barn--sounds of stamping, kicking, and plunging, mingled with loud
shouts. We ran to the scene of the trouble, and found our "hired man"
rushing breathlessly toward the house. When he was able to speak he
informed us that we had "a devil in there," pointing back to the barn,
and that the new horse's legs were in the air, all four of them at once,
the minute he went near her. We insisted that he must have frightened or
hurt her, but, solemnly and with anxious looks behind, he protested that
he had not. Finally Miss Crowell and I went into the barn, and received
a dignified welcome from the new horse, which seemed pleased by our
visit. Together we harnessed her and, without the least difficulty,
drove her out into the yard. As soon as our man took the reins, however,
she reared, kicked, and smashed our brand-new buggy. We changed the man
and had the buggy repaired, but by the end of the week the animal had
smashed the buggy again. Then, with some natural resentment, we made a
second visit to the man from whom we had bought her, and asked him why
he had sold us such a horse.
He said he had told us the exact truth. The horse WAS sound and she WAS
extremely gentle with women, but--and this point he had seen no reason
to mention, as we had not asked about it--she would not let a man come
near her. He firmly refused to take her back, and we had to make the
best of the bargain. As it was impossible to take care of her ourselves,
I gave some thought to the problem she presented, and finally devised a
plan which worked very well. I hired a neighbor who was a small, slight
man to take care of her, and made him wear his wife's sunbonnet and
waterproof cloak whenever he approached the horse. The picture he
presented in these garments still stands out pleasantly against the
background of my Cape Cod memories. The horse, however, did not share
our appreciation of it. She was suspicious, and for a time she shied
whenever the man and his sunbonnet and cloak appeared; but we stood by
until she grew accustomed to them and him; and as he was both patient
and gentle, she finally allowed him to harness and unharness her. But
no man could drive her, and when I drove to church I was forced to hitch
and unhitch her myself. No one else could do it, though many a gallant
and subsequently resentful man attempted the feat.
On one occasion a man I greatly disliked, and who I had reason to know
disliked me, insisted that he could unhitch her, and started to do so,
notwithstanding my protests and explanations. At his approach she rose
on her hind-legs, and when he grasped her bridle she lifted him off his
feet. His expression as he hung in mid-air was an extraordinary mixture
of surprise and regret. The moment I touched her, however, she quieted
down, and when I got into the buggy and gathered up the reins she
walked off like a lamb, leaving the man staring after her with his eyes
starting from his head.
The previous owner had called the horse Daisy, and we never changed the
name, though it always seemed sadly inappropriate. Time proved, however,
that there were advantages in the ownership of Daisy. No man would allow
his wife or daughter to drive behind her, and no one wanted to borrow
her. If she had been a different kind of animal she would have been
used by the whole community, We kept Daisy for seven years, and our
acquaintance ripened into a pleasant friendship.
Another Cape Cod resident to whose memory I must offer tribute in
these pages was Polly Ann Sears--one of the dearest and best of my
parishioners. She had six sons, and when five had gone to sea she
insisted that the sixth must remain at home. In vain the boy begged
her to let him follow his brothers. She stood firm. The sea, she said,
should not swallow all her boys; she had given it five--she must keep
one.
As it happened, the son she kept at home was the only one who was
drowned. He was caught in a fish-net and dragged under the waters of
the bay near his home; and when I went to see his mother to offer such
comfort as I could, she showed that she had learned the big lesson of
the experience.
"I tried to be a special Providence," she moaned, "and the one boy I
kept home was the only boy I lost. I ain't a-goin' to be a Providence no
more."
The number of funerals on Cape Cod was tragically large. I was in
great demand on these occasions, and went all over the Cape, conducting
funeral services--which seemed to be the one thing people thought I
could do--and preaching funeral sermons. Besides the victims of the sea,
many of the residents who had drifted away were brought back to
sleep their last sleep within sound of the waves. Once I asked an old
sea-captain why so many Cape Cod men and women who had been gone for
years asked to be buried near their old homes, and his reply still
lingers in my memory. He poked his toe in the sand for a moment and then
said, slowly:
"Wal, I reckon it's because the Cape has such warm, comfortable sand to
lie down in."
My friend Mrs. Addy lay in the Crowell family lot, and during my
pastorate at East Dennis I preached the funeral sermon of her father,
and later of her mother. Long after I had left Cape Cod I was frequently
called back to say the last words over the coffins of my old friends,
and the saddest of those journeys was the one I made in response to
a telegram from the mother of Relief Paine. When I had arrived and we
stood together beside the exquisite figure that seemed hardly more quiet
in death than in life, Mrs. Paine voiced in her few words the feeling
of the whole community--"Where shall we get our comfort and our
inspiration, now that Relief is gone?"
The funeral which took all my courage from me, however, was that of
my sister Mary. In its suddenness, Mary's death, in 1883, was as a
thunderbolt from the blue; for she had been in perfect health three days
before she passed away. I was still in charge of my two parishes in
Cape Cod, but, as it mercifully happened, before she was stricken I had
started West to visit Mary in her home at Big Rapids. When I arrived
on the second day of her illness, knowing nothing of it until I reached
her, I found her already past hope. Her disease was pneumonia, but she
was conscious to the end, and her greatest desire seemed to be to see me
christen her little daughter and her husband before she left them. This
could not be realized, for my brotherin-law was absent on business,
and with all his haste in returning did not reach his wife's side until
after her death. As his one thought then was to carry out her last
wishes, I christened him and his little girl just before the funeral;
and during the ceremony we all experienced a deep conviction that Mary
knew and was content.
She had become a power in her community, and was so dearly loved that
on the day her body was borne to its last resting-place all the business
houses in Big Rapids were closed, and the streets were filled with men
who stood with bent, uncovered heads as the funeral procession went by.
My father and mother, also, to whom she had given a home after they left
the log-cabin where they had lived so long, had made many friends in
their new environment and were affectionately known throughout the whole
region as "Grandma and Grandpa Shaw."
When I returned to East Dennis I brought my mother and Mary's three
children with me, and they remained throughout the spring and summer.
I had hoped that they would remain permanently, and had rented and
furnished a home for them with that end in view; but, though they
enjoyed their visit, the prospect of the bleak winters of Cape Cod
disturbed my mother, and they all returned to Big Rapids late in the
autumn. Since entering upon my parish work it had been possible for me
to help my father and mother financially; and from the time of Mary's
death I had the privilege, a very precious one, of seeing that they were
well cared for and contented. They were always appreciative, and as time
passed they became more reconciled to the career I had chosen, and which
in former days had filled them with such dire forebodings.
After I had been in East Dennis four years I began to feel that I
was getting into a rut. It seemed to me that all I could do in that
particular field had been done. My people wished me to remain, however,
and so, partly as an outlet for my surplus energy, but more especially
because I realized the splendid work women could do as physicians, I
began to study medicine. The trustees gave me permission to go to Boston
on certain days of each week, and we soon found that I could carry on my
work as a medical student without in the least neglecting my duty toward
my parish.
I entered the Boston Medical School in 1882, and obtained my diploma
as a full-fledged physician in 1885. During this period I also began to
lecture for the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association, of which
Lucy Stone was president. Henry Blackwell was associated with her, and
together they developed in me a vital interest in the suffrage cause,
which grew steadily from that time until it became the dominating
influence in my life. I preached it in the pulpit, talked it to those I
met outside of the church, lectured on it whenever I had an opportunity,
and carried it into my medical work in the Boston slums when I was
trying my prentice hand on helpless pauper patients.
Here again, in my association with the women of the streets, I realized
the limitations of my work in the ministry and in medicine. As minister
to soul and body one could do little for these women. For such as them,
one's efforts must begin at the very foundation of the social structure.
Laws for them must be made and enforced, and some of those laws could
only be made and enforced by women. So many great avenues of life were
opening up before me that my Cape Cod environment seemed almost a prison
where I was held with tender force. I loved my people and they loved
me--but the big outer world was calling, and I could not close my ears
to its summons. The suffrage lectures helped to keep me contented,
however, and I was certainly busy enough to find happiness in my work.
I was in Boston three nights a week, and during these nights subject
to sick calls at any hour. My favorite associates were Dr. Caroline
Hastings, our professor of anatomy, and little Dr. Mary Safford, a
mite of a woman with an indomitable soul. Dr. Safford was especially
prominent in philanthropic work in Massachusetts, and it was said of her
that at any hour of the day or night she could be found working in the
slums of Boston. I, too, could frequently be found there--often, no
doubt, to the disadvantage of my patients. I was quite famous in three
Boston alleys--Maiden's Lane, Fellows Court, and Andrews Court. It most
fortunately happened that I did not lose a case in those alleys, though
I took all kinds, as I had to treat a certain number of surgical and
obstetrical cases in my course. No doubt my patients and I had many
narrow escapes of which we were blissfully ignorant, but I remember
two which for a long time afterward continued to be features of my most
troubled dreams.
The first was that of a big Irishman who had pneumonia. When I looked
him over I was as much frightened as he was. I had got as far as
pneumonia in my course, and I realized that here was a bad case of it.
I knew what to do. The patient must be carefully packed in towels wrung
out of cold water. When I called for towels I found that there was
nothing in the place but a dish-towel, which I washed with portentous
gravity. The man owned but one shirt, and, in deference to my visit,
his wife had removed that to wash it. I packed the patient in the
dish-towel, wrapped him in a piece of an old shawl, and left after
instructing his wife to repeat the process. When I reached home I
remembered that the patient must be packed "carefully," and I knew that
his wife would do it carelessly. That meant great risk to the man's
life. My impulse was to rush back to him at once, but this would never
do. It would destroy all confidence in the doctor. I walked the floor
for three hours, and then casually strolled in upon my patient, finding
him, to my great relief, better than I had left him. As I was leaving, a
child rushed into the room, begging me to come to an upper floor in the
same building.
"The baby's got the croup," she gasped, "an' he's chokin' to death."
We had not reached croup in our course, and I had no idea what to do,
but I valiantly accompanied the little girl. As we climbed the long
flights of stairs to the top floor I remembered a conversation I had
overheard between two medical students. One of them had said: "If the
child is strangling when it inhales, as if it were breathing through a
sponge, then give it spongia; but if it is strangling when it breathes
out, give it aconite."
When I reached the baby I listened, but could not tell which way it was
strangling. However, I happened to have both medicines with me, so
I called for two glasses and mixed the two remedies, each in its
own glass. I gave them both to the mother, and told her to use them
alternately, every fifteen minutes, until the baby was better. The baby
got well; but whether its recovery was due to the spongia or to the
aconite I never knew.
In my senior year I fell in love with an infant of three, named Patsy.
He was one of nine children when I was called to deliver his mother of
her tenth child. She was drunk when I reached her, and so were two men
who lay on the floor in the same room. I had them carried out, and after
the mother and baby had been attended to I noticed Patsy. He was the
most beautiful child I had ever seen--with eyes like Italian skies and
yellow hair in tight curls over his adorable little head; but he was
covered with filthy rags. I borrowed him, took him home with me, and fed
and bathed him, and the next day fitted him out with new clothes. Every
hour I had him tightened his hold on my heart-strings. I went to his
mother and begged her to let me keep him, but she refused, and after a
great deal of argument and entreaty I had to return him to her. When I
went to see him a few days later I found him again in his horrible rags.
His mother had pawned his new clothes for drink, and she was deeply
under its influence. But no pressure I could exert then or later would
make her part with Patsy. Finally, for my own peace of mind, I had
to give up hope of getting him--but I have never ceased to regret the
little adopted son I might have had.
VII. THE GREAT CAUSE
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!"