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There is a theory that every seven years
each human being undergoes a complete physical reconstruction, with corresponding changes
in his mental and spiritual make-up. Possibly it
was due to this reconstruction that, at the end of
seven years on Cape Cod, my soul sent forth a sudden
call to arms. I was, it reminded me, taking life
too easily; I was in danger of settling into an
agreeable routine. The work of my two churches made little
drain on my superabundant vitality, and not even the
winning of a medical degree and the increasing
demands of my activities on the lecture platform
wholly eased my conscience. I was happy, for I loved my
people and they seemed to love me. It would have
been pleasant to go on almost indefinitely,
living the life of a country minister and telling myself
that what I could give to my flock made such a life
worth while. But all the time, deep in my heart, I
realized the needs of the outside world, and heard its
prayer for workers. My theological and medical courses
in Boston, with the experiences that
accompanied them, had greatly widened my horizon. Moreover,
at my invitation, many of the noble women of the
day were coming to East Dennis to lecture, bringing
with them the stirring atmosphere of the conflicts
they were waging. One of the first of these was my
friend Mary A. Livermore; and after her came Julia
Ward Howe, Anna Garlin Spencer, Lucy Stone, Mary
F. Eastman, and many others, each charged with
inspiration for my people and with a special
message for me, which she sent forth unknowingly and
which I alone heard. They were fighting great
battles, these women--for suffrage, for temperance, for
social purity--and in every word they uttered I
heard a rallying-cry. So it was that, in 1885, I
suddenly pulled myself up to a radical decision and
sent my resignation to the trustees of the two
churches whose pastor I had been since 1878.
The action caused a demonstration of regret which made it hard to keep to my resolution
and leave these men and women whose friendship
was among the dearest of my possessions. But
when we had all talked things over, many of them saw
the situation as I did. No doubt there were
those, too, who felt that a change of ministry would be
good for the churches. During the weeks that
followed my resignation I received many odd tributes,
and of these one of the most amusing came from a young girl in the parish, who broke into
loud protests when she heard that I was going away. To
comfort her I predicted that she would now have
a man minister--doubtless a very nice man. But
the young person continued to sniffle disconsolately. ``I don't want a man,'' she wailed. ``I
don't like to see men in pulpits. They look so
awkward.'' Her grief culminated in a final outburst.
``They're all arms and legs!'' she sobbed.
When my resignation was finally accepted,
and the time of my departure drew near, the men
of the community spent much of their leisure in
discussing it and me. The social center of East Dennis
was a certain grocery, to which almost every man
in town regularly wended his way, and from
which all the gossip of the town emanated. Here the
men sat for hours, tilted back in their chairs,
whittling the rungs until they nearly cut the chairs from
under them, and telling one another all they knew
or had heard about their fellow-townsmen. Then,
after each session, they would return home and
repeat the gossip to their wives. I used to say that I
would give a dollar to any woman in East Dennis
who could quote a bit of gossip which did not
come from the men at that grocery. Even my old friend
Captain Doane, fine and high-minded citizen
though he was, was not above enjoying the mild
diversion of these social gatherings, and on one occasion
at least he furnished the best part of the
entertainment.
The departing minister was, it seemed, the
topic of the day's discussion, and, to tease
Captain Doane one young man who knew the strength of his
friendship for me suddenly began to speak, then
pursed up his lips and looked eloquently
mysterious. As he had expected, Captain Doane immediately
pounced on him.
``What's the matter with you?'' demanded the old man. ``Hev you got anything agin Miss Shaw?''
The young man sighed and murmured that if he wished he could repeat a charge never before
made against a Cape Cod minister, but--and he
shut his lips more obviously. The other men, who
were in the plot, grinned, and this added the last
touch to Captain Doane's indignation. He sprang to
his feet. One of his peculiarities was a constant misuse of words, and now, in his excitement, he
outdid himself.
``You've made an incineration against Miss
Shaw,'' he shouted. ``Do you hear--AN
INCINERATION! Take it back or take a lickin'!''
The young man decided that the joke had gone far enough, so he answered, mildly: ``Well,
it is said that all the women in town are in love with
Miss Shaw. Has that been charged against any
other minister here?''
The men roared with laughter, and Captain Doane sat down, looking sheepish.
``All I got to say is this,'' he muttered:
``That gal has been in this community for seven years,
and she 'ain't done a thing during the hull seven
years that any one kin lay a finger on!''
The men shouted again at this back-handed
tribute, and the old fellow left the grocery in
a huff.
Later I was told of the ``incineration'' and
his eloquent defense of me, and I thanked him for
it. But I added: ``I hear you said I haven't done a thing in
seven years that any one can lay a finger on?''
"I said it,'' declared the Captain, ``and
I'll stand by it.''
"Haven't I done any good?'' I asked.
"Sartin you have,'' he assured me,
heartily. "Lots of good.''
"Well,'' I said, "can't you put your
finger on that?''
The Captain looked startled. "Why--why-- Sister Shaw,'' he stammered,
"you know I
didn't mean THAT! What I meant,'' he repeated,
slowly and solemnly, "was that the hull time you been
here you ain't done nothin' anybody could put a
finger on!''
Captain Doane apparently shared my girl
parishioner's prejudice against men in the pulpit,
for long afterward, on one of my visits to Cape Cod,
he admitted that he now went to church very
rarely.
"When I heard you preach,'' he explained,
``I gen'ally followed you through and I knowed
where you was a-comin' out. But these young
fellers that come from the theological school--why,
Sister Shaw, the Lord Himself don't know where they're
comin' out!''
For a moment he pondered. Then he uttered a valedictory which I have always been glad to
recall as his last message, for I never saw him
again.
"When you fust come to us,'' he said, "you
had a lot of crooked places, an' we had a lot of
crooked places; and we kind of run into each other,
all of us. But before you left, Sister Shaw, why,
all the crooked places was wore off and everything
was as smooth as silk.''
"Yes,'' I agreed, "and that was the time
to leave --when everything was running smoothly.''
All is changed on Cape Cod since those days,
thirty years ago. The old families have died or
moved away, and those who replaced them were of a
different type. I am happy in having known and
loved the Cape as it was, and in having gathered
there a store of delightful memories. In later
strenuous years it has rested me merely to think of
the place, and long afterward I showed my continued
love of it by building a home there, which I still
possess. But I had little time to rest in this or in
my Moylan home, of which I shall write later, for now
I was back in Boston, living my new life, and each
crowded hour brought me more to do.
We were entering upon a deeply significant
period. For the first time women were going into
industrial competition with men, and already men were
intensely resenting their presence. Around me
I saw women overworked and underpaid, doing men's work at half men's wages, not because their
work was inferior, but because they were women.
Again, too, I studied the obtrusive problems of the
poor and of the women of the streets; and, looking at
the whole social situation from every angle, I
could find but one solution for women--the removal of
the stigma of disfranchisement. As man's equal
before the law, woman could demand her rights,
asking favors from no one. With all my heart I
joined in the crusade of the men and women who were
fighting for her.
My real work had begun. Naturally, at this period, I frequently met
the members of Boston's most inspiring
group--the Emersons and John Greenleaf Whittier, James
Freeman Clark, Reverend Minot Savage, Bronson
Alcott and his daughter Louisa, Wendell Phillips,
William Lloyd Garrison, Stephen Foster, Theodore
Weld, and the rest. Of them all, my favorite was
Whittier. He had been present at my graduation from the
theological school, and now he often attended
our suffrage meetings. He was already an old man,
nearing the end of his life; and I recall him as
singularly tall and thin, almost gaunt, bending forward as he
talked, and wearing an expression of great serenity
and benignity. I once told Susan B. Anthony
that if I needed help in a crowd of strangers that
included her, I would immediately turn to her, knowing
from her face that, whatever I had done, she would
understand and assist me. I could have offered
the same tribute to Whittier. At our meetings he was
like a vesper-bell chiming above a battle-field.
Garrison always became excited during our
discussions, and the others frequently did; but Whittier, in
whose big heart the love of his fellow-man burned as
unquenchably as in any heart there, always preserved his exquisite tranquillity.
Once, I remember, Stephen Foster insisted on having the word
"tyranny'' put into a
resolution, stating that women were deprived of suffrage
by the TYRANNY of men. Mr. Garrison objected, and
the debate that followed was the most exciting I
have ever heard. The combatants actually had to
adjourn before they could calm down
sufficiently to go on with their meeting. Knowing the
stimulating atmosphere to which he had grown accustomed,
I was not surprised to have Theodore Weld
explain to me; long afterward, why he no longer
attended suffrage meetings.
"Oh,'' he said, "why should I go? There
hasn't been any one mobbed in twenty years!''
The Ralph Waldo Emersons occasionally
attended our meetings, and Mr. Emerson, at first
opposed to woman suffrage, became a convert to it
during the last years of his life--a fact his son and
daughter omitted to mention in his biography. After
his death I gave two suffrage lectures in
Concord, and each time Mrs. Emerson paid for the
hall. At these lectures Louisa M. Alcott graced the
assembly with her splendid, wholesome presence,
and on both occasions she was surrounded by a group
of boys. She frankly cared much more for boys
than for girls, and boys inevitably gravitated to
her whenever she entered a place where they were.
When women were given school suffrage in
Massachusetts, Miss Alcott was the first woman to vote in
Concord, and she went to the polls accompanied by a
group of her boys, all ardently ``for the
Cause.'' My general impression of her was that of a fresh
breeze blowing over wide moors. She was as
different as possible from exquisite little Mrs. Emerson,
who, in her daintiness and quiet charm, suggested
an old New England garden.
Of Abby May and Edna Cheney I retain a
general impression of ``bagginess''--of loose
jackets over loose waistbands, of escaping locks of hair,
of bodies seemingly one size from the neck down. Both women were utterly indifferent to the
details of their appearance, but they were splendid
workers and leading spirits in the New England Woman's
Club. It was said to be the trouble between Abby
May and Kate Gannett Wells, both of whom stood for
the presidency of the club, that led to the
beginning of the anti-suffrage movement in Boston. Abby
May was elected president, and all the
suffragists voted for her. Subsequently Kate Gannett Wells
began her anti-suffrage campaign. Mrs. Wells was
the first anti-suffragist I ever knew in this
country. Before her there had been Mrs. Dahlgren,
wife of Admiral Dahlgren, and Mrs. William Tecumseh
Sherman. On one occasion Elizabeth Cady Stanton
challenged Mrs. Dahlgren to a debate on woman
suffrage, and in the light of later events Mrs.
Dahlgren's reply is amusing. She declined the challenge,
explaining that for anti-suffragists to appear upon a
public platform would be a direct violation of the
principle for which they stood--which was the
protection of female modesty! Recalling this, and the
present hectic activity of the anti-suffragists, one
must feel that they have either abandoned their
principle or widened their views.
For Julia Ward Howe I had an immense admiration; but, though from first to last I saw
much of her, I never felt that I really knew her.
She was a woman of the widest culture, interested in
every progressive movement. With all her big
heart she tried to be a democrat, but she was an
aristocrat to the very core of her, and, despite her
wonderful work for others, she lived in a splendid
isolation. Once when I called on her I found her resting her
mind by reading Greek, and she laughingly
admitted that she was using a Latin pony, adding that she
was growing ``rusty.'' She seemed a little
embarrassed by being caught with the pony, but she must
have been reassured by my cheerful confession
that if _I_ tried to read either Latin or Greek I
should need an English pony.
Of Frances E. Willard, who frequently came
to Boston, I saw a great deal, and we soon
became closely associated in our work. Early in our
friendship, and at Miss Willard's suggestion, we made a
compact that once a week each of us would point
out to the other her most serious faults, and
thereby help her to remedy them; but we were both
too sane to do anything of the kind, and the project
soon died a natural death. The nearest I ever
came to carrying it out was in warning Miss Willard
that she was constantly defying all the laws of
personal hygiene. She never rested, rarely seemed to
sleep, and had to be reminded at the table that she
was there for the purpose of eating food. She
was always absorbed in some great interest, and
oblivious to anything else, I never knew a woman who
could grip an audience and carry it with her as
she could. She was intensely emotional, and swayed
others by their emotions rather than by logic; yet she
was the least conscious of her physical existence of
any one I ever knew, with the exception of Susan B.
Anthony. Like ``Aunt Susan,'' Miss Willard paid no
heed to cold or heat or hunger, to privation or
fatigue. In their relations to such trifles both women were disembodied spirits.
Another woman doing wonderful work at this
time was Mrs. Quincy Shaw, who had recently
started her day nurseries for the care of tenement
children whose mothers labored by the day. These nurseries
were new in Boston, as was the kindergarten
system she also established. I saw the effect of her
work in the lives of the people, and it strengthened my
growing conviction that little could be done for the
poor in a spiritual or educational way until they were
given a certain amount of physical comfort, and
until more time was devoted to the problem of
prevention. Indeed, the more I studied economic issues,
the more strongly I felt that the position of most
philanthropists is that of men who stand at the
bottom of a precipice gathering up and trying to
heal those who fall into it, instead of guarding the top and preventing them from going over.
Of course I had to earn my living; but,
though I had taken my medical degree only a few
months before leaving Cape Cod, I had no intention
of practising medicine. I had merely wished to add
a certain amount of medical knowledge to my
mental equipment. The Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association, of which Lucy Stone was
president, had frequently employed me as a lecturer during
the last two years of my pastorate. Now it
offered me a salary of one hundred dollars a month as a
lecturer and organizer. Though I may not have seemed
so in these reminiscences, in which I have
written as freely of my small victories as of my
struggles and failures, I was a modest young person. The
amount seemed too large, and I told Mrs. Stone as
much, after which I humbly fixed my salary at
fifty dollars a month. At the end of a year of work I
felt that I had ``made good''; then I asked for and
received the one hundred dollars a month originally
offered me.
During my second year Miss Cora Scott Pond
and I organized and carried through in Boston a
great suffrage bazaar, clearing six thousand
dollars for the association--a large amount in those
days. Elated by my share in this success, I asked
that my salary should be increased to one hundred
and twenty-five dollars a month--but this was
not done. Instead, I received a valuable lesson. It
was freely admitted that my work was worth one hundred
and twenty-five dollars, but I was told that one
hundred was the limit which could be paid, and I was
reminded that this was a good salary for a
woman.
The time seemed to have come to make a
practical stand in defense of my principles, and I did
so by resigning and arranging an independent
lecture tour. The first month after my resignation I
earned three hundred dollars. Later I frequently earned
more than that, and very rarely less. Eventually
I lectured under the direction of the Slaton
Lecture Bureau of Chicago, and later still for the
Redpath Bureau of Boston. My experience with the Redpath people was especially gratifying. Mrs.
Livermore, who was their only woman lecturer, was
growing old and anxious to resign her work. She
saw in me a possible successor, and asked them
to take me on their list. They promptly refused,
explaining that I must ``make a reputation'' before
they could even consider me. A year later they
wrote me, making a very good offer, which I
accepted. It may be worth while to mention here that
through my lecture-work at this period I earned all
the money I have ever saved. I lectured night after
night, week after week, month after month, in
``Chautauquas'' in the summer, all over the country in the
winter, earning a large income and putting aside at
that time the small surplus I still hold in
preparation for the ``rainy day'' every working-woman
inwardly fears.
I gave the public at least a fair equivalent
for what it gave me, for I put into my lectures
all my vitality, and I rarely missed an engagement,
though again and again I risked my life to keep
one. My special subjects, of course, were the two I
had most at heart-suffrage and temperance. For
Frances Willard, then President of the Woman's
Christian Temperance Union, had persuaded me to head
the Franchise Department of that organization,
succeeding Ziralda Wallace, the mother of Gen.
Lew Wallace; and Miss Susan B. Anthony, who was
beginning to study me closely, soon swung me
into active work with her, of which, later, I
shall have much to say. But before taking up a subject
as absorbing to me as my friendship for and
association with the most wonderful woman I have ever
known, it may be interesting to record a few of my
pioneer experiences in the lecture-field.
In those days--thirty years ago--the lecture
bureaus were wholly regardless of the comfort
of their lecturers. They arranged a schedule of
engagements with exactly one idea in mind--to get the
lecturer from one lecture-point to the next, utterly
regardless of whether she had time between for rest or
food or sleep. So it happened that all-night
journeys in freight-cars, engines, and cabooses were
casual com- monplaces, while thirty and forty mile
drives across the country in blizzards and bitter cold
were equally inevitable. Usually these things did not
trouble me. They were high adventures which I
enjoyed at the time and afterward loved to recall. But
there was an occasional hiatus in my optimism.
One night, for example, after lecturing in a
town in Ohio, it was necessary to drive eight
miles across country to a tiny railroad station at which
a train, passing about two o'clock in the morning,
was to be flagged for me. When we reached the station
it was closed, but my driver deposited me on the
platform and drove away, leaving me alone. The night
was cold and very dark. All day I had been
feeling ill and in the evening had suffered so much pain
that I had finished my lecture with great
difficulty. Now toward midnight, in this desolate spot,
miles from any house, I grew alarmingly worse. I am
not easily frightened, but that time I was sure
I was going to die. Off in the darkness, very far
away, as it seemed, I saw a faint light, and with
infinite effort I dragged myself toward it. To walk, even
to stand, was impossible; I crawled along the railroad
track, collapsing, resting, going on again,
whipping my will power to the task of keeping my brain
clear, until after a nightmare that seemed to last
through centuries I lay across the door of the
switch-tower in which the light was burning. The
switchman stationed there heard the cry I was able to
utter, and came to my assistance. He carried me up
to his signal-room and laid me on the floor by
the stove; he had nothing to give me except warmth and
shelter; but these were now all I asked. I sank
into a comatose condition shot through with pain. Toward two o'clock in the morning he waked me
and told me my train was coming, asking if I
felt able to take it. I decided to make the effort.
He dared not leave his post to help me, but he
signaled to the train, and I began my progress back to the
station.
I never clearly remembered how I got there;
but I arrived and was helped into a car by a
brakeman. About four o'clock in the morning I had to
change again, but this time I was left at the
station of a town, and was there met by a man whose wife had
offered me hospitality. He drove me to their home,
and I was cared for. What I had, it developed,
was a severe case of ptomaine poisoning, and I
soon recovered; but even after all these years I do
not like to recall that night.
To be ``snowed in'' was a frequent
experience. Once, in Minnesota, I was one of a dozen
travelers who were driven in an omnibus from a country
hotel to the nearest railroad station, about two
miles away. It was snowing hard, and the driver left us
on the station platform and departed. Time passed,
but the train we were waiting for did not come.
A true Western blizzard, growing wilder every
moment, had set in, and we finally realized that the
train was not coming, and that, moreover, it was now
impossible to get back to the hotel. The only thing we
could do was to spend the night in the railroad
station. I was the only woman in the group, and my
fellow-passengers were cattlemen who whiled away
the hours by smoking, telling stories, and
exchanging pocket flasks. The station had a telegraph
operator who occupied a tiny box by himself, and he
finally invited me to share the privacy of his
microscopic quarters. I entered them very gratefully,
and he laid a board on the floor, covered it with
an over-coat made of buffalo-skins, and cheerfully
invited me to go to bed. I went, and slept
peacefully until morning. Then we all returned to the hotel,
the men going ahead and shoveling a path.
Again, one Sunday, I was snowbound in a
train near Faribault, and this time also I was the
only woman among a number of cattlemen. They
were an odoriferous lot, who smoked diligently
and played cards without ceasing, but in deference to
my presence they swore only mildly and under their
breath. At last they wearied of their game, and one
of them rose and came to me.
``I heard you lecture the other night,'' he
said, awkwardly, ``and I've bin tellin' the
fellers about it. We'd like to have a lecture now.''
Their card-playing had seemed to me a sinful thing (I was stricter in my views then than
I am to-day), and I was glad to create a
diversion. I agreed to give them a lecture, and they went
through the train, which consisted of two day
coaches, and brought in the remaining passengers. A few
of them could sing, and we began with a Moody
and Sankey hymn or two and the appealing ditty, ``Where is my wandering boy to-night?'' in
which they all joined with special zest. Then I
delivered the lecture, and they listened attentively.
When I had finished they seemed to think that some
slight return was in order, so they proceeded to
make a bed for me. They took the bottoms out of
two seats, arranged them crosswise, and one man folded
his overcoat into a pillow. Inspired by this,
two others immediately donated their fur overcoats for
upper and lower coverings. When the bed was ready
they waved me toward it with a most hospitable
air, and I crept in between the overcoats and
slumbered sweetly until I was aroused the next morning
by the welcome music of a snow-plow which had been sent from St. Paul to our rescue.
To drive fifty or sixty miles in a day to
meet a lecture engagement was a frequent
experience. I have been driven across the prairies in June
when they were like a mammoth flower-bed, and in
January when they seemed one huge snow-covered grave--my grave, I thought, at times. Once
during a thirty-mile drive, when the thermometer was
twenty degrees below zero, I suddenly realized that
my face was freezing. I opened my satchel, took out
the tissue-paper that protected my best gown,
and put the paper over my face as a veil, tucking it
inside of my bonnet. When I reached my destination
the tissue was a perfect mask, frozen stiff, and
I had to be lifted from the sleigh. I was due
on the lecture platform in half an hour, so I drank
a huge bowl of boiling ginger tea and appeared on
time. That night I went to bed expecting an attack
of pneumonia as a result of the exposure, but I
awoke next morning in superb condition. I possess
what is called ``an iron constitution,'' and in
those days I needed it.
That same winter, in Kansas, I was chased by wolves, and though I had been more or less
intimately associated with wolves in my pioneer
life in the Michigan woods, I found the occasion
extremely unpleasant. During the long winters of
my girlhood wolves had frequently slunk around our
log cabin, and at times in the lumber-camps we
had even heard them prowling on the roofs. But
those were very different creatures from the two
huge, starving, tireless animals that hour after
hour loped behind the cutter in which I sat with
another woman, who, throughout the whole experience, never
lost her head nor her control of our frantic
horses. They were mad with terror, for, try as they
would, they could not outrun the grim things that
trailed us, seemingly not trying to gain on us, but
keeping always at the same distance, with a patience
that was horrible. From time to time I turned to
look at them, and the picture they made as they came
on and on is one I shall never forget. They
were so near that I could see their eyes and slavering
jaws, and they were as noiseless as things in a
dream. At last, little by little, they began to gain
on us, and they were almost within striking distance of
the whip, which was our only weapon, when we
reached the welcome outskirts of a town and they
fell back.
Some of the memories of those days have to
do with personal encounters, brief but
poignant. Once when I was giving a series of Chautauqua
lectures, I spoke at the Chautauqua in Pontiac,
Illinois. The State Reformatory for Boys was situated
in that town, and, after the lecture the
superintendent of the Reformatory invited me to visit it
and say a few words to the inmates. I went and
spoke for half an hour, carrying away a memory of the
place and of the boys which haunted me for
months. A year later, while I was waiting for a train
in the station at Shelbyville, a lad about sixteen
years old passed me and hesitated, looking as if he
knew me. I saw that he wanted to speak and dared not,
so I nodded to him.
``You think you know me, don't you?'' I
asked, when he came to my side.
"Yes'm, I do know you,'' he told me,
eagerly. "You are Miss Shaw, and you talked to us
boys at Pontiac last year. I'm out on parole now,
but I 'ain't forgot. Us boys enjoyed you the best
of any show we ever had!''
I was touched by this artless compliment,
and anxious to know how I had won it, so I
asked, "What did I say that the boys liked?''
The lad hesitated. Then he said, slowly,
"Well, you didn't talk as if you thought we were
all bad.''
"My boy,'' I told him, ``I don't think you
are all bad. I know better!''
As if I had touched a spring in him, the lad dropped into the seat by my side; then,
leaning toward me, he said, impulsively, but almost
in a whisper:
"Say, Miss Shaw, SOME OF US BOYS SAYS OUR
PRAYERS!''
Rarely have I had a tribute that moved me
more than that shy confidence; and often since
then, in hours of discouragement or failure, I have
reminded myself that at least there must have been
something in me once to make a lad of that age so open
up his heart. We had a long and intimate talk,
from which grew the abiding interest I feel in
boys today.
Naturally I was sometimes inconvenienced by slight misunderstandings between local
committees and myself as to the subjects of my
lectures, and the most extreme instance of this occurred in a
town where I arrived to find myself widely
advertised as "Mrs. Anna Shaw, who whistled before
Queen Victoria''! Transfixed, I gaped before the
billboards, and by reading their additional
lettering discovered the gratifying fact that at least
I was not expected to whistle now. Instead, it
appeared, I was to lecture on ``The Missing Link.'' As usual, I had arrived in town only an hour
or two before the time fixed for my lecture;
there was the briefest interval in which to clear up
these painful misunderstandings. I repeatedly tried
to reach the chairman who was to preside at the
entertainment, but failed. At last I went to the
hall at the hour appointed, and found the local
committee there, graciously waiting to receive me.
Without wasting precious minutes in preliminaries, I
asked why they had advertised me as the woman who
had ``whistled before Queen Victoria.''
"Why, didn't you whistle before her?'' they
exclaimed in grieved surprise.
"I certainly did not,'' I explained.
"Moreover, I was never called `The American Nightingale,'
and I have never lectured on `The Missing Link.' Where DID you get that subject? It was not
on the list I sent you.''
The members of the committee seemed dazed. They withdrew to a corner and consulted in
whispers. Then, with clearing brow, the
spokesman returned.
"Why,'' he said, cheerfully, "it's simple
enough! We mixed you up with a Shaw lady that
whistles; and we've been discussing the missing link
in our debating society, so our citizens want to
hear your views.''
"But I don't know anything about the
missing link,'' I protested, "and I can't speak on
it.''
"Now, come,'' they begged. "Why, you'll
have to! We've sold all our tickets for that
lecture. The whole town has turned out to hear it.''
Then, as I maintained a depressed silence,
one of them had a bright idea. "I'll tell you how to fix it!'' he cried.
"Speak on any subject you please, but bring in
something about the missing link every few minutes. That will
satisfy 'em.''
"Very well,'' I agreed, reluctantly.
"Open the meeting with a song. Get the audience to
sing `America' or `The Star-spangled Banner.'
That will give me a few minutes to think, and I
will see what can be done.''
Led by a very nervous chairman, the big
audience began to sing, and under the inspiration of
the music the solution of our problem flashed into my
mind.
"It is easy,'' I told myself. "Woman is
the missing link in our government. I'll give them
a suffrage speech along that line.''
When the song ended I began my part of the
entertainment with a portion of my lecture on
"The Fate of Republics,'' tracing their growth
and decay, and pointing out that what our republic
needed to give it a stable government was the missing
link of woman suffrage. I got along admirably,
for every five minutes I mentioned "the missing
link,'' and the audience sat content and apparently
interested, while the members of the committee burst
into bloom on the platform. |
