a number of inquiries about Susan B. Anthony. This means that we shall look for another wedding in our sisternity before the year ends. Get a good husband, that's all, dear."
On Miss Anthony's return from the May anti-slavery meeting in New York, she received a reminder from the president of the State Teachers' Association that she would be expected to read her paper on "Co-Education" before that body in August. This recollection had been keeping her awake nights for some time. It had been an easy thing to present a resolution or make a five-minute speech, but it was quite another to write an hour's lecture to be delivered before a most critical audience. As was always her custom in such a dilemma, she turned to Mrs. Stanton, who responded:
Your servant is not dead but liveth. Imagine me, day in and day out, watching, bathing, dressing, nursing and promenading the precious contents of a little crib in the corner of my room. I pace up and down these two chambers of mine like a caged lioness, longing to bring nursing and housekeeping cares to a close. Come here and I will do what I can to help you with your address, if you will hold the baby and make the puddings. Let Antoinette and Lucy rest in peace and quietness thinking great thoughts. It is not well to be in the excitement of public life all the time, so do not keep stirring them up or mourning over their repose. You, too, must rest, Susan; let the world alone awhile. We can not bring about a moral revolution in a day or a year. Now that I have two daughters, I feel fresh strength to work for women. It is not in vain that in myself I feel all the wearisome care to which woman even in her best estate is subject.
Together they ground out the address, taking turns at writing and baby tending, and then she went home. It seemed to her that in order to prove the absolute equality of woman with man she ought to present this as an oration instead of reading it as an essay; so she labored many weary hours to commit it to memory, pacing from one end of the house to the other, and when these confines became too small rushing out into the orchard, but all in vain. It was utterly impossible for her, then or ever, to memorize the exact words of anything.
The lecture, occupying an entire evening, was given before a large audience in Rand's Hall, Troy, and cordially received. At its close Mr. L. Hazeltine of New York, president of the association, took Miss Anthony by the hand, saying: "Madam, that was a splendid production and well delivered. I could not have asked for a single thing different either in matter or manner; but I would rather have followed my wife or daughter to Greenwood cemetery than to have had her stand here before this promiscuous audience and deliver that address." Superintendent Randall, of the city schools of New York, over-hearing the conversation, said: "Father Hazeltine, I fully agree with the first part of your remark but dissent entirely from the latter. I should be proud if I had a wife or daughter capable of either writing or reading that paper as Miss Anthony has done." She was invited by the Massachusetts teachers who were present to come to their State convention at Springfield and give the address, which she did. It was afterwards delivered at a number of teachers' institutes. Mary L. Booth had written her:
I am glad that you will represent us at the Troy gathering. You will bear with you the gratitude of very many teachers whose hearts are swelling with repressed indignation at the injustice which you expose, but who have not grown strong enough yet to give open utterance to words which would jeopardize the positions on which they depend for support. There is not a female principal in Brooklyn or New York whose salary exceeds the half of that of the male principals. Each female principal and assistant is required to attend the normal school under penalty of loss of position, while male teachers are excused from such attendance. There are plenty of indignation meetings among us.
In August Miss Anthony planned a meeting at Saratoga and, as on a previous occasion, every speaker failed her, nor could she find among the visitors one who could help her out. As she was not in the habit of giving up what she undertook, she went through the meeting alone, making the speeches herself. Her faithful friend Judge Hay1 came to her rescue with a donation of $20 and she was just able to pay expenses.
The public was not in a mood for woman's conventions. The presidential campaign was at its height, with three tickets in the field, and the troubles in Kansas were approaching a crisis. In September came the news of the raid at Osawatomie and that thirty out of the fifty settlers had been killed by the "border ruffians." This brought especial gloom to the Anthony homestead, as the dispatches also stated that the night before the encounter, John Brown had slept in the cabin of the young son Merritt, and for weeks they were unable to learn whether he were among the thirty who died or the twenty who lived. At last the welcome letters came which related how the coffee was just ready to be put on the table in the cabin when the sound of firing was heard, and how without waiting to drink it, John Brown and his little band rushed to the conflict. The old hero gave strict orders to Merritt not to leave the house, as he had been very ill, but as soon as they were out of sight he seized his gun, staggered down to the bank of the Marais du Cygne and was soon in the thick of the fight. When it was over he crawled on his hands and knees back to his cabin, where he lay ill for weeks, entirely alone and uncared for. A letter from Miss Anthony to this brother shows the tender, domestic side of her nature, which the public is seldom permitted to see:
How much rather would I have you at my side tonight than to think of your daring and enduring greater hardships even than our Revolutionary heroes. Words can not tell how often we think of you or how sadly we feel that the terrible crime of this nation against humanity is being avenged on the heads of our sons and brothers.... Wednesday night, Mr. Mowry, who was in the battle, arrived in town. Like wild fire the news flew. D.R. was in pursuit of him when father reached his office. He thought you were not hurt. Mother said that night, "I can go to sleep now there is a hope that Merritt still lives;" but father said: "I suppose I shall sleep when nature is tired out, but the hope that my son has survived brings little solace to my soul while the cause of all this terrible wrong remains untouched."...
Your fish pole never caught so luscious a basketful as it has this afternoon. I made a march through the peach orchard with pole in hand to fish down the soft Early Crawfords that had escaped even the keen eyes of father and mother when they made their last detour. As the pole reached to the top-most bough and down dropped the big, fat, golden, red-cheeked Crawfords, thought went away to the owner of the rod, how he in days gone by planted these little trees, pruned them and nursed them and now we were enjoying the fruits of his labor, while he, the dear boy, was away in the prairie wilds of Kansas. I thought of many things as I walked between the rows to spy out every ambushed, not enemy but friend of the palate. With the haul made I filled the china fruit dish and then hallooed for Mary L. and Ann Eliza to see what I had found, and down they came for a feast. I shall send Aaron and Guelma the nicest ones and how I wish my dearest brother could have some to cool his fevered throat.
Evening.—Father brings the Democrat giving a list of killed, wounded and missing, and the name of our Merritt is not therein, but oh! the slain are sons, brothers and husbands of others as dearly loved and sadly mourned.
Later.—Your letter is in to-day's Democrat, and the Evening Advertiser says there is "another letter from our dear brother in this morning's Shrieker for Freedom." The tirade is headed "Bleeding Kansas." The Advertiser, Union and American all ridicule the reports from Kansas, and even say your letters are gotten up in the Democrat office for political effect. I tell you, Merritt, we have "border ruffians" here at home—a little more refined in their way of outraging and torturing the lovers of freedom, but no less fiendish.
Miss Anthony was busy through September and October securing speakers for the national convention. She still believed that her chief strength lay in her executive ability. Having written Lucy Stone that she could not and would not speak, the latter answered: "Why do you say the people won't listen to you, when you know you never made a speech that was not attentively heard? All you need is to cultivate your power of expression. Subjects are so clear to you that you can soon make them as clear to others." In response to an invitation to the Hutchinson family to sing at the convention, Asa wrote: "The time is coming, I hope, when we can do something for the glorious cause which you are so nobly
