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LADY ANGELINE.
In the summer of 1841 Elisha Cook closed his brave blue eyes in death;
and the following winter a letter came to the Rodman postmaster saying
that a man by the name of Theophilus Stickney had died on the 14th of
February in the hospital at Rochester. So the Stickney girls were doubly
orphans. Elmina married, and Angeline went to live with her sister
Charlotte in the town of Wilna. How dark the forests on the road to
Wilna that December day! Forty years afterward Angeline used to tell of
that ride with Edwin Ingalls, Charlotte’s husband. With his cheery voice
he tried to dispel her fears, praising his horses in homely rhyme:
They’re true blue,
They’ll carry us through.
Edwin Ingalls was a wiry little man, a person of character and thrift,
like his good wife Charlotte; for such they proved themselves when in
after years they settled in Wisconsin, pioneers of their own day and
generation. In December, 1842, they kept tavern, and a prime hostess was
Charlotte Ingalls, broiling her meats on a spit before a great open fire
in the good old-fashioned way. Angeline attended school, taught by Edwin
Ingalls, and found time out of school hours to study natural philosophy
besides. Indeed, the little girl very early formed the habit of reading,
showing an especial fondness for history. And when news came the next
Spring of her mother’s marriage to a Mr. Milton Woodward, she was ready
with a quotation from “The Lady of the Lake”:
... Woe the while
That brought such wanderer to our isle.
The quotation proved altogether appropriate. Mr. Woodward was a
strong-willed widower with five strong-willed sons and five
strong-willed daughters. The next four years Angeline was a sort of
white slave in this family of wrangling brothers and sisters. When her
sister Charlotte inquired how she liked her new home, her answer was
simply, “Ma’s there.”
The story of this second marriage of Electa Cook’s is worthy of record.
Any impatience toward her first husband of which she may have been
guilty was avenged upon her a hundred-fold. And yet the second marriage
was a church affair. Mr. Woodward saw her at church and took a fancy to
her. Had the minister intercede for him. “It will make a home for you,
Mrs. Stickney,” said the minister—as if she were not the mistress of
seventy-two acres in her own right! Why she gave up her independence it
is difficult to see; but the ways of women are past finding out. Perhaps
she sympathized with the ten motherless Woodward children. Perhaps she
loved Mr. Milton Woodward, for he was a man of violent temper, and
sometimes abused her in glorious fashion. At the very outset, he opposed
her bringing her unmarried daughters to his house. She insisted; but
might more wisely have yielded the point. For two of the daughters
married their step-brothers, and shared the Woodward fate.
Twelve-year old Angeline went to work very industriously at the Woodward
farm on Dry Hill. What the big, strapping Woodward girls could have been
doing it is hard to say—wholly occupied with finding husbands, perhaps.
For until 1847 Angeline was her mother’s chief assistant, at times doing
most of the housework herself. She baked for the large family, mopped
floors, endured all sorts of drudgery, and even waded through the snow
to milk cows. But with it all she attended school, and made great
progress. She liked grammar and arithmetic, and on one occasion showed
her ability as a speller by spelling down the whole school. She even
went to singing school, and sang in the church choir. Some of the
envious Woodward children ridiculed the hard-working, ambitious girl by
calling her “Lady Angeline,” a title which she lived up to from that
time forth.
Let me reproduce here two of her compositions, written when she was
fourteen years of age. They are addressed as letters to her teacher, Mr.
George Waldo:
RODMAN, January 21st 1845
SIR, As you have requested me to write and have given me the
subjects upon which to write, I thought I would try to write what I
could about the Sugar Maple. The Sugar Maple is a very beautiful as
well as useful tree. In the summer the beasts retire to its kind
shade from the heat of the sun. And though the lofty Oak and pine
tower above it, perhaps they are no more useful. Sugar is made from
the sap of this tree, which is a very useful article. It is also
used for making furniture such as tables bureaus &c. and boards for
various uses. It is also used to cook Our victuals and to keep us
warm. But its usefulness does not stop here even the ashes are
useful; they are used for making potash which with the help of flint
or sand and a good fire to melt it is made into glass which people
could not very well do without. Glass is good to help the old to see
and to give light to our houses. Besides all this teliscopes are
made of glass by the help of which about all the knowledge of the
mighty host of planetary worlds has been discovered. This tree is
certainly very useful. In the first place sugar is made from it.
Then it gives us all sorts of beautiful furniture. Then it warms our
houses and cooks our victuals and then even then we get something
from the ashes yes something very useful. No more at present.
ANGELINE STICKNEY.
Teacher’s comment:
I wish there was a good deal more. This is well written. Write more
next time.
The next composition is as follows:
SLAVERY.
RODMAN February 17th 1845
Slavery or holding men in bondage is one of the most unjust
practices. But unjust as it is even in this boasted land of liberty
many of our greatest men are dealers in buying and selling slaves.
Were you to go to the southern states you would see about every
dwelling surrounded by plantations on which you would see the half
clothed and half starved slave and his master with whip in hand
ready to inflict the blow should the innocent child forgetful of the
smart produced by the whip pause one moment to hear the musick of
the birds inhale the odor of the flowers or through fatigue should
let go his hold from the hoe. And various other scenes that none but
the hardest hearted could behold without dropping a tear of pity for
the fate of the slave would present themselves probably you would
see the slave bound in chains and the driver urging him onward while
every step he takes is leading him farther and farther from his home
and all that he holds dear. But I hope these cruelties will soon
cease as many are now advocating the cause of the slave. But still
there are many that forget that freedom is as dear to the slave as
to the master, whose fathers when oppressed armed in defence of
liberty and with Washington at their head gained it. But to their
shame they still hold slaves. But some countries have renounced
slavery and I hope their example will be followed by our own.
ANGELINE STICKNEY.
Teacher’s comment:
I hope so too. And expect it also. When men shall learn to do unto
others as they themselves wish to be done unto. And not only say but
_do_ and that _more than_ HALF as they say. Then we may hope to see
the slave Liberated, and _not_ till _then_. _Write again._
The composition on slavery (like the mention of the telescope) is in the
nature of a prophecy, for our astronomer’s wife during her residence of
thirty years in Washington was an unfailing friend of the negro. Many a
Northerner, coming into actual contact with the black man, has learned
to despise him more than Southerners do. Not so Angeline. The conviction
of childhood, born of reading church literature on slavery and of
hearing her step-father’s indignant words on the subject—for he was an
ardent abolitionist—lasted through life.
In the fall of 1847 the ambitious school-girl had a stroke of good
fortune. Her cousin Harriette Downs, graduate of a young ladies’ school
in Pittsfield, Mass., took an interest in her, and paid her tuition for
three terms at the Rodman Union Seminary. So Angeline worked for her
board at her Aunt Clary Downs’, a mile and a half from the seminary, and
walked to school every morning. A delightful walk in autumn; but when
the deep snows came, it was a dreadful task to wade through the drifts.
Her skirts would get wet, and she took a severe cold. She never forgot
the hardships of that winter. The next winter she lived in Rodman
village, close to the seminary, working for her board at a Mr. Wood’s,
where on Monday mornings she did the family washing before school began.
How thoroughly she enjoyed the modest curriculum of studies at the
seminary none can tell save those who have worked for an education as
hard as she did. That she was appreciated and beloved by her schoolmates
may be inferred from the following extracts from a letter dated
Henderson, Jefferson Co., N.Y., January 9, 1848:
Our folks say they believe you are perfect or I would not say so
much about you. They would like to have you come out here & stay a
wek, they say but not half as much as I would I dont believe, come
come come.... Your letter I have read over & over again, ther seems
to be such a smile. It seems just like you. I almost immagin I can
see you & hear you talk while I am reading your letter.... Those
verses were beautiful, they sounded just lik you.... Good Night for
I am shure you will say you never saw such a boched up mess
I ever remain your sincere friend
E. A. BULFINCH.
No doubt as to the genuineness of this document! Angeline had indeed
begun to write verses—and as a matter of interest rather than as an
example of art, I venture to quote the following lines, written in
October, 1847:
Farewell, a long farewell, to thee sweet grove,
To thy cool shade and grassy seat I love;
Farewell, for the autumnal breeze is sighing
Among thy boughs, and low thy leaves are lying.
Farewell, farewell, until another spring
Rolls round again, and thy sweet bowers ring
With song of birds, and wild flowers spring,
And on the gentle breeze their odors fling.
Farewell, perhaps I ne’er again may view
Thy much-loved haunt, so then a sweet adieu.
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