Eighty Years and More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 Part 7

First one would take it with an emphatic jerk, and then the other. At last I heard the father say in a spiteful tone, "If you don't stop I'll throw you out of the window." One naturally hesitates about interfering between parents and children, so I generally restrain myself as long as I can endure the torture of witnessing such outrages, but at length I turned and said:

"Let me take your child and see if I can find out what ails it."

"Nothing ails it," said the father, "but bad temper."

The child readily came to me. I felt all around to see if its clothes pinched anywhere, or if there were any pins p.r.i.c.king. I took off its hat and cloak to see if there were any strings cutting its neck or choking it. Then I glanced at the feet, and lo! there was the trouble. The boots were at least one size too small. I took them off, and the stockings, too, and found the feet as cold as ice and the prints of the stockings clearly traced on the tender flesh. We all know the agony of tight boots. I rubbed the feet and held them in my hands until they were warm, when the poor little thing fell asleep. I said to the parents, "You are young people, I see, and this is probably your first child." They said, "Yes." "You don't intend to be cruel, I know, but if you had thrown those boots out of the window, when you threatened to throw the child, it would have been wiser. This poor child has suffered ever since it was dressed this morning." I showed them the marks on the feet, and called their attention to the fact that the child fell asleep as soon as its pain was relieved. The mother said she knew the boots were tight, as it was with difficulty she could get them on, but the old ones were too shabby for the journey and they had no time to change the others.

"Well," said the husband, "if I had known those boots were tight, I would have thrown them out of the window."

"Now," said I, "let me give you one rule: when your child cries, remember it is telling you, as well as it can, that something hurts it, either outside or in, and do not rest until you find what it is.

Neither spanking, shaking, or scolding can relieve pain."

I have seen women enter the cars with their babies' faces completely covered with a blanket shawl. I have often thought I would like to cover their faces for an hour and see how they would bear it. In such circ.u.mstances, in order to get the blanket open, I have asked to see the baby, and generally found it as red as a beet. Ignorant nurses and mothers have discovered that children sleep longer with their heads covered. They don't know why, nor the injurious effect of breathing over and over the same air that has been thrown off the lungs polluted with carbonic acid gas. This stupefies the child and prolongs the unhealthy slumber.

One hot day, in the month of May, I entered a crowded car at Cedar Rapids, Ia., and took the only empty seat beside a gentleman who seemed very nervous about a crying child. I was scarcely seated when he said:

"Mother, do you know anything about babies?"

"Oh, yes!" I said, smiling, "that is a department of knowledge on which I especially pride myself."

"Well," said he, "there is a child that has cried most of the time for the last twenty-four hours. What do you think ails it?"

Making a random supposition, I replied, "It probably needs a bath."

He promptly rejoined, "If you will give it one, I will provide the necessary means."

I said, "I will first see if the child will come to me and if the mother is willing."

I found the mother only too glad to have a few minutes' rest, and the child too tired to care who took it. She gave me a suit of clean clothes throughout, the gentleman spread his blanket shawl on the seat, securing the opposite one for me and the bathing appliances. Then he produced a towel, sponge, and an india-rubber bowl full of water, and I gave the child a generous drink and a thorough ablution. It stretched and seemed to enjoy every step of the proceeding, and, while I was brus.h.i.+ng its golden curls as gently as I could, it fell asleep; so I covered it with the towel and blanket shawl, not willing to disturb it for dressing. The poor mother, too, was sound asleep, and the gentleman very happy. He had children of his own and, like me, felt great pity for the poor, helpless little victim of ignorance and folly. I engaged one of the ladies to dress it when it awoke, as I was soon to leave the train. It slept the two hours I remained--how much longer I never heard.

A young man, who had witnessed the proceeding, got off at the same station and accosted me, saying:

"I should be very thankful if you would come and see my baby. It is only one month old and cries all the time, and my wife, who is only sixteen years old, is worn out with it and neither of us know what to do, so we all cry together, and the doctor says he does not see what ails it."

So I went on my mission of mercy and found the child bandaged as tight as a drum. When I took out the pins and unrolled it, it fairly popped like the cork out of a champagne bottle. I rubbed its breast and its back and soon soothed it to sleep. I remained a long time, telling them how to take care of the child and the mother, too. I told them everything I could think of in regard to clothes, diet, and pure air. I asked the mother why she bandaged her child as she did. She said her nurse told her that there was danger of hernia unless the abdomen was well bandaged. I told her that the only object of a bandage was to protect the navel, for a few days, until it was healed, and for that purpose all that was necessary was a piece of linen four inches square, well oiled, folded four times double, with a hole in the center, laid over it. I remembered, next day, that I forgot to tell them to give the child water, and so I telegraphed them, "Give the baby water six times a day." I heard of that baby afterward. It lived and flourished, and the parents knew how to administer to the wants of the next one. The father was a telegraph operator and had many friends--knights of the key--throughout Iowa. For many years afterward, in leisure moments, these knights would "call up" this parent and say, over the wire, "Give the baby water six times a day." Thus did they "repeat the story, and spread the truth from pole to pole."

CHAPTER VIII.

BOSTON AND CHELSEA.

In the autumn of 1843 my husband was admitted to the bar and commenced the practice of law in Boston with Mr. Bowles, brother-in-law of the late General John A. Dix. This gave me the opportunity to make many pleasant acquaintances among the lawyers in Boston, and to meet, intimately, many of the n.o.ble men and women among reformers, whom I had long wors.h.i.+ped at a distance. Here, for the first time, I met Lydia Maria Child, Abby Kelly, Paulina Wright, Elizabeth Peabody, Maria Chapman and her beautiful sisters, the Misses Weston, Oliver and Marianna Johnson, Joseph and Thankful Southwick and their three bright daughters. The home of the Southwicks was always a harbor of rest for the weary, where the anti-slavery hosts were wont to congregate, and where one was always sure to meet someone worth knowing. Their hospitality was generous to an extreme, and so boundless that they were, at last, fairly eaten out of house and home. Here, too, for the first time, I met Theodore Parker, John Pierpont, John G. Whittier, Emerson, Alcott, Lowell, Hawthorne, Mr. and Mrs. Samuel E. Sewall, Sidney Howard Gay, Pillsbury, Foster, Frederick Dougla.s.s, and last though not least, those n.o.ble men, Charles Hovey and Francis Jackson, the only men who ever left any money to the cause of woman suffrage. I also met Miss Jackson, afterward Mrs. Eddy, who left half her fortune, fifty thousand dollars, for the same purpose.

I was a frequent visitor at the home of William Lloyd Garrison. Though he had a prolonged battle to fight in the rough outside world, his home was always a haven of rest. Mrs. Garrison was a sweet-tempered, conscientious woman, who tried, under all circ.u.mstances, to do what was right. She had sound judgment and rare common sense, was tall and fine-looking, with luxuriant brown hair, large tender blue eyes, delicate features, and affable manners. They had an exceptionally fine family of five sons and one daughter. f.a.n.n.y, now the wife of Henry Villard, the financier, was the favorite and pet. All the children, in their maturer years, have fulfilled the promises of their childhood.

Though always in straitened circ.u.mstances, the Garrisons were very hospitable. It was next to impossible for Mr. Garrison to meet a friend without inviting him to his house, especially at the close of a convention.

I was one of twelve at one of his impromptu tea parties. We all took it for granted that his wife knew we were coming, and that her preparations were already made. Surrounded by half a dozen children, she was performing the last act in the opera of Lullaby, wholly unconscious of the invasion downstairs. But Mr. Garrison was equal to every emergency, and, after placing his guests at their ease in the parlor, he hastened to the nursery, took off his coat, and rocked the baby until his wife had disposed of the remaining children. Then they had a consultation about the tea, and when, basket in hand, the good man sallied forth for the desired viands, Mrs. Garrison, having made a hasty toilet, came down to welcome her guests. She was as genial and self-possessed as if all things had been prepared. She made no apologies for what was lacking in the general appearance of the house nor in the variety of the _menu_--it was sufficient for her to know that Mr. Garrison was happy in feeling free to invite his friends. The impromptu meal was excellent, and we had a most enjoyable evening. I have no doubt that Mrs. Garrison had more real pleasure than if she had been busy all day making preparations and had been tired out when her guests arrived.

The anti-slavery conventions and fairs, held every year during the holidays, brought many charming people from other States, and made Boston a social center for the coadjutors of Garrison and Phillips.

These conventions surpa.s.sed any meetings I had ever attended; the speeches were eloquent and the debates earnest and forcible. Garrison and Phillips were in their prime, and slavery was a question of national interest. The hall in which the fairs were held, under the auspices of Mrs. Chapman and her cohorts, was most artistically decorated. There one could purchase whatever the fancy could desire, for English friends, stimulated by the appeals of Harriet Martineau and Elizabeth Pease, used to send boxes of beautiful things, gathered from all parts of the Eastern Continent. There, too, one could get a most _recherche_ luncheon in the society of the literati of Boston; for, however indifferent many were to slavery _per se_, they enjoyed these fairs, and all cla.s.ses flocked there till far into the night. It was a kind of ladies' exchange for the holiday week, where each one was sure to meet her friends. The fair and the annual convention, coming in succession, intensified the interest in both. I never grew weary of the conventions, though I attended all the sessions, lasting, sometimes, until eleven o'clock at night. The fiery eloquence of the abolitionists, the amusing episodes that occurred when some crank was suppressed and borne out on the shoulders of his brethren, gave sufficient variety to the proceedings to keep the interest up to high-water mark.

There was one old man dressed in white, carrying a scythe, who imagined himself the personification of "Time," though called "Father Lampson."

Occasionally he would bubble over with some prophetic vision, and, as he could not be silenced, he was carried out. He usually made himself as limp as possible, which added to the difficulty of his exit and the amus.e.m.e.nt of the audience. A ripple of merriment would unsettle, for a moment, even the dignity of the platform when Abigail Folsom, another crank, would shout from the gallery, "Stop not, my brother, on the order of your going, but go." The abolitionists were making the experiment, at this time, of a free platform, allowing everyone to speak as moved by the spirit, but they soon found that would not do, as those evidently moved by the spirit of mischief were quite as apt to air their vagaries as those moved by the spirit of truth.

However, the Garrisonian platform always maintained a certain degree of freedom outside its regular programme, and, although this involved extra duty in suppressing cranks, yet the meeting gained enthusiasm by some good spontaneous speaking on the floor as well as on the platform. A number of immense ma.s.s meetings were held in Faneuil Hall, a large, dreary place, with its bare walls and innumerable dingy windows. The only attempt at an ornament was the American eagle, with its wings spread and claws firmly set, in the middle of the gallery. The gilt was worn off its beak, giving it the appearance, as Edmund Quincy said, of having a bad cold in the head.

This old hall was sacred to so many memories connected with the early days of the Revolution that it was a kind of Mecca for the lovers of liberty visiting Boston. The anti-slavery meetings held there were often disturbed by mobs that would hold the most gifted orator at bay hour after hour, and would listen only to the songs of the Hutchinson family.

Although these songs were a condensed extract of the whole anti-slavery const.i.tution and by-laws, yet the mob was as peaceful under these paeans to liberty as a child under the influence of an anodyne. What a welcome and beautiful vision that was when the four brothers, in blue broadcloth and white collars, turned down _a la_ Byron, and little sister Abby in silk, soft lace, and blue ribbon, appeared on the platform to sing their quaint ballads of freedom! Fresh from the hills of New Hamps.h.i.+re, they looked so st.u.r.dy, so vigorous, so pure, so true that they seemed fitting representatives of all the cardinal virtues, and even a howling mob could not resist their influence. Perhaps, after one of their ballads, the mob would listen five minutes to Wendell Phillips or Garrison until he gave them some home thrusts, when all was uproar again. The Northern merchants who made their fortunes out of Southern cotton, the politicians who wanted votes, and the ministers who wanted to keep peace in the churches, were all as much opposed to the anti-slavery agitation as were the slaveholders themselves. These were the cla.s.ses the mob represented, though seemingly composed of gamblers, liquor dealers, and demagogues. For years the anti-slavery struggle at the North was carried on against statecraft, priestcraft, the cupidity of the moneyed cla.s.ses, and the ignorance of the ma.s.ses, but, in spite of all these forces of evil, it triumphed at last.

I was in Boston at the time that Lane and Wright, some metaphysical Englishmen, and our own Alcott held their famous philosophical conversations, in which Elizabeth Peabody took part. I went to them regularly. I was ambitious to absorb all the wisdom I could, but, really, I could not give an intelligent report of the points under discussion at any sitting. Oliver Johnson asked me, one day, if I enjoyed them. I thought, from a twinkle in his eye, that he thought I did not, so I told him I was ashamed to confess that I did not know what they were talking about. He said, "Neither do I,--very few of their hearers do,--so you need not be surprised that they are incomprehensible to you, nor think less of your own capacity."

I was indebted to Mr. Johnson for several of the greatest pleasures I enjoyed in Boston. He escorted me to an entire course of Theodore Parker's lectures, given in Marlborough Chapel. This was soon after the great preacher had given his famous sermon on "The Permanent and Transient in Religion," when he was ostracised, even by the Unitarians, for his radical utterances, and not permitted to preach in any of their pulpits. His lectures were deemed still more heterodox than that sermon.

He shocked the orthodox churches of that day--more, even, than Ingersoll has in our times.

The lectures, however, were so soul-satisfying to me that I was surprised at the bitter criticisms I heard expressed. Though they were two hours long, I never grew weary, and, when the course ended, I said to Mr. Johnson:

"I wish I could hear them over again."

"Well, you can," said he, "Mr. Parker is to repeat them in Cambridgeport, beginning next week." Accordingly we went there and heard them again with equal satisfaction.

During the winter in Boston I attended all the lectures, churches, theaters, concerts, and temperance, peace, and prison-reform conventions within my reach. I had never lived in such an enthusiastically literary and reform lat.i.tude before, and my mental powers were kept at the highest tension. We went to Chelsea, for the summer, and boarded with the Baptist minister, the Rev. John Wesley Olmstead, afterward editor of _The Watchman and Reflector_. He had married my cousin, Mary Livingston, one of the most lovely, unselfish characters I ever knew. There I had the opportunity of meeting several of the leading Baptist ministers in New England, and, as I was thoroughly imbued with Parker's ideas, we had many heated discussions on theology. There, too, I met Orestes Bronson, a remarkably well-read man, who had gone through every phase of religious experience from blank atheism to the bosom of the Catholic Church, where I believe he found repose at the end of his days. He was so arbitrary and dogmatic that most people did not like him; but I appreciated his acquaintance, as he was a liberal thinker and had a world of information which he readily imparted to those of a teachable spirit. As I was then in a hungering, thirsting condition for truth on every subject, the friends.h.i.+p of such a man was, to me, an inestimable blessing. Reading Theodore Parker's lectures, years afterward, I was surprised to find how little there was in them to shock anybody--the majority of thinking people having grown up to them.

While living in Chelsea two years, I used to walk (there being no public conveyances running on Sunday) from the ferry to Marlborough Chapel to hear Mr. Parker preach. It was a long walk, over two miles, and I was so tired, on reaching the chapel, that I made it a point to sleep through all the preliminary service, so as to be fresh for the sermon, as the friend next whom I sat always wakened me in time. One Sunday, when my friend was absent, it being a very warm day and I unusually fatigued, I slept until the s.e.xton informed me that he was about to close the doors!

In an unwary moment I imparted this fact to my Baptist friends. They made all manner of fun ever afterward of the soothing nature of Mr.

Parker's theology, and my long walk, every Sunday, to repose in the shadow of a heterodox altar. Still, the loss of the sermon was the only vexatious part of it, and I had the benefit of the walk and the refres.h.i.+ng slumber, to the music of Mr. Parker's melodious voice and the deep-toned organ.

Mrs. Oliver Johnson and I spent two days at the Brook Farm Community when in the height of its prosperity. There I met the Ripleys,--who were, I believe, the backbone of the experiment,--William Henry Channing, Bronson Alcott, Charles A. Dana, Frederick Cabot, William Chase, Mrs. Horace Greeley, who was spending a few days there, and many others, whose names I cannot recall. Here was a charming family of intelligent men and women, doing their own farm and house work, with lectures, readings, music, dancing, and games when desired; realizing, in a measure, Edward Bellamy's beautiful vision of the equal conditions of the human family in the year 2000. The story of the beginning and end of this experiment of community life has been told so often that I will simply say that its failure was a grave disappointment to those most deeply interested in its success. Mr. Channing told me, years after, when he was pastor of the Unitarian church in Rochester, as we were wandering through Mount Hope one day, that, when the Roxbury community was dissolved and he was obliged to return to the old life of compet.i.tion, he would gladly have been laid under the sod, as the isolated home seemed so solitary, silent, and selfish that the whole atmosphere was oppressive.

In 1843 my father moved to Albany, to establish my brothers-in-law, Mr.

Wilkeson and Mr. McMartin, in the legal profession. That made Albany the family rallying point for a few years. This enabled me to spend several winters at the Capital and to take an active part in the discussion of the Married Woman's Property Bill, then pending in the legislature.

William H. Seward, Governor of the State from 1839 to 1843, recommended the Bill, and his wife, a woman of rare intelligence, advocated it in society. Together we had the opportunity of talking with many members, both of the Senate and the a.s.sembly, in social circles, as well as in their committee rooms. Bills were pending from 1836 until 1848, when the measure finally pa.s.sed.

My second son was born in Albany, in March, 1844, under more favorable auspices than the first, as I knew, then, what to do with a baby.

Returning to Chelsea we commenced housekeeping, which afforded me another chapter of experience. A new house, newly furnished, with beautiful views of Boston Bay, was all I could desire. Mr. Stanton announced to me, in starting, that his business would occupy all his time, and that I must take entire charge of the housekeeping. So, with two good servants and two babies under my sole supervision, my time was pleasantly occupied.

When first installed as mistress over an establishment, one has that same feeling of pride and satisfaction that a young minister must have in taking charge of his first congregation. It is a proud moment in a woman's life to reign supreme within four walls, to be the one to whom all questions of domestic pleasure and economy are referred, and to hold in her hand that little family book in which the daily expenses, the outgoings and incomings, are duly registered. I studied up everything pertaining to housekeeping, and enjoyed it all. Even was.h.i.+ng day--that day so many people dread--had its charms for me. The clean clothes on the lines and on the gra.s.s looked so white, and smelled so sweet, that it was to me a pretty sight to contemplate. I inspired my laundress with an ambition to have her clothes look white and to get them out earlier than our neighbors, and to have them ironed and put away sooner.

As Mr. Stanton did not come home to dinner, we made a picnic of our noon meal on Mondays, and all thoughts and energies were turned to speed the was.h.i.+ng. No unnecessary sweeping or dusting, no visiting nor entertaining angels unawares on that day--it was held sacred to soap suds, blue-bags, and clotheslines. The children, only, had no deviation in the regularity of their lives. They had their drives and walks, their naps and rations, in quant.i.ty and time, as usual. I had all the most approved cook books, and spent half my time preserving, pickling, and experimenting in new dishes. I felt the same ambition to excel in all departments of the culinary art that I did at school in the different branches of learning. My love of order and cleanliness was carried throughout, from parlor to kitchen, from the front door to the back. I gave a man an extra s.h.i.+lling to pile the logs of firewood with their smooth ends outward, though I did not have them scoured white, as did our Dutch grandmothers. I tried, too, to give an artistic touch to everything--the dress of my children and servants included. My dining table was round, always covered with a clean cloth of a pretty pattern and a centerpiece of flowers in their season, pretty dishes, clean silver, and set with neatness and care. I put my soul into everything, and hence enjoyed it. I never could understand how housekeepers could rest with rubbish all round their back doors; eggsh.e.l.ls, broken dishes, tin cans, and old shoes scattered round their premises; servants ragged and dirty, with their hair in papers, and with the kitchen and dining room full of flies. I have known even artists to be indifferent to their personal appearance and their surroundings. Surely a mother and child, tastefully dressed, and a pretty home for a framework, is, as a picture, even more attractive than a domestic scene hung on the wall. The love of the beautiful can be ill.u.s.trated as well in life as on canvas. There is such a struggle among women to become artists that I really wish some of their gifts could be ill.u.s.trated in clean, orderly, beautiful homes.

Our house was pleasantly situated on the Chelsea Hills, commanding a fine view of Boston, the harbor, and surrounding country. There, on the upper piazza, I spent some of the happiest days of my life, enjoying, in turn, the beautiful outlook, my children, and my books. Here, under the very shadow of Bunker Hill Monument, my third son was born. Shortly after this Gerrit Smith and his wife came to spend a few days with us, so this boy, much against my will, was named after my cousin. I did not believe in old family names unless they were peculiarly euphonious. I had a list of beautiful names for sons and daughters, from which to designate each newcomer; but, as yet, not one on my list had been used.

However, I put my foot down, at No. 4, and named him Theodore, and, thus far, he has proved himself a veritable "gift of G.o.d," doing his uttermost, in every way possible, to fight the battle of freedom for woman.

During the visit of my cousin I thought I would venture on a small, select dinner party, consisting of the Rev. John Pierpont and his wife, Charles Sumner, John G. Whittier, and Joshua Leavitt. I had a new cook, Rose, whose viands, thus far, had proved delicious, so I had no anxiety on that score. But, unfortunately, on this occasion I had given her a bottle of wine for the pudding sauce and whipped cream, of which she imbibed too freely, and hence there were some glaring blunders in the _menu_ that were exceedingly mortifying. As Mr. Smith and my husband were both good talkers, I told them they must cover all defects with their brilliant conversation, which they promised to do.

Rose had all the points of a good servant, phrenologically and physiologically. She had a large head, with great b.u.mps of caution and order, her eyes were large and soft and far apart. In selecting her, scientifically, I had told my husband, in triumph, several times what a treasure I had found. Shortly after dinner, one evening when I was out, she held the baby while the nurse was eating her supper, and carelessly burned his foot against the stove. Then Mr. Stanton suggested that, in selecting the next cook, I would better not trust to science, but inquire of the family where she lived as to her practical virtues. Poor Rose! she wept over her lapses when sober, and made fair promises for the future, but I did not dare to trust her, so we parted. The one drawback to the joys of housekeeping was then, as it is now, the lack of faithful, competent servants. The hope of co-operative housekeeping, in the near future, gives us some promise of a more harmonious domestic life.