on the platform, and a nurse and doctor who had been telegraphed for
were waiting to care for the little girl. She was conscious by this
time, and with the most exquisite gentleness my rustic Bayard lifted her
in his arms to carry her off the train. Quite unnecessarily I motioned
to him not to let her see her dead mother. He was not the sort who
needed that warning; he had already turned her face to his shoulder,
and, with head bent low above her, was safely skirting the spot where
the long, covered figure lay.
Evidently the station was his destination, too, for he remained there;
but just as the train pulled out he came hurrying to my window, took the
carnation from his buttonhole, and without a word handed it to me. And
after the tragic hour in which I had learned to know him the crushed
flower, from that man, seemed the best fee I had ever received.
IX. "AUNT SUSAN"
In The Life of Susan B. Anthony it is mentioned that 1888 was a year of
special recognition of our great leader's work, but that it was also the
year in which many of her closest friends and strongest supporters were
taken from her by death. A. Bronson Alcott was among these, and Louisa
M. Alcott, as well as Dr. Lozier; and special stress is laid on Miss
Anthony's sense of loss in the diminishing circle of her friends--a loss
which new friends and workers came forward, eager to supply.
"Chief among these," adds the record, "was Anna Shaw, who, from the time
of the International Council in '88, gave her truest allegiance to Miss
Anthony."
It is true that from that year until Miss Anthony's death in 1906 we two
were rarely separated; and I never read the paragraph I have just
quoted without seeing, as in a vision, the figure of "Aunt Susan" as she
slipped into my hotel room in Chicago late one night after an evening
meeting of the International Council. I had gone to bed--indeed, I was
almost asleep when she came, for the day had been as exhausting as it
was interesting. But notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, "Aunt
Susan," then nearing seventy, was still as fresh and as full of
enthusiasm as a young girl. She had a great deal to say, she declared,
and she proceeded to say it--sitting in a big easy-chair near the bed,
with a rug around her knees, while I propped myself up with pillows and
listened.
Hours passed and the dawn peered wanly through the windows, but still
Miss Anthony talked of the Cause always of the Cause--and of what we two
must do for it. The previous evening she had been too busy to eat any
dinner, and I greatly doubt whether she had eaten any luncheon at noon.
She had been on her feet for hours at a time, and she had held numerous
discussions with other women she wished to inspire to special effort.
Yet, after it all, here she was laying out our campaigns for years
ahead, foreseeing everything, forgetting nothing, and sweeping me with
her in her flight toward our common goal, until I, who am not easily
carried off my feet, experienced an almost dizzy sense of exhilaration.
Suddenly she stopped, looked at the gas-jets paling in the morning light
that filled the room, and for a fleeting instant seemed surprised. In
the next she had dismissed from her mind the realization that we had
talked all night. Why should we not talk all night? It was part of our
work. She threw off the enveloping rug and rose.
"I must dress now," she said, briskly. "I've called a committee meeting
before the morning session."
On her way to the door nature smote her with a rare reminder, but even
then she did not realize that it was personal. "Perhaps," she remarked,
tentatively, "you ought to have a cup of coffee."
That was "Aunt Susan." And in the eighteen years which followed I had
daily illustrations of her superiority to purely human weaknesses. To
her the hardships we underwent later, in our Western campaigns for woman
suffrage, were as the airiest trifles. Like a true soldier, she could
snatch a moment of sleep or a mouthful of food where she found it, and
if either was not forthcoming she did not miss it. To me she was an
unceasing inspiration--the torch that illumined my life. We went through
some difficult years together--years when we fought hard for each inch
of headway we gained--but I found full compensation for every effort in
the glory of working with her for the Cause that was first in both our
hearts, and in the happiness of being her friend. Later I shall describe
in more detail the suffrage campaigns and the National and International
councils in which we took part; now it is of her I wish to write--of her
bigness, her many-sidedness, her humor, her courage, her quickness, her
sympathy, her understanding, her force, her supreme common-sense, her
selflessness; in short, of the rare beauty of her nature as I learned to
know it.
Like most great leaders, she took one's best work for granted, and was
chary with her praise; and even when praise was given it usually came by
indirect routes. I recall with amusement that the highest compliment she
ever paid me in public involved her in a tangle from which, later, only
her quick wit extricated her. We were lecturing in an especially pious
town which I shall call B----, and just before I went on the platform
Miss Anthony remarked, peacefully:
"These people have always claimed that I am irreligious. They will not
accept the fact that I am a Quaker--or, rather, they seem to think a
Quaker is an infidel. I am glad you are a Methodist, for now they cannot
claim that we are not orthodox."
She was still enveloped in the comfort of this reflection when she
introduced me to our audience, and to impress my qualifications upon my
hearers she made her introduction in these words:
"It is a pleasure to introduce Miss Shaw, who is a Methodist minister.
And she is not only orthodox of the orthodox, but she is also my right
bower!"
There was a gasp from the pious audience, and then a roar of laughter
from irreverent men, in which, I must confess, I light-heartedly joined.
For once in her life Miss Anthony lost her presence of mind; she did not
know how to meet the situation, for she had no idea what had caused the
laughter. It bubbled forth again and again during the evening, and
each time Miss Anthony received the demonstration with the same air of
puzzled surprise. When we had returned to our hotel rooms I explained
the matter to her. I do not remember now where I had acquired my own
sinful knowledge, but that night I faced "Aunt Susan" from the pedestal
of a sophisticated worldling.
"Don't you know what a right bower is?" I demanded, sternly.
"Of course I do," insisted "Aunt Susan." "It's a right-hand man--the
kind one can't do without."
"It is a card," I told her, firmly--"a leading card in a game called
euchre."
"Aunt Susan" was dazed. "I didn't know it had anything to do with
cards," she mused, mournfully. "What must they think of me?"
What they thought became quite evident. The newspapers made countless
jokes at our expense, and there were significant smiles on the faces in
the audience that awaited us the next night. When Miss Anthony walked
upon the platform she at once proceeded to clear herself of the tacit
charge against her.
"When I came to your town," she began, cheerfully, "I had been warned
that you were a very religious lot of people. I wanted to impress upon
you the fact that Miss Shaw and I are religious, too. But I admit that
when I told you she was my right bower I did not know what a right bower
was. I have learned that, since last night."
She waited until the happy chortles of her hearers had subsided, and
then went on.
"It interests me very much, however," she concluded, "to realize that
every one of you seemed to know all about a right bower, and that I had
to come to your good, orthodox town to get the information."
That time the joke was on the audience. Miss Anthony's home was in
Rochester, New York, and it was said by our friends that on the rare
occasions when we were not together, and I was lecturing independently,
"all return roads led through Rochester." I invariably found some excuse
to go there and report to her. Together we must have worn out many
Rochester pavements, for "Aunt Susan's" pet recreation was walking,
and she used to walk me round and round the city squares, far into the
night, and at a pace that made policemen gape at us as we flew by. Some
disrespectful youth once remarked that on these occasions we suggested a
race between a ruler and a rubber ball--for she was very tall and thin,
while I am short and plump. To keep up with her I literally bounded at
her side.
A certain amount of independent lecturing was necessary for me, for I
had to earn my living. The National American Woman Suffrage
Association has never paid salaries to its officers, so, when I became
vice-president and eventually, in 1904, president of the association,
I continued to work gratuitously for the Cause in these positions.
Even Miss Anthony received not one penny of salary for all her years of
unceasing labor, and she was so poor that she did not have a home of her
own until she was seventy-five. Then it was a very simple one, and
she lived with the utmost economy. I decided that I could earn my bare
expenses by making one brief lecture tour each year, and I made an
arrangement with the Redpath Bureau which left me fully two-thirds of my
time for the suffrage work I loved.
This was one result of my all-night talk with Miss Anthony in Chicago,
and it enabled me to carry out her plan that I should accompany her in
most of the campaigns in which she sought to arouse the West to the
need of suffrage for women. From that time on we traveled and lectured
together so constantly that each of us developed an almost uncanny
knowledge of the other's mental processes. At any point of either's
lecture the other could pick it up and carry it on--a fortunate
condition, as it sometimes became necessary to do this. Miss Anthony
was subject to contractions of the throat, which for the moment caused
a slight strangulation. On such occasions--of which there were
several--she would turn to me and indicate her helplessness. Then I
would repeat her last sentence, complete her speech, and afterward make
my own.
The first time this happened we were in Washington, and "Aunt Susan"
stopped in the middle of a word. She could not speak; she merely
motioned to me to continue for her, and left the stage. At the end of
the evening a prominent Washington man who had been in our audience
remarked to me, confidentially:
"That was a nice little play you and Miss Anthony made to-night--very
effective indeed."
For an instant I did not catch his meaning, nor the implication in his
knowing smile.
"Very clever, that strangling bit, and your going on with the speech,"
he repeated. "It hit the audience hard."
"Surely," I protested, "you don't think it was a deliberate thing--that
we planned or rehearsed it."
He stared at me incredulously. "Are you going to pretend," he demanded,
"that it wasn't a put-up job?"
I told him he had paid us a high compliment, and that we must really
have done very well if we had conveyed that impression; and I finally
convinced him that we not only had not rehearsed the episode, but that
neither of us had known what the other meant to say. We never wrote out
our speeches, but our subject was always suffrage or some ramification
of suffrage, and, naturally, we had thoroughly digested each other's
views.
It is said by my friends that I write my speeches on the tips of my
fingers--for I always make my points on my fingers and have my fingers
named for points. When I plan a speech I decide how many points I wish
to make and what those points shall be. My mental preparation follows.
Miss Anthony's method was much the same; but very frequently both of us
threw over all our plans at the last moment and spoke extemporaneously
on some theme suggested by the atmosphere of the gathering or by the
words of another speaker.
From Miss Anthony, more than from any one else, I learned to keep cool
in the face of interruptions and of the small annoyances and disasters
inevitable in campaigning. Often we were able to help each other out of
embarrassing situations, and one incident of this kind occurred during
our campaign in South Dakota. We were holding a meeting on the hottest
Sunday of the hottest month in the year--August--and hundreds of the
natives had driven twenty, thirty, and even forty miles across the
country to hear us. We were to speak in a sod church, but it was
discovered that the structure would not hold half the people who were
trying to enter it, so we decided that Miss Anthony should speak from
the door, in order that those both inside and outside might hear her. To
elevate her above her audience, she was given an empty dry-goods box to
stand on.
This makeshift platform was not large, and men, women, and children were
seated on the ground around it, pressing up against it, as close to the
speaker as they could get. Directly in front of Miss Anthony sat a woman
with a child about two years old--a little boy; and this infant, like
every one else in the packed throng, was dripping with perspiration and
suffering acutely under the blazing sun. Every woman present seemed to
have brought children with her, doubtless because she could not leave
them alone at home; and babies were crying and fretting on all sides.
The infant nearest Miss Anthony fretted most strenuously; he was a
sturdy little fellow with a fine pair of lungs, and he made it very
difficult for her to lift her voice above his dismal clamor. Suddenly,
however, he discovered her feet on the drygoods box, about on a level
with his head. They were clad in black stockings and low shoes; they
moved about oddly; they fascinated him. With a yelp of interest he
grabbed for them and began pinching them to see what they were. His
howls ceased; he was happy.
Miss Anthony was not. But it was a great relief to have the child quiet,
so she bore the infliction of the pinching as long as she could. When
endurance had found its limit she slipped back out of reach, and as his
new plaything receded the boy uttered shrieks of disapproval. There was
only one way to stop his noise; Miss Anthony brought her feet forward
again, and he resumed the pinching of her ankles, while his yelps
subsided to contented murmurs. The performance was repeated half a dozen
times. Each time the ankles retreated the baby yelled. Finally, for once
at the end of her patience, "Aunt Susan" leaned forward and addressed
the mother, whose facial expression throughout had shown a complete
mental detachment from the situation.
"I think your little boy is hot and thirsty," she said, gently. "If
you would take him out of the crowd and give him a drink of water and
unfasten his clothes, I am sure he would be more comfortable." Before
she had finished speaking the woman had sprung to her feet and was
facing her with fierce indignation.
"This is the first time I have ever been insulted as a mother," she
cried; "and by an old maid at that!" Then she grasped the infant and
left the scene, amid great confusion. The majority of those in the
audience seemed to sympathize with her. They had not seen the episode of
the feet, and they thought Miss Anthony was complaining of the child's
crying. Their children were crying, too, and they felt that they had
all been criticized. Other women rose and followed the irate mother, and
many men gallantly followed them. It seemed clear that motherhood had
been outraged.
Miss Anthony was greatly depressed by the episode, and she was not
comforted by a prediction one man made after the meeting.
"You've lost at least twenty votes by that little affair," he told her.
"Aunt Susan" sighed. "Well," she said, "if those men knew how my ankles
felt I would have won twenty votes by enduring the torture as long as I
did."
The next day we had a second meeting. Miss Anthony made her speech early
in the evening, and by the time it was my turn to begin all the children
in the audience--and there were many--were both tired and sleepy. At
least half a dozen of them were crying, and I had to shout to make my
voice heard above their uproar. Miss Anthony remarked afterward that
there seemed to be a contest between me and the infants to see which
of us could make more noise. The audience was plainly getting restless
under the combined effect, and finally a man in the rear rose and added
his voice to the tumult.
"Say, Miss Shaw," he yelled, "don't you want these children put out?"
It was our chance to remove the sad impression of yesterday, and I
grasped it.
"No, indeed," I yelled back. "Nothing inspires me like the voice of a
child!"
A handsome round of applause from mothers and fathers greeted this noble
declaration, after which the blessed babies and I resumed our joint
vocal efforts. When the speech was finished and we were alone together,
Miss Anthony put her arm around my shoulder and drew me to her side.
"Well, Anna," she said, gratefully, "you've certainly evened us up on
motherhood this time."
That South Dakota campaign was one of the most difficult we ever made.
It extended over nine months; and it is impossible to describe the
poverty which prevailed throughout the whole rural community of the
State. There had been three consecutive years of drought. The sand was
like powder, so deep that the wheels of the wagons in which we rode
"across country" sank half-way to the hubs; and in the midst of this dry
powder lay withered tangles that had once been grass. Every one had the
forsaken, desperate look worn by the pioneer who has reached the limit
of his endurance, and the great stretches of prairie roads showed
innumerable canvas-covered wagons, drawn by starved horses, and followed
by starved cows, on their way "Back East." Our talks with the despairing
drivers of these wagons are among my most tragic memories. They had lost
everything except what they had with them, and they were going East to
leave "the woman" with her father and try to find work. Usually, with a
look of disgust at his wife, the man would say: "I wanted to leave two
years ago, but the woman kept saying, 'Hold on a little longer.'"
Both Miss Anthony and I gloried in the spirit of these pioneer women,
and lost no opportunity to tell them so; for we realized what our nation
owes to the patience and courage of such as they were. We often asked
them what was the hardest thing to bear in their pioneer life, and we
usually received the same reply:
"To sit in our little adobe or sod houses at night and listen to the
wolves howl over the graves of our babies. For the howl of the wolf is
like the cry of a child from the grave."
Many days, and in all kinds of weather, we rode forty and fifty miles
in uncovered wagons. Many nights we shared a one-room cabin with all
the members of the family. But the greatest hardship we suffered was the
lack of water. There was very little good water in the state, and the
purest water was so brackish that we could hardly drink it. The more we
drank the thirstier we became, and when the water was made into tea it
tasted worse than when it was clear. A bath was the rarest of luxuries.
The only available fuel was buffalo manure, of which the odor permeated
all our food. But despite these handicaps we were happy in our work, for
we had some great meetings and many wonderful experiences.
When we reached the Black Hills we had more of this genuine campaigning.
We traveled over the mountains in wagons, behind teams of horses,
visiting the mining-camps; and often the gullies were so deep that when
our horses got into them it was almost impossible to get them out. I
recall with special clearness one ride from Hill City to Custer City. It
was only a matter of thirty miles, but it was thoroughly exhausting; and
after our meeting that same night we had to drive forty miles farther
over the mountains to get the early morning train from Buffalo Gap.
The trail from Custer City to Buffalo Gap was the one the animals had
originally made in their journeys over the pass, and the drive in
that wild region, throughout a cold, piercing October night, was an
unforgetable experience. Our host at Custer City lent Miss Anthony his
big buffalo overcoat, and his wife lent hers to me. They also heated
blocks of wood for our feet, and with these protections we started. A
full moon hung in the sky. The trees were covered with hoar-frost, and
the cold, still air seemed to sparkle in the brilliant light. Again Miss
Anthony talked to me throughout the night--of the work, always of the
work, and of what it would mean to the women who followed us; and again
she fired my soul with the flame that burned so steadily in her own.
It was daylight when we reached the little station at Buffalo Gap where
we were to take the train. This was not due, however, for half an hour,
and even then it did not come. The station was only large enough to hold
the stove, the ticket-office, and the inevitable cuspidor. There was
barely room in which to walk between these and the wall. Miss Anthony
sat down on the floor. I had a few raisins in my bag, and we divided
them for breakfast. An hour passed, and another, and still the train
did not come. Miss Anthony, her back braced against the wall, buried her
face in her hands and dropped into a peaceful abyss of slumber, while I
walked restlessly up and down the platform. The train arrived four hours
late, and when eventually we had reached our destination we learned
that the ministers of the town had persuaded the women to give up the
suffrage meeting scheduled for that night, as it was Sunday.
This disappointment, following our all-day and all-night drive to keep
our appointment, aroused Miss Anthony's fighting spirit. She sent me out
to rent the theater for the evening, and to have some hand-bills printed
and distributed, announcing that we would speak. At three o'clock she
made the concession to her seventy years of lying down for an hour's
rest. I was young and vigorous, so I trotted around town to get
somebody to preside, somebody to introduce us, somebody to take up the
collection, and somebody who would provide music--in short, to make all
our preparations for the night meeting.
When evening came the crowd which had assembled was so great that men
and women sat in the windows and on the stage, and stood in the flies.
Night attractions were rare in that Dakota town, and here was something
new. Nobody went to church, so the churches were forced to close. We had
a glorious meeting. Both Miss Anthony and I were in excellent fighting
trim, and Miss Anthony remarked that the only thing lacking to make me
do my best was a sick headache. The collection we took up paid all
our expenses, the church singers sang for us, the great audience was
interested, and the whole occasion was an inspiring success.
The meeting ended about half after ten o'clock, and I remember taking
Miss Anthony to our hotel and escorting her to her room. I also remember
that she followed me to the door and made some laughing remark as I left
for my own room; but I recall nothing more until the next morning when
she stood beside me telling me it was time for breakfast. She had found
me lying on the cover of my bed, fully clothed even to my bonnet and
shoes. I had fallen there, utterly exhausted, when I entered my room the
night before, and I do not think I had even moved from that time until
the moment--nine hours later--when I heard her voice and felt her hand
on my shoulder.
After all our work, we did not win Dakota that year, but Miss Anthony
bore the disappointment with the serenity she always showed. To her a
failure was merely another opportunity, and I mention our experience
here only to show of what she was capable in her gallant seventies. But
I should misrepresent her if I did not show her human and sentimental
side as well. With all her detachment from human needs she had emotional
moments, and of these the most satisfying came when she was listening
to music. She knew nothing whatever about music, but was deeply moved by
it; and I remember vividly one occasion when Nordica sang for her, at an
afternoon reception given by a Chicago friend in "Aunt Susan's" honor.
As it happened, she had never heard Nordica sing until that day; and
before the music began the great artiste and the great leader met, and
in the moment of meeting became friends. When Nordica sang, half an hour
later, she sang directly to Miss Anthony, looking into her eyes; and
"Aunt Susan" listened with her own eyes full of tears. When the last
notes had been sung she went to the singer and put both arms around her.
The music had carried her back to her girlhood and to the sentiment of
sixteen.
"Oh, Nordica," she sighed, "I could die listening to such singing!"