Miss Anthony was not. But it was a great relief to have the child quiet, so she bore the infliction of the pinching as long as she could. When endurance had found its limit she slipped back out of reach, and as his new plaything receded the boy uttered shrieks of disapproval. There was only one way to stop his noise; Miss Anthony brought her feet forward again, and he resumed the pinching of her ankles, while his yelps subsided to contented murmurs. The performance was repeated half a dozen times. Each time the ankles retreated the baby yelled. Finally, for once at the end of her patience, "Aunt Susan" leaned forward and addressed the mother, whose facial expression throughout had shown a complete mental detachment from the situation.

"I think your little boy is hot and thirsty," she said, gently. "If you would take him out of the crowd and give him a drink of water and unfasten his clothes, I am sure he would be more comfortable." Before she had finished speaking the woman had sprung to her feet and was facing her with fierce indignation.

"This is the first time I have ever been insulted as a mother," she cried; "and by an old maid at that!" Then she grasped the infant and left the scene, amid great confusion. The majority of those in the audience seemed to sympathize with her. They had not seen the episode of the feet, and they thought Miss Anthony was complaining of the child's crying. Their children were crying, too, and they felt that they had all been criticized. Other women rose and followed the irate mother, and many men gallantly followed them. It seemed clear that motherhood had been outraged.

Miss Anthony was greatly depressed by the episode, and she was not comforted by a prediction one man made after the meeting.

"You've lost at least twenty votes by that little affair," he told her.

"Aunt Susan" sighed. "Well," she said, "if those men knew how my ankles felt I would have won twenty votes by enduring the torture as long as I did."

The next day we had a second meeting. Miss Anthony made her speech early in the evening, and by the time it was my turn to begin all the children in the audience—and there were many—were both tired and sleepy. At least half a dozen of them were crying, and I had to shout to make my voice heard above their uproar. Miss Anthony remarked afterward that there seemed to be a contest between me and the infants to see which of us could make more noise. The audience was plainly getting restless under the combined effect, and finally a man in the rear rose and added his voice to the tumult.

"Say, Miss Shaw," he yelled, "don't you want these children put out?"

It was our chance to remove the sad impression of yesterday, and I grasped it.

"No, indeed," I yelled back. "Nothing inspires me like the voice of a child!"

A handsome round of applause from mothers and fathers greeted this noble declaration, after which the blessed babies and I resumed our joint vocal efforts. When the speech was finished and we were alone together, Miss Anthony put her arm around my shoulder and drew me to her side.

"Well, Anna," she said, gratefully, "you've certainly evened us up on motherhood this time."

That South Dakota campaign was one of the most difficult we ever made. It extended over nine months; and it is impossible to describe the poverty which prevailed throughout the whole rural community of the State. There had been three consecutive years of drought. The sand was like powder, so deep that the wheels of the wagons in which we rode "across country" sank half-way to the hubs; and in the midst of this dry powder lay withered tangles that had once been grass. Every one had the forsaken, desperate look worn by the pioneer who has reached the limit of his endurance, and the great stretches of prairie roads showed innumerable canvas-covered wagons, drawn by starved horses, and followed by starved cows, on their way "Back East." Our talks with the despairing drivers of these wagons are among my most tragic memories. They had lost everything except what they had with them, and they were going East to leave "the woman" with her father and try to find work. Usually, with a look of disgust at his wife, the man would say: "I wanted to leave two years ago, but the woman kept saying, 'Hold on a little longer.'"

Both Miss Anthony and I gloried in the spirit of these pioneer women, and lost no opportunity to tell them so; for we realized what our nation owes to the patience and courage of such as they were. We often asked them what was the hardest thing to bear in their pioneer life, and we usually received the same reply:

"To sit in our little adobe or sod houses at night and listen to the wolves howl over the graves of our babies. For the howl of the wolf is like the cry of a child from the grave."

Many days, and in all kinds of weather, we rode forty and fifty miles in uncovered wagons. Many nights we shared a one-room cabin with all the members of the family. But the greatest hardship we suffered was the lack of water. There was very little good water in the state, and the purest water was so brackish that we could hardly drink it. The more we drank the thirstier we became, and when the water was made into tea it tasted worse than when it was clear. A bath was the rarest of luxuries. The only available fuel was buffalo manure, of which the odor permeated all our food. But despite these handicaps we were happy in our work, for we had some great meetings and many wonderful experiences.

When we reached the Black Hills we had more of this genuine campaigning. We traveled over the mountains in wagons, behind teams of horses, visiting the mining-camps; and often the gullies were so deep that when our horses got into them it was almost impossible to get them out. I recall with special clearness one ride from Hill City to Custer City. It was only a matter of thirty miles, but it was thoroughly exhausting; and after our meeting that same night we had to drive forty miles farther over the mountains to get the early morning train from Buffalo Gap. The trail from Custer City to Buffalo Gap was the one the animals had originally made in their journeys over the pass, and the drive in that wild region, throughout a cold, piercing October night, was an unforgetable experience. Our host at Custer City lent Miss Anthony his big buffalo overcoat, and his wife lent hers to me. They also heated blocks of wood for our feet, and with these protections we started. A full moon hung in the sky. The trees were covered with hoar-frost, and the cold, still air seemed to sparkle in the brilliant light. Again Miss Anthony talked to me throughout the night—of the work, always of the work, and of what it would mean to the women who followed us; and again she fired my soul with the flame that burned so steadily in her own.

It was daylight when we reached the little station at Buffalo Gap where we were to take the train. This was not due, however, for half an hour, and even then it did not come. The station was only large enough to hold the stove, the ticket-office, and the inevitable cuspidor. There was barely room in which to walk between these and the wall. Miss Anthony sat down on the floor. I had a few raisins in my bag, and we divided them for breakfast. An hour passed, and another, and still the train did not come. Miss Anthony, her back braced against the wall, buried her face in her hands and dropped into a peaceful abyss of slumber, while I walked restlessly up and down the platform. The train arrived four hours late, and when eventually we had reached our destination we learned that the ministers of the town had persuaded the women to give up the suffrage meeting scheduled for that night, as it was Sunday.

This disappointment, following our all-day and all-night drive to keep our appointment, aroused Miss Anthony's fighting spirit. She sent me out to rent the theater for the evening, and to have some hand-bills printed and distributed, announcing that we would speak. At three o'clock she made the concession to her seventy years of lying down for an hour's rest. I was young and vigorous, so I trotted around town to get somebody to preside, somebody to introduce us, somebody to take up the collection, and somebody who would provide music—in short, to make all our preparations for the night meeting.

When evening came the crowd which had assembled was so great that men and women sat in the windows and on the stage, and stood in the flies. Night attractions were rare in that Dakota town, and here was something new. Nobody went to church, so the churches were forced to close. We had a glorious meeting. Both Miss Anthony and I were in excellent fighting trim, and Miss Anthony remarked that the only thing lacking to make me do my best was a sick headache. The collection we took up paid all our expenses, the church singers sang for us, the great audience was interested, and the whole occasion was an inspiring success.

The meeting ended about half after ten o'clock, and I remember taking Miss Anthony to our hotel and escorting her to her room. I also remember that she followed me to the door and made some laughing remark as I left for my own room; but I recall nothing more until the next morning when she stood beside me telling me it was time for breakfast. She had found me lying on the cover of my bed, fully clothed even to my bonnet and shoes. I had fallen there, utterly exhausted, when I entered my room the night before, and I do not think I had even moved from that time until the moment—nine hours later—when I heard her voice and felt her hand on my shoulder.

After all our work, we did not win Dakota that year, but Miss Anthony bore the disappointment with the serenity she always showed. To her a failure was merely another opportunity, and I mention our experience here only to show of what she was capable in her gallant seventies. But I should misrepresent her if I did not show her human and sentimental side as well. With all her detachment from human needs she had emotional moments, and of these the most satisfying came when she was listening to music. She knew nothing whatever about music, but was deeply moved by it; and I remember vividly one occasion when Nordica sang for her, at an afternoon reception given by a Chicago friend in "Aunt Susan's" honor. As it happened, she had never heard Nordica sing until that day; and before the music began the great artiste and the great leader met, and in the moment of meeting became friends. When Nordica sang, half an hour later, she sang directly to Miss Anthony, looking into her eyes; and "Aunt Susan" listened with her own eyes full of tears. When the last notes had been sung she went to the singer and put both arms around her. The music had carried her back to her girlhood and to the sentiment of sixteen.

"Oh, Nordica," she sighed, "I could die listening to such singing!"

Another example of her unquenchable youth has also a Chicago setting. During the World's Fair a certain clergyman made an especially violent stand in favor of closing the Fair grounds on Sunday. Miss Anthony took issue with him.

"If I had charge of a young man in Chicago at this time," she told the clergyman, "I would much rather have him locked inside the Fair grounds on Sunday or any other day than have him going about on the outside."

The clergyman was horrified. "Would you like to have a son of yours go to Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show on Sunday?" he demanded.

"Of course I would," admitted Miss Anthony. "In fact, I think he would learn more there than from the sermons preached in some churches."

Later this remark was repeated to Colonel Cody ("Buffalo Bill"), who, of course, was delighted with it. He at once wrote to Miss Anthony, thanking her for the breadth of her views, and offering her a box for his "Show." She had no strong desire to see the performance, but some of us urged her to accept the invitation and to take us with her. She was always ready to do anything that would give us pleasure, so she promised that we should go the next afternoon. Others heard of the jaunt and begged to go also, and Miss Anthony blithely took every applicant under her wing, with the result that when we arrived at the box-office the next day there were twelve of us in the group. When she presented her note and asked for a box, the local manager looked doubtfully at the delegation.

"A box only holds six," he objected, logically. Miss Anthony, who had given no thought to that slight detail, looked us over and smiled her seraphic smile.

"Why, in that case," she said, cheerfully, "you'll have to give us two boxes, won't you?"

The amused manager decided that he would, and handed her the tickets; and she led her band to their places in triumph. When the performance began Colonel Cody, as was his custom, entered the arena from the far end of the building, riding his wonderful horse and bathed, of course, in the effulgence of his faithful spot-light. He rode directly to our boxes, reined his horse in front of Miss Anthony, rose in his stirrups, and with his characteristic gesture swept his slouch-hat to his saddle-bow in salutation. "Aunt Susan" immediately rose, bowed in her turn and, for the moment as enthusiastic as a girl, waved her handkerchief at him, while the big audience, catching the spirit of the scene, wildly applauded. It was a striking picture this meeting of the pioneer man and woman; and, poor as I am, I would give a hundred dollars for a snapshot of it.

On many occasions I saw instances of Miss Anthony's prescience—and one of these was connected with the death of Frances E. Willard. "Aunt Susan" had called on Miss Willard, and, coming to me from the sick-room, had walked the floor, beating her hands together as she talked of the visit.

"Frances Willard is dying," she exclaimed, passionately. "She is dying, and she doesn't know it, and no one around her realizes it. She is lying there, seeing into two worlds, and making more plans than a thousand women could carry out in ten years. Her brain is wonderful. She has the most extraordinary clearness of vision. There should be a stenographer in that room, and every word she utters should be taken down, for every word is golden. But they don't understand. They can't realize that she is going. I told Anna Gordon the truth, but she won't believe it."

Miss Willard died a few days later, with a suddenness which seemed to be a terrible shock to those around her.

Of "Aunt Susan's" really remarkable lack of selfconsciousness we who worked close to her had a thousand extraordinary examples. Once, I remember, at the New Orleans Convention, she reached the hall a little late, and as she entered the great audience already assembled gave her a tremendous reception. The exercises of the day had not yet begun, and Miss Anthony stopped short and looked around for an explanation of the outburst. It never for a moment occurred to her that the tribute was to her.

"What has happened, Anna?" she asked at last.

"You happened, Aunt Susan," I had to explain.

Again, on the great "College Night" of the Baltimore Convention, when President M. Carey Thomas of Bryn Mawr College had finished her wonderful tribute to Miss Anthony, the audience, carried away by the speech and also by the presence of the venerable leader on the platform, broke into a whirlwind of applause. In this "Aunt Susan" artlessly joined, clapping her hands as hard as she could. "This is all for you, Aunt Susan," I whispered, "so it isn't your time to applaud."

"Aunt Susan" continued to clap. "Nonsense," she said, briskly. "It's not for me. It's for the Cause—the Cause!"

Miss Anthony told me in 1904 that she regarded her reception in Berlin, during the meeting of the International Council of Women that year, as the climax of her career. She said it after the unexpected and wonderful ovation she had received from the German people, and certainly throughout her inspiring life nothing had happened that moved her more deeply.

For some time Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, of whose splendid work for the Cause I shall later have more to say, had cherished the plan of forming an International Suffrage Alliance. She believed the time had come when the suffragists of the entire world could meet to their common benefit; and Miss Anthony, always Mrs. Catt's devoted friend and admirer, agreed with her. A committee was appointed to meet in Berlin in 1904, just before the meeting of the International Council of Women, and Miss Anthony was appointed chairman of the committee. At first the plan of the committee was not welcomed by the International Council; there was even a suspicion that its purpose was to start a rival organization. But it met, a constitution was framed, and officers were elected, Mrs. Catt—the ideal choice for the place—being made president. As a climax to the organization, a great public mass-meeting had been arranged by the German suffragists, but at the special plea of the president of the International Council Miss Anthony remained away from this meeting. It was represented to her that the interests of the Council might suffer if she and other of its leading speakers were also leaders in the suffrage movement. In the interest of harmony, there fore, she followed the wishes of the Council's president—to my great unhappiness and to that of other suffragists.

When the meeting was opened the first words of the presiding officer were, "Where is Susan B. Anthony?" and the demonstration that followed the question was the most unexpected and overwhelming incident of the gathering. The entire audience rose, men jumped on their chairs, and the cheering continued without a break for ten minutes. Every second of that time I seemed to see Miss Anthony, alone in her hotel room, longing with all her big heart to be with us, as we longed to have her. I prayed that the loss of a tribute which would have meant so much might be made up to her, and it was. Afterward, when we burst in upon her and told her of the great demonstration the mere mention of her name had caused, her lips quivered and her brave old eyes filled with tears. As we looked at her I think we all realized anew that what the world called stoicism in Susan B. Anthony throughout the years of her long struggle had been, instead, the splendid courage of an indomitable soul—while all the time the woman's heart had longed for affection and recognition. The next morning the leading Berlin newspaper, in reporting the debate and describing the spontaneous tribute to Miss Anthony, closed with these sentences: "The Americans call her 'Aunt Susan.' She is our 'Aunt Susan,' too!"

Throughout the remainder of Miss Anthony's visit she was the most honored figure at the International Council. Every time she entered the great convention-hall the entire audience rose and remained standing until she was seated; each mention of her name was punctuated by cheers; and the enthusiasm when she appeared on the platform to say a few words was beyond bounds. When the Empress of Germany gave her reception to the officers of the Council, she crowned the hospitality of her people in a characteristically gracious way. As soon as Miss Anthony was presented to her the Empress invited her to be seated, and to remain seated, although every one else, including the august lady herself, was standing. A little later, seeing the intrepid warrior of eighty-four on her feet with the other delegates, the Empress sent one of her aides across the room with this message: "Please tell my friend Miss Anthony that I especially wish her to be seated. We must not let her grow weary."

In her turn, Miss Anthony was fascinated by the Empress. She could not keep her eyes off that charming royal lady. Probably the thing that most impressed her was the ability of her Majesty as a linguist. Receiving women from every civilized country on the globe, the Empress seemed to address each in her own tongue-slipping from one language into the next as easily as from one topic to another.

"And here I am," mourned "Aunt Susan," "speaking only one language, and that not very well."

At this Berlin quinquennial, by the way, I preached the Council sermon, and the occasion gained a certain interest from the fact that I was the first ordained woman to preach in a church in Germany. It then took on a tinge of humor from the additional fact that, according to the German law, as suddenly revealed to us by the police, no clergyman was permitted to preach unless clothed in clerical robes in the pulpit. It happened that I had not taken my clerical robes with me—I am constantly forgetting those clerical robes!—so the pastor of the church kindly offered me his robes.

Now the pastor was six feet tall and broad in proportion, and I, as I have already confessed, am very short. His robes transformed me into such an absurd caricature of a preacher that it was quite impossible for me to wear them. What, then, were we to do? Lacking clerical robes, the police would not allow me to utter six words. It was finally decided that the clergyman should meet the letter of the law by entering the pulpit in his robes and standing by my side while I delivered my sermon. The law soberly accepted this solution of the problem, and we offered the congregation the extraordinary tableau of a pulpit combining a large and impressive pastor standing silently beside a small and inwardly convulsed woman who had all she could do to deliver her sermon with the solemnity the occasion required.

At this same conference I made one of the few friendships I enjoy with a member of a European royal family, for I met the Princess Blank of Italy, who overwhelmed me with attention during my visit, and from whom I still receive charming letters. She invited me to visit her in her castle in Italy, and to accompany her to her mother's castle in Austria, and she finally insisted on knowing exactly why I persistently refused both invitations.

"Because, my dear Princess," I explained, "I am a working-woman."

"Nobody need KNOW that," murmured the Princess, calmly.

"On the contrary," I assured her, "it is the first thing I should explain."

"But why?" the Princess wanted to know.

I studied her in silence for a moment. She was a new and interesting type to me, and I was glad to exchange viewpoints with her.

"You are proud of your family, are you not?" I asked. "You are proud of your great line?"

The Princess drew herself up. "Assuredly," she said.

"Very well," I continued. "I am proud, too. What I have done I have done unaided, and, to be frank with you, I rather approve of it. My work is my patent of nobility, and I am not willing to associate with those from whom it would have to be concealed or with those who would look down upon it."

The Princess sighed. I was a new type to her, too, as new as she was to me; but I had the advantage of her, for I could understand her point of view, whereas she apparently could not follow mine. She was very gracious to me, however, showing me kindness and friendship in a dozen ways, giving me an immense amount of her time and taking rather more of my time than I could spare, but never forgetting for a moment that her blood was among the oldest in Europe, and that all her traditions were in keeping with its honorable age.

After the Berlin meeting Miss Anthony and I were invited to spend a week-end at the home of Mrs. Jacob Bright, that "Aunt Susan" might renew her acquaintance with Annie Besant. This visit is among my most vivid memories. Originally "Aunt Susan" had greatly admired Mrs. Besant, and had openly lamented the latter's concentration on theosophical interests—when, as Miss Anthony put it, "there are so many live problems here in this world." Now she could not conceal her disapproval of the "other-worldliness" of Mrs. Besant, Mrs. Bright, and her daughter. Some remarkable and, to me, most amusing discussions took place among the three; but often, during Mrs. Besant's most sustained oratorical flights, Miss Anthony's interest would wander, and she would drop a remark that showed she had not heard a word. She had a great admiration for Mrs. Besant's intellect; but she disapproved of her flowing and picturesque white robes, of her bare feet, of her incessant cigarette-smoking; above all, of her views. At last, one day.{sic} the climax of the discussions came.

"Annie," demanded "Aunt Susan," "why don't you make that aura of yours do its gallivanting in this world, looking up the needs of the oppressed, and investigating the causes of present wrongs? Then you could reveal to us workers just what we should do to put things right, and we could be about it."

Mrs. Besant sighed and said that life was short and aeons were long, and that while every one would be perfected some time, it was useless to deal with individuals here.

"But, Annie!" exclaimed Miss Anthony, pathetically. "We ARE here! Our business is here! It's our duty to do what we can here."

Mrs. Besant seemed not to hear her. She was in a trance, gazing into the aeons.

"I'd rather have one year of your ability, backed up with common sense, for the work of making this world better," cried the exasperated "Aunt Susan," "than a million aeons in the hereafter!"

Mrs. Besant sighed again. It was plain that she could not bring herself back from the other world, so Miss Anthony, perforce, accompanied her to it.

"When your aura goes visiting in the other world," she asked, curiously, "does it ever meet your old friend Charles Bradlaugh?"

"Oh yes," declared Mrs. Besant. "Frequently."

"Wasn't he very much surprised," demanded Miss Anthony, with growing interest, "to discover that he was not dead?"

Mrs. Besant did not seem to know what emotion Mr. Bradlaugh had experienced when that revelation came.

"Well," mused "Aunt Susan," "I should think he would have been surprised. He was so certain he was going to be dead that it must have been astounding to discover he wasn't. What was he doing in the other world?"

Mrs. Besant heaved a deeper sigh. "I am very much discouraged over Mr. Bradlaugh," she admitted, wanly. "He is hovering too near this world. He cannot seem to get away from his mundane interests. He is as much concerned with parliamentary affairs now as when he was on this plane."

"Humph!" said Miss Anthony; "that's the most sensible thing I've heard yet about the other world. It encourages me. I've always felt sure that if I entered the other life before women were enfranchised nothing in the glories of heaven would interest me so much as the work for women's freedom on earth. Now," she ended, "I shall be like Mr. Bradlaugh. I shall hover round and continue my work here."

When Mrs. Besant had left the room Mrs. Bright felt that it was her duty to admonish "Aunt Susan" to be more careful in what she said.

"You are making too light of her creed," she expostulated. "You do not realize the important position Mrs. Besant holds. Why, in India, when she walks from her home to her school all those she meets prostrate themselves. Even the learned men prostrate themselves and put their faces on the ground as she goes by."

"Aunt Susan's" voice, when she replied, took on the tones of one who is sorely tried. "But why in Heaven's name does any sensible Englishwoman want a lot of heathen to prostrate themselves as she goes up the street?" she demanded, wearily. "It's the most foolish thing I ever heard."

The effort to win Miss Anthony over to the theosophical doctrine was abandoned. That night, after we had gone to our rooms, "Aunt Susan" summed up her conclusions on the interview:

"It's a good thing for the world," she declared, "that some of us don't know so much. And it's a better thing for this world that some of us think a little earthly common sense is more valuable than too much heavenly knowledge."



X. THE PASSING OF "AUNT SUSAN"

On one occasion Miss Anthony had the doubtful pleasure of reading her own obituary notices, and her interest in them was characteristically naive. She had made a speech at Lakeside, Ohio, during which, for the first time in her long experience, she fainted on the platform. I was not with her at the time, and in the excitement following her collapse it was rumored that she had died. Immediately the news was telegraphed to the Associated Press of New York, and from there flashed over the country. At Miss Anthony's home in Rochester a reporter rang the bell and abruptly informed her sister, Miss Mary Anthony, who came to the door, that "Aunt Susan" was dead. Fortunately Miss Mary had a cool head.

"I think," she said, "that if my sister had died I would have heard about it. Please have your editors telegraph to Lakeside."

The reporter departed, but came back an hour later to say that his newspaper had sent the telegram and the reply was that Susan B. Anthony was dead.

"I have just received a better telegram than that," remarked Mary Anthony. "Mine is from my sister; she tells me that she fainted to-night, but soon recovered and will be home to-morrow."

Nevertheless, the next morning the American newspapers gave much space to Miss Anthony's obituary notices, and "Aunt Susan" spent some interesting hours reading them. One that pleased her vastly was printed in the Wichita Eagle, whose editor, Mr. Murdock, had been almost her bitterest opponent. He had often exhausted his brilliant vocabulary in editorial denunciations of suffrage and suffragists, and Miss Anthony had been the special target of his scorn. But the news of her death seemed to be a bitter blow to him; and of all the tributes the American press gave to Susan B. Anthony dead, few equaled in beauty and appreciation the one penned by Mr. Murdock and published in the Eagle. He must have been amused when, a few days later, he received a letter from "Aunt Susan" herself, thanking him warmly for his changed opinion of her and hoping that it meant the conversion of his soul to our Cause. It did not, and Mr. Murdock, though never again quite as bitter as he had been, soon resumed the free editorial expression of his antisuffrage sentiments. Times have changed, however, and to-day his son, now a member of Congress, is one of our strongest supporters in that body.

In 1905 it became plain that Miss Anthony's health was failing. Her visits to Germany and England the previous year, triumphant though they had been, had also proved a drain on her vitality; and soon after her return to America she entered upon a task which helped to exhaust her remaining strength. She had been deeply interested in securing a fund of $50,000 to enable women to enter Rochester University, and, one morning, just after we had held a session of our executive committee in her Rochester home, she read a newspaper announcement to the effect that at four o'clock that afternoon the opportunity to admit women to the university would expire, as the full fifty thousand dollars had not been raised. The sum of eight thousand dollars was still lacking.

With characteristic energy, Miss Anthony undertook to save the situation by raising this amount within the time limit. Rushing to the telephone, she called a cab and prepared to go forth on her difficult quest; but first, while she was putting on her hat and coat, she insisted that her sister, Mary Anthony, should start the fund by contributing one thousand dollars from her meager savings, and this Miss Mary did. "Aunt Susan" made every second count that day, and by half after three o'clock she had secured the necessary pledges. Several of the trustees of the university, however, had not seemed especially anxious to have the fund raised, and at the last moment they objected to one pledge for a thousand dollars, on the ground that the man who had given it was very old and might die before the time set to pay it; then his family, they feared, might repudiate the obligation. Without a word Miss Anthony seized the pledge and wrote her name across it as an indorsement. "I am good for it," she then said, quietly, "if the gentleman who signed it is not."

That afternoon she returned home greatly fatigued. A few hours later the girl students who had been waiting admission to the university came to serenade her in recognition of her successful work for them, but she was too ill to see them. She was passing through the first stage of what proved to be her final breakdown.

In 1906, when the date of the annual convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in Baltimore was drawing near, she became convinced that it would be her last convention. She was right. She showed a passionate eagerness to make it one of the greatest conventions ever held in the history of the movement; and we, who loved her and saw that the flame of her life was burning low, also bent all our energies to the task of realizing her hopes. In November preceding the convention she visited me and her niece, Miss Lucy Anthony, in our home in Mount Airy, Philadelphia, and it was clear that her anxiety over the convention was weighing heavily upon her. She visibly lost strength from day to day. One morning she said abruptly, "Anna, let's go and call on President M. Carey Thomas, of Bryn Mawr."

I wrote a note to Miss Thomas, telling her of Miss Anthony's desire to see her, and received an immediate reply inviting us to luncheon the following day. We found Miss Thomas deep in the work connected with her new college buildings, over which she showed us with much pride. Miss Anthony, of course, gloried in the splendid results Miss Thomas had achieved, but she was, for her, strangely silent and preoccupied. At luncheon she said:

"Miss Thomas, your buildings are beautiful; your new library is a marvel; but they are not the cause of our presence here."

"No," Miss Thomas said; "I know you have something on your mind. I am waiting for you to tell me what it is."

"We want your co-operation, and that of Miss Garrett," began Miss Anthony, promptly, "to make our Baltimore Convention a success. We want you to persuade the Arundel Club of Baltimore, the most fashionable club in the city, to give a reception to the delegates; and we want you to arrange a college night on the programme—a great college night, with the best college speakers ever brought together."

These were large commissions for two extremely busy women, but both Miss Thomas and Miss Garrett—realizing Miss Anthony's intense earnestness—promised to think over the suggestions and see what they could do. The next morning we received a telegram from them stating that Miss Thomas would arrange the college evening, and that Miss Garrett would reopen her Baltimore home, which she had closed, during the convention. She also invited Miss Anthony and me to be her guests there, and added that she would try to arrange the reception by the Arundel Club.

"Aunt Susan" was overjoyed. I have never seen her happier than she was over the receipt of that telegram. She knew that whatever Miss Thomas and Miss Garrett undertook would be accomplished, and she rightly regarded the success of the convention as already assured. Her expectations were more than realized. The college evening was undoubtedly the most brilliant occasion of its kind ever arranged for a convention. President Ira Remsen of Johns Hopkins University presided, and addresses were made by President Mary E. Woolley of Mount Holyoke, Professor Lucy Salmon of Vassar, Professor Mary Jordan of Smith, President Thomas herself, and many others.

From beginning to end the convention was probably the most notable yet held in our history. Julia Ward Howe and her daughter, Florence Howe Hall, were also guests of Miss Garrett, who, moreover, entertained all the speakers of "College Night." Miss Anthony, now eighty-six, arrived in Baltimore quite ill, and Mrs. Howe, who was ninety, was taken ill soon after she reached there. The two great women made a dramatic exchange on the programme, for on the first night, when Miss Anthony was unable to speak, Mrs. Howe took her place, and on the second night, when Mrs. Howe had succumbed, Miss Anthony had recovered sufficiently to appear for her. Clara Barton was also an honored figure at the convention, and Miss Anthony's joy in the presence of all these old and dear friends was overflowing. With them, too, were the younger women, ready to take up and carry on the work the old leaders were laying down; and "Aunt Susan," as she surveyed them all, felt like a general whose superb army is passing in review before him. At the close of the college programme, when the final address had been made by Miss Thomas, Miss Anthony rose and in a few words expressed her feeling that her life-work was done, and her consciousness of the near approach of the end. After that night she was unable to appear, and was indeed so ill that she was confined to her bed in Miss Garrett's most hospitable home. Nothing could have been more thoughtful or more beautiful than the care Miss Garrett and Miss Thomas bestowed on her. They engaged for her one of the best physicians in Baltimore, who, in turn, consulted with the leading specialists of Johns Hopkins, and they also secured a trained nurse. This final attention required special tact, for Miss Anthony's fear of "giving trouble" was so great that she was not willing to have a nurse. The nurse, therefore, wore a housemaid's uniform, and "Aunt Susan" remained wholly unconscious that she was being cared for by one of the best nurses in the famous hospital.

Between sessions of the convention I used to sit by "Aunt Susan's" bed and tell her what was going on. She was triumphant over the immense success of the convention, but it was clear that she was still worrying over the details of future work. One day at luncheon Miss Thomas asked me, casually:

"By the way, how do you raise the money to carry on your work?"

When I told her the work was wholly dependent on voluntary contributions and on the services of those who were willing to give themselves gratuitously to it, Miss Thomas was greatly surprised. She and Miss Garrett asked a number of practical questions, and at the end of our talk they looked at each other.

"I don't think," said Miss Thomas, "that we have quite done our duty in this matter."

The next day they invited a number of us to dinner, to again discuss the situation; and they admitted that they had sat up throughout the previous night, talking the matter over and trying to find some way to help us. They had also discussed the situation with Miss Anthony, to her vast content, and had finally decided that they would try to raise a fund of $60,000, to be paid in yearly instalments of $12,000 for five years—part of these annual instalments to be used as salaries for the active officers. The mere mention of so large a fund startled us all. We feared that it could not possibly be raised. But Miss Anthony plainly believed that now the last great wish of her life had been granted. She was convinced that Miss Thomas and Miss Garrett could accomplish anything—even the miracle of raising $60,000 for the suffrage cause—and they did, though "Aunt Susan" was not here to glory over the result when they had achieved it.

On the 15th of February we left Baltimore for Washington, where Miss Anthony was to celebrate her eighty-sixth birthday. For many years the National American Woman Suffrage Association had celebrated our birthdays together, as hers came on the 15th of the month and mine on the 14th. There had been an especially festive banquet when she was seventy-four and I was forty-seven, and our friends had decorated the table with floral "4's" and "7's"—the centerpiece representing "74" during the first half of the banquet, and "47" the latter half. This time "Aunt Susan" should not have attempted the Washington celebration, for she was still ill and exhausted by the strain of the convention. But notwithstanding her sufferings and the warnings of her physicians, she insisted on being present; so Miss Garrett sent the trained nurse to Washington with her, and we all tried to make the journey the least possible strain on the patient's vitality.

On our arrival in Washington we went to the Shoreham, where, as always, the proprietor took pains to give Miss Anthony a room with a view of the Washington monument, which she greatly admired. When I entered her room a little later I found her standing at a window, holding herself up with hands braced against the casement on either side, and so absorbed in the view that she did not hear my approach. When I spoke to her she answered without turning her head.

"That," she said, softly, "is the most beautiful monument in the world."

I stood by her side, and together we looked at it in silence I realizing with a sick heart that "Aunt Susan" knew she was seeing it for the last time.

The birthday celebration that followed our executive meeting was an impressive one. It was held in the Church of Our Father, whose pastor, the Rev. John Van Schaick, had always been exceedingly kind to Miss Anthony. Many prominent men spoke. President Roosevelt and other statesmen sent most friendly letters, and William H. Taft had promised to be present. He did not come, nor did he, then or later, send any excuse for not coming—an omission that greatly disappointed Miss Anthony, who had always admired him. I presided at the meeting, and though we all did our best to make it gay, a strange hush hung over the assemblage a solemn stillness, such as one feels in the presence of death. We became more and more conscious that Miss Anthony was suffering, and we hastened the exercises all we could. When I read President Roosevelt's long tribute to her, Miss Anthony rose to comment on it.

"One word from President Roosevelt in his message to Congress," she said, a little wearily, "would be worth a thousand eulogies of Susan B. Anthony. When will men learn that what we ask is not praise, but justice?"

At the close of the meeting, realizing how weak she was, I begged her to let me speak for her. But she again rose, rested her hand on my shoulder, and, standing by my side, uttered the last words she ever spoke in public, pleading with women to consecrate themselves to the Cause, assuring them that no power could prevent its ultimate success, but reminding them also that the time of its coming would depend wholly on their work and their loyalty. She ended with three words—very fitting words from her lips, expressing as they did the spirit of her life-work—"FAILURE IS IMPOSSIBLE."

The next morning she was taken to her home in Rochester, and one month from that day we conducted her funeral services. The nurse who had accompanied her from Baltimore remained with her until two others had been secured to take her place, and every care that love or medical science could suggest was lavished on the patient. But from the first it was plain that, as she herself had foretold, "Aunt Susan's" soul was merely waiting for the hour of its passing.

One of her characteristic traits was a dislike to being seen, even by those nearest to her, when she was not well. During the first three weeks of her last illness, therefore, I did what she wished me to do—I continued our work, trying to do hers as well as my own. But all the time my heart was in her sick-room, and at last the day came when I could no longer remain away from her. I had awakened in the morning with a strong conviction that she needed me, and at the breakfast-table I announced to her niece, Miss Lucy Anthony, the friend who for years has shared my home, that I was going at once to "Aunt Susan."

"I shall not even wait to telegraph," I declared. "I am sure she has sent for me; I shall take the first train."

The journey brought me very close to death. As we were approaching Wilkes-Barre our train ran into a wagon loaded with powder and dynamite, which had been left on the track. The horses attached to it had been unhitched by their driver, who had spent his time in this effort, when he saw the train coming, instead of in signaling to the engineer. I was on my way to the dining-car when the collision occurred, and, with every one else who happened to be standing, I was hurled to the floor by the impact; flash after flash of blinding light outside, accompanied by a terrific roar, added to the panic of the passengers. When the train stopped we learned how narrow had been our escape from an especially unpleasant form of death. The dynamite in the wagon was frozen, and therefore had not exploded; it was the explosion of the powder that had caused the flashes and the din. The dark-green cars were burned almost white, and as we stood staring at them, a silent, stunned group, our conductor said, quietly, "You will never be as near death again, and escape, as you have been to-day."

The accident caused a long delay, and it was ten o'clock at night when I reached Rochester and Miss Anthony's home. As I entered the house Miss Mary Anthony rose in surprise to greet me.

"How did you get here so soon?" she cried. And then: "We sent for you this afternoon. Susan has been asking for you all day."

When I reached my friend's bedside one glance at her face showed me the end was near; and from that time until it came, almost a week later, I remained with her; while again, as always, she talked of the Cause, and of the life-work she must now lay down. The first thing she spoke of was her will, which she had made several years before, and in which she had left the small property she possessed to her sister Mary, her niece Lucy, and myself, with instructions as to the use we three were to make of it. Now she told me we were to pay no attention to these instructions, but to give every dollar of her money to the $60,000 fund Miss Thomas and Miss Garrett were trying to raise. She was vitally interested in this fund, as its success meant that for five years the active officers of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, including myself as president, would for the first time receive salaries for our work. When she had given her instructions on this point she still seemed depressed.

"I wish I could live on," she said, wistfully. "But I cannot. My spirit is eager and my heart is as young as it ever was, but my poor old body is worn out. Before I go I want you to give me a promise: Promise me that you will keep the presidency of the association as long as you are well enough to do the work."

"But how can I promise that?" I asked. "I can keep it only as long as others wish me to keep it."

"Promise to make them wish you to keep it," she urged. "Just as I wish you to keep it."

I would have promised her anything then. So, though I knew that to hold the presidency would tie me to a position that brought in no living income, and though for several years past I had already drawn alarmingly upon my small financial reserve, I promised her that I would hold the office as long as the majority of the women in the association wished me to do so. "But," I added, "if the time comes when I believe that some one else can do better work in the presidency than I, then let me feel at liberty to resign it."

This did not satisfy her.

"No, no," she objected. "You cannot be the judge of that. Promise me you will remain until the friends you most trust tell you it is time to withdraw, or make you understand that it is time. Promise me that."

I made the promise. She seemed content, and again began to talk of the future.

"You will not have an easy path," she warned me. "In some ways it will be harder for you than it has ever been for me. I was so much older than the rest of you, and I had been president so long, that you girls have all been willing to listen to me. It will be different with you. Other women of your own age have been in the work almost as long as you have been; you do not stand out from them by age or length of service, as I did. There will be inevitable jealousies and misunderstandings; there will be all sorts of criticism and misrepresentation. My last word to you is this: No matter what is done or is not done, how you are criticized or misunderstood, or what efforts are made to block your path, remember that the only fear you need have is the fear of not standing by the thing you believe to be right. Take your stand and hold it; then let come what will, and receive blows like a good soldier."

I was too much overcome to answer her; and after a moment of silence she, in her turn, made me a promise.

"I do not know anything about what comes to us after this life ends," she said. "But if there is a continuance of life beyond it, and if I have any conscious knowledge of this world and of what you are doing, I shall not be far away from you; and in times of need I will help you all I can. Who knows? Perhaps I may be able to do more for the Cause after I am gone than while I am here."

Nine years have passed since then, and in each day of them all it seems to me, in looking back, I have had some occasion to recall her words. When they were uttered I did not fully comprehend all they meant, or the clearness of the vision that had suggested them. It seemed to me that no position I could hold would be of sufficient importance to attract jealousy or personal attacks. The years have brought more wisdom; I have learned that any one who assumes leadership, or who, like myself, has had leadership forced upon her, must expect to bear many things of which the world knows nothing. But with this knowledge, too, has come the memory of "Aunt Susan's" last promise, and again and yet again in hours of discouragement and despair I have been helped by the blessed conviction that she was keeping it.

During the last forty-eight hours of her life she was unwilling that I should leave her side. So day and night I knelt by her bed, holding her hand and watching the flame of her wonderful spirit grow dim. At times, even then, it blazed up with startling suddenness. On the last afternoon of her life, when she had lain quiet for hours, she suddenly began to utter the names of the women who had worked with her, as if in a final roll-call. Many of them had preceded her into the next world; others were still splendidly active in the work she was laying down. But young or old, living or dead, they all seemed to file past her dying eyes that day in an endless, shadowy review, and as they went by she spoke to each of them.

Not all the names she mentioned were known in suffrage ranks; some of these women lived only in the heart of Susan B. Anthony, and now, for the last time, she was thanking them for what they had done. Here was one who, at a moment of special need, had given her small savings; here was another who had won valuable recruits to the Cause; this one had written a strong editorial; that one had made a stirring speech. In these final hours it seemed that not a single sacrifice or service, however small, had been forgotten by the dying leader. Last of all, she spoke to the women who had been on her board and had stood by her loyally so long—Rachel Foster Avery, Alice Stone Blackwell, Carrie Chapman Catt, Mrs. Upton, Laura Clay, and others. Then, after lying in silence for a long time with her cheek on my hand, she murmured: "They are still passing before me—face after face, hundreds and hundreds of them, representing all the efforts of fifty years. I know how hard they have worked I know the sacrifices they have made. But it has all been worth while!"

Just before she lapsed into unconsciousness she seemed restless and anxious to say something, searching my face with her dimming eyes.

"Do you want me to repeat my promise?" I asked, for she had already made me do so several times. She made a sign of assent, and I gave her the assurance she desired. As I did so she raised my hand to her lips and kissed it—her last conscious action. For more than thirty hours after that I knelt by her side, but though she clung to my hand until her own hand grew cold, she did not speak again.

She had told me over and over how much our long friendship and association had meant to her, and the comfort I had given her. But whatever I may have been to her, it was as nothing compared with what she was to me. Kneeling close to her as she passed away, I knew that I would have given her a dozen lives had I had them, and endured a thousand times more hardship than we had borne together, for the inspiration of her companionship and the joy of her affection. They were the greatest blessings I have had in all my life, and I cherish as my dearest treasure the volume of her History of Woman Suffrage on the fly-leaf of which she had written this inscription:

REVEREND ANNA HOWARD SHAW:

This huge volume IV I present to you with the love that a mother beareth, and I hope you will find in it the facts about women, for you will find them nowhere else. Your part will be to see that the four volumes are duly placed in the libraries of the country, where every student of history may have access to them.

With unbounded love and faith,

SUSAN B. ANTHONY.

That final line is still my greatest comfort. When I am misrepresented or misunderstood, when I am accused of personal ambition or of working for personal ends, I turn to it and to similar lines penned by the same hand, and tell myself that I should not allow anything to interfere with the serenity of my spirit or to disturb me in my work. At the end of eighteen years of the most intimate companionship, the leader of our Cause, the greatest woman I have ever known, still felt for me "unbounded love and faith." Having had that, I have had enough.

For two days after "Aunt Susan's" death she lay in her own home, as if in restful slumber, her face wearing its most exquisite look of peaceful serenity; and here her special friends, the poor and the unfortunate of the city, came by hundreds to pay their last respects. On the third day there was a public funeral, held in the Congregational church, and, though a wild blizzard was raging, every one in Rochester seemed included in the great throng of mourners who came to her bier in reverence and left it in tears. The church services were conducted by the pastor, the Rev. C. C. Albertson, a lifelong friend of Miss Anthony's, assisted by the Rev. William C. Gannett. James G. Potter, the Mayor of the city, and Dr. Rush Rhees, president of Rochester University, occupied prominent places among the distinguished mourners, and Mrs. Jerome Jeffries, the head of a colored school, spoke in behalf of the negro race and its recognition of Miss Anthony's services. College clubs, medical societies, and reform groups were represented by delegates sent from different states, and Miss Anna Gordon had come on from Illinois to represent the Woman's National Christian Temperance Union. Mrs. Catt delivered a eulogy in which she expressed the love and recognition of the organized suffrage women of the world for Miss Anthony, as the one to whom they had all looked as their leader. William Lloyd Garrison spoke of Miss Anthony's work with his father and other antislavery leaders, and Mrs. Jean Brooks Greenleaf spoke in behalf of the New York State Suffrage Association. Then, as "Aunt Susan" had requested, I made the closing address. She had asked me to do this and to pronounce the benediction, as well as to say the final words at her grave.

It was estimated that more than ten thousand persons were assembled in and around the church, and after the benediction those who had been patiently waiting out in the storm were permitted to pass inside in single file for a last look at their friend. They found the coffin covered by a large American flag, on which lay a wreath of laurel and palms; around it stood a guard of honor composed of girl students of Rochester University in their college caps and gowns. All day students had mounted guard, relieving one another at intervals. On every side there were flowers and floral emblems sent by various organizations, and just over "Aunt Susan's" head floated the silk flag given to her by the women of Colorado. It contained four gold stars, representing the four enfranchised states, while the other stars were in silver. On her breast was pinned the jeweled flag given to her on her eightieth birthday by the women of Wyoming—the first place in the world where in the constitution of the state women were given equal political rights with men. Here the four stars representing the enfranchised states were made of diamonds, the others of silver enamel. Just before the lid was fastened on the coffin this flag was removed and handed to Mary Anthony, who presented it to me. From that day I have worn it on every occasion of importance to our Cause, and each time a state is won for woman suffrage I have added a new diamond star. At the time I write this—in 1914—there are twelve.

As the funeral procession went through the streets of Rochester it was seen that all the city flags were at half-mast, by order of the City Council. Many houses were draped in black, and the grief of the citizens manifested itself on every side. All the way to Mount Hope Cemetery the snow whirled blindingly around us, while the masses that had fallen covered the earth as far as we could see a fitting winding-sheet for the one who had gone. Under the fir-trees around her open grave I obeyed "Aunt Susan's" wish that I should utter the last words spoken over her body as she was laid to rest:

"Dear friend," I said, "thou hast tarried with us long. Now thou hast gone to thy well-earned rest. We beseech the Infinite Spirit Who has upheld thee to make us worthy to follow in thy steps and to carry on thy work. Hail and farewell."



XI. THE WIDENING SUFFRAGE STREAM

In my chapters on Miss Anthony I bridged the twenty years between 1886 and 1906, omitting many of the stirring suffrage events of that long period, in my desire to concentrate on those which most vitally concerned her. I must now retrace my steps along the widening suffrage stream and describe, consecutively at least, and as fully as these incomplete reminiscences will permit, other incidents that occurred on its banks.

Of these the most important was the union in 1889 of the two great suffrage societies—the American Association, of which Lucy Stone was the president, and the National Association, headed by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. At a convention held in Washington these societies were merged as The National American Woman Suffrage Association—the name our association still bears—and Mrs. Stanton was elected president. She was then nearly eighty and past active work, but she made a wonderful presiding officer at our subsequent meetings, and she was as picturesque as she was efficient.

Miss Anthony, who had an immense admiration for her and a great personal pride in her, always escorted her to the capital, and, having worked her utmost to make the meeting a success, invariably gave Mrs. Stanton credit for all that was accomplished. She often said that Mrs. Stanton was the brains of the new association, while she herself was merely its hands and feet; but in truth the two women worked marvelously together, for Mrs. Stanton was a master of words and could write and speak to perfection of the things Susan B. Anthony saw and felt but could not herself express. Usually Miss Anthony went to Mrs. Stanton's house and took charge of it while she stimulated the venerable president to the writing of her annual address. Then, at the subsequent convention, she would listen to the report with as much delight and pleasure as if each word of it had been new to her. Even after Mrs. Stanton's resignation from the presidency—at the end, I think, of three years—and Miss Anthony's election as her successor, "Aunt Susan" still went to her old friend whenever an important resolution was to be written, and Mrs. Stanton loyally drafted it for her.

Mrs. Stanton was the most brilliant conversationalist I have ever known; and the best talk I have heard anywhere was that to which I used to listen in the home of Mrs. Eliza Wright Osborne, in Auburn, New York, when Mrs. Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Emily Howland, Elizabeth Smith Miller, Ida Husted Harper, Miss Mills, and I were gathered there for our occasional week-end visits. Mrs. Osborne inherited her suffrage sympathies, for she was the daughter of Martha Wright, who, with Mrs. Stanton and Lucretia Mott, called the first suffrage convention in Seneca Falls, New York. I must add in passing that her son, Thomas Mott Osborne, who is doing such admirable work in prison reform at Sing Sing, has shown himself worthy of the gifted and high-minded mother who gave him to the world.

Most of the conversation in Mrs. Osborne's home was contributed by Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony, while the rest of us sat, as it were, at their feet. Many human and feminine touches brightened the lofty discussions that were constantly going on, and the varied characteristics of our leaders cropped up in amusing fashion. Mrs. Stanton, for example, was rarely accurate in giving figures or dates, while Miss Anthony was always very exact in such matters. She frequently corrected Mrs. Stanton's statements, and Mrs. Stanton usually took the interruption in the best possible spirit, promptly admitting that "Aunt Susan" knew best. On one occasion I recall, however, she held fast to her opinion that she was right as to the month in which a certain incident had occurred.

"No, Susan," she insisted, "you're wrong for once. I remember perfectly when that happened, for it was at the time I was beginning to wean Harriet."

Aunt Susan, though somewhat staggered by the force of this testimony, still maintained that Mrs. Stanton must be mistaken, whereupon the latter repeated, in exasperation, "I tell you it happened when I was weaning Harriet." And she added, scornfully, "What event have you got to reckon from?"

Miss Anthony meekly subsided.

Mrs. Stanton had wonderful blue eyes, which held to the end of her life an expression of eternal youth. During our conventions she usually took a little nap in the afternoon, and when she awoke her blue eyes always had an expression of pleased and innocent surprise, as if she were gazing on the world for the first time—the round, unwinking, interested look a baby's eyes have when something attractive is held up before them.

Let me give in a paragraph, before I swing off into the bypaths that always allure me, the consecutive suffrage events of the past quarter of a century. Having done this, I can dwell on each as casually as I choose, for it is possible to describe only a few incidents here and there; and I shall not be departing from the story of my life, for my life had become merged in the suffrage cause.

Of the preliminary suffrage campaigns in Kansas, made in company with "Aunt Susan," I have already written, and it remains only to say that during the second Kansas campaign yellow was adopted as the suffrage color. In 1890, '92, and '93 we again worked in Kansas and in South Dakota, with such indefatigable and brilliant speakers as Mrs. Catt (to whose efforts also were largely due the winning of Colorado in '93), Mrs. Laura Johns of Kansas, Mrs. Julia Nelson, Henry B. Blackwell, Dr. Helen V. Putnam of Dakota, Mrs. Emma Smith DeVoe, Rev. Olympia Browne of Wisconsin, and Dr. Mary Seymour Howell of New York. In '94, '95, and '96 special efforts were devoted to Idaho, Utah, California, and Washington, and from then on our campaigns were waged steadily in the Western states.

The Colorado victory gave us two full suffrage states, for in 1869 the Territory of Wyoming had enfranchised women under very interesting conditions, not now generally remembered. The achievement was due to the influence of one woman, Esther Morris, a pioneer who was as good a neighbor as she was a suffragist. In those early days, in homes far from physicians and surgeons, the women cared for one another in sickness, and Esther Morris, as it happened, once took full and skilful charge of a neighbor during the difficult birth of the latter's child. She had done the same thing for many other women, but this woman's husband was especially grateful. He was also a member of the Legislature, and he told Mrs. Morris that if there was any measure she wished put through for the women of the territory he would be glad to introduce it. She immediately took him at his word by asking him to introduce a bill enfranchising women, and he promptly did so.

The Legislature was Democratic, and it pounced upon the measure as a huge joke. With the amiable purpose of embarrassing the Governor of the territory, who was a Republican and had been appointed by the President, the members passed the bill and put it up to him to veto. To their combined horror and amazement, the young Governor did nothing of the kind. He had come, as it happened, from Salem, Ohio, one of the first towns in the United States in which a suffrage convention was held. There, as a boy, he had heard Susan B. Anthony make a speech, and he had carried into the years the impression it made upon him. He signed that bill; and, as the Legislature could not get a two-thirds vote to kill it, the disgusted members had to make the best of the matter. The following year a Democrat introduced a bill to repeal the measure, but already public sentiment had changed and he was laughed down. After that no further effort was ever made to take the ballot away from the women of Wyoming.

When the territory applied for statehood, it was feared that the woman-suffrage clause in the constitution might injure its chance of admission, and the women sent this telegram to Joseph M. Carey:

"Drop us if you must. We can trust the men of Wyoming to enfranchise us after our territory becomes a state."

Mr. Carey discussed this telegram with the other men who were urging upon Congress the admission of their territory, and the following reply went back:

"We may stay out of the Union a hundred years, but we will come in with our women."

There is great inspiration in those two messages—and a great lesson, as well.

In 1894 we conducted a campaign in New York, when an effort was made to secure a clause to enfranchise women in the new state constitution; and for the first time in the history of the woman-suffrage movement many of the influential women in the state and city of New York took an active part in the work. Miss Anthony was, as always, our leader and greatest inspiration. Mrs. John Brooks Greenleaf was state president, and Miss Mary Anthony was the most active worker in the Rochester headquarters. Mrs. Lily Devereaux Blake had charge of the campaign in New York City, and Mrs. Marianna Chapman looked after the Brooklyn section, while a most stimulating sign of the times was the organization of a committee of New York women of wealth and social influence, who established their headquarters at Sherry's. Among these were Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell, Mrs. Joseph H. Choate, Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, Mrs. J. Warren Goddard, and Mrs. Robert Abbe. Miss Anthony, then in her seventy-fifth year, spoke in every county of the state sixty in all. I spoke in forty, and Mrs. Catt, as always, made a superb record. Miss Harriet May Mills, a graduate of Cornell, and Miss Mary G. Hay, did admirable organization work in the different counties. Our disappointment over the result was greatly soothed by the fact that only two years later both Idaho and Utah swung into line as full suffrage states, though California, in which we had labored with equal zeal, waited fifteen years longer.

Among these campaigns, and overlapping them, were our annual conventions—each of which I attended from 1888 on—and the national and international councils, to a number of which, also, I have given preliminary mention. When Susan B. Anthony died in 1906, four American states had granted suffrage to woman. At the time I write—1914—the result of the American women's work for suffrage may be briefly tabulated thus:

SUFFRAGE STATUS

FULL SUFFRAGE FOR WOMEN

Number of State Year Won Electoral Votes Wyoming 1869 3 Colorado 1893 6 Idaho 1896 4 Utah 1896 4 Washington 1910 7 California 1911 13 Arizona 1912 3 Kansas 1912 10 Oregon 1912 5 Alaska 1913 — Nevada 1914 3 Montana 1914 4

PRESIDENTIAL AND MUNICIPAL SUFFRAGE FOR WOMEN Number of State Year Won Electoral Votes

Illinois 1913 29

STATES WHERE AMENDMENT HAS PASSED ONE LEGISLATURE AND MUST PASS ANOTHER

Number Goes to State House Senate Voters Electoral Votes Iowa 81-26 31-15 1916 13 Massachusetts 169-39 34-2 1915 18 New Jersey 49-4 15-3 1915 14 New York 125-5 40-2 1915 45 North Dakota 77-29 31-19 1916 5 Pennsylvania 131-70 26-22 1915 38



To tabulate the wonderful work done by the conventions and councils is not possible, but a con secutive list of the meetings would run like this:

First National Convention, Washington, D.C., 1887. First International Council of Women, Washington, D.C., 1888. National Suffrage Convention, Washington, D.C., 1889. National Suffrage Convention, Washington, D.C., 1890. National Suffrage Convention, Washington, D.C., 1891. National Suffrage Convention, Washington, D.C., 1892. National Suffrage Convention, Washington, D.C., 1893. International Council, Chicago, 1893. National Suffrage Convention, Washington, D.C., 1894. National Suffrage Convention, Atlanta, Ga., 1895. National Suffrage Convention, Washington, D.C., 1896. National Suffrage Convention, Des Moines, Iowa, 1897. National Suffrage Convention, Washington, D.C., 1898. National Suffrage Convention, Grand Rapids, Mich., 1899. International Council, London, England, 1899. National Suffrage Convention, Washington, D.C., 1900. National Suffrage Convention, Minneapolis, Minn., 1901. National Suffrage Convention, Washington, D.C., 1902. National Suffrage Convention, New Orleans, La., 1903. National Suffrage Convention, Washington, D.C., 1904. International Council of Women, Berlin, Germany, 1904. Formation of Intern'l Suffrage Alliance, Berlin, Germany, 1904. National Suffrage Convention, Portland, Oregon, 1905. National Suffrage Convention, Baltimore, Md., 1906. International Suffrage Alliance, Copenhagen, Denmark, 1906. National Suffrage Convention, Chicago, III., 1907. International Suffrage Alliance, Amsterdam, Holland, 1908. National Suffrage Convention, Buffalo, N. Y., 1908. New York Headquarters established, 1909. National Suffrage Convention, Seattle, Wash., 1909. International Suffrage Alliance, London, England, 1909. National Suffrage Convention, Washington, D.C., 1910. International Council, Genoa, Italy, 1911. National Suffrage Convention, Louisville, Ky., 1911. International Suffrage Alliance, Stockholm, Sweden, 1911. National Suffrage Convention, Philadelphia, Pa., 1912. International Council, The Hague, Holland, 1913 National Suffrage Convention, Washington, D.C.; 1913. International Suffrage Alliance, Budapest, Hungary, 1913. National Suffrage Convention, Nashville, Tenn., 1914. International Council, Rome, Italy, 1914.

The winning of the suffrage states, the work in the states not yet won, the conventions, gatherings, and international councils in which women of every nation have come together, have all combined to make this quarter of a century the most brilliant period for women in the history of the world. I have set forth the record baldly and without comment, because the bare facts are far more eloquent than words. It must not be forgotten, too, that these great achievements of the progressive women of to-day have been accomplished against the opposition of a large number of their own sex—who, while they are out in the world's arena fighting against progress for their sisters, still shatter the ear-drum with their incongruous war-cry, "Woman's place is in the home!" here: We were attending the Republican state nominating convention at Mitchell—Miss Anthony, Mrs. Catt, other leaders, and myself—having been told that it would be at once the largest and the most interesting gathering ever held in the state as it proved to be. All the leading politicians of the state were there, and in the wake of the white men had come tribes of Indians with their camp outfits, their wives and their children—the groups forming a picturesque circle of tents and tepees around the town. It was a great occasion for them, an Indian powwow, for by the law all Indians who had lands in severalty were to be permitted to vote the following year. They were present, therefore, to study the ways of the white man, and an edifying exhibition of these was promptly offered them.

The crowd was so great that it was only through the courtesy of Major Pickler, a member of Congress and a devoted believer in suffrage, that Miss Anthony, Mrs. Catt, and the rest of us were able to secure passes to the convention, and when we reached the hall we were escorted to the last row of seats on the crowded platform. As the space between us and the speakers was filled by rows upon rows of men, as well as by the band and their instruments, we could see very little that took place. Some of our friends pointed out this condition to the local committee and asked that we be given seats on the floor, but received the reply that there was "absolutely no room on the floor except for delegates and distinguished visitors." Our persistent friends then suggested that at least a front seat should be given to Miss Anthony, who certainly came under the head of a "distinguished visitor"; but this was not done—probably because a large number of the best seats were filled by Russian laborers wearing badges inscribed "Against Woman Suffrage and Susan B. Anthony." We remained, perforce, in our rear seats, finding such interest as we could in the back view of hundreds of heads.

Just before the convention was called to order it was announced that a delegation of influential Indians was waiting outside, and a motion to invite the red men into the hall was made and carried with great enthusiasm. A committee of leading citizens was appointed to act as escort, and these gentlemen filed out, returning a few moments later with a party of Indian warriors in full war regalia, even to their gay blankets, their feathered head-dresses, and their paint. When they appeared the band struck up a stirring march of welcome, and the entire audience cheered while the Indians, flanked by the admiring committee, stalked solemnly down the aisle and were given seats of honor directly in front of the platform.

All we could see of them were the brilliant feathers of their war-bonnets, but we got the full effect of their reception in the music and the cheers. I dared not look at Miss Anthony during this remarkable scene, and she, craning her venerable neck to get a glimpse of the incident from her obscure corner, made no comment to me; but I knew what she was thinking. The following year these Indians would have votes. Courtesy, therefore, must be shown them. But the women did not matter, the politicians reasoned, for even if they were enfranchised they would never support the element represented at that convention. It was not surprising that, notwithstanding our hard work, we did not win the state, though all the conditions had seemed most favorable; for the state was new, the men and women were working side by side in the fields, and there was discontent in the ranks of the political parties.

After the election, when we analyzed the vote county by county, we discovered that in every county whose residents were principally Americans the amendment was carried, whereas in all counties populated largely by foreigners it was lost. In certain counties—those inhabited by Russian Jews—the vote was almost solidly against us, and this notwithstanding the fact that the wives of these Russian voters were doing a man's work on their farms in addition to the usual women's work in their homes. The fact that our Cause could be defeated by ignorant laborers newly come to our country was a humiliating one to accept; and we realized more forcibly than ever before the difficulty of the task we had assumed—a task far beyond any ever undertaken by a body of men in the history of democratic government throughout the world. We not only had to bring American men back to a belief in the fundamental principles of republican government, but we had also to educate ignorant immigrants, as well as our own Indians, whose degree of civilization was indicated by their war-paint and the flaunting feathers of their head-dresses.

The Kansas campaign, which Miss Anthony, Mrs. Catt, Mrs. Johns, and I conducted in 1894, held a special interest, due to the Populist movement. There were so many problems before the people—prohibition, free silver, and the Populist propaganda—that we found ourselves involved in the bitterest campaign ever fought out in the state. Our desire, of course, was to get the indorsement of the different political parties and religious bodies, We succeeded in obtaining that of three out of four of the Methodist Episcopal conferences—the Congregational, the Epworth League, and the Christian Endeavor League—as well as that of the State Teachers' Association, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and various other religious and philanthropic societies. To obtain the indorsement of the political parties was much more difficult, and we were facing conditions in which partial success was worse than complete failure. It had long been an unwritten law before it became a written law in our National Association that we must not take partisan action or line up with any one political party. It was highly important, therefore, that either all parties should support us or that none should.

The Populist convention was held in Topeka before either the Democratic or Republican convention, and after two days of vigorous fighting, led by Mrs. Anna Diggs and other prominent Populist women, a suffrage plank was added to the platform. The Populist party invited me, as a minister, to open the convention with prayer. This was an innovation, and served as a wedge for the admission of women representatives of the Suffrage Association to address the convention. We all did so, Miss Anthony speaking first, Mrs. Catt second, and I last; after which, for the first time in history, the Doxology was sung at a political convention.

At the Democratic convention we made the same appeal, and were refused. Instead of indorsing us, the Democrats put an anti-suffrage plank in their platform—but this, as the party had little standing in Kansas, probably did us more good than harm. Trouble came thick and fast, however, when the Republicans, the dominant party in the state, held their convention; and a mighty struggle began over the admission of a suffrage plank. There was a Woman's Republican Club in Kansas, which held its convention in Topeka at the same time the Republicans were holding theirs. There was also a Mrs. Judith Ellen Foster, who, by stirring up opposition in this Republican Club against the insertion of a suffrage plank, caused a serious split in the convention. Miss Anthony, Mrs. Catt, and I, of course, urged the Republican women to stand by their sex, and to give their support to the Republicans only on condition that the latter added suffrage to their platform. At no time, and in no field of work, have I ever seen a more bitter conflict in progress than that which raged for two days during this Republican women's convention. Liquor-dealers, joint-keepers, "boot-leggers," and all the lawless element of Kansas swung into line at a special convention held under the auspices of the Liquor League of Kansas City, and cast their united weight against suffrage by threatening to deny their votes to any candidate or political party favoring our Cause. The Republican women's convention finally adjourned with nothing accomplished except the passing of a resolution mildly requesting the Republican party to indorse woman suffrage. The result was, of course, that it was not indorsed by the Republican convention, and that it was defeated at the following election.

It was at the time of these campaigns that I was elected Vice-President of the National Association and Lecturer at Large, and the latter office brought in its train a glittering variety of experiences. On one occasion an episode occurred which "Aunt Susan" never afterward wearied of describing. There was a wreck somewhere on the road on which I was to travel to meet a lecture engagement, and the trains going my way were not running. Looking up the track, however, I saw a train coming from the opposite direction. I at once grasped my hand-luggage and started for it.

"Wait! Wait!" cried Miss Anthony. "That train's going the wrong way!"

"At least it's going SOMEWHERE!" I replied, tersely, as the train stopped, and I climbed the steps.

Looking back when the train had started again, I saw "Aunt Susan" standing in the same spot on the platform and staring after it with incredulous eyes; but I was right, for I discovered that by going up into another state I could get a train which would take me to my destination in time for the lecture that night. It was a fine illustration of my pet theory that if one intends to get somewhere it is better to start, even in the wrong direction, than to stand still.

Again and again in our work we had occasion to marvel over men's lack of understanding of the views of women, even of those nearest and dearest to them; and we had an especially striking illustration of this at one of our hearings in Washington. A certain distinguished gentleman (we will call him Mr. H——) was chairman of the Judiciary, and after we had said what we wished to say, he remarked:

"Your arguments are logical. Your cause is just. The trouble is that women don't want suffrage. My wife doesn't want it. I don't know a single woman who does want it."

As it happened for this unfortunate gentleman, his wife was present at the hearing and sitting beside Miss Anthony. She listened to his words with surprise, and then whispered to "Aunt Susan":

"How CAN he say that? I want suffrage, and I've told him so a hundred times in the last twenty years."

"Tell him again NOW," urged Miss Anthony. "Here's your chance to impress it on his memory."

"Here!" gasped the wife. "Oh, I wouldn't dare."

"Then may I tell him?"

"Why—yes! He can think what he pleases, but he has no right to publicly misrepresent me."

The assent, hesitatingly begun, finished on a sudden note of firmness. Miss Anthony stood up.

"It may interest Mr. H——," she said, "to know that his wife DOES wish to vote, and that for twenty years she has wished to vote, and has often told him so, though he has evidently forgotten it. She is here beside me, and has just made this explanation."

Mr. H—— stammered and hesitated, and finally decided to laugh. But there was no mirth in the sound he made, and I am afraid his wife had a bad quarter of an hour when they met a little later in the privacy of their home.

Among other duties that fell to my lot at this period were numerous suffrage debates with prominent opponents of the Cause. I have already referred to the debate in Kansas with Senator Ingalls. Equaling this in importance was a bout with Dr. Buckley, the distinguished Methodist debater, which had been arranged for us at Chautauqua by Bishop Vincent of the Methodist Church. The bishop was not a believer in suffrage, nor was he one of my admirers. I had once aroused his ire by replying to a sermon he had delivered on "God's Women," and by proving, to my own satisfaction at least, that the women he thought were God's women had done very little, whereas the work of the world had been done by those he believed were not "God's Women." There was considerable interest, therefore, in the Buckley-Shaw debate he had arranged; we all knew he expected Dr. Buckley to wipe out that old score, and I was determined to make it as difficult as possible for the distinguished gentleman to do so. We held the debate on two succeeding days, I speaking one afternoon and Dr. Buckley replying the following day. On the evening before I spoke, however, Dr. Buckley made an indiscreet remark, which, blown about Chautauqua on the light breeze of gossip, was generally regarded as both unchivalrous and unfair.

As the hall in which we were to speak was enormous, he declared that one of two things would certainly happen. Either I would scream in order to be heard by my great audience, or I would be unable to make myself heard at all. If I screamed it would be a powerful argument against women as public speakers; if I could not be heard, it would be an even better argument. In either case, he summed up, I was doomed to failure. Following out this theory, he posted men in the extreme rear of the great hall on the day of my lecture, to report to him whether my words reached them, while he himself graciously occupied a front seat. Bishop Vincent's antagonistic feeling was so strong, however, that though, as the presiding officer of the occasion, he introduced me to the audience, he did not wait to hear my speech, but immediately left the hall—and this little slight added to the public's interest in the debate. It was felt that the two gentlemen were not quite "playing fair," and the champions of the Cause were especially enthusiastic in their efforts to make up for these failures in courtesy. My friends turned out in force to hear the lecture, and on the breast of every one of them flamed the yellow bow that stood for suffrage, giving to the vast hall something of the effect of a field of yellow tulips in full bloom.

When Dr. Buckley rose to reply the next day these friends were again awaiting him with an equally jocund display of the suffrage color, and this did not add to his serenity. During his remarks he made the serious mistake of losing his temper; and, unfortunately for him, he directed his wrath toward a very old man who had thoughtlessly applauded by pounding on the floor with his cane when Dr. Buckley quoted a point I had made. The doctor leaned forward and shook his fist at him.

"Think she's right, do you?" he asked.

"Yes," admitted the venerable citizen, briskly, though a little startled by the manner of the question.

"Old man," shouted Dr. Buckley, "I'll make you take that back if you've got a grain of sense in your head!"

The insult cost him his audience. When he realized this he lost all his self-possession, and, as the Buffalo Courier put it the next day, "went up and down the platform raving like a Billingsgate fishwife." He lost the debate, and the supply of yellow ribbon left in the surrounding counties was purchased that night to be used in the suffrage celebration that followed. My friends still refer to the occasion as "the day we wiped up the earth with Dr. Buckley"; but I do not deserve the implied tribute, for Dr. Buckley would have lost his case without a word from me. What really gave me some satisfaction, however, was the respective degree of freshness with which he and I emerged from our combat. After my speech Miss Anthony and I were given a reception, and stood for hours shaking hands with hundreds of men and women. Later in the evening we had a dinner and another reception, which, lasting, as they did, until midnight, kept us from our repose. Dr. Buckley, poor gentleman, had to be taken to his hotel immediately after his speech, given a hot bath, rubbed down, and put tenderly to bed; and not even the sympathetic heart of Susan B. Anthony yearned over him when she heard of his exhaustion.

It was also at Chautauqua, by the way, though a number of years earlier, that I had my much misquoted encounter with the minister who deplored the fashion I followed in those days of wearing my hair short. This young man, who was rather a pompous person, saw fit to take me to task at a table where a number of us were dining together.

"Miss Shaw," he said, abruptly, "I have been asked very often why you wear your hair short, and I have not been able to explain. Of course"—this kindly—"I know there is some good reason. I ventured to advance the theory that you have been ill and that your hair has fallen out. Is that it?"

"No," I told him. "There is a reason, as you suggest. But it is not that one."

"Then why—" he insisted.

"I am rather sensitive about it," I explained. "I don't know that I care to discuss the subject."

The young minister looked pained. "But among friends—" he protested.

"True," I conceded. "Well, then, among friends, I will admit frankly that it is a birthmark. I was born with short hair."

That was the last time my short hair was criticized in my presence, but the young minister was right in his disapproval and I was wrong, as I subsequently realized. A few years later I let my hair grow long, for I had learned that no woman in public life can afford to make herself conspicuous by any eccentricity of dress or appearance. If she does so she suffers for it herself, which may not disturb her, and to a greater or less degree she injures the cause she represents, which should disturb her very much.



XII. BUILDING A HOME

It is not generally known that the meeting of the International Council of Women held in Chicago during the World's Fair was suggested by Miss Anthony, as was also the appointment of the Exposition's "Board of Lady Managers." "Aunt Susan" kept her name in the background, that she might not array against these projects the opposition of those prejudiced against woman suffrage. We both spoke at the meetings, however, as I have already explained, and one of our most chastening experiences occurred on "Actress Night." There was a great demand for tickets for this occasion, as every one seemed anxious to know what kind of speeches our leading women of the stage would make; and the programme offered such magic names as Helena Modjeska, Julia Marlowe, Georgia Cayvan, Clara Morris, and others of equal appeal. The hall was soon filled, and to keep out the increasing throng the doors were locked and the waiting crowd was directed to a second hall for an overflow meeting.

As it happened, Miss Anthony and I were among the earliest arrivals at the main hall. It was the first evening we had been free to do exactly as we pleased, and we were both in high spirits, looking forward to the speeches, congratulating each other on the good seats we had been given on the platform, and rallying the speakers on their stage fright; for, much to our amusement, we had found them all in mortal terror of their audience. Georgia Cayvan, for example, was so nervous that she had to be strengthened with hot milk before she could speak, and Julia Marlowe admitted freely that her knees were giving way beneath her. They really had something of an ordeal before them, for it was decided that each actress must speak twice going immediately from the hall to the overflow meeting and repeating there the speech she had just made. But in the mean time some one had to hold the impatient audience in the second hall, and as it was a duty every one else promptly repudiated, a row of suddenly imploring faces turned toward Miss Anthony and me. I admit that we responded to the appeal with great reluctance. We were SO comfortable where we were—and we were also deeply interested in the first intimate glimpse we were having of these stars in the dramatic sky. We saw our duty, however, and with deep sighs we rose and departed for the second hall, where a glance at the waiting throng did not add to our pleasure in the prospect before us.

When I walked upon the stage I found myself facing an actually hostile audience. They had come to look at and listen to the actresses who had been promised them, and they thought they were being deprived of that privilege by an interloper. Never before had I gazed out on a mass of such unresponsive faces or looked into so many angry eyes. They were exchanging views on their wrongs, and the general buzz of conversation continued when I appeared. For some moments I stood looking at them, my hands behind my back. If I had tried to speak they would undoubtedly have gone on talking; my silence attracted their attention and they began to wonder what I intended to do. When they had stopped whispering and moving about, I spoke to them with the frankness of an overburdened heart.

"I think," I said, slowly and distinctly, "that you are the most disagreeable audience I ever faced in my life."

They gasped and stared, almost open-mouthed in their surprise.

"Never," I went on, "have I seen a gathering of people turn such ugly looks upon a speaker who has sacrificed her own enjoyment to come and talk to them. Do you think I want to talk to you?" I demanded, warming to my subject. "I certainly do not. Neither does Miss Anthony want to talk to you, and the lady who spoke to you a few moments ago, and whom you treated so rudely, did not wish to be here. We would all much prefer to be in the other hall, listening to the speakers from our comfortable seats on the stage. To entertain you we gave up our places and came here simply because the committee begged us to do so. I have only one thing more to say. If you care to listen to me courteously I am willing to waste time on you; but don't imagine that I will stand here and wait while you criticize the management."

By this time I felt as if I had a child across my knee to whom I was administering maternal chastisement, and the uneasiness of my audience underlined the impression. They listened rather sulkily at first; then a few of the best-natured among them laughed, and the laugh grew and developed into applause. The experience had done them good, and they were a chastened band when Clara Morris appeared, and I gladly yielded the floor to her.

All the actresses who spoke that night delivered admirable addresses, but no one equaled Madame Modjeska, who delivered exquisitely a speech written, not by herself, but by a friend and countrywoman, on the condition of Polish women under the regime of Russia. We were all charmed as we listened, but none of us dreamed what that address would mean to Modjeska. It resulted in her banishment from Poland, her native land, which she was never again permitted to enter. But though she paid so heavy a price for the revelation, I do not think she ever really regretted having given to America the facts in that speech.

During this same period I embarked upon a high adventure. I had always longed for a home, and my heart had always been loyal to Cape Cod. Now I decided to have a home at Wianno, across the Cape from my old parish at East Dennis. Deep-seated as my home-making aspiration had been, it was realized largely as the result of chance. A special hobby of mine has always been auction sales. I dearly love to drop into auction-rooms while sales are in progress, and bid up to the danger-point, taking care to stop just in time to let some one else get the offered article. But of course I sometimes failed to stop at the psychological moment, and the result was a sudden realization that, in the course of the years, I had accumulated an extraordinary number of articles for which I had no shelter and no possible use.

The crown jewel of the collection was a bedroom set I had picked up in Philadelphia. Usually, cautious friends accompanied me on my auction-room expeditions and restrained my ardor; but this time I got away alone and found myself bidding at the sale of a solid bog-wood bedroom set which had been exhibited as a show-piece at the World's Fair, and was now, in the words of the auctioneer, "going for a song." I sang the song. I offered twenty dollars, thirty dollars, forty dollars, and other excited voices drowned mine with higher bids. It was very thrilling. I offered fifty dollars, and there was a horrible silence, broken at last by the auctioneer's final, "Going, going, GONE!" I was mistress of the bog-wood bedroom set—a set wholly out of harmony with everything else I possessed, and so huge and massive that two men were required to lift the head-board alone. Like many of the previous treasures I had acquired, this was a white elephant; but, unlike some of them, it was worth more than I had paid for it. I was offered sixty dollars for one piece alone, but I coldly refused to sell it, though the tribute to my judgment warmed my heart. I had not the faintest idea what to do with the set, however, and at last I confided my dilemma to my friend, Mrs. Ellen Dietrick, who sagely advised me to build a house for it. The idea intrigued me. The bog-wood furniture needed a home, and so did I.

The result of our talk was that Mrs. Dietrick promised to select a lot for me at Wianno, where she herself lived, and even promised to supervise the building of my cottage, and to attend to all the other details connected with it. Thus put, the temptation was irresistible. Besides Mrs. Dietrick, many other delightful friends lived at Wianno—the Garrisons, the Chases of Rhode Island, the Wymans, the Wellingtons—a most charming community. I gave Mrs. Dietrick full authority to use her judgment in every detail connected with the undertaking, and the cottage was built. Having put her hand to this plow of friendship, Mrs. Dietrick did the work with characteristic thoroughness. I did not even visit Wianno to look at my land. She selected it, bought it, engaged a woman architect—Lois Howe of Boston—and followed the latter's work from beginning to end. The only stipulation I made was that the cottage must be far up on the beach, out of sight of everybody—really in the woods; and this was easily met, for along that coast the trees came almost to the water's edge.

The cottage was a great success, and for many years I spent my vacations there, filling the place with young people. From the time of my sister Mary's death I had had the general oversight of her two daughters, Lola and Grace, as well as of Nicolas and Eleanor, the two motherless daughters of my brother John. They were all with me every summer in the new home, together with Lucy Anthony, her sister and brother, Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery, and other friends. We had special fishing costumes made, and wore them much of the time. My nieces wore knickerbockers, and I found vast contentment in short, heavy skirts over bloomers. We lived out of doors, boating, fishing, and clamming all day long, and, as in my early pioneer days in Michigan, my part of the work was in the open. I chopped all the wood, kept the fires going, and looked after the grounds.