Lyceum lecturers were now at the height of their popularity,--particularly in the West, where in the little towns scattered across the prairies there were few libraries and theaters, and the distribution of books, magazines, and newspapers in no way met the people's thirst for information or entertainment. Men, women, and children rode miles on horseback or drove over rough roads in wagons to see and hear a prominent lecturer. Susan was always a drawing card, for a woman on the lecture platform still was a novelty and almost everyone was curious about Susan B. Anthony. Many, to their surprise, discovered she was not the caricature they had been led to believe. She looked very ladylike and proper as she stood before them in her dark silk platform dress, a little too stern and serious perhaps, but frequently her face lighted up with a friendly smile. She spoke to them as equals and they could follow her reasoning. Her simple conversational manner was refreshing after the sonorous pretentious oratory of other lecturers. Continuous travel in all kinds of weather was difficult. Branch lines were slow and connections poor. Often trains were delayed by blizzards, and then to keep her engagements she was obliged to travel by sleigh over the snowy prairies. There were long waits in dingy dirty railroad stations late at night. Even there she was always busy, reading her newspapers in the dim light or dashing off letters home on any scrap of paper she had at hand, thinking gratefully of her sister Mary who in addition to her work as superintendent of the neighborhood public school, supervised the household at 7 Madison Street. Hotel rooms were cold and drab, the food was uninviting, and only occasionally did she find to her delight "a Christian cup of coffee."[316] She often felt that the Lyceum Bureau drove her unnecessarily hard, routed her inefficiently, and profited too generously from her labors. Now and then she dispensed with their services, sent out her own circulars soliciting engagements, and arranged her own tours, proving to her satisfaction that a woman could be as businesslike as a man and sometimes more so.[317] Weighed down by worry over the illness of her sisters, Guelma and Hannah, she felt a lack of fire and enthusiasm in her work. Anxiously she waited for letters from home, and when none reached her she was in despair. At such times, hotel rooms seemed doubly lonely and she reproached herself for being away from home and for putting too heavy a burden on her sister Mary. Yet there was nothing else to be done until the _Revolution_ debt was paid, for some of her creditors were becoming impatient. * * * * *