Part 9

I give you the pencil case I promised, for I have observed that you are fond of writing, and wish to encourage the habit. Go on trying, dear, and each day it will be easier to be and do good. You must help yourself, for the cause of your little troubles is in yourself; and patience and courage only will make you what mother prays to see you, a good and happy girl.

To another letter, received on her eleventh birthday, Louisa replied by writing these verses:

I hope that soon, dear mother. You and I may be In the quiet room my fancy Has so often made for thee—

The pleasant sunny chamber, The cushioned easy-chair, The book laid for your reading, The vase of flowers fair;

The desk beside the window When the sun shines warm and bright, And there in ease and quiet The promised book you write

While I sit close behind you, Content at last to see That you can rest, dear mother, And I can cherish thee.

Louisa very early took upon herself the task of building up the family fortunes. When only fifteen, she began teaching school in a barn. Among her pupils were the children of Mr. Emerson. At this same period we find her writing fairy stories which she sent out to various editors. The editors promptly published these stories, but they sent her no money for them. But money she must have, so, besides her teaching, this enterprising girl took in sewing, which brought her little, but was better than writing stories for nothing! Louisa's intellect and ability did not make her vain; she was not ashamed to do any kind of honorable work.

Since the father proved a failure in supporting the family, Mrs. Alcott tried to earn something by keeping an intelligence office as an agent for the Overseers of the Poor. One day a gentleman called who wanted "an agreeable companion" for his father and sister. The companion would be expected to do light housework, he said, but she would be kindly treated.

Mrs. Alcott could think of no one to fill the position. Then Louisa said, "Mother, why couldn't I go?"

She did go, remained two months, and was treated very unkindly, being obliged to do the drudgery of the entire household. After returning home, she wrote a story that had a large sale, entitled _How I Went out to Service_. Surely Louisa Alcott had the ability to make the best of things, and to turn trials into blessings.

At nineteen she developed great interest in the theatre and straightway decided to become an actress. During her childhood she had written plays which her sister Anna and a few other children acted, to the amusement of the elder members of the family. Now she dramatized her book, _Rival Prima Donnas_, and prevailed upon a theatrical manager to produce it. The man who had her play in charge, however, neglected to fulfil his part of the bargain, and meanwhile, Louisa's ardor for the theatre cooled off.

By the time she was twenty-one, Miss Alcott was fairly launched as an author. Two years later she published a book, entitled _Flower Fables_, receiving from its sale the astonishing sum of thirty-two dollars. Then her work began to be accepted by the _Atlantic Monthly_ and by other magazines of good standing.

It was very difficult for her to write in Concord, where she continually saw so much to be done at home. When a book was in process of writing she would go to Boston, hire a quiet room, and shut herself in until the work was completed. Then she would return to Concord to rest, "tired, hungry and cross," as she expressed it. While in Boston she worked cruelly hard, often writing fourteen hours out of the twenty-four. Worn out in body, she would grow discouraged and lose hope, wondering if she would ever be able to earn enough money to support her parents.

A dear and good friend of hers was the Reverend Theodore Parker. At his home the tired, anxious girl was certain to receive encouragement and cheer. There she met Emerson, Sumner, Garrison, Julia Ward Howe, and other eminent men and women of the time. A few years before her death she wrote to a friend:

Theodore Parker and Ralph Emerson have done much to help me see that one can shape life best by trying to build up a strong and noble character through good books, wise people's society, and by taking an interest in all the reforms that help the world.

While in Boston Miss Alcott found time to go to teach in an evening Charity School. In her diary we find these jottings:

I'll help, as I am helped, if I can.

Mother says no one is so poor that he can't do a little for some one poorer yet.

At twenty-five years of age, Louisa Alcott was receiving not over five, six, or ten dollars for her stories. This would hardly support herself, to say nothing of the family. Writing might be continued, but sewing and teaching could not be dropped.

In 1861, when the Civil War broke out, her natural love of action as well as her patriotism caused her to offer her services as nurse. In December, 1862, she went to Washington where she was given a post in the Union Hospital at Georgetown. The Alcott family had been full of courage until it was time for her to depart. Then all broke down. Louisa herself felt she was taking her life in her hands and that she might never come back.

She said, "Shall I stay, Mother?"

"No, no, go! and the Lord be with you," replied her mother, bravely smiling, and waving good-bye with a wet handkerchief. So Louisa departed, depressed in spirits and with forebodings of trouble.

She found the hospital small, poorly ventilated, and crowded with patients. Her heart was equal to the task, but her strength was not.

In her diary, she tells us the events of a day:

Up at six, dress by gas light, run through my ward and throw up the windows, though the men grumble and shiver; but the air is bad enough to breed a pestilence. Poke up the fire, add blankets, joke, coax, command; but continue to open doors and windows as if life depended upon it.

Till noon I trot, trot, giving out rations, cutting up food for helpless boys, washing faces, teaching my attendants how beds are made, or floors are swept, dressing wounds, dusting tables, sewing bandages, keeping my tray tidy, rushing up and down after pillows, bed-linen, sponges, books, and directions till it seems I would joyfully pay all I possess for fifteen minutes' rest.

When dinner is over, some sleep, many read, and others want letters written. This I like to do, for they put in such odd things. The answering of letters from friends after some one has died is the saddest and hardest duty a nurse has to do.

After six weeks of nursing Miss Alcott fell seriously ill with typhoid-pneumonia.

As she refused to leave her duties, a friend sent word of her condition to her father, who came to the hospital and took her back with him to Concord. It was months before she recovered sufficiently even to continue her literary work, and never again was she robust in health. She writes: "I was never ill before I went to the hospital, and I have never been well since."

Her letters written home while she was nursing in Georgetown contained very graphic and accurate descriptions of hospital life. At the suggestion of her mother and sisters, Miss Alcott revised and added to these letters, making a book which she called _Hospital Sketches_. This book met with instant success, and a part of the success was money.

After that, all was easy. There came requests from magazine editors offering from two to three hundred dollars for serials. Her place in the literary field being now an assured thing, her natural fondness for children led her to writing for them.

The series comprising _Little Women_, _Jo's Boys_, and _Little Men_; together with _An Old Fashioned Girl_, _Eight Cousins_, _Rose in Bloom_, _Under the Lilacs_, _Jack and Jill_, and many others, are books dear to the hearts of all children. Editions of all these books were published in England, and in several other European countries where translations had been made of them,—all of which brought in large royalties for the author.

What happiness it must have given her to make her family independent, and to be able to travel! Twice she visited Europe, the first time as companion to an invalid woman, and a second time, after she had earned enough to pay her own expenses.

Miss Alcott never married. When about twenty-five years of age, an offer of marriage came to her which most young women would have considered very flattering. But she did not love her suitor, and on her mother's advice, refused him, thus being saved from that worst of conditions—a loveless union.

This first offer was not the last Miss Alcott received and declined. Matrimony, she said, had no charms for her! She loved her family, and her literary work. Above all, she loved her freedom. Her health was not benefited by her second trip to Europe; excessive work had been too great a strain upon her, and her father's failing health demanded her constant care.

In 1877 Mrs. Alcott died, and in the autumn of 1882 Mr. Alcott had a stroke of paralysis. From this he never fully recovered. Louisa was his constant nurse, and it gave her great happiness to be able to gratify his every wish. About this time Orchard House, which had been the family home for twenty-five years, was sold, and the family went to live with Mrs. Pratt, the eldest daughter.

Hoping that an entire change of air and scene might help her father, Miss Alcott rented a fine house in Louisburg Square, Boston, to which she had him removed. Here she showed him every attention, until her own health became so impaired that she was obliged to go to the home of Dr. Lawrence, at Roxbury, for medical care.

A few days before her death, she was taken to see her dying father. Shortly after her visit he passed away, and three days later she followed him. Born on her father's birthday, she died on the day he was buried, March 6, 1888.

All her life Louisa Alcott labored to make others happy, and she is still reaping her harvest of love the world over.

FRANCES E. WILLARD

(1839-1898)

"There is a woman at the beginning of all great things."

—_Alphonse de Lamartine_

It was not until 1873 that the vast amount of drunkenness in our country attracted the attention of the women of America.

A crusade was formed against it in the West, and this led in 1874 to the foundation of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. Frances Elizabeth Willard was offered the position of president, an honor she then declined, preferring to work in the ranks; but four years later she yielded to the universal demand, and accepted the chairmanship of this great movement.

This able woman was born at Churchville, very near Rochester, N. Y., on September 28, 1839. Her father, of English descent, was a man of intellectual force, brave, God-fearing; her mother, a woman of strong religious feeling, great courage, and of fine mental equipment. Frances inherited the best qualities of both parents. When she was two years of age, the family removed to Oberlin, Ohio, and about five years later to Janesville, Wisconsin, then almost a wilderness. Here they lived the simple, hard life of pioneers. Frances was at first taught by her mother and a governess; afterward, she and her younger sister entered the Northwestern College at Evanston, from which Frances was graduated.

Mr. Willard removed to Evanston in order to be near his daughters while they were in college, and in 1858 built a house there. Here the younger daughter died, and later Mr. Willard, but Frances and her mother continued to make it their home, even after the death of the only son. Frances named it Rest Cottage, and here she returned each year of her busy life to spend two months with the mother whom she had christened St. Courageous.

Idleness was an impossibility for Frances Willard. After her graduation she taught in a little district school, and from 1858 until 1868 continued the work of teaching in various schools and colleges. In 1868 she went to Europe and spent two years in travel and study. Upon her return she was elected President of the Evanston College for Women, being the first woman in the world to hold such a position. Two years later, when the college became a part of the Northwestern University, Miss Willard became Dean of the Women's College, but as some of her views conflicted with those of the President, she soon resigned the position.

It was about this time that the women of Ohio began fighting the liquor traffic. To use Mrs. Livermore's words, "Frances Willard caught the spirit of the Woman's Crusade and believed herself called of God to take up the temperance cause as her life work."

Every one, even her mother, opposed her, but feeling herself called to the work she gave to it all her energies of heart and soul.

When Miss Willard became President of the Women's Christian Temperance Union in 1879, the yearly income of the Union was only twelve hundred dollars. The movement was too new and too strange to command much understanding or sympathy from the public; the work, so far, had been done without system. Frances Willard at once began to put the machinery in order: she organized bodies of workers and lecturers; she instituted relief work and educative centers; and the numbers of these she constantly increased.

Perhaps Miss Willard's greatest moral asset was the power of winning followers. Many, many women rallied enthusiastically to her support and helped her to carry out her plans. To zeal and intelligence she added charming manners and eloquence. As a leader her ability was marvelous. Love came to her from all sides because love went out from her to everybody.

Her own love of the work was so great that for years she labored without a salary, for the Union had hard struggles to live even after Miss Willard undertook the leadership of it. But with or without salary, never did she spare herself.

It is said that during the first two years of her work she delivered on an average one speech a day on temperance and other reforms. She visited every town in the United States of over ten thousand inhabitants and most of those above five thousand.

The next step in Miss Willard's progress was a very great one; no less a thing than the organization of a World's Women's Christian Temperance Union! Yes, this courageous and enterprising woman actually planned to carry her crusade against strong drink into every corner of the globe. At the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 she was chosen Chairman of the World's Temperance Convention.

Meanwhile, Lady Henry Somerset, a charming and brilliant Englishwoman who had been working in her own country to secure the same reforms Miss Willard was pushing forward in America, came to this country. It was her first visit—made, she said, less to see America than to see Miss Willard, and learn from her the principle upon which she had founded the marvelous organization.

These two noble women became devoted friends, and when, in the autumn of 1892, Lady Henry again came to America to attend a National Convention at Denver, she persuaded Miss Willard to return with her to England. Our great temperance leader had a fine reception from the English people, and won all hearts by her gentleness and earnestness, as well as by her remarkable gift of oratory.

Four years after this, the World's Women's Christian Temperance Union held a Convention in London. Every country in the civilized world sent delegates to this meeting, over which Miss Willard and Lady Somerset presided. These indefatigable world-workers had secured a petition of seven million names. It encircled the entire hall of the Convention, and besides lay in large rolls on the platform. This petition asked of all governments to have the sale of intoxicating liquors and of opium restricted. But, in spite of the seven million signatures and an enormous enthusiasm, the sale of liquors and drugs went on as before. Yet something was accomplished: a great increase of sympathy in public opinion.

In addition to all these activities Miss Willard was much engaged in literary work. She acted as editor on various papers and magazines; also she wrote several books, _Nineteen Beautiful Years_, _Glimpses of Fifty Years_, _Woman and Temperance_, being the best known.

When the White Cross and White Shield movements for the promotion of social purity were formed, Miss Willard, as leader, did a glorious work. Under the white flag of the Women's Christian Temperance Union with its famous motto, _For God, for Home and Native Land_, she brought together, to work as sisters, the women of the South and the North.

Miss Willard was always dignified, earnest, and inspiring, but when talking on the subject so dear to her heart she grew eloquent. As a presiding officer, justice, tact, grace, and quick repartee made her the ideal platform speaker, though, perhaps, courage may be called her chief characteristic.

In later years, although suffering from ill health, she yet kept cheerfully at work and actually presided over the Convention of 1897. This, however, proved too great a strain, and on February 18, 1898, at the Empire Hotel, New York City, she died. Her body died, but her soul "goes marching on."

WOMEN IN PIONEER LIFE AND ON THE BATTLE-FIELD

"If we wish to know the political and moral condition of a State, we must ask what rank women hold in it. Their influence embraces the whole of life."

—_Aimé Martin_

The first foot that pressed Plymouth Rock was that of Mary Chilton, a fair and delicate maiden, and there followed her eighteen women who had accompanied their husbands on the Mayflower to the bleak, unknown shore of Massachusetts. Truly the "spindle side" of the Puritan stock deserves great admiration and respect.

These women came from a civilized land to a savage one; from homes of plenty, where they had been carefully guarded and tended, to a place where their lives could be only danger, toil and privation. Often they were obliged to pound corn for their bread, and many were the times, their husbands being away fighting the Indians, when they gathered their children together, panic-stricken by the war whoops that rang out from the wilderness near by. Little wonder that four of these eighteen women died during the first winter, killed by cold, hunger, and mental anguish!

The early European settlers of America, both men and women, were of a truly heroic breed. It was spiritual as well as bodily courage they displayed—suffering as they did for a religious principle. The women often performed the duties of men, even planting the crops in their husbands' absence, and frequently using firearms to guard their children and their homes. Shoulder to shoulder with the men these women worked, and from the struggle was evolved a new type—the woman of 1776, without whose assistance the Revolutionary War could scarcely have succeeded.

One of these women, who might have lived in luxury, aloof from scenes of suffering, had she so wished, stands out prominently. This was Martha Washington, the wife of the Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, who gathered the wives of the officers around her at Valley Forge, during the severe winter of 1777-78, and with them undertook the work of relieving the needs of the soldiers. Under her leadership the women gave up their embroidery, spinnet playing, and other light accomplishments, and knitted stockings and mittens, of which hundreds of pairs were distributed. We may regard her as the pioneer in a form of work which later developed into Sanitary Commissions and the great organization of the Red Cross.

A different type of woman was Moll Pitcher. She showed her courage in quite another way. She was the wife of John Hayes, a gunner. At that time, a few married women, who found it easier to stand the fearful strain of battle than to remain at home in suspense, waiting for news of it, were allowed to accompany their husbands to the battle-field,—not to fight—oh, no, but to wash, and mend, and cook for the men. Moll was one of these.

During the Battle of Monmouth, _Moll o' the Pitcher_, as she was called, because of the stone pitcher she used in carrying water to the soldiers, was engaged in her usual work when she saw her husband fall by the side of his gun. Running to him, she helped him to a place of safety; then, at his request, she returned to his gun. The commander was just about to have it taken from the field, but as Moll offered her services, he allowed it to remain. She managed it so well that the report of her prowess spread, even to the ears of General Washington. The General called upon her to thank her, and the Continental Congress gave her a sergeant's commission and half-pay for life. "Captain Mollie," done with military service, took her wounded husband home and nursed him, but he died of his wounds before the war closed.

Lydia Darrah, a Quakeress of Philadelphia, by her quick wit and courage saved General Washington's army from capture at Whitemarsh after the defeat at Germantown. During the winter of 1777 the British commander, General Howe, had his headquarters in Second Street. Directly opposite dwelt William and Lydia Darrah, strict Quakers whose religion debarred them from taking sides in the war. Because of this, perhaps, the British officers considered their home a safe place for private meetings, a large, rear room in the house being frequently used for conferences with the staff-officers.

One evening, the Adjutant General told Lydia that they would be there until late, but that he wished the family to retire early, adding that, when the conference was over he would call her to let them out and put out the lights. Lydia obeyed, but could not sleep. Her intuition told her that something of importance to Washington was being discussed. Try as she might to be neutral, as a Quaker should, her sympathies were with the great General.

At last she slipped from her bed, crept to the door of the meeting-room, and listened at the keyhole. She heard an order read for all British troops to march out on the evening of December fourth to capture Washington's army, which was then encamped at Whitemarsh. Frightened and excited, she returned to her room.

Not long after, the officer knocked at her door, but she pretended to be asleep and did not answer. As the knocking continued, she finally opened the door and sleepily returned the officer's good night. Then she locked up the house and put out the lights, but spent the remainder of the night in thinking over what she should do. Early next morning she told her husband that their flour was all gone and she would have to go to the mill at Franklin, five miles away, to get more.

She presented herself at the British headquarters bright and early, asking permission to pass through the lines on a domestic errand. Permission was granted, and she started for Franklin. She did not stop there, however, but leaving her bag to be filled ready for her upon her return, she continued walking until she reached the American outposts. Asking that she might speak to an officer, she told what she had heard, begging that she might not be betrayed. Then she hastened back to the mill, secured her bag of flour and returned home as if nothing had happened.

And so it came about that, when the British reached Whitemarsh, they found the American Army, which they had planned to surprise, drawn up in line awaiting battle. No battle took place; but the British returned to Philadelphia, and there tried to find out who had betrayed their plans. Lydia Darrah was called up and questioned. She said that the members of her family were all in bed at eight o'clock on the night of the conference.

"It is strange," said the officer; "I know that you were sound asleep, for I had to knock several times to awaken you."