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 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 HV3174.P9 F53 
 
 The story of the Mary Fisher home. 
 
 olin 
 
 3 1924 030 300 283 
 
 111 
 
The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http ://arch i ve . o rg/detai Is/cu31 924030300283 
 
The Story of 
 The 
 
 Mary Fisher Home 
 
 By MARY A. FISHER 
 
 THE SHAKBSPEARB PRESS 
 
 114-116 B. 28th St. 
 
 New York 
 
 1915 
 
Copyright, 1915, 
 By Mary A. Fisher. 
 
To Mrs. G. Thurston Seabury, to whom the Mary Fisher 
 
 Home is indebted for its beautiful building at Mt. 
 
 Vernon, New York — the Seabury memorial — 
 
 this volume is respectfully dedicated 
 
 by the author. 
 
The Story of 
 
 The Mary Fisher Home 
 
 Mt. Vernon, New York Tenafly, New Jersey 
 
 A Home for those who have labored in Literature, 
 Art, Education, Music — or any of the various professions 
 — non-sectarian. 
 
 How it came to be founded, and an account of some 
 of the curious and peculiar characters that it has sheltered 
 — grotesque, comical, pathetic. Also one of the saddest 
 cases in the annals of the White Slave traffic. 
 
 THE POE COTTAGE— THE POE PARK 
 
 The true story of the noble effort of Mrs. M. Fay 
 Peirce to restore the home of the poet, Edgar Allan Poe, 
 as it was when he lived there with his charming young 
 wife — the grounds around the cottage so picturesque in 
 their rural simplicity and beauty — and the later effort of 
 Mrs. John C. Coleman in its behalf. 
 
 A letter from Edwin Bjorkman to President Woodrow 
 Wilson showing what is done by some other nations in 
 the cause of literature — he suggests that something be 
 done as a national recognition to the American man of 
 letters. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 How the Home came to be started. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Early meetings — Prominent people. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The first guests — A diet on one dollar per week — The 
 protege of George William Curtis — A novel kind of 
 trade — The picture in the Rogues' Gallery — The young 
 poet. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The music teacher — The old homestead in Connecticut — 
 The wish of her life gratified — We move from Brook- 
 lyn — A friend in Percy Pyne — The name Home-Hotel 
 had to be changed — The question, should we receive 
 old men sinners? — One sinner that repented — The 
 "kicks" of the ungrateful — The wonderful clock. 
 
 chapter v. 
 
 The unsuccessful — The high soprano — The classic scholar 
 and lecturer — Her unappreciative audience — A gro- 
 tesque visitor — A remarkable intellect — The Civil Ser- 
 vice at Washington. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The old German professor— The brother and sister— The 
 protege from St. George's Society— A singular Court 
 case — The English actress— Her reminiscences of the 
 English stage — The Keenes — Miss Braddon, the nov- 
 elist—Dion Boucicault, the tyrant— St. Barnabas 
 House — Beautiful clothing sold for a trifle— The church 
 at the end. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 How a philanthropic gentleman was deceived by a woman 
 — Was she responsible for his loss ? — The picture post- 
 poned — The semi-insane — Patti's violinist — The lec- 
 turer. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The medical students — Working his way with his music — 
 A faithful lady-love — The young palmist — A pris- 
 oner's friend. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A Polish physician — A willing convert — The Society of 
 Spiritualists — He attends a stance — The harp plays 
 the airs of his native country — A troublesome guest — 
 The four o'clock breakfast — St. Johnland — The Monti- 
 fiore Home. 
 
 CHAPTER x. 
 
 The student of Columbia — His mother and sister — Mak- 
 ing pies for the Women's Exchange — The young engi- 
 neer — A miserly old lady — The writer of poems — Dr. 
 Oppenheimer. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 The two sisters — A kind brother — Imitating Joan d' Arc 
 — A theological hermit — She makes a new translation 
 
 8 
 
of the Scriptures — A sister-in-law's welcome — An 
 angry brother— A spirit for speculation— A new busi- 
 ness venture. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Emma has curious merchandise for sale — A pathetic 
 spectacle — A wasted life — The treasures of art — The 
 three wise women from the West — Her charity lodger 
 — All are turned into the street — The spirit of specula- 
 tion again — The kitchenette for parlor and bedroom — 
 The beggar woman and baby — Turned into the street 
 again — The Charity Organization Society takes care of 
 their income. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Our comical help — The young laundryman — The escaped 
 monk — Will he return to the monastery ? — The mystery 
 of the night. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The aged sculptor — How a poor neighbor was their 
 greatest benefactor — His paralyzed wife — The public 
 school principal — Her romantic career — An unfortu- 
 nate marriage — A grateful guest. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 J. Wells Champney, the artist — His comical old teacher 
 of long ago — His eccentric habits — An epicure difficult 
 to please — A convert of Jerry McCauley — His religious 
 mania — A troublesome guest — The doctors at Bellevue 
 — The diamond wedding — Our Home moves to Mi. 
 Vernon — Our new Home founded at Tenafly, New 
 Jersey. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 The young book-keeper — The detective's mistake — An- 
 other case of unwarranted suspicion — The artist of the 
 Triumphal Arch — The final work of his life — Disap- 
 pointed hopes — A sad suicide — A melancholy young 
 man. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Lazy people — The beautiful lesson of the Christ — Unap- 
 preciative people — Elbert Hubbard's example — The 
 poet Whittier — A young lady totally deaf — Her Boston 
 Home. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 An interesting lady — The Episcopal clergy fund — What 
 ten cents a year can do — Walter Raleigh — The Board 
 of Education — A beautiful lecture spoiled by political 
 bigots. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 A Belgian editor — Without a bed — His big white cat — 
 A troublesome guest — A great student — His queer diet 
 — His whims and vagaries. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 The young artist— Ireneus Prime of the Observer— Her 
 method of painting— Her comical lover — A holiday for 
 two on fifty cents— The work of a summer— An aged 
 French couple. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 A missionary from the Island of Ceylon — The use of a 
 photograph — A cowardly man — An irate Englishman 
 — His own story — An exacting widow. 
 
 10 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 A woman inventor. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 A girl with delusions — She seeks a career — A false 
 witness — A disappointed husband — A case of insanity. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 A husband with a forgetful memory — A surprise awaited 
 him — Husbands de trop. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 The morphine habit — The artist imposed upon — Mrs. J. 
 Hood Wright — The artist of the Andes — A remarkable 
 physician — The hospital sister — A beautiful Jewess — 
 The girl was not a sinner — The playwright. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 A girl from the West — A stranger's visit — A new pro- 
 fession — Should she trust him? — Hard work — The 
 reward of industry — The women braver than the men. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 The deadly feud — An unknown woman — Arthur Lumley, 
 the illustrator and journalist — His industrious life — 
 His work arrested by blindness — His death. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 The White Slave victim— A faithful nurse— A living 
 death. 
 
 n 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 Bequests and contributions — Mrs. Seabury's most gen- 
 erous gift — The new Home at Mt. Vernon is built — 
 The dream of my life realized — The Association re- 
 organized. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 Reminiscences — The lapidary — A victim of morphine — 
 The heir to half a million. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 A chapter on dogs — A friendly dray — Rex's untimely 
 end — A collie and a rat terrier. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 A ghost in the bedroom — A streak of fortune — Seven 
 trunks — Moody and Sankey — A house full of cats. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 Too ardent a lover — The two orphans — A possible 
 romance. 
 
 Some Letters. 
 
 Our Tenafly Home. 
 
 Subscribers. 
 
 Annual Report of Secretary, 1914. 
 
 The House of Mary. 
 
 The True Story of the Poe Cottage and the Poe Park. 
 
 Financial Statement. 
 
 Rose McAlister Coleman's Letter. 
 
 Closing Thoughts. 
 
 A Beautiful Letter by Edwin Bjorkman. 
 
 12 
 
The Mary Fisher Home 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 "What first prompted you to start such a Home?" is 
 a question that has often been asked of me. 
 
 Well, the first idea came to me when a girl in my teens. 
 I was visiting Hampstead, my birthplace in England, 
 and my Mother was showing me where Leigh Hunt and 
 other literary celebrities used to live when she was a 
 girl, when my attention was attracted to a handsome 
 house and spacious grounds, and I said, "I wonder who 
 lives there." 
 
 "Oh, that's a Home for governesses," answered a man 
 who was carrying in some parcels at the gate. 
 
 Now, at that time, there was no pension in this coun- 
 try for public school teachers, and I remembered that 
 when we were in New York we used to see an old lady 
 going on her crutches to teach in a public school, and 
 we knew a little of her history — that she had been many 
 years a widow, and had struggled to keep a home for 
 an invalid sister, and her little boy, and could not save 
 anything for the time of need. 
 
 As I looked at that beautiful Home, and thought of 
 that crippled teacher I said to my Mother — 
 
 "How nice it would be if we had a Home like that for 
 aged teachers in New York." 
 
 After that, I was entered as a student in a Parisienne 
 pension, where many, like myself, came for the study of 
 the French language and literature. 
 
 13 
 
14 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 Among them was a young lady of about twenty-five 
 years, who was a sort of literary protegee of the King of 
 Sweden. She had written some articles for the papers 
 which had attracted his notice, and he thought he saw 
 in her a rising young genius, provided she had the op- 
 portunity of a wider education, so he paid for her to 
 come to Paris, and met her expenses at the pension. 
 
 On our voyage home to New York we had for a fellow 
 passenger a gentleman who had been secretary to Sir 
 John Franklin, the explorer, and he often spoke of the 
 sad death of that great man, who had made it the aim 
 of his life to find a passage through the Arctic Ocean; 
 but the very season when he set out with his well- 
 equipped expedition, there was no break in the eternal 
 ice, as there had been in years before, and they all 
 perished. 
 
 One expedition after another was sent out by the Brit- 
 ish government, but all in vain. Then Lady Franklin, 
 who was a devoted wife, spent her own fortune to equip 
 an expedition, and they were successful. They found 
 the bones, with the records all beautifully recorded and 
 sealed. 
 
 There was also on board a young man who had lived 
 in the house of Macaulay, the historian, who could tell 
 of conversations he had heard between Macaulay and 
 other literary stars, and I heard a great deal said about 
 pensions awarded to men who had given their lifework 
 for the benefit of the nation. 
 
 That night, when my Mother and I were alone to- 
 gether, I said : "How nice it would be if we could have 
 government pensions like that." 
 
 "We have enough wealthy and charitable Americans 
 to advocate it," answered my Mother; "it only requires 
 the right people to start it." 
 
MARY FISHER HOME i$ 
 
 "I wish I could find the right people," I said. 
 
 Some years afterward I was teaching in a girl's private 
 school, and it was one of my duties to go out with the 
 young ladies when they took their daily walks, or made 
 their purchases. 
 
 One day, when we were in a music store, selecting 
 some new songs, the clerk leaned over the counter, and 
 showing us a new waltz said. "Here is something that 
 is very popular, and the poor old man who composed it, 
 is dying in a tenement house round the corner." 
 
 "Do you know much about him?" one of the girls 
 asked. 
 
 "All I know is, that he is old and poor, and the jani- 
 tor's wife does what she can for him. He has probably 
 outlived all his family, and his friends have forgotten 
 him, or he may be too proud to appeal to them ; it hap- 
 pens that way sometimes." 
 
 On the next Saturday, when the school closed, two of 
 us found our way to the old composer. 
 
 He was lying on a cot-bed; the room was miserably 
 cold, and barely furnished. There were rude pine shelves 
 all around the walls laden with music. 
 
 "You see he didn't belong to any church, so he 
 couldn't be got into any of the church homes," said the 
 janitress. 
 
 Again it occurred to me that we ought to have a non- 
 sectarian home for brain-workers, such as this poor old 
 man, and for years the thought was brewing in my brain, 
 without taking any tangible form. I remembered that 
 in Europe pensions were often accorded to those who, 
 during their lifetimes, had been of some benefit to the 
 nation, and it seemed to me that in this country the peo- 
 ple must do what the government failed to do, and I 
 
i6 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 hoped that in time we might have a national fund for 
 this purpose. 
 
 However, this was too gigantic a scheme for the 
 present, and I had to be contented to let it simmer down 
 to just one Home at the best. But I was only an obscure 
 woman, teaching in a school. I felt I should only be 
 laughed at if I broached this subject to any one. I had 
 no wealthy friends, and what could I expect to do. 
 
 However, I could not give it up. In all my quiet mo- 
 ments it was present with me. I believe I took a whole 
 year to decide upon a name for the Home. At last, it 
 came to me. While in France, I had seen that so often 
 a large house is called a hotel. So I said to myself that 
 I would call my home the Home-Hotel. Hitherto, I had 
 not spoken to anyone about it. However, one day I 
 summoned courage, and laid my plan before my good 
 father. Now, he had some years before given me six 
 hundred dollars to publish a book which I had written, 
 and which like many another such literary ventures had 
 not proved a financial success, and consequently he was 
 somewhat prepared to hear from me something of a 
 chimerical and visionary character. But he listened at- 
 tentively to my project. 
 
 Finally he said, "Well, you can but try. I will give 
 you this house to start with." I was delighted. I was 
 now teaching in a boys' public school, but that summer, 
 instead of taking a vacation, I busied myself helping to 
 paint and paper, and furnish the spare rooms according 
 to my taste, and within the bounds of my very limited 
 exchequer. My father said I reminded him of a visit 
 he once paid to an abbey in England, where the abbess, 
 who had been a lady of title, showed him her hands, say- 
 ing, "Look, my hands are as hard as any man's. I have 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 17 
 
 done all sorts of mechanical work and enjoyed it." I am 
 sure that abbess was not any happier in her work than 
 I was in mine. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 My next step was to start out on my voyage of dis- 
 covery — looking for people who would give me their 
 names as in sympathy with this project. I did not ask 
 for money. 
 
 The first person that I called upon was Daniel Hunt- 
 ington, the artist. I read my paper to him. He sat 
 thinking for a while, then he said he approved of it, if 
 it could be done, but he wouldn't give his name to it, 
 because he was afraid it would fall through. However, 
 he gave me the names of several people to call upon, 
 and I began to make my rounds, and introduced myself 
 the best way I could by writing on my card that Mr. 
 Huntington, the artist, had suggested that I call. But 
 it was a discouraging affair ; they always suggested some 
 one else, and would say: 
 
 "You ought to call on Mr. So and So ; he has lots of 
 money, I should think he would like to do this thing; 
 as for myself, I have so many things on hand that I 
 couldn't go into it." 
 
 One gentleman said — "Now be sure to go to Mr. A., 
 he has married a very rich woman, and this is the very 
 thing that he ought to be interested in, for he was once 
 poor enough himself." 
 
 But Mr. A. declared that he had no time to attend to 
 anything. 
 
 However, that good man, President Barnard of Col- 
 umbia, received me very kindly. He told me how much 
 
i8 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 he appreciated modest beginnings, and gave me an ac- 
 count of how frugally he and his wife had lived during 
 the early years of their married life. I felt very proud 
 when he offered me one of the college rooms for a meet- 
 ing. Also, I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. and Mrs. 
 St. Gaudens, and their little nine-year-old boy, Homer, 
 Mrs. Chauncey Depew, Miss Elizabeth Bisland, Mrs. 
 William Choate, Mrs. Andrew Carnegie, and hold in af- 
 fectionate remembrance some who have passed away — 
 Mrs. Embury, Mrs. Esther Herrman and Mrs. A. F. 
 Wainewright. Gen. Jas. Grant Wilson was for some 
 time our Treasurer. Mr. Frank E. Vaughan often gave 
 me valuable advice, and much personal service in start- 
 ing our Home at Tenafly. 
 
 I was not in the 400, but I had one last hope. Among 
 the names that Mr. Huntington had given me, was that 
 of Mrs. Vincenzo Botta, a lady who drew around her 
 the literati of this country, and of any other country 
 who happened to light upon these shores. She used to 
 have at her weekly receptions the most fashionable peo- 
 ple of the city. But then Mrs. Botta was in Europe and 
 would not return for many months. At last she came, 
 and found my letter waiting for her. She seemed pleased 
 with the project. She appointed a time for me to call, 
 and Mrs. Inez Ludlow, the artist, who had entered 
 earnestly into the project from the beginning, accom- 
 panied me. Mrs. Botta gave me her visiting list of two 
 hundred ladies, and offered me her spacious drawing- 
 rooms for our meetings, saying, "The work will be end- 
 less." How often since then have I thought of her words, 
 for the work has been endless. 
 
 At last, the important day came. A large array of 
 fashionable ladies responded to the call, and I believed 
 my success was assured. But alas, there were many 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 19 
 
 minds among them. One prominent speaker said that 
 she had long wanted to see such a home as an adjunct 
 to the Woman's Hospital, and that it must be for women 
 only. Quite a number agreed with her. Another lady 
 thought it ought to belong to the Woman's Exchange, 
 and a large number agreed with her, that it should be 
 for women only. I saw the thing was drifting away 
 from me, still I would not give up. I said it must be a 
 home for brain-workers both men and women — those of 
 the various professions without regard to age or creed. 
 Then Mrs. Botta spoke of Edgar Poe, whom she had 
 known intimately, and that he had told her how dis- 
 appointed he was when he received only ten dollars for 
 his poem of "The Raven." 
 
 "Edgar Poe," said one of the ladies, starting to her 
 feet, "if you are going to take such men into your home, 
 I for one would rather throw my money into the fire." 
 Mrs. Botta had been smiling in her chair at the discus- 
 sions, but she now rose and said, "My dear madam, 
 Edgar Poe has been much misunderstood. No one 
 knew him better than I did. He was always welcome 
 at my house, and I can vouch for this fact, that one glass 
 of wine would go to his head, and make him dizzy. I 
 knew him when he worked as a fag on a magazine most 
 faithfully, and I am sure he was generally underfed." 
 
 Finally the company dispersed; nothing had been ac- 
 complished, but a few remained behind who agreed with 
 me, promising their support if I could get members 
 enough. Among them was Miss Kate Sanborn, who 
 said with a sigh, "A home for old authors and artists! 
 My ! what a company of cranks ! What will you do with 
 them?" 
 
 But notices had crept into the public press, and appeals 
 had begun to reach me. Some cases were so pathetic, 
 
20 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 that I determined to wait no longer. So with a small 
 subscription list, and my own modest income, I decided 
 to make the venture, and we started the Home at J\ 
 Java Street, Brooklyn, in the house my Father had given 
 me. 
 
 We held our meetings at the house of Mrs. Ludlow, 
 and made new friends and subscribers, among them Mrs. 
 O. M. Harper, Mrs. Marie T. Lange, Miss Leila R. 
 Ramsdell, Mrs. R. T. Auchmuty, Mrs. Henry Lewis 
 Morris, Mrs. William P. Clyde, Mrs. M. Fay Peirce, 
 Mrs. Leon Hess, Mrs. Esther Herrman, Mrs. Chas. S. 
 Homer, Mrs. John Hone, Mrs. William C. Osborn, Mrs. 
 Theo. Harris, Mrs. G. H. Warren, Mrs. Chas. E. Sher- 
 man, Mrs. E. F. Shepherd, and many others who have 
 been loyal to the Home ever since. For many years Mrs. 
 Ludlow was our faithful Treasurer. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The first guest in our Home was an aged American 
 actress. I met with her through going one day into one 
 of the offices of the Charity Organization Society. The 
 agent had upon her table a quantity of dolls' leather 
 shoes beautifully made, of all different colors, and of 
 various sizes to suit every kind of doll. These were 
 only fifteen cents a pair. 
 
 THE OLD ACTRESS.. 
 
 "How can any one afford to make them for such a 
 price?" I asked. 
 
 "Ah, but she is a very poor old lady," said the agent, 
 "and that is all the stores pay her; she can make several 
 
MARY FISHER HOME si 
 
 pairs in a day, and is very glad to get fifteen cents ; after 
 buying the materials, it leaves her ten cents' profit." 
 
 After the old actress came to us I was often amused 
 at the little incidents in the story of her life which she 
 told us. Her husband had been the manager of a small 
 theatrical company that travelled about the country. 
 When he died she was too old for the stage, as her voice 
 was gone. Like many another, she thought if she came 
 to New York, she could find something to do, for she 
 was intelligent and well educated. But nothing turned 
 up; her only qualification for business was her fine 
 needlework; and no business house or dressmaker 
 wanted a poor shabby-looking old lady. She found her 
 money was running out. She took a room in a miser- 
 able neighborhood, where rents were low, and I found 
 her in a wretched tenement with very little furniture; 
 there was a little dark closet supposed to be a bedroom. 
 But she had no use for this. I did not see any bed, but 
 across the room a hammock was hung, and she told me 
 this was where she slept, as it kept her free from any- 
 thing obnoxious in the shape of vermin. 
 
 "Before I came to your Home I had some comical ex- 
 periences," she said one day. "I had heard that they 
 gave out provisions to the poor at the City Hall once a 
 week during the winter, but that they required a letter 
 of reference from some respectable citizen. 
 
 "As I was a stranger in New York and didn't know a 
 single soul, what was I to do for a letter? I thought the 
 matter over ; then a bright idea occurred to me, and as 
 I write a good hand, I sat down and wrote the letter 
 myself, saying that the bearer was a poor woman, honest 
 and respectable, etc., and I signed my own name. I said 
 to myself, 'It can't be a forgery, since I have signed my 
 own name,' and I posted down to the City Hall. But 
 
22 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 the place was shut up, and I found it was a holiday. I 
 had only a few cents left, and was feeling faint, for I 
 had walked a long way; then, on Third Avenue, I saw 
 a sign, 'The Charity Organization Society.' I thought 
 perhaps there would be ladies there who would buy some 
 of my dolls' shoes. I told the agent my story — that I 
 had to wait till next week to get the desired provisions 
 from the City Hall. She seemed to be very sorry for 
 me, and she gave me twenty-five cents from her own 
 pocket; this kept me another week in food, for I ate 
 mostly oatmeal, which is cheap and nourishing, and my 
 rent had been paid in advance for the month. 
 
 "So on the following Monday I hurried down to the 
 City Hall with my letter. Several people with baskets 
 were coming out. One Irish woman said, 'All they guv 
 us today wus herrin's and perates, if I'd h' known that, 
 I wouldn't a come, 'twasn't worth a spendin' shoe leather 
 for.' However, I pushed my way in, and said to a police- 
 man who was in the hall, T have a letter, where shall 
 I go ?' He pushed open a door, and pointed to a fat man 
 sitting on a platform. To this potentate I went and of- 
 fered my letter, which he took and read carefully. Then 
 with a good-natured smile on his fat face he handed the 
 letter back to -me saying, 'All right, missus, but the stuff 
 is all given out for today — won't be any more till next 
 week.' 
 
 "When I came out I found the Irish woman who had 
 grumbled at the provision ; she was coming my way. 
 'Was this yer fust time comin' here ?' she asked. 'I never 
 seen yer before. It was a poor lot they guv out today.' 
 I told her that I should have been very glad of a herring 
 and a few potatoes. We walked on a while, and when 
 she came to her own corner she said, 'Look here; take 
 this here herrin', I've got better y an this at home,' and 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 23 
 
 she put in my basket a large fat herring and two big 
 potatoes. I didn't know how to thank her enough. 
 That evening I had a feast; the herring and potatoes 
 lasted me two days, and then you called on me." 
 
 NOT A LUTHERAN. 
 
 A German society was interested in an old gentleman, 
 who had spent some forty years in this country, but 
 could speak very little English. No one seemed to know 
 how he had made a living. He called himself an artist, 
 but this could not be verified in any way, as he had only 
 a few very poor specimens to show. It was supposed 
 that his wife, who was now dead, had been a hard work- 
 ing woman, and that she had supported him. However, 
 we took him in, and gave him some sweeping to do. 
 When he had been with us about a year, I heard that 
 there was a Lutheran Home for old men, and I applied 
 to the Lutheran minister in his behalf, for I felt that he 
 had more claim there than he had upon us, for we had 
 so many applicants who could not be taken into any 
 other Home. 
 
 "I know him well," said the minister. "I knew his 
 wife, but he wouldn't come to church with her, and so, 
 as he is not a Lutheran in good standing, I shall not in- 
 terest myself in him. There are reasons why they would 
 not take him into the Isabella Home, and the right place 
 for him is the city almshouse." 
 
 However, while he was very unhappy at the thought 
 of leaving us to go to the almshouse, a sister-in-law of 
 his turned up, and said she could not let the husband of 
 her sister go to such a place, and she took him home 
 with her, much to our relief. 
 
24 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 My next guest was a bright old lawyer, who had been 
 taking care of an idiotic boy in return for his board, 
 rather than be a burden to his friends. 
 
 He was nearly eighty years old, and was breaking 
 down under the strain. He was most grateful for a shel- 
 ter with us. The poet Whittier was interested in an 
 afflicted young woman, the sister of a deceased young 
 poet, and wrote to me about her. We offered her a 
 welcome, and through her made a friend of Phillips 
 Brooks, as there was no home of this kind in Boston. 
 Soon we began to fill up. 
 
 Certainly we had a few cranks who tried my patience. 
 One would not come to her meals, but insisted on lower- 
 ing a little basket from her window, and having her 
 food sent up to her by this method. She was not more 
 than forty, had been a beautiful girl, but determined to 
 live shut up by herself. She made translations of plays 
 and stories. I had found her in a little room with five 
 cents' worth of peanuts and a cup of milk for her dinner. 
 Mrs. Bottome, of the King's Daughters, sent twenty 
 dollars in her behalf. 
 
 I learned how very little some such people get accus- 
 tomed to live upon. Another told me that a dollar and a 
 quarter per week was all she spent for years upon nourish- 
 ment. "And what could you get for that?" I asked. 
 "What did I get? Why, all I wanted," she answered. 
 "I brought my living down to a science. On Sunday I 
 ate meat. On Monday, I ate cereals. On Tuesday, 
 vegetables. On Wednesday, nuts and fruits. Thursday, 
 biscuits and milk. Friday, bread and fish. Saturday, 
 bread and jam, and cocoa. So you see, in the course of 
 a week, I had had a little of everything." 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 25 
 
 AN AGED JOURNALIST. 
 
 George William Curtis knew an aged journalist, in 
 very needy circumstances, who had lost his grip on the 
 New York Times, where he had been employed for many 
 years, and he spent a winter with us. 
 
 "Your shoes are very old," I said to him one day, "I 
 must get you a new pair." 
 
 "You needn't go to that expense," he answered, "give 
 me thirty-five cents and I'll come back to you well shod." 
 At dinner time he appeared with a very decent pair of 
 gaiters, saying, "I exchanged my old shoes and twenty- 
 five cents for these. There are places on the East Side 
 where they make a business of this sort of trade." 
 
 ONE OF THE ROGUES. 
 
 One cold winter day, a young man came to our base- 
 ment door, and asked if we could give him some work — 
 he was willing to do anything. He had a letter from 
 some clergyman who said that he had belonged to some 
 opera troupe, and was stranded in the city. His neat 
 appearance and intelligence interested me, and I took 
 him in. I found he knew considerable about marketing, 
 and he often went errands for me. One day he said to 
 me, "I don't want to deceive you, I will be frank with 
 you. I have been under a cloud ; I have been in prison,, 
 but don't be afraid to trust me, I assure you it was not 
 for any dishonesty — it was called a misdemeanor." 
 
 For some time he did my errands, for he was a very 
 good caterer, and seemed to know where to find bar- 
 gains, and the goods were always sent home C. O. D. 
 But one day, I gave him a five-dollar gold piece, and 
 my valise to bring some wares from the market. It was 
 
36 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 Saturday. That night he did not return. In the morn- 
 ing when the journalist came in to breakfast, he said — 
 "Well, your young man has cleaned me out ; your valise 
 accommodated all my wardrobe. Now, I have my idea 
 about him and when I come back, you will see whether 
 I am right." 
 
 He went out, and when he returned he said, "I found 
 his picture in the Rogues' Gallery." 
 
 Of course, we heard no more of him. 
 
 By the end of the winter, the journalist was completely 
 built up again, and was very anxious to get to work. 
 Some one told him of a wealthy butcher, somewhere in 
 New Jersey, who had retired from business, and had a 
 great desire to start a newspaper in the town, and he 
 had plenty of money to put into it. This was a chance 
 for our journalist, which he was glad to profit by, and I 
 heard it proved a success. 
 
 Often we were able to tide people over with rest and 
 nourishment until they were able to take up work again. 
 
 THE YOUNG POET. 
 
 "Can you give a young man something to do in re- 
 turn for a Home?" a lady once said to me. "It is one 
 of those difficult cases to handle, for he is proud, sensi- 
 tive, and poor, and one does not like to hurt his feelings." 
 
 I had heard of this young man, I had read the little 
 volume of poems which he had issued, and had been 
 pleased with them ; and I could understand how sensi- 
 tive he was about his poverty. 
 
 I had often had such cases come before me, so I wrote 
 to him in the same strain as I had sometimes written to 
 others. I told him I was looking for some one who 
 would come and live in the Home and do some writing 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 27 
 
 occasionally, and that I could not afford to pay a salary 
 for it. 
 
 He came that very evening with his few belongings. 
 I saw at once that the ravages of consumption had al- 
 ready begun their work, and that lack of nutrition was 
 probably the principal cause. 
 
 As we became better acquainted, he was less reserved 
 and reticent. I learned that he had half-starved himself 
 to save money enough to publish his first book of poems. 
 Like all young writers, he thought if he once got before 
 the public his future was made. He sent a copy of the 
 book to various publications, hoping to see a review of 
 his poems, but none came. He sent a copy to the poets 
 — Stedman, Morris, Markham and others, who read his 
 work with pleasure, were glad to make his acquaintance, 
 and kindly introduced him into the drawing rooms of 
 some of the most cultured people. When they sat down 
 to supper it was often the best meal he had eaten in a 
 long time. 
 
 At these evening coteries he would often read some 
 of his new poems — for he was a prolific writer — which 
 were always received with marked applause, which was 
 very gratifying. But his poems did not sell, and he 
 finally became very despondent. His wardrobe had be- 
 come very shabby, but he had no money to purchase any 
 better, and so he could no longer accept the invitations 
 to the evening parties. 
 
 One of the ladies who believed that she saw in him a 
 rising poet, said she could not get him out of her mind, 
 and she took a great deal of trouble to look him up, and 
 write to me about him. As time went on, his cough be- 
 came worse, and he grew weaker and weaker until the 
 end came. 
 
28 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 Among his papers we found the address of an aunt 
 of his, who seemed to be a woman well-to-do, and we 
 informed her of his death. She came, and made arrange- 
 ments for his funeral ; she was apparently an unsym- 
 pathetic and hard-hearted woman. When the young min- 
 ister had concluded the service, and the undertaker was 
 removing the remains, she said : 
 
 "Why do such poor fellows persist in writing books, 
 when they can't make a living, he had better be a car- 
 penter or a plumber, and leave the rich men to write 
 books. He couldn't sell his poems. What was the use 
 of writing them ?" 
 
 The young minister smiled and added, "But it would 
 hardly do for us to depend only on our rich men for our 
 literature." 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Never shall I forget a young woman of about thirty- 
 five — an excellent pianist, at one time a successful 
 teacher, but finally a cripple, and entirely without means 
 or friends to help her. I was so glad that we had a home 
 to offer her. She had some selfish cousins, who lived in 
 an old mansion in Connecticut, that had belonged to her 
 grandfather. "Never let her have any money," they said 
 to me, "for if you do, she will be travelling to us, and we 
 cannot have her." 
 
 One day I found her crying pitifully. "Grandpa left 
 that place to all of us," she said, "and I have as much 
 right to be there as any of them. I do so want to spend 
 a little of the summer under those lovely old trees that 
 my grandpa planted. If I could once get there, they 
 would not dare turn me away." So we managed it that 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 29 
 
 she should have her wish, and started her off — to sit un- 
 der the beautiful trees of her childhood. But for a short 
 time only, in the course of a month, her gentle spirit was 
 called to the better land. 
 
 DIFFICULTIES OF THE WORK. 
 
 But soon we needed larger accommodations, and moved 
 from Brooklyn to St. Ann's Avenue in the Bronx. Not- 
 withstanding the work was so interesting, to sustain the 
 Home was a great struggle — especially on account of 
 nursing the sick — and the dread of falling into debt often 
 hung like a pall over me. Sometimes I was told "You 
 should get prominent women on your Board of Managers 
 — wealthy women whose names are known, and you 
 should get a banker for your treasurer." And often I 
 sat till midnight writing letters to prominent people, but 
 without success. All begged to be excused, pleading 
 they had no time — some kindly sent a contribution. Mr. 
 Percy Pyne, for instance, enclosed in his letter, a check 
 for one hundred dollars. 
 
 Another trouble confronted me. We found that the 
 name, "Home-Hotel," was misleading, and we were ad- 
 vised to change it. This cost us eighty dollars for court 
 fees, tho Mr. Coudert gave his services. The faithful 
 ones, who worked with us, did all in their power, but 
 many a time I kept my anxiety to myself for fear of dis- 
 couraging them, and it was no small burden to carry the 
 responsibility alone. 
 
 At one of our meetings, when I was rejoicing over the 
 subscription of fifty dollars from a new member, one of 
 the ladies rose and said — "Oh, if you intend to bring that 
 person among us, I for one will drop out, for she is a 
 woman with a history." 
 
30 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 At another time a very prominent lady attacked me 
 with — "You should be more careful as to the people you 
 take into your home. I understand that you have old 
 Mr. S. I heard of him years ago. He left his good 
 wife and little children to starve while he spent his sub- 
 stance in riotous living. What if he has been a genius, 
 and given his quota of art to the world ! He was a de- 
 cidedly bad man." 
 
 I reflected a moment, I had heard of this man's past, 
 and finally I answered, "But what of the Good Samari- 
 tan. He didn't want to know the character of the man 
 that fell among thieves — that same man, for all we know, 
 may have been leaving his wife, or he may have been 
 fleeing from justice for robbing his village. However, 
 the Good Samaritan pitied him. Does anyone vote that 
 this man be turned away?" I asked. There was a dead 
 silence. 
 
 Years afterwards, an old lady had a Christmas tree in 
 her room sent in by her grandchildren, and she invited 
 everyone in the home to come and see it and partake of 
 the candies that were provided. 
 
 In the dusk of the evning, when all had departed, the 
 old lady saw this old man steal in and stand before the 
 little Christmas tree, while the tears rolled down his 
 withered cheeks. 
 
 Who can tell what memories of past years came up 
 before him, of wife and children and home, as he gazed 
 upon that little memento of bygone days. And I re- 
 member another who was said to have had a history, 
 who used to say, "Pardon me for being late to breakfast. 
 I have such wretched nights, I cannot sleep." 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 31 
 
 THE KICKS OF THE UNGRATEFUL. 
 
 Certainly it often happened that those who received 
 the most from us were the least appreciative, while those 
 who received so very little were the most grateful, and 
 during the vista of years, have always sent us their small 
 annual contribution from their meager earnings. I was 
 mentioning this to an old gentleman one day, when he 
 said, "Ah, yes, but never get discouraged. I have re- 
 ceived more kicks for the kind things that I have done 
 than I ever did for the unkind." 
 
 Often I was confronted with the pitiful condition of 
 old people who, for some reason or other, could not 
 harmonize with son-in-law or daughter-in-law, although 
 they were not without means — it seemed that no one 
 wanted them. Several times we took charge of such a 
 one, for what they could afford to pay. 
 
 Often there were two sides to the story. 
 
 Once a young man said, "My old grandmother is such 
 a terrible crank that I can't burden my young wife with 
 her. She would wear her life out — and mine too." 
 
 We received the old lady. She came very unwillingly. 
 Her son brought her, but she was angry and would not 
 kiss him good-bye. 
 
 In the morning I found her crying in the parlor, and 
 one of the old gentlemen seemed concerned about her, 
 and asked what she was crying about, saying, "Are you 
 ill, madam?" 
 
 "111?" she answered, snappishly, "I've had enough to 
 make me ill, I have lost my son." 
 
 "When did he die?" 
 
 "He didn't die ; he was stolen from me." 
 
 "Indeed? Who stole him?" 
 
32 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 "A chit of a girl came between him and me, and my 
 heart is broken. I've been such a good Mother to him. 
 I did everything for him. I denied myself to buy him 
 things. When he was a little fellow, I bought him a 
 hobby horse and a goat carriage, and this is my reward, 
 after all that I've done for him." 
 
 "But why did you do this ?" 
 
 "Why did I? Why shouldn't I ? Couldn't I do as I 
 liked with my own child, and my own money? It was 
 the greatest pleasure in life to me, and he was always 
 so fond of me, till he married that horrid girl, and 
 brought her home, and expects me to take second place. 
 And I won't do it. Just think of it! He'll sit at his 
 supper and say to her, 'These biscuits are splendid, dear,' 
 right before me — when her cooking isn't fit to eat. And 
 he'll say he enjoys it ! What an insult to me ! And one 
 day she said, 'One of us must go. I can't live with you 
 any longer,' and I only found fault when I saw fit — but 
 he's fool enough to seem so happy with her, and loves 
 her as much as he used to love me. Yes, after all these 
 years, this is my reward." 
 
 "But, perhaps, cnadam, you have had a good reward 
 for all you have done for your son. Let us go back to 
 the hobby horse and the goat carriage. You said it gave 
 you great pleasure to see him enjoy them, and it made 
 you very happy, so that all that you spent was repaid 
 you a hundredfold. The memory of it can live with you 
 as long as you live and yet you deny him the satisfaction 
 of a wife and a home. I think, madam, that you are a 
 most selfish and ungrateful mother." And he left the 
 room. 
 
 Well, I remember that when some one referred to the 
 poem, "Over the Hill to the Poorhouse," a young lady 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 33 
 
 remarked, "I do believe that old woman was so disagree- 
 able that none of her children could live with her." 
 
 One of the faithful managers of St. Luke's Home once 
 said to me : "It is a pleasure to take care of most of the 
 old ladies in our Home, but, of course, there are excep- 
 tions. One dear old lady is constantly annoyed by her 
 next-door neighbor, who insists upon going to her room, 
 and won't give her any rest. The troublesome one sus- 
 pects that we will call her to account when our commit- 
 tee meets, and she always contrives to be out on that 
 day. 
 
 Such old people are like children, but we can punish 
 children, and we can't punish the old people. 
 
 Applicants began to press upon us, and we took the 
 lease of a house at Fordham, to accommodate the over- 
 flow. 
 
 It was at this time that Mrs. M. Fay Peirce, our Vice- 
 President, was much interested in the rescue of the Poe 
 Cottage in Fordham, and gave interesting readings from 
 the poet's works. Of her admirable work we shall speak 
 hereafter. 
 
 THE WONDERFUL CLOCK. 
 
 Among the peculiar people who drifted to our Home 
 about this time was a lady who owned a remarkable 
 clock. The maker of it had devoted many years to its 
 construction, with the hope that some Cathedral on the 
 American continent would purchase it. But the oppor- 
 tunity did not offer itself, and it became an elephant on 
 his hands. 
 
 Mrs. B. was the widow of a well-to-do business man, 
 a master mason, and she had many good friends among 
 
34 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 the Freemasons. Her husband left her a nice little for- 
 tune, and they advised her to invest it carefully under 
 their direction, so that it should bring her in a comfort- 
 able living for the rest of her lifetime. But Mrs. B. had 
 a strong spirit for speculation, and she put her money 
 into this big clock. 
 
 She imagined that she had found a big bonanza, and 
 that she would be able to dispose of it to great advan- 
 tage. Her idea was that Congress would purchase it 
 for the Capitol. But Washington did not want it, and 
 she soon began to feel the pressure of poverty. 
 
 The clock was on exhibition for a time, and when that 
 was over she was puzzled to know what to do with it. It 
 was of such an immense height that very few places 
 could accommodate it. 
 
 However, Mr. Joseph Lester, whose place was on 
 Broadway opposite Clinton Place, took pity on the clock, 
 and gave it house-room. It was there that I saw it. 
 
 Certainly it was a wonderful clock. It not only told 
 the times and the seasons, but the figures of the twelve 
 apostles came out to greet you while it chimed the hours. 
 
 But it did not sell. However, Mrs. B. was not a 
 woman to give up hope, for this clock was said to be sur- 
 passed only by that famous one at the Strassburg 
 Cathedral. 
 
 She now looked around for some one to make her a 
 loan on the clock, and finally found a lady who was (like 
 herself) very optimistic in regard to speculations, and 
 being delighted with the clock she loaned her a large 
 sum upon it, at a high rate of interest. Mrs. B. now 
 began to travel about, visiting prominent Freemasons in 
 various cities with a view to getting an introduction to 
 some Senator who would use his influence at Washing- 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 35 
 
 ton in getting them to purchase the clock. But finally 
 her money was all gone, and she drifted into our Home. 
 She was not able to pay the interest on the mortgage 
 of the clock, and the lady who loaned the money soon 
 became desperate, for, like Mrs. B., she also had put her 
 income into this venture. She came to see me to talk 
 over the matter, and asked me what I thought of her 
 investment, and what I thought she could do about it. 
 Of course I could not give her any advice. 
 
 Also, a little gentleman called on me and told me that 
 he was an old friend of Mrs. B. and had tried to help 
 her. And that it was he who had taken in the money 
 at the door when the clock was on exhibition, and that 
 it had cost so much to transport it from one place to 
 another, that it had eaten up all the profits of the exhibi- 
 tion, and that Mrs. B. hadn't enough money left to pay 
 him the few dollars she had promised him for his 
 services. 
 
 Mr. Lester had now moved up town, and the clock 
 had to go into storage — having been taken apart on ac- 
 count of its immense size, and it was fast eating itself 
 up in storage fees. 
 
 The Freemasons used every endeavor to urge Mrs. B. 
 to go into the Freemasons' Home, but her restlessness 
 would not allow of this, and she used to beg a few dollars 
 from one mason and another to enable her to go about, 
 still hoping to do something with her big clock. 
 
 On one of these occasions, she was away longer than 
 usual, and when I inquired about her, no one could give 
 me any information of her. So I never heard what be- 
 came of the big clock. 
 
36 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 In a few years, all the various professions had been 
 represented in our Home. Some had sunk into oblivion 
 and didn't wish their friends to know where they were. 
 I learned how sharp and keen had been the struggle of 
 life to the many. Also I saw that many had started out 
 with bright prospects and the highest ideals, but their 
 efforts had missed of achievement, and their lives had 
 been failures — and yet, perhaps, not all failures, for often 
 the output of a noble effort is more creditable than some 
 successes, and it may be that for all we know their work 
 may be counted as worthy a place among the immortals. 
 
 But some of our guests were cranks indeed. One old 
 lady persisted in disturbing everyone in her part of the 
 house at five o'clock in the 'morning by singing hymns 
 in a high, shrill soprano. She had edited the first 
 woman's magazine that had been published in this coun- 
 try, and was eighty years of age. 
 
 A LEARNED BOTANIST. 
 
 An old lady — a teacher and writer, whose published 
 work had made her known at home and abroad for 
 twenty years — used to make a sojourn with us every 
 now and then, whenever her purse strings drew her 
 towards us. She was a remarkably fine classic scholar, 
 was now quite aged, and had lost somewhat of her men- 
 tal poise, which rendered her eccentric, egotistical, and 
 overbearing. Her great delight was in giving lectures, 
 especially in botany — her great and favorite subject. To 
 give our household a lecture seemed to be her supreme 
 desire, and I decided to gratify her if possible. 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 37 
 
 After considerable urging and persuading, I managed 
 to get together an audience for the first lecture — there 
 were to be three in all. 
 
 It was a very warm summer, and all felt that they 
 were doing penance by spending the evening sitting un- 
 der the bright chandeliers, while she exhibited her speci- 
 mens and discoursed upon her favorite theme. The 
 second lecture was not so well attended, and when it 
 came to the third, the audience was sparse indeed. But 
 her zeal never flagged, and, to the surprise of all, every- 
 one who had attended was taxed with a bill of five dol- 
 lars, and as no one had any money, we were given to 
 understand that we were a set of ingrates who would 
 be to her everlastingly indebted. 
 
 A REMARKABLE INTELLECT. 
 
 One sultry summer day, a peculiar-looking old lady pre- 
 sented herself at our door. She had come from Kentucky, 
 had very little money, and had begged part of the way. 
 She looked travel-worn indeed. An old bag was strapped 
 over her shoulders. Her short skirt and cotton umbrella 
 reminded me of pictures of Alpine climbers with their 
 alpenstocks. I had heard of her literary work of a past 
 generation, and had received some intelligent letters 
 from her, but was unprepared to meet such a grotesque- 
 looking figure. She hadn't been long with us when she 
 began to write to prominent wealthy people, abusing 
 them for not making such use of their means as she 
 thought they should. Her letters were so attractive, as 
 she gave a long history of her past life, that several of 
 them brought responses to her appeals for help. One 
 lady sent her tickets for an excursion to the seashore 
 once a week, where a popular band played, and luncheon 
 
38 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 was provided at the hotel. She went only once, then 
 returned the tickets saying that the clubwomen did not 
 give her proper recognition. 
 
 Another lady wrote her, "I think that we don't under- 
 stand each other; come to my house to luncheon, and 
 we will talk matters over." When she returned she said, 
 "Such a spread for such a rich woman ; she ought to be 
 ashamed. Steak so tough I couldn't eat it." 
 
 "But then you haven't any teeth," I answered. 
 
 "Well, perhaps that was it," she said. "However, she 
 asked me what I wanted her to do for me, and I told 
 her that I wanted to have a little home of my own, and 
 that if she could let me have a monthly allowance, I 
 would take a little flat." 
 
 Now, this lady was going away for the summer, and 
 she sent her a check for three months. But the old lady 
 couldn't take care of money, and before the first month 
 was out, the whole three months' stipend was gone. So 
 she came back to us, much to my regret, for she de- 
 manded green vegetables for her breakfast, and was 
 always late to her meals. But she was a remarkable old 
 lady, and the accounts that she used to give of her in- 
 terviews with people were truly interesting. Once a lady 
 paid for her to spend a month at a country boarding 
 place ; she stayed a few days and then returned to write 
 letters of condemnation to her patroness, and to the 
 boarding house, which was not run according to her 
 idea. Her next move was to pass the civil service exam- 
 ination, and so well was she equipped, that it was sur- 
 prising in a woman of seventy-two years, and they gave 
 her a place in the post-office at Washington. 
 
 For a while, all went well. But the spirit of antago- 
 nism returned, and her dictatorial aggressiveness and ac- 
 tive pen began to attack those in high places, and she 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 39 
 
 was put out. For the first time, she showed some re- 
 gret at her conduct. I told her that our Home had also 
 come under the lash of her tongue, and that her ingrati- 
 tude had surprised and hurt me. "Well," she said, "I 
 am always doing these things, and then I am sorry after- 
 wards." 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 An old German professor — who had been the teacher 
 of the wife of one of our ex-presidents, and who wrote 
 me that she remembered him with a great deal of pleas- 
 ure^ — invested his savings of forty years in a farm which 
 in a short time proved an entire failure, and he came to 
 us penniless. He was fifteen years in our Home. 
 
 THE BROTHER AND SISTER. 
 
 A brother and sister had conducted a school in Brook- 
 lyn for many years. Finally, feeble health and the 
 weight of eighty years forced them to give up the strug- 
 gle. They passed sixteen happy years with us — the old 
 professor living to be ninety-six. The sister is still with 
 us in our Tenafly Home, has now been with us twenty- 
 two years. 
 
 THE PROTEGEE FROM ST. GEORGE'S. 
 
 At one time a singular case of jurisprudence came to 
 our notice through the St. George's Society. A Miss S., 
 an English lady, came from London with letters from 
 well-known people, introducing her (as a teacher of 
 drawing and painting) to the Vanderbilts and Astors and 
 
40 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 other prominent families. For a long time she had a 
 most prosperous career, and lived many years in a 
 first-class boarding house, and apparently, like many 
 others, lived up to her income and did not save anything 
 for her old age. However, the widow lady who kept 
 the house took a fancy to her, and promised to leave 
 property to her. But she died without a will, and a son 
 of the widow turned up. The lawyer who took charge 
 of the case told Miss S. that it was now hopeless, as the 
 son would claim his mother's estate. Miss S. was there- 
 fore thrown out of a home, and being without means 
 applied to St. George's Society for a passage to London. 
 While the arrangements were being made, the Society 
 boarded her at our Home. Then she left for England. 
 
 Some six months after, there came a ring at our bell, 
 and as I opened the door, to my great surprise, there 
 stood Miss S. The lawyer had sent for her, telling her 
 she had gained the case, and must come at once and 
 claim her property. The judge had decided that as the 
 son had neglected his mother, and had not come near 
 her for many years, and turned up only when she died, 
 that he didn't deserve her property, and there were many 
 guests in the boarding house who were witnesses to the 
 fact that she had promised to leave all that she possessed 
 to Miss S., and so it was accorded to her. 
 
 Another case drifted into our Home through a party 
 dying intestate. A lady took a little girl when only six 
 weeks old, and brought her up as her own daughter. 
 When she died, no will could be found, and a cousin 
 came forward and claimed the property. The judge de- 
 cided that as the widow had taken the child at such an 
 early age, she was the same to her as a daughter, and he 
 accorded her the property. However, the young lady 
 provided for the cousin as long as she lived, and al- 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 41 
 
 though the latter professed great love and gratitude to 
 her face, whenever she met her, behind her back she 
 would vow vengeance, and threaten to open the case 
 again, which she never did. 
 
 STAGE REMINISCENCES. 
 
 A Miss H., an aged English actress, drifted into our 
 Home. "I'd rather not come to your table," she said, 
 "let me make my cup of tea in my own room, and if you 
 will allow me a dollar a week, it will get me all the food 
 I want — all I've been used to have for years, and I can- 
 not take any more." And this was true, she never ex- 
 ceeded the dollar, but I prevailed upon her to take Sun- 
 day's dinner with us, at which time she would entertain 
 us with reminiscences of her early life. She was the only 
 child of a well-to-do London merchant, but she had a 
 burning desire to go on the stage. Mr. and Mrs. Charles 
 Keene lived a few doors from them. It was impossible 
 for a beginner to get on the London boards, but Mr. 
 Keene gave her a note to a manager in Bath, saying "Give 
 this girl a few lines and oblige, yours truly, Charles 
 Keene." With this, Miss H. started off in high glee for 
 Bath. 
 
 The first line assigned her was to say as she came on 
 the stage, "My lord, here's a letter for you." The re- 
 hearsal went off all right, but when Miss H. found herself 
 in front of a crowded house, with myriad eyes upon 
 her, her tongue seemed tied, and all she could get out 
 was, "My lul — lul — lul," but the actor quickly came to 
 the rescue, and in a few loud words covered the breech, 
 while she stole off to the dressing-room to cry herself 
 sick. When the performance was over, a young actress 
 came to her and said kindly, "Don't cry any more, I think 
 
$2 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 they will give you another trial. Tomorrow's Sunday, 
 come and spend the day with me." 
 
 This young actress was Miss Braddon, the future nov- 
 elist. She was what they called the utility woman at this 
 theatre, because she could take so many different parts. 
 Miss H. spent a pleasant day with her ; she lived with her 
 mother, her father was a gentleman who had offended 
 his family by marrying beneath them ; he had died or 
 deserted them, his family did not recognize them, and 
 Miss Braddon's earnings had to support them both. She 
 saw her visitor looking at some parcels in brown paper, 
 on a shelf over her bed, and said, "Those are manuscripts 
 of books that I intend to write. I generally write a 
 little every day as ideas come to me." 
 
 A daughter of Leigh Hunt was also in this company, 
 and Miss H., who used to visit them afterwards, used to 
 be surprised and amused to see such a moderate supply 
 of food on the table for so many persons; it contrasted 
 so strongly with the bountiful table in her own home. 
 
 In time, she found herself in London, and came in 
 contact with Boucicault. When acting with him, he 
 would insist upon dictating her costume, and demanding 
 everything absolutely new, and the actresses looked upon 
 him as a tyrant. Afterwards, she came with a company 
 to New York, and acted with Lester Wallack. 
 
 When too old for the stage, she taught elocution to 
 society girls, and wrote short stories of the stage. Then 
 she fell sick, at which time the Actors' Fund took care of 
 her, but she found it difficult to pay her way, although 
 she had learned to live on so little. For many years she 
 had impoverished herself by trying to hold on to the fine 
 old furniture of her father's London house, and Mrs. 
 Keene used to say to her, "My dear, your sticks will be 
 your ruin." From time to time, the St. George's Society 
 assisted her, until she came into our Home. 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 43 
 
 One day she said to me, "My wardrobe is worn out. 
 If I had a few suitable dresses and twenty-five dollars 
 to start with, I think I have a career before me, and 
 would not any longer be a burden to your Home." Now 
 for years it has been the custom of wealthy benevolent 
 women to send their cast-off garments to St. Barnabas 
 House, where they are sold to the poor for a mere baga- 
 telle. Sometimes, a beautiful evening dress that has cost 
 a hundred dollars or more is sold to an Italian woman 
 for a dollar. I knew of this, and went there and selected 
 a goodly supply of articles for Miss H., much to her de- 
 light, and with the twenty-five dollars she took up her 
 abode at Asbury Park and spent the summer in reciting 
 at the hotels and cottages, and made some friends. One 
 of them engaged her to remain in their cottage and take 
 care of their dogs until the next season. 
 
 The first winter was a long and severe one, and she 
 suffered much from the cold. But she was brave and 
 stood it out, thankful for a box of groceries and a bottle 
 of wine that we occasionally sent her. I have met her 
 in summer on the boardwalk in a pretty dress now wear- 
 ing out that had once graced some lady at Newport or 
 Lenox. She was fond of attending church, and in the 
 latter days of her life was kindly cared for by the ladies 
 of the Episcopal church at Asbury Park. 
 
 THE VIOLINIST. 
 
 Mentioning the clothing sold at St. Barnabas House, 
 brings to my mind a little incident : 
 
 A young man had offended his family because he had 
 no taste for business, his violin was his idol which he 
 practiced with much zeal. There was something very 
 refined and spirituelle about him, and he was retiring and 
 rather reserved and timid at meeting strangers. 
 
44 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 His mother, who was a widow, was very much like 
 him. However, she did all she could to help him in his 
 musical career. At one time his apparel was not fit to 
 appear in the house of a wealthy lady who had engaged 
 him to play at her evening party. 
 
 I gave his mother a note to the St. Barnabas House, 
 and the modest little lady was delighted to be able to 
 secure for a couple of dollars just what he needed, in- 
 cluding an overcoat which he said made him imagine 
 himself a millionaire every time he put it on. 
 
 THE SEMI-INSANE. 
 
 One of the most troublesome cases that we had to deal 
 with was a young woman who had been a teacher in very 
 good standing, and who was introduced to us as being in 
 very poor health and in need of a rest. 
 
 She had evidently had a sort of upset through a love 
 affair. She discovered that the young man was intem- 
 perate, and so gave him up. Also, a gentleman whom 
 she seemed to respect very much, made her an offer, but 
 he was a great deal older, and she could not make up 
 her mind. He was very well-to-do, but she could not 
 overlook the disparity of age, and yet she didn't want to 
 give him up. This indecision had made her ill, and while 
 she was in our Home she received notice of his death. 
 
 This had a disastrous effect upon her. Her temper 
 became so violent at times, as to make her uncontrollable. 
 Her egotism was extreme. She took intense dislikes to 
 people in the Home, and they looked upon her as semi- 
 insane. 
 
 "It's a mercy she never married," one of the old ladies 
 used to say, "for there would have been the funeral of 
 one of them right off." At times she would be tractable 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 45 
 
 and docile, and insist on helping me in various ways, but 
 the assistance was always spoiled by her irritability. We 
 were puzzled what to do with her. 
 
 She always talked of property that should come to her 
 in White Plains; her father had owned, she said, the 
 building belonging to the Eastern States Journal, and 
 that her lawyer was fighting her case in the courts. It 
 was her constant theme of conversation, and became her 
 great obsession. 
 
 From the way she talked of it, it seemed impossible to 
 doubt the truth of it. She was so sure of coming into 
 possession of this property, that she made her will, so 
 that in case of her death, this property would come to 
 the Home. To meet the expense of drawing up this 
 document, and also for other things she was in constant 
 need of, she depended on me for a succession of loans. 
 She went every week from Saturday to Monday to Ma- 
 maroneck, where she would call on her doctor. He 
 did not charge her anything, but I had to furnish the 
 money for her board, which was with an old friend of 
 her family, who were not willing to entertain her with- 
 out being paid for it. She had a married brother who 
 didn't do anything for her, and so she remained with 
 us year after year, always saying to me, "What you do 
 for me will all come back to you ; there is no doubt 
 of it." 
 
 She was very fond of good clothes, and as the seasons 
 came round would have violent fits of temper if she 
 could not renew her wardrobe. Finally I found these 
 loans too great a strain upon me ; also I began to doubt 
 the truth of her story. So one day I went to the court 
 house in White Plains, and found her lawyer. When 
 I made known my errand, he smiled and said, "My dear 
 woman, it is all a fabrication ; her mind is in ruins." 
 
46 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 Not wanting to talk to her in person, I wrote a letter 
 telling her I could not continue the loans, and put it 
 under her door. To my surprise she met this matter in 
 a strangely philosophical attitude. She assumed the air 
 of an injured person, and became sarcastic. She applied 
 for a position in a country school and obtained it. As 
 soon as she was left to her own resources for money, she 
 could wake up and earn her living. But her egotism 
 was so extreme that it would not admit of a word of 
 gratitude for the Home that had taken care of her so 
 many years. 
 
 I have often felt that I deserved to be laughed at for 
 placing credence in her story; I should have investi- 
 gated it long before. But let us remember that peculiar 
 case of the Humberts in Paris, where the wise heads of 
 bankers and diplomats were for years deceived by a 
 woman ; and this instance is a sort of consolation to me. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A PHILANTHROPIST DECEIVED. 
 
 A gentleman asked us to receive into our Home a 
 Miss V., an authoress. I knew the lady, I had read 
 some of her books — she had made translations of the 
 best foreign literature. She had submitted to him the 
 manuscript of the first chapters of a work she was writ- 
 ing. He told me it was a marvel of cleverness — a poem 
 in blank verse, and he believed nothing better had been 
 written since "Paradise Lost." He urged her to finish 
 it by all means, and he would get it published, that there 
 was a fortune in it. She told him her mind was too dis- 
 turbed to allow her to write, as her means had run out, 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 47 
 
 and she couldn't pay her board. Hence, his appeal to 
 us to take her free of charge, which we did. The book 
 was to take her three months to finish. I gave her one 
 of our best rooms. In less than a week, she came to me 
 and said, "I can't write a line here ; I must get back to 
 my old environment, where I started the work, the in- 
 spiration won't come to me anywhere else." 
 
 Her former abode was a first-class boarding-house on 
 Madison Avenue, where she had a top room at twelve 
 dollars a week. As this was over twenty years ago, when 
 boarding was not so high as now, this was an extrava- 
 gant price for one in her circumstances. However, Mr. 
 D. was so impressed with the merits of her work, and 
 so anxious to see it completed, that when she said she 
 could not do with less than two hundred and fifty dol- 
 lars, he finally wrote the check, saying that he could ill 
 afford to do so, and hoped it would soon be returned. 
 She was one of three sisters in the South, and used to 
 receive her portion of the income of the estate periodi- 
 cally, but she had no just value for money and was gen- 
 erally in debt. "Do look after her," Mr. D. said to me, 
 "and hurry her up with that work." 
 
 In a month, I called upon her. "How much have you 
 done?" I asked. She took out some manuscripts and 
 said, "Oh, you mean the old poem, don't you ? I haven't 
 written a line of it — an idea came to me and I began a 
 better one. Let me read it to you." It was a poem 
 in verse, a sort of epic she said. It was beautifully writ- 
 ten, its metre smooth and flowing and her command 
 of language — always her strong point — was apparent 
 throughout. But the subject matter was far-fetched 
 and outlandish. An unhappy woman wished to expiate 
 her sins by going to live alone in a desert, and her pen- 
 itence was so sincere, and her prayers to the Deity so 
 
48 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 eloquent and earnest that the wild beasts listened to her 
 and never came near her. But the poem was not fin- 
 ished, so I never knew what became of this woman. 
 
 However, in four months, Mr. D. demanded the 
 manuscript completed or his money. As neither was 
 forthcoming, he seemed desperate, and determined to 
 prosecute her. She pleaded her own case so eloquently 
 and made her excuses so plausible, that the judge dis- 
 missed the case. This was evidently one of those cases 
 where the mind had lost the power of continuous work, 
 and would run off to something new. 
 
 A singular case presented itself, of an aged artist and 
 sculptor, a protege of Mr. D. Chester French, who said : 
 "This man has been a genius in his time." 
 
 One day when I went to his room, I counted seven 
 fine little sketches and begged him to finish one for me. 
 "Oh, no," he answered, "I'll paint you something much 
 better. Get me a canvas," mentioning a certain size. I 
 sent for the canvas at once. It was in his room for 
 years with only a background painted upon it, and never 
 touched again. 
 
 A LESSON IN PRONUNCIATION. 
 
 An American gentleman who was an editor, lecturer, 
 and humorist, used to drift into our Home whenever he 
 was short of small change as he expressed it — and this 
 happened very often. He was one of those who could 
 be submerged for a time, and lost sight of, and then 
 bubble up again apparently none the worse for his bath. 
 Every now and then he would meet with what he called 
 a streak of luck, when some one wanted him to give a 
 lecture. 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 49 
 
 With a half-brother of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, 
 he had travelled around the world — they had together 
 published the first newspaper in China in the English 
 language. They made good money, but our friend was 
 extravagant, and Mr. Beecher dissolved company, I 
 presume he had found it an unprofitable partnership. 
 
 Our lecturer now wound his way home to New York 
 — calling at various seaport towns in foreign lands, 
 where English and Americans resided, and he often had 
 an opportunity to give one of his lectures upon China 
 and other countries. He always preferred work to idle- 
 ness, and he often did clerical work for me. 
 
 One evening, when he was writing out something for 
 me, he said, "I have often been complimented on my 
 oratory, on account of my good voice and my clear enun- 
 ciation, and one night my pride received a terrible slap — 
 a knock that I shall never forget. The audience was a 
 large and fashionable one, and when I stepped down 
 from the rostrum, several came around me to congratu- 
 late me on the success of the lecture, but one old gentle- 
 man called me aside and said with a twinkling in his eye, 
 as he lowered his voice — "But, my dear sir, you made an 
 awful slip-up when you were talking of the poor wretch 
 who was hanged — you said 'gallows,' and the right pro- 
 nunciation is 'gallus.' I felt awfully taken aback. I 
 couldn't have felt worse if they had kicked me out of 
 the town. I offered no protest, but went on shaking 
 hands, though I would like to have had the floor open 
 and swallow me up. That night, as soon as I got back 
 to my hotel, I couldn't go to bed till I had hunted up a 
 dictionary, and looked up the word gallows, and there 
 to my dismay I found that the old gentleman with the 
 twinkling eye — was right. 
 
50 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 "I was asked to repeat the lecture, and I knew that this 
 same old gentleman would be sitting in the front seat, 
 anxious to hear what I would say when I came to that 
 sentence about the gallows. But I was determined that 
 he shouldn't have the satisfaction of triumphing over 
 me, so when I came to that part of my story I used the 
 word gibbet, and have stuck to that word ever since." 
 
 He confessed that his life had been a failure, because 
 he could not control his appetite for stimulants. The 
 last time he was with us (which was some three years 
 ago) he had spent his last few dollars trying to organize 
 a company for people to save a few dollars per week, 
 so that when the next big national exhibition was given, 
 they could each draw from the bank two hundred dol- 
 lars to take them to it. This is as near as I remember 
 the scheme. Some of the friends of his deceased wife 
 helped him occasionally, and finally he started out with 
 great expectations of the success of this new enterprise — 
 The Exhibition Company. He was to be the president. 
 "People smile when I present my plan to them," he said 
 to me, "but I am sure it's a go." 
 
 However, he was now an old man, and getting feeble, 
 and as I heard no more of him or this Exhibition com- 
 pany, we concluded that he had been called to another 
 world. 
 
 I believe he was a perfectly honest man, and generous 
 to a fault — when he had it, but he never could take care 
 of money. 
 
 PATTl's VIOLINIST. 
 
 Mr. Nichols, of the Brooklyn Bureau of Charities, 
 asked me to take into our Home an old musician who 
 had been a violinist in Patti's orchestra. He was over 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 51 
 
 ninety years old, and spoke very little English. He 
 had married a young Italian woman who had supposed 
 that he had money saved up. When she found he had 
 nothing, she turned him out, and he lived a while by 
 begging. He was a quiet, gentle old man, but had not 
 been accustomed to the bath, which rendered him some- 
 what troublesome to us. 
 
 At that time Madame Patti was in New York, and I 
 appealed to her to do something toward his support. 
 Her secretary said that Madame Patti was supporting 
 quite a colony of poor musicians in Wales, and that was 
 all she could do. 
 
 However, Mrs. Ditson, the wife of the music pub- 
 lisher, called to see me. She said that her father-in-law 
 had left seventy-five thousand dollars to be invested for 
 the benefit of poor musicians, and out of this fund she 
 contributed to our Home fifty dollars toward the sup- 
 port of the old violinist. 
 
 After a while the old gentleman became so very help- 
 less that he needed hospital care, and our doctor thought 
 it was best to place him in the Italian Hospital, where 
 they could talk to him in his own language. But he 
 was so unwilling to leave us, that nothing but the co- 
 operation of the Italian priest could accomplish this. 
 
 "But he is so angry with me," said the priest, "that 
 I am afraid he will not send for me when he is dying, 
 and that will be so bad for his soul." 
 
 However, we got him into a better temper by telling 
 him that perhaps he would get well and then he could 
 return to us. 
 
 The good old priest had wonderful patience with this 
 poor old man. 
 
52 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 About this time two young medical students from the 
 Flower Hospital asked to come to our Home. One of 
 them was very pleasant and full of cheer, but everyone 
 remarked how gloomy and moody his companion was, 
 and one evening when it was very stormy, he was seen 
 going out with quite a burden under his arm. 
 
 "What is that, that he is carrying?" asked some one 
 who was looking out of the window. "Ah, that is his 
 secret," said an old gentleman who had won the confi- 
 dence of this morose-looking young man. "That is his 
 trombone. He has to play that in the evening in order 
 to pay Miss Fisher the four dollars a week for his board. 
 That other merry fellow receives every month a nice little 
 pink cheque from some lady-love, whether mother, sis- 
 ter or sweetheart, I do not know, but this is the secret 
 of cheerfulness, and his merry moods." 
 
 In due time, these young men graduated and went 
 their way. We saw no more of them. 
 
 One day, the old gentleman, who was their friend, 
 showed us at the dinner table, the wedding cards of the 
 merry young doctor, and leaning over to me, he whis- 
 pered, "Just as I suspected, the lady's name is the same 
 as that which used to appear on those little pink cheques 
 that used to make him so happy." 
 
 THE YOUNG PALMIST. 
 
 One of the curiosities of our Home was the son of an 
 Episcopal clergyman who had been expelled from col- 
 lege. An older brother, who was the main bread-winner 
 of the family, wouldn't have him at home, and he had 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 53 
 
 turned him out. His mother was in great distress about 
 him, and she thought that perhaps I could find him 
 something to do in our Home. I had known this lady 
 for some time ; she was the almoner of one of the Van- 
 derbilts, who kept her supplied with the necessary means 
 for various charities, and she always spent one day a 
 week among the sick patients of the poorhouse on the 
 Island, supplying them with delicacies and other necessi- 
 ties for their comfort. Sometimes she saw abuses which 
 she exposed, and she often labored there under difficul- 
 ties, but still she worked on, and gave faithful service 
 in the good cause. 
 
 I saw how anxious she was about this son of hers ; 
 she said she believed that cigarettes had been his ruin, 
 as they had dulled his brain, and prevented him from 
 studying; so, although I expected very little helpful 
 service from this young man, for her sake I decided to 
 give him a trial. I fully expected to find this ne'er-do- 
 well a lazy fellow. 
 
 But, to my surprise, he proved to be quite the con- 
 trary. He was wonderfully handy with various kinds of 
 tools, and always anxious for something to do, and was 
 very jolly and good-natured in offering help to any one. 
 If he smoked cigarettes, he never did it when I could 
 see him. When he could find nothing else to do, I some- 
 times found him entertaining some lonely sick old man 
 by reading and talking to him. 
 
 I never saw him reading but one book, and this was 
 a work on palmistry, and that would be when we were 
 sitting together in the evening, some with sewing, read- 
 ing, or card-playing. 
 
 He had a number of little papers or charts, and I 
 asked him what they were, and when he showed them 
 to me I found they were drawings of various hands. He 
 
54 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 pointed out all the various lines, saying, "I suppose you 
 know that no two hands are alike — just the same as no 
 two feet are alike, the lines all tell something." 
 
 "Can you read palms?" said one of the ladies. 
 
 "Of course I can," he answered. 
 
 That evening he read several palms. The next morn- 
 ing at the breakfast table one of the guests whispered 
 to me: 
 
 "There is something uncanny and very curious about 
 that young man, Mr. Francis. He doesn't pretend to 
 tell the future, but he does tell you things of your past 
 life, which have long been forgotten, by some way or 
 other he brings it all up to you. Of course I told him 
 that it was all nonsense, and I laughed at it, but I could 
 see that he firmly believed that he was telling me the 
 truth. And so he was." 
 
 One evening, as we sat together, one of the guests, 
 a woman of about sixty, said to him, "I wish you would 
 read my palm; you see my hand is all full of lines, and 
 wrinkles. What can you see there?" He leaned over it, 
 and spent some time talking to her. 
 
 A few days after that she remarked to me: "When 
 that young Francis was reading my hand, this is what 
 he said to me : 'At one time you had some new friends 
 who opened to you a new religion, which interested you 
 at the time. They did not come to you by water; they 
 came an overland route of three thousand miles.' I told 
 him I had never been interested in any new religion, 
 that I would have thought it a disgrace — that I had al- 
 ways been staunch to the faith of my forefathers. But 
 he was very positive, and said, 'But you certainly did; 
 I am sure of it.' I laughed and told him it was all non- 
 sense, and bade him good night. 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 55 
 
 That was four days ago, and lately, only yesterday, 
 there dawned upon me this remembrance. It must be 
 forty years ago. I was boarding in the same house with 
 two gentlemen, a father and son; the latter had come 
 East to study law. He and I were often thrown to- 
 gether, and we became very intimate. I admired the 
 young man very much ; I liked him better than any other 
 that I had met, there was so much that was frank and 
 ingenuous in his nature, and he told me of his college 
 life in Salt Lake city." 
 
 I fairly jumped, saying, "Oh, dear, you must have 
 been among the Mormons." 
 
 "But didn't you know we were Mormons?" he asked. 
 "I thought my father had told you ; he boarded here be- 
 fore I came." 
 
 It was a great shock to me ; I knew he had come from 
 some part of the West, but I did not know where. I 
 found that his father was one of the Mormon mission- 
 aries, that he had come to New York to meet a ship full 
 of those deluded people whom they had gathered in 
 various parts of Europe — mostly of the peasant class. 
 
 The young man said to me, "You see I have been 
 born a Mormon, and I can tell you all about us." He told 
 me how earnestly they were working to get Utah ad- 
 mitted as a state — that his father had three wives, that 
 each wife had her own home, that his mother was the 
 first wife and that the children of each wife took for 
 their middle name the name of the mother. He gave 
 me a copy of the Mormon Bible, called the book of 
 Mormon, and explained that it had been written under 
 curious inspiration ; also he gave me the "Life of Joseph 
 Smith," the first Mormon and martyr, who sacrificed his 
 life during those massacres in Missouri when the Gen- 
 tiles and the Mormons waged war upon each other. 
 
56 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 Then they had a large book of Covenants, but, strange 
 to say, he didn't seem to know anything of that terrible 
 Mountain Meadow Massacre, which is a fact in our his- 
 tory. The Mormons had been very careful to keep this 
 out of their records. "I never heard of it," he said. 
 They published a paper which he received regularly and 
 used to give it to me to read. 
 
 At last his father took his company on to Utah, leav- 
 ing the son behind to pursue his legal studies. I saw 
 him once after that, and that was to say good-bye to 
 him. "I suppose you will some day be like your father 
 with two or three wives,'' I remarked, and he answered, 
 "It is my duty to take a second wife as- soon as I can 
 support another, and so on. It will depend entirely how 
 many I can afford to support." 
 
 "I expect it doesn't cost very much to do that," I said, 
 "for it is a pastoral country, and they all work." 
 
 "That was the last I saw of my Mormon friends. It 
 is now some forty years ago, and they had gone so en- 
 tirely out of my life, that it is not strange that I could 
 not remember until some circumstances occurred to re- 
 fresh my memory." 
 
 Sometimes we gave a fair for the benefit of the Home, 
 and we found young Francis very useful. He was so 
 active and willing to do anything to help us. He used 
 to read palms, and he so amused some of the ladies that 
 they would hire his services when they gave an evening 
 party, and made his palm-reading part of the entertain- 
 ment of the evening. For this he always received ten 
 dollars, and sometimes more. He had the well-bred 
 manner of the gentleman, was quite good-looking, al- 
 ways dressed neatly, and he always made friends. 
 
 This was when our Home was in St. Ann's Avenue, 
 and the Presbyterians were building a church in our 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 57 
 
 neighborhood. The young minister used to come to 
 us on Saturday, and spend over Sunday with us. At 
 one time they gave a bazaar to raise a fund for the fur- 
 nishing of the church, and many of us attended it. 
 
 Young Francis devoted much time in getting it ready. 
 He furnished the booths and arranged things with very 
 good taste ; he fitted up an alcove bearing the sign "palms 
 read, fifty cents." 
 
 The minister brought his young wife, whom we had 
 never seen, and her sister, a delicate-looking young 
 woman who expressed herself much pleased with the 
 affair, and her sister said to her, "Now, Carrie, you must 
 have your fortune told — come and have your palm read ; 
 every fifty cents is a help you know." And she brought 
 her sister to Francis who was dressed up for the occasion 
 in full Oriental style. 
 
 There was a good deal of laughing as the young lady 
 gave her hand to the palmist, with her sister sitting beside 
 her. "I am going to stay and hear what it is like," she 
 said. 
 
 Now I was sitting at the door taking the money, and I 
 could not hear what the palmist said, even if I had wished 
 to do so. But he seemed to tell her quite a good deal. 
 
 Suddenly the young lady jumped up, tried to draw her 
 hand away and said, "Oh, don't! That's enough, please 
 stop." 
 
 I looked in to see what was the matter, and saw the 
 elder woman with her arms thrown around the sister 
 while she said, "Oh, Carrie, is that true? Were you 
 there? Did you really do that?" 
 
 There was only a sob for the answer, as she led her 
 sister away. The people were now beginning to crowd 
 in. The minister's wife was soon absorbed by her many 
 
58 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 friends, and when I looked for Miss Caroline I found her 
 in a quiet corner looking very disconsolate. 
 
 "I am afraid you are not enjoying this very much," I 
 said, "and you look cold, it is such a very severe frost 
 tonight ; perhaps you took a chill, let me get you a cup 
 of something warm." 
 
 "Oh, no, it was not that," she whispered, "but that 
 dreadful young man told so much about me that I didn't 
 want my sister to know. If I could only have laughed 
 it off, it would have been all right, she would have 
 thought it nonsense, but you see I was so shocked — I was 
 so unprepared to hear it, that I gave myself away. Now 
 my sister will be asking me all sorts of questions." 
 
 This quite spoiled our evening, for I felt very sorry 
 for the young lady, and I told Francis how much I re- 
 gretted it. He opened his eyes wide, saying, "Well, that's 
 just how it is, but in future I shall insist upon our being 
 alone. But as they were sisters I thought it didn't mat- 
 ter." 
 
 A SHORT LIFE LINE. 
 
 I am giving these little facts for what they may be 
 worth. Near our Home was the large handsome labora- 
 tory of Scheiffelin & Co., and one of the chemists, a 
 young Scotchman, was one of our guests. He was a 
 splendid specimen of young manhood, with a fine 
 physique, and very bright and intelligent. He was a 
 very jolly young fellow, and often amused us with his 
 anecdotes and stories. Now Francis was always very 
 glad of a new hand to examine, and one evening said to 
 the Scotchman: 
 
 "What a strong paw that is of yours ; let us take a 
 look at it. The young man laughed, and held out his 
 hand. Now Francis had a very impulsive, spontaneous 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 59 
 
 way of speaking when an idea occurred to him, he spoke 
 out at once, without apparently giving himself any time 
 to consider. He studied the lines of the hand that he 
 held for a little while, then suddenly he burst out, "Oh, 
 you can't make old bones, your life line is cut right short 
 near the beginning." The young Scotchman laughed, 
 and made some comical remark, which caused others to 
 join in the laughter. 
 
 Then there was a game at whist, and no more was 
 thought about it. Some three weeks after, the young 
 chemist did not come down to breakfast on the Monday 
 morning. As he was in the habit of spending Sunday 
 out of town we supposed that he had gone straight from 
 his train to the laboratory, but later in the day one of the 
 chemists came to inquire about him, thinking that he was 
 ill. They burst open the door of his room, and found 
 him sitting on the bed — dead. 
 
 He had died of heart disease, while in the process of 
 making his toilet. 
 
 The sudden death of the young chemist, and the cir- 
 cumstances connected with it, made a deep impression 
 upon every one. 
 
 As we sat together in the evening, several made some 
 reference to it. "That prediction of the palmist was 
 wonderful," said one of them. An old gentleman whom 
 they called the philosopher only smiled, "I see nothing 
 wonderful in it," and turning round from the chess- 
 board where he was playing, he continued, "It is very 
 probable that the young chemist knew he had a weak 
 heart; he may have been warned that he might drop off 
 at any time. This may have been in his mind when he 
 gave his hand to Francis, and it was simply a matter of 
 mind-reading, no matter by what name you call it. Also 
 in the case of that young lady at the fair. Her recent 
 
6o THE STORY OF THE 
 
 experiences had made a marked impression upon her 
 mind, and that also was a case of mental telegraphy or 
 mind-reading." 
 
 THE WIDOW'S SON. 
 
 Now, in my opinion, the fact that Francis could delve 
 down into the memory of that lady with her Mormon 
 experience, is the most wonderful of all. Let me tell you 
 a story which has lately occurred to me which bears upon 
 this subject. 
 
 A widow lady had an only child, a bright, good-looking 
 boy, and it was her greatest anxiety that he should have 
 a good education and be worthy his father's name, but 
 he could not learn his school lessons. Though intelligent 
 in other respects, and not at all a lazy boy, he was always 
 at the foot of his class. Even the multiplication table 
 was a very uncertain quantity with him. Whatever' he 
 learned he seemed to forget five minutes afterwards. 
 His mother worked over him unceasingly, and devoted 
 all her spare time to him, going over every lesson with 
 him. Toward the end of the school term the schoolmas- 
 ter came to her with a suggestion. 
 
 "It seems to me that your boy Charlie could learn this 
 poem, and recite it when we have our closing exercises. 
 He has such a splendid voice, and such a clear enuncia- 
 tion, and he would make such a fine showing on our 
 platform if only he could learn it." 
 
 The widow was so gratified with these words that she 
 was tempted to say she thought Charlie might be able 
 to recite the poem. He had just two weeks to learn it. 
 Day after day she labored with him, offering him a re- 
 ward if he succeeded and a punishment if he failed, but 
 all to no purpose, Charlie could not learn the poem. If 
 he got one verse right today, by the time he had learned 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 61 
 
 the next he had forgotten it. Finally, one night, in her 
 agony of disappointment, she fell on her knees, and gave 
 out a great cry, and sank weeping on the floor. The boy 
 had never seen his mother cry before ; it was a shock to 
 him and he cried long and pitifully. 
 
 When his mother had spent her tears, she raised her- 
 self exhausted, and said, "Now go to bed." She went to 
 her room, but it was late before she retired, and before 
 she put out her light she went into the little room adjoin- 
 ing to see if Charlie was tucked up for the night. To 
 her astonishment he was sitting on the bed half un- 
 dressed, his eyes wide open, and throwing his arms 
 around her he said, "Oh, mother, I know it all now, I 
 can say every word of it." He repeated the poem with- 
 out a mistake, and then pieces of history which he had 
 tried to learn but had failed on, and rules in grammar, 
 and portions of geography lessons, all poured from him 
 now as though his pent-up memory was finding relief. 
 
 Now how would you explain that? 
 
 Elizabeth Bisland advances the idea that there are 
 forces within and without us that we know not of, be- 
 cause our faculties are as yet too undeveloped to recog- 
 nize them. Some are born with a keener mentality, more 
 vital force than others, their receptive organs are more 
 alive and alert. We are told that every event of our 
 lives is engraved on the memory, that nothing is lost — it 
 may be forgotten for years, but it is there. Think what 
 a keen ear some little children have for music, while 
 there are intelligent men with hearing so dull that they 
 have never been able to whistle a tune. 
 
 As to the little boy, some force in the agonized pain of 
 the mother met a receptive chord in the mind of the child 
 and woke up the images in the storehouse of memory. 
 
62 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 As the ages roll on, it is possible that there will be won- 
 derful developments. What did we know of wireless 
 some years ago? We have evidence that clairvoyance is 
 a fact and not a fancy, and why should there not be clair- 
 audience as well? 
 
 One of the guests, a lady who had been listening in 
 silence now remarked — "This reminds me that we read 
 in the life of Charlotte Bronte that she declared she once 
 heard a voice come to her from a distance of many miles, 
 and when one of her friends doubted the truth of it she 
 said most earnestly, "but indeed it really did happen 
 once.' 7 
 
 "I quite believe it," said our philosopher. 
 
 a prisoner's friend. 
 
 The Charity Organization Society asked us to take 
 into our Home an old lady, as a gentleman whom they 
 knew would guarantee fifteen dollars per month for her 
 support. She had a quantity of white hair and we always 
 called her Mrs. White. 
 
 She told me that her son was in prison. He had robbed 
 his employer, who was a kind man; he had done a great 
 deal for the youth, but it was not the first time that he 
 had been dishonest, and while he thought best to have 
 him convicted, he was willing to take care of his old 
 mother, and it was he who was going to pay her board. 
 
 A very stylish-looking middle-aged lady used to come 
 to see Mrs. White, and this she told me was Mrs. Moli- 
 neux, whose son was also in prison. 
 
 At this time there was a celebrated poisoning case be- 
 fore the courts. Roland B. Molineux, who was tried for 
 the murder of Mrs. Katharine Adams, was in Sing Sing. 
 Mrs. White said that her boy and young Molineux had 
 become great friends and that young White had asked 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 63 
 
 Mrs. Molineux to call at our Home to see his mother, and 
 that Roland Molineux was writing a book about his prison 
 life, which his mother would publish — that her son was 
 the one who was writing the book, although young Moli- 
 neux was giving him the incidents, and would call him- 
 self the author and would give him no credit for it. 
 
 Some of the guests complained that whenever Mrs. 
 White visited in their rooms they missed some little ar- 
 ticle which was of value to them, and it occurred to me 
 that she might be a kleptomaniac. One lady missed a 
 silver keepsake and she worried considerably ; and in or- 
 der to recover it, if possible, I spoke privately to Mrs. 
 White about this loss, inquiring, "Will you allow me to 
 look in your trunk?" 
 
 "Certainly," she said very willingly, and immediately 
 unlocked her trunk. 
 
 But what was my surprise to find that it contained 
 over one hundred little parcels, all tied up so tightly and 
 neatly, that it would 1 have occupied too much of my time 
 to search for the missing article. She saw how surprised 
 I was at such a trunk full of tied-up articles. "I always 
 keep my things like that," she said, with a little laugh. 
 "You may open them all if you like." 
 
 But I knew it was impossible, so I did not attempt it, 
 and had to give her the benefit of the doubt. 
 
 But the money for Mrs. White's support which was to 
 come to us through the Charity Organization Society 
 stopped coming. Dr. Divine, the secretary, wrote me 
 that the gentleman had left New York and they did not 
 know where to find him. Mrs. White seemed to regret 
 this very much, and she told me that she had another son 
 in the State of Maine, and she gave me his address. I 
 wrote to him, and he arranged to come to take his 
 mother home with him, which he did. But the loss of 
 
64 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 the money which was now over one hundred dollars was 
 a great disappointment, and it worried me. 
 
 Knowing that Mrs. White's benefactor was a very kind 
 gentleman who would not wish me to lose the money he 
 had promised for her support, I employed a collector to 
 look him up, and after some delay the money came all 
 right. The gentleman was surprised that the Charity 
 Organization Society had not taken the trouble to get a 
 letter forwarded to him. However, the money was con- 
 siderably depleted by the collector's fee and travelling 
 expenses. 
 
 We would suppose that a corporation like the Charity 
 Organization Society, equipped with so many agents and 
 clerks, would be able to do business on a better basis, 
 for this was certainly a very slipshod affair. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A POLISH PHYSICIAN. 
 
 One of the most peculiar and troublesome of our old 
 men was an aged Polish doctor, who, like many an- 
 other, had worn out all his friends, and exhausted all his 
 resources before he consented to go into a Home. 
 
 He had posed as a converted Jew, and for all we know 
 may have been sincere in his change of religious faith. 
 However, on account of his extreme poverty, he was 
 glad to work them for all they were worth, one denomi- 
 nation after another, and each church claimed the credit 
 of having converted the aged Hebrew to their particular 
 belief. Each of them saw the necessity of getting him 
 into some Home, which he obstinately refused to con- 
 sider, and finally they all gave him up as a hopeless case. 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 65 
 
 His last venture was to interest a band of ladies who 
 had formed a society of Spiritualists. According to his 
 own story, one day, while taking a walk, he wandered 
 into a hall to rest, and found himself at a Spiritualistic 
 seance. The medium came to him, and told him that 
 she was instructed to place a harp before him, which 
 she did, and she ordered him to play something upon it. 
 He told her that he had never played any instrument in 
 his life. However, they told him to put his arms around 
 the harp, which he did, and immediately the harp played 
 the national airs of Poland, his native country. He was 
 weak and tired, and hungry, and as the harp went on 
 playing, he sat and wept. He told me that the music 
 brought back to his mind the years of long ago, when 
 he was the only child of well-to-do parents, who gave 
 him every advantage in their power, sent him to two 
 colleges, and afterward furnished him with money by 
 which he travelled the world over, until it was nearly all 
 gone, and then he settled down in the poor neighbor- 
 hood of the Polish Jews, on the East side of New York 
 City. 
 
 When these ladies saw the poor old man weeping, 
 as he sat clinging to the harp, their kind hearts were 
 touched, and they took him at once into their keeping. 
 When they had investigated his story, they concluded 
 that he had a claim upon our Home, and they came to 
 see me about it. I went to see him ; he was living in a 
 rear building, in a little dark room where he was keep- 
 ing house after a fashion of his own. His neighbors, 
 who seemed to be almost as poor as himself, often took 
 him in a portion of their slender dinner, and swept up 
 his apartment for him. After considerable persuasion he 
 consented to come to our Home. 
 
 About four o'clock one morning, I was suddenly 
 
66 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 awakened out of my sleep by a loud rap on my door. 
 Thinking the house might be on fire, I jumped up and 
 went to the door. There stood one of the old ladies in 
 nightgown and kerchief, a most disheveled appearance, 
 with a frightful look on her face, saying : 
 
 "Oh, my dear, that old man you brought here last 
 night has made an awful smell up on our floor, and lots 
 of smoke comes from under his door. Something must 
 be on fire in his room." I rUshed up stairs. The old 
 man was very deaf, but finally he heard a pounding on 
 his door and let me in. 
 
 In a corner was an oil stove which he had smuggled 
 in among his belongings. This stood On his washstand, 
 and something he was frying on it' seemed like some sort 
 of fish and garlic, which gave but a most stifling and 
 disagreable odor, while one side of the wall was black- 
 ened with the smoke. "What does all this mean?" I 
 asked, when I had blown out the stove and opened the 
 window. "My dear Madam," he began with a very po- 
 lite gesture, "it has always been my custom to get up 
 and make my eatings at four o'clock in the morning. 
 I cannot wait till your breakfast time." 
 
 "We must try and make some other arrangements," 
 I said, and I thought everything would be all right when 
 I gave him some milk and some crackers and cheese in 
 a tin box for his four o'clock "eatings." But the next 
 morning they awakened me again, saying there was such 
 a strong odor of gas coming out of his room that they 
 thought he had decided to commit suicide, and had 
 asphyxiated himself. Expecting to find .him stretched 
 on his bed dead, I turned his key around with a pin, 
 pushed it out on to the floor, and went in. He was sit- 
 ting in his armchair contented enough, munching his 
 crackers and cheese, and drinking his milk, which he had 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 67 
 
 heated over the gas, and had probably blown it but with- 
 out knowing enough to turn it off. 
 
 We found it impossible to take care of him, and it 
 was a puzzle what to do with him. It seemed too un- 
 kind to send him to the almshouse. He had spent some 
 of the best years of his life among those very poor coun- 
 trymen of his, attending their sick, and often receiving 
 nothing in return but a bowl of soup, or a cup of coffee, 
 because they had nothing more to give, and the neigh- 
 bors had told me that he would get up in the middle 
 of the night whenever they called upon him for his ser- 
 vices as a physician, and we decided he deserved some- 
 thing better than the poorhouse. We therefore decided 
 to send him to St. Johnland, which we could do for one 
 hundred and fifty dollars per annum, so we paid the 
 quarter's board in advance, and were glad to see him 
 shipped off to that excellent institution. 
 
 Here he could not shut himself up in a room, for each 
 old man has an alcove, and is constantly under the super- 
 vision of an attendant. But no sooner had the three 
 months expired, than I received a letter informing me 
 that the old doctor was sent back to us, and I had 
 scarcely finished reading the letter when I saw him com- 
 ing up the stoop with an attendant carrying his valise 
 in one hand, and helping him along with the other. 
 "What has been the trouble?" I asked, but the man only 
 raised his eyebrows and was silent. 
 
 There was so much that was interesting in this poor 
 old man that I made one more effort to provide him 
 with a domicile, so I took a furnished room for him on 
 the West Side among some poor people, paid his rent 
 a week in advance, and gave him some money for his 
 "eatings." But before the week was up the agent came 
 to me and said, "You must take away your old man, 
 
68 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 Madam, he shuffles around so early in the morning, and 
 wakes people up, and we can't stand it." 
 
 My last effort was to place him in the Montefiore 
 Home, sore against his will, and he remained there until 
 he died. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE STUDENT OF COLUMBIA. 
 
 One day a lady in deep mourning called to see me. 
 She seemed to have been in deep trouble, for her voice 
 trembled as she tried to tell me her story. It appeared 
 from the references which she brought me that her fam- 
 ily were well-to-do people in a country town in the dis- 
 tant State of Iowa. After retiring one night, a happy 
 wife and mother, she awoke the next morning to learn 
 that her husband had committed suicide, having found 
 himself bankrupt through some bad investments. 
 
 "Why did you not remain in Iowa where you were 
 known and respected?" I asked. "The journey must 
 have cost a great deal." 
 
 "My son had a burning desire to enter the School of 
 Mines at Columbia, and I have an old friend who could 
 help him to a scholarship," she answered, through her 
 tears. "They have accepted his drawings which he sent 
 in. But the question is, how are we going to live in the 
 meantime? The smallest apartments are so expensive 
 and our money is fast dwindling away." 
 
 "But you said you had a daughter. What is she do- 
 ing?" I asked. "Ah! my daughter, she is studying to 
 be a trained nurse. We both love the boy so much, we 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 69 
 
 would make any sacrifice to help him through. When 
 we first came on to New York, I opened a boarding 
 house, but I did not succeed. I have a dread of getting 
 into debt, so I stored my furniture and took a small 
 apartment. I heard of you at the Woman's Exchange. 
 The lady there was very kind to me. She sold a quan- 
 tity of my home-made pickles, and she told me that my 
 pies were the most delicious they had ever eaten." 
 
 "And so you make pickles and pies?" said I, smiling, 
 "but don't cry any more, that won't help you at all ; let 
 us get down to business. Don't keep your things in 
 storage with such a poor prospect before you. It's the 
 most miserable way of eating up money. Are you mak- 
 ing pickles and pies now?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, but my stove is so small, that when I have 
 an order for pies, I have to sit up all night, because I 
 can bake only one at a time. I never let my piecrust 
 touch bottom. I turn my plate upside down and cover 
 the crust over it. It makes it like a shell, into which I 
 put my fruit or mincemeat. I suppose you never made 
 pies that way?" 
 
 "No, indeed," said I, "but it makes me hungry to hear 
 you talk of it. However, my time is precious, and as I 
 am always interested in young students, I will make 
 you this offer. By crowding up a little, I can accom- 
 modate you with a couple of rooms where you can 
 bring some of your furniture, and I will give you your 
 board for such service as you may be able to render 
 in my household work; I am often short of help, like 
 most housekeepers of moderate means, but you must 
 be willing to do as I do. There is nothing in house- 
 work that I have not done since I started this Home a 
 few years ago. I have lighted the kitchen range, and 
 started the breakfast, I have scrubbed the kitchen floor, 
 
70 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 I have washed at the washtub, and was as happy as any 
 bride starting a new home." 
 
 "Oh ! do let me help you !" cried the widow. "You 
 will find that we have no false pride. Let me scrub your 
 kitchen floor." "Well, no, not at present," I said, laugh- 
 ing, "but I shall get some paint, and you and your boy 
 can paint the rooms which you are going to occupy, for 
 one of them used to be occupied by an old Polish physi- 
 cian who used to get up at four o'clock in the morning 
 and make what he called his 'eatings' over a little oil 
 stove which he had smuggled in. I am now paying for 
 him at St. Johnland, because he used to go to sleep and 
 leave the stove smoking until the wall is as black as my 
 shoe." 
 
 Before long, this happy mother and son were domi- 
 ciled. I found their services very useful. When the 
 daughter was off duty at the hospital, she helped me take 
 care of the sick. The son helped to keep my books and 
 he used to . carry our funds to the treasurer, and the 
 widow often did the cooking. He also went to Wash- 
 ington Market for me. He was a good caterer, and could 
 make better bargains with the trades people than I could. 
 
 She was delighted with our spacious ovens, where she 
 could bake her pies whenever she had an order. I gave 
 her a high closet where she could hide away these tempt- 
 ing delicacies. 
 
 They remained with me until the boy got through Col- 
 umbia. He is now at a mining camp out West, and I 
 know from his letters that he has had to be pretty brave 
 to endure the hardships of his career, but he knows he 
 will soon be making a comfortable home for his widowed 
 mother. 
 
 This youth is a nephew by marriage of a big banker 
 who was imprisoned for embezzlement. He was liber- 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 71 
 
 ated upon the plea of four physicians who declared that 
 he had only a very short time to live. After his releasee 
 he confessed that it cost him four millions of dollars to 
 get free. Whether all this went to the doctors or part' 
 of it to some one higher up is a question. 
 
 I saw in the Literary Digest that he had regained his' 
 health, and was doing business as before. I wrote to* 
 him, asking for a contribution of ten dollars for ouf 
 Home. He answered in a polite letter saying that he" 
 could not afford to do this. 
 
 THE WRITER OF POEMS. 
 
 We were in the habit of giving two weeks' hospitality 
 to as many as we could accommodate who could not 
 afford to pay for it, and one day a middle-aged lady- 
 called and said she had heard about our Home at the 
 Woman's Exchange, and that she was a writer who 
 would be grateful for the change of air and environment, 
 as it might afford her some inspiration on the volume 
 of poems she was working on and getting ready for pub- 
 lication. 
 
 There was something very frank and pleasing in this 
 little lady, although she impressed me as rather a simple- 
 minded woman; but as two weeks was not a very long 
 period, I thought we could afford to grant the same to 
 this applicant. 
 
 She came the next day, and at once gave me some of 
 her "poems" to read. She thought perhaps I might be 
 kind enough to get them typewritten for her. I tried 
 to wade through a few of the papers, but of all the simple 
 stuff that I had ever seen with very poor rhyme and de- 
 void of all reason, they certainly capped the climax; 
 
72 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 Mother Goose riding on a broom-stick through the 
 clouds was something mat went ahead of them. 
 
 The following week her brother-in-law called on me. 
 He said she had a mania for writing verse, which had 
 two great disadvantages, as it took her time from the do- 
 mestic work of the home, where he had a sick wife and 
 several small children; also she was hoarding up her 
 little income in order to publish her "poems," instead of 
 putting her money into the family exchequer, and he was 
 a Methodist minister on a small salary. 
 
 I told her I thought she was needed at home to super- 
 vise the housekeeping, as they could afford very little 
 help, and she said, "f know it is hard for them, but you 
 see it would be this way, just as I was washing the dishes, 
 or making a pie, a sudden thought would come to me, 
 and I would have to drop everything and go up to my 
 room to write it out." 
 
 At last she went home, but in a few days she appeared 
 with a worried look upon her face saying, "What do you 
 suppose has happened, all my poems have been destroyed 
 in a fire." 
 
 "Oh, dear, how did it happen?" I asked. 
 
 "It is the greatest mystery," she answered. "My 
 brother-in-law said he went up one evening to the attic 
 to smoke his cigar by the open window, and he thinks he 
 must have put his lighted cigar on the box where my 
 poems were. Some one wanted him down stairs, and 
 when he came back the box was on fire and the poems 
 were all destroyed. The mystery is that nothing else 
 took fire, for the attic is full of all sorts of rubbish. You 
 see, it is such a loss, for I can never write them over 
 again, and there is nothing like them in the book-stores" 
 — and she wiped away a tear. "It will always be a mys- 
 tery how it was that the most valuable thing in the attic 
 was the only thing that was destroyed." 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 73 
 
 But this mystery could have been solved very probably 
 by her brother-in-law. 
 
 SOME ODD INCIDENTS. 
 
 A miserly old lady came to board at our Home, bring- 
 ing with her a maid, a young woman who was a cripple, 
 who didn't receive any wages, but was glad to have a 
 home. Now, at this time we had with us an old jour- 
 nalist, who had been many years on the New York 
 papers, and some of the Press people paid a low rate 
 of board for him through the Charity Organization 
 Society. The old lady became interested in him, and 
 they spent their evenings together. No one else seemed 
 to like him, for he was a most untidy-looking object, 
 intemperate in his habits, and given to much boasting, 
 and the telling of enormous falsehoods. However, the 
 old lady took a flat, and they were married. Her rela- 
 tives were furious, for they knew she would leave her 
 property to him. She lived only a year afterward, leav- 
 ing a will in which she bequeathed all to her husband. 
 But it was found that her signature gave only her 
 maiden name. The will had been drawn immediately 
 after the marriage, and she had forgotten to sign her 
 married name, so her will was null and void. This was 
 a great gratification to her relatives. 
 
 The Charity Organization Society knew of the work 
 that our Home was doing, for we often received a needy 
 one whom their agents sent to us. I knew that this 
 Society had social workers — ladies and gentlemen who 
 gave their time to philanthropic work — and I asked Dr. 
 Divine, the Secretary, to introduce to me two or three 
 who would serve on our Board of Managers, and in- 
 terest themselves in the work, and among the names 
 
74 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 he gave me was one Dr. Henry Oppenheimer — said to 
 be an eye-specialist. Dr. Divine said there was an old 
 gentleman, a Dr. Wiener, who had some valuable land, 
 and it was his intention to give a portion of it to some 
 institution — and that he and Dr. Oppenheimer were inti- 
 mate friends. 
 
 Dr. Wiener was a dear old gentleman of about eighty 
 years, he had often sent us valuable books, and once when 
 I said to him, "I wish you were better acquainted with 
 our Home," he answered : "I know all about your Home, 
 I am satisfied with it because it is non-sectarian." 
 
 I was now in hopes of our having a building for our 
 Home. These new members were acquainted with Dr. 
 Wiener, and I was very glad when he began to come 
 to our meetings. 
 
 But Dr. Oppenheimer proved to be a most undesir- 
 able member, and it was through him that the Home 
 lost the support of Dr. Wiener ; for these two gentlemen 
 could not work together. Dr. Oppenheimer was so ag- 
 gressive and domineering, and so unwilling for us to 
 receive any poor people into our Home, unless they had 
 money at the back of them, that we refused to agree to 
 his rules, for they were contrary to the spirit of our 
 association. When he found that Dr. Wiener would not 
 give the land, he and his friends resigned. 
 
 But he was not content with this, he circulated the 
 report that he had left us because there was so much 
 in the management of the Home that he disapproved of. 
 
 We were determined to have him face this accusation 
 and tell what he knew, and for this purpose I went to 
 Dr. Divine, and asked him to permit a committee of us 
 to meet Dr. Oppenheimer at his (Dr. Divine's) office, at 
 such time as Dr. Oppenheimer could be present. I felt 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 75 
 
 this was only just to us, since Dr. Divine had introduced 
 this man to us. 
 
 The appointment was made and agreed to by Dr. 
 Oppenheimer. We were all on time, and with Dr. Di- 
 vine, sat waiting his coming. 
 
 But he never came. Dr. Divine 'phoned to him, but 
 he answered back that he couldn't come, and must be 
 excused. 
 
 We made another attempt to meet him at his house, 
 but he would never show his face. 
 
 Dr. Wiener said, "I am ashamed of him." 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE TWO SISTERS. 
 
 One of the most comical characters that we ever had 
 in our home was a young woman ,who had a mania for 
 speculation. Wonderfully industrious and kind-hearted, 
 she was always anxious to do good from her own pe- 
 culiar point of view. She had a sister, and a brother 
 who had been an Episcopal clergyman in Canada and 
 was sent on a vacation to England by his congregation. 
 Here he met a wealthy English lady whom he married. 
 He had been in the habit of providing his sisters with 
 twenty dollars per month each toward their support, ex- 
 pecting them to do something themselves to add to their 
 maintenance. But their peculiar choice of occupation 
 was always something antagonistic to any opportunity 
 that offered itself for this purpose. 
 
 In the first place, they could not live together. Emma, 
 the elder of the two, conceived the idea that she was like 
 Joan d'Arc, and that she had an inspiration from 
 
;6 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 Heaven. But whereas patriotism inspired the French 
 maid, it was theology that inspired this Miss Emma. 
 
 For nine years she had shut herself up in a little house 
 by herself in Dedham, near Boston, to make a new ex- 
 position of the Scriptures, and to add to them what she 
 considered was sadly missing. She found they did not 
 balance. Three wise men who came from the East to 
 worship the infant Christ must, she thought, be balanced 
 by three wise women from the West. In Noah's ark 
 they all went in pairs even to the smallest birds, because 
 Noah, like herself, understood that all things should 
 balance. 
 
 She found that the Deity was not perfect, there should 
 be Father, Mother, Son and Daughter — that the Holy 
 Spirit was feminine. But certainly this idea did not orig- 
 inate with her, for it had been floating around the world 
 for ages. But that there was a fourth Deity seems to 
 have been her own conception. She now came to New 
 York intending to give lectures. 
 
 The two sisters took a flat together, but not being 
 able to live in harmony they soon separated. Each took 
 a flat, which absorbed nearly the whole of their slender 
 income, and they were often in financial straits and be- 
 hind with their rent. 
 
 Their brother continued to send the money regularly, 
 but it came to them once in three months, and as a gen- 
 eral thing, most of it would be used up by the end of 
 the first month. 
 
 The younger sister, hearing that her brother's wife 
 was a wealthy woman living in good style, was deter- 
 mined to go and make her acquaintance, and become one 
 of her brother's family ; this she thought she had a right 
 to do, without waiting for an invitation. 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 77 
 
 Her brother's wife received her very kindly, although 
 she was astonished to see her. But when her brother 
 came home and found her there he was furiously angry, 
 and told her to pack up at once and return to New York, 
 or she would never have another dollar from him. She 
 had spent all her money, and had nothing left to bring 
 her back, but he soon bought her a ticket, and shipped 
 her off. She was pleasing in appearance and being a 
 lady to the manner born, she always managed to make 
 friends where she could go to pay a visit. 
 
 The elder sister, Emma, had determined to follow her 
 to England and claim the same right of living with their 
 brother's family. But when she heard of the cold re- 
 ception her sister had received, and how angry her 
 brother was, she became too frightened to venture. 
 When she was about to be ejected, she took a position 
 in our home to be generally useful at ten dollars per 
 month. She was very industrious, but was strongly 
 impressed with the notion that she must uplift the ignor- 
 ant, and I often found her after dinner, seated on the 
 kitchen table, the help standing around her, while she 
 expounded the Scripture, or some part of hygiene or the 
 sin of eating animals, for she was a strict vegetarian. 
 
 At the end of three months she had thirty dollars, and 
 to have so much money and not speculate with it was 
 beyond Emma's control. So she gave me notice at once 
 that she must leave me, and take a flat, as she intended 
 to go into business. I inquired what business she in- 
 tended to venture in. "Merchandise," she said, "I shall 
 keep a store ; you must come to see it." 
 
78 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 EM MA'S ECCENTRICITIES. 
 
 One summer evening I went to see Emma. She was 
 living in a newly opened section of the Bronx, had taken 
 a flat on the ground floor, and in the window I saw the 
 "Merchandise" offered for sale. There were footstools 
 made of three tomato cans, and ingeniously upholstered, 
 also pincushions made over fruit cans, but as she had so 
 little money to purchase material, the cloth used was 
 often a piece of bed-ticking on the footstools, and a 
 piece of washed-out ribbon often graced the pincushions. 
 She was full of hopeful smiles when she welcomed me, 
 and I tried to reason with her, and show her that her 
 wares were not attractive. "But they are so very cheap," 
 she said. "I am giving all my time and charging only 
 for the goods." 
 
 I went through her apartment ; it was wretchedly bare. 
 To me it was something pathetic. A young woman in 
 the prime of her womanhood, well educated, who had 
 been accustomed to the best in her parents' lifetime, now 
 an object of the deepest pity. 
 
 There were the Indian swamis taking the city by 
 storm, and the most intelligent people flocked to hear 
 their views of theology, which were not half so interest- 
 ing as much that fell from the lips of this young woman, 
 but for the want of some agent to push her, she had 
 no opportunity of being the fad of a day. But Emma 
 was not unhappy ; to practice austerities was one of the 
 rules of her life, and she viewed with some satisfaction 
 a poor little cot bed, her lame rocking chair, and her 
 table made out of a board on top of a barrel which held 
 her belongings. 
 
MARY FISHER HOME j 9 
 
 "But what are those figures on the wall ?" I asked. 
 
 "The illustrations of my allegory," she answered, with 
 a smile. There were the three wise men from the East, 
 and as Emma was not a very good artist, one could not 
 help being reminded that man is fearfully and wonder- 
 fully made. Opposite them were the three wise women 
 of the West. "One is your portrait," she said, "and the 
 others are my sister and myself." Now as both the 
 sisters were very good-looking women, I could hot, find 
 fault with the caricature of myself that adorned the wall, 
 and any one of us might have represented the Witch of 
 Endor. 
 
 While here in this little flat, she took in an old lady 
 who had been turned, out by one of the tenants because 
 she could no longer pay , her board. Emma gave up 
 her own little cot bed, and laid herself on the floor. She 
 was always doing a kindness for some one. But finally 
 the non-payment of rent stared her in the face again, 
 and she and the old lady were turned into the street, 
 and my portrait with others adorned the sidewalk, with 
 the "merchandise" for company. 
 
 All the neighbors were sorry for Emma; they looked 
 upon her as a lady a little bit crazy. They took charge 
 of her few belongings, the janitor stored them away for 
 her in his cellar, and again ,she came to me. Again she 
 worked faithfully and well, but as soon as she had saved 
 thirty dollars she was again seized with the desire to 
 speculate with it. 
 
 She took a very nice flat on Fourth Avenue, paid 
 down a deposit and spent nearly all her money in second- 
 hand furniture to equip her rooms for taking lodgers, 
 keeping the little kitchenette for herself. But as so 
 many people let furnished rooms the applicants who 
 
80 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 answered her ad in the paper did not find her place at- 
 tractive. 
 
 One day a beggar woman with a baby in her arms 
 rang her bell. She told a tale of woe, and Emma, be- 
 lieving the Lord had sent them to her, took her in and 
 shared with her the best she had. But the baby was 
 sick and cried in the night, and the tenants overhead 
 complained that their rest was disturbed on account of 
 it. The owner, who lived in the house opposite, came 
 over in high dudgeon to investigate, and when he 
 learned the facts, he said, "What does this mean? I 
 thought you were a single woman living alone, and this 
 beggar and her brat may give the house the smallpox, 
 or the diphtheria. What is that horrid odor of oil? 
 Where does it come from?" He looked around, and 
 found in a corner a kerosene stove made out of three 
 tomato cans. "Mercy upon us, you'll set the house on 
 fire," he added. 
 
 The next thing I heard of Emma was that she and 
 her lodger had been put out on the sidewalk, and the 
 Charity Organization Society had been notified. 
 
 One of the agents of that Society came to me, for 
 Emma always referred people to me when they wanted 
 to know anything about her. I explained that the 
 trouble was that she received her allowance from her 
 brother every three months, and that she never could 
 make it last. So that Society communicated with the 
 Charity Organization of London, which arranged with 
 the brother to send the money to them, and now the 
 sisters receive their portion through this Society, and 
 live each of them in one of those two-roomed apart- 
 ments, and pay by the week. 
 
 Now that their income is doled out to them in such 
 small installments, there is no longer the opportunity 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 81 
 
 for Emma to get into those terrible straits which she 
 was always falling into. 
 
 When I called upon her I found her very happy, still 
 working on her allegory. She considered that the thou- 
 sand years of peace prophesied to us are now at hand, 
 that Satan has been bound long enough, and will there- 
 fore be set free. 
 
 I could not understand exactly where he is expected 
 to locate himself, but she is sure that he will not be able 
 to trouble us any longer. Her work is a curiosity to any- 
 one who could give their time to wade through it. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 SOME QUEER HELP. 
 
 Often I smile as I look back and recall some of my 
 comical experiences with some of my help. As economy 
 had to be studied to the letter, I often found it an advan- 
 tage to employ out-of-work young men, as they were 
 cheaper than women. The Y. M. C. A. often supplied 
 me with a bookkeeper out of work, who was glad to have 
 a comfortable home and small wages — seven dollars per 
 month was the average pay. Of course, they were often 
 very awkward, and made a sorry spectacle, and I had to 
 be with them most of the time. For more than a year, 
 I had a young man in the laundry doing all the coarse 
 washing, and he learned to iron quite well. He had been 
 in the real estate business. He kept up a correspondence 
 with a former employer who came to see me and said, 
 "I am so glad to find that he has overcome the drink 
 habit ; I shall take him back to my office again." 
 
82 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 We had one very severe winter, and when I advertised 
 for a useful man, there would be a line reaching half way 
 down the block. Early one very bitter morning, the cook 
 called to me saying, "I let the first two in, they seemed 
 most perished. You ought to take that first one ; he says 
 he got up at four o'clock this morning and then walked 1 
 a mile to look in the newspapers, and has walked from 
 way down town. Now, I didn't like the look of this No. 
 i, and the honest face of No. 2 appealed so much to me. 
 However, I permitted the cook's volubility to overcome 
 my judgment, and I dismissed No. 2 with a cup of coffee, 
 and took No. 1. 
 
 Later in the day, the cook shouted to me to come quick, 
 that the new man was raising ructions in the kitchen and 
 that he lived only round the corner. 
 
 Once a French-Canadian answered my "ad." — a neat, 
 good-looking young man. I found that he had an apti- 
 tude for cooking, like many of the Latin race, and I 
 taught him to make the bread. Very soon he was able 
 to do the cooking. He made a fine looking "chef" in his 
 white apparel. He was very reticent about himself, and 
 I often wondered what he had been. One day, when he 
 came to me for his wages, he noticed a book that I was 
 reading entitled "Eastern Monasteries." He lingered a 
 while, and I found that he knew considerable of monastic 
 life. He told me that he knew of a monastery where the 
 monks were all very old men, and that a young monk who 
 went there found the diet so frugal that he didn't get 
 enough to eat, and he ran away. I thought that per- 
 haps he was that young man. "I am so glad that he ran 
 away," I said. He was silent awhile, as if reflecting. 
 Finally he said, as he shook his head mournfully, "But 
 his soul will go to hell." He used to admire a pretty 
 young nurse-maid on our block, and would follow her to 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 83 
 
 church. She left our neighborhood, and he became 
 moody and more silent than ever. One day he came 
 and gave me notice that he must leave. He had been 
 with us over three years. Whether he followed the girl, 
 or whether, like the escaped monk in "The Garden of 
 Allah," he returned to the monastery to save his soul — 
 we never heard. 
 
 THE MYSTERY IN THE NIGHT. 
 
 But once something occurred that was a source of 
 great perplexity to me. Some one used to go round in 
 the middle of the night and knock loudly on the doors 
 of the sleepers. This was generally between two and 
 four o'clock in the morning. We could think of no one 
 who was an enemy to the Home intent on doing us such 
 mischief. An old gentleman who was a spiritualist was 
 sure it had supernatural agency. Finally, I sent to the 
 Society for Psychological Research, and they soon solved 
 the mystery. It was the last person in the world that I 
 would have suspected — a dear old lady very much in 
 need of a home. She had been sent to us by Mr. Hilton, 
 the editor of the Home Journal; he had known her hus- 
 band, who was an author. When left a widow, she had 
 tried to support herself by keeping a lodging house, and 
 it was an important part of her work to knock on the 
 doors of milkmen and car conductors in the morning 
 before daybreak. She was a somnambulist, and all our 
 efforts failed to control her, and we were compelled to 
 dismiss her. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 SOME WORTHY SUFFERERS. 
 
 One of the saddest cases of poverty that came to my 
 notice was that of an aged sculptor and his paralyzed 
 
84 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 wife. It had happened to him, as it does to all in the 
 profession, when no longer able to keep his social posi- 
 tion, he was dropped out, and younger men filled his 
 place although his work stood in the Central Park, and 
 in the homes of the wealthy. He had sunk into poverty 
 and oblivion from no fault of his own, nor anyone's fault 
 apparently. Their neighbors, seeing their distress, noti- 
 fied a charitable society, and finally their agent paid their 
 rent regularly to the landlord. A poor neighbor, living 
 on charity, found that they often had nothing to eat all 
 day, but two little potatoes. Then she spoke to her 
 church people about it, and through their deaconess, we 
 heard of them. As soon as the case was known, kind- 
 hearted people responded to the call headed by one of 
 our prominent American sculptors, and an entrance fee 
 was raised for them, and they came to our Home. 
 
 How much they suffered in silence was apparent, for 
 they had scarcely any belongings, nearly everything had 
 been parted with, and although they made a neat appear- 
 ance, we were shocked to find that during that cold win- 
 ter, they had scarcely any underclothing. The wife was 
 a charming little lady, and it was touching to see her hus- 
 band's devoted attention to her as her nurse which he 
 had been so many years. It was this that had taken so 
 much of his attention and helped to break him down. 
 Once she said to me, "Your Home is like a fairyland, 
 sometimes I'm afraid I shall wake up and find it a 
 dream." 
 
 One morning the mail brought me a letter with the 
 following message : "Look back to some years ago, and 
 you will remember Miss R., — once a popular principal 
 in one of the large public schools of New York. She is 
 now in the Flatbush insane asylum — but she is not in- 
 sane. She is there through some mistake. Go to see 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 85 
 
 her and judge for yourself." I went. Her handsome 
 face bore traces of melancholy and suffering, but she 
 greeted me with that gentle, amiable, cultured manner 
 which had always been her charm. 
 
 "How did you come to be here?" I asked. "I don't 
 know," she answered, "but surely I ought not to be in 
 such a place as this." 
 
 I learned that she had been living all alone in a little 
 flat, when suddenly her money seemed to have given 
 out, and she was found sitting in a sort of dazed condi- 
 tion, without fire or food. Her landlady got a carriage 
 and took her to Flatbush. 
 
 I felt sure that she was not mentally deranged, and 
 after the necessary preliminaries, a day for her release 
 was set, and I was allowed to bring her away to our 
 Home. 
 
 I was curious to know how she came to resign her 
 place in the school, where she held a good position so 
 well assured, for I had inquired at the Board of Educa- 
 tion, and was told that her record was excellent. So one 
 day when she seemed stronger, I broached the subject 
 to her. 
 
 She looked at me with her sad, melancholy eyes, and 
 was silent awhile, finally she said, "Oh, my dear, I have 
 closed the book, don't ask me to open it again — it is 
 too sad." 
 
 But the world is small. I happened to mention her 
 name to a family where I was visiting one day, and they 
 remembered living next door to her for many years, 
 when her family was in its prosperity. Her brother was 
 one of the commissioners of the Board of Education, 
 a bachelor well-to-do, and he lived at home with his 
 mother and sisters. They lived handsomely in a house 
 which they owned. 
 
86 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 Anna was the youngest sister, and a born educator, 
 a well read woman, of broad culture. She was a large 
 woman, rather commanding in appearance, but with a 
 very sweet face. Now, a handsome man, who called 
 himself a broker, came into her life, and with what 
 seemed the brightest prospects, they were married. 
 They travelled about a great deal, he always seemed 
 to have plenty of money. Finally, Anna was tired of 
 so much journeying, and wanted to settle down at home, 
 which he was reluctant to do. She began to wonder 
 what his business could be, for he spent most of his 
 time on steamboats and trains. At last her brother dis- 
 covered that he was a professional gambler. Broken- 
 hearted, for she was very fond of him, she left him at 
 once, came home and resumed her maiden name, and 
 never wanted to hear of him again. Her life was now 
 a wreck, but her family sheltered her with loving care, 
 and she buried herself in her books. The brother, who 
 was the mainstay of the family, died suddenly. In a 
 few years, the sisters followed, leaving Anna with the 
 care of her invalid mother, a large, heavy woman, who 
 required a capable nurse. The income began to shrink 
 away, then the house had to be mortgaged, and finally 
 it had to be sold under foreclosure. After her mother's 
 death, she removed to Brooklyn and tried to support 
 herself by teaching music, which failed of success. 
 
 Often she would take hold of me as she met me on 
 the stairs and say, "I want you to know how much I 
 appreciate what you have done for me." 
 
 And if our Home had done nothing more than to 
 shelter this unfortunate woman — I should feel that it had 
 not been founded in vain. 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 87 
 
 THE OLD ARTIST. 
 
 J. Wells Champney, the artist, often interested him- 
 self in the needy whom he met with in his profession — 
 sometimes it was one of his models, and he would write 
 me, "I believe this to be a good girl, adrift in this big 
 city; do what you can for her." 
 
 At one time it was an old artist who had been his 
 teacher when he was a young man studying in Paris. 
 His work had once been among the best, but now in 
 his old age, his brain was affected, and his paintings 
 were mere caricatures. He was most eccentric in his 
 conduct. A gentleman allowed him his loft, which he 
 made his studio, and where he lived in the most 
 grotesque manner, clotted up with all kinds of curios — 
 skulls and bones, each of which he said had a history. 
 He was strictly temperate, but couldn't take care of 
 money. What Mr. Wells Champney gave him for food, 
 often went for some canvases or some brushes, and 
 so the only thing to be done, was to arrange with a res- 
 taurant to provide him with two good meals a day. But 
 no one restaurant would suit him for both these meals. 
 To settle the matter, I had to arrange for his breakfast 
 in Third Avenue, and for his dinner in Eighth Avenue — 
 quite a distance apart. But his physique was strong, 
 and he was a great walker. 
 
 As soon as we had a vacancy, we took him into our 
 Home at Tenafly. Good Mrs. Champney raised some 
 three hundred dollars as an entrance fee. 
 
 One morning he lighted some wood in his slop-jar, 
 and went out to take a walk while his room got warm. 
 Fortunately, the fire was discovered in time to save the 
 house. 
 
88 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 He had a religious mania, and used to walk miles to 
 a particular church, carrying a heavy Bible and con- 
 cordance strapped to his back like a knapsack, and re- 
 turn home late in the afternoon — always contented with 
 the cold dinner left for him, provided he had sugar 
 enough to put in his water. He said he had acquired 
 this habit while living in France. 
 
 He persisted in arranging three stones where people 
 would stumble over them to remind them of the Trinity. 
 He soon cluttered up his room with all sorts of oddities, 
 picked up in his long rambles. Sometimes I would say 
 to him, "But I think this must have been stolen," and 
 he would answer, "The Lord put it in my way." 
 
 Finally I told him I wanted him to come with me to 
 talk about paintings to a gentleman, and in this way I 
 got him to Bellevue to be examined for his sanity. I 
 had to remain in the room while he was confronted with 
 the charges that I had preferred against him. He 
 owned up to all his antics, giving a religious reason for 
 every one, putting in, now and then, a text of Scripture, 
 and questioning the doctors as to their belief in a per- 
 sonal devil, very much to their amusement. They de- 
 cided to keep him, and from there he was sent to the 
 insane hospital on the island. But we kept track of him. 
 When I went to see him, I said, "It's so nice for you to 
 have a room to yourself." "But they always make you 
 leave the door open," he answered, "and, beside, they 
 don't put enough sugar in the puddings, and I can't 
 get any hair dye to make my hair its natural color." 
 
 MOVING THE HOME. 
 
 About this time we received a legacy of one hundred 
 dollars. A lady of very small means boarded with us 
 for a while at four dollars per week. She seemed to be 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 89 
 
 very happy with us. But she became very ill, and her 
 relatives took her away. After her death, I was much 
 surprised when her brother wrote me that she had re- 
 quested him to send us this amount. 
 
 The property on St. Ann's Avenue was to be sold, 
 and we found it impossible to find a house large enough 
 to accommodate us, so we had to take one on Grand 
 Avenue at Fordham, and another at Crestwood. This 
 division of housekeeping with its separate menage was 
 expensive and more difficult to supervise, and the strain 
 began to tell upon me. Finally Miss Laura Saunders 
 found us a large house on Gramatan Avenue, Mt. Ver- 
 non, and by altering it to our purpose, we were able to 
 make it our Home for the next eight years. But, the 
 heavy rent, the improvements and the repairs were a 
 drain upon our resources, and it was impossible to save 
 anything toward a new building. 
 
 However, we made some new friends among the good 
 people of Mt. Vernon, and Mrs. James Harcombe was 
 our faithful Treasurer. 
 
 A DIAMOND WEDDING. 
 
 Those who can look back far enough, will be able 
 to recall a wedding at St. Patrick's Cathedral, when 
 the daughter of a prominent captain of the navy was 
 married to a count who had immense wealth in sugar 
 plantations in Cuba. This was long known and talked 
 of as the "Diamond Wedding," for the tall, handsome 
 bride was a blaze of diamonds — the wedding gift of her 
 husband. 
 
 Upon the death of her husband she made an unfor- 
 tunate marriage with a sort of adventurer, and this was 
 her undoing. Her property in Cuba was many years in 
 
po THE STORY OF THE 
 
 litigation, and, finally, when the Cubans were released 
 from the Spanish yoke, she went to Cuba expecting to 
 work her immense sugar plantation herself, or sell the 
 property. But failing to find a purchaser and not hav- 
 ing the necessary money to pay for labor she was obliged 
 to abandon the scheme and return to New York. 
 
 So, after years of hopeless waiting, she found herself 
 penniless and friendless, except for one gentleman, a 
 friend of her childhood, who was willing to provide for 
 her under our care. She was with us two years; her 
 misfortunes had unbalanced her mind. The malady 
 grew worse and we could not keep her. 
 
 In 1899 our Tenafly Home was founded — an account 
 of which is given in Chapter XXX. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE LOST FORTY DOLLARS. 
 
 Once I advertised for a young man to attend to two 
 furnaces and do clerical work in return for his board and 
 ten dollars per month, and a bookkeeper out of employ- 
 ment took the position. It was my custom every night 
 to take my check-book and bag containing money and 
 checks up to my room, and deposit them on a shelf in 
 a closet. 
 
 One morning I started to bring them down to the 
 office, but could find only the check -book. I concluded 
 that I must have left my bag in the office over night, and 
 went there in search of it, but nowhere could I find it. 
 I was so vexed with myself for my carelessness, that I 
 waited several days before speaking of it, thinking it 
 would turn up. It was Christmas time, and my young 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 91 
 
 clerk had been showing us some pretty presents that 
 he had bought for his girl cousins, some of them cost- 
 ing as much as two and three dollars apiece. I felt sure 
 that he had picked up my bag with its forty dollars. 
 I had stopped the checks at the bank, and I now sent 
 for a detective and told him that I suspected the young 
 man. After he had interviewed him in a private room, 
 he came to me; settling himself comfortably in an easy 
 chair, and stretching out his legs, he said: "Of course, 
 that fellow took your bag. It doesn't take me long to 
 size up that kind. He was very reticent about himself, 
 didn't want to tell where he had been for the last few 
 years ; now if you say so, I will arrest him on suspicion." 
 
 But I didn't want to do that. After he was gone, the 
 clerk came to me and said, "Don't send me away, let me 
 stay on, and I'll forfeit my wages for four months so 
 that you will be none the poorer for the loss of the forty 
 dollars. I can see that you work hard to support this 
 Home, and you have been kind to me." 
 
 I felt more convinced than ever that he had taken the 
 bag. A friend who was stopping with me said, "You 
 must send him off; it's not safe to have him in the 
 house; we shall be losing more things." However, I 
 sent for my nephew who lived near, and his advice was : 
 "Don't send him away; it's no proof that he took your 
 bag because he offered to make good your loss. There 
 are so many others in the house, and you may have 
 dropped it on the stairs. Any one may have picked it 
 up. Don't send him away." 
 
 I followed his advice, the young man's work was so 
 satisfactory, he was always ready to help in any way, 
 and was so gentlemanly in his manner, and often worked 
 overtime, that I didn't deprive him of his wages, but I 
 
92 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 still suspected him, and it made me take a dislike to him, 
 and I avoided him all I could. 
 
 When the spring opened, he obtained a better posi- 
 tion. On leaving us he said : "I might be glad to take 
 such a position another winter. I'd rather than live 
 on the bounty of my cousins, and I should like to have 
 a reference from you as my work was satisfactory, but I 
 won't ask it." 
 
 However, I took his address. 
 
 Some time after, I had occasion to change my room, 
 and in taking out my clothes from the closet, I found my 
 bag; it had fallen behind the shelf, and was lodged be- 
 tween the wall and the clothes, which had hidden it from 
 view. The discovery cost me no little worry, and not a 
 few tears, for suspecting an honest young man. I wrote' 
 to him immediately enclosing ten dollars, which he 
 promptly acknowledged with thanks, and said my letter 
 was a great relief to his mind. Also I enclosed him a 
 good reference. I informed the detective that for once 
 he was mistaken. 
 
 This brings to my recollection another case of unwar- 
 ranted suspicion. A poor charwoman came to our base- 
 ment door looking for work. Our cook seemed to know 
 her, they attended the same church, so I hired her to 
 come by the day and help with our spring cleaning. 
 She worked so well that I was anxious to keep her until 
 the work was finished, and to make sure of her coming, 
 I never gave her the whole of her day's pay. 
 
 One night, I found the cook up late looking for her 
 pocketbook, which she had brought down to the kitchen 
 to pay her insurance. Knowing her to be a forgetful 
 woman, I joined her in the search. I hunted in every 
 drawer, closet and crevice, but no sign of it. The next 
 morning the charwoman didn't show up. As there was 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 93 
 
 five dollars coming to her, we felt sure that she had 
 stolen the pocketbook. The cook wanted to have her 
 arrested, but we didn't know her address, so she went 
 to early mass every Sunday, hoping to get some track 
 of her. But never saw her afterwards. One day, she 
 was clearing out some tinware to throw away, and found 
 her big, old pocketbook in an old saucepan with all her 
 money — over fifty dollars — and her papers intact. We 
 never heard of the poor charwoman. 
 
 A SAD SUICIDE. 
 
 One morning we detected the odor of gas coming 
 from the room of an old artist; on bursting open the 
 door, we found him reclining on his back, his arms 
 crossed over his breast. 
 
 He was dead. 
 
 He left a letter saying, "My designs grace the Trium- 
 phal Arch at Washington Square, New York City. 
 When ladies and gentlemen are admiring that Arch, little 
 will they dream that the poor artist who made those de- 
 signs was never paid one dollar for his work. The man 
 who had the contract received a large sum, and then dis- 
 appeared. It was the last public work of my life. The 
 injustice and disappointment have preyed upon me, and 
 I cannot shake it off." 
 
 His specialty had been painting children, especially 
 boys — bootblacks and newsboys. 
 
 THE MELANCHOLY YOUNG MAN. 
 
 At one time when I advertised for a useful man, a 
 young man answered who was an American of French 
 descent. He had large, melancholy eyes and a sorrowful 
 
94 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 expression, and the interview proved to be a comical sort 
 of dialogue. 
 
 "What kind of work have you been accustomed to 
 do?" I asked. 
 
 "I was never accustomed to do any kind of work." 
 
 "Then how did you earn your living?" 
 
 "I never earned my living." 
 
 "But how did you pay your board?" 
 
 "I never paid any board." 
 
 "Then you have an income to live upon ?" 
 
 "I never had an income to live upon." 
 
 "Then some one took care of you," I said. 
 
 "Yes, I lived with my mother and sister." 
 
 "And did you not have anything to do ?" 
 
 "I answered the door and sometimes went on an er- 
 rand." 
 
 "Why did you answer my advertisement?" 
 
 "They told me I should have to find some work, be- 
 cause my brother-in-law died, and the home was broken 
 up." 
 
 "Well, I will tell you, that if you come here to work 
 for us you must be willing to do such things as sweep, 
 clean windows, wash dishes, and set the table." 
 
 "But I have never done any of these things." 
 
 "Then it was no use for you to come here unless you 
 are willing to learn to do this kind of work." 
 
 "I am willing to learn to do this kind of work." 
 
 "Now, there is one thing I must tell you, and that is 
 this: I don't allow any man to go about in his shirt 
 sleeves, our useful men have to wear what they call 
 'jumpers,' which they can change and put on clean every 
 week." 
 
 "Oh, madame, a jumper, that would be impossible in 
 my case, I should look like a mechanic, people might take 
 me for a plumber." 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 95 
 
 "Then that settles the matter," I said. "I must get 
 some one else." 
 
 He took up his hat, and looking at me with his sorrow- 
 ful eyes he added, "Madame, I am very sorry but you see 
 it would be impossible, good morning." 
 
 In the evening he called again and said, "I have come 
 back — my sister says I must stay and wear a jumper." 
 
 The next morning I put him to work at the breakfast 
 dishes; he was very slow but worked very neatly, and I 
 told him he was doing very well. 
 
 "Yes, madame, but it makes me so unhappy," he said. 
 
 Of course I discovered that his mind was weak, and 
 that was probably the reason why his family had taken 
 care of him. 
 
 It often happened that some of the subscribers to the 
 Home would ask me if I could recommend to them some 
 honest person when they were short of help. And about 
 this time a widow lady who had a very nice home in the 
 country wrote to inquire if I knew of a man who would 
 mow the lawn, and make himself generally useful about 
 her place, and I thought this would be a pleasant place 
 for this melancholy young man, and I suggested it to him. 
 I knew he was perfectly honest, neat and respectable, and 
 I was glad to oblige her, because she had been such a 
 good friend to the Home. 
 
 "Oh, my dear madame, how could I think of such a 
 thing?" he answered. "I was willing to be here with you 
 because I felt that I was shut out from the world, that 
 none of my former friends would see me in a jumper, 
 but if I should go there, some of the people coming to 
 see her might find me on the lawn in a jumper, and they 
 would recognize me." 
 
 "But it will be so nice to earn such good money," I 
 said. 
 
p6 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 "But I do not care for much money," he answered. 
 
 However, I persuaded him that this lady was an in- 
 valid, and lived very quietly, saw very little company, and 
 that he might be there a whole year, or even a whole life- 
 time, without meeting any one who knew him. 
 
 "Well, I will go, madame, but you don't know how 
 dreadful it is for me to wear a jumper." 
 
 Some years after that I met a lady who knew his fam- 
 ily, and she told me that he did not live very long, and 
 that it was death that finally released him of the jumper. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 UNSOILED HANDS. 
 
 There is always a large class of women looking for 
 work, who don't want to soil their hands. 
 
 "Oh ! I couldn't do anything menial !" How often my 
 advice has been met with this response. "I never did 
 menial work in my life." 
 
 And I would ask, "Did you never make a bed, or sweep 
 a room, or cook a dinner, or wash dishes?" 
 
 "Oh ! well, yes — in my own house, but I shouldn't like 
 to do it anywhere else." 
 
 This always reminded me of that beautiful passage 
 where the tired fishermen left their nets on the shore 
 and came in obedience to the voice of the Christ, calling 
 to them, and saying, "Come and eat," and they found a 
 fire kindled, and coals thereon and fish cooking. Their 
 Lord knew their need of this. His loving hands had 
 made that fire and put on the coals and cooked the fish, 
 and yet some Christian people pretend to be unable to 
 soil their hands. 
 
MARY FISHER HOME p; 
 
 Some ladies in Boston, including the widow of Ole 
 Bull the famous violinist, and one of the daughters of 
 Longfellow, interested themselves in a widow who sold 
 books for a living. She had been a journalist in her 
 younger days. They raised a few hundred dollars and 
 we received her into our Home. But she preferred liv- 
 ing her own life and came very unwillingly. 
 
 Finding she had no appreciation for the Home offered 
 her — always late to her meals and staying away for 
 weeks together, we decided to return the entrance fee 
 to the ladies and assign her room to one who needed it. 
 
 One other case gave us a great deal of trouble. The 
 woman seemed to think that because we had taken her 
 for life we were obliged to keep her, no matter what her 
 conduct might be. When she had been with us two 
 years we told her she must leave and offered her the 
 three hundred dollars entrance fee which a lady had paid 
 for her. But she refused to go, so we placed the money 
 in the hands of a lawyer who finally relieved us of her. 
 
 We couldn't afford to waste our substance on lazy 
 people who imagined that the world owed them a living. 
 So we followed the example of Elbert Hubbard of the 
 Roycrofters, when he found a gentleman tramp had 
 lighted down upon him, and was not willing to go into 
 his shop to work. He invited him to take a drive, and 
 he then dropped him down at the station, with a railroad 
 ticket to take him back where he came from. 
 
 I didn't do exactly that, but I used to put an advertise- 
 ment in the papers, saying, that a woman would do light 
 housework in return for a good home and small compen- 
 sation. I always had many answers, and some very good 
 ones among them. They never received more than five 
 dollars per month, but often had little gifts which were 
 more to them than money. Some of them I still hear 
 from as time goes by. 
 
p8 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 whittier's prceeg^e. 
 
 The aged poet Whittier was interested in a young lady 
 and wrote me the following letter: 
 
 "Danvers, Mass., Sept. 9, 1890. 
 Dear Miss Fisher: 
 
 My young friend Miss has sent me the report 
 
 of the Home for Destitute Authors and Artists. 
 
 It seems to me to be a most excellent institution. The 
 thought of it on the part of the founder was an inspira- 
 tion, and I think God will bless it. Miss is a lady 
 
 of fine talents, and the sister of one of the most promising 
 of our writers. 
 
 No one better deserves a home than she does. With 
 hearty approval of the work, I am thy aged friend, 
 
 John G. Whittier. 
 
 This young lady came to us, and I found her one of 
 the most pleasing and interesting girls that I had ever 
 known, but she was totally deaf, and this had debarred 
 her from any office work where she might have earned 
 a living. She was so bright and intelligent, that when 
 you gave her half a sign she could guess the whole of 
 what you wanted to tell her. 
 
 I soon learned to talk to her on my fingers, though we 
 often did more laughing than talking, for she had a keen 
 sense of humor. 
 
 But I saw that there were times when she felt sad and 
 lonely. She had been born and brought up in Boston, 
 and had never been away from it, she had many kind 
 friends there and missed them very much. 
 
 One day she said to me, "I wonder if I ever shall be 
 able to get anything to do." 
 
 "You are a perfect little housekeeper," I answered. 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 99 
 
 "I have a scheme for you, let me try it and see how it 
 succeeds." 
 
 So I put an advertisement in the Boston Transcript 
 and she was much pleased with some of the answers. 
 And in a week's time she was comfortably domiciled in 
 Boston which she so much loved, and where her friends 
 could come and see her, for she had many in the Episco- 
 pal Church where she had been brought up. 
 
 In one of her bright, cheery letters she wrote, "My 
 good hostess and I have a race every morning after 
 breakfast to see who will get to the upstairs work first." 
 
 I still correspond with her, and will do so as long as 
 we both live. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 A CRIPPLE VS. POLITICIANS. 
 
 One of the most interesting ladies that came into our 
 
 boarding department was Miss K , a pioneer of the 
 
 "League of the Baptized," an organization which is a 
 woman's auxiliary to aid and augment the fund for the 
 aged and retired clergy of the Episcopal Church. 
 
 She was in the prime of her womanhood, had met with 
 a sad accident while leaving a trolley car, which kept her 
 confined to her bed for some time, and made her a cripple 
 for life. For two years the case had been in litigation, 
 and was finally lost. 
 
 But she wanted to be occupied, and while an invalid 
 in her room she thought out and planned this noble work. 
 
 Being a D. A. R., of an old American family, she was 
 well-connected, and was able to secure Mrs. Seth Low 
 as the Treasurer of the fund. 
 
wo THE STORY OF THE 
 
 The conditions of this league are that every Episco- 
 palian should contribute ten cents per annum. Miss 
 K sought to have a delegate in each church to col- 
 lect the dues. 
 
 The work has gone quietly on, and has so far pro- 
 gressed that this small sum of ten cents has brought in 
 a considerable amount. 
 
 But Miss K also took up another line of work. 
 
 She had had the advantage of a superior education, had 
 been sent to England in her girlhood, where she had 
 made English History a special study, and as soon as she 
 was able to move about with the aid of a cane, she was 
 engaged by the Board of Education of New York City 
 to lecture under the auspices of that body. 
 
 The subject she selected for her first lecture was Wal- 
 ter Raleigh, a special favorite of hers; this she arranged 
 with stereoscopic views. 
 
 Now there were some politicians who had some influ- 
 ence in the Board of Education, who were opposed to 
 her giving this lecture, and they so warned her to cut it 
 down, and so restricted her as to what she should tell, 
 that she was discouraged, and knew that the lecture 
 would lose half its significance and beauty. However, 
 she braced up, and went through with it. 
 
 I attended that lecture ; as I sat there and watched this 
 young woman, as she stood there describing so graphi- 
 cally the various scenes in that eventful and tragical life, 
 I was deeply impressed with the injustice which is per- 
 mitted in a great city like New York, where a body of 
 ignorant and bigoted men can step in, and control a situ- 
 ation which is far above their intelligence and their un- 
 derstanding. 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 101 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 A BELGIAN EDITOR. 
 
 One of the most troublesome guests we ever had to 
 deal with was a little, old Belgian editor. By some 
 means he had come into the notice of charitable people 
 who saw that he ought to be in some Home. In the 
 meantime they allowed him what he needed to pay the 
 rent of his room and provide him with food. He liked 
 this method much better than going into an institution, 
 and did all he could to fight against it. 
 
 I presume his friends had become tired of helping him 
 in his own way, and they placed him in the care of the 
 Charity Organization Society, so that the help he re- 
 ceived, although it still came from them, was given to 
 him through that Society. 
 
 When it was arranged that he should come into our 
 Home, I went to see him. I looked round the bare 
 room and seeing no sign of a bed I asked, "But where 
 do you sleep?" 
 
 He shuffled over to a closet, and opened the door. On 
 the floor was an old comfortable. On this bed of his a 
 large white cat was sleeping. I made some remark about 
 the animal and he said, "That cat is a necessity, other- 
 wise I could not sleep in this room, on account of the 
 rats." 
 
 And yet he was so reluctant to leave this miserable 
 shanty, and was very uncommunicative, but I knew that 
 in the past he had been an interesting man, a great 
 student, always making researches in scientific matters, 
 and making translations. 
 
 He had probably come to this country for a wider field 
 for his energies, and not meeting with the success that 
 
102 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 he had hoped for, it had embittered his temper, so that 
 at times he was almost morose. 
 
 However, true charity is no respecter of persons, and 
 a man who had given the best of his lifetime to study 
 and to literature as he had, deserved our attention. After 
 raising every objection that he could think of, he re- 
 fused to come unless he could bring with him the big 
 white cat. So we consented to let him bring the animal 
 among his belongings. 
 
 However, as we couldn't allow a cat in his bedroom, 
 we had to find a home for it elsewhere. The old man 
 never forgave me for this, and seemed determined to 
 give us as much trouble as possible. As his sight was 
 failing, we assigned him a room on the upper floor, be- 
 cause it had two good windows, and gave plenty of light; 
 but our useful man had to carry his meals up to his room 
 three times a day, because he wouldn't come down to 
 the dining room. Often I have seen him walking 
 around in the grounds, and when the dinner bell rang 
 he would run into the house, and being very light on 
 his feet, he would run up the long flight of stairs with 
 the agility of a boy, determined to have the tray brought 
 up to his room. He was like a child in many respects. 
 
 He declared it would kill him to take a bath, and we 
 found it necessary every little while to send word to the 
 Society how troublesome he was, and they would send 
 one of their men to talk to him, and warn him that if 
 he did not do better they would put him in the alms- 
 house. 
 
 His principal diet was hard-boiled eggs and rice. He 
 would pay no attention to the advice of the physician 
 as to what his proper diet should be. He was with us 
 nine years, but never once came down to his meals. 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 103 
 
 Finally, he died suddenly of acute indigestion, at the 
 age of eighty-seven years. 
 
 NON-SECTARIANISM. 
 
 Our old professor had the happy faculty for making 
 comments upon passing events, and sometimes very 
 pointed and sharp ones — without giving offence to any 
 one concerned. 
 
 One Sunday evening some one spoke of a sermon 
 he had heard in the morning at a Universalist church, 
 and several gave their preferences in regard to preachers 
 and churches. 
 
 "What religion are you, sir?" asked our friend — turn- 
 ing to an aged sculptor. 
 
 The old gentleman was silent a while, then said — 
 "Born Catholic — now nothing. My Mother was 
 Catholic. " 
 
 "Then you are certainly a Catholic," said a French 
 lady, who was a very zealous Catholic, "you were born 
 a Catholic and you will always be one by birth." 
 
 "But can a man be born a religion ?" asked some one. 
 
 "Of course," answered the French lady. 
 
 "I should like to know what religion I was born," 
 remarked our philosopher with the usual twinkle in his 
 eye. 
 
 "Why, you were born Protestant, monsieur," said 
 the lady. 
 
 "But I have not protested against anything, I shall 
 have to answer like my friend here, born nothing — now 
 nothing." 
 
 "But, madame, from which side of the house does a 
 child get his religion — the father's or the mother's?" 
 asked the philosopher. 
 
104 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 "Why from the mother's side — Madame has proved 
 this," answered some one. 
 
 "But, madame, suppose a child's father was a Cath- 
 olic, and his mother a Hindu?" 
 
 Madame was silent a while, then responded, "In that 
 case, of course, he would take his religion from his 
 father." 
 
 Our professor tried to control himself, but he laughed 
 heartily. 
 
 However, madame gave the old sculptor no rest now 
 that she knew that he was "Born Catholic." 
 
 "I shall see that he goes to church and makes his du- 
 ties," she said to me. 
 
 But she imposed upon herself no easy task, for 
 whether it was high mass or low mass, he was never 
 ready to accompany her. It was too hot or too cold, 01 
 his corns troubled him, and she became discouraged, as 
 he was over eighty, and she was afraid that he would die 
 without the rites of the church. She was very kind- 
 hearted, and she made one more effort by bringing the 
 priest to the Home. 
 
 But some one told him, "The father is down stairs, 
 and is coming up to see you. Madame is bringing him." 
 
 He locked himself in the bathroom, and would not 
 come out. Soon after he was taken ill and died. 
 
 Some mischievous person chalked on his door : "Born 
 Catholic — Died Nothing." 
 
 At the German Catholic church in Mt. Vernon, there 
 was for many years an aged priest named Father Al- 
 binger. He was very much beloved. As Mt. Vernon 
 grew into a city, it was populous enough to call for other 
 Catholic churches, and only the Germans of his neigh- 
 borhood were left to support the church. 
 
 He lived a most austere life, wore old clothing, and 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 105 
 
 existed so frugally that he was supposed to be very poor. 
 At last he became very feeble, and decided that he would 
 go home to Germany to die. In a few months our 
 French lady received a letter from him saying that he 
 was not happy, that he would like to return to Mt. Ver- 
 non, and spend the remainder of his life in our Home — 
 if we could accommodate him. 
 
 I answered the letter myself, telling him that we should 
 be pleased to receive him. The letter was returned 
 to me from Germany, with the word upon it, "Gestorben" 
 — dead. 
 
 It was found that he was anything but a poor man. 
 He had accumulated considerable money. I .never heard 
 who inherited it. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 HALF-STARVED ARTISTS. 
 
 A young woman in a small New Jersey town wrote 
 me that she was an artist, and in need of some help to 
 tide her over the winter. I went to see her ; I found her 
 very well connected, a niece of Iraneus Prime of the 
 Observer, one of the oldest New York periodicals. 
 She told me she made screens for Altman's, but as she 
 hadn't the necessary three dollars and a half to deposit 
 for the satin, she could not get the work. She said she 
 was in arrears for the rent of her room, and did not know 
 where to go. 
 
 I called on Mr. Prime, and he said that he could not 
 sympathize with her, because she was determined to 
 stick to her artistic work at which she could not make 
 a living, and as she could sew very nicely, he had ad- 
 
w6 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 vised her to become a dressmaker, which she had posi- 
 tively refused to do, and so he had left her to herself, 
 and refused to help her. 
 
 The girl interested me. Her miniatures were excel- 
 lent, and she painted birds and flowers very beautifully. 
 I offered her an attic room in our Home, which she 
 gladly accepted ; we advanced the necessary deposit re- 
 quired by Altman for the satin, and she set to work at 
 once to paint a screen. 
 
 It was interesting to watch her process. She drew 
 her design on stiff brown paper, which she pinned to 
 the floor, and then traced the drawing with white paint. 
 Afterward, she fastened on to this the length of black 
 satin, face downwards, and then took a flat iron and 
 drew over it. When she lifted up the satin, she had all 
 the design mapped out ready for the painting. This she 
 tacked upon the wall of her room, and in less than a 
 week the screen was finished, with its birds of paradise 
 and tropical flowers, beautifully painted. 
 
 It was fatiguing standing up to paint the satin as it 
 hung on the wall, and she was often obliged to lie down 
 for a whole day to rest her weak back. 
 
 She had a beau, a young artist, evidently as poor as 
 herself — the most grotesque and odd-looking figure that 
 I ever saw in my life. He seemed to wear two pairs of 
 trousers, the under ones being longer than those out- 
 side, and of a much lighter color. He wore a queer- 
 looking hat much the worse for wear, and one day, as I 
 saw him standing on our stoop, I said to myself, "What 
 can be the matter with his coat?" 
 
 As I came nearer, I saw that at some unfortunate 
 moment he must have sat down on his palette, while the 
 paints on it were still wet, so that it gave something of 
 the appearance of Joseph's coat of many colors. 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 107 
 
 One bright morning she said to me, "I am going out 
 after breakfast with my friend, Mr. Jackson. Whenever 
 he can spare fifty cents, he takes me to the Central Park 
 for a holiday; he buys our luncheon as we go along, 
 and we sit all day under the trees, sketching and talk- 
 ing about art." 
 
 "What does he paint ?" I asked, and she said, "Land- 
 scapes and sheep; he is really a genius. But he gets 
 discouraged, he has nowhere to exhibit his work, the 
 art stores won't take them unless they are beautifully 
 framed, and he has no money for that ; so now he sells 
 his little canvasses for a few dollars to some stationery 
 stores, and they put them in their window marked three 
 or four dollars, and when they sell they give him half; 
 they always want such a big commission." 
 
 She worked all summer on the screens, Altman had a 
 demand for all that she could paint. I once saw a letter 
 that Mr. Sloan had written to her saying that he had 
 seen her screens, and if she would make a design of full- 
 blown roses, he would like to see it. The screens were 
 sure money, and she continued to work on them until 
 she had saved a nice little sum. 
 
 One day in the early Autumn she said, "I have found 
 a room which I can make into a studio." I have some 
 furniture in storage, and my old piano, and Mr. Jackson 
 can sing very nicely; he has a tenor voice, and perhaps 
 if he will cultivate it, he may be able to get a position 
 in some church — the worst thing is, his clothes are so 
 very bad." 
 
 "Yes," I said, "his clothes are very bad." 
 
 However, she took the empty room and moved her 
 things into it. She did not need me any more, and as 
 I had no time to visit her, I never heard any more of 
 her, except that some friends told me her uncle, Mr. 
 
io8 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 Prime, was still angry with her, because she would not 
 give up the painting and turn to something more prac- 
 tical. 
 
 But I have found many people of the artistic tempera- 
 ment who prefer to live their own half-starved life, fol- 
 lowing their own bent, rather than try a vocation that 
 offered the prospect of a good income. And we ought 
 not to blame them. That poor girl in the French board- 
 ing school who loved animals so much, and spent all her 
 spare time drawing pictures of them, after many years 
 devoted to painting, became the Rosa Bonheur of world- 
 wide fame. 
 
 AN AGED FRENCH COUPLE. 
 
 I had once great expectations from an elderly lady who 
 wished to place an old couple in our Home. They were 
 French people, and nominally Roman Catholics, which 
 debarred them from the Protestant homes. And as the 
 Catholics do not build homes for the aged, as the Prot- 
 estants and Hebrews do, there seemed to be no place for 
 this old French couple, and their friend was much per- 
 plexed as to what to do with them. 
 
 This old Frenchman had been a ladies' shoemaker ; he 
 had made this lady's shoes for fifty years. He was a 
 most exemplary and industrious man, and saved all he 
 could for his old age. But his sight gave out. He could 
 no longer work at the shoes, but he had a good son who 
 kept a nice little home over the old couple. Finally, this 
 good son died, and they were solely dependent upon what 
 they had in the savings bank. They had one other son, 
 a poor, ne'er-do-well, who was only a source of trouble 
 and anxiety to them. But they couldn't turn him out. 
 Their good benefactress did not know for some time of 
 their poverty and anxiety. 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 109 
 
 Then something terrible happened to them. This son 
 committed suicide. He left a letter and an insurance 
 policy, sealed up and addressed to his father, saying, "My 
 life was of no benefit to you and mother, but my death 
 will be, for I have insured my life for you for one thou- 
 sand dollars. This was the only thing I could do to help 
 you." 
 
 The insurance company was very loath to pay this, 
 and said it would be the last time that they would pay 
 a suicide case. With this money, they looked round for 
 a home. The lady appealed to the Charity Organization 
 Society, of which she was a member, and they recom- 
 mended our Home for the old couple, because it was 
 non-sectarian, and the old gentleman would not be de- 
 barred on account of his blindness, as was the case with 
 other institutions. So we received the old couple for six 
 hundred dollars entrance fee. 
 
 THE BEQUEST THAT DIDN'T COME. 
 
 I knew that their benefactress was said to be worth 
 many millions ; she was a widow without children. I 
 never heard of anything that she did for the old couple 
 except to look for a home for them, and when we agreed 
 to take them I hoped the least she might do would be to 
 remember our Home in her will. 
 
 She was a very peculiar and blunt old lady, and ac- 
 cording to her own appointment I used to call upon her 
 when she was taking her luncheon, which always con- 
 sisted of the same things — a baked potato, a baked apple, 
 a cup of tea, a roll and butter. On the table beside her 
 was a brown paper bag — like a grocer's bag, with dollar 
 bills in it, and occasionally she would give me a contri- 
 bution out of it. "But my dear lady, we are so much in 
 
no THE STORY OF THE 
 
 want of a building," I said, "if you cannot do anything 
 now, I hope you will remember us in your will." 
 
 "That depends on how you behave yourself," was her 
 blunt reply. 
 
 Now she had an old butler named Joseph, a French- 
 man, who had lived with her many years. He seemed to 
 be a factotum, secretary, maid, everything, she couldn't 
 bear to have him out of her sight. When she had a visi- 
 tor, Joseph would walk up and down the hall outside her 
 door, which would be left ajar, and every little while she 
 would call out, "Joseph, Joseph, are you there? Don't 
 go away." 
 
 One day when I called on her, Mrs. Russell Sage came 
 to pay her a visit, and that lady said to me, "Because 
 your Home is non-sectarian you will have the same 
 trouble that I have had with the Woman's Hospital, you 
 will have no church to help you, and I find that makes a 
 great difference." 
 
 However, I succeeded in getting the old lady to prom- 
 ise a contribution of five hundred dollars toward building 
 a wing at our Tenafly Home. Fortunately for me, Jo- 
 seph, the butler, was a witness to this promise, or I never 
 would have received it. As it was, there was consider- 
 able delay, and I finally went to Far Rockaway, where 
 she was boarding that summer, in regard to it. 
 
 As usual, the faithful Joseph was walking up and 
 down outside her door, keeping out all intruders, and 
 keeping watch for her call. She was now keeping her 
 bed. She was not in a very good humor; said she had 
 no recollection of making such a promise. I told her 
 that Joseph knew all about it, and she called out — "Jo- 
 seph, Joseph! come here." 
 
 Joseph came in, looking very solemn, and stood re- 
 spectfully with hisjiands behind him on one side of the 
 
MARY FISHER HOME m 
 
 bed, while I sat on the other. She questioned Joseph 
 very sharply as to what he knew of the matter. He told 
 her very distinctly that she had promised this five hun- 
 dred dollars. 
 
 "If I could only remember it," she said, "but I cannot." 
 
 "But I remember it all so distinctly," said Joseph. 
 
 It seemed rather a hopeless case, and I said, "I will 
 not intrude any longer today. I will come some other 
 time when you may feel better," and I got up to go. 
 
 "I don't forget that old couple that you were so kind 
 to," said Joseph, and he took out of his pocket a fifty- 
 dollar note which he handed to me. 
 
 "You needn't be in such a hurry," said his mistress. 
 "If you come again that will be wasting the extra rail- 
 road fare. I'd better give it to you now. Joseph, get 
 me my check-book," and she wrote me a check for the 
 $500. 
 
 In the Autumn she returned to her town house. Judge 
 of my astonishment when I read one morning in the 
 paper that Joseph was found dead. He had committed 
 suicide by shooting himself. I knew some French peo- 
 ple who were old friends of his. They told me how 
 kind-hearted he was, but that he deplored the terrible 
 monotony of his position with this old lady, and that he 
 sometimes felt that he must fly away from it. 
 
 When the old lady died, and her will was probated we 
 saw that she left two millions to the School of Theology 
 at Princeton. Several institutions like our own were 
 disappointed that they were not remembered. 
 
U2 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE MONGOLIAN WAS HE A HUMBUG? 
 
 During an equinoctial storm, a small, delicate-looking 
 man came to our door. I was ill at the time, but my as- 
 sistant received him. I had advertised for some one to 
 help with bookkeeping and clerical work, and he had 
 come in answer to it. He gave him name as Edward 
 Melville. 
 
 They told me he was wet through to the skin, as he 
 had no umbrella, and his low, summer shoes were wet 
 through. Also he had a villainous cough like one in con- 
 sumption. His card told us he was a missionary from 
 the Island of Ceylon. I ordered him put to bed at once, 
 and sent for our physician, who said that he was a very 
 sick man, and advised his being sent to Bellevue Hos- 
 pital. Here he was kindly cared for, and so far recov- 
 ered that he was able to return to us, and do a little work. 
 
 In a couple of months he was ill again and could not 
 leave his bed. Again the doctor ordered him to the hos- 
 pital. That was late one night, and the following morn- 
 ing my assistant went to see him. 
 
 "I feel so confused," he kept saying. "I cannot collect 
 my thoughts." 
 
 She concluded that he had taken a great deal of mor- 
 phine, and told him she would come in the afternoon, 
 when his mind was clearer. When she went again about 
 five o'clock, they were carrying out his corpse. 
 
 All that he had brought with him was a very small 
 satchel, which contained some railroad time-tables, and 
 a photograph of a Mongolian lady, and a young lady who 
 looked very much like the missionary. Looking on the 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 113 
 
 back of the photo, I saw it was taken in London, and I 
 wrote at once to the photographer, and asked him to try 
 and trace the whereabouts of this Mongolian lady. 
 
 In due time I received a letter from her. She was 
 evidently a lady of education and culture. She told me 
 that her husband had been unfortunate in investing all 
 his own money, and other people's, and, although he had 
 not done anything wrong, he was afraid of being impris- 
 oned, if he remained in Ceylon, and so he travelled 
 around the world to reach by a very circuitous route our 
 city of New York. 
 
 I had told her, that as Mr. Melville was a missionary, 
 we did not like him to be buried in Potter's Field ; that I, 
 and some other of the ladies of our association, had at- 
 tended his funeral ; that he had the services of the Epis- 
 copal Church, and that we buried him in a very pretty 
 rural cemetery called Maple Grove on Long Island. 
 
 She thanked me for the care we had given to her hus- 
 band. She said she was living, through the kindness of 
 friends in a convent, in a secluded part of England, and 
 she expressed the wish that we erect a monument to her 
 husband's memory, putting these words : 
 
 EDWARD MELVILLE 
 
 AGED 2,7 YEARS 
 
 FROM THE ISLAND OF CEYLON. 
 
 Some time after that, a portly English gentleman paid 
 us a visit. His card gave his address in London, but he 
 said he was a tea merchant doing business on the Island 
 of Ceylon, and that he knew this Mongolian who called 
 himself Edward Melville — that he was married to a 
 charming Mongolian lady, and had a lovely home and a 
 pretty daughter. 
 
ii4 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 "I never liked the man," he said, "he needed too much 
 watching. Finally he got deeply into debt. Like all 
 Mongolians, he was a great coward, and as soon as he 
 found himself amenable to the law, his first thought was 
 to run away. 
 
 "What brought me to New York is this : I am sorry 
 to say that my only son is engaged to be married to this 
 man's daughter. When her father proved to be such a 
 scamp, my wife and I did all we could to persuade him 
 to break it off. But what can you do when a fellow is 
 twenty-eight years old, and his own master, and desper- 
 ately in love with a good-looking girl? 
 
 "We heard that a rich American woman named Fisher 
 employed him as a secretary, and we supposed he was 
 receiving a good salary; however, he never sent any 
 money home, so I was determined to make this port of 
 New York as soon as I could, and try to hunt him up." 
 
 I showed the gentleman one of the reports of our 
 Home, and explained to him how we had taken pity on 
 this poor fugitive who was dying of consumption; also 
 I showed him the letter of the widow requesting that he 
 should have a monument over his grave. 
 
 He smiled and said, "Oh, that is nothing for a Mongo- 
 lian to ask, for they are the greatest set of beggars in the 
 world. If I gave him a grave-stone, I should put on it, 
 here lies a Mongolian Humbug." 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 A WOMAN INVENTOR. 
 
 Probably it has been very truly said that many of 
 the useful articles belonging to our domestic economy 
 have been invented by women. It was they who first 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 115 
 
 thought of the need, although they may not have been 
 able to work out the mechanism to its present conditions. 
 There came to us once a young woman who seemed to 
 have an inventive mind — she had devoted years to the 
 carrying out of various ideas that had presented them- 
 selves to her. 
 
 As soon as she had worked out an idea to her satis- 
 faction, she would take out a caveat. Then the hardest 
 part of her work began, and her very small income, 
 which she should have kept for her personal needs, was 
 all absorbed in travelling about trying to find a pro- 
 moter who would put the article on the market. 
 
 Occasionally she sold to a toy manufacturer a caveat, 
 and thought herself well paid when it brought her thirty 
 dollars, which happened I think only once in the seven 
 or eight years that I knew her ; and that was for a little 
 automatic toy representing some little animal that would 
 run about the floor. 
 
 Like many others of an inventive mind, she was not 
 very practical. Often she would be away for weeks, and 
 even months at a time, and then come in as late as ten 
 o'clock at night, travel-worn and weary, and exhausted 
 for want of nourishment. I was often vexed with her 
 at having to look up a corner and a bed for her, for she 
 had no money to go elsewhere. 
 
 At one time she was much benefited by the following 
 incident: The widow of a manufacturer looked her up, 
 and told her that her husband had made a success from 
 one of her caveats, and that it had always been on her 
 conscience that he owed something to the inventor, and 
 as he was now dead, his widow did it in his memory. 
 
 This check, whatever it was, was a wonderful boon 
 to her. 
 
 At this time she was working out what she called 
 
u6 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 the wonderful invention of her life. It was one that 
 would convert weight into power. I saw the caveat; it 
 was the size and shape of a toast-rack, with the excep- 
 tion of innumerable small wires which crossed them- 
 selves in every direction. She spent much time and 
 money taking it round to gentlemen; who had the means 
 of manufacturing it, if they so desired. This time she 
 was two or three months away, and when she returned 
 to us the widow's check had been all expended in a fruit- 
 less effort, for she found that there was what they called 
 a dead centre which the machinery could not overcome — 
 also she learned that the same thing had been thought 
 of before. 
 
 However, she did not give it up, but said that it would 
 lay in her mind for future consideration, and in the mean- 
 time she employed herself on a new invention which 
 amused us very much. 
 
 One morning she came to me with a very bright ex- 
 pression on her fair face and said, "I suppose you know 
 that the peasantry in Europe have often used a kind of 
 peat for fuel because it is much cheaper than wood or 
 coal. It is made of dried soil which is compact, and 
 shaped into a kind of brick. Now I have discovered 
 that our American soil with a little petroleum mixed 
 with it, will make a very good substitute for peat. Come 
 to my room and I will show it to you." 
 
 On entering her apartment, I saw over by the win- 
 dow a large flower pot filled with earth, from the centre 
 of which a bright flame was emitted. 
 
 "There is a small quantity of kerosene mixed with 
 the earth," she said, "and I am now going to work out 
 the proportions. The earth costs nothing and the oil 
 very little, so I believe, if it is properly manufactured, 
 it will make a very cheap and desirable fuel." 
 
MARY FISHER HOME u; 
 
 Soon after this a relative in a distant State sent for 
 her to come and claim her right of a small bequest, and 
 it was a relief to us when she took her departure. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 A CASE OF INSANITY. 
 
 One day a lady wrote to me — 
 
 "Dear Miss Fisher : 
 
 "Will you accommodate for a short time in your 
 Home a young lady who comes to the city to look for a 
 position? As she is a stranger in New York, it will be 
 a sort of protection for her, and it will relieve my mind 
 of some anxiety, for she is 'so young and so fair,' and 
 not accustomed to city ways. 
 
 "She is not without funds, but has means sufficient 
 to meet all her obligations. I knew her parents ; she was 
 an only child, and had every advantage that well-to-do 
 people could give her. She seems bent on having a 
 career." 
 
 I found the young lady a very pleasing girl about 
 twenty. Before she had been a month with me I saw 
 how gifted she was in many ways. She wrote good 
 sketches and stories, made her dresses and hats, and em- 
 broidered the most beautiful linens we had ever seen. 
 These she hoped to dispose of at the big stores, and get 
 orders for more. She worked day and night on them 
 with great patience, was never idle a minute. When 
 others played cards in the evening or read for their 
 amusement, she would sit with her work diligently 
 sewing. 
 
 But the stores did not want her work ; they had a stock 
 on hand, or they didn't want to pay the price. 
 
n8 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 But she didn't seem at all discouraged and said, "I 
 shall keep them to make presents to my friends. I don't 
 need the money, but I thought I should like to be a 
 business woman. I shall seek occupation in some other 
 direction. 
 
 She watched the papers, and also advertised for a 
 clerkship in an office, and came home one day to tell 
 me she had secured a position in the office of a church 
 paper. The salary was a fair one for a beginner, and 
 she was delighted. 
 
 I knew the proprietor of this paper — one of the oldest 
 church periodicals in New York. 
 
 "What kind of work will they give you to do?" I 
 asked. 
 
 "I am to examine what comes in for the woman's page 
 and children's column, make corrections, and pass them 
 on to the next reader." 
 
 Before the week was out, I noticed that she did not 
 go out as usual and I mentioned this to her. She raised 
 her fair face to me and said with eyes filled with tears 
 as she shook her head : 
 
 "I liked the work so much, but it was impossible for 
 
 me to stay, and preserve my self-respect. Mr. 
 
 is not a good man, so I hurried away from his flowers 
 and his flattery. I am sure I was right." 
 
 "Of course you were," I said, but I was shocked. I 
 had known that gentleman for many years. 
 
 The next day she came to me and said, "I shall now 
 devote myself to the looking up of my brother and sis- 
 ter; they are somewhere in the city. First I shall look 
 among the hotels, and if I don't find them there, I shall 
 look among the apartment houses where you find the 
 people's names at the door. 
 
 I missed her for two or three days and felt anxious 
 
MARY FISHER HOME up 
 
 about her. Finally I wrote to her friend who had in- 
 troduced her to me, and this was the answer I received : 
 
 "Dear Miss Fisher : 
 
 "That singular case of the young girl who was ar- 
 rested must be this very girl. She called on some people 
 in an apartment house and declared they were relatives 
 of hers. She stayed all day and when night came she 
 was so excited that they were obliged to have her ar- 
 rested as a disturber of the peace, and she is now in safe 
 keeping, but I want you to accommodate her and my- 
 self for a few days, while I put her things together, and 
 pack her off to relatives, who have a right to take care 
 of her." 
 
 In a few days a bright young man called and told me 
 that he would try to persuade her to go home with him, 
 for she was his young wife ; he had known her from the 
 time she was a little girl, that as a child she had strange 
 delusions which afflicted her every few months. He had 
 always been very fond of her, and hoped that when they 
 were married he could make her happy. He entreated 
 her most affectionately to return home with him. I 
 thought she would surely be touched by his manner, 
 for his distress was so genuine, although he strove to 
 keep up, and manfully fight against it. 
 
 Finally her guardian came for her and said : "She has 
 had her last chance — she is incurable. I believe some 
 people are born insane, and she certainly is one of them. 
 She must be taken care of for the rest of her lifetime." 
 
 I was glad to discover that she had never been to that 
 church paper. They had never seen such a girl. I have 
 heard from her occasionally through the intervening 
 years. She writes beautiful, long letters, always ending 
 
120 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 with what she calls her daily prayer — that I will take 
 her back and let her live the rest of her lifetime in our 
 Home. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 One case always amuses me as I look back upon it. 
 
 A man, who was evidently a gentleman, asked us to 
 take care of his wife while they were moving, as she was 
 an invalid. He did not prove to be very honorable; he 
 neglected to come to see her, and paid no attention to 
 our letters. She was a charming little lady, very fond of 
 her husband, and deeply grieved at his negligence. 
 
 "He is kind to me when I am with him," she said, "but 
 when I am out of his sight, he forgets all about me. 
 He has done this several times. If I were not as help- 
 less as I am, I would go to him at once, and he would 
 not have the heart to turn me away." 
 
 I found he was boarding in a stylish house in West 
 23rd Street. I knew there was only one thing to be 
 done ; I found a boarding house opposite to him, where 
 they could accommodate the lady; I paid a deposit on 
 her week's board, and, ordering a carriage, I placed her 
 and her belongings in it, and took her to her new abode. 
 I then left a note at her husband's boarding house, say- 
 ing that he would find his wife in the house opposite. 
 
 Such cases put us to some expense, but it was the only 
 course open to us. 
 
 HUSBANDS DE TROP. 
 
 Once a stylish-looking young lady called on me to ask 
 if we could accommodate an old gentleman. He would 
 give very little trouble, and she would like him to stay 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 121 
 
 all the winter. As we had a boarding department to- 
 ward the support of our Home, I showed her one of our 
 best rooms, but she said a very small apartment would 
 be sufficient, as he was very simple in his tastes, and she 
 selected the smallest and cheapest room that we could 
 offer. 
 
 When she was leaving, she told me that this was her 
 husband, that she was going on a round of visits, and 
 didn't like to leave him at home with the servants in case 
 he should get sick. She brought him the next day. As 
 he got out of the carriage, I saw how very old and feeble 
 he was, and no wonder, for he was between eighty and 
 ninety years of age. He had a handsome and very 
 kindly face, and often looked wistfully at her, and he 
 seemed much moved when she hurriedly bade him good- 
 bye. 
 
 "Did my wife tell you how often she was coming to 
 see me?" he asked the next morning. But I had no an- 
 swer to give him. 
 
 "I suppose she will write me very often," he added. 
 
 But she never wrote, except to send the check for his 
 board, and then scrawled a few words saying, "I presume 
 he is all right ; give him my love." 
 
 Once their coachman came to see him. 
 
 "The 'missus' told me not to let any one know where 
 he was. Poor old man. He made a big mistake marry- 
 ing that 'ere girl. He was an old bachelor, about sixty- 
 five — she was a doctor's daughter poor enough too — glad 
 enough to get him. He lavished everything on her, and 
 is awful fond of her, and he never let on to any one how 
 bad she treated him. Sometimes he didn't see her the 
 whole day. She has all the money she wants and that is 
 all she cares for." 
 
 For the first week or two, he would often say, "I think 
 
122 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 my wife will come today or tomorrow, and take me for 
 a drive, because she promised to." 
 
 But she never came. 
 
 Poor old gentleman, he no longer took any interest in 
 the newspaper, and it was plain to be seen that he was 
 pining for his wife and his home, and the tears would 
 often be in his eyes when he asked me if I had heard 
 from her lately. Finally he lost his appetite, and had a 
 low fever, and I sent for a physician whose name I had 
 heard him mention. The old gentleman was surprised 
 and delighted to see him. 
 
 When the doctor was leaving he said to me aside, "You 
 tell that woman that she must take the old gentleman 
 home, that I say he is a very sick man, and he won't live 
 very long." She came in quite a hurry and seemed very 
 angry. 
 
 "I don't see who could have told that doctor that he 
 was here," she said. "You could have given him some 
 quieting draught when you found him worrying, and that 
 would have saved all this fuss." 
 
 As soon as he saw her his face brightened, and he held 
 out his feeble arms imploringly. She kissed him hastily 
 on the forehead, and began to pick up his few belong- 
 ings, and I was very glad to see him drive off and know 
 that he had the satisfaction of going to his home, which 
 was a beautiful one in Larchmont. The house was quite 
 a mansion which stood in a large park. 
 
 Some three weeks after I saw in the papers the death 
 of this old gentleman. 
 
 At another time a similar case presented itself, al- 
 though under different auspices. 
 
 "I take paying guests in the summer — many of them 
 are friends of mine," said the lady whose husband was a 
 very old man. "And it will be better for me to board 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 123 
 
 out Mr. R. for the season. It gives me and my daugh- 
 ter very nice pin-money for the rest of the year. We 
 can always clear some seven hundred dollars by it." 
 
 The old gentleman came, but not very willingly; he 
 was wonderfully hale and hearty for a man over eighty 
 years of age. There was a great deal of coaxing and 
 cajoling on the part of the wife and daughter, but with 
 very little success, so far as making the old gentleman 
 contented away from his home. 
 
 When he had been a month with us, he wrote them 
 that he had given them a rest, and intended to come 
 home. But they sent word that the house was full, every 
 available room occupied, and there wasn't a corner for 
 him, and that I was in nowise to let him come. 
 
 But he only smiled as he counted the change in his 
 pocketbook, and found that he had fifty cents. 
 
 "By taking six trolleys I can get home to Stamford," 
 he said, as he bade us good-bye, "and please send my 
 trunk by express." 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 When our home in New York was in its beginning, 
 Mrs. J. Hood Wright asked me to take a young girl who 
 was very clever, but in poor health after an operation in 
 the hospital. Mrs. Wright agreed to contribute a dollar 
 per week, and thought we might find a few other ladies 
 to do the same. She brought the young girl in her car- 
 riage, and before she went away she called me aside and 
 said: 
 
 "Really that girl is wonderfully clever. Ask her to 
 tell you about her pictures, she has a number that she 
 can show you." 
 
124 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 The next day I asked the girl about her work, and 
 she brought me a book of the Pacific Railroad, giving 
 beautiful views of places through which it passed. 
 
 "I sat on that boulder when I took that view," she 
 said, indicating a point of rock in the Andes, "I had 
 strange experiences there. Once the wind took my ma- 
 terials away. Once I slipped down the mountain, but 
 caught myself on a twig; it was so strong that I could 
 pull myself up with it. The company said that I was 
 the best artist that they had ever had." 
 
 She looked me full in the face with those lovely dark 
 eyes of hers. Rachael, of Bible story, could not have 
 been more beautiful than this young Jewess, and al- 
 though I doubted the truth of her story, I was deeply 
 interested in her, and I asked her to tell me about herself. 
 
 "Where were you before you went to the Hood 
 Wright Hospital?" I asked. 
 
 "With the Episcopal sisters in 17th Street," she an- 
 swered. "I am the show patient of a noted physician. 
 Whenever he has a rich patient to treat for scrofula, he 
 sends for me, and I tell them what a splendid cure he 
 made of me, and this gives them confidence in him, so 
 that they consent to be operated upon. I had a letter 
 from him yesterday, he said he is going to send his car- 
 riage for me today. 
 
 But this doctor did not come. 
 
 I noticed that in speaking of him she sometimes men- 
 tioned him as a young man just entering upon his ca- 
 reer, and at other times he was an old man, a specialist, 
 who took only scrofula patients. 
 
 I told her she reminded me of the skull of St. Peter, 
 which they show in some of the churches in Catholic 
 countries, and when you ask how could two or three 
 churches have the same skull, you are told that one is 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 125 
 
 his skull when he was a young man, and the others when 
 he was of maturer years. 
 
 One of the sisterhood where they had been taking care 
 of her called to see her, being still interested in her. 
 
 "We were anxious to know where she went when she 
 left our hospital," said the sister. "We liked the girl 
 very much, but she is so dreadfully untruthful ; she tells 
 continually the most awful falsehoods; a perfectly good, 
 moral girl otherwise we feel sure, but with this terrible 
 vice." And the tears filled her eyes. 
 
 This was a young hospital sister who had lately en- 
 tered the order — full of compassion and love for her 
 work, and was grieved to think of this great sin in so 
 young a girl. But she had yet to learn that it was not a 
 vice, not a sin in this poor girl. 
 
 She had received so much morphine that her poor 
 delicate brain was no longer responsible for its action. 
 However, there is one thing that we have to give this 
 girl credit for — she never spoke ill of any one. Her vivid 
 imagination ran on the good side of things. She de- 
 famed no one; no word of malice ever left her lips, she 
 exaggerated all kindness that any one had ever shown 
 her. 
 
 The scrofula was in one foot, and she was soon obliged 
 to go again to a hospital for treatment. She had a father 
 living, who finally placed her in the Montefiore Home. 
 
 THE OLD PLAYWRIGHT. 
 
 I often had occasion to notice how wonderfully free 
 from care are some who are entirely dependent upon 
 others for their support. One old playwright introduced 
 to us by the Actors' Fund had written many successful 
 plays. He was always writing new plays, but of late had 
 
126 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 lost the necessary brain power to do good work, owing 
 he confessed to the use of stimulants. Sometimes he 
 would show me a letter from some manager at a dis- 
 tance asking for a new play, but they were always re- 
 turned to him. However, nothing troubled him, and he 
 kept on writing, for he generally could find some one to 
 beg or borrow paper and ink from, or the price of it. 
 
 We had two physicians who attended our Home, one 
 allopathist, and the other of the homeopathic school. 
 They were willing to volunteer their services, but we 
 always preferred to pay a small fee. I found that the 
 old playwright was going to both these physicians, and 
 I said to him, "You mustn't do this; we can't afford to 
 pay two doctors to attend to you ; you must keep to one 
 only." "But, my dear madame," he answered with his 
 usual happy smile, "I am obliged to do this. I want to 
 know what is the matter with me, and if they both tell 
 me the same thing, I shall believe it, and I am waiting 
 until they have both diagnosed my case; if they don't 
 agree in their opinion, I shall turn my back forever on 
 the medical profession." 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 A GIRL FROM THE WEST. 
 
 One day I received from the West the following letter : 
 
 "Dear Miss Fisher: 
 
 "I saw an account of your Home in a newspaper, and 
 thought perhaps you could help me. I am sixteen years 
 old, and strong and healthy, and I want to earn my living, 
 but I don't want to be a servant. I should like to be in 
 a store, but the town is two miles from here, and I 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 127 
 
 couldn't pay my board in the town, as they pay beginners 
 only a dollar a week. My parents keep a sort of road- 
 house. My mother expects me to wash dishes, and help 
 cook and she doesn't pay me any wages, though she 
 makes good money. She buys my clothes, but they are 
 always of the cheap, old-fashioned style, and I am so 
 unhappy." 
 
 I answered her letter, and advised her to help her 
 mother as cheerfully as she could, and something might 
 open up in the future, and hoped she would find some 
 friend much nearer than I was. 
 
 In about a month, I received another letter from her 
 in which she said: 
 
 "It was so kind of you to answer my letter, and if you 
 don't mind, I shall tell you of a queer thing that happened 
 to me. One hot day, when I was sitting crying on our 
 porch, a nice-looking buggy drove up to our door, and a 
 gentleman jumped out. 
 
 "He said, 'I was making a deposit in the bank in the 
 town, and asked if they could tell me of a place where I 
 could get a dinner in this locality, and they told me of 
 your house. So if you could give me my rations, and a 
 feed for my horse, and let me take a wash-up at your 
 pump, I am willing to pay two dollars for it.' 
 
 "He wiped the perspiration from his forehead; he 
 looked such a gentleman that I didn't like to have him 
 wash at the pump, and wipe on the same towel with the 
 common men, so I said, 'Wait a minute,' and I fixed my 
 room with clean towels and soap, and put them in there 
 with my father's foot-bath full of fresh cold water. 
 While he was washing, I fixed up a little table for him 
 apart from the other men. My mother looked angry at 
 me, but I whispered, 'Two dollars,' and went away. I 
 
128 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 know it is rude to stare at people while they are eating, 
 but he seemed to want to talk. I said to him, 'My 
 father's whole thought is to raise money to have a sheep 
 ranch in Mexico. He says that any man can double his 
 money every year there, on sheep.' 
 
 " 'Well, I doubt it, unless he had a very large number,' 
 he answered. 'He would be sure to lose on a small quan- 
 tity.' 
 
 "I replied 1 , 'He thinks I ought to help my mother with 
 the dish-washing and cooking. I didn't mind it when I 
 was fourteen, but now I'm sixteen, I do.' 
 
 " 'Your father ought to pay you some wages,' he con- 
 tinued, 'although now I come to think of it, I don't know 
 but what he is right about your helping your mother. 
 My little best friend helps her mother on Saturdays be- 
 cause she is not at school, but then her parents buy her 
 beautiful dresses, and when I can get the time to take 
 her to church, I tell you all the fellows look at us, and I 
 expect we make a fine-looking couple.' 
 
 "'Is that your handwriting in that copybook?' he 
 asked. 'Yes, isn't it good ? I never went to school after 
 I was ten years old,' I answered. 
 
 " 'It might be better. You begin all your letters at 
 the bottom and give them a queer sort of twist, whereas 
 you should begin at the top. My best little girl doesn't 
 write an elegant hand, and I tell her that fine, beautiful 
 handwriting is one of the lost arts, that any lady should 
 be proud of. Learn to make the Greek E. It is best. 
 I have a great respect for those Greek fellows, how they 
 worked, and got nothing for it but a wreath of laurels, 
 and often not even that.' 
 
 "He took from his inside pocket a letter, and after 
 reading it all over carefully, he handed it over to me say- 
 ing, 'I don't mind your reading what she writes to me. 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 129 
 
 We write quite often ; she writes three letters to my one. 
 I believe that women write when they have nothing to 
 say, and the men only when they have something to say.' 
 
 " 'And so your name is Hagadorn,' he continued. 
 
 " 'Yes, a horrid name,' I answered. 
 
 " 'Don't kick at your name,' he said. 'When I went 
 through the old cemetery on Staten Island, where the 
 old Vanderbilts are buried, I found the name of Haga- 
 dorn as plentiful as blackberries on a bush. You don't 
 mind being related to the Vanderbilts do you?' 
 
 "That made me laugh. I said I wished they could 
 find me some nice work to do. 
 
 " 'Let me tell you something,' he said. 'If you will be 
 guided by me, I can teach you a kind of work that will 
 not be a trade, but a profession.' 
 
 "I said I should like that very much. 'Perhaps you 
 don't know,' he continued, 'but it is said that the profes- 
 sional people are the aristocracy of this country — the 
 parson, the doctor, the lawyer, the actor, the artist, the 
 teacher, the trained nurse. Have you read the life of 
 that noble and wonderful woman, Florence Nightingale, 
 who made nursing a profession?' 
 
 " 'I haven't read anything,' I replied. 'The library is 
 in the town two miles off, and it takes me two hours to 
 walk there and two hours back, and it tires me out. But 
 I shouldn't like to nurse the sick.' 
 
 " 'Neither should I. It can't be very pleasant to listen 
 to the grunts and groans of people. I know when I am 
 sick, I wish I were dead and out of it all. But this is 
 work I think you would like. It requires strength, pa- 
 tience and industry. I have taught it to three young 
 women who are delighted with it, and it brings them a 
 respectable living. I won't tell you now which profes- 
 
130 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 sion it belongs to, but if you succeed with your appren- 
 ticeship, I will tell you. Now do you want to learn?' 
 
 " 'I said I should be very thankful.' 
 
 " 'But you must read good books,' he added ; 'they are 
 the best companions. I shall bring you some the next 
 time I come this way, and I will bring you the tools for 
 your work. You will find me a hard teacher — you may 
 shed a few tears — sometimes — girls cry so easily; but 
 stick to it, and you will be glad in the end. Your father 
 can inquire about me at the bank if he wants to.' 
 
 "He looked at me with those honest eyes of his, and 
 before he went he talked awhile with my father. 
 
 "Oh! how I longed for the time to come when he 
 would be here again with those tools that he talked about. 
 At last the day came. He brought a small pasteboard, 
 the same as you roll out pastry on. Little hardwood 
 pegs were driven in all around it; he handed me a pair 
 of plyers and said, 'You must draw out these little pegs, 
 so perfectly straight that the hole will be left perfectly 
 round, and the peg must not be bent. Now try it.' Af- 
 ter a good deal of effort I got one out, but I made sorry 
 work of it. Then he took one out, clean and nice as a 
 new pin. 
 
 "When he and his horse had had their dinner, and he 
 had settled for it, he took his leave. 
 
 "Week after week I worked away at the pegs. My 
 arm used to ache up to the shoulder, and the dish-washing 
 and the sweeping seemed easy work after that. How- 
 ever, I kept on. Sometimes he scolded me and it was hard 
 to keep the tears out of my eyes, and once he rapped my 
 knuckles with the plyers. Before he went away he said, 
 'Men don't make as patient teachers as the women do. 
 I know a young lady who went to Germany to study the 
 piano under one of those big masters, and he was so 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 131 
 
 cross that she cried more than half the time, but she came 
 out all right in the end, and so will you.' 
 
 "I worked hard at those little pegs for four months, 
 then he brought me a fresh board with a new row of 
 little pegs round it. They had little pieces of lead in 
 them like so many little eyes. This lead I was to pick 
 out with the instrument he brought me. I spent six 
 months at this work. 
 
 "Afterwards he gave me two books on anatomy, so 
 that I might study the nerves of the whole head. 
 
 "My father sold some cattle and paid me some wages 
 for the housework, and I have enough now to take me 
 to New York to the Dental College where I can learn to 
 become a full-fledged dentist. My friend, Mr. Sinclair, 
 says I have made a splendid beginning." 
 
 This girl came to New York. I advised her to board 
 at one of the homes for young girls, where she would 
 be just a walk from the college and save carfare. 
 
 As soon as she got her diploma, she went back to the 
 country, and opened an office of her own in one of the 
 flourishing towns there. In her last letter to me she 
 wrote : 
 
 "I would prefer to see the most delicate woman enter 
 my office rather than a great big strong man, for the men 
 are more nervous than the women, and make the most 
 fuss at a little pain." 
 
 A MAN WITH A PAST. 
 
 One of the most disagreeable duties that I had to en- 
 counter was to go one day to the morgue to look over 
 the dead bodies, to see if I could find that of an old 
 lawyer who had died in the street from a fall, and noth- 
 ing was found upon him to tell where he belonged. He 
 
132 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 had been many years in the employ of the Custom House. 
 He had been a man of means, had lived many years apart 
 from his wife, now deceased, and in his old age had put 
 his affairs in the hands of his children, who looked after 
 him, and found boarding places for him which seldom 
 suited him, and he was constantly changing from one 
 place to another, which gave them considerable trouble, 
 as they lived far away from him. 
 
 They thought our Home would be the very best place 
 for him, as he would have a little care and attention if 
 he felt sick. They did not come to see him, but wished 
 him to be comfortable, and he could well afford to pay 
 for it. 
 
 I soon found him to be one of the peculiar. He would 
 not take his meals in the general dining-room — he said 
 the old ladies near him insisted on handing him the 
 dishes, and he didn't want their attention; he preferred 
 to have a servant wait on him. As we had several houses 
 connecting, I was able to accommodate him with the 
 front basement of the adjoining house for his private 
 use, which he used as dining and sitting room, and could 
 be alone by himself. 
 
 About this time there came to us a woman as a sort 
 of working housekeeper; she offered me her services in 
 return for her husband's board. She was about forty; 
 at first, there was something repellant about her, for her 
 countenance was anything but prepossessing. She had 
 a bad defect in her vision, but as she talked to me, I was 
 better disposed to give her a trial. 
 
 She seemed very anxious to take good care of her hus- 
 band who was about her own age, but looked sad and 
 melancholy. She said it took all her efforts to keep him 
 from sinking into despondency since he lost his grip on 
 the business world. She wore very shabby clothes, but 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 133 
 
 kept him well dressed. Through her influence over him, 
 she got him to do some book-keeping and accounts for 
 me; he seemed quite indifferent as to any compensation 
 for the same. I found her very industrious, remarkably 
 neat and reliable. She was well informed upon many 
 points in domestic economy, and often insisted on find- 
 ing something to do, when I told her that she would 
 better be resting herself. She was very cheerful, and 
 had a strong sense of humor. She had received a good 
 education, and I often wondered what her past had been, 
 and whether her husband was the same sad, melancholy 
 man when she married him; and, if he had sufficient at 
 that time to support a wife, why did he marry such a 
 plain-looking woman whose appearance had nothing to 
 recommend her but her figure? She was tall, well pro- 
 portioned, and those who seemed to know, said she 
 would have satisfied the dream of a sculptor. 
 
 She was very jocular, and when I had time to listen 
 she would tell me some amusing little incidents in her 
 life. 
 
 "I always wanted us to live in a community," she said, 
 "and I thought the Shakers at Lebanon would suit us 
 splendidly, and I was determined to get there if possible. 
 So by degrees I saved up the money, and we started off. 
 We were there several months, but there were such 
 funny things there going on, that it often made me 
 laugh, and I was called before the council and warned 
 that I must be more decorous, that I was too full of 
 levity, and that it was against the laws and tenets of 
 their faith. After that I tried to control myself, and I 
 thought I behaved remarkably well. But, alas ! in a little 
 while we were turned out. You would have to be a 
 mere machine to live among them." 
 
 As the work assigned her did not take in the house 
 
134 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 where the old lawyer had his bedroom, there was no 
 opportunity for some time for their meeting each other. 
 But once, when he came in to see me — he often came to 
 consult me about some little trifling thing — just as he 
 was coming in at the door, she happened to be passing 
 out. When the door had closed upon her he stood for 
 a while in silence, and seemed trying to speak, but was 
 too excited, and he trembled so that I got up and of- 
 fered him a chair. He pushed me away, saying, "Where 
 did you get that woman? Why do I find her here? If 
 it wasn't for disgracing my family, I would expose her, 
 and prosecute her as she deserves." 
 
 I was puzzled as I reflected upon the matter. Before 
 I had come to any conclusion, she said one morning, 
 "When you have a minute to spare, let me speak to you." 
 
 I thought she might have heard what the old gentle- 
 man had said, and that she would refer to it, but all she 
 said was, "I have seen an ad. in the paper for an assistant 
 in an institution. I know something of the place, that 
 they pay well, and if I can get the position I can pay my 
 husband's board somewhere near me." I wrote her a 
 reference in regard to her work, but the superintendent 
 came to see me and said, "I have heard that it would not 
 be best to engage her, although she has many good quali- 
 ties. As to the rest, the less said the better." 
 
 She left us with her melancholy husband, and I have 
 not heard of them since. 
 
 It was a very windy morning when the old lawyer 
 went out to take his usual walk, and when he was a few 
 blocks away, a gentleman saw his hat blow off, and in 
 trying to run after it, he fell down and struck his head 
 on the curbstone, and was picked up dead. Toward 
 evening it occurred to the gentleman that he had seen 
 such an old gentleman on our street, and he wrote me 
 about the accident. 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 135 
 
 I was not long identifying him at the morgue. His 
 son, who lived many miles off, sent for the remains. It 
 devolved upon me to go to the Coroner and claim the 
 few belongings that were found in the pockets of the 
 deceased — his watch, keys, etc., which I forwarded to 
 his son. 
 
 To my astonishment I saw in the Coroner the doctor 
 who was our family physician when I was a girl. I re- 
 member what great effort he had made to obtain this 
 office, and how his patients had voted for him, because 
 they saw how anxious he was to be elected. 
 
 "It isn't that I care so much for the post," he said, 
 "but I want to show the city what a coroner ought to 
 do, and what can be done." 
 
 And all who knew him best were confident of his 
 honest intentions and integrity and the uprightness of 
 his character, which was more than they could say of 
 some of the present coroners. 
 
 However, he was defeated. The Jewish girls on our 
 block used to say, "No wonder he didn't get in; I guess 
 the people want a good-looking man and he is so awfully 
 ugly he would frighten a corpse." 
 
 "And he's too out-spoken," said another. "When my 
 dear mother died after such a long illness, the first thing 
 he said to my father was 'Better for her, better for you.' 
 He is too blunt to be a doctor." 
 
 They used to say that he wished very much to be mar- 
 ried, but was determined to wait until he could find a girl 
 with money, "and he never will do that," said one of the 
 girls "because he is so ugly." 
 
 There was a very pretty young lady, an invalid, who 
 lived opposite to us, and at certain hours of the day she 
 could be seen sitting at a window, and looking out upon 
 the street. The girls said she was in love with the doctor, 
 
136 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 that she found him so entertaining, for he played the 
 piano most divinely, was very well read, and could tell 
 amusing stories of his travels in foreign countries, and 
 that she did not find him at all bad-looking. She was 
 a Gentile, but would have married him if her father 
 would have permitted it. Her name was Pauline, and 
 once when they joked him about her he remarked, "She 
 loves me and I love her, and if I ever marry and have 
 any children I will call my eldest child Paul if it's a boy, 
 and Pauline if it's a girl." 
 
 A couple of years after he went to Germany and 
 brought back a good-looking young wife. 
 
 I inquired after her; he invited me to call on them 
 saying, "We have one child, I want you to see him. Paul 
 is a fine fellow, and we are proud of him." 
 
 I laughed. "And so you gave him that Christian 
 name." I said, "I should have expected to hear Abraham, 
 Isaac or Jacob. Was your wife willing?" 
 
 "I didn't ask her. Why should I?" 
 
 "Did she know about Miss Pauline, your patient, who 
 used to watch for you at the window ?" 
 
 "It was one of the first things that I told her — I knew 
 she would hear of it, so I told her myself." 
 
 "And she is not jealous?" 
 
 "Certainly not. She is a sensible girl; she often goes 
 out with a young friend of ours, and one day he said to 
 me, "I feel very much honored, that you should trust 
 your wife with me." 
 
 "You?" I answered, "I wouldn't trust you the length 
 of my finger, but I can trust my wife. No, she is not 
 jealous. A woman with a jealous disposition should 
 never marry a doctor, for she may have plenty of oppor- 
 tunity, and she should make up her mind to this before 
 hand, or there's no happiness for her." 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 137 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE DEADLY FEUD. 
 
 I thought best to make it one of the rules of our 
 Home that all discussions upon religion and politics 
 should be avoided that might tend to the discomfiture 
 of any one of the guests. However, strange to say, only 
 one quarrel occurred during all the years of our Home, 
 but that one was disastrous indeed. 
 
 Two old gentlemen, each from old American families, 
 men who had been loyal to the North all through the 
 Civil War, and both college men, went out one day to 
 cast their vote at the time of election for President. One 
 was a Republican, the other a Democrat. So fierce was 
 the conflict that they never spoke to each other again 
 during the five years that they lived together under the 
 same roof and ate at the same table — they never inter- 
 changed a word. 
 
 "What is the great difference of ze Republican and ze 
 Democrat that make those two old gentlemans never 
 talk together?" said an old German lady to me one day. 
 
 I answered, "I cannot tell you, Madame, for I do not 
 know." 
 
 A STRANGE CUSTOM. 
 
 From what nation or people do we Americans derive 
 the custom of dressing up the dead? 
 
 This set me thinking when two old gentlemen died 
 in our Home. One was an American lawyer; his son 
 wrote to me, "You will find a new suit of clothing in my 
 father's tnyik. Please tell the undertaker to see that 
 everything is done as it should be and send the bill 
 to me." 
 
138 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 The other old gentleman was an Englishman. His 
 daughter wrote me, "Please have a new nightshirt put 
 on the remains and forward them to me. We do not 
 like the American custom of dressing a corpse in all 
 their clothes. It does not look like peaceful sleep." I 
 could not help contrasting the appearance of the remains 
 of these two old gentlemen. The American wore his 
 best dress suit with studs and cuff-buttons as though 
 he were ready to rise up and go to a party, while the old 
 Englishman appeared to be in a peaceful sleep. Where 
 did we get this unreasonable custom of dressing up the 
 dead? 
 
 AN UNKNOWN WOMAN. 
 
 One of our guests was a gentleman who had once 
 been a man of means, and enjoyed a sufficient income 
 to give him the advantages of the best cultured society, 
 but reckless investments so depleted his fortune that he 
 was finally reduced to three hundred dollars per annum, 
 all that was left to him of his last venture in a ranch in 
 the far South. 
 
 He read a great deal, but he craved something more 
 to entertain him. He sorely missed the companionship 
 he had been accustomed to, and would gladly have mar- 
 ried again, but twenty-five dollars per month did not en- 
 courage him to think of this. 
 
 In looking round for diversion he sometimes found 
 in the daily papers something that took his attention. 
 
 At one time there was a celebrated case before the 
 public, and many letters to the editors appeared in re- 
 gard to it. Among these letters there were several 
 signed "J. M., Redbank, N. J." These letters were the 
 best of a great many. It was evident that the writer 
 had a clear and correct idea of justice. Some said that 
 
MARY FISHER HOME i 39 
 
 such brilliant ideas must come from a man, a lawyer 
 probably, long versed in jurisprudence. Our friend felt 
 convinced that these splendid passages came from the 
 pen of a woman, and he had a burning desire to find 
 out the personality of this "J. M.," of Redbank, N. J. 
 
 "You'd better be careful or you may get left," one of 
 our guests said to him. "When I was in the army we 
 used to amuse ourselves with a sort of would-be cor- 
 respondence with some fair one we met with through 
 the papers. I had a number of letters from a would-be 
 lady which amused me very much. When the war was 
 over and we were coming home this "lady" proposed 
 that I should meet her at her hotel. But I knew better; 
 I knew if I went there I should probably meet a man 
 who would laugh in my face. So I wrote a final letter 
 saying that the correspondence had given me much 
 pleasure, but we would have to discontinue it as I was 
 engaged to be married." 
 
 However, nothing could deter our friend from making 
 an effort to become acquainted with this interesting 
 writer. 
 
 "Why don't you go' down to Redbank and try to hunt 
 her up through the post office, the hotels, and the board- 
 ing houses?" was the advice another gave him. 
 
 He raised his eyebrows and with that comical smile 
 of his answered, "When I have paid my board and laun- 
 dry, and the woman for mending my socks, and put a 
 bit of silver into the plate at church, there isn't much 
 balance out of twenty-five dollars to take me to Red- 
 bank to skirmish round after a woman that I might 
 never find. No, a few sheets of paper and some postage 
 stamps will have to do the work." 
 
 Through his indomitable perseverance, finally he pos- 
 sessed himself of the fact that "J. M.," of Redbank, was 
 
140 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 a lady. This was a great satisfaction to him. They cor- 
 responded regularly once a week, taking up various sub- 
 jects for discussion. 
 
 At one time it was "The Right of Way." In Europe 
 it is the rule to "keep to the left," but in this country it 
 is "keep to the right." The lady declared that it was 
 most natural and reasonable to follow the term implied 
 and keep to the right. 
 
 However, our friend, who had lived in Europe, and 
 motored much in France, could show reason why the 
 rule of "keep to the left" was the better one, and he ex- 
 plained how accidents were averted by this rule. His 
 argument not only convinced but pleased the lady, who 
 said that she was always so glad to learn. 
 
 At one time they took up the life of the first Napoleon. 
 The lady had evidently become imbued with the history 
 of Abbott, who makes the great soldier a humanitarian, 
 who hated war and carnage, who wished to make con- 
 quests in order to benefit the countries conquered. Our 
 friend preferred to agree with Sir Walter Scott and Car- 
 lyle, who saw in this man an overwhelming ambition that 
 nothing could satisfy. 
 
 As neither would give in to the other, and they found 
 that they were going round in a circle, they both agreed 
 to drop the subject. But it had brought them to a more 
 friendly intercourse, and our friend looked forward to 
 something more than this. He ventured to send his 
 photograph, and asked the favor of hers in return. 
 
 She returned his immediately, making no comments 
 whatever about his request for hers. This was not very 
 encouraging, but still he kept on hoping for better times. 
 He had never been able to learn her name, or anything 
 about her, except that she was "J. M.," of Redbank, N. J. 
 When he was becoming tired of history and science, 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 141 
 
 he inferred that it would give him great pleasure if they 
 could take up a very popular romance that had been 
 lately written by a popular author, in which a deserted 
 wife could not make up her mind as to where her duty 
 lay — whether to remain isolated from the world where 
 her husband had left her, or accept the offer of her lover 
 to go with him where there would be joy and happiness. 
 
 The conclusion of "J- M.," of Redbank, was that the 
 lady might not find joy and happiness in her new com- 
 panionship, her memory might keep travelling back to 
 former years, and it might be better for her to remain 
 where she was, and learn to find peace which would take 
 the place of the happiness she forfeited. 
 
 When he attempted to write in a more intimate vein, 
 with the hope that they might one day become better 
 acquainted, she gave him to understand that, although 
 she was alone, she was not free, that if they continued 
 to correspond, it must be on the same old conditions. 
 
 When some six or eight months had passed, she wrote 
 that circumstances compelled her to leave Redbank, and 
 that the correspondence must cease. 
 
 He now wrote that he would ask her for one last favor. 
 And that was that they might meet — just once only, that 
 he might see the lady whose letters had given him so 
 much pleasure. She appointed a day when she would 
 be entering the Central Park in New York from the 
 East 72nd Street gate at ten o'clock in the morning, that 
 she was tall, dressed in black, but would not be able to 
 speak to him, as it would necessitate explanations to the 
 companion who would accompany her. 
 
 Full of expectation our friend was there at the ap- 
 pointed time. Very few people came to the Park 
 through that gate at that early hour, but finally a lady 
 and gentleman came. The man was a tall, distinguished- 
 
142 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 looking person. The lady was a handsome woman 
 dressed in black, and the thin veil over her face did not 
 disguise her features. But she never looked up, so our 
 friend had no opportunity of catching her eye to have 
 the satisfaction of knowing that she saw him. This was 
 not very pleasing to him, as he considered himself very 
 good-looking, and he had taken particular pains with his 
 toilet on that morning. 
 
 A DISTINGUISHED GUEST. 
 
 One of our most interesting guests was Mr. Arthur 
 Lumley — whose obituary notices have been in many of 
 our daily papers, for he was well known to the press as 
 a painter and illustrator. He was staff artist for Leslie's 
 Weekly with the army of the Potomac during the Civil 
 War. He wrote and illustrated for the Illustrated Lon- 
 don News, the Graphic and Fine Arts. He was the 
 founder of the Society of American Painters in Water 
 Colors, and had been a frequent exhibitor at the Royal 
 Academy of London. He was a personal friend of Mr. 
 Thomas Nast, the cartoonist, with whom he had been 
 a fellow student at the National Academy of Design. 
 In his latter years, he was afflicted with impaired sight, 
 being condemned for two years to a dark room and idle- 
 ness — which to one of his active temperament was a 
 great privation. 
 
 But he tried to be so cheerful under it. Every morn- 
 ing after breakfast he would come to me for an exchange 
 of greeting, and I always appreciated the advantage 
 of hearing his opinions of authors and their works, 
 for he was widely read, and had travelled so extensively. 
 Those in the Home who knew him best feel his loss. He 
 died at the age of seventy-five. He was never married. 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 143 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 One of the saddest cases that has ever been known 
 in the annals of the White Slave traffic is the following : 
 
 "Your nurse always looks so sad," said a visitor to 
 me. "That is what several have remarked," I answered. 
 "She is not so very young, and if it is a love affair, one 
 would think she would have enough control of herself 
 not to parade her doleful face in public. She should 
 keep it for her private room." 
 
 "Well, it is a love affair," was the answer. I noticed 
 that her eyes were filled with tears sometimes as she 
 went mechanically about her work in my room. 
 
 One day I said to her, "Won't you tell me what makes 
 you so sad? Sometimes it makes one feel better to 
 tell one's sorrows to some one." She knelt down on the 
 floor by my bedside, so as to whisper in my ear. "It is 
 a great secret, but if I could not speak of it to some one, 
 I often feel as though my heart would burst." 
 
 "I was nursing in one of our first families. The 
 mother, a lovely lady, had pneumonia. The daughter, a 
 bright and beautiful girl, used to insist upon relieving 
 me at night. I was the night nurse, and we were thrown 
 much together. The poor lady was very ill, her life 
 despaired of, and they appreciated so much the way in 
 which I treated the case, that after the lady recovered, 
 they made me stay awhile and take a long rest. 
 
 «Mj ss took me to matinees with her. She was 
 
 a very lively girl, and I saw her in all her bright beauty. 
 One evening she said to me, 'Now, I'm determined to 
 have some fun.' She dressed me in one of her beautiful, 
 expensive, imported dresses, and soon I found myself in 
 the midst of a most elite company. 
 
144 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 "After supper there was a dance. Miss took 
 
 me up and down the long drawing room with her, say- 
 ing we were the 'gold dust twins,' which created much 
 merriment. The evening ended with a masquerade 
 dance in which we all appeared in masques and 
 dominos. 
 
 "When the daughter related the events of the evening 
 to her mother at the breakfast table next day, which 
 must have been at about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, her 
 mother said that no newspaper account of any such 
 thing had amused her so much in many a long day. 
 
 "Ah ! she was such a bright and beautiful girl, that 
 daughter! 'I must get away from here,' I said. 'So 
 much recreation and inactivity will demoralize me. I 
 shall pack up at once. It is high time I got back to 
 work.' 
 
 "These good people soon got me a position among 
 their friends. I was very happy in my new situation, 
 but, judge of my horror, when one morning one of the 
 household knocked at my door before breakfast, to show 
 me a paragraph in the morning's paper, which told me 
 that the beautiful girl whom I had learned to respect 
 and love so dearly, had been kidnapped in the middle 
 of the day, in broad daylight. 
 
 " 'In less than a week,' my employer said to me, 'We 
 shall have to lose you. That poor mother is ill from 
 weeping and worry, and as you have been her nurse 
 before, you are the right one to take care of her now.' 
 
 "I couldn't hesitate, and was soon at the bedside of 
 that sorrow-stricken mother. I saw a great change in 
 both parents. They looked so worn and so much older, 
 and no wonder, when we consider the terrible strain they 
 had been under. 
 
 " 'Of course, she has been kidnapped for a ransom,' 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 145 
 
 said the father, as he bent with loving care over the bed 
 of his poor wife, 'and as we have heard nothing, it is 
 evident that they couldn't see their way clear without 
 discovery. They have probably killed the girl, and car- 
 ried her body to some distant, far away place for hid- 
 ing.' 'No, no,' cried the poor mother, 'my darling child 
 would not die without finding an opportunity to com- 
 municate with the mother who loves her so dearly.' 
 
 " 'I have employed the best detective force in the 
 
 whole State,' said Mr. . 'The brightest fellow of 
 
 the lot believes that the wretches handed the girl over 
 to the White Slave traffic, as the next best way of get- 
 ting money. They are searching in every White Slave 
 resort where they can get an entree, which is no easy 
 matter, for these places are sealed like a tomb, and kept 
 so secret' 
 
 "It was a beautiful morning when the care-worn and 
 loving husband and father leaned over his wife in bed 
 and said, 'Now, darling mother, take your breakfast, and 
 I have some news for you.' 'Oh, tell me now! Think 
 how long it has been, and how wretched I have been. 
 It is so cruel to keep this word from me.' 
 
 "Poor lady! In the early prime of her life, and yet 
 worn almost to emaciation, so little nourishment could 
 we get her to take. 
 
 " 'I must get dressed and go to her now, my darling 
 child.' 
 
 "So with cries of joy because she was going to see the 
 daughter she loved so much, and moaning and weeping 
 because she couldn't get dressed faster, she finally sank 
 back on her pillows exhausted. 
 
 "Poor lady! It was no easy task to get her dressed 
 for the journey. Everything was done that a loving 
 husband could think of for her comfort, and tenderly 
 
146 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 holding her in his arms, he bore her half asleep along 
 the tedious journey, now and then stopping by the way 
 to get her some warm refreshment, for the journey was 
 long and the night was bitterly cold. 
 
 "It was morning when we reached our destination, 
 where we were to take a train for the nearest town that 
 led to the sanitarium, where the young girl had been 
 taken by her heart-broken father. 
 
 "A stage belonging to the institution met us at the 
 station, and led the way through a spacious park, and 
 the auto bearing its sad occupants followed. Soon the 
 loving husband was carrying his wife through the spa- 
 cious corridors, superbly appointed with every luxury. 
 
 "They entered a spacious apartment, and throwing 
 himself upon a couch, while he still held his wife in his 
 arms, he talked to her while the friend who accompanied 
 them was busy at the portmanteau that had been packed 
 at her father's suggestion. 
 
 " 'Take one of her prettiest dresses which her mother 
 loved to see her in, and the jewels which she will recog- 
 nize as the ones she had given her. Take comb and 
 brush, so that you can brush her hair all down one side 
 of her face, which had better be kept covered.' 
 
 "When all was ready, he said to his wife, 'Now, 
 mother, dear, you must promise me once again to be 
 brave and strong. Your poor child has lost her mem- 
 ory and will not know you.' 
 
 " 'Oh ! Yes, yes, she will,' sobbed the poor mother. 
 'She knows I loved her so dearly.' 
 
 "He pointed to a figure opposite them. It was that 
 of a young girl who sat motionless, gazing into vacancy. 
 
 "With a strange, wild stare, the mother contemplated 
 this strange spectacle. The dress, the jewels, the long 
 beautiful tresses finally seemed to speak to her, and 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 147 
 
 clasping the girl around the neck, she swooned upon 
 her bosom. But the girl never moved. It was evident 
 that her mind was gone never to return. 
 
 "The family physician, who had accompanied them, 
 now came forward and said, 'I have had a room pre- 
 pared, and shall now take charge with your wife and 
 nurse. The long strain that she had been under so 
 long had been too much for her delicate brain, and I 
 know what is coming. She. will always be gentle and 
 easy to take care of, but she will be melancholy — the 
 saddest phase of insanity.' 
 
 "Early the next morning, I knocked at the door of 
 the head physician, and on being told to enter, I stood 
 before him with tears in my eyes, and in an unsteady 
 voice, said, 'You must let me go. You see it is so much 
 worse for me to be with that dear girl than it would 
 be for any other nurse, because I knew her in all her 
 brightness and beauty. My brain reels every time I 
 look upon that strange collection of distorted nerves. I 
 shall lose my mind if I cannot get out of here.' 
 
 " 'We won't ask you to stay,' was the reply. 'I will 
 settle with you at once. We have made that poor man 
 go to bed. He kept up so bravely, but now he is a com- 
 plete wreck. If he gets some sleep, it may save him, 
 but I wish that it would be otherwise. You must re- 
 member that it is his wish that no information should 
 be given to the public in reference to this sad case. The 
 last thing he said to me, when his mind was clear, was, 
 'Anything but that, Doctor. Half the world might sym- 
 pathize with me, but the other half would make it the 
 favorite theme of their vulgar, idle gossip, and talk of 
 my beloved child as stark mad — a raving maniac. If 
 you care for me, spare me that. It is all I ask. I could 
 stand anything but that.' 
 
148 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 "Poor man. It is my earnest wish that the mother 
 and daughter may soon die, and leave him a few years' 
 freedom from this terrible burden of sorrow." 
 
 But where did they find her? Ah! that is the saddest 
 part of all. She had been sold into the White Slave 
 traffic of Chinatown. Crouched in a corner, clad in the 
 garments of a Chinese woman, that unfortunate girl sat 
 staring into vacancy. All one side of her face and neck 
 was distorted, probably from the effort that she had 
 made in her cries for help when the gag was put in her 
 mouth. Her eyes bulged from her head, showing the 
 tremendous agony with which she had passed into 
 insanity. 
 
 Oh ! Fathers and Mothers ! Take care of your 
 precious daughters. Remember that it was in broad 
 daylight, on the broad highway, with people moving 
 around, that this noble girl was snatched to a horrible 
 death. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 FINANCIAL HELP. 
 
 In 191 1 we received a legacy from Mrs. Anna K. 
 Weaver of Brooklyn of five hundred dollars. 
 
 In 1912 a legacy from Mrs. Evelyn S. Ridgeway of 
 Brooklyn of one thousand dollars. 
 
 However, we had no money with which to build our 
 Home. 
 
 Then the same generous giver who had purchased the 
 land for us, Mrs. Seabury, came forward with the neces- 
 sary funds. 
 
 Mrs. McClymonds of Morris Plains, N. J., contributed 
 
MARY FISHER HOME i 49 
 
 two thousand dollars for the completion of the edifice 
 and the grounds and the furnishings. 
 
 Dr. Woodruff, Mr. Speakman, and Mr. Hull assumed 
 the responsibility of the building of the Home. 
 
 The following loans were cancelled, which aided 1 very 
 much in the furnishing — 
 
 Mrs. R. T. Auchmuty $500.00 
 
 Mrs. Henry K. Sheldon 500.00 
 
 Mr. Frederick G. Bourne 500.00 
 
 Also from Mrs. George Finck a fund in trust of 
 $2,501.28. 
 
 Rooms have been dedicated to 
 
 Mrs. Henry King Sheldon, 
 
 Harriet Gilbert Bourne, 
 
 Annie M. McClymonds, 
 
 Mrs. Richard T. Auchmuty, 
 
 Julia W. Latimer. 
 
 The entire cost of the building and grounds was 
 $40,000.00. 
 
 The Seabury memorial, a gift of Mrs. Seabury in 
 memory of her husband, Gardner Thurston Seabury — an 
 ideal Home indeed. It stands in a beautiful location — 
 325 Highland Avenue, Mt. Vernon, N. Y. 
 
 In April, 191 2, we moved into this new building. 
 
 This was the dream of my life realized. 
 
 Many years had passed since I paid that visit to Eng- 
 land in my girlhood and saw just such a Home for gov- 
 ernesses, and wished that we had one like it. 
 
 "All things come to those who wait." 
 
 Also we have the pleasing prospect of a legacy of ten 
 thousand dollars which will come to this Home by the 
 will of Miss Cornelia Taylor, upon the death of a lady 
 who now receives the income from it. 
 
Jjo THE STORY OF THE 
 
 The Association was reorganized with Mr. Speakman 
 as President and a Board of Trustees from among the 
 strongest people of Mt. Vernon. This has relieved me 
 of my work in the Mt. Vernon Home, and I have been 
 glad to resign from its Board, and devote myself to our 
 Rural Home in Tenafly, N. J. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 REMINISCENCES THE LAPIDARY. 
 
 One of our life-guests was an aged German chemist, 
 who had apparently spent his lifetime and his patrimony 
 in the endeavor to produce precious stones. As to what 
 success he had met with he never told us. 
 
 As he preferred a rural locality we transferred him 
 from our New York home to the one in Tenafly, New 
 Jersey. He was possessed with the assurance that he 
 could produce the opal by the action of the sun's rays 
 upon certain chemicals placed in the soil. He was an 
 object of curiosity to the old ladies in the home, who 
 wondered what he wanted with so many queer-looking 
 bottles in his room, and when he explained that they con- 
 tained valuable chemicals that he used in his work, they 
 were frightened to death thinking that he would blow the 
 house up. So to relieve their minds we gave him a room 
 in a cottage on the grounds where he could have his lab- 
 oratory below, and his sleeping apartment above, so that 
 should any explosion occur he would be the only sufferer. 
 
 He was a perfect gentleman in his manner and bearing, 
 and always polite to the old ladies, who, while they looked 
 upon him with a measure of distrust and awe, could not 
 help feeling much respect for him, and they used to watch 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 151 
 
 to see him emerge from his domicile in the morning, and 
 come across the lawn to his breakfast, satisfied to see 
 that he had not blown himself to pieces in the night. 
 
 A notice came to him from his brother in Germany that 
 the valuable library of his deceased father had been sold, 
 and he left us to go home to receive his share of the 
 property. 
 
 There are those who ridicule a man for spending his 
 life on a theme that brings him no success, but later on 
 another will take up the thought which will prove a 
 crowning triumph. 
 
 In Bulwer Lytton's "The Last of the Barons," the poor 
 old man who invented the steam engine met with abuse 
 and persecution, and was believed to be plotting against 
 the life of the King. 
 
 But later on, the steam engine became the motive 
 power of the world. Perhaps some day another chemist 
 may succeed in producing the opal. 
 
 A VICTIM OF MORPHINE. 
 
 Probably very few people know that morphine is the 
 cause of many a false tale — the source of many a false 
 report which has injured sometimes for life a good repu- 
 tation. 
 
 Well I remember receiving into our Home a lady who 
 had been cared for in the family of an artist; she was 
 supposed to render some service in return for their hos- 
 pitality, but her poor health soon rendered this impos- 
 sible, and the neighbors, seeing that she was only a bur- 
 den to the artist's wife, appealed to us to relieve them of 
 her — which we did. She had been but a few weeks in 
 our home when she began to circulate the most astound- 
 ing reports of our ill-treatment of her. 
 
 When we confronted her with these falsehoods, she 
 
152 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 denied 1 every one of them, and our physician, Dr. Haring; 
 who attended her, told us that she was a victim of the 
 morphine habit, and not responsible for what she said. 
 
 But I know there are people who to this day believe 
 her stories. Very few people will take the trouble to in- 
 vestigate for themselves, and give credence to such tales, 
 and it often takes years to live such things down. 
 
 THE HEIR TO HALF A MILLION. 
 
 It is seldom indeed that an heir to half a million knocks 
 at the door of an institution and asks for board and 
 lodging. 
 
 However, one day, a young man in the early prime of 
 his life applied to us for this accommodation. He was 
 tall, straight, well proportioned, clean cut, scrupulously 
 neat, and fashionably attired in the latest London style. 
 
 "I come here to economize," he explained. "It is a 
 case of dire necessity, and you must do me the favor of 
 sparing me the annoyance of becoming acquainted with 
 any of the people here — I wish to live entirely alone. To 
 protect me from coming in contact with them, I must ask 
 the privilege of dining by myself, and in order to do this 
 I will take my meals earlier than the rest, and please see 
 that no one but the maid comes into the dining-room 
 while I am there." 
 
 It was not possible to manage this matter exactly as 
 he wished, but to come as near to it as we could, we gave 
 him a little table to himself at the end of the dining-room, 
 so that the guests would not have to pass by him as they 
 moved in and out. 
 
 But of course there was the necessity of his being seen 
 by them as he himself passed out. 
 
 This he always did with his head bent down, and his 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 153 
 
 eyes fixed on the floor. Also he preserved this attitude 
 in passing through the hall, or along the side-walk, so 
 that no one should catch his eye, and annoy him with a 
 nod of recognition. 
 
 "I see you read French," I. said to him once, for he 
 ordered Des Etats Unis, which came to him regularly; 
 he seemed to read no other newspaper. 
 
 "I have lived in France so much," he answered, "that 
 I feel more at home there than in my own country. My 
 father disinherited me because I lived there instead of 
 coming home. Why shouldn't I live where I prefer, and 
 do as I like?" 
 
 I remembered his Mother, she was much intere'sted in 
 philanthropic work, and left at her death large bequests 
 to various institutions, one of them was the Home for the 
 Friendless, and he told me that his Mother used to take 
 him there when he was a little boy, to excite his sympa- 
 thies, and imbue him with the spirit of humanitarianism, 
 "but we can't all think alike, you know," he said, "and 
 parents ought not to expect too much of their children." 
 
 His Father had been one of the old millionaires of 
 Washington Square, and he was the only child. 
 
 "I am contesting my Father's will," said he, "but it 
 takes so very long, and in the meantime I have scarcely 
 enough to keep body and soul together. I shall stay with 
 you until I get my check from my lawyer, and when I get 
 hard up again — for it happens very often — I may be glad 
 to come back to you, and I hope you will have a vacancy. 
 Please do the best you can for me, for you never had any 
 one more needy, although in a different way of course." 
 
 In a couple of months he left us. When he paid his 
 bill it amused me to see how punctilious he was to a cent. 
 There were three cents coming to him out of a dime, 
 which he gave in payment for some postage, and he sat 
 
154 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 and waited quite a long time for the necessary pennies to 
 be given him. 
 
 We were then living in St. Ann's Avenue. When we 
 moved to Fordham he turned up again, and remained 
 with us about the same length of time, upon the same 
 conditions, always walking about with his eyes cast down, 
 so that no one should annoy him by saying "good-morn- 
 
 rag." 
 
 When we moved to Mt. Vernon he came to us for the 
 third time, never changing his tactics in the least. And 
 six months after that when he turned up again, I had no 
 vacant room that suited him. 
 
 He seemed to be an utterly selfish man. 
 
 "But my dear Madame, could you not turn some one 
 out of a room, and take me in. I think you ought to un- 
 derstand how urgent my need is, it would be horrible for 
 me to go into a common boarding house to be stared at." 
 
 I told him it was impossible for me to make any such 
 changes, but that we had a Home in Tenafly, which he 
 was very glad to hear of, and he at once went over there, 
 and stated his wants and wishes to the Superintendent, 
 who happened to be able to accommodate him — much in 
 the same way as we had been accustomed to do. He had 
 a table to himself in a corner of the dining-room, where 
 he could sit with his back to the people, and they soon 
 learned to understand that he was something very unique, 
 who was never to be approached or spoken to under any 
 consideration. 
 
 When anything annoyed him he was apt to be very 
 irritable. 
 
 "Madame," he said to me one day, "you must instruct 
 your maid as to the proper manner of addressing me 
 when you have corn among your vegetables for dinner, 
 for she is in the habit of yelling to me, "Sir, do you like 
 to have corns ?' " 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 155 
 
 You can imagine how unpleasant it is for me to be 
 reminded of anything so disagreeable just as I am going 
 to eat my dinner. 
 
 Those who had rooms near him used to complain that 
 he disturbed them in the middle of the night, in opening 
 and shutting his trunk, and when I mentioned it to him 
 he said — 
 
 "It is my habit to get up in the night and eat a couple 
 of sandwiches which I keep in my trunk, and as I am 
 sleepy the lid falls down very often before I know it." 
 
 When he left us this time he did not return. 
 
 We never heard of him after that. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 A CHAPTER ON DOGS. 
 
 Now that we had such a nice country Home, I wished 
 very much to have a good dog, but couldn't afford an ex- 
 pensive one; I was offered a dachshund for twelve dol- 
 lars, but that was beyond my limit of five dollars, for we 
 had to practice the strictest economy to keep out of debt. 
 
 I heard of a collie owned by a butcher who lived at the 
 top of a tenement house in New York City, and that the 
 poor dog suffered shut up for want of a run in the fresh 
 air, and that the butcher wanted to sell it. 
 
 I went to find this dog ; the butcher was out, but I saw 
 his wife, and she showed me the collie shut up in the little 
 hall room. 
 
 It was a beauty, and looked wistfully at me. I offered 
 her five dollars, but she shook her head, and we haggled 
 some time over the price. Finally she said — 
 
 "Veil zat dog do make me troobles, you can have him 
 for ze five dollar." 
 
156 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 The next day was Sunday. 
 
 Just as the church bells were ringing, the butcher ap- 
 peared on the scene and demanded his dog, saying — 
 
 "My vife didn't haf no pissness to sell zat dog. I gif 
 you back ze five dol, never I make no sich pargain." 
 
 And so I had to part with the dog. 
 
 In about a week the butcher sent me a postal saying I 
 might have the dog for seven dollars, and I was only too 
 glad to get possession of the beautiful collie once more. 
 
 But I didn't want to lose sight of him for fear some- 
 thing might happen to him, and I decided to walk with 
 him to the 23rd Street ferry. The woman fastened a 
 piece of string to his collar, and we started off. 
 
 It was some three miles to the ferry, and although my 
 companion trotted along valiantly, I found myself tired 
 out, and still far away from the ferry. 
 
 "What shall I do?" I said to myself. "How shall I ever 
 get there?" I sank down on a box outside a grocery 
 store, my good dog nestling beside me, as though con- 
 tented to stay there forever, so long as I was with him. 
 
 Sometimes a boy would come along and speak to the 
 dog, but he had been so long shut up by himself, that he 
 was very timid, and seemed afraid if a man or boy came 
 near him. 
 
 Then I saw several drays driving along. It was Sat- 
 urday, and some were empty, and the thought occurred to 
 me that my chance had come. I presume, in my anxiety, 
 I had lost all thought of the proprietors, for I sat on that 
 soap box, and waved my handkerchief to attract the 
 driver's attention, but the only person that paid any heed 
 to me was an officer of the peace who was passing along 
 on his beat and swinging his club. 
 
 "What's the matter wid ye, madame ?" he asked. 
 
 I explained the cause of my dilemma. 
 
MARY FISHER HOME i 5 ? 
 
 He stood awhile staring at me, as though he couldn't 
 make up his mind as to what sort of a woman I was. 
 Certainly my appearance was not in my favor, the wind 
 was blowing a tremendous gale, my hat was all on one 
 side and I couldn't straighten it with one hand, and didn't 
 dare let go my leash of the dog to use both. 
 
 Finally the policeman gave a comical look at the dog, 
 and said, "Oh, well, madame, them animals is allers a 
 sort o' nuisance, ony fit to be on a farm," and walked 
 away, my dog watching his club as he disappeared. 
 
 But it was getting late, and the grocer's man came and 
 looked at me occasionally as though he thought I had sat 
 on his box long enough, and at my earnest request he 
 hailed a boy, who for a nickel was willing to stand on the 
 curb, and call out to the first empty dray that came along. 
 
 When he had stood there for some time, he called back 
 to me saying, "See here, Missis, won't it do if it ain't 
 empty — just room enough for you and the dog?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, anything will do," I said. 
 
 Before very long a dray drove up to the curbstone, and 
 I was so thankful that I could have cried for joy. 
 
 "Will you take me and my dog to the ferry for fifty 
 cents?" I asked. 
 
 "Sure," was the response, "jump in Missis." 
 
 But I couldn't jump in — the dray was so high. 
 
 "Please hurry," he continued. 
 
 People hurrying along the side walk now stopped and 
 made a little circle around me and the dog, which seemed 
 to be getting more frightened every minute. 
 
 "Oh, won't some one lift me in," I cried, and a coal 
 man left his job and lifted me onto the dray, but the 
 leash of the dog was too short, and he was so frightened ; 
 then the cord broke, and I lost sight of him. 
 
 In my distress, I cried to be let down again. I could 
 
158 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 see the dog on the opposite side of the street, running 
 away from those who were after him, and I followed 
 saying, "Oh, please get him, he will not bite." Finally 
 they got hold of the dog. The man drove over to us. I 
 never knew how I got into that wagon but I found my- 
 self sitting on the floor with the dog's head in my lap. 
 
 They had given him the name of Nero, but that savored 
 of cruelty, and I named him Rex for he was as good as 
 any king; as I patted his head and talked to him he 
 seemed well pleased with his new name. 
 
 The man drove along at a furious rate. I thought I had 
 better get the fifty cents ready, so I fumbled in my purse 
 for it, but the dray jolted so tremendously, that it slipped 
 from my fingers, and I saw it roll down into the road. 
 Finally we reached the ferry. With the help of a man 
 I slipped down from the dray, and kept tight hold of the 
 dog. 
 
 As soon as we landed on the side walk the dray disap- 
 peared onto the boat which had just come in, and the 
 driver never waited for his fifty cents. 
 
 "That dog is a collie crossed with a Newfoundland," 
 said a gentleman who sat beside us in the ferry boat. 
 
 Rex was a great pleasure in the Home. When any 
 one went out for a walk he would follow them, as though 
 to take care of them. He always knew the time when 
 one old gentleman went down for the mail two and three 
 times a day, and always went with him frisking about 
 across the railroad track; and one day a train ran over 
 him and killed him. 
 
 The poor old gentleman was broken-hearted, and cried 
 like a child. Dogs seem to have no sense of danger. 
 They will get under the horses' feet, and under the wheels 
 of autos, and are often killed through their carelessness. 
 
 After that I bought a little collie for five dollars. 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 159 
 
 One of the old ladies had brought her dog with her, he 
 had died of old age. His name was Tobias. She wanted 
 my dog named after him, but as I didn't like such a long 
 name, I said we would call him Toby for short. He was 
 only two weeks old, a very scrubby-looking little fellow, 
 not at all handsome, but he grew into a beautiful dog, and 
 is now twelve years old. 
 
 When it snows, he may be seen walking up a hill, and 
 when he reaches the top, he stands still awhile looking 
 around as though watching for something, then goes 
 plowing along with his nose in the snow. Afterwards, 
 we see him walking slowly back again. 
 
 One day I said to one of the old gentlemen, "It is so 
 strange, Toby never goes out alone when it rains, but as 
 soon as it snows he marches off up the hill, and never 
 goes there at any other time." 
 
 "Of course," he answered. "He is a cross between a 
 St. Bernard, that makes him so gentle, and the instinct 
 of the St. Bernard is there, and as long as he lives he will 
 go looking in the snow expecting to find some one buried 
 under it." 
 
 We had a little rat terrier from the Bide-a-Wee. It 
 proved to be a poor, sick little creature, and couldn't eat. 
 Toby would look at him, and seemed very much con- 
 cerned. We decided to send him back to the Bide-a- 
 Wee, where he would have further medical treatment. 
 So he was crated, and our man took him to the station 
 in a wheelbarrow — Toby following behind like a mourner 
 at a funeral. Afterward he would be seen watching at 
 the gate, as though he expected his little companion to 
 come back. 
 
 With all respect to the management of the Bide-a-Wee 
 
 would it not be better to chloroform the sick cats and 
 
 dogs, than spend money on their treatment, and risk the 
 
160 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 danger of hydrophobia, which is such a secret and terrible 
 disease ? 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 A GHOST IN THE BEDROOM. 
 
 The fact of mental telegraphy was brought very for- 
 cibly to my notice one summer when a journalist wished 
 to spend a time of convalescence at our Tenafly Home. 
 She was a bright woman who had been on the staff of 
 the New York Herald. 
 
 I wished very much to accommodate her, but there 
 was only one room that I could offer her, and in that 
 room there had very recently been a death. 
 
 When I took her into the apartment, and relieved her 
 of her crutches, I said to myself, "We mustn't let her 
 know that there was a death in this room so lately, for 
 her long illness after her terrible accident may have left 
 her nervous." 
 
 "The sun comes to every room in our Home during 
 some part of the day," I said, feeling it necessary to 
 make some remark about the room, for I was anxious 
 that she should enjoy and profit by the change of air 
 and our hospitality. 
 
 She made no comment, but sat silent gazing round 
 the room. I did not speak, but waited for her. After 
 a while she said, "I feel that there has been a death in 
 this room." 
 
 I was now silent. I did not ask, how do you know. 
 I knew perfectly well that it was that mysterious trans- 
 mittance of thought of my brain to hers — that mental 
 telegraphy which, like electricity, will be developed more 
 and more as time goes on. I knew it was best to be 
 honest and I said, "It was an old teacher who occupied 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 161 
 
 this room for years. Her life passed quietly away. She 
 had no disease whatever — not even a cough; her 
 strength simply gave out." 
 
 "Oh, it would make no difference to me," she said. 
 "I am not so silly, but I could feel there had been a 
 death here as soon as I came into the room." 
 
 A STREAK OF FORTUNE. 
 
 As I have said before, I cannot help smiling when I 
 remember our comical experiences with some of our 
 help. 
 
 Every year in New York City there are thousands 
 of men out of work who seem to have no special trade 
 or vocation, and cannot earn enough to pay their way, 
 and the daily papers have a column of these men offer- 
 ing to do anything to earn a living. 
 
 Now, as we wanted a useful man at our Home in 
 Tenafly, and could afford only very small wages, I ad- 
 vertised for a man who would be satisfied with a com- 
 fortable home and five dollars per month. I always be- 
 lieve in advertising instead of going to the bureaus. 
 From a number of answers I selected one, and asked 
 the writer to call on me. 
 
 I was surprised to find him so intelligent and well- 
 educated. He spoke English perfectly well, but told me 
 that he was a Swede by birth. He could not give me 
 any reference — I think he said he had been travelling 
 about so much, never stopping long enough in one place 
 to make any acquaintance. 
 
 What was more strange still, he wouldn't give me 
 any name except that it was Albert. 
 
 However, his manner was so gentlemanly and he im- 
 pressed me so favorably, that I felt constrained to waive 
 every other consideration, and I engaged him at once. 
 
i62 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 •He proved a most efficient servant, he was indeed 
 willing to do anything, many things that we could not 
 have asked him to do, he would volunteer to accom- 
 plish. If he saw in one of the rooms a shabby piece of 
 furniture, he would ask for a few cents' worth of ma- 
 terial and work away at it, until it looked like new. If 
 any of the old people wanted letters written for them, he 
 was always at their service. 
 
 When he had been about a month with us we missed 
 him one day, and as he was not in the habit of absent- 
 ing himself at any time, we were afraid that something 
 had happened to him. So we searched everywhere. To 
 our astonishment he was found at the back of the 
 grounds lying on the grass in a state of intoxication. 
 
 The next day he appeared before us just the same as 
 usual, apologized in a most respectful manner for his 
 absence from work, and explained to us that it was a 
 habit that he had fought for years to overcome, but that 
 he had not will-power to succeed. That it had been 
 just the same with his father, who had been intemperate 
 during a long life, which had been filled with resources 
 and opportunities which he had thrown away. 
 
 Month after month passed on, and when he might 
 have had a room in the house and been warm and com- 
 fortable, he preferred to sleep in the barn, and as it was 
 a very severe winter, and the wind and snow blowing in 
 many a crevice, I was afraid we would sometime find 
 him frozen to death, for he was so thin, that his bones 
 didn't seem to have enough flesh to cover them. But 
 he assured me that his life had been so full of hardships 
 and privations, that the shelter of the barn was sufficient 
 for him, and I could not prevail upon him to make any 
 change. 
 
 Although he was intemperate occasionally, very little 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 163 
 
 liquor must have satisfied him, for he never asked for 
 more than the five dollars per month. Of course, we 
 looked somewhat after his wardrobe, for he well de- 
 served it. 
 
 Now it happened that some ladies in Englewood knew 
 an old lady who had a very comfortable income, but on 
 account of her eccentric character, she never boarded 
 long in one place, and was a constant anxiety to her 
 friends. 
 
 When they heard of our Home in Tenafly with its 
 pleasant grounds, they thought it would be an ideal 
 place for her, and as she could afford to pay well for the 
 accommodation, they thought it would compensate us 
 for any of her vagaries which she might impose upon 
 us. So with the pleasant prospect of this addition to our 
 exchequer we welcomed this new guest, and offered her 
 the largest room in the house. 
 
 "But I must have another room for my seven trunks, 
 where I can always get at them at any time," she said. 
 
 So we found her an extra room for her many belong- 
 ings, and she seemed to settle down quite contented, to 
 the great satisfaction of her friends. 
 
 She was not long in discovering Albert's many good 
 points. He was always at her beck and call, and never 
 lost patience with her, and she finally concluded that 
 the time had now come for her to go to housekeeping 
 again, for if her cook suddenly forsook her in the midst 
 of getting her dinner, Albert could take her place in the 
 kitchen and fill the bill. 
 
 So, ignoring the advice of her friends, she hired a cot- 
 tage, and moved into it — herself, our Albert and her 
 many belongings. I had always told our help when I 
 engaged them that I should expect that they would 
 better themselves as soon as the opportunity offered, 
 
i64 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 and also I would be glad to help them to do this. 
 However, the piece of good fortune that fell to Albert 
 was beyond anything that I could have expected, for 
 the old lady didn't live very long, and at her death be- 
 queathed Albert all her money, and he left this country 
 for good, returning to Sweden where he could spend 
 the rest of his days in ease and comfort. 
 
 MOODY AND SANKEY. 
 
 An Episcopal clergyman on Long Island wrote me 
 that they were looking for a home for an old lady who 
 had kept a school in the long ago. She owned the little 
 cottage in which she lived, and the five dollars per month 
 furnished by the township was all she had to depend 
 upon, and he had persuaded her to dispose of her place, 
 and with the money get admitted into a Home for life. 
 
 The cottage was not worth anything, so no one 
 wanted it, but the lot brought three hundred dollars. 
 
 The clergyman's wife made an appointment to meet 
 me at the train, and take me to see the old lady, and 
 finally we reached the poor little dilapidated cottage. I 
 found there was something very gentle and pleasing in 
 this old school mistress. 
 
 "You have been so very kind," she said to the minis- 
 ter's wife, "but it grieves me to part with Moody and 
 Sankey." 
 
 The lady smiled as she saw me looking surprised, for 
 I had understood that she had no one belonging to her. 
 
 "I shall find good homes for them," she said, and I 
 followed her eyes across the room to the old stove. On 
 the left of it was a big tabby cat, on the right, was a big 
 tortoiseshell cat, behind the stove were three kittens on 
 a cushion. 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 165 
 
 "But don't so many cats eat a great deal?" I asked. 
 
 "Oh, no, I've brought them up on rolled oats. Moody 
 enjoys them, and Sankey would ask for nothing better." 
 
 "Now, my dear woman," said the lady, "you had bet- 
 ter hand over the three hundred dollars now, for I am 
 so afraid you might be robbed, people know you have 
 sold the place, and there are so many tramps around, 
 and as it is getting so cold, we had better pack up the 
 cats and we will take them with us, and I'll find a home 
 for them among our church people as I drive Miss 
 Fisher to the train." 
 
 She agreed to this, but her voice trembled, and a sob 
 escaped her. At last, two old baskets were found, 
 Moody was disposed of in one, and Sankey in the other, 
 and with the three kittens in a bag in my lap, we 
 drove off. 
 
 We had gone several miles before we reached any 
 habitation, for the old lady lived so far from civilization, 
 but finally we came upon some straggling houses. The 
 first that we called at agreed to relieve us of the three 
 kittens, and promised to drown them, saying, "Don't 
 care much for the job, but will do it to oblige you, 
 madam." We soon found a home for Moody. "Such a 
 big, strong cat must be a good rat catcher," said the new 
 owner. 
 
 We were not quite so successful with Sankey. 
 
 "My husband can't abide a tortoiseshell cat," said one, 
 "besides we have a cat, and that's enough." 
 
 However, a little girl begged her mother to take San- 
 key, and I finally reached the station in time for the 
 
 train. 
 
 "I am so thankful to get this settled," said the lady, 
 as we took luncheon. "I have been so afraid that some 
 winter morning we should find her frozen to death." 
 
166 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 It was arranged that the clergyman should bring the 
 old lady on the following Saturday, and that I should 
 meet them at the depot, and take the old lady home 
 with me. 
 
 So on the Saturday morning I was on hand waiting 
 for the Long Island train to come in. Many passengers 
 alighted, but there was no sign of such an old lady. I 
 then waited for the next train to come in, but without 
 any better success. She was not there. 
 
 When I arrived home, I found a telegram waiting for 
 me. I had left home early to do some shopping on my 
 way, so I was not there when it came. 
 
 It said, "Don't come — letter will follow." 
 
 The letter informed me that the next morning, when 
 the old lady awoke she heard a meow outside of the 
 house, and on opening the door, Moody and Sankey 
 ran in. 
 
 They must have travelled several miles in the night. 
 
 The old lady refused to part with them again. 
 
 We returned the entrance fee, and heard no more of 
 Moody and Sankey. 
 
 A HOUSE FULL OF CATS. 
 
 One morning our postman said to me, "I hear you 
 want a good cat, now I know where you can get one. 
 I can tell you of a woman who deals in cats," and he 
 wrote down the address on the back of one of my letters. 
 I decided to get one of her cats for our Tenafly Home. 
 Now, a woman who dealt in cats was certainly a curi- 
 osity, and as I did want a good mouser, I was willing 
 to take the trouble to call at that particular house the 
 next time I went down town. 
 
 I was surprised to find myself in such a respectable 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 167 
 
 neighborhood. A very neat colored woman, who re- 
 sembled an East Indian negress, answered my ring, and 
 showed me into an ante-room with very little furniture. 
 
 I stated my business, and she said, "Madame, please 
 send up your card." 
 
 This was another surprise for me — to find the 
 vender of cats living in such style, and I thought to my- 
 self, can it be that she trains cats for a circus, but then 
 can cats be trained? And where are these cats? For 
 I didn't hear a mew, and as I peeped into the rooms 
 across the hall where the doors were ajar, no sign of a 
 cat presented itself. It was a very quiet street, and all 
 was as quiet as though it were the middle of the night. 
 
 Presently I heard the rustle of a silk skirt, then the 
 door opened wider and a lady in a black and white tea 
 gown glided into the room. She had a sweet, soft voice, 
 and a very charming manner, and was evidently every 
 inch a gentlewoman. 
 
 I remembered that I had seen her before — her Mother 
 was one of the first subscribers to our Home, and one 
 of our best friends. When we gave our first fair at the 
 Waldorf, one of our chief attractions was a set of china 
 beautifully painted by her, which she donated, and then 
 bought it in herself, for a wedding present to some one. 
 That was years ago. Finally, there were only three 
 daughters left, and this lady was one of them. They had 
 a beautiful place at Kingsbridge which they had no use 
 for, as they preferred to live in their city house, but they 
 would not part with it, because the trees that adorned 
 the park had all been planted by their Grandfather when 
 he was a young man. 
 
 It was no wonder that for a moment I forgot my er- 
 rand, and sat silently thinking. 
 
 "I understand you want a cat," she said, "I am sorry 
 I haven't one for you." 
 
168 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 Oh, so you are entirely out of them at present." 
 
 "No, I have plenty of them, but none to suit you." 
 I thought this was very strange, then I added, "I am 
 willing to pay something for the cat." "Oh, I don't 
 make money by my cats, on the contrary, I spend money 
 on them. It costs me considerably more than a thousand 
 a year to keep this house. Would you like to see my 
 cats?" 
 
 I said I should be very glad, and she led the way up 
 stairs. In the front room on the second floor was a 
 number of cats lying on a large bed, apparently asleep. 
 On the mantelpiece two or three cats were sitting, with 
 their eyes shut, and around the room on the floor were 
 some more cats. I well remember counting thirteen. 
 In the middle of the floor was a large dish of raw 
 chopped meat, and a large pan of milk. 
 
 "They seem to be all asleep," I said. 
 
 "Because they are sick," she answered. I then fol- 
 lowed her into the back room, here also were cats on 
 the bed, on the mantelpiece, on two tables, and on the 
 floor. They all seemed to be in the same drowsy condi- 
 tion, with a great dish of meat, which looked as if it 
 hadn't been touched, and the pan of milk. She then took 
 me up-stairs, here also were the like conditions — cats — 
 cats — cats. 
 
 "Of course, my friends think I am a crank," she said, 
 "but I sympathize so much with poor, lame, sick cats, 
 because they seldom find a friend, while all the other 
 animals have a chance to get pampered up. But I shall 
 look out for a cat for you, because I think you would 
 be kind to it." 
 
 So I left my address, and in the course of a week, the 
 negress came with a handsome little basket, which had 
 evidently been made for the purpose of carrying a small 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 169 
 
 animal, and inside was a tabby kitten bedecked with 
 broad blue ribbons. 
 
 The kitten proved of no use. It was a poor, shy, timid 
 little thing, but I didn't like to send it back. So I kept 
 it until we were giving up the house to move to Mt. 
 Vernon, and then I sent a post card to the lady explain- 
 ing the facts, and the next day the negress came and 
 relieved us of this small responsibility. 
 
 Some time after, I saw a notice in the papers, stating 
 that a complaint had been made that the Home for cats 
 was unsanitary, and that boys would wound a cat, and 
 make it lame, in order to receive the five or ten cents 
 which was always ready for them upon delivery of the 
 animal at that basement door. I believe the cats were 
 transferred to the country. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 TOO ARDENT A LOVER. 
 
 I found it a very great advantage to have the two 
 Homes. Sometimes an old person would be very trou- 
 blesome, and then I would transfer them to the other 
 Home. 
 
 At one time an old lawyer had the habit of intruding 
 himself upon the attention of the old ladies. He seemed 
 to have been quite a lady's man, and would follow them 
 round to talk to them, much to the annoyance of some of 
 them. He was a tall, fine-looking man, with a very kindly 
 and handsome face, but was rather simple-minded, being 
 over eighty years of age. He took a particular fancy to 
 a good-looking old lady who became so angry with him 
 that one day she slapped his face, and there was quite a 
 
J 70 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 quarrel between them, and for fear of another outbreak 
 I brought him to Mt. Vernon. 
 
 He settled down very quietly, either he didn't find the 
 Mt. Vernor ladies so attractive, or he was afraid of being 
 sent away. 
 
 In a couple of years' time his mind was so far gone, 
 that we had to send him to the State hospital at Pough- 
 keepsie. When the two officers came for him he seemed 
 to be afraid of them, but he would go anywhere with me, 
 so I went with him to the hospital. When we entered 
 that spacious building he said to me, "Miss Fisher, is this 
 another of your hotels?" 
 
 They showed me around the building, and he kept close 
 beside me. As soon as I saw the opportunity, I slipped 
 away. 
 
 THE TWO ORPHANS. 
 
 An old lady and gentleman had not met for many 
 years. They were both Southerners, and in the days of 
 their prosperity had lived for years in a family hotel pa- 
 tronized by Southerners. Both were becoming childish, 
 and they would sit all day together, and the old gentleman 
 would often repeat "we are two orphans." 
 
 One afternoon we missed the old lady, and I said to 
 him, "What has become of your friend?" 
 
 "I really don't know," he answered. "She asked me 
 if I had any money, as she would like to borrow some of 
 it. I gave her twenty-five cents, it was all I had, and I 
 have not seen her since." 
 
 "You did very wrong," I said. "You know we never 
 let her go out alone," and I gave him a good scolding, 
 adding, "now you'll never get back your twenty-five cents, 
 and you deserve to lose it." 
 
 Night came on, but there was no sign of her. 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 171 
 
 I knew that she would command the respect of most 
 people she might address, for she was well dressed, and 
 had every appearance of a lady, but I was afraid that she 
 would get on a train with the hope of getting to her old 
 home in Charleston, South Carolina. 
 
 After considerable worry and telephoning, it was not 
 until the morning that I heard of her, when the police 
 notified me that they had found her. 
 
 All she could tell me was that some ladies living in a 
 very nice house, had invited her to spend the night with 
 them. 
 
 The old gentleman became very helpless, he had a 
 mania for changing his clothes, from summer-wear to 
 winter-wear, saying he was so often too hot or too cold. 
 
 As his room was opposite mine, I often looked in upon 
 him. He had been with us ten years, and everybody liked 
 him, and the nurse was very kind to him, but he often 
 tried her patience by constantly changing his clothes. 
 
 One night I heard her scolding him, and I went in to 
 see what was the matter. He was sitting up in bed try- 
 ing to struggle on a gauze under shirt, over a thick win- 
 ter one. 
 
 "I was so dreadfully hot," he said, "I shall be so com- 
 fortable when I get this on." 
 
 The nurse was lying on the couch. "He has tired me 
 out," she said, "changing his things, so I threw the thin 
 shirt to him, and you see what he's about." 
 
 In about an hour I looked in again. The summer shirt 
 was all crooked and only half on. "I am so much cooler 
 now," he said. 
 
 A POSSIBLE ROMANCE. 
 
 One of our old teachers told us that she and the Pope of 
 Rome were lovers in the long ago when they were both 
 young and went to the same church together. 
 
172 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 "I don't believe it," said one of the old ladies. "I don't 
 think it is possible." 
 
 But there were those who thought that such a thing 
 might have been. There was some discussion. 
 
 Finally an old gentleman said, "The only way to de- 
 termine this would be to write to his Holiness, and ask 
 for the truth of the matter." 
 
 "But that might not work very well," said another, "for 
 you know it generally happens that the memories of a 
 man's early loves are very elusive." 
 
 "Katrina has always been very truthful," said one of 
 her friends, "and I believe all she says, and why shouldn't 
 the Pope have a little romance as well as any other man ?" 
 
 This summer of 1914 has brought us the tidings of the 
 dreadful war in Europe. 
 
 Like all sensible Americans, we have kept strictly to 
 the advice of our good President, Woodrow Wilson, to 
 observe a perfect neutrality. In our Home we have a 
 mixed nationality, and many of our guests, either by 
 birth or ancestry, are of the various European nations, 
 and when we meet in the dining-room not a word is 
 uttered in reference to this warfare. 
 
 At my table is a Danish lady. We know she will 
 never forgive the Germans for taking a part of Denmark 
 some years ago, but she never utters a word. A Ger- 
 man lady who declared that the Kaiser could not do 
 anything wrong, and that Europe depended on Germany 
 for everything, sits opposite a French lady who smiles 
 and is silent. She knows that the German lady is very 
 sensitive, nervous and excitable, and she has too much 
 true politeness to offer any protest. Nevertheless there 
 are charming little coteries held in the snug little bed- 
 rooms, where kindred spirits meet and can vent their 
 preferences and give offence to no one. 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 173 
 
 OUR TENAFLY HOME 
 
 In 1899, we had over a score of subscribers in New 
 Jersey, through the efforts of Miss Belle Durkee, of Pas- 
 saic. Also we had a number of applicants in New Jer- 
 sey, and we found it advisable to have a separate Home 
 in this State. Mrs. H. F. Ahrens, of Leonia, found us 
 the fine property at Tenafly, on a line with the beautiful 
 Palisades. Mrs. Terhune (Marion Harland) who had 
 lived many years in Newark, was the strongest promoter 
 of the new enterprise. 
 
 She called the first meeting in Newark, where she had 
 many friends, and many prominent women responded to 
 the call, among them Mrs. Andrew J. Newbury, and the 
 Association was organized, and we were fortunate in se- 
 curing Mrs. Newbury as Treasurer. This office she has 
 now filled for fifteen years, and we cannot thank her 
 enough for her faithful service in this onerous duty. 
 Mrs. Terhune was the pioneer of all our movements, as 
 she has been ever since. 
 
 Mrs. Chas. B. Yardley, of Orange, who was a member 
 of the Sorosis, advised us to interest the clubwomen of 
 New Jersey, and before long the New Jersey State Fed- 
 eration of Women's Clubs and the federated clubs of the 
 State, were enlisted in the good work to the number of 
 thirty-seven. All of these have responded to our appeal 
 for the mortgage fund. 
 
 Miss Elizabeth Demarest, of Passaic, gave us valuable 
 assistance in starting our Association, and later on Miss 
 Elizabeth B. Vermilye interested herself in the Home, 
 and became our President, which office we trust she will 
 hold as long as she lives. 
 
 Several of the Managers gave charming entertainments 
 — Mrs. W. J. Boggs, Mrs. Thomas M. Moore, Mrs. 
 
174 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 Philip J. Koonz, and Miss A. P. Townsend. Mrs. Flor- 
 ence Howe Hall gave a lecture in Newark ; Mrs. Marie T. 
 Lange a lecture on Japan at Asbury Park ; Mrs. Marion 
 H. Zabriskie a grand concert at the Lyceum in Engle- 
 wood, and several others at the Home. 
 
 Mrs. Terhune has pioneered the authors' readings 
 every year, introducing well-known authors to a large 
 and appreciative audience. And these authors have 
 brought new friends to the Home. 
 
 I am always glad of an opportunity to do what I can for what 
 is, in my opinion, one of the worthiest of our charities. 
 
 BRONSON HOWARD. 
 
 I am happy to lend the Home a hand when I can. May all 
 good things come to it! RUTH McENERY STUART. 
 
 A cause that, of course, demands my deepest sympathy. 
 
 MARGARET DELAND. 
 
 I shall be very glad indeed to send my usual subscription to 
 the Mary Fisher Home. HENRY VAN DYKE. 
 
 You know how warm is my interest in your beautiful charity. 
 I am always willing to do all I can for it. 
 
 ELIZABETH B. CUSTER. 
 
 The cause you represent has my heartiest sympathy. 
 
 WOODROW WILSON. 
 
 I am naturally in favor of Authors' Homes, and particularly 
 of the one at Tenafly. It is beautifully situated, well-managed, 
 and financed by some of the ablest women in America. 
 
 WILL CARLETON. 
 
 Mr. Will Carleton took much interest in the Home ; he 
 often visited it, and was always ready to give his kind 
 services to preside at our entertainments, and read from 
 his poems, which were always so popular. He has now 
 been called to the Higher Life, and we shall always re- 
 member him as one we can never replace. It was 
 through him that Mr. Andrew Carnegie subscribed five 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 175 
 
 hundred dollars toward taking the title of the Home. 
 Since that Mr. Carnegie has become a patron. 
 
 Mrs. Alexander Campbell gave an entertainment in 
 Newark; Miss Snyder gave one at Asbury Park and 
 Montclair; Miss Elizabeth Timlow in Montclair; Mrs. 
 Julia Roe Davis had interesting meetings at her school 
 in Newark. 
 
 Also as we look back we find the names of others who 
 have joined the immortals. The Rev. Louis S. Osborne, 
 D. D., of Newark, gave us much encouragement, and 
 spoke of his faith in woman's work. 
 
 Through Miss E. A. Allen, of Hoboken, we received a 
 legacy of two thousand dollars from a public school 
 teacher ; a contribution of five hundred dollars from Mrs. 
 Winthrop, of New York, who started a fund for building 
 a wing to the Home, which cost over five thousand dol- 
 lars. 
 
 Mrs. Robert Shaw was our first Superintendent, and 
 gave efficient service for many years. 
 
 SUBSCRIBERS. 
 
 Among the subscribers and those who have rendered 
 kind service in the past as well as in the present are: 
 Mrs. R. T. Auchmuty, Mrs. C. B. Alexander, Mrs. Ed- 
 ward A. Albright, Mrs. J. A. Bradley, Mrs. Henry A. 
 Barry, Mrs. Joseph D. Bedle, Mrs. W. F. Bathgate, Mrs. 
 Henry G. Bell, Mrs. J. P. Boggs, Mrs. John H. Ballan- 
 tine, Miss Laura L. Barnes, Mr. Walter Bogart, Rev. 
 Antoinette B. Blackwell, Rev. Fisher Howe Booth, Miss 
 N. Louise Buckland, Mrs. Grover Cleveland, Mrs. Alex- 
 ander Campbell, Mrs. B. D. Cauldwell, Mr. Andrew Car- 
 negie, Mrs. Andrew Carnegie, Mrs. P. W. Doremus, Mrs. 
 A. S. Diven, Miss Amanda M. Douglas, Mrs. A. McC. 
 Daulton, Rev. Chas. Douglas, Mrs. Robert Dun Douglas, 
 
176 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 Miss E. E. Dana, Miss M. F. Demarest, Mrs. de Milk, 
 Mr. Wm. C. de Mille, Miss Sara Esterbrook, Mrs. J. F. 
 Freeman, Miss Ada D. Fuller, Dr. Joseph Fewsmith, 
 Mrs. Hugh F. Fox, Mr. Daniel Chester French, James 
 M. Green, Ph. D., LL. D., Rev. John Gaston, Mrs. Vir- 
 ginia C. Huyler, Mrs. J. G. Holland, Mrs. Garret A. Ho- 
 bart, Hon. Chas. M. Howe, Hon. Thomas S. Henry, Mrs. 
 J. F. Hadley, Miss C. E. Hartt, Mrs. T. V. Johnson, 
 Rev. Philo F. Leavens, Mr. Edward Thomas Moore, Mrs. 
 Benjamin E. McGrew, Mrs. L. K. McClymonds, Miss 
 Mary McKeen, Dr. Sarah F. Mackintosh, Allen Mar- 
 quand, Ph. D., Henry Morton, Ph. D., Mrs. Washington 
 Paulison, Miss Lavinia F. Pond, Miss Florence Palmer, 
 Mrs. C. M. K. Paulison, Prof. James C. Riggs, Mrs. A. 
 G. Randolph, Rev. James F. Riggs, Mrs. F. W. Rheinfel- 
 der, Mrs. Wm. H. Rhodes, Mr. Fred S. Shepherd, Prof. 
 R. Spaulding, Mrs. Touzo Sauvage, Rev. Henry M. 
 Saunders, Mrs. Eliott F. Shepherd, Mr. Chas. Scribner, 
 Mrs. E. O. Weeks, Miss H. Winton, Mrs. F. M. Wheeler, 
 Mr. Geo. A. Zabriskie, Mrs. E. F. C. Young — and many 
 others. 
 
 FROM THE ANNUAL REPORT OF THE SECRETARY, I9I4. 
 
 The celebration today of the fifteenth anniversary of 
 the Mary Fisher Home Association of New Jersey, or 
 Crystal Wedding, leads to the consideration of the simili- 
 tude of this organization to the Crystal, and though we 
 disclaim the conceit of the possession of all the good qual- 
 ities of the Crystal, we can look upon it as a symbol of 
 what we desire to represent — purity, truth, beauty and 
 endurance. 
 
 The Mary Fisher Home has endured these fifteen years 
 and has cared for over four hundred and fifty guests, 
 supplying a home for a class hitherto unconsidered in 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 177 
 
 the establishment of Homes that appeal to the humane 
 public. 
 
 The motive for this work has been pure and true — 
 "only the thought of humble service." 
 
 The spiritual beauty of the work Rev. Dr. Lyman 
 Whitney Allen effectively expressed in his poem, "The 
 House of Mary" — the Home. May it always be "Faith's 
 glory when the lights of life burn low !" 
 
 That the Home now has as an honored guest the 
 Founder and former President, is a blessing of great 
 value, and though almost physically helpless, she is a 
 wonderful example of patience, unselfishness and cheer- 
 fulness. 
 
 Of the twenty-six other guests at the Home at present, 
 many have "wrought life's happy miracles" in educa- 
 tional, literary, musical, artistic and other lines of brain 
 work. 
 
 At the authors' matinee at the Waldorf, January 29, 
 1914, the Rev. Lyman Whitney Allen, D. D., of Newark, 
 read his poem, "The House of Mary," written after vis- 
 iting the Home. 
 
 THE HOUSE OF MARY 
 
 Behold it! There it stands against the pines, 
 Amid green meadows, wrapped by stillness round, 
 A simple house and yet magnificat, 
 For through its windows and oft-opened door 
 There streams a light, there flow sweet fragrances 
 From subtle spiritualness within. 
 
 It is the House of Mary. She, like one 
 Of ancient days low at anointed feet, 
 Who heard Love's oracles from Kingly lips, 
 Chose the good part which from her shall not pass, 
 Seeing it has eternal essences. 
 
 Therein she sits, the Founder of the House, 
 
 As 't were enthroned, though in her queenly heart 
 
 Only the thought of humble service dwells. 
 
178 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 About her circle leal confederates, 
 
 Sooth patrons of the Muses' almoners, 
 
 Regnant with her — a sorcerous company, 
 
 Adept in every bright beneficence, 
 
 Drawing from acreage wide those finer souls 
 
 Who sight Love's vision and build Duty's dream. 
 
 So stands the House of Mary, monument 
 To that high law which sways the sons of God, 
 "Who loses life shall find it." So it stands, 
 By grace of her who re-engrossed the law 
 In sacrificial fealty to its spell. 
 
 The House of Mary has its many guests — 
 Those who have wrought life's happy miracles 
 With art's uplifted rod, eliciting 
 Fountains from phantom rocks and roses sweet 
 From mystic sands, and by weird conjuring 
 Have builded cities, ranged great armaments, 
 Driv'n faery ships about the seven seas, 
 Surcharged the boreal blasts with summerness 
 And all the woosome winds with minstrelsy 
 Along the populous highways of the years. 
 
 The House of Mary has one portal large — 
 
 Embrasure toward the Blue ; and presences, 
 
 Which oft descend angel-trailed ways 
 
 In times of eld, still mediate, and part 
 
 In vatic hours the veil of destiny, 
 
 Showing the dream fulfilled beyond the dream. 
 
 The House of Mary! It shall ever be 
 Love's shelter ministrant to musing minds, 
 Hope's hermitage within the groves of art, 
 Faith's glory when the lights of life burn low, 
 A welcome to heaven-born imaginings 
 That crowd on feebleness defying age. 
 
 The House of Mary! It shall never fail. 
 It has foundations wrought of many hearts, 
 Whose bounteous care shall follow bounteous gold 
 Through golden years, and be its strength and stay. 
 
 All hail to Mary and her noble House ! 
 All hail to Love's defending Sisterhood! 
 
THE TRUE STORY OF THE POE COTTAGE 
 AND THE POE PARK. 
 
 Mrs. Melusina Fay Peirce was one of the first literary 
 women to be interested in our Home. She was our 
 Vice-President when it was called the Home Hotel, and 
 we were maintaining a branch of our Home at Fordham 
 in 1895-96. 
 
 Mrs. Peirce recognized Edgar Allan Poe as the great- 
 est genius among American poets, and cherished toward 
 him a deep gratitude because of his chivalry toward her 
 sex, and it was given to her to conceive the beautiful 
 idea of rescuing the Fordham cottage of this poet from 
 obliteration, by creating around it a small park to con- 
 sist of its original grounds of three acres, together with 
 five more along both sides of the Kingsbridge Road 
 whereon it stood. 
 
 This Park was to be the open-air Pantheon for Ameri- 
 can poets and therefore to America what the "Poets' 
 Cqrner" in Westminster Abbey is to England. 
 
 179 
 
180 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 Mrs. Peirce had for many months been trying in vain 
 to interest leading New Yorkers in thus rescuing Poe's 
 last home on its own site as he knew it. 
 
 We were only too proud to espouse this laudable un- 
 dertaking. We gladly formed ourselves into a Com- 
 mittee for this purpose, and issued a circular inviting 
 the people of Fordham to co-operate with us. 
 
 Several did so, and the Taxpayers' Alliance of Ford- 
 ham passed a resolution to the effect that "the well- 
 known cottage and site, the home of Edgar Allan Poe, 
 should be preserved, and land should be secured and a 
 small public park established at the place." — (Dixon's 
 Up-Town Weekly, Jan. 25, 1895.) 
 
 Now this home of the illustrious poet as many knew 
 it and as I remember it as a child — was very picturesque 
 in its rural simplicity and beauty. It stood secluded in 
 tall forest groves on a grassy hill-top, diversified with 
 vine-covered rocks overlooking the Bronx valley. What 
 an ideal spot for a Poets' Park! 
 
 Mrs. Peirce's proposition was to restore the grounds 
 as they were in the poet's day, when he and his ex- 
 quisite young wife used to sit under the big cherry tree 
 in front of the cottage or in the wild cherry grove among 
 the rocks at its back. Within its pitiful little walls were 
 written all his latest masterpieces. What an immortal 
 and tremendous distinction for those walls ! 
 
 We held interesting meetings at our Fordham Branch. 
 Mrs. Peirce would give glimpses of the poet's life and 
 read some of his poems. William Fearing Gill, one of 
 Poe's biographers, attended our first meeting, warmly 
 indorsed the plan, and said he much regretted that he 
 had not thought of it when he was the owner of the 
 cottage a few years before. Our committee waited upon 
 Mayor Strong, who listened attentively and was favor- 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 181 
 
 ably disposed to the plan of saving the tiny dwelling 
 by surrounding it with the proposed Poets' Park. The 
 Mayor said : "If we save the cottage at all we ought to 
 do it handsomely." Gen. W. H. Morris, son of the 
 George P. Morris who once owned the famous 
 Home Journal to which Edgar Poe was a contributor — 
 lived near the Poe cottage on the Kingsbridge Road. 
 He was actively enlisted on behalf of our project and 
 made for us a map with estimate of the value of every 
 house and lot on the hill-top — the amount being less 
 than $300,000. We were cheerfully hoping for success. 
 
 The inspiration of Mrs. Peirce's plan was her knowl- 
 edge that the Hon. Abram S. Hewitt, when he was the 
 Mayor of New York, had got passed a law which com- 
 pelled the city to spend one million dollars a year on 
 small parks. This was in the year 1887-8, but none of 
 this money had hitherto been appropriated, so that in 
 seven years it had accumulated to seven available mil- 
 lions. Well, indeed, could the city afford to spend a 
 small portion of this sum to purchase this rocky hill-top 
 and return it to its old-time verdant beauty. This could 
 easily have been done, for the Kingsbridge Road was 
 still the old original country road. 
 
 But the Commissioner of Public Works of the Bronx, 
 Louis Haffen, — afterward President of the Bronx Bor- 
 ough and during Mayor McClellan's administration 
 tried and deposed for malfeasance in office — intrigued 
 against the Poet's Park, partly because some wooden 
 dwellings on the acreage would have to be bought and 
 moved off by the city, but still more because he had 
 made a survey of the Kingsbridge Road which was to 
 widen and grade it down to an ordinary city street. He 
 knew that his "improvement" would cut the Poe cottage 
 in two, thus compelling its destruction or its removal 
 
182 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 from its own sacred site — but knowing, he did not care. 
 Now appears on the scene Mr. Appleton Morgan, 
 President of the Shakespeare Society of New York. 
 Early in 1895 he had informed the public that his Society 
 had bought the Poe cottage for its headquarters. The 
 money to pay for it, however, had not been forthcoming, 
 and his plan had collapsed. Hearing of our movement, 
 he wrote, requesting an invitation to our meetings, which 
 was cordially granted, as we supposed we should find 
 in him a fellow-worker in the rescue of the hallowed 
 spot. But while pretending to act with us, he secretly 
 joined Mr. Haffen and other Fordham politicians against 
 us. In collusion with them he drew up a bill to be sent 
 to their representative at Albany which created a little 
 park of two and two-thirds acres across the road from 
 the Poe cottage to which the city could move the cottage 
 when the Kingsbridge Road should be widened. The 
 bill did not mention the Poe cottage. Its terms simply 
 specified a park at "One Hundred and Ninety-second 
 Street," and it was rushed through the Legislature with- 
 out the members knowing anything about its connection 
 with Edgar Poe's last home ! Senator Stranahan, 
 Chairman of the Senate Committee on Cities, wrote to 
 Mrs. Peirce that the bill never could have been passed 
 had they realized such connection. Thereafter for 
 months Mrs. Peirce devoted her time and gave freely of 
 her money to the printing and mailing of hundreds of 
 leaflets and memorials to the Legislature, to the New 
 York Chamber of Commerce and to many prominent 
 people, pleading for the ample "Poet's Park" which would 
 save the cottage from the, to her, sacrilege of moving it 
 from its own place, as against the paltry "Poe Park" 
 across the road to which it must be dragged. The 
 American Authors' Guild joined in these pleadings and 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 183 
 
 protests, and its officers appeared with ours before Mayor 
 Strong in their behalf. All in vain. Within the next 
 few years the city of New York created the cheap park 
 intended for the cottage. But the city would not pay the 
 price for it which its owner demanded. So he simply 
 drew it back out of the reach of Mr. Haffen's Kings- 
 bridge Road "improvement" which then went on to cut 
 down the groves and blast away the rocks of the romantic 
 spot as the poet knew it, the cottage itself being huddled 
 close to the new house of the owner, three or four times 
 its size! 
 
 And also ever since that time Mr. Appleton Morgan 
 has represented himself as the originator of what was 
 in truth Mrs. Peirce's plan, and has not ceased to adver- 
 tise himself as the saviour of the Poe cottage by means 
 of the small park known as the "Poe Park" and to 
 receive much honor and commendation therefor from 
 Poe lovers and biographers, whereas what he proposed 
 to the Street Commissioners of New York when his 
 Shakespeare Society had failed to buy it was — that it 
 should be moved up to Bronx Park ! 
 
 Because the foundation for an apartment house is now 
 being blasted next to the Poe cottage, the city has offered 
 and the owner has accepted for it $3000, and it will 
 shortly be moved across Kingsbridge Road to the Poe 
 Park. That there is even this insignificant plot for it to 
 be moved to, is wholly owing to the sympathy and co- 
 operation with Mrs. Peirce of the "Home" as founded 
 by my associates and myself for "needy brain workers." 
 Had we not seconded her effort by our meetings at our 
 (then) Fordham Branch, the Poe Park would never 
 have been heard of, and the unfortunate cottage would 
 either have been condemned and destroyed by the city 
 when the Kingsbridge Road was widened, or, according 
 
184 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 to the suggestion of its worst enemy, it would have been 
 moved a mile or two northward to Bronx Park. 
 
 To myself it seems time that in this so-called "rescue" 
 of the Poe cottage, the literary world, at least, should 
 now "give honor where honor is due." 
 
 Financial Statement 
 
 of the Expenditures and Receipts of the Poe Cottage 
 Preservation Committee of The Home Hotel (now the 
 Mary Fisher Home) in 1895-96, as Condensed from the 
 Home Hotel Annual Report for 1895-97. 
 
 Expenditures. 
 
 For typewriting, printing, postage and carfare. . $181.18 
 
 Receipts. 
 
 From Miss Vanderpoel, Mrs. Marion Harland, 
 Mrs. Theodore Thomas, Mr. Abram G. 
 
 Mills, Mr. Wm. D. McCracken 38. 00 
 
 From the Committee — Miss Mary A. Fisher, 
 
 Chairman, 10.00 
 
 Mrs. M. Fay Peirce, Sect.-Treas 133. 18 
 
 Total $181 . 18 
 
 Rose McAlister Coleman's Letter. 
 
 167 West 73rd Street, 
 New York, January 10th, 1913. 
 My dear Miss Fisher: 
 
 Your letter relating to the Poe Cottage was welcome 
 and interested me, as I knew through Mrs. M. Fay Peirce 
 of the hard work you ladies did in trying to save the 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 185 
 
 grounds as well as the cottage. During Mayor Mc- 
 Clellan's administration another effort was made by the 
 "Women's Auxiliary to the American Scenic and Historic 
 Preservation Society," Miss Vanderpoel, President. At 
 that time I was Chairman of the Committee. We worked 
 hard and secured an option on the cottage, hoping the 
 City would men buy it. After much deliberation the 
 plan was turned down, as Comptroller Metz of the De- 
 partment of Finance declared that "to acquire the cot- 
 tage at the price named (six thousand dollars) would be 
 a wanton waste of public funds." 
 
 I hoped at the time of the Poe Centenary that the 
 money would be raised, but all in vain. This last autumn, 
 Hon. Cyrus C. Miller, President of the Borough of the 
 Bronx, with the approval of Park Commissioner Hig- 
 gins, found they could secure the property for three 
 thousand dollars and with an added two thousand move 
 it into the park on a new foundation. It was necessary 
 to act at once, as plans had been filed to erect some large 
 apartment houses adjoining the property. I wrote Mr. 
 Miller asking if I could help in any way, and at his sug- 
 gestion sent a letter to the newspapers. The Post, Times 
 and Tribune published it. I also wrote a letter to the 
 Board of Estimate and Apportionment, and communi- 
 cated with Alderman Becker from this district. 
 
 You will see from the above that the credit for saving 
 the cottage is due to President Miller, and I hasten to 
 assure you that my part has only been a very modest one. 
 I trust that the City will take every precaution to keep 
 the cottage as it was originally. 
 
 If you can send me any details, as you knew the house 
 in your early days, I shall take pleasure in forwarding 
 such an account to Mr. Miller. 
 
 I am sure we rejoice that the cottage is saved after 
 
186 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 these years of effort. I visited Poe's grave in Baltimore 
 some years ago, and it was then in a deplorable condition, 
 but I believe it has since been restored. 
 With greetings from a " Poe lover," 
 
 Rose McAlister Coleman. 
 (Mrs. John C.) 
 Miss Mary Fisher, 
 325 Highland Ave., 
 Mount Vernon, N. Y. 
 
 Closing Thoughts. 
 
 Prof. Vincenzo Botta, who held the chair of literature 
 at Columbia, had been one of the intimate friends of the 
 poet. Mrs. Botta drew around her at her weekly recep- 
 tions the most intellectual and cultured people, and she 
 was never tired of speaking to us of the poet as she 
 showed us his portrait — as we gazed upon it a soul of 
 sadness seemed to speak to us out of his magnificent eyes. 
 She was always indignant when any one associated in- 
 temperance with him, and she would tell us that so deli- 
 cate was his organism that one glass of wine would affect 
 his sensitive brain and make him dizzy. 
 
 Miss Elizabeth Bisland, that brilliant writer, tells us 
 that it is not to Irving nor Hawthorne that the honor 
 belongs for creating the modern short-story in America, 
 it belongs to Poe, he bestowed upon it those rare gifts of 
 his — a reasoning power of unusual subtlety, an imagina- 
 tion of extraordinary vividness, a wonderful faculty of 
 observation, and, above all, a mind wholly unfettered by 
 tradition. He could recognize completely the artistic 
 possibilities of the short-story. He brought to it the 
 highest genius not only of his age, but of his nation, for, 
 in poetry and in short-story writing, Poe stands first in 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 187 
 
 the literature of America. When we realize how poorly 
 he lived, how cruelly he was imprisoned in a provincial, 
 Philistine environment, how poverty forced him from the 
 pursuit of perfection to earn his bread by meagrely paid 
 journalism, and the work of a fag on a magazine — and 
 how very short, after all, was his unhappy existence — to 
 have created so many classics was a sufficient record of 
 well-doing. And yet this poor young priest of art was 
 driven to death in the desert. Minor poets jealous of 
 his genius, and the reviewers who catered to them, in- 
 vented scandals and rated him as an inebriate — this man 
 who before he was forty years of age had produced six- 
 teen volumes, had evolved an entirely new style in verse, 
 and in it produced half a dozen classic lyrics, who had 
 created the only important criticism done in America up 
 to that time. Every work that came from his hand was 
 created with the painstaking toil of the exact artist. No 
 victim of alcohol could produce a work like this — only a 
 clear and bright brain could have accomplished what he 
 did. No inebriate can labor continuously, devotedly, 
 patiently as he did. - 
 
 And what has been done in the memory of this great 
 American poet? Edward Payson Terhune, that able 
 journalist who can discern the genius of Poe, speaks 
 thus — 
 
 "This asinine prejudice against him has denied him a 
 niche in the Hall of Fame as recently as 1900, although 
 names were put there which the public scarcely knew 
 of." Surely a monumental tower, a cathedral of art 
 erected to his memory could not be a hall of fame too 
 glorious for this poet. 
 
 The writer well remembers as a child going occasion- 
 ally with her father to Kingsbridge in the lumbering old 
 stage that passed by the home of this poet. It was indeed 
 
188 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 as Mrs. Peirce describes it — a spot of rural simplicity and 
 beauty surrounded by nature. How beautiful it would 
 have been if the noble effort of Mrs. Peirce had been 
 carried out — the grounds restored to their original sim- 
 plicity and beauty, and a park built 'round this cottage. 
 
 Little do we know what this poet's sensitive soul must 
 have suffered. A fragile young wife whom he dearly 
 loved, slowly dying of consumption, sitting beside him 
 as he wrote his manuscripts and without the means of 
 providing for her the necessary medicines and nourish- 
 ment that she needed. 
 
 As his chronicler, Edward Terhune, continues: "With 
 his child-wife, died all that was youthful and buoyant 
 in Poe's own heart. Read Anabell Lee, the poem in- 
 spired by Virginia's death, if you would learn how he 
 mourned her. To a friend soon afterward he wrote: 'I 
 see no one among the living as beautiful as my sweet 
 little wife. I loved her more and more dearly during 
 the years of her illness until I became insane.' " 
 
 A BEAUTIFUL LETTER. 
 
 The Century Magazine of April, 1914, gives the follow- 
 ing letter of Edwin Bjorkman to President Woodrow 
 Wilson on this subject of recognition to American men 
 of letters: 
 
 Mr. President: 
 
 Your entire career as student, scholar, educator, and 
 administrator constitutes a guaranty that you deem the 
 spiritual development of a people no less important than 
 its material welfare. It is also a guaranty of your ability 
 to interpret the word "spiritual" in the broadest and most 
 constructive sense. Thus I feel prompted to place be- 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 189 
 
 fore you a question that has been fermenting in my mind 
 for a long time. 
 
 Will this nation, as a nation, never do anything for 
 the encouragement or reward of its poets and men of 
 letters ? 
 
 The problem involved is a vexatious one, for many 
 hold that such recognition ill-bestowed is worse than 
 none at all, and genius bears no infallible mark by which 
 it may be known to everybody. Furthermore, genius is 
 at once proud and shy, while unscrupulous mediocrity is 
 ever ready to usurp its place. But no matter how great 
 the difficulty may be, I am convinced that this question 
 must be faced sooner or later, and that some effort must 
 be made to solve the problems connected with it ; for the 
 soul of a nation is in its literature. 
 
 In pleading for your consideration of this matter, I 
 am not unaware that from time to time a Lowell, a Haw- 
 thorne, a Howells has been sent to represent the nation 
 abroad or assigned to some small government position at 
 home. But instances of this kind have been too few. 
 They have mostly been traceable to the action of some 
 person in power rather than to the nation itself. And 
 they represent a form of acknowledgment that must be 
 held equally unsatisfactory to the man appointed and to 
 the service into which he is appointed. 
 
 Despite such crumbs, I insist that this nation, as a 
 nation, has done nothing. Officially its poets do not 
 exist, unless it be as numbers connected with the enforce- 
 ment of the copyright laws. The several States com- 
 prised within the Union have done as little. Even pri- 
 vate generosity, ordinarily lavish, has remained singu- 
 larly indifferent to the needs and claims of literature. 
 
 Financial support is not the only thing I have in mind 
 now, although the granting of it to writers of promise 
 
ipo THE STORY OF THE 
 
 represents one of the most important aspects of the ques- 
 tion to which I am trying to draw your attention. I am 
 thinking of any and every step that may be taken by this 
 nation in recognition of the services rendered by its men 
 of letters in general, and in particular by its creative, 
 imaginative writers of prose and verse. 
 
 To my knowledge there is no other civilized country 
 that has been guilty of such indifference or lack of fore- 
 sight. Every Western nation except our own seems to 
 have devised some way of acknowledging promise or 
 proved merit in those building its national poetry. Eng- 
 land knights them or places them on its civil list. France 
 gives them the Legion of Honor or elects them to the 
 Academy. My native Sweden has its Academy, too, as 
 well as a system of literary stipends, not to mention the 
 Nobel prize, for which the nation as such can take no 
 credit. Little Norway, which relatively has done more 
 for modern literature during the last fifty years than any 
 other country in the world, has been making annual 
 allowances of public money to struggling young writers 
 since 1863. 
 
 I mention these facts not as examples of what must 
 needs be done, but as illustrations of what may be done. 
 I mention them not as ideal solutions of the problem at 
 hand, but as evidence that other nations, wiser than our 
 own, have at least endeavored to solve that problem. 
 
 Here there are neither academies nor pantheons, ex- 
 cept "self-made" ones, which, because of their origin, are 
 lacking in the required prestige. There are no hereditary 
 distinctions, no decorations of honor ; and we do not 
 want them. There is no laureateship, and no poet's dole 
 to be given before or after achievement. There is not 
 even a Westminster Abbey to which the nation might 
 relegate the bones of its dead poets with some semblance 
 of dignity. 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 191 
 
 It is easy to answer that a tomb remembered or a tomb 
 forgot will make no difference to the man buried within 
 it. But such is human nature that the mere hope of a 
 final resting-place in some poets' corner becomes not only 
 an incentive, but an actual reward, because the individual 
 member feels himself a participant in the honor accruing 
 to the profession in its entirety. 
 
 When a Peary reaches the north pole, Congress feels 
 impelled to take special action for the reward of his 
 deed. But it has apparently never occurred to anybody 
 in Congress or out of it that the conquest of both poles 
 means nothing to us in comparison with the everlasting 
 possession of those delectable lands of fancy discovered 
 by a Mark Twain. 
 
 It might almost be said that poetry is the one form of 
 legitimate human activity that has obtained no otticial 
 recognition for those pursuing it. At this point of my 
 pleading, your thought may turn to the Library of Con- 
 gress. But that otherwise admirable institution does not 
 hold the same relationship to the man of letters that the 
 Department of Agriculture holds to the farmer, or the 
 Department of Commerce and Labor to the merchant 
 and the mechanic. It has been designed for the public, 
 not for the poet, and even his accomplished work, will 
 count for little within its walls until he has passed far 
 beyond the trials and triumphs of human life. 
 
 Neither in quantity nor in quality can the poetry so 
 far produced by this nation be held commensurate to its 
 greatness in other fields. A connection between this 
 comparative backwardness and the absence of any con- 
 scious effort to foster a national poetry will, of course, be 
 hard to prove. But I, for one, believe that such a con- 
 nection exists. And I believe that we shall never raise 
 our poetry to the level of our other achievements until 
 
192 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 we, as a nation, try to find some method of providing 
 money for the poet's purse and laurels for his brow. 
 
 I believe, too, that any official recognition of the ser- 
 vices rendered to the nation by its singers and story- 
 tellers and playwrights and essayists and critics will 
 have additional value as a sign both to the nation itself 
 and to the rest of the world that it has begun to turn in 
 earnest from that preoccupation with material affairs 
 which in the past has been named as one of its worst 
 shortcomings. Whatever its detractors at home and 
 abroad may say to the contrary, this nation is by no 
 means lacking in idealism. It is, indeed, full of lofty 
 dreams and pure ambitions. All it needs is to give this 
 side of itself a chance. That it do so is the ultimate 
 object of my present appeal. 
 
 I come to you, Mr. President, with no definite plan of 
 action, with no panaceas of my own or other people's 
 making, with no detailed demands or minutely formu- 
 lated desires. I am purposely restricting myself to that 
 one general, all-inclusive question, in order that the pos- 
 sible ineffectiveness of my own ideas may not furnish 
 weapons for those who are hostile to the principle itself. 
 There is no personal expectation or private ambition be- 
 hind my question. I have simply learned by bitter 
 experience what it means to strive for sincere artistic 
 expression in a field where brass is commonly valued 
 above gold. And I should like to see the road made a 
 little less hard, and the goal a little more attractive, lest 
 too many of those that come after lose their courage and 
 let themselves be tempted by the incessant clangor of 
 metal in the market-place. 
 
 My eyes, with those of many others, have been follow- 
 ing you from day to day. My faith has been growing 
 steadily as I watched. I have gradually come to feel 
 
MARY FISHER HOME 193 
 
 that in you the country has found that rarest of public 
 servants: a wise man whose wisdom has not lamed his 
 power of acting firmly and strongly. I know that you 
 have studied human nature as it is, as it has been, and 
 as it may become. I know that you understand us, both 
 those who have been born here and those who have come 
 from other countries in search of a keener air and better 
 chances. I know that you discern clearly what can and 
 what cannot be done. For all these reasons I believe 
 that you are the man to lead in this. 
 
 I am making this appeal on behalf of a profession 
 which is dear to me for more reasons than that it is my 
 own — the art of interpreting man to himself by means 
 of the divine power that lies hidden in the word. I am 
 making it on behalf of men and women who are striving 
 against tremendous odds to give this nation a poetry 
 equaling in worth and glory that of any other nation in 
 the world. But I trust that you at least will perceive 
 that, first and last and most of all, I am making this 
 appeal on behalf of the nation itself. 
 
 Without the literature that radiates truth as well as 
 beauty, that soul must wither. 
 
 The time has come, I feel, when this nation, for the 
 saving of its own soul, must give serious and loving 
 thought to its poets and men of letters. Some one whom 
 the people trust must take the first step in the new direc- 
 tion : there is to-day probably no one whom they trust to 
 a greater extent than you, and I can think of no other 
 fitter for the task I suggest. 
 
 This admirable letter of Edwin Bjorkman voices the 
 opinion of many Americans. And in this age of pro- 
 gress, when there is a tendency and a movement for a 
 universal democracy, we have every reason to hope that 
 
IP4 THE STORY OF THE 
 
 before very long there may be this recognition so much 
 needed. 
 
 Our Tenafly Home is beautifully situated with lovely 
 grounds and one hundred lofty trees. A short walk from 
 the station and trolley line, library and churches. Visitors 
 are always welcome. 
 
 We are sadly in need of a new building. Will not 
 some one do this for us, as a memorial to some loved 
 one who has passed away? 
 
 Mary A. Fisher, 
 
 The Mary Fisher Home, 
 Tenafly, N. J.