The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2): Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty YearsHarper, Ida Husted
History
The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2): Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty Years
Harper, Ida Husted
Anthony, Susan B. (Susan Brownell), 1820-1906
After it was over the county superintendent of schools, Mr. Bannister,
took them to Ottawa in a lumber wagon. The steady rain had put the
roads in a fearful condition and by the time they reached the river
bottoms it was very dark and pouring in torrents. The driver lost his
way and brought them up against a brush fence. Mr. Train jumped out of
the vehicle, took off his coat so that his white shirtsleeves would
show and thus guided the team back to the road; then he and the county
superintendent took turns walking in front of the horses. The river
finally was crossed and they reached Ottawa at 9 o'clock. Mr. Train was
very fastidious and, no matter how late the hour, never would appear in
public before he had changed his gray travelling suit for full dress
costume with white vest and lavender kid gloves, declaring that he
would not insult any audience by shabby clothes. This evening he made
no exception and so, while he went to the hotel, Miss Anthony, wet,
hungry and exhausted, made her way straight to the hall to see what had
become of their audience.
She found that it had been taken in charge by General Blunt, one of the
Republican campaign orators, and as she entered, he was making a
violent attack on woman suffrage. Her arrival was not noticed and she
concluded to sit quietly down in a corner and let matters take their
course. A stairway led from some lower region up to the platform and,
just as the speaker was declaring, "This man Train is an infernal
traitor and a vile copperhead," Mr. Train appeared at the top of the
stairs. The audience broke into a roar, and in a few moments he had the
general under a scathing fire.
From Ottawa they travelled, still in a lumber wagon, to Mound City and
then to Fort Scott, where they had an immense audience. After the
meeting Train went to the newspaper office and wrote out his speech,
which filled two pages of the Monitor, and Miss Anthony and the friends
spent all of Sunday in wrapping and mailing these papers. From here
they drove to Humboldt in a mail wagon, stopping for dinner at a little
"half-way house," a cabin with no floor. Miss Anthony retains a lively
recollection of this place, for the hostess brought a platter of fried
pork, swimming in grease, and in her haste emptied the contents the
whole length of her light gray travelling dress. They found many people
ill, and Mr. Train always prescribed not a drop of green tea, not a
mouthful of pork, though that was the only meat they could get, plenty
of fruit, though there was none to be had in Kansas, and a thorough
bath every morning, although there was not enough water to wash the
dishes. During this trip he stopped at hotels, but Miss Anthony usually
was invited to stay with families who were either her personal friends
or warm advocates of the cause she represented.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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