Frequently the speakers had to drive twenty miles between the afternoon and evening meetings, in the heat of summer and the chill of late autumn; at one time forty miles on a wagon seat without a back. On the Fourth of July, a roasting day, Miss Anthony spoke in the morning, drove fifteen miles to speak again in the afternoon, and then left at night in a pouring rain for a long ride in a freight-car. At one town the school house was the only place for speaking purposes, but the Russian trustees announced that "they did not want to hear any women preach," so after the long trip, the meeting had to be given up. Several times in the midst of their speeches, the audience was stampeded by cyclones, not a soul left in the house.[63] The people came twenty and thirty miles to these meetings, bringing their dinners. Miss Anthony speaks always in the highest terms of the fine character of the Dakota men and women, and of their large families of bright, healthy children. The speakers never tire of telling their experiences during that campaign. Mary Seymour Howell relates in her own interesting way that once she and Miss Anthony had been riding for hours in a stage which creaked and groaned at every turn of the wheels, the poor, dilapidated horses not able to travel out of a walk, the driver a prematurely-old little boy whose feet did not touch the floor, and a cold Dakota wind blowing straight into their faces. After an unbroken, homesick silence of an hour, Miss Anthony said in a subdued and solemn voice, "Mrs. Howell, humanity is at a very low ebb!" The tone, the look, the words, so in harmony with the surroundings, produced a reaction which sent her off into a fit of laughter, in which Miss Anthony soon joined. They had been warned to keep away from a certain hotel, at one place, as it was the very worst in the whole State. At the close of the afternoon meeting there, a man came up and said he would be pleased to entertain the speakers and could make them very comfortable. This seemed to be a sure escape, so they thankfully accepted his invitation, but when they reached his home, they discovered that he was the landlord of the poor hotel! Miss Anthony charged Mrs. Howell to make the best of it without a word of complaint. They went to supper, amidst heat and flies, and found sour bread, muddy coffee and stewed green grapes. Miss Anthony ate and drank and talked and smiled, and every little while touched Mrs. Howell's foot with her own in a reassuring manner. After supper Mrs. Howell went to her little, bare room, which she soon learned by the clatter of the dishes was next to the kitchen, and through the thin partition she heard the landlady say: "Well, I never supposed I could entertain big-bugs, and I thought I couldn't live through having Susan B. Anthony here, but I'm getting along all right. You ought to hear her laugh; why, she laughs just like other people!" Mrs. Howell gives this graphic description of the meetings at Madison, July 10: