- ' Illlllll New 'L'ork Glimpses of Fifty years ®f)e Autolnograpfjg OF AN AMERICAN WOMAN BY Prances E. Willard. ^ WRITTEN BY ORDER OF THE NATIONAE WOMAN’S CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE UNION. INTRODUCTION BY HANNAH WHITALL SMITH. “Nothing makes life dreary but lack of motive.” PUBLISHED BY THE Roman's temperance f^ufificafion ^tasodafion. H. J. SMITH & CO. CHICAGO, PHILADELPHIA, KANSAS CITY, OAKLAND, CAL. General Agents for United States, Canada, Australia , Sandwich Islands. COPYRIGHTED BY THE Woman’s Temperance Publication Association. 1889. EX PLAN A TOR V. We wish it distinctly understood that Miss Willard's responsibility for this book ended when she furnished her manuscript. She repeatedly requested that but one picture of herself be given. This, however, would leave her out of official groups where she is the central fgure, and to preserve the unity of these, also as illustrative of altogether different phases of her life, we have arranged the pictures as we believed the. interests of the book and the preference of the public warranted us in doing. It should also be stated that Miss Willard wrote twelve hundred pages that had to be cut down to seven hundred, and in so doing, scores of names, facts and allusions, all of which she was especially desirous to have in this book, had to be omitted. To this omission the author has kindly agreed, having written rapidly ana without calculating for the space required by this overplus of manuscript. Woman’s Temperance Publication Association. Chicago, Feb. 22,1889. 5 THOU ART GOING FROM THE GODS GLIMPSES 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,” w r ith 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 out¬ stretched 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 2 Heredity. 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 w T ent 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 ste¬ nographer 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 remi¬ niscence and of wisdom. This serves to give needed variety to my mother’s life, and also to preserve very many facts other¬ wise 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 did n’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 ? ’ ! Deacon Hall's Family . 3 “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 lingers 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 distin¬ guished 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 be¬ came the mother of Mrs. Folsom, who is now President Cleve¬ land’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 sym¬ pathy ; 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, any¬ how?” pursued the questioner, whereupon, after the fashion of mothers 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-babv of the village. ’ ’ “ Was she brought up by hand ? ” Answer: “Yes, .she was, 4 “She Gives Trouble Enough 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 ac¬ count 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 affec¬ tionate 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, shariug 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 unweary- ingly 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- “ Sissy's Dress Aches A 5 soever she would. When she was two years oid 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 pant¬ ing 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.” 6 A Frightened Child. 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, ft 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 sur¬ prised 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 supernat¬ ural, 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 child- Talking Religion . ’ ’ 7 < < hood when we thrust upon it such a cruel blow. Always since then, in spite of all my faith and the fervors I have known relig¬ iously, 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 some¬ times beheld since then, the impression of 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 aftenvard 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 8 Singing and Speaking. 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 Antislavery Society. Some one gave me the “Lifeof 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 per¬ sonal 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.” Happ}^ 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 melo- deon, as it was called, but had no fancy for the piano, and I re¬ member 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 the 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, 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.” P'ather 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, I Almost Named for Queen Victoria . 9 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, w T e 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 wor¬ shipful 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 demo¬ cratic 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 con¬ sultation. Frances was a “ fancy name,” so father said. Frances io Takes Dancing-stcps to a Missionary Tune. 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 ad¬ vantages, 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 sjveet 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 Ford Not Handsome , to Say the Least. 11 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 posi¬ tively 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 T2 Grandfather's Queue. 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 hand¬ somer 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, “Are n’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 Comfort From a Portland Lady. 13 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, Oil, 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 are n’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, be¬ sides 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 elo¬ quence. 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. Pour others spoke. All wore their bonnets. ” i4 Big Wo?'ds — Boys ’ Marbles. Now, though I knew this dear lady must have sat far back, so that she did n’t even note my eye-glasses, I thanked God and took courage as I read her no doubt lionestly-inteutioned 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 criti¬ cisms 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 hypoth¬ esis that she patterned her talk after that of her parents and her play after her own childish fancy. ” II H Mumping (girl. “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 Im¬ mortality ’ ’ 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. (I5> “ Near to Nature ' 1 s Hearty 16 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 fieldsr 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 gar¬ dener 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 “ would n’t be hired to live in such a place.” When we saw the Outdoors on “ Rock Prairie.” 17 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 w T eeks, 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 look¬ ing 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 w T hat 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 every¬ thing 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 w r ent 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 x8 A City Visitor. also testify that he made not the slightest objection to my carry¬ ing the game ! Once when we had lived on the farm several years, a bright girl came from Janesville to spend a week with 11s. 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 gov¬ erned. 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 “ Fort City." T9 of the occasion ; you are not now nty brother Oliver, but a gentle¬ man acting with me in an official capacity.” A loud ha ! ha ! from the gentleman interrupted ‘ ‘ the pro¬ prieties ” still more — waked little Maty and caused the dog Fido to set up a howl of annoyance. ‘ ‘ Have n’t you made any plan }^et ? Am I to have an office ? ’ ’ murmured little Mary from among her pillows. “ Little girls should be quiet when statesmen are in conver¬ sation,” 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 con¬ tinued 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 com¬ bine the idea of adventure with that of life in town. At ten o’clock, father tapped on the door as a signal that young per¬ sons 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 Foun¬ tain,” 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 20 Laws of “Fort City'' 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 woidd 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, per¬ haps, 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 shoot¬ ing match out by the well, with bow and arrows. For Oliver and Eoren, a boy who worked for us, had declared that “ the girls ” liked the city part of this great “make-believe” too well, and did n’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 did n’t agree to it they “would n’t play city ” any more. Now the fact was that we girls did not at all object to a skir¬ mish 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 pam¬ phlet bound in yellow paper: LAWS OF FORT CITY.—VOL. I. (BY authority.) I. OFFICER’S RAWS. i. The officers shall he 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 b “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 liome-nest was never¬ more 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-com- plexioned, 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 tkat 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 Our Numerous Pets. 67 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 I 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. . I11 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 011 the ridge of the barn “ our guinea-hens that took the prize ”; “our Suffolk piggy-wiggies that can’t be beat for cur.ningness. ” “ And then the folks ! ” said Oliver, “ they’re so big-hearted, so progressive, and willing to live and let live. I tell you, Hor¬ ace 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; 68 A Mysterious Box. “ 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 biog¬ raphy; 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 revel¬ ing 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, 11 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 for¬ midable 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 “ Choked with Ribbons 69 for essay,” and a lovely cup, besides, while under all was a note from “S. Francis, Secretary Illinois Agricultural Society,” con¬ gratulating “ 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 comfort¬ able “Shaker bonnet,” but now I was to be “choked with rib¬ bons” 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 cork¬ screw ; 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 “ Hagle’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, 70 Busy-ness—Happiness. 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 could n’t see their wagon any more, things got so blurred. I turned to Mary, and she, dear little innocent, seemed wonder fully 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 does n’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 had n’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 fool¬ ish 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, con¬ tenting 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 7 i “ I Am Eighteen .’’ 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 Fife 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 Ford,” And Pie is Ford and God ! But now having thro’ waitings long, And liopings 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. 72 Freedom and Rebellion. 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; ’ Tis night, and men and angels sleep, While I adore. Toivard 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 / 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 lie 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 Hast 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 \\ r e left our Forest Home forever. Hooking 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 .” 2T1)r 1i)iU>p)> ijmtu'ut. “ I WOULD kvkr. Tiiks 3 TAIX ME NTS OF STUDY, v WORKS THE HL I WOULD KNOW OF THOUGHT ’MAN SPIRIT IN , I WOULD HAVE BEEN ALL AGES.” ADMIRE FOR- THE ENTER- \ CHAPTER I. DELIGHTFUL DAYS AT SCHOOL. 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 Wis¬ consin, sixty miles away, attending to his duties as a legislator. (73) 74 The Best Autograph . 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, stand¬ ing 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 cer¬ tain 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 : Scicntia audoritas est ct labor vindt 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 daep to ford, it was miles around by the town bridge. The Board of Education. 75 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 have n’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, de¬ voted 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 now 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 educa¬ tion 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. 76 Mother’s ‘ ‘ Homilettes. ’ ’ 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 ‘ ‘ Acad¬ emy ” 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 edu¬ cation 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 philos¬ ophers, 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 de- First Day 1 s Schooling. 77 voted 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 be¬ cause 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. Kflie 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 Plffie’s toes at recess to see if she would n’t frown, and sure enough she did n’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. 78 Keeping the “ Observations. ” 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. Straight¬ way 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 1 ‘ 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, re¬ hearsed 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 pub- A Real School-house . 79 lie 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,” “cirro-stratus,” “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 visita¬ tions 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 did n’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 dis¬ trict, 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 tele¬ scope 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 wdien 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. 8 o Life by Rule. 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 did n’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 chil¬ dren- 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 Kffie 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. “ Advantages Like Other People. ” 81 It was a cold winter morning when school opened. We two girls had risen long before light, because we could n’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 w r ould 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 “ bob¬ sled,’’ 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 poses- sion. 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’Don¬ ahue 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 be¬ fore 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 ad¬ vantages’ 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 ; 6 82 “ God Speed the Rights 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. Accus¬ tomed to teach men, he bent himself gently to the task of point¬ ing 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 Well¬ ington, 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 math¬ ematics, 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 “be¬ have.” 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 de¬ lighted 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 A Rude Awakening. 83 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 011 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 8 4 School Incidents. 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 fish¬ ing 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.” Oliver's Forward Step. 85 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. ’ ’ When father 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, accom¬ plished 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 86 First Flight. only on the melodeon. My love for this instrument was so un¬ bounded 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 “ Bat¬ tle 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 ns 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 Novels Forbidden. 87 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. Ollendorff’s French Method was placed in my hands, and I dili¬ gently conned those oldest of all questions, “ Avez vous faimf Avez vous soif f ” 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 evety 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 char¬ acter,” 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, 011 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 88 Rays from the Past. p 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 Wis¬ consin 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, 8 9 “ Wooden Effigies.” 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 accom¬ plished 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 re¬ minded her of humans,” but upon little Mamie Walls .she lav¬ ished 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 Eon- don 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 90 Blind Teachers and Friends. 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 fre¬ quent guests at Forest Home. Mr. P. Fane, of Mississippi, a blind man of much culture and strong character, was Princi¬ pal, 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 aston¬ ished 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 An Unspoken “WhyA 9i 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 mathemat¬ ical 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,” be¬ sides, 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 young¬ est sister, Miss Sarah B. Hill. She had gone with us in 1841, in the large caxry-qll, from Chyrchville, to Oberlin, Ohio. After 02 Au?it Sarah. study at Oberlin College she had been Preceptress of Riga Acad¬ emy, 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 coun¬ sel, we knew very well what it meant. The usual style of chil¬ dren, 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 3^ear, 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 did n’t dare to see her. Bridget said ‘ ‘ she knew enough of great people to lay in a good stock o’ provisions when they was cornin’ ’round”; the Hodge children and Louise said there would be no more fun and they wished she would n’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 unfre- Our Astronomy Lessons. 93 quented 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 lad}^ 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 Marv 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 inter¬ rogation 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. Stand¬ ing 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 repre¬ sent the daily and yearly motions of the earth, and Maty 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 94 Milwaukee Female College. 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 Church- ville, 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. W T e 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 011 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 w T e were climbing the stairs toward our teacher, and entirely ♦Two of Miss Hill’s visits are here included in one. School Honors. 95 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 determina¬ tion that it deepened in my spirit to be just as trusty and con¬ scientious as was she. My admiration for Marion Wolcott, daughter of Dr. E. B. Wolcott, the city’s chief physician, was beyond words. Immac¬ ulate 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 hu¬ manity. 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 “ Original¬ ity of Thought and Action,” also a little poem, “ Eightiug the Lamps,” written on a sweet evening as I watched from my win¬ dow that city sight to me so novel. This was read by my friend, Anna Barnes, one of the leading pupils. 9 6 Lighting the Lamps. 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 drow r sy 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 jn the fore¬ going 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 his¬ tory, 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, Fizzie Father at Evanston. 97 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 North¬ western 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, i 857~58, 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 Mil¬ waukee, 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 Euella 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, 7 Northwestern Female College. 98 / Charlotte Gilman, and our thoughtful, gentle playmate, “ Rever¬ end 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, 011 Lake Michigan, was founded in 1854, by Dr. (afterward Governor.) John Evans, Orrington Eunt, 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 Insti¬ tute, 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 Univer¬ sity, 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. t* THE MASTER'S DESK. 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 Plome 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 man¬ ner, and earnest, honest purpose, conquered the hearts of teachers and pupils at once. School girls are a conservative body, reserv¬ ing 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 success¬ fully 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 dis¬ cussed her perforce favorably. “My! can’t she recite? Took out for your laurels now, Kate!” “The new girl beats us all,”—these w T ere the ejaculations that testified of honest school¬ girl opinion, and prophesied her speedy and sure success. (99) ; IOO A Transition Period. 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 amuse¬ ment which was not all amusement, but which involved consid¬ erable exercise of wit and intelligence — and our beloved “ Professor ” soon found that he could always rely upon her influ¬ ence 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 imag¬ inary 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 does n’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 7 ioncliala 7 it 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 * Prof. W. P. Jones, already mentioned as the president of the Northwestern Female College, died in the summer of 1886, at Fremont, Neb., where he was president of a flour¬ ishing normal school founded by himself. Swampscott. IOI 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 rever¬ ent, loving admiration. Next came his good, true wife, greatly beloved by the stu¬ dents 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 heait 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 yield¬ ing herself in ‘ ‘ reasonable service ’ 7 to Him who died for her. Miss Mary Dickinson, of Massachusetts, a women 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 confiden¬ tial 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 pos¬ sessed high ideals themselves, and knew how to place these so attractively before the young beginner, that, without discourage¬ ment, there was endless dissatisfaction with crude effort, and end¬ less 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 suf- 102 Valedictorian. fered severe illnesses, interrupting her progress, but not perma¬ nently 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 “ P'lower 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 “ Let a Man Be a Man.” 103 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 im¬ proved, 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 coun¬ tries of the earth, is admitted to new realms of action. He has been pro¬ moted. 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. L,et 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 seliool-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 io4 Happy Home Days. 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 mouth¬ piece 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 philos¬ opher 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; im¬ prove our manners—and our beauty, if we are blessed with it. Harmonious sounds cheer the heart. Fitness is admirable. All these are means of hap¬ piness 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 ser¬ mon 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 en¬ thusiasm 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. First Glimpse of Evanston . 105 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 i860, 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 fra¬ ternity, 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 repri¬ mands 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 liis 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 Evans¬ ton, 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. io6 Day by Day. 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 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, cafne 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 after¬ noon. March 10. —Went to 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 sudh a thing in my life. March 31.—Frank is busy with her paper, she is editress ; my composi¬ tion 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 were n’t we glad ? We put on our “ best bib and tucker ” and went to the hotel as quick as we could go. They brought 11s 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 would n’t. Father thinks he shall be here in two or three weeks again ; good ! May iS. — 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 cakes 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 I One Prayer-meeting. 107 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, wring¬ ing water out of tlie 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 stu¬ dents 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, unbe¬ known 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 dsked to lead the meeting, and did so in all seriousness, for I would as soon have thought of insult¬ ing 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. io8 The Grammar Party. 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 pro¬ ceeded 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 exer¬ cises in the church. Four large parlors were arranged in delight¬ ful 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 accom¬ plished 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.” Prefers Books fo Society . 109 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 assist¬ ant 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 per¬ sons, 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 him¬ self ; 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 to-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 im¬ portance, but a w’hole 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 ex¬ ceedingly mortified to-day by my stupidity. Memorandum.—To have, always, some fixed rule of action in my mind. no A Lover of Knowledge . 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 Foster’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 re¬ turned. 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 appre¬ ciation 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 men¬ tioned, 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 knowl¬ edge 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 our¬ selves 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 Emerson ’ .? Philosophy. 111 are, perhaps necessarily (I’m not certain), imposed upon us. Rules are un¬ pleasant ; 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 uni¬ formly 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 perpet¬ ual 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 w T ho, 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 be¬ lieve. 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 be¬ fore 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 Cult¬ ure, and in its Application to Theology.” I have heard that some of the Slite of the towm 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 112 Inquirer , not Infidel. 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 ex¬ ception, the best I have ever listened to. The thoughts were original, the language forcible Anglo-Saxon, the metaphors beautiful, and most of the con¬ clusions 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 con¬ tain, “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 con¬ trary, 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 them¬ selves to specialties, or he made a statement very much like that; soon after, lie accused Hugh Miller of wrong judging because he had so closely con¬ fined 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 appreci¬ ate 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 be¬ half. 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 Sun¬ day 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 A Plain Statc7iient. 113 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 feel¬ ing 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 compre¬ hend to doubt God, or to refuse submission to him, for a moment. I have no excuse for dela}dngto 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. Wieeard. During my last year, tlie follies of my early days at Evans¬ ton (mentioned in the sketch of Companionships), were not 8 No Greek and Latin. ”4 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 lias 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 m}^ 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 disappoint¬ ment 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 rudiment¬ ary 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 liter¬ ature, 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 disap¬ pointments (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 re- ‘ ‘ Be Re solu te and Calm . ’ ’ ii5 covering. 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 110 valedictory. The examina¬ tions 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 ex¬ aminations, 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 w T orsliip of God. n6 A False Sense of Honor. 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 know¬ ing 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 partic¬ ularly 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 plan¬ ning for the adventures that were before us as highwaymen of Mosquitoes and Smoke.- * ii7 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 perme¬ ating 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 ex¬ quisite 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 liigh-top boots, and there we sat, as imperturbable as we knew how to be, but with very height¬ ened 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 perform¬ ance, 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 Bev¬ eridge, who had a very happy way of presenting the truths of Christianity, for she did not speak in a canting tone or use cer¬ tain 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 ’ ’ 118 A Quick Tc7npcr. gave rise, are still familiar in triy 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 experi¬ ment, 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 in¬ deed. 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 : “It Lacks Force.” 119 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 illus¬ tration, 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, wnich wfill be amply sufficient, and more too. As for the sashes, I shall buy them here, if necessary. I am some¬ what 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 w 7 ould be. The fact is, I have no money. I have sold some w T heat 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 } r our 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. 120 No Interpreter Needed. 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 histor¬ ical 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 B. 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 sub¬ ject in thought and language breathing the fragrance of originality. Fie 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 producticn^-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 sopho- morean 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 modebway 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 “ She Doubted Her Doubts 12 I by the learned of all ages. The sciences drew her strongly, and won close study, but her delight wa9, 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 stu¬ dents, 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 imagina¬ tion drew plans for the future, not only of herself but of those around her, into -which they entered with a spirit that show r ed itself in all their work. If they built castles in Spain, they, nevertheless, laid foundations for char¬ acter 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 w 7 as 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 pil¬ grimage 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 skep¬ tical 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 does n’t know whether there is a God, and she does n’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 tryiug 122 There is a God." < < 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 T except Miss Willard failed to take lively interest in them. Still I was confident that she was not indiffer¬ ent. She never scoffed at others’ piety, never sought to deter any one, but abvays encouraged her friends to do what they believed was right. At the same time, it w r as 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 manifesta¬ tions 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 col¬ lege religious meetings, attending them without solicitation. We w T ere 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 begin¬ ning 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 w T as a God or no—and if there w r as, 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 recita¬ tion was overlooked. Of course, I seized the first opportunity to tell Miss Willard how T over¬ joyed I was to learn that she had escaped from her doubts, and how much I hoped she would soon frankly acknowledge her Pleavenly I'ather 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 col- lege Commencement, absorbing the minds and hearts, and consuming the Faith for Doubt. 123 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 in¬ vitation 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 circum¬ stances, 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 110 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 lia'd 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. ♦This was one year later than Professor Jones supposed. CHAPTER III. THE FIRST YEAR OUT OF SCHOOL. This period, often very dull and sometimes very gay, accord¬ ing 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, i860.—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 w T e have need to say, “ God help us when we think our- (124) An Honest Hour. 125 selves 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, in¬ evitable that I am to account myself one of the great “ commonalty ” during life ? Let us see. Jump into the scales, F. B. W., in honesty as before God, and, I say it reverently, you shall be weighed. What you believe of your¬ self 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. 1,) 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 judg¬ ment in practical matters not extraordinary, but elsewhere excellent. Your nature is appreciative ; you are not cross-grained. You feel with a sur¬ prising 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 admira¬ ble, yet the few friends that you count among your treasures have more devo¬ tion from you than they dream of, doubtless, for your love for them approaches iJolatry. 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 126 A Playful Mentor. 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 supposi¬ tion. 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 unbe¬ lief. 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 common¬ place 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 Our Room.. 127 younger of the two, I can not say but that nay affection for both is un¬ bounded. 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 be¬ cause 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 con¬ sequences, 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 pre¬ fer 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 hap¬ pier. 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 de¬ scribe 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,” Karnes’ “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 un¬ answered 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, mel¬ lowing,” 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 128 A Temperance Lecturer. 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, diction¬ ary, 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 w r e knew when we were children. In the northeast corner of the room, Oliver’s college cane maintains an un¬ shared 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 plas¬ ter 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. For¬ bearing to refer to orphans’ groans and bloodshed, the usual material on such occasions, he reasoned the case, dealt chiefly in logic, presented inter¬ esting 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, exclu¬ sive 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 011, 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, kind¬ ness as delicate, and respect as genuine,v 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 ! ffMW mtmM^ mMSIntc&<& Miss Bajaga , |M j^r T^MT: \ H Mmm The Civil War. 129 Below stairs Dr. Bannister and father are talking of secession, the cab¬ inet 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 accu¬ mulations of crime and folly that have brought so near us a result so ter¬ rible as this would be. March 5, 1S60.—What am I doing? Whose cares do I relieve? Who is w r iser, better or happier because I live ? Nothing would go on differently wdthout 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 w r ould? Mother does not w 7 ork, she says, more than is healthful for her, keeping the front room in order and giving instructions to “ Belinda ” (father’s invaria¬ ble 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. Bvan- ston has no poor people. Nobody seems to need me. In my present posi¬ tion 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 w r orld 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 get¬ ting 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 w 7 ho 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 6ouls sit on the ends of their nerves, and to whom a cold look or a slighting w r ord 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 wdiich beautiful vases are made. The coarser natures whose nerves, after coming 9 130 Neglected and Forgotten. to the surface, bend back again, can no more comprehend their finely con¬ stituted 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. vS. 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 ones cares for him more than if he were a dog, and his bur¬ rowing 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 winder that he is cynical and misan¬ thropic, w'asting the years of middle-life when other men’s pulses thrill with strength ; shut out from active duty when his need for w’ork 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, neede