDAUNTED LIFE,
I DEDICATE
HER ELDEST DAUGHTER'S SELF-TOLD STORY.

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Thou under Satan's fierce control,
Shall Heaven on thee its rest bestow?
I know not, but I know a soul
That might have fall' n as darkly low.

"I judge thee not, what depths of ill
Soe 'er thy feet have found or trod;
I know a spirit and a will
As weak, but for the help of God.

"Shalt thou with full day-lab'rers stand,
Who hardly canst have pruned one vine?
I know not, but I know a hand
With an infirmity like thine.

"Shalt thou, who hadst with scoffers part,
E 'er wear the crown the Christian wears?
I know not, but I know a heart
As flinty, but for tears and prayers.

"Have mercy, O thou Crucified!
For even while I name Thy name,
I know a tongue that might have lied,
Like Peter's, and am filled with shame"

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Introduction.

I have been asked by the publishers of this Autobiography to write the Introduction. I am very glad to be asked. There is no woman in the world whose book I would rather introduce than that of my friend and co-worker, Frances E. Willard. From the first hour of my acquaintance with her, now more than sixteen years ago, she has been to me the embodiment of all that is lovely, and good, and womanly, and strong, and noble and tender, in human nature. She has been my queen among women, and I have felt it to be one of the greatest privileges of my life to call her my friend. I have been inspired by her genius, I have been cheered by her sympathy, I have been taught by her wisdom, I have been led onward and upward by her enthusiastic faith. We have met on almost every point of human interest, and have been together in joy and in sorrow, in success and in apparent failure; she has been a member of my household for weeks together, and I have seen her tried by prosperity and flattery, by misunderstanding and evil report; and always and everywhere she has been the same simple-hearted, fair-minded Christian woman, whose one sole aim has been to do the will of God as far as she knew it, and to bear whatever of apparent ill He may have permitted to come upon her, with cheerful submission, as being His loving discipline for the purpose of making her what, above all, she longs to be, a partaker of His holiness.

In regard to her public work she has seemed to me one of God's best gifts to the American women of the nineteenth century, for she has done more to enlarge our sympathies, widen our outlook, and develop our gifts, than any man, or any other woman of her time. Every movement for the uplifting of humanity has found in her a cordial friend and active helper. Every field of inquiry or investigation has shared in her quick, intelligent sympathy, and she has been essentially American in this, that she is always receptive of new ideas, without being frightened at

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their newness. One saying of hers is eminently characteristic — that we have no more need to be afraid of the step just ahead of us than we have to be afraid of the one just behind us; and, acting on this, she has always given all new suggestions a candid and fair-minded consideration, and has kept in the forefront of every right movement, whether in the world of ideas or the world of things. I have called her to myself, many times, our "see-er," because, like all seers, she seems to have an insight into things not visible to the eyes of most. We who know her best have so much confidence, born of experience, in these insights of hers, that I am not sure but that something once said about us laughingly is, after all, pretty nearly the truth: that "if Frances Willard should push a plank out into the ocean, and should beckon the white ribbon women to follow her out to the end of it, they would all go without a question." The reason is that we have discovered that her planks always turn out to be bridges across to delectable islands which she has discerned while yet they were invisible to us.

How such a woman came to be, is told us in this book, and it is a story that will, I believe, be an example and an inspiration to thousands of her fellow-women, who will learn here the vast possibilities of a pure and holy womanhood, consecrated to God and to the service of humanity.

How this story came to be told is as follows: As president for nearly ten years of the great organization called the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, numbering more than two hundred thousand women, scattered all over the United States, from Maine to Texas, and from Florida to Alaska, Frances E. Willard has won a love and loyalty that no other woman, I think, has ever before possessed. It was natural that the many members of this widespread organization, who could not see their leader, should desire to read the story of her life, and for some time she has been besieged with requests to write her own biography. At the annual W. C. T. U. Convention held in Nashville, Tenn., in 1887, these desires voiced themselves in the following resolution, unanimously adopted by the whole convention:

Resolved, That in view of the fact that the year 1889 will be the fifteenth of the organization of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and also that in the same year our beloved president, Miss Frances
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E. Willard, enters upon the fiftieth year of her strong and beautiful life, we, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union delegates, in National Convention assembled, do request Miss Willard to prepare for publication an autobiography, together with the history of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union from its birth to 1889, with a collection of her addresses on various themes.

Miss Willard was at first averse to the plan, and put off yielding to it as long as possible. But the white ribbon women do not generally give up an idea when once originated, and since they had so often walked in unknown paths at her bidding, she felt herself, at last, bound to walk in this path at their bidding. Hence this book.

Furthermore, the women wanted a true story, not a story that, out of a conventional modesty, would tell only half the truth, in the fear of being thought egotistic and full of self. Their idea is admirably expressed in these words of Emerson, "Say honestly and simply that which your own experience has given you and you will give to the world something new, valuable and lasting." Having taken, for a rarity, the authority into their own hands, they have insisted upon having the work done in their own way, and have required their leader to tell them all about herself, her work, her life, the very inmost of her being, without fear or favor, because only thus could she give them what they desired.

Whoever reads this book, therefore, must remember that it has been written by request of and for the women of whom Miss Willard is the well beloved leader, the white ribbon women of America; if others see it, that is their own good fortune. It is a home book, written for her great family circle, and to be read around the evening lamp by critics who love the writer, and who want to learn from her experience how to live better and stronger lives. It is a woman's book, warm, sympathetic, offhand; it is an object-lesson in American living and American development, and as such can not fail to interest all those who think American women worthy of a little study. It begins in the West of forty years ago, picturing a pioneer farm and the unique, out-of-door life of adventurous young Western boys and girls. It tells of a free-spirited mother, who sympathized with her children rather than governed them, and who, although she would have liked her daughter to learn house work, yet did not

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force her into it, because she had the rare good sense to know that it was far better to help her child to do the best in her own line than to force her to do a half-best in any other line, and also because she believed every natural gift to be God-given and meant for divine uses in serving the world, and therefore worthy of respect and of development. We have in the story of this mother and daughter a glimpse into the relation between parents and children such as it ought always to be, not one of arbitrary control on the one hand and slavish submission on the other, but one of cooperation, or partnership, in which each should try to help the other to do and be their best, and should each realize the sacred duty of leaving one another free to follow, without hindrance, the path which they should feel called upon to pursue. It is no small thing to have laid open before us the methods of a grand and truly typical mother, one who had not the help of the usual environment, one who made herself her children's world. Were there more such mothers as Mrs. Willard, there would be more such daughters as hers.

The father in this story, while more reserved, and consequently less manifestly sympathetic than the mother, was a noble and gifted man, of sterling goodness, and great power in the lives of his children, to whom he was most devotedly attached. There is also a sweet young sister who brightened the family life for "nineteen beautiful years," and then left them for the home above, leaving with her latest breath a legacy of infinite value to her sister Frances in the simple words, "Tell everybody to be good."

There is a brother, too; a young man of great promise, endowed with rare genius, and of a most lovable nature, who left the world before he had had time to do more than make a passing mark on the annals of his own day, leaving behind him, however, a gentle widow, whose life and work have been and still are of great value to her family and the work of the Lord.

The book contains a history of the Woman's Crusade against the liquor traffic in 1872, and of what we are accustomed to call "its sober second thought" — the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, that great organization which Mary A. Livermore says is "so grand in its aims, so superb in its equipment, so phenomenal in its growth, and has done so much for woman as well

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as for temperance, that it challenges the attention of Christendom, and excites the hope of all who are interested in the welfare of humanity."

Those who read between the lines of this book can not fail to see how largely the evolution of this mighty organization has been the work of its gentle, yet magnetic leader, whose wonderful administrative talent and superb tact, have given her an almost unparalleled success in controlling and guiding one of the greatest movements of modern times. Yet with all this success, Miss Willard is, I believe, truly humble minded. When calls come from every direction, and some seem to feel indignant, and others accuse her of one thing, and still others of another, and they fit her out with motives, knowing nothing whatever about the facts in the case, she writes after this fashion: "Am badgered to death and am not worried a hair — what do you make o' that? I fancy the explanation is that, unless I am an awfully deceived woman, I am desirous of doing God's will, and so the clamor on this footstool is like the humming of "skeeters' outside the curtain. It rather lulls me into quiet." No one could realize more deeply than she does the truth that, "Except the Lord build the city, they labor in vain that build it," and she has always sought to commit her work and her ways to the keeping of the Divine Master, in a simple, child-like faith that He would lead her in the way she should go, and would make all her paths straight before her. That this faith has been answered to a remarkable degree the book before us will clearly show.

The beautiful illustrations of the book are entirely the work of the Woman's Temperance Publication Association, which is bringing it out. Miss Willard would not have felt willing in her own name to send forth such personal pictures for the public gaze, but she was obliged to yield in this, as in all else concerning the book, to the wishes and judgment of the white ribbon women, who, for once, have got the upper-hand of their leader, and greatly enjoy making her do their bidding. The W. T. P. A. took the whole responsibility of the illustrations, and has prepared this part of the volume in an unusually original and artistic manner.

Altogether, we of the W. C. T. U. of the United States look upon this book as a most creditable witness to the value of our organization and to the successful working of the Woman's

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Temperance Publication Association, which is one of our most promising children.

I would like to tell a little story in conclusion. There is a creature in the sea called the Octopus, with a very small body but with immense arms covered with suckers, radiating from every side, that stretch themselves out to indefinite length to draw in all sorts of prey. Miss Willard seems to have the same characteristic of being able to reach out mental or spiritual arms to indefinite lengths, whereby to draw in everything and everybody that seem likely to help on the cause she has at heart. Hence I, who have felt the grip of those arms of hers, have come to call her in our private moments, "My beloved Octopus," and myself her contented victim.

What future histories will need to be written concerning the coming years of the life here portrayed, no one can tell. But of this I am sure, that the same Divine Hand that has led her hitherto will still lead, and will bring her in triumph to life's close, for the motto of her heart continues more and more to be, "This God shall be our God, even unto death."

Hannah Whitale Smith
44 Grosvenor Road, Westminster Embankment,
London, S. W., England.

Seal of National W. C. T. U.

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Prefatory.

Whether for good or ill, I have set down with absolute fidelity these recollections of myself. The wise ones tell us that we change utterly once in every seven years, so that from the vantage-ground of life's serene meridian, I have looked back upon the seven persons whom I know most about: the welcome child, the romping girl, the happy student, the roving teacher, the tireless traveler, the temperance organizer, and lastly, the politician and advocate of woman's rights! Since all these are sweetly dead and gone, why should not their biographies and epitaphs, perchance their eulogies, be written by their best informed and most indulgent critic?

A thousand homes in as many different towns, have kindly cherished me in my many pilgrimages. The fathers in those homes treated me with high respect, the mothers with sacred tenderness; the lads and lasses with heartiest kindness, the blessed little children loved me for their mothers' sake.

To them all, my heart goes out with unspeakable good will and gratitude. Perhaps the honest record of my fifty years may give them pleasure; perhaps it may do good. At all events they asked for it — at least their leaders did, in the great, genial meeting that we had down South in 1887 — so I have put it into black and white, not as I would, but as I could, and here it is.

1889. Frances E. Willlard

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Part I: A Welcome Child

A Welcome Child. "Keep Near to thy Childhood, for in Going From it thou art Going From the Gods."

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GLIPMSES OF FIFTY YEARS: The Autobiography of an American Woman"

A LITTLE PILGRIM.

Mother was nearly thirty-five when I was born, the fourth of her five children, one of whom, the first, had passed away in infancy, and the third at the age of fourteen months. This little girl, Caroline Elizabeth, mother has always spoken of as the most promising child she ever bore, or, for that matter, ever saw. " She was a vision of delight," with deep blue eyes and dark brown hair; a disposition without flaw, her nerves being so well encased and her little spirit so perfectly equipoised that she would sit or lie in her cradle cooing to herself by the hour, and when she rode, the beauty of the world outdoors seemed so well apprehended by this seraphic child that her little hands were constantly outstretched and her sweet eyes were full of light and comprehension, while her silvery voice took on such an ecstasy as was remarked by all who knew her. My little sister passed to heaven just as she began to speak the language of this world. My mother's first great grief then broke her heart, and as I came less than one year afterward, the deep questionings and quivering pathos of her spirit had their effect on mine. She lived much with her books, especially the Bible and the poets, in this chastened interval. Many a time has she said to me, "Frank, above all things else thank heaven you were a welcome child, for I had prayed so often

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that another little girl might come into our home for us to love." She says she hoped this also for my brother's sake, who was five years my senior and then her only child. During this year she often went to singing-school and there saw a young woman with fair complexion, auburn hair and blue eyes, moving about among the people to take their names. Mother says she liked the quiet, intelligent and rapid way in which the work was done, and in her heart earnestly wished that the little one whose coming was her constant thought, might be a girl, and might grow up to be such a young woman as the one she watched with thoughtful and observant eyes.

And that is all I choose to tell of my heredity.

It has been my good fortune to have an accomplished stenographer always within call the last few years, and since my mother's hand is not so steady as it once was, she often has a sitting with Miss Mitchell, who takes down her words of reminiscence and of wisdom. This serves to give needed variety to my mother's life, and also to preserve very many facts otherwise lost.

Some notes here follow in reply to questions asked her by an interested friend.

"What do you recall about your daughter's birth?"

"It occurred at eleven o'clock, Thursday morning, September 28, 1839, in our quiet home on the principal street of Churchville, Monroe County, N. Y., fourteen miles west of Rochester. Dr. Lillie, a refined and unusually gifted physician and a great friend of my husband's, presided at her advent. I remember saying, ‘Is it a little girl?’ and my unspeakable joy on learning that my long prayer was answered. ‘Why did you not tell her without being asked?’ said Frank's Aunt Elizabeth, who was present, and Dr. Lillie answered, ‘Because I didn't choose to please her well enough,’ which was meant as a piquant little remark to enliven me the more, for he well knew how eager were my empty arms to clasp another girl-baby to my breast. Every morning the lonesome little brother would run down-stairs without waiting to dress, and exclaim, ‘Ma, is the baby dead?’ he so much feared it, as the sweet one had died the year before, and when he found that Frank lived on, he still would come when he awoke and say, ‘Ma, is the baby well?’

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"The principal family in Churchville was that of Deacon Hall, the merchant of the village. They were Presbyterians, and it used to be said that the Deacon extended one, two, three or four fingers of his hand to those who came as customers, according to his estimation of their social status. Mrs. Hall was a lovely woman, a sort of ‘Lady Bountiful.’ Living just across the street from them, we were among the very few families that were admitted to the charmed circle of their home. It was considered a distinguished honor. Mrs. Hall was with me when Frank made her first appearance, and took such a fancy to her that she used to come across the street every morning for six weeks to give the little baby her bath, and look after her generally. The family consisted of five sons, four daughters and two relatives, cousins, I think they were, of Mrs. Hall, Miss Ruth Rogers and her brother Joshua. Miss Rogers afterward married Elisha Harmon, a staunch young farmer and miller some few miles away, and became the mother of Mrs. Folsom, who is now President Cleveland's mother-in-law. Miss Rogers was a handsome, well-poised, vigorous young woman, whom I remember to have thought specially agreeable and promising. She entered heartily into all the work and amusements of her cousins and was greatly beloved by them. Her granddaughter, Mrs. Cleveland, no doubt owes to her many of the fine qualities with which she is endowed. Deacon Hall's family were conservative in manner, and we could but appreciate the cordial welcome they gave us when we removed to the village. When Frank's eldest sister, Caroline Elizabeth, died less than a year before Frank was born, and my heart was well-nigh broken, I prized beyond all words their active sympathy; they neglected nothing in their power to do, that could palliate that fearful blow or stimulate my hopes. The family all, both young and old, evinced much anxiety for me and for the baby's safety and welfare."

"What sort of a looking baby was Frances Elizabeth, anyhow?" pursued the questioner, whereupon, after the fashion of toothers since the world began, this answer came: "Very pretty, with sunny hair, blue eyes, delicate features, fair complexion, long waist, short limbs. She was called the doll-baby of the village."

"Was she brought up by hand?" Answer: "Yes, she was,

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as we used to say in the old-fashioned phrase, a bottle baby, or one ‘brought up by hand’ after the first four weeks, on account of my not being strong. But I ought to add for her present reputation's sake, she had no affinity for the bottle — putting it away when ten months old with no regret. She suffered very much from teething, more than any other of my children, being of an organism remarkably susceptible to physical pain. She always slept with both hands on my face. She was a very affectionate little creature. She could talk some time before she could walk, speaking quite wisely at fourteen months, but not walking until twenty-four months old. As a little girl she was very confiding and fond of her childish friends, even beyond what one expects to see at that period.

"Her father used to say when walking to and fro with her at night, her vigorous lungs in full action, sending forth screams that could be heard in the remotest part of the house, ‘I declare, this young one ought to amount to something, she gives trouble enough!’ He was very kind as a care-taker of the children, sharing with me far more than husbands usually do, or did in those days, the work of bringing up our little ones. He would get up at night, heat the milk for the crying baby, and do his best to reconcile her to the hard bit of ivory now replaced by the gutta-percha tube.

"She dearly loved her brother Oliver and sister Mary, who were ever ready to enter into her plans for pastime. They were very much to one another always. She was mentally precocious, but physically delicate beyond any other of my children. She was inventive and original in her amusements. This last used particularly to impress me. She early manifested an exceeding fondness for books. She believed in herself, and in her teachers. Her bias toward certain studies and pursuits was very marked. Even in the privacy of her own room she was often in a sort of ecstasy of aspiration. In her childhood, and always, she strongly repelled occupations not to her taste, but was eager to grapple with principles, philosophies, and philanthropies, and unwearyingly industrious along her favorite lines. I wonder sometimes that I had the wit to let her do what she preferred instead of obliging her to take up housework as did all the other girls of our acquaintance. She was an untrained vine rambling whither-soever

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she would. When she was two years old we removed from Churchville, to Oberlin, Ohio, her Aunt Sarah going with us. I held Frank all the way. It was a tiresome journey, for we went by carriage. She often put her little arms around my neck, laid her head upon my shoulder and said, ‘Mamma, sissy's dress aches!’ It rejoices me to believe that she intuitively recognized the fact that it is not one's real self that is ever tired, but only this dress of mortality that aches sometimes.

"She used to see the students rehearsing their speeches and would get up an amusing imitation of them, when but three years old. Many a time I have seen her standing on the well-curb or on top of the gate-post imitating the gestures of some bright young sophomore who stood there, ‘laying it off’ for her amusement. She was very fond of playing outdoors, indoor amusements seeming irksome to her always. Her brother was her favorite comrade, and his sturdy little playmates among the boys would sometimes call her ‘Tomboy,’ which she resented very much and I did for her.

"Once she ran away when about three years old, going through the fields and creeping under the fences, so that when, after a great fright, she was discovered, her brother said it was pitiful to see the little creature's bravery combined with her panting fatigue, for she did her utmost not to be overtaken.

"She used often to go with me to church where President Finney usually preached. She said his great light eyes, white eyebrows, and vigorous manner were to her like a combination of thunder and lightning; lightning in his look, thunder in his voice. I am sure her impressionable spirit became somewhat frightened by the thought of Christianity as administered by that great orator, who was very much given to rehearsing in our hearing the pains and penalties of the condemned."

So much for mother's memories of my babyhood and early years at dear old Oberlin.

The first religious teaching that I can call to mind is the learning of this sweet prayer of every little child:

"Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take,
And this I ask for Jesus' sake."

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Mother taught me that before I can remember, but it seems to me I can recall, though it may be but the memory of a memory, her sitting with a little Testament in hand and telling me it was God's message to us, and that instinctively within my spirit rose the thought and utterance, "How do you know?" I was not one who naturally took things for granted. It was intuitive with me to seek for causes and for reasons. My faith faculty was not naturally strong, and yet when I say so, it almost seems as if I did injustice to my gift in that regard. Mother was surprised at my inquiries and called me playfully, in talking with her friends, her "little infidel." But I have always thought my infidelity was of that harmless kind quite curiously illustrated by an incident in my brother Oliver's four years' old period. At that date, we did not have family prayers, though I have no recollection of such a graceless time in our family history. When my parents took my brother to my mother's home, her father, who was a most devout and earnest man, had prayers both night and morning, and little Ollie, as she called him, said to her one day, looking up with his blue eyes, so full of questions always, "Mamma, what does gran'sir say to the chair when he gets down on his legs?" The simple fact was he proposed to investigate a phenomenon with which he was not familiar, and this he had a most undoubted right to do.

All through my childhood I was docile toward the supernatural, wondering about it, with great sighs in my little breast, but I think I should not have feared it so much if a man who died next door to us had not been "laid out" in such a chilly shroud, and had not been so repellent in death. At least, I know that the first fright my spirit got was when my father lifted me up, a child not five years old, and held me quite close down to see what was inside that coffin. I never had a blow that struck so deep as did that sight; I never had a burn that seared so, nor a pain that tingled like it. Young as I was, something in me akin to a high dignity, resented this rude introduction to what then seemed the "King of Terrors." I never said it, but I always felt I had received an injury, suffered a wrong. On pleasant summer days, out in the bright, sunshiny weather, thoughts "too deep for tears" have come to me when I remembered seeing that. It seems to me that we intrude upon the royal little heart of childhood

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when we thrust upon it such a cruel blow. Always since then, in spite of all my faith and the fervors I have known religiously, there is about the thought of death the clammy horror stamped upon me when I saw that face. So I mused much why these things were, and could but wonder, if we had a God so kind, why He should make us fair and sweet as children, bright and happy in youth, serene and strong in middle-life and then send us away like that! I have often heard good people say they "thought it necessary to take their children early to a funeral," but why they must do this I can not see. If the first sight of death could be some sweet and lovely face, such as I have sometimes beheld since then, the impression on childhood's plastic little nature would surely be far more in keeping with what we believe death really is.

The years went on, and while my sister Mary was always willing, at least, I was strongly averse when "they came to talk religion," as I was wont to call it. I would sit silent and let them have their say, but seldom answered save in monosyllables, in case I must. We could not often go to church because we lived three miles away and the minister had to "preach around" at different appointments. Nor did we have much Sunday-school instruction. I am ashamed that what we had I can not specially recall, except that I learned by heart many chapters in the four Gospels, the first scripture that I ever committed to memory being what mother says is the first she ever learned, "In the beginning was the Word." We always had for Sunday reading the little Sunday-school Advocate, so well known to Methodist Sunday-school children, and the Myrtle, a pretty juvenile paper, the organ of the Free-Will Baptist Sunday-schools. Besides this, we took any number of books, sometimes five at once, out of the Sunday-school library, and nothing was more familiar to me than those words upon the title page, "Revised by D. P. Kidder." We afterward became acquainted with this honored son of the church when we came to live in Evanston. The things I loved to read, however, in all these books and papers, were stories of adventure, when I could get them — which was seldom — historical facts, dialogues about nature, of which there were many, and anything that taught me what sort of a world was this of which I had become a resident. "The Slave's Friend," that

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earliest book of all my reading, stamped upon me the purpose to help humanity, the sense of brotherhood, of all nations as really one, and of God as the equal Father of all races. This, perhaps, was a better sort of religion than some Sunday-school books would have given. It occurs to me that I have not estimated at its true value that nugget of a little fanatical volume published for children by the Anti-slavery Society. Some one gave me the "Life of Nathan Dickerman," whose charming face as represented in the frontispiece attracted me immensely, and I think it was for its sake I read the book through. He was a dear boy, a little saint, and I grieved over his death. The "Children's Pilgrim's Progress" was a charm, the sweetest book of all my childhood, and while I loved Christiana and the boys and Mercy, how like a personal Providence grew on my fancy the character of Greatheart! Feeling as I do even now, the impress of those earliest books, I grieve sadly to have missed the helpfulness and sweetness of nature I might have learned from "Little Lord Fauntleroy." Happy children of the present, do not fail to read it, every one!

After all, the best religion of a theoretical kind came to us in our Sunday hour of song. I early learned to play on the melodeon, as it was called, but had no fancy for the piano, and I remember how much meaning, sweet and solemn, we used to find in the deep tones of the instrument and of my father's voice as we sang the hymns we loved.

My first appearance on any stage, was in Oberlin, Ohio, at the age of three or four, when my father used to stand me up on a chair and have me sing for guests in my queer little voice, especially after a dinner, as I remember, and the song was always this:

"They called me blue-eyed Mary when friends and fortune smiled,
But oh, how fortunes vary! I now am sorrow's child;
Kind sir, then take these posies, they're fading like my youth,
But never, like these roses, shall wither Mary's truth."

When mother stood me up on a chair to speak, it was a more warlike "piece." Father would have something feminine, or else nothing at all; but mother would let me select what I liked, and this is a specimen of my choice at the age of ten years:

"O sacred Truth! thy triumph ceased a while,
And Hope, thy sister, ceased like thee to smile,

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When leagued oppression poured to Northern wars
Her whiskered pandours and her fierce hussars.
Tumultuous horror brooded o'er the van,
Presaging wrath to Poland — and to man!
Warsaw's last champion from her heights surveyed
Wide o'er the fields a waste of ruin laid —
‘Oh, Heaven’ he cried, ‘my bleeding country save!
Is there no hand on high to shield the brave?
Yet, though destruction sweep these lovely plains,
Rise, fellowmen! our country yet remains!
By that dread name, we wave the sword on high,
And swear for her to live! — with her to die!’

In vain, alas! in vain, ye gallant few,
From rank to rank your volleyed thunders flew;
Hope, for a season, bade the world farewell,
And Freedom shrieked, as Kosciusko fell!"

I can recall the stirring of my little heart as the drama of the brief poem proceeded, and how almost impossible it was for me to hold my voice steady so as to give the closing lines. Mother taught me how to speak it, where to put in the volume of sound and the soft, repressed utterance, and as for the pathos I knew where to put that in myself.

In 1868, at Warsaw, the capital of Poland, I stood beside the monument of Kosciusko, and while my tourist comrades read about it in their guide-books, I repeated softly to myself the poem I had learned on the Wisconsin prairies, and looked up with worshipful glance at the statue of the hero for whom my heart ached and my eyes filled with tears when I was but a child.

I came very near being named for Queen Victoria! Indeed, my mother was quite bent upon it. The youthful sovereign had recently come to her throne, and the papers were full of accounts of her earnest Christian character, while the highest expectations were cherished of what she would accomplish for humanity. But my father said it would look as if we, who were the most democratic people in the world, were catering to the popular idea, and, what was worse, regarded royalty with favor, so mother did not have her wish, but was well pleased with the name Frances Elizabeth Caroline, which she and father, in council with my score of uncles, aunts and cousins, concocted after much consultation. Frances was a "fancy name," so father said. Frances

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Burney, the English writer, and Frances Osgood, the American poet, were names that had attracted his attention, and he bestowed their Christian name upon what was then his only daughter. Elizabeth was for my mother's third sister, described in "Nineteen Beautiful Years" as one of the truest women that ever breathed, brave, delicate, and with a piquant speech and manner. Her life was sorrowful by reason of an unhappy marriage, and her death in the prime of her years was a release. Caroline (so stands my third name in the old family Bible) was my father's youngest sister, of whom it may justly be said,

"None knew her but to love her,
None named her but to praise."

Blithe as the birds, refreshing as the showers of spring, she led a rarely happy life. After the death of her noble husband, Hosea Town, she and her brother, Zophar Willard (he being a widower by reason of my mother's second sister's death), shared the same house, and, having a competence of this world's goods, were generous helpers of every worthy cause.

My mother had much care about our manners, for we saw nothing of society, and she knew that we were missing real advantages, while at the same time we were escaping real dangers. Of course we did not learn to dance, but mother had a whole system of calisthenics that she learned at Oberlin, which she used to put us through unmercifully, as I thought, since I preferred capering at my own sweet will, out-of-doors. There was a little verse that she would sing in her sweet voice and have us "take steps" to the time; but the droll part was that the verse was out of a missionary hymn. And this is as near as I ever came to dancing school! I only remember this:

"Bounding billows, cease thy motion,
Bear me not so swiftly o'er!
Cease thy motion, foaming ocean,
I will tempt thy rage no more.
For I go where duty leads me,
Far across the billowy deep,
Where no friend or foe can heed me,
Where no wife for me shall weep."

What a spectacle was that! Mother teaching her children dancing steps to words like these. She had a copy of Lord

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Chesterfield's letters to his son, and we read it over and over again. We used to try and carry out its ceremonial, to some extent, when we had our make-believe banquets and Fourth of Julys.

Our Mary carried conscientiousness to the point of morbidity. I remember one day when I was working in my little garden south of Forest Home, that Mary came around there, standing up and looking so tear-stained and discontented, and said, "Frank, I have done so and so; don't you think it was wrong?" and what she did was so infinitesimal as not to be worth the thinking of, much less repeating. The poor little thing went on and told me so many things, that I, who had no such "conscientious streak," as I used to call it, in me, said to her that I was tired of this; that I should have a talk with mother; that it was moral unhealthfulness, and that she never would be strong and happy if she did not give it up. I was the day-book of her ill-desert, and mother was the ledger. The books were posted every night. This was when Mary was about ten years of age. She afterward outgrew the morbid part and only retained the beautiful and lofty sense of duty in which she excelled all other persons whom I have ever known.

We have all heard the story of that philosophical boy who, when looking at a misshapen tree, said "Somebody must have stepped upon it when it was a little fellow."

In but one particular did a calamity of this sort befall me as a child, and that related to my personal appearance. Soothed, praised and left at liberty by my mother, that home deity of a sensitive child, all happy hopes were mine, save one — I wasn't the least bit good-looking! To make this fact more patent and pronounced, my younger sister was remarkably attractive. She was plump, and I was thin; she had abundant, pretty hair of brown; and mine, when a little girl, was rather sparse and positively red, though my dear mother would never permit me or anybody else to say so. When in those early days at Oberlin, some hateful boy would call out "Red head" as I passed, or when my quick temper had vented itself upon my brother in some spiteful way, and he used the same opprobrious epithet, I would run at once to mother and tell her with rebellious tears of this outrageous treatment. Her beautiful hand would smooth my hated hair with a tenderness so magical that under it the

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scanty strands seemed, for the moment, turned to gold, as the kindest of all voices said, "Don't mind those boys, Frankie, the poor things don't know what they are saying; you get your hair from your Grandfather Hill; his was quite bright-colored (she never would say "red" ) when he was a little boy, but it was a lovely gold-brown when he grew up; and so will yours be. I wish you could have seen your Grandpa Hill's queue, a thick braid smartly tied up with a black ribbon. I never saw a handsomer head of hair. We children cried when the fashion changed and father's queue had to be cut off. You are like him, every way, and he was the noblest-looking man in all the country round."

Sweet ingenuity of mother-love! How quickly it comforted my heart and so transformed my thoughts that I forgot myself and saw before me only the brave figure of my Grandpa Hill! But there were not wanting other witnesses who took sides with my mirror rather than with my mother. Our first dear music teacher, Mary King, of Milwaukee, a blind lady who had graduated from the Institute for the Blind, in New York, married an Englishman who worked for us, and he told me repeatedly that it was a great pity for a girl to be so "plain looking" as I, especially when she had a younger sister so attractive. One of two distant relatives, a girl near my own age, said on slight acquaintance, "Aren't you sorry to be homely, Frank?" and the other declared "to my very face" that I was "the drawn image of Mrs. B.," who was the farthest from good looks of anybody, because while, like myself, she had regular features, her eyes were pale, her complexion was lifeless, and her hair the color of old hay. But when I bemoaned myself to mother and Mary, of whom I could no more have been jealous than the left hand can be of the right, mother would say, "Come, now, Frank, this is getting a little monotonous. I think you wrong your Heavenly Father who has fitted you out so well," and then she would analyze each feature and put upon it the stamp of her approval, while my genial-hearted sister would echo every word and say, "Besides, you have father's nice figure and the small hands and feet of both houses, so, as mother says, it is downright sin for you to berate yourself in this way." Dear hearts! If they could but have waved a fairy wand over my head, so often bowed

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because of this one grief, how soon they would have endowed me with Diana's beauty and been far happier so than to have gained it for themselves.

In my teens I became a devoted student of Emerson and took this verse as a motto:

"I pray the prayer of Plato old,
Oh, make me beautiful within,
And may mine eyes the good behold,
In everything save sin."

"The mind hath features as the body hath" — mother used to din that thought into my ears; "Handsome is that handsome does," was my father's frequent proverb; "Never mind, Frank, if you aren't the handsomest girl in the school, I hear them say you are the smartest," were my brother's cheery words, and so that magic tie of home love and loyalty helped me along until the homeliest of mother's children slowly outgrew the pang of being so.

When I was thirty-five I made my first temperance speech away from home — Evanston and Chicago counting as home ever since I was eighteen. It was in Portland, Maine, September 14, 1874, and years afterward a friend sent me the letter that follows, written by a mother to her children, without a thought that it would ever meet my eye. What I have just revealed about my greatest personal disadvantage will make it easier to estimate the grateful rejoicing with which I read these lines:

"Last night I attended a temperance meeting in the elegant Baptist church here. I counted eighteen bouquets of flowers, besides a handsome hanging-basket over the pulpit. Though very large, the church was literally packed. The speakers were men and women. Miss Frances Willard, late Dean of the Woman's College in Northwestern University, made the speech of the evening. Her language was remarkable for simplicity and eloquence. She told the story of her first awakening to the need of women's work, in the great ‘Temperance Crusade.’ There was a pathos in some of the pictures which she drew that caused even the men to weep. Having been Principal of a ladies' School, she was very refined and highly cultivated. She has a straight, elegant figure, an oval face, a wealth of light brown hair, and a clear, bell-like voice made her a very effective speaker. She is the first woman I ever heard in public. Four others spoke. All wore their bonnets."

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Now, though I knew this dear lady must have sat far back, so that she didn't even note my eye-glasses, I thanked God and took courage as I read her no doubt honestly-intentioned lines.

My mother's greatest friend and solace was Mrs. Hodge, wife of the Yale College graduate and Oberlin College tutor in Latin, who, for his children's sake, taught our district school in 1854. Our homes were about a mile apart and their "cheek by jowl conferences," as my father playfully called them, occurred perhaps once a fortnight and related to their two favorite themes, "How to be Christians ourselves," and "How to train our little ones." Mr. and Mrs. Hodge had decided literary gifts and were well versed in the best English authors. To her I went, by my mother's advice, to read my compositions in verse and prose. She was kind but not enthusiastic. From her unsparing criticisms I went swiftly home to mother to get my spiritual strength renewed. But I think now that Mrs. Hodge, who under favoring fortunes would have been a successful literary woman, took a wise view of the situation. "Frank will have a long youth," was one of her oracular remarks to my mother; "she matures so slowly in body and mind. At fifteen years old she has the physique of a girl of twelve years, and though in some things very acute, she has the crudeness of penmanship, pastime and manner that belong to childhood. When I hear the large words she uses, and then see her down in the mud playing marbles with my little boys, I can only explain the incongruity on the hypothesis that she patterned her talk after that of her parents and her play after her own childish fancy."

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Part II: A Romping Girl

Forest Home. "Every Place is Haunted, and None so Much as the One Where we Lived in our Youth."

Chapter I.

MY APPRENTICESHIP TO NATURE.

"These as they change, Almighty Father, these
Are but the varied God; the rolling year
Is full of Thee; forth in the pleasing spring
Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love."
— Thomson's Seasons.

The above lines from a book early and often read by me, express what, from my earliest recollection, has been to me the constant, universal voice that speaks from Nature's heart. I loved the poets because they uttered the wonder and the worship of which my soul was full; my mother's memory was stored with their words of inspiration, and from her lips I learned much of Coleridge, Cowper, Thomson, and other great interpreters. I have never elsewhere heard Wordsworth's "Intimations of Immortality" repeated with the delicate appreciation that was in her voice when she once more rendered it for me recently, on the verge of her eighty-fifth year.

How often looking up into the heavens from the wide prairies of our farm, I repeated, almost with tears, what she had taught me from Joseph Addison:

"The spacious firmament on high
And all the blue ethereal sky
With spangled heavens, a shining frame,
Their Great Original proclaim;
The unwearied sun from day to day
Doth his Creator's power display,
And publishes to every land
The work of an Almighty hand."

"Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God," has always been a truth upspringing like a prayer out of my heart, and turning bitter things to sweet.

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My mother says that her own mother, an unschooled but a God-smitten nature, who knew nothing of the poets, loved to walk the woods and fields alone, and to go forth under the open sky at night, praising with voice of rapture, the great and blessed Spirit who had made the universe so beautiful.

My father had a heart that beat closer to Nature's own, than mother's, even: she felt the moral aspects of birds and woods and sky; he loved them simply for themselves. He felt at one with them; their sweet, shy secrets seemed to be open to him. The ways of birds and butterflies, the habits of gophers, squirrels, and ants — he seemed to know about them as a faun might, and he taught us, Sunday and every day, to learn them; to know the various herbs and what their uses were; to notice different grasses and learn their names; to tell the names of curious wild flowers. When he found something new to him in any floral line, he brought it home as a great curiosity to "study up." As a gardener and pomologist, he had few equals, and, later on, he was for years president of the State Agricultural and Horticultural Society. He always carried his little spy-glass, folded two-foot measure, and pocket thermometer, teaching us how to use them. He carried a tape-line, too, and was fond of measuring the girth of trees, and he taught us to make a thorough study of the weather as well as of the woods.

All these observations were made at "Forest Home" a farm in Wisconsin where we lived from my seventh to my nineteenth year, a farm that we made out of the woods and prairies, little by little, putting up all the buildings and stocking it so well that it became the prize farm of Rock county.

The way of it was this: after four years of hard study in Oberlin College, my father's health, which never was strong, showed symptoms of a decline, and he decided to go West. There was no railroad and so we put our household goods into white-covered wagons, of which father drove one; my brother Oliver, twelve years old, another; and my mother the third. In front of her, on father's writing-desk, sat my little sister and I, aged seven and four. The big Newfoundland dog, Fido, trotted behind this procession. When we reached Chicago we found so many mud holes with big signs up, "No bottom here," that father said he "wouldn't be hired to live in such a place." When we saw the

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great Lake Michigan, we little girls were afraid. Oliver brought us pretty pebbles with wave-ripples marked on them, and I threw them away, saying they "made me hear the roaring of that awful sea." Once the horse that mother drove went down in the quicksand almost to the ears, and men had to come with rails from the fences and pry him out. We never traveled on Sunday, and it took us over three weeks to reach our destination, and after living in Janesville, the county-seat, a few weeks, while the house on the farm was building, we moved into it before it had any windows or much of any roof. But it was beautiful June weather, and we children thought the whole affair a sort of joke and "as good as a picnic." The cook-stove was set up out-of-doors, and the shavings and bits of shingles made nice playthings. Oliver built a play-house for his sisters, with a make-believe oven where we could have a real fire, and also a make-believe stable for Fido, who was our make-believe horse. Father's tenants, who lived in a log-house by the beautiful Rock river near by, brought us fish and game, and vegetables from their garden. There were calves, pigs and chickens to play with, and we children, who had always lived in town, thought there was never anything half so delightful as this new home in the edge of the fine groves of oak and hickory that lined the river, and looking out on the prairie that stretched away toward the east until it met the sky.

As years passed on, we learned to love it more and more, and never thought of being lonesome; though, except the tenants, we had no neighbors within a mile and never went anywhere in general or saw anybody in particular. We had no toys except what we made for ourselves, but as father had a nice "kit" of carpenter's tools, we learned to use them, and made carts, sleds, stilts, cross-guns, bows and arrows, "darts," and I don't know what besides, for our amusement. Oliver was very kind to his sisters and let us do anything we liked that he did. He was not one of those selfish, mannish boys, who think they know everything and their sisters nothing, and who say, "You're only a girl, you can't go with me," but when he was in the fields plowing he would let us ride on the beam or on the horse's back; and when he went hunting I often insisted on going along, and he never made fun of me but would even let me load the gun, and I can

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also testify that he made not the slightest objection to my carrying the game!

Once when we had lived on the farm several years, a bright girl came from Janesville to spend a week with us. Her name was Flora Comfort, and she was our pastor's daughter. She told us "She should think we would get lonesome, away down there in the woods." To this remark we took great exceptions, for we had begun to think that " Forest Home" was the "hub of the universe," and to pity everybody who didn't have the pleasure of living there. So I spoke up and said, "If we ought to have a city here, we will, have one. It won't take long to show you how that is done. You town people depend on others for your good times, but, as mother is always saying, we have to depend on our own resources, and I propose now that we set at work and have a town of our own."

This proposition met with great favor. We told father of it when he came home from Janesville, whither he went on business almost daily, and he said, "All right, go ahead."

So a consultation was held in "The Studio," as I called a room fitted up in the attic, where my sister and I were wont to mould in clay, making all sorts of utensils as well as what we were pleased to call "statues," of whose general effect the less said the better. There we consulted long and loudly about the plan of a city, and who should be the officers, who edit the paper, how the streets should be named, and many other subjects of equal import. At last little Mary grew tired and went to sleep on the old "settee," while Oliver, Flora and I held high discourse, the burden of which was a name for the new city and how it should be governed. We decided at once that it should have no saloons, no billiard halls, and that it would not need a jail. Oliver was a great wit, and amused himself by introducing outdoor antics into this dignified assembly, much to my disgust, and I kept telling him that if he dropped the make-believe for a minute he would spoil it all, whereupon he picked up a bit of light-colored clay from my work-bench, and, taking off a piece, flattened it out and clapped it across my nose, saying, "Why, Frank, what a nice impression I could get from this."

"Mr. Willard," I replied sternly, "you forget the proprieties

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of the occasion; you are not now my brother Oliver, but a gentleman acting with me in an official capacity."

A loud ha! ha! from the gentleman interrupted "the proprieties" still more — waked little Mary and caused the dog Fido to set up a howl of annoyance.

"Haven't you made any plan yet? Am I to have an office?" murmured little Mary from among her pillows.

"Little girls should be quiet when statesmen are in conversation," said Oliver in a deep voice. Mary, being of an amiable disposition, was easily consoled by the cooky that I placed in her hand, and munched it contentedly, while Oliver, Flora and I continued to talk of the "resources of the corporation." Then the debate proceeded until at my suggestion we decided upon "Fort City" as the appropriate name, because we could thus combine the idea of adventure with that of life in town. At ten o'clock, father tapped on the door as a signal that young persons of our size would do well to seek "tired Nature's sweet restorer."

"Rome was not built in a day," neither was Fort City. We studied carefully the pages of father's favorite Janesville Gazette, and copied out names for the streets. Mother said of course the road in front of the house must be Broadway, because that was the most famous street in America. So we put up a shingle painted white, on which, from a pasteboard where our ingenious father had cut the word in large letters, we painted the name black and plain as print. The "by-road" at right angles, that led to the river, we called Market Street, because it ran along past the barn, the cow-yard, granary, etc. The barn was "Warehouse of J. F. Willard," the cow-yard, "City Market," the well, "City Fountain," the hen-house, "Mrs. Willard's Family Supply Store;" the granary was "City Elevator," and the pig-pen, "City Stock-Yards." We had a "Board of Trade," and "bought, sold and got gain," the question of money having been at last decided in favor of specie payments in little round bits of tin, representing silver; while some handsome yellow leather, that father brought us, was cut into circles representing gold, and stamped to stand for any sum from one to fifty dollars. But I insisted that we "must have bank notes or there was no use in pretending to be bankers," so the city treasurer finally issued some handsome bills painted

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by Mary on paper that had been nicely pasted over small strips of cloth.

A good deal of work was done on the highways, for we were dear lovers of old Mother Earth, and in the twinkling of an eye would leave the editor's sanctum where we had been laboriously printing The Fort City Tribune, and taking the fire-shovel, one would begin spading the street up to a higher level, while the other would fit bricks and pebbles into a queer mosaic to make it more like the pavements of the town. A few minutes later, perhaps, we would be walking on the ridge of the house, with an old rake handle for our "balance-pole," then crawling in at a dormer window, we would scurry down the back stairs and have a shooting match out by the well, with bow and arrows. For Oliver and Loren, a boy who worked for us, had declared that "the girls" liked the city part of this great "make-believe" too well, and didn't seem to remember that this was, after all, only a city in a fort, of which the fort part was by far the most important. The boys insisted that it was high time to have an attack by Indians, and that if we girls didn't agree to it they "wouldn't play city" any more.

Now the fact was that we girls did not at all object to a skirmish with the redskins, but we had played that often, while this game of the city was new. It was agreed, therefore, that when corn-husking was over there should be a regular Indian invasion.

I will give a few specimens of our laws, copying them from the very book in which they were first written by me, a wee pamphlet bound in yellow paper:

LAWS OF FORT CITY. — VOL. I.

(BY AUTHORITY.) I.

OFFICER'S LAWS.
I. The officers shall be elected once a month by ballot.

They shall consist of a Mayor, Secretary, Treasurer, Tax-gatherer and Postmaster.

The duty of the mayor shall be to preside at all meetings of the officers. His word during the meetings of the officers shall be perfect law. If any of the officers shall refuse to obey him, he shall immediately turn himself into a constable, serve a writ of attachment on said officer, and the officer shall pay to the mayor, a fine of fifty dollars; one third of the same fine shall be paid to the mayor by any officer who, on rising to speak in any of the
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meetings, does not make a bow to the mayor. The mayor shall wear a badge at all meetings of the society, and whenever he goes on a visit to any of the officers; also to concerts, shows, lectures, or other performances of a public nature. If anybody besides the mayor takes it upon himself or herself to wear a badge, he or she shall pay to the mayor fifty dollars for the first offense, and fifty more for every time after the first. Before he does anything else the mayor shall be sworn in by the secretary in the following manner:

"I promise faithfully to discharge the duties of my office for one month to the very best of my ability; this I promise on my sacred honor."

He shall stand up and hold up his right hand, and repeat this after the secretary, and then sign his name to it, and the secretary shall keep the paper, but the mayor may keep the secretary's oath.

II. GENERAL LAWS.
1. No officer shall go into any other officer's room without permission from the owner, or forfeit fifty dollars for the first offense, and an additional ten for each future offense. For the second he shall pay the fine just mentioned and shall have his hands tied behind him and be kept in the city pound for five minutes in total darkness. If an officer goes into another's room and the other does not see him, he need not pay any fine nor be put in the pound; or if the owner of the room be absent from the city this law has no effect. A person may also go into another's room provided they are sent there by any person whom they must obey, but they must never try to get sent in.

2. Mrs. Mary T. Willard shall, on all occasions, act as judge in law cases as to which side has gained the day.

3. If any person has seen or heard of a thing he wishes to have, he shall have it for all of any officer of this city: that is, after he has said, I speak for that thing, or something of that sort. After that, if any officer or signer of this book tries to get it away, or persuade the owner not to give it to the one who spoke first, said person shall be fined two hundred dollars for the first offense and twice as much for every future offense. Since it may not always be some thing that the speaker wants, the law is that supposing it is to go a walking, or a riding, or read some book or paper then in the hands of another, whatever it is, it is secured to the one who speaks for it first, if he can get it, for all any one else, except the owner. If, sometimes, two speak for a thing, at a time, the mayor shall decide who shall have it, only we promise never to speak for a thing that is unfair or unreasonable, or that we know we can not get.

4. If any of the officers find any of the others' things, he shall immediately return it without asking or expecting any pay, and show himself or herself a polite gentleman or lady.

Oliver wished to hasten our Indian fight and so proposed that we girls should help him husk the corn, which we were glad to do for the outdoor's fun of it. We were fitted out with "husking-pins" —

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bits of hard wood whittled to a point and fastened to the right middle finger by a piece of leather. With this the tough husk was torn open and the ear of corn wrenched from the stalk. I took a little cricket and seated myself beside a big "shock" of corn, resolved to run a race with Oliver as to who should husk the most that day, with the understanding that Mary should be allowed to get the stalk of corn ready and pass it along to me. She was also to take care of the tassel that topped out each ear, for they were sold as skeins of silk in mother's handsome dry-goods store.

The dog prowled about, carrying an ear of corn from one of the rival heaps to another, following a rabbit scent, or bow-wowing on general principles as best suited his notions.

"Now, as to that Indian raid," sang out Oliver from beside his little stack of corn, " I will head the attack from out-of-doors, and Fido shall be with me. You may stay in the house and have Loren to help you. Mary can look on, but must not be in the fight; that's a fair divide."

" No," said I, " let it be this way: you and Loren and the dog may club together out-of-doors. Mother, Mary and I will defend the fort inside, and I'd like to see you ‘effect an entrance,’ as the war books call it."

"Well, I'm surprised at you for being so risky," he replied.

"I warn you that you give all the fighting force to us at the start, and if your defense doesn't turn out a minus quantity, I miss my guess."

"Very well, you'll miss it," was my vainglorious answer, and so the great attack was planned.

It was about four o'clock of the brief winter day. Snow covered the ground, and the recent beginning of a thaw followed by a sudden freeze had made a solid, slippery crust, which I thought to be a disadvantage to the boys in their attack. Every door and window of the large, rambling farm-house was carefully fastened. Mother had got her baking out of the way, and the loaves of her toothsome "salt-rising" bread reposed upon the kitchen table. The fat Maltese cat, "Trudge," purred on the hearth, all unconscious of approaching hostilities.

Tired though she was, mother entered heartily into the project of the hour. Bridget was gone for a week's visit at her

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brother-in-law's, otherwise the women would have had a force unfairly strong. Mother had the brain of a statesman and the courage of a major-general, but it was always her plan to put her children forward, and then to help them by her quiet counsel. So I was leader of the forces inside the "Fort." I arrayed myself in an old coat of Oliver's, upon which Mary had sewed some gilt paper epaulets, and I fastened a hickory sword at my side. But all this was simply a dumb show. "Pump the milk-pail full of water and have the dipper handy," was my " general order number one." "Let Mary keep up a bright outlook. She's not to fight, but she can watch out for the enemy, as Rebecca did when she helped Ivanhoe," was number two. "Let's have a bit of spare-rib ready with which to coax the dog away from those two horrid Injuns," was number three.

"Now, mother, you keep a sharp lookout at the front door. Take the broom for your weapon, and whenever you see a head, hit it."

"What do you propose to do?" asked mother, laughing, while Mary jumped up and down with glee, and flattened her audacious little nose against the window pane, saying in mock alarm, "The booger-man will catch you if you don't watch out!" I explained as soberly as if mother and I had not talked over the whole plan the day before. "It is my part to generalissimo the forces, watch the back door and have this garden syringe ready to give those red rascals a shower bath if they dare to show their heads."

It was now getting dark and not a sign of life was to be seen. We could hear the sheep bleating in their fold behind the barn and the gossip of the hen-house was faintly borne to our keen ears, as our beloved "Cochin Chinas," "Polands" and "Brah-mapootras" clambered to their roosts. It was almost milking time and yet no attack was made; no bark of Fido betrayed the wily foe. Where were those boys?

Suddenly we heard a war-whoop and a pow-wow that were enough to make one's blood run cold. Mary shrieked in fright, but pluckily held her post, while I muttered, "We shall need a gag for the spy after this!"

Mother, convulsed with laughter, raised her broom with threatening attitude, and called out, "I will die at my post!"

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I charged the syringe and placed it over a chair-back, ready to swing in whatever direction was most available. Another Indian screech, and the cellar door that opened into the kitchen fell flat (the boys had taken out all the screws but one); the dog came tearing in, but received such a deluge of water that he ran howling under the table, while the cat, fat and all, flew to the top of the sink and hissed defiance at the invaders from her safe perch. Oliver, with waving feather and face red with war-paint, dashed up to me, and with a terrific whoop, knocked the water apparatus from my hand, and waved his wooden scalp-knife, while Mary jumped on the table and set up a wail of disappointment to think I had been beaten; but mother claimed that the fort's garrison was not altogether defeated, because, with her broom, she had chased Loren down cellar, and, clapping the door into its place, was at that moment literally " holding the fort" against him. The struggle, like many of which we read in more ambitious records, was "short, sharp and decisive," for Loren returned to the attack, and, having Oliver to help him from within, soon succeeded in forcing the door, in spite of my fierce deluge down my brother's spine, and mother's vigorous flourishes impartially distributed among the two boys and their four-footed ally.

When the Indians were finally victorious, and sat by in flaming red shirts, worn over their usual garments, and with wooden tomahawks of frightful size, while their waving roosters' feathers stuck out above their heads (though Oliver's were somewhat lopped by reason of the water), mother said, "You know right well that in the open field we are a match for you. This taking of the fort has been done by your miserable Indian strategy."

"Yes, indeed," we girls chimed in, "you had to come sneaking around so that we hadn't a fair chance."

"Of course we did," smiled Oliver; "that's what we're for. You see, I had been reading in ‘Western Scenes’ about some Indians that came under the snow, so Loren and I just dug our way under the solid crust to the cellar window, which we had already loosened, and burst in the door, that we had fixed to our liking, and what could you do after that?"

Sure enough, the boys had won, "Indian fashion," and nobody could complain.

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"I don't like such plays," said Mary, sitting on mother's lap; "do you?" patting her cheek.

"Why, no. I like the city better than the fort," replied mother. "But we did this to give the boys a frolic, and as they got the better of us, they won't want another such game very soon."

"The trouble is," said I, not feeling very much elated just then, "the trouble is, not that we were outfought, but that we were outwitted. The next time you want an Indian fight, boys, we'll be ready for you at all points."

But the discussion of the battle ended abruptly when mother reminded the flushed combatants of the time, and soon besiegers and besieged were busy in removing all traces of the conflict. Oliver began the peaceful work of mending the door and fastening the cellar window, while we quickly set all things in order in the kitchen. Loren, after taking off his Indian "toggery," sped out into the darkness to do his evening chores, whistling merrily as he went, and long before the early bed-time came, all the inhabitants of Fort City had settled down to the peaceful ways of civilized life.

In all our plays (and we "kept a hotel," among the rest, in a regular "shanty" play-house that was built for us by a carpenter when the big barn was going up), Mary was mine hostess, and I mine host. Mother did not talk to us as girls, but simply as human beings, and it never occurred to me that I ought to "know house-work" and do it. Mary took to it kindly by nature; I did not, and each one had her way. Mother never said, "You must cook, you must sweep, you must sew," but she studied what we liked to do and kept us at it with no trying at all. There never was a busier girl than I and what I did was mostly useful. I knew all the carpenter's tools and handled them: made carts and sleds, cross-guns and whip-handles; indeed, all the toys that were used at Forest Home we children manufactured. But a needle and a dishcloth I could not abide — chiefly, perhaps, because I was bound to live out-of-doors. This was so from the beginning, and perhaps it had something to do with our noble mother's willingness to live out in the country away from everybody but her own. Anyhow, her three children were far

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better amused because left to amuse themselves. I pity the poor little things that have so many toys all "brand new" from the store, and get no chance to use their own wits at invention and to develop their own best gifts. "Fort City" taught Oliver and his sisters a better way.

What to do on Sunday with these restless spirits was a serious question, for father and mother had the old Puritan training. It was in their birth and bones that the Sabbath was a day holy unto the Lord. This feeling was even stronger in my father, perhaps, because his father was the son of Elder Elijah Willard, of Dublin, N. H., for forty years pastor in that parish, a good man and a righteous, who trained his children strictly in faith and practice. Perhaps, also, the lawyer-like character of his mind had something to do with his greater severity in holding us to the white line of what he deemed our duty. For himself, he would not shave or black his boots; he would not read or write a letter; he would not so much as look in the dictionary for a word upon the Sabbath day. He said, "The children must have habits." This was the most frequent phrase he used about their training. He never said "good habits," so that I grew up with the idea that there were no habits except good ones! He said, "You must draw your lines and set your stakes, for if you don't you will be just nobody." So he decided that no calls or visits should be received on Sunday, which was easy enough to observe, as there was nobody to come but the birds, and nowhere to go except to the fields and pasture. He also said that no books or papers should be read except those of a strictly religious nature. Mother did not interfere with all this by any word, but we felt a difference, and had a sense of greater "elbow room" with her. A little incident illustrates her tact. In the early years of our farm life, one New Year's eve came on Saturday and our small presents were given and put away without waiting for morning, because father thought it wouldn't be right to have them on Sunday. One can hardly imagine the bottled-up condition of children in such a case. Fortunately for Oliver, he had a Sunday book, "Austin's Voice to Youth," and little Mary had a child's edition of Pilgrim's Progress, so they could get at work on their presents. But, alas for poor me! My prayer and dream had been for months, "some pictures to look at on Sunday," and I had a slate, instead.

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To be sure I had devoutly desired a slate, for I had imagined any amount of things that could be written and drawn upon it, but the rule of the house did not permit such a week-day article to come into use upon the Sabbath. At last I hit upon a plan, and going to mother, — I did not dare suggest even this to the revered "Squire," as the farmers called my father — I said, in a pleading voice, "Mayn't I have my new slate if I'll promise not to draw anything but meeting houses?" (That's what they called churches in those days.) Mother laughed in spite of herself at this bit of childish ingenuity, and said, "Yes, you may, my little girl, and mamma will make you a pattern to go by." So there was peace and quiet, while mother, who had much skill with her pencil, made a "meeting house," and I was the envy of my brother and sister, who had before thought themselves the favored ones.

This is a handy place in which to mention that, though we were all good at it, the premium coaxer of the family was little Mary. Whenever the others wanted a master-stroke in this line, they sent her as their ambassador at court. Mother disliked to let us be exposed to the damp, changeable days when winter was just giving way to spring, and as we loved "outdoors" better than any other place, we would send Mary, who, climbing on mother's knee and stroking her face with her soft little hands, would murmur in the sweetest of voices, "Dear, nice, good, pretty, beautiful mamma, it's warm and cool and comfortable, and won't you please let us go out and play?" After which speech and performance mamma generally did.

But to return to the Forest Home Sunday. In the early days, before the new bridge across Rock river, we were four miles from church, and as we cast in our fortunes with the Methodists (though mother was a Congregationalist), we were "on a circuit," and the minister came only once a fortnight or once a month. Then we were dressed in our Sunday best, the big wagon was brought out with Jack and Gray, and family and farm hands bundled in — the latter to be dropped at the Catholic church. But my parents soon decided not to leave the house alone, for prairie fires sometimes crept unpleasantly near, cattle broke into fields or garden, and there was no dinner when we got home. In those days such a being as a "tramp" had not been heard of, and in our twelve years of isolation on

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this farm, not one theft, much less any fright or danger, befell us brave pioneers. Once a drunken man came in to warm himself; once we found behind a straw-stack signs of men having slept there, and some slices of bread hidden under the stack; sometimes men stopped to ask about the "river road to Beloit," or how far it was to Janesville, but that was all. The present records of fright and peril to our country folks seem strange and pitiful to one who remembers how safe and peaceful was their lot long time ago.

We made this plan at Forest Home: One Sunday father should "hold the fort," the next, mother, and the third, Oliver. Whoever did this had to get the dinner ready, and as both father and son were famous cooks, the plan worked well. Indeed, to see my brother brandish the carving-fork in air as we approached on our return from church, and to inhale the rich aroma of his roast chicken, nice home-raised vegetables and steaming coffee, was an event. Sunday dinner was to us the central point of the day, and served to keep it in fragrant memory, notwithstanding its many deprivations.

For us it was all very well, under the peculiar circumstances, but I do not approve of a Sunday dinner that deprives working people of their rest and their opportunity to go to church.

Careful as he was, from training and long habit, about what we should read upon the Sabbath day, father was quite easy-going when we could once get him out-of-doors. He would whistle to the dogs — for when we came to have a thousand sheep we kept three of them — and off we would go together to the pasture, father, we girls and the dogs, leaving Oliver lying upon his face on the front piazza, reading his beloved "D'Aubigne's History of the Reformation," and mother with the big family Bible on her lap. As we wended our way down by the grassy bank of the broad, tree-shaded river, I liked to lag behind and "skip" a stone, in which art I was something of an adept. But Mary would wave her hand for me to "Come on," and I would smilingly desist. I liked to clip a fresh twig from the alders, or to make a " whistle" with my jack-knife, but father said, "Frances, you know I don't allow you to keep up your carpenter work on Sunday." Whereupon I answered with a queer pucker about the lips, that would have been a smile, only it didn't dare to, "But, father,

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can't I whittle if I'll promise that I won't make anything?" and he agreed to that. He would even cut a chip from the gnarled old cedar tree, and, after smoothing it, give it to us, and say, "Did you ever smell anything more wholesome?" I liked this so much that even now the odor of red cedar, though but in a lead pencil's handle, brings back to me the river, softly flowing, the sentinel trees, my father's manly figure marching at the head, Mary and me walking demurely after, in the path the cows had worn.

On Sunday afternoon, almost the only leisure time she had, mother would walk a little while with us children in the orchard, taking scissors along with her, and clipping a sprig of caraway or fennel for "the girls," or a bunch of sweet-smelling pinks for Oliver, from the pretty little beds in the heart of the orchard, where no one was privileged to go except with mother. Here she talked to us of God's great beauty in the thoughts He works out for us to learn about Him by; she taught us tenderness toward every little sweet-faced flower and piping bird; she made us see the shapes of clouds, and what resemblances they bore to things upon the earth; she made us love the Heart that is at Nature's heart. Thus it could not be said of us, as of poor Peter Bell,

"In vain through every changeful year
Did Nature lead him as before;
A primrose by the river's brim,
A yellow primrose was to him,
But it was nothing more."

Father did not "talk religion," as we called it, very much, nor did our mother. They had family prayers always, with Scott's "Practical Observations" at the close of the Bible reading. They always had a blessing at the table, and if father did not ask it, mother did. They did not insist that the children read the Bible for themselves, and I was very shy about it, the tendency of my mind to doubt and question revealing itself even then; when, at a very early age, the Testament was specially read to me on Sunday, I had asked, "How do you know God sent it?" And if the family Bible was sometimes open before me, I would say with a toss of the head, when mother expressed pleasure at the sight, "I'm looking at the births and deaths," or, "I'm only

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reading the Apocrypha." My mother had the good sense never to seem shocked by this bit of bravado, but patted the busy little head with her kind, steady hand, saying, "My little girl will be a missionary, yet." She knew these symptoms were not of ugliness, but just the prancing about of a mettlesome steed before it settled to life's long and difficult race. She knew the more she argued and reproved, the worse the case would be, so she just lived the gospel right along and taught its precepts and prayed much.

We seldom had the opportunity to attend church on Sabbath evening, but our song service at home was, as already mentioned, an inspiration and delight. My father had a fine bass voice and mother a tender, well-trained soprano. There were no "Gospel Hymns," but in the Mother's Assistant — a family magazine that they subscribed to for some years — were sweet songs of Christian faith, and the old Methodist hymn-book with its "Guide me, O Thou Great Jehovah," and Kirke White's "The Star of Bethlehem," used just about to break my heart in the sweet summer twilights, though I wouldn't have had anybody know, save Mary. Fair and bright, in spite of occasional shadows, seemed those years of childhood; still fairer and brighter they seem now.

Father made us big paper hats, shaped like cornucopias, trimmed with peacock feathers and painted with "Injun fights," by ingenious sister Mary. Then mother sewed for us belts of bright red flannel, in which were stuck wooden swords, bunches of arrows, etc., as we marched away on hunting expeditions. Father was so careful of his girls and so much afraid that harm would come to us if we went horseback riding, that I determined to have a steed of my own, contrived a saddle, and trained a favorite heifer, "Dime," to act in that capacity. "She can do it if she has a mind to," was my unvarying reply to all the ingenious objections of Oliver, who said that a creature which chewed the cud and divided the hoof was never meant for riding purposes. He also claimed that Dime did her part when she gave milk, and ought not to be put through at this rate. But I took the ground that "cows were a lazy set, and because they never had worked was no reason why they shouldn't begin now. Up in Lapland they made a great many uses of the deer that people didn't where we live, and he was all the better and more famous animal

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as a result of it. So, since father wouldn't let me ride a horse, I would make Dime the best trained and most accomplished cow in the pasture; and Dime would like it, too, if they'd only let her alone." So with much extra feeding and caressing, and no end of curry-combing to make her coat shine, I brought Dime up to a high degree of civilization. She would "moo" whenever I appeared, and follow me about like a dog; she would submit to being led by a bridle, which Loren, always willing to help, had made out of an old pair of reins; she was gradually broken to harness and would draw the hand-sleds of us girls; but the crowning success was when she "got wonted" (which really meant when she willed) to the saddle, and though I had many an inglorious tumble before the summit of my hopes was reached, I found myself, at last, in possession of an outlandish steed, whose every motion threatened a catastrophe, and whose awkwardness was such that her trainer never gave a public exhibition of the animal's powers, but used to ride out of sight down in the big ravine, and only when the boys were busy in the field. Jack and Gray were the chief farm horses, and to see Oliver and Loren mount these, and go tearing over the prairies like wild Indians, was my despair. This was the one pleasure of farm life that was denied the girls, but when I was fifteen, father declared, at mother's earnest request, that "the girls might now ride the horses whenever their mother thought best." Many a time did she take her stand in the road and watch us while we galloped "to the ravine" near "Bluff Wood," the Hodge homestead, and back again. To offset my "trained cow," Mary had a goat for which panniers (side-pockets) had been made, in one of which a nice, toothsome lunch was often placed, which Bridget took great pleasure in providing, and in the other, our sketching materials. A sheep-bell was tied on the goat's neck and to see us with our tall caps, red belts, and cross-guns on shoulder, wending our way to the groves along the river bank, while the dog Fido scoured the bushes for gophers, often returning to walk in the procession, was the delight of mother's heart, for well she knew how pleasant and how healthful all this was to her two girls. Mary wore the official badge of "Provider," for the practical part of the expedition was in her charge. This badge was a bit of carved pine, like a small cane, painted in many colors and decorated with a ribbon.

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The one who wore it had the "say," about what the lunch should be, and where and when it should be eaten; also whether Fido had behaved well enough to go along, and many other questions not needful to repeat. When the time came, a nice white tablecloth was spread, and some of mother's light, sweet bread, with butter that fairly smelled of violets, and nice sugar strewn over it, was set in order, with a piece of pumpkin pie and a few hickory nuts. Our drink was water, bright from the crystal spring up the bank, and we brought it in a bottle and drank it through a clean-cut straw. We asked a blessing at the table, and acted like grown folks, so far as we could. This generally closed the expedition, but before eating we would fish, chiefly for "minnies" (or minnow fish), and we usually had several of these little swimmers in dishes at home, which was a pity, for they died after a few days. We did not mean to be unkind to animals, for mother had taught us better, but we didn't think, sometimes. One of the first bits of verse mother ever repeated and explained to us was this, from her favorite poet, Cowper:

"I would not rank among my list of friends,
Though graced with polished manners and fine sense,
Yet wanting sensibility, the man
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm."

Then there were other beautiful lines on the same subject, by Wordsworth, I think, which closed with

"This lesson, shepherd, let us two divide,
Taught both by what life shows and what conceals,
Never to blend our pleasure or our pride
With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels."

We used to shoot at a mark with arrows and became very good at hitting, so much so that at my request, Mary, whose trust in her sister was perfect, stood up by a post with an auger-hole in it, and let me fire away and put an arrow through the hole when her sweet blue eye was just beside it. But this was wrong, and when we rushed in "to tell mother," she didn't smile, but made us promise "never, no, never," to do such a thing again.

Down by the river bank, Mary took her pencil and made sketches, such as they were, while I delighted to lie stretched out upon the grass, look up into the blue sky and "think my

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thoughts." Sometimes I would reach out my hand appealingly toward heaven, and say to her: "See there! could you resist a hand that so much wanted to clasp your own? Of course you couldn't, and God can not, either. I believe that, though I do not see that He reaches down to me." And lovely, trusting Mary answered: "I know He does, for mother says so."

One day when we girls were thus having our good times down by the river, the three Hodge boys came along, hunting for birds' nests. "But you mustn't carry any away!" said Mary, greatly stirred. "You may climb the trees and look, if you want to see the eggs or little ones, but you can't hurt a birdie, big or little, in our pasture." The boys said their mother told them the same thing, and they only wanted to "look." So Mary and I showed them under the leafy covert some of the brown thrush's housekeeping, and the robin's, too, and then we told them that since they were such kind boys, and didn't want to kill the pretty creatures God had made, and since they had just come West and didn't know all the ways we had out here, we would help them to "drown out a gopher," and they might have it if they wanted to.

John was delighted; Rupert's eyes fairly danced, but thoughtful Jamie, "the preacher," as they called him, said, "But why do you drown out a gopher? Is that a kind thing to do?"

"Well, it is this way," explained the Western prairie girls; "the gopher digs up the corn and spoils the crop. Many a time we've dropped corn into the hills for Oliver or father till we've tired ourselves out getting it under ground, and along would come this black-striped yellow-coat and eat up our crop before it was started. So father said it was our plain duty to catch as many as we could, and we've set traps and tried all sorts of ways, but the one the boys like best is drowning out. Father told us that the poet Cowper, who writes so well about kindness to animals, says ‘Our rights are paramount and must extinguish theirs;’ that is, when they spoil our work, we are obliged to spoil them, for the general good."

The boys thought there was common sense in this, and I led the way to a hole in the ground about as large around as an ear of corn, where Fido had been clawing for some time. "The way

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we do is to pour water into the hole, stand there with a big stick or a shovel, and when the gopher comes crawling up, Fido snatches him by the throat, and the poor, drenched thing doesn't have long to suffer, you may be sure," said Mary. So John went to the house for a couple of pails and he and Rupert brought water from the river, Jamie and we watched at the hole, one with a shovel and the others with sticks, and the dog was wild with importance and delight. Pretty soon the poor, wet gopher crawled to the front, his mouth open, and his long teeth in full view. "Whack" went the shovel, but "snap" went old Fido's jaws, and the "happy corn-fields," as I said, claimed the destroyer so unwelcome here. "What! you don't think that gophers will have another life?" said preacher Jamie, quite shocked by the idea. "I only know that mother says John Wesley thought the birds would go to heaven, and the Indians think that,

‘Transported to that equal sky,
Their faithful dogs shall bear them company,’"

was my reply. "It is a thing that nobody can tell anything about, but I like to think the fact of life predicts the fact of immortality."

"Didn't mother put that into your head?" asked Mary as we wended our way home.

I said I guessed so, for she always answered all my questions and told me so much that I hardly knew where her thoughts ended and mine began.

Sometimes in winter I would set a "figure-four trap" down in the grove south of "Fort City," where I caught many a plump quail. The trap was nothing but a rough box, held up on the edge by three sticks, fitted together like the figure 4, and having fastened to the cross bar of the figure a few grains of wheat. When the little "more wheat" singing quails pecked away at the stick to knock off these grains, the whole thing fell down and they were prisoners. I used to put on an old coat of father's, and some droll little boots my brother had outgrown, and, perching a soft hat on my head, wend my way over the snow's hard crust to see my trap. But I never killed a quail. I would bring them home and hand them over to Loren, who soon set them free into the heavenly bird-land. Then Bridget would

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pick, stuff and cook the quails, putting in flavored bread crumbs and such delicious "summer savory" as never was tasted before or since, and browning the delicious game to a turn. All this we considered a right and proper thing to do, because quails could be eaten, and so were useful and were not killed for mere sport. But Mary, whose heart was pitiful as an angel's, used to wish that "folks could get along without meat, and not kill the creatures with such bright, kind eyes as calves have, and lambs, and little birdies," and her older sister, who was given to "branching out," would tell her she "presumed that time would come, and hoped it might. Anything that you could imagine was apt to happen some day."

"Father's Room" was a sort of literary refuge to all concerned. Here were his tall book-case and his desk that locked up, with which latter no mortal ever interfered for the good reason that its black, velvet-lined interior was never seen save when "the Squire" was seated there at work. He would sit for days making out the tax list of the (real) town, writing his speech for the fair, or his "History of Rock County," and we would be near him, at work with brush, or pen, or pencil, never speaking a word to each other or to him. All other rooms in the house were full of life and talk and music, but "Father's" was a place of privilege conditioned upon quiet; therein we children were on our best of good behavior, and even the cat, of which he was very fond, ceased to be frisky when admitted to the room which its owner called his "sanctum sanctorum."

My father did not believe in medicine — I mean, not as most people do. He thought every family ought to pay so much a year to the doctor, and then deduct for every day's illness. He said this would soon make all the M. D.'s careful students of how to keep folks well, instead of how to get them well when by their own carelessness they had fallen sick. He used to say that God had but about half a dozen laws of health, and if people would only study these and obey them, they would have a happy, well-to-do life. He thought it was wonderful how easy our Heavenly Father has made it for us in this world, if we will "only take hold of it by the right handle." Just as He made but one law in the Garden of Eden — so easy to remember — and in all other things Adam and Eve could act of their own free

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will, so in the new Garden of Eden that we called Forest Home, and in the great world, there were few things to do, and then all would have health. He didn't say "good health," for he was not one of those who ever said, "I enjoy bad health!" In the first place, it wasn't enjoyable, and in the next, there was no kind of health but good, since the word itself meant wholeness or holiness, — a perfect state, as compared with the imperfect state of being sick.

In Oberlin he had been much attached to Dr. Jennings, a cold-water physician who had written a book on right living, which father read more than anything else except his Bible and A. J. Downing's Horticulturist. If we had sore throats, a cold water compress was put on; when I stepped on a nail, and might easily have had locked-jaw, mother lifted me into the kitchen "sink" and pumped water over the aching member; when on a summer morning Oliver's leg was broken by an ugh; ox, his mother sat beside him, attending to the cold-water bandage by night and day for a week. And yet, in the twelve years of our farm life, "The Happy Five" (as I was wont to call them) knew almost nothing about sickness. Our golden rules were these, worthy to be framed beside the entrance door of every home:

"GOLDEN RULES OF HEALTH."
Simple food, mostly of vegetables, fish and fowls.
Plenty of sleep, with very early hours for retiring.
Flannel clothing next the skin all the year round; feet kept warm, head cool, and nothing worn tight.
Just as much exercise as possible, only let fresh air and sunshine go together.
No tea or coffee for the children, no alcoholic drink or tobacco for anybody.
Tell the truth and mind your parents.

"But yet, Fort City must have a doctor, or else, you see, it wouldn't be a city," I pleaded one day. So, being told to "go ahead," I collected a lot of spools, whittled the projecting part off the smaller end of each, and made a stopper for it, plugged the other end with a bit of wood, and so had a fine outfit of bottles, which were labeled with all the outrageous names of drugs that

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mother or I could think of, only the real contents (fortunately) were sugar, starch, salt, flour, pepper, etc., from the store-room. Mary made for me a large assortment of powder papers, cut in different sizes; surgical instruments were shaped from bits of tin, with handles of wood; a tin watch was used in counting the pulse, and poor Mary, stretched out on two chairs, obligingly "made believe sick." The following extract from the journal that I dutifully kept through all those years, will give the outcome of my medical experience:

Sister was sick, and I brought out all my little bottles of sugar, salt and flour. Besides these medicines, I dosed her with pimento pills, and poulticed her with cabbage leaves, but she grew no better quite fast, so mother called another doctor. Dear me, if I were my brother, instead of being only a girl, we'd soon see whether I've talent for medicine or not.

But the "other doctor" was purely imaginary, for Mary jumped up and ran off with Oliver after the cows, telling me that I could "try my skill on the calves or the cat next time," and the young M. D. got quite a lesson from her mother on the value of moderation in medicine and all other undertakings.

I have said but little about winter-time at Forest Home. The truth is, it seemed to us that when the lovely summer and beautiful autumn days were gone, they never would come back. And though we made sleds and went coasting, took care of our scores of pets, set our figure-four traps for quails, and played "Fort City" with great zest, it remains true that we greeted the return of spring with such keen delight as city children can not know. The first flower — who should find and bring it home to mother? That was a question of the highest interest, and little Mary was quite as likely as the older ones to win this beautiful distinction. The hill-side behind the house, the "Big Ravine," and "Whale's-back," near the Hodge homestead, were the favorite hiding-places of the "March flower," "wind flower," or "anemone," that hardy pioneer which ventured first to spread its tiny sail and catch the favoring breeze. Next came the buttercups, then the violets, and, later on, the crow's-foot geranium, shooting star, wild lady's slipper, wild rose and lily, and a hundred sweet, shy flowers with unknown names. But the spring sounds were more to me than the spring posies.

Like all rural people, our family rose at day-break in spring,

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in winter long before that time. Father went to his desk; Oliver, Loren, and the "hired hands" went to the cow-yard to milk, or to the barn to feed the horses; Mary and I cared for our special pets, the turkeys, chickens, and pea-fowls, the rabbits, goats, calves, colts and dogs, while mother and Bridget got the breakfast. But when the witchery of spring-time came, we girls would take turns about waking each other, and first of all in the house would steal away to our best-beloved "Outdoors." It seemed to us that we learned secrets then, such as dear old Mother Nature did not tell to most folks.

We sought the quiet dells in the "north pasture," where a sort of wild mint grew, with smell so fresh and sweet as can't be told, and where were mosses lovelier than the velvet of the Queen's throne. We put our ears to the ground, as Indians do, and heard sounds afar off, or thought we did, which answered just as well. Voices came to us as we listened, through the woods and from the prairie near by, that thrilled our hearts with joy. The jay, the bluebird and the robin made music vastly sweeter than any we ever heard elsewhere or afterward. But the "prairie-chickens" had organized the special orchestra that we listened to with most delight in the fair spring days. It was a peculiar strain, not a song at all, as everybody knows, but a far-off, mellow, rolling sound, a sort of drumbeat, rising and falling, circling through the air and along the ground, "so near, and yet so far," it seemed to us like a breath from Nature's very lips. Perhaps it came so gently and with such boundless welcome to our hearts, because it was the rarest, surest harbinger of spring. Now the lambs would soon be playing in the pastures; now the oriole would soon be flashing through the trees, the thrush singing in the fields, and the quail's sweet note, "more wheat," would cheer the farmer at his toil; the river would soon mirror the boughs that would bend over it in their rich summer green, for winter was over and gone, fresh spring rain was often on the roof, and the deep heavens grew warm and blue. All these things were in the far-off, curious notes of the prairie-chickens that we never saw, but only listened to with smiling faces, while girls and chickens, after their own fashion, thanked God that spring had come once more.

In the earlier years at Forest Home, prairie fires were a gorgeous

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feature of the spring landscape. Only a few times did they come near enough to make us anxious. Returning from church one Sabbath noon with Oliver, mother saw one of her mile-away neighbors motioning to her vigorously, — a woman, by the way, who didn't believe in "going to meetings," for which reason, father would have nothing to do with her family outside of business. Oliver stopped the horses, and coming out to her gate Mrs. P. said, "You'd better be at home 'tending to your prairie fires; the neighbors are fighting them for you, and trying to save your buildings."

Oliver whipped up his team, and away they flew down the river toward Forest Home. There they found father in his shirtsleeves directing the forces that had already put the fire to rout. He had strolled out with Mary and me to "take an observation," as he called it, and had seen the fire bearing down in braggart style from Mr. Guernsey's prairie toward a log tenement house where one of our hired men was living. The house was closed, for all the family (Catholic) had gone to church. "Bring some pails, girls, and follow me," said father, as he ran toward this house, which was in danger.

"I know what he'll do," said I to Mary, as we armed ourselves with pails, and, whistling to the dogs, scampered away following father; "of course, he must fight fire with fire, or else Ed Carey's house is gone."

It was a long run, through the orchard, across the Big Ravine and over a stretch of prairie, but we were not far behind our father. We found him "back-firing," as it was called; that is, setting the grass burning all along between the fire and the house, and then, with a neighbor or two, beating it out again when the flame grew too strong. We brought water, thrashed away at the grass with sticks, and grew black in the face, not from work, but from the smoke and cinders. By the time Oliver and mother appeared on the scene, the crisis was over and we girls clambered into the democrat wagon, covered all over with dirt and glory, and both telling at once about the hair-breadth 'scape of Edward's house. But for the most part the prairie fires were among the pleasant features of spring, for they seldom did any harm. In burning over a new section of land, before breaking it up with the plow, men would fire it from each of the four

40

sides and let it burn toward the center. The grass, so long, thick, and sometimes matted, made a bright, high wall of flame, sending up columns of smoke like a thousand locomotives blowing off steam at once. At night these fires, on the distant horizon, looked to us like a drove of racing, winged steeds; or they swept along, dancing, courtesying, now forward, now backward, like gay revelers; or they careered wildly, like unchained furies; but always they were beautiful, often grand, and sometimes terrible.

Another rich experience that came to my sister and me was following the "breaking plow" in spring. Just after the prairie fire had done its work and the great field was black with the carpet it had spread, came the huge plow, three times as large as that generally used, with which the virgin soil was to be turned upward to the sun. Nowadays in the far West, that keeps going farther every year, they use steam plows. Just think of a locomotive out in the boundless prairie, going so fast and far that one wouldn't dare tell how many miles it gets over in a day! But away back in the forties and fifties, so distant from these wonderful eighties in which we live, we thought that nothing could go beyond the huge plow, with steel "mould-board" so bright that you could see your face in it; "beam" so long that we two girls could sit upon it for a ride and have space for half a dozen more; formidable "colter" — a sharp, knife-like steel that went before the plowshare to cut the thick sod — and eight great, branch-horned oxen sturdily pulling all this, while one man held the plow by its strong, curving handles, and another cracked a whip with lash so long it reached the heads of the head oxen away at the front. As father generally held the plow, and Oliver, who was very kind to animals, the whip, Mary and I used to enjoy running along and balancing ourselves on the great black furrow, as it curved over from the polished mould-board and lay there smooth and even as a plank. Sometimes the plow would run against a snag in the shape of a big "red-root"; for, strange to say, the prairie soil, where no tree was in sight, had roots, sometimes as large as a man's arm, stretching along under ground. Then would come a cheery "Get up, Bill! Halloa there, Bright! Now's your time, Brindle!" The great whip would crack above their heads; the giant creatures would bend to the yoke; "snap" would go the red-root and smooth would turn the splendid

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did furrow with home and school and civilization gleaming from its broad face, and happy children skipping, barefooted, along its new-laid floor. These were " great times " indeed! As the sun climbed higher and the day grew warm, we would go to the house, and compound a pail of "harvest drink," as father called it, who never permitted any kind of alcoholic liquor in his fields or at his barn-raisings. Water, molasses and ginger were its ingredients, and the thirsty toilers, taking it from a tin dipper, declared it "good enough to set before a king."

Later on, we girls were fitted out with bags of corn, of beans, onion, turnip or beet seed, which we tied around our waists, as, taking hoe in hand, we helped do the planting, not as work, but "just for fun," leaving off whenever we grew tired. We "rode the horse" for Oliver when he "cultivated corn"; held trees for father when he planted new ones, which he did by scores each spring; watched him at "grafting time" and learned about "scions" and "seedlings"; had our own little garden beds of flowers and vegetables, and thought no blossoms ever were so fair or dishes so toothsome as those raised by our own hands. Once when I was weeding onions with my father, I pulled out along with the grass, a good-sized snake by the tail, after which I was less diligent in that department of industry. The flower-garden was a delight to people for miles around, with its wealth of rare shrubs, roses, tulips and clambering vines which mother and her daughters trained over the rambling cottage until it looked like some great arbor. I had a seat in the tall black oak near the front gate, where I could read and write quite hidden from view. I had a box with lid and hinges, fastened beside me, where I kept my sketches and books, whence the "general public" was warned off by the words painted in large, black letters on a board nailed to the tree below: "THE EAGLE'S NEST, BEWARE!" Mary had her own smaller tree, near by, similarly fitted up.

Oliver thought all this was very well, but he liked to sit betimes on the roof of the house, in the deep shade, or to climb the steeple on the big barn, by the four flights of stairs, and "view the landscape o'er," a proceeding in which his sisters, not to be outdone, frequently imitated him. Indeed, Oliver was our forerunner in most of our outdoor-ish-ness, and but for his bright,

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tolerant spirit, our lives, so isolated as they were, would have missed much of the happiness of which they were stored full. For instance, one spring, Oliver had a freak of walking on stilts; when, behold, up went his sisters on stilts as high as his, and came stalking after him. He spun a top; out came two others. He played marbles with the Hodge boys; down went the girls and learned the mysteries of "mibs," and "alleys," and the rest of it. He played "quoits" with horseshoes; so did they. He played "prisoner's-base" with the boys; they started the same game immediately. He climbed trees; they followed after. He had a cross-gun; they got him and Loren to help fit them out in the same way, and I painted in capitals along the side of mine its name, "Defiance," while Mary put on hers, plain "Bang Up!" After awhile he had a real gun and shot muskrats, teal, and once a long-legged loon. We fired the gun by "special permit," with mother looking on, but were forbidden to go hunting and didn't care to, anyway. Once, however, Oliver "dared" me to walk around the pasture ahead of him and his double-barreled gun when it was loaded and both triggers lifted. This I did, which was most foolhardy, and we two "ne'er-do-weels," whose secret no one knew but Mary, came home to find her watching at the gate with tear-stained face, and felt so ashamed of ourselves that we never repeated the sin — for it was nothing less. Oliver was famous at milking cows; his sisters learned the art, sitting beside him on three-legged stools, but never carried it to such perfection as he, for they were very fond of milk and he could send a stream straight into their mouths, which was greater fun than merely playing a tuneful tattoo into a tin pail, so they never reached distinction in the latter art. They did, however, train the cat to sit on the cow's back through milking time. Oliver could harness a horse in just about three minutes; his sisters learned to do the same, and knew what "hames" and "tugs" and "holdbacks" were, as well as "fetlock," "hock," and "pastern."

There were just four things he liked that we were not allowed to share — hunting, boating, riding on horseback and "going swimming." But at this distance it looks to this narrator as if hunting was what he would better not have done at all, and for the rest, it was a pity that "our folks" were so afraid "the two forest nymphs" might drown, that they didn't let them learn

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how not to — which boating and swimming lessons would have helped teach; and as for horseback-riding, it is one of the most noble sports on earth for men and women both. We proved it so when (after the calf-taming episode) it was permitted us, by the intercession of our mother, who had been a fine rider in her younger years.

Happy the girls of the period who practice nearly every outdoor sport that is open to their brothers; wear gymnastic suits in school, flee to the country as soon as vacation comes, and have almost as blessed a time as we three children had in the old days at Forest Home. It is good for boys and girls to know the same things, so that the former shall not feel and act so overwise. A boy whose sister knows all about the harness, the boat, the gymnastic exercise, will be far more modest, genial and pleasant to have about. He will cease to be a tease and learn how to be a comrade, and this is a great gain to him, his sister, and his wife that is to be.

Here are some bits from journals kept along through the years. They are little more than hints at every-day affairs, but, simple as they sound, they give glimpses of real life among the pioneers.

From Mary's:

Frank said we might as well have a ship, if we did live on shore, so we took a hen-coop pointed at the top, put a big plank across it and stood up, one at each end, with an old rake handle apiece to steer with. Up and down we went, slow when it was a calm sea and fast when there was a storm, till the old hen clucked and the chickens all ran in, and we had a lively time. Frank was captain and I was mate. We made out charts of the sea and rules about how to navigate when it was good weather, and how when it was bad. We put up a sail made of an old sheet, and had great fun till I fell off and hurt me.
To-day Frank gave me half her dog, Frisk, that she bought lately, and for her pay I made a promise which mother witnessed, and here it is:

"I, Mary Willard, promise never to touch, anything lying or being upon Frank Willard's stand and writing-desk which father gave her. I promise never to ask, either by speaking, writing or signing, or in any other way, any person or body to take off or put on anything on said stand and desk without special permission from said F. W. I promise never to touch anything which may be in something upon her stand and desk. I promise never to put anything on it or in anything on it. I promise, if I am writing or doing anything else at her desk, to go away the minute she tells me. If I break this promise I will let the said F. W. come into my room and go to
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my trunk, or go into any place where I keep my things, and take anything of mine she likes. All this I promise unless entirely different arrangements are made. These things I promise upon my most sacred honor."

Mother says Frank liked to walk on top of the fence, and to chop wood with a broken ax handle, and to get Oliver's hat while he was doing his sums, and put it on her head and go out to the barn.

I've made a picture of the house Frank was born in — mother helped, of course; she always does. I was born in Oberlin, and that's a nicer town than Frank's. I remember Mr. Bronson and Mr. Frost — they were students in Oberlin, and boarded at our house. I guess it's the very first thing I do remember — how they made us little rag dolls and drew ink faces on them, and we really thought they were nice; but we shouldn't now, I know, for my doll Anna is as big as a real little girl, and father painted her with real paint and mother fastened on real hair, and I made her clothes just like mine; but she is a rag doll all the same, only she's good, and not proud like a wax doll.

Mr. Carver and Miss Sherburn went with us from Oberlin to Wisconsin. They were both good Christians, and Mr. C. often led in prayer at family worship; but when he killed our puppies (though father told him to) I thought he was a sort of awful man.

From mine:

I once thought I would like to be Queen Victoria's Maid of Honor; then I wanted to go and live in Cuba; next I made up my mind that I would be an artist; next, that I would be a mighty hunter of the prairies. But now I suppose I am to be a music teacher — "simply that and nothing more."
When it rained and filled the stove so full of water, standing right out on the ground, that mother couldn't even boil the kettle for tea, we didn't think it very funny. Mother hadn't any money to get us Christmas presents; father was sick in bed with ague, and yet we hung up our stockings, and Oliver put his boot strap over the front door knob. So mother stirred around and got two false curls she used to wear when it was the fashion to wear them on a comb, and put one in my stocking and one in Mary's, with little sea-shells that she had kept for many years, also an artificial flower apiece; to Oliver she gave a shell and Pollock's "Course of Time." We hadn't a hired man, and mother and Ollie went out in the woods and dragged in branches of trees to burn. We girls thought it great fun, but father called it his "Blue Christmas." Next day Oliver went to town and hired a good, honest, Yankee fellow, whose name was John Lockwood. Then we had Lewis Zeader, Thomas Gorry and his wife, and so on; never after that having to go it alone. I like farm life; "God made the country and man made the town" — "them's my sentiments."

I tried my hand at poetry. Here is a specimen written on an occasion that afflicted me — almost to tears. A noble black oak that grew near one of the dormer-windows of Forest Home was heard straining and cracking in a high wind one night. It was found to be so much injured that the order was given next

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day to cut it down. This was a sort of tragedy, for father had taught us to regard the trees as creatures almost human, and he guarded those about the house and in the pastures as if they had been household pets. So when "old Blackie" was cut down, Mary and I were greatly wrought upon, and I penciled my thoughts as follows:

TO AN OLD OAK.
RECENTLY FELLED AT FOREST HOME.

And so, old Monarch of the Forest, thou hast fallen!
Supinely on the ground thy giant limbs are laid;
No more thou'lt rear aloft thy kingly head,
No more at eventide the chirping jay
Shall seek a shelter 'mid thy boughs or 'mong them play.
No more the evening breeze shall through thy branches sigh,
For thou art dead. Ah, e'en to thee
How fearful 'twas to die!
Perhaps, ages ago, — for 'mong the centuries thou hast grown on, —
Some swarthy warrior of a race long past,
Some giant chieftain of an early day,
Beneath thy shade has rested from the chase,
And to thy gnarled trunk told some wild revenge,
Or gentle tale of love.
And in the dusk of the primeval times,
Some fair young maid, perchance, to thee complained
Of vows unkept, or, in a happier mood,
With smile as innocent as e'er maid wore,
Has told to thee some simple happiness,
Scarce worth the telling, save that in her path
Joys were the flowers that by the weeds of care
Were overwhelmed.
Around thy base the forest children played
In days long passed away, and flowing now
In the dark River of Eternity.
The years but lately gone were waiting then to be;
Time quickly sped, these years that were to be
Came, hastened by, and are no more; with them,
Well pleased to go, my childish hours fled trait'rously,
Bearing to Shadeland holiest memories.
Telling of busy feet and happy heart,
Delighted eyes and all the unnumbered joys
Given us but once — in Childhood
Glorious were mine, old Tree!
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Birds have sung for me, flowers bright have bloomed
That had not, had I ne'er been born to greet their beauty.
Skies wore their loveliest hues for me
Just as they do in turn for all that live,
And as they will for happy hearts to come.

E'en when the tiny nut that held thee first,
Dropt quietly into the rich, dark soil,
'Twas in the plan of the great God of all,
That thy bright leaves, thy green crest lifted high,
Thy sturdy trunk, and all thy noble form,
Should be, some day far distant, loved by me;
Should cause my eyes with joy to rest on thee,
And so increase earth's gifts of God to me.
Thou hast given this grace to many, thou hast granted it to me;
But none, perhaps, besides me shall extol thy memory.

Stern Death, remorseless enemy, spares nothing that we love;
Upon the cold, white snow to-night, lie boughs that waved above.
And I'm lonely, sad and silent, for I feel a friend is gone,
As 'mong thy great, dead boughs to-night,
I hear the strange wind moan.

Old Tree, hast thou a spirit? If so, we'll meet again!
I shall not give thee up yet, for I'll meet thee, Yonder — when?
Perchance thy leaves, etherealized, above me yet shall wave
When to bright Paradise I come, up from the gloomy grave!
So in this wistful, hopeful tone,
Farewell, old King of Forest Home.

Ships of The Prairie.

47 Chapter II.

THE ARTISTS' CLUB.

In 1856 the greatest event occurred that we Forest Homers had chronicled since the famous "Founding of Fort City." Father's only brother, who had married mother's sister, came with his wife and our aunts Elizabeth and Caroline to "spy out the land" and "see how Josiah and his family had got along." It was an unheard of thing for this quartette of Vermont-New Yorkers to venture so far from home, and to our secret astonishment they evinced no love for the Great West. "Josiah was the only one that strayed," they said, and her sisters bemoaned, mother's long loneliness even more than she did herself, whose isolation was, until her great bereavement came, the memorable misfortune of her life. But of all this her children knew practically nothing, so sunny was her spirit and so merged was her life in theirs. Our "nice uncle Zophar" was a revelation to us children. He was tall, like father, and had the same dignified ways, but was more caressing toward his nieces and had one of the kindest faces, and yet the firmest in the world. He was a Whig and father a Democrat, at the time of his visit, so there was no end of argument about Webster and Clay, and the principles they represented on the one hand, and the "grand old Jeffersonian doctrines" on the other. He was a Congregation-alist and father a Methodist, so there was no end of talk about their differences in theology, and uncle Zophar liked to quote the line, "A church without a bishop and a state without a king." But the old stone church, where both of them had once belonged, the old stone school-house where they had been pupils, the old neighbors who had come with them from Vermont, on runners across the snow, about 1815, these were subjects of which we never tired, especially when the sparkle of aunt Caroline's fun and the bright recollections of aunts Abigail and Elizabeth were added to the conversation.

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These things seemed more engrossing to us than all the wonders of the New West to them. When, in a few weeks, they returned to the old home near Rochester, N. Y., where nearly all our relatives of the last and present generations have remained, they insisted on taking mother with them, for they said, "Mary has had a hard time of it here on the farm, a steady pull of ten years, and she ought to have rest and a change."

After this lovely visit with our dear relatives it was very hard, not only to have them all go at once, but, most of all, to have them take our mother with them, who had never, that we could remember, spent a night away from us. A big carriage was hired to carry them to Belvidere, where they would take the cars; good-bys were said, with many falling tears, and away they went, leaving little Mary with her face all swollen from crying and her elder sister biting her lips very hard for fear she would follow suit, and so make a bad matter worse.

"You asked dear, beautiful mamma to bring you a box," sobbed Mary. "You thought about a box when she was going away off," and she cried aloud.

"Well, I was sorry enough to have her go," was my philosophic answer, "but since she had to leave us I thought I might as well have a little something when she came back." All the same, Oliver and Mary never ceased poking fun at me about that box, which after all I did not get!

And now it was my father's turn to play consoler to his bereft "young hopefuls," as he often called us. Well did he fulfill his new task. Instead of going to town almost every day he stayed at home most of the time, for he and mother never believed in putting their children in care of what he called "outside parties." He made each of us girls a tall, cone-shaped, paper cap, which Mary trimmed with peacock feathers and symbols of hunting, according to father's directions. He fitted us out with fresh arrows, taught us how to "fly a dart," made a wonderful kite and sent it up over the fields, imitated perpetual motion by the "saw-boy" that he carved with his "drawing knife," balanced with a stone, and set at work with a wooden saw. He went with us to watch the sheep, and to carry lunch to the men at work in the fields, took us out to ride when he had to go on "school business," went with us to visit the Whitmans

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and our dear teacher, Miss Burdick, — now "married and settled" in Janesville as Mrs. Gabriel L. Knox — and good Mrs. Hannah Hunter, one of mother's best friends in town. He left us at Sutherland's book store while he did his errands, and that was our delight, for the very presence of books was a heart's ease, so that always, next to our own home, we felt at home where books were kept, for we knew the wisest and kindest men and women who had lived were there in thought. Mr. Sutherland was a dear friend of father's. My big "History of All Nations" had been bought from him in monthly parts, mother paying for it out of her "butter and egg money," that I might have it on my birthday. Mr. Sutherland would let us go about at pleasure among his handsome shelves and counters, in that cool and quiet place — "more like the woods than any other that we know," and "so different from those horrid stores where you buy dresses and gloves," I used to say.

That summer we had a new girl, Margaret Ryan, by name, for Bridget wanted rest. She was but eighteen years old, and great company for Mary and me. She was true and kind, very intelligent, and we became much attached to her and gave her piano lessons, read aloud to her while she was at her work, and never learned anything from her that was not good. So our memories of "Margie" were always pleasant. Mother was so considerate of her helpers that she seldom changed, but in our twelve years on the farm we had perhaps thirty or more men and women with us, at different times, some from Ireland, others from England, and a few from America, while of Germans and Norwegians there was a large representation. But Catholic or Protestant, Lutheran or Methodist, we found good hearts in all, and made common cause with every one, teaching them English, giving them writing lessons, and never receiving anything but loyalty and kindness in return. If the foreign population of this country was fairly represented at Forest Home, it is neither drunken, immoral nor irreligious, but warmly responds to every helpful word and deed, and can be Americanized if Americans will but be true to themselves and these new friends.

In the loneliness of mother's absence, I began to write more than ever, though I had kept a journal since I was twelve years old. Climbing to my high perch in the old oak tree, I would

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write down the day's proceedings, scribble sketches and verses, and I even began a novel entitled, "Rupert Melville and his Comrades: A Story of Adventure." Mary, too, kept a journal and competed for a prize in the "Children's Column" of The Prairie Farmer. I tried for the premium offered for the best poem at the County Fair, but it was won by Mrs. E. S. Kellogg, the Janesville poet. This did not, however, discourage me at all; I wrote the harder, took my essays to Mrs. Hodge, who had fine taste and was an uncommonly good writer herself, and made up my mind that "write I could and should and would. "

My novel was a standing joke in the family. I worked at it "off and on," but chiefly the former. I had so many characters that Oliver said "for the life of him he didn't see how I expected to get them all decently killed off inside of a thousand pages." Every day when my regular chores about the house were done, which took only an hour or two, I got at work and insisted on doing at least one page, from which it is plain that I had no great inspiration in my undertaking. Perhaps nobody appreciated it more than Lizzie Hawley, a bright young dressmaker from Janesville, to whom I was wont to read each chapter aloud, as fast as it was written. Sometimes, since, I have wondered if the main reason why Lizzie listened so dutifully was not that she had no choice in the matter; there was the reader, and there was the story, and the busy needlewoman could not get away.

Perhaps father's fitting us out with hunting implements during mother's absence had something to do with the writing of this story. It is more likely, however, that the irrepressible spirit of his two daughters, drove him to allowing them to hunt, for we seemed to have developed a passion in that direction stronger than ever, about those days. Especially was this true of me. I had got hold of a story book, "The Prairie Bird," another called "Wild Western Scenes," and a third, "The Green-Mountain Boys," and secretly devoured all three without leave or license. They had produced on my imagination the same effect that they would upon a boy's. Above all things in earth or sky I wanted to be, and meant to be, a mighty hunter. The country I loved, the town I hated and would none of it. "Fort City" and all its belongings were no longer to be thought of as an adequate "sphere."

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Mary shared this enthusiasm in her own more quiet way. She had read with me, "Robinson Crusoe" and the "Swiss Family Robinson," to neither of which father objected, because they were not "miserable love stories," as he said — for at these he drew the line firmly and would not allow them in the house. But something artistic must be connected with all of Mary's plays, and I was strongly inclined that way, too, so we started two clubs, one called "The Artists," and the other, "The Rustic," for the purpose of combining our hunting and sketching ideas. From some carefully preserved documents the rules of these two are given:

LAWS OF THE ARTISTS' CLUB.
1. The officers shall be a president and secretary.

2. The meetings shall be held twice a week (unless unforeseen occurrences prevent), and shall be on Tuesday and Saturday afternoons or evenings, as the secretary shall direct.

3. The object of the meeting shall be the mutual improvement of the artists who attend. The occupations of the Club at these meetings shall be reading articles on art, reading compositions and making speeches upon the same subject (never on anything else), drawing, painting, modeling in clay, conversing, singing, and encouraging each other. The Club must always open with a song.

4. There shall be an exhibition held on the last day of each month, at which prizes shall be awarded to those artists whose works are the best. The person to decide upon this shall be Mrs. Willard, and Mr. Willard when she is away, and the meetings shall always be held up-stairs in the studio.

5. There shall be twenty honorary members. (Here follows a list of every uncle, aunt and cousin that we two girls were blessed with, and Miss Burdick from outside the family.)

6. There shall always be something good to eat and the president shall look after this matter, in return for which she shall have the seat of honor, and make the first speech, etc. She shall also get things ready when the Club goes on an excursion; shall see that the dog is haltered, and take a little food along for him as well as for the rest; shall get the gun ready and the box in which things are carried.

7. Because it is hard work, the members shall take turns once a week at being president.

8. If any member makes or repairs any article belonging to the Club, he shall be paid one half the value of the same by the other member.

9. If one member goes off alone, he shall prepare his own outfit, and let Margaret Ryan know of it so that folks needn't be scared.

We, the members of this Club, pledge ourselves to keep faithfully all these, our own laws.

FRANK WILLARD.

MARY E. WILLARD.

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We fixed up a studio behind the dormer-windows, by taking old quilts and making a partition. We improvised an easel, though I had never seen one, and was forced to pattern it after pictures in books. We had benches, wooden mallets and chisels for working in clay. We pinned up all the engravings we could get on the quilt partition, and added our own rude drawings in pencil, pen and ink and water-colors. We copied drawings that father and mother had done in Oberlin, hung up our home-made flags, and arranged all the queer collection of "pretty stones," Indian arrow-heads, curious insects, etc., which we had inherited from Oliver, and gathered for ourselves. So we had quite a studio.

The very first thing we set about in the Art Club was designing a "Hunter's Costume." No doubt I had "Rupert Melville," the hero of my story, in mind, for I often declared that "if I couldn't go West and be a real hunter, somebody should, and I'd see that he did."

We agreed that it must be "none of your soft, city clothes," but "must stand wear and tear, not take forever to put on, and be snake-proof." So I designed coat, trousers, hat and mittens of calfskin, and boots of cowhide. The original drawings of these, now in my possession, are in high colors, with emphatic directions for the manufacture.

It was natural that two amateur hunters who could design such a "coat of mail" should have their own opinions about rural sports, and the following copy of their plans casts some light upon that subject:

RULES AND REGULATIONS
OF THE
RUSTIC CLUB.
ORGANIZED THE THIRTY-FIRST DAY OF JULY, 1854.

God made the country,
Man made the town,
The country is our choice.

1. The object of this Club is to give its members the enjoyment of hunting, fishing, and trapping, with other rural pleasures, at once exciting and noble.

2. We, the members of this Club, hereby choose Fred as our dog, although once in a while we may take Carlo; he can go when he has sense enough.

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3. The meetings shall be held (after a few days) every Wednesday and Saturday, at such times as shall be deemed convenient and proper. The first one shall be held in F.'s half of the studio, and the next in M.'s half, and so on.
4. The object of these meetings is to relate any anecdote that pertains to hunting, in any of its branches; tell what great things we have done ourselves, or that Oliver or Loren or the Hodge boys have, or Daniel Boone or anybody else.

5. For hunting purposes, the names of the founders of this Club shall be Bowman and Bonny, and, as we may get a good ways apart when we are out hunting, one of us will carry an old dipper handle to serve as a hunter's bugle, and the other a sheep bell for the same purpose, and we will have the following arrangement of

SIGNALS.
When Bowman gives —
Two blasts, that means, "Bonny, where are you?"
Three blasts, "Come here, quick."
Four blasts, "Meet me at Robin Hood's tree."
Five blasts, "Meet me on the river bank."
Six blasts, "Let's go to the house."
Eight blasts, "Yes."
Ten blasts, "No."
Twelve blasts, "Oh, do!"

When Bonny gives —
One shake, "Bowman, where are you?"
Two shakes, "Come here, quick."
Three shakes, "Meet me at the tree."
Four shakes, "Meet me on the river bank."
Five shakes, "Yes."
Six shakes, "Let's go home."
Ten shakes, "No."
Twelve shakes, "Oh, do!"

N. B. — Any signal repeated over and over means that you request compliance very earnestly.

[SIGNED] BOWMAN AND BONNY.

No doubt many of our ideas were gained from Charles Gifford, of Milwaukee, a nursery man by profession, and an amateur artist of rare abilities, who was father's friend and used to come in summer to shoot prairie-chickens. He had been educated at Brown University and Oberlin, and had traveled in Europe. His brother was S. R. Gifford, the famous landscape artist, whose pictures of Egyptian scenery are so generally known. Charles Gifford might have been as famous under equally good conditions. He was a remarkable man, and we looked upon him as a

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sort of prince, and when he sent by express a great book of engravings, with some of his own sketches and of his brother's, we thought it the red-letter day of all, in its beautiful happenings. (Happen comes from "haps" and so does "happiness.") He sent us Longfellow's "Evangeline" — the first long poem we ever read — and it was delighted in by all the club, and so impressed me that years after, with my first "school money" I bought a picture of Evangeline by Faed, and to this day keep it hanging on the walls of my room. We made a scrap-book of our drawings and such pictures as we could get, in feeble imitation of Mr. Gifford's elegant one.

Miss Helen Clough, of Janesville, was also an artist, and with her and her sister we held sweet counsel as to how shading was done and what could be accomplished in India ink, at which work Miss Clough was an adept.

Nothing pleased father so much as to have his two daughters sing for him when the day's work was done. He took great pride in our musical education, and spent much money upon it. His idea was that girls and women were to find their sphere in the home, and not elsewhere, and that the more accomplished they could be, the better. I did not take kindly to this, but lovely Mary did, and was her father's favorite beyond all competition, though he was very fond of all his children. Mary had a sweet, pure, soprano voice, and I a good, clear alto, hence we sang well together, and Mary was excellent at keeping the time, so she came to be the one who played the accompaniments. We would sing thirty songs in an evening, and often father furnished the bass, for he "read notes" and was a good singer. Mother was, too, and would help Mary on the "air" when not too busy with household duties. One of the most pathetic songs was "The Withered Tree":

"I'll sing you a song, but not of love,
For love's bright day is past with me,
But one that shall more truthful prove,
I'll sing you the song of the withered tree."

Folks used to laugh as the fresh, young voices sang these plaintive words, but I invariably answered, "It will come true with me; I'm sure of it."

For one thing I was always sorry — my voice was spoiled for

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singing soprano, by beginning too early. My father's mother had the finest voice in the county, and it seemed as if her granddaughter inherited a little of its power. I could go up very high on the octave and father delighted to hear me. One evening I was singing "Mary, mavourneen," when, at the highest note, my voice broke utterly and I almost cried outright. From that day I never could sing "air" with comfort or success, and I am fully convinced that parents ought not to urge the voices of their children, as it is almost sure to spoil them for singing at all.

Nothing pleased me in those days like Mrs. Hemans' song:

"I dream of all things free;
Of a gallant, gallant bark,
That sweeps through storm and sea
Like an arrow to its mark;
Of a chief his warriors leading,
Of an archer's greenwood tree;
My heart in chains is bleeding,
But I dream of all things free."

And this prairie song:

O fly to the prairie, sweet maiden, with me,
'Tis as green and as wide and as wild as the sea.
O'er its broad, silken bosom the summer winds glide,
And waves the wild grass in its billowy pride.
The fawns in the meadow fields fearlessly play;
Away to the chase, lovely maiden, away!

There comes incense pleasant on gales from the west,
As bees from the prairie-rose fly to their rest.
Hurrah for the prairie! no blight on its breeze,
No mist from the mountains, no shadows from trees;
It brings incense loaded on gales from the west,
When bees from the prairie-rose fly to their rest.

As Mary grew older she developed wonderful sensitiveness of conscience, and although so much better than her sister, she used to come to me with every little act, and say, "Frank, do you think that is right?" and if I said, "O yes, that's all right, I'm sure," she would go away satisfied. But she would take me to task very plainly when I did wrong. One of the customs that grew out of this was started by my saying one night, as we two were snugly tucked away in bed in our own pretty little room, "Mary, wouldn't it be a good plan for us to ask each other's

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forgiveness the very last thing before we go to sleep, for any word or deed that wasn't just sisterly and kind, and to thank each other for everything that was kind and sisterly?"

"Oh, yes, that's what I should be so glad of, not only to do this to you, Frank, but to everybody, if I could," the gentle girl exclaimed with joy. So it was agreed upon, and became a custom between us two, who were as one heart and soul in our mutual love and confidence, only we used, after awhile, instead of saying it all, to say, "for short," "I ask your forgiveness, and thank you," to which the answer was, "I freely forgive you, and welcome." And this we did until, after "nineteen beautiful years," the last night on earth came to her, and I "asked her forgiveness and thanked her" as of old, just before her sweet young spirit passed away to heaven.

Never was mortal welcomed home more lovingly than dear mother, when she came back to us after that summer's absence. To be sure, "father had made it splendid for us," so we told her, but then, the house had but one divinity, and as we knelt in prayer, that deep, motherly heart carried to the Heart that "mothers" all the world, its love, its trust and adoration. She did not bombard heaven with requests, as many do, but "she took a deal for granted," as Loren used to say.

"Thou hast done us only good," so she prayed who had been bereft of the tenderest of mothers, and had lost out of her arms her loveliest child; "Thou dost brood over us, as the mother bird broods over her helpless little ones," so she prayed, who had known much about "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune"; "we are often tired of ourselves, but Thy heart is never weary of us; Thou hast made the world so lovely that we might love it, and Thou art preparing heaven for us every day, even as we, by Thy blessed help, O Christ, are trying to learn its language and its manners so that we shall feel at home when we reach heaven."

Mother's prayers and singing always made her children glad. In the wild thunder-storms of that new West, I was wont to hide my face upon her knee and say, "Sing ‘Rock of Ages.’" Somehow I was never afraid while mother's soul was lifted up to God.

She questioned us about our manners, which, as she soon

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perceived, had fallen away to some extent. She made us walk with books upon our heads so as to learn to carry ourselves well, and she went with us through the correct manner of giving and receiving introductions, though, to be sure, "there was nobody to be introduced," as Oliver said. "But there will be," replied mother, with her cheerful smile.

We had a habit of mindfulness that was inherited from our pioneer ancestors. It is said that people who have moved away from their early homes love them better than those who stay, because of the "home-ache," as the Germans call it, that comes to them so often. In Oregon, where for so long a time the pioneers were cut off from close association with the outside world, they have the reputation of being a very gentle sort of folk, extremely considerate as neighbors, and specially kind to animals. In the summer of 1883, when the Northern Pacific railroad reached them, one often heard such remarks as, "I'll go back to the old place in Massachusetts on the first through train east," or, "I'm just pining for a sight of the old school-house in Vermont. I'll make tracks for the cars, soon as ever they heave in sight, and will go to see my folks."

Well, as Wisconsin pioneers, we were very fond of old-time talk of places and of people, and were never more interested than when father and mother around the evening lamp would discourse of incidents in the past, somewhat after this fashion:

Mother: "I don't want our children ever to forget the story that they've heard so often about the patriotism of my grandfather, Nathaniel Thompson, of Holderness, New Hampshire."

"Hurrah for Grandfather Nathaniel — in whom there was no guile!" responded Oliver, looking up from Goldsmith's "History of England," while I said, "I'll make a note of that," and Mary began to draw her brave ancestor in Continental costume in the sketch-book before her.

"And I want my children always to remember," said father, "that their great-grandfather, Elijah Willard, was a Baptist minister forty years in the parish of Dublin, near Keene, New Hampshire; and that their ancestors helped to settle Concord, Mass., where Emerson, Hawthorne and other ,literati live. Some day I hope they'll go to visit Major Solomon Willard's old farm there."

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"I don't believe I'm a worthy descendant of my great-grandfather, for I'm afraid of snakes and lightning, and most of all, of the dark," said I in a bewailing tone.

"Oh, that's all foolishness! you'll outgrow it, my daughter; it's only a case of nerves," said father, consolingly. "You were such another screamer when a baby that I used to say to myself, as I walked back and forth with you in the night season, ‘This young one is in duty bound to amount to something sometime, to pay for all the trouble that she makes. ’"

"Yes, and for the blood she pricked from her forefinger when Elizabeth Hield and mother tried to teach her to sew," remarked my brother, adding, "But she did make a ‘sampler,’ though, in silk, and I shall never be contented till it's framed and hung up as the eighth wonder of the world."

"Well, she did it, my son, and you know my motto is, ‘Do it and be done with it,’" said mother, always ready to defend the weaker side.

"I wish Mrs. Marks and Julia would ever come to see us," said I, changing the subject; "she is such a good woman, and ‘David Marks, the boy preacher,’ was father's nearest friend when we lived in Oberlin."

"Yes, I have greatly missed Mrs. Marks," replied mother, quietly, bending over her "sewing-work," for she never complained of the loneliness from which she had so keenly suffered, except to stir the aspirations of her children. For this purpose she would sometimes say:

"I had many ambitions, but I've buried myself on this farm — disappearing from the world to reappear, I trust, in my children at some future day."

"So you shall, mother; see if you don't!" we used to shout in glee.

"But that means hard work — investing your time, instead of spending it; earnest ways, and living up to the old Scotch proverb, ‘It's dogged as does it,’" mother would reply.

"Why is anybody afraid of the dark?" I asked, in one of these gatherings around the evening lamp.

"Because he doesn't know and trust God enough," was the reply. "If you can just once get it into your heart as well as your head that the world lies in God's arms like a baby on its

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mother's breast, you'll never mind the dark again; I don't; I'm not afraid to go all over the house and into the cellar when it is dark as a pocket. I know I am infinitely safe always and everywhere."

"But, mother, I have lots of imagination, and I picture out things in the dark."

"Why not turn your power of picture-making to a better use and always keep in mind that you are really never in the dark at all — the bright, cheery, twinkling stars are glistening with their kind light upon your path every minute of the day and night. What if a few clouds get between — the stars are there all the same — fix your eyes on them and go ahead."

"I remember," said Mary, once on a time, "that Frank used to go without butter, and father gave her a cent a week for it, which I guess is the reason she liked it so well when she grew older. And I can say the pretty verses that Mrs. Hodge sent back when Frank carried the little pair of socks that mother had knit for John, one Christmas morning." Then she repeated these lines:

"I thank you, little Frankie,
You're very kind to me,
And by and by I promise
Your little friend to be.

"Your nice and pretty present
Keeps my little toes so warm,
And makes me good and pleasant
In all the winter storm.

"I'm such a little boy, you know,
And oh, how I would cry
If I should freeze my tiny toes,
But I sha'n't now — good-by."

"All the same, Frank never set a stitch in those socks," remarked my brother.

"That's a fact, but I gave them to her to give to Johnnie, and I had a right to, hadn't I?" replied mother.

"Do you remember Ozias, the clerk in an Eyria store, who used to be so kind to us and give us pretty ribbons?" chipped in Mary; "he was as generous as nice Mr. Hamilton Richardson, in Janesville, who gave us the books of stories about Greece and Rome, and Mr. Elihu Washburn who brought us the pretty

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poetry books. Don't you remember our little book-case that Frank made out of an old box set on end, papered on the outside, and with shelves put across, where we kept our books, in the little cubby-place under the stairs, that we called our ‘corner room,’ and how it was as dark as night except when we had a lighted candle in it, and how Oliver bought us a pretty set of little wooden dishes that we used to set out on a stool, with a white handkerchief for table-cover; and then the handsome pewter dishes father gave us at Christmas, and how Frank made an X on her plates and cups, to tell them from mine? and the city that father got for us another time that was cut out of little blocks, and the big doll, Anna, and" —

"Do stop and take breath or you'll be struck of a heap," exclaimed Oliver, putting his fingers into his ears.

"Well, let's see if you can do any better at remembering than your sister," said his mother; "just put on your thinking-cap and try."

"Well, I can go back along the circle of years," said Oliver, "to that distant period when Prof. James Dascomb and Prof. George Whipple, of Oberlin College, came to see us in our pioneer house of one room, and clambered up to the garret on a ladder, telling next morning they never had such solid chunks of ‘tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep,’ in all their lives before. I can remember President Finney's preaching in the Oberlin church, and how he moved about like a caged lion on that great platform, his light blue eyes blazing under those shaggy, white eyebrows, and how scared I was of my bad behavior when he preached."

"You don't mean that you behaved badly when he preached?" smartly put in his sister Frank.

"No interruptions, let Oliver spin on. I loved those days and I like him to recall them," said mother.

"And I remember how Frank, when four years old, took to her heels and ran away across lots, creeping through the fence, and frightening mother almost to death, and father, too, so that he went and looked into the well and cistern to see if she had tumbled in, while I raced around like a crazy Jack, and discovered the little minx running as if on a wager, breathing like a steamboat, and bound to keep on, so that I had to chase her up

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for dear life, and fairly carry her home in my arms to her heartbroken ma."

"Enough said under that head," I remarked, not looking up from my book, for this exploit was one I didn't glory in.

"That will do, for ‘I remember,’" said mother, clipping the thread at the end of the seam in her sewing-work. "Suppose you go down, Loren" (for all the evening the boy had been a docile listener, while he carved a new cross-gun for little Mary), "and get us some of the apples that the children's Uncle Zophar sent from the old place."

62 Chapter III.

LITTLE BOATS SET OUT FROM SHORE.

The first great break in our lives was when Oliver went to Beloit, fourteen miles down the river, to finish his preparatory-studies and enter college. He had rarely spent an evening away from home in all his life until he was eighteen. Busy with books and papers "around the evening lamp," sometimes "running a (writing) race" with me, going into the dining-room to teach Mike and other "farm hands" to read and write, cipher and spell, busy with his chores and sports and farm work, Oliver, with his perpetual good-humor, was a tremendous institution to have about, and the shadow was heavy when he first started out from dear old Forest Home into the world. He was to board at the home of Dr. Lathrop, who was Professor of Natural Science at Beloit, and whose wife was Rev. Dr. Clement's daughter and mother's cousin.

With his easy-going, happy nature and his dear love for the old place, my brother would have lived on contentedly all his days, I think, a well-to-do, industrious, and yet book-loving farmer. But mother gave her only son no rest. He was to go to college, carve out a future for himself, be a minister, perhaps, that was her dearest wish and father's for the most gifted of their children.

From the first, we had gone regularly to Beloit to "Commencement," that great day when the people gathered in the grove, and President Chapin, so stately and so handsome, sat in the midst on the gayly festooned platform, with noble looking Professor Emerson and the other "college dons" beside him. We had heard Horace White, now a famous journalist, in New York City, pronounce his graduation speech, and I hardly knew which most impressed my fancy, his address on "Aristocracy," or his lemon-colored gloves. We had rejoiced in the brass band on these occasions, and hummed its airs for a whole year afterward.

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And now "Ollie" was to go, and sometime he would be a part of all this pageant, but not the girls. This gave to me those " long, long thoughts" of which my cousin Morilla Hill had read to me in a classical book:

"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

(Only, when she read it, I always said "a girl's will.")

So the new suit of clothes was made, the trunk packed with every good and pleasant thing that we could think of, even to a little note from Mary, "just to surprise him when he's lonesome," and I made a pen-wiper for him — one of my very few achievements in that line. Mother put in his Bible, Watts "On the Mind," and Beecher's "Lectures to Young Men," and Bridget got up such a dinner of roast turkey as made him sigh at thought of how much too much he had eaten, as well as at thought of how much too little he should get in future of flavors from the bounteous old farm.

Father and he mounted the big wagon, stored with bed, stove, etc., for his room, and that precious new trunk; crack went the whip, round rolled the wheels, and Oliver was gone for aye!

"Does God want families to be broken up this way?" was my query, as I watched them from the front piazza until my brother's waving handkerchief was lost to view. "I don't believe He does, and it would be far better for Oliver and for me, too, if we had gone together."

"Or, better still, if we could all go together, and you three children still live on at home, until you had homes of your own," said mother gently, as we three women folks, feeling dreadfully left behind, wiped our eyes and went in to help Bridget clear away the dinner dishes.

Later, in one vacation time, Oliver went to yoke up his "steers," when one of them deliberately kicked him squarely below the knee, and he fell to the ground with a broken leg — the second in the family, for father had had the same mishap at the County Fair. Mike and Edward got a board, lifted him upon it, brought him in and laid him on his bed, while Bridget followed with her apron over her head, crying aloud, and his mother and sisters threw the harness upon Jack, and got him ready for Mike to drive to town to bring Dr. Chittenden. Our faces were white,

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but we didn't cry at all, and as for Oliver, he, who never had but this one accident, and was almost never ill, bore the long and painful visitation like a philosopher. Indeed, his good-nature never forsook him, but his jokes and quaint, original turns of expression, made bright and pleasant every place he entered. Carried to his room now, he lay there all through the heat of summer, his devoted mother, for the first few nights after the accident, never undressing, but remaining all night at his bedside, with her hand upon his, that he might not, by moving, hazard the successful knitting of the bone. She was the most famous nurse in all the region round about — so firm and gentle, with resources for every emergency, and such a heart, full of courage and good cheer, that I often said: "I have yet to hear my mother utter the first downcast word."

We girls read many books aloud to our brother that summer: "Don Quixote," "Gil Blas," the "Dunciad," "Gulliver's Travels," and others that he liked.

One autumn, when mother had gone East once more, this time to take care of Oliver, who had been at Oberlin in school and went down to Churchville, where all the "relatives" lived, because he fell ill, father told us on very short, notice, to "pack our trunk and be ready, for he was going East to see the folks, and we might go along."

We girls had never been on the cars in our lives, except once, to attend the State Fair at Milwaukee and spend a day or two at "Rosebank," Charles Gifford's home; and no shriek of locomotive had disturbed the town of Janesville until ten years after we came to live near there. So it was with an indescribable twittering of heart and tongue that this great news was received. Bridget set at work to get up "such a lunch as would make your eyes glisten." Loren wondered how "we could bear to go off and leave the old place"; the Hodge children bemoaned our prospective absence; Professor and Mrs. Hodge helped us to plan and pack the new trunk father had brought us. My only thought was to get my pet manuscripts in, and Mary, while not forgetful of the nice new clothes that father had provided, was specially intent upon having her sketch-board and paints along.

Mike carried our happy trio to Afton, five miles down the river, where we took the train, and in less than a night and a

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day the Westerners were at Churchville, a pretty little place, fourteen miles this side of Rochester, where lived nearly every relative we had in the world. Here we spent a wonderful fortnight, all our kindred gathering in the home of each for a " visit" lasting all day and well into the evening. The tables groaned under the multiplied good things that a Monroe county farm supplies, and young folks went by themselves for fun and frolic outdoors and in, while older ones talked of what had been, and rejoiced in all the good that was.

Father's smart, witty, old mother was living, as was mother's father, so mighty in prayer and exhortation. Most of our cousins had been to Oberlin, or else were going there to study, and among them all, the best and most gifted was Charlotte Gilman, about my age, and greatly loved and admired by her Western cousin for her gifts of heart and mind and pen — for Charlotte was looking forward to a literary career. We two girls had no end of talks, going off at every opportunity, with arms over each other's shoulders, to plan for what we meant to be and do, while Oliver, the young collegian, with his gay talk, kept his sturdy young men cousins, Willard, Wright, and James, in roars of laughter, as they all took care of the many horses at the barn, or led at "playing proverbs" with their bright young lady cousins, Mary, Emily and Sarah. Our Mary was the universal favorite, her chubby figure, smiling blue eyes, sweet voice, and loving spirit, winning everybody. She liked to keep pretty near her mother, whose absence she had so keenly felt. We went over to Uncle Aaron's and Aunt Rebecca's, and fell in love with our quiet, gentle Cousin Catharine; listened with reverence to the wise words of that born philosopher, our Uncle James; rode behind Uncle John's spanking team, and marveled at Aunt Hester Ann's immaculate housekeeping; doted on the two old homesteads where father and mother were brought up — so staid and roomy, so historic-looking in contrast to the West. We visited the old stone school-house, where our parents had been pupils, and went to meeting in the old stone church called "The House of God in Ogden," because it was a union of denominations, and couldn't take the name of any.

We drove to Rochester to see the sights, and thought it the most beautiful of cities; listened with delight to a hundred stories

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of the olden time, and how father had started out early for himself, and mother had taught hereabouts "eleven summers and seven winters," beginning when she was but fifteen.

We lamented the absence of Cousin Morilla Hill, a graduate of Elmira Female College, who was our ideal of everything gifted and good; but take them for all in all, those four weeks when Aunt Caroline's home was ours and we went visiting to Uncle Zophar's, Uncle Calvin and Aunt Maria's, Aunt Church's, Aunt Hill's, Cousin John Hill's and all the rest, seemed to us like a merry-go-round that left us almost dizzy with delight. And when we took the train for home, waving good-bys from the platform to our dear kindred, and seeing the pretty village with bridge and creek, white church spires and fair fields, fade out of view, we two girls were for a little while quite inconsolable.

"When we went East" was the most important date in history from that time on for years. The world was wider than we had thought, and our security in the old home-nest was nevermore so great as it had been previous to this long flight.

During the quiet evenings at Forest Home we used often to compare views concerning East and West. Father had carried to New York a box of the rich, coal-black soil of the Forest Home farm, and told our cousin, Willard Robinson, that the Eastern soil in the fields and on the roads looked "light-complexioned, thin and poor." "Never you mind," retorted the sturdy young farmer, who was Oliver's favorite, "you must judge by the crops and the yield per acre. Yes, and the price, too; we can beat you on that, every time, and when it comes to wheat, we beat the world at that product, as you know."

The Westerners had to admit that there was no such variety of foliage in Wisconsin as in Monroe county, N. Y.; that stone fences were more solid than "sod and ditch," or "stake and rider," or "log on end," or " rail" fences, such as theirs; that the homes had a general look of thrift, snugness and well-to-do-ness not found on the prairies ("except ours," stoutly urged Oliver), and that " it was wonderfully nice to have a cellar full of apples." I ran a race on apple eating with my "York State" Cousin Sarah, and reached in one day a figure so high that it would hardly do to tell.

I admitted that the landscape at the East was more cozy, but

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urged that out West it was more "outdoorsy" and that it was better and bigger. But Cousin Lottie insisted, "You haven't any history West, except as you make it yourselves, while we have the old traditions of the early pioneers, the old stone school-house and church; then, too, we have that beautiful graveyard where our dear great-grandmother lies, who was almost ninety-seven when she died, and ever so many others of ‘the best and truest hearts that ever beat.’"

Silence was my only response to these assertions. True, I had seen no other cemetery, and I had a wonderful reverence for the past, but I told Oliver later, in confidence, that "when it came to mentioning the graveyard as a cheerful feature of the landscape, I wasn't up to it." Poor, foolish young thing! So little did I know about transition, and that "there is no death." But when my heart well-nigh broke, later, at loss of the dearest and best, then I found out, as we all do.

In studies the Easterners were far ahead of Mary and me, but not of Oliver, which was a great help to his sisters' "family pride." Indeed, he had no superiors for scholarship, or writing and speaking gifts, in college.

As regards pets, our Eastern cousins had been forced to admit themselves outnumbered. "Simmie, the learned lamb"; "Sukey, the pig that drank lye and was cured by loppered milk"; "Stumpy, the chicken whose legs froze off, and which knew so much it could almost talk"; "Ranger, the dog that killed sheep, and had to be killed himself"; "Nig, the black goat"; "Trudge, the Maltese kitten," and "Roly-poly, the tame mouse," passed in review like a Noah's ark menagerie, and formed my special list, while Mary described the "peacock that never was suited except when seated on the ridge of the barn"; "our guinea-hens that took the prize"; "our Suffolk piggy-wiggies that can't be beat for cunningness."

"And then the folks!" said Oliver, "they're so big-hearted, so progressive, and willing to live and let live. I tell you, Horace Greeley has it right — ‘Go West, young man, go West.’" But the home farms were so fertile and handsome, the old places and traditions so dear that none of our New Yorkers ever followed this sage advice. Father and his family were the "rolling stones that gather no moss." "Who cares!" Oliver used to say;

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"What we want is not moss, but momentum, and a rolling stone gets that."

Lord Chesterfield's "Letters on Politeness, Written to his Son," was a book read through and through at Forest Home. Mother talked much to her children about good manners, and insisted on our having "nice, considerate ways," as she called them, declaring that these were worth far more than money in the race of life.

Oliver brought home many books from college; indeed, while there, he got together a library of about eight hundred volumes. The book-case in father's room had Shakspeare, which Oliver and I had each read before we were fifteen, and reviewed to suit ourselves as to our favorite plays; also the English Reader, which we knew nearly by heart, and volumes of travel and biography; but, after all, there were not very many books we cared for. Newspapers and magazines were our chief reading until this wonderful library of Oliver's began to appear upon the scene. Here were cyclopedias, Bohn's translations of the classics, the English poets, essayists and historians. It was a perfect reveling place and revelation.

One day I noticed in the Prairie Farmer that the Illinois Agricultural Society had offered a prize for the best essay on the "Embellishment of a Country Home," and right away I said to my mother, "I'm going to compete." As usual, she encouraged me to "branch out" and so, pencil in hand (for I "couldn't think at all except thus armed and equipped"), I began my formidable task. I had this in my favor, that my own home was a model, and that I had seen it grow from nothing to a bower of beauty. What little I could do at writing or anything else, I always did "upon the fly," my brother said, and it was true; so the essay was soon ready and criticised by my four standbys, father inserting a characteristic sentence: "Plant trees, and do not fail, for health and beauty's sake, to plant the evergreen — the emblem of perpetual life." A few months after, a small box came through the postoffice, addressed to me. I had never before received anything in Uncle Sam's care that looked so ominous. Strings were cut, tissue papers removed, and behold! there was a handsome silver medal with my name, and the words, "First prize

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for essay," and a lovely cup, besides, while under all was a note from "S. Francis, Secretary Illinois Agricultural Society," congratulating "a lady so young on an achievement so creditable." I was of an enthusiastic nature — that was evident from the way I went with a hop, skip and jump through every room in the house, singing out "Hurrah!" until Bridget in the kitchen, Mike in the garden, and rollicking old Carlo took up the strain, and the whole family laughed and shouted and rejoiced in my joy.

No girl went through a harder experience than I, when my free, out-of-door life had to cease, and the long skirts and clubbed-up hair spiked with hair-pins had to be endured. The half of that down-heartedness has never been told and never can be. I always believed that if I had been let alone and allowed as a woman, what I had had as a girl, a free life in the country, where a human being might grow, body and soul, as a tree grows, I would have been "ten times more of a person," every way. Mine was a nature hard to tame, and I cried long and loud when I found I could never again race and range about with freedom. I had delighted in my short hair and nice round hat, or comfortable "Shaker bonnet," but now I was to be "choked with ribbons" when I went into the open air the rest of my days. Something like the following was the "state of mind" that I revealed to my journal about this time:

This is my birthday and the date of my martyrdom. Mother insists that at last I must have my hair "done up woman-fashion." She says she can hardly forgive herself for letting me "run wild" so long. We've had a great time over it all, and here I sit like another Samson "shorn of my strength." That figure won't do, though, for the greatest trouble with me is that I never shall be shorn again. My "back" hair is twisted up like a corkscrew; I carry eighteen hair-pins; my head aches miserably; my feet are entangled in the skirt of my hateful new gown. I can never jump over a fence again, so long as I live. As for chasing the sheep, down in the shady pasture, it's out of the question, and to climb to my "Eagle's-nest" seat in the big burr-oak would ruin this new frock beyond repair. Altogether, I recognize the fact that my "occupation's gone."

Something else that had already happened, helped to stir up my spirit into a mighty unrest. This is the story as I told it to my journal:

This is election day and my brother is twenty-one years old. How proud he seemed as he dressed up in his best Sunday clothes and drove off in the big wagon with father and the hired men to vote for John C. Fremont,
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like the sensible "Free-soiler" that he is. My sister and I stood at the window and looked out after them. Somehow, I felt a lump in my throat, and then I couldn't see their wagon any more, things got so blurred. I turned to Mary, and she, dear little innocent, seemed wonderfully sober, too. I said, "Wouldn't you like to vote as well as Oliver? Don't you and I love the country just as well as he, and doesn't the country need our ballots?" Then she looked scared, but answered, in a minute, "‘Course we do, and’ course we ought, — but don't you go ahead and say so, for then we would be called strong-minded."

These two great changes in my uneventful life made me so distressed in heart that I had half a mind to run away. But the trouble was, I hadn't the faintest idea where to run to. Across the river, near Colonel Burdick's, lived Silas Hayner and several of his brothers, on their nice prairie farms. Sometimes Emily Scoville, Hannah Hayner, or some other of the active young women, would come over to help mother when there was more work than usual; and with Hannah, especially, I had fellowship, because, like myself, she was venturesome in disposition; could row a boat, or fire a gun, and liked to be always out-of-doors. She was older than I, and entered into all my plans. So we two foolish creatures planned to borrow father's revolver and go off on a wild-goose chase, crossing the river in a canoe and launching out to seek our fortunes. But the best part of the story is that we were never so silly as to take a step beyond the old home-roof, contenting ourselves with talking the matter over in girlish phrase, and very soon perceiving how mean and ungrateful such an act would be. Indeed, I told Mary and mother all about it, after a little while, and that ended the only really "wild" plan that I ever made, except another, not unlike it, in my first months at Evanston, which was also nothing but a plan.

"You must go to school, my child, and take a course of study; I wish it might be to Oberlin" — this was my mother's quiet comment on the confession. "Your mind is active; you are fond of books and thoughts, as well as of outdoors; we must provide them for you to make up for the loss of your girlish good times;" so, without any scolding, this Roman matron got her daughter's aspirations into another channel. To be busy doing something that is worthy to be done is the happiest thing in all this world for girl or boy, for old or young.

On the day I was eighteen, my mother made a birthday

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cake, and I was in the highest possible glee. I even went so far as to write what Oliver called a "pome," which has passed into oblivion, but of which these lines linger in memory's whispering-gallery:

I AM EIGHTEEN.

The last year is passed;
The last month, week, day, hour and moment.
For eighteen years, quelling all thoughts
And wishes of my own,
I've been obedient to the powers that were.
Not that the yoke was heavy to be borne
And grievous,
Do I glory that 'tis removed —
For lighter ne'er did parents fond
Impose on child. It was a silver chain;
But the bright adjective
Takes not away the clanking sound
That follows it.
There is a God — an uncreated Life
That dwells in mystery.
Him, as a part of his vast, boundless self,
I worship, scorning not, nor yet reluctantly
Paying my vows to the Most High.
And this command, by Him imposed,
"Children, obey your parents,"
I receive and honor, for He says:
"Obey them in the Lord,"
And He is Lord and God!
But now having thro' waitings long,
And hopings manifold,
Arrived here at the limit of minority,
I bid it now, and evermore, adieu,
And, sinful though it may be,
Weep not, nor sigh,
As it fades with the night.

The clock has struck!
O! heaven and earth, I'm free!
And here, beneath the watching stars, I feel
New inspiration.
Breathing from afar
And resting on my spirit as it ne'er
Could rest before, comes joy profound.
And now I feel that I'm alone and free
To worship and obey Jehovah only.

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Glorious thought! Maker and made,
Creator and created,
With no bonds intervening!
One free, to worship and obedience pay,
The other on His heaven-spanning throne,
Deigning to receive the homage of His child.
God will I worship then, henceforth,
And evermore;
'T is night, and men and angels sleep,
While I adore.

Toward evening, on this "freedom day," I took my seat quietly in mother's rocking-chair, and began to read Scott's "Ivanhoe." Father was opposed to story books, and on coming in he scanned this while his brow grew cloudy.

"I thought I told you not to read novels, Frances," he remarked, seriously.

"So you did, father, and in the main I've kept faith with you in this; but you forget what day it is."

"What day, indeed! I should like to know if the day has anything to do with the deed!"

"Indeed it has — I am eighteen — I am of age — I am now to do what I think right, and to read this fine historical story is, in my opinion, a right thing for me to do."

My father could hardly believe his ears. He was what they call "dumbfounded." At first he was inclined to take the book away, but that would do harm, he thought, instead of good, so he concluded to see this novel action from the funny side, and laughed heartily over the situation, Oliver doing the same, and both saying in one breath, "A chip of the old block."

After the visit East we began to be somewhat restive even in our blessed old nest, and gave our father little peace till he arranged to send us away to school, and so it came about that in the spring of 1858 we left our Forest Home forever. Looking back upon it in the sweet valley of memory and from the slow-climbed heights of years, my heart repeats with tender loyalty the words written by Alice Cary about her country home:

"Bright as the brightest sunshine,
The light of memory streams
"Round the old-fashioned homestead,
Where I dreamed my dream, of dreams."

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Part III: The Happy Servant

The Happy Student. "I Would Study, I Would Know, I Would admire Forever. These Works of Thought Have Been the Entertainments of the Human Spirit in All Ages."

Chapter I.

DELIGHTFUL DAYS AT SCHOOL.

"I would study, I would know, I would admire forever. These works of thought have been the entertainment of the human spirits in all ages."

Emerson.

A little group around my mother's knee studying a book and afterward going with her into my father's flower garden where she plucked rewards of merit for us in the shape of pinks and pansies, is my earliest memory as a student. Mary and Maria Thome, children of our own ages, and daughters of Professor Thome, of Oberlin College, were among the group, and my first impressions of study take me to that fragrant garden, where choice flowers circled around a handsome evergreen, snowdrops and snowball bushes brightened the scene, and upon all the diamond dewdrops glistened.

Soon after that we took our journey into a far country, five hundred miles overland in the white "ships of the prairie," and for two years I have no special recollection of books for my parents were very busy with the farm.

It is a curious fact that I remember distinctly the first time I ever wrote my name, doubtless for the reason that I was late in learning, probably nine years old. We had been kept diligently to the writing of pot-hooks, and other uninteresting forms, filling little copy-books with them as we sat around the table in the large, bright kitchen at Forest Home, with all the conveniences for the evening school that my mother maintained steadily for her children and the hired help alike, during the long, cold winter of 1848, while my father was at Madison, the capital of Wisconsin, sixty miles away, attending to his duties as a legislator.

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A vaulting ambition entered my little head, and I said to my indulgent teacher, "Just write my own name for me in your nice hand, and see if I can not imitate it pretty well." So with great care, she wrote it out, and it looked beautiful to me, standing there at the head of a fresh sheet of foolscap paper. Mother's writing was very clear and even; like her character, it had a certain grace and harmony. I used to think some of her capitals were pretty as a picture. How long I gazed upon that magical creation I can not tell, but it was imprinted so deeply on my memory that I could not forget the incident, and looking long and steadily upon the copy she had given me, I followed it so well, "the first time trying," that I have sometimes thought the first was the best autograph I ever wrote.

Thus, in a desultory fashion, our lessons proceeded until I was nearly twelve years old. About this time my father brought home from Janesville an elegant card announcing that a college-bred gentleman from the East was about to open a classical school in that town. Around the edge of the card were some Latin words that I did not understand, but my father taught me how to pronounce them and what they meant. They were as follows: Scientia auctoritas est et labor vincit omnia, and he told me they meant, "Knowledge is power and labor conquers all things." Very many times I said them over to myself, much more I thought about them, seriously determining that I would attain knowledge so far as in me lay, and that I would compass the results which labor can achieve for one who is in earnest. I know no other road out of the wilderness. It is the straight and narrow way, appointed in so much of kindness by Him who knows from the beginning what we often learn only at the end, viz., that traveling the road does us more good than all we gather on the way or find awaiting us when we achieve the goal.

As time passed on, mother became very much in earnest for us to go to school. But there was no school-house in our district, so she "put on her thinking-cap," as we were wont to say, and, as usual, something came of it. Once or twice she had met at church in Janesville, a new family from the East, by the name of Burdick. They had bought a large farm across Rock river, hardly a mile away "on a bee line," but as the river was usually too deep to ford, it was miles around by the town bridge.

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Still carrying out our favorite play, the "Fort City Board of Education" was organized, with mother in the chair. The meeting was regularly opened by singing and prayer, and then mother stated the object of the assembly.

Oliver followed her, saying, "Mrs. Chairman, I agree with all that has been said, and so well said. If we young folks don't amount to something when we grow up, it won't be the fault of materfamilias."

"But," continued he, "I hardly see what we've got to make an institution of learning out of, here in Fort City. Father and mother know too much to go to school, and they haven't time to do the teaching. As for me, I've graduated, you know, from Fort City, and am a Janesvilleian. Loren is a hopeless case, devoted to his traps, and guns, and farm work. The girls have taught Mike to read and write, and that is all he wants to know in the way of ‘book-learning.’ Bridget wouldn't be bothered with even that much, when we offered to teach her. So the case narrows down to this: Frank and Mary are growing up in heathenish darkness."

As I "rose to a point of order" here, protesting that mother had taught us, and taught us well, thus far, and that we were not quite so ignorant as the speaker implied, Oliver hastened to qualify his statement.

"I mean," he continued, "that Frank and Mary ought no to have advantages greater than it is possible for you, Mrs. Chairman, in the limited time at your disposal, to bestow upon them. So I move that we found an academy for their special benefit."

This proposal met with unanimous approval, and the motion was carried with enthusiasm. So resolving ourselves into a "Committee of the Whole on Ways and Means," we began to canvass possibilities. Where could we have the academy? Who would be the teacher? These were vital questions to Mary and me, for mother was not more anxious for our education than were we ourselves. After much talk, pro and con, mother reminded us of our new neighbors, the Burdick family, and we at once appointed her our "envoy plenipotentiary," with full powers to do whatever could be done through them.

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Col. Burdick had been agent for Van Rensselaer, the "patroon" of Central New York, and his only daughter, Rachel Burdick, a remarkably bright and winsome girl, had been permitted to go to school with the patroon's children and was now a young lady of rare accomplishments, to whom her father's Western farm seemed lonely, after spending her life thus far upon the Hudson's lovely banks, near Albany. Mother was charmed by Miss Burdick, and asked if she would not do her the favor to come and teach Mary and me, Oliver having already been two winters in the "Academy" at Janesville, walking in and out each day. Of course he was to go to college, but the fate of his sisters was more misty in those days. I looked upon him as a prince, and only wished, although I dared not say it, that I had been born to a boy's chances in the world — though I never really wished to be a boy, at least, I hope not. Miss Burdick agreed to come, and mother began more frequently than ever to get off "homilettes," as father called them, in the following strain:

"The dearest wish of my heart, except that my children shall be Christians, is that they shall be well educated. A good education will open the world to you as a knife opens an oyster. Riches will not do this, because riches have no power to brighten the intellect. An ox and a philosopher look out on the same world, and perhaps the ox has the stronger and handsomer eyes of the two, but the difference between the brains behind the eyes makes a difference between the two beings that is wider than all the seas. I want my children's brains to be full of the best thoughts that great minds have had in all centuries; I want stored away in your little heads the story of what the world was doing before you came — who were its poets, its painters and philosophers, its inventors and lawgivers. I want you to know what is in its noblest books, and what its men of science say about their study of the earth, the ocean and the stars. I want you taught to be careful and exact by your knowledge of figures; and, most of all, I want you to learn how to speak and write your own noble English tongue, for without the power of expression you are like an seolian harp when there is no breeze. Now your father and I have assisted you and taught you until Oliver has already a good start in school and Frank is twelve years old. My son takes the highest rank as a student, just as I expected; my elder daughter is devoted

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to books and keeps a journal — which is a good beginning, and my younger will follow on into all that I desire, and already goes beyond the others in artistic taste. I have the promise of bright Miss Burdick that she will come and teach you during the summer, and by that time I hope your father will have a school-house in this district. But for the present we will fit up the parlor and the Inman girls will study with you."

This announcement rejoiced us beyond measure, for these two girls, living a mile away, we greatly liked, though we had seldom seen them, as theirs was not a church-going family, and hence we were not allowed to visit at their home.

One Monday school began. Father had made a large, "cross-legged" pine table, with a place below for our books, and around this, in the bright, fragrant June morning, sat four girls, from eight to fourteen years of age, and at the head, Miss Burdick, our eighteen-year-old teacher.

This first day's schooling we had ever known we called "the greatest kind of fun." Indeed we preferred it to any other form of amusement, for the reason that mother had always cried it up as the choicest experience we could possibly know, and because we had fully entered into all the other plays within our reach. We had a zest for study that school-cloyed children can not dream of, and learned in a year what little ones are tormented into, now, during seven years. Effie and Mattie Inman lived over a mile down the river and had lately come from Pottsville, Pa. They were true, good girls, carefully reared by a Presbyterian mother who had died just before they moved West. I greatly admired my handsome, dark-eyed, curly-haired classmate, Effie, whose steady sweetness of temper was so surprising to one of my impetuous nature that I told my mother I had "just stepped on Effie's toes at recess to see if she wouldn't frown, and sure enough she didn't." My mother replied that I had better set about imitating Effie's lovely ways instead of carrying on any more experiments of that sort. Mattie was more like common clay, but was a talkative, impulsive little thing, who was to Mary very much such an offset as Effie proved to be to me. But Miss Burdick was a whole picture gallery and musical performance in herself to us untutored prairie girls. She had come from a city; she knew the world — that great, big world we had only read about in books.

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She was a lady in every utterance and motion. She had rippling brown hair, smiled a good deal, had a silvery little laugh, and a beautiful white hand. Her trim, graceful figure was very small, almost fairy-like. She knew any amount of songs, and taught them to her attentive quartette; she was skillful with the pencil, and we all learned to draw; though Mary and I, especially the former, had made some progress in this branch already. Straightway I fitted up some "sketch-boards," tacking stiff white cloth over pieces of pine planed thin, and tacking on another piece of cloth, with one side open for our paper, pencils and rubber, and out we went, after four o'clock p. m., to "sketch from nature." Of these sketches no extended account had best be given, but all the same we had "a splendid time."

Miss Burdick was a botanist, and knew the names of more flowers than we who had lived West so long. She taught us how to "analyze," and we ransacked woods and fields to bring her "specimens." Miss Burdick could recite poetry by the hour, and we gave her no rest until she had told us all she knew of Walter Scott, Wordsworth, Cowper, and the rest. She told us of the Hudson, and the old Knickerbockers, of Madam Emma Willard's school, of Washington Irving and his Sunnyside home, of the Catskills and Palisades, and the great, fascinating city beyond. To her I used to talk of what I meant to be, and the cheery, responsive words of my teacher were a delight. Miss Burdick encouraged me to write, corrected my compositions carefully, rehearsed me on "The Downfall of Poland," which was my favorite "piece," and chilled no tender bud of aspiration in my heart.

One of my duties was to "keep the observations," and Miss Burdick helped me in this. Father had agreed to be one of the fact-gatherers for the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, which sent out to trusty persons all over the country instructions for studying the weather. They were to notice three times a day the direction of the wind, the indications of thermometer, barometer and rain-gauge, shape of the clouds, etc., and once a month fill out a blank report, giving all these particulars. Father was so often absent in town or at the Institute for the Blind, that these observations had to be left in other hands. The "Signal Service" that has its bulletin in every morning paper and postoffice nowadays, and which is so great a help to the public

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in many ways, was built upon the foundation laid by these observers. I learned many valuable lessons in this work when I was but a girl, as I studied the clouds and found out which were "cirrus," "cirrostratus," "nimbus," "cumulus," and so on.

We had winds on those prairies, sometimes, that came so near carrying off the house that father sat with Mary in his arms, I hid my face, as usual, in mother's lap, and all expected to be blown away. But though we had several terrific visitations of this sort, no harm ever reached any of us. Oliver used to say he believed the "Prince of the Power of the Air" got up those storms, and he didn't think it was fair to "lay them to the Lord."

For two summers Miss Burdick carried on her institution of four pupils, the second summer a few more coming in, and gave an elaborate "Exhibition" at the close, which seemed as great to us as the "Commencement Exercises" of the college where some of us graduated in 1858-59.

Father and Mr. Inman now bestirred themselves, for their daughters' sake, and a little school-house, belonging to the district, was built about a mile away. It was plain and inviting, that little bit of a building, standing under the trees on the river bank. No paint has ever brightened it, outside or in, from that day to the present. It looks like a natural growth; like a sort of big ground-nut. Inside, the pine desks were ranged around the wall, boys on one side, girls on the other, a slight platform with rude desk taking up the end nearest the door. But this school-house was a wonder in our eyes, a temple of learning, a telescope through which we were to take our first real peep at the world outside of home.

It was too far from "Fort City" for our "make-believes" to include it, and as we grew older we took life more as it really was, because there was so much more of it to take. I was about fourteen when the new school-house was built, and I regarded it as the great event of my life that I was now, at least, to become really "a scholar," go outside my own home and be "thrown upon my own resources," as father wisely called it. Miss Bur-dick's had been a sort of "play school," after all, for she was so young herself and made such a companion of me that the teacher had been lost in the friend.

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Miss Burdick had listened to all the imaginings of which my head was full, about what I was to be and to do in the world — for I was fully persuaded in my own mind that something quite out of the common lot awaited me in the future; indeed, I was wont to tell this dear teacher that I "was born to a fate." Women were allowed to do so few things then, that my ideas were quite vague as to the what and the why, but I knew that I wanted to write, and that I would speak in public if I dared, — though I didn't say this last, not even to mother. And now here was to be a real school and a real, live graduate of Yale College was to be the teacher. Mr. Hodge became "Professor" to us children — he had been Tutor Hodge at Oberlin College — and we were eager for the intellectual fray.

"There will be lots of rules," remarked Oliver, wisely, the evening before school was to begin. He was at home for a brief vacation, and used many big words, among others, unique, which, just for fun, he pronounced in three syllables, and the example was followed by me, who gravely took up his methods as my standards.

"What if there are lots o' rules?" piped sweet-toned Mary, "we sha'n't break them, as some college boys do."

"No, indeed," said I; "it will be a pleasant change to us to have some rules and live up to them."

"Do you mean to say I have given you none all these years?" asked mother, looking up from her sewing.

"Well, you've had mighty few, mother, I can tell you that," said Oliver.

"But we had to mind, you know," chimed Mary.

"Yes, and we had a mind to," I declared.

"That may all be, Miss Biddlecome," replied my brother, who, with father, often called me by this odd name, " but when it comes to sitting beside your favorite Effie and never speaking a loud word for six hours per day, you won't enjoy it. A girl that has played Jehu to calves, reapers and plow-beams as long as you have, won't take kindly to sitting still all day, either, and I prophesy there'll be a riot, a rumpus, a row before the month is out."

"Wait till you see," I responded, with a vim, and the discussion ended.

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It was a cold winter morning when school opened. We two girls had risen long before light, because we couldn't sleep, and packed our little tin dinner-pail with bread and butter, apples, and some of mother's "fried cakes" — which had already won a reputation that has since expanded into fame. We emptied her old satchel that we might stuff it out with school-books; filled our inkstand, and made all our small preparations, wondering if it would ever be daylight, and if nine o'clock A. M. would ever come. We hardly tasted our breakfast, and were so uneasy that long before the time Loren yoked the big oxen to the long "bobsled," and he and Oliver carried us to school. The doors were not yet open, so we sent to Professor Hodge's, which was near by, got the key, made the fire, and were the first to take possession. Loren stayed as a scholar, looking as if he did not like the bargain. Oliver cracked the whip and "geed up" the oxen, saying, "Well, I hope you'll enjoy what you've got yourselves into;" and I shouted, "We've got a Yale graduate to teach us, and Beloit can't beat that."

Professor Hodge's children were out in force, and made up the majority. Effie and Mattie Inman were there, Pat O'Donahue and his sisters, from two miles over the prairie, and a few others. Loren was the big boy of the school, and behaved like a patriarch. Jamie Hodge had already asked to have his lessons measured off, had selected a desk with his brother John, and before the hour for school had arrived he was studying away like a sage. Rupert Hodge, a blithe little fellow, was coasting down the hill with his sisters Annie and "Tottie," while Fred and Charley Hovey, new-comers and cousins of the Hodges, looked like little bread-and-butter cherubs with their red cheeks and flaxen hair. At last Professor Hodge appeared, in his long-tailed, blue coat with brass buttons, carrying an armful of school-books and a dinner-bell in his hand. He stood on the steps and rang that bell long, loud and merrily. My heart bounded, as I said, inside of it, so that nobody heard, " At last we are going to school all by ourselves, Mary and I, and are going to ‘have advantages’ like other folks, just as mother said we should! O goody — goody — goody!"

Professor Hodge stepped upon the rough little platform, opened his pocket Testament and read the first chapter of Mark;

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we sang "Jesus, lover of my soul," and then every head was reverently bowed, while in the simplest language the good man asked God's blessing on the children and their homes, on their lessons and their companionship as scholars. He was a tall man, with strong frame, large head covered with bushy hair, piercing blue eyes, pleasant smile, and deep, melodious voice. Accustomed to teach men, he bent himself gently to the task of pointing out A B C's to the youngest and setting copies for them all. He was a fine reader and his greatest pleasure seemed to be when his older pupils rendered to his satisfaction some gem from the English poets, in which he trained us carefully.

He was of English birth, and his first names, Nelson Wellington, united the last names of two heroes of whom he liked to talk. He was patient to a fault, and I was glad that in my mathematics, which I did not like, one so considerate took my difficult case in hand. He announced no rules, offered no prizes, but seemed to take it as a matter of course that we would all "behave." So passed the day — our first in the old school-house we learned to love in spite of — nay, perhaps the better because of, its ugliness. We had about four months of study with Professor Hodge, and later on, in the same place, six months with Mrs. Amelia Hovey, sister to Mrs. Hodge. This teacher was a delight to us. Her bright face, sparkling blue eyes, voice full of rising inflections, and her pride and pleasure in her pupils, made school just like a play-day. She was a charming singer and we delighted in her favorite song:

"Now to Heaven our prayer ascending,
God speed the right!
In a noble cause contending,
God speed the right!
Be that prayer again repeated,
Ne'er despairing, though defeated;
Truth our cause, what e'er delay it,
There's no power on earth can stay it,
God speed the right!
Pain nor toil nor trial heeding,
And in Heaven's own time succeeding,
God speed the right!"

These words used to ring out through the lonesome little school-house like a clarion call, while our teacher stood before us

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with an exaltation in her face that gave an uplift to each little heart as our fresh young voices sang,

"God speed the right!"

Mrs. Hovey's sunny nature and beautiful spirit of hope bent like a rainbow above those happy months at school, while her rare aptness to teach brought us on at railroad speed from title page to "finis" of a half-score of knotty text-books.

There was but one blur upon the pages of that happy time. One scholar, who has not before been mentioned, a girl older than I, said to me at recess, "You are the most ignorant girl I ever saw. I don't know what to make of it. Come with me around the corner of the school-house where no one will hear, and I will tell you things that will make your eyes open bigger than ever." Nothing could have vexed me more than to be called "ignorant," and nothing could have roused my interest like the chance to get that ignorance cured. "To know" had been my life's greatest desire from the beginning. I had carried a great many curious questions to my mother, such as every thoughtful child is sure to ask, and ask right early, too. The reply had always been, "Come to me when you are fifteen years old and I will tell you. You would not understand me now, if I should try to tell."

And here was this girl, a new scholar, who was laughing at me because I could not answer the very same questions — for she asked them as soon as she and I were alone. Then she went on to answer them with illustrations and anecdotes, riddles, puns and jokes, using many words that had to be explained to me, who had never heard their like before. My brother Oliver was a boy so wholesome and delicate that he had almost never said a word my mother did not know, and this strange vocabulary amazed and disconcerted me. I never talked with this coarse girl again upon these subjects, but afterward I felt so sorry to have talked at all. It was a rude awakening, one that comes to many a dear little innocent of not half my years, and is morally certain to come if a child goes to school at all. But it is inevitable that children should go and be brought up with other children, only the mother at home ought, I think, to take her little one into a very tender and sacred confidence, and in true, pure and loving words reply to every question the thoughtful little mind can ask. A boy and

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his mother, a girl and her mother, may, and ought to speak of anything that God has made. The "works of darkness" are evil; the secret words, the deeds previous to which some one says, "But you must never tell" — these are wicked and dangerous. Dear fathers and mothers who read between these lines, let me beg you to forewarn your little ones, and to tell them, upon the high level of your own pure thoughts and lives, what they are certain to learn sooner than you think, when they go with other children. There will always be some one to teach them naughty words and deeds, unless your lessons have come first. Happily for me, I was too well established before I heard these things to get harm out of them, but not one home in a thousand is so isolated as was mine. Besides, think of the pain and sense of loss that came to me from that one miserable interview!

Louise Alden was a friend made at this school, and greatly valued by us, especially by Mary, who was of nearly the same age. Our coasting down the hill was wonderful to see; our fishing with a crooked pin, small bait and less fish, in the mellow-voiced river; our climbing trees for toothsome hickory-nuts, beating the bush for mealy hazel-nuts, and scouring the pastures for sweet-smelling plums that grew wild; our play-houses, with dishes moulded from clay in my "china manufactory," and dolls for which I declined to make clothes — are not all these written in memory's "book of chronicles"? What times we used to have on "composition day," and at the "spelling school" on Friday afternoon, when I was at the head on one side and Effie on the other, or Pat O'Donahue and Johnny Hodge marshaled the forces. We "toed the line," and "went up head," and "spelled down," after the approved, old-fashioned style. Mother and Mrs. Hodge were "company" on such occasions, and were escorted to platform seats with much decorum by my sister. As school was so far away we stayed from 9 A. M. to 4 P. M., and made much of our dinners, setting them out on the teacher's desk and sharing our wholesome food with many a cheery speech and laughing reply as the noon hour, all too short, sped away. But, most of all, we were diligent to learn, for we were behind other scholars of our years, and were afraid, as we almost daily told our mother, that our "smart cousins down in York State would get so far ahead that we never could catch up."

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Later, our family spent one winter in Janesville and we went to Mrs. Fonda's "Select School," where I especially doted on Cutler's Physiology, and proudly took turns at editing the school paper, while Mary drew maps so well as to astonish the natives, and painted in water-colors after school. Here our Aunt Sarah and Cousin Morilla, both teachers in Catharine Beecher's and Miss Mary Mortimer's "Female College" at Milwaukee, came to spend the holidays, and their wise and bookish conversation was a delight beyond words to us. Here we heard "Elder Knapp," the great revivalist, preach in the Baptist Church and our hearts were deeply exercised, but we did not come out as Christians. Still it never entered our minds not to pray, but the sweet and simple "Now I lay me down to sleep," quieted our young hearts at night, and every morning father's prayer found an echo in our own. But Oliver, always ready for every good word and work, went to the front with his beloved school-mate, William Henry Brace, the two boys yielding at once to mother's gentle invitation to "come out boldly on the Lord's side." Indeed, Oliver had been converted at twelve years of age, just before we left Oberlin, and later on he was immersed in our own Rock River and joined the church "on probation." Whenfather went to the legislature at Madison, leaving the farm folks pretty lonesome, little Mary was sent by her brother and sister, to say to their mother that they intended to be Christians all the while pa was gone, and not make her any trouble, and they thought it would comfort her to know it. "And I do, too," added the dear, chubby-faced girl, who was not only born "a Sunday child," but always seemed to stay so.

Our episodes of school included a month or so of outing at the summer home of Rev. and Mrs. Peleg S. Whitman, accomplished Southerners, who had driven all the way from Georgia to Wisconsin in their own carriage on a health excursion. They were both teachers, having a ladies' school at home, and father meeting them at Janesville, invited them to spend some time at Forest Home, and bought an elegant piano of their selection, that Mrs. Whitman's masterly musical gifts and teaching might be enjoyed by his daughters. We had been taking music lessons for years from the teachers at the Wisconsin Institute for the Blind, a mile away, and were quite well advanced, but played

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only on the melodeon. My love for this instrument was so unbounded that when the piano was brought home I evinced but little pleasure and turned to my old pet so steadily that father saw no way but to sell it, which he did. When it was being boxed to be carried out of the house, mother found us two girls kissing the sweet-voiced old melodeon good-by, almost with tears.

From that time, although I still had lessons, I felt small interest in the study of music, but Mary's dainty hands took kindly to the piano, and she swiftly passed her sister, whose knowledge of "thorough bass" had been her despair until the instrument of wind and reeds gave place to the twanging wires and mysterious pedals of the piano. But when Mrs. Whitman sang some sweet Scotch ballad, or our favorite "Once more at home," to its accompaniment, I was almost as much delighted as my sister, and when she struck the martial notes of the "Battle of Prague" we, like the Queen of Sheba, "had no more spirit in us" for very wonder. I was passionately fond of martial music, but when Mrs. Whitman rendered the cries of the wounded and dying, both of us, to whom scenes of sorrow were unknown, wanted to "put our heads in mother's lap and cry."

Mrs. Whitman was a French scholar, and we were eager to learn, so it was agreed that we might go to Mr. and Mrs. Whitman for a few weeks' study.

"Let our birds try their wings a little before they fly far from the old home-nest," said father, who dearly loved to have us run to meet him when he came home from town, delighted himself with our singing, and was grieved to the heart at the thought that we must sometime leave him. So the greatest event of all our lives, thus far, was going six miles from home, to stay with the Whitmans in their pleasant rural retreat, and for the first time to spend a night out from under the old home roof. Father carried us over, one blithe summer day, with the trunk which we had packed so carefully, and as we saw him drive away, we had a most "all-overish feeling of lonesomeness," as I called it, while Mary actually had tears in her sweet blue eyes.

"For shame," I said to her in a low voice; "it's only six miles to Forest Home, and we are only away for a month. Just think how much more we shall know when we go back."

"Yes, but I want ma to tuck me up in bed and kiss me

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good-night," she murmured, her red lips trembling as she turned away.

Mr. and Mrs. Whitman made it very pleasant for us with music, reading aloud, and a drive in the fields now and then. Ollendorffs French Method was placed in my hands, and I diligently conned those oldest of all questions, "Avez vous faim? Avez vous soif?" while Mary sketched from nature, grieved over English grammar and rejoiced to practice on the piano. We had never read novels, and stories were almost unknown to us, except the lovely story of "Outdoors," in four parts, with a new edition every year. "Pilgrim's Progress" we knew almost by heart, and Bible histories were familiar — more so from mother's lips than by our own reading, though we had regularly "read the Bible through" that year, at the rate of three chapters a day and five on Sunday, and received the promised Bibles, "all our own," as a reward. Miss Trumbull, a seamstress, who was also "a character," had told us "Children of the Abbey" and "Thaddeus of Warsaw," after which lengthened dissipations we could "hardly sleep a wink" — the first loss of sleep known to our happy and well-ordered lives. We had read many biographies of great men and much of the best in English poetry, besides Robert Ramble's "Stories of Greece," and Goldsmith's "History of Rome." We knew much of mythology, but, aside from "The Shoulder Knot," "Norman Leslie," a religious romance, and a few hunting stories, we were absolutely, blessedly ignorant of "novels." But our gifted teachers were readers of the best in fiction, and here I found "Jane Eyre," "Shirley," and "Villette," those Wonderful books by the lonesome-hearted genius, Charlotte Bronte. These opened a new world, and to one less anchored to mother and home than I was, they might have done untold mischief. As it was, I read them all in feverish haste, closing with "Villette," in the midst of which I was, on a lovely summer evening just before twilight, when a long shadow fell across the threshold where I was sitting, unconscious of everything about me, and my father's tall form bent over me; he took the book from my hand, and as he saw the flush on my cheeks his brow was clouded.

"Never let my daughter see that book again, if you please, madam," he said to the lady of the house, who, not knowing his rules, had hardly noted my proceedings; the book was

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taken from me, and to this day I have never finished reading "Villette."

Of course I did not like this then, and was angry with my father, although I did not dare to say so. But I learned as years passed on how much I owed to the firm hand that held my impetuous nature from a too early knowledge of the unreal world of romance. Thanks to parental wisdom, I passed my childhood and my early girlhood in perfect quietness, simplicity and the holiness of nature's company.

But with the autumn these genial Southern friends flitted away to their beautiful Georgia, to escape the chill of the Wisconsin climate, and we went home enriched by their words of grace and graciousness, and instructed by their polished manners not less than by the books and music we had studied.

We still published, at intervals, the Fort City Tribune, for which mother was a frequent contributor, giving us once the following bit of verse she had composed especially for our paper, and which was intended to afford us some account of her own childhood in her beloved Vermont:

RAYS FROM THE PAST.
From distant years a gentle light
Is ever bright'ning up my way;
'Twill cheer me to eternal morn
By its sweet ray.

'Tis from life's dewy, radiant dawn,
That introduced my infant day,
From that sweet Eden, diamond-gemmed,
Where children play.

'Tis from my father's sheltered home,
That calm and love-illumined spot,
Where fragrant incense bathed my brow,
Not yet forgot.

'Tis from the bright and purling brook,
And from the towering elm-tree's shade,
And from the pure and holy joys
For young life made.

'Tis from the thorny brier bush,
With ripe and tempting raspberries hung,
Which we on slender threads of grass
For "Teacher" strung,

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To dim her youthful vision bright,
To mystify her opening mind,
That to our many childish faults
She might be blind.

Dainty reflections, clear and bright,
Still gleam from the delicious past,
Cheering the traveler to her home —
That home, her last.

Oliver brought any amount of books from college and read them in vacation. He was now too much of a young man to help on the fortunes of Fort City any longer. The Hodge boys were busy with the farm, Bridget was less company for us than of old, and we girls turned to the blind pupils at the Institute as our base of supplies. We had a music teacher from there, whom we dearly loved. This was Mrs. Eliza King Walls, a graduate of the New York Institute, a beautiful woman and an accomplished player. It was an event when she came to give the weekly lessons, for she entered heartily into our plans and was an enthusiast as to our musical abilities. Her elder sister, Miss King, often came with her, and her lovely little girl, Mamie — the first "wee toddler" that we had known. I thought she was "enough better than a stupid doll," — indeed, except "Doll Anna," I had never cared for these "wooden effigies," as I called them, but gave my wax doll to my sister, with some show of generosity, but no inward sense of sacrifice.

Mary was fond of every breathing creature — except snakes, spiders and mosquitoes — and she liked dolls because "they reminded her of humans," but upon little Mamie Walls she lavished her rich young heart in a manner beautiful to see. She brought out all her small store of pretty things and placed them at her disposal; spread a "playing place" for her on a big shawl under her favorite tree; toyed with her soft curls, hugged her tenderly, and even counted the days till her next music lesson, chiefly because "Mamie would come again."

But much as I loved Mrs. Walls and her baby, my favorite teacher was Mr. Frank Campbell — since then a well-known London musician, and famous as the only blind man who ever climbed Mt. Blanc; this he did to prove how mind may triumph over matter; his son walking ahead, and he setting his feet in the

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tracks thus made. He used to come to give us girls our lessons, over the rough country road, with its ups and downs, all alone, except for his faithful cane, which, we declared, "had brains, could almost talk and ought to vote."

He was a brilliant pianist — could play any piece of music, no matter how difficult, if but once read in his hearing, and was a most gifted as well as a most gentle-natured man. His wife was an invalid, and I thought it a high honor when I was permitted to write letters for him and to sit beside the sweet little lady who was so often ill. The other teachers at the Institute were frequent guests at Forest Home. Mr. P. Lane, of Mississippi, a blind man of much culture and strong character, was Principal, and a great friend of my father. Later on, Mr. William H. Churchman, of Indianapolis, also blind, held that position. He was often at Forest Home and was so fine a scholar that we never grew tired of listening to his conversation with our parents. We had been taught that "children should be seen, not heard," and never dreamed of speaking in the presence of our elders unless spoken to. This early habit, with my great sensitiveness and timidity, made me the shy one of the trio, so that my dread of going out into "company" was extreme. Oliver and Mary used often to joke me about this.

Mr. Churchman's daughter Anna was about my age, and was the most accomplished young person that we young folks had seen, except our cousin, Miss Abby Clement, of Vermont, who had come West with her father, Rev. Dr. Jonathan Clement, on a visit, and, spending a week at Forest Home, had so astonished us country girls by her knowledge of books and of the world, that we almost despaired of "ever being anybody," except as our ever cheery mother laughed at our fears. I used to think that if I could recite Bryant's "Thanatopsis" and Campbell's "Last Man" as Abby could, I would ask no more in this stage of existence. The blind girls, too, were a marvel to us Forest Homers. They were regular "lightning calculators" in mental arithmetic; they could read the raised letters in the great books printed for them; could trace with delicate finger-tips all the countries on the raised maps, and repeat poetry by the hour. They were not a bit sorrowful because they could not see, but when they came to spend an afternoon at Forest Home, would

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propose to play "Blind Man's Buff," and say, merrily, "You won't have to tie a handkerchief over our eyes; and you'll know for certain that we won't cheat by taking a peep on the sly."

From these experiences we learned that happiness is from within; that the real light shines in the heart, not in the eyes, and that everybody who will be glad, may be.

At one time Prof. C. B. Woodruff and his wife had charge of the "Blind Institute," as it was oddly called, and the mathematical miracles wrought by the pupils under his care, disheartened at least one of mother's three children about ever "cutting any figure" in that line, and perhaps made me the more determined to excel in some other direction since I was so outdone in this by my well-beloved companions. For life grew less lonely as the years went by and neighbors were more numerous. A handsome German gentleman called one day and proposed to buy a slice off the most distant part of the old farm. He was Prof. Gustave Knoepfel, of New York, since well known as an accomplished organist. He wished to bring his old father and mother with his many brothers and sisters, from Germany and locate them in peace and quiet in the "far West," which Wisconsin then was. His father was a Lutheran minister and a "Herr Professor," besides, having a title that he said meant "head covered with moss." Father thought these would be good neighbors and sold them the land. The young professor gave music lessons to us that summer, while he superintended the building of a house for the family that was to come. They were a new window into the great world, these cultured Germans with their neat, frugal ways, pleasant manners and many accomplishments.

But I noticed that the learned Doctor did not seem to think so much of his girls as of his boys, and that his wife had no such place in her home as my mother had in hers. Nor did the boys treat their sisters as their equals, as Oliver did his, and the Hodge boys theirs. They seemed to be more like convenient drudges — good to have about, but not companions. All this touched my free spirit with a sense of pain and I "pondered much why these things were."

The last teacher I had at Forest Home was mother's youngest sister, Miss Sarah B. Hill. She had gone with us in 1841, in the large carry-all, from Churchville, to Oberlin, Ohio. After

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study at Oberlin College she had been Preceptress of Riga Academy, New York, and Columbia Female College, Tennessee. Her fame as a teacher had gone out far and wide, and we thought nothing could ever give us so much pleasure as to see "Aunt Sarah." Our own dear mother had taught "eleven summers and seven winters," as we had often heard her say; but here was a woman who had been a teacher all her life long, who was a mathematician, an historian, a mental philosopher, and what-not, besides! She was to come from Buffalo to Milwaukee, "around the Lakes," and then by cars to Janesville, for we had the cars at last, and the screech of the locomotive sounded as we thought the voice of a horrid dragon might have done.

Father, who was fond of a secret, had tried to keep this great event as a surprise, but in hunting his pockets for the latest newspapers I had come upon my aunt's letter and shown it to mother, who knew all about the matter, but counseled silence on the children's part. So when he went to town one night, — a thing he almost never did at such an hour — advising us to sit up until his return, which was exactly opposite to his general counsel, we knew very well what it meant. The usual style of children, whose lives are so brimful of happenings that they have learned to take almost everything as a matter of course, can hardly imagine what it really did mean to us to have Aunt Sarah come! Here we had lived alone, year after year, in a place where most people would have thought that nothing ever happened; hardly a person of our own blood had we seen since the white-covered wagons started from Oberlin so long ago; letters were now and then exchanged, to be sure, but each letter cost twenty-five cents, hence was an infrequent luxury; and here, at last, was coming the wonderful woman who had studied many books and knew the world! Loren declared that he should stay at the barn — he didn't dare to see her. Bridget said "she knew enough of great people to lay in a good stock o' provisions when they was comin' 'round"; the Hodge children and Louise said there would be no more fun and they wished she wouldn't come, and meanwhile father rejoiced in the wonderful surprise he had in store for all of us! At the unheard-of late hour of ten, whose clear stroke on the old brass clock we young people had almost never listened to before, the rumble of wheels along that unfrequented

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road told of Aunt Sarah's coming. Loren rushed out to take care of the team and Oliver to help bring in the trunk. Mother's calm face was wonderfully lighted up; how lonely she had been and how much hard work she had done since she saw her sister last! Candle in hand she stepped out on the piazza; a tall lady in a handsome blue traveling dress threw her arms about her and both women cried. I relieved mother of the light, father and Oliver brought in the trunk, my aunt gave me a hug and took sweet Mary on her knee.

"Well! for country folks you don't surprise worth a cent, that's certain," said my father, but he never knew how much we knew, meek-eyed deceivers that we were!

It took but a short time to get acquainted. Mary said, "Aunt Sarah is so much like mother that I'm not afraid of her." Oliver agreed to this, and so did I, but as I was the shy one of them all, I was on my good behavior longest. But Aunt Sarah was such a brave and sunny spirit, that I very soon "thawed out," as Oliver laughingly called it, and became a walking interrogation point, giving my aunt no rest in my desire to learn all about the people, customs, etc., which the "learned lady" had found out in her wide experience. Teaching was such a passion with her, that in a few days she had me studying mathematics, derivation of English words, and history, while Mary listened to these recitations and took another set better suited to her years. Aunt Sarah was a devout Christian, and all her lessons led toward God. The Bible was one of her text-books in astronomy, and she delighted to explain its references to the Pleiades, Arcturus, and Orion. She was very clear in everything she taught. Standing up in all her ample proportions, she said one day, "Now I will represent the sun; Frank shall turn round and round, and so turning shall also go in a circle around me, and while she does this, Mary must move slowly around her; thus Frank will represent the daily and yearly motions of the earth, and Mary of its satellite." So she made our work seem play. She illustrated as clearly, the tides, the zodiac, precession of the equinoxes and many other points usually "skimmed over," rather than learned. Meanwhile, I read Dr. Dick's "Christian Philosopher" and "Future State," and was so wrought upon that when I had to help get dinner one Sunday, I fairly cried. "To come down

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to frying onions when I've been away among the rings of Saturn, is a little too much!" I said, impatiently. Poor ignorant child! I had not yet learned that

"To sweep a room as for God's laws,
Makes that and the action fine."

At the end of a delightful winter's training under our aunt, with whom we afterward spent (before leaving Forest Home) a term at the Milwaukee Female College, where she was Professor of History, we girls had the sorrow of seeing her go away to her home at the East. After twenty years devoted to teaching, almost wholly in the college grades, this dear aunt married Mr. Ward Hall in 1862 and lives near the old home in Churchville, N. Y.

In the spring of 1857, when I was seventeen, our parents sent us to Milwaukee because Aunt Sarah was then one of the leading teachers there, and they had entire confidence in our well-being when we were with her. We boarded in the home of Dr. M. P. Hanson, for so many years the Dr. Dio Lewis of Milwaukee, and found its Christian atmosphere was like that of our own father's house. Miss Mary Mortimer, the Principal, was absent from the college on leave, and I have always regretted missing the contact of a pupil with that great, philosophic soul. The Misses Mary and Carrie Chapin, and Miss H. Huntington, all accomplished New England teachers, had us in hand.

The college was Congregational in leadership, though really unsectarian. We went with our aunt to Plymouth Church where I greatly enjoyed the preaching of Rev. Dr. Z. M. Humphrey, and the Bible class conducted by his accomplished wife.

I was never in an institution where the moral atmosphere was so clear and invigorating as that of the Milwaukee Female College. We used to sit in the great study hall without a teacher present, and any girl who would have misbehaved or laughed or whispered would have been looked upon as beneath contempt. We were all "upon honor," — the teachers trusted us. I remember on the first day, I went to my class in geology, and, not knowing that it was against the rule, I spoke to a classmate about the lesson as we were climbing the stairs toward our teacher, and entirely

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away from supervision; my school-mate looked at me brightly and kindly, evidently perceiving that I intended no harm, and laid her taper finger on her sweet, shy lips. I could not forget in a thousand years the majesty of the occasion, as it impressed my mind, the sacred sense of truth it gave me and the determination that it deepened in my spirit to be just as trusty and conscientious as was she.

My admiration for Marion Wolcott, daughter of Dr. E. B. Wolcott, the city's chief physician, was beyond words. Immaculate in character, conduct and scholarship, I set her up as my standard at once, and never rested until, like her, I heard "Ten, Ten," meaning "perfect in punctuality, behavior and lessons," read out each week after my name.

My diligence in study was so great that Aunt Sarah feared for my health. Each evening I rehearsed to her the lessons of the coming day or wrote on my forthcoming "composition." As an intellectual guide, she was my greatest inspiration; and other pupils felt no less enthusiastic over this "born teacher" and devoted Christian.

Our history class was memorable. This was her favorite branch — in teaching it she was thoroughly individual, making the lesson vivid, even to the dullest mind. Often she was very humorous, at other times pathetic even to tears, as she depicted great characters and achievements vital to the progress of humanity.

The "examination day," just previous to Commencement was the climax of all that I had known. Our "middle class," was seated on the high platform of the great study hall. My aunt went to the opposite end, and in her clear voice called out the topics by number. We had to speak loud enough to be heard throughout the room, or she would not allow us to proceed. Mother was present and this was a day of joy to her, for she could see how hard her girls had worked. I had an essay on "Originality of Thought and Action," also a little poem, "Lighting the Lamps," written on a sweet evening as I watched from my window that city sight to me so novel. This was read by my friend, Anna Barnes, one of the leading pupils.

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Sitting by my window,
On a summer eve,
List'ning to the billow,
List'ning to the breeze;
Dark the shadows falling,
Bright the stars and clear,
Men have ceased their toiling,
To their homes draw near;
Hear the drowsy beating
Of the city's heart,
As the hours are fleeting,
And 'tis growing dark.

See! a light is gleaming
Down the fading street!
Ah! 'tis brighter beaming,
Guiding weary feet.
Wake from out thy dreaming!
Wander not away!
Soul of mine, what seeming
For this night of May.
Let the light now shining,
Glist'ning through the gloom,
'Round thee gently twining,
Cause thee not to roam.

But notwithstanding all that is honestly avowed in the foregoing lines, my heart ached when I left Milwaukee, and I was downright sorry to go home.

My journal of the last days reads thus:

Milwaukee, July 16, 1857. — Terrible times preparing for examination. I have studied hard, and ought to do well. How will it be? I pause for a reply. Practiced reading my composition on the rostrum, reviewed my history, geology and botany for examination; meltingly warm; all the seats are taken out of the school-room. Father and mother came and stayed a few moments and then went out to Mr. Gifford's. Later. — Nice times thus far; have recited botany, geology and history. Father only heard me in history; mother, in everything.

July 23. — Left the city at half-past ten. Felt fully as bad as when I left home, even worse.

It seemed as if I had here found "where to stand," and among noble mates. Marion Wolcott, Belle Flanders, Lizzie

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Wiley, Susie Bonnell, Abby Walton, Dora Smith — to these and other leading spirits I was utterly devoted, and most of all to Marion. It was the greatest grief my life had known up to that time, when I learned that my father had determined not to send us back again, because he was a Methodist and preferred a school of that denomination. This being settled, we importuned the good man of the house until he told us he thought more favorably of Evanston, a new town a few miles north of Chicago, than of any other place. We had read in our church paper, The Northwestern Christian Advocate, that this was to be the Methodist Athens of the West. Dr. Clark Hinman, newly-elected president of the University, had spoken before the Conference in our own church, Bishop Morris presiding — the first "real, live Bishop" we had ever seen, and reverenced more in those years than he would be in these, when pew and pulpit almost meet.

Our cousin Morilla Hill came to see us at the holidays, 1857-58, and spoke so enthusiastically of Evanston, its present educational advantages and its assuredly metropolitan future, that we gave up our dream of Oberlin and our devotion to Milwaukee, and one day in early spring father was packed off, by the combined energies of wife and daughters, to "spy out the land" at Evanston. He attended the closing exercises of the term, was pleasantly impressed by Prof, and Mrs. Wm. P. Jones, the united head of the school family; Miss Luella Clark, the poet, who had the literature department; Miss Lydia Hayes, teacher of mathematics; Miss Baldwin, Miss Dickinson, and various other leading lights of the Ladies' College. So he brought home a good report, and we girls sang and shouted in glee; the spell was broken, the great world-voices charmed our youthful ears, so long contented with the song of zephyrs among the tas-seled corn, or winds in the tall tree-tops that sheltered our sacred altar fires; our country life was ended, and forever ended, except that on our return from four months at Evanston, I taught a summer term in the "old school-house," in which Mary did the "art department," and our old playmates gathered in "for fun," while six delightful weeks proved that we could have our good times all the same, and yet be doing good to somebody.

The first sorrows that came into our girlish lives were caused by the departure from this world of our gifted, fine-souled cousin,

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Charlotte Gilman, and our thoughtful, gentle playmate, "Reverend Jamie." "Heaven's climate must be more like home to them than ours," said lovely Mary, herself so soon to follow. Life took a serious color from the loss of these sweet souls, and Nature's voices had thenceforth a minor key amid their joyfulness.

Evanston, twelve miles north of Chicago, on Lake Michigan, was founded in 1854, by Dr. (afterward Governor) John Evans, Orrington Lunt, and other leading laymen of the M. E. Church. Here they located the Northwestern University and secured a large tract of land for its endowment. The Garrett Biblical Institute, a theological school, was founded here also by Mrs. Eliza Garrett, of Chicago. But the school which most interested this father of young women, bent on their higher education, was the Northwestern Female College, owned and managed by Prof. William P. Jones, a graduate of Alleghany College, and his wife, a graduate of Mt. Holyoke Seminary. This was the only woman's college of high grade at this time known. Its course of study was almost identical with that of its neighbor, the University, and its advantages were of a high order. It was soon arranged that we should enter the College which was to become the Alma Mater of us both.

Chapter II. COLLEGE DAYS.

Here comes in a sketch prepared by request of "the powers that be" by my schoolmate, my sister Mary's classmate, and our beloved sister-in-law, Mary Bannister Willard. Her father was Dr. Bannister, long Principal of Cazenovia Seminary, N. Y., and for nearly thirty years Professor of Hebrew in our Theological Seminary at Evanston. With her two daughters, Katharine and Mary, Mrs. Willard has been for some years in Berlin, Germany, where she has a fine Home School for American girls:

None of the pupils who attended in the spring term of 1858 will fail to recall the impressions made by two young girls from Wisconsin on their entrance upon this new school-life. Mary, with her sweet, delicate face, winning, almost confidential manner, and earnest, honest purpose, conquered the hearts of teachers and pupils at once. School girls are a conservative body, reserving favorable judgment till beauty, kindliness, or fine scholarship compels their admiration. Frances was at first thought proud, haughty, independent — all cardinal sins, in school-girl codes. The shyness or timidity which she concealed only too successfully under a mask of indifference, gave the impression that she really wished to stand aloof from her mates. When it came to recitations, however, all shyness and apparent indifference melted away. The enthusiasm for knowledge and excellence shone from the young girl's face on all these occasions. After "class" her schoolmates gathered in groups in corridor and chapel, and discussed her perforce favorably. "My! can't she recite? Look out for your laurels now, Kate!" "The new girl beats us all," — these were the ejaculations that testified of honest schoolgirl opinion, and prophesied her speedy and sure success.

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It was but a few weeks till she was editor of the College paper, and leader of all the intellectual forces among the students. She was in no sense, however, an intellectual "prig." None of us was more given over to a safe kind of fun and frolic; she was an inventor of sport, and her ingenuity devised many an amusement which was not all amusement, but which involved considerable exercise of wit and intelligence — and our beloved "Professor" soon found that he could always rely upon her influence in the school to counteract the tendency to silly escapades and moonlight walks with the "University boys." A young man would have been temerity itself who would have suggested such a thing to her. In fact she came to be something of a "beau" herself — a certain dashing recklessness about her having as much fascination for the average school-girl as if she had been a senior in the University, instead of the carefully dressed, neatly gloved young lady who took the highest credit marks in recitation, but was known in the privacy of one or two of the girls' rooms to assume the "airs" of a bandit, flourish an imaginary sword, and converse in a daring, slashing way supposed to be known only among pirates with their fellows. If one of those school-mates had been called upon to sum up in a sentence a rough estimate of her friend she would probably at this period have given as her opinion, "She's wild with the girls and doesn't care a snap for the boys."

At some "grammar party," or sociable, she was heard to begin a conversation with one of these "rejected and despised" individuals with the very nonchalant remark, "We all seem to be in good health, the company is pleasant and the evening a fine one. These subjects being duly disposed of, what shall we talk about?" Rumor had it ever thereafter, that the young man was so bewildered that he surrendered his heart upon the spot.

Her teachers at this time were, first of all, "Professor," than whom it would seem from the speech of those days and the girls of that time, no other ever existed. He was the moving spirit within all the wheels; the indomitable, unconquerable man whose energy and perseverance had twice built the college, the

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last time after a disastrous fire, and whose faithful devotion to woman's higher education long before it became the popular, fashionable thing it is to-day, holds all his former pupils in reverent, loving admiration.

Next came his good, true wife, greatly beloved by the students and a most conscientious teacher. One of the deepest impressions of her school life, Frances often says, was made by the tender appeal of this teacher-friend urging her pupil to give heart and soul to God, and coming to her room and kneeling by her side to pray that she might be brought to the point of yielding herself in "reasonable service" to Him who died for her.

Miss Mary Dickinson, of Massachusetts, a woman of queenly grace and dignity, and fine abilities as an instructor, occupied the Chair of Natural Sciences during the first year, and Miss Louise Baldwin the same position during the last year of the college course. Miss Luella Clark, loved and prized no less for her friendly heart and beautiful character, than for her poetic soul, was Professor of Literature and Philosophy, and general confidential adviser of each one who made any specialty of composition. Both Professor Jones and Miss Clark had rare ability to inspire the literary ambition in the minds of their pupils. They possessed high ideals themselves, and knew how to place these so attractively before the young beginner, that, without discouragement, there was endless dissatisfaction with crude effort, and endless trying for better things.

In the vacation summer of 1858, on returning from Evanston Frank (as everybody called her) took possession of the little school-house near Forest Home, and for six weeks carried on the school herself, with great comfort and pleasure. Early in the autumn the Willard family removed to Evanston, Tenants were placed in charge of their beloved "Forest Home," and "Swampscott" became their residence — a pleasant place near the lake, the large grounds of which became Mr. Willard's pride and pleasure, as he saw them, under his skillful management, growing constantly more beautiful. Nearly every tree and vine was set with his own hands, often assisted by Frank, and all were imported from Forest Home.

The last year at school was one of great strain for Frank, for she carried six or seven studies, and twice before graduation suffered

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severe illnesses, interrupting her progress, but not permanently interfering with her health. One of these occurred at the time of the marriage of one of her favorite teachers, Miss Lillie Hayes, to the Rev. J. W. Waugh, who was under appointment as a missionary of the Methodist Church to India. This was a sore grief, as Frances was one of her chosen brides-maids. The long journey before her friend seemed never so weary and unending as viewed from a sick-bed, and the parting never so final and appalling.

Some small glimpses of her busy student life are given in the following extracts from her journal kept in the spring of 1859.

May. — I am now in the midst of the cares, duties and troubles of my last term at school, and you must expect less frequent visits for a few weeks, my silent confidant.
Here's a pretty thought, from what source I know not. "Twilight flung her curtain down and pinned it with a star." "Duties are ours; events are God's." (The Methodist.) Definition of History: "Philosophy teaching by example."

Dr. Foster closed the Bible, after his discourse at the University chapel yesterday, with these words: "Brothers, with most men life is a failure." The words impressed me deeply; there is sorrow in the thought, tears and agony are wrapped up in it. O Thou who rulest above, help me that my life may be valuable, that some human being shall yet thank Thee that I have lived and toiled!

Have written my "piece" for the "Grammar party paper;" subject, "Living and Existing."

"Boasts will not pillow thee where great men sit,
Would'st thou have greatness? Greatly strive for it."
I am reading in The Methodist a new novel (religious) by Miriam Fletcher, alias Mrs. Cruikshank, of Cincinnati. Will write what I think of it, afterwards.

Miss G., a new pupil from Beloit, is an honest, generous, good girl (it is refreshing to see one such), and I like her. Mr. Emery has sent me a package of rare flower seeds and Breck's "Flower Garden." I have planted the seeds — have a garden of my own.

Professor detained me after devotions this morning and with his most "engaging" smile made this announcement: "By the vote of your teachers, you are appointed valedictorian." I was glad, of course; 'tis like human nature. To others it will seem a small thing; it is not so to me.

Mr. Gifford came last night, left this morning. I like him. He is a much endowed man, he is a good man. He lent me a little Swedenborgian book, "Rays of Light," which I am to read and to write him my views upon. I am glad he asked me, it will be a source of advancement. Have just
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commenced to read "The Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli." Thus far I am enchanted. I think her views are so essentially correct; they appeal so directly to my consciousness of right and fitness. Oh, to have known such a person! Oh, to possess such a mind! We of the lower stratum are improved, refined, by such communication. I think Margaret Fuller Ossoli would have been, could have been, was, so far as she went, the greatest of reviewers.

Humboldt is dead! He who has for a life-time ranged over the countries of the earth, is admitted to new realms of action. He has been promoted. He has passed an honorable probationship in the academy of the earth, and has entered the college of the universe. As says my friend, M. H. B., so say I, "'Tis well when a great, good man dies." Not well for us, but glorious for him.

Have finished reading story in The Methodist. It is good. Its influence must be good. It is not so very strong. "Buckeye" hazarded much in saying it was equal to "Uncle Tom's Cabin"; it is not, nearly. Harry Bradford is a noble character, almost equal to John Halifax, but he weeps too much, and so does Willie Hunter. Let a man be a man. I don't like Harry's ideas about a wife's obeying her husband. That I scout wherever I see it. I do not think I am unreasonable; I think I have good ground for my belief. If I truly believed that the fifth chapter of Ephesians (twenty-second to twenty-fourth verses) was to be understood literally and applied to me, if ever I'm any man's wife, I should think the evidence sufficient that God was unjust, unreasonable, a tyrant. But as it is I do not. This is my opinion now; will it change? It may seem wrong to others. It is my way of thinking, and I have a right to it. That right I will maintain.

Study did not end with the abandonment of the class-room, but, as she had planned, went on in new forms, and with the intent and intensity of original research. Her school-mates when they visited her in her quiet little room, with its bright south and east windows brimming the cozy nook with warm sunshine, found her always at her desk with books, paper and pen, for with her independent mind, the thoughts and investigations of others were not properly her own until she had fixed them in the mould of personal judgment, and phrased them in the forceful language of her own opinions.

While society, or the superficial intercourse, known by this name, had little charm for this studious young woman, whose keen spirit soon pierced its disguises and rated it at its real value, to her journal she philosophized about it in this wise:

As I gain in experience, I see more and more distinctly that a young lady must have accomplishments to be of value in society. That august tyrant asks every candidate for preferment in its ranks: "What can you do for
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me? Can you tell me a story, make me a joke or sing me a song? I am to be amused!" Society is not for scholarly discipline. Study is for private life. Benefactions, loves, hates, emoluments, business — all these go on behind the scenes. Men grow learned, and good, and great otherwhere than in society. They ponder, and delve, and discover in secret places. Women suffer and grow uncomplaining in toil and sacrifice and learn that life's grandest lesson is summed up in four simple words — "Let us be patient" — in the nooks and corners of the earth. Into society they may bring not their labors but the fruit of their labors. Public opinion, which is the mouthpiece of society, asks not of any man: "When did you do this, where did you accomplish it?" but, "What have you done? we do not care for the process, give us the results."
Society is to every-day life what recess is to the school-boy. If it has been crowded from this, its right relation, then it is for every right-thinking member to aid in the restoration to its true position. Let no cynical philosopher inveigh against society. Let none say its fruits are simply heartless-ness and hypocrisy. Man is a creature of habits; when among his fellows, he does his best studiously at first, unthinkingly afterward. I will venture to assert that the man who was greater than any other who walked the earth was the kindest, the best bred, the most polite. Society is not an incidental, unimportant affair; it is the outward sign of an inward grace. Let us, then, if we can, be graceful; cultivate conversational ability, musical talent; improve our manners — and our beauty, if we are blessed with it. Harmonious sounds cheer the heart. Fitness is admirable. All these are means of happiness to us who have sorrow enough at best. It is no light thing to perform the duties we owe to society, and it is better to approximate than to ignore them.

Scattered all along through this year the journal shows many an ardent longing for the best and most symmetrical of all lives — that of the Christian. The sacred song, the faithful sermon and many an earnest conversation calls out this deep desire and its expression.

The life of the home was a very bright and merry one at this time, for the three children were all together, all earnestly at work, but all as uniquely bent on enjoyment as ever they had been in the old delightful days of Forest Home. Oliver having finished his college studies, was preparing for the ministry; Mary was joyfully nearing her own graduation day — full of enthusiasm for knowledge, for happiness, for all the real values of life. Frances alone at home, deep in a young girl's philosophy of existence, was nevertheless as fond of a romp, a joke, and a good time, as any girl to-day of the particular fun and frolic that young people nowadays engage in.

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Deeply envious of the brothers and friends who were so fond of their college fraternity, and so tantalizing with their half-displayed secrets, the girls of 1859 and 1860, an exceptionally bright and clever company, organized a secret society of their own, in which Frances and Mary were among the deepest plotters. Since Greek letters were in order, ours was the Iota Omega fraternity, or sorority; dark and dreadful were its ceremonies, grave and momentous its secrets. It was not allowed to degenerate, however, into anything worse than autograph hunting, and even in these early days of that nuisance, we received some sharp reprimands for our importunity. Horace Greeley, particularly, berated us in a long letter, which, fortunately, we could not entirely decipher, and which was so wretchedly illegible that we could exhibit it to envious Sigma Chi brothers without fear of taunt or ridicule. Abraham Lincoln gave his friendly "sign manual," Longfellow wrote out a verse of "Excelsior" for the collection, but Queen Victoria, alas! to whom we had applied in a letter addressed:

Victoria,
Buckingham Palace,
London,
England, The World,

never deigned us a reply.

We had a department of Notes and Queries, also, that was given to Frank's especial charge, and she was never more herself than when setting all of us at work with slender clues upon the hunt for some valuable bits of information, more than she or we knew at the time. She was our instructor and leader.

To the foregoing generous statement of my case as a student I hold myself in duty bound to add sundry particulars. On March 2, 1858, Mary and I left Forest Home, and that afternoon we saw Evanston for the first time. I was nearly eighteen and a half years old, and three days later my sister was sixteen.

Mary thus wrote of our new life:

March 2, 1858. — Up in the morning at three o'clock, ate breakfast, said good-by to Forest Home with many inward sighs, and were off to Janesville by four; took the cars and went, and went, and went, until we arrived at Chicago about one; took dinner at the Matteson House, started for Evanston, only twelve miles away. The college is really a beautiful building. We are in our own room now, tacking down the carpet, unpacking trunks, etc.
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Evening. — We have our room quite in order. Hope, and guess, we shall like to live here, for our room is quite pleasantly situated, overlooking the railroad track, where the cars pass often, on the very road that connects us with our home. Good-night.

March 3. — Got up in the morning, made toilet and bed, took our new and beautiful silver forks and napkin rings, and went down to breakfast, came back and arranged our room. Father gone to Chicago to get us some necessary things. We are doing very well; have been into the chapel, heard the rules and regulations of the school, a good many, to be sure, but I guess we shall be able to keep them. Have not decided what to study yet. Professor Jones, the president, is a noble looking man and his wife is just as nice as he is.

March 4. — Commenced operations to-day. Study natural philosophy, algebra, elocution and penmanship. Begin to get acquainted; like Miss Dickinson, our division teacher, very much. Went down to prayers. Father expects to return home to-morrow morning. I felt very lonely this afternoon.

March 10. — Went to the store and got weighed, result ninety-four pounds.

March 11. — Miss Kidder came to our room and invited us to her house Saturday. She is a very pleasant, pretty girl. This morning, in company with teachers and scholars, went to the lake; it was beautiful to see the great waves come riding along, then break and doff their white caps to the lookers-on.

Sunday, March 28. — Pleasant day, went to church in the morning and evening. Journal, I don't know whether I am a Christian or not. Hope I am. I spoke in class to-day, the first time I ever did such a thing in my life.

March 31. — Frank is busy with her paper, she is editress; my composition is about the mosquito.

April 1. — Had a great time fooling people, fooled Professor! A man rode up and down by here dressed in woman's clothes, and right in the midst of church to-night there was a great cry of fire, all being April-fool.

April 9. — In the afternoon we read our debates, and listened to the paper. When we came up from chapel, what did we hear but that father and mother had come — and weren't we glad? We put on our "best bib and tucker" and went to the hotel as quick as we could go. They brought us cake and oranges, nice head-dresses, and all. Oh, what pleasure it is to see home friends!

April 12. — Had a good mind to be lonely but thought I wouldn't. Father thinks he shall be here in two or three weeks again; good!

May 18. — The grammar party is the all-absorbing theme; the boys are going to get the evergreens; we have collected part of the money for the cake.

May 20. — I went around to help notify the company; such getting ready of cake and candies, such sweeping of parlors, such arranging and hanging up festoons of evergreens was never seen.

May 21. — The people, too, came, and kept coming until the parlors were
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jammed full. We promenaded, and played, and waited on the table until twelve o'clock.

May 22. — Went up to the Biblical Institute and saw some idols that look like devils.

May 26. — Have been appointed to read at Commencement, so has F. and several of the other girls.

May 28. — Up in the teacher's room, playing all sorts of games, wringing water out of the handle of a knife, and so on.

Dear little heart! She liked the railroad because it was a palpable link binding us to Forest Home!

At the college in Evanston, I at once fell in with a very bright, attractive, but reckless young school-mate for whom I conceived a romantic attachment, although she was "the wildest girl in school." She was from Chicago, from an irreligious family, and while I think she had a noble nature, her training had led her away from the ideals that mine had always nurtured. It soon fell out that, while my gentle sister consorted only with the "Do-weels," I was ranked with the "Ne'er-do-weels," that is, those who did not go to prayer-meeting on Sunday evening, when all the good students assembled in the library; and did not give devout attention to the seventy rules of the institution, though I certainly started out to do so, having copied them and hung them up on the door of my room the very first day, that I might learn them by heart. But this bright girl, to whom I took a fancy, poked fun at the rules, and at me for keeping them, telling me that I was to be a law to myself, and that if I did not disturb the order of the institution, that was all anybody could expect and all that the spirit of the rules required. So I used to perch myself up in the steeple of the college building, alongside of her, during the study hours, unbeknown to the authorities; and once went into a girl's room and took possession of the prayer-meeting with my ill-doing band; whereupon, I was promptly asked to lead the meeting, and did so in all seriousness, for I would as soon have thought of insulting my own mother as making light of religion, at least inside a prayer-meeting. I can see now that group of sweet, true-hearted girls, with the look of surprise that came over their pleasant faces when half a dozen of us who belonged to the contrary part came in. They handed me a Bible, perhaps thinking it the best way of making us behave. It was a shrewd expedient, to say the least. I read a chapter, commented upon it as wisely as I could,

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and then said, "Let us pray." They all knelt down but one, a harum-scarum girl, who was among my special associates. There she sat bolt upright, with the rest all kneeling, and before I began my prayer, which was most seriously offered, I said, "Lineburger" — for we were so demoralized that we called each other after this fashion, — "why don't you kneel down, and behave? If you don't, you are a disgrace to yourself and the whole Lineburger tribe." At this nobody smiled, though when I think of it now, it seems so whimsical that I can not help doing so. Suffice it that "Lineburger" knelt, and the devotions proceeded with the utmost decorum.

One of the original features of the college was the grammar party given toward the close of every term. For each mistake in grammar we were fined one cent, and the pupils were constantly on the watch for each other, memorandum-book in hand or pocket. We were also allowed to call attention to mistakes by the teachers, even including the professor himself, and they were charged five cents apiece. A goodly sum was thus accumulated, to which we added by special assessment, and the grammar party was thus made of every creature's — worst! But in spite of this it was the great day of the year, almost rivaling the Commencement exercises in the church. Four large parlors were arranged in delightful juxtaposition for promenading, and we festooned them with evergreens brought in great loads from the lake shore. The dining-room usually bore some motto like the following, "All hail to the Queen's English!" The "cake of errors" was of great size and beauty, and was metaphorically supposed to have been purchased with our forfeited pennies. As the crowd gathered around, Professor Jones would brandish a formidable-looking knife above this wonderful creation, and in a witty speech descant on the importance of language, and of good language, at that. This feature furnished themes for conversation, so that a piece of good fortune in the way of a topic came to the guests with every piece of cake. I remember once being escorted by a most accomplished gentleman, who, as he critically tasted a slice from our cake of errors, made a familiar and witty extract from Goldsmith's famous poem in the words,

"And e'en their errors leaned to virtue's side."

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Turning to my journal I" find these entries of school days:

The grammar party is over. There were one hundred and fifty guests, and all passed off pleasantly. Misses Gordon, Bragdon, Atkins, Stewart, Hattie and Julia Wood, Maggie McKee, Lizzie Wilson and myself were waiters. My dress was nearly ruined. Mary and I were considered worthy to "hold a candle" to Miss Stowe and Miss Shackelford, editress and assistant editress of the paper, while they read. My dress was tight and I was very faint once, in the heated rooms, but I quickly recovered. I never enjoy "mixed society." I was not made, I am not fitted, for it. I am, in this one respect, like Charles Lamb. He enjoyed the society of a few persons, his equals, and companions, with whom he was well acquainted and in whom he had entire confidence. In such society he was interesting; by those few friends he was much beloved. Beyond that circle he was not himself; appeared grave and confused and was considered uninteresting. This is my position now, as nearly as I know how to state it. I am sorry. It is unfortunate, it will cause me much unhappiness, but I can not help it. Somehow, I have an unconquerable aversion to intercourse with my superiors in position, age, or education. This is unpleasant, too. I shall lose many opportunities for improvement by this means. I have had the opportunity of becoming acquainted with Mrs. P., Mrs. N., and several others, but the dread I have of such relations I can not overcome. When speaking with such individuals I can never divest their characters, their intellects, of the accidents of wealth, age and position, and hence I can never be at ease. This is one reason why I like books so well. They do not chill me, they are content that I should absorb the knowledge-nectar they contain, without reminding me of my inferiority to them. They are great, yet most familiar; they say to every reader, "I am for you, my greatest pleasure is in having your attention." They are great without arrogance, wise without hauteur, familiar without degradation. They are full of power and pathos, yet not conscious of it; "they make no sign." And this is natural, for each man gives us his best self in his books, and our best selves are above and beyond our fortunate accidents. To books, then, let me flee. They never frighten me. They "never molest me, nor make me afraid."
I conversed a short time with Mrs. Hayes, Lillie's mother. She is rather aged, and is a fine, intelligent lady. She spoke of Lillie on the ocean Sto-night, and while the feelings of the mother were prominent, I could also discern the fortitude of the Christian.

I am more interested in the "Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli," than in any other book I have read for years. Here we see what a woman achieved for herself. Not so much fame or honor, these are of minor importance, but a whole character, a cultivated intellect, right judgment, self-knowledge, self-happiness. If she, why not we, by steady toil?

I have my Butler's Analogy lessons satisfactorily, I think; my astronomy lessons, (whenever mathematics present themselves), awfully. I was exceedingly mortified to-day by my stupidity.

Memorandum. — To have, always, some fixed rule of action in my mind.
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To have two objects: A life-object and a daily, hourly object. To study systematically. To inform myself first on the subjects of importance of which I feel most ignorant.

Annie Foster called and invited Mary and me to a party at Doctor Poster's to-night, to which the senior and junior classes of the University are also invited. At the appointed time we went, at twelve o'clock we returned. Much as I dislike "mixed companies" in general, I enjoyed this occasion. I made two grand discoveries. The first was this: Dr. Foster so far understands what he is, what his position is, and how impossible it would be to compromise his dignity by any honorable act; in fact, he takes such extended and (I think) correct views of facts and relations, that he thinks it no sacrifice of dignity to talk with a school-girl, to walk with her, to honor her with his company to supper, and to forget for awhile the D. D., the genius, the position, the scholar and the orator, in acting the part of a true host and a most genial gentleman. When I see his beautiful home life and home character, when I see him leaving his guests to relieve his wife from the care of a fretful child, when I see him rocking back and forth and murmuring a song to soothe the child to slumber, when I see his nice appreciation of the characters and abilities of those whom he is entertaining, when I see him adjusting his conversation to their capacities, how vastly is my reverence, my appreciation of his merit, increased. At present I have a more exalted opinion of Dr. Foster than of any other living man.

The other revelation is that Annie Foster is, in all the respects mentioned, like her father, and worthy of him.

Everything humbles me, but two things in the highest degree. One is to stand in a large library, the other to study astronomy. In both cases I not only see how much there is to be known, how insignificant my knowledge is, but I see how atomic I am, compared with other human beings. Astronomers "think God's thoughts after him." Alas, I can hardly think their thoughts after them, when all is clearly represented!

After school, yesterday, I went to C. G.'s room and stayed till dark. It was pleasant, and reminded me of the joyful old times when I, too, was a boarder. I believe that to be connected in some capacity with a school is what I am intended for.

Memorandum. — Margaret Fuller's "Conversation Classes." I believe, though not fluent in conversation, I can benefit school-girls by a similar arrangement when I'm a teacher. C. G. is a good, sound writer and in this respect, as in others, will be an acquisition to our school.

I have been looking over the first few days of this installment of my journal and find that I complain bitterly of school duties and cares. From this, hereafter, when I have forgotten, I may infer that I was so narrow-minded as to hate study. I will defend myself. The case is this: I truly love knowledge. I thank God most that He has made us so that we may make ourselves great and wise and good, that we may change ourselves in mind from helpless babes to strong, steadfast characters. At school we acquire discipline. We learn how to use the implements with which we are provided for "working" the mine of truth. Along with this, rules
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are, perhaps necessarily (I'm not certain), imposed upon us. Rules are unpleasant; and the reason why I'm glad to leave school is this: I can learn, I truly think, as well alone, now. I shall be free from a restraint that is irksome to me. But then, I love my teachers, the institution which has been truly to me an "Alma Mater," the fellow-students who have been uniformly kind and loving. I hope I take a correct view of the case. O the glory of knowing always when you are in the right! I shall arrive at it.

Nowadays and until Commencement, I am, and am to be in a perpetual furor. I have no time to think steadily or do anything carefully and well. Consequently, I don't think. Oh, I'm tired and fretted and I long for the rest that is to follow.

Am reading the second volume of Margaret Fuller Ossoli's "Memoirs." Like it, even at the first; here's an extract: "Among this band was the young girl who, early taking a solemn view of the duties of life, found it difficult to serve an apprenticeship to its follies. She could not turn her sweetness into ‘manner,’ nor cultivate love of approbation at the expense of virginity of heart. In so-called society she found no sustenance for her truest, fairest self, and so preferred to live with external Nature, a few friends, her pencil and books. She, they say, is ‘mad!’"

Now, in some respects, I'm like that. I've no "sweetness" to lose, 'tis true, but I have some character, some individuality, instead. The last part of the quotation is like me as I would be. Books I have, Nature I have. I have no melodeon or organ — my favorite instrument; I will learn drawing. Then I shall have pleasure enough, except — oh, I want a young friend of my own age, nearly, who shall love me, understand me, bear with me! Often I have thought that I had such an one, but have found to my bitter regret that I was mistaken.

Received letter from Oliver. He has the second "Honor" of his class, viz., Latin oration. He is the President of the Archaean Society; I'm glad, of course.

"The girls" say I am fickle; I have always had that reputation, I believe. And yet it is not my fault. In Emerson's essay on "Circles" I find the solution of the problem. Listen: "Men cease to interest us, when we find their limitations. The only sin is imitation. As soon as you once come up with a man's boundaries, it is all over with him. Has he talents? Has he enterprise? Has he knowledge? It boots not. Infinitely alluring and attractive was he to you yesterday, a great hope, a sea to swim in? Now you have found his shores, found it a pond, and you care not if you never see it again." This is hard philosophy, but, with some abatement, it is true.

June 22. — Beautiful day. We should be very grateful to Him that ruleth. Last night Mary and I went to hear Rev. W. McKaig lecture before the literary societies of the Garrett Biblical Institute, whose anniversary exercises are now progressing. His subject, as nearly as I can remember the wording of it, was: "The Study of Philosophy as Necessary to Liberal Culture, and in its Application to Theology." I have heard that some of the élite of the town think little of the production. In most cases the opinions of those to whom I allude would have great weight with me, for they are,
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learned men, and have had experience, but in this instance my own convictions decide so strongly, so involuntarily, that I do not regard their decisions as material in the least. For me the lecture was, without exception, the best I have ever listened to. The thoughts were original, the language forcible Anglo-Saxon, the metaphors beautiful, and most of the conclusions just. The word "postulate" occurred too frequently, "mind" was pronounced "mine." Two words were incorrectly accented, I forget what they were; one word was used, which, I think, the dictionary does not contain, "parageum," and one word "dis — "something, was coined. One of the conclusions I thought incorrect, viz.: That the Bible is to stand even in opposition to known facts; i.e., out of two cases, in one of which, the Bible says so and so, in the other of which science plainly declares the contrary, the lecturer said we were to believe the Bible and disbelieve science. This seems unreasonable; Bishop Butler declares the contrary, and he is good authority. Once Mr. McKaig said that men should confine themselves to specialties, or he made a statement very much like that; soon after, he accused Hugh Miller of wrong judging because he had so closely confined himself to his specialty, geology. I have bluntly mentioned all the errors I noticed. Deductions must be made for misapprehension on my part, for the narrowness of the views which I of necessity take, for my slight knowledge of the mighty subject considered, of the writers referred to, etc., etc. But, letting the errors stand as I have placed them, abating nothing, the lecture was yet a fine one. It was as refreshing to the mind to look from the pure heights to which we were led, as to the lungs is the bland evening breeze of the country after a dusty city day. It would be presumption and mockery in me to attempt a synopsis, so, out of respect to the lecturer, I forbear. God speed him always, say I. The vulgar mind will not appreciate him. He will have few friends (Emersonian) because few equals among his companions. Yet he is enough for himself. With his head among the stars it will be nothing to him whether dogs fawn or nibble at his shoe-ties. "Little he'll reck!" I have spoken enthusiastically, as I feel.

Memorandum. — I must study mental philosophy by myself after I leave school. It was rather deep, and I had to keep up a terrible thinking to get any benefit, but think I succeeded partially.

About this time, my dear friend and gifted preceptor, Prof. William P. Jones, president of the college, stated my case in prayer-meeting over at the church and asked prayers on my behalf. When this came to my ears I felt considerably wrought upon, for he had said I was an infidel, and I considered myself an inquirer. However, he had done it in good part and I took it the same way. Revival meetings were soon begun, and one Sunday evening Professor Jones urged some of us "wild girls," as we were called, to go to the altar. I was very loth to do this, but, to please him, consented. Going home after the meeting I wrote

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the following letter, returned to me after an interval of thirty years by Mrs. Jones:

PROFESSOR — I thank you very much for the interest you manifest in me and at the same time I feel very guilty.
I do not think you know how hard my heart is, how far I am from feeling anything. I see I have no excuse to offer for my conduct. Three facts stand out before me as facts, nothing more. I view them calmly, coldly. They are these. I am a great sinner; it is a sin greater than I can comprehend to doubt God, or to refuse submission to him, for a moment. I have no excuse for delaying to become a Christian. The third fact is, I am as cold as an iceberg, as unconcerned as a stone, I am not proud of it, I am not ashamed of it. I view it simply as a truth. I disconnect it from myself. I seem to think that all these things concern others, but do not concern me. You will say that I shall feel in hell (a hard word); I shall see that these things did concern me, when I come to die. I acknowledge it. If there is a God, a heaven, a hell, a devil, then I am undone. I have been taught to think that all these exist, yet from childhood I have doubted.

I have been told that man feels a lack, a longing for something not possessed, when away from God. Candidly, honestly, I feel no lack, no want. I would not ask for more happiness than I have always had, if by asking I might obtain it. You will say I ought to be thankful for this to God. I am thankful to something, thankful to whatever has thus blessed me, and I wish I was as sure that a good Spirit ruling the universe had done this, as Christians are.

If I were to pray, I should say, if I were candid, " Oh God, if there be a God, save my soul, if I have a soul!"

It is humiliating for me, the child of pious parents, for whom a thousand prayers have been offered up, to confess thus. I had thought no human heart should be permitted to look so deeply into mine. But I think it just that you should know.

And now, in view of all these facts, I ask, respectfully, yet earnestly, ought I to go to the altar, to kneel before the Christian's God, to hear the Christian's prayer, careless and unconcerned? Soon it will be expected that I speak in church. Congratulations will be numerous, that I have "returned to the fold," and my dark, wicked heart alone shall know how far I have wandered, how hypocritical I am.

I am willing to attend church, though it interferes very much with my progress in science. I am willing to go, if you think it will do any good, but until I feel differently, I dare not go to the altar again. When I do I will go unasked. I am,

Gratefully and respectfully yours,
FRANCES E. WILLARD.

During my last year, the follies of my early days at Evanston (mentioned in the sketch of Companionships), were not

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renewed. My inamorata was in New England, and though the reception of her letters marked the red-letter days of each week, I had promised my mother better fashions, and consorted almost wholly with the "good girls" among whom my nickname was "the favorite," and the only escapade of which I was guilty was having my hair neatly shingled, a rare delight, the continuance of which until this hour would have added incalculably to the charms of existence for me.

That last year at school, of which my sister-in-law has spoken in her sketch, was one of unceasing application. I often rose at four o'clock, and more than once have been found on the sitting-room floor asleep, with my face in my "Butler's Analogy," or some other of those difficult studies that crowded my senior year too full for satisfaction.

My only classmate was Miss Margaret McKee, of Batavia, Ill., a tall, handsome brunette. She was a young lady of the highest character, a devoted student and an earnest Christian. We were warm friends always, her great reticence of nature, and my frankness proving mutually attractive. We had no quarrel over class honors, she taking the salutatory, and I the valedictory.

Up to that time, my life had known no greater disappointment than the decision of my mother that I could not study Latin and Greek. One year longer devoted wholly to these studies, with my habits of application, would have given me at least a rudimentary knowledge of them both, but mother has always strenuously objected to the study of the classics, believing that the time might be far better expended in a well selected course of English literature, which she said I should have at home, free from the trammel of rules and the unescapable bondage of the school-bell. I think she was in error here, and that the mental gymnastics furnished by such studies would have been incalculably valuable to one of my tastes and temperament. I remember playing for hours, a piece of classical music that seemed to me to express the pathos of the situation, and, at its close, the jubilant triumph even over this deprivation and sorrow.

July 23. — Since I last wrote in my journal, under date of June 22, I have suffered much, physically and mentally. I have borne great disappointments (for me) but, as I have suffered, I have thought, and I am the wiser and the better for my trial. I have had typhoid fever; am just recovering.
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Very much of interest has occurred during these unchronicled days. I have seen Oliver's diploma and my own. We are graduates! How very little does the word mean, and yet how much! It means years of patient, silent brain work, discipline, obedience to the will of others. It means that we have started on the beautiful search after truth and right and peace. Only started — only opened the door. Thank God! we may go on forever alone. I was unable to be present or to receive my diploma and Mary took it for me.
I am very sorry I was vexed. There was no valedictory. The examinations and Commencement exercises passed off creditably to the institution, I have been told. Oliver has gone with several classmates and friends on a trip to Lake Superior. Of course we are anxious about him. C. G. left school just as I was taken sick. Her mother is dead. Poor girl! She is having a hard trial, and a weary life, but if she bears it well, it will be better for her. Dr. Ludlam, our honored and beloved physician, has gone to the beautiful Land o' the Leal. What we used to see walking the streets, and smiling pleasantly, the chrysalis he inhabited, sleeps in Rose Hill cemetery. The spirit is happy to day with God and Christ. It is very well. If I had had his preparation, joyfully would I have exchanged places with him. But I have come back to life to suffer, and toil, and earn, — in some degree, — the rest of the hereafter.

It was the disappointment of my life, that I was unable to bear my examinations, read my essay and graduate regularly. I have borne it stoically; I have shed no tear, and said little about it, but I have thought. His hand has crushed me, and not without reason, not, I hope, in vain.

I shall be twenty years old in September, and I have as yet been of no use in the world. When I recover, when I possess once more a "sound mind in a sound body," I will earn my own living; "pay my own way," and try to be of use in the world. It will — it shall — be better that I did not die. My acquaintances have been kind during my illness; especially I name with gratitude Mary Bannister and Rowena Kidder. Mrs. Noyes has shown an interest in me, and has done me a kindness which I can not forget, and for which, I think, I am as thankful as I am capable of being. This verse from one of Longfellow's poems has comforted and quieted me:

And. thou, too, whosoe'er thou art
That readest this brief psalm,
As one by one thy hopes depart,
Be resolute and calm.

Take them all in all, my school days were a blessed time, full of happiness and aspiration, having in them the charm of success and the witchery of friendship, deepening in my heart the love of humanity and exalting my spirit to the worship of God.

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Perhaps the most unfortunate outgrowth of the harum-scarum period of about four months on which I entered, as a student at Evanston, was the peculiar construction of the rules by the "Ne'er-do-weels," and after a few weeks adopted, I grieve to say, by me. That is, they said the rules were so numerous that nobody could remember them all, and that if we were quiet and orderly we should, in effect, keep the rules, because the end they sought would be attained, even though we did not technically observe each specification. Every night at prayers, those who had violated the rules were to rise and report. We simply did not rise. I think I never in my life had such a sense of ill-desert as when at the close of the term, our beloved Professor Jones called the names of all who had violated the rules, asking them to rise, whereupon they reluctantly stood up, among them my sister Mary, who was the saint of the school. He then called the names of all who had not violated the rules, that is, who had not reported having done so, and we stood up, none of us knowing to what all this was preliminary. Now came the keenest moment of self-contempt I ever knew, for the Professor made a beautiful speech, in which he gently labored with those who had broken the rules, and then, with enthusiasm, thanked those who had not, in the name of himself and the other members of the faculty, and held them up as an example! The fact that we were not suspected, proves that we did not do anything particularly out of the way, and that our general reputation was good; but I was so disgusted with myself at this false standing, that but for a miserable sense of what they call "honor," subsisting among school-mates and thieves, I should have risen then and there, in obedience to my strong impulse, and stated the facts in the case. These circumstances had much to do with my radical action when I became president of the same institution twelve years later, and almost altogether put rules aside, having instead a Roll of Honor, and a system of Self-government.

I wish I had not had those months as a "law unto myself," though nothing worse occurred in them than I have told, except that one night Maggie and I dressed up as two pirates. I had been reading that greatest of pirate stories, "Jack Sheppard," the only one of its kind that I had ever seen, and we were planning for the adventures that were before us as highwaymen of

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the sea, and were using, I am sorry to say, as much of the language that such men would have used as we knew, which was not much, and, horrible to relate, were armed and equipped, not only with wooden pistols and bowie-knives, but with a cigar apiece, and I am afraid that on the table between us stood a bottle of ginger-pop, which was as far as we dared to go in the direction of inebriation. We were not accustomed to estimate the permeating power of cigar smoke, whereby we were very soon given away; for there came a gentle little rap at the door, and without waiting for any response, a tall, elegant woman came in, Miss Mary Dickinson, my division teacher. She it was who, entering my room each day, would run her finger along the window-frame to see if there had been careful dusting. She was an exquisite woman in look and manner, as fresh and dainty as a rose. It must, indeed, have been a spectacle to her to see a girl who never failed in her recitation room sitting, in the character I had assumed, beside another who was known as "the wildest girl in school." But Miss Dickinson had remarkable clearness of mental vision. She made no ado whatever, but said, "Well, if this is not fortunate! The mosquitoes have almost driven me out of my room this hot summer night, and if you girls will just come in and smoke them out, it will be a great favor to me." So we had to follow after her, in our high-top boots, and there we sat, as imperturbable as we knew how to be, but with very heightened color, I am sure, and she insisted on our smoking, while she threw up the windows and drove before her the fluttering mosquitoes. She never alluded to the subject afterward, neither reported nor reproved us, for she wisely reasoned that the charm in all we were doing was the dare-devil character of the performance, and that if it was treated as a very commonplace affair, this charm would soon be gone.

My Bible class teacher at this time was Mrs. Governor Beveridge, who had a very happy way of presenting the truths of Christianity, for she did not speak in a canting tone or use certain prescribed forms. She was so fortunate as to be able to talk of sacred things in a pleasant, companionable way that used to be quite rare in Christian people.

Our Minerva Society was the literary pet of the college, and the debates, essays and literary papers to which its "Publics"

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gave rise, are still familiar in my memory as household words. For these occasions I was wont to prepare the poetic effusions, which, fortunately, were chiefly confined to that early period of my development.

Following the fashion of my home, I asked Professor for ground enough to make a little flower garden. The idea was popular and soon each girl in my set had her own little garden spot, where we worked each day like beavers, vying with each other as to whose flowers should be the best kept and most attractive.

I do not remember often losing my temper during my stay at the college, and never so far as the teachers were concerned, save when in an examination in Silliman's chemistry, after I had borne, as I knew, a successful part in the recitation, nearly every other member of the class was sent to the front to perform an experiment, writing the formula thereof on the board. Knowing that I was "well up" in the entire list, I went to my room unspeakably angry with what I considered the favoritism of the oversight, and expressed myself with so much freedom that my sister Mary, as usual, called me to order. Another display occurred when my diploma came home, my sister having received it in my stead, as I was confined to my room at the time in the convalescence that followed an attack of typhoid fever. Finding that the diploma was totally blank when I had been expecting to see it filled out in due form, and counting so much on the pleasure of it all, I tossed it out of the window with an exclamation of utter disgust.

Commencement Day in the old church was a great day indeed. We exhausted ourselves on decoration, a profuse growth of evergreens in the then primitive Evanston favoring our plans. An immense stage was built out and over the pews, and under a beautiful arch stood the performers. I shall never forget the day in June of 1858 when, although I was not a Senior, I was put down on the program for an essay that I duly wrote and delivered, nor the inward tumult of delight as the bouquets from all parts of the house fell at my feet, the gifts, no doubt, of my loyal set of "Ne'er-do-weels."

An amusing letter from my father to his daughters when they were at school in Evanston, gives a glimpse behind the scenes:

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Mary, my dear, you will find inclosed my scribblings in response to your request, but you must not copy, but take any thought, or suggestion, or illustration, which seems to correspond with the genius of your piece. Frances must help you to select and arrange. I think the whole thing of "doubtful tendency."
Frances, your letter of eighteen dollars' notoriety nearly upset my equanimity, and I was on the point of sending for you to come home, but upon second thought concluded to forward six dollars to Miss Dickinson to buy the material for your dresses, which will be amply sufficient, and more too. As for the sashes, I shall buy them here, if necessary. I am somewhat at a loss whether or not to ask Professor Jones whether he prefers to have your tuition and board bills paid, or to have twenty or thirty dollars paid to fix you up in white for the Commencement! I am quite sure what his choice would be. The fact is, I have no money. I have sold some wheat for fifty cents per bushel to get money for actual necessaries. "You can't have more of a cat than her skin." Candy! Candy! Candy! Mary looks ominous. What shall I say? Wheat at fifty cents per bushel to buy candy for farmers' daughters!!! Eighteen dollars! My horrors! That is a pretty serious prelude to the perpetuation of college honors. I am done and say no more. Mary's letter is all right, Frances says, except that "it lacks force." Mary, you had better write all the letters if the force comes to me in this shape! All in tolerable health. Bridget "sings praises" and Mike says "Oh," and John looks amazed as they hear of all your goings on.

YOUR AFFECTIONATE FATHER.

The various teachers that I had before I was converted, were all excellent men and women and all Christians. I saw nothing in their conduct to make me doubt this, but as far as I can recall not one of them ever spoke to me on spiritual things other than indirectly, except Mrs. W. P. Jones. She came to my room one night when I belonged to the class of "wild girls," talked to me in the gentlest and most tender way, not reprovingly, for I was by no means an outbreaking sinner, only had a happy-go-lucky, reckless spirit full of adventure, at least, as far as she knew, for we girls were apt to put the best foot foremost to the teachers always. Before leaving she asked if she might pray with me. I told her I would be very glad to have her, whereupon we knelt down beside my bed and with her arm around me she prayed earnestly that I might be led to see the light and do the right. I am sure that every school-girl if approached as wisely and sincerely as I was by that good and noble woman, would respond as gratefully as I did. Teachers lose very much when they fail to utilize the good-will they have enlisted for the good of the cause to which they are devoted.

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A few years since, Professor Jones wrote out his recollections of me as a student in respect to the vital question of Christianity. He did this a quarter of a century after I was his pupil, and though he is mistaken as to some of the dates, the general historical statements of his letter have afforded me much consolation, and I reproduce them here, disclaiming all responsibility for his too generous and partial estimate of his old pupil. This was the last paper penned by him:

You have requested me to contribute a few reminiscences of Miss Frances E. Willard and her sister Mary when students at the Northwestern Female College. Those are memories very precious to me, and some of them I will gladly sketch, so far as I can do it in words. How certainly I know, however, that I must fail to give them to you with the freshness and inspiration of life!
In the first of these Willard memories, I recall only the father — a man of singularly original manner and expression. Always urbane and polite, while always observing, he was as full of inquiry on almost every topic as a novice, yet ready at any moment to express an opinion on nearly any subject in thought and language breathing the fragrance of originality. He came to inspect the institution for himself before placing his daughters in it. He had evidently caught the prophecy that they were to make the world better, and was determined to aid them all he could. He told with natural pride of the prize taken by Frances for the best essay read at the State Fair of Illinois — a truly meritorious production — and described her so fully that when she entered college I needed no interpreter of her state of mind and character. She had reached an age when every old belief was required to give a reason for being retained, or else was told to stand aside. Many of father's and mother's teachings, once accepted without question, were being quietly subjected to further inquiry. Fragments of sophomorean eloquence from a neighboring college, questioning nearly everything in morals taught by college professors or believed by the Christian world, had reached her ears and helped to excite her doubts. The parents had hitherto attended to her instruction in a model way under their own roof; — the mother being by heredity a teacher, and by education and experience unusually fitted to lay the foundations of her children's education deep and broad. But the time had come when Frances longed to go to college, and the parents were convinced that it was fully time to place her under other instructors than themselves, and to let her contend in all the higher branches of study with minds of her own age.

When the daughters entered college, what I had learned of the father, kept closely locked in my own breast, was of priceless service to me in giving direction to other members of the faculty, as well as in my own treatment of them.

It did not take long to discover the taste of Frances as regarded studies. She would take mathematics as a disagreeable mental tonic recommended
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by the learned of all ages. The sciences drew her strongly, and won close study, but her delight was, first the Belles-lettres studies, and then, as she advanced in her course, mental and moral science and the argumentative Butler's Analogy.

From the day she entered, she made friends rapidly. Among the students, she was an emotional and intellectual loadstone. They loved to cluster around her and hear her talk. She would set them to discoursing on subjects quite out of the ordinary range of college girls' conversations, interspersing her own wise, quaint and witty speeches, to the great delight of her listeners. Possessed of a worthy ambition to live for a purpose, she inspired the same feeling in many of her school-mates. Her lively imagination drew plans for the future, not only of herself but of those around her, into which they entered with a spirit that showed itself in all their work. If they built castles in Spain, they, nevertheless, laid foundations for character and future achievement in real life, which endured long after their airy visions passed away, as their lives since have well attested.

Though inclined to be reticent in presence of the older teachers, it was not long before her novel questions and original remarks in the recitation rooms, uttered in the agreeable spirit she always manifested, won the hearts of all the faculty. Very soon what proved to be a life-long attachment grew up between her and one of the junior teachers, Lydia M. Hayes, subsequently that devoted missionary to India, Mrs. Rev. Dr. Waugh. The influence of the sweet, consistent, Christian life of this excellent woman worked as a constant rebuke to any doubts Miss Willard might have of the truth of Christianity.

Imagine, if possible, with what joyful surprise these two congenial spirits met years afterwards in far-off Egypt, as Miss Willard was making her pilgrimage to Palestine and Mrs. Waugh was returning with her children from India. One moment the hotel register revealed to Miss Willard the fact that Mrs. Waugh was under the same roof; the next, they were in each other's arms. There, oblivious for the time being of the monuments of fifty centuries, eloquent with the marvelous history which fills that wondrous land, they thought only and talked only of life in the college and Evanston, and of the friends of college days.

From the first, I was concerned to learn whether in the gatherings of students in her room and elsewhere Miss Willard was disseminating skeptical notions. I soon ascertained that her skepticism was of a mild form. Most of all, she doubted all her doubts, and in regard to other students, was of her own good judgment pursuing very nearly the course I would have advised. Of course, it was impossible for one so frank as she to conceal her doubts altogether, although she did not try to foster them in others. One day, one of her dearest friends came to me exclaiming,

"What a queer girl Frank Willard is! She won't confess that she knows or believes anything. She says she doesn't know whether there is a God, and she doesn't know whether the Bible is true; — she is trying to find out."

"Don't be distressed, Mattie," I said, "if she will only keep on trying
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to find out, she will find out. All her friends have to do, is to pray that she may persevere."

There were students' prayer meetings, class meetings, and missionary meetings, revivals came and went, and few except Miss Willard failed to take lively interest in them. Still I was confident that she was not indifferent. She never scoffed at others' piety, never sought to deter any one, but always encouraged her friends to do what they believed was right. At the same time, it was evident that she was not one to be brought into the faith by the mere entreaties and importunities of her friends, and I discouraged attempts of that kind. And yet the incident so tenderly recalled by Miss Willard in one of her addresses when she spoke of Mrs. Jones as the only teacher who had ever gone to her room, and, putting an arm about her, asked her to let her pray for her, shows how deeply she appreciated any manifestations of interest in her spiritual welfare.

Miss Willard grew dearer to all, and every one, teachers and students, grew prouder of her as she moved on to what we knew would be a brilliant graduation. Her intellectual lineaments had grown stronger, and shone brighter, and, best of all, the unrest of doubt seemed to be disappearing. It began to be remarked by teachers that she took more interest in the college religious meetings, attending them without solicitation.

We were reviewing Wayland's Moral Science, preparatory to the final examinations. I entered the class without a book, and having occasion to ask for one, Miss Willard handed me hers. It opened of itself at the beginning of the chapter on "Virtue," and on the blank half page opposite, I read (as nearly as I can recall the words) the following memorandum: "When I began this study, I could not say whether there was a God or no — and if there was, whether He cared for me or not. Now, thanks to President Wayland and my faithful instructors, I can say from my heart I believe that there is a God, and that He is my Father."

I exchanged glances with Frances, and sat silent until the mist of joy cleared away from my eyes, and the swelling of my heart subsided enough to allow me to proceed with the recitation. The students began to look at each other in surprise; then I poured questions in upon them, and in the midst of question, answer and discussion, the unusual opening of the recitation was overlooked.

Of course, I seized the first opportunity to tell Miss Willard how overjoyed I was to learn that she had escaped from her doubts, and how much I hoped she would soon frankly acknowledge her Heavenly Father before the world, and zealously work for Him.

"She did not know that there was a God;" "she did not know that the Bible was true;" "she was trying to find out." The Divine Spirit had led her on in her search. The many influences of the college had aided her, and the child of God had felt her way back to His arms. Father's and mother's teachings were holy truths to her once more.

Weeks passed on — weeks full of the arduous labors preceding the college Commencement, absorbing the minds and hearts, and consuming the
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days of teachers and students. Miss Willard was as busy as the rest, yet, unknown to us, a subject of still greater importance commanded her chief concern.

It was Sunday evening. A large congregation in the Methodist church had listened to an ordinary sermon and seemed somewhat impatient for dismissal, when the pastor, to the surprise of every one, extended an invitation to those who wished to unite with the church on probation to meet him at the altar. The revival wave of the last winter had rolled by; there had been no special meetings; not a ripple of religious excitement was discoverable on the smooth current of the church. Under the circumstances, no one was expected to respond to the pastor's invitation. A moment's pause, and a single young woman moved out into the main aisle and with a firm step approached the altar. Instantly, all eyes converged on her. There was no mistaking that form and face; it was Miss Willard. No sign or faintest token of doubt clouded that countenance now. There was that firm expression of the features which clinches faith, and says, "Here I stand. I can do no other." The effect on the congregation was electrical. For a few moments the solemnity of the occasion held all other feelings in check, but soon hundreds of faces turned to hundreds of others, filled with surprise and joy, and many an eye was moist with tears. Some one began the doxology, "Praise God, from whom all blessings flow," and it was sung as if the very stars were expected to join in the chorus.

Of Mary Willard I shall write but little. That charming memoir, prepared by her devoted sister, through which she still lives and works with saving power, "Nineteen Beautiful Years," reveals her pure, loving nature so transparently and faithfully that I can not do better than refer to the latter part of it, immediately preceding her final sickness, to point out Mary Willard as known to her college teachers. From the first, it was easy to read in her serene, open, intelligent face that she was less troubled about faith than works. She was a close student, punctual in her performance of all her duties as the coming of the days and hours. After the parents removed to Evanston, and she had to brave all kinds of weather between home and college, this punctuality seemed still more remarkable. But it was not merely her studies that engaged her mind; ways of making others happy — particularly her friends at home and college mates — occupied much of her thoughts and time. If spiritual doubts came to her, she was so busy struggling to perform what was her duty, that she had no time to pursue them. "If everybody would only do right," she exclaimed, "that would end all the trouble in the world, wouldn't it?" "Why don't people do more to make the world good?" She had an extremely sensitive conscience rendered quicker and stronger by her constant practice. I never knew a more endowed nature ethically, and her love of all high and beautiful things was a perpetual delight to her teachers and friends. It is a comfort to know that this bright intelligence lives on "in minds made better by her presence" the world around.

124 Chapter III.

THE FIRST YEAR OUT OF SCHOOL.

This period, often very dull and sometimes very gay, according to the nature of the graduate and the sense or nonsense of her family, is, perhaps, the most difficult in a young woman's life. She has not yet found her "vocation." Friends wait and watch. Materfamilias fears and paterfamilias hopes. It is a time full of unuttered pathos for a gentle, refined and modest girl. The truth is, she ought never to be put into a position so equivocal — one whose tendency is to tinge her soul with at least a temporary bitterness. Girls should be definitely set at work after their school days end, even as boys are, to learn some bread-winning employment that will give them an independent status in the world of work. Better still, this education of the hand should be carried on for both, side by side with that of head and heart.

But these high views had not dawned on the world in my day, so for two years after my graduation I stayed at home, with three brief intervals of school teaching. My journals show that the unfailing resource of books and pen kept me in pretty good heart, while our delightful home life, rounded into completeness by my brother's return from college, rose "like the swell of some sweet tune," then died away forever in the pitiful minor strains of my sister Mary's death.

September 28, 1860. — I remember that I used to think myself smart. I used to plan great things that I would do and be. I meant to become famous, never doubting that I had the power. But it is over. The mist has cleared away and I dream no longer, though I am only twenty-one years old. If it be true that we have need to say, "God help us when we think ourselves
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strong," I believe that the opposite is equally true; nay, that we need Him most when most distrusting our own capabilities. And I have come to this point; I think myself not good, not gifted in any way. I can not see why I should be loved, why I should hope for myself a beautiful and useful life or a glorious immortality at its close. Never before in all my life have I held myself at so cheap a rate as since I came home this last time. It is a query with me, however, whether really I amount to so little as I think. I can not quite content myself to belong to what Dr. Ludlam once called, much to my disgust, then, "the happy mediocrity." Is it, then, inevitable that I am to account myself one of the great "commonalty" during life? Let us see. Jump into the scales, F. E. W., in honesty as before God, and, I say it reverently, you shall be weighed. What you believe of yourself is vital to you. Let others think as they will, if you feel "the victory in you," as my father says, all things are possible. Then deal generously with yourself; let not overweening modesty (of which I think you never have been accused) cause you to pass lightly over any redeeming traits you may possess. Let us have just weights and measurements in all respects. Beginning at the lowest and yet the highest department (let the paradox go unexplained), you are not beautiful, pretty, or even good looking. There is the bald fact for you, make what you can of it. And yet (offset No. I,) you are not disagreeable nor unpleasant, either in face or figure. You have no shocking defects in respect to personal appearance, and that is something. Your expression is perhaps rather resolute than otherwise, and naturally, perhaps artfully, you tell but little with your face. In manner you are reserved toward those to whom you feel indifferent. You are too much inclined to moods, and yet you are as a rule exceedingly careful not to wound the feelings of others and you intend to be deferential toward those you think superiors, kind to your inferiors and cordial with your equals. You are hardly natural enough when in society, and have a certain air of self-consciousness sometimes that ill becomes you. However, as you think much upon the subject, it is not unlikely that by and by your manner will assume the half cordial, half dignified character that accords best with your nature. You have a good mind, but one not evenly balanced or developed. Your perceptions are rather quick, your memory on the whole, unusual, imagination good, reasoning faculties very fair; your judgment in practical matters not extraordinary, but elsewhere excellent. Your nature is appreciative; you are not cross-grained. You feel with a surprising and almost painful quickness. An innuendo or double entendre smites you like a blow.
Your nature, though not of an emotional cast, is not unfeeling. You lack the all-embracing love for man as man that is so noble and admirable, yet the few friends that you count among your treasures, have more devotion from you than they dream of, doubtless, for your love for them approaches idolatry. And yet your affections are completely under your control, are never suffered to have " their own wild way," and they fix themselves only upon those objects among the many that might be chosen, where they are manifestly desired. As for your will, I can not find out whether it is strong
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or weak. I hardly think it particularly powerful, and yet there is something about you for which I hardly know how to account on any other supposition. There is a sort of independence and self-reliance that gives the idea of will and yet is not really such. However the facts may be on this point, I think you would not be accounted a negative character. For the religious qualities of your mind, you are not particularly conscientious, you are rather inclined to skepticism and sometimes haunted by thoughts of unbelief. The aesthetics of Christianity have rather a large measure in your creed, both theoretical and practical, and yet you have right wishes and great longings after a pure and holy life.

The conclusion. Dear me, I don't make you out half as bad as I feel you ought to be. Placed in the scale against your beautiful ideal character by which you fain would mould yourself, you would kick the beam quickly enough, but somehow my consciousness affirms that the picture I have drawn has not all the shades it merits. In a spasmodic way, you are generous, yet beneath this, selfishness is deeply rooted in your heart. You are not a bit natural; you are somewhat original but have not energy or persistency enough ever to excel, I fear. However, you have some facility as a writer; less, I candidly think, than you had a year or two ago (that is encouraging)! Well, on the whole, I do not seem to make you out so poor and commonplace as I thought you to be, and perhaps if you keep your eyes wide open to your faults, and God will help you, you may yet come to be rather good than bad. For this, thank God and take courage. But oh, forget what you will, Frances, my best friend in all the world, ask the mighty, infinite Helper to model you by His plans, let them be what they will, so that every year you may grow ‘calmer and calmer,’ richer in love and peacefulness, and forgetting the poor dreams of less thoughtful years, have this and this only for your ambition; to be gentle, kindly and forgiving, full of charity which suffereth long, and patience, which is pleasing in the sight of God and man.

On the next page my sister Mary, as was her custom, skipped into my journal without leave or license and wrote the following paragraph:

I hope Miss Willard, though she be not conscious of it, does not hold herself at such a low rate as some of the foregoing remarks would incline one to think she did. When she calls herself neither beautiful, pretty nor good-looking I think she errs, as I am of the opinion she does come under one of these heads; of course I shall not say which one, however. I think she is right when she affirms that she has a good mind, but she contradicts this in the next breath, at least this might readily be inferred. I must say that in her dissertation on her affections, I notice nothing that would convey to the average mind the overpowering affection she cherishes for her sister! It may have been modesty that prevented her from mentioning this. I can not tell. I have a great interest in both these young ladies, Miss W. and her younger sister, and though my heart "yearns" more for the
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younger of the two, I can not say but that my affection for both is unbounded. Hoping that Miss W. will take no offense at my remark, I remain, hers very truly.
January 19. — I have united (on probation) with the Methodist church because I like its views of the doctrines taught in the Bible better than those of any other branch of God's church militant; because I have been reared in it, and for me to attach myself to any other would cause great sorrow and dissatisfaction in quarters where I should most desire to avoid such consequences, other things being equal. I honestly believe that I regard all the churches, the branches rather of the one Church, with feelings of equal kindness and fellowship. For myself, under existing circumstances, I prefer the one to which I belong, but that a person belonged to that church and was a true Christian, would be to me no more of a recommendation than that he was a true Christian and belonged to any other. The churches are all fighting nobly and zealously to make the world better and happier. Oh, I earnestly pray that as I grow older, the kindly, all-loving, catholic spirit may more deeply ground itself in my heart! I intend to observe all the customs and usages of the church. I have resolved never to be absent from Sabbath services, communion, Sunday-school, prayer-meeting and class-meeting, save when it is unavoidable. I will talk with any person upon the one great subject in the world whenever my prayer-guided judgment teaches me that it will be appropriate. That is, when it will not be so ill-timed as to jar upon the individual's prejudices and modes of thinking, so as to be the means of ill to him rather than good.

January 30. — Mary and I have been busy from morning until three o'clock renovating, changing and improving our room, and now I will describe it. In the southeast corner between the windows, stands my desk, with its friendly, familiar look. Once it was father's, but I have owned it many years and it has seen hard service. On my desk lying one above another are Butterworth's "Concordance," Niebuhr's "Life and Letters," Watts "On the Mind," Carlyle's "Schiller," Mercein's "Natural Goodness," Kames' "Elements of Criticism," Boswell's "Life of Johnson," Tennyson's "Poems" and my Bible. Below them a copy of The Home, for which I write, cousin Lottie's portfolio that she gave me and which I use for my unanswered letters, Webster's Dictionary and Blackwood's Magazine for May, 1838, which contains an article relating to insects, that I wish to read; my sand-box, microscope, inkstand, memorandum paper, pen-wiper and a cork bristling with beetles, "Cicindella," "Belostoma Americana," and many other varieties, though by the way, the last is a bug and not a beetle. Over my desk hangs an engraving of Schiller, and close beside, pasted to the wall, is my "program of daily occupations," which, I am sorry to say, is an illustration of the form without the power. Above it is a bit of excellent advice by Dr. Todd, whose Student's Manual I have very much enjoyed "and over all, softening, mellowing," a very pretty picture of a flower-girl. Suspended from the upper part of the casement of the east window, by a straw-colored ribbon, is Gypsey's cage, and its occupant is exhausting himself in a vain endeavor to
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collapse the tympani of Mary and me. On the north side of the window Mary sits, inflicting a letter on our mutual cousin, Sarah Gilman. She calls the affair at which she is writing, "Her book-case and desk." In point of fact, it is a pine-board arrangement, more valuable for its convenience than for its beauty. In it are her books, on it her portfolio, dictionary, etc.; over it a photograph of the Madison State Fair grounds when father was president; a Grecian painting representing a girl feeding a canary, my own handiwork, and a curious piece of whittling by Eben Marcy, a boy we knew when we were children. In the northeast corner of the room, Oliver's college cane maintains an unshared supremacy. Then follow the closet door, and one of the parlor chairs, over which hangs a beautiful engraving of grapes in clusters; and then there is the bureau, with Mary's portfolio, books of my borrowing, daguerreotypes, a painting, "Sunset," by myself, Mary's cute little basket, Oliver's hunting knife and Sac Gilman's drawing of the house in which her mother and ours lived when they were children. Over all this is the mirror, grandly looming, surmounted by a battered and shattered statuette in plaster of Paris, supposed to represent Devotion. This record is made in view of the pleasure it will give me to read of these passing days, when more sorrowful years shall draw nigh.

February 16. — Attended last evening a temperance lecture by Parker Earle, Chicago agent of the Illinois Temperance League, I believe. It was the best lecture of the kind I have ever heard, almost the only one. Forbearing to refer to orphans' groans and bloodshed, the usual material on such occasions, he reasoned the case, dealt chiefly in logic, presented interesting statistics, all in good, even elegant language. His subject was the relation of government to society and temperance. There are in Chicago at this time fifteen hundred shops for the sale of intoxicating liquors, exclusive of those which sell it for medicinal and mechanical purposes. Outside of Chicago, in the state of Illinois there are five hundred such shops. Twenty million dollars are annually expended in Illinois for intoxicating drinks, more than the cost of all the schools from universities to district schools. In one shop, on a certain day in Chicago, $2,000 were paid in for rum in its various forms. All this was astonishing to me. Thus we go on, one half of the world knowing not how the other lives.

February 25. — Received a letter from Lillie Hayes Waugh, describing her home in India. She gave me the Hindu definition of woman: "That afterthought of God which was sent to bring woe to man!" That single sentence gives the key to India's awful degradation.

Have resolved that neither public opinion, nor narrow-minded pride, nor any other creature, shall prevent me from showing, whenever I can, kindness as delicate, and respect as genuine, as I know how, to those whom the community as a rule treats slightingly or with positive meanness. If I do this I shall be of value to the world whether the world knows it or not. I shall, I think, bring some happiness into troubled and wounded hearts, and, oh, will it not be sweet to remember in the hour when I shall most need comfort, the hour in which I am to die!

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Below stairs Dr. Bannister and father are talking of secession, the cabinet and the prospect of civil war, topics of startling interest to every patriotic heart. The opinion generally expressed is that a collision is inevitable, and will occur within a very few days. God pity us and forgive the accumulations of crime and folly that have brought so near us a result so terrible as this would be.

March 5, 1860. — What am I doing? Whose cares do I relieve? Who is wiser, better or happier because I live? Nothing would go on differently without me, unless, as I remarked to-day to Mary with bitter playfulness, the front stairs might not be swept so often! Now these are awful thoughts. But come, let us reason together. What more could I do if I would? Mother does not work, she says, more than is healthful for her, keeping the front room in order and giving instructions to "Belinda" (father's invariable name for "a lady in a subordinate capacity"). There are no younger brothers and sisters to be cared for as is the case in many homes. Evanston has no poor people. Nobody seems to need me. In my present position there is actually nothing I might do that I do not, except to sew a little and make cake! Now that is the fact. I may acknowledge a feeling of humiliation as I see so plainly how well the world can spare me. But perhaps I may be needed some day and am only waiting for the crisis. Who can tell? We are told that God in his wisdom makes nothing in vain. Thus having moralized I lean back in my easy-chair and resume the reading of Poe's ghostly tales, which, with a little twinge of conscience at the thought of my uselessness, I laid aside a moment since.

March 15. — Let us see, mother and Mary have been sick but are getting well again. Xantippe of the kitchen has left; I have been doing the work as well as I could for a few days, and now a gentler spirit rules over the culinary department.

April 20. — How many unwritten romances careful observers might find in the lives of the so-called "commonplace people" whom one meets every day! A story as powerful as Rebecca Harding's "Life in the Iron Mills" might be woven from materials I wot of, the characters being men and women who live and labor within a circle of a mile from where I sit this minute, men and women whom I pass on the street now and then, or see at church.

A hungry soul and a bruised heart are objects more pitiful, I think, than a maimed limb or abject penury. I wish my mission might be to those who make no sign, yet suffer most intensely under their cold, impassive faces. The pain of a sensitive nature feeling that it does not adequately represent itself, that it is misapprehended and placed below its deserts, that its efforts to rise are viewed with carelessness by the most generous in the community, that it is denied companionship with those whose society it craves or feels that it deserves — no words can measure this. These people whose souls sit on the ends of their nerves, and to whom a cold look or a slighting word is like frost to the flower — God pity them! This world is a hard place for natures so fine as theirs. They are like the rare porcelain out of which beautiful vases are made. The coarser natures whose nerves, after coming
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to the surface, bend back again, can no more comprehend their finely constituted brethren than I can conceive of a sixth sense. This non-recognition of claims she was too sensitive to push before the public, pinched the face of Mrs. S. and killed her at last, I steadfastly believe. This carelessness and coldness makes B., splendid fellow as he is, reserved and untrusting; why, practically, no one cares for him more than if he were a dog, and his burrowing place is a matter of as much indifference as a gopher's might be Mr. A., a man of fine intellect and large cultivation, lies year in and year out on his bed upon the "Ridge," helpless and alone. Who goes to see him? Who tries to make his life happier or more endurable? Who tries to lead him into the beautiful life of the heaven we talk about and stupidly expect, somehow, to gain? What wonder that he is cynical and misanthropic, wasting the years of middle life when other men's pulses thrill with strength; shut out from active duty when his need for work is sorest; laid aside in the darkness of his curtained chamber and left alone while the busy hum of life goes on as ever, and he sees he is not counted, needed nor regarded in any way. He hears the whistle of the engine and the cars go thundering by; the college bell rings every hour and its tones fall on his listless ear. Teams rumble past. He hears men's voices talking with each other. All this conies to him heavy with reproach and taunting him with the unfulfilled promise of his youth. In summer in the fields he hears the click of the reaper and knows that they are using his invention; knows how the wonderful automatic hand stretches out and grasps the heads of wheat that the sunshine and rain have ripened, the hand so human in its motion that he contrived by much of thought and study. He hears quick steps on the walk under the window, but he is a deformed man and will never walk again; thrown from a carriage in Chicago, years ago, he was taken up as dead, and since then he has done nothing of the work of the world. He looks into the fireplace where the coal is kept blazing winter and summer — his only company. Does anybody think God takes no notice of all this?

The B.'s who are kept out of the literary society by the unkindness of some of its members and the stupidity of the rest; Miss A., who is not asked into the reading circle, where it is her right to be by virtue of the exertion she has made to cultivate and enrich her intellect and character; Mrs. J., at whom a shallow school-girl could laugh if she attempted to recall the music she learned years ago when better fortunes were upon her; Mrs. M., who is disregarded utterly, though refined and educated; even "Ruth Ann," at whom we laugh unblushingly — all the cases of these people cry to heaven for justice and will have it, too, at last. These look like little matters, yet nothing is trivial, as Mrs. Stowe has said, "since the human soul with its awful shadow makes all things sacred." Nothing is a light matter that makes my heart ache or the hearts of any of my human kin. God accounts nothing slight that brings a tear to any eye, a stinging flush to any cheek, or a chill to the heart of any creature he has thought fit to make and to endow with body, brain and soul.

I hate the spirit in any one that seeks to gain the notice of the influential
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in society by fawning, or undue attention of any sort. I love a brave, strong character that walks the earth with the step of a king, and an eye that does not quail before anything except its own dishonor. All can not do this, but there are some who can. The man, woman or child that makes me uncomfortable, that stabs me with an undeserved reproach or rebuke, that dwells upon my faults like a fly upon an ulcer, that slights me or needlessly wounds me in any way — that man, woman or child I may forgive, but only through God's spirit striving with my wrath. I will shun them, and in my heart I must despise them and this, not because I am weak or clinging. according to the views of some people, but because, be I weak or strong, I will stand up for justice so long as I have power, and I hereby declare that I will speak more kindly and considerately to those whose claims are unrecognized by the society in which I live, than I will to any others. I will bow more cordially to those to whom persons of position do not bow at all, and I will try in a thousand pleasant, nameless ways to make them happier. God help me to keep my promise good!

Another branch of this same subject relates to those who live among us and do our work, perform the menial services for us that we think ourselves too good to do; who are cared for as we would care for the dogs and horses, well fed and warmed and promptly paid, but spoken to with harshness often, treated with unreasonable severity as if they had not brains and souls, but were animals conveniently gifted, somehow, with the power of speech. Who says kind words to the man that blacks his boots, to the maid that makes his bed and sweeps his hearth? Who employs the graceful "Thank you," and "Won't you please," that softens down the sharp tone of a command? O we forget these things! We are just mean enough to disregard decency and kindness in the cases where we dare to do it. I have called at houses where in the room a girl sat sewing, more beautiful, graceful and well-bred than my hostess ever dared to be, yet she has taken no more notice of this girl than if she were a brute, nor attracted my attention to her by an introduction or the faintest indication of one, though descanting eloquently on the virtues of the sleek skye-terrier at her side. The poor and the unlovely fare hardly in this world of ours. Climb the ladder yourself to enviable distinction, or reach a comfortable mediocrity by your own exertions, and you will be treated with all-sufficient consideration; but while you are climbing, look only for cold indifference, at best, and if you begin to stagger or fall, then kicks and cuffs will shower upon you with an energy surprising to contemplate. Oh, that I were a Don Quixote in a better cause than his, or even Sancho Panza to some mightier spirit, who I trust will come upon the earth some day!

April 21, 1861. — On this beautiful Sabbath day the unusual sound of the whistle and the thundering cars, has been heard for the first time, and our thoughts have been more of war, I fear, than of the God of battles whom we tried to worship. It is twilight and soon I shall go peacefully to sleep, but while I am asleep a thousand soldiers will pass through our quiet village on their way to "the war," that terrible Something which hangs over us black and portentous. Somewhere in Wisconsin, and on the broad,
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bright plains of Minnesota, mothers and sisters, daughters and wives will be weeping and praying to-night for these soldiers. God pity them and give them peace.

April 27, 1861. — I want to tell how with all their beauty sadness has been interwoven with these bright days, for Oliver has signed the pledge that he would go to the war if called upon. The students of the Theological Institute have organized a company and are drilling every day, preparing to go if it becomes their duty. I can not tell how my heart sickened and was rebellious for awhile as I thought of what might be. Went with mother and the other ladies to the Theological school to attend the exercises in honor of the banner presented to the students by Mrs. Bishop Simpson. We enjoyed it greatly.

May 5, 1861. — An eventful day to me. Mary and I publicly declared our determination and endeavor, with God's help, to live as Christians. We were baptized and received into the church and partook of the sacrament. Those were solemn vows we took; I almost trembled as our voices mingled in the responses to the questions asked us. I felt how solemn a thing it was, how awful the responsibility that would henceforth rest upon us, and yet the ceremony seemed very beautiful to me. We knelt there at the altar, we whose lives and hearts and thoughts had been one; it was most fitting that we should in this, as in everything, be together.

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Part IV: A Roving Teacher

Evanton College, and Later, Woman's College of The Northwestern University. "Talent is Nurtured Best in Solitude, But Character, on Life's Tempestuous."

Chapter I.

DISTRICT SCHOOL NO. I.

Not to be at all, or else to be a teacher, was the alternative presented to aspiring young women of intellectual proclivities when I was young.

Graduating in 1859, convalescing slowly at Forest Home that summer and autumn, studying, reading and writing all winter, I grew restive, and solemnly determined that I would teach.

Between 1858, when I began, and 1874, when I forever ceased to be a pedagogue, I had thirteen separate seasons of teaching, in eleven separate institutions, and six separate towns; my pupils in all numbering about two thousand. In my summer vacation at Forest Home, 1858, I taught our district school; in my own home-town of Evanston, I taught the public school one term; in Harlem, two terms; in Kankakee Academy, one term; in my Alma Mater, the Northwestern Female College, two; in Pittsburgh Female College, three; in the Grove School, Evanston, one year; in Genesee Wesley an Seminary, at Lima, N. Y., three terms; the Evanston College for Ladies, two years; the "Woman's College," one year, and I was a professor in the Northwestern University, one. Nor did I ever relinquish any of these situations save of my own free will, and in every case but one, I had from the authorities a warm invitation to return. This I say very gratefully and gladly.

A desire to learn the methods of different institutions and to see more of the world were the chief motives that led me into an experience so varied.

It is also but fair to confess that routine has always been immensely irksome to me, and to be "tied to a bell rope," an asphyxiating process from which I vainly sought escape, changing the spot only to keep the pain.

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I was determined to "teach school" because I wished to be independent, so I wrote a letter to John F. Eberhart, who was then superintendent of Public Schools for Cook County, of which Chicago is the county-seat, but it was a little late in the season, and he replied, advising me not to begin until fall, saying he had but one school left and it was the least desirable of all upon his list, away on the prairie beyond Oak Park, in a little red school-house and attended almost exclusively by the children of foreigners. I wrote him, as soon as a letter could return, that I would take the school. What the wages were I do not at all remember, but they were small. He gave me a certificate based on the fact that I had the diploma of the Northwestern Female College, asking no questions and charging no fee. This was somewhat irregular, perhaps, but at that date these questions were not as carefully adjudicated as they are now. Professor Eberhart, as we called him, had for years been editor of a family journal, for which I had often contributed, and he knew that I was abundantly qualified from a literary point of view, for the position aspired to by me and deprecated by himself. When all was settled I informed my father, who naturally felt humiliated. He was a business man in the city, having joined S. A. Kean, now a well known banker, in founding a brokers' office on Clark street, nearly opposite the Sherman House; he strongly objected, as has been said, but I parried an argument which, while it has very little force in these days, had a great deal in 1860, and pleaded with him to let me carry out my purpose of bearing my own weight in the world.

So the arrangement was made, and my father accompanied me to Harlem, for with his ideas of the protection that should be accorded to women, he could not conceive of my going there alone, although I was in my twenty-first year. When we alighted at a little wayside shed which served the purpose of a station, for there was no town there then, a kind-faced, but rather rough-looking man, with long, black hair, a slouched hat, a red shirt rolled up to the elbows, and blue overalls, appeared at the car and said, "Is this the schoolmarm? I am school director and came to take her over to her seminary," pointing with his finger across the prairie at the little red "nubbin'" of a school-house. My father looked volumes and whispered sardonically, "You see what you have got yourself into." A return train for the city

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passed soon after; he took it, and I was left alone with my new fortunes. Arriving at the school-house I found the boys had not been idle. Among other things they had broken several windows and engaged in sundry forms of controversy, emphasized with fisticuffs. One or two American families were represented, the rest were of different foreign nationalities. I knew nothing about teaching, had been a "probationer" in the church only a few weeks, but I took my little pocket Testament and went into the school-house. The school came to order tolerably well; I read a few verses, led them in singing some familiar Sunday-school hymn, which they seemed to know quite well, — I think it was, "I want to be an angel!" Its incongruity struck me so forcibly that I could easily have laughed, but in a moment later I could easily have cried, when I bent my head to try to pray. But to their credit be it said, the children stood by me far better than I had feared. The school was not large, having some fifteen or twenty scholars, only one of whom was so insubordinate as to require a whipping. He was a boy almost as tall as myself and I had no small ado to hold him by the collar while he did his utmost to show he was more of a force than his young teacher, but without success. Fathers would come to the door with a bit of a stick, asking me to beat their children with that particular one, which was the only form of aristocracy recognized in my institution. However, there was small need of discipline. In a few days the children would sit quietly at their lessons while I solaced myself by reading Plato and other philosophical books with which I had taken care to provide myself. I went through several of Bohn's translations from the classics, besides a variety of lighter reading. In every way I could devise I tried to interest the scholars, and I think they enjoyed the school, which I certainly did, although often feeling forlorn as I opened my little dinner-pail at luncheon time when they were all playing and hurrahing outside. It was not what I would have chosen in life; indeed, I hardly know what it would be freely to choose what one would like, but the next best thing is to like what one must choose, and I think I have learned that art quite thoroughly. Next to the New Testament, Epictetus has helped me beyond all others to do this; I mean all others except my mother, who, when nearly, eighty-four years of age, said to me one day, "Did

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you ever see me forlorn?" and stoutly claimed I never had; which is true, except in the crises of our family bereavements.

I boarded that summer in the family of David Thatcher, a returned Californian, who was the richest man in those parts. He was an American, his wife was English. I have seldom seen a finer head than his; he was not, however, a man of education, though he had remarkable native force of intellect, and under happier fortunes might have been a senator. His wife was one of the kindest, most cheery women I have ever known. Two of his sons, George and David, were in my school and were staunch friends of mine; George, then sixteen years of age, being as true and loyal as if he were my younger brother. I think his good behavior set the key-note for the school. He was a very bright scholar and is now a lawyer in Chicago. Mr. Thatcher's only daughter, Clara, was at this time a student in the Chicago High School, a girl of unusual powers of mind, and a genial, kindly heart. When she came home on the first afternoon and saw a demure young stranger at the supper-table, she did not know whether she liked it or not; on the whole, she thought she did not, and though she said nothing, her atmosphere was somewhat chilly on that bright night of June. It is my nature to withdraw within myself when the environment is not propitious, so I said nothing and went to my lonely room as soon as possible. I had brought my writing-desk, a very pretty one that had belonged to father, and which was my most cherished earthly possession, except a little Bible given me by a favorite aunt who had recently died. This blessed book I read, and opening the desk, I placed upon the shelf, near by, the pictures of my nearest and best, and looked at them with a tugging at the heart such as can be appreciated only by those who remember the pang it brings when endured for the first time. Then I tried to read, and tried to write, but the time hung heavily. I did not cry, for I had made up my mind that I would not. It was clearly a case of "mind-cure," for the occasion certainly warranted a demonstration. Pretty soon there was a rap on the door and Miss Clara came smiling in, grasped the situation at a glance, spoke to me with great gentleness, and said, "You are lonesome, aren't you? It is too bad. I wonder if you would not rather come into my room?" From that hour to this we have been warm

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and trusty friends. I was glad to leave my bare little room for hers, so much more tasteful and attractive, but here was a new dilemma. I knew it was my duty to kneel in prayer before retiring, as had been my custom all my life, except the few weeks of my first term in Evanston, but I knew from various indications that Clara had not been trained to do this. She was a gay, laughing girl, and I dreaded her criticism, but when the time came I lifted up my heart to God and fell on my knees beside the bed, feeling myself to be a spectacle and with a sense of sacrifice which, absurd as it was, cost me more than anything had done in many a year. But in a moment this generous-hearted girl had knelt beside me with her arm around my neck, and from that hour she became thoughtful concerning spiritual things. She helped me found a Sunday-school in the little red school-house, which we conducted all summer long, and out of it grew the prosperous, well-ordered Methodist church at River Forest, once Harlem, of which my friend and her husband, Solomon Thatcher, well known in Methodist circles, have been pillars for many a year.

This incident may give to some young heart the courage that is needed in a more difficult emergency than mine.

When I went home toward the close of the term I took Clara along and we had a delightful visit, she being henceforth endeared to every friend of mine.

It pains me even now to remember how grieved my sister Mary was that she could not teach school. She graduated the same summer that I began my work as a teacher, and in the autumn she had an invitation to be an assistant in a private school, but she was the pet and darling of the house, and it was not strange they were unwilling to have her go from home. But I have seen her pretty face all stained with tears as she said to me, "Oh, to have earned a little money of my own, my very own!" and I have seen her on her knees praying to be helped and guided out into a larger life. So she was, in one more year, but in a way how different from anything she dreamed! She was guided out into the largest life of all, which is an heavenly.

The voluminous journals of my earliest period as teacher have this entry:

April 27, 1860. — Professor Jones informed mother in my absence last evening, that he knew of a school which he thought I could get, and with
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the items of information he furnished, I sallied forth bright and early this morning to learn more about the matter. The result of my investigations was a letter duly composed, copied and mailed, inclosing a kind recommendation from Professor. I hope to obtain the situation, for I have not yet been out in the world, to "do and dare" for myself. Single-handed and alone I should like to try my powers, for I've remained here in the nest, a full-grown bird, long enough, and too long. It is an anomaly in natural history!

This school was at Elk Grove, a country place not far from Chicago. The next entry says:

April 30. — On coming home from Dr. Foster's examination of his University class in moral science — which, by the way, Bishop Simpson quizzed unmercifully — I found a letter, stating that if I'd been a very little earlier I might have secured the situation. This was a disappointment, and one so hard to bear that I said several harsh, un-Christian words, for which I'm very sorry. I then wrote another school-seeking letter to Prof. J. F. Eberhart, who is Professor Jones's friend, and superintendent of the public schools in this county.
May 1. — Received a letter from Professor Eberhart, which amounted to but little.

May 22. — Another letter from Professor Eberhart saying that he thought he had secured me a school. It is very kind of him, for I ought to be earning money for myself and doing something useful, as every one else is. Of course, it will be very hard for me, for I am not "used" to care or trouble. Evanston is a beautiful place to live in, and those I love best are here, but I would rather go, notwithstanding, and I think God helps me to say with truth, "I would rather go because it is right that I should, and because of this alone."

It will be hard to leave mother, who cares for me as no other human being ever can, and to go where everybody is indifferent to me.

The first school is a greater epoch to the young teacher than any that can follow. I have been thus minute in its description, hoping to cheer some "new beginner," to furnish some suggestion, and to preserve the picture of a school within ten miles of Chicago, yet primitive as any upon Western prairies. Twenty-five years later I went back, stood upon its doorstep like one in a dream, and had a photograph taken of "the old place" as a new gem in my collection of "antiques." As my brother had taught in the new school-house during one winter vacation (1861) of his theological course, and I had followed him in the spring of that year, I went there also with my kind friends, Mr. and Mrs. Solomon Thatcher, and we formed another group, in which the young

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lady then teaching there, my dear friend Clara and her husband, and Anna Gordon, standing beside me, illustrated somewhat the developments of history.

Here follow journal extracts written just before I went to Harlem, and while there:

May 19. — Yesterday the Republican convention at Chicago nominated Abraham Lincoln for president of the United States. I wish I had been in the Wigwam when this was done. The accounts that father and Oliver give us of the excitement, the hand-shaking, handkerchief wavings, etc., have made us very enthusiastic. They say men's hats were knocked about like foot-balls, and one man took off his coat and waved it. They say we must have laughed or cried if we had been there. I would like to test myself, to try my self-control in some such way.
May 27. — Father asked our Heavenly Father this morning to "make us feel the responsibility that these peaceful, painless hours impose, and to help us to prepare for the storms that will come, we can not say how soon." I have thought much of this. But now, when there is not a grief at my heart or a shadow on my path, I find it almost impossible to lead a Christian life. Just what I need is discipline. Sorrow alone can melt my heart and make God more to me than all the universe besides. I want to be right, at whatever cost, and so I feel sure that if I am ever made perfect it will be through suffering. I am twenty years old and I have neither dignity nor womanliness, I am giddy and thoughtless as much as I ever was, I verily believe. There is something I can hardly define, but the word character seems to me to express what I lack and what I must acquire. I am neither self-reliant nor self-contained. There is not that about me which those of my age ought always to possess and which causes people to keep their distance, a certain well defined self-respect that is not haughtiness. Belle Stewart had it and she was only twenty; Annie Foster, and she was barely eighteen when I used to see her last summer; Lillie Hayes was a grand exemplification of this element that I find missing in my nature; I name these young ladies to you, "myself," for your favorable consideration. Now, while it is a shame that I am not as they are, it is yet but little wonder, for I have not been brought on as they have been. They have seen much of society, have attended school all their lives, and been trained, possibly, to dignity of manner, while I knew no more of society than a baby or a goose until I came to Evanston, and I know almost nothing now. In all these twenty years, although I have graduated after a fashion, I never spent four years in school, and I was trained to live outdoors as much as possible, ride, and walk, and garden, and go fishing, if, peradventure, my life might be spared to me, for I was always "slender," as my mother calls it. I have never been out in the world, have had no care or trouble, no grief worth mentioning, no "lovyer" as "Bub" says, nor any love affair to sober me. And so, since I am not naturally a person of character, — why should I be one at all when the artificial method has never been employed in my case! I am determined to
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be just, if not generous, with myself; indeed, who has a better right? Now, I am sorry that I am not more like my ideal young lady, and I am anxious to be more like her if I can. But I must get my discipline in a rougher school than most young ladies do. I see clearly that I shall never be the grown-up person that I ought to be until I have borne sorrows and had cares.

If I become a teacher in some school that I do not like, if I go away alone and try what I myself can do and suffer, and am tired and lonesome; if I am in a position where I must have all the responsibility myself and must be alternately the hammer that strikes and the anvil that bears, but always one of them, I think I may grow to be strong and earnest in practice, as I have always tried to be in theory. So here goes for a fine character. If I were not intent upon it, I could live contented here at Swampscott all my days.

It is quite curious that just as I wrote the last word, our hired man came in with the mail, and on opening a letter addressed to myself, post-marked "Noyesville, Harlem Postoffice," I found the words, "You may consider yourself engaged to teach our school." So I am to go this very next Saturday and to begin my hard battle for myself alone.

May 29. — I trained the vines this morning; it is all the pleasanter working around home since I am to leave it so soon. Professor Eberhart, school commissioner for Cook county, called, and I went with him to visit Minnie Holcomb's school. In the afternoon I went, under the same auspices, to visit Miss Automaton's school. I learned very much from what I heard and saw. The two teachers were as different as light is from darkness. Minnie was patient, kind and slightly diffident. Miss Automaton was perfectly cool, metallic in voice and manner, and calmly despotic in government.

May 30. — I have been arranging my dear old desk and getting ready for my departure. Will copy here what I have learned in the way of "rules for conducting a country school successfully ":

1. Never let your pupils feel that they understand you or know what to expect from you. Be a mystery to them. Invent punishments. Resort to expedients they least expect.

2. Demand implicit obedience in small as well as great matters and never yield a point.

3. Introduce general exercises when practicable. This concentrates every mind on one idea, and when they all think alike by your command, you can do with them what you will.

Memorandum. — Introduce gymnastic exercises — Miss Beecher's, as we practiced them in Milwaukee. Ever so much singing, those chipper "rounds," and dear old-fashioned songs I used to sing in school. Have them sing the multiplication table. Have them sing the capitals and bound the states so as to make it a sort of game and less distasteful, while they point out the places on the map, a la Mrs. Hovey. Give them all sorts of extra lessons, viz.: have them bring flowers and name the parts; teach them the bones of the human body; the rulers of all countries, and as many other things as I can think up; all this in concert. Say to them all of a sudden, "You see now I
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am talking, clap your hands together. Now I am silent. See how quickly you can fold your arms; look me in the eye and be perfectly silent for one minute;" I click the bell and note your watch. This trains them to promptness.

4. Accustom them to take their seats for recitation at the right moment, as indicated by the clock. This cultivates attention.

5. Give them a good deal of outside information on all sorts of topics, to liven them up all you can. Have them spell on slates.

Miscellaneous. — Offer no prizes. Read the record of the deportment and lessons on the afternoon of literary exercises once a week. Have the head and foot in spelling classes, besides slate spelling, have them toe the line and put their hands behind them. Have No. 1 take the floor and call No. 2 to come, etc. Have them number as they take their seats. Give a perfect mark for each good lesson. Make a specialty of map-drawing. Practice reading classes in the sounds of the letters. Have them learn abbreviations, Roman numerals, words pronounced alike, but spelled differently, etc. Draw figures on the blackboard and let the little children copy them on their slates, to keep them quiet. Let the little ones go out and play a good deal during study hours. Call the roll at the close of school and have them report "Correct," if they have not been absent or tardy, then let the boy nearest the door go out when you call his name, and so on, having them leave one at a time, that there may be no confusion. Post up an order of exercises in a conspicuous place. Have everything systematized to the last degree. Make only four rules, namely: "Don't be tardy; don't leave seats without permission; don't be absent; don't whisper;" but wink at the latter unless it becomes too palpable. Have the whole school as far as possible read in concert, from time to time. Have the more mischievous ones sit alone and at a distance from each other. Make out a list of general questions for the whole school to answer, propound them to two divisions, if the house has four, and when they fail have the others respond, alternating in this way to stir their emulation and enthusiasm.

All my friends are very kind; they bring me flowers, write me notes, invite me out to tea and seem to be sorry that I am going hence. Am full of errands and last things to be done. Mary and I had just retired on Saturday night, when Mary Bannister and Kate, Han, and Mollie, and Charlie Smith, and Mr. Wood, and Watson with his melodeon formed in line under our window and they sang beautifully for my sake, because I am going away, "Auld Lang Syne," "Sweet Home," "Good-by" and two or three other pieces. And I lay there very quietly, I who have not shed a tear since last September, and cried like a child while they sang.

Harlem, Cook County, Ill., June 5. — I could not write last night, I felt too desolate. After leaving home, walking from the Harlem station to my ugly, dismal, red school-house, through a marsh; riding through the flying mud, with some kind-hearted ladies, to my boarding-place to leave my trunk; walking more than half a mile back to my den — for it is nothing else, it is the most comfortless house I ever saw; going through the tiresome routine of teaching the A B C's, spelling, and the like; helping sweep out the school-house — which is dirty beyond description, with broken windows, baked floor,
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and cobwebs mingled; walking home again, unpacking and arranging my effects, writing out my order of exercises, I sat down very tired and full of heartache. It is doubly hard for me because I have been sick and have done very little for a year, because home is so pleasant and everybody so kind to me. My head aches as badly as my heart to-night. Somehow I am afraid I can not bear it. Father came out from the city — it is only ten miles, though it seems a hundred — to bring me a bundle. I took it and turned away, saying in answer to his half cheerful, half sad words, "Keep up a brave heart and don't let it discourage you," "Good-by, father, I am not afraid," but the tears blinded me so I could hardly see to go back to my teacher's-desk again, and yet the people here don't know. These rough school directors don't dream that I am not exactly in ecstasy although I am teaching in "their deestrict," and they will not know either, never fear. I turned to God, the Heavenly Father, who presides over our destiny, with new eagerness. I prayed last night as I have not for many days, and went to sleep in the cold and dark and lonesomeness with a feeling that somehow the Arms that reach around the world enfolded me. If I can learn to look to Him and try always to obey Him, this bitter life will not have been in vain. Just now I took my Bible and it opened at the passage, "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him," and I could hardly see the words, the page became so blurred as I tried to look at it. Those who know my nature would understand that I am indeed getting my discipline, for I almost never cry, not once in a year, often not so frequently, and no one shall know save God, and you, book, that the inside and the outside life are vastly different, that while one is quiet, unaspiring and firm, the other is full of longing and heartache and misery. All this last I shall not write even in my letters home, for it will do me no good and will worry mother.

June 6. — Last evening had a pleasant talk with Clara Thatcher, the daughter of the house in which I board. Congenial outside surroundings are a great deal to me as yet. Looking at the case as hopefully as possible, I think Clara will make my boarding-place a pleasant one, for she is attractive and seems kind-hearted, but my school life is almost unendurable. I have twenty-seven scholars, five A B C-darians, the rest all under twelve years old, except two girls and one boy. The children are more than half German, the rest mostly Irish, except a few Americans, including Clara's two bright brothers. I have classes in botany, United States history, algebra, arithmetic and grammar. It is very cold to-day, and I have no material for making afire. "It rains and the wind is never weary." The house leaks, my desk is wet and I am completely chilled. I can hardly hold the pen to write this about the life which I knew was coming to me. I must stay three hours longer and then walk home through mud that will come over my shoetops.

Evening, ten o'clock. — Am half ashamed of the dolorous tone in which the above is written, and yet I need not be, for it is all true, and in stating it here I made nobody unhappy with the consciousness that I was miserable. I only wrote it down for the future. After all, I have much to be thankful for. Billy Thatcher carried me to school and brought me back, and Clara
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and I have had a very pleasant evening together. We have been talking science, art and books as well as we were able, and I find her highly intelligent. Her ideas in general seem just and broad. The part of my summer that I spend in her home will be pleasant and profitable. We have already planned to pursue together the following studies: entomology, conchology, aquarium-making, botany and herbarium-making, study of the constellations, drawing from copies, and the manual alphabet. Clara is quite skillful with her pencil, sketching from nature. I think there is something else, but here is enough for once. Clara is a senior in the Chicago High School classical course and we have in tastes and education many things in common. She is the last person I thought to find in this rude neighborhood, and I thank God for it humbly and sincerely, and will try to exert a good influence over this new friend of mine. I think she has not been reared religiously, and so I pray here in her room even as I try to in my morning devotions at school, and then go to sleep more peacefully and happily than I dreamed I could two days ago, or than I shall deserve to ever.

June 7. — In the school-house, half-past eight. Am quite content this morning and disposed to look with some complacence on my lot in life. My school will be thoroughly organized before the end of the week, and I shall not find it hard to teach, only wearisome. They are very kind at my boarding-place, and I am altogether comfortable there. Wrote a cheerful letter home last night. I asked two of my pupils in the Second Reader class why we have such a day as Christmas, when it occurs and what it commemorates. They said, "It comes sometime in cold weather, and we have it so we can hang up our stockings and get something nice." Beyond this they had not the faintest idea of the day.

Evening, ten o'clock. — Clara and I have been having a royal time ever since she came from the city on the six o'clock train. After supper we went walking to the Desplaines river where Clara wished to show me some of the scenes we are to sketch, then we walked up the railroad track and talked, and I had a beautiful time. We gathered bouquets of roses, and rosebuds which are better than blossoms, and after a walk of nearly two miles we returned and found the three directors waiting to examine my certificate. After they had dissected it, we came up to my room, traced constellations, I learned the manual alphabet, and now I am going to bed tired, but happy and thankful. But before I go I shall tell my troubles and joys to God, and pray Him to take care of all of us, especially the Four, until death us do part; nay, until after death.

June 4. — One thing particularly troubles me. I am afraid I do not try enough to influence Clara in the right direction. I am naturally thoughtless, and a playful remark with a hidden meaning which is irreverent does not meet in all cases a negative response, or silence even, but I see that I am inclined to laugh myself if the wit of the words is sufficiently apparent. But I have told her how I am trying, and am praying earnestly and have sincere wishes after righteousness in my heart. There is no church here, nor are there any Christian people, but the Infinite One is everywhere, and "His greatness flows around my incompleteness."

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Afternoon. — The scholars are more vexatious than usual and I find it rather difficult to keep my temper, though I have succeeded thus far. The children overwhelm me with flowers, the desk is piled with them; they enliven this doleful place wonderfully. And alas! for me the time even now is when I must make comfort to myself out of roses and lilies instead of friends and home. One of my scholars had a fit in school and we all were frightened, but I was "schoolma'am" to the best of my ability.

Evening. — I have not laughed so heartily in months as over a scientific result obtained by Clara and me this evening, and have been just as wild and thoughtless as I ever was at home. Clara is eighteen and her enthusiasm on the subjects we are to investigate together, awakens mine. Perhaps my life is not going to be so very hard, but I can not tell. One moment I am in the sunshine and the next I am in the shade; so delicate is my spiritual thermometer that from zero to summer day a pleasant breath of the sweet south wind will raise the mercury.

June 10. — Sabbath morning. Rose at nine o'clock, breakfasted, arranged my room, and am wondering at the strange day that I shall spend, so different from Evanston with all its Christian privileges. This family is not religious. There is no church that I can attend, no outward form of worship in which I can show the gratitude and love that fill my heart this beautiful day. I can see father and mother, sister and brother, in the old pew. I know they all have prayed that I might be shielded, strengthened and comforted by our God who is over all, blessed forever. Mother has wondered what I was doing to-day and has hoped in her heart that I might be happy and serene and that I might live and act like a Christian under whatever circumstances I may be placed. The younger members of this family have taken their pony and ridden off to the strawberry patch to spend the day. The proprietor sits in the library below with six or seven friends who have ridden out from the city; they are smoking their cigars and talking of horse-races, sporting, and the like. The mistress of the establishment is busy superintending the preparation of the Sunday dinner, for Mr. T. is a rich man and fares sumptuously every day. It is a queer Sabbath, I never spent one like it. God, help me to remember Thee and heaven and holiness while all around is of the earth, earthy. I have stayed in my room with Clara, read a little, talked with her the rest of the time. I do not know what I should do without her. She is a petted child, the only daughter, not used to thinking much of others' comfort, but she is very kind to me and marvelously thoughtful of my happiness. Clara and I did not go down to dinner, which was a comfort. Have read my favorite 119th Psalm with solid satisfaction.

Evening, June 11. — School has been positively zestful, my pupils enthusiastic and easily governed. The sun has shone and the sky has been as blue as a violet, and, best of all, I have had four letters from home.

June 12. — My pupils have not been as studious or as easily governed as usual, to-day, and have troubled me greatly. Have been obliged to box the ears of two reprobates, ferule the brown palms of four, and lay violent hands on another to coerce him into measures that did not meet his views. All this I have done; I am sorry it became necessary, for I feel kindly toward them all
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and never speak a harsh word only as they force me to do so by the total depravity they manifest in their conduct, and yet the little creatures bring me flowers and evince in many little actions a kind of regard for me that is most pleasant.

I have given these extracts showing what a young teacher once endured, because I know ten thousand others have had a similar experience, and I have hoped to bring somewhat of good cheer and courage to those as faint-hearted in their new endeavor as I was in mine so many years ago.

146 Chapter II.

KANKAKEE ACADEMY. (1860).

After a few months at home I engaged to go to Kankakee, an Illinois county-seat about sixty miles from Chicago, as assistant teacher in an academy started by Prof. Charles B. Woodruff (the former principal of the "Blind Institute" at Janesville, Wis., and my father's friend). Here I remained one term, but owing to the urgent wishes of my parents did not return after the Christmas holidays. My cousin, Miss Sarah F. Gilman, of Churchville, N. Y., took my place and made a decided success of the venture, in more ways than one, as she here made the acquaintance of Harry Dusinbury, whom she married within the year. The story of this second effort as a pedagogue is best given in journal language:

September 26, 1860. — Very busy getting ready to go. Letter from Professor Woodruff in answer to my telegraphic dispatch, giving me further particulars and saying that he will secure my boarding-place and meet me at the night train. As nearly as I can find out, I am to teach philosophy, history, drawing, grammar, and all the reading classes, how many soever there may be. I received from Clara Thatcher one of her warm-hearted, impetuous epistles. What a heroine that girl has proved herself to be! Right on through summer's heat she has carried, all alone, the Sunday-school we founded in the little red school-house so forlorn. She says Oliver is to have their school, and he is glad and so are we, for the wages are excellent. What an unromantic consideration! But he will not have half so hard a time as I had, for he will be in the nice, large, brick building instead of my wretched little wooden house. Yet when I think of spending all the winter there, I can but murmur, "Poor fellow," to myself, for Evanston is a town that makes almost any other seem half barbarous. The fact that the University charter forever forbids saloons tells a whole dictionary full about our moral status.
And so I am to go from home before our dear relatives come from the East, and I have not seen them in many years, not since I was a young girl.
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They are all very dear to me and I was especially anxious to see my Aunt Elizabeth who is loved with more than the love of near relationship by me, and for whom I am named. In the lonely days that will follow my going I shall think of those whom I have left behind and the other loved ones who are coming, as they enjoy themselves together in our home, while I am lonesome, tired and heart-sick. In the evening Mary and I sang for hours to father, who is not particular about the quality and cultivation of our voices, it being sufficient for him that, as in the olden days, his daughters sing together "Bonnie Boon," "Come this way, my father," "Star-spangled Banner," and the rest; when we closed with Longfellow's "Rainy Day," mother sat with her hand shading her eyes and a sad expression on the dearest face in all the world to me. I knew she was thinking about my birthday so near at hand, about my going off again, about her birds that are making longer flights at every trial and need no more to have her bear them up upon her wings. I knew that she was being sorry for me as only one can be, that one my mother. Oliver and Beth Vincent were upstairs making the library catalogue for the Sunday-school. Aunt Sarah sat with us, listening quietly to everything. Father threw in a remark now and then, sometimes lively, sometimes sad, but always quaint and curious. And thus endeth the last home-picture I shall draw for many a day. I have been trying to think why I go away to this new work so soon. I can not tell. I only know that I have some dim sense that it is right and best. Certainly it is not the happiest. But I have come to believe that it is well for us, well for our characters, those beautiful fabrics we are weaving every day, to do those things that do not make us happy, but only make us strong.

I have never felt reluctant to tell my age. It early came to me that nothing was less dignified than to make a secret of one's personal chronology. Marketable values in many instances depend on freshness, and if a girl has no broader view of her relations to the world than the relation she may hold to some man who will prize her more if she is younger, then she does well to hide her age. But if she is a dignified human being, who has started out, "heart within and God o'erhead," upon an endless voyage wherein she sails by the stars rather than by the clock, she will never hesitate either to know or to announce just where she is on that long voyage; how many days out from childhood-land. The first mention I find in my journal of this way of looking at the subject is the following:

September 27, 1860. — I have often wondered why it is that people generally, and ladies especially, are so unwilling to have their ages known. We are immortal, and, for aught we know, eternal. We never regard Gabriel as old, though the prophet Daniel first introduced him to us. Our baby brothers and sisters who have died are babies still to us, lambs in the flock
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that the gentle Shepherd leads. If we do not think of age when we think about eternity, why should we in time, which is only eternity cut off at both ends? And yet we do regard it very much. This was accounted for to me recently, in the case of ladies, on the ground that their attractions diminish as their years increase, after a certain point, and that consequently the number of years is made a mystery. Ah, I have it! If "one" is beautiful, there is some reason in one's keeping one's age a secret, but if one is not, one has little or nothing to lose by the flight of years in this respect, while one is constantly adding to one's attractions in other ways, that is, in knowledge of the world, intelligence, culture, conversational ability, etc.; therefore, if one is not beautiful, it is foolish to make a secret of one's age. Corollary: My course is plain, because I myself am plain! It shall always be in order for any one to propound to me the usually much-dreaded question, "How old are you — if I may be so bold?"
Why should men universally tell their ages? Because a man is an individual and not dependent upon others for his support. I early resolved that I would not be dependent, either, and later that I would try to help all other women to the same vantage-ground of self-help and self-respect. I determined, also, that I would set them a good example by always freely speaking of my age, which I have not shunned to declare, my mother facetiously contending that I keep it, and hers, too, for that matter, just one year ahead of the current calendar.

I have not done much in these years, yet God knows I will try to make up if He will spare me, and somehow I believe He will.

September 29. — Going away to Kankakee to-morrow to begin my work. Packed my trunk so as to have it out of the way. Oliver kindly lent me Nolte's "Fifty Years in Both Hemispheres," D'Aubigné's "History of the Reformation," Scott's "Bride of Lammermoor," and the first volume of Bohn's edition of "Plato," to take with me.

Kankakee, Ill., October 2, 1860. — Another book to begin and a new, strange life to tell of. What a world this is, to be sure, and how we struggle about in it, straying off from those whom we love and those who love us, to strange, unfriendly regions, resolutely turning away from books and quiet to take in their stead pain, weariness and toil; yet in it all there is the comforting reflection that we are right, that in our nature there still exists, notwithstanding all our sins and ignorance, a spark of Godhood, a shimmering ray from the stars that shine serenely in the zenith of the angels, a breath of divinity which stirs within every human soul. Father left me yesterday evening, and I prayed quite trustfully and went to sleep with a broad grin on my face, put on through sheer strength of will. Well, this morning, I went to the Kankakee Academy, where I am second teacher, and on the whole have had a tolerable day. I am going to try not to cry once while I am here, for I am twenty-one, I would have you understand. It is not so very bad, and I won't care. I wish I were a better woman. I shall always call myself that now.

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I now feel competent to work, and work I will. I can accomplish a great deal between now and the holidays, so good-by to home and friends until then. You can well do without me, and I have proved that I can live without you, as well. Each of us is sent into the world by himself, to fight and conquer for himself, and when all is said an infinite remoteness from every being, save God, encompasses each one of us from the cradle to the grave.

A little poem in Harper's for this month struck me unusually. I will copy from it as a text to a short sermon. It closes thus:

"In this poor life we may not cross
Our virtuous instinct without loss,
And the soul grows not to its height
Unless it love with utmost might."
I believe the doctrine of this poem divested of its imagery. I believe no woman ever knows the depth and richness of her nature until she has loved a man, some man good and noble, better than her own life. I believe that unless she does this, much of pain and want must be endured by her, and with all that I have admitted, my journal bears me witness that I say little or nothing upon the subject. Once only I will give the reason here, and then I shall not revert to it again. In truth, it is not one of which I often think. I have never been in love, I have never shed a tear or dreamed a dream, or sighed, or had a sleepless hour for love. I never treasured any man in my heart until he became sacred to me, until his words were as oracles, his smiles as sunshine, his voice like music. I never hung upon any man's words or took any man's name into my prayer because I loved him, but I might have done all this had I so willed it. I was too cautious, loved my own peace too well, valued myself too highly, remembered too frequently that I was made for something far more worthy than to spend a disconsolate life, wasting my heart, the richest gift I could bestow, upon a man who did not care for it, and who never thought of me save in friendly, common fashion. I was too proud for that, I had too keen a sense of right and justice; too strong a desire to work out from the seclusion in which I live, and try to become wiser and better and more helpful to the world each day. I have known several men for whom I might have cared. I have seen enough nobility in their natures, enough culture of intellect, enough purity of mind and heart and life, to inspire the choice emotion. I have looked after them as they passed me on the street, as I saw them in church or met them in society, and have tranquilly thought to myself, "You might care for him, but remember you must not do so," and I have gone on my way calmly and in great peace. It is not that I am hard-hearted or insensible, but because I know perfectly well these men think nothing about me except as an acquaintance, and therefore I am determined to be even with them and have shut the door upon them and said, "Get hence," and that is the end of it. I am sure it is right for me to do so. I have not known as yet what it is to lean on any being except God. In all my friendships I am the one relied on, the one who fights the battles, or would if there were any
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to fight. Yet every night I say to God in prayer, "Sometime, if it pleases Thee, give me the love of a manly heart, of one that I can trust and care for next to Thee. But if this can not be, make it up to me in some other way. Thou knowest what is right. And in it all may I be very quiet and restful, remembering that the fashion of this world perisheth and ere very long I shall be gone beyond the light of sun or stars, beyond the need of this blessing for which I have asked." I am quiet. The present situation does not trouble, nor turn the song of my life into the minor key, and for this I thank God fervently. Burke says that the traits most admired in women are dependence, softness, trust, timidity, and I am quite deficient in them all.

October 11. — As an indication of the literary standard of the family in which I am to stay for the next ten weeks, I might mention that the Mercury, the Ledger and Godey's Ladies' Book adorn (?) the parlor table, and I find twenty or thirty copies of Littell's Living Age stuffed away in a closet under an old chair.

October 13. — "To know, to esteem, to love and then to part,
Make up life's tale to many a feeling heart."
In the afternoon I went to Sunday-school ; they have given me a class of boys to teach ; then went to class-meeting. My class leader I like very much. He looks to me like a Christian, he is rather old, has silvery hair, dark eyes, sweet, calm mouth, finely-cut features. I told them that Christ, their friend, was also mine. After all this I am going home peaceful and content, if not happy. What a thing it is to be a Christian minister! How glad and proud I am that Oliver is one! My landlady gave me those Living Ages to which I referred a few pages back. Took Plato to school and finished "Pluedo." It requires close thought to follow the arguments, particularly the last one. The reasoning is like Butler's in the "Analogy" as to one or two of the points, and I think reason could not more clearly prove the immortality of the soul. I do not like to affect such contempt for the body as Socrates seems to have felt. It looks to me to have a certain dignity of its own besides that reflected upon it by its kindly occupant, and it is so fearfully and wonderfully made. The following words partake of a universal spirit in man that looks and longs for a divine revelation: "For we ought with respect to these things" (concerning the immortality of the soul), "either to learn from others how they stand, or to discover them for one's self or if both these are impossible, then taking the best of human reasoning and that which is the most difficult to be confuted, and embarking on this, as one who risks himself on a raft, so to sail through life unless one could be carried more safely and with less risk on a surer conveyance, or some divine reason." The tears came into my eyes when I wrote the lines I underscore, they seem so mournful, have such longing in them for the revelation of which Socrates lived and died in ignorance. One of the speculations in these dialogues pleased me particularly, that is the one where the philosopher inquires what will become of the souls of those who have not loved wisdom, after this life. He thinks that some may be changed into wolves, or hawks, or kites, while those of a milder type may become wasps, or ants, or even change again into the human species. I can never rid myself of the
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idea that a spirit alien to them, looks out of the eyes of dogs, cows, and horses I have seen. The expression is so wistful, as of those that long for something forever unattainable. It is a curious thought, of which I can not clear my mind; in its practical workings it is a good one, too, for I try always to be kind to animals, particularly those of the large, hungry eyes.

It is so cold that I am obliged to spend my evenings in the parlor downstairs with the rest, and therefore I can not write as I would, but I will do my best.

Evening. — There, I did not intend to cry during all my sojourn at Kankakee, but sitting here alone, writing to my sister Mary, I have cried like a child, no, like a strong man, rather, until I quivered with trying to suppress the sobs that would make themselves audible. I am going to copy the few sentences that had power to make a woman forget her self-reliance on such short notice, for I sat down almost gayly to write, talked on with Mary in business style until this last: "I am sorry I have nothing to tell you, and have written so much about my own little affairs, but I could hardly help it just this once. Remember I shall never live with you all at home again. In all your careless, pleasant times, think now and then of your sister that loves you, and who feels as she writes these words with tears in her eyes, that she is to have a sterner life than you will know about. I am afraid you will forget me there at home, now that I am always to be gone; and I wish you would not quite, father, mother, brother, sister, for I shall not have many to love me while I live. I know your pleasant life and how you are used to be without me, and how I was often impatient and indolent, too, perhaps. I wish I had been better. There, I did not mean to write all this, but here it is, and though it will sound strange to you coming from me, I will let it go. Oliver need not say, in his droll fashion, that this last part of my letter is all ‘hypocrisy,’ for I have written what I mean, though you do not know me in this character."

Sunday. — Went to church with my little pupil, Fanny. While the first hymn was being sung, my mind came into tune with the calmness and Christian quiet of the place. I believe I have a soul more susceptible to the influence of music than any one who knows me dreams of, of than I fully understand myself, for a few words played con expressione will thrill me strangely, and sacred music most of all. There is something so spiritual about music, so unearthly, it stirs me like a voice from purer, better regions than these of ours. It was Coleridge who said a painting was something between a thought and a thing. This definition seems to me as truly to apply to music, and when I use this word I mean music; not twanging of strings and swelling of bellows merely, but the waking up of sweet and solemn sound. No one, I think, can be truly a player who has not a fine, cultivated mind, a delicate, sensitive nature. I have friends who, when they are in loftier moods than usual, play so that the music seems simply to drop from their finger-tips upon the keys. Miss Kellogg plays Beethoven's "Spirit Waltz" that way. Five minutes of beautiful singing or playing will change my entire mental attitude, and like Philip, as George Eliot pictures him under its influence, I think "I might be capable of heroisms." Well,
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so it was this very morning, as the solemn bass, the mournful alto, the ringing tenor and exultant soprano united in singing:

"The whole creation joins in one
To praise the glorious name
Of Him who sits upon the throne
And to adore the Lamb."
I quite forgot my doubts and fears, my troubles and temptations, and turned a reverent, wistful face unto the Lord. A strange thing is this soul, this wonderful presence within my breast.

I told Professor Woodruff, speaking of my propensity to give away my books, that I was spasmodically generous, which he laughingly remarked was a species entirely unknown to him. I must be very dignified-appearing, for this evening a pair of young gentlemen called to see Professor Woodruff about attending the Academy. The other ladies present and I talked and laughed together about some trivial matter, after which one of the boys asked me a few questions concerning the school, which I answered promptly enough. Whereupon he inquired if I was attending school, and I answered that I was one of the teachers. The boy put his hand to his mouth and indulged in an ill-bred snicker at this. Upon relating the incident to Professor Woodruff he inquired, with well-feigned petulance, "Why don't you look older? How dare you masquerade in this false character?"

As I sat here writing the above, a neighbor came in; he is a smart sort of man, of middle age. I was not thinking about him or his talk until the following sentence was thrust in upon my reverie, "Well, this old orthodoxy is running down, running down in my opinion. I suppose everybody would not say so, but that is my way of thinking." I never heard such scandalous language before from the lips of a decent person. The poor, blind fool! I am so indignant at him that I can hardly sit here and let him go on with his ignorant, blasphemous nonsense, but I will bear it quietly unless he says something on the subject to me, and then I will declare myself instanter. I am decidedly of the church militant, I see, but I can not help it, I am so thoroughly disgusted with this man.

Subjects on which I am to write: "Mental Projectiles," "Religion," "According to Law." But what is the use of putting down these themes when I have no privacy or chance to write? When I thought up these subjects I thought up fine ideas to match them — fine ones and valuable, too, as I steadfastly believe, but I was foolish enough to imagine if the subjects were kept and remembered, the thoughts would come back to me, and the pity of it is they don't, so I look regretfully over the words full of suggestion when I wrote them first, but comparatively empty now. Have been reading of Hypatia, about whom I always think with admiration and a sort of reverential love.

October 23. — Such a kind letter from father! I am going to make an extract: "My Dear Daughter: I take up my pen a third time to write without provocation on your part, but feeling symptoms of loneliness which I presume are imparted to me through the affinities of father and child, knowing that my little ‘news’ will not be unacceptable." Then the dear
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man went on and gave me every item that would be of interest; among them, that Mr. Thatcher told him this morning that if Oliver did as well as Frank had done when she taught at Harlem, they would be perfectly satisfied. I am glad to hear that he said so, though the praise is late in the day.

October 25. — Here comes a letter from mother and here is an extract: "It gives me pleasure to learn that you are not lonely nor unhappy. Though you have not the exuberant gleefulness of the little girls whom you saw from the window that day with such a thoughtful face, I am thankful you have calmness, and quiet endurance, and something that you can almost call peace. Your excitement you must now seek in the vitalizing influences of the Holy Spirit. An infinite soul may not find contentment in the gifts of a finite world. Some writer said, ‘For suffering and enduring there is no remedy but striving and doing.’ This remedy you have early adopted." I thank God for my mother as for no other gift of His bestowing. My nature is so woven into hers that I almost think it would be death for me to have the bond severed and one so much myself gone over the river. She does not know, they do not any of them, the Four, how much my mother is to me, for, as I verily believe, I cling to her more than ever did any other of her children. Perhaps because I am to need her more. I am very proud of her, and few women that I have ever seen have satisfied me as she does. She has a fine intellect, and as she said to me once, in the regretful tone of one who felt the world did not know her full capacities, "I might have been a singer with the heart under more kindly circumstances."

Mary and I were talking together once and I said I could not imagine what it would be to love any one better than mother, to cling to any one more than I did to father, brother and her. The tears were almost in my eyes, I spoke so earnestly; but Mary answered lightly yet decidedly, that she believed she could love the man she should marry more than all others, and then I knew that in a few years longer my sister will love some one alien to us better than her mother who has been bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh, better than her brother and sister whom that mother has carried under her own heart; better than her father who has watched over her ever since she was born into the world, and had many an anxious thought about her even before that time. She is to love the stranger better than these who are so dear to her, and who have been faithful to her always, and who will be to the end of the world, when he may grow careless and indifferent. And it is right that she should do so, it is an instinct of God's own appointing, but my heart ached to hear her speak the words.

October 26. — Father is the cleverest of men. Just listen to him: "Dear Frances, this day I forward by American Express, care Professor Woodruff, a package directed to you, containing a book, a watch and belt fixings such as all the girls are wearing now. The watch I took out of my pocket as I would an eye out of my head, for I do not know what I am to do without it. And I hesitated some time as to what was my duty in the case without coming to any determination on that point."

The great event of this evening was Professor Woodruffs attempt to mesmerize me. He tried eighteen minutes, looking me straight in the eye,
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but never a bit of dazedness did he put upon me "at all at all," although I will admit he has a very peculiar eye, and two or three evenings ago when he tried it I felt a curious dizziness, everything seemed going away except his eyes and they glared at me like a serpent. My landlady's daughter came down to be mesmerized, if he could do it, and within two minutes she was unconscious. I knew her to be perfectly honest and she was greatly chagrined that he had conquered her, particularly after his laughing boasts. I have been heretofore wholly skeptical on the subject, but I am now a convert to this much: I believe it to be a species of animal magnetism, manifested under certain conditions and dependent for force upon the will of the operator. That is all Professor Woodruff claims. The symptoms all go to prove this theory. The young lady said she felt prickings in the ends of her fingers like those attending a shock from a battery.

We have most amusing times singing; Miss C. takes the soprano, Professor W. the basso, and I attempt the alto; when Sam is here he helps and we have quite a concert. "Oft in the Stilly Night," as rendered by us is really quite heart searching.

October 27. — This is Oliver's birthday. I wonder if he remembers it. I dare say not, the careless fellow! I am vexed with him for not writing, but I suppose he can hardly find time, as he is preparing for examination. Went down town with my landlady and she kindly helped me to select a dress, which I have earned with my own money, as I shall joyfully think when I wear it in school.

Later. My two boys who laughed at the idea of my being a teacher, are in one of my classes and I take great delight in magnifying my office for their illumination. Had a letter from Oliver after all; I am very proud of my brother and very thankful for him. I like him, he suits my ideas better than any other young man I have ever seen. He has delicacy, quickness of perception, cultivation of mind, and physically the look that I particularly admire. I let my hostess read the letter and as she laid it down she said, "He is a good brother, I know." I admire her sagacity and sense. I believe I will copy some of his words: "Evanston, October 20, 1860. My Dear Sister Frank: I ought to have answered your letter at once, and should have done so but for poor health, a great deal to do, and a very foolish aversion to letter writing, becoming, from long indulgence, almost insurmountable. I am disposed to make amends and hope you will accept my apology coupled with a promise to do better hereafter. I was very sorry for the incident attending our parting, for I was unconscious of an intention to injure your feelings in any respect, though part of what I said would have been better unsaid. I am glad you gave me credit for innocence of intention. As to the construction given my words, I was surely guiltless, for I never thought there was any foundation for remarks based upon the assumption that you were in any particular inferior to the rest of us, because I feel, and have always felt, the opposite. ‘To err is human’ — in this respect I acknowledge myself related to humanity; ‘to forgive, divine,’— in this respect I am glad to believe you are affiliated with spiritual existences."

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For little Fannie's amusement I have this evening become almost a child again, having an interest that surprises me in the old games of the dead years. I have ransacked my memory for stories of witches, robbers, fairies, told her about Jack and his bean-stalk, Blue Beard and Cinderella, with variations; played all imaginable games, from the tick-tack to the labyrinth; showed the wonderful pictures of the wolf and sand-hill crane, and closed the exhibition by achieving the Spanish student in the highest style of the art, which the bright-eyed little girl is now imitating with astonishing success.

November 4. — Anniversary of the Kankakee County Bible Association. When they took up a collection and I wrote, "F. E. W., $1," I felt a new thanksgiving that I could earn and use money according to my own judgment. I hereby promise myself that I will give as much as I can from all my earnings to promote the doing of good in the world.

Received a letter from Amelia I., one of my former pupils at H. I smiled as I observed how careful she was to place all her capitals and punctuation marks. She is doing well and trying to learn and satisfy the hunger that is given by the gods to their favorites among men. The closing words of her letter are enough to reward me for the little I have done and shall do for her: "I thank you for your kind offer to lend me some books, and trust I shall learn much from them. Do write soon, Miss W., for it does me good to hear from my old teacher. I feel resolved to take your advice and to learn all I can and try to remember all that I learn."

November 7. — Lincoln is elected President of the United States. Hurrah! Under the present system I was not allowed to vote for him, but I am as glad on account of this Republican triumph as any man who has exercised the elective franchise can be. It is amusing to observe the interest children take in politics. This morning Professor W. read the returns aloud, and all my little girls, some of them but six years old, crowded around and listened attentively, clapping their hands at the announcement of an unusual majority in any state. It was a curious and suggestive side-picture; a tall gentleman reading in triumphant tones; twenty young men around him listening eagerly; a group of smaller boys in the rear; several young ladies paying careful attention, and "the other teacher" looking with expectant eyes toward the newspaper, and surrounded by a dozen little girls, holding by the hand the rosebud who dances up and down exclaiming, "Aren't you glad, Miss Willard, that Lincoln is elected?" A picture representing this scene would not inaptly indicate the genius of a Republican government, an organization in which every member, male and female, large or small, feels a keen, personal interest.

Our reading lesson to-day was about God and his goodness to us. I wished to impress it upon my pupils, and after going over the ground at some length, said by way of application, "Now, Sarah, what ought we to do when God is so kind to us?" She looked up with a fresh sparkle in her eyes and exclaimed, "Why, pay Him for it!" Oh, we all have that idea, heaven pity us! We can not take the gift of Christ humbly and thankfully. In all
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the ages men have been trying to climb up some other way to God, trying after all His love and mercy, to pay Him for it.

I gave my pupils these three questions: How do we know right from wrong? What is the difference between morality and religion? How do we know the Bible is true? My recollections of moral philosophy and "Leslie's Method with the Deists" were of great use to me in making these things intelligible. Florence listened with attentive face and flush on cheek and brow that delighted me. Nothing is so refreshing as these evidences of a thinking, reasoning mind in a child. Nothing seems so hopeful for future usefulness and growth.

My landlady has been telling me about Bunker Hill and the dedication of the monument by Daniel Webster when Lafayette was present, and the wonderful address delivered by the greatest orator of his time. I wish I had seen something of the world, and I think I shall some day.

In the evening Mr. N. called; he is a pleasant, good-hearted fellow and very entertaining. He almost terrified me by his familiarity with Beaumont and Fletcher, the poets Rogers, Pope, Addison, Dryden, etc. Talked with him in friendly fashion and rather enjoyed the evening. He is going to teach me to play chess. I lent him Plato's "Dialogues"; wonder what he will make of them.

November 13. — Was weighed to-night; result, one hundred and nineteen pounds. That is gaining more than a pound a week ever since I came here.

Evening. — Here Mr. H. sits, ridiculing the vicarious atonement and the divinity of Christ. It almost makes me shudder to hear him. I know it injures me and I know it vexes me beyond expression. What a terrible creed is this of the spiritualist! I believe it is from the bottomless pit.

My little Flora looked up discontentedly into my face to-day, and said, "Miss Willard, I want to draw, I am suffering to draw!" I burst out laughing, nobody could help it. Between you and me, I am not the most staid, decorous "school-marm" in the world.

November 18. — After dinner I went to Sunday-school. One of my boys came in early and said, "Were you sick that you didn't come for these two weeks?" I felt reproached and ashamed. Then he said, "I have remembered the answers to those questions all this time." The other boys came up and whispered the answers, "Paternoster," and "Apocrypha." I was sorry I had stayed away. It was on account of a headache once, and the next time some frivolous excuse, unworthy of my profession, but really they behaved terribly the last time. They said to-day they would behave like gentlemen hereafter and seriously began by being very quiet and attentive. I will try not to stay away again. I spoke in class-meeting to the following purpose: I wish I were a better woman. My conscience reproaches me for my thoughtless words and actions during the last few weeks. My life is very different now from what it was at home where every morning my father prayed that we might be guided aright. I seem to stand alone, almost, and have many new temptations.

Then the class-leader said he had thought of me often and prayed for me, had been sorry that I was away from my father and my friends. His
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gentle words brought the tears to my eyes. I resolved again and again to live better than I have done, and in Christ's strength to be "a good girl" as my father has so often and so kindly counseled me.

November 19. — Father says that Mary has been ill, something resembling typhoid fever. That is why she did not write. I am worried about it, poor child. I love my sister almost as I love myself, I think she is even nearer to me, though not dearer, than my mother. She seems a part of my heart. We have been together all our lives; I have no secrets from her, none in the world. I admire her for her frank, ingenuous manner, her pleasant, pretty face and fine figure. I love her for her true, good heart, her intellect and her strong good sense, but most of all for her unyielding conscientiousness, her firm religious character, her entire devotion to truth and righteousness. "Absence makes my heart grow fonder" toward her and toward them all. God pity me if any evil should befall her! If she should be cut down in her youth and her prime, while the bloom is on her cheek, the light in her eye and the luster on her brown hair! I can not conceive of anything so terrible. God will not curse me so. He will not send such a blight over my life and mother's. She is mother's youngest child. I can not bear to think of it, it makes me shudder.

Father fears I am wandering off and forgetting my allegiance to God and Christ, but he need not, I am trying to be good. I wrote him so to-day. If he did not love me very much he would not write me as he does.

November 21. — Letter from mother and a note from father. Mother insists that I shall spend the winter at home and not return here again. I can not tell, it will be just as I think best, but as I go through the cold and frost and bear many unpleasant things and hear unjust words sometimes, I often wonder that I do not stay at home where they love me and where I am warm and comfortable.

November 22. — Letter from father containing this comforting sentence at the conclusion: "Keep up good courage, pray in faith, and remember you have my poor prayers, as well as your mother's, every day."

We have pleasant times in our drawing-class. Besides the regular matters, we talk physiognomy. My recollections of Lavater are invaluable here. We analyze faces, hands, figures and feet, classic noses, eyes and eyebrows, disagree about the curve of the nostril, or the aristocratic elevation of an instep, define the Roman nose, studying the school generally in respect of all these and their finger-nails and hair besides. I talk Rubens, Land-seer and Rosa Bonheur as well as I am able, and I think my pupils like the hour in which we do these things as well as any in the six. I have each one of them bring in a drawing from nature and reproduce the day's lesson from memory every day.

November 23. — To-day came a letter from my sister, the first she has written since her illness. She speaks more seriously than usual, proposes that we be baptized on Christmas Day. She has done a good deal of reading since I left home, and sums it up with pardonable importance. She is a smart girl and I am glad of her. Here is an extract from her letter: "My dear Frank, you did not know when you wrote your last letter that I should
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read it on my sick-bed. Yes, I have been quite ill, a sluggish sleep for thirty six hours, with fever and headache, only waking up long enough to take a little medicine. I don't know as I ever was worse. I had the doctor this time and I was put in a pack, like Oliver, you know, and all the ugly doctoring things done, and so it was and so I might have died. Just think of it! And then — no, I am not ready for that. There are matters of form to be gone through with, saying nothing of the lack of polish that the jewel in its case is suffering for."

In the evening Frank N. came and gave Professor W. and me a lesson in chess playing. He says we are apt pupils and shall do well. I like the game exceedingly. It is quite intellectual, does not admit of cheating, and is the king of games. Went to the "Reading Circle" of this town and enjoyed it very much. We read "Washington's Life," by Irving. These young ladies seem well educated and quite appreciative; they are critical about pronunciation, etc., and I learned several things.

November 25. — Went to Sabbath-school and my boys seemed really unusually interested in the class. It amused me to hear them whisper among themselves, "You must be polite, she told us to act like gentlemen."

Monday. — We play chess all our spare time. I do not read a bit and am ashamed of myself generally. From Goethe: "Every day one ought to hear a song, to read a little poetry, to see a good picture, and, if it is possible, to say a few reasonable words." Thus we are better for everything refined and beautiful that meets us in our lives, for every flower, dewdrop and rainbow. In my working life I see these glorious things not often, but receive, with hearty, loyal gratitude, the little that falls to my share. I wish I could hear Beethoven's "Spirit Waltz" to-night. I wonder what he thought of as he played it for himself. I wonder what it said to him. I shall know some day when, on the peaceful shore, I talk with the good and great ones who have lived on earth. This faith of mine renders me patient and hopeful. There is another life than this of ours.

November 28. — Mary Hickok and her brother spent the evening with us. She beat me at chess, after which we sang the song-book through, and Frank N. came and we enjoyed ourselves in a general way till twelve o'clock. I received my first invitation to a ball, which I respectfully declined.

November 29. — Thanksgiving Day. Much to my regret, our school was not adjourned. I thought many things this morning while I heard my geography class and they were singing upstairs (the academy rooms being in the basement of the M. E. Church). Then came the prayer. I heard the minister's gentle, earnest tones thanking the Divine Father for the mercy and goodness that have followed us all the days of our lives, mingling with the words I heard from Professor W. explaining the value of x and y in an equation of three unknown quantities. I stopped my class, and we all listened with bowed heads to the prayer; my little girls were strangely silent and attentive. Though I teach to-day as usual, instead of praising God in the great congregation, yet in my heart I keep Thanksgiving, and God, who seeth not as men see and judgeth not by the outward appearance but by the intention of the heart, knows this.

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Evening. — Finished Nolte's "Fifty Years in Both Hemispheres." He is a keen, quick-witted, garrulous man, with no idea of humor or decency. Much of the book concerning individual speculations and like subjects is uninteresting to me, yet I have learned a good deal from it The letters to painters were especially attractive. It has been much fresh entertainment to read sketches of great men with whom the writer is personally acquainted, as in the present instance. Chantrey, Delaroche, Charlet, and a dozen other writers, were the author's friends. Of the latter he says that he was so strongly impressed with the face and figure of Napoleon, that he could draw him with his eyes closed. "He frequently did this for me," says Mr. N. "Once asking where he should begin, ‘At the heel of the right boot,’ I said. He did so, and drew the whole figure perfectly well."

December 3. — That grand student of men, Chamfort, who far surpasses the philosopher, De la Rochefoucault, remarks: "In great matters men show themselves as they wish to be seen; in small matters, as they are." I heartily indorse this sentiment, my experience with myself approves it.

December 6. — I must own that all my talk about self-abnegation is becoming every day more like poetry and less like reality. I do not try to control my temper as I did at Harlem, I do not try to grow good and noble as I really did when I first came here. True, I have very little cause for the exhibition of temper, and I do nothing really bad, as the world views it, but the glorious Christian life I know little about. Finding that loftiness and Spartan-like severity and dignity can not well be attained with my disposition in my present surroundings, I accept my lower destiny and grasp the straws, content since I can not have the roses. I am not noble-natured, I own it humbly, and with infinite regret. I descend to puny thoughts, I sing songs instead of quiet and lofty psalms, talk localisms and nonsense instead of morality and religion; play chess instead of reading history and the Bible; use amusing, quaint expressions instead of well-selected, elegant English; laugh instead of think; make efforts at satire instead of trying to control my temper; think more of doing up my hair nicely than of exerting a pure, refining influence. And thus my life goes on, my poor make-shift sort of a life. I am more sick of it than my best friends can tell. I must not be unjust with myself, I am not wicked, only thoughtless and rather degenerating even from the place to which I had attained, and yet the case has lights as well as shadows.

I have more charity for the world, more faith in it, than I ever had before. I see these people "without God and without hope in the world," exhibiting a nice sense of honor, much tenderness of conscience, and an emphatic love for justice and for truth. I see a thousand signs of nobleness and right-heartedness that I would not before have dreamed of seeing in a community of "non-professors." It enlarges my charity, my faith in mankind as such, my catholicity, my cosmopolitan spirit. Certainly this is a gain. I shall not cry, "Surely we are the people" with half the emphasis that I once put upon the words, and it is better that I should not. I see men making no profession of Christianity and yet contributing liberally to the support of the church and all its enterprises, manifesting the deepest
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respect for its rights and ordinances, professing the greatest reverence and regard for its institutions. I hear young ladies not bred to orthodoxy, nor affecting an experimental knowledge of its worth, murmuring their prayers each day with sincerity and faith. I see the children of careless, worldly women reverently kneel to say "Our Father," taught by their mothers. I see lying and dishonesty frowned upon and noble deeds applauded. All this in Kankakee, the most irreligious community in which I was ever placed. I walk their streets quietly and they think me a humdrum person, doubtless, but in my poor, wavering, silent heart there are, perhaps, more longings and more purposes "than they have ever dreamed in their philosophy."

Some one has said: "My conceptions were grander when they were inarticulate, in my youth, than when, in after years, they found a voice. The wave, crestless in the deep sea, swelled like a mountain; it broke in shallower water, and rippled ineffectually on the shore of utterance."

After a foolish evening I go to sleep and dreams — of dearer, holier things than I had talked about, for every heart knoweth its own sacred possessions; every heart hath its faces

"That it muses on, apart."
I am reading now Plato's "Lysis," on friendship, and the "Gorgias," on rhetoric. From the former I take this paragraph, which has in it wholesome counsel: "If then you become wise, my boy, all men will be your friends, and all friends will be attached to you, for you will be useful and good; but if you do not, neither will any one else, nor your father be a friend to you, nor your mother, nor any of your kindred."

By the noon mail a missive arrived from my school-mate X., coolly begging her "very dear friend Frank," with the "very dear" underscored, to give her some ideas of a composition to be read on a special occasion in two weeks. Oh, Finley Johnson, thou who advertisest to concoct speeches for senators, poems for freshmen, odes on "My own little boy," a la Tom Hood, for "doting parents," come to the relief of a dazed school-teacher, who amid all her other cares and troubles must take the additional one of writing a composition for a very dear friend. Well, I must arm myself with paper and pencil and bring to light a few scattered thoughts on the curious and flowery theme, "The living strive, the dead alone are glorious."

Never be afraid to question your author, and to stop him in his loftiest thoughts and profoundest depths with the question, "Is it so?"

That is a beautiful idea contained in the writings of Schiller, I believe, that "deprived of earth's gifts by want of alacrity in suing for them, the poet received from Jove the key of heaven." Happy poet! In having this he has all things, and can well afford to miss the joys of common folks.

December 16. — Taught my school with a joyful heart, I am going home so soon. Went to the book store for prizes for my Sunday-school class. Professor W. wrote a commendatory letter to father about me. Now, evening, having regaled myself upon the Chicago daily Tribune, I will devote the remainder of the time to the study of Agnew's "Book of Chess," and to
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mental congratulations of this character: "Well, you are going home, going home in two or three days; your hard times will all be over. You will see your mother and father, your sister and brother, and all the kind well-wishers that you count among the inhabitants of dear, delightful Evanston. You will see the old, familiar rooms, and the lake, and the college, and the church. You will sleep in your own little room with your sister by your side, and your cousin not far off — your bright cousin Sarah, Lottie's sister. So thank God, and be sorry that you have not better deserved the blessings He is showering on your head." This is the melody of my life, all else is but seeming, and variations upon this beautiful reverie.

December 18. — Attended my classes and walked to and from school through rain and mud unutterable. I sent to Chicago yesterday for prizes for my Sunday-school boys, to-day went to the depot and wrote their names in their books. They met me there, and as fast as this was done, the graceless little scamps snatched their "winnings" and scampered off without as much as "By your leave," much less, "Thank you." Such an instance of unkindness and ingratitude I have not seen in a long time.

Quotation from our reading lesson at school: "That which each man can do best, no one but his Maker can teach him. Insist on yourself, never imitate. Every great man is a unique." (Emerson's "Essay on Self reliance.")

Packed my trunk to-night, and so it is almost all over, and I am going home.

December 21. — An awful snow-storm has commenced. I walked through the drifts to school. The elements seem determined to wreak their vengeance upon me to the last. Well, let them, they have but a little longer.

Here are some lines written by Stillingfleet that contain "my doctrine," as father says:

"Would you both please and be instructed, too,
Watch well the rage of shining to subdue.
Hear every man upon his favorite theme,
And ever be more knowing than you seem."
Evanston, December 26. — I doubt if there is a person living who has greater cause for thankfulness than I have. I am in my little room once more; the fire burns brightly; the old, familiar furniture is about me; the pictures look down benignly from the walls; my sister Mary sits at my feet, writing in her funny, off-hand journal; my cousin "Sac" sits opposite; my brother in his room across the hall is writing a sermon; down-stairs father and mother gather cozily around the home hearth, and with heart brimming full of thankfulness, I come to Thee, Father of every good and perfect gift.

162 Chapter III.

THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN HARLEM AND IN EVANSTON. (1861-1862.)

In the spring of 1861 I once more taught Harlem school for a few weeks. Here at the Thatcher homestead, "Shady Dell," came in June the climax that I then thought would close my independent career. But in the following February that spell was broken and I resumed the spelling-book in April of the same year.

The first I knew about the war was when my father came home from Chicago, April 13, 1861, in an agony of mind, saying, "Fort Sumter has been fired upon and our flag is there no longer." This produced great consternation in our household. When I think of the love that fills my heart toward the Southern people in general and my own great circle of friends there in particular, I can hardly believe that I exhausted language in anathemas upon them when this news came. Soon after, the Bull Run defeat showed us what we did not till then believe, that we had foemen worthy of our steel! Up to that time we looked with disdain upon "the lily-handed Southrons" and thought that General Scott would soon teach them the difference between "a lot of idlers" and the horny-handed and lion-hearted soldiers of the North. After that terrible defeat the students in the University immediately formed a company commanded by Alphonso C. Linn, one of the truest of men and a favorite teacher there, who left us with a thousand blessings on his noble head and returned to us no more. A company was also formed among the theological students in which my brother enlisted for one hundred days, but they were not called out. All the relatives I had were too old to go as soldiers except my brother and two cousins; the latter had dependent families, my brother was never physically vigorous,

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and I am compelled to admit that we were well content that the company to which he belonged was not called away from home. I used to be sorry at the time that none of my kindred, so far as I knew, was in the army, but I can not say at this distance that I am now, and while I know that if my understanding of the Southern people had then been what it now is, I should have felt altogether different toward them, I have the poor satisfaction of knowing that they anathematized us as bitterly as we did them! It grated strangely on my ear when the first Sunday trains I ever knew rumbled by loaded with soldiers from my own Wisconsin. The day is fresh in memory when Gen. Julius White, on Sunday morning after church, stood up in his pew near the altar and made an impassioned speech calling upon all patriots to convene in the church the next night and declare what they were going to do to save the country. They came; the old "meeting-house" was filled to overflowing and our hearts beat fast when students whom we knew and thought much of, went up the aisle and placed their names upon the muster-roll. Governor Evans presided, and he with other rich men and many not so rich, pledged large sums to the families of those who agreed to go to the front. I was a young school-teacher, but according to my narrow income, perhaps I gave as generously as any. I would have given myself to care for the wounded, indeed, was earnestly desirous of so doing, but my father would not for a moment listen to such an idea, and I must say mother was not particularly heroic in that connection. But we scraped lint and prepared bandages; went to all the flag-raisings, Professor Jones's College flinging the first one to the breeze, and we prayed the God of battles to send freedom to the slave.

In 1862, the Public School of Evanston was my theater of action. Dr. Bannister, professor of Hebrew in our Theological Seminary, was a director. Meeting him on the sidewalk near his own door, I asked him for the place. He thumped meditatively with his cane, then said, abruptly, "Are you sure that you can do it, Frank?" All my forces rallied on the instant in the words, "Try me and see!" His daughter was my associate, and ours was a difficult portion; two young women essaying to teach their

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neighbors' children in the town where they themselves were lately students.

My journal says:

April 20, 1862. — This is the hardest work I have yet done. There are two rooms, eighty pupils, thirty-two classes, of which we teachers have six apiece that are "high." I study on my mathematics all the time I can possibly get out of school hours. I have algebra, and arithmetic away over in the back part of the book. It is almost impossible to keep order, but we do our best and have hope, though every night we ache.

We had two big overgrown pupils, "the O. boys," who had been a terror to all preceding pedagogues. Their open insubordination one day obliged me to go toward them with a stick, whereupon both vaulted out of an open window and we never saw them more! The school was a thoroughly American type. There sat the sons and daughters of men cultured, distinguished, rich, beside the barefoot boy and girl from humble cabins, and melodiously their voices mingled as they sang Coates Kinney's lovely song:

"When the humid shadows gather
Over all the starry spheres,
And the melancholy darkness
Gently weeps in rainy tears,
O 'tis sweet to press the pillow
Of a humble cottage bed,
And to listen to the patter of the raindrops overhead,
To the patter, patter, patter of the raindrops overhead."

Their fingers drumming gently on the desks, in imitation of the falling rain, helped to make the sweetest music that my teaching years recall.

April 25. — We try to teach well and to do good. Dear knows I "give my whole mind to it," to say the least. Aunt Sarah has been with us all winter, and is my main-stay in mathematics. She thinks it would be beautiful for me if I could go East to teach next fall, and will do her best for me. She has considerable influence with Mrs. Stanton, principal at Leroy, and some leading ladies in Rochester. It looks pleasant to me to think of I carrying out this plan.
May 11. — School goes well, is very hard, but can be compassed. Some of the pupils I love. I play ball with them at recess and "spell them down" myself, or take one "side" and put them all in competition with me on the other, to enliven the proceedings.

At devotions in the morning, when I read and pray before them I feel their weight a little, and a thrilling desire to help them toward eternal life.
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It is hard for me to conduct devotions, yet I prize this possibility of doing good.

Among other things I teach natural philosophy, botany and physiology.

If I were not often beclouded by physical weariness I should always thank God, every moment, that I am of use. I think I have a rather healthful nature and I get on comfortably with life. To-night Freddy Huse brought me a little bouquet arranged after his own fashion. He did not know how grateful it was nor how it stirred my heart to hear him say, "We've missed you very much in Sabbath-school." It was a simple, boyish sentence, but I have felt better ever since, and I think hardly so tired.

I had not been able to take my class as usual because my sister Mary was not well and my Sunday afternoons were passed with her.

Mary getting better very slowly — it is a painfully familiar sight — her thin face on the pillow, when I come in from school.
We talked a little, she and I, about old times at home, before any of us had other loves than those of the dear ones there. She said, "I have never been so happy as when we used to ‘keep store’ under the trees, and go walking with father and mother in the orchard and pasture. Just think, Frank, of the vine all over the house, of the splendid well, the evergreens, the animals of all sorts, and the dear old barn!" She is so anxious to go back — says she shall never get well unless we take her home. Just as soon as she can bear it, mother will go with her.

I have "inspirations" about the old home. Some day I shall write a pleasant book about it. I have believed I should, for years.

May 30. — Every day school grows pleasanter, and I think a little easier. I have such a liking for Emma, Minnie, Ella, Eda and her sisters; Darwin, Harry, Verner and many more. And my pupils like me, too, I think.

Nine days after this, June 8, 1862, I lost out of this life my sister Mary. The record of her life is fully given in "Nineteen Beautiful Years."

June 8, 1862. — Mary is dead. I write the sentence — stop and look at it — do not know what it means. For God is merciful and the awful truth of my desolation does not shut down close around me all the time; it comes in paroxysms and goes again.
At the request of Dr. Bannister, who will preach the funeral sermon, I shall write out many of the things that she has said during her illness — and at her death. Sweetness, purity and childlikeness were remarkable features throughout her trial. She expected to recover almost down to the last hour, and her most ardent wish was to get well enough to go to Forest Home, where she had spent her childhood. The very night she died she told us to talk about returning there. She used to say, "I never have had such pleasant times as when Frank and I were children and used to
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play among the trees and in the garden." The physician considered her hopefulness her best symptom, so we did not talk to her of dying, though of Christ and of religion a great deal. She used to wander in her sleep, and often thought she was a child again. One night when I slept with her, she put her hot hand against my face and said, "You're with me in the trundle-bed, Frank, as you used to be, aren't you?" And that night she thought she was talking with Emma White (one of her Sunday-school scholars), and she said, "Emma, I hope you remember your promises made in Sabbath-school, and read the Bible, and pray, and try to set a good example, and don't think too much about this poor world, but about that wonderful, wonderful, infinite world where God is. And remember that where your treasure is, there will your heart be also — so you can easily tell whether you are right or not. And don't worry about joining the church, but ask that kind man, Mr. Goodrich, to put your name on some of the class-books and then be proud to be a Christian, and to have it known that you are, and not be like people who say, ‘I'm not ashamed to own my Lord’ when they ought to feel so honored."

She seemed anxious to do good and worried for fear she had not. Once she said to mother, "I would like to be well if only for one day, so that I could do some good to some one. I've never done any, unless a little in my Sabbath-school class, and I am not quite sure about that. I've tried to learn, and to improve, and to prepare myself to be useful, and now I'd like to live and do something in the world."

She thought much about the kindnesses shown by her friends. Bouquets, notes, messages, were received so joyfully. She was thinking about these things one day and said to me, "How good people are to me; how thoughtful and kind! Oh, Frank, humanity, humanity, what a wonderful thing!"

On the last day of her life she was lying with her head in father's lap and she asked to have the Bible read. He said, "Where shall I read?" She told him, "Oh, where it makes Christ seem beautiful!" He read a psalm. She said, "Please read where it says Christ was sorry for sick folks."

Father read about the healing of the daughter of Jairus. She liked it, but when he had finished her plaintive voice cried out, "Please read where it says He is sorry now." After awhile she added, "We believe that God loves us better than our mothers; yet mother would have liked me to get well, and God doesn't seem to care — He doesn't seem to see fit to make me well — yet He knows what is right." In the night she was worse. She wanted everything still; kept moving her hands in a soothing, caressing way, and murmuring, "So quiet, so quiet, no noise, so quiet!" At four o'clock on the morning of the eighth of June, Sabbath morning, we became greatly alarmed and for the first time father and I decided that she could not get well. I went at his suggestion for Mrs. Bannister and Mary. Father said to our Mary, for the first time coming directly to the subject of her danger, "My Child, if God should think it best to take you to Himself should you be afraid to go?" She looked quickly at him with a rather pitiful face, she seemed to consider a moment, and then said in her low, mournful voice,
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"I thought I should like to get well for I am young; but if God wants me to go I shouldn't be much afraid, but should say, ‘Take me, God.’" We asked if there was anything that we could do for her. "Pray," she said, "pray thankful prayers." Mother asked her if she saw Christ, if He was near her. "Yes, I see Him" she said, "but He is not very near, I wish He would come nearer."

I asked her if we should pray, she said "Yes," and I prayed aloud that Christ would come close to her, that she might see and feel Him plainly, that since she had tried to love and obey Him, He would come right to her now in her great need. She clasped her hands together and said so joyfully, "He's come, He's come! He holds me by the hand, He died for me, He died for all this family, father, mother, Oliver, Frank" (and Mary Bannister says she added, "my dear sister ").

"I'll have Him all to myself," she said and then seemed to remember and added, "I'll have Him and everybody may have Him, too — there is enough for everybody. He is talking to me, He says ‘She tried to be good, but she wandered, but I will save her,’" and added, "I see Him on the cross, He died for the thief; He didn't die for good people, but for bad people; He died for me." I said, "I want to ask you to forgive me for all my unkind actions to you, for everything bad that I ever did to you." She answered very earnestly, "Oh! I do, but you never did anything bad, you were always good." Mother asked her if she did not wish to leave a message for Oliver. "Don't you think he will be with us in heaven?" she said; "Of course, he is working for God. Tell him to be good, and to make people good," and when I asked for a message for her Sunday-school class she said, "Tell them to be good," and then added with great earnestness, "Tell everybody to be good."

She said to us, looking so sweet and loving, "I wish I was strong enough — I'd like to talk good to you."

Almost at the last she said, with a bright smile on her face, "Oh! I'm getting more faith!" Mother questioned, "My darling, you will meet us, won't you, at the Beautiful Gate?" "Oh, yes! and you will all come, and father. Christ wants you right off!"

She moved her hands convulsively and said, "I've got Christ — He's right here!" Then she said to me, "Oh, I'm in great misery," and then, "Dear God, take me quick!" She held out her hands and said, "Take me quick, God — take me on this side," turning toward the right. She lay still, bolstered up by pillows; I asked if she knew me, and she repeated my name. Father asked her often if Christ was still near her, she would nod, but did not speak. She seemed troubled, after a few moments father bent over her and slowly and with difficulty she told him of her dread of being buried alive and he promised her over and over again that she should not be. Then she gave some little directions about preparing her bed, as she said, "For those who lay me out," showing her perfect consciousness. She never spoke again, but opened her eyes and looked at us with such intentness, the pupils so wide, the iris so blue. I never saw such soul in human eyes before. She groaned a little, then, and for some time she did not move,
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her eyes closed slowly, her face grew white. Father said, "Lord Jesus, receive her spirit; Lord, we give her back to Thee. She was a precious treasure, we give her back to Thee." Mrs. Bannister closed Mary's eyes. Father and mother went into the sitting-room and cried aloud. I leaned on the railing at the foot of the bed and looked at my sister — my sister Mary — and knew that she was dead, knew that she was alive! Everything was far off; I was benumbed and am but waking to the tingling agony.

August 21. — O dear! I don't know what it is that I would like to say. I am crowded with feeling, and it was never before so plain to me that I am without power of expression. "Mary didn't get well" that is the keynote to all my thoughts. I was so sure she would; I refused to think it possible that she could die. And now under the experiences that crowd upon me faster than ever before, like a wave, the consciousness of what has happened us flows back and forward in my heart, and put in words it all amounts to this: "She is dead. Mary is dead. Her hands are on her breast so cold and still; she takes no note of us, or any thing; and she used to be so merry, so full of motion; she was always with us, she never went away."

Oh! this has crushed out all other feelings, except a vague sense of incompleteness, of wanting some one, some thing — of reaching out toward the future life almost with yearning. Sometimes I don't look upon her as dead — I ought not to have said so. And oh! last Sabbath evening when we walked up to church, all that is left of us, father, mother and I, so clear and beautiful I saw her in her unconditioned life — somehow, somewhere, so radiant, so painless, so secure — very near to Christ, the glorious, satisfying Christ, and perfectly complete in heart and life, thinking of us, knowing that it will not be long till we shall come. And I was quite content to go to church, to pray and trust and work awhile longer and then I believed I should go, too. It is His will, He is as well pleased with us who pray as with those who praise; with us who try as with those who triumph. This is one stage, it is all arranged by Him. The time will be brief, the eternity will pay all, will give us what we missed here, will round everything to symmetry. All this if we love and trust the Father of our souls, and do as well as we can what He has given us to do. And Mary is the favored one, not sleeping in the grave, but conscious as we are, only so well off, so glorified, so restful. It may be only a fancy, yet I think I shall be with her before many of our little years are past. O Father of my spirit, take it to Thyself, any time, any where, only love it, take care of it. Let it see Christ and Mary.

Sept. 1. — I have been to the old home, Forest Home, since I wrote last. Mary was to have gone there, Mary wished to go more intensely than any of us — spoke of it not more than two hours before she died. The place is sold now. Mary did not live to see it go out of our hands, she never mourned a friend lost by estrangement or by death, and no reverses ever came to her.

169 Chapter IV.

"PRECEPTRESS OF THE NATURAL SCIENCES."

We were so heart-broken after my sister left us, that a few weeks later the old home was given up and by the kindness of Professor Jones I went to the Northwestern Female College, whence I had graduated three years earlier, as teacher of the natural sciences.

My brother was married July 3, 1862, about four weeks after my sister's death, to her class-mate and my friend, Mary Bannister, and their home was in Denver, Col., for several years, where he founded the M. E. Church and Seminary, and was a Presiding Elder when but twenty-seven years old. Thus unbefriended and alone, for the first time in my life homeless and for the first bereft, I returned to the scene of my girlish escapades a thoughtful, chastened woman — at least I thought so, but my pupils of those days declare, to my astonishment, that I was "full of fun." Surely, they did not know my heart as here revealed:

August 29, 1862. — On Monday I move over to my Alma Mater, the Northwestern Female College. I am elected "Preceptress of Natural Sciences." Very humbly and sincerely I pray to God that I may be good over there and do good. I was wild and wicked as a pupil; in the same building may I be consistent and a Christian as a teacher. The last days are passing in this broken home. Life changes so, Thy heart must ache for us, O God, but that Thou knowest we are soon to enter the unchanging home. I have been at camp-meeting four days. It is a glorious place, I love it dearly. God has brought me nearer to Himself. My Sunday-school girl, Jennie, is trying to be good, and her noble sister Hattie, and ever so many more. What names I could write here of those for whom I pray and hope, who have not yet come to the light. Help me to act aright in these my new relations! I want to live a good life and get ready to go to my sister in heaven. I am afraid that Mary's death will kill my mother.
August 31. —

"Man may trouble and distress me,
'Twill but drive me to Thy breast.
Life with trials hard may press me,
Heaven will bring the sweeter rest."
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September 2. — Sitting in my room at the "Female College," a teacher regularly installed in a ladies' school. The sensation is agreeable. I have a natural love of girls, and to have them around me as pupils and friends will be delightful. To think that I am sitting here in the room that was Luella Clark's, my poet friend, as much a teacher as herself; my dear old books around me, my pictures and familiar things; and then such admirable girls to teach, Emma, Hattie, and the rest. Went for the last time to the class-meeting of which I am so fond, at Dr. Bannister's, since I must as a teacher attend here at the college. George Strobridge led it. Kate Kidder and Josephine Evans came home with me here to the steps below.

September 7. — Sabbath evening. My first Sabbath in the college. All the teachers are at church except my-self. It is sweet and full, busy and fatiguing, at once, the life I lead. In the parlor to-night, how beautiful was the grouping after tea: the graceful figures of the girls, Miss Fisk at the piano, Captain Jones with his wife, Dr. Charlie, and spiritual-faced Professor with his wife, and the children, all of them soon to start for China, where Professor has been appointed consul; the kind old father and mother looking on contentedly at their three handsome sons; the folding-doors affording glimpses of the piazzas; music in the air. I liked it. The bell rang for church, the picture dissolved. Professor did not die, as we all thought he would last winter. He is well and going on a voyage half around the world. Mary, my sister Mary, who went with me to see him in his illness, took that longest of all voyages in his stead!

Am reading Peter Bayne's "Christian Life." It will help me to prepare to go to Mary. I wish everything might.

September 8. — After school hours I ached — there are so many flights of stairs, forty in a day or more. Went home at dinner time. Father and mother are soon to go away. Oh, mother, with your sad, sad face, and your black dress! Heaven has much to restore to you for all your weary years! I pray God to show me how I can be most comforting to you, how I can justly fill an only daughter's place. Life reaches out many hands for me, with manifold voices. I am intensely alive. I, who am to lie so still and cold beside my sister Mary.

Sabbath morning, September 14. — Sitting in my room dressed in a pretty black silk wrapper that mother and Miss Burroughs made. The autumn sunlight is pouring in. I am here, but Mary, who was always with me, where is she? The question mocks me with its own echo. Where is she who was so merry, who knew the people that I know, who studied the books that I study, who liked "Bleak House," who laughed at Micawber and Traddies and read the daily Tribune. Where is she who picked up pebbles with me by the lake and ran races with me in the garden; who sang Juniata and Star-spangled Banner? She was so much alive, I can not think of her as disembodied and living still. Then there is that horrible doctrine held by many who are wise and good, that the soul is unconscious until the resurrection. That idea worries me not a little. Then, too, I am coming right straight on to the same doom: I, who sit here this bright morning, with carefully made toilet, attentive eyes, ears open to every sound I, with my
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thousand thoughts, my steady-beating heart, shall lie there so still, so cold and for so long. It is coming toward me every moment, such a fate as that! But my religion tells me that my life shall be unending. One interpretation of my creed says that consciousness shall be uninterrupted both here and there, that fruition awaits us in the years where every minute shall be full of overflowing and nothing shall have power to disappoint. How much a human heart can bear, and how it can adjust itself! Four months ago today I thought if Mary died I should be crazed; it made me shiver just to take the thought on my brain's edge, and yet to-day I think of Mary dead just as naturally as I used to think of her alive. Yet God knows how well I loved my sister and how deeply she is mourned. Here on a piece of blotting paper I keep in my book is her name written over and over again in her careless round hand. She used to borrow this same piece of paper to dry the fresh pages of her own journal not many weeks ago. Oh, dainty little hand, I should not like to touch you now!

September 17. — This young person, F. E. W., reports herself tired and proceeds to show cause therefore Rose a little after six, made my toilet for the day and helped to arrange the room; went to breakfast, looked over the lessons of the day, although I had already done that yesterday; conducted devotions in the chapel; heard advanced class in arithmetic, one in geometry, one in elementary algebra, one in Wilson's "Universal History"; talked with Miss Clark at noon; dined, rose from the table to take charge of an elocution class, next zoology, next geology, next physiology, next mineralogy, then came upstairs and sat down in my rocking-chair as one who would prefer to rise no more! Now I have to-morrow's lessons to go over.

September 18. — I have the sorrow to write here that Forest Home is sold. The time has been when I could not for a moment have contemplated the probability of its passing into other hands than ours who created and who loved it. Alas for the changes of the great year of my history, 1862. I am to lose sight of the old, familiar landmarks, old things are passing from me whose love is for old things. I am pushing out all by myself into the wide, wide sea.

"The shadow of a great rock in a weary land."
October 3. — My twenty-third birthday has come and gone without even a passing remark. On Monday my brother Oliver started for Denver Col., after having been ordained a Methodist minister, at Joliet, by Bishop Baker. Mother is going East to see our relatives; she greatly needs the change. Father will board in Chicago this winter, probably, and for the first time in my life I shall have no home. There is a grave in Rose Hill cemetery; most of these changes may be traced to it as their cause.

"The same fond mother bent at night
O'er each fair sleeper's brow;
She had each folded flower in sight,
Where are those dreamers now?"
October 11. — Have been ill a week since I wrote last. Dear, unforgetful mother has nursed me up again. It almost paid to be sick to have
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people so sweet and mindful. My girls were marvels of loving kindness. Well, I conclude that I can not stand very much, not so much as I supposed. I am just a trifle discouraged to-night about the prospect before me. I thought this last week as I lay in the bed, that perhaps God, seeing how I wonder about that other life, would let me out into it, and it would seem so natural to my sister Mary to have me with her once again. I refresh myself little with reading nowadays. Miss Clark and I corrected the compositions all the evening. I stipulated for Ada's in my lot. Ada, dear, refined girl, fit to be Charles Gifford's sister. I like the ideal, Heaven is that! We get hints of it here though, some of us. Luella Clark does and it is her chief charm for me. Things are not so endlessly commonplace to her as they are to most folks. A red leaf out of the woods, a bouquet, a cluster of grapes, these are a great deal to her. She puts her ear close down to nature, listens and hears. I wish I might do this more, but then I shall when mortality drops off, and I have those acute, tense senses of my spiritual self that Swedenborg tells us of, and I believe him. Ella Simpson, dear unfailing friend, for all these years, has had my classes while I have been ill. Dr. Tiffany is our minister and I am more thankful than I can express for the prospect of hearing good preaching once more.

October 12. — Up here in my room, while the people go to church, I watch the long procession of young ladies file out along the walks and through the trees. The gate under the pretty arch bangs together as the last one passes through. One of my pupils, Josie, is sitting with me, and I have made her talk, trying to draw her out a little, in a friendly way, asking her if she likes her studies, if she likes to learn new things, if she likes to read refined books, if she loves people, if she tries to make them love her, if she tries to do them good, if she has ambitions and what she expects from life. She answers with frankness and enthusiasm. There is rare delicacy in the girl. Then we sit by the window in her room. This was Mattie Hill's once, and in it I have played many a school-girl prank. I tell Josie so as we sit here. She lets me into the history of her life, which has been sorrowful, and we make a few wondering remarks over God's providences. Then we talk a little of being good, and I speak somewhat of my sister Mary, and how she lived and died, while I get a little nearer in heart to pretty, sad-faced Josie. As I turn to leave her room, she kisses me, and says, "You are the first one that has talked to me about being good since I have been in this school. I wish you would do so often." I go back to my room, praying that God may make me well again, and that I may love all these girls and they me, and that I may do them only good. Then I sit down cozy and contented to read Harbaugh's "Sainted Dead," looking out often at the window on the bright trees and sunshine of this pleasant, pleasant world, thinking my thoughts between the author's sentences, and feeling very full of wonder about my sister Mary. I learn that this author thinks heaven is a place somewhere far away, and that the soul never sleeps, not even for a single moment, and I find this sweet quotation: "Selig sind die das Himmelreich haben, denn sie sollen nach Hause kommnen." (Blessed are they who have heaven within them, for they shall come home.)
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I think the book has not a page worth that. I read a chapter in my German Testament, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden." Then the folks come back from church, and my queer little pupil, Lizzie B. comes to my room. I ask Miss Fisk, my room-mate, about the sermon, she comments briefly, the bell rings, and they all go down to dinner. My room-mate brings me mine in her quiet, kindly way, and Misses Harvey, Sewall and Bunnell sit around me while I eat. I like the toast, and have some zest for the delicate, amber-colored jelly. Miss Sewall tells me of her home between the two Miami rivers. Miss Holmes comes in to get excused from "Biblical Antiquities." My dear Luella Clark enters with the last Repository, and Dr. Johnson's book of sermons labeled "Consolation." She tells me she went "way up to Professor Noyes' for the book on purpose to read from it to me." How very kind she has been to me always, when I was a pupil and now when we are both "faculty folks"! The girls go off to Sunday-school, Miss Clark sits with me and we talk. She gets me to wrap up, and we go to walk in the garden, for she thinks a sun bath is what I need. Swedenborg's book is in her hand, brought at my suggestion, and she reads here and there as we sit on the stile, while we talk of the Swedish seer and his professed revelations. I incline to look with favor on it all, and say, "Why should not God in some way supplement that mysterious apocalypse of John; for we are all longing to know more about the other life — at least I am, in these days." She says Swedenborg's belief is too materialistic, but his ideas of special providences she likes exceedingly. A little gray cat comes and sits by us. We wonder at the graceful little creature, and fall into a dozen queries over it, for we are in a querying mood. Miss Clark takes it up in her arms, smooths its fur, and says, "Poor creature! You noticed us and followed us with your big, curious eyes. You make the very best of life you can; you like to jump and play about, and it grieves me to think how your life will all flicker out after a little, not to revive again." Then I tell her how fond I am of the kind old " Country Parson" ("A. K. H. B."), and repeat what he said to his horse, "Old Boy," out in the stable, in that genial, generous passage with this sentence in it: "For you, my poor fellow-creature, I think with sorrow, as I write upon your head, there remains no such immortality as remains for me." Then Miss Clark tells me anecdotes about her pets when she was a little child, away off in New England, where I have never been. I fall to wondering about this strange Being who made the little cat and gave to her feet their active motion, who pushed out of the ground the little flower that Miss Clark plucked for me from the borders as she walked, who made my favorite heliotrope. I hold two leaves of it on the palm of my hand, one green with sap, one black with frost, and wonder at the difference between the two. I see the leaves dying on the beautiful trees of the college grove, and I wonder what God thinks as He sees this world that He has made, and we poor, blind creatures groping along through it. Then I remember that "God is love," and that thought quiets me. We go into the house, up to my room again, and Miss Clark begins to read to me from the book she brought. Soon comes a low rap at the door, and my friend Emma
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enters, a very welcome visitor to me, with her refined face and large gray eyes. Pretty soon my pupil Lizzie comes in, for a chance to read her Bible in peace, I guess, and then the smart Bishop girls bring me news that Dr. Tiffany heard my "Biblical Antiquities" class at church, telling me who had their lessons and who had not. Then my friend Ella Simpson, tried and true, with Mollie Ludlam appear upon the scene; soon after, Mary, my kind sister-in-law. Now I will lay aside this writing and try to go to sleep. I pray God to make me well again, to take away my uncertain, ghostly feelings, and to restore to me something of the zest and enthusiasm that have always been my portion. And oh, above all other things, may I rest in the belief that Thou art love!

Northwestern Female College, January 1, 1863. — "Abraham Lincoln has fulfilled the pledge, the slaves are free," so said Father Jones to-night, coming down late to tea, and on the instant all the girls clapped their hands so heartily that it was fine to see and hear them, and far down in my heart something stirred, some chord was struck that gave out music. How much there was to think about just then! Our girls sitting there so well kept as they are, so good looking, so happy and contented, with the thought in their heads that four million of wretched beings became this day constitutionally free, and the feeling in their hearts of what a gift this freedom is to a human soul. It was a thing that thrilled me beyond my power to tell, one that I am thankful has transpired in my experience, and that I shall think over with frequent pleasure.

The future rises before me misty, dark, moist, like an advancing wave. Steadily I march toward it, there is no help, and God is in it, God who manages affairs. My soliloquy was: "F. E. W., why do you plan to go on teaching ad infinitum, now here, now there, and then some other where? Why do you content yourself with such a hedged-up life, with acquiring money so slowly, with an allotment so obscure? There is no need of it. You have abilities for something beyond this. Don't cheat yourself out of your rights. Do you know that sometimes as you help arrange the room, or make your toilet, or take your solitary walks, you think of splendid paragraphs that you never write out — idle creature that you are? Do you know that you have a great many kind, fresh, beautiful thoughts that you never tell? Do you know that new and striking comparisons come to you, and pleasant, queer ideas, and you let them pass in and out, leaving not even a sedimentary deposit there. Stir yourself; be determined to write books if you please. Why not? Be intent upon it. Your flight of usefulness might be very much extended. God thinks it right to have ambitions; you are on the earth, now deal with the earthy, ‘feel the victory in you,’ that is your father's quaint, expressive phrase. And now, to be pointed and make the application, write next year, write. It is nonsense to think you can not do it while you are teaching. You expect to visit Boston in the summer. Take to that city an essay on the writings of William Mountfort, an essay on a tolerant spirit, a novelette entitled ‘Philip,’ and a chastely written memoir of your sister Mary. Now, do this without fail. You can.

175 Chapter V.

PITTSBURGH FEMALE COLLEGE. (1863-1864.)

Several persons have stood at the parting of the roads for me, and almost all of them have been animated finger-posts pointing towards a better and an upward path. Mrs. Bishop Simpson was the first whose presence brought to me a greatly widened circle. The Bishop had lived for several years only one street from us, and the young people of the two families had been quite intimate. The Bishop, though at home only during brief intervals was the central figure and beloved hero of the town, where during his three or four years' residence he preached and lectured not less than thirty times. His eldest daughter, Ella, more like himself than any other of his children, was a school friend and companion in many a pleasant, confidential ramble through the woods and down by the lake shore. Now when my sister's mystical departure had changed all, and my parents were so heart-broken that they went away and boarded in Janesville, and afterwards in Chicago, while I was teaching, in this small, rudimentary way, I found what friends I had in this now historic family. Heartsick and homesick I had taken to my bed, and from very listlessness seemed disinclined to leave it. Hearing of this, Mrs. Simpson came down to see me, and in her emphatic tones said to me, "Frank, it is absurd for you to stay here in one village all your days. My husband is President of the Board of Trustees of Pittsburgh College; it is a fine, large institution in the heart of a leading city noted for the remarkably good health of the inhabitants. Now, you just have your trunk packed and be ready to start within a week, for I am sure we can arrange it so that you can have classes to hear, enough, at least, to pay all your expenses and doubtless something

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more." Her words did me a world of good. I consulted with the faculty, of which I was a junior member, and they agreed to let me go, so that a new world opened before me as widely different from anything heretofore known as is conservative Pennsylvania, with its mountains, mines and valleys, from the broad prairies and progressive spirit of the West.

The new life will best be told in its own vernacular, as my journal sets it down:

PITTSBURGH FEMALE COLLEGE, January 26, 1863.
"Give battle to the leagued world;
If thou art truly brave
Thou shalt make the hardest circumstance
A helper or a slave."

Very aimlessly I have scrawled the above heading. Very aimlessly now I am racing my new "Gillott" across the first page of Journal Book No. 17. Sitting here in Doctor Pershing's office, in his easy-chair with the writing-table attachment, coal glowing in the grate, teams passing through the muddy street outside, the tinkling of the school pianos in my ears mingling with the voices of the girls in the halls, sitting here thus surrounded I thank God for life, — for life continued on the earth. My last winter day, may be gliding away from me now just as our Mary's were one year ago, when we laughed and studied together. Next January my grave may be curved under the snow as now her's is, oh, Mary! But now I live, I am surrounded with matter, or, to put it more truly, I am a spirit enshrined in matter, and for this I am thankful, I hardly know why. Perhaps simply because it is so natural. I am glad I came here, I am to like it, I know. By-and-by I, who am a stranger here, may find sweet friends and be called by beautiful, endearing names, and I am to learn much that is new and good; indeed, I have already. I mean to do my best to be as good a teacher as my abilities will permit, and to win the love and respect of these strangers to myself, if it be possible. I wish to made it a happy thing for some of them that I came here among them, and not a thing unpleasant for any one. This first Monday of my new experience, my classes have gone off creditably and I am not dissatisfied with the result of the day's effort. Before it was light, nice Fanny Fish, my room-mate, and I, rose, dressed and went to devotions in the chapel before breakfast. Professor Johnson, a refined, sweet little man — whom, with his wife I greatly like, indeed, I like him rather better — read and prayed. After breakfast we returned to our room and did our work. Then I went to smart Miss Scull's room and together we called on Miss Teel; the first is the head teacher among the ladies, the second is teacher of drawing and painting. By much maneuvering we arranged to have Miss Scull take the arithmetic, for which I have no "call," and I am to take her class in elocution. What a weight went off my shoulders then! I looked over my geometry, history, etc. Being the youngest teacher I have no school-room to superintend.

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"The Open Secret" fascinates me; sometimes it looms up misty and awful for a moment, but when I fairly look, it has disappeared unread. Habitude is its safe mask. And that is one reason why habits seem half hateful to me, but I know this is not right. Oh, if I could but see! Two afternoons ago I was upon the street. A child was coming toward me with a basket on his arm; opposite, a servant cleared the sidewalk with her broom; just as I passed a forge where blackened men were working, a lady crossed the street ahead of me. The instant that I looked at her, a hint at the open secret of the universe flashed through me, taking away my breath. It went again an instant afterward. I can not tell you what it was, but oh the vastness of it weighed me down. Are we to read it in this life, I wonder, even when the Ripest Age has come? I almost think that no man shall look it in the face and live. We may talk of it, long for it, learn its alphabet, but with our last breath only shall it stand before us clear and — perhaps terrible! Schiller's final words, "Many things grow plain to me," gives a hint of this. But oh, of late it is almost always in my thoughts, it winds itself in every reverie of Mary. I have thought of God to-day, of "that wonderful, wonderful world," as Mary called it in her incoherent sentences the last night that we ever slept together, when the misty depths beyond us seemed to have been penetrated a little way by her sweet spirit so soon to depart. Social life in this world blinds us and stupefies us as too much confectionery makes a child ill. The kind God of many a well-bred family on their knees around their glowing grate, with warm and sense-pleasing things about them, is little better than the Lares and Penates of Aeneas and his people. He is a domestic God, or at least, He is the one we worship "in our church." This is said without bigotry by them, too, and only in memory of their luxuriously-cushioned pews, beautiful stained-glass windows and melodious organ, and with the thought of their well-dressed, gentle manly pastor, besides. I write this not in bitterness. I have seen that it is true. Oh, for a glimpse at Him who is without beginning and without limitation! We use these words, the wonder is that we have got so far, but a little bird raising its head in grateful acknowledgment to heaven as the water-drops pass down its throat, knows what the words mean as well as we do. Ecce Homo! Let us take that in as best we may.

I thought to-day of another church where often and often I have sat contentedly listening to what was given me to hear. Father and mother were no doubt in opposite corners of the old pew, to-day, and they have dreamed sadly of those who used to sit between, of me, of Oliver, away by the Rocky Mountains, of Mary, away by the River of Life. I have the feeling of one who walks blindfold among scenes too awful for his nerves to bear, in the midst of which we eat and drink, wash our faces and complain that the fire won't burn in the grate, or that the tea-bell doesn't ring in season. We are like a spider's web in some remote angle of St. Peter's Cathedral. I suppose the cunning insects flurry greatly if a gnat flies past without being entrapped! All that appertains to the building from floor to dome is accidental in their sight.

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A letter from Emma has made Pittsburgh with its smoke and forges to be quite forgotten for awhile, and put me into a Utopia all my own.

May 2. — It is a queer place that I am in. I would give a good deal for a painting of the scene around me. Professor G.'s botany class, with a few invited friends, is spending the day among the hills. About thirty of us took the street-cars this morning and came out into a beautiful valley, took a long walk on the bank of the Ohio, amid charming scenery; climbed the highest hills, that I, a prairie girl, have ever seen, and are now encamped on Jack's Run, a murmuring little stream. The scene is picturesque. I am painfully conscious that my pen can do no justice to it, can hardly give a hint, a sign, to stand for its calm beauty. Perched nearly on the top of a queer mound of limestone, I am sitting, monarch of nothing that my eye surveys, and yet in my poverty content. I wish Emma could see me just now, or Luella Clark; they would know the costume, all black, with a little hat Emma has seen rising out of a hollow many times as I took my evening horseback ride and always went to her. The eye-glasses and veil drooping to one side would be less familiar, for I never wore eye-glasses until submerged in this Pittsburgh darkness in the midst of which I can not see my pupils in the chapel except by artificial aid. I think of Shirley, which I finished reading this morning and of Louis Moore. No female character in any book suits me, like Shirley. Such fire and freedom, such uncalculating devotion to a master, command my hearty admiration. Oh, so much better to wait for years and years, if we may hope to find at last the one who can be all things to the heart! I am glad, heartily glad, that I did not perjure myself in 1862. But I digress. The highest kind of hills inclose us; the water drips, drips, drips, over the uneven stones, and I listen while the music and the murmur sink into my heart and make me richer-natured for evermore. At my right a ledge of rocks rises perpendicularly, and on its top grow trees. At the foot of it a group of girls recline in various graceful attitudes, a botany among them, and a rare flower, a yellow trillium, going through the ordeal of analysis. Across the little stream is a small, white house, the home of some quiet farmer and those who love and look to him. A peach tree in full bloom is in his yard; his son, as I choose to think, sits in a chair by the open door, while he himself is plowing near by. The furrows are not those shining black ones that we used to like to walk on as they fell off from the plowshare, Mary and I. Two of the smaller girls run about gathering flowers; sweet, gleeful faces they have, their childish enthusiasm I look upon with smiles, partly in memory of my own sunny years of early life. It is a kind, sweet scene about me. Its beauty makes me glad. Thank God for this pleasant day of spring. All these things talk to me, though I can not translate every message which the wonderful, mysterious Power sends to me by way of bud and blossom, sky and tree. If only some one dear to me would take my hand and look into my eyes with wise, kind words to-day! If I might speak as I can not write what fills my heart, I should be as complete as we can be on earth. A rain-drop falls on the page as I am writing. A sudden shower, while the sun shines; the
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group of girls below me scramble after hat and shawl. The day outside of town is passed. I too, must go; so, fair, gentle scene, good-by.

May 5. — Evening. Sitting in my room. What is it, I wonder, that I keep wanting to say? It never comes to my lips nor to the point of my pen. I am almost sure that God does not mean that I shall say this while I live on the earth, and yet it stirs in every pulse, it lies back of every true thought, but it has never yet been told. Some of my best essays are studies for it; sentences that I have hurriedly, earnestly, spoken to a friend's soul with which for the hour I was en rapport, have been guesses about it; the kindling eye and flushing cheek have told a little of it, but it will never be uttered right out loud except in deeds of happiness and valor; it lives on in my heart unsaid, and even in my prayers unsaid. It comes so strangely near me, how or why I can not tell. I have seen in the eyes of animals, so wistful, so hopeless in their liquid depths, some hint at what. I mean. That mournful flower, the gentian, with its fringed corolla, is to me like the sweeping eyelash that directs a loving, revealing glance, and gives a new hint at that which I can feel, but can not tell. The dripping of water tries to spell out some simple words of it, and the blackbird's note or the robin's song, these help me wonderfully. The royal colored clouds of sunset make it clearer and a long gaze upward through the depths of the night,

"When the welkin above is all white,
All throbbing and panting with stars,"
makes the secret clearest of all. The thought of this, which I can only speak about, has been with me all day, like an ethereal perfume; has wrapped itself around me as a cloud of incense, and yet I have been through with the usual number of classes, absorbed the plain, substantial fare of breakfast, dinner and tea eagerly, and read the daily papers. Hooker's triumphant march thus far toward Richmond has made my heart beat faster than love or pride has done since the Garden City was left behind.

Two letters have been received from two poet-souled women in obscure life, and for the time they have transfigured me. Full of insight they were, for these women love much and read the significance of destiny by clear burning tapers lighted at the altar of consecration to their homes. I have read of the French Revolution, and Charlotte Corday, and the Unknown and Invisible has risen before me misty and dark as I wonder what vision burst on the freed soul of that marvelous girl as she lay on the plank of the scaffold and "the beam dropped, the blade glided, the head fell." I have listened to the Bible reading at our quiet chapel prayers, and pondered much over Job's words, "Why should a man contend against God? and as I thought, my soul went out after Him, this awful, overwhelming Power that holds all things in equilibrium, and has come back again with some dim, shuddering consciousness that He is, and some sweet faith that "He is a rewarder of all such as diligently seek him." I have looked at my pliant, active fingers, and wondered over this strange, imparted force that is ordained to live a while in me, that joins itself in some weird way to muscle, sinew, tissue and bone; that filters through my nerves and make
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all things alive, among them the organic shape that is called me. I wish I could talk to-night with some one who would say, with quick, emphatic gesture, "Yes, I understand, I have felt so, too." "Be Caesar to thyself." The words are brave, but to-night I am too tired to say them truly, and so I will pray to God and go to sleep.

May 15. — Mary Willard is my one thought, even more truly now, I think, than when I was in Evanston. But the stunning weight is not always upon me. Like an object held too near the eyes to be distinctly seen, so has her memory often been; but to-night I held the awful Providence at arms-length and looked at it fairly. Oh, if I could keep my face and form forever young, if I could save myself from such a fate as Mary's! But there is no release. In all nature there is no law so inexorable as this: "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." Oh, Frances Willard; aspiring mortal! Hungry for love and fame, and thirsty for the nectar of life, grasping after the beautiful and bright, but crying out so often at the thorns that prick when you would feebly reach out for the good — God pity you! And so He will. "He doth not willingly afflict." He who loves us best is at the helm. If He has ordained that we shall die, it is but that He may take us nearer to Himself. Mary knows that.

May 17. — I have been reading the Presbyterian account of the, first anniversary of the United States Christian Commission, also a sketch of the orator, Anna E. Dickinson. My heart thrills with the hope of a long life on earth and of seeing these persons that I read about; walking up and down the cities, feeling the salt sea-breeze in my face, being at one with the great, pulsating heart of my race. I will try for it. I am bound to try. And yet, on such a morning as this Mary went into the Silent Land, with her hopes on earth all blighted, with unsatisfied ambitions, and unawakened love. The earth side of that Providence is pitiful and touches me even to tears. The heaven side, doubtless, is aglow with brightness, such as I could not see and live. Oh, the untold wonder of my soul!

May 27. — For two nights I have been up till twelve or one. Night before last we had a faculty meeting — the girls have been "acting up," as they call it here, in a ridiculous manner. Their "pahs" and "mahs" will be ashamed of them. "You'uns," they will say, "stop your scrouging." (Specimens in neat mosaic of Pennsylvania idioms.) N. C. sat before the assembled awfulness of the faculty so gracefully, answered so readily, interpolated her "no, indeed," with such pretty emphasis, and cried so charmingly that I was duly charmed. I wanted to go up and kiss her. Even A., naughtiest of pretty-faced girls, I felt sorry for. Mollie quite won me with her introductory sentence, pronounced in that tired, childish voice, which corresponds with her invalid state, "I mean to tell you just what I have done, the best I know how." The bell has rung, and I have to go to another faculty meeting. This makes the third night that I have been up at all hours.

May 29. — Two little incidents have stirred my heart and taught me that I am not fossilizing. Yesterday on the street car, coming from the House of Refuge, several negroes sitting opposite us, a man in the blue uniform
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signaled the car. He came limping up and eagerly the driver helped him on the platform. One of the negroes, a very black and noble-looking young fellow, sprang forward and motioned him to his seat, but before he could reach it a place was given him nearer the door. A thrill came to my heart as the poor negro turned toward the soldier. They were types, the two men, — one so dark and one so fair, the lower one looking to the higher, grateful for his aid, turning to him for help. The negroes know quite well for what this war is waging.

The other scene. Virginia Hart is a sweet girl among my pupils. We read for our lesson this morning Alice Cary's story of her little sister Dillie, to whom she was unkind, and who died from the effect of a fall on the very day she used her ill. The story is very pitiful, and touchingly told. Virginia turned toward me when we had finished, as I dismissed the class, and with tears in her honest gray eyes, said, "Miss Willard, I was never unkind to my little sister that died." "That must be a comforting thought, my child. How old was she? When did she die?" I asked. "Oh, a good many years ago," she said "She was only nine years old." "Have you no other sister?" I inquired. "No; only a brother," she replied. Poor child! I wanted to tell her that I had no sister, either, and that was why I was wearing this black dress, but there were so many in the room I could not mention it. Through my heart went the sad question, "Was I ever unkind to Mary?" And very mournful came the reply, "Many a time I was thoughtless and gave pain to the gentle, gentle girl. I can make no wrong right now, — not one." Oh, how sweet and strange was the voice in which, one year ago, she said tome, "You never were unkind, you were always good to me," and she spoke to me no more.

Extract from my poor father's last letter: "Yesterday, for the first time this spring, we caught up Jack and drove him to Rose Hill. We put some flowers on Mary's grave, but oh, how tame, when I would see her face and clasp her to my heart, that I must be satisfied with merely putting a few flowers on her grave. Oh, vacant and pitiful substitute! Well, we must control ourselves."

Sabbath Day, May 31. — One year ago to-day Mary spent her last Sabbath on earth. I stayed from church; we talked pleasantly together of old, familiar scenes. I read the Bible to her; she was better than she had been for weeks. She was really merry toward night, and made many a humorous speech. She did not seem to think of death. I felt sure she would get well. Ah, on that calm, momentous Sabbath I did not see the grave so soon to be added to the number in Rose Hill. I did not see my brother severed from us, my home in the hands of strangers, father and mother left childless, myself far off from all, at Liberty Street Church in Pittsburgh, and in the afternoon at the mission school on Prospect Hill. To-day the superintendent brought flowers for every one. It was a pretty sight to see the boys holding out their caps for the blossoms, to see all the poor children going gayly down the street, each with a handful of flowers. And then, with Mrs. Holmes and Fannie, I went into a cellar where, for four years an old man, who can not hear or speak, has lived upon the charities
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of the benevolent. It was something new to me, and impressed me painfully. I gave the man some tea that I had brought at Mrs. Holmes' suggestion. He looked at me gratefully, and put it into his pocket, he could not speak.

June 1. — Saddest, sweetest of months! I am sorry to spend it in a place so dirty, so dusty and so dull.

June 8. — On this same side of the page in my red journal one year ago to-morrow I wrote the words, "Mary is dead." And I haven't the heart to write now that this, the first return of that awful day, has come. "Speech is silver, silence golden." In silence I will think my thoughts. A letter written to father and mother, the lonely, heart-aching pair, shall be my record of this day.

June 12. — Two weeks from to-day I start for home. I am very eager for it, more so than I can tell. Indeed, I think about it all my spare time. Father and mother, the house and garden, — Mary's grave. "Thoughts that do lie too deep for tears" go through me as I think of my changed home, and the pleasant face shut out of sight. It is idle to write about it. Death is unspeakably mysterious and awful. The feeling of this grows stronger in my soul. The terrible sentence rings in my ears, "I am to die! I am to die!" No matter to what it conducts, the earth side of it — and that is what we see — is fearful enough to strike one dumb. Mary always viewed it so herself, and yet it has passed upon her!

June 16. — Pittsburgh is in a ferment, two thousand men are working on fortifications, Gen. Lee's army is said to be approaching, and martial law is to be declared. Trains from the South are forbidden to come to the city. Miss Dole, our New England teacher, is very much alarmed. The girls are distressed, especially those living to the southward, but I am not troubled a bit, nor any of the teachers except Miss Dole. It is quite exciting, though. The President has ordered out 100,000 men, 50,000 of them from Pennsylvania, but there are so many false alarms that it does not do to receive all we hear as gospel on any subject.

Last night came a long letter from Oliver, the first since he went to Denver last fall. It was interesting and characteristic. Though our roads lie so far apart, and our interests are so unlike, yet I always think fondly of my brother and proudly of his success. It is nice for him and Mary B. to love each other and to be together.

June 25. — Doctor P. just now called me into the music-room and complimented me so much that I must write it down, for this book is my safety-valve. Ahem! He said my success in the essay before the Alumnae was something wonderful. He said it made a marked impression, that he wanted me to come back, would make it pleasant for me, and that if he had only thought of it in time, he would have had me make the address to the graduating class upon the occasion of receiving their diplomas, instead of Dr. Herrick Johnson, pastor of one of the first Presbyterian churches in this city and one of the oldest, and furthermore that he wanted me to write an account of the Commencement for "Tom Eddy's paper," and insisted on my taking a five dollar bill for the same. So now, in great
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haste and honest joy, I have written this and will proceed to prepare the article. Praise, when it is meant, is life to me, "in a sense." I am afraid I think too much about it. Anyhow, I know that I am glad of all this and would like those who love me to know of it.

Evanston, July 7. — Thank God for my safe return.

July 9. — Sabbath morning before church. Sitting alone in my little newly furnished room that father and mother have had fitted up for me, the one where Mary and I once sat together when I was merry-hearted. Mother has just been in and read to me some beautiful thoughts of Hannah More's, on prayer. Mother is wonderfully spiritual since Mary is among the spirits, and her thoughts are only incidentally of earth, habitually in heaven. Father and she are in the front room now. He is reading the Northwestern Christian Advocate, she lying on the lounge, perhaps thinking of Mary in heaven. Down-stairs the pleasant housekeepers, Mr. and Mrs. Hanchett, otherwise Alfred and Cynth, with active little Tillie, the small maid of all work, are walking about or reading in the rooms where we used to lounge on Sabbath morning; and under this room where I sit, that one where Mary died is darkened and left solitary. Oh, life is strange and full of change! If these things did not come to us slowly, they would craze us, I am sure; but as it is, we adjust ourselves to them and manage to get on. Though the fresh air and sunshine are taken away, we live in darkness and from long habit breathe on, struggling to inhale the heavy, unreviving air.

July 15. — I am writing with enthusiasm the book about Mary and think it will be interesting. Her journals are delightful. I did not know she had such talent as they evince. Evanston is different, though I say little about it. I have been to the city to visit dear, true Clara Thatcher, one of the best friends I have on earth. Life is rather queer, but it pays, for all that. I want to be good and get ready for something better in the way of animated existence. I do not expect to live to be old. If I were sure about the Future, I would like to go there right away.

July 24. — Not because I have the least thing to write, but just from habit, sitting at my table, I take the pen and scratch away. If it were not for "Mary's book," at which I work almost constantly of late, I could hardly get on. I go out very little, which is foolish, I presume. My book is so well commenced now, that I mean to write only forenoons and visit more; read, study German, and play a little. I am really happy over books, they are the true magicians. They take me back across the chasm of years and make me as fresh-hearted as when the leaves sent their shadows dancing to and fro on the pages which I read in the garden or on the piazza at home, with the tinkle of the distant cow-bell in my ears, and the fragrant breath of flowers cooling my cheek.

Sitting here alone, so often, I think about my future life out there in the mystic country, and glimpses come to me of an atmosphere golden as sunbeams and inspiring as ether, of crystal towers and snowy cushions of cloud, of streams that sing songs as they flow, of perfume delicate as the color of rose-lined shells, of infinite repose and that unspeakable feeling never to be won on earth by prayer or penance — that we are satisfied. Christ has in
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His nature the elements that will make all this true when we behold Him face to face. We do not know what we are seeking here when we strive so hard and fret so much. Human love no doubt comes nearest, but it is only the melody of an anthem, the study for a picture, the twilight of a morning that shall dawn, and oh, to think! "the fret and jar gone from our souls forever," how we shall erelong awake to life and be restless and hungry and thirsty no more!

This may be as good a place as any in which to state that when we wrote in our journals or elsewhere, as children, mother was wont to help us with points, and sometimes with sentences. In extreme cases, father would do the same. It never occurred to me that this was at all out of the way, any more than to have them help me with my mathematical problems. When I went away to school, it soon became known to my fellow-students that I kept a somewhat voluminous journal, and was very fond of writing. Naturally enough, they flocked around me for aid and comfort in their composition work, which I was by no means slow to render, for I think no school-mate ever asked my help without receiving it. Indeed, I am afraid that I had an undeveloped conscience on this subject, for one of my most lively remembrances is a "change of works," by which my clothes were mended, and my room set in order, while I plied my pencil in the interest of some girl whose harp was on the willows in view of the fact that next Friday afternoon she must bring in a composition.

When I was a teacher, while disposed to be helpful to all my pupils, I did not write their essays, though given to "interlarding," as my father used to call the help furnished us children at home. In a single instance I remember writing an important paper for a pretty young lady, who received a class honor on the basis of her good looks rather than upon her facility with her pen. This was a deadly secret between us two, and one never before divulged. It is mentioned now only by way of warning, for in the confession of sin that I deem it right to make, as a true witness in this autobiography, I am obliged to include not only sins of omission but of commission in the particular treated of in this paragraph.

In the autumn of 1863, I returned to Pittsburgh and taught in the Female College two thirds of that school year.

185 Chapter VI.

THE GROVE SCHOOL AND THE BUILDING OF HECK HALL.

(1865-1866.)

Mr. Edward Haskin, of Evanston, having six children of his own and plenty of money, determined to found a select school near his own home where they could have the best advantages. He enlisted several leading gentlemen to cooperate with him as trustees. Their children also attended the school, which was in two departments, primary and intermediate, with a tendency toward academic, in exceptional cases. My talented cousin, Mrs. Minerva Brace Norton, was the first teacher. She was a woman of intellect so penetrating and experience so large, that to follow her was not a holiday undertaking, but it fell to my lot to make this attempt in the winter of 1865. Associated with me were the "two Kates," as we were wont to call them, Miss Kate Kidder, the accomplished daughter of our Professor in Homiletics, and Kate Jackson, for so many years my friend and comrade. The building where we exercised our gifts is still standing on Hinman avenue, near the corner of Davis street, and I never pass it without seeing those two rooms full of the best-born and best-mannered children in Evanston, kindly, quick-witted and studious. If there were any naughty children I do not recall them. One or two who were dull formed the background for the rest. Our school had many unique features, but perhaps none more so than the custom of the pupils to write questions on the blackboard for their teachers to answer. This turn about was but fair play, stimulated the minds of all concerned, and added to the good will and confidence between teacher and pupil. As we had all grades, from the toddler of four years old to the elegant young lady of sixteen, the problem of government was not so simple as

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it might appear. After trying several experiments, I introduced the Bank of Character, opening an account with each student in my room, and putting down certain balances in his favor. Then by a system of cards of different values, which were interchangeable as are our bank notes of different denominations, that is, one of a higher value being equivalent to several of a lower denomination, the plan was carried out. Every absence, tardiness, failure in recitation, case of whispering, was subtracted from the bank account, and so emulous were those children that my tallest boys were as much on the qui vive to know their standing, as were their youngest brothers. Aside from the lessons, into which we introduced as much as possible of natural history, object-lessons, drawing and gymnastics, we gave out questions at each session, keeping an account of the answers and putting at a premium those who brought in the largest number of correct replies. I remember my honored friend, Dr. Raymond, told me that his boy, Fred, one of the brightest and most exceptional pupils I ever had, when not in school was lying on the sitting-room floor with his face in a book, hunting up the answers to some of this continuous game of twenty questions. It was certainly delightful to see the enthusiasm of my young folks in that Grove school.

We had our exhibition duly at the end of each term, on which occasion the University chapel would be packed with the appreciative throng of fathers and mothers to hear the exercises, in which their children had been most carefully drilled, and to see who got the prizes, for, thanks to the generosity of L. L. Greenleaf, at that time one of our wealthiest citizens, we always had several attractive rewards of merit, usually in the form of books, which seem to me the most unexceptionable prize that can be given. As I grow older, however, I doubt more and more the propriety of offering prizes. Competition is so fierce in this country and age, and the "set" of children's brains is so strong toward it from the first, that I have become an ardent believer in cooperation as a principle destined some day to overthrow the selfishness of competition, and with my present views, would hardly re-enact the scenes that made the "last day" so exciting in that school.

Oddly enough, the prosperity of this pleasant enterprise gnawed at the root of its life. The trustees were urged to make

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common cause in building up the public school system whose success was greatly hindered by this more select institution, and we all saw that the best interests of the town required such action.

The spring of 1866 witnessed our closing exercises, and made the pleasant school in the grove a memory. I have always thought that some of my most satisfactory teaching was done here and have cherished a warm regard for the bright and winsome pupils who helped me to succeed.

One of my hobbies as a teacher was to interest the children in the history, poetry and morals that are bound up in single words. Dean Trench was among my favorite authors, read early and often, and I collated from his sparkling pages many a picture for the children, drawn out from a single word written by me on the board and copied by them as they sat behind their desks. Every geographical word was thus analyzed, so far as our knowledge permitted, and the chief words in reading and spelling lessons. All except the dullest, were delighted with this variation in the order of the day. In teaching composition, I tried to make the lessons vivid, concrete; giving few rules, but taking a subject with which the children were familiar, and drawing them out, or, if their little minds were empty concerning some character or event, pumping in ideas by a familiar talk, and then asking them to write out what had been said. In the formative period of my mental habits, writing out recollection of books, characters, addresses, etc., has been the most valuable discipline that ever came to me.

I had list of tabooed subjects in my composition class, among which were Home, Hope, The Seasons, Spring, especially Beauty, Youth, Old Age, The Weather I did not allow them to use 'twas, 'tis, 'neath, th', e'en, though they much inclined to drop into poetry to this extent.

I find a list of words for studies of literal meaning in my memorandum book for composition classes:

Poltroon, supercilious, astonished, sarcasm, imbecile, affront, halcyon, fortnight, scape-goat, daguerreotype, mythology, disaster, asunder, apparent, sandwich, volcano, horse-radish, didoes, telegraph, surname, bayonet, vermin, currents, windfall, caprice, desultory, silhouette, miser, trivial, happiness, heaven, Holy Ghost, consciousness, sincere, Paternoster, enthusiasm.

I found that children ten years old could be well-nigh fascinated by the study of words like these.

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An interlude in my work as a teacher brought me my first introduction to a really public career. I was made corresponding secretary of the American Methodist Ladies' Centenary Association, that helped to build Heck Hall, at Evanston, in 1866. This was an addition greatly needed by the Garrett Biblical Institute, our theological school, and our appeal was made to Methodist women throughout the country for contributions to ministerial education. But this new idea of organizing women in a large way for Christian work was seized upon by other institutions, and so many "good objects" were soon before the public that ours did not attain the prominence we hoped. About $25,000 was raised, however, and the certificate for framing sent out by us, and representing Mrs. Garrett presenting a Gospel commission to a very nice, spiritual-looking young man, had more of prophecy within it than met the eye. These certificates hung up in many a Methodist family of the nation, and bearing the honored name of Mrs. Bishop Hamline as president, and mine as corresponding secretary, first gave me a public larger than that implied in any school constituency. I have often thought of this first associated work of the most progressive Church women in America — for Methodist women are confessedly that — and wondered if the sense of power they then acquired did not pave the way for their great missionary movement started about two years later, and of which Mrs. Jennie Fowler Willing was so long the moving spirit in the West.

My father had now become pecuniarily embarrassed, through no fault or failure of his own, and it was necessary that I should earn enough to float myself financially.

I was very grateful to the kind friends who secured the situation for me, and I found in Rev. Dr. James S. Smart, whose keen brain thought out the "Ladies' Centennial" idea, a brother indeed. He helped me in every possible way, and so did my dear father, for I was not good at accounts, and these had to be carefully kept. Father built "Rest Cottage" three blocks from our first home in Evanston, on some new lots reclaimed from the swamp and embellished by him with as much enthusiasm as he had felt in the creation of Forest Home. My parents moved into this house, December, 1865. While it was building, my home

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was with the families of Dr. Raymond and Simeon Farwell, whose kindness in those days of difficulty I shall not forget.

In the autumn of 1866, I went to Lima, N. Y., Miss Kate Kidder taking my place in Evanston as corresponding secretary.

190 Chapter VII.

GENESEE WESLEYAN SEMINARY.
(1866-1867.)

For many years I had heard of this oldest seminary of the Methodist church, located at Lima, Livingston Co., N. Y., not more than thirty miles from my birthplace. Rev. Dr. B. F. Tefft, whose story of "The Shoulder Knot," published in The Ladies' Repository, had fascinated me many years before, was in early times principal of this famous institution. Associated with it as teachers or students were such names as U. S. Senator Angus Cameron, Henry J. Raymond, founder of the New York Times; Orange Judd, the greatest among agricultural editors; Prof. William Wells, of Union College; Prof. Alverson, and many others of whom I had heard with great interest. It had a history, and to a Westerner this was a fascinating fact. It was a co-education school and Oberlin life had proved to our folks that this was the natural, hence the wise, way.

With such history and traditions the school could but be attractive to me, and when, one fine winter day, in Evanston, in 1866, a letter reached me from Prof. Charles W. Bennett, who was then at its head, inviting me to become "preceptress," I was delighted, and, with the approval of my parents, wrote him at once that I would gladly go in the following September. I was greatly disappointed to learn later on that Professor Bennett, about whom Dr. Bannister's family had told me many pleasant things, had gone abroad, and that a new principal, Professor Fuller, unknown to fame, and certainly unknown to me, was to be my chief associate.

It was a beautiful autumn day when I reached this historic village nestling among the hills of Genesee. Its pastoral peace

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was welcome to my spirit as dew on the mown grass. An entertainment was given to the faculty that evening at the home of Rev. Dr. Lindsay, president of Genesee College, which was located on the same campus. Here I met the leading members of both faculties, with all of whom I was remarkably well pleased. The seminary building, large, rambling, old, had special fascination for one who came from a country where everything was new. I thought of the historic characters to whom this place was familiar and by whom it was beloved. My own pleasant suite of rooms had been occupied for two generations by women of the highest character and exceptional abilities. My friend, Kate Jackson, came with me, for I had secured her the promise of French classes. Her object in going was to be with me, as she had no occasion to make money for her own use, and there we spent a year with very much of brightness in it, and somewhat of shadow.

I can not more correctly depict the year at Lima, than by giving in conclusion the following extracts from the journal of the period:

Lima, Livingston Co., N. Y., September 15, 1866. — Father went with me to Lima. From Avon I had my first stage ride, seven miles across, the driver blowing his horn as we entered a town, in the good old-fashioned style. Stopped at the pleasant home of Rev. A. D. Wilbor, agent and treasurer of the Seminary. We were warmly welcomed, had a nice dinner, and walked over to the Seminary with bright E., a sophomore in the gentlemen's college (Genesee), were introduced to Mrs. Hale, wife of the steward, conducted to our rooms, sitting-room, bedroom, and closet, up one flight of stairs on the front side of the building; nicely furnished, Brussels carpet, pretty bedroom set, a fire ready in the stove, house plants in the windows; they had evidently done all they could to make it pleasant for us. We went to work and put up the pictures, etc., and in a couple of hours, I was nicely established in my new home. Then Professor Lattimore and daughter, Professor Steele and wife, and several others, called.
September 18. — After father had helped me put up the pictures and got me nicely settled, he went away yesterday just after breakfast; he stood on the steps before the great front door, held out his hand with his face turned half away, and said, "Well, good-by; take care of yourself, and don't get sick." I shall not comment upon my many thoughts and emotions as he walked off with carpet-bag in hand, looking so gentlemanly, so tall and slight and fragile — too much so for my peace.

Am getting acquainted with all these excellent people; the bugbear, Lima, is nothing so dreadful after all. Have had my first duty as preceptress to welcome a lot of new-comers. Two are Indians from the Seneca
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reservation; another is a peculiarly thoughtful, religious, book-loving girl of seventeen. I brought her into my room and she looked with much interest at my pictures, and we fell into talk. I happened to mention that I had a sister who graduated young, and that I was nineteen when I left school. Soon after, I handed her the new circular where my full name is printed. She glanced over it, looked up with flushed face, and said, "May I ask a question? Did you write ‘Nineteen Beautiful Years’?" I answered, "Yes, of course," and showed her Mary's photograph while tears fell from her eyes. New students are coming all the while, new teachers, and I am not a bit blue. We had a long, tedious faculty meeting in the ladies' parlor. They gave me rhetoric and composition, and I am perfectly delighted.

September 20. — To-day began my onerous task. At nine A.M., prayers in the chapel, conducted by the principal. Afterward I went to my recitation room and spent the forenoon registering young ladies who brought slips of admission from the treasurer. I then took the names and addresses of guardians, studies for the term, and number of rooms in the Seminary, or, if an out-boarder, the place of residence. They are most of them interesting, attractive girls. Then came to my room and had a call from one of my Seneca Indians and also from polite Miss Waite, the assistant preceptress; Mrs. Hale, the stewardess, gave me a cup of tea in her room and consoled me, the dear, motherly woman. Have had several homesick girls to look after. Poor things, I like them, and pray that I may do them good, in all true and pleasant senses. Have been registering all day, have received numerous calls on business from my strange-faced and pleasant-mannered young ladies, a few anxious fathers, and some of the professors. Gave them this afternoon a chapel talk and took the postoffice addresses of them all. Think I shall greatly like Lima when I get seasoned.

September 24. — Mrs. H. is a woman of mother wit; witness her inveighing against people who parade their bookishness; she brought me a private cup of tea and a cooky, kissed my cheek and said, "You dear little kitten, you, if anybody hurts you, I'll bite 'em, that's all."

October 6. — Girls, girls, girls! Questions upon questions! Dear me, it is no small undertaking to be elder sister to the whole one hundred and eighty of them, but it is pleasant, truly so. Tried to write on a talk to them but can get no time nor much inspiration. This term, I will extemporize, I guess. Went up to the room of the "Ladies' Literary," was introduced, the whole society rising. They treat me beautifully, and I think I reciprocate. Never saw such a thing as Lima sociability.

October 13. — We have changed works; I hear Kate's physiology class and she "does up" our room.

October 15. — Have had a letter from Nina Lunt, dated Geneva, Switzerland. What would I not give to have her opportunity in life, for my pet desire is to travel. If I had been a man I would have liked Bayard Taylor's portion under the sun.

October 24. — Prepared talks to my girls about room-keeping. This is my hobby. I believe, whatever I can not do, I can make a home attractive. My own room I delight to have a pleasant place to dwell in. For this I care
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more than to dress. Heard my rhetoric scholars, of whom I have thirty-four.

October 29. — I went down to a political mass meeting addressed by Horace Greeley. Here was American politics as manifested in a crowd of yeomanry with bands and such mottoes as "Down with the One Man Power!" "Congress Must and Shall Be Sustained!" "Andy Johnson Swinging Around the Circle!" This motley throng surged to and fro, nearly taking us off our feet. It was somewhat to study, to be sure, but we didn't stay long, the place was so breathless and full in spite of the rain. I like Horace's quiet, unwritten face. Life hasn't hurt him much — the noble old philosopher. I liked to watch him standing there in his nice black suit, with velvet vest, wide collar and queer ruffle of whiskers gray; with his bald head, ring on third left hand finger and red bandana in his hand. He is a historic figure and embodies well the idea of our government — freedom in all right things, to all. Give everybody a fair chance and let the outcome come! Honor to H. G., the self-made chief editor in the United States for the last score of years.

November 2. — Kate and I have great fellowship with Mrs. Fuller, the principal's wife, she is so straightforward, and common-sensical, that one likes her of right.

November 5. — In the evening, went to the twenty-two rooms of my girls. I like them all. I really think I shall do these girls good in composition lines. The seniors improve and I give them unsparing criticism. Regents' examination is going forward, to the great disgust of the students. Kate and I went into the chapel to see the poor victims undergoing their ordeal. It is the perfection of a system.

Sabbath, November 11. — Stayed at home all day and read "Ecce Homo." It has mind in it, it has body, it is something. I have enjoyed it and concluded it certain, from internal evidence, that the author believes in Christ's divinity. If our faith could but be separated from cant and hackneyism it would touch the world more nearly.

November 16. — Professor Fuller laid down the law to the lawless young men in a way that did my heart good. In the boarding-hall there is ever so much that goes amiss, and some people that precisely answer to the "Country Parson's" description of a "cantankerous fool."

November 26. — Girls are ten times as quick as boys. In Rhetoric the last do wretchedly. I should think they would take hold and study for very shame.

The term grows dreary and monotonous. I am an inveterate lover of variety and should have made a traveler if I had been a man — as I sometimes wish I had been. My life is a free and happy one — surfacely so. How strangely accommodating are our natures! With nothing just as I wish it; with chasms and voids in my life too numerous to name, I yet have a good time and no complaint to make!

November 28. — Went down town in the rain to see about my new dress, bonnet, etc. These evils of a lady's life are very irksome to me, yet quite
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inevitable. For to express in toilet, manners, and the room (some day I hope the house) I live in, that I am civilized of soul, I expect and intend.

November 29. — The first national Thanksgiving Day appointed by the Chief Executive is here. Thirty-six millions of people at once offering their thanks to the Source of life and of all that comes through living! Alas that "my policy" Johnson instead of our beloved Lincoln, the emancipator, should have written the proclamation setting this day apart to its delightful uses! Rain falling, windows open, no fire, dandelions golden in the grass. Spent the day reading Carlyle on the religious life of Dr. Johnson. Life is "sort o' rich," but might readily be more so.

One of the cross-currents came to the surface when I declined to hold myself responsible for the locking and unlocking of the outside door, a little distance from my room, at ten o'clock at night and half-past five in the morning. They said, " The preceptresses have always done this." I replied, "More's the pity, it is the janitor's business." Good Professor Fuller stood by me and we carried the day, though it made no small jangle in the faculty for a brief period. But we were in the main harmonious, and I heartily liked all my associates.

It soon occurred to me that we might improve the name of "The Young Indies' Literary," which was the immemorial designation of one of the societies. This caused no small amount of contention and criticism, but finally we christened it "The Ingelow," and when I went to New York, at Christmas, I expended $100 that the young women had accumulated for the purpose, in plaster of Paris busts of the great lights of literature, one or two handsome chromos, and I know not what besides, to brighten up their large, old-fashioned assembly room, with its low ceiling and solemnities of president's chair and critic's desk.

At Lima for the first time I gave a church-roll talk each week, having the young ladies all to myself in the huge, old chapel, and after calling the church-roll to know if they had been in attendance punctually upon the Sabbath day, I talked to them in a familiar, sisterly fashion about all sorts of things interesting to them and to me. It was an hour of genuine pleasure on my part, and they professed to like it, too.

Squire Hale and his wife were characters, indeed, known and read of all men and women who were at Lima during the forty years of their stewardship. To them I was indebted for many kindnesses; their accomplished daughter Dora and her genial

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husband, Rev. C. C. Wilbor, were my next-door neighbors on the same hall. Dr. Lindsay was greatly looked up to by us, and always seemed to me one of the noblest of men. Dr. Daniel Steele was a special friend of ours, a man of independent mind and sterling character. He had not then come to the vision of "Love enthroned." Professor Coddington, the eloquent preacher of Syracuse University, gave high promise in those early years; Professor French, honest and skilled; Professor Lattimore, the son-in-law of the lamented Professor Larrabee of Dickinson College, was the exquisite man of the faculty; the afterglow of Professor Alverson's great name still lingered on the hills; Dr. Cummings was spoken of reverently, Dr. Reid pleasantly, and an important chapter in the history of Methodism was here studied by me at first hand.

In our own seminary faculty we had in Professor Fuller a man of excellent ability, who had succeeded in the pastorate, but was hardly at his best in this new calling, a fact for which, because I thought so highly of him, I was often sorry. His wife was a true friend, whom I have not seen since, but whom I have remembered always with unchanged affection. Miss Bannister, now Mrs. Ayers, of Penn Yan, the teacher of Fine Arts, had a nature delicate as a porcelain vase, and a spirit tremulous with aspirations toward God. With her I took sweet counsel, and oftentimes we walked to the house of the Lord in company. Professor Hudson, the Latin teacher, was phenomenal in memory, and has since become one of the leading stenographers at Chautauqua. I remember he took my White Cross address with marvelous celerity and accuracy when I spoke there in 1886. Professor Locke was chief of the Conservatory, a young man of harmonious character, great activity, and zeal that his pupils should improve, and that all the students should be religious. For many years now he has held the same position in the Northwestern University, at Evanston, loved and trusted by all who know him. Prof. Delevan C. Scoville was probably the most unique man of either faculty; born among the hills of Oneida, devoted to the Adirondacks and to books, worshipful toward his mother and sister — two rare women, worthy of his devotion, — working his way to high culture, and phenomenally successful as a teacher, with a certain magnetism in look, voice and manner

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that made him a universal favorite among the students, he should, to my mind, have been a minister, and I think he had this purpose, but in some way was deflected from it, went to New York City, and has become a first-class lawyer there.

I remember that Professor Scoville, who was very liberal-minded on the woman question, urged me to consent to speak before the United Societies at Commencement in the College chapel, saying that if I would only agree to do this, it was the easiest thing in the world for him to secure the invitation. But I stoutly declined, saying that while I would rejoice to speak were I a man, such a beatitude was not for women, and I would not face the grim visage of public prejudice. This was at the Commencement exercises of 1867. Something less than four years later, I was glad to accept Mr. A. E. Bishop's generous championship, and under his auspices to speak an hour and a quarter in Centenary Church, Chicago, without manuscript. So goes the world. It is always broader and better farther on.

I left Lima at the close of the school year of 1867, with the pleasantest of memories and prospects, as shown by the following correspondence:

July 8, 1867.

To the Board of Trustees of Genesee Wesleyan Seminary:
GENTLEMEN — Opportunity to visit Europe under circumstances most advantageous having presented itself since I entered upon my duties here, I have decided to avail myself of it, and therefore tender my resignation of the position of Preceptress. Wishing continued prosperity to the institution in which I have spent a year so pleasantly, I am,

Yours very respectfully,
FRANCES E WILLARD.

This was their courteous and brotherly reply:

GENESEE WESLEYAN SEMINARY,
LIMA, N. Y., July 9, 1867.
MISS FRANCES E. WILLARD, Madam — I am directed by the Board of Trustees of Genesee Wesleyan Seminary to transmit to you the following resolution, unanimously passed by the Board as an expression of their regard for you personally, and approval of your conduct as the Preceptress of the Seminary.

Trusting that the good Lord will preserve you during your travels, I am,

Yours truly,
D. A. OGDEN, Secretary.
Resolved, That in accepting the resignation of Miss Frances E. Willard as Preceptress in Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, we feel great pleasure in
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expressing our high appreciation and grateful acknowledgments for her valuable services during her connection with this institution.

Hoping for a pleasant tour and safe return from her journeyings abroad, we will pray for her safety, her continued success, prosperity and happiness in any sphere of labor and usefulness she may be called to fill in the future.

[Unanimously adopted.]

D. A. OGDEN, Secretary.

My generous Senior girls gave me a beautiful ring like their own, with my favorite motto from Goethe, which they had adopted, Ohne hast, ohne rast; the under-graduates gave me nearly one hundred dollars with which to buy a dressing-case.

198 Chapter VIII.

PRESIDENT OF EVANSTON COLLEGE FOR LADIES.

The circumstances that led to my being elected president of a new college, and the first woman to whom that honorable title was accorded, though so many others have deserved it better, are thus narrated by my mother to the stenographer:

In 1868 Frank went to Europe. Her good friend, Kate Jackson, paid all the expenses of their trip, which cost about $12,000 in gold, at the time when gold was at a premium. We rented Rest Cottage to Rev. Mr. Safford and family, friends of ours from Oberlin, and I boarded with them for a year. The next year my son and his family moved into our house, and I boarded with them a year. Then we closed the house, and I went to Churchville to visit our relatives and await my daughter's coming. Frank and Kate returned in September of 1870, and we three reopened Rest Cottage, where I have lived ever since.
That winter we did all of our own work, not because we could not have a girl, for Kate had no lack of money, but after such a tremendous outing as those two had been through, they seemed to enjoy hugely the idea of hiding away out of sight and hearing, and keeping house for themselves. Frank occupied herself chiefly with the outdoor part, chopping kindling, bringing in wood and coal, and doing the rougher work, while Kate and I attended to the culinary and ornamental departments. One day when Frank was busy nailing down the stair-carpet, Mrs. Dr. Kidder, whose husband was then leading professor in the Theological Seminary, came from her home across the street, and taking a seat on the stairs, said, "Frank, I am amazed at you. Let some one else tack down carpets, and do you take charge of the new college." "Very well," answered Frank; "I shall be glad to do so. I was only waiting to be asked."

Comparing the opportunities for womanhood then and now, the old Persian proverb comes instinctively to mind, "More kingdoms wait thy diadem than are known to thee by name." Coincident with the advance of woman into an unknown realm, began another epoch in my life, as I was made President of the Evanston College for Ladies.

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On St. Valentine's day, 1871, I was elected to this position, and at once entered on my duties.

Our college was, indeed, something new under the sun. Its beginning was on this wise: Mrs. Mary F. Haskin, wife of the kind friend who gave me my first financial send-off, was a woman of decidedly progressive thought. She believed that women should be a felt force in the higher education, not only as students, but as professors and trustees. She believed that to have men only in these positions, was to shut up one of humanity's eyes, and that in the effort to see all around the mighty subject of education with the other, a squint had been contracted that was doing irreparable damage to the physiognomy of the body politic. Therefore, Mrs. Haskin ordered her handsome carriage and notable white horses one fine day, and calling on half a score of the most thoughtful women in Evanston, proposed to them to found a woman's college, in which women should constitute the board of trustees, a woman should be president and confer diplomas, and women should be, for the first time, recognized and proved as the peers of men in administrative power. She pointed out that even at Vassar College the president and all the trustees were masculine, while at Mt. Holyoke, where one would think the spirit of Mary Lyon would have left more liberal traditions, men only were trustees, and a man always conferred the diplomas that young women's study and older women's teaching had combined to earn. Evanston is the paradise of women, and Mrs. Haskin found abundant preparation of heart and answer of tongue among the earnest Christian matrons to whom she addressed herself. A meeting of ladies was appointed in her own home, at which measures were instituted to secure a charter and empower Mrs. Bishop Hamline with fourteen other ladies, and their successors, as trustees.

Our genial townsman, Hon. Edward S. Taylor, was in the Legislature that winter [1869-70], and through his influence the Charter was secured. Meanwhile, my own beloved Alma Mater, the "Northwestern Female College," was in full career, for although its founder, Prof. Wm. P. Jones, had been consul in China for several years, he had placed the institution in 1862-63 under care of Mrs. Lizzie Mace McFarland, and, later, that admirable College president, Rev. Dr. Lucius H. Bugbee, had

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been at its head. Professor Jones himself had now returned and for a year resumed the leadership. But by wise diplomacy Mrs. Haskin, president of the new board of trustees, and those associated with her, secured the transfer of the Charter of the old college into their own hands, with a choice list of alumnae, the formalities of the change taking place in the old Evanston church at the final "Commencement" of the old College in 1871. Meanwhile, in 1869, Rev. Dr. (afterward Bishop) E. O. Haven had resigned the presidency of Michigan University to accept that of the Northwestern University at Evanston, none of whose advantages had been open to women until this man, who stood second to no college president in the nation, made it a condition of his coming to us, that every door should be flung wide to the gentler half of humanity. How many times have I thought, with regrets unutterable, of what it would have meant to my own education had all those doors been open in 1858! But this was not at all in the plans of the good men who founded and controlled the University, and had not Dr. Haven been born with the diplomatic skill of a Talleyrand he never could have fitted the conflicting elements of the three educational interests — old College, new College, and University — into one, of which the University was from the first, not only helm, but wheel and rudder. It was he who held high counsel with Professor Jones when the latter, strenuous — and justly so — for the dignity and historic perpetuation of an enterprise into which he had poured heroic years of toil, was loth to see his pet College merged in ours. It was Dr. Haven who arranged for the Evanston College for Ladies to be so correlated with the University, that, under his presidency, the two moved on in perfect unison; and had he remained until the new order of things became fully established it is my confident belief that ours would have been to-day the greatest, because the most thoroughly American University extant.

I see him now, medium-sized, alert-moving, most modest and unostentatious of men, with his fine brow, mild, but keen-flashing eyes, dominant nose of Roman mould, and his "smile as sweet as summer." His voice was musical, his manner winsome, but behind all, his purpose was unconquerable as Caesar's. Unlike almost every other person I have known, he had the piercing mental gaze that could divide the accidental from the necessary

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in this purpose; the latter he followed with the rapidity and lightness of a greyhound. Most men carry luggage in following their purpose; he laid aside every weight; they load with small shot and their fire is scattering; his was always Sharpe's rifle — one ball, and hit the game; they tithe mint and cummin, he tithed nothing, but made all gleaners welcome to his harvest-field. More than once I heard him say, "I think a man who has the ability and who manifests the spirit of Professor Jones, should have a good position in our University. He gives up the hope of a lifetime in order that the educational interests of Evanston may become unified, and this action should be recognized not in words only but in deeds."

He wanted only what came to him naturally as the result of his own reaction on the forces about him, and rejoiced to see the dignity and prerogatives of others fully acknowledged, not fearing for his own. How much of life's present friction will be avoided when the average mind discovers that the central aim of any life is best conserved by choosing for one's motto "In non-essentials, liberty"! But the trouble is, only a great mind can so take in the scope of life to perceive that most things are relatively, and all things are absolutely, non-essential except "truth in the inward parts"; and that to apply that truth more perfectly to heart and home, to state and world affairs, is more than all burnt-offerings and sacrifices. Dr. Haven saw the truth of family government — the fatherly plus the motherly eye applied to the problem of educating young people; and he followed it more grandly than any other educator of his time.

With such a master spirit among us, so intuitive in thought, magnanimous in heart, and harmonious in action, we launched the fearless ship that flew the pennon "Evanston College for Ladies."

But we suffered from plethora of plans coupled with such a dearth of dimes that something had to be done, and that right speedily.

Now came to the front, with her unmatched gift of imparting enthusiasm, Mrs. A. H. Hoge, the new president of our "Women's Educational Association," and the distinguished

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yoke-fellow of Mrs. Mary A. Livermore in the days when a sanitary fair meant victory. I shall never forget the morning when this woman, one of the few truly great whom I have ever known, stood up in a meeting of ladies in the Evanston Presbyterian Church, of which she was a leader, and told us to preempt at once the coming fourth of July, the University campus and the Chicago press, in the interest of "our girls." Forthwith, we said we would, and verily we kept our vow. But Mrs. Hoge had never recovered from the rigors of her army work, and she had many cares besides, hence could only give us the splendid impetus of her magnetic words and presence. It remained for the new "college president," minus a college, to show what she could do, and to carry out the plan. Two years of foreign study and travel were hardly the best preparation for a work so practical, but it was a case of "sink or swim," and I took my lessons in the middle of the stream as many another has been forced to do. For three months I slept and woke FOURTH OF JULY. It haunted me like a ghost, nay, it inspired me like a good fairy. Men and women rallied to my help as if I were their very own.

Although ours was a Methodist college, Episcopal ladies were on the Committee, Presbyterians bore the battle's brunt, Congregationalists cheered on the battalions and did not a little of the fighting, while Baptists were outdone by nobody, and Methodists headed by Mrs. Mary F. Haskin, president of our Board of Trustees were "at it and all at it," intent upon making "The Women's Fourth of July" celebration what it was, the most complete ever known in the Northwest and the most unique ever held upon the continent.

As a key-note I prepared a circular, of which the following is a synopsis. It went out by cartloads, indeed Uncle Sam's special express was our chief base of operations, next to the newspapers:

CIRCULAR LETTER.
Addressed to all who are interested in the girls of the Northwest:

It is a very easy matter to sneer at the "Girl of the Period," to discourse upon her frivolity, lack of perseverance, and general "shiftlessness," It is a less easy, but not at all an impossible matter to cure her of these faults.

Is not this last the more excellent, as it is the more generous, way?

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How can we better begin this cure than by proving to the period's much, berated girl that we set no higher value upon any member of our complex American society than upon herself; that we believe her worthy of the best we have to offer; that we regard her faults, not as inherent, but, rather, as the result of a defective training, for which, not to put too fine a point upon it, she is to be pitied, and we are to be blamed?
We believe the common sense of the American people has arrived at this conclusion, and that a higher education for women is demanded by the spirit of the age.

Perhaps this sentiment has nowhere found a more correct exponent than E. O. Haven, LL.D., to whose efforts women owe their admission to the foremost University in the United States, that of Michigan, and, more recently, to the Northwestern University at Evanston, near Chicago, of which Dr. Haven is now president.

And perhaps no attempt to utilize this new and noble public sentiment has been so commensurate with its progressive character as the establishment of the

EVANSTON COLLEGE FOR WOMEN,
under the control of a Woman's Board of Trustees, and intended to supplement the advantages of the

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY.
To foster the interests of this new institution, an
EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION
has been formed, of which Mrs. A. H. Hoge (whose name is endeared to all hearts by her devotion to the "Boys in Blue" throughout the great Rebellion), is the President, and of which prominent ladies, connected with the various denominations, are officers.

Under the auspices of this association, it is proposed to hold at

EVANSTON,
NEXT FOURTH OF JULY,
A GRAND CELEBRATION,
at which time the corner-stone of the new building will be laid; orations will be pronounced by some of our most celebrated countrymen, and

A BANQUET
worthy of the occasion will be served.

Notice is hereby given of the PRE-EMPTION OF THE FOURTH OF JULY in the interest of

THE GIRLS OF THE NORTHWEST.

Then followed an appeal to editors, pastors, etc., to help in the new movement; also a call for "supplies" for the tables, fancy articles, flowers, "and any curious or useful objects which

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will add to the interest and profit of the occasion." The call was signed by the "Committee on behalf of the Evanston Woman's Educational Association," consisting of Emily Huntington Miller, corresponding secretary Ladies' Board of Trustees; Mrs. Mary B. Willard, recording secretary of the same; Mrs. General Beveridge, Mrs. Sarah B. Bradley, and myself, as president of the college.

We went to the village authorities and modestly asked for one of its parks as the building site of our college, and, to their everlasting credit be it said, they gave it. We had the foundation laid for the elegant Woman's College Building and arranged that the corner-stone should be set in place at the great celebration. We induced the famous Ellsworth Zouaves to come and drill inside an inclosure on the campus, for an admission fee; we got a generous jeweler to give a silver ball for which the College base-ball-ists of the country were invited to compete. On the lake we arranged (that is, Gen. A. C. Ducat did) for a regatta with a winner's prize; in the University chapel we had an amateur play, in which our young "society people," led by my friend, Kate Jackson, performed three separate times that day to crowded audiences, at so much a head. A general of the army (afterward Gov. John L. Beveridge) was persuaded to act as marshal; a United States Senator, Hon. J. R. Doolittle, of Wisconsin, pronounced the oration; a distinguished public reader, Prof. R. L. Cumnock, gave the Declaration of Independence; Gov. John Evans, of Colorado, for whom our town is named, headed a subscription list that aggregated thirty thousand dollars, and the ladies served three thousand dollars' worth of dinners, notwithstanding all the picnickers that filled our groves. The Chicago press had during three months given us ten thousand dollars' worth of free advertising; special trains and steamboat excursions bore the people to our feast with waving flags and bands of I music, but there was no clang of war; no cannon, fire-cracker or torpedo was tolerated at the Women's Fourth of July. The climax of the day was the laying of the corner-stone, a woman, Mrs. Haskin, assisting in the ceremony, at which a beautiful dedication song by Emily Huntington Miller, one of our trustees, was sung. On this occasion we all walked over from the campus to the park in long procession, and my place was beside

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my brotherly and prescient friend, Rev. Dr. E. O. Haven, who told me, as we went, how deeply he rejoiced in all the on-going movements by which women were coming to their kingdom. "When they are fully come," he said, with that beautiful smile not to be forgotten by any who have seen it, "there will be peace, even as here to-day they have preserved the peace for us; never before was there a Fourth of July without noise or accident."

It now became my duty to present the plan of the new college to good people wherever I could get a hearing. The Congregational Church in Evanston was the scene of my first appearance, and the ordeal was difficult, but Dr. Haven also spoke, and that made my trial less. Rock River Conference welcomed me most courteously, and in many towns of the Northwest I sang the praises of the great "Northwestern" and its sturdy little sister, the Evanston College for Ladies. All that summer we planned the course of study, and my pen was busy in pursuit of pupils, who, on the opening day, filled the old college where I had graduated twelve years before, and which we had leased until our new building should be completed.

Our pupils of the Evanston College for Ladies were to have all the school privileges of the University at the regular tuition rates; they were to take music, art, and several other studies at our own college building, and were to be under our care exclusively as to morals and manners. For those who did not wish to pursue any of the University courses, one having a larger proportion of English and modern languages was carefully prepared. As planned by Dr. Haven and ourselves, we had, in fact, five departments; Modern Languages, Fine Arts, Music, Health, Home and Home Industries.

206 Chapter IX.

SELF-GOVERNMENT FOR GIRLS.

As I follow, in these later years, the thorny path of a reformer, I sometimes think how good and pleasant would have been the quiet life, so universally approved, of a teacher of girls. But one confident belief gives me grace and courage to go on, and it is this:

"My bark is wafted to the strand
By breath divine,
And on the helm there rests a Hand
Other than mine."

In Evanston College for Ladies, for the first and only time in my history as a teacher, I was for one year free to work my will as an elder sister of girls — for this was then my idea of my relation to them; now, I would say, "a mother to girls."

Dr. J. B. Chess, of Chicago, yearly gave a gold medal for good manners, which keyed the whole school to a higher ideal, and Miss Kate Jackson, who had the French classes, joined me in offering prizes for neatness and tastefulness in rooms.

Every Friday afternoon a lecture was given in the College chapel at which the "Church Roll-Call" was had, to which all lady students were expected to respond. History, biography, books and reading, art, travel, manners, health, and many other kindred subjects were brought forward. Mrs. Kate Doggett, President of the Fortnightly (Chicago), gave several illustrated lectures on art; Rev. Dr. L. H. Chamberlain, spoke on his favorite "Philip Van Artevelde," and a lawyer of Evanston, Mr. L. H. Boutell, gave his reminiscences of Margeret Fuller Ossoli. My own talks were frequent, and related chiefly to what I am fond of calling "Moral Horticulture." Every day each pupil had twenty minutes alone in her room. We did not at all prescribe what should be done, but what we hoped was perfectly well known — it was a breathing place for heavenly thoughts. I valued this time more than any other except evening prayers.

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I constantly visited the young ladies in their rooms, never once being met with coldness, and almost always we knelt together to ask God's blessing on those at home, and those here, who were often lonely because home was far away.

On the first Sunday after the college opened, one of my pupils came to my room saying: "Miss Willard, we can't bear to go in a procession over to the church. They say it has always been the custom, but if you would trust us to go independently, I feel sure you would never have occasion to regret it; for we would all be loyal to you and to the school."

My heart responded, "Amen and amen. We will find a more excellent way." Very soon a request came that the young women might be members of the (open) literary societies of the University, of which there were four, the Hinman and Adelphic in College, the Philomathean and Euphronian in the Preparatory School. But these societies all met in the evening, the distance from our college was six or seven squares, the young ladies had always been strictly kept to many rules, and when they left the college grounds to go to public audiences were to be accompanied by teachers. The idea of their participating in debates with young men, and making orations, was unheard of, and "besides," quoth some objectors, "some one of them might prevent a young man from having as frequent opportunity to speak as he otherwise would have had, or might possibly be elected president of a society — such an improper position for a young lady to hold!" But Dr. Haven thought the objections were all mole-hills, and the advantages were mountain high. "Here they can measure swords," he said; "here, even more than in the recitation room, young men will learn that young women are their peers. It will break down the prejudice against woman's public speech and work; it will refine the young men and develop intellectual power in the girls — precisely what each class most needs."

But he warned me more than once that the success of the venturesome experiment was in my hands. Teachers could not well attend the societies; their presence would be irksome. The girls must go and come at night, and they must do this always and strictly by themselves.

I remembered the clandestine visits of "University boys" to our college grounds in former days, the secret sleigh-rides and

208

moonlight walks, from which my sister and I had always kept aloof, but of which we dared not tell, and I knew that in our alma mater there had been no more, if as much, of this as in the average girls' boarding school. Could I brave public opinion and take the risks on a method never before applied to a co-education school? Was it right thus to hazard our sacred cause? Much I mused and often prayed.

One evening soon after these requests for larger liberty, I asked my pupils to remain after prayers. I can see the bright double parlors planted out to my beautiful garden of girls. I told them all that has been stated here, all my scruples, aspirations, hopes. I told them how I came to Evanston as a school-girl about thirteen years before, and of my "ne'er-do-weel" term in this very college, of my conversion, and, finally, of my heart-break when my sister Mary died. Then I laid before them my plan of school government, which was to put it almost wholly into their own hands, to have no rules except those that they and their teachers felt to be of vital importance, and closed with some such statement as the following: "Here is an enterprise the like of which was never seen, a college with women trustees and faculty, a woman president and women students. Up yonder in the grove is a first-class men's college, and to every one of its advantages we are invited, on one condition — all of us must at all times be Christian ladies. Now, girls, I place your destiny in your own hands; I confide mine to you, also, for this is my own home town, and my good name is more to me than life. Besides all this, and greater, the destiny of this woman's college, and, to some degree, that of the co-education experiment, rests with you young creatures, fair and sweet. God help you to be good!" We knelt in prayer for grace and guidance, and then, with my faithful faculty, I passed from the room, leaving the girls to organize, according to the written plans I had previously explained to the leading pupils, their "Roll of Honor" and "Self-governed Societies."

How nobly they fulfilled their trust! I used oftentimes to wish that I behaved as well. On Sunday, when they entered church after their own sweet will, with what pride, even such as might thrill a mother's breast, I noted their unexceptionable manners. No whispering, no tittering; and woe to the youth

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who tried to slip sly billets-doux into the hands of "my girls" as they entered or left the sacred edifice. How many a Friday night at ten o'clock, lying in my bed at Rest Cottage, four blocks from the Woman's College and on the same street, I have heard the light steps of that long procession going home from the University building, where they, separating into four groups as they entered the campus, had attended their respective societies, and I have wept to think how true and self-respecting a college full of girls could be! The town pronounced my method "a success"; Dr. Haven was satisfied — which meant everything to me — and a teacher not now in the University, one who thought my "government" was "hair-brained," said, "The trouble is, these girls are quite too loyal; they make a hobby of it."

Here are my first letter as president to the Roll of Honor girls, and their "general principles," together with the pledge of the higher grade:

DEAR AND TRUSTED FRIENDS — In your novel and important position, you have need of all the guidance Divine and human that you can possibly obtain; the reputation of the college is largely in your hands, hence as you already possess the unreserved confidence of your teachers, you have been intrusted by them with intricate and delicate responsibilities. Your conduct, your conversation, your scholarship, your manners, will be henceforth carefully observed by all your fellow-students. Impressed as I am most deeply with these thoughts, I shall implore for you the guidance of the Supreme Power in your new undertaking, and I especially urge you to do this in your private devotions and in each one of your committee meetings. When we begin with prayer, we may be sure we are on the right track to a genuine success.
Now, as to the practical workings of this new venture, the faculty suggests:

1. That you appoint a regular time and place of meeting.

2. That you send in each week a written report to the faculty meeting on Monday evening.

3. That to this end you appoint a secretary.

4. That you have a committee for each literary society at the University and the Preparatory department, and also a church committee.

5. That you get a list of all the lady boarders in the college who propose to join, and ascertain which society is preferred. Then assign to each sub-committee those going to its society.

6. That you all go together and return together, and in all cases unaccompanied by gentlemen, and that you never go in companies of fewer than four.

7. That you leave at the close of the literary exercises at ten o'clock.

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8. That if experience proves it to be impracticable for the University and Preparatory detachments to meet after the exercises, that the two return separately, but those from both the Preparatory societies together, and those from both University societies together.

9. That the young ladies sit together and choose certain seats, which they can retain henceforth.

10. That in regard to quiet deportment on the street, attention during the exercises, faithfulness in performing duties of the society, the committee report to the faculty as a committee, thus relieving every one from personal embarrassment.

11. Any member of the Roll of Honor who regards this as too much to undertake must speak now or ever after hold her peace.

On behalf of Faculty,
FRANCES E. WILLARD.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF THE ROLL OF HONOR.
Roll of Honor girls must be examples to the flock. They will not, of course, disregard the smallest of our few regulations. They will not ignore study hours, enter rooms in study hours, keep lights burning after bell, be late at meals or recitations, be noisy or uproarious either in or out of school hours. They will be low-voiced and gentle-mannered, kind and considerate toward all, and just as much above reproach as any of their teachers.

They will not be regarded as Roll of Honor young ladies after they have transgressed a single regulation, and their places will be supplied by others, and the number enlarged by those whose lives among us are above reproach.

[By order of the Faculty.]

PLEDGE OF THE SELF-GOVERNED GIRLS.
I promise so to conduct myself that if every other pupil followed my example our school would need no rules whatever, but each young lady would be trusted to be a law unto herself.

I promise that I will always try to do the things that make for peace.

I wish to have in my book the list of the original members of this society who are among the choicest of my friends.

ELECTED BY THE FACULTY.
Sarah Heston,
Belle Webb,
Emma Warner,
Susan D. Mitchell.
ELECTED BY THE PUPILS.
Mary Pattison,
Jennie Pattison,
Ella Wheeler,
Belle Miller.
Alice Yaple.

The first list was limited to nine, because we wished to make it a high dignity to belong, and because we could rally around this nucleus, when its character was established, more

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successfully than if we had placed a larger number on the list at the beginning.

The constitution of the Roll of Honor Glub contained the following:

The general principles of this club shall be to cooperate with the Faculty in securing good order and lady-like behavior among the boarding pupils, both in study and recreation hours, in inspiring a high sense of honor, personal responsibility and self-respect, and especially conducting in this spirit the attendance of the young ladies at the literary societies and church.

As this method developed, it was my custom to say at the beginning of a term, "We will have no rules whatever, just so long as everything is quiet, your time diligently occupied and your punctuality without flaw. We have no need of rules. Let us see how long we can go without them. I will post a timetable in the hall, and let us live by it. Regard the teachers as you would your mother and elder sisters at home. You advise with them as to what is best for you in every way, feel free to do the same with us; that is what we are here for."

The girls were so delighted to have no rules that the older ones gave little comfort to the younger when they began misbehaving, which they did, not from bad intention, but on account of thoughtlessness. After awhile, however, we would see the necessity of some one rule, then it would be announced. Every girl in school was a candidate for the Roll of Honor, which distinction could only be reached by one month of faultless deportment and punctuality. So it fell out that for the first month we had no rules, on the principle that "A new broom sweeps clean." In the second month, we had almost no need of rules, for every one was on the keen stretch to reach the Roll of Honor, and the third month all being anxious to remain at that high grade, there was an esprit de corps in the school that held the pupils to the mark. So that the bondage of school discipline, of which I had had so much always as a teacher and member of faculties, was reduced to a minimum, indeed, became almost inappreciable. This was especially true when we had graduated from the Roll of Honor grade enough of our older and more prominent girls into the Self-governed class, so that their noble behavior was indeed " an example to the flock," an incentive to every one below

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them, because the self-governed grade was open to the youngest. I remember that my little cousin, Rilla Norton, when only twelve years of age, not only attained this honor but ever afterward maintained it. I sent this letter to my pupils when the second term began:

EVANSTON, ILL., January 11, 1873.
My Dear "Self-governed" and "Roll of Honor" Girls — There are two things of which I wished to speak at your meeting to-day, but I shall not be able to attend, hence, I send you this "encyclical":

1. In relation to the standing of the old pupils whom we welcome back to the college this term. Having great confidence in your judgment, I ask you to take their cases into careful consideration and report to the faculty what, in your judgment, will be the best way to arrange the matter. Remember that you thus establish a "precedent" and that "precedents" are often inconvenient unless very general in their application.

2. The subduing and controlling of the vexing spirit called "noise" is one of the most difficult problems to a household that aspires to be harmonious and peaceful. Last term I spent more breath upon this theme than I intend to spare from nobler occupations for the future. During vacation this revelation has come to me:

That Roll of Honor club can do whatsoever it will. Thanks to the high-minded integrity and good common sense of its members, the problem of membership in the literary societies is solved to the satisfaction of all concerned. Thanks to them, also, the uproar that once disgraced our chapel on Friday afternoon is quelled. What can they not achieve? I will submit to them this subject of quietness in the college building, ask them to secure it for us by such means as they see fit, and to be examples of it in the future as in the past. Let us see what their inventive faculties can do about it. They have proved themselves, thus far, equal to any emergency; they will again.

So I leave the subject with you. The good order and quiet of your temporary home ought surely to be as important to you as it can be to your teachers.

One thing more. Please elect ushers for next Friday P. M. Don't let your meetings stagnate. Get up new things. Have wide-awake critics to tell you your faults, appoint at least two, one for our end of the street and one for the opposite.

Always affectionately yours,
FRANCES E. WILLARD.

They replied by sending me the following:

We, the undersigned, do pledge ourselves, in order to subdue the noise and disturbance which has been of late and is now a growing evil in our school, to faithfully observe the following resolutions:
Resolved: 1. That we will not congregate in the halls or on the stairs.

2. That we will avoid loud talking in passing through the halls.

3. That in going to and from the dining-room we will be quiet, also while at the table.

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4. That in passing to the chapel and before the exercises commence, we do each take it upon ourselves by our example and otherwise to do all we can to maintain the best of order.
5. That, during the meditation hours, those of us who remain in the parlor will try so to conduct ourselves as not to disturb the teachers, or those who desire to study.

6. That we, as members of the Roll of Honor, do pledge ourselves to remember and live up to the vows which we made when placed on the roll, that we may retain the confidence of our teachers, the respect and esteem of all, and that the injunction, "Study to be quiet," shall not be forgotten by us.

After one year's successful trial, the plan was officially outlined for the public in the following language:

GOVERNMENT.
The phrases made and provided for literature of the catalogue style will not be employed under this head. "Mild but firm," "of the parental type," have been the usual changes rung when this fruitful topic was under consideration.

The general basis of government in this institution is, that merit shall be distinguished by privilege. Any young lady who establishes for herself a trustworthy character will be trusted accordingly. After a probation of one month, any one who, during this time, has been loyal to the regulations of the school, and has not once required reproof, will have her name inscribed upon the Roll of Honor, and will be invested with certain powers and responsibilities usually restricted to the faculty. The Roll of Honor has its constitution, officers and regular meetings, and sends written reports to the teachers relative to the trusts of which it is made the depository. A single reproof conditions, and two reproofs remove any of its members, who can regain their places by the same process through which they were at first attained. Those who during one entire term have not been conditioned (by a single reproof) upon the Roll of Honor, are promoted to the Self-governed List, and give this pledge: "I will try so to act that, if all others followed my example, our school would need no rules whatever. In manners and in punctuality I will try to be a model, and in all my intercourse with my teachers and school-mates, I will seek, above all else, the things that make for peace."

Thenceforward, these young ladies do as they please so long as they please to do right. Every pupil in school is eligible, first to the Roll of Honor; next to a place among the Self-governed, hence there is no ground for jealousy. Scholarship does not enter into the requirements of admission — character is placed above all competition here.

A year's trial of this plan has proved that it is practicable, and that school discipline may vitally contribute to the growth of noble, self-reliant character. The ideal set before each pupil, the sum of all "regulations," the proverb of the school, is this: "Just be a Christian Lady."

N. B. — At the close of the year, twelve young ladies were on the Self-governed List, and all the rest were on the Roll of Honor.

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Successful candidates were promoted to the Roll of Honor, or the Self-governed grade, at evening prayers, pledging themselves before the school and receiving the right hand of fellowship.

I think our girls felt as did the young knights of old, and held their vows as sacredly. To show the care they exercised, I copy a note from the Roll of Honor girls at College Cottage:

MISS WILLARD AND MEMBERS OF FACULTY — The Roll of Honor have decided that Miss — and Miss — remain on the Junior Grade, and Miss — should be on the same grade if at all on the Roll of Honor.
Also by unanimous vote that none be promoted to the Self-governed List until next term.

We pasted in the parlor the list of the Roll of Honor, and Self-governed girls, and printed in the catalogue, next to the faculty, the names of their leaders. I will copy them here, for I like to link those noble names and memories with the story of my life:

Chairmen of the Roll of Honor, Belle B. Webb, first term; Julia D. McArthur, second term; Jemmy E. Pattison, third term. Chairmen of Roll of Honor, at College Cottage, Sarah E. Cathcart, first; Mary E. Wood, second; R. Frank Remington, third.

Without noble coadjutors in the faculty, this system could not have succeeded, but we were a unit in purpose, plans and personal affection. Our faculty meetings were a refreshment to jaded nerves. Never as a white ribbon leader have I been supported more ably or more warmly than by those devoted and gifted women whose names I wish to string on a rosary of perpetual and endeared remembrance: Minerva B. Norton, Kate A. Jackson, Evelyn C. Crosby, Harriet E. Reed, H. Maria Pettengill, Ada F. Brigham, Fanny D. Smith.

Among our teachers not boarding at the college were Oscar A. Mayo, Anna S. Lewis, Mary L. McClure, Ida M. Kessler, William Arnold. As lecturers on physiology and hygiene, we had at different times the following physicians: Mary A. Thompson, Sarah Hackett Stevenson, Mary J. Safford.

My friend, Professor Charles C. Bragdon, reared in Evanston, a graduate of our University, and with his mother and her family our nearest neighbors during his college life, sends me the following reply to the question, "How long have you governed by my method, and how does it work?" He says, "Used this method fourteen years," and adds this letter:

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LASELL SEMINARY, AUBURNDALE, MASS., January 24, 1889.
DEAR FRIEND — After a residence of three months, a committee of twelve pupils, chosen indiscriminately by the pupils, nominates candidates for the Self-governed List and Roll of Honor. Each one of the twelve, without consultation with any one, and without knowledge as to how any other one of the committee votes, writes her list of candidates. Those who receive a majority of the twelve votes for the Self-governed rank are made into a list, and those receiving a majority for the Roll of Honor, into a second list. The teachers review these lists in assembly, talking over each name and discussing such facts as to each pupil's conduct and spirit as may be brought out, more weight being given to spirit than conduct. Where the teachers' votes agree with the pupils' list, the candidates are confirmed. Where the teachers differ, the pupils' judgment is usually taken, though not always. If grave reason for differing appears, the teachers change a name from one list to the other, or remove from both lists. The lists thus settled are read before the school with such comments as seem fitting. We try to emphasize trustworthiness as against petty details.

At the end of the next term (three months) the same is repeated, some elevated, some, though not often any, demoted.

Our Self-governed do as they please, have all the privileges of teachers, subject only to the general order of exercises, such as to go to bed at 9:30, to rise at 6:45, etc.

The Roll of Honor have certain privileges, inferior to those of the Self-governed. Those not on either list are not reckoned as degraded, but as "not having yet attained." If at any time special reason arise, members are removed from either list, rarely some are promoted "between times." I believe in the method. I believe all our teachers come to believe in it although new ones may not at first.

The pupils of both grades are put upon their honor and helped to live for the general good, to be good because they are trusted to do well. There are cases always of incomplete comprehension of the spirit of the thing, owing to incomplete moral development. The effort is to develop the honor sense in such, and to hold up to disrepute the "being good" for the loaves and fishes, i.e., the privileges. The danger in the plan is the discouraging of those who do not attain so soon as they think they ought, and in the development of self-conceit among those elevated. These dangers are constantly striven against by personal interviews as symptoms develop and the attempt is to deepen a sense of both obligation and privilege to do right because it is right and because they are responsible, first and last, to themselves.

Yours sincerely,
CHARLES C. BRAGON.

The Woman's Educational Society gradually merged into the Educational Aid Association, to which Rev. O. Huse, Isaac Hitt and Dr. D. K. Pearson were the earliest contributors; Mrs. Hannah Pearson is the present chairman of the committee. It

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owns a large building called College Cottage and many women of exceptional gifts and earnestness have been helped to help themselves to an education under its auspices.

Concerning physical education, we made the following declaration:

The young ladies walk over a mile a day in going to and returning from their various recitations. Lectures on the care of health are given by Dr. Mary J. Safford, the well-known Chicago physician. Common sense applied to dress is one of the problems in the solution of which we earnestly solicit the co-operation of our patrons.

Another of our inventions was " The Good Behavior Club," which proved to be a favorite feature of the school. Teachers and pupils were all members and shared the offices. Representations were given of all social observances, from the White House reception to the morning call; personations of distinguished characters, adding the dramatic charm so attractive to both young and old; the fact that gentlemen participated in these, by no means detracted from the interest manifested.

"The Good Behavior Club" had its "Question Box" into which were dropped anonymous queries and criticisms of all sorts relating to care of the toilet, the etiquette of occasions, and the small, sweet courtesies of daily life. While many of these were based upon observations involving the deficiencies of individuals, the strictly impersonal character of the comments shielded the sensibilities of each and all. I found this club a barrier against the "self-activity" that in my own student days had led me to plan escapades just for the novelty of doing so, and that to have the amusements of my girls going forward under their teachers' eyes, contributed greatly to that esprit de corps which is the first requisite of success in all organized effort from the family circle to the great circle of nationality.

I believe there is a hint here for our "Y" societies of the white ribbon, and so will copy an article of mine from The Tripod, in my day our college paper at Evanston, hoping that its hints may help them to a new line of work:

Why it is not just as sensible to teach good manners as a theory and art as it is to teach singing, I can not understand. In a democracy like ours good manners ought to be a branch specially attended to in all the schools. Especially would I have it introduced into the public schools and continued throughout the course of study.

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Suppose the perpetrators of the "pudding-stick fun," to which we were treated in Philomathean Hall the other evening, had been trained from the pinafore-age to "habits of good society " — should we have had to blush that they and we belonged to the same race?
Americans are angular, uncouth, unkempt. Nothing is more palpably true than this. A French gentleman recently exclaimed after an interview with a high official in our state who, on leaving the room, turned his back to the company: "I will not say that American men have bad manners, but I will say that they have no manners at all." The proofs of an uncultivated origin that meet us on every street corner of our own classic town are beyond enumeration. The "student's slang" (not to mention other varieties!) salutes our ears at every turn. And yet, when it is proposed to teach good manners as one would any other art, to give line upon line, and precept upon precept, and to illustrate and enforce the teaching given by practice and example, many people have only weak sarcasms to offer by way of commentary.

The need of some such teaching, to supplement the random and often nugatory instructions of home, finds another salient illustration in the excuse of Christian parents for sending their children to dancing-schools. "They say our young people must learn ease and grace of deportment, and become familiar with the etiquette of occasions, so that no social entertainment will find them ill at ease." True; and it must be confessed that the drill of the dancing-school renders them more graceful and self-possessed. We have nothing special to say in this connection of the harm that grows out of dancing (not, mark you, out of dancing "in itself," any more than out of swallowing brandy "in itself," but in its associations and results). Read Dr. Bushnell's admirable sermon on "Free to Have Amusements: But Too Free to Want Them," if you would see our position defined at length. Our creed is clear in its declarations on this subject. The people who help the world, and whose names are praised and blessed — whose memories yield perennial fragrance and form the examples of our times — are not the people who have excelled in polka or in waltz. But aside from the merits of the case, there are large numbers of Christian people who send their children to dancing-school for the same object which a class in etiquette would subserve equally well, thus removing the temptation to that concerning which the thoughtful mater familias can not fail to have misgivings.

The foregoing are "after-thoughts" connected with the pleasant entertainment given at the Ladies' College, on a recent evening by the "Good Behavior Club." This organization, numbering nearly forty members, has been for the past term under the care of Miss Smith, of Chicago, teacher of etiquette. Miss Smith has also had classes in the Normal University, the Wesleyan University, at Bloomington, and other institutions. President M. speaks in the highest terms of her success in the institution over which he presides, where a large class of young gentlemen and ladies has been formed.

As for the entertainment at our Ladies' College, it was tasteful, and well conducted, the young ladies having entire charge of the arrangements.

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Whatever others may think, the experiment is a success here; and we congratulate the accomplished young lady who is quietly opening to women a new and attractive employment, and to students an added opportunity to learn and to illustrate "the habits of good society."

In an address on "School Government," before the Woman's Congress, New York City, 1872, I said:

And this brings me to look carefully in upon that model home once more, to find the system of government that shall most conduce to the formation of genuine character in our young people at school. I find there very few fixed rules, and that the continued observance of these by the children as they grow older depends almost wholly upon the disposition they display as they advance in years. I find that the noble, trustworthy boy and girl are trusted, the deceitful and ignoble, governed. So in the school I simply "go and do likewise," applying rules to the unruly, regulations to the irregular. All are placed under a system of restrictions at the first, the simplest that experience pronounces safe, and many find it impossible to work their way up through these to the bracing heights of self-control. I open a "character bank," of which the faculty act as "directors," in which the "deposit" is reputation, of which each student may accumulate as much as he will, and on which he may freely draw, his paper being honored at sight and discounted only when his debit exceeds his balance on the books. Self-government is then the noble possibility of each, the eagerly sought goal of every student, and the exemplars of the school are the "tried and true" of whom it is openly declared that "unto such there is no law " or, to put the point with more decision, "they are not under the law, but under grace." I know these are advanced positions, but I beg you to believe they are not the result of dreamy theorizing, nor the mirage of an unvisited-Utopia.

Between the first and second evening study hours, we had a prayer-meeting of fifteen minutes in a teacher's room. This was perfectly voluntary, but overwhelmingly attended. I can hear yet those clear young voices, singing

"Rock of ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee.
In my hand no price I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling."

How little did I dream that erelong I, who loved it now so well, should gain new love for it, and that the "Crusade," undreamed of then, would bring the "arrest of thought" to

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these dear girls and to me. Of temperance I never spoke, taking it for granted that all was well. Now and then, when especially "worn out," I would take a little of mother's currant wine; on the last winter of my teaching, Dr. Jewell, one of the leaders in our Sunday-school, ordered a keg of beer into my cellar, of which I drank a nauseating glass at dinner, rebelling at every dose, experiencing no benefit, and abjuring it forever when the blessed Crusade wrought its miracle upon our hearts. I then introduced temperance themes to my classes, one and all, as mentioned in the temperance chapters of this chronicle. A missionary society was organized in the college, cooperating with the local auxiliary of the Methodist church at Evanston.

I had all the young ladies (numbering several hundred) in my English composition classes. One feature that was attractive to them was reporting for the Chicago and Evanston papers, for which I arranged, so far as practicable, and with good results.

In teaching my art class at the college, I availed myself of my friend Kate's remarkably fine selection of photographs and stereoscopic views, numbering about eight hundred, including all the leading places that we saw in our long trip abroad. Many of these I had produced on glass so that they could be thrown on the screen of the stereopticon, and described to the entire class at once. It was my earnest hope that, after I had taught the theory and history of the fine arts for a few years, I might be able to prepare a text-book that would be used generally in schools and would furnish the introduction, of which I so much felt the need, to a study of the European galleries and of art in our own land.

It was my wont to open or close my recitations with a few words of prayer, and I could feel the lofty spirit thus imparted to teacher and to pupils.

Good Mrs. Van Cott came to Evanston this first year of the new college (1871-72) and no one present will ever forget the scene in the college parlors when, with illuminated countenance, she talked of God and sang with us her favorite hymn:

"Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove,
With all Thy quickening powers,
Kindle a flame of sacred love
In these cold hearts of ours."

Then she placed her kind hands on every head as going

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around that large circle she asked a blessing upon each and all. The revival that followed was the most memorable ever known in Evanston, and all my girls but two — one of whom was a Catholic, and a very good Christian, by the way — became members of the church. Among all the noble girls whom I had the happiness to see kneeling at the altar, none rejoiced me quite so much as my brilliant Belle Webb, who had fancied herself an infidel, but who from that time steadily developed Christian character throughout her six years' classical course, and is now with her gifted husband, Rev. Dr. Edward Parks, connected with the Methodist University, in Atlanta, Ga.

The Senior class bequeathed us by Professor Jones was the only one, up to the date of its graduation (1872), whose diplomas were conferred by women. I think at Wellesley, during the administration of President Alice Freeman, this was done, as also at Rockford (Ill.) Seminary by Miss Hillard — now Mrs. McLeish — a Vassar graduate and teacher.

It was a noteworthy circumstance that at our first Commencement a woman gave the baccalaureate sermon, Mrs. J. F. Willing, the same who, two years later, presided over the first convention of the National W. C. T. U. At my suggestion our women trustees voted her the title of A. M. I shall never forget the beautiful appearance of our new church at Evanston, bedecked for this "Woman's Commencement" — words significant in many ways. Only the basement was finished, but it was endeared to us by the services of Mrs. Van Cott, and as I stood there under the beautiful arch of evergreen, conferring the diplomas on my six charming seniors, the scene recalled, by contrast, the laying of Heck Hall's corner-stone only six years before, when my gallant friend, Rev. Dr. J. S. Smart, read in sonorous tones the address I had composed, but lacked courage to pronounce.

This was my first presiding on a momentous public occasion, and in looking over the data for the present history I came upon the handsome printed program of that Commencement ceremony. For the benefit of other on-coming presidents among women, I will divulge the fact that what I was to say was all written out inside that program, and the memorandum read as follows:

(Preliminary.) There is a time-honored request "made and provided" for occasions like the present, which must be reiterated, I suppose, at this time, or "Commencement" will be shorn of a cherished prerogative.

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It is my duty, then, to remind our intelligent and thoughtful friends that we are in a church, and that, however much the eloquence of our graduating class may unfit you to carry out the terms of the treaty, it is, nevertheless, expressly stipulated between us that no ruder method of applause shall strike our ears than the mild concussion of manly palms or the fragrant breath of the ever-welcome bouquet.
(On giving the medal for good manners.) A word in explanation of the intention of this award. It does not imply loyalty to school regulations (though the young lady who receives it has not been once reproved for word or act during the entire year); it refers, rather, to the minor moralities, the "small, sweet courtesies" of life; to habitudes of gentle speech and graceful, kindly action; to that nameless charm of manner which springs not alone from a kind, but from a cultured heart and brain. While it affords me profound pleasure thus to decorate Miss Patterson, I beg you to believe that a vast amount of embodied good manners still remains undecorated among "our girls."

Immediately after these exercises there will be a reception at the Ladies' College, to which the Board of Trustees and officers of the College cordially invite all our patrons and friends from abroad, as well as those residing here, also the faculties, alumni and students of all the institutions here.

Please consider the invitation general, cordial and emphatic.

Miss Annie Webster, by the authority of the Board of Trustees of Evanston College for Ladies, I confer upon you the degree of Laureate of Liberal Arts, and in testimony thereof I present you this diploma. By the same authority, I confer upon you (five) each the Degree of Laureate of Science, and in testimony thereof, I present you these diplomas.

My dear young ladies, you have now received from your young Alma Mater the first honors she has given. May He who is the strength of all who trust in Him, help you to fulfill the bright promise of this hour.

Farewell!

In the midst of this first school year occurred that terrible calamity, the Chicago fire. We were sitting at breakfast in Rest Cottage, on Monday morning, October 8, 1871, when a neighbor came in and said, "Did you know that Chicago is burned up?" We thought the lady joking, but her grave face belied the supposition.

"Yes, burned up," she continued, "Court-house and all." We rose with one impulse and went into the beautiful, quiet street. It was more quiet than ever — business seemed suspended, no man was to be seen. A dull, dun-colored atmosphere

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settled over us as the day wore on; its odor was peculiar, composite, and stifling, a total contrast to the pleasant, earthy smell of the prairie fires to which my childhood was accustomed. At ten o'clock the young ladies composing my class in moral philosophy came to recite. They brought me tidings of stone houses crumbling like cardboard in the fierce heat; of the entire business heart of the city taken out; of the homeless, famished ones, many of them now on their way to Evanston, whither they fled, with the flames on their track. The awful situation engrossed us altogether; lessons were not to be thought of, and we all knelt ill prayer to God for the friendless and forsaken.

Later, the rumor came that the fire had gained such headway it was possible that it might come on through twelve miles of woods and fields to Evanston. Absurd as such a supposition seemed, the panic was sufficient to set men plowing furrows of defense, while a corps of students was fitted out with buckets of water and told to stand on guard between our peaceful village and the fiery foe! A committee of safety was organized and we were told to be ready to entertain any refugees that might be sent us. Kate Jackson was keeping our house then, and in her busy, Martha-like fashion she hurried to grocery store, market and coal-dealer that we might be fitted out in a manner suitable to the hard fortunes we would alleviate. We went to the evening train at six o'clock and such a sight I never saw. Our well-favored, tailor-dressed business men crawled off the cars, ragged as cinders and black as chimney-sweeps. Their eyes were red with involuntary tears called out by smoke, not by their gigantic losses, for the Chicago man never bates a jot of heart or hope. Now and then there was one who had not lost, and the rest would pound him on the back in boisterous play, shouting, "String him up to a telegraph pole! — what right has he not to be ruined with the rest?" Men and women were loaded down with baskets of silver, boxes of valuable papers, household relics, and the like.

We had no guests, after all; the distance was too great for those who walked, and most of those who came by cars went to their friends. Several persons brought baskets of precious things, however, asking us to keep until called for.

Thousands camped on the prairie near the city that night,

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and little babies were born, and the sick moaned helplessly under the wide, calm heavens. At midnight the fire was burning so brilliantly that standing on our piazza I could distinctly read my fine-print Testament.

The fire began at 9:30 on the evening of Sunday, October 8, and ended about ten o'clock Tuesday morning, lasting through thirty-six horrible hours. It covered an area of three miles in length by one and a half miles in breadth, or two thousand one hundred acres. The number of buildings destroyed was about seventeen thousand; of people rendered homeless, ninety-eight thousand. Of these, about thirty thousand left the city and about fifty-five thousand were fed by charity. It is estimated that about two hundred persons lost their lives, and over two hundred million dollars' worth of property was destroyed. The cow-barn on DeKoven street, where a frightened bovine kicked over a kerosene lamp, started this greatest conflagration of all history.

I have hardly heard a more heroic story of this unmatched calamity than that of Ina Coolidge, one of my pupils. On the day before the fire I had gone with her to the city Eye Infirmary, Dr. Annie Reid being with us, and a skilled hand had operated on one of Miss Coolidge's eyes for strabismus. The quiet way in which she laid her little form down on the operating table, crossed her hands in prayer and submitted to the ansesthetic; the sweet, bright look when she said, "Oh, Miss Willard, we are all in heaven and you are the center of our band!" have always remained with me, since they brought the tears to my eyes as I stood by her side. The flowing blood and bandaged eyes — both bandaged, so that she was helpless — were pitiful to see. We sent her to the Sherman House with her trusty room-mate. There they were to stay for a few days, but that night came the awful conflagration, and the hotel was just in its path. My pupil said the scene was terrible, with screaming women and cursing men, nobody willing to help another; people and trunks bumping their way along the stairs, while din of bells and puff of fire-engines made up a horrid orchestra. In all this the blindfolded girl never once lost her equipoise of mind. She would not take the bandage from her eyes, but waited till the scampering crowd was well-nigh gone, took her room-mate by the hand, and the two

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girls started out alone. She noted the quarter from which came the wind and roar of flames, and away they sped through the livid inferno, not knowing, in that strange city, what direction they had taken until, hours afterward, they found themselves at the Milwaukee depot, on the West Side, and the next day, while we were in breathless anxiety about them, they appeared climbing the college stairs at Evanston!

All the newspaper offices were burned, but I remember the Evening Mail, with which my brother was soon after connected, and all the other dailies, soon came out as usual, looking primitive as the frontier. We found Oliver and his friend Hobart in a downright "piney-wood shanty," a few days afterward, working away at a drygoods-box table with all the importance of Chicago editors who had survived. I took my mother and several wagon loads of my pupils to see the ruins, — that being for some time the chief occupation of suburbaners. Tolerably familiar though I was with "the wreck of time" in Egypt, Palestine and at Baalbec, these were the most colossal ruins I had ever seen. The towering fragments, smouldering embers, charred trees and half lifted smoke-cloud; the groups of men and women, roaming about as if bewildered, or delving into the heaps of debris that covered their pulverized homes and melted hearthstones; and, in awful contrast, the sparkling waters of the great lake stretching before us in mocking uselessness and selfish security — the only thing unchanged — made up a picture the most frightful that my eyes have mirrored.

But with a wish to see some smile of hope across the blackness, I asked my girls to take The Greatest Conflagration as a subject of debate, one side advocating the view that good was to come out of it. I think we were first in the field for the optimistic view now generally accepted, and so far realized that when I welcomed the National W. C. T. U. to Farwell Hall, just six years afterward, I was able to say to them, with all the pride of a Chicago suburbaner:

You will see for yourselves our parks and boulevards, the palaces in which we transact our business, and lodge our travelers; the costly churches where we worship, and the costly mansions in which our money-kings are wont to eat and sleep. As you drive along our streets, a vacant lot here and there, a heap of shattered stones, a bit of charred pavement will be
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shown you as the only remaining traces of that city of stone that in a night became a city of ashes, and six years later gleamed forth a city of marble.

That fire touched humanity's heart, and endeared our smitten city to the whole world. Sailors have told me that at the farthest point of the Aleutian Islands, they found that most of the natives knew three English words — Victoria, a dollar, and Chicago.

226 Chapter X.

WHY I LEFT THE UNIVERSITY.

That fire changed the outlook of our college. Its hot breath shriveled our generous Fourth of July subscription list, impoverishing some of our most trusty friends and obliging us to cover up the newly-laid foundations of our great building. We furled our sails and went scudding as best we could before the blast. The year 1872 witnessed the election of Rev. Dr. Haven as Secretary of the Board of Education of the M. E. Church, and his change of residence to New York City. And there rose up as his successor one who "knew not Joseph."

Rev. Dr. C. H. Fowler (now Bishop), a man of brilliant gifts, came to us from the pastorate, never having taught at all, unless very briefly in district school when a student in college. His concept of the situation was totally different from that of Dr. Haven with his long experience in the work of higher education.

To go into the details of this most painful period of my whole life is not my purpose. Suffice it that the bone of contention was the relations of the Evanston College for Ladies to the Northwestern University. Dr. Haven's plan, indorsed by the University trustees, was as follows:

We would recommend that all young women receiving instruction in the University, be requested to enroll themselves as members of the Evanston College for Ladies, and that the young women be under the moral oversight of the faculty of the Ladies' College.

But the new president held that the University faculty of men was the final authority in everything pertaining to those who received instruction there. Hence, when a young woman preferred not to take lessons in penmanship (required of all under our care); when she fell from the Poll of Honor list, or for any reason desired to go outside our college building and thus be free from

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all restrictions except such as related to her recitations at the University, or its Preparatory department, the new president said she might go, and still be in good standing so far as those classes were concerned, when the old president would have said she must do as the women's faculty thought best. This was the "rift in the lute"; it was a readjustment that removed the center of gravity outside the base so far as the Evanston College for Ladies was concerned, and introduced so much friction into our educational machinery that, perceiving the impossibility of going on another year under the same disadvantages, I strongly advocated what the new president favored, viz., such a union of the two institutions as would make their interests identical.

A principle which I always tried to inculcate in the minds of my girls was this — a sentiment of true honor and dignity favors the school not the delinquent. How is it in society? Every noble man brings rogues to justice. He never dreams of shielding them, yet pupils think it honorable to shield each other. And I had myself the same absurd idea during a part of my years at school, but it is a sediment of barbarous ages wherein espionage took the place of free government. What I urged most in the basis between the College and the University was that the University trustees should reaffirm the action which made all young women members of the Woman's College, and that the University faculty should do this with such minutiae of legislation as would relieve the Woman's College from all embarrassment, making our faculty responsible for the young women in all cases save when they were in the recitation room.

In my annual report to its board of trustees, as president of the Evanston College for Ladies, I said (June, 1873):

The general policy during the first year of the college was frequently expressed by Doctor Haven in terms like these:
"I wish the Ladies' College to be responsible for all the lady students in everything; but their recitations, so far as advantageous to them, will be with us, and when they pursue our courses of study they will receive our diploma."

But the practical workings of the school this year indicate a different view of the subject, and it is necessary to the harmony we all desire to maintain that the question be settled.

Will you, therefore, please detail, with as much minuteness as possible, the duties of the president of your college toward the young ladies whose
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names are placed upon its register, stating wherein they are amenable to her authority, and wherein they are not?

For my own part, unless I am thoroughly self-deceived, I desire "the greatest numbers' greatest good"; and I earnestly seek such a solution of the problem, which I now present to you, as shall most directly tend to fulfill the hopes and expectations of those who have stood by our enterprise from the beginning. But I frankly acknowledge that I can not, with self-respect, longer sustain relations so undignified as the last few months have witnessed.

I have no aspersions to make against any one. We have simply arrived by a rather circuitous route, but a no less certain one, at the logical sequence of relationships too dimly outlined at the beginning.

To your combined wisdom, energy and prudence, I submit questions with which I have been loth to burden you, but with which I can no longer contend alone.

I have great confidence in the power of a free and kindly interchange of sentiment between the authorities of the two institutions to set these questions at rest, and to develop a policy which shall render their harmonious interworking practicable.

Let me add a single sentence from an article written by Dr. E. O. Haven, in The Methodist, in which he gave an outline of our plans. He says:

"It is our intention to show that ‘opening a university to women’ and ‘giving ladies an equal chance with gentlemen,’ means something more than to control a university wholly by men, select courses of study fitted only to men, give instruction mostly by men, and then, forsooth, ‘open the doors alike to both sexes.’"

Let me, finally, put myself upon the record, as not at all unfriendly to a closer union between the two schools, providing always that the advance positions we have gained for woman be not sacrificed.

We represent the most progressive educational movement of the world's most progressive age, and timorous as well as weak should we prove ourselves, did we surrender the trusts of which Providence has made us the depositories.

EVANSTON COLLEGE FOR LADIES UNITES WITH NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY.

An agreement was now made to this effect:

In consideration of having turned over to it all the property of the Evanston College for Ladies, the Northwestern University agreed to assume all financial obligations of said college, to complete its building and maintain the institution on a basis of which the principal features were the following:

The party of the first part (University Trustees) further covenants to maintain in all future time a representation of women in the Board of Trustees of the Northwestern University of not less, at any time, than five; and in the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees of the party of the first part there shall always be, at least, one woman, if the women of
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the Board shall so require; and provision shall also be made, by the party of the first part, for an Advisory Committee of women, to be appointed by the Board of Trustees of the party of the second part, to confer with the Executive Committee on all matters of interest to the party of the second part hereafter, and the chairman of this committee shall always be received at the sessions of the Executive Committee of the Northwestern University; and the party of the first part shall also elect a woman to the presiding office of the Woman's College as annexed to or affiliated with the party of the first part, with the title of "Dean," who shall be a member of the Faculty of the University. And the party of the first part shall elect at least one woman to a Professorship in the University, and this perpetually; and shall also confer degrees and diplomas on the students of the said Woman's College entitled thereto, and this in the name of the Trustees and the Faculty of the University; and shall also maintain the same friendly relations now existing between the Woman's Educational Association and the party of the second part (Evanston College for Ladies), and keep up the same as between the said Woman's College and the said party of the first part, so far as is consistent with the charter of the University.
And in consideration of each and all of the matters aforesaid, the said party of the second part has this day assigned, granted and conveyed to the party of the first part, all its property, real and personal, together with all its choses in action, moneys and subscriptions set forth and enumerated in a schedule hereto attached, and hath agreed and covenanted and doth hereby agree and covenant to change its present corporate name to that of "Woman's College of the Northwestern University," etc., etc.

A method was also provided by which, should the University trustees fail to carry out the contract, the trustees of the Evanston College for Ladies could obtain redress.

One year more was invested in an unavailing effort to make the Woman's College and the University keep time together. Charles V. had not more trouble in his famous effort to make two watches do the same!

Having been elected Professor of Aesthetics in the University, I heard my recitations in the president's room of the University building. It was entirely a new thing to the students to recite to ladies, my friend, Kate Jackson, having all the French classes in the University, while I had part of the English composition. They tested us in various ways. One day on entering, I saw written on the blackboard, "Miss Willard runs the Freshman like a pack of girls." Without admitting by word or look that I had seen the flattering sentence, I went to the blackboard behind my desk, and while with one hand I erased it, with the other I was looking into my note-book for illustrations of different

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rhetorical styles, and sending the young men to the blackboards around the room each to write out a specimen sentence.

Another time they entombed a howling cat in the large drawer of my desk, and its orchestral accompaniment did not intermit one moment during the hour of my recitation, but if ever any one had the appearance of being stone-deaf I think I may claim to have been the person and this the occasion.

Their last attempt was on this wise: The recitation room door began to creak vigorously, the weather being damp. A young man would enter the class a minute late, open the door the whole arc of its liberty, and close it carefully while the squeaky creak went on, disturbing us not a little. The moment he had taken his seat, another young man just a minute later would open the door, enter, and close it in the same percussive manner, and so on until a dozen, perhaps, came in — there were no more mischievous ones in my large class of seventy. I made no comment, went on with the class as best I could, but that night a trusty student who was working for his board at Rest Cottage, was armed with a lantern, a piece of soap and the key to that recitation room, and he so limbered up those hinges that there was quite a surprised look on the faces of the boys when next day the door swung to and fro as if on velvet instead of iron.

I was reminded of these occurrences in the anteroom of Moody's great tabernacle in Boston, where I spoke one Sunday afternoon in 1877 to five thousand people or more. Some excellent ladies who accompanied me said in anxiety when I was about to go before the audience, "Aren't you frightened? Doesn't it make your heart beat faster to step out, one lone woman in sight of that great amphitheater?" And it came instantly to my mind to reply, "You never taught the Freshman class in Northwestern University or you would not expect one who has done that to be frightened at anything." To me an audience is like a well-bred person, quiet, attentive, sympathetic, and, best of all, not in a position to answer back! In all of these particulars it is the diametrical opposite of a lot of roystering youths who never before recited to a lady teacher and who are trying her mettle and their own. I ought to say, however, that the large majority were gentlemen and brothers, whom I recall with the

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kindest remembrance and in many cases with sisterly affection because of their manly considerateness toward me in those difficult days.

In the meanwhile, however, my system of self-government had fallen into "desuetude" that did not seem to me to be "innocuous." The new executive did not consider it compatible with the dignity of the great institution wherein our Woman's College was but a minor fraction. Some attempts to revive it in a modified form failed to meet the exigency that now came upon us, for the lease of Professor Jones's school building having expired, our girls boarded in the village during two thirds of my last year. A "self-report" was then devised to be filled out by them in writing. But it caused great dissatisfaction, the young men students, who were not under rules, being particularly hostile to this device which was only intended to tide us over the complex difficulties of a woman's college that was "all about town." When the spring term of 1874 opened, the new college being ready for occupancy, we moved into its spacious rooms and I believed, and do believe to-day, that if the internal management had been left with the ladies' faculty there, we could have restored the good order and good feeling that were the chief features of that single, bright, untrammeled year — 1871-72. But, our chief now took the ground that the young women would get on very well with very little supervision, and I, who had thought myself an emancipator of college girls, saw myself designated "a female Bluebeard" by the press. On the test question, I voted all alone in one of the last faculty meetings of my history — my good friends being either absent or not voting. They knew the utter uselessness of making an issue with the president. I knew it, too, but my resolve was taken, the world was wide, and I would not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum.

With but two exceptions, my generous girls stood with me and declared that they would gladly submit to any rules I might think best. There may be other instances on record, but I have not found them, of a college full of girls crying for rules like housekeepers for sapolio! But the fiat had gone forth: Practically equal freedom for all students and the method of self-government disfavored. This being settled, I determined to resign. My mother, brother and dear friends protested with might and main.

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If I would state the case to the trustees, they felt sure that I would be sustained; Evanstonians were all my friends, they thought, and with a clearly defined issue like this, the local pressure in my favor would be strong. I had been elected to a most honorable life-position at a salary of $2,400 per year, had no money laid up, and no other means of support; it was consummate folly to resign a position so congenial as "Dean of the Woman's College, and Professor of Aesthetics in the Northwestern University." How could I think of leaving such a post? Thus they reasoned long and loud. But to my trusted few I stated my decision as unalterable, and then as always they stood by me, loyal, loving and true. To no trustee did I give the slightest intimation of my purpose, but went quietly on with my work; saw the steward of the Woman's College, who had been authorized to do so, conducting evening prayers while I sat by on the platform and my girls looked whole encyclopedias of rebellion and wrath; conducted my art classes at the new building to which from Rest Cottage I removed my residence; went to the University Hall to hear my college classes in English composition, and to the Preparatory for similar classes there; and all the time this refrain was in my heart:

"I am to go, I am to go! This college has been dearer to me than anything save Forest Home. Three years of my life's hardest work and best are here enshrined; brick by brick I've watched these handsome walls as they climbed high above the trees, and thought, "This is Professor Jones's college of which he was so fond, and it is my sister Mary's that died and it is mine." With a faculty of women gathered around me that are like a band of sisters, with pupils loving and beloved, with a life-position as professor of the branches I like best and know most about, and an adequate income assured, with mother and Rest Cottage only two blocks away, I felt too tranquil and secure. But as the eagle stirreth her nest and leadeth forth her young, so the Lord alone shall lead me; I must go; the world is wide and full of elbow room; this atmosphere is stifling — I must leave it."

On June 16, 1874, I went to my last faculty meeting. How I dreaded it! The beautiful stone building, the blue lake seen through the trees, the pleasant sky — I took last pictures of them all. In the president's room they were assembled — those

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men of culture and conservatism of whom I knew that none were my enemies, and several were my friends. Kate Jackson was with me, as usual, having the position of acting professor of French. I asked and received permission to read my report which was as follows:

TO THE FACULTY — Authorized by a resolution of some weeks since, I will indicate briefly, the principal points developed during the past term in the working of the "Rules for the Woman's College."
1. The demand of a certain class of patrons and of students for equality between young men and women in their relations to the government seems to have been met in a manner generally satisfactory, by making no special requirement of young women boarding outside the college building; thus placing them, in all regards, on the same basis as young men.

Those parents who desire to entrust their daughters with the responsibilities and prerogatives of self-government, can certainly make no complaint that this is not practicable in the Northwestern University.

2. On the other hand, allow me to call your attention to the fact that a large and estimable class of patrons do not find their wants met by the system of regulations at present prevailing within the college building. From the first, I have been impressed with this, but particularly so within the last fortnight, on being questioned by those who contemplate intrusting their daughters to the care of this faculty and who are not entirely disabused of old time prejudices against "mixed schools." One of the first inquiries of such parents is: "To what extent will the acquaintances formed by my daughter, and the social attentions she receives, be regulated by those under whose care I place her?"

A gentleman from Kansas applying on behalf of his motherless daughter of fifteen, asked me this question with much anxiety. In view of the fact that young ladies in the building receive calls from whom and when their judgment dictates (out of study hours), that they can be attended by gentlemen to nearly all the public exercises of the institution, and to all the regular religious meetings, without any special permission; in view, also, of the fact that they leave the grounds at all times freely out of study hours, (and thus, on Saturday and Sabbath can be absent for hours at a time without a teacher's cognizance), I have found it impracticable to answer truthfully such questions as I have referred to, and at the same time to secure the patronage of the inquirer.

3. The principle having been recognized, that, within the college building, the social relations of young ladies are, in the main, left to be determined by the girls themselves, I have found it extremely difficult, indeed impossible, to impress them with the dignity and importance of such exceptions to the general rule, as the faculty has seen fit to make.

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When by the authority of this faculty, a young lady can receive a call daily, if she chooses, from Mr. A. (even if the teacher in charge deems his acquaintance an undesirable one for her), when, if she chooses, she can attend Monday evening prayer-meeting, Tuesday class-meeting and Wednesday prayer-meeting, and on Friday evening can accompany him to a literary society, is it to be wondered at if she regards it as unimportant that she obtain permission before going with him on Thursday evening to hear the Hampton singers?
Once admit that a lady student is competent to decide upon four fifths of the "social privileges" of a given week and she will soon learn to speak as flippantly as she thinks lightly of the restriction placed upon the remaining fraction of her liberty.

4. As an inference from what has been stated already, let me record the opinion that one and the same system of self-government for all lady students within the building as well as without, is more logical and will prove more successful than the present partial measures, which suit neither the radicals nor the conservatives and are, as experience and their own testimony combine to prove, unsuited to the girls themselves. Indeed, I think girls boarding out have, under the present system, moral advantages over those in the building; for, being few in number in any one family, they are not likely to go to such extremes as when assembled in one building they are sure to reach, when left so largely to their own immature judgment. My own conviction that a more responsible "home government," — one more worthy of a name involving an interest so deep, and a duty so high — is the truer solution of the problem, need hardly be repeated here!

5. It has been my task to administer, during the past few weeks, laws to which neither rewards nor penalties had been attached. Mild as is the code, and few as are its requisitions, I have greatly felt the need of some incentive to its observance on the part of the young ladies; and though no instance of violation of rule, which has come to my knowledge, has passed unrebuked, I have found a growing unconcern on the part of our well-meaning girls, and a hardly concealed carelessness on that of others. Let me suggest that the hope of advancement to a higher grade, the certainty of a report sent home to parents, or some other expedient, will greatly aid in the administration of the rules.

6. The effect on the young ladies, of being left to the guidance of their own judgment, has not, in my opinion, been fortunate. Aside from the slight esteem in which they have come to hold the rules, there has been a stronger tendency toward sociability than toward study on the part of many, and, a lightness of bearing, a pertness of speech and manner, and a tendency to disorder, such as my long experience in a school family has never witnessed hitherto.

7. I do not deem it inappropriate to express, in this connection, the decided opinion that, as at present conducted, the experiment of receiving young men into the Woman's College building as day-boarders has not warranted the expectations of its friends. I am confident that this opinion is
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shared by all who have thoughtfully considered its developments. The young men should, in my opinion, be more carefully chosen; should have certain restrictions or should be discontinued altogether, the latter being, as it seems to me, much the better course to be pursued. Though a few have been gentlemen, the majority have, by their rude behavior, much increased the unpleasantness of the family life, while their influence over the young ladies, uniformly directed against order and discipline, has rendered the problem of government much more complicated than it would otherwise have been.

8. In conclusion, let me ask your attention to the duty of a plain understanding with the public on the question of the government of young ladies in this institution.

The supposition is as natural as it is universal, that a school having a ladies' department, undertakes special supervision of this class of pupils, particularly in regard to their social relations. The public mind is fully persuaded that this is the policy of the Woman's College, not only from the nature of the case, but from the newspaper controversy of last winter, at which time the supposition was correct.

Repeatedly have mothers who intended sending their daughters to this institution, asked me within the last month "If this were not a strict school?" and it has proved an ungracious task to correct this quite erroneous opinion.

But consider expressions like the following from the new catalogue: "A home for young women, where their morals, health and manners can be constantly under the special care of women;" "special advantages of watch-care," and others, of the like import, and see if there is not a discrepancy, of which you have not been aware, between these statements and the system now in force.

My own relation to the Woman's College has brought out the difficulty above referred to in a light more vivid than agreeable. With the parents on one side asking, "What safeguards can you offer to my daughter in her youth and inexperience?" and the financial interests on the other urging the utmost possible conciliation of patronage (in view of an impaired exchequer), I have newly illustrated the peril of being between the upper and the nether millstones.

Clearly there are but two courses open to the University: First, no special requirements for young women, either in the building or in private families, and a frank avowal of such policy to patrons and inquirers; or, second (the idea of general supervision having been abandoned by the faculty), a systematic oversight of the daily life and associations of those boarding within the college walls. I do not mean the old-fashioned boarding school system, which I never advocated, but I do mean such care and over-sight, as will replace, so far as it can be done, the influence of home.

All this I can say to you, gentlemen, with the more directness, because of its being my last utterance in my present relations to you.

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I have long thought there was but one fitting sequel to my experiences of the past school-year, experiences of which but little has come to the surface in the meetings of the faculty. Yet, from time to time, I have hoped for an improvement in the outlook of the Woman's College. I finally determined, some weeks since, upon a careful reconsideration of the whole question of my relations to the University, and, as a result, I wrote my resignation several days ago, which I shall present to the trustees on Tuesday next.
As my last word concerning the vexed question of government (one which, in my opinion, involves that of the success of the co-education experiment to which I have, in Evanston, given some of my best years), let me ask that the faculty carefully review the whole question, not only on its merits, but in the light of this term's experience; that you allow some weight to the womanly judgment of her who shall succeed me as Dean; that the daily devotional exercise at the Woman's College be placed under her care; and that, upon whatever course you may determine, the policy be clearly stated to the public, especially to parents who contemplate sending their daughters to this institution.

Respectfully submitted,
FRANCES E WILLARD,

Dean of the Woman's College of Northwestern University.
June 13, 1874.

The reading over, I asked if Miss Jackson and I might be excused. The president nodded, and I went forth, not knowing whither I went, but glad, though grieved, to go. I pass over the trying ordeal of a "trustee meeting," in which it seemed to me that those opposed would fain have put me in the attitude of a culprit, while those who were my friends said, very properly, "We'd fight for you if you would stay, but you are bound to go and we must work for peace." I remember walking into the University chapel, where this trustee meeting was held; and what a stay and solace it was to grasp the arm of my beloved friend and sister, Mrs. Hannah Pearsons, who has reminded me always of the blessed Hannah of old. I can see my brother at the reporter's table, — though an editor-in-chief, he chose to hear for himself that day, — erect, alert, and deeply angered; my loyal knight always. I can see the sad faces of those faithful women, the trustees of the old college, and the thoughtful looks of the officers of our educational association, and my dear pupils with their sympathetic eyes. My resignation was read and referred, without debate, to a "Special Committee on the Woman's College." It read as follows:

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Evanston, June 13, 1874.
Gentlemen and Ladies of the Board of Trustees of the Northwestern University:

It has slowly, but surely become evident that I can never carry into execution my deepest convictions concerning the interests of the Woman's College under the existing policy of government.

I therefore resign the office of Dean of the Woman's College, and Professor of Aesthetics in the University to which you elected me one year ago.

There are other reasons for this action, which justice to myself would require me to name in the hearing of the trustees, but I refrain from doing this out of regard to interests which must take precedence of any personal consideration. Respectfully submitted,

FRANCES E WILLARD.

Relative to the foregoing documents by me presented, the following reports were made by the special committee and unanimously adopted by the trustees:

Your committee to whom has been referred the consideration of the interests of the Woman's College and in connection therewith the resignation presented to the board of trustees by Miss Frances E. Willard of her position as Dean of said College and Professor of Aesthetics in the Northwestern University, would respectfully report that, while they profoundly regret that any reasons should be supposed to exist sufficient to induce such resignation, they would recommend the acceptance of the same by the board of trustees. They further report that in view of the intimation contained in the letter of resignation of Miss Willard that the existing system of government in the Woman's College is in her conviction defective, the committee ask leave for further time to inquire into the grounds upon which the objections are founded, and to mature and indicate the proper remedy for any such defects they may find to exist.

This report was accepted and adopted, the substance of the latter part being laid over for further action. The final report was as follows, and was also unanimously adopted:

The committee to whom was referred subjects of interest pertaining to the Woman's College would respectfully report upon the question of rules for the Woman's College and for women attending different departments of the University, which question is suggested for present consideration by the resignation of the Dean of the Woman's College; that the system of coeducation is new to the trustees of the University, and new, as well, in its University form to the faculty of the University and the Dean of the Woman's College, and it is not surprising that there should have been a difference of views with the members of the faculty as to the proper rules required under the circumstances. That the existing rules were not the exact views of any particular member of the faculty, and not precisely
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what any single one would have suggested, that they were in the nature of a compromise of different views, seems true. There is no doubt that the Dean of the Woman's College supposed in the formal union of the Woman's College with the University, all authority to make rules and regulations for the Woman's College was reserved to itself, and was not to be exercised by the faculty of the University; that subsequently she cordially united with the president in framing rules that after much public and private discussion were regarded as defective, and in this view she was understood by a majority of the faculty to concur; that, at a later period, when public discussion had ceased with reference to the rules, the faculty of the University took up and fully considered the question; that in this discussion the Dean of the Woman's College was not in full accord on the general principles of government for young women with the faculty, or a majority of them; but it was understood that in the main, all parties assented to the rules as adopted, though in some points they were not entirely satisfactory to the Dean of the Woman's College. Distinct provisions were made by the faculty that the Dean of the Woman's College shall, from time to time, report to this faculty upon the success of the rules adopted by the faculty. That the Dean of the Woman's College was greatly solicitous for the welfare and successful administration of the Woman's College, the committee fully believe; that she believed herself without adequate authority for a satisfactory administration of the Woman's College is also manifest.
The committee on the other hand fully believe the faculty of the University were equally anxious for the successful administration of the Woman's College, and were ready and willing to render any aid that they believed would contribute to that end, and that they regarded the rules adopted as an experiment. That the Dean of the Woman's College made no request to the faculty of the University for additional rules seems to be conceded. That she did not, may be explained by the fact that she did not wish, with too great haste, to pronounce the existing rules insufficient, or by the consideration that she would delay such suggestion until by her announced resignation all personal considerations should be eliminated from this subject.

The committee believe that the Executive Committee of the University made arrangements without consulting the Dean of the Woman's College, or the faculty of the University, with reference to day boarders in the Woman's College, that proved not wise, and which have been discontinued.

The committee would recommend to the faculty of the University that at an early day they reconsider and re-examine the rules of the Woman's College, and that in any respect in which they shall be found inadequate by administration to a complete and thorough safeguard of the students, that they be amended or added to.

The committee are persuaded that the trustees and faculty of the University have a united purpose to make the Woman's College, in its departments of instruction and government, worthy the fullest public confidence.

This "Special Committee" was, as I then believed, mortgaged

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from the first to the side of the stronger, and before it, when arraigned as not having carried out the rules efficiently, I burst out crying, and left the room. Finding my brother with a carriage at the gate, I soon reached friendly shelter.

So it was over, the greatest sacrifice my life had known or ever can know. For, lying there alone in our beautiful college, so thankful to be out of sight in my own quiet suite of rooms, planned for me by the loving care of the good women whom I had worked with so happily, there came to me the sense of an injustice so overwhelming that no other experience of mine compares with it in poignancy. "I tried so hard and meant so well!" Over and over again, I said those words and with agony of tears I pitied myself then and there, so that they heard me all through the hall, and were frightened by my anguish. Evening wore on, and at his handsome residence near by, the president's levee went forward. I could see its flashing lights and flitting forms as I lay there alone, and music by the band smote my tired ears.

At last everything grew still and sweet and holy, while far into the night the deep June sky bent over me with a beauty that was akin to tenderness. The storm in my soul ebbed away slowly, the sobs ceased, the long sighs were less frequent. As dies the wave along the shore, so died away for evermore my sorrow to lose the beautiful college that my heart had loved as other women's hearts love their sweet and sacred homes. In the long hours that followed, the peace that passeth understanding settled down upon my soul. God was revealed to me as a great, brooding Motherly Spirit, and all of us who tried to carry on the University, while He carried on the Universe, seemed like little boys and girls, who meant well, but who didn't always understand each other. The figure was of children playing in a nursery, and one little boy had more vigor than the rest of us, and, naturally, wanted us to play his way, while a little girl, whom I thought I could identify, said, "No; my way is best!" Then a deep voice declared, "This is the interpretation — good to forgive, best to forget." And then the happiness that mocketh speech, flowed, like the blessed, tranquil river of dear old Forest Home, all through my soul, and overflowed its banks with quiet, happy tears.

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My cousins, Rev. S. and Mrs. M. B. Norton, who were associated with me from the first in all this college enterprise, and my friend Kate, were sent for at this point by my room-mate, Miss Harriet Reed. The record as my cousins have written it out, is this:

Well do I remember (writes Mr. N.) the rap upon our door in the then new Woman's College building at Evanston, one morning in June, 1874. It was an early hour, while it was yet dark. To the question, "Who is there?" a friendly voice responded, adding, "Mrs. N., I wish you would come to Miss Willard's room. She has not slept during the night. Something is the matter with her, I don't know what."
The call was instantly heeded, and we found Miss Willard, though surprised, yet glad to see us.

She seemed very anxious to have everything right between herself and those from whom she had so widely differed. And so intent was she upon this purpose that she urged us to send out at once to call in those who had been so eagerly engaged in opposition to her, that she might ask pardon of them all. But we who were then present were slow to believe that this was any part of her duty. Yet we could not fail to see how easy it now was with her to obey the best impulses of her heart in putting away everything that seemed un-Christian; sins of omission and sins of commission, of "word, thought or deed," for since the heavenly vision was present, nothing must be kept back. The joy of forgiveness was with her. Of this I have never known a brighter example.

It was now fully morning and Miss Willard's mother was sent for, who came with a carriage, saying that "her own home and her own folks were what Frank needed," so she was carried away from her well-beloved college forever. Mrs. N. and myself took an early train for Wisconsin. As we passed from this scene of "heavenly vision," in which, as Miss Willard had said, "God seemed so great, so loving, and human plans so small," I remarked to my wife, "Our cousin is either soon to go to her heavenly home or from this time her life is to be enlarged! This wonderful manifestation of Divine grace means something unusual."

FIFTEEN YEARS LATER.

In the foregoing pages I have tried to set forth the facts as they seemed to me at the time, and to do this with all possible considerateness and charity. But seen through the long telescope of fifteen years, and from a totally different angle of vision, the whole affair takes on a different aspect. I now perceive that our Woman's College building, its traditions, plans and purposes, all suited admirably to an independent institution, were not adapted to our relations as a department. The cost of this building greatly embarrassed the trustees, upon whom the failure of our

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subscription list, after the Chicago fire, threw burdens greater than they felt able to bear, and probably prejudiced them somewhat against our movement. The steward, who was authorized by the president to conduct prayers in my stead, was a Methodist minister and a gentleman of fine attainments, for whose dignity his brother minister showed a consideration that was perhaps no more than due.

But the clashing of my theory of a woman's college against our president's theory of a man's university was the storm center of the difficulty. An executive chief, the law of whose mind made general supervision his policy in the departments, was suddenly exchanged for one, the law of whose mind made special supervision the necessary policy and I, at least, as a departmental leader, did not take kindly to the change! Young men students helped on the revolt against the restrictions that seemed to me essential after my plan of self-government was set aside, and their watchword, "Equal rights for us all," was certainly chivalric, and in a deep sense, just. So far as the difficult question of government in such an institution is concerned, I would now say, with what seems to me to be the clearer sight of these more impartial years: put all on the same plane, but lift the plane on which young manhood stands to the higher level of young womanhood. Have a college senate of students made up of representatives from all departments, and let them conduct the government. This would break down the false ideas of "honor" that are among the student's greatest temptations; banish the hatefulness of espionage and give the noblest incentives to truthfulness in word and deed. With present light, I would organize a school as the national Government is organized — the college president and faculty being analogous to the Supreme Court — and would make the discipline of our young people's formative years a direct preparation and rehearsal for their participation in the government of their country, later on. This would leave the minds of teachers free to develop their specialties of instruction, and to lay deep and broad foundations for the ripe scholarship that is the glory of a great seat of learning. Moral horticulture at home and at school must always be the basis of success in developing Christian character among students, but participation in the government would place them in organic contact with the wisest and most

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parental minds among their teachers, and thus head and heart culture would go on side by side. So much for my present outlook and theory of school government, which, if I were to begin my district school in Harlem at fifty, as I shall not, instead of at twenty as I did, should be at once instituted in place of a set of rules with a rattan back of them. And were I now at Evanston, I would urge this view with what I fear might be regarded as "pernicious activity" upon the grave and revered leaders who very likely know a hundred times better than I do how to conduct a university.

It grieves me that I can not truthfully say I left the Dean-ship of a college and a professor's chair in one of America's best universities on purpose to take up temperance work, but the unvarnished tale here told must forever dispel that rare illusion. It is however true, that having left, I determined upon temperance work in face of tempting offers to teach in New York City and several other centers, and held to temperance work though delightful positions outside its circle have been open to me all along the years. Nor is there any merit in this constancy; I had, at last, found my vocation, that is all, and learned the secret of a happy life.

A few months after I left Evanston and while I was president of Chicago W. C. T. U., Mr. Robert Pearsall Smith, a wealthy Philadelphia manufacturer, and at that time a leading evangelist, came to Chicago and gave Bible readings of wonderful power, in Lower Farwell Hall. I remember he was staying at the Sherman House, where he invited several ladies and gentlemen to dine with him, and afterward I had an earnest conversation with him about the Christian life. I told him of the circumstances under which I left the University, and that I had unkind feelings toward several who were then connected with it, that it was the first time in my life that I had for any length of time felt other than cordial good will toward every human being, and though I was now greatly ameliorated in mind toward all, I still felt and wished to do something farther in the direction of a more friendly understanding with some of those whose associate I had so recently been. "There is but one thing to do, my friend," he said; "take the morning train for Evanston, see each and all between whom and yourself there is the faintest

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cloud, and without asking them to make any acknowledgment whatever to you, freely pour out in their ears your own acknowledgment, with the assurance of your affectionate good will." And this I did next day. The recital of my experience in going back on such an errand to "my ain familiar town," would be both pathetic and humorous. At first some of my dearest friends declared I should do nothing of the kind, that the bad behavior had been wholly on one side, and it would be an undignified and hypocritical admission of ill-conduct if I should go and make apology. My brother was specially strenuous on this point, but I said to him, "I am going to see the president of the University; you are my only near male relative, and I think it behooves you to act as my escort." When the matter was put before him in this light he could not refuse to accompany me. There was a revival meeting that night in the University chapel that we attended and in which I was called upon to participate, which I did. When it was over and nearly all had left the chapel, my brother went forward to the president and said I wished to speak to him and he would please tarry for a moment. How plainly I can see at this moment the tall, slight figure of my brother as he strolled up and down the aisle, at a distance, while in a recess of the chapel I went to the president, saying as I extended my hand, "I beg your pardon for everything I have ever done and said that was not right," with other friendly words, assuring him that I desired to be at peace with God and every human soul. He received me with the utmost kindness and responded in about these words: "To one who comes to me as magnanimously as you have done, I surely can not say less than that I beg your pardon," and from that hour we have been the best of friends. He and my brother shook hands, too, which was no small victory. Others whom I saw received me with tenderness even, and we knelt in prayer with many tears, so that when I left the dear home village and came whizzing back to my duties in the city, the buoyancy of my spirit was greater than if I had been made that day the heir to some rich inheritance. Nor do I know, nor ever mean to know in this or any world, a reason why any human being should hesitate to speak to me with cordiality and kindness, or why any middle wall of partition should exist between my spirit and any other human spirit that God has made.

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The vexed question of government received special attention after I left, and I have every reason to believe that the Woman's College has been under the accomplished Deans, Ellen Soule acute and Jane M. Bancroft, and is under the present gifted Dean, Prof. Rena A. Michaels, doing for young women all that their parents could expect from a first-class institution, while the University as a whole, with its two millions invested, its eleven elegant buildings, twelve departments, one hundred professors, and nearly fifteen hundred students, greatly outranks any other west of Lake Michigan, and richly deserves its name of the "NORTHWESTERN" in the modern sense of that great and comprehensive designation. Steadily may its star climb toward the zenith, growing clearer and more bright with each succeeding year!

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Part V: A Tireless Traveler

A Tireless Traveler. "Sleep Safe, O Wave-Worn Mariner! Fear not, To-Night, or Storm or Sea. The Ear of Heaven Bends Low to Her: He Comes to Shore Who Sails With Me."

Early Journeyings.

EARLY JOURNEYINGS.

One lonesome day in early spring, gray with fog and moist with rain, a Sunday at that, and a Puritan Sunday in the bargain, I stood in the doorway of our old barn at Forest Home. There was no church to go to, and the time stretched out before me long and desolate. I cried out in querulous tones to the two who shared my every thought, "I wonder if we shall ever know anything, see anybody, or go anywhere! "for I felt as if the close curtains of the fog hedged us in, somehow, from all the world besides. Out spoke my cheery brother, saying, "Oh, I guess I wouldn't give up quite yet, Frank!" and sweet little Mary clasped my thin hand with her warm, chubby one, looked into my face and smiled that reassuring smile, as sweet as summer and as fresh and fair as violets. "Why do you wish to go away?" she asked.

"Oh, we must learn — must grow and must achieve! It's such a big world that if we don't begin at it we shall never catch up with the rest," was my unquiet answer.

Always in later years when the world has widened for me, as it has kept on doing, I have gone back in thought to that gray, "misty, moisty morning, when cloudy was the weather," and been ashamed and sorry for the cross child I was, who had so little faith in all that the Heavenly Father had in store.

My mother says I never crept, but, being one of those cosseted children brought up by hand, started at once, by reason of the constant attention given me by herself, when I was less than two years old, to walk, having declined up to that time to do anything except sit in her arms. The first independent traveling of which I am cognizant was running away, with that primitive instinct of exploration that seems well-nigh universal.

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Our overland trip to Wisconsin in my seventh year, two visits to Milwaukee, the fair, lakeside city, and one to my birthplace, comprised all the traveling done by me until we came to Evanston to attend college.

I well remember the profound impression made upon me, at nineteen years of age, by the first hotel I ever entered — the Matteson House, Chicago. I can not pass the building that now bears this name without shuddering recollections of the impressive spectacle when we all sat down to dinner at what was then one of the chief hotels; the waiters (all white men) standing in solemn line, then at a signal, with consummate skill and as by "one fell swoop," inverting the covers on all those huge, steaming dishes, without letting a drop fall on the snowy table, and marching out like a detachment of drilled soldiers! And never did a sense of my own small size and smaller knowledge settle down upon me quite so solidly as when one of those faultlessly attired gentlemen in claw-hammer coat and white cravat asked me " what I would have." I glanced helplessly at my good father; his keen eyes twinkled, he knew the man oppressed me by his likeness to a clergyman; he summoned him for a conference, and chose my dinner for me. But I was distressed for fear I should do something awkward under these strange circumstances, ate almost nothing, and had a wretched, all-overish sense of being unequal to the situation. Helplessly I envied the fair girl of sixteen who sat beside me, and was full of merry quips with father, and not at all concerned about her conduct or herself — my beautiful sister Mary.

When we came home from my year as "preceptress" in Lima, in the spring of 1867, we found my dear father in what proved to be the last stages of consumption. Hoping that a return to his early home and the society of his near relatives would be beneficial, Kate Jackson and I induced him to go with us to Churchville, in September, where he remained with his only brother, Zophar Willard, and his youngest sister, Mrs. Caroline Town, until the 24th of January, 1868, when his worn body succumbed to its inexorable fate, and his triumphant spirit wafted its way to heaven.

Inasmuch as my father was with his family and had mother to care for him, I sought employment as a teacher once more,

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the impaired fortunes of our house seeming to make this requisite. I had secured a situation as teacher of English Composition in Lasell Female Seminary, Auburndale, Mass. My trunks were packed to go there from Kate's home in Paterson, when a letter from mother made me feel that my destiny did not lie in that direction. I therefore telegraphed to father, "I wish to come to you; shall I not do so?" Receiving his reply, "Come at once," Kate and I set out for Churchville, where for two months or more my only thought was to help as best I might in the care of my father, who was confined to his bed, and with whom mother and I took turns in watching for sixty nights, she having already, with my uncle and aunt, had the care for nearly two months. This season of solemn vigils was the most reflective of my life. In the silence of the night, how many times I sang to my father the old hymns dear to us at home, and read or wrote while he slept. The devotion of my mother and of my father's relatives can not be described — it was complete. Our loyal friend Kate settled herself in a quiet home across the street and was with us daily. When the sad home-going came, she was one of the company. A committee sent for the purpose met us on the train some hours before we reached Chicago, and when we arrived in Evanston at midnight with our precious burden, lights in the homes of our friends all along the streets we traversed, spoke eloquently of the sympathy and thoughtfulness they felt for us in our sorrow, and our home was bright with their presence and the manifold tokens of their loving care.

All that winter, mother, Kate and I kept house together. In the spring we went to visit my brother Oliver and his family in Appleton, Wis., where mother remained, and whence going to New York, Kate and I sailed on our long, adventurous journey.

And now, to show how it came about that I had the great advantage of living, studying, and traveling abroad from May 1868 to September 1870, I will give a sketch of my dear friend,

KATE JACKSON.

On my return from Pittsburgh in the summer vacation of 1864, I went according to my custom to the regular prayer-meeting in our old church in Evanston, and participated according to my custom in the exercises. At the close of the meeting

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when I greeted my true and tried friends, Dr. D. P. Kidder and family, I found with them a young lady who had been for some months their guest. Many years before, her father had been a member of Dr. Kidder's church, in Paterson, N. J., and the two families were special friends. The young lady's name was Katharine A. Jackson, and her father was James Jackson, founder, and at that time proprietor, of the New Jersey Locomotive Works. He was a self-made man, of great force of character and the sterling uprightness and energy of a North-of-Ireland Protestant. He had built up a fortune for himself and family, and his daughter Kate had received a careful education at the Indies' Seminary in Wilmington, Del., where she was foremost as a scholar, having a very exceptional gift for the languages, especially Latin and French. She had been the salutatorian of her class, and since graduation had gone on with her studies until she was remarkably accomplished in her specialties. This young lady, not then a Christian, nor, as it would seem, even "seriously disposed," always declared that she took a liking to me on sight, or rather on sound, for I think it was my simple and fearless testimony as one who wished to lead a Christian life that first attracted her, a fact that has always made me thankful.

Being of a very enterprising disposition, Kate went a year or two after her graduation away down to Brenham on the Brazos River, Texas, where she taught French in Chapel Hill Seminary, only coming home when the war broke out. She had lost her mother early in life, and for that reason did not live at home.

We were much together that summer, and when I assumed the principalship of the Grove School in Evanston, she, just for the novelty of it, assisted me, and gave much additional popularity to the school by teaching French. When I was chosen corresponding secretary of the American Methodist Ladies' Centenary Association, in 1866, Miss Jackson did much writing for me, and helped me on in every way she could; and when I went as preceptress to Lima, N. Y., she accompanied me, having the French classes there.

One pleasant day at Lima, she said, " Go home with me at Christmas, for I am bound to coax my father to agree that you and I shall make the tour of Europe." I looked into her face with large-eyed wonder and delight. To see the countries of

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which I had read so much, and the homes and shrines of the great and good, had been one of my cherished dreams. I thought that its fulfillment would sometime come to me, but supposed it would be late in life.

When the holidays came, Kate and I went to Paterson, N. J. A handsome carriage with a high-stepping span and coachman in livery was at the train. A gentleman of about sixty years of age, with iron-gray hair, shrewd face as keen as it was generous, and the slightest suspicion of Scotch-Irish brogue, beamed upon us as we approached, and welcomed us to his beautiful home. It was James Jackson, a man whom my long acquaintance with his daughter had prepared me to admire and respect, and through whose liberality I was soon to have one of the crowning blessings of my life. He readily fell in with the project of his daughter Kate and told me not to feel in the least under obligations to himself or to her, for he had long desired that she should go abroad, but had never until now found any one with whom he felt inclined to send her. This gracious speech of the generous gentleman dispelled my scruples, which, indeed, were not strong, as Kate and I had been for years devoted friends. And so it came about that good James Jackson and his daughter are among the foremost of the beautiful procession of helpful souls that have so many times stood for me at the parting of the ways and pointed onward.

When we started on the long journey, May 23, 1868, I saw that honest, brotherly face with the sweet countenance of his youngest daughter, Carrie, close beside it, as the two stood under one umbrella in the soft May shower and watched us as our steamer parted from the wharf, we gazing on them with loving eyes until in the distance they grew dim and faded out of sight. That manly face we never saw again. In less than two years Kate's father had gone home to heaven.

PRELIMINARY.

Previous to going abroad I had visited my birthplace and Milwaukee, as already stated, been once to Pittsburgh, and twice to New England; the ocean, Niagara and the White Mountains being all that I had seen of Nature's loftiest mood. To visit the Capital of our own country, the only Eastern city that

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we had not yet seen, struck us as eminently fitting, and we went there just before sailing. Its glories fired our patriotism tremendously, and nothing that we beheld beyond the sea was ever admitted to be so grand as the great dome "where Fame's proud temple shines afar." We shook hands with President Johnson at the White House and were present, thanks to cards from Hon. Norman B. Judd, at one session of the Impeachment Court. My former friend of the Northwestern Female College, Evanston, Mrs. Jane Eddy Somers, now principal of Mt. Vernon Seminary, was our hostess and cicerone.

While abroad, we visited almost every European capital, large city, and specially interesting haunt of history, learning and art, besides going north as far as Helsingfors, Finland, east as far as the Volga banks in Russia, and Damascus in Syria; making the tour of Palestine, and going south far enough to look over into Nubia on earth, and up to the Southern Cross in the heavens. In all these journeyings, so varied, difficult and distant, we did not lose a day through illness save by my brief attack in Denmark, and our comrades paid us the compliment of saying that we were "as good travelers as men." We traveled with four hundred different persons during our different trips and had the comfort of believing that we were seldom, if ever, an incumbrance. Dr. Bannister, through whose influence we were admitted to the rare advantages of going through Palestine in the company of a party of distinguished Christian scholars, was especially proud of their verdict that we had not hindered them nor made any complaint throughout the trip, though it involved hardships to us unheard of and unknown until we braved the terrors of "camping out." My friend, Anna Gordon, has estimated the distance traveled, abroad, and since then in the temperance work of fifteen years, with the little flutterings that preceded, as making a total of two hundred and fifty thousand miles for the poor little girl that stood in the barn doorway and thought she should never see anybody nor go anywhere! But the story will best be told from records made when the impressions of all we saw were fresh upon the brain of one to whom the world was new. From twenty volumes scribbled on the spot, besides articles and letters, I make the wholly inadequate extracts that follow:

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So the long dream was coming true, and yet, somehow, "it was not like" — how could it be? The Ideal world can never stoop to shore or sea, but we are slow and sad to find this true. Kate and I looked into each other's faces; "I could cry this minute, but I won't," she said. And then we talked of the kind, shrewd, grave face of her generous father and my noble benefactor; of his anxious, pathetic look after us as we started off all alone for strange, unfriendly shores, and faces of other friends unknown as yet.
All this while the nice looking little waiter, No. 2, left-hand side, at two o'clock dinner — was putting on the dishes, and dinner would be ready soon. We sat there silently, full of unusual thoughts. Looking over the passengers we were disappointed in them. They were for the most part quite mediocre in every sense — and probably they said the same of us! After a tolerable dinner we went below (the steamer now lying still waiting the tide), and set our house in order for the voyage, changed our dresses, and were innocently and unapprehensively putting the last touches upon our ship-toilets, when, lo! a pain that was not all a pain, but part a prophecy of dreadful things to come, seized each of us. Five minutes thereafter I had tumbled tumultuously into berth No. 1, at the top, and was "reaching" as our stewardess calls it, and groaning with all the more vehemence because so suddenly and totally surprised, for I had calculated with certainty upon the very opposite of this result. Kate lay in her berth below me moaning dutifully, but then, she had expected it. Well, for the next two or three days I thought and did unutterable things. Sunday is a perfect blank. In it I had just this one thought: "Let me lie still let me keep this saucy diaphragm in equipoise."

Our lively and unique companion, Miss C. of Columbus, Ohio, between her "bad spells" and her tears, regaled us with exclamations of this character: "Why didn't they tell me it was this way and I would not have left my country! Oh! why didn't somebody tell me it was this way?" emphasizing the words with sounds more expressive than all human language could interpret, while listening to her I laughed like one who lived for laughter's sake alone. It is idle to attempt recounting the horrors of this voyage. All these notes I am scrawling on Sunday, May 31, leaning my head against the berth's side, and dipping my pen from a wine glass, furnished by our stewardess, whom at first we voted a virago, but have now "learned to love," have blessed with a sovereign, and voted a power in the earth.

June 1. — This bright Monday morning we were a hilarious ship's company, for to-day we should tread solid ground once more. We dressed "for shore," packed our portmanteau, and went on deck, where blue and distant loomed the longed-for land. Keen indeed was our pleasure in the sight of it. The scene was charming. All about us gently rippled the quiet sea; sails shone against the far-off, slate-hued horizon; birds, white and graceful of motion, careered around us; clouds lay anchored here and there; lines of dim coast stretched out alongside to the left; bunting flew merrily aloft; everybody was on deck in better dress than usual and with sunnier faces; the sailors furled the hanging canvas and made all trim for entrance to the harbor.
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And so the first bright day passed with talk and laughter, and toward evening a tug shot out from Queenstown harbor and we stepped gingerly upon its slippery deck, endured its wretched accommodations cheerfully, though rain began to fall and wind to blow, until they moored us alongside the steamer "City of Cork," and the inevitable custom-house officers took us in charge. They went rapidly through the form of unlocking our trunks, while we stood by unconcerned, looking over the magnificent Cove of Cork, and wondering that it didn't feel queer to be in sight of Queenstown shores. Soon we sped across the steamer's deck, went on shore, walked up strange streets, striking jubilant feet firmly upon beloved terra firma; peeped into curious looking shops, talking and laughing, half beside ourselves with pleasure, dangerously amused at the little donkeys, almost delirious over that intrinsically ludicrous, extravagantly rollicking contrivance, an Irish jaunting car. And so we reached the depot at nine o'clock, P. M., broad daylight at that, and took the cars for Cork, fourteen miles away. We tried to notice everything, even to the shape of the chairs and pattern of the paper at the Queenstown station; asked questions aá la Yankee, and learned a great deal; drove to the Imperial Hotel, Pembroke street, Cork, had supper at eleven o'clock in an elegant coffee room, and went to bed. In the morning we chartered a jaunting car for Blarney Castle; rode enchanted through hedge-bordered roads to the famous castle, kissed both the Blarney stones (a gentleman giving us pieces of the real one, that we might carry the spell away with us); climbed to the topmost peak of the castle, and went down into its dungeons; got shamrock from inside the castle, went through Blarney groves, and what not. We then went laughing back to Cork, in the dear, ridiculous, old jaunting car; were invited by friends to go with them to Killarney, overland, one hundred miles by private coach. So at ten o'clock we all departed amid smiles and bows of waiters and chambermaids (thinking of "gratuities"), for the classic lake scenery of County Kerry.

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ITINERARY OF FOREIGN TRAVEL.

May 23, 1868. — Sailed from New York in steamship City of Paris, Inman Line.

June 3. — Landed at Cork, Ireland.

June 3 to June 13. — Ireland.

June 13 to 30. — Scotland.

July 1 to 25. — England.

July 25 to 29. — Paris, France; Geneva, Switzerland.

July 29 to September 12. — Geneva to Nijni Novgorod via Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Russia, returning via Poland to Germany.

September 12 to December 20. — Berlin, Dresden, Leipsic.

December 20, 1868 to June 26, 1869. — Paris.

June 26 to July 28. — Belgium, Holland and the Rhine.

July 28 to September 2. — Switzerland.

September 2 to January 24, 1870. — Italy.

January 24. — Sailed from Brindisi for Alexandria, Egypt.

February 1 to 21. — Cairo, to the first cataract of the Nile (Island Philse) and return.

February 23. — Climbed the Pyramid of Cheops.

March 6. — Sailed from Port Said to Joppa.

March 7 to 18. — Jerusalem.

March 18 to April 9. — Camped out in Palestine and made a trip to Damascus and Baalbec.

April 9. — Sailed from Beyrout to Cypress, Smyrna, Ephesus, Athens and Constantinople.

April 29. — Sailed from Constantinople via Bosphorus, and up the Danube to Vienna via Hungary.

May 4 to 16. — Vienna to Paris.

June 15. — Paris to London, Southampton, Isle of Wight, etc.

July 15. — Returned to Paris.

August 23. — Left Paris for Liverpool.

August 27. — Sailed from Liverpool in steamship City of Russia, Cunard Line.

September 5, 1870. — Arrived in New York.

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THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY.

A morning's ride through broad and prosperous fields brought us to the pretty village of Port Rush, with its fine outlook over the sea and far away. The Antrim Arms hotel received us hospitably and an appetizing dinner fortified us for the afternoon's performance.

Chartering a huge and jolly jaunting-car for our party of six explorers, we dashed off in pursuit of Nature's freakiest freak. Our road lay along the shore but lifted high above it. We looked down to see fantastic carvings of the waves upon the yielding rocks. "Tell us everything you know," was our moderate injunction to the middle-aged Hibernian who held the reins, and to do this he spared no pains.

"There's the Pope's nose!" he called out, soberly pointing with his long whip to this striking feature of the Holy Father's face, wave-sculptured, glistening in the sunshine and outlined on the blue-black ground of the sea. Our bright little friend, Willie, excelled us all in his appreciation of this piece of chiseling, and voted it, afterward, worth the whole Causeway.

"His lordship's residence" was pointed out, a fine country-seat, at a distance, almost concealed by the trees (as is "exclusively" done in these aristocratic regions), and a question brought out this brief "charcoal sketch" of the high-born gentleman who owns the "Giant's Causeway."

"Sir Edward's not a bad landlord, only he sweeps everything away. Just runs down here for money when he's out, and then off again to London, to spend it on his pleasures. But, ah! his steward is the man we're all in dread of. If one of the tenants would give him an offense in the least thing, then you'd see the beauties of a free government! Out goes the tenant into the street after getting a notice served on him to quit. Some of us try to improve our little farms, but what good is it? Down comes the man they call a " val-u-a-tor," and because we've made them worth so much the more, on goes more rent to keep us always sweating away just the very same as our fathers did before us, for if we don't pay the rent we have nothing to do but just tramp off as fast as we please. But Sir Edward, he spends nothing at all on the soil, and we've no ambition in consequence of it."

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"You must come to our country across the water," said we, much interested in the man's straightforward words.

"Then, ah! I knew you was from America, Miss," said he; "that's the country where they'll give a well-doing man a chance, we all know that, and we'd go there on our hands and knees only for the water being in the way!"

Palaces, museums, picture-galleries are fine things in their places; sometimes as we wander over these rich lands we contrast their splendid treasures with our emptiness at home, and feel a moment's discontent. But we think of these words, and are too grateful for complaint, too proud for boasting, "America's a country where they'll give a well-doing man a chance — we all know that."

About a mile from the Causeway, two guides came trotting along the road, anxious to enlighten us as to the merits of the case in hand, and we engaged one as a refuge against the other and any who might subsequently present themselves.

"Will you please look over my book of recommends?" said John McLaughlin, the chosen of our judgment, hanging on precariously to our rapid car, and we examined sundry soiled autographs of tourists, noble and otherwise, all of whom concurrently attested the varied virtues of the said John in his capacity of guide.

"Indeed, I'm the man that Harper says ye ought to have, in his fine leather-covered book," quoth he, winking triumphantly at his disappointed rival, who whined out, "It's my turn, anyhow, and I'll be even with ye yet."

We dismounted in front of John's cottage, the tonguey owner thus introducing it: "Ye must know, ladies and gentlemen, that I have the honor to live in the house fartherest north of any in old Ireland. Here I have lived for twenty years, and a snug place it is, as ye all see."

Not altogether unattractive looked the man's home, with white-washed walls, and grass and trees about it. Not far off, around the curving crags, we came, by diligent and dangerous scrambling in a down-hill direction, upon a cove, where tossing upon the restless waves was a small boat in which we embarked for a general in-look on the Causeway. Four oarsmen had the boat in charge, and with tossings and dippings not conducive to

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content on the part of the timid, nor to interior tranquility in those of dizzy head and squeamish stomach, we put to sea, while John McLaughlin, oblivious to fears or qualms uttered or unexpressed, proceeded with great fluency to give the following "true history of Giant's Causeway." "Ye must know, ladies and gentlemen, that long and long ago it was, we had here in Ireland a giant, the like of which was never before seen nor will be seen again. His name was Fin McCaul, and what he couldn't do nobody else need try. It so happened that at the same time they had in Scotland another giant, a tremendous fellow and jealous of our Fin, as a matter of course. Well, this Scotch fellow sent word to Fin that the only reason he didn't come and fight him was, there was no bridge across. So what does Fin do but falls to work right immediately and all his servants with him, and they make the genteelest road (or ‘causeway’ as they used to say in old times) from here to the other side. Then they had their matched fight, and you may be sure Fin didn't leave a whole shred of the other fellow, but pounded him up fine, and that was the last of him. So then when there was no use of it any more, in the course of time the Causeway sank into the sea, and there's nothing left of it now but some remains on the far side, called Fingal's Cave, and this here that you can see for yourselves. This is just the very same as it was in his day, and when the sea is still you can notice it going out into the water as far as you can see at all."

Highly instructed and entertained by this historical account, we viewed with increased interest the outlines of this astonishing piece of engineering, though its general appearance, at this distance, hardly met our expectations. Indeed, some of us vociferously informed the imperturbable exhibitor that it didn't pay to be tossed about in this fashion, and risk one's life in the bargain, just to see some sloping, irregular rocks, stretching for some distance along the shore. " Gentlemen and ladies have many times observed the same to me, madam," he replied, touching his old blue cap, "but I just get them to wait a bit, and afterwards they look upon it quite different to that."

The name-worthy heights and depths before us were now duly indicated and described, a geography lesson " with illustrations" worth talking about. We declined to row into Portcoon Cave, the

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waves being so high that our heads must inevitably be bumped against its roof, a tribute we would not pay even for a new sensation. "The Steckan," or chimney-tops, a couple of tall, conspicuous rocks, were pointed out with the story that when the Spanish Armada passed this coast they fired upon these rocks through some misapprehension, and that right here, some of its ships going to pieces, the organ upon which King Philip said his Te Deum should be played in Westminster Abbey (after the victory that he didn't win) came ashore and was conveyed to Trinity College, Dublin, where we had seen it within a day or two. We now returned to land, having as yet but a dim notion of the great sight we had taken so much pains to see. Of our disappointment our guide was made repeatedly aware, but he bided his time with an air of superior wisdom inspiring to behold, and profound faith in the ultimate triumph of the great show over whose wonders he had so long presided. Marshaling us in line, he led us up steep rocks and along devious ways, to inspect narrowly the Giant's Road. From that time forth, our progress partook of the character of an ovation. How very thoughtful everybody seemed! Here came a young Hibernian of impecunious aspect, who urged on our acceptance his collection of stereoscopic views illustrative of scenery hereabouts. Each one of the four boatmen presented a little box of pebbles, crystals, shells, "Picked up right here at the Causeway, sir." Half a dozen ragged urchins, none of them over half a dozen years old, clamored for us to accept their herbariums of sea-weed, their curious bits of stone, their printed "guides," their gathered flowers.

"Ye'll do as ye like," whispered the crafty McLaughlin with an air of great disinterestedness, "I don't say but what all these poor things have is very good, but, to tell the truth, I think ye'll do better to look over me own assortment at the house when we've done here."

Now we began to see that what we came to see was surely worth the seeing. We stepped upon the Causeway, its surface at the edge being, save for irregularities, quite like an incipient Nicholson pavement; traversed its whole extent (made up, some careful counter says, of four thousand columns set side by side), and every moment the wonder grew upon us that purest nature could so mimic purest art. A monstrous puzzle it must all be,

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which some well-instructed giant hand might take apart; of else a honey-comb of the Olympian gods, gone gray with age and hardened into stone.

On we went, over the ends of those most curious columns, which extended, nobody knew how far below us, now stepping up, now down, as the arrangement of the surface varied, for the appearance everywhere is startlingly like that of intention, as if the great artificer had turned aside to rest a little while, leaving his carefully wrought plan to be completed on his return.

I have no wish to attempt a description in the abstract, but to relate in the concrete what we saw, and how we saw it, hence it becomes essential to confess that for thought deeply interesting to the observer and inspired by the peculiarities of his surroundings, we had little peace. Our retinue of pests increased in geometric ratio as we proceeded; we reached "The Well," a several-sided indentation, whence an old man with a ready cup dipped water for us, drinking which we were to "wish a wish," which in a year was surely to "come true." A crowd of witnesses surrounded us as we went through this ceremony and silently chose our choicest wish, with as much sincerity as if we had believed the story of its prospective fulfillment; and while it was in our thoughts, the dear, sacred, mystical desire, a ruthless, wrinkled hand thrust before us a bunch of dripping sea-weed and the old woman owner of both exhorted us to buy, with this clinching argument, "The nobility and gentry, they always buys of me!"

At the same time, bright little Jessie P. was assailed by an itinerant shell dealer with his flattering unction, "Indade, darlint, yer have the most illegant foot that ever came upon the Causeway in my time, and I've been here since ever I can remember anything at all." And she was a Chicago girl!

On we labored, perseveringly, until we reached the "Wishing Chair," a depression formed by the removal of a section or two of these carefully-fitted stones, and a most unluxurious seat. We were now introduced to what the guide called "The Particular Stones," those of shapes less frequent than the four, five and six-sided, which make up the body of the Causeway. There are septagons and octagons, two nonagons and a single triangle among all the one thousand stony illustrations of geometry that make up the vast structure. Specimens of every style having been

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examined and a tiny piece of the triangle hammered off (strictly "by permission"), we next analyzed in cursory sort the background of the picture, the tall basaltic columns that rear themselves farther from the sea, behind the shelving floor that we had thus far trodden. One of these is sixty-three feet high above the surface of the ground. How far it may extend beneath, the wisest can not estimate. In one of the columns, of which we got a long profile view instead of the mere surface one seen in the foreground of the Causeway, there are thirty-eight different pieces, all fitted with the nicest accuracy, but each so separate from that above and below itself, that an arm strong enough could unjoint the whole column as children do toy steeples made of spools.

"The Giant's Loom Post," is a splendid tower made up this way, standing out in strong relief, but not facing the sea, and hence invisible in general views. Here the old Road Builder was wont to spin, including that effeminate accomplishment among numerous more weighty ones. His organ, splendid but tuneless in its basaltic pipes, stands opposite. The jack-stones with which he was fond of playing in intervals of labor, the prints of his huge knees made while enjoying this game; the fan mosaicked by him in his road for a lady admired and admiring, and, incongruously, perhaps, the pulpit whence he sometimes preached, all were pointed out and served the guide as reminders of anecdotes, sometimes witty, often dull, always related with an air of deep conviction, and listened to in a similar spirit, by me, at least. Our expressions of appreciation satisfied him fully at last, and he begged permission to pack and send to Liverpool for shipment to the land of lands, at least one specimen joint apiece for us, from those unclassified fossil remains. Pentagons were dear, octagons at a premium, but hexagons could be had, I think, of ordinary size (say a foot or two in length and four to six inches in diameter) for the paltry sum of eight or ten golden dollars. We began to wonder whether Lord Antrim, or Sir Edward (whose income is set down as two hundred and fifty thousand dollars annually), had farmed out the eighth wonder of the world, but we remain ignorant on that score.

We returned from the "Grand" across the "Honey-Comb" and "Well" causeway (the three divisions which are yet undivided,

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being designated thus). "A belemnite and two ammonites and all for one half crown!" screamed a little ne'er-do-weel who might have offered herself as a specimen Bedlamite with some propriety, as she outskipped her comrades and presented herself prominently beside us. Terms so geological from a young nondescript like that, seemed whimsical enough.

Along the crag-bordered road we walked as evening fell, breathing the vivid ocean air, a straggling procession at our heels, through whose clutches we had passed unscathed.

We gathered for ourselves sweet flowers with faces strange and new, and then rode homeward in the shadow of the limestone cliffs, with outlook on the far, mysterious sea.

MY TRIP TO THE GARDEN OF EDEN.

"The gentle reader" will surely be decoyed by such a heading into a perusal of my first sentence. But my conscience drives me to the avowal that I have in mind only some notes of an excursion to the Isle of Wight. I realize the duplicity of trying to sail into the uncertain harbor of "the public ear" on false pretenses. England calls its pet island "Eden's Garden," but the mother-land is so fair that I should hesitate to give the palm to a daughter even so lovely as this. We landed at Cowes, — the paradise of yachtsmen, — rumbled through its narrow streets on top of an omnibus, overgrown and overcrowded, to Newport.

Leaving Newport, we jogged on to the pretty little town of Carisbrooke, whence we walked up to the castle, the more active of our party making its circuit, and finding every lonesome room haunted by thoughts of Good Queen Bess and stubborn, unfortunate King Charles I. A young woman of quite literary aspect, with a wise looking book under her arm, opened the wicket for us, and we thought her an obliging tourist till she took the proffered coin, so seldom refused in Her Majesty's dominions, and told us how to "do" the fine old ruin. But, somehow, after Netley Abbey, Carisbrooke seemed tame and too far gone for much enthusiasm. What I shall remember longest is its fortress well — excavated in forgotten centuries to a depth of three hundred feet or more — from whose black abyss the most forlorn, demented-looking donkey I ever saw drew a full bucket for us by toddling along a great wheel in tread-mill fashion.

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Going to Carisbrooke village, near by, we had a homely, but most toothsome English dinner at the Bugle Hotel. The mistress of the house waited on us herself, cutting the "half-gallon loaf," and telling us she once saw Tennyson: "that is, an ordinary looking man passed by, and afterward somebody said ‘he'd wrote a book about a sailor that went off and got shipwrecked, and when he came back, his wife was married again.’" She always thought the person that pointed this man out to her called his name Venison! Over the midday meal our party decided upon a separation. Four of them openly declared their indifference to the "Dairyman's Daughter" and all the haunts pertaining to her, and expressed their fixed determination "to see the inside of Osborne" if money would purchase that beatific vision. But Kate and I decided on the daughter of the dairyman, so, complying with the suggestion of our landlady, we chartered "our vicar's chaise, and the nice, stiddy young man that drives it," and off we bowled through the shadiest and loveliest of lanes. Of all the hamlets that English authors set before us, or pensive fancy conjures when we read about the motherland, this of Arreton, at which we soon arrived, seems to me the most perfect fulfillment of one's ideal. What a good and ignorant life one might here lead! How distant from the pleasures, sins, and numberless amenities of this our wide, wide world; "so near and yet so far" from all that pains and pleases on the turbulent, but buoyant sea of art, business and politics, that we call life! What a host of intricate relationships to the world we touch at points so many and so varied, are brushed aside like cobwebs, as one enters the still graveyard where simple Elizabeth Walbridge has slept so sweetly and so long!

In the cool shade of the gray and friendly church — the very quaintest in the kingdom — how many a fitful fever has been quenched; and looking far above its dim old spire into the quiet heavens, what downlike peace has fallen into tumultuous hearts! If one should ask me the place of all that I have seen in my restless wanderings over the earth which lent itself most readily to sober second thought — the place where one could be most truly "in but not of" this world; did any seek the sanctuary of a silence sacred, but not terrible; of a serenity profound as that which glorifies the brows undreaded death has touched, yet sweet

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and human as the smile upon a sleeping baby's face — I would point him to this tree-embosomed hamlet. Here the invisible spirit's breath alone seems to stir the quiet leaves, and the very sunshine is toned and tempered as one sees it not elsewhere. The clustered homes look as if they had grown here, like the trees which hide them; one's fancy can not make itself believe that ever sound of hammer or of saw was heard in a retreat so still. The solemn church has a look so venerable, one well might believe it a feature of the scene as natural as the bowlders on the highway.

Around it the silent graveyard stretched its quiet shadows on that still summer noon. A little child, not six years old, was playing near the roadside as we alighted from the carriage, and at a sign from the "stiddy young man," she conducted us to the church-yard, walking demurely down the narrow lane before us, finger in mouth, and looking a strange, elfish little guide, as she threaded her way among the thickly strewn graves, guided us to the rear of the church, quite under the shadow of its solemn walls, crossed a small bit of sunlit sward, and stood beside a plain white headstone much larger than herself. Resting her hand upon it, she pointed to the name we sought and sententiously observed, "That's it." Beside the grave were two others — that of the parents and sister of good Leigh Richmond's heroine — the parents without tombstones, those of the two sisters having been secured by public subscription. Nothing could be simpler than these little monuments; and Leigh Richmond's epitaph written for that of the "Dairyman's Daughter" is very touching and appropriate.

I brought away with me a dandelion that was growing on the grave I came to see, for I thought it a fit emblem, with its modest stem and globe of gold, of the lowly life which yet was glorified by some of the loveliest beams that make bright the Sun of Righteousness.

The gray-haired sexton came across the little meadow to show us the old church, in whose plain and unadorned interior he seemed to take fully as much pride as the elegant beadle of unmatched York Minster evinces in his own especial charge. "There his some very hold brass in the chancel, ladies, you really houghtn't to miss of seein' hit," he said, touching his old

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straw hat. But we anticipated seeing so much "brass," ancient and modern, in that museum of antiquities called "Europe," that we declined, to the evident disgust of the exhibitor.

Reluctantly we turned away from Arreton hamlet — the ideal home of a Rip Van Winkle sleep — and told our "stiddy young man who drives the vicar's carriage" to take us next to the cottage of the dairyman. But that worthy felt called upon to reason with us in this wise: "Hit's a long ways off — three good miles there and back; and I'm persuaded you'd miss the six o'clock boat for Southampton that I've given you my word you should be in time for. Then again hit's nothing to see, I assure you, ladies — being as common a cottage as there is on the whole island. I can show you many a one like it. And, besides, you couldn't get in if you went; for the present proprietor don't like troubling himself for visitors, and it was recently a question of pulling the hold thing down altogether." We ranged ourselves as usual on different sides of the argument — Kate the conservative, I the radical; she cautious, I adventurous; she saying, "We mustn't miss the boat," and I, "But we must see the cottage." However, with two against one, it is manifest who gained the day; we drove off regretfully to join our friends at Osborne — the "stiddy young man," true to his word, pointing out a cottage now and then with his long whip and turning toward me with his squint eyes, saying, "Hit's very like the dairyman's, I do assure you, Miss, only far prettier, and better worth your while." Alas, for those to whom a primrose is a primrose only!

We looked down the cool vista of Osborne from "without the gate," and were glad that within a home so sheltered and so noble the lonesome queen can shut herself from the obtrusive world, and hide her wound as does the stricken deer in the deep wilderness; and as we went our restless way we mused upon the lesson to be gleaned from the reflection that the saddest woman in England's realm wears England's crown upon her head, and lives, sometimes, at least, in its "Garden of Eden."

It was a great transition to find myself next day swinging in the globe at the top of St. Paul's Cathedral spire in London — impelled to a gymnastic feat so senseless by the declaration of a young Boston snob, that "No woman had done this, or could, or should."

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THE MONKS AND DOGS OF St. BERNARD.

It was the twenty-seventh day of August, 1869. The Doctor "didn't think it would pay to climb such a tall hill just to see a few dogs and some monks," and his wife was not physically able, so we three insatiables, Kate, Sophie and I, gladly accepted the invitation of Messrs. Smith and Jones to take the long-desired excursion in their company. We did our best to get up and off early, but it was half-past seven before ourselves, our bags, guide-books and umbrellas were all fairly stowed away in a carriage meant for four. We drove six hours along a well-built road, through scenery much finer than we had looked for on this pass which the books feel called upon to characterize as inferior to most other Alpine heights. We did not at all agree to this, particularly Mr. Jones, who was in a sort of fine frenzy all the way — only Mr. Jones is dry in manner, and, like a glacier river, apt to burst forth "on a sudden." The villages we traversed far surpassed in age, dirt, narrowness, and direct antagonism to their natural surroundings, all that had preceded them in our two months' observation of Switzerland. At Orsieres we spent a spare half hour in the curious old church, which has a crucifixion quite too sanguinary and awful to be long looked upon, and a contribution-box with a jingling bell attached, which Mr. Smith shook in our faces, with his great laugh, frightening us lest priest or sexton should appear. Nobody was present, though, except two sober-faced little girls, who said that they had come to pray, and who responded in pretty, serious fashion, to Kate's shower of French interrogations.

There were quaint and curious explanations written in a hand like our grandfathers', on paper yellow as theirs, of the dim, but tawdry pictures on the wall, stating that certain purgatorial exemptions might be reasonably hoped for by the faithful who should repeat in front of them a certain number of Aves and Paternosters. There was also a huge eye painted in water-colors, likewise an ear, and a hand holding a pen, under which, respectively, were written, "The Eye that sees all!" "The Ear that hears all!" "The Hand that writes all!" This, perhaps, is good — for peasants. I was indignant at the contrast between the bedizened wall and the high, stiff, narrow seats for the humble congregation. It seemed curious, in such squalid villages,

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to come upon Latin inscriptions over the houses, but these were numerous, also saintly symbols and monograms. Great crosses spread their sheltering arms along the roadside, almost always with inscriptions, of which the most impressive was, "Cruci fidelis inter omnes."

Erelong we struck the trail of the great Napoleon — that is, its palpable remains. Mr. Jones kept a bright lookout, for he thinks there never was but one man, and his initials were N. B. The old, broken-down bridge by which the "greatest captain of his own or any other age" crossed this deep gorge, is near the ancient village of St. Pierre, and a tavern hard by is called the "Hotel of Napoleon's Breakfast."

I went back in thought to my old "McGuffey's Third Reader" and the rough Wisconsin school-house, where I first studied out its account of the great warrior's passage here, and gazed upon its rude wood-cut of David's splendid equestrian picture, which I saw last year in the palace of Frederick the Great. I linked the present and the past by a strong effort of imagination, and repeopled the silent cliffs and valleys with the invincible army of thirty thousand men, and the dauntless leader who said, "Is the route practicable?" and being answered, "It is not, perhaps, impassable," cried, "Move forward the legions!" and a few days later won Marengo and lost Desaix. To my unskilled eyes the route did not appear so difficult as I had fancied, but it was August, that was May, and snow blocked up the passage and benumbed the troops. Yet even Mr. Jones, the hero-worshiper, who would have followed to the bitter end the leader whom Madame de Remusat does not love, admitted that it "didn't really look so dreadful as he had hoped it would."

At a lonely wayside inn we left the carriage, and Kate and Sophie took mules while I went on foot with the two gentlemen. Kate's muleteer was a handsome fellow with a mouth gleaming in ivory, and a tongue which proved that perpetual motion is no impossibility. As a peasant woman with fantastic head-piece, passed on her way to church, he remarked in French, "Men are not good at prayer, no more have they the time; they leave it to their wives. Women's eyes are always fixed on the sky, but men's eyes are rooted to the ground." As he said this, he saluted the woman and exclaimed, "Pray for us husbands."

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The way was enlivened by interesting talk, and I forgot to change with Sophie at the place agreed upon, but climbed upward on foot in the sudden twilight toward the famous home of animals of whose noble deeds men might be proud, and of men whose saintly lives recall that of the Master who pleased not Himself. The way grew very dreary, the chill in the air seemed to penetrate our bones; bare, gray and pitiless rose the cliffs on every hand, and the eternal snows seemed not a stone's throw distant. Travelers of all nations passed us on this strange road where nature was so pallid and so cold; quick-footed young pedestrians from England, leisurely gray-mustached French gentlemen on horseback, fat German ladies in chairs borne by two stout-armed peasants, delicate-featured Americans, the women riding, the men lightly walking at their sides. On we climbed, while Mr. Smith impelled our flagging steps by an explosive recitation of Longfellow's "Excelsior," the scene of which is here. Around a sharp, rocky bend, up an ascent as steep as a house roof, past an overhanging precipice,. I went, leaving the gentlemen behind me, in the enthusiasm of the approach, and then the gray, solemn friendly walls of the great Hospice, which had seemed to me as dim and distant as the moon's caverns, rose before me outlined upon the placid evening sky. I stopped and listened eagerly as I approached its open door, no sound but the gurgle of a distant brook; no living object but two great St. Bernard dogs seated upon the broad, dark steps of stone.

A gentleman may be defined as a being always wisely and benignantly equal to the occasion. Such a character appeared upon the scene in the person of "Reverend Besse," the "Hospitable Father" and chief of the establishment. Our party in committee of the whole (and no "minority report"), voted him the most delightful man we ever saw. All that is French in manner, united to all that is English in sturdiness of character, all that is winning in Italian tones, united to a German's ideality, a Yankee's keenness of perception, a Scotchman's heartiness, and an Irishman's wit — these qualities seemed blended in our "nonesuch" of a host, and fused into harmony by the fire of a brother's love toward man and a saint's fidelity to God. Young, fair, blue-eyed, he stood among our chattering group like one who, from a region of perpetual calm, dispenses radiant smiles and overflowing

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bounty. So quick was his discernment and so sagacious was his decision, that almost without a question he assigned us, in detachments correctly arranged, to fitting domiciles; made each one feel that he or she had been especially expected and prepared for, and within five minutes had so won his way into the innermost recess of everybody's heart, that Mr. Jones expressed in his own idiomatic way the sense of fifty guests when he declared, "To such a man as that even the Little Corporal might well have doffed his old chapeau." Who shall do justice to the dinner at that L-shaped table, where the Father sat at the head and said grace, beaming upon his great cosmopolitan family with that young face, so honest, gentle and brave? Who but the jestful climbers to whom rice soup, omelet, codfish and potatoes, stewed pears, rice pudding, figs, filberts, cake and tea, seemed dulcet as ambrosia on these inspiring heights? Then came the long evening around the huge and glowing hearth-fire. How soon we felt "acquaint"; how fast we talked in frisky French or wheezy German, minding little how the moods and tenses went askew, so that we got and gave ideas. The Father turned from side to side answering with solicitous attention every question that we asked, so that a mosaic of his chief replies would read something like this:

"Mademoiselle asks the indications of the thermometer this August evening? I learn the mercury stands already at forty-five degrees Fahrenheit, and the boundary line of Italy is but five minutes distant. Here, Brother Jean, please provide the beds of all our guests with warming-pans.

"Yes, lady, our Hospice was founded nine hundred years ago, by Count Bernard, of Savoy, who devoted forty years of his life to entertaining and protecting, as we still try to do, the many travelers who annually pass through these mountains between Switzerland and Italy. About twenty thousand were cared for each year in olden times, without the smallest charge being made of rich or poor. Now, we have not so many, the facilities for travel having so greatly improved. But a great number come over the Pass who are out looking for work, and there are also many beggars. These we limit to three days' entertainment. We would gladly keep them longer, but can not. Our dogs are a cross between Newfoundland and Pyrenean, and after seven or

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eight years become rheumatic, and we are forced to kill them. In winter travelers are obliged to wait at a place of refuge we have provided, at some distance from these buildings, which are on the very top of the Pass, until we send out a man and dog, with refreshments fastened to the neck of the dog, who never once loses his way, though the distance is long, the snow is often thirty feet deep, and the only guide the man has is the great banner-like tail of the dog waving through the storm. Last winter we lost one of our noblest animals. A strange dog bit him and severed an artery. The monks always go out in the most dangerous weather. I lead them at such times. They are not obliged to go — we make it perfectly voluntary."

Here Kate broke in with an important question: "How do you occupy your time in summer?" "Oh, Mademoiselle, we study and teach — we had fifty students last season." "What do you teach?" "All that a priest ought to know — theology, philosophy, the laws of the church. We know contemporaneous events, except politics (!) which we do not read." "What is your age?" here chimed in the practical Jones. "Monsieur, I am thirty-one." ("But he does not look a day older than twenty-three," whispered poetical Sophie, and we all nodded our energetic acquiescence in her figures.) "How long have you been here?" "Eleven years, and I remain in perfect health. My predecessors in the office could not endure this high latitude — three of them left in a period of four years." "Why are you here?" persisted Jones. The scene was worthy of a painter — that shrewd Yankee, whose very figure was a walking interrogation point, and that graceful, urbane monk, in his long cassock, as leaning in his easy-chair and looking forward and a little upward, he answered with slow, melodious emphasis, "Brother, it is my calling, that is all." So simple was his nature, that to have heard "a call" from God and not obeyed it, would have seemed to him only less monstrous than not to have heard any call at all! At early dawn we were wakened by men's voices in a solemn chant, led by the Hospitable Father — and never did religion seem more sacred and attractive than while we listened as through the chapel door came the words of the Te Deum, consecrated by centuries of Christian song, "We praise Thee, O God, we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord."

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PARIS.

January 3, 1869. — In the evening we were all assembled in the salon, and Madame P., our teacher, telling us not to be scandalized, brought in the cushion cover she is embroidering and her sister's sewing, and they both proceeded to put in a solid evening at work. Her son, with two friends, sat at the card table throughout the evening, and this was my first Sunday with a French family in Paris.

Memorandum. — A man of all work is cleaning out Madame's salle a manger floor with a brush on his foot, and his foot plying actively from side to side. A more excellent way this than to see Antoinette, the maid of all work, on her knees with a scrub broom!

January 6. — Rejuvenated, recreated, by eight hours' continuous repose, I have a mind to indicate here what has much occupied me of late, but what I am not brave enough to execute, perhaps, though, if I were, I believe my usefulness would exceed the measure it will reach in any other line of life. Briefly, it is to study so far as possible, by reading, learning the languages and personal observation, the aspects of the woman question in France, Germany and England, and when I return to America, after two or three years' absence, and have studied the same subject carefully in relation to my own land, to talk in public of the matter and cast myself with what weight or weakness I possess against the only foe of what I conceive to be the justice of the subject, and that is unenlightened public opinion. Sometimes I feel "the victory to be in me," often I do not. Always, I have dimly felt it to be my vocation, but a constitutional dread of criticism and too strong love of approbation have held me back. With encouragement, I believe myself capable of rendering services of some value in the word-and-idea-battle that will only deepen with years, and must at last have a result that will delight all who have helped to hasten it.

Antoinette, the bonne, from whom we are also striving to learn, as everybody is fish for our net at present, told us that Monsieur M., husband of Madame P., was the architect of the thirteenth ward of Paris; that no one could make the least alteration in his house, either to put in a window or a pane of glass, without his permission. We told her how in free America every man chose the material and style that suited him, and no one dared to interfere. She thought it evidently a liberty not to be envied, and said we must have all sorts of odd looking streets as the result. Paris is to be beautiful, that is decreed, and no private tastes or ignorances are permitted to interfere with the plan.

This evening Madame talked frankly with us of her affairs. She said that to-day the reader of the Empress brought her a message from Eugenie, in answer to a request made on Madame's behalf by the Duchess de Sesto. It seems that Madame applied for the rent of a tobacconist's shop to increase her income, a curious thing on its face, and a request lodged in a curious quarter. But harkee! All the tobacco that comes to France is the property of the government. There is no permission given to private individuals for its importation or manufacture. The only manufactory in France is at Paris.

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The shops in which it is offered for sale buy their license of the government at a fixed yearly sum. To the wives and daughters of military men who have distinguished themselves, these license moneys are given as a support by the government. Vacancies only occur on the death of some lady to whom a license has been given. The Empress sent word to Madame that it would be as easy to bite the moon with one's teeth as to get her a tobacconist's shop within six years, but that anything in her power she would do, and she offered the Bourse to her for Henri, her son, that is, the right of gratuitous education in the Napoleon Lyceum, one of the chief schools of Paris; but through the city, on account of her husband's services as an architect, Madame already has that privilege. The Empress also offered to put the little girls in a school of high grade, but Madame wisely says she will never be separated from them. She expects, however, to obtain something desirable through the kindness of the Empress.

Later, came in Captain Rolle, a soldier of the regular army, full of conversation and of contradiction. He told us a marvelous story of an American born in France who has just inherited a million by the decease of a miserly uncle, and from his fruit-stand on the streets of New York he has been transported to the elegant establishment in this city of delights. The Captain brought in his various crosses of the Legion of Honor, one for evening, one for the parade, and a ribbon for daily use, with the various official papers relating to his promotion, in all of which we were much interested. I think a Legion of Honor would be a decidedly good novelty to introduce into America.

"This is a funeral of the fifth class," said Madame, scrutinizing a passing procession with her lorgnette from our lofty balcony. It seems there is one grand establishment in Paris which takes charge of all the funerals. There are seven grades, one orders whichever he can best afford for a friend, and has no further concern about any of the details. At the church, whither everybody is carried after death, whether he ever went before or not, one orders a dozen or a half-dozen choir boys and many or few prayers, according to the style of purse he carries.

January 24. — Just one year ago to-day my father died. How changed is life since then for mother and for me! In the twilight Kate and I have just been singing the hymns he liked the best, and which I often sang in the midnight hours to him, in those last times, so sad, so brightened in their clouds by his victorious faith. No other hymns will ever be to me like those on which his fainting spirit, sorely tried, was often borne aloft toward the calm regions where he has now enjoyed our Saviour's presence for one whole year, has learned so much, and delighted in the company of those he loved most dearly when in this world.

In the evening came Mr. U., an accomplished French gentleman, with whom we have fine opportunities for improving our grammar and accent. We fell into a spirited discussion of the late war, our own at home. He favors the South, thinks the liberation of the slaves without compensation to the master is theft; thinks the proclamation of emancipation was but a vigorous stroke of policy to enfeeble the enemy and to curry favor with

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Europe; thinks the North has crushed the South, which sentiment he illustrated by raising his boot with force and bringing it down upon the well-waxed floor of the salon with ringing emphasis; thinks the South was not bound to stay in the Union, on the principle that what our ancestors agree is nothing to ourselves, and prophesies another assassination of the nation's chief officer, and a second effusion of blood. Nevertheless, he says the South was not wise in going to war, and slavery is wrong, and ought to end, but by fair means. He says that France and England should have helped the South, for America is growing so powerful that, joined with Russia, she will "meddle herself" in European politics one of these days. It is very interesting to listen to the absurdity of these foreigners. I have not yet seen one who did not at heart lean a little toward the South.

January 26. — The lecture over, we went to Madame Farjon's for the evening and to tea, and had hours of what we most delight in — solid French. It was pleasant to me to be able to understand a whole conversation in another language, with the help of an occasional word from Kate, who is always ready and willing to come to my aid. It is odd, but when she is a moment absent, I do not altogether understand sentences that would give me no trouble if she were within earshot.

January 31. — We go almost daily to the College de France, where ladies are allowed to listen to the lectures of the ablest men in Paris. I have already acquired enough French to understand quite well.

I like my peeps at the domestic life of the intelligent, but undistinguished, in this wonderful city. In only one salon have I seen a carpet over the entire extent — and the fire, or the want of fire! Talk was had about the fine coal and the cheerful flame, when we made our bargain to come, but to-night we sat in the great barn of a room with a foot-stove apiece filled with warm ashes, and shivered with the cold, although such a day as this in an American January would be thought spring-like. Finally, Kate and I, in desperation, sat down before the chilly grate and absorbed what heat it had, since we paid so much a week therefor. While the others, with wraps about them, took their sewing and gathered around the great lamp on the center-table, resigned to their habitual fate, and possibly gained some heat from that luminary, I quietly mended the scattered fragments of the fire, at which one of the children said, "Oh, malheureuse!" (unhappy one) for to touch a thing so sacred is presumption. If father were here he would say, "The French know no more about comfort than my goose."

I have been noting the industry of Madame's little girls, one nine, the other seven years old. They rise at six o'clock, breakfast on a bowl of tea and bread, stay at their work-table and are employed with their governess until noon, three days in the week, at grammar, reading, English (such English!) lessons. Twice a week their aunt gives them lessons on the piano; two or three times they go for a walk with Antoinette; in the evenings, directly after tea, they bring forth their light work from their neat and orderly workboxes and sew an hour, read a little quietly by themselves in books taken from the Sunday-school library, and retire at eight or nine

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o'clock after "embracing" all present in the most dutiful and affectionate manner. The other evening Madame made a little sketch for them to copy by way of variation. She keeps them to their tasks with gentle firmness, calling them all endearing names from "my angel" to "my little one," and admirably directs their young activities.

February 8. — I remember reading in the traveler books that in Paris one rarely saw a drunken man on the streets. This morning four reeled past us as we went to church. I repeated what I had read to Madame P. She said no error could be greater, that such sights were common, but gentlemen never became intoxicated here either at home or on the streets. She claimed that it was the blouse, not the broadcloth, that covered the back of the inebriate, but said that other pleasures no less fatal attract "the better class" of Frenchmen! What standards have the Parisians and what wonder that their language has no word for home!

In the evening, Madame's brother and sister were here. He has lived in South America, believes in slavery, and says in the funniest pronunciation that he is a copper-head. He laughed at the "pretty President" we have in General Grant, and when Kate, acting as mouthpiece for us both, because she speaks French more readily than I do, pushed him to the wall in argument, he asked if she would marry a colored man. She replied with spirit, "No, nor would I marry a Frenchman, either!" at which remark general horror was expressed and the argument was ended.

February 10. — We have been to see the process of making both tapestries and carpets at the Imperial manufactory. In the former, the artist stands behind his work, because every thread must be tied on the wrong side of it, to leave a perfectly smooth surface upon the other. The picture he is to copy is behind him. From time to time he puts a little mirror between the threads and in it sees the progress of his work. The busy bobbin flies in and out in the expert hand of the invisible worker. Then the mirror is pushed through for an instant's scrutiny, and again the bobbin resumes its motion. I do not believe that a quarter of an inch is wrought in a single day. Watching a long time, I could see no growth in the delicate flower petal that was under the fingers of the artist of whose work I took special notice. The men who make carpets, on the contrary, have their work in front of them, and the picture they are to copy hangs above their heads. They loop upon a little iron instrument many loose stitches, then turn a sharp edge that is on one side of this tool against the loop, cutting it in two and leaving the severed ends exposed. These they clip down, smooth off and their work is finished. But this work, too, is very slow, being on a much larger scale than the tapestries. Some carpets take ten years, and none are ever sold. The manufactory belongs to the government and its products go to palaces at home or are the princely gifts of France to foreign potentates. The largest carpet ever made here or elsewhere, probably, was for the picture gallery of the Louvre. It was in seventy-two pieces, was more than thirteen hundred feet long, and cost $30,000. It seems curious that women are not at all employed here, where the delicacy of the work would seem so well suited to their fingers. Large, heavy, unwieldy looking men

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were clipping at the carpets, seated comfortably on their benches, some of them with a scissors' end picking out the ends of the woven threads, but not a woman was to be seen, except the one who laid hold of our umbrella and confiscated it at a cost of two sous. The men who work here are poorly paid. There are about one hundred and twenty of them, and they receive prices ranging from three to six hundred dollars annually in gold, and when disabled by age or illness a life pension ranging from one hundred dollars to two hundred dollars annually. We did not see the establishment for dyeing, but in one room was a dazzling collection of the colors used in making the tapestries, the loveliest blues, greens, reds, and other shades, that I ever saw.

At our evening lesson and talk Madame P. fell upon the subject of the strictness of the marriage laws of France, saying that the ceremony at church had no authority apart from that at the Mayor's office, whither goes every pair from the Emperor and Empress down. She told us about her own trousseau, and disapproved the action of her cousin, who at her marriage had a dozen dozen of each linen garment; she thought four dozen enough. She said the proper way for the parents of the bride was to put a sum of money at interest at her marriage, sufficient to keep her in linen for the rest of the time, instead of getting such a senseless quantity on hand to grow old and fall to pieces. She told us that she was married at the mayor's one day and at the church the next, but that the common people usually went direct from one place to the other. The church gave the benediction of heaven upon the union, that was all, it had no validity apart from the legal forms. She mentioned a curious custom that every child must be dispatched within three days after the tenth birthday to the mayor's office to be registered and examined as to its sex to prevent deception on the part of parents, who would avoid the conscription of their children. If a boy, he was not examined, but if a girl was announced, an examination must be had in presence of witnesses. That single law would bring about a war within twenty hours if passed in America. The idea is, "If you have sons, I, the Government, will know it, and they shall fight to uphold my throne. I will examine for myself, and you have no way to escape from the conscription which I ordain."

Kate recounted several instances about American customs to Madame P., giving among them the incident of a young lady who broke off a "desirable" engagement, because she did not love her lover. Madame replied with spirit, "There is but one thing in the world that a woman has to give and that is her hand. I like now and then to hear of her having refused it, just as a token of her independence." I was much amused at an out-cropping of the national sentiment which followed my remark that, if I ever married I hoped a minister might be my lot, as I needed the influence of such surroundings and companionships. Madame replied: "Why, I know a young man, well educated, very religious, a fine fellow, every way. I will write to him, I owe him a letter, and will show you his reply. You can judge from that what sort of a person he is." She imagines that like all Americans who have gone before me, I should be desirable by reason of my dowry!

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ITALY.

I never dreamed in those lethargic years at home, what a wide world it is, and how full of misery. Indeed, in a thousand ways, it was Rome's office to teach me this. Walking along her streets with grief tugging at my heart for all the wretchedness that they disclosed, how many times have I repeated to myself those words of St. Augustine, "Let my soul calm itself, O God, in thee!"

Hollow-eyed beggars asking charity, at almost every step; troops of tonsured monks, barefooted and steaming in their moist, dirty, old garments; skinny hags, warming their knotted hands over the smouldering coals in their little "scaldino" pots; dirty little children, whose tears make the only clean spots upon their pitiful faces, old before their time; soldiers standing as sentries in wind and rain, for no real purpose save to subserve the pride of Prince and Cardinal; horses, whose bones but just refrain from protruding through their rusty skins, driven rapidly over the sharp stones, and falling, only to struggle and throw out their wounded legs in the effort to rise and continue their journey under the pitiless lash. All these sights smote my eyes every time I walked the classic streets of Rome. Whoever can fail to feel the fires of a quenchless philanthropy kindling in his breast as he contemplates such scenes is either too frivolous for thought, or too hardened for emotion. For myself, whatever I did not learn there, Rome taught me an intense love and tender pity for my race.

OPENING OF THE "ECUMENICAL COUNCIL."

I doubt if Rome, old as she is and varied as her experience has been, was ever earlier astir than on the morning of this day. Lights glimmered in the Roman garrets, the cavernous depths of Roman basements, and the lordly middle heights of Roman palaces, at a most unseemly hour, looking like jack-o'-lanterns through the cottony mist of the most unpropitious morning that ever dawned, at least considered from a meteorologic point of view. Crowds had already assembled at St. Peter's before the bells struck off the cheerless hour of five, and when our comfortable carriage load, invigorated by the breakfast that awaited our appearance at seven o'clock, set out for the scene of action, the tide of emigration in the same direction was frightful to behold.

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We rolled on through the chief thoroughfares in the long double line of carriages, while on each side the army of umbrella-carrying pedestrians could be compared to nothing but a forest of mammoth mushrooms. They poured in from all directions; processions of school-boys, colleges of theological students, their symbolic "leading string" hanging limp and spiritless behind them; white-bonneted sisters of charity, solitary priests, adventurous women; "don't-care" urchins of the street, and gaunt-faced beggar women, with ragged petticoats gathered around their heads; a monstrous, motley throng, all candidates upon exactly equal footing as the wealthiest or most lowly occupant of the hurrying carriages, who joked about them as they passed, for the "Holy Father" had ordained that perfect fairness should prevail at the day's ceremony, and prince and peasant would jostle each other this morning in their efforts to get a good look at the procession. In the street, however, slight distinctions still prevailed; mounted soldiers, wrapped in dripping cloaks and wearing draggled plumes, guarded the approach to the bridge of St. Angelo, and he must be at least a Bishop who would pass unchallenged, while all lesser lights of church or state must make the grand detour, pass the Tiber's classic muddiness by a distant bridge, and pay roundly for the privilege of doing so.

Alas for human foresight! Had we not planned to be among the earliest to take possession of the great Basilica, and behold! the streets many squares distant from St. Peter's were lined on either side by empty carriages which had already deposited their too-enterprising burdens, though it was but seven, and the ceremony would not take place till nine. Arrived at the great square we became fully convinced, perhaps for the first time, that early birds alone can hope for toothsome morsels. The place was red with Cardinal's carriages and black with commonplace humanity, all of whom were engaged in a break-neck race for the wide, inviting, blocked-up doors of the cathedral. We filed in between gigantic guards with old-fashioned muffs upon their heads, carrying the burden of our wilted hopes. What a sea of human faces; what a deep ground-swell of human voices; what waves of human forms! Along the dim, damp, lofty nave was stretched a double line of soldiers, keeping an avenue from the great central door, now open for the first time that we had ever seen it, to the council

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hall. Against this moveless wall beat the eager, hopeless crowd. Thousands were between them and us so the pleasant fiction of "seeing the procession" was exploded at a glance. Still we made desperate efforts to get nearer the soldiers and soon found ourselves crushed between three peasants, two monks and a fish-woman, the mingled odor from whose wet garments was more invincible than bayonets, and we worked our way to a breathing place without loss of time. Then we tried for the high altar opposite which is the open door of the council hall, but Leonidas and his Spartans were not more steadfast than the multifarious monster that held position there. Then desperately we forced our way into the entrance portico of the church, but this was packed and had he passed at the moment, we could not have seen the topmost feather of the Pope's peacock fans. At last becoming weary and dispirited, we retired to the chapel of the Presentation of the Virgin, vis-a-vis with the splendid chapel of the Holy Sacrament, and our escort, Signor Paolo Caveri, a Genoese lawyer, devout Catholic that he was, insisted on our taking sitting positions on the marble railing that surrounded the altar, turning our backs upon the sacred symbol. We had our scruples, but a glance revealed the startling fact that several sanctimonious priests had been guilty of a like irreverence, and so we mounted the rich balustrade, and thence "assisted" at the pageant of the day. Time wore on and the human stream still gurgled through the open doors. The beautiful marble floor was deluged with water dripping from cloaks, shoes and umbrellas; the air was dark with incense from the "unseen censer" often thousand pairs of panting lungs; the Babel of voices grew louder, the crush more formidable, but along the endless nave the lines of troops stood firm. Side scenes were not wanting to make the hours less long. At every altar in the church, mass was being celebrated, and to us irreverent heretics the struggle in the Catholic breast between curiosity and devotion was a curious study. One solemn-faced gentleman in holiday attire elbowed his way through the crowd and knelt to take the sacrament, but being closely pressed on either side, he inadvertently knocked from the altar one of its tall candles which dripped upon his fine new coat in swift revenge. The priest pretended not to see, and went on decorously with his genuflexions; the communicant affected not

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to feel, but assumed an apoplectic hue, and the people hid their laughing faces in their prayer-books while they muttered the responses in broken tones. We saw our good friend and escort, the Italian lawyer, and his daughter on their knees, but with faces that would have become them far better at the comic opera than before the sacred altar. A worthy priest intent on seeing all that passed and yet on escaping the pressure of the crowd, had abused his prerogative so far as to climb the projecting ornaments of a column beside the altar, and was making most industrious use of his eyes, when, lo! another priest in glittering vestments and with attendant choir boy came to say mass within arm's-reach of him. The struggle between duty and inclination was ludicrous enough; the poor priest wriggled himself into a position of compromise and nodded and mumbled toward the altar while he kept one eye sharply opened on the passage way for the procession. Opposite him, standing up on the altar railing, was a portly dame who courtesied and responded from her statuesque position and ran a dreadful risk of becoming cross-eyed for life by trying to look two ways at once — toward God and Mammon. From time to time ladies were carried out in fainting fits, with faces ghastly white and chignons trailing on their shoulders, or purple-cheeked children were lifted over the heads of the crowd to purer air. Now a gentleman's hat or his umbrella would be swept from his hand and lost irrevocably, or a lady's shawl drop from her shoulders to be seen no more. And in all the tumult the automaton boy who kneels beside the priest would ring his little bell, and as the wind bends the prairie grass, so the warning sound would bring the faithful to their knees. The liveried servants of cardinals and bishops, in their cocked hats and knee-breeches, went down upon their "prayer-bones" like men who feel that their position demands a certain decorum at any sacrifice, while, mindful of their white stockings, they tucked a handkerchief under their knees. Now and then a purple-gowned bishop, preceded by his secretary and servants, forced his way through the crowd which always made room for a personage so distinguished. But at last the boom of minute-guns announced the long-looked-for moment; the peal of bells joined its rich alto to this solemn bass, and the clear, seraphic voices of the Pope's choir completed the chorus. Every soldier stood with lifted bayonet; the crowd existed but for

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the sake of its eyes, and dizzily poised on tiptoe on my marble balustrade, I — one of this august army's fifty thousand fractions — beheld the passage of the august procession. Beheld it, yes, but at a distance of one of the aisles and half the nave of the hugest existing church; over the heads of the greatest crowd ever gathered within doors and on the darkest morning that ever rained down shadows. As a veritable chronicler I can pretend to nothing more than having literally looked upon the heads of the Catholic church, which I would, respectfully report as for the most part gray, when not bald, tonsured, or concealed by skull-caps. The procession was half an hour in passing, and Monsieur l'Abbé, who also went with us, but was more fortunate in his place of observation, reports it as having numbered eight hundred or more. The venerable priests moved very slowly, as became their dignity and the majesty of the duties to which they were going, and last of all came the Pope who left his official chair at the door and walked to the council hall with his brethren, to the scandalization of the commonalty, who had comforted one another with these words, "At least we shall get a good view of his Holiness borne in his chair of state."

What was done at the high altar and in the council hall, deponent saith not. We all crowded as close as possible to the great open door of the latter when the members had taken their seats, and were rewarded by a glimpse of white-robed Bishops, sitting in wide semicircles as the saints are represented in the heavenly visions of Fra Angelico, and above them royal personages, the Empress of Austria and the Queen of Hungary, looking very black and unseemly in such a shining company. Four times we charged upon the phalanx that had crowded around the open door aforesaid, but were driven back in confusion and disgust.

We drove home fatigued beyond measure and thankful beyond words that Ecumenical Councils happen not more frequently than once in three hundred years.

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UP THE NILE.

Steamer "Behera" borrowed of the Pasha for a three weeks' trip by "Cook's tourists" and "us Americans." February 11,1870.

One week of my restless, ranging life has now been passed upon the quiet river that was once the god, and is ever the good genius of the Egyptians.

Let me try to give a true sketch of an experience entirely unique. We thought to make the trip by "dahabeah" (boat) would take too long; we found that to charter a small steamer would be difficult. Cook and his tourists came along; they wished us Americans, sixteen in number, to join them in engaging a large steamer; in an evil hour we yielded, and behold us "in for it" and afloat upon the Nile, a most uncongenial crowd of forty-seven persons, in a big, bloated, blustering steamer, all to be dined and wined, walked on shore and mounted on donkey-back, by wholesale ; marshaled by a dragoman in green clothes, an interpreter who speaks nine languages, and an important "tourist-manager," whenever an Arab village, a venerable temple, or a tomb old when Joseph was governor of Egypt, is to be "done."

Well, a sorry day it was in which Warburton, in his "Voyage up the Nile," taught me what the East might be to a pale-faced traveler from chilly shores and stormy skies.

The Real is a dragon under whose scaly feet the airy form of the Ideal is almost always trampled in my life's cheerful history.

We came to feel the subtle spirit of the East; instead, we feel Egyptian fleas. We came to float musingly along the mystic waters of the world's most curious river; instead, we go snuffing, snorting, shaking, over its tolerant breast — eyes full of smoke, ears full of discord, noses full of smells from kitchen and from coal-bin. And yet, in spite of all, I shall never forget one evening's ride; it was the culmination of what the East can yield me, and very grateful I am for its golden memory. Above me were new heavens; in the frame of a violet sky hung constellations I had never seen before, their palpitating golden globes like the fruit waving in the trees of Hesperides. And dear, familiar stars were there, only in places very different from those they occupy in the "infinite meadows of heaven" that bend above my home. The Dipper lay on the horizon's edge, tipped up most curiously;

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the Pleiades had nearly reached the zenith and the changeless face of the North Star I could hardly distinguish in his new surroundings. Around me was a new earth, and the sandy plain stretched away into the purple darkness full of attractive mystery. Far off gleamed the fire-fly lamps of an Arab village, and on the cool, invigorating breeze which had succeeded to the day's stifling heat came the lonesome bark of dogs and jackals so characteristic of the East: I rode under magnificent palm trees of a symmetry unequaled by any hitherto seen, and casting shadows in which the moonlight mingled so that they looked like an emblazoned shield. The white walls and graceful dome of a sheik's tomb gleamed through the trees.

My thoughts flew across the sea — dear mother, for whom all things lovely and noble have such significance, never looked upon a palm tree's feathery crest, nor saw it mirrored by an oriental moon upon the desert's yellow sand! Dear mother! did she think of me that night and pray for her far-away child? The landscape was dim for a moment as my heart stirred at thought of home.

I rode along the avenue of sphinxes that once extended over the mile that separates the temple of Luxor from that of Karnak. How still it was, and how significant that stillness in the highway through which for more than two thousand years had passed what was choicest and most royal in the wide earth — processions of kings and priests and captives, compared with which those of Rome were but the sport of children; and this, ere Romulus laid the first stone of his famous wall or Aeneas fretted the blue waves of the Aegean with his adventurous prow. The pride and glory of a world had had its center here ere Cadmus brought letters into Greece, or Jacob had his vision on the Judean plains.

But of what value is the "dramatic justice" which pleases us in romance, compared to the visible hand of vengeance with which a merciful God, who loves the creatures he has made, has smitten this stronghold of cruelty, wrenched from their lofty places the statues of bloodthirsty tyrants, and sent the balm of moonlight drifting through the shattered walls, and mellowing the fallen columns?

We sat upon a broken pedestal in the great court of the Temple, Kate and I, and let the wondrous beauty of the place fall on

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our hearts. One isolated column, the last remaining fragment of a stately colonnade, outlined itself against the liquid sky — its white shaft brilliant in the moonshine and its broad, corolla-shaped capital gleaming far above us, while beyond, the shattered propylon once gay with the banners of Isis and Osiris frowned like the bastion of a fortress, and nearer by, an avalanche of fallen rocks of huge dimensions marked where ruin had struck the Temple of Jupiter Ammon with its relentless hand. Farther on was the forest of columns, which in its kind is unequaled by anything ever wrought by man — one hundred and thirty-four pillars, each seventy feet in height and thirty-five feet in circumference — covered from base to abacus with carefully wrought sculptures, brilliantly painted in their day. One of them was broken and leaned heavily against its giant neighbor, one of the most pathetic, indeed the most mournfully significant fragment that human hands have ever carved from stone, and time and ruin consecrated. Still beyond, in the white moonlight, climbed the tapering finger of the largest obelisk in Egypt, as fresh and clear-cut in its outline as on the day the chisel left it — the chisel held by that unknown artisan who was a mummy before Phidias wrought in Greece, or Zeuxis and Apelles had their rivalries. Against the obelisk leaned an old Arab in graceful turban, and around were seated several others, all by their costume and their bearing as perfectly in harmony with the scene as human accessories could be, and lending it a strange yet human charm.

In what far-off realm of our endless life shall we some day meet those mighty builders whose works we contemplated under the moonlit heavens? What a thought is this, that in the changeful round of being we shall doubtless encounter, somewhere, the awful king, Sesostris, the witching Cleopatra, the Pharaoh who was overwhelmed in the revengeful sea!

I firmly believe that they are all upon some stellar world, seen by us, probably a thousand times, when we looked up into the great, gleaming, kindly heavens. And I can not help an earnest heart-welcome for every student of pyschic laws; spiritualism and all the occult phenomena that shall doubtless build up new sciences some day — just as alchemy became chemistry and astrology changed into astronomy. Only these new investigators must be disinterested students, not money-seeking jugglers.

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THE PYRAMIDS

A wise man once wrote in my autograph album, as follows: "There is an Up in life." (I remember he commenced the word "Up" with a capital "U.")

Always after that, I dimly believed in his idea, but on February 23, in 1870, I found out its truth for certain. To the airy hypothesis that there is actually, Up, I then applied the substantial test of "that experience which one experiences when one experiences one's own experience." Briefly, I climbed to the tip-top stone of the biggest of the pyramids.

Our party drove from Cairo to the pyramids in a barouche worthy of the Champs Elysées at Paris, along twelve miles of splendid road, built through the sands by the Viceroy in anticipation of a visit from the French Empress, and lined with shady sycamores and delicate mimosa trees. Quite a different way of getting there from the one reported by earlier tourists, who toiled on donkey-back through burning sands, accompanied by an escort of vociferous Arabs.

The barbarous scenes of which our Bible speaks, lived and moved again before our saddened eyes. A part of the embankment of the regal highway where we rode was broken down, and a hundred ragged laborers with baskets on their heads were bringing mud for its repair, while scattered at small intervals among them were swarthy overseers, each with his whip, which he plied almost unceasingly about the heads and shoulders of those bearded workmen, of those women who were mothers, while they all crouched like dogs, beneath the lash.

We drove on through fields of lentils, like those for which hungry Esau sold his birthright to long-headed Jacob; we saw men in ample gowns of blue and turbans of red, scratching the earth with one-handled wooden plows, leisurely dragged by stolid buffaloes; the whole scene having apparently walked out of the "Pictorial Family Bible" that we left behind us. We saw at frequent intervals, stalking along the road with listless tread, a tall, solemn woman of the Egyptians, with a little child sitting astride her shoulders, as Ishmael may have sat when Hagar was turned away from Abraham's inhospitable tent, over which the palm tree bent its feathery head as that one did beneath which the woman leaned to rest.

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We talked of the theories concerning the use of pyramids, which have been held at different times by learned men. We knew that the stately group toward which we moved was not the only one in Egypt. There are several others scattered in groups for a distance of about seventy miles, along the Nile's west bank, averaging one to each mile. They, like those of Gizeh, are on the western or sunset bank of the mysterious river, the point of compass which receives the declining sun, being supposed to indicate the region of the dead. These pyramids are by no means rivals of Cheops and its mates, either in size or history, but are a conspicuous feature of the Nile's west bank for seventy miles or more south of the capital.

Why this laborious effort to preserve from decay the bodies whence life and spirit have departed? The doctrine of metempsychosis, or the transmigration of souls, offers the only answer to this interrogation. According to this belief, every spirit not thoroughly purified on its departure from the body, must pass through a long exile, entering, successively, into the bodies of different animals, and returning after cycles of these transformations, to its own corporeal form again. The importance of finding its own still in existence and in a tolerable state of repair will readily occur to thoughtful minds! But besides the horrid possibility of failure here, the disembodied spirit had a thousand other things to dread. Whenever the body it had last left became subject to corruption, the course of its migrations was suspended, and its ardently desired return to a human body — its own — delayed. Hence, every form of animal life became precious, as the possible shrine of a departed friend. The greatest care was employed in preserving all, so far as possible, from becoming decomposed. This was effected by the intricate and mysterious process of embalming, in which certain orders of the priesthood were almost constantly employed.

After migrations of three thousand years through inferior animal forms, the spirit was permitted, as has been said, to return to its own human body, and to try its chances once again.

Now, if we could, by a prodigious effort of imagination, put ourselves for a moment in the place of an Egyptian of the olden time, and if we could conceive of the anxiety with which we should guard against the possibility of a "failure to connect" in

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the endless whirligig I have described, we might appreciate why their tombs are finer than their palaces; why the dead were in their thoughts more than the living, and why, when this grotesque belief had passed into the life and heart of the nation, the king, who had all resources at his command, should, on his coronation day, put his whole empire under contribution to begin for him a tomb which should rival the mountains in its stability and guard his paltry dust from every chance of harm.

With constant notes and queries about the uses and abuses of the pyramids, we passed along. We crossed the limits of the belt of green, which is old Father Nile's perpetual gift to Egypt; the desert's golden edge came nearer, and at last, our white-robed Arab checked his steeds at the foot of Cheops' pyramid, where — shade of great Pharaoh, forgive us prosaic Yankees! —the Cheops restaurant treated us to Smyrna dates and Turkish coffee. A banditti of Bedouins, fierce-eyed and unsavory, surrounded us as we emerged from our retreat, and clamored for the privilege of pulling and pushing, hoisting and hallooing us up the saw-tooth side of the monster pyramid. We got speedily to windward, assured them that, as for us, we'd "not the least idea of going up" (at least, not now) and turned aside to visit the tomb-pits at the left, hoping to shake off the odious crew. But you might just as well try to dismiss the plague by a dancing-room bow; the old lady Fates, by raising your hat; or the neighborhood bore by a glance at your chronometer. They careered before us, a tatterdemalion throng; they lagged behind us; they helped us over the stray stones the pyramid has shed, with officious hands under our nervous elbows, and when, at last, Dr. Park cleared a breathing space for us by whirling his cane, they danced about us, beyond the circle thus marked out; they grinned, they groaned, they laid their hands upon their hearts and pointed with melodramatic finger to the serene heights they would so gladly help us climb, while the one refrain from which, for two consecutive breaths they were utterly incapable of refraining, was: "Goin' up, mister — madam?" "Yankee Doodle goin' up? Ver' good, thankee. Yankee Doodle go up ebery time! "But we passed on regardless, and they were left lamenting. We walked upon sealed tombs; the whole ground for miles about this

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group of pyramids is honey-combed with them. This is a graveyard in which they are but chief monuments.

Some distance from old Cheops, we saw a sandstone rock much worn and rounded. While we were wisely theorizing as to how it came to be here on this almost level plateau, we walked around to the other side of this queer, rounded rock protruded from the clasping sands, when, lo! the oldest, wisest and most baffling face the world has seen, looked grandly into ours; and our ephemeral forms passed from the unhistoric sunshine into the shadow which the Sphinx has cast for forty centuries! The worn and rounded rock which had deceived us, was only its "back hair," which I am obliged to report as very much spread out, and hence, not" stylish" in the least. It is an unique moment in which a flitting creature, such as we are, pauses in his changeful haste, folds his weak arms and confronts the steadiest gaze that has ever met his own! That this calm and not unfeeling face has looked out thus, over the level sands and emerald meadows and toward the steadfast Nile since history's glimmering dawn, we know. That Abraham stood where we are standing, and mirrored (in the eyes that witnessed the deliverance of Isaac!) these flowing outlines, this low brow, these rounded lips, we deem altogether probable. That Moses, grandest figure of antiquity, has gazed upon this stern, but not unpitying face, is certain. That Eastern emperors have turned aside from their pompous march to see it; that Herodotus asked of it many an unheeded question; that thoughtful Plato measured glances with it; that fierce Cambyses may have struck its nose off with iconoclastic hammer — all this is true as history. And stranger than it all — throughout the three decades of the world's one matchless Life, with Bethlehem at their beginning and Calvary at their close, this gaze neither brightened at the first nor faltered at the last. Thinking about it all — sending bewildered fancy onward into the wondrous future, upon whose happier myriads and milder destinies this changeless face shall gaze, one sinks beneath the contrast this mystic creature's history affords to one's own trivial joys and petty griefs so like to those of gossamer-winged insects which the evening taper blots from being. But, afterward, one has a thought more worthy of a soul for whom the Mightiest died; it is a thought which brightened Plato's eyes when he stood here

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more than two thousand years ago, though he knew not the wondrous truth which dims my own with happy tears, and that thought is: I am immortal! The centuries flow onward at thy feet, O weird and mystic Sphinx! yet from their fertile waves thou dost not gather aught that enriches thee. But for me each breath yields blessings that shall last forever, and all climes and ages are my gleaning fields. Not like an ignoble worm do I crawl beneath thee, but like a tireless bird I soar above! For a moment I have paused to muse on thy strange, unproductive history, but now I spread my wings and fly away to other scenes, and by and by, weary of one small world, I shall journey to another, and so on and on through the beneficent universe of God whom I love, and who loves me, and whose boundless heart is my eternal home! Gaze on over the desert and the still meadows, solemn Sphinx! One landscape can not satisfy eyes so insatiable as mine, and so, farewell!

Cheops lifted his dimensions toward the sky in a style so thoroughly uncompromising that we felt quite in haste to set our feet on his bald crown. But our hurry did not at all compare with that of the wild Arabs gathered at his base and eager for their prey. They knew it had been only a question of time when we threw them off, with such indomitable purpose, an hour ago; alas! we knew it now. For the first time in all our journeyings, my friend Kate, who side by side with me had climbed half the cathedral spires of Europe, executed marvels of mountaineering in Switzerland and scrambled to the summit of Vesuvius, confessed herself vanquished, without striking a blow, and retreated to the carriage to watch the attack gallantly conducted by the rest of us. Taught by all the guide-books, warned by all the tourists, I took my purse — although it was not dangerously plethoric — from my pocket, placed it in the hands of my friend who stayed below, and told the three men who, nolens volens, had taken my destiny in hand, that if I did not hear "backsheesh," until I regained terra firma, I would parody, for their benefit, the famous lines of Uhland:

"Take, O boatman, thrice thy fee,
Take, I give it willingly."

I then resigned myself to fate.

Just here I will confess something not usually divulged, viz.:

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I cherished a secret determination to reach the top before any of my comrades. The undertaking was by no means trivial. I had a dim suspicion of this before I started, which became, as I set out (or set up, rather), the most vivid "realizing sense" of all my history. Three feet and a half at a step is a "departure" hardly excelled by Weston of pedestrian fame, and when the inclined plane one is trying to walk is set on edge, as in the present instance, you can imagine such "a getting upstairs" as it would be hard to beat! Just try, some day, in the solitude of your apartment, to step "genteelly" from floor to mantel-piece, or on top of the bureau; do this one hundred times in fourteen minutes, and see if the achievement isn't a feat, though it may not prove a "success."

It is to be remembered that the huge slabs of granite and porphyry which once smoothly covered the pyramid, were scaled off in the time of the caliphs and taken, with about twenty feet from its apex, to be used as building material at Cairo. Climbing the side of Cheops, then, is nothing more nor less than going up the most outrageous "pair of stairs" on earth, under circumstances the most harrowing. But I got on bravely, in spite of all. Climbing rapidly, I did not once sit down to rest, and stopped but briefly, thrice, to breathe, or rather to puff, like an asthmatic locomotive; my Bedouins, meanwhile, tranquilly watching the spectacle, and cool as if they had but just emerged from a refrigerator. Below, I could hear the advancing steps of my rivals in the race, and this lending ardor to my flagging zeal, I clambered on.

Ever above me, with extended hands, were two solemn, but never silent Bedouins; ever beneath my shoulders were the strong hands of a burly Egyptian, while for me, the only possible thing to do was to fix my foot firmly against the upper edge of the stone step before me, and to grasp with desperate grip the steady hands of those above, they going up backward with an agility which put to shame my own backwardness about coming forward in this business!

Well, when one measures off dimensions in this straightforward fashion, one soon learns that they amount to something. I had ho more narrow " flings" about the Pyramids of Cheops. It

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was huge. I said this with starting eyes; I felt it with panting breath and purpling cheeks. There was no more spirit in me.

The wind blew almost fiercely, as I neared the summit. The voices of my friends grew silent, a long way below. High up in the crystal air I saw a great bird sailing with strong and steady wing. How I envied his calm flight!

At last, I lost all consciousness of everything save the frightful, sledge-hammer beating of my heart.

"Yankee Doodle 'most got up!" shouted a kindly Arab, and in a moment more I was standing, tremblingly, on the broad summit of the pyramid. Though more dead than alive, I insisted (in deference to the heroic name of "Yankee") in crawling to the loose rocks piled on the center of the platform, and seating myself triumphantly upon the topmost stone. Taking from my pocket a Jaffa orange (brought with this same intent) I tore it open and buried my parched lips in its juicy pulp. If I were called upon to name the most delectable sensation that ever human palate knew I should refer to the foregoing incident.

You've no idea how quiet and composed I was, though, as the rest came wheezing into view, three minutes afterward; opera-glass in hand, I was counting the minarets of Cairo, as the fainting trio struggled to the top, and were met by my Arabs grinning from ear to ear at our achievements!

And here we were, as the purple twilight fell, a thoughtful, and, strange to say, a silent company. There were eighteen of us, Arabs and all, and yet we were not crowded.

It had required no ordinary eloquence to still the clamor of our dozen swarthy escorts. To put the much-desired quietus upon the noisiest of them, I had agreed that if he would but hold his tongue for fifteen minutes, I would do what in no instance I had done in famous places hitherto (save on the white forehead of a skull in the Paris Catacombs), inscribe my name. The Arab carefully scraped out the autograph of some member of the Smith family to make room for me, the whole summit being as thickly planted out to names as a Dutch garden to cabbages. While he erased the autograph of this luckless candidate for immortality, my Bedouin assured me (in most startling English) that he kept his big knife for no other purpose than to cut the names of the heroic few who reached this goal, and that

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when I came again I should just see how he had cared for mine and kept its sprawling capitals in good repair (more particularly if I paid him a shilling for such service). In this last statement, however, my faith was irremediably weakened by the scratching-out process through which poor Smith's autograph had just now passed!

But all this time we had been sitting dangerously near the western edge of Cheops' pyramid, with the most significant of panoramas spread out before us. The charm of evening's earliest hour, the zest of novelty, the spice of danger, the chastening thought of pathos — all these united to make the time forever memorable.

That was a break-neck scramble down the side of Cheops as the darkness fell! The Arabs said to me (as they doubtless say to each ambitious tourist), "Yankee Doodle ver' good fust rate." As they conducted me — and a long way I found it — from the point where I alighted, back to the carriage, two of them put a hand apiece under my elbows and I fairly flew over the ground, they delighting in the sport and telling me that I had "Arab feet," which (if I had) they lent me.

With facts, fancies, and "guesses at truth" in mind, we walked on in the gathering twilight toward the entrance of the King's tomb. This entrance, carefully concealed during thousands of years, but discovered by the indefatigable Belzoni, now yawned black and ominous in the uncertain light. Above its solemn doorway, in letters several feet long, done in black paint, we had the mortification of seeing this inscription:

"PAUL TUCKER, OF NEW YORK."

All the way up the Nile, even to Philae, we had found this same epitaph of American refinement; carved in the Temple of Jupiter Ammon at Thebes; scrawled upon Memnon's pedestal; and cut beside the mystic sculptures of Abydos. But on a tablet so tempting as the front angle of the "big pyramid," the confiding Paul had vouchsafed a bit of personal history eleswhere withheld. Beneath his name he had printed in straggling capitals, this time not more than a foot apiece in altitude:

"AGED 18 1-2."

It was a pleasant and consoling thing to know how tender were

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his years. There's always hope — more than we churlish old folks may be inclined to think, "concerning veal" — as the country parson said.

The entrance to the tomb, for the sake of which the pyramid was reared, had been carefully concealed in former ages. We can but admire the ingenuity which located this opening twenty-three feet to the right, rather than in the center, where one would naturally look for it. Another precaution hardly less surprising, was to seal up the passage-way, narrow and intricate as it is, when the royal builder had been laid in his tomb, with blocks of granite, so much more difficult to break through than the ordinary, calcareous stones of the pyramid, that a passage has been forced around them. In these, as in every feature of the pyramid, it will be seen that the security of the body one day to be called for by the soul was the controlling purpose of its design. Through a passage three feet eleven inches high, and over three hundred feet in length, along a downward and then upward angle of about 260, we wended our weary way to the king's tomb. Clinging now to slippery, now to cobwebbed walls, anon to the sleeve of some officious Arab; blinded by dust from the wings of countless bats, and finally measuring off the distance on our hands and knees, we made a dolorous procession to the center of the pyramid with its empty sepulcher. We found as the reward of our pains a rectangular-shaped chamber, lined with red granite. In its center stands a sarcophagus of red granite, too large to have been introduced through the entrance passage, and therefore necessarily placed here before the pyramid was built around it.

Notwithstanding all the precautions mentioned, this sarcophagus has been empty and without a lid since the time of the Caliphs, when, in the expectation of finding treasure, an entrance was forced and the king's body was thrown out and treated with the grossest indignities by the rabble in the streets of Cairo. Sic transit gloria mundi! Vandal tourists have hammered the corners of the sarcophagus till they look as though a grindstone had been scooped from each one of them, and straightway our Arabs began to pound off "specimens" for us at five piastres each.

Waving them solemnly aside, Dr. Park marshaled our entire party of five into this coffin of the elder world, where we stood

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in a strange looking row, with the flickering torch-light on our faces, while at the bidding of our leader, we sang that curious old hymn:

"Hark, from the tombs a doleful sound!"

Our voices woke some most lugubrious echoes; our Arabs listened, looking more than "dumb-founded," at our performance. Dr. Park smiled audibly. But his mood quickly passed from gay to grave. "Sing ‘Rock of Ages, cleft for me!’" were his next words. With swelling hearts we joined in the dear old hymn we learned so long ago, so far away. At its close, solemn and deep sounded the good man's voice; I shall not soon forget the words:

"The pyramids may crumble, but the Rock of Ages stands firm and secure. The old idolatry that reared this awful tomb has had its long, its little day. The kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ is ushered in, and we, His ransomed sons and daughters sing of Him who hath so loved us, standing in the empty coffin of the idolatrous and cruel Pharaoh."

After all, this was the lesson we shall cherish longest, the truest lesson of Cheops, old and gray.

Let Egypt boast her mystic monuments, which, in the race with time, have come off grimly victorious; a Christian's eye pierces the boundless blue above their heads, and gets a glimpse of more enduring habitations, while, as he turns away from their pitiless masses of stone, his humble, happy faith sings of the "Rock of Ages, cleft for me!."

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SYRIA — THE HOME OF OUR SAVIOUR.

"Over whose acres walked those blessed feet
Which eighteen hundred years ago were nailed
For our advantage to the bitter Cross."

On the night of March 6, 1870, I closed my eyes upon Egypt, and in a comfortable cabin of the Russian steamship, "Grand Duke Constantine," after a tranquil passage, opened them at six o'clock upon a low sandy coast and hill-top crowned by a white-walled town, while sunlight from behind the clouds spread broad blades of light over the distant lands — light lovelier to me even than that of home. Between me and the shore shimmered the sea, even in the unwonted calm, sustaining by its motion the unsatisfactory reputation of the port, or want of port, at Jaffa. Yonder the Great Apostle had his vision, which gave even to me, a Gentile maiden, a right to look upon the country of God's chosen people with a sense of home stirring my heart, and such thoughts of Him with whom "there is neither Jew, nor Greek, bond nor free," as filled my eyes brimful of tears, and silenced my voice which, in earlier, less tender years, nothing ever could unsteady or place beyond my own control.

March 8. — En route for Jerusalem. The day has dawned on which my eyes shall mirror the city of our Lord. From yonder valley to the right, Joshua made the sun stand still. On this side is the supposed site of Emmaus. Here we first strike the trail of the Divine Pilgrim; in that village yonder John the Baptist was born; in this brook David got the stones to slay Goliath; here the Philistines were encamped; there across the valley were the Israelites. Boy-peddlers would have slings to sell here, if they had any "gumption"! I ride on alone, ahead and out of sight of our procession, pass wretched women, fierce-looking men, files of camels, flocks of sheep, processions of donkeys with bells on. At last I am alone — in sight of Jerusalem!
March 9. — First promenade in Jerusalem through the Via Dolorosa. Saw a fallen pillar where Christ is said to have reposed — covered with pilgrims' kisses; another pillar where the cock stood to crow; a stone in the wall with the impress of the cross, — a boy comes up, puts his fingers in the hole of this stone and goes off kissing them; wretched pavements, no carriages, no realization whatever of the glorious city of our God.

Jerusalem is the most disagreeable, dismal, ugly city I have anywhere seen. There is so little that attracts, and so much that repels; everything is so shut up, streets not only narrow, but with heavy stone arches running sometimes their whole length. I can heartily echo the sentiment of some author I have recently read, that he congratulated himself upon the fact
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that the Jerusalem of David's song and Solomon's wisdom and magnificence, and, above all, of Christ's divine love, is half a hundred feet below where we are walking.

Reading up Murray half an hour is worth a whole morning of "barndoor flights of knowledge" from the regulation guide, even when he is as nice a man as — , who, however, pointed out the Angel of the Annunciation in one of the absurd daubs of the Armenian Convent, as "the devil"; and when, not liking to hurt the poor fellow's feelings, we mildly hinted that it was curious the devil should have wings, and carry his hands filled with white lilies, he said, anxiously, "But they dress the old gentleman very oddly sometimes, you know, that is, these rascals do." But at the Holy Sepulcher this afternoon, when he stoutly maintained that the Mater Dolorosa and John the Beloved, on either side the crucified Saviour, were the two thieves, I could hardly contain my amusement, and his "stock " as "un homme savant" took a mighty fall!

THE TOMB OF CHRIST.
I would approach that spot with reverent feet for its name's sake, and because of the reverence of ages which has been here so freely spent. I always thought it would be to me a solemn and a tender hour in which I stood beside the place where men have even said that mystic body lay in which He bore our burdens, in which He tasted for us the bitterness of death. But after seeing Moses' rod, and Adam's tomb, and "the stone that cried out," my mood was spoiled; grief at the wounding of my Saviour in the house of his friends, at the example given to infidels in the very temple of his sepulcher, displaced all other thoughts. I bent at the low entrance door, made with a view to exacting this homage, and stood beside the marble slab on which, "they say," the angel sat whom the gentle Mary saw. Some pilgrims from Armenia were just folding and putting in cases an altar-cloth of the dimensions of the tomb which they had consecrated by contact with this slab. A frightful daub representing Christ hung over it; bouquets of weed-like flowers, tinsel and tawdry adornings unworthy of a child's doll-house surrounded the most august of tombs. A frowzy monk stood beside it on guard. Kate sat down upon the tomb, being quite weary, and forgetting what it was; luckily his head was turned at the moment, and before he observed the sacrilege I gave her a push that spoke volumes. The pilgrims knelt and kissed the ground before entering the sepulcher and went forth from it backward. I thought I would have given something just then for a little of this faith, but, dear me! fervor and filth, sanctity and smells seem to go hand in hand. Here at Jerusalem, processions of the different creeds are marching about constantly. In the Greek chapel there is continual hopping up and down; prostrations of forehead to floor, and all the ardor we had observed so often at St. Izak's and the Kazan in Russia. The Catholics seemed very business-like, keeping excellent time, stepping about briskly, and going through their genuflexions in a most workman-like manner; while the Armenians droned out sonorous prayers, and their long black garments trailed not ungracefully behind them as they paced off to their
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appointed altars. The quarrels amid these brethren are such that a key to the holy sepulcher is kept by the Mohammedans who act as peace-makers!

Most pitiful of all the places shown, is the summit of Calvary. In the great open court before the church, squat venders of beads, ivory crosses cigarholders, Jericho roses, and other souvenirs of the so-called sacred place.

March 10. — A day of unrivaled execution. Mr. Floyd brought us permission for the Mosque of Omar, which a few years since could not at any price be entered, and later, often required a hundred dollars for the privilege; but thanks to the efforts of the American Consul it is now open to our countrymen at five francs each. We are obliged to take off our shoes and put on slippers, that are furnished, and our party scuffs along through the world-famed Mosque, looking with watchful eyes for traces of the temple, dear to Jew and Christian, whose undoubted site was here. It is comforting to come at last upon something true, and to find it even in Jerusalem! Through courts and archways, carven pulpits and places of prayer, we reach the Mosque itself. In its external appearance from any point yet seen, I have been gravely disappointed in it. The interior is still more unsatisfying; dark, gloomy, and heterogeneous, made up of little bits and big bits of Oriental marble and other choice stones, all said to be fragments from the temple. Many columns stand in double rows around a great bare rock; the peak of Mount Moriah, projecting from the floor, surrounded by a railing and overhung by an old silk quilt, is the central point of attraction to infidel and Christian eyes alike. This looks so genuine and is so palpable, that the prints of Gabriel's fingers, made in holding the rock down in its place, instead of permitting it to follow its impulse and Mahomet to heaven, when that worthy took his flight, did not destroy our belief in its authenticity. Under this rock is a grotto where are shown the "praying places" of Solomon and David. The latter is very curious. The top is a trefoil, and at each side there are two little capitals and two little columns, each divided into two strands, and each pair braided together in a very curious, graceful style, the whole in design entirely different from anything hitherto seen. This we all examined with great interest, believing it may really once have been a part of the Temple of Jehovah. Another fragment in similar design also interested us, as did old bits of marble in the walls and on the floors. The real Jerusalem is so far beneath out feet that we shall never press a stone where our Saviour's feet have passed, if it be not here and now. This thought gave an inexpressible sweetness and pathos to the dark, old Mosque of the Moslem. I reached my hand through the jealous bars, and laid it on the naked rock which once supported the altar of the Most High, whereon the offering was typical of Christ. I felt as if that contact placed me in sympathetic union with the long line of prophets and the sad elder race who waited and hoped for a Redeemer, who foretold the rising of the Star which should shed the only light of love and hope our world has ever known. But jealous eyes were on me, for Moslems hate the Christian intruders from the noble lands they fear, and harsh voices called me to "come along," using the only English word they had acquired, and I left the
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gloomy Mosque, sad that in the City of Christ, hate and intolerance had undisputed sway.

Later we went to the Garden of Gethsemane, all planted out to flowers, and sat under one of the great olive trees, while an old Italian monk, twenty years an exile from his country, clipped flowers for us with the long scissors at his girdle. We cut for ourselves twigs from the solemn old trees; accepted the olives given us by the old monk; made the acquaintance of his comfortable cat; mounted to his pleasant rooms in one corner of the garden for a drink of water, and raised our eyebrows contemptuously as the opposition "garden" of the Greek Church was pointed out near by. But not at Gethsemane as in some other places, did I realize that One had been here to whom the wide world offers no rival — One who was mystical — Divine! To close the day's investigation we went under the city into the great cave made by the quarriers of the temple, whose tool-marks are fresh upon the lofty walls.

March 13. — Upon the Mount of Olives in the afternoon. We went out on our donkeys, followed the path by which David went with ashes on his head when Absalom rebelled against him, and climbed to the summit of the middle division of the mountain — for, as all the world knows, Olivet has three. Here we contemplated Jerusalem from the top of a Moslem minaret; studying its topography and getting into our minds more thoroughly than we could elsewhere, the relation of the so-called mountains on which it stands to the desolate, stony valleys that surround it on every side. Here we had our first real view of the Dead Sea, which in this crystal air seemed but a little distance off, though we shall sadly learn the contrary, I suppose, when we measure it inch by inch over the worst paths ever tried by human enterprise and patient horses' hoofs. Here the blue mountains of Moab spread themselves dimly "as a dream when one awaketh," and the Judean hills touched our hearts with manifold suggestions of the blessed Presence that vanished from them to the mount of God many a sad century ago. Away beyond the stony promontories that overhang the stonier valleys, was Bethlehem. Yonder was the path where Jesus walked so often seeking the home of his friends, Mary, Martha and Lazarus; by the winding road nearer us he made his triumphal entry into the city; from some blessed height beneath our eyes — what matters it that we can not tell which one! — he floated into the airy regions suited to his resurrected body, and thence away to the mystic heavens we love to think about in our exalted hours. What a matchless landscape this, impossible to rival on the wide face of the beautiful earth; more significant to the Christian heart than all the classic plains or poetic mountain heights of Europe, the grand peaks and vales of Switzerland, or the tender beauty of the home scenes his longing heart recalls.

But around us were clamoring Arabs intent upon showing us the very spot whence the Ascension took place, the very prints left by the upward tending feet of the Redeemer. We go to see them duly, and escape down the hill-side, gathering flowers for dear ones at home who will never have this landscape under their wistful eyes, and picking up bits of agate and
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onyx which have lain here for unnumbered ages, been turned a thousand times by the rude plowshare of the husbandman, and we please ourselves by fancying that possibly our Saviour's footsteps may have touched them as he passed along the hill-side.

A Sabbath in Jerusalem! An afternoon upon the Mount of Olives! To a devout soul this were worth a pilgrimage longer than any other that the earth's wide belt makes possible. And yet — and yet — we were so cold; the wind blew so searchingly; curious Arabs pursued us so relentlessly; the intellectual part of studying the landscape, and the practical part of keeping on the backs of slippery donkeys distracted our attention so that the spiritual part, those shy, sweet feelings of the heart — those tender, child-like aspirations — those deep and solemn contemplations more suited to the spot than to any other in all the earth, had little chance to hold us. But I had some quiet moments of priceless worth. Gleams and glimpses of what all this may mean flashed through my soul. The gentle, helpless face of Mary — my sister Mary — shrined forever in the center of my heart, looked out upon me from her dying pillow, and that failing voice uttered again the words: "Oh, Christ has come to me! He holds me by the hand; He says, ‘She tried to be good, but she wandered; but I'll forgive and save her’!"

That same Christ to whom we trusted Mary walked upon this mountain; here spent the night of His infinite agony, and purchased her sweet soul's redemption on the bitter cross, within sight of where I stand!

Pale and wasted and framed in hair made gray by suffering, more than age, another face looked on me, and my honored father's voice rang in my ears: "Christ lived, and died, and rose again! Upon this faith I walk right out over the awful gulf of death — and I am not afraid!" Ah, how these tender memories, so sad, so sacred, so inspiring, bring home to me the reality of that religion which was born in yonder gray and mournful city, and hence has swept its way to the remotest corner of our world! The poet's song brings relief to my heart, which is surcharged with trembling love and timid hope, and prayerfully I sing,

"Rock of Ages, cleft for me!
Let me hide myself in thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From thy wounded side that flowed,
Be of sin the double cure;
Save from wrath and make me pure."
Oh, I must go again and yet again to Olivet; no experience of all my life has seemed so sweet and so significant as this!

It is a mournful thing to see the white-robed women of Jerusalem, their beauty or hideousness concealed by colored handkerchiefs wrapped about their faces, congregating around the graves that fleck the valleys and the hill-sides of Jerusalem beyond the walls. I wonder why they go there, poor things! and whether it is to be merry or sad. Sometimes I have seen flowers upon a little stony grave and children playing around, while the women, patient and still, sat beside the lonesome mound. As we toddled in at the Damascus gate (my odd word describes, not inaptly, the motion of our droll
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little donkeys), a cannon was fired, and another and another still, signals for closing the gates at evening. The Spanish Consul here, a pleasant gentleman who sits opposite us at table d'hote, says that at Ramadan, the fasting time of the Mohammedans, the firing of a cannon informs the people when they can eat, when they must commence their rigorous abstinence, which lasts from sunrise to sunset and in which no good Mohammedan eats, drinks, or even smokes; also, in the night, it arouses the faithful to prayer. This is the first religious use to which I have heard gunpowder put in all my travels!

I can never tell what force and added pathos I found in all the wonderful Bible words after the experience of this marvelous week, and this chief Sabbath of my life. Why, the Bible is going to be a new book to me after this! God grant it may be "new" in a deep, spiritual sense; that it may take hold upon my careless life, may make me what all teaching and the most golden opportunities must fail unless they accomplish, a better human creature, nearer to what God meant when He created me; more as Christ taught us we must be to serve Him on earth and live with Him in heaven.

Bishop Kingsley, Dr. Bannister, Dr. March and company reported themselves as comfortably encamped beyond the Jaffa gate, and we lost no time in getting our luggage into the prescribed compass, and walking behind the same as piled upon the broad back of El Hani's servants it traversed the dark and winding streets. With the least possible ceremony we introduced ourselves in camp, where three large tents, besides the "kitchen," were in order, the star-spangled banner floating from that occupied by the wide-awake Presbyterian quartet, Drs. March, Goodwin and Hayden, and Brother Ezra Coan. We found our quarters quite comfortable, one large tent adorned within after the manner of a patch-work quilt of the "basket pattern," red, white, blue and green calico in circles and triangles, and at the top branching out into a flaming star; pieces of carpet cover the ground, four iron bedsteads stand thickly around (Mr. and Mrs. Paine, of Boston, are our companions), a table occupies the center with a decent red "spread" thereon; there are two tin wash-basins and pitchers, and one brass candlestick suitably equipped for evening. We hunt up the gimlets we have provided (at our friend Warburton's suggestion), bore into the tent pole, regardless of any sensitiveness on El Hani's part, and hereon hang curtains to divide the tent, riding-whips, waterproofs, carriage-top hats, and so on. Things begin to "look like living." I get out our books, and finding in my Bible the description of the temple built by Solomon, read it, placing myself in fancy where I stood last evening, imagining its glories replacing the swelling dome of the Caliph's Mosque and listening with ear intent to that stately prayer of the wise king with its impressive iteration of "Hear us, O Lord, in heaven thy dwelling place, and when thou shalt hear, forgive!" Ah, but it is a new book altogether, this Bible I have read so long and left so long unread; what would I not give now to have it all "at my tongue's end "! I also read "Esther," being interested particularly in the account of the pilgrims to the Holy Land; and make out from the various guide-books a list of such places as I yet must see or must revisit in this city, which has
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a charm for me — although it is the darkest, dreariest and most comfortless I ever saw — that no other can ever attain. Jerusalem and Paris! What contrast greater does our various earth afford! They are at the two opposite poles of human life and history. The one gratifies every sense, pleases every taste, is the bright, consummate flower of modern civilization, the long result of time in its most winning sense, the admired of all admirers; the other girt about with gray and barren hills, hedged by stern and solemn walls, with no beauty, no attraction, hardly even the ordinary comforts of life to offer to the weary pilgrim; and yet drawing him to her withered bosom with a spell to which he gladly yields, and melting his heart with a love, pity and hope that take fast hold upon the dearest ties, that reach backward through all ages and forward to the consummation of creation's mystery.

But the wiry little luncheon bell disturbs my reverie. We repair to the tent of the banner, in which Dr. March & Co. have lodgings, and find cold beef, cold chicken, bread, nuts, dates and oranges awaiting us, from which, thanks to our keen appetites, we make a hearty repast. Thus far, we like tent-life, seeing nothing to dread, save the mosquitoes which have set their crimson seal on the foreheads of our hardy comrades, and against whose attacks we have been trying to provide by rigging out a net apiece, made of our veils with our Garden-of-Gethsemane whips bent across them.

In the afternoon we went to Bethany. Here lived Jesus' friends and here his nature showed its most human side; here affection won from him the tears that torture could not force ; here he performed his crowning miracle; somewhere hereabouts from the side of Olivet he passed through the pure air that fans my cheek into the blue above us. All that our hearts most dearly cherish in the crisis hours of life centers in this ascent of Jesus from some spot beneath our gaze, as it wanders over the low and lonesome hill that stands out in the history of our race, more lofty in its meanings, more heavenly in its hopes than all the summits of the earth. For "if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain."

They showed us Lazarus' tomb: a deep, disagreeable excavation by the roadside, suspiciously convenient to "the house of Mary and Martha," and not a stone's throw from that of "Simon the leper." We crawled dutifully into the cave and mounted a housetop to look down upon the ruins, but should have been puzzled to reply had anybody asked why we did so, why we paid the tribute of a thought to these barefaced impostures, when around us were the faithful face of nature, the changeless outlines of the hills, the unvarying rocks, all of which Jesus had seen, and these alone. Doubtless, our unanalyzed impulse to look at these impostures, was a certain kindly sympathy with the army of pilgrims from every land, who have honestly venerated these shrines. Well, I am glad that since "I am human, whatever touches humanity touches me." We lingered long upon the housetop, while the village sheik stood near us, watching curiously our movements and listening attentively to our reading of the chapter about how Jesus came from beyond Jordan, up yonder rugged path before us, and Martha went to meet him, and his potent voice called her brother from the grave — perhaps one of the very holes in the rock before us.

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TO THE DEAD SEA AND JERICHO.

March 18. — We rise at about six o'clock and breakfast out-of-doors at seven. This morning it rained upon our omelette, toast and coffee. The wind was chilly, the sky a leaden gray, and matters looked a little dubious for starting on the grand route, "doing" the Dead Sea and the Jordan, and reaching Jericho to-night. Mr. Wilson, Kate and I made it our first business to ride up to Jerusalem in the rain and buy ourselves rubber coats, a precaution we had stupidly neglected up to this time. Not until nine o'clock did our long line get in motion, led off by a couple of formidable-looking Arabs who, for a consideration, acted as our escort.

It really takes a good deal of "impedimenta" to start a baker's dozen of tourists over these break-neck hills, paradoxical though it may seem. In and out, up and down, around and over we wind by the worst road that ever outraged that respectable name. And what has set us all to wriggling thus among these barren hills? Why, one called Jesus walked here often, in olden times, and with him went twelve others, whose humble names have gained a luster brighter than those of kings and have gone into all the world. After the fall from my horse I thought perhaps the feet of Christ might have pressed the very stones that bruised me; could I but know it, how I should prize the wound! We lunched beside an old wall inclosing the summit of the "Pisgah" of the Mohammedans, the only trouble with which is, that it ought to be the other side of Jordan; but one must not be exigent.

To pass rapidly through this wilderness is nothing, but to live here would be simply impossible, for no green thing is seen for miles, unless sometimes in the valleys the gray, weird-looking shrub made for the camel's nourishment and found in the great deserts. But the hills have such variety of form, are so harmoniously rounded, circle around each other in dance so intricate, display such curious lines of stratification, and abound in such tempting pebbles, that, flecked by the bright sunshine that the newly swept and garnished skies have yielded, their white and yellow colors light up cheerfully, and the scene is far more pleasant than travelers teach us to expect. And as for the desolation of the Dead Sea, I surely was unable to discover it. A more beautiful sheet of water I have rarely seen, blue as a mountain lake, its distant promontories standing out grandly and mellowed with a light that Claude need not have disdained, while to-day the effects of cloud and the hue of the sky were magnificent enough to be memorable. I certainly never saw a more splendid display in the heavens, and even as we bent over the smooth and glassy water a rainbow in the east gave the last touch to a picture that we all thought marvelous. Neither is the approach to the Dead Sea desolate; there was far more vegetation than we had looked for — tall, rank cane, juniper, tamarisk, and a few flowers. Some apples of Sodom, at least our knowing ones pronounce them such, were gathered here (also at the Jordan and Jericho), but they are a pretty, yellow fruit, and on the same twig with them grows a purple flower which is in appearance, compared to that of the potato, what a race horse is to a mule. (I become, naturally enough, equestrian in my comparisons!) But the water of the
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Dead Sea is worthy of its reputation. I tasted it slightly when filling the little can we are going to take home. It is unbearable to the tongue, but the feeling of it is smooth, almost slippery, and the gentlemen who took the bath, self-prescribed here to all tourists, report it as buoyant even beyond their expectations and almost blistering to lips and eyelids. Master El Hani (up the Nile we had an English, here an Arab commander-in-chief), told us we had "just ten minutes" to spend at the Dead Sea. What with scolding and display of temper I managed to get twenty, and the gentlemen, some of them, a little longer; but the train departed, leaving many loiterers, long before half an hour was passed. Pleasant, isn't it, to come seven or eight thousand miles to a renowned spot and be told by a wild ignoramus that he allots you ten minutes in which to make observations? Well, well, some people don't even have ten.

March 21. — Far off, Gerizim and Ebal loom, and here is Jacob's well. There the pleasant fields on which Christ looked, when He said, Behold the fields are white and ready for the harvest! I have hardly seen a landscape more suggestive of sweet and hopeful thoughts, and certainly, go where we may, we can never be so certain as here that we have found our Saviour's footsteps, that we are actually in the same place where he once was. Only those who have been fortunate enough to prove it can know what life, what vividness, must ever invest that beautiful fourth chapter of John when it has been read beside this well, with Gerizim on the right hand, Ebal on the left, Joseph's tomb a little distance off and the fields stretching away on every side. Horseback-riding is fatiguing work sometimes, living in tents is not the method of existence one would choose, but a single experience like that I have described repays a thoughtful traveler for more of hardship than he would have believed himself capable of enduring, until the spell of such a land as this was laid upon him.

That night we sat at table d' hote as usual an hour and a half, there being time for a nap between each of the courses, only the opportunities were small as we were perched on camp stools all on a slant and leaned our elbows on the table to maintain our equilibrium. And in the night how the rain poured, the lightning flashed, the thunder roared with short explosions among these sacred hills; yet so weary were we all that we slept very soundly, rising a little after five, in hopes to get off to Mt. Gerizim after an early breakfast. Not so however was it written in the almanac. The rain poured, the wind blew, and thick clouds shut down over our heads. But we bravely prepared for a day's ride; "the ladies" each fastening her big hat on her back and drawing over it her rubber coat, fastening the hood tightly under her chin until she looked like an Esquimaux, buttoning on her riding gloves with whip attached to one of them; taking her bag of books intended to swing from the pommel and containing the Bible, Murray, and a book for flowers, and a pincushion in case of anything "giving out." The tents were knocked down over our heads and we stood out in as "big a drip" as ever poured its wet sheets upon defenseless travelers. It was very amusing to look around and see thirteen drenched, but cheerful mortals looking out from under their umbrellas and longing for a better time. I was especially
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struck by the mild, smiling countenance of Bishop Kingsley, shining like a full moon from under his wet and shapeless sombrero. But the dragoman decreed that the weather was too bad, we could not move to-day, so we mounted our horses and rode slipping along over the mud and through a roaring torrent to the town where, at the present writing, we are toasting our feet around a brasier of charcoal in a great, dirty, nondescript room of an Arab hotel; some reading their Bibles, others their Murray, others asking hard questions in history and chronology pertaining to our whereabouts, others still cracking dry jokes, and some curious scribblers sketching this room where we have taken refuge.

April 6, 1870. — So I am in Damascus — city of so many vague and pleasant fancies — even I!

We clatter along the muddy, wretchedly paved streets, where walk the same parti-colored processions of barbarians that trail their soiled, but brilliant garments through all the highways and byways of the East. We pass under the gigantic palm tree, down in all guide-books as one of the marvels of Damascus. Grand and brave it looks, the sunshine sifting through its million leaves and the mild breeze singing a hymn away up in its branches. What a lesson it has preached here, quite unheeded, during all the centuries of its noble growth; rising from these dirty streets and dingy dwellings into purer air and sunny skies, without a spot upon its emerald garments or a distortion among its vigorous branches. In a sense this palm tree pleases me better than anything else in all Damascus.

We clatter on at the discretion of our guide.

A slave market, the first and only one we ever saw, is among the "sights" he sees fit to place before us. Through several courts, up shaking stairs and into miserable little dens we are conducted with much discomfort and outrage upon our olfactories. Here are several miserable negro women, tattered boys, and one pretty Circassian girl waiting to be sold. They hold out their hands for alms. Some are in bed, sick in body or in heart. It is a sad sight to behold, in some regards the saddest upon which I ever gazed.

The great Mosque is of interest from its history, though I see little there except its vastness, which attracts me. This Mohammedan religion is by no means the harmonious affair one ignorantly supposes, but has its divisions and its rancors, all the more fierce from the fanatical stupidity of its adherents. We climb one of the minarets — that of "The Son of Mary," and get the ripest fruit of a journey to Damascus — namely, a view of the city itself. There it is, the emerald in its setting of gold, which poets have sung of, artists painted, and tourists spent pages of verbiage upon; one of the strangest, choicest sights of our beautiful earth, one to drink in with the eyes, one to cherish in the memory, one that Moore might have described in Lalla Rookh, or Warburton in his best mood might have presumed to touch, but which should have the tribute of silence from such pens as mine. The hill whence Mahomet first beheld it is thickly covered with snow, so we can not climb it as we have so much desired to do, as I have a thousand times dreamed of doing, even in Wisconsin groves and upon Illinois prairies.

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Through dark, crowded streets we go to the "goldsmiths' hall" of Damascus, where hundreds of workmen, seated tailor fashion on their tables, are hammering away at all imaginable kinds of jewelry, and where from rude cases gleam pearls, rubies and diamonds of incalculable price, from earliest ages the heritage of the splendid Orient. But we hasten through this golden bedlam and emerging upon its roof come upon what we are seeking — the old, walled-up door that led to the Mosque we have just visited, when it was a Christian church, and where we read, or might if we knew Greek, an inscription placed here twelve hundred years ago, "Thy kingdom, O Christ, is an everlasting kingdom, and Thy word endureth to all generations!" There is almost the inspiration of prophecy in these words, and no one whose early and most innocent hopes Christianity has cherished, can look upon it without emotion. I stoop to gather a leaf that is growing from a crevice of this sculptured doorway.

The uninviting exterior of Oriental houses is proverbial, but those of Damascus are so much uglier than any other city of the East can show, that it would seem as if the fashion started here and its imitators had fallen as far behind their model, as is the fate of imitators generally. Our donkeys pick their way along a street outrageous in its filth, and so dark and narrow that it reminds us of the entrance to the pyramids, and stop before a small door let into a wall twenty feet high. A vigorous application of our whips to the same, unearths a withered-up old servant who flings wide the bird-cage portal, and bending nearly double we stumble into the finest of Damascus houses; into the place which brings us nearest to the dear, impossible, storybook world, and banishes in the twinkling of an eye that matter-of-fact old world, where we have lived so long, to the greatest distance to which it has ever yet been banished from our eyes. The transformations of the stage are nothing to it; the charm of Lalla Rookh's enticing pages can not go beyond; nay, rather, can not approach this scene. Look! As we pass from the entrance court to a second in the middle of the house, where fountains sparkle and the native Damascus roses bloom, a lady from an upper window salutes us with graceful courtesy, regards us for several minutes, no gentleman being of our party, and retires. She looks worthy of her surroundings, indeed, is just the human creature to lend a harmonious charm to all the beauty lavished here, where every sense is pleased. The very sight of her makes us commonplace Europeans ill at ease; our thoughtful faces and travel-worn garments have no rightful place in this exotic dream. We feel relieved when that fair face withdraws from sight and yet our foolish thoughts go with it wondering, and envious for one impulsive moment of the strange, glowing life one here might lead amid so much embodied poesy. We wander through the cool and shady rooms that open on the central court where orange trees in marble basins sift the sunshine that the sweet-voiced fountains cool. We enter by windows wide open as doors and on a level with the court-yard's marble floor. An ample space, also marble-covered and with a fountain in its midst, marks the limit beyond which shodden feet can not be allowed to trespass. Before stepping to the higher level where Turkish carpets indicate the sanctum sanctorum of the apartment, slippers must be put on or shoes put
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off. Velvet furniture of graceful, airy shape adorns the principal salon. Bright colors greet the eye wherever it may rest, from silver lamps to tapestried doorway, and large mirrors of surprising frequency repeat the rich hues that fall through windows of stained glass. In an alcove of the parlor are the delicate coffee, and wine cups with curious holders, peculiar to the East. In one great room are thirty or more windows, but all high above the loftiest head; no sound or suggestion of the outer world can penetrate this beautiful retreat. It is a place apart, a paradise unforfeited. The only thing I saw there which reminded me of the world from which I came and to which I must so soon and so inevitably return, was a plate of visitors' cards from all parts of Europe, showing that the charm of this strange spot has seized upon a thousand tranquil imaginations from the cooler zones. I am quite sure that when in my dear, quiet home in Evanston I shut my eyes to summon the most glowing picture that my fancy can afford, the least like what is around me there, the least, indeed, like what my notions of our old world would lead me to expect it could contain, I shall see a sunny bit of sky above an odorous garden walled in by the brightly colored interior walls and made musical by the clear fountains of a Damascus home.

Athens, April 18, 1870. — It is very much of a moment in one's life, I hold, when he looks first upon the birthplace of the arts, the capital of earth's most heroic land — even though its glory is departed and its children are enslaved.

And so it happened that when those stout-armed, swarthy-faced Greek boatmen took us in charge, tumbled us like so much merchandise into their little boats and rushed us off to the shore, I saw, instead of them, a blue-eyed, fair-haired race, the same to whom were given those visions of Minerva and of Venus which a colder age crystallized into religion; and before me on those azure waves loomed the fleet of Xerxes driven by Themistocles and his helmeted warriors away from the paradise they had menaced.

A pleasant carriage ride along the line of wall built by the prudent Athenians to afford a sheltered passage from their city to their port, and we enter the city which has succeeded to that of ancient times. It is a fresh, cheerful looking place, altogether European, even American in seeming, to our Asiatic eyes! The streets are clean, shops large, windows bright and clear, pavements and sidewalks smooth and well arranged. Our hotel seems like a palace, and I don't wonder that a dozen different travelers have extolled its merits in the guide-book, if all came hither from the East as we do. What rooms we have, covered with rich carpets, and planted out to huge easy-chairs and pretty escritoires, with clean beds covered by a scarlet blanket apiece. Engravings of Kings George and Otho are on the walls, and out of the windows views of the Acropolis! What a dining saloon is this, and what a breakfast they give us — crisp cutlets, fresh eggs, fresh rolls and coffee, and honey from Mt. Hymettus!

The creature comforts duly attended to — and who forgets them? even long-haired artists, and starry-eyed poets confessing their indolent sway — we engage "Philosopher" as our guide, a plump man of middle age, dull
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as his own eyes and good natured as he is well fed. By his exertions a nice carriage, and driver in short white petticoats, a la Greek, are speedily in readiness, and obedient to the order, " To the Acropolis"; we drive off in high spirits to the goal of our long voyage. We wind around the base of this famous hill, which has several much higher and fully as steep in its vicinity, and passing through three comparatively modern gates enter the PropylAeum, pass its beautiful, though ruined portal, climb the bare rock, where the brilliant processions of the Golden Age were wont to pass, and take up out position before the Parthenon. Gray and broken as is this ruin it is yet among the most impressive I have had the good fortune to behold. So simple, almost austere, in its beauty; so satisfying in its proportions; so nobly dignified in its tout ensemble — one feels a reverence for the Parthenon, not exceeded by that inspired by any other fane that reverent hands have reared to any deity. Three or four hours of scrutiny, as honest and as earnest as we could bestow, gave us somewhat of a home feeling in this temple.

We studied the Propylseum, the Temple of Victory, the Parthenon and Erechtheum and found where the old altars had stood, the glittering statues on their sculptured pedestals, and followed the road by which the splendid processions used to wind up the steep rock in the Age of Pericles.

PARIS AND THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR.

We returned to Paris after another visit in England and remained until the investiture of the French capital by Germany became imminent. Our sympathies were with King William and "Unser Fritz," Bismarck, Von Moltke and the "Red Prince," but to say this would have been treason, and we maintained that "guarded silence" in which diplomatists rejoice and honest people grow impatient. The results of the struggle form a part of history's record to-day. But we who watched its beginnings from within were not surprised at the sequence.

August 12, 1870. — Even so soon, the outmost ripple of the widening war-wave has reached me in my quiet life and quietest of Paris homes. This morning the cream cheese which helps out my slender breakfast failed, because the man who was wont to bring it was conscripted and has gone to the frontier. The garrulous old custodian who conducted us this afternoon to the Arc de Triomphe, said that most of the trees in the park were to be cut down in the progress of the home defenses. We saw hundreds of men working on the fortifications which are soon to shut off communication with the outer world.
Thiers spoke in the Corps Législatif to-day, for the first time since three weeks ago, when he was hissed and howled at and silenced, and his house stoned a while later by the populace, because his voice was not for war. To-day he was applauded. To-day Marshal Lebceuf, then Minister of War, head of the army, the nation's hope, the most eager of them all in
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his shrieks for combat, has handed in his resignation. What a people is this, and how short-lived the glory so dear to all who love the name of France!

News on the bulletin posted up at the mayor's: "The Prussians have surrounded Strasbourg. The French are retreating in good order. But her soldiers performed prodigies of valor in the recent engagement."

As Thiers said, "All the failure is due to the incapacity of their chiefs." To which Picard replies, "An incapacity that has lasted twenty years." Many think, and all who have not loaves and fishes to lose by it, hope that the second Empire is in its dying hour. It looks ominous — the number of men working on the fortifications and the number of places where the grass has been cut away to make space for the cannon, of which six hundred will very soon be mounted.

PÄre Hyacinthe publishes his determination to work on the fortifications, since he thinks a priest should only fight in extreme cases. He will take his spade to-morrow after mass.

All other considerations are evidently overshadowed when the gay Parisians reflect that the whole French army is in retreat, closely followed by "the German brutes," as polite France does not hesitate to call the challenged invaders of her soil. Great, but quiet crowds stand waiting upon the boulevards and in the street of the newspaper offices. The varying aspects of Paris are like those of a handsome woman's face swayed by contending passions.

News of two indecisive French victories are reported by Marshal Bazaine, with the words, "Our losses have been great." The people seem as disconsolate as ever, for who does not know that if real success should crown the French armies, the streets would bloom with flags and the air be rent with the noise of minute-guns? This state of things can not endure much longer.

A lengthy placard posted on the columns of the Rue de Rivoli, and on all available spots along the boulevards, announces that "General Trochu is governor of Paris in the peril of the nation, and that his motto is, ‘I am for the country, with the help of God.’" Everybody feels relieved, because he is a very able man and much beloved.

We have another batch of London papers, and the news we gather is altogether different from what the Paris papers give us.

Let me here set down one corollary on my European study of the Sabbath problem. Even if the observance of one day in seven by cessation from ordinary pursuits, particular observance of divine worship, and thoughts of destiny and duty, be not required of us by our Creator, it is at least proved to be for our highest good and best development, first, by comparing nations where such observances are habitual with those where they are not; and second, in individual experience, by instituting a similar parallel between the periods when we have and when we have not regarded the injunctions of the fourth commandment. I look hopefully toward the better country of America and the better life that it is easy there to lead. For me and for my work in life it is a happy thing that I am going home. I would that I had the ambition of goodness even as strongly as I have the ambition of knowledge!

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Three things I did, once in awhile, during my two years and four months of foreign travel, that I never did and never do at home. I went to see sights on Sunday, went to the theater, and took wine at dinner. I reflect upon these facts with undisguised regret, but will frankly mention how this apostasy occurred. Never having been inside of a theater but once in America, and that on my first visit to New York City, in 1863, I went a few times in London, Paris, Berlin, and once in Moscow—perhaps half a dozen times in all. The universal judgment of tourists is that one's impression of the class that has best opportunity of culture is best gained by one's observations at the play, and their native language is spoken with greater purity by actors, perhaps, than by any other class.

There are some important sights in Paris never to be seen except on Sunday, so we went a few times, probably not half a dozen, in the nine months of our residence there.

Having been reared a total abstainer, the thought never occurred to me to take wine until my violent illness in Copenhagen, when a kind-faced physician bent over me and told me in French that if I ever expected to see my home again, I must avoid drinking water as we journeyed from one country to another, that being the most fruitful source of disease among travelers. The subject had not then been studied as it has been since, and I was more reverent towards physicians than I am now, so these words came to me as law and gospel. From that time on I thought it right to mix a little wine with the water at dinner, taking tea and coffee at the other meals. Kate also carried a bottle of wine with which to moisten our box of Albert biscuit, which was a requisite on our long car rides. Coming home, the custom was at once abandoned by us both and not renewed by her in her many years of foreign travel since, nor by me save as herein confessed.

At the International breakfast in Philadelphia, which was a part of the Centennial celebration by temperance people in 1876, I heard testimonies from travelers who had circumnavigated the globe many times, to the effect that they never drank wine. I know it is the testimony of all of our Methodist Bishops, and their duties take them to every clime, and my honored friends, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Cook, of Boston, tell me that they found a bottle of thoroughly boiled water to be a perfectly safe and satisfactory substitute

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for wine in all their world-wide travels, so that were I now to set out for a voyage around the world, as I suspect I shall some day, I should have no anxiety in my character of total abstainer. I firmly believe that had I never tasted wine while on the other side of the water, and had I scrupulously followed the American customs in my Sabbath observances, it would have been much better for me every way.

August 14.—I went to the Louvre to see my favorite among Venuses, that of Milo, for a leave-taking. In the long, dim perspective, she gleamed like a divinity. She has a soul, a brain, a heart, which one can not say of the Medici and hardly of the Capitoline, or of the Diana of Versailles and her antiquarian companions. The gallery of modern sculpture, including Canova's Cupids and Psyches, and many other chefs d'oeuvre were our last sights in the Louvre, most artistic of all galleries and the one that more than any other contributes to the culture of the public taste. It is the noblest thing in France, worthy of what is highest and most generous in the great Latin race. How it has pleased and taught me by its lessons manifold as the panorama of evening clouds, and free as the air from Swiss mountains. Today, as always, when I have been there, many poor workmen in their blouses were passing through this gallery, looking delightedly from side to side, holding their caps in their hands, not awkwardly, but with a certain timid grace, until they observed that gentlemen wore theirs, when they replaced them suddenly and commenced staring more diligently than ever at the pictured walls.
August 23.—Our adieus to our dear French hostess and her children were indeed hard to be said. We felt that we should probably never see again this gracious and accomplished woman and her lovely little children, who, with their invariable happy heedlessness, went smiling to the carriage door, throwing kisses and repeating their good-bys without cessation. Dear Madame, from her I hastened away, so as not to cry outright. She has a firm and loyal friend in me, and I am sure that while she lives I shall not lack one on this side the water, nor shall I lack, while she has a roof over her, a home, where I am as welcome as anywhere on earth save in the little Gothic cottage on the sunset shore of Lake Michigan.

September 5.—With respect to sea-sickness, I would offer a recipe of my own, inasmuch as every one has at his tongue's end a deliverance pf this sort—I mean if he has never been sea-sick. My recipe is, however, an exception to the rule, for I am never anything but sea-sick while on the sea! Crossing the Mediterranean is perhaps as much worse than crossing the Atlantic as the latter is worse than navigating a mill-pond. But on both these watery highways, I got relief by just one method, namely, rolling the pillow into a cylinder and rolling back my neck over that, while I held my arm above my head and with eyes well up in their sockets and fixed with
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desperate clinch upon the pages of an interesting book, I performed my cure and defrauded Old Neptune to the, at least intermittent, quietude of my diaphragm. I thus read the Life of Robertson, and his sermons, many of the best novels of Bulwer, and choice excerpts from Tauchnitz's Edition of Great Authors.

September 6. — New York almost in sight, silver sails all out in the west, silver moon in the clear sky, breakfast in the American fashion; port-holes all open for American air. We fill out our custom-house affidavits, pass Sandy Hook, the Narrows, the forts, the shipping, with the Star-spangled Banner at the mast-head, feel choky over it, vote unanimously that there is no nobler harbor; see the German flag everywhere, and learn amid tremendous excitement that Napoleon is a prisoner, McMahon's army has capitulated and France is a Republic. We are so delighted we know not what to do or say. Our friends, the German Doctor and his wife, hop up and down!

Wait three hours for our baggage to be taken off, enthusiasm ebbs to a low point; get our eight trunks and packing boxes together with infinite pains. A gentleman of the police fraternity takes our effects in hand, asks me solemnly, "In which trunk are all those handsome new dresses from Paris?" to which I innocently reply, "In this big black one, sir." Asks me if we have any piece goods, to which I replied, "Oh, yes, enough to make our dresses over when they get out of style!" He smiles wisely. "Have you worn all your clothing?" "Well, yes, that is, we tried it all on at our dressmakers', but we have worn it very little." He sees that we are so tremendously honest that he doesn't look into a single trunk, merely cuts the rope, saying, "You understand these have all been examined. I do this for you as a personal favor, I peril my position by so doing, but you say you are in haste to take a train, and I wish to annoy you as little as possible." Poor fellow! It were more than human charity to say that he did not look for a fee, but at least he did not get any from two such upright and patriotic women as Kate and I, for, in the first place, we were "principled against it," and in the second place, our finances were at such a point of exhaustion, that only my ten-dollar gold piece, that I had when we left America, bought for fifteen dollars in greenbacks and sold at a premium of one dollar at the New York railway station, saved us from bankruptcy. We talked of taking a carriage from the wharf, and asked the price. "Five dollars," said the hackman, which frightful words we repeated after him in holy horror and wrath and toddled off to take the street cars, meditating on the nice Paris cabs that would have carried us for thirty cents, and agreeing that America was not perfect, but then it was America, and that was enough.

And now, in conclusion, follow my rough notes made like Captain Cuttle's, "when found"; for my native land, which seemed a little strange at first, was now as closely scrutinized as those lands had been whence I was newly come, and no home-fondness was allowed to dim my glistening spectacles as I drew forth pencil and paper and took up my task.

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First. Wooden wharfs, general look of temporariness, as one approached the shore; no imposing buildings; droll ferry houses, and steamers that look as "skating bugs" did on Rock River of old; cars going like wild-fire; unpaved streets full of weeds, as we passed through the villages going out to the home of Kate's genial Aunt Jane in New Jersey; cowcatcher on the engine; the screaming whistle instead of the mild, cultured whistle of the continent; an ear-splitting ding-donging of the engine bell; "Lookout For the locomotive," at every turn. In Europe no railroad or path, or passenger, is ever, under any circumstances, allowed to cross a track. "Coal, brick, lime, cement, mortar," these are signs frequently met with and of proportions that indicate a thriving business and a new country. We have stood upon Mt. Calvary, and here we are at the Morris and Essex depot; we have eaten pomegranates at Damascus, and behold us with mouths watering for prairie melons. "Fust regular stop's Milburn, don't pay no 'tention, it's only to let off a passenger." Spruce conductor, ring on finger, gold chain, well-kept mustache, not a man adapted to climbing along outside of car from one door to another after the manner of conductors on the other side. Raw, stubby fields, smell like a prairie on fire, as we cross the Jersey marshes. Polite gentleman changes seats with us because ours is a back one; anticipates our raising of the car window; an employé conducts us to the car, carries our baggage, opens door and seats us without charge! "Pop-corn for sale." The cars are like a meeting-house, where people decorously and comfortably face one way instead of glaring at each other from benches opposite all the weary day long. Every man, well-dressed and ill-dressed, has a newspaper. Cost of a carriage, five dollars! Truckman with trunks, five dollars! In France, all that for five francs (one dollar) or less. Railroad salutation between two men of business; rough shake of the hand, "Good-by, give my respects to your folks;" "Thankee, I will;" wooden houses everywhere, glaring white; whole forests manufactured into fences glaring white. Amazing gentility of custom-house officers and street conductor; first advertisement that we saw plastered on a bowlder by the roadside, "Watt's Nervous Antidote." We have got home to a nervous nation. Tremendous play bills, with huge portraits, caricatures, etc.; circuses predominating; newsboys allowed to hop on the street and other cars with papers, without being taken by the collar and jerked off by a policeman. You would know that the street-car conductor did not always expect to be one, by the very style of his making change for your tickets. He has the air of a man holding on to one round of the ladder while he reaches up to grasp the next. Street barber's poles instead of little brass basins, concave on one edge. Street-car conductor to Kate, "Excuse me, but haven't you just come from England? you said station."

All this was twenty years ago or more, when we were less "English, you know," than Henry Irving, daily cable dispatches, and plenty of money have made us since. But we are true Americans at heart, and we know beyond all doubt or contradiction, ours is GOD'S COUNTRY.

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Car-Window Jottings.

NEW MEXICO.

Albuquerque, nearly as ancient in its origin as Santa Fé, is the "Wide-awake" of this mercurial continent. We were there on Good Friday, and wagons of nondescript appearance thronged the streets, while teams were in the corral, and men lounged about the street corners and saloons. "That's the way the men go to church here," dryly remarked a friend. "They think they've done their whole duty when they fetch the women to mass." Sure enough, the dingy old church was full of devout women, prostrate in acknowledgment of sin, while their liege lords were drinking ardente at the next corner. It needed no prophet to declare the doom of such an unequal civilization. Whatever makes the beliefs, tastes, habits and education of men and women more congenial, providing always that we must level up and not down, will most rapidly hasten the sway of happy homes and regenerated hearts.

The Pueblo Indians have a very simple form of election, one that might, with propriety, be recommended to the politicians of Gotham. It is this: The mayor of the city is chosen once a year. He can not have a second term. On the morning of election day, the outgoing mayor nominates two candidates for the succession. One of these goes to one end of the field, the other takes his station opposite. Every man (why not every woman, pray tell?) goes to the candidate of his choice and literally "stands up for him." Rapidly the lines lengthen on either side. The old men of the tribe count the number in each, and thus the election is absolutely without fraud, and, best of all, they can dispense with caucuses. The Navajoes a tribe of 16,000, trace their line of descent wholly along the mother's side, and

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the inheritance of property is from mother to daughter, so that a man when married goes to his wife's house. This is in accord with the philosophy of that most brilliant French thinker, Emile de Girardin, who descants at length on the intrinsic advantages of this plan as being founded in nature, ancestry being far more easily and surely traced on the mother's than on the father's side.

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.

We are at last in the land of enchantment, where heliotrope climbs all over the fronts of the houses; where corn grows seventeen feet high, and one can have a bouquet of fresh roses and a strawberry short-cake on the table all the year round. We are with a people as genial as the climate and breathe an air that makes wine seem more than ever an unnecessary and absurd exhilaration. Mrs. Dr. Gray, the dignified president, and Mrs. M. E. Congdon, the keen-brained secretary of California W. C. T. U., came five hundred miles to welcome us. Capt. A. D. Wood, our noble friend, of The Rescue, with Mr. and Mrs. Will D. Gould, of Los Angeles, the former a gifted lawyer, and the latter a grand woman, met us at the depot after our long overland trip. But I must not tell all our delightful impressions and haps with no mishaps, until I bring up the log by noting down some items of our stay in Tucson, for ten years the capital of Arizona, and still its chief city.

Outsiders say that Arizona means "arid zone," but insiders insist that its real significance is "beautiful zone." The latter we will not dispute, only its beauty is below ground, for its deserts are wide and its mines the most famous of the period. Roads leading nowhere, desert plains, strange, useless vegetation; no fences, general appearances not unlike Arabia Petraea, according to the books; one dollar charged for an aged canned meal; now and then an emigrant wagon, with wild-faced, bearded men driving oxen or mules; lone mountains, tranquil, treeless and distant, like vast, heaped-up shapes of sand or stone; a saw-tooth sky-line; needle-pointed shrubs; seven-branched candlestick cactus trees, forty feet high, these items include some of my impressions of Arizona. The only living things indigenous to the plains that cheered our eyes, were six graceful antelopes, discerned

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at early dawn, coming no whence, going no whither. What a strange juxtaposition, this wilderness outside, and the race-horse of the East, puffing his undaunted way; the elegant "silver car," with its artistic decorations, its tapestry cushions and curtains, and way-wise men and women reading the Chicago dailies, the last Century, of New York, Atlantic, of Boston, or Spectator, of London, and looking out through costly glass (adjusted from "opera" to "field ") over this waste of primeval lonesomeness!

SAN FRANCISCO.

Of all places on the globe, go to the California metropolis if you would feel the strong pulse of internationalism. Few have caught its rhythm, as yet, but we must do so if we would be strong enough to keep step with that matchless, electric twentieth century soon to go swinging past. You can almost hear his resonant tread on San Francisco pavements; his voice whispers in the lengthening telephone, saying, "Yesterday was good, to-day is better, but to-morrow shall be the red-letter day of all life's magic calendar." I have always been impatient of our planet's name — "the earth." What other, among the shining orbs, has a designation so insignificant? That we have put up with it so long is a proof of the awful inertia of the aggregate mind, almost as surprising as our endurance of the traffic in alcoholic poison. With Jupiter and Venus, Orion and the Pleiades smiling down upon us in their patronizing fashion, we have been contented to inscribe on our visiting cards, "At Home: The Earth!" Out upon such paucity of language. "The dust o' the ground" forsooth! That answered well enough perhaps for a dark-minded people who never even dreamed they were living on a star. Even now an army of good folks afraid of the next thing, just because it is the next, and not the last, will doubtless raise holy hands of horror against the proposition I shall proceed to launch forth for the first time, though it is harmless as the Pope's bull against the comet. They will probably oppose me, too, on theologic grounds, for, as Coleridge hath it,

"Time consecrates, and what is gray with age becomes religion."

Nevertheless, since we do inhabit a star, I solemnly propose we cease to call it a dirt heap, and being determined to "live up

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to my light," I hereby bring forward and clap a patent upon the name

CONCORDIA.

By the same token, I met half a dozen selectest growths of people in San Francisco who, in the broadest international way are doing more to make this name Concordia descriptive, rather than prophetic in its application to our oldest home, than any other people I can name. They work among the Chinese, Japanese, and "wild Arabs of the Barbary coast," they go with faces that are an epitomized gospel, and preach to the stranger within the Golden Gate that he is a stranger no more; they bring glad tidings of good which shall be to all people, for to them, as to their Master, "there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female in Christ Jesus."

Among the many such, I can here mention only two: "See Otis Gibson, or you have missed the moral hero of Gold-opolis" — this was concurrent testimony coming from every side. Garfield left no truer saying than that the time wants men " who have the courage to look the devil squarely in the face and tell him that he is the devil." Precisely this fearless sort of character is Rev. Otis Gibson. He has been the uncompromising friend of "the heathen Chinee" through all that pitiful Celestial's grievous fortunes on our Western shore. When others cursed he blessed; while others pondered he prayed; what was lacking in schools, church, counsel and kindness he supplied. It cost something thus to stand by a hated and traduced race in spite of hoodlum and Pharisee combined. But Otis Gibson could not see why the people to whom we owe the compass and the art of printing, the civil service examination, the choicest porcelain, might not Christianize as readily on our shores as on their own! In this faith he and his noble wife have worked on until they have built up a veritable city of refuge for the defenseless and despairing, in the young and half barbarous metropolis of the Pacific slope.

We afterward visited the "Chinese Quarter," so often described, under escort of Rev. Dr. Gibson. We saw the theaters where men sit on the back and put their feet on the board part of the seat; where actors don their costumes in full sight of the audience, and frightful pictured dragons compete with worse discord, for supremacy. We saw the joss-house, with swinging

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censer and burning incense, tapers and tawdriness, a travesty of the Catholic ceremonial, taking from the latter its one poor merit of originality. We saw a mother and child kneeling before a hideous idol, burning tapers, tossing dice, and thus "consulting the oracle," with many a sidelong glance of inattention on the part of the six-year-old boy, but with sighs and groans that proved how tragically earnest was the mother's faith. Dr. Gibson said the numbers on the dice corresponded to wise sayings and advices on strips of paper sold by a mysterious Chinese whose "pious shop" was in the temple vestibule, whither the poor woman resorted to learn the result of her "throw," and then returned to try again, until she got some response that quieted her. Could human incredulity and ignorance go farther? We saw the restaurants, markets and bazaars, as thoroughly Chinese as Pekin itself can furnish; the haunts of vice, all open to the day; the opium dens, with their comatose victims; and then, to comfort our hearts and take away the painful vividness of woman's degradation, Dr. Gibson took us to see a Christian Chinese home, made by two of his pupils, for years trained under his eye. How can I make the contrast plain enough? A square or two away, the horrid orgies of opium and other dens still worse, but here a well-kept dry-goods store, where the husband was proprietor, and in the rear a quiet, pleasant, sacred home. The cleanly, kind-faced wife busy with household cares, her rooms the picture of neatness, her pretty baby sleeping in his crib, and over all the peace that comes from praise and prayer. Never in my life did I approach so near to that perception, too great for mortal to attain, of what the Gospel has achieved for woman, as when this gentle, honored wife and mother said, seeing me point to an engraving of "The Good Shepherd" on her nursery wall: "Oh, yes! He gave this home to us."

How firm and fine the etching that should accurately show the features of Mrs. Sarah B. Cooper! whose strong, sweet individuality I have not seen excelled — no, not even among women. From the time when our Eastern press teemed with notices of the Presbyterian lady who had been tried for heresy and acquitted, who had the largest Bible class in San Francisco and was founder of that city's Kindergartens for the poor, I made a mental memorandum that, no matter whom I missed, this lady I would see.

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So at half-past twelve on a mild May Sabbath noon, I sought the elegant Plymouth Church, built by Rev. Dr. A. L. Stone, formerly of Boston, and found a veritable congregation in its noble auditorium. Men and women of high character and rare thoughtfulness were gathered. Bibles in hand, to hear the exposition of the acquitted heretic, whom a Pharisaical deacon had begun to assail contemporaneously with her outstripping him in popularity as an expounder of the gospel of love. She entered quietly by a side door, seated herself at a table level with the pews, laid aside her fur-lined cloak and revealed a fragile, but symmetric figure, somewhat above the medium height, simply attired in black, with pose and movement altogether graceful, and while perfectly self-possessed, at the farthest remove from being self-assertive. Then I noted a sweet, untroubled brow, soft brown hair chastened with tinge of silver (frost that fell before its time, doubtless at the doughty deacon's bidding); blue eyes, large, bright and loving; nose of the noblest Roman, dominant yet sensitive, chiseled by generations of culture, the unmistakable expression of highest force and mettlesomeness in character, held in check by all the gentlest sentiments; a mouth firm, yet delicate, full of the smiles that follow tears.

When, the delightful hour was Over, among the loving group that gathered around her, attracted by the healing virtue of her spiritual atmosphere, came a temperance sojourner from the East. As my name was mentioned, the face so full of spirituality lighted even more than was its wont, and the soft, strong voice said, "Sometimes an introduction is a recognition — and so I feel it to be now." I consider that enough of a compliment to last me for a term of years. I feel that it helped mortgage me to a pure life; I shall be better for it "right along." For if I have ever clasped hands with a truth-seeker, a disciple of Christ and lover of humanity, Sarah B. Cooper held out to me that loving, loyal hand. A more hospitable intellect I have not known, nor a glance more wide and tolerant; "Christ, and him crucified," is to that loyal heart "the Chief among ten thousand and altogether lovely."

Among the best types of representative women America may justly count Sarah B. Cooper, the student, the Christian exegete and philosopher, and the tender friend of every untaught little child.

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If I have not yet written up my California trip it is not for lack of material, but rather because I have such a bundle of notes that I dread to begin. California! "She is made up of every creature's best."

THE YOSEMITE.

Who can fitly tell of the condensed impressions about God made by a valley only six miles long, one mile wide and half a mile high, wherein all forms of solemn, majestic and pastoral beauty are combined?

When, after a mountain ride of half a day, surrounded by inclined planes of evergreens, each of which would have been a world's wonder at the East, with superb curves in the road evermore opening fresh vistas of illimitable height, verdure and beauty, we rounded Inspiration Point, "there was no more spirit in us." Word-pauperism oppresses one upon this height as nowhere else on earth. There is in Europe a single revelation of art that has power to silence the chatter even of fashion's devotees, and that is Raphael's Sistine Madonna. I have been in its seraphic presence for hours at a time, but never heard a vocal comment. The foamiest natures are not silenced by Niagara, by Mount Blanc, by the Jungfrau's awful purity, or the terrors of Vesuvius, for their flippant tones have smitten me in all these sacred places. But from the little child in our midst — a bright-faced boy of four — to the rough, kind-hearted driver, not one word was spoken by our party as the heavenly vision of Yosemite, framed in fleecy, flying clouds, greeted our thoughtful eyes, and spoke of God to our hushed souls. Except beside the dying bed of my beloved I have never felt the veil so thin between me and the world ineffable — supernal. What was it like? Let no pen less lofty than that of Milton, less atune with Nature's purest mood than that of Wordsworth, hope to "express unblamed" the awful and ethereal beauty of what we saw. "Earth with her thousand voices praises God," sang the great heart of Coleridge of the vale of Chamouni, but here, the divine' chorus includes both earth and heaven, for El Capitan rears his head into the sky, while Sentinel and Cathedral Rocks and sky-climbing Cloud's Rest round out the full diapason of earthly and of celestial praise. A holy awe rested upon us, and tears were in all eyes. At last the sacred silence was broken by a rich voice, beloved by me for

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many a year, as Mrs. Dr. Bently led the "Gloria in Excelsis," in which the jubilant soprano harmonized with the melodious bass of humanity's united utterance of praise. "O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker," these inspired words leaped to our lips, and we found that in this supreme moment of our experience, beyond all poets, was the fitness of grand old words our mothers taught us from the Book of God. "The Lord is in his holy temple, let all the earth keep silence before him," "What is man that thou art mindful of him?" "Stand in awe and sin not," these were the words that came first to us, and I believe we shall be better men and women always for that vision of eternity from which the curtain of mystery was for a moment drawn aside. We learned afterward that as our two coaches rolled on into the valley a third rounded "Inspiration Point," and Judge — , of Sydney, Ohio, a dear old gentleman, rose to his feet, clasped his hands as if in prayer, and exclaimed "Mercy, mercy, mercy! Have I lived seventy-six years that I might see this glory! God made it all!" and he lifted up his voice and wept. Such a scene as that is once for a life-time.

We saw the valley from an hundred points of view afterward; we waved our good-by to it a week later from this very spot, but the first remains the unmatched view — its like will never greet our eyes again — not in this world.

As we sped onward into the valley I thought of the sightless children with whom I used to play at Forest Home and said: "I never before felt such pity for the blind."

PUGET SOUND.

Beautiful for situation is Puget Sound. A generation hence it will be the joy of this noble Republic. Oregon with its matchless mountains and river, Washington and its wonderful forests, are both included in this name. Here is the Pacific cowed and conquered, purring like a tamed tiger at the feet of marvelous young cities. No one can appreciate the transformation save those who, like ourselves, have experienced the untold miseries of the voyage between San Francisco and Astoria, Oregon. For fifty-four hours I lay motionless in the upper berth suitably assigned to one who, during that interval when "deep calleth unto deep," had no part in this world's hurry or delight.

Welcome Puget Sound with its fathomless harbors of land-locked

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blue, and the imperial pressure of such snow-clad mountains as are found nowhere else, no, not in Switzerland!

Twice Anna Gordon and myself visited Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, receiving a royal welcome. The second time, we went to organize a Provincial W. C. T. U. The climate of the Sound is perhaps its greatest surprise. It is so mild that the English ivy grows out-of-doors all the year round. The ladies told me they could gather flowers always up to March, when slight frosts generally appear, but of snow or ice there is nothing to signify. It has the summer of Denmark and the winter of Italy. It is a rare climate for clear thinking and quiet, rational living, a soil in which the temperance reform has readily taken root. The forests, chiefly of fir and cedar, are of unequaled magnificence. Frequently more wood is cut from an acre of ground than can be corded thereon. "Go West, young woman, and grow up with the country," would be our advice to aspiring girls.

MONTANA.

Bishop Hargrove of the M. F. Church, South, had it about right when he said, "Montana has barely enough valleys to slip in between its hills." Never was a territory more aptly named. For beauty of railway scenery I should like to know what country furnishes anything superior to the panorama between Spokane Falls, W. T., and Missoula, Montana. Spokane Falls itself is an almost ideal town in situation, and the cataract is better worth a day's journey to visit than several on both sides of the water that I have made a pilgrimage on purpose to behold.

"Clark's Fork" of the Columbia is the absurd name of a river quite comparable in dash and beauty of color with the "arrowy Rhone," only this is of the most delicate emerald, and that, as all the world knows, is the most cerulean blue. But the towers, spires and bastions of the American river are unique beyond those of any other save the glorious river toward which it runs — the Columbia, Oregon's pride and, erelong, the tourist's favorite rendezvous.

We left Missoula July 26 in a covered conveyance for Helena and Deer Lodge — a distance of one hundred and eighty-two miles — Rev Mr. Shannon, his wife and little girl accompanying us. The two horses and entire outfit had been loaned Mr. S. in

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token of good will. He had sent it ahead the night before eighteen miles beyond Missoula, as the railroad authorities had kindly permitted us to ride on the construction train to that point, which was the western terminus of this great iron track. Here we clambered into our wagon behind the unrelated steeds loaned us from two separate establishments, packed away "big box, little box, bandbox and bundle" almost to the overflowing point, and set out overland. Anna dubbed our horses "Thunder and Lightning"; for what purpose did not appear, unless, as cheery young Mr. Riggin, superintendent of Methodist missions in Montana, said, "One of them looked as if he had swallowed an avalanche of thunder, and it hadn't agreed with him, and the other seemed to have been struck by lightning." We perambulated along through wooded valleys, the sun's light obscured by forest fires and great pines in process of ignition on either side our path. We camped at noon beside a gurgling brook, spread our table-cloth, boiled our eggs and tea over a fire made of pine cones, washed our dishes in the little mountain stream, got some nice milk for the baby from a way-side farm, and took up our "jog trot" over the hills and far away. Our dark horse "Thunder" stood from under the heavy load upon hillsides dangerously sloping, and it was droll indeed to see Mr. S. balance on the hind wheel to strengthen the "brake" while his wife drove, and we ran with stones to block the hind wheels. Thus we worked our passage the first day and wished for lands with railroads. It came to pass, however, that when we stopped at night, having made fifty-six miles, cars and all, we found that it was "all along of" the misfitting collar that poor Thunder had led us such a hard life, whereupon he became the pet of the party. I could but think whether it be not true that a galling, ill-adjusted yoke, may explain much, in many cases, of the criss-cross and contradiction of this our mortal life.

Our second day's ride was much ameliorated by the experience of the past and the increased adequacy of our thunderous steed. We had leisure to take in the changeful beauty of Montana, a territory with an individuality all its own. It is the fourth in size among the grand divisions of Uncle Sam's estate, the order of extent being as follows: Texas, California, Dakota,

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Montana. It is emphatically the pasture land of the Republic, and its cattle kings are justly famed.

Montana sometimes exhibits a thermometer marking fifty-seven degrees below zero, but so light and clear is the atmosphere that the people declare they "do not feel the cold as they used to back East." The territory is thinly settled as yet, but railroading is simply rampant there and in Idaho, and we shall soon regard both as next door neighbors.

On our third day's ride, we passed the place where robbers sacked a stage and killed a horse a few days previous. Though unarmed and mostly of the timid class, I don't think we felt a qualm. Somehow, though distance lends enchantment, proximity brings grit to bear, and we went on our way rejoicing. On our fourth day's riding we passed the logs beside the road from behind which, not twenty-four hours earlier, three masked men had pointed guns at the stage load, and afterward at a private conveyance, making them stand and deliver. Perhaps it was on the principle, they that know nothing fear nothing; anyhow, we didn't mind, but jogged on over endless reaches of hill country, till we reached a stage station where we slept the sleep of the weary, if not of the just.

We were glad to learn that the robbers were captured in a few days after their crime. Brother Garvin told me that Plummer, the greatest "road agent" of the far West (for by that euphemism do they absurdly soften down the atrocious occupation of these men) could in two and a half seconds take his pistol from his pocket, and fire three bullets, hitting a little percussion-cap box at ten paces. Woe is me, to think of such quickness of mind and dexterity of hand turned to an unmixed curse.

A couple of droll speeches were reported to me on this trip. One was by an emigrant woman in Washington Territory, who was seated in a rude wagon behind a weary-looking ox team, while the lordly owner was refreshing himself in a saloon. A tourist accosted her with the words, "How do you like it out here?" and she answered, "Well, stranger, it may do well enough for men, but I tell you what, it's drefful poor country for women and oxen!" Another passing traveler asked a Montana girl if she had ever seen the cars and received this philosophic answer

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which might be appropriately headed "sweet satisfaction": "No sir, I can't say that I ever saw the cars, but I don't care, I'd just as lief see the stage."

UTAH.

After leaving Montana, we boxed the compass of Utah, home of the strangest civilization of modern times, the "Church of the Latter Day Saints."

First of all our train entered Cache Valley north of Ogden, and we watched out sharply for signs of the new departure. Early in the day, we passed numerous farms and little villages, utterly treeless and forlorn, whereupon we ejaculated: "There! we've struck Mormondom, no doubt of it; plain to be seen as a pikestaff." When, behold, we were informed by the conductor of our mistake, for these dreary burghs were "Gentile" beyond a peradventure. Later on, they grew more winsome, with trim little homes, trees and vines, yellow harvests and solid comfort everywhere. Mirabile dictu! These were the Mormon settlements! We soon learned that their most salient features were the presence of willow fences around the fields, woven somewhat like a basket — an Old World notion, imported by the Mormon emigrants, which, combined with the churchless aspect of the villages themselves (for the Mormon "Tabernacle" has an architecture peculiar to itself, not unlike our notion of what the temple might have been) gave a novel aspect to the scene. Noon came, and we stopped for dinner at the notable Mormon town of Logan, where we first saw one of these stately buildings. Our breakfast in a Gentile village had been simply execrable. Here, it was the most toothsome we had tasted in a year. It was homelike, wholesome and appetizing; "Mother's cooking!" was my immediate exclamation. The butter, with flavor and fragrance of sweet pastures and new-mown hay, reminded me of the cool cellar and delightsome dairy of my old Wisconsin home. What a contrast to the frouzy abomination usually taken as medicine in railroad waiting-rooms in that sultry month of August! The bread was worthy of its companionship, with cheese that was the ambrosial essence of sweet cream, the vegetables simply delightful, the meat could be prepared for deglutition without the ten minutes of assiduous grinding we so often laboriously give, and the table-cloth, dishes, etc., were absolutely whole, fresh and

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clean! A neat, modest, rosy-cheeked girl was our attendant — the first real, live Mormon I had ever seen "for certain." This was her sorry classification as the following brief dialogue disclosed:

Gentile Temperance Traveler. — Is this a Mormon town?

Modest Waitress. — I suppose it would be called so, though some Gentiles live here.

Traveler. — Is this Gentile or Mormon cooking? that's what I want to know.

Waitress. — Well, since you ask, I can assure you it is Mormon like myself.

Traveler. — Well, it is an unspeakable credit to the Mormons, that's all I have to say, and I'm a judge, having learned by the things I have suffered. The Indian chief asked, "Who is there to mourn for Logan?" and I promise you here is one weary wayfarer, of microscopic appetite, who will hereafter "mourn for Logan" every time the brakeman pipes his dreary warning, "Train stops for dinner at this place."

We reached Ogden toward night. Sabbath morning we went to the Mormon Tabernacle with our host and Mr. Cannon, son of the famous George Q. Cannon of Washington memory. Forgetting for a moment this significant fact, I asked the accomplished young man if he had brothers and sisters, whereupon he meekly answered, "About twenty."

We entered the tabernacle, which seats three thousand persons. It was almost surrounded by horses and wagons from the country, and was tolerably well filled with a motley throng of what would be called the common people. There were no windows save very large ones just beneath the oval roof at each end of the building. The seats sloped toward the wide platform where, behind a choir of nice-looking women and a few men, sat the speakers of the hour. Nobody knows who will speak, there are no paid ministers, but every man is free to exercise his gift of exhortation and of prophecy, the younger brethren being put forward with a kindly tolerance on the part of the fathers in Zion, which our churches might wisely emulate.

It was the annual meeting of the "Mutual Improvement Societies" of this county; or as it is curiously called, "This Stake of Zion."

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Reports were given by half a dozen honest-looking young men, evidently accustomed to public speaking, for their voices reached without effort the seat far back, where, in the middle tier, we sat with the rest of the women, the men forming a sort of guard on either side. There was not an instance of whispering, even the children, though evidently not under repressive training, keeping remarkably quiet. All the men spoke in the same style — as if following a certain model.

There were no figures of speech, no anecdotes, only a certain equipoise, deliberateness and dreary level of mediocrity. They talked about the meetings in which they study the history and doctrines of their church. One said: "We have purchased a book-case that cost us somewhere in the neighborhood of sixty dollars, and we hope, after awhile, to have a reading-room to put it in." Another told about the "benefits to be deriven" from this mutual improvement society. All who spoke, and there were half a dozen at least, conspicuously murdered the Queen's English. Nearly all closed with a perfunctory "This is my prayer, in the name of Jesus, Amen," pronounced with eyes wide open.

A son of Apostle Rich ("one of the twelve") preached a brief discourse. He has just returned from England, and is one of the two hundred and fifty missionaries who go out minus purse or scrip to win converts in distant lands. He had more culture than his brethren, and proceeded on this fashion, using the Bible as a sort of fulcrum. His text was, "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven." Matt. 16:17. "My brethren and sisters, I ask the prayers of the fatter Day Saints who are here, and also of those who are not. I ask the good wishes of all. Our religion is different from all others. Christ is the head of His church, even as the husband is the head of his wife, but a wife would be of very little use to her husband, if she had no head of her own, wouldn't she? [Smiles and nodding of the women's heads in approbation!] Even so Christ has never left His church without a head. Some say there is no need of a farther revelation, but I declare that the first proof that any revelation is real must be that it goes right on. We believe that there is no people on this earth who really follow Christ, except those

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who receive the revelation of His latest prophet, Joseph Smith, who stood up at fourteen years old and went into the woods and declared that there he received a revelation. The world says: ‘We don't care how much you believe in your revelation, if you will let alone the principle of plural marriage which we are bound to stamp out.’

"But it is not for this principle that our fathers and mothers were driven into the wilderness. In the early days of the church my mother had muzzles of pistols at her head to make her tell where my father was. She has seen him fired at when carrying a flag of truce. Was this because of his belief in polygamy? No, it was because he held to the Bible, its form of government, its teachings and examples all through. I believe the Bible prophets have had successors, and that Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and John Taylor, are true prophets of God. If the Gentiles could bring up as many proofs that our doctrine is false as a sixteen-year-old Mormon boy can that it is true, they could stamp it out quick enough. But here are we according to prophecy. Don't the Bible say, ‘Let us go up to the temple of the Lord, that is in the tops of the mountains?’ Well, here we are, and ‘seeing is believing.’ The people who drove us here had little idea that they were fulfilling prophecy! Our elders carried to the wilderness the promise and prophecy of Joseph Smith, that in baptism they should receive the testimony that ours is the true religion. They have taken the medicine and know it does what it agrees to. If you who are here this morning will take it also you will rejoice in the same result. Let us not have theory, let us have experience. I can take my Bible under my arm and go to the ends of the earth and testify for the religion of the Latter Day Saints. I know it will yet fill the earth as the waters do the great deep. It can be so deeply stamped upon the youthful mind that all hell can not prevail against it."

The young man spoke earnestly and with evident conviction.

As a temperance worker I was glad of the testimony of Anson Call, one of the leaders, who said, "Young men who attend our Mutual Improvement Society can readily be known by the greater purity of their habits. As a class they do not drink, use tobacco, nor swear."

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The last speech was by H. Anderson, a pure-faced young man, who publishes the Mormon paper. Our keen-witted lawyer host (the scalpel of whose criticism doesn't spare the Mormon leaders), said to me as he came forward, "There is a native product, a thorough gentleman, one whose life illustrates every Christian virtue, though he is a Mormon through and through."

He said:

"When we have young men who can expound the principles of our church as has been done this morning, it is indeed a comfort and refreshment. We are willing to be judged by our fruits. Take the Mormons of Cache Valley and Ogden, and our own county as a class, and compare them with others as to truth, kindness and uprightness. We have learned to be good — for I went to Sabbath-school when a boy, and learned to honor God and my parents, and those by whom I was surrounded. We are becoming better, nobler, more upright. Why, then, do the Gentiles object to our polygamy? But then God's people are always persecuted — this is one of the surest marks of God's favor. The time is short. The Gospel is to be preached to all nations, and then shall the end come."

The services were closed with a beautiful anthem, that Anna Gordon says they sing in her own home church near Boston.

One of the men lifted his hand, whereupon all rose and he pronounced the benedictory prayer.

I walked up the street with young Mr. Cannon, who little guessed the turbulent subjectivity beside him. He was too polite to ask an opinion and I was too considerate to offer one. But never in my life have I been more profoundly disturbed. The service was such an awful travesty of "the faith once delivered to the saints." For the moment I thought I never wanted to hear those words again. It was as if Christianity had died and they were galvanizing its corpse into hideous contortions imitative of life. "Wounded in the house of his friends" has our Christ always been and far more grievously than any free-thinker can ever wound Hi! For whatever may be true of Brigham Young and his hierarchy, these were honest, simple, kindly souls, and believed what they had said about Joe Smith as a prophet and polygamy as a sacred tie. But for the self-control which

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years and discipline have brought me since my impetuous girlhood days, I would have lifted up my voice and wept.

Partly was I grieved for them in their awful delusion; for human reason brought so low, for deadly fanaticism that blights every fairest flower of the beautiful soul, so rampant in its credulity, when in our own sublimated land and sunlit century it ought to be so balanced and serene. But as a woman, my sense of outrage and humiliation was beyond language. The highest ideals of noble souls in all ages were here trampled under foot by those who verily thought they did God service. The lofty companionship of "Two heads in council, two beside the hearth," on which Home's sacred citadel is founded, how it is blotted out in the "Church of the Latter Day Saints"! Woman becomes the servitor of man, having no promise of heaven save through her relations to him, and he, whose relations to her are intended to exalt and purify every faculty of his nature, loses his loftiest and sweetest hopes of manly character. Childhood, too, is defrauded of its most precious inheritance, the tender guardianship of faithful parentage, and fond tie of brother and sisterhood. "About twenty brothers and sisters," said young Cannon. What can he know of the close love of our fireside groups in Christian families? A young lady of Salt Lake City said with a twinge of pain upon her face, "My father has at least forty children; I do not think he would know me should he meet me on the street."

Three Mormon ladies called upon me at Salt Lake; one was the editor of The Woman's Exponent, another was an accomplished lady physician, educated in Philadelphia and Boston, the third had been a wife of Brigham Young. All were bright women, leaders of their church. At first I did not know that they were Mormons, and when, in speaking of that as voting day, two of them said, "The government of the United States has disfranchised us because we are polygamists," I simply replied, "On that question I have my own opinion, but the temperance work is the only reform about which I care to express myself in Utah." They had avowed their interest in our society, and I was glad of this. Said Mrs. Young, "A wise general will not on the eve of battle, ask the religious opinions of his soldiers, but rather this question, ‘Are you ready to do battle against our common foe.’" As years have passed, our society has, however, taken

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higher ground than this and come out squarely against such Mormons as persist in the practice of polygamy.

We went to Brigham's grave as a wonder of its kind, being to an American woman the most obnoxious on the whole circle of the planet. Three tons of granite in one block were hardly needed to hold him from aerial heights, his own specific gravity settled that matter! But he is thus hedged in to keep his bones from desecration, probably, and his only dead wife (poetic justice that, with this exception, the whole outfit should survive him!) has no stone nor flower to mark her grave. What an oversight on the part of the loving sisterhood, who, with her, shared his affections.

By the way, we saw a most inferior woman hurrying from a Mormon house, when one of us commented upon her stolid appearance and the other remarked, "Eternal fitness! only the fifth part of a woman would ever take up with the fifth part of a man." The prettiest place we saw was "Rose Bud Cottage," a Mormon, but not a polygamous home, completely embowered in trees and vines, the latter being trained over strings, so that they lay as a roof of greenery overhead, along the garden paths. Nothing more sylvan, cool and restful could greet one's eye.

Salt Lake with its Mormon and "Gentile" population has every convenience and luxury of any city; has "Gentile" society of the forcible type that dares consecrate life to setting up the American civilization among a people essentially alien in purpose and life. Altogether we never had a more curious, pleasant, pathetic trio of days than in far-famed "Deseret."

Ogden, Utah, is a far lovelier town than we are taught. Doubtless it has improved since becoming a railroad center of five different roads. Its summer climate is delightfully tempered by "the canyon breeze," which blows nearly one half of the twenty-four hours, and the near neighborhood of this same delightful valley affords to the home people such facilities for camping out as must go far to conserve their health, rejuvenate their spirits and drive dull care away. If asked in my own life, and that of our fevered Americans, the greatest mistake and deprivation, I would say: "Great Nature hasn't half a chance to soothe, enrich and nurture us; we ‘go touring,’ but we do not let the calm old mother take us to her heart and sing the

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lullaby that we sigh for without knowing what we miss." Only blurred and misty revelations of God can come to souls so worn and travel-stained. When we temperance workers go to the sea or to the mountains, it is still to wring from our tired brains a few more thoughts for public utilization or a little "stored up energy" of magnetism for a "summer audience." May the valleys, trees and skies forgive us this profanation of their sanctuaries and this profane substitution of our restless glances and babbling tongues for their sacred liturgy.

SOUTHWARD HO!

My first trip of three months (1881) spent in blessed work for the homes and loved ones of a most genial, intelligent and heartily responsive people, made me quite in love with the South. To think they should have received me as a sister beloved, yet with full knowledge that I was that novel and unpalatable combination (as a Richmond gentleman said) "a woman; a Northern woman, a temperance woman!" I had been told that to speak in public in the South was "not to be thought of, that all would be lost if I attempted anything beyond parlor meetings. But instead of this, their liberality of sentiment was abundantly equal to the strain; their largest churches were filled with the best, most influential and thoughtful people; their ministers were more united and earnest in the temperance cause than ours at the North; their editors, without the slightest subsidizing, were as kind and helpful as my own brother could have been. Nay, the only grief I had was in being spoken of so much better in every way than my own consciousness bore me witness that I merited.

From the first the Southern ladies took up our quiet, systematic lines of work with an intelligence and zeal that I have never seen exceeded and seldom equaled. There was an "our-folks" air in audiences, cars, and on the streets that was quite refreshing. The native population is so regnant, colored population

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is of such home-like nature, and the foreign element so insignificant in influence and numbers, that temperance has an immense advantage at the South. Beer has no such grip on the habits or the politics of the people as at the North. Almost without exception the gulf and seabound states have taken advance ground. The time is ripe; "the sound in the mulberry trees" is plainly audible. I have now made five trips thither, and always with the same warm welcome.

On a later journey I spent a week in New Orleans at the time of the famous Exposition.

Here our natural point of rendezvous was the booth of the National W. C. T. U.; en route thither we passed through an immense park with an avenue of live-oaks that would be a glory in itself were it in Central Park or the Bois de Boulogne. We climbed the slow, graded stairs of the great government building, and turning to the right came upon a home-like oasis in the desert of strangeness, for from a hundred costly banners, white and golden, blue and emerald, representing every state and territory of the great Republic, gleamed on every side the magic legend that we love, "For God and Home and Native Land." Here at last were the flags, and pennon fair, and brilliant gonfalon of the Ohio Crusade and the Continental white ribboners!

At three o'clock of that day, I was expected to preside and speak on behalf of the National W. C. T. U. The auditorium seated over eleven thousand persons, and the only blunder of the Exposition was that the music of the Corliss engine drowned all competing voices. The engine did not stop until four o'clock and we were to begin at three. Fancy a vibrant soprano unable to hear itself in all the whiz and roar of a cataract of sound where the most capacious lungs could not reach over a thousand persons even when the machinery was motionless! But the advantage of speaking there was that a stenographic reporter sat just beside me, and the audience that hears with its eye, got my ideas next morning in the Times-Democrat and Picayune. We went through the pantomime of a meeting. Bro. Mead pitched the tune "Coronation," but to the rumbling orchestra of that remorseless "Corliss," our singing was like the chirping of a sparrow when an avalanche is falling. I went through the motions of calling off the parts, and bravely that sweet-voiced gentlewoman,

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Mrs. Judge Merrick, went to the front and articulated the Crusade Psalm, after which Mary T. Lathrap offered prayer. Then gallantly came to our rescue broad-shouldered Governor St. John, and talked against time until the horrible mouthing of that pitiless engine ceased. The great audience was in good humor, and deserting the chairs, stood closely around him, eager to catch every word, while he spoke in frank, soldierly fashion to the men who once had worn the gray, even as he had the blue, and predicted the good time coming. That Governor St. John is a man who can "tire out" almost any other on the platform is well known, but as a tour de force I have never seen equalled the speech of this afternoon when, as he declared should be the case, he "wore out" the Corliss engine. At four o'clock Mrs. Lathrap and I made brief addresses, and Mrs. Wells read the song salutation dedicated to Louisiana W. C. T. U. by Indiana's white ribbon poet, Mrs. Leavitt, of Vernon. Wearier women have slept the sleep of the just, perhaps, but more willing dreamers never were, than the twain — Matilda B. Carse and I — who retired from view at seven P. M. that night.

As a temperance worker, I was devoted to my "stint," as I called it, which consisted of presenting the white-ribbon cause, not only in every capital, but in every other town and city in our country that by the census of 1870 had 10,000 inhabitants. This was completed in 1883.

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Part VI: A Temperance Advocate and Organizer

A Temperance Advocate and Organizer.

Chapter I.

ON THE THRESHOLD.

From my earliest recollection there hung on the dining-room wall at our house, a pretty steel engraving. It was my father's certificate of membership in the Washingtonian Society, and was dated about 1835. He had never been a drinking man, was a reputable young husband, father, business man and church member, but when the movement reached Churchville, near Rochester, N. Y., he joined it. The little picture represented a bright, happy temperance home with a sweet woman at the center, and over against it a dismal, squalid house with a drunken man staggering in, bottle in hand. Unconsciously and ineffaceably I learned from that one object-lesson what the precepts and practice of my parents steadily enforced, that we were to let strong drink alone.

In 1855 I cut from my favorite Youth's Cabinet, the chief juvenile paper of that day, the following pledge, and pasting it in our family Bible, insisted on its being signed by every member of the family — parents, brother, sister and self.

"A pledge we make no wine to take,
Nor brandy red that turns the head,
Nor fiery rum that ruins home,
Nor brewers' beer, for that we fear,
And cider, too, will never do.
To quench our thirst, we'll always bring
Cold water from the well or spring;
So here we pledge perpetual hate
To all that can intoxicate."

It is still there, thus signed, and represents the first bit of temperance work I ever did. Its object was simply to enshrine

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in the most sacred place our home afforded a pledge that I considered uniquely sacred. Nobody asked me to sign it, nor was there a demand because of exterior temptation, for we were living in much isolation on a farm three miles from Janesville, Wis., where my childhood was invested — not "spent."

Coming to Evanston, Ill., in 1858, we found a prohibition village, the charter of the University forbidding the sale of any intoxicating liquor as a beverage.

Temperance was a matter of course in this "Methodist heaven" where we have lived from that day to this, from the time it had but a few hundred, until now when it claims seven thousand inhabitants.

About 1863-'65 a "Temperance Alliance" was organized here by L. L. Greenleaf, then our leading citizen, the Chicago representative of the Fairbanks' firm, who have made St. Johnsbury, Vt., a model temperance town. Before that Alliance I read one temperance essay when I was a quiet school teacher amid these shady groves, and one evening at the "Alliance sociable" I offered the pledge for the first time and was rebuffed by a now distinguished literary man, then a pastor and editor in our village. This was my first attempt and his brusque and almost angry negative hurt me to the heart. We are excellent friends all the same, and I do not believe he dreams how much he pained me, so little do we know what touches us, and what we touch, as we wend our way along life's crowded street.

In all my teaching, in Sunday-school, public school and seminary, I never mentioned total abstinence until the winter of the Crusade, taking it always as a matter of course that my pupils didn't drink, nor did they as a rule.

I never in my life saw wine offered in my own country but once, when Mrs. Will Knox, of Pittsburgh, a former Sunday-school scholar of my sister Mary, brought cake and wine to a young lady of high family in our church, and to me, when we went to call on her after her wedding. "Not to be singular" we touched it to our lips — but that was twenty-five years ago, before the great examples burnt into the Nation's memory and conscience by Lucy Webb Hayes, Rose Cleveland and Frances Folsom Cleveland.

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That was truly a prophetic innovation at the White House when our gracious Mrs. Hayes replaced the dinner with its wineglasses by the stately and elegant reception. Perhaps while men rule the state in their government "of the minority, by the minority, for the minority," its highest expression will still be the dinner-table with its clinking glasses and plenty of tobacco-smoke afterward, but when men and women both come into the kingdom for the glad new times that hasten to be here, the gustatory nerve will be dethroned once and for evermore. For there are so many more worthy and delightful ways of investing (not "spending") one's time; there are so many better things to do. The blossoming of women into deeds of philanthropy gives us a hint of the truer forms of society that are to come. Emerson said, "We descend to meet," because he claims that we are on a higher plane when alone with God and nature. But this need not be so. Doubtless in the outworn and stereotyped forms of society where material pleasures still hold sway, we do "descend to meet," but when a philanthropic purpose determines our companionships, and leads to our convenings, then we climb together into purer and more vital air. The "coming women," nay, the women who have come, have learned the loveliest meanings of the word "society." Indeed, some of us like to call it "comradeship," instead, this interchange of highest thought and tenderest aspiration, in which the sense of selfhood is diminished and the sense of otherhood increased. We make no "formal calls," but the informal ones are a hundred-fold more pleasant. If a new woman's face appear in church we wonder if she won't "come with us" in the W. H. M. S., the W. F. M. S., the W. C. T. U., or some other dear "ring-around-a-rosy" circle, formed "for others' sake." If new children sit beside her in the church pew, we plan to win them for our Band of Hope or other philanthropic guild where they will learn to find "society" in nobler forms than this poor old world has ever known before. The emptiness of conventional forms of speech and action is never so patent as when contrasted with the "fullness of life" that crowns those hearts banded together to bring the day when all men's weal shall be each man's care. Wordsworth wrote wearily of

"The greetings where no kindness is."

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From 1868 to 1870 I studied and traveled abroad, not tasting wine until in Denmark, after three months' absence, I was taken suddenly and violently ill with something resembling cholera, and the kind-faced physician in Copenhagen bending above my weakness said in broken French: "Mademoiselle, you must put wine in the water you drink or you will never live to see your home." This prescription I then faithfully followed for two years with a gradual tendency so to amend as to make it read, "You may put water in your wine," and a leaning toward the "pure article," especially when some rich friend sent for a costly bottle of "Rudesheimer," or treated me to such a luxury as "Grand Chartreuse." At a London dinner where I was the guest of English friends, and seven wine-glasses stood around my plate, I did not protest or abstain — so easily does poor human nature fall away, especially when backed up by a medical prescription. But beyond a flushing of the cheek, an unwonted readiness at repartee and an anticipation of the dinner hour, unknown to me before or since, I came under no thralldom, and returning to this blessed "land of the wineless dinner table," my natural environments were such that I do not recall the use of intoxicants by me, "as a beverage," from that day to this.

Thus much do I owe to a Methodist training and the social usages of my grand old mother church. Five years in Oberlin, Ohio, in my childhood, also did much to ground me in the faith of total abstinence and the general laws of hygiene.

In, 1873 came that wonderful Christmas gift to the world — the woman's temperance crusade, beginning in Hillsboro, Ohio, December 23, and led by that loyal Methodist woman, Mrs. Judge Thompson, daughter of Gov. Trimble and sister of Dr. Trimble, the oldest member of the last M. E. General Conference. All through that famous battle winter of Home versus Saloon, I read every word that I could get about the movement, and my brother, Oliver A. Willard, then editor of the Chicago Evening Mail, gave favorable and full reports, saying privately to me, "I shall speak just as well of the women as I dare to" — a most characteristic editorial remark, I have since thought, though more frequently acted out than uttered! Meanwhile it occurred to me, strange to say, for the first time, that I ought to work for the good cause just where I was — that everybody ought. Thus I first received "the

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arrest of thought" concerning which in a thousand different towns I have since then tried to speak, and I believe that in this simple change of personal attitude from passive to aggressive lies the only force that can free this land from the drink habit and the liquor traffic. It would be like dynamite under the saloon if, just where he is, the minister would begin active work against it; if, just where he is, the teacher would instruct his pupils; if, just where he is, the voter would dedicate his ballot to this movement, and so on through the shining ranks of the great powers that make for righteousness from father and mother to Kindergarten toddler, if each were this day doing what each could, just where he is.

I was teaching rhetoric and composition to several hundred students of the Northwestern University and my eyes were opened to perceive that in their essays they would be as well pleased and would gain more good if such themes were assigned as "John B. Gough" and "Neal Dow" rather than "Alexander the Great" and "Plato the Philosopher," and that in their debates they would be at least as much enlisted by the question "Is Prohibition a Success?" as by the question, "Was Napoleon a blessing or a curse?" So I quietly sandwiched in these practical themes to the great edification of my pupils and with a notable increase in their enthusiasm and punctuality. Never in my fifteen years as a teacher did I have exercises so interesting as in the Crusade winter — 1874.

Meanwhile in Chicago the women of the Churches were mightily aroused. They gathered up in ten days fourteen thousand signatures to a petition asking that the Sunday closing ordinance might be no longer a dead letter, and while some remained in old Clark Street Church to pray, a procession of them led by Mrs. Rev. Moses Smith, moved across the street to the Court House and going in before the Common Council (the first and last time that women have ever ventured into that uncanny presence), they offered their petition and made their plea. Their petition was promptly tabled and the ordinance for whose enforcement they had pleaded, was abrogated then and there at the dictate of the liquor power while a frightful mob collected threatening them violence; the police disappeared and only by the prompt action of such men as Rev. Dr. Arthur Edwards in

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finding a side exit for them, was Chicago saved the indelible disgrace of seeing some of its chief Christian women mobbed on the streets by the minions of saloon, gambling den and haunt of infamy. All these things we read at Evanston next morning and "while we were musing the fire burned."

Events moved rapidly. Meetings were held in Chicago to protest against the great indignity and to organize for further work. There were fewer writers and speakers among women then than now. Some missionary and educational addresses of mine made within the two years past caused certain Methodist friends to name me as a possible speaker; and so to my quiet home eleven miles up the lake-shore came Mrs. Charles H. Case, a leading Congregational lady of the city, asking me to go and try.

It is my nature to give myself utterly to whatever work I have in hand, hence nothing less than my new-born enthusiasm for the Crusade and its heroines would have extorted from me a promise to enter on this untried field, but I agreed to attend a noon meeting in Clark Street Church a few days later and when the time came went from the recitation room to the rostrum, finding the place so packed with people that Mrs. Dr. Jutkins who was waiting for me at the door had much ado to get a passage made for us. Ministers were on the platform in greater numbers than I had ever seen before or have seen since in that or any other city. They spoke, they sang, they prayed with the fervor of a Methodist camp. Philip Bliss was at the organ and sang one of his sweetest songs. For myself, I was frightened by the crowd and overwhelmed by a sense of my own emptiness and inadequacy. What I said I do not know except that I was with the women heart, hand and soul, in this wonderful new "Everybody's War."

Soon after, I spoke in Robert Collyer's Church with Mrs. Mary H. B. Hitt, now president of the Northwestern Branch of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society. Here, for the first and last time, I read my speech. I believe it was Rev. Dr. L. T. Chamberlain, who called it a "school-girl essay" — and served it right. Robert Collyer took up the collection himself, I remember, rattling the box and cracking jokes along the aisle as he moved among his aristocratic "Northsiders." I went home blue enough and registered a vow as yet well nigh unbroken, that I

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would never again appear before a popular audience manuscript in hand.

My next attempt was in Union Park Congregational Church a few weeks later. Here I had my "heads" on paper, but from that time forward I "swung clear" of the manuscript crutch and the "outline" walking-stick. In June I resigned my position as Dean in the Woman's College and Professor of Aesthetics in the Northwestern University. It has been often said in my praise that I did this for the explicit purpose of enlisting in the temperance army, but it is my painful duty in this plain, unvarnished tale to admit that the reasons upon which I based that act, so revolutionary of all my most cherished plans and purposes, related wholly to the local situation in the University itself. However, having resigned, my strongest impulses were toward the Crusade movement as is sufficiently proved by the fact that, going East immediately, I sought the leaders of the newly formed societies of temperance women, Dr. and Mrs. W. H. Boole, Mrs. Helen E. Brown, Mrs. Rebecca Collins, Mrs. M. F. Hascall and others of New York, Mrs. Mary C. Johnson, Mrs. Mary E. Hartt, H. W. Adams, and others of Brooklyn, and these were the first persons who befriended and advised me in the unknown field of "Gospel temperance." With them I went to Jerry Mc Auley's Mission, and to "Kit Burns's Rat-Pit," and saw the great unwashed, unkempt, ungospeled and sin-scarred multitude for the first time in my life as they gathered in a dingy down-town square to hear Dr. Boole preach on Sabbath afternoon.

With several of these new friends I went to Old Orchard Beach, Me., where Francis Murphy, a drinking man and saloonkeeper recently reformed, had called the first "Gospel Temperance Camp Meeting" known to our annals. Here I met Neal Dow and heard the story of Prohibitory Law. Here I saw that strong, sweet woman, Mrs. L. M. N. Stevens, our white ribbon leader in Maine, almost from then till now; and here in a Portland hotel, where I stayed with Mary Hartt, of Brooklyn, and wondered "where the money was to come from" as I had none, and had mother's expenses and my own to meet, I opened the Bible lying on the hotel bureau and lighted on this memorable verse: Psalm 37:3, "Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed."

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That was a turning-point in life with me. Great spiritual illumination, unequaled in all my history before, had been vouchsafed me in the sorrowful last days at Evanston, but here came clinching faith for what was to me a most difficult emergency.

Going to Boston I now sought Dr. Dio Lewis, for, naturally enough, I wished to see and counsel with the man whose words had been the match that fired the powder mine. He was a considerate and kind old gentleman who could only tell me o'er and o'er that "if the, women would go to the saloons they could soon close them up forever." But we had already passed beyond that stage, so I went on to broader counsels. Convinced that I must make my own experience and determine my own destiny, I now bent all my forces to find what Archimedes wanted, " where to stand" within the charmed circle of the temperance reform. Chicago must be my field, for home was there and the sacred past with its graves of the living and dead. But nobody had asked me to work there and I was specially in mood to wait and watch for providential intimations. Meanwhile many and varied offers came from the educational field, tempting in respect of their wide outlook and large promise of financial relief. In this dilemma I consulted my friends as to their sense of my duty, every one of them, including my dear mother and my revered counselor, Bishop Simpson, uniting in the decision that he thus expressed: "If you were not dependent on your own exertions for the supply of current needs, I would say, be a philanthropist, but of all work, the temperance work pays least and you cannot afford to take it up. I therefore counsel you to remain in your chosen and successful field of the higher education."

No one stood by me in the preference I freely expressed to join the Crusade women except Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, who sent me a letter full of enthusiasm for the new line of work and predicted success for me therein. It is said that Napoleon was wont to consult his marshals and then do as he pleased, but I have found this method equally characteristic of ordinary mortals, and certainly it was the one I followed in the greatest decision of my life. While visiting in Cambridge, Mass., at the home of Mr. and Mrs. John S. Paine, with whom I had traveled in Egypt and Palestine, I received two letters on the same day. The first was from Rev. Dr. Van Norman, of New York, inviting me to

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become "Lady Principal" of his elegant school for young women, adjoining Central Park, where I was to have just what and just as few classes as I chose, and a salary of twenty-four hundred dollars per year. The other was from Mrs. Louise S. Rounds of Centenary M. E. Church, Chicago, one of the women who had gone to the City Council on that memorable night of March, 1874, and she wrote in substance as follows:

"I was sitting at my sewing work to-day, pondering the future of our young temperance association. Mrs. O. B. Wilson, our president, does all she can and has shown a really heroic spirit, coming to Lower Farwell Hall for a prayer-meeting every day in the week, though she lives a long distance from there and is old and feeble, and the heat has been intense. She can not go on much longer and it has come to me, as I believe from the Lord, that you ought to be our President. We are a little band without money or experience, but with strong faith. I went right out to see some of our leading women and they all say that if you will agree to come, there will be no trouble about your election. Please let me hear at once."

I can not express the delight with which I greeted this announcement. Here was my "open door" all unknown and unsought — a place prepared for me in one true temperance woman's heart and a chance to work for the cause that had in so short a time become so dear to me. I at once declined the New York offer and very soon after started for the West.

The first saloon I ever entered was Sheffner's, on Market Street, Pittsburgh, on my way home. In fact, that was the only glimpse I ever personally had of the Crusade. It had lingered in this dun-colored city well nigh a year and when I visited my old friends at the Pittsburgh Female College I spoke with enthusiasm of the Crusade, and of the women who were, as I judged from a morning paper, still engaged in it here. They looked upon me with astonishment when I proposed to seek out those women and go with them to the saloons, for in the two years that I had taught in Pittsburgh these friends associated me with the recitation room, the Shakspeare Club, the lecture course, the opera, indeed, all the haunts open to me that a literary-minded woman would care to enter. However, they were too polite to desire to disappoint me, and so they had me piloted by some of the factotums

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of the place to the headquarters of the Crusade, where I was warmly welcomed, and soon found myself walking down street arm in arm with a young teacher from the public school, who said she had a habit of coming in to add one to the procession when her day's duties were over. We paused in front of the saloon that I have mentioned. The ladies ranged themselves along the curbstone, for they had been forbidden in anywise to incommode the passers-by, being dealt with much more strictly than a drunken man or a heap of dry-goods boxes would be. At a signal from our gray-haired leader, a sweet-voiced woman began to sing, "Jesus the water of life will give," all our voices soon blending in that sweet song. I think it was the most novel spectacle that I recall. There stood women of undoubted religious devotion and the highest character, most of them crowned with the glory of gray hairs. Along the stony pavement of that stoniest of cities rumbled the heavy wagons, many of them carriers of beer; between us and the saloon in front of which we were drawn up in line, passed the motley throng, almost every man lifting his hat and even the little newsboys doing the same. It was American manhood's tribute to Christianity and to womanhood, and it was significant and full of pathos. The leader had already asked the saloon-keeper if we might enter, and he had declined, else the prayer-meeting would have occurred inside his door. A sorrowful old lady whose only son had gone to ruin through that very death-trap, knelt on the cold, moist pavement and offered a broken-hearted prayer, while all our heads were bowed. At a signal we moved on and the next saloon-keeper permitted us to enter. I had no more idea of the inward appearance of a saloon than if there had been no such place on earth. I knew nothing of its high, heavily-corniced bar, its barrels with the ends all pointed towards the looker-on, each barrel being furnished with a faucet; its shelves glittering with decanters and cut glass, its floors thickly strewn with saw-dust, and here and there a round table with chairs — nor of its abundant fumes, sickening to healthful nostrils. The tall, stately lady who led us, placed her Bible on the bar and read a psalm, whether hortatory or imprecatory, I do not remember, but the spirit of these crusaders was so gentle, I think it must have been the former. Then we sang "Rock of Ages" as I thought I

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had never heard it sung before, with a tender confidence to the height of which one does not rise in the easy-going, regulation prayer-meeting, and then one of the older women whispered to me softly that the leader wished to know if I would pray. It was strange, perhaps, but I felt not the least reluctance, and kneeling on that saw-dust floor, with a group of earnest hearts around me, and behind them, filling every corner and extending out into the street, a crowd of unwashed, unkempt, hard-looking drinking men, I was conscious that perhaps never in my life, save beside my sister Mary's dying bed, had I prayed as truly as I did then. This was my Crusade baptism. The next day I went on to the West and within a week had been made president of the Chicago W. C. T. U.

342 Chapter II.

THE OPENING WAY.

No words can adequately characterize the change wrought in my life by the decision I have chronicled. Instead of peace I was to participate in war; instead of the sweetness of home, never more dearly loved than I had loved it, I was to become a wanderer on the face of the earth; instead of libraries I was to frequent public halls and railway cars; instead of scholarly and cultured men I was to see the dregs of saloon and gambling house and haunt of shame. But women who were among the fittest gospel survivals were to be my comrades; little children were to be gathered from near and from far in the Loyal Temperance Legion, and whoever keeps such company should sing a psalm of joy, solemn as it is sweet. Hence I have felt that great promotion came to me when I was counted worthy to be a worker in the organized Crusade for "God and Home and Native Land." Temporary differences may seem to separate some of us for awhile, but I believe with all my heart, that farther on we shall be found walking once more side by side. In this spirit let me try to tell a little of our story.

One day in September, 1874, a few ladies assembled in one of the Young Men's Christian Association prayer rooms adjoining Farwell Hall, and elected me their president. One of them came to me at the close of the meeting and said, "We have no money, but we will try to get some if you will tell us your expectations as to salary." "Ah," thought I, "here is my coveted opportunity for the exercise of faith," and I quietly replied, "Oh, that will be all right!" and the dear innocent went her way thinking that some rich friend had supplied the necessary help. It was known that my generous comrade, Miss Kate A. Jackson, had taken me abroad for a stay of over two years, so the ladies naturally concluded that she was once more the good fairy behind the scenes. But this was not true. She had not approved my entrance upon temperance work. She was a thousand miles away and knew nothing of my needs.

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Having always been my faithful friend I knew she would help me in this crisis, but I chose not to tell her, for I had a theory and now was the time to put it to the test. To my mind there was a missing link in the faith of George Müller, Dorothea Trubel and other saintly men and women who "spoke and let their wants be known" by means of annual announcements, reports, etc., so I said to myself, "I am just simply going to pray, to work and to trust God." So, with no financial backing whatever, I set about my work, opened the first "Headquarters" known to Woman's Christian Temperance Union annals — the Young Men's Christian Association giving me a room rent free; organized committees for the few lines of work then thought of by us ; started a daily three o'clock prayer-meeting at which signing the pledge and seeking the Lord behind the pledge were constant factors; sent articles and paragraphs to the local press, having called upon every editor in the city and asked his help or at least his tolerance; addressed Sunday-schools, ministers and mass-meetings and once in awhile made a dash into some town or village, where I spoke, receiving a collection which represented financially "my little all." I remember that the first of these collections was at Princeton in October of 1874 and amounted to seven dollars, for I had small reputation and audiences in proportion. Meanwhile my mother, who owned her little home free from incumbrance, held the fort at "Rest Cottage," Evanston, dismissed her "help" and lived in strict seclusion and economy. I was entertained by different ladies in the city or was boarded at a nominal figure by my kind friend Mrs. William Wheeler, one of the truest of my coadjutors. Many a time I went without my noonday lunch down town because I had no money with which to buy, and many a mile did I walk because I had not the prerequisite nickel for street-car riding. But I would not mention money or allow it named to me. My witty brother Oliver, then editor of the Chicago Mail, who with all his cares, was helping mother from his slender purse, and who had learned my secret from her, said, "Frank, your faith-method is simply a challenge to the Almighty." You've put a chip on your shoulder and dared Omnipotence to knock it off." But for several months I went on in this way and my life never had a happier season. For the first time I knew the gnawings of hunger whereat I used to smile and

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say to myself, as I elbowed my way among the wretched people to whom I was sent, "I'm a better friend than you dream; I know more about you than you think, for, bless God, I'm hungry too!"

When in Italy I had been greatly moved by the study of St. Francis d'Assisi, whose city I had visited for this purpose, a nobleman who gave his life to the poor and who was so beloved of Christ that legends say he was permitted to receive the stigmata.

Thinking of him, my small privations seemed so ridiculously trivial that I was eager to suffer something really worthy of a disciple for humanity' s sweet sake. I had some pretty rings, given me in other days by friends and pupils, these I put off and never have resumed them, also my watch-chain, for I would have no striking contrast between these poor people and myself. To share my last dime with some famished looking man or woman was a pure delight. Indeed, my whole life has not known a more lovely period. I communed with God; I dwelt in the spirit; this world had nothing to give me, nothing to take away. My friend Kate came back from the East and I told her all about it. "Why, you are poor as poverty," she said with pitying amazement. "True," I replied, "I haven't a cent in the world, but all the same I own Chicago," and it was a literal fact; the sense of universal ownership was never so strong upon my spirit before or since that blessed time. "I'm the Child of a King" was the inmost song of my soul. I find this record in a little pocket note-book of the time:

Came back to the city from my evening temperance meeting at — ; almost froze getting from Lake Shore depot to my office — did freeze indeed. No women in the streets, everything stark and dead. Found lovely Mrs. F. J. Barnes and faithful sister Wirt trying to help three poor fellows who had come in, learning their stories and trying to do them good. We have more "cases," histories, crises, calamitous distress revealed to as than could be told in an octavo or helped out by a millionaire. Verily, we are in the "real work." How good it is to watch the men grow clean and shaved and brightened; the outward sign of an inward grace. This work is by far the most blessed of my life. My "Gospel talks" are in demand to an extent that surprises me. Dr. — wishes me to conduct meetings right along in his church, Dr. — invites me to — church and so does — . If I were fit for it how this work would enthrall my heart, as no other ever could — as I used secretly to wish, with hopeless pain, it might, but thought it never must since I "was but a woman." Engagements crowd upon me for Temperance, but
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still more for "Evangelical" talks, and persuasions come to me from friends to abandon the first and devote myself to church work. But I can not perceive, I can not feel as yet — and hope I never may — that a cause so forlorn as that of temperance should be deserted by a single adherent. I'm strong in the faith and believe that I am in the path of duty.
Our Daily Gospel Meeting in airless, sunless Lower Farwell Hall grows constantly in interest; the place is two thirds full of men who never go to church and who are deep in sin. Christian men come in to help us and a few ladies, perhaps one to every eight or ten men. This last is the saddening feature, but only temporary I feel sure. Daily, many ask for prayers and ever so many sign the pledge. My strongest intellectual thirst is to know more of the WORD. Who is sufficient for these things — these hours when destiny hangs trembling in the uncertain balance of the human will?

Didn't go to the Conversazione on Oriental and Greek Thought, though General B — urged me. I can not serve my intellect at the expense of my Master, and our church prayer-meeting comes at the same hour. Went out to Evanston to see my dear seventy-year-old mother, finding her blithe as a lass and active as a cricket.

I called on O. C. Gibbs of the City Relief Committee and asked him to post notice of our prayer-meetings and talked to him of my grief over the homeless, dinnerless condition of men whom I met daily and proposed a Workhouse where they could render an equivalent for food and lodging. He looked at me in his sad, thoughtful way and said: "Ten years ago I believed that I could solve the problem of the unemployed, that it was a sin and shame for them to suffer. I investigated and studied the whole question carefully. It will seem strange to you, but now I have no remedy to offer. Their own volitions have brought them where they are, others surrounded just as they were, have pushed on to good conditions; these have not, what can we do?"

Found the manager of the Museum waiting to see me and to invite our Union to free seats at the "new and highly moral drama, ‘Three Days in a Man Trap,’ a strictly temperance play!" He seemed to think it so desirable for us, so "just the thing," and was apparently so much in earnest that I had much ado to make my voice sound friendly, out of a world of thoughts so different from his own. But I did the best I could, thanked him for his courtesy and said we had opinions widely at variance, that my own experience was that my life was far less helpful when I used to go to places of the sort, that I needed all my time for higher things and I believed our ladies felt the same.

— is converted and, sure and swift "fruit of the Spirit," has made up with his wife to whom he had not spoken in a fortnight, and has asked me to forgive him for his inconsiderate language. O "heart of flesh!" how gentle and easy to be entreated; but the "heart of stone," how hard and cold and self-absorbed! What is the matter with me is that I'd like to go out by myself, looking only to God, and preach the unsearchable riches of Christ!

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When Bro. — wrote me that offer to be editor of a New York temperance paper, it didn't stir my soul a bit, but this little Gospel meeting, where wicked men have wept and prayed and said they would see Jesus — it thrills me through and through.
Went to hear Nathan Sheppard on George Eliot. Don't believe I'll ever attend another literary lecture. It was keen, brilliant, flinty as flint, cold as an icicle. Poor, grand George Eliot, who sees no light beyond the sepulcher, who thinks we are snuffed out like candles! Dear me, it isn't even aesthetic, that! As a cute critic said, purely from an artistic point of view our poor old Religion has some notions that ought to commend it to the attention of cultivated personages.

Dr. — discourages me what she can in my work and says "a cheaper woman would do it just as well." Ah my dear friend, is it then "cheap" work to be God's instrument in delivering men from voluntary insanity? — to bring them back to themselves? to help enthrone the conscience in a human breast? A letter read just after Dr. — 's, from a mother in Fishkill, N. Y., thanking us for helping her wayward son, was antidote enough, if I had needed one.

Heard Rev. George Coan, newly returned from Persia. If I were younger I believe I'd be a missionary.

Went home to mother, read to-day's mail aloud to her, in which she was greatly interested. Found her well up in the events of the day — President's message to Congress on Louisiana, Collyer's sermon on Gerrit Smith, etc. Told her of Dr. — 's invitation to me to "preach" for him and how glad I was the way was opening so for me to speak of the glad tidings, and she, too, rejoiced.

I wonder what the "Women's Congress" will think about my plan of Literary Clubs for women.

In P.M. studied my Bible and thought about "my sermon." In evening went to Rail Road Chapel and heard Captain Black, a Christian lawyer, preach a simple Gospel sermon. We are to have temperance meetings here if the South Side ladies will rally. It is an intemperate neighborhood, the red light "danger signal" gleams from scores of saloons.

January 18, 1875. — A hurried P. M. — large prayer-meeting, twenty drinking men present, only four ladies! Dear Mrs. Barnes, of New York, my little Quakeress, is my main-stay. I don't know what I could do without her. I should often be here alone with the office full of men. This wouldn't worry me, to be sure, save that it is better to have a little help. I've given up expecting the ladies of Chicago to come to the rescue at present. They will sometime — in the Lord's own good time. For me, my hands are overrunning full of Christian work, and that's enough. Large meeting — one poor fellow, gray-headed, washed-out looking, hands shaking with effects of drink, came in for the first time. He was once a church-member and promising business man of the city, but is now at ebb-tide.

January 19. — Well, last night I preached — the word grates somewhat,
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but has no business to — at Ada Street M. E. Church (Dr. McKeown's). Text, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" Had a few "heads" on a slip of paper. Took my little Bible that father gave me, and just talked. I greatly regretted to go to my first most sacred service from the lightness and repartee of the pleasant parlor at Mrs. N — 's and felt ill-attuned at first. But perhaps that was forgiven; anyhow I was in earnest and greatly enjoyed the evening, and my large audience was thoughtful. O God! can I live near enough to Thee to dare tell the good news to Humanity?

January 25. — Have spoken again at Ada Street, with more efficiency and spirit. Subject: "Thou requirest not sacrifice, else would I give it." My friend, Kate Jackson, says I'm better as a gospel talker than anything else. O I wish I might be one; that I enough communed with God!

After several months invested in this fashion, I went to speak one night at Freeport, a few hours' ride from the city; became ill from overwork, addressed my audience while in a burning fever, came home to mother, and went to bed with inflammatory rheumatism. I asked her to send for our family physician, then Dr. Jewell, of sainted memory, the man who had prayed at my bedside six months before, when I was sick with heartache at leaving my dear college. "No," said that Spartan matron, "You are going by faith — you do not need a doctor."

The truth was she always believed that she best knew what her children needed, whether they were well or ill. "Now I want you to listen to your mother," she quietly continued, "I believe in faith as much as you do, but you have, with pure intention, yet ignorantly, flown in the face of Providence. Those good women spoke to you about a maintenance on the very day they chose you president. That was your Heavenly Father's kind provision, and you turned away from it and dictated to Him the method of His care. The laborer is worthy of his hire; they that preach the gospel shall live by the gospel; this is the law and the prophets from St. Paul down to you. God isn't going to start loaves of bread flying down chimney nor set the fire going in my stove without fuel. I shall soon see the bottom of my flour barrel and coal bin. You are out at the elbows, down at the heel, and down sick, too. Now write to those temperance ladies a plain statement of facts, and tell them that you have made the discovery that God works by means and they may help you if they like."

My mother's words were a needed revelation. I wrote a

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letter to my dear women. Later on I learned that they cried over it in Executive Committee. That night a tender note came from them with a $100 check inclosed, and my "faith test" was met upon the Heavenly Father's basis, not upon the one I had prescribed for Him. But I enjoyed that episode and shall be the better and the richer for it evermore.

One of my best and brightest coadjutors from the first has been Mrs. Matilda B. Carse, of Chicago, the chief financial woman of our white ribbon host. Her first money-raising venture consisted in getting a hundred men to give ten dollars apiece to keep me going when my blissful episode of impecuniosity was over. Rev. Dr. J. O. Peck, "of ours," was the first name she secured. From that day to this she has been on the war-path, financially, raising hundreds of thousands for the Foundlings' Home, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union with its huge cheap Lodging House for men, its "Anchorage Mission" for women, its Gospel Meeting, Kindergarten, Temperance Restaurant and other philanthropic enterprises, until now she has set herself with perfect equanimity to collect eight hundred thousand dollars for the building of a Woman's Temperance Temple in Chicago, to serve as the Headquarters for our National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, also for the great "Woman's Temperance Publication Association" founded by her, and which printed in 1888 over sixty million pages of temperance literature. From this Temple she expects to derive, beyond all expenses, over a hundred thousand dollars a year rental, with which our work will be still more widely carried on.

But to return. A few weeks after my election as President of the Chicago Woman's Christian Temperance Union (October 8, 1874), the "Woman's Congress" met in Farwell Hall, Chicago, Mrs. Livermore presiding. It was her wish to have me speak upon the temperance question. For years I had been vice-president of the organization for Illinois and had prepared a paper read at the New York "Congress" on the "Higher Education of Women." But in my new character I was less welcome and only by taking a brave stand did Mrs. Livermore succeed in having me recognized. I wish here to record my sincere appreciation of her loyalty to the great cause and to one of its "new beginners" at a time when her championship before

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the most intellectual body of women then existing, was particularly valuable to both.

That same autumn of 1874 the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of Chicago sent me as a delegate to the Illinois Woman's Christian Temperance Union Convention, called by Mrs. J. F. Willing, at Bloomington, where she was then professor in the college. As a hundred of us marched, two by two, along the street, under cover of the stars, I felt that we were marching to victory. My life had hardly known a more exalted moment. I seemed to see the end from the beginning; and when one has done that, nothing has power to discourage or to daunt. Of this meeting I was made secretary (my first appearance in the state arena), Mrs. Willing being elected president. A few weeks later, (November 18, 19, 20, 1874), the great National Woman's Temperance Convention, which had been called by a committee formed at Chautauqua, of which Mrs. Willing, Mrs. Emily Huntington Miller and Mrs. Mattie McClellan Brown were leaders, convened in Cleveland, Ohio. Its object was to preserve the fruits of Crusade victory — indeed, it may be justly called the sober second thought of that unparalleled uprising. Women from eighteen states were gathered.

"Hear the call, O gird your armor on;
Grasp the Spirit's mighty sword,"

was their stirring battle-cry. Something divine was in the air — a breath of the new dispensation. Introductions were at a discount — we shook hands all round and have been comrades ever since. Here I first met Mrs. Annie Wittenmeyer, Mrs. Mary T. Lathrap, Mrs. J. Ellen Foster, Mrs. Governor Wallace, Mother Stewart and Mrs. Judge Thompson, leader of the first praying band and the "mother of us all."

Very few could make a speech at that early period — we gave speechlets instead, off-hand talks of from five to fifteen minutes. The daily prayer-meetings were times of refreshing from, the presence of the Lord. There was no waiting, everything was fresh, tender and spontaneous. Such singing I never heard; the Bible exposition was bread to the soul. Everybody said it "wasn't a bit like men's conventions." "And It's all the better for that," was the universal verdict.

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As I sat quiet, but observant, in my delegation, Mary T. Lathrap sent me a note to this purport: "We Michigan women are going to nominate you for corresponding secretary of this national society."

Now it is my nature to accept every offer that means a wider outlook from a higher point of observation, and my heart sprang up to meet this kindly call. But the heavenly forces had me pretty well in hand just then. I had already been nominated for President by Mrs. M. B. Reese, of Ohio, and had promptly declined, with the statement that I was but a raw recruit, and preferred to serve in the ranks; when they had proved me, I would be at command for anything they wished; but, though I met this overture from my new-found friend, Mrs. Lathrap, with a similar refusal, her eloquence prevailed, and I became first mate on our newly launched life-boat of reform, under the captaincy of Sister Wittenmeyer.

The only resolution written by me, so far as I can now recall, was this:

"Resolved, That, recognizing that our cause is, and will be, combated by mighty, determined and relentless forces, we will, trusting in Him who is the Prince of Peace, meet argument with argument, misjudgment with patience, denunciation with kindness, and all our difficulties and dangers with prayer."

There was some debate about inserting the word "Christian" in the name of our society, the point being made that to leave it out would broaden and thus benefit the platform, but then, as always since, the Convention said by its deeds, "We are not here to seek a large following, but to do what we think right."

Returning to Chicago with the duties of national secretary upon me, I found my generous comrades saying, "Go right ahead as our local president, and we will pay you a hundred dollars a month and give you time to work for the National in the bargain." So I struggled on, blessed with good health, blithe heart and warm co-operation. The summer of 1875 I spent with Mrs. Wittenmeyer at Ocean Grove, where our pens flew from early morn till dewy eve in the interest of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Here she wrote her valuable "History of the Woman's Crusade." By Dr. Vincent's invitation, I spoke at Chautauqua, and with Mrs. Wittenmeyer visited several

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summer camps in New England and the Middle States. After a second winter's work in Chicago, during which I prepared "Hints and Helps for the Woman's Christian Temperance Union," I made a trip through Ohio, and while in Columbus for a Sunday engagement, remained at home in the morning for Bible study and prayer. Upon my knees alone, in the room of my hostess, who was a veteran Crusader, there was borne in upon my mind, as I believe, from loftier regions, the declaration, "You are to speak for woman's ballot as a weapon of protection to her home and tempted loved ones from the tyranny of drink," and then for the first and only time in my life, there flashed through my brain a complete line of argument and illustration — the same that I used a few months later before the Woman's Congress, in St. George's Hall, Philadelphia, when I first publicly avowed my faith in the enfranchisement of women. I at once wrote Mrs. Wittenmeyer, with whom I had always been in perfect accord, telling her I wished to speak on "The Home Protection Ballot" at the International Temperance Convention of Women, then being planned by us as a Centennial feature of the movement. She replied mildly, but firmly, declining to permit the subject to be brought forward. We had our convention in the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, and an International Woman's Christian Temperance Union was organized, with Mrs. Margaret Parker, of England, as its president, and Mrs. J. Ellen Foster, of Iowa, secretary, but the time was not ripe for such a movement and it advanced but a short distance beyond the name and letter-head. I spoke, but not upon the theme I would have chosen, and Mrs. Mary A. Livermore who was present and to whom I offered to give my time, so greatly have I always honored and admired her, was not allowed to speak, because of her progressive views upon the woman question.

At the Newark National Woman's Christian Temperance Union Convention, held that Autumn (1876), disregarding the earnest, almost tearful pleading of my friends, I repeated my "suffrage speech" with added emphasis. The great church was packed to the doors; Mrs. Wittenmeyer was on the platform, Mrs. Allen Butler, a Presbyterian lady of Syracuse, then president of New York Woman's Christian Temperance Union, presided. I remember her quoting at the outset an anecdote of Mrs.

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Lathrap's about a colored man in the war who saw a Confederate boat approaching an island where several Union soldiers of whom he was one were just landing, whereupon they all lay flat in their canoe, colored man and all, until he jumped up, saying, "Somebody's got to be shot at and it might as well be me," pushed the boat from shore, and fell pierced by bullets, but saved the day for his comrades. I then gave the people my argument, and though I could but feel the strong conservatism of an audience of Christian women, in New Jersey in 1876, I felt far more strongly the undergirdings of the Spirit. At the close I was applauded beyond my hopes. The dignified chairman came forward saying, "I wish it clearly understood that the speaker represents herself and not the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, for we do not propose to trail our skirts through the mire of politics." These words were received in silence, and I knew then that the hearts of the women were with the forward movement. As we left the hall my honored chief whispered regretfully, "You might have been a leader, but now you'll be only a scout."

It is true that at the Cincinnati convention, held in St. Paul's M. E. Church just one year previous, Mrs. Governor Wallace of Indiana (the original of that famous mother in Gen. Lew Wallace's "Ben Hur"), had secured the adoption of a resolution favorable to submitting the question of prohibiting the dramshops to a vote of men and women. But it is equally true that this was done by her great personal influence in privately securing from leaders strongly opposed, an agreement to let her make the test, whereupon the resolution went through without debate. Thus it is an historical fact that the first time the subject of prohibition came before the temperance women of America was upon the proposition that the united home forces should vote out the saloon. We knew that we could not at Newark get such a resoution passed, therefore we tried another plan, asking that in the territories and the District of Columbia the sale of alcoholic drinks should be legalized only "when a majority of men by their votes and women by their signatures should ask for the legalizing of such sale." A petition to Congress embodying this request led to our first work at the capital.

It was at this Newark convention that the national motto, "For God and Home and Native Land," was first indorsed. It

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had come to my thought early in the work and been accepted as the motto of our Chicago Woman's Christian Temperance Union, then of the State of Illinois and lastly of the nation. It was at the Newark convention that a majority of the members pledged themselves to pass the cup untasted at the sacramental table, if they knew that it held alcoholic wine. It was at Cincinnati the year previous, though on recommendation of the New Jersey convention, that we pledged ourselves to observe the "noon hour" for prayer that God would help the temperance work and workers, overthrow the liquor traffic and bring in the universal reign of Christ.

At the Newark convention our national organ was found to be so heavily in debt that its committee of publication resigned, and Mrs. Jane M. Geddes, of Michigan, Mrs. Mary T. Burt, of New York, Mrs. C. B. Buell, of Connecticut, and myself volunteered to save the day for this new journalistic venture and literary outgrowth of the Crusade. We put in what money we had as a free-will offering, gathered up gifts from our friends, gave several months' gratuitous work, during which I was entertained in Brooklyn by my good friends, Mr. and Mrs. J. F. Stout, and we were so happy as to see the enterprise placed upon a paying basis. It was removed to Chicago in 1882, by action of the Louisville convention, merged with The Signal, organ of the Illinois Woman's Christian Temperance Union, founded by Mrs. T. B. Carse in 1880, and under the name of The Union Signal, was at first edited by Mrs. Mary Bannister Willard, and is now by Mary Allen West, issuing a weekly edition of from fifty-five to sixty thousand. It is one of half a score of periodicals brought out by our Woman's Temperance Publication Association, a joint stock company of women only, which declared in 1886 a dividend of four per cent, in '87 one of five and in '88 one of six per cent, besides owning its machinery, handling in 1888 a hundred and thirty thousand dollars and sending out over sixty million pages of literature.

In the winter of 1877 I went to Washington and spoke before the House Committee on Judiciary, Hon. Proctor Knott of Kentucky, chairman, urging the claims of the Home Protection Petition adopted at Newark as aforesaid. I remember the presence of Gen. Ben Butler with a red, red rose in his button-hole. I remember the blandly non-committal Garfield, the friendly Frye, the

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earnest Blair, the polite Samuel J. Randall who invited us to a seat in the speaker's gallery during the presentation of our huge petition, which was so large that the pages required help to bring it in. I remember being most hospitably entertained for ten days in the home of Rev. Dr. and Mrs. John P. Newman, where I said nothing about my intention to speak before the Committee on Judiciary, supposing that my kind friends were opposed to a movement so progressive, and I remember, too, how glad I was when they told me afterward of their hearty sympathy and took me to task for not inviting them to be present. From Washington I came home to Chicago and was somewhat identified with the Moody meetings then being held in the huge Tabernacle there. I shall never forget a stormy Sabbath day when, through blinding snow, nine thousand women gathered to hear a sermon specially for them, from that most successful evangelist of the Christian era. We then met for the first time and he asked me to lead in prayer. The mighty significance of such an army of wives and mothers, sisters and daughters gathered to pray for their beloved absent ones, surged in upon my heart like the sea at high tide. I never beheld a more impressive scene. A few weeks later I introduced John B. Gough in this Tabernacle to the largest temperance audience I have ever seen assembled within four walls. How magnificently he spoke! his good wife, Mary Gough, sitting near by with knitting-work in hand. As he retired from the audience and the tremendous evening's task, a little boy's autograph album was thrust into his face and as he wrote his name the page was wet with perspiration. Alas for kind but thoughtless hearts!

"Strange we never heed the singer
Till the sweet voiced bird has flown,"

would be the truthful epitaph of a thousand Greathearts of pen and voice killed by kindness and appreciation no less than by the stress of their prodigious industry and boundless versatility in the sacred causes upon whose altars they are laid and by whose steep stair-ways they climb to fame and death. We "heed" them in eulogies, in resolutions of condolence, in marble-cut epitaphs; would that we might heed them earlier by lifting off the wholly needless cares we heap upon their shoulders in token of our love!

I remember being in the Tabernacle when it was draped in

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black for Mr. and Mrs. Philip Bliss, whose death by the frightful railroad accident at Ashtabula Bridge, shocked the whole world. They were to have been present on Christmas day, the announcements were out and the public expectant. Mr. Moody stood before the multitude and cried. We all cried with him, and he said between his sobs, "O that lovely, lovely man!" I could but say of Mr. Moody then, and often since, "Thy gentleness hath made thee great."

356 Chapter III.

MOODY'S BOSTON MEETINGS — OLIVER'S DEATH.

Toward the close of his meeting, sometime in January, Brother Moody — that is the only name for him — asked me to call at the Brevoort House. He stood on the rug in front of a blazing grate in his private parlor, and abruptly said to me, "Good-morning — what was that trouble you and Dr. Fowler had in the University at Evanston?"

I was not a little "set back," as the phrase is, but replied, "Dr. Fowler has the will of a Napoleon, I have the will of a Queen Elizabeth; when an immovable meets an indestructible object, something has to give way."

He said "Humph," and changed the theme. "Will you go with me to Boston and help in the women's meetings?" he asked. "I think I should be glad to do so, but would like to talk with mother," was my answer. "What are your means of support?" was his next question. "I have none except as the Chicago Woman's Christian Temperance Union pays my current expenses, and in leaving its work for yours, I should have none at all," I said. "Let's pray about it!" concluded Brother Moody, falling upon his knees. We did pray and he shook hands, dismissing me to admit some other individual of the endless comers-in. My mother liked the plan. "Enter every open door," she said, and every friend I had, seemed glad. At a farewell meeting in Farwell Hall, Mrs. Carse presented me a Bagster Bible, and John Collier, a reformed man whom we all liked and believed in, gave me on behalf of himself and others who had signed the pledge, a copy of Cruden's Concordance, saying, "We didn't know about the Bible, let alone this big, learned Concordance, till the women fished us up out of the mud and set us walking on the heavenly highway."

I had studied the Bible a few weeks with Rev. W. J. Erdman, a scholar of beautiful spirit and great knowledge of the

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Scriptures. But I went to Boston with no material on hand save a few temperance lectures. On a fly leaf of my new "Bagster" I find this entry, my only record of that fruitful three months of work and study, for I kept no journal and have not since my return from Europe in 1870:

"My first whole day of real, spiritual, joyful, loving study of the kernel of God's word, simply desirous to learn my Father's will, is this 17th of February, 1877, with the Boston work just begun. And on this sweet, eventful day, in which, with every hour of study, the Bible has grown dearer, I take as my life-motto henceforth, humbly asking God's grace that I may measure up to it, this wonderful passage from Paul: "And whatsoever ye do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him." — Col. 3:17."

I had lacked specific Bible teaching, having almost never attended Sunday-school, because of being brought up in the country. Mrs. Governor Beveridge is the only teacher who had me in charge whom I clearly recall, and she for a brief period. I had taught in Sunday-school, somewhat, but with the pressure of academic and college cares, my temerity in undertaking a Bible reading daily before the most cultured audience of women on the footstool surprises me as I reflect upon it. Entertained in the beautiful home of Mrs. Fenno Tudor, an Episcopalian lady of broad views, on Beacon Hill, I went to my room at eight o'clock each morning, studied until noon, then met my audience, spoke twenty minutes without manuscript, conducted the inquiry meeting afterward, attended to correspondence for the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union all the afternoon, save when I had an extra meeting, which was not infrequently, and made a temperance address, usually in the suburbs, at night.

I never studied by lamp-light and I had my requisite eight hours of sleep. Sometimes I had four or six hundred, often a thousand, and occasionally twelve or fourteen hundred women in my meetings at Berkeley Street and Park Street Congregational Churches. Usually I spoke on Sabbath evening in Clarendon Street Baptist Church, and when Mr. Moody called a "Temperance Conference," in the Tabernacle, at which Gough, Tyng, Wanamaker and others spoke, he placed my name upon his program, also had me literally preach — though I did not call it that — one Sunday afternoon. I said to him, "Brother Moody,

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you need not think because I am a Western woman and not afraid to go, you must put me in the forefront of the battle after this fashion. Perhaps you will hinder the work among these conservatives." But at this he laughed in his cheery way, and declared that "it was just what they needed and I needn't be scared for he wasn't."

The Christian womanhood of Boston rallied around me like sisters indeed. I never had more cordial help, even from my own white ribboners.

Mrs. Myra Pierce, the leading Methodist woman of the city, was made chairman of the Committee to arrange for my meetings, and, with Mrs. Rev. Dr. A. J. Gordon, stood by me steadily. I tried my best to make the temperance work a prominent feature, and had the satisfaction of seeing some grand new workers develop, among whom were Miss Elisabeth S. Tobey, and Miss Bessie Gordon, now president and corresponding secretary of Massachusetts Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and Miss Anna Gordon, a gifted girl, born in Boston, christened by Rev. Dr. Nehemiah Adams, to whose church her parents belonged, and now for twelve years my devoted friend, faithful secretary and constant traveling companion.

One day as I was about to open my noon meeting in Berkeley Street Church, Mr. Moody came running up the pulpit steps, for his own meeting was waiting, and said, "I see by the papers that you're talking temperance all around the suburbs. Why do you do that? I want all there is of you for the Boston meetings."

"It is because I haven't any money and must go out and earn some," I replied.

"You don't mean that I've given you nothing?" he said striking his forehead.

"Of course you've given me nothing," I replied with mildness.

"Who paid your way from Chicago?"

"I did."

"Didn't those fellows" — naming some of his immediate friends — "send you money for traveling expenses as I told them to?"

"I guess they forgot it," I replied.

"Well, I never heard the like!" and he was off like a shot.

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That evening, as I was going into my meeting, he thrust a generous check into my hand, saying, "Don't you go beating about in the suburbs any more."

Everything went on smoothly until a Woman's Christian Temperance Union Convention was announced at Maiden, and I was asked to speak there with Mrs. Livermore, then president of Massachusetts Woman's Christian Temperance Union. I agreed to go, and was again taken to task by Brother Moody, but this time on another ground. He held with earnestness that I ought not to appear on the same platform with one who denied the divinity of Christ. In this he was so earnest and so cogent, by reason of his deep convictions and his unrivaled knowledge of proof-passages, that I deferred to his judgment, partly from conviction and partly from a desire to keep the peace and go on with my good friend in his work; for I deem it one of the choicest seals of my calling that Dwight L. Moody should have invited me to cast in my little lot with his great one as an evangelist. But on returning West, I went over the whole subject of an "orthodox" Christian's duty, for myself, and as a result, sent the following letter to my honored brother, through my gracious friend, his wife:

EVANTONS, September 5, 1877.
DEAR Mrs. MOODY — In view of the fact that when I last saw Mr. Moody, I agreed to go with him in his work, I think a simple statement of the ground of my changed purpose, due to myself, though I dislike to take his time to listen to it; you will consult your own judgment about presenting my reasons to him.

For myself, the more I study the subject, the more I fail to see that it is for us to decide who shall work in this cause side by side with us, and who shall not. I cannot judge how the hearts of earnest, pure, prayerful women may appear in God's clear sight, nor just when their loyalty to Christ has reached the necessary degree. If to the communion table we bid those welcome who feel themselves fit subjects to come, then surely in the sacred communion of work for poor humanity, I dare not say, "You may come," and You must not." "With you I will speak on the same platform, — with you, I will not." Rather let the burden of this solemn choice rest on those who come, and whosoever will may work with me, if only she brings earnest purpose, devout soul, and irreproachable moral character. This has been my course always, and it would be denying my deepest and most sacred convictions to turn aside from it. In denominational lines, we certainly have safeguards enough for the defense of the faith, and I am sadly aware that within these lines there are myriads less true, less Christ-like
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than many whom I must disfellowship if I take the dilemma by the other horn.

All my life I have been devoted to the advancement of women in education and opportunity. I firmly believe God has a work for them to do as evangelists, as bearers of Christ's message to the ungospeled, to the prayer-meeting, to the church generally and the world at large, such as most people have not dreamed. It is therefore my dearest wish to help break down the barriers of prejudice that keep them silent. I cannot think that meetings in which "the brethren" only are called upon, are one half as effective as those where all are freely invited, and I can but believe that "women's meetings," as such, are a relic of an outworn regime. Never did I hold one of these meetings without a protest in my soul against it. As in the day of Pentecost, so now, let men and women in perfectly impartial fashion participate in all services conducted in His name in whom there is neither bond nor free, male nor female, but all are one. Nobody is more than half himself who does not work in accordance with his highest convictions; and I feel that whenever I surrender the views herein stated, I have the lever by the short arm when I might just as well grasp the long one, nay, when I am in duty bound to do this. No one knows better than Mr. Moody, that to work at our best, we must work out our own ideas. To represent the views of another, no matter how much we may love, honor, or revere him, is like pulling with the left hand when we might use the right.

Mr. Moody views the temperance work from the standpoint of a revivalist, and so emphasizes the regeneration of men. But to me as a woman, there are other phases of it almost equally important to its success, viz., saving the children, teaching them never to drink; showing to their mothers the duty of total abstinence; rousing a dead church and a torpid Sunday-school to its duty; spreading the facts concerning the iniquitous traffic far and wide; influencing legislation so that what is physically wrong and morally wrong shall not, on the statute books of a Christian land, be set down as legally right; — and to this end putting the ballot in woman's hand for the protection of her little ones and of her home. All these ways of working seem to me eminently religious — thoroughly in harmony with the spirit of the most devoted Christian man or woman.

So I cannot believe myself called upon to discontinue these lines of work, nor to cease hearty co-operation with those thus working; and yet it remains true, that best of all I love to declare the blessed tidings of salvation, and would gladly do so still, if I might act in my own character, under the auspices of the greatest Christian leader of our day.

It costs me much to turn away from such a future and from such a guide — but I believe it to be right, and this is a decision resulting from a whole summer of thought and earnest prayer for wisdom.

Pardon me for going so much into detail, and yet I think your kindly nature will appreciate my wish to be understood by those for whom I have so great regard, and with whom my relations have always been so pleasant.

With sincere Christian affection, I am, as I shall always be,

Your friend, FRANCES E. WILLARD.

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In the wider fields that would have opened to me as a coadjutor of the great evangelist, no doubt the widest that could by any possibility be open to a Christian worker, whether man or woman, in our day, my work for the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union would have been immeasurably greater than it is now, for Mr. Moody made no objection to my being president of the first society, and I doubt not he would have welcomed my becoming president of the larger one. I should have gone to England with him and been able, both there and here, to acclimate the white ribbon movement in conservative circles never yet penetrated by its broad and genial influence. It was my dream to do this — to rally under Mr. Moody's indirect influence, all the leaders, men and women, of our growing host. But for this one objection, so unlooked for, how different might have been my future and that of the white ribbon cause! My friends were grieved again, and many told me what many more told others, that I had once more made "the mistake of a life-time." For myself I only knew that, liberal as he was toward me in all other things, tolerant of my ways and manners, generous in his views upon the woman question, devotedly conscientious and true, Brother Moody's Scripture interpretations concerning religious toleration were too literal for me; the jacket was too straight — I could not wear it.

In the autumn of this year, 1877, our annual convention was held in Chicago, where, after a lively discussion over the report of the committee on badge (they having recommended royal purple as the color), we adopted a simple bit of white ribbon, emblematic of purity and peace, on the principle of "first pure, then peaceable." Miss Margaret Winslow, of Brooklyn, then our editor, made a telling speech upon this subject, which I wish might have gone upon the records. After debate, a resolution known in our annals as "the famous Thirteenth" was adopted, declaring that " woman ought to have the power to close the dram-shop door over against her home."

At this convention I resigned the corresponding secretaryship of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union and again declined the use of my name as a candidate for president, because I felt, after much prayer, unwilling to appear as an opposing candidate.

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Throughout the next year, 1878, I was a free lance for the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, during which period I proceeded to "go on a bureau." My friends had long urged me to quit the guerilla warfare of hap-hazard engagements, so to speak, and to put my invitations into the hands of a Lyceum Lecture Bureau. In an evil hour I listened to the siren's voice, went to Mr. Slayton, the gentlemanly manager of such an institution, he having repeatedly invited me to do so, handed him some of my letters and lists of invitation, of which I had enough to cover more time and territory than I could ever exhaust; submitted to the indignity of placards, small bills and a big lithograph; was duly set forth upon glossy tinted paper in an imposing "Annual" — in common with one hundred others — as a light of the age, no newspaper to the contrary being quoted; contracted to pay my per cent, and was started out. I remained on that bureau, to which I had climbed at the expense of a hundred-dollar lithograph and all the rest of it, just three weeks. It was what is called "a damper" to one of my temperament and habitudes. To go from the genial, breezy, out-doorsy temperance meeting, the warm, tender, exalted gospel meeting, the homelike, sisterly, inspiring Woman's Christian Temperance Union Convention, into a human snow-bank of folks who have "paid to get in" and are reckoning quietly, as one proceeds, whether or not they are really going "to get their money's worth," is an experience not to be endured with equanimity by anybody who can slip his head out of its noose. To have a solemn "Lyceum Committee" of men meet you at the train, take you to a hotel of funereal dreariness and cooked-over cuisine; to march upon a realistic stage that no woman's hand has beautified or brightened; to have no heartsome music or winsome prayer preceding you and tuning your weary spirit to the high ministry for which you came; to face the glare of footlights; and after you have "gone through" your speech and are feeling particularly "gone," to hear the jeremiad of the treasurer that "they hadn't sold so many tickets as they hoped," or "the weather was against them," or "counter attractions had proved too powerful;" all this is "nerve-wear" to no purpose. Then to be exploited over the country with as little regard for comfort as if you were a case of cod-fish or a keg of nails, the heart of the night being all the

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symptom of a heart that your time-table reveals, the wee small hours being made consciously present with you in order that you may "make" the next engagement, the unconscionable " wait" at side stations and uncanny junction depots, all these are reasons of my hope never again to see a "Bureau," — indeed, I can hardly tolerate one in my room since an end was put to that abyssmal epoch of three weeks. I think my manager was as glad to have me go as I was to say Good-by, for I wouldn't raise my price ($25), even when double and three times that amount was offered for an "option." "No," I replied with reproving tone, "a philanthropist can't afford to make money. It shall never be said that I charged more as I became more popular. I've set my price once for all and I'll never raise it and I'll never lay up money and I'll never be rich, — nobody shall ever bring that reproach upon me no matter how else I may fail." Whereat my handsome manager was wont to look upon me as mildly lunatic, changing the subject lest I might become violent.

Returning to Anna Gordon's tender mercies, a young woman who has repeatedly convinced ticket-agents that they make mistakes concerning train-time; who has a face so honest that (before that wretched Interstate law!) she has often got passes for me from entire strangers on her simple say so; who understands traveling as well as Robert Bonner does Maud S. and who hasn't her superior as a business woman on this continent, I have gone my way in peace since 1878, visiting with her every state and territory and all but two capitals, those of Arizona and Idaho, in a single year (1883, our temperance "round-up," ten years after the Crusade), and reaching, since my work began, a thousand towns, including all that by the census of 1870 had ten thousand inhabitants, and most of those having five thousand. Mother says that for about ten years she thinks I averaged but three weeks in a year at home, and Anna Gordon says she thinks I averaged one meeting daily throughout that period.

In 1878 the white ribbon regiment of Illinois placed me at its head and we entered on our home protection campaign, collecting in nine weeks nearly two hundred thousand names to the following petition:

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Illinois;
WHEREAS, In these years of temperance work the argument of defeat
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in our contest with the saloons has taught us that our efforts are merely palliative of a disease in the body politic, which can never be cured until law and moral suasion go hand in hand in our beloved state; and

WHEREAS, The instincts of self-protection and of apprehension for the safety of her children, her tempted loved ones, and her home, render woman the natural enemy of the Saloon;

Therefore, Your petitioners, men and women of the state of Illinois, having at heart the protection of our homes from their worst enemy, the legalized traffic in strong drink, do hereby most earnestly pray your honorable body that, by suitable legislation, it may be provided that in the state of Illinois, the question of licensing at any time, in any locality, the sale of any and all intoxicating drinks, shall be submitted to and determined by ballot, in which women of lawful age shall be privileged to take part, in the same manner as men, when voting on the question of license.

We had great hearings at the State House, which we decorated with the Petition, all the names being pasted upon a strip of cloth nearly a quarter of a mile long, bound with blue to represent the Murphy, and red to indicate the Reynolds reform movement; we sang "Home Sweet Home" in the Senate chamber; held prayer-meetings in the committee rooms and on top of Lincoln's monument, and convened mass-meetings throughout the state to the tune of:

" Rally then, rally then,
Ye men of Illinois;
Give woman home protection vote,
To save the tempted boy."

That we did not get an iota from the Illinois legislature goes without saying. It is chosen by the saloon and legislates for it almost exclusively. The beer and whisky interests of the world are nowhere centered as in our state, with Chicago and Peoria as the foci of an ellipse in which our politicians move as in an orbit. But all the same we roused the people so that, under our local option law, six hundred and twenty-five towns went for prohibition out of eight hundred and thirty-two voting that spring, and nothing so encouraging was ever known before nor has been since.

Rest Cottage was like a rag-bag by reasons of the petitions stacked everywhere. My dear old mother, president of the local

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union when she was seventy, took turns with Anna Gordon, ironing the "Big Petition" smooth as a shirt bosom. I used to take my little tin dinner-pail as of old in district school days, and go over to the Illinois State House every morning, some kind ladies being there with their sewing to stay with me, and we thus kept house for weeks. The state geologist let us fix up his room with flowers and birds and pretty home devices. A good temperance man was in attendance to take our cards in to the legislators when they were not busy, and we interviewed them man by man, setting down their names as plus or minus, according to their promises. One day all the grangers came in a body and pledged us their votes. Another, a party leader agreed to make the speech of presentation when our petition should come up, but a week later he came in and said the caucus (Republican) had threatened him; he had also, "heard from home and didn't dare to go back on the men that had voted him in." "If you women had votes, and could reward them that stood by you and punish them as wouldn't, your bill would be all right," he said commiseratingly as he slunk out of the room. Another leader with whom we had a private interview, said: "Ladies, I'm ashamed to admit that I'm bound hand and foot, and can't do as I would. My wife put her hand on my shoulder when I left home and said, ‘Won't you please stand by the temperance ladies?’ and she looked straight in my eyes so earnestly I could have cried. But I said, ‘No, my dear, I can't; my law practice is nearly all from the saloons, my hopes of promotion are from them, I have no sons to help me earn money, and I'm bound to support you and the girls in good style, so don't say another word,’ and then I left her. Now, ladies, if I denied the plea, of the woman I love better than any other being on earth, you'll not urge me, I know." As we still pressed our plea this man of kind nature had tears in his eyes; his lips quivered, and he left us saying: "I want to help you, ladies, more than you know, but I just can't."

I have not named the most significant experience of my life in 1878.

My only brother, Oliver, of whose great gifts and genial nature I can never say enough, after his graduation from Beloit College in 1859, took a diploma from Garrett Biblical Institute in 1861 and became a Methodist minister, founding that church

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in Colorado, and being chosen presiding elder when he was twenty-seven years old.

Afterward he was for years editor of the Chicago Mail, then the Chicago Post, and on March 17, 1878, he died quite suddenly at the Palmer House, Chicago. One of the last efforts of his life was to help work up for me my first Evanston audience since I had left the University four years earlier. Temperance was a threadbare theme and he feared I might not be greeted by the attendance that is the most grateful of all to a speaker when it consists of his or her own towns-folk.

But I had a fine audience in our own church. My mother, my brother's wife and their four children were all present, but where was he who had cared so much about this meeting?

At the close we were informed that he had been taken suddenly, but not at all dangerously ill, and had remained in the city, but would come home next day. His faithful wife drove in at once, reaching the Palmer House at midnight. He rallied her on her needless anxiety and asked "how Frank had got along?" When she told him of the meeting's success, he smiled and used a favorite phrase of his (borrowed from a song about "Brave Wolfe," at Quebec), "I die with pleasure."

How little he dreamed of leaving us was shown in his bright greeting to me when I went to see him in the morning and our good Dr. Jewell assured me he would be able to go home by the next day, and advised me not to miss the appointments I had, in company with Mrs. S. M. I. Henry, at Saginaw, Mich., for the next day but one, which was Sunday. So I left my dear, kind brother, life-long comrade and friend, without any thought of the sorrow that was so near.

Mrs. Henry and I had what ministers call, "a good time" in our meetings on the Sabbath day.

Monday at family prayers in the Christian home where we were sheltered, Mrs. Henry breathed this petition:

"Grant, Heavenly Father, that each one of us may this morning so find our balance in Thee that no sin or sorrow may be able to surprise us."

Going upstairs to my writing, five minutes later, I heard the door bell ring and a telegram was put into my hand. This has long been an experience so frequent as to cause no surprise, but

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I have never yet opened a telegram without first lifting up my heart to God in prayer. What need I had to do so now! The message was dated Sunday and read as follows:

"Your brother Oliver died this morning — Funeral Tuesday."

I read it aloud, friends being in the hall, and crouched upon the stairs without a cry, like one who had been struck. They led me to my room, and my saintly Sister Henry took me in her arms, as I repeated the words of her prayer, and we knelt once more together. I shall never forget the tenderness of her voice as for my consolation she read that blessed psalm, "Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations."

I had been announced to conduct a temperance prayer-meeting that afternoon. The Chicago train would go at an hour that left me time to fulfill the engagement. I said, "He would have wished me to do this; he was punctual to his religious duties all this blessed year, no matter what might come." And so I went and told the people all about it while we cried together, praying and talking of a better life which is an heavenly. They went with me to the train and we had a sort of meeting in the depot while we waited, and as I departed alone, they stood there with their sorrowful but kindly faces, those dear new friends in Christ Jesus, and sang:

"Rescue the perishing, care for the dying."

When I reached my sweet Rest Cottage home, there stood my mother, seventy-four years old, upon the steps. He was the pride and darling of her life, and I had almost feared to see her sorrow. But no, her dear old face was radiant and she said, "Praise Heaven with me — I've grown gray praying for my son — and now to think your brother Oliver is safe with God!"

I went up the street to his pleasant home beside the College campus —

"Dead he lay among his books,
The peace of God was in his looks,"

but the dear face was tired and worn. His last words to his wife had been, "All your prayers for me are answered; I have a present, perfect, personal Savior."

368 Chapter IV.

CONSERVATIVES AND LIBERALS.

I was much taken to task because I would not allow my name used as a candidate for President of the W. C. T. U. at the Chicago convention in 1877, and the papers tried to make out that I said, "Nothing but a unanimous choice would induce me to accept the position." The facts were that we then had an unpleasant method of nominating our candidates; namely, by means of a very complimentary speech made by some leading orator. Mrs. Foster generously made such a speech in my behalf, although I had said all I could to the women against their taking such action. A friend of Mrs. Wittenmeyer then rose and made a very complimentary speech about her, and put her in nomination. Then I rose and said I would not allow myself to come forward as an opposing candidate when the President of the society, a much older woman than I and one who had borne the burden for some years, was in the field, and I withdrew my name.

If no other name had been brought up I would not have done this, and the next year but one, when by a change in the constitution we had done away with the viva voce nominations and the flowery, complimentary speeches, I did not object, when elected by a large majority, to taking the position.

In 1879, at Indianapolis, I was elected president of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union.

Two policies had in the five years' evolution of the Crusade movement become distinctly outlined under the names, "Conservative" and "Liberal." Our honored president, Mrs. Wittenmeyer, believed in holding the states and local unions to strict account, expecting uniformity of organization and method — in short, maintaining strongly the central power of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union. She also vigorously opposed the

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ballot for women. In opposition to this, we "Liberals" interpreted the constitution of our society on the laissez-faire principle. We believed in making very few requirements of the state and local unions; if they paid their small dues and signed the total abstinence pledge, we asked no more, believing that the less we asked the more we should get, and that any amount of elbow room was good for folks, developed their peculiar genius and kept them hard at work and cheerful. So we declared for state rights and intruded not at all upon our thrifty auxiliaries, save that we were ready to go to them, work for them and build them up all that we could. In respect to woman's ballot we believed it was part and parcel of the temperance movement, one way out of the wilderness of whisky domination, and that any individual, any state or local union ought to have the right to say so and to act accordingly.

At our previous convention (Baltimore, 1878 ) we had debated one whole day over this question, taking it up in two parts as follows:

1. Shall we indorse the ballot for women as a temperance measure?
2. Shall our official organ publish accounts of work within our societies along this line?

The debate was a marvel of mingled courtesy and cogency, at the close of which the first question was decided in the negative, but the second affirmatively, which opened the columns of our paper, and henceforth the process of educating our women in favor of the ballot went forward rapidly.

At Indianapolis the principles of the liberal wing of our society became dominant, not so much by specific declaration as by the choice of leaders who incarnated those principles.

The number of delegates at this convention was one hundred and forty-eight from twenty states, no Southern state save Maryland being represented. Total receipts in national treasury for the year, $1,213.00.

At Boston the next year, there were one hundred and seventy-seven delegates from twenty-five states, and the receipts were $2,048.00. The debate begun the year before on a change in our mode of representation was earnestly continued. As the constitution had stood from the begining, each state was entitled to

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as many delegates in the national convention as it had representatives in Congress, but this operated unjustly because several states having the largest number of local unions had fewer congressional districts than others having but few unions; it also put a premium upon unorganized states which were represented on the same basis.

The liberal party held that representation ought to be on a basis of paid memberships, but the conservatives claimed that "praying not paying" was the only true foundation of the movement, while their antagonists declared that we must both pray and pay. No change was made at Boston and as a consequence the work was greatly hampered financially. But at Boston the cumbrous system of "standing committees" was abolished and that of individual superintendence substituted on the principle that "if Noah had appointed a committee the ark would still be on the stocks." The departments were divided into Preventive, Educational, Evangelistic, Social, Legal and Department of Organization.

Under the first head we had a superintendent of Heredity and Hygiene; under the second, a superintendent of efforts to secure Scientific Temperance Instruction in the public schools (Mrs. Mary A. Hunt); under the fifth a superintendent of Legislation and Petition (then Mrs. J. Ellen Foster, now Mrs. Ada Bittenbender), etc., making one woman responsible for one work, and giving her one associate in each state and one in each local union. The plan of putting a portrait of Mrs. Lucy Webb Hayes in the White House as a Temperance Memorial was here adopted by request of Rev. Frederick Merrick, of Ohio, its originator.

From my annual address at Boston — my first as President of the National W. C. T. U. — I make this extract:

Two-thirds of Christ's church are women, whose persuasive voices will be a re-inforcement quite indispensable to the evangelizing agencies of the more hopeful future.
A horde of ignorant voters, committed to the rum-power, fastens the dram-shop like a leech on our communities; but let the Republic take notice that our unions are training an army to offset this horde, one which will be the only army of voters specifically educated to their duty which has ever yet come up to the help of the Lord against the mighty. For slowly
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but surely the reflex influence of this mighty reform, born in the church and nurtured at the Crusade altars, is educating women to the level of two most solemn and ominous ideas: 1st. That they ought to vote. 2nd. That they ought to vote against grog-shops. The present generation will not pass away until in many of the states this shall all be fulfilled, and then America, beloved Mother of thrice grateful daughters, thou shalt find rallying to thy defense and routing the grimy hosts that reel about thee now, an army of voters which absenteeism will not decimate and money cannot buy. Under the influence of our societies may be safely tried the great experiment that agitates the age, and which upon the world's arena most of us have feared. When we desire this "home protection" weapon, American manhood will place it in our hands. Though we have not taken sides as yet, in politics, we cannot be insensible to the consideration shown us in the platform of the Prohibition party — a prophecy of that chivalry of justice which shall yet afford us a still wider recognition. These benign changes will not come suddenly, but as the result of a profound change in the convictions of the thoughtful and conscientious, followed by such a remoulding of public sentiment as this class always brings about when once aroused.

At Boston the ballot for woman as a weapon for the protection of her home was indorsed, and the action of the president in opening official headquarters in New York City was confirmed. Mrs. Caroline B. Buell was elected corresponding secretary, an office which she still retains.

In the spring of 1881, following this convention, I went to Washington to be present at the inauguration of General Garfield and to meet the commission of the Mrs. Hayes' Temperance Memorial of which I was president. The Woman's Christian Temperance Union of the North — it was then practically non-existent at the South — had stood solidly for the Republican candidate whom we then believed to be a friend of total abstinence and prohibition. His name was cheered whenever mentioned in the Boston convention, and being personally acquainted with him, I had written him at Mentor, immediately after his nomination, that if he would hold to total abstinence during the campaign, he might count on our support — although Neal Dow was in the field, and I had been invited, but declined, to go to the Prohibition convention at Cleveland. For I had not then beheld, therefore was not disobedient to, the heavenly vision of political as well as legal suasion for the liquor traffic. The disappointment of our temperance women was great over the reply of President Garfield, when, on March 8, we went to the White House and I presented the picture

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of Mrs. Hayes. His manner seemed to us constrained. He was not the brotherly Disciple preacher of old, but the adroit politician "in the hands of his friends" and perfectly aware that the liquor camp held the balance of power.

Surprised and pained by his language, we at once adjourned to the Temple Hotel (conducted by Mrs. S. D. La Fetra, one of our members) and such a prayer-meeting I have seldom attended. The women poured out their souls to God in prayer that total abstinence might be enthroned at the White House, that a chief magistrate might come unto the kingdom who would respond to the plea of the nation's home-people seeking protection for their tempted loved ones.

From Washington I started for the South, accompanied by Mrs. Georgia Hulse McLeod of Baltimore, a native of Tallahassee, Fla., a gifted writer and corresponding secretary of our society in Maryland. I had also with me my faithful Anna Gordon and her sister Bessie. In the three months that followed we visited nearly one hundred towns and cities of the South, and I have made four trips since then, attending, in different years, a state temperance convention in almost every one of the fourteen Southern states. By this means I have become acquainted with the men and women who lead the movement there, and so know them to be, in the old New England phrase, "just our sort of folks." The Methodist church is in the van, and here I found my firmest friends. Good Bishop Wightman, when not able to sit up, wrote me letters of introduction as hearty as our own Northern bishops would have penned, and they proved the "open sesame" to many an influential home in the Gulf states; brought many a pastor out from the quiet of his study to "work me up a meeting"; conciliated the immense influence of church journalism and paved the way for the recognition of the white ribbon movement throughout the Southern states. I would gladly name the noble leaders who thus stood by me both in Methodist and other churches, but the roll would be too long. It is written on my heart, where it will never grow dim.

I have always believed that I had an unexpected element of power in my name. The first night at Charleston and in each Southern audience from then till now, lovely women came forward to take my hand and said, "Are you Madam Emma Willard, of

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Troy?" or else, "Are you her daughter?" Often and again have I been told, "We came to hear you because our mothers were educated in Mrs. Willard's school, and we wanted to see if you were kin to her." Once I have been introduced as "Emma Willard," and more than once, gentlemen old enough to be my ancestors have shaken my hand with vigor, saying, "We studied your United States History when we were little boys." Many a time in the passing crowd I was unable to contradict these declarations and often I smiled internally and thought, "My people love to have it so," but whenever the opportunity presented itself, I frankly discounted my standing and crushed their hopes by the mild announcement that "Madam Emma Willard was the second cousin by marriage of my great-grandfather!" I have that elegant lady's historic picture, the "Temple of Time," on my study walls, her life on my shelves, and have dutifully visited her relatives in Troy; but I did not thank them so warmly for the good she had done me as I would now, for that was before the events occurred which, at the South, showed me how truly "a good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favor than silver and gold."

That trip was the most unique of all my history. It "reconstructed" me. Everywhere the Southern white people desired me to speak to the colored. In Charleston I had an immense audience of them in the M. E. Church, North; in New Orleans, Mrs. Judge Merrick, a native of Louisiana, whose husband was Chief Justice in that state under the Confederacy, invited the Northern teachers to her home, and wrote me with joy that the Woman's Christian Temperance Union would yet solve the problem of good understanding between sections. I was present repeatedly in the gallery when legislatures of the Gulf States voted money for negro education, and for schools founded by Northerners. "We were suspicious of the Northern school-teachers at first," said Southern friends to me, " we thought they had come down here, as the carpet-baggers did, to serve their pockets and their ambitions by our means, but we don't think so now."

I found the era of good feeling had indeed set in, and that nothing helped it forward faster than the work of temperance, that nothing would liberate the suppressed colored vote so soon as to divide the white vote on the issues, "wet" and "dry"; that the

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South "Solid" for prohibition of the liquor traffic might be exchanged for the South Solid against the North, by such a realignment of those moving armies of civilization popularly called "parties," as would put the temperance men of North and South in the same camp. Therefore it was borne in upon my spirit that I must declare in my next annual address, as President of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, the new faith that was within me.