<h2><SPAN name="Page_20"></SPAN>CHAPTER II.</h2>
<h2>SCHOOL DAYS.</h2>
<p>When I was eleven years old, two events occurred
which changed considerably the current of my life. My
only brother, who had just graduated from Union College,
came home to die. A young man of great talent
and promise, he was the pride of my father's heart. We
early felt that this son filled a larger place in our father's
affections and future plans than the five daughters together.
Well do I remember how tenderly he watched
my brother in his last illness, the sighs and tears he gave
vent to as he slowly walked up and down the hall, and,
when the last sad moment came, and we were all assembled
to say farewell in the silent chamber of death, how
broken were his utterances as he knelt and prayed for
comfort and support. I still recall, too, going into the
large darkened parlor to see my brother, and finding the
casket, mirrors, and pictures all draped in white, and
my father seated by his side, pale and immovable.
As he took no notice of me, after standing a long while,
I climbed upon his knee, when he mechanically put his
arm about me and, with my head resting against his
beating heart, we both sat in silence, he thinking of the
wreck of all his hopes in the loss of a dear son, and I
wondering what could be said or done to fill the void
in his breast. At length he heaved a deep sigh and
said: "Oh, my daughter, I wish you were a boy!"
<SPAN name="Page_21"></SPAN>Throwing my arms about his neck, I replied: "I
will
try to be all my brother was."</p>
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<p>Then and there I resolved that I would not give so
much time as heretofore to play, but would study and
strive to be at the head of all my classes and thus delight
my father's heart. All that day and far into the
night I pondered the problem of boyhood. I thought
that the chief thing to be done in order to equal boys
was to be learned and courageous. So I decided to
study Greek and learn to manage a horse. Having
formed this conclusion I fell asleep. My resolutions,
unlike many such made at night, did not vanish with
the coming light. I arose early and hastened to put
them into execution. They were resolutions never to
be forgotten—destined to mold my character anew.
As soon as I was dressed I hastened to our good pastor,
Rev. Simon Hosack, who was always early at work in
his garden.</p>
<p>"Doctor," said I, "which do you like best, boys or
girls?"</p>
<p>"Why, girls, to be sure; I would not give you for
all the boys in Christendom."</p>
<p>"My father," I replied, "prefers boys; he wishes I
was one, and I intend to be as near like one as possible.
I am going to ride on horseback and study Greek. Will
you give me a Greek lesson now, doctor? I want to
begin at once."</p>
<p>"Yes, child," said he, throwing down his hoe, "come
into my library and we will begin without delay."</p>
<p>He entered fully into the feeling of suffering and sorrow
which took possession of me when I discovered
that a girl weighed less in the scale of being than a boy,
and he praised my determination to prove the con<SPAN name="Page_22"></SPAN>trary.
The old grammar which he had studied in the
University of Glasgow was soon in my hands, and the
Greek article was learned before breakfast.</p>
<p>Then came the sad pageantry of death, the weeping
of friends, the dark rooms, the ghostly stillness, the
exhortation to the living to prepare for death, the
solemn prayer, the mournful chant, the funeral cortège,
the solemn, tolling bell, the burial. How I suffered during
those sad days! What strange undefined fears of
the unknown took possession of me! For months
afterward, at the twilight hour, I went with my father
to the new-made grave. Near it stood two tall poplar
trees, against one of which I leaned, while my father
threw himself on the grave, with outstretched arms, as
if to embrace his child. At last the frosts and storms of
November came and threw a chilling barrier between
the living and the dead, and we went there no more.</p>
<p>During all this time I kept up my lessons at the parsonage
and made rapid progress. I surprised even my
teacher, who thought me capable of doing anything. I
learned to drive, and to leap a fence and ditch on horseback.
I taxed every power, hoping some day to hear
my father say: "Well, a girl is as good as a boy, after
all." But he never said it. When the doctor came
over to spend the evening with us, I would whisper in
his ear: "Tell my father how fast I get on," and he
would tell him, and was lavish in his praises. But my
father only paced the room, sighed, and showed that
he wished I were a boy; and I, not knowing why he
felt thus, would hide my tears of vexation on the doctor's
shoulder.</p>
<p>Soon after this I began to study Latin, Greek, and
mathematics with a class of boys in the Academy, many
<SPAN name="Page_23"></SPAN>of whom were much older than I. For three years
one boy kept his place at the head of the class, and I
always stood next. Two prizes were offered in Greek.
I strove for one and took the second. How well I remember
my joy in receiving that prize. There was no
sentiment of ambition, rivalry, or triumph over my companions,
nor feeling of satisfaction in receiving this
honor in the presence of those assembled on the day of
the exhibition. One thought alone filled my mind.
"Now," said I, "my father will be satisfied with me."
So, as soon as we were dismissed, I ran down the hill,
rushed breathless into his office, laid the new Greek
Testament, which was my prize, on his table and exclaimed:
"There, I got it!" He took up the book,
asked me some questions about the class, the teachers,
the spectators, and, evidently pleased, handed it back
to me. Then, while I stood looking and waiting for
him to say something which would show that he recognized
the equality of the daughter with the son, he
kissed me on the forehead and exclaimed, with a sigh,
"Ah, you should have been a boy!"</p>
<p>My joy was turned to sadness. I ran to my good
doctor. He chased my bitter tears away, and soothed
me with unbounded praises and visions of future success.
He was then confined to the house with his last
illness. He asked me that day if I would like to have,
when he was gone, the old lexicon, Testament, and
grammar that we had so often thumbed together.
"Yes, but I would rather have you stay," I replied, "for
what can I do when you are gone?" "Oh," said he
tenderly, "I shall not be gone; my spirit will still be
with you, watching you in all life's struggles." Noble,
generous friend! He had but little on earth to be<SPAN name="Page_24"></SPAN>queath
to anyone, but when the last scene in his life
was ended, and his will was opened, sure enough there
was a clause saying: "My Greek lexicon, Testament, and
grammar, and four volumes of Scott's commentaries,
I will to Elizabeth Cady." I never look at these books
without a feeling of thankfulness that in childhood I
was blessed with such a friend and teacher.</p>
<p>I can truly say, after an experience of seventy years,
that all the cares and anxieties, the trials and disappointments
of my whole life, are light, when balanced
with my sufferings in childhood and youth from the
theological dogmas which I sincerely believed, and
the gloom connected with everything associated with
the name of religion, the church, the parsonage, the
graveyard, and the solemn, tolling bell. Everything
connected with death was then rendered inexpressibly
dolorous. The body, covered with a black pall, was
borne on the shoulders of men; the mourners were in
crape and walked with bowed heads, while the neighbors
who had tears to shed, did so copiously and summoned
up their saddest facial expressions. At the
grave came the sober warnings to the living and sometimes
frightful prophesies as to the state of the dead.
All this pageantry of woe and visions of the unknown
land beyond the tomb, often haunted my midnight
dreams and shadowed the sunshine of my days. The
parsonage, with its bare walls and floors, its shriveled
mistress and her blind sister, more like ghostly shadows
than human flesh and blood; the two black servants,
racked with rheumatism and odoriferous with a pungent
oil they used in the vain hope of making their
weary limbs more supple; the aged parson buried in his
library in the midst of musty books and papers—all this
<SPAN name="Page_25"></SPAN>only added to the gloom of my surroundings. The
church, which was bare, with no furnace to warm us,
no organ to gladden our hearts, no choir to lead our
songs of praise in harmony, was sadly lacking in all attractions
for the youthful mind. The preacher, shut up
in an octagonal box high above our heads, gave us sermons
over an hour long, and the chorister, in a similar
box below him, intoned line after line of David's Psalms,
while, like a flock of sheep at the heels of their shepherd,
the congregation, without regard to time or tune,
straggled after their leader.</p>
<p>Years later, the introduction of stoves, a violoncello,
Wesley's hymns, and a choir split the church in twain.
These old Scotch Presbyterians were opposed to all
innovations that would afford their people paths of
flowery ease on the road to Heaven. So, when the
thermometer was twenty degrees below zero on the
Johnstown Hills, four hundred feet above the Mohawk
Valley, we trudged along through the snow, foot-stoves
in hand, to the cold hospitalities of the "Lord's House,"
there to be chilled to the very core by listening to sermons
on "predestination," "justification by faith," and
"eternal damnation."</p>
<p>To be restless, or to fall asleep under such solemn circumstances
was a sure evidence of total depravity, and
of the machinations of the devil striving to turn one's
heart from God and his ordinances. As I was guilty
of these shortcomings and many more, I early believed
myself a veritable child of the Evil One, and
suffered endless fears lest he should come some night
and claim me as his own. To me he was a personal,
ever-present reality, crouching in a dark corner of the
nursery. Ah! how many times I have stolen out of
<SPAN name="Page_26"></SPAN>bed, and sat shivering on the stairs, where the
hall lamp
and the sound of voices from the parlor would, in a
measure, mitigate my terror. Thanks to a vigorous
constitution and overflowing animal spirits, I was able
to endure for years the strain of these depressing influences,
until my reasoning powers and common sense
triumphed at last over my imagination. The memory
of my own suffering has prevented me from ever
shadowing one young soul with any of the superstitions
of the Christian religion. But there have been
many changes, even in my native town, since those
dark days. Our old church was turned into a mitten
factory, and the pleasant hum of machinery and the glad
faces of men and women have chased the evil spirits to
their hiding places. One finds at Johnstown now, beautiful
churches, ornamented cemeteries, and cheerful
men and women, quite emancipated from the nonsense
and terrors of the old theologies.</p>
<p>An important event in our family circle was the marriage
of my oldest sister, Tryphena, to Edward Bayard
of Wilmington, Delaware. He was a graduate of
Union College, a classmate of my brother, and frequently
visited at my father's house. At the end of
his college course, he came with his brother Henry to
study law in Johnstown. A quiet, retired little village
was thought to be a good place in which to sequester
young men bent on completing their education, as they
were there safe from the temptations and distracting
influences of large cities. In addition to this consideration,
my father's reputation made his office a desirable
resort for students, who, furthermore, not only
improved their opportunities by reading Blackstone,
Kent, and Story, but also by making love to the Judge's
<SPAN name="Page_27"></SPAN>daughters. We thus had the advantage of many
pleasant
acquaintances from the leading families in the country,
and, in this way, it was that four of the sisters
eventually selected most worthy husbands.</p>
<p>Though only twenty-one years of age when married,
Edward Bayard was a tall, fully developed man,
remarkably fine looking, with cultivated literary taste
and a profound knowledge of human nature. Warm
and affectionate, generous to a fault in giving and serving,
he was soon a great favorite in the family, and
gradually filled the void made in all our hearts by the
loss of the brother and son.</p>
<p>My father was so fully occupied with the duties of
his profession, which often called him from home, and
my mother so weary with the cares of a large family,
having had ten children, though only five survived at
this time, that they were quite willing to shift their burdens
to younger shoulders. Our eldest sister and her
husband, therefore, soon became our counselors and
advisers. They selected our clothing, books, schools,
acquaintances, and directed our reading and amusements.
Thus the reins of domestic government, little
by little, passed into their hands, and the family arrangements
were in a manner greatly improved in favor of
greater liberty for the children.</p>
<p>The advent of Edward and Henry Bayard was an inestimable
blessing to us. With them came an era of
picnics, birthday parties, and endless amusements; the
buying of pictures, fairy books, musical instruments
and ponies, and frequent excursions with parties on
horseback. Fresh from college, they made our lessons
in Latin, Greek, and mathematics so easy that we
studied with real pleasure and had more leisure for play.
<SPAN name="Page_28"></SPAN>Henry Bayard's chief pleasures were walking,
riding,
and playing all manner of games, from jack-straws to
chess, with the three younger sisters, and we have often
said that the three years he passed in Johnstown were
the most delightful of our girlhood.</p>
<p>Immediately after the death of my brother, a journey
was planned to visit our grandmother Cady, who lived
in Canaan, Columbia County, about twenty miles from
Albany. My two younger sisters and myself had never
been outside of our own county before, and the very
thought of a journey roused our enthusiasm to the
highest pitch. On a bright day in September we
started, packed in two carriages. We were wild with
delight as we drove down the Mohawk Valley, with its
beautiful river and its many bridges and ferryboats.
When we reached Schenectady, the first city we had ever
seen, we stopped to dine at the old Given's Hotel, where
we broke loose from all the moorings of propriety on
beholding the paper on the dining-room wall, illustrating
in brilliant colors the great events in sacred history.
There were the Patriarchs, with flowing beards and in
gorgeous attire; Abraham, offering up Isaac; Joseph,
with his coat of many colors, thrown into a pit by his
brethren; Noah's ark on an ocean of waters; Pharaoh
and his host in the Red Sea; Rebecca at the well, and
Moses in the bulrushes. All these distinguished personages
were familiar to us, and to see them here for
the first time in living colors, made silence and
eating impossible. We dashed around the room,
calling to each other: "Oh, Kate, look here!" "Oh,
Madge, look there!" "See little Moses!" "See the
angels on Jacob's ladder!" Our exclamations could
not be kept within bounds. The guests were amused
<SPAN name="Page_29"></SPAN>beyond description, while my mother and elder
sisters
were equally mortified; but Mr. Bayard, who appreciated
our childish surprise and delight, smiled and said:
"I'll take them around and show them the pictures,
and then they will be able to dine," which we finally
did.</p>
<p>On our way to Albany we were forced to listen to no
end of dissertations on manners, and severe criticisms on
our behavior at the hotel, but we were too happy and
astonished with all we saw to take a subjective view of
ourselves. Even Peter in his new livery, who had not
seen much more than we had, while looking out of the
corners of his eyes, maintained a quiet dignity and conjured
us "not to act as if we had just come out of the
woods and had never seen anything before." However,
there are conditions in the child soul in which repression
is impossible, when the mind takes in nothing
but its own enjoyment, and when even the sense of
hearing is lost in that of sight. The whole party awoke
to that fact at last. Children are not actors. We
never had experienced anything like this journey, and
how could we help being surprised and delighted?</p>
<p>When we drove into Albany, the first large city we
had ever visited, we exclaimed, "Why, it's general
training, here!" We had acquired our ideas of
crowds from our country militia reviews. Fortunately,
there was no pictorial wall paper in the old City
Hotel. But the decree had gone forth that, on the remainder
of the journey, our meals would be served in a
private room, with Peter to wait on us. This seemed
like going back to the nursery days and was very humiliating.
But eating, even there, was difficult, as we
could hear the band from the old museum, and, as our
<SPAN name="Page_30"></SPAN>windows opened on the street, the continual
panorama
of people and carriages passing by was quite as enticing
as the Bible scenes in Schenectady. In the evening we
walked around to see the city lighted, to look into the
shop windows, and to visit the museum. The next
morning we started for Canaan, our enthusiasm still
unabated, though strong hopes were expressed that we
would be toned down with the fatigues of the first day's
journey.</p>
<p>The large farm with its cattle, sheep, hens, ducks,
turkeys, and geese; its creamery, looms, and spinning
wheel; its fruits and vegetables; the drives among the
grand old hills; the blessed old grandmother, and the
many aunts, uncles, and cousins to kiss, all this kept
us still in a whirlpool of excitement. Our joy bubbled
over of itself; it was beyond our control. After spending
a delightful week at Canaan, we departed, with an
addition to our party, much to Peter's disgust, of a
bright, coal-black boy of fifteen summers. Peter kept
grumbling that he had children enough to look after
already, but, as the boy was handsome and intelligent,
could read, write, play on the jewsharp and banjo, sing,
dance, and stand on his head, we were charmed with
this new-found treasure, who proved later to be a great
family blessing. We were less vivacious on the return
trip. Whether this was due to Peter's untiring efforts
to keep us within bounds, or whether the novelty of
the journey was in a measure gone, it is difficult to determine,
but we evidently were not so buoyant and
were duly complimented on our good behavior.</p>
<p>When we reached home and told our village companions
what we had seen in our extensive travels (just
seventy miles from home) they were filled with wonder,
<SPAN name="Page_31"></SPAN>and we became heroines in their estimation. After
this
we took frequent journeys to Saratoga, the Northern
Lakes, Utica, and Peterboro, but were never again so
entirely swept from our feet as with the biblical illustrations
in the dining room of the old Given's Hotel.</p>
<p>As my father's office joined the house, I spent there
much of my time, when out of school, listening to the
clients stating their cases, talking with the students,
and reading the laws in regard to woman. In our
Scotch neighborhood many men still retained the old
feudal ideas of women and property. Fathers, at their
death, would will the bulk of their property to the eldest
son, with the proviso that the mother was to have a
home with him. Hence it was not unusual for the
mother, who had brought all the property into the
family, to be made an unhappy dependent on the bounty
of an uncongenial daughter-in-law and a dissipated son.
The tears and complaints of the women who came to my
father for legal advice touched my heart and early drew
my attention to the injustice and cruelty of the laws.
As the practice of the law was my father's business, I
could not exactly understand why he could not alleviate
the sufferings of these women. So, in order to
enlighten me, he would take down his books and show
me the inexorable statutes. The students, observing
my interest, would amuse themselves by reading to me
all the worst laws they could find, over which I would
laugh and cry by turns. One Christmas morning I
went into the office to show them, among other of my
presents, a new coral necklace and bracelets. They all
admired the jewelry and then began to tease me with
hypothetical cases of future ownership. "Now," said
Henry Bayard, "if in due time you should be my wife,
<SPAN name="Page_32"></SPAN>those ornaments would be mine; I could take them
and
lock them up, and you could never wear them except
with my permission. I could even exchange them for
a box of cigars, and you could watch them evaporate
in smoke."</p>
<p>With this constant bantering from students and the
sad complaints of the women, my mind was sorely perplexed.
So when, from time to time, my attention was
called to these odious laws, I would mark them with a
pencil, and becoming more and more convinced of the
necessity of taking some active measures against these
unjust provisions, I resolved to seize the first opportunity,
when alone in the office, to cut every one of
them out of the books; supposing my father and his
library were the beginning and the end of the law.
However, this mutilation of his volumes was never accomplished,
for dear old Flora Campbell, to whom I
confided my plan for the amelioration of the wrongs of
my unhappy sex, warned my father of what I proposed
to do. Without letting me know that he had discovered
my secret, he explained to me one evening how
laws were made, the large number of lawyers and libraries
there were all over the State, and that if his library
should burn up it would make no difference in woman's
condition. "When you are grown up, and able to prepare
a speech," said he, "you must go down to Albany
and talk to the legislators; tell them all you have seen
in this office—the sufferings of these Scotchwomen,
robbed of their inheritance and left dependent on their
unworthy sons, and, if you can persuade them to pass
new laws, the old ones will be a dead letter." Thus
was the future object of my life foreshadowed and
my duty plainly outlined by him who was most op<SPAN name="Page_33"></SPAN>posed
to my public career when, in due time, I entered
upon it.</p>
<p>Until I was sixteen years old, I was a faithful student
in the Johnstown Academy with a class of boys.
Though I was the only girl in the higher classes of
mathematics and the languages, yet, in our plays, all the
girls and boys mingled freely together. In running
races, sliding downhill, and snowballing, we made no distinction
of sex. True, the boys would carry the school
books and pull the sleighs up hill for their favorite
girls, but equality was the general basis of our school
relations. I dare say the boys did not make their snowballs
quite so hard when pelting the girls, nor wash
their faces with the same vehemence as they did each
other's, but there was no public evidence of partiality.
However, if any boy was too rough or took advantage
of a girl smaller than himself, he was promptly thrashed
by his fellows. There was an unwritten law and public
sentiment in that little Academy world that enabled us
to study and play together with the greatest freedom
and harmony.</p>
<p>From the academy the boys of my class went to
Union College at Schenectady. When those with
whom I had studied and contended for prizes for five
years came to bid me good-by, and I learned of the barrier
that prevented me from following in their footsteps—"no
girls admitted here"—my vexation and mortification
knew no bounds. I remember, now, how proud
and handsome the boys looked in their new clothes, as
they jumped into the old stage coach and drove off,
and how lonely I felt when they were gone and I had
nothing to do, for the plans for my future were yet undetermined.
Again I felt more keenly than ever the
<SPAN name="Page_34"></SPAN>humiliation of the distinctions made on the
ground of
sex.</p>
<p>My time was now occupied with riding on horseback,
studying the game of chess, and continually squabbling
with the law students over the rights of women.
Something was always coming up in the experiences of
everyday life, or in the books we were reading, to give us
fresh topics for argument. They would read passages
from the British classics quite as aggravating as the laws.
They delighted in extracts from Shakespeare, especially
from "The Taming of the Shrew," an admirable
satire in itself on the old common law of England. I
hated Petruchio as if he were a real man. Young Bayard
would recite with unction the famous reply of
Milton's ideal woman to Adam: "God thy law, thou
mine." The Bible, too, was brought into requisition.
In fact it seemed to me that every book taught the
"divinely ordained" headship of man; but my mind
never yielded to this popular heresy.</p>
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