Mary Elizabeth McCurdy

CHAPTERS OUT OF A LONG LIFE

A Personal And Family Record

by

Mrs. Mary E. Kennedy

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter I A NEW ENGLAND GIRLHOOD 3 1. The Background 3 2. Neighborhood Memories 8 3. The Two Homes of My Childhood 11

Chapter II GROWING UP IN THE MIDDLE WEST 18 1. Our Bit of Pioneering 18 2. The Motherless Home 21 3. Good Times and Adventures 22 4. Church and School 27

Chapter III SHADOWED YEARS 31 1. War Times 31 2. Storm and Stress For Me 33

Chapter IV THE BREAKING UP OF THE HOME 41 1. Trial Flights 41 2. Finding Solid Ground 44 3. Life In An Institution 46 4. The Missouri Valley Home 49 5. The Family Turns Westward Again 52

Chapter V HAPPY YEARS IN ILLINOIS 56 1. The Athens of the West 56 2. The First Home in Jacksonville 58 3. Visits to Dakota 61 4. In the Shadow of Illinois College 64

Chapter VI THE THIRD GENERATION GOES WEST 75 1. The Children Leave Home 75 2. Montana Memories 77 3. California The Migration Completed 81

Chapter VII SUNSET YEARS IN THE LAND OF THE SUN 85 1. Adversity and Sorrow 85 2. A Tragic Chapter 87 3. Continued Work With The Deaf 93 4. Two Lovely Anniversaries 94 5. Great Service and Suffering 95

Chapter VIII POSTSCRIPT 100 1. The Last Great Achievement 101 2. Final Illness 105 3. A Son's Tribute 106

Chapter I

A NEW ENGLAND GIRLHOOD

1. The Background

I have ever been thankful for the character of my forbears. My paternal ancestors of whom I know more than the others were a staunch people belonging to that God fearing, Scotch Covenanter group who settled in the North of Ireland and came to this country in large numbers before the Revolutionary War. A good example of the breed was the redoubtable old gentleman Deacon Matthew Scoby McCurdy my grandfather who must have been a forceful figure in his day. I want to begin this story of my life written for my children, nephews and nieces and their children of the twentieth century, with a picture of this sturdy citizen of the eighteenth century. For with all his weaknesses his rugged vigor of character symbolizes well the quality of the heritage which has come down to us all. This description was sent to me in 1909 by Cousin John M. Poor of New Hampshire himself a powerful old Indian chief of a man when he wrote in his 84th year, and comes out of his own memories of the old Deacon. He was given to exaggeration at times, and I feel that his characterization of my grandfather as a "tyrant" and utterly without laughter is altogether too severe. But the force of the portrait remains. I give it, quaint phrases and spelling, just as written.

"He did not allow his children to eate chestnuts to laugh loud not hardly to smile on Sunday. He would go to Church every Sunday in the year 6 miles and if the traveling was so bad he could not ride he would walk. Was leader of the church choir for 40 years. He was very pious and had a temper like a steel trap; he would drink a pint of cider without winking at once and ten barrels in a year. This family were all fine singers. Robert played the bass viol, Matthew played the violin, and the girls were all very fine singers, and the Deacon was the leader. I never heard any nicer singing by any noted public singers.

"At meal time after drinking his mug of cider he would ask God's blessing on the repast, and then again after partaking of the same would thank Him a 2nd time for His wonderful goodness to the children of men. One great fault of his was to give the Lord all the credit of everything, while his wife got none (dear old grandma) who worked hard to prepare the dinner.

"He was a tyrant in human form, but he was very intelegent, enterprising and honest; the house which he planed, and built with his own hands is standing in good condition today a monument to his ability and enterprise.

"I never saw the old grandpa laugh I never saw him smile. How could all his children be so good?"

My father was born in June 1809 in the same year as Abraham Lincoln in Dunbarton, N.H. in this big ugly house built by Deacon McCurdy in 1799, the roof shingles of cedar having been hewn out by Grandfather's own hands. The house needed to be large, having to shelter a family of ten children at least two of whom came back to live for a time in the old home after their marriage.

How I wish I had known that dear grandmother, Elizabeth Fulton. She must have been a woman of remarkable traits of character to have lived all those years with a heady old gentle¬man like my grandfather, brought up ten children and been able besides to welcome into the home two daughters in law with their little ones, for father brought mother there after his marriage where they remained until the birth of Lurandus and Matthew. This home was also the place of cousin Scoby's birth and young manhood. Dear patient grandmother whom I never saw, but who may have given me some traits that helped to carry me thro this long life of my own. I offer thee now my humble tribute of deference and affection!

My father was about six feet tall, of a rather quick temper, quiet in manner, retiring, introspective, sensitive, with what sister Lyra used to call a New England conscience and a deep affectionate nature, such as generally goes with that tempera¬ment. I never heard him swear, his favorite ejaculations being, "Well I vum" "I swan", "By golly"; and when we children had done anything unusual he would give us his masterpiece, "Mi rabile ¬dictu" (Latin, wonderful to tell), accompanied always by that dear little quaint smile of his. There used to hang in the breezy attic of the white house on the hill a bright scarlet coat which nobody could wear but father, and as he played the clarinet in the State Militia band of New Hampshire, it was probably a part of his uniform. He was also a good singer and taught singing school occasionally. It was his redoubtable old father who, I am told on authority, that of his grandson, Matthew Scoby, led the choir in Dunbarton for 40 years.

Father had a good common school education and I have among my treasures two or three rewards of merit, printed on ordinary newspaper with a teacher and a prim looking boy pictured upon it, certifying to the correct conduct and satisfactory lessons of Robert McCurdy. The dim date said 1826 which meant he was a big boy of 17 when the, to us now absurd, little Reward of Merit was given. I have also a letter written by father when he was attendant in the Insane Asylum at Charlestown Massachusetts, in April 1833, just before he was 24, to a cousin, James Mills of Goffstown. It is written in a very pretty hand almost like script, giving the account of an accident that befell one of his cousins, etc.

Father was married in 1840, to Mary Morgan of Bow, of Welsh descent. There is a pretty little story my Aunt Theresa used to tell of his courtship. There were at least four of the Morgan girls, attractive and capable. An outside friend once told me the three elder ones, Mary, Harriet Amanda and Theresa, were called the "Three Graces". Aunt said that father saw Mother singing in the choir at Bow one day and thought he would like to see more of her. So he went over to Bow to see the school trustee who happened to be grandfather Morgan himself. Pleased with the appearance of the young man, Mr. Morgan engaged him, so he became my mother's teacher. Aunt said he was a good looking young man, considered "quite a catch" among girls of the neigh¬borhood who were a bit envious of Mary. He of course as all men do, wished to marry at once, but Mary was young, only 17, and demurred, waiting indeed until she was 22 and father 31 before they were married.

My mother must have been of a gentle temperament for I do not recall in the nearly 14 years of my life before her death hearing her once speak in a harsh or loud voice. She could punish however, when necessary, for I well remember one occasion when I was under but probably near 8 years of age, when she stood us four older youngsters in a line and switched our bare legs and feet so thoroughly there was no forgetting the ceremony after¬wards. Just what the offence was I cannot recall, but it is highly likely it was never repeated.

The old house in Dunbarton where my brothers, Lurandus and Matthew were born was not the family home for long. There is a story that someone twitted my father because there was only 14 months between his two boys, so, being a sensitive and proud man, he moved out and went to a house in Hopkinton, about 7 miles away. I have no means of knowing how long my parents lived there, but surely not long. One morning, I have this from my mother's own lips, my father had risen, started the fire in the kitchen stove and gone out to milk. Mother heard a groan and looking out knew at once the kitchen was on fire. She threw a coat of father's over her petticoat and was out instantly to help remove the furniture. The two babies both in one cradle, were carried across the road to safety. I should judge the story of a feather bed being carried down stairs in arms and a mirror thrown out the window was easily true in this case: I fear not much was saved in the country and no water supply.

And then came the era of life in the white cottage. Father had evidently gone right over to Boscawen and purchased a farm on the high plateau overlooking the Great Pond which was from one to three miles in dimension. In districts where there was a paucity of water this would have been called a lake, but with us it was always, "the pond", and is still, I think, called Webster's Pond. Across the pond we looked to the mountains beyond, including Kearsarge, the nearest, on which we older children spent our last 4th of July in New Hampshire. I doubt if a more glorious view could be found anywhere in New Hampshire, a state famous for its views. On the highest point of this plateau father built a story and a half house, joining it to what had been a small house which now became the "ell." The "ell" consisted of a good sized living room, window on north and south, a bedroom from the window of which our escapades to the snow banks were carried on, a large pantry or "buttery" with two windows, one looking out into a large cinnamon rose bush, and a crooked stairway going up into the attic over the kitchen. It was from this kitchen bedroom window that we older children, in the spring when the deep snowdrifts were beginning to soften up a little, would, before the dark came, and while father and mother were busy elsewhere, climb out in our night gowns and bare feet, to race up and down atop the drifts, creeping into bed in great glee, our feet rosy red and pulsing with warmth. Colds? Never! Father told me once in a footnote to a letter that I was born in this older part, before the new house was built. Not to be forgotten either was a little round cat hole about two feet from the ground into which kitty sprang and dashed up the stairs to the attic when we wanted her most or a dog was near.

I must describe the surroundings so dear to memory. The farm was washed on two sides, or should I call it a half circle, by the pond; on one side beech trees and chestnuts grew close down to the waters edge; on the other side, at the foot of the hayfield on a steep slope father had built a landing out into deep water, where he washed the sheep in the spring, a most interesting operation for the youngsters. Up on the hill back of the house was a smooth plot of grass about the size of a city block and separarted from the native woods that came up close to it, by a usual stone wall fence.

This clear space was the source of revenue to us children, not a fortune but sufficient to keep us highly interested and a source of satisfaction to father. Every spring he would give each of us a little silver three cent piece for every little pile of stones we picked up, and every spring there would be just as many more stones, and the supply of 3 cent pieces remained unexhausted for father always keep his word. At the far end of the field, and near the woods, stood an apple tree which we children called the "Subsivine" tree. Years after when I was far enough away from the habit of children to mispronounce, I concluded the name was really "Sops of wine", though unknown to me. The very "top of the morning", and a glorious one at that, was ours after a windy night as we children almost dressed, unbuttoned aprons flying, and little trousers not quite secure, raced pellmell in the field to the "Subsivine" tree to pick up the apples that had fallen in the night. They were good little apples to eat, striped in pink down from stem to pip. Another of our morning joys but never to be compared with this, were the excursions to the "Blackpiece". This was pasture land across the road where the original forest had been cut down and the stumps burned over to blackness, where grew in profusion many blossoms and blueberries and the much praised little wintergreen or checkerberry. Across the road and over the stone wall we trouped, filling our little tin cups with the scarlet berries, and back again for breakfast and mother to fill our cups with "coffee". I remember that one of father's favorite lunches was a bowl of bread and milk filled up with fresh, lushious blue¬berries.

Close up against our farm but in the woods were immense ledges of rock, in the fissures of which grew columbine or rock rue, maiden hair ferns and other flowers. These great piles of rock were scenes of thrilling play. In particular, they are associated with my memories of Uncle Tom's Cabin and the pleasure that story gave us. It was printed serially during the years 1851 52 appearing every week in the National Era of Washington. These weekly issues were read to the family by my father as he sat in the comfy kitchen. The older boys were ten and nine, I was seven, Lyra five, but we were all completely hypnotized by the story and cried and laughed together. Father was one of the "Know nothings" of that day and of course hated slavery. There was one of the great boulder ledges that we children made believe was the very one to which George, Eliza and their indomitable old friend Phineas fled, and we took immense delight in thinking how we would tumble rocks down on the heads of the cursing and hated slave owners.

Long years afterward, in 1909, during the course of his theological studies at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, my son, Melville, went up to Boscawen and visited this same old home site, although the house had been burned. He was greatly impressed by the magnificent outlook, the beauty of the big pond, and thought it no wonder that I loved it and remembered it so well. He said "Wouldn't it be fine if we had the money to build a bungalow on the site for you to spend your summers in." He even went to the woods that in sixty years had encroached so upon the land, but doubted if I would be able to recognize them and our old Quaker rock. "It seemed to me I saw great rock piles everywhere, before, behind and on every side, so how could I guess which was your runaway slaves' stronghold? What a rocky country! And what a quaint old place Boscawen is. I never saw a real old New England village before, but I surely have now for this is one. It's a great pleasure to me to see these places connected with your early childhood. I'm so glad I've seen them, this and the Iowa home, and can picture to myself your early life entire".

A quarter of a mile through the woods and beyond the rock pile was the mill pond and outlet of the pond. Some how, during one of our many excursions, Matthew fell from the bridge, a crude one without rails, and sank once or twice but he was quickly rescued and taken home to mother. A few rods beyond the mill on this fascinating "wood road" dwelt alone a sweet faced woman, Mrs. Jackman, who was kind to us children when we happened near; there were "whispers" about her, was it silly gossip, malice, ignorant cruelty? but I love to think she was good, as she looked and was to us. Back from the woods and across the green sward of the front yard which opened on the road was the pump to which Lyra and I fled one day in wild dismay to clear our heads and necks of the swarm of vermin we had collected in creeping along the henroosts high above the barn door and under the eaves. Incidentally we nearly drowned ourselves but it was a lesson.

Sometime during this earlier period of our life on the hill occurred the runaway in which I figured with my father. It was a Sunday morning and I was alone with father in the buggy when Jenny the mare started on a wild dash frightened by one of the traces coming loose. She must have taken the lines too, for father put his left arm about me and lifted me from my little chair and sprang from the buggy. When we got to our feet Jenny had disappeared up the heavily sanded hill through the pines that shaded the bridge across the Merrimac to the tavern just beyond and near the meeting house, but she had left the buggy scattered all along the way, also my beautiful red apple which Mother had given me as addition to our lunch. Father took me into the tavern where some motherly soul salved my bruised heel, but I've no idea who took us home, I only remember the runaway.

Half way down from the top of the hill on the left stood the sassafras tree. I have never seen one since. We cut across the outer back and stripped it down as one does a young pine or slippery elm, to the inner bark, and was there ever anything in trees so sweet and tender and delicious as that "sliver" as we called it! Is there any other name for it? I have many times wondered how long the little tree lasted under such cruel treatment as we gave it on our way to school.

Just a few rods beyond the crest of the hill was the big gate which led into the hillside hayfield. Here was the scene of the coasting in winter. At the bottom of the hill or near, was the substantial stone fence, in winter heaped high with drifted snow. Starting from the top of the hill at the gate, our sleds went down ever swifter and more swiftly until they shot over this wall with a big jump and on far into the center of the pond.

2. Neighborhood Memories

From his home three miles away on Boscawen Plain, Daniel Webster used to come on winter evenings to the Great Pond at the foot of our hill to fish through holes cut in the ice, while my father held the lantern. There were spendid pike and pickerel in the old pond and Webster was enough of an epicure to appreciate the fact. My father, however, never seemed so impressed by the Congressional fame of Webster as he was by the rising genius of a neighbor still nearer us, C. Carlton Coffin, who lived up Water Street some little way beyond the red school house. He was already publishing poems, history and other writings. Concerning Webster, it was rather a mild wonder to my father that one of his well known neighbors should have become famous, illustrating the old saying, a prophet is not without honor, etc.

There were two other families of Coffins, one having a rather pitiful specimen of a son, who, I think, died early, and a brother named Willie, a little white haired, pale faced child always sucking his thumb. Whether this fact was what called out my dislike I don't know but I never could go near him without pinching his ear till he cried! Why will children be so cruel! The memory of that unkindness has haunted many an hour of my grown up years and many's the time I have vainly wished I could see Willie again and tell him I was sorry. The other family, consisting of George, Sarah, and Esther was not connected to these two. George was killed in the Civil War. Esther, we learned, became demented and died in the asylum for the insane. Sarah married her cousin and when my daughter and I visited Boscawen 50 years afterward, she and her husband entertained us most cordially. Melville also when he visited Boscawen three years later happened upon this couple and had a delightful visit with them.

At the very bottom of the long hill on the right was a wide treeless gulch running up the stumpy hill sides and there stood a squalid unpainted house in which lived so far as I knew only a girl, Nancy Thurston, characterless and ghostly since I can recall nothing but the name. There too a tiny rivulet wandered down from the gulch crept across the road and lost itself in the pond. Right around the bend grew the glorious water lilies we so blithely ravaged from their sandy beds and carried to "teacher" every morning. Here was the place too, because of the nearness of a slab and a board fence, where on holidays and Saturdays we held our water carnivals. I don't believe sister Lyra was in this for she was younger, more gentle and not so daring as Mary who was ready for anything a boy dared to do. We used to take slabs and boards from the fence, four of them laid on top each like this # place one foot upon each one of the top boards and pole ourselves out into the deep water. If a sudden panic had come over us, or one foot lifted and the board allowed to float away, disaster must have followed for not one of us knew how to swim, but we didn't know fear. When a neighbor once exclaimed "Mrs. McCurdy, how dare you let your children play around the pond so?" Mother, possibly a little annoyed at the criticism coolly answered "Well they never have drowned yet."

While we girls were playing at this point one day, the obscene antics of Dave Flanders, the bad boy of the neighborhood, frightened us. He stood at a distance too far around the bend to reach us, but near enough to scare us badly so we ran pellmell up through the orchard and home, Of these Flanders there was a "Jake" and a "Dave", one the father and one the son; but which was the good father and which the bad son, I have never been able to remember. We have heard, however, that in later years the son was sent to the penitentiary. Sam Chadwick, the father of three of our schoolmates, Edwin, Albert, and Sammy, was another neighbor. He later bought our home on the hill. Edwin became one of my soldier correspondents during the War, but died from disease and was buried in the village cemetery. Albert became a physician and Sammy was still a bachelor when we visited Boscawen in 1906. Down beyond the Flanders home were the Atkinsons, and a little farther on, at the end of a big shady yard, stood the home of the Farnham Coffins, a most hospitable place to us, for when we little girls of 8 and 10, Lyra and I, used to go there to visit, or was it a "call" those dear ladies would fetch out their revolutionary relics, shoulder epaulets, cocked hats, buttons, and all sorts of trinkets to entertain us. Wasn't that lovely? Just two little girls! When Melville following my descriptions, went up through Boscawen in 1909 he called at this very home. The old ladies remembered my own and Helen's visit three years before and were so pleased to see and talk with him. I note these things with real pleasure for it shows how a little curtesy and kindness will often win a child's heart forever. Up Water Street the road crossed a low swampy piece of land over¬flowed in winter, making a fine skating place for the children. This was crossed by a low causeway of stones which we children, in that detestable way of mispronunciation of our own, called the "cassy"; why did our parents allow it? On the right side of the road was the house of Enoch Coffin, father of Edwin and Willie. Opposite, across the road, was the Poor Farm, an attractive looking place managed by Mr. Flint, father of May and Nellie, acknowledged beauties of the district. Another neighbor was Charles Carlton Coffin, whom I have already mentioned as a poet and historian.

Farther on was the schoolhouse where father taught the last year of his stay in Boscawen. Odd that I do not remember my brothers as attending this school. Probably they remained in the "Little Red School House" nearer home. We rode to school in a sleigh. My seat in school was in a form or desk close down to the front, the bench which formed a part of my desk having no support for tired little heads to lean upon and nap, but were always assigned to the infants, poor tots. There was a big knot hole in the front of my desk and the little boy and I were playing through it with strings, or pencils, something or other, I don't remember now, but father called it mischief and since I was the elder and his own child and so not to be favored in public, I was sentenced to stand in the middle of the floor and receive several vigorous snaps on the ear from the end of his middle finger. His hand was the hand of a farmer and not too delicate, the snaps left a decided stinging sensation, and a rosy color which I fancy rivalled my cheeks. This is the only incident I recall of that winter's term in school.

3. The Two Homes of My Childhood

But all this time I have omitted describing the appearance and interior of the dear hill home. It was a story and a half high, facing the East, painted white with green blinds, and to the north, in the far distance loomed the glorious mountains, among them Kearsarge which so fascinated my growing soul and on top of which I spent my last Fourth of July. There was one broad gap between them which kept me wondering what lay beyond. In later years when I was beginning to browse about among books, I found in Edna Dean Proctor, now a forgotten poet, the same longing, old yet ever new, in one of her poems on mountains. The front door opened into a small "entry." This opened on the right into a sitting room, bright and cheerful, floor painted the deep orange universal in that day and strewn with mother's braided rugs, mute sign of homely comfort and beloved to this day. Mother used to go out into the near by woods with us on autumn days and bring in armfuls of red and gold autumn glories and fill the window with them. In this room was a fireplace, and, because winters were cold in New Hampshire, a stove with a wonderful horizontal drum the top of which I always think of in connection with the quantities of perfect white popped corn it mysteriously turned out. On the left side of the little entry a door opened into the parlor, which was carpeted by a wool carpet of mother's own weaving in colors of soft blue and yellow marked by faint diamond lines in a darker shade. Between the two east windows hung a, to us children, noble mirror, which revealed us full length as we stood before it. This mirror, or pier glass, was afterwards removed with household goods to Marion, Iowa, where it hung in the tiny bedroom where Willie the youngest was born and where mother breathed her last. Later still, father gave it to brother Frank who carried it safely to Letcher, South Dakota, where it graced his home for several years, until one black day in housecleaning time, it was broken. Frank was inconsolable for he cherished the dear old things as I did and I don't blame him for his sorrow. Some one said "Why don't you have a new glass put in the frame?" but he answered "It would never be the same." True, but many of us wished he had done so.

Close set in the parlor wall was a shallow cupboard distinc¬tive to me only by the fact that there mother kept her company cake. She called it "Composition cake" and that must have been what it was, for of all odorous and sweet smelling things that was surely "it"; but we youngsters never dreamed of touching it without mother's permission, a statement some grownups of today who had no home training will dispute, but it is an actual fact. Thanks to a firm mother's training we were not in the class with children who ravaged the cupboards of dainties without asking permission when they were hungry.

Next the parlor was the "parlor bedroom", furnished with a high poster bed covered by an immense spread made by mother before she was married. The foundation was of heavy white muslin, probably what we now call Indian head, covered all over in designs, hearts, diamonds, etc., with little balls of candle wicking tied in somehow. Several places in the borders mother used to point out as being done by the young fellows of her neighborhood who would come in just for fun to put in a few tufts for remembrance, for youth is the same in all ages. I still have a good sized bed spread of this after Lyra had cut off a portion to cover her babies' crib. It is all of 95 years old. One day mother had dressed her fifth baby, Theresa, for a neighborly call. When ready herself her baby had disappeared. Diligent search was made all over the house, the barn, and father was about to search the well when some one, going again through the rooms, discovered, hidden away under this big bed, fast asleep, the little flaxen haired child. I imagine there was no visiting that afternoon.

Another door from the front entry led into the unfinished room upstairs where hung the beautiful red coat already mention¬ed. Exactly behind and back of this entry was another big room looking out on the cinnamon rosebush. It was from this room one sunny June morning in 1853 that my pretty Aunt Rufina who could not have been more than seventeen or eighteen, emerged bearing in her arms our newest baby, brother Frank, the sixth member of our family, whom she proceeded to bathe and dress in the sunny sitting room. Still another bedroom looked to the north just beyond and opened into the little hall which led with one step down into the "ell". And now we say goodbye to the dear old house on the hill, for we had another Boscawen home which I must now describe.

Far down the long hill, on the level ground where three roads meet, still stands the square built house which was our home for two years. This was the Kilborn House. There were fire places in every room of this house, and a long rather broad staircase running up the center with wide corridor around it. In 1927 my niece Mary Coman Cushing with her husband went all over these old home places of my own and her mother's. She had heard me tell of running up the long balustraded stairway and standing at its head listening to the strains of music floating up from the large kitchen where father and mother sat by the fire place singing the Marseillaise Hymn. How beautiful it sounded to my childish ears and Mary's sympathetic music loving soul must have thrilled to the vanished echoes of that grand old hymn tho the singers had long since passed into eternity.

The large kitchen was a very interesting place, perhaps the most so the big brick oven, a part, really, of the fire place. After being filled with wood of "oven wood" length, a yard or more long, and burned, the hot ashes were raked out and on Saturday afternoons the big round iron pot with four short legs and a strong "bail" (handle) filled with the usual rye and Indian meal concoction was shoved into the hot oven; after it went another big pot of beans, the sliced rind of a bit of pork just appearing in the center. I had no use for the pork but those beans were just delicious next morning at breakfast. The pies to be baked were taken out on a long shovel the same afternoon but it was always a wonder to us children that the big oven would stay hot long enough to bake that big loaf of bread and those beans. On the opposite side was a deep iron vat holding a half barrel perhaps used for trying out tallow and pork, after butcherings. I think also for the weekly wash. What would the soft and coddled house wives of today say to such housekeeping! They are really spoiled by self indulgence from the new inven¬tions and kitchen devices of today.

I never saw my mother spin in this later home, probably had left her wheel behind, but as long as we remained in the house on the hill she kept up the habit. The big wheel was a little higher than her head, and as she stepped back and forth drawing out the soft yard long roll of wool which changed so mysteriously in her fingers into long threads of yarn, afterwards to be made into blankets and carpets and gayly covered rugs, she would sing and sing. How could a susceptible child forget such visions?

Her candle making, too, just as the frontier women of revolu-tionary days made theirs, remains a clear picture in my mind. She would have, perhaps, two dozen smooth, uniform sized sticks, 18 inches long, the same number double lengths of candle wicking of equal length hanging from them. Her primitive but effective way was to turn two old fashioned splint bottom chairs face downward on the floor, a big old fashioned iron pot the same in which my father made our delicious hominy, boiled first in lye, then again and again (afterward) in clear water, full to the brim of hot melted tallow just the right temperature, into which she would dip, one by one, each stick holding the (dozen) strings of wicking. One had to be very careful that the first dipping was perfect, the wicking perfectly straight, etc. or the candles would be crooked. After the first dipping it just seemed to be all fun, each stick being laid carefully across the chairs until the many dippings brot the candles up to proper size. The mothers of that time 80 years ago who did their own housework, cooked, washed, nursed and did the sewing for their large families, besides filling the house with rugs, and in "spare moments" (!) probably in the twilight, knitted socks and mittens as my mother did had little time to cultivate reading tastes. But my mother chose well what she did read as her old scrap book contains many extracts from Horace Mann, the famous Massachusetts educator of that day.

It was the custom in all New England for people to take unfinished shoes home from the shops to their homes for finish¬ing, especially women. I think my mother never did this, her six children furnishing her with plenty of occupation, but I do remember my father varying his teacher's work in this way, sitting on a high stool, at an equally high shoemakers bench, driving in the pegs as he finished the shoes. It was fascinating work to us children, the upper "tight" in its last, firmly bound down upon father's knee, a deft stroke of his small hammer upon the awl, the swift insertion of the little wooden peg in the hole, followed by another swift blow of the hammer, and presto, there was a perfect row of diamond shaped pegs all around the edge of the sole, a constant delight to us children and a wonder, that there never was a single twisted peg around the row. The was in the Kilborn house kitchen.

Life did not stagnate around the Kilborn place during the two years we spent there, and I'm afraid I led my two confiding little sisters, Lyra and Theresa, into more than one piece of mischief, but as they never seemed to think of "telling on me", I was not punished. Two incidents stand out from those long years ago.

One evening we were having a jolly time with our cousins from Corser Hill, Uncle Daniel's children, when over went a 10 quart bucket full of minnows being reserved for some fishing trip. All over the floor went fishes and water and there was, of course, a wild scramble to save the fish, an effort, I fear, not very successful. The recalls how I was well come up with by one boy of our school crowd where many were mischievous. I will call him "Hawse Chapin" tho not his real name, and for that matter, no one will ever see this story who would recognize his true one. One day Hawse told us little girls he had found a "Setstills" nest out in the pasture between the school house and our home. It was right down in the grass and we must come quickly before the birds got away. So we hurried and of course I was the first to thrust my hand under the battered old straw hat which he had laid over the nest. Horrors! What a nest of "birds" that was! It didn't seem that any ordinary boy could have deviltry enough in him to think up such a trick on little girls. Yet he grew up, went to war, came home something of a hero, I suppose, and married Helen Flint, the belle of the country side. When Helen and I visited there long years after¬ward, in Fishersville, now Pennacook, I found him a smallish, wizened, childless man, tying up and carrying his wife's hat and bonnet boxes (for his wife's millinery store) when not tending his bees. I wondered what his thoughts were, if he remembered.

We little girls felt so pitiful, too, for the horses on this place, as who wouldn't. It was the day when bob tailed horses were the fashion and in one of the barns of the place were several horses in their stalls, with sweeping tails cut short and the stubs fastened by some device to the ceiling above them. There must have been some ligament or muscle cut to make the stubs stand up; very cruel it seemed to us, for it was fly time and the poor creatures having no other protection were compelled to stamp in a loud and frightening manner to keep the flies away. Those were the days when we heard on the street the elegant ditty "I'll bet my money on the bobtailed nag. Then who will bet on the grey."

One day brother Matthew, then about 13 years of age, was playing on the front lawn with a frolicksome young colt when it kicked him on the mouth, knocking out a front tooth. Of course he ran crying to mother. She came out searched about in the soft turf grass, found the tooth and pushed it back into the gum where it made a regrowth and remained for the rest of his life.

Another time, near this same spot, mother displayed mettle of different sort. It was in winter and down across the lawn on the road which ran north and south, was a man driving one horse before a very heavy load of wood. The road was icy and he was belaboring the poor horse cruelly with a big stick. I saw mother run down to the road. What she said to the man I never knew but it was effective. He dropped his bludgeon, unhitched the trembling animal from the load and quietly walked away. One other instance of my mother's fearless spirit which made a deep impression on me, was this. Down near the cemetery along the road where Jenny the mare made her wild get a way, lived a poor, and I'm afraid rather a shiftless family named Gitchell. One of the girls had made a false step and gone astray. I was too young to know much of anything about it but my mother, always on the side of the underdog, seemed to feel she had not had a fair deal. During one Sunday noon intermission, between the two sessions of preaching, my mother went up to this young woman and quietly put her arms about her, in a gesture of sympathy and helpfulness. It was a little thing, yet a brave one, and the 10 year old girl understood the spirit of the act. Who shall say that gentle spirit of compassion and justice which was mothers, has not had its influence in the long and useful lives of all her children. Blessed should be the children of such mothers.

4. Preparations for the West

During the latter years of this childhood period, my father had acquired the "western fever". After selling the hill farm and moving down to the Kilborn house near to the pond, he had packed his little traveling trunk one day and gone prospecting into the West, as far as Wisconsin and Iowa. In Linn County, Iowa, near the town of Marion, he finally chose a place that was to be our future home. Now began the preparations for the western trip and a goodbye to Boscawen.

In those days every woman of any standing whatever had her black silk dress. Mother had hers and up the long stairway, around the corridor and through the spare room, in a spacious closet with one window looking out on the fields and big barn, hung the black dress and the little suits and bonnets prepared for our journey. The cloaks were made of some dark green material, perhaps we would call it serge now; full skirts plaited into a yoke with little capes over the shoulders, cord and tassles around the waist. The little bonnets we thought were just darlings, rather delicate looking for such a trip but beautiful to us; made of dainty open work straw faced and trimmed with pale blue ribbon and hung from the shelf by a pin in the end of the long tie string, thrust into the edge of the shelf. There they hung before our fascinated eyes, and as we left the closet, we had to stop in the rather bare, at that time, guest room to admire Aunt Theresa Morgan's gold watch on the mantle shelf its long and beautiful chain a never ceasing source of delight to us. Long years afterwards when Helen and I visited in Hookset, Aunt Theresa told us an incident of the same watch. A thief got into her house one night and tried to take the watch but she clung to it and he held to the chain, getting away with the latter while she kept the watch. "Now", said she, "your sister Theresa, who was named for me, shall have the watch when I am done with it" but when Aunt died within three years afterward, of that dreadful cancer, there was no one but her poor crippled daughter Hattie to carry out her wishes. As she was not able to do this, we never saw the watch nor various other little trinkets, notably a pair of silver and cut glass vases which Lyra and I had sent on her 25th wedding anniversary, and which we hoped Mary and Helen Coman might have. I have never ceased to be glad for a number of precious ambrotypes and pictures Aunt did have me take which would otherwise have been lost to my family forever, had she not given them to me at the time.

While at Aunt Theresa's home, I noticed, just a passing fad, of course, but a quaint and curious one, two oblong wooden boxes placed end on end so they stood about 3 high, the front side covered with a curtain. The two sides were covered with ambrotype pictures in gilt frames, set closely together and cemented or glued tightly in place. I saw more than one familiar face of relatives and how I longed to have them, but this was not to be thought of. Some "near" relative among the New Hampshire hills may now be cherishing it if not already destroyed; the strangest piece ornamental (?) furniture I ever saw in my life.

Of course, I made some inquiries afterward about the little things Aunt had wished me to have, but it seemed there was no one responsible who felt interested enough in the far away Iowa relatives to bother themselves about it, even if they had known Aunt's wishes.

At last came the day when we saw our childhood scenes for the last time. It was in the fall of 1855 that we started for Iowa. Down through Boscawen Plains and the elms we went, past the cemetery where Edwin Chadwick, Albert Chadwick and Wallace Ballard lie, and where Jenny ran away with us so suddenly, past Daniel Webster's old home, past the "meeting house" with Hannah Dustin's monument gleaming thro the shrubbery, and on through what was then called Fishersville, now known by the much prettier name of Pennacook. On we went to Concord, and to Manchester where Aunt Harriet Small and Aunt Theresa Morgan were then living, and then to Bow and Grandfather Morgan's home. The only incidents I recall of this, my mother's home, was of Grandfather having morning prayers while our gay young aunt Rufine, evidently not feeling the need of prayers, was out swinging some little children in the air; and also my own experiment behind the kitchen door with Grandmother's pipe. This was not a success, but I will say in passing that it was just as proper for dear old ladies in that day to smoke their pipes for the comfort of shaky and treacherous nerves as for the young ladies of today to smoke cigarettes just because it is a foolish fad. But I am glad to say that if any of her grand or great great grand daughters have acquired the cigarette habit, I have yet to hear of it. This, my mother's mother, was the same 16 year old Polly shown in the silhouette beside Grandfather in his broad stock, taken about the time he served in the War of 1812 with Great Britain.

Here my reminiscences of Boscawen come to an end. Why did I not begin them years ago, when my own brothers and sisters who were a part of the story would have enjoyed it all.

Chapter II

GROWING UP IN THE MIDDLE WEST

1. Our Bit of Pioneering

It seemed to me we should never get to our promised land out West. Especially after leaving well settled Ohio, those broad and seemingly endless prairies of Indiana and Illinois stretched on and on, day after day, enlivened only by an occasional "change cars"! when father, at the head of his little brood, baby Frank on one arm, his little square trunk satched in the other hand, staggered across railroad tracks and crossings to the other "deepo" while mother and her five struggled after. Father, of necessity frugal, did not patronize busses. Matthew and Lurandus must have helped materially for they were boys of 13 and 14. I must have been a selfish little pig for I do not recall anything but my own nervous fears and dread, and the feelings of relief when we were again aboard another train. We struck the Missis¬sippi first at Burlington, boarded a steamer and went up as far as Muscatine, taking one not to be forgotten meal on the boat. At Muscatine we were placed in a big crowded stage coach for what seemed a long, jolting ride to Iowa City, the next stopping place. On the way, whether from heat, weariness or what not, I became very ill from sick headache with all its disastrous consequences, vomiting out of the coach window. This was a great mortification to me, self tormenting little wretch, who should have had no more compunctions over such a thing than a kitten when it tips over its milk! Father must have taken us to a boarding house instead of to a hotel for, something unheard of at the latter place, the kind hearted landlady had left a plate of ginger cookies on the table for the children when she went to church. When she returned the plate was empty, and for this also I took myself to task. We should have left one cookie at least for politeness sake! and I felt very guilty over my own trans¬gression of the proprieties.

Our first Iowa winter was spent in a neighborhood about 3 miles north of Marion, in Linn County, in what we children dubbed contemptuously a "hoosier" district. I think it must have been an alien, foreign sort of neighborhood, some of the names I remember being "Frager" and "Spickelmeier". The name "Picayune" had already been settled on this community before our arrival, obviously by outsiders. A whole family and their "in Laws" had apparently colonized along the mile long stretch of road which bore the name. I fancy we older children fresh from the scholas¬tic shades of New England were not overly modest in our ideas of superiority; at any rate there were many battles between us bloodless however particularly of dia¬lects, our Yankee pronunc¬iation of the East versus their flat Hoosier speech. These scraps were frequent and lively since each party had a deep contempt for the peculiarities of the other. We were so accus¬tom¬ed to the trim lawns, orderly yards, and well appointed houses of New England, that the slovenly kept homes, old wagons and farm implements scattered in front yards or anywhere, were a constant eye sore to us. There must have been some kindliness about these people, however, for one day when Lyra and I were walking barefoot along the road carrying our shoes and stockings, being of frugal stock but of more consequen¬ce still mindful of aching toes, a man driving a farm wagon came along and asked us to ride. "Why! he must be a gentleman to invite little barefoot¬ed girls to ride!" Where at that age did we get our quaint ideas of chivalry? Altho New Hampshire friends of my father and mother, Elijah Upton, wife and daughter Delphin¬a, or Delly, with Frank Upton and Mrs. Nat Clough, a sister, lived along the road not far away, we were never quite reconciled to the neighborhood. It was this dear Mrs. Upton who took baby Willy for a year when mother died.

That first winter, a very cold one, and spent in a log cabin near Elijah Upton, father taught school for the first time in Iowa. The next spring, having bought a place one mile on the other side of Marion he became a farmer again. Eighty years ago there was little chance of farmers' boys getting much of an education beyond a few weeks of the winter term in country schools, so there were a number of grown young men in school every winter and they sometimes made much trouble, locking the teacher out of school, etc. Father was never troubled in that way, but one day, tho I had heard no disturbance, I happened to look up and there was one of the big fellows flat on his back on the floor and father leaning over him with one knee on the young man's chest. I don't know what he had said or done, but he must have given suitable apology for father soon let him up and he went crestfallen to his seat. In the general let down of all order and discipline in the country today such drastic discipline would be called an outrage, but there is an old saying "Circum¬stances alter cases" and no doubt my father was fully justified in his manner of keeping order.

In the change to our new home there was again the regime of the log house for a few months, one room and a trundle bed under the big one, I remember. But mother was always equal to the situation and she certainly had ways of disposing nightly of her six youngsters that I do not recall now. I do know, however that six of us could hardly have slept in one trundle bed.

One summer day, Mother being naturally social, was enter¬taining friends from town at dinner. Her china "cupboard" was a broad board fastened on pegs to the logs of the cabin. Going to the shelf as she was setting the table, she saw stretch¬ed along its full length in front of her, a big, spotted gopher or chicken snake. Altho perfectly harmless, living on mice, young chickens, etc., it was rather a terrifying sight neverthe¬less.

One side of our farm of 80 acres lay along and included Indian Creek at the edge of the woods and what times we had playing Indian, especially after we had seen the winter before a group of Indians with their wigwams and dogs across Indian creek. Here, too, came out again our old love for water sports. I shudder now when I think how much more dangerous it was than the quiet play on the pond. I remember how on one occasion when the creek was high, and water spread out over the road, we, and that "we" always included myself and older brothers, would get astride the horses and ride back and forth across the flood, with the water well up on the creatures' backs.

We had good neighbors in a congenial neighborhood, people of refined tastes in direct contrast to the Bohemian contingents in their cluttered and untidy surroundings on the other side of Marion. The Egglestons who lived in a large white country house, just across a little orchard from us, consisted of the father, a widower and several grown sons, Oliver, Aaron, and Emory the youngest, and at least three daughters, one of them, a widow, Mrs. Augusta Metcalf, keeping house for the family, and Ellen, the youngest daughter. Then the Bowmans, well to do farmers, a little farther away, all very kind to us in every way. Another family with whom we became intimate were the Vaughns who lived in a large white house between Marion and Cedar Rapids with a natural growth of trees all about. Campbell (Cam) and Myrtie of the children became close friends. About my 16th year occurred the first tornado or cyclone we had ever known and it was connected with this home. One afternoon we had noticed a strange cloud in their direction and riding over next day we found that the storm had torn a straight path leveling every tree in its way and sweeping the house clean from its foundation. Of the whole family, taking refuge in the basement, only one daughter was seriously injured. My brothers and I were bidden to many happy gatherings there. One evening when the house was full of company the older sisters made beds on the parlor floor, and there all of us younger girls slept after having our toes tied together for luck or fortune.

It was with the gay and happy circle made up of these and other friends I always mingled in the two or three years before the War and after, until my ill fated engagement to Clark Dodd in 1866 and its subsequent break. After that and the accompanying events our happy companionships were never renewed. A few years ago at my home in Los Angeles there called one day a minister and his wife, Dr. Frank Crane. The wife was my old time friend Myrtie's daughter! I studied her face intently to find a resem¬blance but could see none.

2. The Motherless Home

Our mother died in August, 1858, when Willie the baby was only six weeks old. At four weeks she was up and about the house tho not strong. She went upstairs one day to help Lyra and me make the beds, and lifted some bedding; almost immediately she exclaimed, "I have hurt myself", went down stairs, fell across her bed and never rose again. The eldest daughter, not yet 14, carried the screaming baby back and forth, the suffering in her mother's eyes only equalled by the terror and despair in her own. But help came soon. Mrs. Brainard from thro the woods, took baby home with her for a week, altho she had a large family of her own. Then Mrs. Upton from the other side of Marion, who had only Della, took the baby to her home and loving care, no doubt much to the relief of our distracted father. Mother had lost con¬sciousness almost immediately, recovering only once long enough to say "Where's my baby?" and died two weeks later from what Dr. Ristine said was rupture of a blood vessel on the brain.

After mother's death father did his best for the comfort of his family, and for some months engaged a young woman to help care for us. Then as usual some kindhearted (?) meddler express¬ed a fear that her reputation and perhaps his would suffer if a young lady staid any longer in the home of a widower and she was allowed to leave. A year passed and Mrs. Upton told father he must take Willie away or let him stay with her always. She had learned to love the little youngling so tenderly, it would be too hard to give him up if she kept him longer. So baby came home and into the hearts of the whole family, and now indeed, life began in earnest for us all, for we all took care of the little fellow. Mary being the eldest of the girls by two years and so most responsible, was given more credit than she should have for father, the big brothers and younger sisters did their loving share. I recall but one time in his young babyhood when Willie was really ill. It was the usual "summer complaint" and we had done all we knew for him. He lay on my lap so white and weak I was in dispair when some wise neighbor came in recommend¬ing blackberry cordial or syrup, it was blackberry anyhow, and it brought him right back to health again. In these crises Augusta Metcalf was a great help to us girls. She taught us to cook many things, would cut and fit and make our dresses for us. How I would love to thank her today for her unselfish kindness as we didn't know how to then. Her young and pretty sister Ellen used often to come and see Mother while she sewed. She was small and dainty and must have made a friend of a sympathetic woman like my mother for one day while we still lived in the log cabin and mother was ill, I saw Ellen lying on the bed snuggled up to my mother in the close and confidential way one does not always show to their own kin. But one day Ellen disappeared. Augusta never spoke of her, how could she to a little girl like me, nor did her family ever mention her. Nobody knew where she had gone and we never did understand the mystery of her fate. Years afterward I heard in some way that her family did know, but if so it was not known to the public and sweet Ellen was forever lost to us; one of those cases, probably, that we hear of but speak of only in undertones.

There is a little ambrotype in our possession of this time, a much prized one, of myself at 15, and Willie a year old. That little picture now hangs on the wall in my Los Angeles home tucked in the corner of a larger one showing Willie as a father surrounded by wife and ten children, seven sons and three daughters! At this date, April, 1934, Will and Celinda his wife have passed on but their children carry on.

Father was a dear brave man in facing the situation after our baby came home. We girls, if ignorant, were energetic and ambitious, doing our washings and heavy work early, and tramping off to school a mile away while father took care of baby and Frank. On cold or wet and slushy days when we came home at 5 o'clock cold and hungry, there was sure to be some pleasant preparation for supper, often in winter an oven full of hot potatoes and a delicious roast of spare ribs, not the kind usually seen in shops of today, skinned to the bone of everything eatable, but good, sweet, honest country hams covered with meat, most delectable to a group of hungry children. We never realize till we become parents ourselves how much we owe to these fathers and mothers, but whatever father missed in those earlier years of his widowhood came back to him afterward in the deep and tender love of his children, all so happy when it was their turn to have Grandpa in their homes.

In those early days of happy go lucky housekeep¬ing how patient our dear father needed to be, and was! For when Lyra and I would get our pumpkin pies and our bread into the oven, we would often dash out for a race about the hay stacks, sliding down them, chasing each other about, or having a game of ball or "Ant ny over", then come running in after a few forgetful moments to find things scorching or burned! Well, girls of 15 needed recreation after such harrowing ambitions as learning to make salt rising bread. Oh, the hours it took for the stuff to rise, tho our good neighbor, Augusta Metcalf taught us so patiently. How it smelled, sour always, and I don't believe it was ever a success. It must have been that kind of bread father ate in his travels in Wisconsin and the west that sickened him so of "raised bread" that he couldn't touch even good bread for a long time after. But the time came when we did learn to make good, honest, sweet, hop yeast bread.

3. Good Times and Adventures

Beginning the winter before my Mother's death, when I was thirteen, there were many little "parties" through the neighbor¬hood, always attended by such refreshments as children from 12 to 17 enjoy, usually pumpkin, or other kinds of pie, sometimes two kinds, with cheese, doughnuts or popcorn balls, or bread and butter spread with some kind of preserve, but always frankly welcome. We played Blindman's Buff, Drop the Handkerchief, "Prince William was King James' son and from that royal race has sprung," Twirl the Platter, Going to Jeruselem, and so on. "Kissing games?" Certainly, just as innocent as a baby's kiss, but when a boy who had a "forfeit" to pay of "Bow to the witties¬t, kneel to the prettiest, and kiss the one you love the best," stopped right in front of you to fulfill his stunt, of course a thrill went with it. At one of the parties at our home, Emory Eggleston, a neighbor, and one of the older boys, drew me down for a moment upon his lap. My mother noticed it, and afterward told me it wasn't nice to sit on a young man's lap and I must never do it again. I never did.

That same winter my first beau appeared. I remember abso¬lutely nothing about him save that his name was Elijah and we walked sedately down the road till we reached my father's gate. I am sure I was not a precocious child and there must have been a scarcity of young ladies in the community that winter or young sisters of my age would not be invited to parties. I remember one stormy evening a very popular new comer in the neighborhood was absent from a certain party. Great disappointment was expressed and two of the boys one of them being my brother Matthew were selected to go to her home and escort her to the party. She lived less than a mile away, but whether her parents thought two boys too many for an escort or it was really too stormy for such a walk, they refused to allow her to go out and the boys returned quite crest fallen.

We were not a dancing crowd but one evening Emory Eggleston started the Virginia Reel into which I was drawn with uncertain feet; it was not a success, but years afterward Mr. Gillespie, a teacher of the Deaf in the Institution at Council Bluffs said. "I wonder you never learned to dance: it is in your heels!" Well this is my confession: I always wanted to dance but the environ¬ment and opportunity were against me. And if I had been a dancing girl I should probably have married a dancing man, not a religious min¬ded one like my beloved husband and so missed being Mother to my three splendid sons and incomparable daughter HELEN.

I have a recollection of one bright moonlight evening when over the crisp hard snow we went from house to house in the neighborhood singing simple Christmas carols.

As we grew older our fun changed to boating, skating, sleighing, buggy riding, and best of all horseback riding, for I was ever a passionate lover of this sport. My children will remember how I used to skim about on the long bodied superbly gaited chestnut, in Jacksonville; and later how both Mother and daughter Helen, in Montana, enjoyed "Dixie," Rob's little saddle mare, the most satisfactory creature I ever rode.

	Spelling schools started me on the commendable ambition of becoming a good speller and singing schools gave me my rudimen¬tary lessons in singing. Talk about the disadvantages of country life! There are most glorious advantages    tho perhaps not in all communities,    for those who are eager to use them, as we were.

Many outdoor games contributed to our good times. Sometimes it was "Ant'ny Over," when we would divide our forces, half on either side of the house which was not very big, toss the ball over and whoever caught it would race around and hit one on the other side, thus gaining a recruit for their side. The thrill was in standing breathless, on one foot, to see around which corner the enemy would appear, or if the ball would be tossed back. Another game was "Bull Pen," simple and not to be compared to base ball, which we knew nothing about, but which was very popular with the youngsters.

And the wood pile I doubt if there was one to compare in the neighborhood. My father with his thrifty New England ways and his two big boys and sometimes the girls worked so zealously that before winter came the wood pile, all ready for stoves, loomed up big as a haystack.

Sometimes when the men came in from the hayfield tired, the girls would slip out to do the milking, tho it was not my father's code to have the women do the milking.

One morning early Lyra and I started out with our pails for blackberries. But before we reached the patch we saw a woodchuck chattering up a tree. Here was adventure! We were going to have that woodchuck! So one of us led the gentlest horse up close under the tree, stood on her back and poked chuckie down. The other on the ground with a club soon finished him. We felt little murderers yes, but trotted proudly home with our prize tied to the saddle bow, minus the blackberries.

I have before spoken of the singing and spelling schools which were the joy of our winter evenings, and I can truly say a very important part of my early education. A travelling singing teacher or even a qualified native, would post a notice for a certain evening and the schoolhouse would be filled. Then using the wide black board with help of that mysterious little instru¬ment the tuning fork, and the quaint syllables, do re me fa sol la, he would give those of us who were musically inclined our very first lessons in the mystery of music and harmony.

And the spelling schools! What thrills! The old Noah Webster blue backed spelling book had its innings then. A crowded house and two lines of eager young people standing on their toes to catch the fateful word that meant discomfiture or a glorious triumph! A double blessing on those old fashioned spelling schools, I say!

Why are the best of these old traditions of 80 years ago allowed to fall into desuetude to the everlasting detriment of the youngste¬rs of today?

I was introduced into "Society" about two years earlier than most young ladies, having on my 16th birthday won first prize in horseback riding at our County Fair. The prize was $5.00 which I immediately presented to my dear father in the shape of a comfortable rocking chair. The horse I rode was our seasoned old Dolly, with only a narrow stip of leather around her belly under which I slipped my right hand and guided her with my left. Sister Lyra rode the same animal at County Fair and won the same prize again the following year. My contestants were a married woman, Mrs. McAffee, and a rather haughty appearing young woman whose name I do not recall. I understood afterward they did not consider it a fair test of horsemanship and at this distance in time I am inclined to agree with them, for much as I loved flowing skirts and side saddles afterward this performance must have seemed more like a circus stunt than a true test to these women. I can only account for the judges' decision in this way. For several years the motherless McCurdy children had been protegees, if I may use the term, of the Congregational Church of which four of us were members. Our beloved pastor, John H. Windsor, was giving Lurandus and Matthew their first lessons in Latin, for Matthew was looking forward to the ministry. Every good woman in the church mothered and helped us girls in every way, even coming out to sew for us. One of the judges, Addison Daniels, was of the same fold and probably felt the older equestrians could stand disappointment better than these "daring little girls". At any rate my success made plenty of good times for me for the next two years. This was in September 1860. After that came those fatal war days and turned our joy into tears.

While Frank was still a little fellow of ten or so, he was playing one day with a young colt, like his brother Matthew back in New Hampshire, and the animal kicked him square upon the right eye. It was bleeding profusely and we hurriedly sent for Dr. Ristine thinking the eye was ruined, but the tiny hoof had cupped itself completely round it and the eyeball was not injured, tho the large scar underneath remained all his life. A year or two later poor little Frank was to have his big final test of fortitude. Scarlet fever came into the family. Lurandus and Frank were the only ones who suffered, tho Theresa had something like diptheria at the same time. Probably because of our extreme ignorance and youth, Frank must have taken cold, and the dread disease settled in his leg below the knee and became eventually a permanent disease of the bone. The poor boy suffered much and later, when about 18, father sent him to Chicago to consult a physician, but what could the poor boy do, alone, with little money and no pull? I have been told he did find a physician who scraped the bone and wished to keep on but father was unable to finance it. He came home and accepted the burden of a life time; but he was brave as boy and man, and thro his own indomitable spirit and the help of a wife equally devoted, became in spite of his handicap more prosperous than any other member of his family. While Lue was still convalescent from scarlet fever, a merry party of us went up to Center Point to visit "Aunt Phylinda" and her husband, Byron Brainerd, and incidentally have a boat ride on the Cedar River. It was too bad to leave Lue alone but he would have us go. Mary Brainard and George Wynn were of the party, others I do not recall. While we were boating on a sort of lagoon of the Cedar River, there was a slight commotion and looking around I saw just the soles of Mary's shoes showing above the water. She had somehow fallen overboard head first and apparently stood on the bottom, heels up. Matthew and George sprang into the water and soon had her in the boat again, headed for the river bank. We hung "on a hickory limb' such clothes as she could spare, wrapped her in a big comfort to dry and keep warm, while we went back to our fun until dinner time, again thoughtlessne¬ss of youth! No harm came to Mary.

The discovery of gold near Pike's Peak, Colorado, that year before the war caused great excitement and brought adventure to Brother Lue. Altho only 19 he had persuaded father to allow him to join a neighbor, Waite, by name, in an expedition to this point, Lue to furnish wagon and his share of supplies, Waite and son the horses. It seems, to look back from this distance in time, an adventure full of peril and uncertainty but we young¬sters were probably as full of enthusiasm as Lue himself. In the little trunk which father carried as a valise on his travels, still in my possession, is a tiny bible which brother Matthew carried thro his year in the army. On the fly leaf is written in his own handwriting and much faded now, the day Lue started and the chapter read at family prayers that morning, for my two brothers, since mother's death, held that service, father sitting reverently and quietly by. Lue went off with many kisses and tearful goodbyes on what turned out to be a most inglorious enterprise. After long days and weeks of travel over heavy roads, under burning skies, when they were far out on the Nebraska prairies, more than half way to the goal, Mr. Waite, the "man" of the trio, grew discouraged and refused to go any farther. Brother Lue pleaded in vain to go on, but whatever his reasons, Waite was obdurate and threatened to cut loose the horses with his own supplies and ride away with his son. The fellow seemed quite equal to carrying out his threat, and the picture of himself sitting far out on the Nebraska prairie on top of his sacks of flour in the horseless wagon was too much for the boy even with his saving sense of humor, and he perforce gave in. He was always something of a philosopher and years afterward, in writing of the heart breaking struggles and failures of pioneer life in Dakota, he said "But Mary, I always land on my feet". So I don't imagine this incident made much impression on his life except as some¬thing to smile at.

4. Church and School

Before mother's death she had interested us older children in revival services conducted by Rev. Mr. DeWitt, of the Baptist Church, her pastor. Owing to the deep seated objections of my father to the creed of that denomination, i.e. shutting out all from communion who had not been immersed, none of us had as yet united with any church. After her death, probably with father's full approbation, four of us Lue, Matthew, Lyra and I, became members of the Congregational Church, of which the Rev. Mr. Ross was pastor at the time, Mr. Windsor soon succeeding him.

There were revival services being held in Marion one winter and, longing to have father one with his family, I crept up to his bedside one evening, he retired early on account of sciatica pains, and asked timidly if he would not go to church with us the next day. This was the answer he gave me. "No Mary. When I was about 30 years old I was convicted of sin but I resisted the call and now it is too late". Poor Father! No wonder he often seemed to be living under a shadow! Full of compass¬ion I would sometimes steal up and give him a quiet kiss; on one of these occasions Lyra seeing me exclaimed "Mary! I wish I could do that." But tho my father was not a professing Christia¬n, better still, he was one in his every day life.

Both father and mother, and their own children as well, were born into a heritage of "singing voices," father having been a choir leader and teacher of country singing schools, and mother one of four singing sisters. Both were familiar with choir singing. I well remember seeing them both standing in the "choir gallery" of the Baptist church in Marion, singing the old hymns already so dear to the child of 13. And right here is a good time to tell the humiliating story of my own entrance into public choir work. It was before Matthew left home, and two brothers, Dan and Ithamar Whipple, were members of our Congregational Church choir, Dan being the leader. We were so eager to be practicing and learning that Matthew had asked Dan if we might join the choir. Of course he said "Yes" and we were happy and proud enough. But one night in my enthusiasm my voice landed loud and clear on middle C when it should have been somewhere else and I landed alone! Dan dropped his baton with an astonished "Well!" while his twinkling eye sought out the humiliated culprit. It never happened again and I think we must have all made good. Little Mrs. Nye, mother of Charles, one of my Sunday School pupils, said once to me "I think your sister Lyra has such a very sweet voice." I might have asked Dan what he thought of mine!

For one summer of this period I gathered in all the kinder¬gar¬ten children of the neighborhood, tho we did not call it by that name then, Ida Metcalf, our Willie, Oliver Eggleston's four little girls, Willie and Jimmy Bowman and Mary, and as they leaned upon my knees, taught them for 50 or 75 cents a months their A B C's and the beginning of little words, with little songs and Bible stories for Sundays. I loved it, and the parents seemed to appreciate it, so much so that Mr. Bowman, physically generous in body and equally generous in spirit, sent down one day by Jimmie a five dollar bill. From some strange psychology of my make up, was it over humilty? that I cannot under¬stand to this day, I sent the money back, afterward to learn to my chagrin it was meant for the purchase of picture cards for the little ones. The money was never proffered again. It was in the following winter, I believe, that this bit of teaching was followed by more public work. I was engaged to teach a term in the little school house across Indian creek, thro the woods near O. N. Brainard's. I walked back and forth crossing the slippery log but never losing foot hold, and I built my own fires and carried the kindling wood. For this work I received the magnifi¬cent sum of $14.00 per month which was probably all my infantile efforts deserved tho I worked most conscientiously.

In the fall of 1861 it was decided that Matthew should go to school at Hopkinton, Delaware County. It was called Bowen Collegiate Institute, a small college in a small town, having as Principal the Rev. Jeroma Allen, brother in law of our pastor, Rev. John Windsor, who had already started Matthew in Latin. I don't know how it came about but I fancy that devoted older brother Lue had induced father to send me with Matthew for a term or two, so I went off to the Hopkinton with him. I was at this time not quite 17. Father went East that fall on business of his own, but I was so homesick for the baby and the rest of the family that all my happiness was centered in Matthew. He would always come for me at my boarding house for prayer meetings and when he could not go, I went to his room in the college where we happily popped corn and studied. My evenings were mostly spent in his room where I was always happy. I recall only two young men who had the slightest interest for me, Willie Peek, who enlisted that very fall and was killed, and Merritt Harmon, son of the retired minister with whom I boarded. I corresponded with Merritt Harmon during war time but afterwards we lost track of each other. Not till 45 years later did we hear of each other again. I recall also but two girl chums, Sarah Carter, whose auburn hair curled tight up to its very roots and always hung in tight ringlets and whom I never saw afterwards. The other was Lucinda Diffendaffer, six months older than I, whom I met again 45 years later at a gathering of old students of Hopkinton College, one of the many meetings called by inimitable Charles Parsons known of all who attend state societies in Los Angeles. Because of his suggestion that everyone give her maiden name, Lucinda, now Mrs. L. L. Luther and I found each other. We had several very pleasant years of companionship until she was stricken with an illness and died in the Glendale Hospital in Glendale, California before I even knew she was ill. This was a great blow to me for we had become much attached to each other. It was Lucinda who told me of Merritt Harmon, that he had become an officer in the army, been elected to the Iowa State legisla¬ture and was living in Marshalltown, Iowa. A few pleasant letters passed between us before I heard that he, too had answered the last call.

I was at Hopkinton only the fall term, until Christmas. During this time Myrtie Vaughn was my one dearest friend and roommate. Following this we had several years of happy times together. Our crowd included Cam Vaughn, her brother, Clark Dodd, George Wynn, and my brothers until the summer of 1862. There were boat rides, sleigh rides, evening parties, horseback rides, etc. Once on the impulse of the moment, Myrtie and I started on a wild horseback race. Our mounts were no thorough ¬br¬eds but they were as keen for a race as we were, and we were having a glorious time when, suddenly, from somewhere, Cam appeared, seized our bridlereins, and gave us a good scolding. "You crazy girls, you might have had your necks broken!" We took it meekly but laughed inside over the fun we had had.

Our old neighbors the O. N. Brainerds and their daughter Mary had recently moved from our community to Chicago, where they lived on Troop Street just off Madison, on the west side. I cannot be sure just when it was but probably in the fall of '62, they invited me to go to Chicago, stay a year with them, and go to school with Mary. This was delightful for me. The work was hardly more than first year High School if that, for my brief term at Hopkinton had not carried me far. I was anything but brilliant in mathemat¬ics. My teacher gave me high marks in composition and other studies I loved, but I was very stupid in arithmetic and algebra with averages sadly pulled down in consequence. My memories of Chicago are of a very different place than the city of today. But nothing stands out very distinctly in my picture of the city except the appearance of Madison Street. Its sidewalks were uneven, two or three steps up and then down again and were made mostly of boards, while the meanest, dirtiest little saloons lined the street on both sides.

A keen appreciation of the old saying "Providence takes care of children and fools" comes to me as I think of an evening when I had arrived from Iowa late. It was about dark and thinking I knew the locality well and being frugal of necessity, I started to walk to Throop Street which was then well out on the prairie. But I became confused, lost my bearings and found myself wander¬ing among dark warehouses. I was thoroughly alarmed and seeing one lone man on the street inquired the way out. He showed me the way and I was soon with my friends, the Brainerds, again. But I have often thought of that night with a shudder, a young girl alone and helpless at night on the streets of Chicago in its rough days of 70 years ago and more.

Chapter III

SHADOWED YEARS

1. War Times

Meantime Matthew's year at Hopkinton had passed. Lincoln was calling for "300,000" more; tension was high and excitement everywhere. Lurandus and Matthew enlisted in August in 1862 in the same Company H. 20th Iowa Infantry, under Capt. Gray whose wife had always been so kind to Lyra and me. Everybody was going to war. The boys, Henry Wallace, Cam Vaughn, George Wynn and Clark Dodd, with whom we had been having such gay times, would come over to call. Lyra and I would try bravely to sing with them the stirring popular songs of war, "Rally round the flag, boys" "Battle cry of freedom" "O, you'll not forget me, mother," etc. but it was useless. We had to slip into the bed room so often to hide our tears, we finally gave it up. Oh! the tender messages, the useless and ridiculous little things we tucked into their knapsacks, anything to show our love for these idolized brothers. Then we all went together to see them off, the railroad coming no farther west at that time than Cedar Rapids. There a great crowd gathered, with tears, heart breaks and cheers for the Union. As the train moved away I saw Matthew's face in a window searching eagerly, my heart told me, for one more glimpse of the face that had become especially dear to him. We waved and tossed our arms frantically to get one more glimpse of recognition from those dear eyes we were never to look into again, but the train moved slowly on. The great crowd surged about and hid us from each other and we turned sadly away homeward, the broken family, never to be reunited again.

The following summer came the siege of Vicksburg and the unhealthy work in the swamps and trenches. Both brothers were taken very ill. They floated down the river, getting their first taste of ripe figs, to Camp Carrollton, on Lake Ponchartrain, about 12 miles from New Orleans. Here Matthew died on September 3rd, 1863, of chronic dysentery. His last words, "It is alright, it is all for the best", showed the consistently Christian spirit that had guided him since our mother's death. Indeed, I think it was always his spirit, as shown in the faraway New Hampshire boyhood, for the brother of one of my schoolmates told Helen when we visited there in 1906, "The teacher would let us sit beside Matthew when we were good, because he was always kind to the little ones." Both boys had been promised their furloughs and were eagerly looking homeward when the steamer arrived, but Matthew was dying. The surgeon told Lue he must go on that boat at once or he would never get home. He went on board as the dear brother breathed his last and the faithful friend, Clark Dodd, closed his eyes and followed him to the grave. He now lies in the beautiful cemetery at Arlington Heights, Washington. But father! When Lue reached home, father's first words were "Where is Matthew?" It was a heavy blow and I think he always grieved for him afterwards.

After the second year of the dreadful war not one of our chums was left at home. Lyra and I like other girls learned to harness the horses to the big wagon and drive alone when neces¬sary. We both belonged to the "Good Templar" lodge and drove or walked the one mile alone, or sometimes on horseback. There was one young man, John Greer, who was also a member, the only one I knew who had not enlisted. His sister Jennie, a very sweet girl was a favorite with us, but I was a radical. In my blind patriotism and ignorance I could see no reason why he should not enlist as my brothers and other friends had. One day I found a poem entitled "The stay at home Ranger, Sweet Little Man," I committed it to memory and one night at Lodge recited the whole thing straight at him. Poor young man! for how should I know, he might have had the best reasons in the world for not enlisting and probably did. How he must have suffered! It was diabolical. Only a year or so later I was quite indignantly shocked when brother Lue told me that the southern "Ladies" on the streets of New Orleans spit upon the union soldiers. But this was not one whit worse than my treatment of the luckless young man. I don't know what became of Johnny Greer, but at this late day I take a retributive delight in laying the rod over my own shoulders for the meanness that was in me then in those early days.

I was in Chicago at the time of Matthew's death but returned at once and was soon engaged in teaching at St. George between Marion and Cedar Rapids. With the close of the term a great thrill came to me. Mrs. Stevens, one of our early church friends, knowing of my great desire since Matthew's death to be doing something tangible in work for soldiers, and thinking me older than I really was, had sent my name to Mrs. Annie Wittenmeyer who was then organizing diet kitchens for the comfort of our sol¬diers. Soon after there came to me a hasty note torn from the corner of a coarse business ledger, an order to report at once at headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky. This scrap of paper precious as tho embossed in gold, I kept for twelve years, until it was burned in the fire that destroyed our home in Council Bluffs, Iowa in 1877.

I had taken my responsibilities as teacher very seriously and this, with my share of house work and the long tiring walks to school (I sometimes rode our faithful old Dolly and then sent her home again), above all, grieving for my beloved brother Matthew and anxiety for Lue, still in the army, had lowered my vitality and caused some fear for my health. Thus it was not thought best for me to undertake the strenuous work mapped out for me in the south, and Dr. Ristine, our family physician advised a rest. I was soon on my way to Chicago for another visit.

Before I leave these Civil War memories I must add a word about our feeling for Lincoln. The great change of sentiment that took place was reflected in my father's attitude. If there is one thing more than another that just happened in my life of which I am proud, it is that my father was born in the same year as Abraham Lincoln. All thro the War, with my older brothers away in the army, father and I companioned much together. Even before its outbreak we discussed politics and followed pretty closely the trend of public affairs, and when the announcement came that Abraham Lincoln had been nominated for President, there came such a look of surprise, disappointment, even sorrow, into my father's face, and in a voice of deepest consternation he exclaimed, "That unknown man!" But in the agonized years that followed we came so to lean upon and love and trust that unknown man that when, one Saturday morning the black news came that Lincoln was assassina¬ted, the tears streamed down my father's face as I had never seen him weep before or since. It was as if the heavens were falling.

                  2. Storm and Stress For Me

On that train ride from Cedar Rapids to Chicago in 1864 began the acquaintance which ushered in the fateful period of my life which I now record. I was not long seated when two men just in front of me began to drink and flourish their bottles. I had known nothing of drinking men and their habits but I was a "Good Templar," and so, indignant and rather uneasy, I rose and began to look about for another seat. Just then down the aisle toward me came a gentleman who had seen it all and invited me to a seat facing him. I gratefully accepted and immediately we were in earnest conversation, the unsophisticated, uneducated little country girl, and the traveled, cultivated gentleman. I was in mourning which, with the story of my brothers and the disappoint¬ment I had just suffered, called out his quick sympathy. We talked of the war, of books, I was then reading "Aurora Leigh," or was it "Lucile?" of Dickens, Shakespeare, music, tho I was the merest beginner in the latter. The hours passed swiftly. He had to stop at Dixon, Illinois to visit a friend of brilliant mind but hopelessly addicted to drink. He left me with one or two volumes of poems he had with him and when he had said "Goodbye" and stepped off into the night I felt that I had lost a friend. Months later I found in "Festus" a book he had been reading, the real expression of my feeling that night,

    "Ships that pass in the night,   we meet, greet each other

     and pass on."

My month's stay in Chicago visiting, with skating, of which I was very fond, concerts, lectures, had given me renewed vitality and strength. I returned home to take up my new work, teaching in the graded schools of Marion with 85 names on my roll. I had often thought of the railway episode and the stranger, Mr. W. Edwin Foote, who had made the night so pleasant for me, but I was completely unprepared for the surprise that awaited me on my return home, a most courteous and deferential letter from him asking if I would correspond with him. He had been in Chicago during the month and half hoped we might meet, but not knowing my city address could only wait and address me at Marion. What girl of twenty would not be flattered, and if at all conscientious, a little startled at such a request? He told me afterward when he asked me to call him "friend" instead of "Mister," that "I reminded him of a shy bird that liked him, but was afraid to come too near."

This correspondence was continued for a year and a half, increasing in interest and frequency of letters. He had a brilliant mentality and high ideals, and his letters were eloquent and beautiful in language far above anything I had experienced before. Often there would come a classical publica¬tion which he admired, a volume of poems, or music, only three pieces of which I now recall, "Lorena," "Evangeline," and "Harp of the Wild Winds." The latter was an exquisite song but with accompaniment so difficult I could never play it. All were lost in the fire of 1877 in the Institution for the Deaf and Dumb at Council Bluffs.

My school work with a room full of eighty five little children left me tired at the end of the day, of course; but about two days in every week I took home a wonderful letter which made the whole evening radiant. One June day it was in 1866 Mr. Foote came to see me. He was on a trip with his sister and family, a Mrs. Thayer, whose husband at that time was President of the Female Academy in Jacksonville, Illinois, the very city which was later to be my home for many years. I had feared that the extreme plainess of my country home, with its utter lack of all artistic surroundings outside and only a crude homely comfort within, would repel him. My father had but a small farm of 80 acres, with seven children and no wife, little chance here for aesthetics! But after the journey was over the correspondence went on as usual, only with a deeper intensity of expression on his part. I am dazed now after 70 years at his expressions of regard. He asked if he might come again. Now I began to be startled, and asked myself, "what is this leading to?"

We had met but twice; never a tender word or caress had passed between us. I do not think I was in love with him, tho his personality was very pleasant; but I was in a glow from his poetic spirit, the always pure and fascinating imagery of his letters, his understanding sympathy, and above all, perhaps, from the subtle influence of the thought that so brilliant a man should pourout all this richness upon me. But underlying every¬thing in my own mind was that feeling ( I can name it now) called the inferiority complex. I kept thinking, "If he does love me now, how can it last? After awhile, would he not waken to find that he had married an untrained, undeveloped little girl with only an eager questing spirit and high ideals, instead of a richly developed mature woman of his own age who could interpret his glorious music for him as I cannot, maybe never could, one far above me in the accomplishments of social life. And then, would there not come reaction?" So I thought, and I was afraid for us both. Not realizing what it would mean, I said, "It must not go on."

So when the plain country boy from the harvest field, from whence he had seen us that day on the prairie, came to me and said he loved me and asked me to marry him, what could I do? I had said ever since the War broke out I would marry none but a soldier. Clark Dodd was the dear soldier friend who had sat by my beloved brother Matthew, heard his last whispered words, "It is all right, it is all for the best" and had followed him to his soldier's grave. But I was honest with him; I told him there was someone I cared for but it was best for me to forget. Ah, if either he or I had guessed how deep was that caring years of sadness and pain would have been spared us both. For good and true as Clark was, he could never refill the nectared cup that had been so overflowingly pressed to my lips by another.

When I told Edwin Foote I could go on no longer, there had come a passionate and pleading letter with his bewildered "Why?" When I gave the somewhat lame reply that I had just promised to marry a soldier, his heartbroken letters became almost reproach¬ful. "How could I wreck two lives" he wrote, for he had guessed that I did not love my soldier. But how could I reply, "If you had told me sooner that you loved me, it might have been differ¬ent." It was true, he had poured out his soul for me, had told me of the "glorious joys and glorious sorrows of his life," had in unstinted words expressed his admiration and praise for me, but he had never said, "I love you: will you marry me?" At this crisis in my affairs both Mrs. Stevens and Mrs. Witten-meyer came again upon the scene. The latter, since the close of the war had organized an Orphan's Home for the children of soldiers at Davenport, Iowa, remodeling the barracks there into cottages. Both Myrtie Vaughn and I were offered positions, Myrtie to teach and I to have charge of a cottage full of little boys. I eagerly accepted the change and we left home at once. Heavy hearted and sad, I mothered my little boys, washing and scrubbing and combing many a tousled head. At Sunday School I played the hymns on a little melodion on the bottom of which my knees, in my first stagefright, played a tattoo as my feet tapped the pedals. But I soon got over that and how I loved those beautiful little songs printed in leaflets by Root and Cady. I remember but two, the "O, I love to think of Jesus as he walked beside the sea," and these verses.

In the pastures green of the better land Where never is heat or cold, Where the light of life is the Shepard's smile, Are the lamps of the upper fold; There are tiny mounds where the hopes of earth Are laid 'neath the tear wet sod, But the light that paled on the stricken hearth Was joy to the Sons of God. Oh the white stone beareth a new name now, That never on earth was told.

Later on when domiciled in the Institute for the Deaf at Iowa City, Mrs. Talbot the wife of the Superintendent used to steal into the parlor at twilight and beg me to sing over and again, "Oh the white stone beareth a new name now, That never on earth was told." She had lost two little ones and the song had a wonderful charm for her.

But I must go on, tho unwillingly, with the pitiful story of my still undisciplined life, if this is to be a true memoir, as memoirs should be.

One day I was taken down with an infection of the eye. For a week I lay in a darkened room suffering intensely from inflama¬tion of the left optic nerve. When I recovered and was able to walk up to the dining room for my meals my head and left eye were swathed in bandages. I went to my usual seat at a corner end of the long table, and was hardly seated when Mrs. Wittenmeyer came in with a young man and placed him at the very end close to me. I had heard there was a new steward named Vanderberg, young and handsome, but it meant nothing to me. I heard that he played cards, drank beer, and danced with the younger ladies, who were wild about him; also that he was a Democrat, and I believed a Democrat could never go to heaven! I had never known such a man, for all those practices were taboo to the little girl of Puritan New England training. How could I dream that the great tragedy of my life was to come thro him? Was it Fate or Providence? Are we led or are we allowed to follow our own rash impulses, without God's guiding care? We had seen but little of each other when he came one night to my door with the astounding question upon his lips, "Will you marry me?" I said "No, I cannot marry you, I am already engaged." "But you don't love him" was the quick response. How did he know? Again I said "I cannot marry you," and he turned away into the night.

George Wynn had just written asking me to marry him. George was one of the close circle of friends as was Clark Dodd and this only added to my distractions. For I did not wish to marry; I wanted only to keep my friends by me. But men want marriage or nothing, so I lost another friend. Girls like me are generally called heartless coquettes. It was not heartlessness in my case, rather too much heart; and we pay for our softness in good measure, pressed down and running over. Better far to say no at once.

Haunted by memories of the year I had just put behind me, unable to give Clark the love and loyalty he deserved, too proud to admit to Edwin Foote the state of my mind, I passed a dreary week when again George Vanderberg, distraught and wild looking, appeared with the same question, "Will you marry me?" With my bridges all burned behind me, and nothing to cling to, life a dead blank before me, not thinking in my selfishness what life would mean to him if I married him without love, but thinking only, "he will take me away where I can forget" and, above all, forgetting to keep hold of my Heavenly Father's hand, I said recklessly, "Yes, I will marry you."

Why must young people of certain temperaments be so dispair¬ing because joy seems to have passed them by for the moment, when a whole lifetime of happiness may be waiting for them just beyond the present Slough of Despond? Some will also say, "why do you write this painful story of your own weakness, cut it out!" But I reply, "If among my numerous nephews, nieces, and great grandchildren there is just one of my own temperament, who thro reading this story will be saved from what I suffered, this baring of my heart will not be in vain."

I had thought that we would be married at once and get away from everything. But we were not married until the following May, 1867. My thoughtful Father had said that if I was to be married I must come home for the ceremony. It was a most quiet wedding in our own little home, not a guest outside our own family present. I was in no mood for publicity or display for my dearest friends were estranged from me because of Clark. As events proved George Vanderberg had more reason for shunning it than I. We spent one week in Chicago where for the first time I saw ballet dancers. I was ashamed and averted my face; my husband only laughed at me and said he had seen the "Black Crook" played naked in New York. Instead of going back to his home in Pawlings on the Hudson river, we returned to a hotel in Davenport, altho we no longer had any connection with the Orphan's Home. One day he came to the room, eyes bloodshot, and asked if I would not like a ride. I thought he was ill, but he said not and we started. The buggy was one of those airy looking up to date affairs with only a small iron rod around the seat for protection, and the horse a handsome dapple grey and I loved horses! The beautiful animal stepped off briskly gaining in speed as we passed the suburbs, then sprang into a gallop! Suddenly my husband toppled from his seat and fell to the ground, dragging the lines with him. There were many trees scattered along the open road, and helpless, dreading to be dashed against them, I jumped, falling heavily upon my right hand. The friends on whom we were calling, Dr. and Mrs. Parvin, urged me to remain with them overnight thinking it too dangerous to ride back behind that horse. But I was suffering from my injured hand, and had no fear of the animal so we returned to town.

A few days after this episode George came up one morning and throwing himself upon the bed, fell into a heavy sleep. When the dinner gong rang I tried to waken him. He stirred unconsciously in his sleep and swore at me. Dumbfounded I stood looking down at him for a minute when, like a flash out of the blue, came the revelation that must have been patent to others, he was drunk! I asked him once why a person of his tastes ever sought me. "Because you were different from any girl I ever knew" was the answer.

The end came not long after. I was lying down one afternoon nursing a slight headache when Dr. Cochran, Superintendent of the Home called. He laid his hand gently on my head and said, "I have some bad news for you. George Vanderberg was a married man when he came to Iowa, to get a divorce. We hear that he has just received it from the court in Muscatine." At that moment the guilty man walked in. To my agonized question, "Oh why did you do it" he answered quietly. "Because I was afraid you would never marry me if you knew." I sank into a chair and sobbed in a perfect agony of grief. Had I, Mary McCurdy, come to this! He had been carrying the papers in his pocket several days, lacking the courage to tell me.

We went immediately to a Justice of the Peace and were remarried, but in those few minutes my mind was irrevocably made up; instead of going back with him I went straight to the Home with my friend The Superintendent. He came out next day, pleading for forgiveness and for me to come back to him his wife; but I was adamant, tho it seemed that my heart would break. Bear with me children! I was only human and there was nothing to which I could cling. But those few weeks had taught me many things. I knew I should never trust him again, that return¬ing t