The older sister Catherine had opened a school for girls at Hartford, and twelve-year-old Harriet went there, first as a pupil, then as teacher. Indeed she was for a time both, and crowded days she had. In this double race for development her brain wearied out her body. The memory of those overworked days lingered with her all her life. Healthy and hearty as a little child, she was allowed to think and feel and study too much. Consequently as a woman she was far from vigorous, finding her lack of strength a continual drawback to her work. Her father had been preaching for six years in Boston and was now offered the presidency of Lane Seminary, to be opened in Cincinnati. Catherine was to start a school for girls, with Harriet as her assistant. The whole family made the toilsome adventurous journey across the mountains by stage-coach, to what was then considered the Far West. In addition to her work in the school Harriet wrote short essays and sketches for publication, giving them away at first. But when the _Western Magazine_ offered a prize of fifty dollars for a story and she won it, she began to think of writing as a possible means of livelihood. In 1836 she married Calvin Stowe, a professor in the seminary. They were far from wealthy, at times even poor, for Professor Stowe, rich in Greek and Latin and Hebrew and Arabic, was rich in nothing else. Though she had a household of little children, and often a few boarders, Harriet continued writing from time to time. Her first check was used to buy a feather bed. When a new mattress or carpet was needed, or the year’s accounts wouldn’t balance, she would send off a story, literally to keep the pot boiling. Outwardly their life in Ohio was orderly and quiet, but every month occurred something stirring, even spectacular. There were fierce debates on the slavery question among the seminary students. Doctor Bailey, a Cincinnati editor who started a discussion of the subject in his paper, twice had his presses broken and thrown into the river. Mrs. Stowe’s brother went about his newspaper work armed. Houses of colored people were burned and attacked; the shop of an abolitionist was riddled; free negroes were kidnapped. The Beecher family slept with weapons at hand, ready to defend the seminary. Many slaves escaping from Kentucky sought refuge in the town, where the Underground Railroad helped them to reach Canada and safety. It was impossible to live in Cincinnati and not be personally affected. Servants were hard to secure, especially for a household with slender means, though colored maids were available. The Stowes had a young negress from Kentucky who had been brought to Cincinnati by her mistress and left there. When a man came across the river hunting for her, meaning to take her back to slavery again, Mr. Stowe and Henry Ward Beecher drove the poor girl at night, in a severe storm, twelve miles into the country, where they left her with a friend until search for her was given over.